diff options
| -rw-r--r-- | .gitattributes | 3 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | 9396-8.txt | 8978 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | 9396-8.zip | bin | 0 -> 205519 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 9396.txt | 8978 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | 9396.zip | bin | 0 -> 205411 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | LICENSE.txt | 11 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | README.md | 2 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | old/705a410.txt | 8943 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | old/705a410.zip | bin | 0 -> 204788 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | old/805a410.txt | 8943 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | old/805a410.zip | bin | 0 -> 204887 bytes |
11 files changed, 35858 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/9396-8.txt b/9396-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..30a2bc0 --- /dev/null +++ b/9396-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,8978 @@ +Project Gutenberg's Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 30, April, 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: Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 30, April, 1860 + +Author: Various + +Posting Date: November 4, 2012 [EBook #9396] +Release Date: November, 2005 +First Posted: September 29, 2003 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ATLANTIC MONTHLY, APRIL 1860 *** + + + + +Produced by Joshua Hutchinson, Tonya Allen, and Project +Gutenberg Distributed Proofreaders + + + + + + + + + + + +THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY. + +A MAGAZINE OF LITERATURE, ART, AND POLITICS. + +VOL. V.--APRIL, 1860--NO. XXX. + + + + +THE LAWS OF BEAUTY. + + +The fatal mistake of many inquirers concerning the line of beauty has +been, that they have sought in that which is outward for that which is +within. Beauty, perceived only by the mind, and, so far as we have any +direct proof, perceived by man alone of all the animals, must be an +expression of intelligence, the work of mind. It cannot spring from +anything purely accidental; it does not arise from material, but from +spiritual forces. That the outline of a figure, and its surface, are +capable of expressing the emotions of the mind is manifest from the art +of the sculptor, which represents in cold, colorless marble the varied +expressions of living faces,--or from the art of the engraver, who, by +simple outlines, can soothe you with a swelling lowland landscape, or +brace you with the cool air of the mountains. + +Now the highest beauty is doubtless that which expresses the noblest +emotion. A face that shines, like that of Moses, from communion with +the Highest, is more truly beautiful than the most faultless features +without moral expression. But there is a beauty which does not reveal +emotion, but only thought,--a beauty which consists simply in the form, +and which is admired for its form alone. + +Let us, for the present, confine our attention to this most limited +species of beauty,--the beauty of configuration only. + +This beauty of mere outline has, by some celebrated writers, been +resolved into some certain curved line, or line of beauty; by others +into numerical proportion of dimensions; and again by others into early +pleasing associations with curvilinear forms. But, if we look at the +subject in an intellectual light, we shall find a better explanation. +Forms are the embodiment of thought or law. For the common eye they +must be embodied in material shape; while to the geometer and the +artist, they may be so distinctly shadowed forth in conception as to +need no material figure to render their beauty appreciable. Now this +embodiment, or this conception, in all cases, demands some law in the +mind, by which it is conceived or made; and we must look at the nature +of this law, in order to approach more nearly to understanding the +nature of beauty. + +We are thus led, through our search for beauty, into the temple of +Geometry, the most ancient and venerable of sciences. From her oracles +alone can we learn the generation of beauty, so far as it consists in +form alone. + +Maupertuis' law of the least action is not simply a mechanical, but it +is a universal axiom. The Divine Being does all things with the least +possible expenditure of force; and all hearts and all minds honor men +in proportion as they approach to this divine economy. As gracefulness +in motion consists in moving with the least waste of muscular power, so +elegance in intellectual and literary exertions arises from the ease +with which their achievements are accomplished. We seek in all things +simplicity and unity. In Nature we have faith that there is such unity, +even in the midst of the wildest diversity. We honor intellectual +conceptions in proportion to the greatness of their consequences and to +the simplicity of their assumptions. Laws of form are beautiful in +proportion to their simplicity and to the variety which they can +comprise in unity. The beauty of forms themselves is in proportion to +the simplicity of their law and to the variety of their outline. + +This last sentence we regard as the fundamental canon concerning +beauty,--governing, with a slight change of terms, beauty in all its +departments. + +Beginning with the fundamental division of figures into curvilinear and +rectilinear, this _dictum_ decides, that, in general, a curved outline +is more beautiful than a right-lined figure. For a straight-lined +figure necessarily requires at least half as many laws as it has sides, +while a curvilinear outline requires, in general, but a single law. In +a true curve, every point in the whole line (or surface) is subject to +one and the same law of position. Thus, in the circle, every point of +the circumference is subject to one and the same law,--that it must be +at a certain distance from the centre. Half a dozen other laws, equally +simple, might be named, which in like manner govern every point in the +circumference of a circle: for instance, the curve bends at every point +by a certain fixed but infinitesimal amount, just enough to make the +adjacent points to be equally near the centre. Or, to take another +example, every point of the elastic curve, that is, of the curve in +which a spring of uniform stiffness can be bent by a force applied at +the ends of the spring, is subject to this very simple law, that the +curve bends in exact proportion to its distance from a certain straight +line. Now a straight line, or a plane, is by this definition a curve, +since every point in it is subject to one and the same law of position. +A plane may, indeed, be considered a part of any curved surface you +please, if you only take that surface on a sufficiently large scale. +Thus, the surface of water conforms to the surface of a sphere eight +thousand miles in diameter; but, as the arc of such a circle would arch +up from a chord ten feet long by only the ten-millionth part of an +inch, the surface of water in a cistern may be considered a plane. But +no figure or outline can be composed of a single plane or a single +straight line; nor can the position of more than two straight lines, +not parallel, be defined by a single simple law of position of the +points in them. We may, therefore, regard it as the first deduction +from our fundamental canon, that figures with curving outline are in +general more beautiful than those composed of straight lines. The laws +of their formation are simpler, and the eye, sweeping round the +outline, feels the ease and gracefulness of the motion, recognizes the +simplicity of the law by which it is guided, and is pleased with the +result. + +Our second deduction relates principally to rectilinear figures; it is, +that symmetry is in general, and particularly in rectilinear figures, +more beautiful than irregularity. It requires, in general, simpler laws +to produce symmetry than to produce what is unsymmetrical; since the +corresponding parts in a symmetrical figure are instinctively +recognized as flowing from one and the same law. This preference for +symmetry is, however, frequently subordinated to higher demands of the +fundamental canon. If the outline be rectilineal, simplicity of law +produces symmetry, and variety of result can be attained only at the +expense of simplicity in the law. But in curved outlines it frequently +happens, that, with equally simple laws, we can obtain much greater +variety by dispensing with symmetry; and then, by the canon, we thus +obtain the higher beauty. + +The question may be asked, In what way does this canon decide the +question, of proportions? Which of the two rectangles is, according to +this _dictum_, more beautiful, that in which the sides are in simple +ratio, or that in which the angles made with the sides by a diagonal +are in such ratio?--that, for instance, in which the shorter side is +three-fifths of the longer, or that in which the shorter side is five +hundred and seventy-seven thousandths of the longer? Our own view was +formerly in favor of a simple ratio between the sides; but experiments +have convinced us that persons of good taste, and who have never been +prejudiced by reading Hay's ingenious speculations, do nevertheless +agree in preferring rectangles and ellipses which fulfil his law of +simple ratio between the angles made by the diagonal. We acknowledge +that we have not brought this result under the canon, but look upon it +as indicating the necessity of another canon to somewhat this +effect,--that in the laws of form direction is a more important element +than distance. + +We have said that a curved line is one in which every point is subject +to one and the same law of position. Now it may be easily proved, that, +in a series of points in a plane, each of which fulfils one and the +same condition of position, any three, if taken sufficiently near each +other, lie in one straight line. A fourth point near the third lies, +then, in a straight line with the second and third,--a fifth with the +third and fourth, and so on. The whole series of points must, in short, +form a line. But it may also be easily proved that any four of these +points, taken sufficiently near each other, lie in the arc of a circle. +How strange the paradox to which we are thus led! Every law of a curve, +however simple, leads to the same conclusion; a curve must bend at +every point, and yet not bend at any point; it must be nowhere a +straight line, and yet be a straight line at every part. The +blacksmith, passing an iron bar between three rollers to make a tire +for a wheel, bends every part of it infinitely little, so that the +bending shall not be perceptible at any one spot, and shall yet in the +whole length arch the tire to a full circle. It may be that in this +paradox lies an additional charm of the curved outline. The eye is +pleased to find itself deceived, lured insensibly round into a line +running in a different direction from that on which it started. + +The simplest law of position for a point would be, either to have it in +a given direction from a given point,--a law which would manifestly +generate a straight line,--or else to have it at a given distance from +the given point, which would generate the surface of a sphere, the +outline of which is the circumference of a circle. The straight line +fulfils part of the conditions of beauty demanded by the first canon, +but not the whole,--it has no variety, and must be combined in order to +produce a large effect. The simplest combination of straight lines is +in parallels, and this is its usual combination in works of Art. The +circle also fulfils but imperfectly the demands of the fundamental +canon. It is the simplest of all curves, and the standard or measure of +curvature,--vastly more simple in its laws than any rectilineal figure, +and therefore more beautiful than any simple figure of that kind. There +is, however, a sort of monotony in its beauty,--it has no variety of +parts. + +The outline of a sphere, projected by the beholder against any plane +surface behind it, is a circle only when a perpendicular, let fall on +the plane from the eye, passes through the centre of the sphere. In +other positions the projection of the sphere becomes an ellipse, or one +of its varieties, the parabola and hyperbola. The parabola is the +boundary of the projection of a sphere upon a plane, when the eye is +just as far from the plane as the outer edge of the sphere is, and the +hyperbola is a similar curve formed by bringing the eye still nearer to +the plane. + +By these metamorphoses the circle loses much of its monotony, without +losing much of its simplicity. The law of the projection of a sphere +upon a plane is simple, in whatever position the plane may be. And if +we seek a law for the ellipse, or either of the conic sections, which +shall confine our attention to the plane, the laws remain simple. There +are for these curves two centres, which come together for the circle, +and recede to an infinite distance for the parabola; and the simple law +of their formation is, that the curve everywhere makes equal angles +with the lines drawn to these two centres. According to the fundamental +canon, a conic section should be a beautiful curve; and the proof that +it is so is to be found in the attention which these curves have always +drawn upon themselves from artists and from mathematicians. Plato, +equally great in mathematics and in metaphysics, is said to have been +the first to investigate the properties of the ellipse. For about a +century and a half, to the time of Apollonius, the beauty of this +curve, and of its variations, the parabola and hyperbola, so fascinated +the minds of Plato's followers, that Apollonius found theorems and +problems relating to these figures sufficient to fill eight books with +condensed truths concerning them. The study of the conic sections has +been a part of polite learning from his day downward. All men confess +their beauty, which so entrances those of mathematical genius as +entirely to absorb them. For eighteen centuries the finest spirits of +our race drew some of their best means of intellectual discipline from +the study of the ellipse. Then came a new era in the history of this +curve. Hitherto it had been an abstract form, a geometrical +speculation. But Kepler, by some fortunate guess, was led to examine +whether the orbits of the planets might not be elliptical, and, lo! it +was found that this curve, whose beauty had so fascinated so many men +for so many ages, had been deemed by the great Architect of the Heavens +beautiful enough to introduce into Nature on the grandest scale; the +morning stars had been for countless ages tracing diagrams beforehand +in illustration of Apollonius's conic sections. It seemed that this +must have been the design of Providence in leading Plato and his +followers to investigate the ellipse, that Kepler might be prepared to +guide men to a knowledge of the movements of the heavenly bodies. +"And," said Kepler, "if the Creator has waited so many years for an +observer, I may wait a century for a reader." But in less than a +century a reader arose in the person of the English Newton. The ellipse +again appeared in human history, playing a no less important part than +before. For, as it was only by a profound knowledge of ellipses that +Kepler could establish his three beautiful facts with regard to the +motions of the planets, so also was it only through a still more +perfect and intimate acquaintance with the minute peculiarities of that +curve that Sir Isaac Newton could demonstrate that these three facts +were perfectly accounted for only by his theory of universal +gravitation,--the most beautiful theory ever devised, and the most +firmly established of all scientific hypotheses. If the ellipse, as a +simply geometrical speculation, has had so much power in the education +of the race, what are the intellectual relations of its beauty through +its connection with astronomy? Who can estimate the influence which +this oldest of physical sciences has had upon human destiny? Who can +tell how much intellectual life and self-reliance, how much also of +humility and reverential awe, how much adoration of Divine Wisdom, have +been gained by man through his study of these heavenly diagrams, marked +out by the sun and the moon, by the planets and the comets, upon the +tablets of the sky? Yet, without the ellipse, without the conic +sections of Plato and Apollonius, astronomy would have been to this day +a sealed science, and the labors of Hipparchus, Ptolemy, Tycho, and +Copernicus would have waited in vain for the genius of Kepler and of +Newton to educe divine order from the seeming chaos of motions. + +But the obligations of man to the ellipse do not end here. The +eighteenth and nineteenth centuries also owe it a debt of gratitude. +Even where the knowledge of conic sections does not enter as a direct +component of that analytical power which was the glory of a Lagrange, a +Laplace, and a Gauss, and which is the glory of a Leverrier, a Peirce, +and their companions in science, it serves as a part of the necessary +scaffolding by which that skill is attained,--of the necessary +discipline by which their power was exercised and made available for +the solution of the great problems of astronomy, optics, and +thermotics, which have been solved in our century. + +There is another curve, generated by a simple law from a circle, which +has played an important part at various epochs in the intellectual +history of our race. A spot on the tire of a wheel running on a +straight, level road, will describe in the air a series of peculiar +arches, called the cycloid. The law of its formation is simple; the law +of its curvature is also simple. The path in which the spot moves +curves exactly in proportion to its nearness to the lowest point of the +wheel. By the simplicity of its law, it ought, according to the canon, +to be a beautiful curve. Now, although artists have not shown any +admiration for the cycloid, as they have for the ellipse, yet the +mathematicians have gazed upon it with great eagerness, and found it +rich in intellectual treasures. Chasles, in his History, says that the +cycloid interweaves itself with all the great discoveries of the +seventeenth century. + +A curve which fulfils more perfectly the demands of our _dictum_ is +that of an elastic thread, to which we have already alluded. If the two +ends of a straight steel hair be brought towards each other by simple +pressure, the intervening spring may be put into a series of various +forms,--simple undulations, and those more complicated, a figure 8, +loops turning alternately opposite ways, loops turning all one way, and +finally a circle. Now the whole of this variety is the result of +subjecting each part of the curve to a law more simple than that of the +cycloid. The elastic curve is a curve which bends or curves exactly in +proportion to its distance from a given straight line. According to the +canon, therefore, this curve should be beautiful; and it is +acknowledged to be so in the examples given by the bending osier and +the waving grain,--also by the few who have seen full drawings of all +the forms. And the mathematician finds in it a new beauty, from its +marvellous correspondence with the motions of a pendulum,--the +algebraic expression of the two being identical. + +The forms of organic life afford, however, the best examples of the +dominion of our fundamental canon. The infinite variety of vegetable +forms, all beautiful, and each one different in its beauty, is all the +result of simple laws. It is true that these simple laws are not as yet +all discovered; but the one great discovery of Phyllotaxis, which shows +that all plants follow one law in the arrangement of their leaves upon +the stem, thereby intimates in unmistakable language the simplicity and +unity of all organic vegetable laws; and a similar assurance is given +by the morphological reduction of all parts to a metamorphosed leaf. + +The law of phyllotaxis, like that of the elastic curve, is carried out +in time as well as in space. As the formula for the elastic curve is +the same as that for the pendulum, so the law by which the spaces of +the leaves are divided in scattering them round the stem, to give each +its opportunity for light and air, is the same as that by which the +times of the planets are proportioned to keep them scattered about the +sun, and prevent them from gathering on one side of their central orb. + +The forms of plants and trees are dependent upon the arrangement of the +branches, and the arrangement of the branches depends upon that of the +buds or leaves. The leaves are arranged by this numerical law,--that +the angular distance about the stem between two successive leaves shall +be in such ratio to the whole circumference as may be expressed by a +continued fraction composed wholly of the figure 1. It is, then, true, +that all the beauty of the vegetable world which depends on the +arrangement of parts--the graceful symmetry or more graceful apparent +disregard of symmetry in the general form of plants, all the charm of +the varying forms of forest trees, which adds such loveliness to the +winter landscape, and such a refined source of pleasure to the +exhilaration of the winter morning walk--is the result of the simplest +variations in a simple numerical law; and is thus clearly brought under +our fundamental canon. It is the perception of this unity in diversity, +of this similarity of plan, for instance, in all tree-like forms, +however diverse,--the sprig of mignonette, the rose-bush, the fir, the +cedar, the fan-shaped elm, the oval rock-maple, the columnar hickory, +the dense and slender shaft of the poplar,--which charms the eye of +those who have never heard in what algebraic or arithmetical terms this +unity may be defined, in what geometrical or architectural figures this +diversity may be expressed. + +When we look at the animal kingdom, we recognize there also the +presence of simple, all-pervading laws. The four great types of animal +structures are readily discerned by the dullest eye: no man fails to +see the likeness among all vertebrates, or the likeness among all +articulates, the likeness among alt mollusks, or the likeness among all +radiates. These four types show, moreover, a certain unity, even to the +untaught eye: we call them all by one name, animals, and feel that +there is a likeness between them deeper than the widest differences in +their structure; there are analogies where there are not homologies. + +The difference between the four types of animals is marked at a very +early period in the embryo,--the embryo taking one of four different +forms, according to the department to which it belongs; and Peirce has +shown that these four forms are all embodiments of one single law of +position. If, then, one single algebraic law of form includes the four +diverse forms of the four great branches of the animal kingdom, is it +extravagant to suppose that the diversities in each branch are also +capable of being included in simple generalizations of form? Is it +unreasonable to believe that the exceeding beauty of animated forms, +and of the highest, the human form, arises from the fact that these +forms are the result of some simple intellectual law, a simple +conception of the Divine Geometer, assuming varied developments in the +great series of animated beings? It is the unity of the form, arising +from the simplicity of its law, and the multiplicity of its +manifestations or details, arising from the generality of its law, +that, intuitively perceived by the eye, although the intellect may not +apprehend them, give the charm to the figures of the animate creation. + +The subject, even in the narrow limits which we have imposed upon +ourselves, would admit of a much longer discussion. The various animals +might, for instance, be compared with each other, and the beauty of the +most beautiful could be clearly shown to be owing to the greater +variety in the outline, or the greater variety of position, which they +included in equal unity of general effect. And should we step outside +the bounds which we have prescribed to ourselves, we should find that +in other things than questions of mere form the general canon holds +true, that laws produce beauty in proportion to their own simplicity +and to the variety of their effects. As a single example, take the most +beautiful of the fine arts, the art which is free from the laws of +space, and subject only to those of time, and in which, therefore, we +find a beauty removed as far as possible from that of curvilinear +outlines. How exceedingly simple are the fundamental laws of music, of +simple rhythm and simple harmony yet how infinitely varied, and how +inexpressibly touching are its effects! In studying music as a mere +matter of intellectual science, all is simple; it is only an easy +chapter in acoustics. But in studying it on the side of the emotions, +in studying the laws of counterpoint and of musical form, which are +governed by the effect upon the ear and the heart, we find intricacy +and difficulties, increased beyond our power of understanding. + +So in the harmony of the spheres, in the varied beauty which clothes +the earth and pervades the heavens, in the beauty which addresses +itself to eye and ear, and in the beauty which addresses only the +inward sense,--the harmonious arrangements of the social world, and the +adjustment of domestic, civil, and political relations,--there is an +infinite diversity of result, infinitely varied in its effect upon the +observer. But could we behold the Kosmos as it is beheld by its +Creator, we should perchance find the whole encyclopedia of our science +resting upon a few great, but simple laws; we should see that the whole +universe, in all its infinite complication, is the fulfilment of +perhaps a single simple thought of the Divine Mind, and that it is this +unity pervading the diversity which makes it the Kosmos, Beauty. + + + + +FOUND AND LOST. + +And he sold his birth-right unto Jacob. Then Jacob gave Esau bread and +pottage of lentiles. + +GEN. xxv. 33, 34. + + +......So! I let fall the curtain; he was dead. For at least half an +hour I had stood there with the manuscript in my hand, watching that +face settling in its last stillness, watching the finger of the +Composer smoothing out the deeply furrowed lines on cheek and +forehead,--the faint recollection of the light that had perhaps burned +behind his childish eyes struggling up through the swarthy cheek, as if +to clear the last world's-dust from the atmosphere surrounding the man +who had just refound his youth. His head rested on his hand,--and so +satisfied and content was his quiet attitude, that he looked as if +resting from a long, wearisome piece of work he was glad to have +finished. I don't know how it was, but I thought, oddly enough, in +connection with him, of a little school-fellow of mine years ago, who +one day, in his eagerness to prove that he could jump farther than some +of his companions, upset an ink-stand over his prize essay, and, +overcome with mortification, disappointment, and vexation, burst into +tears, hastily scratched his name from the list of competitors, and +then rushed out of doors to tear his ruined essay into fragments; and +we found him that afternoon lying on the grass, with his head on his +hand, just as he lay now, having sobbed himself to sleep. + +I dropped the curtains of the bed, drew those of the window more +closely, to exclude the shrill winter wind that was blowing the slant +sleet against the clattering window-panes, broke up the lump of cannel +coal in the grate into a bright blaze that subsided into a warm, steady +glow of heat and light, drew an arm-chair and a little table up to the +cheerful fire, and sat down to read the manuscript which the quiet man +behind the curtains had given me. Why shouldn't I (I was his physician) +make myself as comfortable as was possible at two o'clock of a stormy +winter night, in a house that contained but two persons beside my +German patient,--a half-stupid serving-man, doubtless already asleep +down-stairs, and myself? This is what I read that night, with the +comfortable fire on one side, and Death, holding strange colloquy with +the fitful, screaming, moaning wind, on the other. + +As I wish simply to relate what has happened to me, (thus the +manuscript began,) what I attempted, in what I sinned, and how I +failed, I deem no introduction or genealogies necessary to the first +part of my life. I was an only child of parents who were passionately +fond of me,--the more, perhaps, because an accident that had happened +to me in my childhood rendered me for some years a partial invalid. One +day, (I was about five years old then,) a gentleman paid a visit to my +father, riding a splendid Arabian horse. Upon dismounting, he tied the +horse near the steps of the piazza instead of the horseblock, so that I +found I was just upon the level with the stirrup, standing at a certain +elevation. Half as an experiment, to try whether I could touch the +horse without his starting, I managed to get my foot into the stirrup, +and so mounted upon his back. The horse, feeling the light burden, did +start, broke from his fastening, and sped away with me on his back at +the top of his speed. He ran several miles without stopping, and +finished by pitching me off his back upon the ground, in leaping a +fence. This fall produced some disease of the spine, which clung to me +till I was twelve years old, when it was almost miraculously cured by +an itinerant Arab physician. He was generally pronounced to be a quack, +but he certainly effected many wonderful cures, mine among others. + +I had always been an imaginative child; and my long-continued sedentary +life compelling me (a welcome compulsion) to reading as my chief +occupation and amusement, I acquired much knowledge beyond my years. + +My reading generally had one peculiar tone: a certain kind of mystery +was an essential ingredient in the fascination that books which I +considered interesting had for me. My earliest fairy tales were not +those unexciting stories in which the good genius appears at the +beginning of the book, endowing the hero with such an invincible +talisman that suspense is banished from the reader's mind, too well +enabled to foresee the triumph at the end; but stories of long, painful +quests after hidden treasure,--mysterious enchantments thrown around +certain persons by witch or wizard, drawing the subject in charmed +circles nearer and nearer to his royal or ruinous destiny,--strange +spells cast upon bewitched houses or places, that could be removed only +by the one hand appointed by Fate. So I pored over the misty legends of +the San Grail, and the sweet story of "The Sleeping Beauty," as my +first literature; and as the rough years of practical boyhood trooped +up to elbow my dreaming childhood out of existence, I fed the same +hunger for the hidden and mysterious with Detective-Police stories, +Captain Kidd's voyages, and wild tales of wrecks on the Spanish Main, +of those vessels of fabulous wealth that strewed the deep sea's lap +with gems (so the stories ran) of lustre almost rare enough to light +the paths to their secret hiding-places. + +But in the last year of my captivity as an invalid a new pleasure fell +into my hands. I discovered my first book of travels in my father's +library, and as with a magical key unlocked the gate of an enchanted +realm of wondrous and ceaseless beauty. It was Sir John Mandeville who +introduced me to this field of exhaustless delight; not a very +trustworthy guide, it must be confessed,--but my knowledge at that time +was too limited to check the boundless faith I reposed in his +narrative. It was such an astonishment to discover that men, +black-coated and black-trousered men, such as I saw in crowds every day +in the street from my sofa-corner, (we had moved to the city shortly +after my accident,) had actually broken away from that steady stream of +people, and had traversed countries as wild and unknown as the lands in +the Nibelungen Lied, that my respect for the race rose amazingly. I +scanned eagerly the sleek, complacent faces of the portly burghers, or +those of the threadbare schoolmasters, thinned like carving-knives by +perpetual sharpening on the steel of Latin syntax, in search of men who +could have dared the ghastly terrors of the North with Ross or Parry, +or the scorching jungles of the Equator with Burckhardt and Park. Cut +off for so long a time from actual contact with the outside world, I +could better imagine the brooding stillness of the Great Desert, I +could more easily picture the weird ice-palaces of the Pole, waiting, +waiting forever in awful state, like the deserted halls of the Walhalla +for their slain gods to return, than many of the common street-scenes +in my own city, which I had only vaguely heard mentioned. + +I followed the footsteps of the Great Seekers over the wastes, the +untrodden paths of the world; I tracked Columbus across the pathless +Atlantic,--heard, with Balboa, the "wave of the loud-roaring ocean +break upon the long shore, and the vast sea of the Pacific forever +crash on the beach,"--gazed with Cortés on the temples of the Sun in +the startling Mexican empire,--or wandered with Pizarro through the +silver-lined palaces of Peru. But a secret affection drew me to the +mysterious regions of the East and South,--towards Arabia, the wild +Ishmael bequeathing sworded Korans and subtile Aristotles as legacies +to the sons of the freed-woman,--to solemn Egypt, riddle of nations, +the vast, silent, impenetrable mystery of the world. By continual +pondering over the footsteps of the Seekers, the Sought-for seemed to +grow to vast proportions, and the Found to shrink to inappreciable +littleness. For me, over the dreary ice-plains of the Poles, over the +profound bosom of Africa, the far-stretching steppes of Asia, and the +rocky wilds of America, a great silence brooded, and in the unexplored +void faint footfalls could be heard here and there, threading their way +in the darkness. But while the longing to plunge, myself, into these +dim regions of expectation grew more intense each day, the +prison-chains that had always bound me still kept their habitual hold +upon me, even after my recovery. I dreamt not of making even the +vaguest plans for undertaking explorations myself. So I read and +dreamt, filling my room with wild African or monotonous Egyptian +scenery, until I was almost weaned from ordinary Occidental life. + +I passed four blissful years In this happy dream-life, and then it was +abruptly brought to an end by the death of my father and mother almost +simultaneously by an epidemic fever prevailing in the neighborhood. I +was away from home at a bachelor uncle's at the time, and so was +unexpectedly thrown on his hands, an orphan, penniless, except in the +possession of the small house my father had owned in the country before +our removal to the city, and to be provided for. + +My uncle placed me in a mercantile house to learn business, and, after +exercising some slight supervision over me a few months, left me +entirely to my own resources. As, however, he had previously taken care +that these resources should be sufficient, I got along very well upon +them, was regularly promoted, and in the space of six years, at the age +of twenty-one, was in a rather responsible situation in the house, with +a good salary. But my whole attention could not be absorbed in the dull +routine of business, my most precious hours were devoted to reading, in +which I still pursued my old childish track of speculation, with the +difference that I exchanged Sinbad's valley of diamonds for Arabia +Petraea, Sir John Mandeville for Herodotus, and Robinson Crusoe for +Belzoni and Burckhardt Whether my interest in these Oriental studies +arose from the fact of the house being concerned in the importation of +the products of the Indies, or whether from the secret attraction that +had drawn me Eastward since my earliest childhood, as if the Arab +doctor had bewitched in curing me, I cannot say; probably it was the +former, especially as the India business became gradually more and more +intrusted to my hands. + +Shortly after my twenty-first birthday, I received a note from my +uncle, from whom I had not heard for a year, or two, informing me that +my father's house, which he had kept rented for me during the first +years of my minority, had been without a tenant for a year, and, as I +had now come of age, I had better go down to D---- and take possession +of it. This letter, touching upon a long train of associations and +recollections, awoke an intense longing in me to revisit the home of my +childhood, and meet those phantom shapes that had woven that spell in +those dreaming years, which I sometimes thought I felt even now. So I +obtained a short leave of absence, and started the next morning in the +coach for D----. + +It was what is called a "raw morning," for what reason I know not, for +such days are really elaborated with the most exquisite finish. A soft +gray mist hugged the country in a chilly embrace, while a fine rain +fell as noiselessly as snow, upon soaked ground, drenched trees, and +peevish houses. There is always a sense of wonder about a mist. The +outlines of what we consider our hardest tangibilities are melted away +by it into the airiest dream-sketches, our most positive and glaring +facts are blankly blotted out, and a fresh, clean sheet left for some +new fantasy to be written upon it, as groundless as the rest; our solid +land dissolves in cloud, and cloud assumes the stability of land. For, +after all, the only really tangible thing we possess is man's Will; and +let the presence and action of that be withdrawn but for a few moments, +and that mysterious Something which we vainly endeavor to push off into +the Void by our pompous nothings of brick and plaster and stone closes +down upon us with the descending sky, writing _Delendum_ on all behind +us, _Unknown_ on all before. At that time, the only actual Now, that +stands between these two infinite blanks, becomes identical with the +mind itself, independent of accidents of situation or circumstance; and +the mind thus becoming boldly prominent, amidst the fading away of +physical things, stamps its own character upon its shadowy +surroundings, moulding the supple universe to the shape of its emotions +and feelings. + +I was the only inside passenger, and there was nothing to check the +entire surrender of my mind to all ghostly influence. So I lay +stretched upon the cushions, staring blankly into the dense gray fog +closing up all trace of our travelled road, or watching the light edges +of the trailing mist curl coyly around the roofs of houses and then +settle grimly all over them, the fantastic shapes of trees or carts +distorted and magnified through the mist, the lofty outlines of some +darker cloud stalking solemnly here and there, like enormous dumb +overseers faithfully superintending the work of annihilation. The +monotonous patter of the rain-drops upon the wet pavement or muddy +roads, blending with the low whining of the wind and the steady rumble +of the coach-wheels, seemed to make a kind of witch-chant, that wove +with braided sound a weird spell about me, a charm fating me for some +service, I knew not what. That chant moaned, it wailed, it whispered, +it sang gloriously, it bound, it drowned me, it lapped me in an +inextricable stream of misty murmuring, till I was perplexed, +bewildered, enchanted. I felt surprised at myself, when, at the end of +the day's journey, I carried my bag to the hotel, and ate my supper +there as usual,--and felt natural again only when, having obtained the +key of my house, I sallied forth in the dim twilight to make it my +promised visit. + +I found the place, as I had expected, in a state of utter desolation. A +year's silence had removed it so far from the noisy stream of life that +flowed by it, that I felt, as I pushed at the rusty door-lock, as if I +were passing into some old garret of Time, where he had thrown +forgotten rubbish too worn-out and antiquated for present use. A strong +scent of musk greeted me at my entrance, which I found came from a box +of it that had been broken upon the hall-floor. I had stowed it away +(it was a favorite perfume with me, because it was so associated with +my Arabian Nights' stories) upon a ledge over the door, where it had +rested undisturbed while the house was tenanted, and had been now +probably dislodged by rats. But I half fancied that this odor which +impregnated the air of the whole house was the essence of that +atmosphere in which, as a child, I had communicated with Burckhardt and +Belzoni,--and that, expelled by the solid, practical, Occidental +atmosphere of the last few years, it had flowed back again, in these +last silent months, in anticipation of my return. + +Like a prudent householder, I made the tour of the house with a light I +had provided myself with, and mentally made memoranda of repairs, +alterations, etc., for rendering it habitable. My last visit was to be +to the garret, where many of my books yet remained. As I passed once +more through the parlor, on my way thither, a ray of light from my +raised lamp fell upon the wall that I had thought blank, and a majestic +face started suddenly from the darkness. So sudden was the apparition, +that for the moment I was startled, till I remembered that there had +formerly been a picture in that place, and I stopped to examine it. It +was a head of the Sphinx. The calm, grand face was partially averted, +so that the sorrowful eyes, almost betraying the aching secret which +the still lips kept sacred, were hidden,--only the slight, tender droop +in the corner of the mouth told what their expression might be. Around, +forever stretched the endless sands,--the mystery of life found in the +heart of death. That mournful, eternal face gave me a strange feeling +of weariness and helplessness. I felt as if I had already pressed +eagerly to the other side of the head, still only to find the voiceless +lips and mute eyes. Strange tears sprang to my eyes; I hastily brushed +them away, and, leaving the Sphinx, mounted to my garret. + +But the riddle followed me. I sat down on the floor, beside a box of +books, and somewhat listlessly began pulling it over to examine the +contents. The first book I took hold of was a little worn volume of +Herodotus that had belonged to my father. I opened it; and as if it, +too, were a link in the chain of influences which I half felt was being +forged around me, it opened at the first part of "Euterpe," where +Herodotus is speculating upon the phenomena of the Nile. Twenty-two +hundred years,--I thought,--and we are still wondering, the Sphinx is +still silent, and we yet in the darkness! Alas, if this riddle be +insoluble, how can we hope to find the clue to deeper problems? If +there are places on our little earth whither our feet cannot go, +curtains that our hands cannot withdraw, how can we expect to track +paths through realms of thought,--how to voyage in those airy, +impalpable regions whose existence we are sure of only while we are +there voyaging? + +"Nilus in extremum fugit perterritus orbem Occuluitque caput, quod +adhuc latet." + +Lost through reckless presumption, might not earnest humility recover +that mysterious lurking-place? Might not one, by devoted toil, by utter +self-sacrifice, with eyes purified by long searching from worldly and +selfish pollution,--might not such a one tear away the veil of +centuries, and, even though dying in the attempt, gain one look into +this arcanum? Might not I?--The unutterable thought thrilled me and +left me speechless, even in thinking. I strained my forehead against +the darkness, as if I could grind the secret from the void air. Then I +experienced the following mental sensation,--which, being purely +mental, I cannot describe precisely as it was, but will translate it as +nearly as possible into the language of physical phenomena. + +It was as if my mind--or, rather, whatever that passive substratum is +that underlies our volition and more truly represents ourselves--were a +still lake, lying quiet and indifferent. Presently the sense of some +coming Presence sent a breathing ripple over its waters; and +immediately afterward it felt a sweep as of trailing garments, and two +arms were thrown around it, and it was pressed against a "life-giving +bosom," whose vivifying warmth interpenetrating the whole body of the +lake, its waters rose, moved by a mighty influence, in the direction of +that retreating Presence; and again, though nothing was seen, I felt +surely whither was that direction. It was NILEWARD. I knew, with the +absolute certainty of intuition, that henceforth I was one of the +_kletoi_, the chosen,--selected from thousands of ages, millions of +people, for this one destiny. Henceforth a sharp dividing-line cut me +off from all others: _their_ appointment was to trade, navigate, eat +and drink, marry and give in marriage, and the rest; mine was to +discover the Source of the Nile. Hither had all the threads of my life +been converging for many years; they had now reached their focus, and +henceforth their course was fixed. + +I was scarcely surprised the next day at receiving a letter from my +employers appointing me to a situation as supercargo of a +merchant-vessel bound on a three-years' voyage to America and +China,--in returning thence, to sail up the Mediterranean, and stop at +Alexandria. I immediately wrote an acceptance, and then busied myself +about obtaining a three-years' tenant for my house. As the house was +desirable and well-situated, this business was soon arranged; and then, +as I had nothing further to do in the village, I left it for the last +time, as it proved, and returned to the city,--whence, after a +fortnight of preparation, I set sail on my eventful enterprise. +Although our voyage was filled with incident that in another place +would be interesting enough to relate, yet here I must omit all mention +of it, and, passing over three years, resume my narrative at +Alexandria, where I left the vessel, and finally broke away from +mercantile life. + +From Alexandria I travelled to Cairo, where I intended to hire a +servant and a boat, for I wished to try the water-passage in preference +to the land. The cheapness of labor and food rendered it no difficult +matter to obtain my boat and provision it for a long voyage,--for how +long I did not tell the Egyptian servant whom I hired to attend me. A +certain feeling of fatality caused me to make no attempt at disguise, +although disguise was then much more necessary than it has been since: +I openly avowed my purpose of travelling on the Nile for pleasure, as a +private European. My accoutrements were simple and few. Arms, of +course, I carried, and the actual necessaries for subsistence; but I +entirely forgot to prepare for sketching, scientific surveys, etc. My +whole mind was possessed with one idea: to see, to discover;--plans for +turning my discoveries to account were totally foreign to my thoughts. + +So, on the 6th of November, 1824, we set sail. I had been waiting three +years to arrive at this starting-point,--my whole life, indeed, had +been dumbly turning towards it,--yet now I commenced it with a coolness +and tranquillity far exceeding that I had possessed on many +comparatively trifling occasions. It is often so. We are borne along on +the current like drift-wood, and, spying jutting rocks or tremendous +cataracts ahead, fancy, "Here we shall be stranded, there buoyed up, +there dashed in pieces over those falls,"--but, for all that, we glide +over those threatened catastrophes in a very commonplace manner, and +are aware of what we have been passing only upon looking back at them. +So no one sees the great light shining from Heaven,--for the people are +blear-eyed, and Saul is blinded. But as I left Cairo in the greatening +distance, floating onward to the heart of the mysterious river, I +floated also into the twin current of thought, that, flowing full and +impetuous from the shores of the peopled Mediterranean, follows the +silent river, and tracks it to its hidden lurking-place in the blank +desert. Onward, past the breathless sands of the Libyan Desert, past +the hundred-gated Thebes, past the stone guardians of Abou-Simbel, +waiting in majestic patience for their spell of silence to be +broken,--onward. It struck me curiously to come to the cataract, and be +obliged to leave my boat at the foot of the first fall, and hire +another above the second,--a forcible reminder that I was travelling +backwards, from the circumference to the centre from which that +circumference had been produced, faintly feeling my way along a tide of +phenomena to the _noumenon_ supporting them. So we always progress: +from arithmetic to geometry, from observation to science, from practice +to theory, and play with edged tools long before we know what knives +mean. For, like Hop-o'-my-Thumb and his brothers, we are driven out +early in the morning to the edge of the forest, and are obliged to +grope our way back to the little house whence we come, by the crumbs +dropped on the road. Alack! how often the birds have eaten our bread, +and we are captured by the giant lying in wait! + +On we swept, leaving behind the burning rocks and dreary sands of Egypt +and Lower Nubia, the green woods and thick acacias of Dongola, the +distant pyramids of Mount Birkel, and the ruins of Meroë, just +discovered footmarks of Ancient Ethiopia descending the Nile to +bequeathe her glory and civilization to Egypt. At Old Dongola, my +companion was very anxious that we should strike across the country to +Shendy, to avoid the great curve of the Nile through Ethiopia. He found +the sail somewhat tedious, as I could speak but little Egyptian, which +I had picked up in scraps,--he, no German or English. I managed to +overrule his objections, however, as I could not bear to leave any part +of the river unvisited; so we continued the water-route to the junction +of the Blue and the White Nile, where I resolved to remain a week, +before continuing my route. The inhabitants regarded us with some +suspicion, but our inoffensive appearance so far conquered their fears +that they were prevailed upon to give us some information about the +country, and to furnish us with a fresh supply of rice, wheat, and +dourra, in exchange for beads and bright-colored cloth, which I had +brought with me for the purpose of such traffic, if it should be +necessary. Bruce's discovery of the source of the Blue Nile, fifty +years before, prevented the necessity of indecision in regard to my +route, and so completely was I absorbed in the one object of my +journey, that the magnificent scenery and ruins along the Blue Nile, +which had so fascinated Cailliaud, presented few allurements for me. + +My stay was rather longer than I had anticipated, as it was found +necessary to make some repairs upon the boat, and, inwardly fretting at +each hour's delay, I was eager to seize the first opportunity for +starting again. On the 1st of March, I made a fresh beginning for the +more unknown and probably more perilous portion of my voyage, having +been about four months in ascending from Cairo. As my voyage had +commenced about the abatement of the sickly season, I had experienced +no inconvenience from the climate, and it was in good spirits that I +resumed my journey. For several days we sailed with little eventful +occurring,--floating on under the cloudless sky, rippling a long white +line through the widening surface of the ever-flowing river, through +floating beds of glistening lotus-flowers, past undulating ramparts of +foliage and winged ambak-blossoms guarding the shores scaled by +adventurous vines that triumphantly waved their banners of white and +purple and yellow from the summit, winding amid bowery islands studding +the broad stream like gems, smoothly stemming the rolling flood of the +river, flowing, ever flowing,--lurking in the cool shade of the dense +mimosa forests, gliding noiselessly past the trodden lairs of +hippopotami and lions, slushing through the reeds swaying to and fro in +the green water, still borne along against the silent current of the +mysterious river, flowing, ever flowing. + +We had now arrived at the land of the Dinkas, where the river, by +broadening too much upon a low country, had become partially devoured +by marsh and reeds, and our progress was very slow, tediously dragging +over a sea of water and grass. I had become a little tired of my +complete loneliness, and was almost longing for some collision with the +tribes of savages that throng the shore, when the incident occurred +that determined my whole future life. One morning, about seven o'clock, +when the hot sun had already begun to rob the day of the delicious +freshness lingering around the tropical night, we happened to be +passing a tract of firmer land than we had met with for some time, and +I directed the vessel towards the shore, to gather some of the +brilliant lotus-flowers that fringed the banks. As we neared the land, +I threw my gun, without which I never left the boat, on the bank, +preparatory to leaping out, when I was startled by hearing a loud, +cheery voice exclaim in English,--"Hilloa! not so fast, if you +please!"--and first the head and then the sturdy shoulders of a white +man raised themselves slowly from the low shrubbery by which they were +surrounded. He looked at us for a minute or two, and nodded with a +contented air that perplexed me exceedingly. + +"So," he said, "you have come at last; I am tired of waiting for you"; +and he began to collect his gun, knife, etc., which were lying on the +ground beside him. + +"And who are you," I returned, "who lie in wait for me? I think, Sir, +you have the advantage." + +Here the stranger interrupted me with a hearty laugh. "My dear +fellow," he cried, "you are entirely mistaken. The technical advantage +that you attribute to me is an error, as I do _not_ have the honor of +knowing your name, though you may know mine without further +preface,--Frederick Herndon; and the real advantage which I wish to +avail myself of, a boat, is obviously on your side. The long and the +short of it is," he added, (composedly extricating himself from the +brushwood,) "that, travelling up in this direction for discovery and +that sort of thing, you know, I heard at Sennaar that a white man with +an Egyptian servant had just left the town, and were going in my +direction in a boat. So I resolved to overtake them, and with their, or +your, permission, join company. But they, or you, kept just in advance, +and it was only by dint of a forced march in the night that I passed +you. I learned at the last Dinka village that no such party had been +yet seen, and concluded to await the your arrival here, where I pitched +my tent a day and a night waiting for you. I am heartily glad to see +you, I assure you." + +With this explanation, the stranger made a spring, and leaped upon the +yacht. + +"Upon my word," said I, still bewildered by his sudden appearance, "you +are very unceremonious." + +"That," he rejoined, "is a way we Americans have. We cannot stop to +palaver. What would become of our manifest destiny? But since you are +so kind, I will call my Egyptian. Times are changed since we were +bondsmen in Egypt, have they not? Ah, I forgot,--you are not an +American, and therefore cannot claim even our remote connection with +the Ten Lost Tribes." Then raising his voice, "Here, Ibrahim!" + +Again a face, but this time a swarthy one, emerged from behind a bush, +and in answer to a few directions in his own dialect the man came down +to the boat, threw in the tent and some other articles of traveller's +furniture, and sprang in with the _nonchalance_ of his master. + +A little recovered from my first surprise, I seized the opportunity of +a little delay in getting the boat adrift again to examine my new +companion. He was standing carelessly upon the little deck of the +vessel where he had first entered, and the strong morning light fell +full upon his well-knit figure and apparently handsome face. The +forehead was rather low, prominent above the eyebrows, and with keen, +hollow temples, but deficient both in comprehensiveness and ideality. +The hazel eyes were brilliant, but restless and shallow,--the mouth of +good size, but with few curves, and perhaps a little too close for so +young a face. The well-cut nose and chin and clean fine outline of +face, the self-reliant pose of the neck and confident set of the +shoulders characterized him as decisive and energetic, while the +pleasant and rather boyish smile that lighted up his face dispelled +presently the peculiarly hard expression I had at first found in +analyzing it. Whether it was the hard, shrewd light from which all the +tender and delicate grace of the early morning had departed, I knew +not; but it struck me that I could not find a particle of shade in his +whole appearance. I seemed at once to take him in, as one sees the +whole of a sunny country where there are no woods or mountains or +valleys. And, in fact, I never did find any,--never any cool recesses +in his character; and as no sudden depths ever opened in his eyes, so +nothing was ever left to be revealed in his character;--like them, it +could be sounded at once. That picture of him, standing there on my +deck, with an indefinite expression of belonging to the place, as he +would have belonged on his own hearth-rug at home, often recurred to +me, again to be renewed and confirmed. + +And thus carelessly was swept into my path, as a stray waif, that man +who would in one little moment change my whole life! It is always so. +Our life sweeps onward like a river, brushing in here a little sand, +there a few rushes, till the accumulated drift-wood chokes the current, +or some larger tree falling across it turns it into a new channel. + +I had been so long unaccustomed to company that I found it quite a +pleasant change to have some one to talk to; some one to sympathize +with I neither wanted nor expected; I certainly did not find such a one +in my new acquaintance. For the first two or three days I simply +regarded him with the sort of wondering curiosity with which we examine +a new natural phenomenon of any sort. His perfect self-possession and +coolness, the _nil-admirari_ and _nil-agitari_ atmosphere which +surrounded him, excited my admiration at first, till I discovered that +it arose, not from the composure of a mind too deep-rooted to be swayed +by external circumstances, but rather from a peculiar hardness and +unimpressibility of temperament that kept him on the same level all the +time. He had been born at a certain temperature, and still preserved +it, from a sort of _vis inertive_ of constitution. This impenetrability +had the effect of a somewhat buoyant disposition, not because he could +be buoyed on the tide of any strong emotion, but because few things +could disturb or excite him. Unable to grasp the significance of +anything outside of himself and his attributes, he took immense pride +in stamping _his_ character, _his_ nationality, _his_ practicality, +upon every series of circumstances by which he was surrounded: he +sailed up the Nile as if it were the Mississippi; although a +well-enough-informed man, he practically ignored the importance of any +city anterior to the Plymouth Settlement, or at least to London, which +had the honor of sending colonists to New England; and he would have +discussed American politics in the heart of Africa, had not my +ignorance upon the topic generally excluded it from our conversation. +He had what is most wrongly termed an exceedingly practical mind,--that +is, not one that appreciates the practical existence and value of +thought as such, considering that a _praxis_, but a mind that denied +the existence of a thought until it had become realized in visible +action. + +"'The end of a man is an action, and not a thought, though it be the +noblest,' as Carlyle has well written," he triumphantly quoted to me, +as, leaning over the little railing of the yacht, watching, at least I +was, the smooth, green water gliding under the clean-cutting keel, we +had been talking earnestly for some time. "A thought has value only as +it is a potential action; if the action be abortive, the thought is as +useless as a crank that fails to move an engine-wheel." + +"Then, if action is the wheel, and thought only the crank, what does +the body of your engine represent? For what purpose are your wheels +turning? For the sake of merely moving?" + +"No," said he, "moving to promote another action, and _that_ +another,--and----so on _ad infinitum_." + +"Then you leave out of your scheme a real engine, with a journey to +accomplish, and an end to arrive at; for so wheels would only move +wheels, and there would be an endless chain of machinery, with no plan, +no object for its existence. Does not the very necessity we feel of +having a reason for the existence, the operation of anything, a large +plan in which to gather up all ravelled threads of various objects, +proclaim thought as the final end, the real thing, of which action, +more especially human action, is but the inadequate visible expression? +What kinds of action does Carlyle mean, that are to be the wheels for +our obedient thoughts to set in motion? Hand, arm, leg, foot action? +These are all our operative machinery. Does he mean that our 'noblest +thought' is to be chained as a galley-slave to these, to give them +means for working a channel through which motive power may be poured in +upon them? Are we to think that our fingers and feet may move and so we +live, or they to run for our thought, and we live to think?" + +"Supposing we _are_," said Herndon, "what practical good results from +knowing it? Action for action's sake, or for thinking's sake, is still +action, and all that we have to look out for. What business have the +brakemen at the wheels with the destiny of the train? Their business is +simply to lock and unlock the wheels; so that their end is in the +wheels, and not in the train." + +"A somewhat dreary end," I said, half to myself. "The whole world, +then, must content itself with spinning one blind action out of +another; which means that we must continually alter or displace +something, merely to be able to displace and alter something else." + +"On the contrary, we exchange vague, speculative mystifications for +definite, tangible fact. In America we have too much reality, too many +iron and steam facts, to waste much time over mere thinking. That, Sir, +does for a sleepy old country, begging your pardon, like yours; but for +one that has the world's destiny in its hands,--that is laying iron +foot-paths from the Atlantic to the Pacific for future civilization to +take an evening stroll along to see the sun set,--that is converting +black wool into white cotton, to clothe the inhabitants of +Borrioboolagha,--that is trading, farming, electing, governing, +fighting, annexing, destroying, building, puffing, blowing, steaming, +racing, as our young two-hundred-year-old is,--we must work, we must +act, and think afterwards. Whatsoever thy _hand_ findeth to do, do it +with thy might." + +"And what," I said, "when hand-and-foot-action shall have ceased? will +you then allow some play for thought-action?" + +"We have no time to think of that," he returned, walking away, and thus +stopping our conversation. + +The man was consistent in his theory, at least. Having exalted physical +motion (or action) to the place he did, he refused to see that the +action he prized was more valuable through the thought it developed; +consequently he reduced all actions to the same level, and prided +himself upon stripping a deed of all its marvellousness or majesty. He +did uncommon things in such a matter-of-fact way that he made them +common by the performance. The faint spiritual double which I found +lurking behind his steel and iron he either solidified with his +metallic touch or pertinaciously denied its existence. + +"Plato was a fool," he said, "to talk of an ideal table; for, supposing +he could see it, and prove its existence, what good could it do? You +can neither eat off it, nor iron on it, nor do anything else with it; +so, for all practical purposes, a pine table serves perfectly well +without hunting after the ideal. I want something that I can go up to, +and know it is there by seeing and touching." + +"But," said I, "does not that very susceptibility to bodily contact +remove the table to an indefinite distance from you? If we can see and +handle a thing, and yet not be able to hold that subtile property of +generic existence, by which, one table being made, an infinite class is +created, so real that tables may actually be modelled on it, and yet so +indefinite that you cannot set your hand on any table or collection of +tables and say, 'It is here,'--if we can be absolutely conscious that +we see the table, and yet have no idea how its image reflected on our +retina can produce that absolute consciousness, does not the table grow +dim and misty, and slip far away out of reach, of apprehension, much +more of comprehension?" + +"Stuff!" cried my companion. "If your metaphysics lead to proving that +a board that I am touching with my hand is not there, I'll say, as I +have already said, 'Throw (meta)physics to the dogs! I'll none of it!' +A fine preparation for living in a material world, where we have to +live in matter, by matter, and for matter, to wind one's self up in a +snarl that puts matter out of reach, and leaves us with nothing to live +in, or by, or for! Now _you_, for instance, are not content with this +poor old Nile as it stands, but must go fussing and wondering and +mystifying about it till you have positively nothing of a river left. I +look at the water, the banks, the trees growing on them, the islands in +which we get occasionally entangled: here, at least, I have a real, +substantial river,--not equal for navigation to the Ohio or +Mississippi, but still very fair.--Confound these flies!" he added, +parenthetically, making a vigorous plunge at a dark cloud of the little +pests that were closing down upon us. + +"Then you see nothing strange and solemn in this wonderful stream? +nothing in the weird civilization crouching at the feet, vainly looking +to the head of its master hidden in the clouds? nothing in the echoing +footsteps of nations passing down its banks to their destiny? nothing +in the solemn, unbroken silence brooding over the fountain whence +sprang this marvellous river, to bear precious gifts to thousands and +millions, and again retreat unknown? Is there no mystery in unsolved +questions, no wonder in miracles, no awe in inapproachability?" + +"I see," said he, steadily, "that a river of some thousand miles long +has run through a country peopled by contented, or ignorant, or +barbarous people, none of whom, of course, would take the slightest +interest in tracing the river; that the dangers that have guarded the +marvellous secret, as you call it, are not intrinsic to the secret +itself, but are purely accidental and contingent There is no more +reason why the source of the Nile should not be found than that of the +Connecticut; so I do not see that it is really at all inapproachable or +awful." + +"What in the world, Herndon," cried I, in desperation, "what in the +name of common sense ever induced you to set out on this expedition? +What do you want to discover the source of the Nile for?" + +He answered with the ready air of one who has long ago made up his mind +confidently on the subject he is going to speak about. + +"It has long been evident to me, that civilization, flowing in a return +current from America, must penetrate into Africa, and turn its immense +natural advantages to such account, that it shall become the seat of +the most flourishing and important empires of the earth. These, +however, should be consolidated, and not split up into multitudinous +missionary stations. If a stream of immigration could be started from +the eastern side, up the Nile for instance, penetrating to the +interior, it might meet the increased tide of a kindred nature from the +west, and uniting somewhere in the middle of Soudan, the central point +of action, the capital city could be founded there, as a heart for the +country, and a complete system of circulation be established. By this +method of entering the country at both sides simultaneously, of course +its complete subjugation could be accomplished in half the time that it +would take for a body of emigrants, however large, to make headway from +the western coast alone. About the source of the Nile I intend to mark +out the site for my city, and then"---- + +"And call it," I added, "Herndonville." + +"Perhaps," he said, gravely. "At all events, my name will be +inseparably connected with the enterprise; and if I can get the +steamboat started during my lifetime, I shall make a comfortable +fortune from the speculation." + +"What a gigantic scheme!" I exclaimed. + +"Ah," he said, complacently, "we Americans don't stick at trifles." + +"Oh, marvellous practical genius of America!" I cried, "to eclipse +Herodotus and Diodorus, not to mention Bruce and Cailliaud, and +inscribe Herndonville on the arcanum of the Innermost! If the Americans +should discover the origin of evil, they would run up penitentiaries +all over the country, modelled to suit 'practical purposes.'" + +"I think that would pay," said Herndon, reflectively. + +But though I then stopped the conversation, yet I felt its influence +afterwards. The divine enthusiasm for _knowing_, that had inspired me +for the last three years, and had left no room for any other thought in +connection with the discovery,--this enthusiasm felt chilled and +deadened. I felt reproached that I had not thought of founding a +Pottsville or Jenkinsville, and my grand purpose seemed small and vague +and indefinite. The vivid, living thoughts that had enkindled me fell +back cold and lifeless into the tedious, reedy water. For we had now +reached the immense shallow lake that Werne has since described, and +the scenery had become flat and monotonous, as if in sympathy with the +low, marshy place to which my mind had been driven. The intricate +windings of the river, after we had passed the lake, rendered the +navigation very slow and difficult; and the swarms of flies, that +plagued us for the first time seriously, brought petty annoyances to +view more forcibly than we had experienced in all our voyage before. + +After some days' pushing in this way, now driven by a strong head wind +almost back from our course, again, by a sudden change, carried rapidly +many miles on our journey,--after some days of this sailing, we arrived +at a long, low reef of rocks. The water here became so shallow and +boisterous that further attempt at sailing was impossible, and we +determined to take our boat to pieces as much as we could, and carry it +with us, while we walked along the shore of the river. I concluded, +from the marked depression in the ground we had just passed, that there +must be a corresponding elevation about here, to give the water a +sufficient head to pass over the high ground below; and the almost +cataract appearance of the river added strength to my hypothesis. We +were all four armed to the teeth, and the natives had shown themselves, +hitherto, either so friendly or so indifferent that we did not have +much apprehension on account of personal safety. So we set out with +beating hearts. Our path was exceedingly difficult to traverse, leading +chiefly among low trees and over the sharp stones that had rolled from +the river,--now close by the noisy stream, which babbled and foamed as +if it had gone mad,--now creeping on our knees through bushes, matted +with thick, twining vines,--now wading across an open morass,--now in +mimosa woods, or slipping in and out of the feathery dhelb-palms. + +Since our conversation spoken of above, Herndon and I had talked little +with each other, and now usually spoke merely of the incidents of the +journey, the obstacles, etc.; we scarcely mentioned that for which we +were both longing with intense desire, and the very thoughts of which +made my heart beat quicker and the blood rush to my face. One day we +came to a place where the river made a bend of about two miles and then +passed almost parallel to our point of view. I proposed to Herndon that +he should pursue the course of the river, and that I would strike a +little way back into the country, and make a short cut across to the +other side of the bend, where he and the men would stop, pitch our +night-tent, and wait for me. Herndon assented, and we parted. The low +fields around us changed, as I went on, to firm, hard, rising ground, +that gradually became sandy and arid. The luxuriant vegetation that +clung around the banks of the river seemed to be dried up little by +little, until only a few dusty bushes and thorn-acacias studded in +clumps a great, sandy, and rocky tract of country, which rolled +monotonously back from the river border with a steadily increasing +elevation. A sandy plain never gives me a sense of real substance; it +always seems as if it must be merely a covering for something,--a sheet +thrown over the bed where a dead man is lying. And especially here did +this broad, trackless, seemingly boundless desert face me with its +blank negation, like the old obstinate "No" which Nature always returns +at first to your eager questioning. It provoked me, this staring +reticence of the scenery, and stimulated me to a sort of dogged +exertion. I think I walked steadily for about three hours over the +jagged rocks and burning sands, interspersed with a few patches of +straggling grass,--all the time up hill, with never a valley to vary +the monotonous climbing,--until the bushes began to thicken in about +the same manner as they had thinned into the desert, the grass and +herbage herded closer together under my feet, and, beating off the +ravenous sand, gradually expelled the last trace of it, a few tall +trees strayed timidly among the lower shrubbery, growing more and more +thickly, till I found myself at the border of an apparently extensive +forest. The contrast was great between the view before and behind me. +Behind lay the road I had achieved, the monotonous, toilsome, wearisome +desert, the dry, formal introduction, as it were, to my coming journey. +Before, long, cool vistas opened green through delicious shades,--a +track seemed to be almost made over the soft grass, that wound in and +out among the trees, and lost itself in interminable mazes. I plunged +into the profound depths of the still forest, and confidently followed +for path the first open space in which I found myself. + +It was a strangely still wood for the tropics,--no chattering +parroquets, no screaming magpies, none of the sneering, gibing +dissonances that I had been accustomed to,--all was silent, and yet +intensely living. I fancied that the noble trees took pleasure in +growing, they were so energized with life in every leaf. I noticed +another peculiarity,--there was little underbrush, little of the +luxuriance of vines and creepers, which is so striking in an African +forest. Parasitic life, luxurious idleness, seemed impossible here; the +atmosphere was too sacred, too solemn, for the fantastic ribaldry of +scarlet runners, of flaunting yellow streamers. The lofty boughs +interlaced in arches overhead, and the vast dim aisles opened far down +in the tender gloom of the wood and faded slowly away in the distance. +And every little spray of leaves that tossed airily in the pleasant +breeze, every slender branch swaying gently in the wind, every young +sapling pushing its childish head panting for light through the mass of +greenery and quivering with golden sunbeams, every trunk of aged tree +gray with moss and lichens, every tuft of flowers, seemed thrilled and +vivified by some wonderful knowledge which it held secret, some +consciousness of boundless, inexhaustible existence, some music of +infinite unexplored thought concealing treasures of unlimited action. +And it was the knowledge, the consciousness, that it was unlimited +which seemed to give such elastic energy to this strange forest. But at +all events, it was such a relief to find the everlasting negation of +the desert nullified, that my dogged resolution insensibly changed to +an irrepressible enthusiasm, which bore me lightly along, scarcely +sensible of fatigue. + +The ascent had become so much steeper, and parts of the forest seemed +to slope off into such sudden declivities and even precipices, that I +concluded I was ascending a mountain, and, from the length of time I +had been in the forest, I judged that it must be of considerable +height. The wood suddenly broke off as it had begun, and, emerging from +the cool shade, I found myself in a complete wilderness of rock. Rocks +of enormous size were thrown about in apparently the wildest confusion, +on the side of what I now perceived to be a high mountain. How near the +summit I was I had no means of determining, as huge boulders blocked up +the view at a few paces ahead. I had had about eight hours' tramp, with +scarcely any cessation; yet now my excitement was too great to allow me +to pause to eat or rest. I was anxious to press on, and determine that +day the secret which I was convinced lay entombed in this sepulchre. So +again I pressed onward,--this time more slowly,--having to pick my way +among the bits of jagged granite filling up terraces sliced out of the +mountain, around enormous rocks projecting across my path,--overhanging +precipices that sheered straight down into dark abysses, (I must have +verged round to a different side from that I came up on,)--creeping +through narrow passages formed by the junction of two immense boulders. +Tearing my hands with the sharp corners of the rocks, I climbed in vain +hope of at last seeing the summit. Still rocks piled on rocks faced my +wearied eyes, vainly striving to pierce through some chink or cranny +into the space behind them. Still rocks, rocks, rocks, against whose +adamantine sides my feeble will dashed restlessly and impotently. My +eyeballs almost burst, as it seemed, in the intense effort to strain +through those stone prison-walls. And by one of those curious links of +association by which two distant scenes are united as one, I seemed +again to be sitting in my garret, striving to pierce the darkness for +an answer to the question then raised, and at the same moment passed +over me, like the sweep of angels' wings, the consciousness of that +Presence which had there infolded me. And with that consciousness, the +eager, irritated waves of excitement died away, and there was a calm, +in which I no longer beat like a caged beast against the never-ending +rocks, but, borne irresistibly along in the strong current of a mighty, +still emotion, pressed on with a certainty that left no room for +excitement, because none for doubt. And so I came upon it. Swinging +round one more rock, hanging over a breathless precipice, and landing +upon the summit of the mountain, I beheld it stretched at my feet: a +lake about five miles in circumference, bedded like an eye in the +naked, bony rock surrounding it, with quiet rippling waters placidly +smiling in the level rays of the afternoon sun,--the Unfathomable +Secret, the Mystery of Ages, the long sought for, the Source of the +Nile. + +For, from a broad cleft in the rocks, the water hurled itself out of +its hiding-place, and, dashing down over its rocky bed, rushed +impetuous over the sloping country, till, its force being spent, it +waded tediously through the slushing reeds of the hill-land again, and +so rolled down to sea. For, while I stood there, it seemed as if my +vision were preternaturally sharpened, and I followed the bright river +in its course, through the alternating marsh and desert,--through the +land where Zeus went banqueting among the blameless Ethiopians, +--through the land where the African princes watched from +afar the destruction of Cambyses's army,--past Meroë, Thebes, Cairo; +bearing upon its heaving bosom anon the cradle of Moses, the gay +vessels of the inundation festivals, the stately processions of the +mystic priesthood, the gorgeous barge of Cleopatra, the victorious +trireme of Antony, the screaming vessels of fighting soldiers, the +stealthy boats of Christian monks, the glittering, changing, flashing +tumult of thousands of years of life,--ever flowing, ever ebbing, with +the mystic river, on whose surface it seethed and bubbled. And the germ +of all this vast varying scene lay quietly hidden in the wonderful lake +at my feet. But human life is always composed of inverted cones, whose +bases, upturned to the eye, present a vast area, diversified with +countless phenomena; but when the screen that closes upon them a little +below the surface is removed, we shall be able to trace the many-lined +figures, each to its simple apex,--one little point containing the +essence and secret of the whole. Once or twice in the course of a +lifetime are a few men permitted to catch a glimpse of these awful +Beginnings,--to touch for a minute the knot where all the tangled +threads ravel themselves out smoothly. I had found such a place,--had +had such an ineffable vision,--and, overwhelmed with tremendous awe, I +sank on my knees, lost in GOD. + +After a little while, as far as I can recollect, I rose and began to +take the customary observations, marked the road by which I had come up +the mountain, and planned a route for rejoining Herndon. But ere long +all subordinate thoughts and actions seemed to be swallowed up in the +great tide of thought and feeling that overmastered me. I scarcely +remember anything from the time when the lake first burst upon my view, +till I met Herndon again. But I know, that, as the day was nearly +spent, I was obliged to give up the attempt to travel back that night, +especially as I now began to feel the exhaustion attendant upon my long +journey and fasting. I could not have slept among those rocks, eternal +guardians of the mighty secret. The absence of all breathing, +transitory existence but my own rendered it too solemn for me to dare +to intrude there. So I went back to the forest, (I returned much +quicker than I had come,) ate some supper, and, wrapped in a blanket I +had brought with me, went to sleep under the arching branches of a +tree. I have as little recollection of my next day's journey, except +that I defined a diagonal and thus avoided the bend. I found Herndon +waiting in front of the tent, rather impatient for my arrival. + +"Halloo, old fellow!" he shouted, jumping up at seeing me, "I was +really getting scared about you. Where have you been? What have you +seen? What are our chances? Have you had any adventures? killed any +lions, or anything? By-the-by, I had a narrow escape with one +yesterday. Capital shot; but prudence is the better part of valor, you +know. But, really," he said again, apparently struck by my abstraction +of manner, "what _have_ you seen?" + +"I have found the source of the Nile," I said, simply. + +Is it not strange, that, when we have a great thing to say, we are +always compelled to speak so simply in monosyllables? Perhaps this, +too, is an example of the law that continually reduces many to +one,--the unity giving the substance of the plurality; but as the +heroes of the "Iliad" were obliged to repeat the messages of the gods +_literatim_, so we must say a great thing as it comes to us, by itself. +It is curious to me now, that I was not the least excited in announcing +the discovery,--not because I did not feel the force of it, but because +my mind was so filled, so to speak, so saturated, with the idea, that +it was perfectly even with itself, though raised to an immensely higher +level. In smaller minds an idea seizes upon one part of them, thus +inequalizing it with the rest, and so, throwing them off their balance, +they are literally _de_-ranged (or disarranged) with excitement. It was +so with Herndon. For a minute he stared at me in stupefied +astonishment, and then burst into a torrent of incoherent +congratulations. + +"Why, Zeitzer!" he cried, "you are the lucky man, after all. Why, your +fortune's made,--you'll be the greatest man of the age. You must come +to America; that is the place for appreciating such things. You'll have +a Common-Council dinner in Boston, and a procession in New York. Your +book will sell like wildfire. You'll be a lion of the first magnitude. +Just think! The Man who discovered the Source of the Nile!" + +I stood bewildered, like one suddenly awakened from sleep. The unusual +excitement in one generally so self-possessed and indifferent as my +companion made me wonder sufficiently; but these allusions to my +greatness, my prospects, completely astounded me. What had I done,--I +who had been chosen, and led step by step, with little interference of +my own, to this end? What did this talk of noise and clamorous +notoriety mean? + +"To think," Herndon ran on, "that you should have beaten me, after all! +that you should have first seen, first drunk of, first bathed in"-- + +"Drunk of! bathed in!" I repeated, mechanically. "Herndon, are you +crazy? Would I dare to profane the sacred fountain?" + +He made no reply, unless a quizzical smile might be considered as +such,--but drew me within the tent, out of hearing of the two +Egyptians, and bade me give an account of my adventures. When I had +finished,-- + +"This is grand!" he exclaimed. "Now, if you will share the benefits of +this discovery with me, I will halve the cost of starting that +steamboat I spoke of, and our plan will soon be afloat. I shouldn't +wonder, now, if one might not, in order to start the town, get up some +kind of a little summer-pavilion there, on the top of the +mountain,--something on the plan of the Tip-Top House at Mount +Washington, you know,--hang the stars and stripes off the roof, if +you're not particular, and call it The Teuton-American. That would give +you your rightful priority, you see. By the beard of the Prophet, as +they say in Cairo, the thing would take!" + +I laughed heartily at this idea, and tried, at first in jest, then +earnestly, to make him understand I had no such plans in connection +with my discovery; that I only wanted to extend the amount of knowledge +in the world,--not the number of ice-cream pavilions. I offered to let +him take the whole affair into his own hands,--cost, profit, and all. I +wanted nothing to do with it. But he was too honest, as he thought, for +that, and still talked and argued,--giving his most visionary plans a +definite, tangible shape and substance by a certain process of +metallicizing, until they had not merely elbowed away the last shadow +of doubt, but had effectually taken possession of the whole ground, and +seemed to be the only consequences possible upon such a discovery. My +dislike to personal traffic in the sublimities of truth began to waver. +I felt keenly the force of the argument which Herndon used repeatedly, +that, if I did not thus claim the monopoly, (he talked almost as if I +had invented something,) some one else would, and so injustice be added +to what I had termed vulgarity. I felt that I must prevent injustice, +at least. Besides, what should I have to show for all my trouble, (ah! +little had I thought of "I" or my trouble a short time ago!)--what +should I have gained, after all,--nay, what would there be gained for +any one,--if I merely announced my discovery, without----starting the +steamboat? And though I did feebly query whether I should be equally +bound to establish a communication, with pecuniary emolument, to the +North Pole, in case I discovered that, his remark, that this was the +Nile, and had nothing to do with the North Pole, was so forcible and +pertinent, that I felt ashamed of my suggestion; and upon second +thought, that idea of the dinner and procession really had a good deal +in it. I had been in New York, and knew the length of Broadway; and at +the recollection, felt flattered by the thought of being conveyed in an +open chariot drawn by four or even eight horses, with nodding plumes, +(literal ones for the horses,--only metaphorical ones for me,) past +those stately buildings fluttering with handkerchiefs, and through +streets black with people thronging to see the man who had solved the +riddle of Africa. And then it would be pleasant, too, to make a neat +little speech to the Common Council,--letting the brave show catch its +own tail in its mouth, by proving, that, if America did not achieve +everything, she could appreciate--yes, appreciate was the word--those +who did. Yes, this would be a fitting consummation; I would do it. + +But, ah! how dim became the vision of that quiet lake on the summit of +the mountain! How that vivid lightning-revelation faded into obscurity! +Was Pharaoh again ascending his fatal chariot? + +The next day we started for the ascent. We determined to follow the +course of the river backwards around the bend and set out from my +former starting-point, as any other course might lead us into a +hopeless dilemma. We had no difficulty in finding the sandy plain, and +soon reached landmarks which I was sure were on the right road; but a +tramp of six or eight hours--still in the road I had passed +before--brought us no nearer to our goal. In short, we wandered three +days in that desert, utterly in vain. My heart sunk within me at every +failure; with sickening anxiety I scanned the horizon at every point, +but nothing was visible but stunted bushes and white pebbles glistening +in the glaring sand. + +The fourth day came,--and Herndon at last stopped short, and said, in +his steady, immobile voice,-- + +"Zeitzer, you must have made this grand discovery in your dreams. There +is no Nile up this way,--and our water-skins are almost dry. We had +better return and follow up the course of the river where we left it. +If we again fail, I shall return to Egypt to carry out my plan for +converting the Pyramids into ice-houses. They are excellently well +adapted for the purpose, and in that country a good supply of ice is a +_desideratum_. Indeed, if my plan meets with half the success it +deserves, the antiquaries two centuries hence will conclude that ice +was the original use of those structures." + +"Shade of Cheops, forbid!" I exclaimed. + +"Cheops be hanged!" returned my irreverent companion. "The world +suffers too much now from overcrowded population to permit a man to +claim standing-room three thousand years after his death,--especially +when the claim is for some acres apiece, as in the case of these +pyramid-builders. Will you go back with me?" + +I declined for various reasons, not all very clear even to myself; but +I was convinced that his peculiar enticements were the cause of our +failure, and I hated him unreasonably for it. I longed to get rid of +him, and of his influence over me. Fool that I was! _I_ was the sinner, +and not he; for he _could_ not see, because he was born blind, while +_I_ fell with my eyes open. I still held on to the vague hope, that, +were I alone, I might again find that mysterious lake; for I knew I had +not dreamed. So we parted. + +But we two (my servant and I) were not left long alone in the Desert. +The next day a party of natives surprised us, and, after some desperate +fighting, we were taken prisoners, sold as slaves from tribe to tribe +into the interior, and at length fell into the hands of some traders on +the western coast, who gave us our freedom. Unwilling, however, to +return home without some definite success, I made several voyages in a +merchant-vessel. But I was born for one purpose; failing in that, I had +nothing further to live for. The core of my life was touched at that +fatal river, and a subtile disease has eaten it out till nothing but +the rind is left. A wave, gathering to the full its mighty strength, +had upreared itself for a moment majestically above its +fellows,--falling, its scattered spray can only impotently sprinkle the +dull, dreary shore. Broken and nerveless, I can only wait the lifting +of the curtain, quietly wondering if a failure be always +irretrievable,--if a prize once lost can never again be found. + + + + +AN EXPERIENCE. + + +A common spring of water, sudden welling, +Unheralded, from some unseen impelling, +Unrecognized, began his life alone. +A rare and haughty vine looked down above him, +Unclasped her climbing glory, stooped to love him, +And wreathed herself about his curb of stone. + +Ah, happy fount! content, in upward smiling, +To feel no life but in her fond beguiling, +To see no world but through her veil of green! +And happy vine, secure, in downward gazing, +To find one theme his heart forever praising,-- +The crystal cup a throne, and she the queen! + +I speak, I grew about him, ever dearer; +The water rose to meet me, ever nearer; +The water passed one day this curb of stone. +Was it a weak escape from righteous boundings, +Or yet a righteous scorn of false surroundings? +I only know I live my life alone. + +Alone? The smiling fountain seems to chide me,-- +The constant fountain, rooted still beside me, +And speaking wistful words I toil to hear: +Ah, how alone! The mystic words confound me; +And still the awakened fountain yearns beyond me, +Streaming to some unknown I may not near. + +"Oh, list," he cries, "the wondrous voices calling! +I hear a hundred streams in silver falling; +I feel the far-off pulses of the sea. +Oh, come!" Then all my length beside him faring, +I strive and strain for growth, and soon, despairing, +I pause and wonder where the wrong can be. + +Were we not equal? Nay, I stooped, from climbing, +To his obscure, to list the golden chiming, +So low to all the world, so plain to me. +_Now_,'twere some broad fair streamlet, onward tending +Should mate with him, and both, serenely blending, +Move in a grand accordance to the sea. + +I tend not so; I hear no voices calling; +I have no care for rivers silver-falling; +I hate the far-off sea that wrought my pain. +Oh for some spell of change, my life new-aiming! +Or best, by spells his too much life reclaiming, +Hold all within the fountain-curb again! + + + + +ABOUT THIEVES. + + +It is recorded in the pages of Diodorus Siculus, that Actisanes, the +Ethiopian, who was king of Egypt, caused a general search to be made +for all Egyptian thieves, and that all being brought together, and the +king having "given them a just hearing," he commanded their noses to be +cut off,--and, of course, what a king of Egypt commanded was done; so +that all the Egyptian "knucks," "cracksmen," "shoplifters," and +pilferers generally, of whatever description known to the slang terras +of the time, became marked men. + +Inspired, perhaps, with the very idea on which the Ethiopian acted, the +police authorities have lately provided, that, in an out-of-the-way +room, on a back street, the honest men of New York city may scan the +faces of its thieves, and hold silent communion with that interesting +part of the population which has agreed to defy the laws and to stand +at issue with society. Without disturbing the deep pool of penalogy, or +entering at all into the question, as to whether Actisanes was right, +or whether the police of New York do not overstep their authority in +putting on the walls this terrible bill of attainder against certain +citizens of the United States, whom their country's constitution has +endeavored to protect from "infamous punishments,"--the student of +moral science will certainly be thankful for the faces. + +We do not remember ever having "opened" a place or picked a pocket. We +have made puns, however; and so, upon the Johnsonian _dictum_, the +thing is latent in us, and we feel the affinity. We do not hate +thieves. We feel satisfied that even in the character of a man who does +not respect ownership there may be much to admire. Sparkles of genius +scintillate along the line of many a rogue's career. Many there are, it +is true, who are obtuse and vicious below the mean,--but a far greater +number display skill and courage infinitely above it. Points of noble +character, of every good as well as most base characteristics of the +human race, will be found in the annals of thievery, when they are +written aright. + +Thieves, like the State of Massachusetts in the great man's oration, +"have their history," and it may be safely asserted that they did not +steal it. It is dimly hinted in the verse of a certain ancient, that +there was a time in a remoter antiquity "ere thieves were feared"; yet +even this is cautiously quiet as to their non-existence. Homer, +recounting traditions old in his time, chuckles with narrative delight +over the boldness, wit, and invention of a great cattle-stealer, and +for his genius renders him the ultimatum of Greek tribute, +intellectually speaking, by calling him a son of Zeus. Herodotus speaks +plainly and tells a story; and the best of all his stories, to our +thinking, is a thief's story, which we abridge thus. + +"The king Rhampsinitus, the priests informed me, possessed a great +quantity of money, such as no succeeding king was able to surpass or +nearly come up to, and, wishing to treasure it, he built a chamber of +stone, one wall of which was against the palace. But the builder, +forming a plan against it, even in building, fitted one of the stones +so that it might be easily taken out by two men or even one. + +"In course of time, and when the king had laid up his treasures in the +chamber, the builder, finding his end approaching, called to him his +two sons and described to them how he had contrived, and, having +clearly explained everything, he told them, if they would observe his +directions closely, they might be stewards of the king's riches. He +accordingly died, and the sons were not long in applying themselves to +the work; but, having come by night to the palace, and having found the +stone as described, they easily removed it, and carried off a great +quantity of treasure. + +"When the king opened the chamber, he was astonished to see some +vessels deficient; but he was not able to accuse any one, as the seals +were unbroken, and the chamber well secured. When, therefore, on his +opening it two or three times, the treasures were always evidently +diminished, he adopted the following plan: he ordered traps to be made +and placed them round the vessels in which the treasures were. But when +the thieves came, as before, and one of them had entered, as soon as he +went near a vessel, he was straightway caught in the trap; perceiving, +therefore, in what a predicament he was, he immediately called to his +brother, told him what had happened, and bade him enter as quickly as +possible and cut off his head, lest, if seen and recognized, he should +ruin him also. The other thought he spoke well, and did as he was +advised; then, having fitted in the stone, he returned home, taking +with him his brother's head. + +"When day came, the king, having entered the chamber, was astonished at +seeing the body of the thief in the trap without the head, but the +chamber secured, and no apparent means of entrance or exit. In this +perplexity he contrived thus: he hung up the body of the thief from the +wall, and, having placed sentinels there, he ordered them to seize and +bring before him whomsoever they should see weeping or expressing +commiseration for the spectacle. + +"The mother was greatly grieved at the body being suspended, and, +coming to words with her surviving son, commanded him, by any means he +could, to contrive how he might take down and bring away the corpse of +his brother; but, should he not do so, she threatened to go to the king +and tell who had the treasure. When the mother treated her surviving +son harshly, and he, with many entreaties, was unable to persuade her, +he contrived this plan: he put skins filled with wine on some asses, +and drove to where the corpse was detained, and there skilfully loosed +the strings of two or three of those skins, and, when the wine ran out, +he beat his head and cried aloud, as if he knew not which one to turn +to first. But the sentinels, seeing wine flow, ran with vessels and +caught it, thinking it their gain,--whereupon, the man, feigning anger, +railed against them. But the sentinels soothed and pacified him, and at +last he set the skins to rights again. More conversation passed; the +sentinels joked with him and moved him to laughter, and he gave them +one of the skins, and lay down with them and drank, and thus they all +became of a party; and the sentinels, becoming exceedingly drunk, fell +asleep where they had been drinking. Then the thief took down the body +of his brother, and, departing, carried it to his mother, having obeyed +her injunctions. + +"After this the king resorted to many devices to discover and take the +thief, but all failed through his daring and shrewdness: when, at last, +sending throughout all the cities, the king caused a proclamation to be +made, offering a pardon and even reward to the man, if he would +discover himself. The thief, relying on this promise, went to the +palace; and Rhampsinitus greatly admired him, and gave him his daughter +in marriage, accounting him the most knowing of all men; for that the +Egyptians are superior to all others, but he was superior to the +Egyptians." + +The Egyptians appear to have given their attention to stealing in every +age; and at the present time, the ruler there may be said to be not so +much the head man of the land as the head thief. Travellers report that +that country is divided into departments upon a basis of abstraction, +and that the interests of each department, in pilfering respects, are +under the supervision of a Chief of Thieves. The Chief of Thieves is +responsible to the government, and to him all those who steal +professionally must give in their names, and must also keep him +informed of their successful operations. When goods are missed, the +owner applies to the government, is referred to the Chief of Thieves +for the Department, and all particulars of quantity, quality, time, and +manner of abstraction, to the best of his knowledge and belief, being +given, the goods are easily identified and at once restored,--less a +discount of twenty-five per cent. Against any rash man who should +undertake a private speculation, of course the whole fraternity of +thieves would be the beat possible police. This, after all, appears to +be a mere compromise of police taxes. He who has no goods to lose, or, +having, can watch them so well as not to need the police, the +government agrees shall not be made to pay for a police; but he whom +the fact of loss is against must pay well to be watched. + +Something of this principle is observable in all the East The East is +the fatherland of thieves, and Oriental annals teem with brilliant +examples of their exploits. The story of Jacoub Ben-Laith, founder of +the Soffarid dynasty,--otherwise, first of the Tinker-Kings of the +larger part of Persia,--is especially excellent upon that proverbial +"honor among thieves" of which most men have heard. + +Working weary hour after hour in his little shop,--toiling away days, +weeks, and months for a meagre subsistence,--Jacoub finally turned in +disgust from his hammer and forge, and became a "minion of the moon." +He is said, however, to have been reasonable in plunder, and never to +have robbed any of all they had. One night he entered the palace of +Darham, prince of the province of Segestan, and, working diligently, +soon gathered together an immense amount of valuables, with which he +was making off, when, in crossing a very dark room, his foot struck +upon a hard substance, and the misstep nearly threw him down. Stooping, +he picked up that upon which he had trodden. He believed it, from +feeling, to be a precious stone. He carried it to his mouth, touched it +with his tongue,--it was salt! And thus, by his own action, he had +tasted salt beneath the prince's roof,--in Eastern parlance, had +accepted his hospitality, become his guest. He could not rob him. +Jacoub laid down his burden,--robes embroidered in gold upon the +richest materials, sashes wanting only the light to flash with precious +stones worked in the braid, all the costly and rare of an Eastern +prince's palace gathered in one common spoil,--laid it all down, and +departed as silently as he had come. + +In the morning the disorder seen told only of attempted robbery. +Diligent search being made, the officers charged with it became +satisfied of Jacoub's complicity. They brought him before the prince. +There, being charged with the burglary, Jacoub at once admitted it, and +told the whole story. The prince, honoring him for his honor, at once +took him into his service, and employed him with entire confidence in +whatever of important or delicate he had to do that needed a man of +truth and courage; and Jacoub from that beginning went up step by step, +till he himself became prince of a province, and then of many +provinces, and finally king of a mighty realm. He had soul enough, +according to Carlyle's idea, not to need salt; but, for all that, the +salt saved him. + +Another king of Persia, Khurreem Khan, was not ashamed to admit, with a +crown on his head, that he had once been a thief, and was wont to +recount of himself what in these days we should call a case of +conscience. Thus he told it:-- + +"When I was a poor soldier in Nadir Shah's camp, my necessities led me +to take from a shop a gold-embossed saddle, sent thither by an Afghan +chief to be repaired. I soon afterward heard that the owner of the shop +was in prison, sentenced to be hanged. My conscience smote me. I +restored the stolen article to the very place whence I had removed it, +and watched till it was discovered by the tradesman's wife. She uttered +a scream of joy, on seeing it, and fell on her knees, invoking +blessings on the person who had brought it back, and praying that he +might live to have a hundred such saddles. I am quite certain that the +honest prayer of the old woman aided my fortune in attaining the +splendor she wished me to enjoy." + +These are variations upon the general theme of thievery. They all tend +to show that it is, at the least, unsafe to take the fact of a man's +having committed a certain crime against property as a proof _per se_ +that he is radically bad or inferior in intellect. "Your thief looks +in the crowd," says Byron, + + "Exactly like the rest, or rather better,"-- + +and this, not because physiognomy is false, but the thief's face true. +Of a promiscuous crowd, taken almost anywhere, the pickpocket in it is +the smartest man present, in all probability. According to +Ecclesiasticus, it is "the _heart_ of man that changeth his +countenance"; and it does seem that it is to his education, and not to +his heart, that man does violence in stealing. It is certainly in exact +proportion to his education that he feels in reference to it, and does +or does not "regret the necessity." + +And, indeed, that universal doctrine of contraries may work here as +elsewhere; and it might not he difficult to demonstrate that a majority +of thieves are better fitted by their nature and capacity for almost +any other position in life than the one they occupy through perverse +circumstance and unaccountable accident. Though mostly men of fair +ability, they are not generally successful. Considering the number of +thieves, there are but few great ones. In this "Rogues' Gallery" of the +New York Police Commissioners we find the face of a "first-rate" +burglar among the ablest of the eighty of whom he is one. He is a +German, and has passed twenty years in the prisons of his native land: +has that leonine aspect sometimes esteemed a physiognomical attribute +of the German, and, with fair enough qualities generally, is without +any especial intellectual strength. Near him is another +"first-rate,"--all energy and action, acute enough, a quick reasoner, +very cool and resolute. Below these is the face of one whom the +thief-takers think lightly of, and call a man of "no account." Yet he +is a man of far better powers than either of the "first-rates,"--has +more thought and equal energy,--a mind seldom or never at rest,--is one +to make new combinations and follow them to results with an ardor +almost enthusiastic. From some want of adaptation not depending upon +intellectual power, he is inferior as a thief to his inferiors. + +This man was without a cravat when his picture was taken, and his white +shirt-collar, coming up high in the neck, has the appearance of a white +neckerchief. This trifle of dress, with the intellectual look of the +man, strikes every observer as giving him a clerical appearance. The +picture strongly resembles--more in air, perhaps, than in feature--the +large engraved portrait of Summerfield. There is not so much of calm +comprehensiveness of thought, and there are more angles. Thief though +he be, he has fair language,--not florid or rhetorical, but terse and +very much to the point. If bred as a divine, he would have held his +place among the "brilliants" of the time, and been as original, +erratic, or _outré_ as any. What a fortune lost! It is part of the +fatality for the man not to know it, at least in time. Even villany +would have put him into his proper place, but for that film over the +mental vision. "If rogues," said Franklin, "knew the advantages +attached to the practice of the virtues, they would become honest men +from mere roguery." + +Many of the faces of this Rogues' Gallery are very well worth +consideration. Of a dozen leading pickpockets, who work singly, or two +or three together, and are mostly English, what is first noted is not +favorable to English teaching or probity;--their position sits easily +upon them. There is not one that gives indication of his having passed +through any mental struggle before he sat down in life as a thief. +Though all men capable of thought, they have not thought very deeply +upon this point. One of them is a natural aristocrat,--a man who could +keep the crowd aloof by simple volition, and without offense; nothing +whatever harsh in him,--polite to all, and amiable to a fault with his +fellows. + +There would be style in everything he did or said. He is one to +astonish drawing-rooms and bewilder promenades by the taste and +elegance of his dress. Upon that altar, doubtless, he sacrificed his +principles; but the sacrifice was not a great one. + +"'Tis only at the bar or in the dungeon that wise men know a felon by +his features." Another English pickpocket appears to have Alps on Alps +of difference between him and a thief. Good-nature prevails; there is a +little latent fire; not enough energy to be bad, or good, against the +current. He has some quiet dignity, too,--the head, in fine, of a +genial, dining Dombey, if such a man can be imagined. Face a good oval, +rather full in flesh, forehead square, without particular strength, a +nose that was never unaccompanied by good taste and understanding, and +mouth a little lickerish;--the incarnation of the popular idea of a +bank-president. + +The other day he turned to get into an omnibus at one of the ferries, +and just as he did so, there, it so happened, was a young lady stepping +in before him. The quiet old gentleman, with that warmth of politeness +that sits so well upon quiet old gentlemen in the presence of young +ladies, helped her in, and took a seat beside her. At half a block up +the street the president startled the other passengers by the violent +gesticulations with which he endeavored to attract the attention of a +gentleman passing down on the sidewalk; the passengers watched with +interest the effect or non-effect of his various episodes of +telegraphic desperation, and saw, with a regret equal to his own, that +the gentleman on the sidewalk saw nothing, and turned the corner as +calmly as a corner could be turned; but the old gentleman, not willing +to lose him in that manner, jumped out of the 'bus and ran after, with +a liveliness better becoming his eagerness than his age. In a moment +more, the young lady, admonished by the driver's rap on the roof, would +have paid her fare, but her portmonnaie was missing. I know not whether +the bank-president was or was not suspected;-- + +"All I can say is, that he had the money." + +Look closer, and beneath that look of good-humor you will find a little +something of superciliousness. You will see a line running down the +cheek from behind each nostril, drawing the whole face, good-humor and +all, into a sneer of habitual contempt,--contempt, no doubt, of the +vain endeavors and devices of men to provide against the genius of a +good pickpocket. + +It was said of Themistocles, that + + "he, with all his greatness, +Could ne'er command his hands." + +Now this man is a sort of Themistocles. He is a man of wealth, and can +snap his fingers at Fortune; can sneer that little sneer of his at +things generally, and be none the worse; but what he cannot do is, to +shake off an incubus that sits upon his life in the shape of old Habit +severe as Fate. This man, with apparently all that is necessary in the +world to keep one at peace with it, and to ease declining life with +comforts, and cheer with the serener pleasures, is condemned to keep +his peace in a state of continual uncertainty; for, seeing a purse +temptingly exposed, he is physically incapable of refraining from the +endeavor to take it. What devil is there in his finger-ends that brings +this about? Is this part of the curse of crime,--that, having once +taken up with it, a man cannot cut loose, but, with all the disposition +to make his future life better, he must, as by the iron links of +Destiny, be chained to his past? + +There is a Chinese thief-story somewhat in point here. A man who was +very poor stole from his neighbor, who was very rich, a single duck. He +cooked and ate it, and went to bed happy; but before morning he felt +all over his body and limbs a remarkable itching, a terrible irritation +that prevented sleep. When daylight came, he perceived that he had +sprouted all over with duck-feathers. This was an unlooked-for +judgment, and the man gave himself up to despair,--when he was informed +by an emanation of the divine Buddha that the feathers would fall from +him the moment he received a reproof and admonition from the man whose +duck he had stolen. This only increased his despair, for he knew his +neighbor to be one of the laughter-loving kind, who would not go to the +length of reproof, though he lost a thousand ducks. After sundry futile +attempts to swindle his neighbor out of the needed admonition, our +friend was compelled to divulge, not only the theft, but also the means +of cure, when he was cured. + +And this good, easy man, who is wealthy with the results of +pocket-picking;--that well-cut black coat, that satin waistcoat, that +elegantly-adjusted scarf and well-arranged collar, they are all +duck-feathers; but the feather that itches is that irreclaimable +tendency of the fingers to find their way into other people's pockets. +Pity, however, the man who cannot be at ease till he has received a +reproof from every one whose pocket he has picked through a long life +in London and in New York city. + +The amount of mental activity that gleams out upon you from these walls +is something wonderful; evidence of sufficient thinking to accomplish +almost any intellectual task; thought-life crowded with what +experience! + +The "confidence" swindlers are mostly Americans,--so that, the +pickpockets being mostly English, you may see some national character +in crime, aside from the tendency of races. The Englishman is +conservative,--sticks to traditions,--picks and plods in the same old +way in which ages have picked and plodded before him. Exactly like the +thief of ancient Athens, he + + "walks +The street, and picks your pocket as he talks +On some pretence with you"; + +at the same time, with courage and self-reliance admirably English, +risking his liberty on his skill. The American illuminates his practice +with an intellectual element, faces his man, "bidding a gay defiance to +mischance," and gains his end easily by some acute device that merely +transfers to himself, with the knowledge and consent of the owner, the +subtile principle of property. + +This "confidence" game is a thing of which the ancients appear to have +known nothing. The French have practised it with great success, and may +have invented it. It appears particularly French in some of its +phases,--in the manner that is necessary for its practice, in its wit +and finesse. The affair of the Diamond Necklace, with which all the +world is familiar, is the most magnificent instance of it on record. A +lesser case, involving one of the same names, and playing excellently +upon woman's vanity, illustrates the French practice. + +One evening, as Marie Antoinette sat quietly in her _loge_ at the +theatre, the wife of a wealthy tradesman of Paris, sitting nearly +_vis-à-vis_ to the Queen, made great parade of her toilet, and seemed +peculiarly desirous of attracting attention to a pair of splendid +bracelets, gleaming with the chaste contrast of emeralds and diamonds. +She was not without success. A gentleman of elegant mien and graceful +manner presented himself at the door of her _loge_; he delivered a +message from the Queen. Her Majesty had remarked the singular beauty of +the bracelets, and wished to inspect one of them more closely. What +could be more gratifying? In the seventh heaven of delighted vanity, +the tradesman's wife unclasped the bracelet and gave it to the +gentleman, who bowed himself out, and left her--as you have doubtless +divined he would--abundant leisure to learn of her loss. + +Early the next morning, however, an officer from the department of +police called at this lady's house. The night before, a thief had been +arrested leaving the theatre, and on his person were found many +valuables,--among others, a splendid bracelet. Being penitent, he had +told, to the best of his recollection, to whom the articles belonged, +and the lady called upon was indicated as the owner of the bracelet. If +Madame possessed the mate to this singular bracelet, it was only +necessary to intrust it to the officer, and, if it were found to +compare properly with the other, both would be immediately sent home, +and Madame would have only a trifling fee to pay. The bracelet was +given willingly, and, with the stiff courtesy inseparable from official +dignity, the officer took his leave, and at the next _café_ joined his +fellow, the gentleman of elegant mien and graceful manner. The +bracelets were not found to compare properly, and therefore were not +returned. + +These faces are true to the nationality,--all over American. They are +much above the average in expression,--lighted with clear, well-opened +eyes, intelligent and perceptive; most have an air of business +frankness well calculated to deceive. There is one capacious, +thought-freighted forehead. All are young. + +No human observer will fail to be painfully struck with the number of +boys whose faces are here exposed. There are boys of every age, from +five to fifteen, and of every possible description, good, bad, and +indifferent. The stubborn and irreclaimable imp of evil nature peers +out sullenly and doggedly, or sparkles on you a pair of small +snake-eyes, fruitful of deceit and cunning. The better boy, easily +moved, that might become anything, mercurial and volatile, "most +ignorant of what he's most assured," reflects on his face the pleasure +of having his picture taken, and smiles good-humoredly, standing in +this worst of pillories, to be pelted along a lifetime with +unforgetting and unforgiving glances. With many of these boys, this is +a family matter. Here are five brothers, the youngest very young +indeed,--and the father not very old. One of the brothers, +bright-looking as boy can be, is a young Jack Sheppard, and has already +broken jail five times. Many are trained by old burglars to be put +through windows where men cannot go, and open doors. In a row of +second-class pickpockets, nearly all boys, there is observable on +almost every face some expression of concern, and one instinctively +thanks Heaven that the boys appear to be frightened. Yet, after all, +perhaps it is hardly worth while. The reform of boy thieves was first +agitated a long while since, and we have yet to hear of some +encouraging result. The earliest direct attempt we know of, with all +the old argument, _pro_ and _con_, is thus given in Sadi's "Gulistan." + +Among a gang of thieves, who had been very hardly taken, "there +happened to be a lad whose rising bloom of youth was just matured. One +of the viziers kissed the foot of the king's throne, assumed a look of +intercession, and said,-- + +"'This lad has not yet even reaped the pleasures of youth; my +expectation, from your Majesty's inherent generosity, is, that, by +granting his life, you would confer an obligation on your servant.' + +"The king frowned at this request, and said,-- + +"'The light of the righteous does not influence one of vicious origin; +instruction to the worthless is a walnut on a dome, that rolls off. To +smother a fire and leave its sparks, to kill a viper and take care of +its young, are not actions of the wise. Though the clouds rain the +water of life, you cannot eat fruit from the boughs of a willow.' + +"When the vizier heard this, he applauded the king's understanding, and +assented that what he had pronounced was unanswerable. + +"'Yet, nevertheless,' he said, 'as the boy, if bred among the thieves, +would have taken their manners, so is your servant hopeful that he +might receive instruction in the society of upright men; for he is +still a boy, and it is written, that every child is born in the faith +of Islam, and his parents corrupt him. The son of Noah, associated with +the wicked, lost his power of prophecy; the dog of the Seven Sleepers, +following the good, became a man.' + +"Then others of the courtiers joined in the intercession, and the king +said,-- + +"'I have assented, but I do not think it well.' + +"They bred the youth in indulgence and affluence, and appointed an +accomplished tutor to educate him, and he became learned and gained +great applause in the sight of every one. The king smiled when the +vizier spoke of this, and said,-- + +"'Thou hast been nourished by our milk, and hast grown with us; who +afterwards gave thee intelligence that thy father was a wolf?' + +"A few years passed;--a company of the vagrants of the neighborhood +were near; they connected themselves with the boy; a league of +association was formed; and, at an opportunity, the boy destroyed the +vizier and his children, carried off vast booty, and fixed himself in +the place of his father in the cavern of the robbers. The king bit the +hand of astonishment with the teeth of reflection, and said,-- + +"'How can any one make a good sword from bad iron? The worthless, O +Philosopher, does not, by instruction, become worthy. Rain, though not +otherwise than benignant, produces tulips in gardens and rank weeds in +nitrous ground.'" + +Yet, notwithstanding Sadi and some other wise ones, here, as thieves, +are the faces of boys that cannot be naturally vicious,--boys of good +instincts, beyond all possible question,--and that only need a mother's +hand to smooth back the clustering hair from the forehead, to discover +the future residence of plentiful and upright reason. The face of a +boy, now in Sing Sing for burglary, and who bears a name which over the +continent of North America is identified with the ideas of large +combination and enterprise, is especially noticeable for the clear +eyes, and frank, promising look. + +That tale of Sadi will do well enough when Aesop tells it of a +serpent;--he, indeed, can change his skin and be a serpent still; but +when the old Sufi, or any one else, tells it of a boy, let us doubt. + +Think of the misery that may be associated with all this,--that this +represents! In this Gallery are the faces of many men; some are +handsome, most of them more or less human. It cannot be that they all +began wrongly,--that their lives were all poisoned at the +fountain-head. No,--here are some that came from what are called good +families; many others of them had homes, and you may still see some +lingering love of it in an air of settled sadness,--they were misled in +later life. Think of the mothers who have gone down, in bitter, bitter +sorrow, to the grave, with some of the lineaments we see around before +their mind's eye at the latest moment! Oh, the circumstances under +which some of these faces have been conjured up by the strong will of +love! Think of the sisters, living along with a hidden heart-ache, +nursing in secret the knowledge, that somewhere in the world were those +dear to them, from whom they were shut out by a bar-sinister terribly +real, and for whose welfare, with all the generous truth of a sister's +feeling, they would barter everything, yet who were in an unending +danger! Think of them, with this skeleton behind the door of their +hearts, fearful at every moment! Does it seem good in the scheme of +existence, or a blot there, that those who are themselves innocent, but +who are yet the real sufferers, whether punishment to the culprit fall +or fail, should be made thus poignantly miserable? We know nothing. + +It is said in a certain Arabic legend, that, while Moses was on Mount +Sinai, the Lord instructed him in the mysteries of his providence; and +Moses, having complained of the impunity of vice and its success in the +world, and the frequent sufferings of the innocent, the Lord led him to +a rock which jutted from the mountain, and where he could overlook the +vast plain of the Desert stretching at his feet. + +On one of its oases he beheld a young Arab asleep. He awoke, and, +leaving behind him a bag of pearls, sprang into the saddle and rapidly +disappeared from the horizon. Another Arab came to the oasis; he +discovered the pearls, took them, and vanished in the opposite +direction. + +Now an aged wanderer, leaning on his staff, bent his steps wearily +toward the shady spot; he laid himself down, and fell asleep. But +scarcely had he closed his eyes, when he was rudely aroused from his +slumber; the young Arab had returned, and demanded his pearls. The +hoary man replied, that he had not taken them. The other grew enraged, +and accused him of theft. He swore that he had not seen the treasure; +but the other seized him; a scuffle ensued; the young Arab drew his +sword, and plunged it into the breast of the aged man, who fell +lifeless on the earth. + +"O Lord! is this just?" exclaimed Moses, with terror. + +"Be silent! Behold, this man, whose blood is now mingling with the +waters of the Desert, many years ago, secretly, on the same spot, +murdered the father of the youth who has now slain him. His crime +remained concealed from men; but vengeance is mine: I will repay." + + + + +THE PURSUIT OF KNOWLEDGE UNDER DIFFICULTIES; AND WHAT CAME OF IT. + +[Concluded.] + + +The week of Mr. Clerron's absence passed away more quickly than Ivy had +supposed it would. The reason for this may be found in the fact that +her thoughts were very busily occupied. She was more silent than usual, +so much so that her father one day said to her,--"Ivy, I haven't heard +you sing this long while, and seems to me you don't talk either. What's +the matter?" + +"Do I look as if anything was the matter?" and the face she turned upon +him was so radiant, that even the father's heart was satisfied. + +Very quietly happy was Ivy to think she was of service to Mr. Clerron, +that she could give him pleasure,--though she could in no wise +understand how it was. She went over every event since her acquaintance +with him; she felt how much he had done for her, and how much he had +been to her; but she sought in vain to discover how she had been of any +use to him. She only knew that she was the most ignorant and +insignificant girl in the whole world, and that he was the best and +greatest man. As this was very nearly the same conclusion at which she +had arrived at an early period of their acquaintance, it cannot be said +that her week of reflection was productive of any very valuable +results. + +The day before Mr. Clerron's expected return Ivy sat down to prepare +her lessons, and for the first time remembered that she had left her +books in Mr. Clerron's library. She was not sorry to have so good an +excuse for visiting the familiar room, though its usual occupant was +not there to welcome her. Very quietly and joyfully happy, she trod +slowly along the path through the woods where she last walked with Mr. +Clerron. She was, indeed, at a loss to know why she was so calm. Always +before, a sudden influx of joy testified itself by very active +demonstrations. She was quite sure that she had never in her life been +so happy as now; yet she never had felt less disposed to leap and dance +and sing. The non-solution of the problem, however, did not ruffle her +serenity. She was content to accept the facts, and await patiently the +theory. + +Arriving at the house, she went, as usual, into the library without +ringing,--but, not finding the books, proceeded in search of Mrs. Simm. +That notable lady was sitting behind a huge pile of clean clothes, +sorting and mending to her heart's content. She looked up over her +spectacles at Ivy's bright "good morning," and invited her to come in. +Ivy declined, and begged to know if Mrs. Simm had seen her books. To be +sure she had, like the good housekeeper that she was. "You'll find them +in the book-case, second shelf; but, Miss Ivy, I wish you would come +in, for I've had something on my mind that I've felt to tell you this +long while." + +Ivy came in, took the seat opposite Mrs. Simm, and waited for her to +speak; but Mrs. Simm seemed to be in no hurry to speak. She dropped her +glasses; Ivy picked them up and handed them to her. She muttered +something about the destructive habits of men, especially in regard to +buttons; and presently, as if determined to come to the subject at +once, abruptly exclaimed,-- + +"Miss Ivy, you're a real good girl, I know, and as innocent as a lamb. +That's why I'm going to talk to you as I do. I know, if you were my +child, I should want somebody to do the same by you." + +Ivy could only stare in blank astonishment. After a moment's pause, +Mrs. Simm continued,-- + +"I've seen how things have been going on for some time; but my mouth +was shut, though my eyes were open. I didn't know but maybe I'd better +speak to your mother about it; but then, thinks I to myself, she'll +think it is a great deal worse than it is, and then, like enough, +there'll be a rumpus. So I concluded, on the whole, I'd just tell you +what I thought; and I know you are a sensible girl and will take it all +right. Now you must promise me not to get mad." + +"No," gasped Ivy. + +"I like you a sight. It's no flattery, but the truth, to say I think +you're as pretty-behaved a girl as you'll find in a thousand. And all +the time you've been here, I never have known you do a thing you hadn't +ought to. And Mr. Clerron thinks so too, and there's the trouble, You +see, dear, he's a man, and men go on their ways and like women, and +talk to them, and sort of bewitch them, not meaning to do them any +hurt,--and enjoy their company of an evening, and go about their own +business in the morning, and never think of it again; but women stay at +home, and brood over it, and think there's something in it, and build a +fine air-castle,--and when they find it's all smoke, they mope and pine +and take on. Now that's what I don't want you to do. Perhaps you'd +think I'd better have spoken with Mr. Clerron; but it wouldn't signify +the head of a pin. He'd either put on the Clerron look and scare you to +death and not say a word, or else he'd hold it up in such a ridiculous +way as to make you think it was ridiculous yourself. And I thought I'd +put you on your guard a little, so as you needn't fall in love with +him. You'll like him, of course. He likes you; but a young girl like +you might make a mistake, if she was ever so modest and sweet,--and +nobody could be modester or sweeter than you,--and think a man loved +you to marry you, when he only pets and plays with you. Not that Mr. +Clerron means to do anything wrong. He'd be perfectly miserable +himself, if he thought he'd led you on. There a'n't a more honorable +man every way in the whole country. Now, Miss Ivy, it's all for your +good I say this. I don't find fault with you, not a bit. It's only to +save you trouble in store that I warn you to look where you stand, and +see that you don't lose your heart before you know it. It's an awful +thing for a woman, Miss Ivy, to get a notion after a man who hasn't got +a notion after her. Men go out and work and delve and drive, and +forget; but there a'n't much in darning stockings and making +pillow-cases to take a woman's thought off her troubles, and sometimes +they get sp'iled for life." + +Ivy had remained speechless from amazement; but when Mrs. Simm had +finished, she said, with a sudden accession of womanly dignity that +surprised the good housekeeper,-- + +"Mrs. Simm, I cannot conceive why you should speak in this way to me. +If you suppose I am not quite able to take care of myself, I assure you +you are much mistaken." + +"Lorful heart! Now, Miss Ivy, you promised you wouldn't be mad." + +"And I have kept my promise. I am not mad." + +"No, but you answer up short like, and that isn't what I thought of +you, Ivy Geer." + +Mrs. Simm looked so disappointed that Ivy took a lower tone, and at any +rate she would have had to do it soon; for her fortitude gave way, and +she burst into a flood of tears. She was not, by any means, a heroine, +and could not put on the impenetrable mask of a woman of the world. + +"Now, dear, don't be so distressful, dear, don't!" said Mrs. Simm, +soothingly. "I can't bear to see you." + +"I am sure I never thought of such a thing as falling in love with Mr. +Clerron or anybody else," sobbed Ivy, "and I don't know what should +make you think so." + +"Dear heart, I don't think so. I only told you, so you needn't." + +"Why, I should as soon think of marrying the angel Gabriel!" + +"Oh, don't talk so, dear; he's no more than man, after all; but still, +you know, he's no fit match for you. To say nothing of his being older +and all that, I don't think it's the right place for you. Your father +and mother are very nice folks; I am sure nobody could ask for better +neighbors, and their good word is in everybody's mouth; and they've +brought you up well, I am sure; but, my dear, you know it's nothing +against you nor them that you a'n't used to splendor, and you wouldn't +take to it natural like. You'd get tired of that way of life, and want +to go back to the old fashions, and you'd most likely have to leave +your father and mother; for it's noways probable Mr. Clerron will stay +here always; and when he goes back to the city, think what a dreary +life you'd have betwixt his two proud sisters, on the one hand,--to be +sure, there's no reason why they should be; their gran'ther was a +tailor, and their grandma was his apprentice, and he got rich, and gave +all his children learning; and Mr. Felix's father, he was a lawyer, and +he got rich by speculation, and so the two girls always had on their +high-heeled boots; but Mr. Clerron, he always laughs at them, and +brings up "the grand-paternal shop," as he calls it, and provokes them +terribly, I know. Well, that's neither here nor there; but, as I was +saying, here you'll have them on the one side, and all the fine ladies +on the other, and a great house and servants, and parties to see to, +and, lorful heart! Miss Ivy, you'd die in three years; and if you know +when you're well off, you'll stay at home, and marry and settle down +near the old folks. Believe me, my dear, it's a bad thing both for the +man and the woman, when she marries above her." + +"Mrs. Simm," said Ivy, rising, "will you promise me one thing?" + +"Certainly, child, if I can." + +"Will you promise me never again to mention this thing to me, or allude +to it in the most distant manner?" + +"Miss Ivy, now,"--began Mrs. Simm, deprecatingly. + +"Because," interrupted Ivy, speaking very thick and fast, "you cannot +imagine how disagreeable it is to me. It makes me feel ashamed to think +of what you have said, and that you could have thought it even. I +suppose--indeed, I know--that you did it because you thought you ought; +but you may be certain that I am in no danger from Mr. Clerron, nor is +there the slightest probability that his fortune, or honor, or +reputation, or sisters will ever be disturbed by me. I am very much +obliged to you for your good intentions, and I wish you good morning." + +"Don't, now, Miss Ivy, go so"-- + +But Miss Ivy was gone, and Mrs. Simm could only withdraw to her pile of +clothes, and console herself by stitching and darning with renewed +vigor. She felt rather uneasy about the result of her morning's work, +though she had really done it from a conscientious sense of duty. + +"Welladay," she sighed, at last, "she'd better be a little cut up and +huffy now, than to walk into a ditch blindfolded; and I wash my hands +of whatever may happen after this. I've had my say and done my part." + +Alas, Ivy Geer! The Indian summer day was just as calm and +beautiful,--the far-off mountains wore their veil of mist just as +aërially,--the brook rippled over the stones with just as soft a +melody; but what "discord on the music" had fallen! what "darkness on +the glory"! A miserable, dull, dead weight was the heart which throbbed +so lightly but an hour before. Wearily, drearily, she dragged herself +home. It was nearly sunset when she arrived, and she told her mother +she was tired and had the headache, which was true,--though, if she had +said heartache, it would have been truer. Her mother immediately did +what ninety-nine mothers out of a hundred would do in similar +circumstances,--made her swallow a cup of strong tea, and sent her to +bed. Alas, alas, that there are sorrows which the strongest tea cannot +assuage! + +When the last echo of her mother's footstep died on the stairs, and Ivy +was alone in the darkness, the tide of bitterness and desolation swept +unchecked over her soul, and she wept tears more passionate and +desponding than her life had ever before known,--tears of shame and +indignation and grief. It was true that the thought which Mrs. Simm had +suggested had never crossed her mind before; yet it is no less true, +that, all-unconsciously, she had been weaving a golden web, whose +threads, though too fine and delicate even for herself to perceive, +were yet strong enough to entangle her life in their meshes. A secret +chamber, far removed from the noise and din of the world,--a chamber +whose soft and rose-tinted light threw its radiance over her whole +future, and within whose quiet recesses she loved to sit alone and +dream away the hours,--had been rudely entered, and thrown violently +open to the light of day, and Ivy saw with dismay how its pictures had +become ghastly and its sacredness was defiled. With bitter, though +needless and useless self-reproach, she saw how she had suffered +herself to be fascinated. Sorrowfully, she felt that Mrs. Simm's words +were true, and a great gulf lay between her and him. She pictured him +moving easily and gracefully and naturally among scenes which to her +inexperienced eye were grand and splendid; and then, with a sharp pain, +she felt how constrained and awkward and entirely unfit for such a life +was she. Then her thoughts reverted to her parents,--their unchanging +love, their happiness depending on her, their solicitude and +watchfulness,--and she felt as if ingratitude were added to her other +sins, that she could have so attached herself to any other. And again +came back the bitter, burning agony of shame that she had done the very +thing that Mrs. Simm too late had warned her not to do; she had been +carried away by the kindness and tenderness of her friend, and, +unasked, had laid the wealth of her heart at his feet. So the night +flushed into morning; and the sun rose upon a pale face and a trembling +form,--but not upon a faint heart; for Ivy, kneeling by the couch where +her morning and evening prayer had gone up since lisping +infancy,--kneeling no longer a child, but a woman, matured through +love, matured, alas! through suffering, prayed for strength and +comfort; prayed that her parents' love might be rendered back into +their own bosoms a hundred fold; prayed that her friend's kindness to +her might not be an occasion of sin against God, and that she might be +enabled to walk with a steady step in the path that lay before her. And +she arose strengthened and comforted. + +All the morning she lay quiet and silent on the lounge in the little +sitting-room. Her mother, busied with household matters, only looked in +upon her occasionally, and, as the eyes were always closed, did not +speak, thinking her asleep. Ivy was not asleep. Ten thousand little +sprites flitted swiftly through the chambers of her brain, humming, +singing, weeping, but always busy, busy. Then another tread softly +entered, and she knew her dear old father had drawn a chair close to +her, and was looking into her face. Tears came into her eyes, her lip +involuntarily quivered, and then she felt the pressure of +his----his!--surely that was not her father's kiss! She started up. No, +no! that was not her father's face bending over her,--not her father's +eyes smiling into hers; but, woe for Ivy! her soul thrilled with a +deeper bliss, her heart leaped with a swifter bound, and for a moment +all the experience and suffering and resolutions of the last night were +as if they had never been. Only for a moment, and then with a strong +effort she remembered the impassable gulf. + +"A pretty welcome home you have given me!" said Mr. Clerron, lightly. + +He saw that something was weighing on her spirits, but did not wish to +distress her by seeming to notice it. + +"I wait in my library, I walk in my garden, expecting every moment will +bring you,--and lo! here you are lying, doing nothing but look pale and +pretty as hard as you can." + +Ivy smiled, but did not consider it prudent to speak. + +"I found your books, however, and have brought them to you. You thought +you would escape a lesson finely, did you not? But you see I have +outwitted you." + +"Yes,--I went for the books yesterday," said Ivy, "but I got talking +with Mrs. Simm and forgot them." + +"Ah!" he replied, looking somewhat surprised. "I did not know Mrs. Simm +could be so entertaining. She must have exerted herself. Pray, now, if +it would not be impertinent, upon what subject did she hold forth with +eloquence so overpowering that everything else was driven from your +mind? The best way of preserving apples, I dare swear, or the +superiority of pickled grapes to pickled cucumbers." + +"No," said Ivy, with the ghost of an other smile,--"upon various +subjects; but not those. How do you do, Mr. Clerron? Have you had a +pleasant visit to the city?" + +"Very well, I thank you, Miss Geer; and I have not had a remarkably +pleasant visit, I am obliged to you. Have I the pleasure of seeing you +quite well, Miss Geer,--quite fresh and buoyant?" + +The lightness of tone which he had assumed had precisely the opposite +effect intended. + +"Ye banks and braes o' bonny Doon, + How can ye bloom sae fresh and fair? +How can ye chant, ye little birds, + And I sae weary fu' o' care?" + +is the of stricken humanity everywhere. And Ivy thought of Mr. Clerron, +rich, learned, elegant, happy, on the current of whose life she only +floated a pleasant ripple,--and of herself, poor, plain, awkward, +ignorant, to whom he was the life of life, the all in all. I would not +have you suppose this passed through her mind precisely as I have +written it. By no means. The ideas rather trooped through in a pellmell +sort of way; but they got through just as effectually. Now, if Ivy had +been content to let her muscles remain perfectly still, her face might +have given no sign of the confusion within; but, with a foolish +presumption, she undertook to smile, and so quite lost control of the +little rebels, who immediately twisted themselves into a sob. Her whole +frame convulsed with weeping and trying not to weep, he forced her +gently back on the pillow, and, bending low, whispered softly,-- + +"Ivy, what is it?" + +"Oh, don't ask me!--please, don't! Please, go away!" murmured the poor +child. + +"I will, my dear, in a minute; but you must think I should be a little +anxious. I leave you as gay as a bird, and healthy and rosy,--and when +I come back, I find you white and sad and ill. I am sure something +weighs on your mind. I assure you, my little Ivy, and you must believe, +that I am your true friend,--and if you would confide in me, perhaps I +could bring you comfort. It would at least relieve you to let me help +you bear the burden." + +The burden being of such a nature, it is not at all probable that Ivy +would have assented to his proposition; but the welcome entrance of her +mother prevented the necessity of replying. + +"Oh, you're awake! Well, I told Mr. Clerron he might come in, though I +thought you wouldn't be. Slept well this morning, didn't you, deary, to +make up for last night?" + +"No, mamma, I haven't been asleep." + +"Crying, my dear? Well, now, that's a pretty good one! Nervous she is, +Mr. Clerron, always nervous, when the least thing ails her; and she +didn't sleep a wink last night, which is a bad thing for the +nerves,--and Ivy generally sleeps like a top. She walked over to your +house yesterday, and when she got home she was entirely beat +out,--looked as if she had been sick a week. I don't know why it was, +for the walk couldn't have hurt her. She's always dancing round at +home. I don't think she's been exactly well for four or five days. Her +father and I both thought she'd been more quiet like than usual." + +The sudden pang that shot across Ivy's face was not unobserved by Mr. +Clerron. A thought came into his mind. He had risen at Mrs. Geer's +entrance, and he now expressed his regret for Ivy's illness, and hoped +that she would soon be well, and able to resume her studies; and, with +a few words of interest and inquiry to Mrs. Geer, took his leave. + +"I wonder if Mrs. Simm _has_ been putting her foot in it!" thought he, +as he stalked home rather more energetically than was his custom. + +That unfortunate lady was in her sitting-room, starching muslins, when +Mr. Clerron entered. She had surmised that he was gone to the farm, and +had looked for his return with a shadow of dread. She saw by his face +that something was wrong. + +"Mrs. Simm," he began, somewhat abruptly, but not disrespectfully, "may +I beg your pardon for inquiring what Ivy Geer talked to you about, +yesterday?" + +"Oh, good Lord! She ha'n't told you, has she?" cried Mrs. Simm,--her +fear of God, for once, yielding to her greater fear of man. The +embroidered collar, which she had been vigorously beating, dropped to +the floor, and she gazed at him with such terror and dismay in every +lineament, that he could not help being amused. He picked up the +collar, which, in her perturbation, she had not noticed, and said,-- + +"No, she has told me nothing; but I find her excited and ill, and I +have reason to believe it is connected with her visit here yesterday. +If it is anything relating to me, and which I have a right to know, you +would do me a great favor by enlightening me on the subject." + +Mrs. Simm had not a particle of that knowledge in which Young America +is so great a proficient, namely, the "knowing how to get out of a +scrape." She was, besides, alarmed at the effect of her words on Ivy, +supposing nothing less than that the girl was in the last stages of a +swift consumption; so she sat down, and, rubbing her starchy hands +together, with many a deprecatory "you know," and apologetic "I am sure +I thought I was acting for the best," gave, considering her agitation, +a tolerably accurate account of the whole interview. Her interlocutor +saw plainly that she had acted from a sincere conscientiousness, and +not from a meddlesome, mischievous interference; so he only thanked her +for her kind interest, and suggested that he had now arrived at an age +when it would, perhaps, be well for him to conduct matters, +particularly of so delicate a nature, solely according to his own +judgment, He was sorry to have given her any trouble. + + +"Scissors cuts only what comes between 'em," soliloquized Mrs. Simm, +when the door closed behind him. "If ever I meddle with a +courting-business again, my name a'n't Martha Simm. No, they may go to +Halifax, whoever they be, 'fore ever I'll lift a finger." + +It is a great pity that the world generally has not been brought to +make the same wise resolution. + +One, two, three, four days passed away, and still Ivy pondered the +question so often wrung from man in his bewildered gropings, "What +shall I do?" Every day brought her teacher and friend to comfort, +amuse, and strengthen. Every morning she resolved to be on her guard, +to remember the impassable gulf. Every evening she felt the silken +cords drawing tighter and tighter around her soul, and binding her +closer and closer to him. She thought she might die, and the thought +gave her a sudden joy. Death would solve the problem at once. If only a +few weeks or months lay before her, she could quietly rest on him, and +give herself up to him, and wait in heaven for all rough places to be +made plain. But Ivy did not die. Youth and nursing and herb-tea were +too strong for her, and the color came back to her cheek and the +languor went out from her blue eyes. She saw nothing to be done but to +resume her old routine. It would be difficult to say whether she was +more glad or sorry at seeming to see this necessity. She knew her +danger, and it was very fascinating. She did not look into the far-off +future; she only prayed to be kept from day to day. Perhaps her course +was wise; perhaps not. But she had to rely on her own judgment alone; +and her judgment was founded on inexperience, which is not a +trustworthy basis. + +A new difficulty arose. Ivy found that she could not resume her old +habits. To be sure, she learned her lessons just as perfectly at home +as she had ever done. Just as punctual to the appointed hour, she went +to recite them; but no sooner had her foot crossed Mr. Clerron's +threshold than her spirit seemed to die within her. She remembered +neither words nor ideas. Day after day, she attempted to go through her +recitation as usual, and, day after day, she hesitated, stammered, and +utterly failed. His gentle assistance only increased her embarrassment. +This she was too proud to endure; and, one day, after an unsuccessful +effort, she closed the book with a quick, impatient gesture, and +exclaimed,-- + +"Mr. Clerron, I will not recite any more!" + +The agitated flush which had suffused her face gave way to paleness. He +saw that she was under strong excitement, and quietly replied,-- + +"Very well, you need not, if you are tired. You are not quite well yet, +and must not try to do too much. We will commence here to-morrow." + +"No, Sir,--I shall not recite any more at all." + +"Till to-morrow." + +"Never any more!" + +There was a moment's pause. + +"You must not lose patience, my dear. In a few days you will recite as +well as ever. A fine notion, forsooth, because you have been ill, and +forgotten a little, to give up studying! And what is to become of my +laurels, pray,--all the glory I am to get by your proficiency?" + +"I shall study at home just the same, but I shall not recite." + +"Why not?" + +His look became serious. + +"Because I cannot. I do not think it best,--and--and I will not" + +Another pause. + +"Ivy, do you not like your teacher?" + +"No, Sir. _I hate you!_" + +The words seemed to flash from her lips. She sprang up and stood erect +before him, her eyes on fire, and every nerve quivering with intense +excitement He was shocked and startled. It was a new phase of her +character,--a new revelation. He, too, arose, and walked to the +window. If Ivy could have seen the workings of his face, there would +have been a revelation to her also. But she was too highly excited to +notice anything. He came back to her and spoke in a low voice,-- + +"Ivy, this is too much. This I did not expect." + +He laid his hand upon her head as he had often done before. She shook +it off passionately. + +"Yes, I hate you. I hate you, because"-- + +"Because I wanted you to love me?" + +"No, Sir; because I do love you, and you bring me only wretchedness. I +have never been happy since the miserable day I first saw you." + +"Then, Ivy, I have utterly failed in what it has been my constant +endeavor to do." + +"No, Sir, you have succeeded in what you endeavored to do. You have +taught me. You have given me knowledge and thought, and showed me the +source of knowledge. But I had better have been the ignorant girl you +found me. You have taken from me what I can never find again. I have +made a bitter exchange. I was ignorant and stupid, I know,--but I was +happy and contented; and now I am wretched and miserable and wicked. +You have come between me and my home and my father and mother;--between +me and all the bliss of my past and all my hope for the future." + +"And thus, Ivy, have you come between me and my past and my +future;--yet not thus. You shut out from my heart all the sorrow and +vexation and strife that have clouded my life, and fill it with your +own dear presence. You come between me and my future, because, in +looking forward, I see only you. I should have known better. There is +a gulf between us; but if I could make you happy"-- + +"I don't want you to make me happy. I know there is a gulf between us. +I saw it while you were gone. I measured it and fathomed it. I shall +not leap across. Stay you on your side quietly; I shall stay as quietly +on mine." + +"It is too late for that, Ivy,--too late now. But you are not to blame, +my child. Little sunbeam that you are, I will not cloud you. Go shine +upon other lives as you have shone upon mine! light up other hearths as +you have mine! and I will bless you forever, though mine be left +desolate." + +He turned away with an expression on his face that Ivy could not read. +Her passion was gone. She hesitated a moment, then went to his side and +laid her hand softly on his arm. There was a strange moistened gleam in +his eyes as he turned them upon her. + +"Mr. Clerron, I do not understand you." + +"My dear, you never can understand me." + +"I know it," said Ivy, with her old humility; "but, at least, I might +understand whether I have vexed you." + +"You have not vexed me." + +"I spoke proudly and rudely to you. I was angry, and so unhappy. I +shall always be so; I shall never be happy again; but I want you to be, +and you do not look as if you were." + +If Ivy had not been a little fool, she would not have spoken so; but +she was, so she did. + +"I beg your pardon, little tendril. I was so occupied with my own +preconceived ideas that I forgot to sympathize with you. Tell me why or +how I have made you unhappy. But I know; you need not. I assure you, +however, that you are entirely wrong. It was a prudish and whimsical +notion of my good old housekeeper's. You are never to think of it +again. _I_ never attributed such a thought or feeling to you." + +"Did you suppose that was all that made me unhappy?" + +"Can there be anything else?" + +"I am glad you think so. Perhaps I should not have been unhappy but for +that, at least not so soon; but that alone could never have made me +so." + +Little fool again! She was like a chicken thrusting its head into a +corner and thinking itself out of danger because it cannot see the +danger. She had no notion that she was giving him the least clue to the +truth, but considered herself speaking with more than Delphic prudence. +She rather liked to coast along the shores of her trouble and see how +near she could approach without running aground; but she struck before +she knew it. + +Mr. Clerron's face suddenly changed. He sat down, took both her hands, +and drew her towards him. + +"Ivy, perhaps I have been misunderstanding you. I will at least find +out the truth. Ivy, do you know that I love you, that I have loved you +almost from the first, that I would gladly here and now take you to my +heart and keep you here forever?" + +"I do not know it," faltered Ivy, half beside herself. + +"Know it now, then! I am older than you, and I seem to myself so far +removed from you that I have feared to ask you to trust your happiness +to my keeping, lest I should lose you entirely; but sometimes you say +or do something which gives me hope. My experience has been very +different from yours. I am not worthy to clasp your purity and +loveliness. Still I would do it, if--Tell me, Ivy, does it give you +pain or pleasure?" + +Ivy extricated her hands from his, deliberately drew a footstool, and +knelt on it before him,--then took his hands, as he had before held +hers, gazed steadily into his eyes, and said,-- + +"Mr. Clerron, are you in earnest? Do you love me?" + +"I am, Ivy. I do love you." + +"How do you love me?" + +"I love you with all the strength and power that God has given me." + +"You do not simply pity me? You have not, because you heard from Mrs. +Simm, or suspected, yourself, that I was weak enough to mistake your +kindness and nobleness,--you have not in pity resolved to sacrifice +your happiness to mine?" + +"No, Ivy,--nothing of the kind. I pity only myself. I reverence you, I +think. I have hoped that you loved me as a teacher and friend. I dared +not believe you could ever do more; now something within tells me that +you can. Can you, Ivy? If the love and tenderness and devotion of my +whole life can make you happy, happiness shall not fail to be yours." + +Ivy's gaze never for a moment drooped under his, earnest and piercing +though it was. + +"Now I am happy," she said, slowly and distinctly. "Now I am blessed. I +can never ask anything more." + +"But I ask something more," he replied, bending forward eagerly. "I ask +much more. I want your love. Shall I have it? And I want you." + +"My love?" She blushed slightly, but spoke without hesitation. "Have I +not given it,--long, long before you asked it, before you even cared +for my friendship? Not love only, but life, my very whole being, +centred in you, does now, and will always. Is it right to say +this?--maidenly? But I am not ashamed. I shall always be proud to have +loved you, though only to lose you,--and to be loved by you is glory +enough for all my future." + +For a short time the relative position of these two people was changed. +I allude to the change in this distant manner, as all who have ever +been lovers will be able to judge what it was; and I do not wish to +forestall the sweet surprise of those who have not. + +Ivy rested there (query, where?) a moment; but as he whispered, "Thus +you answer the second question? You give me yourself too?" she hastily +freed herself. (Query, from what?) + +"Never!" + +"Ivy!" + +"Never!" more firmly than before. + +"What does this mean?" he said, sternly. "Are you trifling?" + +There was such a frown on his brow as Ivy had never seen. She quailed +before it. + +"Do not be angry! Alas! I am not trifling. Life itself is not worth so +much as your love. But the impassable gulf is between us just the +same." + +"What is it? Who put it there?" + +"God put it there. Mrs. Simm showed it to me." + +"Mrs. Simm be--! A prating gossip! Ivy, I told you, you were never to +mention that again,--never to think of it; and you must obey me." + +"I will try to obey you in that." + +"And very soon you shall promise to obey me in all things. But I will +not be hard with you. The yoke shall rest very lightly,--so lightly you +shall not feel it. You will not do as much, I dare say. You will make +me acknowledge your power every day, dear little vixen! Ivy, why do you +draw back? Why do you not come to me?" + +"I cannot come to you, Mr. Clerron, any more. I must go home now, and +stay at home." + +"When your home is here, Ivy, stay at home. For the present, don't go. +Wait a little." + +"You do not understand me. You will not understand me," said Ivy, +bursting into tears. "I _must_ leave you. Don't make the way so +difficult." + +"I will make it so difficult that you cannot walk in it." + +His tones were low, but determined. + +"Why do you wish to leave me? Have you not said that you loved me?" + +"It is because I love you that I go. I am not fit for you. I was not +made for you. I can never make you happy. I am not accomplished. I +cannot go among your friends, your sisters. I am awkward. You would be +ashamed of me, and then you would not love me; you could not; and I +should lose the thing I most value. No, Mr. Clerron,--I would rather +keep your love in my own heart and my own home." + +"Ivy, can you be happy without me?" + +"I shall not be without you. My heart is full of lifelong joyful +memories. You need not regret me. Yes, I shall be happy. I shall work +with mind and hands. I shall not pine away in a mean and feeble life. I +shall be strong, and cheerful, and active, and helpful; and I think I +shall not cease to love you in heaven." + +"But there is, maybe, a long road for us to travel before we reach +heaven, and I want you to help me along. Ivy, I am not so spiritual as +you. I cannot live on memory. I want you before me all the time. I want +to see you and talk with you every day. Why do you speak of such +things? Is it the soul or its surroundings that you value? Do _you_ +respect or care for wealth and station? Do _you_ consider a woman your +superior because she wears a finer dress than you?" + +"I? No, Sir! No, indeed! you very well know. But the world does, and +you move in the world; and I do not want the world to pity you because +you have an uncouth, ignorant wife. _I_ don't want to be despised by +those who are above me only in station." + +"Little aristocrat, you are prouder than I. Will you sacrifice your +happiness and mine to your pride?" + +"Proud perhaps I am, but it is not all pride. I think you are noble, +but I think also you could not help losing patience when you found that +I could not accommodate myself to the station to which you had raised +me. Then you would not respect me. I am, indeed, too proud to wish to +lose that; and losing your respect, as I said before, I should not long +keep your love." + +"But you will accommodate yourself to any station. My dear, you are +young, and know so little about this world, which is such a bugbear to +you. Why, there is very little that will be greatly unlike this. At +first you might be a little bewildered, but I shall be by you all the +time, and you shall feel and fear nothing, and gradually you will learn +what little you need to know; and most of all, you will know yourself +the best and the loveliest of women. Dear Ivy, I would not part with +your sweet, unconscious simplicity for all the accomplishments and +acquired elegancies of the finest lady in the world." (That's what men +always say.) "You are not ignorant of anything you ought to know, and +your ignorance of the world is an additional charm to one who knows so +much of its wickedness as I. But we will not talk of it. There is no +need. This shall be our home, and here the world will not trouble us." + +"And I cannot give up my dear father and mother. They are not like you +and your friends"-- + +"They are my friends, and valued and dear to me, and dearer still they +shall be as the parents of my dear little wife"-- + +"I was going to say"-- + +"But you shall not say it. I utterly forbid you ever to mention it +again. You are mine, all my own. Your friends are my friends, your +honor my honor, your happiness my happiness henceforth; and what God +joins together let not man or woman put asunder." + +"Ah!" whispered Ivy, faintly; for she was yielding, and just beginning +to receive the sense of great and unexpected bliss, "but if you should +be wrong,--if you should ever repent of this, it is not your happiness +alone, but mine, too, that will be destroyed." + +Again their relative positions changed, and _remained so_ for a long +while. + +"Ivy, am I a mere schoolboy to swear eternal fidelity for a week? Have +I not been tossing hither and thither on the world's tide ever since +you lay in your cradle, and do I not know my position and my power and +my habits and love? And knowing all this, do I not know that this dear +head"----etc., etc., etc., etc. + +But I said I was not going to marry my man and woman, did I not? Nor +have I. To be sure, you may have detected premonitory symptoms, but I +said nothing about that. I only promised not to marry them, and I have +not married them. + +It is to be hoped they were married, however. For, on a fine June +evening, the setting sun cast a mellow light through the silken +curtains of a pleasant chamber, where Ivy lay on a white couch, pale +and and still,--very pale and still and statuelike; and by her side, +bending over her, with looks of unutterable love, clasping her in his +arms, as if to give out of his own heart the life that had so nearly +ebbed from hers, pressing upon the closed eyes, the white cheeks, the +silent lips kisses of such warmth and tenderness as never thrilled +maidenly lips in their rosiest flush of beauty,--knelt Felix Clerron; +and when the tremulous life fluttered back again, when the blue eyes +slowly opened and smiled up into his with an answering love, his +happiness was complete. + +In a huge arm-chair, bolt upright, where they had placed him, sat +Farmer Geer, holding in his sadly awkward hands the unconscious cause +of all this agitation, namely, a poor, little, horrid, gasping, crying, +writhing, old-faced, distressed-looking, red, wrinkled, ridiculous +baby! between whose "screeches" Farmer Geer could be heard muttering, +in a dazed, bewildered way,--"Ivy's baby! Oh, Lud! who'd 'a' thunk it? +No more'n yesterday she was a baby herself. Lud! Lud!" + + + + +THE PORTRAIT. + + +In a lumbering attic room, + Where, for want of light and air, +Years had died within the gloom, + Leaving dead dust everywhere, + Everywhere, +Hung the portrait of a lady, + With a face so fair! + +Time had long since dulled the paint, + Time, which all our arts disguise, +And the features now were faint, + All except the wondrous eyes, + Wondrous eyes, +Ever looking, looking, looking, + With such sad surprise! + +As man loveth, man had loved + Her whose features faded there; +As man mourneth, man had mourned, + Weeping, in his dark despair, + Bitter tears, +When she left him broken-hearted + To his death of years. + +Then for months the picture bent + All its eyes upon his face, +Following his where'er they went,-- + Till another filled the place + In its stead,-- +Till the features of the living + Did outface the dead. + +Then for years it hung above + In that attic dim and ghast, +Fading with the fading love, + Sad reminder of the past,-- + Save the eyes, +Ever looking, ever looking, + With such sad surprise! + +Oft the distant laughter's sound + Entered through the cobwebbed door, +And the cry of children found + Dusty echoes from the floor + To those eyes, +Ever looking, ever looking, + With their sad surprise. + +Once there moved upon the stair + Olden love-steps mounting slow, +But the face that met him there + Drove him to the depths below; + For those eyes +Through his soul seemed looking, looking, + All their sad surprise. + +From that day the door was nailed + Of that memory-haunted room, +And the portrait hung and paled + In the dead dust and the gloom,-- + Save the eyes, +Ever looking, ever looking, + With such sad surprise! + + + + +A LEAF + +FROM THE AMERICAN MAGAZINE-LITERATURE OF THE LAST CENTURY. + + +One hundred and sixteen years ago, to wit, on the 20th day of October, +A.D. 1743, the quiet precincts of certain streets in the town of Boston +were the theatre of unusual proceedings. An unwonted activity pervaded +the well-known printing-office of the "Messrs. Rogers and Fowle, in +Prison Lane," now Court Street; a small printed sheet was being worked +off,--not with the frantic rush and roar of one of Hoe's six-cylinder +giants, but with the calm circumspection befitting the lever-press and +ink-balls of that day,--to be conveyed, so soon as it should have +assumed a presentable shape, to the counters of "Samuel Eliot, in +Cornhill" and "Joshua Blanchard, in Dock Square," (and, we will hope, +to the addresses indicated on a long subscription-list,) for the +entertainment and instruction of ladies in high-heeled shoes and hoops, +forerunners of greater things thereafter, and gentlemen in big wigs, +cocked hats, and small-clothes, no more to be encountered in our daily +walks, and known to their degenerate descendants only by the aid of the +art of limner or sculptor. + +For some fifteen years, both in England and America, there had been +indications of an approaching modification in the existing forms of +periodical literature, enlarging its scope to something better and +higher than the brief and barren résumé of current events to which the +Gazette or News-Letter of the day was in the main confined, and +affording an opportunity for the free discussion of literary and +artistic questions. Thus was gradually developed a class of +publications which professed, while giving a proper share of attention +to the important department of news, to occupy the field of literature +rather than of journalism, and to serve as a _Museum, Depository_, or +_Magazine_, of the polite arts and sciences. The very marked success of +the "Gentleman's Magazine," the pioneer English publication of this +class, which appeared in 1731 under the management of Cave, and reached +the then almost[1] unparalleled sale often thousand copies, produced a +host of imitators and rivals, of which the "London Magazine," commenced +in April, 1732, was perhaps the most considerable. In January, 1741, +Benjamin Franklin began the publication of "The General Magazine and +Historical Chronicle for all the British Plantations in America," but +only six numbers were issued. In the same year, Andrew Bradford +published "The American Magazine, or Monthly View of the Political +State of the British Colonies," which was soon discontinued. Both these +unsuccessful ventures were made at Philadelphia. There were similar +attempts in Boston a little later. "The Boston Weekly Magazine" made +its appearance March 2,1743, and lived just four weeks. "The Christian +History," edited by Thomas Prince, Jr., son of the author of the "New +England Chronology," appeared three days after, (March 5, 1743,) and +reached the respectable age of two years. It professed to exhibit, +among other things, "Remarkable Passages, Historical and Doctrinal, out +of the most Famous old Writers both of the Church of England and +Scotland from the Reformation; as also the first Settlers of New +England and their Children; that we may see how far their pious +Principles and Spirit are at this day revived, and may guard against +all Extremes." + +[Footnote 1: It is said that as many as twenty thousand copies of +particular numbers of the "Spectator" were sold.] + +It would appear, however, that none of the four magazines last named +were so general in their scope, or so well conducted, certainly they +were not so long-lived, as "The American Magazine and Historical +Chronicle," the first number of which, bearing date "September, 1743," +appeared, as we have said, on the 20th of the following October, under +the editorial charge, as is generally supposed, of Jeremy Gridley, +Esq., Attorney-General of the Province of Massachusetts Bay, and the +head of the Masonic Fraternity in America, though less known to us, +perhaps, in either capacity, than he is as the legal instructor of the +patriot Otis, a pupil whom it became his subsequent duty as the officer +of the crown to encounter in that brilliant and memorable argument +against the "Writs of Assistance," which the pen of the historian, and, +more recently, the chisel of the sculptor, have contributed to render +immortal. This publication, if we regard it, as we doubtless may, as +the original and prototype of the "American Magazine," would seem to +have been rightly named. It was printed on what old Dr. Isaiah Thomas +calls "a fine medium paper in 8vo," and he further assures us that "in +its execution it was deemed equal to any work of the kind then +published in London." In external appearance, it was a close copy of +the "London Magazine," from whose pages (probably to complete the +resemblance) it made constant and copious extracts, not always +rendering honor to whom honor was due, and in point of mechanical +excellence, as well as of literary merit, certainly eclipsed the +contemporary newspaper-press of the town, the "Boston Evening Post," +"Boston News Letter" and the "New England Courant." The first number +contained forty-four pages, measuring about six inches by eight. The +scope and object of the Magazine, as defined in the Preface, do not +vary essentially from the line adopted by its predecessors and +contemporaries, and seem, in the main, identical with what we have +recounted above as characteristic of this new movement in letters. The +novelty and extent of the field, and the consequent fewness and +inexperience of the laborers, are curiously shown by the miscellaneous, +_omnium-gatherum_ character of the publication, which served at once as +a Magazine, Review, Journal, Almanac, and General Repository and +Bulletin;--the table of contents of the first number exhibits a list of +subjects which would now be distributed among these various classes of +periodical literature, and perhaps again parcelled out according to the +subdivisions of each. Avowedly neutral in politics and religion, as +became an enterprise which relied upon the patronage of persons of all +creeds and parties, it recorded (usually without comment) the current +incidents of political and religious interest. A summary of news +appeared at the end of each number, under the head of "Historical +Chronicle"; but in the body of the Magazine are inserted, side by side +with what would now be termed "local items," contemporary narratives of +events, many of which have, in the lapse of more than a century, +developed into historical proportions, but which here meet us, as it +were, at first hand, clothed in such homely and impromptu dress as +circumstances might require, with all their little roughnesses, +excrescences, and absurdities upon them,--crude lumps of mingled fact +and fiction, not yet moulded and polished into the rounded periods of +the historian. + +The Magazine was established at the period of a general commotion among +the dry bones of New England Orthodoxy, caused by what is popularly +known as "the New-Light Movement," to do battle with which heresy arose +"The Christian History," above alluded to. The public mind was widely +and deeply interested, and the first number of our Magazine opens with +"A Dissertation on the State of Religion in North America," which is +followed by a fiery manifesto of the "Anniversary Week" of 1743, +entitled "The Testimony of the Pastors of the Churches in the Province +of the Massachusetts Bay in New-England at their Annual Convention in +Boston, May 25, 1743, Against several Errors in Doctrine and Disorders +in Practice, which have of late obtained in various Parts of the Land; +as drawn up by a Committee chosen by the said Pastors, read and +accepted Paragraph by Paragraph, and voted to be sign'd by the +Moderator in their Name, and Printed." These "Disorders" and "Errors" +are specified under six heads, being generalized at the outset as +"Antinomian and Familistical Errors." The number of strayed sheep must +have been considerable, since we find a Rejoinder put forth on the +seventh of the following July, which bears the signatures of +"Sixty-eight Pastors of Churches," (including fifteen who signed with a +reservation as to one Article,) styled "The Testimony and Advice of an +Assembly of Pastors of Churches in New England, at a Meeting in Boston, +July 7, 1743. Occasion'd by the late happy Revival of Religion in many +Parts of the Land." Some dozen new books, noticed in this number, are +likewise all upon theological subjects. The youthful University of Yale +took part in the conflict, testifying its zeal for the established +religion by punishing with expulsion (if we are to believe a writer in +"The New York Post-Boy" of March 17, 1745) two students, "for going +during Vacation, and while at Home with their Parents, to hear a +neighboring Minister preach who is distinguished in this Colony by the +Name of New Light, being by their said Parents perswaded, desired, or +ordered to go." The statement, however, is contradicted in a subsequent +number by the President of the College, the Rev. Thomas Clapp, D.D., +who states "that they were expelled for being Followers of the Paines, +two Lay Exhorters, whose corrupt Principles and pernicious Practices +are set forth in the Declaration of the Ministers of the County of +Windham." In all probability the outcasts had "corrupt Principles and +pernicious Practices" charged to their private account in the Faculty +books, to which, quite as much as to any departure from Orthodox +standards, they may have been indebted for leave to take up their +connections. + +The powerful Indian Confederacy, known as the Six Nations, had just +concluded at Philadelphia their famous treaty with the whites, and in +the numbers for October and November, 1743, we are furnished with some +curious notes of the proceedings at the eight or nine different +councils held on the occasion, which may or may not be historically +accurate. That the news was not hastily gathered or digested may be +safely inferred from the fact that the proceedings of the councils, +which met in July, 1742, are here given to the public at intervals of +fifteen and sixteen months afterwards. The assemblies were convened +first "at Mr. Logan's House," next "at the Meeting House," and finally +"at the Great Meeting House," where the seventh meeting took place July +10, in the presence of "a great Number of the Inhabitants of +Philadelphia." As usual, the Indians complain of their treatment at the +hands of the traders and their agents, and beg for more fire-water. "We +have been stinted in the Article of Rum in Town," they pathetically +observe,--"we desire you will open the Rum Bottle, and give it to us +in greater Abundance on the Road"; and again, "We hope, as you have +given us Plenty of good Provision whilst In Town, that you will +continue your Goodness so far as to supply us with a little more to +serve us on the Road." The first, at least, of these requests seems to +have been complied with; the Council voted them twenty gallons of +rum,--in addition to the twenty-five gallons previously bestowed,-- +"to comfort them on the Road"; and the red men departed in an amicable +mood, though, from the valedictory address made them by the Governor, +we might perhaps infer that they had found reason to contrast the +hospitality of civilization with that shown in the savage state, to the +disadvantage of the former. "We wish," he says, "there had been more +Room and better Houses provided for your Entertainment, but not +expecting so many of you we did the best we could. 'Tis true there are +a great many Houses in Town, but as they are the Property of other +People who have their own Families to take care of, it is difficult to +procure Lodgings for a large Number of People, especially if they come +unexpectedly." + +But the great item of domestic intelligence, which confronts us under +various forms in the pages of this Magazine, is the siege and capture +of Louisburg, and the reduction of Cape Breton to the obedience of the +British crown,--an acquisition for which his Majesty was so largely +indebted to the military skill of Sir William Pepperell, and the +courage of the New England troops, that we should naturally expect to +find the exploit narrated at length in a contemporary Boston magazine. +The first of the long series is an extract from the "Boston Evening +Post" of May 13, 1745, entitled, "A short Account of Cape Breton"; +which is followed by "A further Account of the Island of Cape Breton, +of the Advantages derived to France from the Possession of that +Country, and of the Fishery upon its Coasts; and the Benefit that must +necessarily result to Great Britain from the Recovery of that important +Place,"--from the "London Courant" of July 25. In contrast to this cool +and calculating production, we have next the achievement, as seen from +a military point of view, in a "Letter from an Officer of Note in the +Train," dated Louisburg, June 20, 1745, who breaks forth thus:--"Glory +to God, and Joy and Happiness to my Country in the Reduction of this +Place, which we are now possessed of. It's a City vastly beyond all +Expectation for Strength and beautiful Fortifications; but we have made +terrible Havock with our Guns and Bombs. ... Such a fine City will be +an everlasting Honour to my Countrymen." Farther on, we have another +example of military eloquence in a "Letter from a Superior Officer at +Louisburgh, to his Friend and Brother at Boston," dated October 22, +1745. To this succeeds "A particular Account of the Siege and Surrender +of Louisburgh, on the 17th of June, 1745." The resources of the +pictorial art are called in to assist the popular conception of the +great event, and we are treated on page 271 to a rude wood-cut, +representing the "Town and Harbour of Louisburgh," accompanied by +"Certain Particulars of the Blockade and Distress of the Enemy." Still +farther on appears "The Declaration of His Excellency, William Shirley, +Esq., Captain General and Governour in Chief of the Province of the +Massachusetts Bay, to the Garrison at Louisburgh." July 18, 1745, was +observed as "a Day of publick Thanksgiving, agreeably to His +Excellency's Proclamation of the 8th inst., on Account of the wonderful +Series of Successes attending our Forces in the Reduction of the City +and Fortress of Louisburgh with the Dependencies thereof at Cape Breton +to the Obedience of His Majesty." There are also accounts of rejoicings +at Newport, New Haven, New York, Philadelphia, and other places. Nor +was the Muse silent on such an auspicious occasion: four adventurous +flights in successive numbers of the Magazine attest the loyalty, if +not the poetic genius of Colonial bards; and a sort of running fire of +description, narrative, and anecdote concerning the important event is +kept up in the numbers for many succeeding months. + +But, whatever may have been the magnitude and interest of domestic +affairs, the enterprising vigilance of our journalists was far from +overlooking prominent occurrences on the other side of the water, and +the news by all the recent arrivals, dating from three to six months +later from Europe, was carefully, if at times somewhat briefly, +recapitulated. In this manner our ancestors heard of the brilliant +campaigns of Prince George, the Duke of Cumberland, and Marshal de +Noailles, during the War of the Austrian Succession,--of the battle of +Dettingen in June, 1743,--of the declaration of war between the kings +of France and England in March, 1744; and, above all, of the great +Scotch Rebellion of 1745. Here was stirring news, indeed, for the +citizens of Boston, and for all British subjects, wherever they might +be. The suspense in which loyal New England was plunged, as to whether +"great George our King and the Protestant succession" were to succumb +before the Pretender and his Jesuitical followers, was happily +terminated by intelligence of the decisive battle of Culloden, the +tidings of which victory, gained on the 16th of April, 1746, appear in +the number for July. Public joy and curiosity demanded full particulars +of the glorious news, and a copy of the official narrative of the +battle, dated "Inverness, April 18th," is served out to the hungry +quidnuncs of Boston, in the columns of our Magazine, as had been done +three months before to consumers equally rapacious in the London +coffeehouses. With commendable humanity, the loss of the insurgent army +is put at "two thousand,"--although "the Rebels by their own Accounts +make the Loss greater by 2000 than we have stated it." In the fatal +list appears the name of "Cameron of Lochiel," destined, through the +favor of the Muse, to an immortality which is denied to equally +intrepid and unfortunate compatriots. The terms of the surrender upon +parole of certain French and Scotch officers at Inverness,--the return +of the ordnance and stores captured,--names of the killed and wounded +officers of the rebel army,--various congratulatory addresses,--an +extract from a letter from Edinburgh, concerning the battle,--an +account of the subsequent movement of the forces,--various anecdotes of +the Duke of Cumberland, during the engagement,--etc., are given with +much parade and circumstance. The loyalty of the citizens is evidenced +by the following "local item," under date of "Boston, Thursday, +3d":--"Upon the Confirmation of the joyful News of the Defeat of the +Rebels in Scotland, and of the Life and Health of His Royal Highness +the Duke of Cumberland, on Wednesday, the 2d inst., at Noon, the Guns +at Castle William and the Batteries of the Town were fired, as were +those on Board the Massachusetts Frigate, etc., and in the Evening we +had Illuminations and other Tokens of Joy and Satisfaction." There are +also curious biographical sketches and anecdotes of the Earl of +Kilmarnock, Lord Balmerino, and others, among those engaged in this +ill-judged attempt, who expiated their treason on the scaffold, from +which interesting extracts might be made. The following seems a very +original device for the recovery of freedom,--one, we think, which, to +most readers of the present day even, will truly appear a "new" and +"extraordinary Invention":-- + +"Carlisle, Sept. 27, 1746. + +"The Method taken by the Rebels here under Sentence of Death to make +their Escape is quite new, and reckoned a most extraordinary Invention, +as by no other Instrument than a Case-Knife, a Drinking-Glass and a +Silk Handkerchief, seven of them in one Night had sawn off their Irons, +thus:--They laid the Silk Handkerchief single, over the Mouth of the +Glass, but stretched it as much as it would bear, and tied it hard at +the Bottom of the Glass; then they struck the Edge of the Knife on the +Mouth of the Glass, (thus covered with the Handkerchief to prevent +Noise,) till it became a Saw, with which they cut their Irons till it +was Blunt, and then had Recourse to the Mouth of the Glass again to +renew the Teeth of the Saw; and so completed their Design by Degrees. +This being done in the Dead of Night, and many of them at Work +together, the little Noise they made was overheard by the Centinels; +who informed their Officers of it, they quietly doubled their Guard, +and gave the Rebels no Disturbance till Morning, when it was discovered +that several of them were loose, and that others had been trying the +same Trick. 'Tis remarkable that a Knife will not cut a Handkerchief +when struck upon it in this Manner." + +About one-eighth part of the first volume of the Magazine is occupied +with reports of Parliamentary debates, entitled, "Journal of the +Proceedings and Debates of a Political Club of young Noblemen and +Gentlemen established some time ago in London." They seem to be copied, +with little, if any alteration, from the columns of the "London +Magazine," and are introduced to an American public with this mildly +ironical preface:--"We shall give our Readers in our next a List of the +British Parliament. And as it is now render'd unsafe to entertain the +Publick with any Accounts of their Proceedings or Debates, we shall +give them in their Stead, in some of our subsequent Magazines, Extracts +from the Journals of a Learned and Political Club of young Noblemen and +Gentlemen established some time ago in London. Which will in every +Respect answer the same Intentions." + +The scientific world was all astir just then with new-found marvels of +Electricity,--an interest which was of course much augmented in this +country by the ingenious experiments and speculations of the +printer-philosopher. In the volume for the year 1745 is "An Historical +Account of the wonderful Discoveries made in Germany, etc., concerning +Electricity," in the course of which the writer says, (speaking of the +experiments of a Mr. Gray,) "He also discovered another surprising +Property of electric Virtue, which is that the approach of a Tube of +electrified Glass communicates to a hempen or silken Cord an electric +Force which is conveyed along the Cord to the Length of 886 feet, at +which amazing Distance it will impregnate a Ball of Ivory with the same +Virtue as the Tube from which it was derived." So true is it, that +things are great and small solely by comparison: the lapse of something +over a century has gradually stretched this "amazing distance" to many +hundreds of miles, and now the circumference of the globe is the only +limit which we feel willing to set to its extension. + +At page 691 of the previous volume we have an "Extract from a Pamphlet +lately published at Philadelphia intitled 'An Account of the New +Invented Pennsylvanian Fire Places.'" This was probably from the pen of +Franklin, who expatiates as follows on the advantages derivable from +these fireplaces, which are still occasionally to be met with, and +known as "Franklin Stoves":--"By the Help of this saving Invention our +Wood may grow as fast as we consume it, and our Posterity may warm +themselves at a moderate Rate, without being oblig'd to fetch their +Fuel over the Atlantick; as, if Pit-Coal should not be here discovered, +(which is an Uncertainty,) they must necessarily do." + +That a taste for the beauties of Nature was extant at the epoch of +which we treat may be inferred from the statement of a writer who +commences "An Essay in Praise of the Morning" as follows:--"I have the +good Fortune to be so pleasantly lodg'd as to have a Prospect of a +neighboring Grove, where the Eye receives the most delicious +Refreshment from the lively Verdure of the Greens, and the wild +Regularity by which the Scene shifts off and disparts itself into a +beautiful Chequer." + +The ever interesting and disputed topics of dress and diet come in for +an occasional discussion. The following is a characteristic specimen of +the satirical vein of the British essayist school, though we have been +unable to ascertain, by reference to the "Spectator," "Tatler," +"Rambler," "Guardian," etc., the immediate source whence it was taken. +It reads as follows:--"_History of Female Dress_. The sprightly Gauls +set their little Wits to work again," (on resuming the war under Queen +Anne,) "and invented a wonderful Machine call'd a Hoop Petticoat. In +this fine Scheme they had more Views than one; they had compar'd their +own Climate and Constitution with that of the British, and finding both +warmer, they naturally enough concluded that would only be pleasantly +cool to them, which would perhaps give the British Ladies the +Rheumatism, and that if they once got them off their Legs they should +have them at Advantage; Besides, they had been inform'd, though +falsely, that the British Ladies had not good Legs, and then at all +Events this Scheme would expose them. With these pernicious Views they +set themselves to work, and form'd a Rotund of near 7 Yards about, and +sent the Pattern over by the Sussex Smugglers with an Intent that it +should be seiz'd and expos'd to Publick View; which happen'd +accordingly, and made its first Appearance at a Great Man's House on +that Coast, whose Lady claim'd it as her peculiar Property. In it she +first struck at Court what the learned in Dress call a bold Stroke; and +was thereupon constituted General of the British Ladies during the War. +Upon the Whole this Invention did not answer. The Ladies suffer'd a +little the first Winter, but after that were so thoroughly harden'd +that they improv'd upon the Contrivers by adding near 2 Yards to its +Extension, and the Duke of Marlboro' having about the same Time beat +the French, the Gallic Ladies dropt their Pretensions, and left the +British Misstresses of the Field; the Tokens whereof are worn in +Triumph to this Day, having outlasted the Colors in Westminster Hall, +and almost that great General's Glory." + +To a similar source must probably be referred an article in the same +volume, entitled, "Of Diet in General, and of the bad Effects of +Tea-Drinking." The genuine conservative flavor of the extract is +deliciously apparent, while its wholesale denunciations are drawn but +little, if at all, stronger than those which may even yet be +occasionally met with. "If we compare the Nature of Tea with the Nature +of English Diet, no one can think it a proper Vegetable for us. It has +no Parts fit to be assimilated to our Bodies; its essential Salt does +not hold Moisture enough to be joined to the Body of an Animal; its Oyl +is but very little, and that of the opiate kind, and therefore it is so +far from being nutritive, that it irritates and frets the Nerves and +Fibres, exciting the expulsive Faculty, so that the Body may be +lessened and weakened, but it cannot increase and be strengthened by +it. We see this by common Experience; the first Time persons drink it, +if they are full grown, it generally gives them a Pain at the Stomach, +Dejection of Spirits, Cold Sweats, Palpitation at the Heart, Trembling, +Fearfulness; taking away the Sense of Fulness though presently after +Meals, and causing a hypochondriac, gnawing Appetite. These symptoms +are very little inferiour to what the most poisonous Vegetables we have +in England would occasion when dried and used in the same manner. + +"These ill Effects of Tea are not all the Mischiefs it occasions. Did +it cause none of them, but were it entirely wholesome, as Balm or Mint, +it were yet Mischief enough to have our whole Populace used to sip warm +Water in a mincing, effeminate Manner, once or twice every Day; which +hot Water must be supped out of a nice Tea-Cup, sweatened with Sugar, +biting a Bit of nice thin Bread and Butter between Whiles. This mocks +the strong Appetite, relaxes the Stomach, satiates it with trifling +light Nick-Nacks which have little in them to support hard Labour. In +this manner the Bold and Brave become dastardly, the Strong become +weak, the Women become barren, or if they breed their Blood is made so +poor that they have not Strength to suckle, and if they do the Child +dies of the Gripes; In short, it gives an effeminate, weakly Turn to +the People in general." + +Another humorous philosopher, who is benevolently anxious that his +fellow-creatures may not be taken in by the rustic meteorologists, +satirically furnishes a number of infallible tests to determine the +approach of a severe season. He entitles his contribution to +meteorological science,--"_Jonathan Weatherwise's Prognostications._ +As it is not likely that I have a long Time to act on the Stage of this +Life, for what with Head-Aches, hard Labour, Storms and broken +Spectacles I feel my Blood chilling, and Time, that greedy Tyrant, +devouring my whole Constitution," etc.,--an exordium which is certainly +well adapted to excite our sympathy for Jonathan, even if it fail to +inspire confidence in his "Prognostications," and leave us a little in +the dark as to the necessary connection between "broken spectacles" and +the "chilling of the blood." The criteria he gives us are truly +Ingenious and surprising; but though the greater part would prove +novel, we believe, to the present generation, we can here quote but +one. He tells us, that, when a boy, he "swore revenge on the Grey +Squirrel," in consequence of a petted animal of this species having +"bitten off the tip of his grandmother's finger,"--a resolution which +proved, as we shall see, unfortunate for the squirrels, but of immense +advantage to science. To gratify this dire animosity, and in fulfilment +of his vow, he persevered for nearly half a century in the perilous and +exciting sport of squirrel-hunting, departing "every Year, for +forty-nine successive Years, on the 22d of October, excepting when that +Day fell on a Sunday," in which case he started on the Monday +following, to take vengeance for the outrage committed on his aged +relative. Calm philosophy, however, enabled him, "in the very storm, +tempest, and, as I may say, whirlwind of his passion," to observe and +record the following remarkable fact in Zoology: "When shot from a high +Limb they would put their Tails in their Mouths as they were tumbling, +and die in that Manner; I did not know what to make of it, 'till, in +Process of Time, I found that when they did so a hard Winter always +succeeded, and this may be depended on as infallible." + +The author of "An Essay on Puffing" (a topic which we should hardly +have thought to have found under discussion at a period so much nearer +the golden age than the present) remarks,--"Dubious and uncertain is +the Source or Spring of Puffing in this Infant Country, it not being +agreed upon whether Puffs were imported by the primitive Settlers of +the Wilderness, (for the Puff is not enumerated in the aboriginal +Catalogue,) or whether their Growth was spontaneous or accidental. +However uncertain we are about the Introduction or first Cultivation of +Puffs, it is easy to discover the Effects or Consequences of their +Improvement in all Professions, Perswasions and Occupations." + +Under the head which has assumed, in modern journalism, an extent and +importance second only to the Puff, to wit, the "Horrible Accident +Department," we find but a single item, but that one of a nature so +unique and startling that it seems to deserve transcribing. "February 7 +[1744]. We hear from Statten Island that a Man who had been married +about 5 months, having a Design to get rid of his Wife, got some +poisoned Herbs with which he advised her to stuff a Leg of Veal, and +when it was done found an Excuse to be absent himself; but his Wife +having eat of it found herself ill, and he coming Home soon after +desired her to fry him some Sausages which she did, and having +eat of them also found himself ill; upon which he asked his +Wife what she fried them in, who answered, in the Sauce of the +Veal; then, said he, I am a dead man: So they continued sick for some +Days and then died, but he died the first." We hardly know which most +to admire, the graphic and terrible simplicity of this narrative of +villany, or the ignorance which it discovers of the modern art of +penny-a-lining, an expert practitioner of which would have spread the +shocking occurrence over as many columns as this bungling report +comprises sentences. + +The poetical contents of our Magazine consist mainly, as we have said, +of excerpts from the popular productions of English authors, as they +were found in the magazines of the mother country or in their published +works, the diluted stanzas of their imitators, satirical verses, +epigrams, and translations from the Latin poets. There are, however, +occasional strains from the native Muse, and here and there a waif from +sources now, perhaps, lost or forgotten. Before "he threw his Virgil by +to wander with his dearer bow," Mr. Freneau's Indian seems to have +determined to leave on record a proof of his classical attainments, for +he is doubtless the author of "A Latin Ode written by an American +Indian, a Junior Sophister at Cambridge, anno 1678, on the death of the +Reverend and Learned Mr. Thacher,"--a translation of which is given at +page 166, prefaced thus:--"As the Original of the following Piece is +very curious, the publishing this may perhaps help you to some better +Translation. Attempted from the Latin of an American Indian." The +probability that any reader of the present paper would be disposed to +help us to this "better Translation" seems too remote to warrant us in +giving the Ode _in extenso_; nor do we think any would thank us for +transcribing a cloudy effusion, a little farther on, entitled, "On the +Notion of an abstract antecedent Fitness of Things." The following +estrays are perhaps worth the capture; they profess to date back to the +reign of Queen Mary, and are styled, "Some Forms of Prayer used by the +vulgar Papists." + + +THE LITTLE CREED. + +Little Creed can I need, +Kneel before our Lady's Knee, + Candle light, Candle burn, + Our Lady pray'd to her dear Son + That we might all to Heaven come; +Little Creed, Amen! + + +THE WHITE PATER NOSTER. + +White Pater Noster, St. Peter's Brother, + What hast thou in one hand? White-Book Leaves. + What hast i'th' to'ther? Heaven Gate Keys. +Open Heaven Gates, and steike (shut) Hell Gates, + And let every crysom Child creep to its own mother: + White Pater Noster, Amen! + +We do not think that the poets of the anti-shaving movement have as yet +succeeded in producing anything worthy to be set off against a series +of spirited stanzas under the heading of "The Razor, a Poem," which we +commend to the immediate and careful attention of the "Razor-strop +Man." The following are the concluding verses:-- + + "But, above all, thou grand Catholicon, + Or by what useful Name so'er thou'rt call'd, + Thou Sweet Composer of the tortur'd Mind! + When all the Wheels of Life are heavy clogg'd + With Cares or Pain, and nought but Horror dire + Before us stalks with dreadful Majesty, + Embittering all the Pleasures we enjoy; + To thee, distressed, we call; thy gentle Touch + Consigns to balmy Sleep our troubled Breasts." + +Evidently the production of a philosopher and an economist of time: for +who else would have thought of shaving before going to bed, instead of +at the matutinal toilet? + +In less than five years from the date of its first number, (1743,) "The +American Magazine and Historical Chronicle" had ceased to exist, and in +the year 1757 appeared "The American Magazine and Monthly Chronicle for +the British Colonies." This was published by Mr. William Bradford in +Philadelphia, under the auspices of "a Society of Gentlemen," who +declare themselves to be "_veritatis cultores, fraudis inimici_," but +who probably found themselves unequal to the difficulties of such a +position, the Magazine having expired just one year after its birth. It +was followed by "The New England Magazine," (1758,) "The American +Magazine," (1769,) "The Royal American Magazine," (1774,) "The +Pennsylvania Magazine, or American Monthly Museum," (1775,) "The +Columbian Magazine," (1786,) "The Worcester Magazine," (the same year,) +"The American Museum," (1787,) "The Massachusetts Magazine," (1789,) +"The New-York Magazine," (1790,) "The Rural Magazine & Vermont +Repository," (1796,) "The Missionary Magazine," (same year,)--and +others. The premature mortality characteristic of some of our own +magazine-literature was, even at this early period, painfully apparent: +none of the publications we have named survived their twelfth year, +most of them lived less than half that period. A great diversity in the +style and quality of their contents, as well as in external appearance, +is, of course, observable, and it somewhat requires the eye of faith to +see within their rusty and faded covers the germ of that gigantic +literary plant which, in this year of Grace, 1860, counts in the city +of Boston alone nearly one hundred and fifty periodical publications, +(about one-third being legitimate magazines,) perhaps as many more in +the other New England cities and towns, and a progeny of unknown, but +very considerable extent, throughout the Union. + +Apart even from their value to the historiographer and the antiquary, +few relics of the past are more suggestive or interesting than the old +magazine or newspaper. The houses, furniture, plate, clothing, and +decorations of the generations which have preceded us possess their +intrinsic value, and serve also to link by a thousand associations the +mysterious past with the actual and living present; but the old +periodical brings back to us, beside all this, the bodily presence, the +words, the actions, and even the very thoughts of the people of a +former age. It is, in mercantile phrase, a book of original entry, +showing us the transactions of the time in the light in which they were +regarded by the parties engaged in them, and reflecting the state of +public sentiment on innumerable topics,--moral, religious, political, +philosophic, military, and scientific. Its mistakes of fact or +induction are honest and palpable ones, easily corrected by +contemporaneous data or subsequent discoveries, and not often posted +into the ledger of history without detection. The learned and patient +labors of the savant or the scholar are not expected of the pamphleteer +or the periodical writer of the last century, or of the present; he +does but blaze the pathway of the pains-taking engineer who is to +follow him, happy enough, if he succeed in satisfying immediate and +daily demands, and in capturing the kind of game spoken of by Mr. Pope +in that part of his manual where he instructs us to + + "shoot folly as it flies, +And catch the manners living as they rise." + +Among us, however, the magazine-writer, as he existed in the last +century, has left few, if any, representatives. He is fading +silently away into a forgotten antiquity; his works are not +on the publishers' counters,--they linger only among the dust and +cobwebs of old libraries, listlessly thumbed by the exploring reader or +occasionally consulted by the curious antiquary. His place is occupied +by those who, in the multiplication of books, the diffusion of +information, and the general alteration of public taste, manners, and +habits, though revolving in a similar orbit, move in quite another +plane,--who have found in the pages of the periodical a theatre of +special activity, a way to the entertainment and instruction of the +many; and though much of what is thus produced may bear, as we have +hinted, a character more or less ephemeral, we are sometimes presented +also with the earlier blossoms and the fresher odors of a rich and +perennial growth of genius, everywhere known and acknowledged in the +realms of belles-lettres, philosophy, and science, crowded here as in a +nursery, to be soon transplanted to other and more permanent abodes. + + + + +COME SI CHIAMA? + +OR A LEAF FROM THE CENSUS OF 1850. + + +The first question asked of a "new boy" at school is, "What's your +name?" In this year of Grace the eighth decennial census is to be +taken, asking that same question of all new comers into the great +public school where towns and cities are educated. It will hardly be +effected with that marvellous perfection of organization by which Great +Britain was made to stand still for a moment and be statistically +photographed. For with consummate skill was planned that all-embracing +machinery, so that at one and the same moment all over the United +Kingdom the recording pen was catching every man's status and setting +it down. The tramp on the dusty highway, the clerk in the +counting-house, the sportsman upon the moor, the preacher in his +pulpit, game-bird and barn-door fowl alike, all were simultaneously +bagged. Unless, like the Irishman's swallow, you could be in two places +at once, down you went on the recording-tablets. Christopher Sly, from +the ale-house door, if caught while the Merry Duke had possession of +him, must be chronicled for a peer of the realm; Bully Bottom, if the +period of his translations fell in with the census-taking, must be +numbered among the cadgers' "mokes"; nay, if Dogberry himself had +encountered the officials at the moment of his pathetic lamentation, he +were irrevocably written down "an ass." + +We can hardly hope for such celerity and sure handling upon this side +of the water. Nor is this the subject we have just now in view. The +approaching advent of the census-taker has led us to look back at the +labor of his predecessor, and the careless turning over of its pages +has set us to musing upon NAMES. + +William Shakspeare asks, "What's in a name?" England's other great +poetical William has devoted a series of his versifyings to the naming +of places. Which has the right of it, let us not undertake to pronounce +without consideration. England herself has long ago determined the +question. As Mr. Emerson says of English names,--"They are an +atmosphere of legendary melody spread over the land; older than all +epics and histories which clothe a nation, this undershirt sits close +to the body." Dean Trench, who handles words as a numismatist his +coins, has said substantially the same thing. And it is true not of +England only; for the various lands of Europe are written over like +palimpsests with the story of successive conquests and dominations +chronicled in their local names. You stop and ask why a place is so +called,--sure to be rewarded by a legend lurking beneath the title. +Like the old crests of heraldry, with their "canting" mottoes beneath, +they are history in little, a war or a revolution distilled into the +powerful attar of a single phrase. The Rhineland towers of Falkenstein +and Stolzenfels are the local counterparts of the Scotch borderers' +"Thou shalt want ere I want," for ominous meaning. + +The volume we have just laid down painfully reminds us that the poet +and the historian have no such heritage in this land. We have done our +best to crowd out all the beautiful significant names we found here, +and to replace them by meaningless appellations. For the name of a +thing is that which really has in it something of that to which it +belongs, which describes and classifies it, and is its spoken +representative; while the appellation is only a title conferred by act +of Parliament or her Majesty's good pleasure: it cannot make a parvenu +into a peer. + +But we are not writing for the mere interest of the poet and the +novelist. Fit names are not given, but grow; and we believe there is +not a spot in the land, possessing any attractiveness, but has its name +ready fitted to it, waiting unsyllabled in the air above it for the +right sponsor to speak it into life. We plead for public convenience +simply. We are thinking not of the ears of taste, but of the brain of +business. We do not wonder at the monstrous accumulations of the +Dead-Letter Office, when we see the actual poverty which our system of +naming places has brought about. Pardon us a few statistics, and, as +you read them, remember, dear reader, that this is the story of ten +years ago, and that the enormous growths of the last decade have +probably increased the evil prodigiously. + +The volume in question gives a list of a trifle under ten thousand +places,--to be accurate, of nine thousand eight hundred and twenty odd. +For these nine thousand cities, towns, and villages have been provided +but _three_ thousand eight hundred and twenty names. All the rest have +been baptized according to the results of a promiscuous scramble. Some, +indeed, make a faint show of variety, by additions of such adjectives +as New, North, South, East, West, or Middle. If we reduce the list of +original names by striking out these and all the compounds of "ville," +"town," and the like, we get about three thousand really distinctive +names for American towns. Three hundred and thirty odd we found here +when we came,--being Indian or _Native_ American. Three hundred and +thirty more we imported from the United Kingdom of Great Britain and +Ireland. A dozen were added to them from the pure well of Welsh +undefiled, and mark the districts settled by Cambro-Britons. Out of our +Bibles we got thirty-three Hebrew appellations, nearly all ludicrously +inappropriate; and these we have been very fond of repeating. In +California, New Mexico, Texas, Florida, and the Louisiana purchase, we +bought our names along with the land. Fine old French and Spanish ones +they are; some thirty of them names of Saints, all well-sounding and +pleasant to the ear. And there is a value in these names not at first +perceptible. Most of them serve to mark the day of the year upon which +the town was founded. They are commemorative dates, which one need only +look at the calendar to verify. As an instance of this, there is the +forgotten title of Lake George, Lake St. Sacrament, which, in spite of +Dr. Cleveland Coxe's very graceful ballad, we must hold to have been +conferred because the lake was discovered on Corpus-Christi Day. In the +Mississippi Valley, the great chain of French military occupation can +still be faintly traced, like the half-obliterated lines of a redoubt +which the plough and the country road have passed over. + +There remain about two thousand names, which may fairly be called of +American manufacture. We exclude, of course, those which were +transferred from England, since they were probably brought directly. +They have a certain fitness, as affectionate memorials of the Old +Country lingering in the hearts of the exiles. Thus, though St. Botolph +was of the fenny shire of Lincoln, and the new comers to the +Massachusetts Bay named their little peninsula Suffolk, the county of +the "South-folk," we do not quarrel with them for calling their future +city "Bo's or Botolph's town," out of hearts which did not wholly +forget their birthplace with its grand old church, whose noble tower +still looks for miles away over the broad levels toward the German +Ocean. Nor do we think Plymouth to be utterly meaningless, though it is +not at the mouth of the Ply, or any other river such as wanders through +the Devon Moorlands to the British Channel. + + "Et parvam Trojam, simulataque magnis + Pergama, et arentem Xanthi cognomine rivum + Agnosco: Seaeaeque amplector limina portae." + +Throughout New England, and in all the original colonies, we find this +to be the case. But, as Americans, we must reject both what our fathers +brought and what they found. Two thousand specimens of the American +talent for nomenclature, then, we can exhibit. Walk up, gentlemen! Here +you have the top-crest of the great wave of civilization. Hero is a +people, emancipated from Old-World trammels, setting the world a +lesson. What is the result? With the grand divisions of our land we +have not had much to do. Of the States, seventeen were baptized by +their Indian appellations; four were named by French and Spanish +discoverers; six were called after European sovereigns; three, which +bear the prefix of New, have the names of English counties;--there +remains Delaware, the title of an English nobleman, leaving us +Pennsylvania, Indiana, and Rhode Island, three precious bits of modern +classicality. Let us now come to the counties. Ten years ago there were +some fifteen hundred and fifty-five of these. One hundred and +seventy-three bear Indian names, and there are one or two uncertain. +For these fifteen hundred and fifty-five counties there are eight +hundred and eighty-eight names, about one to every two. Seven hundred +are, then, of Anglo-Saxon bestowing? No. Another hundred are of Spanish +and French origin. Six hundred county-names remain; fifty of which, +neat as imported, are the names of English places, and fifty more are +names bestowed in compliment to English peers. Five hundred are the +American residuum. + +We beg pardon for these dry statistical details, over which we have +spent some little time and care; but they furnish a base of operations. +Yet something more remains to be added. We have, it is true, about two +thousand names of places and five hundred of counties purely American, +or at least due to American taste. In most instances the county-names +are repeated in some of the towns within their borders. Therefore we +fall back upon our original statement, that two thousand names are the +net product of Yankee ingenuity. It is hardly necessary to assure the +most careless reader that the vast majority of these are names of +persons. And it needs no wizard to conjecture that these are bestowed +in very unequal proportions. Here the true trouble of the +Postmaster-General and his staff begins. + +The most frequent names are, of course, those of the Presidents. The +"Father of his Country" has the honor of being god-father to no small +portion of it. For there are called after him _one_ territory, +_twenty-six_ counties, and _one hundred and thirty-eight_ towns and +villages. Adams, the next, has but _six_ counties and _twenty-six_ +towns; but his son is specially honored by a village named J.Q. Adams. +Jefferson has _seventeen_ counties and _seventy-four_ towns. Madison +has _fifteen_ counties and _forty-seven_ towns. Monroe has _sixteen_ +counties and _fifty-seven_ towns, showing that the "era of good +feeling" was extending in his day. The second Adams has one town to +himself; but the son of his father could expect no more. Jackson has +_fifteen_ counties and _one hundred and twenty-three_ towns, beside +_six_ "boroughs" and "villes,"--showing what it was to have won the +Battle of New Orleans. Van Euren gets _four_ counties and +_twenty-eight_ towns. Harrison _seven_ counties and _fifty-seven_ +towns, as becomes a log-cabin and hard-cider President. Tyler has but +_three_ counties, and not a single town, village, or hamlet even. Polk +has _five_ counties and _thirteen towns_. Taylor, _three_ counties and +_twelve_ towns. The remaining Presidents being yet in life and eligible +to a second term, it would be invidious to make further disclosures +till after the conventions. Among unsuccessful candidates there is a +vast difference in popularity. Clay has _thirty-two_ towns, and Webster +only _four_. Cass has _fourteen_, and Calhoun only _one_. Of +Revolutionary heroes, Wayne and Warren are the favorites, having +respectively _thirteen_ and _fourteen_ counties and _fifty-three_ and +_twenty-eight_ towns. But "Principles, not Men," has been at times the +American watchword; therefore there are _ten_ counties and _one hundred +and three_ towns named "Union." + +We have given the reader a dose, we fear, of statistics; but imagine +yourself, dear, patient friend, what you may yet be, Postmaster-General +of these United States, with the responsibility of providing for all +these bewildering post-offices. And we pray you to heed the absolute +poverty of invention which compelled forty-nine towns to call +themselves "Centre." Forty-nine Centres! There are towns named after +the points of compass simply,--not only the cardinal points, but the +others,--so that the census-taker may, if he likes, "box the compass," +in addition to his other duties. + +But worse than the too common names (anything but proper ones) are the +eccentric. The colors are well represented; for, beside Oil and Paint +for materials, there are Brown, Black, Blue, Green, White, Cherry, +Gray, Hazel, Plum, Rose, and Vermilion. The animals come in for their +share; for we find Alligator, Bald-Eagle, Beaver, Buck, Buffalo, Eagle, +Eel, Elk, Fawn, East-Deer and West-Deer, Bird, Fox, (in Elk County,) +Pigeon, Plover, Raccoon, Seal, Swan, Turbot, Wild-Cat, and Wolf. Then +again, the christening seems to have been preceded by the shaking in a +hat of a handful of vowels and consonants, the horrible results of +which _sortes_ appear as Alna, Cessna, Chazy, Clamo, Novi, (we suspect +the last two to be Latin verbs, out of place, and doing duty as +substantives,) Cumru, Freco, Fristo, Josco, Hamtramck, Medybemps, Haw, +Kan, Paw-Paw, Pee-Pee, Kinzua, Bono, Busti, Lagro, Letart, Lodomillo, +Moluncus, Mullica, Lomira, Neave, Oley, Orland, and the felicitous +ringing of changes which occurs in Luray, Leroy, and Leray, to say +nothing of Ballum, Bango, Helts, and Hellam. And in other unhappy +places, the spirit of whim seems to have seized upon the inhabitants. +Who would wish to write themselves citizens of Murder-Kill-Hundred, or +Cain, or of the town of Lack, which places must be on the high road to +Fugit and Constable? There are several anti-Maine-law places, such as +Tom and Jerry, Whiskeyrun, Brandywine, Jolly, Lemon, Pipe, and Pitcher, +in which Father Matthew himself could hardly reside unimpeached in +repute. They read like the names in the old-fashioned "Temperance +Tales," all allegory and alcohol, which flourished in our boyhood. + +Then, by way of counterpart to these, there are sixty-four places known +as Liberty, and thirteen as Freedom, but only one as Moral,--passing by +which, we suppose we shall come to Climax, and, thence descending, +arrive, as the whirligig of time appointeth, at Smackover, unless we +pause in Economy, or Equality, or Candor, or Fairplay. + +If we were land-hunters, we might ponder long over the town of Gratis, +unless we thought Bonus promised more. There is Extra, and, if +tautologically fond of grandeur, _Metropolis City_,--a mighty Babel of +(in 1850) _four hundred and twenty-seven_ inhabitants,--and Bigger, +which has _seven hundred_. A brisk man would hardly choose Nodaway for +his home, nor a haymaker the town of Rain. And of all practical +impertinences, what could in this land of novelty equal the calling of +one's abiding-place "New"? We fully expect that 1860 will reveal a +comparative and superlative, and perhaps even a super-superlative, +("Newest-of-all,") upon its columns. + +But what is the sense of such titles as Buckskin, Bullskin, (is it +Byrsa, by way of proving Solomon's adage,--"There is nothing new under +the sun"?) Chest, and Posey? There is one unfortunate place (do they +take the New York "Herald" and "Ledger" there?) which has "gone and got +itself christened" Mary Ann, and another (where "Childe Harold" is +doubtless in favor) is called Ada. There is a Crockery, a Carryall, and +a Turkey-Foot,--which last, like the broomstick in Goethe's ballad, is +chopped in two, only to reappear as a double nuisance, as Upper and +Lower Turkey-Foot. + +Then what paucity of ideas is revealed in the fact that a number of +names are simply common nouns, or, worse yet, spinster adjectives, +"singly blest"! Such are Hill, Mountain, Lake, Glade, Rock, Glen, Bay, +Shade, Valley, Village, District, Falls, which might profitably be +joined in holy matrimony with the following,--Grand, Noble, Plain, +Pleasant, Rich, Muddy, Barren, Fine, and Flat. + +As for one or two other unfortunates, like Bloom and Lumber, they can +only be sent to State's Prison for life, with Bean-Blossom and +Scrub-Grass. We need hardly mention that to the religious public, +including special attention to "clergymen and their families," Calvin, +Wesley, Whitefield, Tate, Brady, and Watts offer peculiar attractions. + +But there is a class of names which does gladden us, partly from their +oddity, and partly from a feeling at first sight that they are names +really suggestive of something which has happened,--and this is apt to +turn out the fact. Thus, Painted-Post, in New York, and Baton-Rouge, in +Louisiana, are honest, though quaint appellatives; Standing-Stone is +another; High-Spire, a fourth. Others of the same class provoke our +curiosity. Thus, Grand-View-and-Embarras seems to have a history. So do +Warrior's-Mark and Broken-Straw. There is one queer name, Pen-Yan, +which is said to denote the component parts of its population, +_Pen_nsylvanians and _Yan_kees; and we have hopes that Proviso is not +meaningless. Also we would give our best pen to know the true origin of +Loyal-Sock, and of Marine-Town in the inland State of Illinois. This +last is like a "shipwreck on the coast of Bohemia." There is, too, a +memorial of the Greek Revolution which tells its own story, +--Scio-and-Webster! We could hardly wish the awkward partnership +dissolved. But who will unravel the mysteries of New-Design and +New-Faul? and can any one tell us whether the fine Norman name of +Sanilac is really the euphonious substitute for Bloody-Pond? If there +be in America that excellent institution, "Notes and Queries," here is +matter for their meddling. + +But it is time to shut the book. For we are weary of picking holes in +our own _poncho_, and inclined to muse a little upon the science of +naming places. After what we have said about names growing,--_Nomen +nascitur, non fil,_--we cannot expect that the evil can be remedied by +Congress or Convention. Yet the Postal Department has fair cause of +complaint. Thus much might be required, that all the supernumerary +spots answering to the same hail should be compelled to change their +titles. Government exercises a tender supervision of the nomenclature +of our navy. Our ships of war are not permitted to disgrace the flag by +uncouth titles. Enterprising merchants have offered prizes for good +mouth-filling designations for their crack clippers, knowing that +freight and fortune often wait upon taking titles. Was the Flying Cloud +ever beaten? And in a land where all things change so lightly, why not +shake off the loosely sticking names and put on better? For at present, +the main end, that of conferring a _nomen_ or a name, something by +which the spot shall be known, has almost passed out of sight. If John +Smith, of the town of Smith, in Smith County, die, or commit forgery, +or be run for Congress, or write a book, his address might as well be +"Outis, Esq., Town of Anywhere, County of Everywhere." It concerns the +"Atlantic Monthly" not a little. For we desire, among its rapidly +multiplying subscribers, that our particular friend and kind critic, +commorant in Washington, should duly receive and enjoy this present +paper, undefrauded by any resident of the other one hundred and thirty +of the name. If we wish to mail a copy of "The Impending Crisis" to +Franklin, Vermont, we surely do not expect that it will perish by _auto +da fé_ in Franklin, Louisiana. + +But the thought comes upon us, that herein is revealed a curious defect +of the American mind. It lacks, we contend, the fine perceptive power +which belongs to the poet. It can imitate, but cannot make. It does not +seize hold upon the distinctive fact of what it looks at, and +appropriate that. Our countrymen once could do it. The stern Puritan of +New England looked upon the grassy meadows beside the Connecticut, and +found them all bubbling with fountains, and called his settlement +"Springfield." But the American has lost the elementary uses of his +mother tongue. He is perpetually inventing new abstract terms, +generalizing with boldness and power and utter contempt of usage. But +the rich idiomatic sources of his speech lie too deep for him. They are +the glory and the joy of our motherland. You may take up "Bradshaw" and +amuse yourself on the wettest day at the dullest inn, nay, even amid +the horrors of the railway station, with deciphering the hidden +meanings of its lists of names, and form for yourself the gliding +panorama of its changing scenery and historic renown. But blank, +indeed, is the American transit through Rome, Marcellus, Carthage, +Athens, Palmyra, and Geneva; and blessed the relief when the Indian +tongue comes musically in to "heal the blows of sound"! And whatever +the expectations of the "Great American Poem," the Transatlantic +"Divina Commedia" or "Iliad," which the public may entertain, we feel +certain they will not be fulfilled in our day. Take Tennyson's "Idyls +of the King," and see what beautiful beadrolls of names he can string +together from the rough Cornish and Devon coasts. Only out of a +poetic-hearted people are poets born. The peasant writes ballads, +though scholars and antiquaries collect them. The Hebrew lyric fire +blazed in myriad beacons from every landmark. The soil of Palestine is +trodden, as it were, with the footsteps of God, so eloquent are its +mountains and hamlets with these records of a nation's faith. + +But into how much of the love of home do its familiar names enter! And +we appeal to the common sense of everybody, whether those we have +quoted above are not enough to make a man ashamed of his birthplace. +They are the ear-mark of a roving, careless, selfish population, which +thinks only of mill-privileges, and never of pleasant meadows,--which +has built the ugliest dwellings and the biggest hotels of any nation, +save the Calmucks, over whom reigns the Czar. Upon the American soil +seem destined to meet and fuse the two great elements of European +civilization,--the Latin and the Saxon,--and of these two is our nation +blent. But just at present it exhibits the love of glare and finery of +the one, without its true and tender taste,--and the sturdy, practical +utilitarianism of the other, without its simple-hearted, home-loving +poetry. The boy is a great boy,--awkward, ungainly, and in the way; but +he has eyes, tongue, feet, and hands to some (future) purpose. And that +in good taste, good sense, refinement, and hopeful culture, our big boy +has been growing, we hope will be apparent, even in the matter of +"calling names," from the pages of the next census. + +We have but a word more, in the way of finale. We have not been +romancing. Everything we have set down here we have truly looked up +there, in the volume furnished by Mr. De Bow. He, not we, must be held +answerable for any and all scarce credible names which are found +wanting in a local habitation. We have counted duly and truly the +fine-printed pages, from which task we pray that the kind Fates may +keep the reader. + +Yet, if he doubt, and care to explore the original mine whence our +specimen petrifactions have been dug, he will find that we have by no +means exhausted the supply; and that there are many most curious and +suggestive facts, not contained in the statistics or intended by the +compiler, which are embraced in the CENSUS REPORTS. + + + + +BARDIC SYMBOLS. + + +I. + +Elemental drifts! +Oh, I wish I could impress others as you and the waves have just been + impressing me! + +II. + +As I ebbed with an ebb of the ocean of life, +As I wended the shores I know, +As I walked where the sea-ripples wash you, Paumanok, +Where they rustle up, hoarse and sibilant, +Where the fierce old mother endlessly cries for her castaways, +I, musing, late in the autumn day, gazing off southward, +Alone, held by the eternal self of me that threatens to get the better + of me and stifle me, +Was seized by the spirit that trails in the lines underfoot, +In the ruin, the sediment, that stands for all the water and all the + land of the globe. + +III. + +Fascinated, my eyes, reverting from the south, dropped, to follow those + slender windrows, +Chaff, straw, splinters of wood, weeds, and the sea-gluten, +Scum, scales from shining rocks, leaves of salt-lettuce, left by the tide. + +IV. + +Miles walking, the sound of breaking waves the other side of me, +Paumanok, there and then as I thought the old thought of likenesses, +These you presented to me, you fish-shaped island, +As I wended the shores I know, +As I walked with that eternal self of me, seeking types. + +V. + +As I wend the shores I know not, +As I listen to the dirge, the voices of men and women wrecked, +As I inhale the impalpable breezes that set in upon me, +As the ocean so mysterious rolls toward me closer and closer, +At once I find, the least thing that belongs to me, or that I see or + touch, I know not; +I, too, but signify a little washed-up drift,--a few sands and dead + leaves to gather, +Gather, and merge myself as part of the leaves and drift. + +VI. + +Oh, baffled, lost, +Bent to the very earth, here preceding what follows, +Terrified with myself that I have dared to open my mouth, +Aware now, that, amid all the blab whose echoes recoil upon me, I have not + once had the least idea who or what I am, +But that before all my insolent poems the real me still stands + untouched, untold, altogether unreached, +Withdrawn far, mocking me with mock-congratulatory signs and bows, +With peals of distant ironical laughter at every word I have written or + shall write, +Striking me with insults, till I fall helpless upon the sand! + +VII. + +Oh, I think I have not understood anything,--not a single object,--and + that no man ever can! + +VIII. + +I think Nature here, in sight of the sea, is taking advantage of me to + oppress me, +Because I was assuming so much, +And because I have dared to open my mouth to sing at all. + +IX. + +You oceans both! You tangible land! Nature! +Be not too stern with me,--I submit,--I close with you,-- +These little shreds shall, indeed, stand for all. + +X. + +You friable shore, with trails of debris! +You fish-shaped island! I take what is underfoot: +What is yours is mine, my father! + +XI. + +I, too, Paumanok, +I, too, have bubbled up, floated the measureless float, and been + washed on your shores. + +XII. + +I, too, am but a trail of drift and debris,-- +I, too, leave little wrecks upon you, you fish-shaped island! + +XIII. + +I throw myself upon your breast, my father! +I cling to you so that you cannot unloose me,-- +I hold you so firm, till you answer me something. + +XIV. + +Kiss me, my father! +Touch me with your lips, as I touch those I love! +Breathe to me, while I hold you close, the secret of the wondrous + murmuring I envy! +For I fear I shall become crazed, if I cannot emulate it, and utter + myself as well as it. + +XV. + +Sea-raff! Torn leaves! +Oh, I sing, some day, what you have certainly said to me! + +XVI. + +Ebb, ocean of life! (the flow will return,)-- +Cease not your moaning, you fierce old mother! +Endlessly cry for your castaways! Yet fear not, deny not me,-- +Rustle not up so hoarse and angry against my feet, as I touch you, + or gather from you. + +XVII. + +I mean tenderly by you,-- +I gather for myself, and for this phantom, looking down where we lead, + and following me and mine. + +XVIII. + +Me and mine! +We, loose windrows, little corpses, +Froth, snowy white, and bubbles, +Tufts of straw, sands, fragments, +Buoyed hither from many moods, one contradicting another, +From the storm, the long calm, the darkness, the swell, +Musing, pondering, a breath, a briny tear, a dab of liquid or soil, +Up just as much out of fathomless workings fermented and thrown, +A limp blossom or two, torn, just as much over waves floating, + drifted at random, +Just as much for us that sobbing dirge of Nature, +Just as much, whence we come, that blare of the cloud-trumpets,-- +We, capricious, brought hither, we know not whence, spread out before + you,--you, up there, walking or sitting, +Whoever you are,--we, too, lie in drifts at your feet. + + + + +HUNTING A PASS: + +A SKETCH OF TROPICAL ADVENTURE. + + +PRELIMINARY. + +Reader, take down your map, and, starting at the now well-known Isthmus +of Panama, run your finger northward along the coast of the Pacific, +until, in latitude 13° north, it shall rest on a fine body of water, or +rather the "counterfeit presentment" thereof, which projects far into +the land, and is designated as the Bay of Fonseca. If your map be of +sufficient scale and moderately exact, you will find represented there +two gigantic volcanoes, standing like warders at the entrance of this +magnificent bay. That on the south is called Coseguina, memorable for +its fearful eruption in 1835; that on the north is named Conchagua or +Amapala, taller than Coseguina, but long extinct, and covered to its +top with verdure. It is remarkable for its regularity of outline and +the narrowness of its apex. On this apex, a mere sugar-loaf crown, are +a _vigía_ or look-out station, and a signal-staff, whence the approach +of vessels is telegraphed to the port of La Union, at the base of the +volcano. A rude hut, half-buried in the earth, and loaded down with +heavy stones, to prevent it from being blown clean away, or sent +rattling down the slopes of the mountain, is occupied by the look-out +man,--an old Indian muffled up to his nose; for it is often bitter cold +at this elevation, and there is no wood wherewith to make a fire. Were +it not for that jar or _tinaja_ of _aguardiente_ which the old man +keeps so snugly in the corner of his burrow, he would have withered up +long ago, like the mummies of the Great Saint Bernard. + +But I am not going to work up the old man of the _vigía_; for he was of +little consequence on the 10th day of April, 1853, except as a +wondering spectator on the top of Conchagua, in a group consisting of +an ex-minister of the United States, an officer of the American navy, +and an artist from the good city of New York, to whose ready pencil a +grateful country owes many of the illustrations of tropical scenery +which have of late years lent their interest to popular periodicals and +books of adventure. I might have added to this enumeration the tall, +dark figure of Dolores, servant and guide; but Dolores, with a good +sense which never deserted him, had no sooner disencumbered his +shoulders of his load of provisions, than he bestowed himself in the +burrow, out of the wind, and possibly not far from the _aguardiente_. + +The utilitarian reader will ask, at once, the motive of this gathering +on the top of the volcano of Conchagua, five thousand feet above the +sea, wearily attained at no small expenditure of effort and +perspiration. Was it love of adventure merely? ambition to do something +whereof to brag about to admiring aunts or country cousins? Hardly. The +beauty of the wonderful panorama which spreads before the group of +strangers is too much neglected, their instruments are too carefully +adjusted and noted, and their consultations are far too earnest and +protracted, to admit of either supposition. The old man of the _vigía_, +as I have said, was a wondering spectator. He wondered why the eyes of +the strangers, glasses as well as eyes, and theodolites as well as +glasses, should all be directed across the bay, across the level +grounds beyond it, far away to the blue line of the Cordilleras, +cutting the clear sky with their serrated outline. He does not observe +that deep notch in the great backbone of the continent, as regular as +the cleft which the pioneer makes in felling a forest-tree; nor does he +observe that the breeze which ripples the waters at the foot of the +volcano is the north wind sweeping all the way from the Bay of Honduras +through that break in the mountain range, which everywhere else, as far +as the eye can reach, presents a high, unbroken barrier to its passage +to the Pacific. Yet it is simply to determine the bearings of that +notch in the Cordilleras, to fix the positions of the leading features +of the intervening country, and to verify the latitude and longitude of +the old man's flag-staff itself, as a point of departure for future +explorations, that the group of strangers is gathered on the top of +Conchagua. + +And now, O reader, run your finger due north from the Bay of Fonseca, +straight to the Bay of Honduras, and it will pass, in a figurative way, +through the notch I have described, and through the pass of which we +were in search. You will see, if your map be accurate, that in or near +that pass two large rivers have their rise; one, the Humuya, flows +almost due north into the Atlantic, and the other, the Goascoran, +nearly due south into the Pacific,--together constituting, with the +plain of Comayagua, a great transverse valley extending across the +continent from sea to sea. Through this valley, commencing at Port +Cortés, on the north, and terminating on the Bay of Fonseca on the +south, American enterprise and English capital have combined to +construct a railway, designed to afford a new, if not a shorter and +better route of transit across the continent, between New York and San +Francisco, and between Great Britain and Australia. + +But when we stood on the top of Conchagua, on the 10th day of April, +1853, the existence of a pass through the mountains, as well as of that +great transverse valley of which I have spoken, was only inferentially +known. In fact, the whole interior of Honduras was unexplored; its +geography was not understood; its scenery had never been described; its +towns and cities were scarcely known even by name; and its people lived +in almost as profound a seclusion from the world at large as the +dwellers on the banks of the Niger and the Zambezi. It is not, however, +to bore you, O reader, with all the details of our surveys, nor to +bother you with statistics, that I write; for, verily, are not these all +set down in a book? But it is rather to amuse you with the incidents of +our explorations, our quaint encounters with a quaint people of still +quainter manners and habits and with ideas quainter than all, and to +present you with a picture of a country and a society interesting equally +in themselves and from their strong contrasts with our own,--I say, it is +rather with these objects that I invite you, O reader, to join our little +party, and participate in the manifold adventures of "HUNTING A PASS." + + +CHAPTER I. + +The port of La Union, our point of departure, is in the little Republic +of San Salvador, which, in common with Nicaragua and Honduras, touches +on the Bay of Fonseca. It is built near the head of a subordinate bay, +of the same name with itself, at the foot of the volcano of Conchagua, +which rises between it and the sea, cutting it off from the +ocean-breezes, and rendering it, in consequence, comparatively hot and +unhealthy. It is a small town, with a population scarcely exceeding +fifteen hundred souls; but it is, nevertheless, the most important port +of San Salvador. Here, during the season of the great fairs of San +Miguel, may be seen vessels of nearly all the maritime nations, +--broad-hulled and sleepy-looking ships from the German +free-cities, taut American clippers, sturdy English brigs, and even +Peruvian and Genoese nondescripts, with crews in red nightcaps. + +At this time La Union holds high holiday; its _Comandante_, content at +other times to lounge about in the luxury of a real undress uniform, +now puts on his broadcloth and sash, and sustains a sweltering dignity; +while all the brown girls of the place, arrayed in their gayest +apparel, wage no timorous war on the hearts and pockets of too +susceptible skippers. "Ah, me!" exclaimed our landlady, "is it not +terrible? Excepting the Señora D. and myself, there is not a married +woman in La Union!" "One wouldn't think so," soliloquized the +_Teniente_, as he gazed reflectively into the street, where a dozen +naked children, squatting in the sand, disputed the freedom of the +highway with a score of lean dogs and bow-backed pigs of voracious +appetites. + +To me there was nothing specially new in La Union. The three years +which had elapsed since my previous visit had not been marked by any +great architectural achievement, and although the same effective +chain-gang of two convicts seemed still to be occupied with the mole, +the advance in that great public work was not perceptible to the eye. +My old host and hostess were also the same,--a shade older in +appearance, perhaps, but with hearts as warm and hospitalities as +lavish as before. Only "La Gringita" had changed from the doe-eyed +child of easy confidences into a quiet and somewhat distant girl, full +in figure, and with a glance which sometimes betrayed the glow of +latent, but as yet unconscious passion. In these sunny climes the bud +blossoms and the young fruit ripens in a single day. + +With my companions, however, the case was different. The _Teniente_ +could never cease being surprised that the commercial and naval +facilities of the splendid bay before us had been so long overlooked. +"What a place for a naval station, with its spacious and secure +anchorages, abundant water, and facilities for making repairs and +obtaining supplies! Why, all the fleets of the globe might assemble +here, and never foul spars or come across each other's hawsers! What a +site, just in that little bay, for a ship-yard! The bottom is pure +sand, and there are full ten fathoms of water within a hundred yards of +the shore! And then those high islands protecting the entrance! A fort +on that point and a battery over yonder would close in the whole bay, +with its five hundred square miles of area, against every invader, and +make it as safe as Cronstadt!" But what astonished the _Teniente_ more +than anything else was, not that the English had seized the bay in +1849, but that they had ever given it up afterwards. "Bull should +certainly abandon his filibustering habits, or else stick to his +plunder; the example was a bad one for his offspring!" + +And as for H., our artist, he, too, was surprised at all times and +about everything. It surprised him "to hear mere children talk +Spanish!" To be able to help himself to oranges from the tree without +paying for them surprised him; so did the habit of sleeping in +hammocks, and the practice of dressing children in the cheap and airy +garb of a straw hat and cigar! He was surprised that he should come to +see "a real volcano, like that of San Miguel, with real smoke rolling +up from its mysterious depths; but what surprised him most was, that +they should give him pieces of soap by way of making change in the +market, and that he could buy a boat-load of oysters for a shilling!" + +As for Don Henrique, who had resided twenty years in Nicaragua, he was +only surprised at the surprise of others. He had a quiet, imperturbable +contempt for the country and everything in it, was satisfied with a +cool corridor and cigar, and had no ambition beyond that of some day +returning to Paris. Above all, he was a foe to unnecessary exertion. + +The ascent of Conchagua was the most important incident of our stay in +La Union, both in the excitements of the scramble and in the +satisfactory nature of our observations from its summit. We left the +port in the afternoon, with the view of passing the night in the +highest hut on the mountain-side, so as to reach the summit early in +the morning, and thus secure time for our observations. Doña Maria had +given us her own well-trained servant, Dolores, who afterwards became a +most important member of our little party; and he was now loaded down +with baskets and bottles, while the _Teniente_, H., and myself +undertook the responsible charge of the instruments. + +Our path was one seldom travelled, and was exceedingly rough and +narrow. Here it would wind down into one of the deep ravines which seam +the mountain near its base, and, after following the little stream +which trickled at its bottom for a short distance, turn abruptly up the +opposite side, and run for a while along a crest or ridge of _scoriæ_ +or disintegrated lava, only, however, to plunge into another ravine +beyond. And thus alternately scrambling up and down, yet gradually +ascending diagonally, we worked our way towards the hut where we were +to pass the night. The slopes of the mountain were already in shadow, +and the gloom of the dense forests and of the deep ravines was so +profound, that we might have persuaded ourselves that night had fallen, +had we not heard the cheerful notes of unseen birds that were nestling +among the tree-tops. After two hours of ascent, the slope of the +mountain became more abrupt and decided, the ravines shallower, and the +intervening ridges less elevated. The forest, too, became more open, +and the trees smaller and less encumbered with vines, and between them +we could catch occasional glimpses of the bay, with its waters golden +under the slant rays of the declining sun. Finally we came to a kind of +terrace or shelf of the mountain, with here and there little patches of +ground, newly cleared, and black from the recent burning of the +undergrowth,--the only preparation made by the Indian cultivator for +planting his annual maize-crop. He has never heard of a plough; a staff +shod with iron, with which he pries a hole in the earth for the +reception of the seed, is the only agricultural implement with which he +is acquainted. When the young blade appears, he may possibly lop away +the tree-sprouts and rank weeds with his _machete_: but all the rest he +leaves to Nature, and the care of those unseen protectors of the harvest +whom he propitiates in the little church of Conehagua by the offering of a +candle, and in the depth of the forest, in some secluded spot of +ancient sanctity, by libations of _chicha_, poured out, with strange +dances, at the feet of some rudely sculptured idol which his fathers +venerated before him, and which he inwardly believes will come out "all +right" in the end, notwithstanding its present disgrace and the Padre's +denunciations. + +The mountain terrace which we had now reached is three thousand feet +above the sea, half a mile long, of varying width, and seems to be the +top of some great bed of _scoriæ_ which long ago slipped down on an +inclined plane of lava to its present level. Whatever its origin, it is +certainly a beautiful spot, thinly covered with trees, and carpeted +with grass, on which, at the time of our visit, a few cows were +grazing, while half a dozen goats gazed at us in motionless surprise +from the gray rocks to which they had retreated on our approach. We +found the hut in which we were to rest for the night perched on the +very edge of the terrace, where it overlooked the whole expanse of the +bay, with its high islands and purple shores. At this airy height, and +open to every breeze, its inhabitants enjoy a delicious temperature; +and I could well understand how it was that Doña Maria, notwithstanding +the difficulties of the ascent, often came up here to escape the +debilitating heats of the port, and enjoy the magnificent prospect. The +dwellers on this mountain-perch consisted of an old man with his two +sons and their wives, and a consequent round dozen of children, all of +whom gave Dolores the cordial welcome of an old friend, which was +reflected on his companions with equal warmth. Our mules were quickly +unsaddled and cared for, and our instruments carefully suspended +beneath a rough shed of poles covered with branches of trees, which +stood before the hut, and answered the purpose of a corridor in keeping +off the sun. Here also we chose to swing our hammocks; for the hut +itself was none of the largest, and, having but a single room, would +require packing more closely than suited our tastes, in order to afford +us the narrowest accommodation. It is true, the two Benedicts +volunteered to sleep outside with Dolores, and resign the interior to +the old man, the women, the children, and the strangers. But the +_Teniente_ thought there would be scant room, even if we had the whole +to ourselves; while H. was overcome by "the indelicacy of the +suggestion." + +The sunset that evening was one of transcendent beauty, heightened by +the thousand-hued reflections from the masses of clouds which had been +piling up, all the afternoon, around the distant mountains of Honduras, +and which Dolores told us betokened the approach of the rainy season. +Bathed in crimson and gold, they shed a glowing haze over the +intervening country, and were reproduced in the broad mirror of the bay +below us, so that we seemed to be suspended and floating in an +Iris-like sea of light and beauty. But night falls rapidly under the +tropics; the sunsets are as brief as they are brilliant; and as soon as +the sun had sunk below the horizon, the gorgeous colors rapidly faded +away, leaving only leaden clouds on the horizon and a sullen body of +water at our feet. + +A love of music seems to be universal among all classes in Central +America, especially among the _Ladinos_ or mixed population. And it is +scarcely possible to find a house, down to the meanest hut, that does +not possess a violin or guitar, or, in default of these, a mandolin, on +which one or more of its inmates are able to perform with considerable +skill, and often with taste and feeling. The violin, however, is +esteemed most highly, and its fortunate possessor cherishes it above +wife or children, he keeps it with his white buckskin shoes, red sash, +and only embroidered shirt, in the solitary trunk with cyclopean lock +and antediluvian key, which goes so far, in Central American economy, +to make up the scanty list of domestic furniture. The youngest of our +hosts was the owner of one of these instruments, of European +manufacture, which had cost him, I dare say, many a load of maize, +wearily carried on his naked back down to the port. As the evening +advanced, he produced it, with an air of satisfaction, from its secure +depository, and, leaning against a friendly tree, gave us a specimen of +his skill. It is true, we did not expect much from our swarthy friend, +whose only garment was his trousers of cotton cloth, tucked up above +his knees; and we were therefore all the more surprised, when, after +some preliminary tuning of the instrument, he pressed the bow on its +strings with a firm and practised hand, and led us, with masterly +touch, through some of the finest melodies of our best operas. Very few +amateurs of any country, with all their advantages of instruction, +could equal the skill of that poor dweller on the flank of the volcano +of Conchagua; none certainly could surpass him in the delicacy and +feeling of his execution. H., on whom, as an artist, and himself no +mean musician, we had already devolved the task of being enthusiastic +and demonstrative over matters of this kind, applauded vehemently, and +cried, "_Bravo!_" and "_Encore!_" and ended in convincing us of the +reality of his delight, by pressing his brandy-flask into the hands of +the performer, and urging him to "drink it all, every drop, and then +give us another!" Our mountain Paganini, I fear, interpreted the behest +too literally; or else H.'s enthusiasm never afterwards rose to so high +a pitch; at any rate, he was never known to manifest it in so expansive +a manner. + +"And where did your friend learn his music?" + +He had caught it up, he said, from time to time, as he had floated, +with his canoe-load of plantains, chickens, and yucas, around the +vessels-of-war that occasionally visit the port; neglecting his +traffic, no doubt, in eagerly listening to the music of the bands or +the individual performances of the officers. He had had no instructor, +except "_un pobre Italiano_," who came to La Union with an exhibition +of _fantoccini_, died there of fever, and was buried like a Christian +in the Campo Santo adjoining the church: and Paganini removed his hat +reverentially, and made the sign of the cross on his swarthy bosom. And +now, most incredulous of readers, are you answered? + +During the night we were visited by the first storm of the season, and +it opened the flood-gates of the skies right grandly, with booming +thunders and blinding lightning, and a dash of rain that came through +our imperfect shelter as through a sieve. Driven inside the hut, where +we contested the few square feet of bare earthen floor with the pigs +and pups of the establishment, we passed a most miserable night, and +were glad to rise with the earliest dawn,--ourselves to continue our +ascent of the mountain, and our hosts to plant their mountain _milpas_, +while the ground was yet moist from the midnight rain. They told us +that the maize, if put into the earth immediately after the first rain +of the season, was always more vigorous and productive than that +planted afterwards; why they knew not; but "so it had been told them by +their fathers." + +The air was deliciously fresh and cool, and the foliage of the trees +seemed almost pulsating with life and light under the morning sun, as +we bade our hosts "_Á Dios!_" and resumed our course up the mountain. +There was no longer any path, and we had to pick our way as we were +able, among blocks of blistered rocks, over fallen trunks of trees, and +among gnarled oaks, which soon began to replace the more luxuriant +vegetation of the lower slopes. H., dragged from his mule by a scraggy +limb, was shocked to find that the first inquiry of his companions was +not about the safety of his neck, but of the barometer. At the end of +an hour, the ascent becoming every moment more abrupt, we had passed +the belt of trees and bushes, and reached the smooth and scoriaceous +cone, which, during the rainy season, appears from the bay to be +covered with a velvety mantle of green. It was now black and +forbidding, from the recent burning of the dry grass or _sacate_, and +so steep as to render direct ascent impossible. I proposed to leave the +mules and proceed on foot, but the _Teniente_ entered a solemn protest +against anything of the sort:--"If the mules couldn't carry him up, he +couldn't go; his family was affected with hereditary palpitation of the +heart, and if any one of them suffered more from it than the others, he +was the unfortunate victim! Climbing elevations of any kind, and +mountains in particular, brought on severe attacks; and we might as +well understand, at once, that, if in 'Hunting a Pass' there was any +climbing to be done, some one else must do it!" And here I may mention +a curious fact, probably hitherto unknown to the faculty, which was +developed in our subsequent explorations, namely, that palpitation of +the heart is contagious. H. was attacked with it on our third day out, +and Don Henrique had formidable symptoms at sight of the merest +hillock. + +Under the lead of Dolores, by judicious zig-zagging, and by glow and +painful advances, we finally reached the _vigía_,--the mules thoroughly +blown, but the _Teniente_ and the instruments safe. The latter were +speedily set up, and the observations, which were to exercise so +important an influence as a basis for our future operations, +satisfactorily made. We found the mountain to be 4860 feet above the +sea, barometrical admeasurement, and the flagstaff itself in latitude +13° 18' N. and longitude 87° 45' W. We obtained bearings on nearly all +the volcanic cones on the plain of Leon, as also on many of the +detached mountain-peaks of Honduras and San Salvador, as the +commencement of a system of triangulations which subsequently enabled +us to construct the first map of the country at all approximating to +accuracy. At noon on the day of our visit, the thermometer marked a +temperature of 16° of Fahrenheit below that of the port. + +It is a singular circumstance, that Captain Sir Edward Belcher, who +surveyed the Bay of Fonseca in 1838, speaks of Conchagua as a mountain +exhibiting no evidences of volcanic origin. Apart from its form, which +is itself conclusive on that point, its lower slopes are ridged all +over with dikes of lava, some of which come down to the water's edge, +in rugged, black escarpments. The mountain had two summits: one +comparatively broad and rugged, with a huge crater, and a number of +smaller vents; and a second and higher one, nearest the bay,--the +_ash-heap_ of the volcano proper, on which the _vigía_ is erected, and +whence our observations were made. This is a sugar-loaf in form, with +steep sides, and at its summit scarcely affording standing-room for a +dozen horsemen. It is connected with the main part of the mountain by a +narrow ridge, barely broad enough for a mule-path, with treeless slopes +on either hand, so steep, that, on our return, the _Teniente_ preferred +risking an attack of "palpitation" to riding along its crest. + +After loosening several large stones from the side of the cone, and +watching them bound down the steep declivity, dashing the _scoriæ_ like +spray before them, and bearing down the dwarf trees in their path like +grass beneath the mower's scythe, until they rumbled away with many a +crash in the depths of the forest at the base of the mountain, and +after making over to the grateful old man of the _vigía_ the remnants +of Doña Maria's profusion in the shape of sandwiches and cold chicken, +we commenced our descent, taking the shorter path by which I had +descended three years before. It conducted us past the great spring of +Yololtoca, to which the Indian girls of the _pueblo_ of Conchagua, +three miles distant, still come to get their water, and down the +ancient path and over the rocks worn smooth by the naked feet of their +mothers and their mothers' mothers, until, at six o'clock in the +afternoon, we defiled, tired and hungry, into the sweltering streets of +La Union. Oysters _ad libitum_, (which, being translated, means as fast +as three men could open them,) one of Doña Maria's best dinners, and a +bath in the bay at bedtime calmed our appetites and restored our +energies, and we went to sleep with the gratified consciousness that we +had successfully taken the first step in the prosecution of our great +enterprise. + +I have alluded to the oysters of La Union; but I should prove +ungrateful indeed, after the manifold delicious repasts which they +afforded us, were I to deny them the tribute of a paragraph. It is +generally believed that the true oyster of our shores is found nowhere +else, or at least only in northern latitudes. But an exception must be +made in favor of the waters of the Bay of Fonseca. Here they are found +in vast beds, in all the subordinate bays where the streams deposit +their sediment, and where, with the rise and fall of the tide, they +obtain that alternation of salt and brackish water which seems to be +necessary to their perfection. They are the same rough-coated, +delicious mollusks as those of our own coasts, and by no means to be +degraded by a comparison with the muddy, long-bearded, and, to +Christian palates, coppery abominations of the British Islands, which +in their flattened shape and scalloped edges seem to betray an impure +ancestry,--in point of fact, to be a bad cross between the scallop and +the oyster. + +At low tide some of the beds are nearly bare, and then the Indians take +them up readily with their hands. The ease with which they may be got +will appear from the circumstance, that for some time after our arrival +we paid but a real (twelve and a half cents) for each canoe-load, of +from five to six bushels. The people of La Union seldom use them, and +we were therefore able to establish the "ruling rates." They continued +at a real a load, until H., with reckless generosity, one day paid our +improvised oyster-man two reals for his cargo, who thereupon, appealing +to this bad precedent, refused to go out, unless previously assured of +receiving the advanced rate. This led to the immediate arrest of H., on +an indictment charging him with "wilfully and maliciously combining and +conniving with one Juan Sanchez, (colored,) to put up the price of the +necessaries of life in La Union, in respect of the indispensable +article vulgarly known as _ostrea Virginiana_, but in the language of +the law and of science designated as oysters." On this indictment he +was summarily tried, and, in consequence of aggravating his offence by +an attempt at exculpation, was condemned to suffer the full penalties +of the law, in such cases provided, namely, "to pay the entire cost of +all the oysters that might thenceforth be consumed by the prosecuting +parties and the court, and, at eleven o'clock, past meridian, to be +taken from his bed, thence to the extremity of the mole, and there +_inducted_." Which sentence was carried into rigorous execution. Nor +was he allowed to resume his former rank in the party, until, by a +masterly piece of diplomacy, he organized an opposition oyster-boat, +and a consequent competition, which soon brought Juan Sanchez to terms, +and oysters to their just market-value. + +That the aboriginal dwellers around the Bay of Fonseca appreciated its +conchological treasures, we had afterwards ample evidence; for at many +places on its islands and shores we found vast heaps of oyster-shells, +which seemed to have been piled up as reverent reminiscences of the +satisfaction which their contents had afforded. + +During my previous visit to La Union, in March, 1850, I had observed +that the north winds, which prevail during that month in the Bay of +Honduras, sometimes sweep entirely across the continent with such force +as to raise a considerable sea in the Bay of Fonseca. I thence inferred +that there must exist a pass or break in the great mountain-range of +the Cordilleras, through which the wind could have an uninterrupted or +but partially interrupted sweep. This was confirmed by the fact that +the current of air which reached the bay was narrow, affecting only a +width of about ten or twelve miles. This circumstance impressed me at +that time only as indicating a remarkable topographical feature of the +country; but afterwards, when the impracticability of a canal at +Nicaragua and the deficiencies in respect of ports for a railway at +Tehuantepec had become established, I was led to reflect upon it in +connection with a plan for inter-oceanic communication by railway +through Honduras; and, as explained in the introduction, we were now +here to test the accuracy of my previous conclusions. Our observations +at the top of Conchagua had signally confirmed them. + +We could distinctly make out the existence of a great valley extending +due north, and our glasses revealed a marked depression in the +Cordilleras, which in all the maps were represented as maintaining here +the character of a high, unbroken range. Of course no such valley as +opened before us could exist without a considerable stream flowing +through it. But the maps showed neither valley nor river. This +circumstance did not, however, discourage us; for my former travels and +explorations in Nicaragua had shown me, that, notwithstanding the +country had occupied the attention of geographers for more than three +centuries, in connection with a project for a canal between the oceans, +its leading and most obvious physical features were still either +grossly misconceived or utterly unknown. + +The leading fact of the existence of some kind of a pass having been +sufficiently established by our observations from Conchagua, we next +set to work to obtain such information from the natives as might assist +our further proceedings. This was a tedious task, and called for the +exercise of all our patience; for it is impossible to convey in +language an adequate idea of the abject ignorance of most of the +inhabitants of Central America concerning its geography and +topographical features. Those who would naturally be supposed to be +best informed, the priests, merchants, and lawyers, are really the most +ignorant, and it is only from the _arrieros_, or muleteers, and the +_correos_, or runners, that any knowledge of this kind can be obtained, +and then only in a very confused form, and with most preposterous and +contradictory estimates of distances and elevations. + +We nevertheless made out that the mouth of a river or _estero_, laid +down in Sir Edward Belcher's chart, on the opposite side of the bay in +front of La Union, was really that of the river Goascoran, a +considerable stream having its rise at a point due north, and not far +from Comayagua, the capital of Honduras, which, we also ascertained, +was seated in the midst of a great plain, bearing the same name. A +large stream, it was said, flowed past that city,--but whether the +Goascoran or some other, or whether it flowed north or south, neither +_arriero_ nor _correo_ could tell. + +The navigability of the Goascoran was also a doubtful question. +According to some, it could be forded everywhere; others declared it +impassable for many leagues above its mouth: a discrepancy which we +were able to reconcile by reference to its probable state at different +seasons of the year. + +Fixing an early day for taking the field in earnest, and leaving H. and +Don Henrique to make the necessary preparations, I improved the +interval, in company with Lieutenant J., in making a boat exploration +of the Goascoran. Obtaining a ship's gig, with two oarsmen and a supply +of provisions, we left La Union at dawn on the 15th of April. We found +that the river enters the bay by a number of channels, through low +grounds covered with mangrove-trees. It was at half-tide, and we +experienced no difficulty in entering. Our course at first was +tortuous, and it seemed as if the river had lost itself in a labyrinth +of channels, and we were ourselves much confused with regard to our +true direction. Keeping, however, in the strongest current, at the end +of half an hour we penetrated beyond the little delta of the river, and +the belt of mangroves, to firm ground. Here the stream was confined to +a single channel two hundred yards broad, with banks of clay and loam +from six to ten feet high. The lands back appeared to be level, and, +although well covered with ordinary forest-trees, were apparently +subject to overflow. We observed cattle in several grassy openings, and +here and there a _vaquero's_ hut of branches; for it is a general +practice of the _hacienderos_ to drive down their herds to the low +grounds of the coasts and rivers, during the dry season, and as soon as +the grass on the hills or highlands begins to grow sere and yellow. We +observed also occasional heaps of oyster-shells on the banks, or half +washed away by the river; and on the sand-spits at the bends of the +stream, and in all the little shady nooks of the shore, we saw +thousands of water-fowl, ducks of almost every variety, including the +heavy muscovy and the lively teal; and there were flocks of white and +crimson ibises, and solitary, long-legged, contemplative cranes, and +gluttonous pelicans; while myriads of screaming curlews scampered along +the line of the receding tide to snap up imprudent snails and the +numerous minute _crustaceæ_ which drift about in these brackish waters. +The familiar kingfisher was also there, coming down with an occasional +arrowy dash on some unsuspecting minnow, and then flapping away +leisurely for a quiet meal in the shady recesses of a neighboring tree. + +We fired on a flock of ducks, killing a number and wounding others, all +of which we secured except one which struggled away into an eddy under +the bank. We pushed in, and my hand was extended to pick him up, when a +slimy, corrugated head, with distended jaws and formidable teeth, rose +to the surface before me, paused an instant, then shot forward, and, +closing on the wounded bird, disappeared. The whole was done so quickly +as to escape the notice of my companions, who would hardly believe me +when I told them that we had been robbed by an alligator. We lost a +duck, but gained an admonition; and I scarcely need add that our +half-formed purpose of taking a bath in the next cool bend of the river +was abandoned. + +When the tide had run out, we were able to form a better notion of the +river. We found, that, although near the end of the dry season, it was +still a fine stream, with a large body of water, but spread over so +wide a channel as to preclude anything like useful navigation, except +with artificial aids. In places it was so shallow that our little boat +found difficulty in advancing. But this did not disappoint us; for +nothing like a mixed transit with transhipments had ever entered into +my plan, which looked only to an unbroken connection by rail from one +sea to the other. At four o'clock, satisfied that no useful purpose +could be effected by going farther up the stream, we stopped at a +collection of huts called Las Sandías,--not inappropriately, for the +whole sloping bank of the river, which here appeared to be little +better than a barren sand-bed, was covered, for a quarter of a mile, +with a luxuriant crop of water- and musk-melons, now in their +perfection. We purchased as many as we could carry off for a _real_. +They were full, rich, and juicy, and proved to be a grateful +restorative, after our day's exposure to the direct rays of the sun, +and their scarcely less supportable reflection from the water. The +melon-patch of Las Sandías is overflowed daring the rainy season, and +probably the apparently bare, sandy surface hides rich deposits of soil +below. + +We found the stream here alive with an active and apparently voracious +fish, varying in length from fourteen to twenty inches, reddish in +color, and closely resembling the Snapper of the Atlantic coast of +Central America. The male inhabitants of Las Sandías were occupied in +catching these fishes with hand-nets, in the rifts and currents; and +the women were busy in cleaning and drying them. Their offal had +accumulated around the huts in offensive heaps, and gave out an odor +which was almost insupportable, but of which the women appeared to take +no notice. We did not, therefore, trespass long on their hospitality, +but returned to our boat and started back to La Union. As night came +on, the trees along the river's bank were thronged with _chachalacas_, +which almost deafened us with their querulous screams. Two +well-directed shots gave us half a dozen,--for the young _chachalaca_ +is not to be despised on the table,--and we added them to our stock of +water-fowls and melons as tempting trophies to our companions from the +new Canaan on which they were venturing. + + +[To be continued.] + + + + +KEPLER. + + +The acceptance of a doctrine is often out of all proportion to the +authority that fortifies it. There are sweeps of generalization quite +permeable to objection, which yet find metaphysical support; there are +irrefragable dogmas which the mind drops as futile and fruitless. It is +recorded of Harvey's discovery of the circulation of the blood, that it +found reception from no physician then over forty years old. We believe +the splendid nebular construction of Laplace has its own difficulties; +yet what noble or aspiring mind does not find interior warranties for +the truth of that audacious synthesis? Is it that the soul darts +responsive impartments to the heavens? that the whirl is elemental in +the mind? that baffling intervals stretch deeper within us, and shoals +of stars with no parallax appear? + +Among the functions of Science, then, may well be included its power as +a metre of the intellectual advance of mankind. In these splendid +symbols man writes the record of his advancing humanity. How all is +interwoven with the All! A petrified national mind will certainly +appear in a petrified national Science. And that sublime upsurging from +the depths of human nature which came with the last half of the +eighteenth century appeared not alone in the new political and social +aspirations, but in a fresh insight into Nature. This spirit manifested +itself in the new sciences that sprang from the new modes of +vision,--Magnetism, Electricity, Chemistry,--the old crystalline spell +departing before a dynamical system of Physics, before the thought of +the universe as a living organic whole. And what provokers does the +discovery of the celestial circles bring to new circles of politics and +social life! + +The illustrations of Astronomy to this thought are very large. First of +the sciences to assume a perfectly rational form, it presents the +eternal type of the unfolding of the speculative spirit of man. This +springs, no doubt, from the essentially subjective character of +astronomy,--more than all the other sciences a construction of the +creative reason. From the initiative of scientific astronomy, when the +early Greek geometers referred the apparent diurnal movements to +geometrical laws, to the creation of the nebular hypothesis, the +logical filiation of the leading astronomical conceptions obeys +corresponding tidal movements in humanity. Thus it is that + + "through the ages one increasing purpose + runs +And the thoughts of men are widened with the + process of the suns." + +It was for reasons the Ptolemaic system so long held its sway. It was +for reasons it went, too, when it did, hideous and oppressive +nightmare! The celestial revelations of the sixteenth century came as +the necessary complement of the new mental firmaments then dawning on +the thought of man. The intellectual revolution caused by the discovery +of the double motion of our planet was undoubtedly the mightiest that +man had ever experienced, and its effect was to change the entire +aspect of his speculative and practical activity. What a proof that +ideas rule the world! Two hundred and fifty years ago, certain new +sidereal conceptions arose in the minds of half a dozen philosophers, +(isolated and utterly destitute of political or social influence, +powerful only in the possession of a sublime and seminal +thought,)--conceptions which, during these two centuries, have +succeeded in overthrowing a doctrine as old as the human mind, closely +interknit with the entire texture of opinions, authority, politics, and +religion, and establishing a theory flatly contradicted by the +universal dictates of experience and common sense, and true only to the +transcendental and interpretative Reason! + +At the advent of Modern Astronomy, the apparition of the German, John +Kepler, presents itself. Familiarly associated in general apprehension +with that inductive triad known as "Kepler's Laws," which form the +foundation of Celestial Geometry, it is much less generally known that +he was an august and oracular soul, one of those called Mystics and +Transcendentalists, perhaps the greatest genius for analogy that ever +lived,--that he led a truly epic life, a hero and helper of men, a +divine martyr of humanity. + +The labors of Kepler were mathematical, optical, cosmographical, and +astronomical,--but chiefly astronomical. Two or three of his principal +works are the "Cosmographic Mystery," (_Mysterium Cosmographicum,_) the +"New Astronomy," (_Astronomia Nova, seu Physica Caelestis,_) and the +"Harmonies of the World" (_Harmonices Mundi_). His whole published +works comprise some thirty or forty volumes, while twenty folio volumes +of manuscript lie in the Library at St. Petersburg. These Euler, +Lexell, and Kraft undertook some years ago to examine and publish, but +the result of this examination has never appeared. An elegant complete +edition of the works of Kepler is at present being issued at Frankfort, +under the editorship of Frisch.[1] It is to be in sixteen volumes, 8vo, +two of which are published. For his biography, the chief source is the +folio volume of Correspondence, published in 1718, by Hansch,[2] who +has prefixed to these letters between Kepler and his contemporaries a +Life, in which his German heartiness beats even through the marble +encasement of his Latinity. + +[Footnote 1: _Joannis Kepleri Astronomi Opera Omnia._ Edidit CH. +FRISCH.] + +[Footnote 2: _Epistolae ad Joannem Keplerum scriptae._ MICHAEL GOTTLIEB +HANSCHIUS. Lipsiae, 1718.] + +We have always admired, as a stroke of wit, the way Hansch takes to +indicate Kepler's birthplace. Disdaining to use any but mathematical +symbols for so great a mathematician, he writes that he was born on the +21st of December, 1571, in longitude 29° 7', latitude 48° 54'! It may +be worth mentioning, that on this cryptic spot stood the little town of +Weil in the Duchy of Würtemberg. His birth was cast at a time when his +parents were reduced to great poverty, and he received very little +early schooling. He was, however, sent to Tübingen, and here he pursued +the scholastic studies of the age, designing for the Church. But the +old eternal creed-questionings arose in his mind. He stumbled at the +omnipresence of Christ's body, wrote a Latin poem against it, and, when +he had completed his studies, got for a _testimonium_ that he had +distinguished himself by his oratorical talents, but was considered +unfit to be a fellow-laborer in the Church of Würtemberg. A larger +priesthood awaited him. + +The astronomical lectureship at the University of Grätz, in Styria, +falling vacant, Kepler was in his twenty-third year appointed to fill +it. He was, as he tells us, "better furnished with talent than +knowledge." But, no doubt, things had conspired to forward him. While +at Tübingen, under the mathematician Mästlin, he had eagerly seized +all the hints his master threw out of the doctrines of Copernicus, +integrating them with interior authorities of his own. "The motion of the +earth, which Copernicus had proved by mathematical reasons, I wanted +to prove by physical, or, if you prefer it, metaphysical reasons." +So he wrote in his "Prodromus Dissertationum Cosmographicarum," +which he published two years after going to Grätz, that is, in his +twenty-fifth year. In this book his fiery and mystical spirit first +found expression, flaming forth in meteoric coruscations. The problem +which Kepler attempted to solve in the "Prodromus" was no less than +the determination of the harmonic relations of the distances of +the planets, which it was given him to solve more than twenty years +afterwards. The hypothesis which he adopted proved utterly fallacious; +but his primal intuition, that numerical and geometric relations +connect the velocities, periods, and distances of the planets, was none +the less fruitful and sublime. + +Of the facts of Kepler's external life, we may simply say, for the sake +of readier apprehension, that, after remaining six years at Grätz, he, +in 1600, on the invitation of Tycho Brahe, Astronomer Royal to Rodolph +II. of Germany, removed to Prague and associated himself with Tycho, +who shortly afterwards dying, Kepler was appointed in his place. The +chief work was the construction of the new astronomical tables called +the Rodolphine Tables, and on these he was engaged many years. In this +situation he continued till 1613, when he left it to assume a +professorship at Linz. Here he remained some years, and the latter part +of his life was spent as astrologer to Wallenstein. Kepler is described +as small and meagre of person, and he speaks of himself as "troublesome +and choleric in politics and domestic matters." He was twice married, +and left a wife and numerous children ill-provided for. + +Indeed, a painful and perturbed life fell to the lot of Kepler. The +most crushing poverty all his life oppressed him. For, though his +nominal salary as Astronomer Royal was large enough, yet the treasury +was so exhausted that it was impossible for him ever to obtain more +than a pittance. What a sad tragedy do these words, in a letter to +Mästlin, reveal:--"I stand whole days in the antechamber, and am nought +for study." And then he adds the sublime compensation: "I keep up my +spirits, however, with the thought that I serve, not the Emperor alone, +but the whole human race,--that I am laboring not merely for the +present generation, but for posterity. If God stand by me and look to +the victuals, I hope to perform something yet." Eternal type of the +consolation which the consciousness of truth brings with it, his +ejaculation on the discovery of his third law remains one of the +sublimest utterances of the human mind:--"The die is cast; the book is +written,--to be read now or by posterity, I care not which: it may well +wait a century for a reader, as God has waited six thousand years for +an observer!" Cast in a stormy and chaotic age, he was persecuted by +both Protestants and Catholics on account of the purity and elevation +of his religious ideas; and from the disclosures of Baron von +Breitschwert [1] it seems, that, in the midst of his sublimest labors, +he spent five years in the defence of his poor old mother against a +charge of witchcraft. He died in 1630, in his sixtieth year, (with the +prospect of starvation before him,) of a fever which he caught when on +a journey to Ratisbon, whither he had gone in the attempt to get part +of his pay! + +[Footnote 1: _Johann Keppler's Leben und Wirken: nach neuerlich +aufgefundenen Manuscripten bearbeitet._ Stuttgart, 1813.] + +In what bewildering and hampering environment he found himself with the +"Tübingen doctors" and the "Würtemberg divines," his letters reveal. On +the publication of the "Prodromus," Hafenreffer wrote to warn +him:--"God forbid you should endeavor to bring your hypothesis openly +into argument with the Holy Scriptures! I require of you to treat the +subject merely as a mathematician, and to leave the peace of the Church +undisturbed." To the Tübingen doctors he replied:--"The Bible speaks to +me of things belonging to human life as men are used to speak of them. +It is no manual of Optics or of Astronomy; it has a higher object in +view. It is a culpable misuse of it to seek in it for answers on +worldly things. Joshua wished for the day to be lengthened. God +hearkened to his wish. How? This is not to be inquired after." And +surely the long-vexed argument has never since unfolded better +statement than in the words of Kepler:--"The day will soon break when +pious simplicity will be ashamed of its blind superstition,--when men +will recognize truth in the book of Nature as well as in the Holy +Scriptures, and rejoice in the two revelations." [1] + +[Footnote 1: _Harmonices Mundi._] + +On this avowal he was branded as a hypocrite, heretic, and atheist. + +To Mästlin he wrote:--"What is to be done? I think we should imitate +the Pythagoreans, communicate our discoveries _privatim_, and be silent +in public, that we may not die of hunger. The guardians of the Holy +Scriptures make an elephant of a gnat. To avoid the hatred against +novelty, I represented my discovery to the Rector of the University as +a thing already observed by the ancients; but he made its antiquity a +greater charge against it than he could have made of its novelty." + +And, indeed, the devotion to truth in that age, as in others, required +an heroic heart. Copernicus kept back the publication of his "De +Revolutionibus Orbium Caeslestium" for thirty-six years, and received a +copy of it only on his death-bed. Galileo tasted the sweets of the +Inquisition. Tycho Brahe was exiled. And Kepler himself was persecuted +all his life, hounded from city to city. And yet the sixteenth century +will ever be memorable in the history of the human mind. The breaking +down of external authority, the uprise of the spirit of inquiry, of +skepticism, and the splendid scientific conquests that came in +consequence, inaugurated a mighty movement which separates the present +promises of mankind from all past periods by an interval so vast as to +make it not merely a great historical development, but the very birth +of humanity. While Tycho Brahe, at the age of fifty-four, was making +his memorable observations at Prague, Kepler, at the age of thirty, was +applying his fiery mind to the determination of the orbit of Mars, and +Galileo, at thirty-six, was bringing his telescope to the revelation of +new celestial intervals and orbs. Within the succeeding century Huygens +made the application of the pendulum to clocks; Napier invented +Logarithms; Descartes and Galileo created the analysis of curves, and +the science of Dynamics; Leibnitz brought the Differential Calculus; +Newton decomposed a ray of light, and synthesized Kepler's Laws into +the theory of Universal Gravitation. + +Into this age, when the Old and New met face to face, came the +questioning and quenchless spirit of Kepler. Born into an age of +adventure, this new Prometheus, this heaven-scaler, matched it with an +audacity to lift it to new reaches of realization. + + +A singular _naiveté_, too, marked this august soul. He has the +frankness of Montaigne or Jean Jacques. He used to accuse himself of +gabbling in mathematics,--"_in re mathematica loquax_,"--and claimed to +speak with German freedom,--"_scripsi haec, homo Germanicus, more et +libertate Germanica_." He marries far and near, brings planetary +eclipses into conjunction with pecuniary penumbras, and his treatise on +the perturbations of Mars reveals equal perturbations in his domestic +economy. It may be to this candor, this _gemüth_, that we are to +ascribe the powerful personal magnetism he exercises in common with +Rousseau, Rabelais, and other rich and ingenuous natures. Who would be +otherwise than frank, when frankness has this power to captivate? The +excess of this influence appears in the warmth betrayed by writers over +their favorite. The cool-headed Delambre, in his "Histoire de +l'Astronomie," speaks of Kepler with the heat of a pamphleteer, and +cannot repress a frequent sneer at his contemporary, Galileo. We know +the splendor of the Newtonian synthesis; yet we do not find ourselves +affected by Newton's character or discoveries. He touches us with the +passionless love of a star. + +Kepler puts the same _naiveté_ into his speculative activity, with a +subtile anatomy laying bare the _metaphysique_ of his science. It was +his habit to illumine his discoveries with an exhibition of the path +that led to them, regarding the method as equally important with the +result,--a principle that has acquired canonical authority in modern +scientific research. "In what follows," writes he, introducing a long +string of hypotheses, the fallacy of which he had already discovered, +"let the reader pardon my credulity, whilst working out all these +matters by my own ingenuity. For it is my opinion that the occasions by +which men have acquired a knowledge of celestial phenomena are not less +admirable than the discoveries themselves." His tentatives, failures, +leadings, his glimpses and his glooms, those aberrations and guesses +and gropings generally so scrupulously concealed, he exposes them all. +From the first flashing of a discovery, through years of tireless toil, +to when the glorious apparition emerges full-orbed and resplendent, we +follow him, becoming party to the process, and sharing the ejaculations +of exultation that leap to his lips. Seventeen years were required for +the discovery of the harmonic law, that the squares of the times of the +planetary revolutions are proportional to the cubes of their mean +distances; and no tragedy ever equalled in affecting intensity the +account he has written of those Promethean years. What rays does he let +into the subtile paths where the spirit travels in its interrogations +of Nature! We should say there was more of what there is of essential +in metaphysics, more of the structural action of the human mind, in his +books, than in the concerted introspection of all the psychologists. +One sees very well that a new astronomy was predicted in the build of +that sky-confronting mind; for harmonic ratios, laws, and rhymes played +in his spheral soul, galaxies and gravitations stretched deeper within, +and systems climbed their flaming ecliptic. + +The highest problem of Science is the problem of Method. Hitherto man +has worked on Nature only piecemeal. The understanding and the +logic-faculty are allowed to usurp the rational and creative powers. +One would say that scientists systematically shut themselves out of +three-fourths of their minds, and the English have been insane on +Induction these two hundred years. This unholy divorce has, as it +always must do, brought poverty and impotence into the sciences, many +of which stand apart, stand haggard and hostile, accumulations of +incoherent facts, inhospitable, dead. + +It is when contemplated in its historic bearings, as an education of +the faculties of man, that the emphasis that has been placed on special +scientific methods discloses its significance. The speculative +synthesis of Greek and Alexandrine Science was a superb training in +Deduction,--in the descent from consciousness to Nature. Abstracted +from its relations with reality, the scholasticism of the Middle Ages +pushed Deduction to mania and moonshine. Then it was, that, in the +sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the Occidental mind, astir under +the oceanic movements of the modern, arose to break the spell of +scholasticism that had fettered and frozen the intellect of man. An +all-invading spirit of inquiry, analysis, skepticism, became rife. An +unappeasable hunger for facts, facts, facts, took possession of the +general intellect. It was felt that abstraction was disease, was +death,--that speculation had to be vitalized and enriched from +experience and experiment. This tendency was inevitable and sublime, no +doubt. But it remains for modern times to emulate Nature and carry on +analysis and synthesis at once. A great discovery is the birth of the +whole soul in its creative activity. Induction becomes fruitful only +when married to Deduction. It is those luminous intuitions that light +along the path of discovery that give the eye and animus to +generalization. Science must be open to influx and new beneficent +affections and powers, and so add fleet wings to the mind in its +exploration of Nature. + +In Kepler was the perfect realization of the highest mission of Method. +Powerfully deductive in the structure of his intellect, nourished on +the divine bread of Plato and the Mystics, he yet united to these a +Baconian breadth of practical power. Years before the publication of +the "Novum Organum," he gave, in his "Commentaries on the Motions of +Mars," a specimen of the logic of Induction whose circular sweep has +never been matched. Prolific in the generation of hypotheses, he was +yet remorseless in bringing them to the test of experiment. "Hypotheses +which are not founded in Nature please me not," wrote he,--as Newton +inscribed "_Hypotheses non fingo_" on the "Principia." Surely never was +such heroic self-denial. Centurial vigils of baffling calculations +--(remember, there was then little Algebra, and neither Calculus +nor Logarithms)--were sacrificed without a regret except for +the time expended, his tireless intellect pressing on to new heights of +effort. His first work, the "Mysterium Cosmographicum," is the record +of a splendid blunder that cost him five years' toil, and he spent ten +years of fruitless and baffled effort in the deduction of the laws of +areas and orbital ellipticity. + +But this audacious diviner knew well the use of Hypothesis, and he +applied it as an instrument of investigation as it had never been +applied before. The vast significance of Hypothesis in the theory of +Scientific Method has never been recognized. It would be a good piece +of psychology to explore the principles of this subtile mental power, +and might go far to give us a philosophy of Anticipation. The men of +facts, men of the understanding, observers,--as we might +suppose,--universally show a disposition to shun theorizing, as opposed +to the exactness of demonstrative science. And yet it is quite certain, +that, in proportion as one rises to a more liberal apprehension, the +immense provisional power of speculative ideas becomes apparent. +Laplace asserted that no great discovery was ever made without a great +guess; and long before, Plato had intimated of these "sacred suspicions +of truth," that descend dawn-like on the mind, sublime premonitions of +beautiful gates of laws. It is these launching tentatives which bring +phenomena to interior and metaphysical tests and bear the mind +swift-winged to Nature. Of course, there are various kinds of +conjecture, and its value will depend on the brain from which it +departs. But a powerful spirit will justify Hypothesis by the high +functions to which he puts it. His guesses are not for nothing. Many +and long processes go to them.--The inexhaustible fertility displayed +by Kepler is a psychologic marvel. He had that subtile chemistry that +turns even failures to account, consumes them in its flaming ascent to +new reaches. After years of labor on his theory of Mars, he found it +failed in application to latitudes and longitudes "out of opposition." +Remorselessly he let his hypothesis go, and drew from his failure an +important inference, the first step towards emancipation from the +ancient prejudice of uniform, circular motion. + +Such a genius for Analogy the world never before saw. The perception of +similitude, of correspondence, shot perpetual and prophetic in this +man's glances. To him had been opened the subtile secret, key to +Nature, that Man and the Universe are built after one pattern, and he +had faith to believe that the laws of his mind would unlock the +phenomena of the world. + +The law of Analogy flows from the inherent harmonies of Nature. Of this +wise men have ever been intuitive. The eldest Scriptures express it. It +is in the Zend-Avesta, primal Japhetic utterance. It vivified that +subtile Egyptian symbolism. The early Greeks and the Mystics of +Alexandria knew it. Jamblicus reports of Pythagoras, that "he did not +procure for himself a thing of this kind through instruments or the +voice, but, by employing a certain inevitable divinity, and which it is +difficult to apprehend, he extended his ears and fixed his intellect in +the sublime symphonies of the world,--he alone hearing and +understanding, as it appears, the universal harmony and consonance of +the spheres and the stars that are moved through them, and which +produce a fuller and more intense melody than anything effected by +mortal sounds." + +From the sublime intuitions of the harmonies of Nature and the unity of +the Universe unfold the bright doctrines of Series and Degrees, of +Correspondence, of Similitude. On these thoughts all wise spirits have +fed. Indeed, you can hardly say they were ever absent. They are of +those flaming thoughts the soul projects, splendid prophecies that +become the light of all our science and all our day. Plato formulated +these laws. Two thousand years after him, the cosmic brain of +Swedenborg traced their working throughout the universal economies of +matter and spirit, and Fourier endeavored to translate them into axioms +of a new social organization. + +These doctrines were ever present to the mind of Kepler; and to what +fruitful account he turned Analogy as a means of inductive speculation +his wonderful anatomy of his discoveries reveals. He fed on the +harmonies of the universe. He has it, that "harmony is the perfection +of relations." The work of his mature intellect was the "Harmonices +Mundi," (Harmonies of the World,) in which many of the sublime leadings +of Modern Science, as the Correlation of Sounds and Colors, the +Significance of Musical Chords, the Undulatory Theory, etc., are +prefigured. We must account him one of the chief of those prophetic +spirits who, by attempting to give phenomena a necessary root in ideas, +have breathed into Science a living soul. The new Transcendental +Anatomy,--the doctrine of Homologies,--the Embryologic scheme, +revealing that all animate forms are developed after one +archetype,--the splendid Nebular guess of Laplace,--the thought of the +Metamorphosis of Plants,--the attempts at profounder explanations of +Light and Colors,--the rising transcendentalism of Chemistry,--the +magnificent intuition of Correspondence, showing a grand unity of +design in the nodes of shells, the phyllotaxism of plants, and the +serialization of planets,--are all signs of the presence of a spirit +that is to usher in a new dispensation of Science, fraught with +divinest messages to the head and heart of man. + +Kepler regarded Analogy as the soul of Science, and he has made it an +instrument of prophecy and power. Thus, he inferred from Analogy that +the sun turned on its axis, long before Galileo was able to direct his +telescope to the solar spots and so determine this rotation as an +actual fact. He anticipated a planet between Mars and Jupiter too small +to be seen; and his inference that the obliquity of the ecliptic was +decreasing, but would, after a long-continued diminution, stop, and +then increase again, afterwards acquired the sanction of demonstration. +A like instance of anticipation is afforded in the beautiful experiment +of the freely-suspended ball revolving in an ellipse under the combined +influence of the central and tangential forces, which Jeremiah Horrocks +devised, when pursuing Kepler's theory of planetary motion,--his +intuition being, that the motions of the spheres might be represented +by terrestrial movements. We may mention the observation which the +ill-starred Horrocks makes, in a letter,[1] on the occasion of this +experiment, as one of the sublimities of Science:--"It appears to me, +however, that I have fallen upon the true theory, and that it admits of +being illustrated by natural movements on the surface of the earth; for +Nature everywhere acts according to a uniform plan, and the harmony of +creation is such that small things constitute a faithful type of +greater things." Another instance is afforded in the grand intuition of +Oken, who, when rambling in the Hartz Mountains, lit upon the skull of +a deer, and saw that the cranium was but an expansion of vertebrae, and +that the vertebra is the theoretical archetype of the entire osseous +framework,--the foundation of modern Osteology. And still another is +the well-known instance of the change in polarization predicted by +Fresnel from the mere interpretation of an algebraic symbol. This +prophetic insight is very sublime, and opens up new spaces in man. + +[Footnote 1: _Correspondence,_ 1637] + +Of the discoveries of Kepler, we can here have to do with their +universal and humanitary bearings alone. It is to be understood, +however, that the three grand sweeps of Deduction which we call +Kepler's Laws formed the foundation of the higher conception of +astronomy, that is, the dynamical theory of astronomical phenomena, and +prepared the way for the "Mécanique Céleste." Whewell, the learned +historian of the Sciences, speaks of them as "by far the most +magnificent and most certain train of truths which the whole expanse of +human knowledge can show"; and Comte declares, that "history tells of +no such succession of philosophical efforts as in the case of Kepler, +who, after constituting Celestial Geometry, strove to pursue that +science of Celestial Mechanics which was by its very nature reserved +for a future generation." These laws are, first, the law of the +velocities of the planets; second, the law of the elliptic orbit of the +planets; and, third, the harmonic law, that the squares of the times of +the planetary revolutions are proportional to the cubes of their mean +distances from the sun. They compass the whole sweep of Celestial +Geometry, and stamp their seer as unapproachably the greatest of +astronomers, as well as one of the chief benefactors of mankind. + +The announcement of Kepler's first two laws was made in his New +Astronomy,--"Astronomia Nova, seu Physica Caelestis, tradita +Commentariis de Motibus Stellae Martis: Ex Observationibus G.V. +Tychonis Brahe." Folio. Prague: 1609. This he published in his +thirty-eighth year. The title he gave to this work, "Celestial +Physics," must ever be regarded as a stroke of philosophical genius; it +is the prediction of Newton and Laplace, and prefigures the path on +which astronomical discovery has advanced these two hundred and fifty +years. + +An auspicious circumstance conspired to forward the astronomical +discoveries of Kepler. Invited to Prague in 1600 by Tycho Brahe, as +Assistant Royal Astronomer, he had access to the superb series of +observations which Tycho had been accumulating for twenty-five years. +Endowed with a genius for observation unsurpassed in the annals of +science, the noble Dane had obtained a grant from the king of Denmark +of the island of Hven, at the mouth of the Baltic. Here he erected a +magnificent observatory, which he named _Uranienborg_, City of the +Heavens. This he fitted up with a collection of instruments of hitherto +unapproached size and perfection, and here, for twenty years, he +pursued his observations. Thus it was that Kepler, himself a poor +observer, found his complement in one who, without any power of +constructive generalization, was yet the possessor of the richest +series of astronomical observations ever made. From this admirable +conjunction admirable realizations were to be expected. And, indeed, +the "Astronomia Nova" presents an unequalled illustration of +observation vivified by theory, and theory tested and fructified by +observation. + +To appreciate the significance of the discovery of the elliptical orbit +of the planets, it is necessary to understand the complicated confusion +that prevailed in the conception of planetary motions. The primal +thought was that the motions of the planets were uniform and circular. +This intuition of circular orbits was a happy one, and was, perhaps, +necessitated by the very structure of the human mind. The sweeping and +centrifugal soul, darting manifold rays of equal reach, realizes the +conception of the circle, that is, a figure all of whose radii are +equidistant from a central point. But this conception of the circle +afterwards came to acquire superstitious tenacity, being regarded as +the perfect form, and the only one suitable for such divine natures as +the stars, and was for two thousand years an impregnable barrier to the +progress of Astronomy. To account for every new appearance, every +deviation from circular perfection, a new cycloid was supposed, till +all the simplicity of the original hypothesis was lost in a +complication of epicycles:-- + + "The sphere, + With centric and eccentric scribbled o'er, + Cycle and epicycle, orb in orb." + +By the end of the sixteenth century the number of circles supposed +necessary for the seven stars then known amounted to seventy-four, +while Tycho Brahe was discovering more and more planetary movements for +which these circles would not account. + +To push aside forever this complicated chaos and evoke celestial order +and harmony, came Kepler. Long had the sublime intuition possessed him, +that numerical and geometrical relations connect the distances, times, +and revolutions of the planets. He began his studies on the planet +Mars,--a fortunate choice, as the marked eccentricity of that planet +would afford ready suggestions and verifications of the true law of +irregularity, and on which Tycho had accumulated copious data. It had +long been remarked that the angular velocity of each planet increases +constantly in proportion as the body approaches its centre of motion; +but the relation between the distance and the velocity remained wholly +unknown. Kepler discovered it by comparing the maximum and minimum of +these quantities, by which their relation became more sensible. He +found that the angular velocities of Mars at its nearest and farthest +distances from the sun were in inverse proportion to the squares of the +corresponding distances. This law, deduced, was the immediate path to +the law of orbital ellipticity. For, on attempting to apply his +newly-discovered law to Mars, on the old assumption that its orbit was +a circle, he soon found that the results from the combination of the +two principles were such as could not be reconciled with the places of +Mars observed by Tycho. In this dilemma, finding he must give up one or +the other of these principles, he first proposed to sacrifice his own +theory to the authority of the old system,--a memorable example of +resolute candor. But, after indefatigably subjecting it to crucial +experiment, he found that it was the old hypothesis, and not the new +one, that had to be sacrificed.[1] If the orbit was not a circle, what, +then, was it? By a happy stroke of philosophical genius he lit on the +ellipse. On bringing his hypothesis to the test of observation, he +found it was indeed so; and rising from the case of Mars to universal +statement, he generalized the law, that the planetary orbits are +elliptical, having the sun for their common focus. + +[Footnote 1: ROBERT SMALL: _Astronomical Discoveries of Kepler_.] + +Kepler had now determined the course of each planet. But there was no +known relation between the distances and times; and the evolution of +some harmony between these factors was to him an object of the greatest +interest and the most restless curiosity. Long he dwelt in the dream of +the Pythagorean harmonies. Then he essayed to determine it from the +regular geometrical solids, and afterwards from the divisions of +musical chords. Over twenty years he spent in these baffled efforts. At +length, on the 8th of March, 1618, it occurred to him, that, instead of +comparing the simple times, he should compare the numbers expressing +the similar powers, as squares, cubes, etc.; and lastly, he made the +very comparison on which his discovery was founded, between the squares +of the times and the cubes of the distances. But, through some error of +calculation, no common relation was found between them. Finding it +impossible, however, to banish the subject from his thoughts, he tells +us, that on the 8th of the following May he renewed the last of these +comparisons, and, by repeating his calculations with greater care, +found, with the highest astonishment and delight, that the ratio of the +squares of the periodical times of any two planets was constantly and +invariably the same with the ratio of the cubes of their mean distances +from the sun. Then it was that he burst forth in his memorable +rhapsody:--"What I prophesied twenty-two years ago, as soon as I +discovered the five solids among the heavenly orbits,--what I firmly +believed long before I had seen Ptolemy's harmonics,--what I had +promised my friends in the title of this book, which I named before I +was sure of my discovery,--what sixteen years ago I urged as a thing to +be sought,--that for which I joined Tycho Brahe, for which I settled in +Prague, for which I have devoted the best part of my life to +astronomical contemplation,--at length I have brought to light, and +have recognized its truth beyond my most sanguine expectations. It is +now eighteen months since I got the first glimpse of light, three +months since the dawn, very few days since the unveiled sun, most +admirable to gaze upon, burst out upon me. Nothing holds me; I will +indulge in my sacred fury; I will triumph over mankind by the honest +confession, that I have stolen the golden vases of the Egyptians to +build up a tabernacle for my God far away from the confines of Egypt. +If you forgive me, I rejoice; if you are angry, I can bear it: the die +is cast; the book is written, to be read either now or by posterity, I +care not which: it may well wait a century for a reader, as God has +waited six thousand years for an observer!" + +These laws have, no doubt, a universal significance, and may be +translated into problems of life. For, after the farthest sweep of +Induction, a question yet remains to be asked: Whence comes the power +to perceive a law? Whence that subtile correspondence and +consanguinity, that the laws of man's mental structure tally with the +phenomena of the universe? To this problem of problems our science as +yet affords but meagre answers. It seems though, so far in the history +of humanity, it had been but given man to recognize this truth as a +splendid idealism, without the ability to make it potential in his +theory of the world. Yet what a key to new and beautiful gates of laws! + + "Who can be sure to find its true degree, + _Magister magnus in igne_ shall he be." + +Antique and intuitive nations--Indians, Egyptians, Greeks--sought a +solution of this august mystery in the doctrines of Transmigration and +Anamnesis or Reminiscence. Nothing is whereto man is not kin. He knows +all worlds and histories by virtue of having himself travelled the +mystic spiral descent. Awaking through memory, the processes of his +mind repeat the processes of the visible Kosmos. His unfolding is a +hymn of the origination of the world. + +Nature and man having sprung from the same spiritual source, a perfect +agreement subsists between the phenomena of the world and man's +mentality. This is necessary to the very conception of Science. If the +laws of reason did not exist in Nature, we should vainly attempt to +force them upon her: if the laws of Nature did not exist in our reason, +we should not be able to comprehend them.[1] There is a saying reported +of Zoroaster, and, coming from the deeps of fifty centuries, still +authentic and intelligible, that "the congruities of material forms to +the laws of the soul are divine allurements." Ever welcome is the +perception of this truth,--as the sublime audacity of Paracelsus, that +"those who would understand the course of the heavens above must first +of all recognize the heaven in man"; and the affirmation, that "the +laws of Nature are the same as the thoughts within us: the laws of +motion are such as are required by our understanding." It remains to +say that Kepler, too, had intuition of this lofty thought. At the +conclusion of his early work, "The Prodromus Dissertationum +Cosmographicarum," he wrote,--"As men enjoy dainties at the dessert, so +do wise souls gain a taste for heavenly things when they ascend from +their college to the universe and there look around them. Great Artist +of the World! I look with wonder on the works of Thy hands, constructed +after five regular forms, and in the midst the sun, the dispenser of +light and life. I see the moon and stars strewn over the infinite field +of space. Father of the World! what moved Thee thus to exalt a poor, weak +little creature of earth so high that he stands in light a far-ruling +king, almost a god?--_for he thinks Thy thoughts after Thee_." + +[Footnote 1: OERSTED: _Soul in Nature._] + +It is impossible not to feel freer at the accession of so much power as +these laws bring us. They carry farther on the bounds of humanity. The +stars are the eternal monitions of spirituality. Who can estimate how +much man's thoughts have been colored by these golden kindred? It seems +as though it were but required to show man space,--space, space, +space,--there is that in him will fill and pass it. There is that in +the celestial prodigies--in gulfs of Time and Space--that seems to mate +the greed of the soul. There is that greed in the soul to pass through +worlds and ages,--through growths, griefs, desires, processes, +spheres,--to travel the endless highways,--to pass and resume again. O +Heavens, you are but a splendid fable of the elder mind! Centripetal +and centrifugal are in man, too, and primarily; and an aspiring soul +will ascend into the sweeps and circles, and pass swift and devouring +through baffling intervals and steep-down strata of galaxies and stars. + +The thought that overarches the centuries with firmamental sweep is the +thought of the Ensemble. To this all has led along,--but the +disclosures of Astronomy especially. The discovery of the earth's +revolution, at once transporting the stars to distances outside of all +telluric connection, broke the old spell, and replaced the petty +provincialism of the earth as the All-Centre by the vast, sublime +conception of the Universe. Laplace has pointed this out, showing how +to the fantastic and enervating notion of a universe arranged for man +has succeeded the sound and vivifying thought of man discovering, by a +positive exercise of his intelligence, the general laws of the world, +so as to be able to modify them for his own good, within certain +limits. Dawning prophetic on modern times, the thought of the Ensemble +holds the seeds of new humanitary growths. This is the vast similitude +that binds together the ages,--that balances creeds, colors, eras. +Through Nature, man, forms, spirit, the eternal conspiracy works and +weaves. This is the water of spirituality. All is bound up in the +Divine Scheme. The Divine Scheme encloses all. + + + + +PLEASURE-PAIN. + +"Das Vergnügen ist Nichts als ein höchst angenehmer Schmerz."--HEINRICH +HEINE + + +I. + +Full of beautiful blossoms + Stood the tree in early May: +Came a chilly gale from the sunset, + And blew the blossoms away,-- + +Scattered them, through the garden, + Tossed them into the mere: +The sad tree moaned and shuddered, + "Alas! the fall is here." + +But all through the glowing summer + The blossomless tree throve fair, +And the fruit waxed ripe and mellow, + With sunny rain and air; + +And when the dim October + With golden death was crowned, +Under its heavy branches + The tree stooped to the ground. + +In youth there comes a west wind + Blowing our bloom away,-- +A chilly breath of Autumn + Out of the lips of May. + +We bear the ripe fruit after,-- + Ah, me! for the thought of pain!-- +We know the sweetness and beauty + And the heart-bloom never again. + +II. + +One sails away to sea,-- + One stands on the shore and cries; +The ship goes down the world, and the light + On the sullen water dies. + +The whispering shell is mute,-- + And after is evil cheer: +She shall stand on the shore and cry in vain, + Many and many a year. + +But the stately, wide-winged ship + Lies wrecked on the unknown deep; +Far under, dead in his coral bed, + The lover lies asleep. + +III. + +In the wainscot ticks the death-watch, + Chirps the cricket in the floor, +In the distance dogs are barking, + Feet go by outside my door. + +From her window honeysuckles + Stealing in upon the gloom, +Spice and sweets embalm the silence + Dead within the lonesome room. + +And the ghost of that dead silence + Haunts me ever, thin and chill, +In the pauses of the death-watch, + When the cricket's cry is still. + +IV. + +She stands in silks of purple, + Like a splendid flower in bloom; +She moves, and the air is laden + With delicate perfume. + +The over-vigilant mamma + Can never let her be: +She must play this march for another, + And sing that song for me. + +I wonder if she remembers + The song I made for her: +"_The hopes of love are frailer + Than lines of gossamer_": + +Made when we strolled together + Through fields of happy June, +And our hearts kept time together, + With birds and brooks in tune,-- + +And I was so glad of loving, + That I must mimic grief, +And, trusting in love forever, + Must fable unbelief. + +I did not hear the prelude,-- + I was thinking of these old things. +She is fairer and wiser and older + Than----What is it she sings? + +"_The hopes of love are frailer + Than lines of gossamer_." +Alas! the bitter wisdom + Of the song I made for her! + +V. + +All the long August afternoon, + The little drowsy stream +Whispers a melancholy tune, +As if it dreamed of June + And whispered in its dream. + +The thistles show beyond the brook + Dust on their down and bloom, +And out of many a weed-grown nook +The aster-flowers look + With eyes of tender gloom. + +The silent orchard aisles are sweet + With smell of ripening fruit. +Through the sere grass, in shy retreat, +Flatter, at coming feet, + The robins strange and mute. + +There is no wind to stir the leaves, + The harsh leaves overhead; +Only the querulous cricket grieves, +And shrilling locust weaves + A song of summer dead. + + + + +THE PROFESSOR'S STORY. + + +CHAPTER VII. + +THE EVENT OF THE SEASON. + + +"Mr. and Mrs. Colonel Sprowle's compliments to Mr. Langdon and requests +the pleasure of his company at a social entertainment on Wednesday +evening next. + +"_Elm St. Monday._" + +On paper of a pinkish color and musky smell, with a large S at the top, +and an embossed border. Envelop adherent, not sealed. Addressed, + +----_Langdon Esq. + +Present._ + +Brought by H. Frederic Sprowle, youngest son of the Colonel,--the H. of +course standing for the paternal Hezekiah, put in to please the father, +and reduced to its initial to please the mother, she having a marked +preference for Frederic. Boy directed to wait for an answer. + +"Mr. Langdon has the pleasure of accepting Mr. and Mrs. Colonel +Sprowle's polite invitation for Wednesday evening." + +On plain paper, sealed with an initial. + +In walking along the main street, Mr. Bernard had noticed a large house +of some pretensions to architectural display, namely, unnecessarily +projecting eaves, giving it a mushroomy aspect, wooden mouldings at +various available points, and a grandiose arched portico. It looked a +little swaggering by the side of one or two of the mansion-houses that +were not far from it, was painted too bright for Mr. Bernard's taste, +had rather too fanciful a fence before it, and had some fruit-trees +planted in the front-yard, which to this fastidious young gentleman +implied a defective sense of the fitness of things, not promising in +people who lived in so large a house, with a mushroom roof, and a +triumphal arch for its entrance. + +This place was known as "Colonel Sprowle's villa," (genteel +friends,)--as "the elegant residence of our distinguished +fellow-citizen, Colonel Sprowle," (Rockland Weekly Universe,)--as "the +neew haouse," (old settlers,)--as "Spraowle's Folly," (disaffected and +possibly envious neighbors,)--and in common discourse, as "the +Colonel's". + +Hezekiah Sprowle, Esquire, Colonel Sprowle of the Commonwealth's +Militia, was a retired "merchant." An India merchant he might, perhaps, +have been properly called; for he used to deal in West India goods, +such as coffee, sugar, and molasses, not to speak of rum,--also in tea, +salt fish, butter and cheese, oil and candles, dried fruit, +agricultural "p'dóose" generally, industrial products, such as boots +and shoes, and various kinds of iron and wooden ware, and at one end of +the establishment in calicoes and other stuffs,--to say nothing of +miscellaneous objects of the most varied nature, from sticks of candy, +which tempted in the smaller youth with coppers in their fists, up to +ornamental articles of apparel, pocket-books, breast-pins, gilt-edged +Bibles, stationery,--in short, everything which was like to prove +seductive to the rural population. The Colonel had made money in trade, +and also by matrimony. He had married Sarah, daughter and heiress of +the late Tekel Jordan, Esq., an old miser, who gave the town clock, +which carries his name to posterity in large gilt letters as a generous +benefactor of his native place. In due time the Colonel reaped the +reward of well-placed affections. When his wife's inheritance fell in, +he thought he had money enough to give up trade, and therefore sold out +his "store," called in some dialects of the English language _shop_, +and his business. + +Life became pretty hard work to him, of course, as soon as he had +nothing particular to do. Country people with money enough not to have +to work are in much more danger than city people in the same condition. +They get a specific look and character, which are the same in all the +villages where one studies them. They very commonly fall into a +routine, the basis of which is going to some lounging-place or other, a +bar-room, a reading-room, or something of the kind. They grow slovenly +in dress, and wear the same hat forever. They have a feeble curiosity +for news perhaps, which they take daily as a man takes his bitters, and +then fall silent and think they are thinking. But the mind goes out +under this regimen, like a fire without a draught; and it is not very +strange, if the instinct of mental self-preservation drives them to +brandy-and-water, which makes the hoarse whisper of memory musical for +a few brief moments, and puts a weak leer of promise on the features of +the hollow-eyed future. The Colonel was kept pretty well in hand as yet +by his wife, and though it had happened to him once or twice to come +home rather late at night with a curious tendency to say the same thing +twice and even three times over, it had always been in very cold +weather,--and everybody knows that no one is safe to drink a couple of +glasses of wine in a warm room and go suddenly out into the cold air. + +Miss Matilda Sprowle, sole daughter of the house, had reached the age +at which young ladies are supposed in technical language to have _come +out_, and thereafter are considered to be _in company._ + +"There's one piece o' goods," said the Colonel to his wife, "that we +ha'n't disposed of, nor got a customer for yet. That's Matildy. I don't +mean to set _her_ up at vaandoo. I guess she can have her pick of a +dozen." + +"She's never seen anybody yet," said Mrs. Sprowle, who had had a +certain project for some time, but had kept quiet about it. "Let's have +a party, and give her a chance to show herself and see some of the +young folks." + +The Colonel was not very clear-headed, and he thought, naturally +enough, that the party was his own suggestion, because his remark led +to the first starting of the idea. He entered into the plan, therefore, +with a certain pride as well as pleasure, and the great project was +resolved upon in a family council without a dissentient voice. This was +the party, then, to which Mr. Bernard was going. The town had been full +of it for a week. "Everybody was asked." So everybody said that was +invited. But how in respect of those who were not asked? If it had been +one of the old mansion-houses that was giving a party, the boundary +between the favored and the slighted families would have been known +pretty well beforehand, and there would have been no great amount of +grumbling. But the Colonel, for all his title, had a forest of poor +relations and a brushwood swamp of shabby friends, for he had scrambled +up to fortune, and now the time was come when he must define his new +social position. + +This is always an awkward business in town or country. An exclusive +alliance between two powers is often the same thing as a declaration of +war against a third. Rockland was soon split into a triumphant +minority, invited to Mrs. Sprowle's party, and a great majority, +uninvited, of which the fraction just on the border line between +recognized "gentility" and the level of the ungloved masses was in an +active state of excitement and indignation. + +"Who is she, I should like to know?" said Mrs. Saymore, the tailor's +wife. "There was plenty of folks in Rockland as good as ever Sally +Jordan was, if she _had_ managed to pick up a merchant. Other folks +could have married merchants, if their families wasn't as wealthy as +them old skinflints that willed her their money," etc., etc. Mrs. +Saymore expressed the feeling of many beside herself. She had, however, +a special right to be proud of the name she bore. Her husband was own +cousin to the Saymores of Freestone Avenue (who write the name +_Seymour_, and claim to be of the Duke of Somerset's family, showing a +clear descent from the Protector to Edward Seymour, (1630,)--then a +jump that would break a herald's neck to one Seth Saymore, +(1783,)--from whom to the head of the present family the line is clear +again). Mrs. Saymore, the tailor's wife, was not invited, because her +husband _mended_ clothes. If he had confined himself strictly to +_making_ them, it would have put a different face upon the matter. + +The landlord of the Mountain House and his lady were invited to Mrs. +Sprowle's party. Not so the landlord of Pollard's Tavern and his lady. +Whereupon the latter vowed that they would have a party at their house +too, and made arrangements for a dance of twenty or thirty couples, to +be followed by an entertainment. Tickets to this "Social Ball" were +soon circulated, and, being accessible to all at a moderate price, +admission to the "Elegant Supper" included, this second festival +promised to be as merry, if not as select, as the great party. + +Wednesday came. Such doings had never been heard of in Rockland as went +on that day at the "villa." The carpet had been taken up in the long +room, so that the young folks might have a dance. Miss Matilda's piano +had been moved in, and two fiddlers and a clarionet-player engaged to +make music. All kinds of lamps had been put in requisition, and even +colored wax-candles figured on the mantel-pieces. The costumes of the +family had been tried on the day before: the Colonel's black suit +fitted exceedingly well; his lady's velvet dress displayed her contours +to advantage; Miss Matilda's flowered silk was considered superb; the +eldest son of the family, Mr. T. Jordan Sprowle, called affectionately +and elegantly "Geordie," voted himself "stunnin'"; and even the small +youth who had borne Mr. Bernard's invitation was effective in a new +jacket and trousers, buttony in front, and baggy in the reverse aspect, +as is wont to be the case with the home-made garments of inland +youngsters. + +Great preparations had been made for the refection which was to be part +of the entertainment. There was much clinking of borrowed spoons, which +were to be carefully counted, and much clicking of borrowed china, +which was to be tenderly handled,--for nobody in the country keeps +those vast closets full of such things which one may see in rich +city-houses. Not a great deal could be done in the way of flowers, for +there were no greenhouses, and few plants were out as yet; but there +were paper ornaments for the candlesticks, and colored mats for the +lamps, and all the tassels of the curtains and bells were taken out of +those brown linen bags, in which, for reasons hitherto undiscovered, +they are habitually concealed in some households. In the remoter +apartments every imaginable operation was going on at once,--roasting, +boiling, baking, beating, rolling, pounding in mortars, frying, +freezing; for there was to be ice-cream to-night of domestic +manufacture;--and in the midst of all these labors, Mrs. Sprowle and +Miss Matilda were moving about, directing and helping as they best +might, all day long. When the evening came, it might be feared they +would not be in just the state of mind and body to entertain company. + +----One would like to give a party now and then, if one could be a +billionnaire.--"Antoine, I am going to have twenty people to dine +to-day." "_Bien, Madame_." Not a word or thought more about it, but get +home in season to dress, and come down to your own table, one of your +own guests.--"Giuseppe, we are to have a party a week from +to-night,--five hundred invitations,--there is the list." The day +comes. "Madam, do you remember you have your party to-night?" "Why, so +I have! Everything right? supper and all?" "All as it should be, +Madam." "Send up Victorine." "Victorine, full toilet for this +evening,--pink, diamonds, and emeralds. Coiffeur at seven. +_Allez_."--Billionism, or even millionism, must be a blessed kind of +state, with health and clear conscience and youth and good looks,--but +most blessed in this, that it takes off all the mean cares which give +people the three wrinkles between the eyebrows, and leaves them free to +have a good time and make others have a good time, all the way along +from the charity that tips up unexpected loads of wood at widows' +doors, and leaves foundling turkeys upon poor men's doorsteps, and sets +lean clergymen crying at the sight of anonymous fifty-dollar bills, to +the taste which orders a perfect banquet in such sweet accord with +every sense that everybody's nature flowers out full-blown in its +golden-glowing, fragrant atmosphere. + +----A great party given by the smaller gentry of the interior is a kind +of solemnity, so to speak. It involves so much labor and anxiety,--its +spasmodic splendors are so violently contrasted with the homeliness of +every-day family-life,--it is such a formidable matter to break in the +raw subordinates to the _manége_ of the cloak-room and the +table,--there is such a terrible uncertainty in the results of +unfamiliar culinary operations,--so many feuds are involved in drawing +that fatal line which divides the invited from the uninvited fraction +of the local universe,--that, if the notes requested the pleasure of +the guests' company on "this solemn occasion," they would pretty nearly +express the true state of things. + +The Colonel himself had been pressed into the service. He had pounded +something in the great mortar. He had agitated a quantity of sweetened +and thickened milk in what was called a cream-freezer. At eleven +o'clock, A.M., he retired for a space. On returning, his color was +noted to be somewhat heightened, and he showed a disposition to be +jocular with the female help,--which tendency, displaying itself in +livelier demonstrations than were approved at head-quarters, led to his +being detailed to out-of-door duties, such as raking gravel, arranging +places for horses to be hitched to, and assisting in the construction +of an arch of wintergreen at the porch of the mansion. + +A whiff from Mr. Geordie's cigar refreshed the toiling females from +time to time; for the windows had to be opened occasionally, while all +these operations were going on, and the youth amused himself with +inspecting the interior, encouraging the operatives now and then in the +phrases commonly employed by genteel young men,--for he had perused an +odd volume of "Verdant Green," and was acquainted with a Sophomore from +one of the fresh-water colleges.--"Go it on the feed!" exclaimed this +spirited young man. "Nothin' like a good spread. Grub enough and good +liquor; that's the ticket. Guv'nor 'll do the heavy polite, and let me +alone for polishin' off the young charmers." And Mr. Geordie looked +expressively at a handmaid who was rolling gingerbread, as if he were +rehearsing for "Don Giovanni." + +Evening came at last, and the ladies were forced to leave the scene of +their labors to array themselves for the coming festivities. The tables +had been set in a back room, the meats were ready, the pickles were +displayed, the cake was baked, the blanc-mange had stiffened, and the +ice-cream had frozen. + +At half past seven o'clock, the Colonel, in costume, came into the +front parlor, and proceeded to light the lamps. Some were good-humored +enough and took the hint of a lighted match at once. Others were as +vicious as they could be,--would not light on any terms, any more than +if they were filled with water, or lighted and smoked one side of the +chimney, or sputtered a few sparks and sulked themselves out, or kept +up a faint show of burning, so that their ground glasses looked as +feebly phosphorescent as so many invalid fireflies. With much coaxing +and screwing and pricking, a tolerable illumination was at last +achieved. At eight there was a grand rustling of silks, and Mrs. and +Miss Sprowle descended from their respective bowers or boudoirs. Of +course they were pretty well tired by this time, and very glad to sit +down,--having the prospect before them of being obliged to stand for +hours. The Colonel walked about the parlor, inspecting his regiment of +lamps. By-and-by Mr. Geordie entered. + +"Mph! mph!" he sniffed, as he came in. "You smell of lamp-smoke here." + +That always galls people,--to have a new-comer accuse them of smoke or +close air, which they have got used to and do not perceive. The Colonel +raged at the thought of his lamps' smoking, and tongued a few anathemas +inside of his shut teeth, but turned down two or three that burned +higher than the rest. + +Master H. Frederic next made his appearance, with questionable marks +upon his fingers and countenance. Had been tampering with something +brown and sticky. His elder brother grew playful, and caught him by the +baggy reverse of his more essential garment. + +"Hush!" said Mrs. Sprowle,--"there's the bell!" + +Everybody took position at once, and began to look very smiling and +altogether at ease.--False alarm. Only a parcel of spoons,--"loaned," +as the inland folks say when they mean lent, by a neighbor. + +"Better late than never!" said the Colonel; "let me heft them spoons." + +Mrs. Sprowle came down into her chair again as if all her bones had +been bewitched out of her. + +"I'm pretty nigh beat out a'ready," said she, "before any of the folks +has come." + +They sat silent awhile, waiting for the first arrival. How nervous they +got! and how their senses were sharpened! + +"Hark!" said Miss Matilda,--"what's that rumblin'?" + +It was a cart going over a bridge more than a mile off, which at any +other time they would not have heard. After this there was a lull, and +poor Mrs. Sprowle's head nodded once or twice. Presently a crackling +and grinding of gravel;--how much that means, when we are waiting for +those whom we long or dread to see! Then a change in the tone of the +gravel-crackling. + +"Yes, they have turned in at our gate. They're comin'. Mother! mother!" + +Everybody in position, smiling and at ease. Bell rings. Enter the first +set of visitors. The Event of the Season has begun. + +"Law! it's nothin' but the Cranes' folks! I do believe Mahala's come in +that old green de-laine she wore at the Surprise Party!" + +Miss Matilda had peeped through a crack of the door and made this +observation and the remark founded thereon. Continuing her attitude of +attention, she overheard Mrs. Crane and her two daughters conversing in +the attiring-room, up one flight. + +"How fine everything is in the great house!" said Mrs. Crane,--"jest +look at the picters!" "Matildy Sprowle's drawins," said Ada Azuba, the +eldest daughter. + +"I should think so," said Mahala Crane, her younger sister,--a +wide-awake girl, who hadn't been to school for nothing, and performed a +little on the lead pencil herself. "I should like to know whether +that's a hay-cock or a mountain!" + +Miss Matilda winced; for this must refer to her favorite monochrome, +executed by laying on heavy shadows and stumping them down into mellow +harmony,--the style of drawing which is taught in six lessons, and the +kind of specimen which is executed in something less than one hour. +Parents and other very near relatives are sometimes gratified with +these productions, and cause them to be framed and hung up, as in the +present instance. + +"I guess we won't go down jest yet," said Mrs. Crane, "as folks don't +seem to have come." + +So she began a systematic inspection of the dressing-room and its +conveniences. + +"Mahogany four-poster,--come from the Jordans', I cal'late. Marseilles +quilt. Ruffles all round the piller. Chintz curtings,--jest put up,--o' +purpose for the party, I'll lay ye a dollar.--What a nice washbowl!" +(Taps it with a white knuckle belonging to a red finger.) "Stone +chaney.--Here's a bran'-new brush and comb,--and here's a scent-bottle. +Come here, girls, and fix yourselves in the glass, and scent your +pocket-handkerchers." + +And Mrs. Crane bedewed her own kerchief with some of the _eau de +Cologne_ of native manufacture,--said on its label to be much superior +to the German article. + +It was a relief to Mrs. and the Miss Cranes when the bell rang and the +next guests were admitted. Deacon and Mrs. Soper,--Deacon Soper of the +Rev. Mr. Fairweather's church, and his lady. Mrs. Deacon Soper was +directed, of course, to the ladies' dressing-room, and her husband to +the other apartment, where gentlemen were to leave their outside coats +and hats. Then came Mr. and Mrs. Briggs, and then the three Miss +Spinneys, then Silas Peckham, Head of the Apollinean Institute, and +Mrs. Peckham, and more after them, until at last the ladies' +dressing-room got so full that one might have thought it was a trap +none of them could get out of. The fact is, they all felt a little +awkwardly. Nobody wanted to be first to venture down-stairs. At last +Mr. Silas Peckham thought it was time to make a move for the parlor, +and for this purpose presented himself at the door of the ladies' +dressing-room. + +"Lorindy, my dear!" he exclaimed to Mrs. Peckham,--"I think there can +be no impropriety in our joining the family down-stairs." + +Mrs. Peckham laid her large, flaccid arm in the sharp angle made by the +black sleeve which held the bony limb her husband offered, and the two +took the stair and struck out for the parlor. The ice was broken, and +the dressing-room began to empty itself into the spacious, lighted +apartments below. + +Mr. Silas Peckham scaled into the room with Mrs. Peckham alongside, +like a shad convoying a jelly-fish. + +"Good evenin', Mrs. Sprowle! I hope I see you well this evenin'. How's +your health, Colonel Sprowle?" + +"Very well, much obleeged to you. Hope you and your good lady are well. +Much pleased to see you. Hope you'll enjoy yourselves. We've laid out +to have everything in good shape,--spared no trouble nor ex"---- + +----"pense,"--said Silas Peckham. + +Mrs. Colonel Sprowle, who, you remember, was a Jordan, had nipped the +Colonel's statement in the middle of the word Mr. Peckham finished, +with a look that jerked him like one of those sharp twitches women keep +giving a horse when they get a chance to drive one. + +Mr. and Mrs. Crane, Miss Ada Azuba, and Miss Mahala Crane made their +entrance. There had been a discussion about the necessity and propriety +of inviting this family, the head of which kept a small shop for hats +and boots and shoes. The Colonel's casting vote had carried it in the +affirmative.--How terribly the poor old green de-laine did cut up in +the blaze of so many lamps and candles! + +----Deluded little wretch, male or female, in town or country, going to +your first great party, how little you know the nature of the ceremony +in which you are to bear the part of victim! What! are not these +garlands and gauzy mists and many-colored streamers which adorn you, is +not this music which welcomes you, this radiance that glows about you, +meant solely for your enjoyment, young miss of seventeen or eighteen +summers, now for the first time swimming into the frothy, chatoyant, +sparkling, undulating sea of laces and silks and satins, and +white-armed, flower-crowned maidens struggling in their waves, beneath +the lustres that make the false summer of the drawing-room? + +Stop at the threshold! This is a hall of judgment you are entering; the +court is in session; and if you move five steps forward, you will be at +its bar. + +There was a tribunal once in France, as you may remember, called the +_Chambre Ardente_, the Burning Chamber. It was hung all round with +lamps, and hence its name. The burning chamber for the trial of young +maidens is the blazing ballroom. What have they full-dressed you, or +rather half-dressed you for, do you think? To make you look pretty, of +course!--Why have they hung a chandelier above you, flickering all over +with flames, so that it searches you like the noonday sun, and your +deepest dimple cannot hold a shadow? To give brilliancy to the gay +scene, no doubt!--No, my dear! Society is _inspecting_ you, and it +finds undisguised surfaces and strong lights a convenience in the +process. The dance answers the purpose of the revolving pedestal upon +which the "White Captive" turns, to show us the soft, kneaded marble, +which looks as if it had never been hard, in all its manifold aspects +of living loveliness. No mercy for you, my love! Justice, strict +justice, you shall certainly have,--neither more nor less. For, look +you, there are dozens, scores, hundreds, with whom you must be weighed +in the balance; and you have got to learn that the "struggle for life" +Mr. Charles Darwin talks about reaches to vertebrates clad in +crinoline, as well as to mollusks in shells, or articulates in jointed +scales, or anything that fights for breathing-room and food and love in +any coat of fur or feather! Happy they who can flash defiance from +bright eyes and snowy shoulders back into the pendants of the insolent +lustres! + +----Miss Mahala Crane did not have these reflections; and no young girl +ever did, or ever will, thank Heaven! Her keen eyes sparkled under her +plainly parted hair, and the green de-laine moulded itself in those +unmistakable lines of natural symmetry in which Nature indulges a small +shopkeeper's daughter occasionally as well as a wholesale dealer's +young ladies. She would have liked a new dress as much as any other +girl, but she meant to go and have a good time at any rate. + +The guests were now arriving in the drawing-room pretty fast, and the +Colonel's hand began to burn a good deal with the sharp squeezes which +many of the visitors gave it. Conversation, which had begun like a +summer-shower, in scattering drops, was fast becoming continuous, and +occasionally rising into gusty swells, with now and then a +broad-chested laugh from some Captain or Major or other military +personage,--for it may be noted that all large and loud men in the +impaved districts bear military titles. + +Deacon Soper came up presently and entered into conversation with +Colonel Sprowle. + +"I hope to see our pastor present this evenin'," said the Deacon. + +"I don't feel quite sure," the Colonel answered. "His dyspepsy has been +bad on him lately. He wrote to say, that, Providence permittin', it +would be agreeable to him to take a part in the exercises of the +evenin'; but I mistrusted he didn't mean to come. To tell the truth, +Deacon Soper, I rather guess he don't like the idee of dancin', and +some of the other little arrangements." + +"Well," said the Deacon, "I know there's some condemns dancin'. I've +heerd a good deal of talk about it among the folks round. Some have it +that it never brings a blessin' on a house to have dancin' in it. Judge +Tileston died, you remember, within a month after he had his great +ball, twelve year ago, and some thought it was in the natur' of a +judgment. I don't believe in any of them notions. If a man happened to +be struck dead the night after he'd been givin' a ball," (the Colonel +loosened his black stock a little, and winked and swallowed two or +three times,) "I shouldn't call it a judgment,--I should call it a +coincidence. But I'm a little afraid our pastor won't come. Somethin' +or other's the matter with Mr. Fairweather. I should sooner expect to +see the old Doctor come over out of the Orthodox parsonage-house." + +"I've asked him," said the Colonel. + +"Well?" said Deacon Soper. + +"He said he should like to come, but he didn't know what his people +would say. For his part, he loved to see young folks havin' their +sports together, and very often felt, as if he should like to be one of +'em himself. 'But,' says I, 'Doctor, I don't say there won't be a +little dancin'.' 'Don't!' says he, 'for I want Letty to go,' (she's his +granddaughter that's been stayin' with him,) 'and Letty's mighty fond +of dancin'. You know,' says the Doctor, 'it isn't my business to settle +whether other people's children should dance or not.' And the Doctor +looked as if he should like to rigadoon and sashy across as well as the +young one he was talkin' about. He's got blood in him, the old Doctor +has. I wish our little man and him would swop pulpits." + +Deacon Soper started and looked up into the Colonel's face, as if to +see whether he was in earnest. + +Mr. Silas Peckham and his lady joined the group. + +"Is this to be a Temperance Celebration, Mrs. Sprowle?" asked Mr. Silas +Peckham. + +Mrs. Sprowle replied, "that there would be lemonade and srub for those +that preferred such drinks, but that the Colonel had given folks to +understand that he didn't mean to set in judgment on the marriage in +Canaan, and that those that didn't like srub and such things would find +somethin' that would suit them better." + +Deacon Soper's countenance assumed a certain air of restrained +cheerfulness. The conversation rose into one of its gusty paroxysms +just then. Master H. Frederic got behind a door and began performing +the experiment of stopping and unstopping his ears in rapid +alternation, greatly rejoicing in the singular effect of mixed +conversation chopped very small, like the contents of a mince-pie,--or +meat pie, as it is more forcibly called in the deep-rutted villages +lying along the unsalted streams. All at once it grew silent just round +the door, where it had been loudest,--and the silence spread itself +like a stain, till it hushed everything but a few corner-duets. A dark, +sad-looking, middle-aged gentleman entered the parlor, with a young +lady on his arm,--his daughter, as it seemed, for she was not wholly +unlike him in feature, and of the same dark complexion. + +"Dudley Venner!" exclaimed a dozen people, in startled, but +half-suppressed tones. + +"What can have brought Dudley out to-night?" said Jefferson Buck, a +young fellow, who had been interrupted in one of the corner-duets which +he was executing in concert with Miss Susy Pettingill. + +"How do I know, Jeff?" was Miss Susy's answer. Then, after a +pause,--"Elsie made him come, I guess. Go ask Dr. Kittredge; he knows +all about 'em both, they say." + +Dr. Kittredge, the leading physician of Rockland, was a shrewd old man, +who looked pretty keenly into his patients through his spectacles, and +pretty widely at men, women, and things in general over them. +Sixty-three years old,--just the year of the grand climacteric. A bald +crown, as every doctor should have. A consulting practitioner's mouth; +that is, movable round the corners while the case is under examination, +but both corners well drawn down and kept so when the final opinion is +made up. In fact, the Doctor was often sent for to act as "caounsel," +all over the county, and beyond it. He kept three or four horses, +sometimes riding in the saddle, commonly driving in a sulky, pretty +fast, and looking straight before him, so that people got out of the +way of bowing to him as he passed on the road. There was some talk +about his not being so long-sighted as other folks, but his old +patients laughed and looked knowing when this was spoken of. + +The Doctor knew a good many things besides how to drop tinctures and +shake out powders. Thus, he knew a horse, and, what is harder to +understand, a horse-dealer, and was a match for him. He knew what a +nervous woman is, and how to manage her. He could tell at a glance when +she is in that condition of unstable equilibrium in which a rough word +is like blow to her, and the touch of unmagnetized fingers reverses all +her nervous currents. It is not everybody that enters into the soul of +Mozart's or Beethoven's harmonies; and there are vital symphonies in B +flat, and other low, sad keys, which a doctor may know as little of as +a hurdy-gurdy player of the essence of those divine musical mysteries. +The Doctor knew the difference between what men say and what they mean +as well as most people. When he was listening to common talk, he was in +the habit of looking over his spectacles; if he lifted his head so as +to look through them at the person talking, he was busier with that +person's thoughts than with his words. + +Jefferson Buck was not bold enough to confront the Doctor with Miss +Susy's question, for he did not look as if he were in the mood to +answer queries put by curious young people. His eyes were fixed +steadily on the dark girl, every movement of whom he seemed to follow. + +She was, indeed, an apparition of wild beauty, so unlike the girls +about her that it seemed nothing more than natural, that, when she +moved, the groups should part to let her pass through them, and that +she should carry the centre of all looks and thoughts with her. She was +dressed to please her own fancy, evidently, with small regard to the +modes declared correct by the Rockland milliners and mantua-makers. Her +heavy black hair lay in a braided coil, with a long gold pin shot +through it like a javelin. Round her neck was a golden _torque_, a +round, cord-like chain, such as the Gauls used to wear: the "Dying +Gladiator" has it. Her dress was a grayish watered silk; her collar was +pinned with a flashing diamond brooch, the stones looking as fresh as +morning dew-drops, but the silver setting of the past generation; her +arms were bare, round, but slender rather than large, in keeping with +her lithe round figure. On her wrists she wore bracelets: one was a +circlet of enamelled scales; the other looked as if it might have been +Cleopatra's asp, with its body turned to gold and its eyes to emeralds. + +Her father--for Dudley Venner was her father--looked like a man of +culture and breeding, but melancholy and with a distracted air, as one +whose life had met some fatal cross or blight. He saluted hardly +anybody except his entertainers and the Doctor. One would have said, to +look at him, that he was not at the party by choice; and it was natural +enough to think, with Susy Pettingill, that it must have been a freak +of the dark girl's that brought him there, for he had the air of a shy +and sad-hearted recluse. + +It was hard to say what could have brought Elsie Venner to the party. +Hardly anybody seemed to know her, and she seemed not at all disposed +to make acquaintances. Here and there was one of the older girls from +the Institute, but she appeared to have nothing in common with them. +Even in the school-room, it may be remembered, she sat apart by her own +choice, and now in the midst of the crowd she made a circle of +isolation round herself. Drawing her arm out of her father's, she stood +against the wall, and looked, with a strange, cold glitter in her eyes, +at the crowd which moved and babbled before her. + +The old Doctor came up to her by-and-by. + +"Well, Elsie, I am quite surprised to find you here. Do tell me how you +happened to do such a good-natured thing as to let us see you at such a +great party." + +"It's been dull at the mansion-house," she said, "and I wanted to get +out of it. It's too lonely there,--there's nobody to hate since Dick's +gone." + +The Doctor laughed good-naturedly, as if this were an amusing bit of +pleasantry,--but he lifted his head and dropped his eyes a little, so +as to see her through his spectacles. She narrowed her lids slightly, +as one often sees a sleepy cat narrow hers,--somewhat as you may +remember our famous Margaret used to, if you remember her at all,--so +that her eyes looked very small, but bright as the diamonds on her +breast. The old Doctor felt very oddly as she looked at him; he did not +like the feeling, so he dropped his head and lifted his eyes and looked +at her over his spectacles again. + +"And how have you all been at the mansion-house?" said the Doctor. + +"Oh, well enough. But Dick's gone, and there's nobody left but Dudley +and I and the people. I'm tired of it. What kills anybody quickest, +Doctor?" Then, in a whisper, "I ran away again the other day, you +know." + +"Where did you go?" The Doctor spoke in a low, serious tone. + +"Oh, to the old place. Here, I brought this for you." + +The Doctor started as she handed him a flower of the _Atragene +Americana_, for he knew that there was only one spot where it grew, and +that not one where any rash foot, least of all a thin-shod woman's +foot, should venture. + +"How long were you gone?" said the Doctor. + +"Only one night. You should have heard the horns blowing and the guns +firing. Dudley was frightened out of his wits. Old Sophy told him she'd +had a dream, and that I should be found in Dead-Man's Hollow, with a +great rock lying on me. They hunted all over it, but they did'nt find +me,--I was farther up." + +Doctor Kittredge looked cloudy and worried while she was speaking, but +forced a pleasant professional smile, as he said cheerily, and as if +wishing to change the subject,-- + +"Have a good dance this evening, Elsie. The fiddlers are tuning up. +Where's the young master? Has he come yet? or is he going to be late, +with the other great folks?" + +The girl turned away without answering, and looked toward the door. + +The "great folks," meaning the mansion-house gentry, were just +beginning to come; Dudley Venner and his daughter had been the first of +them. Judge Thornton, white-headed, fresh-faced, as good at sixty as he +was at forty, with a youngish second wife, and one noble daughter, +Arabella, who, they said, knew as much law as her father, a stately, +Portia-like girl, fit for a premier's wife, not like to find her match +even in the great cities she sometimes visited; the Trecothicks, the +family of a merchant, (in the larger sense,) who, having made himself +rich enough by the time he had reached middle life, threw down his +ledger as Sylla did his dagger, and retired to make a little paradise +around him in one of the stateliest residences of the town, a family +inheritance; the Vaughans, an old Rockland race, descended from its +first settlers, Toryish in tendency in Revolutionary times, and barely +escaping confiscation or worse; the Dunhams, a new family, dating its +gentility only as far back as the Honorable Washington Dunham, M.C., +but turning out a clever boy or two that went to college, and some +showy girls with white necks and fat arms who had picked up +professional husbands: these were the principal mansion-house people. +All of them had made it a point to come; and as each of them entered, +it seemed to Colonel and Mrs. Sprowle that the lamps burned up with a +more cheerful light, and that the fiddles which sounded from the +uncarpeted room were all half a tone higher and half a beat quicker. + +Mr. Bernard came in later than any of them; he had been busy with his +new duties. He looked well; and that is saying a good deal; for nothing +but a gentleman is endurable in full dress. Hair that masses well, a +head set on with an air, a neckerchief tied cleverly by an easy, +practised hand, close-fitting gloves, feet well shaped and well +covered,--these advantages can make us forgive the odious sable +broadcloth suit, which appears to have been adopted by society on the +same principle that condemned all the Venetian gondolas to perpetual +and uniform blackness. Mr. Bernard, introduced by Mr. Geordie, made his +bow to the Colonel and his lady and to Miss Matilda, from whom he got a +particularly gracious curtsy, and then began looking about him for +acquaintances. He found two or three faces he knew,--many more +strangers. There was Silas Peckham,--there was no mistaking him; there +was the inelastic amplitude of Mrs. Peckham; few of the Apollinean +girls, of course, they not being recognized members of society,--but +there is one with the flame in her cheeks and the fire in her eyes, the +girl of vigorous tints and emphatic outlines, whom we saw entering the +school-room the other day. Old Judge Thornton has his eyes on her, and +the Colonel steals a look every now and then at the red brooch which +lifts itself so superbly into the light, as if he thought it a +wonderfully becoming ornament. Mr. Bernard himself was not displeased +with the general effect of the rich-blooded school-girl, as she stood +under the bright lamps, fanning herself in the warm, languid air, fixed +in a kind of passionate surprise at the new life which seemed to be +flowering out in her consciousness. Perhaps he looked at her somewhat +steadily, as some others had done; at any rate, she seemed to feel that +she was looked at, as people often do, and, turning her eyes suddenly +on him, caught his own on her face, gave him a half-bashful smile, and +threw in a blush involuntarily which made it more charming. + +"What can I do better," he said to himself, "than have a dance with +Rosa Milburn?" So he carried his handsome pupil into the next room and +took his place with her in a cotillon. Whether the breath of the +Goddess of Love could intoxicate like the cup of Circe,--whether a +woman is ever phosphorescent with the luminous vapor of life that she +exhales,--these and other questions which relate to occult influences +exercised by certain women, we will not now discuss. It is enough that +Mr. Bernard was sensible of a strange fascination, not wholly new to him, +nor unprecedented in the history of human experience, but always a +revelation when it comes over us for the first or the hundredth time, +so pale is the most recent memory by the side of the passing moment with +the flush of any new-born passion on its cheek. Remember that Nature makes +every man love all women, and trusts the trivial matter of special choice +to the commonest accident. + +If Mr. Bernard had had nothing to distract his attention, he might have +thought too much about his handsome partner, and then gone home and +dreamed about her, which is always dangerous, and waked up thinking of +her still, and then begun to be deeply interested in her studies, and +so on, through the whole syllogism which ends in Nature's supreme _quod +erat demonstrandum_. What was there to distract him or disturb him? He +did not know,--but there was something. This sumptuous creature, this +Eve just within the gate of an untried Paradise, untutored in the ways +of the world, but on tiptoe to reach the fruit of the tree of +knowledge,--alive to the moist vitality of that warm atmosphere +palpitating with voices and music, as the flower of some diaecious +plant which has grown in a lone corner, and suddenly unfolding its +corolla on some hot-breathing June evening, feels that the air is +perfumed with strange odors and loaded with golden dust wafted from +those other blossoms with which its double life is shared,--this almost +overwomanized woman, might well have bewitched him, but that he had a +vague sense of a counter-charm. It was, perhaps, only the same +consciousness that some one was looking at him which he himself had +just given occasion to in his partner. Presently, in one of the turns +of the dance, he felt his eyes drawn to a figure he had not distinctly +recognized, though he had dimly felt its presence, and saw that Elsie +Venner was looking at him as if she saw nothing else but him. He was +not a nervous person, like the poor lady teacher, yet the glitter of +the diamond eyes affected him strangely. It seemed to disenchant the +air, so fall a moment before of strange attractions. He became silent, +and dreamy, as it were. The round-limbed beauty at his side crushed her +gauzy draperies against him, as they trod the figure of the dance +together, but it was no more to him than if an old nurse had laid her +hand on his sleeve. The young girl chafed at his seeming neglect, and +her imperious blood mounted into her cheeks; but he appeared +unconscious of it. + +"There is one of our young ladies I must speak to," he said,--and was +just leaving his partner's side. + +"Four hands all round!" shouted the first violin,--and Mr. Bernard +found himself seized and whirled in a circle out of which he could not +escape, and then forced to "cross over," and then to "dozy do," as the +_maestro_ had it,--and when, on getting back to his place, he looked +for Elsie Venner, she was gone. + +The dancing went on briskly. Some of the old folks looked on, others +conversed in groups and pairs, and so the evening wore along, until a +little after ten o'clock. About this time there was noticed an +increased bustle in the passages, with a considerable opening and +shutting of doors. Presently it began to be whispered about that they +were going to have supper. Many, who had never been to any large party +before, held their breath for a moment at this announcement. It was +rather with a tremulous interest than with open hilarity that the rumor +was generally received. + +One point the Colonel had entirely forgotten to settle. It was a point +involving not merely propriety, but perhaps principle also, or at least +the good report of the house,--and he had never thought to arrange it. +He took Judge Thornton aside and whispered the important question to +him,--in his distress of mind, mistaking pockets and taking out his +bandanna instead of his white handkerchief to wipe his forehead. + +"Judge," he said, "do you think, that, before we commence refreshing +ourselves at the tables, it would be the proper thing to--crave a--to +request Deacon Soper or some other elderly person--to ask a blessing?" + +The Judge looked as grave as if he were about giving the opinion of the +Court in the great India-rubber case. + +"On the whole," he answered, after a pause, "I should think it might, +perhaps, be dispensed with on this occasion. Young folks are noisy, and +it is awkward to have talking and laughing going on while a blessing is +being asked. Unless a clergyman is present and makes a point of it, I +think it will hardly be expected." + +The Colonel was infinitely relieved. "Judge, will you take Mrs. Sprowle +in to supper?" And the Colonel returned the compliment by offering his +arm to Mrs. Judge Thornton. + +The door of the supper-room was now open, and the company, following +the lead of the host and hostess, began to stream into it, until it was +pretty well filled. + +There was an awful kind of pause. Many were beginning to drop their +heads and shut their eyes, in anticipation of the usual petition before +a meal; some expected the music to strike up,--others, that an oration +would now be delivered by the Colonel. + +"Make yourselves at home, ladies and gentlemen," said the Colonel; +"good things were made to eat, and you're welcome to all you see before +you." + +So saying, he attacked a huge turkey which stood at the head of the +table; and his example being followed first by the bold, then by the +doubtful, and lastly by the timid, the clatter soon made the circuit of +the tables. Some were shocked, however, as the Colonel had feared they +would be, at the want of the customary invocation. Widow Leech, a kind +of relation, who had to be invited, and who came with her old, +back-country-looking string of gold beads round her neck, seemed to +feel very serious about it. + +"If she'd ha' known that folks would begrutch cravin' a blessin' over +sech a heap o' provisions, she'd rather have staid t' home. It was a +bad sign, when folks wasn't grateful for the baounties of Providence." + +The elder Miss Spinney, to whom she made this remark, assented to it, +at the same time ogling a piece of frosted cake, which she presently +appropriated with great refinement of manner,--taking it between her +thumb and forefinger, keeping the others well spread and the little +finger in extreme divergence, with a graceful undulation of the neck, +and a queer little sound in her throat, as of an _m_ that wanted to get +out and perished in the attempt. + +The tables now presented an animated spectacle. Young fellows of the +more dashing sort, with high stand-up collars and voluminous bows to +their neckerchiefs, distinguished themselves by cutting up fowls and +offering portions thereof to the buxom girls these knowing ones had +commonly selected. + +"A bit of the wing, Roxy, or of the--under limb?" + +The first laugh broke out at this, but it was premature, a _sporadic_ +laugh, as Dr. Kittredge would have said, which did not become epidemic. +People were very solemn as yet, many of them being new to such splendid +scenes, and crushed, as it were, in the presence of so much crockery +and so many silver spoons, and such a variety of unusual viands and +beverages. When the laugh rose around Roxy and her saucy beau, several +looked in that direction with an anxious expression, as if something +had happened,--a lady fainted, for instance, or a couple of lively +fellows came to high words. + +"Young folks will be young folks," said Deacon Soper. "No harm done. +Least said soonest mended." + +"Have some of these shell-oysters?" said the Colonel to Mrs. +Trecothick. + +A delicate emphasis on the word _shell_ implied that the Colonel knew +what was what. To the New England inland native, beyond the reach of +the east winds, the oyster unconditioned, the oyster absolute, without +a qualifying adjective, is the _pickled_ oyster. Mrs. Trecothick, who +knew very well that an oyster long out of his shell (as is apt to be +the case with the rural bivalve) gets homesick and loses his +sprightliness, replied, with the pleasantest smile in the world, that +the chicken she had been helped to was too delicate to be given up even +for the greater rarity. But the word "shell-oysters" had been +overheard; and there was a perceptible crowding movement towards their +newly discovered habitat, a large soup-tureen. + +Silas Peckham had meantime fallen upon another locality of these recent +mollusks. He said nothing, but helped himself freely, and made a sign +to Mrs. Peckham. + +"Lorindy," he whispered, "shell-oysters!" + +And ladled them out to her largely, without betraying any emotion, just +as if they had been the natural inland or pickled article. + +After the more solid portion of the banquet had been duly honored, the +cakes and sweet preparations of various kinds began to get their share +of attention. There were great cakes and little cakes, cakes with +raisins in them, cakes with currants, and cakes without either; there +were brown cakes and yellow cakes, frosted cakes, glazed cakes, hearts +and rounds, and _jumbles_, which playful youth slip over the forefinger +before spoiling their annular outline. There were moulds of +_blo'monje_, of the arrowroot variety,--that being undistinguishable +from such as is made with Russia isinglass. There were jellies, that +had been shaking, all the time the young folks were dancing in the next +room, as if they were balancing to partners. There were built-up +fabrics, called _Charlottes_, caky externally, pulpy within; there were +also _marangs_, and likewise custards,--some of the indolent-fluid +sort, others firm, in which every stroke of the teaspoon left a smooth, +conchoidal surface like the fracture of chalcedony, with here and there +a little eye like what one sees in cheeses. Nor was that most wonderful +object of domestic art called _trifle_ wanting, with its charming +confusion of cream and cake and almonds and jam and jelly and wine and +cinnamon and froth; nor yet the marvellous _floating-island_,--name +suggestive of all that is romantic in the imaginations of youthful +palates. + +"It must have cost you a sight of work, to say nothin' of money, to get +all this beautiful confectionery made for the party," said Mrs. Crane +to Mrs. Sprowle. + +"Well, it cost some consid'able labor, no doubt," said Mrs. Sprowle. +"Matilda and our girls and I made 'most all the cake with our own +hands, and we all feel some tired; but if folks get what suits 'em, we +don't begrudge the time nor the work. But I do feel thirsty," said the +poor lady, "and I think a glass of srub would do my throat good; it's +dreadful dry. Mr. Peckham, would you be so polite as to pass me a glass +of srub?" + +Silas Peckham bowed with great alacrity, and took from the table a +small glass cup, containing a fluid reddish in hue and subacid in +taste. This was _srub_, a beverage in local repute, of questionable +nature, but suspected of owing its color and sharpness to some kind of +syrup derived from the maroon-colored fruit of the sumac. There were +similar small cups on the table filled with lemonade, and here and +there a decanter of Madeira wine, of the Marsala kind, which some +prefer to, and many more cannot distinguish from, that which comes from +the Atlantic island. + +"Take a glass of wine, Judge," said the Colonel; "here is an article +that I rather think 'll suit you." + +The Judge knew something of wines, and could tell all the famous old +Madeiras from each other,--"Eclipse," "Juno," the almost fabulously +scarce and precious "White-top," and the rest. He struck the nativity +of the Mediterranean Madeira before it had fairly moistened his lip. + +"A sound wine, Colonel, and I should think of a genuine vintage. Your +very good health." + +"Deacon Soper," said the Colonel, "here is some Madary Judge Thornton +recommends. Let me fill you a glass of it." + +The Deacon's eyes glistened. He was one of those consistent Christians +who stick firmly by the first miracle and Paul's advice to Timothy. + +"A little good wine won't hurt anybody," said the Deacon. +"Plenty,--plenty,--plenty. There!" He had not withdrawn his glass, +while the Colonel was pouring, for fear it should spill; and now it was +running over. + +----It is very odd how all a man's philosophy and theology are at the +mercy of a few drops of a fluid which the chemists say consists of +nothing but C 4, O 2, H 6. The Deacon's theology fell off several +points towards latitudinarianism in the course of the next ten minutes. +He had a deep inward sense that everything was as it should be, human +nature included. The little accidents of humanity, known collectively +to moralists as sin, looked very venial to his growing sense of +universal brotherhood and benevolence. + +"It will all come right," the Deacon said to himself,--"I feel a +joyful conviction that everything is for the best. I am favored with +a blessed peace of mind, and a very precious season of good feelin' +toward my fellow-creturs." + +A lusty young fellow happened to make a quick step backward just at +that instant, and put his heel, with his weight on top of it, upon the +Deacon's toes. + +"Aigh! What the d--d--didos are y' abaout with them great hoofs o' +yourn?" said the Deacon, with an expression upon his features not +exactly that of peace and good-will to man. The lusty young fellow +apologized; but the Deacon's face did not come right, and his theology +backed round several points in the direction of total depravity. + +Some of the dashing young men in stand-up collars and extensive +neck-ties, encouraged by Mr. Geordie, made quite free with the +"Madary," and even induced some of the more stylish girls--not of the +mansion-house set, but of the tip-top two-story families--to taste a +little. Most of these young ladies made faces at it, and declared it +was "perfectly horrid," with that aspect of veracity peculiar to their +age and sex. + +About this time a movement was made on the part of some of the +mansion-house people to leave the supper-table. Miss Jane Trecothick +had quietly hinted to her mother that she had had enough of it. Miss +Arabella Thornton had whispered to her father that he had better +adjourn this court to the next room. There were signs of migration,--a +loosening of people in their places,--a looking about for arms to hitch +on to. + +The great folks saw that the play was not over yet, and that it was +only polite to stay and see it out. The word "Ice-Cream" was no sooner +whispered than it passed from one to another all down the tables. The +effect was what might have been anticipated. Many of the guests had +never seen this celebrated product of human skill, and to all the +two-story population of Rockland it was the last expression of the art +of pleasing and astonishing the human palate. Its appearance had been +deferred for several reasons: first, because everybody would have +attacked it, if it had come in with the other luxuries; secondly, +because undue apprehensions were entertained (owing to want of +experience) of its tendency to deliquesce and resolve itself with +alarming rapidity into puddles of creamy fluid; and, thirdly, because +the surprise would make a grand climax to finish off the banquet. + +There is something so audacious in the conception of ice-cream, that it +is not strange that a population undebauched by the luxury of great +cities looks upon it with a kind of awe and speaks of it with a certain +emotion. This defiance of the seasons, forcing Nature to do her work of +congelation, in the face of her sultriest noon, might well inspire a +timid mind with fear lest human art were revolting against the Higher +Powers, and raise the same scruples which resisted the use of ether and +chloroform in certain contingencies. Whatever may be the cause, it is +well known that the announcement at any private rural entertainment +that there is to be ice-cream produces an immediate and profound +impression. It may be remarked, as aiding this impression, that +exaggerated ideas are entertained as to the dangerous effects this +congealed food may produce on persons not in the most robust health. + +There was silence as the pyramids of ice were placed on the table, +everybody looking on in admiration. The Colonel took a knife and +assailed the one at the head of the table. When he tried to cut off a +slice, it didn't seem to understand it, however, and only tipped, as if +it wanted to upset. The Colonel attacked it on the other side and it +tipped just as badly the other way. It was awkward for the Colonel. +"Permit me," said the Judge,--and he took the knife and struck a sharp +slanting stroke which, sliced off a piece just of the right size, and +offered it to Mrs. Sprowle. This act of dexterity was much admired by +the company. + +The tables were all alive again. + +"Lorindy, here's a plate of ice-cream," said Silas Peckham. + +"Come, Mahaly," said a fresh-looking young fellow with a saucerful in +each hand, "here's your ice-cream;--let's go in the corner and have a +celebration, us two." And the old green de-laine, with the young curves +under it to make it sit well, moved off as pleased apparently as if it +had been silk velvet with thousand-dollar laces over it. + +"Oh, now, Miss Green! do you think it's safe to put that cold stuff +into your stomick?" said the Widow Leech to a young married lady, who, +finding the air rather warm, thought a little ice would cool her down +very nicely. "It's jest like eatin' snowballs. You don't look very +rugged; and I should be dreadful afeard, if I was you"---- + +"Carrie," said old Dr. Kittredge, who had overheard this,--"how well +you're looking this evening! But you must be tired and heated;--sit +down here, and let me give you a good slice of ice-cream. How you young +folks do grow up, to be sure! I don't feel quite certain whether it's +you or your mother or your daughter, but I know it's somebody I call +Carrie, and that I've known ever since"---- + +A sound something between a howl and an oath startled the company and +broke off the Doctor's sentence. Everybody's eyes turned in the +direction from which it came. A group instantly gathered round the +person who had uttered it, who was no other than Deacon Soper. + +"He's chokin'! he's chokin'!" was the first exclamation,--"slap him on +the back!" + +Several heavy fists beat such a tattoo on his spine that the Deacon +felt as if at least one of his vertebrae would come up. + +"He's black in the face," said Widow Leech,--"he's swallered somethin' +the wrong way. Where's the Doctor?--let the Doctor get to him, can't +ye?" + +"If you will move, my good lady, perhaps I can," said Dr. Kittredge, in +a calm tone of voice.--"He's not choking, my friends," the Doctor added +immediately, when he got sight of him. + +"It's apoplexy,--I told you so,--don't you see how red he is in the +face?" said old Mrs. Peake, a famous woman for "nussin" sick +folks,--determined to be a little ahead of the Doctor. + +"It's not apoplexy," said Dr. Kittredge. + +"What is it, Doctor? what is it? Will he die? Is he dead?--Here's his +poor wife, the Widow Soper that is to be, if she a'n't a'ready." + +"Do be quiet, my good woman," said Dr. Kittredge.--"Nothing serious, I +think, Mrs. Soper.--Deacon!" + +The sudden attack of Deacon Soper had begun with the extraordinary +sound mentioned above. His features had immediately assumed an +expression of intense pain, his eyes staring wildly, and, clapping his +hands to his face, he had rocked his head backward and forward in +speechless agony. + +At the Doctor's sharp appeal the Deacon lifted his head. + +"It's all right," said the Doctor, as soon as he saw his face. "The +Deacon had a smart attack of neuralgic pain. That's all. Very severe, +but not at all dangerous." + +The Doctor kept his countenance, but his diaphragm was shaking the +change in his waistcoat-pockets with subterranean laughter. He had +looked through his spectacles and seen at once what had happened. The +Deacon, not being in the habit of taking his nourishment in the +congealed state, had treated the ice-cream as a pudding of a rare +species, and, to make sure of doing himself justice in its +distribution, had taken a large mouthful of it without the least +precaution. The consequence was a sensation as if a dentist were +killing the nerves of twenty-five teeth at once with hot irons, or cold +ones, which would hurt rather worse. + +The Deacon swallowed something with a spasmodic effort, and recovered +pretty soon and received the congratulations of his friends. There were +different versions of the expressions he had used at the onset of his +complaint,--some of the reported exclamations involving a breach of +propriety, to say the least,--but it was agreed that a man in an attack +of neuralgy wasn't to be judged of by the rules that applied to other +folks. + +The company soon after this retired from the supper-room. The +mansion-house gentry took their leave, and the two-story people soon +followed. Mr. Bernard had staid an hour or two, and left soon after he +found that Elsie Tenner and her father had disappeared. As he passed by +the dormitory of the Institute, he saw a light glimmering from one of +its upper rooms, where the lady teacher was still waking. His heart +ached, when he remembered, that, through all these hours of gayety, or +what was meant for it, the patient girl had been at work in her little +chamber; and he looked up at the silent stars, as if to see that they +were watching over her. The planet Mars was burning like a red coal; +the northern constellation was slanting downward about its central +point of flame; and while he looked, a falling star slid from the +zenith and was lost. + +He reached his chamber and was soon dreaming over the Event of the +Season. + + + + +LOST BELIEFS. + + +One after one they left us; + The sweet birds out of our breasts +Went flying away in the morning: + Will they come again to their nests? + +Will they come again at nightfall, + With God's breath in their song? +Noon is fierce with the heats of summer, + And summer days are long! + +Oh, my Life! with thy upward liftings, + Thy downward-striking roots, +Ripening out of thy tender blossoms + But hard and bitter fruits,-- + +In thy boughs there is no shelter + For my birds to seek again! +Ah! the desolate nest is broken + And torn with storms and rain! + + + + +THE MEXICANS AND THEIR COUNTRY. + + +On the 21st of December, 1859, General Miramon, at the head of the +forces of the Mexican Republic, met an army of Liberals at Colima, and +overthrew it. The first accounts of the action represented the victory +of the Conservatives to be complete, and as settling the fate of Mexico +for the present, as between the parties headed respectively by Juarez +and Miramon. Later accounts show that there was some exaggeration as to +the details of the action, but the defeat of the Liberals is not +denied. It would be rash to attach great importance to any Mexican +battle; but the Liberal cause was so depressed before the action at +Colima as to create the impression that it could not survive the result +of that day. Whether the cause of which Miramon is the champion be +popular in Mexico or the reverse, it is certain that at the close of +1859 that chief had succeeded in every undertaking in which he had +personally engaged; and our own political history is too full of facts +which show that a successful military man is sure to be a popular +chief, whatever may be his opinions, to allow of our doubting the +effect of victory on the minds of the Mexicans. The mere circumstance +that Miramon is personally victorious, while the Liberals achieve +occasional successes over their foes where he is not present, will be +of much service to him. That "there is nothing so successful as +success" is an idea as old as the day on which the Tempter of Man +caused him to lose Paradise, and to the world's admission of it is to +be attributed the decision of nearly every political contest which has +distracted society. Miramon may have entered upon a career not unlike +to that of Santa Aña, whose early victories enabled him to maintain his +hold on the respect of his countrymen long after it should have been lost +through his cruelties and his disregard of his word and his oath. All, +indeed, that is necessary to complete the power of Miramon is, that +some foreign nation should interfere in Mexican affairs in behalf of +Juarez. Such interference, if made on a sufficiently large scale, might +lead to his defeat and banishment, but it would cause him to reign in +the hearts of the Mexicans; and he would be recalled, as we have seen +Santa Aña recalled, as soon as circumstances should enable the people +to act according to their own sense of right. + +Before considering the probable effect of Miramon's success on the +policy of the United States toward Mexico, there is one point that +deserves some attention. Which party, the Liberal or the Conservative, +is possessed of most power in Mexico? The assertions made on this +subject are of a very contradictory character. President Buchanan, in +his last Annual Message, says that the Constitutional government +--meaning that of which Juarez is the head--"is supported by a +a large majority of the people and the States, but there are important +parts of the country where it can enforce no obedience. General Miramon +maintains himself at the capital, and in some of the distant provinces +there are military governors who pay little respect to the decrees of +either government." On the other hand, a Mexican writer, a member of +the Conservative party, who published his views on the condition of his +country just one month before the President's Message appeared, +declares that the five Provinces or States in which the authority of +Miramon was then acknowledged contain a larger population than exists +in the twenty-three States in which it was not acknowledged. Of the +local authorities in these latter States he says,--"It is a great +mistake to imagine that they obey the government of Juarez any more +than they obey the government of General Miramon, or any further than +it suits their own private interest to obey him. It would be curious to +know, for instance, how much of the money collected by these 'local +authorities' for taxes, or contributions, or forced loans, and chiefly +at the seaport towns for custom-house duties, goes to the 'national +treasury' under the Juarez government." In this case, as in many others +of a like nature, the truth probably is, that but a very small number +of the people feel much interest in the contest, while most of them are +prepared to obey whichever chief shall succeed in it without foreign +aid. Of the active men of the country, the majority are now with +Miramon, or Juarez would not be shut up in a seaport, with his party +forming the mere sea-coast fringe of the nation. All that is necessary +to convert him into a national, patriotic ruler is, that a foreign army +should be sent to the assistance of his rival: and that such assistance +shall be sent to Juarez, President Buchanan has virtually pledged the +United States by his words and his actions. + +In his last Message to Congress, President Buchanan dwells with much +unction upon the wrongs we have experienced from Mexico, and avers that +we can obtain no redress from the Miramon government. "We may in vain +apply to the Constitutional government at Vera Cruz," he says, +"although it is well disposed to do us justice, for adequate redress. +Whilst its authority is acknowledged in all the important ports and +throughout the sea-coasts of the Republic, its power does not extend to +the city of Mexico and the States in its vicinity, where nearly all the +recent outrages have been committed on American citizens. We must +penetrate into the interior before we can reach the offenders, and this +can only be done by passing through the territory in the occupation of +the Constitutional government. The most acceptable and least difficult +mode of accomplishing the object will be to act in concert with that +government." He then recommends that Congress should authorize him "to +employ a sufficient military force to enter Mexico for the purpose of +obtaining indemnity for the past and security for the future." And he +expresses the opinion that justice would be done by the Constitutional +government; but his faith is not quite so strong as we could wish it to +be, as he carefully adds, "This might be secured in advance by a +preliminary treaty." + +Thus has the President pledged the country to help Juarez establish his +authority over Mexico, in words sure to be read and heeded throughout +America and Europe. His actions have been quite as much to the purpose. +He placed himself in communication with Juarez in 1859, and recognized +his government to be the only existing government of Mexico as early as +April 7th, through our envoy, Mr. McLane. That envoy floats about, +having a man-of-war for his home, and ready, it should seem, to receive +the government to which he is accredited, in the event of its being +forced to make a second sea-trip for the preservation of the lives of +its members. As the sole refuge for unpopular European monarchs, +at one time, was a British man-of-war, so are feeble Mexican chiefs +now compelled to rely for safety upon our national ships. + +To predict anything respecting Mexican affairs would be almost as idle +as it would be to assume the part of a prophet concerning American +politics; but, unless Miramon's good genius should leave him, his +appearance in Vera Cruz may be looked for at no very distant day, and +then we shall have the Juarez government entirely on our hands, to +support or to neglect, as may be dictated by the exigencies of our +affairs. That base of operations, upon the possession of which +President Buchanan has so confidently calculated, would be lost, and +could be regained only as the consequence of action as comprehensive +and as costly as that which placed Vera Cruz in the hands of General +Scott in 1847. If the policy laid down by President Buchanan should be +adopted and pursued, war should follow between the United States and +Mexico from the triumph of Miramon; and in that war, we should be a +principal, and not the mere ally of one of those parties into which the +Mexican people are divided. Logically, war is inevitable from Mr. +Buchanan's arguments and General Miramon's victories; but, as +circumstances, not logic, govern the actions of politicians, we may +possibly behold all Mexico loyal to the young general, and yet not see +an American army enter that country. The President declares that in +Mexico's "fate and in her fortune, in her power to establish and +maintain a settled government, we have a far deeper interest, socially, +commercially, and politically, than any other nation." The truth of +this will not be disputed; but suppose that Miramon should establish +and maintain a settled government in Mexico, would it not be our duty, +and in accordance "with our wise and settled policy," to acknowledge +that government, and to seek from it redress of those wrongs concerning +which Mr. Buchanan speaks with so much emphasis? Once in a responsible +position, and desirous of having the world's approval of his +countrymen's conduct, Miramon might be even more than willing to +promise as much as Juarez has already promised, we may presume, in the +way of satisfaction. That he would fulfil his promises, or that Juarez +would fulfil those which he has made, it would be too much to assert; +as neither of them would be able, judging from Mexico's past, to +maintain himself long in power. + +For the present, if not forever, Juarez may be left out of all American +calculations concerning Mexico; and as to Miramon, though his prospects +are apparently fair, the intelligent observer of Mexican politics +cannot fail to have seen that the glare of the clerical eye is upon +him, and that some faint indications on his part of a determination not +to be the Church's vassal have already placed his supremacy in peril, +and perhaps have caused conspiracies to be formed against him which +shall prove more injurious to his fortunes than the operations of +Liberal armies or the Messages of American Presidents. The Mexican +Church, full-blooded and wealthy as it is, is the skeleton in the +palace of every Mexican chief that spoils his sleep and threatens to +destroy his power, as it has destroyed that of every one of his +predecessors. The armies and banners of the Americans of the +North cannot be half so terrible to Miramon, supposing him +to be a reflecting man, as are the vestments of his clerical +allies. Even those armies, too, may be called into Mexico by +the Church, and those banners become the standards of a crusading host +from among a people which of all that the world has ever seen is the +least given to religious intolerance, and to whom the mere thought of +an established religion is odious. Nor would there be anything strange +in such a solution of the Mexican question, if we are to infer the +character of the future from the character of the past and the present. +A generation that has seen American democracy become the propagandists +of slavery assuredly ought not to be astonished at the spectacle of +American Protestantism upholding the State religion of Mexico, and that +religion embodying the worst abuses of the system of Rome. It was, +perhaps, because he foresaw the possibility of this, that "the +gray-eyed man of destiny," William Walker himself, was reconciled last +year to the ancient Church, and received into her bosom. As a Catholic, +and as a convert to that faith from heresy, he might achieve those +victories for which he longs, but which singularly avoid him as a man +of the sword. It is the old story: Satan, being sick, turns saint for +the time: only that it is heart-sickness in this instance; the hope of +being able to plunder some weak, but wealthy country having been too +long deferred for the patience even of an agent of Fate. + +That our government means to persevere in its designs against Mexico, +in spite of the misfortunes of the Liberals, is to be inferred: from +all that we hear from Washington. The victories of Oajaca, Queretaro, +and Colima, won by the Conservatives, have wrought no apparent change +in the Presidential mind. So anxious, indeed, is Mr. Buchanan for the +triumph of his plan, that he is ready to seek aid from his political +opponents. Leading Republicans are to be consulted personally, and they +are to be appealed to and asked patriotically to banish all party and +"sectional" feelings from their minds, while discussing the best mode +of helping "our neighbor" out of the Slough of Despond, so that she may +be enabled to meet the demands we have upon her,--not in money, for +that she has not, and we purpose giving her a round sum, but in land, +of which she has a vast supply, and all of it susceptible of yielding +good returns to servile industry. There is a necessity for this appeal +to Opposition Senators, as the Juarez treaty cannot be ratified without +the aid of some of their number. The ratification vote must consist of +two-thirds of the Senators present and voting; and of the sixty-six men +forming the Senate, but thirty-nine are Democrats, and two are "South +Americans." The Republicans, who could muster but a dozen votes in the +Senate when the present phase of the Slavery contest was begun, have +doubled their strength, and have arrived at the honor of being sought +by men who but yesterday regarded them as objects of scorn. Nor is it +altogether a new thing for the administration to depend upon its +enemies; and the practical adoption of the "one-term" principle in our +Presidential contests, by virtually depriving all administrations of +strict party support, has introduced into our politics a new element, +the first faint workings of which are beginning to be seen, but which +is destined to have grave effects, and not such, in all cases, as are +to be desired. + +But it is not from the ambition or the perverseness of the President +that Mexico has much to fear. Were it not for other reasons, which +proceed from the "Manifest Destiny" school, the country would laugh down +the administration's Mexican programme, and it could hardly be expected to +receive the grave consideration of the Senate. What Mexico has to fear +is the rapid increase of the old American opinion, that we were +appointed by Destiny to devour her, and that in spoiling her we are +only fulfilling "our mission," discharging, as we may say, a high moral +and religious duty. It is not that we have any animosity toward Mexico, +but that we are the Heaven-appointed rulers of America, of which she +happens to be no small part. By a happy ordination, and a wise +direction of our skill as missionaries militant, we never waste our +time and our valor on strong countries; and as wolves do not seek to +make meals of lions, preferring mutton, so we have no taste for those +very American countries which are inhabited by the English race, and in +which exist those great political institutions of the enjoyment of +which we are so proud. The obligation to take Mexico is admitted by +most Americans, though some would proceed more rapidly in the work of +acquisition than others; but no one hints that we ought to have +Canada. Our government has repeatedly offered to purchase Cuba of +Spain, which offer that country holds to be an insult; but it has not +yet thought proper to seek possession of Jamaica. Destiny, in our case, +is as judicious as it is imperative, and means that we shall find our +account in doing her work. Had she favored some other nations as much +as we are favored, they might have flourished till now, instead of +becoming wrecks on the sandy shores of the Sea of Time. + +The conviction that Mexico is to be ours is no new idea. It is as old, +almost, as the American nation. We found Spain in our path very soon +after she had behaved in so friendly a manner to us during the +Revolution; and one of the earliest thoughts of the West was to get her +out of the way. This was "inevitable," and "Manifest Destiny" was as +actively at work in the days of Rodgers Clarke as in those of Walker, +but with better reason; for the control that Spain exercised over the +navigation of the Mississippi was contrary to common sense. In a few +years, the acquisition of Louisiana (nominally from France, but really +from Spain) removed the evil of which the West complained; but the idea +of seizure remained, and was strengthened by the deed that was meant to +extinguish it. That Louisiana had been obtained without the loss of a +life, and for a sum of money that could be made to sound big only when +reduced to _francs_ was quite enough to cause the continuance of that +system of agitation which had produced results so great with means so +small. Enmity to Spain remained, after the immediate cause of it had +ceased to exist. War with that country was expected in 1806, and the +West anxiously desired it, meaning to invade Mexico. Hence the +popularity of Aaron Burr in that part of the Union, and the favor with +which his schemes were regarded by Western men. Burr was a generation +in advance of his Atlantic contemporaries, but he was not in advance of +the Ultramontanes, only abreast of them, and well adapted to be their +leader, from his military skill and his high political rank; for his +duel with Hamilton had not injured him in their estimation. His +connection with the war party, however, proved fatal to it, and +probably was the cause of the non-realization of its plans fifty years +ago. President Jefferson hated Colonel Burr with all the intensity that +philosophy can give to political rivalry; and so the whole force of the +national government was brought to bear against the arch-plotter, who +fell with a great ruin, and for the time Mexico was saved. Then came +Napoleon's attack on Spain, which necessarily postponed all attempts on +countries that might become subject to him; and before the Peninsular +War had been decided, we were ourselves involved in war with England, +which gave us work enough at home, without troubling "our neighbor." +But the events of that war helped to increase the spirit of acquisition +in the South and the Southwest, while they put an end forever to plans +for the conquest of Canada. The "aid and comfort" which the Spaniards +afforded to both Indians and Britons, from Florida, led to the seizure +of Florida by our forces in time of peace with Spain, and to the +purchase of that country. The same year that saw our title to Florida +perfected saw the end of Spanish rule in Mexico. The first effect of +this change was unfavorable to the extension of American dominion. +Mexico became a republic, taking the United States for a model. +Principle and vanity alike dictated forbearance on our side, and for +some years the new republic was looked upon with warm regard by the +American people; and had her experiment proved successful, our +territory never could have been increased at her expense. But that +experiment proved a total failure. Not even France herself could have +done worse for republicanism than was done by Mexico. Internal wars, +constant political changes, violations of faith, and utter disregard of +the terms of the Constitution,--these things brought Mexico into +contempt, and revived the idea that North America had been especially +created for the use of the Anglo-Saxon race and the abuse of negroes. +As a nation, too, Mexico had been guilty of many acts of violence +toward the United States, which furnished themes for those politicians +who were interested in bringing on a war between the two countries. The +attempt to enforce Centralism on Texas, which contained many Americans, +increased the ill-will toward Mexico. The end came in 1846, when we +made war on that country, a war resulting in the acquisition of much +Mexican territory,--Texas, Upper California, and New Mexico. It cannot +be said we behaved illiberally in our treatment of Mexico, the position +of the parties considered; for we might have taken twice as much of her +land as we did take, and not have paid her a farthing: and we paid her +$15,000,000, besides assuming the claims which Americans held against +her, amounting to $3,250,000 more. The war "blooded" the American +people, and made the idea of acquiring Mexico a national one; whereas +before it had a sectional character. The question of absorbing that +country was held to be merely one of time; and had it not been for the +existence of slavery, much more of Mexico would have been acquired ere +now, either by purchase or by war. There have been few men at the head +of Mexican affairs, since the peace of 1848, who were not ready to sell +us any portion of their country to which we might have laid claim, if +we had tendered them the choice between our purse and our sword. We +paid $10,000,000 for the Mesilla Valley, and for certain navigation +privileges in the Colorado river and the Gulf of California,--a +circumstance that shows how resolute is our determination to have +Mexico, and also that we are not disposed to have the process of +acquisition marked by shabby details. + +The law that governs the course of conquest is of a plain and obvious +character. Occasionally there may arise some conqueror, like Timour, +who shall sweep over countries apparently for no other purpose but to play +the part of the destroying angel, though it is not difficult to see that +even such a man has his uses in the orderings of Providence for the +government of the world. But the rule is, that conquest shall, quite as +much as commerce, be a gainful business. Conquerors who proceed +systematically go from bad lands to good lands, and from good lands to +better ones. To get out of the desert into a land flowing with milk and +honey is as much the object of modern and uncalled Gentiles as ever it was +with ancient called and chosen Jews. Historians appear inclined to censure +Darius, because, instead of invading Hellas, equally weak and fertile, +he sought to conquer the poor Scythians, who conquered him. The Romans +organized robbery, and had a wonderful skill in selecting peoples for +enemies who were worth robbing. "The Brood of Winter," who overthrew +the Roman Empire, poured down upon lands where grew the grape and the +rose. The Saracens, who were carried forward, in the first instance, by +fanaticism, had the streams of their conquests lengthened and broadened +and deepened by the wealth and weakness of Greeks and Persians and +Goths and Africans. Had those streams poured into deserts, by the +deserts they would soon have been absorbed, and we should have known +the Mahometan superstition only as we know twenty others of those forms +of faith produced by the East,--as something sudden, strange, and +short-lived. But it was fed by the riches which its votaries gained, +the reward of their piety, and the cement of their religious edifice. +The Normans, that most chivalrous of races, and, like all chivalrous +races, endowed with a keen love of gain, did not seize upon poor +countries, but upon the best lands they could take and hold,--the +beautiful Neustria, the opulent Sicily, and the fertile England, so +admirably situated to become the seat of empire. So, it will be found, +have all conquering, absorbing races proceeded, not even excluding the +Pilgrim Fathers, who, if they paid the Indians for their lands, +generally contrived to get good measure for small disbursements, and to +order things so that the lands purchased should be fat and fair in +saintly eyes. + +Tried by the standard of conquest, the course of the American people +toward Mexico is the most natural in the world. Mexico possesses +immense wealth, and incalculable capabilities in the way of increasing +that wealth; and she is no more competent to defend herself against a +powerful neighbor than Sicily was to maintain her independence against +the Romans. We are her neighbor,--with a population abounding in +adventurers domestic and imported, and with politicians who carve out +states that shall make them senators and representatives and governors, +and perhaps even presidents. As we get nearer to Mexico, the population +is more lawless, less inclined to observe those rules upon faith in +which the weak must depend for existence. The eagles are gathered about +the carcase, and think that to forbid its division among them would be +to perpetrate a great moral wrong. The climate of Mexico seems to +invite the Northern adventurer to that country. "In general," says Mr. +Butterfield, (who has just published a volume that might be called "The +American Conqueror's Guide-Book in Mexico," and to which we take this +occasion to express our obligations,)--"in general, the Republic, with +the exception of the coast and a few other places, which from situation +are extremely hot, enjoys an even and temperate climate, free from the +extremes of heat and cold, in consequence of which the most of the +hills in the cold regions are covered with trees, which never lose +their foliage, and often remind the traveller of the beautiful scenery +of the valleys of Switzerland. In Tierra Caliente we are struck by the +groves of mimosas, liquid amber, palms, and other gigantic plants +characteristic of tropical vegetation; and finally, in Tierra Templada, +by the enormous _haciendas_, many of which are of such extent as to be +lost to the sight in the horizon with which they blend." This picture +is calculated to incite the armed apostles of American liberty, and to +render them impatient until they shall have carried the blessings of +civilization to Mexico, rewarding themselves for their active +benevolence by the appropriation of lands so admirably adapted to the +labors of the descendants of Ham, whom it would be impious in them to +leave unprovided with the best fields to work out _their_ +mission,--which is, to produce the greatest possible crops with the +least possible expenditure of capital and care, for the good of that +superior race which kindly supplies the deficiencies of Heaven with +respect to Africa,--a second Providence, as it were, and slightly +tinged with selfishness. + +We need not dwell upon the importance of second causes in the +government of mankind. We find them at work in fixing the future of +Mexico. The final cause of the absorption of Mexico by the United +States will be the restless appropriating spirit of our people; but +this might leave her a generation more of national life, were it not +that her territory presents a splendid field for slave-labor, and that, +both from pecuniary and from political motives, our slaveholders are +seeking the increase of the number of Servile States. Mexico is capable +of producing an unlimited amount of sugar and an enormous amount of +cotton. There is a demand for both these articles,--a demand that is +constantly increasing, and which is so great, and grows so rapidly, +that the melancholy prospect of rum without sugar has presented itself +to some minds, not to speak of only half-allowance to all the +tea-tables of Christendom. Africa is beginning to wear shirts, and the +stamp of more than one Yankee manufacturer has been indorsed on the +backs of many African chiefs. Slave-labor, we are assured, can alone +afford an adequate supply of cotton and sugar; for none but negroes can +labor on the plantations where cane and cotton are raised, and they +will labor only under compulsion, and compulsion can be had only under +the system of slavery. The point seems to be as clearly established as +reason can establish it, though the negroes might object to the process +adopted and to the conclusion drawn; but they are interested parties, +and not to be regarded therefore. We must add, that the quality of +Mexican sugar is as good as the yield is enormous, and, were the +cane-fields in our hands, it would be impious to doubt of there being a +fall of a mill on the pound all the world over. Compared with such a +gain to the consuming classes, what would it matter that the producers +were "expended" every four or five years, thereby furnishing an +argument in favor of the revival (we should say extension, for it +appears to be lively enough) of the slave-trade between Africa and +America? So is it with Mexican cotton, which propagates itself, and is +not raised annually from the seed, as in our cotton-growing States. In +the Hot Land of Mexico, the laborers in the cotton-fields merely keep +these fields clear from weeds, as we should say,--no easy task, it may +be assumed, with a soil so luxuriant, and where frost is unknown. Yet +the amount of cotton produced annually in the Hot Land is shamefully +small, not exceeding ten million pounds,--a mere bagatelle, which +Manchester would devour in a week. Consider what an increase in cottons +and calicoes, what a gain in shirts and sheets, would follow from the +seizure of those fields by Americans from Mississippi and Alabama; and +let no idle notions concerning national morality prevent the increase +of those comforts which the poor now know, but which never came to the +knowledge of Caesar Augustus, and which were unknown to Solomon in all +his glory. Where would have been the great English nation, if the +adventurous cut-throats who followed Norman William from Saint Valery +to Hastings had been troubled with squeamish notions about the rights +of the Saxons? + + +There are other articles, besides cotton and sugar, in the production +of which slave-labor pays, and pays well, too; and all these articles +Mexico is capable of yielding immensely. The world needs more rice; +rice can be cultivated only by negroes, or people much like them; and +rice can be raised in Mexico in incredible quantities, under a +judicious system of industry, such as, we are constantly assured, +slavery ever has been and ever will be. Tobacco is another Mexican +article, and also one in producing which negroes can be profitably +employed; and as tobacco is becoming scarce, while consumers of it are +on the increase, it would seem to be our duty to prepare the fields of +Tabasco for more extended cultivation,--since there, as well as in many +other parts of Mexico, tobacco almost as good as the best that is grown +in Cuba can be produced. Coffee, indigo, and hemp are Mexican articles, +and can all be cultivated by slave-labor. Maize is grown in every part +of the country, yielding three hundred fold in the Hot Land, and twice +that rate in one district; and maize is a slave-grown article. Smaller +articles there are, but valuable, in raising which slaves would be found +useful,--among them cocoa, vanilla, and _frijoles_, the last being to the +Mexicans what the potato is to the Irish, the common food of the common +people. On the supposition that slaves could be made to labor well in +wheat-fields,--and under a stringent system of slavery this would be +far from impossible,--Mexico might afford profitable employment to +myriads of Africans in the course of civilization and Christianization. +Wheat returns sixty for one in the best valleys of the Temperate +Region; and when we call to mind that flour is becoming a luxury to +poor white people even in America, the propriety of having those +valleys filled up with a black population of great industrial +capability stands admitted; and as black people have an unaccountable +aversion to working for others, the necessity of slavery is established +by the high price of flour, and the capacity of the white races for +consuming twice as much as is now produced in the whole world. + +It would be no difficult matter to show that Mexico is the most +productive of countries, whether we consider the variety of the +articles there grown, or the capabilities of the land for increasing +their quantity. To the manufacturer and the merchant she is as +attractive as she is to the agriculturist; and her mineral wealth is +apparently inexhaustible, and has passed into a proverb. During the +thirteen generations since the Spanish Conquest, the value of the gold +and silver exported is estimated at $4,640,204,889; and this is +considered a very low estimate by those best qualified to judge of its +correctness. Mr. Butterfield expresses the opinion that the annual +export is now near $40,000,000, much of which is smuggled out of the +country. The land is also rich in the common metals, the production of +which, as well as of gold and silver, would be incalculably increased, +should Mexico pass under the dominion of an energetic race, greedy of +other men's wealth, if not profuse of its own. + +We have said enough to show the capabilities of Mexico as a +slaveholding country; and of the desire of American slaveholders to +push their industrial system into countries adapted to it, there are, +unfortunately, but too many proofs. They are prompted by the love of +power and the love of wealth to obtain possession of Mexico, and the +energy that is ever displayed by them when pursuing a favorite object +will not allow us to doubt what the end of the contest upon which the +United States are about to enter must be. We have then, to consider the +character of the people upon whom slavery is to be forced, and the +probable effect of their subjugation to American dominion. The subject +is far from being agreeable, and the consideration of it gives rise to +the most painful thoughts that can move the mind. + +The exact number of people in Mexico it is not possible to state. Mr. +Mayer estimated that in 1850 the proximate actual population was +7,626,831, classed as follows:--Whites, 1,100,000; Indians, 4,354,886; +Mestizos, Zambos, Mulattoes, etc., 2,165,345; Negroes, 6,600. Only +one-seventh of the population belongs to that class, or caste, to which, +according to the common sentiment in the United States, dominion over +the earth has been given. The other six-sevenths are, in American +estimation, and would so become in fact, should Mexico own our +rule, mere political Pariahs; and if they should escape personal +slavery, it would be through their rapid extinction under the +blasting effects of civilization. There are, at this time, it +may be assumed, 7,000,000 human beings in Mexico to whom few +Americans are capable of conceding the full rights of humanity. Of +these, about one-third, the negroes and the mixed races, from the fact +that they have African blood in their veins, would be outlawed by the +mere conquest of Mexico by American arms, so far as relates +to the higher conditions of life. As several of our States have +already compelled free negroes to choose between slavery and +banishment, and as the American settlers of Mexico would proceed +principally from States in which the sentiment prevails that has led to +the adoption of so illiberal a policy, a third of the native population +would, it is likely, be reduced to a condition of chattel slavery +within a very short time after the change of government had been +effected. There is not an argument used in behalf of the rigid slave +codes of several of our States which would not be applicable to the +enslavement of the black and mixed Mexicans, all of whom would be of +darker skins and less enlightened minds than the slaves that would be +taken to the conquered land by the conquerors. How could the slaves +thus taken there be allowed to see even their inferiors in the +enjoyment of personal freedom? If the State of Arkansas can condescend +to be afraid of a few hundred free negroes and mulattoes, and can +illustrate its fear by turning them out of their homes in mid-winter, +what might not be expected from a ruling caste in a new country, with +two and a half millions of colored people to strike terror into the +souls of those comprising it? Just or humane legislation could not be +looked for at the hands of such men, who would be guilty of that +cruelty which is born of injustice and terror. The white race of Mexico +would join with the intrusive race to oppress the mixed races; and as +the latter would be compelled to submit to the iron pressure that would +be brought to bear upon them, more than two millions of slaves would be +added to the servile population of America, and would become the basis +of a score of Representatives in the national legislature, and of as +many Presidential Electors; so that the practice of the grossest +tyranny would give to the Slaveholding States, _per saltum_, as great +an increase of political power as the Free States could expect to +achieve through a long term of years illustrated by care and toil and +the most liberal expenditure of capital. + +The Indians would fare no better than the mixed races, though the mode +of their degradation might differ from that which would be pursued +toward the latter. The Indians of Mexico are a race quite different +from the Indians whom we have exterminated or driven to the remote +West. They are a sad, a superstitious, and an inert people, upon whom +Spanish tyranny has done its perfect work. Nominally Christians, they +are nearly as much devoted to paganism as were their ancestors of the +age of the Conquistadores. They are the most finished conservatives on +the face of the earth, and see ruin in change quite as readily as if +they lived in New England and their opinions were worth quoting on +State Street. The traveller can see in Mexican fields, to-day, the +manner in which those fields were cultivated in the early days of the +last Montezuma, before the Spaniard had entered the land,--as in Canada +he can occasionally find men following the customs that were brought, +more than two centuries ago, from Brittany or Normandy. The Indians are +practically enslaved by two things: they are so attached to the soil on +which they are born as to regard expulsion from it as the greatest of +all punishments,--thus being much like those serfs who, in some other +countries, are legally bound to the land, and are sold with it; and +they are forever in debt, the consequence of reckless indulgence, and +of that inability to think of the morrow which is the most prominent +characteristic of the inferior races of men. This has caused +the existence of the system of _peonage_, of which so much has been +said in this country, in the attempts that have been made to show that +slavery already prevails in Mexico. But American planters never would +be content with peonage, which does not give to the employer any power +over the Indians' offspring, or convey to him any of those _rights_ of +property in his fellow-men which form the most attractive feature of +slavery as it exists in the United States. They would demand something +more than that; and the system of _repartimientos_, under which the +Indians of the time of Cortés were divided among the conquerors, with +the land, would not improbably follow the annexation of Mexico to the +United States. The natives would be compelled to labor far more +vigorously than they now labor, and their burdens would be increased in +the same ratio in which the American is more energetic and exacting +than the Mexican. Under such a system, the Indians would vanish as +rapidly as they did from Hayti, when a similar system was adopted +there, soon after the discovery of America. Then would arise a demand +for the revival of the slave-trade with Africa, and on the same ground +on which African slavery was introduced into America,--because the +negro is better able than the Indian to meet the demands which the +white man makes upon the weaker races who happen to be placed in his +power. With such unlimited fields for the production of sugar and +cotton, those leading agencies of Christianity and civilization, it +would never do for the world to deny to the new school of planters a +million of negroes, so necessary to the full development of the purpose +of the American crusaders. Observe what a gain it would be to the +shipping interest, could the seas become halcyonized through the +conquest of prejudices by men who believe that God is just, and that He +has made of one flesh and one blood all the nations of the earth! + +Even if it should not be sought to enslave the Indians of Mexico, that +race would not be the less doomed. There seems to be no chance for +Indians in any country into which the Anglo-Saxon enters in force. A +system of free labor would be as fatal to the Mexican Indians as a +system of slave labor. The whites who would throng to Mexico, on its +conquest by Americans, and on the supposition that slavery should not +be established there, would regard the Indians with sentiments of +strong aversion. They would hate them, not only because they were +Indians,--which would be deemed reason enough,--but as competitors in +industry, who could afford to work for low wages, their wants being +few, and the cost of their maintenance small. It is charged against the +Indians that they are not flesh-eaters; and white men prefer meat to +any other description of food. Place a flesh-eating race in antagonism +with a race that lives on vegetables, and the former will eat up the +latter. The sentiment of the whites toward the Indians is not unlike +that which has been expressed by an eminent American statesman, who +says that the cause of the failure of Mexico to establish for herself a +national position is to be sought and found in her acknowledgment of +the political equality of her Indian population. He would have them +degraded, if not absolutely enslaved; and degradation, situated as they +are, implies their extinction. This is the opinion of one of the ablest +men in the Democratic party, who, though a son of Massachusetts, is +ready to go as far in behalf of slavery as any son of South Carolina. + +Another eminent Democrat, no less a man, indeed, than President +Buchanan, is committed to very different views. He is the patron of +Juarez, whom he would support with all the power of the United States, +and whose government he would carry to "the halls of the Montezumas" in +the train of an American army. Now Juarez is a pure-blooded and +full-blooded Indian. Not a drop of Castilian blood, blue or black, +flows in his veins. He is a genuine Toltec, a member of that mysterious +race which flourished in the Valley of Mexico ages before the arrival +of the Aztecs, and the marvellous remains of whose works astonish the +traveller in Yucatan and Guatemala. He is a native of Oajaca, one of +the Pacific States, and the same that contained the vast estates +bestowed upon Cortés, to whom the Valley of Oajaca furnished his title +of Marquis. A poor Indian boy, and a fruit-seller, Juarez found a +patron, who saw his cleverness, and gave him an education, and so +enabled him to play no common part in his country,--the independence of +which he seems prepared to destroy, in the hope, perhaps, of securing +for it a stable and well-ordered government. + + + + +REVIEWS AND LITERARY NOTICES. + + +_Ludwig van Beethoven. Leben und Schaffen._ Herausgegeben von Adolph +Bernhard Marx, 2 vols. 8vo. Berlin, 1859. pp. 379, 339. + +SECOND NOTICE + +The English or American reader, whose only biography of Beethoven has +been the translation of Schindler's work by Moscheles, will be pleased +to find scattered through Marx's two volumes a number of interesting +extracts from the "Conversation-Books." These are not always given +exactly as in the originals, although the sense is preserved intact. +For instance, (Vol. I. p. 341,) speaking of the original overture to +"Leonore,"--afterwards printed as Op. 138,--Marx says, "It shows us, as +in a mirror of past happiness, a view of that which is hereafter to +reward Leonore and raise Florestan from his woe. Yes, Beethoven himself +is in theory of this opinion. In his Conversation-Books we read the +following:-- + +"Aristotle, in his 'Poetics,' remarks, 'Tragic heroes must at first +live in great happiness and splendor.' This we see in Egmont. 'Wenn sie +nun [so] recht glücklich sind, [so] kommt mit [auf] einem Mal das +Schicksal und schlingt einen Knoten um ihr Haupt [über ihren Haupte] +den sie nicht mehr zu lösen vermögen. Muth und Trotz tritt an die +Stelle [der Reue] und verwegen sehen sie dem Geschicke, [und sie sehen +verwegen dem Geschicke,] ja, dem Tod in's Aug'.'" + +The words in brackets show the variations from the original; they are +slight, but will soon be seen to have significance. + +Again, Marx says, (Vol. II. p. 214, note,) "In one of the +Conversation-Books Schindler remarks, 'Ich bin sehr gespannt auf die +Characterizirung [der Sätze] der B dur Trio......Der erste Satz träumt +von lauter Glückseligheit [Glück und Zufriedenheit]. Auch Muthwille, +heiteres Tändeln und Eigensinn (mit Permission--Beethovenscher) ist +darin.'" [Should be "und Eigensinn (Beethovenische) is darin, mit +Permission."] + +On page 217 of the same volume is part of a conversation between +Beethoven and his friend Peters, dated 1819. The Conversation-Book from +which it is taken is dated, in Beethoven's own hand, "March and April, +1820." + +But enough for our purpose, which is to prove that Marx knows nothing +of the Conversation-Books from personal inspection, although he always +quotes them in such a manner as to impress the reader with the idea +that the extracts made are his own. Now, 1st, all his extracts are in +the second edition of Schindler's "Biography;" 2d, all the variations +from the original are found word for word in Schindler's excerpts; 3d, +the first of the above three examples, which Marx takes for an +expression of Beethoven's views, was written by Schindler himself, for +his master's perusal! + +But though a biography give us nothing new in relation to the hero, +still it may be of great interest and value from the manner in which +well-known authorities are collected and digested, and the facts +presented in a picturesque, fascinating, living narrative. Such a work +is Irving's "Goldsmith." Such a work is not Marx's "Beethoven." It is +neither one thing nor another,--neither a biography nor a critical +examination of the master's works. It is a little of both,--an attempt +to combine the two, and a very unsuccessful one. Biography and +criticism are so strangely mixed up, jumbled together,--anecdotes of +different periods so absurdly brought into juxtaposition,--chronology +so oddly abused,--that one can obtain a far better idea of the man +Beethoven by reading Marx's authorities than his digest of them; and as +to his works, those upon which we want information, which we have no +opportunity to hear, which have not been subjects of criticism and +discussion for a whole generation,--on these he has little or nothing +to say. + +But the extreme carelessness with which Marx cites his authorities is +worthy of notice; here are a few examples. + +Vol. I. p. 13. Here we find the well-known anecdote of Beethoven's +playing several variations upon Righini's air, "Vieni Amore," from +memory, and improvising others, before the Abbé Sterkel. Wegeler is the +original authority for the anecdote, the point of which depends upon +the fact that the printed variations were a composition by Beethoven. +Marx here and elsewhere in his book attributes them to Sterkel! + +Ib. p. 31. Speaking of the pleasure Van Swieten took in Beethoven's +playing of Bach's fugues, and of the dislike of the latter to being +urged to play, Marx quotes as follows: "He came then (relates Ries, who +became his pupil in 1800) back to me with clouded brow and out of +temper," etc. To _me_,--Ries,--a boy of sixteen,--and Beethoven already +the composer all of whose works half a dozen publishers were ready to +take at any prices he chose to fix!--Ries relates no such thing. +Wegeler does, but of a period five years before Ries came to Vienna; +moreover, he relates it in relation to Beethoven's dislike to being +urged to play in mixed companies,--the fact having no relation whatever +to Van Swieten's weekly music-parties. + +Ib. p. 33. Beethoven is now twenty-five. "At this time, as it seems, +there has been no talk of ill health." Directly against the statement +of Wegeler. + +Ib. p. 38. The Concerto for Pianoforte and Orchestra, Op. 15, "Probably +composed in 1800, since it was offered to Hofmeister Jan. 5, 1801." He +relates from Wegeler, that Beethoven wrote the finale when suffering +violently from colic. How is it possible for a man to overlook the next +line, "I helped him as much as I could with simple remedies," and not +associate it with Wegeler's statement that he himself left Vienna "in +the middle of 1796"? This fixes the date absolutely four or five years +earlier than Marx's probability. He is equally unlucky in his reading +of the letters of Hofmeister; for the Concerto offered him Jan. 5, +1801, was not this one, but that in B flat, Op. 19. + +Ib. p. 186. The Sonata, Op. 22, "Out of the year 1802." If Marx will +turn to the letters to Hofmeister again, he will find this Sonata +offered for publication with the Concerto. + +Ib. p. 341. "Schindler, who, however, first became acquainted with +Beethoven in 1808, and first came into close connection with him in +1813." Compare Schindler, 2d ed. p. 95. "It was in the year 1814 that I +first became personally acquainted with Beethoven." In 1808 Schindler +was a boy of thirteen years, in a Gymnasium, and had not yet come to +Vienna. + +Vol. II. p. 86. Sonata, Op. 57. "The finale, as Ries relates, was +begotten in a night of storm"; and on this text Marx discourses through +a page or two. Ries relates no such thing. + +Ib. p. 179. "Once more, relates Schindler, the two (Goethe and +Beethoven) met each other," etc. For Schindler, read Lenz. + +Ib. p. 191. "The Philharmonic Society in London presented to him.....a +magnificent grand-piano forte of Broadwood's manufacture." Schindler +says expressly, "Presented by Ferd. Ries, John Cramer, and Sir George +Smart." Cannot Marx read German? + +Ib. p. 329. We give one more instance of Marx's method of citing +authorities,--a very curious one. It is an extract from a letter +written to the Schotts in Mayence, signed A. Schindler, containing an +account of Beethoven's last hours, and published in the "Cäcilia," in +full. Here is the passage;-- + +"When I came to him, on the morning of the 24th of March, (relates +_Anselm Hüttenbrenner_, a musical friend and composer of Grätz, who had +hastened thither to see Beethoven once more,) I found his whole +countenance distorted, and him so weak, that, with the greatest +exertions, he could bring out but two or three intelligible words." +Anselm Hüttenbrenner! + +Throughout those volumes we find a certain vagueness of statement in +connection with the names of musicians with whom Beethoven came in +contact, which raises the question, whether Marx has no biographical +dictionary in his house, not even a copy of Schilling's Encyclopædia, +for which he wrote so many biographies, and "indeed all the articles +signed A. B. M."? At times, however, the statements are not so vague. +For instance,--in the anecdote already referred to, Marx makes the two +Rombergs and Franz Ries introduce the "fifteen-year-old virtuoso" to +Sterkel,--that is, in 1785 or '86. At that date, (see Schilling,) +Andreas Romberg was a boy of eighteen, Bernard a boy of fifteen; +moreover, they did not come to Bonn until 1790, when Beethoven was +nearly twenty years old. In 1793-4 Marx makes Schenck "the to him +[Beethoven] well-known and valued composer of the 'Dorfbarbier,'" +--which opera was not written until some years later. In 1815 +died Beethoven's "friend and countryman, Salomon of Bonn, in +London." It is possible that Beethoven may have occasionally seen +Salomon at Bonn, but that violinist went to London at least as early as +1781, after having then been for several years in Prince Henry's chapel +in Berlin. + +These things may, perhaps, strike the reader as of minor importance, +mere blemishes. So be it then; we will turn to a vexed question, which +has a literary importance, and see what light Marx throws upon it. We +refer to Bettine's letters to Goethe upon Beethoven, and the composer's +letters to her, the authority of which has been strongly questioned. +Marx gives them, Vol. II. pp. 121-135, and we turned eagerly to them, +expecting to find, from one who has for thirty years or more lived in +the same city with the authoress, the _questio vexata_ fully put to +rest Nothing of the kind. He quotes them from Schindler with +Schindler's remarks upon them, to which he gives his assent. As to the +letters of Beethoven to Bettine, he has not even done that lady the +justice to give them as she has printed them, but rests satisfied with +a copy confessedly taken from the English translation! Of these Marx +says,--"These letters,--one has not the right, perhaps, to declare them +outright creations of fancy; at all events, there is no judicial proof +of this, no more than of their authenticity,--if they are not imagined, +they are certainly translated... from Beethoven into the Bettine +speech. Never--compare all the letters and writings of Beethoven which +are known with these Bettine epistles--never did Beethoven so +write..... If he wrote to Bettine, then she has poetized [überdichtet] +his letters,--and she has not done even this well; we have in them +Beethoven as seen in the mirror Bettine." He adds in a note, "In the +highest degree girl-like and equally un-Beethovenlike are these +constant repetitions: 'liebe, liebste,--liebe, liebe,--liebe, +gute,--bald, bald'!" + +What does Marx say to this beginning of a letter to Tiedge,--"Jeden Tag +schwebte mir immer folgende Brief an Sie, Sie, Sie, immer vor"? Or to +these repetitions from a series of notes written also from Töplitz in +the summer of 1812? "Leben Sie wohl liebe, gute A." "Liebe, gute A., +seit ich gestern," etc. "Scheint der Mond .... so sehen Sie den +kleinsten, kleinsten aller Menschen bei sich," etc. + +And so on this point Marx leaves us just as wise as we were before. +There is a gentleman who can decide by a word as to the authenticity of +these letters of Beethoven, since he originally furnished them for +publication in the English translation of Schindler's "Biography." We +refer to Mr. Chorley, of the "London Athenaeum." Meantime we venture to +give Marx's opinion as much weight as we think it deserves, and +continue to believe in the letters; more especially because, as +published by Bettine herself in 1848, each is remarkable for certain +peculiarly Beethoven-like abuses of punctuation, orthography, and +capital letters, which carry more weight to our minds than the +unsupported opinions of a dozen Professors Marx. + +Justice requires that we pass from merely biographical topics, which +are evidently not the forte of Professor Marx, to some of those upon +which he has bestowed far more space, and doubtless far more labor and +pains, and upon which, in this work, he doubtless also rests his claims +to our applause. + +On page 199 of Vol. I. begins a division of the work, entitled by the +author "Chorische Werke." In previous chapters, Beethoven's pianoforte +compositions-sonatas, trios, the quintett, etc., up to Op. 54, +exclusive of the concertos for that instrument and orchestra-have been +treated. In this we have a very pleasing account of the gradual +progress of the composer from the concerto to the full splendor of the +grand symphony. + +"The composer Beethoven," says Marx, "was, as we have seen, also a +virtuoso. No one can be both, without feeling himself drawn to the +composition of concertos. These works then follow, and in close +relation to the pianoforte compositions of Beethoven, with and without +the accompaniment of solo instruments; and to them others, which may +just here be best brought under one general head for notice. From them +we look directly upward to orchestral and symphonic works. To all these +we give the general name of 'choral' works, for want of a better,--a +term which in fact belongs but to vocal music, and is exceedingly ill +adapted to a part of the compositions now under consideration. The +term, however, is used here as pointing at the significance of the +orchestra to Beethoven." + +Marx's theory of Beethoven's progress, taking continually bolder and +loftier flights until he reaches the symphony, must necessarily be +based upon the chronology of the works in question,--a basis which he +adopts, but evidently, in the case of two or three of them, with some +hesitation; yet the theory has too great a charm for him to be lightly +thrown aside. + +We will bring into a table the compositions which he is now +considering, together with his dates of their composition, that we may +obtain a clearer view of their bearings upon the point in question. + + Concerto in C for Pianoforte and Orchestra, Op. 15. 1800. (See p. 38.) + do. in B flat Op. 19. 1801. + do. in C minor, Op. 37. Not dated. + Six Quatuors for Bowed Instruments, Op. 18. Published in 1801-2, + but "begun earlier." + Quintett, Op. 29. 1802. + Septett, Op. 20. Not dated. + Prometheus, Ballet Op. 43. Performed March 28, + 1801. + Grand Symphony, Op. 21. 1799 or 1800. + do. do. Op. 36. Performed 1800. + +A glance at the dates in this table throws doubt upon the theory; the +doubt is increased by the consideration that all these important works +are, according to Marx, the labor of only three years! But let us turn +back and collect into another table the pianoforte works which are also +attributed to the same epoch. + + Pianoforte Trio, Op. 11. 1799. + Three Pianoforte Sonatas, Op. 10. 1799. + Two do. do. Op. 14. 1799. + Adelaide, Song, Op. 46. 1798 or '99. + Sonata for Piano and Horn, Op. 17. 1800. + do. Pathétique, Op. 13. 1800. + Cliristus am Oolberg, Canta Op. 85. 1800. + Quintett, Op. 16. 1801. + Sonata, Op. 22. 1802. + do Op. 26. 1802. + do Op. 28. 1802. + +From this list we have excluded works which Marx says were _published_ +(_herausgegeben_) during these years, selecting only those which he +calls "aus dem Jahre,"--belonging to such a year. + +Marx himself (Vol. I. p. 246 _et seq_.) shows us that the works above +mentioned, dated 1802, belong to an earlier period; for in the "first +months" of that year Beethoven fell into a dangerous illness, which +unfitted him for labor throughout the season. + +We have, then, as the labor of three years, three grand pianoforte +concertos with orchestra, six string quartetts, a quintett, a septett, +a grand ballet, and two symphonies, for _great_ works; and for minor +productions,--by-play,--nine pianoforte solo sonatas, one for +pianoforte and horn, a pianoforte trio, a quintett, the "Adelaide," and +the "Christ on the Mount of Olives,"--a productiveness (and such a +productiveness!) not surpassed by Mozart or Handel in their best and +most marvellous years. + +But these twenty-eight works, in fact, belong only in part to those +three years. The first concerto was finished before June, 1796; the +second in Prague, 1798; the third was performed late in the autumn of +1800. A performance of the first symphony is recorded at least ten, of +the second at least three, months before that of the ballet. As +this--the "Prometheus"--was written expressly for Vigano, the arranger +of the action, it is not to be supposed that any great lapse of time +took place between the execution of the order for and the production of +the music. In fact, Marx has no authorities, beyond Lenz's notices of +the _publication_ of the works in the above lists, for the dates which +he has given to them; none whatever for placing the works of the first +of our lists in that order; certainly none for placing Op. 37 before +Op. 18, Op. 29 before Op. 20, and Op. 48 before Op. 21 and Op. 36. And +yet, at the close of his remarks upon the septett, Op. 20, we read, +"Each of the compositions here noticed" (namely, those in the first +list down to the septett) "is a step away from the pianoforte to the +orchestra. In the midst of them appears the first (!) orchestral work +since the chivalrous ballet, to which the boy (?) Beethoven in former +days gave being. It was again to be a ballet,--'Gli Uomini di +Prometeo.'" Then follow remarks upon the ballet, closing thus: + +"On the 'Prometheus' he had tried the strength of his pinions; in the +first symphony, 'Grande Sinfonie,' Op. 21, he floated calmly upon them +at those heights where the spirit of Mozart had rested." + +No, Herr Professor Marx, your pretty fancy is without basis. +Chronology, "the eye of History," makes sad work of your theory. Pity +that in your "researches" you met not one of those lists of the members +of the Electoral Chapel at Bonn, which would have shown you that the +young Beethoven learned to wield the orchestra in that best of all +schools, the orchestra itself! + +Three chapters of Book Second (Vol. I. pp. 239-307) are entitled +"Helden Weihe," (Consecration of the Hero,) "Die Sinfonie Eroica und +die ideale Musik," (The Heroic Symphony and Ideal Music,) and "Die +Zukunft vor dem Richterstuhl der Vergangenheit" (The Future before the +Judgment-Seat of the Past). Save the first fourteen pages, which are +given to Beethoven's sickness in 1802, the testament which he wrote at +that time, and some remarks upon the "Christ on the Mount of Olives," +these chapters are devoted to the "Heroic Symphony,"--its history, its +explanation, and a polemical discourse directed against the views of +Wagner, Berlioz, Oulibichef, and others. + +The circumstances under which this remarkable work was written, the +history of its origin and completion, are so clearly related by Ries +and Schindler, that it seems hardly possible to make any great blunder +in repeating them. Marx has, however, a very happy talent for getting +out of the path, even when it lies directly before him. + +"When, therefore, Bernadotte," says he, "at that time French Ambassador +at Vienna, and sharer in the admiration which the Lichnowskis and +others of high rank felt for Beethoven, proposed to him to pay his +homage to the hero [Napoleon] in a grand instrumental work, he found +the artist in the best disposition thereto; perhaps such thoughts had +already occurred to his mind. In the year 1802, in autumn, he put his +hand already to the work, began first in the following year earnestly +to labor upon it, and, with many interruptions, and the production of +various compositions in the mean time, completed it in 1804." + +From this passage, and from remarks in connection with it, it is clear +that Professor Marx supposes Bernadotte to have been in Vienna in +1802-3, and to have ordered this symphony of Beethoven. Schindler's +words, when speaking of his conversation with the composer in 1823, on +this topic, are,--"Beethoven erinnerte sich lebhaft, dass Bernadotte +wirklich zuerst die Idee zur Sinfonie Eroica in ihm rege gemacht hat" +(Beethoven remembered distinctly that it really was Bernadotte who +first awakened in him the idea of the "Heroic Symphony"). On turning to +the article on Bernadotte in the "Conversations-Lexicon," we find that +the period of his embassy embraced but a few months of the year 1798. + +It seems to us a very suggestive and important fact toward the +comprehension of Beethoven's design in this work, that the conception +of it had been floating before his mind and slowly assuming definite +form during the space of four years, before he put hand to the +composition. Six years passed from the date of its conception before it +lay complete upon his table, with the single word "Bonaparte" in large +letters at the top of the title-page, and "L. Beethoven" at the bottom, +with nothing between. And what, according to Marx, is this product of +so much study and labor? A musical description of a battle; a funeral +march to the memory of the fallen; the gathering of the armies for +their homeward march; a description of the blessings of peace. A most +lame and impotent interpretation! Marx somewhere says, that Beethoven +never wrought twice upon the same idea; hence the funeral march of the +Symphony cannot have been originally intended in honor of a hero,--we +agree with him so far,--for this task he had once already accomplished +in the Sonata, Op. 26. But then, if the first movement of the Symphony +be a battle-piece, how came its author to compose another, and one so +entirely different, in 1812? + +How any one--with the recollection of Beethoven's fondness for +describing character in music, even in youth upon the pianoforte,--with +the "Coriolanus Overture" before him, and the "Wellington's Victory at +Vittoria" at hand,--and, above all, with any knowledge of the +composer's love for the universal, the all-embracing, and his contempt +for minute musical painting, as shown by his sarcasms upon passages in +Haydn's "Creation"--can suppose the first movement of the "Heroic +Symphony" to be in the main intended as a battle-picture, passes our +comprehension. It may be so. It is but a matter of opinion. We have +nothing from Beethoven himself upon the point, unless we may suppose, +that, when, four years later, he printed upon the programme, at the +first performance of the "Pastoral Symphony," "Rather the expression of +feeling than musical painting," he was guarding against a mistake which +had been made as to the intent of the "Eroica." + +We have no space to waste in following Marx, either through his +exposition of his battle theory, his explanations of the other +movements of the Symphony, or his polemics against previous writers. +His programme seems to us little, if at all, better than those which he +controverts. Instead of this, we venture to offer our own to the +reader's common sense, which, if it does not satisfy, at least shows +that Marx has not put the question forever at rest. + +"Rather the expression of feeling than musical painting" seems to us a +key to the understanding of this, as well as of the "Pastoral +Symphony." Mere musical painting, and the composition of works to +order,--as is proved by the "Wellington's Victory," the "Coriolanus +Overture," the music to "Prometheus," to the "Ruins of Athens," the +"Glorreiche Augenblick," to say nothing of minor works, such as the +First and Second Concertos, the Horn Sonata, etc.,--Beethoven could and +did despatch with extreme rapidity; but works of a different order, for +which he could take his own time, and which were to be the expression +of the grand feelings of his own great heart,--the composition of these +was no light holiday-task. He could "make music" with all ease and +rapidity; and had this been his aim, the extreme productiveness of the +first years in Vienna shows that he might, perhaps, have rivalled +Father Haydn himself in the number of his instrumental compositions. +His difficulty was not in writing music, but in mastering the poetic +conception, and finding that tone-speech which should express in epic +progress, yet in obedience to the laws of musical form, the emotions, +feelings, sentiments to be depicted. Hence the great length of time +during which many of his works were subjects of meditation and study. +Hence the six years which elapsed between the conception and completion +of the "Heroic Symphony." + +Beethoven passed his youth near the borders of France, under a +government which allowed a republican personal freedom to its subjects. +He was himself a strong republican, and old enough, when the crushed +people over the border at length arose in their terrible energy against +the King, to sympathize with them in their woe, perhaps in their +vengeance. What to us is the horrible history of those years was to him +the exciting news of the day; and it is not difficult to imagine the +changes of feeling with which he would follow the political changes in +France, the hopes of humanity now apparently lost in the gloom of the +Reign of Terror, and now the rising of the day-star, precursor of a +glorious day of republican freedom, in the marvellous successes of the +cool, determined, energetic, stoical young conqueror of Italy, living, +when Bernadotte fired his imagination by his descriptions of him, with +his wife, the widow of Beauharnais, in a small house in an obscure +street of the capital. + +To us, then, the first movement of the "Heroic Symphony" is a study of +character. In the "Coriolanus Overture" we have one side of a hero +depicted: here we see lain, in all his aspects; we behold him in sorrow +and in joy, in weakness and in strength, in the struggle and in +victory,--overcoming opposition, and reducing all elements of discord +to harmony and order by the force of his energetic will. It may be +either a description of Napoleon, as Beethoven at that time understood +his character,--we are inclined to this opinion,--or it may be a more +general picture of a hero, to which the career of Napoleon had +furnished but the original conception. The second movement is to us the +wail of a nation ground to the dust by the iron heel of +despotism,--France under the old _régime_,--France in the Reign of +Terror,--France needing, as few nations have needed, the advent of a +hero. The scherzo, with its trio, is not a form for minute painting of +_how_ the hero comes and saves; nor is this necessary; it has been +sufficiently indicated in the first movement. _We_ hear in it the +awakening to new life, from the first whispers of hope, uttered +mysteriously and with trembling lips, to the bright and cheering +expression of a nation's joy,--not loudly and boisterously,--(Beethoven +never gives such a language to the depths of happiness,)--in the +exquisite passages for the horns in the trio. We agree with Marx +in feeling the finale to be a picture of the blessings of that peace +and quiet which the hero once more restores,--but peace and quiet where +liberty and law, justice and order reign. + +One fact in relation to the finale of this symphony has caused +Professor Marx no little trouble. The movement is a theme and +variations, with a fugue, and was also published by Beethoven as a +"Theme and Variations for the Pianoforte," Op. 35, dedicated to Moritz +Lichnowsky. The theme is from the finale of the "Prometheus." Now what +could induce Beethoven to make this use of so important a work, as such +a finale to such a symphony, is to our Professor a puzzle. It troubles +him on page 70, (Vol. I.,) again on page 212, and finally on page 274. +The same theme three times employed,--he may say four, for it is one of +the six "Contredanses" by Beethoven, which appeared about that +time,--and the third time _so_ employed! Lenz happens to have +overlooked the fact,--and so has Marx,--that the Variations for the +Pianoforte, Op. 35, were advertised in the "Leipziger Musikalische +Zeitung," already in November, 1803. How long Beethoven had kept them +by him, how long it had taken them to make the then slow journey from +Vienna to Leipzig, to be engraved, corrected, and made ready for sale, +we are not informed. A very simple theory will account for all the +phenomena in this case. + +A very beautiful theme in the finale of "Prometheus" is admired. +Beethoven composes variations upon it, and, to render it more worthy of +his friend Lichnowsky, adds the fugue. The work becomes a favorite, and, +the theme being originally descriptive of the happiness of man in a state +of culture and refinement, he decides to arrange it for orchestra, and +give it a place in the new symphony. How if Lichnowsky proposed it? + +A large proportion of the three chapters under consideration, as, +indeed, of many others, is directed against Oulibichef,-- +"Oulibichef-Thersites," as he names him in the Table of +Contents. The very different manner in which he treats this gentleman, +throughout his work, from that in which he speaks of Berlioz, Wagner, +Lenz, is striking; but Oulibichef is dead, and cannot reply. Some of +the Russian's contrapuntal objections to the "Heroic Symphony" are well +answered; but, as we are satisfied with the poetic explanation of the +work by neither, we must confess, that, after the crystalline clearness +of Oulibichef, the muddy wordiness of Marx is not to edification. + +We turn now to the chapters devoted to the opera "Leonore," afterwards +"Fidelio,"--one of the most interesting topics in Beethoven's musical +history. Here, at length, we do find something beyond what Ries and +Schindler have recorded,--no longer the close coincidence in matters of +fact with Lenz; indeed, the account of the changes made in transforming +the three-act "Leonore" into the two-act "Fidelio" we consider the best +piece of historic writing in the volumes,--the one which gives us the +greatest number of new facts, and most clearly and chronologically +arranged. It is really quite unfortunate for Professor Marx, that +Professor Otto Jahn of Bonn gave us, some years since, in his preface +to the Leipzig edition of "Leonore," precisely the same facts, from +precisely the same sources, and in some cases, we had almost said, in +precisely the same words. The "coincidence" here is striking,--as we +cannot suppose Marx ever saw Jahn's publication, since he makes no +reference to it. In the errors with which Marx spices his narrative +occasionally, the coincidence ceases. Here are some instances. +--According to Marx, one reason of the ill success of the +opera at Vienna, in 1805-6, was the popularity of that upon the same +subject by Paer. The Viennese first heard the latter in 1809.--Again, +at the first production of the "Fidelio," in 1814, Marx says, the +Leonore Overture No. 3 was played because that in E flat was not +finished. Seyfried says expressly, the overture to the "Ruins of +Athens,"--Marx speaks of the proposals made to Beethoven in 1823 to +compose the "Melusine," and still another text,--and so speaks as to +leave the impression, that, from the "fall of the opera" in 1806, the +composer had purposely kept aloof from the stage. Does the Professor +know nothing of Beethoven's application in 1807 to the Theater- +Direktion of the imperial playhouses, to be employed as regular +operatic composer?--of the opera "Romulus?"--of his correspondence with +Koerner, Rellstab, and still others? It appears not. + +We must close our article somewhere; it is already, perhaps, too long; +we add, therefore, but a general remark or two. + +To many readers Marx's discussions of Beethoven's last works will be +found of interest and value, though written in that turgid, vague, +confused style--"words, words, words"--which the Germans denominate by +the expressive term, _Geschtwätz_. This is especially the case with his +essays upon the great "Missa Solemnis," and the "Ninth Symphony." + +We cannot rise from the perusal of this "Life of Beethoven" without +feeling something akin to indignation. Were it a possible supposition, +we should imagine it to be a thing manufactured to sell,--and, indeed, +in some such manner as this; The labors of Lenz taken without +acknowledgment for the skeleton of the work; Wegeler, Ries, Schindler, +and Seyfried at hand for citations, where Lenz fails to give more than +a reference; Oulibichef on the table to supply topics for polemical +discussion; a few periodicals and papers, which have come accidentally +into his possession, to afford here and there an anecdote or a letter; +the works of Professor A. B. Marx supplying the necessary authorities +upon points in musical science. As for any original research, that is +out of the question. Why stop to verify a fact, to decide a disputed +point, to search out new matter? The market waits,--the publisher +presses,--so, hurry-skurry, away we go,--and the book is done! +Seriously, such a book, from one with such opportunities at command, is +a disgrace to the institution in which its author occupies the station +of Professor. + +When Schindler wrote, Johann van Beethoven, the brother, and Carl van +Beethoven, the nephew, were still alive, and feelings of delicacy led +him to do little more than hint at those domestic and family relations +and sorrows which for several years rendered the great composer much of +the time unfit for labor, and which at last brought him to the grave. +When Marx wrote, all had passed away, who could be wounded by a plain +statement of the facts in the case. Until we have such a statement, +none but he who has gone through the labor of studying the original +authorities, as they exist in Berlin, can know the real greatness, +perhaps also the weaknesses, of Beethoven in those last years. None can +know how his heart was torn,--how he poured out, concentrated all the +love of his great heart upon his adopted son, but to learn "how sharper +than the serpent's tooth it is to have a thankless child." Nothing of +all this in Marx. He quotes Schindler, and therewith enough. + +Long as this article has become, we have referred to but the more +important of the passages which in reading we marked for +comment,--enough, however, we judge, to show that the biography of +Ludwig van Beethoven still remains to be written. + + + + +_The American Draught-Player_; or the Theory and Practice of the +Scientific Game of Chequers. By HENRY SPAYTH. Buffalo, New York. +Printed for the Author. + +Almost everybody plays the game of draughts, but few have any insight +into its beauties; and many who look upon chess as a science rather +than an amusement regard draughts as a childish game, never suspecting +what eminent ability and painful research have been expended in +explaining a game which is inferior to chess only in variety and far +superior in scientific precision. Mr. Spayth's book is accordingly +addressed to a comparatively narrow circle of readers; but those who +are competent to judge of its merits will find it a work of great +value. The author, who is an enthusiastic votary of the game, and has +no superior among our American amateurs, offers a judicious selection +from the treatises of such foreign writers as the severe and critical +Anderson, the brilliant but capricious Drummond, Robert Martin, perhaps +the first of living players, Hay, Sinclair, and Wylie, besides many +valuable games from Sturges and Payne, who will never be rendered +obsolete by modern improvements,--together with the labors of such +acknowledged masters in America as Bethell, Mercer, Ash, Drysdale, and +Young, and the contributions of such rising players as Howard, Brooks, +Fisk, Boughton, Janvier, Hull, and Thwing. But his labors have not been +merely those of a compiler. Out of fifteen hundred games, more than +five hundred are the composition of Mr. Spayth himself. + +The results of so much labor and skill cannot, of course, be fully +criticized by us. The merits of the volume can be fairly tested only by +long and constant use. We shall, however, venture to point out some +faults in Mr. Spayth's treatment, premising that his is by far the best +treatise upon the game yet published, and the only treatise worthy of +the name that has ever appeared in this country. Anderson's arrangement +of the games, which Mr. Spayth has adopted, is both clear and concise; +and we are glad to see that our author has adhered to the old system of +draught-notation, which is infinitely superior to any of the new plans. +The condensation and clear presentation of Paterson's somewhat abstruse +essay on "The Move and its Changes" is every way admirable, and many of +the problems are remarkable for beauty and difficulty. + +We think that too much prominence has been given to certain openings. +While glad to see that model of all openings, the _Old Fourteenth_, +which is to draughts what the _Giuoco Piano_ is to chess, illustrated +by 186 games, of which 127 are original with the author, the brilliant +_Fife_ (the _Muzio_ of chess-players) explained by 67 games, the +_Suter_ by 72 games, and the _Single Corner_ by 258 games, we regret +that only 24 specimens should be given of the _Double Corner_, 42 (and +only 11 of these original) of the _Defiance_, and 51 (with but 14 +original) of the fascinating and intricate _Ayrshire Lassie_, an +opening of which American students know very little. We regret this +meagre explanation of the three latter openings all the more that we +expected a particularly full and lucid presentment of them from Mr. +Spayth. + +The definition of certain openings seems to us also incorrect and +inconsistent. The Scottish school, whom Mr. Spayth has sometimes +followed too closely, as in this instance, are singularly deficient as +theorists, and have never given the game anything like a philosophical +treatment. The _Whilter_ is _not_ "formed by the first three or five +moves." The bare notion of forming one opening in two different ways is +absurd and contradictory. The time will come when draught-players will +understand that the _Whilter_ is formed by the first three moves, +namely, 11.15--23.19--7.11, or else, 10.15--23.19--7.10, which is +really the same thing. The distinctive move of the opening is 7.11; +there is nothing characteristic in the 9.14--22.17, which may +intervene: those moves leave the game free to develop itself into a +_Fife_, a _Suter_, or even an _Old Fourteenth_; but the move of 7.11 +determines the opening at once and finally. Then, under the title of +the _Double Corner_ the author includes several distinct openings,--and +so, too, under the _Bristol_. In this latter case, the Scottish +treatises are right and Mr. Spayth is wrong. A strange confusion is +also caused by the attempt to include a number of different openings +under the head of "Irregular." + +It is useless to linger over the exhaustive plan of all our +draught-writers, but, in adopting their plan, Mr. Spayth's fault has +been merely that of his predecessors, and his merits are all his own. +The true plan for a draught-treatise is that adopted by Staunton in his +chess-writings. No man has time to write a treatise which shall embody +the entire practice of the game; and even if such an exhaustive +treatise were written, no man would ever have time to master its +instructions. But the theory can be fully set forth, and is as yet +almost entirely undeveloped. The subject of odds alone presents an +extensive field for future investigations. + +We have found fault with Mr. Spayth's new volume wherever we honestly +could; and we dismiss it with an emphatic repetition of the opinion, +that it is by far the best work upon the game that has ever been +published. + + + + +_The Adopted Heir._ By MISS PARDOE. Philadelphia: T. B. Peterson & +Brothers. + +Miss Pardoe ought to do better than this. There is much ability +displayed in her "Court of France"; and she has written a very clever +story, entitled "The Romance of the Harem." But this book is thoroughly +feeble and commonplace. The customary rich and whimsical nabob, whom we +all know so well, has returned to England, and is deliberating upon the +claims to his wealth of his several relations. His decision is soon +formed, but shrouded in an impenetrable mystery, which is open to the +usual objection to the novelist's impenetrable mysteries, of being +perfectly transparent. Having divined who will be the heir, after +reading forty pages, we are a little impatient that Miss Pardoe should +cherish the secret with every imaginable precaution until the 350th +page, when she brings it out with a flourish, as if no human sagacity +could possibly have discovered it. + +This keeping secrets that are no secrets, the besetting weakness of +novelists, was once quite affecting. When Nicholas Nickleby acted at +Mr. Crummles's theatre, a thrill of terror ran through the +unsophisticated spectators, as the wicked relation poked a sword at him +in the dark in every direction except where his legs were plainly +visible. But readers are more exacting now. And we are all frightfully +sagacious. Long reading of novels gives a fatal skill in anticipating +their issues. If in the first chapter the poor little brother runs away +to sea, his anxious friends may bewail his loss, but we remain calm in +the conviction that he will return, yellow and rich, precisely in time +to frustrate the designs of the wicked, and to reward innocence and +constancy with ten thousand a year. All the good people in a story may +be puzzled to detect the author of an alarming fraud; but we know +better, and, fixing with more than a detective's accuracy upon the +gentlemanly, plausible villain, drag him forth long before our author +is ready to present him to our (theoretically) astonished eyes. The +whole village may be deceived by the venerable stranger, with his white +hair and benevolent spectacles, but our unerring eye instantly discerns +in him Black Donald, the robber-captain; and if we do not tremble for +our heroine, it is only because we are morally certain that her deadly +peril is only an excuse for her inevitable lover's "dashing up on a +coal-black barb, urged to his utmost speed," and delivering the +desolate fair, who has won our regard alike by her indignant virtue, +and the skill with which, while laboring under uncontrollable +agitation, she constructs sentences so ponderous and intricate that Mr. +Burke's periods are trifles in comparison. And we know all this, simply +because there are certain things to be done, and only so many people to +do them. Miss Austen, indeed, could keep her secrets impenetrable; but +the art died with her, and our common sense is daily insulted by these +weak attempts at mystery. If the secret is one that cannot be +kept, why, let the author tell it us at once, and we can then follow +with sympathy the attempts to baffle those in the story who are trying +to detect it, instead of being offended with a shallow artifice. Here +lies the artistic error of that very clever book, "Paul Ferroll." We +all see at once that Mr. Ferroll murdered his wife, and the author +would have lost nothing and gained much by taking us into his +confidence. + +The style of the "Adopted Heir" is at once pompous and feeble. From +writers of the Mrs. Southworth school we should expect nothing else; +but Miss Pardoe was capable of something better. + + + + +_Fanny_. From the French of ERNEST FEYDEAU. New York: Evert D. Long & +Co. + +If there be any one thing worse than French immorality, it is French +morality. This is a moral book, _à la Française_, and weak as +ditch-water. Nor is the ditch-water improved by being particularly +dirty. + +Edward, who is a mere boy, is in love with Fanny. This is natural +enough. Fanny, who is decidedly an old girl, who has been married for +fifteen years, and who has three children, is not less desperately in +love with Edward, whom she regards with a most charming sentiment, in +which the timid passion of the maiden blends gracefully with the +maturer regard of an aunt or a grandmother. This is not quite so +natural. Certainly, it can hardly be that she is fascinated by Edward, +who is the most disgustingly silly young monkey to be found in the +whole range of French novels. But the mystery is at once disclosed when +we read the description of Fanny's husband. He is "a species of bull +with a human face." "His smile was not unpleasing, and his look without +any malicious expression, but clear as crystal." We begin to comprehend +his inferiority to Edward,--to sympathize with the youth's horror at +the sight of this obnoxious husband, "who seems to him," as M. Janin +says in his preface, "a hero--what do I say?--a giant!--to the loving, +timid, fragile child." "In fine, a certain air of calm rectitude +pervaded his person." Execrable wretch! could anything be more +repulsive to true and delicate sentiment (as before, _à la Française_) +"I should say his age was about forty." Our wrath at this last atrocity +can hardly be controlled. It seems as if M. Feydeau, by collecting in +one individual all the qualities which most excite his abhorrence and +contempt, had succeeded in giving us, in Fanny's husband, a very +tolerable specimen of a gentleman. We pardon all to the somewhat +middle-aged lady, whose "feelings are too many for her"; and we only +regret that M. Feydeau did not see the eminent propriety of increasing +the lady's admiration by having this brutal husband pull Edward's +divine nose or kick the adored person of the _pauvre enfant_ down +stairs. + + +_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," "Art, Literature, and the Drama," etc. +Edited by her Brother, ARTHUR B. FULLER. Boston: Brown, Taggard, & +Chase. + +Of this volume little more need be said than that, had Margaret Fuller +Ossoli edited it, she might have reduced its size. Yet it is not +surprising that love and reverence should seek with diligence and save +with care whatever had emanated from her pen; and if the matter thus +laid before the world take something from her reputation, it also +completes the standard by which to measure her power. She appears to +have been without creative faculty, yet her perception of the gift in +others was often remarkable, and it pleased her to hold the possessor +of it up to admiration. Hence she devoted much time and attention to +the critical examination of art, music, and literature, and succeeded +in giving the works and lives which she reviewed a fresh interest and a +fuller meaning. Her articles on Goethe and Beethoven, in this volume, +furnish ample evidence of her capacity to appreciate the works and the +men of genius, and that, if she could not give good reasons for the +aberrations and eccentricities of their courses, she at least had a +heart large enough to look kindly upon them. Of books she was +a student and a lover; and in the short notices of new ones, which are +transferred from "The Tribune" to these pages, there is hardly one that +has not some thought of value to author as well as reader. Indeed, all +her prose writings are suggestive, and thus are capable of opening +vistas in the quickened mind which were unknown before. Authors of this +class often dart a ray into the recesses of our souls, so that we see +what they never saw, gain what they never gave. A book that increases +mental activity is incomparably better than one that multiplies +learning. The value of knowledge that lies in libraries is +overestimated by all save those who read Nature's runes. The Countess +Ossoli gathered from the garners, rather than from the glorious field, +and therefore she does not range with the marked originals. In this +rank she was not born. Her poems--which we think injudiciously +published--place her far down among the multitude. From these untuneful +utterances we gladly turn to her prose. There she shows strength of +character and goodness of heart. One aim, never lost sight of, is +perceptible through all, and gives unity to the whole; this is a +fervent desire to ennoble human life; consequently her works will long +have influence, and continue to call forth praise. + + + + +_Lectures on the English Language_. By GEORGE P. MARSH. New York: +Charles Scribner, 1860. pp. vi., 697. + +An American scholar of wide range, at the same time thorough and +unpretentious, is a rarity; a philologist who is neither perversely +wrongheaded nor the victim of a preconceived theory is a still greater +one; yet we find both characters pleasantly united in the author of +these Lectures. Decided in his opinions, Mr. Marsh is modest in +expressing them, because they are the result of various culture and +long reflection, and these have taught him that time and study often +render the most positive conclusions doubtful, especially in regard to +such a topic as Language. Deservedly honored with diplomatic employment +in Europe, he has done credit to the choice of the Government by +turning the long leisure of a foreign mission to as great profit by +study and observation as if he had been a Travelling Fellow and these +had been the conditions of his tenure. + +Addressed to a mixed audience, to the laity rather than to students, +these Lectures are more popular than scholastic in their character. Mr. +Marsh alludes to this with something like regret in his Preface. We +look upon this as by no means a misfortune. The book will, for this +very reason, reach and interest a much larger number of readers; and +while there is nothing in it to scare away those who read for mere +entertainment, they whose studies have led them into the same paths +with the author will continually recognize those signs, trifling, but +unmistakable, which distinguish the work of a master from that of a +journeyman. Scholarship is indicated not only by readiness of allusion, +and variety and aptness of illustration, but by a thorough +self-possession and chastened eloquence of style. A genius for language +comes doubtless by nature, but Mr. Marsh is too wise a man to believe +that a knowledge of it comes in the same way; his learning has that +ripened clearness which tells of olden vintages and of long storing in +the crypts of the brain; he has nothing in common with the easy +generalizers who know as little of roots as Shelley's skylark, and who, +seeking a shelter in welcome clouds, pour forth "profuse strains of +unpremeditated art" upon questions which above all others are limited +by exact science and unyielding fact. + +We believe we are not going too far when we say that Mr. Marsh's book +is the best treatise of the kind in the language. It abounds in nice +criticism and elegant discussion on matters of taste, showing in the +author a happy capacity for esthetic discrimination as well as for +linguistic attainment. He does not profess to deal with some of the +deeper problems of language, but nevertheless makes us feel that they +have been subjects of thoughtful study, and, within the limits he has +imposed upon himself, he is often profound without the pretence of it. + +We have spoken warmly of this volume, for it has both interested and +instructed us, and because we consider it one of the few thoroughly +creditable productions of Cisatlantic scholarship. We hope the +appreciation it meets with will be such that we shall soon have +occasion to thank Mr. Marsh for another volume on some kindred theme. + + + + +_The Marble Faun._ A Romance of Monte Beni. By NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE. 2 +vols. Boston: Ticknor & Fields. 1860. + +It is, we believe, more than thirty years since Mr. Hawthorne's first +appearance as an author; it is twenty-three since he gave his first +collection of "Twice-told Tales" to the world. His works have received +that surest warranty of genius and originality in the widening of their +appreciation downward from a small circle of refined admirers and +critics, till it embraced the whole community of readers. With just +enough encouragement to confirm his faith in his own powers, those +powers had time to ripen and toughen themselves before the gales of +popularity could twist them from the balance of a healthy and normal +development. Happy the author whose earliest works are read and +understood by the lustre thrown back upon them from his latest! for +then we receive the impression of continuity and cumulation of power, +of peculiarity deepening to individuality, of promise more than +justified in the keeping: unhappy, whose autumn shows only the +aftermath and rowen of an earlier harvest, whose would-be +replenishments are but thin dilutions of his fame! + +The nineteenth century has produced no more purely original writer than +Mr. Hawthorne. A shallow criticism has sometimes fancied a resemblance +between him and Poe. But it seems to us that the difference between +them is the immeasurable one between talent carried to its ultimate, +and genius,--between a masterly adaptation of the world of sense and +appearance to the purposes of Art, and a so thorough conception of the +world of moral realities that Art becomes the interpreter of something +profounder than herself. In this respect it is not extravagant to say +that Hawthorne has something of kindred with Shakspeare. But that +breadth of nature which made Shakspeare incapable of alienation from +common human nature and actual life is wanting to Hawthorne. He is +rather a denizen than a citizen of what men call the world. We are +conscious of a certain remoteness in his writings, as in those of +Donne, but with such a difference that we should call the one super- +and the other subter-sensual. Hawthorne is psychological and +metaphysical. Had he been born without the poetic imagination, he would +have written treatises on the Origin of Evil. He does not draw +characters, but rather conceives them and then shows them acted upon by +crime, passion, or circumstance, as if the element of Fate were as +present to his imagination as to that of a Greek dramatist. Helen we +know, and Antigone, and Benedick, and Falstaff, and Miranda, and Parson +Adams, and Major Pendennis,--these people have walked on pavements or +looked out of club-room windows; but what are these idiosyncrasies into +which Mr. Hawthorne has breathed a necromantic life, and which he has +endowed with the forms and attributes of men? And yet, grant him his +premises, that is, let him once get his morbid tendency, whether +inherited or the result of special experience, either incarnated +as a new man or usurping all the faculties of one already in +the flesh, and it is marvellous how subtilely and with what +truth to as much of human nature as is included in a diseased +consciousness he traces all the finest nerves of impulse and motive, +how he compels every trivial circumstance into an accomplice of his +art, and makes the sky flame with foreboding or the landscape chill and +darken with remorse. It is impossible to think of Hawthorne without at +the same time thinking of the few great masters of imaginative +composition; his works, only not abstract because he has the genius +to make them ideal, belong not specially to our clime or generation; +it is their moral purpose alone, and perhaps their sadness, that mark +him as the son of New England and the Puritans. + +It is commonly true of Hawthorne's romances that the interest centres +in one strongly defined protagonist, to whom the other characters are +accessory and subordinate,--perhaps we should rather say a ruling Idea, +of which all the characters are fragmentary embodiments. They remind us +of a symphony of Beethoven's, in which, though there be variety of +parts, yet all are infused with the dominant motive, and heighten its +impression by hints and far-away suggestions at the most unexpected +moment. As in Rome the obelisks are placed at points toward which +several streets converge, so in Mr. Hawthorne's stories the actors and +incidents seem but vistas through which we see the moral from different +points of view,--a moral pointing skyward always, but inscribed with +hieroglyphs mysteriously suggestive, whose incitement to conjecture, +while they baffle it, we prefer to any prosaic solution. + +Nothing could be more original or imaginative than the conception of +the character of Donatello in Mr. Hawthorne's new romance. His likeness +to the lovely statue of Praxiteles, his happy animal temperament, and +the dim legend of his pedigree are combined with wonderful art to +reconcile us to the notion of a Greek myth embodied in an Italian of +the nineteenth century; and when at length a soul is created in this +primeval pagan, this child of earth, this creature of mere instinct, +awakened through sin to a conception of the necessity of atonement, we +feel, that, while we looked to be entertained with the airiest of +fictions, we were dealing with the most august truths of psychology, +with the most pregnant facts of modern history, and studying a profound +parable of the development of the Christian Idea. + +Everything suffers a sea-change in the depths of Mr. Hawthorne's mind, +gets rimmed with an impalpable fringe of melancholy moss, and there is +a tone of sadness in this book as in the rest, but it does not leave us +sad. In a series of remarkable and characteristic works, it is perhaps +the most remarkable and characteristic. If you had picked up and read a +stray leaf of it anywhere, you would have exclaimed, "Hawthorne!" + +The book is steeped in Italian atmosphere. There are many landscapes in +it full of breadth and power, and criticisms of pictures and statues +always delicate, often profound. In the Preface, Mr. Hawthorne pays a +well-deserved tribute of admiration to several of our sculptors, +especially to Story and Akers. The hearty enthusiasm with which he +elsewhere speaks of the former artist's "Cleopatra" is no surprise to +Mr. Story's friends at home, though hardly less gratifying to them than +it must be to the sculptor himself. + + + + +_A Trip to Cuba_. By Mrs. JULIA WARD HOWE. Boston: Ticknor & Fields. +1860. pp. 251. + +For readers of the "Atlantic," this little volume will need no further +commendation than the mere statement that nearly a quarter of it is +made up of hitherto unpublished material. Here and there it seems to us +a little too personal, and the public is made the confidant of matters +in which it has properly no concern. This, perhaps, is more the fault +of the present generation than of the author; but it is something we +feel bound to protest against, wherever we meet it. In other respects, +the book is one which we may thank not only for entertainment, but for +instruction. In its vivid picturesqueness, it furnishes the complement +to Mr. Dana's "To Cuba and Back." Mrs. Howe has the poet's gift of +making us see what she describes, and she is as lively and witty as a +French _Marquise_ of the seventeenth century, when a _De_ in the name, +petticoats, and Paris were an infallible receipt for cleverness. Toward +the end of her volume, Mrs. Howe enters a spirited and telling protest +against a self-constituted censorship, which would insist on a +traveller's squaring his impressions with some foregone theory of right +and wrong, instead of thankfully allowing facts to rectify his theory. +A traveller is bound to tell us what he saw, not what he expected or +wished to see; and it is only by comparing the different views of many +independent observers that we who tarry at home can arrive at any +approximate notion of absolute fact. The general inferiority of modern +books of travel is due to the fact that their authors write in the fear +of their special fragment of a public, and report of foreign countries +as if they were drummers for Exeter Hall or the Southern Planters' +Association, rather than servants of Truth. + + + + +_Poems by Two Friends_. Columbus, Ohio: Follett, Foster, & Co. 1860. +pp. 162. + +The Two Friends are Messrs. John J. Piatt and W. D. Howells. The +readers of the "Atlantic" have already had a taste of the quality of +both, and, we hope, will often have the same pleasure again. The volume +is a very agreeable one, with little of the crudeness so generally +characteristic of first ventures,--not more than enough to augur richer +maturity hereafter. Dead-ripeness in a first book is a fatal symptom, +sure sign that the writer is doomed forever to that pale limbo of +faultlessness from which there is no escape upwards or downwards. + +We can scarce find it in our hearts to make any distinctions in so +happy a partnership; but while we see something more than promise in +both writers, we have a feeling that Mr. Piatt shows greater +originality in the choice of subjects, and Mr. Howells more instinctive +felicity of phrase in the treatment of them. Both of them seem to us to +have escaped remarkably from the prevailing conventionalisms of verse, +and to write in metre because they have a genuine call thereto. We are +pleased with a thorough Western flavor in some of the poems, especially +in such pieces as "The Pioneer Chimney" and "The Movers." We welcome +cordially a volume in which we recognize a fresh and authentic power, +and expect confidently of the writers a yet higher achievement ere +long. The poems give more than glimpses of a faculty not so common that +the world can afford to do without it. + + + + +_Vanity Fair_, Frank J. Thompson, 113 Nassau Street, New York. +(Weekly.) + +This is the first really clever comic and satirical journal we have had +in America,--and really clever it is. It is both sharp and +good-tempered, and not afraid to say that its soul is its own,--which +shows that it has a soul. Our readers will be glad to know where they +can find native fun that has something better in it than mere _patois_. + + + + +_Twenty Years Ago and Now_. By T. S. ARTHUR. Philadelphia: G. G. Evans. + +In attempting a novel, Mr. Arthur has gone beyond his powers. This +story is not new, and is not interesting; and its only merits are the +quiet, unpretending style and kindly spirit shown in the author's +little tales of mercantile life, many of which are very good. + + + + +RECENT AMERICAN PUBLICATIONS + +RECEIVED BY THE EDITORS OF THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY. + + +The Hierophant; or, Gleanings from the Past. Being an Exposition of +Biblical Astronomy, and the Symbolism and Mysteries on which were +founded all Ancient Religions and Secret Societies. Also, an +Explanation of the Dark Sayings and Allegories which abound in the +Pagan, Jewish, and Christian Bibles. Also, the Real Sense of the +Doctrines and Observances of the Modern Christian Churches. By G. C. +Stewart, Newark, N. J. New York. Ross & Tousey. 18mo. pp. 234. 75 cts. + +A Trip to Cuba. By Mrs. Julia Ward Howe. Boston. Ticknor & Fields. +16mo. pp. iv., 25l. 75 cts. + +Humanics. By T. Wharton Collins, Esq., Professor of "Political +Philosophy," University of Louisiana, Ex-Presiding Judge City Court of +New Orleans, etc. New York. Appleton & Co. 8vo. pp. 358. $1.75. + +Essays, Critical and Miscellaneous. By T. Babington Macaulay. New and +Revised Edition. New York. Appleton & Co. 8vo. pp. 744. $2.00. + +Life and Times of Gen. Sam. Dale, the Mississippi Partisan. By J. F. H. +Claiborne. Illustrated by John M'Lenan. New York. Harper & Brothers. +12mo. pp. 233. $1.00. + +Lucy Crofton. By the Author of "Margaret Maitland," "The Days of my +Life." New York. Harper & Brothers. 12mo. pp. 222. 75 cts. + +Holmby House. A Tale of Old Northamptonshire. By G. J. Whyte Melville, +Author of "Kate Coventry," "The Interpreter," etc. Boston. Ticknor & +Fields. 8vo. paper, pp. 224. 50 cts. + +Aeschylus, ex novissima Recensione Frederici A. Paley. Accessit +Verborum quae praecipue notanda sunt et Nominum Index. New York Harper +& Brothers. 18mo. pp. viii., 272. 40 cts. Thoughts and Reflections on +the Present Position of Europe, and its Probable Consequences to the +United States. By Francis J. Grund. Philadelphia. Childs and Peterson. +12mo. pp. 245. 75 cts. + +Lectures on the English Language. By George P. Marsh. New York. +Scribner. 8vo. pp. viii., 697. $3.00. + +A Medico-Legal Treatise on Malpractice and Medical Evidence, comprising +the Elements of Medical Jurisprudence. By John J. Elwell, M. D., Member +of the Cleveland Bar, Professor of Criminal and Medical Jurisprudence +and Testamentary Law in the Ohio State Law College, and Editor of the +Western Law Monthly. New York. John S. Voorhies. 8vo. pp. 588. $5.00. + +The Public Life of Captain John Brown. By James Redpath. With an +Autobiography of his Childhood and Youth. Boston. Thayer and Eldridge. +12mo. pp. 408. $1.00. + +Stories from Famous Ballads. For Children. By Grace Greenwood, Author +of "History of my Pets," "Stories and Legends," etc. With Illustrations +by Billings. Boston. Ticknor & Fields. Square 18mo. pp. 141. 50 cts. + +Biographical Studies. By George Washington Greene. New York. G. P. +Putnam. 12mo. pp. 233. 75 cts. + +Revolutions in English History. By Robert Vaughan, D. D. Vol. I. +Revolutions of Race. New York. Appleton & Co. 8vo. pp. xvi., 563. +$2.00. + +Doctor Oldham at Greystones, and his Talk there. De omnibus Rebus et +quibusdam aliis. New York. Appleton & Co. 12mo. pp. viii., 342. 75 cts. + +Notes on Nursing: What it is, and what it is not. By Florence +Nightingale. New York. Appleton & Co. 12mo. pp. 140. 60 cts. + +An Arctic Boat Journey, in the Autumn of 1854. By Isaac I. Hayes, +Surgeon of the Second Grinnell Expedition. Boston. Brown, Taggard, & +Chase. 12mo. pp. xviii., 375. $1.25. + +A Guide to the Knowledge of Life, Vegetable and Animal; being a +Comprehensive Manual of Physiology, viewed in Relation to the +Maintenance of Health. By Robert James Mann, M. D. Revised and +corrected. New York. Francis & Co. 16mo. pp. xii., 417. $1.00. + +Notes of Travel and Study in Italy. By Charles Eliot Norton. Boston. +Ticknor & Fields. 16mo. pp. xii., 330. 75 cts. + +The Manual of Phonography. By Benn Pitman. Cincinnati. Phonographic +Institute. 16mo. pp. 136. 75 cts. + +Quinti Horatii Flacci Opera Omnia, ex Recensione A. J. Macleane. New +York. Harper & Brothers. 18mo. pp. viii., 211. 40 eta. + +Poems. By Thomas Buchanan Read. A New and Enlarged Edition. In Two +Volumes. Boston. Ticknor & Fields. 16mo. pp. 426. $2.00. + +Homeward Bound; or, The Chase. A Tale of the Sea. By J. Fenimore +Cooper. Illustrated from Drawings by F. O. C. Darley. New York. +Townsend & Co. 12mo. pp. 532. $1.50. + +Life of Jesus. A Manual for Academic Study. By Dr. Carl Hase, Professor +of Theology in the University of Jena. Translated from the German of +the Third and Fourth Improved Editions, by James Freeman Clarke. +Boston. Walker, Wise, & Co. 12mo. pp. xxiv., 267. 75 cts. + +Apelles and his Contemporaries. A Novel. By the Author of "Ernest +Carroll." Boston. Burnham. 16mo. pp. 342. 75 cts. + +The Miscellaneous Works of Sir Philip Sidney, Knt. With a Life of the +Author and Illustrative Notes. By William Gray, Esq., of Magdalen +College and the Inner Temple. Boston. Burnham. 8vo. pp. x., 380. $2.25. + +The Satires of Juvenal, Persius, Sulpicia, and Lucilius, literally +translated into English Prose, with Notes, Chronological Tables, +Arguments, etc. By the Rev. Lewis Evans, M. A., late Fellow of Wadham +College, Oxford. To which is added the Metrical Version of Juvenal and +Persius by the late William Gifford, Esq. New York. Harper & Brothers. +16mo. pp. lx., 512. 75 cts. + +Narrative of the Earl of Elgin's Mission to China and Japan in the +Years 1857, '58, '59. By Laurence Oliphant, Esq., Private Secretary to +Lord Elgin, Author of "The Russian Shores, of the Black Sea," etc. New +York. Harper & Brothers. 8vo. pp. xvi., 645. $2.75. + +Hours with the Evangelists. By I. Nichols, D.D. In Two Volumes. Vol. I. +Boston. Crosby, Nichols, & Co. 12mo. pp. x., 405. $1.25. + +A Dictionary of English Etymology. By Hensleigh Wedgewood, M. A., late +Fellow of Chr. Coll. Cam. Vol. I. _A-D_. London. Trübner & Co. New +York. Redfield. pp. 507. + +The Marble Faun; or, The Romance of Monte Beni. By Nathaniel Hawthorne, +Author of "The Scarlet Letter," etc. In Two Volumes. Boston. Ticknor & +Fields. 16mo. pp. 283, 284. $1.50. + +Wolfe of the Knoll, and other Poems. By Mrs. George P. Marsh. New York. +Scribner. 12mo. pp. 327. $1.00. + + + + + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 30, +April, 1860, by Various + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ATLANTIC MONTHLY, APRIL 1860 *** + +***** This file should be named 9396-8.txt or 9396-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/9/3/9/9396/ + +Produced by Joshua Hutchinson, Tonya Allen, and Project +Gutenberg Distributed Proofreaders + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. Project +Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you +charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission. If you +do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the +rules is very easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose +such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and +research. They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do +practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks. Redistribution is +subject to the trademark license, especially commercial +redistribution. + + + +*** START: FULL LICENSE *** + +THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE +PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK + +To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free +distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work +(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project +Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project +Gutenberg-tm License available with this file or online at + www.gutenberg.org/license. + + +Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic works + +1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to +and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property +(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all +the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy +all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession. +If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the +terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or +entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8. + +1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be +used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who +agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few +things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works +even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See +paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement +and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. See paragraph 1.E below. + +1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation" +or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual works in the +collection are in the public domain in the United States. If an +individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are +located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from +copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative +works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg +are removed. Of course, we hope that you will support the Project +Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by +freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of +this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with +the work. You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by +keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project +Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others. + +1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern +what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are in +a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, check +the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement +before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or +creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project +Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no representations concerning +the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United +States. + +1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg: + +1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate +access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently +whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the +phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project +Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed, +copied or distributed: + +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 + +1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived +from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is +posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied +and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees +or charges. If you are redistributing or providing access to a work +with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the +work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 +through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the +Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or +1.E.9. + +1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted +with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution +must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional +terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms will be linked +to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the +permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work. + +1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this +work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm. + +1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this +electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without +prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with +active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project +Gutenberg-tm License. + +1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary, +compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any +word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access to or +distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than +"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version +posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org), +you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a +copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon +request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other +form. Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1. + +1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, +performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works +unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. + +1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing +access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided +that + +- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from + the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method + you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is + owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he + has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the + Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments + must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you + prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax + returns. Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and + sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the + address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to + the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation." + +- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies + you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he + does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm + License. You must require such a user to return or + destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium + and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of + Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any + money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the + electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days + of receipt of the work. + +- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free + distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set +forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from +both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael +Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark. Contact the +Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below. + +1.F. + +1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable +effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread +public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm +collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain +"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or +corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual +property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a +computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by +your equipment. + +1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right +of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project +Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all +liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal +fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT +LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE +PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH 1.F.3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE +TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE +LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR +INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH +DAMAGE. + +1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a +defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can +receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a +written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you +received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with +your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you with +the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a +refund. If you received the work electronically, the person or entity +providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to +receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If the second copy +is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further +opportunities to fix the problem. + +1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth +in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS', WITH NO OTHER +WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO +WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE. + +1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied +warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages. +If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the +law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be +interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by +the applicable state law. The invalidity or unenforceability of any +provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions. + +1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the +trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone +providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance +with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production, +promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works, +harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees, +that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do +or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm +work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any +Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause. + + +Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm + +Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of +electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers +including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It exists +because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from +people in all walks of life. + +Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the +assistance they need are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's +goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will +remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure +and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations. +To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation +and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4 +and the Foundation information page at www.gutenberg.org + + +Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive +Foundation + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit +501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the +state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal +Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification +number is 64-6221541. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent +permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws. + +The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S. +Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered +throughout numerous locations. Its business office is located at 809 +North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887. Email +contact links and up to date contact information can be found at the +Foundation's web site and official page at www.gutenberg.org/contact + +For additional contact information: + Dr. Gregory B. Newby + Chief Executive and Director + gbnewby@pglaf.org + +Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation + +Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide +spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of +increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be +freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest +array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations +($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt +status with the IRS. + +The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating +charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United +States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a +considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up +with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations +where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To +SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any +particular state visit www.gutenberg.org/donate + +While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we +have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition +against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who +approach us with offers to donate. + +International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make +any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from +outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff. + +Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation +methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other +ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations. +To donate, please visit: www.gutenberg.org/donate + + +Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. + +Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm +concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared +with anyone. For forty years, he produced and distributed Project +Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support. + +Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S. +unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. diff --git a/9396-8.zip b/9396-8.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..5759172 --- /dev/null +++ b/9396-8.zip diff --git a/9396.txt b/9396.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..9fa7562 --- /dev/null +++ b/9396.txt @@ -0,0 +1,8978 @@ +Project Gutenberg's Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 30, April, 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: Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 30, April, 1860 + +Author: Various + +Posting Date: November 4, 2012 [EBook #9396] +Release Date: November, 2005 +First Posted: September 29, 2003 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ATLANTIC MONTHLY, APRIL 1860 *** + + + + +Produced by Joshua Hutchinson, Tonya Allen, and Project +Gutenberg Distributed Proofreaders + + + + + + + + + + + +THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY. + +A MAGAZINE OF LITERATURE, ART, AND POLITICS. + +VOL. V.--APRIL, 1860--NO. XXX. + + + + +THE LAWS OF BEAUTY. + + +The fatal mistake of many inquirers concerning the line of beauty has +been, that they have sought in that which is outward for that which is +within. Beauty, perceived only by the mind, and, so far as we have any +direct proof, perceived by man alone of all the animals, must be an +expression of intelligence, the work of mind. It cannot spring from +anything purely accidental; it does not arise from material, but from +spiritual forces. That the outline of a figure, and its surface, are +capable of expressing the emotions of the mind is manifest from the art +of the sculptor, which represents in cold, colorless marble the varied +expressions of living faces,--or from the art of the engraver, who, by +simple outlines, can soothe you with a swelling lowland landscape, or +brace you with the cool air of the mountains. + +Now the highest beauty is doubtless that which expresses the noblest +emotion. A face that shines, like that of Moses, from communion with +the Highest, is more truly beautiful than the most faultless features +without moral expression. But there is a beauty which does not reveal +emotion, but only thought,--a beauty which consists simply in the form, +and which is admired for its form alone. + +Let us, for the present, confine our attention to this most limited +species of beauty,--the beauty of configuration only. + +This beauty of mere outline has, by some celebrated writers, been +resolved into some certain curved line, or line of beauty; by others +into numerical proportion of dimensions; and again by others into early +pleasing associations with curvilinear forms. But, if we look at the +subject in an intellectual light, we shall find a better explanation. +Forms are the embodiment of thought or law. For the common eye they +must be embodied in material shape; while to the geometer and the +artist, they may be so distinctly shadowed forth in conception as to +need no material figure to render their beauty appreciable. Now this +embodiment, or this conception, in all cases, demands some law in the +mind, by which it is conceived or made; and we must look at the nature +of this law, in order to approach more nearly to understanding the +nature of beauty. + +We are thus led, through our search for beauty, into the temple of +Geometry, the most ancient and venerable of sciences. From her oracles +alone can we learn the generation of beauty, so far as it consists in +form alone. + +Maupertuis' law of the least action is not simply a mechanical, but it +is a universal axiom. The Divine Being does all things with the least +possible expenditure of force; and all hearts and all minds honor men +in proportion as they approach to this divine economy. As gracefulness +in motion consists in moving with the least waste of muscular power, so +elegance in intellectual and literary exertions arises from the ease +with which their achievements are accomplished. We seek in all things +simplicity and unity. In Nature we have faith that there is such unity, +even in the midst of the wildest diversity. We honor intellectual +conceptions in proportion to the greatness of their consequences and to +the simplicity of their assumptions. Laws of form are beautiful in +proportion to their simplicity and to the variety which they can +comprise in unity. The beauty of forms themselves is in proportion to +the simplicity of their law and to the variety of their outline. + +This last sentence we regard as the fundamental canon concerning +beauty,--governing, with a slight change of terms, beauty in all its +departments. + +Beginning with the fundamental division of figures into curvilinear and +rectilinear, this _dictum_ decides, that, in general, a curved outline +is more beautiful than a right-lined figure. For a straight-lined +figure necessarily requires at least half as many laws as it has sides, +while a curvilinear outline requires, in general, but a single law. In +a true curve, every point in the whole line (or surface) is subject to +one and the same law of position. Thus, in the circle, every point of +the circumference is subject to one and the same law,--that it must be +at a certain distance from the centre. Half a dozen other laws, equally +simple, might be named, which in like manner govern every point in the +circumference of a circle: for instance, the curve bends at every point +by a certain fixed but infinitesimal amount, just enough to make the +adjacent points to be equally near the centre. Or, to take another +example, every point of the elastic curve, that is, of the curve in +which a spring of uniform stiffness can be bent by a force applied at +the ends of the spring, is subject to this very simple law, that the +curve bends in exact proportion to its distance from a certain straight +line. Now a straight line, or a plane, is by this definition a curve, +since every point in it is subject to one and the same law of position. +A plane may, indeed, be considered a part of any curved surface you +please, if you only take that surface on a sufficiently large scale. +Thus, the surface of water conforms to the surface of a sphere eight +thousand miles in diameter; but, as the arc of such a circle would arch +up from a chord ten feet long by only the ten-millionth part of an +inch, the surface of water in a cistern may be considered a plane. But +no figure or outline can be composed of a single plane or a single +straight line; nor can the position of more than two straight lines, +not parallel, be defined by a single simple law of position of the +points in them. We may, therefore, regard it as the first deduction +from our fundamental canon, that figures with curving outline are in +general more beautiful than those composed of straight lines. The laws +of their formation are simpler, and the eye, sweeping round the +outline, feels the ease and gracefulness of the motion, recognizes the +simplicity of the law by which it is guided, and is pleased with the +result. + +Our second deduction relates principally to rectilinear figures; it is, +that symmetry is in general, and particularly in rectilinear figures, +more beautiful than irregularity. It requires, in general, simpler laws +to produce symmetry than to produce what is unsymmetrical; since the +corresponding parts in a symmetrical figure are instinctively +recognized as flowing from one and the same law. This preference for +symmetry is, however, frequently subordinated to higher demands of the +fundamental canon. If the outline be rectilineal, simplicity of law +produces symmetry, and variety of result can be attained only at the +expense of simplicity in the law. But in curved outlines it frequently +happens, that, with equally simple laws, we can obtain much greater +variety by dispensing with symmetry; and then, by the canon, we thus +obtain the higher beauty. + +The question may be asked, In what way does this canon decide the +question, of proportions? Which of the two rectangles is, according to +this _dictum_, more beautiful, that in which the sides are in simple +ratio, or that in which the angles made with the sides by a diagonal +are in such ratio?--that, for instance, in which the shorter side is +three-fifths of the longer, or that in which the shorter side is five +hundred and seventy-seven thousandths of the longer? Our own view was +formerly in favor of a simple ratio between the sides; but experiments +have convinced us that persons of good taste, and who have never been +prejudiced by reading Hay's ingenious speculations, do nevertheless +agree in preferring rectangles and ellipses which fulfil his law of +simple ratio between the angles made by the diagonal. We acknowledge +that we have not brought this result under the canon, but look upon it +as indicating the necessity of another canon to somewhat this +effect,--that in the laws of form direction is a more important element +than distance. + +We have said that a curved line is one in which every point is subject +to one and the same law of position. Now it may be easily proved, that, +in a series of points in a plane, each of which fulfils one and the +same condition of position, any three, if taken sufficiently near each +other, lie in one straight line. A fourth point near the third lies, +then, in a straight line with the second and third,--a fifth with the +third and fourth, and so on. The whole series of points must, in short, +form a line. But it may also be easily proved that any four of these +points, taken sufficiently near each other, lie in the arc of a circle. +How strange the paradox to which we are thus led! Every law of a curve, +however simple, leads to the same conclusion; a curve must bend at +every point, and yet not bend at any point; it must be nowhere a +straight line, and yet be a straight line at every part. The +blacksmith, passing an iron bar between three rollers to make a tire +for a wheel, bends every part of it infinitely little, so that the +bending shall not be perceptible at any one spot, and shall yet in the +whole length arch the tire to a full circle. It may be that in this +paradox lies an additional charm of the curved outline. The eye is +pleased to find itself deceived, lured insensibly round into a line +running in a different direction from that on which it started. + +The simplest law of position for a point would be, either to have it in +a given direction from a given point,--a law which would manifestly +generate a straight line,--or else to have it at a given distance from +the given point, which would generate the surface of a sphere, the +outline of which is the circumference of a circle. The straight line +fulfils part of the conditions of beauty demanded by the first canon, +but not the whole,--it has no variety, and must be combined in order to +produce a large effect. The simplest combination of straight lines is +in parallels, and this is its usual combination in works of Art. The +circle also fulfils but imperfectly the demands of the fundamental +canon. It is the simplest of all curves, and the standard or measure of +curvature,--vastly more simple in its laws than any rectilineal figure, +and therefore more beautiful than any simple figure of that kind. There +is, however, a sort of monotony in its beauty,--it has no variety of +parts. + +The outline of a sphere, projected by the beholder against any plane +surface behind it, is a circle only when a perpendicular, let fall on +the plane from the eye, passes through the centre of the sphere. In +other positions the projection of the sphere becomes an ellipse, or one +of its varieties, the parabola and hyperbola. The parabola is the +boundary of the projection of a sphere upon a plane, when the eye is +just as far from the plane as the outer edge of the sphere is, and the +hyperbola is a similar curve formed by bringing the eye still nearer to +the plane. + +By these metamorphoses the circle loses much of its monotony, without +losing much of its simplicity. The law of the projection of a sphere +upon a plane is simple, in whatever position the plane may be. And if +we seek a law for the ellipse, or either of the conic sections, which +shall confine our attention to the plane, the laws remain simple. There +are for these curves two centres, which come together for the circle, +and recede to an infinite distance for the parabola; and the simple law +of their formation is, that the curve everywhere makes equal angles +with the lines drawn to these two centres. According to the fundamental +canon, a conic section should be a beautiful curve; and the proof that +it is so is to be found in the attention which these curves have always +drawn upon themselves from artists and from mathematicians. Plato, +equally great in mathematics and in metaphysics, is said to have been +the first to investigate the properties of the ellipse. For about a +century and a half, to the time of Apollonius, the beauty of this +curve, and of its variations, the parabola and hyperbola, so fascinated +the minds of Plato's followers, that Apollonius found theorems and +problems relating to these figures sufficient to fill eight books with +condensed truths concerning them. The study of the conic sections has +been a part of polite learning from his day downward. All men confess +their beauty, which so entrances those of mathematical genius as +entirely to absorb them. For eighteen centuries the finest spirits of +our race drew some of their best means of intellectual discipline from +the study of the ellipse. Then came a new era in the history of this +curve. Hitherto it had been an abstract form, a geometrical +speculation. But Kepler, by some fortunate guess, was led to examine +whether the orbits of the planets might not be elliptical, and, lo! it +was found that this curve, whose beauty had so fascinated so many men +for so many ages, had been deemed by the great Architect of the Heavens +beautiful enough to introduce into Nature on the grandest scale; the +morning stars had been for countless ages tracing diagrams beforehand +in illustration of Apollonius's conic sections. It seemed that this +must have been the design of Providence in leading Plato and his +followers to investigate the ellipse, that Kepler might be prepared to +guide men to a knowledge of the movements of the heavenly bodies. +"And," said Kepler, "if the Creator has waited so many years for an +observer, I may wait a century for a reader." But in less than a +century a reader arose in the person of the English Newton. The ellipse +again appeared in human history, playing a no less important part than +before. For, as it was only by a profound knowledge of ellipses that +Kepler could establish his three beautiful facts with regard to the +motions of the planets, so also was it only through a still more +perfect and intimate acquaintance with the minute peculiarities of that +curve that Sir Isaac Newton could demonstrate that these three facts +were perfectly accounted for only by his theory of universal +gravitation,--the most beautiful theory ever devised, and the most +firmly established of all scientific hypotheses. If the ellipse, as a +simply geometrical speculation, has had so much power in the education +of the race, what are the intellectual relations of its beauty through +its connection with astronomy? Who can estimate the influence which +this oldest of physical sciences has had upon human destiny? Who can +tell how much intellectual life and self-reliance, how much also of +humility and reverential awe, how much adoration of Divine Wisdom, have +been gained by man through his study of these heavenly diagrams, marked +out by the sun and the moon, by the planets and the comets, upon the +tablets of the sky? Yet, without the ellipse, without the conic +sections of Plato and Apollonius, astronomy would have been to this day +a sealed science, and the labors of Hipparchus, Ptolemy, Tycho, and +Copernicus would have waited in vain for the genius of Kepler and of +Newton to educe divine order from the seeming chaos of motions. + +But the obligations of man to the ellipse do not end here. The +eighteenth and nineteenth centuries also owe it a debt of gratitude. +Even where the knowledge of conic sections does not enter as a direct +component of that analytical power which was the glory of a Lagrange, a +Laplace, and a Gauss, and which is the glory of a Leverrier, a Peirce, +and their companions in science, it serves as a part of the necessary +scaffolding by which that skill is attained,--of the necessary +discipline by which their power was exercised and made available for +the solution of the great problems of astronomy, optics, and +thermotics, which have been solved in our century. + +There is another curve, generated by a simple law from a circle, which +has played an important part at various epochs in the intellectual +history of our race. A spot on the tire of a wheel running on a +straight, level road, will describe in the air a series of peculiar +arches, called the cycloid. The law of its formation is simple; the law +of its curvature is also simple. The path in which the spot moves +curves exactly in proportion to its nearness to the lowest point of the +wheel. By the simplicity of its law, it ought, according to the canon, +to be a beautiful curve. Now, although artists have not shown any +admiration for the cycloid, as they have for the ellipse, yet the +mathematicians have gazed upon it with great eagerness, and found it +rich in intellectual treasures. Chasles, in his History, says that the +cycloid interweaves itself with all the great discoveries of the +seventeenth century. + +A curve which fulfils more perfectly the demands of our _dictum_ is +that of an elastic thread, to which we have already alluded. If the two +ends of a straight steel hair be brought towards each other by simple +pressure, the intervening spring may be put into a series of various +forms,--simple undulations, and those more complicated, a figure 8, +loops turning alternately opposite ways, loops turning all one way, and +finally a circle. Now the whole of this variety is the result of +subjecting each part of the curve to a law more simple than that of the +cycloid. The elastic curve is a curve which bends or curves exactly in +proportion to its distance from a given straight line. According to the +canon, therefore, this curve should be beautiful; and it is +acknowledged to be so in the examples given by the bending osier and +the waving grain,--also by the few who have seen full drawings of all +the forms. And the mathematician finds in it a new beauty, from its +marvellous correspondence with the motions of a pendulum,--the +algebraic expression of the two being identical. + +The forms of organic life afford, however, the best examples of the +dominion of our fundamental canon. The infinite variety of vegetable +forms, all beautiful, and each one different in its beauty, is all the +result of simple laws. It is true that these simple laws are not as yet +all discovered; but the one great discovery of Phyllotaxis, which shows +that all plants follow one law in the arrangement of their leaves upon +the stem, thereby intimates in unmistakable language the simplicity and +unity of all organic vegetable laws; and a similar assurance is given +by the morphological reduction of all parts to a metamorphosed leaf. + +The law of phyllotaxis, like that of the elastic curve, is carried out +in time as well as in space. As the formula for the elastic curve is +the same as that for the pendulum, so the law by which the spaces of +the leaves are divided in scattering them round the stem, to give each +its opportunity for light and air, is the same as that by which the +times of the planets are proportioned to keep them scattered about the +sun, and prevent them from gathering on one side of their central orb. + +The forms of plants and trees are dependent upon the arrangement of the +branches, and the arrangement of the branches depends upon that of the +buds or leaves. The leaves are arranged by this numerical law,--that +the angular distance about the stem between two successive leaves shall +be in such ratio to the whole circumference as may be expressed by a +continued fraction composed wholly of the figure 1. It is, then, true, +that all the beauty of the vegetable world which depends on the +arrangement of parts--the graceful symmetry or more graceful apparent +disregard of symmetry in the general form of plants, all the charm of +the varying forms of forest trees, which adds such loveliness to the +winter landscape, and such a refined source of pleasure to the +exhilaration of the winter morning walk--is the result of the simplest +variations in a simple numerical law; and is thus clearly brought under +our fundamental canon. It is the perception of this unity in diversity, +of this similarity of plan, for instance, in all tree-like forms, +however diverse,--the sprig of mignonette, the rose-bush, the fir, the +cedar, the fan-shaped elm, the oval rock-maple, the columnar hickory, +the dense and slender shaft of the poplar,--which charms the eye of +those who have never heard in what algebraic or arithmetical terms this +unity may be defined, in what geometrical or architectural figures this +diversity may be expressed. + +When we look at the animal kingdom, we recognize there also the +presence of simple, all-pervading laws. The four great types of animal +structures are readily discerned by the dullest eye: no man fails to +see the likeness among all vertebrates, or the likeness among all +articulates, the likeness among alt mollusks, or the likeness among all +radiates. These four types show, moreover, a certain unity, even to the +untaught eye: we call them all by one name, animals, and feel that +there is a likeness between them deeper than the widest differences in +their structure; there are analogies where there are not homologies. + +The difference between the four types of animals is marked at a very +early period in the embryo,--the embryo taking one of four different +forms, according to the department to which it belongs; and Peirce has +shown that these four forms are all embodiments of one single law of +position. If, then, one single algebraic law of form includes the four +diverse forms of the four great branches of the animal kingdom, is it +extravagant to suppose that the diversities in each branch are also +capable of being included in simple generalizations of form? Is it +unreasonable to believe that the exceeding beauty of animated forms, +and of the highest, the human form, arises from the fact that these +forms are the result of some simple intellectual law, a simple +conception of the Divine Geometer, assuming varied developments in the +great series of animated beings? It is the unity of the form, arising +from the simplicity of its law, and the multiplicity of its +manifestations or details, arising from the generality of its law, +that, intuitively perceived by the eye, although the intellect may not +apprehend them, give the charm to the figures of the animate creation. + +The subject, even in the narrow limits which we have imposed upon +ourselves, would admit of a much longer discussion. The various animals +might, for instance, be compared with each other, and the beauty of the +most beautiful could be clearly shown to be owing to the greater +variety in the outline, or the greater variety of position, which they +included in equal unity of general effect. And should we step outside +the bounds which we have prescribed to ourselves, we should find that +in other things than questions of mere form the general canon holds +true, that laws produce beauty in proportion to their own simplicity +and to the variety of their effects. As a single example, take the most +beautiful of the fine arts, the art which is free from the laws of +space, and subject only to those of time, and in which, therefore, we +find a beauty removed as far as possible from that of curvilinear +outlines. How exceedingly simple are the fundamental laws of music, of +simple rhythm and simple harmony yet how infinitely varied, and how +inexpressibly touching are its effects! In studying music as a mere +matter of intellectual science, all is simple; it is only an easy +chapter in acoustics. But in studying it on the side of the emotions, +in studying the laws of counterpoint and of musical form, which are +governed by the effect upon the ear and the heart, we find intricacy +and difficulties, increased beyond our power of understanding. + +So in the harmony of the spheres, in the varied beauty which clothes +the earth and pervades the heavens, in the beauty which addresses +itself to eye and ear, and in the beauty which addresses only the +inward sense,--the harmonious arrangements of the social world, and the +adjustment of domestic, civil, and political relations,--there is an +infinite diversity of result, infinitely varied in its effect upon the +observer. But could we behold the Kosmos as it is beheld by its +Creator, we should perchance find the whole encyclopedia of our science +resting upon a few great, but simple laws; we should see that the whole +universe, in all its infinite complication, is the fulfilment of +perhaps a single simple thought of the Divine Mind, and that it is this +unity pervading the diversity which makes it the Kosmos, Beauty. + + + + +FOUND AND LOST. + +And he sold his birth-right unto Jacob. Then Jacob gave Esau bread and +pottage of lentiles. + +GEN. xxv. 33, 34. + + +......So! I let fall the curtain; he was dead. For at least half an +hour I had stood there with the manuscript in my hand, watching that +face settling in its last stillness, watching the finger of the +Composer smoothing out the deeply furrowed lines on cheek and +forehead,--the faint recollection of the light that had perhaps burned +behind his childish eyes struggling up through the swarthy cheek, as if +to clear the last world's-dust from the atmosphere surrounding the man +who had just refound his youth. His head rested on his hand,--and so +satisfied and content was his quiet attitude, that he looked as if +resting from a long, wearisome piece of work he was glad to have +finished. I don't know how it was, but I thought, oddly enough, in +connection with him, of a little school-fellow of mine years ago, who +one day, in his eagerness to prove that he could jump farther than some +of his companions, upset an ink-stand over his prize essay, and, +overcome with mortification, disappointment, and vexation, burst into +tears, hastily scratched his name from the list of competitors, and +then rushed out of doors to tear his ruined essay into fragments; and +we found him that afternoon lying on the grass, with his head on his +hand, just as he lay now, having sobbed himself to sleep. + +I dropped the curtains of the bed, drew those of the window more +closely, to exclude the shrill winter wind that was blowing the slant +sleet against the clattering window-panes, broke up the lump of cannel +coal in the grate into a bright blaze that subsided into a warm, steady +glow of heat and light, drew an arm-chair and a little table up to the +cheerful fire, and sat down to read the manuscript which the quiet man +behind the curtains had given me. Why shouldn't I (I was his physician) +make myself as comfortable as was possible at two o'clock of a stormy +winter night, in a house that contained but two persons beside my +German patient,--a half-stupid serving-man, doubtless already asleep +down-stairs, and myself? This is what I read that night, with the +comfortable fire on one side, and Death, holding strange colloquy with +the fitful, screaming, moaning wind, on the other. + +As I wish simply to relate what has happened to me, (thus the +manuscript began,) what I attempted, in what I sinned, and how I +failed, I deem no introduction or genealogies necessary to the first +part of my life. I was an only child of parents who were passionately +fond of me,--the more, perhaps, because an accident that had happened +to me in my childhood rendered me for some years a partial invalid. One +day, (I was about five years old then,) a gentleman paid a visit to my +father, riding a splendid Arabian horse. Upon dismounting, he tied the +horse near the steps of the piazza instead of the horseblock, so that I +found I was just upon the level with the stirrup, standing at a certain +elevation. Half as an experiment, to try whether I could touch the +horse without his starting, I managed to get my foot into the stirrup, +and so mounted upon his back. The horse, feeling the light burden, did +start, broke from his fastening, and sped away with me on his back at +the top of his speed. He ran several miles without stopping, and +finished by pitching me off his back upon the ground, in leaping a +fence. This fall produced some disease of the spine, which clung to me +till I was twelve years old, when it was almost miraculously cured by +an itinerant Arab physician. He was generally pronounced to be a quack, +but he certainly effected many wonderful cures, mine among others. + +I had always been an imaginative child; and my long-continued sedentary +life compelling me (a welcome compulsion) to reading as my chief +occupation and amusement, I acquired much knowledge beyond my years. + +My reading generally had one peculiar tone: a certain kind of mystery +was an essential ingredient in the fascination that books which I +considered interesting had for me. My earliest fairy tales were not +those unexciting stories in which the good genius appears at the +beginning of the book, endowing the hero with such an invincible +talisman that suspense is banished from the reader's mind, too well +enabled to foresee the triumph at the end; but stories of long, painful +quests after hidden treasure,--mysterious enchantments thrown around +certain persons by witch or wizard, drawing the subject in charmed +circles nearer and nearer to his royal or ruinous destiny,--strange +spells cast upon bewitched houses or places, that could be removed only +by the one hand appointed by Fate. So I pored over the misty legends of +the San Grail, and the sweet story of "The Sleeping Beauty," as my +first literature; and as the rough years of practical boyhood trooped +up to elbow my dreaming childhood out of existence, I fed the same +hunger for the hidden and mysterious with Detective-Police stories, +Captain Kidd's voyages, and wild tales of wrecks on the Spanish Main, +of those vessels of fabulous wealth that strewed the deep sea's lap +with gems (so the stories ran) of lustre almost rare enough to light +the paths to their secret hiding-places. + +But in the last year of my captivity as an invalid a new pleasure fell +into my hands. I discovered my first book of travels in my father's +library, and as with a magical key unlocked the gate of an enchanted +realm of wondrous and ceaseless beauty. It was Sir John Mandeville who +introduced me to this field of exhaustless delight; not a very +trustworthy guide, it must be confessed,--but my knowledge at that time +was too limited to check the boundless faith I reposed in his +narrative. It was such an astonishment to discover that men, +black-coated and black-trousered men, such as I saw in crowds every day +in the street from my sofa-corner, (we had moved to the city shortly +after my accident,) had actually broken away from that steady stream of +people, and had traversed countries as wild and unknown as the lands in +the Nibelungen Lied, that my respect for the race rose amazingly. I +scanned eagerly the sleek, complacent faces of the portly burghers, or +those of the threadbare schoolmasters, thinned like carving-knives by +perpetual sharpening on the steel of Latin syntax, in search of men who +could have dared the ghastly terrors of the North with Ross or Parry, +or the scorching jungles of the Equator with Burckhardt and Park. Cut +off for so long a time from actual contact with the outside world, I +could better imagine the brooding stillness of the Great Desert, I +could more easily picture the weird ice-palaces of the Pole, waiting, +waiting forever in awful state, like the deserted halls of the Walhalla +for their slain gods to return, than many of the common street-scenes +in my own city, which I had only vaguely heard mentioned. + +I followed the footsteps of the Great Seekers over the wastes, the +untrodden paths of the world; I tracked Columbus across the pathless +Atlantic,--heard, with Balboa, the "wave of the loud-roaring ocean +break upon the long shore, and the vast sea of the Pacific forever +crash on the beach,"--gazed with Cortes on the temples of the Sun in +the startling Mexican empire,--or wandered with Pizarro through the +silver-lined palaces of Peru. But a secret affection drew me to the +mysterious regions of the East and South,--towards Arabia, the wild +Ishmael bequeathing sworded Korans and subtile Aristotles as legacies +to the sons of the freed-woman,--to solemn Egypt, riddle of nations, +the vast, silent, impenetrable mystery of the world. By continual +pondering over the footsteps of the Seekers, the Sought-for seemed to +grow to vast proportions, and the Found to shrink to inappreciable +littleness. For me, over the dreary ice-plains of the Poles, over the +profound bosom of Africa, the far-stretching steppes of Asia, and the +rocky wilds of America, a great silence brooded, and in the unexplored +void faint footfalls could be heard here and there, threading their way +in the darkness. But while the longing to plunge, myself, into these +dim regions of expectation grew more intense each day, the +prison-chains that had always bound me still kept their habitual hold +upon me, even after my recovery. I dreamt not of making even the +vaguest plans for undertaking explorations myself. So I read and +dreamt, filling my room with wild African or monotonous Egyptian +scenery, until I was almost weaned from ordinary Occidental life. + +I passed four blissful years In this happy dream-life, and then it was +abruptly brought to an end by the death of my father and mother almost +simultaneously by an epidemic fever prevailing in the neighborhood. I +was away from home at a bachelor uncle's at the time, and so was +unexpectedly thrown on his hands, an orphan, penniless, except in the +possession of the small house my father had owned in the country before +our removal to the city, and to be provided for. + +My uncle placed me in a mercantile house to learn business, and, after +exercising some slight supervision over me a few months, left me +entirely to my own resources. As, however, he had previously taken care +that these resources should be sufficient, I got along very well upon +them, was regularly promoted, and in the space of six years, at the age +of twenty-one, was in a rather responsible situation in the house, with +a good salary. But my whole attention could not be absorbed in the dull +routine of business, my most precious hours were devoted to reading, in +which I still pursued my old childish track of speculation, with the +difference that I exchanged Sinbad's valley of diamonds for Arabia +Petraea, Sir John Mandeville for Herodotus, and Robinson Crusoe for +Belzoni and Burckhardt Whether my interest in these Oriental studies +arose from the fact of the house being concerned in the importation of +the products of the Indies, or whether from the secret attraction that +had drawn me Eastward since my earliest childhood, as if the Arab +doctor had bewitched in curing me, I cannot say; probably it was the +former, especially as the India business became gradually more and more +intrusted to my hands. + +Shortly after my twenty-first birthday, I received a note from my +uncle, from whom I had not heard for a year, or two, informing me that +my father's house, which he had kept rented for me during the first +years of my minority, had been without a tenant for a year, and, as I +had now come of age, I had better go down to D---- and take possession +of it. This letter, touching upon a long train of associations and +recollections, awoke an intense longing in me to revisit the home of my +childhood, and meet those phantom shapes that had woven that spell in +those dreaming years, which I sometimes thought I felt even now. So I +obtained a short leave of absence, and started the next morning in the +coach for D----. + +It was what is called a "raw morning," for what reason I know not, for +such days are really elaborated with the most exquisite finish. A soft +gray mist hugged the country in a chilly embrace, while a fine rain +fell as noiselessly as snow, upon soaked ground, drenched trees, and +peevish houses. There is always a sense of wonder about a mist. The +outlines of what we consider our hardest tangibilities are melted away +by it into the airiest dream-sketches, our most positive and glaring +facts are blankly blotted out, and a fresh, clean sheet left for some +new fantasy to be written upon it, as groundless as the rest; our solid +land dissolves in cloud, and cloud assumes the stability of land. For, +after all, the only really tangible thing we possess is man's Will; and +let the presence and action of that be withdrawn but for a few moments, +and that mysterious Something which we vainly endeavor to push off into +the Void by our pompous nothings of brick and plaster and stone closes +down upon us with the descending sky, writing _Delendum_ on all behind +us, _Unknown_ on all before. At that time, the only actual Now, that +stands between these two infinite blanks, becomes identical with the +mind itself, independent of accidents of situation or circumstance; and +the mind thus becoming boldly prominent, amidst the fading away of +physical things, stamps its own character upon its shadowy +surroundings, moulding the supple universe to the shape of its emotions +and feelings. + +I was the only inside passenger, and there was nothing to check the +entire surrender of my mind to all ghostly influence. So I lay +stretched upon the cushions, staring blankly into the dense gray fog +closing up all trace of our travelled road, or watching the light edges +of the trailing mist curl coyly around the roofs of houses and then +settle grimly all over them, the fantastic shapes of trees or carts +distorted and magnified through the mist, the lofty outlines of some +darker cloud stalking solemnly here and there, like enormous dumb +overseers faithfully superintending the work of annihilation. The +monotonous patter of the rain-drops upon the wet pavement or muddy +roads, blending with the low whining of the wind and the steady rumble +of the coach-wheels, seemed to make a kind of witch-chant, that wove +with braided sound a weird spell about me, a charm fating me for some +service, I knew not what. That chant moaned, it wailed, it whispered, +it sang gloriously, it bound, it drowned me, it lapped me in an +inextricable stream of misty murmuring, till I was perplexed, +bewildered, enchanted. I felt surprised at myself, when, at the end of +the day's journey, I carried my bag to the hotel, and ate my supper +there as usual,--and felt natural again only when, having obtained the +key of my house, I sallied forth in the dim twilight to make it my +promised visit. + +I found the place, as I had expected, in a state of utter desolation. A +year's silence had removed it so far from the noisy stream of life that +flowed by it, that I felt, as I pushed at the rusty door-lock, as if I +were passing into some old garret of Time, where he had thrown +forgotten rubbish too worn-out and antiquated for present use. A strong +scent of musk greeted me at my entrance, which I found came from a box +of it that had been broken upon the hall-floor. I had stowed it away +(it was a favorite perfume with me, because it was so associated with +my Arabian Nights' stories) upon a ledge over the door, where it had +rested undisturbed while the house was tenanted, and had been now +probably dislodged by rats. But I half fancied that this odor which +impregnated the air of the whole house was the essence of that +atmosphere in which, as a child, I had communicated with Burckhardt and +Belzoni,--and that, expelled by the solid, practical, Occidental +atmosphere of the last few years, it had flowed back again, in these +last silent months, in anticipation of my return. + +Like a prudent householder, I made the tour of the house with a light I +had provided myself with, and mentally made memoranda of repairs, +alterations, etc., for rendering it habitable. My last visit was to be +to the garret, where many of my books yet remained. As I passed once +more through the parlor, on my way thither, a ray of light from my +raised lamp fell upon the wall that I had thought blank, and a majestic +face started suddenly from the darkness. So sudden was the apparition, +that for the moment I was startled, till I remembered that there had +formerly been a picture in that place, and I stopped to examine it. It +was a head of the Sphinx. The calm, grand face was partially averted, +so that the sorrowful eyes, almost betraying the aching secret which +the still lips kept sacred, were hidden,--only the slight, tender droop +in the corner of the mouth told what their expression might be. Around, +forever stretched the endless sands,--the mystery of life found in the +heart of death. That mournful, eternal face gave me a strange feeling +of weariness and helplessness. I felt as if I had already pressed +eagerly to the other side of the head, still only to find the voiceless +lips and mute eyes. Strange tears sprang to my eyes; I hastily brushed +them away, and, leaving the Sphinx, mounted to my garret. + +But the riddle followed me. I sat down on the floor, beside a box of +books, and somewhat listlessly began pulling it over to examine the +contents. The first book I took hold of was a little worn volume of +Herodotus that had belonged to my father. I opened it; and as if it, +too, were a link in the chain of influences which I half felt was being +forged around me, it opened at the first part of "Euterpe," where +Herodotus is speculating upon the phenomena of the Nile. Twenty-two +hundred years,--I thought,--and we are still wondering, the Sphinx is +still silent, and we yet in the darkness! Alas, if this riddle be +insoluble, how can we hope to find the clue to deeper problems? If +there are places on our little earth whither our feet cannot go, +curtains that our hands cannot withdraw, how can we expect to track +paths through realms of thought,--how to voyage in those airy, +impalpable regions whose existence we are sure of only while we are +there voyaging? + +"Nilus in extremum fugit perterritus orbem Occuluitque caput, quod +adhuc latet." + +Lost through reckless presumption, might not earnest humility recover +that mysterious lurking-place? Might not one, by devoted toil, by utter +self-sacrifice, with eyes purified by long searching from worldly and +selfish pollution,--might not such a one tear away the veil of +centuries, and, even though dying in the attempt, gain one look into +this arcanum? Might not I?--The unutterable thought thrilled me and +left me speechless, even in thinking. I strained my forehead against +the darkness, as if I could grind the secret from the void air. Then I +experienced the following mental sensation,--which, being purely +mental, I cannot describe precisely as it was, but will translate it as +nearly as possible into the language of physical phenomena. + +It was as if my mind--or, rather, whatever that passive substratum is +that underlies our volition and more truly represents ourselves--were a +still lake, lying quiet and indifferent. Presently the sense of some +coming Presence sent a breathing ripple over its waters; and +immediately afterward it felt a sweep as of trailing garments, and two +arms were thrown around it, and it was pressed against a "life-giving +bosom," whose vivifying warmth interpenetrating the whole body of the +lake, its waters rose, moved by a mighty influence, in the direction of +that retreating Presence; and again, though nothing was seen, I felt +surely whither was that direction. It was NILEWARD. I knew, with the +absolute certainty of intuition, that henceforth I was one of the +_kletoi_, the chosen,--selected from thousands of ages, millions of +people, for this one destiny. Henceforth a sharp dividing-line cut me +off from all others: _their_ appointment was to trade, navigate, eat +and drink, marry and give in marriage, and the rest; mine was to +discover the Source of the Nile. Hither had all the threads of my life +been converging for many years; they had now reached their focus, and +henceforth their course was fixed. + +I was scarcely surprised the next day at receiving a letter from my +employers appointing me to a situation as supercargo of a +merchant-vessel bound on a three-years' voyage to America and +China,--in returning thence, to sail up the Mediterranean, and stop at +Alexandria. I immediately wrote an acceptance, and then busied myself +about obtaining a three-years' tenant for my house. As the house was +desirable and well-situated, this business was soon arranged; and then, +as I had nothing further to do in the village, I left it for the last +time, as it proved, and returned to the city,--whence, after a +fortnight of preparation, I set sail on my eventful enterprise. +Although our voyage was filled with incident that in another place +would be interesting enough to relate, yet here I must omit all mention +of it, and, passing over three years, resume my narrative at +Alexandria, where I left the vessel, and finally broke away from +mercantile life. + +From Alexandria I travelled to Cairo, where I intended to hire a +servant and a boat, for I wished to try the water-passage in preference +to the land. The cheapness of labor and food rendered it no difficult +matter to obtain my boat and provision it for a long voyage,--for how +long I did not tell the Egyptian servant whom I hired to attend me. A +certain feeling of fatality caused me to make no attempt at disguise, +although disguise was then much more necessary than it has been since: +I openly avowed my purpose of travelling on the Nile for pleasure, as a +private European. My accoutrements were simple and few. Arms, of +course, I carried, and the actual necessaries for subsistence; but I +entirely forgot to prepare for sketching, scientific surveys, etc. My +whole mind was possessed with one idea: to see, to discover;--plans for +turning my discoveries to account were totally foreign to my thoughts. + +So, on the 6th of November, 1824, we set sail. I had been waiting three +years to arrive at this starting-point,--my whole life, indeed, had +been dumbly turning towards it,--yet now I commenced it with a coolness +and tranquillity far exceeding that I had possessed on many +comparatively trifling occasions. It is often so. We are borne along on +the current like drift-wood, and, spying jutting rocks or tremendous +cataracts ahead, fancy, "Here we shall be stranded, there buoyed up, +there dashed in pieces over those falls,"--but, for all that, we glide +over those threatened catastrophes in a very commonplace manner, and +are aware of what we have been passing only upon looking back at them. +So no one sees the great light shining from Heaven,--for the people are +blear-eyed, and Saul is blinded. But as I left Cairo in the greatening +distance, floating onward to the heart of the mysterious river, I +floated also into the twin current of thought, that, flowing full and +impetuous from the shores of the peopled Mediterranean, follows the +silent river, and tracks it to its hidden lurking-place in the blank +desert. Onward, past the breathless sands of the Libyan Desert, past +the hundred-gated Thebes, past the stone guardians of Abou-Simbel, +waiting in majestic patience for their spell of silence to be +broken,--onward. It struck me curiously to come to the cataract, and be +obliged to leave my boat at the foot of the first fall, and hire +another above the second,--a forcible reminder that I was travelling +backwards, from the circumference to the centre from which that +circumference had been produced, faintly feeling my way along a tide of +phenomena to the _noumenon_ supporting them. So we always progress: +from arithmetic to geometry, from observation to science, from practice +to theory, and play with edged tools long before we know what knives +mean. For, like Hop-o'-my-Thumb and his brothers, we are driven out +early in the morning to the edge of the forest, and are obliged to +grope our way back to the little house whence we come, by the crumbs +dropped on the road. Alack! how often the birds have eaten our bread, +and we are captured by the giant lying in wait! + +On we swept, leaving behind the burning rocks and dreary sands of Egypt +and Lower Nubia, the green woods and thick acacias of Dongola, the +distant pyramids of Mount Birkel, and the ruins of Meroe, just +discovered footmarks of Ancient Ethiopia descending the Nile to +bequeathe her glory and civilization to Egypt. At Old Dongola, my +companion was very anxious that we should strike across the country to +Shendy, to avoid the great curve of the Nile through Ethiopia. He found +the sail somewhat tedious, as I could speak but little Egyptian, which +I had picked up in scraps,--he, no German or English. I managed to +overrule his objections, however, as I could not bear to leave any part +of the river unvisited; so we continued the water-route to the junction +of the Blue and the White Nile, where I resolved to remain a week, +before continuing my route. The inhabitants regarded us with some +suspicion, but our inoffensive appearance so far conquered their fears +that they were prevailed upon to give us some information about the +country, and to furnish us with a fresh supply of rice, wheat, and +dourra, in exchange for beads and bright-colored cloth, which I had +brought with me for the purpose of such traffic, if it should be +necessary. Bruce's discovery of the source of the Blue Nile, fifty +years before, prevented the necessity of indecision in regard to my +route, and so completely was I absorbed in the one object of my +journey, that the magnificent scenery and ruins along the Blue Nile, +which had so fascinated Cailliaud, presented few allurements for me. + +My stay was rather longer than I had anticipated, as it was found +necessary to make some repairs upon the boat, and, inwardly fretting at +each hour's delay, I was eager to seize the first opportunity for +starting again. On the 1st of March, I made a fresh beginning for the +more unknown and probably more perilous portion of my voyage, having +been about four months in ascending from Cairo. As my voyage had +commenced about the abatement of the sickly season, I had experienced +no inconvenience from the climate, and it was in good spirits that I +resumed my journey. For several days we sailed with little eventful +occurring,--floating on under the cloudless sky, rippling a long white +line through the widening surface of the ever-flowing river, through +floating beds of glistening lotus-flowers, past undulating ramparts of +foliage and winged ambak-blossoms guarding the shores scaled by +adventurous vines that triumphantly waved their banners of white and +purple and yellow from the summit, winding amid bowery islands studding +the broad stream like gems, smoothly stemming the rolling flood of the +river, flowing, ever flowing,--lurking in the cool shade of the dense +mimosa forests, gliding noiselessly past the trodden lairs of +hippopotami and lions, slushing through the reeds swaying to and fro in +the green water, still borne along against the silent current of the +mysterious river, flowing, ever flowing. + +We had now arrived at the land of the Dinkas, where the river, by +broadening too much upon a low country, had become partially devoured +by marsh and reeds, and our progress was very slow, tediously dragging +over a sea of water and grass. I had become a little tired of my +complete loneliness, and was almost longing for some collision with the +tribes of savages that throng the shore, when the incident occurred +that determined my whole future life. One morning, about seven o'clock, +when the hot sun had already begun to rob the day of the delicious +freshness lingering around the tropical night, we happened to be +passing a tract of firmer land than we had met with for some time, and +I directed the vessel towards the shore, to gather some of the +brilliant lotus-flowers that fringed the banks. As we neared the land, +I threw my gun, without which I never left the boat, on the bank, +preparatory to leaping out, when I was startled by hearing a loud, +cheery voice exclaim in English,--"Hilloa! not so fast, if you +please!"--and first the head and then the sturdy shoulders of a white +man raised themselves slowly from the low shrubbery by which they were +surrounded. He looked at us for a minute or two, and nodded with a +contented air that perplexed me exceedingly. + +"So," he said, "you have come at last; I am tired of waiting for you"; +and he began to collect his gun, knife, etc., which were lying on the +ground beside him. + +"And who are you," I returned, "who lie in wait for me? I think, Sir, +you have the advantage." + +Here the stranger interrupted me with a hearty laugh. "My dear +fellow," he cried, "you are entirely mistaken. The technical advantage +that you attribute to me is an error, as I do _not_ have the honor of +knowing your name, though you may know mine without further +preface,--Frederick Herndon; and the real advantage which I wish to +avail myself of, a boat, is obviously on your side. The long and the +short of it is," he added, (composedly extricating himself from the +brushwood,) "that, travelling up in this direction for discovery and +that sort of thing, you know, I heard at Sennaar that a white man with +an Egyptian servant had just left the town, and were going in my +direction in a boat. So I resolved to overtake them, and with their, or +your, permission, join company. But they, or you, kept just in advance, +and it was only by dint of a forced march in the night that I passed +you. I learned at the last Dinka village that no such party had been +yet seen, and concluded to await the your arrival here, where I pitched +my tent a day and a night waiting for you. I am heartily glad to see +you, I assure you." + +With this explanation, the stranger made a spring, and leaped upon the +yacht. + +"Upon my word," said I, still bewildered by his sudden appearance, "you +are very unceremonious." + +"That," he rejoined, "is a way we Americans have. We cannot stop to +palaver. What would become of our manifest destiny? But since you are +so kind, I will call my Egyptian. Times are changed since we were +bondsmen in Egypt, have they not? Ah, I forgot,--you are not an +American, and therefore cannot claim even our remote connection with +the Ten Lost Tribes." Then raising his voice, "Here, Ibrahim!" + +Again a face, but this time a swarthy one, emerged from behind a bush, +and in answer to a few directions in his own dialect the man came down +to the boat, threw in the tent and some other articles of traveller's +furniture, and sprang in with the _nonchalance_ of his master. + +A little recovered from my first surprise, I seized the opportunity of +a little delay in getting the boat adrift again to examine my new +companion. He was standing carelessly upon the little deck of the +vessel where he had first entered, and the strong morning light fell +full upon his well-knit figure and apparently handsome face. The +forehead was rather low, prominent above the eyebrows, and with keen, +hollow temples, but deficient both in comprehensiveness and ideality. +The hazel eyes were brilliant, but restless and shallow,--the mouth of +good size, but with few curves, and perhaps a little too close for so +young a face. The well-cut nose and chin and clean fine outline of +face, the self-reliant pose of the neck and confident set of the +shoulders characterized him as decisive and energetic, while the +pleasant and rather boyish smile that lighted up his face dispelled +presently the peculiarly hard expression I had at first found in +analyzing it. Whether it was the hard, shrewd light from which all the +tender and delicate grace of the early morning had departed, I knew +not; but it struck me that I could not find a particle of shade in his +whole appearance. I seemed at once to take him in, as one sees the +whole of a sunny country where there are no woods or mountains or +valleys. And, in fact, I never did find any,--never any cool recesses +in his character; and as no sudden depths ever opened in his eyes, so +nothing was ever left to be revealed in his character;--like them, it +could be sounded at once. That picture of him, standing there on my +deck, with an indefinite expression of belonging to the place, as he +would have belonged on his own hearth-rug at home, often recurred to +me, again to be renewed and confirmed. + +And thus carelessly was swept into my path, as a stray waif, that man +who would in one little moment change my whole life! It is always so. +Our life sweeps onward like a river, brushing in here a little sand, +there a few rushes, till the accumulated drift-wood chokes the current, +or some larger tree falling across it turns it into a new channel. + +I had been so long unaccustomed to company that I found it quite a +pleasant change to have some one to talk to; some one to sympathize +with I neither wanted nor expected; I certainly did not find such a one +in my new acquaintance. For the first two or three days I simply +regarded him with the sort of wondering curiosity with which we examine +a new natural phenomenon of any sort. His perfect self-possession and +coolness, the _nil-admirari_ and _nil-agitari_ atmosphere which +surrounded him, excited my admiration at first, till I discovered that +it arose, not from the composure of a mind too deep-rooted to be swayed +by external circumstances, but rather from a peculiar hardness and +unimpressibility of temperament that kept him on the same level all the +time. He had been born at a certain temperature, and still preserved +it, from a sort of _vis inertive_ of constitution. This impenetrability +had the effect of a somewhat buoyant disposition, not because he could +be buoyed on the tide of any strong emotion, but because few things +could disturb or excite him. Unable to grasp the significance of +anything outside of himself and his attributes, he took immense pride +in stamping _his_ character, _his_ nationality, _his_ practicality, +upon every series of circumstances by which he was surrounded: he +sailed up the Nile as if it were the Mississippi; although a +well-enough-informed man, he practically ignored the importance of any +city anterior to the Plymouth Settlement, or at least to London, which +had the honor of sending colonists to New England; and he would have +discussed American politics in the heart of Africa, had not my +ignorance upon the topic generally excluded it from our conversation. +He had what is most wrongly termed an exceedingly practical mind,--that +is, not one that appreciates the practical existence and value of +thought as such, considering that a _praxis_, but a mind that denied +the existence of a thought until it had become realized in visible +action. + +"'The end of a man is an action, and not a thought, though it be the +noblest,' as Carlyle has well written," he triumphantly quoted to me, +as, leaning over the little railing of the yacht, watching, at least I +was, the smooth, green water gliding under the clean-cutting keel, we +had been talking earnestly for some time. "A thought has value only as +it is a potential action; if the action be abortive, the thought is as +useless as a crank that fails to move an engine-wheel." + +"Then, if action is the wheel, and thought only the crank, what does +the body of your engine represent? For what purpose are your wheels +turning? For the sake of merely moving?" + +"No," said he, "moving to promote another action, and _that_ +another,--and----so on _ad infinitum_." + +"Then you leave out of your scheme a real engine, with a journey to +accomplish, and an end to arrive at; for so wheels would only move +wheels, and there would be an endless chain of machinery, with no plan, +no object for its existence. Does not the very necessity we feel of +having a reason for the existence, the operation of anything, a large +plan in which to gather up all ravelled threads of various objects, +proclaim thought as the final end, the real thing, of which action, +more especially human action, is but the inadequate visible expression? +What kinds of action does Carlyle mean, that are to be the wheels for +our obedient thoughts to set in motion? Hand, arm, leg, foot action? +These are all our operative machinery. Does he mean that our 'noblest +thought' is to be chained as a galley-slave to these, to give them +means for working a channel through which motive power may be poured in +upon them? Are we to think that our fingers and feet may move and so we +live, or they to run for our thought, and we live to think?" + +"Supposing we _are_," said Herndon, "what practical good results from +knowing it? Action for action's sake, or for thinking's sake, is still +action, and all that we have to look out for. What business have the +brakemen at the wheels with the destiny of the train? Their business is +simply to lock and unlock the wheels; so that their end is in the +wheels, and not in the train." + +"A somewhat dreary end," I said, half to myself. "The whole world, +then, must content itself with spinning one blind action out of +another; which means that we must continually alter or displace +something, merely to be able to displace and alter something else." + +"On the contrary, we exchange vague, speculative mystifications for +definite, tangible fact. In America we have too much reality, too many +iron and steam facts, to waste much time over mere thinking. That, Sir, +does for a sleepy old country, begging your pardon, like yours; but for +one that has the world's destiny in its hands,--that is laying iron +foot-paths from the Atlantic to the Pacific for future civilization to +take an evening stroll along to see the sun set,--that is converting +black wool into white cotton, to clothe the inhabitants of +Borrioboolagha,--that is trading, farming, electing, governing, +fighting, annexing, destroying, building, puffing, blowing, steaming, +racing, as our young two-hundred-year-old is,--we must work, we must +act, and think afterwards. Whatsoever thy _hand_ findeth to do, do it +with thy might." + +"And what," I said, "when hand-and-foot-action shall have ceased? will +you then allow some play for thought-action?" + +"We have no time to think of that," he returned, walking away, and thus +stopping our conversation. + +The man was consistent in his theory, at least. Having exalted physical +motion (or action) to the place he did, he refused to see that the +action he prized was more valuable through the thought it developed; +consequently he reduced all actions to the same level, and prided +himself upon stripping a deed of all its marvellousness or majesty. He +did uncommon things in such a matter-of-fact way that he made them +common by the performance. The faint spiritual double which I found +lurking behind his steel and iron he either solidified with his +metallic touch or pertinaciously denied its existence. + +"Plato was a fool," he said, "to talk of an ideal table; for, supposing +he could see it, and prove its existence, what good could it do? You +can neither eat off it, nor iron on it, nor do anything else with it; +so, for all practical purposes, a pine table serves perfectly well +without hunting after the ideal. I want something that I can go up to, +and know it is there by seeing and touching." + +"But," said I, "does not that very susceptibility to bodily contact +remove the table to an indefinite distance from you? If we can see and +handle a thing, and yet not be able to hold that subtile property of +generic existence, by which, one table being made, an infinite class is +created, so real that tables may actually be modelled on it, and yet so +indefinite that you cannot set your hand on any table or collection of +tables and say, 'It is here,'--if we can be absolutely conscious that +we see the table, and yet have no idea how its image reflected on our +retina can produce that absolute consciousness, does not the table grow +dim and misty, and slip far away out of reach, of apprehension, much +more of comprehension?" + +"Stuff!" cried my companion. "If your metaphysics lead to proving that +a board that I am touching with my hand is not there, I'll say, as I +have already said, 'Throw (meta)physics to the dogs! I'll none of it!' +A fine preparation for living in a material world, where we have to +live in matter, by matter, and for matter, to wind one's self up in a +snarl that puts matter out of reach, and leaves us with nothing to live +in, or by, or for! Now _you_, for instance, are not content with this +poor old Nile as it stands, but must go fussing and wondering and +mystifying about it till you have positively nothing of a river left. I +look at the water, the banks, the trees growing on them, the islands in +which we get occasionally entangled: here, at least, I have a real, +substantial river,--not equal for navigation to the Ohio or +Mississippi, but still very fair.--Confound these flies!" he added, +parenthetically, making a vigorous plunge at a dark cloud of the little +pests that were closing down upon us. + +"Then you see nothing strange and solemn in this wonderful stream? +nothing in the weird civilization crouching at the feet, vainly looking +to the head of its master hidden in the clouds? nothing in the echoing +footsteps of nations passing down its banks to their destiny? nothing +in the solemn, unbroken silence brooding over the fountain whence +sprang this marvellous river, to bear precious gifts to thousands and +millions, and again retreat unknown? Is there no mystery in unsolved +questions, no wonder in miracles, no awe in inapproachability?" + +"I see," said he, steadily, "that a river of some thousand miles long +has run through a country peopled by contented, or ignorant, or +barbarous people, none of whom, of course, would take the slightest +interest in tracing the river; that the dangers that have guarded the +marvellous secret, as you call it, are not intrinsic to the secret +itself, but are purely accidental and contingent There is no more +reason why the source of the Nile should not be found than that of the +Connecticut; so I do not see that it is really at all inapproachable or +awful." + +"What in the world, Herndon," cried I, in desperation, "what in the +name of common sense ever induced you to set out on this expedition? +What do you want to discover the source of the Nile for?" + +He answered with the ready air of one who has long ago made up his mind +confidently on the subject he is going to speak about. + +"It has long been evident to me, that civilization, flowing in a return +current from America, must penetrate into Africa, and turn its immense +natural advantages to such account, that it shall become the seat of +the most flourishing and important empires of the earth. These, +however, should be consolidated, and not split up into multitudinous +missionary stations. If a stream of immigration could be started from +the eastern side, up the Nile for instance, penetrating to the +interior, it might meet the increased tide of a kindred nature from the +west, and uniting somewhere in the middle of Soudan, the central point +of action, the capital city could be founded there, as a heart for the +country, and a complete system of circulation be established. By this +method of entering the country at both sides simultaneously, of course +its complete subjugation could be accomplished in half the time that it +would take for a body of emigrants, however large, to make headway from +the western coast alone. About the source of the Nile I intend to mark +out the site for my city, and then"---- + +"And call it," I added, "Herndonville." + +"Perhaps," he said, gravely. "At all events, my name will be +inseparably connected with the enterprise; and if I can get the +steamboat started during my lifetime, I shall make a comfortable +fortune from the speculation." + +"What a gigantic scheme!" I exclaimed. + +"Ah," he said, complacently, "we Americans don't stick at trifles." + +"Oh, marvellous practical genius of America!" I cried, "to eclipse +Herodotus and Diodorus, not to mention Bruce and Cailliaud, and +inscribe Herndonville on the arcanum of the Innermost! If the Americans +should discover the origin of evil, they would run up penitentiaries +all over the country, modelled to suit 'practical purposes.'" + +"I think that would pay," said Herndon, reflectively. + +But though I then stopped the conversation, yet I felt its influence +afterwards. The divine enthusiasm for _knowing_, that had inspired me +for the last three years, and had left no room for any other thought in +connection with the discovery,--this enthusiasm felt chilled and +deadened. I felt reproached that I had not thought of founding a +Pottsville or Jenkinsville, and my grand purpose seemed small and vague +and indefinite. The vivid, living thoughts that had enkindled me fell +back cold and lifeless into the tedious, reedy water. For we had now +reached the immense shallow lake that Werne has since described, and +the scenery had become flat and monotonous, as if in sympathy with the +low, marshy place to which my mind had been driven. The intricate +windings of the river, after we had passed the lake, rendered the +navigation very slow and difficult; and the swarms of flies, that +plagued us for the first time seriously, brought petty annoyances to +view more forcibly than we had experienced in all our voyage before. + +After some days' pushing in this way, now driven by a strong head wind +almost back from our course, again, by a sudden change, carried rapidly +many miles on our journey,--after some days of this sailing, we arrived +at a long, low reef of rocks. The water here became so shallow and +boisterous that further attempt at sailing was impossible, and we +determined to take our boat to pieces as much as we could, and carry it +with us, while we walked along the shore of the river. I concluded, +from the marked depression in the ground we had just passed, that there +must be a corresponding elevation about here, to give the water a +sufficient head to pass over the high ground below; and the almost +cataract appearance of the river added strength to my hypothesis. We +were all four armed to the teeth, and the natives had shown themselves, +hitherto, either so friendly or so indifferent that we did not have +much apprehension on account of personal safety. So we set out with +beating hearts. Our path was exceedingly difficult to traverse, leading +chiefly among low trees and over the sharp stones that had rolled from +the river,--now close by the noisy stream, which babbled and foamed as +if it had gone mad,--now creeping on our knees through bushes, matted +with thick, twining vines,--now wading across an open morass,--now in +mimosa woods, or slipping in and out of the feathery dhelb-palms. + +Since our conversation spoken of above, Herndon and I had talked little +with each other, and now usually spoke merely of the incidents of the +journey, the obstacles, etc.; we scarcely mentioned that for which we +were both longing with intense desire, and the very thoughts of which +made my heart beat quicker and the blood rush to my face. One day we +came to a place where the river made a bend of about two miles and then +passed almost parallel to our point of view. I proposed to Herndon that +he should pursue the course of the river, and that I would strike a +little way back into the country, and make a short cut across to the +other side of the bend, where he and the men would stop, pitch our +night-tent, and wait for me. Herndon assented, and we parted. The low +fields around us changed, as I went on, to firm, hard, rising ground, +that gradually became sandy and arid. The luxuriant vegetation that +clung around the banks of the river seemed to be dried up little by +little, until only a few dusty bushes and thorn-acacias studded in +clumps a great, sandy, and rocky tract of country, which rolled +monotonously back from the river border with a steadily increasing +elevation. A sandy plain never gives me a sense of real substance; it +always seems as if it must be merely a covering for something,--a sheet +thrown over the bed where a dead man is lying. And especially here did +this broad, trackless, seemingly boundless desert face me with its +blank negation, like the old obstinate "No" which Nature always returns +at first to your eager questioning. It provoked me, this staring +reticence of the scenery, and stimulated me to a sort of dogged +exertion. I think I walked steadily for about three hours over the +jagged rocks and burning sands, interspersed with a few patches of +straggling grass,--all the time up hill, with never a valley to vary +the monotonous climbing,--until the bushes began to thicken in about +the same manner as they had thinned into the desert, the grass and +herbage herded closer together under my feet, and, beating off the +ravenous sand, gradually expelled the last trace of it, a few tall +trees strayed timidly among the lower shrubbery, growing more and more +thickly, till I found myself at the border of an apparently extensive +forest. The contrast was great between the view before and behind me. +Behind lay the road I had achieved, the monotonous, toilsome, wearisome +desert, the dry, formal introduction, as it were, to my coming journey. +Before, long, cool vistas opened green through delicious shades,--a +track seemed to be almost made over the soft grass, that wound in and +out among the trees, and lost itself in interminable mazes. I plunged +into the profound depths of the still forest, and confidently followed +for path the first open space in which I found myself. + +It was a strangely still wood for the tropics,--no chattering +parroquets, no screaming magpies, none of the sneering, gibing +dissonances that I had been accustomed to,--all was silent, and yet +intensely living. I fancied that the noble trees took pleasure in +growing, they were so energized with life in every leaf. I noticed +another peculiarity,--there was little underbrush, little of the +luxuriance of vines and creepers, which is so striking in an African +forest. Parasitic life, luxurious idleness, seemed impossible here; the +atmosphere was too sacred, too solemn, for the fantastic ribaldry of +scarlet runners, of flaunting yellow streamers. The lofty boughs +interlaced in arches overhead, and the vast dim aisles opened far down +in the tender gloom of the wood and faded slowly away in the distance. +And every little spray of leaves that tossed airily in the pleasant +breeze, every slender branch swaying gently in the wind, every young +sapling pushing its childish head panting for light through the mass of +greenery and quivering with golden sunbeams, every trunk of aged tree +gray with moss and lichens, every tuft of flowers, seemed thrilled and +vivified by some wonderful knowledge which it held secret, some +consciousness of boundless, inexhaustible existence, some music of +infinite unexplored thought concealing treasures of unlimited action. +And it was the knowledge, the consciousness, that it was unlimited +which seemed to give such elastic energy to this strange forest. But at +all events, it was such a relief to find the everlasting negation of +the desert nullified, that my dogged resolution insensibly changed to +an irrepressible enthusiasm, which bore me lightly along, scarcely +sensible of fatigue. + +The ascent had become so much steeper, and parts of the forest seemed +to slope off into such sudden declivities and even precipices, that I +concluded I was ascending a mountain, and, from the length of time I +had been in the forest, I judged that it must be of considerable +height. The wood suddenly broke off as it had begun, and, emerging from +the cool shade, I found myself in a complete wilderness of rock. Rocks +of enormous size were thrown about in apparently the wildest confusion, +on the side of what I now perceived to be a high mountain. How near the +summit I was I had no means of determining, as huge boulders blocked up +the view at a few paces ahead. I had had about eight hours' tramp, with +scarcely any cessation; yet now my excitement was too great to allow me +to pause to eat or rest. I was anxious to press on, and determine that +day the secret which I was convinced lay entombed in this sepulchre. So +again I pressed onward,--this time more slowly,--having to pick my way +among the bits of jagged granite filling up terraces sliced out of the +mountain, around enormous rocks projecting across my path,--overhanging +precipices that sheered straight down into dark abysses, (I must have +verged round to a different side from that I came up on,)--creeping +through narrow passages formed by the junction of two immense boulders. +Tearing my hands with the sharp corners of the rocks, I climbed in vain +hope of at last seeing the summit. Still rocks piled on rocks faced my +wearied eyes, vainly striving to pierce through some chink or cranny +into the space behind them. Still rocks, rocks, rocks, against whose +adamantine sides my feeble will dashed restlessly and impotently. My +eyeballs almost burst, as it seemed, in the intense effort to strain +through those stone prison-walls. And by one of those curious links of +association by which two distant scenes are united as one, I seemed +again to be sitting in my garret, striving to pierce the darkness for +an answer to the question then raised, and at the same moment passed +over me, like the sweep of angels' wings, the consciousness of that +Presence which had there infolded me. And with that consciousness, the +eager, irritated waves of excitement died away, and there was a calm, +in which I no longer beat like a caged beast against the never-ending +rocks, but, borne irresistibly along in the strong current of a mighty, +still emotion, pressed on with a certainty that left no room for +excitement, because none for doubt. And so I came upon it. Swinging +round one more rock, hanging over a breathless precipice, and landing +upon the summit of the mountain, I beheld it stretched at my feet: a +lake about five miles in circumference, bedded like an eye in the +naked, bony rock surrounding it, with quiet rippling waters placidly +smiling in the level rays of the afternoon sun,--the Unfathomable +Secret, the Mystery of Ages, the long sought for, the Source of the +Nile. + +For, from a broad cleft in the rocks, the water hurled itself out of +its hiding-place, and, dashing down over its rocky bed, rushed +impetuous over the sloping country, till, its force being spent, it +waded tediously through the slushing reeds of the hill-land again, and +so rolled down to sea. For, while I stood there, it seemed as if my +vision were preternaturally sharpened, and I followed the bright river +in its course, through the alternating marsh and desert,--through the +land where Zeus went banqueting among the blameless Ethiopians, +--through the land where the African princes watched from +afar the destruction of Cambyses's army,--past Meroe, Thebes, Cairo; +bearing upon its heaving bosom anon the cradle of Moses, the gay +vessels of the inundation festivals, the stately processions of the +mystic priesthood, the gorgeous barge of Cleopatra, the victorious +trireme of Antony, the screaming vessels of fighting soldiers, the +stealthy boats of Christian monks, the glittering, changing, flashing +tumult of thousands of years of life,--ever flowing, ever ebbing, with +the mystic river, on whose surface it seethed and bubbled. And the germ +of all this vast varying scene lay quietly hidden in the wonderful lake +at my feet. But human life is always composed of inverted cones, whose +bases, upturned to the eye, present a vast area, diversified with +countless phenomena; but when the screen that closes upon them a little +below the surface is removed, we shall be able to trace the many-lined +figures, each to its simple apex,--one little point containing the +essence and secret of the whole. Once or twice in the course of a +lifetime are a few men permitted to catch a glimpse of these awful +Beginnings,--to touch for a minute the knot where all the tangled +threads ravel themselves out smoothly. I had found such a place,--had +had such an ineffable vision,--and, overwhelmed with tremendous awe, I +sank on my knees, lost in GOD. + +After a little while, as far as I can recollect, I rose and began to +take the customary observations, marked the road by which I had come up +the mountain, and planned a route for rejoining Herndon. But ere long +all subordinate thoughts and actions seemed to be swallowed up in the +great tide of thought and feeling that overmastered me. I scarcely +remember anything from the time when the lake first burst upon my view, +till I met Herndon again. But I know, that, as the day was nearly +spent, I was obliged to give up the attempt to travel back that night, +especially as I now began to feel the exhaustion attendant upon my long +journey and fasting. I could not have slept among those rocks, eternal +guardians of the mighty secret. The absence of all breathing, +transitory existence but my own rendered it too solemn for me to dare +to intrude there. So I went back to the forest, (I returned much +quicker than I had come,) ate some supper, and, wrapped in a blanket I +had brought with me, went to sleep under the arching branches of a +tree. I have as little recollection of my next day's journey, except +that I defined a diagonal and thus avoided the bend. I found Herndon +waiting in front of the tent, rather impatient for my arrival. + +"Halloo, old fellow!" he shouted, jumping up at seeing me, "I was +really getting scared about you. Where have you been? What have you +seen? What are our chances? Have you had any adventures? killed any +lions, or anything? By-the-by, I had a narrow escape with one +yesterday. Capital shot; but prudence is the better part of valor, you +know. But, really," he said again, apparently struck by my abstraction +of manner, "what _have_ you seen?" + +"I have found the source of the Nile," I said, simply. + +Is it not strange, that, when we have a great thing to say, we are +always compelled to speak so simply in monosyllables? Perhaps this, +too, is an example of the law that continually reduces many to +one,--the unity giving the substance of the plurality; but as the +heroes of the "Iliad" were obliged to repeat the messages of the gods +_literatim_, so we must say a great thing as it comes to us, by itself. +It is curious to me now, that I was not the least excited in announcing +the discovery,--not because I did not feel the force of it, but because +my mind was so filled, so to speak, so saturated, with the idea, that +it was perfectly even with itself, though raised to an immensely higher +level. In smaller minds an idea seizes upon one part of them, thus +inequalizing it with the rest, and so, throwing them off their balance, +they are literally _de_-ranged (or disarranged) with excitement. It was +so with Herndon. For a minute he stared at me in stupefied +astonishment, and then burst into a torrent of incoherent +congratulations. + +"Why, Zeitzer!" he cried, "you are the lucky man, after all. Why, your +fortune's made,--you'll be the greatest man of the age. You must come +to America; that is the place for appreciating such things. You'll have +a Common-Council dinner in Boston, and a procession in New York. Your +book will sell like wildfire. You'll be a lion of the first magnitude. +Just think! The Man who discovered the Source of the Nile!" + +I stood bewildered, like one suddenly awakened from sleep. The unusual +excitement in one generally so self-possessed and indifferent as my +companion made me wonder sufficiently; but these allusions to my +greatness, my prospects, completely astounded me. What had I done,--I +who had been chosen, and led step by step, with little interference of +my own, to this end? What did this talk of noise and clamorous +notoriety mean? + +"To think," Herndon ran on, "that you should have beaten me, after all! +that you should have first seen, first drunk of, first bathed in"-- + +"Drunk of! bathed in!" I repeated, mechanically. "Herndon, are you +crazy? Would I dare to profane the sacred fountain?" + +He made no reply, unless a quizzical smile might be considered as +such,--but drew me within the tent, out of hearing of the two +Egyptians, and bade me give an account of my adventures. When I had +finished,-- + +"This is grand!" he exclaimed. "Now, if you will share the benefits of +this discovery with me, I will halve the cost of starting that +steamboat I spoke of, and our plan will soon be afloat. I shouldn't +wonder, now, if one might not, in order to start the town, get up some +kind of a little summer-pavilion there, on the top of the +mountain,--something on the plan of the Tip-Top House at Mount +Washington, you know,--hang the stars and stripes off the roof, if +you're not particular, and call it The Teuton-American. That would give +you your rightful priority, you see. By the beard of the Prophet, as +they say in Cairo, the thing would take!" + +I laughed heartily at this idea, and tried, at first in jest, then +earnestly, to make him understand I had no such plans in connection +with my discovery; that I only wanted to extend the amount of knowledge +in the world,--not the number of ice-cream pavilions. I offered to let +him take the whole affair into his own hands,--cost, profit, and all. I +wanted nothing to do with it. But he was too honest, as he thought, for +that, and still talked and argued,--giving his most visionary plans a +definite, tangible shape and substance by a certain process of +metallicizing, until they had not merely elbowed away the last shadow +of doubt, but had effectually taken possession of the whole ground, and +seemed to be the only consequences possible upon such a discovery. My +dislike to personal traffic in the sublimities of truth began to waver. +I felt keenly the force of the argument which Herndon used repeatedly, +that, if I did not thus claim the monopoly, (he talked almost as if I +had invented something,) some one else would, and so injustice be added +to what I had termed vulgarity. I felt that I must prevent injustice, +at least. Besides, what should I have to show for all my trouble, (ah! +little had I thought of "I" or my trouble a short time ago!)--what +should I have gained, after all,--nay, what would there be gained for +any one,--if I merely announced my discovery, without----starting the +steamboat? And though I did feebly query whether I should be equally +bound to establish a communication, with pecuniary emolument, to the +North Pole, in case I discovered that, his remark, that this was the +Nile, and had nothing to do with the North Pole, was so forcible and +pertinent, that I felt ashamed of my suggestion; and upon second +thought, that idea of the dinner and procession really had a good deal +in it. I had been in New York, and knew the length of Broadway; and at +the recollection, felt flattered by the thought of being conveyed in an +open chariot drawn by four or even eight horses, with nodding plumes, +(literal ones for the horses,--only metaphorical ones for me,) past +those stately buildings fluttering with handkerchiefs, and through +streets black with people thronging to see the man who had solved the +riddle of Africa. And then it would be pleasant, too, to make a neat +little speech to the Common Council,--letting the brave show catch its +own tail in its mouth, by proving, that, if America did not achieve +everything, she could appreciate--yes, appreciate was the word--those +who did. Yes, this would be a fitting consummation; I would do it. + +But, ah! how dim became the vision of that quiet lake on the summit of +the mountain! How that vivid lightning-revelation faded into obscurity! +Was Pharaoh again ascending his fatal chariot? + +The next day we started for the ascent. We determined to follow the +course of the river backwards around the bend and set out from my +former starting-point, as any other course might lead us into a +hopeless dilemma. We had no difficulty in finding the sandy plain, and +soon reached landmarks which I was sure were on the right road; but a +tramp of six or eight hours--still in the road I had passed +before--brought us no nearer to our goal. In short, we wandered three +days in that desert, utterly in vain. My heart sunk within me at every +failure; with sickening anxiety I scanned the horizon at every point, +but nothing was visible but stunted bushes and white pebbles glistening +in the glaring sand. + +The fourth day came,--and Herndon at last stopped short, and said, in +his steady, immobile voice,-- + +"Zeitzer, you must have made this grand discovery in your dreams. There +is no Nile up this way,--and our water-skins are almost dry. We had +better return and follow up the course of the river where we left it. +If we again fail, I shall return to Egypt to carry out my plan for +converting the Pyramids into ice-houses. They are excellently well +adapted for the purpose, and in that country a good supply of ice is a +_desideratum_. Indeed, if my plan meets with half the success it +deserves, the antiquaries two centuries hence will conclude that ice +was the original use of those structures." + +"Shade of Cheops, forbid!" I exclaimed. + +"Cheops be hanged!" returned my irreverent companion. "The world +suffers too much now from overcrowded population to permit a man to +claim standing-room three thousand years after his death,--especially +when the claim is for some acres apiece, as in the case of these +pyramid-builders. Will you go back with me?" + +I declined for various reasons, not all very clear even to myself; but +I was convinced that his peculiar enticements were the cause of our +failure, and I hated him unreasonably for it. I longed to get rid of +him, and of his influence over me. Fool that I was! _I_ was the sinner, +and not he; for he _could_ not see, because he was born blind, while +_I_ fell with my eyes open. I still held on to the vague hope, that, +were I alone, I might again find that mysterious lake; for I knew I had +not dreamed. So we parted. + +But we two (my servant and I) were not left long alone in the Desert. +The next day a party of natives surprised us, and, after some desperate +fighting, we were taken prisoners, sold as slaves from tribe to tribe +into the interior, and at length fell into the hands of some traders on +the western coast, who gave us our freedom. Unwilling, however, to +return home without some definite success, I made several voyages in a +merchant-vessel. But I was born for one purpose; failing in that, I had +nothing further to live for. The core of my life was touched at that +fatal river, and a subtile disease has eaten it out till nothing but +the rind is left. A wave, gathering to the full its mighty strength, +had upreared itself for a moment majestically above its +fellows,--falling, its scattered spray can only impotently sprinkle the +dull, dreary shore. Broken and nerveless, I can only wait the lifting +of the curtain, quietly wondering if a failure be always +irretrievable,--if a prize once lost can never again be found. + + + + +AN EXPERIENCE. + + +A common spring of water, sudden welling, +Unheralded, from some unseen impelling, +Unrecognized, began his life alone. +A rare and haughty vine looked down above him, +Unclasped her climbing glory, stooped to love him, +And wreathed herself about his curb of stone. + +Ah, happy fount! content, in upward smiling, +To feel no life but in her fond beguiling, +To see no world but through her veil of green! +And happy vine, secure, in downward gazing, +To find one theme his heart forever praising,-- +The crystal cup a throne, and she the queen! + +I speak, I grew about him, ever dearer; +The water rose to meet me, ever nearer; +The water passed one day this curb of stone. +Was it a weak escape from righteous boundings, +Or yet a righteous scorn of false surroundings? +I only know I live my life alone. + +Alone? The smiling fountain seems to chide me,-- +The constant fountain, rooted still beside me, +And speaking wistful words I toil to hear: +Ah, how alone! The mystic words confound me; +And still the awakened fountain yearns beyond me, +Streaming to some unknown I may not near. + +"Oh, list," he cries, "the wondrous voices calling! +I hear a hundred streams in silver falling; +I feel the far-off pulses of the sea. +Oh, come!" Then all my length beside him faring, +I strive and strain for growth, and soon, despairing, +I pause and wonder where the wrong can be. + +Were we not equal? Nay, I stooped, from climbing, +To his obscure, to list the golden chiming, +So low to all the world, so plain to me. +_Now_,'twere some broad fair streamlet, onward tending +Should mate with him, and both, serenely blending, +Move in a grand accordance to the sea. + +I tend not so; I hear no voices calling; +I have no care for rivers silver-falling; +I hate the far-off sea that wrought my pain. +Oh for some spell of change, my life new-aiming! +Or best, by spells his too much life reclaiming, +Hold all within the fountain-curb again! + + + + +ABOUT THIEVES. + + +It is recorded in the pages of Diodorus Siculus, that Actisanes, the +Ethiopian, who was king of Egypt, caused a general search to be made +for all Egyptian thieves, and that all being brought together, and the +king having "given them a just hearing," he commanded their noses to be +cut off,--and, of course, what a king of Egypt commanded was done; so +that all the Egyptian "knucks," "cracksmen," "shoplifters," and +pilferers generally, of whatever description known to the slang terras +of the time, became marked men. + +Inspired, perhaps, with the very idea on which the Ethiopian acted, the +police authorities have lately provided, that, in an out-of-the-way +room, on a back street, the honest men of New York city may scan the +faces of its thieves, and hold silent communion with that interesting +part of the population which has agreed to defy the laws and to stand +at issue with society. Without disturbing the deep pool of penalogy, or +entering at all into the question, as to whether Actisanes was right, +or whether the police of New York do not overstep their authority in +putting on the walls this terrible bill of attainder against certain +citizens of the United States, whom their country's constitution has +endeavored to protect from "infamous punishments,"--the student of +moral science will certainly be thankful for the faces. + +We do not remember ever having "opened" a place or picked a pocket. We +have made puns, however; and so, upon the Johnsonian _dictum_, the +thing is latent in us, and we feel the affinity. We do not hate +thieves. We feel satisfied that even in the character of a man who does +not respect ownership there may be much to admire. Sparkles of genius +scintillate along the line of many a rogue's career. Many there are, it +is true, who are obtuse and vicious below the mean,--but a far greater +number display skill and courage infinitely above it. Points of noble +character, of every good as well as most base characteristics of the +human race, will be found in the annals of thievery, when they are +written aright. + +Thieves, like the State of Massachusetts in the great man's oration, +"have their history," and it may be safely asserted that they did not +steal it. It is dimly hinted in the verse of a certain ancient, that +there was a time in a remoter antiquity "ere thieves were feared"; yet +even this is cautiously quiet as to their non-existence. Homer, +recounting traditions old in his time, chuckles with narrative delight +over the boldness, wit, and invention of a great cattle-stealer, and +for his genius renders him the ultimatum of Greek tribute, +intellectually speaking, by calling him a son of Zeus. Herodotus speaks +plainly and tells a story; and the best of all his stories, to our +thinking, is a thief's story, which we abridge thus. + +"The king Rhampsinitus, the priests informed me, possessed a great +quantity of money, such as no succeeding king was able to surpass or +nearly come up to, and, wishing to treasure it, he built a chamber of +stone, one wall of which was against the palace. But the builder, +forming a plan against it, even in building, fitted one of the stones +so that it might be easily taken out by two men or even one. + +"In course of time, and when the king had laid up his treasures in the +chamber, the builder, finding his end approaching, called to him his +two sons and described to them how he had contrived, and, having +clearly explained everything, he told them, if they would observe his +directions closely, they might be stewards of the king's riches. He +accordingly died, and the sons were not long in applying themselves to +the work; but, having come by night to the palace, and having found the +stone as described, they easily removed it, and carried off a great +quantity of treasure. + +"When the king opened the chamber, he was astonished to see some +vessels deficient; but he was not able to accuse any one, as the seals +were unbroken, and the chamber well secured. When, therefore, on his +opening it two or three times, the treasures were always evidently +diminished, he adopted the following plan: he ordered traps to be made +and placed them round the vessels in which the treasures were. But when +the thieves came, as before, and one of them had entered, as soon as he +went near a vessel, he was straightway caught in the trap; perceiving, +therefore, in what a predicament he was, he immediately called to his +brother, told him what had happened, and bade him enter as quickly as +possible and cut off his head, lest, if seen and recognized, he should +ruin him also. The other thought he spoke well, and did as he was +advised; then, having fitted in the stone, he returned home, taking +with him his brother's head. + +"When day came, the king, having entered the chamber, was astonished at +seeing the body of the thief in the trap without the head, but the +chamber secured, and no apparent means of entrance or exit. In this +perplexity he contrived thus: he hung up the body of the thief from the +wall, and, having placed sentinels there, he ordered them to seize and +bring before him whomsoever they should see weeping or expressing +commiseration for the spectacle. + +"The mother was greatly grieved at the body being suspended, and, +coming to words with her surviving son, commanded him, by any means he +could, to contrive how he might take down and bring away the corpse of +his brother; but, should he not do so, she threatened to go to the king +and tell who had the treasure. When the mother treated her surviving +son harshly, and he, with many entreaties, was unable to persuade her, +he contrived this plan: he put skins filled with wine on some asses, +and drove to where the corpse was detained, and there skilfully loosed +the strings of two or three of those skins, and, when the wine ran out, +he beat his head and cried aloud, as if he knew not which one to turn +to first. But the sentinels, seeing wine flow, ran with vessels and +caught it, thinking it their gain,--whereupon, the man, feigning anger, +railed against them. But the sentinels soothed and pacified him, and at +last he set the skins to rights again. More conversation passed; the +sentinels joked with him and moved him to laughter, and he gave them +one of the skins, and lay down with them and drank, and thus they all +became of a party; and the sentinels, becoming exceedingly drunk, fell +asleep where they had been drinking. Then the thief took down the body +of his brother, and, departing, carried it to his mother, having obeyed +her injunctions. + +"After this the king resorted to many devices to discover and take the +thief, but all failed through his daring and shrewdness: when, at last, +sending throughout all the cities, the king caused a proclamation to be +made, offering a pardon and even reward to the man, if he would +discover himself. The thief, relying on this promise, went to the +palace; and Rhampsinitus greatly admired him, and gave him his daughter +in marriage, accounting him the most knowing of all men; for that the +Egyptians are superior to all others, but he was superior to the +Egyptians." + +The Egyptians appear to have given their attention to stealing in every +age; and at the present time, the ruler there may be said to be not so +much the head man of the land as the head thief. Travellers report that +that country is divided into departments upon a basis of abstraction, +and that the interests of each department, in pilfering respects, are +under the supervision of a Chief of Thieves. The Chief of Thieves is +responsible to the government, and to him all those who steal +professionally must give in their names, and must also keep him +informed of their successful operations. When goods are missed, the +owner applies to the government, is referred to the Chief of Thieves +for the Department, and all particulars of quantity, quality, time, and +manner of abstraction, to the best of his knowledge and belief, being +given, the goods are easily identified and at once restored,--less a +discount of twenty-five per cent. Against any rash man who should +undertake a private speculation, of course the whole fraternity of +thieves would be the beat possible police. This, after all, appears to +be a mere compromise of police taxes. He who has no goods to lose, or, +having, can watch them so well as not to need the police, the +government agrees shall not be made to pay for a police; but he whom +the fact of loss is against must pay well to be watched. + +Something of this principle is observable in all the East The East is +the fatherland of thieves, and Oriental annals teem with brilliant +examples of their exploits. The story of Jacoub Ben-Laith, founder of +the Soffarid dynasty,--otherwise, first of the Tinker-Kings of the +larger part of Persia,--is especially excellent upon that proverbial +"honor among thieves" of which most men have heard. + +Working weary hour after hour in his little shop,--toiling away days, +weeks, and months for a meagre subsistence,--Jacoub finally turned in +disgust from his hammer and forge, and became a "minion of the moon." +He is said, however, to have been reasonable in plunder, and never to +have robbed any of all they had. One night he entered the palace of +Darham, prince of the province of Segestan, and, working diligently, +soon gathered together an immense amount of valuables, with which he +was making off, when, in crossing a very dark room, his foot struck +upon a hard substance, and the misstep nearly threw him down. Stooping, +he picked up that upon which he had trodden. He believed it, from +feeling, to be a precious stone. He carried it to his mouth, touched it +with his tongue,--it was salt! And thus, by his own action, he had +tasted salt beneath the prince's roof,--in Eastern parlance, had +accepted his hospitality, become his guest. He could not rob him. +Jacoub laid down his burden,--robes embroidered in gold upon the +richest materials, sashes wanting only the light to flash with precious +stones worked in the braid, all the costly and rare of an Eastern +prince's palace gathered in one common spoil,--laid it all down, and +departed as silently as he had come. + +In the morning the disorder seen told only of attempted robbery. +Diligent search being made, the officers charged with it became +satisfied of Jacoub's complicity. They brought him before the prince. +There, being charged with the burglary, Jacoub at once admitted it, and +told the whole story. The prince, honoring him for his honor, at once +took him into his service, and employed him with entire confidence in +whatever of important or delicate he had to do that needed a man of +truth and courage; and Jacoub from that beginning went up step by step, +till he himself became prince of a province, and then of many +provinces, and finally king of a mighty realm. He had soul enough, +according to Carlyle's idea, not to need salt; but, for all that, the +salt saved him. + +Another king of Persia, Khurreem Khan, was not ashamed to admit, with a +crown on his head, that he had once been a thief, and was wont to +recount of himself what in these days we should call a case of +conscience. Thus he told it:-- + +"When I was a poor soldier in Nadir Shah's camp, my necessities led me +to take from a shop a gold-embossed saddle, sent thither by an Afghan +chief to be repaired. I soon afterward heard that the owner of the shop +was in prison, sentenced to be hanged. My conscience smote me. I +restored the stolen article to the very place whence I had removed it, +and watched till it was discovered by the tradesman's wife. She uttered +a scream of joy, on seeing it, and fell on her knees, invoking +blessings on the person who had brought it back, and praying that he +might live to have a hundred such saddles. I am quite certain that the +honest prayer of the old woman aided my fortune in attaining the +splendor she wished me to enjoy." + +These are variations upon the general theme of thievery. They all tend +to show that it is, at the least, unsafe to take the fact of a man's +having committed a certain crime against property as a proof _per se_ +that he is radically bad or inferior in intellect. "Your thief looks +in the crowd," says Byron, + + "Exactly like the rest, or rather better,"-- + +and this, not because physiognomy is false, but the thief's face true. +Of a promiscuous crowd, taken almost anywhere, the pickpocket in it is +the smartest man present, in all probability. According to +Ecclesiasticus, it is "the _heart_ of man that changeth his +countenance"; and it does seem that it is to his education, and not to +his heart, that man does violence in stealing. It is certainly in exact +proportion to his education that he feels in reference to it, and does +or does not "regret the necessity." + +And, indeed, that universal doctrine of contraries may work here as +elsewhere; and it might not he difficult to demonstrate that a majority +of thieves are better fitted by their nature and capacity for almost +any other position in life than the one they occupy through perverse +circumstance and unaccountable accident. Though mostly men of fair +ability, they are not generally successful. Considering the number of +thieves, there are but few great ones. In this "Rogues' Gallery" of the +New York Police Commissioners we find the face of a "first-rate" +burglar among the ablest of the eighty of whom he is one. He is a +German, and has passed twenty years in the prisons of his native land: +has that leonine aspect sometimes esteemed a physiognomical attribute +of the German, and, with fair enough qualities generally, is without +any especial intellectual strength. Near him is another +"first-rate,"--all energy and action, acute enough, a quick reasoner, +very cool and resolute. Below these is the face of one whom the +thief-takers think lightly of, and call a man of "no account." Yet he +is a man of far better powers than either of the "first-rates,"--has +more thought and equal energy,--a mind seldom or never at rest,--is one +to make new combinations and follow them to results with an ardor +almost enthusiastic. From some want of adaptation not depending upon +intellectual power, he is inferior as a thief to his inferiors. + +This man was without a cravat when his picture was taken, and his white +shirt-collar, coming up high in the neck, has the appearance of a white +neckerchief. This trifle of dress, with the intellectual look of the +man, strikes every observer as giving him a clerical appearance. The +picture strongly resembles--more in air, perhaps, than in feature--the +large engraved portrait of Summerfield. There is not so much of calm +comprehensiveness of thought, and there are more angles. Thief though +he be, he has fair language,--not florid or rhetorical, but terse and +very much to the point. If bred as a divine, he would have held his +place among the "brilliants" of the time, and been as original, +erratic, or _outre_ as any. What a fortune lost! It is part of the +fatality for the man not to know it, at least in time. Even villany +would have put him into his proper place, but for that film over the +mental vision. "If rogues," said Franklin, "knew the advantages +attached to the practice of the virtues, they would become honest men +from mere roguery." + +Many of the faces of this Rogues' Gallery are very well worth +consideration. Of a dozen leading pickpockets, who work singly, or two +or three together, and are mostly English, what is first noted is not +favorable to English teaching or probity;--their position sits easily +upon them. There is not one that gives indication of his having passed +through any mental struggle before he sat down in life as a thief. +Though all men capable of thought, they have not thought very deeply +upon this point. One of them is a natural aristocrat,--a man who could +keep the crowd aloof by simple volition, and without offense; nothing +whatever harsh in him,--polite to all, and amiable to a fault with his +fellows. + +There would be style in everything he did or said. He is one to +astonish drawing-rooms and bewilder promenades by the taste and +elegance of his dress. Upon that altar, doubtless, he sacrificed his +principles; but the sacrifice was not a great one. + +"'Tis only at the bar or in the dungeon that wise men know a felon by +his features." Another English pickpocket appears to have Alps on Alps +of difference between him and a thief. Good-nature prevails; there is a +little latent fire; not enough energy to be bad, or good, against the +current. He has some quiet dignity, too,--the head, in fine, of a +genial, dining Dombey, if such a man can be imagined. Face a good oval, +rather full in flesh, forehead square, without particular strength, a +nose that was never unaccompanied by good taste and understanding, and +mouth a little lickerish;--the incarnation of the popular idea of a +bank-president. + +The other day he turned to get into an omnibus at one of the ferries, +and just as he did so, there, it so happened, was a young lady stepping +in before him. The quiet old gentleman, with that warmth of politeness +that sits so well upon quiet old gentlemen in the presence of young +ladies, helped her in, and took a seat beside her. At half a block up +the street the president startled the other passengers by the violent +gesticulations with which he endeavored to attract the attention of a +gentleman passing down on the sidewalk; the passengers watched with +interest the effect or non-effect of his various episodes of +telegraphic desperation, and saw, with a regret equal to his own, that +the gentleman on the sidewalk saw nothing, and turned the corner as +calmly as a corner could be turned; but the old gentleman, not willing +to lose him in that manner, jumped out of the 'bus and ran after, with +a liveliness better becoming his eagerness than his age. In a moment +more, the young lady, admonished by the driver's rap on the roof, would +have paid her fare, but her portmonnaie was missing. I know not whether +the bank-president was or was not suspected;-- + +"All I can say is, that he had the money." + +Look closer, and beneath that look of good-humor you will find a little +something of superciliousness. You will see a line running down the +cheek from behind each nostril, drawing the whole face, good-humor and +all, into a sneer of habitual contempt,--contempt, no doubt, of the +vain endeavors and devices of men to provide against the genius of a +good pickpocket. + +It was said of Themistocles, that + + "he, with all his greatness, +Could ne'er command his hands." + +Now this man is a sort of Themistocles. He is a man of wealth, and can +snap his fingers at Fortune; can sneer that little sneer of his at +things generally, and be none the worse; but what he cannot do is, to +shake off an incubus that sits upon his life in the shape of old Habit +severe as Fate. This man, with apparently all that is necessary in the +world to keep one at peace with it, and to ease declining life with +comforts, and cheer with the serener pleasures, is condemned to keep +his peace in a state of continual uncertainty; for, seeing a purse +temptingly exposed, he is physically incapable of refraining from the +endeavor to take it. What devil is there in his finger-ends that brings +this about? Is this part of the curse of crime,--that, having once +taken up with it, a man cannot cut loose, but, with all the disposition +to make his future life better, he must, as by the iron links of +Destiny, be chained to his past? + +There is a Chinese thief-story somewhat in point here. A man who was +very poor stole from his neighbor, who was very rich, a single duck. He +cooked and ate it, and went to bed happy; but before morning he felt +all over his body and limbs a remarkable itching, a terrible irritation +that prevented sleep. When daylight came, he perceived that he had +sprouted all over with duck-feathers. This was an unlooked-for +judgment, and the man gave himself up to despair,--when he was informed +by an emanation of the divine Buddha that the feathers would fall from +him the moment he received a reproof and admonition from the man whose +duck he had stolen. This only increased his despair, for he knew his +neighbor to be one of the laughter-loving kind, who would not go to the +length of reproof, though he lost a thousand ducks. After sundry futile +attempts to swindle his neighbor out of the needed admonition, our +friend was compelled to divulge, not only the theft, but also the means +of cure, when he was cured. + +And this good, easy man, who is wealthy with the results of +pocket-picking;--that well-cut black coat, that satin waistcoat, that +elegantly-adjusted scarf and well-arranged collar, they are all +duck-feathers; but the feather that itches is that irreclaimable +tendency of the fingers to find their way into other people's pockets. +Pity, however, the man who cannot be at ease till he has received a +reproof from every one whose pocket he has picked through a long life +in London and in New York city. + +The amount of mental activity that gleams out upon you from these walls +is something wonderful; evidence of sufficient thinking to accomplish +almost any intellectual task; thought-life crowded with what +experience! + +The "confidence" swindlers are mostly Americans,--so that, the +pickpockets being mostly English, you may see some national character +in crime, aside from the tendency of races. The Englishman is +conservative,--sticks to traditions,--picks and plods in the same old +way in which ages have picked and plodded before him. Exactly like the +thief of ancient Athens, he + + "walks +The street, and picks your pocket as he talks +On some pretence with you"; + +at the same time, with courage and self-reliance admirably English, +risking his liberty on his skill. The American illuminates his practice +with an intellectual element, faces his man, "bidding a gay defiance to +mischance," and gains his end easily by some acute device that merely +transfers to himself, with the knowledge and consent of the owner, the +subtile principle of property. + +This "confidence" game is a thing of which the ancients appear to have +known nothing. The French have practised it with great success, and may +have invented it. It appears particularly French in some of its +phases,--in the manner that is necessary for its practice, in its wit +and finesse. The affair of the Diamond Necklace, with which all the +world is familiar, is the most magnificent instance of it on record. A +lesser case, involving one of the same names, and playing excellently +upon woman's vanity, illustrates the French practice. + +One evening, as Marie Antoinette sat quietly in her _loge_ at the +theatre, the wife of a wealthy tradesman of Paris, sitting nearly +_vis-a-vis_ to the Queen, made great parade of her toilet, and seemed +peculiarly desirous of attracting attention to a pair of splendid +bracelets, gleaming with the chaste contrast of emeralds and diamonds. +She was not without success. A gentleman of elegant mien and graceful +manner presented himself at the door of her _loge_; he delivered a +message from the Queen. Her Majesty had remarked the singular beauty of +the bracelets, and wished to inspect one of them more closely. What +could be more gratifying? In the seventh heaven of delighted vanity, +the tradesman's wife unclasped the bracelet and gave it to the +gentleman, who bowed himself out, and left her--as you have doubtless +divined he would--abundant leisure to learn of her loss. + +Early the next morning, however, an officer from the department of +police called at this lady's house. The night before, a thief had been +arrested leaving the theatre, and on his person were found many +valuables,--among others, a splendid bracelet. Being penitent, he had +told, to the best of his recollection, to whom the articles belonged, +and the lady called upon was indicated as the owner of the bracelet. If +Madame possessed the mate to this singular bracelet, it was only +necessary to intrust it to the officer, and, if it were found to +compare properly with the other, both would be immediately sent home, +and Madame would have only a trifling fee to pay. The bracelet was +given willingly, and, with the stiff courtesy inseparable from official +dignity, the officer took his leave, and at the next _cafe_ joined his +fellow, the gentleman of elegant mien and graceful manner. The +bracelets were not found to compare properly, and therefore were not +returned. + +These faces are true to the nationality,--all over American. They are +much above the average in expression,--lighted with clear, well-opened +eyes, intelligent and perceptive; most have an air of business +frankness well calculated to deceive. There is one capacious, +thought-freighted forehead. All are young. + +No human observer will fail to be painfully struck with the number of +boys whose faces are here exposed. There are boys of every age, from +five to fifteen, and of every possible description, good, bad, and +indifferent. The stubborn and irreclaimable imp of evil nature peers +out sullenly and doggedly, or sparkles on you a pair of small +snake-eyes, fruitful of deceit and cunning. The better boy, easily +moved, that might become anything, mercurial and volatile, "most +ignorant of what he's most assured," reflects on his face the pleasure +of having his picture taken, and smiles good-humoredly, standing in +this worst of pillories, to be pelted along a lifetime with +unforgetting and unforgiving glances. With many of these boys, this is +a family matter. Here are five brothers, the youngest very young +indeed,--and the father not very old. One of the brothers, +bright-looking as boy can be, is a young Jack Sheppard, and has already +broken jail five times. Many are trained by old burglars to be put +through windows where men cannot go, and open doors. In a row of +second-class pickpockets, nearly all boys, there is observable on +almost every face some expression of concern, and one instinctively +thanks Heaven that the boys appear to be frightened. Yet, after all, +perhaps it is hardly worth while. The reform of boy thieves was first +agitated a long while since, and we have yet to hear of some +encouraging result. The earliest direct attempt we know of, with all +the old argument, _pro_ and _con_, is thus given in Sadi's "Gulistan." + +Among a gang of thieves, who had been very hardly taken, "there +happened to be a lad whose rising bloom of youth was just matured. One +of the viziers kissed the foot of the king's throne, assumed a look of +intercession, and said,-- + +"'This lad has not yet even reaped the pleasures of youth; my +expectation, from your Majesty's inherent generosity, is, that, by +granting his life, you would confer an obligation on your servant.' + +"The king frowned at this request, and said,-- + +"'The light of the righteous does not influence one of vicious origin; +instruction to the worthless is a walnut on a dome, that rolls off. To +smother a fire and leave its sparks, to kill a viper and take care of +its young, are not actions of the wise. Though the clouds rain the +water of life, you cannot eat fruit from the boughs of a willow.' + +"When the vizier heard this, he applauded the king's understanding, and +assented that what he had pronounced was unanswerable. + +"'Yet, nevertheless,' he said, 'as the boy, if bred among the thieves, +would have taken their manners, so is your servant hopeful that he +might receive instruction in the society of upright men; for he is +still a boy, and it is written, that every child is born in the faith +of Islam, and his parents corrupt him. The son of Noah, associated with +the wicked, lost his power of prophecy; the dog of the Seven Sleepers, +following the good, became a man.' + +"Then others of the courtiers joined in the intercession, and the king +said,-- + +"'I have assented, but I do not think it well.' + +"They bred the youth in indulgence and affluence, and appointed an +accomplished tutor to educate him, and he became learned and gained +great applause in the sight of every one. The king smiled when the +vizier spoke of this, and said,-- + +"'Thou hast been nourished by our milk, and hast grown with us; who +afterwards gave thee intelligence that thy father was a wolf?' + +"A few years passed;--a company of the vagrants of the neighborhood +were near; they connected themselves with the boy; a league of +association was formed; and, at an opportunity, the boy destroyed the +vizier and his children, carried off vast booty, and fixed himself in +the place of his father in the cavern of the robbers. The king bit the +hand of astonishment with the teeth of reflection, and said,-- + +"'How can any one make a good sword from bad iron? The worthless, O +Philosopher, does not, by instruction, become worthy. Rain, though not +otherwise than benignant, produces tulips in gardens and rank weeds in +nitrous ground.'" + +Yet, notwithstanding Sadi and some other wise ones, here, as thieves, +are the faces of boys that cannot be naturally vicious,--boys of good +instincts, beyond all possible question,--and that only need a mother's +hand to smooth back the clustering hair from the forehead, to discover +the future residence of plentiful and upright reason. The face of a +boy, now in Sing Sing for burglary, and who bears a name which over the +continent of North America is identified with the ideas of large +combination and enterprise, is especially noticeable for the clear +eyes, and frank, promising look. + +That tale of Sadi will do well enough when Aesop tells it of a +serpent;--he, indeed, can change his skin and be a serpent still; but +when the old Sufi, or any one else, tells it of a boy, let us doubt. + +Think of the misery that may be associated with all this,--that this +represents! In this Gallery are the faces of many men; some are +handsome, most of them more or less human. It cannot be that they all +began wrongly,--that their lives were all poisoned at the +fountain-head. No,--here are some that came from what are called good +families; many others of them had homes, and you may still see some +lingering love of it in an air of settled sadness,--they were misled in +later life. Think of the mothers who have gone down, in bitter, bitter +sorrow, to the grave, with some of the lineaments we see around before +their mind's eye at the latest moment! Oh, the circumstances under +which some of these faces have been conjured up by the strong will of +love! Think of the sisters, living along with a hidden heart-ache, +nursing in secret the knowledge, that somewhere in the world were those +dear to them, from whom they were shut out by a bar-sinister terribly +real, and for whose welfare, with all the generous truth of a sister's +feeling, they would barter everything, yet who were in an unending +danger! Think of them, with this skeleton behind the door of their +hearts, fearful at every moment! Does it seem good in the scheme of +existence, or a blot there, that those who are themselves innocent, but +who are yet the real sufferers, whether punishment to the culprit fall +or fail, should be made thus poignantly miserable? We know nothing. + +It is said in a certain Arabic legend, that, while Moses was on Mount +Sinai, the Lord instructed him in the mysteries of his providence; and +Moses, having complained of the impunity of vice and its success in the +world, and the frequent sufferings of the innocent, the Lord led him to +a rock which jutted from the mountain, and where he could overlook the +vast plain of the Desert stretching at his feet. + +On one of its oases he beheld a young Arab asleep. He awoke, and, +leaving behind him a bag of pearls, sprang into the saddle and rapidly +disappeared from the horizon. Another Arab came to the oasis; he +discovered the pearls, took them, and vanished in the opposite +direction. + +Now an aged wanderer, leaning on his staff, bent his steps wearily +toward the shady spot; he laid himself down, and fell asleep. But +scarcely had he closed his eyes, when he was rudely aroused from his +slumber; the young Arab had returned, and demanded his pearls. The +hoary man replied, that he had not taken them. The other grew enraged, +and accused him of theft. He swore that he had not seen the treasure; +but the other seized him; a scuffle ensued; the young Arab drew his +sword, and plunged it into the breast of the aged man, who fell +lifeless on the earth. + +"O Lord! is this just?" exclaimed Moses, with terror. + +"Be silent! Behold, this man, whose blood is now mingling with the +waters of the Desert, many years ago, secretly, on the same spot, +murdered the father of the youth who has now slain him. His crime +remained concealed from men; but vengeance is mine: I will repay." + + + + +THE PURSUIT OF KNOWLEDGE UNDER DIFFICULTIES; AND WHAT CAME OF IT. + +[Concluded.] + + +The week of Mr. Clerron's absence passed away more quickly than Ivy had +supposed it would. The reason for this may be found in the fact that +her thoughts were very busily occupied. She was more silent than usual, +so much so that her father one day said to her,--"Ivy, I haven't heard +you sing this long while, and seems to me you don't talk either. What's +the matter?" + +"Do I look as if anything was the matter?" and the face she turned upon +him was so radiant, that even the father's heart was satisfied. + +Very quietly happy was Ivy to think she was of service to Mr. Clerron, +that she could give him pleasure,--though she could in no wise +understand how it was. She went over every event since her acquaintance +with him; she felt how much he had done for her, and how much he had +been to her; but she sought in vain to discover how she had been of any +use to him. She only knew that she was the most ignorant and +insignificant girl in the whole world, and that he was the best and +greatest man. As this was very nearly the same conclusion at which she +had arrived at an early period of their acquaintance, it cannot be said +that her week of reflection was productive of any very valuable +results. + +The day before Mr. Clerron's expected return Ivy sat down to prepare +her lessons, and for the first time remembered that she had left her +books in Mr. Clerron's library. She was not sorry to have so good an +excuse for visiting the familiar room, though its usual occupant was +not there to welcome her. Very quietly and joyfully happy, she trod +slowly along the path through the woods where she last walked with Mr. +Clerron. She was, indeed, at a loss to know why she was so calm. Always +before, a sudden influx of joy testified itself by very active +demonstrations. She was quite sure that she had never in her life been +so happy as now; yet she never had felt less disposed to leap and dance +and sing. The non-solution of the problem, however, did not ruffle her +serenity. She was content to accept the facts, and await patiently the +theory. + +Arriving at the house, she went, as usual, into the library without +ringing,--but, not finding the books, proceeded in search of Mrs. Simm. +That notable lady was sitting behind a huge pile of clean clothes, +sorting and mending to her heart's content. She looked up over her +spectacles at Ivy's bright "good morning," and invited her to come in. +Ivy declined, and begged to know if Mrs. Simm had seen her books. To be +sure she had, like the good housekeeper that she was. "You'll find them +in the book-case, second shelf; but, Miss Ivy, I wish you would come +in, for I've had something on my mind that I've felt to tell you this +long while." + +Ivy came in, took the seat opposite Mrs. Simm, and waited for her to +speak; but Mrs. Simm seemed to be in no hurry to speak. She dropped her +glasses; Ivy picked them up and handed them to her. She muttered +something about the destructive habits of men, especially in regard to +buttons; and presently, as if determined to come to the subject at +once, abruptly exclaimed,-- + +"Miss Ivy, you're a real good girl, I know, and as innocent as a lamb. +That's why I'm going to talk to you as I do. I know, if you were my +child, I should want somebody to do the same by you." + +Ivy could only stare in blank astonishment. After a moment's pause, +Mrs. Simm continued,-- + +"I've seen how things have been going on for some time; but my mouth +was shut, though my eyes were open. I didn't know but maybe I'd better +speak to your mother about it; but then, thinks I to myself, she'll +think it is a great deal worse than it is, and then, like enough, +there'll be a rumpus. So I concluded, on the whole, I'd just tell you +what I thought; and I know you are a sensible girl and will take it all +right. Now you must promise me not to get mad." + +"No," gasped Ivy. + +"I like you a sight. It's no flattery, but the truth, to say I think +you're as pretty-behaved a girl as you'll find in a thousand. And all +the time you've been here, I never have known you do a thing you hadn't +ought to. And Mr. Clerron thinks so too, and there's the trouble, You +see, dear, he's a man, and men go on their ways and like women, and +talk to them, and sort of bewitch them, not meaning to do them any +hurt,--and enjoy their company of an evening, and go about their own +business in the morning, and never think of it again; but women stay at +home, and brood over it, and think there's something in it, and build a +fine air-castle,--and when they find it's all smoke, they mope and pine +and take on. Now that's what I don't want you to do. Perhaps you'd +think I'd better have spoken with Mr. Clerron; but it wouldn't signify +the head of a pin. He'd either put on the Clerron look and scare you to +death and not say a word, or else he'd hold it up in such a ridiculous +way as to make you think it was ridiculous yourself. And I thought I'd +put you on your guard a little, so as you needn't fall in love with +him. You'll like him, of course. He likes you; but a young girl like +you might make a mistake, if she was ever so modest and sweet,--and +nobody could be modester or sweeter than you,--and think a man loved +you to marry you, when he only pets and plays with you. Not that Mr. +Clerron means to do anything wrong. He'd be perfectly miserable +himself, if he thought he'd led you on. There a'n't a more honorable +man every way in the whole country. Now, Miss Ivy, it's all for your +good I say this. I don't find fault with you, not a bit. It's only to +save you trouble in store that I warn you to look where you stand, and +see that you don't lose your heart before you know it. It's an awful +thing for a woman, Miss Ivy, to get a notion after a man who hasn't got +a notion after her. Men go out and work and delve and drive, and +forget; but there a'n't much in darning stockings and making +pillow-cases to take a woman's thought off her troubles, and sometimes +they get sp'iled for life." + +Ivy had remained speechless from amazement; but when Mrs. Simm had +finished, she said, with a sudden accession of womanly dignity that +surprised the good housekeeper,-- + +"Mrs. Simm, I cannot conceive why you should speak in this way to me. +If you suppose I am not quite able to take care of myself, I assure you +you are much mistaken." + +"Lorful heart! Now, Miss Ivy, you promised you wouldn't be mad." + +"And I have kept my promise. I am not mad." + +"No, but you answer up short like, and that isn't what I thought of +you, Ivy Geer." + +Mrs. Simm looked so disappointed that Ivy took a lower tone, and at any +rate she would have had to do it soon; for her fortitude gave way, and +she burst into a flood of tears. She was not, by any means, a heroine, +and could not put on the impenetrable mask of a woman of the world. + +"Now, dear, don't be so distressful, dear, don't!" said Mrs. Simm, +soothingly. "I can't bear to see you." + +"I am sure I never thought of such a thing as falling in love with Mr. +Clerron or anybody else," sobbed Ivy, "and I don't know what should +make you think so." + +"Dear heart, I don't think so. I only told you, so you needn't." + +"Why, I should as soon think of marrying the angel Gabriel!" + +"Oh, don't talk so, dear; he's no more than man, after all; but still, +you know, he's no fit match for you. To say nothing of his being older +and all that, I don't think it's the right place for you. Your father +and mother are very nice folks; I am sure nobody could ask for better +neighbors, and their good word is in everybody's mouth; and they've +brought you up well, I am sure; but, my dear, you know it's nothing +against you nor them that you a'n't used to splendor, and you wouldn't +take to it natural like. You'd get tired of that way of life, and want +to go back to the old fashions, and you'd most likely have to leave +your father and mother; for it's noways probable Mr. Clerron will stay +here always; and when he goes back to the city, think what a dreary +life you'd have betwixt his two proud sisters, on the one hand,--to be +sure, there's no reason why they should be; their gran'ther was a +tailor, and their grandma was his apprentice, and he got rich, and gave +all his children learning; and Mr. Felix's father, he was a lawyer, and +he got rich by speculation, and so the two girls always had on their +high-heeled boots; but Mr. Clerron, he always laughs at them, and +brings up "the grand-paternal shop," as he calls it, and provokes them +terribly, I know. Well, that's neither here nor there; but, as I was +saying, here you'll have them on the one side, and all the fine ladies +on the other, and a great house and servants, and parties to see to, +and, lorful heart! Miss Ivy, you'd die in three years; and if you know +when you're well off, you'll stay at home, and marry and settle down +near the old folks. Believe me, my dear, it's a bad thing both for the +man and the woman, when she marries above her." + +"Mrs. Simm," said Ivy, rising, "will you promise me one thing?" + +"Certainly, child, if I can." + +"Will you promise me never again to mention this thing to me, or allude +to it in the most distant manner?" + +"Miss Ivy, now,"--began Mrs. Simm, deprecatingly. + +"Because," interrupted Ivy, speaking very thick and fast, "you cannot +imagine how disagreeable it is to me. It makes me feel ashamed to think +of what you have said, and that you could have thought it even. I +suppose--indeed, I know--that you did it because you thought you ought; +but you may be certain that I am in no danger from Mr. Clerron, nor is +there the slightest probability that his fortune, or honor, or +reputation, or sisters will ever be disturbed by me. I am very much +obliged to you for your good intentions, and I wish you good morning." + +"Don't, now, Miss Ivy, go so"-- + +But Miss Ivy was gone, and Mrs. Simm could only withdraw to her pile of +clothes, and console herself by stitching and darning with renewed +vigor. She felt rather uneasy about the result of her morning's work, +though she had really done it from a conscientious sense of duty. + +"Welladay," she sighed, at last, "she'd better be a little cut up and +huffy now, than to walk into a ditch blindfolded; and I wash my hands +of whatever may happen after this. I've had my say and done my part." + +Alas, Ivy Geer! The Indian summer day was just as calm and +beautiful,--the far-off mountains wore their veil of mist just as +aerially,--the brook rippled over the stones with just as soft a +melody; but what "discord on the music" had fallen! what "darkness on +the glory"! A miserable, dull, dead weight was the heart which throbbed +so lightly but an hour before. Wearily, drearily, she dragged herself +home. It was nearly sunset when she arrived, and she told her mother +she was tired and had the headache, which was true,--though, if she had +said heartache, it would have been truer. Her mother immediately did +what ninety-nine mothers out of a hundred would do in similar +circumstances,--made her swallow a cup of strong tea, and sent her to +bed. Alas, alas, that there are sorrows which the strongest tea cannot +assuage! + +When the last echo of her mother's footstep died on the stairs, and Ivy +was alone in the darkness, the tide of bitterness and desolation swept +unchecked over her soul, and she wept tears more passionate and +desponding than her life had ever before known,--tears of shame and +indignation and grief. It was true that the thought which Mrs. Simm had +suggested had never crossed her mind before; yet it is no less true, +that, all-unconsciously, she had been weaving a golden web, whose +threads, though too fine and delicate even for herself to perceive, +were yet strong enough to entangle her life in their meshes. A secret +chamber, far removed from the noise and din of the world,--a chamber +whose soft and rose-tinted light threw its radiance over her whole +future, and within whose quiet recesses she loved to sit alone and +dream away the hours,--had been rudely entered, and thrown violently +open to the light of day, and Ivy saw with dismay how its pictures had +become ghastly and its sacredness was defiled. With bitter, though +needless and useless self-reproach, she saw how she had suffered +herself to be fascinated. Sorrowfully, she felt that Mrs. Simm's words +were true, and a great gulf lay between her and him. She pictured him +moving easily and gracefully and naturally among scenes which to her +inexperienced eye were grand and splendid; and then, with a sharp pain, +she felt how constrained and awkward and entirely unfit for such a life +was she. Then her thoughts reverted to her parents,--their unchanging +love, their happiness depending on her, their solicitude and +watchfulness,--and she felt as if ingratitude were added to her other +sins, that she could have so attached herself to any other. And again +came back the bitter, burning agony of shame that she had done the very +thing that Mrs. Simm too late had warned her not to do; she had been +carried away by the kindness and tenderness of her friend, and, +unasked, had laid the wealth of her heart at his feet. So the night +flushed into morning; and the sun rose upon a pale face and a trembling +form,--but not upon a faint heart; for Ivy, kneeling by the couch where +her morning and evening prayer had gone up since lisping +infancy,--kneeling no longer a child, but a woman, matured through +love, matured, alas! through suffering, prayed for strength and +comfort; prayed that her parents' love might be rendered back into +their own bosoms a hundred fold; prayed that her friend's kindness to +her might not be an occasion of sin against God, and that she might be +enabled to walk with a steady step in the path that lay before her. And +she arose strengthened and comforted. + +All the morning she lay quiet and silent on the lounge in the little +sitting-room. Her mother, busied with household matters, only looked in +upon her occasionally, and, as the eyes were always closed, did not +speak, thinking her asleep. Ivy was not asleep. Ten thousand little +sprites flitted swiftly through the chambers of her brain, humming, +singing, weeping, but always busy, busy. Then another tread softly +entered, and she knew her dear old father had drawn a chair close to +her, and was looking into her face. Tears came into her eyes, her lip +involuntarily quivered, and then she felt the pressure of +his----his!--surely that was not her father's kiss! She started up. No, +no! that was not her father's face bending over her,--not her father's +eyes smiling into hers; but, woe for Ivy! her soul thrilled with a +deeper bliss, her heart leaped with a swifter bound, and for a moment +all the experience and suffering and resolutions of the last night were +as if they had never been. Only for a moment, and then with a strong +effort she remembered the impassable gulf. + +"A pretty welcome home you have given me!" said Mr. Clerron, lightly. + +He saw that something was weighing on her spirits, but did not wish to +distress her by seeming to notice it. + +"I wait in my library, I walk in my garden, expecting every moment will +bring you,--and lo! here you are lying, doing nothing but look pale and +pretty as hard as you can." + +Ivy smiled, but did not consider it prudent to speak. + +"I found your books, however, and have brought them to you. You thought +you would escape a lesson finely, did you not? But you see I have +outwitted you." + +"Yes,--I went for the books yesterday," said Ivy, "but I got talking +with Mrs. Simm and forgot them." + +"Ah!" he replied, looking somewhat surprised. "I did not know Mrs. Simm +could be so entertaining. She must have exerted herself. Pray, now, if +it would not be impertinent, upon what subject did she hold forth with +eloquence so overpowering that everything else was driven from your +mind? The best way of preserving apples, I dare swear, or the +superiority of pickled grapes to pickled cucumbers." + +"No," said Ivy, with the ghost of an other smile,--"upon various +subjects; but not those. How do you do, Mr. Clerron? Have you had a +pleasant visit to the city?" + +"Very well, I thank you, Miss Geer; and I have not had a remarkably +pleasant visit, I am obliged to you. Have I the pleasure of seeing you +quite well, Miss Geer,--quite fresh and buoyant?" + +The lightness of tone which he had assumed had precisely the opposite +effect intended. + +"Ye banks and braes o' bonny Doon, + How can ye bloom sae fresh and fair? +How can ye chant, ye little birds, + And I sae weary fu' o' care?" + +is the of stricken humanity everywhere. And Ivy thought of Mr. Clerron, +rich, learned, elegant, happy, on the current of whose life she only +floated a pleasant ripple,--and of herself, poor, plain, awkward, +ignorant, to whom he was the life of life, the all in all. I would not +have you suppose this passed through her mind precisely as I have +written it. By no means. The ideas rather trooped through in a pellmell +sort of way; but they got through just as effectually. Now, if Ivy had +been content to let her muscles remain perfectly still, her face might +have given no sign of the confusion within; but, with a foolish +presumption, she undertook to smile, and so quite lost control of the +little rebels, who immediately twisted themselves into a sob. Her whole +frame convulsed with weeping and trying not to weep, he forced her +gently back on the pillow, and, bending low, whispered softly,-- + +"Ivy, what is it?" + +"Oh, don't ask me!--please, don't! Please, go away!" murmured the poor +child. + +"I will, my dear, in a minute; but you must think I should be a little +anxious. I leave you as gay as a bird, and healthy and rosy,--and when +I come back, I find you white and sad and ill. I am sure something +weighs on your mind. I assure you, my little Ivy, and you must believe, +that I am your true friend,--and if you would confide in me, perhaps I +could bring you comfort. It would at least relieve you to let me help +you bear the burden." + +The burden being of such a nature, it is not at all probable that Ivy +would have assented to his proposition; but the welcome entrance of her +mother prevented the necessity of replying. + +"Oh, you're awake! Well, I told Mr. Clerron he might come in, though I +thought you wouldn't be. Slept well this morning, didn't you, deary, to +make up for last night?" + +"No, mamma, I haven't been asleep." + +"Crying, my dear? Well, now, that's a pretty good one! Nervous she is, +Mr. Clerron, always nervous, when the least thing ails her; and she +didn't sleep a wink last night, which is a bad thing for the +nerves,--and Ivy generally sleeps like a top. She walked over to your +house yesterday, and when she got home she was entirely beat +out,--looked as if she had been sick a week. I don't know why it was, +for the walk couldn't have hurt her. She's always dancing round at +home. I don't think she's been exactly well for four or five days. Her +father and I both thought she'd been more quiet like than usual." + +The sudden pang that shot across Ivy's face was not unobserved by Mr. +Clerron. A thought came into his mind. He had risen at Mrs. Geer's +entrance, and he now expressed his regret for Ivy's illness, and hoped +that she would soon be well, and able to resume her studies; and, with +a few words of interest and inquiry to Mrs. Geer, took his leave. + +"I wonder if Mrs. Simm _has_ been putting her foot in it!" thought he, +as he stalked home rather more energetically than was his custom. + +That unfortunate lady was in her sitting-room, starching muslins, when +Mr. Clerron entered. She had surmised that he was gone to the farm, and +had looked for his return with a shadow of dread. She saw by his face +that something was wrong. + +"Mrs. Simm," he began, somewhat abruptly, but not disrespectfully, "may +I beg your pardon for inquiring what Ivy Geer talked to you about, +yesterday?" + +"Oh, good Lord! She ha'n't told you, has she?" cried Mrs. Simm,--her +fear of God, for once, yielding to her greater fear of man. The +embroidered collar, which she had been vigorously beating, dropped to +the floor, and she gazed at him with such terror and dismay in every +lineament, that he could not help being amused. He picked up the +collar, which, in her perturbation, she had not noticed, and said,-- + +"No, she has told me nothing; but I find her excited and ill, and I +have reason to believe it is connected with her visit here yesterday. +If it is anything relating to me, and which I have a right to know, you +would do me a great favor by enlightening me on the subject." + +Mrs. Simm had not a particle of that knowledge in which Young America +is so great a proficient, namely, the "knowing how to get out of a +scrape." She was, besides, alarmed at the effect of her words on Ivy, +supposing nothing less than that the girl was in the last stages of a +swift consumption; so she sat down, and, rubbing her starchy hands +together, with many a deprecatory "you know," and apologetic "I am sure +I thought I was acting for the best," gave, considering her agitation, +a tolerably accurate account of the whole interview. Her interlocutor +saw plainly that she had acted from a sincere conscientiousness, and +not from a meddlesome, mischievous interference; so he only thanked her +for her kind interest, and suggested that he had now arrived at an age +when it would, perhaps, be well for him to conduct matters, +particularly of so delicate a nature, solely according to his own +judgment, He was sorry to have given her any trouble. + + +"Scissors cuts only what comes between 'em," soliloquized Mrs. Simm, +when the door closed behind him. "If ever I meddle with a +courting-business again, my name a'n't Martha Simm. No, they may go to +Halifax, whoever they be, 'fore ever I'll lift a finger." + +It is a great pity that the world generally has not been brought to +make the same wise resolution. + +One, two, three, four days passed away, and still Ivy pondered the +question so often wrung from man in his bewildered gropings, "What +shall I do?" Every day brought her teacher and friend to comfort, +amuse, and strengthen. Every morning she resolved to be on her guard, +to remember the impassable gulf. Every evening she felt the silken +cords drawing tighter and tighter around her soul, and binding her +closer and closer to him. She thought she might die, and the thought +gave her a sudden joy. Death would solve the problem at once. If only a +few weeks or months lay before her, she could quietly rest on him, and +give herself up to him, and wait in heaven for all rough places to be +made plain. But Ivy did not die. Youth and nursing and herb-tea were +too strong for her, and the color came back to her cheek and the +languor went out from her blue eyes. She saw nothing to be done but to +resume her old routine. It would be difficult to say whether she was +more glad or sorry at seeming to see this necessity. She knew her +danger, and it was very fascinating. She did not look into the far-off +future; she only prayed to be kept from day to day. Perhaps her course +was wise; perhaps not. But she had to rely on her own judgment alone; +and her judgment was founded on inexperience, which is not a +trustworthy basis. + +A new difficulty arose. Ivy found that she could not resume her old +habits. To be sure, she learned her lessons just as perfectly at home +as she had ever done. Just as punctual to the appointed hour, she went +to recite them; but no sooner had her foot crossed Mr. Clerron's +threshold than her spirit seemed to die within her. She remembered +neither words nor ideas. Day after day, she attempted to go through her +recitation as usual, and, day after day, she hesitated, stammered, and +utterly failed. His gentle assistance only increased her embarrassment. +This she was too proud to endure; and, one day, after an unsuccessful +effort, she closed the book with a quick, impatient gesture, and +exclaimed,-- + +"Mr. Clerron, I will not recite any more!" + +The agitated flush which had suffused her face gave way to paleness. He +saw that she was under strong excitement, and quietly replied,-- + +"Very well, you need not, if you are tired. You are not quite well yet, +and must not try to do too much. We will commence here to-morrow." + +"No, Sir,--I shall not recite any more at all." + +"Till to-morrow." + +"Never any more!" + +There was a moment's pause. + +"You must not lose patience, my dear. In a few days you will recite as +well as ever. A fine notion, forsooth, because you have been ill, and +forgotten a little, to give up studying! And what is to become of my +laurels, pray,--all the glory I am to get by your proficiency?" + +"I shall study at home just the same, but I shall not recite." + +"Why not?" + +His look became serious. + +"Because I cannot. I do not think it best,--and--and I will not" + +Another pause. + +"Ivy, do you not like your teacher?" + +"No, Sir. _I hate you!_" + +The words seemed to flash from her lips. She sprang up and stood erect +before him, her eyes on fire, and every nerve quivering with intense +excitement He was shocked and startled. It was a new phase of her +character,--a new revelation. He, too, arose, and walked to the +window. If Ivy could have seen the workings of his face, there would +have been a revelation to her also. But she was too highly excited to +notice anything. He came back to her and spoke in a low voice,-- + +"Ivy, this is too much. This I did not expect." + +He laid his hand upon her head as he had often done before. She shook +it off passionately. + +"Yes, I hate you. I hate you, because"-- + +"Because I wanted you to love me?" + +"No, Sir; because I do love you, and you bring me only wretchedness. I +have never been happy since the miserable day I first saw you." + +"Then, Ivy, I have utterly failed in what it has been my constant +endeavor to do." + +"No, Sir, you have succeeded in what you endeavored to do. You have +taught me. You have given me knowledge and thought, and showed me the +source of knowledge. But I had better have been the ignorant girl you +found me. You have taken from me what I can never find again. I have +made a bitter exchange. I was ignorant and stupid, I know,--but I was +happy and contented; and now I am wretched and miserable and wicked. +You have come between me and my home and my father and mother;--between +me and all the bliss of my past and all my hope for the future." + +"And thus, Ivy, have you come between me and my past and my +future;--yet not thus. You shut out from my heart all the sorrow and +vexation and strife that have clouded my life, and fill it with your +own dear presence. You come between me and my future, because, in +looking forward, I see only you. I should have known better. There is +a gulf between us; but if I could make you happy"-- + +"I don't want you to make me happy. I know there is a gulf between us. +I saw it while you were gone. I measured it and fathomed it. I shall +not leap across. Stay you on your side quietly; I shall stay as quietly +on mine." + +"It is too late for that, Ivy,--too late now. But you are not to blame, +my child. Little sunbeam that you are, I will not cloud you. Go shine +upon other lives as you have shone upon mine! light up other hearths as +you have mine! and I will bless you forever, though mine be left +desolate." + +He turned away with an expression on his face that Ivy could not read. +Her passion was gone. She hesitated a moment, then went to his side and +laid her hand softly on his arm. There was a strange moistened gleam in +his eyes as he turned them upon her. + +"Mr. Clerron, I do not understand you." + +"My dear, you never can understand me." + +"I know it," said Ivy, with her old humility; "but, at least, I might +understand whether I have vexed you." + +"You have not vexed me." + +"I spoke proudly and rudely to you. I was angry, and so unhappy. I +shall always be so; I shall never be happy again; but I want you to be, +and you do not look as if you were." + +If Ivy had not been a little fool, she would not have spoken so; but +she was, so she did. + +"I beg your pardon, little tendril. I was so occupied with my own +preconceived ideas that I forgot to sympathize with you. Tell me why or +how I have made you unhappy. But I know; you need not. I assure you, +however, that you are entirely wrong. It was a prudish and whimsical +notion of my good old housekeeper's. You are never to think of it +again. _I_ never attributed such a thought or feeling to you." + +"Did you suppose that was all that made me unhappy?" + +"Can there be anything else?" + +"I am glad you think so. Perhaps I should not have been unhappy but for +that, at least not so soon; but that alone could never have made me +so." + +Little fool again! She was like a chicken thrusting its head into a +corner and thinking itself out of danger because it cannot see the +danger. She had no notion that she was giving him the least clue to the +truth, but considered herself speaking with more than Delphic prudence. +She rather liked to coast along the shores of her trouble and see how +near she could approach without running aground; but she struck before +she knew it. + +Mr. Clerron's face suddenly changed. He sat down, took both her hands, +and drew her towards him. + +"Ivy, perhaps I have been misunderstanding you. I will at least find +out the truth. Ivy, do you know that I love you, that I have loved you +almost from the first, that I would gladly here and now take you to my +heart and keep you here forever?" + +"I do not know it," faltered Ivy, half beside herself. + +"Know it now, then! I am older than you, and I seem to myself so far +removed from you that I have feared to ask you to trust your happiness +to my keeping, lest I should lose you entirely; but sometimes you say +or do something which gives me hope. My experience has been very +different from yours. I am not worthy to clasp your purity and +loveliness. Still I would do it, if--Tell me, Ivy, does it give you +pain or pleasure?" + +Ivy extricated her hands from his, deliberately drew a footstool, and +knelt on it before him,--then took his hands, as he had before held +hers, gazed steadily into his eyes, and said,-- + +"Mr. Clerron, are you in earnest? Do you love me?" + +"I am, Ivy. I do love you." + +"How do you love me?" + +"I love you with all the strength and power that God has given me." + +"You do not simply pity me? You have not, because you heard from Mrs. +Simm, or suspected, yourself, that I was weak enough to mistake your +kindness and nobleness,--you have not in pity resolved to sacrifice +your happiness to mine?" + +"No, Ivy,--nothing of the kind. I pity only myself. I reverence you, I +think. I have hoped that you loved me as a teacher and friend. I dared +not believe you could ever do more; now something within tells me that +you can. Can you, Ivy? If the love and tenderness and devotion of my +whole life can make you happy, happiness shall not fail to be yours." + +Ivy's gaze never for a moment drooped under his, earnest and piercing +though it was. + +"Now I am happy," she said, slowly and distinctly. "Now I am blessed. I +can never ask anything more." + +"But I ask something more," he replied, bending forward eagerly. "I ask +much more. I want your love. Shall I have it? And I want you." + +"My love?" She blushed slightly, but spoke without hesitation. "Have I +not given it,--long, long before you asked it, before you even cared +for my friendship? Not love only, but life, my very whole being, +centred in you, does now, and will always. Is it right to say +this?--maidenly? But I am not ashamed. I shall always be proud to have +loved you, though only to lose you,--and to be loved by you is glory +enough for all my future." + +For a short time the relative position of these two people was changed. +I allude to the change in this distant manner, as all who have ever +been lovers will be able to judge what it was; and I do not wish to +forestall the sweet surprise of those who have not. + +Ivy rested there (query, where?) a moment; but as he whispered, "Thus +you answer the second question? You give me yourself too?" she hastily +freed herself. (Query, from what?) + +"Never!" + +"Ivy!" + +"Never!" more firmly than before. + +"What does this mean?" he said, sternly. "Are you trifling?" + +There was such a frown on his brow as Ivy had never seen. She quailed +before it. + +"Do not be angry! Alas! I am not trifling. Life itself is not worth so +much as your love. But the impassable gulf is between us just the +same." + +"What is it? Who put it there?" + +"God put it there. Mrs. Simm showed it to me." + +"Mrs. Simm be--! A prating gossip! Ivy, I told you, you were never to +mention that again,--never to think of it; and you must obey me." + +"I will try to obey you in that." + +"And very soon you shall promise to obey me in all things. But I will +not be hard with you. The yoke shall rest very lightly,--so lightly you +shall not feel it. You will not do as much, I dare say. You will make +me acknowledge your power every day, dear little vixen! Ivy, why do you +draw back? Why do you not come to me?" + +"I cannot come to you, Mr. Clerron, any more. I must go home now, and +stay at home." + +"When your home is here, Ivy, stay at home. For the present, don't go. +Wait a little." + +"You do not understand me. You will not understand me," said Ivy, +bursting into tears. "I _must_ leave you. Don't make the way so +difficult." + +"I will make it so difficult that you cannot walk in it." + +His tones were low, but determined. + +"Why do you wish to leave me? Have you not said that you loved me?" + +"It is because I love you that I go. I am not fit for you. I was not +made for you. I can never make you happy. I am not accomplished. I +cannot go among your friends, your sisters. I am awkward. You would be +ashamed of me, and then you would not love me; you could not; and I +should lose the thing I most value. No, Mr. Clerron,--I would rather +keep your love in my own heart and my own home." + +"Ivy, can you be happy without me?" + +"I shall not be without you. My heart is full of lifelong joyful +memories. You need not regret me. Yes, I shall be happy. I shall work +with mind and hands. I shall not pine away in a mean and feeble life. I +shall be strong, and cheerful, and active, and helpful; and I think I +shall not cease to love you in heaven." + +"But there is, maybe, a long road for us to travel before we reach +heaven, and I want you to help me along. Ivy, I am not so spiritual as +you. I cannot live on memory. I want you before me all the time. I want +to see you and talk with you every day. Why do you speak of such +things? Is it the soul or its surroundings that you value? Do _you_ +respect or care for wealth and station? Do _you_ consider a woman your +superior because she wears a finer dress than you?" + +"I? No, Sir! No, indeed! you very well know. But the world does, and +you move in the world; and I do not want the world to pity you because +you have an uncouth, ignorant wife. _I_ don't want to be despised by +those who are above me only in station." + +"Little aristocrat, you are prouder than I. Will you sacrifice your +happiness and mine to your pride?" + +"Proud perhaps I am, but it is not all pride. I think you are noble, +but I think also you could not help losing patience when you found that +I could not accommodate myself to the station to which you had raised +me. Then you would not respect me. I am, indeed, too proud to wish to +lose that; and losing your respect, as I said before, I should not long +keep your love." + +"But you will accommodate yourself to any station. My dear, you are +young, and know so little about this world, which is such a bugbear to +you. Why, there is very little that will be greatly unlike this. At +first you might be a little bewildered, but I shall be by you all the +time, and you shall feel and fear nothing, and gradually you will learn +what little you need to know; and most of all, you will know yourself +the best and the loveliest of women. Dear Ivy, I would not part with +your sweet, unconscious simplicity for all the accomplishments and +acquired elegancies of the finest lady in the world." (That's what men +always say.) "You are not ignorant of anything you ought to know, and +your ignorance of the world is an additional charm to one who knows so +much of its wickedness as I. But we will not talk of it. There is no +need. This shall be our home, and here the world will not trouble us." + +"And I cannot give up my dear father and mother. They are not like you +and your friends"-- + +"They are my friends, and valued and dear to me, and dearer still they +shall be as the parents of my dear little wife"-- + +"I was going to say"-- + +"But you shall not say it. I utterly forbid you ever to mention it +again. You are mine, all my own. Your friends are my friends, your +honor my honor, your happiness my happiness henceforth; and what God +joins together let not man or woman put asunder." + +"Ah!" whispered Ivy, faintly; for she was yielding, and just beginning +to receive the sense of great and unexpected bliss, "but if you should +be wrong,--if you should ever repent of this, it is not your happiness +alone, but mine, too, that will be destroyed." + +Again their relative positions changed, and _remained so_ for a long +while. + +"Ivy, am I a mere schoolboy to swear eternal fidelity for a week? Have +I not been tossing hither and thither on the world's tide ever since +you lay in your cradle, and do I not know my position and my power and +my habits and love? And knowing all this, do I not know that this dear +head"----etc., etc., etc., etc. + +But I said I was not going to marry my man and woman, did I not? Nor +have I. To be sure, you may have detected premonitory symptoms, but I +said nothing about that. I only promised not to marry them, and I have +not married them. + +It is to be hoped they were married, however. For, on a fine June +evening, the setting sun cast a mellow light through the silken +curtains of a pleasant chamber, where Ivy lay on a white couch, pale +and and still,--very pale and still and statuelike; and by her side, +bending over her, with looks of unutterable love, clasping her in his +arms, as if to give out of his own heart the life that had so nearly +ebbed from hers, pressing upon the closed eyes, the white cheeks, the +silent lips kisses of such warmth and tenderness as never thrilled +maidenly lips in their rosiest flush of beauty,--knelt Felix Clerron; +and when the tremulous life fluttered back again, when the blue eyes +slowly opened and smiled up into his with an answering love, his +happiness was complete. + +In a huge arm-chair, bolt upright, where they had placed him, sat +Farmer Geer, holding in his sadly awkward hands the unconscious cause +of all this agitation, namely, a poor, little, horrid, gasping, crying, +writhing, old-faced, distressed-looking, red, wrinkled, ridiculous +baby! between whose "screeches" Farmer Geer could be heard muttering, +in a dazed, bewildered way,--"Ivy's baby! Oh, Lud! who'd 'a' thunk it? +No more'n yesterday she was a baby herself. Lud! Lud!" + + + + +THE PORTRAIT. + + +In a lumbering attic room, + Where, for want of light and air, +Years had died within the gloom, + Leaving dead dust everywhere, + Everywhere, +Hung the portrait of a lady, + With a face so fair! + +Time had long since dulled the paint, + Time, which all our arts disguise, +And the features now were faint, + All except the wondrous eyes, + Wondrous eyes, +Ever looking, looking, looking, + With such sad surprise! + +As man loveth, man had loved + Her whose features faded there; +As man mourneth, man had mourned, + Weeping, in his dark despair, + Bitter tears, +When she left him broken-hearted + To his death of years. + +Then for months the picture bent + All its eyes upon his face, +Following his where'er they went,-- + Till another filled the place + In its stead,-- +Till the features of the living + Did outface the dead. + +Then for years it hung above + In that attic dim and ghast, +Fading with the fading love, + Sad reminder of the past,-- + Save the eyes, +Ever looking, ever looking, + With such sad surprise! + +Oft the distant laughter's sound + Entered through the cobwebbed door, +And the cry of children found + Dusty echoes from the floor + To those eyes, +Ever looking, ever looking, + With their sad surprise. + +Once there moved upon the stair + Olden love-steps mounting slow, +But the face that met him there + Drove him to the depths below; + For those eyes +Through his soul seemed looking, looking, + All their sad surprise. + +From that day the door was nailed + Of that memory-haunted room, +And the portrait hung and paled + In the dead dust and the gloom,-- + Save the eyes, +Ever looking, ever looking, + With such sad surprise! + + + + +A LEAF + +FROM THE AMERICAN MAGAZINE-LITERATURE OF THE LAST CENTURY. + + +One hundred and sixteen years ago, to wit, on the 20th day of October, +A.D. 1743, the quiet precincts of certain streets in the town of Boston +were the theatre of unusual proceedings. An unwonted activity pervaded +the well-known printing-office of the "Messrs. Rogers and Fowle, in +Prison Lane," now Court Street; a small printed sheet was being worked +off,--not with the frantic rush and roar of one of Hoe's six-cylinder +giants, but with the calm circumspection befitting the lever-press and +ink-balls of that day,--to be conveyed, so soon as it should have +assumed a presentable shape, to the counters of "Samuel Eliot, in +Cornhill" and "Joshua Blanchard, in Dock Square," (and, we will hope, +to the addresses indicated on a long subscription-list,) for the +entertainment and instruction of ladies in high-heeled shoes and hoops, +forerunners of greater things thereafter, and gentlemen in big wigs, +cocked hats, and small-clothes, no more to be encountered in our daily +walks, and known to their degenerate descendants only by the aid of the +art of limner or sculptor. + +For some fifteen years, both in England and America, there had been +indications of an approaching modification in the existing forms of +periodical literature, enlarging its scope to something better and +higher than the brief and barren resume of current events to which the +Gazette or News-Letter of the day was in the main confined, and +affording an opportunity for the free discussion of literary and +artistic questions. Thus was gradually developed a class of +publications which professed, while giving a proper share of attention +to the important department of news, to occupy the field of literature +rather than of journalism, and to serve as a _Museum, Depository_, or +_Magazine_, of the polite arts and sciences. The very marked success of +the "Gentleman's Magazine," the pioneer English publication of this +class, which appeared in 1731 under the management of Cave, and reached +the then almost[1] unparalleled sale often thousand copies, produced a +host of imitators and rivals, of which the "London Magazine," commenced +in April, 1732, was perhaps the most considerable. In January, 1741, +Benjamin Franklin began the publication of "The General Magazine and +Historical Chronicle for all the British Plantations in America," but +only six numbers were issued. In the same year, Andrew Bradford +published "The American Magazine, or Monthly View of the Political +State of the British Colonies," which was soon discontinued. Both these +unsuccessful ventures were made at Philadelphia. There were similar +attempts in Boston a little later. "The Boston Weekly Magazine" made +its appearance March 2,1743, and lived just four weeks. "The Christian +History," edited by Thomas Prince, Jr., son of the author of the "New +England Chronology," appeared three days after, (March 5, 1743,) and +reached the respectable age of two years. It professed to exhibit, +among other things, "Remarkable Passages, Historical and Doctrinal, out +of the most Famous old Writers both of the Church of England and +Scotland from the Reformation; as also the first Settlers of New +England and their Children; that we may see how far their pious +Principles and Spirit are at this day revived, and may guard against +all Extremes." + +[Footnote 1: It is said that as many as twenty thousand copies of +particular numbers of the "Spectator" were sold.] + +It would appear, however, that none of the four magazines last named +were so general in their scope, or so well conducted, certainly they +were not so long-lived, as "The American Magazine and Historical +Chronicle," the first number of which, bearing date "September, 1743," +appeared, as we have said, on the 20th of the following October, under +the editorial charge, as is generally supposed, of Jeremy Gridley, +Esq., Attorney-General of the Province of Massachusetts Bay, and the +head of the Masonic Fraternity in America, though less known to us, +perhaps, in either capacity, than he is as the legal instructor of the +patriot Otis, a pupil whom it became his subsequent duty as the officer +of the crown to encounter in that brilliant and memorable argument +against the "Writs of Assistance," which the pen of the historian, and, +more recently, the chisel of the sculptor, have contributed to render +immortal. This publication, if we regard it, as we doubtless may, as +the original and prototype of the "American Magazine," would seem to +have been rightly named. It was printed on what old Dr. Isaiah Thomas +calls "a fine medium paper in 8vo," and he further assures us that "in +its execution it was deemed equal to any work of the kind then +published in London." In external appearance, it was a close copy of +the "London Magazine," from whose pages (probably to complete the +resemblance) it made constant and copious extracts, not always +rendering honor to whom honor was due, and in point of mechanical +excellence, as well as of literary merit, certainly eclipsed the +contemporary newspaper-press of the town, the "Boston Evening Post," +"Boston News Letter" and the "New England Courant." The first number +contained forty-four pages, measuring about six inches by eight. The +scope and object of the Magazine, as defined in the Preface, do not +vary essentially from the line adopted by its predecessors and +contemporaries, and seem, in the main, identical with what we have +recounted above as characteristic of this new movement in letters. The +novelty and extent of the field, and the consequent fewness and +inexperience of the laborers, are curiously shown by the miscellaneous, +_omnium-gatherum_ character of the publication, which served at once as +a Magazine, Review, Journal, Almanac, and General Repository and +Bulletin;--the table of contents of the first number exhibits a list of +subjects which would now be distributed among these various classes of +periodical literature, and perhaps again parcelled out according to the +subdivisions of each. Avowedly neutral in politics and religion, as +became an enterprise which relied upon the patronage of persons of all +creeds and parties, it recorded (usually without comment) the current +incidents of political and religious interest. A summary of news +appeared at the end of each number, under the head of "Historical +Chronicle"; but in the body of the Magazine are inserted, side by side +with what would now be termed "local items," contemporary narratives of +events, many of which have, in the lapse of more than a century, +developed into historical proportions, but which here meet us, as it +were, at first hand, clothed in such homely and impromptu dress as +circumstances might require, with all their little roughnesses, +excrescences, and absurdities upon them,--crude lumps of mingled fact +and fiction, not yet moulded and polished into the rounded periods of +the historian. + +The Magazine was established at the period of a general commotion among +the dry bones of New England Orthodoxy, caused by what is popularly +known as "the New-Light Movement," to do battle with which heresy arose +"The Christian History," above alluded to. The public mind was widely +and deeply interested, and the first number of our Magazine opens with +"A Dissertation on the State of Religion in North America," which is +followed by a fiery manifesto of the "Anniversary Week" of 1743, +entitled "The Testimony of the Pastors of the Churches in the Province +of the Massachusetts Bay in New-England at their Annual Convention in +Boston, May 25, 1743, Against several Errors in Doctrine and Disorders +in Practice, which have of late obtained in various Parts of the Land; +as drawn up by a Committee chosen by the said Pastors, read and +accepted Paragraph by Paragraph, and voted to be sign'd by the +Moderator in their Name, and Printed." These "Disorders" and "Errors" +are specified under six heads, being generalized at the outset as +"Antinomian and Familistical Errors." The number of strayed sheep must +have been considerable, since we find a Rejoinder put forth on the +seventh of the following July, which bears the signatures of +"Sixty-eight Pastors of Churches," (including fifteen who signed with a +reservation as to one Article,) styled "The Testimony and Advice of an +Assembly of Pastors of Churches in New England, at a Meeting in Boston, +July 7, 1743. Occasion'd by the late happy Revival of Religion in many +Parts of the Land." Some dozen new books, noticed in this number, are +likewise all upon theological subjects. The youthful University of Yale +took part in the conflict, testifying its zeal for the established +religion by punishing with expulsion (if we are to believe a writer in +"The New York Post-Boy" of March 17, 1745) two students, "for going +during Vacation, and while at Home with their Parents, to hear a +neighboring Minister preach who is distinguished in this Colony by the +Name of New Light, being by their said Parents perswaded, desired, or +ordered to go." The statement, however, is contradicted in a subsequent +number by the President of the College, the Rev. Thomas Clapp, D.D., +who states "that they were expelled for being Followers of the Paines, +two Lay Exhorters, whose corrupt Principles and pernicious Practices +are set forth in the Declaration of the Ministers of the County of +Windham." In all probability the outcasts had "corrupt Principles and +pernicious Practices" charged to their private account in the Faculty +books, to which, quite as much as to any departure from Orthodox +standards, they may have been indebted for leave to take up their +connections. + +The powerful Indian Confederacy, known as the Six Nations, had just +concluded at Philadelphia their famous treaty with the whites, and in +the numbers for October and November, 1743, we are furnished with some +curious notes of the proceedings at the eight or nine different +councils held on the occasion, which may or may not be historically +accurate. That the news was not hastily gathered or digested may be +safely inferred from the fact that the proceedings of the councils, +which met in July, 1742, are here given to the public at intervals of +fifteen and sixteen months afterwards. The assemblies were convened +first "at Mr. Logan's House," next "at the Meeting House," and finally +"at the Great Meeting House," where the seventh meeting took place July +10, in the presence of "a great Number of the Inhabitants of +Philadelphia." As usual, the Indians complain of their treatment at the +hands of the traders and their agents, and beg for more fire-water. "We +have been stinted in the Article of Rum in Town," they pathetically +observe,--"we desire you will open the Rum Bottle, and give it to us +in greater Abundance on the Road"; and again, "We hope, as you have +given us Plenty of good Provision whilst In Town, that you will +continue your Goodness so far as to supply us with a little more to +serve us on the Road." The first, at least, of these requests seems to +have been complied with; the Council voted them twenty gallons of +rum,--in addition to the twenty-five gallons previously bestowed,-- +"to comfort them on the Road"; and the red men departed in an amicable +mood, though, from the valedictory address made them by the Governor, +we might perhaps infer that they had found reason to contrast the +hospitality of civilization with that shown in the savage state, to the +disadvantage of the former. "We wish," he says, "there had been more +Room and better Houses provided for your Entertainment, but not +expecting so many of you we did the best we could. 'Tis true there are +a great many Houses in Town, but as they are the Property of other +People who have their own Families to take care of, it is difficult to +procure Lodgings for a large Number of People, especially if they come +unexpectedly." + +But the great item of domestic intelligence, which confronts us under +various forms in the pages of this Magazine, is the siege and capture +of Louisburg, and the reduction of Cape Breton to the obedience of the +British crown,--an acquisition for which his Majesty was so largely +indebted to the military skill of Sir William Pepperell, and the +courage of the New England troops, that we should naturally expect to +find the exploit narrated at length in a contemporary Boston magazine. +The first of the long series is an extract from the "Boston Evening +Post" of May 13, 1745, entitled, "A short Account of Cape Breton"; +which is followed by "A further Account of the Island of Cape Breton, +of the Advantages derived to France from the Possession of that +Country, and of the Fishery upon its Coasts; and the Benefit that must +necessarily result to Great Britain from the Recovery of that important +Place,"--from the "London Courant" of July 25. In contrast to this cool +and calculating production, we have next the achievement, as seen from +a military point of view, in a "Letter from an Officer of Note in the +Train," dated Louisburg, June 20, 1745, who breaks forth thus:--"Glory +to God, and Joy and Happiness to my Country in the Reduction of this +Place, which we are now possessed of. It's a City vastly beyond all +Expectation for Strength and beautiful Fortifications; but we have made +terrible Havock with our Guns and Bombs. ... Such a fine City will be +an everlasting Honour to my Countrymen." Farther on, we have another +example of military eloquence in a "Letter from a Superior Officer at +Louisburgh, to his Friend and Brother at Boston," dated October 22, +1745. To this succeeds "A particular Account of the Siege and Surrender +of Louisburgh, on the 17th of June, 1745." The resources of the +pictorial art are called in to assist the popular conception of the +great event, and we are treated on page 271 to a rude wood-cut, +representing the "Town and Harbour of Louisburgh," accompanied by +"Certain Particulars of the Blockade and Distress of the Enemy." Still +farther on appears "The Declaration of His Excellency, William Shirley, +Esq., Captain General and Governour in Chief of the Province of the +Massachusetts Bay, to the Garrison at Louisburgh." July 18, 1745, was +observed as "a Day of publick Thanksgiving, agreeably to His +Excellency's Proclamation of the 8th inst., on Account of the wonderful +Series of Successes attending our Forces in the Reduction of the City +and Fortress of Louisburgh with the Dependencies thereof at Cape Breton +to the Obedience of His Majesty." There are also accounts of rejoicings +at Newport, New Haven, New York, Philadelphia, and other places. Nor +was the Muse silent on such an auspicious occasion: four adventurous +flights in successive numbers of the Magazine attest the loyalty, if +not the poetic genius of Colonial bards; and a sort of running fire of +description, narrative, and anecdote concerning the important event is +kept up in the numbers for many succeeding months. + +But, whatever may have been the magnitude and interest of domestic +affairs, the enterprising vigilance of our journalists was far from +overlooking prominent occurrences on the other side of the water, and +the news by all the recent arrivals, dating from three to six months +later from Europe, was carefully, if at times somewhat briefly, +recapitulated. In this manner our ancestors heard of the brilliant +campaigns of Prince George, the Duke of Cumberland, and Marshal de +Noailles, during the War of the Austrian Succession,--of the battle of +Dettingen in June, 1743,--of the declaration of war between the kings +of France and England in March, 1744; and, above all, of the great +Scotch Rebellion of 1745. Here was stirring news, indeed, for the +citizens of Boston, and for all British subjects, wherever they might +be. The suspense in which loyal New England was plunged, as to whether +"great George our King and the Protestant succession" were to succumb +before the Pretender and his Jesuitical followers, was happily +terminated by intelligence of the decisive battle of Culloden, the +tidings of which victory, gained on the 16th of April, 1746, appear in +the number for July. Public joy and curiosity demanded full particulars +of the glorious news, and a copy of the official narrative of the +battle, dated "Inverness, April 18th," is served out to the hungry +quidnuncs of Boston, in the columns of our Magazine, as had been done +three months before to consumers equally rapacious in the London +coffeehouses. With commendable humanity, the loss of the insurgent army +is put at "two thousand,"--although "the Rebels by their own Accounts +make the Loss greater by 2000 than we have stated it." In the fatal +list appears the name of "Cameron of Lochiel," destined, through the +favor of the Muse, to an immortality which is denied to equally +intrepid and unfortunate compatriots. The terms of the surrender upon +parole of certain French and Scotch officers at Inverness,--the return +of the ordnance and stores captured,--names of the killed and wounded +officers of the rebel army,--various congratulatory addresses,--an +extract from a letter from Edinburgh, concerning the battle,--an +account of the subsequent movement of the forces,--various anecdotes of +the Duke of Cumberland, during the engagement,--etc., are given with +much parade and circumstance. The loyalty of the citizens is evidenced +by the following "local item," under date of "Boston, Thursday, +3d":--"Upon the Confirmation of the joyful News of the Defeat of the +Rebels in Scotland, and of the Life and Health of His Royal Highness +the Duke of Cumberland, on Wednesday, the 2d inst., at Noon, the Guns +at Castle William and the Batteries of the Town were fired, as were +those on Board the Massachusetts Frigate, etc., and in the Evening we +had Illuminations and other Tokens of Joy and Satisfaction." There are +also curious biographical sketches and anecdotes of the Earl of +Kilmarnock, Lord Balmerino, and others, among those engaged in this +ill-judged attempt, who expiated their treason on the scaffold, from +which interesting extracts might be made. The following seems a very +original device for the recovery of freedom,--one, we think, which, to +most readers of the present day even, will truly appear a "new" and +"extraordinary Invention":-- + +"Carlisle, Sept. 27, 1746. + +"The Method taken by the Rebels here under Sentence of Death to make +their Escape is quite new, and reckoned a most extraordinary Invention, +as by no other Instrument than a Case-Knife, a Drinking-Glass and a +Silk Handkerchief, seven of them in one Night had sawn off their Irons, +thus:--They laid the Silk Handkerchief single, over the Mouth of the +Glass, but stretched it as much as it would bear, and tied it hard at +the Bottom of the Glass; then they struck the Edge of the Knife on the +Mouth of the Glass, (thus covered with the Handkerchief to prevent +Noise,) till it became a Saw, with which they cut their Irons till it +was Blunt, and then had Recourse to the Mouth of the Glass again to +renew the Teeth of the Saw; and so completed their Design by Degrees. +This being done in the Dead of Night, and many of them at Work +together, the little Noise they made was overheard by the Centinels; +who informed their Officers of it, they quietly doubled their Guard, +and gave the Rebels no Disturbance till Morning, when it was discovered +that several of them were loose, and that others had been trying the +same Trick. 'Tis remarkable that a Knife will not cut a Handkerchief +when struck upon it in this Manner." + +About one-eighth part of the first volume of the Magazine is occupied +with reports of Parliamentary debates, entitled, "Journal of the +Proceedings and Debates of a Political Club of young Noblemen and +Gentlemen established some time ago in London." They seem to be copied, +with little, if any alteration, from the columns of the "London +Magazine," and are introduced to an American public with this mildly +ironical preface:--"We shall give our Readers in our next a List of the +British Parliament. And as it is now render'd unsafe to entertain the +Publick with any Accounts of their Proceedings or Debates, we shall +give them in their Stead, in some of our subsequent Magazines, Extracts +from the Journals of a Learned and Political Club of young Noblemen and +Gentlemen established some time ago in London. Which will in every +Respect answer the same Intentions." + +The scientific world was all astir just then with new-found marvels of +Electricity,--an interest which was of course much augmented in this +country by the ingenious experiments and speculations of the +printer-philosopher. In the volume for the year 1745 is "An Historical +Account of the wonderful Discoveries made in Germany, etc., concerning +Electricity," in the course of which the writer says, (speaking of the +experiments of a Mr. Gray,) "He also discovered another surprising +Property of electric Virtue, which is that the approach of a Tube of +electrified Glass communicates to a hempen or silken Cord an electric +Force which is conveyed along the Cord to the Length of 886 feet, at +which amazing Distance it will impregnate a Ball of Ivory with the same +Virtue as the Tube from which it was derived." So true is it, that +things are great and small solely by comparison: the lapse of something +over a century has gradually stretched this "amazing distance" to many +hundreds of miles, and now the circumference of the globe is the only +limit which we feel willing to set to its extension. + +At page 691 of the previous volume we have an "Extract from a Pamphlet +lately published at Philadelphia intitled 'An Account of the New +Invented Pennsylvanian Fire Places.'" This was probably from the pen of +Franklin, who expatiates as follows on the advantages derivable from +these fireplaces, which are still occasionally to be met with, and +known as "Franklin Stoves":--"By the Help of this saving Invention our +Wood may grow as fast as we consume it, and our Posterity may warm +themselves at a moderate Rate, without being oblig'd to fetch their +Fuel over the Atlantick; as, if Pit-Coal should not be here discovered, +(which is an Uncertainty,) they must necessarily do." + +That a taste for the beauties of Nature was extant at the epoch of +which we treat may be inferred from the statement of a writer who +commences "An Essay in Praise of the Morning" as follows:--"I have the +good Fortune to be so pleasantly lodg'd as to have a Prospect of a +neighboring Grove, where the Eye receives the most delicious +Refreshment from the lively Verdure of the Greens, and the wild +Regularity by which the Scene shifts off and disparts itself into a +beautiful Chequer." + +The ever interesting and disputed topics of dress and diet come in for +an occasional discussion. The following is a characteristic specimen of +the satirical vein of the British essayist school, though we have been +unable to ascertain, by reference to the "Spectator," "Tatler," +"Rambler," "Guardian," etc., the immediate source whence it was taken. +It reads as follows:--"_History of Female Dress_. The sprightly Gauls +set their little Wits to work again," (on resuming the war under Queen +Anne,) "and invented a wonderful Machine call'd a Hoop Petticoat. In +this fine Scheme they had more Views than one; they had compar'd their +own Climate and Constitution with that of the British, and finding both +warmer, they naturally enough concluded that would only be pleasantly +cool to them, which would perhaps give the British Ladies the +Rheumatism, and that if they once got them off their Legs they should +have them at Advantage; Besides, they had been inform'd, though +falsely, that the British Ladies had not good Legs, and then at all +Events this Scheme would expose them. With these pernicious Views they +set themselves to work, and form'd a Rotund of near 7 Yards about, and +sent the Pattern over by the Sussex Smugglers with an Intent that it +should be seiz'd and expos'd to Publick View; which happen'd +accordingly, and made its first Appearance at a Great Man's House on +that Coast, whose Lady claim'd it as her peculiar Property. In it she +first struck at Court what the learned in Dress call a bold Stroke; and +was thereupon constituted General of the British Ladies during the War. +Upon the Whole this Invention did not answer. The Ladies suffer'd a +little the first Winter, but after that were so thoroughly harden'd +that they improv'd upon the Contrivers by adding near 2 Yards to its +Extension, and the Duke of Marlboro' having about the same Time beat +the French, the Gallic Ladies dropt their Pretensions, and left the +British Misstresses of the Field; the Tokens whereof are worn in +Triumph to this Day, having outlasted the Colors in Westminster Hall, +and almost that great General's Glory." + +To a similar source must probably be referred an article in the same +volume, entitled, "Of Diet in General, and of the bad Effects of +Tea-Drinking." The genuine conservative flavor of the extract is +deliciously apparent, while its wholesale denunciations are drawn but +little, if at all, stronger than those which may even yet be +occasionally met with. "If we compare the Nature of Tea with the Nature +of English Diet, no one can think it a proper Vegetable for us. It has +no Parts fit to be assimilated to our Bodies; its essential Salt does +not hold Moisture enough to be joined to the Body of an Animal; its Oyl +is but very little, and that of the opiate kind, and therefore it is so +far from being nutritive, that it irritates and frets the Nerves and +Fibres, exciting the expulsive Faculty, so that the Body may be +lessened and weakened, but it cannot increase and be strengthened by +it. We see this by common Experience; the first Time persons drink it, +if they are full grown, it generally gives them a Pain at the Stomach, +Dejection of Spirits, Cold Sweats, Palpitation at the Heart, Trembling, +Fearfulness; taking away the Sense of Fulness though presently after +Meals, and causing a hypochondriac, gnawing Appetite. These symptoms +are very little inferiour to what the most poisonous Vegetables we have +in England would occasion when dried and used in the same manner. + +"These ill Effects of Tea are not all the Mischiefs it occasions. Did +it cause none of them, but were it entirely wholesome, as Balm or Mint, +it were yet Mischief enough to have our whole Populace used to sip warm +Water in a mincing, effeminate Manner, once or twice every Day; which +hot Water must be supped out of a nice Tea-Cup, sweatened with Sugar, +biting a Bit of nice thin Bread and Butter between Whiles. This mocks +the strong Appetite, relaxes the Stomach, satiates it with trifling +light Nick-Nacks which have little in them to support hard Labour. In +this manner the Bold and Brave become dastardly, the Strong become +weak, the Women become barren, or if they breed their Blood is made so +poor that they have not Strength to suckle, and if they do the Child +dies of the Gripes; In short, it gives an effeminate, weakly Turn to +the People in general." + +Another humorous philosopher, who is benevolently anxious that his +fellow-creatures may not be taken in by the rustic meteorologists, +satirically furnishes a number of infallible tests to determine the +approach of a severe season. He entitles his contribution to +meteorological science,--"_Jonathan Weatherwise's Prognostications._ +As it is not likely that I have a long Time to act on the Stage of this +Life, for what with Head-Aches, hard Labour, Storms and broken +Spectacles I feel my Blood chilling, and Time, that greedy Tyrant, +devouring my whole Constitution," etc.,--an exordium which is certainly +well adapted to excite our sympathy for Jonathan, even if it fail to +inspire confidence in his "Prognostications," and leave us a little in +the dark as to the necessary connection between "broken spectacles" and +the "chilling of the blood." The criteria he gives us are truly +Ingenious and surprising; but though the greater part would prove +novel, we believe, to the present generation, we can here quote but +one. He tells us, that, when a boy, he "swore revenge on the Grey +Squirrel," in consequence of a petted animal of this species having +"bitten off the tip of his grandmother's finger,"--a resolution which +proved, as we shall see, unfortunate for the squirrels, but of immense +advantage to science. To gratify this dire animosity, and in fulfilment +of his vow, he persevered for nearly half a century in the perilous and +exciting sport of squirrel-hunting, departing "every Year, for +forty-nine successive Years, on the 22d of October, excepting when that +Day fell on a Sunday," in which case he started on the Monday +following, to take vengeance for the outrage committed on his aged +relative. Calm philosophy, however, enabled him, "in the very storm, +tempest, and, as I may say, whirlwind of his passion," to observe and +record the following remarkable fact in Zoology: "When shot from a high +Limb they would put their Tails in their Mouths as they were tumbling, +and die in that Manner; I did not know what to make of it, 'till, in +Process of Time, I found that when they did so a hard Winter always +succeeded, and this may be depended on as infallible." + +The author of "An Essay on Puffing" (a topic which we should hardly +have thought to have found under discussion at a period so much nearer +the golden age than the present) remarks,--"Dubious and uncertain is +the Source or Spring of Puffing in this Infant Country, it not being +agreed upon whether Puffs were imported by the primitive Settlers of +the Wilderness, (for the Puff is not enumerated in the aboriginal +Catalogue,) or whether their Growth was spontaneous or accidental. +However uncertain we are about the Introduction or first Cultivation of +Puffs, it is easy to discover the Effects or Consequences of their +Improvement in all Professions, Perswasions and Occupations." + +Under the head which has assumed, in modern journalism, an extent and +importance second only to the Puff, to wit, the "Horrible Accident +Department," we find but a single item, but that one of a nature so +unique and startling that it seems to deserve transcribing. "February 7 +[1744]. We hear from Statten Island that a Man who had been married +about 5 months, having a Design to get rid of his Wife, got some +poisoned Herbs with which he advised her to stuff a Leg of Veal, and +when it was done found an Excuse to be absent himself; but his Wife +having eat of it found herself ill, and he coming Home soon after +desired her to fry him some Sausages which she did, and having +eat of them also found himself ill; upon which he asked his +Wife what she fried them in, who answered, in the Sauce of the +Veal; then, said he, I am a dead man: So they continued sick for some +Days and then died, but he died the first." We hardly know which most +to admire, the graphic and terrible simplicity of this narrative of +villany, or the ignorance which it discovers of the modern art of +penny-a-lining, an expert practitioner of which would have spread the +shocking occurrence over as many columns as this bungling report +comprises sentences. + +The poetical contents of our Magazine consist mainly, as we have said, +of excerpts from the popular productions of English authors, as they +were found in the magazines of the mother country or in their published +works, the diluted stanzas of their imitators, satirical verses, +epigrams, and translations from the Latin poets. There are, however, +occasional strains from the native Muse, and here and there a waif from +sources now, perhaps, lost or forgotten. Before "he threw his Virgil by +to wander with his dearer bow," Mr. Freneau's Indian seems to have +determined to leave on record a proof of his classical attainments, for +he is doubtless the author of "A Latin Ode written by an American +Indian, a Junior Sophister at Cambridge, anno 1678, on the death of the +Reverend and Learned Mr. Thacher,"--a translation of which is given at +page 166, prefaced thus:--"As the Original of the following Piece is +very curious, the publishing this may perhaps help you to some better +Translation. Attempted from the Latin of an American Indian." The +probability that any reader of the present paper would be disposed to +help us to this "better Translation" seems too remote to warrant us in +giving the Ode _in extenso_; nor do we think any would thank us for +transcribing a cloudy effusion, a little farther on, entitled, "On the +Notion of an abstract antecedent Fitness of Things." The following +estrays are perhaps worth the capture; they profess to date back to the +reign of Queen Mary, and are styled, "Some Forms of Prayer used by the +vulgar Papists." + + +THE LITTLE CREED. + +Little Creed can I need, +Kneel before our Lady's Knee, + Candle light, Candle burn, + Our Lady pray'd to her dear Son + That we might all to Heaven come; +Little Creed, Amen! + + +THE WHITE PATER NOSTER. + +White Pater Noster, St. Peter's Brother, + What hast thou in one hand? White-Book Leaves. + What hast i'th' to'ther? Heaven Gate Keys. +Open Heaven Gates, and steike (shut) Hell Gates, + And let every crysom Child creep to its own mother: + White Pater Noster, Amen! + +We do not think that the poets of the anti-shaving movement have as yet +succeeded in producing anything worthy to be set off against a series +of spirited stanzas under the heading of "The Razor, a Poem," which we +commend to the immediate and careful attention of the "Razor-strop +Man." The following are the concluding verses:-- + + "But, above all, thou grand Catholicon, + Or by what useful Name so'er thou'rt call'd, + Thou Sweet Composer of the tortur'd Mind! + When all the Wheels of Life are heavy clogg'd + With Cares or Pain, and nought but Horror dire + Before us stalks with dreadful Majesty, + Embittering all the Pleasures we enjoy; + To thee, distressed, we call; thy gentle Touch + Consigns to balmy Sleep our troubled Breasts." + +Evidently the production of a philosopher and an economist of time: for +who else would have thought of shaving before going to bed, instead of +at the matutinal toilet? + +In less than five years from the date of its first number, (1743,) "The +American Magazine and Historical Chronicle" had ceased to exist, and in +the year 1757 appeared "The American Magazine and Monthly Chronicle for +the British Colonies." This was published by Mr. William Bradford in +Philadelphia, under the auspices of "a Society of Gentlemen," who +declare themselves to be "_veritatis cultores, fraudis inimici_," but +who probably found themselves unequal to the difficulties of such a +position, the Magazine having expired just one year after its birth. It +was followed by "The New England Magazine," (1758,) "The American +Magazine," (1769,) "The Royal American Magazine," (1774,) "The +Pennsylvania Magazine, or American Monthly Museum," (1775,) "The +Columbian Magazine," (1786,) "The Worcester Magazine," (the same year,) +"The American Museum," (1787,) "The Massachusetts Magazine," (1789,) +"The New-York Magazine," (1790,) "The Rural Magazine & Vermont +Repository," (1796,) "The Missionary Magazine," (same year,)--and +others. The premature mortality characteristic of some of our own +magazine-literature was, even at this early period, painfully apparent: +none of the publications we have named survived their twelfth year, +most of them lived less than half that period. A great diversity in the +style and quality of their contents, as well as in external appearance, +is, of course, observable, and it somewhat requires the eye of faith to +see within their rusty and faded covers the germ of that gigantic +literary plant which, in this year of Grace, 1860, counts in the city +of Boston alone nearly one hundred and fifty periodical publications, +(about one-third being legitimate magazines,) perhaps as many more in +the other New England cities and towns, and a progeny of unknown, but +very considerable extent, throughout the Union. + +Apart even from their value to the historiographer and the antiquary, +few relics of the past are more suggestive or interesting than the old +magazine or newspaper. The houses, furniture, plate, clothing, and +decorations of the generations which have preceded us possess their +intrinsic value, and serve also to link by a thousand associations the +mysterious past with the actual and living present; but the old +periodical brings back to us, beside all this, the bodily presence, the +words, the actions, and even the very thoughts of the people of a +former age. It is, in mercantile phrase, a book of original entry, +showing us the transactions of the time in the light in which they were +regarded by the parties engaged in them, and reflecting the state of +public sentiment on innumerable topics,--moral, religious, political, +philosophic, military, and scientific. Its mistakes of fact or +induction are honest and palpable ones, easily corrected by +contemporaneous data or subsequent discoveries, and not often posted +into the ledger of history without detection. The learned and patient +labors of the savant or the scholar are not expected of the pamphleteer +or the periodical writer of the last century, or of the present; he +does but blaze the pathway of the pains-taking engineer who is to +follow him, happy enough, if he succeed in satisfying immediate and +daily demands, and in capturing the kind of game spoken of by Mr. Pope +in that part of his manual where he instructs us to + + "shoot folly as it flies, +And catch the manners living as they rise." + +Among us, however, the magazine-writer, as he existed in the last +century, has left few, if any, representatives. He is fading +silently away into a forgotten antiquity; his works are not +on the publishers' counters,--they linger only among the dust and +cobwebs of old libraries, listlessly thumbed by the exploring reader or +occasionally consulted by the curious antiquary. His place is occupied +by those who, in the multiplication of books, the diffusion of +information, and the general alteration of public taste, manners, and +habits, though revolving in a similar orbit, move in quite another +plane,--who have found in the pages of the periodical a theatre of +special activity, a way to the entertainment and instruction of the +many; and though much of what is thus produced may bear, as we have +hinted, a character more or less ephemeral, we are sometimes presented +also with the earlier blossoms and the fresher odors of a rich and +perennial growth of genius, everywhere known and acknowledged in the +realms of belles-lettres, philosophy, and science, crowded here as in a +nursery, to be soon transplanted to other and more permanent abodes. + + + + +COME SI CHIAMA? + +OR A LEAF FROM THE CENSUS OF 1850. + + +The first question asked of a "new boy" at school is, "What's your +name?" In this year of Grace the eighth decennial census is to be +taken, asking that same question of all new comers into the great +public school where towns and cities are educated. It will hardly be +effected with that marvellous perfection of organization by which Great +Britain was made to stand still for a moment and be statistically +photographed. For with consummate skill was planned that all-embracing +machinery, so that at one and the same moment all over the United +Kingdom the recording pen was catching every man's status and setting +it down. The tramp on the dusty highway, the clerk in the +counting-house, the sportsman upon the moor, the preacher in his +pulpit, game-bird and barn-door fowl alike, all were simultaneously +bagged. Unless, like the Irishman's swallow, you could be in two places +at once, down you went on the recording-tablets. Christopher Sly, from +the ale-house door, if caught while the Merry Duke had possession of +him, must be chronicled for a peer of the realm; Bully Bottom, if the +period of his translations fell in with the census-taking, must be +numbered among the cadgers' "mokes"; nay, if Dogberry himself had +encountered the officials at the moment of his pathetic lamentation, he +were irrevocably written down "an ass." + +We can hardly hope for such celerity and sure handling upon this side +of the water. Nor is this the subject we have just now in view. The +approaching advent of the census-taker has led us to look back at the +labor of his predecessor, and the careless turning over of its pages +has set us to musing upon NAMES. + +William Shakspeare asks, "What's in a name?" England's other great +poetical William has devoted a series of his versifyings to the naming +of places. Which has the right of it, let us not undertake to pronounce +without consideration. England herself has long ago determined the +question. As Mr. Emerson says of English names,--"They are an +atmosphere of legendary melody spread over the land; older than all +epics and histories which clothe a nation, this undershirt sits close +to the body." Dean Trench, who handles words as a numismatist his +coins, has said substantially the same thing. And it is true not of +England only; for the various lands of Europe are written over like +palimpsests with the story of successive conquests and dominations +chronicled in their local names. You stop and ask why a place is so +called,--sure to be rewarded by a legend lurking beneath the title. +Like the old crests of heraldry, with their "canting" mottoes beneath, +they are history in little, a war or a revolution distilled into the +powerful attar of a single phrase. The Rhineland towers of Falkenstein +and Stolzenfels are the local counterparts of the Scotch borderers' +"Thou shalt want ere I want," for ominous meaning. + +The volume we have just laid down painfully reminds us that the poet +and the historian have no such heritage in this land. We have done our +best to crowd out all the beautiful significant names we found here, +and to replace them by meaningless appellations. For the name of a +thing is that which really has in it something of that to which it +belongs, which describes and classifies it, and is its spoken +representative; while the appellation is only a title conferred by act +of Parliament or her Majesty's good pleasure: it cannot make a parvenu +into a peer. + +But we are not writing for the mere interest of the poet and the +novelist. Fit names are not given, but grow; and we believe there is +not a spot in the land, possessing any attractiveness, but has its name +ready fitted to it, waiting unsyllabled in the air above it for the +right sponsor to speak it into life. We plead for public convenience +simply. We are thinking not of the ears of taste, but of the brain of +business. We do not wonder at the monstrous accumulations of the +Dead-Letter Office, when we see the actual poverty which our system of +naming places has brought about. Pardon us a few statistics, and, as +you read them, remember, dear reader, that this is the story of ten +years ago, and that the enormous growths of the last decade have +probably increased the evil prodigiously. + +The volume in question gives a list of a trifle under ten thousand +places,--to be accurate, of nine thousand eight hundred and twenty odd. +For these nine thousand cities, towns, and villages have been provided +but _three_ thousand eight hundred and twenty names. All the rest have +been baptized according to the results of a promiscuous scramble. Some, +indeed, make a faint show of variety, by additions of such adjectives +as New, North, South, East, West, or Middle. If we reduce the list of +original names by striking out these and all the compounds of "ville," +"town," and the like, we get about three thousand really distinctive +names for American towns. Three hundred and thirty odd we found here +when we came,--being Indian or _Native_ American. Three hundred and +thirty more we imported from the United Kingdom of Great Britain and +Ireland. A dozen were added to them from the pure well of Welsh +undefiled, and mark the districts settled by Cambro-Britons. Out of our +Bibles we got thirty-three Hebrew appellations, nearly all ludicrously +inappropriate; and these we have been very fond of repeating. In +California, New Mexico, Texas, Florida, and the Louisiana purchase, we +bought our names along with the land. Fine old French and Spanish ones +they are; some thirty of them names of Saints, all well-sounding and +pleasant to the ear. And there is a value in these names not at first +perceptible. Most of them serve to mark the day of the year upon which +the town was founded. They are commemorative dates, which one need only +look at the calendar to verify. As an instance of this, there is the +forgotten title of Lake George, Lake St. Sacrament, which, in spite of +Dr. Cleveland Coxe's very graceful ballad, we must hold to have been +conferred because the lake was discovered on Corpus-Christi Day. In the +Mississippi Valley, the great chain of French military occupation can +still be faintly traced, like the half-obliterated lines of a redoubt +which the plough and the country road have passed over. + +There remain about two thousand names, which may fairly be called of +American manufacture. We exclude, of course, those which were +transferred from England, since they were probably brought directly. +They have a certain fitness, as affectionate memorials of the Old +Country lingering in the hearts of the exiles. Thus, though St. Botolph +was of the fenny shire of Lincoln, and the new comers to the +Massachusetts Bay named their little peninsula Suffolk, the county of +the "South-folk," we do not quarrel with them for calling their future +city "Bo's or Botolph's town," out of hearts which did not wholly +forget their birthplace with its grand old church, whose noble tower +still looks for miles away over the broad levels toward the German +Ocean. Nor do we think Plymouth to be utterly meaningless, though it is +not at the mouth of the Ply, or any other river such as wanders through +the Devon Moorlands to the British Channel. + + "Et parvam Trojam, simulataque magnis + Pergama, et arentem Xanthi cognomine rivum + Agnosco: Seaeaeque amplector limina portae." + +Throughout New England, and in all the original colonies, we find this +to be the case. But, as Americans, we must reject both what our fathers +brought and what they found. Two thousand specimens of the American +talent for nomenclature, then, we can exhibit. Walk up, gentlemen! Here +you have the top-crest of the great wave of civilization. Hero is a +people, emancipated from Old-World trammels, setting the world a +lesson. What is the result? With the grand divisions of our land we +have not had much to do. Of the States, seventeen were baptized by +their Indian appellations; four were named by French and Spanish +discoverers; six were called after European sovereigns; three, which +bear the prefix of New, have the names of English counties;--there +remains Delaware, the title of an English nobleman, leaving us +Pennsylvania, Indiana, and Rhode Island, three precious bits of modern +classicality. Let us now come to the counties. Ten years ago there were +some fifteen hundred and fifty-five of these. One hundred and +seventy-three bear Indian names, and there are one or two uncertain. +For these fifteen hundred and fifty-five counties there are eight +hundred and eighty-eight names, about one to every two. Seven hundred +are, then, of Anglo-Saxon bestowing? No. Another hundred are of Spanish +and French origin. Six hundred county-names remain; fifty of which, +neat as imported, are the names of English places, and fifty more are +names bestowed in compliment to English peers. Five hundred are the +American residuum. + +We beg pardon for these dry statistical details, over which we have +spent some little time and care; but they furnish a base of operations. +Yet something more remains to be added. We have, it is true, about two +thousand names of places and five hundred of counties purely American, +or at least due to American taste. In most instances the county-names +are repeated in some of the towns within their borders. Therefore we +fall back upon our original statement, that two thousand names are the +net product of Yankee ingenuity. It is hardly necessary to assure the +most careless reader that the vast majority of these are names of +persons. And it needs no wizard to conjecture that these are bestowed +in very unequal proportions. Here the true trouble of the +Postmaster-General and his staff begins. + +The most frequent names are, of course, those of the Presidents. The +"Father of his Country" has the honor of being god-father to no small +portion of it. For there are called after him _one_ territory, +_twenty-six_ counties, and _one hundred and thirty-eight_ towns and +villages. Adams, the next, has but _six_ counties and _twenty-six_ +towns; but his son is specially honored by a village named J.Q. Adams. +Jefferson has _seventeen_ counties and _seventy-four_ towns. Madison +has _fifteen_ counties and _forty-seven_ towns. Monroe has _sixteen_ +counties and _fifty-seven_ towns, showing that the "era of good +feeling" was extending in his day. The second Adams has one town to +himself; but the son of his father could expect no more. Jackson has +_fifteen_ counties and _one hundred and twenty-three_ towns, beside +_six_ "boroughs" and "villes,"--showing what it was to have won the +Battle of New Orleans. Van Euren gets _four_ counties and +_twenty-eight_ towns. Harrison _seven_ counties and _fifty-seven_ +towns, as becomes a log-cabin and hard-cider President. Tyler has but +_three_ counties, and not a single town, village, or hamlet even. Polk +has _five_ counties and _thirteen towns_. Taylor, _three_ counties and +_twelve_ towns. The remaining Presidents being yet in life and eligible +to a second term, it would be invidious to make further disclosures +till after the conventions. Among unsuccessful candidates there is a +vast difference in popularity. Clay has _thirty-two_ towns, and Webster +only _four_. Cass has _fourteen_, and Calhoun only _one_. Of +Revolutionary heroes, Wayne and Warren are the favorites, having +respectively _thirteen_ and _fourteen_ counties and _fifty-three_ and +_twenty-eight_ towns. But "Principles, not Men," has been at times the +American watchword; therefore there are _ten_ counties and _one hundred +and three_ towns named "Union." + +We have given the reader a dose, we fear, of statistics; but imagine +yourself, dear, patient friend, what you may yet be, Postmaster-General +of these United States, with the responsibility of providing for all +these bewildering post-offices. And we pray you to heed the absolute +poverty of invention which compelled forty-nine towns to call +themselves "Centre." Forty-nine Centres! There are towns named after +the points of compass simply,--not only the cardinal points, but the +others,--so that the census-taker may, if he likes, "box the compass," +in addition to his other duties. + +But worse than the too common names (anything but proper ones) are the +eccentric. The colors are well represented; for, beside Oil and Paint +for materials, there are Brown, Black, Blue, Green, White, Cherry, +Gray, Hazel, Plum, Rose, and Vermilion. The animals come in for their +share; for we find Alligator, Bald-Eagle, Beaver, Buck, Buffalo, Eagle, +Eel, Elk, Fawn, East-Deer and West-Deer, Bird, Fox, (in Elk County,) +Pigeon, Plover, Raccoon, Seal, Swan, Turbot, Wild-Cat, and Wolf. Then +again, the christening seems to have been preceded by the shaking in a +hat of a handful of vowels and consonants, the horrible results of +which _sortes_ appear as Alna, Cessna, Chazy, Clamo, Novi, (we suspect +the last two to be Latin verbs, out of place, and doing duty as +substantives,) Cumru, Freco, Fristo, Josco, Hamtramck, Medybemps, Haw, +Kan, Paw-Paw, Pee-Pee, Kinzua, Bono, Busti, Lagro, Letart, Lodomillo, +Moluncus, Mullica, Lomira, Neave, Oley, Orland, and the felicitous +ringing of changes which occurs in Luray, Leroy, and Leray, to say +nothing of Ballum, Bango, Helts, and Hellam. And in other unhappy +places, the spirit of whim seems to have seized upon the inhabitants. +Who would wish to write themselves citizens of Murder-Kill-Hundred, or +Cain, or of the town of Lack, which places must be on the high road to +Fugit and Constable? There are several anti-Maine-law places, such as +Tom and Jerry, Whiskeyrun, Brandywine, Jolly, Lemon, Pipe, and Pitcher, +in which Father Matthew himself could hardly reside unimpeached in +repute. They read like the names in the old-fashioned "Temperance +Tales," all allegory and alcohol, which flourished in our boyhood. + +Then, by way of counterpart to these, there are sixty-four places known +as Liberty, and thirteen as Freedom, but only one as Moral,--passing by +which, we suppose we shall come to Climax, and, thence descending, +arrive, as the whirligig of time appointeth, at Smackover, unless we +pause in Economy, or Equality, or Candor, or Fairplay. + +If we were land-hunters, we might ponder long over the town of Gratis, +unless we thought Bonus promised more. There is Extra, and, if +tautologically fond of grandeur, _Metropolis City_,--a mighty Babel of +(in 1850) _four hundred and twenty-seven_ inhabitants,--and Bigger, +which has _seven hundred_. A brisk man would hardly choose Nodaway for +his home, nor a haymaker the town of Rain. And of all practical +impertinences, what could in this land of novelty equal the calling of +one's abiding-place "New"? We fully expect that 1860 will reveal a +comparative and superlative, and perhaps even a super-superlative, +("Newest-of-all,") upon its columns. + +But what is the sense of such titles as Buckskin, Bullskin, (is it +Byrsa, by way of proving Solomon's adage,--"There is nothing new under +the sun"?) Chest, and Posey? There is one unfortunate place (do they +take the New York "Herald" and "Ledger" there?) which has "gone and got +itself christened" Mary Ann, and another (where "Childe Harold" is +doubtless in favor) is called Ada. There is a Crockery, a Carryall, and +a Turkey-Foot,--which last, like the broomstick in Goethe's ballad, is +chopped in two, only to reappear as a double nuisance, as Upper and +Lower Turkey-Foot. + +Then what paucity of ideas is revealed in the fact that a number of +names are simply common nouns, or, worse yet, spinster adjectives, +"singly blest"! Such are Hill, Mountain, Lake, Glade, Rock, Glen, Bay, +Shade, Valley, Village, District, Falls, which might profitably be +joined in holy matrimony with the following,--Grand, Noble, Plain, +Pleasant, Rich, Muddy, Barren, Fine, and Flat. + +As for one or two other unfortunates, like Bloom and Lumber, they can +only be sent to State's Prison for life, with Bean-Blossom and +Scrub-Grass. We need hardly mention that to the religious public, +including special attention to "clergymen and their families," Calvin, +Wesley, Whitefield, Tate, Brady, and Watts offer peculiar attractions. + +But there is a class of names which does gladden us, partly from their +oddity, and partly from a feeling at first sight that they are names +really suggestive of something which has happened,--and this is apt to +turn out the fact. Thus, Painted-Post, in New York, and Baton-Rouge, in +Louisiana, are honest, though quaint appellatives; Standing-Stone is +another; High-Spire, a fourth. Others of the same class provoke our +curiosity. Thus, Grand-View-and-Embarras seems to have a history. So do +Warrior's-Mark and Broken-Straw. There is one queer name, Pen-Yan, +which is said to denote the component parts of its population, +_Pen_nsylvanians and _Yan_kees; and we have hopes that Proviso is not +meaningless. Also we would give our best pen to know the true origin of +Loyal-Sock, and of Marine-Town in the inland State of Illinois. This +last is like a "shipwreck on the coast of Bohemia." There is, too, a +memorial of the Greek Revolution which tells its own story, +--Scio-and-Webster! We could hardly wish the awkward partnership +dissolved. But who will unravel the mysteries of New-Design and +New-Faul? and can any one tell us whether the fine Norman name of +Sanilac is really the euphonious substitute for Bloody-Pond? If there +be in America that excellent institution, "Notes and Queries," here is +matter for their meddling. + +But it is time to shut the book. For we are weary of picking holes in +our own _poncho_, and inclined to muse a little upon the science of +naming places. After what we have said about names growing,--_Nomen +nascitur, non fil,_--we cannot expect that the evil can be remedied by +Congress or Convention. Yet the Postal Department has fair cause of +complaint. Thus much might be required, that all the supernumerary +spots answering to the same hail should be compelled to change their +titles. Government exercises a tender supervision of the nomenclature +of our navy. Our ships of war are not permitted to disgrace the flag by +uncouth titles. Enterprising merchants have offered prizes for good +mouth-filling designations for their crack clippers, knowing that +freight and fortune often wait upon taking titles. Was the Flying Cloud +ever beaten? And in a land where all things change so lightly, why not +shake off the loosely sticking names and put on better? For at present, +the main end, that of conferring a _nomen_ or a name, something by +which the spot shall be known, has almost passed out of sight. If John +Smith, of the town of Smith, in Smith County, die, or commit forgery, +or be run for Congress, or write a book, his address might as well be +"Outis, Esq., Town of Anywhere, County of Everywhere." It concerns the +"Atlantic Monthly" not a little. For we desire, among its rapidly +multiplying subscribers, that our particular friend and kind critic, +commorant in Washington, should duly receive and enjoy this present +paper, undefrauded by any resident of the other one hundred and thirty +of the name. If we wish to mail a copy of "The Impending Crisis" to +Franklin, Vermont, we surely do not expect that it will perish by _auto +da fe_ in Franklin, Louisiana. + +But the thought comes upon us, that herein is revealed a curious defect +of the American mind. It lacks, we contend, the fine perceptive power +which belongs to the poet. It can imitate, but cannot make. It does not +seize hold upon the distinctive fact of what it looks at, and +appropriate that. Our countrymen once could do it. The stern Puritan of +New England looked upon the grassy meadows beside the Connecticut, and +found them all bubbling with fountains, and called his settlement +"Springfield." But the American has lost the elementary uses of his +mother tongue. He is perpetually inventing new abstract terms, +generalizing with boldness and power and utter contempt of usage. But +the rich idiomatic sources of his speech lie too deep for him. They are +the glory and the joy of our motherland. You may take up "Bradshaw" and +amuse yourself on the wettest day at the dullest inn, nay, even amid +the horrors of the railway station, with deciphering the hidden +meanings of its lists of names, and form for yourself the gliding +panorama of its changing scenery and historic renown. But blank, +indeed, is the American transit through Rome, Marcellus, Carthage, +Athens, Palmyra, and Geneva; and blessed the relief when the Indian +tongue comes musically in to "heal the blows of sound"! And whatever +the expectations of the "Great American Poem," the Transatlantic +"Divina Commedia" or "Iliad," which the public may entertain, we feel +certain they will not be fulfilled in our day. Take Tennyson's "Idyls +of the King," and see what beautiful beadrolls of names he can string +together from the rough Cornish and Devon coasts. Only out of a +poetic-hearted people are poets born. The peasant writes ballads, +though scholars and antiquaries collect them. The Hebrew lyric fire +blazed in myriad beacons from every landmark. The soil of Palestine is +trodden, as it were, with the footsteps of God, so eloquent are its +mountains and hamlets with these records of a nation's faith. + +But into how much of the love of home do its familiar names enter! And +we appeal to the common sense of everybody, whether those we have +quoted above are not enough to make a man ashamed of his birthplace. +They are the ear-mark of a roving, careless, selfish population, which +thinks only of mill-privileges, and never of pleasant meadows,--which +has built the ugliest dwellings and the biggest hotels of any nation, +save the Calmucks, over whom reigns the Czar. Upon the American soil +seem destined to meet and fuse the two great elements of European +civilization,--the Latin and the Saxon,--and of these two is our nation +blent. But just at present it exhibits the love of glare and finery of +the one, without its true and tender taste,--and the sturdy, practical +utilitarianism of the other, without its simple-hearted, home-loving +poetry. The boy is a great boy,--awkward, ungainly, and in the way; but +he has eyes, tongue, feet, and hands to some (future) purpose. And that +in good taste, good sense, refinement, and hopeful culture, our big boy +has been growing, we hope will be apparent, even in the matter of +"calling names," from the pages of the next census. + +We have but a word more, in the way of finale. We have not been +romancing. Everything we have set down here we have truly looked up +there, in the volume furnished by Mr. De Bow. He, not we, must be held +answerable for any and all scarce credible names which are found +wanting in a local habitation. We have counted duly and truly the +fine-printed pages, from which task we pray that the kind Fates may +keep the reader. + +Yet, if he doubt, and care to explore the original mine whence our +specimen petrifactions have been dug, he will find that we have by no +means exhausted the supply; and that there are many most curious and +suggestive facts, not contained in the statistics or intended by the +compiler, which are embraced in the CENSUS REPORTS. + + + + +BARDIC SYMBOLS. + + +I. + +Elemental drifts! +Oh, I wish I could impress others as you and the waves have just been + impressing me! + +II. + +As I ebbed with an ebb of the ocean of life, +As I wended the shores I know, +As I walked where the sea-ripples wash you, Paumanok, +Where they rustle up, hoarse and sibilant, +Where the fierce old mother endlessly cries for her castaways, +I, musing, late in the autumn day, gazing off southward, +Alone, held by the eternal self of me that threatens to get the better + of me and stifle me, +Was seized by the spirit that trails in the lines underfoot, +In the ruin, the sediment, that stands for all the water and all the + land of the globe. + +III. + +Fascinated, my eyes, reverting from the south, dropped, to follow those + slender windrows, +Chaff, straw, splinters of wood, weeds, and the sea-gluten, +Scum, scales from shining rocks, leaves of salt-lettuce, left by the tide. + +IV. + +Miles walking, the sound of breaking waves the other side of me, +Paumanok, there and then as I thought the old thought of likenesses, +These you presented to me, you fish-shaped island, +As I wended the shores I know, +As I walked with that eternal self of me, seeking types. + +V. + +As I wend the shores I know not, +As I listen to the dirge, the voices of men and women wrecked, +As I inhale the impalpable breezes that set in upon me, +As the ocean so mysterious rolls toward me closer and closer, +At once I find, the least thing that belongs to me, or that I see or + touch, I know not; +I, too, but signify a little washed-up drift,--a few sands and dead + leaves to gather, +Gather, and merge myself as part of the leaves and drift. + +VI. + +Oh, baffled, lost, +Bent to the very earth, here preceding what follows, +Terrified with myself that I have dared to open my mouth, +Aware now, that, amid all the blab whose echoes recoil upon me, I have not + once had the least idea who or what I am, +But that before all my insolent poems the real me still stands + untouched, untold, altogether unreached, +Withdrawn far, mocking me with mock-congratulatory signs and bows, +With peals of distant ironical laughter at every word I have written or + shall write, +Striking me with insults, till I fall helpless upon the sand! + +VII. + +Oh, I think I have not understood anything,--not a single object,--and + that no man ever can! + +VIII. + +I think Nature here, in sight of the sea, is taking advantage of me to + oppress me, +Because I was assuming so much, +And because I have dared to open my mouth to sing at all. + +IX. + +You oceans both! You tangible land! Nature! +Be not too stern with me,--I submit,--I close with you,-- +These little shreds shall, indeed, stand for all. + +X. + +You friable shore, with trails of debris! +You fish-shaped island! I take what is underfoot: +What is yours is mine, my father! + +XI. + +I, too, Paumanok, +I, too, have bubbled up, floated the measureless float, and been + washed on your shores. + +XII. + +I, too, am but a trail of drift and debris,-- +I, too, leave little wrecks upon you, you fish-shaped island! + +XIII. + +I throw myself upon your breast, my father! +I cling to you so that you cannot unloose me,-- +I hold you so firm, till you answer me something. + +XIV. + +Kiss me, my father! +Touch me with your lips, as I touch those I love! +Breathe to me, while I hold you close, the secret of the wondrous + murmuring I envy! +For I fear I shall become crazed, if I cannot emulate it, and utter + myself as well as it. + +XV. + +Sea-raff! Torn leaves! +Oh, I sing, some day, what you have certainly said to me! + +XVI. + +Ebb, ocean of life! (the flow will return,)-- +Cease not your moaning, you fierce old mother! +Endlessly cry for your castaways! Yet fear not, deny not me,-- +Rustle not up so hoarse and angry against my feet, as I touch you, + or gather from you. + +XVII. + +I mean tenderly by you,-- +I gather for myself, and for this phantom, looking down where we lead, + and following me and mine. + +XVIII. + +Me and mine! +We, loose windrows, little corpses, +Froth, snowy white, and bubbles, +Tufts of straw, sands, fragments, +Buoyed hither from many moods, one contradicting another, +From the storm, the long calm, the darkness, the swell, +Musing, pondering, a breath, a briny tear, a dab of liquid or soil, +Up just as much out of fathomless workings fermented and thrown, +A limp blossom or two, torn, just as much over waves floating, + drifted at random, +Just as much for us that sobbing dirge of Nature, +Just as much, whence we come, that blare of the cloud-trumpets,-- +We, capricious, brought hither, we know not whence, spread out before + you,--you, up there, walking or sitting, +Whoever you are,--we, too, lie in drifts at your feet. + + + + +HUNTING A PASS: + +A SKETCH OF TROPICAL ADVENTURE. + + +PRELIMINARY. + +Reader, take down your map, and, starting at the now well-known Isthmus +of Panama, run your finger northward along the coast of the Pacific, +until, in latitude 13 deg. north, it shall rest on a fine body of water, or +rather the "counterfeit presentment" thereof, which projects far into +the land, and is designated as the Bay of Fonseca. If your map be of +sufficient scale and moderately exact, you will find represented there +two gigantic volcanoes, standing like warders at the entrance of this +magnificent bay. That on the south is called Coseguina, memorable for +its fearful eruption in 1835; that on the north is named Conchagua or +Amapala, taller than Coseguina, but long extinct, and covered to its +top with verdure. It is remarkable for its regularity of outline and +the narrowness of its apex. On this apex, a mere sugar-loaf crown, are +a _vigia_ or look-out station, and a signal-staff, whence the approach +of vessels is telegraphed to the port of La Union, at the base of the +volcano. A rude hut, half-buried in the earth, and loaded down with +heavy stones, to prevent it from being blown clean away, or sent +rattling down the slopes of the mountain, is occupied by the look-out +man,--an old Indian muffled up to his nose; for it is often bitter cold +at this elevation, and there is no wood wherewith to make a fire. Were +it not for that jar or _tinaja_ of _aguardiente_ which the old man +keeps so snugly in the corner of his burrow, he would have withered up +long ago, like the mummies of the Great Saint Bernard. + +But I am not going to work up the old man of the _vigia_; for he was of +little consequence on the 10th day of April, 1853, except as a +wondering spectator on the top of Conchagua, in a group consisting of +an ex-minister of the United States, an officer of the American navy, +and an artist from the good city of New York, to whose ready pencil a +grateful country owes many of the illustrations of tropical scenery +which have of late years lent their interest to popular periodicals and +books of adventure. I might have added to this enumeration the tall, +dark figure of Dolores, servant and guide; but Dolores, with a good +sense which never deserted him, had no sooner disencumbered his +shoulders of his load of provisions, than he bestowed himself in the +burrow, out of the wind, and possibly not far from the _aguardiente_. + +The utilitarian reader will ask, at once, the motive of this gathering +on the top of the volcano of Conchagua, five thousand feet above the +sea, wearily attained at no small expenditure of effort and +perspiration. Was it love of adventure merely? ambition to do something +whereof to brag about to admiring aunts or country cousins? Hardly. The +beauty of the wonderful panorama which spreads before the group of +strangers is too much neglected, their instruments are too carefully +adjusted and noted, and their consultations are far too earnest and +protracted, to admit of either supposition. The old man of the _vigia_, +as I have said, was a wondering spectator. He wondered why the eyes of +the strangers, glasses as well as eyes, and theodolites as well as +glasses, should all be directed across the bay, across the level +grounds beyond it, far away to the blue line of the Cordilleras, +cutting the clear sky with their serrated outline. He does not observe +that deep notch in the great backbone of the continent, as regular as +the cleft which the pioneer makes in felling a forest-tree; nor does he +observe that the breeze which ripples the waters at the foot of the +volcano is the north wind sweeping all the way from the Bay of Honduras +through that break in the mountain range, which everywhere else, as far +as the eye can reach, presents a high, unbroken barrier to its passage +to the Pacific. Yet it is simply to determine the bearings of that +notch in the Cordilleras, to fix the positions of the leading features +of the intervening country, and to verify the latitude and longitude of +the old man's flag-staff itself, as a point of departure for future +explorations, that the group of strangers is gathered on the top of +Conchagua. + +And now, O reader, run your finger due north from the Bay of Fonseca, +straight to the Bay of Honduras, and it will pass, in a figurative way, +through the notch I have described, and through the pass of which we +were in search. You will see, if your map be accurate, that in or near +that pass two large rivers have their rise; one, the Humuya, flows +almost due north into the Atlantic, and the other, the Goascoran, +nearly due south into the Pacific,--together constituting, with the +plain of Comayagua, a great transverse valley extending across the +continent from sea to sea. Through this valley, commencing at Port +Cortes, on the north, and terminating on the Bay of Fonseca on the +south, American enterprise and English capital have combined to +construct a railway, designed to afford a new, if not a shorter and +better route of transit across the continent, between New York and San +Francisco, and between Great Britain and Australia. + +But when we stood on the top of Conchagua, on the 10th day of April, +1853, the existence of a pass through the mountains, as well as of that +great transverse valley of which I have spoken, was only inferentially +known. In fact, the whole interior of Honduras was unexplored; its +geography was not understood; its scenery had never been described; its +towns and cities were scarcely known even by name; and its people lived +in almost as profound a seclusion from the world at large as the +dwellers on the banks of the Niger and the Zambezi. It is not, however, +to bore you, O reader, with all the details of our surveys, nor to +bother you with statistics, that I write; for, verily, are not these all +set down in a book? But it is rather to amuse you with the incidents of +our explorations, our quaint encounters with a quaint people of still +quainter manners and habits and with ideas quainter than all, and to +present you with a picture of a country and a society interesting equally +in themselves and from their strong contrasts with our own,--I say, it is +rather with these objects that I invite you, O reader, to join our little +party, and participate in the manifold adventures of "HUNTING A PASS." + + +CHAPTER I. + +The port of La Union, our point of departure, is in the little Republic +of San Salvador, which, in common with Nicaragua and Honduras, touches +on the Bay of Fonseca. It is built near the head of a subordinate bay, +of the same name with itself, at the foot of the volcano of Conchagua, +which rises between it and the sea, cutting it off from the +ocean-breezes, and rendering it, in consequence, comparatively hot and +unhealthy. It is a small town, with a population scarcely exceeding +fifteen hundred souls; but it is, nevertheless, the most important port +of San Salvador. Here, during the season of the great fairs of San +Miguel, may be seen vessels of nearly all the maritime nations, +--broad-hulled and sleepy-looking ships from the German +free-cities, taut American clippers, sturdy English brigs, and even +Peruvian and Genoese nondescripts, with crews in red nightcaps. + +At this time La Union holds high holiday; its _Comandante_, content at +other times to lounge about in the luxury of a real undress uniform, +now puts on his broadcloth and sash, and sustains a sweltering dignity; +while all the brown girls of the place, arrayed in their gayest +apparel, wage no timorous war on the hearts and pockets of too +susceptible skippers. "Ah, me!" exclaimed our landlady, "is it not +terrible? Excepting the Senora D. and myself, there is not a married +woman in La Union!" "One wouldn't think so," soliloquized the +_Teniente_, as he gazed reflectively into the street, where a dozen +naked children, squatting in the sand, disputed the freedom of the +highway with a score of lean dogs and bow-backed pigs of voracious +appetites. + +To me there was nothing specially new in La Union. The three years +which had elapsed since my previous visit had not been marked by any +great architectural achievement, and although the same effective +chain-gang of two convicts seemed still to be occupied with the mole, +the advance in that great public work was not perceptible to the eye. +My old host and hostess were also the same,--a shade older in +appearance, perhaps, but with hearts as warm and hospitalities as +lavish as before. Only "La Gringita" had changed from the doe-eyed +child of easy confidences into a quiet and somewhat distant girl, full +in figure, and with a glance which sometimes betrayed the glow of +latent, but as yet unconscious passion. In these sunny climes the bud +blossoms and the young fruit ripens in a single day. + +With my companions, however, the case was different. The _Teniente_ +could never cease being surprised that the commercial and naval +facilities of the splendid bay before us had been so long overlooked. +"What a place for a naval station, with its spacious and secure +anchorages, abundant water, and facilities for making repairs and +obtaining supplies! Why, all the fleets of the globe might assemble +here, and never foul spars or come across each other's hawsers! What a +site, just in that little bay, for a ship-yard! The bottom is pure +sand, and there are full ten fathoms of water within a hundred yards of +the shore! And then those high islands protecting the entrance! A fort +on that point and a battery over yonder would close in the whole bay, +with its five hundred square miles of area, against every invader, and +make it as safe as Cronstadt!" But what astonished the _Teniente_ more +than anything else was, not that the English had seized the bay in +1849, but that they had ever given it up afterwards. "Bull should +certainly abandon his filibustering habits, or else stick to his +plunder; the example was a bad one for his offspring!" + +And as for H., our artist, he, too, was surprised at all times and +about everything. It surprised him "to hear mere children talk +Spanish!" To be able to help himself to oranges from the tree without +paying for them surprised him; so did the habit of sleeping in +hammocks, and the practice of dressing children in the cheap and airy +garb of a straw hat and cigar! He was surprised that he should come to +see "a real volcano, like that of San Miguel, with real smoke rolling +up from its mysterious depths; but what surprised him most was, that +they should give him pieces of soap by way of making change in the +market, and that he could buy a boat-load of oysters for a shilling!" + +As for Don Henrique, who had resided twenty years in Nicaragua, he was +only surprised at the surprise of others. He had a quiet, imperturbable +contempt for the country and everything in it, was satisfied with a +cool corridor and cigar, and had no ambition beyond that of some day +returning to Paris. Above all, he was a foe to unnecessary exertion. + +The ascent of Conchagua was the most important incident of our stay in +La Union, both in the excitements of the scramble and in the +satisfactory nature of our observations from its summit. We left the +port in the afternoon, with the view of passing the night in the +highest hut on the mountain-side, so as to reach the summit early in +the morning, and thus secure time for our observations. Dona Maria had +given us her own well-trained servant, Dolores, who afterwards became a +most important member of our little party; and he was now loaded down +with baskets and bottles, while the _Teniente_, H., and myself +undertook the responsible charge of the instruments. + +Our path was one seldom travelled, and was exceedingly rough and +narrow. Here it would wind down into one of the deep ravines which seam +the mountain near its base, and, after following the little stream +which trickled at its bottom for a short distance, turn abruptly up the +opposite side, and run for a while along a crest or ridge of _scoriae_ +or disintegrated lava, only, however, to plunge into another ravine +beyond. And thus alternately scrambling up and down, yet gradually +ascending diagonally, we worked our way towards the hut where we were +to pass the night. The slopes of the mountain were already in shadow, +and the gloom of the dense forests and of the deep ravines was so +profound, that we might have persuaded ourselves that night had fallen, +had we not heard the cheerful notes of unseen birds that were nestling +among the tree-tops. After two hours of ascent, the slope of the +mountain became more abrupt and decided, the ravines shallower, and the +intervening ridges less elevated. The forest, too, became more open, +and the trees smaller and less encumbered with vines, and between them +we could catch occasional glimpses of the bay, with its waters golden +under the slant rays of the declining sun. Finally we came to a kind of +terrace or shelf of the mountain, with here and there little patches of +ground, newly cleared, and black from the recent burning of the +undergrowth,--the only preparation made by the Indian cultivator for +planting his annual maize-crop. He has never heard of a plough; a staff +shod with iron, with which he pries a hole in the earth for the +reception of the seed, is the only agricultural implement with which he +is acquainted. When the young blade appears, he may possibly lop away +the tree-sprouts and rank weeds with his _machete_: but all the rest he +leaves to Nature, and the care of those unseen protectors of the harvest +whom he propitiates in the little church of Conehagua by the offering of a +candle, and in the depth of the forest, in some secluded spot of +ancient sanctity, by libations of _chicha_, poured out, with strange +dances, at the feet of some rudely sculptured idol which his fathers +venerated before him, and which he inwardly believes will come out "all +right" in the end, notwithstanding its present disgrace and the Padre's +denunciations. + +The mountain terrace which we had now reached is three thousand feet +above the sea, half a mile long, of varying width, and seems to be the +top of some great bed of _scoriae_ which long ago slipped down on an +inclined plane of lava to its present level. Whatever its origin, it is +certainly a beautiful spot, thinly covered with trees, and carpeted +with grass, on which, at the time of our visit, a few cows were +grazing, while half a dozen goats gazed at us in motionless surprise +from the gray rocks to which they had retreated on our approach. We +found the hut in which we were to rest for the night perched on the +very edge of the terrace, where it overlooked the whole expanse of the +bay, with its high islands and purple shores. At this airy height, and +open to every breeze, its inhabitants enjoy a delicious temperature; +and I could well understand how it was that Dona Maria, notwithstanding +the difficulties of the ascent, often came up here to escape the +debilitating heats of the port, and enjoy the magnificent prospect. The +dwellers on this mountain-perch consisted of an old man with his two +sons and their wives, and a consequent round dozen of children, all of +whom gave Dolores the cordial welcome of an old friend, which was +reflected on his companions with equal warmth. Our mules were quickly +unsaddled and cared for, and our instruments carefully suspended +beneath a rough shed of poles covered with branches of trees, which +stood before the hut, and answered the purpose of a corridor in keeping +off the sun. Here also we chose to swing our hammocks; for the hut +itself was none of the largest, and, having but a single room, would +require packing more closely than suited our tastes, in order to afford +us the narrowest accommodation. It is true, the two Benedicts +volunteered to sleep outside with Dolores, and resign the interior to +the old man, the women, the children, and the strangers. But the +_Teniente_ thought there would be scant room, even if we had the whole +to ourselves; while H. was overcome by "the indelicacy of the +suggestion." + +The sunset that evening was one of transcendent beauty, heightened by +the thousand-hued reflections from the masses of clouds which had been +piling up, all the afternoon, around the distant mountains of Honduras, +and which Dolores told us betokened the approach of the rainy season. +Bathed in crimson and gold, they shed a glowing haze over the +intervening country, and were reproduced in the broad mirror of the bay +below us, so that we seemed to be suspended and floating in an +Iris-like sea of light and beauty. But night falls rapidly under the +tropics; the sunsets are as brief as they are brilliant; and as soon as +the sun had sunk below the horizon, the gorgeous colors rapidly faded +away, leaving only leaden clouds on the horizon and a sullen body of +water at our feet. + +A love of music seems to be universal among all classes in Central +America, especially among the _Ladinos_ or mixed population. And it is +scarcely possible to find a house, down to the meanest hut, that does +not possess a violin or guitar, or, in default of these, a mandolin, on +which one or more of its inmates are able to perform with considerable +skill, and often with taste and feeling. The violin, however, is +esteemed most highly, and its fortunate possessor cherishes it above +wife or children, he keeps it with his white buckskin shoes, red sash, +and only embroidered shirt, in the solitary trunk with cyclopean lock +and antediluvian key, which goes so far, in Central American economy, +to make up the scanty list of domestic furniture. The youngest of our +hosts was the owner of one of these instruments, of European +manufacture, which had cost him, I dare say, many a load of maize, +wearily carried on his naked back down to the port. As the evening +advanced, he produced it, with an air of satisfaction, from its secure +depository, and, leaning against a friendly tree, gave us a specimen of +his skill. It is true, we did not expect much from our swarthy friend, +whose only garment was his trousers of cotton cloth, tucked up above +his knees; and we were therefore all the more surprised, when, after +some preliminary tuning of the instrument, he pressed the bow on its +strings with a firm and practised hand, and led us, with masterly +touch, through some of the finest melodies of our best operas. Very few +amateurs of any country, with all their advantages of instruction, +could equal the skill of that poor dweller on the flank of the volcano +of Conchagua; none certainly could surpass him in the delicacy and +feeling of his execution. H., on whom, as an artist, and himself no +mean musician, we had already devolved the task of being enthusiastic +and demonstrative over matters of this kind, applauded vehemently, and +cried, "_Bravo!_" and "_Encore!_" and ended in convincing us of the +reality of his delight, by pressing his brandy-flask into the hands of +the performer, and urging him to "drink it all, every drop, and then +give us another!" Our mountain Paganini, I fear, interpreted the behest +too literally; or else H.'s enthusiasm never afterwards rose to so high +a pitch; at any rate, he was never known to manifest it in so expansive +a manner. + +"And where did your friend learn his music?" + +He had caught it up, he said, from time to time, as he had floated, +with his canoe-load of plantains, chickens, and yucas, around the +vessels-of-war that occasionally visit the port; neglecting his +traffic, no doubt, in eagerly listening to the music of the bands or +the individual performances of the officers. He had had no instructor, +except "_un pobre Italiano_," who came to La Union with an exhibition +of _fantoccini_, died there of fever, and was buried like a Christian +in the Campo Santo adjoining the church: and Paganini removed his hat +reverentially, and made the sign of the cross on his swarthy bosom. And +now, most incredulous of readers, are you answered? + +During the night we were visited by the first storm of the season, and +it opened the flood-gates of the skies right grandly, with booming +thunders and blinding lightning, and a dash of rain that came through +our imperfect shelter as through a sieve. Driven inside the hut, where +we contested the few square feet of bare earthen floor with the pigs +and pups of the establishment, we passed a most miserable night, and +were glad to rise with the earliest dawn,--ourselves to continue our +ascent of the mountain, and our hosts to plant their mountain _milpas_, +while the ground was yet moist from the midnight rain. They told us +that the maize, if put into the earth immediately after the first rain +of the season, was always more vigorous and productive than that +planted afterwards; why they knew not; but "so it had been told them by +their fathers." + +The air was deliciously fresh and cool, and the foliage of the trees +seemed almost pulsating with life and light under the morning sun, as +we bade our hosts "_A Dios!_" and resumed our course up the mountain. +There was no longer any path, and we had to pick our way as we were +able, among blocks of blistered rocks, over fallen trunks of trees, and +among gnarled oaks, which soon began to replace the more luxuriant +vegetation of the lower slopes. H., dragged from his mule by a scraggy +limb, was shocked to find that the first inquiry of his companions was +not about the safety of his neck, but of the barometer. At the end of +an hour, the ascent becoming every moment more abrupt, we had passed +the belt of trees and bushes, and reached the smooth and scoriaceous +cone, which, during the rainy season, appears from the bay to be +covered with a velvety mantle of green. It was now black and +forbidding, from the recent burning of the dry grass or _sacate_, and +so steep as to render direct ascent impossible. I proposed to leave the +mules and proceed on foot, but the _Teniente_ entered a solemn protest +against anything of the sort:--"If the mules couldn't carry him up, he +couldn't go; his family was affected with hereditary palpitation of the +heart, and if any one of them suffered more from it than the others, he +was the unfortunate victim! Climbing elevations of any kind, and +mountains in particular, brought on severe attacks; and we might as +well understand, at once, that, if in 'Hunting a Pass' there was any +climbing to be done, some one else must do it!" And here I may mention +a curious fact, probably hitherto unknown to the faculty, which was +developed in our subsequent explorations, namely, that palpitation of +the heart is contagious. H. was attacked with it on our third day out, +and Don Henrique had formidable symptoms at sight of the merest +hillock. + +Under the lead of Dolores, by judicious zig-zagging, and by glow and +painful advances, we finally reached the _vigia_,--the mules thoroughly +blown, but the _Teniente_ and the instruments safe. The latter were +speedily set up, and the observations, which were to exercise so +important an influence as a basis for our future operations, +satisfactorily made. We found the mountain to be 4860 feet above the +sea, barometrical admeasurement, and the flagstaff itself in latitude +13 deg. 18' N. and longitude 87 deg. 45' W. We obtained bearings on nearly all +the volcanic cones on the plain of Leon, as also on many of the +detached mountain-peaks of Honduras and San Salvador, as the +commencement of a system of triangulations which subsequently enabled +us to construct the first map of the country at all approximating to +accuracy. At noon on the day of our visit, the thermometer marked a +temperature of 16 deg. of Fahrenheit below that of the port. + +It is a singular circumstance, that Captain Sir Edward Belcher, who +surveyed the Bay of Fonseca in 1838, speaks of Conchagua as a mountain +exhibiting no evidences of volcanic origin. Apart from its form, which +is itself conclusive on that point, its lower slopes are ridged all +over with dikes of lava, some of which come down to the water's edge, +in rugged, black escarpments. The mountain had two summits: one +comparatively broad and rugged, with a huge crater, and a number of +smaller vents; and a second and higher one, nearest the bay,--the +_ash-heap_ of the volcano proper, on which the _vigia_ is erected, and +whence our observations were made. This is a sugar-loaf in form, with +steep sides, and at its summit scarcely affording standing-room for a +dozen horsemen. It is connected with the main part of the mountain by a +narrow ridge, barely broad enough for a mule-path, with treeless slopes +on either hand, so steep, that, on our return, the _Teniente_ preferred +risking an attack of "palpitation" to riding along its crest. + +After loosening several large stones from the side of the cone, and +watching them bound down the steep declivity, dashing the _scoriae_ like +spray before them, and bearing down the dwarf trees in their path like +grass beneath the mower's scythe, until they rumbled away with many a +crash in the depths of the forest at the base of the mountain, and +after making over to the grateful old man of the _vigia_ the remnants +of Dona Maria's profusion in the shape of sandwiches and cold chicken, +we commenced our descent, taking the shorter path by which I had +descended three years before. It conducted us past the great spring of +Yololtoca, to which the Indian girls of the _pueblo_ of Conchagua, +three miles distant, still come to get their water, and down the +ancient path and over the rocks worn smooth by the naked feet of their +mothers and their mothers' mothers, until, at six o'clock in the +afternoon, we defiled, tired and hungry, into the sweltering streets of +La Union. Oysters _ad libitum_, (which, being translated, means as fast +as three men could open them,) one of Dona Maria's best dinners, and a +bath in the bay at bedtime calmed our appetites and restored our +energies, and we went to sleep with the gratified consciousness that we +had successfully taken the first step in the prosecution of our great +enterprise. + +I have alluded to the oysters of La Union; but I should prove +ungrateful indeed, after the manifold delicious repasts which they +afforded us, were I to deny them the tribute of a paragraph. It is +generally believed that the true oyster of our shores is found nowhere +else, or at least only in northern latitudes. But an exception must be +made in favor of the waters of the Bay of Fonseca. Here they are found +in vast beds, in all the subordinate bays where the streams deposit +their sediment, and where, with the rise and fall of the tide, they +obtain that alternation of salt and brackish water which seems to be +necessary to their perfection. They are the same rough-coated, +delicious mollusks as those of our own coasts, and by no means to be +degraded by a comparison with the muddy, long-bearded, and, to +Christian palates, coppery abominations of the British Islands, which +in their flattened shape and scalloped edges seem to betray an impure +ancestry,--in point of fact, to be a bad cross between the scallop and +the oyster. + +At low tide some of the beds are nearly bare, and then the Indians take +them up readily with their hands. The ease with which they may be got +will appear from the circumstance, that for some time after our arrival +we paid but a real (twelve and a half cents) for each canoe-load, of +from five to six bushels. The people of La Union seldom use them, and +we were therefore able to establish the "ruling rates." They continued +at a real a load, until H., with reckless generosity, one day paid our +improvised oyster-man two reals for his cargo, who thereupon, appealing +to this bad precedent, refused to go out, unless previously assured of +receiving the advanced rate. This led to the immediate arrest of H., on +an indictment charging him with "wilfully and maliciously combining and +conniving with one Juan Sanchez, (colored,) to put up the price of the +necessaries of life in La Union, in respect of the indispensable +article vulgarly known as _ostrea Virginiana_, but in the language of +the law and of science designated as oysters." On this indictment he +was summarily tried, and, in consequence of aggravating his offence by +an attempt at exculpation, was condemned to suffer the full penalties +of the law, in such cases provided, namely, "to pay the entire cost of +all the oysters that might thenceforth be consumed by the prosecuting +parties and the court, and, at eleven o'clock, past meridian, to be +taken from his bed, thence to the extremity of the mole, and there +_inducted_." Which sentence was carried into rigorous execution. Nor +was he allowed to resume his former rank in the party, until, by a +masterly piece of diplomacy, he organized an opposition oyster-boat, +and a consequent competition, which soon brought Juan Sanchez to terms, +and oysters to their just market-value. + +That the aboriginal dwellers around the Bay of Fonseca appreciated its +conchological treasures, we had afterwards ample evidence; for at many +places on its islands and shores we found vast heaps of oyster-shells, +which seemed to have been piled up as reverent reminiscences of the +satisfaction which their contents had afforded. + +During my previous visit to La Union, in March, 1850, I had observed +that the north winds, which prevail during that month in the Bay of +Honduras, sometimes sweep entirely across the continent with such force +as to raise a considerable sea in the Bay of Fonseca. I thence inferred +that there must exist a pass or break in the great mountain-range of +the Cordilleras, through which the wind could have an uninterrupted or +but partially interrupted sweep. This was confirmed by the fact that +the current of air which reached the bay was narrow, affecting only a +width of about ten or twelve miles. This circumstance impressed me at +that time only as indicating a remarkable topographical feature of the +country; but afterwards, when the impracticability of a canal at +Nicaragua and the deficiencies in respect of ports for a railway at +Tehuantepec had become established, I was led to reflect upon it in +connection with a plan for inter-oceanic communication by railway +through Honduras; and, as explained in the introduction, we were now +here to test the accuracy of my previous conclusions. Our observations +at the top of Conchagua had signally confirmed them. + +We could distinctly make out the existence of a great valley extending +due north, and our glasses revealed a marked depression in the +Cordilleras, which in all the maps were represented as maintaining here +the character of a high, unbroken range. Of course no such valley as +opened before us could exist without a considerable stream flowing +through it. But the maps showed neither valley nor river. This +circumstance did not, however, discourage us; for my former travels and +explorations in Nicaragua had shown me, that, notwithstanding the +country had occupied the attention of geographers for more than three +centuries, in connection with a project for a canal between the oceans, +its leading and most obvious physical features were still either +grossly misconceived or utterly unknown. + +The leading fact of the existence of some kind of a pass having been +sufficiently established by our observations from Conchagua, we next +set to work to obtain such information from the natives as might assist +our further proceedings. This was a tedious task, and called for the +exercise of all our patience; for it is impossible to convey in +language an adequate idea of the abject ignorance of most of the +inhabitants of Central America concerning its geography and +topographical features. Those who would naturally be supposed to be +best informed, the priests, merchants, and lawyers, are really the most +ignorant, and it is only from the _arrieros_, or muleteers, and the +_correos_, or runners, that any knowledge of this kind can be obtained, +and then only in a very confused form, and with most preposterous and +contradictory estimates of distances and elevations. + +We nevertheless made out that the mouth of a river or _estero_, laid +down in Sir Edward Belcher's chart, on the opposite side of the bay in +front of La Union, was really that of the river Goascoran, a +considerable stream having its rise at a point due north, and not far +from Comayagua, the capital of Honduras, which, we also ascertained, +was seated in the midst of a great plain, bearing the same name. A +large stream, it was said, flowed past that city,--but whether the +Goascoran or some other, or whether it flowed north or south, neither +_arriero_ nor _correo_ could tell. + +The navigability of the Goascoran was also a doubtful question. +According to some, it could be forded everywhere; others declared it +impassable for many leagues above its mouth: a discrepancy which we +were able to reconcile by reference to its probable state at different +seasons of the year. + +Fixing an early day for taking the field in earnest, and leaving H. and +Don Henrique to make the necessary preparations, I improved the +interval, in company with Lieutenant J., in making a boat exploration +of the Goascoran. Obtaining a ship's gig, with two oarsmen and a supply +of provisions, we left La Union at dawn on the 15th of April. We found +that the river enters the bay by a number of channels, through low +grounds covered with mangrove-trees. It was at half-tide, and we +experienced no difficulty in entering. Our course at first was +tortuous, and it seemed as if the river had lost itself in a labyrinth +of channels, and we were ourselves much confused with regard to our +true direction. Keeping, however, in the strongest current, at the end +of half an hour we penetrated beyond the little delta of the river, and +the belt of mangroves, to firm ground. Here the stream was confined to +a single channel two hundred yards broad, with banks of clay and loam +from six to ten feet high. The lands back appeared to be level, and, +although well covered with ordinary forest-trees, were apparently +subject to overflow. We observed cattle in several grassy openings, and +here and there a _vaquero's_ hut of branches; for it is a general +practice of the _hacienderos_ to drive down their herds to the low +grounds of the coasts and rivers, during the dry season, and as soon as +the grass on the hills or highlands begins to grow sere and yellow. We +observed also occasional heaps of oyster-shells on the banks, or half +washed away by the river; and on the sand-spits at the bends of the +stream, and in all the little shady nooks of the shore, we saw +thousands of water-fowl, ducks of almost every variety, including the +heavy muscovy and the lively teal; and there were flocks of white and +crimson ibises, and solitary, long-legged, contemplative cranes, and +gluttonous pelicans; while myriads of screaming curlews scampered along +the line of the receding tide to snap up imprudent snails and the +numerous minute _crustaceae_ which drift about in these brackish waters. +The familiar kingfisher was also there, coming down with an occasional +arrowy dash on some unsuspecting minnow, and then flapping away +leisurely for a quiet meal in the shady recesses of a neighboring tree. + +We fired on a flock of ducks, killing a number and wounding others, all +of which we secured except one which struggled away into an eddy under +the bank. We pushed in, and my hand was extended to pick him up, when a +slimy, corrugated head, with distended jaws and formidable teeth, rose +to the surface before me, paused an instant, then shot forward, and, +closing on the wounded bird, disappeared. The whole was done so quickly +as to escape the notice of my companions, who would hardly believe me +when I told them that we had been robbed by an alligator. We lost a +duck, but gained an admonition; and I scarcely need add that our +half-formed purpose of taking a bath in the next cool bend of the river +was abandoned. + +When the tide had run out, we were able to form a better notion of the +river. We found, that, although near the end of the dry season, it was +still a fine stream, with a large body of water, but spread over so +wide a channel as to preclude anything like useful navigation, except +with artificial aids. In places it was so shallow that our little boat +found difficulty in advancing. But this did not disappoint us; for +nothing like a mixed transit with transhipments had ever entered into +my plan, which looked only to an unbroken connection by rail from one +sea to the other. At four o'clock, satisfied that no useful purpose +could be effected by going farther up the stream, we stopped at a +collection of huts called Las Sandias,--not inappropriately, for the +whole sloping bank of the river, which here appeared to be little +better than a barren sand-bed, was covered, for a quarter of a mile, +with a luxuriant crop of water- and musk-melons, now in their +perfection. We purchased as many as we could carry off for a _real_. +They were full, rich, and juicy, and proved to be a grateful +restorative, after our day's exposure to the direct rays of the sun, +and their scarcely less supportable reflection from the water. The +melon-patch of Las Sandias is overflowed daring the rainy season, and +probably the apparently bare, sandy surface hides rich deposits of soil +below. + +We found the stream here alive with an active and apparently voracious +fish, varying in length from fourteen to twenty inches, reddish in +color, and closely resembling the Snapper of the Atlantic coast of +Central America. The male inhabitants of Las Sandias were occupied in +catching these fishes with hand-nets, in the rifts and currents; and +the women were busy in cleaning and drying them. Their offal had +accumulated around the huts in offensive heaps, and gave out an odor +which was almost insupportable, but of which the women appeared to take +no notice. We did not, therefore, trespass long on their hospitality, +but returned to our boat and started back to La Union. As night came +on, the trees along the river's bank were thronged with _chachalacas_, +which almost deafened us with their querulous screams. Two +well-directed shots gave us half a dozen,--for the young _chachalaca_ +is not to be despised on the table,--and we added them to our stock of +water-fowls and melons as tempting trophies to our companions from the +new Canaan on which they were venturing. + + +[To be continued.] + + + + +KEPLER. + + +The acceptance of a doctrine is often out of all proportion to the +authority that fortifies it. There are sweeps of generalization quite +permeable to objection, which yet find metaphysical support; there are +irrefragable dogmas which the mind drops as futile and fruitless. It is +recorded of Harvey's discovery of the circulation of the blood, that it +found reception from no physician then over forty years old. We believe +the splendid nebular construction of Laplace has its own difficulties; +yet what noble or aspiring mind does not find interior warranties for +the truth of that audacious synthesis? Is it that the soul darts +responsive impartments to the heavens? that the whirl is elemental in +the mind? that baffling intervals stretch deeper within us, and shoals +of stars with no parallax appear? + +Among the functions of Science, then, may well be included its power as +a metre of the intellectual advance of mankind. In these splendid +symbols man writes the record of his advancing humanity. How all is +interwoven with the All! A petrified national mind will certainly +appear in a petrified national Science. And that sublime upsurging from +the depths of human nature which came with the last half of the +eighteenth century appeared not alone in the new political and social +aspirations, but in a fresh insight into Nature. This spirit manifested +itself in the new sciences that sprang from the new modes of +vision,--Magnetism, Electricity, Chemistry,--the old crystalline spell +departing before a dynamical system of Physics, before the thought of +the universe as a living organic whole. And what provokers does the +discovery of the celestial circles bring to new circles of politics and +social life! + +The illustrations of Astronomy to this thought are very large. First of +the sciences to assume a perfectly rational form, it presents the +eternal type of the unfolding of the speculative spirit of man. This +springs, no doubt, from the essentially subjective character of +astronomy,--more than all the other sciences a construction of the +creative reason. From the initiative of scientific astronomy, when the +early Greek geometers referred the apparent diurnal movements to +geometrical laws, to the creation of the nebular hypothesis, the +logical filiation of the leading astronomical conceptions obeys +corresponding tidal movements in humanity. Thus it is that + + "through the ages one increasing purpose + runs +And the thoughts of men are widened with the + process of the suns." + +It was for reasons the Ptolemaic system so long held its sway. It was +for reasons it went, too, when it did, hideous and oppressive +nightmare! The celestial revelations of the sixteenth century came as +the necessary complement of the new mental firmaments then dawning on +the thought of man. The intellectual revolution caused by the discovery +of the double motion of our planet was undoubtedly the mightiest that +man had ever experienced, and its effect was to change the entire +aspect of his speculative and practical activity. What a proof that +ideas rule the world! Two hundred and fifty years ago, certain new +sidereal conceptions arose in the minds of half a dozen philosophers, +(isolated and utterly destitute of political or social influence, +powerful only in the possession of a sublime and seminal +thought,)--conceptions which, during these two centuries, have +succeeded in overthrowing a doctrine as old as the human mind, closely +interknit with the entire texture of opinions, authority, politics, and +religion, and establishing a theory flatly contradicted by the +universal dictates of experience and common sense, and true only to the +transcendental and interpretative Reason! + +At the advent of Modern Astronomy, the apparition of the German, John +Kepler, presents itself. Familiarly associated in general apprehension +with that inductive triad known as "Kepler's Laws," which form the +foundation of Celestial Geometry, it is much less generally known that +he was an august and oracular soul, one of those called Mystics and +Transcendentalists, perhaps the greatest genius for analogy that ever +lived,--that he led a truly epic life, a hero and helper of men, a +divine martyr of humanity. + +The labors of Kepler were mathematical, optical, cosmographical, and +astronomical,--but chiefly astronomical. Two or three of his principal +works are the "Cosmographic Mystery," (_Mysterium Cosmographicum,_) the +"New Astronomy," (_Astronomia Nova, seu Physica Caelestis,_) and the +"Harmonies of the World" (_Harmonices Mundi_). His whole published +works comprise some thirty or forty volumes, while twenty folio volumes +of manuscript lie in the Library at St. Petersburg. These Euler, +Lexell, and Kraft undertook some years ago to examine and publish, but +the result of this examination has never appeared. An elegant complete +edition of the works of Kepler is at present being issued at Frankfort, +under the editorship of Frisch.[1] It is to be in sixteen volumes, 8vo, +two of which are published. For his biography, the chief source is the +folio volume of Correspondence, published in 1718, by Hansch,[2] who +has prefixed to these letters between Kepler and his contemporaries a +Life, in which his German heartiness beats even through the marble +encasement of his Latinity. + +[Footnote 1: _Joannis Kepleri Astronomi Opera Omnia._ Edidit CH. +FRISCH.] + +[Footnote 2: _Epistolae ad Joannem Keplerum scriptae._ MICHAEL GOTTLIEB +HANSCHIUS. Lipsiae, 1718.] + +We have always admired, as a stroke of wit, the way Hansch takes to +indicate Kepler's birthplace. Disdaining to use any but mathematical +symbols for so great a mathematician, he writes that he was born on the +21st of December, 1571, in longitude 29 deg. 7', latitude 48 deg. 54'! It may +be worth mentioning, that on this cryptic spot stood the little town of +Weil in the Duchy of Wuertemberg. His birth was cast at a time when his +parents were reduced to great poverty, and he received very little +early schooling. He was, however, sent to Tuebingen, and here he pursued +the scholastic studies of the age, designing for the Church. But the +old eternal creed-questionings arose in his mind. He stumbled at the +omnipresence of Christ's body, wrote a Latin poem against it, and, when +he had completed his studies, got for a _testimonium_ that he had +distinguished himself by his oratorical talents, but was considered +unfit to be a fellow-laborer in the Church of Wuertemberg. A larger +priesthood awaited him. + +The astronomical lectureship at the University of Graetz, in Styria, +falling vacant, Kepler was in his twenty-third year appointed to fill +it. He was, as he tells us, "better furnished with talent than +knowledge." But, no doubt, things had conspired to forward him. While +at Tuebingen, under the mathematician Maestlin, he had eagerly seized +all the hints his master threw out of the doctrines of Copernicus, +integrating them with interior authorities of his own. "The motion of the +earth, which Copernicus had proved by mathematical reasons, I wanted +to prove by physical, or, if you prefer it, metaphysical reasons." +So he wrote in his "Prodromus Dissertationum Cosmographicarum," +which he published two years after going to Graetz, that is, in his +twenty-fifth year. In this book his fiery and mystical spirit first +found expression, flaming forth in meteoric coruscations. The problem +which Kepler attempted to solve in the "Prodromus" was no less than +the determination of the harmonic relations of the distances of +the planets, which it was given him to solve more than twenty years +afterwards. The hypothesis which he adopted proved utterly fallacious; +but his primal intuition, that numerical and geometric relations +connect the velocities, periods, and distances of the planets, was none +the less fruitful and sublime. + +Of the facts of Kepler's external life, we may simply say, for the sake +of readier apprehension, that, after remaining six years at Graetz, he, +in 1600, on the invitation of Tycho Brahe, Astronomer Royal to Rodolph +II. of Germany, removed to Prague and associated himself with Tycho, +who shortly afterwards dying, Kepler was appointed in his place. The +chief work was the construction of the new astronomical tables called +the Rodolphine Tables, and on these he was engaged many years. In this +situation he continued till 1613, when he left it to assume a +professorship at Linz. Here he remained some years, and the latter part +of his life was spent as astrologer to Wallenstein. Kepler is described +as small and meagre of person, and he speaks of himself as "troublesome +and choleric in politics and domestic matters." He was twice married, +and left a wife and numerous children ill-provided for. + +Indeed, a painful and perturbed life fell to the lot of Kepler. The +most crushing poverty all his life oppressed him. For, though his +nominal salary as Astronomer Royal was large enough, yet the treasury +was so exhausted that it was impossible for him ever to obtain more +than a pittance. What a sad tragedy do these words, in a letter to +Maestlin, reveal:--"I stand whole days in the antechamber, and am nought +for study." And then he adds the sublime compensation: "I keep up my +spirits, however, with the thought that I serve, not the Emperor alone, +but the whole human race,--that I am laboring not merely for the +present generation, but for posterity. If God stand by me and look to +the victuals, I hope to perform something yet." Eternal type of the +consolation which the consciousness of truth brings with it, his +ejaculation on the discovery of his third law remains one of the +sublimest utterances of the human mind:--"The die is cast; the book is +written,--to be read now or by posterity, I care not which: it may well +wait a century for a reader, as God has waited six thousand years for +an observer!" Cast in a stormy and chaotic age, he was persecuted by +both Protestants and Catholics on account of the purity and elevation +of his religious ideas; and from the disclosures of Baron von +Breitschwert [1] it seems, that, in the midst of his sublimest labors, +he spent five years in the defence of his poor old mother against a +charge of witchcraft. He died in 1630, in his sixtieth year, (with the +prospect of starvation before him,) of a fever which he caught when on +a journey to Ratisbon, whither he had gone in the attempt to get part +of his pay! + +[Footnote 1: _Johann Keppler's Leben und Wirken: nach neuerlich +aufgefundenen Manuscripten bearbeitet._ Stuttgart, 1813.] + +In what bewildering and hampering environment he found himself with the +"Tuebingen doctors" and the "Wuertemberg divines," his letters reveal. On +the publication of the "Prodromus," Hafenreffer wrote to warn +him:--"God forbid you should endeavor to bring your hypothesis openly +into argument with the Holy Scriptures! I require of you to treat the +subject merely as a mathematician, and to leave the peace of the Church +undisturbed." To the Tuebingen doctors he replied:--"The Bible speaks to +me of things belonging to human life as men are used to speak of them. +It is no manual of Optics or of Astronomy; it has a higher object in +view. It is a culpable misuse of it to seek in it for answers on +worldly things. Joshua wished for the day to be lengthened. God +hearkened to his wish. How? This is not to be inquired after." And +surely the long-vexed argument has never since unfolded better +statement than in the words of Kepler:--"The day will soon break when +pious simplicity will be ashamed of its blind superstition,--when men +will recognize truth in the book of Nature as well as in the Holy +Scriptures, and rejoice in the two revelations." [1] + +[Footnote 1: _Harmonices Mundi._] + +On this avowal he was branded as a hypocrite, heretic, and atheist. + +To Maestlin he wrote:--"What is to be done? I think we should imitate +the Pythagoreans, communicate our discoveries _privatim_, and be silent +in public, that we may not die of hunger. The guardians of the Holy +Scriptures make an elephant of a gnat. To avoid the hatred against +novelty, I represented my discovery to the Rector of the University as +a thing already observed by the ancients; but he made its antiquity a +greater charge against it than he could have made of its novelty." + +And, indeed, the devotion to truth in that age, as in others, required +an heroic heart. Copernicus kept back the publication of his "De +Revolutionibus Orbium Caeslestium" for thirty-six years, and received a +copy of it only on his death-bed. Galileo tasted the sweets of the +Inquisition. Tycho Brahe was exiled. And Kepler himself was persecuted +all his life, hounded from city to city. And yet the sixteenth century +will ever be memorable in the history of the human mind. The breaking +down of external authority, the uprise of the spirit of inquiry, of +skepticism, and the splendid scientific conquests that came in +consequence, inaugurated a mighty movement which separates the present +promises of mankind from all past periods by an interval so vast as to +make it not merely a great historical development, but the very birth +of humanity. While Tycho Brahe, at the age of fifty-four, was making +his memorable observations at Prague, Kepler, at the age of thirty, was +applying his fiery mind to the determination of the orbit of Mars, and +Galileo, at thirty-six, was bringing his telescope to the revelation of +new celestial intervals and orbs. Within the succeeding century Huygens +made the application of the pendulum to clocks; Napier invented +Logarithms; Descartes and Galileo created the analysis of curves, and +the science of Dynamics; Leibnitz brought the Differential Calculus; +Newton decomposed a ray of light, and synthesized Kepler's Laws into +the theory of Universal Gravitation. + +Into this age, when the Old and New met face to face, came the +questioning and quenchless spirit of Kepler. Born into an age of +adventure, this new Prometheus, this heaven-scaler, matched it with an +audacity to lift it to new reaches of realization. + + +A singular _naivete_, too, marked this august soul. He has the +frankness of Montaigne or Jean Jacques. He used to accuse himself of +gabbling in mathematics,--"_in re mathematica loquax_,"--and claimed to +speak with German freedom,--"_scripsi haec, homo Germanicus, more et +libertate Germanica_." He marries far and near, brings planetary +eclipses into conjunction with pecuniary penumbras, and his treatise on +the perturbations of Mars reveals equal perturbations in his domestic +economy. It may be to this candor, this _gemueth_, that we are to +ascribe the powerful personal magnetism he exercises in common with +Rousseau, Rabelais, and other rich and ingenuous natures. Who would be +otherwise than frank, when frankness has this power to captivate? The +excess of this influence appears in the warmth betrayed by writers over +their favorite. The cool-headed Delambre, in his "Histoire de +l'Astronomie," speaks of Kepler with the heat of a pamphleteer, and +cannot repress a frequent sneer at his contemporary, Galileo. We know +the splendor of the Newtonian synthesis; yet we do not find ourselves +affected by Newton's character or discoveries. He touches us with the +passionless love of a star. + +Kepler puts the same _naivete_ into his speculative activity, with a +subtile anatomy laying bare the _metaphysique_ of his science. It was +his habit to illumine his discoveries with an exhibition of the path +that led to them, regarding the method as equally important with the +result,--a principle that has acquired canonical authority in modern +scientific research. "In what follows," writes he, introducing a long +string of hypotheses, the fallacy of which he had already discovered, +"let the reader pardon my credulity, whilst working out all these +matters by my own ingenuity. For it is my opinion that the occasions by +which men have acquired a knowledge of celestial phenomena are not less +admirable than the discoveries themselves." His tentatives, failures, +leadings, his glimpses and his glooms, those aberrations and guesses +and gropings generally so scrupulously concealed, he exposes them all. +From the first flashing of a discovery, through years of tireless toil, +to when the glorious apparition emerges full-orbed and resplendent, we +follow him, becoming party to the process, and sharing the ejaculations +of exultation that leap to his lips. Seventeen years were required for +the discovery of the harmonic law, that the squares of the times of the +planetary revolutions are proportional to the cubes of their mean +distances; and no tragedy ever equalled in affecting intensity the +account he has written of those Promethean years. What rays does he let +into the subtile paths where the spirit travels in its interrogations +of Nature! We should say there was more of what there is of essential +in metaphysics, more of the structural action of the human mind, in his +books, than in the concerted introspection of all the psychologists. +One sees very well that a new astronomy was predicted in the build of +that sky-confronting mind; for harmonic ratios, laws, and rhymes played +in his spheral soul, galaxies and gravitations stretched deeper within, +and systems climbed their flaming ecliptic. + +The highest problem of Science is the problem of Method. Hitherto man +has worked on Nature only piecemeal. The understanding and the +logic-faculty are allowed to usurp the rational and creative powers. +One would say that scientists systematically shut themselves out of +three-fourths of their minds, and the English have been insane on +Induction these two hundred years. This unholy divorce has, as it +always must do, brought poverty and impotence into the sciences, many +of which stand apart, stand haggard and hostile, accumulations of +incoherent facts, inhospitable, dead. + +It is when contemplated in its historic bearings, as an education of +the faculties of man, that the emphasis that has been placed on special +scientific methods discloses its significance. The speculative +synthesis of Greek and Alexandrine Science was a superb training in +Deduction,--in the descent from consciousness to Nature. Abstracted +from its relations with reality, the scholasticism of the Middle Ages +pushed Deduction to mania and moonshine. Then it was, that, in the +sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the Occidental mind, astir under +the oceanic movements of the modern, arose to break the spell of +scholasticism that had fettered and frozen the intellect of man. An +all-invading spirit of inquiry, analysis, skepticism, became rife. An +unappeasable hunger for facts, facts, facts, took possession of the +general intellect. It was felt that abstraction was disease, was +death,--that speculation had to be vitalized and enriched from +experience and experiment. This tendency was inevitable and sublime, no +doubt. But it remains for modern times to emulate Nature and carry on +analysis and synthesis at once. A great discovery is the birth of the +whole soul in its creative activity. Induction becomes fruitful only +when married to Deduction. It is those luminous intuitions that light +along the path of discovery that give the eye and animus to +generalization. Science must be open to influx and new beneficent +affections and powers, and so add fleet wings to the mind in its +exploration of Nature. + +In Kepler was the perfect realization of the highest mission of Method. +Powerfully deductive in the structure of his intellect, nourished on +the divine bread of Plato and the Mystics, he yet united to these a +Baconian breadth of practical power. Years before the publication of +the "Novum Organum," he gave, in his "Commentaries on the Motions of +Mars," a specimen of the logic of Induction whose circular sweep has +never been matched. Prolific in the generation of hypotheses, he was +yet remorseless in bringing them to the test of experiment. "Hypotheses +which are not founded in Nature please me not," wrote he,--as Newton +inscribed "_Hypotheses non fingo_" on the "Principia." Surely never was +such heroic self-denial. Centurial vigils of baffling calculations +--(remember, there was then little Algebra, and neither Calculus +nor Logarithms)--were sacrificed without a regret except for +the time expended, his tireless intellect pressing on to new heights of +effort. His first work, the "Mysterium Cosmographicum," is the record +of a splendid blunder that cost him five years' toil, and he spent ten +years of fruitless and baffled effort in the deduction of the laws of +areas and orbital ellipticity. + +But this audacious diviner knew well the use of Hypothesis, and he +applied it as an instrument of investigation as it had never been +applied before. The vast significance of Hypothesis in the theory of +Scientific Method has never been recognized. It would be a good piece +of psychology to explore the principles of this subtile mental power, +and might go far to give us a philosophy of Anticipation. The men of +facts, men of the understanding, observers,--as we might +suppose,--universally show a disposition to shun theorizing, as opposed +to the exactness of demonstrative science. And yet it is quite certain, +that, in proportion as one rises to a more liberal apprehension, the +immense provisional power of speculative ideas becomes apparent. +Laplace asserted that no great discovery was ever made without a great +guess; and long before, Plato had intimated of these "sacred suspicions +of truth," that descend dawn-like on the mind, sublime premonitions of +beautiful gates of laws. It is these launching tentatives which bring +phenomena to interior and metaphysical tests and bear the mind +swift-winged to Nature. Of course, there are various kinds of +conjecture, and its value will depend on the brain from which it +departs. But a powerful spirit will justify Hypothesis by the high +functions to which he puts it. His guesses are not for nothing. Many +and long processes go to them.--The inexhaustible fertility displayed +by Kepler is a psychologic marvel. He had that subtile chemistry that +turns even failures to account, consumes them in its flaming ascent to +new reaches. After years of labor on his theory of Mars, he found it +failed in application to latitudes and longitudes "out of opposition." +Remorselessly he let his hypothesis go, and drew from his failure an +important inference, the first step towards emancipation from the +ancient prejudice of uniform, circular motion. + +Such a genius for Analogy the world never before saw. The perception of +similitude, of correspondence, shot perpetual and prophetic in this +man's glances. To him had been opened the subtile secret, key to +Nature, that Man and the Universe are built after one pattern, and he +had faith to believe that the laws of his mind would unlock the +phenomena of the world. + +The law of Analogy flows from the inherent harmonies of Nature. Of this +wise men have ever been intuitive. The eldest Scriptures express it. It +is in the Zend-Avesta, primal Japhetic utterance. It vivified that +subtile Egyptian symbolism. The early Greeks and the Mystics of +Alexandria knew it. Jamblicus reports of Pythagoras, that "he did not +procure for himself a thing of this kind through instruments or the +voice, but, by employing a certain inevitable divinity, and which it is +difficult to apprehend, he extended his ears and fixed his intellect in +the sublime symphonies of the world,--he alone hearing and +understanding, as it appears, the universal harmony and consonance of +the spheres and the stars that are moved through them, and which +produce a fuller and more intense melody than anything effected by +mortal sounds." + +From the sublime intuitions of the harmonies of Nature and the unity of +the Universe unfold the bright doctrines of Series and Degrees, of +Correspondence, of Similitude. On these thoughts all wise spirits have +fed. Indeed, you can hardly say they were ever absent. They are of +those flaming thoughts the soul projects, splendid prophecies that +become the light of all our science and all our day. Plato formulated +these laws. Two thousand years after him, the cosmic brain of +Swedenborg traced their working throughout the universal economies of +matter and spirit, and Fourier endeavored to translate them into axioms +of a new social organization. + +These doctrines were ever present to the mind of Kepler; and to what +fruitful account he turned Analogy as a means of inductive speculation +his wonderful anatomy of his discoveries reveals. He fed on the +harmonies of the universe. He has it, that "harmony is the perfection +of relations." The work of his mature intellect was the "Harmonices +Mundi," (Harmonies of the World,) in which many of the sublime leadings +of Modern Science, as the Correlation of Sounds and Colors, the +Significance of Musical Chords, the Undulatory Theory, etc., are +prefigured. We must account him one of the chief of those prophetic +spirits who, by attempting to give phenomena a necessary root in ideas, +have breathed into Science a living soul. The new Transcendental +Anatomy,--the doctrine of Homologies,--the Embryologic scheme, +revealing that all animate forms are developed after one +archetype,--the splendid Nebular guess of Laplace,--the thought of the +Metamorphosis of Plants,--the attempts at profounder explanations of +Light and Colors,--the rising transcendentalism of Chemistry,--the +magnificent intuition of Correspondence, showing a grand unity of +design in the nodes of shells, the phyllotaxism of plants, and the +serialization of planets,--are all signs of the presence of a spirit +that is to usher in a new dispensation of Science, fraught with +divinest messages to the head and heart of man. + +Kepler regarded Analogy as the soul of Science, and he has made it an +instrument of prophecy and power. Thus, he inferred from Analogy that +the sun turned on its axis, long before Galileo was able to direct his +telescope to the solar spots and so determine this rotation as an +actual fact. He anticipated a planet between Mars and Jupiter too small +to be seen; and his inference that the obliquity of the ecliptic was +decreasing, but would, after a long-continued diminution, stop, and +then increase again, afterwards acquired the sanction of demonstration. +A like instance of anticipation is afforded in the beautiful experiment +of the freely-suspended ball revolving in an ellipse under the combined +influence of the central and tangential forces, which Jeremiah Horrocks +devised, when pursuing Kepler's theory of planetary motion,--his +intuition being, that the motions of the spheres might be represented +by terrestrial movements. We may mention the observation which the +ill-starred Horrocks makes, in a letter,[1] on the occasion of this +experiment, as one of the sublimities of Science:--"It appears to me, +however, that I have fallen upon the true theory, and that it admits of +being illustrated by natural movements on the surface of the earth; for +Nature everywhere acts according to a uniform plan, and the harmony of +creation is such that small things constitute a faithful type of +greater things." Another instance is afforded in the grand intuition of +Oken, who, when rambling in the Hartz Mountains, lit upon the skull of +a deer, and saw that the cranium was but an expansion of vertebrae, and +that the vertebra is the theoretical archetype of the entire osseous +framework,--the foundation of modern Osteology. And still another is +the well-known instance of the change in polarization predicted by +Fresnel from the mere interpretation of an algebraic symbol. This +prophetic insight is very sublime, and opens up new spaces in man. + +[Footnote 1: _Correspondence,_ 1637] + +Of the discoveries of Kepler, we can here have to do with their +universal and humanitary bearings alone. It is to be understood, +however, that the three grand sweeps of Deduction which we call +Kepler's Laws formed the foundation of the higher conception of +astronomy, that is, the dynamical theory of astronomical phenomena, and +prepared the way for the "Mecanique Celeste." Whewell, the learned +historian of the Sciences, speaks of them as "by far the most +magnificent and most certain train of truths which the whole expanse of +human knowledge can show"; and Comte declares, that "history tells of +no such succession of philosophical efforts as in the case of Kepler, +who, after constituting Celestial Geometry, strove to pursue that +science of Celestial Mechanics which was by its very nature reserved +for a future generation." These laws are, first, the law of the +velocities of the planets; second, the law of the elliptic orbit of the +planets; and, third, the harmonic law, that the squares of the times of +the planetary revolutions are proportional to the cubes of their mean +distances from the sun. They compass the whole sweep of Celestial +Geometry, and stamp their seer as unapproachably the greatest of +astronomers, as well as one of the chief benefactors of mankind. + +The announcement of Kepler's first two laws was made in his New +Astronomy,--"Astronomia Nova, seu Physica Caelestis, tradita +Commentariis de Motibus Stellae Martis: Ex Observationibus G.V. +Tychonis Brahe." Folio. Prague: 1609. This he published in his +thirty-eighth year. The title he gave to this work, "Celestial +Physics," must ever be regarded as a stroke of philosophical genius; it +is the prediction of Newton and Laplace, and prefigures the path on +which astronomical discovery has advanced these two hundred and fifty +years. + +An auspicious circumstance conspired to forward the astronomical +discoveries of Kepler. Invited to Prague in 1600 by Tycho Brahe, as +Assistant Royal Astronomer, he had access to the superb series of +observations which Tycho had been accumulating for twenty-five years. +Endowed with a genius for observation unsurpassed in the annals of +science, the noble Dane had obtained a grant from the king of Denmark +of the island of Hven, at the mouth of the Baltic. Here he erected a +magnificent observatory, which he named _Uranienborg_, City of the +Heavens. This he fitted up with a collection of instruments of hitherto +unapproached size and perfection, and here, for twenty years, he +pursued his observations. Thus it was that Kepler, himself a poor +observer, found his complement in one who, without any power of +constructive generalization, was yet the possessor of the richest +series of astronomical observations ever made. From this admirable +conjunction admirable realizations were to be expected. And, indeed, +the "Astronomia Nova" presents an unequalled illustration of +observation vivified by theory, and theory tested and fructified by +observation. + +To appreciate the significance of the discovery of the elliptical orbit +of the planets, it is necessary to understand the complicated confusion +that prevailed in the conception of planetary motions. The primal +thought was that the motions of the planets were uniform and circular. +This intuition of circular orbits was a happy one, and was, perhaps, +necessitated by the very structure of the human mind. The sweeping and +centrifugal soul, darting manifold rays of equal reach, realizes the +conception of the circle, that is, a figure all of whose radii are +equidistant from a central point. But this conception of the circle +afterwards came to acquire superstitious tenacity, being regarded as +the perfect form, and the only one suitable for such divine natures as +the stars, and was for two thousand years an impregnable barrier to the +progress of Astronomy. To account for every new appearance, every +deviation from circular perfection, a new cycloid was supposed, till +all the simplicity of the original hypothesis was lost in a +complication of epicycles:-- + + "The sphere, + With centric and eccentric scribbled o'er, + Cycle and epicycle, orb in orb." + +By the end of the sixteenth century the number of circles supposed +necessary for the seven stars then known amounted to seventy-four, +while Tycho Brahe was discovering more and more planetary movements for +which these circles would not account. + +To push aside forever this complicated chaos and evoke celestial order +and harmony, came Kepler. Long had the sublime intuition possessed him, +that numerical and geometrical relations connect the distances, times, +and revolutions of the planets. He began his studies on the planet +Mars,--a fortunate choice, as the marked eccentricity of that planet +would afford ready suggestions and verifications of the true law of +irregularity, and on which Tycho had accumulated copious data. It had +long been remarked that the angular velocity of each planet increases +constantly in proportion as the body approaches its centre of motion; +but the relation between the distance and the velocity remained wholly +unknown. Kepler discovered it by comparing the maximum and minimum of +these quantities, by which their relation became more sensible. He +found that the angular velocities of Mars at its nearest and farthest +distances from the sun were in inverse proportion to the squares of the +corresponding distances. This law, deduced, was the immediate path to +the law of orbital ellipticity. For, on attempting to apply his +newly-discovered law to Mars, on the old assumption that its orbit was +a circle, he soon found that the results from the combination of the +two principles were such as could not be reconciled with the places of +Mars observed by Tycho. In this dilemma, finding he must give up one or +the other of these principles, he first proposed to sacrifice his own +theory to the authority of the old system,--a memorable example of +resolute candor. But, after indefatigably subjecting it to crucial +experiment, he found that it was the old hypothesis, and not the new +one, that had to be sacrificed.[1] If the orbit was not a circle, what, +then, was it? By a happy stroke of philosophical genius he lit on the +ellipse. On bringing his hypothesis to the test of observation, he +found it was indeed so; and rising from the case of Mars to universal +statement, he generalized the law, that the planetary orbits are +elliptical, having the sun for their common focus. + +[Footnote 1: ROBERT SMALL: _Astronomical Discoveries of Kepler_.] + +Kepler had now determined the course of each planet. But there was no +known relation between the distances and times; and the evolution of +some harmony between these factors was to him an object of the greatest +interest and the most restless curiosity. Long he dwelt in the dream of +the Pythagorean harmonies. Then he essayed to determine it from the +regular geometrical solids, and afterwards from the divisions of +musical chords. Over twenty years he spent in these baffled efforts. At +length, on the 8th of March, 1618, it occurred to him, that, instead of +comparing the simple times, he should compare the numbers expressing +the similar powers, as squares, cubes, etc.; and lastly, he made the +very comparison on which his discovery was founded, between the squares +of the times and the cubes of the distances. But, through some error of +calculation, no common relation was found between them. Finding it +impossible, however, to banish the subject from his thoughts, he tells +us, that on the 8th of the following May he renewed the last of these +comparisons, and, by repeating his calculations with greater care, +found, with the highest astonishment and delight, that the ratio of the +squares of the periodical times of any two planets was constantly and +invariably the same with the ratio of the cubes of their mean distances +from the sun. Then it was that he burst forth in his memorable +rhapsody:--"What I prophesied twenty-two years ago, as soon as I +discovered the five solids among the heavenly orbits,--what I firmly +believed long before I had seen Ptolemy's harmonics,--what I had +promised my friends in the title of this book, which I named before I +was sure of my discovery,--what sixteen years ago I urged as a thing to +be sought,--that for which I joined Tycho Brahe, for which I settled in +Prague, for which I have devoted the best part of my life to +astronomical contemplation,--at length I have brought to light, and +have recognized its truth beyond my most sanguine expectations. It is +now eighteen months since I got the first glimpse of light, three +months since the dawn, very few days since the unveiled sun, most +admirable to gaze upon, burst out upon me. Nothing holds me; I will +indulge in my sacred fury; I will triumph over mankind by the honest +confession, that I have stolen the golden vases of the Egyptians to +build up a tabernacle for my God far away from the confines of Egypt. +If you forgive me, I rejoice; if you are angry, I can bear it: the die +is cast; the book is written, to be read either now or by posterity, I +care not which: it may well wait a century for a reader, as God has +waited six thousand years for an observer!" + +These laws have, no doubt, a universal significance, and may be +translated into problems of life. For, after the farthest sweep of +Induction, a question yet remains to be asked: Whence comes the power +to perceive a law? Whence that subtile correspondence and +consanguinity, that the laws of man's mental structure tally with the +phenomena of the universe? To this problem of problems our science as +yet affords but meagre answers. It seems though, so far in the history +of humanity, it had been but given man to recognize this truth as a +splendid idealism, without the ability to make it potential in his +theory of the world. Yet what a key to new and beautiful gates of laws! + + "Who can be sure to find its true degree, + _Magister magnus in igne_ shall he be." + +Antique and intuitive nations--Indians, Egyptians, Greeks--sought a +solution of this august mystery in the doctrines of Transmigration and +Anamnesis or Reminiscence. Nothing is whereto man is not kin. He knows +all worlds and histories by virtue of having himself travelled the +mystic spiral descent. Awaking through memory, the processes of his +mind repeat the processes of the visible Kosmos. His unfolding is a +hymn of the origination of the world. + +Nature and man having sprung from the same spiritual source, a perfect +agreement subsists between the phenomena of the world and man's +mentality. This is necessary to the very conception of Science. If the +laws of reason did not exist in Nature, we should vainly attempt to +force them upon her: if the laws of Nature did not exist in our reason, +we should not be able to comprehend them.[1] There is a saying reported +of Zoroaster, and, coming from the deeps of fifty centuries, still +authentic and intelligible, that "the congruities of material forms to +the laws of the soul are divine allurements." Ever welcome is the +perception of this truth,--as the sublime audacity of Paracelsus, that +"those who would understand the course of the heavens above must first +of all recognize the heaven in man"; and the affirmation, that "the +laws of Nature are the same as the thoughts within us: the laws of +motion are such as are required by our understanding." It remains to +say that Kepler, too, had intuition of this lofty thought. At the +conclusion of his early work, "The Prodromus Dissertationum +Cosmographicarum," he wrote,--"As men enjoy dainties at the dessert, so +do wise souls gain a taste for heavenly things when they ascend from +their college to the universe and there look around them. Great Artist +of the World! I look with wonder on the works of Thy hands, constructed +after five regular forms, and in the midst the sun, the dispenser of +light and life. I see the moon and stars strewn over the infinite field +of space. Father of the World! what moved Thee thus to exalt a poor, weak +little creature of earth so high that he stands in light a far-ruling +king, almost a god?--_for he thinks Thy thoughts after Thee_." + +[Footnote 1: OERSTED: _Soul in Nature._] + +It is impossible not to feel freer at the accession of so much power as +these laws bring us. They carry farther on the bounds of humanity. The +stars are the eternal monitions of spirituality. Who can estimate how +much man's thoughts have been colored by these golden kindred? It seems +as though it were but required to show man space,--space, space, +space,--there is that in him will fill and pass it. There is that in +the celestial prodigies--in gulfs of Time and Space--that seems to mate +the greed of the soul. There is that greed in the soul to pass through +worlds and ages,--through growths, griefs, desires, processes, +spheres,--to travel the endless highways,--to pass and resume again. O +Heavens, you are but a splendid fable of the elder mind! Centripetal +and centrifugal are in man, too, and primarily; and an aspiring soul +will ascend into the sweeps and circles, and pass swift and devouring +through baffling intervals and steep-down strata of galaxies and stars. + +The thought that overarches the centuries with firmamental sweep is the +thought of the Ensemble. To this all has led along,--but the +disclosures of Astronomy especially. The discovery of the earth's +revolution, at once transporting the stars to distances outside of all +telluric connection, broke the old spell, and replaced the petty +provincialism of the earth as the All-Centre by the vast, sublime +conception of the Universe. Laplace has pointed this out, showing how +to the fantastic and enervating notion of a universe arranged for man +has succeeded the sound and vivifying thought of man discovering, by a +positive exercise of his intelligence, the general laws of the world, +so as to be able to modify them for his own good, within certain +limits. Dawning prophetic on modern times, the thought of the Ensemble +holds the seeds of new humanitary growths. This is the vast similitude +that binds together the ages,--that balances creeds, colors, eras. +Through Nature, man, forms, spirit, the eternal conspiracy works and +weaves. This is the water of spirituality. All is bound up in the +Divine Scheme. The Divine Scheme encloses all. + + + + +PLEASURE-PAIN. + +"Das Vergnuegen ist Nichts als ein hoechst angenehmer Schmerz."--HEINRICH +HEINE + + +I. + +Full of beautiful blossoms + Stood the tree in early May: +Came a chilly gale from the sunset, + And blew the blossoms away,-- + +Scattered them, through the garden, + Tossed them into the mere: +The sad tree moaned and shuddered, + "Alas! the fall is here." + +But all through the glowing summer + The blossomless tree throve fair, +And the fruit waxed ripe and mellow, + With sunny rain and air; + +And when the dim October + With golden death was crowned, +Under its heavy branches + The tree stooped to the ground. + +In youth there comes a west wind + Blowing our bloom away,-- +A chilly breath of Autumn + Out of the lips of May. + +We bear the ripe fruit after,-- + Ah, me! for the thought of pain!-- +We know the sweetness and beauty + And the heart-bloom never again. + +II. + +One sails away to sea,-- + One stands on the shore and cries; +The ship goes down the world, and the light + On the sullen water dies. + +The whispering shell is mute,-- + And after is evil cheer: +She shall stand on the shore and cry in vain, + Many and many a year. + +But the stately, wide-winged ship + Lies wrecked on the unknown deep; +Far under, dead in his coral bed, + The lover lies asleep. + +III. + +In the wainscot ticks the death-watch, + Chirps the cricket in the floor, +In the distance dogs are barking, + Feet go by outside my door. + +From her window honeysuckles + Stealing in upon the gloom, +Spice and sweets embalm the silence + Dead within the lonesome room. + +And the ghost of that dead silence + Haunts me ever, thin and chill, +In the pauses of the death-watch, + When the cricket's cry is still. + +IV. + +She stands in silks of purple, + Like a splendid flower in bloom; +She moves, and the air is laden + With delicate perfume. + +The over-vigilant mamma + Can never let her be: +She must play this march for another, + And sing that song for me. + +I wonder if she remembers + The song I made for her: +"_The hopes of love are frailer + Than lines of gossamer_": + +Made when we strolled together + Through fields of happy June, +And our hearts kept time together, + With birds and brooks in tune,-- + +And I was so glad of loving, + That I must mimic grief, +And, trusting in love forever, + Must fable unbelief. + +I did not hear the prelude,-- + I was thinking of these old things. +She is fairer and wiser and older + Than----What is it she sings? + +"_The hopes of love are frailer + Than lines of gossamer_." +Alas! the bitter wisdom + Of the song I made for her! + +V. + +All the long August afternoon, + The little drowsy stream +Whispers a melancholy tune, +As if it dreamed of June + And whispered in its dream. + +The thistles show beyond the brook + Dust on their down and bloom, +And out of many a weed-grown nook +The aster-flowers look + With eyes of tender gloom. + +The silent orchard aisles are sweet + With smell of ripening fruit. +Through the sere grass, in shy retreat, +Flatter, at coming feet, + The robins strange and mute. + +There is no wind to stir the leaves, + The harsh leaves overhead; +Only the querulous cricket grieves, +And shrilling locust weaves + A song of summer dead. + + + + +THE PROFESSOR'S STORY. + + +CHAPTER VII. + +THE EVENT OF THE SEASON. + + +"Mr. and Mrs. Colonel Sprowle's compliments to Mr. Langdon and requests +the pleasure of his company at a social entertainment on Wednesday +evening next. + +"_Elm St. Monday._" + +On paper of a pinkish color and musky smell, with a large S at the top, +and an embossed border. Envelop adherent, not sealed. Addressed, + +----_Langdon Esq. + +Present._ + +Brought by H. Frederic Sprowle, youngest son of the Colonel,--the H. of +course standing for the paternal Hezekiah, put in to please the father, +and reduced to its initial to please the mother, she having a marked +preference for Frederic. Boy directed to wait for an answer. + +"Mr. Langdon has the pleasure of accepting Mr. and Mrs. Colonel +Sprowle's polite invitation for Wednesday evening." + +On plain paper, sealed with an initial. + +In walking along the main street, Mr. Bernard had noticed a large house +of some pretensions to architectural display, namely, unnecessarily +projecting eaves, giving it a mushroomy aspect, wooden mouldings at +various available points, and a grandiose arched portico. It looked a +little swaggering by the side of one or two of the mansion-houses that +were not far from it, was painted too bright for Mr. Bernard's taste, +had rather too fanciful a fence before it, and had some fruit-trees +planted in the front-yard, which to this fastidious young gentleman +implied a defective sense of the fitness of things, not promising in +people who lived in so large a house, with a mushroom roof, and a +triumphal arch for its entrance. + +This place was known as "Colonel Sprowle's villa," (genteel +friends,)--as "the elegant residence of our distinguished +fellow-citizen, Colonel Sprowle," (Rockland Weekly Universe,)--as "the +neew haouse," (old settlers,)--as "Spraowle's Folly," (disaffected and +possibly envious neighbors,)--and in common discourse, as "the +Colonel's". + +Hezekiah Sprowle, Esquire, Colonel Sprowle of the Commonwealth's +Militia, was a retired "merchant." An India merchant he might, perhaps, +have been properly called; for he used to deal in West India goods, +such as coffee, sugar, and molasses, not to speak of rum,--also in tea, +salt fish, butter and cheese, oil and candles, dried fruit, +agricultural "p'doose" generally, industrial products, such as boots +and shoes, and various kinds of iron and wooden ware, and at one end of +the establishment in calicoes and other stuffs,--to say nothing of +miscellaneous objects of the most varied nature, from sticks of candy, +which tempted in the smaller youth with coppers in their fists, up to +ornamental articles of apparel, pocket-books, breast-pins, gilt-edged +Bibles, stationery,--in short, everything which was like to prove +seductive to the rural population. The Colonel had made money in trade, +and also by matrimony. He had married Sarah, daughter and heiress of +the late Tekel Jordan, Esq., an old miser, who gave the town clock, +which carries his name to posterity in large gilt letters as a generous +benefactor of his native place. In due time the Colonel reaped the +reward of well-placed affections. When his wife's inheritance fell in, +he thought he had money enough to give up trade, and therefore sold out +his "store," called in some dialects of the English language _shop_, +and his business. + +Life became pretty hard work to him, of course, as soon as he had +nothing particular to do. Country people with money enough not to have +to work are in much more danger than city people in the same condition. +They get a specific look and character, which are the same in all the +villages where one studies them. They very commonly fall into a +routine, the basis of which is going to some lounging-place or other, a +bar-room, a reading-room, or something of the kind. They grow slovenly +in dress, and wear the same hat forever. They have a feeble curiosity +for news perhaps, which they take daily as a man takes his bitters, and +then fall silent and think they are thinking. But the mind goes out +under this regimen, like a fire without a draught; and it is not very +strange, if the instinct of mental self-preservation drives them to +brandy-and-water, which makes the hoarse whisper of memory musical for +a few brief moments, and puts a weak leer of promise on the features of +the hollow-eyed future. The Colonel was kept pretty well in hand as yet +by his wife, and though it had happened to him once or twice to come +home rather late at night with a curious tendency to say the same thing +twice and even three times over, it had always been in very cold +weather,--and everybody knows that no one is safe to drink a couple of +glasses of wine in a warm room and go suddenly out into the cold air. + +Miss Matilda Sprowle, sole daughter of the house, had reached the age +at which young ladies are supposed in technical language to have _come +out_, and thereafter are considered to be _in company._ + +"There's one piece o' goods," said the Colonel to his wife, "that we +ha'n't disposed of, nor got a customer for yet. That's Matildy. I don't +mean to set _her_ up at vaandoo. I guess she can have her pick of a +dozen." + +"She's never seen anybody yet," said Mrs. Sprowle, who had had a +certain project for some time, but had kept quiet about it. "Let's have +a party, and give her a chance to show herself and see some of the +young folks." + +The Colonel was not very clear-headed, and he thought, naturally +enough, that the party was his own suggestion, because his remark led +to the first starting of the idea. He entered into the plan, therefore, +with a certain pride as well as pleasure, and the great project was +resolved upon in a family council without a dissentient voice. This was +the party, then, to which Mr. Bernard was going. The town had been full +of it for a week. "Everybody was asked." So everybody said that was +invited. But how in respect of those who were not asked? If it had been +one of the old mansion-houses that was giving a party, the boundary +between the favored and the slighted families would have been known +pretty well beforehand, and there would have been no great amount of +grumbling. But the Colonel, for all his title, had a forest of poor +relations and a brushwood swamp of shabby friends, for he had scrambled +up to fortune, and now the time was come when he must define his new +social position. + +This is always an awkward business in town or country. An exclusive +alliance between two powers is often the same thing as a declaration of +war against a third. Rockland was soon split into a triumphant +minority, invited to Mrs. Sprowle's party, and a great majority, +uninvited, of which the fraction just on the border line between +recognized "gentility" and the level of the ungloved masses was in an +active state of excitement and indignation. + +"Who is she, I should like to know?" said Mrs. Saymore, the tailor's +wife. "There was plenty of folks in Rockland as good as ever Sally +Jordan was, if she _had_ managed to pick up a merchant. Other folks +could have married merchants, if their families wasn't as wealthy as +them old skinflints that willed her their money," etc., etc. Mrs. +Saymore expressed the feeling of many beside herself. She had, however, +a special right to be proud of the name she bore. Her husband was own +cousin to the Saymores of Freestone Avenue (who write the name +_Seymour_, and claim to be of the Duke of Somerset's family, showing a +clear descent from the Protector to Edward Seymour, (1630,)--then a +jump that would break a herald's neck to one Seth Saymore, +(1783,)--from whom to the head of the present family the line is clear +again). Mrs. Saymore, the tailor's wife, was not invited, because her +husband _mended_ clothes. If he had confined himself strictly to +_making_ them, it would have put a different face upon the matter. + +The landlord of the Mountain House and his lady were invited to Mrs. +Sprowle's party. Not so the landlord of Pollard's Tavern and his lady. +Whereupon the latter vowed that they would have a party at their house +too, and made arrangements for a dance of twenty or thirty couples, to +be followed by an entertainment. Tickets to this "Social Ball" were +soon circulated, and, being accessible to all at a moderate price, +admission to the "Elegant Supper" included, this second festival +promised to be as merry, if not as select, as the great party. + +Wednesday came. Such doings had never been heard of in Rockland as went +on that day at the "villa." The carpet had been taken up in the long +room, so that the young folks might have a dance. Miss Matilda's piano +had been moved in, and two fiddlers and a clarionet-player engaged to +make music. All kinds of lamps had been put in requisition, and even +colored wax-candles figured on the mantel-pieces. The costumes of the +family had been tried on the day before: the Colonel's black suit +fitted exceedingly well; his lady's velvet dress displayed her contours +to advantage; Miss Matilda's flowered silk was considered superb; the +eldest son of the family, Mr. T. Jordan Sprowle, called affectionately +and elegantly "Geordie," voted himself "stunnin'"; and even the small +youth who had borne Mr. Bernard's invitation was effective in a new +jacket and trousers, buttony in front, and baggy in the reverse aspect, +as is wont to be the case with the home-made garments of inland +youngsters. + +Great preparations had been made for the refection which was to be part +of the entertainment. There was much clinking of borrowed spoons, which +were to be carefully counted, and much clicking of borrowed china, +which was to be tenderly handled,--for nobody in the country keeps +those vast closets full of such things which one may see in rich +city-houses. Not a great deal could be done in the way of flowers, for +there were no greenhouses, and few plants were out as yet; but there +were paper ornaments for the candlesticks, and colored mats for the +lamps, and all the tassels of the curtains and bells were taken out of +those brown linen bags, in which, for reasons hitherto undiscovered, +they are habitually concealed in some households. In the remoter +apartments every imaginable operation was going on at once,--roasting, +boiling, baking, beating, rolling, pounding in mortars, frying, +freezing; for there was to be ice-cream to-night of domestic +manufacture;--and in the midst of all these labors, Mrs. Sprowle and +Miss Matilda were moving about, directing and helping as they best +might, all day long. When the evening came, it might be feared they +would not be in just the state of mind and body to entertain company. + +----One would like to give a party now and then, if one could be a +billionnaire.--"Antoine, I am going to have twenty people to dine +to-day." "_Bien, Madame_." Not a word or thought more about it, but get +home in season to dress, and come down to your own table, one of your +own guests.--"Giuseppe, we are to have a party a week from +to-night,--five hundred invitations,--there is the list." The day +comes. "Madam, do you remember you have your party to-night?" "Why, so +I have! Everything right? supper and all?" "All as it should be, +Madam." "Send up Victorine." "Victorine, full toilet for this +evening,--pink, diamonds, and emeralds. Coiffeur at seven. +_Allez_."--Billionism, or even millionism, must be a blessed kind of +state, with health and clear conscience and youth and good looks,--but +most blessed in this, that it takes off all the mean cares which give +people the three wrinkles between the eyebrows, and leaves them free to +have a good time and make others have a good time, all the way along +from the charity that tips up unexpected loads of wood at widows' +doors, and leaves foundling turkeys upon poor men's doorsteps, and sets +lean clergymen crying at the sight of anonymous fifty-dollar bills, to +the taste which orders a perfect banquet in such sweet accord with +every sense that everybody's nature flowers out full-blown in its +golden-glowing, fragrant atmosphere. + +----A great party given by the smaller gentry of the interior is a kind +of solemnity, so to speak. It involves so much labor and anxiety,--its +spasmodic splendors are so violently contrasted with the homeliness of +every-day family-life,--it is such a formidable matter to break in the +raw subordinates to the _manege_ of the cloak-room and the +table,--there is such a terrible uncertainty in the results of +unfamiliar culinary operations,--so many feuds are involved in drawing +that fatal line which divides the invited from the uninvited fraction +of the local universe,--that, if the notes requested the pleasure of +the guests' company on "this solemn occasion," they would pretty nearly +express the true state of things. + +The Colonel himself had been pressed into the service. He had pounded +something in the great mortar. He had agitated a quantity of sweetened +and thickened milk in what was called a cream-freezer. At eleven +o'clock, A.M., he retired for a space. On returning, his color was +noted to be somewhat heightened, and he showed a disposition to be +jocular with the female help,--which tendency, displaying itself in +livelier demonstrations than were approved at head-quarters, led to his +being detailed to out-of-door duties, such as raking gravel, arranging +places for horses to be hitched to, and assisting in the construction +of an arch of wintergreen at the porch of the mansion. + +A whiff from Mr. Geordie's cigar refreshed the toiling females from +time to time; for the windows had to be opened occasionally, while all +these operations were going on, and the youth amused himself with +inspecting the interior, encouraging the operatives now and then in the +phrases commonly employed by genteel young men,--for he had perused an +odd volume of "Verdant Green," and was acquainted with a Sophomore from +one of the fresh-water colleges.--"Go it on the feed!" exclaimed this +spirited young man. "Nothin' like a good spread. Grub enough and good +liquor; that's the ticket. Guv'nor 'll do the heavy polite, and let me +alone for polishin' off the young charmers." And Mr. Geordie looked +expressively at a handmaid who was rolling gingerbread, as if he were +rehearsing for "Don Giovanni." + +Evening came at last, and the ladies were forced to leave the scene of +their labors to array themselves for the coming festivities. The tables +had been set in a back room, the meats were ready, the pickles were +displayed, the cake was baked, the blanc-mange had stiffened, and the +ice-cream had frozen. + +At half past seven o'clock, the Colonel, in costume, came into the +front parlor, and proceeded to light the lamps. Some were good-humored +enough and took the hint of a lighted match at once. Others were as +vicious as they could be,--would not light on any terms, any more than +if they were filled with water, or lighted and smoked one side of the +chimney, or sputtered a few sparks and sulked themselves out, or kept +up a faint show of burning, so that their ground glasses looked as +feebly phosphorescent as so many invalid fireflies. With much coaxing +and screwing and pricking, a tolerable illumination was at last +achieved. At eight there was a grand rustling of silks, and Mrs. and +Miss Sprowle descended from their respective bowers or boudoirs. Of +course they were pretty well tired by this time, and very glad to sit +down,--having the prospect before them of being obliged to stand for +hours. The Colonel walked about the parlor, inspecting his regiment of +lamps. By-and-by Mr. Geordie entered. + +"Mph! mph!" he sniffed, as he came in. "You smell of lamp-smoke here." + +That always galls people,--to have a new-comer accuse them of smoke or +close air, which they have got used to and do not perceive. The Colonel +raged at the thought of his lamps' smoking, and tongued a few anathemas +inside of his shut teeth, but turned down two or three that burned +higher than the rest. + +Master H. Frederic next made his appearance, with questionable marks +upon his fingers and countenance. Had been tampering with something +brown and sticky. His elder brother grew playful, and caught him by the +baggy reverse of his more essential garment. + +"Hush!" said Mrs. Sprowle,--"there's the bell!" + +Everybody took position at once, and began to look very smiling and +altogether at ease.--False alarm. Only a parcel of spoons,--"loaned," +as the inland folks say when they mean lent, by a neighbor. + +"Better late than never!" said the Colonel; "let me heft them spoons." + +Mrs. Sprowle came down into her chair again as if all her bones had +been bewitched out of her. + +"I'm pretty nigh beat out a'ready," said she, "before any of the folks +has come." + +They sat silent awhile, waiting for the first arrival. How nervous they +got! and how their senses were sharpened! + +"Hark!" said Miss Matilda,--"what's that rumblin'?" + +It was a cart going over a bridge more than a mile off, which at any +other time they would not have heard. After this there was a lull, and +poor Mrs. Sprowle's head nodded once or twice. Presently a crackling +and grinding of gravel;--how much that means, when we are waiting for +those whom we long or dread to see! Then a change in the tone of the +gravel-crackling. + +"Yes, they have turned in at our gate. They're comin'. Mother! mother!" + +Everybody in position, smiling and at ease. Bell rings. Enter the first +set of visitors. The Event of the Season has begun. + +"Law! it's nothin' but the Cranes' folks! I do believe Mahala's come in +that old green de-laine she wore at the Surprise Party!" + +Miss Matilda had peeped through a crack of the door and made this +observation and the remark founded thereon. Continuing her attitude of +attention, she overheard Mrs. Crane and her two daughters conversing in +the attiring-room, up one flight. + +"How fine everything is in the great house!" said Mrs. Crane,--"jest +look at the picters!" "Matildy Sprowle's drawins," said Ada Azuba, the +eldest daughter. + +"I should think so," said Mahala Crane, her younger sister,--a +wide-awake girl, who hadn't been to school for nothing, and performed a +little on the lead pencil herself. "I should like to know whether +that's a hay-cock or a mountain!" + +Miss Matilda winced; for this must refer to her favorite monochrome, +executed by laying on heavy shadows and stumping them down into mellow +harmony,--the style of drawing which is taught in six lessons, and the +kind of specimen which is executed in something less than one hour. +Parents and other very near relatives are sometimes gratified with +these productions, and cause them to be framed and hung up, as in the +present instance. + +"I guess we won't go down jest yet," said Mrs. Crane, "as folks don't +seem to have come." + +So she began a systematic inspection of the dressing-room and its +conveniences. + +"Mahogany four-poster,--come from the Jordans', I cal'late. Marseilles +quilt. Ruffles all round the piller. Chintz curtings,--jest put up,--o' +purpose for the party, I'll lay ye a dollar.--What a nice washbowl!" +(Taps it with a white knuckle belonging to a red finger.) "Stone +chaney.--Here's a bran'-new brush and comb,--and here's a scent-bottle. +Come here, girls, and fix yourselves in the glass, and scent your +pocket-handkerchers." + +And Mrs. Crane bedewed her own kerchief with some of the _eau de +Cologne_ of native manufacture,--said on its label to be much superior +to the German article. + +It was a relief to Mrs. and the Miss Cranes when the bell rang and the +next guests were admitted. Deacon and Mrs. Soper,--Deacon Soper of the +Rev. Mr. Fairweather's church, and his lady. Mrs. Deacon Soper was +directed, of course, to the ladies' dressing-room, and her husband to +the other apartment, where gentlemen were to leave their outside coats +and hats. Then came Mr. and Mrs. Briggs, and then the three Miss +Spinneys, then Silas Peckham, Head of the Apollinean Institute, and +Mrs. Peckham, and more after them, until at last the ladies' +dressing-room got so full that one might have thought it was a trap +none of them could get out of. The fact is, they all felt a little +awkwardly. Nobody wanted to be first to venture down-stairs. At last +Mr. Silas Peckham thought it was time to make a move for the parlor, +and for this purpose presented himself at the door of the ladies' +dressing-room. + +"Lorindy, my dear!" he exclaimed to Mrs. Peckham,--"I think there can +be no impropriety in our joining the family down-stairs." + +Mrs. Peckham laid her large, flaccid arm in the sharp angle made by the +black sleeve which held the bony limb her husband offered, and the two +took the stair and struck out for the parlor. The ice was broken, and +the dressing-room began to empty itself into the spacious, lighted +apartments below. + +Mr. Silas Peckham scaled into the room with Mrs. Peckham alongside, +like a shad convoying a jelly-fish. + +"Good evenin', Mrs. Sprowle! I hope I see you well this evenin'. How's +your health, Colonel Sprowle?" + +"Very well, much obleeged to you. Hope you and your good lady are well. +Much pleased to see you. Hope you'll enjoy yourselves. We've laid out +to have everything in good shape,--spared no trouble nor ex"---- + +----"pense,"--said Silas Peckham. + +Mrs. Colonel Sprowle, who, you remember, was a Jordan, had nipped the +Colonel's statement in the middle of the word Mr. Peckham finished, +with a look that jerked him like one of those sharp twitches women keep +giving a horse when they get a chance to drive one. + +Mr. and Mrs. Crane, Miss Ada Azuba, and Miss Mahala Crane made their +entrance. There had been a discussion about the necessity and propriety +of inviting this family, the head of which kept a small shop for hats +and boots and shoes. The Colonel's casting vote had carried it in the +affirmative.--How terribly the poor old green de-laine did cut up in +the blaze of so many lamps and candles! + +----Deluded little wretch, male or female, in town or country, going to +your first great party, how little you know the nature of the ceremony +in which you are to bear the part of victim! What! are not these +garlands and gauzy mists and many-colored streamers which adorn you, is +not this music which welcomes you, this radiance that glows about you, +meant solely for your enjoyment, young miss of seventeen or eighteen +summers, now for the first time swimming into the frothy, chatoyant, +sparkling, undulating sea of laces and silks and satins, and +white-armed, flower-crowned maidens struggling in their waves, beneath +the lustres that make the false summer of the drawing-room? + +Stop at the threshold! This is a hall of judgment you are entering; the +court is in session; and if you move five steps forward, you will be at +its bar. + +There was a tribunal once in France, as you may remember, called the +_Chambre Ardente_, the Burning Chamber. It was hung all round with +lamps, and hence its name. The burning chamber for the trial of young +maidens is the blazing ballroom. What have they full-dressed you, or +rather half-dressed you for, do you think? To make you look pretty, of +course!--Why have they hung a chandelier above you, flickering all over +with flames, so that it searches you like the noonday sun, and your +deepest dimple cannot hold a shadow? To give brilliancy to the gay +scene, no doubt!--No, my dear! Society is _inspecting_ you, and it +finds undisguised surfaces and strong lights a convenience in the +process. The dance answers the purpose of the revolving pedestal upon +which the "White Captive" turns, to show us the soft, kneaded marble, +which looks as if it had never been hard, in all its manifold aspects +of living loveliness. No mercy for you, my love! Justice, strict +justice, you shall certainly have,--neither more nor less. For, look +you, there are dozens, scores, hundreds, with whom you must be weighed +in the balance; and you have got to learn that the "struggle for life" +Mr. Charles Darwin talks about reaches to vertebrates clad in +crinoline, as well as to mollusks in shells, or articulates in jointed +scales, or anything that fights for breathing-room and food and love in +any coat of fur or feather! Happy they who can flash defiance from +bright eyes and snowy shoulders back into the pendants of the insolent +lustres! + +----Miss Mahala Crane did not have these reflections; and no young girl +ever did, or ever will, thank Heaven! Her keen eyes sparkled under her +plainly parted hair, and the green de-laine moulded itself in those +unmistakable lines of natural symmetry in which Nature indulges a small +shopkeeper's daughter occasionally as well as a wholesale dealer's +young ladies. She would have liked a new dress as much as any other +girl, but she meant to go and have a good time at any rate. + +The guests were now arriving in the drawing-room pretty fast, and the +Colonel's hand began to burn a good deal with the sharp squeezes which +many of the visitors gave it. Conversation, which had begun like a +summer-shower, in scattering drops, was fast becoming continuous, and +occasionally rising into gusty swells, with now and then a +broad-chested laugh from some Captain or Major or other military +personage,--for it may be noted that all large and loud men in the +impaved districts bear military titles. + +Deacon Soper came up presently and entered into conversation with +Colonel Sprowle. + +"I hope to see our pastor present this evenin'," said the Deacon. + +"I don't feel quite sure," the Colonel answered. "His dyspepsy has been +bad on him lately. He wrote to say, that, Providence permittin', it +would be agreeable to him to take a part in the exercises of the +evenin'; but I mistrusted he didn't mean to come. To tell the truth, +Deacon Soper, I rather guess he don't like the idee of dancin', and +some of the other little arrangements." + +"Well," said the Deacon, "I know there's some condemns dancin'. I've +heerd a good deal of talk about it among the folks round. Some have it +that it never brings a blessin' on a house to have dancin' in it. Judge +Tileston died, you remember, within a month after he had his great +ball, twelve year ago, and some thought it was in the natur' of a +judgment. I don't believe in any of them notions. If a man happened to +be struck dead the night after he'd been givin' a ball," (the Colonel +loosened his black stock a little, and winked and swallowed two or +three times,) "I shouldn't call it a judgment,--I should call it a +coincidence. But I'm a little afraid our pastor won't come. Somethin' +or other's the matter with Mr. Fairweather. I should sooner expect to +see the old Doctor come over out of the Orthodox parsonage-house." + +"I've asked him," said the Colonel. + +"Well?" said Deacon Soper. + +"He said he should like to come, but he didn't know what his people +would say. For his part, he loved to see young folks havin' their +sports together, and very often felt, as if he should like to be one of +'em himself. 'But,' says I, 'Doctor, I don't say there won't be a +little dancin'.' 'Don't!' says he, 'for I want Letty to go,' (she's his +granddaughter that's been stayin' with him,) 'and Letty's mighty fond +of dancin'. You know,' says the Doctor, 'it isn't my business to settle +whether other people's children should dance or not.' And the Doctor +looked as if he should like to rigadoon and sashy across as well as the +young one he was talkin' about. He's got blood in him, the old Doctor +has. I wish our little man and him would swop pulpits." + +Deacon Soper started and looked up into the Colonel's face, as if to +see whether he was in earnest. + +Mr. Silas Peckham and his lady joined the group. + +"Is this to be a Temperance Celebration, Mrs. Sprowle?" asked Mr. Silas +Peckham. + +Mrs. Sprowle replied, "that there would be lemonade and srub for those +that preferred such drinks, but that the Colonel had given folks to +understand that he didn't mean to set in judgment on the marriage in +Canaan, and that those that didn't like srub and such things would find +somethin' that would suit them better." + +Deacon Soper's countenance assumed a certain air of restrained +cheerfulness. The conversation rose into one of its gusty paroxysms +just then. Master H. Frederic got behind a door and began performing +the experiment of stopping and unstopping his ears in rapid +alternation, greatly rejoicing in the singular effect of mixed +conversation chopped very small, like the contents of a mince-pie,--or +meat pie, as it is more forcibly called in the deep-rutted villages +lying along the unsalted streams. All at once it grew silent just round +the door, where it had been loudest,--and the silence spread itself +like a stain, till it hushed everything but a few corner-duets. A dark, +sad-looking, middle-aged gentleman entered the parlor, with a young +lady on his arm,--his daughter, as it seemed, for she was not wholly +unlike him in feature, and of the same dark complexion. + +"Dudley Venner!" exclaimed a dozen people, in startled, but +half-suppressed tones. + +"What can have brought Dudley out to-night?" said Jefferson Buck, a +young fellow, who had been interrupted in one of the corner-duets which +he was executing in concert with Miss Susy Pettingill. + +"How do I know, Jeff?" was Miss Susy's answer. Then, after a +pause,--"Elsie made him come, I guess. Go ask Dr. Kittredge; he knows +all about 'em both, they say." + +Dr. Kittredge, the leading physician of Rockland, was a shrewd old man, +who looked pretty keenly into his patients through his spectacles, and +pretty widely at men, women, and things in general over them. +Sixty-three years old,--just the year of the grand climacteric. A bald +crown, as every doctor should have. A consulting practitioner's mouth; +that is, movable round the corners while the case is under examination, +but both corners well drawn down and kept so when the final opinion is +made up. In fact, the Doctor was often sent for to act as "caounsel," +all over the county, and beyond it. He kept three or four horses, +sometimes riding in the saddle, commonly driving in a sulky, pretty +fast, and looking straight before him, so that people got out of the +way of bowing to him as he passed on the road. There was some talk +about his not being so long-sighted as other folks, but his old +patients laughed and looked knowing when this was spoken of. + +The Doctor knew a good many things besides how to drop tinctures and +shake out powders. Thus, he knew a horse, and, what is harder to +understand, a horse-dealer, and was a match for him. He knew what a +nervous woman is, and how to manage her. He could tell at a glance when +she is in that condition of unstable equilibrium in which a rough word +is like blow to her, and the touch of unmagnetized fingers reverses all +her nervous currents. It is not everybody that enters into the soul of +Mozart's or Beethoven's harmonies; and there are vital symphonies in B +flat, and other low, sad keys, which a doctor may know as little of as +a hurdy-gurdy player of the essence of those divine musical mysteries. +The Doctor knew the difference between what men say and what they mean +as well as most people. When he was listening to common talk, he was in +the habit of looking over his spectacles; if he lifted his head so as +to look through them at the person talking, he was busier with that +person's thoughts than with his words. + +Jefferson Buck was not bold enough to confront the Doctor with Miss +Susy's question, for he did not look as if he were in the mood to +answer queries put by curious young people. His eyes were fixed +steadily on the dark girl, every movement of whom he seemed to follow. + +She was, indeed, an apparition of wild beauty, so unlike the girls +about her that it seemed nothing more than natural, that, when she +moved, the groups should part to let her pass through them, and that +she should carry the centre of all looks and thoughts with her. She was +dressed to please her own fancy, evidently, with small regard to the +modes declared correct by the Rockland milliners and mantua-makers. Her +heavy black hair lay in a braided coil, with a long gold pin shot +through it like a javelin. Round her neck was a golden _torque_, a +round, cord-like chain, such as the Gauls used to wear: the "Dying +Gladiator" has it. Her dress was a grayish watered silk; her collar was +pinned with a flashing diamond brooch, the stones looking as fresh as +morning dew-drops, but the silver setting of the past generation; her +arms were bare, round, but slender rather than large, in keeping with +her lithe round figure. On her wrists she wore bracelets: one was a +circlet of enamelled scales; the other looked as if it might have been +Cleopatra's asp, with its body turned to gold and its eyes to emeralds. + +Her father--for Dudley Venner was her father--looked like a man of +culture and breeding, but melancholy and with a distracted air, as one +whose life had met some fatal cross or blight. He saluted hardly +anybody except his entertainers and the Doctor. One would have said, to +look at him, that he was not at the party by choice; and it was natural +enough to think, with Susy Pettingill, that it must have been a freak +of the dark girl's that brought him there, for he had the air of a shy +and sad-hearted recluse. + +It was hard to say what could have brought Elsie Venner to the party. +Hardly anybody seemed to know her, and she seemed not at all disposed +to make acquaintances. Here and there was one of the older girls from +the Institute, but she appeared to have nothing in common with them. +Even in the school-room, it may be remembered, she sat apart by her own +choice, and now in the midst of the crowd she made a circle of +isolation round herself. Drawing her arm out of her father's, she stood +against the wall, and looked, with a strange, cold glitter in her eyes, +at the crowd which moved and babbled before her. + +The old Doctor came up to her by-and-by. + +"Well, Elsie, I am quite surprised to find you here. Do tell me how you +happened to do such a good-natured thing as to let us see you at such a +great party." + +"It's been dull at the mansion-house," she said, "and I wanted to get +out of it. It's too lonely there,--there's nobody to hate since Dick's +gone." + +The Doctor laughed good-naturedly, as if this were an amusing bit of +pleasantry,--but he lifted his head and dropped his eyes a little, so +as to see her through his spectacles. She narrowed her lids slightly, +as one often sees a sleepy cat narrow hers,--somewhat as you may +remember our famous Margaret used to, if you remember her at all,--so +that her eyes looked very small, but bright as the diamonds on her +breast. The old Doctor felt very oddly as she looked at him; he did not +like the feeling, so he dropped his head and lifted his eyes and looked +at her over his spectacles again. + +"And how have you all been at the mansion-house?" said the Doctor. + +"Oh, well enough. But Dick's gone, and there's nobody left but Dudley +and I and the people. I'm tired of it. What kills anybody quickest, +Doctor?" Then, in a whisper, "I ran away again the other day, you +know." + +"Where did you go?" The Doctor spoke in a low, serious tone. + +"Oh, to the old place. Here, I brought this for you." + +The Doctor started as she handed him a flower of the _Atragene +Americana_, for he knew that there was only one spot where it grew, and +that not one where any rash foot, least of all a thin-shod woman's +foot, should venture. + +"How long were you gone?" said the Doctor. + +"Only one night. You should have heard the horns blowing and the guns +firing. Dudley was frightened out of his wits. Old Sophy told him she'd +had a dream, and that I should be found in Dead-Man's Hollow, with a +great rock lying on me. They hunted all over it, but they did'nt find +me,--I was farther up." + +Doctor Kittredge looked cloudy and worried while she was speaking, but +forced a pleasant professional smile, as he said cheerily, and as if +wishing to change the subject,-- + +"Have a good dance this evening, Elsie. The fiddlers are tuning up. +Where's the young master? Has he come yet? or is he going to be late, +with the other great folks?" + +The girl turned away without answering, and looked toward the door. + +The "great folks," meaning the mansion-house gentry, were just +beginning to come; Dudley Venner and his daughter had been the first of +them. Judge Thornton, white-headed, fresh-faced, as good at sixty as he +was at forty, with a youngish second wife, and one noble daughter, +Arabella, who, they said, knew as much law as her father, a stately, +Portia-like girl, fit for a premier's wife, not like to find her match +even in the great cities she sometimes visited; the Trecothicks, the +family of a merchant, (in the larger sense,) who, having made himself +rich enough by the time he had reached middle life, threw down his +ledger as Sylla did his dagger, and retired to make a little paradise +around him in one of the stateliest residences of the town, a family +inheritance; the Vaughans, an old Rockland race, descended from its +first settlers, Toryish in tendency in Revolutionary times, and barely +escaping confiscation or worse; the Dunhams, a new family, dating its +gentility only as far back as the Honorable Washington Dunham, M.C., +but turning out a clever boy or two that went to college, and some +showy girls with white necks and fat arms who had picked up +professional husbands: these were the principal mansion-house people. +All of them had made it a point to come; and as each of them entered, +it seemed to Colonel and Mrs. Sprowle that the lamps burned up with a +more cheerful light, and that the fiddles which sounded from the +uncarpeted room were all half a tone higher and half a beat quicker. + +Mr. Bernard came in later than any of them; he had been busy with his +new duties. He looked well; and that is saying a good deal; for nothing +but a gentleman is endurable in full dress. Hair that masses well, a +head set on with an air, a neckerchief tied cleverly by an easy, +practised hand, close-fitting gloves, feet well shaped and well +covered,--these advantages can make us forgive the odious sable +broadcloth suit, which appears to have been adopted by society on the +same principle that condemned all the Venetian gondolas to perpetual +and uniform blackness. Mr. Bernard, introduced by Mr. Geordie, made his +bow to the Colonel and his lady and to Miss Matilda, from whom he got a +particularly gracious curtsy, and then began looking about him for +acquaintances. He found two or three faces he knew,--many more +strangers. There was Silas Peckham,--there was no mistaking him; there +was the inelastic amplitude of Mrs. Peckham; few of the Apollinean +girls, of course, they not being recognized members of society,--but +there is one with the flame in her cheeks and the fire in her eyes, the +girl of vigorous tints and emphatic outlines, whom we saw entering the +school-room the other day. Old Judge Thornton has his eyes on her, and +the Colonel steals a look every now and then at the red brooch which +lifts itself so superbly into the light, as if he thought it a +wonderfully becoming ornament. Mr. Bernard himself was not displeased +with the general effect of the rich-blooded school-girl, as she stood +under the bright lamps, fanning herself in the warm, languid air, fixed +in a kind of passionate surprise at the new life which seemed to be +flowering out in her consciousness. Perhaps he looked at her somewhat +steadily, as some others had done; at any rate, she seemed to feel that +she was looked at, as people often do, and, turning her eyes suddenly +on him, caught his own on her face, gave him a half-bashful smile, and +threw in a blush involuntarily which made it more charming. + +"What can I do better," he said to himself, "than have a dance with +Rosa Milburn?" So he carried his handsome pupil into the next room and +took his place with her in a cotillon. Whether the breath of the +Goddess of Love could intoxicate like the cup of Circe,--whether a +woman is ever phosphorescent with the luminous vapor of life that she +exhales,--these and other questions which relate to occult influences +exercised by certain women, we will not now discuss. It is enough that +Mr. Bernard was sensible of a strange fascination, not wholly new to him, +nor unprecedented in the history of human experience, but always a +revelation when it comes over us for the first or the hundredth time, +so pale is the most recent memory by the side of the passing moment with +the flush of any new-born passion on its cheek. Remember that Nature makes +every man love all women, and trusts the trivial matter of special choice +to the commonest accident. + +If Mr. Bernard had had nothing to distract his attention, he might have +thought too much about his handsome partner, and then gone home and +dreamed about her, which is always dangerous, and waked up thinking of +her still, and then begun to be deeply interested in her studies, and +so on, through the whole syllogism which ends in Nature's supreme _quod +erat demonstrandum_. What was there to distract him or disturb him? He +did not know,--but there was something. This sumptuous creature, this +Eve just within the gate of an untried Paradise, untutored in the ways +of the world, but on tiptoe to reach the fruit of the tree of +knowledge,--alive to the moist vitality of that warm atmosphere +palpitating with voices and music, as the flower of some diaecious +plant which has grown in a lone corner, and suddenly unfolding its +corolla on some hot-breathing June evening, feels that the air is +perfumed with strange odors and loaded with golden dust wafted from +those other blossoms with which its double life is shared,--this almost +overwomanized woman, might well have bewitched him, but that he had a +vague sense of a counter-charm. It was, perhaps, only the same +consciousness that some one was looking at him which he himself had +just given occasion to in his partner. Presently, in one of the turns +of the dance, he felt his eyes drawn to a figure he had not distinctly +recognized, though he had dimly felt its presence, and saw that Elsie +Venner was looking at him as if she saw nothing else but him. He was +not a nervous person, like the poor lady teacher, yet the glitter of +the diamond eyes affected him strangely. It seemed to disenchant the +air, so fall a moment before of strange attractions. He became silent, +and dreamy, as it were. The round-limbed beauty at his side crushed her +gauzy draperies against him, as they trod the figure of the dance +together, but it was no more to him than if an old nurse had laid her +hand on his sleeve. The young girl chafed at his seeming neglect, and +her imperious blood mounted into her cheeks; but he appeared +unconscious of it. + +"There is one of our young ladies I must speak to," he said,--and was +just leaving his partner's side. + +"Four hands all round!" shouted the first violin,--and Mr. Bernard +found himself seized and whirled in a circle out of which he could not +escape, and then forced to "cross over," and then to "dozy do," as the +_maestro_ had it,--and when, on getting back to his place, he looked +for Elsie Venner, she was gone. + +The dancing went on briskly. Some of the old folks looked on, others +conversed in groups and pairs, and so the evening wore along, until a +little after ten o'clock. About this time there was noticed an +increased bustle in the passages, with a considerable opening and +shutting of doors. Presently it began to be whispered about that they +were going to have supper. Many, who had never been to any large party +before, held their breath for a moment at this announcement. It was +rather with a tremulous interest than with open hilarity that the rumor +was generally received. + +One point the Colonel had entirely forgotten to settle. It was a point +involving not merely propriety, but perhaps principle also, or at least +the good report of the house,--and he had never thought to arrange it. +He took Judge Thornton aside and whispered the important question to +him,--in his distress of mind, mistaking pockets and taking out his +bandanna instead of his white handkerchief to wipe his forehead. + +"Judge," he said, "do you think, that, before we commence refreshing +ourselves at the tables, it would be the proper thing to--crave a--to +request Deacon Soper or some other elderly person--to ask a blessing?" + +The Judge looked as grave as if he were about giving the opinion of the +Court in the great India-rubber case. + +"On the whole," he answered, after a pause, "I should think it might, +perhaps, be dispensed with on this occasion. Young folks are noisy, and +it is awkward to have talking and laughing going on while a blessing is +being asked. Unless a clergyman is present and makes a point of it, I +think it will hardly be expected." + +The Colonel was infinitely relieved. "Judge, will you take Mrs. Sprowle +in to supper?" And the Colonel returned the compliment by offering his +arm to Mrs. Judge Thornton. + +The door of the supper-room was now open, and the company, following +the lead of the host and hostess, began to stream into it, until it was +pretty well filled. + +There was an awful kind of pause. Many were beginning to drop their +heads and shut their eyes, in anticipation of the usual petition before +a meal; some expected the music to strike up,--others, that an oration +would now be delivered by the Colonel. + +"Make yourselves at home, ladies and gentlemen," said the Colonel; +"good things were made to eat, and you're welcome to all you see before +you." + +So saying, he attacked a huge turkey which stood at the head of the +table; and his example being followed first by the bold, then by the +doubtful, and lastly by the timid, the clatter soon made the circuit of +the tables. Some were shocked, however, as the Colonel had feared they +would be, at the want of the customary invocation. Widow Leech, a kind +of relation, who had to be invited, and who came with her old, +back-country-looking string of gold beads round her neck, seemed to +feel very serious about it. + +"If she'd ha' known that folks would begrutch cravin' a blessin' over +sech a heap o' provisions, she'd rather have staid t' home. It was a +bad sign, when folks wasn't grateful for the baounties of Providence." + +The elder Miss Spinney, to whom she made this remark, assented to it, +at the same time ogling a piece of frosted cake, which she presently +appropriated with great refinement of manner,--taking it between her +thumb and forefinger, keeping the others well spread and the little +finger in extreme divergence, with a graceful undulation of the neck, +and a queer little sound in her throat, as of an _m_ that wanted to get +out and perished in the attempt. + +The tables now presented an animated spectacle. Young fellows of the +more dashing sort, with high stand-up collars and voluminous bows to +their neckerchiefs, distinguished themselves by cutting up fowls and +offering portions thereof to the buxom girls these knowing ones had +commonly selected. + +"A bit of the wing, Roxy, or of the--under limb?" + +The first laugh broke out at this, but it was premature, a _sporadic_ +laugh, as Dr. Kittredge would have said, which did not become epidemic. +People were very solemn as yet, many of them being new to such splendid +scenes, and crushed, as it were, in the presence of so much crockery +and so many silver spoons, and such a variety of unusual viands and +beverages. When the laugh rose around Roxy and her saucy beau, several +looked in that direction with an anxious expression, as if something +had happened,--a lady fainted, for instance, or a couple of lively +fellows came to high words. + +"Young folks will be young folks," said Deacon Soper. "No harm done. +Least said soonest mended." + +"Have some of these shell-oysters?" said the Colonel to Mrs. +Trecothick. + +A delicate emphasis on the word _shell_ implied that the Colonel knew +what was what. To the New England inland native, beyond the reach of +the east winds, the oyster unconditioned, the oyster absolute, without +a qualifying adjective, is the _pickled_ oyster. Mrs. Trecothick, who +knew very well that an oyster long out of his shell (as is apt to be +the case with the rural bivalve) gets homesick and loses his +sprightliness, replied, with the pleasantest smile in the world, that +the chicken she had been helped to was too delicate to be given up even +for the greater rarity. But the word "shell-oysters" had been +overheard; and there was a perceptible crowding movement towards their +newly discovered habitat, a large soup-tureen. + +Silas Peckham had meantime fallen upon another locality of these recent +mollusks. He said nothing, but helped himself freely, and made a sign +to Mrs. Peckham. + +"Lorindy," he whispered, "shell-oysters!" + +And ladled them out to her largely, without betraying any emotion, just +as if they had been the natural inland or pickled article. + +After the more solid portion of the banquet had been duly honored, the +cakes and sweet preparations of various kinds began to get their share +of attention. There were great cakes and little cakes, cakes with +raisins in them, cakes with currants, and cakes without either; there +were brown cakes and yellow cakes, frosted cakes, glazed cakes, hearts +and rounds, and _jumbles_, which playful youth slip over the forefinger +before spoiling their annular outline. There were moulds of +_blo'monje_, of the arrowroot variety,--that being undistinguishable +from such as is made with Russia isinglass. There were jellies, that +had been shaking, all the time the young folks were dancing in the next +room, as if they were balancing to partners. There were built-up +fabrics, called _Charlottes_, caky externally, pulpy within; there were +also _marangs_, and likewise custards,--some of the indolent-fluid +sort, others firm, in which every stroke of the teaspoon left a smooth, +conchoidal surface like the fracture of chalcedony, with here and there +a little eye like what one sees in cheeses. Nor was that most wonderful +object of domestic art called _trifle_ wanting, with its charming +confusion of cream and cake and almonds and jam and jelly and wine and +cinnamon and froth; nor yet the marvellous _floating-island_,--name +suggestive of all that is romantic in the imaginations of youthful +palates. + +"It must have cost you a sight of work, to say nothin' of money, to get +all this beautiful confectionery made for the party," said Mrs. Crane +to Mrs. Sprowle. + +"Well, it cost some consid'able labor, no doubt," said Mrs. Sprowle. +"Matilda and our girls and I made 'most all the cake with our own +hands, and we all feel some tired; but if folks get what suits 'em, we +don't begrudge the time nor the work. But I do feel thirsty," said the +poor lady, "and I think a glass of srub would do my throat good; it's +dreadful dry. Mr. Peckham, would you be so polite as to pass me a glass +of srub?" + +Silas Peckham bowed with great alacrity, and took from the table a +small glass cup, containing a fluid reddish in hue and subacid in +taste. This was _srub_, a beverage in local repute, of questionable +nature, but suspected of owing its color and sharpness to some kind of +syrup derived from the maroon-colored fruit of the sumac. There were +similar small cups on the table filled with lemonade, and here and +there a decanter of Madeira wine, of the Marsala kind, which some +prefer to, and many more cannot distinguish from, that which comes from +the Atlantic island. + +"Take a glass of wine, Judge," said the Colonel; "here is an article +that I rather think 'll suit you." + +The Judge knew something of wines, and could tell all the famous old +Madeiras from each other,--"Eclipse," "Juno," the almost fabulously +scarce and precious "White-top," and the rest. He struck the nativity +of the Mediterranean Madeira before it had fairly moistened his lip. + +"A sound wine, Colonel, and I should think of a genuine vintage. Your +very good health." + +"Deacon Soper," said the Colonel, "here is some Madary Judge Thornton +recommends. Let me fill you a glass of it." + +The Deacon's eyes glistened. He was one of those consistent Christians +who stick firmly by the first miracle and Paul's advice to Timothy. + +"A little good wine won't hurt anybody," said the Deacon. +"Plenty,--plenty,--plenty. There!" He had not withdrawn his glass, +while the Colonel was pouring, for fear it should spill; and now it was +running over. + +----It is very odd how all a man's philosophy and theology are at the +mercy of a few drops of a fluid which the chemists say consists of +nothing but C 4, O 2, H 6. The Deacon's theology fell off several +points towards latitudinarianism in the course of the next ten minutes. +He had a deep inward sense that everything was as it should be, human +nature included. The little accidents of humanity, known collectively +to moralists as sin, looked very venial to his growing sense of +universal brotherhood and benevolence. + +"It will all come right," the Deacon said to himself,--"I feel a +joyful conviction that everything is for the best. I am favored with +a blessed peace of mind, and a very precious season of good feelin' +toward my fellow-creturs." + +A lusty young fellow happened to make a quick step backward just at +that instant, and put his heel, with his weight on top of it, upon the +Deacon's toes. + +"Aigh! What the d--d--didos are y' abaout with them great hoofs o' +yourn?" said the Deacon, with an expression upon his features not +exactly that of peace and good-will to man. The lusty young fellow +apologized; but the Deacon's face did not come right, and his theology +backed round several points in the direction of total depravity. + +Some of the dashing young men in stand-up collars and extensive +neck-ties, encouraged by Mr. Geordie, made quite free with the +"Madary," and even induced some of the more stylish girls--not of the +mansion-house set, but of the tip-top two-story families--to taste a +little. Most of these young ladies made faces at it, and declared it +was "perfectly horrid," with that aspect of veracity peculiar to their +age and sex. + +About this time a movement was made on the part of some of the +mansion-house people to leave the supper-table. Miss Jane Trecothick +had quietly hinted to her mother that she had had enough of it. Miss +Arabella Thornton had whispered to her father that he had better +adjourn this court to the next room. There were signs of migration,--a +loosening of people in their places,--a looking about for arms to hitch +on to. + +The great folks saw that the play was not over yet, and that it was +only polite to stay and see it out. The word "Ice-Cream" was no sooner +whispered than it passed from one to another all down the tables. The +effect was what might have been anticipated. Many of the guests had +never seen this celebrated product of human skill, and to all the +two-story population of Rockland it was the last expression of the art +of pleasing and astonishing the human palate. Its appearance had been +deferred for several reasons: first, because everybody would have +attacked it, if it had come in with the other luxuries; secondly, +because undue apprehensions were entertained (owing to want of +experience) of its tendency to deliquesce and resolve itself with +alarming rapidity into puddles of creamy fluid; and, thirdly, because +the surprise would make a grand climax to finish off the banquet. + +There is something so audacious in the conception of ice-cream, that it +is not strange that a population undebauched by the luxury of great +cities looks upon it with a kind of awe and speaks of it with a certain +emotion. This defiance of the seasons, forcing Nature to do her work of +congelation, in the face of her sultriest noon, might well inspire a +timid mind with fear lest human art were revolting against the Higher +Powers, and raise the same scruples which resisted the use of ether and +chloroform in certain contingencies. Whatever may be the cause, it is +well known that the announcement at any private rural entertainment +that there is to be ice-cream produces an immediate and profound +impression. It may be remarked, as aiding this impression, that +exaggerated ideas are entertained as to the dangerous effects this +congealed food may produce on persons not in the most robust health. + +There was silence as the pyramids of ice were placed on the table, +everybody looking on in admiration. The Colonel took a knife and +assailed the one at the head of the table. When he tried to cut off a +slice, it didn't seem to understand it, however, and only tipped, as if +it wanted to upset. The Colonel attacked it on the other side and it +tipped just as badly the other way. It was awkward for the Colonel. +"Permit me," said the Judge,--and he took the knife and struck a sharp +slanting stroke which, sliced off a piece just of the right size, and +offered it to Mrs. Sprowle. This act of dexterity was much admired by +the company. + +The tables were all alive again. + +"Lorindy, here's a plate of ice-cream," said Silas Peckham. + +"Come, Mahaly," said a fresh-looking young fellow with a saucerful in +each hand, "here's your ice-cream;--let's go in the corner and have a +celebration, us two." And the old green de-laine, with the young curves +under it to make it sit well, moved off as pleased apparently as if it +had been silk velvet with thousand-dollar laces over it. + +"Oh, now, Miss Green! do you think it's safe to put that cold stuff +into your stomick?" said the Widow Leech to a young married lady, who, +finding the air rather warm, thought a little ice would cool her down +very nicely. "It's jest like eatin' snowballs. You don't look very +rugged; and I should be dreadful afeard, if I was you"---- + +"Carrie," said old Dr. Kittredge, who had overheard this,--"how well +you're looking this evening! But you must be tired and heated;--sit +down here, and let me give you a good slice of ice-cream. How you young +folks do grow up, to be sure! I don't feel quite certain whether it's +you or your mother or your daughter, but I know it's somebody I call +Carrie, and that I've known ever since"---- + +A sound something between a howl and an oath startled the company and +broke off the Doctor's sentence. Everybody's eyes turned in the +direction from which it came. A group instantly gathered round the +person who had uttered it, who was no other than Deacon Soper. + +"He's chokin'! he's chokin'!" was the first exclamation,--"slap him on +the back!" + +Several heavy fists beat such a tattoo on his spine that the Deacon +felt as if at least one of his vertebrae would come up. + +"He's black in the face," said Widow Leech,--"he's swallered somethin' +the wrong way. Where's the Doctor?--let the Doctor get to him, can't +ye?" + +"If you will move, my good lady, perhaps I can," said Dr. Kittredge, in +a calm tone of voice.--"He's not choking, my friends," the Doctor added +immediately, when he got sight of him. + +"It's apoplexy,--I told you so,--don't you see how red he is in the +face?" said old Mrs. Peake, a famous woman for "nussin" sick +folks,--determined to be a little ahead of the Doctor. + +"It's not apoplexy," said Dr. Kittredge. + +"What is it, Doctor? what is it? Will he die? Is he dead?--Here's his +poor wife, the Widow Soper that is to be, if she a'n't a'ready." + +"Do be quiet, my good woman," said Dr. Kittredge.--"Nothing serious, I +think, Mrs. Soper.--Deacon!" + +The sudden attack of Deacon Soper had begun with the extraordinary +sound mentioned above. His features had immediately assumed an +expression of intense pain, his eyes staring wildly, and, clapping his +hands to his face, he had rocked his head backward and forward in +speechless agony. + +At the Doctor's sharp appeal the Deacon lifted his head. + +"It's all right," said the Doctor, as soon as he saw his face. "The +Deacon had a smart attack of neuralgic pain. That's all. Very severe, +but not at all dangerous." + +The Doctor kept his countenance, but his diaphragm was shaking the +change in his waistcoat-pockets with subterranean laughter. He had +looked through his spectacles and seen at once what had happened. The +Deacon, not being in the habit of taking his nourishment in the +congealed state, had treated the ice-cream as a pudding of a rare +species, and, to make sure of doing himself justice in its +distribution, had taken a large mouthful of it without the least +precaution. The consequence was a sensation as if a dentist were +killing the nerves of twenty-five teeth at once with hot irons, or cold +ones, which would hurt rather worse. + +The Deacon swallowed something with a spasmodic effort, and recovered +pretty soon and received the congratulations of his friends. There were +different versions of the expressions he had used at the onset of his +complaint,--some of the reported exclamations involving a breach of +propriety, to say the least,--but it was agreed that a man in an attack +of neuralgy wasn't to be judged of by the rules that applied to other +folks. + +The company soon after this retired from the supper-room. The +mansion-house gentry took their leave, and the two-story people soon +followed. Mr. Bernard had staid an hour or two, and left soon after he +found that Elsie Tenner and her father had disappeared. As he passed by +the dormitory of the Institute, he saw a light glimmering from one of +its upper rooms, where the lady teacher was still waking. His heart +ached, when he remembered, that, through all these hours of gayety, or +what was meant for it, the patient girl had been at work in her little +chamber; and he looked up at the silent stars, as if to see that they +were watching over her. The planet Mars was burning like a red coal; +the northern constellation was slanting downward about its central +point of flame; and while he looked, a falling star slid from the +zenith and was lost. + +He reached his chamber and was soon dreaming over the Event of the +Season. + + + + +LOST BELIEFS. + + +One after one they left us; + The sweet birds out of our breasts +Went flying away in the morning: + Will they come again to their nests? + +Will they come again at nightfall, + With God's breath in their song? +Noon is fierce with the heats of summer, + And summer days are long! + +Oh, my Life! with thy upward liftings, + Thy downward-striking roots, +Ripening out of thy tender blossoms + But hard and bitter fruits,-- + +In thy boughs there is no shelter + For my birds to seek again! +Ah! the desolate nest is broken + And torn with storms and rain! + + + + +THE MEXICANS AND THEIR COUNTRY. + + +On the 21st of December, 1859, General Miramon, at the head of the +forces of the Mexican Republic, met an army of Liberals at Colima, and +overthrew it. The first accounts of the action represented the victory +of the Conservatives to be complete, and as settling the fate of Mexico +for the present, as between the parties headed respectively by Juarez +and Miramon. Later accounts show that there was some exaggeration as to +the details of the action, but the defeat of the Liberals is not +denied. It would be rash to attach great importance to any Mexican +battle; but the Liberal cause was so depressed before the action at +Colima as to create the impression that it could not survive the result +of that day. Whether the cause of which Miramon is the champion be +popular in Mexico or the reverse, it is certain that at the close of +1859 that chief had succeeded in every undertaking in which he had +personally engaged; and our own political history is too full of facts +which show that a successful military man is sure to be a popular +chief, whatever may be his opinions, to allow of our doubting the +effect of victory on the minds of the Mexicans. The mere circumstance +that Miramon is personally victorious, while the Liberals achieve +occasional successes over their foes where he is not present, will be +of much service to him. That "there is nothing so successful as +success" is an idea as old as the day on which the Tempter of Man +caused him to lose Paradise, and to the world's admission of it is to +be attributed the decision of nearly every political contest which has +distracted society. Miramon may have entered upon a career not unlike +to that of Santa Ana, whose early victories enabled him to maintain his +hold on the respect of his countrymen long after it should have been lost +through his cruelties and his disregard of his word and his oath. All, +indeed, that is necessary to complete the power of Miramon is, that +some foreign nation should interfere in Mexican affairs in behalf of +Juarez. Such interference, if made on a sufficiently large scale, might +lead to his defeat and banishment, but it would cause him to reign in +the hearts of the Mexicans; and he would be recalled, as we have seen +Santa Ana recalled, as soon as circumstances should enable the people +to act according to their own sense of right. + +Before considering the probable effect of Miramon's success on the +policy of the United States toward Mexico, there is one point that +deserves some attention. Which party, the Liberal or the Conservative, +is possessed of most power in Mexico? The assertions made on this +subject are of a very contradictory character. President Buchanan, in +his last Annual Message, says that the Constitutional government +--meaning that of which Juarez is the head--"is supported by a +a large majority of the people and the States, but there are important +parts of the country where it can enforce no obedience. General Miramon +maintains himself at the capital, and in some of the distant provinces +there are military governors who pay little respect to the decrees of +either government." On the other hand, a Mexican writer, a member of +the Conservative party, who published his views on the condition of his +country just one month before the President's Message appeared, +declares that the five Provinces or States in which the authority of +Miramon was then acknowledged contain a larger population than exists +in the twenty-three States in which it was not acknowledged. Of the +local authorities in these latter States he says,--"It is a great +mistake to imagine that they obey the government of Juarez any more +than they obey the government of General Miramon, or any further than +it suits their own private interest to obey him. It would be curious to +know, for instance, how much of the money collected by these 'local +authorities' for taxes, or contributions, or forced loans, and chiefly +at the seaport towns for custom-house duties, goes to the 'national +treasury' under the Juarez government." In this case, as in many others +of a like nature, the truth probably is, that but a very small number +of the people feel much interest in the contest, while most of them are +prepared to obey whichever chief shall succeed in it without foreign +aid. Of the active men of the country, the majority are now with +Miramon, or Juarez would not be shut up in a seaport, with his party +forming the mere sea-coast fringe of the nation. All that is necessary +to convert him into a national, patriotic ruler is, that a foreign army +should be sent to the assistance of his rival: and that such assistance +shall be sent to Juarez, President Buchanan has virtually pledged the +United States by his words and his actions. + +In his last Message to Congress, President Buchanan dwells with much +unction upon the wrongs we have experienced from Mexico, and avers that +we can obtain no redress from the Miramon government. "We may in vain +apply to the Constitutional government at Vera Cruz," he says, +"although it is well disposed to do us justice, for adequate redress. +Whilst its authority is acknowledged in all the important ports and +throughout the sea-coasts of the Republic, its power does not extend to +the city of Mexico and the States in its vicinity, where nearly all the +recent outrages have been committed on American citizens. We must +penetrate into the interior before we can reach the offenders, and this +can only be done by passing through the territory in the occupation of +the Constitutional government. The most acceptable and least difficult +mode of accomplishing the object will be to act in concert with that +government." He then recommends that Congress should authorize him "to +employ a sufficient military force to enter Mexico for the purpose of +obtaining indemnity for the past and security for the future." And he +expresses the opinion that justice would be done by the Constitutional +government; but his faith is not quite so strong as we could wish it to +be, as he carefully adds, "This might be secured in advance by a +preliminary treaty." + +Thus has the President pledged the country to help Juarez establish his +authority over Mexico, in words sure to be read and heeded throughout +America and Europe. His actions have been quite as much to the purpose. +He placed himself in communication with Juarez in 1859, and recognized +his government to be the only existing government of Mexico as early as +April 7th, through our envoy, Mr. McLane. That envoy floats about, +having a man-of-war for his home, and ready, it should seem, to receive +the government to which he is accredited, in the event of its being +forced to make a second sea-trip for the preservation of the lives of +its members. As the sole refuge for unpopular European monarchs, +at one time, was a British man-of-war, so are feeble Mexican chiefs +now compelled to rely for safety upon our national ships. + +To predict anything respecting Mexican affairs would be almost as idle +as it would be to assume the part of a prophet concerning American +politics; but, unless Miramon's good genius should leave him, his +appearance in Vera Cruz may be looked for at no very distant day, and +then we shall have the Juarez government entirely on our hands, to +support or to neglect, as may be dictated by the exigencies of our +affairs. That base of operations, upon the possession of which +President Buchanan has so confidently calculated, would be lost, and +could be regained only as the consequence of action as comprehensive +and as costly as that which placed Vera Cruz in the hands of General +Scott in 1847. If the policy laid down by President Buchanan should be +adopted and pursued, war should follow between the United States and +Mexico from the triumph of Miramon; and in that war, we should be a +principal, and not the mere ally of one of those parties into which the +Mexican people are divided. Logically, war is inevitable from Mr. +Buchanan's arguments and General Miramon's victories; but, as +circumstances, not logic, govern the actions of politicians, we may +possibly behold all Mexico loyal to the young general, and yet not see +an American army enter that country. The President declares that in +Mexico's "fate and in her fortune, in her power to establish and +maintain a settled government, we have a far deeper interest, socially, +commercially, and politically, than any other nation." The truth of +this will not be disputed; but suppose that Miramon should establish +and maintain a settled government in Mexico, would it not be our duty, +and in accordance "with our wise and settled policy," to acknowledge +that government, and to seek from it redress of those wrongs concerning +which Mr. Buchanan speaks with so much emphasis? Once in a responsible +position, and desirous of having the world's approval of his +countrymen's conduct, Miramon might be even more than willing to +promise as much as Juarez has already promised, we may presume, in the +way of satisfaction. That he would fulfil his promises, or that Juarez +would fulfil those which he has made, it would be too much to assert; +as neither of them would be able, judging from Mexico's past, to +maintain himself long in power. + +For the present, if not forever, Juarez may be left out of all American +calculations concerning Mexico; and as to Miramon, though his prospects +are apparently fair, the intelligent observer of Mexican politics +cannot fail to have seen that the glare of the clerical eye is upon +him, and that some faint indications on his part of a determination not +to be the Church's vassal have already placed his supremacy in peril, +and perhaps have caused conspiracies to be formed against him which +shall prove more injurious to his fortunes than the operations of +Liberal armies or the Messages of American Presidents. The Mexican +Church, full-blooded and wealthy as it is, is the skeleton in the +palace of every Mexican chief that spoils his sleep and threatens to +destroy his power, as it has destroyed that of every one of his +predecessors. The armies and banners of the Americans of the +North cannot be half so terrible to Miramon, supposing him +to be a reflecting man, as are the vestments of his clerical +allies. Even those armies, too, may be called into Mexico by +the Church, and those banners become the standards of a crusading host +from among a people which of all that the world has ever seen is the +least given to religious intolerance, and to whom the mere thought of +an established religion is odious. Nor would there be anything strange +in such a solution of the Mexican question, if we are to infer the +character of the future from the character of the past and the present. +A generation that has seen American democracy become the propagandists +of slavery assuredly ought not to be astonished at the spectacle of +American Protestantism upholding the State religion of Mexico, and that +religion embodying the worst abuses of the system of Rome. It was, +perhaps, because he foresaw the possibility of this, that "the +gray-eyed man of destiny," William Walker himself, was reconciled last +year to the ancient Church, and received into her bosom. As a Catholic, +and as a convert to that faith from heresy, he might achieve those +victories for which he longs, but which singularly avoid him as a man +of the sword. It is the old story: Satan, being sick, turns saint for +the time: only that it is heart-sickness in this instance; the hope of +being able to plunder some weak, but wealthy country having been too +long deferred for the patience even of an agent of Fate. + +That our government means to persevere in its designs against Mexico, +in spite of the misfortunes of the Liberals, is to be inferred: from +all that we hear from Washington. The victories of Oajaca, Queretaro, +and Colima, won by the Conservatives, have wrought no apparent change +in the Presidential mind. So anxious, indeed, is Mr. Buchanan for the +triumph of his plan, that he is ready to seek aid from his political +opponents. Leading Republicans are to be consulted personally, and they +are to be appealed to and asked patriotically to banish all party and +"sectional" feelings from their minds, while discussing the best mode +of helping "our neighbor" out of the Slough of Despond, so that she may +be enabled to meet the demands we have upon her,--not in money, for +that she has not, and we purpose giving her a round sum, but in land, +of which she has a vast supply, and all of it susceptible of yielding +good returns to servile industry. There is a necessity for this appeal +to Opposition Senators, as the Juarez treaty cannot be ratified without +the aid of some of their number. The ratification vote must consist of +two-thirds of the Senators present and voting; and of the sixty-six men +forming the Senate, but thirty-nine are Democrats, and two are "South +Americans." The Republicans, who could muster but a dozen votes in the +Senate when the present phase of the Slavery contest was begun, have +doubled their strength, and have arrived at the honor of being sought +by men who but yesterday regarded them as objects of scorn. Nor is it +altogether a new thing for the administration to depend upon its +enemies; and the practical adoption of the "one-term" principle in our +Presidential contests, by virtually depriving all administrations of +strict party support, has introduced into our politics a new element, +the first faint workings of which are beginning to be seen, but which +is destined to have grave effects, and not such, in all cases, as are +to be desired. + +But it is not from the ambition or the perverseness of the President +that Mexico has much to fear. Were it not for other reasons, which +proceed from the "Manifest Destiny" school, the country would laugh down +the administration's Mexican programme, and it could hardly be expected to +receive the grave consideration of the Senate. What Mexico has to fear +is the rapid increase of the old American opinion, that we were +appointed by Destiny to devour her, and that in spoiling her we are +only fulfilling "our mission," discharging, as we may say, a high moral +and religious duty. It is not that we have any animosity toward Mexico, +but that we are the Heaven-appointed rulers of America, of which she +happens to be no small part. By a happy ordination, and a wise +direction of our skill as missionaries militant, we never waste our +time and our valor on strong countries; and as wolves do not seek to +make meals of lions, preferring mutton, so we have no taste for those +very American countries which are inhabited by the English race, and in +which exist those great political institutions of the enjoyment of +which we are so proud. The obligation to take Mexico is admitted by +most Americans, though some would proceed more rapidly in the work of +acquisition than others; but no one hints that we ought to have +Canada. Our government has repeatedly offered to purchase Cuba of +Spain, which offer that country holds to be an insult; but it has not +yet thought proper to seek possession of Jamaica. Destiny, in our case, +is as judicious as it is imperative, and means that we shall find our +account in doing her work. Had she favored some other nations as much +as we are favored, they might have flourished till now, instead of +becoming wrecks on the sandy shores of the Sea of Time. + +The conviction that Mexico is to be ours is no new idea. It is as old, +almost, as the American nation. We found Spain in our path very soon +after she had behaved in so friendly a manner to us during the +Revolution; and one of the earliest thoughts of the West was to get her +out of the way. This was "inevitable," and "Manifest Destiny" was as +actively at work in the days of Rodgers Clarke as in those of Walker, +but with better reason; for the control that Spain exercised over the +navigation of the Mississippi was contrary to common sense. In a few +years, the acquisition of Louisiana (nominally from France, but really +from Spain) removed the evil of which the West complained; but the idea +of seizure remained, and was strengthened by the deed that was meant to +extinguish it. That Louisiana had been obtained without the loss of a +life, and for a sum of money that could be made to sound big only when +reduced to _francs_ was quite enough to cause the continuance of that +system of agitation which had produced results so great with means so +small. Enmity to Spain remained, after the immediate cause of it had +ceased to exist. War with that country was expected in 1806, and the +West anxiously desired it, meaning to invade Mexico. Hence the +popularity of Aaron Burr in that part of the Union, and the favor with +which his schemes were regarded by Western men. Burr was a generation +in advance of his Atlantic contemporaries, but he was not in advance of +the Ultramontanes, only abreast of them, and well adapted to be their +leader, from his military skill and his high political rank; for his +duel with Hamilton had not injured him in their estimation. His +connection with the war party, however, proved fatal to it, and +probably was the cause of the non-realization of its plans fifty years +ago. President Jefferson hated Colonel Burr with all the intensity that +philosophy can give to political rivalry; and so the whole force of the +national government was brought to bear against the arch-plotter, who +fell with a great ruin, and for the time Mexico was saved. Then came +Napoleon's attack on Spain, which necessarily postponed all attempts on +countries that might become subject to him; and before the Peninsular +War had been decided, we were ourselves involved in war with England, +which gave us work enough at home, without troubling "our neighbor." +But the events of that war helped to increase the spirit of acquisition +in the South and the Southwest, while they put an end forever to plans +for the conquest of Canada. The "aid and comfort" which the Spaniards +afforded to both Indians and Britons, from Florida, led to the seizure +of Florida by our forces in time of peace with Spain, and to the +purchase of that country. The same year that saw our title to Florida +perfected saw the end of Spanish rule in Mexico. The first effect of +this change was unfavorable to the extension of American dominion. +Mexico became a republic, taking the United States for a model. +Principle and vanity alike dictated forbearance on our side, and for +some years the new republic was looked upon with warm regard by the +American people; and had her experiment proved successful, our +territory never could have been increased at her expense. But that +experiment proved a total failure. Not even France herself could have +done worse for republicanism than was done by Mexico. Internal wars, +constant political changes, violations of faith, and utter disregard of +the terms of the Constitution,--these things brought Mexico into +contempt, and revived the idea that North America had been especially +created for the use of the Anglo-Saxon race and the abuse of negroes. +As a nation, too, Mexico had been guilty of many acts of violence +toward the United States, which furnished themes for those politicians +who were interested in bringing on a war between the two countries. The +attempt to enforce Centralism on Texas, which contained many Americans, +increased the ill-will toward Mexico. The end came in 1846, when we +made war on that country, a war resulting in the acquisition of much +Mexican territory,--Texas, Upper California, and New Mexico. It cannot +be said we behaved illiberally in our treatment of Mexico, the position +of the parties considered; for we might have taken twice as much of her +land as we did take, and not have paid her a farthing: and we paid her +$15,000,000, besides assuming the claims which Americans held against +her, amounting to $3,250,000 more. The war "blooded" the American +people, and made the idea of acquiring Mexico a national one; whereas +before it had a sectional character. The question of absorbing that +country was held to be merely one of time; and had it not been for the +existence of slavery, much more of Mexico would have been acquired ere +now, either by purchase or by war. There have been few men at the head +of Mexican affairs, since the peace of 1848, who were not ready to sell +us any portion of their country to which we might have laid claim, if +we had tendered them the choice between our purse and our sword. We +paid $10,000,000 for the Mesilla Valley, and for certain navigation +privileges in the Colorado river and the Gulf of California,--a +circumstance that shows how resolute is our determination to have +Mexico, and also that we are not disposed to have the process of +acquisition marked by shabby details. + +The law that governs the course of conquest is of a plain and obvious +character. Occasionally there may arise some conqueror, like Timour, +who shall sweep over countries apparently for no other purpose but to play +the part of the destroying angel, though it is not difficult to see that +even such a man has his uses in the orderings of Providence for the +government of the world. But the rule is, that conquest shall, quite as +much as commerce, be a gainful business. Conquerors who proceed +systematically go from bad lands to good lands, and from good lands to +better ones. To get out of the desert into a land flowing with milk and +honey is as much the object of modern and uncalled Gentiles as ever it was +with ancient called and chosen Jews. Historians appear inclined to censure +Darius, because, instead of invading Hellas, equally weak and fertile, +he sought to conquer the poor Scythians, who conquered him. The Romans +organized robbery, and had a wonderful skill in selecting peoples for +enemies who were worth robbing. "The Brood of Winter," who overthrew +the Roman Empire, poured down upon lands where grew the grape and the +rose. The Saracens, who were carried forward, in the first instance, by +fanaticism, had the streams of their conquests lengthened and broadened +and deepened by the wealth and weakness of Greeks and Persians and +Goths and Africans. Had those streams poured into deserts, by the +deserts they would soon have been absorbed, and we should have known +the Mahometan superstition only as we know twenty others of those forms +of faith produced by the East,--as something sudden, strange, and +short-lived. But it was fed by the riches which its votaries gained, +the reward of their piety, and the cement of their religious edifice. +The Normans, that most chivalrous of races, and, like all chivalrous +races, endowed with a keen love of gain, did not seize upon poor +countries, but upon the best lands they could take and hold,--the +beautiful Neustria, the opulent Sicily, and the fertile England, so +admirably situated to become the seat of empire. So, it will be found, +have all conquering, absorbing races proceeded, not even excluding the +Pilgrim Fathers, who, if they paid the Indians for their lands, +generally contrived to get good measure for small disbursements, and to +order things so that the lands purchased should be fat and fair in +saintly eyes. + +Tried by the standard of conquest, the course of the American people +toward Mexico is the most natural in the world. Mexico possesses +immense wealth, and incalculable capabilities in the way of increasing +that wealth; and she is no more competent to defend herself against a +powerful neighbor than Sicily was to maintain her independence against +the Romans. We are her neighbor,--with a population abounding in +adventurers domestic and imported, and with politicians who carve out +states that shall make them senators and representatives and governors, +and perhaps even presidents. As we get nearer to Mexico, the population +is more lawless, less inclined to observe those rules upon faith in +which the weak must depend for existence. The eagles are gathered about +the carcase, and think that to forbid its division among them would be +to perpetrate a great moral wrong. The climate of Mexico seems to +invite the Northern adventurer to that country. "In general," says Mr. +Butterfield, (who has just published a volume that might be called "The +American Conqueror's Guide-Book in Mexico," and to which we take this +occasion to express our obligations,)--"in general, the Republic, with +the exception of the coast and a few other places, which from situation +are extremely hot, enjoys an even and temperate climate, free from the +extremes of heat and cold, in consequence of which the most of the +hills in the cold regions are covered with trees, which never lose +their foliage, and often remind the traveller of the beautiful scenery +of the valleys of Switzerland. In Tierra Caliente we are struck by the +groves of mimosas, liquid amber, palms, and other gigantic plants +characteristic of tropical vegetation; and finally, in Tierra Templada, +by the enormous _haciendas_, many of which are of such extent as to be +lost to the sight in the horizon with which they blend." This picture +is calculated to incite the armed apostles of American liberty, and to +render them impatient until they shall have carried the blessings of +civilization to Mexico, rewarding themselves for their active +benevolence by the appropriation of lands so admirably adapted to the +labors of the descendants of Ham, whom it would be impious in them to +leave unprovided with the best fields to work out _their_ +mission,--which is, to produce the greatest possible crops with the +least possible expenditure of capital and care, for the good of that +superior race which kindly supplies the deficiencies of Heaven with +respect to Africa,--a second Providence, as it were, and slightly +tinged with selfishness. + +We need not dwell upon the importance of second causes in the +government of mankind. We find them at work in fixing the future of +Mexico. The final cause of the absorption of Mexico by the United +States will be the restless appropriating spirit of our people; but +this might leave her a generation more of national life, were it not +that her territory presents a splendid field for slave-labor, and that, +both from pecuniary and from political motives, our slaveholders are +seeking the increase of the number of Servile States. Mexico is capable +of producing an unlimited amount of sugar and an enormous amount of +cotton. There is a demand for both these articles,--a demand that is +constantly increasing, and which is so great, and grows so rapidly, +that the melancholy prospect of rum without sugar has presented itself +to some minds, not to speak of only half-allowance to all the +tea-tables of Christendom. Africa is beginning to wear shirts, and the +stamp of more than one Yankee manufacturer has been indorsed on the +backs of many African chiefs. Slave-labor, we are assured, can alone +afford an adequate supply of cotton and sugar; for none but negroes can +labor on the plantations where cane and cotton are raised, and they +will labor only under compulsion, and compulsion can be had only under +the system of slavery. The point seems to be as clearly established as +reason can establish it, though the negroes might object to the process +adopted and to the conclusion drawn; but they are interested parties, +and not to be regarded therefore. We must add, that the quality of +Mexican sugar is as good as the yield is enormous, and, were the +cane-fields in our hands, it would be impious to doubt of there being a +fall of a mill on the pound all the world over. Compared with such a +gain to the consuming classes, what would it matter that the producers +were "expended" every four or five years, thereby furnishing an +argument in favor of the revival (we should say extension, for it +appears to be lively enough) of the slave-trade between Africa and +America? So is it with Mexican cotton, which propagates itself, and is +not raised annually from the seed, as in our cotton-growing States. In +the Hot Land of Mexico, the laborers in the cotton-fields merely keep +these fields clear from weeds, as we should say,--no easy task, it may +be assumed, with a soil so luxuriant, and where frost is unknown. Yet +the amount of cotton produced annually in the Hot Land is shamefully +small, not exceeding ten million pounds,--a mere bagatelle, which +Manchester would devour in a week. Consider what an increase in cottons +and calicoes, what a gain in shirts and sheets, would follow from the +seizure of those fields by Americans from Mississippi and Alabama; and +let no idle notions concerning national morality prevent the increase +of those comforts which the poor now know, but which never came to the +knowledge of Caesar Augustus, and which were unknown to Solomon in all +his glory. Where would have been the great English nation, if the +adventurous cut-throats who followed Norman William from Saint Valery +to Hastings had been troubled with squeamish notions about the rights +of the Saxons? + + +There are other articles, besides cotton and sugar, in the production +of which slave-labor pays, and pays well, too; and all these articles +Mexico is capable of yielding immensely. The world needs more rice; +rice can be cultivated only by negroes, or people much like them; and +rice can be raised in Mexico in incredible quantities, under a +judicious system of industry, such as, we are constantly assured, +slavery ever has been and ever will be. Tobacco is another Mexican +article, and also one in producing which negroes can be profitably +employed; and as tobacco is becoming scarce, while consumers of it are +on the increase, it would seem to be our duty to prepare the fields of +Tabasco for more extended cultivation,--since there, as well as in many +other parts of Mexico, tobacco almost as good as the best that is grown +in Cuba can be produced. Coffee, indigo, and hemp are Mexican articles, +and can all be cultivated by slave-labor. Maize is grown in every part +of the country, yielding three hundred fold in the Hot Land, and twice +that rate in one district; and maize is a slave-grown article. Smaller +articles there are, but valuable, in raising which slaves would be found +useful,--among them cocoa, vanilla, and _frijoles_, the last being to the +Mexicans what the potato is to the Irish, the common food of the common +people. On the supposition that slaves could be made to labor well in +wheat-fields,--and under a stringent system of slavery this would be +far from impossible,--Mexico might afford profitable employment to +myriads of Africans in the course of civilization and Christianization. +Wheat returns sixty for one in the best valleys of the Temperate +Region; and when we call to mind that flour is becoming a luxury to +poor white people even in America, the propriety of having those +valleys filled up with a black population of great industrial +capability stands admitted; and as black people have an unaccountable +aversion to working for others, the necessity of slavery is established +by the high price of flour, and the capacity of the white races for +consuming twice as much as is now produced in the whole world. + +It would be no difficult matter to show that Mexico is the most +productive of countries, whether we consider the variety of the +articles there grown, or the capabilities of the land for increasing +their quantity. To the manufacturer and the merchant she is as +attractive as she is to the agriculturist; and her mineral wealth is +apparently inexhaustible, and has passed into a proverb. During the +thirteen generations since the Spanish Conquest, the value of the gold +and silver exported is estimated at $4,640,204,889; and this is +considered a very low estimate by those best qualified to judge of its +correctness. Mr. Butterfield expresses the opinion that the annual +export is now near $40,000,000, much of which is smuggled out of the +country. The land is also rich in the common metals, the production of +which, as well as of gold and silver, would be incalculably increased, +should Mexico pass under the dominion of an energetic race, greedy of +other men's wealth, if not profuse of its own. + +We have said enough to show the capabilities of Mexico as a +slaveholding country; and of the desire of American slaveholders to +push their industrial system into countries adapted to it, there are, +unfortunately, but too many proofs. They are prompted by the love of +power and the love of wealth to obtain possession of Mexico, and the +energy that is ever displayed by them when pursuing a favorite object +will not allow us to doubt what the end of the contest upon which the +United States are about to enter must be. We have then, to consider the +character of the people upon whom slavery is to be forced, and the +probable effect of their subjugation to American dominion. The subject +is far from being agreeable, and the consideration of it gives rise to +the most painful thoughts that can move the mind. + +The exact number of people in Mexico it is not possible to state. Mr. +Mayer estimated that in 1850 the proximate actual population was +7,626,831, classed as follows:--Whites, 1,100,000; Indians, 4,354,886; +Mestizos, Zambos, Mulattoes, etc., 2,165,345; Negroes, 6,600. Only +one-seventh of the population belongs to that class, or caste, to which, +according to the common sentiment in the United States, dominion over +the earth has been given. The other six-sevenths are, in American +estimation, and would so become in fact, should Mexico own our +rule, mere political Pariahs; and if they should escape personal +slavery, it would be through their rapid extinction under the +blasting effects of civilization. There are, at this time, it +may be assumed, 7,000,000 human beings in Mexico to whom few +Americans are capable of conceding the full rights of humanity. Of +these, about one-third, the negroes and the mixed races, from the fact +that they have African blood in their veins, would be outlawed by the +mere conquest of Mexico by American arms, so far as relates +to the higher conditions of life. As several of our States have +already compelled free negroes to choose between slavery and +banishment, and as the American settlers of Mexico would proceed +principally from States in which the sentiment prevails that has led to +the adoption of so illiberal a policy, a third of the native population +would, it is likely, be reduced to a condition of chattel slavery +within a very short time after the change of government had been +effected. There is not an argument used in behalf of the rigid slave +codes of several of our States which would not be applicable to the +enslavement of the black and mixed Mexicans, all of whom would be of +darker skins and less enlightened minds than the slaves that would be +taken to the conquered land by the conquerors. How could the slaves +thus taken there be allowed to see even their inferiors in the +enjoyment of personal freedom? If the State of Arkansas can condescend +to be afraid of a few hundred free negroes and mulattoes, and can +illustrate its fear by turning them out of their homes in mid-winter, +what might not be expected from a ruling caste in a new country, with +two and a half millions of colored people to strike terror into the +souls of those comprising it? Just or humane legislation could not be +looked for at the hands of such men, who would be guilty of that +cruelty which is born of injustice and terror. The white race of Mexico +would join with the intrusive race to oppress the mixed races; and as +the latter would be compelled to submit to the iron pressure that would +be brought to bear upon them, more than two millions of slaves would be +added to the servile population of America, and would become the basis +of a score of Representatives in the national legislature, and of as +many Presidential Electors; so that the practice of the grossest +tyranny would give to the Slaveholding States, _per saltum_, as great +an increase of political power as the Free States could expect to +achieve through a long term of years illustrated by care and toil and +the most liberal expenditure of capital. + +The Indians would fare no better than the mixed races, though the mode +of their degradation might differ from that which would be pursued +toward the latter. The Indians of Mexico are a race quite different +from the Indians whom we have exterminated or driven to the remote +West. They are a sad, a superstitious, and an inert people, upon whom +Spanish tyranny has done its perfect work. Nominally Christians, they +are nearly as much devoted to paganism as were their ancestors of the +age of the Conquistadores. They are the most finished conservatives on +the face of the earth, and see ruin in change quite as readily as if +they lived in New England and their opinions were worth quoting on +State Street. The traveller can see in Mexican fields, to-day, the +manner in which those fields were cultivated in the early days of the +last Montezuma, before the Spaniard had entered the land,--as in Canada +he can occasionally find men following the customs that were brought, +more than two centuries ago, from Brittany or Normandy. The Indians are +practically enslaved by two things: they are so attached to the soil on +which they are born as to regard expulsion from it as the greatest of +all punishments,--thus being much like those serfs who, in some other +countries, are legally bound to the land, and are sold with it; and +they are forever in debt, the consequence of reckless indulgence, and +of that inability to think of the morrow which is the most prominent +characteristic of the inferior races of men. This has caused +the existence of the system of _peonage_, of which so much has been +said in this country, in the attempts that have been made to show that +slavery already prevails in Mexico. But American planters never would +be content with peonage, which does not give to the employer any power +over the Indians' offspring, or convey to him any of those _rights_ of +property in his fellow-men which form the most attractive feature of +slavery as it exists in the United States. They would demand something +more than that; and the system of _repartimientos_, under which the +Indians of the time of Cortes were divided among the conquerors, with +the land, would not improbably follow the annexation of Mexico to the +United States. The natives would be compelled to labor far more +vigorously than they now labor, and their burdens would be increased in +the same ratio in which the American is more energetic and exacting +than the Mexican. Under such a system, the Indians would vanish as +rapidly as they did from Hayti, when a similar system was adopted +there, soon after the discovery of America. Then would arise a demand +for the revival of the slave-trade with Africa, and on the same ground +on which African slavery was introduced into America,--because the +negro is better able than the Indian to meet the demands which the +white man makes upon the weaker races who happen to be placed in his +power. With such unlimited fields for the production of sugar and +cotton, those leading agencies of Christianity and civilization, it +would never do for the world to deny to the new school of planters a +million of negroes, so necessary to the full development of the purpose +of the American crusaders. Observe what a gain it would be to the +shipping interest, could the seas become halcyonized through the +conquest of prejudices by men who believe that God is just, and that He +has made of one flesh and one blood all the nations of the earth! + +Even if it should not be sought to enslave the Indians of Mexico, that +race would not be the less doomed. There seems to be no chance for +Indians in any country into which the Anglo-Saxon enters in force. A +system of free labor would be as fatal to the Mexican Indians as a +system of slave labor. The whites who would throng to Mexico, on its +conquest by Americans, and on the supposition that slavery should not +be established there, would regard the Indians with sentiments of +strong aversion. They would hate them, not only because they were +Indians,--which would be deemed reason enough,--but as competitors in +industry, who could afford to work for low wages, their wants being +few, and the cost of their maintenance small. It is charged against the +Indians that they are not flesh-eaters; and white men prefer meat to +any other description of food. Place a flesh-eating race in antagonism +with a race that lives on vegetables, and the former will eat up the +latter. The sentiment of the whites toward the Indians is not unlike +that which has been expressed by an eminent American statesman, who +says that the cause of the failure of Mexico to establish for herself a +national position is to be sought and found in her acknowledgment of +the political equality of her Indian population. He would have them +degraded, if not absolutely enslaved; and degradation, situated as they +are, implies their extinction. This is the opinion of one of the ablest +men in the Democratic party, who, though a son of Massachusetts, is +ready to go as far in behalf of slavery as any son of South Carolina. + +Another eminent Democrat, no less a man, indeed, than President +Buchanan, is committed to very different views. He is the patron of +Juarez, whom he would support with all the power of the United States, +and whose government he would carry to "the halls of the Montezumas" in +the train of an American army. Now Juarez is a pure-blooded and +full-blooded Indian. Not a drop of Castilian blood, blue or black, +flows in his veins. He is a genuine Toltec, a member of that mysterious +race which flourished in the Valley of Mexico ages before the arrival +of the Aztecs, and the marvellous remains of whose works astonish the +traveller in Yucatan and Guatemala. He is a native of Oajaca, one of +the Pacific States, and the same that contained the vast estates +bestowed upon Cortes, to whom the Valley of Oajaca furnished his title +of Marquis. A poor Indian boy, and a fruit-seller, Juarez found a +patron, who saw his cleverness, and gave him an education, and so +enabled him to play no common part in his country,--the independence of +which he seems prepared to destroy, in the hope, perhaps, of securing +for it a stable and well-ordered government. + + + + +REVIEWS AND LITERARY NOTICES. + + +_Ludwig van Beethoven. Leben und Schaffen._ Herausgegeben von Adolph +Bernhard Marx, 2 vols. 8vo. Berlin, 1859. pp. 379, 339. + +SECOND NOTICE + +The English or American reader, whose only biography of Beethoven has +been the translation of Schindler's work by Moscheles, will be pleased +to find scattered through Marx's two volumes a number of interesting +extracts from the "Conversation-Books." These are not always given +exactly as in the originals, although the sense is preserved intact. +For instance, (Vol. I. p. 341,) speaking of the original overture to +"Leonore,"--afterwards printed as Op. 138,--Marx says, "It shows us, as +in a mirror of past happiness, a view of that which is hereafter to +reward Leonore and raise Florestan from his woe. Yes, Beethoven himself +is in theory of this opinion. In his Conversation-Books we read the +following:-- + +"Aristotle, in his 'Poetics,' remarks, 'Tragic heroes must at first +live in great happiness and splendor.' This we see in Egmont. 'Wenn sie +nun [so] recht gluecklich sind, [so] kommt mit [auf] einem Mal das +Schicksal und schlingt einen Knoten um ihr Haupt [ueber ihren Haupte] +den sie nicht mehr zu loesen vermoegen. Muth und Trotz tritt an die +Stelle [der Reue] und verwegen sehen sie dem Geschicke, [und sie sehen +verwegen dem Geschicke,] ja, dem Tod in's Aug'.'" + +The words in brackets show the variations from the original; they are +slight, but will soon be seen to have significance. + +Again, Marx says, (Vol. II. p. 214, note,) "In one of the +Conversation-Books Schindler remarks, 'Ich bin sehr gespannt auf die +Characterizirung [der Saetze] der B dur Trio......Der erste Satz traeumt +von lauter Glueckseligheit [Glueck und Zufriedenheit]. Auch Muthwille, +heiteres Taendeln und Eigensinn (mit Permission--Beethovenscher) ist +darin.'" [Should be "und Eigensinn (Beethovenische) is darin, mit +Permission."] + +On page 217 of the same volume is part of a conversation between +Beethoven and his friend Peters, dated 1819. The Conversation-Book from +which it is taken is dated, in Beethoven's own hand, "March and April, +1820." + +But enough for our purpose, which is to prove that Marx knows nothing +of the Conversation-Books from personal inspection, although he always +quotes them in such a manner as to impress the reader with the idea +that the extracts made are his own. Now, 1st, all his extracts are in +the second edition of Schindler's "Biography;" 2d, all the variations +from the original are found word for word in Schindler's excerpts; 3d, +the first of the above three examples, which Marx takes for an +expression of Beethoven's views, was written by Schindler himself, for +his master's perusal! + +But though a biography give us nothing new in relation to the hero, +still it may be of great interest and value from the manner in which +well-known authorities are collected and digested, and the facts +presented in a picturesque, fascinating, living narrative. Such a work +is Irving's "Goldsmith." Such a work is not Marx's "Beethoven." It is +neither one thing nor another,--neither a biography nor a critical +examination of the master's works. It is a little of both,--an attempt +to combine the two, and a very unsuccessful one. Biography and +criticism are so strangely mixed up, jumbled together,--anecdotes of +different periods so absurdly brought into juxtaposition,--chronology +so oddly abused,--that one can obtain a far better idea of the man +Beethoven by reading Marx's authorities than his digest of them; and as +to his works, those upon which we want information, which we have no +opportunity to hear, which have not been subjects of criticism and +discussion for a whole generation,--on these he has little or nothing +to say. + +But the extreme carelessness with which Marx cites his authorities is +worthy of notice; here are a few examples. + +Vol. I. p. 13. Here we find the well-known anecdote of Beethoven's +playing several variations upon Righini's air, "Vieni Amore," from +memory, and improvising others, before the Abbe Sterkel. Wegeler is the +original authority for the anecdote, the point of which depends upon +the fact that the printed variations were a composition by Beethoven. +Marx here and elsewhere in his book attributes them to Sterkel! + +Ib. p. 31. Speaking of the pleasure Van Swieten took in Beethoven's +playing of Bach's fugues, and of the dislike of the latter to being +urged to play, Marx quotes as follows: "He came then (relates Ries, who +became his pupil in 1800) back to me with clouded brow and out of +temper," etc. To _me_,--Ries,--a boy of sixteen,--and Beethoven already +the composer all of whose works half a dozen publishers were ready to +take at any prices he chose to fix!--Ries relates no such thing. +Wegeler does, but of a period five years before Ries came to Vienna; +moreover, he relates it in relation to Beethoven's dislike to being +urged to play in mixed companies,--the fact having no relation whatever +to Van Swieten's weekly music-parties. + +Ib. p. 33. Beethoven is now twenty-five. "At this time, as it seems, +there has been no talk of ill health." Directly against the statement +of Wegeler. + +Ib. p. 38. The Concerto for Pianoforte and Orchestra, Op. 15, "Probably +composed in 1800, since it was offered to Hofmeister Jan. 5, 1801." He +relates from Wegeler, that Beethoven wrote the finale when suffering +violently from colic. How is it possible for a man to overlook the next +line, "I helped him as much as I could with simple remedies," and not +associate it with Wegeler's statement that he himself left Vienna "in +the middle of 1796"? This fixes the date absolutely four or five years +earlier than Marx's probability. He is equally unlucky in his reading +of the letters of Hofmeister; for the Concerto offered him Jan. 5, +1801, was not this one, but that in B flat, Op. 19. + +Ib. p. 186. The Sonata, Op. 22, "Out of the year 1802." If Marx will +turn to the letters to Hofmeister again, he will find this Sonata +offered for publication with the Concerto. + +Ib. p. 341. "Schindler, who, however, first became acquainted with +Beethoven in 1808, and first came into close connection with him in +1813." Compare Schindler, 2d ed. p. 95. "It was in the year 1814 that I +first became personally acquainted with Beethoven." In 1808 Schindler +was a boy of thirteen years, in a Gymnasium, and had not yet come to +Vienna. + +Vol. II. p. 86. Sonata, Op. 57. "The finale, as Ries relates, was +begotten in a night of storm"; and on this text Marx discourses through +a page or two. Ries relates no such thing. + +Ib. p. 179. "Once more, relates Schindler, the two (Goethe and +Beethoven) met each other," etc. For Schindler, read Lenz. + +Ib. p. 191. "The Philharmonic Society in London presented to him.....a +magnificent grand-piano forte of Broadwood's manufacture." Schindler +says expressly, "Presented by Ferd. Ries, John Cramer, and Sir George +Smart." Cannot Marx read German? + +Ib. p. 329. We give one more instance of Marx's method of citing +authorities,--a very curious one. It is an extract from a letter +written to the Schotts in Mayence, signed A. Schindler, containing an +account of Beethoven's last hours, and published in the "Caecilia," in +full. Here is the passage;-- + +"When I came to him, on the morning of the 24th of March, (relates +_Anselm Huettenbrenner_, a musical friend and composer of Graetz, who had +hastened thither to see Beethoven once more,) I found his whole +countenance distorted, and him so weak, that, with the greatest +exertions, he could bring out but two or three intelligible words." +Anselm Huettenbrenner! + +Throughout those volumes we find a certain vagueness of statement in +connection with the names of musicians with whom Beethoven came in +contact, which raises the question, whether Marx has no biographical +dictionary in his house, not even a copy of Schilling's Encyclopaedia, +for which he wrote so many biographies, and "indeed all the articles +signed A. B. M."? At times, however, the statements are not so vague. +For instance,--in the anecdote already referred to, Marx makes the two +Rombergs and Franz Ries introduce the "fifteen-year-old virtuoso" to +Sterkel,--that is, in 1785 or '86. At that date, (see Schilling,) +Andreas Romberg was a boy of eighteen, Bernard a boy of fifteen; +moreover, they did not come to Bonn until 1790, when Beethoven was +nearly twenty years old. In 1793-4 Marx makes Schenck "the to him +[Beethoven] well-known and valued composer of the 'Dorfbarbier,'" +--which opera was not written until some years later. In 1815 +died Beethoven's "friend and countryman, Salomon of Bonn, in +London." It is possible that Beethoven may have occasionally seen +Salomon at Bonn, but that violinist went to London at least as early as +1781, after having then been for several years in Prince Henry's chapel +in Berlin. + +These things may, perhaps, strike the reader as of minor importance, +mere blemishes. So be it then; we will turn to a vexed question, which +has a literary importance, and see what light Marx throws upon it. We +refer to Bettine's letters to Goethe upon Beethoven, and the composer's +letters to her, the authority of which has been strongly questioned. +Marx gives them, Vol. II. pp. 121-135, and we turned eagerly to them, +expecting to find, from one who has for thirty years or more lived in +the same city with the authoress, the _questio vexata_ fully put to +rest Nothing of the kind. He quotes them from Schindler with +Schindler's remarks upon them, to which he gives his assent. As to the +letters of Beethoven to Bettine, he has not even done that lady the +justice to give them as she has printed them, but rests satisfied with +a copy confessedly taken from the English translation! Of these Marx +says,--"These letters,--one has not the right, perhaps, to declare them +outright creations of fancy; at all events, there is no judicial proof +of this, no more than of their authenticity,--if they are not imagined, +they are certainly translated... from Beethoven into the Bettine +speech. Never--compare all the letters and writings of Beethoven which +are known with these Bettine epistles--never did Beethoven so +write..... If he wrote to Bettine, then she has poetized [ueberdichtet] +his letters,--and she has not done even this well; we have in them +Beethoven as seen in the mirror Bettine." He adds in a note, "In the +highest degree girl-like and equally un-Beethovenlike are these +constant repetitions: 'liebe, liebste,--liebe, liebe,--liebe, +gute,--bald, bald'!" + +What does Marx say to this beginning of a letter to Tiedge,--"Jeden Tag +schwebte mir immer folgende Brief an Sie, Sie, Sie, immer vor"? Or to +these repetitions from a series of notes written also from Toeplitz in +the summer of 1812? "Leben Sie wohl liebe, gute A." "Liebe, gute A., +seit ich gestern," etc. "Scheint der Mond .... so sehen Sie den +kleinsten, kleinsten aller Menschen bei sich," etc. + +And so on this point Marx leaves us just as wise as we were before. +There is a gentleman who can decide by a word as to the authenticity of +these letters of Beethoven, since he originally furnished them for +publication in the English translation of Schindler's "Biography." We +refer to Mr. Chorley, of the "London Athenaeum." Meantime we venture to +give Marx's opinion as much weight as we think it deserves, and +continue to believe in the letters; more especially because, as +published by Bettine herself in 1848, each is remarkable for certain +peculiarly Beethoven-like abuses of punctuation, orthography, and +capital letters, which carry more weight to our minds than the +unsupported opinions of a dozen Professors Marx. + +Justice requires that we pass from merely biographical topics, which +are evidently not the forte of Professor Marx, to some of those upon +which he has bestowed far more space, and doubtless far more labor and +pains, and upon which, in this work, he doubtless also rests his claims +to our applause. + +On page 199 of Vol. I. begins a division of the work, entitled by the +author "Chorische Werke." In previous chapters, Beethoven's pianoforte +compositions-sonatas, trios, the quintett, etc., up to Op. 54, +exclusive of the concertos for that instrument and orchestra-have been +treated. In this we have a very pleasing account of the gradual +progress of the composer from the concerto to the full splendor of the +grand symphony. + +"The composer Beethoven," says Marx, "was, as we have seen, also a +virtuoso. No one can be both, without feeling himself drawn to the +composition of concertos. These works then follow, and in close +relation to the pianoforte compositions of Beethoven, with and without +the accompaniment of solo instruments; and to them others, which may +just here be best brought under one general head for notice. From them +we look directly upward to orchestral and symphonic works. To all these +we give the general name of 'choral' works, for want of a better,--a +term which in fact belongs but to vocal music, and is exceedingly ill +adapted to a part of the compositions now under consideration. The +term, however, is used here as pointing at the significance of the +orchestra to Beethoven." + +Marx's theory of Beethoven's progress, taking continually bolder and +loftier flights until he reaches the symphony, must necessarily be +based upon the chronology of the works in question,--a basis which he +adopts, but evidently, in the case of two or three of them, with some +hesitation; yet the theory has too great a charm for him to be lightly +thrown aside. + +We will bring into a table the compositions which he is now +considering, together with his dates of their composition, that we may +obtain a clearer view of their bearings upon the point in question. + + Concerto in C for Pianoforte and Orchestra, Op. 15. 1800. (See p. 38.) + do. in B flat Op. 19. 1801. + do. in C minor, Op. 37. Not dated. + Six Quatuors for Bowed Instruments, Op. 18. Published in 1801-2, + but "begun earlier." + Quintett, Op. 29. 1802. + Septett, Op. 20. Not dated. + Prometheus, Ballet Op. 43. Performed March 28, + 1801. + Grand Symphony, Op. 21. 1799 or 1800. + do. do. Op. 36. Performed 1800. + +A glance at the dates in this table throws doubt upon the theory; the +doubt is increased by the consideration that all these important works +are, according to Marx, the labor of only three years! But let us turn +back and collect into another table the pianoforte works which are also +attributed to the same epoch. + + Pianoforte Trio, Op. 11. 1799. + Three Pianoforte Sonatas, Op. 10. 1799. + Two do. do. Op. 14. 1799. + Adelaide, Song, Op. 46. 1798 or '99. + Sonata for Piano and Horn, Op. 17. 1800. + do. Pathetique, Op. 13. 1800. + Cliristus am Oolberg, Canta Op. 85. 1800. + Quintett, Op. 16. 1801. + Sonata, Op. 22. 1802. + do Op. 26. 1802. + do Op. 28. 1802. + +From this list we have excluded works which Marx says were _published_ +(_herausgegeben_) during these years, selecting only those which he +calls "aus dem Jahre,"--belonging to such a year. + +Marx himself (Vol. I. p. 246 _et seq_.) shows us that the works above +mentioned, dated 1802, belong to an earlier period; for in the "first +months" of that year Beethoven fell into a dangerous illness, which +unfitted him for labor throughout the season. + +We have, then, as the labor of three years, three grand pianoforte +concertos with orchestra, six string quartetts, a quintett, a septett, +a grand ballet, and two symphonies, for _great_ works; and for minor +productions,--by-play,--nine pianoforte solo sonatas, one for +pianoforte and horn, a pianoforte trio, a quintett, the "Adelaide," and +the "Christ on the Mount of Olives,"--a productiveness (and such a +productiveness!) not surpassed by Mozart or Handel in their best and +most marvellous years. + +But these twenty-eight works, in fact, belong only in part to those +three years. The first concerto was finished before June, 1796; the +second in Prague, 1798; the third was performed late in the autumn of +1800. A performance of the first symphony is recorded at least ten, of +the second at least three, months before that of the ballet. As +this--the "Prometheus"--was written expressly for Vigano, the arranger +of the action, it is not to be supposed that any great lapse of time +took place between the execution of the order for and the production of +the music. In fact, Marx has no authorities, beyond Lenz's notices of +the _publication_ of the works in the above lists, for the dates which +he has given to them; none whatever for placing the works of the first +of our lists in that order; certainly none for placing Op. 37 before +Op. 18, Op. 29 before Op. 20, and Op. 48 before Op. 21 and Op. 36. And +yet, at the close of his remarks upon the septett, Op. 20, we read, +"Each of the compositions here noticed" (namely, those in the first +list down to the septett) "is a step away from the pianoforte to the +orchestra. In the midst of them appears the first (!) orchestral work +since the chivalrous ballet, to which the boy (?) Beethoven in former +days gave being. It was again to be a ballet,--'Gli Uomini di +Prometeo.'" Then follow remarks upon the ballet, closing thus: + +"On the 'Prometheus' he had tried the strength of his pinions; in the +first symphony, 'Grande Sinfonie,' Op. 21, he floated calmly upon them +at those heights where the spirit of Mozart had rested." + +No, Herr Professor Marx, your pretty fancy is without basis. +Chronology, "the eye of History," makes sad work of your theory. Pity +that in your "researches" you met not one of those lists of the members +of the Electoral Chapel at Bonn, which would have shown you that the +young Beethoven learned to wield the orchestra in that best of all +schools, the orchestra itself! + +Three chapters of Book Second (Vol. I. pp. 239-307) are entitled +"Helden Weihe," (Consecration of the Hero,) "Die Sinfonie Eroica und +die ideale Musik," (The Heroic Symphony and Ideal Music,) and "Die +Zukunft vor dem Richterstuhl der Vergangenheit" (The Future before the +Judgment-Seat of the Past). Save the first fourteen pages, which are +given to Beethoven's sickness in 1802, the testament which he wrote at +that time, and some remarks upon the "Christ on the Mount of Olives," +these chapters are devoted to the "Heroic Symphony,"--its history, its +explanation, and a polemical discourse directed against the views of +Wagner, Berlioz, Oulibichef, and others. + +The circumstances under which this remarkable work was written, the +history of its origin and completion, are so clearly related by Ries +and Schindler, that it seems hardly possible to make any great blunder +in repeating them. Marx has, however, a very happy talent for getting +out of the path, even when it lies directly before him. + +"When, therefore, Bernadotte," says he, "at that time French Ambassador +at Vienna, and sharer in the admiration which the Lichnowskis and +others of high rank felt for Beethoven, proposed to him to pay his +homage to the hero [Napoleon] in a grand instrumental work, he found +the artist in the best disposition thereto; perhaps such thoughts had +already occurred to his mind. In the year 1802, in autumn, he put his +hand already to the work, began first in the following year earnestly +to labor upon it, and, with many interruptions, and the production of +various compositions in the mean time, completed it in 1804." + +From this passage, and from remarks in connection with it, it is clear +that Professor Marx supposes Bernadotte to have been in Vienna in +1802-3, and to have ordered this symphony of Beethoven. Schindler's +words, when speaking of his conversation with the composer in 1823, on +this topic, are,--"Beethoven erinnerte sich lebhaft, dass Bernadotte +wirklich zuerst die Idee zur Sinfonie Eroica in ihm rege gemacht hat" +(Beethoven remembered distinctly that it really was Bernadotte who +first awakened in him the idea of the "Heroic Symphony"). On turning to +the article on Bernadotte in the "Conversations-Lexicon," we find that +the period of his embassy embraced but a few months of the year 1798. + +It seems to us a very suggestive and important fact toward the +comprehension of Beethoven's design in this work, that the conception +of it had been floating before his mind and slowly assuming definite +form during the space of four years, before he put hand to the +composition. Six years passed from the date of its conception before it +lay complete upon his table, with the single word "Bonaparte" in large +letters at the top of the title-page, and "L. Beethoven" at the bottom, +with nothing between. And what, according to Marx, is this product of +so much study and labor? A musical description of a battle; a funeral +march to the memory of the fallen; the gathering of the armies for +their homeward march; a description of the blessings of peace. A most +lame and impotent interpretation! Marx somewhere says, that Beethoven +never wrought twice upon the same idea; hence the funeral march of the +Symphony cannot have been originally intended in honor of a hero,--we +agree with him so far,--for this task he had once already accomplished +in the Sonata, Op. 26. But then, if the first movement of the Symphony +be a battle-piece, how came its author to compose another, and one so +entirely different, in 1812? + +How any one--with the recollection of Beethoven's fondness for +describing character in music, even in youth upon the pianoforte,--with +the "Coriolanus Overture" before him, and the "Wellington's Victory at +Vittoria" at hand,--and, above all, with any knowledge of the +composer's love for the universal, the all-embracing, and his contempt +for minute musical painting, as shown by his sarcasms upon passages in +Haydn's "Creation"--can suppose the first movement of the "Heroic +Symphony" to be in the main intended as a battle-picture, passes our +comprehension. It may be so. It is but a matter of opinion. We have +nothing from Beethoven himself upon the point, unless we may suppose, +that, when, four years later, he printed upon the programme, at the +first performance of the "Pastoral Symphony," "Rather the expression of +feeling than musical painting," he was guarding against a mistake which +had been made as to the intent of the "Eroica." + +We have no space to waste in following Marx, either through his +exposition of his battle theory, his explanations of the other +movements of the Symphony, or his polemics against previous writers. +His programme seems to us little, if at all, better than those which he +controverts. Instead of this, we venture to offer our own to the +reader's common sense, which, if it does not satisfy, at least shows +that Marx has not put the question forever at rest. + +"Rather the expression of feeling than musical painting" seems to us a +key to the understanding of this, as well as of the "Pastoral +Symphony." Mere musical painting, and the composition of works to +order,--as is proved by the "Wellington's Victory," the "Coriolanus +Overture," the music to "Prometheus," to the "Ruins of Athens," the +"Glorreiche Augenblick," to say nothing of minor works, such as the +First and Second Concertos, the Horn Sonata, etc.,--Beethoven could and +did despatch with extreme rapidity; but works of a different order, for +which he could take his own time, and which were to be the expression +of the grand feelings of his own great heart,--the composition of these +was no light holiday-task. He could "make music" with all ease and +rapidity; and had this been his aim, the extreme productiveness of the +first years in Vienna shows that he might, perhaps, have rivalled +Father Haydn himself in the number of his instrumental compositions. +His difficulty was not in writing music, but in mastering the poetic +conception, and finding that tone-speech which should express in epic +progress, yet in obedience to the laws of musical form, the emotions, +feelings, sentiments to be depicted. Hence the great length of time +during which many of his works were subjects of meditation and study. +Hence the six years which elapsed between the conception and completion +of the "Heroic Symphony." + +Beethoven passed his youth near the borders of France, under a +government which allowed a republican personal freedom to its subjects. +He was himself a strong republican, and old enough, when the crushed +people over the border at length arose in their terrible energy against +the King, to sympathize with them in their woe, perhaps in their +vengeance. What to us is the horrible history of those years was to him +the exciting news of the day; and it is not difficult to imagine the +changes of feeling with which he would follow the political changes in +France, the hopes of humanity now apparently lost in the gloom of the +Reign of Terror, and now the rising of the day-star, precursor of a +glorious day of republican freedom, in the marvellous successes of the +cool, determined, energetic, stoical young conqueror of Italy, living, +when Bernadotte fired his imagination by his descriptions of him, with +his wife, the widow of Beauharnais, in a small house in an obscure +street of the capital. + +To us, then, the first movement of the "Heroic Symphony" is a study of +character. In the "Coriolanus Overture" we have one side of a hero +depicted: here we see lain, in all his aspects; we behold him in sorrow +and in joy, in weakness and in strength, in the struggle and in +victory,--overcoming opposition, and reducing all elements of discord +to harmony and order by the force of his energetic will. It may be +either a description of Napoleon, as Beethoven at that time understood +his character,--we are inclined to this opinion,--or it may be a more +general picture of a hero, to which the career of Napoleon had +furnished but the original conception. The second movement is to us the +wail of a nation ground to the dust by the iron heel of +despotism,--France under the old _regime_,--France in the Reign of +Terror,--France needing, as few nations have needed, the advent of a +hero. The scherzo, with its trio, is not a form for minute painting of +_how_ the hero comes and saves; nor is this necessary; it has been +sufficiently indicated in the first movement. _We_ hear in it the +awakening to new life, from the first whispers of hope, uttered +mysteriously and with trembling lips, to the bright and cheering +expression of a nation's joy,--not loudly and boisterously,--(Beethoven +never gives such a language to the depths of happiness,)--in the +exquisite passages for the horns in the trio. We agree with Marx +in feeling the finale to be a picture of the blessings of that peace +and quiet which the hero once more restores,--but peace and quiet where +liberty and law, justice and order reign. + +One fact in relation to the finale of this symphony has caused +Professor Marx no little trouble. The movement is a theme and +variations, with a fugue, and was also published by Beethoven as a +"Theme and Variations for the Pianoforte," Op. 35, dedicated to Moritz +Lichnowsky. The theme is from the finale of the "Prometheus." Now what +could induce Beethoven to make this use of so important a work, as such +a finale to such a symphony, is to our Professor a puzzle. It troubles +him on page 70, (Vol. I.,) again on page 212, and finally on page 274. +The same theme three times employed,--he may say four, for it is one of +the six "Contredanses" by Beethoven, which appeared about that +time,--and the third time _so_ employed! Lenz happens to have +overlooked the fact,--and so has Marx,--that the Variations for the +Pianoforte, Op. 35, were advertised in the "Leipziger Musikalische +Zeitung," already in November, 1803. How long Beethoven had kept them +by him, how long it had taken them to make the then slow journey from +Vienna to Leipzig, to be engraved, corrected, and made ready for sale, +we are not informed. A very simple theory will account for all the +phenomena in this case. + +A very beautiful theme in the finale of "Prometheus" is admired. +Beethoven composes variations upon it, and, to render it more worthy of +his friend Lichnowsky, adds the fugue. The work becomes a favorite, and, +the theme being originally descriptive of the happiness of man in a state +of culture and refinement, he decides to arrange it for orchestra, and +give it a place in the new symphony. How if Lichnowsky proposed it? + +A large proportion of the three chapters under consideration, as, +indeed, of many others, is directed against Oulibichef,-- +"Oulibichef-Thersites," as he names him in the Table of +Contents. The very different manner in which he treats this gentleman, +throughout his work, from that in which he speaks of Berlioz, Wagner, +Lenz, is striking; but Oulibichef is dead, and cannot reply. Some of +the Russian's contrapuntal objections to the "Heroic Symphony" are well +answered; but, as we are satisfied with the poetic explanation of the +work by neither, we must confess, that, after the crystalline clearness +of Oulibichef, the muddy wordiness of Marx is not to edification. + +We turn now to the chapters devoted to the opera "Leonore," afterwards +"Fidelio,"--one of the most interesting topics in Beethoven's musical +history. Here, at length, we do find something beyond what Ries and +Schindler have recorded,--no longer the close coincidence in matters of +fact with Lenz; indeed, the account of the changes made in transforming +the three-act "Leonore" into the two-act "Fidelio" we consider the best +piece of historic writing in the volumes,--the one which gives us the +greatest number of new facts, and most clearly and chronologically +arranged. It is really quite unfortunate for Professor Marx, that +Professor Otto Jahn of Bonn gave us, some years since, in his preface +to the Leipzig edition of "Leonore," precisely the same facts, from +precisely the same sources, and in some cases, we had almost said, in +precisely the same words. The "coincidence" here is striking,--as we +cannot suppose Marx ever saw Jahn's publication, since he makes no +reference to it. In the errors with which Marx spices his narrative +occasionally, the coincidence ceases. Here are some instances. +--According to Marx, one reason of the ill success of the +opera at Vienna, in 1805-6, was the popularity of that upon the same +subject by Paer. The Viennese first heard the latter in 1809.--Again, +at the first production of the "Fidelio," in 1814, Marx says, the +Leonore Overture No. 3 was played because that in E flat was not +finished. Seyfried says expressly, the overture to the "Ruins of +Athens,"--Marx speaks of the proposals made to Beethoven in 1823 to +compose the "Melusine," and still another text,--and so speaks as to +leave the impression, that, from the "fall of the opera" in 1806, the +composer had purposely kept aloof from the stage. Does the Professor +know nothing of Beethoven's application in 1807 to the Theater- +Direktion of the imperial playhouses, to be employed as regular +operatic composer?--of the opera "Romulus?"--of his correspondence with +Koerner, Rellstab, and still others? It appears not. + +We must close our article somewhere; it is already, perhaps, too long; +we add, therefore, but a general remark or two. + +To many readers Marx's discussions of Beethoven's last works will be +found of interest and value, though written in that turgid, vague, +confused style--"words, words, words"--which the Germans denominate by +the expressive term, _Geschtwaetz_. This is especially the case with his +essays upon the great "Missa Solemnis," and the "Ninth Symphony." + +We cannot rise from the perusal of this "Life of Beethoven" without +feeling something akin to indignation. Were it a possible supposition, +we should imagine it to be a thing manufactured to sell,--and, indeed, +in some such manner as this; The labors of Lenz taken without +acknowledgment for the skeleton of the work; Wegeler, Ries, Schindler, +and Seyfried at hand for citations, where Lenz fails to give more than +a reference; Oulibichef on the table to supply topics for polemical +discussion; a few periodicals and papers, which have come accidentally +into his possession, to afford here and there an anecdote or a letter; +the works of Professor A. B. Marx supplying the necessary authorities +upon points in musical science. As for any original research, that is +out of the question. Why stop to verify a fact, to decide a disputed +point, to search out new matter? The market waits,--the publisher +presses,--so, hurry-skurry, away we go,--and the book is done! +Seriously, such a book, from one with such opportunities at command, is +a disgrace to the institution in which its author occupies the station +of Professor. + +When Schindler wrote, Johann van Beethoven, the brother, and Carl van +Beethoven, the nephew, were still alive, and feelings of delicacy led +him to do little more than hint at those domestic and family relations +and sorrows which for several years rendered the great composer much of +the time unfit for labor, and which at last brought him to the grave. +When Marx wrote, all had passed away, who could be wounded by a plain +statement of the facts in the case. Until we have such a statement, +none but he who has gone through the labor of studying the original +authorities, as they exist in Berlin, can know the real greatness, +perhaps also the weaknesses, of Beethoven in those last years. None can +know how his heart was torn,--how he poured out, concentrated all the +love of his great heart upon his adopted son, but to learn "how sharper +than the serpent's tooth it is to have a thankless child." Nothing of +all this in Marx. He quotes Schindler, and therewith enough. + +Long as this article has become, we have referred to but the more +important of the passages which in reading we marked for +comment,--enough, however, we judge, to show that the biography of +Ludwig van Beethoven still remains to be written. + + + + +_The American Draught-Player_; or the Theory and Practice of the +Scientific Game of Chequers. By HENRY SPAYTH. Buffalo, New York. +Printed for the Author. + +Almost everybody plays the game of draughts, but few have any insight +into its beauties; and many who look upon chess as a science rather +than an amusement regard draughts as a childish game, never suspecting +what eminent ability and painful research have been expended in +explaining a game which is inferior to chess only in variety and far +superior in scientific precision. Mr. Spayth's book is accordingly +addressed to a comparatively narrow circle of readers; but those who +are competent to judge of its merits will find it a work of great +value. The author, who is an enthusiastic votary of the game, and has +no superior among our American amateurs, offers a judicious selection +from the treatises of such foreign writers as the severe and critical +Anderson, the brilliant but capricious Drummond, Robert Martin, perhaps +the first of living players, Hay, Sinclair, and Wylie, besides many +valuable games from Sturges and Payne, who will never be rendered +obsolete by modern improvements,--together with the labors of such +acknowledged masters in America as Bethell, Mercer, Ash, Drysdale, and +Young, and the contributions of such rising players as Howard, Brooks, +Fisk, Boughton, Janvier, Hull, and Thwing. But his labors have not been +merely those of a compiler. Out of fifteen hundred games, more than +five hundred are the composition of Mr. Spayth himself. + +The results of so much labor and skill cannot, of course, be fully +criticized by us. The merits of the volume can be fairly tested only by +long and constant use. We shall, however, venture to point out some +faults in Mr. Spayth's treatment, premising that his is by far the best +treatise upon the game yet published, and the only treatise worthy of +the name that has ever appeared in this country. Anderson's arrangement +of the games, which Mr. Spayth has adopted, is both clear and concise; +and we are glad to see that our author has adhered to the old system of +draught-notation, which is infinitely superior to any of the new plans. +The condensation and clear presentation of Paterson's somewhat abstruse +essay on "The Move and its Changes" is every way admirable, and many of +the problems are remarkable for beauty and difficulty. + +We think that too much prominence has been given to certain openings. +While glad to see that model of all openings, the _Old Fourteenth_, +which is to draughts what the _Giuoco Piano_ is to chess, illustrated +by 186 games, of which 127 are original with the author, the brilliant +_Fife_ (the _Muzio_ of chess-players) explained by 67 games, the +_Suter_ by 72 games, and the _Single Corner_ by 258 games, we regret +that only 24 specimens should be given of the _Double Corner_, 42 (and +only 11 of these original) of the _Defiance_, and 51 (with but 14 +original) of the fascinating and intricate _Ayrshire Lassie_, an +opening of which American students know very little. We regret this +meagre explanation of the three latter openings all the more that we +expected a particularly full and lucid presentment of them from Mr. +Spayth. + +The definition of certain openings seems to us also incorrect and +inconsistent. The Scottish school, whom Mr. Spayth has sometimes +followed too closely, as in this instance, are singularly deficient as +theorists, and have never given the game anything like a philosophical +treatment. The _Whilter_ is _not_ "formed by the first three or five +moves." The bare notion of forming one opening in two different ways is +absurd and contradictory. The time will come when draught-players will +understand that the _Whilter_ is formed by the first three moves, +namely, 11.15--23.19--7.11, or else, 10.15--23.19--7.10, which is +really the same thing. The distinctive move of the opening is 7.11; +there is nothing characteristic in the 9.14--22.17, which may +intervene: those moves leave the game free to develop itself into a +_Fife_, a _Suter_, or even an _Old Fourteenth_; but the move of 7.11 +determines the opening at once and finally. Then, under the title of +the _Double Corner_ the author includes several distinct openings,--and +so, too, under the _Bristol_. In this latter case, the Scottish +treatises are right and Mr. Spayth is wrong. A strange confusion is +also caused by the attempt to include a number of different openings +under the head of "Irregular." + +It is useless to linger over the exhaustive plan of all our +draught-writers, but, in adopting their plan, Mr. Spayth's fault has +been merely that of his predecessors, and his merits are all his own. +The true plan for a draught-treatise is that adopted by Staunton in his +chess-writings. No man has time to write a treatise which shall embody +the entire practice of the game; and even if such an exhaustive +treatise were written, no man would ever have time to master its +instructions. But the theory can be fully set forth, and is as yet +almost entirely undeveloped. The subject of odds alone presents an +extensive field for future investigations. + +We have found fault with Mr. Spayth's new volume wherever we honestly +could; and we dismiss it with an emphatic repetition of the opinion, +that it is by far the best work upon the game that has ever been +published. + + + + +_The Adopted Heir._ By MISS PARDOE. Philadelphia: T. B. Peterson & +Brothers. + +Miss Pardoe ought to do better than this. There is much ability +displayed in her "Court of France"; and she has written a very clever +story, entitled "The Romance of the Harem." But this book is thoroughly +feeble and commonplace. The customary rich and whimsical nabob, whom we +all know so well, has returned to England, and is deliberating upon the +claims to his wealth of his several relations. His decision is soon +formed, but shrouded in an impenetrable mystery, which is open to the +usual objection to the novelist's impenetrable mysteries, of being +perfectly transparent. Having divined who will be the heir, after +reading forty pages, we are a little impatient that Miss Pardoe should +cherish the secret with every imaginable precaution until the 350th +page, when she brings it out with a flourish, as if no human sagacity +could possibly have discovered it. + +This keeping secrets that are no secrets, the besetting weakness of +novelists, was once quite affecting. When Nicholas Nickleby acted at +Mr. Crummles's theatre, a thrill of terror ran through the +unsophisticated spectators, as the wicked relation poked a sword at him +in the dark in every direction except where his legs were plainly +visible. But readers are more exacting now. And we are all frightfully +sagacious. Long reading of novels gives a fatal skill in anticipating +their issues. If in the first chapter the poor little brother runs away +to sea, his anxious friends may bewail his loss, but we remain calm in +the conviction that he will return, yellow and rich, precisely in time +to frustrate the designs of the wicked, and to reward innocence and +constancy with ten thousand a year. All the good people in a story may +be puzzled to detect the author of an alarming fraud; but we know +better, and, fixing with more than a detective's accuracy upon the +gentlemanly, plausible villain, drag him forth long before our author +is ready to present him to our (theoretically) astonished eyes. The +whole village may be deceived by the venerable stranger, with his white +hair and benevolent spectacles, but our unerring eye instantly discerns +in him Black Donald, the robber-captain; and if we do not tremble for +our heroine, it is only because we are morally certain that her deadly +peril is only an excuse for her inevitable lover's "dashing up on a +coal-black barb, urged to his utmost speed," and delivering the +desolate fair, who has won our regard alike by her indignant virtue, +and the skill with which, while laboring under uncontrollable +agitation, she constructs sentences so ponderous and intricate that Mr. +Burke's periods are trifles in comparison. And we know all this, simply +because there are certain things to be done, and only so many people to +do them. Miss Austen, indeed, could keep her secrets impenetrable; but +the art died with her, and our common sense is daily insulted by these +weak attempts at mystery. If the secret is one that cannot be +kept, why, let the author tell it us at once, and we can then follow +with sympathy the attempts to baffle those in the story who are trying +to detect it, instead of being offended with a shallow artifice. Here +lies the artistic error of that very clever book, "Paul Ferroll." We +all see at once that Mr. Ferroll murdered his wife, and the author +would have lost nothing and gained much by taking us into his +confidence. + +The style of the "Adopted Heir" is at once pompous and feeble. From +writers of the Mrs. Southworth school we should expect nothing else; +but Miss Pardoe was capable of something better. + + + + +_Fanny_. From the French of ERNEST FEYDEAU. New York: Evert D. Long & +Co. + +If there be any one thing worse than French immorality, it is French +morality. This is a moral book, _a la Francaise_, and weak as +ditch-water. Nor is the ditch-water improved by being particularly +dirty. + +Edward, who is a mere boy, is in love with Fanny. This is natural +enough. Fanny, who is decidedly an old girl, who has been married for +fifteen years, and who has three children, is not less desperately in +love with Edward, whom she regards with a most charming sentiment, in +which the timid passion of the maiden blends gracefully with the +maturer regard of an aunt or a grandmother. This is not quite so +natural. Certainly, it can hardly be that she is fascinated by Edward, +who is the most disgustingly silly young monkey to be found in the +whole range of French novels. But the mystery is at once disclosed when +we read the description of Fanny's husband. He is "a species of bull +with a human face." "His smile was not unpleasing, and his look without +any malicious expression, but clear as crystal." We begin to comprehend +his inferiority to Edward,--to sympathize with the youth's horror at +the sight of this obnoxious husband, "who seems to him," as M. Janin +says in his preface, "a hero--what do I say?--a giant!--to the loving, +timid, fragile child." "In fine, a certain air of calm rectitude +pervaded his person." Execrable wretch! could anything be more +repulsive to true and delicate sentiment (as before, _a la Francaise_) +"I should say his age was about forty." Our wrath at this last atrocity +can hardly be controlled. It seems as if M. Feydeau, by collecting in +one individual all the qualities which most excite his abhorrence and +contempt, had succeeded in giving us, in Fanny's husband, a very +tolerable specimen of a gentleman. We pardon all to the somewhat +middle-aged lady, whose "feelings are too many for her"; and we only +regret that M. Feydeau did not see the eminent propriety of increasing +the lady's admiration by having this brutal husband pull Edward's +divine nose or kick the adored person of the _pauvre enfant_ down +stairs. + + +_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," "Art, Literature, and the Drama," etc. +Edited by her Brother, ARTHUR B. FULLER. Boston: Brown, Taggard, & +Chase. + +Of this volume little more need be said than that, had Margaret Fuller +Ossoli edited it, she might have reduced its size. Yet it is not +surprising that love and reverence should seek with diligence and save +with care whatever had emanated from her pen; and if the matter thus +laid before the world take something from her reputation, it also +completes the standard by which to measure her power. She appears to +have been without creative faculty, yet her perception of the gift in +others was often remarkable, and it pleased her to hold the possessor +of it up to admiration. Hence she devoted much time and attention to +the critical examination of art, music, and literature, and succeeded +in giving the works and lives which she reviewed a fresh interest and a +fuller meaning. Her articles on Goethe and Beethoven, in this volume, +furnish ample evidence of her capacity to appreciate the works and the +men of genius, and that, if she could not give good reasons for the +aberrations and eccentricities of their courses, she at least had a +heart large enough to look kindly upon them. Of books she was +a student and a lover; and in the short notices of new ones, which are +transferred from "The Tribune" to these pages, there is hardly one that +has not some thought of value to author as well as reader. Indeed, all +her prose writings are suggestive, and thus are capable of opening +vistas in the quickened mind which were unknown before. Authors of this +class often dart a ray into the recesses of our souls, so that we see +what they never saw, gain what they never gave. A book that increases +mental activity is incomparably better than one that multiplies +learning. The value of knowledge that lies in libraries is +overestimated by all save those who read Nature's runes. The Countess +Ossoli gathered from the garners, rather than from the glorious field, +and therefore she does not range with the marked originals. In this +rank she was not born. Her poems--which we think injudiciously +published--place her far down among the multitude. From these untuneful +utterances we gladly turn to her prose. There she shows strength of +character and goodness of heart. One aim, never lost sight of, is +perceptible through all, and gives unity to the whole; this is a +fervent desire to ennoble human life; consequently her works will long +have influence, and continue to call forth praise. + + + + +_Lectures on the English Language_. By GEORGE P. MARSH. New York: +Charles Scribner, 1860. pp. vi., 697. + +An American scholar of wide range, at the same time thorough and +unpretentious, is a rarity; a philologist who is neither perversely +wrongheaded nor the victim of a preconceived theory is a still greater +one; yet we find both characters pleasantly united in the author of +these Lectures. Decided in his opinions, Mr. Marsh is modest in +expressing them, because they are the result of various culture and +long reflection, and these have taught him that time and study often +render the most positive conclusions doubtful, especially in regard to +such a topic as Language. Deservedly honored with diplomatic employment +in Europe, he has done credit to the choice of the Government by +turning the long leisure of a foreign mission to as great profit by +study and observation as if he had been a Travelling Fellow and these +had been the conditions of his tenure. + +Addressed to a mixed audience, to the laity rather than to students, +these Lectures are more popular than scholastic in their character. Mr. +Marsh alludes to this with something like regret in his Preface. We +look upon this as by no means a misfortune. The book will, for this +very reason, reach and interest a much larger number of readers; and +while there is nothing in it to scare away those who read for mere +entertainment, they whose studies have led them into the same paths +with the author will continually recognize those signs, trifling, but +unmistakable, which distinguish the work of a master from that of a +journeyman. Scholarship is indicated not only by readiness of allusion, +and variety and aptness of illustration, but by a thorough +self-possession and chastened eloquence of style. A genius for language +comes doubtless by nature, but Mr. Marsh is too wise a man to believe +that a knowledge of it comes in the same way; his learning has that +ripened clearness which tells of olden vintages and of long storing in +the crypts of the brain; he has nothing in common with the easy +generalizers who know as little of roots as Shelley's skylark, and who, +seeking a shelter in welcome clouds, pour forth "profuse strains of +unpremeditated art" upon questions which above all others are limited +by exact science and unyielding fact. + +We believe we are not going too far when we say that Mr. Marsh's book +is the best treatise of the kind in the language. It abounds in nice +criticism and elegant discussion on matters of taste, showing in the +author a happy capacity for esthetic discrimination as well as for +linguistic attainment. He does not profess to deal with some of the +deeper problems of language, but nevertheless makes us feel that they +have been subjects of thoughtful study, and, within the limits he has +imposed upon himself, he is often profound without the pretence of it. + +We have spoken warmly of this volume, for it has both interested and +instructed us, and because we consider it one of the few thoroughly +creditable productions of Cisatlantic scholarship. We hope the +appreciation it meets with will be such that we shall soon have +occasion to thank Mr. Marsh for another volume on some kindred theme. + + + + +_The Marble Faun._ A Romance of Monte Beni. By NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE. 2 +vols. Boston: Ticknor & Fields. 1860. + +It is, we believe, more than thirty years since Mr. Hawthorne's first +appearance as an author; it is twenty-three since he gave his first +collection of "Twice-told Tales" to the world. His works have received +that surest warranty of genius and originality in the widening of their +appreciation downward from a small circle of refined admirers and +critics, till it embraced the whole community of readers. With just +enough encouragement to confirm his faith in his own powers, those +powers had time to ripen and toughen themselves before the gales of +popularity could twist them from the balance of a healthy and normal +development. Happy the author whose earliest works are read and +understood by the lustre thrown back upon them from his latest! for +then we receive the impression of continuity and cumulation of power, +of peculiarity deepening to individuality, of promise more than +justified in the keeping: unhappy, whose autumn shows only the +aftermath and rowen of an earlier harvest, whose would-be +replenishments are but thin dilutions of his fame! + +The nineteenth century has produced no more purely original writer than +Mr. Hawthorne. A shallow criticism has sometimes fancied a resemblance +between him and Poe. But it seems to us that the difference between +them is the immeasurable one between talent carried to its ultimate, +and genius,--between a masterly adaptation of the world of sense and +appearance to the purposes of Art, and a so thorough conception of the +world of moral realities that Art becomes the interpreter of something +profounder than herself. In this respect it is not extravagant to say +that Hawthorne has something of kindred with Shakspeare. But that +breadth of nature which made Shakspeare incapable of alienation from +common human nature and actual life is wanting to Hawthorne. He is +rather a denizen than a citizen of what men call the world. We are +conscious of a certain remoteness in his writings, as in those of +Donne, but with such a difference that we should call the one super- +and the other subter-sensual. Hawthorne is psychological and +metaphysical. Had he been born without the poetic imagination, he would +have written treatises on the Origin of Evil. He does not draw +characters, but rather conceives them and then shows them acted upon by +crime, passion, or circumstance, as if the element of Fate were as +present to his imagination as to that of a Greek dramatist. Helen we +know, and Antigone, and Benedick, and Falstaff, and Miranda, and Parson +Adams, and Major Pendennis,--these people have walked on pavements or +looked out of club-room windows; but what are these idiosyncrasies into +which Mr. Hawthorne has breathed a necromantic life, and which he has +endowed with the forms and attributes of men? And yet, grant him his +premises, that is, let him once get his morbid tendency, whether +inherited or the result of special experience, either incarnated +as a new man or usurping all the faculties of one already in +the flesh, and it is marvellous how subtilely and with what +truth to as much of human nature as is included in a diseased +consciousness he traces all the finest nerves of impulse and motive, +how he compels every trivial circumstance into an accomplice of his +art, and makes the sky flame with foreboding or the landscape chill and +darken with remorse. It is impossible to think of Hawthorne without at +the same time thinking of the few great masters of imaginative +composition; his works, only not abstract because he has the genius +to make them ideal, belong not specially to our clime or generation; +it is their moral purpose alone, and perhaps their sadness, that mark +him as the son of New England and the Puritans. + +It is commonly true of Hawthorne's romances that the interest centres +in one strongly defined protagonist, to whom the other characters are +accessory and subordinate,--perhaps we should rather say a ruling Idea, +of which all the characters are fragmentary embodiments. They remind us +of a symphony of Beethoven's, in which, though there be variety of +parts, yet all are infused with the dominant motive, and heighten its +impression by hints and far-away suggestions at the most unexpected +moment. As in Rome the obelisks are placed at points toward which +several streets converge, so in Mr. Hawthorne's stories the actors and +incidents seem but vistas through which we see the moral from different +points of view,--a moral pointing skyward always, but inscribed with +hieroglyphs mysteriously suggestive, whose incitement to conjecture, +while they baffle it, we prefer to any prosaic solution. + +Nothing could be more original or imaginative than the conception of +the character of Donatello in Mr. Hawthorne's new romance. His likeness +to the lovely statue of Praxiteles, his happy animal temperament, and +the dim legend of his pedigree are combined with wonderful art to +reconcile us to the notion of a Greek myth embodied in an Italian of +the nineteenth century; and when at length a soul is created in this +primeval pagan, this child of earth, this creature of mere instinct, +awakened through sin to a conception of the necessity of atonement, we +feel, that, while we looked to be entertained with the airiest of +fictions, we were dealing with the most august truths of psychology, +with the most pregnant facts of modern history, and studying a profound +parable of the development of the Christian Idea. + +Everything suffers a sea-change in the depths of Mr. Hawthorne's mind, +gets rimmed with an impalpable fringe of melancholy moss, and there is +a tone of sadness in this book as in the rest, but it does not leave us +sad. In a series of remarkable and characteristic works, it is perhaps +the most remarkable and characteristic. If you had picked up and read a +stray leaf of it anywhere, you would have exclaimed, "Hawthorne!" + +The book is steeped in Italian atmosphere. There are many landscapes in +it full of breadth and power, and criticisms of pictures and statues +always delicate, often profound. In the Preface, Mr. Hawthorne pays a +well-deserved tribute of admiration to several of our sculptors, +especially to Story and Akers. The hearty enthusiasm with which he +elsewhere speaks of the former artist's "Cleopatra" is no surprise to +Mr. Story's friends at home, though hardly less gratifying to them than +it must be to the sculptor himself. + + + + +_A Trip to Cuba_. By Mrs. JULIA WARD HOWE. Boston: Ticknor & Fields. +1860. pp. 251. + +For readers of the "Atlantic," this little volume will need no further +commendation than the mere statement that nearly a quarter of it is +made up of hitherto unpublished material. Here and there it seems to us +a little too personal, and the public is made the confidant of matters +in which it has properly no concern. This, perhaps, is more the fault +of the present generation than of the author; but it is something we +feel bound to protest against, wherever we meet it. In other respects, +the book is one which we may thank not only for entertainment, but for +instruction. In its vivid picturesqueness, it furnishes the complement +to Mr. Dana's "To Cuba and Back." Mrs. Howe has the poet's gift of +making us see what she describes, and she is as lively and witty as a +French _Marquise_ of the seventeenth century, when a _De_ in the name, +petticoats, and Paris were an infallible receipt for cleverness. Toward +the end of her volume, Mrs. Howe enters a spirited and telling protest +against a self-constituted censorship, which would insist on a +traveller's squaring his impressions with some foregone theory of right +and wrong, instead of thankfully allowing facts to rectify his theory. +A traveller is bound to tell us what he saw, not what he expected or +wished to see; and it is only by comparing the different views of many +independent observers that we who tarry at home can arrive at any +approximate notion of absolute fact. The general inferiority of modern +books of travel is due to the fact that their authors write in the fear +of their special fragment of a public, and report of foreign countries +as if they were drummers for Exeter Hall or the Southern Planters' +Association, rather than servants of Truth. + + + + +_Poems by Two Friends_. Columbus, Ohio: Follett, Foster, & Co. 1860. +pp. 162. + +The Two Friends are Messrs. John J. Piatt and W. D. Howells. The +readers of the "Atlantic" have already had a taste of the quality of +both, and, we hope, will often have the same pleasure again. The volume +is a very agreeable one, with little of the crudeness so generally +characteristic of first ventures,--not more than enough to augur richer +maturity hereafter. Dead-ripeness in a first book is a fatal symptom, +sure sign that the writer is doomed forever to that pale limbo of +faultlessness from which there is no escape upwards or downwards. + +We can scarce find it in our hearts to make any distinctions in so +happy a partnership; but while we see something more than promise in +both writers, we have a feeling that Mr. Piatt shows greater +originality in the choice of subjects, and Mr. Howells more instinctive +felicity of phrase in the treatment of them. Both of them seem to us to +have escaped remarkably from the prevailing conventionalisms of verse, +and to write in metre because they have a genuine call thereto. We are +pleased with a thorough Western flavor in some of the poems, especially +in such pieces as "The Pioneer Chimney" and "The Movers." We welcome +cordially a volume in which we recognize a fresh and authentic power, +and expect confidently of the writers a yet higher achievement ere +long. The poems give more than glimpses of a faculty not so common that +the world can afford to do without it. + + + + +_Vanity Fair_, Frank J. Thompson, 113 Nassau Street, New York. +(Weekly.) + +This is the first really clever comic and satirical journal we have had +in America,--and really clever it is. It is both sharp and +good-tempered, and not afraid to say that its soul is its own,--which +shows that it has a soul. Our readers will be glad to know where they +can find native fun that has something better in it than mere _patois_. + + + + +_Twenty Years Ago and Now_. By T. S. ARTHUR. Philadelphia: G. G. Evans. + +In attempting a novel, Mr. Arthur has gone beyond his powers. This +story is not new, and is not interesting; and its only merits are the +quiet, unpretending style and kindly spirit shown in the author's +little tales of mercantile life, many of which are very good. + + + + +RECENT AMERICAN PUBLICATIONS + +RECEIVED BY THE EDITORS OF THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY. + + +The Hierophant; or, Gleanings from the Past. Being an Exposition of +Biblical Astronomy, and the Symbolism and Mysteries on which were +founded all Ancient Religions and Secret Societies. Also, an +Explanation of the Dark Sayings and Allegories which abound in the +Pagan, Jewish, and Christian Bibles. Also, the Real Sense of the +Doctrines and Observances of the Modern Christian Churches. By G. C. +Stewart, Newark, N. J. New York. Ross & Tousey. 18mo. pp. 234. 75 cts. + +A Trip to Cuba. By Mrs. Julia Ward Howe. Boston. Ticknor & Fields. +16mo. pp. iv., 25l. 75 cts. + +Humanics. By T. Wharton Collins, Esq., Professor of "Political +Philosophy," University of Louisiana, Ex-Presiding Judge City Court of +New Orleans, etc. New York. Appleton & Co. 8vo. pp. 358. $1.75. + +Essays, Critical and Miscellaneous. By T. Babington Macaulay. New and +Revised Edition. New York. Appleton & Co. 8vo. pp. 744. $2.00. + +Life and Times of Gen. Sam. Dale, the Mississippi Partisan. By J. F. H. +Claiborne. Illustrated by John M'Lenan. New York. Harper & Brothers. +12mo. pp. 233. $1.00. + +Lucy Crofton. By the Author of "Margaret Maitland," "The Days of my +Life." New York. Harper & Brothers. 12mo. pp. 222. 75 cts. + +Holmby House. A Tale of Old Northamptonshire. By G. J. Whyte Melville, +Author of "Kate Coventry," "The Interpreter," etc. Boston. Ticknor & +Fields. 8vo. paper, pp. 224. 50 cts. + +Aeschylus, ex novissima Recensione Frederici A. Paley. Accessit +Verborum quae praecipue notanda sunt et Nominum Index. New York Harper +& Brothers. 18mo. pp. viii., 272. 40 cts. Thoughts and Reflections on +the Present Position of Europe, and its Probable Consequences to the +United States. By Francis J. Grund. Philadelphia. Childs and Peterson. +12mo. pp. 245. 75 cts. + +Lectures on the English Language. By George P. Marsh. New York. +Scribner. 8vo. pp. viii., 697. $3.00. + +A Medico-Legal Treatise on Malpractice and Medical Evidence, comprising +the Elements of Medical Jurisprudence. By John J. Elwell, M. D., Member +of the Cleveland Bar, Professor of Criminal and Medical Jurisprudence +and Testamentary Law in the Ohio State Law College, and Editor of the +Western Law Monthly. New York. John S. Voorhies. 8vo. pp. 588. $5.00. + +The Public Life of Captain John Brown. By James Redpath. With an +Autobiography of his Childhood and Youth. Boston. Thayer and Eldridge. +12mo. pp. 408. $1.00. + +Stories from Famous Ballads. For Children. By Grace Greenwood, Author +of "History of my Pets," "Stories and Legends," etc. With Illustrations +by Billings. Boston. Ticknor & Fields. Square 18mo. pp. 141. 50 cts. + +Biographical Studies. By George Washington Greene. New York. G. P. +Putnam. 12mo. pp. 233. 75 cts. + +Revolutions in English History. By Robert Vaughan, D. D. Vol. I. +Revolutions of Race. New York. Appleton & Co. 8vo. pp. xvi., 563. +$2.00. + +Doctor Oldham at Greystones, and his Talk there. De omnibus Rebus et +quibusdam aliis. New York. Appleton & Co. 12mo. pp. viii., 342. 75 cts. + +Notes on Nursing: What it is, and what it is not. By Florence +Nightingale. New York. Appleton & Co. 12mo. pp. 140. 60 cts. + +An Arctic Boat Journey, in the Autumn of 1854. By Isaac I. Hayes, +Surgeon of the Second Grinnell Expedition. Boston. Brown, Taggard, & +Chase. 12mo. pp. xviii., 375. $1.25. + +A Guide to the Knowledge of Life, Vegetable and Animal; being a +Comprehensive Manual of Physiology, viewed in Relation to the +Maintenance of Health. By Robert James Mann, M. D. Revised and +corrected. New York. Francis & Co. 16mo. pp. xii., 417. $1.00. + +Notes of Travel and Study in Italy. By Charles Eliot Norton. Boston. +Ticknor & Fields. 16mo. pp. xii., 330. 75 cts. + +The Manual of Phonography. By Benn Pitman. Cincinnati. Phonographic +Institute. 16mo. pp. 136. 75 cts. + +Quinti Horatii Flacci Opera Omnia, ex Recensione A. J. Macleane. New +York. Harper & Brothers. 18mo. pp. viii., 211. 40 eta. + +Poems. By Thomas Buchanan Read. A New and Enlarged Edition. In Two +Volumes. Boston. Ticknor & Fields. 16mo. pp. 426. $2.00. + +Homeward Bound; or, The Chase. A Tale of the Sea. By J. Fenimore +Cooper. Illustrated from Drawings by F. O. C. Darley. New York. +Townsend & Co. 12mo. pp. 532. $1.50. + +Life of Jesus. A Manual for Academic Study. By Dr. Carl Hase, Professor +of Theology in the University of Jena. Translated from the German of +the Third and Fourth Improved Editions, by James Freeman Clarke. +Boston. Walker, Wise, & Co. 12mo. pp. xxiv., 267. 75 cts. + +Apelles and his Contemporaries. A Novel. By the Author of "Ernest +Carroll." Boston. Burnham. 16mo. pp. 342. 75 cts. + +The Miscellaneous Works of Sir Philip Sidney, Knt. With a Life of the +Author and Illustrative Notes. By William Gray, Esq., of Magdalen +College and the Inner Temple. Boston. Burnham. 8vo. pp. x., 380. $2.25. + +The Satires of Juvenal, Persius, Sulpicia, and Lucilius, literally +translated into English Prose, with Notes, Chronological Tables, +Arguments, etc. By the Rev. Lewis Evans, M. A., late Fellow of Wadham +College, Oxford. To which is added the Metrical Version of Juvenal and +Persius by the late William Gifford, Esq. New York. Harper & Brothers. +16mo. pp. lx., 512. 75 cts. + +Narrative of the Earl of Elgin's Mission to China and Japan in the +Years 1857, '58, '59. By Laurence Oliphant, Esq., Private Secretary to +Lord Elgin, Author of "The Russian Shores, of the Black Sea," etc. New +York. Harper & Brothers. 8vo. pp. xvi., 645. $2.75. + +Hours with the Evangelists. By I. Nichols, D.D. In Two Volumes. Vol. I. +Boston. Crosby, Nichols, & Co. 12mo. pp. x., 405. $1.25. + +A Dictionary of English Etymology. By Hensleigh Wedgewood, M. A., late +Fellow of Chr. Coll. Cam. Vol. I. _A-D_. London. Truebner & Co. New +York. Redfield. pp. 507. + +The Marble Faun; or, The Romance of Monte Beni. By Nathaniel Hawthorne, +Author of "The Scarlet Letter," etc. In Two Volumes. Boston. Ticknor & +Fields. 16mo. pp. 283, 284. $1.50. + +Wolfe of the Knoll, and other Poems. By Mrs. George P. Marsh. New York. +Scribner. 12mo. pp. 327. $1.00. + + + + + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 30, +April, 1860, by Various + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ATLANTIC MONTHLY, APRIL 1860 *** + +***** This file should be named 9396.txt or 9396.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/9/3/9/9396/ + +Produced by Joshua Hutchinson, Tonya Allen, and Project +Gutenberg Distributed Proofreaders + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. Project +Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you +charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission. If you +do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the +rules is very easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose +such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and +research. They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do +practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks. Redistribution is +subject to the trademark license, especially commercial +redistribution. + + + +*** START: FULL LICENSE *** + +THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE +PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK + +To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free +distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work +(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project +Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project +Gutenberg-tm License available with this file or online at + www.gutenberg.org/license. + + +Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic works + +1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to +and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property +(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all +the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy +all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession. +If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the +terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or +entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8. + +1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be +used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who +agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few +things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works +even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See +paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement +and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. See paragraph 1.E below. + +1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation" +or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual works in the +collection are in the public domain in the United States. If an +individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are +located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from +copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative +works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg +are removed. Of course, we hope that you will support the Project +Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by +freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of +this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with +the work. You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by +keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project +Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others. + +1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern +what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are in +a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, check +the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement +before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or +creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project +Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no representations concerning +the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United +States. + +1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg: + +1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate +access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently +whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the +phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project +Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed, +copied or distributed: + +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 + +1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived +from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is +posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied +and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees +or charges. If you are redistributing or providing access to a work +with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the +work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 +through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the +Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or +1.E.9. + +1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted +with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution +must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional +terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms will be linked +to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the +permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work. + +1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this +work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm. + +1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this +electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without +prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with +active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project +Gutenberg-tm License. + +1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary, +compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any +word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access to or +distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than +"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version +posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org), +you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a +copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon +request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other +form. Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1. + +1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, +performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works +unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. + +1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing +access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided +that + +- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from + the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method + you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is + owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he + has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the + Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments + must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you + prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax + returns. Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and + sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the + address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to + the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation." + +- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies + you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he + does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm + License. You must require such a user to return or + destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium + and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of + Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any + money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the + electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days + of receipt of the work. + +- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free + distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set +forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from +both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael +Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark. Contact the +Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below. + +1.F. + +1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable +effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread +public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm +collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain +"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or +corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual +property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a +computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by +your equipment. + +1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right +of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project +Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all +liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal +fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT +LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE +PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH 1.F.3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE +TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE +LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR +INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH +DAMAGE. + +1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a +defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can +receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a +written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you +received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with +your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you with +the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a +refund. If you received the work electronically, the person or entity +providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to +receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If the second copy +is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further +opportunities to fix the problem. + +1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth +in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS', WITH NO OTHER +WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO +WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE. + +1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied +warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages. +If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the +law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be +interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by +the applicable state law. The invalidity or unenforceability of any +provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions. + +1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the +trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone +providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance +with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production, +promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works, +harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees, +that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do +or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm +work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any +Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause. + + +Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm + +Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of +electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers +including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It exists +because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from +people in all walks of life. + +Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the +assistance they need are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's +goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will +remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure +and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations. +To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation +and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4 +and the Foundation information page at www.gutenberg.org + + +Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive +Foundation + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit +501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the +state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal +Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification +number is 64-6221541. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent +permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws. + +The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S. +Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered +throughout numerous locations. Its business office is located at 809 +North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887. Email +contact links and up to date contact information can be found at the +Foundation's web site and official page at www.gutenberg.org/contact + +For additional contact information: + Dr. Gregory B. Newby + Chief Executive and Director + gbnewby@pglaf.org + +Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation + +Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide +spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of +increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be +freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest +array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations +($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt +status with the IRS. + +The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating +charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United +States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a +considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up +with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations +where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To +SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any +particular state visit www.gutenberg.org/donate + +While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we +have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition +against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who +approach us with offers to donate. + +International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make +any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from +outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff. + +Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation +methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other +ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations. +To donate, please visit: www.gutenberg.org/donate + + +Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. + +Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm +concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared +with anyone. For forty years, he produced and distributed Project +Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support. + +Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S. +unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. diff --git a/9396.zip b/9396.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..46d6584 --- /dev/null +++ b/9396.zip diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..8ab7c9e --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #9396 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/9396) diff --git a/old/705a410.txt b/old/705a410.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..ed476b0 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/705a410.txt @@ -0,0 +1,8943 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 30, April, 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. + +This header should be the first thing seen when viewing this Project +Gutenberg file. Please do not remove it. Do not change or edit the +header without written permission. + +Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the +eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of this file. Included is +important information about your specific rights and restrictions in +how the file may be used. You can also find out about how to make a +donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!***** + + +Title: Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 30, April, 1860 + +Author: Various + +Release Date: November, 2005 [EBook #9396] +[This file was first posted on September 29, 2003] + +Edition: 10 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: US-ASCII + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, ATLANTIC MONTHLY, VOL. 5, NO. 30, APRIL, 1860 *** + + + + +E-text prepared by Joshua Hutchinson, Tonya Allen, and Project Gutenberg +Distributed Proofreaders + + + + + + + +THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY. + +A MAGAZINE OF LITERATURE, ART, AND POLITICS. + +VOL. V.--APRIL, 1860--NO. XXX. + + + + +THE LAWS OF BEAUTY. + + +The fatal mistake of many inquirers concerning the line of beauty has +been, that they have sought in that which is outward for that which is +within. Beauty, perceived only by the mind, and, so far as we have any +direct proof, perceived by man alone of all the animals, must be an +expression of intelligence, the work of mind. It cannot spring from +anything purely accidental; it does not arise from material, but from +spiritual forces. That the outline of a figure, and its surface, are +capable of expressing the emotions of the mind is manifest from the art +of the sculptor, which represents in cold, colorless marble the varied +expressions of living faces,--or from the art of the engraver, who, by +simple outlines, can soothe you with a swelling lowland landscape, or +brace you with the cool air of the mountains. + +Now the highest beauty is doubtless that which expresses the noblest +emotion. A face that shines, like that of Moses, from communion with +the Highest, is more truly beautiful than the most faultless features +without moral expression. But there is a beauty which does not reveal +emotion, but only thought,--a beauty which consists simply in the form, +and which is admired for its form alone. + +Let us, for the present, confine our attention to this most limited +species of beauty,--the beauty of configuration only. + +This beauty of mere outline has, by some celebrated writers, been +resolved into some certain curved line, or line of beauty; by others +into numerical proportion of dimensions; and again by others into early +pleasing associations with curvilinear forms. But, if we look at the +subject in an intellectual light, we shall find a better explanation. +Forms are the embodiment of thought or law. For the common eye they +must be embodied in material shape; while to the geometer and the +artist, they may be so distinctly shadowed forth in conception as to +need no material figure to render their beauty appreciable. Now this +embodiment, or this conception, in all cases, demands some law in the +mind, by which it is conceived or made; and we must look at the nature +of this law, in order to approach more nearly to understanding the +nature of beauty. + +We are thus led, through our search for beauty, into the temple of +Geometry, the most ancient and venerable of sciences. From her oracles +alone can we learn the generation of beauty, so far as it consists in +form alone. + +Maupertuis' law of the least action is not simply a mechanical, but it +is a universal axiom. The Divine Being does all things with the least +possible expenditure of force; and all hearts and all minds honor men +in proportion as they approach to this divine economy. As gracefulness +in motion consists in moving with the least waste of muscular power, so +elegance in intellectual and literary exertions arises from the ease +with which their achievements are accomplished. We seek in all things +simplicity and unity. In Nature we have faith that there is such unity, +even in the midst of the wildest diversity. We honor intellectual +conceptions in proportion to the greatness of their consequences and to +the simplicity of their assumptions. Laws of form are beautiful in +proportion to their simplicity and to the variety which they can +comprise in unity. The beauty of forms themselves is in proportion to +the simplicity of their law and to the variety of their outline. + +This last sentence we regard as the fundamental canon concerning +beauty,--governing, with a slight change of terms, beauty in all its +departments. + +Beginning with the fundamental division of figures into curvilinear and +rectilinear, this _dictum_ decides, that, in general, a curved outline +is more beautiful than a right-lined figure. For a straight-lined +figure necessarily requires at least half as many laws as it has sides, +while a curvilinear outline requires, in general, but a single law. In +a true curve, every point in the whole line (or surface) is subject to +one and the same law of position. Thus, in the circle, every point of +the circumference is subject to one and the same law,--that it must be +at a certain distance from the centre. Half a dozen other laws, equally +simple, might be named, which in like manner govern every point in the +circumference of a circle: for instance, the curve bends at every point +by a certain fixed but infinitesimal amount, just enough to make the +adjacent points to be equally near the centre. Or, to take another +example, every point of the elastic curve, that is, of the curve in +which a spring of uniform stiffness can be bent by a force applied at +the ends of the spring, is subject to this very simple law, that the +curve bends in exact proportion to its distance from a certain straight +line. Now a straight line, or a plane, is by this definition a curve, +since every point in it is subject to one and the same law of position. +A plane may, indeed, be considered a part of any curved surface you +please, if you only take that surface on a sufficiently large scale. +Thus, the surface of water conforms to the surface of a sphere eight +thousand miles in diameter; but, as the arc of such a circle would arch +up from a chord ten feet long by only the ten-millionth part of an +inch, the surface of water in a cistern may be considered a plane. But +no figure or outline can be composed of a single plane or a single +straight line; nor can the position of more than two straight lines, +not parallel, be defined by a single simple law of position of the +points in them. We may, therefore, regard it as the first deduction +from our fundamental canon, that figures with curving outline are in +general more beautiful than those composed of straight lines. The laws +of their formation are simpler, and the eye, sweeping round the +outline, feels the ease and gracefulness of the motion, recognizes the +simplicity of the law by which it is guided, and is pleased with the +result. + +Our second deduction relates principally to rectilinear figures; it is, +that symmetry is in general, and particularly in rectilinear figures, +more beautiful than irregularity. It requires, in general, simpler laws +to produce symmetry than to produce what is unsymmetrical; since the +corresponding parts in a symmetrical figure are instinctively +recognized as flowing from one and the same law. This preference for +symmetry is, however, frequently subordinated to higher demands of the +fundamental canon. If the outline be rectilineal, simplicity of law +produces symmetry, and variety of result can be attained only at the +expense of simplicity in the law. But in curved outlines it frequently +happens, that, with equally simple laws, we can obtain much greater +variety by dispensing with symmetry; and then, by the canon, we thus +obtain the higher beauty. + +The question may be asked, In what way does this canon decide the +question, of proportions? Which of the two rectangles is, according to +this _dictum_, more beautiful, that in which the sides are in simple +ratio, or that in which the angles made with the sides by a diagonal +are in such ratio?--that, for instance, in which the shorter side is +three-fifths of the longer, or that in which the shorter side is five +hundred and seventy-seven thousandths of the longer? Our own view was +formerly in favor of a simple ratio between the sides; but experiments +have convinced us that persons of good taste, and who have never been +prejudiced by reading Hay's ingenious speculations, do nevertheless +agree in preferring rectangles and ellipses which fulfil his law of +simple ratio between the angles made by the diagonal. We acknowledge +that we have not brought this result under the canon, but look upon it +as indicating the necessity of another canon to somewhat this +effect,--that in the laws of form direction is a more important element +than distance. + +We have said that a curved line is one in which every point is subject +to one and the same law of position. Now it may be easily proved, that, +in a series of points in a plane, each of which fulfils one and the +same condition of position, any three, if taken sufficiently near each +other, lie in one straight line. A fourth point near the third lies, +then, in a straight line with the second and third,--a fifth with the +third and fourth, and so on. The whole series of points must, in short, +form a line. But it may also be easily proved that any four of these +points, taken sufficiently near each other, lie in the arc of a circle. +How strange the paradox to which we are thus led! Every law of a curve, +however simple, leads to the same conclusion; a curve must bend at +every point, and yet not bend at any point; it must be nowhere a +straight line, and yet be a straight line at every part. The +blacksmith, passing an iron bar between three rollers to make a tire +for a wheel, bends every part of it infinitely little, so that the +bending shall not be perceptible at any one spot, and shall yet in the +whole length arch the tire to a full circle. It may be that in this +paradox lies an additional charm of the curved outline. The eye is +pleased to find itself deceived, lured insensibly round into a line +running in a different direction from that on which it started. + +The simplest law of position for a point would be, either to have it in +a given direction from a given point,--a law which would manifestly +generate a straight line,--or else to have it at a given distance from +the given point, which would generate the surface of a sphere, the +outline of which is the circumference of a circle. The straight line +fulfils part of the conditions of beauty demanded by the first canon, +but not the whole,--it has no variety, and must be combined in order to +produce a large effect. The simplest combination of straight lines is +in parallels, and this is its usual combination in works of Art. The +circle also fulfils but imperfectly the demands of the fundamental +canon. It is the simplest of all curves, and the standard or measure of +curvature,--vastly more simple in its laws than any rectilineal figure, +and therefore more beautiful than any simple figure of that kind. There +is, however, a sort of monotony in its beauty,--it has no variety of +parts. + +The outline of a sphere, projected by the beholder against any plane +surface behind it, is a circle only when a perpendicular, let fall on +the plane from the eye, passes through the centre of the sphere. In +other positions the projection of the sphere becomes an ellipse, or one +of its varieties, the parabola and hyperbola. The parabola is the +boundary of the projection of a sphere upon a plane, when the eye is +just as far from the plane as the outer edge of the sphere is, and the +hyperbola is a similar curve formed by bringing the eye still nearer to +the plane. + +By these metamorphoses the circle loses much of its monotony, without +losing much of its simplicity. The law of the projection of a sphere +upon a plane is simple, in whatever position the plane may be. And if +we seek a law for the ellipse, or either of the conic sections, which +shall confine our attention to the plane, the laws remain simple. There +are for these curves two centres, which come together for the circle, +and recede to an infinite distance for the parabola; and the simple law +of their formation is, that the curve everywhere makes equal angles +with the lines drawn to these two centres. According to the fundamental +canon, a conic section should be a beautiful curve; and the proof that +it is so is to be found in the attention which these curves have always +drawn upon themselves from artists and from mathematicians. Plato, +equally great in mathematics and in metaphysics, is said to have been +the first to investigate the properties of the ellipse. For about a +century and a half, to the time of Apollonius, the beauty of this +curve, and of its variations, the parabola and hyperbola, so fascinated +the minds of Plato's followers, that Apollonius found theorems and +problems relating to these figures sufficient to fill eight books with +condensed truths concerning them. The study of the conic sections has +been a part of polite learning from his day downward. All men confess +their beauty, which so entrances those of mathematical genius as +entirely to absorb them. For eighteen centuries the finest spirits of +our race drew some of their best means of intellectual discipline from +the study of the ellipse. Then came a new era in the history of this +curve. Hitherto it had been an abstract form, a geometrical +speculation. But Kepler, by some fortunate guess, was led to examine +whether the orbits of the planets might not be elliptical, and, lo! it +was found that this curve, whose beauty had so fascinated so many men +for so many ages, had been deemed by the great Architect of the Heavens +beautiful enough to introduce into Nature on the grandest scale; the +morning stars had been for countless ages tracing diagrams beforehand +in illustration of Apollonius's conic sections. It seemed that this +must have been the design of Providence in leading Plato and his +followers to investigate the ellipse, that Kepler might be prepared to +guide men to a knowledge of the movements of the heavenly bodies. +"And," said Kepler, "if the Creator has waited so many years for an +observer, I may wait a century for a reader." But in less than a +century a reader arose in the person of the English Newton. The ellipse +again appeared in human history, playing a no less important part than +before. For, as it was only by a profound knowledge of ellipses that +Kepler could establish his three beautiful facts with regard to the +motions of the planets, so also was it only through a still more +perfect and intimate acquaintance with the minute peculiarities of that +curve that Sir Isaac Newton could demonstrate that these three facts +were perfectly accounted for only by his theory of universal +gravitation,--the most beautiful theory ever devised, and the most +firmly established of all scientific hypotheses. If the ellipse, as a +simply geometrical speculation, has had so much power in the education +of the race, what are the intellectual relations of its beauty through +its connection with astronomy? Who can estimate the influence which +this oldest of physical sciences has had upon human destiny? Who can +tell how much intellectual life and self-reliance, how much also of +humility and reverential awe, how much adoration of Divine Wisdom, have +been gained by man through his study of these heavenly diagrams, marked +out by the sun and the moon, by the planets and the comets, upon the +tablets of the sky? Yet, without the ellipse, without the conic +sections of Plato and Apollonius, astronomy would have been to this day +a sealed science, and the labors of Hipparchus, Ptolemy, Tycho, and +Copernicus would have waited in vain for the genius of Kepler and of +Newton to educe divine order from the seeming chaos of motions. + +But the obligations of man to the ellipse do not end here. The +eighteenth and nineteenth centuries also owe it a debt of gratitude. +Even where the knowledge of conic sections does not enter as a direct +component of that analytical power which was the glory of a Lagrange, a +Laplace, and a Gauss, and which is the glory of a Leverrier, a Peirce, +and their companions in science, it serves as a part of the necessary +scaffolding by which that skill is attained,--of the necessary +discipline by which their power was exercised and made available for +the solution of the great problems of astronomy, optics, and +thermotics, which have been solved in our century. + +There is another curve, generated by a simple law from a circle, which +has played an important part at various epochs in the intellectual +history of our race. A spot on the tire of a wheel running on a +straight, level road, will describe in the air a series of peculiar +arches, called the cycloid. The law of its formation is simple; the law +of its curvature is also simple. The path in which the spot moves +curves exactly in proportion to its nearness to the lowest point of the +wheel. By the simplicity of its law, it ought, according to the canon, +to be a beautiful curve. Now, although artists have not shown any +admiration for the cycloid, as they have for the ellipse, yet the +mathematicians have gazed upon it with great eagerness, and found it +rich in intellectual treasures. Chasles, in his History, says that the +cycloid interweaves itself with all the great discoveries of the +seventeenth century. + +A curve which fulfils more perfectly the demands of our _dictum_ is +that of an elastic thread, to which we have already alluded. If the two +ends of a straight steel hair be brought towards each other by simple +pressure, the intervening spring may be put into a series of various +forms,--simple undulations, and those more complicated, a figure 8, +loops turning alternately opposite ways, loops turning all one way, and +finally a circle. Now the whole of this variety is the result of +subjecting each part of the curve to a law more simple than that of the +cycloid. The elastic curve is a curve which bends or curves exactly in +proportion to its distance from a given straight line. According to the +canon, therefore, this curve should be beautiful; and it is +acknowledged to be so in the examples given by the bending osier and +the waving grain,--also by the few who have seen full drawings of all +the forms. And the mathematician finds in it a new beauty, from its +marvellous correspondence with the motions of a pendulum,--the +algebraic expression of the two being identical. + +The forms of organic life afford, however, the best examples of the +dominion of our fundamental canon. The infinite variety of vegetable +forms, all beautiful, and each one different in its beauty, is all the +result of simple laws. It is true that these simple laws are not as yet +all discovered; but the one great discovery of Phyllotaxis, which shows +that all plants follow one law in the arrangement of their leaves upon +the stem, thereby intimates in unmistakable language the simplicity and +unity of all organic vegetable laws; and a similar assurance is given +by the morphological reduction of all parts to a metamorphosed leaf. + +The law of phyllotaxis, like that of the elastic curve, is carried out +in time as well as in space. As the formula for the elastic curve is +the same as that for the pendulum, so the law by which the spaces of +the leaves are divided in scattering them round the stem, to give each +its opportunity for light and air, is the same as that by which the +times of the planets are proportioned to keep them scattered about the +sun, and prevent them from gathering on one side of their central orb. + +The forms of plants and trees are dependent upon the arrangement of the +branches, and the arrangement of the branches depends upon that of the +buds or leaves. The leaves are arranged by this numerical law,--that +the angular distance about the stem between two successive leaves shall +be in such ratio to the whole circumference as may be expressed by a +continued fraction composed wholly of the figure 1. It is, then, true, +that all the beauty of the vegetable world which depends on the +arrangement of parts--the graceful symmetry or more graceful apparent +disregard of symmetry in the general form of plants, all the charm of +the varying forms of forest trees, which adds such loveliness to the +winter landscape, and such a refined source of pleasure to the +exhilaration of the winter morning walk--is the result of the simplest +variations in a simple numerical law; and is thus clearly brought under +our fundamental canon. It is the perception of this unity in diversity, +of this similarity of plan, for instance, in all tree-like forms, +however diverse,--the sprig of mignonette, the rose-bush, the fir, the +cedar, the fan-shaped elm, the oval rock-maple, the columnar hickory, +the dense and slender shaft of the poplar,--which charms the eye of +those who have never heard in what algebraic or arithmetical terms this +unity may be defined, in what geometrical or architectural figures this +diversity may be expressed. + +When we look at the animal kingdom, we recognize there also the +presence of simple, all-pervading laws. The four great types of animal +structures are readily discerned by the dullest eye: no man fails to +see the likeness among all vertebrates, or the likeness among all +articulates, the likeness among alt mollusks, or the likeness among all +radiates. These four types show, moreover, a certain unity, even to the +untaught eye: we call them all by one name, animals, and feel that +there is a likeness between them deeper than the widest differences in +their structure; there are analogies where there are not homologies. + +The difference between the four types of animals is marked at a very +early period in the embryo,--the embryo taking one of four different +forms, according to the department to which it belongs; and Peirce has +shown that these four forms are all embodiments of one single law of +position. If, then, one single algebraic law of form includes the four +diverse forms of the four great branches of the animal kingdom, is it +extravagant to suppose that the diversities in each branch are also +capable of being included in simple generalizations of form? Is it +unreasonable to believe that the exceeding beauty of animated forms, +and of the highest, the human form, arises from the fact that these +forms are the result of some simple intellectual law, a simple +conception of the Divine Geometer, assuming varied developments in the +great series of animated beings? It is the unity of the form, arising +from the simplicity of its law, and the multiplicity of its +manifestations or details, arising from the generality of its law, +that, intuitively perceived by the eye, although the intellect may not +apprehend them, give the charm to the figures of the animate creation. + +The subject, even in the narrow limits which we have imposed upon +ourselves, would admit of a much longer discussion. The various animals +might, for instance, be compared with each other, and the beauty of the +most beautiful could be clearly shown to be owing to the greater +variety in the outline, or the greater variety of position, which they +included in equal unity of general effect. And should we step outside +the bounds which we have prescribed to ourselves, we should find that +in other things than questions of mere form the general canon holds +true, that laws produce beauty in proportion to their own simplicity +and to the variety of their effects. As a single example, take the most +beautiful of the fine arts, the art which is free from the laws of +space, and subject only to those of time, and in which, therefore, we +find a beauty removed as far as possible from that of curvilinear +outlines. How exceedingly simple are the fundamental laws of music, of +simple rhythm and simple harmony yet how infinitely varied, and how +inexpressibly touching are its effects! In studying music as a mere +matter of intellectual science, all is simple; it is only an easy +chapter in acoustics. But in studying it on the side of the emotions, +in studying the laws of counterpoint and of musical form, which are +governed by the effect upon the ear and the heart, we find intricacy +and difficulties, increased beyond our power of understanding. + +So in the harmony of the spheres, in the varied beauty which clothes +the earth and pervades the heavens, in the beauty which addresses +itself to eye and ear, and in the beauty which addresses only the +inward sense,--the harmonious arrangements of the social world, and the +adjustment of domestic, civil, and political relations,--there is an +infinite diversity of result, infinitely varied in its effect upon the +observer. But could we behold the Kosmos as it is beheld by its +Creator, we should perchance find the whole encyclopedia of our science +resting upon a few great, but simple laws; we should see that the whole +universe, in all its infinite complication, is the fulfilment of +perhaps a single simple thought of the Divine Mind, and that it is this +unity pervading the diversity which makes it the Kosmos, Beauty. + + + + +FOUND AND LOST. + +And he sold his birth-right unto Jacob. Then Jacob gave Esau bread and +pottage of lentiles. + +GEN. xxv. 33, 34. + + +......So! I let fall the curtain; he was dead. For at least half an +hour I had stood there with the manuscript in my hand, watching that +face settling in its last stillness, watching the finger of the +Composer smoothing out the deeply furrowed lines on cheek and +forehead,--the faint recollection of the light that had perhaps burned +behind his childish eyes struggling up through the swarthy cheek, as if +to clear the last world's-dust from the atmosphere surrounding the man +who had just refound his youth. His head rested on his hand,--and so +satisfied and content was his quiet attitude, that he looked as if +resting from a long, wearisome piece of work he was glad to have +finished. I don't know how it was, but I thought, oddly enough, in +connection with him, of a little school-fellow of mine years ago, who +one day, in his eagerness to prove that he could jump farther than some +of his companions, upset an ink-stand over his prize essay, and, +overcome with mortification, disappointment, and vexation, burst into +tears, hastily scratched his name from the list of competitors, and +then rushed out of doors to tear his ruined essay into fragments; and +we found him that afternoon lying on the grass, with his head on his +hand, just as he lay now, having sobbed himself to sleep. + +I dropped the curtains of the bed, drew those of the window more +closely, to exclude the shrill winter wind that was blowing the slant +sleet against the clattering window-panes, broke up the lump of cannel +coal in the grate into a bright blaze that subsided into a warm, steady +glow of heat and light, drew an arm-chair and a little table up to the +cheerful fire, and sat down to read the manuscript which the quiet man +behind the curtains had given me. Why shouldn't I (I was his physician) +make myself as comfortable as was possible at two o'clock of a stormy +winter night, in a house that contained but two persons beside my +German patient,--a half-stupid serving-man, doubtless already asleep +down-stairs, and myself? This is what I read that night, with the +comfortable fire on one side, and Death, holding strange colloquy with +the fitful, screaming, moaning wind, on the other. + +As I wish simply to relate what has happened to me, (thus the +manuscript began,) what I attempted, in what I sinned, and how I +failed, I deem no introduction or genealogies necessary to the first +part of my life. I was an only child of parents who were passionately +fond of me,--the more, perhaps, because an accident that had happened +to me in my childhood rendered me for some years a partial invalid. One +day, (I was about five years old then,) a gentleman paid a visit to my +father, riding a splendid Arabian horse. Upon dismounting, he tied the +horse near the steps of the piazza instead of the horseblock, so that I +found I was just upon the level with the stirrup, standing at a certain +elevation. Half as an experiment, to try whether I could touch the +horse without his starting, I managed to get my foot into the stirrup, +and so mounted upon his back. The horse, feeling the light burden, did +start, broke from his fastening, and sped away with me on his back at +the top of his speed. He ran several miles without stopping, and +finished by pitching me off his back upon the ground, in leaping a +fence. This fall produced some disease of the spine, which clung to me +till I was twelve years old, when it was almost miraculously cured by +an itinerant Arab physician. He was generally pronounced to be a quack, +but he certainly effected many wonderful cures, mine among others. + +I had always been an imaginative child; and my long-continued sedentary +life compelling me (a welcome compulsion) to reading as my chief +occupation and amusement, I acquired much knowledge beyond my years. + +My reading generally had one peculiar tone: a certain kind of mystery +was an essential ingredient in the fascination that books which I +considered interesting had for me. My earliest fairy tales were not +those unexciting stories in which the good genius appears at the +beginning of the book, endowing the hero with such an invincible +talisman that suspense is banished from the reader's mind, too well +enabled to foresee the triumph at the end; but stories of long, painful +quests after hidden treasure,--mysterious enchantments thrown around +certain persons by witch or wizard, drawing the subject in charmed +circles nearer and nearer to his royal or ruinous destiny,--strange +spells cast upon bewitched houses or places, that could be removed only +by the one hand appointed by Fate. So I pored over the misty legends of +the San Grail, and the sweet story of "The Sleeping Beauty," as my +first literature; and as the rough years of practical boyhood trooped +up to elbow my dreaming childhood out of existence, I fed the same +hunger for the hidden and mysterious with Detective-Police stories, +Captain Kidd's voyages, and wild tales of wrecks on the Spanish Main, +of those vessels of fabulous wealth that strewed the deep sea's lap +with gems (so the stories ran) of lustre almost rare enough to light +the paths to their secret hiding-places. + +But in the last year of my captivity as an invalid a new pleasure fell +into my hands. I discovered my first book of travels in my father's +library, and as with a magical key unlocked the gate of an enchanted +realm of wondrous and ceaseless beauty. It was Sir John Mandeville who +introduced me to this field of exhaustless delight; not a very +trustworthy guide, it must be confessed,--but my knowledge at that time +was too limited to check the boundless faith I reposed in his +narrative. It was such an astonishment to discover that men, +black-coated and black-trousered men, such as I saw in crowds every day +in the street from my sofa-corner, (we had moved to the city shortly +after my accident,) had actually broken away from that steady stream of +people, and had traversed countries as wild and unknown as the lands in +the Nibelungen Lied, that my respect for the race rose amazingly. I +scanned eagerly the sleek, complacent faces of the portly burghers, or +those of the threadbare schoolmasters, thinned like carving-knives by +perpetual sharpening on the steel of Latin syntax, in search of men who +could have dared the ghastly terrors of the North with Ross or Parry, +or the scorching jungles of the Equator with Burckhardt and Park. Cut +off for so long a time from actual contact with the outside world, I +could better imagine the brooding stillness of the Great Desert, I +could more easily picture the weird ice-palaces of the Pole, waiting, +waiting forever in awful state, like the deserted halls of the Walhalla +for their slain gods to return, than many of the common street-scenes +in my own city, which I had only vaguely heard mentioned. + +I followed the footsteps of the Great Seekers over the wastes, the +untrodden paths of the world; I tracked Columbus across the pathless +Atlantic,--heard, with Balboa, the "wave of the loud-roaring ocean +break upon the long shore, and the vast sea of the Pacific forever +crash on the beach,"--gazed with Cortes on the temples of the Sun in +the startling Mexican empire,--or wandered with Pizarro through the +silver-lined palaces of Peru. But a secret affection drew me to the +mysterious regions of the East and South,--towards Arabia, the wild +Ishmael bequeathing sworded Korans and subtile Aristotles as legacies +to the sons of the freed-woman,--to solemn Egypt, riddle of nations, +the vast, silent, impenetrable mystery of the world. By continual +pondering over the footsteps of the Seekers, the Sought-for seemed to +grow to vast proportions, and the Found to shrink to inappreciable +littleness. For me, over the dreary ice-plains of the Poles, over the +profound bosom of Africa, the far-stretching steppes of Asia, and the +rocky wilds of America, a great silence brooded, and in the unexplored +void faint footfalls could be heard here and there, threading their way +in the darkness. But while the longing to plunge, myself, into these +dim regions of expectation grew more intense each day, the +prison-chains that had always bound me still kept their habitual hold +upon me, even after my recovery. I dreamt not of making even the +vaguest plans for undertaking explorations myself. So I read and +dreamt, filling my room with wild African or monotonous Egyptian +scenery, until I was almost weaned from ordinary Occidental life. + +I passed four blissful years In this happy dream-life, and then it was +abruptly brought to an end by the death of my father and mother almost +simultaneously by an epidemic fever prevailing in the neighborhood. I +was away from home at a bachelor uncle's at the time, and so was +unexpectedly thrown on his hands, an orphan, penniless, except in the +possession of the small house my father had owned in the country before +our removal to the city, and to be provided for. + +My uncle placed me in a mercantile house to learn business, and, after +exercising some slight supervision over me a few months, left me +entirely to my own resources. As, however, he had previously taken care +that these resources should be sufficient, I got along very well upon +them, was regularly promoted, and in the space of six years, at the age +of twenty-one, was in a rather responsible situation in the house, with +a good salary. But my whole attention could not be absorbed in the dull +routine of business, my most precious hours were devoted to reading, in +which I still pursued my old childish track of speculation, with the +difference that I exchanged Sinbad's valley of diamonds for Arabia +Petraea, Sir John Mandeville for Herodotus, and Robinson Crusoe for +Belzoni and Burckhardt Whether my interest in these Oriental studies +arose from the fact of the house being concerned in the importation of +the products of the Indies, or whether from the secret attraction that +had drawn me Eastward since my earliest childhood, as if the Arab +doctor had bewitched in curing me, I cannot say; probably it was the +former, especially as the India business became gradually more and more +intrusted to my hands. + +Shortly after my twenty-first birthday, I received a note from my +uncle, from whom I had not heard for a year, or two, informing me that +my father's house, which he had kept rented for me during the first +years of my minority, had been without a tenant for a year, and, as I +had now come of age, I had better go down to D---- and take possession +of it. This letter, touching upon a long train of associations and +recollections, awoke an intense longing in me to revisit the home of my +childhood, and meet those phantom shapes that had woven that spell in +those dreaming years, which I sometimes thought I felt even now. So I +obtained a short leave of absence, and started the next morning in the +coach for D----. + +It was what is called a "raw morning," for what reason I know not, for +such days are really elaborated with the most exquisite finish. A soft +gray mist hugged the country in a chilly embrace, while a fine rain +fell as noiselessly as snow, upon soaked ground, drenched trees, and +peevish houses. There is always a sense of wonder about a mist. The +outlines of what we consider our hardest tangibilities are melted away +by it into the airiest dream-sketches, our most positive and glaring +facts are blankly blotted out, and a fresh, clean sheet left for some +new fantasy to be written upon it, as groundless as the rest; our solid +land dissolves in cloud, and cloud assumes the stability of land. For, +after all, the only really tangible thing we possess is man's Will; and +let the presence and action of that be withdrawn but for a few moments, +and that mysterious Something which we vainly endeavor to push off into +the Void by our pompous nothings of brick and plaster and stone closes +down upon us with the descending sky, writing _Delendum_ on all behind +us, _Unknown_ on all before. At that time, the only actual Now, that +stands between these two infinite blanks, becomes identical with the +mind itself, independent of accidents of situation or circumstance; and +the mind thus becoming boldly prominent, amidst the fading away of +physical things, stamps its own character upon its shadowy +surroundings, moulding the supple universe to the shape of its emotions +and feelings. + +I was the only inside passenger, and there was nothing to check the +entire surrender of my mind to all ghostly influence. So I lay +stretched upon the cushions, staring blankly into the dense gray fog +closing up all trace of our travelled road, or watching the light edges +of the trailing mist curl coyly around the roofs of houses and then +settle grimly all over them, the fantastic shapes of trees or carts +distorted and magnified through the mist, the lofty outlines of some +darker cloud stalking solemnly here and there, like enormous dumb +overseers faithfully superintending the work of annihilation. The +monotonous patter of the rain-drops upon the wet pavement or muddy +roads, blending with the low whining of the wind and the steady rumble +of the coach-wheels, seemed to make a kind of witch-chant, that wove +with braided sound a weird spell about me, a charm fating me for some +service, I knew not what. That chant moaned, it wailed, it whispered, +it sang gloriously, it bound, it drowned me, it lapped me in an +inextricable stream of misty murmuring, till I was perplexed, +bewildered, enchanted. I felt surprised at myself, when, at the end of +the day's journey, I carried my bag to the hotel, and ate my supper +there as usual,--and felt natural again only when, having obtained the +key of my house, I sallied forth in the dim twilight to make it my +promised visit. + +I found the place, as I had expected, in a state of utter desolation. A +year's silence had removed it so far from the noisy stream of life that +flowed by it, that I felt, as I pushed at the rusty door-lock, as if I +were passing into some old garret of Time, where he had thrown +forgotten rubbish too worn-out and antiquated for present use. A strong +scent of musk greeted me at my entrance, which I found came from a box +of it that had been broken upon the hall-floor. I had stowed it away +(it was a favorite perfume with me, because it was so associated with +my Arabian Nights' stories) upon a ledge over the door, where it had +rested undisturbed while the house was tenanted, and had been now +probably dislodged by rats. But I half fancied that this odor which +impregnated the air of the whole house was the essence of that +atmosphere in which, as a child, I had communicated with Burckhardt and +Belzoni,--and that, expelled by the solid, practical, Occidental +atmosphere of the last few years, it had flowed back again, in these +last silent months, in anticipation of my return. + +Like a prudent householder, I made the tour of the house with a light I +had provided myself with, and mentally made memoranda of repairs, +alterations, etc., for rendering it habitable. My last visit was to be +to the garret, where many of my books yet remained. As I passed once +more through the parlor, on my way thither, a ray of light from my +raised lamp fell upon the wall that I had thought blank, and a majestic +face started suddenly from the darkness. So sudden was the apparition, +that for the moment I was startled, till I remembered that there had +formerly been a picture in that place, and I stopped to examine it. It +was a head of the Sphinx. The calm, grand face was partially averted, +so that the sorrowful eyes, almost betraying the aching secret which +the still lips kept sacred, were hidden,--only the slight, tender droop +in the corner of the mouth told what their expression might be. Around, +forever stretched the endless sands,--the mystery of life found in the +heart of death. That mournful, eternal face gave me a strange feeling +of weariness and helplessness. I felt as if I had already pressed +eagerly to the other side of the head, still only to find the voiceless +lips and mute eyes. Strange tears sprang to my eyes; I hastily brushed +them away, and, leaving the Sphinx, mounted to my garret. + +But the riddle followed me. I sat down on the floor, beside a box of +books, and somewhat listlessly began pulling it over to examine the +contents. The first book I took hold of was a little worn volume of +Herodotus that had belonged to my father. I opened it; and as if it, +too, were a link in the chain of influences which I half felt was being +forged around me, it opened at the first part of "Euterpe," where +Herodotus is speculating upon the phenomena of the Nile. Twenty-two +hundred years,--I thought,--and we are still wondering, the Sphinx is +still silent, and we yet in the darkness! Alas, if this riddle be +insoluble, how can we hope to find the clue to deeper problems? If +there are places on our little earth whither our feet cannot go, +curtains that our hands cannot withdraw, how can we expect to track +paths through realms of thought,--how to voyage in those airy, +impalpable regions whose existence we are sure of only while we are +there voyaging? + +"Nilus in extremum fugit perterritus orbem Occuluitque caput, quod +adhuc latet." + +Lost through reckless presumption, might not earnest humility recover +that mysterious lurking-place? Might not one, by devoted toil, by utter +self-sacrifice, with eyes purified by long searching from worldly and +selfish pollution,--might not such a one tear away the veil of +centuries, and, even though dying in the attempt, gain one look into +this arcanum? Might not I?--The unutterable thought thrilled me and +left me speechless, even in thinking. I strained my forehead against +the darkness, as if I could grind the secret from the void air. Then I +experienced the following mental sensation,--which, being purely +mental, I cannot describe precisely as it was, but will translate it as +nearly as possible into the language of physical phenomena. + +It was as if my mind--or, rather, whatever that passive substratum is +that underlies our volition and more truly represents ourselves--were a +still lake, lying quiet and indifferent. Presently the sense of some +coming Presence sent a breathing ripple over its waters; and +immediately afterward it felt a sweep as of trailing garments, and two +arms were thrown around it, and it was pressed against a "life-giving +bosom," whose vivifying warmth interpenetrating the whole body of the +lake, its waters rose, moved by a mighty influence, in the direction of +that retreating Presence; and again, though nothing was seen, I felt +surely whither was that direction. It was NILEWARD. I knew, with the +absolute certainty of intuition, that henceforth I was one of the +_kletoi_, the chosen,--selected from thousands of ages, millions of +people, for this one destiny. Henceforth a sharp dividing-line cut me +off from all others: _their_ appointment was to trade, navigate, eat +and drink, marry and give in marriage, and the rest; mine was to +discover the Source of the Nile. Hither had all the threads of my life +been converging for many years; they had now reached their focus, and +henceforth their course was fixed. + +I was scarcely surprised the next day at receiving a letter from my +employers appointing me to a situation as supercargo of a +merchant-vessel bound on a three-years' voyage to America and +China,--in returning thence, to sail up the Mediterranean, and stop at +Alexandria. I immediately wrote an acceptance, and then busied myself +about obtaining a three-years' tenant for my house. As the house was +desirable and well-situated, this business was soon arranged; and then, +as I had nothing further to do in the village, I left it for the last +time, as it proved, and returned to the city,--whence, after a +fortnight of preparation, I set sail on my eventful enterprise. +Although our voyage was filled with incident that in another place +would be interesting enough to relate, yet here I must omit all mention +of it, and, passing over three years, resume my narrative at +Alexandria, where I left the vessel, and finally broke away from +mercantile life. + +From Alexandria I travelled to Cairo, where I intended to hire a +servant and a boat, for I wished to try the water-passage in preference +to the land. The cheapness of labor and food rendered it no difficult +matter to obtain my boat and provision it for a long voyage,--for how +long I did not tell the Egyptian servant whom I hired to attend me. A +certain feeling of fatality caused me to make no attempt at disguise, +although disguise was then much more necessary than it has been since: +I openly avowed my purpose of travelling on the Nile for pleasure, as a +private European. My accoutrements were simple and few. Arms, of +course, I carried, and the actual necessaries for subsistence; but I +entirely forgot to prepare for sketching, scientific surveys, etc. My +whole mind was possessed with one idea: to see, to discover;--plans for +turning my discoveries to account were totally foreign to my thoughts. + +So, on the 6th of November, 1824, we set sail. I had been waiting three +years to arrive at this starting-point,--my whole life, indeed, had +been dumbly turning towards it,--yet now I commenced it with a coolness +and tranquillity far exceeding that I had possessed on many +comparatively trifling occasions. It is often so. We are borne along on +the current like drift-wood, and, spying jutting rocks or tremendous +cataracts ahead, fancy, "Here we shall be stranded, there buoyed up, +there dashed in pieces over those falls,"--but, for all that, we glide +over those threatened catastrophes in a very commonplace manner, and +are aware of what we have been passing only upon looking back at them. +So no one sees the great light shining from Heaven,--for the people are +blear-eyed, and Saul is blinded. But as I left Cairo in the greatening +distance, floating onward to the heart of the mysterious river, I +floated also into the twin current of thought, that, flowing full and +impetuous from the shores of the peopled Mediterranean, follows the +silent river, and tracks it to its hidden lurking-place in the blank +desert. Onward, past the breathless sands of the Libyan Desert, past +the hundred-gated Thebes, past the stone guardians of Abou-Simbel, +waiting in majestic patience for their spell of silence to be +broken,--onward. It struck me curiously to come to the cataract, and be +obliged to leave my boat at the foot of the first fall, and hire +another above the second,--a forcible reminder that I was travelling +backwards, from the circumference to the centre from which that +circumference had been produced, faintly feeling my way along a tide of +phenomena to the _noumenon_ supporting them. So we always progress: +from arithmetic to geometry, from observation to science, from practice +to theory, and play with edged tools long before we know what knives +mean. For, like Hop-o'-my-Thumb and his brothers, we are driven out +early in the morning to the edge of the forest, and are obliged to +grope our way back to the little house whence we come, by the crumbs +dropped on the road. Alack! how often the birds have eaten our bread, +and we are captured by the giant lying in wait! + +On we swept, leaving behind the burning rocks and dreary sands of Egypt +and Lower Nubia, the green woods and thick acacias of Dongola, the +distant pyramids of Mount Birkel, and the ruins of Meroe, just +discovered footmarks of Ancient Ethiopia descending the Nile to +bequeathe her glory and civilization to Egypt. At Old Dongola, my +companion was very anxious that we should strike across the country to +Shendy, to avoid the great curve of the Nile through Ethiopia. He found +the sail somewhat tedious, as I could speak but little Egyptian, which +I had picked up in scraps,--he, no German or English. I managed to +overrule his objections, however, as I could not bear to leave any part +of the river unvisited; so we continued the water-route to the junction +of the Blue and the White Nile, where I resolved to remain a week, +before continuing my route. The inhabitants regarded us with some +suspicion, but our inoffensive appearance so far conquered their fears +that they were prevailed upon to give us some information about the +country, and to furnish us with a fresh supply of rice, wheat, and +dourra, in exchange for beads and bright-colored cloth, which I had +brought with me for the purpose of such traffic, if it should be +necessary. Bruce's discovery of the source of the Blue Nile, fifty +years before, prevented the necessity of indecision in regard to my +route, and so completely was I absorbed in the one object of my +journey, that the magnificent scenery and ruins along the Blue Nile, +which had so fascinated Cailliaud, presented few allurements for me. + +My stay was rather longer than I had anticipated, as it was found +necessary to make some repairs upon the boat, and, inwardly fretting at +each hour's delay, I was eager to seize the first opportunity for +starting again. On the 1st of March, I made a fresh beginning for the +more unknown and probably more perilous portion of my voyage, having +been about four months in ascending from Cairo. As my voyage had +commenced about the abatement of the sickly season, I had experienced +no inconvenience from the climate, and it was in good spirits that I +resumed my journey. For several days we sailed with little eventful +occurring,--floating on under the cloudless sky, rippling a long white +line through the widening surface of the ever-flowing river, through +floating beds of glistening lotus-flowers, past undulating ramparts of +foliage and winged ambak-blossoms guarding the shores scaled by +adventurous vines that triumphantly waved their banners of white and +purple and yellow from the summit, winding amid bowery islands studding +the broad stream like gems, smoothly stemming the rolling flood of the +river, flowing, ever flowing,--lurking in the cool shade of the dense +mimosa forests, gliding noiselessly past the trodden lairs of +hippopotami and lions, slushing through the reeds swaying to and fro in +the green water, still borne along against the silent current of the +mysterious river, flowing, ever flowing. + +We had now arrived at the land of the Dinkas, where the river, by +broadening too much upon a low country, had become partially devoured +by marsh and reeds, and our progress was very slow, tediously dragging +over a sea of water and grass. I had become a little tired of my +complete loneliness, and was almost longing for some collision with the +tribes of savages that throng the shore, when the incident occurred +that determined my whole future life. One morning, about seven o'clock, +when the hot sun had already begun to rob the day of the delicious +freshness lingering around the tropical night, we happened to be +passing a tract of firmer land than we had met with for some time, and +I directed the vessel towards the shore, to gather some of the +brilliant lotus-flowers that fringed the banks. As we neared the land, +I threw my gun, without which I never left the boat, on the bank, +preparatory to leaping out, when I was startled by hearing a loud, +cheery voice exclaim in English,--"Hilloa! not so fast, if you +please!"--and first the head and then the sturdy shoulders of a white +man raised themselves slowly from the low shrubbery by which they were +surrounded. He looked at us for a minute or two, and nodded with a +contented air that perplexed me exceedingly. + +"So," he said, "you have come at last; I am tired of waiting for you"; +and he began to collect his gun, knife, etc., which were lying on the +ground beside him. + +"And who are you," I returned, "who lie in wait for me? I think, Sir, +you have the advantage." + +Here the stranger interrupted me with a hearty laugh. "My dear +fellow," he cried, "you are entirely mistaken. The technical advantage +that you attribute to me is an error, as I do _not_ have the honor of +knowing your name, though you may know mine without further +preface,--Frederick Herndon; and the real advantage which I wish to +avail myself of, a boat, is obviously on your side. The long and the +short of it is," he added, (composedly extricating himself from the +brushwood,) "that, travelling up in this direction for discovery and +that sort of thing, you know, I heard at Sennaar that a white man with +an Egyptian servant had just left the town, and were going in my +direction in a boat. So I resolved to overtake them, and with their, or +your, permission, join company. But they, or you, kept just in advance, +and it was only by dint of a forced march in the night that I passed +you. I learned at the last Dinka village that no such party had been +yet seen, and concluded to await the your arrival here, where I pitched +my tent a day and a night waiting for you. I am heartily glad to see +you, I assure you." + +With this explanation, the stranger made a spring, and leaped upon the +yacht. + +"Upon my word," said I, still bewildered by his sudden appearance, "you +are very unceremonious." + +"That," he rejoined, "is a way we Americans have. We cannot stop to +palaver. What would become of our manifest destiny? But since you are +so kind, I will call my Egyptian. Times are changed since we were +bondsmen in Egypt, have they not? Ah, I forgot,--you are not an +American, and therefore cannot claim even our remote connection with +the Ten Lost Tribes." Then raising his voice, "Here, Ibrahim!" + +Again a face, but this time a swarthy one, emerged from behind a bush, +and in answer to a few directions in his own dialect the man came down +to the boat, threw in the tent and some other articles of traveller's +furniture, and sprang in with the _nonchalance_ of his master. + +A little recovered from my first surprise, I seized the opportunity of +a little delay in getting the boat adrift again to examine my new +companion. He was standing carelessly upon the little deck of the +vessel where he had first entered, and the strong morning light fell +full upon his well-knit figure and apparently handsome face. The +forehead was rather low, prominent above the eyebrows, and with keen, +hollow temples, but deficient both in comprehensiveness and ideality. +The hazel eyes were brilliant, but restless and shallow,--the mouth of +good size, but with few curves, and perhaps a little too close for so +young a face. The well-cut nose and chin and clean fine outline of +face, the self-reliant pose of the neck and confident set of the +shoulders characterized him as decisive and energetic, while the +pleasant and rather boyish smile that lighted up his face dispelled +presently the peculiarly hard expression I had at first found in +analyzing it. Whether it was the hard, shrewd light from which all the +tender and delicate grace of the early morning had departed, I knew +not; but it struck me that I could not find a particle of shade in his +whole appearance. I seemed at once to take him in, as one sees the +whole of a sunny country where there are no woods or mountains or +valleys. And, in fact, I never did find any,--never any cool recesses +in his character; and as no sudden depths ever opened in his eyes, so +nothing was ever left to be revealed in his character;--like them, it +could be sounded at once. That picture of him, standing there on my +deck, with an indefinite expression of belonging to the place, as he +would have belonged on his own hearth-rug at home, often recurred to +me, again to be renewed and confirmed. + +And thus carelessly was swept into my path, as a stray waif, that man +who would in one little moment change my whole life! It is always so. +Our life sweeps onward like a river, brushing in here a little sand, +there a few rushes, till the accumulated drift-wood chokes the current, +or some larger tree falling across it turns it into a new channel. + +I had been so long unaccustomed to company that I found it quite a +pleasant change to have some one to talk to; some one to sympathize +with I neither wanted nor expected; I certainly did not find such a one +in my new acquaintance. For the first two or three days I simply +regarded him with the sort of wondering curiosity with which we examine +a new natural phenomenon of any sort. His perfect self-possession and +coolness, the _nil-admirari_ and _nil-agitari_ atmosphere which +surrounded him, excited my admiration at first, till I discovered that +it arose, not from the composure of a mind too deep-rooted to be swayed +by external circumstances, but rather from a peculiar hardness and +unimpressibility of temperament that kept him on the same level all the +time. He had been born at a certain temperature, and still preserved +it, from a sort of _vis inertive_ of constitution. This impenetrability +had the effect of a somewhat buoyant disposition, not because he could +be buoyed on the tide of any strong emotion, but because few things +could disturb or excite him. Unable to grasp the significance of +anything outside of himself and his attributes, he took immense pride +in stamping _his_ character, _his_ nationality, _his_ practicality, +upon every series of circumstances by which he was surrounded: he +sailed up the Nile as if it were the Mississippi; although a +well-enough-informed man, he practically ignored the importance of any +city anterior to the Plymouth Settlement, or at least to London, which +had the honor of sending colonists to New England; and he would have +discussed American politics in the heart of Africa, had not my +ignorance upon the topic generally excluded it from our conversation. +He had what is most wrongly termed an exceedingly practical mind,--that +is, not one that appreciates the practical existence and value of +thought as such, considering that a _praxis_, but a mind that denied +the existence of a thought until it had become realized in visible +action. + +"'The end of a man is an action, and not a thought, though it be the +noblest,' as Carlyle has well written," he triumphantly quoted to me, +as, leaning over the little railing of the yacht, watching, at least I +was, the smooth, green water gliding under the clean-cutting keel, we +had been talking earnestly for some time. "A thought has value only as +it is a potential action; if the action be abortive, the thought is as +useless as a crank that fails to move an engine-wheel." + +"Then, if action is the wheel, and thought only the crank, what does +the body of your engine represent? For what purpose are your wheels +turning? For the sake of merely moving?" + +"No," said he, "moving to promote another action, and _that_ +another,--and----so on _ad infinitum_." + +"Then you leave out of your scheme a real engine, with a journey to +accomplish, and an end to arrive at; for so wheels would only move +wheels, and there would be an endless chain of machinery, with no plan, +no object for its existence. Does not the very necessity we feel of +having a reason for the existence, the operation of anything, a large +plan in which to gather up all ravelled threads of various objects, +proclaim thought as the final end, the real thing, of which action, +more especially human action, is but the inadequate visible expression? +What kinds of action does Carlyle mean, that are to be the wheels for +our obedient thoughts to set in motion? Hand, arm, leg, foot action? +These are all our operative machinery. Does he mean that our 'noblest +thought' is to be chained as a galley-slave to these, to give them +means for working a channel through which motive power may be poured in +upon them? Are we to think that our fingers and feet may move and so we +live, or they to run for our thought, and we live to think?" + +"Supposing we _are_," said Herndon, "what practical good results from +knowing it? Action for action's sake, or for thinking's sake, is still +action, and all that we have to look out for. What business have the +brakemen at the wheels with the destiny of the train? Their business is +simply to lock and unlock the wheels; so that their end is in the +wheels, and not in the train." + +"A somewhat dreary end," I said, half to myself. "The whole world, +then, must content itself with spinning one blind action out of +another; which means that we must continually alter or displace +something, merely to be able to displace and alter something else." + +"On the contrary, we exchange vague, speculative mystifications for +definite, tangible fact. In America we have too much reality, too many +iron and steam facts, to waste much time over mere thinking. That, Sir, +does for a sleepy old country, begging your pardon, like yours; but for +one that has the world's destiny in its hands,--that is laying iron +foot-paths from the Atlantic to the Pacific for future civilization to +take an evening stroll along to see the sun set,--that is converting +black wool into white cotton, to clothe the inhabitants of +Borrioboolagha,--that is trading, farming, electing, governing, +fighting, annexing, destroying, building, puffing, blowing, steaming, +racing, as our young two-hundred-year-old is,--we must work, we must +act, and think afterwards. Whatsoever thy _hand_ findeth to do, do it +with thy might." + +"And what," I said, "when hand-and-foot-action shall have ceased? will +you then allow some play for thought-action?" + +"We have no time to think of that," he returned, walking away, and thus +stopping our conversation. + +The man was consistent in his theory, at least. Having exalted physical +motion (or action) to the place he did, he refused to see that the +action he prized was more valuable through the thought it developed; +consequently he reduced all actions to the same level, and prided +himself upon stripping a deed of all its marvellousness or majesty. He +did uncommon things in such a matter-of-fact way that he made them +common by the performance. The faint spiritual double which I found +lurking behind his steel and iron he either solidified with his +metallic touch or pertinaciously denied its existence. + +"Plato was a fool," he said, "to talk of an ideal table; for, supposing +he could see it, and prove its existence, what good could it do? You +can neither eat off it, nor iron on it, nor do anything else with it; +so, for all practical purposes, a pine table serves perfectly well +without hunting after the ideal. I want something that I can go up to, +and know it is there by seeing and touching." + +"But," said I, "does not that very susceptibility to bodily contact +remove the table to an indefinite distance from you? If we can see and +handle a thing, and yet not be able to hold that subtile property of +generic existence, by which, one table being made, an infinite class is +created, so real that tables may actually be modelled on it, and yet so +indefinite that you cannot set your hand on any table or collection of +tables and say, 'It is here,'--if we can be absolutely conscious that +we see the table, and yet have no idea how its image reflected on our +retina can produce that absolute consciousness, does not the table grow +dim and misty, and slip far away out of reach, of apprehension, much +more of comprehension?" + +"Stuff!" cried my companion. "If your metaphysics lead to proving that +a board that I am touching with my hand is not there, I'll say, as I +have already said, 'Throw (meta)physics to the dogs! I'll none of it!' +A fine preparation for living in a material world, where we have to +live in matter, by matter, and for matter, to wind one's self up in a +snarl that puts matter out of reach, and leaves us with nothing to live +in, or by, or for! Now _you_, for instance, are not content with this +poor old Nile as it stands, but must go fussing and wondering and +mystifying about it till you have positively nothing of a river left. I +look at the water, the banks, the trees growing on them, the islands in +which we get occasionally entangled: here, at least, I have a real, +substantial river,--not equal for navigation to the Ohio or +Mississippi, but still very fair.--Confound these flies!" he added, +parenthetically, making a vigorous plunge at a dark cloud of the little +pests that were closing down upon us. + +"Then you see nothing strange and solemn in this wonderful stream? +nothing in the weird civilization crouching at the feet, vainly looking +to the head of its master hidden in the clouds? nothing in the echoing +footsteps of nations passing down its banks to their destiny? nothing +in the solemn, unbroken silence brooding over the fountain whence +sprang this marvellous river, to bear precious gifts to thousands and +millions, and again retreat unknown? Is there no mystery in unsolved +questions, no wonder in miracles, no awe in inapproachability?" + +"I see," said he, steadily, "that a river of some thousand miles long +has run through a country peopled by contented, or ignorant, or +barbarous people, none of whom, of course, would take the slightest +interest in tracing the river; that the dangers that have guarded the +marvellous secret, as you call it, are not intrinsic to the secret +itself, but are purely accidental and contingent There is no more +reason why the source of the Nile should not be found than that of the +Connecticut; so I do not see that it is really at all inapproachable or +awful." + +"What in the world, Herndon," cried I, in desperation, "what in the +name of common sense ever induced you to set out on this expedition? +What do you want to discover the source of the Nile for?" + +He answered with the ready air of one who has long ago made up his mind +confidently on the subject he is going to speak about. + +"It has long been evident to me, that civilization, flowing in a return +current from America, must penetrate into Africa, and turn its immense +natural advantages to such account, that it shall become the seat of +the most flourishing and important empires of the earth. These, +however, should be consolidated, and not split up into multitudinous +missionary stations. If a stream of immigration could be started from +the eastern side, up the Nile for instance, penetrating to the +interior, it might meet the increased tide of a kindred nature from the +west, and uniting somewhere in the middle of Soudan, the central point +of action, the capital city could be founded there, as a heart for the +country, and a complete system of circulation be established. By this +method of entering the country at both sides simultaneously, of course +its complete subjugation could be accomplished in half the time that it +would take for a body of emigrants, however large, to make headway from +the western coast alone. About the source of the Nile I intend to mark +out the site for my city, and then"---- + +"And call it," I added, "Herndonville." + +"Perhaps," he said, gravely. "At all events, my name will be +inseparably connected with the enterprise; and if I can get the +steamboat started during my lifetime, I shall make a comfortable +fortune from the speculation." + +"What a gigantic scheme!" I exclaimed. + +"Ah," he said, complacently, "we Americans don't stick at trifles." + +"Oh, marvellous practical genius of America!" I cried, "to eclipse +Herodotus and Diodorus, not to mention Bruce and Cailliaud, and +inscribe Herndonville on the arcanum of the Innermost! If the Americans +should discover the origin of evil, they would run up penitentiaries +all over the country, modelled to suit 'practical purposes.'" + +"I think that would pay," said Herndon, reflectively. + +But though I then stopped the conversation, yet I felt its influence +afterwards. The divine enthusiasm for _knowing_, that had inspired me +for the last three years, and had left no room for any other thought in +connection with the discovery,--this enthusiasm felt chilled and +deadened. I felt reproached that I had not thought of founding a +Pottsville or Jenkinsville, and my grand purpose seemed small and vague +and indefinite. The vivid, living thoughts that had enkindled me fell +back cold and lifeless into the tedious, reedy water. For we had now +reached the immense shallow lake that Werne has since described, and +the scenery had become flat and monotonous, as if in sympathy with the +low, marshy place to which my mind had been driven. The intricate +windings of the river, after we had passed the lake, rendered the +navigation very slow and difficult; and the swarms of flies, that +plagued us for the first time seriously, brought petty annoyances to +view more forcibly than we had experienced in all our voyage before. + +After some days' pushing in this way, now driven by a strong head wind +almost back from our course, again, by a sudden change, carried rapidly +many miles on our journey,--after some days of this sailing, we arrived +at a long, low reef of rocks. The water here became so shallow and +boisterous that further attempt at sailing was impossible, and we +determined to take our boat to pieces as much as we could, and carry it +with us, while we walked along the shore of the river. I concluded, +from the marked depression in the ground we had just passed, that there +must be a corresponding elevation about here, to give the water a +sufficient head to pass over the high ground below; and the almost +cataract appearance of the river added strength to my hypothesis. We +were all four armed to the teeth, and the natives had shown themselves, +hitherto, either so friendly or so indifferent that we did not have +much apprehension on account of personal safety. So we set out with +beating hearts. Our path was exceedingly difficult to traverse, leading +chiefly among low trees and over the sharp stones that had rolled from +the river,--now close by the noisy stream, which babbled and foamed as +if it had gone mad,--now creeping on our knees through bushes, matted +with thick, twining vines,--now wading across an open morass,--now in +mimosa woods, or slipping in and out of the feathery dhelb-palms. + +Since our conversation spoken of above, Herndon and I had talked little +with each other, and now usually spoke merely of the incidents of the +journey, the obstacles, etc.; we scarcely mentioned that for which we +were both longing with intense desire, and the very thoughts of which +made my heart beat quicker and the blood rush to my face. One day we +came to a place where the river made a bend of about two miles and then +passed almost parallel to our point of view. I proposed to Herndon that +he should pursue the course of the river, and that I would strike a +little way back into the country, and make a short cut across to the +other side of the bend, where he and the men would stop, pitch our +night-tent, and wait for me. Herndon assented, and we parted. The low +fields around us changed, as I went on, to firm, hard, rising ground, +that gradually became sandy and arid. The luxuriant vegetation that +clung around the banks of the river seemed to be dried up little by +little, until only a few dusty bushes and thorn-acacias studded in +clumps a great, sandy, and rocky tract of country, which rolled +monotonously back from the river border with a steadily increasing +elevation. A sandy plain never gives me a sense of real substance; it +always seems as if it must be merely a covering for something,--a sheet +thrown over the bed where a dead man is lying. And especially here did +this broad, trackless, seemingly boundless desert face me with its +blank negation, like the old obstinate "No" which Nature always returns +at first to your eager questioning. It provoked me, this staring +reticence of the scenery, and stimulated me to a sort of dogged +exertion. I think I walked steadily for about three hours over the +jagged rocks and burning sands, interspersed with a few patches of +straggling grass,--all the time up hill, with never a valley to vary +the monotonous climbing,--until the bushes began to thicken in about +the same manner as they had thinned into the desert, the grass and +herbage herded closer together under my feet, and, beating off the +ravenous sand, gradually expelled the last trace of it, a few tall +trees strayed timidly among the lower shrubbery, growing more and more +thickly, till I found myself at the border of an apparently extensive +forest. The contrast was great between the view before and behind me. +Behind lay the road I had achieved, the monotonous, toilsome, wearisome +desert, the dry, formal introduction, as it were, to my coming journey. +Before, long, cool vistas opened green through delicious shades,--a +track seemed to be almost made over the soft grass, that wound in and +out among the trees, and lost itself in interminable mazes. I plunged +into the profound depths of the still forest, and confidently followed +for path the first open space in which I found myself. + +It was a strangely still wood for the tropics,--no chattering +parroquets, no screaming magpies, none of the sneering, gibing +dissonances that I had been accustomed to,--all was silent, and yet +intensely living. I fancied that the noble trees took pleasure in +growing, they were so energized with life in every leaf. I noticed +another peculiarity,--there was little underbrush, little of the +luxuriance of vines and creepers, which is so striking in an African +forest. Parasitic life, luxurious idleness, seemed impossible here; the +atmosphere was too sacred, too solemn, for the fantastic ribaldry of +scarlet runners, of flaunting yellow streamers. The lofty boughs +interlaced in arches overhead, and the vast dim aisles opened far down +in the tender gloom of the wood and faded slowly away in the distance. +And every little spray of leaves that tossed airily in the pleasant +breeze, every slender branch swaying gently in the wind, every young +sapling pushing its childish head panting for light through the mass of +greenery and quivering with golden sunbeams, every trunk of aged tree +gray with moss and lichens, every tuft of flowers, seemed thrilled and +vivified by some wonderful knowledge which it held secret, some +consciousness of boundless, inexhaustible existence, some music of +infinite unexplored thought concealing treasures of unlimited action. +And it was the knowledge, the consciousness, that it was unlimited +which seemed to give such elastic energy to this strange forest. But at +all events, it was such a relief to find the everlasting negation of +the desert nullified, that my dogged resolution insensibly changed to +an irrepressible enthusiasm, which bore me lightly along, scarcely +sensible of fatigue. + +The ascent had become so much steeper, and parts of the forest seemed +to slope off into such sudden declivities and even precipices, that I +concluded I was ascending a mountain, and, from the length of time I +had been in the forest, I judged that it must be of considerable +height. The wood suddenly broke off as it had begun, and, emerging from +the cool shade, I found myself in a complete wilderness of rock. Rocks +of enormous size were thrown about in apparently the wildest confusion, +on the side of what I now perceived to be a high mountain. How near the +summit I was I had no means of determining, as huge boulders blocked up +the view at a few paces ahead. I had had about eight hours' tramp, with +scarcely any cessation; yet now my excitement was too great to allow me +to pause to eat or rest. I was anxious to press on, and determine that +day the secret which I was convinced lay entombed in this sepulchre. So +again I pressed onward,--this time more slowly,--having to pick my way +among the bits of jagged granite filling up terraces sliced out of the +mountain, around enormous rocks projecting across my path,--overhanging +precipices that sheered straight down into dark abysses, (I must have +verged round to a different side from that I came up on,)--creeping +through narrow passages formed by the junction of two immense boulders. +Tearing my hands with the sharp corners of the rocks, I climbed in vain +hope of at last seeing the summit. Still rocks piled on rocks faced my +wearied eyes, vainly striving to pierce through some chink or cranny +into the space behind them. Still rocks, rocks, rocks, against whose +adamantine sides my feeble will dashed restlessly and impotently. My +eyeballs almost burst, as it seemed, in the intense effort to strain +through those stone prison-walls. And by one of those curious links of +association by which two distant scenes are united as one, I seemed +again to be sitting in my garret, striving to pierce the darkness for +an answer to the question then raised, and at the same moment passed +over me, like the sweep of angels' wings, the consciousness of that +Presence which had there infolded me. And with that consciousness, the +eager, irritated waves of excitement died away, and there was a calm, +in which I no longer beat like a caged beast against the never-ending +rocks, but, borne irresistibly along in the strong current of a mighty, +still emotion, pressed on with a certainty that left no room for +excitement, because none for doubt. And so I came upon it. Swinging +round one more rock, hanging over a breathless precipice, and landing +upon the summit of the mountain, I beheld it stretched at my feet: a +lake about five miles in circumference, bedded like an eye in the +naked, bony rock surrounding it, with quiet rippling waters placidly +smiling in the level rays of the afternoon sun,--the Unfathomable +Secret, the Mystery of Ages, the long sought for, the Source of the +Nile. + +For, from a broad cleft in the rocks, the water hurled itself out of +its hiding-place, and, dashing down over its rocky bed, rushed +impetuous over the sloping country, till, its force being spent, it +waded tediously through the slushing reeds of the hill-land again, and +so rolled down to sea. For, while I stood there, it seemed as if my +vision were preternaturally sharpened, and I followed the bright river +in its course, through the alternating marsh and desert,--through the +land where Zeus went banqueting among the blameless Ethiopians, +--through the land where the African princes watched from +afar the destruction of Cambyses's army,--past Meroe, Thebes, Cairo; +bearing upon its heaving bosom anon the cradle of Moses, the gay +vessels of the inundation festivals, the stately processions of the +mystic priesthood, the gorgeous barge of Cleopatra, the victorious +trireme of Antony, the screaming vessels of fighting soldiers, the +stealthy boats of Christian monks, the glittering, changing, flashing +tumult of thousands of years of life,--ever flowing, ever ebbing, with +the mystic river, on whose surface it seethed and bubbled. And the germ +of all this vast varying scene lay quietly hidden in the wonderful lake +at my feet. But human life is always composed of inverted cones, whose +bases, upturned to the eye, present a vast area, diversified with +countless phenomena; but when the screen that closes upon them a little +below the surface is removed, we shall be able to trace the many-lined +figures, each to its simple apex,--one little point containing the +essence and secret of the whole. Once or twice in the course of a +lifetime are a few men permitted to catch a glimpse of these awful +Beginnings,--to touch for a minute the knot where all the tangled +threads ravel themselves out smoothly. I had found such a place,--had +had such an ineffable vision,--and, overwhelmed with tremendous awe, I +sank on my knees, lost in GOD. + +After a little while, as far as I can recollect, I rose and began to +take the customary observations, marked the road by which I had come up +the mountain, and planned a route for rejoining Herndon. But ere long +all subordinate thoughts and actions seemed to be swallowed up in the +great tide of thought and feeling that overmastered me. I scarcely +remember anything from the time when the lake first burst upon my view, +till I met Herndon again. But I know, that, as the day was nearly +spent, I was obliged to give up the attempt to travel back that night, +especially as I now began to feel the exhaustion attendant upon my long +journey and fasting. I could not have slept among those rocks, eternal +guardians of the mighty secret. The absence of all breathing, +transitory existence but my own rendered it too solemn for me to dare +to intrude there. So I went back to the forest, (I returned much +quicker than I had come,) ate some supper, and, wrapped in a blanket I +had brought with me, went to sleep under the arching branches of a +tree. I have as little recollection of my next day's journey, except +that I defined a diagonal and thus avoided the bend. I found Herndon +waiting in front of the tent, rather impatient for my arrival. + +"Halloo, old fellow!" he shouted, jumping up at seeing me, "I was +really getting scared about you. Where have you been? What have you +seen? What are our chances? Have you had any adventures? killed any +lions, or anything? By-the-by, I had a narrow escape with one +yesterday. Capital shot; but prudence is the better part of valor, you +know. But, really," he said again, apparently struck by my abstraction +of manner, "what _have_ you seen?" + +"I have found the source of the Nile," I said, simply. + +Is it not strange, that, when we have a great thing to say, we are +always compelled to speak so simply in monosyllables? Perhaps this, +too, is an example of the law that continually reduces many to +one,--the unity giving the substance of the plurality; but as the +heroes of the "Iliad" were obliged to repeat the messages of the gods +_literatim_, so we must say a great thing as it comes to us, by itself. +It is curious to me now, that I was not the least excited in announcing +the discovery,--not because I did not feel the force of it, but because +my mind was so filled, so to speak, so saturated, with the idea, that +it was perfectly even with itself, though raised to an immensely higher +level. In smaller minds an idea seizes upon one part of them, thus +inequalizing it with the rest, and so, throwing them off their balance, +they are literally _de_-ranged (or disarranged) with excitement. It was +so with Herndon. For a minute he stared at me in stupefied +astonishment, and then burst into a torrent of incoherent +congratulations. + +"Why, Zeitzer!" he cried, "you are the lucky man, after all. Why, your +fortune's made,--you'll be the greatest man of the age. You must come +to America; that is the place for appreciating such things. You'll have +a Common-Council dinner in Boston, and a procession in New York. Your +book will sell like wildfire. You'll be a lion of the first magnitude. +Just think! The Man who discovered the Source of the Nile!" + +I stood bewildered, like one suddenly awakened from sleep. The unusual +excitement in one generally so self-possessed and indifferent as my +companion made me wonder sufficiently; but these allusions to my +greatness, my prospects, completely astounded me. What had I done,--I +who had been chosen, and led step by step, with little interference of +my own, to this end? What did this talk of noise and clamorous +notoriety mean? + +"To think," Herndon ran on, "that you should have beaten me, after all! +that you should have first seen, first drunk of, first bathed in"-- + +"Drunk of! bathed in!" I repeated, mechanically. "Herndon, are you +crazy? Would I dare to profane the sacred fountain?" + +He made no reply, unless a quizzical smile might be considered as +such,--but drew me within the tent, out of hearing of the two +Egyptians, and bade me give an account of my adventures. When I had +finished,-- + +"This is grand!" he exclaimed. "Now, if you will share the benefits of +this discovery with me, I will halve the cost of starting that +steamboat I spoke of, and our plan will soon be afloat. I shouldn't +wonder, now, if one might not, in order to start the town, get up some +kind of a little summer-pavilion there, on the top of the +mountain,--something on the plan of the Tip-Top House at Mount +Washington, you know,--hang the stars and stripes off the roof, if +you're not particular, and call it The Teuton-American. That would give +you your rightful priority, you see. By the beard of the Prophet, as +they say in Cairo, the thing would take!" + +I laughed heartily at this idea, and tried, at first in jest, then +earnestly, to make him understand I had no such plans in connection +with my discovery; that I only wanted to extend the amount of knowledge +in the world,--not the number of ice-cream pavilions. I offered to let +him take the whole affair into his own hands,--cost, profit, and all. I +wanted nothing to do with it. But he was too honest, as he thought, for +that, and still talked and argued,--giving his most visionary plans a +definite, tangible shape and substance by a certain process of +metallicizing, until they had not merely elbowed away the last shadow +of doubt, but had effectually taken possession of the whole ground, and +seemed to be the only consequences possible upon such a discovery. My +dislike to personal traffic in the sublimities of truth began to waver. +I felt keenly the force of the argument which Herndon used repeatedly, +that, if I did not thus claim the monopoly, (he talked almost as if I +had invented something,) some one else would, and so injustice be added +to what I had termed vulgarity. I felt that I must prevent injustice, +at least. Besides, what should I have to show for all my trouble, (ah! +little had I thought of "I" or my trouble a short time ago!)--what +should I have gained, after all,--nay, what would there be gained for +any one,--if I merely announced my discovery, without----starting the +steamboat? And though I did feebly query whether I should be equally +bound to establish a communication, with pecuniary emolument, to the +North Pole, in case I discovered that, his remark, that this was the +Nile, and had nothing to do with the North Pole, was so forcible and +pertinent, that I felt ashamed of my suggestion; and upon second +thought, that idea of the dinner and procession really had a good deal +in it. I had been in New York, and knew the length of Broadway; and at +the recollection, felt flattered by the thought of being conveyed in an +open chariot drawn by four or even eight horses, with nodding plumes, +(literal ones for the horses,--only metaphorical ones for me,) past +those stately buildings fluttering with handkerchiefs, and through +streets black with people thronging to see the man who had solved the +riddle of Africa. And then it would be pleasant, too, to make a neat +little speech to the Common Council,--letting the brave show catch its +own tail in its mouth, by proving, that, if America did not achieve +everything, she could appreciate--yes, appreciate was the word--those +who did. Yes, this would be a fitting consummation; I would do it. + +But, ah! how dim became the vision of that quiet lake on the summit of +the mountain! How that vivid lightning-revelation faded into obscurity! +Was Pharaoh again ascending his fatal chariot? + +The next day we started for the ascent. We determined to follow the +course of the river backwards around the bend and set out from my +former starting-point, as any other course might lead us into a +hopeless dilemma. We had no difficulty in finding the sandy plain, and +soon reached landmarks which I was sure were on the right road; but a +tramp of six or eight hours--still in the road I had passed +before--brought us no nearer to our goal. In short, we wandered three +days in that desert, utterly in vain. My heart sunk within me at every +failure; with sickening anxiety I scanned the horizon at every point, +but nothing was visible but stunted bushes and white pebbles glistening +in the glaring sand. + +The fourth day came,--and Herndon at last stopped short, and said, in +his steady, immobile voice,-- + +"Zeitzer, you must have made this grand discovery in your dreams. There +is no Nile up this way,--and our water-skins are almost dry. We had +better return and follow up the course of the river where we left it. +If we again fail, I shall return to Egypt to carry out my plan for +converting the Pyramids into ice-houses. They are excellently well +adapted for the purpose, and in that country a good supply of ice is a +_desideratum_. Indeed, if my plan meets with half the success it +deserves, the antiquaries two centuries hence will conclude that ice +was the original use of those structures." + +"Shade of Cheops, forbid!" I exclaimed. + +"Cheops be hanged!" returned my irreverent companion. "The world +suffers too much now from overcrowded population to permit a man to +claim standing-room three thousand years after his death,--especially +when the claim is for some acres apiece, as in the case of these +pyramid-builders. Will you go back with me?" + +I declined for various reasons, not all very clear even to myself; but +I was convinced that his peculiar enticements were the cause of our +failure, and I hated him unreasonably for it. I longed to get rid of +him, and of his influence over me. Fool that I was! _I_ was the sinner, +and not he; for he _could_ not see, because he was born blind, while +_I_ fell with my eyes open. I still held on to the vague hope, that, +were I alone, I might again find that mysterious lake; for I knew I had +not dreamed. So we parted. + +But we two (my servant and I) were not left long alone in the Desert. +The next day a party of natives surprised us, and, after some desperate +fighting, we were taken prisoners, sold as slaves from tribe to tribe +into the interior, and at length fell into the hands of some traders on +the western coast, who gave us our freedom. Unwilling, however, to +return home without some definite success, I made several voyages in a +merchant-vessel. But I was born for one purpose; failing in that, I had +nothing further to live for. The core of my life was touched at that +fatal river, and a subtile disease has eaten it out till nothing but +the rind is left. A wave, gathering to the full its mighty strength, +had upreared itself for a moment majestically above its +fellows,--falling, its scattered spray can only impotently sprinkle the +dull, dreary shore. Broken and nerveless, I can only wait the lifting +of the curtain, quietly wondering if a failure be always +irretrievable,--if a prize once lost can never again be found. + + + + +AN EXPERIENCE. + + +A common spring of water, sudden welling, +Unheralded, from some unseen impelling, +Unrecognized, began his life alone. +A rare and haughty vine looked down above him, +Unclasped her climbing glory, stooped to love him, +And wreathed herself about his curb of stone. + +Ah, happy fount! content, in upward smiling, +To feel no life but in her fond beguiling, +To see no world but through her veil of green! +And happy vine, secure, in downward gazing, +To find one theme his heart forever praising,-- +The crystal cup a throne, and she the queen! + +I speak, I grew about him, ever dearer; +The water rose to meet me, ever nearer; +The water passed one day this curb of stone. +Was it a weak escape from righteous boundings, +Or yet a righteous scorn of false surroundings? +I only know I live my life alone. + +Alone? The smiling fountain seems to chide me,-- +The constant fountain, rooted still beside me, +And speaking wistful words I toil to hear: +Ah, how alone! The mystic words confound me; +And still the awakened fountain yearns beyond me, +Streaming to some unknown I may not near. + +"Oh, list," he cries, "the wondrous voices calling! +I hear a hundred streams in silver falling; +I feel the far-off pulses of the sea. +Oh, come!" Then all my length beside him faring, +I strive and strain for growth, and soon, despairing, +I pause and wonder where the wrong can be. + +Were we not equal? Nay, I stooped, from climbing, +To his obscure, to list the golden chiming, +So low to all the world, so plain to me. +_Now_,'twere some broad fair streamlet, onward tending +Should mate with him, and both, serenely blending, +Move in a grand accordance to the sea. + +I tend not so; I hear no voices calling; +I have no care for rivers silver-falling; +I hate the far-off sea that wrought my pain. +Oh for some spell of change, my life new-aiming! +Or best, by spells his too much life reclaiming, +Hold all within the fountain-curb again! + + + + +ABOUT THIEVES. + + +It is recorded in the pages of Diodorus Siculus, that Actisanes, the +Ethiopian, who was king of Egypt, caused a general search to be made +for all Egyptian thieves, and that all being brought together, and the +king having "given them a just hearing," he commanded their noses to be +cut off,--and, of course, what a king of Egypt commanded was done; so +that all the Egyptian "knucks," "cracksmen," "shoplifters," and +pilferers generally, of whatever description known to the slang terras +of the time, became marked men. + +Inspired, perhaps, with the very idea on which the Ethiopian acted, the +police authorities have lately provided, that, in an out-of-the-way +room, on a back street, the honest men of New York city may scan the +faces of its thieves, and hold silent communion with that interesting +part of the population which has agreed to defy the laws and to stand +at issue with society. Without disturbing the deep pool of penalogy, or +entering at all into the question, as to whether Actisanes was right, +or whether the police of New York do not overstep their authority in +putting on the walls this terrible bill of attainder against certain +citizens of the United States, whom their country's constitution has +endeavored to protect from "infamous punishments,"--the student of +moral science will certainly be thankful for the faces. + +We do not remember ever having "opened" a place or picked a pocket. We +have made puns, however; and so, upon the Johnsonian _dictum_, the +thing is latent in us, and we feel the affinity. We do not hate +thieves. We feel satisfied that even in the character of a man who does +not respect ownership there may be much to admire. Sparkles of genius +scintillate along the line of many a rogue's career. Many there are, it +is true, who are obtuse and vicious below the mean,--but a far greater +number display skill and courage infinitely above it. Points of noble +character, of every good as well as most base characteristics of the +human race, will be found in the annals of thievery, when they are +written aright. + +Thieves, like the State of Massachusetts in the great man's oration, +"have their history," and it may be safely asserted that they did not +steal it. It is dimly hinted in the verse of a certain ancient, that +there was a time in a remoter antiquity "ere thieves were feared"; yet +even this is cautiously quiet as to their non-existence. Homer, +recounting traditions old in his time, chuckles with narrative delight +over the boldness, wit, and invention of a great cattle-stealer, and +for his genius renders him the ultimatum of Greek tribute, +intellectually speaking, by calling him a son of Zeus. Herodotus speaks +plainly and tells a story; and the best of all his stories, to our +thinking, is a thief's story, which we abridge thus. + +"The king Rhampsinitus, the priests informed me, possessed a great +quantity of money, such as no succeeding king was able to surpass or +nearly come up to, and, wishing to treasure it, he built a chamber of +stone, one wall of which was against the palace. But the builder, +forming a plan against it, even in building, fitted one of the stones +so that it might be easily taken out by two men or even one. + +"In course of time, and when the king had laid up his treasures in the +chamber, the builder, finding his end approaching, called to him his +two sons and described to them how he had contrived, and, having +clearly explained everything, he told them, if they would observe his +directions closely, they might be stewards of the king's riches. He +accordingly died, and the sons were not long in applying themselves to +the work; but, having come by night to the palace, and having found the +stone as described, they easily removed it, and carried off a great +quantity of treasure. + +"When the king opened the chamber, he was astonished to see some +vessels deficient; but he was not able to accuse any one, as the seals +were unbroken, and the chamber well secured. When, therefore, on his +opening it two or three times, the treasures were always evidently +diminished, he adopted the following plan: he ordered traps to be made +and placed them round the vessels in which the treasures were. But when +the thieves came, as before, and one of them had entered, as soon as he +went near a vessel, he was straightway caught in the trap; perceiving, +therefore, in what a predicament he was, he immediately called to his +brother, told him what had happened, and bade him enter as quickly as +possible and cut off his head, lest, if seen and recognized, he should +ruin him also. The other thought he spoke well, and did as he was +advised; then, having fitted in the stone, he returned home, taking +with him his brother's head. + +"When day came, the king, having entered the chamber, was astonished at +seeing the body of the thief in the trap without the head, but the +chamber secured, and no apparent means of entrance or exit. In this +perplexity he contrived thus: he hung up the body of the thief from the +wall, and, having placed sentinels there, he ordered them to seize and +bring before him whomsoever they should see weeping or expressing +commiseration for the spectacle. + +"The mother was greatly grieved at the body being suspended, and, +coming to words with her surviving son, commanded him, by any means he +could, to contrive how he might take down and bring away the corpse of +his brother; but, should he not do so, she threatened to go to the king +and tell who had the treasure. When the mother treated her surviving +son harshly, and he, with many entreaties, was unable to persuade her, +he contrived this plan: he put skins filled with wine on some asses, +and drove to where the corpse was detained, and there skilfully loosed +the strings of two or three of those skins, and, when the wine ran out, +he beat his head and cried aloud, as if he knew not which one to turn +to first. But the sentinels, seeing wine flow, ran with vessels and +caught it, thinking it their gain,--whereupon, the man, feigning anger, +railed against them. But the sentinels soothed and pacified him, and at +last he set the skins to rights again. More conversation passed; the +sentinels joked with him and moved him to laughter, and he gave them +one of the skins, and lay down with them and drank, and thus they all +became of a party; and the sentinels, becoming exceedingly drunk, fell +asleep where they had been drinking. Then the thief took down the body +of his brother, and, departing, carried it to his mother, having obeyed +her injunctions. + +"After this the king resorted to many devices to discover and take the +thief, but all failed through his daring and shrewdness: when, at last, +sending throughout all the cities, the king caused a proclamation to be +made, offering a pardon and even reward to the man, if he would +discover himself. The thief, relying on this promise, went to the +palace; and Rhampsinitus greatly admired him, and gave him his daughter +in marriage, accounting him the most knowing of all men; for that the +Egyptians are superior to all others, but he was superior to the +Egyptians." + +The Egyptians appear to have given their attention to stealing in every +age; and at the present time, the ruler there may be said to be not so +much the head man of the land as the head thief. Travellers report that +that country is divided into departments upon a basis of abstraction, +and that the interests of each department, in pilfering respects, are +under the supervision of a Chief of Thieves. The Chief of Thieves is +responsible to the government, and to him all those who steal +professionally must give in their names, and must also keep him +informed of their successful operations. When goods are missed, the +owner applies to the government, is referred to the Chief of Thieves +for the Department, and all particulars of quantity, quality, time, and +manner of abstraction, to the best of his knowledge and belief, being +given, the goods are easily identified and at once restored,--less a +discount of twenty-five per cent. Against any rash man who should +undertake a private speculation, of course the whole fraternity of +thieves would be the beat possible police. This, after all, appears to +be a mere compromise of police taxes. He who has no goods to lose, or, +having, can watch them so well as not to need the police, the +government agrees shall not be made to pay for a police; but he whom +the fact of loss is against must pay well to be watched. + +Something of this principle is observable in all the East The East is +the fatherland of thieves, and Oriental annals teem with brilliant +examples of their exploits. The story of Jacoub Ben-Laith, founder of +the Soffarid dynasty,--otherwise, first of the Tinker-Kings of the +larger part of Persia,--is especially excellent upon that proverbial +"honor among thieves" of which most men have heard. + +Working weary hour after hour in his little shop,--toiling away days, +weeks, and months for a meagre subsistence,--Jacoub finally turned in +disgust from his hammer and forge, and became a "minion of the moon." +He is said, however, to have been reasonable in plunder, and never to +have robbed any of all they had. One night he entered the palace of +Darham, prince of the province of Segestan, and, working diligently, +soon gathered together an immense amount of valuables, with which he +was making off, when, in crossing a very dark room, his foot struck +upon a hard substance, and the misstep nearly threw him down. Stooping, +he picked up that upon which he had trodden. He believed it, from +feeling, to be a precious stone. He carried it to his mouth, touched it +with his tongue,--it was salt! And thus, by his own action, he had +tasted salt beneath the prince's roof,--in Eastern parlance, had +accepted his hospitality, become his guest. He could not rob him. +Jacoub laid down his burden,--robes embroidered in gold upon the +richest materials, sashes wanting only the light to flash with precious +stones worked in the braid, all the costly and rare of an Eastern +prince's palace gathered in one common spoil,--laid it all down, and +departed as silently as he had come. + +In the morning the disorder seen told only of attempted robbery. +Diligent search being made, the officers charged with it became +satisfied of Jacoub's complicity. They brought him before the prince. +There, being charged with the burglary, Jacoub at once admitted it, and +told the whole story. The prince, honoring him for his honor, at once +took him into his service, and employed him with entire confidence in +whatever of important or delicate he had to do that needed a man of +truth and courage; and Jacoub from that beginning went up step by step, +till he himself became prince of a province, and then of many +provinces, and finally king of a mighty realm. He had soul enough, +according to Carlyle's idea, not to need salt; but, for all that, the +salt saved him. + +Another king of Persia, Khurreem Khan, was not ashamed to admit, with a +crown on his head, that he had once been a thief, and was wont to +recount of himself what in these days we should call a case of +conscience. Thus he told it:-- + +"When I was a poor soldier in Nadir Shah's camp, my necessities led me +to take from a shop a gold-embossed saddle, sent thither by an Afghan +chief to be repaired. I soon afterward heard that the owner of the shop +was in prison, sentenced to be hanged. My conscience smote me. I +restored the stolen article to the very place whence I had removed it, +and watched till it was discovered by the tradesman's wife. She uttered +a scream of joy, on seeing it, and fell on her knees, invoking +blessings on the person who had brought it back, and praying that he +might live to have a hundred such saddles. I am quite certain that the +honest prayer of the old woman aided my fortune in attaining the +splendor she wished me to enjoy." + +These are variations upon the general theme of thievery. They all tend +to show that it is, at the least, unsafe to take the fact of a man's +having committed a certain crime against property as a proof _per se_ +that he is radically bad or inferior in intellect. "Your thief looks +in the crowd," says Byron, + + "Exactly like the rest, or rather better,"-- + +and this, not because physiognomy is false, but the thief's face true. +Of a promiscuous crowd, taken almost anywhere, the pickpocket in it is +the smartest man present, in all probability. According to +Ecclesiasticus, it is "the _heart_ of man that changeth his +countenance"; and it does seem that it is to his education, and not to +his heart, that man does violence in stealing. It is certainly in exact +proportion to his education that he feels in reference to it, and does +or does not "regret the necessity." + +And, indeed, that universal doctrine of contraries may work here as +elsewhere; and it might not he difficult to demonstrate that a majority +of thieves are better fitted by their nature and capacity for almost +any other position in life than the one they occupy through perverse +circumstance and unaccountable accident. Though mostly men of fair +ability, they are not generally successful. Considering the number of +thieves, there are but few great ones. In this "Rogues' Gallery" of the +New York Police Commissioners we find the face of a "first-rate" +burglar among the ablest of the eighty of whom he is one. He is a +German, and has passed twenty years in the prisons of his native land: +has that leonine aspect sometimes esteemed a physiognomical attribute +of the German, and, with fair enough qualities generally, is without +any especial intellectual strength. Near him is another +"first-rate,"--all energy and action, acute enough, a quick reasoner, +very cool and resolute. Below these is the face of one whom the +thief-takers think lightly of, and call a man of "no account." Yet he +is a man of far better powers than either of the "first-rates,"--has +more thought and equal energy,--a mind seldom or never at rest,--is one +to make new combinations and follow them to results with an ardor +almost enthusiastic. From some want of adaptation not depending upon +intellectual power, he is inferior as a thief to his inferiors. + +This man was without a cravat when his picture was taken, and his white +shirt-collar, coming up high in the neck, has the appearance of a white +neckerchief. This trifle of dress, with the intellectual look of the +man, strikes every observer as giving him a clerical appearance. The +picture strongly resembles--more in air, perhaps, than in feature--the +large engraved portrait of Summerfield. There is not so much of calm +comprehensiveness of thought, and there are more angles. Thief though +he be, he has fair language,--not florid or rhetorical, but terse and +very much to the point. If bred as a divine, he would have held his +place among the "brilliants" of the time, and been as original, +erratic, or _outre_ as any. What a fortune lost! It is part of the +fatality for the man not to know it, at least in time. Even villany +would have put him into his proper place, but for that film over the +mental vision. "If rogues," said Franklin, "knew the advantages +attached to the practice of the virtues, they would become honest men +from mere roguery." + +Many of the faces of this Rogues' Gallery are very well worth +consideration. Of a dozen leading pickpockets, who work singly, or two +or three together, and are mostly English, what is first noted is not +favorable to English teaching or probity;--their position sits easily +upon them. There is not one that gives indication of his having passed +through any mental struggle before he sat down in life as a thief. +Though all men capable of thought, they have not thought very deeply +upon this point. One of them is a natural aristocrat,--a man who could +keep the crowd aloof by simple volition, and without offense; nothing +whatever harsh in him,--polite to all, and amiable to a fault with his +fellows. + +There would be style in everything he did or said. He is one to +astonish drawing-rooms and bewilder promenades by the taste and +elegance of his dress. Upon that altar, doubtless, he sacrificed his +principles; but the sacrifice was not a great one. + +"'Tis only at the bar or in the dungeon that wise men know a felon by +his features." Another English pickpocket appears to have Alps on Alps +of difference between him and a thief. Good-nature prevails; there is a +little latent fire; not enough energy to be bad, or good, against the +current. He has some quiet dignity, too,--the head, in fine, of a +genial, dining Dombey, if such a man can be imagined. Face a good oval, +rather full in flesh, forehead square, without particular strength, a +nose that was never unaccompanied by good taste and understanding, and +mouth a little lickerish;--the incarnation of the popular idea of a +bank-president. + +The other day he turned to get into an omnibus at one of the ferries, +and just as he did so, there, it so happened, was a young lady stepping +in before him. The quiet old gentleman, with that warmth of politeness +that sits so well upon quiet old gentlemen in the presence of young +ladies, helped her in, and took a seat beside her. At half a block up +the street the president startled the other passengers by the violent +gesticulations with which he endeavored to attract the attention of a +gentleman passing down on the sidewalk; the passengers watched with +interest the effect or non-effect of his various episodes of +telegraphic desperation, and saw, with a regret equal to his own, that +the gentleman on the sidewalk saw nothing, and turned the corner as +calmly as a corner could be turned; but the old gentleman, not willing +to lose him in that manner, jumped out of the 'bus and ran after, with +a liveliness better becoming his eagerness than his age. In a moment +more, the young lady, admonished by the driver's rap on the roof, would +have paid her fare, but her portmonnaie was missing. I know not whether +the bank-president was or was not suspected;-- + +"All I can say is, that he had the money." + +Look closer, and beneath that look of good-humor you will find a little +something of superciliousness. You will see a line running down the +cheek from behind each nostril, drawing the whole face, good-humor and +all, into a sneer of habitual contempt,--contempt, no doubt, of the +vain endeavors and devices of men to provide against the genius of a +good pickpocket. + +It was said of Themistocles, that + + "he, with all his greatness, +Could ne'er command his hands." + +Now this man is a sort of Themistocles. He is a man of wealth, and can +snap his fingers at Fortune; can sneer that little sneer of his at +things generally, and be none the worse; but what he cannot do is, to +shake off an incubus that sits upon his life in the shape of old Habit +severe as Fate. This man, with apparently all that is necessary in the +world to keep one at peace with it, and to ease declining life with +comforts, and cheer with the serener pleasures, is condemned to keep +his peace in a state of continual uncertainty; for, seeing a purse +temptingly exposed, he is physically incapable of refraining from the +endeavor to take it. What devil is there in his finger-ends that brings +this about? Is this part of the curse of crime,--that, having once +taken up with it, a man cannot cut loose, but, with all the disposition +to make his future life better, he must, as by the iron links of +Destiny, be chained to his past? + +There is a Chinese thief-story somewhat in point here. A man who was +very poor stole from his neighbor, who was very rich, a single duck. He +cooked and ate it, and went to bed happy; but before morning he felt +all over his body and limbs a remarkable itching, a terrible irritation +that prevented sleep. When daylight came, he perceived that he had +sprouted all over with duck-feathers. This was an unlooked-for +judgment, and the man gave himself up to despair,--when he was informed +by an emanation of the divine Buddha that the feathers would fall from +him the moment he received a reproof and admonition from the man whose +duck he had stolen. This only increased his despair, for he knew his +neighbor to be one of the laughter-loving kind, who would not go to the +length of reproof, though he lost a thousand ducks. After sundry futile +attempts to swindle his neighbor out of the needed admonition, our +friend was compelled to divulge, not only the theft, but also the means +of cure, when he was cured. + +And this good, easy man, who is wealthy with the results of +pocket-picking;--that well-cut black coat, that satin waistcoat, that +elegantly-adjusted scarf and well-arranged collar, they are all +duck-feathers; but the feather that itches is that irreclaimable +tendency of the fingers to find their way into other people's pockets. +Pity, however, the man who cannot be at ease till he has received a +reproof from every one whose pocket he has picked through a long life +in London and in New York city. + +The amount of mental activity that gleams out upon you from these walls +is something wonderful; evidence of sufficient thinking to accomplish +almost any intellectual task; thought-life crowded with what +experience! + +The "confidence" swindlers are mostly Americans,--so that, the +pickpockets being mostly English, you may see some national character +in crime, aside from the tendency of races. The Englishman is +conservative,--sticks to traditions,--picks and plods in the same old +way in which ages have picked and plodded before him. Exactly like the +thief of ancient Athens, he + + "walks +The street, and picks your pocket as he talks +On some pretence with you"; + +at the same time, with courage and self-reliance admirably English, +risking his liberty on his skill. The American illuminates his practice +with an intellectual element, faces his man, "bidding a gay defiance to +mischance," and gains his end easily by some acute device that merely +transfers to himself, with the knowledge and consent of the owner, the +subtile principle of property. + +This "confidence" game is a thing of which the ancients appear to have +known nothing. The French have practised it with great success, and may +have invented it. It appears particularly French in some of its +phases,--in the manner that is necessary for its practice, in its wit +and finesse. The affair of the Diamond Necklace, with which all the +world is familiar, is the most magnificent instance of it on record. A +lesser case, involving one of the same names, and playing excellently +upon woman's vanity, illustrates the French practice. + +One evening, as Marie Antoinette sat quietly in her _loge_ at the +theatre, the wife of a wealthy tradesman of Paris, sitting nearly +_vis-a-vis_ to the Queen, made great parade of her toilet, and seemed +peculiarly desirous of attracting attention to a pair of splendid +bracelets, gleaming with the chaste contrast of emeralds and diamonds. +She was not without success. A gentleman of elegant mien and graceful +manner presented himself at the door of her _loge_; he delivered a +message from the Queen. Her Majesty had remarked the singular beauty of +the bracelets, and wished to inspect one of them more closely. What +could be more gratifying? In the seventh heaven of delighted vanity, +the tradesman's wife unclasped the bracelet and gave it to the +gentleman, who bowed himself out, and left her--as you have doubtless +divined he would--abundant leisure to learn of her loss. + +Early the next morning, however, an officer from the department of +police called at this lady's house. The night before, a thief had been +arrested leaving the theatre, and on his person were found many +valuables,--among others, a splendid bracelet. Being penitent, he had +told, to the best of his recollection, to whom the articles belonged, +and the lady called upon was indicated as the owner of the bracelet. If +Madame possessed the mate to this singular bracelet, it was only +necessary to intrust it to the officer, and, if it were found to +compare properly with the other, both would be immediately sent home, +and Madame would have only a trifling fee to pay. The bracelet was +given willingly, and, with the stiff courtesy inseparable from official +dignity, the officer took his leave, and at the next _cafe_ joined his +fellow, the gentleman of elegant mien and graceful manner. The +bracelets were not found to compare properly, and therefore were not +returned. + +These faces are true to the nationality,--all over American. They are +much above the average in expression,--lighted with clear, well-opened +eyes, intelligent and perceptive; most have an air of business +frankness well calculated to deceive. There is one capacious, +thought-freighted forehead. All are young. + +No human observer will fail to be painfully struck with the number of +boys whose faces are here exposed. There are boys of every age, from +five to fifteen, and of every possible description, good, bad, and +indifferent. The stubborn and irreclaimable imp of evil nature peers +out sullenly and doggedly, or sparkles on you a pair of small +snake-eyes, fruitful of deceit and cunning. The better boy, easily +moved, that might become anything, mercurial and volatile, "most +ignorant of what he's most assured," reflects on his face the pleasure +of having his picture taken, and smiles good-humoredly, standing in +this worst of pillories, to be pelted along a lifetime with +unforgetting and unforgiving glances. With many of these boys, this is +a family matter. Here are five brothers, the youngest very young +indeed,--and the father not very old. One of the brothers, +bright-looking as boy can be, is a young Jack Sheppard, and has already +broken jail five times. Many are trained by old burglars to be put +through windows where men cannot go, and open doors. In a row of +second-class pickpockets, nearly all boys, there is observable on +almost every face some expression of concern, and one instinctively +thanks Heaven that the boys appear to be frightened. Yet, after all, +perhaps it is hardly worth while. The reform of boy thieves was first +agitated a long while since, and we have yet to hear of some +encouraging result. The earliest direct attempt we know of, with all +the old argument, _pro_ and _con_, is thus given in Sadi's "Gulistan." + +Among a gang of thieves, who had been very hardly taken, "there +happened to be a lad whose rising bloom of youth was just matured. One +of the viziers kissed the foot of the king's throne, assumed a look of +intercession, and said,-- + +"'This lad has not yet even reaped the pleasures of youth; my +expectation, from your Majesty's inherent generosity, is, that, by +granting his life, you would confer an obligation on your servant.' + +"The king frowned at this request, and said,-- + +"'The light of the righteous does not influence one of vicious origin; +instruction to the worthless is a walnut on a dome, that rolls off. To +smother a fire and leave its sparks, to kill a viper and take care of +its young, are not actions of the wise. Though the clouds rain the +water of life, you cannot eat fruit from the boughs of a willow.' + +"When the vizier heard this, he applauded the king's understanding, and +assented that what he had pronounced was unanswerable. + +"'Yet, nevertheless,' he said, 'as the boy, if bred among the thieves, +would have taken their manners, so is your servant hopeful that he +might receive instruction in the society of upright men; for he is +still a boy, and it is written, that every child is born in the faith +of Islam, and his parents corrupt him. The son of Noah, associated with +the wicked, lost his power of prophecy; the dog of the Seven Sleepers, +following the good, became a man.' + +"Then others of the courtiers joined in the intercession, and the king +said,-- + +"'I have assented, but I do not think it well.' + +"They bred the youth in indulgence and affluence, and appointed an +accomplished tutor to educate him, and he became learned and gained +great applause in the sight of every one. The king smiled when the +vizier spoke of this, and said,-- + +"'Thou hast been nourished by our milk, and hast grown with us; who +afterwards gave thee intelligence that thy father was a wolf?' + +"A few years passed;--a company of the vagrants of the neighborhood +were near; they connected themselves with the boy; a league of +association was formed; and, at an opportunity, the boy destroyed the +vizier and his children, carried off vast booty, and fixed himself in +the place of his father in the cavern of the robbers. The king bit the +hand of astonishment with the teeth of reflection, and said,-- + +"'How can any one make a good sword from bad iron? The worthless, O +Philosopher, does not, by instruction, become worthy. Rain, though not +otherwise than benignant, produces tulips in gardens and rank weeds in +nitrous ground.'" + +Yet, notwithstanding Sadi and some other wise ones, here, as thieves, +are the faces of boys that cannot be naturally vicious,--boys of good +instincts, beyond all possible question,--and that only need a mother's +hand to smooth back the clustering hair from the forehead, to discover +the future residence of plentiful and upright reason. The face of a +boy, now in Sing Sing for burglary, and who bears a name which over the +continent of North America is identified with the ideas of large +combination and enterprise, is especially noticeable for the clear +eyes, and frank, promising look. + +That tale of Sadi will do well enough when Aesop tells it of a +serpent;--he, indeed, can change his skin and be a serpent still; but +when the old Sufi, or any one else, tells it of a boy, let us doubt. + +Think of the misery that may be associated with all this,--that this +represents! In this Gallery are the faces of many men; some are +handsome, most of them more or less human. It cannot be that they all +began wrongly,--that their lives were all poisoned at the +fountain-head. No,--here are some that came from what are called good +families; many others of them had homes, and you may still see some +lingering love of it in an air of settled sadness,--they were misled in +later life. Think of the mothers who have gone down, in bitter, bitter +sorrow, to the grave, with some of the lineaments we see around before +their mind's eye at the latest moment! Oh, the circumstances under +which some of these faces have been conjured up by the strong will of +love! Think of the sisters, living along with a hidden heart-ache, +nursing in secret the knowledge, that somewhere in the world were those +dear to them, from whom they were shut out by a bar-sinister terribly +real, and for whose welfare, with all the generous truth of a sister's +feeling, they would barter everything, yet who were in an unending +danger! Think of them, with this skeleton behind the door of their +hearts, fearful at every moment! Does it seem good in the scheme of +existence, or a blot there, that those who are themselves innocent, but +who are yet the real sufferers, whether punishment to the culprit fall +or fail, should be made thus poignantly miserable? We know nothing. + +It is said in a certain Arabic legend, that, while Moses was on Mount +Sinai, the Lord instructed him in the mysteries of his providence; and +Moses, having complained of the impunity of vice and its success in the +world, and the frequent sufferings of the innocent, the Lord led him to +a rock which jutted from the mountain, and where he could overlook the +vast plain of the Desert stretching at his feet. + +On one of its oases he beheld a young Arab asleep. He awoke, and, +leaving behind him a bag of pearls, sprang into the saddle and rapidly +disappeared from the horizon. Another Arab came to the oasis; he +discovered the pearls, took them, and vanished in the opposite +direction. + +Now an aged wanderer, leaning on his staff, bent his steps wearily +toward the shady spot; he laid himself down, and fell asleep. But +scarcely had he closed his eyes, when he was rudely aroused from his +slumber; the young Arab had returned, and demanded his pearls. The +hoary man replied, that he had not taken them. The other grew enraged, +and accused him of theft. He swore that he had not seen the treasure; +but the other seized him; a scuffle ensued; the young Arab drew his +sword, and plunged it into the breast of the aged man, who fell +lifeless on the earth. + +"O Lord! is this just?" exclaimed Moses, with terror. + +"Be silent! Behold, this man, whose blood is now mingling with the +waters of the Desert, many years ago, secretly, on the same spot, +murdered the father of the youth who has now slain him. His crime +remained concealed from men; but vengeance is mine: I will repay." + + + + +THE PURSUIT OF KNOWLEDGE UNDER DIFFICULTIES; AND WHAT CAME OF IT. + +[Concluded.] + + +The week of Mr. Clerron's absence passed away more quickly than Ivy had +supposed it would. The reason for this may be found in the fact that +her thoughts were very busily occupied. She was more silent than usual, +so much so that her father one day said to her,--"Ivy, I haven't heard +you sing this long while, and seems to me you don't talk either. What's +the matter?" + +"Do I look as if anything was the matter?" and the face she turned upon +him was so radiant, that even the father's heart was satisfied. + +Very quietly happy was Ivy to think she was of service to Mr. Clerron, +that she could give him pleasure,--though she could in no wise +understand how it was. She went over every event since her acquaintance +with him; she felt how much he had done for her, and how much he had +been to her; but she sought in vain to discover how she had been of any +use to him. She only knew that she was the most ignorant and +insignificant girl in the whole world, and that he was the best and +greatest man. As this was very nearly the same conclusion at which she +had arrived at an early period of their acquaintance, it cannot be said +that her week of reflection was productive of any very valuable +results. + +The day before Mr. Clerron's expected return Ivy sat down to prepare +her lessons, and for the first time remembered that she had left her +books in Mr. Clerron's library. She was not sorry to have so good an +excuse for visiting the familiar room, though its usual occupant was +not there to welcome her. Very quietly and joyfully happy, she trod +slowly along the path through the woods where she last walked with Mr. +Clerron. She was, indeed, at a loss to know why she was so calm. Always +before, a sudden influx of joy testified itself by very active +demonstrations. She was quite sure that she had never in her life been +so happy as now; yet she never had felt less disposed to leap and dance +and sing. The non-solution of the problem, however, did not ruffle her +serenity. She was content to accept the facts, and await patiently the +theory. + +Arriving at the house, she went, as usual, into the library without +ringing,--but, not finding the books, proceeded in search of Mrs. Simm. +That notable lady was sitting behind a huge pile of clean clothes, +sorting and mending to her heart's content. She looked up over her +spectacles at Ivy's bright "good morning," and invited her to come in. +Ivy declined, and begged to know if Mrs. Simm had seen her books. To be +sure she had, like the good housekeeper that she was. "You'll find them +in the book-case, second shelf; but, Miss Ivy, I wish you would come +in, for I've had something on my mind that I've felt to tell you this +long while." + +Ivy came in, took the seat opposite Mrs. Simm, and waited for her to +speak; but Mrs. Simm seemed to be in no hurry to speak. She dropped her +glasses; Ivy picked them up and handed them to her. She muttered +something about the destructive habits of men, especially in regard to +buttons; and presently, as if determined to come to the subject at +once, abruptly exclaimed,-- + +"Miss Ivy, you're a real good girl, I know, and as innocent as a lamb. +That's why I'm going to talk to you as I do. I know, if you were my +child, I should want somebody to do the same by you." + +Ivy could only stare in blank astonishment. After a moment's pause, +Mrs. Simm continued,-- + +"I've seen how things have been going on for some time; but my mouth +was shut, though my eyes were open. I didn't know but maybe I'd better +speak to your mother about it; but then, thinks I to myself, she'll +think it is a great deal worse than it is, and then, like enough, +there'll be a rumpus. So I concluded, on the whole, I'd just tell you +what I thought; and I know you are a sensible girl and will take it all +right. Now you must promise me not to get mad." + +"No," gasped Ivy. + +"I like you a sight. It's no flattery, but the truth, to say I think +you're as pretty-behaved a girl as you'll find in a thousand. And all +the time you've been here, I never have known you do a thing you hadn't +ought to. And Mr. Clerron thinks so too, and there's the trouble, You +see, dear, he's a man, and men go on their ways and like women, and +talk to them, and sort of bewitch them, not meaning to do them any +hurt,--and enjoy their company of an evening, and go about their own +business in the morning, and never think of it again; but women stay at +home, and brood over it, and think there's something in it, and build a +fine air-castle,--and when they find it's all smoke, they mope and pine +and take on. Now that's what I don't want you to do. Perhaps you'd +think I'd better have spoken with Mr. Clerron; but it wouldn't signify +the head of a pin. He'd either put on the Clerron look and scare you to +death and not say a word, or else he'd hold it up in such a ridiculous +way as to make you think it was ridiculous yourself. And I thought I'd +put you on your guard a little, so as you needn't fall in love with +him. You'll like him, of course. He likes you; but a young girl like +you might make a mistake, if she was ever so modest and sweet,--and +nobody could be modester or sweeter than you,--and think a man loved +you to marry you, when he only pets and plays with you. Not that Mr. +Clerron means to do anything wrong. He'd be perfectly miserable +himself, if he thought he'd led you on. There a'n't a more honorable +man every way in the whole country. Now, Miss Ivy, it's all for your +good I say this. I don't find fault with you, not a bit. It's only to +save you trouble in store that I warn you to look where you stand, and +see that you don't lose your heart before you know it. It's an awful +thing for a woman, Miss Ivy, to get a notion after a man who hasn't got +a notion after her. Men go out and work and delve and drive, and +forget; but there a'n't much in darning stockings and making +pillow-cases to take a woman's thought off her troubles, and sometimes +they get sp'iled for life." + +Ivy had remained speechless from amazement; but when Mrs. Simm had +finished, she said, with a sudden accession of womanly dignity that +surprised the good housekeeper,-- + +"Mrs. Simm, I cannot conceive why you should speak in this way to me. +If you suppose I am not quite able to take care of myself, I assure you +you are much mistaken." + +"Lorful heart! Now, Miss Ivy, you promised you wouldn't be mad." + +"And I have kept my promise. I am not mad." + +"No, but you answer up short like, and that isn't what I thought of +you, Ivy Geer." + +Mrs. Simm looked so disappointed that Ivy took a lower tone, and at any +rate she would have had to do it soon; for her fortitude gave way, and +she burst into a flood of tears. She was not, by any means, a heroine, +and could not put on the impenetrable mask of a woman of the world. + +"Now, dear, don't be so distressful, dear, don't!" said Mrs. Simm, +soothingly. "I can't bear to see you." + +"I am sure I never thought of such a thing as falling in love with Mr. +Clerron or anybody else," sobbed Ivy, "and I don't know what should +make you think so." + +"Dear heart, I don't think so. I only told you, so you needn't." + +"Why, I should as soon think of marrying the angel Gabriel!" + +"Oh, don't talk so, dear; he's no more than man, after all; but still, +you know, he's no fit match for you. To say nothing of his being older +and all that, I don't think it's the right place for you. Your father +and mother are very nice folks; I am sure nobody could ask for better +neighbors, and their good word is in everybody's mouth; and they've +brought you up well, I am sure; but, my dear, you know it's nothing +against you nor them that you a'n't used to splendor, and you wouldn't +take to it natural like. You'd get tired of that way of life, and want +to go back to the old fashions, and you'd most likely have to leave +your father and mother; for it's noways probable Mr. Clerron will stay +here always; and when he goes back to the city, think what a dreary +life you'd have betwixt his two proud sisters, on the one hand,--to be +sure, there's no reason why they should be; their gran'ther was a +tailor, and their grandma was his apprentice, and he got rich, and gave +all his children learning; and Mr. Felix's father, he was a lawyer, and +he got rich by speculation, and so the two girls always had on their +high-heeled boots; but Mr. Clerron, he always laughs at them, and +brings up "the grand-paternal shop," as he calls it, and provokes them +terribly, I know. Well, that's neither here nor there; but, as I was +saying, here you'll have them on the one side, and all the fine ladies +on the other, and a great house and servants, and parties to see to, +and, lorful heart! Miss Ivy, you'd die in three years; and if you know +when you're well off, you'll stay at home, and marry and settle down +near the old folks. Believe me, my dear, it's a bad thing both for the +man and the woman, when she marries above her." + +"Mrs. Simm," said Ivy, rising, "will you promise me one thing?" + +"Certainly, child, if I can." + +"Will you promise me never again to mention this thing to me, or allude +to it in the most distant manner?" + +"Miss Ivy, now,"--began Mrs. Simm, deprecatingly. + +"Because," interrupted Ivy, speaking very thick and fast, "you cannot +imagine how disagreeable it is to me. It makes me feel ashamed to think +of what you have said, and that you could have thought it even. I +suppose--indeed, I know--that you did it because you thought you ought; +but you may be certain that I am in no danger from Mr. Clerron, nor is +there the slightest probability that his fortune, or honor, or +reputation, or sisters will ever be disturbed by me. I am very much +obliged to you for your good intentions, and I wish you good morning." + +"Don't, now, Miss Ivy, go so"-- + +But Miss Ivy was gone, and Mrs. Simm could only withdraw to her pile of +clothes, and console herself by stitching and darning with renewed +vigor. She felt rather uneasy about the result of her morning's work, +though she had really done it from a conscientious sense of duty. + +"Welladay," she sighed, at last, "she'd better be a little cut up and +huffy now, than to walk into a ditch blindfolded; and I wash my hands +of whatever may happen after this. I've had my say and done my part." + +Alas, Ivy Geer! The Indian summer day was just as calm and +beautiful,--the far-off mountains wore their veil of mist just as +aerially,--the brook rippled over the stones with just as soft a +melody; but what "discord on the music" had fallen! what "darkness on +the glory"! A miserable, dull, dead weight was the heart which throbbed +so lightly but an hour before. Wearily, drearily, she dragged herself +home. It was nearly sunset when she arrived, and she told her mother +she was tired and had the headache, which was true,--though, if she had +said heartache, it would have been truer. Her mother immediately did +what ninety-nine mothers out of a hundred would do in similar +circumstances,--made her swallow a cup of strong tea, and sent her to +bed. Alas, alas, that there are sorrows which the strongest tea cannot +assuage! + +When the last echo of her mother's footstep died on the stairs, and Ivy +was alone in the darkness, the tide of bitterness and desolation swept +unchecked over her soul, and she wept tears more passionate and +desponding than her life had ever before known,--tears of shame and +indignation and grief. It was true that the thought which Mrs. Simm had +suggested had never crossed her mind before; yet it is no less true, +that, all-unconsciously, she had been weaving a golden web, whose +threads, though too fine and delicate even for herself to perceive, +were yet strong enough to entangle her life in their meshes. A secret +chamber, far removed from the noise and din of the world,--a chamber +whose soft and rose-tinted light threw its radiance over her whole +future, and within whose quiet recesses she loved to sit alone and +dream away the hours,--had been rudely entered, and thrown violently +open to the light of day, and Ivy saw with dismay how its pictures had +become ghastly and its sacredness was defiled. With bitter, though +needless and useless self-reproach, she saw how she had suffered +herself to be fascinated. Sorrowfully, she felt that Mrs. Simm's words +were true, and a great gulf lay between her and him. She pictured him +moving easily and gracefully and naturally among scenes which to her +inexperienced eye were grand and splendid; and then, with a sharp pain, +she felt how constrained and awkward and entirely unfit for such a life +was she. Then her thoughts reverted to her parents,--their unchanging +love, their happiness depending on her, their solicitude and +watchfulness,--and she felt as if ingratitude were added to her other +sins, that she could have so attached herself to any other. And again +came back the bitter, burning agony of shame that she had done the very +thing that Mrs. Simm too late had warned her not to do; she had been +carried away by the kindness and tenderness of her friend, and, +unasked, had laid the wealth of her heart at his feet. So the night +flushed into morning; and the sun rose upon a pale face and a trembling +form,--but not upon a faint heart; for Ivy, kneeling by the couch where +her morning and evening prayer had gone up since lisping +infancy,--kneeling no longer a child, but a woman, matured through +love, matured, alas! through suffering, prayed for strength and +comfort; prayed that her parents' love might be rendered back into +their own bosoms a hundred fold; prayed that her friend's kindness to +her might not be an occasion of sin against God, and that she might be +enabled to walk with a steady step in the path that lay before her. And +she arose strengthened and comforted. + +All the morning she lay quiet and silent on the lounge in the little +sitting-room. Her mother, busied with household matters, only looked in +upon her occasionally, and, as the eyes were always closed, did not +speak, thinking her asleep. Ivy was not asleep. Ten thousand little +sprites flitted swiftly through the chambers of her brain, humming, +singing, weeping, but always busy, busy. Then another tread softly +entered, and she knew her dear old father had drawn a chair close to +her, and was looking into her face. Tears came into her eyes, her lip +involuntarily quivered, and then she felt the pressure of +his----his!--surely that was not her father's kiss! She started up. No, +no! that was not her father's face bending over her,--not her father's +eyes smiling into hers; but, woe for Ivy! her soul thrilled with a +deeper bliss, her heart leaped with a swifter bound, and for a moment +all the experience and suffering and resolutions of the last night were +as if they had never been. Only for a moment, and then with a strong +effort she remembered the impassable gulf. + +"A pretty welcome home you have given me!" said Mr. Clerron, lightly. + +He saw that something was weighing on her spirits, but did not wish to +distress her by seeming to notice it. + +"I wait in my library, I walk in my garden, expecting every moment will +bring you,--and lo! here you are lying, doing nothing but look pale and +pretty as hard as you can." + +Ivy smiled, but did not consider it prudent to speak. + +"I found your books, however, and have brought them to you. You thought +you would escape a lesson finely, did you not? But you see I have +outwitted you." + +"Yes,--I went for the books yesterday," said Ivy, "but I got talking +with Mrs. Simm and forgot them." + +"Ah!" he replied, looking somewhat surprised. "I did not know Mrs. Simm +could be so entertaining. She must have exerted herself. Pray, now, if +it would not be impertinent, upon what subject did she hold forth with +eloquence so overpowering that everything else was driven from your +mind? The best way of preserving apples, I dare swear, or the +superiority of pickled grapes to pickled cucumbers." + +"No," said Ivy, with the ghost of an other smile,--"upon various +subjects; but not those. How do you do, Mr. Clerron? Have you had a +pleasant visit to the city?" + +"Very well, I thank you, Miss Geer; and I have not had a remarkably +pleasant visit, I am obliged to you. Have I the pleasure of seeing you +quite well, Miss Geer,--quite fresh and buoyant?" + +The lightness of tone which he had assumed had precisely the opposite +effect intended. + +"Ye banks and braes o' bonny Doon, + How can ye bloom sae fresh and fair? +How can ye chant, ye little birds, + And I sae weary fu' o' care?" + +is the of stricken humanity everywhere. And Ivy thought of Mr. Clerron, +rich, learned, elegant, happy, on the current of whose life she only +floated a pleasant ripple,--and of herself, poor, plain, awkward, +ignorant, to whom he was the life of life, the all in all. I would not +have you suppose this passed through her mind precisely as I have +written it. By no means. The ideas rather trooped through in a pellmell +sort of way; but they got through just as effectually. Now, if Ivy had +been content to let her muscles remain perfectly still, her face might +have given no sign of the confusion within; but, with a foolish +presumption, she undertook to smile, and so quite lost control of the +little rebels, who immediately twisted themselves into a sob. Her whole +frame convulsed with weeping and trying not to weep, he forced her +gently back on the pillow, and, bending low, whispered softly,-- + +"Ivy, what is it?" + +"Oh, don't ask me!--please, don't! Please, go away!" murmured the poor +child. + +"I will, my dear, in a minute; but you must think I should be a little +anxious. I leave you as gay as a bird, and healthy and rosy,--and when +I come back, I find you white and sad and ill. I am sure something +weighs on your mind. I assure you, my little Ivy, and you must believe, +that I am your true friend,--and if you would confide in me, perhaps I +could bring you comfort. It would at least relieve you to let me help +you bear the burden." + +The burden being of such a nature, it is not at all probable that Ivy +would have assented to his proposition; but the welcome entrance of her +mother prevented the necessity of replying. + +"Oh, you're awake! Well, I told Mr. Clerron he might come in, though I +thought you wouldn't be. Slept well this morning, didn't you, deary, to +make up for last night?" + +"No, mamma, I haven't been asleep." + +"Crying, my dear? Well, now, that's a pretty good one! Nervous she is, +Mr. Clerron, always nervous, when the least thing ails her; and she +didn't sleep a wink last night, which is a bad thing for the +nerves,--and Ivy generally sleeps like a top. She walked over to your +house yesterday, and when she got home she was entirely beat +out,--looked as if she had been sick a week. I don't know why it was, +for the walk couldn't have hurt her. She's always dancing round at +home. I don't think she's been exactly well for four or five days. Her +father and I both thought she'd been more quiet like than usual." + +The sudden pang that shot across Ivy's face was not unobserved by Mr. +Clerron. A thought came into his mind. He had risen at Mrs. Geer's +entrance, and he now expressed his regret for Ivy's illness, and hoped +that she would soon be well, and able to resume her studies; and, with +a few words of interest and inquiry to Mrs. Geer, took his leave. + +"I wonder if Mrs. Simm _has_ been putting her foot in it!" thought he, +as he stalked home rather more energetically than was his custom. + +That unfortunate lady was in her sitting-room, starching muslins, when +Mr. Clerron entered. She had surmised that he was gone to the farm, and +had looked for his return with a shadow of dread. She saw by his face +that something was wrong. + +"Mrs. Simm," he began, somewhat abruptly, but not disrespectfully, "may +I beg your pardon for inquiring what Ivy Geer talked to you about, +yesterday?" + +"Oh, good Lord! She ha'n't told you, has she?" cried Mrs. Simm,--her +fear of God, for once, yielding to her greater fear of man. The +embroidered collar, which she had been vigorously beating, dropped to +the floor, and she gazed at him with such terror and dismay in every +lineament, that he could not help being amused. He picked up the +collar, which, in her perturbation, she had not noticed, and said,-- + +"No, she has told me nothing; but I find her excited and ill, and I +have reason to believe it is connected with her visit here yesterday. +If it is anything relating to me, and which I have a right to know, you +would do me a great favor by enlightening me on the subject." + +Mrs. Simm had not a particle of that knowledge in which Young America +is so great a proficient, namely, the "knowing how to get out of a +scrape." She was, besides, alarmed at the effect of her words on Ivy, +supposing nothing less than that the girl was in the last stages of a +swift consumption; so she sat down, and, rubbing her starchy hands +together, with many a deprecatory "you know," and apologetic "I am sure +I thought I was acting for the best," gave, considering her agitation, +a tolerably accurate account of the whole interview. Her interlocutor +saw plainly that she had acted from a sincere conscientiousness, and +not from a meddlesome, mischievous interference; so he only thanked her +for her kind interest, and suggested that he had now arrived at an age +when it would, perhaps, be well for him to conduct matters, +particularly of so delicate a nature, solely according to his own +judgment, He was sorry to have given her any trouble. + + +"Scissors cuts only what comes between 'em," soliloquized Mrs. Simm, +when the door closed behind him. "If ever I meddle with a +courting-business again, my name a'n't Martha Simm. No, they may go to +Halifax, whoever they be, 'fore ever I'll lift a finger." + +It is a great pity that the world generally has not been brought to +make the same wise resolution. + +One, two, three, four days passed away, and still Ivy pondered the +question so often wrung from man in his bewildered gropings, "What +shall I do?" Every day brought her teacher and friend to comfort, +amuse, and strengthen. Every morning she resolved to be on her guard, +to remember the impassable gulf. Every evening she felt the silken +cords drawing tighter and tighter around her soul, and binding her +closer and closer to him. She thought she might die, and the thought +gave her a sudden joy. Death would solve the problem at once. If only a +few weeks or months lay before her, she could quietly rest on him, and +give herself up to him, and wait in heaven for all rough places to be +made plain. But Ivy did not die. Youth and nursing and herb-tea were +too strong for her, and the color came back to her cheek and the +languor went out from her blue eyes. She saw nothing to be done but to +resume her old routine. It would be difficult to say whether she was +more glad or sorry at seeming to see this necessity. She knew her +danger, and it was very fascinating. She did not look into the far-off +future; she only prayed to be kept from day to day. Perhaps her course +was wise; perhaps not. But she had to rely on her own judgment alone; +and her judgment was founded on inexperience, which is not a +trustworthy basis. + +A new difficulty arose. Ivy found that she could not resume her old +habits. To be sure, she learned her lessons just as perfectly at home +as she had ever done. Just as punctual to the appointed hour, she went +to recite them; but no sooner had her foot crossed Mr. Clerron's +threshold than her spirit seemed to die within her. She remembered +neither words nor ideas. Day after day, she attempted to go through her +recitation as usual, and, day after day, she hesitated, stammered, and +utterly failed. His gentle assistance only increased her embarrassment. +This she was too proud to endure; and, one day, after an unsuccessful +effort, she closed the book with a quick, impatient gesture, and +exclaimed,-- + +"Mr. Clerron, I will not recite any more!" + +The agitated flush which had suffused her face gave way to paleness. He +saw that she was under strong excitement, and quietly replied,-- + +"Very well, you need not, if you are tired. You are not quite well yet, +and must not try to do too much. We will commence here to-morrow." + +"No, Sir,--I shall not recite any more at all." + +"Till to-morrow." + +"Never any more!" + +There was a moment's pause. + +"You must not lose patience, my dear. In a few days you will recite as +well as ever. A fine notion, forsooth, because you have been ill, and +forgotten a little, to give up studying! And what is to become of my +laurels, pray,--all the glory I am to get by your proficiency?" + +"I shall study at home just the same, but I shall not recite." + +"Why not?" + +His look became serious. + +"Because I cannot. I do not think it best,--and--and I will not" + +Another pause. + +"Ivy, do you not like your teacher?" + +"No, Sir. _I hate you!_" + +The words seemed to flash from her lips. She sprang up and stood erect +before him, her eyes on fire, and every nerve quivering with intense +excitement He was shocked and startled. It was a new phase of her +character,--a new revelation. He, too, arose, and walked to the +window. If Ivy could have seen the workings of his face, there would +have been a revelation to her also. But she was too highly excited to +notice anything. He came back to her and spoke in a low voice,-- + +"Ivy, this is too much. This I did not expect." + +He laid his hand upon her head as he had often done before. She shook +it off passionately. + +"Yes, I hate you. I hate you, because"-- + +"Because I wanted you to love me?" + +"No, Sir; because I do love you, and you bring me only wretchedness. I +have never been happy since the miserable day I first saw you." + +"Then, Ivy, I have utterly failed in what it has been my constant +endeavor to do." + +"No, Sir, you have succeeded in what you endeavored to do. You have +taught me. You have given me knowledge and thought, and showed me the +source of knowledge. But I had better have been the ignorant girl you +found me. You have taken from me what I can never find again. I have +made a bitter exchange. I was ignorant and stupid, I know,--but I was +happy and contented; and now I am wretched and miserable and wicked. +You have come between me and my home and my father and mother;--between +me and all the bliss of my past and all my hope for the future." + +"And thus, Ivy, have you come between me and my past and my +future;--yet not thus. You shut out from my heart all the sorrow and +vexation and strife that have clouded my life, and fill it with your +own dear presence. You come between me and my future, because, in +looking forward, I see only you. I should have known better. There is +a gulf between us; but if I could make you happy"-- + +"I don't want you to make me happy. I know there is a gulf between us. +I saw it while you were gone. I measured it and fathomed it. I shall +not leap across. Stay you on your side quietly; I shall stay as quietly +on mine." + +"It is too late for that, Ivy,--too late now. But you are not to blame, +my child. Little sunbeam that you are, I will not cloud you. Go shine +upon other lives as you have shone upon mine! light up other hearths as +you have mine! and I will bless you forever, though mine be left +desolate." + +He turned away with an expression on his face that Ivy could not read. +Her passion was gone. She hesitated a moment, then went to his side and +laid her hand softly on his arm. There was a strange moistened gleam in +his eyes as he turned them upon her. + +"Mr. Clerron, I do not understand you." + +"My dear, you never can understand me." + +"I know it," said Ivy, with her old humility; "but, at least, I might +understand whether I have vexed you." + +"You have not vexed me." + +"I spoke proudly and rudely to you. I was angry, and so unhappy. I +shall always be so; I shall never be happy again; but I want you to be, +and you do not look as if you were." + +If Ivy had not been a little fool, she would not have spoken so; but +she was, so she did. + +"I beg your pardon, little tendril. I was so occupied with my own +preconceived ideas that I forgot to sympathize with you. Tell me why or +how I have made you unhappy. But I know; you need not. I assure you, +however, that you are entirely wrong. It was a prudish and whimsical +notion of my good old housekeeper's. You are never to think of it +again. _I_ never attributed such a thought or feeling to you." + +"Did you suppose that was all that made me unhappy?" + +"Can there be anything else?" + +"I am glad you think so. Perhaps I should not have been unhappy but for +that, at least not so soon; but that alone could never have made me +so." + +Little fool again! She was like a chicken thrusting its head into a +corner and thinking itself out of danger because it cannot see the +danger. She had no notion that she was giving him the least clue to the +truth, but considered herself speaking with more than Delphic prudence. +She rather liked to coast along the shores of her trouble and see how +near she could approach without running aground; but she struck before +she knew it. + +Mr. Clerron's face suddenly changed. He sat down, took both her hands, +and drew her towards him. + +"Ivy, perhaps I have been misunderstanding you. I will at least find +out the truth. Ivy, do you know that I love you, that I have loved you +almost from the first, that I would gladly here and now take you to my +heart and keep you here forever?" + +"I do not know it," faltered Ivy, half beside herself. + +"Know it now, then! I am older than you, and I seem to myself so far +removed from you that I have feared to ask you to trust your happiness +to my keeping, lest I should lose you entirely; but sometimes you say +or do something which gives me hope. My experience has been very +different from yours. I am not worthy to clasp your purity and +loveliness. Still I would do it, if--Tell me, Ivy, does it give you +pain or pleasure?" + +Ivy extricated her hands from his, deliberately drew a footstool, and +knelt on it before him,--then took his hands, as he had before held +hers, gazed steadily into his eyes, and said,-- + +"Mr. Clerron, are you in earnest? Do you love me?" + +"I am, Ivy. I do love you." + +"How do you love me?" + +"I love you with all the strength and power that God has given me." + +"You do not simply pity me? You have not, because you heard from Mrs. +Simm, or suspected, yourself, that I was weak enough to mistake your +kindness and nobleness,--you have not in pity resolved to sacrifice +your happiness to mine?" + +"No, Ivy,--nothing of the kind. I pity only myself. I reverence you, I +think. I have hoped that you loved me as a teacher and friend. I dared +not believe you could ever do more; now something within tells me that +you can. Can you, Ivy? If the love and tenderness and devotion of my +whole life can make you happy, happiness shall not fail to be yours." + +Ivy's gaze never for a moment drooped under his, earnest and piercing +though it was. + +"Now I am happy," she said, slowly and distinctly. "Now I am blessed. I +can never ask anything more." + +"But I ask something more," he replied, bending forward eagerly. "I ask +much more. I want your love. Shall I have it? And I want you." + +"My love?" She blushed slightly, but spoke without hesitation. "Have I +not given it,--long, long before you asked it, before you even cared +for my friendship? Not love only, but life, my very whole being, +centred in you, does now, and will always. Is it right to say +this?--maidenly? But I am not ashamed. I shall always be proud to have +loved you, though only to lose you,--and to be loved by you is glory +enough for all my future." + +For a short time the relative position of these two people was changed. +I allude to the change in this distant manner, as all who have ever +been lovers will be able to judge what it was; and I do not wish to +forestall the sweet surprise of those who have not. + +Ivy rested there (query, where?) a moment; but as he whispered, "Thus +you answer the second question? You give me yourself too?" she hastily +freed herself. (Query, from what?) + +"Never!" + +"Ivy!" + +"Never!" more firmly than before. + +"What does this mean?" he said, sternly. "Are you trifling?" + +There was such a frown on his brow as Ivy had never seen. She quailed +before it. + +"Do not be angry! Alas! I am not trifling. Life itself is not worth so +much as your love. But the impassable gulf is between us just the +same." + +"What is it? Who put it there?" + +"God put it there. Mrs. Simm showed it to me." + +"Mrs. Simm be--! A prating gossip! Ivy, I told you, you were never to +mention that again,--never to think of it; and you must obey me." + +"I will try to obey you in that." + +"And very soon you shall promise to obey me in all things. But I will +not be hard with you. The yoke shall rest very lightly,--so lightly you +shall not feel it. You will not do as much, I dare say. You will make +me acknowledge your power every day, dear little vixen! Ivy, why do you +draw back? Why do you not come to me?" + +"I cannot come to you, Mr. Clerron, any more. I must go home now, and +stay at home." + +"When your home is here, Ivy, stay at home. For the present, don't go. +Wait a little." + +"You do not understand me. You will not understand me," said Ivy, +bursting into tears. "I _must_ leave you. Don't make the way so +difficult." + +"I will make it so difficult that you cannot walk in it." + +His tones were low, but determined. + +"Why do you wish to leave me? Have you not said that you loved me?" + +"It is because I love you that I go. I am not fit for you. I was not +made for you. I can never make you happy. I am not accomplished. I +cannot go among your friends, your sisters. I am awkward. You would be +ashamed of me, and then you would not love me; you could not; and I +should lose the thing I most value. No, Mr. Clerron,--I would rather +keep your love in my own heart and my own home." + +"Ivy, can you be happy without me?" + +"I shall not be without you. My heart is full of lifelong joyful +memories. You need not regret me. Yes, I shall be happy. I shall work +with mind and hands. I shall not pine away in a mean and feeble life. I +shall be strong, and cheerful, and active, and helpful; and I think I +shall not cease to love you in heaven." + +"But there is, maybe, a long road for us to travel before we reach +heaven, and I want you to help me along. Ivy, I am not so spiritual as +you. I cannot live on memory. I want you before me all the time. I want +to see you and talk with you every day. Why do you speak of such +things? Is it the soul or its surroundings that you value? Do _you_ +respect or care for wealth and station? Do _you_ consider a woman your +superior because she wears a finer dress than you?" + +"I? No, Sir! No, indeed! you very well know. But the world does, and +you move in the world; and I do not want the world to pity you because +you have an uncouth, ignorant wife. _I_ don't want to be despised by +those who are above me only in station." + +"Little aristocrat, you are prouder than I. Will you sacrifice your +happiness and mine to your pride?" + +"Proud perhaps I am, but it is not all pride. I think you are noble, +but I think also you could not help losing patience when you found that +I could not accommodate myself to the station to which you had raised +me. Then you would not respect me. I am, indeed, too proud to wish to +lose that; and losing your respect, as I said before, I should not long +keep your love." + +"But you will accommodate yourself to any station. My dear, you are +young, and know so little about this world, which is such a bugbear to +you. Why, there is very little that will be greatly unlike this. At +first you might be a little bewildered, but I shall be by you all the +time, and you shall feel and fear nothing, and gradually you will learn +what little you need to know; and most of all, you will know yourself +the best and the loveliest of women. Dear Ivy, I would not part with +your sweet, unconscious simplicity for all the accomplishments and +acquired elegancies of the finest lady in the world." (That's what men +always say.) "You are not ignorant of anything you ought to know, and +your ignorance of the world is an additional charm to one who knows so +much of its wickedness as I. But we will not talk of it. There is no +need. This shall be our home, and here the world will not trouble us." + +"And I cannot give up my dear father and mother. They are not like you +and your friends"-- + +"They are my friends, and valued and dear to me, and dearer still they +shall be as the parents of my dear little wife"-- + +"I was going to say"-- + +"But you shall not say it. I utterly forbid you ever to mention it +again. You are mine, all my own. Your friends are my friends, your +honor my honor, your happiness my happiness henceforth; and what God +joins together let not man or woman put asunder." + +"Ah!" whispered Ivy, faintly; for she was yielding, and just beginning +to receive the sense of great and unexpected bliss, "but if you should +be wrong,--if you should ever repent of this, it is not your happiness +alone, but mine, too, that will be destroyed." + +Again their relative positions changed, and _remained so_ for a long +while. + +"Ivy, am I a mere schoolboy to swear eternal fidelity for a week? Have +I not been tossing hither and thither on the world's tide ever since +you lay in your cradle, and do I not know my position and my power and +my habits and love? And knowing all this, do I not know that this dear +head"----etc., etc., etc., etc. + +But I said I was not going to marry my man and woman, did I not? Nor +have I. To be sure, you may have detected premonitory symptoms, but I +said nothing about that. I only promised not to marry them, and I have +not married them. + +It is to be hoped they were married, however. For, on a fine June +evening, the setting sun cast a mellow light through the silken +curtains of a pleasant chamber, where Ivy lay on a white couch, pale +and and still,--very pale and still and statuelike; and by her side, +bending over her, with looks of unutterable love, clasping her in his +arms, as if to give out of his own heart the life that had so nearly +ebbed from hers, pressing upon the closed eyes, the white cheeks, the +silent lips kisses of such warmth and tenderness as never thrilled +maidenly lips in their rosiest flush of beauty,--knelt Felix Clerron; +and when the tremulous life fluttered back again, when the blue eyes +slowly opened and smiled up into his with an answering love, his +happiness was complete. + +In a huge arm-chair, bolt upright, where they had placed him, sat +Farmer Geer, holding in his sadly awkward hands the unconscious cause +of all this agitation, namely, a poor, little, horrid, gasping, crying, +writhing, old-faced, distressed-looking, red, wrinkled, ridiculous +baby! between whose "screeches" Farmer Geer could be heard muttering, +in a dazed, bewildered way,--"Ivy's baby! Oh, Lud! who'd 'a' thunk it? +No more'n yesterday she was a baby herself. Lud! Lud!" + + + + +THE PORTRAIT. + + +In a lumbering attic room, + Where, for want of light and air, +Years had died within the gloom, + Leaving dead dust everywhere, + Everywhere, +Hung the portrait of a lady, + With a face so fair! + +Time had long since dulled the paint, + Time, which all our arts disguise, +And the features now were faint, + All except the wondrous eyes, + Wondrous eyes, +Ever looking, looking, looking, + With such sad surprise! + +As man loveth, man had loved + Her whose features faded there; +As man mourneth, man had mourned, + Weeping, in his dark despair, + Bitter tears, +When she left him broken-hearted + To his death of years. + +Then for months the picture bent + All its eyes upon his face, +Following his where'er they went,-- + Till another filled the place + In its stead,-- +Till the features of the living + Did outface the dead. + +Then for years it hung above + In that attic dim and ghast, +Fading with the fading love, + Sad reminder of the past,-- + Save the eyes, +Ever looking, ever looking, + With such sad surprise! + +Oft the distant laughter's sound + Entered through the cobwebbed door, +And the cry of children found + Dusty echoes from the floor + To those eyes, +Ever looking, ever looking, + With their sad surprise. + +Once there moved upon the stair + Olden love-steps mounting slow, +But the face that met him there + Drove him to the depths below; + For those eyes +Through his soul seemed looking, looking, + All their sad surprise. + +From that day the door was nailed + Of that memory-haunted room, +And the portrait hung and paled + In the dead dust and the gloom,-- + Save the eyes, +Ever looking, ever looking, + With such sad surprise! + + + + +A LEAF + +FROM THE AMERICAN MAGAZINE-LITERATURE OF THE LAST CENTURY. + + +One hundred and sixteen years ago, to wit, on the 20th day of October, +A.D. 1743, the quiet precincts of certain streets in the town of Boston +were the theatre of unusual proceedings. An unwonted activity pervaded +the well-known printing-office of the "Messrs. Rogers and Fowle, in +Prison Lane," now Court Street; a small printed sheet was being worked +off,--not with the frantic rush and roar of one of Hoe's six-cylinder +giants, but with the calm circumspection befitting the lever-press and +ink-balls of that day,--to be conveyed, so soon as it should have +assumed a presentable shape, to the counters of "Samuel Eliot, in +Cornhill" and "Joshua Blanchard, in Dock Square," (and, we will hope, +to the addresses indicated on a long subscription-list,) for the +entertainment and instruction of ladies in high-heeled shoes and hoops, +forerunners of greater things thereafter, and gentlemen in big wigs, +cocked hats, and small-clothes, no more to be encountered in our daily +walks, and known to their degenerate descendants only by the aid of the +art of limner or sculptor. + +For some fifteen years, both in England and America, there had been +indications of an approaching modification in the existing forms of +periodical literature, enlarging its scope to something better and +higher than the brief and barren resume of current events to which the +Gazette or News-Letter of the day was in the main confined, and +affording an opportunity for the free discussion of literary and +artistic questions. Thus was gradually developed a class of +publications which professed, while giving a proper share of attention +to the important department of news, to occupy the field of literature +rather than of journalism, and to serve as a _Museum, Depository_, or +_Magazine_, of the polite arts and sciences. The very marked success of +the "Gentleman's Magazine," the pioneer English publication of this +class, which appeared in 1731 under the management of Cave, and reached +the then almost[1] unparalleled sale often thousand copies, produced a +host of imitators and rivals, of which the "London Magazine," commenced +in April, 1732, was perhaps the most considerable. In January, 1741, +Benjamin Franklin began the publication of "The General Magazine and +Historical Chronicle for all the British Plantations in America," but +only six numbers were issued. In the same year, Andrew Bradford +published "The American Magazine, or Monthly View of the Political +State of the British Colonies," which was soon discontinued. Both these +unsuccessful ventures were made at Philadelphia. There were similar +attempts in Boston a little later. "The Boston Weekly Magazine" made +its appearance March 2,1743, and lived just four weeks. "The Christian +History," edited by Thomas Prince, Jr., son of the author of the "New +England Chronology," appeared three days after, (March 5, 1743,) and +reached the respectable age of two years. It professed to exhibit, +among other things, "Remarkable Passages, Historical and Doctrinal, out +of the most Famous old Writers both of the Church of England and +Scotland from the Reformation; as also the first Settlers of New +England and their Children; that we may see how far their pious +Principles and Spirit are at this day revived, and may guard against +all Extremes." + +[Footnote 1: It is said that as many as twenty thousand copies of +particular numbers of the "Spectator" were sold.] + +It would appear, however, that none of the four magazines last named +were so general in their scope, or so well conducted, certainly they +were not so long-lived, as "The American Magazine and Historical +Chronicle," the first number of which, bearing date "September, 1743," +appeared, as we have said, on the 20th of the following October, under +the editorial charge, as is generally supposed, of Jeremy Gridley, +Esq., Attorney-General of the Province of Massachusetts Bay, and the +head of the Masonic Fraternity in America, though less known to us, +perhaps, in either capacity, than he is as the legal instructor of the +patriot Otis, a pupil whom it became his subsequent duty as the officer +of the crown to encounter in that brilliant and memorable argument +against the "Writs of Assistance," which the pen of the historian, and, +more recently, the chisel of the sculptor, have contributed to render +immortal. This publication, if we regard it, as we doubtless may, as +the original and prototype of the "American Magazine," would seem to +have been rightly named. It was printed on what old Dr. Isaiah Thomas +calls "a fine medium paper in 8vo," and he further assures us that "in +its execution it was deemed equal to any work of the kind then +published in London." In external appearance, it was a close copy of +the "London Magazine," from whose pages (probably to complete the +resemblance) it made constant and copious extracts, not always +rendering honor to whom honor was due, and in point of mechanical +excellence, as well as of literary merit, certainly eclipsed the +contemporary newspaper-press of the town, the "Boston Evening Post," +"Boston News Letter" and the "New England Courant." The first number +contained forty-four pages, measuring about six inches by eight. The +scope and object of the Magazine, as defined in the Preface, do not +vary essentially from the line adopted by its predecessors and +contemporaries, and seem, in the main, identical with what we have +recounted above as characteristic of this new movement in letters. The +novelty and extent of the field, and the consequent fewness and +inexperience of the laborers, are curiously shown by the miscellaneous, +_omnium-gatherum_ character of the publication, which served at once as +a Magazine, Review, Journal, Almanac, and General Repository and +Bulletin;--the table of contents of the first number exhibits a list of +subjects which would now be distributed among these various classes of +periodical literature, and perhaps again parcelled out according to the +subdivisions of each. Avowedly neutral in politics and religion, as +became an enterprise which relied upon the patronage of persons of all +creeds and parties, it recorded (usually without comment) the current +incidents of political and religious interest. A summary of news +appeared at the end of each number, under the head of "Historical +Chronicle"; but in the body of the Magazine are inserted, side by side +with what would now be termed "local items," contemporary narratives of +events, many of which have, in the lapse of more than a century, +developed into historical proportions, but which here meet us, as it +were, at first hand, clothed in such homely and impromptu dress as +circumstances might require, with all their little roughnesses, +excrescences, and absurdities upon them,--crude lumps of mingled fact +and fiction, not yet moulded and polished into the rounded periods of +the historian. + +The Magazine was established at the period of a general commotion among +the dry bones of New England Orthodoxy, caused by what is popularly +known as "the New-Light Movement," to do battle with which heresy arose +"The Christian History," above alluded to. The public mind was widely +and deeply interested, and the first number of our Magazine opens with +"A Dissertation on the State of Religion in North America," which is +followed by a fiery manifesto of the "Anniversary Week" of 1743, +entitled "The Testimony of the Pastors of the Churches in the Province +of the Massachusetts Bay in New-England at their Annual Convention in +Boston, May 25, 1743, Against several Errors in Doctrine and Disorders +in Practice, which have of late obtained in various Parts of the Land; +as drawn up by a Committee chosen by the said Pastors, read and +accepted Paragraph by Paragraph, and voted to be sign'd by the +Moderator in their Name, and Printed." These "Disorders" and "Errors" +are specified under six heads, being generalized at the outset as +"Antinomian and Familistical Errors." The number of strayed sheep must +have been considerable, since we find a Rejoinder put forth on the +seventh of the following July, which bears the signatures of +"Sixty-eight Pastors of Churches," (including fifteen who signed with a +reservation as to one Article,) styled "The Testimony and Advice of an +Assembly of Pastors of Churches in New England, at a Meeting in Boston, +July 7, 1743. Occasion'd by the late happy Revival of Religion in many +Parts of the Land." Some dozen new books, noticed in this number, are +likewise all upon theological subjects. The youthful University of Yale +took part in the conflict, testifying its zeal for the established +religion by punishing with expulsion (if we are to believe a writer in +"The New York Post-Boy" of March 17, 1745) two students, "for going +during Vacation, and while at Home with their Parents, to hear a +neighboring Minister preach who is distinguished in this Colony by the +Name of New Light, being by their said Parents perswaded, desired, or +ordered to go." The statement, however, is contradicted in a subsequent +number by the President of the College, the Rev. Thomas Clapp, D.D., +who states "that they were expelled for being Followers of the Paines, +two Lay Exhorters, whose corrupt Principles and pernicious Practices +are set forth in the Declaration of the Ministers of the County of +Windham." In all probability the outcasts had "corrupt Principles and +pernicious Practices" charged to their private account in the Faculty +books, to which, quite as much as to any departure from Orthodox +standards, they may have been indebted for leave to take up their +connections. + +The powerful Indian Confederacy, known as the Six Nations, had just +concluded at Philadelphia their famous treaty with the whites, and in +the numbers for October and November, 1743, we are furnished with some +curious notes of the proceedings at the eight or nine different +councils held on the occasion, which may or may not be historically +accurate. That the news was not hastily gathered or digested may be +safely inferred from the fact that the proceedings of the councils, +which met in July, 1742, are here given to the public at intervals of +fifteen and sixteen months afterwards. The assemblies were convened +first "at Mr. Logan's House," next "at the Meeting House," and finally +"at the Great Meeting House," where the seventh meeting took place July +10, in the presence of "a great Number of the Inhabitants of +Philadelphia." As usual, the Indians complain of their treatment at the +hands of the traders and their agents, and beg for more fire-water. "We +have been stinted in the Article of Rum in Town," they pathetically +observe,--"we desire you will open the Rum Bottle, and give it to us +in greater Abundance on the Road"; and again, "We hope, as you have +given us Plenty of good Provision whilst In Town, that you will +continue your Goodness so far as to supply us with a little more to +serve us on the Road." The first, at least, of these requests seems to +have been complied with; the Council voted them twenty gallons of +rum,--in addition to the twenty-five gallons previously bestowed,-- +"to comfort them on the Road"; and the red men departed in an amicable +mood, though, from the valedictory address made them by the Governor, +we might perhaps infer that they had found reason to contrast the +hospitality of civilization with that shown in the savage state, to the +disadvantage of the former. "We wish," he says, "there had been more +Room and better Houses provided for your Entertainment, but not +expecting so many of you we did the best we could. 'Tis true there are +a great many Houses in Town, but as they are the Property of other +People who have their own Families to take care of, it is difficult to +procure Lodgings for a large Number of People, especially if they come +unexpectedly." + +But the great item of domestic intelligence, which confronts us under +various forms in the pages of this Magazine, is the siege and capture +of Louisburg, and the reduction of Cape Breton to the obedience of the +British crown,--an acquisition for which his Majesty was so largely +indebted to the military skill of Sir William Pepperell, and the +courage of the New England troops, that we should naturally expect to +find the exploit narrated at length in a contemporary Boston magazine. +The first of the long series is an extract from the "Boston Evening +Post" of May 13, 1745, entitled, "A short Account of Cape Breton"; +which is followed by "A further Account of the Island of Cape Breton, +of the Advantages derived to France from the Possession of that +Country, and of the Fishery upon its Coasts; and the Benefit that must +necessarily result to Great Britain from the Recovery of that important +Place,"--from the "London Courant" of July 25. In contrast to this cool +and calculating production, we have next the achievement, as seen from +a military point of view, in a "Letter from an Officer of Note in the +Train," dated Louisburg, June 20, 1745, who breaks forth thus:--"Glory +to God, and Joy and Happiness to my Country in the Reduction of this +Place, which we are now possessed of. It's a City vastly beyond all +Expectation for Strength and beautiful Fortifications; but we have made +terrible Havock with our Guns and Bombs. ... Such a fine City will be +an everlasting Honour to my Countrymen." Farther on, we have another +example of military eloquence in a "Letter from a Superior Officer at +Louisburgh, to his Friend and Brother at Boston," dated October 22, +1745. To this succeeds "A particular Account of the Siege and Surrender +of Louisburgh, on the 17th of June, 1745." The resources of the +pictorial art are called in to assist the popular conception of the +great event, and we are treated on page 271 to a rude wood-cut, +representing the "Town and Harbour of Louisburgh," accompanied by +"Certain Particulars of the Blockade and Distress of the Enemy." Still +farther on appears "The Declaration of His Excellency, William Shirley, +Esq., Captain General and Governour in Chief of the Province of the +Massachusetts Bay, to the Garrison at Louisburgh." July 18, 1745, was +observed as "a Day of publick Thanksgiving, agreeably to His +Excellency's Proclamation of the 8th inst., on Account of the wonderful +Series of Successes attending our Forces in the Reduction of the City +and Fortress of Louisburgh with the Dependencies thereof at Cape Breton +to the Obedience of His Majesty." There are also accounts of rejoicings +at Newport, New Haven, New York, Philadelphia, and other places. Nor +was the Muse silent on such an auspicious occasion: four adventurous +flights in successive numbers of the Magazine attest the loyalty, if +not the poetic genius of Colonial bards; and a sort of running fire of +description, narrative, and anecdote concerning the important event is +kept up in the numbers for many succeeding months. + +But, whatever may have been the magnitude and interest of domestic +affairs, the enterprising vigilance of our journalists was far from +overlooking prominent occurrences on the other side of the water, and +the news by all the recent arrivals, dating from three to six months +later from Europe, was carefully, if at times somewhat briefly, +recapitulated. In this manner our ancestors heard of the brilliant +campaigns of Prince George, the Duke of Cumberland, and Marshal de +Noailles, during the War of the Austrian Succession,--of the battle of +Dettingen in June, 1743,--of the declaration of war between the kings +of France and England in March, 1744; and, above all, of the great +Scotch Rebellion of 1745. Here was stirring news, indeed, for the +citizens of Boston, and for all British subjects, wherever they might +be. The suspense in which loyal New England was plunged, as to whether +"great George our King and the Protestant succession" were to succumb +before the Pretender and his Jesuitical followers, was happily +terminated by intelligence of the decisive battle of Culloden, the +tidings of which victory, gained on the 16th of April, 1746, appear in +the number for July. Public joy and curiosity demanded full particulars +of the glorious news, and a copy of the official narrative of the +battle, dated "Inverness, April 18th," is served out to the hungry +quidnuncs of Boston, in the columns of our Magazine, as had been done +three months before to consumers equally rapacious in the London +coffeehouses. With commendable humanity, the loss of the insurgent army +is put at "two thousand,"--although "the Rebels by their own Accounts +make the Loss greater by 2000 than we have stated it." In the fatal +list appears the name of "Cameron of Lochiel," destined, through the +favor of the Muse, to an immortality which is denied to equally +intrepid and unfortunate compatriots. The terms of the surrender upon +parole of certain French and Scotch officers at Inverness,--the return +of the ordnance and stores captured,--names of the killed and wounded +officers of the rebel army,--various congratulatory addresses,--an +extract from a letter from Edinburgh, concerning the battle,--an +account of the subsequent movement of the forces,--various anecdotes of +the Duke of Cumberland, during the engagement,--etc., are given with +much parade and circumstance. The loyalty of the citizens is evidenced +by the following "local item," under date of "Boston, Thursday, +3d":--"Upon the Confirmation of the joyful News of the Defeat of the +Rebels in Scotland, and of the Life and Health of His Royal Highness +the Duke of Cumberland, on Wednesday, the 2d inst., at Noon, the Guns +at Castle William and the Batteries of the Town were fired, as were +those on Board the Massachusetts Frigate, etc., and in the Evening we +had Illuminations and other Tokens of Joy and Satisfaction." There are +also curious biographical sketches and anecdotes of the Earl of +Kilmarnock, Lord Balmerino, and others, among those engaged in this +ill-judged attempt, who expiated their treason on the scaffold, from +which interesting extracts might be made. The following seems a very +original device for the recovery of freedom,--one, we think, which, to +most readers of the present day even, will truly appear a "new" and +"extraordinary Invention":-- + +"Carlisle, Sept. 27, 1746. + +"The Method taken by the Rebels here under Sentence of Death to make +their Escape is quite new, and reckoned a most extraordinary Invention, +as by no other Instrument than a Case-Knife, a Drinking-Glass and a +Silk Handkerchief, seven of them in one Night had sawn off their Irons, +thus:--They laid the Silk Handkerchief single, over the Mouth of the +Glass, but stretched it as much as it would bear, and tied it hard at +the Bottom of the Glass; then they struck the Edge of the Knife on the +Mouth of the Glass, (thus covered with the Handkerchief to prevent +Noise,) till it became a Saw, with which they cut their Irons till it +was Blunt, and then had Recourse to the Mouth of the Glass again to +renew the Teeth of the Saw; and so completed their Design by Degrees. +This being done in the Dead of Night, and many of them at Work +together, the little Noise they made was overheard by the Centinels; +who informed their Officers of it, they quietly doubled their Guard, +and gave the Rebels no Disturbance till Morning, when it was discovered +that several of them were loose, and that others had been trying the +same Trick. 'Tis remarkable that a Knife will not cut a Handkerchief +when struck upon it in this Manner." + +About one-eighth part of the first volume of the Magazine is occupied +with reports of Parliamentary debates, entitled, "Journal of the +Proceedings and Debates of a Political Club of young Noblemen and +Gentlemen established some time ago in London." They seem to be copied, +with little, if any alteration, from the columns of the "London +Magazine," and are introduced to an American public with this mildly +ironical preface:--"We shall give our Readers in our next a List of the +British Parliament. And as it is now render'd unsafe to entertain the +Publick with any Accounts of their Proceedings or Debates, we shall +give them in their Stead, in some of our subsequent Magazines, Extracts +from the Journals of a Learned and Political Club of young Noblemen and +Gentlemen established some time ago in London. Which will in every +Respect answer the same Intentions." + +The scientific world was all astir just then with new-found marvels of +Electricity,--an interest which was of course much augmented in this +country by the ingenious experiments and speculations of the +printer-philosopher. In the volume for the year 1745 is "An Historical +Account of the wonderful Discoveries made in Germany, etc., concerning +Electricity," in the course of which the writer says, (speaking of the +experiments of a Mr. Gray,) "He also discovered another surprising +Property of electric Virtue, which is that the approach of a Tube of +electrified Glass communicates to a hempen or silken Cord an electric +Force which is conveyed along the Cord to the Length of 886 feet, at +which amazing Distance it will impregnate a Ball of Ivory with the same +Virtue as the Tube from which it was derived." So true is it, that +things are great and small solely by comparison: the lapse of something +over a century has gradually stretched this "amazing distance" to many +hundreds of miles, and now the circumference of the globe is the only +limit which we feel willing to set to its extension. + +At page 691 of the previous volume we have an "Extract from a Pamphlet +lately published at Philadelphia intitled 'An Account of the New +Invented Pennsylvanian Fire Places.'" This was probably from the pen of +Franklin, who expatiates as follows on the advantages derivable from +these fireplaces, which are still occasionally to be met with, and +known as "Franklin Stoves":--"By the Help of this saving Invention our +Wood may grow as fast as we consume it, and our Posterity may warm +themselves at a moderate Rate, without being oblig'd to fetch their +Fuel over the Atlantick; as, if Pit-Coal should not be here discovered, +(which is an Uncertainty,) they must necessarily do." + +That a taste for the beauties of Nature was extant at the epoch of +which we treat may be inferred from the statement of a writer who +commences "An Essay in Praise of the Morning" as follows:--"I have the +good Fortune to be so pleasantly lodg'd as to have a Prospect of a +neighboring Grove, where the Eye receives the most delicious +Refreshment from the lively Verdure of the Greens, and the wild +Regularity by which the Scene shifts off and disparts itself into a +beautiful Chequer." + +The ever interesting and disputed topics of dress and diet come in for +an occasional discussion. The following is a characteristic specimen of +the satirical vein of the British essayist school, though we have been +unable to ascertain, by reference to the "Spectator," "Tatler," +"Rambler," "Guardian," etc., the immediate source whence it was taken. +It reads as follows:--"_History of Female Dress_. The sprightly Gauls +set their little Wits to work again," (on resuming the war under Queen +Anne,) "and invented a wonderful Machine call'd a Hoop Petticoat. In +this fine Scheme they had more Views than one; they had compar'd their +own Climate and Constitution with that of the British, and finding both +warmer, they naturally enough concluded that would only be pleasantly +cool to them, which would perhaps give the British Ladies the +Rheumatism, and that if they once got them off their Legs they should +have them at Advantage; Besides, they had been inform'd, though +falsely, that the British Ladies had not good Legs, and then at all +Events this Scheme would expose them. With these pernicious Views they +set themselves to work, and form'd a Rotund of near 7 Yards about, and +sent the Pattern over by the Sussex Smugglers with an Intent that it +should be seiz'd and expos'd to Publick View; which happen'd +accordingly, and made its first Appearance at a Great Man's House on +that Coast, whose Lady claim'd it as her peculiar Property. In it she +first struck at Court what the learned in Dress call a bold Stroke; and +was thereupon constituted General of the British Ladies during the War. +Upon the Whole this Invention did not answer. The Ladies suffer'd a +little the first Winter, but after that were so thoroughly harden'd +that they improv'd upon the Contrivers by adding near 2 Yards to its +Extension, and the Duke of Marlboro' having about the same Time beat +the French, the Gallic Ladies dropt their Pretensions, and left the +British Misstresses of the Field; the Tokens whereof are worn in +Triumph to this Day, having outlasted the Colors in Westminster Hall, +and almost that great General's Glory." + +To a similar source must probably be referred an article in the same +volume, entitled, "Of Diet in General, and of the bad Effects of +Tea-Drinking." The genuine conservative flavor of the extract is +deliciously apparent, while its wholesale denunciations are drawn but +little, if at all, stronger than those which may even yet be +occasionally met with. "If we compare the Nature of Tea with the Nature +of English Diet, no one can think it a proper Vegetable for us. It has +no Parts fit to be assimilated to our Bodies; its essential Salt does +not hold Moisture enough to be joined to the Body of an Animal; its Oyl +is but very little, and that of the opiate kind, and therefore it is so +far from being nutritive, that it irritates and frets the Nerves and +Fibres, exciting the expulsive Faculty, so that the Body may be +lessened and weakened, but it cannot increase and be strengthened by +it. We see this by common Experience; the first Time persons drink it, +if they are full grown, it generally gives them a Pain at the Stomach, +Dejection of Spirits, Cold Sweats, Palpitation at the Heart, Trembling, +Fearfulness; taking away the Sense of Fulness though presently after +Meals, and causing a hypochondriac, gnawing Appetite. These symptoms +are very little inferiour to what the most poisonous Vegetables we have +in England would occasion when dried and used in the same manner. + +"These ill Effects of Tea are not all the Mischiefs it occasions. Did +it cause none of them, but were it entirely wholesome, as Balm or Mint, +it were yet Mischief enough to have our whole Populace used to sip warm +Water in a mincing, effeminate Manner, once or twice every Day; which +hot Water must be supped out of a nice Tea-Cup, sweatened with Sugar, +biting a Bit of nice thin Bread and Butter between Whiles. This mocks +the strong Appetite, relaxes the Stomach, satiates it with trifling +light Nick-Nacks which have little in them to support hard Labour. In +this manner the Bold and Brave become dastardly, the Strong become +weak, the Women become barren, or if they breed their Blood is made so +poor that they have not Strength to suckle, and if they do the Child +dies of the Gripes; In short, it gives an effeminate, weakly Turn to +the People in general." + +Another humorous philosopher, who is benevolently anxious that his +fellow-creatures may not be taken in by the rustic meteorologists, +satirically furnishes a number of infallible tests to determine the +approach of a severe season. He entitles his contribution to +meteorological science,--"_Jonathan Weatherwise's Prognostications._ +As it is not likely that I have a long Time to act on the Stage of this +Life, for what with Head-Aches, hard Labour, Storms and broken +Spectacles I feel my Blood chilling, and Time, that greedy Tyrant, +devouring my whole Constitution," etc.,--an exordium which is certainly +well adapted to excite our sympathy for Jonathan, even if it fail to +inspire confidence in his "Prognostications," and leave us a little in +the dark as to the necessary connection between "broken spectacles" and +the "chilling of the blood." The criteria he gives us are truly +Ingenious and surprising; but though the greater part would prove +novel, we believe, to the present generation, we can here quote but +one. He tells us, that, when a boy, he "swore revenge on the Grey +Squirrel," in consequence of a petted animal of this species having +"bitten off the tip of his grandmother's finger,"--a resolution which +proved, as we shall see, unfortunate for the squirrels, but of immense +advantage to science. To gratify this dire animosity, and in fulfilment +of his vow, he persevered for nearly half a century in the perilous and +exciting sport of squirrel-hunting, departing "every Year, for +forty-nine successive Years, on the 22d of October, excepting when that +Day fell on a Sunday," in which case he started on the Monday +following, to take vengeance for the outrage committed on his aged +relative. Calm philosophy, however, enabled him, "in the very storm, +tempest, and, as I may say, whirlwind of his passion," to observe and +record the following remarkable fact in Zoology: "When shot from a high +Limb they would put their Tails in their Mouths as they were tumbling, +and die in that Manner; I did not know what to make of it, 'till, in +Process of Time, I found that when they did so a hard Winter always +succeeded, and this may be depended on as infallible." + +The author of "An Essay on Puffing" (a topic which we should hardly +have thought to have found under discussion at a period so much nearer +the golden age than the present) remarks,--"Dubious and uncertain is +the Source or Spring of Puffing in this Infant Country, it not being +agreed upon whether Puffs were imported by the primitive Settlers of +the Wilderness, (for the Puff is not enumerated in the aboriginal +Catalogue,) or whether their Growth was spontaneous or accidental. +However uncertain we are about the Introduction or first Cultivation of +Puffs, it is easy to discover the Effects or Consequences of their +Improvement in all Professions, Perswasions and Occupations." + +Under the head which has assumed, in modern journalism, an extent and +importance second only to the Puff, to wit, the "Horrible Accident +Department," we find but a single item, but that one of a nature so +unique and startling that it seems to deserve transcribing. "February 7 +[1744]. We hear from Statten Island that a Man who had been married +about 5 months, having a Design to get rid of his Wife, got some +poisoned Herbs with which he advised her to stuff a Leg of Veal, and +when it was done found an Excuse to be absent himself; but his Wife +having eat of it found herself ill, and he coming Home soon after +desired her to fry him some Sausages which she did, and having +eat of them also found himself ill; upon which he asked his +Wife what she fried them in, who answered, in the Sauce of the +Veal; then, said he, I am a dead man: So they continued sick for some +Days and then died, but he died the first." We hardly know which most +to admire, the graphic and terrible simplicity of this narrative of +villany, or the ignorance which it discovers of the modern art of +penny-a-lining, an expert practitioner of which would have spread the +shocking occurrence over as many columns as this bungling report +comprises sentences. + +The poetical contents of our Magazine consist mainly, as we have said, +of excerpts from the popular productions of English authors, as they +were found in the magazines of the mother country or in their published +works, the diluted stanzas of their imitators, satirical verses, +epigrams, and translations from the Latin poets. There are, however, +occasional strains from the native Muse, and here and there a waif from +sources now, perhaps, lost or forgotten. Before "he threw his Virgil by +to wander with his dearer bow," Mr. Freneau's Indian seems to have +determined to leave on record a proof of his classical attainments, for +he is doubtless the author of "A Latin Ode written by an American +Indian, a Junior Sophister at Cambridge, anno 1678, on the death of the +Reverend and Learned Mr. Thacher,"--a translation of which is given at +page 166, prefaced thus:--"As the Original of the following Piece is +very curious, the publishing this may perhaps help you to some better +Translation. Attempted from the Latin of an American Indian." The +probability that any reader of the present paper would be disposed to +help us to this "better Translation" seems too remote to warrant us in +giving the Ode _in extenso_; nor do we think any would thank us for +transcribing a cloudy effusion, a little farther on, entitled, "On the +Notion of an abstract antecedent Fitness of Things." The following +estrays are perhaps worth the capture; they profess to date back to the +reign of Queen Mary, and are styled, "Some Forms of Prayer used by the +vulgar Papists." + + +THE LITTLE CREED. + +Little Creed can I need, +Kneel before our Lady's Knee, + Candle light, Candle burn, + Our Lady pray'd to her dear Son + That we might all to Heaven come; +Little Creed, Amen! + + +THE WHITE PATER NOSTER. + +White Pater Noster, St. Peter's Brother, + What hast thou in one hand? White-Book Leaves. + What hast i'th' to'ther? Heaven Gate Keys. +Open Heaven Gates, and steike (shut) Hell Gates, + And let every crysom Child creep to its own mother: + White Pater Noster, Amen! + +We do not think that the poets of the anti-shaving movement have as yet +succeeded in producing anything worthy to be set off against a series +of spirited stanzas under the heading of "The Razor, a Poem," which we +commend to the immediate and careful attention of the "Razor-strop +Man." The following are the concluding verses:-- + + "But, above all, thou grand Catholicon, + Or by what useful Name so'er thou'rt call'd, + Thou Sweet Composer of the tortur'd Mind! + When all the Wheels of Life are heavy clogg'd + With Cares or Pain, and nought but Horror dire + Before us stalks with dreadful Majesty, + Embittering all the Pleasures we enjoy; + To thee, distressed, we call; thy gentle Touch + Consigns to balmy Sleep our troubled Breasts." + +Evidently the production of a philosopher and an economist of time: for +who else would have thought of shaving before going to bed, instead of +at the matutinal toilet? + +In less than five years from the date of its first number, (1743,) "The +American Magazine and Historical Chronicle" had ceased to exist, and in +the year 1757 appeared "The American Magazine and Monthly Chronicle for +the British Colonies." This was published by Mr. William Bradford in +Philadelphia, under the auspices of "a Society of Gentlemen," who +declare themselves to be "_veritatis cultores, fraudis inimici_," but +who probably found themselves unequal to the difficulties of such a +position, the Magazine having expired just one year after its birth. It +was followed by "The New England Magazine," (1758,) "The American +Magazine," (1769,) "The Royal American Magazine," (1774,) "The +Pennsylvania Magazine, or American Monthly Museum," (1775,) "The +Columbian Magazine," (1786,) "The Worcester Magazine," (the same year,) +"The American Museum," (1787,) "The Massachusetts Magazine," (1789,) +"The New-York Magazine," (1790,) "The Rural Magazine & Vermont +Repository," (1796,) "The Missionary Magazine," (same year,)--and +others. The premature mortality characteristic of some of our own +magazine-literature was, even at this early period, painfully apparent: +none of the publications we have named survived their twelfth year, +most of them lived less than half that period. A great diversity in the +style and quality of their contents, as well as in external appearance, +is, of course, observable, and it somewhat requires the eye of faith to +see within their rusty and faded covers the germ of that gigantic +literary plant which, in this year of Grace, 1860, counts in the city +of Boston alone nearly one hundred and fifty periodical publications, +(about one-third being legitimate magazines,) perhaps as many more in +the other New England cities and towns, and a progeny of unknown, but +very considerable extent, throughout the Union. + +Apart even from their value to the historiographer and the antiquary, +few relics of the past are more suggestive or interesting than the old +magazine or newspaper. The houses, furniture, plate, clothing, and +decorations of the generations which have preceded us possess their +intrinsic value, and serve also to link by a thousand associations the +mysterious past with the actual and living present; but the old +periodical brings back to us, beside all this, the bodily presence, the +words, the actions, and even the very thoughts of the people of a +former age. It is, in mercantile phrase, a book of original entry, +showing us the transactions of the time in the light in which they were +regarded by the parties engaged in them, and reflecting the state of +public sentiment on innumerable topics,--moral, religious, political, +philosophic, military, and scientific. Its mistakes of fact or +induction are honest and palpable ones, easily corrected by +contemporaneous data or subsequent discoveries, and not often posted +into the ledger of history without detection. The learned and patient +labors of the savant or the scholar are not expected of the pamphleteer +or the periodical writer of the last century, or of the present; he +does but blaze the pathway of the pains-taking engineer who is to +follow him, happy enough, if he succeed in satisfying immediate and +daily demands, and in capturing the kind of game spoken of by Mr. Pope +in that part of his manual where he instructs us to + + "shoot folly as it flies, +And catch the manners living as they rise." + +Among us, however, the magazine-writer, as he existed in the last +century, has left few, if any, representatives. He is fading +silently away into a forgotten antiquity; his works are not +on the publishers' counters,--they linger only among the dust and +cobwebs of old libraries, listlessly thumbed by the exploring reader or +occasionally consulted by the curious antiquary. His place is occupied +by those who, in the multiplication of books, the diffusion of +information, and the general alteration of public taste, manners, and +habits, though revolving in a similar orbit, move in quite another +plane,--who have found in the pages of the periodical a theatre of +special activity, a way to the entertainment and instruction of the +many; and though much of what is thus produced may bear, as we have +hinted, a character more or less ephemeral, we are sometimes presented +also with the earlier blossoms and the fresher odors of a rich and +perennial growth of genius, everywhere known and acknowledged in the +realms of belles-lettres, philosophy, and science, crowded here as in a +nursery, to be soon transplanted to other and more permanent abodes. + + + + +COME SI CHIAMA? + +OR A LEAF FROM THE CENSUS OF 1850. + + +The first question asked of a "new boy" at school is, "What's your +name?" In this year of Grace the eighth decennial census is to be +taken, asking that same question of all new comers into the great +public school where towns and cities are educated. It will hardly be +effected with that marvellous perfection of organization by which Great +Britain was made to stand still for a moment and be statistically +photographed. For with consummate skill was planned that all-embracing +machinery, so that at one and the same moment all over the United +Kingdom the recording pen was catching every man's status and setting +it down. The tramp on the dusty highway, the clerk in the +counting-house, the sportsman upon the moor, the preacher in his +pulpit, game-bird and barn-door fowl alike, all were simultaneously +bagged. Unless, like the Irishman's swallow, you could be in two places +at once, down you went on the recording-tablets. Christopher Sly, from +the ale-house door, if caught while the Merry Duke had possession of +him, must be chronicled for a peer of the realm; Bully Bottom, if the +period of his translations fell in with the census-taking, must be +numbered among the cadgers' "mokes"; nay, if Dogberry himself had +encountered the officials at the moment of his pathetic lamentation, he +were irrevocably written down "an ass." + +We can hardly hope for such celerity and sure handling upon this side +of the water. Nor is this the subject we have just now in view. The +approaching advent of the census-taker has led us to look back at the +labor of his predecessor, and the careless turning over of its pages +has set us to musing upon NAMES. + +William Shakspeare asks, "What's in a name?" England's other great +poetical William has devoted a series of his versifyings to the naming +of places. Which has the right of it, let us not undertake to pronounce +without consideration. England herself has long ago determined the +question. As Mr. Emerson says of English names,--"They are an +atmosphere of legendary melody spread over the land; older than all +epics and histories which clothe a nation, this undershirt sits close +to the body." Dean Trench, who handles words as a numismatist his +coins, has said substantially the same thing. And it is true not of +England only; for the various lands of Europe are written over like +palimpsests with the story of successive conquests and dominations +chronicled in their local names. You stop and ask why a place is so +called,--sure to be rewarded by a legend lurking beneath the title. +Like the old crests of heraldry, with their "canting" mottoes beneath, +they are history in little, a war or a revolution distilled into the +powerful attar of a single phrase. The Rhineland towers of Falkenstein +and Stolzenfels are the local counterparts of the Scotch borderers' +"Thou shalt want ere I want," for ominous meaning. + +The volume we have just laid down painfully reminds us that the poet +and the historian have no such heritage in this land. We have done our +best to crowd out all the beautiful significant names we found here, +and to replace them by meaningless appellations. For the name of a +thing is that which really has in it something of that to which it +belongs, which describes and classifies it, and is its spoken +representative; while the appellation is only a title conferred by act +of Parliament or her Majesty's good pleasure: it cannot make a parvenu +into a peer. + +But we are not writing for the mere interest of the poet and the +novelist. Fit names are not given, but grow; and we believe there is +not a spot in the land, possessing any attractiveness, but has its name +ready fitted to it, waiting unsyllabled in the air above it for the +right sponsor to speak it into life. We plead for public convenience +simply. We are thinking not of the ears of taste, but of the brain of +business. We do not wonder at the monstrous accumulations of the +Dead-Letter Office, when we see the actual poverty which our system of +naming places has brought about. Pardon us a few statistics, and, as +you read them, remember, dear reader, that this is the story of ten +years ago, and that the enormous growths of the last decade have +probably increased the evil prodigiously. + +The volume in question gives a list of a trifle under ten thousand +places,--to be accurate, of nine thousand eight hundred and twenty odd. +For these nine thousand cities, towns, and villages have been provided +but _three_ thousand eight hundred and twenty names. All the rest have +been baptized according to the results of a promiscuous scramble. Some, +indeed, make a faint show of variety, by additions of such adjectives +as New, North, South, East, West, or Middle. If we reduce the list of +original names by striking out these and all the compounds of "ville," +"town," and the like, we get about three thousand really distinctive +names for American towns. Three hundred and thirty odd we found here +when we came,--being Indian or _Native_ American. Three hundred and +thirty more we imported from the United Kingdom of Great Britain and +Ireland. A dozen were added to them from the pure well of Welsh +undefiled, and mark the districts settled by Cambro-Britons. Out of our +Bibles we got thirty-three Hebrew appellations, nearly all ludicrously +inappropriate; and these we have been very fond of repeating. In +California, New Mexico, Texas, Florida, and the Louisiana purchase, we +bought our names along with the land. Fine old French and Spanish ones +they are; some thirty of them names of Saints, all well-sounding and +pleasant to the ear. And there is a value in these names not at first +perceptible. Most of them serve to mark the day of the year upon which +the town was founded. They are commemorative dates, which one need only +look at the calendar to verify. As an instance of this, there is the +forgotten title of Lake George, Lake St. Sacrament, which, in spite of +Dr. Cleveland Coxe's very graceful ballad, we must hold to have been +conferred because the lake was discovered on Corpus-Christi Day. In the +Mississippi Valley, the great chain of French military occupation can +still be faintly traced, like the half-obliterated lines of a redoubt +which the plough and the country road have passed over. + +There remain about two thousand names, which may fairly be called of +American manufacture. We exclude, of course, those which were +transferred from England, since they were probably brought directly. +They have a certain fitness, as affectionate memorials of the Old +Country lingering in the hearts of the exiles. Thus, though St. Botolph +was of the fenny shire of Lincoln, and the new comers to the +Massachusetts Bay named their little peninsula Suffolk, the county of +the "South-folk," we do not quarrel with them for calling their future +city "Bo's or Botolph's town," out of hearts which did not wholly +forget their birthplace with its grand old church, whose noble tower +still looks for miles away over the broad levels toward the German +Ocean. Nor do we think Plymouth to be utterly meaningless, though it is +not at the mouth of the Ply, or any other river such as wanders through +the Devon Moorlands to the British Channel. + + "Et parvam Trojam, simulataque magnis + Pergama, et arentem Xanthi cognomine rivum + Agnosco: Seaeaeque amplector limina portae." + +Throughout New England, and in all the original colonies, we find this +to be the case. But, as Americans, we must reject both what our fathers +brought and what they found. Two thousand specimens of the American +talent for nomenclature, then, we can exhibit. Walk up, gentlemen! Here +you have the top-crest of the great wave of civilization. Hero is a +people, emancipated from Old-World trammels, setting the world a +lesson. What is the result? With the grand divisions of our land we +have not had much to do. Of the States, seventeen were baptized by +their Indian appellations; four were named by French and Spanish +discoverers; six were called after European sovereigns; three, which +bear the prefix of New, have the names of English counties;--there +remains Delaware, the title of an English nobleman, leaving us +Pennsylvania, Indiana, and Rhode Island, three precious bits of modern +classicality. Let us now come to the counties. Ten years ago there were +some fifteen hundred and fifty-five of these. One hundred and +seventy-three bear Indian names, and there are one or two uncertain. +For these fifteen hundred and fifty-five counties there are eight +hundred and eighty-eight names, about one to every two. Seven hundred +are, then, of Anglo-Saxon bestowing? No. Another hundred are of Spanish +and French origin. Six hundred county-names remain; fifty of which, +neat as imported, are the names of English places, and fifty more are +names bestowed in compliment to English peers. Five hundred are the +American residuum. + +We beg pardon for these dry statistical details, over which we have +spent some little time and care; but they furnish a base of operations. +Yet something more remains to be added. We have, it is true, about two +thousand names of places and five hundred of counties purely American, +or at least due to American taste. In most instances the county-names +are repeated in some of the towns within their borders. Therefore we +fall back upon our original statement, that two thousand names are the +net product of Yankee ingenuity. It is hardly necessary to assure the +most careless reader that the vast majority of these are names of +persons. And it needs no wizard to conjecture that these are bestowed +in very unequal proportions. Here the true trouble of the +Postmaster-General and his staff begins. + +The most frequent names are, of course, those of the Presidents. The +"Father of his Country" has the honor of being god-father to no small +portion of it. For there are called after him _one_ territory, +_twenty-six_ counties, and _one hundred and thirty-eight_ towns and +villages. Adams, the next, has but _six_ counties and _twenty-six_ +towns; but his son is specially honored by a village named J.Q. Adams. +Jefferson has _seventeen_ counties and _seventy-four_ towns. Madison +has _fifteen_ counties and _forty-seven_ towns. Monroe has _sixteen_ +counties and _fifty-seven_ towns, showing that the "era of good +feeling" was extending in his day. The second Adams has one town to +himself; but the son of his father could expect no more. Jackson has +_fifteen_ counties and _one hundred and twenty-three_ towns, beside +_six_ "boroughs" and "villes,"--showing what it was to have won the +Battle of New Orleans. Van Euren gets _four_ counties and +_twenty-eight_ towns. Harrison _seven_ counties and _fifty-seven_ +towns, as becomes a log-cabin and hard-cider President. Tyler has but +_three_ counties, and not a single town, village, or hamlet even. Polk +has _five_ counties and _thirteen towns_. Taylor, _three_ counties and +_twelve_ towns. The remaining Presidents being yet in life and eligible +to a second term, it would be invidious to make further disclosures +till after the conventions. Among unsuccessful candidates there is a +vast difference in popularity. Clay has _thirty-two_ towns, and Webster +only _four_. Cass has _fourteen_, and Calhoun only _one_. Of +Revolutionary heroes, Wayne and Warren are the favorites, having +respectively _thirteen_ and _fourteen_ counties and _fifty-three_ and +_twenty-eight_ towns. But "Principles, not Men," has been at times the +American watchword; therefore there are _ten_ counties and _one hundred +and three_ towns named "Union." + +We have given the reader a dose, we fear, of statistics; but imagine +yourself, dear, patient friend, what you may yet be, Postmaster-General +of these United States, with the responsibility of providing for all +these bewildering post-offices. And we pray you to heed the absolute +poverty of invention which compelled forty-nine towns to call +themselves "Centre." Forty-nine Centres! There are towns named after +the points of compass simply,--not only the cardinal points, but the +others,--so that the census-taker may, if he likes, "box the compass," +in addition to his other duties. + +But worse than the too common names (anything but proper ones) are the +eccentric. The colors are well represented; for, beside Oil and Paint +for materials, there are Brown, Black, Blue, Green, White, Cherry, +Gray, Hazel, Plum, Rose, and Vermilion. The animals come in for their +share; for we find Alligator, Bald-Eagle, Beaver, Buck, Buffalo, Eagle, +Eel, Elk, Fawn, East-Deer and West-Deer, Bird, Fox, (in Elk County,) +Pigeon, Plover, Raccoon, Seal, Swan, Turbot, Wild-Cat, and Wolf. Then +again, the christening seems to have been preceded by the shaking in a +hat of a handful of vowels and consonants, the horrible results of +which _sortes_ appear as Alna, Cessna, Chazy, Clamo, Novi, (we suspect +the last two to be Latin verbs, out of place, and doing duty as +substantives,) Cumru, Freco, Fristo, Josco, Hamtramck, Medybemps, Haw, +Kan, Paw-Paw, Pee-Pee, Kinzua, Bono, Busti, Lagro, Letart, Lodomillo, +Moluncus, Mullica, Lomira, Neave, Oley, Orland, and the felicitous +ringing of changes which occurs in Luray, Leroy, and Leray, to say +nothing of Ballum, Bango, Helts, and Hellam. And in other unhappy +places, the spirit of whim seems to have seized upon the inhabitants. +Who would wish to write themselves citizens of Murder-Kill-Hundred, or +Cain, or of the town of Lack, which places must be on the high road to +Fugit and Constable? There are several anti-Maine-law places, such as +Tom and Jerry, Whiskeyrun, Brandywine, Jolly, Lemon, Pipe, and Pitcher, +in which Father Matthew himself could hardly reside unimpeached in +repute. They read like the names in the old-fashioned "Temperance +Tales," all allegory and alcohol, which flourished in our boyhood. + +Then, by way of counterpart to these, there are sixty-four places known +as Liberty, and thirteen as Freedom, but only one as Moral,--passing by +which, we suppose we shall come to Climax, and, thence descending, +arrive, as the whirligig of time appointeth, at Smackover, unless we +pause in Economy, or Equality, or Candor, or Fairplay. + +If we were land-hunters, we might ponder long over the town of Gratis, +unless we thought Bonus promised more. There is Extra, and, if +tautologically fond of grandeur, _Metropolis City_,--a mighty Babel of +(in 1850) _four hundred and twenty-seven_ inhabitants,--and Bigger, +which has _seven hundred_. A brisk man would hardly choose Nodaway for +his home, nor a haymaker the town of Rain. And of all practical +impertinences, what could in this land of novelty equal the calling of +one's abiding-place "New"? We fully expect that 1860 will reveal a +comparative and superlative, and perhaps even a super-superlative, +("Newest-of-all,") upon its columns. + +But what is the sense of such titles as Buckskin, Bullskin, (is it +Byrsa, by way of proving Solomon's adage,--"There is nothing new under +the sun"?) Chest, and Posey? There is one unfortunate place (do they +take the New York "Herald" and "Ledger" there?) which has "gone and got +itself christened" Mary Ann, and another (where "Childe Harold" is +doubtless in favor) is called Ada. There is a Crockery, a Carryall, and +a Turkey-Foot,--which last, like the broomstick in Goethe's ballad, is +chopped in two, only to reappear as a double nuisance, as Upper and +Lower Turkey-Foot. + +Then what paucity of ideas is revealed in the fact that a number of +names are simply common nouns, or, worse yet, spinster adjectives, +"singly blest"! Such are Hill, Mountain, Lake, Glade, Rock, Glen, Bay, +Shade, Valley, Village, District, Falls, which might profitably be +joined in holy matrimony with the following,--Grand, Noble, Plain, +Pleasant, Rich, Muddy, Barren, Fine, and Flat. + +As for one or two other unfortunates, like Bloom and Lumber, they can +only be sent to State's Prison for life, with Bean-Blossom and +Scrub-Grass. We need hardly mention that to the religious public, +including special attention to "clergymen and their families," Calvin, +Wesley, Whitefield, Tate, Brady, and Watts offer peculiar attractions. + +But there is a class of names which does gladden us, partly from their +oddity, and partly from a feeling at first sight that they are names +really suggestive of something which has happened,--and this is apt to +turn out the fact. Thus, Painted-Post, in New York, and Baton-Rouge, in +Louisiana, are honest, though quaint appellatives; Standing-Stone is +another; High-Spire, a fourth. Others of the same class provoke our +curiosity. Thus, Grand-View-and-Embarras seems to have a history. So do +Warrior's-Mark and Broken-Straw. There is one queer name, Pen-Yan, +which is said to denote the component parts of its population, +_Pen_nsylvanians and _Yan_kees; and we have hopes that Proviso is not +meaningless. Also we would give our best pen to know the true origin of +Loyal-Sock, and of Marine-Town in the inland State of Illinois. This +last is like a "shipwreck on the coast of Bohemia." There is, too, a +memorial of the Greek Revolution which tells its own story, +--Scio-and-Webster! We could hardly wish the awkward partnership +dissolved. But who will unravel the mysteries of New-Design and +New-Faul? and can any one tell us whether the fine Norman name of +Sanilac is really the euphonious substitute for Bloody-Pond? If there +be in America that excellent institution, "Notes and Queries," here is +matter for their meddling. + +But it is time to shut the book. For we are weary of picking holes in +our own _poncho_, and inclined to muse a little upon the science of +naming places. After what we have said about names growing,--_Nomen +nascitur, non fil,_--we cannot expect that the evil can be remedied by +Congress or Convention. Yet the Postal Department has fair cause of +complaint. Thus much might be required, that all the supernumerary +spots answering to the same hail should be compelled to change their +titles. Government exercises a tender supervision of the nomenclature +of our navy. Our ships of war are not permitted to disgrace the flag by +uncouth titles. Enterprising merchants have offered prizes for good +mouth-filling designations for their crack clippers, knowing that +freight and fortune often wait upon taking titles. Was the Flying Cloud +ever beaten? And in a land where all things change so lightly, why not +shake off the loosely sticking names and put on better? For at present, +the main end, that of conferring a _nomen_ or a name, something by +which the spot shall be known, has almost passed out of sight. If John +Smith, of the town of Smith, in Smith County, die, or commit forgery, +or be run for Congress, or write a book, his address might as well be +"Outis, Esq., Town of Anywhere, County of Everywhere." It concerns the +"Atlantic Monthly" not a little. For we desire, among its rapidly +multiplying subscribers, that our particular friend and kind critic, +commorant in Washington, should duly receive and enjoy this present +paper, undefrauded by any resident of the other one hundred and thirty +of the name. If we wish to mail a copy of "The Impending Crisis" to +Franklin, Vermont, we surely do not expect that it will perish by _auto +da fe_ in Franklin, Louisiana. + +But the thought comes upon us, that herein is revealed a curious defect +of the American mind. It lacks, we contend, the fine perceptive power +which belongs to the poet. It can imitate, but cannot make. It does not +seize hold upon the distinctive fact of what it looks at, and +appropriate that. Our countrymen once could do it. The stern Puritan of +New England looked upon the grassy meadows beside the Connecticut, and +found them all bubbling with fountains, and called his settlement +"Springfield." But the American has lost the elementary uses of his +mother tongue. He is perpetually inventing new abstract terms, +generalizing with boldness and power and utter contempt of usage. But +the rich idiomatic sources of his speech lie too deep for him. They are +the glory and the joy of our motherland. You may take up "Bradshaw" and +amuse yourself on the wettest day at the dullest inn, nay, even amid +the horrors of the railway station, with deciphering the hidden +meanings of its lists of names, and form for yourself the gliding +panorama of its changing scenery and historic renown. But blank, +indeed, is the American transit through Rome, Marcellus, Carthage, +Athens, Palmyra, and Geneva; and blessed the relief when the Indian +tongue comes musically in to "heal the blows of sound"! And whatever +the expectations of the "Great American Poem," the Transatlantic +"Divina Commedia" or "Iliad," which the public may entertain, we feel +certain they will not be fulfilled in our day. Take Tennyson's "Idyls +of the King," and see what beautiful beadrolls of names he can string +together from the rough Cornish and Devon coasts. Only out of a +poetic-hearted people are poets born. The peasant writes ballads, +though scholars and antiquaries collect them. The Hebrew lyric fire +blazed in myriad beacons from every landmark. The soil of Palestine is +trodden, as it were, with the footsteps of God, so eloquent are its +mountains and hamlets with these records of a nation's faith. + +But into how much of the love of home do its familiar names enter! And +we appeal to the common sense of everybody, whether those we have +quoted above are not enough to make a man ashamed of his birthplace. +They are the ear-mark of a roving, careless, selfish population, which +thinks only of mill-privileges, and never of pleasant meadows,--which +has built the ugliest dwellings and the biggest hotels of any nation, +save the Calmucks, over whom reigns the Czar. Upon the American soil +seem destined to meet and fuse the two great elements of European +civilization,--the Latin and the Saxon,--and of these two is our nation +blent. But just at present it exhibits the love of glare and finery of +the one, without its true and tender taste,--and the sturdy, practical +utilitarianism of the other, without its simple-hearted, home-loving +poetry. The boy is a great boy,--awkward, ungainly, and in the way; but +he has eyes, tongue, feet, and hands to some (future) purpose. And that +in good taste, good sense, refinement, and hopeful culture, our big boy +has been growing, we hope will be apparent, even in the matter of +"calling names," from the pages of the next census. + +We have but a word more, in the way of finale. We have not been +romancing. Everything we have set down here we have truly looked up +there, in the volume furnished by Mr. De Bow. He, not we, must be held +answerable for any and all scarce credible names which are found +wanting in a local habitation. We have counted duly and truly the +fine-printed pages, from which task we pray that the kind Fates may +keep the reader. + +Yet, if he doubt, and care to explore the original mine whence our +specimen petrifactions have been dug, he will find that we have by no +means exhausted the supply; and that there are many most curious and +suggestive facts, not contained in the statistics or intended by the +compiler, which are embraced in the CENSUS REPORTS. + + + + +BARDIC SYMBOLS. + + +I. + +Elemental drifts! +Oh, I wish I could impress others as you and the waves have just been + impressing me! + +II. + +As I ebbed with an ebb of the ocean of life, +As I wended the shores I know, +As I walked where the sea-ripples wash you, Paumanok, +Where they rustle up, hoarse and sibilant, +Where the fierce old mother endlessly cries for her castaways, +I, musing, late in the autumn day, gazing off southward, +Alone, held by the eternal self of me that threatens to get the better + of me and stifle me, +Was seized by the spirit that trails in the lines underfoot, +In the ruin, the sediment, that stands for all the water and all the + land of the globe. + +III. + +Fascinated, my eyes, reverting from the south, dropped, to follow those + slender windrows, +Chaff, straw, splinters of wood, weeds, and the sea-gluten, +Scum, scales from shining rocks, leaves of salt-lettuce, left by the tide. + +IV. + +Miles walking, the sound of breaking waves the other side of me, +Paumanok, there and then as I thought the old thought of likenesses, +These you presented to me, you fish-shaped island, +As I wended the shores I know, +As I walked with that eternal self of me, seeking types. + +V. + +As I wend the shores I know not, +As I listen to the dirge, the voices of men and women wrecked, +As I inhale the impalpable breezes that set in upon me, +As the ocean so mysterious rolls toward me closer and closer, +At once I find, the least thing that belongs to me, or that I see or + touch, I know not; +I, too, but signify a little washed-up drift,--a few sands and dead + leaves to gather, +Gather, and merge myself as part of the leaves and drift. + +VI. + +Oh, baffled, lost, +Bent to the very earth, here preceding what follows, +Terrified with myself that I have dared to open my mouth, +Aware now, that, amid all the blab whose echoes recoil upon me, I have not + once had the least idea who or what I am, +But that before all my insolent poems the real me still stands + untouched, untold, altogether unreached, +Withdrawn far, mocking me with mock-congratulatory signs and bows, +With peals of distant ironical laughter at every word I have written or + shall write, +Striking me with insults, till I fall helpless upon the sand! + +VII. + +Oh, I think I have not understood anything,--not a single object,--and + that no man ever can! + +VIII. + +I think Nature here, in sight of the sea, is taking advantage of me to + oppress me, +Because I was assuming so much, +And because I have dared to open my mouth to sing at all. + +IX. + +You oceans both! You tangible land! Nature! +Be not too stern with me,--I submit,--I close with you,-- +These little shreds shall, indeed, stand for all. + +X. + +You friable shore, with trails of debris! +You fish-shaped island! I take what is underfoot: +What is yours is mine, my father! + +XI. + +I, too, Paumanok, +I, too, have bubbled up, floated the measureless float, and been + washed on your shores. + +XII. + +I, too, am but a trail of drift and debris,-- +I, too, leave little wrecks upon you, you fish-shaped island! + +XIII. + +I throw myself upon your breast, my father! +I cling to you so that you cannot unloose me,-- +I hold you so firm, till you answer me something. + +XIV. + +Kiss me, my father! +Touch me with your lips, as I touch those I love! +Breathe to me, while I hold you close, the secret of the wondrous + murmuring I envy! +For I fear I shall become crazed, if I cannot emulate it, and utter + myself as well as it. + +XV. + +Sea-raff! Torn leaves! +Oh, I sing, some day, what you have certainly said to me! + +XVI. + +Ebb, ocean of life! (the flow will return,)-- +Cease not your moaning, you fierce old mother! +Endlessly cry for your castaways! Yet fear not, deny not me,-- +Rustle not up so hoarse and angry against my feet, as I touch you, + or gather from you. + +XVII. + +I mean tenderly by you,-- +I gather for myself, and for this phantom, looking down where we lead, + and following me and mine. + +XVIII. + +Me and mine! +We, loose windrows, little corpses, +Froth, snowy white, and bubbles, +Tufts of straw, sands, fragments, +Buoyed hither from many moods, one contradicting another, +From the storm, the long calm, the darkness, the swell, +Musing, pondering, a breath, a briny tear, a dab of liquid or soil, +Up just as much out of fathomless workings fermented and thrown, +A limp blossom or two, torn, just as much over waves floating, + drifted at random, +Just as much for us that sobbing dirge of Nature, +Just as much, whence we come, that blare of the cloud-trumpets,-- +We, capricious, brought hither, we know not whence, spread out before + you,--you, up there, walking or sitting, +Whoever you are,--we, too, lie in drifts at your feet. + + + + +HUNTING A PASS: + +A SKETCH OF TROPICAL ADVENTURE. + + +PRELIMINARY. + +Reader, take down your map, and, starting at the now well-known Isthmus +of Panama, run your finger northward along the coast of the Pacific, +until, in latitude 13 deg. north, it shall rest on a fine body of water, or +rather the "counterfeit presentment" thereof, which projects far into +the land, and is designated as the Bay of Fonseca. If your map be of +sufficient scale and moderately exact, you will find represented there +two gigantic volcanoes, standing like warders at the entrance of this +magnificent bay. That on the south is called Coseguina, memorable for +its fearful eruption in 1835; that on the north is named Conchagua or +Amapala, taller than Coseguina, but long extinct, and covered to its +top with verdure. It is remarkable for its regularity of outline and +the narrowness of its apex. On this apex, a mere sugar-loaf crown, are +a _vigia_ or look-out station, and a signal-staff, whence the approach +of vessels is telegraphed to the port of La Union, at the base of the +volcano. A rude hut, half-buried in the earth, and loaded down with +heavy stones, to prevent it from being blown clean away, or sent +rattling down the slopes of the mountain, is occupied by the look-out +man,--an old Indian muffled up to his nose; for it is often bitter cold +at this elevation, and there is no wood wherewith to make a fire. Were +it not for that jar or _tinaja_ of _aguardiente_ which the old man +keeps so snugly in the corner of his burrow, he would have withered up +long ago, like the mummies of the Great Saint Bernard. + +But I am not going to work up the old man of the _vigia_; for he was of +little consequence on the 10th day of April, 1853, except as a +wondering spectator on the top of Conchagua, in a group consisting of +an ex-minister of the United States, an officer of the American navy, +and an artist from the good city of New York, to whose ready pencil a +grateful country owes many of the illustrations of tropical scenery +which have of late years lent their interest to popular periodicals and +books of adventure. I might have added to this enumeration the tall, +dark figure of Dolores, servant and guide; but Dolores, with a good +sense which never deserted him, had no sooner disencumbered his +shoulders of his load of provisions, than he bestowed himself in the +burrow, out of the wind, and possibly not far from the _aguardiente_. + +The utilitarian reader will ask, at once, the motive of this gathering +on the top of the volcano of Conchagua, five thousand feet above the +sea, wearily attained at no small expenditure of effort and +perspiration. Was it love of adventure merely? ambition to do something +whereof to brag about to admiring aunts or country cousins? Hardly. The +beauty of the wonderful panorama which spreads before the group of +strangers is too much neglected, their instruments are too carefully +adjusted and noted, and their consultations are far too earnest and +protracted, to admit of either supposition. The old man of the _vigia_, +as I have said, was a wondering spectator. He wondered why the eyes of +the strangers, glasses as well as eyes, and theodolites as well as +glasses, should all be directed across the bay, across the level +grounds beyond it, far away to the blue line of the Cordilleras, +cutting the clear sky with their serrated outline. He does not observe +that deep notch in the great backbone of the continent, as regular as +the cleft which the pioneer makes in felling a forest-tree; nor does he +observe that the breeze which ripples the waters at the foot of the +volcano is the north wind sweeping all the way from the Bay of Honduras +through that break in the mountain range, which everywhere else, as far +as the eye can reach, presents a high, unbroken barrier to its passage +to the Pacific. Yet it is simply to determine the bearings of that +notch in the Cordilleras, to fix the positions of the leading features +of the intervening country, and to verify the latitude and longitude of +the old man's flag-staff itself, as a point of departure for future +explorations, that the group of strangers is gathered on the top of +Conchagua. + +And now, O reader, run your finger due north from the Bay of Fonseca, +straight to the Bay of Honduras, and it will pass, in a figurative way, +through the notch I have described, and through the pass of which we +were in search. You will see, if your map be accurate, that in or near +that pass two large rivers have their rise; one, the Humuya, flows +almost due north into the Atlantic, and the other, the Goascoran, +nearly due south into the Pacific,--together constituting, with the +plain of Comayagua, a great transverse valley extending across the +continent from sea to sea. Through this valley, commencing at Port +Cortes, on the north, and terminating on the Bay of Fonseca on the +south, American enterprise and English capital have combined to +construct a railway, designed to afford a new, if not a shorter and +better route of transit across the continent, between New York and San +Francisco, and between Great Britain and Australia. + +But when we stood on the top of Conchagua, on the 10th day of April, +1853, the existence of a pass through the mountains, as well as of that +great transverse valley of which I have spoken, was only inferentially +known. In fact, the whole interior of Honduras was unexplored; its +geography was not understood; its scenery had never been described; its +towns and cities were scarcely known even by name; and its people lived +in almost as profound a seclusion from the world at large as the +dwellers on the banks of the Niger and the Zambezi. It is not, however, +to bore you, O reader, with all the details of our surveys, nor to +bother you with statistics, that I write; for, verily, are not these all +set down in a book? But it is rather to amuse you with the incidents of +our explorations, our quaint encounters with a quaint people of still +quainter manners and habits and with ideas quainter than all, and to +present you with a picture of a country and a society interesting equally +in themselves and from their strong contrasts with our own,--I say, it is +rather with these objects that I invite you, O reader, to join our little +party, and participate in the manifold adventures of "HUNTING A PASS." + + +CHAPTER I. + +The port of La Union, our point of departure, is in the little Republic +of San Salvador, which, in common with Nicaragua and Honduras, touches +on the Bay of Fonseca. It is built near the head of a subordinate bay, +of the same name with itself, at the foot of the volcano of Conchagua, +which rises between it and the sea, cutting it off from the +ocean-breezes, and rendering it, in consequence, comparatively hot and +unhealthy. It is a small town, with a population scarcely exceeding +fifteen hundred souls; but it is, nevertheless, the most important port +of San Salvador. Here, during the season of the great fairs of San +Miguel, may be seen vessels of nearly all the maritime nations, +--broad-hulled and sleepy-looking ships from the German +free-cities, taut American clippers, sturdy English brigs, and even +Peruvian and Genoese nondescripts, with crews in red nightcaps. + +At this time La Union holds high holiday; its _Comandante_, content at +other times to lounge about in the luxury of a real undress uniform, +now puts on his broadcloth and sash, and sustains a sweltering dignity; +while all the brown girls of the place, arrayed in their gayest +apparel, wage no timorous war on the hearts and pockets of too +susceptible skippers. "Ah, me!" exclaimed our landlady, "is it not +terrible? Excepting the Senora D. and myself, there is not a married +woman in La Union!" "One wouldn't think so," soliloquized the +_Teniente_, as he gazed reflectively into the street, where a dozen +naked children, squatting in the sand, disputed the freedom of the +highway with a score of lean dogs and bow-backed pigs of voracious +appetites. + +To me there was nothing specially new in La Union. The three years +which had elapsed since my previous visit had not been marked by any +great architectural achievement, and although the same effective +chain-gang of two convicts seemed still to be occupied with the mole, +the advance in that great public work was not perceptible to the eye. +My old host and hostess were also the same,--a shade older in +appearance, perhaps, but with hearts as warm and hospitalities as +lavish as before. Only "La Gringita" had changed from the doe-eyed +child of easy confidences into a quiet and somewhat distant girl, full +in figure, and with a glance which sometimes betrayed the glow of +latent, but as yet unconscious passion. In these sunny climes the bud +blossoms and the young fruit ripens in a single day. + +With my companions, however, the case was different. The _Teniente_ +could never cease being surprised that the commercial and naval +facilities of the splendid bay before us had been so long overlooked. +"What a place for a naval station, with its spacious and secure +anchorages, abundant water, and facilities for making repairs and +obtaining supplies! Why, all the fleets of the globe might assemble +here, and never foul spars or come across each other's hawsers! What a +site, just in that little bay, for a ship-yard! The bottom is pure +sand, and there are full ten fathoms of water within a hundred yards of +the shore! And then those high islands protecting the entrance! A fort +on that point and a battery over yonder would close in the whole bay, +with its five hundred square miles of area, against every invader, and +make it as safe as Cronstadt!" But what astonished the _Teniente_ more +than anything else was, not that the English had seized the bay in +1849, but that they had ever given it up afterwards. "Bull should +certainly abandon his filibustering habits, or else stick to his +plunder; the example was a bad one for his offspring!" + +And as for H., our artist, he, too, was surprised at all times and +about everything. It surprised him "to hear mere children talk +Spanish!" To be able to help himself to oranges from the tree without +paying for them surprised him; so did the habit of sleeping in +hammocks, and the practice of dressing children in the cheap and airy +garb of a straw hat and cigar! He was surprised that he should come to +see "a real volcano, like that of San Miguel, with real smoke rolling +up from its mysterious depths; but what surprised him most was, that +they should give him pieces of soap by way of making change in the +market, and that he could buy a boat-load of oysters for a shilling!" + +As for Don Henrique, who had resided twenty years in Nicaragua, he was +only surprised at the surprise of others. He had a quiet, imperturbable +contempt for the country and everything in it, was satisfied with a +cool corridor and cigar, and had no ambition beyond that of some day +returning to Paris. Above all, he was a foe to unnecessary exertion. + +The ascent of Conchagua was the most important incident of our stay in +La Union, both in the excitements of the scramble and in the +satisfactory nature of our observations from its summit. We left the +port in the afternoon, with the view of passing the night in the +highest hut on the mountain-side, so as to reach the summit early in +the morning, and thus secure time for our observations. Dona Maria had +given us her own well-trained servant, Dolores, who afterwards became a +most important member of our little party; and he was now loaded down +with baskets and bottles, while the _Teniente_, H., and myself +undertook the responsible charge of the instruments. + +Our path was one seldom travelled, and was exceedingly rough and +narrow. Here it would wind down into one of the deep ravines which seam +the mountain near its base, and, after following the little stream +which trickled at its bottom for a short distance, turn abruptly up the +opposite side, and run for a while along a crest or ridge of _scoriae_ +or disintegrated lava, only, however, to plunge into another ravine +beyond. And thus alternately scrambling up and down, yet gradually +ascending diagonally, we worked our way towards the hut where we were +to pass the night. The slopes of the mountain were already in shadow, +and the gloom of the dense forests and of the deep ravines was so +profound, that we might have persuaded ourselves that night had fallen, +had we not heard the cheerful notes of unseen birds that were nestling +among the tree-tops. After two hours of ascent, the slope of the +mountain became more abrupt and decided, the ravines shallower, and the +intervening ridges less elevated. The forest, too, became more open, +and the trees smaller and less encumbered with vines, and between them +we could catch occasional glimpses of the bay, with its waters golden +under the slant rays of the declining sun. Finally we came to a kind of +terrace or shelf of the mountain, with here and there little patches of +ground, newly cleared, and black from the recent burning of the +undergrowth,--the only preparation made by the Indian cultivator for +planting his annual maize-crop. He has never heard of a plough; a staff +shod with iron, with which he pries a hole in the earth for the +reception of the seed, is the only agricultural implement with which he +is acquainted. When the young blade appears, he may possibly lop away +the tree-sprouts and rank weeds with his _machete_: but all the rest he +leaves to Nature, and the care of those unseen protectors of the harvest +whom he propitiates in the little church of Conehagua by the offering of a +candle, and in the depth of the forest, in some secluded spot of +ancient sanctity, by libations of _chicha_, poured out, with strange +dances, at the feet of some rudely sculptured idol which his fathers +venerated before him, and which he inwardly believes will come out "all +right" in the end, notwithstanding its present disgrace and the Padre's +denunciations. + +The mountain terrace which we had now reached is three thousand feet +above the sea, half a mile long, of varying width, and seems to be the +top of some great bed of _scoriae_ which long ago slipped down on an +inclined plane of lava to its present level. Whatever its origin, it is +certainly a beautiful spot, thinly covered with trees, and carpeted +with grass, on which, at the time of our visit, a few cows were +grazing, while half a dozen goats gazed at us in motionless surprise +from the gray rocks to which they had retreated on our approach. We +found the hut in which we were to rest for the night perched on the +very edge of the terrace, where it overlooked the whole expanse of the +bay, with its high islands and purple shores. At this airy height, and +open to every breeze, its inhabitants enjoy a delicious temperature; +and I could well understand how it was that Dona Maria, notwithstanding +the difficulties of the ascent, often came up here to escape the +debilitating heats of the port, and enjoy the magnificent prospect. The +dwellers on this mountain-perch consisted of an old man with his two +sons and their wives, and a consequent round dozen of children, all of +whom gave Dolores the cordial welcome of an old friend, which was +reflected on his companions with equal warmth. Our mules were quickly +unsaddled and cared for, and our instruments carefully suspended +beneath a rough shed of poles covered with branches of trees, which +stood before the hut, and answered the purpose of a corridor in keeping +off the sun. Here also we chose to swing our hammocks; for the hut +itself was none of the largest, and, having but a single room, would +require packing more closely than suited our tastes, in order to afford +us the narrowest accommodation. It is true, the two Benedicts +volunteered to sleep outside with Dolores, and resign the interior to +the old man, the women, the children, and the strangers. But the +_Teniente_ thought there would be scant room, even if we had the whole +to ourselves; while H. was overcome by "the indelicacy of the +suggestion." + +The sunset that evening was one of transcendent beauty, heightened by +the thousand-hued reflections from the masses of clouds which had been +piling up, all the afternoon, around the distant mountains of Honduras, +and which Dolores told us betokened the approach of the rainy season. +Bathed in crimson and gold, they shed a glowing haze over the +intervening country, and were reproduced in the broad mirror of the bay +below us, so that we seemed to be suspended and floating in an +Iris-like sea of light and beauty. But night falls rapidly under the +tropics; the sunsets are as brief as they are brilliant; and as soon as +the sun had sunk below the horizon, the gorgeous colors rapidly faded +away, leaving only leaden clouds on the horizon and a sullen body of +water at our feet. + +A love of music seems to be universal among all classes in Central +America, especially among the _Ladinos_ or mixed population. And it is +scarcely possible to find a house, down to the meanest hut, that does +not possess a violin or guitar, or, in default of these, a mandolin, on +which one or more of its inmates are able to perform with considerable +skill, and often with taste and feeling. The violin, however, is +esteemed most highly, and its fortunate possessor cherishes it above +wife or children, he keeps it with his white buckskin shoes, red sash, +and only embroidered shirt, in the solitary trunk with cyclopean lock +and antediluvian key, which goes so far, in Central American economy, +to make up the scanty list of domestic furniture. The youngest of our +hosts was the owner of one of these instruments, of European +manufacture, which had cost him, I dare say, many a load of maize, +wearily carried on his naked back down to the port. As the evening +advanced, he produced it, with an air of satisfaction, from its secure +depository, and, leaning against a friendly tree, gave us a specimen of +his skill. It is true, we did not expect much from our swarthy friend, +whose only garment was his trousers of cotton cloth, tucked up above +his knees; and we were therefore all the more surprised, when, after +some preliminary tuning of the instrument, he pressed the bow on its +strings with a firm and practised hand, and led us, with masterly +touch, through some of the finest melodies of our best operas. Very few +amateurs of any country, with all their advantages of instruction, +could equal the skill of that poor dweller on the flank of the volcano +of Conchagua; none certainly could surpass him in the delicacy and +feeling of his execution. H., on whom, as an artist, and himself no +mean musician, we had already devolved the task of being enthusiastic +and demonstrative over matters of this kind, applauded vehemently, and +cried, "_Bravo!_" and "_Encore!_" and ended in convincing us of the +reality of his delight, by pressing his brandy-flask into the hands of +the performer, and urging him to "drink it all, every drop, and then +give us another!" Our mountain Paganini, I fear, interpreted the behest +too literally; or else H.'s enthusiasm never afterwards rose to so high +a pitch; at any rate, he was never known to manifest it in so expansive +a manner. + +"And where did your friend learn his music?" + +He had caught it up, he said, from time to time, as he had floated, +with his canoe-load of plantains, chickens, and yucas, around the +vessels-of-war that occasionally visit the port; neglecting his +traffic, no doubt, in eagerly listening to the music of the bands or +the individual performances of the officers. He had had no instructor, +except "_un pobre Italiano_," who came to La Union with an exhibition +of _fantoccini_, died there of fever, and was buried like a Christian +in the Campo Santo adjoining the church: and Paganini removed his hat +reverentially, and made the sign of the cross on his swarthy bosom. And +now, most incredulous of readers, are you answered? + +During the night we were visited by the first storm of the season, and +it opened the flood-gates of the skies right grandly, with booming +thunders and blinding lightning, and a dash of rain that came through +our imperfect shelter as through a sieve. Driven inside the hut, where +we contested the few square feet of bare earthen floor with the pigs +and pups of the establishment, we passed a most miserable night, and +were glad to rise with the earliest dawn,--ourselves to continue our +ascent of the mountain, and our hosts to plant their mountain _milpas_, +while the ground was yet moist from the midnight rain. They told us +that the maize, if put into the earth immediately after the first rain +of the season, was always more vigorous and productive than that +planted afterwards; why they knew not; but "so it had been told them by +their fathers." + +The air was deliciously fresh and cool, and the foliage of the trees +seemed almost pulsating with life and light under the morning sun, as +we bade our hosts "_A Dios!_" and resumed our course up the mountain. +There was no longer any path, and we had to pick our way as we were +able, among blocks of blistered rocks, over fallen trunks of trees, and +among gnarled oaks, which soon began to replace the more luxuriant +vegetation of the lower slopes. H., dragged from his mule by a scraggy +limb, was shocked to find that the first inquiry of his companions was +not about the safety of his neck, but of the barometer. At the end of +an hour, the ascent becoming every moment more abrupt, we had passed +the belt of trees and bushes, and reached the smooth and scoriaceous +cone, which, during the rainy season, appears from the bay to be +covered with a velvety mantle of green. It was now black and +forbidding, from the recent burning of the dry grass or _sacate_, and +so steep as to render direct ascent impossible. I proposed to leave the +mules and proceed on foot, but the _Teniente_ entered a solemn protest +against anything of the sort:--"If the mules couldn't carry him up, he +couldn't go; his family was affected with hereditary palpitation of the +heart, and if any one of them suffered more from it than the others, he +was the unfortunate victim! Climbing elevations of any kind, and +mountains in particular, brought on severe attacks; and we might as +well understand, at once, that, if in 'Hunting a Pass' there was any +climbing to be done, some one else must do it!" And here I may mention +a curious fact, probably hitherto unknown to the faculty, which was +developed in our subsequent explorations, namely, that palpitation of +the heart is contagious. H. was attacked with it on our third day out, +and Don Henrique had formidable symptoms at sight of the merest +hillock. + +Under the lead of Dolores, by judicious zig-zagging, and by glow and +painful advances, we finally reached the _vigia_,--the mules thoroughly +blown, but the _Teniente_ and the instruments safe. The latter were +speedily set up, and the observations, which were to exercise so +important an influence as a basis for our future operations, +satisfactorily made. We found the mountain to be 4860 feet above the +sea, barometrical admeasurement, and the flagstaff itself in latitude +13 deg. 18' N. and longitude 87 deg. 45' W. We obtained bearings on +nearly all the volcanic cones on the plain of Leon, as also on many of +the detached mountain-peaks of Honduras and San Salvador, as the +commencement of a system of triangulations which subsequently enabled +us to construct the first map of the country at all approximating to +accuracy. At noon on the day of our visit, the thermometer marked a +temperature of 16 deg. of Fahrenheit below that of the port. + +It is a singular circumstance, that Captain Sir Edward Belcher, who +surveyed the Bay of Fonseca in 1838, speaks of Conchagua as a mountain +exhibiting no evidences of volcanic origin. Apart from its form, which +is itself conclusive on that point, its lower slopes are ridged all +over with dikes of lava, some of which come down to the water's edge, +in rugged, black escarpments. The mountain had two summits: one +comparatively broad and rugged, with a huge crater, and a number of +smaller vents; and a second and higher one, nearest the bay,--the +_ash-heap_ of the volcano proper, on which the _vigia_ is erected, and +whence our observations were made. This is a sugar-loaf in form, with +steep sides, and at its summit scarcely affording standing-room for a +dozen horsemen. It is connected with the main part of the mountain by a +narrow ridge, barely broad enough for a mule-path, with treeless slopes +on either hand, so steep, that, on our return, the _Teniente_ preferred +risking an attack of "palpitation" to riding along its crest. + +After loosening several large stones from the side of the cone, and +watching them bound down the steep declivity, dashing the _scoriae_ like +spray before them, and bearing down the dwarf trees in their path like +grass beneath the mower's scythe, until they rumbled away with many a +crash in the depths of the forest at the base of the mountain, and +after making over to the grateful old man of the _vigia_ the remnants +of Dona Maria's profusion in the shape of sandwiches and cold chicken, +we commenced our descent, taking the shorter path by which I had +descended three years before. It conducted us past the great spring of +Yololtoca, to which the Indian girls of the _pueblo_ of Conchagua, +three miles distant, still come to get their water, and down the +ancient path and over the rocks worn smooth by the naked feet of their +mothers and their mothers' mothers, until, at six o'clock in the +afternoon, we defiled, tired and hungry, into the sweltering streets of +La Union. Oysters _ad libitum_, (which, being translated, means as fast +as three men could open them,) one of Dona Maria's best dinners, and a +bath in the bay at bedtime calmed our appetites and restored our +energies, and we went to sleep with the gratified consciousness that we +had successfully taken the first step in the prosecution of our great +enterprise. + +I have alluded to the oysters of La Union; but I should prove +ungrateful indeed, after the manifold delicious repasts which they +afforded us, were I to deny them the tribute of a paragraph. It is +generally believed that the true oyster of our shores is found nowhere +else, or at least only in northern latitudes. But an exception must be +made in favor of the waters of the Bay of Fonseca. Here they are found +in vast beds, in all the subordinate bays where the streams deposit +their sediment, and where, with the rise and fall of the tide, they +obtain that alternation of salt and brackish water which seems to be +necessary to their perfection. They are the same rough-coated, +delicious mollusks as those of our own coasts, and by no means to be +degraded by a comparison with the muddy, long-bearded, and, to +Christian palates, coppery abominations of the British Islands, which +in their flattened shape and scalloped edges seem to betray an impure +ancestry,--in point of fact, to be a bad cross between the scallop and +the oyster. + +At low tide some of the beds are nearly bare, and then the Indians take +them up readily with their hands. The ease with which they may be got +will appear from the circumstance, that for some time after our arrival +we paid but a real (twelve and a half cents) for each canoe-load, of +from five to six bushels. The people of La Union seldom use them, and +we were therefore able to establish the "ruling rates." They continued +at a real a load, until H., with reckless generosity, one day paid our +improvised oyster-man two reals for his cargo, who thereupon, appealing +to this bad precedent, refused to go out, unless previously assured of +receiving the advanced rate. This led to the immediate arrest of H., on +an indictment charging him with "wilfully and maliciously combining and +conniving with one Juan Sanchez, (colored,) to put up the price of the +necessaries of life in La Union, in respect of the indispensable +article vulgarly known as _ostrea Virginiana_, but in the language of +the law and of science designated as oysters." On this indictment he +was summarily tried, and, in consequence of aggravating his offence by +an attempt at exculpation, was condemned to suffer the full penalties +of the law, in such cases provided, namely, "to pay the entire cost of +all the oysters that might thenceforth be consumed by the prosecuting +parties and the court, and, at eleven o'clock, past meridian, to be +taken from his bed, thence to the extremity of the mole, and there +_inducted_." Which sentence was carried into rigorous execution. Nor +was he allowed to resume his former rank in the party, until, by a +masterly piece of diplomacy, he organized an opposition oyster-boat, +and a consequent competition, which soon brought Juan Sanchez to terms, +and oysters to their just market-value. + +That the aboriginal dwellers around the Bay of Fonseca appreciated its +conchological treasures, we had afterwards ample evidence; for at many +places on its islands and shores we found vast heaps of oyster-shells, +which seemed to have been piled up as reverent reminiscences of the +satisfaction which their contents had afforded. + +During my previous visit to La Union, in March, 1850, I had observed +that the north winds, which prevail during that month in the Bay of +Honduras, sometimes sweep entirely across the continent with such force +as to raise a considerable sea in the Bay of Fonseca. I thence inferred +that there must exist a pass or break in the great mountain-range of +the Cordilleras, through which the wind could have an uninterrupted or +but partially interrupted sweep. This was confirmed by the fact that +the current of air which reached the bay was narrow, affecting only a +width of about ten or twelve miles. This circumstance impressed me at +that time only as indicating a remarkable topographical feature of the +country; but afterwards, when the impracticability of a canal at +Nicaragua and the deficiencies in respect of ports for a railway at +Tehuantepec had become established, I was led to reflect upon it in +connection with a plan for inter-oceanic communication by railway +through Honduras; and, as explained in the introduction, we were now +here to test the accuracy of my previous conclusions. Our observations +at the top of Conchagua had signally confirmed them. + +We could distinctly make out the existence of a great valley extending +due north, and our glasses revealed a marked depression in the +Cordilleras, which in all the maps were represented as maintaining here +the character of a high, unbroken range. Of course no such valley as +opened before us could exist without a considerable stream flowing +through it. But the maps showed neither valley nor river. This +circumstance did not, however, discourage us; for my former travels and +explorations in Nicaragua had shown me, that, notwithstanding the +country had occupied the attention of geographers for more than three +centuries, in connection with a project for a canal between the oceans, +its leading and most obvious physical features were still either +grossly misconceived or utterly unknown. + +The leading fact of the existence of some kind of a pass having been +sufficiently established by our observations from Conchagua, we next +set to work to obtain such information from the natives as might assist +our further proceedings. This was a tedious task, and called for the +exercise of all our patience; for it is impossible to convey in +language an adequate idea of the abject ignorance of most of the +inhabitants of Central America concerning its geography and +topographical features. Those who would naturally be supposed to be +best informed, the priests, merchants, and lawyers, are really the most +ignorant, and it is only from the _arrieros_, or muleteers, and the +_correos_, or runners, that any knowledge of this kind can be obtained, +and then only in a very confused form, and with most preposterous and +contradictory estimates of distances and elevations. + +We nevertheless made out that the mouth of a river or _estero_, laid +down in Sir Edward Belcher's chart, on the opposite side of the bay in +front of La Union, was really that of the river Goascoran, a +considerable stream having its rise at a point due north, and not far +from Comayagua, the capital of Honduras, which, we also ascertained, +was seated in the midst of a great plain, bearing the same name. A +large stream, it was said, flowed past that city,--but whether the +Goascoran or some other, or whether it flowed north or south, neither +_arriero_ nor _correo_ could tell. + +The navigability of the Goascoran was also a doubtful question. +According to some, it could be forded everywhere; others declared it +impassable for many leagues above its mouth: a discrepancy which we +were able to reconcile by reference to its probable state at different +seasons of the year. + +Fixing an early day for taking the field in earnest, and leaving H. and +Don Henrique to make the necessary preparations, I improved the +interval, in company with Lieutenant J., in making a boat exploration +of the Goascoran. Obtaining a ship's gig, with two oarsmen and a supply +of provisions, we left La Union at dawn on the 15th of April. We found +that the river enters the bay by a number of channels, through low +grounds covered with mangrove-trees. It was at half-tide, and we +experienced no difficulty in entering. Our course at first was +tortuous, and it seemed as if the river had lost itself in a labyrinth +of channels, and we were ourselves much confused with regard to our +true direction. Keeping, however, in the strongest current, at the end +of half an hour we penetrated beyond the little delta of the river, and +the belt of mangroves, to firm ground. Here the stream was confined to +a single channel two hundred yards broad, with banks of clay and loam +from six to ten feet high. The lands back appeared to be level, and, +although well covered with ordinary forest-trees, were apparently +subject to overflow. We observed cattle in several grassy openings, and +here and there a _vaquero's_ hut of branches; for it is a general +practice of the _hacienderos_ to drive down their herds to the low +grounds of the coasts and rivers, during the dry season, and as soon as +the grass on the hills or highlands begins to grow sere and yellow. We +observed also occasional heaps of oyster-shells on the banks, or half +washed away by the river; and on the sand-spits at the bends of the +stream, and in all the little shady nooks of the shore, we saw +thousands of water-fowl, ducks of almost every variety, including the +heavy muscovy and the lively teal; and there were flocks of white and +crimson ibises, and solitary, long-legged, contemplative cranes, and +gluttonous pelicans; while myriads of screaming curlews scampered along +the line of the receding tide to snap up imprudent snails and the +numerous minute _crustaceae_ which drift about in these brackish waters. +The familiar kingfisher was also there, coming down with an occasional +arrowy dash on some unsuspecting minnow, and then flapping away +leisurely for a quiet meal in the shady recesses of a neighboring tree. + +We fired on a flock of ducks, killing a number and wounding others, all +of which we secured except one which struggled away into an eddy under +the bank. We pushed in, and my hand was extended to pick him up, when a +slimy, corrugated head, with distended jaws and formidable teeth, rose +to the surface before me, paused an instant, then shot forward, and, +closing on the wounded bird, disappeared. The whole was done so quickly +as to escape the notice of my companions, who would hardly believe me +when I told them that we had been robbed by an alligator. We lost a +duck, but gained an admonition; and I scarcely need add that our +half-formed purpose of taking a bath in the next cool bend of the river +was abandoned. + +When the tide had run out, we were able to form a better notion of the +river. We found, that, although near the end of the dry season, it was +still a fine stream, with a large body of water, but spread over so +wide a channel as to preclude anything like useful navigation, except +with artificial aids. In places it was so shallow that our little boat +found difficulty in advancing. But this did not disappoint us; for +nothing like a mixed transit with transhipments had ever entered into +my plan, which looked only to an unbroken connection by rail from one +sea to the other. At four o'clock, satisfied that no useful purpose +could be effected by going farther up the stream, we stopped at a +collection of huts called Las Sandias,--not inappropriately, for the +whole sloping bank of the river, which here appeared to be little +better than a barren sand-bed, was covered, for a quarter of a mile, +with a luxuriant crop of water- and musk-melons, now in their +perfection. We purchased as many as we could carry off for a _real_. +They were full, rich, and juicy, and proved to be a grateful +restorative, after our day's exposure to the direct rays of the sun, +and their scarcely less supportable reflection from the water. The +melon-patch of Las Sandias is overflowed daring the rainy season, and +probably the apparently bare, sandy surface hides rich deposits of soil +below. + +We found the stream here alive with an active and apparently voracious +fish, varying in length from fourteen to twenty inches, reddish in +color, and closely resembling the Snapper of the Atlantic coast of +Central America. The male inhabitants of Las Sandias were occupied in +catching these fishes with hand-nets, in the rifts and currents; and +the women were busy in cleaning and drying them. Their offal had +accumulated around the huts in offensive heaps, and gave out an odor +which was almost insupportable, but of which the women appeared to take +no notice. We did not, therefore, trespass long on their hospitality, +but returned to our boat and started back to La Union. As night came +on, the trees along the river's bank were thronged with _chachalacas_, +which almost deafened us with their querulous screams. Two +well-directed shots gave us half a dozen,--for the young _chachalaca_ +is not to be despised on the table,--and we added them to our stock of +water-fowls and melons as tempting trophies to our companions from the +new Canaan on which they were venturing. + + +[To be continued.] + + + + +KEPLER. + + +The acceptance of a doctrine is often out of all proportion to the +authority that fortifies it. There are sweeps of generalization quite +permeable to objection, which yet find metaphysical support; there are +irrefragable dogmas which the mind drops as futile and fruitless. It is +recorded of Harvey's discovery of the circulation of the blood, that it +found reception from no physician then over forty years old. We believe +the splendid nebular construction of Laplace has its own difficulties; +yet what noble or aspiring mind does not find interior warranties for +the truth of that audacious synthesis? Is it that the soul darts +responsive impartments to the heavens? that the whirl is elemental in +the mind? that baffling intervals stretch deeper within us, and shoals +of stars with no parallax appear? + +Among the functions of Science, then, may well be included its power as +a metre of the intellectual advance of mankind. In these splendid +symbols man writes the record of his advancing humanity. How all is +interwoven with the All! A petrified national mind will certainly +appear in a petrified national Science. And that sublime upsurging from +the depths of human nature which came with the last half of the +eighteenth century appeared not alone in the new political and social +aspirations, but in a fresh insight into Nature. This spirit manifested +itself in the new sciences that sprang from the new modes of +vision,--Magnetism, Electricity, Chemistry,--the old crystalline spell +departing before a dynamical system of Physics, before the thought of +the universe as a living organic whole. And what provokers does the +discovery of the celestial circles bring to new circles of politics and +social life! + +The illustrations of Astronomy to this thought are very large. First of +the sciences to assume a perfectly rational form, it presents the +eternal type of the unfolding of the speculative spirit of man. This +springs, no doubt, from the essentially subjective character of +astronomy,--more than all the other sciences a construction of the +creative reason. From the initiative of scientific astronomy, when the +early Greek geometers referred the apparent diurnal movements to +geometrical laws, to the creation of the nebular hypothesis, the +logical filiation of the leading astronomical conceptions obeys +corresponding tidal movements in humanity. Thus it is that + + "through the ages one increasing purpose + runs +And the thoughts of men are widened with the + process of the suns." + +It was for reasons the Ptolemaic system so long held its sway. It was +for reasons it went, too, when it did, hideous and oppressive +nightmare! The celestial revelations of the sixteenth century came as +the necessary complement of the new mental firmaments then dawning on +the thought of man. The intellectual revolution caused by the discovery +of the double motion of our planet was undoubtedly the mightiest that +man had ever experienced, and its effect was to change the entire +aspect of his speculative and practical activity. What a proof that +ideas rule the world! Two hundred and fifty years ago, certain new +sidereal conceptions arose in the minds of half a dozen philosophers, +(isolated and utterly destitute of political or social influence, +powerful only in the possession of a sublime and seminal +thought,)--conceptions which, during these two centuries, have +succeeded in overthrowing a doctrine as old as the human mind, closely +interknit with the entire texture of opinions, authority, politics, and +religion, and establishing a theory flatly contradicted by the +universal dictates of experience and common sense, and true only to the +transcendental and interpretative Reason! + +At the advent of Modern Astronomy, the apparition of the German, John +Kepler, presents itself. Familiarly associated in general apprehension +with that inductive triad known as "Kepler's Laws," which form the +foundation of Celestial Geometry, it is much less generally known that +he was an august and oracular soul, one of those called Mystics and +Transcendentalists, perhaps the greatest genius for analogy that ever +lived,--that he led a truly epic life, a hero and helper of men, a +divine martyr of humanity. + +The labors of Kepler were mathematical, optical, cosmographical, and +astronomical,--but chiefly astronomical. Two or three of his principal +works are the "Cosmographic Mystery," (_Mysterium Cosmographicum,_) the +"New Astronomy," (_Astronomia Nova, seu Physica Caelestis,_) and the +"Harmonies of the World" (_Harmonices Mundi_). His whole published +works comprise some thirty or forty volumes, while twenty folio volumes +of manuscript lie in the Library at St. Petersburg. These Euler, +Lexell, and Kraft undertook some years ago to examine and publish, but +the result of this examination has never appeared. An elegant complete +edition of the works of Kepler is at present being issued at Frankfort, +under the editorship of Frisch.[1] It is to be in sixteen volumes, 8vo, +two of which are published. For his biography, the chief source is the +folio volume of Correspondence, published in 1718, by Hansch,[2] who +has prefixed to these letters between Kepler and his contemporaries a +Life, in which his German heartiness beats even through the marble +encasement of his Latinity. + +[Footnote 1: _Joannis Kepleri Astronomi Opera Omnia._ Edidit CH. +FRISCH.] + +[Footnote 2: _Epistolae ad Joannem Keplerum scriptae._ MICHAEL GOTTLIEB +HANSCHIUS. Lipsiae, 1718.] + +We have always admired, as a stroke of wit, the way Hansch takes to +indicate Kepler's birthplace. Disdaining to use any but mathematical +symbols for so great a mathematician, he writes that he was born on the +21st of December, 1571, in longitude 29 deg. 7', latitude 48 deg. 54'! It +may be worth mentioning, that on this cryptic spot stood the little town +of Weil in the Duchy of Wuertemberg. His birth was cast at a time when +his parents were reduced to great poverty, and he received very little +early schooling. He was, however, sent to Tuebingen, and here he pursued +the scholastic studies of the age, designing for the Church. But the +old eternal creed-questionings arose in his mind. He stumbled at the +omnipresence of Christ's body, wrote a Latin poem against it, and, when +he had completed his studies, got for a _testimonium_ that he had +distinguished himself by his oratorical talents, but was considered +unfit to be a fellow-laborer in the Church of Wuertemberg. A larger +priesthood awaited him. + +The astronomical lectureship at the University of Graetz, in Styria, +falling vacant, Kepler was in his twenty-third year appointed to fill +it. He was, as he tells us, "better furnished with talent than +knowledge." But, no doubt, things had conspired to forward him. While +at Tuebingen, under the mathematician Maestlin, he had eagerly seized +all the hints his master threw out of the doctrines of Copernicus, +integrating them with interior authorities of his own. "The motion of the +earth, which Copernicus had proved by mathematical reasons, I wanted +to prove by physical, or, if you prefer it, metaphysical reasons." +So he wrote in his "Prodromus Dissertationum Cosmographicarum," +which he published two years after going to Graetz, that is, in his +twenty-fifth year. In this book his fiery and mystical spirit first +found expression, flaming forth in meteoric coruscations. The problem +which Kepler attempted to solve in the "Prodromus" was no less than +the determination of the harmonic relations of the distances of +the planets, which it was given him to solve more than twenty years +afterwards. The hypothesis which he adopted proved utterly fallacious; +but his primal intuition, that numerical and geometric relations +connect the velocities, periods, and distances of the planets, was none +the less fruitful and sublime. + +Of the facts of Kepler's external life, we may simply say, for the sake +of readier apprehension, that, after remaining six years at Graetz, he, +in 1600, on the invitation of Tycho Brahe, Astronomer Royal to Rodolph +II. of Germany, removed to Prague and associated himself with Tycho, +who shortly afterwards dying, Kepler was appointed in his place. The +chief work was the construction of the new astronomical tables called +the Rodolphine Tables, and on these he was engaged many years. In this +situation he continued till 1613, when he left it to assume a +professorship at Linz. Here he remained some years, and the latter part +of his life was spent as astrologer to Wallenstein. Kepler is described +as small and meagre of person, and he speaks of himself as "troublesome +and choleric in politics and domestic matters." He was twice married, +and left a wife and numerous children ill-provided for. + +Indeed, a painful and perturbed life fell to the lot of Kepler. The +most crushing poverty all his life oppressed him. For, though his +nominal salary as Astronomer Royal was large enough, yet the treasury +was so exhausted that it was impossible for him ever to obtain more +than a pittance. What a sad tragedy do these words, in a letter to +Maestlin, reveal:--"I stand whole days in the antechamber, and am nought +for study." And then he adds the sublime compensation: "I keep up my +spirits, however, with the thought that I serve, not the Emperor alone, +but the whole human race,--that I am laboring not merely for the +present generation, but for posterity. If God stand by me and look to +the victuals, I hope to perform something yet." Eternal type of the +consolation which the consciousness of truth brings with it, his +ejaculation on the discovery of his third law remains one of the +sublimest utterances of the human mind:--"The die is cast; the book is +written,--to be read now or by posterity, I care not which: it may well +wait a century for a reader, as God has waited six thousand years for +an observer!" Cast in a stormy and chaotic age, he was persecuted by +both Protestants and Catholics on account of the purity and elevation +of his religious ideas; and from the disclosures of Baron von +Breitschwert [1] it seems, that, in the midst of his sublimest labors, +he spent five years in the defence of his poor old mother against a +charge of witchcraft. He died in 1630, in his sixtieth year, (with the +prospect of starvation before him,) of a fever which he caught when on +a journey to Ratisbon, whither he had gone in the attempt to get part +of his pay! + +[Footnote 1: _Johann Keppler's Leben und Wirken: nach neuerlich +aufgefundenen Manuscripten bearbeitet._ Stuttgart, 1813.] + +In what bewildering and hampering environment he found himself with the +"Tuebingen doctors" and the "Wuertemberg divines," his letters reveal. On +the publication of the "Prodromus," Hafenreffer wrote to warn +him:--"God forbid you should endeavor to bring your hypothesis openly +into argument with the Holy Scriptures! I require of you to treat the +subject merely as a mathematician, and to leave the peace of the Church +undisturbed." To the Tuebingen doctors he replied:--"The Bible speaks to +me of things belonging to human life as men are used to speak of them. +It is no manual of Optics or of Astronomy; it has a higher object in +view. It is a culpable misuse of it to seek in it for answers on +worldly things. Joshua wished for the day to be lengthened. God +hearkened to his wish. How? This is not to be inquired after." And +surely the long-vexed argument has never since unfolded better +statement than in the words of Kepler:--"The day will soon break when +pious simplicity will be ashamed of its blind superstition,--when men +will recognize truth in the book of Nature as well as in the Holy +Scriptures, and rejoice in the two revelations." [1] + +[Footnote 1: _Harmonices Mundi._] + +On this avowal he was branded as a hypocrite, heretic, and atheist. + +To Maestlin he wrote:--"What is to be done? I think we should imitate +the Pythagoreans, communicate our discoveries _privatim_, and be silent +in public, that we may not die of hunger. The guardians of the Holy +Scriptures make an elephant of a gnat. To avoid the hatred against +novelty, I represented my discovery to the Rector of the University as +a thing already observed by the ancients; but he made its antiquity a +greater charge against it than he could have made of its novelty." + +And, indeed, the devotion to truth in that age, as in others, required +an heroic heart. Copernicus kept back the publication of his "De +Revolutionibus Orbium Caeslestium" for thirty-six years, and received a +copy of it only on his death-bed. Galileo tasted the sweets of the +Inquisition. Tycho Brahe was exiled. And Kepler himself was persecuted +all his life, hounded from city to city. And yet the sixteenth century +will ever be memorable in the history of the human mind. The breaking +down of external authority, the uprise of the spirit of inquiry, of +skepticism, and the splendid scientific conquests that came in +consequence, inaugurated a mighty movement which separates the present +promises of mankind from all past periods by an interval so vast as to +make it not merely a great historical development, but the very birth +of humanity. While Tycho Brahe, at the age of fifty-four, was making +his memorable observations at Prague, Kepler, at the age of thirty, was +applying his fiery mind to the determination of the orbit of Mars, and +Galileo, at thirty-six, was bringing his telescope to the revelation of +new celestial intervals and orbs. Within the succeeding century Huygens +made the application of the pendulum to clocks; Napier invented +Logarithms; Descartes and Galileo created the analysis of curves, and +the science of Dynamics; Leibnitz brought the Differential Calculus; +Newton decomposed a ray of light, and synthesized Kepler's Laws into +the theory of Universal Gravitation. + +Into this age, when the Old and New met face to face, came the +questioning and quenchless spirit of Kepler. Born into an age of +adventure, this new Prometheus, this heaven-scaler, matched it with an +audacity to lift it to new reaches of realization. + + +A singular _naivete_, too, marked this august soul. He has the +frankness of Montaigne or Jean Jacques. He used to accuse himself of +gabbling in mathematics,--"_in re mathematica loquax_,"--and claimed to +speak with German freedom,--"_scripsi haec, homo Germanicus, more et +libertate Germanica_." He marries far and near, brings planetary +eclipses into conjunction with pecuniary penumbras, and his treatise on +the perturbations of Mars reveals equal perturbations in his domestic +economy. It may be to this candor, this _gemueth_, that we are to +ascribe the powerful personal magnetism he exercises in common with +Rousseau, Rabelais, and other rich and ingenuous natures. Who would be +otherwise than frank, when frankness has this power to captivate? The +excess of this influence appears in the warmth betrayed by writers over +their favorite. The cool-headed Delambre, in his "Histoire de +l'Astronomie," speaks of Kepler with the heat of a pamphleteer, and +cannot repress a frequent sneer at his contemporary, Galileo. We know +the splendor of the Newtonian synthesis; yet we do not find ourselves +affected by Newton's character or discoveries. He touches us with the +passionless love of a star. + +Kepler puts the same _naivete_ into his speculative activity, with a +subtile anatomy laying bare the _metaphysique_ of his science. It was +his habit to illumine his discoveries with an exhibition of the path +that led to them, regarding the method as equally important with the +result,--a principle that has acquired canonical authority in modern +scientific research. "In what follows," writes he, introducing a long +string of hypotheses, the fallacy of which he had already discovered, +"let the reader pardon my credulity, whilst working out all these +matters by my own ingenuity. For it is my opinion that the occasions by +which men have acquired a knowledge of celestial phenomena are not less +admirable than the discoveries themselves." His tentatives, failures, +leadings, his glimpses and his glooms, those aberrations and guesses +and gropings generally so scrupulously concealed, he exposes them all. +From the first flashing of a discovery, through years of tireless toil, +to when the glorious apparition emerges full-orbed and resplendent, we +follow him, becoming party to the process, and sharing the ejaculations +of exultation that leap to his lips. Seventeen years were required for +the discovery of the harmonic law, that the squares of the times of the +planetary revolutions are proportional to the cubes of their mean +distances; and no tragedy ever equalled in affecting intensity the +account he has written of those Promethean years. What rays does he let +into the subtile paths where the spirit travels in its interrogations +of Nature! We should say there was more of what there is of essential +in metaphysics, more of the structural action of the human mind, in his +books, than in the concerted introspection of all the psychologists. +One sees very well that a new astronomy was predicted in the build of +that sky-confronting mind; for harmonic ratios, laws, and rhymes played +in his spheral soul, galaxies and gravitations stretched deeper within, +and systems climbed their flaming ecliptic. + +The highest problem of Science is the problem of Method. Hitherto man +has worked on Nature only piecemeal. The understanding and the +logic-faculty are allowed to usurp the rational and creative powers. +One would say that scientists systematically shut themselves out of +three-fourths of their minds, and the English have been insane on +Induction these two hundred years. This unholy divorce has, as it +always must do, brought poverty and impotence into the sciences, many +of which stand apart, stand haggard and hostile, accumulations of +incoherent facts, inhospitable, dead. + +It is when contemplated in its historic bearings, as an education of +the faculties of man, that the emphasis that has been placed on special +scientific methods discloses its significance. The speculative +synthesis of Greek and Alexandrine Science was a superb training in +Deduction,--in the descent from consciousness to Nature. Abstracted +from its relations with reality, the scholasticism of the Middle Ages +pushed Deduction to mania and moonshine. Then it was, that, in the +sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the Occidental mind, astir under +the oceanic movements of the modern, arose to break the spell of +scholasticism that had fettered and frozen the intellect of man. An +all-invading spirit of inquiry, analysis, skepticism, became rife. An +unappeasable hunger for facts, facts, facts, took possession of the +general intellect. It was felt that abstraction was disease, was +death,--that speculation had to be vitalized and enriched from +experience and experiment. This tendency was inevitable and sublime, no +doubt. But it remains for modern times to emulate Nature and carry on +analysis and synthesis at once. A great discovery is the birth of the +whole soul in its creative activity. Induction becomes fruitful only +when married to Deduction. It is those luminous intuitions that light +along the path of discovery that give the eye and animus to +generalization. Science must be open to influx and new beneficent +affections and powers, and so add fleet wings to the mind in its +exploration of Nature. + +In Kepler was the perfect realization of the highest mission of Method. +Powerfully deductive in the structure of his intellect, nourished on +the divine bread of Plato and the Mystics, he yet united to these a +Baconian breadth of practical power. Years before the publication of +the "Novum Organum," he gave, in his "Commentaries on the Motions of +Mars," a specimen of the logic of Induction whose circular sweep has +never been matched. Prolific in the generation of hypotheses, he was +yet remorseless in bringing them to the test of experiment. "Hypotheses +which are not founded in Nature please me not," wrote he,--as Newton +inscribed "_Hypotheses non fingo_" on the "Principia." Surely never was +such heroic self-denial. Centurial vigils of baffling calculations +--(remember, there was then little Algebra, and neither Calculus +nor Logarithms)--were sacrificed without a regret except for +the time expended, his tireless intellect pressing on to new heights of +effort. His first work, the "Mysterium Cosmographicum," is the record +of a splendid blunder that cost him five years' toil, and he spent ten +years of fruitless and baffled effort in the deduction of the laws of +areas and orbital ellipticity. + +But this audacious diviner knew well the use of Hypothesis, and he +applied it as an instrument of investigation as it had never been +applied before. The vast significance of Hypothesis in the theory of +Scientific Method has never been recognized. It would be a good piece +of psychology to explore the principles of this subtile mental power, +and might go far to give us a philosophy of Anticipation. The men of +facts, men of the understanding, observers,--as we might +suppose,--universally show a disposition to shun theorizing, as opposed +to the exactness of demonstrative science. And yet it is quite certain, +that, in proportion as one rises to a more liberal apprehension, the +immense provisional power of speculative ideas becomes apparent. +Laplace asserted that no great discovery was ever made without a great +guess; and long before, Plato had intimated of these "sacred suspicions +of truth," that descend dawn-like on the mind, sublime premonitions of +beautiful gates of laws. It is these launching tentatives which bring +phenomena to interior and metaphysical tests and bear the mind +swift-winged to Nature. Of course, there are various kinds of +conjecture, and its value will depend on the brain from which it +departs. But a powerful spirit will justify Hypothesis by the high +functions to which he puts it. His guesses are not for nothing. Many +and long processes go to them.--The inexhaustible fertility displayed +by Kepler is a psychologic marvel. He had that subtile chemistry that +turns even failures to account, consumes them in its flaming ascent to +new reaches. After years of labor on his theory of Mars, he found it +failed in application to latitudes and longitudes "out of opposition." +Remorselessly he let his hypothesis go, and drew from his failure an +important inference, the first step towards emancipation from the +ancient prejudice of uniform, circular motion. + +Such a genius for Analogy the world never before saw. The perception of +similitude, of correspondence, shot perpetual and prophetic in this +man's glances. To him had been opened the subtile secret, key to +Nature, that Man and the Universe are built after one pattern, and he +had faith to believe that the laws of his mind would unlock the +phenomena of the world. + +The law of Analogy flows from the inherent harmonies of Nature. Of this +wise men have ever been intuitive. The eldest Scriptures express it. It +is in the Zend-Avesta, primal Japhetic utterance. It vivified that +subtile Egyptian symbolism. The early Greeks and the Mystics of +Alexandria knew it. Jamblicus reports of Pythagoras, that "he did not +procure for himself a thing of this kind through instruments or the +voice, but, by employing a certain inevitable divinity, and which it is +difficult to apprehend, he extended his ears and fixed his intellect in +the sublime symphonies of the world,--he alone hearing and +understanding, as it appears, the universal harmony and consonance of +the spheres and the stars that are moved through them, and which +produce a fuller and more intense melody than anything effected by +mortal sounds." + +From the sublime intuitions of the harmonies of Nature and the unity of +the Universe unfold the bright doctrines of Series and Degrees, of +Correspondence, of Similitude. On these thoughts all wise spirits have +fed. Indeed, you can hardly say they were ever absent. They are of +those flaming thoughts the soul projects, splendid prophecies that +become the light of all our science and all our day. Plato formulated +these laws. Two thousand years after him, the cosmic brain of +Swedenborg traced their working throughout the universal economies of +matter and spirit, and Fourier endeavored to translate them into axioms +of a new social organization. + +These doctrines were ever present to the mind of Kepler; and to what +fruitful account he turned Analogy as a means of inductive speculation +his wonderful anatomy of his discoveries reveals. He fed on the +harmonies of the universe. He has it, that "harmony is the perfection +of relations." The work of his mature intellect was the "Harmonices +Mundi," (Harmonies of the World,) in which many of the sublime leadings +of Modern Science, as the Correlation of Sounds and Colors, the +Significance of Musical Chords, the Undulatory Theory, etc., are +prefigured. We must account him one of the chief of those prophetic +spirits who, by attempting to give phenomena a necessary root in ideas, +have breathed into Science a living soul. The new Transcendental +Anatomy,--the doctrine of Homologies,--the Embryologic scheme, +revealing that all animate forms are developed after one +archetype,--the splendid Nebular guess of Laplace,--the thought of the +Metamorphosis of Plants,--the attempts at profounder explanations of +Light and Colors,--the rising transcendentalism of Chemistry,--the +magnificent intuition of Correspondence, showing a grand unity of +design in the nodes of shells, the phyllotaxism of plants, and the +serialization of planets,--are all signs of the presence of a spirit +that is to usher in a new dispensation of Science, fraught with +divinest messages to the head and heart of man. + +Kepler regarded Analogy as the soul of Science, and he has made it an +instrument of prophecy and power. Thus, he inferred from Analogy that +the sun turned on its axis, long before Galileo was able to direct his +telescope to the solar spots and so determine this rotation as an +actual fact. He anticipated a planet between Mars and Jupiter too small +to be seen; and his inference that the obliquity of the ecliptic was +decreasing, but would, after a long-continued diminution, stop, and +then increase again, afterwards acquired the sanction of demonstration. +A like instance of anticipation is afforded in the beautiful experiment +of the freely-suspended ball revolving in an ellipse under the combined +influence of the central and tangential forces, which Jeremiah Horrocks +devised, when pursuing Kepler's theory of planetary motion,--his +intuition being, that the motions of the spheres might be represented +by terrestrial movements. We may mention the observation which the +ill-starred Horrocks makes, in a letter,[1] on the occasion of this +experiment, as one of the sublimities of Science:--"It appears to me, +however, that I have fallen upon the true theory, and that it admits of +being illustrated by natural movements on the surface of the earth; for +Nature everywhere acts according to a uniform plan, and the harmony of +creation is such that small things constitute a faithful type of +greater things." Another instance is afforded in the grand intuition of +Oken, who, when rambling in the Hartz Mountains, lit upon the skull of +a deer, and saw that the cranium was but an expansion of vertebrae, and +that the vertebra is the theoretical archetype of the entire osseous +framework,--the foundation of modern Osteology. And still another is +the well-known instance of the change in polarization predicted by +Fresnel from the mere interpretation of an algebraic symbol. This +prophetic insight is very sublime, and opens up new spaces in man. + +[Footnote 1: _Correspondence,_ 1637] + +Of the discoveries of Kepler, we can here have to do with their +universal and humanitary bearings alone. It is to be understood, +however, that the three grand sweeps of Deduction which we call +Kepler's Laws formed the foundation of the higher conception of +astronomy, that is, the dynamical theory of astronomical phenomena, and +prepared the way for the "Mecanique Celeste." Whewell, the learned +historian of the Sciences, speaks of them as "by far the most +magnificent and most certain train of truths which the whole expanse of +human knowledge can show"; and Comte declares, that "history tells of +no such succession of philosophical efforts as in the case of Kepler, +who, after constituting Celestial Geometry, strove to pursue that +science of Celestial Mechanics which was by its very nature reserved +for a future generation." These laws are, first, the law of the +velocities of the planets; second, the law of the elliptic orbit of the +planets; and, third, the harmonic law, that the squares of the times of +the planetary revolutions are proportional to the cubes of their mean +distances from the sun. They compass the whole sweep of Celestial +Geometry, and stamp their seer as unapproachably the greatest of +astronomers, as well as one of the chief benefactors of mankind. + +The announcement of Kepler's first two laws was made in his New +Astronomy,--"Astronomia Nova, seu Physica Caelestis, tradita +Commentariis de Motibus Stellae Martis: Ex Observationibus G.V. +Tychonis Brahe." Folio. Prague: 1609. This he published in his +thirty-eighth year. The title he gave to this work, "Celestial +Physics," must ever be regarded as a stroke of philosophical genius; it +is the prediction of Newton and Laplace, and prefigures the path on +which astronomical discovery has advanced these two hundred and fifty +years. + +An auspicious circumstance conspired to forward the astronomical +discoveries of Kepler. Invited to Prague in 1600 by Tycho Brahe, as +Assistant Royal Astronomer, he had access to the superb series of +observations which Tycho had been accumulating for twenty-five years. +Endowed with a genius for observation unsurpassed in the annals of +science, the noble Dane had obtained a grant from the king of Denmark +of the island of Hven, at the mouth of the Baltic. Here he erected a +magnificent observatory, which he named _Uranienborg_, City of the +Heavens. This he fitted up with a collection of instruments of hitherto +unapproached size and perfection, and here, for twenty years, he +pursued his observations. Thus it was that Kepler, himself a poor +observer, found his complement in one who, without any power of +constructive generalization, was yet the possessor of the richest +series of astronomical observations ever made. From this admirable +conjunction admirable realizations were to be expected. And, indeed, +the "Astronomia Nova" presents an unequalled illustration of +observation vivified by theory, and theory tested and fructified by +observation. + +To appreciate the significance of the discovery of the elliptical orbit +of the planets, it is necessary to understand the complicated confusion +that prevailed in the conception of planetary motions. The primal +thought was that the motions of the planets were uniform and circular. +This intuition of circular orbits was a happy one, and was, perhaps, +necessitated by the very structure of the human mind. The sweeping and +centrifugal soul, darting manifold rays of equal reach, realizes the +conception of the circle, that is, a figure all of whose radii are +equidistant from a central point. But this conception of the circle +afterwards came to acquire superstitious tenacity, being regarded as +the perfect form, and the only one suitable for such divine natures as +the stars, and was for two thousand years an impregnable barrier to the +progress of Astronomy. To account for every new appearance, every +deviation from circular perfection, a new cycloid was supposed, till +all the simplicity of the original hypothesis was lost in a +complication of epicycles:-- + + "The sphere, + With centric and eccentric scribbled o'er, + Cycle and epicycle, orb in orb." + +By the end of the sixteenth century the number of circles supposed +necessary for the seven stars then known amounted to seventy-four, +while Tycho Brahe was discovering more and more planetary movements for +which these circles would not account. + +To push aside forever this complicated chaos and evoke celestial order +and harmony, came Kepler. Long had the sublime intuition possessed him, +that numerical and geometrical relations connect the distances, times, +and revolutions of the planets. He began his studies on the planet +Mars,--a fortunate choice, as the marked eccentricity of that planet +would afford ready suggestions and verifications of the true law of +irregularity, and on which Tycho had accumulated copious data. It had +long been remarked that the angular velocity of each planet increases +constantly in proportion as the body approaches its centre of motion; +but the relation between the distance and the velocity remained wholly +unknown. Kepler discovered it by comparing the maximum and minimum of +these quantities, by which their relation became more sensible. He +found that the angular velocities of Mars at its nearest and farthest +distances from the sun were in inverse proportion to the squares of the +corresponding distances. This law, deduced, was the immediate path to +the law of orbital ellipticity. For, on attempting to apply his +newly-discovered law to Mars, on the old assumption that its orbit was +a circle, he soon found that the results from the combination of the +two principles were such as could not be reconciled with the places of +Mars observed by Tycho. In this dilemma, finding he must give up one or +the other of these principles, he first proposed to sacrifice his own +theory to the authority of the old system,--a memorable example of +resolute candor. But, after indefatigably subjecting it to crucial +experiment, he found that it was the old hypothesis, and not the new +one, that had to be sacrificed.[1] If the orbit was not a circle, what, +then, was it? By a happy stroke of philosophical genius he lit on the +ellipse. On bringing his hypothesis to the test of observation, he +found it was indeed so; and rising from the case of Mars to universal +statement, he generalized the law, that the planetary orbits are +elliptical, having the sun for their common focus. + +[Footnote 1: ROBERT SMALL: _Astronomical Discoveries of Kepler_.] + +Kepler had now determined the course of each planet. But there was no +known relation between the distances and times; and the evolution of +some harmony between these factors was to him an object of the greatest +interest and the most restless curiosity. Long he dwelt in the dream of +the Pythagorean harmonies. Then he essayed to determine it from the +regular geometrical solids, and afterwards from the divisions of +musical chords. Over twenty years he spent in these baffled efforts. At +length, on the 8th of March, 1618, it occurred to him, that, instead of +comparing the simple times, he should compare the numbers expressing +the similar powers, as squares, cubes, etc.; and lastly, he made the +very comparison on which his discovery was founded, between the squares +of the times and the cubes of the distances. But, through some error of +calculation, no common relation was found between them. Finding it +impossible, however, to banish the subject from his thoughts, he tells +us, that on the 8th of the following May he renewed the last of these +comparisons, and, by repeating his calculations with greater care, +found, with the highest astonishment and delight, that the ratio of the +squares of the periodical times of any two planets was constantly and +invariably the same with the ratio of the cubes of their mean distances +from the sun. Then it was that he burst forth in his memorable +rhapsody:--"What I prophesied twenty-two years ago, as soon as I +discovered the five solids among the heavenly orbits,--what I firmly +believed long before I had seen Ptolemy's harmonics,--what I had +promised my friends in the title of this book, which I named before I +was sure of my discovery,--what sixteen years ago I urged as a thing to +be sought,--that for which I joined Tycho Brahe, for which I settled in +Prague, for which I have devoted the best part of my life to +astronomical contemplation,--at length I have brought to light, and +have recognized its truth beyond my most sanguine expectations. It is +now eighteen months since I got the first glimpse of light, three +months since the dawn, very few days since the unveiled sun, most +admirable to gaze upon, burst out upon me. Nothing holds me; I will +indulge in my sacred fury; I will triumph over mankind by the honest +confession, that I have stolen the golden vases of the Egyptians to +build up a tabernacle for my God far away from the confines of Egypt. +If you forgive me, I rejoice; if you are angry, I can bear it: the die +is cast; the book is written, to be read either now or by posterity, I +care not which: it may well wait a century for a reader, as God has +waited six thousand years for an observer!" + +These laws have, no doubt, a universal significance, and may be +translated into problems of life. For, after the farthest sweep of +Induction, a question yet remains to be asked: Whence comes the power +to perceive a law? Whence that subtile correspondence and +consanguinity, that the laws of man's mental structure tally with the +phenomena of the universe? To this problem of problems our science as +yet affords but meagre answers. It seems though, so far in the history +of humanity, it had been but given man to recognize this truth as a +splendid idealism, without the ability to make it potential in his +theory of the world. Yet what a key to new and beautiful gates of laws! + + "Who can be sure to find its true degree, + _Magister magnus in igne_ shall he be." + +Antique and intuitive nations--Indians, Egyptians, Greeks--sought a +solution of this august mystery in the doctrines of Transmigration and +Anamnesis or Reminiscence. Nothing is whereto man is not kin. He knows +all worlds and histories by virtue of having himself travelled the +mystic spiral descent. Awaking through memory, the processes of his +mind repeat the processes of the visible Kosmos. His unfolding is a +hymn of the origination of the world. + +Nature and man having sprung from the same spiritual source, a perfect +agreement subsists between the phenomena of the world and man's +mentality. This is necessary to the very conception of Science. If the +laws of reason did not exist in Nature, we should vainly attempt to +force them upon her: if the laws of Nature did not exist in our reason, +we should not be able to comprehend them.[1] There is a saying reported +of Zoroaster, and, coming from the deeps of fifty centuries, still +authentic and intelligible, that "the congruities of material forms to +the laws of the soul are divine allurements." Ever welcome is the +perception of this truth,--as the sublime audacity of Paracelsus, that +"those who would understand the course of the heavens above must first +of all recognize the heaven in man"; and the affirmation, that "the +laws of Nature are the same as the thoughts within us: the laws of +motion are such as are required by our understanding." It remains to +say that Kepler, too, had intuition of this lofty thought. At the +conclusion of his early work, "The Prodromus Dissertationum +Cosmographicarum," he wrote,--"As men enjoy dainties at the dessert, so +do wise souls gain a taste for heavenly things when they ascend from +their college to the universe and there look around them. Great Artist +of the World! I look with wonder on the works of Thy hands, constructed +after five regular forms, and in the midst the sun, the dispenser of +light and life. I see the moon and stars strewn over the infinite field +of space. Father of the World! what moved Thee thus to exalt a poor, weak +little creature of earth so high that he stands in light a far-ruling +king, almost a god?--_for he thinks Thy thoughts after Thee_." + +[Footnote 1: OERSTED: _Soul in Nature._] + +It is impossible not to feel freer at the accession of so much power as +these laws bring us. They carry farther on the bounds of humanity. The +stars are the eternal monitions of spirituality. Who can estimate how +much man's thoughts have been colored by these golden kindred? It seems +as though it were but required to show man space,--space, space, +space,--there is that in him will fill and pass it. There is that in +the celestial prodigies--in gulfs of Time and Space--that seems to mate +the greed of the soul. There is that greed in the soul to pass through +worlds and ages,--through growths, griefs, desires, processes, +spheres,--to travel the endless highways,--to pass and resume again. O +Heavens, you are but a splendid fable of the elder mind! Centripetal +and centrifugal are in man, too, and primarily; and an aspiring soul +will ascend into the sweeps and circles, and pass swift and devouring +through baffling intervals and steep-down strata of galaxies and stars. + +The thought that overarches the centuries with firmamental sweep is the +thought of the Ensemble. To this all has led along,--but the +disclosures of Astronomy especially. The discovery of the earth's +revolution, at once transporting the stars to distances outside of all +telluric connection, broke the old spell, and replaced the petty +provincialism of the earth as the All-Centre by the vast, sublime +conception of the Universe. Laplace has pointed this out, showing how +to the fantastic and enervating notion of a universe arranged for man +has succeeded the sound and vivifying thought of man discovering, by a +positive exercise of his intelligence, the general laws of the world, +so as to be able to modify them for his own good, within certain +limits. Dawning prophetic on modern times, the thought of the Ensemble +holds the seeds of new humanitary growths. This is the vast similitude +that binds together the ages,--that balances creeds, colors, eras. +Through Nature, man, forms, spirit, the eternal conspiracy works and +weaves. This is the water of spirituality. All is bound up in the +Divine Scheme. The Divine Scheme encloses all. + + + + +PLEASURE-PAIN. + +"Das Vergnuegen ist Nichts als ein hoechst angenehmer Schmerz."--HEINRICH +HEINE + + +I. + +Full of beautiful blossoms + Stood the tree in early May: +Came a chilly gale from the sunset, + And blew the blossoms away,-- + +Scattered them, through the garden, + Tossed them into the mere: +The sad tree moaned and shuddered, + "Alas! the fall is here." + +But all through the glowing summer + The blossomless tree throve fair, +And the fruit waxed ripe and mellow, + With sunny rain and air; + +And when the dim October + With golden death was crowned, +Under its heavy branches + The tree stooped to the ground. + +In youth there comes a west wind + Blowing our bloom away,-- +A chilly breath of Autumn + Out of the lips of May. + +We bear the ripe fruit after,-- + Ah, me! for the thought of pain!-- +We know the sweetness and beauty + And the heart-bloom never again. + +II. + +One sails away to sea,-- + One stands on the shore and cries; +The ship goes down the world, and the light + On the sullen water dies. + +The whispering shell is mute,-- + And after is evil cheer: +She shall stand on the shore and cry in vain, + Many and many a year. + +But the stately, wide-winged ship + Lies wrecked on the unknown deep; +Far under, dead in his coral bed, + The lover lies asleep. + +III. + +In the wainscot ticks the death-watch, + Chirps the cricket in the floor, +In the distance dogs are barking, + Feet go by outside my door. + +From her window honeysuckles + Stealing in upon the gloom, +Spice and sweets embalm the silence + Dead within the lonesome room. + +And the ghost of that dead silence + Haunts me ever, thin and chill, +In the pauses of the death-watch, + When the cricket's cry is still. + +IV. + +She stands in silks of purple, + Like a splendid flower in bloom; +She moves, and the air is laden + With delicate perfume. + +The over-vigilant mamma + Can never let her be: +She must play this march for another, + And sing that song for me. + +I wonder if she remembers + The song I made for her: +"_The hopes of love are frailer + Than lines of gossamer_": + +Made when we strolled together + Through fields of happy June, +And our hearts kept time together, + With birds and brooks in tune,-- + +And I was so glad of loving, + That I must mimic grief, +And, trusting in love forever, + Must fable unbelief. + +I did not hear the prelude,-- + I was thinking of these old things. +She is fairer and wiser and older + Than----What is it she sings? + +"_The hopes of love are frailer + Than lines of gossamer_." +Alas! the bitter wisdom + Of the song I made for her! + +V. + +All the long August afternoon, + The little drowsy stream +Whispers a melancholy tune, +As if it dreamed of June + And whispered in its dream. + +The thistles show beyond the brook + Dust on their down and bloom, +And out of many a weed-grown nook +The aster-flowers look + With eyes of tender gloom. + +The silent orchard aisles are sweet + With smell of ripening fruit. +Through the sere grass, in shy retreat, +Flatter, at coming feet, + The robins strange and mute. + +There is no wind to stir the leaves, + The harsh leaves overhead; +Only the querulous cricket grieves, +And shrilling locust weaves + A song of summer dead. + + + + +THE PROFESSOR'S STORY. + + +CHAPTER VII. + +THE EVENT OF THE SEASON. + + +"Mr. and Mrs. Colonel Sprowle's compliments to Mr. Langdon and requests +the pleasure of his company at a social entertainment on Wednesday +evening next. + +"_Elm St. Monday._" + +On paper of a pinkish color and musky smell, with a large S at the top, +and an embossed border. Envelop adherent, not sealed. Addressed, + +----_Langdon Esq. + +Present._ + +Brought by H. Frederic Sprowle, youngest son of the Colonel,--the H. of +course standing for the paternal Hezekiah, put in to please the father, +and reduced to its initial to please the mother, she having a marked +preference for Frederic. Boy directed to wait for an answer. + +"Mr. Langdon has the pleasure of accepting Mr. and Mrs. Colonel +Sprowle's polite invitation for Wednesday evening." + +On plain paper, sealed with an initial. + +In walking along the main street, Mr. Bernard had noticed a large house +of some pretensions to architectural display, namely, unnecessarily +projecting eaves, giving it a mushroomy aspect, wooden mouldings at +various available points, and a grandiose arched portico. It looked a +little swaggering by the side of one or two of the mansion-houses that +were not far from it, was painted too bright for Mr. Bernard's taste, +had rather too fanciful a fence before it, and had some fruit-trees +planted in the front-yard, which to this fastidious young gentleman +implied a defective sense of the fitness of things, not promising in +people who lived in so large a house, with a mushroom roof, and a +triumphal arch for its entrance. + +This place was known as "Colonel Sprowle's villa," (genteel +friends,)--as "the elegant residence of our distinguished +fellow-citizen, Colonel Sprowle," (Rockland Weekly Universe,)--as "the +neew haouse," (old settlers,)--as "Spraowle's Folly," (disaffected and +possibly envious neighbors,)--and in common discourse, as "the +Colonel's". + +Hezekiah Sprowle, Esquire, Colonel Sprowle of the Commonwealth's +Militia, was a retired "merchant." An India merchant he might, perhaps, +have been properly called; for he used to deal in West India goods, +such as coffee, sugar, and molasses, not to speak of rum,--also in tea, +salt fish, butter and cheese, oil and candles, dried fruit, +agricultural "p'doose" generally, industrial products, such as boots +and shoes, and various kinds of iron and wooden ware, and at one end of +the establishment in calicoes and other stuffs,--to say nothing of +miscellaneous objects of the most varied nature, from sticks of candy, +which tempted in the smaller youth with coppers in their fists, up to +ornamental articles of apparel, pocket-books, breast-pins, gilt-edged +Bibles, stationery,--in short, everything which was like to prove +seductive to the rural population. The Colonel had made money in trade, +and also by matrimony. He had married Sarah, daughter and heiress of +the late Tekel Jordan, Esq., an old miser, who gave the town clock, +which carries his name to posterity in large gilt letters as a generous +benefactor of his native place. In due time the Colonel reaped the +reward of well-placed affections. When his wife's inheritance fell in, +he thought he had money enough to give up trade, and therefore sold out +his "store," called in some dialects of the English language _shop_, +and his business. + +Life became pretty hard work to him, of course, as soon as he had +nothing particular to do. Country people with money enough not to have +to work are in much more danger than city people in the same condition. +They get a specific look and character, which are the same in all the +villages where one studies them. They very commonly fall into a +routine, the basis of which is going to some lounging-place or other, a +bar-room, a reading-room, or something of the kind. They grow slovenly +in dress, and wear the same hat forever. They have a feeble curiosity +for news perhaps, which they take daily as a man takes his bitters, and +then fall silent and think they are thinking. But the mind goes out +under this regimen, like a fire without a draught; and it is not very +strange, if the instinct of mental self-preservation drives them to +brandy-and-water, which makes the hoarse whisper of memory musical for +a few brief moments, and puts a weak leer of promise on the features of +the hollow-eyed future. The Colonel was kept pretty well in hand as yet +by his wife, and though it had happened to him once or twice to come +home rather late at night with a curious tendency to say the same thing +twice and even three times over, it had always been in very cold +weather,--and everybody knows that no one is safe to drink a couple of +glasses of wine in a warm room and go suddenly out into the cold air. + +Miss Matilda Sprowle, sole daughter of the house, had reached the age +at which young ladies are supposed in technical language to have _come +out_, and thereafter are considered to be _in company._ + +"There's one piece o' goods," said the Colonel to his wife, "that we +ha'n't disposed of, nor got a customer for yet. That's Matildy. I don't +mean to set _her_ up at vaandoo. I guess she can have her pick of a +dozen." + +"She's never seen anybody yet," said Mrs. Sprowle, who had had a +certain project for some time, but had kept quiet about it. "Let's have +a party, and give her a chance to show herself and see some of the +young folks." + +The Colonel was not very clear-headed, and he thought, naturally +enough, that the party was his own suggestion, because his remark led +to the first starting of the idea. He entered into the plan, therefore, +with a certain pride as well as pleasure, and the great project was +resolved upon in a family council without a dissentient voice. This was +the party, then, to which Mr. Bernard was going. The town had been full +of it for a week. "Everybody was asked." So everybody said that was +invited. But how in respect of those who were not asked? If it had been +one of the old mansion-houses that was giving a party, the boundary +between the favored and the slighted families would have been known +pretty well beforehand, and there would have been no great amount of +grumbling. But the Colonel, for all his title, had a forest of poor +relations and a brushwood swamp of shabby friends, for he had scrambled +up to fortune, and now the time was come when he must define his new +social position. + +This is always an awkward business in town or country. An exclusive +alliance between two powers is often the same thing as a declaration of +war against a third. Rockland was soon split into a triumphant +minority, invited to Mrs. Sprowle's party, and a great majority, +uninvited, of which the fraction just on the border line between +recognized "gentility" and the level of the ungloved masses was in an +active state of excitement and indignation. + +"Who is she, I should like to know?" said Mrs. Saymore, the tailor's +wife. "There was plenty of folks in Rockland as good as ever Sally +Jordan was, if she _had_ managed to pick up a merchant. Other folks +could have married merchants, if their families wasn't as wealthy as +them old skinflints that willed her their money," etc., etc. Mrs. +Saymore expressed the feeling of many beside herself. She had, however, +a special right to be proud of the name she bore. Her husband was own +cousin to the Saymores of Freestone Avenue (who write the name +_Seymour_, and claim to be of the Duke of Somerset's family, showing a +clear descent from the Protector to Edward Seymour, (1630,)--then a +jump that would break a herald's neck to one Seth Saymore, +(1783,)--from whom to the head of the present family the line is clear +again). Mrs. Saymore, the tailor's wife, was not invited, because her +husband _mended_ clothes. If he had confined himself strictly to +_making_ them, it would have put a different face upon the matter. + +The landlord of the Mountain House and his lady were invited to Mrs. +Sprowle's party. Not so the landlord of Pollard's Tavern and his lady. +Whereupon the latter vowed that they would have a party at their house +too, and made arrangements for a dance of twenty or thirty couples, to +be followed by an entertainment. Tickets to this "Social Ball" were +soon circulated, and, being accessible to all at a moderate price, +admission to the "Elegant Supper" included, this second festival +promised to be as merry, if not as select, as the great party. + +Wednesday came. Such doings had never been heard of in Rockland as went +on that day at the "villa." The carpet had been taken up in the long +room, so that the young folks might have a dance. Miss Matilda's piano +had been moved in, and two fiddlers and a clarionet-player engaged to +make music. All kinds of lamps had been put in requisition, and even +colored wax-candles figured on the mantel-pieces. The costumes of the +family had been tried on the day before: the Colonel's black suit +fitted exceedingly well; his lady's velvet dress displayed her contours +to advantage; Miss Matilda's flowered silk was considered superb; the +eldest son of the family, Mr. T. Jordan Sprowle, called affectionately +and elegantly "Geordie," voted himself "stunnin'"; and even the small +youth who had borne Mr. Bernard's invitation was effective in a new +jacket and trousers, buttony in front, and baggy in the reverse aspect, +as is wont to be the case with the home-made garments of inland +youngsters. + +Great preparations had been made for the refection which was to be part +of the entertainment. There was much clinking of borrowed spoons, which +were to be carefully counted, and much clicking of borrowed china, +which was to be tenderly handled,--for nobody in the country keeps +those vast closets full of such things which one may see in rich +city-houses. Not a great deal could be done in the way of flowers, for +there were no greenhouses, and few plants were out as yet; but there +were paper ornaments for the candlesticks, and colored mats for the +lamps, and all the tassels of the curtains and bells were taken out of +those brown linen bags, in which, for reasons hitherto undiscovered, +they are habitually concealed in some households. In the remoter +apartments every imaginable operation was going on at once,--roasting, +boiling, baking, beating, rolling, pounding in mortars, frying, +freezing; for there was to be ice-cream to-night of domestic +manufacture;--and in the midst of all these labors, Mrs. Sprowle and +Miss Matilda were moving about, directing and helping as they best +might, all day long. When the evening came, it might be feared they +would not be in just the state of mind and body to entertain company. + +----One would like to give a party now and then, if one could be a +billionnaire.--"Antoine, I am going to have twenty people to dine +to-day." "_Bien, Madame_." Not a word or thought more about it, but get +home in season to dress, and come down to your own table, one of your +own guests.--"Giuseppe, we are to have a party a week from +to-night,--five hundred invitations,--there is the list." The day +comes. "Madam, do you remember you have your party to-night?" "Why, so +I have! Everything right? supper and all?" "All as it should be, +Madam." "Send up Victorine." "Victorine, full toilet for this +evening,--pink, diamonds, and emeralds. Coiffeur at seven. +_Allez_."--Billionism, or even millionism, must be a blessed kind of +state, with health and clear conscience and youth and good looks,--but +most blessed in this, that it takes off all the mean cares which give +people the three wrinkles between the eyebrows, and leaves them free to +have a good time and make others have a good time, all the way along +from the charity that tips up unexpected loads of wood at widows' +doors, and leaves foundling turkeys upon poor men's doorsteps, and sets +lean clergymen crying at the sight of anonymous fifty-dollar bills, to +the taste which orders a perfect banquet in such sweet accord with +every sense that everybody's nature flowers out full-blown in its +golden-glowing, fragrant atmosphere. + +----A great party given by the smaller gentry of the interior is a kind +of solemnity, so to speak. It involves so much labor and anxiety,--its +spasmodic splendors are so violently contrasted with the homeliness of +every-day family-life,--it is such a formidable matter to break in the +raw subordinates to the _manege_ of the cloak-room and the +table,--there is such a terrible uncertainty in the results of +unfamiliar culinary operations,--so many feuds are involved in drawing +that fatal line which divides the invited from the uninvited fraction +of the local universe,--that, if the notes requested the pleasure of +the guests' company on "this solemn occasion," they would pretty nearly +express the true state of things. + +The Colonel himself had been pressed into the service. He had pounded +something in the great mortar. He had agitated a quantity of sweetened +and thickened milk in what was called a cream-freezer. At eleven +o'clock, A.M., he retired for a space. On returning, his color was +noted to be somewhat heightened, and he showed a disposition to be +jocular with the female help,--which tendency, displaying itself in +livelier demonstrations than were approved at head-quarters, led to his +being detailed to out-of-door duties, such as raking gravel, arranging +places for horses to be hitched to, and assisting in the construction +of an arch of wintergreen at the porch of the mansion. + +A whiff from Mr. Geordie's cigar refreshed the toiling females from +time to time; for the windows had to be opened occasionally, while all +these operations were going on, and the youth amused himself with +inspecting the interior, encouraging the operatives now and then in the +phrases commonly employed by genteel young men,--for he had perused an +odd volume of "Verdant Green," and was acquainted with a Sophomore from +one of the fresh-water colleges.--"Go it on the feed!" exclaimed this +spirited young man. "Nothin' like a good spread. Grub enough and good +liquor; that's the ticket. Guv'nor 'll do the heavy polite, and let me +alone for polishin' off the young charmers." And Mr. Geordie looked +expressively at a handmaid who was rolling gingerbread, as if he were +rehearsing for "Don Giovanni." + +Evening came at last, and the ladies were forced to leave the scene of +their labors to array themselves for the coming festivities. The tables +had been set in a back room, the meats were ready, the pickles were +displayed, the cake was baked, the blanc-mange had stiffened, and the +ice-cream had frozen. + +At half past seven o'clock, the Colonel, in costume, came into the +front parlor, and proceeded to light the lamps. Some were good-humored +enough and took the hint of a lighted match at once. Others were as +vicious as they could be,--would not light on any terms, any more than +if they were filled with water, or lighted and smoked one side of the +chimney, or sputtered a few sparks and sulked themselves out, or kept +up a faint show of burning, so that their ground glasses looked as +feebly phosphorescent as so many invalid fireflies. With much coaxing +and screwing and pricking, a tolerable illumination was at last +achieved. At eight there was a grand rustling of silks, and Mrs. and +Miss Sprowle descended from their respective bowers or boudoirs. Of +course they were pretty well tired by this time, and very glad to sit +down,--having the prospect before them of being obliged to stand for +hours. The Colonel walked about the parlor, inspecting his regiment of +lamps. By-and-by Mr. Geordie entered. + +"Mph! mph!" he sniffed, as he came in. "You smell of lamp-smoke here." + +That always galls people,--to have a new-comer accuse them of smoke or +close air, which they have got used to and do not perceive. The Colonel +raged at the thought of his lamps' smoking, and tongued a few anathemas +inside of his shut teeth, but turned down two or three that burned +higher than the rest. + +Master H. Frederic next made his appearance, with questionable marks +upon his fingers and countenance. Had been tampering with something +brown and sticky. His elder brother grew playful, and caught him by the +baggy reverse of his more essential garment. + +"Hush!" said Mrs. Sprowle,--"there's the bell!" + +Everybody took position at once, and began to look very smiling and +altogether at ease.--False alarm. Only a parcel of spoons,--"loaned," +as the inland folks say when they mean lent, by a neighbor. + +"Better late than never!" said the Colonel; "let me heft them spoons." + +Mrs. Sprowle came down into her chair again as if all her bones had +been bewitched out of her. + +"I'm pretty nigh beat out a'ready," said she, "before any of the folks +has come." + +They sat silent awhile, waiting for the first arrival. How nervous they +got! and how their senses were sharpened! + +"Hark!" said Miss Matilda,--"what's that rumblin'?" + +It was a cart going over a bridge more than a mile off, which at any +other time they would not have heard. After this there was a lull, and +poor Mrs. Sprowle's head nodded once or twice. Presently a crackling +and grinding of gravel;--how much that means, when we are waiting for +those whom we long or dread to see! Then a change in the tone of the +gravel-crackling. + +"Yes, they have turned in at our gate. They're comin'. Mother! mother!" + +Everybody in position, smiling and at ease. Bell rings. Enter the first +set of visitors. The Event of the Season has begun. + +"Law! it's nothin' but the Cranes' folks! I do believe Mahala's come in +that old green de-laine she wore at the Surprise Party!" + +Miss Matilda had peeped through a crack of the door and made this +observation and the remark founded thereon. Continuing her attitude of +attention, she overheard Mrs. Crane and her two daughters conversing in +the attiring-room, up one flight. + +"How fine everything is in the great house!" said Mrs. Crane,--"jest +look at the picters!" "Matildy Sprowle's drawins," said Ada Azuba, the +eldest daughter. + +"I should think so," said Mahala Crane, her younger sister,--a +wide-awake girl, who hadn't been to school for nothing, and performed a +little on the lead pencil herself. "I should like to know whether +that's a hay-cock or a mountain!" + +Miss Matilda winced; for this must refer to her favorite monochrome, +executed by laying on heavy shadows and stumping them down into mellow +harmony,--the style of drawing which is taught in six lessons, and the +kind of specimen which is executed in something less than one hour. +Parents and other very near relatives are sometimes gratified with +these productions, and cause them to be framed and hung up, as in the +present instance. + +"I guess we won't go down jest yet," said Mrs. Crane, "as folks don't +seem to have come." + +So she began a systematic inspection of the dressing-room and its +conveniences. + +"Mahogany four-poster,--come from the Jordans', I cal'late. Marseilles +quilt. Ruffles all round the piller. Chintz curtings,--jest put up,--o' +purpose for the party, I'll lay ye a dollar.--What a nice washbowl!" +(Taps it with a white knuckle belonging to a red finger.) "Stone +chaney.--Here's a bran'-new brush and comb,--and here's a scent-bottle. +Come here, girls, and fix yourselves in the glass, and scent your +pocket-handkerchers." + +And Mrs. Crane bedewed her own kerchief with some of the _eau de +Cologne_ of native manufacture,--said on its label to be much superior +to the German article. + +It was a relief to Mrs. and the Miss Cranes when the bell rang and the +next guests were admitted. Deacon and Mrs. Soper,--Deacon Soper of the +Rev. Mr. Fairweather's church, and his lady. Mrs. Deacon Soper was +directed, of course, to the ladies' dressing-room, and her husband to +the other apartment, where gentlemen were to leave their outside coats +and hats. Then came Mr. and Mrs. Briggs, and then the three Miss +Spinneys, then Silas Peckham, Head of the Apollinean Institute, and +Mrs. Peckham, and more after them, until at last the ladies' +dressing-room got so full that one might have thought it was a trap +none of them could get out of. The fact is, they all felt a little +awkwardly. Nobody wanted to be first to venture down-stairs. At last +Mr. Silas Peckham thought it was time to make a move for the parlor, +and for this purpose presented himself at the door of the ladies' +dressing-room. + +"Lorindy, my dear!" he exclaimed to Mrs. Peckham,--"I think there can +be no impropriety in our joining the family down-stairs." + +Mrs. Peckham laid her large, flaccid arm in the sharp angle made by the +black sleeve which held the bony limb her husband offered, and the two +took the stair and struck out for the parlor. The ice was broken, and +the dressing-room began to empty itself into the spacious, lighted +apartments below. + +Mr. Silas Peckham scaled into the room with Mrs. Peckham alongside, +like a shad convoying a jelly-fish. + +"Good evenin', Mrs. Sprowle! I hope I see you well this evenin'. How's +your health, Colonel Sprowle?" + +"Very well, much obleeged to you. Hope you and your good lady are well. +Much pleased to see you. Hope you'll enjoy yourselves. We've laid out +to have everything in good shape,--spared no trouble nor ex"---- + +----"pense,"--said Silas Peckham. + +Mrs. Colonel Sprowle, who, you remember, was a Jordan, had nipped the +Colonel's statement in the middle of the word Mr. Peckham finished, +with a look that jerked him like one of those sharp twitches women keep +giving a horse when they get a chance to drive one. + +Mr. and Mrs. Crane, Miss Ada Azuba, and Miss Mahala Crane made their +entrance. There had been a discussion about the necessity and propriety +of inviting this family, the head of which kept a small shop for hats +and boots and shoes. The Colonel's casting vote had carried it in the +affirmative.--How terribly the poor old green de-laine did cut up in +the blaze of so many lamps and candles! + +----Deluded little wretch, male or female, in town or country, going to +your first great party, how little you know the nature of the ceremony +in which you are to bear the part of victim! What! are not these +garlands and gauzy mists and many-colored streamers which adorn you, is +not this music which welcomes you, this radiance that glows about you, +meant solely for your enjoyment, young miss of seventeen or eighteen +summers, now for the first time swimming into the frothy, chatoyant, +sparkling, undulating sea of laces and silks and satins, and +white-armed, flower-crowned maidens struggling in their waves, beneath +the lustres that make the false summer of the drawing-room? + +Stop at the threshold! This is a hall of judgment you are entering; the +court is in session; and if you move five steps forward, you will be at +its bar. + +There was a tribunal once in France, as you may remember, called the +_Chambre Ardente_, the Burning Chamber. It was hung all round with +lamps, and hence its name. The burning chamber for the trial of young +maidens is the blazing ballroom. What have they full-dressed you, or +rather half-dressed you for, do you think? To make you look pretty, of +course!--Why have they hung a chandelier above you, flickering all over +with flames, so that it searches you like the noonday sun, and your +deepest dimple cannot hold a shadow? To give brilliancy to the gay +scene, no doubt!--No, my dear! Society is _inspecting_ you, and it +finds undisguised surfaces and strong lights a convenience in the +process. The dance answers the purpose of the revolving pedestal upon +which the "White Captive" turns, to show us the soft, kneaded marble, +which looks as if it had never been hard, in all its manifold aspects +of living loveliness. No mercy for you, my love! Justice, strict +justice, you shall certainly have,--neither more nor less. For, look +you, there are dozens, scores, hundreds, with whom you must be weighed +in the balance; and you have got to learn that the "struggle for life" +Mr. Charles Darwin talks about reaches to vertebrates clad in +crinoline, as well as to mollusks in shells, or articulates in jointed +scales, or anything that fights for breathing-room and food and love in +any coat of fur or feather! Happy they who can flash defiance from +bright eyes and snowy shoulders back into the pendants of the insolent +lustres! + +----Miss Mahala Crane did not have these reflections; and no young girl +ever did, or ever will, thank Heaven! Her keen eyes sparkled under her +plainly parted hair, and the green de-laine moulded itself in those +unmistakable lines of natural symmetry in which Nature indulges a small +shopkeeper's daughter occasionally as well as a wholesale dealer's +young ladies. She would have liked a new dress as much as any other +girl, but she meant to go and have a good time at any rate. + +The guests were now arriving in the drawing-room pretty fast, and the +Colonel's hand began to burn a good deal with the sharp squeezes which +many of the visitors gave it. Conversation, which had begun like a +summer-shower, in scattering drops, was fast becoming continuous, and +occasionally rising into gusty swells, with now and then a +broad-chested laugh from some Captain or Major or other military +personage,--for it may be noted that all large and loud men in the +impaved districts bear military titles. + +Deacon Soper came up presently and entered into conversation with +Colonel Sprowle. + +"I hope to see our pastor present this evenin'," said the Deacon. + +"I don't feel quite sure," the Colonel answered. "His dyspepsy has been +bad on him lately. He wrote to say, that, Providence permittin', it +would be agreeable to him to take a part in the exercises of the +evenin'; but I mistrusted he didn't mean to come. To tell the truth, +Deacon Soper, I rather guess he don't like the idee of dancin', and +some of the other little arrangements." + +"Well," said the Deacon, "I know there's some condemns dancin'. I've +heerd a good deal of talk about it among the folks round. Some have it +that it never brings a blessin' on a house to have dancin' in it. Judge +Tileston died, you remember, within a month after he had his great +ball, twelve year ago, and some thought it was in the natur' of a +judgment. I don't believe in any of them notions. If a man happened to +be struck dead the night after he'd been givin' a ball," (the Colonel +loosened his black stock a little, and winked and swallowed two or +three times,) "I shouldn't call it a judgment,--I should call it a +coincidence. But I'm a little afraid our pastor won't come. Somethin' +or other's the matter with Mr. Fairweather. I should sooner expect to +see the old Doctor come over out of the Orthodox parsonage-house." + +"I've asked him," said the Colonel. + +"Well?" said Deacon Soper. + +"He said he should like to come, but he didn't know what his people +would say. For his part, he loved to see young folks havin' their +sports together, and very often felt, as if he should like to be one of +'em himself. 'But,' says I, 'Doctor, I don't say there won't be a +little dancin'.' 'Don't!' says he, 'for I want Letty to go,' (she's his +granddaughter that's been stayin' with him,) 'and Letty's mighty fond +of dancin'. You know,' says the Doctor, 'it isn't my business to settle +whether other people's children should dance or not.' And the Doctor +looked as if he should like to rigadoon and sashy across as well as the +young one he was talkin' about. He's got blood in him, the old Doctor +has. I wish our little man and him would swop pulpits." + +Deacon Soper started and looked up into the Colonel's face, as if to +see whether he was in earnest. + +Mr. Silas Peckham and his lady joined the group. + +"Is this to be a Temperance Celebration, Mrs. Sprowle?" asked Mr. Silas +Peckham. + +Mrs. Sprowle replied, "that there would be lemonade and srub for those +that preferred such drinks, but that the Colonel had given folks to +understand that he didn't mean to set in judgment on the marriage in +Canaan, and that those that didn't like srub and such things would find +somethin' that would suit them better." + +Deacon Soper's countenance assumed a certain air of restrained +cheerfulness. The conversation rose into one of its gusty paroxysms +just then. Master H. Frederic got behind a door and began performing +the experiment of stopping and unstopping his ears in rapid +alternation, greatly rejoicing in the singular effect of mixed +conversation chopped very small, like the contents of a mince-pie,--or +meat pie, as it is more forcibly called in the deep-rutted villages +lying along the unsalted streams. All at once it grew silent just round +the door, where it had been loudest,--and the silence spread itself +like a stain, till it hushed everything but a few corner-duets. A dark, +sad-looking, middle-aged gentleman entered the parlor, with a young +lady on his arm,--his daughter, as it seemed, for she was not wholly +unlike him in feature, and of the same dark complexion. + +"Dudley Venner!" exclaimed a dozen people, in startled, but +half-suppressed tones. + +"What can have brought Dudley out to-night?" said Jefferson Buck, a +young fellow, who had been interrupted in one of the corner-duets which +he was executing in concert with Miss Susy Pettingill. + +"How do I know, Jeff?" was Miss Susy's answer. Then, after a +pause,--"Elsie made him come, I guess. Go ask Dr. Kittredge; he knows +all about 'em both, they say." + +Dr. Kittredge, the leading physician of Rockland, was a shrewd old man, +who looked pretty keenly into his patients through his spectacles, and +pretty widely at men, women, and things in general over them. +Sixty-three years old,--just the year of the grand climacteric. A bald +crown, as every doctor should have. A consulting practitioner's mouth; +that is, movable round the corners while the case is under examination, +but both corners well drawn down and kept so when the final opinion is +made up. In fact, the Doctor was often sent for to act as "caounsel," +all over the county, and beyond it. He kept three or four horses, +sometimes riding in the saddle, commonly driving in a sulky, pretty +fast, and looking straight before him, so that people got out of the +way of bowing to him as he passed on the road. There was some talk +about his not being so long-sighted as other folks, but his old +patients laughed and looked knowing when this was spoken of. + +The Doctor knew a good many things besides how to drop tinctures and +shake out powders. Thus, he knew a horse, and, what is harder to +understand, a horse-dealer, and was a match for him. He knew what a +nervous woman is, and how to manage her. He could tell at a glance when +she is in that condition of unstable equilibrium in which a rough word +is like blow to her, and the touch of unmagnetized fingers reverses all +her nervous currents. It is not everybody that enters into the soul of +Mozart's or Beethoven's harmonies; and there are vital symphonies in B +flat, and other low, sad keys, which a doctor may know as little of as +a hurdy-gurdy player of the essence of those divine musical mysteries. +The Doctor knew the difference between what men say and what they mean +as well as most people. When he was listening to common talk, he was in +the habit of looking over his spectacles; if he lifted his head so as +to look through them at the person talking, he was busier with that +person's thoughts than with his words. + +Jefferson Buck was not bold enough to confront the Doctor with Miss +Susy's question, for he did not look as if he were in the mood to +answer queries put by curious young people. His eyes were fixed +steadily on the dark girl, every movement of whom he seemed to follow. + +She was, indeed, an apparition of wild beauty, so unlike the girls +about her that it seemed nothing more than natural, that, when she +moved, the groups should part to let her pass through them, and that +she should carry the centre of all looks and thoughts with her. She was +dressed to please her own fancy, evidently, with small regard to the +modes declared correct by the Rockland milliners and mantua-makers. Her +heavy black hair lay in a braided coil, with a long gold pin shot +through it like a javelin. Round her neck was a golden _torque_, a +round, cord-like chain, such as the Gauls used to wear: the "Dying +Gladiator" has it. Her dress was a grayish watered silk; her collar was +pinned with a flashing diamond brooch, the stones looking as fresh as +morning dew-drops, but the silver setting of the past generation; her +arms were bare, round, but slender rather than large, in keeping with +her lithe round figure. On her wrists she wore bracelets: one was a +circlet of enamelled scales; the other looked as if it might have been +Cleopatra's asp, with its body turned to gold and its eyes to emeralds. + +Her father--for Dudley Venner was her father--looked like a man of +culture and breeding, but melancholy and with a distracted air, as one +whose life had met some fatal cross or blight. He saluted hardly +anybody except his entertainers and the Doctor. One would have said, to +look at him, that he was not at the party by choice; and it was natural +enough to think, with Susy Pettingill, that it must have been a freak +of the dark girl's that brought him there, for he had the air of a shy +and sad-hearted recluse. + +It was hard to say what could have brought Elsie Venner to the party. +Hardly anybody seemed to know her, and she seemed not at all disposed +to make acquaintances. Here and there was one of the older girls from +the Institute, but she appeared to have nothing in common with them. +Even in the school-room, it may be remembered, she sat apart by her own +choice, and now in the midst of the crowd she made a circle of +isolation round herself. Drawing her arm out of her father's, she stood +against the wall, and looked, with a strange, cold glitter in her eyes, +at the crowd which moved and babbled before her. + +The old Doctor came up to her by-and-by. + +"Well, Elsie, I am quite surprised to find you here. Do tell me how you +happened to do such a good-natured thing as to let us see you at such a +great party." + +"It's been dull at the mansion-house," she said, "and I wanted to get +out of it. It's too lonely there,--there's nobody to hate since Dick's +gone." + +The Doctor laughed good-naturedly, as if this were an amusing bit of +pleasantry,--but he lifted his head and dropped his eyes a little, so +as to see her through his spectacles. She narrowed her lids slightly, +as one often sees a sleepy cat narrow hers,--somewhat as you may +remember our famous Margaret used to, if you remember her at all,--so +that her eyes looked very small, but bright as the diamonds on her +breast. The old Doctor felt very oddly as she looked at him; he did not +like the feeling, so he dropped his head and lifted his eyes and looked +at her over his spectacles again. + +"And how have you all been at the mansion-house?" said the Doctor. + +"Oh, well enough. But Dick's gone, and there's nobody left but Dudley +and I and the people. I'm tired of it. What kills anybody quickest, +Doctor?" Then, in a whisper, "I ran away again the other day, you +know." + +"Where did you go?" The Doctor spoke in a low, serious tone. + +"Oh, to the old place. Here, I brought this for you." + +The Doctor started as she handed him a flower of the _Atragene +Americana_, for he knew that there was only one spot where it grew, and +that not one where any rash foot, least of all a thin-shod woman's +foot, should venture. + +"How long were you gone?" said the Doctor. + +"Only one night. You should have heard the horns blowing and the guns +firing. Dudley was frightened out of his wits. Old Sophy told him she'd +had a dream, and that I should be found in Dead-Man's Hollow, with a +great rock lying on me. They hunted all over it, but they did'nt find +me,--I was farther up." + +Doctor Kittredge looked cloudy and worried while she was speaking, but +forced a pleasant professional smile, as he said cheerily, and as if +wishing to change the subject,-- + +"Have a good dance this evening, Elsie. The fiddlers are tuning up. +Where's the young master? Has he come yet? or is he going to be late, +with the other great folks?" + +The girl turned away without answering, and looked toward the door. + +The "great folks," meaning the mansion-house gentry, were just +beginning to come; Dudley Venner and his daughter had been the first of +them. Judge Thornton, white-headed, fresh-faced, as good at sixty as he +was at forty, with a youngish second wife, and one noble daughter, +Arabella, who, they said, knew as much law as her father, a stately, +Portia-like girl, fit for a premier's wife, not like to find her match +even in the great cities she sometimes visited; the Trecothicks, the +family of a merchant, (in the larger sense,) who, having made himself +rich enough by the time he had reached middle life, threw down his +ledger as Sylla did his dagger, and retired to make a little paradise +around him in one of the stateliest residences of the town, a family +inheritance; the Vaughans, an old Rockland race, descended from its +first settlers, Toryish in tendency in Revolutionary times, and barely +escaping confiscation or worse; the Dunhams, a new family, dating its +gentility only as far back as the Honorable Washington Dunham, M.C., +but turning out a clever boy or two that went to college, and some +showy girls with white necks and fat arms who had picked up +professional husbands: these were the principal mansion-house people. +All of them had made it a point to come; and as each of them entered, +it seemed to Colonel and Mrs. Sprowle that the lamps burned up with a +more cheerful light, and that the fiddles which sounded from the +uncarpeted room were all half a tone higher and half a beat quicker. + +Mr. Bernard came in later than any of them; he had been busy with his +new duties. He looked well; and that is saying a good deal; for nothing +but a gentleman is endurable in full dress. Hair that masses well, a +head set on with an air, a neckerchief tied cleverly by an easy, +practised hand, close-fitting gloves, feet well shaped and well +covered,--these advantages can make us forgive the odious sable +broadcloth suit, which appears to have been adopted by society on the +same principle that condemned all the Venetian gondolas to perpetual +and uniform blackness. Mr. Bernard, introduced by Mr. Geordie, made his +bow to the Colonel and his lady and to Miss Matilda, from whom he got a +particularly gracious curtsy, and then began looking about him for +acquaintances. He found two or three faces he knew,--many more +strangers. There was Silas Peckham,--there was no mistaking him; there +was the inelastic amplitude of Mrs. Peckham; few of the Apollinean +girls, of course, they not being recognized members of society,--but +there is one with the flame in her cheeks and the fire in her eyes, the +girl of vigorous tints and emphatic outlines, whom we saw entering the +school-room the other day. Old Judge Thornton has his eyes on her, and +the Colonel steals a look every now and then at the red brooch which +lifts itself so superbly into the light, as if he thought it a +wonderfully becoming ornament. Mr. Bernard himself was not displeased +with the general effect of the rich-blooded school-girl, as she stood +under the bright lamps, fanning herself in the warm, languid air, fixed +in a kind of passionate surprise at the new life which seemed to be +flowering out in her consciousness. Perhaps he looked at her somewhat +steadily, as some others had done; at any rate, she seemed to feel that +she was looked at, as people often do, and, turning her eyes suddenly +on him, caught his own on her face, gave him a half-bashful smile, and +threw in a blush involuntarily which made it more charming. + +"What can I do better," he said to himself, "than have a dance with +Rosa Milburn?" So he carried his handsome pupil into the next room and +took his place with her in a cotillon. Whether the breath of the +Goddess of Love could intoxicate like the cup of Circe,--whether a +woman is ever phosphorescent with the luminous vapor of life that she +exhales,--these and other questions which relate to occult influences +exercised by certain women, we will not now discuss. It is enough that +Mr. Bernard was sensible of a strange fascination, not wholly new to him, +nor unprecedented in the history of human experience, but always a +revelation when it comes over us for the first or the hundredth time, +so pale is the most recent memory by the side of the passing moment with +the flush of any new-born passion on its cheek. Remember that Nature makes +every man love all women, and trusts the trivial matter of special choice +to the commonest accident. + +If Mr. Bernard had had nothing to distract his attention, he might have +thought too much about his handsome partner, and then gone home and +dreamed about her, which is always dangerous, and waked up thinking of +her still, and then begun to be deeply interested in her studies, and +so on, through the whole syllogism which ends in Nature's supreme _quod +erat demonstrandum_. What was there to distract him or disturb him? He +did not know,--but there was something. This sumptuous creature, this +Eve just within the gate of an untried Paradise, untutored in the ways +of the world, but on tiptoe to reach the fruit of the tree of +knowledge,--alive to the moist vitality of that warm atmosphere +palpitating with voices and music, as the flower of some diaecious +plant which has grown in a lone corner, and suddenly unfolding its +corolla on some hot-breathing June evening, feels that the air is +perfumed with strange odors and loaded with golden dust wafted from +those other blossoms with which its double life is shared,--this almost +overwomanized woman, might well have bewitched him, but that he had a +vague sense of a counter-charm. It was, perhaps, only the same +consciousness that some one was looking at him which he himself had +just given occasion to in his partner. Presently, in one of the turns +of the dance, he felt his eyes drawn to a figure he had not distinctly +recognized, though he had dimly felt its presence, and saw that Elsie +Venner was looking at him as if she saw nothing else but him. He was +not a nervous person, like the poor lady teacher, yet the glitter of +the diamond eyes affected him strangely. It seemed to disenchant the +air, so fall a moment before of strange attractions. He became silent, +and dreamy, as it were. The round-limbed beauty at his side crushed her +gauzy draperies against him, as they trod the figure of the dance +together, but it was no more to him than if an old nurse had laid her +hand on his sleeve. The young girl chafed at his seeming neglect, and +her imperious blood mounted into her cheeks; but he appeared +unconscious of it. + +"There is one of our young ladies I must speak to," he said,--and was +just leaving his partner's side. + +"Four hands all round!" shouted the first violin,--and Mr. Bernard +found himself seized and whirled in a circle out of which he could not +escape, and then forced to "cross over," and then to "dozy do," as the +_maestro_ had it,--and when, on getting back to his place, he looked +for Elsie Venner, she was gone. + +The dancing went on briskly. Some of the old folks looked on, others +conversed in groups and pairs, and so the evening wore along, until a +little after ten o'clock. About this time there was noticed an +increased bustle in the passages, with a considerable opening and +shutting of doors. Presently it began to be whispered about that they +were going to have supper. Many, who had never been to any large party +before, held their breath for a moment at this announcement. It was +rather with a tremulous interest than with open hilarity that the rumor +was generally received. + +One point the Colonel had entirely forgotten to settle. It was a point +involving not merely propriety, but perhaps principle also, or at least +the good report of the house,--and he had never thought to arrange it. +He took Judge Thornton aside and whispered the important question to +him,--in his distress of mind, mistaking pockets and taking out his +bandanna instead of his white handkerchief to wipe his forehead. + +"Judge," he said, "do you think, that, before we commence refreshing +ourselves at the tables, it would be the proper thing to--crave a--to +request Deacon Soper or some other elderly person--to ask a blessing?" + +The Judge looked as grave as if he were about giving the opinion of the +Court in the great India-rubber case. + +"On the whole," he answered, after a pause, "I should think it might, +perhaps, be dispensed with on this occasion. Young folks are noisy, and +it is awkward to have talking and laughing going on while a blessing is +being asked. Unless a clergyman is present and makes a point of it, I +think it will hardly be expected." + +The Colonel was infinitely relieved. "Judge, will you take Mrs. Sprowle +in to supper?" And the Colonel returned the compliment by offering his +arm to Mrs. Judge Thornton. + +The door of the supper-room was now open, and the company, following +the lead of the host and hostess, began to stream into it, until it was +pretty well filled. + +There was an awful kind of pause. Many were beginning to drop their +heads and shut their eyes, in anticipation of the usual petition before +a meal; some expected the music to strike up,--others, that an oration +would now be delivered by the Colonel. + +"Make yourselves at home, ladies and gentlemen," said the Colonel; +"good things were made to eat, and you're welcome to all you see before +you." + +So saying, he attacked a huge turkey which stood at the head of the +table; and his example being followed first by the bold, then by the +doubtful, and lastly by the timid, the clatter soon made the circuit of +the tables. Some were shocked, however, as the Colonel had feared they +would be, at the want of the customary invocation. Widow Leech, a kind +of relation, who had to be invited, and who came with her old, +back-country-looking string of gold beads round her neck, seemed to +feel very serious about it. + +"If she'd ha' known that folks would begrutch cravin' a blessin' over +sech a heap o' provisions, she'd rather have staid t' home. It was a +bad sign, when folks wasn't grateful for the baounties of Providence." + +The elder Miss Spinney, to whom she made this remark, assented to it, +at the same time ogling a piece of frosted cake, which she presently +appropriated with great refinement of manner,--taking it between her +thumb and forefinger, keeping the others well spread and the little +finger in extreme divergence, with a graceful undulation of the neck, +and a queer little sound in her throat, as of an _m_ that wanted to get +out and perished in the attempt. + +The tables now presented an animated spectacle. Young fellows of the +more dashing sort, with high stand-up collars and voluminous bows to +their neckerchiefs, distinguished themselves by cutting up fowls and +offering portions thereof to the buxom girls these knowing ones had +commonly selected. + +"A bit of the wing, Roxy, or of the--under limb?" + +The first laugh broke out at this, but it was premature, a _sporadic_ +laugh, as Dr. Kittredge would have said, which did not become epidemic. +People were very solemn as yet, many of them being new to such splendid +scenes, and crushed, as it were, in the presence of so much crockery +and so many silver spoons, and such a variety of unusual viands and +beverages. When the laugh rose around Roxy and her saucy beau, several +looked in that direction with an anxious expression, as if something +had happened,--a lady fainted, for instance, or a couple of lively +fellows came to high words. + +"Young folks will be young folks," said Deacon Soper. "No harm done. +Least said soonest mended." + +"Have some of these shell-oysters?" said the Colonel to Mrs. +Trecothick. + +A delicate emphasis on the word _shell_ implied that the Colonel knew +what was what. To the New England inland native, beyond the reach of +the east winds, the oyster unconditioned, the oyster absolute, without +a qualifying adjective, is the _pickled_ oyster. Mrs. Trecothick, who +knew very well that an oyster long out of his shell (as is apt to be +the case with the rural bivalve) gets homesick and loses his +sprightliness, replied, with the pleasantest smile in the world, that +the chicken she had been helped to was too delicate to be given up even +for the greater rarity. But the word "shell-oysters" had been +overheard; and there was a perceptible crowding movement towards their +newly discovered habitat, a large soup-tureen. + +Silas Peckham had meantime fallen upon another locality of these recent +mollusks. He said nothing, but helped himself freely, and made a sign +to Mrs. Peckham. + +"Lorindy," he whispered, "shell-oysters!" + +And ladled them out to her largely, without betraying any emotion, just +as if they had been the natural inland or pickled article. + +After the more solid portion of the banquet had been duly honored, the +cakes and sweet preparations of various kinds began to get their share +of attention. There were great cakes and little cakes, cakes with +raisins in them, cakes with currants, and cakes without either; there +were brown cakes and yellow cakes, frosted cakes, glazed cakes, hearts +and rounds, and _jumbles_, which playful youth slip over the forefinger +before spoiling their annular outline. There were moulds of +_blo'monje_, of the arrowroot variety,--that being undistinguishable +from such as is made with Russia isinglass. There were jellies, that +had been shaking, all the time the young folks were dancing in the next +room, as if they were balancing to partners. There were built-up +fabrics, called _Charlottes_, caky externally, pulpy within; there were +also _marangs_, and likewise custards,--some of the indolent-fluid +sort, others firm, in which every stroke of the teaspoon left a smooth, +conchoidal surface like the fracture of chalcedony, with here and there +a little eye like what one sees in cheeses. Nor was that most wonderful +object of domestic art called _trifle_ wanting, with its charming +confusion of cream and cake and almonds and jam and jelly and wine and +cinnamon and froth; nor yet the marvellous _floating-island_,--name +suggestive of all that is romantic in the imaginations of youthful +palates. + +"It must have cost you a sight of work, to say nothin' of money, to get +all this beautiful confectionery made for the party," said Mrs. Crane +to Mrs. Sprowle. + +"Well, it cost some consid'able labor, no doubt," said Mrs. Sprowle. +"Matilda and our girls and I made 'most all the cake with our own +hands, and we all feel some tired; but if folks get what suits 'em, we +don't begrudge the time nor the work. But I do feel thirsty," said the +poor lady, "and I think a glass of srub would do my throat good; it's +dreadful dry. Mr. Peckham, would you be so polite as to pass me a glass +of srub?" + +Silas Peckham bowed with great alacrity, and took from the table a +small glass cup, containing a fluid reddish in hue and subacid in +taste. This was _srub_, a beverage in local repute, of questionable +nature, but suspected of owing its color and sharpness to some kind of +syrup derived from the maroon-colored fruit of the sumac. There were +similar small cups on the table filled with lemonade, and here and +there a decanter of Madeira wine, of the Marsala kind, which some +prefer to, and many more cannot distinguish from, that which comes from +the Atlantic island. + +"Take a glass of wine, Judge," said the Colonel; "here is an article +that I rather think 'll suit you." + +The Judge knew something of wines, and could tell all the famous old +Madeiras from each other,--"Eclipse," "Juno," the almost fabulously +scarce and precious "White-top," and the rest. He struck the nativity +of the Mediterranean Madeira before it had fairly moistened his lip. + +"A sound wine, Colonel, and I should think of a genuine vintage. Your +very good health." + +"Deacon Soper," said the Colonel, "here is some Madary Judge Thornton +recommends. Let me fill you a glass of it." + +The Deacon's eyes glistened. He was one of those consistent Christians +who stick firmly by the first miracle and Paul's advice to Timothy. + +"A little good wine won't hurt anybody," said the Deacon. +"Plenty,--plenty,--plenty. There!" He had not withdrawn his glass, +while the Colonel was pouring, for fear it should spill; and now it was +running over. + +----It is very odd how all a man's philosophy and theology are at the +mercy of a few drops of a fluid which the chemists say consists of +nothing but C 4, O 2, H 6. The Deacon's theology fell off several +points towards latitudinarianism in the course of the next ten minutes. +He had a deep inward sense that everything was as it should be, human +nature included. The little accidents of humanity, known collectively +to moralists as sin, looked very venial to his growing sense of +universal brotherhood and benevolence. + +"It will all come right," the Deacon said to himself,--"I feel a +joyful conviction that everything is for the best. I am favored with +a blessed peace of mind, and a very precious season of good feelin' +toward my fellow-creturs." + +A lusty young fellow happened to make a quick step backward just at +that instant, and put his heel, with his weight on top of it, upon the +Deacon's toes. + +"Aigh! What the d--d--didos are y' abaout with them great hoofs o' +yourn?" said the Deacon, with an expression upon his features not +exactly that of peace and good-will to man. The lusty young fellow +apologized; but the Deacon's face did not come right, and his theology +backed round several points in the direction of total depravity. + +Some of the dashing young men in stand-up collars and extensive +neck-ties, encouraged by Mr. Geordie, made quite free with the +"Madary," and even induced some of the more stylish girls--not of the +mansion-house set, but of the tip-top two-story families--to taste a +little. Most of these young ladies made faces at it, and declared it +was "perfectly horrid," with that aspect of veracity peculiar to their +age and sex. + +About this time a movement was made on the part of some of the +mansion-house people to leave the supper-table. Miss Jane Trecothick +had quietly hinted to her mother that she had had enough of it. Miss +Arabella Thornton had whispered to her father that he had better +adjourn this court to the next room. There were signs of migration,--a +loosening of people in their places,--a looking about for arms to hitch +on to. + +The great folks saw that the play was not over yet, and that it was +only polite to stay and see it out. The word "Ice-Cream" was no sooner +whispered than it passed from one to another all down the tables. The +effect was what might have been anticipated. Many of the guests had +never seen this celebrated product of human skill, and to all the +two-story population of Rockland it was the last expression of the art +of pleasing and astonishing the human palate. Its appearance had been +deferred for several reasons: first, because everybody would have +attacked it, if it had come in with the other luxuries; secondly, +because undue apprehensions were entertained (owing to want of +experience) of its tendency to deliquesce and resolve itself with +alarming rapidity into puddles of creamy fluid; and, thirdly, because +the surprise would make a grand climax to finish off the banquet. + +There is something so audacious in the conception of ice-cream, that it +is not strange that a population undebauched by the luxury of great +cities looks upon it with a kind of awe and speaks of it with a certain +emotion. This defiance of the seasons, forcing Nature to do her work of +congelation, in the face of her sultriest noon, might well inspire a +timid mind with fear lest human art were revolting against the Higher +Powers, and raise the same scruples which resisted the use of ether and +chloroform in certain contingencies. Whatever may be the cause, it is +well known that the announcement at any private rural entertainment +that there is to be ice-cream produces an immediate and profound +impression. It may be remarked, as aiding this impression, that +exaggerated ideas are entertained as to the dangerous effects this +congealed food may produce on persons not in the most robust health. + +There was silence as the pyramids of ice were placed on the table, +everybody looking on in admiration. The Colonel took a knife and +assailed the one at the head of the table. When he tried to cut off a +slice, it didn't seem to understand it, however, and only tipped, as if +it wanted to upset. The Colonel attacked it on the other side and it +tipped just as badly the other way. It was awkward for the Colonel. +"Permit me," said the Judge,--and he took the knife and struck a sharp +slanting stroke which, sliced off a piece just of the right size, and +offered it to Mrs. Sprowle. This act of dexterity was much admired by +the company. + +The tables were all alive again. + +"Lorindy, here's a plate of ice-cream," said Silas Peckham. + +"Come, Mahaly," said a fresh-looking young fellow with a saucerful in +each hand, "here's your ice-cream;--let's go in the corner and have a +celebration, us two." And the old green de-laine, with the young curves +under it to make it sit well, moved off as pleased apparently as if it +had been silk velvet with thousand-dollar laces over it. + +"Oh, now, Miss Green! do you think it's safe to put that cold stuff +into your stomick?" said the Widow Leech to a young married lady, who, +finding the air rather warm, thought a little ice would cool her down +very nicely. "It's jest like eatin' snowballs. You don't look very +rugged; and I should be dreadful afeard, if I was you"---- + +"Carrie," said old Dr. Kittredge, who had overheard this,--"how well +you're looking this evening! But you must be tired and heated;--sit +down here, and let me give you a good slice of ice-cream. How you young +folks do grow up, to be sure! I don't feel quite certain whether it's +you or your mother or your daughter, but I know it's somebody I call +Carrie, and that I've known ever since"---- + +A sound something between a howl and an oath startled the company and +broke off the Doctor's sentence. Everybody's eyes turned in the +direction from which it came. A group instantly gathered round the +person who had uttered it, who was no other than Deacon Soper. + +"He's chokin'! he's chokin'!" was the first exclamation,--"slap him on +the back!" + +Several heavy fists beat such a tattoo on his spine that the Deacon +felt as if at least one of his vertebrae would come up. + +"He's black in the face," said Widow Leech,--"he's swallered somethin' +the wrong way. Where's the Doctor?--let the Doctor get to him, can't +ye?" + +"If you will move, my good lady, perhaps I can," said Dr. Kittredge, in +a calm tone of voice.--"He's not choking, my friends," the Doctor added +immediately, when he got sight of him. + +"It's apoplexy,--I told you so,--don't you see how red he is in the +face?" said old Mrs. Peake, a famous woman for "nussin" sick +folks,--determined to be a little ahead of the Doctor. + +"It's not apoplexy," said Dr. Kittredge. + +"What is it, Doctor? what is it? Will he die? Is he dead?--Here's his +poor wife, the Widow Soper that is to be, if she a'n't a'ready." + +"Do be quiet, my good woman," said Dr. Kittredge.--"Nothing serious, I +think, Mrs. Soper.--Deacon!" + +The sudden attack of Deacon Soper had begun with the extraordinary +sound mentioned above. His features had immediately assumed an +expression of intense pain, his eyes staring wildly, and, clapping his +hands to his face, he had rocked his head backward and forward in +speechless agony. + +At the Doctor's sharp appeal the Deacon lifted his head. + +"It's all right," said the Doctor, as soon as he saw his face. "The +Deacon had a smart attack of neuralgic pain. That's all. Very severe, +but not at all dangerous." + +The Doctor kept his countenance, but his diaphragm was shaking the +change in his waistcoat-pockets with subterranean laughter. He had +looked through his spectacles and seen at once what had happened. The +Deacon, not being in the habit of taking his nourishment in the +congealed state, had treated the ice-cream as a pudding of a rare +species, and, to make sure of doing himself justice in its +distribution, had taken a large mouthful of it without the least +precaution. The consequence was a sensation as if a dentist were +killing the nerves of twenty-five teeth at once with hot irons, or cold +ones, which would hurt rather worse. + +The Deacon swallowed something with a spasmodic effort, and recovered +pretty soon and received the congratulations of his friends. There were +different versions of the expressions he had used at the onset of his +complaint,--some of the reported exclamations involving a breach of +propriety, to say the least,--but it was agreed that a man in an attack +of neuralgy wasn't to be judged of by the rules that applied to other +folks. + +The company soon after this retired from the supper-room. The +mansion-house gentry took their leave, and the two-story people soon +followed. Mr. Bernard had staid an hour or two, and left soon after he +found that Elsie Tenner and her father had disappeared. As he passed by +the dormitory of the Institute, he saw a light glimmering from one of +its upper rooms, where the lady teacher was still waking. His heart +ached, when he remembered, that, through all these hours of gayety, or +what was meant for it, the patient girl had been at work in her little +chamber; and he looked up at the silent stars, as if to see that they +were watching over her. The planet Mars was burning like a red coal; +the northern constellation was slanting downward about its central +point of flame; and while he looked, a falling star slid from the +zenith and was lost. + +He reached his chamber and was soon dreaming over the Event of the +Season. + + + + +LOST BELIEFS. + + +One after one they left us; + The sweet birds out of our breasts +Went flying away in the morning: + Will they come again to their nests? + +Will they come again at nightfall, + With God's breath in their song? +Noon is fierce with the heats of summer, + And summer days are long! + +Oh, my Life! with thy upward liftings, + Thy downward-striking roots, +Ripening out of thy tender blossoms + But hard and bitter fruits,-- + +In thy boughs there is no shelter + For my birds to seek again! +Ah! the desolate nest is broken + And torn with storms and rain! + + + + +THE MEXICANS AND THEIR COUNTRY. + + +On the 21st of December, 1859, General Miramon, at the head of the +forces of the Mexican Republic, met an army of Liberals at Colima, and +overthrew it. The first accounts of the action represented the victory +of the Conservatives to be complete, and as settling the fate of Mexico +for the present, as between the parties headed respectively by Juarez +and Miramon. Later accounts show that there was some exaggeration as to +the details of the action, but the defeat of the Liberals is not +denied. It would be rash to attach great importance to any Mexican +battle; but the Liberal cause was so depressed before the action at +Colima as to create the impression that it could not survive the result +of that day. Whether the cause of which Miramon is the champion be +popular in Mexico or the reverse, it is certain that at the close of +1859 that chief had succeeded in every undertaking in which he had +personally engaged; and our own political history is too full of facts +which show that a successful military man is sure to be a popular +chief, whatever may be his opinions, to allow of our doubting the +effect of victory on the minds of the Mexicans. The mere circumstance +that Miramon is personally victorious, while the Liberals achieve +occasional successes over their foes where he is not present, will be +of much service to him. That "there is nothing so successful as +success" is an idea as old as the day on which the Tempter of Man +caused him to lose Paradise, and to the world's admission of it is to +be attributed the decision of nearly every political contest which has +distracted society. Miramon may have entered upon a career not unlike +to that of Santa Ana, whose early victories enabled him to maintain his +hold on the respect of his countrymen long after it should have been lost +through his cruelties and his disregard of his word and his oath. All, +indeed, that is necessary to complete the power of Miramon is, that +some foreign nation should interfere in Mexican affairs in behalf of +Juarez. Such interference, if made on a sufficiently large scale, might +lead to his defeat and banishment, but it would cause him to reign in +the hearts of the Mexicans; and he would be recalled, as we have seen +Santa Ana recalled, as soon as circumstances should enable the people +to act according to their own sense of right. + +Before considering the probable effect of Miramon's success on the +policy of the United States toward Mexico, there is one point that +deserves some attention. Which party, the Liberal or the Conservative, +is possessed of most power in Mexico? The assertions made on this +subject are of a very contradictory character. President Buchanan, in +his last Annual Message, says that the Constitutional government +--meaning that of which Juarez is the head--"is supported by a +a large majority of the people and the States, but there are important +parts of the country where it can enforce no obedience. General Miramon +maintains himself at the capital, and in some of the distant provinces +there are military governors who pay little respect to the decrees of +either government." On the other hand, a Mexican writer, a member of +the Conservative party, who published his views on the condition of his +country just one month before the President's Message appeared, +declares that the five Provinces or States in which the authority of +Miramon was then acknowledged contain a larger population than exists +in the twenty-three States in which it was not acknowledged. Of the +local authorities in these latter States he says,--"It is a great +mistake to imagine that they obey the government of Juarez any more +than they obey the government of General Miramon, or any further than +it suits their own private interest to obey him. It would be curious to +know, for instance, how much of the money collected by these 'local +authorities' for taxes, or contributions, or forced loans, and chiefly +at the seaport towns for custom-house duties, goes to the 'national +treasury' under the Juarez government." In this case, as in many others +of a like nature, the truth probably is, that but a very small number +of the people feel much interest in the contest, while most of them are +prepared to obey whichever chief shall succeed in it without foreign +aid. Of the active men of the country, the majority are now with +Miramon, or Juarez would not be shut up in a seaport, with his party +forming the mere sea-coast fringe of the nation. All that is necessary +to convert him into a national, patriotic ruler is, that a foreign army +should be sent to the assistance of his rival: and that such assistance +shall be sent to Juarez, President Buchanan has virtually pledged the +United States by his words and his actions. + +In his last Message to Congress, President Buchanan dwells with much +unction upon the wrongs we have experienced from Mexico, and avers that +we can obtain no redress from the Miramon government. "We may in vain +apply to the Constitutional government at Vera Cruz," he says, +"although it is well disposed to do us justice, for adequate redress. +Whilst its authority is acknowledged in all the important ports and +throughout the sea-coasts of the Republic, its power does not extend to +the city of Mexico and the States in its vicinity, where nearly all the +recent outrages have been committed on American citizens. We must +penetrate into the interior before we can reach the offenders, and this +can only be done by passing through the territory in the occupation of +the Constitutional government. The most acceptable and least difficult +mode of accomplishing the object will be to act in concert with that +government." He then recommends that Congress should authorize him "to +employ a sufficient military force to enter Mexico for the purpose of +obtaining indemnity for the past and security for the future." And he +expresses the opinion that justice would be done by the Constitutional +government; but his faith is not quite so strong as we could wish it to +be, as he carefully adds, "This might be secured in advance by a +preliminary treaty." + +Thus has the President pledged the country to help Juarez establish his +authority over Mexico, in words sure to be read and heeded throughout +America and Europe. His actions have been quite as much to the purpose. +He placed himself in communication with Juarez in 1859, and recognized +his government to be the only existing government of Mexico as early as +April 7th, through our envoy, Mr. McLane. That envoy floats about, +having a man-of-war for his home, and ready, it should seem, to receive +the government to which he is accredited, in the event of its being +forced to make a second sea-trip for the preservation of the lives of +its members. As the sole refuge for unpopular European monarchs, +at one time, was a British man-of-war, so are feeble Mexican chiefs +now compelled to rely for safety upon our national ships. + +To predict anything respecting Mexican affairs would be almost as idle +as it would be to assume the part of a prophet concerning American +politics; but, unless Miramon's good genius should leave him, his +appearance in Vera Cruz may be looked for at no very distant day, and +then we shall have the Juarez government entirely on our hands, to +support or to neglect, as may be dictated by the exigencies of our +affairs. That base of operations, upon the possession of which +President Buchanan has so confidently calculated, would be lost, and +could be regained only as the consequence of action as comprehensive +and as costly as that which placed Vera Cruz in the hands of General +Scott in 1847. If the policy laid down by President Buchanan should be +adopted and pursued, war should follow between the United States and +Mexico from the triumph of Miramon; and in that war, we should be a +principal, and not the mere ally of one of those parties into which the +Mexican people are divided. Logically, war is inevitable from Mr. +Buchanan's arguments and General Miramon's victories; but, as +circumstances, not logic, govern the actions of politicians, we may +possibly behold all Mexico loyal to the young general, and yet not see +an American army enter that country. The President declares that in +Mexico's "fate and in her fortune, in her power to establish and +maintain a settled government, we have a far deeper interest, socially, +commercially, and politically, than any other nation." The truth of +this will not be disputed; but suppose that Miramon should establish +and maintain a settled government in Mexico, would it not be our duty, +and in accordance "with our wise and settled policy," to acknowledge +that government, and to seek from it redress of those wrongs concerning +which Mr. Buchanan speaks with so much emphasis? Once in a responsible +position, and desirous of having the world's approval of his +countrymen's conduct, Miramon might be even more than willing to +promise as much as Juarez has already promised, we may presume, in the +way of satisfaction. That he would fulfil his promises, or that Juarez +would fulfil those which he has made, it would be too much to assert; +as neither of them would be able, judging from Mexico's past, to +maintain himself long in power. + +For the present, if not forever, Juarez may be left out of all American +calculations concerning Mexico; and as to Miramon, though his prospects +are apparently fair, the intelligent observer of Mexican politics +cannot fail to have seen that the glare of the clerical eye is upon +him, and that some faint indications on his part of a determination not +to be the Church's vassal have already placed his supremacy in peril, +and perhaps have caused conspiracies to be formed against him which +shall prove more injurious to his fortunes than the operations of +Liberal armies or the Messages of American Presidents. The Mexican +Church, full-blooded and wealthy as it is, is the skeleton in the +palace of every Mexican chief that spoils his sleep and threatens to +destroy his power, as it has destroyed that of every one of his +predecessors. The armies and banners of the Americans of the +North cannot be half so terrible to Miramon, supposing him +to be a reflecting man, as are the vestments of his clerical +allies. Even those armies, too, may be called into Mexico by +the Church, and those banners become the standards of a crusading host +from among a people which of all that the world has ever seen is the +least given to religious intolerance, and to whom the mere thought of +an established religion is odious. Nor would there be anything strange +in such a solution of the Mexican question, if we are to infer the +character of the future from the character of the past and the present. +A generation that has seen American democracy become the propagandists +of slavery assuredly ought not to be astonished at the spectacle of +American Protestantism upholding the State religion of Mexico, and that +religion embodying the worst abuses of the system of Rome. It was, +perhaps, because he foresaw the possibility of this, that "the +gray-eyed man of destiny," William Walker himself, was reconciled last +year to the ancient Church, and received into her bosom. As a Catholic, +and as a convert to that faith from heresy, he might achieve those +victories for which he longs, but which singularly avoid him as a man +of the sword. It is the old story: Satan, being sick, turns saint for +the time: only that it is heart-sickness in this instance; the hope of +being able to plunder some weak, but wealthy country having been too +long deferred for the patience even of an agent of Fate. + +That our government means to persevere in its designs against Mexico, +in spite of the misfortunes of the Liberals, is to be inferred: from +all that we hear from Washington. The victories of Oajaca, Queretaro, +and Colima, won by the Conservatives, have wrought no apparent change +in the Presidential mind. So anxious, indeed, is Mr. Buchanan for the +triumph of his plan, that he is ready to seek aid from his political +opponents. Leading Republicans are to be consulted personally, and they +are to be appealed to and asked patriotically to banish all party and +"sectional" feelings from their minds, while discussing the best mode +of helping "our neighbor" out of the Slough of Despond, so that she may +be enabled to meet the demands we have upon her,--not in money, for +that she has not, and we purpose giving her a round sum, but in land, +of which she has a vast supply, and all of it susceptible of yielding +good returns to servile industry. There is a necessity for this appeal +to Opposition Senators, as the Juarez treaty cannot be ratified without +the aid of some of their number. The ratification vote must consist of +two-thirds of the Senators present and voting; and of the sixty-six men +forming the Senate, but thirty-nine are Democrats, and two are "South +Americans." The Republicans, who could muster but a dozen votes in the +Senate when the present phase of the Slavery contest was begun, have +doubled their strength, and have arrived at the honor of being sought +by men who but yesterday regarded them as objects of scorn. Nor is it +altogether a new thing for the administration to depend upon its +enemies; and the practical adoption of the "one-term" principle in our +Presidential contests, by virtually depriving all administrations of +strict party support, has introduced into our politics a new element, +the first faint workings of which are beginning to be seen, but which +is destined to have grave effects, and not such, in all cases, as are +to be desired. + +But it is not from the ambition or the perverseness of the President +that Mexico has much to fear. Were it not for other reasons, which +proceed from the "Manifest Destiny" school, the country would laugh down +the administration's Mexican programme, and it could hardly be expected to +receive the grave consideration of the Senate. What Mexico has to fear +is the rapid increase of the old American opinion, that we were +appointed by Destiny to devour her, and that in spoiling her we are +only fulfilling "our mission," discharging, as we may say, a high moral +and religious duty. It is not that we have any animosity toward Mexico, +but that we are the Heaven-appointed rulers of America, of which she +happens to be no small part. By a happy ordination, and a wise +direction of our skill as missionaries militant, we never waste our +time and our valor on strong countries; and as wolves do not seek to +make meals of lions, preferring mutton, so we have no taste for those +very American countries which are inhabited by the English race, and in +which exist those great political institutions of the enjoyment of +which we are so proud. The obligation to take Mexico is admitted by +most Americans, though some would proceed more rapidly in the work of +acquisition than others; but no one hints that we ought to have +Canada. Our government has repeatedly offered to purchase Cuba of +Spain, which offer that country holds to be an insult; but it has not +yet thought proper to seek possession of Jamaica. Destiny, in our case, +is as judicious as it is imperative, and means that we shall find our +account in doing her work. Had she favored some other nations as much +as we are favored, they might have flourished till now, instead of +becoming wrecks on the sandy shores of the Sea of Time. + +The conviction that Mexico is to be ours is no new idea. It is as old, +almost, as the American nation. We found Spain in our path very soon +after she had behaved in so friendly a manner to us during the +Revolution; and one of the earliest thoughts of the West was to get her +out of the way. This was "inevitable," and "Manifest Destiny" was as +actively at work in the days of Rodgers Clarke as in those of Walker, +but with better reason; for the control that Spain exercised over the +navigation of the Mississippi was contrary to common sense. In a few +years, the acquisition of Louisiana (nominally from France, but really +from Spain) removed the evil of which the West complained; but the idea +of seizure remained, and was strengthened by the deed that was meant to +extinguish it. That Louisiana had been obtained without the loss of a +life, and for a sum of money that could be made to sound big only when +reduced to _francs_ was quite enough to cause the continuance of that +system of agitation which had produced results so great with means so +small. Enmity to Spain remained, after the immediate cause of it had +ceased to exist. War with that country was expected in 1806, and the +West anxiously desired it, meaning to invade Mexico. Hence the +popularity of Aaron Burr in that part of the Union, and the favor with +which his schemes were regarded by Western men. Burr was a generation +in advance of his Atlantic contemporaries, but he was not in advance of +the Ultramontanes, only abreast of them, and well adapted to be their +leader, from his military skill and his high political rank; for his +duel with Hamilton had not injured him in their estimation. His +connection with the war party, however, proved fatal to it, and +probably was the cause of the non-realization of its plans fifty years +ago. President Jefferson hated Colonel Burr with all the intensity that +philosophy can give to political rivalry; and so the whole force of the +national government was brought to bear against the arch-plotter, who +fell with a great ruin, and for the time Mexico was saved. Then came +Napoleon's attack on Spain, which necessarily postponed all attempts on +countries that might become subject to him; and before the Peninsular +War had been decided, we were ourselves involved in war with England, +which gave us work enough at home, without troubling "our neighbor." +But the events of that war helped to increase the spirit of acquisition +in the South and the Southwest, while they put an end forever to plans +for the conquest of Canada. The "aid and comfort" which the Spaniards +afforded to both Indians and Britons, from Florida, led to the seizure +of Florida by our forces in time of peace with Spain, and to the +purchase of that country. The same year that saw our title to Florida +perfected saw the end of Spanish rule in Mexico. The first effect of +this change was unfavorable to the extension of American dominion. +Mexico became a republic, taking the United States for a model. +Principle and vanity alike dictated forbearance on our side, and for +some years the new republic was looked upon with warm regard by the +American people; and had her experiment proved successful, our +territory never could have been increased at her expense. But that +experiment proved a total failure. Not even France herself could have +done worse for republicanism than was done by Mexico. Internal wars, +constant political changes, violations of faith, and utter disregard of +the terms of the Constitution,--these things brought Mexico into +contempt, and revived the idea that North America had been especially +created for the use of the Anglo-Saxon race and the abuse of negroes. +As a nation, too, Mexico had been guilty of many acts of violence +toward the United States, which furnished themes for those politicians +who were interested in bringing on a war between the two countries. The +attempt to enforce Centralism on Texas, which contained many Americans, +increased the ill-will toward Mexico. The end came in 1846, when we +made war on that country, a war resulting in the acquisition of much +Mexican territory,--Texas, Upper California, and New Mexico. It cannot +be said we behaved illiberally in our treatment of Mexico, the position +of the parties considered; for we might have taken twice as much of her +land as we did take, and not have paid her a farthing: and we paid her +$15,000,000, besides assuming the claims which Americans held against +her, amounting to $3,250,000 more. The war "blooded" the American +people, and made the idea of acquiring Mexico a national one; whereas +before it had a sectional character. The question of absorbing that +country was held to be merely one of time; and had it not been for the +existence of slavery, much more of Mexico would have been acquired ere +now, either by purchase or by war. There have been few men at the head +of Mexican affairs, since the peace of 1848, who were not ready to sell +us any portion of their country to which we might have laid claim, if +we had tendered them the choice between our purse and our sword. We +paid $10,000,000 for the Mesilla Valley, and for certain navigation +privileges in the Colorado river and the Gulf of California,--a +circumstance that shows how resolute is our determination to have +Mexico, and also that we are not disposed to have the process of +acquisition marked by shabby details. + +The law that governs the course of conquest is of a plain and obvious +character. Occasionally there may arise some conqueror, like Timour, +who shall sweep over countries apparently for no other purpose but to play +the part of the destroying angel, though it is not difficult to see that +even such a man has his uses in the orderings of Providence for the +government of the world. But the rule is, that conquest shall, quite as +much as commerce, be a gainful business. Conquerors who proceed +systematically go from bad lands to good lands, and from good lands to +better ones. To get out of the desert into a land flowing with milk and +honey is as much the object of modern and uncalled Gentiles as ever it was +with ancient called and chosen Jews. Historians appear inclined to censure +Darius, because, instead of invading Hellas, equally weak and fertile, +he sought to conquer the poor Scythians, who conquered him. The Romans +organized robbery, and had a wonderful skill in selecting peoples for +enemies who were worth robbing. "The Brood of Winter," who overthrew +the Roman Empire, poured down upon lands where grew the grape and the +rose. The Saracens, who were carried forward, in the first instance, by +fanaticism, had the streams of their conquests lengthened and broadened +and deepened by the wealth and weakness of Greeks and Persians and +Goths and Africans. Had those streams poured into deserts, by the +deserts they would soon have been absorbed, and we should have known +the Mahometan superstition only as we know twenty others of those forms +of faith produced by the East,--as something sudden, strange, and +short-lived. But it was fed by the riches which its votaries gained, +the reward of their piety, and the cement of their religious edifice. +The Normans, that most chivalrous of races, and, like all chivalrous +races, endowed with a keen love of gain, did not seize upon poor +countries, but upon the best lands they could take and hold,--the +beautiful Neustria, the opulent Sicily, and the fertile England, so +admirably situated to become the seat of empire. So, it will be found, +have all conquering, absorbing races proceeded, not even excluding the +Pilgrim Fathers, who, if they paid the Indians for their lands, +generally contrived to get good measure for small disbursements, and to +order things so that the lands purchased should be fat and fair in +saintly eyes. + +Tried by the standard of conquest, the course of the American people +toward Mexico is the most natural in the world. Mexico possesses +immense wealth, and incalculable capabilities in the way of increasing +that wealth; and she is no more competent to defend herself against a +powerful neighbor than Sicily was to maintain her independence against +the Romans. We are her neighbor,--with a population abounding in +adventurers domestic and imported, and with politicians who carve out +states that shall make them senators and representatives and governors, +and perhaps even presidents. As we get nearer to Mexico, the population +is more lawless, less inclined to observe those rules upon faith in +which the weak must depend for existence. The eagles are gathered about +the carcase, and think that to forbid its division among them would be +to perpetrate a great moral wrong. The climate of Mexico seems to +invite the Northern adventurer to that country. "In general," says Mr. +Butterfield, (who has just published a volume that might be called "The +American Conqueror's Guide-Book in Mexico," and to which we take this +occasion to express our obligations,)--"in general, the Republic, with +the exception of the coast and a few other places, which from situation +are extremely hot, enjoys an even and temperate climate, free from the +extremes of heat and cold, in consequence of which the most of the +hills in the cold regions are covered with trees, which never lose +their foliage, and often remind the traveller of the beautiful scenery +of the valleys of Switzerland. In Tierra Caliente we are struck by the +groves of mimosas, liquid amber, palms, and other gigantic plants +characteristic of tropical vegetation; and finally, in Tierra Templada, +by the enormous _haciendas_, many of which are of such extent as to be +lost to the sight in the horizon with which they blend." This picture +is calculated to incite the armed apostles of American liberty, and to +render them impatient until they shall have carried the blessings of +civilization to Mexico, rewarding themselves for their active +benevolence by the appropriation of lands so admirably adapted to the +labors of the descendants of Ham, whom it would be impious in them to +leave unprovided with the best fields to work out _their_ +mission,--which is, to produce the greatest possible crops with the +least possible expenditure of capital and care, for the good of that +superior race which kindly supplies the deficiencies of Heaven with +respect to Africa,--a second Providence, as it were, and slightly +tinged with selfishness. + +We need not dwell upon the importance of second causes in the +government of mankind. We find them at work in fixing the future of +Mexico. The final cause of the absorption of Mexico by the United +States will be the restless appropriating spirit of our people; but +this might leave her a generation more of national life, were it not +that her territory presents a splendid field for slave-labor, and that, +both from pecuniary and from political motives, our slaveholders are +seeking the increase of the number of Servile States. Mexico is capable +of producing an unlimited amount of sugar and an enormous amount of +cotton. There is a demand for both these articles,--a demand that is +constantly increasing, and which is so great, and grows so rapidly, +that the melancholy prospect of rum without sugar has presented itself +to some minds, not to speak of only half-allowance to all the +tea-tables of Christendom. Africa is beginning to wear shirts, and the +stamp of more than one Yankee manufacturer has been indorsed on the +backs of many African chiefs. Slave-labor, we are assured, can alone +afford an adequate supply of cotton and sugar; for none but negroes can +labor on the plantations where cane and cotton are raised, and they +will labor only under compulsion, and compulsion can be had only under +the system of slavery. The point seems to be as clearly established as +reason can establish it, though the negroes might object to the process +adopted and to the conclusion drawn; but they are interested parties, +and not to be regarded therefore. We must add, that the quality of +Mexican sugar is as good as the yield is enormous, and, were the +cane-fields in our hands, it would be impious to doubt of there being a +fall of a mill on the pound all the world over. Compared with such a +gain to the consuming classes, what would it matter that the producers +were "expended" every four or five years, thereby furnishing an +argument in favor of the revival (we should say extension, for it +appears to be lively enough) of the slave-trade between Africa and +America? So is it with Mexican cotton, which propagates itself, and is +not raised annually from the seed, as in our cotton-growing States. In +the Hot Land of Mexico, the laborers in the cotton-fields merely keep +these fields clear from weeds, as we should say,--no easy task, it may +be assumed, with a soil so luxuriant, and where frost is unknown. Yet +the amount of cotton produced annually in the Hot Land is shamefully +small, not exceeding ten million pounds,--a mere bagatelle, which +Manchester would devour in a week. Consider what an increase in cottons +and calicoes, what a gain in shirts and sheets, would follow from the +seizure of those fields by Americans from Mississippi and Alabama; and +let no idle notions concerning national morality prevent the increase +of those comforts which the poor now know, but which never came to the +knowledge of Caesar Augustus, and which were unknown to Solomon in all +his glory. Where would have been the great English nation, if the +adventurous cut-throats who followed Norman William from Saint Valery +to Hastings had been troubled with squeamish notions about the rights +of the Saxons? + + +There are other articles, besides cotton and sugar, in the production +of which slave-labor pays, and pays well, too; and all these articles +Mexico is capable of yielding immensely. The world needs more rice; +rice can be cultivated only by negroes, or people much like them; and +rice can be raised in Mexico in incredible quantities, under a +judicious system of industry, such as, we are constantly assured, +slavery ever has been and ever will be. Tobacco is another Mexican +article, and also one in producing which negroes can be profitably +employed; and as tobacco is becoming scarce, while consumers of it are +on the increase, it would seem to be our duty to prepare the fields of +Tabasco for more extended cultivation,--since there, as well as in many +other parts of Mexico, tobacco almost as good as the best that is grown +in Cuba can be produced. Coffee, indigo, and hemp are Mexican articles, +and can all be cultivated by slave-labor. Maize is grown in every part +of the country, yielding three hundred fold in the Hot Land, and twice +that rate in one district; and maize is a slave-grown article. Smaller +articles there are, but valuable, in raising which slaves would be found +useful,--among them cocoa, vanilla, and _frijoles_, the last being to the +Mexicans what the potato is to the Irish, the common food of the common +people. On the supposition that slaves could be made to labor well in +wheat-fields,--and under a stringent system of slavery this would be +far from impossible,--Mexico might afford profitable employment to +myriads of Africans in the course of civilization and Christianization. +Wheat returns sixty for one in the best valleys of the Temperate +Region; and when we call to mind that flour is becoming a luxury to +poor white people even in America, the propriety of having those +valleys filled up with a black population of great industrial +capability stands admitted; and as black people have an unaccountable +aversion to working for others, the necessity of slavery is established +by the high price of flour, and the capacity of the white races for +consuming twice as much as is now produced in the whole world. + +It would be no difficult matter to show that Mexico is the most +productive of countries, whether we consider the variety of the +articles there grown, or the capabilities of the land for increasing +their quantity. To the manufacturer and the merchant she is as +attractive as she is to the agriculturist; and her mineral wealth is +apparently inexhaustible, and has passed into a proverb. During the +thirteen generations since the Spanish Conquest, the value of the gold +and silver exported is estimated at $4,640,204,889; and this is +considered a very low estimate by those best qualified to judge of its +correctness. Mr. Butterfield expresses the opinion that the annual +export is now near $40,000,000, much of which is smuggled out of the +country. The land is also rich in the common metals, the production of +which, as well as of gold and silver, would be incalculably increased, +should Mexico pass under the dominion of an energetic race, greedy of +other men's wealth, if not profuse of its own. + +We have said enough to show the capabilities of Mexico as a +slaveholding country; and of the desire of American slaveholders to +push their industrial system into countries adapted to it, there are, +unfortunately, but too many proofs. They are prompted by the love of +power and the love of wealth to obtain possession of Mexico, and the +energy that is ever displayed by them when pursuing a favorite object +will not allow us to doubt what the end of the contest upon which the +United States are about to enter must be. We have then, to consider the +character of the people upon whom slavery is to be forced, and the +probable effect of their subjugation to American dominion. The subject +is far from being agreeable, and the consideration of it gives rise to +the most painful thoughts that can move the mind. + +The exact number of people in Mexico it is not possible to state. Mr. +Mayer estimated that in 1850 the proximate actual population was +7,626,831, classed as follows:--Whites, 1,100,000; Indians, 4,354,886; +Mestizos, Zambos, Mulattoes, etc., 2,165,345; Negroes, 6,600. Only +one-seventh of the population belongs to that class, or caste, to which, +according to the common sentiment in the United States, dominion over +the earth has been given. The other six-sevenths are, in American +estimation, and would so become in fact, should Mexico own our +rule, mere political Pariahs; and if they should escape personal +slavery, it would be through their rapid extinction under the +blasting effects of civilization. There are, at this time, it +may be assumed, 7,000,000 human beings in Mexico to whom few +Americans are capable of conceding the full rights of humanity. Of +these, about one-third, the negroes and the mixed races, from the fact +that they have African blood in their veins, would be outlawed by the +mere conquest of Mexico by American arms, so far as relates +to the higher conditions of life. As several of our States have +already compelled free negroes to choose between slavery and +banishment, and as the American settlers of Mexico would proceed +principally from States in which the sentiment prevails that has led to +the adoption of so illiberal a policy, a third of the native population +would, it is likely, be reduced to a condition of chattel slavery +within a very short time after the change of government had been +effected. There is not an argument used in behalf of the rigid slave +codes of several of our States which would not be applicable to the +enslavement of the black and mixed Mexicans, all of whom would be of +darker skins and less enlightened minds than the slaves that would be +taken to the conquered land by the conquerors. How could the slaves +thus taken there be allowed to see even their inferiors in the +enjoyment of personal freedom? If the State of Arkansas can condescend +to be afraid of a few hundred free negroes and mulattoes, and can +illustrate its fear by turning them out of their homes in mid-winter, +what might not be expected from a ruling caste in a new country, with +two and a half millions of colored people to strike terror into the +souls of those comprising it? Just or humane legislation could not be +looked for at the hands of such men, who would be guilty of that +cruelty which is born of injustice and terror. The white race of Mexico +would join with the intrusive race to oppress the mixed races; and as +the latter would be compelled to submit to the iron pressure that would +be brought to bear upon them, more than two millions of slaves would be +added to the servile population of America, and would become the basis +of a score of Representatives in the national legislature, and of as +many Presidential Electors; so that the practice of the grossest +tyranny would give to the Slaveholding States, _per saltum_, as great +an increase of political power as the Free States could expect to +achieve through a long term of years illustrated by care and toil and +the most liberal expenditure of capital. + +The Indians would fare no better than the mixed races, though the mode +of their degradation might differ from that which would be pursued +toward the latter. The Indians of Mexico are a race quite different +from the Indians whom we have exterminated or driven to the remote +West. They are a sad, a superstitious, and an inert people, upon whom +Spanish tyranny has done its perfect work. Nominally Christians, they +are nearly as much devoted to paganism as were their ancestors of the +age of the Conquistadores. They are the most finished conservatives on +the face of the earth, and see ruin in change quite as readily as if +they lived in New England and their opinions were worth quoting on +State Street. The traveller can see in Mexican fields, to-day, the +manner in which those fields were cultivated in the early days of the +last Montezuma, before the Spaniard had entered the land,--as in Canada +he can occasionally find men following the customs that were brought, +more than two centuries ago, from Brittany or Normandy. The Indians are +practically enslaved by two things: they are so attached to the soil on +which they are born as to regard expulsion from it as the greatest of +all punishments,--thus being much like those serfs who, in some other +countries, are legally bound to the land, and are sold with it; and +they are forever in debt, the consequence of reckless indulgence, and +of that inability to think of the morrow which is the most prominent +characteristic of the inferior races of men. This has caused +the existence of the system of _peonage_, of which so much has been +said in this country, in the attempts that have been made to show that +slavery already prevails in Mexico. But American planters never would +be content with peonage, which does not give to the employer any power +over the Indians' offspring, or convey to him any of those _rights_ of +property in his fellow-men which form the most attractive feature of +slavery as it exists in the United States. They would demand something +more than that; and the system of _repartimientos_, under which the +Indians of the time of Cortes were divided among the conquerors, with +the land, would not improbably follow the annexation of Mexico to the +United States. The natives would be compelled to labor far more +vigorously than they now labor, and their burdens would be increased in +the same ratio in which the American is more energetic and exacting +than the Mexican. Under such a system, the Indians would vanish as +rapidly as they did from Hayti, when a similar system was adopted +there, soon after the discovery of America. Then would arise a demand +for the revival of the slave-trade with Africa, and on the same ground +on which African slavery was introduced into America,--because the +negro is better able than the Indian to meet the demands which the +white man makes upon the weaker races who happen to be placed in his +power. With such unlimited fields for the production of sugar and +cotton, those leading agencies of Christianity and civilization, it +would never do for the world to deny to the new school of planters a +million of negroes, so necessary to the full development of the purpose +of the American crusaders. Observe what a gain it would be to the +shipping interest, could the seas become halcyonized through the +conquest of prejudices by men who believe that God is just, and that He +has made of one flesh and one blood all the nations of the earth! + +Even if it should not be sought to enslave the Indians of Mexico, that +race would not be the less doomed. There seems to be no chance for +Indians in any country into which the Anglo-Saxon enters in force. A +system of free labor would be as fatal to the Mexican Indians as a +system of slave labor. The whites who would throng to Mexico, on its +conquest by Americans, and on the supposition that slavery should not +be established there, would regard the Indians with sentiments of +strong aversion. They would hate them, not only because they were +Indians,--which would be deemed reason enough,--but as competitors in +industry, who could afford to work for low wages, their wants being +few, and the cost of their maintenance small. It is charged against the +Indians that they are not flesh-eaters; and white men prefer meat to +any other description of food. Place a flesh-eating race in antagonism +with a race that lives on vegetables, and the former will eat up the +latter. The sentiment of the whites toward the Indians is not unlike +that which has been expressed by an eminent American statesman, who +says that the cause of the failure of Mexico to establish for herself a +national position is to be sought and found in her acknowledgment of +the political equality of her Indian population. He would have them +degraded, if not absolutely enslaved; and degradation, situated as they +are, implies their extinction. This is the opinion of one of the ablest +men in the Democratic party, who, though a son of Massachusetts, is +ready to go as far in behalf of slavery as any son of South Carolina. + +Another eminent Democrat, no less a man, indeed, than President +Buchanan, is committed to very different views. He is the patron of +Juarez, whom he would support with all the power of the United States, +and whose government he would carry to "the halls of the Montezumas" in +the train of an American army. Now Juarez is a pure-blooded and +full-blooded Indian. Not a drop of Castilian blood, blue or black, +flows in his veins. He is a genuine Toltec, a member of that mysterious +race which flourished in the Valley of Mexico ages before the arrival +of the Aztecs, and the marvellous remains of whose works astonish the +traveller in Yucatan and Guatemala. He is a native of Oajaca, one of +the Pacific States, and the same that contained the vast estates +bestowed upon Cortes, to whom the Valley of Oajaca furnished his title +of Marquis. A poor Indian boy, and a fruit-seller, Juarez found a +patron, who saw his cleverness, and gave him an education, and so +enabled him to play no common part in his country,--the independence of +which he seems prepared to destroy, in the hope, perhaps, of securing +for it a stable and well-ordered government. + + + + +REVIEWS AND LITERARY NOTICES. + + +_Ludwig van Beethoven. Leben und Schaffen._ Herausgegeben von Adolph +Bernhard Marx, 2 vols. 8vo. Berlin, 1859. pp. 379, 339. + +SECOND NOTICE + +The English or American reader, whose only biography of Beethoven has +been the translation of Schindler's work by Moscheles, will be pleased +to find scattered through Marx's two volumes a number of interesting +extracts from the "Conversation-Books." These are not always given +exactly as in the originals, although the sense is preserved intact. +For instance, (Vol. I. p. 341,) speaking of the original overture to +"Leonore,"--afterwards printed as Op. 138,--Marx says, "It shows us, as +in a mirror of past happiness, a view of that which is hereafter to +reward Leonore and raise Florestan from his woe. Yes, Beethoven himself +is in theory of this opinion. In his Conversation-Books we read the +following:-- + +"Aristotle, in his 'Poetics,' remarks, 'Tragic heroes must at first +live in great happiness and splendor.' This we see in Egmont. 'Wenn sie +nun [so] recht gluecklich sind, [so] kommt mit [auf] einem Mal das +Schicksal und schlingt einen Knoten um ihr Haupt [ueber ihren Haupte] +den sie nicht mehr zu loesen vermoegen. Muth und Trotz tritt an die +Stelle [der Reue] und verwegen sehen sie dem Geschicke, [und sie sehen +verwegen dem Geschicke,] ja, dem Tod in's Aug'.'" + +The words in brackets show the variations from the original; they are +slight, but will soon be seen to have significance. + +Again, Marx says, (Vol. II. p. 214, note,) "In one of the +Conversation-Books Schindler remarks, 'Ich bin sehr gespannt auf die +Characterizirung [der Saetze] der B dur Trio......Der erste Satz traeumt +von lauter Glueckseligheit [Glueck und Zufriedenheit]. Auch Muthwille, +heiteres Taendeln und Eigensinn (mit Permission--Beethovenscher) ist +darin.'" [Should be "und Eigensinn (Beethovenische) is darin, mit +Permission."] + +On page 217 of the same volume is part of a conversation between +Beethoven and his friend Peters, dated 1819. The Conversation-Book from +which it is taken is dated, in Beethoven's own hand, "March and April, +1820." + +But enough for our purpose, which is to prove that Marx knows nothing +of the Conversation-Books from personal inspection, although he always +quotes them in such a manner as to impress the reader with the idea +that the extracts made are his own. Now, 1st, all his extracts are in +the second edition of Schindler's "Biography;" 2d, all the variations +from the original are found word for word in Schindler's excerpts; 3d, +the first of the above three examples, which Marx takes for an +expression of Beethoven's views, was written by Schindler himself, for +his master's perusal! + +But though a biography give us nothing new in relation to the hero, +still it may be of great interest and value from the manner in which +well-known authorities are collected and digested, and the facts +presented in a picturesque, fascinating, living narrative. Such a work +is Irving's "Goldsmith." Such a work is not Marx's "Beethoven." It is +neither one thing nor another,--neither a biography nor a critical +examination of the master's works. It is a little of both,--an attempt +to combine the two, and a very unsuccessful one. Biography and +criticism are so strangely mixed up, jumbled together,--anecdotes of +different periods so absurdly brought into juxtaposition,--chronology +so oddly abused,--that one can obtain a far better idea of the man +Beethoven by reading Marx's authorities than his digest of them; and as +to his works, those upon which we want information, which we have no +opportunity to hear, which have not been subjects of criticism and +discussion for a whole generation,--on these he has little or nothing +to say. + +But the extreme carelessness with which Marx cites his authorities is +worthy of notice; here are a few examples. + +Vol. I. p. 13. Here we find the well-known anecdote of Beethoven's +playing several variations upon Righini's air, "Vieni Amore," from +memory, and improvising others, before the Abbe Sterkel. Wegeler is the +original authority for the anecdote, the point of which depends upon +the fact that the printed variations were a composition by Beethoven. +Marx here and elsewhere in his book attributes them to Sterkel! + +Ib. p. 31. Speaking of the pleasure Van Swieten took in Beethoven's +playing of Bach's fugues, and of the dislike of the latter to being +urged to play, Marx quotes as follows: "He came then (relates Ries, who +became his pupil in 1800) back to me with clouded brow and out of +temper," etc. To _me_,--Ries,--a boy of sixteen,--and Beethoven already +the composer all of whose works half a dozen publishers were ready to +take at any prices he chose to fix!--Ries relates no such thing. +Wegeler does, but of a period five years before Ries came to Vienna; +moreover, he relates it in relation to Beethoven's dislike to being +urged to play in mixed companies,--the fact having no relation whatever +to Van Swieten's weekly music-parties. + +Ib. p. 33. Beethoven is now twenty-five. "At this time, as it seems, +there has been no talk of ill health." Directly against the statement +of Wegeler. + +Ib. p. 38. The Concerto for Pianoforte and Orchestra, Op. 15, "Probably +composed in 1800, since it was offered to Hofmeister Jan. 5, 1801." He +relates from Wegeler, that Beethoven wrote the finale when suffering +violently from colic. How is it possible for a man to overlook the next +line, "I helped him as much as I could with simple remedies," and not +associate it with Wegeler's statement that he himself left Vienna "in +the middle of 1796"? This fixes the date absolutely four or five years +earlier than Marx's probability. He is equally unlucky in his reading +of the letters of Hofmeister; for the Concerto offered him Jan. 5, +1801, was not this one, but that in B flat, Op. 19. + +Ib. p. 186. The Sonata, Op. 22, "Out of the year 1802." If Marx will +turn to the letters to Hofmeister again, he will find this Sonata +offered for publication with the Concerto. + +Ib. p. 341. "Schindler, who, however, first became acquainted with +Beethoven in 1808, and first came into close connection with him in +1813." Compare Schindler, 2d ed. p. 95. "It was in the year 1814 that I +first became personally acquainted with Beethoven." In 1808 Schindler +was a boy of thirteen years, in a Gymnasium, and had not yet come to +Vienna. + +Vol. II. p. 86. Sonata, Op. 57. "The finale, as Ries relates, was +begotten in a night of storm"; and on this text Marx discourses through +a page or two. Ries relates no such thing. + +Ib. p. 179. "Once more, relates Schindler, the two (Goethe and +Beethoven) met each other," etc. For Schindler, read Lenz. + +Ib. p. 191. "The Philharmonic Society in London presented to him.....a +magnificent grand-piano forte of Broadwood's manufacture." Schindler +says expressly, "Presented by Ferd. Ries, John Cramer, and Sir George +Smart." Cannot Marx read German? + +Ib. p. 329. We give one more instance of Marx's method of citing +authorities,--a very curious one. It is an extract from a letter +written to the Schotts in Mayence, signed A. Schindler, containing an +account of Beethoven's last hours, and published in the "Caecilia," in +full. Here is the passage;-- + +"When I came to him, on the morning of the 24th of March, (relates +_Anselm Huettenbrenner_, a musical friend and composer of Graetz, who had +hastened thither to see Beethoven once more,) I found his whole +countenance distorted, and him so weak, that, with the greatest +exertions, he could bring out but two or three intelligible words." +Anselm Huettenbrenner! + +Throughout those volumes we find a certain vagueness of statement in +connection with the names of musicians with whom Beethoven came in +contact, which raises the question, whether Marx has no biographical +dictionary in his house, not even a copy of Schilling's Encyclopaedia, +for which he wrote so many biographies, and "indeed all the articles +signed A. B. M."? At times, however, the statements are not so vague. +For instance,--in the anecdote already referred to, Marx makes the two +Rombergs and Franz Ries introduce the "fifteen-year-old virtuoso" to +Sterkel,--that is, in 1785 or '86. At that date, (see Schilling,) +Andreas Romberg was a boy of eighteen, Bernard a boy of fifteen; +moreover, they did not come to Bonn until 1790, when Beethoven was +nearly twenty years old. In 1793-4 Marx makes Schenck "the to him +[Beethoven] well-known and valued composer of the 'Dorfbarbier,'" +--which opera was not written until some years later. In 1815 +died Beethoven's "friend and countryman, Salomon of Bonn, in +London." It is possible that Beethoven may have occasionally seen +Salomon at Bonn, but that violinist went to London at least as early as +1781, after having then been for several years in Prince Henry's chapel +in Berlin. + +These things may, perhaps, strike the reader as of minor importance, +mere blemishes. So be it then; we will turn to a vexed question, which +has a literary importance, and see what light Marx throws upon it. We +refer to Bettine's letters to Goethe upon Beethoven, and the composer's +letters to her, the authority of which has been strongly questioned. +Marx gives them, Vol. II. pp. 121-135, and we turned eagerly to them, +expecting to find, from one who has for thirty years or more lived in +the same city with the authoress, the _questio vexata_ fully put to +rest Nothing of the kind. He quotes them from Schindler with +Schindler's remarks upon them, to which he gives his assent. As to the +letters of Beethoven to Bettine, he has not even done that lady the +justice to give them as she has printed them, but rests satisfied with +a copy confessedly taken from the English translation! Of these Marx +says,--"These letters,--one has not the right, perhaps, to declare them +outright creations of fancy; at all events, there is no judicial proof +of this, no more than of their authenticity,--if they are not imagined, +they are certainly translated... from Beethoven into the Bettine +speech. Never--compare all the letters and writings of Beethoven which +are known with these Bettine epistles--never did Beethoven so +write..... If he wrote to Bettine, then she has poetized [ueberdichtet] +his letters,--and she has not done even this well; we have in them +Beethoven as seen in the mirror Bettine." He adds in a note, "In the +highest degree girl-like and equally un-Beethovenlike are these +constant repetitions: 'liebe, liebste,--liebe, liebe,--liebe, +gute,--bald, bald'!" + +What does Marx say to this beginning of a letter to Tiedge,--"Jeden Tag +schwebte mir immer folgende Brief an Sie, Sie, Sie, immer vor"? Or to +these repetitions from a series of notes written also from Toeplitz in +the summer of 1812? "Leben Sie wohl liebe, gute A." "Liebe, gute A., +seit ich gestern," etc. "Scheint der Mond .... so sehen Sie den +kleinsten, kleinsten aller Menschen bei sich," etc. + +And so on this point Marx leaves us just as wise as we were before. +There is a gentleman who can decide by a word as to the authenticity of +these letters of Beethoven, since he originally furnished them for +publication in the English translation of Schindler's "Biography." We +refer to Mr. Chorley, of the "London Athenaeum." Meantime we venture to +give Marx's opinion as much weight as we think it deserves, and +continue to believe in the letters; more especially because, as +published by Bettine herself in 1848, each is remarkable for certain +peculiarly Beethoven-like abuses of punctuation, orthography, and +capital letters, which carry more weight to our minds than the +unsupported opinions of a dozen Professors Marx. + +Justice requires that we pass from merely biographical topics, which +are evidently not the forte of Professor Marx, to some of those upon +which he has bestowed far more space, and doubtless far more labor and +pains, and upon which, in this work, he doubtless also rests his claims +to our applause. + +On page 199 of Vol. I. begins a division of the work, entitled by the +author "Chorische Werke." In previous chapters, Beethoven's pianoforte +compositions-sonatas, trios, the quintett, etc., up to Op. 54, +exclusive of the concertos for that instrument and orchestra-have been +treated. In this we have a very pleasing account of the gradual +progress of the composer from the concerto to the full splendor of the +grand symphony. + +"The composer Beethoven," says Marx, "was, as we have seen, also a +virtuoso. No one can be both, without feeling himself drawn to the +composition of concertos. These works then follow, and in close +relation to the pianoforte compositions of Beethoven, with and without +the accompaniment of solo instruments; and to them others, which may +just here be best brought under one general head for notice. From them +we look directly upward to orchestral and symphonic works. To all these +we give the general name of 'choral' works, for want of a better,--a +term which in fact belongs but to vocal music, and is exceedingly ill +adapted to a part of the compositions now under consideration. The +term, however, is used here as pointing at the significance of the +orchestra to Beethoven." + +Marx's theory of Beethoven's progress, taking continually bolder and +loftier flights until he reaches the symphony, must necessarily be +based upon the chronology of the works in question,--a basis which he +adopts, but evidently, in the case of two or three of them, with some +hesitation; yet the theory has too great a charm for him to be lightly +thrown aside. + +We will bring into a table the compositions which he is now +considering, together with his dates of their composition, that we may +obtain a clearer view of their bearings upon the point in question. + + Concerto in C for Pianoforte and Orchestra, Op. 15. 1800. (See p. 38.) + do. in B flat Op. 19. 1801. + do. in C minor, Op. 37. Not dated. + Six Quatuors for Bowed Instruments, Op. 18. Published in 1801-2, + but "begun earlier." + Quintett, Op. 29. 1802. + Septett, Op. 20. Not dated. + Prometheus, Ballet Op. 43. Performed March 28, + 1801. + Grand Symphony, Op. 21. 1799 or 1800. + do. do. Op. 36. Performed 1800. + +A glance at the dates in this table throws doubt upon the theory; the +doubt is increased by the consideration that all these important works +are, according to Marx, the labor of only three years! But let us turn +back and collect into another table the pianoforte works which are also +attributed to the same epoch. + + Pianoforte Trio, Op. 11. 1799. + Three Pianoforte Sonatas, Op. 10. 1799. + Two do. do. Op. 14. 1799. + Adelaide, Song, Op. 46. 1798 or '99. + Sonata for Piano and Horn, Op. 17. 1800. + do. Pathetique, Op. 13. 1800. + Cliristus am Oolberg, Canta Op. 85. 1800. + Quintett, Op. 16. 1801. + Sonata, Op. 22. 1802. + do Op. 26. 1802. + do Op. 28. 1802. + +From this list we have excluded works which Marx says were _published_ +(_herausgegeben_) during these years, selecting only those which he +calls "aus dem Jahre,"--belonging to such a year. + +Marx himself (Vol. I. p. 246 _et seq_.) shows us that the works above +mentioned, dated 1802, belong to an earlier period; for in the "first +months" of that year Beethoven fell into a dangerous illness, which +unfitted him for labor throughout the season. + +We have, then, as the labor of three years, three grand pianoforte +concertos with orchestra, six string quartetts, a quintett, a septett, +a grand ballet, and two symphonies, for _great_ works; and for minor +productions,--by-play,--nine pianoforte solo sonatas, one for +pianoforte and horn, a pianoforte trio, a quintett, the "Adelaide," and +the "Christ on the Mount of Olives,"--a productiveness (and such a +productiveness!) not surpassed by Mozart or Handel in their best and +most marvellous years. + +But these twenty-eight works, in fact, belong only in part to those +three years. The first concerto was finished before June, 1796; the +second in Prague, 1798; the third was performed late in the autumn of +1800. A performance of the first symphony is recorded at least ten, of +the second at least three, months before that of the ballet. As +this--the "Prometheus"--was written expressly for Vigano, the arranger +of the action, it is not to be supposed that any great lapse of time +took place between the execution of the order for and the production of +the music. In fact, Marx has no authorities, beyond Lenz's notices of +the _publication_ of the works in the above lists, for the dates which +he has given to them; none whatever for placing the works of the first +of our lists in that order; certainly none for placing Op. 37 before +Op. 18, Op. 29 before Op. 20, and Op. 48 before Op. 21 and Op. 36. And +yet, at the close of his remarks upon the septett, Op. 20, we read, +"Each of the compositions here noticed" (namely, those in the first +list down to the septett) "is a step away from the pianoforte to the +orchestra. In the midst of them appears the first (!) orchestral work +since the chivalrous ballet, to which the boy (?) Beethoven in former +days gave being. It was again to be a ballet,--'Gli Uomini di +Prometeo.'" Then follow remarks upon the ballet, closing thus: + +"On the 'Prometheus' he had tried the strength of his pinions; in the +first symphony, 'Grande Sinfonie,' Op. 21, he floated calmly upon them +at those heights where the spirit of Mozart had rested." + +No, Herr Professor Marx, your pretty fancy is without basis. +Chronology, "the eye of History," makes sad work of your theory. Pity +that in your "researches" you met not one of those lists of the members +of the Electoral Chapel at Bonn, which would have shown you that the +young Beethoven learned to wield the orchestra in that best of all +schools, the orchestra itself! + +Three chapters of Book Second (Vol. I. pp. 239-307) are entitled +"Helden Weihe," (Consecration of the Hero,) "Die Sinfonie Eroica und +die ideale Musik," (The Heroic Symphony and Ideal Music,) and "Die +Zukunft vor dem Richterstuhl der Vergangenheit" (The Future before the +Judgment-Seat of the Past). Save the first fourteen pages, which are +given to Beethoven's sickness in 1802, the testament which he wrote at +that time, and some remarks upon the "Christ on the Mount of Olives," +these chapters are devoted to the "Heroic Symphony,"--its history, its +explanation, and a polemical discourse directed against the views of +Wagner, Berlioz, Oulibichef, and others. + +The circumstances under which this remarkable work was written, the +history of its origin and completion, are so clearly related by Ries +and Schindler, that it seems hardly possible to make any great blunder +in repeating them. Marx has, however, a very happy talent for getting +out of the path, even when it lies directly before him. + +"When, therefore, Bernadotte," says he, "at that time French Ambassador +at Vienna, and sharer in the admiration which the Lichnowskis and +others of high rank felt for Beethoven, proposed to him to pay his +homage to the hero [Napoleon] in a grand instrumental work, he found +the artist in the best disposition thereto; perhaps such thoughts had +already occurred to his mind. In the year 1802, in autumn, he put his +hand already to the work, began first in the following year earnestly +to labor upon it, and, with many interruptions, and the production of +various compositions in the mean time, completed it in 1804." + +From this passage, and from remarks in connection with it, it is clear +that Professor Marx supposes Bernadotte to have been in Vienna in +1802-3, and to have ordered this symphony of Beethoven. Schindler's +words, when speaking of his conversation with the composer in 1823, on +this topic, are,--"Beethoven erinnerte sich lebhaft, dass Bernadotte +wirklich zuerst die Idee zur Sinfonie Eroica in ihm rege gemacht hat" +(Beethoven remembered distinctly that it really was Bernadotte who +first awakened in him the idea of the "Heroic Symphony"). On turning to +the article on Bernadotte in the "Conversations-Lexicon," we find that +the period of his embassy embraced but a few months of the year 1798. + +It seems to us a very suggestive and important fact toward the +comprehension of Beethoven's design in this work, that the conception +of it had been floating before his mind and slowly assuming definite +form during the space of four years, before he put hand to the +composition. Six years passed from the date of its conception before it +lay complete upon his table, with the single word "Bonaparte" in large +letters at the top of the title-page, and "L. Beethoven" at the bottom, +with nothing between. And what, according to Marx, is this product of +so much study and labor? A musical description of a battle; a funeral +march to the memory of the fallen; the gathering of the armies for +their homeward march; a description of the blessings of peace. A most +lame and impotent interpretation! Marx somewhere says, that Beethoven +never wrought twice upon the same idea; hence the funeral march of the +Symphony cannot have been originally intended in honor of a hero,--we +agree with him so far,--for this task he had once already accomplished +in the Sonata, Op. 26. But then, if the first movement of the Symphony +be a battle-piece, how came its author to compose another, and one so +entirely different, in 1812? + +How any one--with the recollection of Beethoven's fondness for +describing character in music, even in youth upon the pianoforte,--with +the "Coriolanus Overture" before him, and the "Wellington's Victory at +Vittoria" at hand,--and, above all, with any knowledge of the +composer's love for the universal, the all-embracing, and his contempt +for minute musical painting, as shown by his sarcasms upon passages in +Haydn's "Creation"--can suppose the first movement of the "Heroic +Symphony" to be in the main intended as a battle-picture, passes our +comprehension. It may be so. It is but a matter of opinion. We have +nothing from Beethoven himself upon the point, unless we may suppose, +that, when, four years later, he printed upon the programme, at the +first performance of the "Pastoral Symphony," "Rather the expression of +feeling than musical painting," he was guarding against a mistake which +had been made as to the intent of the "Eroica." + +We have no space to waste in following Marx, either through his +exposition of his battle theory, his explanations of the other +movements of the Symphony, or his polemics against previous writers. +His programme seems to us little, if at all, better than those which he +controverts. Instead of this, we venture to offer our own to the +reader's common sense, which, if it does not satisfy, at least shows +that Marx has not put the question forever at rest. + +"Rather the expression of feeling than musical painting" seems to us a +key to the understanding of this, as well as of the "Pastoral +Symphony." Mere musical painting, and the composition of works to +order,--as is proved by the "Wellington's Victory," the "Coriolanus +Overture," the music to "Prometheus," to the "Ruins of Athens," the +"Glorreiche Augenblick," to say nothing of minor works, such as the +First and Second Concertos, the Horn Sonata, etc.,--Beethoven could and +did despatch with extreme rapidity; but works of a different order, for +which he could take his own time, and which were to be the expression +of the grand feelings of his own great heart,--the composition of these +was no light holiday-task. He could "make music" with all ease and +rapidity; and had this been his aim, the extreme productiveness of the +first years in Vienna shows that he might, perhaps, have rivalled +Father Haydn himself in the number of his instrumental compositions. +His difficulty was not in writing music, but in mastering the poetic +conception, and finding that tone-speech which should express in epic +progress, yet in obedience to the laws of musical form, the emotions, +feelings, sentiments to be depicted. Hence the great length of time +during which many of his works were subjects of meditation and study. +Hence the six years which elapsed between the conception and completion +of the "Heroic Symphony." + +Beethoven passed his youth near the borders of France, under a +government which allowed a republican personal freedom to its subjects. +He was himself a strong republican, and old enough, when the crushed +people over the border at length arose in their terrible energy against +the King, to sympathize with them in their woe, perhaps in their +vengeance. What to us is the horrible history of those years was to him +the exciting news of the day; and it is not difficult to imagine the +changes of feeling with which he would follow the political changes in +France, the hopes of humanity now apparently lost in the gloom of the +Reign of Terror, and now the rising of the day-star, precursor of a +glorious day of republican freedom, in the marvellous successes of the +cool, determined, energetic, stoical young conqueror of Italy, living, +when Bernadotte fired his imagination by his descriptions of him, with +his wife, the widow of Beauharnais, in a small house in an obscure +street of the capital. + +To us, then, the first movement of the "Heroic Symphony" is a study of +character. In the "Coriolanus Overture" we have one side of a hero +depicted: here we see lain, in all his aspects; we behold him in sorrow +and in joy, in weakness and in strength, in the struggle and in +victory,--overcoming opposition, and reducing all elements of discord +to harmony and order by the force of his energetic will. It may be +either a description of Napoleon, as Beethoven at that time understood +his character,--we are inclined to this opinion,--or it may be a more +general picture of a hero, to which the career of Napoleon had +furnished but the original conception. The second movement is to us the +wail of a nation ground to the dust by the iron heel of +despotism,--France under the old _regime_,--France in the Reign of +Terror,--France needing, as few nations have needed, the advent of a +hero. The scherzo, with its trio, is not a form for minute painting of +_how_ the hero comes and saves; nor is this necessary; it has been +sufficiently indicated in the first movement. _We_ hear in it the +awakening to new life, from the first whispers of hope, uttered +mysteriously and with trembling lips, to the bright and cheering +expression of a nation's joy,--not loudly and boisterously,--(Beethoven +never gives such a language to the depths of happiness,)--in the +exquisite passages for the horns in the trio. We agree with Marx +in feeling the finale to be a picture of the blessings of that peace +and quiet which the hero once more restores,--but peace and quiet where +liberty and law, justice and order reign. + +One fact in relation to the finale of this symphony has caused +Professor Marx no little trouble. The movement is a theme and +variations, with a fugue, and was also published by Beethoven as a +"Theme and Variations for the Pianoforte," Op. 35, dedicated to Moritz +Lichnowsky. The theme is from the finale of the "Prometheus." Now what +could induce Beethoven to make this use of so important a work, as such +a finale to such a symphony, is to our Professor a puzzle. It troubles +him on page 70, (Vol. I.,) again on page 212, and finally on page 274. +The same theme three times employed,--he may say four, for it is one of +the six "Contredanses" by Beethoven, which appeared about that +time,--and the third time _so_ employed! Lenz happens to have +overlooked the fact,--and so has Marx,--that the Variations for the +Pianoforte, Op. 35, were advertised in the "Leipziger Musikalische +Zeitung," already in November, 1803. How long Beethoven had kept them +by him, how long it had taken them to make the then slow journey from +Vienna to Leipzig, to be engraved, corrected, and made ready for sale, +we are not informed. A very simple theory will account for all the +phenomena in this case. + +A very beautiful theme in the finale of "Prometheus" is admired. +Beethoven composes variations upon it, and, to render it more worthy of +his friend Lichnowsky, adds the fugue. The work becomes a favorite, and, +the theme being originally descriptive of the happiness of man in a state +of culture and refinement, he decides to arrange it for orchestra, and +give it a place in the new symphony. How if Lichnowsky proposed it? + +A large proportion of the three chapters under consideration, as, +indeed, of many others, is directed against Oulibichef,-- +"Oulibichef-Thersites," as he names him in the Table of +Contents. The very different manner in which he treats this gentleman, +throughout his work, from that in which he speaks of Berlioz, Wagner, +Lenz, is striking; but Oulibichef is dead, and cannot reply. Some of +the Russian's contrapuntal objections to the "Heroic Symphony" are well +answered; but, as we are satisfied with the poetic explanation of the +work by neither, we must confess, that, after the crystalline clearness +of Oulibichef, the muddy wordiness of Marx is not to edification. + +We turn now to the chapters devoted to the opera "Leonore," afterwards +"Fidelio,"--one of the most interesting topics in Beethoven's musical +history. Here, at length, we do find something beyond what Ries and +Schindler have recorded,--no longer the close coincidence in matters of +fact with Lenz; indeed, the account of the changes made in transforming +the three-act "Leonore" into the two-act "Fidelio" we consider the best +piece of historic writing in the volumes,--the one which gives us the +greatest number of new facts, and most clearly and chronologically +arranged. It is really quite unfortunate for Professor Marx, that +Professor Otto Jahn of Bonn gave us, some years since, in his preface +to the Leipzig edition of "Leonore," precisely the same facts, from +precisely the same sources, and in some cases, we had almost said, in +precisely the same words. The "coincidence" here is striking,--as we +cannot suppose Marx ever saw Jahn's publication, since he makes no +reference to it. In the errors with which Marx spices his narrative +occasionally, the coincidence ceases. Here are some instances. +--According to Marx, one reason of the ill success of the +opera at Vienna, in 1805-6, was the popularity of that upon the same +subject by Paer. The Viennese first heard the latter in 1809.--Again, +at the first production of the "Fidelio," in 1814, Marx says, the +Leonore Overture No. 3 was played because that in E flat was not +finished. Seyfried says expressly, the overture to the "Ruins of +Athens,"--Marx speaks of the proposals made to Beethoven in 1823 to +compose the "Melusine," and still another text,--and so speaks as to +leave the impression, that, from the "fall of the opera" in 1806, the +composer had purposely kept aloof from the stage. Does the Professor +know nothing of Beethoven's application in 1807 to the Theater- +Direktion of the imperial playhouses, to be employed as regular +operatic composer?--of the opera "Romulus?"--of his correspondence with +Koerner, Rellstab, and still others? It appears not. + +We must close our article somewhere; it is already, perhaps, too long; +we add, therefore, but a general remark or two. + +To many readers Marx's discussions of Beethoven's last works will be +found of interest and value, though written in that turgid, vague, +confused style--"words, words, words"--which the Germans denominate by +the expressive term, _Geschtwaetz_. This is especially the case with his +essays upon the great "Missa Solemnis," and the "Ninth Symphony." + +We cannot rise from the perusal of this "Life of Beethoven" without +feeling something akin to indignation. Were it a possible supposition, +we should imagine it to be a thing manufactured to sell,--and, indeed, +in some such manner as this; The labors of Lenz taken without +acknowledgment for the skeleton of the work; Wegeler, Ries, Schindler, +and Seyfried at hand for citations, where Lenz fails to give more than +a reference; Oulibichef on the table to supply topics for polemical +discussion; a few periodicals and papers, which have come accidentally +into his possession, to afford here and there an anecdote or a letter; +the works of Professor A. B. Marx supplying the necessary authorities +upon points in musical science. As for any original research, that is +out of the question. Why stop to verify a fact, to decide a disputed +point, to search out new matter? The market waits,--the publisher +presses,--so, hurry-skurry, away we go,--and the book is done! +Seriously, such a book, from one with such opportunities at command, is +a disgrace to the institution in which its author occupies the station +of Professor. + +When Schindler wrote, Johann van Beethoven, the brother, and Carl van +Beethoven, the nephew, were still alive, and feelings of delicacy led +him to do little more than hint at those domestic and family relations +and sorrows which for several years rendered the great composer much of +the time unfit for labor, and which at last brought him to the grave. +When Marx wrote, all had passed away, who could be wounded by a plain +statement of the facts in the case. Until we have such a statement, +none but he who has gone through the labor of studying the original +authorities, as they exist in Berlin, can know the real greatness, +perhaps also the weaknesses, of Beethoven in those last years. None can +know how his heart was torn,--how he poured out, concentrated all the +love of his great heart upon his adopted son, but to learn "how sharper +than the serpent's tooth it is to have a thankless child." Nothing of +all this in Marx. He quotes Schindler, and therewith enough. + +Long as this article has become, we have referred to but the more +important of the passages which in reading we marked for +comment,--enough, however, we judge, to show that the biography of +Ludwig van Beethoven still remains to be written. + + + + +_The American Draught-Player_; or the Theory and Practice of the +Scientific Game of Chequers. By HENRY SPAYTH. Buffalo, New York. +Printed for the Author. + +Almost everybody plays the game of draughts, but few have any insight +into its beauties; and many who look upon chess as a science rather +than an amusement regard draughts as a childish game, never suspecting +what eminent ability and painful research have been expended in +explaining a game which is inferior to chess only in variety and far +superior in scientific precision. Mr. Spayth's book is accordingly +addressed to a comparatively narrow circle of readers; but those who +are competent to judge of its merits will find it a work of great +value. The author, who is an enthusiastic votary of the game, and has +no superior among our American amateurs, offers a judicious selection +from the treatises of such foreign writers as the severe and critical +Anderson, the brilliant but capricious Drummond, Robert Martin, perhaps +the first of living players, Hay, Sinclair, and Wylie, besides many +valuable games from Sturges and Payne, who will never be rendered +obsolete by modern improvements,--together with the labors of such +acknowledged masters in America as Bethell, Mercer, Ash, Drysdale, and +Young, and the contributions of such rising players as Howard, Brooks, +Fisk, Boughton, Janvier, Hull, and Thwing. But his labors have not been +merely those of a compiler. Out of fifteen hundred games, more than +five hundred are the composition of Mr. Spayth himself. + +The results of so much labor and skill cannot, of course, be fully +criticized by us. The merits of the volume can be fairly tested only by +long and constant use. We shall, however, venture to point out some +faults in Mr. Spayth's treatment, premising that his is by far the best +treatise upon the game yet published, and the only treatise worthy of +the name that has ever appeared in this country. Anderson's arrangement +of the games, which Mr. Spayth has adopted, is both clear and concise; +and we are glad to see that our author has adhered to the old system of +draught-notation, which is infinitely superior to any of the new plans. +The condensation and clear presentation of Paterson's somewhat abstruse +essay on "The Move and its Changes" is every way admirable, and many of +the problems are remarkable for beauty and difficulty. + +We think that too much prominence has been given to certain openings. +While glad to see that model of all openings, the _Old Fourteenth_, +which is to draughts what the _Giuoco Piano_ is to chess, illustrated +by 186 games, of which 127 are original with the author, the brilliant +_Fife_ (the _Muzio_ of chess-players) explained by 67 games, the +_Suter_ by 72 games, and the _Single Corner_ by 258 games, we regret +that only 24 specimens should be given of the _Double Corner_, 42 (and +only 11 of these original) of the _Defiance_, and 51 (with but 14 +original) of the fascinating and intricate _Ayrshire Lassie_, an +opening of which American students know very little. We regret this +meagre explanation of the three latter openings all the more that we +expected a particularly full and lucid presentment of them from Mr. +Spayth. + +The definition of certain openings seems to us also incorrect and +inconsistent. The Scottish school, whom Mr. Spayth has sometimes +followed too closely, as in this instance, are singularly deficient as +theorists, and have never given the game anything like a philosophical +treatment. The _Whilter_ is _not_ "formed by the first three or five +moves." The bare notion of forming one opening in two different ways is +absurd and contradictory. The time will come when draught-players will +understand that the _Whilter_ is formed by the first three moves, +namely, 11.15--23.19--7.11, or else, 10.15--23.19--7.10, which is +really the same thing. The distinctive move of the opening is 7.11; +there is nothing characteristic in the 9.14--22.17, which may +intervene: those moves leave the game free to develop itself into a +_Fife_, a _Suter_, or even an _Old Fourteenth_; but the move of 7.11 +determines the opening at once and finally. Then, under the title of +the _Double Corner_ the author includes several distinct openings,--and +so, too, under the _Bristol_. In this latter case, the Scottish +treatises are right and Mr. Spayth is wrong. A strange confusion is +also caused by the attempt to include a number of different openings +under the head of "Irregular." + +It is useless to linger over the exhaustive plan of all our +draught-writers, but, in adopting their plan, Mr. Spayth's fault has +been merely that of his predecessors, and his merits are all his own. +The true plan for a draught-treatise is that adopted by Staunton in his +chess-writings. No man has time to write a treatise which shall embody +the entire practice of the game; and even if such an exhaustive +treatise were written, no man would ever have time to master its +instructions. But the theory can be fully set forth, and is as yet +almost entirely undeveloped. The subject of odds alone presents an +extensive field for future investigations. + +We have found fault with Mr. Spayth's new volume wherever we honestly +could; and we dismiss it with an emphatic repetition of the opinion, +that it is by far the best work upon the game that has ever been +published. + + + + +_The Adopted Heir._ By MISS PARDOE. Philadelphia: T. B. Peterson & +Brothers. + +Miss Pardoe ought to do better than this. There is much ability +displayed in her "Court of France"; and she has written a very clever +story, entitled "The Romance of the Harem." But this book is thoroughly +feeble and commonplace. The customary rich and whimsical nabob, whom we +all know so well, has returned to England, and is deliberating upon the +claims to his wealth of his several relations. His decision is soon +formed, but shrouded in an impenetrable mystery, which is open to the +usual objection to the novelist's impenetrable mysteries, of being +perfectly transparent. Having divined who will be the heir, after +reading forty pages, we are a little impatient that Miss Pardoe should +cherish the secret with every imaginable precaution until the 350th +page, when she brings it out with a flourish, as if no human sagacity +could possibly have discovered it. + +This keeping secrets that are no secrets, the besetting weakness of +novelists, was once quite affecting. When Nicholas Nickleby acted at +Mr. Crummles's theatre, a thrill of terror ran through the +unsophisticated spectators, as the wicked relation poked a sword at him +in the dark in every direction except where his legs were plainly +visible. But readers are more exacting now. And we are all frightfully +sagacious. Long reading of novels gives a fatal skill in anticipating +their issues. If in the first chapter the poor little brother runs away +to sea, his anxious friends may bewail his loss, but we remain calm in +the conviction that he will return, yellow and rich, precisely in time +to frustrate the designs of the wicked, and to reward innocence and +constancy with ten thousand a year. All the good people in a story may +be puzzled to detect the author of an alarming fraud; but we know +better, and, fixing with more than a detective's accuracy upon the +gentlemanly, plausible villain, drag him forth long before our author +is ready to present him to our (theoretically) astonished eyes. The +whole village may be deceived by the venerable stranger, with his white +hair and benevolent spectacles, but our unerring eye instantly discerns +in him Black Donald, the robber-captain; and if we do not tremble for +our heroine, it is only because we are morally certain that her deadly +peril is only an excuse for her inevitable lover's "dashing up on a +coal-black barb, urged to his utmost speed," and delivering the +desolate fair, who has won our regard alike by her indignant virtue, +and the skill with which, while laboring under uncontrollable +agitation, she constructs sentences so ponderous and intricate that Mr. +Burke's periods are trifles in comparison. And we know all this, simply +because there are certain things to be done, and only so many people to +do them. Miss Austen, indeed, could keep her secrets impenetrable; but +the art died with her, and our common sense is daily insulted by these +weak attempts at mystery. If the secret is one that cannot be +kept, why, let the author tell it us at once, and we can then follow +with sympathy the attempts to baffle those in the story who are trying +to detect it, instead of being offended with a shallow artifice. Here +lies the artistic error of that very clever book, "Paul Ferroll." We +all see at once that Mr. Ferroll murdered his wife, and the author +would have lost nothing and gained much by taking us into his +confidence. + +The style of the "Adopted Heir" is at once pompous and feeble. From +writers of the Mrs. Southworth school we should expect nothing else; +but Miss Pardoe was capable of something better. + + + + +_Fanny_. From the French of ERNEST FEYDEAU. New York: Evert D. Long & +Co. + +If there be any one thing worse than French immorality, it is French +morality. This is a moral book, _a la Francaise_, and weak as +ditch-water. Nor is the ditch-water improved by being particularly +dirty. + +Edward, who is a mere boy, is in love with Fanny. This is natural +enough. Fanny, who is decidedly an old girl, who has been married for +fifteen years, and who has three children, is not less desperately in +love with Edward, whom she regards with a most charming sentiment, in +which the timid passion of the maiden blends gracefully with the +maturer regard of an aunt or a grandmother. This is not quite so +natural. Certainly, it can hardly be that she is fascinated by Edward, +who is the most disgustingly silly young monkey to be found in the +whole range of French novels. But the mystery is at once disclosed when +we read the description of Fanny's husband. He is "a species of bull +with a human face." "His smile was not unpleasing, and his look without +any malicious expression, but clear as crystal." We begin to comprehend +his inferiority to Edward,--to sympathize with the youth's horror at +the sight of this obnoxious husband, "who seems to him," as M. Janin +says in his preface, "a hero--what do I say?--a giant!--to the loving, +timid, fragile child." "In fine, a certain air of calm rectitude +pervaded his person." Execrable wretch! could anything be more +repulsive to true and delicate sentiment (as before, _a la Francaise_) +"I should say his age was about forty." Our wrath at this last atrocity +can hardly be controlled. It seems as if M. Feydeau, by collecting in +one individual all the qualities which most excite his abhorrence and +contempt, had succeeded in giving us, in Fanny's husband, a very +tolerable specimen of a gentleman. We pardon all to the somewhat +middle-aged lady, whose "feelings are too many for her"; and we only +regret that M. Feydeau did not see the eminent propriety of increasing +the lady's admiration by having this brutal husband pull Edward's +divine nose or kick the adored person of the _pauvre enfant_ down +stairs. + + +_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," "Art, Literature, and the Drama," etc. +Edited by her Brother, ARTHUR B. FULLER. Boston: Brown, Taggard, & +Chase. + +Of this volume little more need be said than that, had Margaret Fuller +Ossoli edited it, she might have reduced its size. Yet it is not +surprising that love and reverence should seek with diligence and save +with care whatever had emanated from her pen; and if the matter thus +laid before the world take something from her reputation, it also +completes the standard by which to measure her power. She appears to +have been without creative faculty, yet her perception of the gift in +others was often remarkable, and it pleased her to hold the possessor +of it up to admiration. Hence she devoted much time and attention to +the critical examination of art, music, and literature, and succeeded +in giving the works and lives which she reviewed a fresh interest and a +fuller meaning. Her articles on Goethe and Beethoven, in this volume, +furnish ample evidence of her capacity to appreciate the works and the +men of genius, and that, if she could not give good reasons for the +aberrations and eccentricities of their courses, she at least had a +heart large enough to look kindly upon them. Of books she was +a student and a lover; and in the short notices of new ones, which are +transferred from "The Tribune" to these pages, there is hardly one that +has not some thought of value to author as well as reader. Indeed, all +her prose writings are suggestive, and thus are capable of opening +vistas in the quickened mind which were unknown before. Authors of this +class often dart a ray into the recesses of our souls, so that we see +what they never saw, gain what they never gave. A book that increases +mental activity is incomparably better than one that multiplies +learning. The value of knowledge that lies in libraries is +overestimated by all save those who read Nature's runes. The Countess +Ossoli gathered from the garners, rather than from the glorious field, +and therefore she does not range with the marked originals. In this +rank she was not born. Her poems--which we think injudiciously +published--place her far down among the multitude. From these untuneful +utterances we gladly turn to her prose. There she shows strength of +character and goodness of heart. One aim, never lost sight of, is +perceptible through all, and gives unity to the whole; this is a +fervent desire to ennoble human life; consequently her works will long +have influence, and continue to call forth praise. + + + + +_Lectures on the English Language_. By GEORGE P. MARSH. New York: +Charles Scribner, 1860. pp. vi., 697. + +An American scholar of wide range, at the same time thorough and +unpretentious, is a rarity; a philologist who is neither perversely +wrongheaded nor the victim of a preconceived theory is a still greater +one; yet we find both characters pleasantly united in the author of +these Lectures. Decided in his opinions, Mr. Marsh is modest in +expressing them, because they are the result of various culture and +long reflection, and these have taught him that time and study often +render the most positive conclusions doubtful, especially in regard to +such a topic as Language. Deservedly honored with diplomatic employment +in Europe, he has done credit to the choice of the Government by +turning the long leisure of a foreign mission to as great profit by +study and observation as if he had been a Travelling Fellow and these +had been the conditions of his tenure. + +Addressed to a mixed audience, to the laity rather than to students, +these Lectures are more popular than scholastic in their character. Mr. +Marsh alludes to this with something like regret in his Preface. We +look upon this as by no means a misfortune. The book will, for this +very reason, reach and interest a much larger number of readers; and +while there is nothing in it to scare away those who read for mere +entertainment, they whose studies have led them into the same paths +with the author will continually recognize those signs, trifling, but +unmistakable, which distinguish the work of a master from that of a +journeyman. Scholarship is indicated not only by readiness of allusion, +and variety and aptness of illustration, but by a thorough +self-possession and chastened eloquence of style. A genius for language +comes doubtless by nature, but Mr. Marsh is too wise a man to believe +that a knowledge of it comes in the same way; his learning has that +ripened clearness which tells of olden vintages and of long storing in +the crypts of the brain; he has nothing in common with the easy +generalizers who know as little of roots as Shelley's skylark, and who, +seeking a shelter in welcome clouds, pour forth "profuse strains of +unpremeditated art" upon questions which above all others are limited +by exact science and unyielding fact. + +We believe we are not going too far when we say that Mr. Marsh's book +is the best treatise of the kind in the language. It abounds in nice +criticism and elegant discussion on matters of taste, showing in the +author a happy capacity for esthetic discrimination as well as for +linguistic attainment. He does not profess to deal with some of the +deeper problems of language, but nevertheless makes us feel that they +have been subjects of thoughtful study, and, within the limits he has +imposed upon himself, he is often profound without the pretence of it. + +We have spoken warmly of this volume, for it has both interested and +instructed us, and because we consider it one of the few thoroughly +creditable productions of Cisatlantic scholarship. We hope the +appreciation it meets with will be such that we shall soon have +occasion to thank Mr. Marsh for another volume on some kindred theme. + + + + +_The Marble Faun._ A Romance of Monte Beni. By NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE. 2 +vols. Boston: Ticknor & Fields. 1860. + +It is, we believe, more than thirty years since Mr. Hawthorne's first +appearance as an author; it is twenty-three since he gave his first +collection of "Twice-told Tales" to the world. His works have received +that surest warranty of genius and originality in the widening of their +appreciation downward from a small circle of refined admirers and +critics, till it embraced the whole community of readers. With just +enough encouragement to confirm his faith in his own powers, those +powers had time to ripen and toughen themselves before the gales of +popularity could twist them from the balance of a healthy and normal +development. Happy the author whose earliest works are read and +understood by the lustre thrown back upon them from his latest! for +then we receive the impression of continuity and cumulation of power, +of peculiarity deepening to individuality, of promise more than +justified in the keeping: unhappy, whose autumn shows only the +aftermath and rowen of an earlier harvest, whose would-be +replenishments are but thin dilutions of his fame! + +The nineteenth century has produced no more purely original writer than +Mr. Hawthorne. A shallow criticism has sometimes fancied a resemblance +between him and Poe. But it seems to us that the difference between +them is the immeasurable one between talent carried to its ultimate, +and genius,--between a masterly adaptation of the world of sense and +appearance to the purposes of Art, and a so thorough conception of the +world of moral realities that Art becomes the interpreter of something +profounder than herself. In this respect it is not extravagant to say +that Hawthorne has something of kindred with Shakspeare. But that +breadth of nature which made Shakspeare incapable of alienation from +common human nature and actual life is wanting to Hawthorne. He is +rather a denizen than a citizen of what men call the world. We are +conscious of a certain remoteness in his writings, as in those of +Donne, but with such a difference that we should call the one super- +and the other subter-sensual. Hawthorne is psychological and +metaphysical. Had he been born without the poetic imagination, he would +have written treatises on the Origin of Evil. He does not draw +characters, but rather conceives them and then shows them acted upon by +crime, passion, or circumstance, as if the element of Fate were as +present to his imagination as to that of a Greek dramatist. Helen we +know, and Antigone, and Benedick, and Falstaff, and Miranda, and Parson +Adams, and Major Pendennis,--these people have walked on pavements or +looked out of club-room windows; but what are these idiosyncrasies into +which Mr. Hawthorne has breathed a necromantic life, and which he has +endowed with the forms and attributes of men? And yet, grant him his +premises, that is, let him once get his morbid tendency, whether +inherited or the result of special experience, either incarnated +as a new man or usurping all the faculties of one already in +the flesh, and it is marvellous how subtilely and with what +truth to as much of human nature as is included in a diseased +consciousness he traces all the finest nerves of impulse and motive, +how he compels every trivial circumstance into an accomplice of his +art, and makes the sky flame with foreboding or the landscape chill and +darken with remorse. It is impossible to think of Hawthorne without at +the same time thinking of the few great masters of imaginative +composition; his works, only not abstract because he has the genius +to make them ideal, belong not specially to our clime or generation; +it is their moral purpose alone, and perhaps their sadness, that mark +him as the son of New England and the Puritans. + +It is commonly true of Hawthorne's romances that the interest centres +in one strongly defined protagonist, to whom the other characters are +accessory and subordinate,--perhaps we should rather say a ruling Idea, +of which all the characters are fragmentary embodiments. They remind us +of a symphony of Beethoven's, in which, though there be variety of +parts, yet all are infused with the dominant motive, and heighten its +impression by hints and far-away suggestions at the most unexpected +moment. As in Rome the obelisks are placed at points toward which +several streets converge, so in Mr. Hawthorne's stories the actors and +incidents seem but vistas through which we see the moral from different +points of view,--a moral pointing skyward always, but inscribed with +hieroglyphs mysteriously suggestive, whose incitement to conjecture, +while they baffle it, we prefer to any prosaic solution. + +Nothing could be more original or imaginative than the conception of +the character of Donatello in Mr. Hawthorne's new romance. His likeness +to the lovely statue of Praxiteles, his happy animal temperament, and +the dim legend of his pedigree are combined with wonderful art to +reconcile us to the notion of a Greek myth embodied in an Italian of +the nineteenth century; and when at length a soul is created in this +primeval pagan, this child of earth, this creature of mere instinct, +awakened through sin to a conception of the necessity of atonement, we +feel, that, while we looked to be entertained with the airiest of +fictions, we were dealing with the most august truths of psychology, +with the most pregnant facts of modern history, and studying a profound +parable of the development of the Christian Idea. + +Everything suffers a sea-change in the depths of Mr. Hawthorne's mind, +gets rimmed with an impalpable fringe of melancholy moss, and there is +a tone of sadness in this book as in the rest, but it does not leave us +sad. In a series of remarkable and characteristic works, it is perhaps +the most remarkable and characteristic. If you had picked up and read a +stray leaf of it anywhere, you would have exclaimed, "Hawthorne!" + +The book is steeped in Italian atmosphere. There are many landscapes in +it full of breadth and power, and criticisms of pictures and statues +always delicate, often profound. In the Preface, Mr. Hawthorne pays a +well-deserved tribute of admiration to several of our sculptors, +especially to Story and Akers. The hearty enthusiasm with which he +elsewhere speaks of the former artist's "Cleopatra" is no surprise to +Mr. Story's friends at home, though hardly less gratifying to them than +it must be to the sculptor himself. + + + + +_A Trip to Cuba_. By Mrs. JULIA WARD HOWE. Boston: Ticknor & Fields. +1860. pp. 251. + +For readers of the "Atlantic," this little volume will need no further +commendation than the mere statement that nearly a quarter of it is +made up of hitherto unpublished material. Here and there it seems to us +a little too personal, and the public is made the confidant of matters +in which it has properly no concern. This, perhaps, is more the fault +of the present generation than of the author; but it is something we +feel bound to protest against, wherever we meet it. In other respects, +the book is one which we may thank not only for entertainment, but for +instruction. In its vivid picturesqueness, it furnishes the complement +to Mr. Dana's "To Cuba and Back." Mrs. Howe has the poet's gift of +making us see what she describes, and she is as lively and witty as a +French _Marquise_ of the seventeenth century, when a _De_ in the name, +petticoats, and Paris were an infallible receipt for cleverness. Toward +the end of her volume, Mrs. Howe enters a spirited and telling protest +against a self-constituted censorship, which would insist on a +traveller's squaring his impressions with some foregone theory of right +and wrong, instead of thankfully allowing facts to rectify his theory. +A traveller is bound to tell us what he saw, not what he expected or +wished to see; and it is only by comparing the different views of many +independent observers that we who tarry at home can arrive at any +approximate notion of absolute fact. The general inferiority of modern +books of travel is due to the fact that their authors write in the fear +of their special fragment of a public, and report of foreign countries +as if they were drummers for Exeter Hall or the Southern Planters' +Association, rather than servants of Truth. + + + + +_Poems by Two Friends_. Columbus, Ohio: Follett, Foster, & Co. 1860. +pp. 162. + +The Two Friends are Messrs. John J. Piatt and W. D. Howells. The +readers of the "Atlantic" have already had a taste of the quality of +both, and, we hope, will often have the same pleasure again. The volume +is a very agreeable one, with little of the crudeness so generally +characteristic of first ventures,--not more than enough to augur richer +maturity hereafter. Dead-ripeness in a first book is a fatal symptom, +sure sign that the writer is doomed forever to that pale limbo of +faultlessness from which there is no escape upwards or downwards. + +We can scarce find it in our hearts to make any distinctions in so +happy a partnership; but while we see something more than promise in +both writers, we have a feeling that Mr. Piatt shows greater +originality in the choice of subjects, and Mr. Howells more instinctive +felicity of phrase in the treatment of them. Both of them seem to us to +have escaped remarkably from the prevailing conventionalisms of verse, +and to write in metre because they have a genuine call thereto. We are +pleased with a thorough Western flavor in some of the poems, especially +in such pieces as "The Pioneer Chimney" and "The Movers." We welcome +cordially a volume in which we recognize a fresh and authentic power, +and expect confidently of the writers a yet higher achievement ere +long. The poems give more than glimpses of a faculty not so common that +the world can afford to do without it. + + + + +_Vanity Fair_, Frank J. Thompson, 113 Nassau Street, New York. +(Weekly.) + +This is the first really clever comic and satirical journal we have had +in America,--and really clever it is. It is both sharp and +good-tempered, and not afraid to say that its soul is its own,--which +shows that it has a soul. Our readers will be glad to know where they +can find native fun that has something better in it than mere _patois_. + + + + +_Twenty Years Ago and Now_. By T. S. ARTHUR. Philadelphia: G. G. Evans. + +In attempting a novel, Mr. Arthur has gone beyond his powers. This +story is not new, and is not interesting; and its only merits are the +quiet, unpretending style and kindly spirit shown in the author's +little tales of mercantile life, many of which are very good. + + + + +RECENT AMERICAN PUBLICATIONS + +RECEIVED BY THE EDITORS OF THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY. + + +The Hierophant; or, Gleanings from the Past. Being an Exposition of +Biblical Astronomy, and the Symbolism and Mysteries on which were +founded all Ancient Religions and Secret Societies. Also, an +Explanation of the Dark Sayings and Allegories which abound in the +Pagan, Jewish, and Christian Bibles. Also, the Real Sense of the +Doctrines and Observances of the Modern Christian Churches. By G. C. +Stewart, Newark, N. J. New York. Ross & Tousey. 18mo. pp. 234. 75 cts. + +A Trip to Cuba. By Mrs. Julia Ward Howe. Boston. Ticknor & Fields. +16mo. pp. iv., 25l. 75 cts. + +Humanics. By T. Wharton Collins, Esq., Professor of "Political +Philosophy," University of Louisiana, Ex-Presiding Judge City Court of +New Orleans, etc. New York. Appleton & Co. 8vo. pp. 358. $1.75. + +Essays, Critical and Miscellaneous. By T. Babington Macaulay. New and +Revised Edition. New York. Appleton & Co. 8vo. pp. 744. $2.00. + +Life and Times of Gen. Sam. Dale, the Mississippi Partisan. By J. F. H. +Claiborne. Illustrated by John M'Lenan. New York. Harper & Brothers. +12mo. pp. 233. $1.00. + +Lucy Crofton. By the Author of "Margaret Maitland," "The Days of my +Life." New York. Harper & Brothers. 12mo. pp. 222. 75 cts. + +Holmby House. A Tale of Old Northamptonshire. By G. J. Whyte Melville, +Author of "Kate Coventry," "The Interpreter," etc. Boston. Ticknor & +Fields. 8vo. paper, pp. 224. 50 cts. + +Aeschylus, ex novissima Recensione Frederici A. Paley. Accessit +Verborum quae praecipue notanda sunt et Nominum Index. New York Harper +& Brothers. 18mo. pp. viii., 272. 40 cts. Thoughts and Reflections on +the Present Position of Europe, and its Probable Consequences to the +United States. By Francis J. Grund. Philadelphia. Childs and Peterson. +12mo. pp. 245. 75 cts. + +Lectures on the English Language. By George P. Marsh. New York. +Scribner. 8vo. pp. viii., 697. $3.00. + +A Medico-Legal Treatise on Malpractice and Medical Evidence, comprising +the Elements of Medical Jurisprudence. By John J. Elwell, M. D., Member +of the Cleveland Bar, Professor of Criminal and Medical Jurisprudence +and Testamentary Law in the Ohio State Law College, and Editor of the +Western Law Monthly. New York. John S. Voorhies. 8vo. pp. 588. $5.00. + +The Public Life of Captain John Brown. By James Redpath. With an +Autobiography of his Childhood and Youth. Boston. Thayer and Eldridge. +12mo. pp. 408. $1.00. + +Stories from Famous Ballads. For Children. By Grace Greenwood, Author +of "History of my Pets," "Stories and Legends," etc. With Illustrations +by Billings. Boston. Ticknor & Fields. Square 18mo. pp. 141. 50 cts. + +Biographical Studies. By George Washington Greene. New York. G. P. +Putnam. 12mo. pp. 233. 75 cts. + +Revolutions in English History. By Robert Vaughan, D. D. Vol. I. +Revolutions of Race. New York. Appleton & Co. 8vo. pp. xvi., 563. +$2.00. + +Doctor Oldham at Greystones, and his Talk there. De omnibus Rebus et +quibusdam aliis. New York. Appleton & Co. 12mo. pp. viii., 342. 75 cts. + +Notes on Nursing: What it is, and what it is not. By Florence +Nightingale. New York. Appleton & Co. 12mo. pp. 140. 60 cts. + +An Arctic Boat Journey, in the Autumn of 1854. By Isaac I. Hayes, +Surgeon of the Second Grinnell Expedition. Boston. Brown, Taggard, & +Chase. 12mo. pp. xviii., 375. $1.25. + +A Guide to the Knowledge of Life, Vegetable and Animal; being a +Comprehensive Manual of Physiology, viewed in Relation to the +Maintenance of Health. By Robert James Mann, M. D. Revised and +corrected. New York. Francis & Co. 16mo. pp. xii., 417. $1.00. + +Notes of Travel and Study in Italy. By Charles Eliot Norton. Boston. +Ticknor & Fields. 16mo. pp. xii., 330. 75 cts. + +The Manual of Phonography. By Benn Pitman. Cincinnati. Phonographic +Institute. 16mo. pp. 136. 75 cts. + +Quinti Horatii Flacci Opera Omnia, ex Recensione A. J. Macleane. New +York. Harper & Brothers. 18mo. pp. viii., 211. 40 eta. + +Poems. By Thomas Buchanan Read. A New and Enlarged Edition. In Two +Volumes. Boston. Ticknor & Fields. 16mo. pp. 426. $2.00. + +Homeward Bound; or, The Chase. A Tale of the Sea. By J. Fenimore +Cooper. Illustrated from Drawings by F. O. C. Darley. New York. +Townsend & Co. 12mo. pp. 532. $1.50. + +Life of Jesus. A Manual for Academic Study. By Dr. Carl Hase, Professor +of Theology in the University of Jena. Translated from the German of +the Third and Fourth Improved Editions, by James Freeman Clarke. +Boston. Walker, Wise, & Co. 12mo. pp. xxiv., 267. 75 cts. + +Apelles and his Contemporaries. A Novel. By the Author of "Ernest +Carroll." Boston. Burnham. 16mo. pp. 342. 75 cts. + +The Miscellaneous Works of Sir Philip Sidney, Knt. With a Life of the +Author and Illustrative Notes. By William Gray, Esq., of Magdalen +College and the Inner Temple. Boston. Burnham. 8vo. pp. x., 380. $2.25. + +The Satires of Juvenal, Persius, Sulpicia, and Lucilius, literally +translated into English Prose, with Notes, Chronological Tables, +Arguments, etc. By the Rev. Lewis Evans, M. A., late Fellow of Wadham +College, Oxford. To which is added the Metrical Version of Juvenal and +Persius by the late William Gifford, Esq. New York. Harper & Brothers. +16mo. pp. lx., 512. 75 cts. + +Narrative of the Earl of Elgin's Mission to China and Japan in the +Years 1857, '58, '59. By Laurence Oliphant, Esq., Private Secretary to +Lord Elgin, Author of "The Russian Shores, of the Black Sea," etc. New +York. Harper & Brothers. 8vo. pp. xvi., 645. $2.75. + +Hours with the Evangelists. By I. Nichols, D.D. In Two Volumes. Vol. I. +Boston. Crosby, Nichols, & Co. 12mo. pp. x., 405. $1.25. + +A Dictionary of English Etymology. By Hensleigh Wedgewood, M. A., late +Fellow of Chr. Coll. Cam. Vol. I. _A-D_. London. Truebner & Co. New +York. Redfield. pp. 507. + +The Marble Faun; or, The Romance of Monte Beni. By Nathaniel Hawthorne, +Author of "The Scarlet Letter," etc. In Two Volumes. Boston. Ticknor & +Fields. 16mo. pp. 283, 284. $1.50. + +Wolfe of the Knoll, and other Poems. By Mrs. George P. Marsh. New York. +Scribner. 12mo. pp. 327. $1.00. + + + + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, ATLANTIC MONTHLY, VOL. 5, NO. 30, APRIL, 1860 *** + +This file should be named 705a410.txt or 705a410.zip +Corrected EDITIONS of our eBooks get a new NUMBER, 705a411.txt +VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, 705a410a.txt + +Project Gutenberg eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the US +unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we usually do not +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + +We are now trying to release all our eBooks one year in advance +of the official release dates, leaving time for better editing. +Please be encouraged to tell us about any error or corrections, +even years after the official publication date. + +Please note neither this listing nor its contents are final til +midnight of the last day of the month of any such announcement. +The official release date of all Project Gutenberg eBooks is at +Midnight, Central Time, of the last day of the stated month. A +preliminary version may often be posted for suggestion, comment +and editing by those who wish to do so. + +Most people start at our Web sites at: +http://gutenberg.net or +http://promo.net/pg + +These Web sites include award-winning information about Project +Gutenberg, including how to donate, how to help produce our new +eBooks, and how to subscribe to our email newsletter (free!). + + +Those of you who want to download any eBook before announcement +can get to them as follows, and just download by date. This is +also a good way to get them instantly upon announcement, as the +indexes our cataloguers produce obviously take a while after an +announcement goes out in the Project Gutenberg Newsletter. + +http://www.ibiblio.org/gutenberg/etext05 or +ftp://ftp.ibiblio.org/pub/docs/books/gutenberg/etext05 + +Or /etext04, 03, 02, 01, 00, 99, 98, 97, 96, 95, 94, 93, 92, 92, +91 or 90 + +Just search by the first five letters of the filename you want, +as it appears in our Newsletters. + + +Information about Project Gutenberg (one page) + +We produce about two million dollars for each hour we work. The +time it takes us, a rather conservative estimate, is fifty hours +to get any eBook selected, entered, proofread, edited, copyright +searched and analyzed, the copyright letters written, etc. Our +projected audience is one hundred million readers. If the value +per text is nominally estimated at one dollar then we produce $2 +million dollars per hour in 2002 as we release over 100 new text +files per month: 1240 more eBooks in 2001 for a total of 4000+ +We are already on our way to trying for 2000 more eBooks in 2002 +If they reach just 1-2% of the world's population then the total +will reach over half a trillion eBooks given away by year's end. + +The Goal of Project Gutenberg is to Give Away 1 Trillion eBooks! +This is ten thousand titles each to one hundred million readers, +which is only about 4% of the present number of computer users. + +Here is the briefest record of our progress (* means estimated): + +eBooks Year Month + + 1 1971 July + 10 1991 January + 100 1994 January + 1000 1997 August + 1500 1998 October + 2000 1999 December + 2500 2000 December + 3000 2001 November + 4000 2001 October/November + 6000 2002 December* + 9000 2003 November* +10000 2004 January* + + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation has been created +to secure a future for Project Gutenberg into the next millennium. + +We need your donations more than ever! + +As of February, 2002, contributions are being solicited from people +and organizations in: Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Connecticut, +Delaware, District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Illinois, +Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Massachusetts, +Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New +Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, +Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South +Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, West +Virginia, Wisconsin, and Wyoming. + +We have filed in all 50 states now, but these are the only ones +that have responded. + +As the requirements for other states are met, additions to this list +will be made and fund raising will begin in the additional states. +Please feel free to ask to check the status of your state. + +In answer to various questions we have received on this: + +We are constantly working on finishing the paperwork to legally +request donations in all 50 states. If your state is not listed and +you would like to know if we have added it since the list you have, +just ask. + +While we cannot solicit donations from people in states where we are +not yet registered, we know of no prohibition against accepting +donations from donors in these states who approach us with an offer to +donate. + +International donations are accepted, but we don't know ANYTHING about +how to make them tax-deductible, or even if they CAN be made +deductible, and don't have the staff to handle it even if there are +ways. + +Donations by check or money order may be sent to: + + PROJECT GUTENBERG LITERARY ARCHIVE FOUNDATION + 809 North 1500 West + Salt Lake City, UT 84116 + +Contact us if you want to arrange for a wire transfer or payment +method other than by check or money order. + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation has been approved by +the US Internal Revenue Service as a 501(c)(3) organization with EIN +[Employee Identification Number] 64-622154. Donations are +tax-deductible to the maximum extent permitted by law. As fund-raising +requirements for other states are met, additions to this list will be +made and fund-raising will begin in the additional states. + +We need your donations more than ever! + +You can get up to date donation information online at: + +http://www.gutenberg.net/donation.html + + +*** + +If you can't reach Project Gutenberg, +you can always email directly to: + +Michael S. Hart <hart@pobox.com> + +Prof. Hart will answer or forward your message. + +We would prefer to send you information by email. + + +**The Legal Small Print** + + +(Three Pages) + +***START**THE SMALL PRINT!**FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN EBOOKS**START*** +Why is this "Small Print!" statement here? You know: lawyers. +They tell us you might sue us if there is something wrong with +your copy of this eBook, even if you got it for free from +someone other than us, and even if what's wrong is not our +fault. So, among other things, this "Small Print!" statement +disclaims most of our liability to you. It also tells you how +you may distribute copies of this eBook if you want to. + +*BEFORE!* YOU USE OR READ THIS EBOOK +By using or reading any part of this PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm +eBook, you indicate that you understand, agree to and accept +this "Small Print!" statement. If you do not, you can receive +a refund of the money (if any) you paid for this eBook by +sending a request within 30 days of receiving it to the person +you got it from. If you received this eBook on a physical +medium (such as a disk), you must return it with your request. + +ABOUT PROJECT GUTENBERG-TM EBOOKS +This PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm eBook, like most PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm eBooks, +is a "public domain" work distributed by Professor Michael S. Hart +through the Project Gutenberg Association (the "Project"). +Among other things, this means that no one owns a United States copyright +on or for this work, so the Project (and you!) can copy and +distribute it in the United States without permission and +without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, set forth +below, apply if you wish to copy and distribute this eBook +under the "PROJECT GUTENBERG" trademark. + +Please do not use the "PROJECT GUTENBERG" trademark to market +any commercial products without permission. + +To create these eBooks, the Project expends considerable +efforts to identify, transcribe and proofread public domain +works. Despite these efforts, the Project's eBooks and any +medium they may be on may contain "Defects". Among other +things, Defects may take the form of incomplete, inaccurate or +corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other +intellectual property infringement, a defective or damaged +disk or other eBook medium, a computer virus, or computer +codes that damage or cannot be read by your equipment. + +LIMITED WARRANTY; DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES +But for the "Right of Replacement or Refund" described below, +[1] Michael Hart and the Foundation (and any other party you may +receive this eBook from as a PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm eBook) disclaims +all liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including +legal fees, and [2] YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE OR +UNDER STRICT LIABILITY, OR FOR BREACH OF WARRANTY OR CONTRACT, +INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE +OR INCIDENTAL DAMAGES, EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE +POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES. + +If you discover a Defect in this eBook within 90 days of +receiving it, you can receive a refund of the money (if any) +you paid for it by sending an explanatory note within that +time to the person you received it from. If you received it +on a physical medium, you must return it with your note, and +such person may choose to alternatively give you a replacement +copy. If you received it electronically, such person may +choose to alternatively give you a second opportunity to +receive it electronically. + +THIS EBOOK IS OTHERWISE PROVIDED TO YOU "AS-IS". NO OTHER +WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, ARE MADE TO YOU AS +TO THE EBOOK OR ANY MEDIUM IT MAY BE ON, INCLUDING BUT NOT +LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A +PARTICULAR PURPOSE. + +Some states do not allow disclaimers of implied warranties or +the exclusion or limitation of consequential damages, so the +above disclaimers and exclusions may not apply to you, and you +may have other legal rights. + +INDEMNITY +You will indemnify and hold Michael Hart, the Foundation, +and its trustees and agents, and any volunteers associated +with the production and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm +texts harmless, from all liability, cost and expense, including +legal fees, that arise directly or indirectly from any of the +following that you do or cause: [1] distribution of this eBook, +[2] alteration, modification, or addition to the eBook, +or [3] any Defect. + +DISTRIBUTION UNDER "PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm" +You may distribute copies of this eBook electronically, or by +disk, book or any other medium if you either delete this +"Small Print!" and all other references to Project Gutenberg, +or: + +[1] Only give exact copies of it. Among other things, this + requires that you do not remove, alter or modify the + eBook or this "small print!" statement. You may however, + if you wish, distribute this eBook in machine readable + binary, compressed, mark-up, or proprietary form, + including any form resulting from conversion by word + processing or hypertext software, but only so long as + *EITHER*: + + [*] The eBook, when displayed, is clearly readable, and + does *not* contain characters other than those + intended by the author of the work, although tilde + (~), asterisk (*) and underline (_) characters may + be used to convey punctuation intended by the + author, and additional characters may be used to + indicate hypertext links; OR + + [*] The eBook may be readily converted by the reader at + no expense into plain ASCII, EBCDIC or equivalent + form by the program that displays the eBook (as is + the case, for instance, with most word processors); + OR + + [*] You provide, or agree to also provide on request at + no additional cost, fee or expense, a copy of the + eBook in its original plain ASCII form (or in EBCDIC + or other equivalent proprietary form). + +[2] Honor the eBook refund and replacement provisions of this + "Small Print!" statement. + +[3] Pay a trademark license fee to the Foundation of 20% of the + gross profits you derive calculated using the method you + already use to calculate your applicable taxes. If you + don't derive profits, no royalty is due. Royalties are + payable to "Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation" + the 60 days following each date you prepare (or were + legally required to prepare) your annual (or equivalent + periodic) tax return. Please contact us beforehand to + let us know your plans and to work out the details. + +WHAT IF YOU *WANT* TO SEND MONEY EVEN IF YOU DON'T HAVE TO? +Project Gutenberg is dedicated to increasing the number of +public domain and licensed works that can be freely distributed +in machine readable form. + +The Project gratefully accepts contributions of money, time, +public domain materials, or royalty free copyright licenses. +Money should be paid to the: +"Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation." + +If you are interested in contributing scanning equipment or +software or other items, please contact Michael Hart at: +hart@pobox.com + +[Portions of this eBook's header and trailer may be reprinted only +when distributed free of all fees. Copyright (C) 2001, 2002 by +Michael S. Hart. Project Gutenberg is a TradeMark and may not be +used in any sales of Project Gutenberg eBooks or other materials be +they hardware or software or any other related product without +express permission.] + +*END THE SMALL PRINT! FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN EBOOKS*Ver.02/11/02*END* + diff --git a/old/705a410.zip b/old/705a410.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..7b30792 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/705a410.zip diff --git a/old/805a410.txt b/old/805a410.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..2ec9eed --- /dev/null +++ b/old/805a410.txt @@ -0,0 +1,8943 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 30, April, 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. + +This header should be the first thing seen when viewing this Project +Gutenberg file. Please do not remove it. Do not change or edit the +header without written permission. + +Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the +eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of this file. Included is +important information about your specific rights and restrictions in +how the file may be used. You can also find out about how to make a +donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!***** + + +Title: Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 30, April, 1860 + +Author: Various + +Release Date: November, 2005 [EBook #9396] +[This file was first posted on September 29, 2003] + +Edition: 10 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, ATLANTIC MONTHLY, VOL. 5, NO. 30, APRIL, 1860 *** + + + + +E-text prepared by Joshua Hutchinson, Tonya Allen, and Project Gutenberg +Distributed Proofreaders + + + + + + + +THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY. + +A MAGAZINE OF LITERATURE, ART, AND POLITICS. + +VOL. V.--APRIL, 1860--NO. XXX. + + + + +THE LAWS OF BEAUTY. + + +The fatal mistake of many inquirers concerning the line of beauty has +been, that they have sought in that which is outward for that which is +within. Beauty, perceived only by the mind, and, so far as we have any +direct proof, perceived by man alone of all the animals, must be an +expression of intelligence, the work of mind. It cannot spring from +anything purely accidental; it does not arise from material, but from +spiritual forces. That the outline of a figure, and its surface, are +capable of expressing the emotions of the mind is manifest from the art +of the sculptor, which represents in cold, colorless marble the varied +expressions of living faces,--or from the art of the engraver, who, by +simple outlines, can soothe you with a swelling lowland landscape, or +brace you with the cool air of the mountains. + +Now the highest beauty is doubtless that which expresses the noblest +emotion. A face that shines, like that of Moses, from communion with +the Highest, is more truly beautiful than the most faultless features +without moral expression. But there is a beauty which does not reveal +emotion, but only thought,--a beauty which consists simply in the form, +and which is admired for its form alone. + +Let us, for the present, confine our attention to this most limited +species of beauty,--the beauty of configuration only. + +This beauty of mere outline has, by some celebrated writers, been +resolved into some certain curved line, or line of beauty; by others +into numerical proportion of dimensions; and again by others into early +pleasing associations with curvilinear forms. But, if we look at the +subject in an intellectual light, we shall find a better explanation. +Forms are the embodiment of thought or law. For the common eye they +must be embodied in material shape; while to the geometer and the +artist, they may be so distinctly shadowed forth in conception as to +need no material figure to render their beauty appreciable. Now this +embodiment, or this conception, in all cases, demands some law in the +mind, by which it is conceived or made; and we must look at the nature +of this law, in order to approach more nearly to understanding the +nature of beauty. + +We are thus led, through our search for beauty, into the temple of +Geometry, the most ancient and venerable of sciences. From her oracles +alone can we learn the generation of beauty, so far as it consists in +form alone. + +Maupertuis' law of the least action is not simply a mechanical, but it +is a universal axiom. The Divine Being does all things with the least +possible expenditure of force; and all hearts and all minds honor men +in proportion as they approach to this divine economy. As gracefulness +in motion consists in moving with the least waste of muscular power, so +elegance in intellectual and literary exertions arises from the ease +with which their achievements are accomplished. We seek in all things +simplicity and unity. In Nature we have faith that there is such unity, +even in the midst of the wildest diversity. We honor intellectual +conceptions in proportion to the greatness of their consequences and to +the simplicity of their assumptions. Laws of form are beautiful in +proportion to their simplicity and to the variety which they can +comprise in unity. The beauty of forms themselves is in proportion to +the simplicity of their law and to the variety of their outline. + +This last sentence we regard as the fundamental canon concerning +beauty,--governing, with a slight change of terms, beauty in all its +departments. + +Beginning with the fundamental division of figures into curvilinear and +rectilinear, this _dictum_ decides, that, in general, a curved outline +is more beautiful than a right-lined figure. For a straight-lined +figure necessarily requires at least half as many laws as it has sides, +while a curvilinear outline requires, in general, but a single law. In +a true curve, every point in the whole line (or surface) is subject to +one and the same law of position. Thus, in the circle, every point of +the circumference is subject to one and the same law,--that it must be +at a certain distance from the centre. Half a dozen other laws, equally +simple, might be named, which in like manner govern every point in the +circumference of a circle: for instance, the curve bends at every point +by a certain fixed but infinitesimal amount, just enough to make the +adjacent points to be equally near the centre. Or, to take another +example, every point of the elastic curve, that is, of the curve in +which a spring of uniform stiffness can be bent by a force applied at +the ends of the spring, is subject to this very simple law, that the +curve bends in exact proportion to its distance from a certain straight +line. Now a straight line, or a plane, is by this definition a curve, +since every point in it is subject to one and the same law of position. +A plane may, indeed, be considered a part of any curved surface you +please, if you only take that surface on a sufficiently large scale. +Thus, the surface of water conforms to the surface of a sphere eight +thousand miles in diameter; but, as the arc of such a circle would arch +up from a chord ten feet long by only the ten-millionth part of an +inch, the surface of water in a cistern may be considered a plane. But +no figure or outline can be composed of a single plane or a single +straight line; nor can the position of more than two straight lines, +not parallel, be defined by a single simple law of position of the +points in them. We may, therefore, regard it as the first deduction +from our fundamental canon, that figures with curving outline are in +general more beautiful than those composed of straight lines. The laws +of their formation are simpler, and the eye, sweeping round the +outline, feels the ease and gracefulness of the motion, recognizes the +simplicity of the law by which it is guided, and is pleased with the +result. + +Our second deduction relates principally to rectilinear figures; it is, +that symmetry is in general, and particularly in rectilinear figures, +more beautiful than irregularity. It requires, in general, simpler laws +to produce symmetry than to produce what is unsymmetrical; since the +corresponding parts in a symmetrical figure are instinctively +recognized as flowing from one and the same law. This preference for +symmetry is, however, frequently subordinated to higher demands of the +fundamental canon. If the outline be rectilineal, simplicity of law +produces symmetry, and variety of result can be attained only at the +expense of simplicity in the law. But in curved outlines it frequently +happens, that, with equally simple laws, we can obtain much greater +variety by dispensing with symmetry; and then, by the canon, we thus +obtain the higher beauty. + +The question may be asked, In what way does this canon decide the +question, of proportions? Which of the two rectangles is, according to +this _dictum_, more beautiful, that in which the sides are in simple +ratio, or that in which the angles made with the sides by a diagonal +are in such ratio?--that, for instance, in which the shorter side is +three-fifths of the longer, or that in which the shorter side is five +hundred and seventy-seven thousandths of the longer? Our own view was +formerly in favor of a simple ratio between the sides; but experiments +have convinced us that persons of good taste, and who have never been +prejudiced by reading Hay's ingenious speculations, do nevertheless +agree in preferring rectangles and ellipses which fulfil his law of +simple ratio between the angles made by the diagonal. We acknowledge +that we have not brought this result under the canon, but look upon it +as indicating the necessity of another canon to somewhat this +effect,--that in the laws of form direction is a more important element +than distance. + +We have said that a curved line is one in which every point is subject +to one and the same law of position. Now it may be easily proved, that, +in a series of points in a plane, each of which fulfils one and the +same condition of position, any three, if taken sufficiently near each +other, lie in one straight line. A fourth point near the third lies, +then, in a straight line with the second and third,--a fifth with the +third and fourth, and so on. The whole series of points must, in short, +form a line. But it may also be easily proved that any four of these +points, taken sufficiently near each other, lie in the arc of a circle. +How strange the paradox to which we are thus led! Every law of a curve, +however simple, leads to the same conclusion; a curve must bend at +every point, and yet not bend at any point; it must be nowhere a +straight line, and yet be a straight line at every part. The +blacksmith, passing an iron bar between three rollers to make a tire +for a wheel, bends every part of it infinitely little, so that the +bending shall not be perceptible at any one spot, and shall yet in the +whole length arch the tire to a full circle. It may be that in this +paradox lies an additional charm of the curved outline. The eye is +pleased to find itself deceived, lured insensibly round into a line +running in a different direction from that on which it started. + +The simplest law of position for a point would be, either to have it in +a given direction from a given point,--a law which would manifestly +generate a straight line,--or else to have it at a given distance from +the given point, which would generate the surface of a sphere, the +outline of which is the circumference of a circle. The straight line +fulfils part of the conditions of beauty demanded by the first canon, +but not the whole,--it has no variety, and must be combined in order to +produce a large effect. The simplest combination of straight lines is +in parallels, and this is its usual combination in works of Art. The +circle also fulfils but imperfectly the demands of the fundamental +canon. It is the simplest of all curves, and the standard or measure of +curvature,--vastly more simple in its laws than any rectilineal figure, +and therefore more beautiful than any simple figure of that kind. There +is, however, a sort of monotony in its beauty,--it has no variety of +parts. + +The outline of a sphere, projected by the beholder against any plane +surface behind it, is a circle only when a perpendicular, let fall on +the plane from the eye, passes through the centre of the sphere. In +other positions the projection of the sphere becomes an ellipse, or one +of its varieties, the parabola and hyperbola. The parabola is the +boundary of the projection of a sphere upon a plane, when the eye is +just as far from the plane as the outer edge of the sphere is, and the +hyperbola is a similar curve formed by bringing the eye still nearer to +the plane. + +By these metamorphoses the circle loses much of its monotony, without +losing much of its simplicity. The law of the projection of a sphere +upon a plane is simple, in whatever position the plane may be. And if +we seek a law for the ellipse, or either of the conic sections, which +shall confine our attention to the plane, the laws remain simple. There +are for these curves two centres, which come together for the circle, +and recede to an infinite distance for the parabola; and the simple law +of their formation is, that the curve everywhere makes equal angles +with the lines drawn to these two centres. According to the fundamental +canon, a conic section should be a beautiful curve; and the proof that +it is so is to be found in the attention which these curves have always +drawn upon themselves from artists and from mathematicians. Plato, +equally great in mathematics and in metaphysics, is said to have been +the first to investigate the properties of the ellipse. For about a +century and a half, to the time of Apollonius, the beauty of this +curve, and of its variations, the parabola and hyperbola, so fascinated +the minds of Plato's followers, that Apollonius found theorems and +problems relating to these figures sufficient to fill eight books with +condensed truths concerning them. The study of the conic sections has +been a part of polite learning from his day downward. All men confess +their beauty, which so entrances those of mathematical genius as +entirely to absorb them. For eighteen centuries the finest spirits of +our race drew some of their best means of intellectual discipline from +the study of the ellipse. Then came a new era in the history of this +curve. Hitherto it had been an abstract form, a geometrical +speculation. But Kepler, by some fortunate guess, was led to examine +whether the orbits of the planets might not be elliptical, and, lo! it +was found that this curve, whose beauty had so fascinated so many men +for so many ages, had been deemed by the great Architect of the Heavens +beautiful enough to introduce into Nature on the grandest scale; the +morning stars had been for countless ages tracing diagrams beforehand +in illustration of Apollonius's conic sections. It seemed that this +must have been the design of Providence in leading Plato and his +followers to investigate the ellipse, that Kepler might be prepared to +guide men to a knowledge of the movements of the heavenly bodies. +"And," said Kepler, "if the Creator has waited so many years for an +observer, I may wait a century for a reader." But in less than a +century a reader arose in the person of the English Newton. The ellipse +again appeared in human history, playing a no less important part than +before. For, as it was only by a profound knowledge of ellipses that +Kepler could establish his three beautiful facts with regard to the +motions of the planets, so also was it only through a still more +perfect and intimate acquaintance with the minute peculiarities of that +curve that Sir Isaac Newton could demonstrate that these three facts +were perfectly accounted for only by his theory of universal +gravitation,--the most beautiful theory ever devised, and the most +firmly established of all scientific hypotheses. If the ellipse, as a +simply geometrical speculation, has had so much power in the education +of the race, what are the intellectual relations of its beauty through +its connection with astronomy? Who can estimate the influence which +this oldest of physical sciences has had upon human destiny? Who can +tell how much intellectual life and self-reliance, how much also of +humility and reverential awe, how much adoration of Divine Wisdom, have +been gained by man through his study of these heavenly diagrams, marked +out by the sun and the moon, by the planets and the comets, upon the +tablets of the sky? Yet, without the ellipse, without the conic +sections of Plato and Apollonius, astronomy would have been to this day +a sealed science, and the labors of Hipparchus, Ptolemy, Tycho, and +Copernicus would have waited in vain for the genius of Kepler and of +Newton to educe divine order from the seeming chaos of motions. + +But the obligations of man to the ellipse do not end here. The +eighteenth and nineteenth centuries also owe it a debt of gratitude. +Even where the knowledge of conic sections does not enter as a direct +component of that analytical power which was the glory of a Lagrange, a +Laplace, and a Gauss, and which is the glory of a Leverrier, a Peirce, +and their companions in science, it serves as a part of the necessary +scaffolding by which that skill is attained,--of the necessary +discipline by which their power was exercised and made available for +the solution of the great problems of astronomy, optics, and +thermotics, which have been solved in our century. + +There is another curve, generated by a simple law from a circle, which +has played an important part at various epochs in the intellectual +history of our race. A spot on the tire of a wheel running on a +straight, level road, will describe in the air a series of peculiar +arches, called the cycloid. The law of its formation is simple; the law +of its curvature is also simple. The path in which the spot moves +curves exactly in proportion to its nearness to the lowest point of the +wheel. By the simplicity of its law, it ought, according to the canon, +to be a beautiful curve. Now, although artists have not shown any +admiration for the cycloid, as they have for the ellipse, yet the +mathematicians have gazed upon it with great eagerness, and found it +rich in intellectual treasures. Chasles, in his History, says that the +cycloid interweaves itself with all the great discoveries of the +seventeenth century. + +A curve which fulfils more perfectly the demands of our _dictum_ is +that of an elastic thread, to which we have already alluded. If the two +ends of a straight steel hair be brought towards each other by simple +pressure, the intervening spring may be put into a series of various +forms,--simple undulations, and those more complicated, a figure 8, +loops turning alternately opposite ways, loops turning all one way, and +finally a circle. Now the whole of this variety is the result of +subjecting each part of the curve to a law more simple than that of the +cycloid. The elastic curve is a curve which bends or curves exactly in +proportion to its distance from a given straight line. According to the +canon, therefore, this curve should be beautiful; and it is +acknowledged to be so in the examples given by the bending osier and +the waving grain,--also by the few who have seen full drawings of all +the forms. And the mathematician finds in it a new beauty, from its +marvellous correspondence with the motions of a pendulum,--the +algebraic expression of the two being identical. + +The forms of organic life afford, however, the best examples of the +dominion of our fundamental canon. The infinite variety of vegetable +forms, all beautiful, and each one different in its beauty, is all the +result of simple laws. It is true that these simple laws are not as yet +all discovered; but the one great discovery of Phyllotaxis, which shows +that all plants follow one law in the arrangement of their leaves upon +the stem, thereby intimates in unmistakable language the simplicity and +unity of all organic vegetable laws; and a similar assurance is given +by the morphological reduction of all parts to a metamorphosed leaf. + +The law of phyllotaxis, like that of the elastic curve, is carried out +in time as well as in space. As the formula for the elastic curve is +the same as that for the pendulum, so the law by which the spaces of +the leaves are divided in scattering them round the stem, to give each +its opportunity for light and air, is the same as that by which the +times of the planets are proportioned to keep them scattered about the +sun, and prevent them from gathering on one side of their central orb. + +The forms of plants and trees are dependent upon the arrangement of the +branches, and the arrangement of the branches depends upon that of the +buds or leaves. The leaves are arranged by this numerical law,--that +the angular distance about the stem between two successive leaves shall +be in such ratio to the whole circumference as may be expressed by a +continued fraction composed wholly of the figure 1. It is, then, true, +that all the beauty of the vegetable world which depends on the +arrangement of parts--the graceful symmetry or more graceful apparent +disregard of symmetry in the general form of plants, all the charm of +the varying forms of forest trees, which adds such loveliness to the +winter landscape, and such a refined source of pleasure to the +exhilaration of the winter morning walk--is the result of the simplest +variations in a simple numerical law; and is thus clearly brought under +our fundamental canon. It is the perception of this unity in diversity, +of this similarity of plan, for instance, in all tree-like forms, +however diverse,--the sprig of mignonette, the rose-bush, the fir, the +cedar, the fan-shaped elm, the oval rock-maple, the columnar hickory, +the dense and slender shaft of the poplar,--which charms the eye of +those who have never heard in what algebraic or arithmetical terms this +unity may be defined, in what geometrical or architectural figures this +diversity may be expressed. + +When we look at the animal kingdom, we recognize there also the +presence of simple, all-pervading laws. The four great types of animal +structures are readily discerned by the dullest eye: no man fails to +see the likeness among all vertebrates, or the likeness among all +articulates, the likeness among alt mollusks, or the likeness among all +radiates. These four types show, moreover, a certain unity, even to the +untaught eye: we call them all by one name, animals, and feel that +there is a likeness between them deeper than the widest differences in +their structure; there are analogies where there are not homologies. + +The difference between the four types of animals is marked at a very +early period in the embryo,--the embryo taking one of four different +forms, according to the department to which it belongs; and Peirce has +shown that these four forms are all embodiments of one single law of +position. If, then, one single algebraic law of form includes the four +diverse forms of the four great branches of the animal kingdom, is it +extravagant to suppose that the diversities in each branch are also +capable of being included in simple generalizations of form? Is it +unreasonable to believe that the exceeding beauty of animated forms, +and of the highest, the human form, arises from the fact that these +forms are the result of some simple intellectual law, a simple +conception of the Divine Geometer, assuming varied developments in the +great series of animated beings? It is the unity of the form, arising +from the simplicity of its law, and the multiplicity of its +manifestations or details, arising from the generality of its law, +that, intuitively perceived by the eye, although the intellect may not +apprehend them, give the charm to the figures of the animate creation. + +The subject, even in the narrow limits which we have imposed upon +ourselves, would admit of a much longer discussion. The various animals +might, for instance, be compared with each other, and the beauty of the +most beautiful could be clearly shown to be owing to the greater +variety in the outline, or the greater variety of position, which they +included in equal unity of general effect. And should we step outside +the bounds which we have prescribed to ourselves, we should find that +in other things than questions of mere form the general canon holds +true, that laws produce beauty in proportion to their own simplicity +and to the variety of their effects. As a single example, take the most +beautiful of the fine arts, the art which is free from the laws of +space, and subject only to those of time, and in which, therefore, we +find a beauty removed as far as possible from that of curvilinear +outlines. How exceedingly simple are the fundamental laws of music, of +simple rhythm and simple harmony yet how infinitely varied, and how +inexpressibly touching are its effects! In studying music as a mere +matter of intellectual science, all is simple; it is only an easy +chapter in acoustics. But in studying it on the side of the emotions, +in studying the laws of counterpoint and of musical form, which are +governed by the effect upon the ear and the heart, we find intricacy +and difficulties, increased beyond our power of understanding. + +So in the harmony of the spheres, in the varied beauty which clothes +the earth and pervades the heavens, in the beauty which addresses +itself to eye and ear, and in the beauty which addresses only the +inward sense,--the harmonious arrangements of the social world, and the +adjustment of domestic, civil, and political relations,--there is an +infinite diversity of result, infinitely varied in its effect upon the +observer. But could we behold the Kosmos as it is beheld by its +Creator, we should perchance find the whole encyclopedia of our science +resting upon a few great, but simple laws; we should see that the whole +universe, in all its infinite complication, is the fulfilment of +perhaps a single simple thought of the Divine Mind, and that it is this +unity pervading the diversity which makes it the Kosmos, Beauty. + + + + +FOUND AND LOST. + +And he sold his birth-right unto Jacob. Then Jacob gave Esau bread and +pottage of lentiles. + +GEN. xxv. 33, 34. + + +......So! I let fall the curtain; he was dead. For at least half an +hour I had stood there with the manuscript in my hand, watching that +face settling in its last stillness, watching the finger of the +Composer smoothing out the deeply furrowed lines on cheek and +forehead,--the faint recollection of the light that had perhaps burned +behind his childish eyes struggling up through the swarthy cheek, as if +to clear the last world's-dust from the atmosphere surrounding the man +who had just refound his youth. His head rested on his hand,--and so +satisfied and content was his quiet attitude, that he looked as if +resting from a long, wearisome piece of work he was glad to have +finished. I don't know how it was, but I thought, oddly enough, in +connection with him, of a little school-fellow of mine years ago, who +one day, in his eagerness to prove that he could jump farther than some +of his companions, upset an ink-stand over his prize essay, and, +overcome with mortification, disappointment, and vexation, burst into +tears, hastily scratched his name from the list of competitors, and +then rushed out of doors to tear his ruined essay into fragments; and +we found him that afternoon lying on the grass, with his head on his +hand, just as he lay now, having sobbed himself to sleep. + +I dropped the curtains of the bed, drew those of the window more +closely, to exclude the shrill winter wind that was blowing the slant +sleet against the clattering window-panes, broke up the lump of cannel +coal in the grate into a bright blaze that subsided into a warm, steady +glow of heat and light, drew an arm-chair and a little table up to the +cheerful fire, and sat down to read the manuscript which the quiet man +behind the curtains had given me. Why shouldn't I (I was his physician) +make myself as comfortable as was possible at two o'clock of a stormy +winter night, in a house that contained but two persons beside my +German patient,--a half-stupid serving-man, doubtless already asleep +down-stairs, and myself? This is what I read that night, with the +comfortable fire on one side, and Death, holding strange colloquy with +the fitful, screaming, moaning wind, on the other. + +As I wish simply to relate what has happened to me, (thus the +manuscript began,) what I attempted, in what I sinned, and how I +failed, I deem no introduction or genealogies necessary to the first +part of my life. I was an only child of parents who were passionately +fond of me,--the more, perhaps, because an accident that had happened +to me in my childhood rendered me for some years a partial invalid. One +day, (I was about five years old then,) a gentleman paid a visit to my +father, riding a splendid Arabian horse. Upon dismounting, he tied the +horse near the steps of the piazza instead of the horseblock, so that I +found I was just upon the level with the stirrup, standing at a certain +elevation. Half as an experiment, to try whether I could touch the +horse without his starting, I managed to get my foot into the stirrup, +and so mounted upon his back. The horse, feeling the light burden, did +start, broke from his fastening, and sped away with me on his back at +the top of his speed. He ran several miles without stopping, and +finished by pitching me off his back upon the ground, in leaping a +fence. This fall produced some disease of the spine, which clung to me +till I was twelve years old, when it was almost miraculously cured by +an itinerant Arab physician. He was generally pronounced to be a quack, +but he certainly effected many wonderful cures, mine among others. + +I had always been an imaginative child; and my long-continued sedentary +life compelling me (a welcome compulsion) to reading as my chief +occupation and amusement, I acquired much knowledge beyond my years. + +My reading generally had one peculiar tone: a certain kind of mystery +was an essential ingredient in the fascination that books which I +considered interesting had for me. My earliest fairy tales were not +those unexciting stories in which the good genius appears at the +beginning of the book, endowing the hero with such an invincible +talisman that suspense is banished from the reader's mind, too well +enabled to foresee the triumph at the end; but stories of long, painful +quests after hidden treasure,--mysterious enchantments thrown around +certain persons by witch or wizard, drawing the subject in charmed +circles nearer and nearer to his royal or ruinous destiny,--strange +spells cast upon bewitched houses or places, that could be removed only +by the one hand appointed by Fate. So I pored over the misty legends of +the San Grail, and the sweet story of "The Sleeping Beauty," as my +first literature; and as the rough years of practical boyhood trooped +up to elbow my dreaming childhood out of existence, I fed the same +hunger for the hidden and mysterious with Detective-Police stories, +Captain Kidd's voyages, and wild tales of wrecks on the Spanish Main, +of those vessels of fabulous wealth that strewed the deep sea's lap +with gems (so the stories ran) of lustre almost rare enough to light +the paths to their secret hiding-places. + +But in the last year of my captivity as an invalid a new pleasure fell +into my hands. I discovered my first book of travels in my father's +library, and as with a magical key unlocked the gate of an enchanted +realm of wondrous and ceaseless beauty. It was Sir John Mandeville who +introduced me to this field of exhaustless delight; not a very +trustworthy guide, it must be confessed,--but my knowledge at that time +was too limited to check the boundless faith I reposed in his +narrative. It was such an astonishment to discover that men, +black-coated and black-trousered men, such as I saw in crowds every day +in the street from my sofa-corner, (we had moved to the city shortly +after my accident,) had actually broken away from that steady stream of +people, and had traversed countries as wild and unknown as the lands in +the Nibelungen Lied, that my respect for the race rose amazingly. I +scanned eagerly the sleek, complacent faces of the portly burghers, or +those of the threadbare schoolmasters, thinned like carving-knives by +perpetual sharpening on the steel of Latin syntax, in search of men who +could have dared the ghastly terrors of the North with Ross or Parry, +or the scorching jungles of the Equator with Burckhardt and Park. Cut +off for so long a time from actual contact with the outside world, I +could better imagine the brooding stillness of the Great Desert, I +could more easily picture the weird ice-palaces of the Pole, waiting, +waiting forever in awful state, like the deserted halls of the Walhalla +for their slain gods to return, than many of the common street-scenes +in my own city, which I had only vaguely heard mentioned. + +I followed the footsteps of the Great Seekers over the wastes, the +untrodden paths of the world; I tracked Columbus across the pathless +Atlantic,--heard, with Balboa, the "wave of the loud-roaring ocean +break upon the long shore, and the vast sea of the Pacific forever +crash on the beach,"--gazed with Cortés on the temples of the Sun in +the startling Mexican empire,--or wandered with Pizarro through the +silver-lined palaces of Peru. But a secret affection drew me to the +mysterious regions of the East and South,--towards Arabia, the wild +Ishmael bequeathing sworded Korans and subtile Aristotles as legacies +to the sons of the freed-woman,--to solemn Egypt, riddle of nations, +the vast, silent, impenetrable mystery of the world. By continual +pondering over the footsteps of the Seekers, the Sought-for seemed to +grow to vast proportions, and the Found to shrink to inappreciable +littleness. For me, over the dreary ice-plains of the Poles, over the +profound bosom of Africa, the far-stretching steppes of Asia, and the +rocky wilds of America, a great silence brooded, and in the unexplored +void faint footfalls could be heard here and there, threading their way +in the darkness. But while the longing to plunge, myself, into these +dim regions of expectation grew more intense each day, the +prison-chains that had always bound me still kept their habitual hold +upon me, even after my recovery. I dreamt not of making even the +vaguest plans for undertaking explorations myself. So I read and +dreamt, filling my room with wild African or monotonous Egyptian +scenery, until I was almost weaned from ordinary Occidental life. + +I passed four blissful years In this happy dream-life, and then it was +abruptly brought to an end by the death of my father and mother almost +simultaneously by an epidemic fever prevailing in the neighborhood. I +was away from home at a bachelor uncle's at the time, and so was +unexpectedly thrown on his hands, an orphan, penniless, except in the +possession of the small house my father had owned in the country before +our removal to the city, and to be provided for. + +My uncle placed me in a mercantile house to learn business, and, after +exercising some slight supervision over me a few months, left me +entirely to my own resources. As, however, he had previously taken care +that these resources should be sufficient, I got along very well upon +them, was regularly promoted, and in the space of six years, at the age +of twenty-one, was in a rather responsible situation in the house, with +a good salary. But my whole attention could not be absorbed in the dull +routine of business, my most precious hours were devoted to reading, in +which I still pursued my old childish track of speculation, with the +difference that I exchanged Sinbad's valley of diamonds for Arabia +Petraea, Sir John Mandeville for Herodotus, and Robinson Crusoe for +Belzoni and Burckhardt Whether my interest in these Oriental studies +arose from the fact of the house being concerned in the importation of +the products of the Indies, or whether from the secret attraction that +had drawn me Eastward since my earliest childhood, as if the Arab +doctor had bewitched in curing me, I cannot say; probably it was the +former, especially as the India business became gradually more and more +intrusted to my hands. + +Shortly after my twenty-first birthday, I received a note from my +uncle, from whom I had not heard for a year, or two, informing me that +my father's house, which he had kept rented for me during the first +years of my minority, had been without a tenant for a year, and, as I +had now come of age, I had better go down to D---- and take possession +of it. This letter, touching upon a long train of associations and +recollections, awoke an intense longing in me to revisit the home of my +childhood, and meet those phantom shapes that had woven that spell in +those dreaming years, which I sometimes thought I felt even now. So I +obtained a short leave of absence, and started the next morning in the +coach for D----. + +It was what is called a "raw morning," for what reason I know not, for +such days are really elaborated with the most exquisite finish. A soft +gray mist hugged the country in a chilly embrace, while a fine rain +fell as noiselessly as snow, upon soaked ground, drenched trees, and +peevish houses. There is always a sense of wonder about a mist. The +outlines of what we consider our hardest tangibilities are melted away +by it into the airiest dream-sketches, our most positive and glaring +facts are blankly blotted out, and a fresh, clean sheet left for some +new fantasy to be written upon it, as groundless as the rest; our solid +land dissolves in cloud, and cloud assumes the stability of land. For, +after all, the only really tangible thing we possess is man's Will; and +let the presence and action of that be withdrawn but for a few moments, +and that mysterious Something which we vainly endeavor to push off into +the Void by our pompous nothings of brick and plaster and stone closes +down upon us with the descending sky, writing _Delendum_ on all behind +us, _Unknown_ on all before. At that time, the only actual Now, that +stands between these two infinite blanks, becomes identical with the +mind itself, independent of accidents of situation or circumstance; and +the mind thus becoming boldly prominent, amidst the fading away of +physical things, stamps its own character upon its shadowy +surroundings, moulding the supple universe to the shape of its emotions +and feelings. + +I was the only inside passenger, and there was nothing to check the +entire surrender of my mind to all ghostly influence. So I lay +stretched upon the cushions, staring blankly into the dense gray fog +closing up all trace of our travelled road, or watching the light edges +of the trailing mist curl coyly around the roofs of houses and then +settle grimly all over them, the fantastic shapes of trees or carts +distorted and magnified through the mist, the lofty outlines of some +darker cloud stalking solemnly here and there, like enormous dumb +overseers faithfully superintending the work of annihilation. The +monotonous patter of the rain-drops upon the wet pavement or muddy +roads, blending with the low whining of the wind and the steady rumble +of the coach-wheels, seemed to make a kind of witch-chant, that wove +with braided sound a weird spell about me, a charm fating me for some +service, I knew not what. That chant moaned, it wailed, it whispered, +it sang gloriously, it bound, it drowned me, it lapped me in an +inextricable stream of misty murmuring, till I was perplexed, +bewildered, enchanted. I felt surprised at myself, when, at the end of +the day's journey, I carried my bag to the hotel, and ate my supper +there as usual,--and felt natural again only when, having obtained the +key of my house, I sallied forth in the dim twilight to make it my +promised visit. + +I found the place, as I had expected, in a state of utter desolation. A +year's silence had removed it so far from the noisy stream of life that +flowed by it, that I felt, as I pushed at the rusty door-lock, as if I +were passing into some old garret of Time, where he had thrown +forgotten rubbish too worn-out and antiquated for present use. A strong +scent of musk greeted me at my entrance, which I found came from a box +of it that had been broken upon the hall-floor. I had stowed it away +(it was a favorite perfume with me, because it was so associated with +my Arabian Nights' stories) upon a ledge over the door, where it had +rested undisturbed while the house was tenanted, and had been now +probably dislodged by rats. But I half fancied that this odor which +impregnated the air of the whole house was the essence of that +atmosphere in which, as a child, I had communicated with Burckhardt and +Belzoni,--and that, expelled by the solid, practical, Occidental +atmosphere of the last few years, it had flowed back again, in these +last silent months, in anticipation of my return. + +Like a prudent householder, I made the tour of the house with a light I +had provided myself with, and mentally made memoranda of repairs, +alterations, etc., for rendering it habitable. My last visit was to be +to the garret, where many of my books yet remained. As I passed once +more through the parlor, on my way thither, a ray of light from my +raised lamp fell upon the wall that I had thought blank, and a majestic +face started suddenly from the darkness. So sudden was the apparition, +that for the moment I was startled, till I remembered that there had +formerly been a picture in that place, and I stopped to examine it. It +was a head of the Sphinx. The calm, grand face was partially averted, +so that the sorrowful eyes, almost betraying the aching secret which +the still lips kept sacred, were hidden,--only the slight, tender droop +in the corner of the mouth told what their expression might be. Around, +forever stretched the endless sands,--the mystery of life found in the +heart of death. That mournful, eternal face gave me a strange feeling +of weariness and helplessness. I felt as if I had already pressed +eagerly to the other side of the head, still only to find the voiceless +lips and mute eyes. Strange tears sprang to my eyes; I hastily brushed +them away, and, leaving the Sphinx, mounted to my garret. + +But the riddle followed me. I sat down on the floor, beside a box of +books, and somewhat listlessly began pulling it over to examine the +contents. The first book I took hold of was a little worn volume of +Herodotus that had belonged to my father. I opened it; and as if it, +too, were a link in the chain of influences which I half felt was being +forged around me, it opened at the first part of "Euterpe," where +Herodotus is speculating upon the phenomena of the Nile. Twenty-two +hundred years,--I thought,--and we are still wondering, the Sphinx is +still silent, and we yet in the darkness! Alas, if this riddle be +insoluble, how can we hope to find the clue to deeper problems? If +there are places on our little earth whither our feet cannot go, +curtains that our hands cannot withdraw, how can we expect to track +paths through realms of thought,--how to voyage in those airy, +impalpable regions whose existence we are sure of only while we are +there voyaging? + +"Nilus in extremum fugit perterritus orbem Occuluitque caput, quod +adhuc latet." + +Lost through reckless presumption, might not earnest humility recover +that mysterious lurking-place? Might not one, by devoted toil, by utter +self-sacrifice, with eyes purified by long searching from worldly and +selfish pollution,--might not such a one tear away the veil of +centuries, and, even though dying in the attempt, gain one look into +this arcanum? Might not I?--The unutterable thought thrilled me and +left me speechless, even in thinking. I strained my forehead against +the darkness, as if I could grind the secret from the void air. Then I +experienced the following mental sensation,--which, being purely +mental, I cannot describe precisely as it was, but will translate it as +nearly as possible into the language of physical phenomena. + +It was as if my mind--or, rather, whatever that passive substratum is +that underlies our volition and more truly represents ourselves--were a +still lake, lying quiet and indifferent. Presently the sense of some +coming Presence sent a breathing ripple over its waters; and +immediately afterward it felt a sweep as of trailing garments, and two +arms were thrown around it, and it was pressed against a "life-giving +bosom," whose vivifying warmth interpenetrating the whole body of the +lake, its waters rose, moved by a mighty influence, in the direction of +that retreating Presence; and again, though nothing was seen, I felt +surely whither was that direction. It was NILEWARD. I knew, with the +absolute certainty of intuition, that henceforth I was one of the +_kletoi_, the chosen,--selected from thousands of ages, millions of +people, for this one destiny. Henceforth a sharp dividing-line cut me +off from all others: _their_ appointment was to trade, navigate, eat +and drink, marry and give in marriage, and the rest; mine was to +discover the Source of the Nile. Hither had all the threads of my life +been converging for many years; they had now reached their focus, and +henceforth their course was fixed. + +I was scarcely surprised the next day at receiving a letter from my +employers appointing me to a situation as supercargo of a +merchant-vessel bound on a three-years' voyage to America and +China,--in returning thence, to sail up the Mediterranean, and stop at +Alexandria. I immediately wrote an acceptance, and then busied myself +about obtaining a three-years' tenant for my house. As the house was +desirable and well-situated, this business was soon arranged; and then, +as I had nothing further to do in the village, I left it for the last +time, as it proved, and returned to the city,--whence, after a +fortnight of preparation, I set sail on my eventful enterprise. +Although our voyage was filled with incident that in another place +would be interesting enough to relate, yet here I must omit all mention +of it, and, passing over three years, resume my narrative at +Alexandria, where I left the vessel, and finally broke away from +mercantile life. + +From Alexandria I travelled to Cairo, where I intended to hire a +servant and a boat, for I wished to try the water-passage in preference +to the land. The cheapness of labor and food rendered it no difficult +matter to obtain my boat and provision it for a long voyage,--for how +long I did not tell the Egyptian servant whom I hired to attend me. A +certain feeling of fatality caused me to make no attempt at disguise, +although disguise was then much more necessary than it has been since: +I openly avowed my purpose of travelling on the Nile for pleasure, as a +private European. My accoutrements were simple and few. Arms, of +course, I carried, and the actual necessaries for subsistence; but I +entirely forgot to prepare for sketching, scientific surveys, etc. My +whole mind was possessed with one idea: to see, to discover;--plans for +turning my discoveries to account were totally foreign to my thoughts. + +So, on the 6th of November, 1824, we set sail. I had been waiting three +years to arrive at this starting-point,--my whole life, indeed, had +been dumbly turning towards it,--yet now I commenced it with a coolness +and tranquillity far exceeding that I had possessed on many +comparatively trifling occasions. It is often so. We are borne along on +the current like drift-wood, and, spying jutting rocks or tremendous +cataracts ahead, fancy, "Here we shall be stranded, there buoyed up, +there dashed in pieces over those falls,"--but, for all that, we glide +over those threatened catastrophes in a very commonplace manner, and +are aware of what we have been passing only upon looking back at them. +So no one sees the great light shining from Heaven,--for the people are +blear-eyed, and Saul is blinded. But as I left Cairo in the greatening +distance, floating onward to the heart of the mysterious river, I +floated also into the twin current of thought, that, flowing full and +impetuous from the shores of the peopled Mediterranean, follows the +silent river, and tracks it to its hidden lurking-place in the blank +desert. Onward, past the breathless sands of the Libyan Desert, past +the hundred-gated Thebes, past the stone guardians of Abou-Simbel, +waiting in majestic patience for their spell of silence to be +broken,--onward. It struck me curiously to come to the cataract, and be +obliged to leave my boat at the foot of the first fall, and hire +another above the second,--a forcible reminder that I was travelling +backwards, from the circumference to the centre from which that +circumference had been produced, faintly feeling my way along a tide of +phenomena to the _noumenon_ supporting them. So we always progress: +from arithmetic to geometry, from observation to science, from practice +to theory, and play with edged tools long before we know what knives +mean. For, like Hop-o'-my-Thumb and his brothers, we are driven out +early in the morning to the edge of the forest, and are obliged to +grope our way back to the little house whence we come, by the crumbs +dropped on the road. Alack! how often the birds have eaten our bread, +and we are captured by the giant lying in wait! + +On we swept, leaving behind the burning rocks and dreary sands of Egypt +and Lower Nubia, the green woods and thick acacias of Dongola, the +distant pyramids of Mount Birkel, and the ruins of Meroë, just +discovered footmarks of Ancient Ethiopia descending the Nile to +bequeathe her glory and civilization to Egypt. At Old Dongola, my +companion was very anxious that we should strike across the country to +Shendy, to avoid the great curve of the Nile through Ethiopia. He found +the sail somewhat tedious, as I could speak but little Egyptian, which +I had picked up in scraps,--he, no German or English. I managed to +overrule his objections, however, as I could not bear to leave any part +of the river unvisited; so we continued the water-route to the junction +of the Blue and the White Nile, where I resolved to remain a week, +before continuing my route. The inhabitants regarded us with some +suspicion, but our inoffensive appearance so far conquered their fears +that they were prevailed upon to give us some information about the +country, and to furnish us with a fresh supply of rice, wheat, and +dourra, in exchange for beads and bright-colored cloth, which I had +brought with me for the purpose of such traffic, if it should be +necessary. Bruce's discovery of the source of the Blue Nile, fifty +years before, prevented the necessity of indecision in regard to my +route, and so completely was I absorbed in the one object of my +journey, that the magnificent scenery and ruins along the Blue Nile, +which had so fascinated Cailliaud, presented few allurements for me. + +My stay was rather longer than I had anticipated, as it was found +necessary to make some repairs upon the boat, and, inwardly fretting at +each hour's delay, I was eager to seize the first opportunity for +starting again. On the 1st of March, I made a fresh beginning for the +more unknown and probably more perilous portion of my voyage, having +been about four months in ascending from Cairo. As my voyage had +commenced about the abatement of the sickly season, I had experienced +no inconvenience from the climate, and it was in good spirits that I +resumed my journey. For several days we sailed with little eventful +occurring,--floating on under the cloudless sky, rippling a long white +line through the widening surface of the ever-flowing river, through +floating beds of glistening lotus-flowers, past undulating ramparts of +foliage and winged ambak-blossoms guarding the shores scaled by +adventurous vines that triumphantly waved their banners of white and +purple and yellow from the summit, winding amid bowery islands studding +the broad stream like gems, smoothly stemming the rolling flood of the +river, flowing, ever flowing,--lurking in the cool shade of the dense +mimosa forests, gliding noiselessly past the trodden lairs of +hippopotami and lions, slushing through the reeds swaying to and fro in +the green water, still borne along against the silent current of the +mysterious river, flowing, ever flowing. + +We had now arrived at the land of the Dinkas, where the river, by +broadening too much upon a low country, had become partially devoured +by marsh and reeds, and our progress was very slow, tediously dragging +over a sea of water and grass. I had become a little tired of my +complete loneliness, and was almost longing for some collision with the +tribes of savages that throng the shore, when the incident occurred +that determined my whole future life. One morning, about seven o'clock, +when the hot sun had already begun to rob the day of the delicious +freshness lingering around the tropical night, we happened to be +passing a tract of firmer land than we had met with for some time, and +I directed the vessel towards the shore, to gather some of the +brilliant lotus-flowers that fringed the banks. As we neared the land, +I threw my gun, without which I never left the boat, on the bank, +preparatory to leaping out, when I was startled by hearing a loud, +cheery voice exclaim in English,--"Hilloa! not so fast, if you +please!"--and first the head and then the sturdy shoulders of a white +man raised themselves slowly from the low shrubbery by which they were +surrounded. He looked at us for a minute or two, and nodded with a +contented air that perplexed me exceedingly. + +"So," he said, "you have come at last; I am tired of waiting for you"; +and he began to collect his gun, knife, etc., which were lying on the +ground beside him. + +"And who are you," I returned, "who lie in wait for me? I think, Sir, +you have the advantage." + +Here the stranger interrupted me with a hearty laugh. "My dear +fellow," he cried, "you are entirely mistaken. The technical advantage +that you attribute to me is an error, as I do _not_ have the honor of +knowing your name, though you may know mine without further +preface,--Frederick Herndon; and the real advantage which I wish to +avail myself of, a boat, is obviously on your side. The long and the +short of it is," he added, (composedly extricating himself from the +brushwood,) "that, travelling up in this direction for discovery and +that sort of thing, you know, I heard at Sennaar that a white man with +an Egyptian servant had just left the town, and were going in my +direction in a boat. So I resolved to overtake them, and with their, or +your, permission, join company. But they, or you, kept just in advance, +and it was only by dint of a forced march in the night that I passed +you. I learned at the last Dinka village that no such party had been +yet seen, and concluded to await the your arrival here, where I pitched +my tent a day and a night waiting for you. I am heartily glad to see +you, I assure you." + +With this explanation, the stranger made a spring, and leaped upon the +yacht. + +"Upon my word," said I, still bewildered by his sudden appearance, "you +are very unceremonious." + +"That," he rejoined, "is a way we Americans have. We cannot stop to +palaver. What would become of our manifest destiny? But since you are +so kind, I will call my Egyptian. Times are changed since we were +bondsmen in Egypt, have they not? Ah, I forgot,--you are not an +American, and therefore cannot claim even our remote connection with +the Ten Lost Tribes." Then raising his voice, "Here, Ibrahim!" + +Again a face, but this time a swarthy one, emerged from behind a bush, +and in answer to a few directions in his own dialect the man came down +to the boat, threw in the tent and some other articles of traveller's +furniture, and sprang in with the _nonchalance_ of his master. + +A little recovered from my first surprise, I seized the opportunity of +a little delay in getting the boat adrift again to examine my new +companion. He was standing carelessly upon the little deck of the +vessel where he had first entered, and the strong morning light fell +full upon his well-knit figure and apparently handsome face. The +forehead was rather low, prominent above the eyebrows, and with keen, +hollow temples, but deficient both in comprehensiveness and ideality. +The hazel eyes were brilliant, but restless and shallow,--the mouth of +good size, but with few curves, and perhaps a little too close for so +young a face. The well-cut nose and chin and clean fine outline of +face, the self-reliant pose of the neck and confident set of the +shoulders characterized him as decisive and energetic, while the +pleasant and rather boyish smile that lighted up his face dispelled +presently the peculiarly hard expression I had at first found in +analyzing it. Whether it was the hard, shrewd light from which all the +tender and delicate grace of the early morning had departed, I knew +not; but it struck me that I could not find a particle of shade in his +whole appearance. I seemed at once to take him in, as one sees the +whole of a sunny country where there are no woods or mountains or +valleys. And, in fact, I never did find any,--never any cool recesses +in his character; and as no sudden depths ever opened in his eyes, so +nothing was ever left to be revealed in his character;--like them, it +could be sounded at once. That picture of him, standing there on my +deck, with an indefinite expression of belonging to the place, as he +would have belonged on his own hearth-rug at home, often recurred to +me, again to be renewed and confirmed. + +And thus carelessly was swept into my path, as a stray waif, that man +who would in one little moment change my whole life! It is always so. +Our life sweeps onward like a river, brushing in here a little sand, +there a few rushes, till the accumulated drift-wood chokes the current, +or some larger tree falling across it turns it into a new channel. + +I had been so long unaccustomed to company that I found it quite a +pleasant change to have some one to talk to; some one to sympathize +with I neither wanted nor expected; I certainly did not find such a one +in my new acquaintance. For the first two or three days I simply +regarded him with the sort of wondering curiosity with which we examine +a new natural phenomenon of any sort. His perfect self-possession and +coolness, the _nil-admirari_ and _nil-agitari_ atmosphere which +surrounded him, excited my admiration at first, till I discovered that +it arose, not from the composure of a mind too deep-rooted to be swayed +by external circumstances, but rather from a peculiar hardness and +unimpressibility of temperament that kept him on the same level all the +time. He had been born at a certain temperature, and still preserved +it, from a sort of _vis inertive_ of constitution. This impenetrability +had the effect of a somewhat buoyant disposition, not because he could +be buoyed on the tide of any strong emotion, but because few things +could disturb or excite him. Unable to grasp the significance of +anything outside of himself and his attributes, he took immense pride +in stamping _his_ character, _his_ nationality, _his_ practicality, +upon every series of circumstances by which he was surrounded: he +sailed up the Nile as if it were the Mississippi; although a +well-enough-informed man, he practically ignored the importance of any +city anterior to the Plymouth Settlement, or at least to London, which +had the honor of sending colonists to New England; and he would have +discussed American politics in the heart of Africa, had not my +ignorance upon the topic generally excluded it from our conversation. +He had what is most wrongly termed an exceedingly practical mind,--that +is, not one that appreciates the practical existence and value of +thought as such, considering that a _praxis_, but a mind that denied +the existence of a thought until it had become realized in visible +action. + +"'The end of a man is an action, and not a thought, though it be the +noblest,' as Carlyle has well written," he triumphantly quoted to me, +as, leaning over the little railing of the yacht, watching, at least I +was, the smooth, green water gliding under the clean-cutting keel, we +had been talking earnestly for some time. "A thought has value only as +it is a potential action; if the action be abortive, the thought is as +useless as a crank that fails to move an engine-wheel." + +"Then, if action is the wheel, and thought only the crank, what does +the body of your engine represent? For what purpose are your wheels +turning? For the sake of merely moving?" + +"No," said he, "moving to promote another action, and _that_ +another,--and----so on _ad infinitum_." + +"Then you leave out of your scheme a real engine, with a journey to +accomplish, and an end to arrive at; for so wheels would only move +wheels, and there would be an endless chain of machinery, with no plan, +no object for its existence. Does not the very necessity we feel of +having a reason for the existence, the operation of anything, a large +plan in which to gather up all ravelled threads of various objects, +proclaim thought as the final end, the real thing, of which action, +more especially human action, is but the inadequate visible expression? +What kinds of action does Carlyle mean, that are to be the wheels for +our obedient thoughts to set in motion? Hand, arm, leg, foot action? +These are all our operative machinery. Does he mean that our 'noblest +thought' is to be chained as a galley-slave to these, to give them +means for working a channel through which motive power may be poured in +upon them? Are we to think that our fingers and feet may move and so we +live, or they to run for our thought, and we live to think?" + +"Supposing we _are_," said Herndon, "what practical good results from +knowing it? Action for action's sake, or for thinking's sake, is still +action, and all that we have to look out for. What business have the +brakemen at the wheels with the destiny of the train? Their business is +simply to lock and unlock the wheels; so that their end is in the +wheels, and not in the train." + +"A somewhat dreary end," I said, half to myself. "The whole world, +then, must content itself with spinning one blind action out of +another; which means that we must continually alter or displace +something, merely to be able to displace and alter something else." + +"On the contrary, we exchange vague, speculative mystifications for +definite, tangible fact. In America we have too much reality, too many +iron and steam facts, to waste much time over mere thinking. That, Sir, +does for a sleepy old country, begging your pardon, like yours; but for +one that has the world's destiny in its hands,--that is laying iron +foot-paths from the Atlantic to the Pacific for future civilization to +take an evening stroll along to see the sun set,--that is converting +black wool into white cotton, to clothe the inhabitants of +Borrioboolagha,--that is trading, farming, electing, governing, +fighting, annexing, destroying, building, puffing, blowing, steaming, +racing, as our young two-hundred-year-old is,--we must work, we must +act, and think afterwards. Whatsoever thy _hand_ findeth to do, do it +with thy might." + +"And what," I said, "when hand-and-foot-action shall have ceased? will +you then allow some play for thought-action?" + +"We have no time to think of that," he returned, walking away, and thus +stopping our conversation. + +The man was consistent in his theory, at least. Having exalted physical +motion (or action) to the place he did, he refused to see that the +action he prized was more valuable through the thought it developed; +consequently he reduced all actions to the same level, and prided +himself upon stripping a deed of all its marvellousness or majesty. He +did uncommon things in such a matter-of-fact way that he made them +common by the performance. The faint spiritual double which I found +lurking behind his steel and iron he either solidified with his +metallic touch or pertinaciously denied its existence. + +"Plato was a fool," he said, "to talk of an ideal table; for, supposing +he could see it, and prove its existence, what good could it do? You +can neither eat off it, nor iron on it, nor do anything else with it; +so, for all practical purposes, a pine table serves perfectly well +without hunting after the ideal. I want something that I can go up to, +and know it is there by seeing and touching." + +"But," said I, "does not that very susceptibility to bodily contact +remove the table to an indefinite distance from you? If we can see and +handle a thing, and yet not be able to hold that subtile property of +generic existence, by which, one table being made, an infinite class is +created, so real that tables may actually be modelled on it, and yet so +indefinite that you cannot set your hand on any table or collection of +tables and say, 'It is here,'--if we can be absolutely conscious that +we see the table, and yet have no idea how its image reflected on our +retina can produce that absolute consciousness, does not the table grow +dim and misty, and slip far away out of reach, of apprehension, much +more of comprehension?" + +"Stuff!" cried my companion. "If your metaphysics lead to proving that +a board that I am touching with my hand is not there, I'll say, as I +have already said, 'Throw (meta)physics to the dogs! I'll none of it!' +A fine preparation for living in a material world, where we have to +live in matter, by matter, and for matter, to wind one's self up in a +snarl that puts matter out of reach, and leaves us with nothing to live +in, or by, or for! Now _you_, for instance, are not content with this +poor old Nile as it stands, but must go fussing and wondering and +mystifying about it till you have positively nothing of a river left. I +look at the water, the banks, the trees growing on them, the islands in +which we get occasionally entangled: here, at least, I have a real, +substantial river,--not equal for navigation to the Ohio or +Mississippi, but still very fair.--Confound these flies!" he added, +parenthetically, making a vigorous plunge at a dark cloud of the little +pests that were closing down upon us. + +"Then you see nothing strange and solemn in this wonderful stream? +nothing in the weird civilization crouching at the feet, vainly looking +to the head of its master hidden in the clouds? nothing in the echoing +footsteps of nations passing down its banks to their destiny? nothing +in the solemn, unbroken silence brooding over the fountain whence +sprang this marvellous river, to bear precious gifts to thousands and +millions, and again retreat unknown? Is there no mystery in unsolved +questions, no wonder in miracles, no awe in inapproachability?" + +"I see," said he, steadily, "that a river of some thousand miles long +has run through a country peopled by contented, or ignorant, or +barbarous people, none of whom, of course, would take the slightest +interest in tracing the river; that the dangers that have guarded the +marvellous secret, as you call it, are not intrinsic to the secret +itself, but are purely accidental and contingent There is no more +reason why the source of the Nile should not be found than that of the +Connecticut; so I do not see that it is really at all inapproachable or +awful." + +"What in the world, Herndon," cried I, in desperation, "what in the +name of common sense ever induced you to set out on this expedition? +What do you want to discover the source of the Nile for?" + +He answered with the ready air of one who has long ago made up his mind +confidently on the subject he is going to speak about. + +"It has long been evident to me, that civilization, flowing in a return +current from America, must penetrate into Africa, and turn its immense +natural advantages to such account, that it shall become the seat of +the most flourishing and important empires of the earth. These, +however, should be consolidated, and not split up into multitudinous +missionary stations. If a stream of immigration could be started from +the eastern side, up the Nile for instance, penetrating to the +interior, it might meet the increased tide of a kindred nature from the +west, and uniting somewhere in the middle of Soudan, the central point +of action, the capital city could be founded there, as a heart for the +country, and a complete system of circulation be established. By this +method of entering the country at both sides simultaneously, of course +its complete subjugation could be accomplished in half the time that it +would take for a body of emigrants, however large, to make headway from +the western coast alone. About the source of the Nile I intend to mark +out the site for my city, and then"---- + +"And call it," I added, "Herndonville." + +"Perhaps," he said, gravely. "At all events, my name will be +inseparably connected with the enterprise; and if I can get the +steamboat started during my lifetime, I shall make a comfortable +fortune from the speculation." + +"What a gigantic scheme!" I exclaimed. + +"Ah," he said, complacently, "we Americans don't stick at trifles." + +"Oh, marvellous practical genius of America!" I cried, "to eclipse +Herodotus and Diodorus, not to mention Bruce and Cailliaud, and +inscribe Herndonville on the arcanum of the Innermost! If the Americans +should discover the origin of evil, they would run up penitentiaries +all over the country, modelled to suit 'practical purposes.'" + +"I think that would pay," said Herndon, reflectively. + +But though I then stopped the conversation, yet I felt its influence +afterwards. The divine enthusiasm for _knowing_, that had inspired me +for the last three years, and had left no room for any other thought in +connection with the discovery,--this enthusiasm felt chilled and +deadened. I felt reproached that I had not thought of founding a +Pottsville or Jenkinsville, and my grand purpose seemed small and vague +and indefinite. The vivid, living thoughts that had enkindled me fell +back cold and lifeless into the tedious, reedy water. For we had now +reached the immense shallow lake that Werne has since described, and +the scenery had become flat and monotonous, as if in sympathy with the +low, marshy place to which my mind had been driven. The intricate +windings of the river, after we had passed the lake, rendered the +navigation very slow and difficult; and the swarms of flies, that +plagued us for the first time seriously, brought petty annoyances to +view more forcibly than we had experienced in all our voyage before. + +After some days' pushing in this way, now driven by a strong head wind +almost back from our course, again, by a sudden change, carried rapidly +many miles on our journey,--after some days of this sailing, we arrived +at a long, low reef of rocks. The water here became so shallow and +boisterous that further attempt at sailing was impossible, and we +determined to take our boat to pieces as much as we could, and carry it +with us, while we walked along the shore of the river. I concluded, +from the marked depression in the ground we had just passed, that there +must be a corresponding elevation about here, to give the water a +sufficient head to pass over the high ground below; and the almost +cataract appearance of the river added strength to my hypothesis. We +were all four armed to the teeth, and the natives had shown themselves, +hitherto, either so friendly or so indifferent that we did not have +much apprehension on account of personal safety. So we set out with +beating hearts. Our path was exceedingly difficult to traverse, leading +chiefly among low trees and over the sharp stones that had rolled from +the river,--now close by the noisy stream, which babbled and foamed as +if it had gone mad,--now creeping on our knees through bushes, matted +with thick, twining vines,--now wading across an open morass,--now in +mimosa woods, or slipping in and out of the feathery dhelb-palms. + +Since our conversation spoken of above, Herndon and I had talked little +with each other, and now usually spoke merely of the incidents of the +journey, the obstacles, etc.; we scarcely mentioned that for which we +were both longing with intense desire, and the very thoughts of which +made my heart beat quicker and the blood rush to my face. One day we +came to a place where the river made a bend of about two miles and then +passed almost parallel to our point of view. I proposed to Herndon that +he should pursue the course of the river, and that I would strike a +little way back into the country, and make a short cut across to the +other side of the bend, where he and the men would stop, pitch our +night-tent, and wait for me. Herndon assented, and we parted. The low +fields around us changed, as I went on, to firm, hard, rising ground, +that gradually became sandy and arid. The luxuriant vegetation that +clung around the banks of the river seemed to be dried up little by +little, until only a few dusty bushes and thorn-acacias studded in +clumps a great, sandy, and rocky tract of country, which rolled +monotonously back from the river border with a steadily increasing +elevation. A sandy plain never gives me a sense of real substance; it +always seems as if it must be merely a covering for something,--a sheet +thrown over the bed where a dead man is lying. And especially here did +this broad, trackless, seemingly boundless desert face me with its +blank negation, like the old obstinate "No" which Nature always returns +at first to your eager questioning. It provoked me, this staring +reticence of the scenery, and stimulated me to a sort of dogged +exertion. I think I walked steadily for about three hours over the +jagged rocks and burning sands, interspersed with a few patches of +straggling grass,--all the time up hill, with never a valley to vary +the monotonous climbing,--until the bushes began to thicken in about +the same manner as they had thinned into the desert, the grass and +herbage herded closer together under my feet, and, beating off the +ravenous sand, gradually expelled the last trace of it, a few tall +trees strayed timidly among the lower shrubbery, growing more and more +thickly, till I found myself at the border of an apparently extensive +forest. The contrast was great between the view before and behind me. +Behind lay the road I had achieved, the monotonous, toilsome, wearisome +desert, the dry, formal introduction, as it were, to my coming journey. +Before, long, cool vistas opened green through delicious shades,--a +track seemed to be almost made over the soft grass, that wound in and +out among the trees, and lost itself in interminable mazes. I plunged +into the profound depths of the still forest, and confidently followed +for path the first open space in which I found myself. + +It was a strangely still wood for the tropics,--no chattering +parroquets, no screaming magpies, none of the sneering, gibing +dissonances that I had been accustomed to,--all was silent, and yet +intensely living. I fancied that the noble trees took pleasure in +growing, they were so energized with life in every leaf. I noticed +another peculiarity,--there was little underbrush, little of the +luxuriance of vines and creepers, which is so striking in an African +forest. Parasitic life, luxurious idleness, seemed impossible here; the +atmosphere was too sacred, too solemn, for the fantastic ribaldry of +scarlet runners, of flaunting yellow streamers. The lofty boughs +interlaced in arches overhead, and the vast dim aisles opened far down +in the tender gloom of the wood and faded slowly away in the distance. +And every little spray of leaves that tossed airily in the pleasant +breeze, every slender branch swaying gently in the wind, every young +sapling pushing its childish head panting for light through the mass of +greenery and quivering with golden sunbeams, every trunk of aged tree +gray with moss and lichens, every tuft of flowers, seemed thrilled and +vivified by some wonderful knowledge which it held secret, some +consciousness of boundless, inexhaustible existence, some music of +infinite unexplored thought concealing treasures of unlimited action. +And it was the knowledge, the consciousness, that it was unlimited +which seemed to give such elastic energy to this strange forest. But at +all events, it was such a relief to find the everlasting negation of +the desert nullified, that my dogged resolution insensibly changed to +an irrepressible enthusiasm, which bore me lightly along, scarcely +sensible of fatigue. + +The ascent had become so much steeper, and parts of the forest seemed +to slope off into such sudden declivities and even precipices, that I +concluded I was ascending a mountain, and, from the length of time I +had been in the forest, I judged that it must be of considerable +height. The wood suddenly broke off as it had begun, and, emerging from +the cool shade, I found myself in a complete wilderness of rock. Rocks +of enormous size were thrown about in apparently the wildest confusion, +on the side of what I now perceived to be a high mountain. How near the +summit I was I had no means of determining, as huge boulders blocked up +the view at a few paces ahead. I had had about eight hours' tramp, with +scarcely any cessation; yet now my excitement was too great to allow me +to pause to eat or rest. I was anxious to press on, and determine that +day the secret which I was convinced lay entombed in this sepulchre. So +again I pressed onward,--this time more slowly,--having to pick my way +among the bits of jagged granite filling up terraces sliced out of the +mountain, around enormous rocks projecting across my path,--overhanging +precipices that sheered straight down into dark abysses, (I must have +verged round to a different side from that I came up on,)--creeping +through narrow passages formed by the junction of two immense boulders. +Tearing my hands with the sharp corners of the rocks, I climbed in vain +hope of at last seeing the summit. Still rocks piled on rocks faced my +wearied eyes, vainly striving to pierce through some chink or cranny +into the space behind them. Still rocks, rocks, rocks, against whose +adamantine sides my feeble will dashed restlessly and impotently. My +eyeballs almost burst, as it seemed, in the intense effort to strain +through those stone prison-walls. And by one of those curious links of +association by which two distant scenes are united as one, I seemed +again to be sitting in my garret, striving to pierce the darkness for +an answer to the question then raised, and at the same moment passed +over me, like the sweep of angels' wings, the consciousness of that +Presence which had there infolded me. And with that consciousness, the +eager, irritated waves of excitement died away, and there was a calm, +in which I no longer beat like a caged beast against the never-ending +rocks, but, borne irresistibly along in the strong current of a mighty, +still emotion, pressed on with a certainty that left no room for +excitement, because none for doubt. And so I came upon it. Swinging +round one more rock, hanging over a breathless precipice, and landing +upon the summit of the mountain, I beheld it stretched at my feet: a +lake about five miles in circumference, bedded like an eye in the +naked, bony rock surrounding it, with quiet rippling waters placidly +smiling in the level rays of the afternoon sun,--the Unfathomable +Secret, the Mystery of Ages, the long sought for, the Source of the +Nile. + +For, from a broad cleft in the rocks, the water hurled itself out of +its hiding-place, and, dashing down over its rocky bed, rushed +impetuous over the sloping country, till, its force being spent, it +waded tediously through the slushing reeds of the hill-land again, and +so rolled down to sea. For, while I stood there, it seemed as if my +vision were preternaturally sharpened, and I followed the bright river +in its course, through the alternating marsh and desert,--through the +land where Zeus went banqueting among the blameless Ethiopians, +--through the land where the African princes watched from +afar the destruction of Cambyses's army,--past Meroë, Thebes, Cairo; +bearing upon its heaving bosom anon the cradle of Moses, the gay +vessels of the inundation festivals, the stately processions of the +mystic priesthood, the gorgeous barge of Cleopatra, the victorious +trireme of Antony, the screaming vessels of fighting soldiers, the +stealthy boats of Christian monks, the glittering, changing, flashing +tumult of thousands of years of life,--ever flowing, ever ebbing, with +the mystic river, on whose surface it seethed and bubbled. And the germ +of all this vast varying scene lay quietly hidden in the wonderful lake +at my feet. But human life is always composed of inverted cones, whose +bases, upturned to the eye, present a vast area, diversified with +countless phenomena; but when the screen that closes upon them a little +below the surface is removed, we shall be able to trace the many-lined +figures, each to its simple apex,--one little point containing the +essence and secret of the whole. Once or twice in the course of a +lifetime are a few men permitted to catch a glimpse of these awful +Beginnings,--to touch for a minute the knot where all the tangled +threads ravel themselves out smoothly. I had found such a place,--had +had such an ineffable vision,--and, overwhelmed with tremendous awe, I +sank on my knees, lost in GOD. + +After a little while, as far as I can recollect, I rose and began to +take the customary observations, marked the road by which I had come up +the mountain, and planned a route for rejoining Herndon. But ere long +all subordinate thoughts and actions seemed to be swallowed up in the +great tide of thought and feeling that overmastered me. I scarcely +remember anything from the time when the lake first burst upon my view, +till I met Herndon again. But I know, that, as the day was nearly +spent, I was obliged to give up the attempt to travel back that night, +especially as I now began to feel the exhaustion attendant upon my long +journey and fasting. I could not have slept among those rocks, eternal +guardians of the mighty secret. The absence of all breathing, +transitory existence but my own rendered it too solemn for me to dare +to intrude there. So I went back to the forest, (I returned much +quicker than I had come,) ate some supper, and, wrapped in a blanket I +had brought with me, went to sleep under the arching branches of a +tree. I have as little recollection of my next day's journey, except +that I defined a diagonal and thus avoided the bend. I found Herndon +waiting in front of the tent, rather impatient for my arrival. + +"Halloo, old fellow!" he shouted, jumping up at seeing me, "I was +really getting scared about you. Where have you been? What have you +seen? What are our chances? Have you had any adventures? killed any +lions, or anything? By-the-by, I had a narrow escape with one +yesterday. Capital shot; but prudence is the better part of valor, you +know. But, really," he said again, apparently struck by my abstraction +of manner, "what _have_ you seen?" + +"I have found the source of the Nile," I said, simply. + +Is it not strange, that, when we have a great thing to say, we are +always compelled to speak so simply in monosyllables? Perhaps this, +too, is an example of the law that continually reduces many to +one,--the unity giving the substance of the plurality; but as the +heroes of the "Iliad" were obliged to repeat the messages of the gods +_literatim_, so we must say a great thing as it comes to us, by itself. +It is curious to me now, that I was not the least excited in announcing +the discovery,--not because I did not feel the force of it, but because +my mind was so filled, so to speak, so saturated, with the idea, that +it was perfectly even with itself, though raised to an immensely higher +level. In smaller minds an idea seizes upon one part of them, thus +inequalizing it with the rest, and so, throwing them off their balance, +they are literally _de_-ranged (or disarranged) with excitement. It was +so with Herndon. For a minute he stared at me in stupefied +astonishment, and then burst into a torrent of incoherent +congratulations. + +"Why, Zeitzer!" he cried, "you are the lucky man, after all. Why, your +fortune's made,--you'll be the greatest man of the age. You must come +to America; that is the place for appreciating such things. You'll have +a Common-Council dinner in Boston, and a procession in New York. Your +book will sell like wildfire. You'll be a lion of the first magnitude. +Just think! The Man who discovered the Source of the Nile!" + +I stood bewildered, like one suddenly awakened from sleep. The unusual +excitement in one generally so self-possessed and indifferent as my +companion made me wonder sufficiently; but these allusions to my +greatness, my prospects, completely astounded me. What had I done,--I +who had been chosen, and led step by step, with little interference of +my own, to this end? What did this talk of noise and clamorous +notoriety mean? + +"To think," Herndon ran on, "that you should have beaten me, after all! +that you should have first seen, first drunk of, first bathed in"-- + +"Drunk of! bathed in!" I repeated, mechanically. "Herndon, are you +crazy? Would I dare to profane the sacred fountain?" + +He made no reply, unless a quizzical smile might be considered as +such,--but drew me within the tent, out of hearing of the two +Egyptians, and bade me give an account of my adventures. When I had +finished,-- + +"This is grand!" he exclaimed. "Now, if you will share the benefits of +this discovery with me, I will halve the cost of starting that +steamboat I spoke of, and our plan will soon be afloat. I shouldn't +wonder, now, if one might not, in order to start the town, get up some +kind of a little summer-pavilion there, on the top of the +mountain,--something on the plan of the Tip-Top House at Mount +Washington, you know,--hang the stars and stripes off the roof, if +you're not particular, and call it The Teuton-American. That would give +you your rightful priority, you see. By the beard of the Prophet, as +they say in Cairo, the thing would take!" + +I laughed heartily at this idea, and tried, at first in jest, then +earnestly, to make him understand I had no such plans in connection +with my discovery; that I only wanted to extend the amount of knowledge +in the world,--not the number of ice-cream pavilions. I offered to let +him take the whole affair into his own hands,--cost, profit, and all. I +wanted nothing to do with it. But he was too honest, as he thought, for +that, and still talked and argued,--giving his most visionary plans a +definite, tangible shape and substance by a certain process of +metallicizing, until they had not merely elbowed away the last shadow +of doubt, but had effectually taken possession of the whole ground, and +seemed to be the only consequences possible upon such a discovery. My +dislike to personal traffic in the sublimities of truth began to waver. +I felt keenly the force of the argument which Herndon used repeatedly, +that, if I did not thus claim the monopoly, (he talked almost as if I +had invented something,) some one else would, and so injustice be added +to what I had termed vulgarity. I felt that I must prevent injustice, +at least. Besides, what should I have to show for all my trouble, (ah! +little had I thought of "I" or my trouble a short time ago!)--what +should I have gained, after all,--nay, what would there be gained for +any one,--if I merely announced my discovery, without----starting the +steamboat? And though I did feebly query whether I should be equally +bound to establish a communication, with pecuniary emolument, to the +North Pole, in case I discovered that, his remark, that this was the +Nile, and had nothing to do with the North Pole, was so forcible and +pertinent, that I felt ashamed of my suggestion; and upon second +thought, that idea of the dinner and procession really had a good deal +in it. I had been in New York, and knew the length of Broadway; and at +the recollection, felt flattered by the thought of being conveyed in an +open chariot drawn by four or even eight horses, with nodding plumes, +(literal ones for the horses,--only metaphorical ones for me,) past +those stately buildings fluttering with handkerchiefs, and through +streets black with people thronging to see the man who had solved the +riddle of Africa. And then it would be pleasant, too, to make a neat +little speech to the Common Council,--letting the brave show catch its +own tail in its mouth, by proving, that, if America did not achieve +everything, she could appreciate--yes, appreciate was the word--those +who did. Yes, this would be a fitting consummation; I would do it. + +But, ah! how dim became the vision of that quiet lake on the summit of +the mountain! How that vivid lightning-revelation faded into obscurity! +Was Pharaoh again ascending his fatal chariot? + +The next day we started for the ascent. We determined to follow the +course of the river backwards around the bend and set out from my +former starting-point, as any other course might lead us into a +hopeless dilemma. We had no difficulty in finding the sandy plain, and +soon reached landmarks which I was sure were on the right road; but a +tramp of six or eight hours--still in the road I had passed +before--brought us no nearer to our goal. In short, we wandered three +days in that desert, utterly in vain. My heart sunk within me at every +failure; with sickening anxiety I scanned the horizon at every point, +but nothing was visible but stunted bushes and white pebbles glistening +in the glaring sand. + +The fourth day came,--and Herndon at last stopped short, and said, in +his steady, immobile voice,-- + +"Zeitzer, you must have made this grand discovery in your dreams. There +is no Nile up this way,--and our water-skins are almost dry. We had +better return and follow up the course of the river where we left it. +If we again fail, I shall return to Egypt to carry out my plan for +converting the Pyramids into ice-houses. They are excellently well +adapted for the purpose, and in that country a good supply of ice is a +_desideratum_. Indeed, if my plan meets with half the success it +deserves, the antiquaries two centuries hence will conclude that ice +was the original use of those structures." + +"Shade of Cheops, forbid!" I exclaimed. + +"Cheops be hanged!" returned my irreverent companion. "The world +suffers too much now from overcrowded population to permit a man to +claim standing-room three thousand years after his death,--especially +when the claim is for some acres apiece, as in the case of these +pyramid-builders. Will you go back with me?" + +I declined for various reasons, not all very clear even to myself; but +I was convinced that his peculiar enticements were the cause of our +failure, and I hated him unreasonably for it. I longed to get rid of +him, and of his influence over me. Fool that I was! _I_ was the sinner, +and not he; for he _could_ not see, because he was born blind, while +_I_ fell with my eyes open. I still held on to the vague hope, that, +were I alone, I might again find that mysterious lake; for I knew I had +not dreamed. So we parted. + +But we two (my servant and I) were not left long alone in the Desert. +The next day a party of natives surprised us, and, after some desperate +fighting, we were taken prisoners, sold as slaves from tribe to tribe +into the interior, and at length fell into the hands of some traders on +the western coast, who gave us our freedom. Unwilling, however, to +return home without some definite success, I made several voyages in a +merchant-vessel. But I was born for one purpose; failing in that, I had +nothing further to live for. The core of my life was touched at that +fatal river, and a subtile disease has eaten it out till nothing but +the rind is left. A wave, gathering to the full its mighty strength, +had upreared itself for a moment majestically above its +fellows,--falling, its scattered spray can only impotently sprinkle the +dull, dreary shore. Broken and nerveless, I can only wait the lifting +of the curtain, quietly wondering if a failure be always +irretrievable,--if a prize once lost can never again be found. + + + + +AN EXPERIENCE. + + +A common spring of water, sudden welling, +Unheralded, from some unseen impelling, +Unrecognized, began his life alone. +A rare and haughty vine looked down above him, +Unclasped her climbing glory, stooped to love him, +And wreathed herself about his curb of stone. + +Ah, happy fount! content, in upward smiling, +To feel no life but in her fond beguiling, +To see no world but through her veil of green! +And happy vine, secure, in downward gazing, +To find one theme his heart forever praising,-- +The crystal cup a throne, and she the queen! + +I speak, I grew about him, ever dearer; +The water rose to meet me, ever nearer; +The water passed one day this curb of stone. +Was it a weak escape from righteous boundings, +Or yet a righteous scorn of false surroundings? +I only know I live my life alone. + +Alone? The smiling fountain seems to chide me,-- +The constant fountain, rooted still beside me, +And speaking wistful words I toil to hear: +Ah, how alone! The mystic words confound me; +And still the awakened fountain yearns beyond me, +Streaming to some unknown I may not near. + +"Oh, list," he cries, "the wondrous voices calling! +I hear a hundred streams in silver falling; +I feel the far-off pulses of the sea. +Oh, come!" Then all my length beside him faring, +I strive and strain for growth, and soon, despairing, +I pause and wonder where the wrong can be. + +Were we not equal? Nay, I stooped, from climbing, +To his obscure, to list the golden chiming, +So low to all the world, so plain to me. +_Now_,'twere some broad fair streamlet, onward tending +Should mate with him, and both, serenely blending, +Move in a grand accordance to the sea. + +I tend not so; I hear no voices calling; +I have no care for rivers silver-falling; +I hate the far-off sea that wrought my pain. +Oh for some spell of change, my life new-aiming! +Or best, by spells his too much life reclaiming, +Hold all within the fountain-curb again! + + + + +ABOUT THIEVES. + + +It is recorded in the pages of Diodorus Siculus, that Actisanes, the +Ethiopian, who was king of Egypt, caused a general search to be made +for all Egyptian thieves, and that all being brought together, and the +king having "given them a just hearing," he commanded their noses to be +cut off,--and, of course, what a king of Egypt commanded was done; so +that all the Egyptian "knucks," "cracksmen," "shoplifters," and +pilferers generally, of whatever description known to the slang terras +of the time, became marked men. + +Inspired, perhaps, with the very idea on which the Ethiopian acted, the +police authorities have lately provided, that, in an out-of-the-way +room, on a back street, the honest men of New York city may scan the +faces of its thieves, and hold silent communion with that interesting +part of the population which has agreed to defy the laws and to stand +at issue with society. Without disturbing the deep pool of penalogy, or +entering at all into the question, as to whether Actisanes was right, +or whether the police of New York do not overstep their authority in +putting on the walls this terrible bill of attainder against certain +citizens of the United States, whom their country's constitution has +endeavored to protect from "infamous punishments,"--the student of +moral science will certainly be thankful for the faces. + +We do not remember ever having "opened" a place or picked a pocket. We +have made puns, however; and so, upon the Johnsonian _dictum_, the +thing is latent in us, and we feel the affinity. We do not hate +thieves. We feel satisfied that even in the character of a man who does +not respect ownership there may be much to admire. Sparkles of genius +scintillate along the line of many a rogue's career. Many there are, it +is true, who are obtuse and vicious below the mean,--but a far greater +number display skill and courage infinitely above it. Points of noble +character, of every good as well as most base characteristics of the +human race, will be found in the annals of thievery, when they are +written aright. + +Thieves, like the State of Massachusetts in the great man's oration, +"have their history," and it may be safely asserted that they did not +steal it. It is dimly hinted in the verse of a certain ancient, that +there was a time in a remoter antiquity "ere thieves were feared"; yet +even this is cautiously quiet as to their non-existence. Homer, +recounting traditions old in his time, chuckles with narrative delight +over the boldness, wit, and invention of a great cattle-stealer, and +for his genius renders him the ultimatum of Greek tribute, +intellectually speaking, by calling him a son of Zeus. Herodotus speaks +plainly and tells a story; and the best of all his stories, to our +thinking, is a thief's story, which we abridge thus. + +"The king Rhampsinitus, the priests informed me, possessed a great +quantity of money, such as no succeeding king was able to surpass or +nearly come up to, and, wishing to treasure it, he built a chamber of +stone, one wall of which was against the palace. But the builder, +forming a plan against it, even in building, fitted one of the stones +so that it might be easily taken out by two men or even one. + +"In course of time, and when the king had laid up his treasures in the +chamber, the builder, finding his end approaching, called to him his +two sons and described to them how he had contrived, and, having +clearly explained everything, he told them, if they would observe his +directions closely, they might be stewards of the king's riches. He +accordingly died, and the sons were not long in applying themselves to +the work; but, having come by night to the palace, and having found the +stone as described, they easily removed it, and carried off a great +quantity of treasure. + +"When the king opened the chamber, he was astonished to see some +vessels deficient; but he was not able to accuse any one, as the seals +were unbroken, and the chamber well secured. When, therefore, on his +opening it two or three times, the treasures were always evidently +diminished, he adopted the following plan: he ordered traps to be made +and placed them round the vessels in which the treasures were. But when +the thieves came, as before, and one of them had entered, as soon as he +went near a vessel, he was straightway caught in the trap; perceiving, +therefore, in what a predicament he was, he immediately called to his +brother, told him what had happened, and bade him enter as quickly as +possible and cut off his head, lest, if seen and recognized, he should +ruin him also. The other thought he spoke well, and did as he was +advised; then, having fitted in the stone, he returned home, taking +with him his brother's head. + +"When day came, the king, having entered the chamber, was astonished at +seeing the body of the thief in the trap without the head, but the +chamber secured, and no apparent means of entrance or exit. In this +perplexity he contrived thus: he hung up the body of the thief from the +wall, and, having placed sentinels there, he ordered them to seize and +bring before him whomsoever they should see weeping or expressing +commiseration for the spectacle. + +"The mother was greatly grieved at the body being suspended, and, +coming to words with her surviving son, commanded him, by any means he +could, to contrive how he might take down and bring away the corpse of +his brother; but, should he not do so, she threatened to go to the king +and tell who had the treasure. When the mother treated her surviving +son harshly, and he, with many entreaties, was unable to persuade her, +he contrived this plan: he put skins filled with wine on some asses, +and drove to where the corpse was detained, and there skilfully loosed +the strings of two or three of those skins, and, when the wine ran out, +he beat his head and cried aloud, as if he knew not which one to turn +to first. But the sentinels, seeing wine flow, ran with vessels and +caught it, thinking it their gain,--whereupon, the man, feigning anger, +railed against them. But the sentinels soothed and pacified him, and at +last he set the skins to rights again. More conversation passed; the +sentinels joked with him and moved him to laughter, and he gave them +one of the skins, and lay down with them and drank, and thus they all +became of a party; and the sentinels, becoming exceedingly drunk, fell +asleep where they had been drinking. Then the thief took down the body +of his brother, and, departing, carried it to his mother, having obeyed +her injunctions. + +"After this the king resorted to many devices to discover and take the +thief, but all failed through his daring and shrewdness: when, at last, +sending throughout all the cities, the king caused a proclamation to be +made, offering a pardon and even reward to the man, if he would +discover himself. The thief, relying on this promise, went to the +palace; and Rhampsinitus greatly admired him, and gave him his daughter +in marriage, accounting him the most knowing of all men; for that the +Egyptians are superior to all others, but he was superior to the +Egyptians." + +The Egyptians appear to have given their attention to stealing in every +age; and at the present time, the ruler there may be said to be not so +much the head man of the land as the head thief. Travellers report that +that country is divided into departments upon a basis of abstraction, +and that the interests of each department, in pilfering respects, are +under the supervision of a Chief of Thieves. The Chief of Thieves is +responsible to the government, and to him all those who steal +professionally must give in their names, and must also keep him +informed of their successful operations. When goods are missed, the +owner applies to the government, is referred to the Chief of Thieves +for the Department, and all particulars of quantity, quality, time, and +manner of abstraction, to the best of his knowledge and belief, being +given, the goods are easily identified and at once restored,--less a +discount of twenty-five per cent. Against any rash man who should +undertake a private speculation, of course the whole fraternity of +thieves would be the beat possible police. This, after all, appears to +be a mere compromise of police taxes. He who has no goods to lose, or, +having, can watch them so well as not to need the police, the +government agrees shall not be made to pay for a police; but he whom +the fact of loss is against must pay well to be watched. + +Something of this principle is observable in all the East The East is +the fatherland of thieves, and Oriental annals teem with brilliant +examples of their exploits. The story of Jacoub Ben-Laith, founder of +the Soffarid dynasty,--otherwise, first of the Tinker-Kings of the +larger part of Persia,--is especially excellent upon that proverbial +"honor among thieves" of which most men have heard. + +Working weary hour after hour in his little shop,--toiling away days, +weeks, and months for a meagre subsistence,--Jacoub finally turned in +disgust from his hammer and forge, and became a "minion of the moon." +He is said, however, to have been reasonable in plunder, and never to +have robbed any of all they had. One night he entered the palace of +Darham, prince of the province of Segestan, and, working diligently, +soon gathered together an immense amount of valuables, with which he +was making off, when, in crossing a very dark room, his foot struck +upon a hard substance, and the misstep nearly threw him down. Stooping, +he picked up that upon which he had trodden. He believed it, from +feeling, to be a precious stone. He carried it to his mouth, touched it +with his tongue,--it was salt! And thus, by his own action, he had +tasted salt beneath the prince's roof,--in Eastern parlance, had +accepted his hospitality, become his guest. He could not rob him. +Jacoub laid down his burden,--robes embroidered in gold upon the +richest materials, sashes wanting only the light to flash with precious +stones worked in the braid, all the costly and rare of an Eastern +prince's palace gathered in one common spoil,--laid it all down, and +departed as silently as he had come. + +In the morning the disorder seen told only of attempted robbery. +Diligent search being made, the officers charged with it became +satisfied of Jacoub's complicity. They brought him before the prince. +There, being charged with the burglary, Jacoub at once admitted it, and +told the whole story. The prince, honoring him for his honor, at once +took him into his service, and employed him with entire confidence in +whatever of important or delicate he had to do that needed a man of +truth and courage; and Jacoub from that beginning went up step by step, +till he himself became prince of a province, and then of many +provinces, and finally king of a mighty realm. He had soul enough, +according to Carlyle's idea, not to need salt; but, for all that, the +salt saved him. + +Another king of Persia, Khurreem Khan, was not ashamed to admit, with a +crown on his head, that he had once been a thief, and was wont to +recount of himself what in these days we should call a case of +conscience. Thus he told it:-- + +"When I was a poor soldier in Nadir Shah's camp, my necessities led me +to take from a shop a gold-embossed saddle, sent thither by an Afghan +chief to be repaired. I soon afterward heard that the owner of the shop +was in prison, sentenced to be hanged. My conscience smote me. I +restored the stolen article to the very place whence I had removed it, +and watched till it was discovered by the tradesman's wife. She uttered +a scream of joy, on seeing it, and fell on her knees, invoking +blessings on the person who had brought it back, and praying that he +might live to have a hundred such saddles. I am quite certain that the +honest prayer of the old woman aided my fortune in attaining the +splendor she wished me to enjoy." + +These are variations upon the general theme of thievery. They all tend +to show that it is, at the least, unsafe to take the fact of a man's +having committed a certain crime against property as a proof _per se_ +that he is radically bad or inferior in intellect. "Your thief looks +in the crowd," says Byron, + + "Exactly like the rest, or rather better,"-- + +and this, not because physiognomy is false, but the thief's face true. +Of a promiscuous crowd, taken almost anywhere, the pickpocket in it is +the smartest man present, in all probability. According to +Ecclesiasticus, it is "the _heart_ of man that changeth his +countenance"; and it does seem that it is to his education, and not to +his heart, that man does violence in stealing. It is certainly in exact +proportion to his education that he feels in reference to it, and does +or does not "regret the necessity." + +And, indeed, that universal doctrine of contraries may work here as +elsewhere; and it might not he difficult to demonstrate that a majority +of thieves are better fitted by their nature and capacity for almost +any other position in life than the one they occupy through perverse +circumstance and unaccountable accident. Though mostly men of fair +ability, they are not generally successful. Considering the number of +thieves, there are but few great ones. In this "Rogues' Gallery" of the +New York Police Commissioners we find the face of a "first-rate" +burglar among the ablest of the eighty of whom he is one. He is a +German, and has passed twenty years in the prisons of his native land: +has that leonine aspect sometimes esteemed a physiognomical attribute +of the German, and, with fair enough qualities generally, is without +any especial intellectual strength. Near him is another +"first-rate,"--all energy and action, acute enough, a quick reasoner, +very cool and resolute. Below these is the face of one whom the +thief-takers think lightly of, and call a man of "no account." Yet he +is a man of far better powers than either of the "first-rates,"--has +more thought and equal energy,--a mind seldom or never at rest,--is one +to make new combinations and follow them to results with an ardor +almost enthusiastic. From some want of adaptation not depending upon +intellectual power, he is inferior as a thief to his inferiors. + +This man was without a cravat when his picture was taken, and his white +shirt-collar, coming up high in the neck, has the appearance of a white +neckerchief. This trifle of dress, with the intellectual look of the +man, strikes every observer as giving him a clerical appearance. The +picture strongly resembles--more in air, perhaps, than in feature--the +large engraved portrait of Summerfield. There is not so much of calm +comprehensiveness of thought, and there are more angles. Thief though +he be, he has fair language,--not florid or rhetorical, but terse and +very much to the point. If bred as a divine, he would have held his +place among the "brilliants" of the time, and been as original, +erratic, or _outré_ as any. What a fortune lost! It is part of the +fatality for the man not to know it, at least in time. Even villany +would have put him into his proper place, but for that film over the +mental vision. "If rogues," said Franklin, "knew the advantages +attached to the practice of the virtues, they would become honest men +from mere roguery." + +Many of the faces of this Rogues' Gallery are very well worth +consideration. Of a dozen leading pickpockets, who work singly, or two +or three together, and are mostly English, what is first noted is not +favorable to English teaching or probity;--their position sits easily +upon them. There is not one that gives indication of his having passed +through any mental struggle before he sat down in life as a thief. +Though all men capable of thought, they have not thought very deeply +upon this point. One of them is a natural aristocrat,--a man who could +keep the crowd aloof by simple volition, and without offense; nothing +whatever harsh in him,--polite to all, and amiable to a fault with his +fellows. + +There would be style in everything he did or said. He is one to +astonish drawing-rooms and bewilder promenades by the taste and +elegance of his dress. Upon that altar, doubtless, he sacrificed his +principles; but the sacrifice was not a great one. + +"'Tis only at the bar or in the dungeon that wise men know a felon by +his features." Another English pickpocket appears to have Alps on Alps +of difference between him and a thief. Good-nature prevails; there is a +little latent fire; not enough energy to be bad, or good, against the +current. He has some quiet dignity, too,--the head, in fine, of a +genial, dining Dombey, if such a man can be imagined. Face a good oval, +rather full in flesh, forehead square, without particular strength, a +nose that was never unaccompanied by good taste and understanding, and +mouth a little lickerish;--the incarnation of the popular idea of a +bank-president. + +The other day he turned to get into an omnibus at one of the ferries, +and just as he did so, there, it so happened, was a young lady stepping +in before him. The quiet old gentleman, with that warmth of politeness +that sits so well upon quiet old gentlemen in the presence of young +ladies, helped her in, and took a seat beside her. At half a block up +the street the president startled the other passengers by the violent +gesticulations with which he endeavored to attract the attention of a +gentleman passing down on the sidewalk; the passengers watched with +interest the effect or non-effect of his various episodes of +telegraphic desperation, and saw, with a regret equal to his own, that +the gentleman on the sidewalk saw nothing, and turned the corner as +calmly as a corner could be turned; but the old gentleman, not willing +to lose him in that manner, jumped out of the 'bus and ran after, with +a liveliness better becoming his eagerness than his age. In a moment +more, the young lady, admonished by the driver's rap on the roof, would +have paid her fare, but her portmonnaie was missing. I know not whether +the bank-president was or was not suspected;-- + +"All I can say is, that he had the money." + +Look closer, and beneath that look of good-humor you will find a little +something of superciliousness. You will see a line running down the +cheek from behind each nostril, drawing the whole face, good-humor and +all, into a sneer of habitual contempt,--contempt, no doubt, of the +vain endeavors and devices of men to provide against the genius of a +good pickpocket. + +It was said of Themistocles, that + + "he, with all his greatness, +Could ne'er command his hands." + +Now this man is a sort of Themistocles. He is a man of wealth, and can +snap his fingers at Fortune; can sneer that little sneer of his at +things generally, and be none the worse; but what he cannot do is, to +shake off an incubus that sits upon his life in the shape of old Habit +severe as Fate. This man, with apparently all that is necessary in the +world to keep one at peace with it, and to ease declining life with +comforts, and cheer with the serener pleasures, is condemned to keep +his peace in a state of continual uncertainty; for, seeing a purse +temptingly exposed, he is physically incapable of refraining from the +endeavor to take it. What devil is there in his finger-ends that brings +this about? Is this part of the curse of crime,--that, having once +taken up with it, a man cannot cut loose, but, with all the disposition +to make his future life better, he must, as by the iron links of +Destiny, be chained to his past? + +There is a Chinese thief-story somewhat in point here. A man who was +very poor stole from his neighbor, who was very rich, a single duck. He +cooked and ate it, and went to bed happy; but before morning he felt +all over his body and limbs a remarkable itching, a terrible irritation +that prevented sleep. When daylight came, he perceived that he had +sprouted all over with duck-feathers. This was an unlooked-for +judgment, and the man gave himself up to despair,--when he was informed +by an emanation of the divine Buddha that the feathers would fall from +him the moment he received a reproof and admonition from the man whose +duck he had stolen. This only increased his despair, for he knew his +neighbor to be one of the laughter-loving kind, who would not go to the +length of reproof, though he lost a thousand ducks. After sundry futile +attempts to swindle his neighbor out of the needed admonition, our +friend was compelled to divulge, not only the theft, but also the means +of cure, when he was cured. + +And this good, easy man, who is wealthy with the results of +pocket-picking;--that well-cut black coat, that satin waistcoat, that +elegantly-adjusted scarf and well-arranged collar, they are all +duck-feathers; but the feather that itches is that irreclaimable +tendency of the fingers to find their way into other people's pockets. +Pity, however, the man who cannot be at ease till he has received a +reproof from every one whose pocket he has picked through a long life +in London and in New York city. + +The amount of mental activity that gleams out upon you from these walls +is something wonderful; evidence of sufficient thinking to accomplish +almost any intellectual task; thought-life crowded with what +experience! + +The "confidence" swindlers are mostly Americans,--so that, the +pickpockets being mostly English, you may see some national character +in crime, aside from the tendency of races. The Englishman is +conservative,--sticks to traditions,--picks and plods in the same old +way in which ages have picked and plodded before him. Exactly like the +thief of ancient Athens, he + + "walks +The street, and picks your pocket as he talks +On some pretence with you"; + +at the same time, with courage and self-reliance admirably English, +risking his liberty on his skill. The American illuminates his practice +with an intellectual element, faces his man, "bidding a gay defiance to +mischance," and gains his end easily by some acute device that merely +transfers to himself, with the knowledge and consent of the owner, the +subtile principle of property. + +This "confidence" game is a thing of which the ancients appear to have +known nothing. The French have practised it with great success, and may +have invented it. It appears particularly French in some of its +phases,--in the manner that is necessary for its practice, in its wit +and finesse. The affair of the Diamond Necklace, with which all the +world is familiar, is the most magnificent instance of it on record. A +lesser case, involving one of the same names, and playing excellently +upon woman's vanity, illustrates the French practice. + +One evening, as Marie Antoinette sat quietly in her _loge_ at the +theatre, the wife of a wealthy tradesman of Paris, sitting nearly +_vis-à-vis_ to the Queen, made great parade of her toilet, and seemed +peculiarly desirous of attracting attention to a pair of splendid +bracelets, gleaming with the chaste contrast of emeralds and diamonds. +She was not without success. A gentleman of elegant mien and graceful +manner presented himself at the door of her _loge_; he delivered a +message from the Queen. Her Majesty had remarked the singular beauty of +the bracelets, and wished to inspect one of them more closely. What +could be more gratifying? In the seventh heaven of delighted vanity, +the tradesman's wife unclasped the bracelet and gave it to the +gentleman, who bowed himself out, and left her--as you have doubtless +divined he would--abundant leisure to learn of her loss. + +Early the next morning, however, an officer from the department of +police called at this lady's house. The night before, a thief had been +arrested leaving the theatre, and on his person were found many +valuables,--among others, a splendid bracelet. Being penitent, he had +told, to the best of his recollection, to whom the articles belonged, +and the lady called upon was indicated as the owner of the bracelet. If +Madame possessed the mate to this singular bracelet, it was only +necessary to intrust it to the officer, and, if it were found to +compare properly with the other, both would be immediately sent home, +and Madame would have only a trifling fee to pay. The bracelet was +given willingly, and, with the stiff courtesy inseparable from official +dignity, the officer took his leave, and at the next _café_ joined his +fellow, the gentleman of elegant mien and graceful manner. The +bracelets were not found to compare properly, and therefore were not +returned. + +These faces are true to the nationality,--all over American. They are +much above the average in expression,--lighted with clear, well-opened +eyes, intelligent and perceptive; most have an air of business +frankness well calculated to deceive. There is one capacious, +thought-freighted forehead. All are young. + +No human observer will fail to be painfully struck with the number of +boys whose faces are here exposed. There are boys of every age, from +five to fifteen, and of every possible description, good, bad, and +indifferent. The stubborn and irreclaimable imp of evil nature peers +out sullenly and doggedly, or sparkles on you a pair of small +snake-eyes, fruitful of deceit and cunning. The better boy, easily +moved, that might become anything, mercurial and volatile, "most +ignorant of what he's most assured," reflects on his face the pleasure +of having his picture taken, and smiles good-humoredly, standing in +this worst of pillories, to be pelted along a lifetime with +unforgetting and unforgiving glances. With many of these boys, this is +a family matter. Here are five brothers, the youngest very young +indeed,--and the father not very old. One of the brothers, +bright-looking as boy can be, is a young Jack Sheppard, and has already +broken jail five times. Many are trained by old burglars to be put +through windows where men cannot go, and open doors. In a row of +second-class pickpockets, nearly all boys, there is observable on +almost every face some expression of concern, and one instinctively +thanks Heaven that the boys appear to be frightened. Yet, after all, +perhaps it is hardly worth while. The reform of boy thieves was first +agitated a long while since, and we have yet to hear of some +encouraging result. The earliest direct attempt we know of, with all +the old argument, _pro_ and _con_, is thus given in Sadi's "Gulistan." + +Among a gang of thieves, who had been very hardly taken, "there +happened to be a lad whose rising bloom of youth was just matured. One +of the viziers kissed the foot of the king's throne, assumed a look of +intercession, and said,-- + +"'This lad has not yet even reaped the pleasures of youth; my +expectation, from your Majesty's inherent generosity, is, that, by +granting his life, you would confer an obligation on your servant.' + +"The king frowned at this request, and said,-- + +"'The light of the righteous does not influence one of vicious origin; +instruction to the worthless is a walnut on a dome, that rolls off. To +smother a fire and leave its sparks, to kill a viper and take care of +its young, are not actions of the wise. Though the clouds rain the +water of life, you cannot eat fruit from the boughs of a willow.' + +"When the vizier heard this, he applauded the king's understanding, and +assented that what he had pronounced was unanswerable. + +"'Yet, nevertheless,' he said, 'as the boy, if bred among the thieves, +would have taken their manners, so is your servant hopeful that he +might receive instruction in the society of upright men; for he is +still a boy, and it is written, that every child is born in the faith +of Islam, and his parents corrupt him. The son of Noah, associated with +the wicked, lost his power of prophecy; the dog of the Seven Sleepers, +following the good, became a man.' + +"Then others of the courtiers joined in the intercession, and the king +said,-- + +"'I have assented, but I do not think it well.' + +"They bred the youth in indulgence and affluence, and appointed an +accomplished tutor to educate him, and he became learned and gained +great applause in the sight of every one. The king smiled when the +vizier spoke of this, and said,-- + +"'Thou hast been nourished by our milk, and hast grown with us; who +afterwards gave thee intelligence that thy father was a wolf?' + +"A few years passed;--a company of the vagrants of the neighborhood +were near; they connected themselves with the boy; a league of +association was formed; and, at an opportunity, the boy destroyed the +vizier and his children, carried off vast booty, and fixed himself in +the place of his father in the cavern of the robbers. The king bit the +hand of astonishment with the teeth of reflection, and said,-- + +"'How can any one make a good sword from bad iron? The worthless, O +Philosopher, does not, by instruction, become worthy. Rain, though not +otherwise than benignant, produces tulips in gardens and rank weeds in +nitrous ground.'" + +Yet, notwithstanding Sadi and some other wise ones, here, as thieves, +are the faces of boys that cannot be naturally vicious,--boys of good +instincts, beyond all possible question,--and that only need a mother's +hand to smooth back the clustering hair from the forehead, to discover +the future residence of plentiful and upright reason. The face of a +boy, now in Sing Sing for burglary, and who bears a name which over the +continent of North America is identified with the ideas of large +combination and enterprise, is especially noticeable for the clear +eyes, and frank, promising look. + +That tale of Sadi will do well enough when Aesop tells it of a +serpent;--he, indeed, can change his skin and be a serpent still; but +when the old Sufi, or any one else, tells it of a boy, let us doubt. + +Think of the misery that may be associated with all this,--that this +represents! In this Gallery are the faces of many men; some are +handsome, most of them more or less human. It cannot be that they all +began wrongly,--that their lives were all poisoned at the +fountain-head. No,--here are some that came from what are called good +families; many others of them had homes, and you may still see some +lingering love of it in an air of settled sadness,--they were misled in +later life. Think of the mothers who have gone down, in bitter, bitter +sorrow, to the grave, with some of the lineaments we see around before +their mind's eye at the latest moment! Oh, the circumstances under +which some of these faces have been conjured up by the strong will of +love! Think of the sisters, living along with a hidden heart-ache, +nursing in secret the knowledge, that somewhere in the world were those +dear to them, from whom they were shut out by a bar-sinister terribly +real, and for whose welfare, with all the generous truth of a sister's +feeling, they would barter everything, yet who were in an unending +danger! Think of them, with this skeleton behind the door of their +hearts, fearful at every moment! Does it seem good in the scheme of +existence, or a blot there, that those who are themselves innocent, but +who are yet the real sufferers, whether punishment to the culprit fall +or fail, should be made thus poignantly miserable? We know nothing. + +It is said in a certain Arabic legend, that, while Moses was on Mount +Sinai, the Lord instructed him in the mysteries of his providence; and +Moses, having complained of the impunity of vice and its success in the +world, and the frequent sufferings of the innocent, the Lord led him to +a rock which jutted from the mountain, and where he could overlook the +vast plain of the Desert stretching at his feet. + +On one of its oases he beheld a young Arab asleep. He awoke, and, +leaving behind him a bag of pearls, sprang into the saddle and rapidly +disappeared from the horizon. Another Arab came to the oasis; he +discovered the pearls, took them, and vanished in the opposite +direction. + +Now an aged wanderer, leaning on his staff, bent his steps wearily +toward the shady spot; he laid himself down, and fell asleep. But +scarcely had he closed his eyes, when he was rudely aroused from his +slumber; the young Arab had returned, and demanded his pearls. The +hoary man replied, that he had not taken them. The other grew enraged, +and accused him of theft. He swore that he had not seen the treasure; +but the other seized him; a scuffle ensued; the young Arab drew his +sword, and plunged it into the breast of the aged man, who fell +lifeless on the earth. + +"O Lord! is this just?" exclaimed Moses, with terror. + +"Be silent! Behold, this man, whose blood is now mingling with the +waters of the Desert, many years ago, secretly, on the same spot, +murdered the father of the youth who has now slain him. His crime +remained concealed from men; but vengeance is mine: I will repay." + + + + +THE PURSUIT OF KNOWLEDGE UNDER DIFFICULTIES; AND WHAT CAME OF IT. + +[Concluded.] + + +The week of Mr. Clerron's absence passed away more quickly than Ivy had +supposed it would. The reason for this may be found in the fact that +her thoughts were very busily occupied. She was more silent than usual, +so much so that her father one day said to her,--"Ivy, I haven't heard +you sing this long while, and seems to me you don't talk either. What's +the matter?" + +"Do I look as if anything was the matter?" and the face she turned upon +him was so radiant, that even the father's heart was satisfied. + +Very quietly happy was Ivy to think she was of service to Mr. Clerron, +that she could give him pleasure,--though she could in no wise +understand how it was. She went over every event since her acquaintance +with him; she felt how much he had done for her, and how much he had +been to her; but she sought in vain to discover how she had been of any +use to him. She only knew that she was the most ignorant and +insignificant girl in the whole world, and that he was the best and +greatest man. As this was very nearly the same conclusion at which she +had arrived at an early period of their acquaintance, it cannot be said +that her week of reflection was productive of any very valuable +results. + +The day before Mr. Clerron's expected return Ivy sat down to prepare +her lessons, and for the first time remembered that she had left her +books in Mr. Clerron's library. She was not sorry to have so good an +excuse for visiting the familiar room, though its usual occupant was +not there to welcome her. Very quietly and joyfully happy, she trod +slowly along the path through the woods where she last walked with Mr. +Clerron. She was, indeed, at a loss to know why she was so calm. Always +before, a sudden influx of joy testified itself by very active +demonstrations. She was quite sure that she had never in her life been +so happy as now; yet she never had felt less disposed to leap and dance +and sing. The non-solution of the problem, however, did not ruffle her +serenity. She was content to accept the facts, and await patiently the +theory. + +Arriving at the house, she went, as usual, into the library without +ringing,--but, not finding the books, proceeded in search of Mrs. Simm. +That notable lady was sitting behind a huge pile of clean clothes, +sorting and mending to her heart's content. She looked up over her +spectacles at Ivy's bright "good morning," and invited her to come in. +Ivy declined, and begged to know if Mrs. Simm had seen her books. To be +sure she had, like the good housekeeper that she was. "You'll find them +in the book-case, second shelf; but, Miss Ivy, I wish you would come +in, for I've had something on my mind that I've felt to tell you this +long while." + +Ivy came in, took the seat opposite Mrs. Simm, and waited for her to +speak; but Mrs. Simm seemed to be in no hurry to speak. She dropped her +glasses; Ivy picked them up and handed them to her. She muttered +something about the destructive habits of men, especially in regard to +buttons; and presently, as if determined to come to the subject at +once, abruptly exclaimed,-- + +"Miss Ivy, you're a real good girl, I know, and as innocent as a lamb. +That's why I'm going to talk to you as I do. I know, if you were my +child, I should want somebody to do the same by you." + +Ivy could only stare in blank astonishment. After a moment's pause, +Mrs. Simm continued,-- + +"I've seen how things have been going on for some time; but my mouth +was shut, though my eyes were open. I didn't know but maybe I'd better +speak to your mother about it; but then, thinks I to myself, she'll +think it is a great deal worse than it is, and then, like enough, +there'll be a rumpus. So I concluded, on the whole, I'd just tell you +what I thought; and I know you are a sensible girl and will take it all +right. Now you must promise me not to get mad." + +"No," gasped Ivy. + +"I like you a sight. It's no flattery, but the truth, to say I think +you're as pretty-behaved a girl as you'll find in a thousand. And all +the time you've been here, I never have known you do a thing you hadn't +ought to. And Mr. Clerron thinks so too, and there's the trouble, You +see, dear, he's a man, and men go on their ways and like women, and +talk to them, and sort of bewitch them, not meaning to do them any +hurt,--and enjoy their company of an evening, and go about their own +business in the morning, and never think of it again; but women stay at +home, and brood over it, and think there's something in it, and build a +fine air-castle,--and when they find it's all smoke, they mope and pine +and take on. Now that's what I don't want you to do. Perhaps you'd +think I'd better have spoken with Mr. Clerron; but it wouldn't signify +the head of a pin. He'd either put on the Clerron look and scare you to +death and not say a word, or else he'd hold it up in such a ridiculous +way as to make you think it was ridiculous yourself. And I thought I'd +put you on your guard a little, so as you needn't fall in love with +him. You'll like him, of course. He likes you; but a young girl like +you might make a mistake, if she was ever so modest and sweet,--and +nobody could be modester or sweeter than you,--and think a man loved +you to marry you, when he only pets and plays with you. Not that Mr. +Clerron means to do anything wrong. He'd be perfectly miserable +himself, if he thought he'd led you on. There a'n't a more honorable +man every way in the whole country. Now, Miss Ivy, it's all for your +good I say this. I don't find fault with you, not a bit. It's only to +save you trouble in store that I warn you to look where you stand, and +see that you don't lose your heart before you know it. It's an awful +thing for a woman, Miss Ivy, to get a notion after a man who hasn't got +a notion after her. Men go out and work and delve and drive, and +forget; but there a'n't much in darning stockings and making +pillow-cases to take a woman's thought off her troubles, and sometimes +they get sp'iled for life." + +Ivy had remained speechless from amazement; but when Mrs. Simm had +finished, she said, with a sudden accession of womanly dignity that +surprised the good housekeeper,-- + +"Mrs. Simm, I cannot conceive why you should speak in this way to me. +If you suppose I am not quite able to take care of myself, I assure you +you are much mistaken." + +"Lorful heart! Now, Miss Ivy, you promised you wouldn't be mad." + +"And I have kept my promise. I am not mad." + +"No, but you answer up short like, and that isn't what I thought of +you, Ivy Geer." + +Mrs. Simm looked so disappointed that Ivy took a lower tone, and at any +rate she would have had to do it soon; for her fortitude gave way, and +she burst into a flood of tears. She was not, by any means, a heroine, +and could not put on the impenetrable mask of a woman of the world. + +"Now, dear, don't be so distressful, dear, don't!" said Mrs. Simm, +soothingly. "I can't bear to see you." + +"I am sure I never thought of such a thing as falling in love with Mr. +Clerron or anybody else," sobbed Ivy, "and I don't know what should +make you think so." + +"Dear heart, I don't think so. I only told you, so you needn't." + +"Why, I should as soon think of marrying the angel Gabriel!" + +"Oh, don't talk so, dear; he's no more than man, after all; but still, +you know, he's no fit match for you. To say nothing of his being older +and all that, I don't think it's the right place for you. Your father +and mother are very nice folks; I am sure nobody could ask for better +neighbors, and their good word is in everybody's mouth; and they've +brought you up well, I am sure; but, my dear, you know it's nothing +against you nor them that you a'n't used to splendor, and you wouldn't +take to it natural like. You'd get tired of that way of life, and want +to go back to the old fashions, and you'd most likely have to leave +your father and mother; for it's noways probable Mr. Clerron will stay +here always; and when he goes back to the city, think what a dreary +life you'd have betwixt his two proud sisters, on the one hand,--to be +sure, there's no reason why they should be; their gran'ther was a +tailor, and their grandma was his apprentice, and he got rich, and gave +all his children learning; and Mr. Felix's father, he was a lawyer, and +he got rich by speculation, and so the two girls always had on their +high-heeled boots; but Mr. Clerron, he always laughs at them, and +brings up "the grand-paternal shop," as he calls it, and provokes them +terribly, I know. Well, that's neither here nor there; but, as I was +saying, here you'll have them on the one side, and all the fine ladies +on the other, and a great house and servants, and parties to see to, +and, lorful heart! Miss Ivy, you'd die in three years; and if you know +when you're well off, you'll stay at home, and marry and settle down +near the old folks. Believe me, my dear, it's a bad thing both for the +man and the woman, when she marries above her." + +"Mrs. Simm," said Ivy, rising, "will you promise me one thing?" + +"Certainly, child, if I can." + +"Will you promise me never again to mention this thing to me, or allude +to it in the most distant manner?" + +"Miss Ivy, now,"--began Mrs. Simm, deprecatingly. + +"Because," interrupted Ivy, speaking very thick and fast, "you cannot +imagine how disagreeable it is to me. It makes me feel ashamed to think +of what you have said, and that you could have thought it even. I +suppose--indeed, I know--that you did it because you thought you ought; +but you may be certain that I am in no danger from Mr. Clerron, nor is +there the slightest probability that his fortune, or honor, or +reputation, or sisters will ever be disturbed by me. I am very much +obliged to you for your good intentions, and I wish you good morning." + +"Don't, now, Miss Ivy, go so"-- + +But Miss Ivy was gone, and Mrs. Simm could only withdraw to her pile of +clothes, and console herself by stitching and darning with renewed +vigor. She felt rather uneasy about the result of her morning's work, +though she had really done it from a conscientious sense of duty. + +"Welladay," she sighed, at last, "she'd better be a little cut up and +huffy now, than to walk into a ditch blindfolded; and I wash my hands +of whatever may happen after this. I've had my say and done my part." + +Alas, Ivy Geer! The Indian summer day was just as calm and +beautiful,--the far-off mountains wore their veil of mist just as +aërially,--the brook rippled over the stones with just as soft a +melody; but what "discord on the music" had fallen! what "darkness on +the glory"! A miserable, dull, dead weight was the heart which throbbed +so lightly but an hour before. Wearily, drearily, she dragged herself +home. It was nearly sunset when she arrived, and she told her mother +she was tired and had the headache, which was true,--though, if she had +said heartache, it would have been truer. Her mother immediately did +what ninety-nine mothers out of a hundred would do in similar +circumstances,--made her swallow a cup of strong tea, and sent her to +bed. Alas, alas, that there are sorrows which the strongest tea cannot +assuage! + +When the last echo of her mother's footstep died on the stairs, and Ivy +was alone in the darkness, the tide of bitterness and desolation swept +unchecked over her soul, and she wept tears more passionate and +desponding than her life had ever before known,--tears of shame and +indignation and grief. It was true that the thought which Mrs. Simm had +suggested had never crossed her mind before; yet it is no less true, +that, all-unconsciously, she had been weaving a golden web, whose +threads, though too fine and delicate even for herself to perceive, +were yet strong enough to entangle her life in their meshes. A secret +chamber, far removed from the noise and din of the world,--a chamber +whose soft and rose-tinted light threw its radiance over her whole +future, and within whose quiet recesses she loved to sit alone and +dream away the hours,--had been rudely entered, and thrown violently +open to the light of day, and Ivy saw with dismay how its pictures had +become ghastly and its sacredness was defiled. With bitter, though +needless and useless self-reproach, she saw how she had suffered +herself to be fascinated. Sorrowfully, she felt that Mrs. Simm's words +were true, and a great gulf lay between her and him. She pictured him +moving easily and gracefully and naturally among scenes which to her +inexperienced eye were grand and splendid; and then, with a sharp pain, +she felt how constrained and awkward and entirely unfit for such a life +was she. Then her thoughts reverted to her parents,--their unchanging +love, their happiness depending on her, their solicitude and +watchfulness,--and she felt as if ingratitude were added to her other +sins, that she could have so attached herself to any other. And again +came back the bitter, burning agony of shame that she had done the very +thing that Mrs. Simm too late had warned her not to do; she had been +carried away by the kindness and tenderness of her friend, and, +unasked, had laid the wealth of her heart at his feet. So the night +flushed into morning; and the sun rose upon a pale face and a trembling +form,--but not upon a faint heart; for Ivy, kneeling by the couch where +her morning and evening prayer had gone up since lisping +infancy,--kneeling no longer a child, but a woman, matured through +love, matured, alas! through suffering, prayed for strength and +comfort; prayed that her parents' love might be rendered back into +their own bosoms a hundred fold; prayed that her friend's kindness to +her might not be an occasion of sin against God, and that she might be +enabled to walk with a steady step in the path that lay before her. And +she arose strengthened and comforted. + +All the morning she lay quiet and silent on the lounge in the little +sitting-room. Her mother, busied with household matters, only looked in +upon her occasionally, and, as the eyes were always closed, did not +speak, thinking her asleep. Ivy was not asleep. Ten thousand little +sprites flitted swiftly through the chambers of her brain, humming, +singing, weeping, but always busy, busy. Then another tread softly +entered, and she knew her dear old father had drawn a chair close to +her, and was looking into her face. Tears came into her eyes, her lip +involuntarily quivered, and then she felt the pressure of +his----his!--surely that was not her father's kiss! She started up. No, +no! that was not her father's face bending over her,--not her father's +eyes smiling into hers; but, woe for Ivy! her soul thrilled with a +deeper bliss, her heart leaped with a swifter bound, and for a moment +all the experience and suffering and resolutions of the last night were +as if they had never been. Only for a moment, and then with a strong +effort she remembered the impassable gulf. + +"A pretty welcome home you have given me!" said Mr. Clerron, lightly. + +He saw that something was weighing on her spirits, but did not wish to +distress her by seeming to notice it. + +"I wait in my library, I walk in my garden, expecting every moment will +bring you,--and lo! here you are lying, doing nothing but look pale and +pretty as hard as you can." + +Ivy smiled, but did not consider it prudent to speak. + +"I found your books, however, and have brought them to you. You thought +you would escape a lesson finely, did you not? But you see I have +outwitted you." + +"Yes,--I went for the books yesterday," said Ivy, "but I got talking +with Mrs. Simm and forgot them." + +"Ah!" he replied, looking somewhat surprised. "I did not know Mrs. Simm +could be so entertaining. She must have exerted herself. Pray, now, if +it would not be impertinent, upon what subject did she hold forth with +eloquence so overpowering that everything else was driven from your +mind? The best way of preserving apples, I dare swear, or the +superiority of pickled grapes to pickled cucumbers." + +"No," said Ivy, with the ghost of an other smile,--"upon various +subjects; but not those. How do you do, Mr. Clerron? Have you had a +pleasant visit to the city?" + +"Very well, I thank you, Miss Geer; and I have not had a remarkably +pleasant visit, I am obliged to you. Have I the pleasure of seeing you +quite well, Miss Geer,--quite fresh and buoyant?" + +The lightness of tone which he had assumed had precisely the opposite +effect intended. + +"Ye banks and braes o' bonny Doon, + How can ye bloom sae fresh and fair? +How can ye chant, ye little birds, + And I sae weary fu' o' care?" + +is the of stricken humanity everywhere. And Ivy thought of Mr. Clerron, +rich, learned, elegant, happy, on the current of whose life she only +floated a pleasant ripple,--and of herself, poor, plain, awkward, +ignorant, to whom he was the life of life, the all in all. I would not +have you suppose this passed through her mind precisely as I have +written it. By no means. The ideas rather trooped through in a pellmell +sort of way; but they got through just as effectually. Now, if Ivy had +been content to let her muscles remain perfectly still, her face might +have given no sign of the confusion within; but, with a foolish +presumption, she undertook to smile, and so quite lost control of the +little rebels, who immediately twisted themselves into a sob. Her whole +frame convulsed with weeping and trying not to weep, he forced her +gently back on the pillow, and, bending low, whispered softly,-- + +"Ivy, what is it?" + +"Oh, don't ask me!--please, don't! Please, go away!" murmured the poor +child. + +"I will, my dear, in a minute; but you must think I should be a little +anxious. I leave you as gay as a bird, and healthy and rosy,--and when +I come back, I find you white and sad and ill. I am sure something +weighs on your mind. I assure you, my little Ivy, and you must believe, +that I am your true friend,--and if you would confide in me, perhaps I +could bring you comfort. It would at least relieve you to let me help +you bear the burden." + +The burden being of such a nature, it is not at all probable that Ivy +would have assented to his proposition; but the welcome entrance of her +mother prevented the necessity of replying. + +"Oh, you're awake! Well, I told Mr. Clerron he might come in, though I +thought you wouldn't be. Slept well this morning, didn't you, deary, to +make up for last night?" + +"No, mamma, I haven't been asleep." + +"Crying, my dear? Well, now, that's a pretty good one! Nervous she is, +Mr. Clerron, always nervous, when the least thing ails her; and she +didn't sleep a wink last night, which is a bad thing for the +nerves,--and Ivy generally sleeps like a top. She walked over to your +house yesterday, and when she got home she was entirely beat +out,--looked as if she had been sick a week. I don't know why it was, +for the walk couldn't have hurt her. She's always dancing round at +home. I don't think she's been exactly well for four or five days. Her +father and I both thought she'd been more quiet like than usual." + +The sudden pang that shot across Ivy's face was not unobserved by Mr. +Clerron. A thought came into his mind. He had risen at Mrs. Geer's +entrance, and he now expressed his regret for Ivy's illness, and hoped +that she would soon be well, and able to resume her studies; and, with +a few words of interest and inquiry to Mrs. Geer, took his leave. + +"I wonder if Mrs. Simm _has_ been putting her foot in it!" thought he, +as he stalked home rather more energetically than was his custom. + +That unfortunate lady was in her sitting-room, starching muslins, when +Mr. Clerron entered. She had surmised that he was gone to the farm, and +had looked for his return with a shadow of dread. She saw by his face +that something was wrong. + +"Mrs. Simm," he began, somewhat abruptly, but not disrespectfully, "may +I beg your pardon for inquiring what Ivy Geer talked to you about, +yesterday?" + +"Oh, good Lord! She ha'n't told you, has she?" cried Mrs. Simm,--her +fear of God, for once, yielding to her greater fear of man. The +embroidered collar, which she had been vigorously beating, dropped to +the floor, and she gazed at him with such terror and dismay in every +lineament, that he could not help being amused. He picked up the +collar, which, in her perturbation, she had not noticed, and said,-- + +"No, she has told me nothing; but I find her excited and ill, and I +have reason to believe it is connected with her visit here yesterday. +If it is anything relating to me, and which I have a right to know, you +would do me a great favor by enlightening me on the subject." + +Mrs. Simm had not a particle of that knowledge in which Young America +is so great a proficient, namely, the "knowing how to get out of a +scrape." She was, besides, alarmed at the effect of her words on Ivy, +supposing nothing less than that the girl was in the last stages of a +swift consumption; so she sat down, and, rubbing her starchy hands +together, with many a deprecatory "you know," and apologetic "I am sure +I thought I was acting for the best," gave, considering her agitation, +a tolerably accurate account of the whole interview. Her interlocutor +saw plainly that she had acted from a sincere conscientiousness, and +not from a meddlesome, mischievous interference; so he only thanked her +for her kind interest, and suggested that he had now arrived at an age +when it would, perhaps, be well for him to conduct matters, +particularly of so delicate a nature, solely according to his own +judgment, He was sorry to have given her any trouble. + + +"Scissors cuts only what comes between 'em," soliloquized Mrs. Simm, +when the door closed behind him. "If ever I meddle with a +courting-business again, my name a'n't Martha Simm. No, they may go to +Halifax, whoever they be, 'fore ever I'll lift a finger." + +It is a great pity that the world generally has not been brought to +make the same wise resolution. + +One, two, three, four days passed away, and still Ivy pondered the +question so often wrung from man in his bewildered gropings, "What +shall I do?" Every day brought her teacher and friend to comfort, +amuse, and strengthen. Every morning she resolved to be on her guard, +to remember the impassable gulf. Every evening she felt the silken +cords drawing tighter and tighter around her soul, and binding her +closer and closer to him. She thought she might die, and the thought +gave her a sudden joy. Death would solve the problem at once. If only a +few weeks or months lay before her, she could quietly rest on him, and +give herself up to him, and wait in heaven for all rough places to be +made plain. But Ivy did not die. Youth and nursing and herb-tea were +too strong for her, and the color came back to her cheek and the +languor went out from her blue eyes. She saw nothing to be done but to +resume her old routine. It would be difficult to say whether she was +more glad or sorry at seeming to see this necessity. She knew her +danger, and it was very fascinating. She did not look into the far-off +future; she only prayed to be kept from day to day. Perhaps her course +was wise; perhaps not. But she had to rely on her own judgment alone; +and her judgment was founded on inexperience, which is not a +trustworthy basis. + +A new difficulty arose. Ivy found that she could not resume her old +habits. To be sure, she learned her lessons just as perfectly at home +as she had ever done. Just as punctual to the appointed hour, she went +to recite them; but no sooner had her foot crossed Mr. Clerron's +threshold than her spirit seemed to die within her. She remembered +neither words nor ideas. Day after day, she attempted to go through her +recitation as usual, and, day after day, she hesitated, stammered, and +utterly failed. His gentle assistance only increased her embarrassment. +This she was too proud to endure; and, one day, after an unsuccessful +effort, she closed the book with a quick, impatient gesture, and +exclaimed,-- + +"Mr. Clerron, I will not recite any more!" + +The agitated flush which had suffused her face gave way to paleness. He +saw that she was under strong excitement, and quietly replied,-- + +"Very well, you need not, if you are tired. You are not quite well yet, +and must not try to do too much. We will commence here to-morrow." + +"No, Sir,--I shall not recite any more at all." + +"Till to-morrow." + +"Never any more!" + +There was a moment's pause. + +"You must not lose patience, my dear. In a few days you will recite as +well as ever. A fine notion, forsooth, because you have been ill, and +forgotten a little, to give up studying! And what is to become of my +laurels, pray,--all the glory I am to get by your proficiency?" + +"I shall study at home just the same, but I shall not recite." + +"Why not?" + +His look became serious. + +"Because I cannot. I do not think it best,--and--and I will not" + +Another pause. + +"Ivy, do you not like your teacher?" + +"No, Sir. _I hate you!_" + +The words seemed to flash from her lips. She sprang up and stood erect +before him, her eyes on fire, and every nerve quivering with intense +excitement He was shocked and startled. It was a new phase of her +character,--a new revelation. He, too, arose, and walked to the +window. If Ivy could have seen the workings of his face, there would +have been a revelation to her also. But she was too highly excited to +notice anything. He came back to her and spoke in a low voice,-- + +"Ivy, this is too much. This I did not expect." + +He laid his hand upon her head as he had often done before. She shook +it off passionately. + +"Yes, I hate you. I hate you, because"-- + +"Because I wanted you to love me?" + +"No, Sir; because I do love you, and you bring me only wretchedness. I +have never been happy since the miserable day I first saw you." + +"Then, Ivy, I have utterly failed in what it has been my constant +endeavor to do." + +"No, Sir, you have succeeded in what you endeavored to do. You have +taught me. You have given me knowledge and thought, and showed me the +source of knowledge. But I had better have been the ignorant girl you +found me. You have taken from me what I can never find again. I have +made a bitter exchange. I was ignorant and stupid, I know,--but I was +happy and contented; and now I am wretched and miserable and wicked. +You have come between me and my home and my father and mother;--between +me and all the bliss of my past and all my hope for the future." + +"And thus, Ivy, have you come between me and my past and my +future;--yet not thus. You shut out from my heart all the sorrow and +vexation and strife that have clouded my life, and fill it with your +own dear presence. You come between me and my future, because, in +looking forward, I see only you. I should have known better. There is +a gulf between us; but if I could make you happy"-- + +"I don't want you to make me happy. I know there is a gulf between us. +I saw it while you were gone. I measured it and fathomed it. I shall +not leap across. Stay you on your side quietly; I shall stay as quietly +on mine." + +"It is too late for that, Ivy,--too late now. But you are not to blame, +my child. Little sunbeam that you are, I will not cloud you. Go shine +upon other lives as you have shone upon mine! light up other hearths as +you have mine! and I will bless you forever, though mine be left +desolate." + +He turned away with an expression on his face that Ivy could not read. +Her passion was gone. She hesitated a moment, then went to his side and +laid her hand softly on his arm. There was a strange moistened gleam in +his eyes as he turned them upon her. + +"Mr. Clerron, I do not understand you." + +"My dear, you never can understand me." + +"I know it," said Ivy, with her old humility; "but, at least, I might +understand whether I have vexed you." + +"You have not vexed me." + +"I spoke proudly and rudely to you. I was angry, and so unhappy. I +shall always be so; I shall never be happy again; but I want you to be, +and you do not look as if you were." + +If Ivy had not been a little fool, she would not have spoken so; but +she was, so she did. + +"I beg your pardon, little tendril. I was so occupied with my own +preconceived ideas that I forgot to sympathize with you. Tell me why or +how I have made you unhappy. But I know; you need not. I assure you, +however, that you are entirely wrong. It was a prudish and whimsical +notion of my good old housekeeper's. You are never to think of it +again. _I_ never attributed such a thought or feeling to you." + +"Did you suppose that was all that made me unhappy?" + +"Can there be anything else?" + +"I am glad you think so. Perhaps I should not have been unhappy but for +that, at least not so soon; but that alone could never have made me +so." + +Little fool again! She was like a chicken thrusting its head into a +corner and thinking itself out of danger because it cannot see the +danger. She had no notion that she was giving him the least clue to the +truth, but considered herself speaking with more than Delphic prudence. +She rather liked to coast along the shores of her trouble and see how +near she could approach without running aground; but she struck before +she knew it. + +Mr. Clerron's face suddenly changed. He sat down, took both her hands, +and drew her towards him. + +"Ivy, perhaps I have been misunderstanding you. I will at least find +out the truth. Ivy, do you know that I love you, that I have loved you +almost from the first, that I would gladly here and now take you to my +heart and keep you here forever?" + +"I do not know it," faltered Ivy, half beside herself. + +"Know it now, then! I am older than you, and I seem to myself so far +removed from you that I have feared to ask you to trust your happiness +to my keeping, lest I should lose you entirely; but sometimes you say +or do something which gives me hope. My experience has been very +different from yours. I am not worthy to clasp your purity and +loveliness. Still I would do it, if--Tell me, Ivy, does it give you +pain or pleasure?" + +Ivy extricated her hands from his, deliberately drew a footstool, and +knelt on it before him,--then took his hands, as he had before held +hers, gazed steadily into his eyes, and said,-- + +"Mr. Clerron, are you in earnest? Do you love me?" + +"I am, Ivy. I do love you." + +"How do you love me?" + +"I love you with all the strength and power that God has given me." + +"You do not simply pity me? You have not, because you heard from Mrs. +Simm, or suspected, yourself, that I was weak enough to mistake your +kindness and nobleness,--you have not in pity resolved to sacrifice +your happiness to mine?" + +"No, Ivy,--nothing of the kind. I pity only myself. I reverence you, I +think. I have hoped that you loved me as a teacher and friend. I dared +not believe you could ever do more; now something within tells me that +you can. Can you, Ivy? If the love and tenderness and devotion of my +whole life can make you happy, happiness shall not fail to be yours." + +Ivy's gaze never for a moment drooped under his, earnest and piercing +though it was. + +"Now I am happy," she said, slowly and distinctly. "Now I am blessed. I +can never ask anything more." + +"But I ask something more," he replied, bending forward eagerly. "I ask +much more. I want your love. Shall I have it? And I want you." + +"My love?" She blushed slightly, but spoke without hesitation. "Have I +not given it,--long, long before you asked it, before you even cared +for my friendship? Not love only, but life, my very whole being, +centred in you, does now, and will always. Is it right to say +this?--maidenly? But I am not ashamed. I shall always be proud to have +loved you, though only to lose you,--and to be loved by you is glory +enough for all my future." + +For a short time the relative position of these two people was changed. +I allude to the change in this distant manner, as all who have ever +been lovers will be able to judge what it was; and I do not wish to +forestall the sweet surprise of those who have not. + +Ivy rested there (query, where?) a moment; but as he whispered, "Thus +you answer the second question? You give me yourself too?" she hastily +freed herself. (Query, from what?) + +"Never!" + +"Ivy!" + +"Never!" more firmly than before. + +"What does this mean?" he said, sternly. "Are you trifling?" + +There was such a frown on his brow as Ivy had never seen. She quailed +before it. + +"Do not be angry! Alas! I am not trifling. Life itself is not worth so +much as your love. But the impassable gulf is between us just the +same." + +"What is it? Who put it there?" + +"God put it there. Mrs. Simm showed it to me." + +"Mrs. Simm be--! A prating gossip! Ivy, I told you, you were never to +mention that again,--never to think of it; and you must obey me." + +"I will try to obey you in that." + +"And very soon you shall promise to obey me in all things. But I will +not be hard with you. The yoke shall rest very lightly,--so lightly you +shall not feel it. You will not do as much, I dare say. You will make +me acknowledge your power every day, dear little vixen! Ivy, why do you +draw back? Why do you not come to me?" + +"I cannot come to you, Mr. Clerron, any more. I must go home now, and +stay at home." + +"When your home is here, Ivy, stay at home. For the present, don't go. +Wait a little." + +"You do not understand me. You will not understand me," said Ivy, +bursting into tears. "I _must_ leave you. Don't make the way so +difficult." + +"I will make it so difficult that you cannot walk in it." + +His tones were low, but determined. + +"Why do you wish to leave me? Have you not said that you loved me?" + +"It is because I love you that I go. I am not fit for you. I was not +made for you. I can never make you happy. I am not accomplished. I +cannot go among your friends, your sisters. I am awkward. You would be +ashamed of me, and then you would not love me; you could not; and I +should lose the thing I most value. No, Mr. Clerron,--I would rather +keep your love in my own heart and my own home." + +"Ivy, can you be happy without me?" + +"I shall not be without you. My heart is full of lifelong joyful +memories. You need not regret me. Yes, I shall be happy. I shall work +with mind and hands. I shall not pine away in a mean and feeble life. I +shall be strong, and cheerful, and active, and helpful; and I think I +shall not cease to love you in heaven." + +"But there is, maybe, a long road for us to travel before we reach +heaven, and I want you to help me along. Ivy, I am not so spiritual as +you. I cannot live on memory. I want you before me all the time. I want +to see you and talk with you every day. Why do you speak of such +things? Is it the soul or its surroundings that you value? Do _you_ +respect or care for wealth and station? Do _you_ consider a woman your +superior because she wears a finer dress than you?" + +"I? No, Sir! No, indeed! you very well know. But the world does, and +you move in the world; and I do not want the world to pity you because +you have an uncouth, ignorant wife. _I_ don't want to be despised by +those who are above me only in station." + +"Little aristocrat, you are prouder than I. Will you sacrifice your +happiness and mine to your pride?" + +"Proud perhaps I am, but it is not all pride. I think you are noble, +but I think also you could not help losing patience when you found that +I could not accommodate myself to the station to which you had raised +me. Then you would not respect me. I am, indeed, too proud to wish to +lose that; and losing your respect, as I said before, I should not long +keep your love." + +"But you will accommodate yourself to any station. My dear, you are +young, and know so little about this world, which is such a bugbear to +you. Why, there is very little that will be greatly unlike this. At +first you might be a little bewildered, but I shall be by you all the +time, and you shall feel and fear nothing, and gradually you will learn +what little you need to know; and most of all, you will know yourself +the best and the loveliest of women. Dear Ivy, I would not part with +your sweet, unconscious simplicity for all the accomplishments and +acquired elegancies of the finest lady in the world." (That's what men +always say.) "You are not ignorant of anything you ought to know, and +your ignorance of the world is an additional charm to one who knows so +much of its wickedness as I. But we will not talk of it. There is no +need. This shall be our home, and here the world will not trouble us." + +"And I cannot give up my dear father and mother. They are not like you +and your friends"-- + +"They are my friends, and valued and dear to me, and dearer still they +shall be as the parents of my dear little wife"-- + +"I was going to say"-- + +"But you shall not say it. I utterly forbid you ever to mention it +again. You are mine, all my own. Your friends are my friends, your +honor my honor, your happiness my happiness henceforth; and what God +joins together let not man or woman put asunder." + +"Ah!" whispered Ivy, faintly; for she was yielding, and just beginning +to receive the sense of great and unexpected bliss, "but if you should +be wrong,--if you should ever repent of this, it is not your happiness +alone, but mine, too, that will be destroyed." + +Again their relative positions changed, and _remained so_ for a long +while. + +"Ivy, am I a mere schoolboy to swear eternal fidelity for a week? Have +I not been tossing hither and thither on the world's tide ever since +you lay in your cradle, and do I not know my position and my power and +my habits and love? And knowing all this, do I not know that this dear +head"----etc., etc., etc., etc. + +But I said I was not going to marry my man and woman, did I not? Nor +have I. To be sure, you may have detected premonitory symptoms, but I +said nothing about that. I only promised not to marry them, and I have +not married them. + +It is to be hoped they were married, however. For, on a fine June +evening, the setting sun cast a mellow light through the silken +curtains of a pleasant chamber, where Ivy lay on a white couch, pale +and and still,--very pale and still and statuelike; and by her side, +bending over her, with looks of unutterable love, clasping her in his +arms, as if to give out of his own heart the life that had so nearly +ebbed from hers, pressing upon the closed eyes, the white cheeks, the +silent lips kisses of such warmth and tenderness as never thrilled +maidenly lips in their rosiest flush of beauty,--knelt Felix Clerron; +and when the tremulous life fluttered back again, when the blue eyes +slowly opened and smiled up into his with an answering love, his +happiness was complete. + +In a huge arm-chair, bolt upright, where they had placed him, sat +Farmer Geer, holding in his sadly awkward hands the unconscious cause +of all this agitation, namely, a poor, little, horrid, gasping, crying, +writhing, old-faced, distressed-looking, red, wrinkled, ridiculous +baby! between whose "screeches" Farmer Geer could be heard muttering, +in a dazed, bewildered way,--"Ivy's baby! Oh, Lud! who'd 'a' thunk it? +No more'n yesterday she was a baby herself. Lud! Lud!" + + + + +THE PORTRAIT. + + +In a lumbering attic room, + Where, for want of light and air, +Years had died within the gloom, + Leaving dead dust everywhere, + Everywhere, +Hung the portrait of a lady, + With a face so fair! + +Time had long since dulled the paint, + Time, which all our arts disguise, +And the features now were faint, + All except the wondrous eyes, + Wondrous eyes, +Ever looking, looking, looking, + With such sad surprise! + +As man loveth, man had loved + Her whose features faded there; +As man mourneth, man had mourned, + Weeping, in his dark despair, + Bitter tears, +When she left him broken-hearted + To his death of years. + +Then for months the picture bent + All its eyes upon his face, +Following his where'er they went,-- + Till another filled the place + In its stead,-- +Till the features of the living + Did outface the dead. + +Then for years it hung above + In that attic dim and ghast, +Fading with the fading love, + Sad reminder of the past,-- + Save the eyes, +Ever looking, ever looking, + With such sad surprise! + +Oft the distant laughter's sound + Entered through the cobwebbed door, +And the cry of children found + Dusty echoes from the floor + To those eyes, +Ever looking, ever looking, + With their sad surprise. + +Once there moved upon the stair + Olden love-steps mounting slow, +But the face that met him there + Drove him to the depths below; + For those eyes +Through his soul seemed looking, looking, + All their sad surprise. + +From that day the door was nailed + Of that memory-haunted room, +And the portrait hung and paled + In the dead dust and the gloom,-- + Save the eyes, +Ever looking, ever looking, + With such sad surprise! + + + + +A LEAF + +FROM THE AMERICAN MAGAZINE-LITERATURE OF THE LAST CENTURY. + + +One hundred and sixteen years ago, to wit, on the 20th day of October, +A.D. 1743, the quiet precincts of certain streets in the town of Boston +were the theatre of unusual proceedings. An unwonted activity pervaded +the well-known printing-office of the "Messrs. Rogers and Fowle, in +Prison Lane," now Court Street; a small printed sheet was being worked +off,--not with the frantic rush and roar of one of Hoe's six-cylinder +giants, but with the calm circumspection befitting the lever-press and +ink-balls of that day,--to be conveyed, so soon as it should have +assumed a presentable shape, to the counters of "Samuel Eliot, in +Cornhill" and "Joshua Blanchard, in Dock Square," (and, we will hope, +to the addresses indicated on a long subscription-list,) for the +entertainment and instruction of ladies in high-heeled shoes and hoops, +forerunners of greater things thereafter, and gentlemen in big wigs, +cocked hats, and small-clothes, no more to be encountered in our daily +walks, and known to their degenerate descendants only by the aid of the +art of limner or sculptor. + +For some fifteen years, both in England and America, there had been +indications of an approaching modification in the existing forms of +periodical literature, enlarging its scope to something better and +higher than the brief and barren résumé of current events to which the +Gazette or News-Letter of the day was in the main confined, and +affording an opportunity for the free discussion of literary and +artistic questions. Thus was gradually developed a class of +publications which professed, while giving a proper share of attention +to the important department of news, to occupy the field of literature +rather than of journalism, and to serve as a _Museum, Depository_, or +_Magazine_, of the polite arts and sciences. The very marked success of +the "Gentleman's Magazine," the pioneer English publication of this +class, which appeared in 1731 under the management of Cave, and reached +the then almost[1] unparalleled sale often thousand copies, produced a +host of imitators and rivals, of which the "London Magazine," commenced +in April, 1732, was perhaps the most considerable. In January, 1741, +Benjamin Franklin began the publication of "The General Magazine and +Historical Chronicle for all the British Plantations in America," but +only six numbers were issued. In the same year, Andrew Bradford +published "The American Magazine, or Monthly View of the Political +State of the British Colonies," which was soon discontinued. Both these +unsuccessful ventures were made at Philadelphia. There were similar +attempts in Boston a little later. "The Boston Weekly Magazine" made +its appearance March 2,1743, and lived just four weeks. "The Christian +History," edited by Thomas Prince, Jr., son of the author of the "New +England Chronology," appeared three days after, (March 5, 1743,) and +reached the respectable age of two years. It professed to exhibit, +among other things, "Remarkable Passages, Historical and Doctrinal, out +of the most Famous old Writers both of the Church of England and +Scotland from the Reformation; as also the first Settlers of New +England and their Children; that we may see how far their pious +Principles and Spirit are at this day revived, and may guard against +all Extremes." + +[Footnote 1: It is said that as many as twenty thousand copies of +particular numbers of the "Spectator" were sold.] + +It would appear, however, that none of the four magazines last named +were so general in their scope, or so well conducted, certainly they +were not so long-lived, as "The American Magazine and Historical +Chronicle," the first number of which, bearing date "September, 1743," +appeared, as we have said, on the 20th of the following October, under +the editorial charge, as is generally supposed, of Jeremy Gridley, +Esq., Attorney-General of the Province of Massachusetts Bay, and the +head of the Masonic Fraternity in America, though less known to us, +perhaps, in either capacity, than he is as the legal instructor of the +patriot Otis, a pupil whom it became his subsequent duty as the officer +of the crown to encounter in that brilliant and memorable argument +against the "Writs of Assistance," which the pen of the historian, and, +more recently, the chisel of the sculptor, have contributed to render +immortal. This publication, if we regard it, as we doubtless may, as +the original and prototype of the "American Magazine," would seem to +have been rightly named. It was printed on what old Dr. Isaiah Thomas +calls "a fine medium paper in 8vo," and he further assures us that "in +its execution it was deemed equal to any work of the kind then +published in London." In external appearance, it was a close copy of +the "London Magazine," from whose pages (probably to complete the +resemblance) it made constant and copious extracts, not always +rendering honor to whom honor was due, and in point of mechanical +excellence, as well as of literary merit, certainly eclipsed the +contemporary newspaper-press of the town, the "Boston Evening Post," +"Boston News Letter" and the "New England Courant." The first number +contained forty-four pages, measuring about six inches by eight. The +scope and object of the Magazine, as defined in the Preface, do not +vary essentially from the line adopted by its predecessors and +contemporaries, and seem, in the main, identical with what we have +recounted above as characteristic of this new movement in letters. The +novelty and extent of the field, and the consequent fewness and +inexperience of the laborers, are curiously shown by the miscellaneous, +_omnium-gatherum_ character of the publication, which served at once as +a Magazine, Review, Journal, Almanac, and General Repository and +Bulletin;--the table of contents of the first number exhibits a list of +subjects which would now be distributed among these various classes of +periodical literature, and perhaps again parcelled out according to the +subdivisions of each. Avowedly neutral in politics and religion, as +became an enterprise which relied upon the patronage of persons of all +creeds and parties, it recorded (usually without comment) the current +incidents of political and religious interest. A summary of news +appeared at the end of each number, under the head of "Historical +Chronicle"; but in the body of the Magazine are inserted, side by side +with what would now be termed "local items," contemporary narratives of +events, many of which have, in the lapse of more than a century, +developed into historical proportions, but which here meet us, as it +were, at first hand, clothed in such homely and impromptu dress as +circumstances might require, with all their little roughnesses, +excrescences, and absurdities upon them,--crude lumps of mingled fact +and fiction, not yet moulded and polished into the rounded periods of +the historian. + +The Magazine was established at the period of a general commotion among +the dry bones of New England Orthodoxy, caused by what is popularly +known as "the New-Light Movement," to do battle with which heresy arose +"The Christian History," above alluded to. The public mind was widely +and deeply interested, and the first number of our Magazine opens with +"A Dissertation on the State of Religion in North America," which is +followed by a fiery manifesto of the "Anniversary Week" of 1743, +entitled "The Testimony of the Pastors of the Churches in the Province +of the Massachusetts Bay in New-England at their Annual Convention in +Boston, May 25, 1743, Against several Errors in Doctrine and Disorders +in Practice, which have of late obtained in various Parts of the Land; +as drawn up by a Committee chosen by the said Pastors, read and +accepted Paragraph by Paragraph, and voted to be sign'd by the +Moderator in their Name, and Printed." These "Disorders" and "Errors" +are specified under six heads, being generalized at the outset as +"Antinomian and Familistical Errors." The number of strayed sheep must +have been considerable, since we find a Rejoinder put forth on the +seventh of the following July, which bears the signatures of +"Sixty-eight Pastors of Churches," (including fifteen who signed with a +reservation as to one Article,) styled "The Testimony and Advice of an +Assembly of Pastors of Churches in New England, at a Meeting in Boston, +July 7, 1743. Occasion'd by the late happy Revival of Religion in many +Parts of the Land." Some dozen new books, noticed in this number, are +likewise all upon theological subjects. The youthful University of Yale +took part in the conflict, testifying its zeal for the established +religion by punishing with expulsion (if we are to believe a writer in +"The New York Post-Boy" of March 17, 1745) two students, "for going +during Vacation, and while at Home with their Parents, to hear a +neighboring Minister preach who is distinguished in this Colony by the +Name of New Light, being by their said Parents perswaded, desired, or +ordered to go." The statement, however, is contradicted in a subsequent +number by the President of the College, the Rev. Thomas Clapp, D.D., +who states "that they were expelled for being Followers of the Paines, +two Lay Exhorters, whose corrupt Principles and pernicious Practices +are set forth in the Declaration of the Ministers of the County of +Windham." In all probability the outcasts had "corrupt Principles and +pernicious Practices" charged to their private account in the Faculty +books, to which, quite as much as to any departure from Orthodox +standards, they may have been indebted for leave to take up their +connections. + +The powerful Indian Confederacy, known as the Six Nations, had just +concluded at Philadelphia their famous treaty with the whites, and in +the numbers for October and November, 1743, we are furnished with some +curious notes of the proceedings at the eight or nine different +councils held on the occasion, which may or may not be historically +accurate. That the news was not hastily gathered or digested may be +safely inferred from the fact that the proceedings of the councils, +which met in July, 1742, are here given to the public at intervals of +fifteen and sixteen months afterwards. The assemblies were convened +first "at Mr. Logan's House," next "at the Meeting House," and finally +"at the Great Meeting House," where the seventh meeting took place July +10, in the presence of "a great Number of the Inhabitants of +Philadelphia." As usual, the Indians complain of their treatment at the +hands of the traders and their agents, and beg for more fire-water. "We +have been stinted in the Article of Rum in Town," they pathetically +observe,--"we desire you will open the Rum Bottle, and give it to us +in greater Abundance on the Road"; and again, "We hope, as you have +given us Plenty of good Provision whilst In Town, that you will +continue your Goodness so far as to supply us with a little more to +serve us on the Road." The first, at least, of these requests seems to +have been complied with; the Council voted them twenty gallons of +rum,--in addition to the twenty-five gallons previously bestowed,-- +"to comfort them on the Road"; and the red men departed in an amicable +mood, though, from the valedictory address made them by the Governor, +we might perhaps infer that they had found reason to contrast the +hospitality of civilization with that shown in the savage state, to the +disadvantage of the former. "We wish," he says, "there had been more +Room and better Houses provided for your Entertainment, but not +expecting so many of you we did the best we could. 'Tis true there are +a great many Houses in Town, but as they are the Property of other +People who have their own Families to take care of, it is difficult to +procure Lodgings for a large Number of People, especially if they come +unexpectedly." + +But the great item of domestic intelligence, which confronts us under +various forms in the pages of this Magazine, is the siege and capture +of Louisburg, and the reduction of Cape Breton to the obedience of the +British crown,--an acquisition for which his Majesty was so largely +indebted to the military skill of Sir William Pepperell, and the +courage of the New England troops, that we should naturally expect to +find the exploit narrated at length in a contemporary Boston magazine. +The first of the long series is an extract from the "Boston Evening +Post" of May 13, 1745, entitled, "A short Account of Cape Breton"; +which is followed by "A further Account of the Island of Cape Breton, +of the Advantages derived to France from the Possession of that +Country, and of the Fishery upon its Coasts; and the Benefit that must +necessarily result to Great Britain from the Recovery of that important +Place,"--from the "London Courant" of July 25. In contrast to this cool +and calculating production, we have next the achievement, as seen from +a military point of view, in a "Letter from an Officer of Note in the +Train," dated Louisburg, June 20, 1745, who breaks forth thus:--"Glory +to God, and Joy and Happiness to my Country in the Reduction of this +Place, which we are now possessed of. It's a City vastly beyond all +Expectation for Strength and beautiful Fortifications; but we have made +terrible Havock with our Guns and Bombs. ... Such a fine City will be +an everlasting Honour to my Countrymen." Farther on, we have another +example of military eloquence in a "Letter from a Superior Officer at +Louisburgh, to his Friend and Brother at Boston," dated October 22, +1745. To this succeeds "A particular Account of the Siege and Surrender +of Louisburgh, on the 17th of June, 1745." The resources of the +pictorial art are called in to assist the popular conception of the +great event, and we are treated on page 271 to a rude wood-cut, +representing the "Town and Harbour of Louisburgh," accompanied by +"Certain Particulars of the Blockade and Distress of the Enemy." Still +farther on appears "The Declaration of His Excellency, William Shirley, +Esq., Captain General and Governour in Chief of the Province of the +Massachusetts Bay, to the Garrison at Louisburgh." July 18, 1745, was +observed as "a Day of publick Thanksgiving, agreeably to His +Excellency's Proclamation of the 8th inst., on Account of the wonderful +Series of Successes attending our Forces in the Reduction of the City +and Fortress of Louisburgh with the Dependencies thereof at Cape Breton +to the Obedience of His Majesty." There are also accounts of rejoicings +at Newport, New Haven, New York, Philadelphia, and other places. Nor +was the Muse silent on such an auspicious occasion: four adventurous +flights in successive numbers of the Magazine attest the loyalty, if +not the poetic genius of Colonial bards; and a sort of running fire of +description, narrative, and anecdote concerning the important event is +kept up in the numbers for many succeeding months. + +But, whatever may have been the magnitude and interest of domestic +affairs, the enterprising vigilance of our journalists was far from +overlooking prominent occurrences on the other side of the water, and +the news by all the recent arrivals, dating from three to six months +later from Europe, was carefully, if at times somewhat briefly, +recapitulated. In this manner our ancestors heard of the brilliant +campaigns of Prince George, the Duke of Cumberland, and Marshal de +Noailles, during the War of the Austrian Succession,--of the battle of +Dettingen in June, 1743,--of the declaration of war between the kings +of France and England in March, 1744; and, above all, of the great +Scotch Rebellion of 1745. Here was stirring news, indeed, for the +citizens of Boston, and for all British subjects, wherever they might +be. The suspense in which loyal New England was plunged, as to whether +"great George our King and the Protestant succession" were to succumb +before the Pretender and his Jesuitical followers, was happily +terminated by intelligence of the decisive battle of Culloden, the +tidings of which victory, gained on the 16th of April, 1746, appear in +the number for July. Public joy and curiosity demanded full particulars +of the glorious news, and a copy of the official narrative of the +battle, dated "Inverness, April 18th," is served out to the hungry +quidnuncs of Boston, in the columns of our Magazine, as had been done +three months before to consumers equally rapacious in the London +coffeehouses. With commendable humanity, the loss of the insurgent army +is put at "two thousand,"--although "the Rebels by their own Accounts +make the Loss greater by 2000 than we have stated it." In the fatal +list appears the name of "Cameron of Lochiel," destined, through the +favor of the Muse, to an immortality which is denied to equally +intrepid and unfortunate compatriots. The terms of the surrender upon +parole of certain French and Scotch officers at Inverness,--the return +of the ordnance and stores captured,--names of the killed and wounded +officers of the rebel army,--various congratulatory addresses,--an +extract from a letter from Edinburgh, concerning the battle,--an +account of the subsequent movement of the forces,--various anecdotes of +the Duke of Cumberland, during the engagement,--etc., are given with +much parade and circumstance. The loyalty of the citizens is evidenced +by the following "local item," under date of "Boston, Thursday, +3d":--"Upon the Confirmation of the joyful News of the Defeat of the +Rebels in Scotland, and of the Life and Health of His Royal Highness +the Duke of Cumberland, on Wednesday, the 2d inst., at Noon, the Guns +at Castle William and the Batteries of the Town were fired, as were +those on Board the Massachusetts Frigate, etc., and in the Evening we +had Illuminations and other Tokens of Joy and Satisfaction." There are +also curious biographical sketches and anecdotes of the Earl of +Kilmarnock, Lord Balmerino, and others, among those engaged in this +ill-judged attempt, who expiated their treason on the scaffold, from +which interesting extracts might be made. The following seems a very +original device for the recovery of freedom,--one, we think, which, to +most readers of the present day even, will truly appear a "new" and +"extraordinary Invention":-- + +"Carlisle, Sept. 27, 1746. + +"The Method taken by the Rebels here under Sentence of Death to make +their Escape is quite new, and reckoned a most extraordinary Invention, +as by no other Instrument than a Case-Knife, a Drinking-Glass and a +Silk Handkerchief, seven of them in one Night had sawn off their Irons, +thus:--They laid the Silk Handkerchief single, over the Mouth of the +Glass, but stretched it as much as it would bear, and tied it hard at +the Bottom of the Glass; then they struck the Edge of the Knife on the +Mouth of the Glass, (thus covered with the Handkerchief to prevent +Noise,) till it became a Saw, with which they cut their Irons till it +was Blunt, and then had Recourse to the Mouth of the Glass again to +renew the Teeth of the Saw; and so completed their Design by Degrees. +This being done in the Dead of Night, and many of them at Work +together, the little Noise they made was overheard by the Centinels; +who informed their Officers of it, they quietly doubled their Guard, +and gave the Rebels no Disturbance till Morning, when it was discovered +that several of them were loose, and that others had been trying the +same Trick. 'Tis remarkable that a Knife will not cut a Handkerchief +when struck upon it in this Manner." + +About one-eighth part of the first volume of the Magazine is occupied +with reports of Parliamentary debates, entitled, "Journal of the +Proceedings and Debates of a Political Club of young Noblemen and +Gentlemen established some time ago in London." They seem to be copied, +with little, if any alteration, from the columns of the "London +Magazine," and are introduced to an American public with this mildly +ironical preface:--"We shall give our Readers in our next a List of the +British Parliament. And as it is now render'd unsafe to entertain the +Publick with any Accounts of their Proceedings or Debates, we shall +give them in their Stead, in some of our subsequent Magazines, Extracts +from the Journals of a Learned and Political Club of young Noblemen and +Gentlemen established some time ago in London. Which will in every +Respect answer the same Intentions." + +The scientific world was all astir just then with new-found marvels of +Electricity,--an interest which was of course much augmented in this +country by the ingenious experiments and speculations of the +printer-philosopher. In the volume for the year 1745 is "An Historical +Account of the wonderful Discoveries made in Germany, etc., concerning +Electricity," in the course of which the writer says, (speaking of the +experiments of a Mr. Gray,) "He also discovered another surprising +Property of electric Virtue, which is that the approach of a Tube of +electrified Glass communicates to a hempen or silken Cord an electric +Force which is conveyed along the Cord to the Length of 886 feet, at +which amazing Distance it will impregnate a Ball of Ivory with the same +Virtue as the Tube from which it was derived." So true is it, that +things are great and small solely by comparison: the lapse of something +over a century has gradually stretched this "amazing distance" to many +hundreds of miles, and now the circumference of the globe is the only +limit which we feel willing to set to its extension. + +At page 691 of the previous volume we have an "Extract from a Pamphlet +lately published at Philadelphia intitled 'An Account of the New +Invented Pennsylvanian Fire Places.'" This was probably from the pen of +Franklin, who expatiates as follows on the advantages derivable from +these fireplaces, which are still occasionally to be met with, and +known as "Franklin Stoves":--"By the Help of this saving Invention our +Wood may grow as fast as we consume it, and our Posterity may warm +themselves at a moderate Rate, without being oblig'd to fetch their +Fuel over the Atlantick; as, if Pit-Coal should not be here discovered, +(which is an Uncertainty,) they must necessarily do." + +That a taste for the beauties of Nature was extant at the epoch of +which we treat may be inferred from the statement of a writer who +commences "An Essay in Praise of the Morning" as follows:--"I have the +good Fortune to be so pleasantly lodg'd as to have a Prospect of a +neighboring Grove, where the Eye receives the most delicious +Refreshment from the lively Verdure of the Greens, and the wild +Regularity by which the Scene shifts off and disparts itself into a +beautiful Chequer." + +The ever interesting and disputed topics of dress and diet come in for +an occasional discussion. The following is a characteristic specimen of +the satirical vein of the British essayist school, though we have been +unable to ascertain, by reference to the "Spectator," "Tatler," +"Rambler," "Guardian," etc., the immediate source whence it was taken. +It reads as follows:--"_History of Female Dress_. The sprightly Gauls +set their little Wits to work again," (on resuming the war under Queen +Anne,) "and invented a wonderful Machine call'd a Hoop Petticoat. In +this fine Scheme they had more Views than one; they had compar'd their +own Climate and Constitution with that of the British, and finding both +warmer, they naturally enough concluded that would only be pleasantly +cool to them, which would perhaps give the British Ladies the +Rheumatism, and that if they once got them off their Legs they should +have them at Advantage; Besides, they had been inform'd, though +falsely, that the British Ladies had not good Legs, and then at all +Events this Scheme would expose them. With these pernicious Views they +set themselves to work, and form'd a Rotund of near 7 Yards about, and +sent the Pattern over by the Sussex Smugglers with an Intent that it +should be seiz'd and expos'd to Publick View; which happen'd +accordingly, and made its first Appearance at a Great Man's House on +that Coast, whose Lady claim'd it as her peculiar Property. In it she +first struck at Court what the learned in Dress call a bold Stroke; and +was thereupon constituted General of the British Ladies during the War. +Upon the Whole this Invention did not answer. The Ladies suffer'd a +little the first Winter, but after that were so thoroughly harden'd +that they improv'd upon the Contrivers by adding near 2 Yards to its +Extension, and the Duke of Marlboro' having about the same Time beat +the French, the Gallic Ladies dropt their Pretensions, and left the +British Misstresses of the Field; the Tokens whereof are worn in +Triumph to this Day, having outlasted the Colors in Westminster Hall, +and almost that great General's Glory." + +To a similar source must probably be referred an article in the same +volume, entitled, "Of Diet in General, and of the bad Effects of +Tea-Drinking." The genuine conservative flavor of the extract is +deliciously apparent, while its wholesale denunciations are drawn but +little, if at all, stronger than those which may even yet be +occasionally met with. "If we compare the Nature of Tea with the Nature +of English Diet, no one can think it a proper Vegetable for us. It has +no Parts fit to be assimilated to our Bodies; its essential Salt does +not hold Moisture enough to be joined to the Body of an Animal; its Oyl +is but very little, and that of the opiate kind, and therefore it is so +far from being nutritive, that it irritates and frets the Nerves and +Fibres, exciting the expulsive Faculty, so that the Body may be +lessened and weakened, but it cannot increase and be strengthened by +it. We see this by common Experience; the first Time persons drink it, +if they are full grown, it generally gives them a Pain at the Stomach, +Dejection of Spirits, Cold Sweats, Palpitation at the Heart, Trembling, +Fearfulness; taking away the Sense of Fulness though presently after +Meals, and causing a hypochondriac, gnawing Appetite. These symptoms +are very little inferiour to what the most poisonous Vegetables we have +in England would occasion when dried and used in the same manner. + +"These ill Effects of Tea are not all the Mischiefs it occasions. Did +it cause none of them, but were it entirely wholesome, as Balm or Mint, +it were yet Mischief enough to have our whole Populace used to sip warm +Water in a mincing, effeminate Manner, once or twice every Day; which +hot Water must be supped out of a nice Tea-Cup, sweatened with Sugar, +biting a Bit of nice thin Bread and Butter between Whiles. This mocks +the strong Appetite, relaxes the Stomach, satiates it with trifling +light Nick-Nacks which have little in them to support hard Labour. In +this manner the Bold and Brave become dastardly, the Strong become +weak, the Women become barren, or if they breed their Blood is made so +poor that they have not Strength to suckle, and if they do the Child +dies of the Gripes; In short, it gives an effeminate, weakly Turn to +the People in general." + +Another humorous philosopher, who is benevolently anxious that his +fellow-creatures may not be taken in by the rustic meteorologists, +satirically furnishes a number of infallible tests to determine the +approach of a severe season. He entitles his contribution to +meteorological science,--"_Jonathan Weatherwise's Prognostications._ +As it is not likely that I have a long Time to act on the Stage of this +Life, for what with Head-Aches, hard Labour, Storms and broken +Spectacles I feel my Blood chilling, and Time, that greedy Tyrant, +devouring my whole Constitution," etc.,--an exordium which is certainly +well adapted to excite our sympathy for Jonathan, even if it fail to +inspire confidence in his "Prognostications," and leave us a little in +the dark as to the necessary connection between "broken spectacles" and +the "chilling of the blood." The criteria he gives us are truly +Ingenious and surprising; but though the greater part would prove +novel, we believe, to the present generation, we can here quote but +one. He tells us, that, when a boy, he "swore revenge on the Grey +Squirrel," in consequence of a petted animal of this species having +"bitten off the tip of his grandmother's finger,"--a resolution which +proved, as we shall see, unfortunate for the squirrels, but of immense +advantage to science. To gratify this dire animosity, and in fulfilment +of his vow, he persevered for nearly half a century in the perilous and +exciting sport of squirrel-hunting, departing "every Year, for +forty-nine successive Years, on the 22d of October, excepting when that +Day fell on a Sunday," in which case he started on the Monday +following, to take vengeance for the outrage committed on his aged +relative. Calm philosophy, however, enabled him, "in the very storm, +tempest, and, as I may say, whirlwind of his passion," to observe and +record the following remarkable fact in Zoology: "When shot from a high +Limb they would put their Tails in their Mouths as they were tumbling, +and die in that Manner; I did not know what to make of it, 'till, in +Process of Time, I found that when they did so a hard Winter always +succeeded, and this may be depended on as infallible." + +The author of "An Essay on Puffing" (a topic which we should hardly +have thought to have found under discussion at a period so much nearer +the golden age than the present) remarks,--"Dubious and uncertain is +the Source or Spring of Puffing in this Infant Country, it not being +agreed upon whether Puffs were imported by the primitive Settlers of +the Wilderness, (for the Puff is not enumerated in the aboriginal +Catalogue,) or whether their Growth was spontaneous or accidental. +However uncertain we are about the Introduction or first Cultivation of +Puffs, it is easy to discover the Effects or Consequences of their +Improvement in all Professions, Perswasions and Occupations." + +Under the head which has assumed, in modern journalism, an extent and +importance second only to the Puff, to wit, the "Horrible Accident +Department," we find but a single item, but that one of a nature so +unique and startling that it seems to deserve transcribing. "February 7 +[1744]. We hear from Statten Island that a Man who had been married +about 5 months, having a Design to get rid of his Wife, got some +poisoned Herbs with which he advised her to stuff a Leg of Veal, and +when it was done found an Excuse to be absent himself; but his Wife +having eat of it found herself ill, and he coming Home soon after +desired her to fry him some Sausages which she did, and having +eat of them also found himself ill; upon which he asked his +Wife what she fried them in, who answered, in the Sauce of the +Veal; then, said he, I am a dead man: So they continued sick for some +Days and then died, but he died the first." We hardly know which most +to admire, the graphic and terrible simplicity of this narrative of +villany, or the ignorance which it discovers of the modern art of +penny-a-lining, an expert practitioner of which would have spread the +shocking occurrence over as many columns as this bungling report +comprises sentences. + +The poetical contents of our Magazine consist mainly, as we have said, +of excerpts from the popular productions of English authors, as they +were found in the magazines of the mother country or in their published +works, the diluted stanzas of their imitators, satirical verses, +epigrams, and translations from the Latin poets. There are, however, +occasional strains from the native Muse, and here and there a waif from +sources now, perhaps, lost or forgotten. Before "he threw his Virgil by +to wander with his dearer bow," Mr. Freneau's Indian seems to have +determined to leave on record a proof of his classical attainments, for +he is doubtless the author of "A Latin Ode written by an American +Indian, a Junior Sophister at Cambridge, anno 1678, on the death of the +Reverend and Learned Mr. Thacher,"--a translation of which is given at +page 166, prefaced thus:--"As the Original of the following Piece is +very curious, the publishing this may perhaps help you to some better +Translation. Attempted from the Latin of an American Indian." The +probability that any reader of the present paper would be disposed to +help us to this "better Translation" seems too remote to warrant us in +giving the Ode _in extenso_; nor do we think any would thank us for +transcribing a cloudy effusion, a little farther on, entitled, "On the +Notion of an abstract antecedent Fitness of Things." The following +estrays are perhaps worth the capture; they profess to date back to the +reign of Queen Mary, and are styled, "Some Forms of Prayer used by the +vulgar Papists." + + +THE LITTLE CREED. + +Little Creed can I need, +Kneel before our Lady's Knee, + Candle light, Candle burn, + Our Lady pray'd to her dear Son + That we might all to Heaven come; +Little Creed, Amen! + + +THE WHITE PATER NOSTER. + +White Pater Noster, St. Peter's Brother, + What hast thou in one hand? White-Book Leaves. + What hast i'th' to'ther? Heaven Gate Keys. +Open Heaven Gates, and steike (shut) Hell Gates, + And let every crysom Child creep to its own mother: + White Pater Noster, Amen! + +We do not think that the poets of the anti-shaving movement have as yet +succeeded in producing anything worthy to be set off against a series +of spirited stanzas under the heading of "The Razor, a Poem," which we +commend to the immediate and careful attention of the "Razor-strop +Man." The following are the concluding verses:-- + + "But, above all, thou grand Catholicon, + Or by what useful Name so'er thou'rt call'd, + Thou Sweet Composer of the tortur'd Mind! + When all the Wheels of Life are heavy clogg'd + With Cares or Pain, and nought but Horror dire + Before us stalks with dreadful Majesty, + Embittering all the Pleasures we enjoy; + To thee, distressed, we call; thy gentle Touch + Consigns to balmy Sleep our troubled Breasts." + +Evidently the production of a philosopher and an economist of time: for +who else would have thought of shaving before going to bed, instead of +at the matutinal toilet? + +In less than five years from the date of its first number, (1743,) "The +American Magazine and Historical Chronicle" had ceased to exist, and in +the year 1757 appeared "The American Magazine and Monthly Chronicle for +the British Colonies." This was published by Mr. William Bradford in +Philadelphia, under the auspices of "a Society of Gentlemen," who +declare themselves to be "_veritatis cultores, fraudis inimici_," but +who probably found themselves unequal to the difficulties of such a +position, the Magazine having expired just one year after its birth. It +was followed by "The New England Magazine," (1758,) "The American +Magazine," (1769,) "The Royal American Magazine," (1774,) "The +Pennsylvania Magazine, or American Monthly Museum," (1775,) "The +Columbian Magazine," (1786,) "The Worcester Magazine," (the same year,) +"The American Museum," (1787,) "The Massachusetts Magazine," (1789,) +"The New-York Magazine," (1790,) "The Rural Magazine & Vermont +Repository," (1796,) "The Missionary Magazine," (same year,)--and +others. The premature mortality characteristic of some of our own +magazine-literature was, even at this early period, painfully apparent: +none of the publications we have named survived their twelfth year, +most of them lived less than half that period. A great diversity in the +style and quality of their contents, as well as in external appearance, +is, of course, observable, and it somewhat requires the eye of faith to +see within their rusty and faded covers the germ of that gigantic +literary plant which, in this year of Grace, 1860, counts in the city +of Boston alone nearly one hundred and fifty periodical publications, +(about one-third being legitimate magazines,) perhaps as many more in +the other New England cities and towns, and a progeny of unknown, but +very considerable extent, throughout the Union. + +Apart even from their value to the historiographer and the antiquary, +few relics of the past are more suggestive or interesting than the old +magazine or newspaper. The houses, furniture, plate, clothing, and +decorations of the generations which have preceded us possess their +intrinsic value, and serve also to link by a thousand associations the +mysterious past with the actual and living present; but the old +periodical brings back to us, beside all this, the bodily presence, the +words, the actions, and even the very thoughts of the people of a +former age. It is, in mercantile phrase, a book of original entry, +showing us the transactions of the time in the light in which they were +regarded by the parties engaged in them, and reflecting the state of +public sentiment on innumerable topics,--moral, religious, political, +philosophic, military, and scientific. Its mistakes of fact or +induction are honest and palpable ones, easily corrected by +contemporaneous data or subsequent discoveries, and not often posted +into the ledger of history without detection. The learned and patient +labors of the savant or the scholar are not expected of the pamphleteer +or the periodical writer of the last century, or of the present; he +does but blaze the pathway of the pains-taking engineer who is to +follow him, happy enough, if he succeed in satisfying immediate and +daily demands, and in capturing the kind of game spoken of by Mr. Pope +in that part of his manual where he instructs us to + + "shoot folly as it flies, +And catch the manners living as they rise." + +Among us, however, the magazine-writer, as he existed in the last +century, has left few, if any, representatives. He is fading +silently away into a forgotten antiquity; his works are not +on the publishers' counters,--they linger only among the dust and +cobwebs of old libraries, listlessly thumbed by the exploring reader or +occasionally consulted by the curious antiquary. His place is occupied +by those who, in the multiplication of books, the diffusion of +information, and the general alteration of public taste, manners, and +habits, though revolving in a similar orbit, move in quite another +plane,--who have found in the pages of the periodical a theatre of +special activity, a way to the entertainment and instruction of the +many; and though much of what is thus produced may bear, as we have +hinted, a character more or less ephemeral, we are sometimes presented +also with the earlier blossoms and the fresher odors of a rich and +perennial growth of genius, everywhere known and acknowledged in the +realms of belles-lettres, philosophy, and science, crowded here as in a +nursery, to be soon transplanted to other and more permanent abodes. + + + + +COME SI CHIAMA? + +OR A LEAF FROM THE CENSUS OF 1850. + + +The first question asked of a "new boy" at school is, "What's your +name?" In this year of Grace the eighth decennial census is to be +taken, asking that same question of all new comers into the great +public school where towns and cities are educated. It will hardly be +effected with that marvellous perfection of organization by which Great +Britain was made to stand still for a moment and be statistically +photographed. For with consummate skill was planned that all-embracing +machinery, so that at one and the same moment all over the United +Kingdom the recording pen was catching every man's status and setting +it down. The tramp on the dusty highway, the clerk in the +counting-house, the sportsman upon the moor, the preacher in his +pulpit, game-bird and barn-door fowl alike, all were simultaneously +bagged. Unless, like the Irishman's swallow, you could be in two places +at once, down you went on the recording-tablets. Christopher Sly, from +the ale-house door, if caught while the Merry Duke had possession of +him, must be chronicled for a peer of the realm; Bully Bottom, if the +period of his translations fell in with the census-taking, must be +numbered among the cadgers' "mokes"; nay, if Dogberry himself had +encountered the officials at the moment of his pathetic lamentation, he +were irrevocably written down "an ass." + +We can hardly hope for such celerity and sure handling upon this side +of the water. Nor is this the subject we have just now in view. The +approaching advent of the census-taker has led us to look back at the +labor of his predecessor, and the careless turning over of its pages +has set us to musing upon NAMES. + +William Shakspeare asks, "What's in a name?" England's other great +poetical William has devoted a series of his versifyings to the naming +of places. Which has the right of it, let us not undertake to pronounce +without consideration. England herself has long ago determined the +question. As Mr. Emerson says of English names,--"They are an +atmosphere of legendary melody spread over the land; older than all +epics and histories which clothe a nation, this undershirt sits close +to the body." Dean Trench, who handles words as a numismatist his +coins, has said substantially the same thing. And it is true not of +England only; for the various lands of Europe are written over like +palimpsests with the story of successive conquests and dominations +chronicled in their local names. You stop and ask why a place is so +called,--sure to be rewarded by a legend lurking beneath the title. +Like the old crests of heraldry, with their "canting" mottoes beneath, +they are history in little, a war or a revolution distilled into the +powerful attar of a single phrase. The Rhineland towers of Falkenstein +and Stolzenfels are the local counterparts of the Scotch borderers' +"Thou shalt want ere I want," for ominous meaning. + +The volume we have just laid down painfully reminds us that the poet +and the historian have no such heritage in this land. We have done our +best to crowd out all the beautiful significant names we found here, +and to replace them by meaningless appellations. For the name of a +thing is that which really has in it something of that to which it +belongs, which describes and classifies it, and is its spoken +representative; while the appellation is only a title conferred by act +of Parliament or her Majesty's good pleasure: it cannot make a parvenu +into a peer. + +But we are not writing for the mere interest of the poet and the +novelist. Fit names are not given, but grow; and we believe there is +not a spot in the land, possessing any attractiveness, but has its name +ready fitted to it, waiting unsyllabled in the air above it for the +right sponsor to speak it into life. We plead for public convenience +simply. We are thinking not of the ears of taste, but of the brain of +business. We do not wonder at the monstrous accumulations of the +Dead-Letter Office, when we see the actual poverty which our system of +naming places has brought about. Pardon us a few statistics, and, as +you read them, remember, dear reader, that this is the story of ten +years ago, and that the enormous growths of the last decade have +probably increased the evil prodigiously. + +The volume in question gives a list of a trifle under ten thousand +places,--to be accurate, of nine thousand eight hundred and twenty odd. +For these nine thousand cities, towns, and villages have been provided +but _three_ thousand eight hundred and twenty names. All the rest have +been baptized according to the results of a promiscuous scramble. Some, +indeed, make a faint show of variety, by additions of such adjectives +as New, North, South, East, West, or Middle. If we reduce the list of +original names by striking out these and all the compounds of "ville," +"town," and the like, we get about three thousand really distinctive +names for American towns. Three hundred and thirty odd we found here +when we came,--being Indian or _Native_ American. Three hundred and +thirty more we imported from the United Kingdom of Great Britain and +Ireland. A dozen were added to them from the pure well of Welsh +undefiled, and mark the districts settled by Cambro-Britons. Out of our +Bibles we got thirty-three Hebrew appellations, nearly all ludicrously +inappropriate; and these we have been very fond of repeating. In +California, New Mexico, Texas, Florida, and the Louisiana purchase, we +bought our names along with the land. Fine old French and Spanish ones +they are; some thirty of them names of Saints, all well-sounding and +pleasant to the ear. And there is a value in these names not at first +perceptible. Most of them serve to mark the day of the year upon which +the town was founded. They are commemorative dates, which one need only +look at the calendar to verify. As an instance of this, there is the +forgotten title of Lake George, Lake St. Sacrament, which, in spite of +Dr. Cleveland Coxe's very graceful ballad, we must hold to have been +conferred because the lake was discovered on Corpus-Christi Day. In the +Mississippi Valley, the great chain of French military occupation can +still be faintly traced, like the half-obliterated lines of a redoubt +which the plough and the country road have passed over. + +There remain about two thousand names, which may fairly be called of +American manufacture. We exclude, of course, those which were +transferred from England, since they were probably brought directly. +They have a certain fitness, as affectionate memorials of the Old +Country lingering in the hearts of the exiles. Thus, though St. Botolph +was of the fenny shire of Lincoln, and the new comers to the +Massachusetts Bay named their little peninsula Suffolk, the county of +the "South-folk," we do not quarrel with them for calling their future +city "Bo's or Botolph's town," out of hearts which did not wholly +forget their birthplace with its grand old church, whose noble tower +still looks for miles away over the broad levels toward the German +Ocean. Nor do we think Plymouth to be utterly meaningless, though it is +not at the mouth of the Ply, or any other river such as wanders through +the Devon Moorlands to the British Channel. + + "Et parvam Trojam, simulataque magnis + Pergama, et arentem Xanthi cognomine rivum + Agnosco: Seaeaeque amplector limina portae." + +Throughout New England, and in all the original colonies, we find this +to be the case. But, as Americans, we must reject both what our fathers +brought and what they found. Two thousand specimens of the American +talent for nomenclature, then, we can exhibit. Walk up, gentlemen! Here +you have the top-crest of the great wave of civilization. Hero is a +people, emancipated from Old-World trammels, setting the world a +lesson. What is the result? With the grand divisions of our land we +have not had much to do. Of the States, seventeen were baptized by +their Indian appellations; four were named by French and Spanish +discoverers; six were called after European sovereigns; three, which +bear the prefix of New, have the names of English counties;--there +remains Delaware, the title of an English nobleman, leaving us +Pennsylvania, Indiana, and Rhode Island, three precious bits of modern +classicality. Let us now come to the counties. Ten years ago there were +some fifteen hundred and fifty-five of these. One hundred and +seventy-three bear Indian names, and there are one or two uncertain. +For these fifteen hundred and fifty-five counties there are eight +hundred and eighty-eight names, about one to every two. Seven hundred +are, then, of Anglo-Saxon bestowing? No. Another hundred are of Spanish +and French origin. Six hundred county-names remain; fifty of which, +neat as imported, are the names of English places, and fifty more are +names bestowed in compliment to English peers. Five hundred are the +American residuum. + +We beg pardon for these dry statistical details, over which we have +spent some little time and care; but they furnish a base of operations. +Yet something more remains to be added. We have, it is true, about two +thousand names of places and five hundred of counties purely American, +or at least due to American taste. In most instances the county-names +are repeated in some of the towns within their borders. Therefore we +fall back upon our original statement, that two thousand names are the +net product of Yankee ingenuity. It is hardly necessary to assure the +most careless reader that the vast majority of these are names of +persons. And it needs no wizard to conjecture that these are bestowed +in very unequal proportions. Here the true trouble of the +Postmaster-General and his staff begins. + +The most frequent names are, of course, those of the Presidents. The +"Father of his Country" has the honor of being god-father to no small +portion of it. For there are called after him _one_ territory, +_twenty-six_ counties, and _one hundred and thirty-eight_ towns and +villages. Adams, the next, has but _six_ counties and _twenty-six_ +towns; but his son is specially honored by a village named J.Q. Adams. +Jefferson has _seventeen_ counties and _seventy-four_ towns. Madison +has _fifteen_ counties and _forty-seven_ towns. Monroe has _sixteen_ +counties and _fifty-seven_ towns, showing that the "era of good +feeling" was extending in his day. The second Adams has one town to +himself; but the son of his father could expect no more. Jackson has +_fifteen_ counties and _one hundred and twenty-three_ towns, beside +_six_ "boroughs" and "villes,"--showing what it was to have won the +Battle of New Orleans. Van Euren gets _four_ counties and +_twenty-eight_ towns. Harrison _seven_ counties and _fifty-seven_ +towns, as becomes a log-cabin and hard-cider President. Tyler has but +_three_ counties, and not a single town, village, or hamlet even. Polk +has _five_ counties and _thirteen towns_. Taylor, _three_ counties and +_twelve_ towns. The remaining Presidents being yet in life and eligible +to a second term, it would be invidious to make further disclosures +till after the conventions. Among unsuccessful candidates there is a +vast difference in popularity. Clay has _thirty-two_ towns, and Webster +only _four_. Cass has _fourteen_, and Calhoun only _one_. Of +Revolutionary heroes, Wayne and Warren are the favorites, having +respectively _thirteen_ and _fourteen_ counties and _fifty-three_ and +_twenty-eight_ towns. But "Principles, not Men," has been at times the +American watchword; therefore there are _ten_ counties and _one hundred +and three_ towns named "Union." + +We have given the reader a dose, we fear, of statistics; but imagine +yourself, dear, patient friend, what you may yet be, Postmaster-General +of these United States, with the responsibility of providing for all +these bewildering post-offices. And we pray you to heed the absolute +poverty of invention which compelled forty-nine towns to call +themselves "Centre." Forty-nine Centres! There are towns named after +the points of compass simply,--not only the cardinal points, but the +others,--so that the census-taker may, if he likes, "box the compass," +in addition to his other duties. + +But worse than the too common names (anything but proper ones) are the +eccentric. The colors are well represented; for, beside Oil and Paint +for materials, there are Brown, Black, Blue, Green, White, Cherry, +Gray, Hazel, Plum, Rose, and Vermilion. The animals come in for their +share; for we find Alligator, Bald-Eagle, Beaver, Buck, Buffalo, Eagle, +Eel, Elk, Fawn, East-Deer and West-Deer, Bird, Fox, (in Elk County,) +Pigeon, Plover, Raccoon, Seal, Swan, Turbot, Wild-Cat, and Wolf. Then +again, the christening seems to have been preceded by the shaking in a +hat of a handful of vowels and consonants, the horrible results of +which _sortes_ appear as Alna, Cessna, Chazy, Clamo, Novi, (we suspect +the last two to be Latin verbs, out of place, and doing duty as +substantives,) Cumru, Freco, Fristo, Josco, Hamtramck, Medybemps, Haw, +Kan, Paw-Paw, Pee-Pee, Kinzua, Bono, Busti, Lagro, Letart, Lodomillo, +Moluncus, Mullica, Lomira, Neave, Oley, Orland, and the felicitous +ringing of changes which occurs in Luray, Leroy, and Leray, to say +nothing of Ballum, Bango, Helts, and Hellam. And in other unhappy +places, the spirit of whim seems to have seized upon the inhabitants. +Who would wish to write themselves citizens of Murder-Kill-Hundred, or +Cain, or of the town of Lack, which places must be on the high road to +Fugit and Constable? There are several anti-Maine-law places, such as +Tom and Jerry, Whiskeyrun, Brandywine, Jolly, Lemon, Pipe, and Pitcher, +in which Father Matthew himself could hardly reside unimpeached in +repute. They read like the names in the old-fashioned "Temperance +Tales," all allegory and alcohol, which flourished in our boyhood. + +Then, by way of counterpart to these, there are sixty-four places known +as Liberty, and thirteen as Freedom, but only one as Moral,--passing by +which, we suppose we shall come to Climax, and, thence descending, +arrive, as the whirligig of time appointeth, at Smackover, unless we +pause in Economy, or Equality, or Candor, or Fairplay. + +If we were land-hunters, we might ponder long over the town of Gratis, +unless we thought Bonus promised more. There is Extra, and, if +tautologically fond of grandeur, _Metropolis City_,--a mighty Babel of +(in 1850) _four hundred and twenty-seven_ inhabitants,--and Bigger, +which has _seven hundred_. A brisk man would hardly choose Nodaway for +his home, nor a haymaker the town of Rain. And of all practical +impertinences, what could in this land of novelty equal the calling of +one's abiding-place "New"? We fully expect that 1860 will reveal a +comparative and superlative, and perhaps even a super-superlative, +("Newest-of-all,") upon its columns. + +But what is the sense of such titles as Buckskin, Bullskin, (is it +Byrsa, by way of proving Solomon's adage,--"There is nothing new under +the sun"?) Chest, and Posey? There is one unfortunate place (do they +take the New York "Herald" and "Ledger" there?) which has "gone and got +itself christened" Mary Ann, and another (where "Childe Harold" is +doubtless in favor) is called Ada. There is a Crockery, a Carryall, and +a Turkey-Foot,--which last, like the broomstick in Goethe's ballad, is +chopped in two, only to reappear as a double nuisance, as Upper and +Lower Turkey-Foot. + +Then what paucity of ideas is revealed in the fact that a number of +names are simply common nouns, or, worse yet, spinster adjectives, +"singly blest"! Such are Hill, Mountain, Lake, Glade, Rock, Glen, Bay, +Shade, Valley, Village, District, Falls, which might profitably be +joined in holy matrimony with the following,--Grand, Noble, Plain, +Pleasant, Rich, Muddy, Barren, Fine, and Flat. + +As for one or two other unfortunates, like Bloom and Lumber, they can +only be sent to State's Prison for life, with Bean-Blossom and +Scrub-Grass. We need hardly mention that to the religious public, +including special attention to "clergymen and their families," Calvin, +Wesley, Whitefield, Tate, Brady, and Watts offer peculiar attractions. + +But there is a class of names which does gladden us, partly from their +oddity, and partly from a feeling at first sight that they are names +really suggestive of something which has happened,--and this is apt to +turn out the fact. Thus, Painted-Post, in New York, and Baton-Rouge, in +Louisiana, are honest, though quaint appellatives; Standing-Stone is +another; High-Spire, a fourth. Others of the same class provoke our +curiosity. Thus, Grand-View-and-Embarras seems to have a history. So do +Warrior's-Mark and Broken-Straw. There is one queer name, Pen-Yan, +which is said to denote the component parts of its population, +_Pen_nsylvanians and _Yan_kees; and we have hopes that Proviso is not +meaningless. Also we would give our best pen to know the true origin of +Loyal-Sock, and of Marine-Town in the inland State of Illinois. This +last is like a "shipwreck on the coast of Bohemia." There is, too, a +memorial of the Greek Revolution which tells its own story, +--Scio-and-Webster! We could hardly wish the awkward partnership +dissolved. But who will unravel the mysteries of New-Design and +New-Faul? and can any one tell us whether the fine Norman name of +Sanilac is really the euphonious substitute for Bloody-Pond? If there +be in America that excellent institution, "Notes and Queries," here is +matter for their meddling. + +But it is time to shut the book. For we are weary of picking holes in +our own _poncho_, and inclined to muse a little upon the science of +naming places. After what we have said about names growing,--_Nomen +nascitur, non fil,_--we cannot expect that the evil can be remedied by +Congress or Convention. Yet the Postal Department has fair cause of +complaint. Thus much might be required, that all the supernumerary +spots answering to the same hail should be compelled to change their +titles. Government exercises a tender supervision of the nomenclature +of our navy. Our ships of war are not permitted to disgrace the flag by +uncouth titles. Enterprising merchants have offered prizes for good +mouth-filling designations for their crack clippers, knowing that +freight and fortune often wait upon taking titles. Was the Flying Cloud +ever beaten? And in a land where all things change so lightly, why not +shake off the loosely sticking names and put on better? For at present, +the main end, that of conferring a _nomen_ or a name, something by +which the spot shall be known, has almost passed out of sight. If John +Smith, of the town of Smith, in Smith County, die, or commit forgery, +or be run for Congress, or write a book, his address might as well be +"Outis, Esq., Town of Anywhere, County of Everywhere." It concerns the +"Atlantic Monthly" not a little. For we desire, among its rapidly +multiplying subscribers, that our particular friend and kind critic, +commorant in Washington, should duly receive and enjoy this present +paper, undefrauded by any resident of the other one hundred and thirty +of the name. If we wish to mail a copy of "The Impending Crisis" to +Franklin, Vermont, we surely do not expect that it will perish by _auto +da fé_ in Franklin, Louisiana. + +But the thought comes upon us, that herein is revealed a curious defect +of the American mind. It lacks, we contend, the fine perceptive power +which belongs to the poet. It can imitate, but cannot make. It does not +seize hold upon the distinctive fact of what it looks at, and +appropriate that. Our countrymen once could do it. The stern Puritan of +New England looked upon the grassy meadows beside the Connecticut, and +found them all bubbling with fountains, and called his settlement +"Springfield." But the American has lost the elementary uses of his +mother tongue. He is perpetually inventing new abstract terms, +generalizing with boldness and power and utter contempt of usage. But +the rich idiomatic sources of his speech lie too deep for him. They are +the glory and the joy of our motherland. You may take up "Bradshaw" and +amuse yourself on the wettest day at the dullest inn, nay, even amid +the horrors of the railway station, with deciphering the hidden +meanings of its lists of names, and form for yourself the gliding +panorama of its changing scenery and historic renown. But blank, +indeed, is the American transit through Rome, Marcellus, Carthage, +Athens, Palmyra, and Geneva; and blessed the relief when the Indian +tongue comes musically in to "heal the blows of sound"! And whatever +the expectations of the "Great American Poem," the Transatlantic +"Divina Commedia" or "Iliad," which the public may entertain, we feel +certain they will not be fulfilled in our day. Take Tennyson's "Idyls +of the King," and see what beautiful beadrolls of names he can string +together from the rough Cornish and Devon coasts. Only out of a +poetic-hearted people are poets born. The peasant writes ballads, +though scholars and antiquaries collect them. The Hebrew lyric fire +blazed in myriad beacons from every landmark. The soil of Palestine is +trodden, as it were, with the footsteps of God, so eloquent are its +mountains and hamlets with these records of a nation's faith. + +But into how much of the love of home do its familiar names enter! And +we appeal to the common sense of everybody, whether those we have +quoted above are not enough to make a man ashamed of his birthplace. +They are the ear-mark of a roving, careless, selfish population, which +thinks only of mill-privileges, and never of pleasant meadows,--which +has built the ugliest dwellings and the biggest hotels of any nation, +save the Calmucks, over whom reigns the Czar. Upon the American soil +seem destined to meet and fuse the two great elements of European +civilization,--the Latin and the Saxon,--and of these two is our nation +blent. But just at present it exhibits the love of glare and finery of +the one, without its true and tender taste,--and the sturdy, practical +utilitarianism of the other, without its simple-hearted, home-loving +poetry. The boy is a great boy,--awkward, ungainly, and in the way; but +he has eyes, tongue, feet, and hands to some (future) purpose. And that +in good taste, good sense, refinement, and hopeful culture, our big boy +has been growing, we hope will be apparent, even in the matter of +"calling names," from the pages of the next census. + +We have but a word more, in the way of finale. We have not been +romancing. Everything we have set down here we have truly looked up +there, in the volume furnished by Mr. De Bow. He, not we, must be held +answerable for any and all scarce credible names which are found +wanting in a local habitation. We have counted duly and truly the +fine-printed pages, from which task we pray that the kind Fates may +keep the reader. + +Yet, if he doubt, and care to explore the original mine whence our +specimen petrifactions have been dug, he will find that we have by no +means exhausted the supply; and that there are many most curious and +suggestive facts, not contained in the statistics or intended by the +compiler, which are embraced in the CENSUS REPORTS. + + + + +BARDIC SYMBOLS. + + +I. + +Elemental drifts! +Oh, I wish I could impress others as you and the waves have just been + impressing me! + +II. + +As I ebbed with an ebb of the ocean of life, +As I wended the shores I know, +As I walked where the sea-ripples wash you, Paumanok, +Where they rustle up, hoarse and sibilant, +Where the fierce old mother endlessly cries for her castaways, +I, musing, late in the autumn day, gazing off southward, +Alone, held by the eternal self of me that threatens to get the better + of me and stifle me, +Was seized by the spirit that trails in the lines underfoot, +In the ruin, the sediment, that stands for all the water and all the + land of the globe. + +III. + +Fascinated, my eyes, reverting from the south, dropped, to follow those + slender windrows, +Chaff, straw, splinters of wood, weeds, and the sea-gluten, +Scum, scales from shining rocks, leaves of salt-lettuce, left by the tide. + +IV. + +Miles walking, the sound of breaking waves the other side of me, +Paumanok, there and then as I thought the old thought of likenesses, +These you presented to me, you fish-shaped island, +As I wended the shores I know, +As I walked with that eternal self of me, seeking types. + +V. + +As I wend the shores I know not, +As I listen to the dirge, the voices of men and women wrecked, +As I inhale the impalpable breezes that set in upon me, +As the ocean so mysterious rolls toward me closer and closer, +At once I find, the least thing that belongs to me, or that I see or + touch, I know not; +I, too, but signify a little washed-up drift,--a few sands and dead + leaves to gather, +Gather, and merge myself as part of the leaves and drift. + +VI. + +Oh, baffled, lost, +Bent to the very earth, here preceding what follows, +Terrified with myself that I have dared to open my mouth, +Aware now, that, amid all the blab whose echoes recoil upon me, I have not + once had the least idea who or what I am, +But that before all my insolent poems the real me still stands + untouched, untold, altogether unreached, +Withdrawn far, mocking me with mock-congratulatory signs and bows, +With peals of distant ironical laughter at every word I have written or + shall write, +Striking me with insults, till I fall helpless upon the sand! + +VII. + +Oh, I think I have not understood anything,--not a single object,--and + that no man ever can! + +VIII. + +I think Nature here, in sight of the sea, is taking advantage of me to + oppress me, +Because I was assuming so much, +And because I have dared to open my mouth to sing at all. + +IX. + +You oceans both! You tangible land! Nature! +Be not too stern with me,--I submit,--I close with you,-- +These little shreds shall, indeed, stand for all. + +X. + +You friable shore, with trails of debris! +You fish-shaped island! I take what is underfoot: +What is yours is mine, my father! + +XI. + +I, too, Paumanok, +I, too, have bubbled up, floated the measureless float, and been + washed on your shores. + +XII. + +I, too, am but a trail of drift and debris,-- +I, too, leave little wrecks upon you, you fish-shaped island! + +XIII. + +I throw myself upon your breast, my father! +I cling to you so that you cannot unloose me,-- +I hold you so firm, till you answer me something. + +XIV. + +Kiss me, my father! +Touch me with your lips, as I touch those I love! +Breathe to me, while I hold you close, the secret of the wondrous + murmuring I envy! +For I fear I shall become crazed, if I cannot emulate it, and utter + myself as well as it. + +XV. + +Sea-raff! Torn leaves! +Oh, I sing, some day, what you have certainly said to me! + +XVI. + +Ebb, ocean of life! (the flow will return,)-- +Cease not your moaning, you fierce old mother! +Endlessly cry for your castaways! Yet fear not, deny not me,-- +Rustle not up so hoarse and angry against my feet, as I touch you, + or gather from you. + +XVII. + +I mean tenderly by you,-- +I gather for myself, and for this phantom, looking down where we lead, + and following me and mine. + +XVIII. + +Me and mine! +We, loose windrows, little corpses, +Froth, snowy white, and bubbles, +Tufts of straw, sands, fragments, +Buoyed hither from many moods, one contradicting another, +From the storm, the long calm, the darkness, the swell, +Musing, pondering, a breath, a briny tear, a dab of liquid or soil, +Up just as much out of fathomless workings fermented and thrown, +A limp blossom or two, torn, just as much over waves floating, + drifted at random, +Just as much for us that sobbing dirge of Nature, +Just as much, whence we come, that blare of the cloud-trumpets,-- +We, capricious, brought hither, we know not whence, spread out before + you,--you, up there, walking or sitting, +Whoever you are,--we, too, lie in drifts at your feet. + + + + +HUNTING A PASS: + +A SKETCH OF TROPICAL ADVENTURE. + + +PRELIMINARY. + +Reader, take down your map, and, starting at the now well-known Isthmus +of Panama, run your finger northward along the coast of the Pacific, +until, in latitude 13° north, it shall rest on a fine body of water, or +rather the "counterfeit presentment" thereof, which projects far into +the land, and is designated as the Bay of Fonseca. If your map be of +sufficient scale and moderately exact, you will find represented there +two gigantic volcanoes, standing like warders at the entrance of this +magnificent bay. That on the south is called Coseguina, memorable for +its fearful eruption in 1835; that on the north is named Conchagua or +Amapala, taller than Coseguina, but long extinct, and covered to its +top with verdure. It is remarkable for its regularity of outline and +the narrowness of its apex. On this apex, a mere sugar-loaf crown, are +a _vigía_ or look-out station, and a signal-staff, whence the approach +of vessels is telegraphed to the port of La Union, at the base of the +volcano. A rude hut, half-buried in the earth, and loaded down with +heavy stones, to prevent it from being blown clean away, or sent +rattling down the slopes of the mountain, is occupied by the look-out +man,--an old Indian muffled up to his nose; for it is often bitter cold +at this elevation, and there is no wood wherewith to make a fire. Were +it not for that jar or _tinaja_ of _aguardiente_ which the old man +keeps so snugly in the corner of his burrow, he would have withered up +long ago, like the mummies of the Great Saint Bernard. + +But I am not going to work up the old man of the _vigía_; for he was of +little consequence on the 10th day of April, 1853, except as a +wondering spectator on the top of Conchagua, in a group consisting of +an ex-minister of the United States, an officer of the American navy, +and an artist from the good city of New York, to whose ready pencil a +grateful country owes many of the illustrations of tropical scenery +which have of late years lent their interest to popular periodicals and +books of adventure. I might have added to this enumeration the tall, +dark figure of Dolores, servant and guide; but Dolores, with a good +sense which never deserted him, had no sooner disencumbered his +shoulders of his load of provisions, than he bestowed himself in the +burrow, out of the wind, and possibly not far from the _aguardiente_. + +The utilitarian reader will ask, at once, the motive of this gathering +on the top of the volcano of Conchagua, five thousand feet above the +sea, wearily attained at no small expenditure of effort and +perspiration. Was it love of adventure merely? ambition to do something +whereof to brag about to admiring aunts or country cousins? Hardly. The +beauty of the wonderful panorama which spreads before the group of +strangers is too much neglected, their instruments are too carefully +adjusted and noted, and their consultations are far too earnest and +protracted, to admit of either supposition. The old man of the _vigía_, +as I have said, was a wondering spectator. He wondered why the eyes of +the strangers, glasses as well as eyes, and theodolites as well as +glasses, should all be directed across the bay, across the level +grounds beyond it, far away to the blue line of the Cordilleras, +cutting the clear sky with their serrated outline. He does not observe +that deep notch in the great backbone of the continent, as regular as +the cleft which the pioneer makes in felling a forest-tree; nor does he +observe that the breeze which ripples the waters at the foot of the +volcano is the north wind sweeping all the way from the Bay of Honduras +through that break in the mountain range, which everywhere else, as far +as the eye can reach, presents a high, unbroken barrier to its passage +to the Pacific. Yet it is simply to determine the bearings of that +notch in the Cordilleras, to fix the positions of the leading features +of the intervening country, and to verify the latitude and longitude of +the old man's flag-staff itself, as a point of departure for future +explorations, that the group of strangers is gathered on the top of +Conchagua. + +And now, O reader, run your finger due north from the Bay of Fonseca, +straight to the Bay of Honduras, and it will pass, in a figurative way, +through the notch I have described, and through the pass of which we +were in search. You will see, if your map be accurate, that in or near +that pass two large rivers have their rise; one, the Humuya, flows +almost due north into the Atlantic, and the other, the Goascoran, +nearly due south into the Pacific,--together constituting, with the +plain of Comayagua, a great transverse valley extending across the +continent from sea to sea. Through this valley, commencing at Port +Cortés, on the north, and terminating on the Bay of Fonseca on the +south, American enterprise and English capital have combined to +construct a railway, designed to afford a new, if not a shorter and +better route of transit across the continent, between New York and San +Francisco, and between Great Britain and Australia. + +But when we stood on the top of Conchagua, on the 10th day of April, +1853, the existence of a pass through the mountains, as well as of that +great transverse valley of which I have spoken, was only inferentially +known. In fact, the whole interior of Honduras was unexplored; its +geography was not understood; its scenery had never been described; its +towns and cities were scarcely known even by name; and its people lived +in almost as profound a seclusion from the world at large as the +dwellers on the banks of the Niger and the Zambezi. It is not, however, +to bore you, O reader, with all the details of our surveys, nor to +bother you with statistics, that I write; for, verily, are not these all +set down in a book? But it is rather to amuse you with the incidents of +our explorations, our quaint encounters with a quaint people of still +quainter manners and habits and with ideas quainter than all, and to +present you with a picture of a country and a society interesting equally +in themselves and from their strong contrasts with our own,--I say, it is +rather with these objects that I invite you, O reader, to join our little +party, and participate in the manifold adventures of "HUNTING A PASS." + + +CHAPTER I. + +The port of La Union, our point of departure, is in the little Republic +of San Salvador, which, in common with Nicaragua and Honduras, touches +on the Bay of Fonseca. It is built near the head of a subordinate bay, +of the same name with itself, at the foot of the volcano of Conchagua, +which rises between it and the sea, cutting it off from the +ocean-breezes, and rendering it, in consequence, comparatively hot and +unhealthy. It is a small town, with a population scarcely exceeding +fifteen hundred souls; but it is, nevertheless, the most important port +of San Salvador. Here, during the season of the great fairs of San +Miguel, may be seen vessels of nearly all the maritime nations, +--broad-hulled and sleepy-looking ships from the German +free-cities, taut American clippers, sturdy English brigs, and even +Peruvian and Genoese nondescripts, with crews in red nightcaps. + +At this time La Union holds high holiday; its _Comandante_, content at +other times to lounge about in the luxury of a real undress uniform, +now puts on his broadcloth and sash, and sustains a sweltering dignity; +while all the brown girls of the place, arrayed in their gayest +apparel, wage no timorous war on the hearts and pockets of too +susceptible skippers. "Ah, me!" exclaimed our landlady, "is it not +terrible? Excepting the Señora D. and myself, there is not a married +woman in La Union!" "One wouldn't think so," soliloquized the +_Teniente_, as he gazed reflectively into the street, where a dozen +naked children, squatting in the sand, disputed the freedom of the +highway with a score of lean dogs and bow-backed pigs of voracious +appetites. + +To me there was nothing specially new in La Union. The three years +which had elapsed since my previous visit had not been marked by any +great architectural achievement, and although the same effective +chain-gang of two convicts seemed still to be occupied with the mole, +the advance in that great public work was not perceptible to the eye. +My old host and hostess were also the same,--a shade older in +appearance, perhaps, but with hearts as warm and hospitalities as +lavish as before. Only "La Gringita" had changed from the doe-eyed +child of easy confidences into a quiet and somewhat distant girl, full +in figure, and with a glance which sometimes betrayed the glow of +latent, but as yet unconscious passion. In these sunny climes the bud +blossoms and the young fruit ripens in a single day. + +With my companions, however, the case was different. The _Teniente_ +could never cease being surprised that the commercial and naval +facilities of the splendid bay before us had been so long overlooked. +"What a place for a naval station, with its spacious and secure +anchorages, abundant water, and facilities for making repairs and +obtaining supplies! Why, all the fleets of the globe might assemble +here, and never foul spars or come across each other's hawsers! What a +site, just in that little bay, for a ship-yard! The bottom is pure +sand, and there are full ten fathoms of water within a hundred yards of +the shore! And then those high islands protecting the entrance! A fort +on that point and a battery over yonder would close in the whole bay, +with its five hundred square miles of area, against every invader, and +make it as safe as Cronstadt!" But what astonished the _Teniente_ more +than anything else was, not that the English had seized the bay in +1849, but that they had ever given it up afterwards. "Bull should +certainly abandon his filibustering habits, or else stick to his +plunder; the example was a bad one for his offspring!" + +And as for H., our artist, he, too, was surprised at all times and +about everything. It surprised him "to hear mere children talk +Spanish!" To be able to help himself to oranges from the tree without +paying for them surprised him; so did the habit of sleeping in +hammocks, and the practice of dressing children in the cheap and airy +garb of a straw hat and cigar! He was surprised that he should come to +see "a real volcano, like that of San Miguel, with real smoke rolling +up from its mysterious depths; but what surprised him most was, that +they should give him pieces of soap by way of making change in the +market, and that he could buy a boat-load of oysters for a shilling!" + +As for Don Henrique, who had resided twenty years in Nicaragua, he was +only surprised at the surprise of others. He had a quiet, imperturbable +contempt for the country and everything in it, was satisfied with a +cool corridor and cigar, and had no ambition beyond that of some day +returning to Paris. Above all, he was a foe to unnecessary exertion. + +The ascent of Conchagua was the most important incident of our stay in +La Union, both in the excitements of the scramble and in the +satisfactory nature of our observations from its summit. We left the +port in the afternoon, with the view of passing the night in the +highest hut on the mountain-side, so as to reach the summit early in +the morning, and thus secure time for our observations. Doña Maria had +given us her own well-trained servant, Dolores, who afterwards became a +most important member of our little party; and he was now loaded down +with baskets and bottles, while the _Teniente_, H., and myself +undertook the responsible charge of the instruments. + +Our path was one seldom travelled, and was exceedingly rough and +narrow. Here it would wind down into one of the deep ravines which seam +the mountain near its base, and, after following the little stream +which trickled at its bottom for a short distance, turn abruptly up the +opposite side, and run for a while along a crest or ridge of _scoriæ_ +or disintegrated lava, only, however, to plunge into another ravine +beyond. And thus alternately scrambling up and down, yet gradually +ascending diagonally, we worked our way towards the hut where we were +to pass the night. The slopes of the mountain were already in shadow, +and the gloom of the dense forests and of the deep ravines was so +profound, that we might have persuaded ourselves that night had fallen, +had we not heard the cheerful notes of unseen birds that were nestling +among the tree-tops. After two hours of ascent, the slope of the +mountain became more abrupt and decided, the ravines shallower, and the +intervening ridges less elevated. The forest, too, became more open, +and the trees smaller and less encumbered with vines, and between them +we could catch occasional glimpses of the bay, with its waters golden +under the slant rays of the declining sun. Finally we came to a kind of +terrace or shelf of the mountain, with here and there little patches of +ground, newly cleared, and black from the recent burning of the +undergrowth,--the only preparation made by the Indian cultivator for +planting his annual maize-crop. He has never heard of a plough; a staff +shod with iron, with which he pries a hole in the earth for the +reception of the seed, is the only agricultural implement with which he +is acquainted. When the young blade appears, he may possibly lop away +the tree-sprouts and rank weeds with his _machete_: but all the rest he +leaves to Nature, and the care of those unseen protectors of the harvest +whom he propitiates in the little church of Conehagua by the offering of a +candle, and in the depth of the forest, in some secluded spot of +ancient sanctity, by libations of _chicha_, poured out, with strange +dances, at the feet of some rudely sculptured idol which his fathers +venerated before him, and which he inwardly believes will come out "all +right" in the end, notwithstanding its present disgrace and the Padre's +denunciations. + +The mountain terrace which we had now reached is three thousand feet +above the sea, half a mile long, of varying width, and seems to be the +top of some great bed of _scoriæ_ which long ago slipped down on an +inclined plane of lava to its present level. Whatever its origin, it is +certainly a beautiful spot, thinly covered with trees, and carpeted +with grass, on which, at the time of our visit, a few cows were +grazing, while half a dozen goats gazed at us in motionless surprise +from the gray rocks to which they had retreated on our approach. We +found the hut in which we were to rest for the night perched on the +very edge of the terrace, where it overlooked the whole expanse of the +bay, with its high islands and purple shores. At this airy height, and +open to every breeze, its inhabitants enjoy a delicious temperature; +and I could well understand how it was that Doña Maria, notwithstanding +the difficulties of the ascent, often came up here to escape the +debilitating heats of the port, and enjoy the magnificent prospect. The +dwellers on this mountain-perch consisted of an old man with his two +sons and their wives, and a consequent round dozen of children, all of +whom gave Dolores the cordial welcome of an old friend, which was +reflected on his companions with equal warmth. Our mules were quickly +unsaddled and cared for, and our instruments carefully suspended +beneath a rough shed of poles covered with branches of trees, which +stood before the hut, and answered the purpose of a corridor in keeping +off the sun. Here also we chose to swing our hammocks; for the hut +itself was none of the largest, and, having but a single room, would +require packing more closely than suited our tastes, in order to afford +us the narrowest accommodation. It is true, the two Benedicts +volunteered to sleep outside with Dolores, and resign the interior to +the old man, the women, the children, and the strangers. But the +_Teniente_ thought there would be scant room, even if we had the whole +to ourselves; while H. was overcome by "the indelicacy of the +suggestion." + +The sunset that evening was one of transcendent beauty, heightened by +the thousand-hued reflections from the masses of clouds which had been +piling up, all the afternoon, around the distant mountains of Honduras, +and which Dolores told us betokened the approach of the rainy season. +Bathed in crimson and gold, they shed a glowing haze over the +intervening country, and were reproduced in the broad mirror of the bay +below us, so that we seemed to be suspended and floating in an +Iris-like sea of light and beauty. But night falls rapidly under the +tropics; the sunsets are as brief as they are brilliant; and as soon as +the sun had sunk below the horizon, the gorgeous colors rapidly faded +away, leaving only leaden clouds on the horizon and a sullen body of +water at our feet. + +A love of music seems to be universal among all classes in Central +America, especially among the _Ladinos_ or mixed population. And it is +scarcely possible to find a house, down to the meanest hut, that does +not possess a violin or guitar, or, in default of these, a mandolin, on +which one or more of its inmates are able to perform with considerable +skill, and often with taste and feeling. The violin, however, is +esteemed most highly, and its fortunate possessor cherishes it above +wife or children, he keeps it with his white buckskin shoes, red sash, +and only embroidered shirt, in the solitary trunk with cyclopean lock +and antediluvian key, which goes so far, in Central American economy, +to make up the scanty list of domestic furniture. The youngest of our +hosts was the owner of one of these instruments, of European +manufacture, which had cost him, I dare say, many a load of maize, +wearily carried on his naked back down to the port. As the evening +advanced, he produced it, with an air of satisfaction, from its secure +depository, and, leaning against a friendly tree, gave us a specimen of +his skill. It is true, we did not expect much from our swarthy friend, +whose only garment was his trousers of cotton cloth, tucked up above +his knees; and we were therefore all the more surprised, when, after +some preliminary tuning of the instrument, he pressed the bow on its +strings with a firm and practised hand, and led us, with masterly +touch, through some of the finest melodies of our best operas. Very few +amateurs of any country, with all their advantages of instruction, +could equal the skill of that poor dweller on the flank of the volcano +of Conchagua; none certainly could surpass him in the delicacy and +feeling of his execution. H., on whom, as an artist, and himself no +mean musician, we had already devolved the task of being enthusiastic +and demonstrative over matters of this kind, applauded vehemently, and +cried, "_Bravo!_" and "_Encore!_" and ended in convincing us of the +reality of his delight, by pressing his brandy-flask into the hands of +the performer, and urging him to "drink it all, every drop, and then +give us another!" Our mountain Paganini, I fear, interpreted the behest +too literally; or else H.'s enthusiasm never afterwards rose to so high +a pitch; at any rate, he was never known to manifest it in so expansive +a manner. + +"And where did your friend learn his music?" + +He had caught it up, he said, from time to time, as he had floated, +with his canoe-load of plantains, chickens, and yucas, around the +vessels-of-war that occasionally visit the port; neglecting his +traffic, no doubt, in eagerly listening to the music of the bands or +the individual performances of the officers. He had had no instructor, +except "_un pobre Italiano_," who came to La Union with an exhibition +of _fantoccini_, died there of fever, and was buried like a Christian +in the Campo Santo adjoining the church: and Paganini removed his hat +reverentially, and made the sign of the cross on his swarthy bosom. And +now, most incredulous of readers, are you answered? + +During the night we were visited by the first storm of the season, and +it opened the flood-gates of the skies right grandly, with booming +thunders and blinding lightning, and a dash of rain that came through +our imperfect shelter as through a sieve. Driven inside the hut, where +we contested the few square feet of bare earthen floor with the pigs +and pups of the establishment, we passed a most miserable night, and +were glad to rise with the earliest dawn,--ourselves to continue our +ascent of the mountain, and our hosts to plant their mountain _milpas_, +while the ground was yet moist from the midnight rain. They told us +that the maize, if put into the earth immediately after the first rain +of the season, was always more vigorous and productive than that +planted afterwards; why they knew not; but "so it had been told them by +their fathers." + +The air was deliciously fresh and cool, and the foliage of the trees +seemed almost pulsating with life and light under the morning sun, as +we bade our hosts "_Á Dios!_" and resumed our course up the mountain. +There was no longer any path, and we had to pick our way as we were +able, among blocks of blistered rocks, over fallen trunks of trees, and +among gnarled oaks, which soon began to replace the more luxuriant +vegetation of the lower slopes. H., dragged from his mule by a scraggy +limb, was shocked to find that the first inquiry of his companions was +not about the safety of his neck, but of the barometer. At the end of +an hour, the ascent becoming every moment more abrupt, we had passed +the belt of trees and bushes, and reached the smooth and scoriaceous +cone, which, during the rainy season, appears from the bay to be +covered with a velvety mantle of green. It was now black and +forbidding, from the recent burning of the dry grass or _sacate_, and +so steep as to render direct ascent impossible. I proposed to leave the +mules and proceed on foot, but the _Teniente_ entered a solemn protest +against anything of the sort:--"If the mules couldn't carry him up, he +couldn't go; his family was affected with hereditary palpitation of the +heart, and if any one of them suffered more from it than the others, he +was the unfortunate victim! Climbing elevations of any kind, and +mountains in particular, brought on severe attacks; and we might as +well understand, at once, that, if in 'Hunting a Pass' there was any +climbing to be done, some one else must do it!" And here I may mention +a curious fact, probably hitherto unknown to the faculty, which was +developed in our subsequent explorations, namely, that palpitation of +the heart is contagious. H. was attacked with it on our third day out, +and Don Henrique had formidable symptoms at sight of the merest +hillock. + +Under the lead of Dolores, by judicious zig-zagging, and by glow and +painful advances, we finally reached the _vigía_,--the mules thoroughly +blown, but the _Teniente_ and the instruments safe. The latter were +speedily set up, and the observations, which were to exercise so +important an influence as a basis for our future operations, +satisfactorily made. We found the mountain to be 4860 feet above the +sea, barometrical admeasurement, and the flagstaff itself in latitude +13° 18' N. and longitude 87° 45' W. We obtained bearings on nearly all +the volcanic cones on the plain of Leon, as also on many of the +detached mountain-peaks of Honduras and San Salvador, as the +commencement of a system of triangulations which subsequently enabled +us to construct the first map of the country at all approximating to +accuracy. At noon on the day of our visit, the thermometer marked a +temperature of 16° of Fahrenheit below that of the port. + +It is a singular circumstance, that Captain Sir Edward Belcher, who +surveyed the Bay of Fonseca in 1838, speaks of Conchagua as a mountain +exhibiting no evidences of volcanic origin. Apart from its form, which +is itself conclusive on that point, its lower slopes are ridged all +over with dikes of lava, some of which come down to the water's edge, +in rugged, black escarpments. The mountain had two summits: one +comparatively broad and rugged, with a huge crater, and a number of +smaller vents; and a second and higher one, nearest the bay,--the +_ash-heap_ of the volcano proper, on which the _vigía_ is erected, and +whence our observations were made. This is a sugar-loaf in form, with +steep sides, and at its summit scarcely affording standing-room for a +dozen horsemen. It is connected with the main part of the mountain by a +narrow ridge, barely broad enough for a mule-path, with treeless slopes +on either hand, so steep, that, on our return, the _Teniente_ preferred +risking an attack of "palpitation" to riding along its crest. + +After loosening several large stones from the side of the cone, and +watching them bound down the steep declivity, dashing the _scoriæ_ like +spray before them, and bearing down the dwarf trees in their path like +grass beneath the mower's scythe, until they rumbled away with many a +crash in the depths of the forest at the base of the mountain, and +after making over to the grateful old man of the _vigía_ the remnants +of Doña Maria's profusion in the shape of sandwiches and cold chicken, +we commenced our descent, taking the shorter path by which I had +descended three years before. It conducted us past the great spring of +Yololtoca, to which the Indian girls of the _pueblo_ of Conchagua, +three miles distant, still come to get their water, and down the +ancient path and over the rocks worn smooth by the naked feet of their +mothers and their mothers' mothers, until, at six o'clock in the +afternoon, we defiled, tired and hungry, into the sweltering streets of +La Union. Oysters _ad libitum_, (which, being translated, means as fast +as three men could open them,) one of Doña Maria's best dinners, and a +bath in the bay at bedtime calmed our appetites and restored our +energies, and we went to sleep with the gratified consciousness that we +had successfully taken the first step in the prosecution of our great +enterprise. + +I have alluded to the oysters of La Union; but I should prove +ungrateful indeed, after the manifold delicious repasts which they +afforded us, were I to deny them the tribute of a paragraph. It is +generally believed that the true oyster of our shores is found nowhere +else, or at least only in northern latitudes. But an exception must be +made in favor of the waters of the Bay of Fonseca. Here they are found +in vast beds, in all the subordinate bays where the streams deposit +their sediment, and where, with the rise and fall of the tide, they +obtain that alternation of salt and brackish water which seems to be +necessary to their perfection. They are the same rough-coated, +delicious mollusks as those of our own coasts, and by no means to be +degraded by a comparison with the muddy, long-bearded, and, to +Christian palates, coppery abominations of the British Islands, which +in their flattened shape and scalloped edges seem to betray an impure +ancestry,--in point of fact, to be a bad cross between the scallop and +the oyster. + +At low tide some of the beds are nearly bare, and then the Indians take +them up readily with their hands. The ease with which they may be got +will appear from the circumstance, that for some time after our arrival +we paid but a real (twelve and a half cents) for each canoe-load, of +from five to six bushels. The people of La Union seldom use them, and +we were therefore able to establish the "ruling rates." They continued +at a real a load, until H., with reckless generosity, one day paid our +improvised oyster-man two reals for his cargo, who thereupon, appealing +to this bad precedent, refused to go out, unless previously assured of +receiving the advanced rate. This led to the immediate arrest of H., on +an indictment charging him with "wilfully and maliciously combining and +conniving with one Juan Sanchez, (colored,) to put up the price of the +necessaries of life in La Union, in respect of the indispensable +article vulgarly known as _ostrea Virginiana_, but in the language of +the law and of science designated as oysters." On this indictment he +was summarily tried, and, in consequence of aggravating his offence by +an attempt at exculpation, was condemned to suffer the full penalties +of the law, in such cases provided, namely, "to pay the entire cost of +all the oysters that might thenceforth be consumed by the prosecuting +parties and the court, and, at eleven o'clock, past meridian, to be +taken from his bed, thence to the extremity of the mole, and there +_inducted_." Which sentence was carried into rigorous execution. Nor +was he allowed to resume his former rank in the party, until, by a +masterly piece of diplomacy, he organized an opposition oyster-boat, +and a consequent competition, which soon brought Juan Sanchez to terms, +and oysters to their just market-value. + +That the aboriginal dwellers around the Bay of Fonseca appreciated its +conchological treasures, we had afterwards ample evidence; for at many +places on its islands and shores we found vast heaps of oyster-shells, +which seemed to have been piled up as reverent reminiscences of the +satisfaction which their contents had afforded. + +During my previous visit to La Union, in March, 1850, I had observed +that the north winds, which prevail during that month in the Bay of +Honduras, sometimes sweep entirely across the continent with such force +as to raise a considerable sea in the Bay of Fonseca. I thence inferred +that there must exist a pass or break in the great mountain-range of +the Cordilleras, through which the wind could have an uninterrupted or +but partially interrupted sweep. This was confirmed by the fact that +the current of air which reached the bay was narrow, affecting only a +width of about ten or twelve miles. This circumstance impressed me at +that time only as indicating a remarkable topographical feature of the +country; but afterwards, when the impracticability of a canal at +Nicaragua and the deficiencies in respect of ports for a railway at +Tehuantepec had become established, I was led to reflect upon it in +connection with a plan for inter-oceanic communication by railway +through Honduras; and, as explained in the introduction, we were now +here to test the accuracy of my previous conclusions. Our observations +at the top of Conchagua had signally confirmed them. + +We could distinctly make out the existence of a great valley extending +due north, and our glasses revealed a marked depression in the +Cordilleras, which in all the maps were represented as maintaining here +the character of a high, unbroken range. Of course no such valley as +opened before us could exist without a considerable stream flowing +through it. But the maps showed neither valley nor river. This +circumstance did not, however, discourage us; for my former travels and +explorations in Nicaragua had shown me, that, notwithstanding the +country had occupied the attention of geographers for more than three +centuries, in connection with a project for a canal between the oceans, +its leading and most obvious physical features were still either +grossly misconceived or utterly unknown. + +The leading fact of the existence of some kind of a pass having been +sufficiently established by our observations from Conchagua, we next +set to work to obtain such information from the natives as might assist +our further proceedings. This was a tedious task, and called for the +exercise of all our patience; for it is impossible to convey in +language an adequate idea of the abject ignorance of most of the +inhabitants of Central America concerning its geography and +topographical features. Those who would naturally be supposed to be +best informed, the priests, merchants, and lawyers, are really the most +ignorant, and it is only from the _arrieros_, or muleteers, and the +_correos_, or runners, that any knowledge of this kind can be obtained, +and then only in a very confused form, and with most preposterous and +contradictory estimates of distances and elevations. + +We nevertheless made out that the mouth of a river or _estero_, laid +down in Sir Edward Belcher's chart, on the opposite side of the bay in +front of La Union, was really that of the river Goascoran, a +considerable stream having its rise at a point due north, and not far +from Comayagua, the capital of Honduras, which, we also ascertained, +was seated in the midst of a great plain, bearing the same name. A +large stream, it was said, flowed past that city,--but whether the +Goascoran or some other, or whether it flowed north or south, neither +_arriero_ nor _correo_ could tell. + +The navigability of the Goascoran was also a doubtful question. +According to some, it could be forded everywhere; others declared it +impassable for many leagues above its mouth: a discrepancy which we +were able to reconcile by reference to its probable state at different +seasons of the year. + +Fixing an early day for taking the field in earnest, and leaving H. and +Don Henrique to make the necessary preparations, I improved the +interval, in company with Lieutenant J., in making a boat exploration +of the Goascoran. Obtaining a ship's gig, with two oarsmen and a supply +of provisions, we left La Union at dawn on the 15th of April. We found +that the river enters the bay by a number of channels, through low +grounds covered with mangrove-trees. It was at half-tide, and we +experienced no difficulty in entering. Our course at first was +tortuous, and it seemed as if the river had lost itself in a labyrinth +of channels, and we were ourselves much confused with regard to our +true direction. Keeping, however, in the strongest current, at the end +of half an hour we penetrated beyond the little delta of the river, and +the belt of mangroves, to firm ground. Here the stream was confined to +a single channel two hundred yards broad, with banks of clay and loam +from six to ten feet high. The lands back appeared to be level, and, +although well covered with ordinary forest-trees, were apparently +subject to overflow. We observed cattle in several grassy openings, and +here and there a _vaquero's_ hut of branches; for it is a general +practice of the _hacienderos_ to drive down their herds to the low +grounds of the coasts and rivers, during the dry season, and as soon as +the grass on the hills or highlands begins to grow sere and yellow. We +observed also occasional heaps of oyster-shells on the banks, or half +washed away by the river; and on the sand-spits at the bends of the +stream, and in all the little shady nooks of the shore, we saw +thousands of water-fowl, ducks of almost every variety, including the +heavy muscovy and the lively teal; and there were flocks of white and +crimson ibises, and solitary, long-legged, contemplative cranes, and +gluttonous pelicans; while myriads of screaming curlews scampered along +the line of the receding tide to snap up imprudent snails and the +numerous minute _crustaceæ_ which drift about in these brackish waters. +The familiar kingfisher was also there, coming down with an occasional +arrowy dash on some unsuspecting minnow, and then flapping away +leisurely for a quiet meal in the shady recesses of a neighboring tree. + +We fired on a flock of ducks, killing a number and wounding others, all +of which we secured except one which struggled away into an eddy under +the bank. We pushed in, and my hand was extended to pick him up, when a +slimy, corrugated head, with distended jaws and formidable teeth, rose +to the surface before me, paused an instant, then shot forward, and, +closing on the wounded bird, disappeared. The whole was done so quickly +as to escape the notice of my companions, who would hardly believe me +when I told them that we had been robbed by an alligator. We lost a +duck, but gained an admonition; and I scarcely need add that our +half-formed purpose of taking a bath in the next cool bend of the river +was abandoned. + +When the tide had run out, we were able to form a better notion of the +river. We found, that, although near the end of the dry season, it was +still a fine stream, with a large body of water, but spread over so +wide a channel as to preclude anything like useful navigation, except +with artificial aids. In places it was so shallow that our little boat +found difficulty in advancing. But this did not disappoint us; for +nothing like a mixed transit with transhipments had ever entered into +my plan, which looked only to an unbroken connection by rail from one +sea to the other. At four o'clock, satisfied that no useful purpose +could be effected by going farther up the stream, we stopped at a +collection of huts called Las Sandías,--not inappropriately, for the +whole sloping bank of the river, which here appeared to be little +better than a barren sand-bed, was covered, for a quarter of a mile, +with a luxuriant crop of water- and musk-melons, now in their +perfection. We purchased as many as we could carry off for a _real_. +They were full, rich, and juicy, and proved to be a grateful +restorative, after our day's exposure to the direct rays of the sun, +and their scarcely less supportable reflection from the water. The +melon-patch of Las Sandías is overflowed daring the rainy season, and +probably the apparently bare, sandy surface hides rich deposits of soil +below. + +We found the stream here alive with an active and apparently voracious +fish, varying in length from fourteen to twenty inches, reddish in +color, and closely resembling the Snapper of the Atlantic coast of +Central America. The male inhabitants of Las Sandías were occupied in +catching these fishes with hand-nets, in the rifts and currents; and +the women were busy in cleaning and drying them. Their offal had +accumulated around the huts in offensive heaps, and gave out an odor +which was almost insupportable, but of which the women appeared to take +no notice. We did not, therefore, trespass long on their hospitality, +but returned to our boat and started back to La Union. As night came +on, the trees along the river's bank were thronged with _chachalacas_, +which almost deafened us with their querulous screams. Two +well-directed shots gave us half a dozen,--for the young _chachalaca_ +is not to be despised on the table,--and we added them to our stock of +water-fowls and melons as tempting trophies to our companions from the +new Canaan on which they were venturing. + + +[To be continued.] + + + + +KEPLER. + + +The acceptance of a doctrine is often out of all proportion to the +authority that fortifies it. There are sweeps of generalization quite +permeable to objection, which yet find metaphysical support; there are +irrefragable dogmas which the mind drops as futile and fruitless. It is +recorded of Harvey's discovery of the circulation of the blood, that it +found reception from no physician then over forty years old. We believe +the splendid nebular construction of Laplace has its own difficulties; +yet what noble or aspiring mind does not find interior warranties for +the truth of that audacious synthesis? Is it that the soul darts +responsive impartments to the heavens? that the whirl is elemental in +the mind? that baffling intervals stretch deeper within us, and shoals +of stars with no parallax appear? + +Among the functions of Science, then, may well be included its power as +a metre of the intellectual advance of mankind. In these splendid +symbols man writes the record of his advancing humanity. How all is +interwoven with the All! A petrified national mind will certainly +appear in a petrified national Science. And that sublime upsurging from +the depths of human nature which came with the last half of the +eighteenth century appeared not alone in the new political and social +aspirations, but in a fresh insight into Nature. This spirit manifested +itself in the new sciences that sprang from the new modes of +vision,--Magnetism, Electricity, Chemistry,--the old crystalline spell +departing before a dynamical system of Physics, before the thought of +the universe as a living organic whole. And what provokers does the +discovery of the celestial circles bring to new circles of politics and +social life! + +The illustrations of Astronomy to this thought are very large. First of +the sciences to assume a perfectly rational form, it presents the +eternal type of the unfolding of the speculative spirit of man. This +springs, no doubt, from the essentially subjective character of +astronomy,--more than all the other sciences a construction of the +creative reason. From the initiative of scientific astronomy, when the +early Greek geometers referred the apparent diurnal movements to +geometrical laws, to the creation of the nebular hypothesis, the +logical filiation of the leading astronomical conceptions obeys +corresponding tidal movements in humanity. Thus it is that + + "through the ages one increasing purpose + runs +And the thoughts of men are widened with the + process of the suns." + +It was for reasons the Ptolemaic system so long held its sway. It was +for reasons it went, too, when it did, hideous and oppressive +nightmare! The celestial revelations of the sixteenth century came as +the necessary complement of the new mental firmaments then dawning on +the thought of man. The intellectual revolution caused by the discovery +of the double motion of our planet was undoubtedly the mightiest that +man had ever experienced, and its effect was to change the entire +aspect of his speculative and practical activity. What a proof that +ideas rule the world! Two hundred and fifty years ago, certain new +sidereal conceptions arose in the minds of half a dozen philosophers, +(isolated and utterly destitute of political or social influence, +powerful only in the possession of a sublime and seminal +thought,)--conceptions which, during these two centuries, have +succeeded in overthrowing a doctrine as old as the human mind, closely +interknit with the entire texture of opinions, authority, politics, and +religion, and establishing a theory flatly contradicted by the +universal dictates of experience and common sense, and true only to the +transcendental and interpretative Reason! + +At the advent of Modern Astronomy, the apparition of the German, John +Kepler, presents itself. Familiarly associated in general apprehension +with that inductive triad known as "Kepler's Laws," which form the +foundation of Celestial Geometry, it is much less generally known that +he was an august and oracular soul, one of those called Mystics and +Transcendentalists, perhaps the greatest genius for analogy that ever +lived,--that he led a truly epic life, a hero and helper of men, a +divine martyr of humanity. + +The labors of Kepler were mathematical, optical, cosmographical, and +astronomical,--but chiefly astronomical. Two or three of his principal +works are the "Cosmographic Mystery," (_Mysterium Cosmographicum,_) the +"New Astronomy," (_Astronomia Nova, seu Physica Caelestis,_) and the +"Harmonies of the World" (_Harmonices Mundi_). His whole published +works comprise some thirty or forty volumes, while twenty folio volumes +of manuscript lie in the Library at St. Petersburg. These Euler, +Lexell, and Kraft undertook some years ago to examine and publish, but +the result of this examination has never appeared. An elegant complete +edition of the works of Kepler is at present being issued at Frankfort, +under the editorship of Frisch.[1] It is to be in sixteen volumes, 8vo, +two of which are published. For his biography, the chief source is the +folio volume of Correspondence, published in 1718, by Hansch,[2] who +has prefixed to these letters between Kepler and his contemporaries a +Life, in which his German heartiness beats even through the marble +encasement of his Latinity. + +[Footnote 1: _Joannis Kepleri Astronomi Opera Omnia._ Edidit CH. +FRISCH.] + +[Footnote 2: _Epistolae ad Joannem Keplerum scriptae._ MICHAEL GOTTLIEB +HANSCHIUS. Lipsiae, 1718.] + +We have always admired, as a stroke of wit, the way Hansch takes to +indicate Kepler's birthplace. Disdaining to use any but mathematical +symbols for so great a mathematician, he writes that he was born on the +21st of December, 1571, in longitude 29° 7', latitude 48° 54'! It may +be worth mentioning, that on this cryptic spot stood the little town of +Weil in the Duchy of Würtemberg. His birth was cast at a time when his +parents were reduced to great poverty, and he received very little +early schooling. He was, however, sent to Tübingen, and here he pursued +the scholastic studies of the age, designing for the Church. But the +old eternal creed-questionings arose in his mind. He stumbled at the +omnipresence of Christ's body, wrote a Latin poem against it, and, when +he had completed his studies, got for a _testimonium_ that he had +distinguished himself by his oratorical talents, but was considered +unfit to be a fellow-laborer in the Church of Würtemberg. A larger +priesthood awaited him. + +The astronomical lectureship at the University of Grätz, in Styria, +falling vacant, Kepler was in his twenty-third year appointed to fill +it. He was, as he tells us, "better furnished with talent than +knowledge." But, no doubt, things had conspired to forward him. While +at Tübingen, under the mathematician Mästlin, he had eagerly seized +all the hints his master threw out of the doctrines of Copernicus, +integrating them with interior authorities of his own. "The motion of the +earth, which Copernicus had proved by mathematical reasons, I wanted +to prove by physical, or, if you prefer it, metaphysical reasons." +So he wrote in his "Prodromus Dissertationum Cosmographicarum," +which he published two years after going to Grätz, that is, in his +twenty-fifth year. In this book his fiery and mystical spirit first +found expression, flaming forth in meteoric coruscations. The problem +which Kepler attempted to solve in the "Prodromus" was no less than +the determination of the harmonic relations of the distances of +the planets, which it was given him to solve more than twenty years +afterwards. The hypothesis which he adopted proved utterly fallacious; +but his primal intuition, that numerical and geometric relations +connect the velocities, periods, and distances of the planets, was none +the less fruitful and sublime. + +Of the facts of Kepler's external life, we may simply say, for the sake +of readier apprehension, that, after remaining six years at Grätz, he, +in 1600, on the invitation of Tycho Brahe, Astronomer Royal to Rodolph +II. of Germany, removed to Prague and associated himself with Tycho, +who shortly afterwards dying, Kepler was appointed in his place. The +chief work was the construction of the new astronomical tables called +the Rodolphine Tables, and on these he was engaged many years. In this +situation he continued till 1613, when he left it to assume a +professorship at Linz. Here he remained some years, and the latter part +of his life was spent as astrologer to Wallenstein. Kepler is described +as small and meagre of person, and he speaks of himself as "troublesome +and choleric in politics and domestic matters." He was twice married, +and left a wife and numerous children ill-provided for. + +Indeed, a painful and perturbed life fell to the lot of Kepler. The +most crushing poverty all his life oppressed him. For, though his +nominal salary as Astronomer Royal was large enough, yet the treasury +was so exhausted that it was impossible for him ever to obtain more +than a pittance. What a sad tragedy do these words, in a letter to +Mästlin, reveal:--"I stand whole days in the antechamber, and am nought +for study." And then he adds the sublime compensation: "I keep up my +spirits, however, with the thought that I serve, not the Emperor alone, +but the whole human race,--that I am laboring not merely for the +present generation, but for posterity. If God stand by me and look to +the victuals, I hope to perform something yet." Eternal type of the +consolation which the consciousness of truth brings with it, his +ejaculation on the discovery of his third law remains one of the +sublimest utterances of the human mind:--"The die is cast; the book is +written,--to be read now or by posterity, I care not which: it may well +wait a century for a reader, as God has waited six thousand years for +an observer!" Cast in a stormy and chaotic age, he was persecuted by +both Protestants and Catholics on account of the purity and elevation +of his religious ideas; and from the disclosures of Baron von +Breitschwert [1] it seems, that, in the midst of his sublimest labors, +he spent five years in the defence of his poor old mother against a +charge of witchcraft. He died in 1630, in his sixtieth year, (with the +prospect of starvation before him,) of a fever which he caught when on +a journey to Ratisbon, whither he had gone in the attempt to get part +of his pay! + +[Footnote 1: _Johann Keppler's Leben und Wirken: nach neuerlich +aufgefundenen Manuscripten bearbeitet._ Stuttgart, 1813.] + +In what bewildering and hampering environment he found himself with the +"Tübingen doctors" and the "Würtemberg divines," his letters reveal. On +the publication of the "Prodromus," Hafenreffer wrote to warn +him:--"God forbid you should endeavor to bring your hypothesis openly +into argument with the Holy Scriptures! I require of you to treat the +subject merely as a mathematician, and to leave the peace of the Church +undisturbed." To the Tübingen doctors he replied:--"The Bible speaks to +me of things belonging to human life as men are used to speak of them. +It is no manual of Optics or of Astronomy; it has a higher object in +view. It is a culpable misuse of it to seek in it for answers on +worldly things. Joshua wished for the day to be lengthened. God +hearkened to his wish. How? This is not to be inquired after." And +surely the long-vexed argument has never since unfolded better +statement than in the words of Kepler:--"The day will soon break when +pious simplicity will be ashamed of its blind superstition,--when men +will recognize truth in the book of Nature as well as in the Holy +Scriptures, and rejoice in the two revelations." [1] + +[Footnote 1: _Harmonices Mundi._] + +On this avowal he was branded as a hypocrite, heretic, and atheist. + +To Mästlin he wrote:--"What is to be done? I think we should imitate +the Pythagoreans, communicate our discoveries _privatim_, and be silent +in public, that we may not die of hunger. The guardians of the Holy +Scriptures make an elephant of a gnat. To avoid the hatred against +novelty, I represented my discovery to the Rector of the University as +a thing already observed by the ancients; but he made its antiquity a +greater charge against it than he could have made of its novelty." + +And, indeed, the devotion to truth in that age, as in others, required +an heroic heart. Copernicus kept back the publication of his "De +Revolutionibus Orbium Caeslestium" for thirty-six years, and received a +copy of it only on his death-bed. Galileo tasted the sweets of the +Inquisition. Tycho Brahe was exiled. And Kepler himself was persecuted +all his life, hounded from city to city. And yet the sixteenth century +will ever be memorable in the history of the human mind. The breaking +down of external authority, the uprise of the spirit of inquiry, of +skepticism, and the splendid scientific conquests that came in +consequence, inaugurated a mighty movement which separates the present +promises of mankind from all past periods by an interval so vast as to +make it not merely a great historical development, but the very birth +of humanity. While Tycho Brahe, at the age of fifty-four, was making +his memorable observations at Prague, Kepler, at the age of thirty, was +applying his fiery mind to the determination of the orbit of Mars, and +Galileo, at thirty-six, was bringing his telescope to the revelation of +new celestial intervals and orbs. Within the succeeding century Huygens +made the application of the pendulum to clocks; Napier invented +Logarithms; Descartes and Galileo created the analysis of curves, and +the science of Dynamics; Leibnitz brought the Differential Calculus; +Newton decomposed a ray of light, and synthesized Kepler's Laws into +the theory of Universal Gravitation. + +Into this age, when the Old and New met face to face, came the +questioning and quenchless spirit of Kepler. Born into an age of +adventure, this new Prometheus, this heaven-scaler, matched it with an +audacity to lift it to new reaches of realization. + + +A singular _naiveté_, too, marked this august soul. He has the +frankness of Montaigne or Jean Jacques. He used to accuse himself of +gabbling in mathematics,--"_in re mathematica loquax_,"--and claimed to +speak with German freedom,--"_scripsi haec, homo Germanicus, more et +libertate Germanica_." He marries far and near, brings planetary +eclipses into conjunction with pecuniary penumbras, and his treatise on +the perturbations of Mars reveals equal perturbations in his domestic +economy. It may be to this candor, this _gemüth_, that we are to +ascribe the powerful personal magnetism he exercises in common with +Rousseau, Rabelais, and other rich and ingenuous natures. Who would be +otherwise than frank, when frankness has this power to captivate? The +excess of this influence appears in the warmth betrayed by writers over +their favorite. The cool-headed Delambre, in his "Histoire de +l'Astronomie," speaks of Kepler with the heat of a pamphleteer, and +cannot repress a frequent sneer at his contemporary, Galileo. We know +the splendor of the Newtonian synthesis; yet we do not find ourselves +affected by Newton's character or discoveries. He touches us with the +passionless love of a star. + +Kepler puts the same _naiveté_ into his speculative activity, with a +subtile anatomy laying bare the _metaphysique_ of his science. It was +his habit to illumine his discoveries with an exhibition of the path +that led to them, regarding the method as equally important with the +result,--a principle that has acquired canonical authority in modern +scientific research. "In what follows," writes he, introducing a long +string of hypotheses, the fallacy of which he had already discovered, +"let the reader pardon my credulity, whilst working out all these +matters by my own ingenuity. For it is my opinion that the occasions by +which men have acquired a knowledge of celestial phenomena are not less +admirable than the discoveries themselves." His tentatives, failures, +leadings, his glimpses and his glooms, those aberrations and guesses +and gropings generally so scrupulously concealed, he exposes them all. +From the first flashing of a discovery, through years of tireless toil, +to when the glorious apparition emerges full-orbed and resplendent, we +follow him, becoming party to the process, and sharing the ejaculations +of exultation that leap to his lips. Seventeen years were required for +the discovery of the harmonic law, that the squares of the times of the +planetary revolutions are proportional to the cubes of their mean +distances; and no tragedy ever equalled in affecting intensity the +account he has written of those Promethean years. What rays does he let +into the subtile paths where the spirit travels in its interrogations +of Nature! We should say there was more of what there is of essential +in metaphysics, more of the structural action of the human mind, in his +books, than in the concerted introspection of all the psychologists. +One sees very well that a new astronomy was predicted in the build of +that sky-confronting mind; for harmonic ratios, laws, and rhymes played +in his spheral soul, galaxies and gravitations stretched deeper within, +and systems climbed their flaming ecliptic. + +The highest problem of Science is the problem of Method. Hitherto man +has worked on Nature only piecemeal. The understanding and the +logic-faculty are allowed to usurp the rational and creative powers. +One would say that scientists systematically shut themselves out of +three-fourths of their minds, and the English have been insane on +Induction these two hundred years. This unholy divorce has, as it +always must do, brought poverty and impotence into the sciences, many +of which stand apart, stand haggard and hostile, accumulations of +incoherent facts, inhospitable, dead. + +It is when contemplated in its historic bearings, as an education of +the faculties of man, that the emphasis that has been placed on special +scientific methods discloses its significance. The speculative +synthesis of Greek and Alexandrine Science was a superb training in +Deduction,--in the descent from consciousness to Nature. Abstracted +from its relations with reality, the scholasticism of the Middle Ages +pushed Deduction to mania and moonshine. Then it was, that, in the +sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the Occidental mind, astir under +the oceanic movements of the modern, arose to break the spell of +scholasticism that had fettered and frozen the intellect of man. An +all-invading spirit of inquiry, analysis, skepticism, became rife. An +unappeasable hunger for facts, facts, facts, took possession of the +general intellect. It was felt that abstraction was disease, was +death,--that speculation had to be vitalized and enriched from +experience and experiment. This tendency was inevitable and sublime, no +doubt. But it remains for modern times to emulate Nature and carry on +analysis and synthesis at once. A great discovery is the birth of the +whole soul in its creative activity. Induction becomes fruitful only +when married to Deduction. It is those luminous intuitions that light +along the path of discovery that give the eye and animus to +generalization. Science must be open to influx and new beneficent +affections and powers, and so add fleet wings to the mind in its +exploration of Nature. + +In Kepler was the perfect realization of the highest mission of Method. +Powerfully deductive in the structure of his intellect, nourished on +the divine bread of Plato and the Mystics, he yet united to these a +Baconian breadth of practical power. Years before the publication of +the "Novum Organum," he gave, in his "Commentaries on the Motions of +Mars," a specimen of the logic of Induction whose circular sweep has +never been matched. Prolific in the generation of hypotheses, he was +yet remorseless in bringing them to the test of experiment. "Hypotheses +which are not founded in Nature please me not," wrote he,--as Newton +inscribed "_Hypotheses non fingo_" on the "Principia." Surely never was +such heroic self-denial. Centurial vigils of baffling calculations +--(remember, there was then little Algebra, and neither Calculus +nor Logarithms)--were sacrificed without a regret except for +the time expended, his tireless intellect pressing on to new heights of +effort. His first work, the "Mysterium Cosmographicum," is the record +of a splendid blunder that cost him five years' toil, and he spent ten +years of fruitless and baffled effort in the deduction of the laws of +areas and orbital ellipticity. + +But this audacious diviner knew well the use of Hypothesis, and he +applied it as an instrument of investigation as it had never been +applied before. The vast significance of Hypothesis in the theory of +Scientific Method has never been recognized. It would be a good piece +of psychology to explore the principles of this subtile mental power, +and might go far to give us a philosophy of Anticipation. The men of +facts, men of the understanding, observers,--as we might +suppose,--universally show a disposition to shun theorizing, as opposed +to the exactness of demonstrative science. And yet it is quite certain, +that, in proportion as one rises to a more liberal apprehension, the +immense provisional power of speculative ideas becomes apparent. +Laplace asserted that no great discovery was ever made without a great +guess; and long before, Plato had intimated of these "sacred suspicions +of truth," that descend dawn-like on the mind, sublime premonitions of +beautiful gates of laws. It is these launching tentatives which bring +phenomena to interior and metaphysical tests and bear the mind +swift-winged to Nature. Of course, there are various kinds of +conjecture, and its value will depend on the brain from which it +departs. But a powerful spirit will justify Hypothesis by the high +functions to which he puts it. His guesses are not for nothing. Many +and long processes go to them.--The inexhaustible fertility displayed +by Kepler is a psychologic marvel. He had that subtile chemistry that +turns even failures to account, consumes them in its flaming ascent to +new reaches. After years of labor on his theory of Mars, he found it +failed in application to latitudes and longitudes "out of opposition." +Remorselessly he let his hypothesis go, and drew from his failure an +important inference, the first step towards emancipation from the +ancient prejudice of uniform, circular motion. + +Such a genius for Analogy the world never before saw. The perception of +similitude, of correspondence, shot perpetual and prophetic in this +man's glances. To him had been opened the subtile secret, key to +Nature, that Man and the Universe are built after one pattern, and he +had faith to believe that the laws of his mind would unlock the +phenomena of the world. + +The law of Analogy flows from the inherent harmonies of Nature. Of this +wise men have ever been intuitive. The eldest Scriptures express it. It +is in the Zend-Avesta, primal Japhetic utterance. It vivified that +subtile Egyptian symbolism. The early Greeks and the Mystics of +Alexandria knew it. Jamblicus reports of Pythagoras, that "he did not +procure for himself a thing of this kind through instruments or the +voice, but, by employing a certain inevitable divinity, and which it is +difficult to apprehend, he extended his ears and fixed his intellect in +the sublime symphonies of the world,--he alone hearing and +understanding, as it appears, the universal harmony and consonance of +the spheres and the stars that are moved through them, and which +produce a fuller and more intense melody than anything effected by +mortal sounds." + +From the sublime intuitions of the harmonies of Nature and the unity of +the Universe unfold the bright doctrines of Series and Degrees, of +Correspondence, of Similitude. On these thoughts all wise spirits have +fed. Indeed, you can hardly say they were ever absent. They are of +those flaming thoughts the soul projects, splendid prophecies that +become the light of all our science and all our day. Plato formulated +these laws. Two thousand years after him, the cosmic brain of +Swedenborg traced their working throughout the universal economies of +matter and spirit, and Fourier endeavored to translate them into axioms +of a new social organization. + +These doctrines were ever present to the mind of Kepler; and to what +fruitful account he turned Analogy as a means of inductive speculation +his wonderful anatomy of his discoveries reveals. He fed on the +harmonies of the universe. He has it, that "harmony is the perfection +of relations." The work of his mature intellect was the "Harmonices +Mundi," (Harmonies of the World,) in which many of the sublime leadings +of Modern Science, as the Correlation of Sounds and Colors, the +Significance of Musical Chords, the Undulatory Theory, etc., are +prefigured. We must account him one of the chief of those prophetic +spirits who, by attempting to give phenomena a necessary root in ideas, +have breathed into Science a living soul. The new Transcendental +Anatomy,--the doctrine of Homologies,--the Embryologic scheme, +revealing that all animate forms are developed after one +archetype,--the splendid Nebular guess of Laplace,--the thought of the +Metamorphosis of Plants,--the attempts at profounder explanations of +Light and Colors,--the rising transcendentalism of Chemistry,--the +magnificent intuition of Correspondence, showing a grand unity of +design in the nodes of shells, the phyllotaxism of plants, and the +serialization of planets,--are all signs of the presence of a spirit +that is to usher in a new dispensation of Science, fraught with +divinest messages to the head and heart of man. + +Kepler regarded Analogy as the soul of Science, and he has made it an +instrument of prophecy and power. Thus, he inferred from Analogy that +the sun turned on its axis, long before Galileo was able to direct his +telescope to the solar spots and so determine this rotation as an +actual fact. He anticipated a planet between Mars and Jupiter too small +to be seen; and his inference that the obliquity of the ecliptic was +decreasing, but would, after a long-continued diminution, stop, and +then increase again, afterwards acquired the sanction of demonstration. +A like instance of anticipation is afforded in the beautiful experiment +of the freely-suspended ball revolving in an ellipse under the combined +influence of the central and tangential forces, which Jeremiah Horrocks +devised, when pursuing Kepler's theory of planetary motion,--his +intuition being, that the motions of the spheres might be represented +by terrestrial movements. We may mention the observation which the +ill-starred Horrocks makes, in a letter,[1] on the occasion of this +experiment, as one of the sublimities of Science:--"It appears to me, +however, that I have fallen upon the true theory, and that it admits of +being illustrated by natural movements on the surface of the earth; for +Nature everywhere acts according to a uniform plan, and the harmony of +creation is such that small things constitute a faithful type of +greater things." Another instance is afforded in the grand intuition of +Oken, who, when rambling in the Hartz Mountains, lit upon the skull of +a deer, and saw that the cranium was but an expansion of vertebrae, and +that the vertebra is the theoretical archetype of the entire osseous +framework,--the foundation of modern Osteology. And still another is +the well-known instance of the change in polarization predicted by +Fresnel from the mere interpretation of an algebraic symbol. This +prophetic insight is very sublime, and opens up new spaces in man. + +[Footnote 1: _Correspondence,_ 1637] + +Of the discoveries of Kepler, we can here have to do with their +universal and humanitary bearings alone. It is to be understood, +however, that the three grand sweeps of Deduction which we call +Kepler's Laws formed the foundation of the higher conception of +astronomy, that is, the dynamical theory of astronomical phenomena, and +prepared the way for the "Mécanique Céleste." Whewell, the learned +historian of the Sciences, speaks of them as "by far the most +magnificent and most certain train of truths which the whole expanse of +human knowledge can show"; and Comte declares, that "history tells of +no such succession of philosophical efforts as in the case of Kepler, +who, after constituting Celestial Geometry, strove to pursue that +science of Celestial Mechanics which was by its very nature reserved +for a future generation." These laws are, first, the law of the +velocities of the planets; second, the law of the elliptic orbit of the +planets; and, third, the harmonic law, that the squares of the times of +the planetary revolutions are proportional to the cubes of their mean +distances from the sun. They compass the whole sweep of Celestial +Geometry, and stamp their seer as unapproachably the greatest of +astronomers, as well as one of the chief benefactors of mankind. + +The announcement of Kepler's first two laws was made in his New +Astronomy,--"Astronomia Nova, seu Physica Caelestis, tradita +Commentariis de Motibus Stellae Martis: Ex Observationibus G.V. +Tychonis Brahe." Folio. Prague: 1609. This he published in his +thirty-eighth year. The title he gave to this work, "Celestial +Physics," must ever be regarded as a stroke of philosophical genius; it +is the prediction of Newton and Laplace, and prefigures the path on +which astronomical discovery has advanced these two hundred and fifty +years. + +An auspicious circumstance conspired to forward the astronomical +discoveries of Kepler. Invited to Prague in 1600 by Tycho Brahe, as +Assistant Royal Astronomer, he had access to the superb series of +observations which Tycho had been accumulating for twenty-five years. +Endowed with a genius for observation unsurpassed in the annals of +science, the noble Dane had obtained a grant from the king of Denmark +of the island of Hven, at the mouth of the Baltic. Here he erected a +magnificent observatory, which he named _Uranienborg_, City of the +Heavens. This he fitted up with a collection of instruments of hitherto +unapproached size and perfection, and here, for twenty years, he +pursued his observations. Thus it was that Kepler, himself a poor +observer, found his complement in one who, without any power of +constructive generalization, was yet the possessor of the richest +series of astronomical observations ever made. From this admirable +conjunction admirable realizations were to be expected. And, indeed, +the "Astronomia Nova" presents an unequalled illustration of +observation vivified by theory, and theory tested and fructified by +observation. + +To appreciate the significance of the discovery of the elliptical orbit +of the planets, it is necessary to understand the complicated confusion +that prevailed in the conception of planetary motions. The primal +thought was that the motions of the planets were uniform and circular. +This intuition of circular orbits was a happy one, and was, perhaps, +necessitated by the very structure of the human mind. The sweeping and +centrifugal soul, darting manifold rays of equal reach, realizes the +conception of the circle, that is, a figure all of whose radii are +equidistant from a central point. But this conception of the circle +afterwards came to acquire superstitious tenacity, being regarded as +the perfect form, and the only one suitable for such divine natures as +the stars, and was for two thousand years an impregnable barrier to the +progress of Astronomy. To account for every new appearance, every +deviation from circular perfection, a new cycloid was supposed, till +all the simplicity of the original hypothesis was lost in a +complication of epicycles:-- + + "The sphere, + With centric and eccentric scribbled o'er, + Cycle and epicycle, orb in orb." + +By the end of the sixteenth century the number of circles supposed +necessary for the seven stars then known amounted to seventy-four, +while Tycho Brahe was discovering more and more planetary movements for +which these circles would not account. + +To push aside forever this complicated chaos and evoke celestial order +and harmony, came Kepler. Long had the sublime intuition possessed him, +that numerical and geometrical relations connect the distances, times, +and revolutions of the planets. He began his studies on the planet +Mars,--a fortunate choice, as the marked eccentricity of that planet +would afford ready suggestions and verifications of the true law of +irregularity, and on which Tycho had accumulated copious data. It had +long been remarked that the angular velocity of each planet increases +constantly in proportion as the body approaches its centre of motion; +but the relation between the distance and the velocity remained wholly +unknown. Kepler discovered it by comparing the maximum and minimum of +these quantities, by which their relation became more sensible. He +found that the angular velocities of Mars at its nearest and farthest +distances from the sun were in inverse proportion to the squares of the +corresponding distances. This law, deduced, was the immediate path to +the law of orbital ellipticity. For, on attempting to apply his +newly-discovered law to Mars, on the old assumption that its orbit was +a circle, he soon found that the results from the combination of the +two principles were such as could not be reconciled with the places of +Mars observed by Tycho. In this dilemma, finding he must give up one or +the other of these principles, he first proposed to sacrifice his own +theory to the authority of the old system,--a memorable example of +resolute candor. But, after indefatigably subjecting it to crucial +experiment, he found that it was the old hypothesis, and not the new +one, that had to be sacrificed.[1] If the orbit was not a circle, what, +then, was it? By a happy stroke of philosophical genius he lit on the +ellipse. On bringing his hypothesis to the test of observation, he +found it was indeed so; and rising from the case of Mars to universal +statement, he generalized the law, that the planetary orbits are +elliptical, having the sun for their common focus. + +[Footnote 1: ROBERT SMALL: _Astronomical Discoveries of Kepler_.] + +Kepler had now determined the course of each planet. But there was no +known relation between the distances and times; and the evolution of +some harmony between these factors was to him an object of the greatest +interest and the most restless curiosity. Long he dwelt in the dream of +the Pythagorean harmonies. Then he essayed to determine it from the +regular geometrical solids, and afterwards from the divisions of +musical chords. Over twenty years he spent in these baffled efforts. At +length, on the 8th of March, 1618, it occurred to him, that, instead of +comparing the simple times, he should compare the numbers expressing +the similar powers, as squares, cubes, etc.; and lastly, he made the +very comparison on which his discovery was founded, between the squares +of the times and the cubes of the distances. But, through some error of +calculation, no common relation was found between them. Finding it +impossible, however, to banish the subject from his thoughts, he tells +us, that on the 8th of the following May he renewed the last of these +comparisons, and, by repeating his calculations with greater care, +found, with the highest astonishment and delight, that the ratio of the +squares of the periodical times of any two planets was constantly and +invariably the same with the ratio of the cubes of their mean distances +from the sun. Then it was that he burst forth in his memorable +rhapsody:--"What I prophesied twenty-two years ago, as soon as I +discovered the five solids among the heavenly orbits,--what I firmly +believed long before I had seen Ptolemy's harmonics,--what I had +promised my friends in the title of this book, which I named before I +was sure of my discovery,--what sixteen years ago I urged as a thing to +be sought,--that for which I joined Tycho Brahe, for which I settled in +Prague, for which I have devoted the best part of my life to +astronomical contemplation,--at length I have brought to light, and +have recognized its truth beyond my most sanguine expectations. It is +now eighteen months since I got the first glimpse of light, three +months since the dawn, very few days since the unveiled sun, most +admirable to gaze upon, burst out upon me. Nothing holds me; I will +indulge in my sacred fury; I will triumph over mankind by the honest +confession, that I have stolen the golden vases of the Egyptians to +build up a tabernacle for my God far away from the confines of Egypt. +If you forgive me, I rejoice; if you are angry, I can bear it: the die +is cast; the book is written, to be read either now or by posterity, I +care not which: it may well wait a century for a reader, as God has +waited six thousand years for an observer!" + +These laws have, no doubt, a universal significance, and may be +translated into problems of life. For, after the farthest sweep of +Induction, a question yet remains to be asked: Whence comes the power +to perceive a law? Whence that subtile correspondence and +consanguinity, that the laws of man's mental structure tally with the +phenomena of the universe? To this problem of problems our science as +yet affords but meagre answers. It seems though, so far in the history +of humanity, it had been but given man to recognize this truth as a +splendid idealism, without the ability to make it potential in his +theory of the world. Yet what a key to new and beautiful gates of laws! + + "Who can be sure to find its true degree, + _Magister magnus in igne_ shall he be." + +Antique and intuitive nations--Indians, Egyptians, Greeks--sought a +solution of this august mystery in the doctrines of Transmigration and +Anamnesis or Reminiscence. Nothing is whereto man is not kin. He knows +all worlds and histories by virtue of having himself travelled the +mystic spiral descent. Awaking through memory, the processes of his +mind repeat the processes of the visible Kosmos. His unfolding is a +hymn of the origination of the world. + +Nature and man having sprung from the same spiritual source, a perfect +agreement subsists between the phenomena of the world and man's +mentality. This is necessary to the very conception of Science. If the +laws of reason did not exist in Nature, we should vainly attempt to +force them upon her: if the laws of Nature did not exist in our reason, +we should not be able to comprehend them.[1] There is a saying reported +of Zoroaster, and, coming from the deeps of fifty centuries, still +authentic and intelligible, that "the congruities of material forms to +the laws of the soul are divine allurements." Ever welcome is the +perception of this truth,--as the sublime audacity of Paracelsus, that +"those who would understand the course of the heavens above must first +of all recognize the heaven in man"; and the affirmation, that "the +laws of Nature are the same as the thoughts within us: the laws of +motion are such as are required by our understanding." It remains to +say that Kepler, too, had intuition of this lofty thought. At the +conclusion of his early work, "The Prodromus Dissertationum +Cosmographicarum," he wrote,--"As men enjoy dainties at the dessert, so +do wise souls gain a taste for heavenly things when they ascend from +their college to the universe and there look around them. Great Artist +of the World! I look with wonder on the works of Thy hands, constructed +after five regular forms, and in the midst the sun, the dispenser of +light and life. I see the moon and stars strewn over the infinite field +of space. Father of the World! what moved Thee thus to exalt a poor, weak +little creature of earth so high that he stands in light a far-ruling +king, almost a god?--_for he thinks Thy thoughts after Thee_." + +[Footnote 1: OERSTED: _Soul in Nature._] + +It is impossible not to feel freer at the accession of so much power as +these laws bring us. They carry farther on the bounds of humanity. The +stars are the eternal monitions of spirituality. Who can estimate how +much man's thoughts have been colored by these golden kindred? It seems +as though it were but required to show man space,--space, space, +space,--there is that in him will fill and pass it. There is that in +the celestial prodigies--in gulfs of Time and Space--that seems to mate +the greed of the soul. There is that greed in the soul to pass through +worlds and ages,--through growths, griefs, desires, processes, +spheres,--to travel the endless highways,--to pass and resume again. O +Heavens, you are but a splendid fable of the elder mind! Centripetal +and centrifugal are in man, too, and primarily; and an aspiring soul +will ascend into the sweeps and circles, and pass swift and devouring +through baffling intervals and steep-down strata of galaxies and stars. + +The thought that overarches the centuries with firmamental sweep is the +thought of the Ensemble. To this all has led along,--but the +disclosures of Astronomy especially. The discovery of the earth's +revolution, at once transporting the stars to distances outside of all +telluric connection, broke the old spell, and replaced the petty +provincialism of the earth as the All-Centre by the vast, sublime +conception of the Universe. Laplace has pointed this out, showing how +to the fantastic and enervating notion of a universe arranged for man +has succeeded the sound and vivifying thought of man discovering, by a +positive exercise of his intelligence, the general laws of the world, +so as to be able to modify them for his own good, within certain +limits. Dawning prophetic on modern times, the thought of the Ensemble +holds the seeds of new humanitary growths. This is the vast similitude +that binds together the ages,--that balances creeds, colors, eras. +Through Nature, man, forms, spirit, the eternal conspiracy works and +weaves. This is the water of spirituality. All is bound up in the +Divine Scheme. The Divine Scheme encloses all. + + + + +PLEASURE-PAIN. + +"Das Vergnügen ist Nichts als ein höchst angenehmer Schmerz."--HEINRICH +HEINE + + +I. + +Full of beautiful blossoms + Stood the tree in early May: +Came a chilly gale from the sunset, + And blew the blossoms away,-- + +Scattered them, through the garden, + Tossed them into the mere: +The sad tree moaned and shuddered, + "Alas! the fall is here." + +But all through the glowing summer + The blossomless tree throve fair, +And the fruit waxed ripe and mellow, + With sunny rain and air; + +And when the dim October + With golden death was crowned, +Under its heavy branches + The tree stooped to the ground. + +In youth there comes a west wind + Blowing our bloom away,-- +A chilly breath of Autumn + Out of the lips of May. + +We bear the ripe fruit after,-- + Ah, me! for the thought of pain!-- +We know the sweetness and beauty + And the heart-bloom never again. + +II. + +One sails away to sea,-- + One stands on the shore and cries; +The ship goes down the world, and the light + On the sullen water dies. + +The whispering shell is mute,-- + And after is evil cheer: +She shall stand on the shore and cry in vain, + Many and many a year. + +But the stately, wide-winged ship + Lies wrecked on the unknown deep; +Far under, dead in his coral bed, + The lover lies asleep. + +III. + +In the wainscot ticks the death-watch, + Chirps the cricket in the floor, +In the distance dogs are barking, + Feet go by outside my door. + +From her window honeysuckles + Stealing in upon the gloom, +Spice and sweets embalm the silence + Dead within the lonesome room. + +And the ghost of that dead silence + Haunts me ever, thin and chill, +In the pauses of the death-watch, + When the cricket's cry is still. + +IV. + +She stands in silks of purple, + Like a splendid flower in bloom; +She moves, and the air is laden + With delicate perfume. + +The over-vigilant mamma + Can never let her be: +She must play this march for another, + And sing that song for me. + +I wonder if she remembers + The song I made for her: +"_The hopes of love are frailer + Than lines of gossamer_": + +Made when we strolled together + Through fields of happy June, +And our hearts kept time together, + With birds and brooks in tune,-- + +And I was so glad of loving, + That I must mimic grief, +And, trusting in love forever, + Must fable unbelief. + +I did not hear the prelude,-- + I was thinking of these old things. +She is fairer and wiser and older + Than----What is it she sings? + +"_The hopes of love are frailer + Than lines of gossamer_." +Alas! the bitter wisdom + Of the song I made for her! + +V. + +All the long August afternoon, + The little drowsy stream +Whispers a melancholy tune, +As if it dreamed of June + And whispered in its dream. + +The thistles show beyond the brook + Dust on their down and bloom, +And out of many a weed-grown nook +The aster-flowers look + With eyes of tender gloom. + +The silent orchard aisles are sweet + With smell of ripening fruit. +Through the sere grass, in shy retreat, +Flatter, at coming feet, + The robins strange and mute. + +There is no wind to stir the leaves, + The harsh leaves overhead; +Only the querulous cricket grieves, +And shrilling locust weaves + A song of summer dead. + + + + +THE PROFESSOR'S STORY. + + +CHAPTER VII. + +THE EVENT OF THE SEASON. + + +"Mr. and Mrs. Colonel Sprowle's compliments to Mr. Langdon and requests +the pleasure of his company at a social entertainment on Wednesday +evening next. + +"_Elm St. Monday._" + +On paper of a pinkish color and musky smell, with a large S at the top, +and an embossed border. Envelop adherent, not sealed. Addressed, + +----_Langdon Esq. + +Present._ + +Brought by H. Frederic Sprowle, youngest son of the Colonel,--the H. of +course standing for the paternal Hezekiah, put in to please the father, +and reduced to its initial to please the mother, she having a marked +preference for Frederic. Boy directed to wait for an answer. + +"Mr. Langdon has the pleasure of accepting Mr. and Mrs. Colonel +Sprowle's polite invitation for Wednesday evening." + +On plain paper, sealed with an initial. + +In walking along the main street, Mr. Bernard had noticed a large house +of some pretensions to architectural display, namely, unnecessarily +projecting eaves, giving it a mushroomy aspect, wooden mouldings at +various available points, and a grandiose arched portico. It looked a +little swaggering by the side of one or two of the mansion-houses that +were not far from it, was painted too bright for Mr. Bernard's taste, +had rather too fanciful a fence before it, and had some fruit-trees +planted in the front-yard, which to this fastidious young gentleman +implied a defective sense of the fitness of things, not promising in +people who lived in so large a house, with a mushroom roof, and a +triumphal arch for its entrance. + +This place was known as "Colonel Sprowle's villa," (genteel +friends,)--as "the elegant residence of our distinguished +fellow-citizen, Colonel Sprowle," (Rockland Weekly Universe,)--as "the +neew haouse," (old settlers,)--as "Spraowle's Folly," (disaffected and +possibly envious neighbors,)--and in common discourse, as "the +Colonel's". + +Hezekiah Sprowle, Esquire, Colonel Sprowle of the Commonwealth's +Militia, was a retired "merchant." An India merchant he might, perhaps, +have been properly called; for he used to deal in West India goods, +such as coffee, sugar, and molasses, not to speak of rum,--also in tea, +salt fish, butter and cheese, oil and candles, dried fruit, +agricultural "p'dóose" generally, industrial products, such as boots +and shoes, and various kinds of iron and wooden ware, and at one end of +the establishment in calicoes and other stuffs,--to say nothing of +miscellaneous objects of the most varied nature, from sticks of candy, +which tempted in the smaller youth with coppers in their fists, up to +ornamental articles of apparel, pocket-books, breast-pins, gilt-edged +Bibles, stationery,--in short, everything which was like to prove +seductive to the rural population. The Colonel had made money in trade, +and also by matrimony. He had married Sarah, daughter and heiress of +the late Tekel Jordan, Esq., an old miser, who gave the town clock, +which carries his name to posterity in large gilt letters as a generous +benefactor of his native place. In due time the Colonel reaped the +reward of well-placed affections. When his wife's inheritance fell in, +he thought he had money enough to give up trade, and therefore sold out +his "store," called in some dialects of the English language _shop_, +and his business. + +Life became pretty hard work to him, of course, as soon as he had +nothing particular to do. Country people with money enough not to have +to work are in much more danger than city people in the same condition. +They get a specific look and character, which are the same in all the +villages where one studies them. They very commonly fall into a +routine, the basis of which is going to some lounging-place or other, a +bar-room, a reading-room, or something of the kind. They grow slovenly +in dress, and wear the same hat forever. They have a feeble curiosity +for news perhaps, which they take daily as a man takes his bitters, and +then fall silent and think they are thinking. But the mind goes out +under this regimen, like a fire without a draught; and it is not very +strange, if the instinct of mental self-preservation drives them to +brandy-and-water, which makes the hoarse whisper of memory musical for +a few brief moments, and puts a weak leer of promise on the features of +the hollow-eyed future. The Colonel was kept pretty well in hand as yet +by his wife, and though it had happened to him once or twice to come +home rather late at night with a curious tendency to say the same thing +twice and even three times over, it had always been in very cold +weather,--and everybody knows that no one is safe to drink a couple of +glasses of wine in a warm room and go suddenly out into the cold air. + +Miss Matilda Sprowle, sole daughter of the house, had reached the age +at which young ladies are supposed in technical language to have _come +out_, and thereafter are considered to be _in company._ + +"There's one piece o' goods," said the Colonel to his wife, "that we +ha'n't disposed of, nor got a customer for yet. That's Matildy. I don't +mean to set _her_ up at vaandoo. I guess she can have her pick of a +dozen." + +"She's never seen anybody yet," said Mrs. Sprowle, who had had a +certain project for some time, but had kept quiet about it. "Let's have +a party, and give her a chance to show herself and see some of the +young folks." + +The Colonel was not very clear-headed, and he thought, naturally +enough, that the party was his own suggestion, because his remark led +to the first starting of the idea. He entered into the plan, therefore, +with a certain pride as well as pleasure, and the great project was +resolved upon in a family council without a dissentient voice. This was +the party, then, to which Mr. Bernard was going. The town had been full +of it for a week. "Everybody was asked." So everybody said that was +invited. But how in respect of those who were not asked? If it had been +one of the old mansion-houses that was giving a party, the boundary +between the favored and the slighted families would have been known +pretty well beforehand, and there would have been no great amount of +grumbling. But the Colonel, for all his title, had a forest of poor +relations and a brushwood swamp of shabby friends, for he had scrambled +up to fortune, and now the time was come when he must define his new +social position. + +This is always an awkward business in town or country. An exclusive +alliance between two powers is often the same thing as a declaration of +war against a third. Rockland was soon split into a triumphant +minority, invited to Mrs. Sprowle's party, and a great majority, +uninvited, of which the fraction just on the border line between +recognized "gentility" and the level of the ungloved masses was in an +active state of excitement and indignation. + +"Who is she, I should like to know?" said Mrs. Saymore, the tailor's +wife. "There was plenty of folks in Rockland as good as ever Sally +Jordan was, if she _had_ managed to pick up a merchant. Other folks +could have married merchants, if their families wasn't as wealthy as +them old skinflints that willed her their money," etc., etc. Mrs. +Saymore expressed the feeling of many beside herself. She had, however, +a special right to be proud of the name she bore. Her husband was own +cousin to the Saymores of Freestone Avenue (who write the name +_Seymour_, and claim to be of the Duke of Somerset's family, showing a +clear descent from the Protector to Edward Seymour, (1630,)--then a +jump that would break a herald's neck to one Seth Saymore, +(1783,)--from whom to the head of the present family the line is clear +again). Mrs. Saymore, the tailor's wife, was not invited, because her +husband _mended_ clothes. If he had confined himself strictly to +_making_ them, it would have put a different face upon the matter. + +The landlord of the Mountain House and his lady were invited to Mrs. +Sprowle's party. Not so the landlord of Pollard's Tavern and his lady. +Whereupon the latter vowed that they would have a party at their house +too, and made arrangements for a dance of twenty or thirty couples, to +be followed by an entertainment. Tickets to this "Social Ball" were +soon circulated, and, being accessible to all at a moderate price, +admission to the "Elegant Supper" included, this second festival +promised to be as merry, if not as select, as the great party. + +Wednesday came. Such doings had never been heard of in Rockland as went +on that day at the "villa." The carpet had been taken up in the long +room, so that the young folks might have a dance. Miss Matilda's piano +had been moved in, and two fiddlers and a clarionet-player engaged to +make music. All kinds of lamps had been put in requisition, and even +colored wax-candles figured on the mantel-pieces. The costumes of the +family had been tried on the day before: the Colonel's black suit +fitted exceedingly well; his lady's velvet dress displayed her contours +to advantage; Miss Matilda's flowered silk was considered superb; the +eldest son of the family, Mr. T. Jordan Sprowle, called affectionately +and elegantly "Geordie," voted himself "stunnin'"; and even the small +youth who had borne Mr. Bernard's invitation was effective in a new +jacket and trousers, buttony in front, and baggy in the reverse aspect, +as is wont to be the case with the home-made garments of inland +youngsters. + +Great preparations had been made for the refection which was to be part +of the entertainment. There was much clinking of borrowed spoons, which +were to be carefully counted, and much clicking of borrowed china, +which was to be tenderly handled,--for nobody in the country keeps +those vast closets full of such things which one may see in rich +city-houses. Not a great deal could be done in the way of flowers, for +there were no greenhouses, and few plants were out as yet; but there +were paper ornaments for the candlesticks, and colored mats for the +lamps, and all the tassels of the curtains and bells were taken out of +those brown linen bags, in which, for reasons hitherto undiscovered, +they are habitually concealed in some households. In the remoter +apartments every imaginable operation was going on at once,--roasting, +boiling, baking, beating, rolling, pounding in mortars, frying, +freezing; for there was to be ice-cream to-night of domestic +manufacture;--and in the midst of all these labors, Mrs. Sprowle and +Miss Matilda were moving about, directing and helping as they best +might, all day long. When the evening came, it might be feared they +would not be in just the state of mind and body to entertain company. + +----One would like to give a party now and then, if one could be a +billionnaire.--"Antoine, I am going to have twenty people to dine +to-day." "_Bien, Madame_." Not a word or thought more about it, but get +home in season to dress, and come down to your own table, one of your +own guests.--"Giuseppe, we are to have a party a week from +to-night,--five hundred invitations,--there is the list." The day +comes. "Madam, do you remember you have your party to-night?" "Why, so +I have! Everything right? supper and all?" "All as it should be, +Madam." "Send up Victorine." "Victorine, full toilet for this +evening,--pink, diamonds, and emeralds. Coiffeur at seven. +_Allez_."--Billionism, or even millionism, must be a blessed kind of +state, with health and clear conscience and youth and good looks,--but +most blessed in this, that it takes off all the mean cares which give +people the three wrinkles between the eyebrows, and leaves them free to +have a good time and make others have a good time, all the way along +from the charity that tips up unexpected loads of wood at widows' +doors, and leaves foundling turkeys upon poor men's doorsteps, and sets +lean clergymen crying at the sight of anonymous fifty-dollar bills, to +the taste which orders a perfect banquet in such sweet accord with +every sense that everybody's nature flowers out full-blown in its +golden-glowing, fragrant atmosphere. + +----A great party given by the smaller gentry of the interior is a kind +of solemnity, so to speak. It involves so much labor and anxiety,--its +spasmodic splendors are so violently contrasted with the homeliness of +every-day family-life,--it is such a formidable matter to break in the +raw subordinates to the _manége_ of the cloak-room and the +table,--there is such a terrible uncertainty in the results of +unfamiliar culinary operations,--so many feuds are involved in drawing +that fatal line which divides the invited from the uninvited fraction +of the local universe,--that, if the notes requested the pleasure of +the guests' company on "this solemn occasion," they would pretty nearly +express the true state of things. + +The Colonel himself had been pressed into the service. He had pounded +something in the great mortar. He had agitated a quantity of sweetened +and thickened milk in what was called a cream-freezer. At eleven +o'clock, A.M., he retired for a space. On returning, his color was +noted to be somewhat heightened, and he showed a disposition to be +jocular with the female help,--which tendency, displaying itself in +livelier demonstrations than were approved at head-quarters, led to his +being detailed to out-of-door duties, such as raking gravel, arranging +places for horses to be hitched to, and assisting in the construction +of an arch of wintergreen at the porch of the mansion. + +A whiff from Mr. Geordie's cigar refreshed the toiling females from +time to time; for the windows had to be opened occasionally, while all +these operations were going on, and the youth amused himself with +inspecting the interior, encouraging the operatives now and then in the +phrases commonly employed by genteel young men,--for he had perused an +odd volume of "Verdant Green," and was acquainted with a Sophomore from +one of the fresh-water colleges.--"Go it on the feed!" exclaimed this +spirited young man. "Nothin' like a good spread. Grub enough and good +liquor; that's the ticket. Guv'nor 'll do the heavy polite, and let me +alone for polishin' off the young charmers." And Mr. Geordie looked +expressively at a handmaid who was rolling gingerbread, as if he were +rehearsing for "Don Giovanni." + +Evening came at last, and the ladies were forced to leave the scene of +their labors to array themselves for the coming festivities. The tables +had been set in a back room, the meats were ready, the pickles were +displayed, the cake was baked, the blanc-mange had stiffened, and the +ice-cream had frozen. + +At half past seven o'clock, the Colonel, in costume, came into the +front parlor, and proceeded to light the lamps. Some were good-humored +enough and took the hint of a lighted match at once. Others were as +vicious as they could be,--would not light on any terms, any more than +if they were filled with water, or lighted and smoked one side of the +chimney, or sputtered a few sparks and sulked themselves out, or kept +up a faint show of burning, so that their ground glasses looked as +feebly phosphorescent as so many invalid fireflies. With much coaxing +and screwing and pricking, a tolerable illumination was at last +achieved. At eight there was a grand rustling of silks, and Mrs. and +Miss Sprowle descended from their respective bowers or boudoirs. Of +course they were pretty well tired by this time, and very glad to sit +down,--having the prospect before them of being obliged to stand for +hours. The Colonel walked about the parlor, inspecting his regiment of +lamps. By-and-by Mr. Geordie entered. + +"Mph! mph!" he sniffed, as he came in. "You smell of lamp-smoke here." + +That always galls people,--to have a new-comer accuse them of smoke or +close air, which they have got used to and do not perceive. The Colonel +raged at the thought of his lamps' smoking, and tongued a few anathemas +inside of his shut teeth, but turned down two or three that burned +higher than the rest. + +Master H. Frederic next made his appearance, with questionable marks +upon his fingers and countenance. Had been tampering with something +brown and sticky. His elder brother grew playful, and caught him by the +baggy reverse of his more essential garment. + +"Hush!" said Mrs. Sprowle,--"there's the bell!" + +Everybody took position at once, and began to look very smiling and +altogether at ease.--False alarm. Only a parcel of spoons,--"loaned," +as the inland folks say when they mean lent, by a neighbor. + +"Better late than never!" said the Colonel; "let me heft them spoons." + +Mrs. Sprowle came down into her chair again as if all her bones had +been bewitched out of her. + +"I'm pretty nigh beat out a'ready," said she, "before any of the folks +has come." + +They sat silent awhile, waiting for the first arrival. How nervous they +got! and how their senses were sharpened! + +"Hark!" said Miss Matilda,--"what's that rumblin'?" + +It was a cart going over a bridge more than a mile off, which at any +other time they would not have heard. After this there was a lull, and +poor Mrs. Sprowle's head nodded once or twice. Presently a crackling +and grinding of gravel;--how much that means, when we are waiting for +those whom we long or dread to see! Then a change in the tone of the +gravel-crackling. + +"Yes, they have turned in at our gate. They're comin'. Mother! mother!" + +Everybody in position, smiling and at ease. Bell rings. Enter the first +set of visitors. The Event of the Season has begun. + +"Law! it's nothin' but the Cranes' folks! I do believe Mahala's come in +that old green de-laine she wore at the Surprise Party!" + +Miss Matilda had peeped through a crack of the door and made this +observation and the remark founded thereon. Continuing her attitude of +attention, she overheard Mrs. Crane and her two daughters conversing in +the attiring-room, up one flight. + +"How fine everything is in the great house!" said Mrs. Crane,--"jest +look at the picters!" "Matildy Sprowle's drawins," said Ada Azuba, the +eldest daughter. + +"I should think so," said Mahala Crane, her younger sister,--a +wide-awake girl, who hadn't been to school for nothing, and performed a +little on the lead pencil herself. "I should like to know whether +that's a hay-cock or a mountain!" + +Miss Matilda winced; for this must refer to her favorite monochrome, +executed by laying on heavy shadows and stumping them down into mellow +harmony,--the style of drawing which is taught in six lessons, and the +kind of specimen which is executed in something less than one hour. +Parents and other very near relatives are sometimes gratified with +these productions, and cause them to be framed and hung up, as in the +present instance. + +"I guess we won't go down jest yet," said Mrs. Crane, "as folks don't +seem to have come." + +So she began a systematic inspection of the dressing-room and its +conveniences. + +"Mahogany four-poster,--come from the Jordans', I cal'late. Marseilles +quilt. Ruffles all round the piller. Chintz curtings,--jest put up,--o' +purpose for the party, I'll lay ye a dollar.--What a nice washbowl!" +(Taps it with a white knuckle belonging to a red finger.) "Stone +chaney.--Here's a bran'-new brush and comb,--and here's a scent-bottle. +Come here, girls, and fix yourselves in the glass, and scent your +pocket-handkerchers." + +And Mrs. Crane bedewed her own kerchief with some of the _eau de +Cologne_ of native manufacture,--said on its label to be much superior +to the German article. + +It was a relief to Mrs. and the Miss Cranes when the bell rang and the +next guests were admitted. Deacon and Mrs. Soper,--Deacon Soper of the +Rev. Mr. Fairweather's church, and his lady. Mrs. Deacon Soper was +directed, of course, to the ladies' dressing-room, and her husband to +the other apartment, where gentlemen were to leave their outside coats +and hats. Then came Mr. and Mrs. Briggs, and then the three Miss +Spinneys, then Silas Peckham, Head of the Apollinean Institute, and +Mrs. Peckham, and more after them, until at last the ladies' +dressing-room got so full that one might have thought it was a trap +none of them could get out of. The fact is, they all felt a little +awkwardly. Nobody wanted to be first to venture down-stairs. At last +Mr. Silas Peckham thought it was time to make a move for the parlor, +and for this purpose presented himself at the door of the ladies' +dressing-room. + +"Lorindy, my dear!" he exclaimed to Mrs. Peckham,--"I think there can +be no impropriety in our joining the family down-stairs." + +Mrs. Peckham laid her large, flaccid arm in the sharp angle made by the +black sleeve which held the bony limb her husband offered, and the two +took the stair and struck out for the parlor. The ice was broken, and +the dressing-room began to empty itself into the spacious, lighted +apartments below. + +Mr. Silas Peckham scaled into the room with Mrs. Peckham alongside, +like a shad convoying a jelly-fish. + +"Good evenin', Mrs. Sprowle! I hope I see you well this evenin'. How's +your health, Colonel Sprowle?" + +"Very well, much obleeged to you. Hope you and your good lady are well. +Much pleased to see you. Hope you'll enjoy yourselves. We've laid out +to have everything in good shape,--spared no trouble nor ex"---- + +----"pense,"--said Silas Peckham. + +Mrs. Colonel Sprowle, who, you remember, was a Jordan, had nipped the +Colonel's statement in the middle of the word Mr. Peckham finished, +with a look that jerked him like one of those sharp twitches women keep +giving a horse when they get a chance to drive one. + +Mr. and Mrs. Crane, Miss Ada Azuba, and Miss Mahala Crane made their +entrance. There had been a discussion about the necessity and propriety +of inviting this family, the head of which kept a small shop for hats +and boots and shoes. The Colonel's casting vote had carried it in the +affirmative.--How terribly the poor old green de-laine did cut up in +the blaze of so many lamps and candles! + +----Deluded little wretch, male or female, in town or country, going to +your first great party, how little you know the nature of the ceremony +in which you are to bear the part of victim! What! are not these +garlands and gauzy mists and many-colored streamers which adorn you, is +not this music which welcomes you, this radiance that glows about you, +meant solely for your enjoyment, young miss of seventeen or eighteen +summers, now for the first time swimming into the frothy, chatoyant, +sparkling, undulating sea of laces and silks and satins, and +white-armed, flower-crowned maidens struggling in their waves, beneath +the lustres that make the false summer of the drawing-room? + +Stop at the threshold! This is a hall of judgment you are entering; the +court is in session; and if you move five steps forward, you will be at +its bar. + +There was a tribunal once in France, as you may remember, called the +_Chambre Ardente_, the Burning Chamber. It was hung all round with +lamps, and hence its name. The burning chamber for the trial of young +maidens is the blazing ballroom. What have they full-dressed you, or +rather half-dressed you for, do you think? To make you look pretty, of +course!--Why have they hung a chandelier above you, flickering all over +with flames, so that it searches you like the noonday sun, and your +deepest dimple cannot hold a shadow? To give brilliancy to the gay +scene, no doubt!--No, my dear! Society is _inspecting_ you, and it +finds undisguised surfaces and strong lights a convenience in the +process. The dance answers the purpose of the revolving pedestal upon +which the "White Captive" turns, to show us the soft, kneaded marble, +which looks as if it had never been hard, in all its manifold aspects +of living loveliness. No mercy for you, my love! Justice, strict +justice, you shall certainly have,--neither more nor less. For, look +you, there are dozens, scores, hundreds, with whom you must be weighed +in the balance; and you have got to learn that the "struggle for life" +Mr. Charles Darwin talks about reaches to vertebrates clad in +crinoline, as well as to mollusks in shells, or articulates in jointed +scales, or anything that fights for breathing-room and food and love in +any coat of fur or feather! Happy they who can flash defiance from +bright eyes and snowy shoulders back into the pendants of the insolent +lustres! + +----Miss Mahala Crane did not have these reflections; and no young girl +ever did, or ever will, thank Heaven! Her keen eyes sparkled under her +plainly parted hair, and the green de-laine moulded itself in those +unmistakable lines of natural symmetry in which Nature indulges a small +shopkeeper's daughter occasionally as well as a wholesale dealer's +young ladies. She would have liked a new dress as much as any other +girl, but she meant to go and have a good time at any rate. + +The guests were now arriving in the drawing-room pretty fast, and the +Colonel's hand began to burn a good deal with the sharp squeezes which +many of the visitors gave it. Conversation, which had begun like a +summer-shower, in scattering drops, was fast becoming continuous, and +occasionally rising into gusty swells, with now and then a +broad-chested laugh from some Captain or Major or other military +personage,--for it may be noted that all large and loud men in the +impaved districts bear military titles. + +Deacon Soper came up presently and entered into conversation with +Colonel Sprowle. + +"I hope to see our pastor present this evenin'," said the Deacon. + +"I don't feel quite sure," the Colonel answered. "His dyspepsy has been +bad on him lately. He wrote to say, that, Providence permittin', it +would be agreeable to him to take a part in the exercises of the +evenin'; but I mistrusted he didn't mean to come. To tell the truth, +Deacon Soper, I rather guess he don't like the idee of dancin', and +some of the other little arrangements." + +"Well," said the Deacon, "I know there's some condemns dancin'. I've +heerd a good deal of talk about it among the folks round. Some have it +that it never brings a blessin' on a house to have dancin' in it. Judge +Tileston died, you remember, within a month after he had his great +ball, twelve year ago, and some thought it was in the natur' of a +judgment. I don't believe in any of them notions. If a man happened to +be struck dead the night after he'd been givin' a ball," (the Colonel +loosened his black stock a little, and winked and swallowed two or +three times,) "I shouldn't call it a judgment,--I should call it a +coincidence. But I'm a little afraid our pastor won't come. Somethin' +or other's the matter with Mr. Fairweather. I should sooner expect to +see the old Doctor come over out of the Orthodox parsonage-house." + +"I've asked him," said the Colonel. + +"Well?" said Deacon Soper. + +"He said he should like to come, but he didn't know what his people +would say. For his part, he loved to see young folks havin' their +sports together, and very often felt, as if he should like to be one of +'em himself. 'But,' says I, 'Doctor, I don't say there won't be a +little dancin'.' 'Don't!' says he, 'for I want Letty to go,' (she's his +granddaughter that's been stayin' with him,) 'and Letty's mighty fond +of dancin'. You know,' says the Doctor, 'it isn't my business to settle +whether other people's children should dance or not.' And the Doctor +looked as if he should like to rigadoon and sashy across as well as the +young one he was talkin' about. He's got blood in him, the old Doctor +has. I wish our little man and him would swop pulpits." + +Deacon Soper started and looked up into the Colonel's face, as if to +see whether he was in earnest. + +Mr. Silas Peckham and his lady joined the group. + +"Is this to be a Temperance Celebration, Mrs. Sprowle?" asked Mr. Silas +Peckham. + +Mrs. Sprowle replied, "that there would be lemonade and srub for those +that preferred such drinks, but that the Colonel had given folks to +understand that he didn't mean to set in judgment on the marriage in +Canaan, and that those that didn't like srub and such things would find +somethin' that would suit them better." + +Deacon Soper's countenance assumed a certain air of restrained +cheerfulness. The conversation rose into one of its gusty paroxysms +just then. Master H. Frederic got behind a door and began performing +the experiment of stopping and unstopping his ears in rapid +alternation, greatly rejoicing in the singular effect of mixed +conversation chopped very small, like the contents of a mince-pie,--or +meat pie, as it is more forcibly called in the deep-rutted villages +lying along the unsalted streams. All at once it grew silent just round +the door, where it had been loudest,--and the silence spread itself +like a stain, till it hushed everything but a few corner-duets. A dark, +sad-looking, middle-aged gentleman entered the parlor, with a young +lady on his arm,--his daughter, as it seemed, for she was not wholly +unlike him in feature, and of the same dark complexion. + +"Dudley Venner!" exclaimed a dozen people, in startled, but +half-suppressed tones. + +"What can have brought Dudley out to-night?" said Jefferson Buck, a +young fellow, who had been interrupted in one of the corner-duets which +he was executing in concert with Miss Susy Pettingill. + +"How do I know, Jeff?" was Miss Susy's answer. Then, after a +pause,--"Elsie made him come, I guess. Go ask Dr. Kittredge; he knows +all about 'em both, they say." + +Dr. Kittredge, the leading physician of Rockland, was a shrewd old man, +who looked pretty keenly into his patients through his spectacles, and +pretty widely at men, women, and things in general over them. +Sixty-three years old,--just the year of the grand climacteric. A bald +crown, as every doctor should have. A consulting practitioner's mouth; +that is, movable round the corners while the case is under examination, +but both corners well drawn down and kept so when the final opinion is +made up. In fact, the Doctor was often sent for to act as "caounsel," +all over the county, and beyond it. He kept three or four horses, +sometimes riding in the saddle, commonly driving in a sulky, pretty +fast, and looking straight before him, so that people got out of the +way of bowing to him as he passed on the road. There was some talk +about his not being so long-sighted as other folks, but his old +patients laughed and looked knowing when this was spoken of. + +The Doctor knew a good many things besides how to drop tinctures and +shake out powders. Thus, he knew a horse, and, what is harder to +understand, a horse-dealer, and was a match for him. He knew what a +nervous woman is, and how to manage her. He could tell at a glance when +she is in that condition of unstable equilibrium in which a rough word +is like blow to her, and the touch of unmagnetized fingers reverses all +her nervous currents. It is not everybody that enters into the soul of +Mozart's or Beethoven's harmonies; and there are vital symphonies in B +flat, and other low, sad keys, which a doctor may know as little of as +a hurdy-gurdy player of the essence of those divine musical mysteries. +The Doctor knew the difference between what men say and what they mean +as well as most people. When he was listening to common talk, he was in +the habit of looking over his spectacles; if he lifted his head so as +to look through them at the person talking, he was busier with that +person's thoughts than with his words. + +Jefferson Buck was not bold enough to confront the Doctor with Miss +Susy's question, for he did not look as if he were in the mood to +answer queries put by curious young people. His eyes were fixed +steadily on the dark girl, every movement of whom he seemed to follow. + +She was, indeed, an apparition of wild beauty, so unlike the girls +about her that it seemed nothing more than natural, that, when she +moved, the groups should part to let her pass through them, and that +she should carry the centre of all looks and thoughts with her. She was +dressed to please her own fancy, evidently, with small regard to the +modes declared correct by the Rockland milliners and mantua-makers. Her +heavy black hair lay in a braided coil, with a long gold pin shot +through it like a javelin. Round her neck was a golden _torque_, a +round, cord-like chain, such as the Gauls used to wear: the "Dying +Gladiator" has it. Her dress was a grayish watered silk; her collar was +pinned with a flashing diamond brooch, the stones looking as fresh as +morning dew-drops, but the silver setting of the past generation; her +arms were bare, round, but slender rather than large, in keeping with +her lithe round figure. On her wrists she wore bracelets: one was a +circlet of enamelled scales; the other looked as if it might have been +Cleopatra's asp, with its body turned to gold and its eyes to emeralds. + +Her father--for Dudley Venner was her father--looked like a man of +culture and breeding, but melancholy and with a distracted air, as one +whose life had met some fatal cross or blight. He saluted hardly +anybody except his entertainers and the Doctor. One would have said, to +look at him, that he was not at the party by choice; and it was natural +enough to think, with Susy Pettingill, that it must have been a freak +of the dark girl's that brought him there, for he had the air of a shy +and sad-hearted recluse. + +It was hard to say what could have brought Elsie Venner to the party. +Hardly anybody seemed to know her, and she seemed not at all disposed +to make acquaintances. Here and there was one of the older girls from +the Institute, but she appeared to have nothing in common with them. +Even in the school-room, it may be remembered, she sat apart by her own +choice, and now in the midst of the crowd she made a circle of +isolation round herself. Drawing her arm out of her father's, she stood +against the wall, and looked, with a strange, cold glitter in her eyes, +at the crowd which moved and babbled before her. + +The old Doctor came up to her by-and-by. + +"Well, Elsie, I am quite surprised to find you here. Do tell me how you +happened to do such a good-natured thing as to let us see you at such a +great party." + +"It's been dull at the mansion-house," she said, "and I wanted to get +out of it. It's too lonely there,--there's nobody to hate since Dick's +gone." + +The Doctor laughed good-naturedly, as if this were an amusing bit of +pleasantry,--but he lifted his head and dropped his eyes a little, so +as to see her through his spectacles. She narrowed her lids slightly, +as one often sees a sleepy cat narrow hers,--somewhat as you may +remember our famous Margaret used to, if you remember her at all,--so +that her eyes looked very small, but bright as the diamonds on her +breast. The old Doctor felt very oddly as she looked at him; he did not +like the feeling, so he dropped his head and lifted his eyes and looked +at her over his spectacles again. + +"And how have you all been at the mansion-house?" said the Doctor. + +"Oh, well enough. But Dick's gone, and there's nobody left but Dudley +and I and the people. I'm tired of it. What kills anybody quickest, +Doctor?" Then, in a whisper, "I ran away again the other day, you +know." + +"Where did you go?" The Doctor spoke in a low, serious tone. + +"Oh, to the old place. Here, I brought this for you." + +The Doctor started as she handed him a flower of the _Atragene +Americana_, for he knew that there was only one spot where it grew, and +that not one where any rash foot, least of all a thin-shod woman's +foot, should venture. + +"How long were you gone?" said the Doctor. + +"Only one night. You should have heard the horns blowing and the guns +firing. Dudley was frightened out of his wits. Old Sophy told him she'd +had a dream, and that I should be found in Dead-Man's Hollow, with a +great rock lying on me. They hunted all over it, but they did'nt find +me,--I was farther up." + +Doctor Kittredge looked cloudy and worried while she was speaking, but +forced a pleasant professional smile, as he said cheerily, and as if +wishing to change the subject,-- + +"Have a good dance this evening, Elsie. The fiddlers are tuning up. +Where's the young master? Has he come yet? or is he going to be late, +with the other great folks?" + +The girl turned away without answering, and looked toward the door. + +The "great folks," meaning the mansion-house gentry, were just +beginning to come; Dudley Venner and his daughter had been the first of +them. Judge Thornton, white-headed, fresh-faced, as good at sixty as he +was at forty, with a youngish second wife, and one noble daughter, +Arabella, who, they said, knew as much law as her father, a stately, +Portia-like girl, fit for a premier's wife, not like to find her match +even in the great cities she sometimes visited; the Trecothicks, the +family of a merchant, (in the larger sense,) who, having made himself +rich enough by the time he had reached middle life, threw down his +ledger as Sylla did his dagger, and retired to make a little paradise +around him in one of the stateliest residences of the town, a family +inheritance; the Vaughans, an old Rockland race, descended from its +first settlers, Toryish in tendency in Revolutionary times, and barely +escaping confiscation or worse; the Dunhams, a new family, dating its +gentility only as far back as the Honorable Washington Dunham, M.C., +but turning out a clever boy or two that went to college, and some +showy girls with white necks and fat arms who had picked up +professional husbands: these were the principal mansion-house people. +All of them had made it a point to come; and as each of them entered, +it seemed to Colonel and Mrs. Sprowle that the lamps burned up with a +more cheerful light, and that the fiddles which sounded from the +uncarpeted room were all half a tone higher and half a beat quicker. + +Mr. Bernard came in later than any of them; he had been busy with his +new duties. He looked well; and that is saying a good deal; for nothing +but a gentleman is endurable in full dress. Hair that masses well, a +head set on with an air, a neckerchief tied cleverly by an easy, +practised hand, close-fitting gloves, feet well shaped and well +covered,--these advantages can make us forgive the odious sable +broadcloth suit, which appears to have been adopted by society on the +same principle that condemned all the Venetian gondolas to perpetual +and uniform blackness. Mr. Bernard, introduced by Mr. Geordie, made his +bow to the Colonel and his lady and to Miss Matilda, from whom he got a +particularly gracious curtsy, and then began looking about him for +acquaintances. He found two or three faces he knew,--many more +strangers. There was Silas Peckham,--there was no mistaking him; there +was the inelastic amplitude of Mrs. Peckham; few of the Apollinean +girls, of course, they not being recognized members of society,--but +there is one with the flame in her cheeks and the fire in her eyes, the +girl of vigorous tints and emphatic outlines, whom we saw entering the +school-room the other day. Old Judge Thornton has his eyes on her, and +the Colonel steals a look every now and then at the red brooch which +lifts itself so superbly into the light, as if he thought it a +wonderfully becoming ornament. Mr. Bernard himself was not displeased +with the general effect of the rich-blooded school-girl, as she stood +under the bright lamps, fanning herself in the warm, languid air, fixed +in a kind of passionate surprise at the new life which seemed to be +flowering out in her consciousness. Perhaps he looked at her somewhat +steadily, as some others had done; at any rate, she seemed to feel that +she was looked at, as people often do, and, turning her eyes suddenly +on him, caught his own on her face, gave him a half-bashful smile, and +threw in a blush involuntarily which made it more charming. + +"What can I do better," he said to himself, "than have a dance with +Rosa Milburn?" So he carried his handsome pupil into the next room and +took his place with her in a cotillon. Whether the breath of the +Goddess of Love could intoxicate like the cup of Circe,--whether a +woman is ever phosphorescent with the luminous vapor of life that she +exhales,--these and other questions which relate to occult influences +exercised by certain women, we will not now discuss. It is enough that +Mr. Bernard was sensible of a strange fascination, not wholly new to him, +nor unprecedented in the history of human experience, but always a +revelation when it comes over us for the first or the hundredth time, +so pale is the most recent memory by the side of the passing moment with +the flush of any new-born passion on its cheek. Remember that Nature makes +every man love all women, and trusts the trivial matter of special choice +to the commonest accident. + +If Mr. Bernard had had nothing to distract his attention, he might have +thought too much about his handsome partner, and then gone home and +dreamed about her, which is always dangerous, and waked up thinking of +her still, and then begun to be deeply interested in her studies, and +so on, through the whole syllogism which ends in Nature's supreme _quod +erat demonstrandum_. What was there to distract him or disturb him? He +did not know,--but there was something. This sumptuous creature, this +Eve just within the gate of an untried Paradise, untutored in the ways +of the world, but on tiptoe to reach the fruit of the tree of +knowledge,--alive to the moist vitality of that warm atmosphere +palpitating with voices and music, as the flower of some diaecious +plant which has grown in a lone corner, and suddenly unfolding its +corolla on some hot-breathing June evening, feels that the air is +perfumed with strange odors and loaded with golden dust wafted from +those other blossoms with which its double life is shared,--this almost +overwomanized woman, might well have bewitched him, but that he had a +vague sense of a counter-charm. It was, perhaps, only the same +consciousness that some one was looking at him which he himself had +just given occasion to in his partner. Presently, in one of the turns +of the dance, he felt his eyes drawn to a figure he had not distinctly +recognized, though he had dimly felt its presence, and saw that Elsie +Venner was looking at him as if she saw nothing else but him. He was +not a nervous person, like the poor lady teacher, yet the glitter of +the diamond eyes affected him strangely. It seemed to disenchant the +air, so fall a moment before of strange attractions. He became silent, +and dreamy, as it were. The round-limbed beauty at his side crushed her +gauzy draperies against him, as they trod the figure of the dance +together, but it was no more to him than if an old nurse had laid her +hand on his sleeve. The young girl chafed at his seeming neglect, and +her imperious blood mounted into her cheeks; but he appeared +unconscious of it. + +"There is one of our young ladies I must speak to," he said,--and was +just leaving his partner's side. + +"Four hands all round!" shouted the first violin,--and Mr. Bernard +found himself seized and whirled in a circle out of which he could not +escape, and then forced to "cross over," and then to "dozy do," as the +_maestro_ had it,--and when, on getting back to his place, he looked +for Elsie Venner, she was gone. + +The dancing went on briskly. Some of the old folks looked on, others +conversed in groups and pairs, and so the evening wore along, until a +little after ten o'clock. About this time there was noticed an +increased bustle in the passages, with a considerable opening and +shutting of doors. Presently it began to be whispered about that they +were going to have supper. Many, who had never been to any large party +before, held their breath for a moment at this announcement. It was +rather with a tremulous interest than with open hilarity that the rumor +was generally received. + +One point the Colonel had entirely forgotten to settle. It was a point +involving not merely propriety, but perhaps principle also, or at least +the good report of the house,--and he had never thought to arrange it. +He took Judge Thornton aside and whispered the important question to +him,--in his distress of mind, mistaking pockets and taking out his +bandanna instead of his white handkerchief to wipe his forehead. + +"Judge," he said, "do you think, that, before we commence refreshing +ourselves at the tables, it would be the proper thing to--crave a--to +request Deacon Soper or some other elderly person--to ask a blessing?" + +The Judge looked as grave as if he were about giving the opinion of the +Court in the great India-rubber case. + +"On the whole," he answered, after a pause, "I should think it might, +perhaps, be dispensed with on this occasion. Young folks are noisy, and +it is awkward to have talking and laughing going on while a blessing is +being asked. Unless a clergyman is present and makes a point of it, I +think it will hardly be expected." + +The Colonel was infinitely relieved. "Judge, will you take Mrs. Sprowle +in to supper?" And the Colonel returned the compliment by offering his +arm to Mrs. Judge Thornton. + +The door of the supper-room was now open, and the company, following +the lead of the host and hostess, began to stream into it, until it was +pretty well filled. + +There was an awful kind of pause. Many were beginning to drop their +heads and shut their eyes, in anticipation of the usual petition before +a meal; some expected the music to strike up,--others, that an oration +would now be delivered by the Colonel. + +"Make yourselves at home, ladies and gentlemen," said the Colonel; +"good things were made to eat, and you're welcome to all you see before +you." + +So saying, he attacked a huge turkey which stood at the head of the +table; and his example being followed first by the bold, then by the +doubtful, and lastly by the timid, the clatter soon made the circuit of +the tables. Some were shocked, however, as the Colonel had feared they +would be, at the want of the customary invocation. Widow Leech, a kind +of relation, who had to be invited, and who came with her old, +back-country-looking string of gold beads round her neck, seemed to +feel very serious about it. + +"If she'd ha' known that folks would begrutch cravin' a blessin' over +sech a heap o' provisions, she'd rather have staid t' home. It was a +bad sign, when folks wasn't grateful for the baounties of Providence." + +The elder Miss Spinney, to whom she made this remark, assented to it, +at the same time ogling a piece of frosted cake, which she presently +appropriated with great refinement of manner,--taking it between her +thumb and forefinger, keeping the others well spread and the little +finger in extreme divergence, with a graceful undulation of the neck, +and a queer little sound in her throat, as of an _m_ that wanted to get +out and perished in the attempt. + +The tables now presented an animated spectacle. Young fellows of the +more dashing sort, with high stand-up collars and voluminous bows to +their neckerchiefs, distinguished themselves by cutting up fowls and +offering portions thereof to the buxom girls these knowing ones had +commonly selected. + +"A bit of the wing, Roxy, or of the--under limb?" + +The first laugh broke out at this, but it was premature, a _sporadic_ +laugh, as Dr. Kittredge would have said, which did not become epidemic. +People were very solemn as yet, many of them being new to such splendid +scenes, and crushed, as it were, in the presence of so much crockery +and so many silver spoons, and such a variety of unusual viands and +beverages. When the laugh rose around Roxy and her saucy beau, several +looked in that direction with an anxious expression, as if something +had happened,--a lady fainted, for instance, or a couple of lively +fellows came to high words. + +"Young folks will be young folks," said Deacon Soper. "No harm done. +Least said soonest mended." + +"Have some of these shell-oysters?" said the Colonel to Mrs. +Trecothick. + +A delicate emphasis on the word _shell_ implied that the Colonel knew +what was what. To the New England inland native, beyond the reach of +the east winds, the oyster unconditioned, the oyster absolute, without +a qualifying adjective, is the _pickled_ oyster. Mrs. Trecothick, who +knew very well that an oyster long out of his shell (as is apt to be +the case with the rural bivalve) gets homesick and loses his +sprightliness, replied, with the pleasantest smile in the world, that +the chicken she had been helped to was too delicate to be given up even +for the greater rarity. But the word "shell-oysters" had been +overheard; and there was a perceptible crowding movement towards their +newly discovered habitat, a large soup-tureen. + +Silas Peckham had meantime fallen upon another locality of these recent +mollusks. He said nothing, but helped himself freely, and made a sign +to Mrs. Peckham. + +"Lorindy," he whispered, "shell-oysters!" + +And ladled them out to her largely, without betraying any emotion, just +as if they had been the natural inland or pickled article. + +After the more solid portion of the banquet had been duly honored, the +cakes and sweet preparations of various kinds began to get their share +of attention. There were great cakes and little cakes, cakes with +raisins in them, cakes with currants, and cakes without either; there +were brown cakes and yellow cakes, frosted cakes, glazed cakes, hearts +and rounds, and _jumbles_, which playful youth slip over the forefinger +before spoiling their annular outline. There were moulds of +_blo'monje_, of the arrowroot variety,--that being undistinguishable +from such as is made with Russia isinglass. There were jellies, that +had been shaking, all the time the young folks were dancing in the next +room, as if they were balancing to partners. There were built-up +fabrics, called _Charlottes_, caky externally, pulpy within; there were +also _marangs_, and likewise custards,--some of the indolent-fluid +sort, others firm, in which every stroke of the teaspoon left a smooth, +conchoidal surface like the fracture of chalcedony, with here and there +a little eye like what one sees in cheeses. Nor was that most wonderful +object of domestic art called _trifle_ wanting, with its charming +confusion of cream and cake and almonds and jam and jelly and wine and +cinnamon and froth; nor yet the marvellous _floating-island_,--name +suggestive of all that is romantic in the imaginations of youthful +palates. + +"It must have cost you a sight of work, to say nothin' of money, to get +all this beautiful confectionery made for the party," said Mrs. Crane +to Mrs. Sprowle. + +"Well, it cost some consid'able labor, no doubt," said Mrs. Sprowle. +"Matilda and our girls and I made 'most all the cake with our own +hands, and we all feel some tired; but if folks get what suits 'em, we +don't begrudge the time nor the work. But I do feel thirsty," said the +poor lady, "and I think a glass of srub would do my throat good; it's +dreadful dry. Mr. Peckham, would you be so polite as to pass me a glass +of srub?" + +Silas Peckham bowed with great alacrity, and took from the table a +small glass cup, containing a fluid reddish in hue and subacid in +taste. This was _srub_, a beverage in local repute, of questionable +nature, but suspected of owing its color and sharpness to some kind of +syrup derived from the maroon-colored fruit of the sumac. There were +similar small cups on the table filled with lemonade, and here and +there a decanter of Madeira wine, of the Marsala kind, which some +prefer to, and many more cannot distinguish from, that which comes from +the Atlantic island. + +"Take a glass of wine, Judge," said the Colonel; "here is an article +that I rather think 'll suit you." + +The Judge knew something of wines, and could tell all the famous old +Madeiras from each other,--"Eclipse," "Juno," the almost fabulously +scarce and precious "White-top," and the rest. He struck the nativity +of the Mediterranean Madeira before it had fairly moistened his lip. + +"A sound wine, Colonel, and I should think of a genuine vintage. Your +very good health." + +"Deacon Soper," said the Colonel, "here is some Madary Judge Thornton +recommends. Let me fill you a glass of it." + +The Deacon's eyes glistened. He was one of those consistent Christians +who stick firmly by the first miracle and Paul's advice to Timothy. + +"A little good wine won't hurt anybody," said the Deacon. +"Plenty,--plenty,--plenty. There!" He had not withdrawn his glass, +while the Colonel was pouring, for fear it should spill; and now it was +running over. + +----It is very odd how all a man's philosophy and theology are at the +mercy of a few drops of a fluid which the chemists say consists of +nothing but C 4, O 2, H 6. The Deacon's theology fell off several +points towards latitudinarianism in the course of the next ten minutes. +He had a deep inward sense that everything was as it should be, human +nature included. The little accidents of humanity, known collectively +to moralists as sin, looked very venial to his growing sense of +universal brotherhood and benevolence. + +"It will all come right," the Deacon said to himself,--"I feel a +joyful conviction that everything is for the best. I am favored with +a blessed peace of mind, and a very precious season of good feelin' +toward my fellow-creturs." + +A lusty young fellow happened to make a quick step backward just at +that instant, and put his heel, with his weight on top of it, upon the +Deacon's toes. + +"Aigh! What the d--d--didos are y' abaout with them great hoofs o' +yourn?" said the Deacon, with an expression upon his features not +exactly that of peace and good-will to man. The lusty young fellow +apologized; but the Deacon's face did not come right, and his theology +backed round several points in the direction of total depravity. + +Some of the dashing young men in stand-up collars and extensive +neck-ties, encouraged by Mr. Geordie, made quite free with the +"Madary," and even induced some of the more stylish girls--not of the +mansion-house set, but of the tip-top two-story families--to taste a +little. Most of these young ladies made faces at it, and declared it +was "perfectly horrid," with that aspect of veracity peculiar to their +age and sex. + +About this time a movement was made on the part of some of the +mansion-house people to leave the supper-table. Miss Jane Trecothick +had quietly hinted to her mother that she had had enough of it. Miss +Arabella Thornton had whispered to her father that he had better +adjourn this court to the next room. There were signs of migration,--a +loosening of people in their places,--a looking about for arms to hitch +on to. + +The great folks saw that the play was not over yet, and that it was +only polite to stay and see it out. The word "Ice-Cream" was no sooner +whispered than it passed from one to another all down the tables. The +effect was what might have been anticipated. Many of the guests had +never seen this celebrated product of human skill, and to all the +two-story population of Rockland it was the last expression of the art +of pleasing and astonishing the human palate. Its appearance had been +deferred for several reasons: first, because everybody would have +attacked it, if it had come in with the other luxuries; secondly, +because undue apprehensions were entertained (owing to want of +experience) of its tendency to deliquesce and resolve itself with +alarming rapidity into puddles of creamy fluid; and, thirdly, because +the surprise would make a grand climax to finish off the banquet. + +There is something so audacious in the conception of ice-cream, that it +is not strange that a population undebauched by the luxury of great +cities looks upon it with a kind of awe and speaks of it with a certain +emotion. This defiance of the seasons, forcing Nature to do her work of +congelation, in the face of her sultriest noon, might well inspire a +timid mind with fear lest human art were revolting against the Higher +Powers, and raise the same scruples which resisted the use of ether and +chloroform in certain contingencies. Whatever may be the cause, it is +well known that the announcement at any private rural entertainment +that there is to be ice-cream produces an immediate and profound +impression. It may be remarked, as aiding this impression, that +exaggerated ideas are entertained as to the dangerous effects this +congealed food may produce on persons not in the most robust health. + +There was silence as the pyramids of ice were placed on the table, +everybody looking on in admiration. The Colonel took a knife and +assailed the one at the head of the table. When he tried to cut off a +slice, it didn't seem to understand it, however, and only tipped, as if +it wanted to upset. The Colonel attacked it on the other side and it +tipped just as badly the other way. It was awkward for the Colonel. +"Permit me," said the Judge,--and he took the knife and struck a sharp +slanting stroke which, sliced off a piece just of the right size, and +offered it to Mrs. Sprowle. This act of dexterity was much admired by +the company. + +The tables were all alive again. + +"Lorindy, here's a plate of ice-cream," said Silas Peckham. + +"Come, Mahaly," said a fresh-looking young fellow with a saucerful in +each hand, "here's your ice-cream;--let's go in the corner and have a +celebration, us two." And the old green de-laine, with the young curves +under it to make it sit well, moved off as pleased apparently as if it +had been silk velvet with thousand-dollar laces over it. + +"Oh, now, Miss Green! do you think it's safe to put that cold stuff +into your stomick?" said the Widow Leech to a young married lady, who, +finding the air rather warm, thought a little ice would cool her down +very nicely. "It's jest like eatin' snowballs. You don't look very +rugged; and I should be dreadful afeard, if I was you"---- + +"Carrie," said old Dr. Kittredge, who had overheard this,--"how well +you're looking this evening! But you must be tired and heated;--sit +down here, and let me give you a good slice of ice-cream. How you young +folks do grow up, to be sure! I don't feel quite certain whether it's +you or your mother or your daughter, but I know it's somebody I call +Carrie, and that I've known ever since"---- + +A sound something between a howl and an oath startled the company and +broke off the Doctor's sentence. Everybody's eyes turned in the +direction from which it came. A group instantly gathered round the +person who had uttered it, who was no other than Deacon Soper. + +"He's chokin'! he's chokin'!" was the first exclamation,--"slap him on +the back!" + +Several heavy fists beat such a tattoo on his spine that the Deacon +felt as if at least one of his vertebrae would come up. + +"He's black in the face," said Widow Leech,--"he's swallered somethin' +the wrong way. Where's the Doctor?--let the Doctor get to him, can't +ye?" + +"If you will move, my good lady, perhaps I can," said Dr. Kittredge, in +a calm tone of voice.--"He's not choking, my friends," the Doctor added +immediately, when he got sight of him. + +"It's apoplexy,--I told you so,--don't you see how red he is in the +face?" said old Mrs. Peake, a famous woman for "nussin" sick +folks,--determined to be a little ahead of the Doctor. + +"It's not apoplexy," said Dr. Kittredge. + +"What is it, Doctor? what is it? Will he die? Is he dead?--Here's his +poor wife, the Widow Soper that is to be, if she a'n't a'ready." + +"Do be quiet, my good woman," said Dr. Kittredge.--"Nothing serious, I +think, Mrs. Soper.--Deacon!" + +The sudden attack of Deacon Soper had begun with the extraordinary +sound mentioned above. His features had immediately assumed an +expression of intense pain, his eyes staring wildly, and, clapping his +hands to his face, he had rocked his head backward and forward in +speechless agony. + +At the Doctor's sharp appeal the Deacon lifted his head. + +"It's all right," said the Doctor, as soon as he saw his face. "The +Deacon had a smart attack of neuralgic pain. That's all. Very severe, +but not at all dangerous." + +The Doctor kept his countenance, but his diaphragm was shaking the +change in his waistcoat-pockets with subterranean laughter. He had +looked through his spectacles and seen at once what had happened. The +Deacon, not being in the habit of taking his nourishment in the +congealed state, had treated the ice-cream as a pudding of a rare +species, and, to make sure of doing himself justice in its +distribution, had taken a large mouthful of it without the least +precaution. The consequence was a sensation as if a dentist were +killing the nerves of twenty-five teeth at once with hot irons, or cold +ones, which would hurt rather worse. + +The Deacon swallowed something with a spasmodic effort, and recovered +pretty soon and received the congratulations of his friends. There were +different versions of the expressions he had used at the onset of his +complaint,--some of the reported exclamations involving a breach of +propriety, to say the least,--but it was agreed that a man in an attack +of neuralgy wasn't to be judged of by the rules that applied to other +folks. + +The company soon after this retired from the supper-room. The +mansion-house gentry took their leave, and the two-story people soon +followed. Mr. Bernard had staid an hour or two, and left soon after he +found that Elsie Tenner and her father had disappeared. As he passed by +the dormitory of the Institute, he saw a light glimmering from one of +its upper rooms, where the lady teacher was still waking. His heart +ached, when he remembered, that, through all these hours of gayety, or +what was meant for it, the patient girl had been at work in her little +chamber; and he looked up at the silent stars, as if to see that they +were watching over her. The planet Mars was burning like a red coal; +the northern constellation was slanting downward about its central +point of flame; and while he looked, a falling star slid from the +zenith and was lost. + +He reached his chamber and was soon dreaming over the Event of the +Season. + + + + +LOST BELIEFS. + + +One after one they left us; + The sweet birds out of our breasts +Went flying away in the morning: + Will they come again to their nests? + +Will they come again at nightfall, + With God's breath in their song? +Noon is fierce with the heats of summer, + And summer days are long! + +Oh, my Life! with thy upward liftings, + Thy downward-striking roots, +Ripening out of thy tender blossoms + But hard and bitter fruits,-- + +In thy boughs there is no shelter + For my birds to seek again! +Ah! the desolate nest is broken + And torn with storms and rain! + + + + +THE MEXICANS AND THEIR COUNTRY. + + +On the 21st of December, 1859, General Miramon, at the head of the +forces of the Mexican Republic, met an army of Liberals at Colima, and +overthrew it. The first accounts of the action represented the victory +of the Conservatives to be complete, and as settling the fate of Mexico +for the present, as between the parties headed respectively by Juarez +and Miramon. Later accounts show that there was some exaggeration as to +the details of the action, but the defeat of the Liberals is not +denied. It would be rash to attach great importance to any Mexican +battle; but the Liberal cause was so depressed before the action at +Colima as to create the impression that it could not survive the result +of that day. Whether the cause of which Miramon is the champion be +popular in Mexico or the reverse, it is certain that at the close of +1859 that chief had succeeded in every undertaking in which he had +personally engaged; and our own political history is too full of facts +which show that a successful military man is sure to be a popular +chief, whatever may be his opinions, to allow of our doubting the +effect of victory on the minds of the Mexicans. The mere circumstance +that Miramon is personally victorious, while the Liberals achieve +occasional successes over their foes where he is not present, will be +of much service to him. That "there is nothing so successful as +success" is an idea as old as the day on which the Tempter of Man +caused him to lose Paradise, and to the world's admission of it is to +be attributed the decision of nearly every political contest which has +distracted society. Miramon may have entered upon a career not unlike +to that of Santa Aña, whose early victories enabled him to maintain his +hold on the respect of his countrymen long after it should have been lost +through his cruelties and his disregard of his word and his oath. All, +indeed, that is necessary to complete the power of Miramon is, that +some foreign nation should interfere in Mexican affairs in behalf of +Juarez. Such interference, if made on a sufficiently large scale, might +lead to his defeat and banishment, but it would cause him to reign in +the hearts of the Mexicans; and he would be recalled, as we have seen +Santa Aña recalled, as soon as circumstances should enable the people +to act according to their own sense of right. + +Before considering the probable effect of Miramon's success on the +policy of the United States toward Mexico, there is one point that +deserves some attention. Which party, the Liberal or the Conservative, +is possessed of most power in Mexico? The assertions made on this +subject are of a very contradictory character. President Buchanan, in +his last Annual Message, says that the Constitutional government +--meaning that of which Juarez is the head--"is supported by a +a large majority of the people and the States, but there are important +parts of the country where it can enforce no obedience. General Miramon +maintains himself at the capital, and in some of the distant provinces +there are military governors who pay little respect to the decrees of +either government." On the other hand, a Mexican writer, a member of +the Conservative party, who published his views on the condition of his +country just one month before the President's Message appeared, +declares that the five Provinces or States in which the authority of +Miramon was then acknowledged contain a larger population than exists +in the twenty-three States in which it was not acknowledged. Of the +local authorities in these latter States he says,--"It is a great +mistake to imagine that they obey the government of Juarez any more +than they obey the government of General Miramon, or any further than +it suits their own private interest to obey him. It would be curious to +know, for instance, how much of the money collected by these 'local +authorities' for taxes, or contributions, or forced loans, and chiefly +at the seaport towns for custom-house duties, goes to the 'national +treasury' under the Juarez government." In this case, as in many others +of a like nature, the truth probably is, that but a very small number +of the people feel much interest in the contest, while most of them are +prepared to obey whichever chief shall succeed in it without foreign +aid. Of the active men of the country, the majority are now with +Miramon, or Juarez would not be shut up in a seaport, with his party +forming the mere sea-coast fringe of the nation. All that is necessary +to convert him into a national, patriotic ruler is, that a foreign army +should be sent to the assistance of his rival: and that such assistance +shall be sent to Juarez, President Buchanan has virtually pledged the +United States by his words and his actions. + +In his last Message to Congress, President Buchanan dwells with much +unction upon the wrongs we have experienced from Mexico, and avers that +we can obtain no redress from the Miramon government. "We may in vain +apply to the Constitutional government at Vera Cruz," he says, +"although it is well disposed to do us justice, for adequate redress. +Whilst its authority is acknowledged in all the important ports and +throughout the sea-coasts of the Republic, its power does not extend to +the city of Mexico and the States in its vicinity, where nearly all the +recent outrages have been committed on American citizens. We must +penetrate into the interior before we can reach the offenders, and this +can only be done by passing through the territory in the occupation of +the Constitutional government. The most acceptable and least difficult +mode of accomplishing the object will be to act in concert with that +government." He then recommends that Congress should authorize him "to +employ a sufficient military force to enter Mexico for the purpose of +obtaining indemnity for the past and security for the future." And he +expresses the opinion that justice would be done by the Constitutional +government; but his faith is not quite so strong as we could wish it to +be, as he carefully adds, "This might be secured in advance by a +preliminary treaty." + +Thus has the President pledged the country to help Juarez establish his +authority over Mexico, in words sure to be read and heeded throughout +America and Europe. His actions have been quite as much to the purpose. +He placed himself in communication with Juarez in 1859, and recognized +his government to be the only existing government of Mexico as early as +April 7th, through our envoy, Mr. McLane. That envoy floats about, +having a man-of-war for his home, and ready, it should seem, to receive +the government to which he is accredited, in the event of its being +forced to make a second sea-trip for the preservation of the lives of +its members. As the sole refuge for unpopular European monarchs, +at one time, was a British man-of-war, so are feeble Mexican chiefs +now compelled to rely for safety upon our national ships. + +To predict anything respecting Mexican affairs would be almost as idle +as it would be to assume the part of a prophet concerning American +politics; but, unless Miramon's good genius should leave him, his +appearance in Vera Cruz may be looked for at no very distant day, and +then we shall have the Juarez government entirely on our hands, to +support or to neglect, as may be dictated by the exigencies of our +affairs. That base of operations, upon the possession of which +President Buchanan has so confidently calculated, would be lost, and +could be regained only as the consequence of action as comprehensive +and as costly as that which placed Vera Cruz in the hands of General +Scott in 1847. If the policy laid down by President Buchanan should be +adopted and pursued, war should follow between the United States and +Mexico from the triumph of Miramon; and in that war, we should be a +principal, and not the mere ally of one of those parties into which the +Mexican people are divided. Logically, war is inevitable from Mr. +Buchanan's arguments and General Miramon's victories; but, as +circumstances, not logic, govern the actions of politicians, we may +possibly behold all Mexico loyal to the young general, and yet not see +an American army enter that country. The President declares that in +Mexico's "fate and in her fortune, in her power to establish and +maintain a settled government, we have a far deeper interest, socially, +commercially, and politically, than any other nation." The truth of +this will not be disputed; but suppose that Miramon should establish +and maintain a settled government in Mexico, would it not be our duty, +and in accordance "with our wise and settled policy," to acknowledge +that government, and to seek from it redress of those wrongs concerning +which Mr. Buchanan speaks with so much emphasis? Once in a responsible +position, and desirous of having the world's approval of his +countrymen's conduct, Miramon might be even more than willing to +promise as much as Juarez has already promised, we may presume, in the +way of satisfaction. That he would fulfil his promises, or that Juarez +would fulfil those which he has made, it would be too much to assert; +as neither of them would be able, judging from Mexico's past, to +maintain himself long in power. + +For the present, if not forever, Juarez may be left out of all American +calculations concerning Mexico; and as to Miramon, though his prospects +are apparently fair, the intelligent observer of Mexican politics +cannot fail to have seen that the glare of the clerical eye is upon +him, and that some faint indications on his part of a determination not +to be the Church's vassal have already placed his supremacy in peril, +and perhaps have caused conspiracies to be formed against him which +shall prove more injurious to his fortunes than the operations of +Liberal armies or the Messages of American Presidents. The Mexican +Church, full-blooded and wealthy as it is, is the skeleton in the +palace of every Mexican chief that spoils his sleep and threatens to +destroy his power, as it has destroyed that of every one of his +predecessors. The armies and banners of the Americans of the +North cannot be half so terrible to Miramon, supposing him +to be a reflecting man, as are the vestments of his clerical +allies. Even those armies, too, may be called into Mexico by +the Church, and those banners become the standards of a crusading host +from among a people which of all that the world has ever seen is the +least given to religious intolerance, and to whom the mere thought of +an established religion is odious. Nor would there be anything strange +in such a solution of the Mexican question, if we are to infer the +character of the future from the character of the past and the present. +A generation that has seen American democracy become the propagandists +of slavery assuredly ought not to be astonished at the spectacle of +American Protestantism upholding the State religion of Mexico, and that +religion embodying the worst abuses of the system of Rome. It was, +perhaps, because he foresaw the possibility of this, that "the +gray-eyed man of destiny," William Walker himself, was reconciled last +year to the ancient Church, and received into her bosom. As a Catholic, +and as a convert to that faith from heresy, he might achieve those +victories for which he longs, but which singularly avoid him as a man +of the sword. It is the old story: Satan, being sick, turns saint for +the time: only that it is heart-sickness in this instance; the hope of +being able to plunder some weak, but wealthy country having been too +long deferred for the patience even of an agent of Fate. + +That our government means to persevere in its designs against Mexico, +in spite of the misfortunes of the Liberals, is to be inferred: from +all that we hear from Washington. The victories of Oajaca, Queretaro, +and Colima, won by the Conservatives, have wrought no apparent change +in the Presidential mind. So anxious, indeed, is Mr. Buchanan for the +triumph of his plan, that he is ready to seek aid from his political +opponents. Leading Republicans are to be consulted personally, and they +are to be appealed to and asked patriotically to banish all party and +"sectional" feelings from their minds, while discussing the best mode +of helping "our neighbor" out of the Slough of Despond, so that she may +be enabled to meet the demands we have upon her,--not in money, for +that she has not, and we purpose giving her a round sum, but in land, +of which she has a vast supply, and all of it susceptible of yielding +good returns to servile industry. There is a necessity for this appeal +to Opposition Senators, as the Juarez treaty cannot be ratified without +the aid of some of their number. The ratification vote must consist of +two-thirds of the Senators present and voting; and of the sixty-six men +forming the Senate, but thirty-nine are Democrats, and two are "South +Americans." The Republicans, who could muster but a dozen votes in the +Senate when the present phase of the Slavery contest was begun, have +doubled their strength, and have arrived at the honor of being sought +by men who but yesterday regarded them as objects of scorn. Nor is it +altogether a new thing for the administration to depend upon its +enemies; and the practical adoption of the "one-term" principle in our +Presidential contests, by virtually depriving all administrations of +strict party support, has introduced into our politics a new element, +the first faint workings of which are beginning to be seen, but which +is destined to have grave effects, and not such, in all cases, as are +to be desired. + +But it is not from the ambition or the perverseness of the President +that Mexico has much to fear. Were it not for other reasons, which +proceed from the "Manifest Destiny" school, the country would laugh down +the administration's Mexican programme, and it could hardly be expected to +receive the grave consideration of the Senate. What Mexico has to fear +is the rapid increase of the old American opinion, that we were +appointed by Destiny to devour her, and that in spoiling her we are +only fulfilling "our mission," discharging, as we may say, a high moral +and religious duty. It is not that we have any animosity toward Mexico, +but that we are the Heaven-appointed rulers of America, of which she +happens to be no small part. By a happy ordination, and a wise +direction of our skill as missionaries militant, we never waste our +time and our valor on strong countries; and as wolves do not seek to +make meals of lions, preferring mutton, so we have no taste for those +very American countries which are inhabited by the English race, and in +which exist those great political institutions of the enjoyment of +which we are so proud. The obligation to take Mexico is admitted by +most Americans, though some would proceed more rapidly in the work of +acquisition than others; but no one hints that we ought to have +Canada. Our government has repeatedly offered to purchase Cuba of +Spain, which offer that country holds to be an insult; but it has not +yet thought proper to seek possession of Jamaica. Destiny, in our case, +is as judicious as it is imperative, and means that we shall find our +account in doing her work. Had she favored some other nations as much +as we are favored, they might have flourished till now, instead of +becoming wrecks on the sandy shores of the Sea of Time. + +The conviction that Mexico is to be ours is no new idea. It is as old, +almost, as the American nation. We found Spain in our path very soon +after she had behaved in so friendly a manner to us during the +Revolution; and one of the earliest thoughts of the West was to get her +out of the way. This was "inevitable," and "Manifest Destiny" was as +actively at work in the days of Rodgers Clarke as in those of Walker, +but with better reason; for the control that Spain exercised over the +navigation of the Mississippi was contrary to common sense. In a few +years, the acquisition of Louisiana (nominally from France, but really +from Spain) removed the evil of which the West complained; but the idea +of seizure remained, and was strengthened by the deed that was meant to +extinguish it. That Louisiana had been obtained without the loss of a +life, and for a sum of money that could be made to sound big only when +reduced to _francs_ was quite enough to cause the continuance of that +system of agitation which had produced results so great with means so +small. Enmity to Spain remained, after the immediate cause of it had +ceased to exist. War with that country was expected in 1806, and the +West anxiously desired it, meaning to invade Mexico. Hence the +popularity of Aaron Burr in that part of the Union, and the favor with +which his schemes were regarded by Western men. Burr was a generation +in advance of his Atlantic contemporaries, but he was not in advance of +the Ultramontanes, only abreast of them, and well adapted to be their +leader, from his military skill and his high political rank; for his +duel with Hamilton had not injured him in their estimation. His +connection with the war party, however, proved fatal to it, and +probably was the cause of the non-realization of its plans fifty years +ago. President Jefferson hated Colonel Burr with all the intensity that +philosophy can give to political rivalry; and so the whole force of the +national government was brought to bear against the arch-plotter, who +fell with a great ruin, and for the time Mexico was saved. Then came +Napoleon's attack on Spain, which necessarily postponed all attempts on +countries that might become subject to him; and before the Peninsular +War had been decided, we were ourselves involved in war with England, +which gave us work enough at home, without troubling "our neighbor." +But the events of that war helped to increase the spirit of acquisition +in the South and the Southwest, while they put an end forever to plans +for the conquest of Canada. The "aid and comfort" which the Spaniards +afforded to both Indians and Britons, from Florida, led to the seizure +of Florida by our forces in time of peace with Spain, and to the +purchase of that country. The same year that saw our title to Florida +perfected saw the end of Spanish rule in Mexico. The first effect of +this change was unfavorable to the extension of American dominion. +Mexico became a republic, taking the United States for a model. +Principle and vanity alike dictated forbearance on our side, and for +some years the new republic was looked upon with warm regard by the +American people; and had her experiment proved successful, our +territory never could have been increased at her expense. But that +experiment proved a total failure. Not even France herself could have +done worse for republicanism than was done by Mexico. Internal wars, +constant political changes, violations of faith, and utter disregard of +the terms of the Constitution,--these things brought Mexico into +contempt, and revived the idea that North America had been especially +created for the use of the Anglo-Saxon race and the abuse of negroes. +As a nation, too, Mexico had been guilty of many acts of violence +toward the United States, which furnished themes for those politicians +who were interested in bringing on a war between the two countries. The +attempt to enforce Centralism on Texas, which contained many Americans, +increased the ill-will toward Mexico. The end came in 1846, when we +made war on that country, a war resulting in the acquisition of much +Mexican territory,--Texas, Upper California, and New Mexico. It cannot +be said we behaved illiberally in our treatment of Mexico, the position +of the parties considered; for we might have taken twice as much of her +land as we did take, and not have paid her a farthing: and we paid her +$15,000,000, besides assuming the claims which Americans held against +her, amounting to $3,250,000 more. The war "blooded" the American +people, and made the idea of acquiring Mexico a national one; whereas +before it had a sectional character. The question of absorbing that +country was held to be merely one of time; and had it not been for the +existence of slavery, much more of Mexico would have been acquired ere +now, either by purchase or by war. There have been few men at the head +of Mexican affairs, since the peace of 1848, who were not ready to sell +us any portion of their country to which we might have laid claim, if +we had tendered them the choice between our purse and our sword. We +paid $10,000,000 for the Mesilla Valley, and for certain navigation +privileges in the Colorado river and the Gulf of California,--a +circumstance that shows how resolute is our determination to have +Mexico, and also that we are not disposed to have the process of +acquisition marked by shabby details. + +The law that governs the course of conquest is of a plain and obvious +character. Occasionally there may arise some conqueror, like Timour, +who shall sweep over countries apparently for no other purpose but to play +the part of the destroying angel, though it is not difficult to see that +even such a man has his uses in the orderings of Providence for the +government of the world. But the rule is, that conquest shall, quite as +much as commerce, be a gainful business. Conquerors who proceed +systematically go from bad lands to good lands, and from good lands to +better ones. To get out of the desert into a land flowing with milk and +honey is as much the object of modern and uncalled Gentiles as ever it was +with ancient called and chosen Jews. Historians appear inclined to censure +Darius, because, instead of invading Hellas, equally weak and fertile, +he sought to conquer the poor Scythians, who conquered him. The Romans +organized robbery, and had a wonderful skill in selecting peoples for +enemies who were worth robbing. "The Brood of Winter," who overthrew +the Roman Empire, poured down upon lands where grew the grape and the +rose. The Saracens, who were carried forward, in the first instance, by +fanaticism, had the streams of their conquests lengthened and broadened +and deepened by the wealth and weakness of Greeks and Persians and +Goths and Africans. Had those streams poured into deserts, by the +deserts they would soon have been absorbed, and we should have known +the Mahometan superstition only as we know twenty others of those forms +of faith produced by the East,--as something sudden, strange, and +short-lived. But it was fed by the riches which its votaries gained, +the reward of their piety, and the cement of their religious edifice. +The Normans, that most chivalrous of races, and, like all chivalrous +races, endowed with a keen love of gain, did not seize upon poor +countries, but upon the best lands they could take and hold,--the +beautiful Neustria, the opulent Sicily, and the fertile England, so +admirably situated to become the seat of empire. So, it will be found, +have all conquering, absorbing races proceeded, not even excluding the +Pilgrim Fathers, who, if they paid the Indians for their lands, +generally contrived to get good measure for small disbursements, and to +order things so that the lands purchased should be fat and fair in +saintly eyes. + +Tried by the standard of conquest, the course of the American people +toward Mexico is the most natural in the world. Mexico possesses +immense wealth, and incalculable capabilities in the way of increasing +that wealth; and she is no more competent to defend herself against a +powerful neighbor than Sicily was to maintain her independence against +the Romans. We are her neighbor,--with a population abounding in +adventurers domestic and imported, and with politicians who carve out +states that shall make them senators and representatives and governors, +and perhaps even presidents. As we get nearer to Mexico, the population +is more lawless, less inclined to observe those rules upon faith in +which the weak must depend for existence. The eagles are gathered about +the carcase, and think that to forbid its division among them would be +to perpetrate a great moral wrong. The climate of Mexico seems to +invite the Northern adventurer to that country. "In general," says Mr. +Butterfield, (who has just published a volume that might be called "The +American Conqueror's Guide-Book in Mexico," and to which we take this +occasion to express our obligations,)--"in general, the Republic, with +the exception of the coast and a few other places, which from situation +are extremely hot, enjoys an even and temperate climate, free from the +extremes of heat and cold, in consequence of which the most of the +hills in the cold regions are covered with trees, which never lose +their foliage, and often remind the traveller of the beautiful scenery +of the valleys of Switzerland. In Tierra Caliente we are struck by the +groves of mimosas, liquid amber, palms, and other gigantic plants +characteristic of tropical vegetation; and finally, in Tierra Templada, +by the enormous _haciendas_, many of which are of such extent as to be +lost to the sight in the horizon with which they blend." This picture +is calculated to incite the armed apostles of American liberty, and to +render them impatient until they shall have carried the blessings of +civilization to Mexico, rewarding themselves for their active +benevolence by the appropriation of lands so admirably adapted to the +labors of the descendants of Ham, whom it would be impious in them to +leave unprovided with the best fields to work out _their_ +mission,--which is, to produce the greatest possible crops with the +least possible expenditure of capital and care, for the good of that +superior race which kindly supplies the deficiencies of Heaven with +respect to Africa,--a second Providence, as it were, and slightly +tinged with selfishness. + +We need not dwell upon the importance of second causes in the +government of mankind. We find them at work in fixing the future of +Mexico. The final cause of the absorption of Mexico by the United +States will be the restless appropriating spirit of our people; but +this might leave her a generation more of national life, were it not +that her territory presents a splendid field for slave-labor, and that, +both from pecuniary and from political motives, our slaveholders are +seeking the increase of the number of Servile States. Mexico is capable +of producing an unlimited amount of sugar and an enormous amount of +cotton. There is a demand for both these articles,--a demand that is +constantly increasing, and which is so great, and grows so rapidly, +that the melancholy prospect of rum without sugar has presented itself +to some minds, not to speak of only half-allowance to all the +tea-tables of Christendom. Africa is beginning to wear shirts, and the +stamp of more than one Yankee manufacturer has been indorsed on the +backs of many African chiefs. Slave-labor, we are assured, can alone +afford an adequate supply of cotton and sugar; for none but negroes can +labor on the plantations where cane and cotton are raised, and they +will labor only under compulsion, and compulsion can be had only under +the system of slavery. The point seems to be as clearly established as +reason can establish it, though the negroes might object to the process +adopted and to the conclusion drawn; but they are interested parties, +and not to be regarded therefore. We must add, that the quality of +Mexican sugar is as good as the yield is enormous, and, were the +cane-fields in our hands, it would be impious to doubt of there being a +fall of a mill on the pound all the world over. Compared with such a +gain to the consuming classes, what would it matter that the producers +were "expended" every four or five years, thereby furnishing an +argument in favor of the revival (we should say extension, for it +appears to be lively enough) of the slave-trade between Africa and +America? So is it with Mexican cotton, which propagates itself, and is +not raised annually from the seed, as in our cotton-growing States. In +the Hot Land of Mexico, the laborers in the cotton-fields merely keep +these fields clear from weeds, as we should say,--no easy task, it may +be assumed, with a soil so luxuriant, and where frost is unknown. Yet +the amount of cotton produced annually in the Hot Land is shamefully +small, not exceeding ten million pounds,--a mere bagatelle, which +Manchester would devour in a week. Consider what an increase in cottons +and calicoes, what a gain in shirts and sheets, would follow from the +seizure of those fields by Americans from Mississippi and Alabama; and +let no idle notions concerning national morality prevent the increase +of those comforts which the poor now know, but which never came to the +knowledge of Caesar Augustus, and which were unknown to Solomon in all +his glory. Where would have been the great English nation, if the +adventurous cut-throats who followed Norman William from Saint Valery +to Hastings had been troubled with squeamish notions about the rights +of the Saxons? + + +There are other articles, besides cotton and sugar, in the production +of which slave-labor pays, and pays well, too; and all these articles +Mexico is capable of yielding immensely. The world needs more rice; +rice can be cultivated only by negroes, or people much like them; and +rice can be raised in Mexico in incredible quantities, under a +judicious system of industry, such as, we are constantly assured, +slavery ever has been and ever will be. Tobacco is another Mexican +article, and also one in producing which negroes can be profitably +employed; and as tobacco is becoming scarce, while consumers of it are +on the increase, it would seem to be our duty to prepare the fields of +Tabasco for more extended cultivation,--since there, as well as in many +other parts of Mexico, tobacco almost as good as the best that is grown +in Cuba can be produced. Coffee, indigo, and hemp are Mexican articles, +and can all be cultivated by slave-labor. Maize is grown in every part +of the country, yielding three hundred fold in the Hot Land, and twice +that rate in one district; and maize is a slave-grown article. Smaller +articles there are, but valuable, in raising which slaves would be found +useful,--among them cocoa, vanilla, and _frijoles_, the last being to the +Mexicans what the potato is to the Irish, the common food of the common +people. On the supposition that slaves could be made to labor well in +wheat-fields,--and under a stringent system of slavery this would be +far from impossible,--Mexico might afford profitable employment to +myriads of Africans in the course of civilization and Christianization. +Wheat returns sixty for one in the best valleys of the Temperate +Region; and when we call to mind that flour is becoming a luxury to +poor white people even in America, the propriety of having those +valleys filled up with a black population of great industrial +capability stands admitted; and as black people have an unaccountable +aversion to working for others, the necessity of slavery is established +by the high price of flour, and the capacity of the white races for +consuming twice as much as is now produced in the whole world. + +It would be no difficult matter to show that Mexico is the most +productive of countries, whether we consider the variety of the +articles there grown, or the capabilities of the land for increasing +their quantity. To the manufacturer and the merchant she is as +attractive as she is to the agriculturist; and her mineral wealth is +apparently inexhaustible, and has passed into a proverb. During the +thirteen generations since the Spanish Conquest, the value of the gold +and silver exported is estimated at $4,640,204,889; and this is +considered a very low estimate by those best qualified to judge of its +correctness. Mr. Butterfield expresses the opinion that the annual +export is now near $40,000,000, much of which is smuggled out of the +country. The land is also rich in the common metals, the production of +which, as well as of gold and silver, would be incalculably increased, +should Mexico pass under the dominion of an energetic race, greedy of +other men's wealth, if not profuse of its own. + +We have said enough to show the capabilities of Mexico as a +slaveholding country; and of the desire of American slaveholders to +push their industrial system into countries adapted to it, there are, +unfortunately, but too many proofs. They are prompted by the love of +power and the love of wealth to obtain possession of Mexico, and the +energy that is ever displayed by them when pursuing a favorite object +will not allow us to doubt what the end of the contest upon which the +United States are about to enter must be. We have then, to consider the +character of the people upon whom slavery is to be forced, and the +probable effect of their subjugation to American dominion. The subject +is far from being agreeable, and the consideration of it gives rise to +the most painful thoughts that can move the mind. + +The exact number of people in Mexico it is not possible to state. Mr. +Mayer estimated that in 1850 the proximate actual population was +7,626,831, classed as follows:--Whites, 1,100,000; Indians, 4,354,886; +Mestizos, Zambos, Mulattoes, etc., 2,165,345; Negroes, 6,600. Only +one-seventh of the population belongs to that class, or caste, to which, +according to the common sentiment in the United States, dominion over +the earth has been given. The other six-sevenths are, in American +estimation, and would so become in fact, should Mexico own our +rule, mere political Pariahs; and if they should escape personal +slavery, it would be through their rapid extinction under the +blasting effects of civilization. There are, at this time, it +may be assumed, 7,000,000 human beings in Mexico to whom few +Americans are capable of conceding the full rights of humanity. Of +these, about one-third, the negroes and the mixed races, from the fact +that they have African blood in their veins, would be outlawed by the +mere conquest of Mexico by American arms, so far as relates +to the higher conditions of life. As several of our States have +already compelled free negroes to choose between slavery and +banishment, and as the American settlers of Mexico would proceed +principally from States in which the sentiment prevails that has led to +the adoption of so illiberal a policy, a third of the native population +would, it is likely, be reduced to a condition of chattel slavery +within a very short time after the change of government had been +effected. There is not an argument used in behalf of the rigid slave +codes of several of our States which would not be applicable to the +enslavement of the black and mixed Mexicans, all of whom would be of +darker skins and less enlightened minds than the slaves that would be +taken to the conquered land by the conquerors. How could the slaves +thus taken there be allowed to see even their inferiors in the +enjoyment of personal freedom? If the State of Arkansas can condescend +to be afraid of a few hundred free negroes and mulattoes, and can +illustrate its fear by turning them out of their homes in mid-winter, +what might not be expected from a ruling caste in a new country, with +two and a half millions of colored people to strike terror into the +souls of those comprising it? Just or humane legislation could not be +looked for at the hands of such men, who would be guilty of that +cruelty which is born of injustice and terror. The white race of Mexico +would join with the intrusive race to oppress the mixed races; and as +the latter would be compelled to submit to the iron pressure that would +be brought to bear upon them, more than two millions of slaves would be +added to the servile population of America, and would become the basis +of a score of Representatives in the national legislature, and of as +many Presidential Electors; so that the practice of the grossest +tyranny would give to the Slaveholding States, _per saltum_, as great +an increase of political power as the Free States could expect to +achieve through a long term of years illustrated by care and toil and +the most liberal expenditure of capital. + +The Indians would fare no better than the mixed races, though the mode +of their degradation might differ from that which would be pursued +toward the latter. The Indians of Mexico are a race quite different +from the Indians whom we have exterminated or driven to the remote +West. They are a sad, a superstitious, and an inert people, upon whom +Spanish tyranny has done its perfect work. Nominally Christians, they +are nearly as much devoted to paganism as were their ancestors of the +age of the Conquistadores. They are the most finished conservatives on +the face of the earth, and see ruin in change quite as readily as if +they lived in New England and their opinions were worth quoting on +State Street. The traveller can see in Mexican fields, to-day, the +manner in which those fields were cultivated in the early days of the +last Montezuma, before the Spaniard had entered the land,--as in Canada +he can occasionally find men following the customs that were brought, +more than two centuries ago, from Brittany or Normandy. The Indians are +practically enslaved by two things: they are so attached to the soil on +which they are born as to regard expulsion from it as the greatest of +all punishments,--thus being much like those serfs who, in some other +countries, are legally bound to the land, and are sold with it; and +they are forever in debt, the consequence of reckless indulgence, and +of that inability to think of the morrow which is the most prominent +characteristic of the inferior races of men. This has caused +the existence of the system of _peonage_, of which so much has been +said in this country, in the attempts that have been made to show that +slavery already prevails in Mexico. But American planters never would +be content with peonage, which does not give to the employer any power +over the Indians' offspring, or convey to him any of those _rights_ of +property in his fellow-men which form the most attractive feature of +slavery as it exists in the United States. They would demand something +more than that; and the system of _repartimientos_, under which the +Indians of the time of Cortés were divided among the conquerors, with +the land, would not improbably follow the annexation of Mexico to the +United States. The natives would be compelled to labor far more +vigorously than they now labor, and their burdens would be increased in +the same ratio in which the American is more energetic and exacting +than the Mexican. Under such a system, the Indians would vanish as +rapidly as they did from Hayti, when a similar system was adopted +there, soon after the discovery of America. Then would arise a demand +for the revival of the slave-trade with Africa, and on the same ground +on which African slavery was introduced into America,--because the +negro is better able than the Indian to meet the demands which the +white man makes upon the weaker races who happen to be placed in his +power. With such unlimited fields for the production of sugar and +cotton, those leading agencies of Christianity and civilization, it +would never do for the world to deny to the new school of planters a +million of negroes, so necessary to the full development of the purpose +of the American crusaders. Observe what a gain it would be to the +shipping interest, could the seas become halcyonized through the +conquest of prejudices by men who believe that God is just, and that He +has made of one flesh and one blood all the nations of the earth! + +Even if it should not be sought to enslave the Indians of Mexico, that +race would not be the less doomed. There seems to be no chance for +Indians in any country into which the Anglo-Saxon enters in force. A +system of free labor would be as fatal to the Mexican Indians as a +system of slave labor. The whites who would throng to Mexico, on its +conquest by Americans, and on the supposition that slavery should not +be established there, would regard the Indians with sentiments of +strong aversion. They would hate them, not only because they were +Indians,--which would be deemed reason enough,--but as competitors in +industry, who could afford to work for low wages, their wants being +few, and the cost of their maintenance small. It is charged against the +Indians that they are not flesh-eaters; and white men prefer meat to +any other description of food. Place a flesh-eating race in antagonism +with a race that lives on vegetables, and the former will eat up the +latter. The sentiment of the whites toward the Indians is not unlike +that which has been expressed by an eminent American statesman, who +says that the cause of the failure of Mexico to establish for herself a +national position is to be sought and found in her acknowledgment of +the political equality of her Indian population. He would have them +degraded, if not absolutely enslaved; and degradation, situated as they +are, implies their extinction. This is the opinion of one of the ablest +men in the Democratic party, who, though a son of Massachusetts, is +ready to go as far in behalf of slavery as any son of South Carolina. + +Another eminent Democrat, no less a man, indeed, than President +Buchanan, is committed to very different views. He is the patron of +Juarez, whom he would support with all the power of the United States, +and whose government he would carry to "the halls of the Montezumas" in +the train of an American army. Now Juarez is a pure-blooded and +full-blooded Indian. Not a drop of Castilian blood, blue or black, +flows in his veins. He is a genuine Toltec, a member of that mysterious +race which flourished in the Valley of Mexico ages before the arrival +of the Aztecs, and the marvellous remains of whose works astonish the +traveller in Yucatan and Guatemala. He is a native of Oajaca, one of +the Pacific States, and the same that contained the vast estates +bestowed upon Cortés, to whom the Valley of Oajaca furnished his title +of Marquis. A poor Indian boy, and a fruit-seller, Juarez found a +patron, who saw his cleverness, and gave him an education, and so +enabled him to play no common part in his country,--the independence of +which he seems prepared to destroy, in the hope, perhaps, of securing +for it a stable and well-ordered government. + + + + +REVIEWS AND LITERARY NOTICES. + + +_Ludwig van Beethoven. Leben und Schaffen._ Herausgegeben von Adolph +Bernhard Marx, 2 vols. 8vo. Berlin, 1859. pp. 379, 339. + +SECOND NOTICE + +The English or American reader, whose only biography of Beethoven has +been the translation of Schindler's work by Moscheles, will be pleased +to find scattered through Marx's two volumes a number of interesting +extracts from the "Conversation-Books." These are not always given +exactly as in the originals, although the sense is preserved intact. +For instance, (Vol. I. p. 341,) speaking of the original overture to +"Leonore,"--afterwards printed as Op. 138,--Marx says, "It shows us, as +in a mirror of past happiness, a view of that which is hereafter to +reward Leonore and raise Florestan from his woe. Yes, Beethoven himself +is in theory of this opinion. In his Conversation-Books we read the +following:-- + +"Aristotle, in his 'Poetics,' remarks, 'Tragic heroes must at first +live in great happiness and splendor.' This we see in Egmont. 'Wenn sie +nun [so] recht glücklich sind, [so] kommt mit [auf] einem Mal das +Schicksal und schlingt einen Knoten um ihr Haupt [über ihren Haupte] +den sie nicht mehr zu lösen vermögen. Muth und Trotz tritt an die +Stelle [der Reue] und verwegen sehen sie dem Geschicke, [und sie sehen +verwegen dem Geschicke,] ja, dem Tod in's Aug'.'" + +The words in brackets show the variations from the original; they are +slight, but will soon be seen to have significance. + +Again, Marx says, (Vol. II. p. 214, note,) "In one of the +Conversation-Books Schindler remarks, 'Ich bin sehr gespannt auf die +Characterizirung [der Sätze] der B dur Trio......Der erste Satz träumt +von lauter Glückseligheit [Glück und Zufriedenheit]. Auch Muthwille, +heiteres Tändeln und Eigensinn (mit Permission--Beethovenscher) ist +darin.'" [Should be "und Eigensinn (Beethovenische) is darin, mit +Permission."] + +On page 217 of the same volume is part of a conversation between +Beethoven and his friend Peters, dated 1819. The Conversation-Book from +which it is taken is dated, in Beethoven's own hand, "March and April, +1820." + +But enough for our purpose, which is to prove that Marx knows nothing +of the Conversation-Books from personal inspection, although he always +quotes them in such a manner as to impress the reader with the idea +that the extracts made are his own. Now, 1st, all his extracts are in +the second edition of Schindler's "Biography;" 2d, all the variations +from the original are found word for word in Schindler's excerpts; 3d, +the first of the above three examples, which Marx takes for an +expression of Beethoven's views, was written by Schindler himself, for +his master's perusal! + +But though a biography give us nothing new in relation to the hero, +still it may be of great interest and value from the manner in which +well-known authorities are collected and digested, and the facts +presented in a picturesque, fascinating, living narrative. Such a work +is Irving's "Goldsmith." Such a work is not Marx's "Beethoven." It is +neither one thing nor another,--neither a biography nor a critical +examination of the master's works. It is a little of both,--an attempt +to combine the two, and a very unsuccessful one. Biography and +criticism are so strangely mixed up, jumbled together,--anecdotes of +different periods so absurdly brought into juxtaposition,--chronology +so oddly abused,--that one can obtain a far better idea of the man +Beethoven by reading Marx's authorities than his digest of them; and as +to his works, those upon which we want information, which we have no +opportunity to hear, which have not been subjects of criticism and +discussion for a whole generation,--on these he has little or nothing +to say. + +But the extreme carelessness with which Marx cites his authorities is +worthy of notice; here are a few examples. + +Vol. I. p. 13. Here we find the well-known anecdote of Beethoven's +playing several variations upon Righini's air, "Vieni Amore," from +memory, and improvising others, before the Abbé Sterkel. Wegeler is the +original authority for the anecdote, the point of which depends upon +the fact that the printed variations were a composition by Beethoven. +Marx here and elsewhere in his book attributes them to Sterkel! + +Ib. p. 31. Speaking of the pleasure Van Swieten took in Beethoven's +playing of Bach's fugues, and of the dislike of the latter to being +urged to play, Marx quotes as follows: "He came then (relates Ries, who +became his pupil in 1800) back to me with clouded brow and out of +temper," etc. To _me_,--Ries,--a boy of sixteen,--and Beethoven already +the composer all of whose works half a dozen publishers were ready to +take at any prices he chose to fix!--Ries relates no such thing. +Wegeler does, but of a period five years before Ries came to Vienna; +moreover, he relates it in relation to Beethoven's dislike to being +urged to play in mixed companies,--the fact having no relation whatever +to Van Swieten's weekly music-parties. + +Ib. p. 33. Beethoven is now twenty-five. "At this time, as it seems, +there has been no talk of ill health." Directly against the statement +of Wegeler. + +Ib. p. 38. The Concerto for Pianoforte and Orchestra, Op. 15, "Probably +composed in 1800, since it was offered to Hofmeister Jan. 5, 1801." He +relates from Wegeler, that Beethoven wrote the finale when suffering +violently from colic. How is it possible for a man to overlook the next +line, "I helped him as much as I could with simple remedies," and not +associate it with Wegeler's statement that he himself left Vienna "in +the middle of 1796"? This fixes the date absolutely four or five years +earlier than Marx's probability. He is equally unlucky in his reading +of the letters of Hofmeister; for the Concerto offered him Jan. 5, +1801, was not this one, but that in B flat, Op. 19. + +Ib. p. 186. The Sonata, Op. 22, "Out of the year 1802." If Marx will +turn to the letters to Hofmeister again, he will find this Sonata +offered for publication with the Concerto. + +Ib. p. 341. "Schindler, who, however, first became acquainted with +Beethoven in 1808, and first came into close connection with him in +1813." Compare Schindler, 2d ed. p. 95. "It was in the year 1814 that I +first became personally acquainted with Beethoven." In 1808 Schindler +was a boy of thirteen years, in a Gymnasium, and had not yet come to +Vienna. + +Vol. II. p. 86. Sonata, Op. 57. "The finale, as Ries relates, was +begotten in a night of storm"; and on this text Marx discourses through +a page or two. Ries relates no such thing. + +Ib. p. 179. "Once more, relates Schindler, the two (Goethe and +Beethoven) met each other," etc. For Schindler, read Lenz. + +Ib. p. 191. "The Philharmonic Society in London presented to him.....a +magnificent grand-piano forte of Broadwood's manufacture." Schindler +says expressly, "Presented by Ferd. Ries, John Cramer, and Sir George +Smart." Cannot Marx read German? + +Ib. p. 329. We give one more instance of Marx's method of citing +authorities,--a very curious one. It is an extract from a letter +written to the Schotts in Mayence, signed A. Schindler, containing an +account of Beethoven's last hours, and published in the "Cäcilia," in +full. Here is the passage;-- + +"When I came to him, on the morning of the 24th of March, (relates +_Anselm Hüttenbrenner_, a musical friend and composer of Grätz, who had +hastened thither to see Beethoven once more,) I found his whole +countenance distorted, and him so weak, that, with the greatest +exertions, he could bring out but two or three intelligible words." +Anselm Hüttenbrenner! + +Throughout those volumes we find a certain vagueness of statement in +connection with the names of musicians with whom Beethoven came in +contact, which raises the question, whether Marx has no biographical +dictionary in his house, not even a copy of Schilling's Encyclopædia, +for which he wrote so many biographies, and "indeed all the articles +signed A. B. M."? At times, however, the statements are not so vague. +For instance,--in the anecdote already referred to, Marx makes the two +Rombergs and Franz Ries introduce the "fifteen-year-old virtuoso" to +Sterkel,--that is, in 1785 or '86. At that date, (see Schilling,) +Andreas Romberg was a boy of eighteen, Bernard a boy of fifteen; +moreover, they did not come to Bonn until 1790, when Beethoven was +nearly twenty years old. In 1793-4 Marx makes Schenck "the to him +[Beethoven] well-known and valued composer of the 'Dorfbarbier,'" +--which opera was not written until some years later. In 1815 +died Beethoven's "friend and countryman, Salomon of Bonn, in +London." It is possible that Beethoven may have occasionally seen +Salomon at Bonn, but that violinist went to London at least as early as +1781, after having then been for several years in Prince Henry's chapel +in Berlin. + +These things may, perhaps, strike the reader as of minor importance, +mere blemishes. So be it then; we will turn to a vexed question, which +has a literary importance, and see what light Marx throws upon it. We +refer to Bettine's letters to Goethe upon Beethoven, and the composer's +letters to her, the authority of which has been strongly questioned. +Marx gives them, Vol. II. pp. 121-135, and we turned eagerly to them, +expecting to find, from one who has for thirty years or more lived in +the same city with the authoress, the _questio vexata_ fully put to +rest Nothing of the kind. He quotes them from Schindler with +Schindler's remarks upon them, to which he gives his assent. As to the +letters of Beethoven to Bettine, he has not even done that lady the +justice to give them as she has printed them, but rests satisfied with +a copy confessedly taken from the English translation! Of these Marx +says,--"These letters,--one has not the right, perhaps, to declare them +outright creations of fancy; at all events, there is no judicial proof +of this, no more than of their authenticity,--if they are not imagined, +they are certainly translated... from Beethoven into the Bettine +speech. Never--compare all the letters and writings of Beethoven which +are known with these Bettine epistles--never did Beethoven so +write..... If he wrote to Bettine, then she has poetized [überdichtet] +his letters,--and she has not done even this well; we have in them +Beethoven as seen in the mirror Bettine." He adds in a note, "In the +highest degree girl-like and equally un-Beethovenlike are these +constant repetitions: 'liebe, liebste,--liebe, liebe,--liebe, +gute,--bald, bald'!" + +What does Marx say to this beginning of a letter to Tiedge,--"Jeden Tag +schwebte mir immer folgende Brief an Sie, Sie, Sie, immer vor"? Or to +these repetitions from a series of notes written also from Töplitz in +the summer of 1812? "Leben Sie wohl liebe, gute A." "Liebe, gute A., +seit ich gestern," etc. "Scheint der Mond .... so sehen Sie den +kleinsten, kleinsten aller Menschen bei sich," etc. + +And so on this point Marx leaves us just as wise as we were before. +There is a gentleman who can decide by a word as to the authenticity of +these letters of Beethoven, since he originally furnished them for +publication in the English translation of Schindler's "Biography." We +refer to Mr. Chorley, of the "London Athenaeum." Meantime we venture to +give Marx's opinion as much weight as we think it deserves, and +continue to believe in the letters; more especially because, as +published by Bettine herself in 1848, each is remarkable for certain +peculiarly Beethoven-like abuses of punctuation, orthography, and +capital letters, which carry more weight to our minds than the +unsupported opinions of a dozen Professors Marx. + +Justice requires that we pass from merely biographical topics, which +are evidently not the forte of Professor Marx, to some of those upon +which he has bestowed far more space, and doubtless far more labor and +pains, and upon which, in this work, he doubtless also rests his claims +to our applause. + +On page 199 of Vol. I. begins a division of the work, entitled by the +author "Chorische Werke." In previous chapters, Beethoven's pianoforte +compositions-sonatas, trios, the quintett, etc., up to Op. 54, +exclusive of the concertos for that instrument and orchestra-have been +treated. In this we have a very pleasing account of the gradual +progress of the composer from the concerto to the full splendor of the +grand symphony. + +"The composer Beethoven," says Marx, "was, as we have seen, also a +virtuoso. No one can be both, without feeling himself drawn to the +composition of concertos. These works then follow, and in close +relation to the pianoforte compositions of Beethoven, with and without +the accompaniment of solo instruments; and to them others, which may +just here be best brought under one general head for notice. From them +we look directly upward to orchestral and symphonic works. To all these +we give the general name of 'choral' works, for want of a better,--a +term which in fact belongs but to vocal music, and is exceedingly ill +adapted to a part of the compositions now under consideration. The +term, however, is used here as pointing at the significance of the +orchestra to Beethoven." + +Marx's theory of Beethoven's progress, taking continually bolder and +loftier flights until he reaches the symphony, must necessarily be +based upon the chronology of the works in question,--a basis which he +adopts, but evidently, in the case of two or three of them, with some +hesitation; yet the theory has too great a charm for him to be lightly +thrown aside. + +We will bring into a table the compositions which he is now +considering, together with his dates of their composition, that we may +obtain a clearer view of their bearings upon the point in question. + + Concerto in C for Pianoforte and Orchestra, Op. 15. 1800. (See p. 38.) + do. in B flat Op. 19. 1801. + do. in C minor, Op. 37. Not dated. + Six Quatuors for Bowed Instruments, Op. 18. Published in 1801-2, + but "begun earlier." + Quintett, Op. 29. 1802. + Septett, Op. 20. Not dated. + Prometheus, Ballet Op. 43. Performed March 28, + 1801. + Grand Symphony, Op. 21. 1799 or 1800. + do. do. Op. 36. Performed 1800. + +A glance at the dates in this table throws doubt upon the theory; the +doubt is increased by the consideration that all these important works +are, according to Marx, the labor of only three years! But let us turn +back and collect into another table the pianoforte works which are also +attributed to the same epoch. + + Pianoforte Trio, Op. 11. 1799. + Three Pianoforte Sonatas, Op. 10. 1799. + Two do. do. Op. 14. 1799. + Adelaide, Song, Op. 46. 1798 or '99. + Sonata for Piano and Horn, Op. 17. 1800. + do. Pathétique, Op. 13. 1800. + Cliristus am Oolberg, Canta Op. 85. 1800. + Quintett, Op. 16. 1801. + Sonata, Op. 22. 1802. + do Op. 26. 1802. + do Op. 28. 1802. + +From this list we have excluded works which Marx says were _published_ +(_herausgegeben_) during these years, selecting only those which he +calls "aus dem Jahre,"--belonging to such a year. + +Marx himself (Vol. I. p. 246 _et seq_.) shows us that the works above +mentioned, dated 1802, belong to an earlier period; for in the "first +months" of that year Beethoven fell into a dangerous illness, which +unfitted him for labor throughout the season. + +We have, then, as the labor of three years, three grand pianoforte +concertos with orchestra, six string quartetts, a quintett, a septett, +a grand ballet, and two symphonies, for _great_ works; and for minor +productions,--by-play,--nine pianoforte solo sonatas, one for +pianoforte and horn, a pianoforte trio, a quintett, the "Adelaide," and +the "Christ on the Mount of Olives,"--a productiveness (and such a +productiveness!) not surpassed by Mozart or Handel in their best and +most marvellous years. + +But these twenty-eight works, in fact, belong only in part to those +three years. The first concerto was finished before June, 1796; the +second in Prague, 1798; the third was performed late in the autumn of +1800. A performance of the first symphony is recorded at least ten, of +the second at least three, months before that of the ballet. As +this--the "Prometheus"--was written expressly for Vigano, the arranger +of the action, it is not to be supposed that any great lapse of time +took place between the execution of the order for and the production of +the music. In fact, Marx has no authorities, beyond Lenz's notices of +the _publication_ of the works in the above lists, for the dates which +he has given to them; none whatever for placing the works of the first +of our lists in that order; certainly none for placing Op. 37 before +Op. 18, Op. 29 before Op. 20, and Op. 48 before Op. 21 and Op. 36. And +yet, at the close of his remarks upon the septett, Op. 20, we read, +"Each of the compositions here noticed" (namely, those in the first +list down to the septett) "is a step away from the pianoforte to the +orchestra. In the midst of them appears the first (!) orchestral work +since the chivalrous ballet, to which the boy (?) Beethoven in former +days gave being. It was again to be a ballet,--'Gli Uomini di +Prometeo.'" Then follow remarks upon the ballet, closing thus: + +"On the 'Prometheus' he had tried the strength of his pinions; in the +first symphony, 'Grande Sinfonie,' Op. 21, he floated calmly upon them +at those heights where the spirit of Mozart had rested." + +No, Herr Professor Marx, your pretty fancy is without basis. +Chronology, "the eye of History," makes sad work of your theory. Pity +that in your "researches" you met not one of those lists of the members +of the Electoral Chapel at Bonn, which would have shown you that the +young Beethoven learned to wield the orchestra in that best of all +schools, the orchestra itself! + +Three chapters of Book Second (Vol. I. pp. 239-307) are entitled +"Helden Weihe," (Consecration of the Hero,) "Die Sinfonie Eroica und +die ideale Musik," (The Heroic Symphony and Ideal Music,) and "Die +Zukunft vor dem Richterstuhl der Vergangenheit" (The Future before the +Judgment-Seat of the Past). Save the first fourteen pages, which are +given to Beethoven's sickness in 1802, the testament which he wrote at +that time, and some remarks upon the "Christ on the Mount of Olives," +these chapters are devoted to the "Heroic Symphony,"--its history, its +explanation, and a polemical discourse directed against the views of +Wagner, Berlioz, Oulibichef, and others. + +The circumstances under which this remarkable work was written, the +history of its origin and completion, are so clearly related by Ries +and Schindler, that it seems hardly possible to make any great blunder +in repeating them. Marx has, however, a very happy talent for getting +out of the path, even when it lies directly before him. + +"When, therefore, Bernadotte," says he, "at that time French Ambassador +at Vienna, and sharer in the admiration which the Lichnowskis and +others of high rank felt for Beethoven, proposed to him to pay his +homage to the hero [Napoleon] in a grand instrumental work, he found +the artist in the best disposition thereto; perhaps such thoughts had +already occurred to his mind. In the year 1802, in autumn, he put his +hand already to the work, began first in the following year earnestly +to labor upon it, and, with many interruptions, and the production of +various compositions in the mean time, completed it in 1804." + +From this passage, and from remarks in connection with it, it is clear +that Professor Marx supposes Bernadotte to have been in Vienna in +1802-3, and to have ordered this symphony of Beethoven. Schindler's +words, when speaking of his conversation with the composer in 1823, on +this topic, are,--"Beethoven erinnerte sich lebhaft, dass Bernadotte +wirklich zuerst die Idee zur Sinfonie Eroica in ihm rege gemacht hat" +(Beethoven remembered distinctly that it really was Bernadotte who +first awakened in him the idea of the "Heroic Symphony"). On turning to +the article on Bernadotte in the "Conversations-Lexicon," we find that +the period of his embassy embraced but a few months of the year 1798. + +It seems to us a very suggestive and important fact toward the +comprehension of Beethoven's design in this work, that the conception +of it had been floating before his mind and slowly assuming definite +form during the space of four years, before he put hand to the +composition. Six years passed from the date of its conception before it +lay complete upon his table, with the single word "Bonaparte" in large +letters at the top of the title-page, and "L. Beethoven" at the bottom, +with nothing between. And what, according to Marx, is this product of +so much study and labor? A musical description of a battle; a funeral +march to the memory of the fallen; the gathering of the armies for +their homeward march; a description of the blessings of peace. A most +lame and impotent interpretation! Marx somewhere says, that Beethoven +never wrought twice upon the same idea; hence the funeral march of the +Symphony cannot have been originally intended in honor of a hero,--we +agree with him so far,--for this task he had once already accomplished +in the Sonata, Op. 26. But then, if the first movement of the Symphony +be a battle-piece, how came its author to compose another, and one so +entirely different, in 1812? + +How any one--with the recollection of Beethoven's fondness for +describing character in music, even in youth upon the pianoforte,--with +the "Coriolanus Overture" before him, and the "Wellington's Victory at +Vittoria" at hand,--and, above all, with any knowledge of the +composer's love for the universal, the all-embracing, and his contempt +for minute musical painting, as shown by his sarcasms upon passages in +Haydn's "Creation"--can suppose the first movement of the "Heroic +Symphony" to be in the main intended as a battle-picture, passes our +comprehension. It may be so. It is but a matter of opinion. We have +nothing from Beethoven himself upon the point, unless we may suppose, +that, when, four years later, he printed upon the programme, at the +first performance of the "Pastoral Symphony," "Rather the expression of +feeling than musical painting," he was guarding against a mistake which +had been made as to the intent of the "Eroica." + +We have no space to waste in following Marx, either through his +exposition of his battle theory, his explanations of the other +movements of the Symphony, or his polemics against previous writers. +His programme seems to us little, if at all, better than those which he +controverts. Instead of this, we venture to offer our own to the +reader's common sense, which, if it does not satisfy, at least shows +that Marx has not put the question forever at rest. + +"Rather the expression of feeling than musical painting" seems to us a +key to the understanding of this, as well as of the "Pastoral +Symphony." Mere musical painting, and the composition of works to +order,--as is proved by the "Wellington's Victory," the "Coriolanus +Overture," the music to "Prometheus," to the "Ruins of Athens," the +"Glorreiche Augenblick," to say nothing of minor works, such as the +First and Second Concertos, the Horn Sonata, etc.,--Beethoven could and +did despatch with extreme rapidity; but works of a different order, for +which he could take his own time, and which were to be the expression +of the grand feelings of his own great heart,--the composition of these +was no light holiday-task. He could "make music" with all ease and +rapidity; and had this been his aim, the extreme productiveness of the +first years in Vienna shows that he might, perhaps, have rivalled +Father Haydn himself in the number of his instrumental compositions. +His difficulty was not in writing music, but in mastering the poetic +conception, and finding that tone-speech which should express in epic +progress, yet in obedience to the laws of musical form, the emotions, +feelings, sentiments to be depicted. Hence the great length of time +during which many of his works were subjects of meditation and study. +Hence the six years which elapsed between the conception and completion +of the "Heroic Symphony." + +Beethoven passed his youth near the borders of France, under a +government which allowed a republican personal freedom to its subjects. +He was himself a strong republican, and old enough, when the crushed +people over the border at length arose in their terrible energy against +the King, to sympathize with them in their woe, perhaps in their +vengeance. What to us is the horrible history of those years was to him +the exciting news of the day; and it is not difficult to imagine the +changes of feeling with which he would follow the political changes in +France, the hopes of humanity now apparently lost in the gloom of the +Reign of Terror, and now the rising of the day-star, precursor of a +glorious day of republican freedom, in the marvellous successes of the +cool, determined, energetic, stoical young conqueror of Italy, living, +when Bernadotte fired his imagination by his descriptions of him, with +his wife, the widow of Beauharnais, in a small house in an obscure +street of the capital. + +To us, then, the first movement of the "Heroic Symphony" is a study of +character. In the "Coriolanus Overture" we have one side of a hero +depicted: here we see lain, in all his aspects; we behold him in sorrow +and in joy, in weakness and in strength, in the struggle and in +victory,--overcoming opposition, and reducing all elements of discord +to harmony and order by the force of his energetic will. It may be +either a description of Napoleon, as Beethoven at that time understood +his character,--we are inclined to this opinion,--or it may be a more +general picture of a hero, to which the career of Napoleon had +furnished but the original conception. The second movement is to us the +wail of a nation ground to the dust by the iron heel of +despotism,--France under the old _régime_,--France in the Reign of +Terror,--France needing, as few nations have needed, the advent of a +hero. The scherzo, with its trio, is not a form for minute painting of +_how_ the hero comes and saves; nor is this necessary; it has been +sufficiently indicated in the first movement. _We_ hear in it the +awakening to new life, from the first whispers of hope, uttered +mysteriously and with trembling lips, to the bright and cheering +expression of a nation's joy,--not loudly and boisterously,--(Beethoven +never gives such a language to the depths of happiness,)--in the +exquisite passages for the horns in the trio. We agree with Marx +in feeling the finale to be a picture of the blessings of that peace +and quiet which the hero once more restores,--but peace and quiet where +liberty and law, justice and order reign. + +One fact in relation to the finale of this symphony has caused +Professor Marx no little trouble. The movement is a theme and +variations, with a fugue, and was also published by Beethoven as a +"Theme and Variations for the Pianoforte," Op. 35, dedicated to Moritz +Lichnowsky. The theme is from the finale of the "Prometheus." Now what +could induce Beethoven to make this use of so important a work, as such +a finale to such a symphony, is to our Professor a puzzle. It troubles +him on page 70, (Vol. I.,) again on page 212, and finally on page 274. +The same theme three times employed,--he may say four, for it is one of +the six "Contredanses" by Beethoven, which appeared about that +time,--and the third time _so_ employed! Lenz happens to have +overlooked the fact,--and so has Marx,--that the Variations for the +Pianoforte, Op. 35, were advertised in the "Leipziger Musikalische +Zeitung," already in November, 1803. How long Beethoven had kept them +by him, how long it had taken them to make the then slow journey from +Vienna to Leipzig, to be engraved, corrected, and made ready for sale, +we are not informed. A very simple theory will account for all the +phenomena in this case. + +A very beautiful theme in the finale of "Prometheus" is admired. +Beethoven composes variations upon it, and, to render it more worthy of +his friend Lichnowsky, adds the fugue. The work becomes a favorite, and, +the theme being originally descriptive of the happiness of man in a state +of culture and refinement, he decides to arrange it for orchestra, and +give it a place in the new symphony. How if Lichnowsky proposed it? + +A large proportion of the three chapters under consideration, as, +indeed, of many others, is directed against Oulibichef,-- +"Oulibichef-Thersites," as he names him in the Table of +Contents. The very different manner in which he treats this gentleman, +throughout his work, from that in which he speaks of Berlioz, Wagner, +Lenz, is striking; but Oulibichef is dead, and cannot reply. Some of +the Russian's contrapuntal objections to the "Heroic Symphony" are well +answered; but, as we are satisfied with the poetic explanation of the +work by neither, we must confess, that, after the crystalline clearness +of Oulibichef, the muddy wordiness of Marx is not to edification. + +We turn now to the chapters devoted to the opera "Leonore," afterwards +"Fidelio,"--one of the most interesting topics in Beethoven's musical +history. Here, at length, we do find something beyond what Ries and +Schindler have recorded,--no longer the close coincidence in matters of +fact with Lenz; indeed, the account of the changes made in transforming +the three-act "Leonore" into the two-act "Fidelio" we consider the best +piece of historic writing in the volumes,--the one which gives us the +greatest number of new facts, and most clearly and chronologically +arranged. It is really quite unfortunate for Professor Marx, that +Professor Otto Jahn of Bonn gave us, some years since, in his preface +to the Leipzig edition of "Leonore," precisely the same facts, from +precisely the same sources, and in some cases, we had almost said, in +precisely the same words. The "coincidence" here is striking,--as we +cannot suppose Marx ever saw Jahn's publication, since he makes no +reference to it. In the errors with which Marx spices his narrative +occasionally, the coincidence ceases. Here are some instances. +--According to Marx, one reason of the ill success of the +opera at Vienna, in 1805-6, was the popularity of that upon the same +subject by Paer. The Viennese first heard the latter in 1809.--Again, +at the first production of the "Fidelio," in 1814, Marx says, the +Leonore Overture No. 3 was played because that in E flat was not +finished. Seyfried says expressly, the overture to the "Ruins of +Athens,"--Marx speaks of the proposals made to Beethoven in 1823 to +compose the "Melusine," and still another text,--and so speaks as to +leave the impression, that, from the "fall of the opera" in 1806, the +composer had purposely kept aloof from the stage. Does the Professor +know nothing of Beethoven's application in 1807 to the Theater- +Direktion of the imperial playhouses, to be employed as regular +operatic composer?--of the opera "Romulus?"--of his correspondence with +Koerner, Rellstab, and still others? It appears not. + +We must close our article somewhere; it is already, perhaps, too long; +we add, therefore, but a general remark or two. + +To many readers Marx's discussions of Beethoven's last works will be +found of interest and value, though written in that turgid, vague, +confused style--"words, words, words"--which the Germans denominate by +the expressive term, _Geschtwätz_. This is especially the case with his +essays upon the great "Missa Solemnis," and the "Ninth Symphony." + +We cannot rise from the perusal of this "Life of Beethoven" without +feeling something akin to indignation. Were it a possible supposition, +we should imagine it to be a thing manufactured to sell,--and, indeed, +in some such manner as this; The labors of Lenz taken without +acknowledgment for the skeleton of the work; Wegeler, Ries, Schindler, +and Seyfried at hand for citations, where Lenz fails to give more than +a reference; Oulibichef on the table to supply topics for polemical +discussion; a few periodicals and papers, which have come accidentally +into his possession, to afford here and there an anecdote or a letter; +the works of Professor A. B. Marx supplying the necessary authorities +upon points in musical science. As for any original research, that is +out of the question. Why stop to verify a fact, to decide a disputed +point, to search out new matter? The market waits,--the publisher +presses,--so, hurry-skurry, away we go,--and the book is done! +Seriously, such a book, from one with such opportunities at command, is +a disgrace to the institution in which its author occupies the station +of Professor. + +When Schindler wrote, Johann van Beethoven, the brother, and Carl van +Beethoven, the nephew, were still alive, and feelings of delicacy led +him to do little more than hint at those domestic and family relations +and sorrows which for several years rendered the great composer much of +the time unfit for labor, and which at last brought him to the grave. +When Marx wrote, all had passed away, who could be wounded by a plain +statement of the facts in the case. Until we have such a statement, +none but he who has gone through the labor of studying the original +authorities, as they exist in Berlin, can know the real greatness, +perhaps also the weaknesses, of Beethoven in those last years. None can +know how his heart was torn,--how he poured out, concentrated all the +love of his great heart upon his adopted son, but to learn "how sharper +than the serpent's tooth it is to have a thankless child." Nothing of +all this in Marx. He quotes Schindler, and therewith enough. + +Long as this article has become, we have referred to but the more +important of the passages which in reading we marked for +comment,--enough, however, we judge, to show that the biography of +Ludwig van Beethoven still remains to be written. + + + + +_The American Draught-Player_; or the Theory and Practice of the +Scientific Game of Chequers. By HENRY SPAYTH. Buffalo, New York. +Printed for the Author. + +Almost everybody plays the game of draughts, but few have any insight +into its beauties; and many who look upon chess as a science rather +than an amusement regard draughts as a childish game, never suspecting +what eminent ability and painful research have been expended in +explaining a game which is inferior to chess only in variety and far +superior in scientific precision. Mr. Spayth's book is accordingly +addressed to a comparatively narrow circle of readers; but those who +are competent to judge of its merits will find it a work of great +value. The author, who is an enthusiastic votary of the game, and has +no superior among our American amateurs, offers a judicious selection +from the treatises of such foreign writers as the severe and critical +Anderson, the brilliant but capricious Drummond, Robert Martin, perhaps +the first of living players, Hay, Sinclair, and Wylie, besides many +valuable games from Sturges and Payne, who will never be rendered +obsolete by modern improvements,--together with the labors of such +acknowledged masters in America as Bethell, Mercer, Ash, Drysdale, and +Young, and the contributions of such rising players as Howard, Brooks, +Fisk, Boughton, Janvier, Hull, and Thwing. But his labors have not been +merely those of a compiler. Out of fifteen hundred games, more than +five hundred are the composition of Mr. Spayth himself. + +The results of so much labor and skill cannot, of course, be fully +criticized by us. The merits of the volume can be fairly tested only by +long and constant use. We shall, however, venture to point out some +faults in Mr. Spayth's treatment, premising that his is by far the best +treatise upon the game yet published, and the only treatise worthy of +the name that has ever appeared in this country. Anderson's arrangement +of the games, which Mr. Spayth has adopted, is both clear and concise; +and we are glad to see that our author has adhered to the old system of +draught-notation, which is infinitely superior to any of the new plans. +The condensation and clear presentation of Paterson's somewhat abstruse +essay on "The Move and its Changes" is every way admirable, and many of +the problems are remarkable for beauty and difficulty. + +We think that too much prominence has been given to certain openings. +While glad to see that model of all openings, the _Old Fourteenth_, +which is to draughts what the _Giuoco Piano_ is to chess, illustrated +by 186 games, of which 127 are original with the author, the brilliant +_Fife_ (the _Muzio_ of chess-players) explained by 67 games, the +_Suter_ by 72 games, and the _Single Corner_ by 258 games, we regret +that only 24 specimens should be given of the _Double Corner_, 42 (and +only 11 of these original) of the _Defiance_, and 51 (with but 14 +original) of the fascinating and intricate _Ayrshire Lassie_, an +opening of which American students know very little. We regret this +meagre explanation of the three latter openings all the more that we +expected a particularly full and lucid presentment of them from Mr. +Spayth. + +The definition of certain openings seems to us also incorrect and +inconsistent. The Scottish school, whom Mr. Spayth has sometimes +followed too closely, as in this instance, are singularly deficient as +theorists, and have never given the game anything like a philosophical +treatment. The _Whilter_ is _not_ "formed by the first three or five +moves." The bare notion of forming one opening in two different ways is +absurd and contradictory. The time will come when draught-players will +understand that the _Whilter_ is formed by the first three moves, +namely, 11.15--23.19--7.11, or else, 10.15--23.19--7.10, which is +really the same thing. The distinctive move of the opening is 7.11; +there is nothing characteristic in the 9.14--22.17, which may +intervene: those moves leave the game free to develop itself into a +_Fife_, a _Suter_, or even an _Old Fourteenth_; but the move of 7.11 +determines the opening at once and finally. Then, under the title of +the _Double Corner_ the author includes several distinct openings,--and +so, too, under the _Bristol_. In this latter case, the Scottish +treatises are right and Mr. Spayth is wrong. A strange confusion is +also caused by the attempt to include a number of different openings +under the head of "Irregular." + +It is useless to linger over the exhaustive plan of all our +draught-writers, but, in adopting their plan, Mr. Spayth's fault has +been merely that of his predecessors, and his merits are all his own. +The true plan for a draught-treatise is that adopted by Staunton in his +chess-writings. No man has time to write a treatise which shall embody +the entire practice of the game; and even if such an exhaustive +treatise were written, no man would ever have time to master its +instructions. But the theory can be fully set forth, and is as yet +almost entirely undeveloped. The subject of odds alone presents an +extensive field for future investigations. + +We have found fault with Mr. Spayth's new volume wherever we honestly +could; and we dismiss it with an emphatic repetition of the opinion, +that it is by far the best work upon the game that has ever been +published. + + + + +_The Adopted Heir._ By MISS PARDOE. Philadelphia: T. B. Peterson & +Brothers. + +Miss Pardoe ought to do better than this. There is much ability +displayed in her "Court of France"; and she has written a very clever +story, entitled "The Romance of the Harem." But this book is thoroughly +feeble and commonplace. The customary rich and whimsical nabob, whom we +all know so well, has returned to England, and is deliberating upon the +claims to his wealth of his several relations. His decision is soon +formed, but shrouded in an impenetrable mystery, which is open to the +usual objection to the novelist's impenetrable mysteries, of being +perfectly transparent. Having divined who will be the heir, after +reading forty pages, we are a little impatient that Miss Pardoe should +cherish the secret with every imaginable precaution until the 350th +page, when she brings it out with a flourish, as if no human sagacity +could possibly have discovered it. + +This keeping secrets that are no secrets, the besetting weakness of +novelists, was once quite affecting. When Nicholas Nickleby acted at +Mr. Crummles's theatre, a thrill of terror ran through the +unsophisticated spectators, as the wicked relation poked a sword at him +in the dark in every direction except where his legs were plainly +visible. But readers are more exacting now. And we are all frightfully +sagacious. Long reading of novels gives a fatal skill in anticipating +their issues. If in the first chapter the poor little brother runs away +to sea, his anxious friends may bewail his loss, but we remain calm in +the conviction that he will return, yellow and rich, precisely in time +to frustrate the designs of the wicked, and to reward innocence and +constancy with ten thousand a year. All the good people in a story may +be puzzled to detect the author of an alarming fraud; but we know +better, and, fixing with more than a detective's accuracy upon the +gentlemanly, plausible villain, drag him forth long before our author +is ready to present him to our (theoretically) astonished eyes. The +whole village may be deceived by the venerable stranger, with his white +hair and benevolent spectacles, but our unerring eye instantly discerns +in him Black Donald, the robber-captain; and if we do not tremble for +our heroine, it is only because we are morally certain that her deadly +peril is only an excuse for her inevitable lover's "dashing up on a +coal-black barb, urged to his utmost speed," and delivering the +desolate fair, who has won our regard alike by her indignant virtue, +and the skill with which, while laboring under uncontrollable +agitation, she constructs sentences so ponderous and intricate that Mr. +Burke's periods are trifles in comparison. And we know all this, simply +because there are certain things to be done, and only so many people to +do them. Miss Austen, indeed, could keep her secrets impenetrable; but +the art died with her, and our common sense is daily insulted by these +weak attempts at mystery. If the secret is one that cannot be +kept, why, let the author tell it us at once, and we can then follow +with sympathy the attempts to baffle those in the story who are trying +to detect it, instead of being offended with a shallow artifice. Here +lies the artistic error of that very clever book, "Paul Ferroll." We +all see at once that Mr. Ferroll murdered his wife, and the author +would have lost nothing and gained much by taking us into his +confidence. + +The style of the "Adopted Heir" is at once pompous and feeble. From +writers of the Mrs. Southworth school we should expect nothing else; +but Miss Pardoe was capable of something better. + + + + +_Fanny_. From the French of ERNEST FEYDEAU. New York: Evert D. Long & +Co. + +If there be any one thing worse than French immorality, it is French +morality. This is a moral book, _à la Française_, and weak as +ditch-water. Nor is the ditch-water improved by being particularly +dirty. + +Edward, who is a mere boy, is in love with Fanny. This is natural +enough. Fanny, who is decidedly an old girl, who has been married for +fifteen years, and who has three children, is not less desperately in +love with Edward, whom she regards with a most charming sentiment, in +which the timid passion of the maiden blends gracefully with the +maturer regard of an aunt or a grandmother. This is not quite so +natural. Certainly, it can hardly be that she is fascinated by Edward, +who is the most disgustingly silly young monkey to be found in the +whole range of French novels. But the mystery is at once disclosed when +we read the description of Fanny's husband. He is "a species of bull +with a human face." "His smile was not unpleasing, and his look without +any malicious expression, but clear as crystal." We begin to comprehend +his inferiority to Edward,--to sympathize with the youth's horror at +the sight of this obnoxious husband, "who seems to him," as M. Janin +says in his preface, "a hero--what do I say?--a giant!--to the loving, +timid, fragile child." "In fine, a certain air of calm rectitude +pervaded his person." Execrable wretch! could anything be more +repulsive to true and delicate sentiment (as before, _à la Française_) +"I should say his age was about forty." Our wrath at this last atrocity +can hardly be controlled. It seems as if M. Feydeau, by collecting in +one individual all the qualities which most excite his abhorrence and +contempt, had succeeded in giving us, in Fanny's husband, a very +tolerable specimen of a gentleman. We pardon all to the somewhat +middle-aged lady, whose "feelings are too many for her"; and we only +regret that M. Feydeau did not see the eminent propriety of increasing +the lady's admiration by having this brutal husband pull Edward's +divine nose or kick the adored person of the _pauvre enfant_ down +stairs. + + +_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," "Art, Literature, and the Drama," etc. +Edited by her Brother, ARTHUR B. FULLER. Boston: Brown, Taggard, & +Chase. + +Of this volume little more need be said than that, had Margaret Fuller +Ossoli edited it, she might have reduced its size. Yet it is not +surprising that love and reverence should seek with diligence and save +with care whatever had emanated from her pen; and if the matter thus +laid before the world take something from her reputation, it also +completes the standard by which to measure her power. She appears to +have been without creative faculty, yet her perception of the gift in +others was often remarkable, and it pleased her to hold the possessor +of it up to admiration. Hence she devoted much time and attention to +the critical examination of art, music, and literature, and succeeded +in giving the works and lives which she reviewed a fresh interest and a +fuller meaning. Her articles on Goethe and Beethoven, in this volume, +furnish ample evidence of her capacity to appreciate the works and the +men of genius, and that, if she could not give good reasons for the +aberrations and eccentricities of their courses, she at least had a +heart large enough to look kindly upon them. Of books she was +a student and a lover; and in the short notices of new ones, which are +transferred from "The Tribune" to these pages, there is hardly one that +has not some thought of value to author as well as reader. Indeed, all +her prose writings are suggestive, and thus are capable of opening +vistas in the quickened mind which were unknown before. Authors of this +class often dart a ray into the recesses of our souls, so that we see +what they never saw, gain what they never gave. A book that increases +mental activity is incomparably better than one that multiplies +learning. The value of knowledge that lies in libraries is +overestimated by all save those who read Nature's runes. The Countess +Ossoli gathered from the garners, rather than from the glorious field, +and therefore she does not range with the marked originals. In this +rank she was not born. Her poems--which we think injudiciously +published--place her far down among the multitude. From these untuneful +utterances we gladly turn to her prose. There she shows strength of +character and goodness of heart. One aim, never lost sight of, is +perceptible through all, and gives unity to the whole; this is a +fervent desire to ennoble human life; consequently her works will long +have influence, and continue to call forth praise. + + + + +_Lectures on the English Language_. By GEORGE P. MARSH. New York: +Charles Scribner, 1860. pp. vi., 697. + +An American scholar of wide range, at the same time thorough and +unpretentious, is a rarity; a philologist who is neither perversely +wrongheaded nor the victim of a preconceived theory is a still greater +one; yet we find both characters pleasantly united in the author of +these Lectures. Decided in his opinions, Mr. Marsh is modest in +expressing them, because they are the result of various culture and +long reflection, and these have taught him that time and study often +render the most positive conclusions doubtful, especially in regard to +such a topic as Language. Deservedly honored with diplomatic employment +in Europe, he has done credit to the choice of the Government by +turning the long leisure of a foreign mission to as great profit by +study and observation as if he had been a Travelling Fellow and these +had been the conditions of his tenure. + +Addressed to a mixed audience, to the laity rather than to students, +these Lectures are more popular than scholastic in their character. Mr. +Marsh alludes to this with something like regret in his Preface. We +look upon this as by no means a misfortune. The book will, for this +very reason, reach and interest a much larger number of readers; and +while there is nothing in it to scare away those who read for mere +entertainment, they whose studies have led them into the same paths +with the author will continually recognize those signs, trifling, but +unmistakable, which distinguish the work of a master from that of a +journeyman. Scholarship is indicated not only by readiness of allusion, +and variety and aptness of illustration, but by a thorough +self-possession and chastened eloquence of style. A genius for language +comes doubtless by nature, but Mr. Marsh is too wise a man to believe +that a knowledge of it comes in the same way; his learning has that +ripened clearness which tells of olden vintages and of long storing in +the crypts of the brain; he has nothing in common with the easy +generalizers who know as little of roots as Shelley's skylark, and who, +seeking a shelter in welcome clouds, pour forth "profuse strains of +unpremeditated art" upon questions which above all others are limited +by exact science and unyielding fact. + +We believe we are not going too far when we say that Mr. Marsh's book +is the best treatise of the kind in the language. It abounds in nice +criticism and elegant discussion on matters of taste, showing in the +author a happy capacity for esthetic discrimination as well as for +linguistic attainment. He does not profess to deal with some of the +deeper problems of language, but nevertheless makes us feel that they +have been subjects of thoughtful study, and, within the limits he has +imposed upon himself, he is often profound without the pretence of it. + +We have spoken warmly of this volume, for it has both interested and +instructed us, and because we consider it one of the few thoroughly +creditable productions of Cisatlantic scholarship. We hope the +appreciation it meets with will be such that we shall soon have +occasion to thank Mr. Marsh for another volume on some kindred theme. + + + + +_The Marble Faun._ A Romance of Monte Beni. By NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE. 2 +vols. Boston: Ticknor & Fields. 1860. + +It is, we believe, more than thirty years since Mr. Hawthorne's first +appearance as an author; it is twenty-three since he gave his first +collection of "Twice-told Tales" to the world. His works have received +that surest warranty of genius and originality in the widening of their +appreciation downward from a small circle of refined admirers and +critics, till it embraced the whole community of readers. With just +enough encouragement to confirm his faith in his own powers, those +powers had time to ripen and toughen themselves before the gales of +popularity could twist them from the balance of a healthy and normal +development. Happy the author whose earliest works are read and +understood by the lustre thrown back upon them from his latest! for +then we receive the impression of continuity and cumulation of power, +of peculiarity deepening to individuality, of promise more than +justified in the keeping: unhappy, whose autumn shows only the +aftermath and rowen of an earlier harvest, whose would-be +replenishments are but thin dilutions of his fame! + +The nineteenth century has produced no more purely original writer than +Mr. Hawthorne. A shallow criticism has sometimes fancied a resemblance +between him and Poe. But it seems to us that the difference between +them is the immeasurable one between talent carried to its ultimate, +and genius,--between a masterly adaptation of the world of sense and +appearance to the purposes of Art, and a so thorough conception of the +world of moral realities that Art becomes the interpreter of something +profounder than herself. In this respect it is not extravagant to say +that Hawthorne has something of kindred with Shakspeare. But that +breadth of nature which made Shakspeare incapable of alienation from +common human nature and actual life is wanting to Hawthorne. He is +rather a denizen than a citizen of what men call the world. We are +conscious of a certain remoteness in his writings, as in those of +Donne, but with such a difference that we should call the one super- +and the other subter-sensual. Hawthorne is psychological and +metaphysical. Had he been born without the poetic imagination, he would +have written treatises on the Origin of Evil. He does not draw +characters, but rather conceives them and then shows them acted upon by +crime, passion, or circumstance, as if the element of Fate were as +present to his imagination as to that of a Greek dramatist. Helen we +know, and Antigone, and Benedick, and Falstaff, and Miranda, and Parson +Adams, and Major Pendennis,--these people have walked on pavements or +looked out of club-room windows; but what are these idiosyncrasies into +which Mr. Hawthorne has breathed a necromantic life, and which he has +endowed with the forms and attributes of men? And yet, grant him his +premises, that is, let him once get his morbid tendency, whether +inherited or the result of special experience, either incarnated +as a new man or usurping all the faculties of one already in +the flesh, and it is marvellous how subtilely and with what +truth to as much of human nature as is included in a diseased +consciousness he traces all the finest nerves of impulse and motive, +how he compels every trivial circumstance into an accomplice of his +art, and makes the sky flame with foreboding or the landscape chill and +darken with remorse. It is impossible to think of Hawthorne without at +the same time thinking of the few great masters of imaginative +composition; his works, only not abstract because he has the genius +to make them ideal, belong not specially to our clime or generation; +it is their moral purpose alone, and perhaps their sadness, that mark +him as the son of New England and the Puritans. + +It is commonly true of Hawthorne's romances that the interest centres +in one strongly defined protagonist, to whom the other characters are +accessory and subordinate,--perhaps we should rather say a ruling Idea, +of which all the characters are fragmentary embodiments. They remind us +of a symphony of Beethoven's, in which, though there be variety of +parts, yet all are infused with the dominant motive, and heighten its +impression by hints and far-away suggestions at the most unexpected +moment. As in Rome the obelisks are placed at points toward which +several streets converge, so in Mr. Hawthorne's stories the actors and +incidents seem but vistas through which we see the moral from different +points of view,--a moral pointing skyward always, but inscribed with +hieroglyphs mysteriously suggestive, whose incitement to conjecture, +while they baffle it, we prefer to any prosaic solution. + +Nothing could be more original or imaginative than the conception of +the character of Donatello in Mr. Hawthorne's new romance. His likeness +to the lovely statue of Praxiteles, his happy animal temperament, and +the dim legend of his pedigree are combined with wonderful art to +reconcile us to the notion of a Greek myth embodied in an Italian of +the nineteenth century; and when at length a soul is created in this +primeval pagan, this child of earth, this creature of mere instinct, +awakened through sin to a conception of the necessity of atonement, we +feel, that, while we looked to be entertained with the airiest of +fictions, we were dealing with the most august truths of psychology, +with the most pregnant facts of modern history, and studying a profound +parable of the development of the Christian Idea. + +Everything suffers a sea-change in the depths of Mr. Hawthorne's mind, +gets rimmed with an impalpable fringe of melancholy moss, and there is +a tone of sadness in this book as in the rest, but it does not leave us +sad. In a series of remarkable and characteristic works, it is perhaps +the most remarkable and characteristic. If you had picked up and read a +stray leaf of it anywhere, you would have exclaimed, "Hawthorne!" + +The book is steeped in Italian atmosphere. There are many landscapes in +it full of breadth and power, and criticisms of pictures and statues +always delicate, often profound. In the Preface, Mr. Hawthorne pays a +well-deserved tribute of admiration to several of our sculptors, +especially to Story and Akers. The hearty enthusiasm with which he +elsewhere speaks of the former artist's "Cleopatra" is no surprise to +Mr. Story's friends at home, though hardly less gratifying to them than +it must be to the sculptor himself. + + + + +_A Trip to Cuba_. By Mrs. JULIA WARD HOWE. Boston: Ticknor & Fields. +1860. pp. 251. + +For readers of the "Atlantic," this little volume will need no further +commendation than the mere statement that nearly a quarter of it is +made up of hitherto unpublished material. Here and there it seems to us +a little too personal, and the public is made the confidant of matters +in which it has properly no concern. This, perhaps, is more the fault +of the present generation than of the author; but it is something we +feel bound to protest against, wherever we meet it. In other respects, +the book is one which we may thank not only for entertainment, but for +instruction. In its vivid picturesqueness, it furnishes the complement +to Mr. Dana's "To Cuba and Back." Mrs. Howe has the poet's gift of +making us see what she describes, and she is as lively and witty as a +French _Marquise_ of the seventeenth century, when a _De_ in the name, +petticoats, and Paris were an infallible receipt for cleverness. Toward +the end of her volume, Mrs. Howe enters a spirited and telling protest +against a self-constituted censorship, which would insist on a +traveller's squaring his impressions with some foregone theory of right +and wrong, instead of thankfully allowing facts to rectify his theory. +A traveller is bound to tell us what he saw, not what he expected or +wished to see; and it is only by comparing the different views of many +independent observers that we who tarry at home can arrive at any +approximate notion of absolute fact. The general inferiority of modern +books of travel is due to the fact that their authors write in the fear +of their special fragment of a public, and report of foreign countries +as if they were drummers for Exeter Hall or the Southern Planters' +Association, rather than servants of Truth. + + + + +_Poems by Two Friends_. Columbus, Ohio: Follett, Foster, & Co. 1860. +pp. 162. + +The Two Friends are Messrs. John J. Piatt and W. D. Howells. The +readers of the "Atlantic" have already had a taste of the quality of +both, and, we hope, will often have the same pleasure again. The volume +is a very agreeable one, with little of the crudeness so generally +characteristic of first ventures,--not more than enough to augur richer +maturity hereafter. Dead-ripeness in a first book is a fatal symptom, +sure sign that the writer is doomed forever to that pale limbo of +faultlessness from which there is no escape upwards or downwards. + +We can scarce find it in our hearts to make any distinctions in so +happy a partnership; but while we see something more than promise in +both writers, we have a feeling that Mr. Piatt shows greater +originality in the choice of subjects, and Mr. Howells more instinctive +felicity of phrase in the treatment of them. Both of them seem to us to +have escaped remarkably from the prevailing conventionalisms of verse, +and to write in metre because they have a genuine call thereto. We are +pleased with a thorough Western flavor in some of the poems, especially +in such pieces as "The Pioneer Chimney" and "The Movers." We welcome +cordially a volume in which we recognize a fresh and authentic power, +and expect confidently of the writers a yet higher achievement ere +long. The poems give more than glimpses of a faculty not so common that +the world can afford to do without it. + + + + +_Vanity Fair_, Frank J. Thompson, 113 Nassau Street, New York. +(Weekly.) + +This is the first really clever comic and satirical journal we have had +in America,--and really clever it is. It is both sharp and +good-tempered, and not afraid to say that its soul is its own,--which +shows that it has a soul. Our readers will be glad to know where they +can find native fun that has something better in it than mere _patois_. + + + + +_Twenty Years Ago and Now_. By T. S. ARTHUR. Philadelphia: G. G. Evans. + +In attempting a novel, Mr. Arthur has gone beyond his powers. This +story is not new, and is not interesting; and its only merits are the +quiet, unpretending style and kindly spirit shown in the author's +little tales of mercantile life, many of which are very good. + + + + +RECENT AMERICAN PUBLICATIONS + +RECEIVED BY THE EDITORS OF THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY. + + +The Hierophant; or, Gleanings from the Past. Being an Exposition of +Biblical Astronomy, and the Symbolism and Mysteries on which were +founded all Ancient Religions and Secret Societies. Also, an +Explanation of the Dark Sayings and Allegories which abound in the +Pagan, Jewish, and Christian Bibles. Also, the Real Sense of the +Doctrines and Observances of the Modern Christian Churches. By G. C. +Stewart, Newark, N. J. New York. Ross & Tousey. 18mo. pp. 234. 75 cts. + +A Trip to Cuba. By Mrs. Julia Ward Howe. Boston. Ticknor & Fields. +16mo. pp. iv., 25l. 75 cts. + +Humanics. By T. Wharton Collins, Esq., Professor of "Political +Philosophy," University of Louisiana, Ex-Presiding Judge City Court of +New Orleans, etc. New York. Appleton & Co. 8vo. pp. 358. $1.75. + +Essays, Critical and Miscellaneous. By T. Babington Macaulay. New and +Revised Edition. New York. Appleton & Co. 8vo. pp. 744. $2.00. + +Life and Times of Gen. Sam. Dale, the Mississippi Partisan. By J. F. H. +Claiborne. Illustrated by John M'Lenan. New York. Harper & Brothers. +12mo. pp. 233. $1.00. + +Lucy Crofton. By the Author of "Margaret Maitland," "The Days of my +Life." New York. Harper & Brothers. 12mo. pp. 222. 75 cts. + +Holmby House. A Tale of Old Northamptonshire. By G. J. Whyte Melville, +Author of "Kate Coventry," "The Interpreter," etc. Boston. Ticknor & +Fields. 8vo. paper, pp. 224. 50 cts. + +Aeschylus, ex novissima Recensione Frederici A. Paley. Accessit +Verborum quae praecipue notanda sunt et Nominum Index. New York Harper +& Brothers. 18mo. pp. viii., 272. 40 cts. Thoughts and Reflections on +the Present Position of Europe, and its Probable Consequences to the +United States. By Francis J. Grund. Philadelphia. Childs and Peterson. +12mo. pp. 245. 75 cts. + +Lectures on the English Language. By George P. Marsh. New York. +Scribner. 8vo. pp. viii., 697. $3.00. + +A Medico-Legal Treatise on Malpractice and Medical Evidence, comprising +the Elements of Medical Jurisprudence. By John J. Elwell, M. D., Member +of the Cleveland Bar, Professor of Criminal and Medical Jurisprudence +and Testamentary Law in the Ohio State Law College, and Editor of the +Western Law Monthly. New York. John S. Voorhies. 8vo. pp. 588. $5.00. + +The Public Life of Captain John Brown. By James Redpath. With an +Autobiography of his Childhood and Youth. Boston. Thayer and Eldridge. +12mo. pp. 408. $1.00. + +Stories from Famous Ballads. For Children. By Grace Greenwood, Author +of "History of my Pets," "Stories and Legends," etc. With Illustrations +by Billings. Boston. Ticknor & Fields. Square 18mo. pp. 141. 50 cts. + +Biographical Studies. By George Washington Greene. New York. G. P. +Putnam. 12mo. pp. 233. 75 cts. + +Revolutions in English History. By Robert Vaughan, D. D. Vol. I. +Revolutions of Race. New York. Appleton & Co. 8vo. pp. xvi., 563. +$2.00. + +Doctor Oldham at Greystones, and his Talk there. De omnibus Rebus et +quibusdam aliis. New York. Appleton & Co. 12mo. pp. viii., 342. 75 cts. + +Notes on Nursing: What it is, and what it is not. By Florence +Nightingale. New York. Appleton & Co. 12mo. pp. 140. 60 cts. + +An Arctic Boat Journey, in the Autumn of 1854. By Isaac I. Hayes, +Surgeon of the Second Grinnell Expedition. Boston. Brown, Taggard, & +Chase. 12mo. pp. xviii., 375. $1.25. + +A Guide to the Knowledge of Life, Vegetable and Animal; being a +Comprehensive Manual of Physiology, viewed in Relation to the +Maintenance of Health. By Robert James Mann, M. D. Revised and +corrected. New York. Francis & Co. 16mo. pp. xii., 417. $1.00. + +Notes of Travel and Study in Italy. By Charles Eliot Norton. Boston. +Ticknor & Fields. 16mo. pp. xii., 330. 75 cts. + +The Manual of Phonography. By Benn Pitman. Cincinnati. Phonographic +Institute. 16mo. pp. 136. 75 cts. + +Quinti Horatii Flacci Opera Omnia, ex Recensione A. J. Macleane. New +York. Harper & Brothers. 18mo. pp. viii., 211. 40 eta. + +Poems. By Thomas Buchanan Read. A New and Enlarged Edition. In Two +Volumes. Boston. Ticknor & Fields. 16mo. pp. 426. $2.00. + +Homeward Bound; or, The Chase. A Tale of the Sea. By J. Fenimore +Cooper. Illustrated from Drawings by F. O. C. Darley. New York. +Townsend & Co. 12mo. pp. 532. $1.50. + +Life of Jesus. A Manual for Academic Study. By Dr. Carl Hase, Professor +of Theology in the University of Jena. Translated from the German of +the Third and Fourth Improved Editions, by James Freeman Clarke. +Boston. Walker, Wise, & Co. 12mo. pp. xxiv., 267. 75 cts. + +Apelles and his Contemporaries. A Novel. By the Author of "Ernest +Carroll." Boston. Burnham. 16mo. pp. 342. 75 cts. + +The Miscellaneous Works of Sir Philip Sidney, Knt. With a Life of the +Author and Illustrative Notes. By William Gray, Esq., of Magdalen +College and the Inner Temple. Boston. Burnham. 8vo. pp. x., 380. $2.25. + +The Satires of Juvenal, Persius, Sulpicia, and Lucilius, literally +translated into English Prose, with Notes, Chronological Tables, +Arguments, etc. By the Rev. Lewis Evans, M. A., late Fellow of Wadham +College, Oxford. To which is added the Metrical Version of Juvenal and +Persius by the late William Gifford, Esq. New York. Harper & Brothers. +16mo. pp. lx., 512. 75 cts. + +Narrative of the Earl of Elgin's Mission to China and Japan in the +Years 1857, '58, '59. By Laurence Oliphant, Esq., Private Secretary to +Lord Elgin, Author of "The Russian Shores, of the Black Sea," etc. New +York. Harper & Brothers. 8vo. pp. xvi., 645. $2.75. + +Hours with the Evangelists. By I. Nichols, D.D. In Two Volumes. Vol. I. +Boston. Crosby, Nichols, & Co. 12mo. pp. x., 405. $1.25. + +A Dictionary of English Etymology. By Hensleigh Wedgewood, M. A., late +Fellow of Chr. Coll. Cam. Vol. I. _A-D_. London. Trübner & Co. New +York. Redfield. pp. 507. + +The Marble Faun; or, The Romance of Monte Beni. By Nathaniel Hawthorne, +Author of "The Scarlet Letter," etc. In Two Volumes. Boston. Ticknor & +Fields. 16mo. pp. 283, 284. $1.50. + +Wolfe of the Knoll, and other Poems. By Mrs. George P. Marsh. New York. +Scribner. 12mo. pp. 327. $1.00. + + + + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, ATLANTIC MONTHLY, VOL. 5, NO. 30, APRIL, 1860 *** + +This file should be named 805a410.txt or 805a410.zip +Corrected EDITIONS of our eBooks get a new NUMBER, 805a411.txt +VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, 805a410a.txt + +Project Gutenberg eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the US +unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we usually do not +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + +We are now trying to release all our eBooks one year in advance +of the official release dates, leaving time for better editing. +Please be encouraged to tell us about any error or corrections, +even years after the official publication date. + +Please note neither this listing nor its contents are final til +midnight of the last day of the month of any such announcement. +The official release date of all Project Gutenberg eBooks is at +Midnight, Central Time, of the last day of the stated month. A +preliminary version may often be posted for suggestion, comment +and editing by those who wish to do so. + +Most people start at our Web sites at: +http://gutenberg.net or +http://promo.net/pg + +These Web sites include award-winning information about Project +Gutenberg, including how to donate, how to help produce our new +eBooks, and how to subscribe to our email newsletter (free!). + + +Those of you who want to download any eBook before announcement +can get to them as follows, and just download by date. This is +also a good way to get them instantly upon announcement, as the +indexes our cataloguers produce obviously take a while after an +announcement goes out in the Project Gutenberg Newsletter. + +http://www.ibiblio.org/gutenberg/etext05 or +ftp://ftp.ibiblio.org/pub/docs/books/gutenberg/etext05 + +Or /etext04, 03, 02, 01, 00, 99, 98, 97, 96, 95, 94, 93, 92, 92, +91 or 90 + +Just search by the first five letters of the filename you want, +as it appears in our Newsletters. + + +Information about Project Gutenberg (one page) + +We produce about two million dollars for each hour we work. The +time it takes us, a rather conservative estimate, is fifty hours +to get any eBook selected, entered, proofread, edited, copyright +searched and analyzed, the copyright letters written, etc. Our +projected audience is one hundred million readers. If the value +per text is nominally estimated at one dollar then we produce $2 +million dollars per hour in 2002 as we release over 100 new text +files per month: 1240 more eBooks in 2001 for a total of 4000+ +We are already on our way to trying for 2000 more eBooks in 2002 +If they reach just 1-2% of the world's population then the total +will reach over half a trillion eBooks given away by year's end. + +The Goal of Project Gutenberg is to Give Away 1 Trillion eBooks! +This is ten thousand titles each to one hundred million readers, +which is only about 4% of the present number of computer users. + +Here is the briefest record of our progress (* means estimated): + +eBooks Year Month + + 1 1971 July + 10 1991 January + 100 1994 January + 1000 1997 August + 1500 1998 October + 2000 1999 December + 2500 2000 December + 3000 2001 November + 4000 2001 October/November + 6000 2002 December* + 9000 2003 November* +10000 2004 January* + + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation has been created +to secure a future for Project Gutenberg into the next millennium. + +We need your donations more than ever! + +As of February, 2002, contributions are being solicited from people +and organizations in: Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Connecticut, +Delaware, District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Illinois, +Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Massachusetts, +Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New +Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, +Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South +Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, West +Virginia, Wisconsin, and Wyoming. + +We have filed in all 50 states now, but these are the only ones +that have responded. + +As the requirements for other states are met, additions to this list +will be made and fund raising will begin in the additional states. +Please feel free to ask to check the status of your state. + +In answer to various questions we have received on this: + +We are constantly working on finishing the paperwork to legally +request donations in all 50 states. If your state is not listed and +you would like to know if we have added it since the list you have, +just ask. + +While we cannot solicit donations from people in states where we are +not yet registered, we know of no prohibition against accepting +donations from donors in these states who approach us with an offer to +donate. + +International donations are accepted, but we don't know ANYTHING about +how to make them tax-deductible, or even if they CAN be made +deductible, and don't have the staff to handle it even if there are +ways. + +Donations by check or money order may be sent to: + + PROJECT GUTENBERG LITERARY ARCHIVE FOUNDATION + 809 North 1500 West + Salt Lake City, UT 84116 + +Contact us if you want to arrange for a wire transfer or payment +method other than by check or money order. + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation has been approved by +the US Internal Revenue Service as a 501(c)(3) organization with EIN +[Employee Identification Number] 64-622154. Donations are +tax-deductible to the maximum extent permitted by law. As fund-raising +requirements for other states are met, additions to this list will be +made and fund-raising will begin in the additional states. + +We need your donations more than ever! + +You can get up to date donation information online at: + +http://www.gutenberg.net/donation.html + + +*** + +If you can't reach Project Gutenberg, +you can always email directly to: + +Michael S. Hart <hart@pobox.com> + +Prof. Hart will answer or forward your message. + +We would prefer to send you information by email. + + +**The Legal Small Print** + + +(Three Pages) + +***START**THE SMALL PRINT!**FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN EBOOKS**START*** +Why is this "Small Print!" statement here? You know: lawyers. +They tell us you might sue us if there is something wrong with +your copy of this eBook, even if you got it for free from +someone other than us, and even if what's wrong is not our +fault. So, among other things, this "Small Print!" statement +disclaims most of our liability to you. It also tells you how +you may distribute copies of this eBook if you want to. + +*BEFORE!* YOU USE OR READ THIS EBOOK +By using or reading any part of this PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm +eBook, you indicate that you understand, agree to and accept +this "Small Print!" statement. If you do not, you can receive +a refund of the money (if any) you paid for this eBook by +sending a request within 30 days of receiving it to the person +you got it from. If you received this eBook on a physical +medium (such as a disk), you must return it with your request. + +ABOUT PROJECT GUTENBERG-TM EBOOKS +This PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm eBook, like most PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm eBooks, +is a "public domain" work distributed by Professor Michael S. Hart +through the Project Gutenberg Association (the "Project"). +Among other things, this means that no one owns a United States copyright +on or for this work, so the Project (and you!) can copy and +distribute it in the United States without permission and +without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, set forth +below, apply if you wish to copy and distribute this eBook +under the "PROJECT GUTENBERG" trademark. + +Please do not use the "PROJECT GUTENBERG" trademark to market +any commercial products without permission. + +To create these eBooks, the Project expends considerable +efforts to identify, transcribe and proofread public domain +works. Despite these efforts, the Project's eBooks and any +medium they may be on may contain "Defects". Among other +things, Defects may take the form of incomplete, inaccurate or +corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other +intellectual property infringement, a defective or damaged +disk or other eBook medium, a computer virus, or computer +codes that damage or cannot be read by your equipment. + +LIMITED WARRANTY; DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES +But for the "Right of Replacement or Refund" described below, +[1] Michael Hart and the Foundation (and any other party you may +receive this eBook from as a PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm eBook) disclaims +all liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including +legal fees, and [2] YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE OR +UNDER STRICT LIABILITY, OR FOR BREACH OF WARRANTY OR CONTRACT, +INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE +OR INCIDENTAL DAMAGES, EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE +POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES. + +If you discover a Defect in this eBook within 90 days of +receiving it, you can receive a refund of the money (if any) +you paid for it by sending an explanatory note within that +time to the person you received it from. If you received it +on a physical medium, you must return it with your note, and +such person may choose to alternatively give you a replacement +copy. If you received it electronically, such person may +choose to alternatively give you a second opportunity to +receive it electronically. + +THIS EBOOK IS OTHERWISE PROVIDED TO YOU "AS-IS". NO OTHER +WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, ARE MADE TO YOU AS +TO THE EBOOK OR ANY MEDIUM IT MAY BE ON, INCLUDING BUT NOT +LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A +PARTICULAR PURPOSE. + +Some states do not allow disclaimers of implied warranties or +the exclusion or limitation of consequential damages, so the +above disclaimers and exclusions may not apply to you, and you +may have other legal rights. + +INDEMNITY +You will indemnify and hold Michael Hart, the Foundation, +and its trustees and agents, and any volunteers associated +with the production and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm +texts harmless, from all liability, cost and expense, including +legal fees, that arise directly or indirectly from any of the +following that you do or cause: [1] distribution of this eBook, +[2] alteration, modification, or addition to the eBook, +or [3] any Defect. + +DISTRIBUTION UNDER "PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm" +You may distribute copies of this eBook electronically, or by +disk, book or any other medium if you either delete this +"Small Print!" and all other references to Project Gutenberg, +or: + +[1] Only give exact copies of it. Among other things, this + requires that you do not remove, alter or modify the + eBook or this "small print!" statement. You may however, + if you wish, distribute this eBook in machine readable + binary, compressed, mark-up, or proprietary form, + including any form resulting from conversion by word + processing or hypertext software, but only so long as + *EITHER*: + + [*] The eBook, when displayed, is clearly readable, and + does *not* contain characters other than those + intended by the author of the work, although tilde + (~), asterisk (*) and underline (_) characters may + be used to convey punctuation intended by the + author, and additional characters may be used to + indicate hypertext links; OR + + [*] The eBook may be readily converted by the reader at + no expense into plain ASCII, EBCDIC or equivalent + form by the program that displays the eBook (as is + the case, for instance, with most word processors); + OR + + [*] You provide, or agree to also provide on request at + no additional cost, fee or expense, a copy of the + eBook in its original plain ASCII form (or in EBCDIC + or other equivalent proprietary form). + +[2] Honor the eBook refund and replacement provisions of this + "Small Print!" statement. + +[3] Pay a trademark license fee to the Foundation of 20% of the + gross profits you derive calculated using the method you + already use to calculate your applicable taxes. If you + don't derive profits, no royalty is due. Royalties are + payable to "Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation" + the 60 days following each date you prepare (or were + legally required to prepare) your annual (or equivalent + periodic) tax return. Please contact us beforehand to + let us know your plans and to work out the details. + +WHAT IF YOU *WANT* TO SEND MONEY EVEN IF YOU DON'T HAVE TO? +Project Gutenberg is dedicated to increasing the number of +public domain and licensed works that can be freely distributed +in machine readable form. + +The Project gratefully accepts contributions of money, time, +public domain materials, or royalty free copyright licenses. +Money should be paid to the: +"Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation." + +If you are interested in contributing scanning equipment or +software or other items, please contact Michael Hart at: +hart@pobox.com + +[Portions of this eBook's header and trailer may be reprinted only +when distributed free of all fees. Copyright (C) 2001, 2002 by +Michael S. Hart. Project Gutenberg is a TradeMark and may not be +used in any sales of Project Gutenberg eBooks or other materials be +they hardware or software or any other related product without +express permission.] + +*END THE SMALL PRINT! FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN EBOOKS*Ver.02/11/02*END* + diff --git a/old/805a410.zip b/old/805a410.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..ceb2f95 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/805a410.zip |