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<h1>The Project Gutenberg eBook of Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862, by Various</h1>
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Title: Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862
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<div class=Section1>
<p class=Section>THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY.</p>
<p class=Section>A MAGAZINE OF LITERATURE, ART, AND POLITICS.</p>
<p class=Section>VOL. X—SEPTEMBER, 1862.—NO. LIX.</p>
<p class=Chapter>DAVID GAUNT.</p>
<p class=Section>Was ihr den Geist <span lang=FR>der</span><span lang=FR> </span>Zeiten
heisst, <span lang=ES-TRAD>Das</span><span lang=ES-TRAD> </span>ist im Grund <span
lang=FR>der</span><span lang=FR> </span>Herren eigner Geist.—FAUST</p>
<p class=Section>PART I.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>What kind of sword, do you think, was that which old
Christian had in that famous fight of his with Apollyon, long ago? He cut the
fiend to the marrow with it, you remember, at last; though the battle went
hardly with him, too, for a time. Some of his blood, Banyan says, is on the
stones of the valley to this day. That is a vague record of the combat between
the man and the dragon in that strange little valley, with its perpetual
evening twilight and calm, its meadows crusted with lilies, its herd-boy with
his quiet song, close upon the precincts of hell. It fades back, the valley and
the battle, dim enough, from the sober freshness of this summer morning. Look
out of the window here, at the hubbub of the early streets, the freckled
children racing past to school, the dewy shimmer of yonder willows in the
sunlight, like drifts of pale green vapor. Where is Apollyon? does he put
himself into flesh and blood, as then, nowadays? And the sword which Christian
used, like a man, in his deed of derring-do?</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>Reading the quaint history, just now, I have a mind to tell
you a modern story. It is not long: only how, a few months ago, a poor
itinerant, and a young girl, (like these going by with baskets on their arms,)
who lived up in these Virginia hills, met Evil in their lives, and how it fared
with them: how they thought that they were in the Valley of Humiliation, that
they were Christian, and Rebellion and Infidelity Apollyon; the different ways
they chose to combat him; the weapons they used. I can tell you that; but you
do not know—do you?—what kind of sword old Christian used, or where
it is, or whether its edge is rusted.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>I must not stop to ask more, for these war-days are short,
and the story might be cold before you heard it.</p>
<p class=Drama> </p>
<p class=Drama> * * * * *</p>
<p class=Drama> </p>
<p class=MsoNormal>A brick house, burrowed into the side of a hill, with red
gleams of light winking out of the windows in a jolly way into the winter's
night: wishing, one might fancy, to cheer up the hearts of the freezing stables
and barn and hen-house that snuggled about the square yard, trying to keep
warm. The broad-backed old hill (<span lang=FR>Scofield's</span> Hill, a famous
place for papaws in summer) guards them tolerably well; but then, house and
barn and hill <span lang=FR>lie</span> up among the snowy peaks of the
Virginian Alleghanies, and you know how they would chill and awe the air.
People away down yonder in the river-bottoms see these peaks dim and far-shining,
as though they cut through thick night; but we, up among them here, find the
night wide, filled with a pale starlight that has softened for itself out of
the darkness overhead a great space up towards heaven.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>The snow lay deep, on this night of which I tell you,—a
night somewhere near the first of January in this year. Two old men, a white
and a black, who were rooting about the farm-yard from stable to fodder-rack,
waded through deep drifts of it.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"Tell yer, Mars' Joe," said the negro, banging the
stable-door, "dat hoss ort n't <span lang=FR>ter</span> risk um's bones <span
lang=FR>dis</span> night. Ef yer go <span lang=FR>ter</span> de Yankee meetin',
Coly kern't tote yer."</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"Well, well, Uncle Bone, that's enough," said old Scofield
testily, looking through the stall-window at the horse, with a face anxious
enough to show that the dangers of foundering for Coly and for the Union were
of about equal importance in his mind.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>A heavily built old fellow, big-jointed, dull-eyed, with a
short, black pipe in his mouth, going about peering into sheds and out-houses,—the
same routine he and Bone had gone through every night for thirty years,—joking,
snarling, cursing, alternately. The cramped old routine, dogged, if you choose
to call it so, was enough for him: you could tell that by a glance at his
earnest, stolid face; you could see that it need not take Prospero's Ariel
forty minutes to put a girdle about this man's world: ten would do it, tie up
the farm, and the dead and live Scofields, and the Democratic party, with an
ideal reverence for "Firginya" under all. As for the Otherwhere,
outside of Virginia, he heeded it as much as a Hindoo does the turtle on which
the earth rests. For which you shall not sneer at Joe Scofield, or the Pagan.
How wide is your own "sacred soil"?—the creed, government, bit
of truth, other human heart, self, perhaps, to which your soul roots itself
vitally,—like a cuttle-fish sucking to an inch of rock,—and drifts
out palsied feelers of recognition into the ocean of God's universe, just as
languid as the aforesaid <span lang=FR>Hindoo's</span> hold upon the <span
lang=FR>Kalpas</span> of emptiness underneath the turtle?</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>Joe Scofield sowed the fields and truck-patch,—sold
the crops down in Wheeling; every year he got some little, hardly earned
snugness for the house (he and Bone had been born in it, their grandfathers had
lived there together). Bone was his slave; of course, they thought, how should
it be otherwise? The old man's daughter was Dode Scofield; his negro was Bone Scofield,
in degree. Joe went to the Methodist church on Sundays; he hurrahed for the
Democratic candidate: it was a necessity for Whigs to be defeated; it was a
necessity for Papists to go to hell. He had a tight grip on these truths, which
were born, one might say, with his blood; his life grew out of them. So much of
the world was certain,—but outside? It was rather vague there: Yankeedom
was a mean-soiled country, whence came clocks, teachers, peddlers, and
infidelity; and the English,—it was an American's birthright to jeer at
the English.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>We call this a narrow life, prate in the North of our
sympathy with the universal man, don't we? And so we extend a stomachic
greeting to our Spanish brother that sends us wine, and a bow from our organ of
ideality to Italy for beauty incarnate in Art,—see the Georgian
slaveholder only through the eyes of the cowed negro at his feet, and give a
dime on Sunday to send the gospel to the heathen, who will burn forever, we
think, if it never is preached to them. What of your sympathy with the
universal man, when I tell you Scofield was a Rebel?</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>His syllogisms on this point were clear, to himself. For
slavery to exist in a country where free government was put on trial was a
tangible <span lang=FR>lie</span>, that had worked a moral divorce between
North and South. Slavery was the vital breath of the South; if she chose to go
out and keep it, had not freemen the right to choose their own government? To
bring her back by <span lang=FR>carnage</span> was simply the old game of regal
tyranny on republican cards. So his head settled it: as for his heart,—his
neighbors' houses were in ashes, burned by the Yankees; his son lay dead at Manassas.
He died to keep them back, didn't he? "Geordy boy," he used to call
him,—worth a dozen puling girls: since he died, the old man had never
named his name. Scofield was a Rebel in every bitter drop of his heart's blood.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>He hurried to the house to prepare to go to the Union
meeting. He had a reason for going. The Federal troops held Romney then, a
neighboring village, and he knew many of the officers would be at this meeting.
There was a party of Confederates in Blue's Gap, a mountain-fastness near by,
and Scofield had heard a rumor that the Unionists would attack them to-morrow
morning: he meant to try and find out the truth of it, so as to give the boys
warning to be ready, and, maybe, lend them a helping hand. Only for <span
lang=FR>Dode's</span> sake, he would have been in the army long ago.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>He stopped on the porch to clean his shoes, for the floor
was newly scrubbed, and Miss Scofield was a tidy housekeeper, and had, besides,
a temper as hot and ready to light as her father's pipe. The old man stopped
now, half chuckling, peeping in at the window to see if all was clear within.
But you must not think for this that <span lang=FR>Dode's</span> temper was the
bugbear of the house,—though the girl herself thought it was, and shed
some of the bitterest tears of her life over it. Just a feverish blaze in the
blood, caught from some old dead grandfather, that burst out now and then.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>Dode, not being a genius, could not christen it morbid
sensibility; but as she had a childish fashion of tracing things to commonplace
causes, whenever she felt her face grow hot easily, or her throat choke up as
men's do when they swear, she concluded that her liver was inactive, and her
soul was tired of sitting at her Master's feet, like Mary. So she used to take
longer walks before breakfast, and cry sharply, incessantly, in her heart, as
the man did who was tainted with leprosy, "Lord, help me!" And the
Lord always did help her.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>My story is of Dode; so I must tell you that these passion-fits
were the only events of her life. For the rest, she washed and sewed and
ironed. If her heart and brain needed more than this, she was cheerful in spite
of their hunger. Almost all of God's favorites among women, before their life-work
is given them, pass through such hunger,—seasons of dull, hot inaction,
fierce struggles to tame and bind to some unfitting work the power within.
Generally, they are tried thus in their youth,—just as the old aspirants
for knighthood were condemned to a night of solitude and prayer before the day
of action. This girl was going through her probation with manly-souled bravery.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>She came out on the porch now, to help her father on with
his coat, and to tie his spatterdashes. You could not see her in the dark, of
course; but you would not wonder, if you felt her hand, or heard her speak,
that the old man liked to touch her, as everybody did,—spoke to her
gently: her own voice, did I say? was so earnest and rich,—hinted at
unsounded depths of love and comfort, such as utter themselves in some
unfashionable women's voices and eyes. Theodora, or -dosia, or some such heavy
name, had been hung on her when she was born,—nobody remembered what:
people always called her Dode, so as to bring her closer, as it were, and to
fancy themselves akin to her.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>Bone, going in, had left the door ajar, and the red
firelight shone out brightly on her, where she was stooping. Nature had given
her a body white, strong, and womanly,—broad, soft shoulders, for
instance, hands slight and nervous, dark, slow eyes. The Devil never would have
had the courage to tempt Eve, if she had looked at him with eyes as tender and
honest as Dode <span lang=FR>Scofield's</span>.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>Yet, although she had so many friends, she impressed you as
being a shy home-woman. That was the reason her father did not offer to take
her to the meeting, though half the women in the neighborhood would be there.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"She a'n't smart, my Dode," he used to say,—"'s
got no public sperrit."</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>He said as much to young Gaunt, the Methodist preacher, that
very day, knowing that he thought of the girl as a wife, and wishing to be
honest as to her weaknesses and heresies. For Dode, being the only creature in
the United States who thought she came into the world to learn and not to
teach, had an odd habit of trying to pick the good lesson out of everybody: the
Yankees, the Rebels, the Devil himself, she thought, must have some purpose of
good, if she could only get at it. God's creatures alike. She durst not bring
against the foul fiend himself a "railing accusation," being as timid
in judging evil as were her Master and the archangel Michael. An old-fashioned
timidity, of course: people thought Dode a time-server, or "a bit
daft."</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"She don't take sides sharp in this war," her
father said to Gaunt, "my little girl; 'n fact, she isn't keen till put
her soul intill anythin' but lovin'. She's a pore Democrat, David, an' not a
strong Methody,—allays got somethin' till say fur t' other side, Papishers
an' all. An' she gets religion quiet. But it's the real thing,"—watching
his hearer's face with an angry suspicion. "It's out of a clean well,
David, I say!"</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"I hope so, Brother Scofield,"—doubtfully,
shaking his head.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>The conversation had taken place just after dinner. Scofield
looked upon Gaunt as one of the saints upon earth, but he "danged
him" after that once or twice to himself for doubting the girl; and when
Bone, who had heard it, "guessed Mist' Dode 'd never fling herself away on
sich whinin' pore-white trash," his master said nothing in reproof.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>He rumpled her hair fondly, as she stood by him now on the
porch.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"David Gaunt was in the house,—he had been there
all the evening," she said,—a worried heat on her face. "Should
not she call him to go to the meeting?"</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"Jest as <i>you</i> please, Dode; jest as you
please."</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>She should not be vexed. And yet—What if Gaunt did not
quite appreciate his girl, see how deep-hearted she was, how heartsome a thing
to look at even when she was asleep? He loved her, David did, as well as so
holy a man could love anything carnal. And it would be better, if Dode were
married; a chance shot might take him off any day, and then—what? She
didn't know enough to teach; the farm was mortgaged; and she had no other
lovers. She was cold-blooded in that sort of liking,—did not attract the
men: thinking, with the scorn coarse-grained men have for reticent-hearted
women, what a contrast she was to her mother. <i>She</i> was the right sort,—full-lipped,
and a cooing voice for everybody, and such winning blue eyes! But, after all, Dode
was the kind of woman to anchor to; it was "Get out of my way!" with
her mother, as with all milky, blue-eyed women.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>The old man fidgeted, lingered, stuffing "old Lynchburg"
into his pipe, (his face was dyed saffron, and smelt of tobacco,) glad to feel,
when Dode tied his fur cap, how quick and loving for him her fingers were, and
that he always had deserved they should be so. He wished the child had some
other protector to turn to than he, these war-times,—thinking uneasily of
the probable fight at Blue's Gap, though of course he knew he never was born to
be killed by a Yankee bullet. He wished she could fancy Gaunt; but if she
didn't,—that was enough.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>Just then Gaunt came out of the room on to the porch, and
began loitering, in an uncertain way, up and down. A lean figure, with an
irresolute step: the baggy clothes hung on his lank limbs were butternut-dyed,
and patched besides: a Methodist itinerant in the mountains,—you know all
that means? There was nothing irresolute or shabby in <span lang=FR>Gaunt's</span>
voice, however, as he greeted the old man,—clear, thin, nervous. Scofield
looked at him wistfully.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"Dunnot drive David off, Dody," he whispered;
"I think he's summat on his mind. What d'ye think's his last whimsey? Told
me he's goin' off in the mornin',—Lord knows where, nor for how long. Dody,
d'ye think?—he'll be wantin' till come back for company, belike? Well,
he's one o' <span lang=FR>th</span>' Lord's own, ef he is a bit cranky."</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>An odd tenderness came into the man's jaded old face.
Whatever trust in God had got into his narrow heart among its bigotry, gross
likings and dislikings, had come there through the agency of this David Gaunt.
He felt as if he only had come into the secret place where his Maker and
himself stood face to face; thought of him, therefore, with a reverence whose
roots dug deep down below his coarseness, into his uncouth gropings after God.
Outside of this,—Gaunt had come to the mountains years before, penniless,
untaught, ragged, intent only on the gospel, which he preached with a keen,
breathless fervor. Scofield had given him a home, clothed him, felt for him
after that the condescending, curious affection which a rough barn-yard hen
might feel for its adopted poult, not yet sure if it will turn out an eagle or
a silly gull. It was a strange affinity between the lank-limbed, cloudy-brained
enthusiast at one end of the porch and the shallow-eyed, tobacco-chewing old Scofield
at the other,—but a real affinity, striking something deeper in their
natures than blood-kinship. Whether Dode shared in it was doubtful; she echoed
the "Poor David" in just the voice with which high-blooded women pity
a weak man. Her father saw it. He had better not tell her his fancy to-night
about Gaunt wishing her to be his wife.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>He hallooed to him, bidding him "hap up an' come along
till see what the Yankees were about.—Go in, Dode,—you sha'n't be worrit,
child."</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>Gaunt came closer, fastening his thin coat. A lean face,
sharpened by other conflicts than disease,—poetic, lonesome eyes, not
manly.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"I am going," he said, looking at the girl. All
the pain and struggle of years came up in that look. She knew where he was
going: did she care? he thought She knew,—he had told her, not an hour
since, that he meant to lay down the Bible, and bring the kingdom of Jesus
nearer in another fashion: he was going to enlist in the Federal army. It was
God's cause, holy: through its success the golden year of the world would begin
on earth. Gaunt took up his sword, with his eye looking awe-struck straight to
God. The pillar of cloud, he thought, moved, as in the old time, before the
army of freedom. She knew that when he did this, for truth's sake, he put a
gulf between himself and her forever. Did she care? Did she? Would she let him
go, and make no sign?</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"Be quick, Gaunt," said Scofield, impatiently.
"Bone hearn tell that <span lang=FR>Dougl's</span> Palmer was in Romney to-night.
He'll be down at Blue's Gap, I reckon. He's captain now in the Lincolnite army,—one
of the hottest of the hell-hounds,—he is! Ef he comes to the house here,
as he'll likely do, I don't want till meet him."</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>Gaunt stood silent.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"He was <span lang=FR>Geordy's</span> friend,
father," said the girl, gulping back something in her throat.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"Geordy? Yes. I know. It's that that hurts me," he
muttered, uncertainly. "Him an' <span lang=FR>Dougl's</span> was like
brothers once, they was!"</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>He coughed, lit his pipe, looking in the girl's face for a
long time, anxiously, as if to find a likeness in it to some other face he
never should see again. He often had done this lately. At last, stooping, he
kissed her mouth passionately, and shuffled down the hill, trying to whistle as
be went. Kissing, through her, the boy who lay dead at Manassas: she knew that.
She leaned on the railing, looking after him until a bend in the road took him
out of sight. Then she turned into the house, with no thought to spare for the
man watching her all this while with hungry eyes. The moon, drifting from
behind a cloud, threw a sharp light on her figure, as she stood in the door-way.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"Dode!" he said. "Good bye, Dode!"</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>She shook hands, saying nothing,—then went in, and
shut the door.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>Gaunt turned away, and hurried down the hill, his heart
throbbing and aching against his bony side with the breathless pain which
women, and such men as he, know. Her hand was cold, as she gave it to him; some
pain had chilled her blood: was it because she bade him good-bye forever, then?
Was it? He knew it was not: his instincts were keen as those of the old Pythoness,
who read the hearts of men and nations by surface-trifles. Gaunt joined the old
man, and began talking loosely and vaguely, as was his wont,—of the bad
road, and the snow-water oozing through his boots,—not knowing what he
said. She did not care; he would not cheat himself: when he told her to-night
what he meant to do, she heard it with a cold, passive disapproval,—with
that steely look in her dark eyes that shut him out from her. "You are
sincere, I see; but you are not true to yourself or to God": that was all
she said. She would have said the same, if he had gone with her brother. It was
a sudden stab, but he forgave her: how could she know that God Himself had laid
this blood-work on him, or the deathly fight his soul had waged against it? She
did not know,—nor care. Who did?</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>The man plodded doggedly through the melting snow, with a
keener sense of the cold biting through his threadbare waistcoat, of the
solitude and wrong that life had given him,—his childish eyes turning to
the gray depth of night, almost fierce in their questioning,—thinking
what a failure his life had been. Thirty-five years of struggle with poverty
and temptation! Ever since that day in the blacksmith's shop in Norfolk, when
he had heard the call of the Lord to go and preach His word, had he not striven
to choke down his carnal nature,—to shut his eyes to all beauty and love,—to
unmake himself, by self-denial, voluntary pain? Of what use was it? To-night
his whole nature rebelled against this <span lang=FR>carnage</span> before him,—his
duty; scorned it as brutal; cried out for a life as peaceful and meek as that
of Jesus, (as if that were not an absurdity in a time like this,) for
happiness, for this woman's love; demanded it, as though these things were its
right!</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>The man had a genial, childish temperament, given to woo and
bind him, in a thousand simple, silly ways, into a likeness of that Love that
holds the world, and that gave man no higher hero-model than a trustful, happy
child. It was the birthright of this haggard wretch going down the hill, to
receive quick messages from God through every voice of the world,—to
understand them, as few men did, by his poet's soul,—through love, or
color, or music, or keen healthy pain. Very many openings for him to know God
through the mask of matter. He had shut them; being a Calvinist, and a
dyspeptic, (Dyspepsia is twin-tempter with Satan, you know,) sold his God-given
birthright, like Esau, for a hungry, bitter mess of man's doctrine. He came to
loathe the world, the abode of sin; loathed himself, the chief of sinners;
mapped out a heaven in some corner of the universe, where he and the souls of
his persuasion, panting with the terror of being scarcely saved, should find
refuge. The God he made out of his own bigoted and sour idea, and foisted on
himself and his hearers as Jesus, would not be as merciful in the Judgment as
Gaunt himself would like to be,—far from it. So He did not satisfy him.
Sometimes, thinking of the pure instincts thwarted in every heart,—of the
noble traits in damned souls, sent hellwards by birth or barred into temptation
by society, a vision flashed before him of some scheme of the universe where
all matter and mind were rising, slowly, through the ages, to eternal life.
"Even so in Christ should all be made alive." All matter, all mind,
rising in degrees towards the Good? made order, infused by God? And God was
Love. Why not trust this Love to underlie even these social riddles, then? He
thrust out the Devil's whisper, barred the elect into their narrow heaven, and
tried to be content.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>Douglas Palmer used to say that all Gaunt needed to make him
a sound Christian was education and fresh meat. Gaunt forgave it as a worldly
scoff. And Palmer, just always, thought, that, if Christ was just, He would
remember it was not altogether <span lang=FR>Gaunt's</span> fault, nor that of
other bigots, if they had not education nor spiritual fresh meat. Creeds are
not always "good providers."</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>The two men had a two-miles' walk before them. They talked
little, as they went. Gaunt had not told the old man that he was going into the
Northern army: how could he? George's dead face was between them, whenever he
thought of it. Still, Scofield was suspicious as to <span lang=FR>Gaunt's</span>
politics: he never talked to him on the subject, therefore, and to-night did
not tell him of his intention to go over to Blue's Gap to warn the boys, and,
if they were outnumbered, to stay and take his luck with them. He nor Dode
never told Gaunt a secret: the man's brain was as leaky as a sponge.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"He don't take enough account o' honor, an' the like,
but it's for tryin' till keep his soul right," he used to say, excusingly,
to Dode. "That's it! He minds me o' <span lang=FR>th</span>' man that
lived up on <span lang=FR>th</span>' pillar, prayin'."</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"The Lord never made people to live on pillars," Dode
said.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>The old man looked askance at <span lang=FR>Gaunt's</span>
worn face, as he trotted along beside him, thinking how pure it was. What had
he to do with this foul slough, we were all mired in? What if the Yankees did
come, like incarnate devils, to thieve and burn and kill? This man would say
"that ye resist not evil." He lived back there, pure and meek, with
Jesus, in the old time. He would not dare to tell him he meant to fight with
the boys in the Gap before morning. He wished he stood as near to Christ as
this young man had got; he wished to God this revenge and bloodthirstiness were
out of him; sometimes he felt as if a devil possessed him, since George died.
The old fellow choked down a groan in the whiffs of his pipe.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal><i>Was</i> the young man back there, in the old time,
following the Nazarene? The work of blood Scofield was taking up for the
moment, he took up, grappled with, tried to put his strength into. Doing this,
his true life lay drained, loathsome, and bare. For the rest, he wished Dode
had cared,—only a little. If one lay stabbed on some of these hills, it
would be hard to think nobody cared: thinking of the old mother he had buried,
years before. Yet Dode suffered: the man was generous to his heart's core,—forgot
his own want in pity for her. What could it have been that pained her, as he
came away? Her father had spoken of Palmer. <i>That</i>? His ruled heart leaped
with a savage, healthy throb of jealousy.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>Something he saw that moment made him stop short. The road
led straight through the snow-covered hills to the church where the meeting was
to be held. Only one man was in sight, coming towards them, on horseback. A
sudden gleam of light showed him to them clearly. A small, middle-aged man,
lithe, muscular, with fair hair, dressed in some shaggy dark uniform and a felt
hat. Scofield stopped.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"It's Palmer!" he said, with an oath that sounded
like a cry.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>The sight of the man brought George before him, living
enough to wring his heart He knocked a log off the worm-fence, and stepped over
into the field.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"I'm goin', David. To think o' him turnin' traitor to
Old Virginia! I'll not bide here till meet him."</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"Brother!" said Gaunt, reprovingly.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"Don't hold me, Gaunt! Do you want me till curse my
boy's old chum?"—his voice hoarse, choking.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"He is George's friend still"—</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"I know, Gaunt, I know. God forgi' me! But—let me
go, I say!"</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>He broke away, and went across the field.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>Gaunt waited, watching the man coming slowly towards him.
Could it be he whom Dode loved,—this Palmer? A doubter? an infidel? He
had told her this to-day. A mere flesh-and-brain machine, made for the world,
and no uses in him for heaven!</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>Poor Gaunt! no wonder he eyed the man with a spiteful
hatred, as he waited for him, leaning against the fence. With his subtle Gallic
brain, his physical spasms of languor and energy, his keen instincts that
uttered themselves to the last syllable always, heedless of all decencies of
custom, no wonder that the man with every feminine, unable nerve in his body
rebelled against this Palmer. It was as natural as for a delicate animal to
rebel against and hate and submit to man. Palmer's very horse, he thought, had
caught the spirit of its master, and put down its hoofs with calm assurance of
power.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>Coming up at last, Gaunt listened sullenly, while the other
spoke in a quiet, hearty fashion.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"They tell me you are to be one of us to-night,"
Palmer said, cordially. "Dyke showed me your name on the enlistment-roll:
your motto after it, was it? 'For God and my right.' That's the gist of the
whole matter, David, I think, eh?"</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"Yes, I'm right. I think I am. God knows I do!"—his
vague eyes wandering off, playing with the horse's mane uncertainly.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>Palmer read his face keenly.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"Of course you are," he said, speaking gently as
he would to a woman. "I'll find a place and work for you before
morning."</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"So soon, Palmer?"</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"Don't look at the blood and foulness of the war, boy!
Keep the cause in view, every moment. We secure the right of self-government
for all ages: think of that! 'God,'—His cause, you know?—and 'your
right,' Haven't you warrant to take life to defend your right—from the
Christ you believe in? Eh?"</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"No. But I know"—Gaunt held his hand to his
forehead as if it ached—"we have to come to brute force at last to
conquer the right. Christianity is not enough. I've reasoned it over, and"—</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"Yet you look troubled. Well, we'll talk it over again.
You've worked your brain too hard to be clear about anything just now,"—looking
down on him with the questioning pity of a surgeon examining a cancer. "I
must go on now, David. I'll meet you at the church in an hour."</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"You are going to the house, Palmer?"</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"Yes. Good night."</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>Gaunt drew back his hand, glancing at the cold, tranquil
face, the mild blue eyes.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"Good night,"—following him with his eyes as
he rode away.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>An Anglo-Saxon, with every birthmark of that slow,
inflexible race. He would make love philosophically, Gaunt sneered. A made man.
His thoughts and soul, inscrutable as they were, were as much the accretion of
generations of culture and reserve as was the chalk in his bones or the glowless
courage in his slow blood. It was like coming in contact with summer water to
talk to him; but underneath was—what? Did Dode know? Had he taken her in,
and showed her his unread heart? Dode?</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>How stinging cold it was!—looking up drearily into the
drifting heaps of gray. What a wretched, paltry balk the world was! What a
noble part he played in it!—taking out his pistol. Well, he could pull a
trigger, and let out some other sinner's life; that was all the work God
thought he was fit for. Thinking of Dode all the time. <i>He</i> knew her! <i>He</i>
could have summered her in love, if she would but have been passive and happy!
He asked no more of her than that. Poor, silent, passionate Dode! No one knew
her as he knew her! What were that man's cold blue eyes telling her now at the
house? It mattered nothing to him.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>He went across the cornfield to the church, his thin coat
flapping in the wind, looking at his rusty pistol with a shudder.</p>
<p class=Drama> </p>
<p class=Drama> * * * * *</p>
<p class=Drama> </p>
<p class=MsoNormal>Dode shut the door. Outside lay the winter's night, snow,
death, the war. She shivered, shut them out. None of her nerves enjoyed pain,
as some women's do. Inside,—you call it cheap and mean, this room? Yet
her father called it <span lang=FR>Dode's</span> snuggery; he thought no little
nest in the world was so clean and warm. He never forgot to leave his pipe
outside, (though she coaxed him not to do it,) for fear of "silin' the
air." Every evening he came in after he had put on his green dressing-gown
and slippers, and she read the paper to him. It was quite a different hour of
the day from all of the rest: sitting, looking stealthily around while she
read, delighted to see how cozy he had made his little girl,—how pure the
pearl-stained walls were, how white the matting. He never went down to Wheeling
with the crops without bringing something back for the room, stinting himself
to do it. Her brother had had the habit, too, since he was a boy, of bringing everything
pretty or pleasant he found to his sister; he had a fancy that he was making
her life bigger and more heartsome by it, and would have it all right after a
while. So it ended, you see, that everything in the room had a meaning for the
girl,—so many mile-stones in her father and <span lang=FR>Geordy's</span>
lives. Besides, though Dode was no artist, had not what you call taste, other
than in being clean, yet every common thing the girl touched seemed to catch
her strong, soft vitality, and grow alive. Bone had bestowed upon her the
antlers of a deer which he had killed,—the one great trophy of his life;
(she put them over the mantel-shelf, where he could rejoice his soul over them
every time he brought wood to the fire;) last fall she had hung wreaths of
forest-leaves about them, and now they glowed and flashed back the snow-light,
in indignant life, purple and scarlet and flame, with no thought of dying; the
very water in the vases on the table turned into the silver roots of hyacinths
that made the common air poetic with perfume; the rough wire-baskets filled
with mould, which she hung in the windows, grew living, and welled up, and ran
over into showers of moss, and trailing wreaths of ivy and cypress-vine, and a
brood of the merest flakes of roses, which held the hot crimson of so many
summers gone that they could laugh in the teeth of the winter outside, and did
do it, until it seemed like a perfect sham and a jest.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>The wood-fire was clear, just now, when Dode came in; the
little room was fairly alive, palpitated crimson; in the dark corners, under
the tables and chairs, the shadows tried not to be black, and glowed into a
soft maroon; even the pale walls flushed, cordial and friendly. Dode was glad
of it; she hated dead, ungrateful colors: grays and browns belonged to thin,
stingy duty-lives, to people who are patient under life, as a perpetual
imposition, and, as Bone says, "gets into heben by the skin o' their
teeth." <span lang=FR>Dode's</span> color was dark blue: you know that
means in an earthly life stern truth, and a tenderness as true: she wore it to-night,
as she generally did, to tell God she was alive, and thanked Him for being
alive. Surely the girl was made for to-day; she never missed the work or joy of
a moment here in dreaming of a yet ungiven life, as sham, lazy women do. You
would think that, if you had seen her standing there in the still light,
motionless, yet with latent life in every limb. There was not a dead atom in
her body: something within, awake, immortal, waited, eager to speak every
moment in the coming color on her cheek, the quiver of her lip, the flashing
words or languor of her eye. Her auburn hair, even, at times, lightened and
darkened.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>She stood, now, leaning her head on the window, waiting. Was
she keeping, like the fire-glow, a still, warm welcome for somebody? It was a
very homely work she had been about, you will think. She had made a panful of
white cream-crackers, and piled them on a gold-rimmed China plate, (the only
one she had,) and brought down from the cupboard a bottle of her raspberry-cordial.
Douglas Palmer and George used to like those cakes better than anything else
she made: she remembered, when they were starting out to hunt, how Geordy would
put his curly head over the gate and call out, "Sis! are you in a good-humor?
Have some of your famous cakes for supper, that's a good girl!" Douglas
Palmer was coming to-night, and she had baked them, as usual,—stopping to
cry now and then, thinking of George. She could not help it, when she was
alone. Her father never knew it. She had to be cheerful for herself and him
too, when he was there.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>Perhaps Douglas would not remember about the crackers, after
all?—with the blood heating and chilling in her face, as she looked out
of the window, and then at the clock,—her nervous fingers shaking, as she
arranged them on the plate. She wished she had some other way of making him
welcome; but what could poor Dode do? She could not talk to him, had read
nothing but the Bible and Jay's "Meditations"; she could not show
glimpses of herself, as most American women can, in natural, dramatic words.
Palmer sang for her,—sometimes, Schubert's ballads, Mendelssohn: she
could not understand the words, of course; she only knew that his soul seemed
to escape through the music, and come to her own. She had a strange comprehension
of music, inherited from the old grandfather who left her his temper,--that
supernatural gift, belonging to but few souls among those who love harmony, to
understand and accept its meaning. She could not play or sing; she looked often
in the dog's eyes, wondering if its soul felt as dumb and full as hers; but she
could not sing. If she could, what a story she would have told in a wordless
way to this man who was coming! All she could do to show that he was welcome
was to make crackers. Cooking is a sensual, <span lang=EN-GB>grovelling</span>
utterance of feeling, you think? Yet, considering the drift of most women's
lives, one fancies that as pure and deep love syllables itself every day in
beefsteaks as once in Sapphic odes. It is a natural expression for our sex,
too, somehow. Your wife may keep step with you in keen sympathy, in brain and
soul; but if she does not know whether you like muffins or toast best for
breakfast, her love is not the kind for this world, nor the best kind for any.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>She waited, looking out at the gray road. He would not come
so late?—her head beginning to ache. The room was too hot. She went into
her chamber, and began to comb her hair back; it fell in rings down her pale
cheeks,—her lips were crimson,—her brown eyes shone soft,
expectant; she leaned her head down, smiling, thanking God for her beauty, with
all her heart. Was that a step?—hurrying back. Only Coly stamping in the
stable. It was eight o'clock. The woman's heart kept time to the slow ticking
of the clock, with a sick thudding, growing heavier every moment. He had been
in the mountains but once since the war began. It was only George he came to
see? She brought out her work and began to sew. He would not come: only George
was fit to be his friend. Why should he heed her poor old father, or her?—with
the undefinable awe of an unbred mind for his power and wealth of culture. And
yet—something within her at the moment rose up royal—his equal. He
knew her, as she might be! Between them there was something deeper than the
shallow kind greeting they gave the world,—recognition. She stood nearest
to him,—she only! If sometimes she had grown meanly jealous of the
thorough-bred, made women, down in the town yonder, his friends, in her secret
soul she knew she was his peer,—she only! And he knew it. Not that she
was not weak in mind or will beside him, but she loved him, as a man can be
loved but once. She loved him,—that was all!</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>She hardly knew if he cared for her. He told her once that
he loved her; there was a half-betrothal; but that was long ago. She sat, her
work fallen on her lap, going over, as women will, for the thousandth time, the
simple story, what he said, and how he looked, finding in every hackneyed
phrase some new, divine meaning. The same story; yet Betsey finds it new by
your kitchen-fire to-night, as Gretchen read it in those wondrous pearls of
Faust's!</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>Surely he loved her that day! though the words were
surprised, half-accident: she was young, and he was poor, so there must be no
more of it then. The troubles began just after, and he went into the army. She
had seen him but once since, and he said nothing then, looked nothing. It is
true they had not been alone, and he thought perhaps she knew all: a word once
uttered for him was fixed in fate. <i>She</i> would not have thought the story
old or certain, if he told it to her forever. But he was coming to-night!</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>Dode was one of those women subject to sudden revulsions of
feeling. She remembered now, what in the hurry and glow of preparing his
welcome she had crushed out of sight, that it was better he should not come,—that,
if he did come, loyal and true, she must put him back, show him the great gulf
that lay between them. She had strengthened herself for months to do it. It
must be done to-night. It was not the division the war made, nor her father's
anger, that made the bar between them. Her love would have <span lang=FR>borne</span>
that down. There was something it could not bear down. Palmer was a doubter, an
infidel. What this meant to the girl, we cannot tell; her religion was not
ours. People build their faith on Christ, as a rock,—a factitious aid.
She found Him in her life, long ago, when she was a child, and her soul grew
out from Him. He was a living Jesus to her, not a dead one. That was why she
had a healthy soul. Pain was keener to her than to us; the filth, injustice, bafflings
in the world,—they hurt her; she never glossed them over as
"necessity," or shirked them as we do: she cried hot, weak tears, for
instance, over the wrongs of the slaves about her, her old father's ignorance,
her own cramped life; but she never said for these things, "Does God still
live?" She saw, close to the earth, the atmosphere of the completed work,
the next step upward,—the kingdom of that Jesus; the world lay in it,
swathed in bands of pain and wrong and effort, growing, unconscious, to
perfected humanity. She had faith in the Recompense, she thought faith would
bring it right down into earth, and she tried to do it in a practical way. She
did do it: a curious fact for your theology, which I go out of the way of the
story to give you,—a peculiar power belonging to this hot-tempered girl,—an
anomaly in psychology, but you will find it in the lives of Jung Stilling and
St. John. This was it: she and the people about her needed many things,
temporal and spiritual: her Christ being alive, and not a dead sacrifice and
example alone, whatever was needed she asked for, and it was always given her. <i>Always</i>.
I say it in the full strength of meaning. I wish every human soul could
understand the lesson; not many preachers would dare to teach it to them. It
was a commonplace matter with her.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>Now do you see what it cost her to know that Palmer was an
infidel? Could she marry him? Was it a sin to love him? And yet, could <i>she</i>
enter heaven, he left out? The soul of the girl that God claimed, and the Devil
was scheming for, had taken up this fiery trial, and fought with it savagely.
She thought she had determined; she would give him up. But—he was coming!
he was coming! Why, she forgot everything in that, as if it were delirium. She
hid her face in her hands. It seemed as if the world, the war, faded back,
leaving this one human soul alone with herself. She sat silent, the fire
charring lower into glooming red shadow. You shall not look into the passion of
a woman's heart.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>She rose at last, with the truth, as Gaunt had taught it to
her, full before her, that it would be crime to make compact with sin or a
sinner. She went out on the porch, looking no longer to the road, but up to the
uncertain sky. Poor, simple Dode! So long she had hid the thought of this man
in her woman's breast, clung to it for all strength, all tenderness! It stood
up now before her,—Evil. Gaunt told her to-night that to love him was to
turn her back on the cross, to be traitor to that blood on Calvary. Was it? She
found no answer in the deadened sky, or in her own heart. She would give him
up, then? She looked up, her face slowly whitening. "I love him," she
said, as one who had a right to speak to God. That was all. So, in old times, a
soul from out of the darkness of His judgments faced the Almighty, secure in
its own right: "Till I die I will not remove mine integrity from me."</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>Yet Dode was a weak woman; the trial went home to the very
marrow. She stood by the wooden railing, gathering the snow off of it, putting
it to her hot forehead, not knowing what she did. Her brain was dull, worn-out,
she thought; it ached. She wished she could sleep, with a vacant glance at the
thick snow-clouds, and turning to go in. There was a sudden step on the path,—he
was coming! She would see him once more,—once! God could not deny her
that! her very blood leaping into hot life.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"Theodora!" (He never called her the familiar
"Dode," as the others did.) "Why, what ails you, child?"—in
his quiet, cordial fashion, "Is this the welcome you give me? The very
blood shivers in your hand! Your lips are blue!"—opening the door
for her to go in, and watching her.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>His eye was more that of a physician than a lover, she felt,
and cowered down into a chair he put before the fire for her,—sheltering
her face with her hands, that he might not see how white it was, and despise
her. Palmer stood beside her, looking at her quietly; she had exhausted herself
by some excitement, in her old fashion; he was used to these spasms of bodily
languor,—a something he pitied, but could not comprehend. It was an odd
symptom of the thoroughness with which her life was welded into his, that he
alone knew her as weak, hysteric, needing help at times. Gaunt or her father
would have told you her nerves were as strong as a ploughman's.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"Have you been in a passion, my child?"</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>She chafed her hands, loathing herself that she could not
deaden down their shiver or the stinging pain in her head. What were these
things at a time like this? Her physician was taking a different diagnosis of
her disease from his first. He leaned over her, his face flushing, his voice
lower, hurried.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"Were you disappointed? Did you watch—for
me?"</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"I watched for you, Douglas,"—trying to
rise.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>He took her hand and helped her up, then let it fall: he
never held <span lang=FR>Dode's</span><span lang=FR> </span>hand, or touched
her hair, as Gaunt did.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"I watched for you,—I have something to say to
you,"—steadying her voice.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"Not to-night," with a tenderness that startled
one, coming from lips so thin and critical. "You are not well. You have
some hard pain there, and you want to make it real. Let it sleep. You were
watching for me. Let me have just that silly thought to take with me. Look up,
Theodora. I want the hot color on your cheek again, and the look in your eye I
saw there once,—only once. Do you remember?"</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"I remember,"—her face crimson, her eyes
flashing with tears. "Douglas, Douglas, never speak of that to me! I dare
not think of it. Let me tell you what I want to say. It will soon be
over."</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"I will not, Theodora," he said, coolly. "See
now, child! You are not your healthy self to-night. You have been too much
alone. This solitude down there in your heart is eating itself out in some
morbid whim. I saw it in your eye. Better it had forced itself into anger, as
usual."</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>She did not speak. He took her hand and seated her beside
him, talked to her in the same careless, gentle way, watching her keenly.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"Did you ever know the meaning of your name? I think of
it often,—<i>The gift of God,—Theodora</i>. Surely, if there be
such an all-embracing Good, He has no more helpful gift than a woman such as
you might be."</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>She looked up, smiling.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"Might be? That is not"——</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"Lover-like? No. Yet, Dode, I think sometimes Eve might
have been such a one as you,—the germ of all life. Think how you loathe
death, inaction, pain; the very stem you thrust into earth catches vitality
from your fingers, and grows, as for no one else."</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>She knew, through all, that, though his light words were
spoken to soothe her, they masked a strength of feeling that she dared not
palter with, a something that would die out of his nature when his faith in her
died, never to live again.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"Eve fell," she said.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"So would you, alone. You are falling now, morbid,
irritable. Wait until you come into the sunshine. Why, Theodora, you will not
know yourself, the broad, warm, unopened nature."</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>His voice faltered; he stooped nearer to her, drew her hand
into his own.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"There will be some June days in our lives, little one,
for you and me,"—his tone husky, broken,—"when this blood-work
is off my hand, when I can take you. My years have been hard, bare. You know,
child. You know how my body and brain have been worn out for others. I am free
now. When the war is over, I will conquer a new world for you and me."</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>She tried to draw away from him.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"I need no more. I am contented. For the future,—God
has it, Douglas."</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"But my hand is on it!" he said, his eye growing
hard. "And you are mine, Theodora!"</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>He put his hand on her head: he never had touched her before
this evening: he stroked back her hair with an unsteady touch, but as if it and
she belonged to him, inalienable, secure. The hot blood flushed into her
cheeks, resentful. He smiled quietly.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"You will bring life to me," he whispered.
"And I will bleach out this anger, these morbid shadows of the lonesome
days,—sun them out with—love."</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>There was a sudden silence. Gaunt felt the intangible calm
that hung about this man: this woman saw beneath it flashes of some depth of
passion, shown reluctant even to her, the slow heat of the gloomy soul below.
It frightened her, but she yielded: her will, her purpose slept, died into its
languor. She loved, and she was loved,—was not that enough to know? She
cared to know no more. Did Gaunt wonder what the "cold blue eyes" of
this man told to the woman to-night? Nothing which his warped soul would have
understood in a thousand years. The room heated, glowless, crimson: outside,
the wind surged slow against the windows, like the surf of an eternal sea: she
only felt that her head rested on his breast,—that his hand shook, as it
traced the blue veins on her forehead: with a faint pleasure that the face was
fair, for his sake, which his eyes read with a meaning hers could not bear;
with a quick throb of love to her Master for this moment He had given her. Her
Master! Her blood chilled. Was she denying Him? Was she setting her foot on the
outskirts of hell? It mattered not. She shut her eyes wearily, closed her
fingers as for life upon the hand that held hers. All strength, health for her,
lay in its grasp: her own life lay weak, flaccid, morbid on his. She had
chosen: she would hold to her choice.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>Yet, below all, the words of Gaunt stung her incessantly.
They would take effect at last. Palmer, watching her face, saw, as the slow
minutes passed, the color fade back, leaving it damp and livid, her lips grow rigid,
her chest heave like some tortured animal. There was some pain here deeper than
her ordinary heats. It would be better to let it have way. When she raised
herself, and looked at him, therefore, he made no effort to restrain her, but
waited, attentive.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"I must speak, Douglas," she said. "I cannot
live and bear this doubt."</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"Go on," he said, gravely, facing her.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"Yes. Do not treat me as a child. It is no play for
me,"—pushing her hair back from her forehead, calling fiercely in
her secret soul for God to help her to go through with this bitter work He had
imposed on her. "It is for life and death, Douglas."</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"Go on,"—watching her.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>She looked at him. A keen, practical, continent face, with
small mercy for whims and shallow reasons. Whatever feeling or gloom lay
beneath, a blunt man, a truth-speaker, bewildered by feints or shams. She must
give a reason for what she did. The word she spoke would be written in his
memory, ineffaceable. He waited. She could not speak; she looked at the small
vigilant figure: it meant all that the world held for her of good.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"You must go, Douglas, and never come again."</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>He was silent,—his eye contracted, keen, piercing.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"There is a great gulf between us, Douglas Palmer. I
dare not cross it."</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>He smiled.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"You mean—the war?—your father?"</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>She shook her head; the words balked in her throat. Why did
not God help her? Was not she right? She put her hand upon his sleeve,—her
face, from which all joy and color seemed to have fallen forever, upturned to
his.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"Douglas, you do not believe—as I do."</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>He noted her look curiously, as she said it, with an odd
remembrance of once when she was a child, and they had shown her for the first
time a dead body, that she had turned to the sky the same look of horror and
reproach she gave him now.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"I have prayed, and prayed,"—an appealing
cry in every low breath. "It is of no use,—no use! God never denied
me a prayer but that,—only that!"</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"I do not understand. You prayed—for me?"</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>Her eyes, turning to his own, gave answer enough.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"I see! You prayed for me, poor child? that I could
find a God in the world?"—patting the hand resting on his arm
pitifully. "And it was of no use, you think? no use?"—dreamily,
his eye fixed on the solemn night without.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>There was a slow silence. She looked awe-struck in his face:
he had forgotten her.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"I have not found Him in the world?"—the
words dropping slowly from his lips, as though he questioned with the great
Unknown.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>She thought she saw in his face hints that his soul had once
waged a direr battle than any she had known,—to know, to be. What was the
end? God, and Life, and Death, what were they to him now?</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>He looked at her at last, recalled to her. She thought he
stifled a sigh. But he put aside his account with God for another day: now it
was with her.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"You think it right to leave me for this, Theodora? You
think it a sin to love an unbeliever?"</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"Yes, Douglas,"—but she caught his hand
tighter, as she said it.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"The gulf between us is to be the difference between
heaven and hell? Is that true?"</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"<i>Is</i> it true?" she cried suddenly. "It
is for you to say. Douglas, it is you that must choose."</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"No man can force belief," he said, dryly.
"You will give me up? Poor child! You cannot, Theodora!"—smoothing
her head with an unutterable pity.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"I will give you up, Douglas!"</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"Think how dear I have been to you, how far-off you are
from everybody in the world but me. Why, I know no woman so alone or weak as
you, if I should leave you!"</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"I know it,"—sobbing silently.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"You will stay with me, Theodora! Is the dull heaven
Gaunt prates of, with its psalms and crowns, better than my love? Will you be
happier there than here?"—holding her close, that she might feel the
strong throb of his heart against her own.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>She shivered.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"Theodora!"</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>She drew away; stood alone.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"Is it better?"—sharply.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>She clutched her hands tightly, then she stood calm. She
would not <span lang=FR>lie</span>.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"It is not better," she said, steadily. "If I
know my own heart, nothing in the coming heaven is so dear as what I lose. But
I cannot be your wife, Douglas Palmer."</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>His face flashed strangely.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"It is simple selfishness, then? You fear to lose your
reward? What is my poor love to the eternity of happiness you trade it
for?"</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>A proud heat flushed her face.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"You know you do not speak truly. I do not deserve the
taunt."</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>The same curious smile glimmered over his mouth. He was
silent for a moment.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"I overrate your sacrifice: it costs you little to say,
like the old Pharisee, 'Stand by, I am holier than thou!' You never loved me,
Theodora. Let me go down—to the land where you think all things are
forgotten. What is it to you? In hell I can lift up my eyes"—</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>She cried out sharply, as with pain.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"I will not forsake my Master," she said. "He
is real, more dear than you. I give you up."</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>Palmer caught her hand; there was a vague deadness in her
eye that terrified him; he had not thought the girl suffered so deeply.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"See, now," she gasped quickly, looking up, as if
some actual Presence stood near. "I have given up all for you! Let me die!
Put my soul out! What do I care for heaven?"</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>Palmer bathed her face, put cordial to her lips, muttering
some words to himself. "Her sins, which are many, should be forgiven; she
loves much." When, long after, she sat on the low settle, quiet, he stood
before her.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"I have something to say to you, Theodora. Do you
understand me?"</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"I understand."</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"I am going. It is better I should not stay. I want you
to thank God your love for your Master stood firm. I do. I believe in you: some
day, through you, I may believe in Him. Do you hear me?"</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>She bent her head, worn-out.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"Theodora, I want to leave you one thought to take on
your knees with you. Your Christ has been painted in false colors to you in
this matter. I am glad that as you understand Him you are true to Him; but you
are wrong."</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>She wrung her hands.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"If I could see that, Douglas!"</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"You will see it. The selfish care of your own soul
which Gaunt has taught you is a <span lang=FR>lie</span>; his narrow heaven is
a <span lang=FR>lie</span>: my God inspires other love, other aims. What is the
old tale of Jesus?—that He put His man's hands on the vilest before He
blessed them? So let Him come to me,—through loving hands. Do you want to
preach the gospel, as some women do, to the Thugs? I think your field is here.
You shall preach it to the heart that loves you."</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>She shook her head drearily. He looked at her a moment, and
then turned away.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"You are right. There is a great gulf between you and
me, Theodora. When you are ready to cross it, come to me."</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>And so left her.</p>
<p class=Chapter>CEREBRAL DYNAMICS.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>The stranger in Paris, exploring its southern suburbs along
the Fontainebleau road, comes upon an ancient pile, extended and renovated by
modern hands, whose simple, unpretending architecture would scarcely claim a
second look. Yet it was once the scene of an experiment of such momentous
consequences that it will ever possess a peculiar interest both to the philanthropist
and the philosopher. It was there, in that receptacle of the insane, while the
storm of the great Revolution was raging around him, that a physician, learned,
ardent, and bold, but scarcely known beyond the little circle of his friends
and patients, conceived and executed the idea, then no less wonderful than that
of propelling a ship by steam, of striking off the chains of the maniac and
opening the door of his cell. Within a few days, says the record, fifty-three
persons were restored to light and comparative liberty. In that experiment at
the <span lang=FR>Bicêtre</span>, whose triumphant success won the admiration
even of those ferocious demagogues who had risen to power, was inaugurated the
modern management of the insane, as strongly marked by kindness and confidence
as the old was by severity and distrust. It was a noble work, whose benefits,
reaching down to all future generations, are beyond the power of estimation;
but its remote and indirect results are scarcely less important than those more
immediate and visible. Here began the true study of mental disease. To the mind
of <span lang=FR>Pinel</span>, his experiment opened a track of inquiry leading
to results which, like those of the famous discoveries in physical science,
will never cease to be felt. A few collections of cases had been published,
medical scholars, in the midst of their books, had composed elaborate treatises
to show the various ways in which men might possibly become insane, but no
profound, original observer of mental disease had yet appeared. Trained in that
school of exact and laborious inquirers who at that period were changing the
whole face of physical science, he was well prepared for the work which seemed
to be reserved for him, of laying the foundations of this department of the
healing art.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>Without following him in the successive stages of his work,
it is sufficient here to say, that the first step—that of showing that
the insane are not necessarily under the dominion of brute instinct, incapable
even of appreciating the arts of kindness and of using a restricted freedom—was
soon succeeded by another of no less importance considered in its relations to
humanity and psychology. <span lang=FR>Pinel</span>, who began his
investigations at the <span lang=FR>Bicêtre</span> in the old belief that
insanity implies disorder of the reasoning faculty, discovered, to his
surprise, that many of his patients evinced no intellectual impairment
whatever. They reasoned on all subjects clearly and forcibly; neither
hallucination nor delusion perverted their judgments; and some even recognized
and deplored the impulses and desires which they could not control. The fact
was too common to be misunderstood, and having been confirmed by subsequent
observers, it has taken its place among the well-settled truths of modern
science. Not very cordially welcomed as yet into the current beliefs of the
time, it is steadily making its way against the opposition of pride, prejudice,
ignorance, and self-conceit.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>The magnitude of this advance in psychological knowledge can
be duly estimated only by considering how imperfect were the prevalent notions
concerning mental disease. For the most part, our ancestors thought no man
insane, whatever his conduct or conversation, who was not actually raving. If
the person were quiet, taciturn, apathetic, he was supposed to be melancholy or
hypochondriacal. If he were elated and restless, ready for all sorts of
undertakings and projects, his condition was attributed to a great flow of
spirits. If, while talking very sensibly on many subjects and doing many proper
things, he manifested a propensity to wanton mischief, why, then he was
possessed with a devil and consigned to chains and straw,—unless he had
committed some senseless act of crime, in which case he received from the law
the usual doom of felons.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>One of the first fruits of the new method of study
introduced by <span lang=FR>Pinel</span> was a more philosophical notion of the
nature of disease. The various diseases that afflict mankind had been regarded
as so many different entities that could almost be handled, and many attempts
to define and measure them exactly are on record. They came to be regarded
somewhat as personal foes, to be combated and overcome by the superior prowess
of the physician. It was not until such views were abandoned, and insanity, as
well as every other disease, was considered as an abnormal action or condition,
that true progress could be expected. One of the results of inquiry into the
nature of insanity, starting from this point, has been a growing conviction
that it implies defect and imperfection, as well as casual disorder. Attention
is now directed less to occasional and exoteric incidents, and more to
conditions which inhere in the original economy of the brain. We are sometimes
required to look beyond the individual, and beyond the nervous system even, if
we would discover the primordial movement which, having passed through one or
two generations, finally culminates in actual disease. We say, in popular
phrase, that the cause of insanity in this person was disappointed love, or
reverse of fortune, and in that, a fever, or a translation of disease; the
popular voice finds an echo in the records of the profession, and it all passes
for very good philosophy. Now, the more we learn, the more reason have we to
believe that the amount of truth in the common statistics respecting the causes
of insanity bears but a very small proportion to the amount of error. That such
things as those just mentioned are often deeply concerned in the production of
insanity cannot be doubted, but their agency is small in comparison with those
which exist in the original constitution of the patient, and are derived, in
greater or less degree, from progenitors. We would not say that insanity has
never occurred in a person whose brain was not vitiated by hereditary morbid
tendencies, but we do say that the proportion of such cases is exceedingly
small. All the seeming efficiency of the so-called "causes of
insanity" requires that preparation which is produced by the deteriorating
influences of progenitors, and without which they would be utterly powerless. Let
us consider this matter a little more closely by the light which modern inquiry
sheds upon it.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>All the conditions of the bodily organs that determine the
character of the function are not known, but all analogy shows that what in
popular phrase is called <i>quality</i> is one of them. Exactly what this is
nobody knows, nor is it necessary for our present purpose that we should know;
but when we talk of the good or bad quality of an organ, we certainly do not
talk without meaning. We have an intelligible idea of the difference between
that constitution, of an organ which insures the highest measure of excellence
in the function and that which admits of only the lowest. In the brain, as in
other organs, size is to some extent a measure of power. The largest intellectual
and moral endowments no one expects to see in connection with the smallest
brain, and <i>vice versâ</i>, setting aside those instances of large size which
are the effect of disease. The <i>relative</i> size of the different parts of
the brain may have something to do with the character of the function, but this
is a contested point. Education increases the mental efficiency, no doubt, but it is too late in the day to attribute everything to <i>that</i>.
So that we are obliged to resort to that indescribable condition called <i>quality</i>,
as the chief source and origin of the differences of mental power observed
among men.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>It is easier to say what this condition is not than what it
is. It is not manifested to the senses by weight or color, dryness or moisture,
hardness or softness. In these particulars all brains are pretty nearly alike.
When the cerebral action stops and the man dies, we may find lesions visible
enough to the sense,—vessels preternaturally engorged with blood,
effusions of lymph, thickening of the membranes, changes of color and
consistency,—but no one imagines these to be the cause and origin of the
disturbance. Behind and beyond all this, in that intimate constitution of the
organic molecules which no instrument of sense can bring to light, lies the
source of mental activity, both healthy and morbid. There lies the source of
all cerebral dynamics. Of this we are sure, unable, as we are, to demonstrate
the fact to the senses.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>Scientific observation has made us acquainted with some of
the agencies which vitiate the quality of the brain, and it is our duty to
profit by its results. The principal of them is morbid action in the brain
itself, producing, more or less directly, disorder and weakness. But its
deteriorating influence does not cease with the individual. In a large
proportion of cases it is transmitted to the offspring; and though it may not
appear in precisely the same form, yet the tokens of its existence are too
obvious to be overlooked.—Another agency scarcely less efficient is that
of <i>neuropathies</i>, to use the medical term,—meaning the various
forms of disorder which have their origin in the brain, and comprising not only
epilepsy, hysteria, chorea, and other convulsive affections, but that habit of
body and mind which makes a person <i>nervous</i>. While they may abridge the
mental efficiency of the patient comparatively little or not at all, they may
exert this effect, and often do, in the highest degree, on his offspring. The
amount of insanity in the world attributable to insanity in the progenitors,
and therefore called, <i>par </i><i><span lang=FR>éminence</span></i>,
hereditary, is scarcely greater than that which originates in this manner, and
of which the essential condition is no less hereditary.—Another agency,
acting on a large scale in some localities, is exerted by those diseases which
are attributed to some disorder of the lymphatic system, as scrofula and
rickets. Though not entirely unknown to the affluent classes, yet it is chiefly
in the dwellings of the poor that these diseases find their victims. Cold,
moisture, bad air, deficient nourishment,—too frequent accompaniments of
poverty,—are peculiarly favorable to their production. The physical
depravation thus induced is frequently transmitted to the brain in the next
generation, and appears in the shape of mental disorder.—Again, it is now
well known that the qualities of the race are depreciated by the intermarrying
of relatives. The disastrous influence of such unions is exerted on the nervous
system more than any other, and is a prolific source of deaf-mutism, blindness,
idiocy, and insanity. Not, certainly, in all cases do we see these results, for
the legitimate consequences of this violation of an organic law are often
avoided by the help of more controlling influences, but they are frequent
enough to remove any doubt as to their true cause. And the chances of exemption
are greatly lessened where the marriage of consanguinity is repeated in the
next generation. The manner in which the evil is effected may be conjectured
with some approach to correctness, but to speculate upon it here would lead us
astray from our present purpose. The amount of the evil may be thought to be
comparatively small, but they who have a professional acquaintance with the
subject would hardly undertake to measure the dimensions of all the physical
and mental suffering which it involves. In one State, at least, in the Union,
it has seemed formidable enough to require an act of the legislature forbidding
the marriage of cousins.—The last we shall mention, among the agencies
concerned in vitiating the quality of the brain, is that of excessive or long-continued
intemperance; and for many years it has been a most fruitful source of mental
deterioration: not, however, in the way which is generally imagined; for,
though it may add some effect to a popular harangue to attribute a very large
proportion of the existing cases of insanity directly to intemperance, yet, as
a matter of fact, very few, probably, can be fairly traced to this cause
solely. And yet, at the present time, it is unquestionably responsible for a
very large share of the mental infirmities which afflict the race. The germ of
the evil requires a second, perhaps a third, generation to bring it to
maturity. And then it may appear in the form of mania, or idiocy, or
intemperance. As a cause of idiocy, its potency has been placed beyond a doubt.
Dr. S.G. Howe, whose thorough investigations entitle his conclusions to great
weight, says, that, "directly or indirectly, alcohol is productive of a
great proportion of the idiocy which now burdens the Commonwealth." There
is this curious feature of its deteriorating influence, that the primary effect
is not always persistent, but may be removed by removing the cause. In the
Report of the Hospital at Columbus, Ohio, for 1861, the physician, Dr. Hills,
says of one of his patients, that his father, in the first part of his married
life, was strictly temperate, "and had four children, all yet remaining
healthy and sound. From reverses of fortune, he became discouraged and
intemperate for some years, having in this period four children, two of whom we
had now received into the asylum; a third one was idiotic, and the fourth
epileptic. He then reformed in habits, had three more children, all now grown
to maturity, and to this period remaining sound and healthy." Another
similar case follows. An intemperate parent had four children, two of whom
became insane, one was an idiot, and the fourth died young, in
"fits." Four children born previous to the period of intemperance,
and two after the parent's reformation, are all sound and healthy. Often, it is
well known, intemperance in the child is the hereditary sequel of intemperance
in the parent. The irresistible craving, without the preliminary gradual
indulgence, and in spite of judicious education, generally distinguishes it
from intemperance resulting from other causes.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>All these agencies have this trait in common, that their
damaging effect is often felt by the offspring as well as the parent, and, in
most cases, in a far higher degree. The common doctrine of hereditary disease
implies the actual transmission of a specific form of disease fully developed,—or,
at least, of a tendency to it that may or may not be developed. The range
within which it operates is supposed to be the narrow limits covered by a
single specific affection. Daily experience, however, shows that the deviation
from the primitive type is limited only by some conditions of structure. Any
pathological result may be expected, not incompatible with the structure of the
organ. And thus it is that the cerebral affection which fell upon the parent is
represented in one child by insanity, in another by idiocy, in another by
epilepsy, in another by gross eccentricity, in another by moral perversities,
in another by ill-balanced intellect,—each and all implying a brain more
or less vitiated by the parental infirmity. There is nothing strange in all
this diversity of result. In the healthy state, organic action proceeds with
wonderful regularity and uniformity; but when controlled by the pathological
element, all this is changed, although the change has its limits. This
diversity in the results of hereditary transmission is as strictly according to
law as the similarity of features exhibited by parent and child. No presumption
against the fact can be derived from this quarter, and therefore, if well-authenticated,
it must be admitted. Many a man, however, who admits the general fact, refuses
to make the application where it has not been usually made. When mania occurs
in two or three successive generations, nobody overlooks the hereditary
element; but when the mania of the parent is followed by great inequalities of
character, or strange impulses to criminal acts, then the effects of disease
are straightway ignored, and we think only of moral liberty and free-will. It
may be difficult, sometimes, to make the proper distinction between the effects
of hereditary physical vitiation and those of bad education and strong
temptations; but the difficulty is of the kind which stands in the way of all
successful inquiry, to be overcome by patient and profound study.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>Some light may be thrown on this deviation from the original
type by considering the forces that are concerned in the hereditary act. The
statement that like produces like is the expression of an obvious law. But we must
bear in mind that the law is only so far observed as is necessary to maintain
the characters of the species. Within that range there is every possible
variety, and for a very obvious reason. Every individual represents immediately
two others, and, indirectly, an indefinite number. This is done by uniting in
himself qualities and features drawn from each parent, without any obvious
principle or law of selection and combination. One parent may be, apparently,
more fully represented than the other; the defects of the parent may be
transmitted, rather than the excellences; the tendencies to health and strength
may be outnumbered and overborne by the tendencies to disease. No individual,
of course, can receive, entirely and completely, the features and attributes of
both parents, for that would be a sort of practical absurdity; but in the
process of selecting and combining, Nature exhibits the same inexhaustible
variety that appears in all her operations. Even in the offspring of the same
parents, however numerous, uniformity in this respect is seldom so obvious as
diversity. This cerebral deterioration is subject to the same laws of descent
as other traits, with a few exceptions without much bearing on the present
question. We might as reasonably expect to see the nose or the eyes, the figure
or the motions of either parent transmitted with the exactest likeness to all
the offspring, as to suppose that an hereditary disease must necessarily be
transmitted fully formed, with all the incidents and conditions which it
possessed in the parent. And yet, in the case of mental disease, the current
philosophy can recognize the evidence of transmission in no shape less
demonstrative than delusion or raving. Contrary to all analogy, and contrary to
all fact, it supposes that the hereditary affection must appear in the
offspring in precisely the same degree of intensity which it had in the parent.
If the son is stricken down with raving mania, like his father before him, then
the relation of cause and effect is obvious enough; but if, on the contrary,
the former exhibits only extraordinary outbreaks of passion, remarkable
inequalities of spirit and disposition, irrelevant and inappropriate conduct,
strange and unaccountable impulses, nothing of this kind is charged practically
to the parental infirmity.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>The cerebral defect once established, the modes in which it
may be manifested in subsequent generations present no uniformity whatever.
Insanity in a parent may be followed by any possible form of mental
irregularity in the descendant,—insanity, idiocy, epilepsy, drunkenness,
criminal impulses, eccentricity. And so, too, eccentricity, even of the least
prominent kind, may be followed by grosser eccentricity, or even overt
insanity, in the descendant. The cerebral defect is not necessarily manifested
in an uninterrupted series of generations, for it often skips over one, and
appears with redoubled energy in the next; and thus, in looking for proof of
hereditary disease or defect, we are not to stop at the next preceding generation.
We are too little acquainted with the laws of hereditary transmission to
explain these things. We know this, however, that, side by side with that law
which decrees the transmission of defects as well as excellences, there exists
another law which restrains deviations from the normal type, which extinguishes
the errant traits, and reestablishes the primitive characters of the organism.
The combined and alternate action of these two laws may produce some of the
inscrutable phenomena of hereditary transmission.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>The transmission of the cerebral defect is often manifested
in a manner exceedingly embarrassing to all who hold to the prevalent notions
respecting sanity and insanity. It is sometimes confined to a very
circumscribed range, beyond which the mind presents no material impairment. The
sound and the unsound coexist, not in a state of fusion, but side by side, each
independent of the other, and both derived from a common source. And the fact
is no more anomalous than that often witnessed, of some striking feature of one
parent associated in the child with one equally striking of the other. It is
not the case exactly of partial insanity, or any mental defect, super-induced
upon a mind otherwise sound,—for such defect is, in some degree, an
accident, and may disappear; but here is a congenital conjunction of sanity and
insanity, which no medical or moral appliances will ever remove. These persons
may get on very well in their allotted part, and even achieve distinction,
while the insane element is often cropping out in the shape of extravagances or
irregularities in thought or action, which, according to the stand-point they
are viewed from, are regarded either as gross eccentricity, or undisciplined
powers, or downright insanity. For every manifestation of this kind they may
show no lack of plausible reasons, calculated to mislead the superficial
observer; but still the fact remains, that these traits, which are never
witnessed in persons of well-balanced minds, are a part of their habitual
character. When people of this description possess a high order of intellectual
endowments, the unhealthy element seems to impart force and piquancy to their
mental manifestations, and thus increase the embarrassment touching the true
character of their mental constitution. When the defect appears in the
reflective powers, it is often regarded as insanity, though not more correctly
than if it were confined to the emotions and feelings. The man who goes through
life creditably performing his part, but feeling, all the while, that everybody
with whom he has any relations is endeavoring to oppose and annoy him, strays
as clearly from the track of a healthy mind as if he believed in imaginary
plots and conspiracies against his property or person. In neither case is he
completely overcome by the force of the strange impression, but passes along,
to all appearance, much like other men. Insane, in the popular acceptation, he
certainly is not; but it is equally certain that his mind is not in a healthy
condition. Lord Byron was one of this class, and the fact gives us a clew to
the anomalies of his character. His mother was subject to violent outbreaks of
passion, not unlike those often witnessed in the insane. On the paternal side
his case was scarcely better. The loose principles, the wild and reckless
conduct of his father procured for him the nickname of "<i>Mad Jack Byron</i>";
and his grand-uncle, who killed his neighbor in a duel, exhibited traits not
very characteristic of a healthy mind. With such antecedents, it is not strange
that he was subject to wild impulses, violent passions, baseless prejudices,
uncompromising selfishness, irregular mental activity. The morbid element in
his nervous system was also witnessed in the form of epilepsy, from which he
suffered, more or less, during his whole life. The "vile melancholy"
which Dr. Johnson inherited from his father, and which, to use his own
expression, "made him mad all his life, at least not sober," never
perverted nor hampered the exercise of his intellectual powers. He heard the voice
of his distant mother calling "Sam"; he was bound to touch every post
he passed in the streets; he astonished people by his extraordinary
singularities, and much of his time was spent in the depths of mental distress;
yet the march of his intellect, steady, uniform, and measured, gave no token of
confusion or weakness.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>In common life, among an order of men unknown beyond the
circle of their neighborhood, this sort of mental dualism witnessed with
remarkable frequency, though generally regarded as anomalous and unaccountable,
rather than the result of an organic law. In some, the morbid element, without
affecting the keenness of the intellect, is more active, intruding itself on
all occasions, characterizing the ways and manners, the demeanor and deportment.
Under the influence of peculiarly adverse circumstances, they are liable to
lose occasionally the unsteady balance between the antagonistic forces of their
mental nature, to conduct as if unquestionably insane, and to be treated
accordingly. Of such the remark is always made by the world, which sees no nice
distinctions, "If he is insane now, he was always insane." According
as the one or the other phasis of their mind is exclusively regarded, they are
accounted by some as always crazy, by others as uncommonly shrewd and capable.
The hereditary origin of this mental defect in some form of nervous affection
will always be discovered, where the means of information are afforded.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>In some persons the morbid element appears in the shape of
insensibility to nice moral distinctions. Their perception of them at all seems
to be the result of imitation rather than instinct. With them, circumstances
determine everything as to the moral complexion of their career in life.
Whether they leave behind them a reputation for flagrant selfishness, meanness,
and dishonesty, or for a commendable prudence and judicious regard for self,—whether
they always keep within the precincts of a decent respectability, or run into
disreputable courses,—depends mostly on chance and fortune. This intimate
association of the saint and the sinner in the same individual, common as it
is, is a stumbling-block to moralists and legislators. The abnormal element is
entirely overlooked, or rather is confounded with that kind of moral depravity
which comes from vicious training And, certainly, the distinction is not always
very easily made; for, though sufficient light on this point may often be
derived from the antecedents of the individual, yet it is impossible,
occasionally, to remove the obscurity in which it is involved. However this may
be, it is a warrantable inference from the results of modern inquiry, that the
class of cases is not a small one, where the person commits a criminal act, or
falls into vicious habits, with a full knowledge of the nature and consequences
of his conduct, and prompted, perhaps, by the ordinary inducements to vice,
who, nevertheless, would have been a shining example of virtue, had the morbid
element in his cerebral organism been left out. In our rough estimates of responsibility
this goes for nothing, like the untoward influences of education; and it could
not well be otherwise, though it cannot be denied that one element of moral
responsibility, namely, the wish and the power to pursue the right and avoid
the wrong, is greatly defective.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>There is another phasis of cerebral defect not very unlike
the last, which of late years has been occurring with increasing frequency,
embarrassing our courts, confounding the wise and the simple, and overwhelming
respectable families with shame and sorrow. With an intellect unwarped by the
slightest excitement or delusion, and with many moral traits, it may be,
calculated to please and to charm, its subjects are irresistibly impelled to
some particular form of crime. With more or less effort they strive against it,
and when they yield at last, their conduct is as much a mystery to themselves
as to others. Ordinary criminals excite some touch of pity, on the score of bad
education or untamed passions; but if, in the common estimation of the world,
there is one criminal more reprehensible than another, it is he who sins
against great light and under the smallest temptations,—and, of course,
the hottest wrath of an incensed community is kindled against him.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>At the bar of yonder courtroom stands a youth with an aspect
and manner indicative of culture and refinement far above those of the common
herd of criminals. He was detected in the very act of committing a grave
criminal offence. He has been educated under good moral influences, and possessed
a patrimony that supplied every reasonable want. No looseness of living, no
violent passion is alleged against him, and no adequate motive appears for the
act. For a year or two past he has been unusually restless by day and by night,
has slept poorly, and his countenance has worn an expression of distraction and
anxiety. Various little details of conduct are related of him, which, though
not morally censurable, were offensive to good taste and opposed to the
ordinary observances of society. His friends are sure he is not the man he once
was, but no expert ventures to pronounce him insane. Looking behind the scene,
the mystery clears up, and we behold only a simple operation of cerebral
dynamics. A glance at the family-history shows us a great-grandfather, an aunt,
two second-cousins, and a brother unequivocally insane, the father and many
other members widely noted for eccentricities and irregularities of a kind
scarcely compatible with the idea of sanity. Considering that the brain does
not spring out of the ground, but is the final product of all the influences
which for generations have been working in the cerebral organism, it is not
strange that the quality of his brain became so vitiated as to be incapable of
some of its highest functions.—Looking a little farther back in our
forensic experience, we behold a youth scarcely arrived at the age of legal
majority, with a simple, verdant look, arraigned for trial on the charge of
murder. He was the servant of a farmer, and his victim was an adopted daughter
of the family, and some years younger than himself. One day they were left
together to take care of the house, a little girl in the neighborhood having
come in to keep them company. While engaged in the domestic services, quietly
and pleasantly, he invited his companion to go with him into another room where
he had something to show her, and there, within a few minutes, he cut her
throat from ear to ear. He soon came down, told what he had done, and made no
attempt to escape. They had always been on good terms; no provocation, no
motive whatever for the act was shown or suspected. When questioned, he replied
only,—"I loved her, no one could tell how much I loved her." He
had been drinking cider during the morning, but his cool and collected manner,
both before and after the act, showed that he was not intoxicated. His
employers testified that they had always found him good-natured and correct,
but considered his intellect somewhat below the average grade. A few months
subsequently he died in jail of consumption. Regarded from the ordinary moral
stand-points, this was a strange, an unaccountable, a monstrous act, and we are
unable to take the first step towards a solution of the mystery. Looking,
however, at the material conditions of his affections, his propensities, his
impulses,—his cerebral dynamics,—we get a clew, at least, to the
secret. His father was an habitual drunkard, and a frequent inmate of the poor-house.
He had two children,—one an idiot, and the other the prisoner; and the
mental deficiency of the former, and the senseless impulses to crime manifested
by the latter, were equally legitimate effects of the father's vice.—Here,
again, is one who might justly be regarded as a favored son of fortune. Fine
talents, a college-education, high social position, an honorable and lucrative
business in prospect were all his; but before leaving college he had made
considerable proficiency in lying, drinking, forgery, and hypocrisy, besides
evincing a remarkable ingenuity in concealing these traits. His vices only
increased with years, notwithstanding the various parental expedients to effect
reform,—a voyage to sea, establishment in business, confinement in a
hospital for the insane, a residence in the country, a settlement in a new
territory. All this time his intellect was cool and clear, except when under
the influence of drink, and he was always ready with the most plausible
explanations of his conduct. At last, however, delusions began to appear, and
unquestionable and incurable insanity was established. The philosophy of our
times utterly fails to account for a phenomenon like this. Had the hand of the
law been laid upon him for his offences, he would have been regarded as one of
those examples of depravity which deserve the severest possible punishment; and
when the true nature of his case appeared at last, doctors only wondered how so
much mental disorder could happen to one whose progenitors were singularly free
from mental infirmities. In noticing the agencies calculated to vitiate the
quality of the brain, we mentioned the neuropathies as among the most
efficient, though their effect is chiefly witnessed in subsequent generations,
and the present case is an illustration of the fact. His mother was a highly
nervous woman, and for many years a confirmed invalid.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>This, then, being admitted, that a vitiated quality of the
brain may be transmitted to the offspring with accumulating effect, let us see
what are the general characteristics of this effect. We have no reason to
suppose that the brain is exempt from the operation of the same organic laws
which govern the rest of the animal economy. Observation abundantly shows that
its working capacity is diminished, and its activity becomes irregular in one
or more of the various degrees of irregularity, ranging from a little
eccentricity up to raving mania. Occasionally, such defect is accompanied by
remarkable manifestations of mental ability, but it is no part of our doctrine
that such conjunctions are incompatible. Byron and Johnson accomplished great
things; but who will deny that without that hereditary taint they would have
done more and done it better? The latter, it is well known, was much dependent
on moods, and spent long periods in mental inactivity. The labors of the other
were fitful, and his views of life betray the influence of the same cerebral
defect that led to so much domestic woe. The narrow-chested, round-shouldered
person, whose lungs barely oxydize blood enough to maintain life, is not
expected to walk a thousand miles in a thousand hours, or to excel as a
performer on wind-instruments. We impute to him no fault for this sort of
incompetence. We should rather charge him with consummate folly, if he
undertook a line of exercises for which he is so clearly unfitted. We do not
wonder, in fact, when this unfortunate pulmonary constitution sends its
possessor to an early grave. Why not apply the same philosophy to the brain,
which may partake of all the defects incident to organized matter? Why expect
of one among whose progenitors insanity, idiocy, scrofula, rickets, and
epilepsy have prevailed in an extraordinary degree all the moral and
intellectual excellences displayed by those whose blood through a long line of
ancestors has been untainted by any of these affections?</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>It is chiefly, however, in abnormal activity that the
presence of this cerebral depreciation is indicated. And here we find the same
disposition to insist on positive and absolute conditions, overlooking those
nicer shades of diversity which mark the movements of Nature. It is the common
belief that between eccentricity and insanity a great gulf is fixed; and in
courts of justice this notion is often used with great effect to overthrow the
conclusions of the medical expert, who, while he admits their essential
difference, finds it not very easy to avoid the trap which a quick-witted
lawyer is sure to make of it. Let him recognize the fact that they are the
results of a common agency, differing chiefly in degree, and then his path is
clear, though it may not lead to popular confidence in his professional views.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>Neither is the cerebral depreciation confined to any
particular portion of the organ; and therefore its effects may be witnessed in
any of those manifestations which are known to depend upon it. The affective
powers, meaning thereby the passions, affections, and emotions, are, like the
intellectual, connected with the brain, and, like them too, are shaped, in a
great degree, by the quality of that organ. It is curious, however, that, while
this fact is admitted in general terms, there is a prevalent reluctance to make
the legitimate practical application. It is denied that the moral powers and
propensities can be affected by disease, though connected with a material
organ. Everybody believes that a man who thinks his legs are made of glass is
insane; but if his affections only are disordered,—love and kindness
being replaced by jealousy and hate,—an habitual regard for every moral
propriety, by unbounded looseness of life and conversation,—the practice
of the strictest virtue, by unblushing indulgence of crime, and all without
apparent cause or motive,—then the morbid element in the case is
overlooked and stoutly repudiated. We admit that a man may be a fool without
any fault of his own; but if he fall short of any of the requirements of the
moral law, he is regarded as a sinner, and perhaps punished as a criminal.
Before we utterly condemn him for failing to recognize all the sharp
distinctions between right and wrong, for yielding to temptation, and walking
in evil courses, we are bound in justice to inquire whether a higher grade of
moral excellence has not been debarred him by the defective quality of his
brain, the organ by which all moral graces are manifested,—whether it has
not become deteriorated by morbid predispositions, transmitted with steadily
accumulating force, to insanity, or other affections which are known to spread
their noxious influence over the nervous system.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>A scientific fact is supposed to be entitled to credence,
when accompanied by proper scientific proof; but, nevertheless, many worthy
people cannot resist the conclusion, that, if a man's moral character is
determined by the quality of the brain, then there is no such thing as
responsibility. And so we are brought up all standing against the old problem
of moral liberty, on which oceans of ink have been shed to little purpose.
Heaven forbid that we should add another drop! for our object will be served by
stating very briefly the scientific view of this phenomenon. Every creature is
free, within the limits of the constitution which Nature has given him, to act
and to think, each after his kind. The horse rejoices in the liberty of acting
like a horse, and not like an ox; and man enjoys the privilege of acting the
part of a man, and not of a disembodied spirit. If the limbs of the former are
struck by an atrophy, we do not expect him to win the race. If the brain of the
latter is blasted by disease or deterioration, we cannot expect the fruits of a
sound and vigorous organism. When we say that a person with a brain vitiated by
an accumulation of hereditary defects is incapable of that degree of moral
excellence which is manifested by men of the soundest brains, we utter a truism
as self-evident, apparently, as when we say that the ox is incapable of the
fleetness of the horse or the ferocity of the tiger. It is immaterial whether
the cerebral condition in question is one of original constitution or of
acquired deficiency, because the relation between the physical and the moral
must be the same in the one case as in the other. In the toiling masses, who,
from childhood, are brought face to face with want and vice, we do not expect
to find the moral graces of a Channing or a Cheverus; and we do not hold them
to a very strict responsibility for the deficiency. But they are not utterly
destitute of a moral sense, and what we have a right to expect is, that they
improve, in a reasonable degree, the light and opportunities which have fallen
to their lot. The principle is precisely the same as it regards those whose
brains have been vitiated by some noxious agency. To make them morally
responsible in an equal degree with men more happily endowed would be repugnant
to every idea of right and justice. But within the range of their capacity,
whatever it may be, they are free, and accountable for the use of their
liberty. True, there is often difficulty in making these distinctions, even
where the necessity for it is the greatest; but we dissent from the conclusion,
that therefore the doctrine can have but little practical value. It is
something to have the fact of the intimate connection between organic
conditions and moral manifestations distinctly recognized. The advance of
knowledge will be steadily widening the practical application of the fact. A
judge might not be justified in favoring the acquittal of a criminal on the
ground of his having inherited a brain of vitiated quality; but, surely, it
would not be repugnant to the testimony of science, or the dictates of common
sense and common justice, if he allowed this fact to operate in mitigation of
sentence.</p>
<p class=Chapter>A NEW SCULPTOR.</p>
<p class=Poemnewstanza>Once to my Fancy's hall a stranger came,</p>
<p class=PoemIndent4>Of mien unwonted,</p>
<p class=Poem>And its pale shapes of glory without shame</p>
<p class=PoemIndent4>Or speech confronted.</p>
<p class=Poemnewstanza>Fair was my hall,—a gallery of Gods</p>
<p class=PoemIndent4>Smoothly appointed;</p>
<p class=Poem>With Nymphs and Satyrs from the dewy sods</p>
<p class=PoemIndent4>Freshly anointed.</p>
<p class=Poemnewstanza>Great Jove sat throned in state, with Hermes near,</p>
<p class=PoemIndent4>And fiery Bacchus;</p>
<p class=Poem>Pallas and Pluto, and those powers of Fear</p>
<p class=PoemIndent4>Whose visions rack us.</p>
<p class=Poemnewstanza>Artemis wore her crescent free of stars,</p>
<p class=PoemIndent4>The hunt just scented;</p>
<p class=Poem>Glad Aphrodite met the warrior Mars,</p>
<p class=PoemIndent4>The myriad-tented.</p>
<p class=Poemnewstanza>Rude was my visitant, of sturdy form,</p>
<p class=PoemIndent4>Draped in such clothing</p>
<p class=Poem>As the world's great, whom luxury makes warm,</p>
<p class=PoemIndent4>Look on with loathing.</p>
<p class=Poemnewstanza>And yet, methought, his service-badge of soil</p>
<p class=PoemIndent4>With honor wearing;</p>
<p class=Poem>And in his dexter hand, embossed with toil,</p>
<p class=PoemIndent4>A hammer bearing.</p>
<p class=Poemnewstanza>But while I waited till his eye should sink,</p>
<p class=PoemIndent4>O'ercome of beauty,</p>
<p class=Poem>With heart impatience brimming to the brink</p>
<p class=PoemIndent4>Of courteous duty,—</p>
<p class=Poemnewstanza>He smote my marbles many a murderous blow,</p>
<p class=PoemIndent4>His weapon poising;</p>
<p class=Poem>I, in my wrath and wonderment of woe,</p>
<p class=PoemIndent4>No comment voicing.</p>
<p class=Poemnewstanza>"Come, sweep this rubbish from the workman's way,</p>
<p class=PoemIndent4>Wreck of past ages,—</p>
<p class=Poem>Afford me here a lump of harmless clay,</p>
<p class=PoemIndent4>Ye grooms and pages!"</p>
<p class=Poemnewstanza>Then, from that voidness of our mother Earth,</p>
<p class=PoemIndent4>A frame he builded</p>
<p class=Poem>Of a new feature,—with the power of birth</p>
<p class=PoemIndent4>Fashioned and welded.</p>
<p class=Poemnewstanza>It had a might mine eyes had never seen,</p>
<p class=PoemIndent4>A mien, a stature,</p>
<p class=Poem>As if the centuries that rolled between</p>
<p class=PoemIndent4>Had greatened Nature.</p>
<p class=Poemnewstanza>It breathed, it moved; above Jove's classic sway</p>
<p class=PoemIndent4>A place was won it:</p>
<p class=Poem>The rustic sculptor motioned; then "To-day"</p>
<p class=PoemIndent4>He wrote upon it.</p>
<p class=Poemnewstanza>"What man art thou?" I cried, "and what
this wrong</p>
<p class=PoemIndent4>That thou hast wrought me?</p>
<p class=Poem>My marbles lived on symmetry and song;</p>
<p class=PoemIndent4>Why hast thou brought me</p>
<p class=Poemnewstanza>"A form of all necessities, that asks</p>
<p class=PoemIndent4>Nurture and feeding?</p>
<p class=Poem>Not this the burthen of my maidhood's tasks,</p>
<p class=PoemIndent4>Nor my high breeding."</p>
<p class=Poemnewstanza>"Behold," he said, "Life's great
impersonate,</p>
<p class=PoemIndent4>Nourished by Labor!</p>
<p class=Poem>Thy Gods are gone with old-time faith and Fate;</p>
<p class=PoemIndent4>Here is thy Neighbor."</p>
<p class=Chapter>PLAYS AND PLAY-ACTING.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>One evening, after seeing Booth in "Richard III.,"
three of us fell a-talking about the authorship of the play, and wondering how
far Shakespeare was responsible for what we had heard. Everybody knows that
Colley <span lang=FR>Cibber</span> improved upon the text of the old folios and
quartos: for what was listened to with delight by Ben <span lang=FR>Jonson</span>
could not satisfy Congreve, and William III. needed better verses than those
applauded by Queen Elizabeth. None of us knew how great or how many these
improvements were. I doubt whether many of the audience that crowded the
theatre that evening were wiser than we. The next day I got an acting copy of
"Richard III.," and, with the help of Mrs. Clarke's Concordance,<a
href="#_edn1" name="_ednref1" title=""><span class=MsoEndnoteReference><span
class=MsoEndnoteReference><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman"'>[1]</span></span></span></a>
arrived at the following astonishing results.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"<span lang=FR>Shakspeare's</span> Historical Tragedy
of Richard III., adapted to Representation by Colley <span lang=FR>Cibber</span>,"
(I quote the full title for its matchless impudence,) makes a pamphlet of fifty-nine
small pages. Of these, <span lang=FR>Cibber</span> was good enough to write
twenty-six out of his own head. Then, modestly recognizing Shakespeare's
superiority, he took twenty-<i>seven</i> pages from him, (not all from this
particular play, to be sure,) <span lang=EN-GB>remodelled</span> six other
pages of the original, and, mixing it all up together, produced a play, and
called it Shakespeare.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>With Mrs. Clarke's touchstone it is easy to separate the
base metal from the fine gold; though you have only to ring most of <span
lang=FR>Cibber's</span> counterfeits to see how flat they are. Would any one
take the following for genuine coin, and believe that Shakespeare could make a
poor ghost talk thus?</p>
<p class=Drama> </p>
<p class=Drama>"PRINCE E. Richard, dream on, and see the wandering spirits</p>
<p class=Drama>Of thy young nephews, murdered in the tower:</p>
<p class=Drama>Could not our youth, our innocence, persuade</p>
<p class=Drama>Thy cruel heart to spare our harmless lives?</p>
<p class=Drama>Who, but for thee, alas! might have enjoyed</p>
<p class=Drama>Our many promised years of happiness.</p>
<p class=Drama>No soul, save thine, but pities our misusage.</p>
<p class=Drama>Oh! 'twas a cruel deed! therefore alone,</p>
<p class=Drama>Unpitying, unpitied shalt thou fall."</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>Or thus:—</p>
<p class=Drama> </p>
<p class=Drama>"K. HENRY. The morning's dawn has summoned me away;</p>
<p class=Drama>And let that wild despair, which now does prey</p>
<p class=Drama>Upon thy mangled thoughts, alarm the world.</p>
<p class=Drama>Awake, Richard, awake! to guilty minds</p>
<p class=Drama>A terrible example!"</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>No wonder that Gloucester finds it quite hopeless to reply
to such ghosts in the words Shakespeare put into his mouth, and so has recourse
to <span lang=FR>Cibber</span>. We are not told what (<span lang=FR>Cibber's</span>)
ghosts say to Richmond; but he declares,—</p>
<p class=Drama style='margin-top:6.0pt'>"If dreams should animate a soul
resolved,</p>
<p class=Drama><i>I'm more than pleased with those I've had to-night.</i>"</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>Just after this, it is rather confusing to find him straying
off into "Henry V." Still, "In peace there's nothing so becomes
a man," seems to promise Shakespeare at least,—so compose yourself
to listen and enjoy:—</p>
<p class=Drama> </p>
<p class=Drama>"In peace there's nothing so becomes a man</p>
<p class=Drama>As <i>mild behavior</i> and humility;</p>
<p class=Drama>But when the blast of war blows in our ears,</p>
<p class=Drama><i>Let us be tigers in our fierce deportment</i>."</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>After this outrage, I defy you to help hoping that the
comparatively innocent Richard will chop off Richmond's head,—in spite of
history and Shakespeare.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>It does not follow that all change or omission is unlawful
in placing Shakespeare's plays on the stage. Though in the pit or parquet we
sit (more or less) at our ease, instead of standing as the groundlings did in
old days, yet a tragedy five hours and a half long would be rather too much of
a good thing for us. There must have been a real love of the drama in those
times. Fancy a fine gentleman, able to pay his shilling and sit with the wits
upon the rush-strewn stage, listening for such a length of time to
"Hamlet," with no change of scenes to help the illusion or break the
monotony, beyond a curtain or two hung across the stage, a wooden gallery at
the back whence the court of Denmark might view "The Mouse-Trap,"
and, perhaps, a wooden tomb pushed on or "discovered" in the
graveyard-scene by pulling aside one of these curtains or
"traverses." No pretty women, either, dressed in becoming robes, and
invested with the mysterious halo of interest which an actress seems to bring
with her from the side-scenes. No women at all. Poor Ophelia presented by a
great lubberly boy, and the part of the Queen very likely intrusted to him who
was last year the "<i><span lang=FR>jeune</span> première</i>," and
whose voice is now somewhat cracked within the ring. To be sure, in those days
every gentleman took his pipe with him; and the fragrant clouds would be some
consolation in the eyes, or rather in the noses, of some of us. But still,—almost
six hours of tragedy! It is too much of a good thing for these degenerate days;
and we must allow the prompter to use his pencil on the actors' copy of
"Hamlet," though he strike out page upon page of immortal philosophy.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>But there are certain parts of this play omitted whose loss
makes one grieve. Why do the actors leave out the strange half-crazed
exclamations wrung from Hamlet by his father's voice repeating
"Swear" from beneath his feet?</p>
<p class=Drama> </p>
<p class=Drama>"HAM. Indeed, upon my sword, indeed.</p>
<p class=Drama>GHOST [<i>beneath</i>]. Swear.</p>
<p class=Drama>HAM. Ah, ha, boy! say'st thou so? art thou there, true-penny?—</p>
<p class=Drama>Come on,—you hear this fellow in the cellarage—</p>
<p class=Drama> </p>
<p class=Drama> * * * * *</p>
<p class=Drama> </p>
<p class=Drama>Swear by my sword.</p>
<p class=Drama>GHOST [<i>beneath</i>]. Swear.</p>
<p class=Drama>HAM. <i>Hic et </i><i><span lang=ES-TRAD>ubique</span></i>? then
we'll shift our ground.—</p>
<p class=Drama>Come hither, gentlemen,</p>
<p class=Drama>And lay your hands again upon my sword:</p>
<p class=Drama>Never to speak of this that you have heard,</p>
<p class=Drama>Swear by my sword.</p>
<p class=Drama>GHOST [<i>beneath</i>]. Swear.</p>
<p class=Drama>HAM. Well said, old mole! Canst work <span lang=FR>i</span>' the
ground so fast?</p>
<p class=Drama>A worthy pioneer I....</p>
<p class=Drama>... This not to do,</p>
<p class=Drama>So grace and mercy at your most need help you, swear.</p>
<p class=Drama>GHOST [<i>beneath</i>]. Swear.</p>
<p class=Drama>HAM. Rest, rest, perturbed spirit!"</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>The sensitive organization which makes Hamlet what he is has
been too rudely handled: the machine, too delicate for the rough work of every-day
life, breaks down, under the strain. The horror of the time—beginning
with Horatio's story of the apparition, and growing more fearful with every
moment of reflection, until Hamlet longs for the coming of the dread hour—reaches
a point beyond which human nature has no power to endure. If he could share his
burden with his friend Horatio,—but Marcellus thrusts himself forward,
and he checks the half-uttered confidence, and struggles to put aside their
curiosity with trifling words. Anything, to be alone and free to think on what
he has heard and what he has to do. And then,—as he is swearing them to
secrecy before escaping from them,—<i>there</i>, from under their feet
and out of the solid earth, comes the voice whose adieu is yet ringing in his
ears. In terror they hurry to another spot; but the awful voice follows their
steps, and its tones shake the ground under them. What wonder, if, broken down
by all this, Hamlet utters words which would be irreverent in their levity,
were they not terrible in their wildness? Have you never marked what pathos
there is in a very trivial phrase used by one so crushed down by grief that he
acts and speaks like a little child?</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>It is wonderful that a great actor should neglect a passage
that paints with one touch Hamlet's half-hysterical state. Given as it might be
given, it would curdle the blood in your veins. I asked the best Hamlet it has
been my fortune to see, why he left out these lines. "I have often thought
I would speak them; but I don't know how." That was his answer, and a very
honest one it was. But such a reason is not worthy of any man who dares to play
Hamlet,—much less of one who plays it as —— does.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>It is curious to observe how persistently the players, in
making up the stage-travesties of Shakespeare's plays, have followed the
uncertain lead of the quartos, where they and the folio differ. It almost seems
as if the stage-editors found something more congenial in a text made up from
the actors' recollections, plentifully adorned with what we now call
"gag." They appear to forget one capital fact: that Shakespeare was
at once actor, author, and manager,—that he wrote for the stage
exclusively, producing plays for the immediate use of his own company,—and
that his plays may therefore be reasonably supposed to be "adapted to
representation" in their original state. Does Mr. Crummles know better
than Master Shakespeare knew how "Romeo and Juliet" should be ended
with the best effect,—not only to the ear in the closet, but theatrically
on the stage? The story was not a new one; and the dramatist deliberately
followed one of two existing versions rather than the other. In <span lang=FR>Boisteau's</span>
translation of <span lang=FR>Bandello's</span> novel, Juliet wakes from her
trance before Romeo's death; in Brooke's poem, which the great master chose to
adopt as his authority, all is over, and she wakes to find her lover dead. <span
lang=FR>Garrick</span> must needs know better than Shakespeare, the actor-author;
and no stage Romeo has the grace to die until he has, in elegant phrase,
"piled up the agony" with lines like these:—</p>
<p class=Drama> </p>
<p class=Drama>"JULIET. ... Death's in thy face.</p>
<p class=Drama>ROM. <i>It is indeed</i>. I struggle with him now:</p>
<p class=Drama>The transports that I felt,</p>
<p class=Drama>To hear thee speak, and see thy opening eyes,</p>
<p class=Drama>Stopped, for a moment, his impetuous course,</p>
<p class=Drama>And all my mind was happiness and thee:—</p>
<p class=Drama>But now," etc.,</p>
<p class=Drama>"My powers are blasted;</p>
<p class=Drama>'Twist death and love I'm torn, I am distracted;</p>
<p class=Drama><i>But death is strongest</i>."</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>And then, to give a chance for the <span lang=EN-GB>manoeuvre</span>
beloved by dying actors,—that getting up and falling back into the arms
of the actress kneeling by him, with a proper amount of gasping and eyes
rolling in delirium,—the stage Romeo adds:—</p>
<p class=Drama> </p>
<p class=Drama>"ROM. She is my wife,—our hearts are twined together:—</p>
<p class=Drama>Capulet, forbear:—Paris, loose your hold:—</p>
<p class=Drama>Pull not our heart-strings thus;—they crack,—they
break:—</p>
<p class=Drama>Oh, Juliet, Juliet!"</p>
<p class=Drama>[<i>Dies. Juliet faints on his body.</i></p>
<p class=MsoNormal>Is this <span lang=FR>Garrick</span> or <span lang=FR>Otway</span>?
(for I believe <span lang=FR>Garrick</span> borrowed some of his improvements
from <span lang=FR>Otway's</span> "Caius Marius.") I don't know, and
don't care. It is not Shakespeare. It may "show something of the skill of
kindred genius," as the preface to the acting edition says it does. I
confess I do not see it. I would have such bombast delivered with the
traditional accompaniment of red fire; and the curtain should descend
majestically to the sound of slow music. That would be consistent and
appropriate.</p>
<p class=Drama> </p>
<p class=Drama> * * * * *</p>
<p class=Drama> </p>
<p class=MsoNormal>It has always been a consoling thought to Englishmen that
Shakespeare exists for them alone,—or that a Frenchman's nature, at
least, makes it hopeless for him to try to understand the great dramatist. They
confess that their neighbors know how to construct the plot of a comedy, and
prove the honesty of their approval by "borrowing" whatever they can
make useful. French tragedies they despise—(though a century ago the new English
tragedies were generally <span lang=FR>Corneille</span> or Racine in disguise).
As to Shakespeare, it has time out of mind been an article of faith with the
insolent insulars that he is quite above any Frenchman's reach. One by one they
are driven from their foolish prejudices, and made to confess that Frenchmen <i>may</i>
equal them in some serious things, as well as beat them in all the lighter
accomplishments. French iron-clad steamers have been followed by the curious
spectacle of a French actor teaching an English audience how Shakespeare should
be acted. I would give a good deal to see M. Fechter in Hamlet, Othello, or Iago,—the
only parts he has yet attempted; the rather, because the low condition of the
stage in England, where Mr. Macready and Mr. Charles <span lang=FR>Kean</span>
are called great actors, makes the English newspaper-criticisms of little
value. In default of this, I have been reading M. <span lang=FR>Fechter's</span>
acting edition of "Othello," which a friend kindly sent me from London.
It is a curiosity,—not the text, which is incorrect, full of arbitrary
changes, and punctuated in a way almost unintelligible to an English eye:
colons being scattered about with truly French profusion. The stage-directions
are the interest of the book. They are so many and so minute that it seems a
wonder why they were printed, if M. Fechter is sincere in declaring that he has
no desire to force others to follow in his exact footsteps in this part. But
they are generally so judicious, as well as original, that actors born with
English tongues in their heads may well be ashamed that a foreigner could find
so many new and effective resources on their own ground. For example: when
Othello and Iago are first met by the enraged Brabantio, the Moor is standing
on the threshold of his house, having just opened the door with a key taken
from his girdle. He is going in, when he sees the lights <span lang=FR>borne</span>
by the other party. Observe how Othello's honest frankness is shown by the
action:—</p>
<p class=Drama> </p>
<p class=Drama>"OTH. But look: what lights come yonder?</p>
<p class=Drama>IAGO. These are the raised father and his friends.</p>
<p class=Drama>[<i>Othello shuts the door quickly and takes the key.</i></p>
<p class=Drama>You were best go in.</p>
<p class=Drama>OTH. [<i>coming forward</i>], Not I: I must be found!"</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>Again, at the end of this scene, see how thoroughly the
editor has studied the legitimate dramatic effect of the situations, preserving
to each person his due place and characteristic manner:—</p>
<p class=Drama> </p>
<p class=Drama>"BRAB. [<i>To his followers</i>]. Bring him away!</p>
<p class=Drama>[<i>They advance to take Othello, who puts them back with a
look.</i></p>
<p class=Drama>Mine's not an idle cause:</p>
<p class=Drama>[<i>Passes before Othello, who bows to him with respect.</i></p>
<p class=Drama>The Duke himself," etc.</p>
<p class=Drama>[<i>Exit, preceded by the servants of the Senate. His followers
are about to pass; Othello stays them, beckons to Cassio, and exit with him.
The rest follow, humbly.</i></p>
<p class=MsoNormal>The scene wherein Iago first begins to poison the Moor's
mind is admirable in the situations and movements of the actors. A great
variety is given to the dialogue by the minute directions set down for the
guidance of the players. It would be tedious to give them in detail; but I must
point out the truth of one action, near the end. The poison is working; but as
yet Othello cannot believe he is so wronged,—he is only "perplexed
in the extreme,"—not yet transformed quite out of his noble nature.</p>
<p class=Drama> </p>
<p class=Drama>"OTH. [dismissing Iago with a gesture]. Farewell! farewell!</p>
<p class=Drama>[Stopping him, as he goes to the door on the right.</p>
<p class=Drama>If more thou dost perceive, let me know more:</p>
<p class=Drama>Set on thy wife to observe——</p>
<p class=Drama>[He stops, suffused with shame, and crosses before Iago, without
looking at him.</p>
<p class=Drama>Leave me, Iago.</p>
<p class=Drama>IAGO. My lord, I take my leave."</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>This is an idea worthy of a great actor; and of M. <span
lang=FR>Fechter's</span> acting here an English critic says,—"Delicate
in its conception and <span lang=EN-GB>marvellous</span> in its close adherence
to Nature is the expression that accompanies the words. The actor's face is
literally suffused with a burning blush; and, as he buries his face in his
hands, we almost fancy we see the scalding tears force their way through the
trembling fingers and adorn the shame-reddened cheeks." The same writer
goes on to praise "the ingenuity and novelty of the glance at the
reflection of his dark face in the mirror, which suggests the words, 'Haply for
I am black.'" I cannot agree. Othello had been too often reproached with
his swarthy skin and likened to the Devil by Desdemona's father to need any
such commonplace reminder of his defects, in his agony of doubt. It is,
however, a fair ground for difference of opinion. But when the same artifice is
resorted to in the last act to explain the words, "It is the cause, it is
the cause, my soul!!"—and Othello is made to take up a toilet-glass
which has fallen from Desdemona's hand,—it becomes a vile conceit,
unworthy of the situation or of an actor like Fechter. A man does not look in
the glass, and talk about his complexion, when he is going to kill what he
loves best in life; and if the words are broken and unintelligible, they are
all the truer to Nature. The whole of the last act, as arranged by Fechter, is bad.
There is no propriety in directing Desdemona to leave her bed and walk about,—to
say nothing of the scramble that must ensue when Othello "in mad fury
throws her onto the bed" again. But what shall we say of this?</p>
<p class=Drama> </p>
<p class=Drama>"OTH. What noise is this?</p>
<p class=Drama>[<i>He turns to the side whence the noise comes, and raises the
pillow, but, as Desdemona stirs, replaces it abruptly.</i></p>
<p class=Drama>Not dead! Not yet quite dead!</p>
<p class=Drama>I, that am cruel, am yet merciful;</p>
<p class=Drama>I would not have thee linger in thy pain.</p>
<p class=Drama>[<i>Passing his </i><i><span lang=FR>poignard</span> under the
pillow, and turning away his eyes,</i></p>
<p class=Drama>So,—so."</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>What, but that it is utterly vile and melodramatic, contrary
to Othello's expressed resolve, and quite unnecessary?—for a better
effect would be produced, if the actor averted his head and with both hands
pressed hard upon the pillow, trembling in every limb at the horrible deed he
is forced, in mercy, to bring to a quick end. This idea of stabbing Desdemona
at last is not original with Fechter,—who here, and in several other
places, has consented to follow our stage-traditions, and has been led astray.</p>
<p class=Drama> </p>
<p class=Drama> * * * * *</p>
<p class=Drama> </p>
<p class=MsoNormal>Shakespeare on the stage is a sad falling off from
Shakespeare in the closet. (I do not mean on the American stage only: the
theatre in England is, if possible, lower than with us.) To a great extent this
is unavoidable. Our imaginations are not kept in check by the pitiless limits
that make themselves felt in the theatre. An army, when we read of it, seems
something far grander than all that can be effected by the best-appointed
company of actors. The forest of Ardennes has for us life and motion beyond the
reach of the scene-painter's skill. But these necessary shortcomings are no
excuse for making no attempt to imitate Nature. Yet hardly any serious effort
is made to reach this purpose of playing. The ordinary arrangement of our stage
is as bad as bad can be, for it fails to look like the places where the action
is supposed to <span lang=FR>lie</span>. Two rows of narrow screens stretching
down from the ends of a broad screen at the back never can be made to look like
a room, still less like a grove. Such an arrangement may be convenient for the
carpenters or scene-shifters, and is very likely cheaper than a properly
designed interior. But it does not look like what it pretends to be, and has
been superseded on every stage but ours and the English by properly constructed
scenery. Who ever went into a French theatre for the first time without being
charmed by the <i>reality</i> of the scene? They take the trouble to build a
room, when a room is wanted, with side-walls and doors, and often a ceiling.
The consequence is, you can fancy yourself present at a scene taken from real
life. The theatre goes no farther than the proscenium. Beyond that, you have a
parlor, with one wall removed for your better view. It is <span lang=FR>Asmodeus's</span>
show improved. I went to a Paris theatre with a friend. The play began with
half a dozen milliners chattering and sewing round a table. After a few
moments, my friend gave a prodigious yawn, and declared he was going home,
"for you might as well sit down and see a parcel of real milliners at work
as this play." Tastes differ; and I did not find this an objection. But
what a compliment that was to the whole corps,—actors, actresses, and
scene-painter!—and how impossible it would be to make the same complaint
of an English play!</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"But," I have been told by theatrical people,
"such an arrangement is all very well in French vaudevilles, where one
scene lasts through an act; but it will not do for English plays, with their
constant scene-shifting." I grant it is less convenient to the stage-manager
than the present wretched assembly of screens; but it is not impracticable in
any play. Witness the melodramas which are the delight of the patrons of the
minor Paris theatres,—<i><span lang=FR>pièces</span><span lang=FR> </span></i><i><span
lang=FR>à</span> spectacle en 4 </i><i><span lang=FR>actes</span> et 24
tableaux</i>, that is, twenty-four changes of scene. I remember sitting through
one which was so deadly stupid that nothing but the ingenuity of the stage-arrangements
made it endurable. Side-scenes dropped down into their places,—"flats"
fell through the stage or were drawn up out of sight,—trees and rocks
rose out of the earth,—in a word, scenery that looked like reality, and
not like canvas, was disposed and cleared away with such <span lang=EN-GB>marvellous</span>
rapidity that I forgot to yawn over the play. Attention to these matters is
almost unknown with us: perhaps, in strict justice, I ought to say was unknown
until very lately. Within a few years, one or two of our theatres have profited
by the example set by stage-managers abroad. At <span lang=FR>Wallack's</span>,
in New York, <i>rooms</i> have to a great extent taken the place of the old <i>screens</i>;
and only the other night at the Boston Museum I saw an arrangement of scenery
which really helped the illusion.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>Let us hope there may be a speedy reform in the matter of
the costume of the players,—at least in plays where the dresses are of
our own time. You may count on your fingers the actresses in America who dress
on the stage as <i>ladies</i> dress in polite society. And as for the actors, I
am afraid one hand has too many fingers for the tally. Because people go to the
President's Ball in frock-coats is no reason why actors who undertake to look
like fashionable gentlemen should outrage all conventional rules. I once saw a
play in which a gentleman came to make an informal morning-visit to a lady in
the country, in that dress which has received the bitterly ironical name of
"full American uniform," that is to say, black dress-coat and
trousers and black satin waistcoat; and the costume was made even more complete
by a black satin <i>tie</i>, of many plaits, with a huge dull diamond pin in
it, and a long steel watch-chain dangling upon the wretched man's stomach. He
might have played his part to perfection,—which he did not, but murdered
it in cold blood,—but he <i>might</i> have done so in vain; nothing would
or could absolve him from such a crime against the god of fashion or propriety.
"Little things, these," the critic may say: and so our actors seem to
think. But life is made up of little things; and if you would paint life, you
must attend to them. Ask any one who has spent (wasted?) evening after evening
at the Paris theatres about them; and, ten to one, he begins by praising the
details, which, in their sum, conveyed the impression of perfection he brought
away with him.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>Unless you are a little cracked on the subject of the stage,
(as I confess I am,) and have talked with a French actor about it, you have no
idea how systematically they train their young actors. I will tell you a few of
the odd facts I picked up in long talks with my friend Monsieur D——.
of the <span lang=FR>Théâtre</span><span lang=FR> </span><span lang=FR>Français</span>.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>The Conservatoire, their great school for actors, is, like
almost everything else in Paris, more or less under Government control,—the
Minister of State being charged with its superintendence. He appoints the
professors, who are actors of the <span lang=FR>Français</span>, and receive a
salary of two thousand francs. The first order a pupil receives, on presenting
himself for instruction, is this: "Say <i>rose</i>." Now your
Parisian rather prides himself on a peculiar pronunciation of the letter <i>r</i>.
He neither rolls it like an Italian, nor does he make anything like the noise
standing for <i>r</i> in our conversational English,—something like <i>uhr-</i><i><span
lang=FR>ose</span></i>,—a sound said to be peculiar to our language. A
Parisian rolls his r, by making his <i>uvula</i> vibrate, keeping the tongue
quite still: producing a peculiar gurgling sound. This is an abomination in the
ears of the Conservatoire. "<span lang=FR>Ne</span><span lang=FR> </span><i><span
lang=FR>grasseyez</span></i> donc pas, Monsieur," or
"Mademoiselle," says the professor, fiercely,—this peculiar way
of saying <i>r</i> being called <i><span lang=FR>grasseyement</span></i>. The
pupil tries again, using the tip of his tongue this time. "Ah! I thought
so. Your <i>r</i> is pasty (<i><span lang=FR>empâté</span></i>). Say <i>tuddah!</i>"
(I spell this sound <i><span lang=FR>à</span><span lang=FR> </span></i><i><span
lang=FR>l'Anglaise</span></i>.) "<i>Tuddah</i>" repeats the wondering
candidate. "<i>Thuddah?</i>" the professor repeats, with great
disgust: "I did not ask you to say <i>thuddah</i>, but <i>tuddah</i>."
The victim tries again and again, and thinks he succeeds; but the master does
not agree with him. His delicate ear detects a certain thickness of
enunciation,—which our <i><span lang=FR>th</span></i> very imperfectly
represents,—a want of crispness, as it were. The tip of the tongue does
not strike the front teeth with a single <i>tick</i>, as sharp as a needle-point;
and until he can do this, the pupil can do nothing. He is dismissed with the
advice to say "<i>tuddah, tuddah, tuddah</i>," as many hours a day as
he can without losing his mind. D—— told me he often met young men
walking about the streets in all the agonies of this first step in the art of
learning to act, and astonishing the passers-by with this mysterious jargon. A
pupil of average quickness and nicety of ear learns to say tuddah in about a
month. Then he is told to say <i>rose</i> once more. The training his tongue
has received enables him to use only its very tip. A great point is gained: he
can pronounce the <i>r</i>. Any other defects in pronunciation which he has are
next attacked and corrected. Then he is drilled in moving, standing, and
carriage. And finally, "a quantity of practice truly prodigious" is
given to the <i><span lang=FR>ancien</span><span lang=FR> </span></i><i><span
lang=FR>répertoire</span>,</i>—the classic models of French dramatic
literature, <span lang=FR>Corneille</span>, Racine, <span lang=FR>Molière</span>,
<span lang=FR>Beaumarchais</span>, etc. The first scholar of each year has the
right to appear at once at the <span lang=FR>Théâtre</span><span lang=FR> </span><span
lang=FR>Français</span>,—a right rarely claimed, as most young actors
prefer to go through a novitiate elsewhere to braving the most critical
audience in the world before they have acquired the confidence that comes only
with habit and success. After he has gained a foothold at this classic theatre,
an actor still sees prizes held out to stimulate his ambition. If he keeps the
promise of his youth, he may hope to be chosen a stockholder (<i><span lang=FR>sociétaire</span></i>),
and thus obtain a share both in the direction of affairs and in the profits,
besides a retiring pension, depending in, amount upon his term of service.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal><i>Panem, et </i><i><span lang=ES-TRAD>circenses</span></i>
is the demand of modern Paris, as it was of old Rome,—and the people
expect the Government to see that neither supply fails. While the Opera
receives large sums to pay for gorgeous scenery and dresses, the <span lang=FR>Français</span><span
lang=FR> </span>is paid for devoting three nights in the week to the classical
school: a real loss to the theatre at times when the fickle public would gladly
crowd the house to applaud the success of the hour. The Minister of State
interferes as seldom as possible with the management; but when he speaks, his
word is law. This was queerly shown in a dispute about Rachel's <i><span
lang=FR>congés</span></i>. At first she played during nine months of the year
three times a week; later her duties were reduced to six months in the year,
playing only twice a week, at a salary of forty thousand francs, with five
hundred francs for every extra performance. Spoiled by indulgence, she demanded
leave of absence just when the Queen of England was coming to Paris. The
manager indignantly refused. The next day the Minister of State politely
requested that Mlle. Rachel might have a short <i><span lang=FR>congé</span></i>.
"It is not reasonable," said the poor manager. "We have cut down
her duties and raised her salary; now the Queen is coming, Paris will be full
of English, and they are always crazy after Mlle. Rachel. It is really out of
the question, <i>Monsieur le </i><i><span lang=FR>Ministre</span></i>."
The Minister was very sorry, but hoped there would be no real difficulty. The
manager was equally sorry, but really he could not think of it. "<i>Monsieur,</i>"
said the Minister, rising and dismissing the manager, "<i><span lang=FR>il</span>
le </i><i><span lang=FR>faut</span>," "Oh, </i><i><span lang=FR>il</span>
le </i><i><span lang=FR>faut</span>?</i> Then it <i>must</i>;—only you
might as well have begun with that." And so Rachel got her leave of
absence.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>(I must insert here from my note-book a criticism on Rachel,—valuable
as coming from a man of talent in her own profession who had worked with her
for years, and deserving additional weight, as it was, no doubt, rather the
collective judgment of her fellow-actors than the opinion of the speaker
alone.)</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"Rachel," said M. D——, "was a
great genius,—but a genius that ever needed the hand of a master to guide
its efforts. Without this, she could do nothing: and Samson was forever behind
her, directing her steps. Mme. Allan, who weighed almost three hundred pounds
and had an abominable voice, was infinitely her superior in the power of
creating a part. But Rachel had the voice of an angel. In the expression of
disdain or terror she was unapproachable. In the softer passions she was
feeble. We all looked upon her <i>Lady Tartuffe</i> as a failure."</p>
<p class=Drama> </p>
<p class=Drama> * * * * *</p>
<p class=Drama> </p>
<p class=MsoNormal>Such a school of acting as the Conservatoire and the <span
lang=FR>Français</span> form could of course never be seen in America. The idea
of our popular practical Government undertaking to direct the amusements of the
people is quite ludicrous. In France, the Government does all it can for the
people. With us, the people are left to do everything for themselves, with the
least possible amount of Government interference. Our play-writers and play-actors
could do a great deal to raise the standard of stage-literature and of acting,
if they would but try. But they do not try. I went the other evening to see
that relic of the Dark Ages, a sterling English comedy. If any one thinks I go
too far in saying that there is no attempt on our stage to imitate Nature, and
that the writing and acting of English plays are like the landscape-painting of
the Chinese,—a wonderfully good copy of the absurdities handed down
through generations of artists,—let him go and look at one of these
plays. He will see the choleric East-India uncle, with a red face, and a
Malacca cane held by the middle, stumping about, and bullying his nephew,—"a
young rascal,"—or his niece,—"you baggage, you."
When this young person wishes to have a good talk with a friend, they stand up
behind the footlights to do it; and the audience is let into secrets essential
to the plot by means of long "asides" delivered by one, while the
other does nothing and pretends not to hear what is spoken within three feet of
him. The waiting-maid behaves in a way that would get her turned out of any
respectable house, and is chased off the stage by the old gentleman in a manner
that no gentleman ever chases his servants. Something is the matter with the
men's legs: they all move by two steps and a hitch. They all speak with an
intonation as unlike the English of real life as if they talked Greek. The
young people make fools of the old people in a way they would never dream of in
life,—and the old people are preternaturally stupid in submitting to be
made fools of. After seeing one of these classics, let the spectator sit down
and honestly ask himself if this is an attempt to hold the mirror up to Nature,
or an effort to reflect the traditional manners and customs of the stage.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>If he thinks he has ever seen anything of the sort in real
life, we will agree to differ.</p>
</div>
<div class=Section2>
<p class=MsoNormal> </p>
<p class=Chapter>OFF SHORE.</p>
<p class=Poemnewstanza>Rock, little boat, beneath the quiet sky!</p>
<p class=Poem>Only the stars behold us, where we <span lang=FR>lie</span>,—</p>
<p class=Poem>Only the stars, and yonder brightening moon.</p>
<p class=Poemnewstanza>On the wide sea to-night alone are we:</p>
<p class=Poem>The sweet, bright, summer day dies silently;</p>
<p class=Poem>Its glowing sunset will have faded soon.</p>
<p class=Poemnewstanza>Rock softly, little boat, the while I mark</p>
<p class=Poem>The far-off gliding sails, distinct and dark,</p>
<p class=Poem>Across the west pass steadily and slow.</p>
<p class=Poemnewstanza>But on the eastern waters sad they change</p>
<p class=Poem>And vanish, dream-like, gray and cold and strange,</p>
<p class=Poem>And no one knoweth whither they may go.</p>
<p class=Poemnewstanza>We care not, we, drifting with wind and tide,</p>
<p class=Poem>With glad waves darkening upon every side,</p>
<p class=Poem>Save where the moon sends silver sparkles down,</p>
<p class=Poemnewstanza>And yonder slender stream of changing light,</p>
<p class=Poem>Now white, now crimson, tremulously bright,</p>
<p class=Poem>Where dark the light-house stands, with fiery crown.</p>
<p class=Poemnewstanza>Thick falls the dew, soundless, on sea and shore;</p>
<p class=Poem>It shines on little boat and idle oar,</p>
<p class=Poem>Wherever moonbeams touch with tranquil glow.</p>
<p class=Poemnewstanza>The waves are full of whispers wild and sweet;</p>
<p class=Poem>They call to me; incessantly they beat</p>
<p class=Poem>Along the boat from stem to curvèd prow.</p>
<p class=Poemnewstanza>Comes the careering wind, blows back my hair</p>
<p class=Poem>All damp with dew, to kiss me unaware,—</p>
<p class=Poem>Murmuring, "Thee I love,"—and passes on.</p>
<p class=Poemnewstanza>Sweet sounds on rocky shores the distant rote.</p>
<p class=Poem>Oh, could we float forever, little boat,</p>
<p class=Poem>Under the blissful sky drifting alone!</p>
</div>
<div class=Section3>
<p class=Chapter>LIFE IN THE OPEN AIR.</p>
<p class=Section>BY THE AUTHOR OF "CECIL DREEME" AND "JOHN
BRENT."</p>
<p class=Section>KATAHDIN AND THE PENOBSCOT.</p>
<p class=Chapter>CHAPTER IV.</p>
<p class=ChapterDescription>UMBAGOG.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>Rain ends, as even Noah and the Arkites discovered. The new
sensation of tickling frogs could entertain us for one day; bounteous Nature
provided other novelties for the next. We were at the Umbagog chain of lakes,
and while it rained the damster had purveyed us a boat and crew. At sunrise he <span
lang=EN-GB>despatched</span> us on our voyage. We launched upon the Androscoggin,
in a <i>bateau</i> of the old Canadian type. Such light, clincher-built, high-nosed,
flat-bottomed boats are in use wherever the fur-traders are or have been. Just
such boats navigate the Saskatchawan of the North, or Frazer's River of the
Northwest; and in a larger counterpart of our Androscoggin bark I had three
years before floated down the magnificent Columbia to Vancouver, bedded on
bales of beaver-skins.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>As soon as sunrise wrote itself in shadows over the
sparkling water, as soon as through the river-side belt of gnarled arbor-vitae
sunbeams flickered, we pushed off, rowed up-stream by a pair of stout
lumbermen. The river was a beautiful way, admitting us into the <i>penetralia</i>
of virgin forests. It was not a rude wilderness: all that Northern woods have
of foliage, verdurous, slender, delicate, tremulous, overhung our shadowy path,
dense as the vines that drape a tropic stream. Every giant tree, every one of
the Pinus oligarchy, had been lumbered away: refined sylvan beauty remained.
The dam checked the river's turbulence, making it slow and mirror-like. It
merited a more melodious name than harsh Androscoggin.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>Five miles of such enchanting voyage brought us to Lake Umbagog.
Whiff's of mist had met us in the outlet. Presently we opened chaos, and chaos
shut in upon us. There was no Umbagog to be seen,—nothing but a few yards
of gray water and a world of gray vapor. Therefore I cannot criticize, nor
insult, nor compliment Umbagog. Let us deem it beautiful. The sun tried at the
fog, to lift it with leverage of his early level beams. Failing in this attempt
to stir and heave away the mass, he climbed, and began to use his beams as
wedges, driving them down more perpendicularly. Whenever this industrious craftsman
made a successful split, the fog gaped, and we could see for a moment,
indefinitely, an expanse of water, hedged with gloomy forest, and owning for
its dominant height a wild mountain, Aziscohos, or, briefer, Esquihos.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>But the fog was still too dense to be riven by slanting
sunbeams. It closed again in solider phalanx. Our gray cell shut close about
us. Esquihos and the distance became nowhere. In fact, ourselves would have
been nowhere, except that a sluggish damp wind puffed sometimes, and steering
into this we could guide our way within a few points of our course.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>Any <span lang=EN-GB>traveller</span> knows that it is no
very crushing disappointment not to see what he came to see. Outside sights
give something, but inside joys are independent. We enjoyed our dim damp voyage
heartily, on that wide loneliness. Nor were our shouts and laughter the only
sounds. Loons would sometimes wail to us, as they dived, black dots in the
mist. Then we would wait for their bulbous reappearance, and let fly the futile
shot with its muffled report,—missing, of course.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>No being has ever shot a loon, though several have legends
of some one who has. Sound has no power to express a profounder emotion of
utter loneliness than the loon's cry. Standing in <span lang=EN-GB>piny</span>
darkness on the lake's bank, or floating in dimness of mist or glimmer of
twilight on its surface, you hear this wailing note, and all possibility of
human tenancy by the shore or human voyaging is annihilated. You can fancy no
response to this signal of solitude disturbed, and again it comes sadly over
the water, the despairing plaint of some companionless and incomplete
existence, exiled from happiness it has never known, and conscious only of
blank and utter want. Loon-skins have a commercial value; so it is reported.
The Barabinzians of Siberia, a nation "up beyond the River Ob," tan
them into water-proof <i><span lang=FR>paletots</span></i> or <i>aquascutums</i>.
How they catch their loon, before they skin their loon, is one of the mysteries
of that unknown realm.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>Og, <span lang=FR>Gog</span>, <span lang=FR>Magog</span>, Memphremagog,
all agog, Umbagog,—certainly the American Indians were the Lost Tribes,
and conserved the old familiar syllables in their new home.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>Rowing into the damp breeze, we by-and-by traversed the
lake. We had gained nothing but a fact of distance. But here was to be an
interlude of interest. The "thoro'fare" linking Umbagog to its next
neighbor is no thoro'fare for a <i>bateau</i>, since a <i>bateau</i> cannot
climb through breakers over boulders. We must make a "carry," an
actual portage, such as in all chronicles of pioneer voyages strike like the
excitement of rapids into the monotonous course of easy descent. Another boat
was ready on the next lake, but our chattels must go three miles through the
woods. Yes, we now were to achieve a portage. Consider it, <i>blasé</i> friend,—was
not this sensation alone worth the trip?</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>The worthy lumbermen, and our supernumerary, the damster's
son, staggered along slowly with our traps. <span lang=ES-TRAD>Iglesias</span>
and I, having nothing to carry, enjoyed the carry. We lounged along through the
glades, now sunny for the moment, and dallied with raspberries and blueberries,
finer than any ever seen. The latter henceforth began to impurple our blood. Maine
is lusciously carpeted with them.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>As we oozed along the overgrown trail, dripping still with
last night's rain, drops would alight upon our necks and trickle down our
backs. A wet spine excites hunger,—if a pedestrian on a portage, after
voyaging from sunrise, needs any appetizer when his shadow marks noon. We halted, fired up, and lunched vigorously on toasted pork and trimmings. As pork
must be the Omega in forest-fare, it is well to make it the Alpha. Fate thus
becomes choice. Citizens uneducated to forest-life with much pains transport
into the woods sealed cans of what they deem will dainties be, and scoff at
woodsmen frizzling slices of pork on a pointed stick. But Experience does not
disdain a Cockney. She broods over him, and will by-and-by hatch him into a
full-fledged forester. After such incubation, he will recognize his natural
food, and compactest fuel for the lamp of life. He will take to his pork like
mother's milk.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>Our dessert of raspberries grew all along the path, and
lured us on to a log-station by the water, where we found another <i>bateau</i>
ready to transport us over Lakes Weelocksebacook, Allegundabagog, and Mollychunkamug.
Doubters may smile and smile at these names, but they are geography.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>We do not commit ourselves to further judgment upon the
first than that it is doubtless worthy of its name. My own opinion is, that the
scenery felt that it was dullish, and was ashamed to "exhibit" to <span
lang=ES-TRAD>Iglesias</span>; if he pronounced a condemnation, Umbagog and its
sisters feared that they would be degraded to fish-ponds merely. Therefore they
veiled themselves. Mists hung low over the leaden waters, and blacker clouds
crushed the pine-dark hills.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>A fair curve of sandy beach separates Weelocksebacook from
its neighbor. There is buried one Melattach, an Indian chief. Of course there
has been found in Maine some one irreverent enough to trot a lame Pegasus over
this grave, and accuse the frowzy old red-skin of Christian virtues and
delicate romance.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>There were no portages this afternoon. We took the three
lakes at easy speed, persuading ourselves that scenes fog would not let us see
were unscenic. It is well that a man should think what he cannot get unworthy of
his getting. As evening came, the sun made another effort, with the aid of west
winds, at the mist. The sun cleft, the breeze drove. Suddenly the battle was
done, victory easily gained. We were cheered by a gush of level sunlight. Even
the dull, gray vapor became a transfigured and beautiful essence. Dull and
uniform it had hung over the land; now the plastic winds quarried it, and
shaped the whole mass into individuals, each with its character. To the cloud-forms
<span lang=EN-GB>modelled</span> out of formlessness the winds gave life of
motion, sunshine gave life of light, and they hastened through the lower
atmosphere, or sailed lingering across the blue breadths of mid-heaven, or
dwelt peacefully aloft in the region of the <i>cirri</i>; and whether trailing
gauzy robes in flight, or moving stately, or dwelling on high where scope of
vision makes travel needless, they were still the brightest, the gracefullest,
the purest beings that Earth creates for man's most delicate pleasure.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>When it cleared,—when it purveyed us a broadening zone
of blue sky and a heavenful of brilliant cloud-creatures, we were sailing over Lake
Mollychunkamug. Fair Mollychunkamug had not smiled for us until now;—now
a sunny grin spread over her smooth cheeks. She was all smiling, and presently,
as the breeze dimpled her, all a "snicker" up into the roots of her
hair, up among her forest-tresses. Mollychunkamug! Who could be aught but gay,
gay even to the farcical, when on such a name? Is it Indian? Bewildered Indian
we deem it,—transmogrified somewhat from aboriginal sound by the fond
imagination of some lumberman, finding in it a sweet memorial of his Mary far
away in the kitchens of the Kennebec, his Mary so rotund of blooming cheek, his
Molly of the chunky mug. To him who truly loves, all Nature is filled with Amaryllidian
echoes. Every sight and every sound recalls her who need not be recalled, to a
heart that has never dislodged her.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>We lingered over our interview with Mollychunkamug. She may
not be numbered among the great beauties of the world; nevertheless, she is an
attractive squaw,—a very honest bit of flat-faced prettiness in the
wilderness.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>Above Mollychunkamug is Moosetocmaguntic Lake. Another <span
lang=FR>innavigable</span><span lang=FR> </span>thoro'fare unites them. A dam
of Titanic crib-work, fifteen hundred feet long, confines the upper waters.
Near this we disembarked. We balanced ourselves along the timbers of the dam,
and reached a huge log-cabin at its farther end.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>Mr. Killgrove, the damster, came forth and offered us the
freedom of his settlement in a tobacco-box. Tobacco is hospitality in the compactest
form. Civilization has determined that tobacco, especially in the shape of
smoke, is essential as food, water, or air. The pipe is everywhere the pipe of
peace. Peace, then, and anodyne-repose, after a day of travel, were offered us
by the friendly damster.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>A squad of lumbermen were our new fellow-citizens. These
soldiers of the outermost outpost were in the regulation-uniform,—red-flannel
shirts, impurpled by wetting, big boots, and old felt-hats. Blood-red is the
true soldierly color. All the residents of <span lang=FR>Damville</span> dwelt
in a great log-barrack, the <span lang=FR>Hôtel</span>-de-Ville. Its
architecture was of the early American style, and possessed the high art of
simplicity. It was solid, not gingerbreadesque. Primeval American art has a
rude dignity, far better than the sham splendors of our mediaeval and
transition period.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>Our new friends, luxurious fellows, had been favored by Fate
with a French-Canadian cook, himself a Three of <span lang=FR>Frères</span><span
lang=FR> </span><span lang=FR>Provinciaux</span>. Such was his reputation. We
saw by the eye of him, and by his nose, formed for comprehending fragrances,
and by the lines of refined taste converging from his whole face toward his
mouth, that he was one to detect and sniff gastronomic possibilities in the
humblest materials. Joseph Bourgogne looked the cook. His phiz gave us faith in
him; eyes small and discriminating; nose upturned, nostrils expanded and
receptive; mouth saucy in the literal sense. His voice, moreover, was a cook's,—thick
in articulation, dulcet in tone. He spoke as if he deemed that a throat was
created for better uses than laboriously manufacturing words,—as if the
object of a mouth were to receive tribute, not to give commands,—as if
that pink stalactite, his palate, were more used by delicacies entering than by
rough words or sorry sighs going out of the inner caverns.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>When we find the right man in the right place, our minds are
at ease. The future becomes satisfactory as the past. Anticipation is glad
certainty, not anxious doubt. Trusting our gastronomic welfare fully to this
great artist, we tried for fish below the dam. Only petty fishlings, weighing
ounces, took the bit between their teeth. We therefore doffed the fisherman and
donned the artist and poet, and chased our own fancies down the dark whirlpooling
river, along its dell of evergreens, now lurid with the last glows of twilight.
<span lang=ES-TRAD>Iglesias</span> and I continued dreamily gazing down the thoro'fare
toward Mollychunkamug only a certain length of time. Man keeps up to his
highest elations hardly longer than a <i>danseuse</i> can poise in a <i>pose</i>.
To be conscious of the highest beauty demands an involuntary intentness of
observation so fanatically eager that presently we are prostrated and need
stimulants. And just as we sensitively felt this exhaustion and this need, we
heard a suggestive voice calling us from the front-door of the mansion-house of
<span lang=FR>Damville</span>, and "Supper" was the cry.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>A call to the table may quell and may awaken romance. When,
in some abode of poetized luxury, the "silver knell" sounds musically
six, and a door opens toward a glitter that is not pewter and Wedgewood, and,
with a being fair and changeful as a sunset cloud upon my arm, I move under the
archway of blue curtains toward the asphodel and the nectar, then, O Reader! 0
Friend! romance crowds into my heart, as color and fragrance crowd into a rose-bud.
Joseph Bourgogne, cook at <span lang=FR>Damville</span> on Moosetocmaguntic,
could not offer us such substitute for aesthetic emotions. But his voice of an
artist created a winning picture half veiled with mists, evanescent and
affectionate, such as linger fondly over Pork-and-Beans.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>Fancied joy soon to become fact. We entered the barrack.
Beneath its smoky roof-tree was a pervading aroma; near the centre of that
aroma, a table dim with wefts of incense; at the innermost centre of that aroma
and that incense, and whence those visible and viewless fountains streamed, was
their source,—a Dish of Pork-and-Beans.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>Topmostly this. There were lesser viands, buttresses to this
towering triumph. Minor smokes from minor censers. A circle of little craterlings
about the great crater,—of little fiery cones about that great volcanic
dome in the midst, unopened, but bursting with bounty. We sat down, and one of
the red-shirted boldly crushed the smoking dome. The brave fellow plunged in
with a spoon and heaped our plates.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal><i>A priori</i> we had deduced Joseph <span lang=FR>Bourgogne's</span>
results from inspection of Joseph. Now we could reason back from one <i>experimentum
</i><i><span lang=ES-TRAD>crucis</span></i> cooked by him. Effect and cause
were worthy of each other.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>The average world must be revenged upon Genius. Greatness
must be punished by itself or another. Joseph Bourgogne was no exception to the
laws of the misery of Genius. He had a distressing trait, whose exhibition
tickled the <i><span lang=FR>dura</span><span lang=FR> </span>ilia</i> of the
reapers of the forest. Joseph, poet-cook, was sensitive to new ideas. This sensitiveness
to the peremptory thought made him the slave of the wags of <span lang=FR>Damville</span>.
Whenever he had anything in his hands, at a stern, quick command he would drop
it nervously. Did he approach the table with a second dish of pork-and-beans, a
yellow dish of beans, browned delicately as a <span lang=FR>Sèvres</span> vase,
then would some full-fed rogue, waiting until Joseph was bending over some
devoted head, say sharply, "Drop that, Joseph!"—whereupon down
went dish and contents, emporridging the poll and person of the luckless wight
beneath. Always, were his burden pitcher of water, armful of wood, axe
dangerous to toes, mirror, or pudding, still followed the same result. And when
the poet-cook had done the mischief, he would stand shuddering at his work of
ruin, and sigh, and curse his too sensitive nature.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>In honor of us, the damster kept order. Joseph disturbed the
banquet only by entering with new triumphs of Art. Last came a climax-pie,—contents
unknown. And when that dish, fit to set before a king, was opened, the poem of
our supper was complete. J. B. sailed to the Parnassus where Ude and <span
lang=FR>Vattel</span> feast, forever cooking immortal banquets in star-lighted
spheres.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>Then we sat in the picturesque dimness of the lofty cabin,
under the void where the roof shut off the stars, and talked of the pine-woods,
of logging, measuring, and spring-drives, and of moose-hunting on snow-shoes,
until our mouths had a wild flavor more spicy than if we had chewed spruce-gum
by the hour. Spruce-gum is the aboriginal quid of these regions. Foresters chew
this tenacious morsel as tars nibble at a bit of oakum, grooms at a straw, Southerns
at tobacco, or school-girls at a slate-pencil.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>The barrack was fitted up with bunks. <span lang=ES-TRAD>Iglesias</span>
rolled into one of these. I mummied myself in my blankets and did penance upon
a bench. Pine-knots in my pallet sought out my tenderest spots. The softer wood
was worn away about these projections. Hillocky was the surface, so that I beat
about uneasily and awoke often, ready to envy <span lang=ES-TRAD>Iglesias</span>.
But from him, also, I heard sounds of struggling.</p>
<p class=Chapter>CHAPTER V.</p>
<p class=ChapterDescription>UP THE LAKES.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>Mr. Killgrove, slayer of forests, became the pilot of our
voyage up Lake Moosetocmaguntic. We shoved off in a <i>bateau</i>, while Joseph
Bourgogne, sad at losing us, stood among the stumps, waving adieux with a dish-clout.
We had solaced his soul with meed of praise. And now, alas! we left him to the
rude jokes and half-sympathies of the lumbermen. The artist-cook saw his
appreciators vanish away, and his proud dish-clout drooped like a defeated
banner.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"A fine lake," remarked <span lang=ES-TRAD>Iglesias</span>,
instituting the <span lang=FR>matutinal</span> conversation in a safe and
general way.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"Yes," returned Mr. Killgrove, "when you come
to get seven or eight feet more of water atop of this in spring, it is
considerable of a puddle."</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>Our weather seemed to be now bettering with more resolution.
Many days had passed since Aurora had shown herself,—many days since the
rising sun and the world had seen each other. But yesterday this sulky
estrangement ended, and, after the beautiful reconciliation at sunset, the
faint mists of doubt in their brief parting for a night had now no power
against the ardors of anticipated meeting. As we shot out upon the steaming
water, the sun was just looking over the lower ridges of a mountain opposite.
Air, blue and quivering, hung under shelter of the mountain-front, as if a film
from the dim purple of night were hiding there to see what beauty day had,
better than its own. The gray fog, so dreary for three mornings, was utterly
vanquished; all was vanished, save where "swimming vapors sloped athwart
the glen," and "crept from pine to pine." These had dallied,
like spies of a flying army, to watch for chances of its return; but they, too,
carried away by the enthusiasms of a world liberated and illumined, changed
their allegiance, joined the party of hope and progress, and added the grace of
their presence to the fair pageant of a better day.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>Lake Moosetocmaguntic is good,—above the average. If
its name had but two syllables, and the thing named were near Somewhere, poetry
and rhetoric would celebrate it, and the world would be prouder of itself for
another "gem." Now nobody sees it, and those who do have had their
anticipations lengthened leagues by every syllable of its sesquipedalian title.
One expects, perhaps, something more than what he finds. He finds a good
average sheet of water, set in a circlet of dark forest,—forests sloping
up to wooded hills, and these to wooded mountains. Very good and satisfactory
elements, and worth notice,—especially when the artistic eye is also a
fisherman's eye, and he detects fishy spots. As to wilderness, there can be
none more complete. At the upper end of the lake is a trace of humanity in a
deserted cabin on a small clearing. There a hermit pair once lived,—man
and wife, utterly alone for fifteen years,—once or twice a year, perhaps,
visited by lumbermen. Fifteen years alone with a wife! a trial, certainly,—not
necessarily in the desponding sense of the word; not as Yankees have it, making
trial a misfortune, but a test.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>Mr. Killgrove entertained us with resinous-flavored talk.
The voyage was unexcitingly pleasant. We passed an archipelago of scrubby
islands, and, turning away from a blue vista of hills northward, entered a
lovely curve of river richly overhung with arbor-vitae, a shadowy quiet reach
of clear water, crowded below its beautiful surface with reflected forest and
reflected sky.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"<span lang=ES-TRAD>Iglesias</span>," said I,
"we divined how Mollychunkamug had its name; now, as to Moosetocmaguntic,—hence
that elongated appellative?"</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"It was named," replied <span lang=ES-TRAD>Iglesias</span>,
"from the adventure of a certain hunter in these regions. He was moose-hunting
here in days gone by. His tale runs thus:—'I had been four days without game,
and naturally without anything to eat except pine-cones and green chestnuts.
There was no game in the forest. The trout would not bite, for I had no tackle
and no hook. I was starving. I sat me down, and rested my trusty, but futile
rifle against a fallen tree. Suddenly I heard a tread, turned my head, saw a
Moose,—took—my—gun,—tick! he was dead. I was saved. I
feasted, and in gratitude named the lake Moosetookmyguntick.' Geography has
modified it, but the name cannot be misunderstood."</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>We glided up the fair river, and presently came to the hut
of Mr. Smith, fisherman and misogynist. And there is little more to be said
about Mr. Smith. He appears in this chronicle because he owned a boat which
became our vehicle on Lake Oquossok, Aquessok, Lakewocket, or Rangeley. Mr.
Smith guided us across the carry to the next of the chain of lakes, and
embarked us in a crazy skiff. It was blowing fresh, and, not to be wrecked, we
coasted close to the gnarled arbor-vitae thickets. Smith sogered along,
drawling dull legends of trout-fishing.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"Drefful notional critturs traout be," he said,—"olluz
bitin' atwhodger haänt got. Orful contrairy critturs,—jess like fimmls. Yer
can cotch a fimml with a feather, ef she's <span lang=FR>ter</span> be cotched;
ef she haänt <span lang=FR>ter</span> be cotched, yer may scoop ther hul world
dry an' yer haänt got her. Jess so traout."</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>The misogynist bored us with his dull philosophy. The
buffetings of inland waves were not only insulting, but dangerous, to our leaky
punt. At any moment, <span lang=ES-TRAD>Iglesias</span> and I might find
ourselves floundering together in thin fresh water. Joyfully, therefore, at
last, did we discern clearings, culture, and habitations at the lake-head.
There was no tavernous village of Rangeley; that would have been too great a
contrast, after the forest and the lakes, where loons are the only disturbers
of silence,—incongruity enough to overpower utterly the ringing of woodland
music in our hearts. Rangeley was a townless township, as the outermost
township should be. We had, however, learnt from Killgrove, feller of forests,
that there was a certain farmer on the lake, one of the chieftains of that
realm, who would hospitably entertain us. Smith, wheedler of trout, landed us
in quite an ambitious foamy surf at the foot of a declivity below our future
host's farm.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>We had now traversed Lakes Umbagog, Weelocksebacook, Allegundabagog,
Mollychunkamug, Moosetocmaguntic, and Oquossok.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>We had been compelled to pronounce these names constantly.
Of course our vocal organs were distorted. Of course our vocal nervous systems
were shattered, and we had a chronic lameness of the jaws. We therefore
recognized a peculiar appropriateness in the name of our host.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>Toothaker was his name. He dwelt upon the lawn-like bank, a
hundred feet above the lake. Mr. Toothaker himself was absent, but his wife
received us hospitably, disposed us in her guest-chamber, and gratified us with
a supper.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>This was Rangeley Township, the outer settlement on the west
side of Maine. A "squire" from England gave it his name. He bought
the tract, named it, inhabited several years, a popular squire-arch, and then
returned from the wild to the tame, from pine woods and stumpy fields to the
elm-planted hedge-rows and shaven lawns of placid England. The local gossip did
not reveal any cause for Mr. Rangeley's fondness for contrasts and exile.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>Mr. Toothaker has been a careful dentist to the stumps of
his farm. It is beautifully stumpless, and slopes verdantly, or varied with
yellow harvest, down to the lake and up to the forest primeval. He has
preserved a pretty grove of birch and maple as shelter, ornament, partridge-cover,
and perpendicular wood-pile. Below his house and barns is the lovely oval of
the lake, seen across the fair fields, bright with wheat, or green with
pasture. A road, hedged with briskly-aspiring young spruces, runs for a mile
northward, making a faint show at attacking the wilderness. A mile's loneliness
is enough for this unsupported pioneer; he runs up a tree, sees nothing but
dark woods, thinks of Labrador and the North Pole, and stops.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>Next morning, Mr. Toothaker returned from a political
meeting below among the towns. It was the Presidential campaign,—stirring
days from pines to prairies, stirring days from codfish to cocoanuts. Tonguey
men were talking from every stump all over the land. Blatant patriots were
heard, wherever a flock of compatriots could be persuaded to listen. The man
with one speech containing two stories was making the tour of all the villages.
The man with two speeches, each with three stories, one of them very broad
indeed, was in request for the towns. The oratorical Stentorian man, with
inexhaustible rivers of speech and rafts of stories, was in full torrent at
mass-meetings. There was no neighborhood that might not see and hear an M. C.
But Rangeley had been the <i>minus</i> town, and by all the speech-makers
really neglected; there was danger that its voters must deposit their ballots
according to their own judgment, without any advice from strangers. This, of
course, would never do. Mr. Toothaker found that we fraternized in politics. He
called upon us, as patriots, to become the orators of the day. Why not? Except
that these seldom houses do not promise an exhilarating crowd. We promised,
however, that, if he would supply hearers, we between us would find a speaker.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>Mr. Toothaker called a nephew, and charged him to boot and
saddle, and flame it through the country-side that two "Men from New York"
were there, and would give a "Lecture on Politics," at the Red School-House,
at five, that evening.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>And to the Red School-House, at five, crowded the men, ay,
and the women and children, of Rangeley and thereabout. They came as the winds
and waves come when forests and navies are rended and stranded. Horse, foot,
and charioteers, they thronged toward the rubicund fountain of education. From
houses that lurked invisible in clearings suddenly burst forth a population, an
audience ardent with patriotism, eager for politics even from a Cockney
interpreter, and numerous enough to stir electricity in a speaker's mind. Some
of the matrons brought bundles of swaddled infants, to be early instructed in
good citizenship; but too often these young patriots were found to have but
crude notions on the subject of applause, and they were ignominiously removed,
fighting violently for their privilege of free speech, doubling their unterrified
fists, and getting as red in the face as the school-house.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>Mr. Toothaker, in a neat speech, introduced the orator, who
took his stand in the schoolmaster's pulpit, and surveyed his stalwart and
gentle hearers, filling the sloping benches and overflowing out-of-doors.
Gaffer and gammer, man and maiden, were distributed, the ladies to the right of
the aisle, the gentlemen to the left. They must not be in contact,—perhaps
because gaffer will gossip with gammer, and youth and maid will toy. Dignity
demanded that they should be distinct as the conservative Right and radical
Left of a French Assembly, Convenient, this, for the orator; since thus his
things of beauty, joys forever, he could waft, in dulcet tones, over to the
ladies' side, and his things of logic, tough morsels for life-long digestion,
he could jerk, like bolts from an arbalist, over at the open mouths of gray
gaffer and robust man.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>I am not about to report the orator's speech. Stealing
another's thunder is an offence punishable condignly ever since the days of Salmoneus.
Perhaps, too, he may wish to use the same eloquent bits in the present
Olympiad; for American life is measured by Olympiads, signalized by nobler
contests than the petty States of Greece ever knew.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>The people of Rangeley disappeared as mysteriously as they
had emerged from the woods, having had their share of the good or bad talk of
that year of freedom. If political harangues educate, the educated class was
largely recruited that that summer.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>Next day, again, was stormy. We stayed quietly under
shelter, preparing for our real journey after so much prelude. The Isaac
Newton's steam-whistle had sent up the curtain; the overture had followed with
strains <span lang=FR>Der</span>-<span lang=FR>Frei</span>-schutzy in the Adirondacks,
pastoral in the valleys of Vermont and New Hampshire, funebral and andante in
the fogs of Mollychunkamug; now it was to end in an allegretto gallopade, and
the drama would open.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>At last the sun shone bright upon the silky ripples of the
lake. Mr. Toothaker provided two buggies,—one for himself and our traps,
one for <span lang=ES-TRAD>Iglesias</span> and me. We rattled away across
county and county. And so at full speed we drove all day, and, with a few
hours' halt, all night,—all a fresh, starry night,—until gay
sunrise brought us to Skowhegan, on the road to Moosehead Lake.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>As we had <span lang=EN-GB>travelled</span> all night,
breakfast must be our substitute for slumber. Repletion, instead of repose,
must restore us. Two files of red-shirted lumbermen, brandishing knives at each
other across a long table, only excited us to livelier gymnastics; and when we
had thus hastily crammed what they call in Maine beefsteak, and what they
infuse down East for coffee, we climbed to the top of a coach of the bounding-billow
motion, and went pitching northward.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>Two facts we learned from our coachman: one, that we were
passing that day through a "pretty sassy country"; also, that the same
region was "only meant to hold the world together." Personal
"sassiness" is a trait of which every Yankee is proud; <span
lang=ES-TRAD>Iglesias</span> and I both venture to hope that we appreciate the
value of that quality, and have properly cultivated it. Topographical
"sassiness," unmodified by culture and control, is a rude, rugged,
and unattractive trait; and New England is, on the whole, "sassier"
than I could wish. Let the dullish day's drive, then, be passed over dumbly. In
the evening, we dismounted at Greenville, at the foot of Moosehead Lake.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>CHAPTER VI.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>THE BIRCH.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>The rivers of Maine, as a native observed to me, "olluz
spread 'mselves inter bulges." Mollychunkamug and her fellows are the
bulges of the Androscoggin; Moosehead, of the Kennebec. Sluggish streams do not
need such pauses. Peace is thrown away upon stolidity. The torrents of Maine
are hasty young heroes, galloping so hard when they gallop, and charging with
such rash enthusiasm when they charge, hurrying with such Achillean ardor
toward their eternity of ocean, that they would never know the influence, in
their heart of hearts, of blue cloudlessness, or the glory of noonday, or the
pageantries of sunset,—they would only tear and rive and shatter
carelessly. Nature, therefore, provides valleys for the streams to bulge in,
and entertain celestial reflections.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>Nature, arranging lake-spots as educational episodes for the
Maine rivers, disposes them also with a view to utility. Mr. Killgrove and
his fellow-lumbermen treat lakes as log-puddles and raft-depots. Moosehead is
the most important of these, and keeps a steamboat for tugging rafts and
transporting raftsmen.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>Moosehead also provides vessels far dearer to the heart of
the adventurous than anything driven by steam. Here, mayhap, will an untravelled
<span lang=EN-GB>traveller</span> make his first acquaintance with the birch-bark
canoe, and learn to call it by the affectionate diminutive, "Birch."
Earlier in life there was no love lost between him and whatever bore that name.
Even now, if the untravelled one's first acquaintance be not distinguished by
an unlovely ducking, so much the worse. The ducking must come. Caution must be
learnt by catastrophe. No one can ever know how unstable a thing is a birch
canoe, unless he has felt it slide away from under his misplaced feet. Novices
should take nude practice in empty birches, lest they spill themselves and the
load of full ones,—a wondrous easy thing to do.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>A birch canoe is the right thing in the right place. Maine's
rivers are violently impulsive and spasmodic in their running. Sometimes you
have a foamy rapid, sometimes a broad shoal, sometimes a barricade of boulders
with gleams of white water springing through or leaping over its rocks. Your
boat for voyaging here must be stout enough to buffet the rapid, light enough
to skim the shallow, agile enough to vault over, or lithe enough to slip
through, the barricade. Besides, sometimes the barricade becomes a compact
wall,—a baffler, unless boat and boatmen can circumvent it,—unless
the nautical carriage can itself be carried about the obstacle,—can be
picked up, shouldered, and made off with.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>A birch meets all these demands. It lies, light as a leaf,
on whirlpooling surfaces. A tip of the paddle can turn it into the eddy beside
the breaker. A check of the setting-pole can hold it steadfast on the brink of
wreck. Where there is water enough to varnish the pebbles, there it will glide.
A birch thirty feet long, big enough for a trio and their traps, weighs only
seventy-five pounds. When the rapid passes into a cataract, when the wall of
rock across the stream is impregnable in front, it can be taken in the flank by
an amphibious birch. The navigator lifts his canoe out of water, and bonnets
himself with it. He wears it on head and shoulders, around the impassable spot.
Below the rough water, he gets into his elongated chapeau and floats away.
Without such vessel, agile, elastic, imponderable, and transmutable, Androscoggin,
Kennebec, and Penobscot would be no thoro'fares for human beings. Musquash
might dabble, chips might drift, logs might turn somersets along their lonely
currents; but never voyager, gentle or bold, could speed through brilliant
perils, gladdening the wilderness with shout and song.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>Maine's rivers must have birch canoes; Maine's woods, of
course, therefore, provide birches. The white-birch, paper-birch, canoe-birch,
grows large in moist spots near the stream where it is needed. Seen by the
flicker of a campfire at night, they surround the intrusive <span lang=EN-GB>traveller</span>
like ghosts of giant sentinels. Once, Indian tribes with names that "nobody
can speak and nobody can spell" roamed these forests. A stouter second
growth of humanity has ousted them, save a few seedy ones who gad about the
land, and centre at Oldtown, their village near Bangor. These aborigines are
the birch-builders. They detect by the river-side the tree barked with material
for canoes. They strip it, and fashion an artistic vessel, which civilization
cannot better. Launched in the fairy lightness of this, and speeding over foamy
waters between forest-solitudes, one discovers, as if he were the first to know
it, the truest poetry of pioneer-life.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>Such poetry <span lang=ES-TRAD>Iglesias</span> had sung to
me, until my life seemed incomplete while I did not know the sentiment by
touch, description, even from the most impassioned witness, addressed to the most
imaginative hearer, is feeble. We both wanted to be in a birch: <span
lang=ES-TRAD>Iglesias</span>, because he knew the fresh, inspiring vivacity of
such a voyage; I, because I divined it. We both needed to be somewhere near the
heart of New England's wildest wilderness. We needed to see Katahdin,—the
distinctest mountain to be found on this side of the continent. Katahdin was
known to <span lang=ES-TRAD>Iglesias</span>. He had scuffled up its eastern
land-slides with a squad of lumbermen. He had birched it down to Lake Chesuncook
in by-gone summers, to see Katahdin distant. Now, in a birch we would slide
down the Penobscot, along its line of lakes, camp at Katahdin, climb it, and
speed down the river to tide-water.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>That was the great object of all our voyage with its
educating preludes,—Katahdin and a breathless dash down the Penobscot.
And while we flashed along the gleam of the river, <span lang=ES-TRAD>Iglesias</span>
fancied he might see the visible, and hear the musical, and be stirred by the
beautiful. These, truly, are not far from the daily life of any seer, listener,
and perceiver; but there, perhaps, up in the strong wilderness, we might be
recreated to a more sensitive vitality. The Antaean treatment is needful for
terrestrials, unless they would dwindle. The diviner the power in any artist-soul,
the more distinctly is he commanded to get near the divine without him. Fancies
pale, that are not fed on facts. It is very easy for any man to be a plagiarist
from himself, and present his own reminiscences half disguised, instead of new
discoveries. Now, up by Katahdin, there were new discoveries to be made; and
that mountain would sternly eye us, to know whether <span lang=ES-TRAD>Iglesias</span>
were a copyist, or I a Cockney.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>Katahdin was always in its place up in the woods. The
Penobscot was always buzzing along toward the calm reaches, where it takes the
shadow of the mountain. All we needed was the birch.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>The birch thrust itself under our noses as we drove into Greenville.
It was mounted upon a coach that preceded us, and wabbled oddly along, like a
vast hat upon a dwarf. We talked with its owner, as he dismounted it. He proved
our very man. He and his amphibious canoe had just made the trip we proposed,
with a flotilla. Certain Bostonians had essayed it,—vague Northmen,
preceding our Columbus voyage.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>Enter now upon the scene a new and important character, Cancut
the canoe-man. Mr. Cancut, owner and steerer of a birch, who now became our
"guide, philosopher, and friend," is as American as a birch, as the
Penobscot, or as <span lang=FR>Katahdin's</span> self. Cancut was a jolly
fatling,—almost too fat, if he will pardon me, for sitting in the stern
of the imponderable canoe. Cancut, though for this summer boatman or <span
lang=FR>bircher</span>, had other strings to his bow. He was taking variety
now, after employment more monotonous. Last summer, his services had been in
request throughout inhabited Maine, to "peddle gravestones and collect
bills." The Gravestone-Peddler is an institution of New England. His wares
are wanted, or will be wanted, by every one. Without discriminating the
bereaved households, he presents himself at any door, with attractive drawings
of his wares, and seduces people into paying the late tribute to their great-grandfather,
or laying up a monument for themselves against the inevitable day of demand.
His customers select from his samples a tasteful "set of stones"; and
next summer he drives up and unloads the marble, with the names well spelt, and
the cherub's head artistically <span lang=EN-GB>chiselled</span> by the best
workmen of Boston. Cancut told us, as an instance of judicious economy, how,
when he called once upon a recent widow to ask what he could do in his line for
her deceased husband's tomb, she chose from his patterns neat head- and foot-stones
for the dear defunct, and then bargained with him to throw in a small pair for
her boy Johnny,—a poor, sick crittur, that would be wanting his monument
long before next summer.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>This lugubrious business had failed to infect Mr. Cancut
with corresponding deportment. Undertakers are always <span lang=EN-GB>sombre</span>
in dreary mockery of woe. Sextons are solemncholy, if not solemn. I fear Cancut
was too cheerful for his trade, and therefore had abandoned it.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>Such was our guide, the captain, steersman, and <span
lang=FR>ballaster</span> of our vessel. We struck our bargain with him at once,
and at once proceeded to make preparations. Chiefly we prepared by stripping
ourselves bare of everything except "must-haves." A birch, besides
three men, will carry only the simplest baggage of a trio. Passengers who are
constantly to make portages will not encumber themselves with what-nots. Man
must have clothes for day and night, and must have provisions to keep his
clothes properly filled out. These two articles we took in compact form,
regretting even the necessity of guarding against a ducking by a change of
clothes. Our provision, that unrefined pork and hard tack, presently to be
converted into artist and friend, was packed with a few delicacies in a firkin,—a
commodious case, as we found.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>A little steamer plies upon the lake, doing lumber-jobs, and
not disdaining the <span lang=EN-GB>traveller's</span> dollars. Upon this, one
August morning, we embarked ourselves and our frail birch, for our voyage to
the upper end of Moosehead. <span lang=ES-TRAD>Iglesias</span>, in a red shirt,
became a bit of color in the scene. I, in a red shirt, repeated the flame. Cancut,
outweighing us both together, in a broader red shirt, outglared us both. When
we three met, and our scarlet reflections commingled, there was one spot in the
world gorgeous as a conclave of cardinals, as a squad of British grenadiers, as
a Vermont maple-wood in autumn.</p>
</div>
<div class=Section4>
<p class=Chapter>RIFLE-CLUBS.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>A sense of the importance of rifle-practice is becoming very
generally prevalent. Rifle-clubs are organizing in our country-towns, and
target-practice by individuals is increasing to a degree which proves
incontestably the interest which is felt in the subject. The chief obstacle to
the immediate and extensive practical operation of this interest lies in the
difficulty of procuring serviceable guns, except at such a cost as places them
beyond the reach of the majority of those who would be glad to make themselves
familiar with their use. Except in occasional instances, it is impossible to
procure a trustworthy rifle for a less price than forty or fifty dollars. We
believe, however, that the competition which has already become very active
between rival manufacturers will erelong effect a material reduction of price;
and we trust also that our legislators will perceive the necessity of adopting
a strict military organization of all the able-bodied men in the State, and
providing them with weapons, with whose use they should be encouraged to make
themselves familiar—apart from military drill and instruction—by
the institution of public shooting-matches for prizes. The absolute necessity
of stringent laws, in order to secure the attainment of anything worthy the
name of military education and discipline, has been clearly proved by the
experience of the drill-clubs which sprang into existence in such numbers last
year. To say, that, as a general rule, the moral strength of the community is
not sufficient to enable a volunteer association to sustain for any great
length of time the severe and irksome details which are inseparable from the
attainment of thorough military discipline, is no more a reflection upon the
class to which the remark is applied than would be the equally true assertion
that their physical strength is not equal to the performance of the work of an
ordinary day-laborer. Under the pressure of necessity, both moral and physical
strength might be forced and kept up to the required standard; but the mere
conviction of expediency is not enough to secure its development, unless
enforced by such laws as will insure universal and systematic action. A
voluntary association for military instruction may be commenced with a zeal
which will carry its members for a time through the daily routine of drilling;
but it will not be long before the ranks will begin to diminish, and the
observance of discipline become less strict; and if the officers attempt to
enforce the laws by which all have agreed to abide, those laws will speedily be
rescinded by the majority who find them galling, and the tie by which they are
bound together will prove a rope of sand.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>With the return of the troops who are now acquiring military
knowledge in the best of all possible schools, we shall possess the necessary
material for executing whatever system may be decided upon as best for the
military education of the people; but meantime we may lay the foundation for
it, and take the most efficient means of securing legislative action, by the
immediate organization of rifle-clubs for target-practice throughout the State.
These clubs may be commenced very informally by a simple agreement among those
who are interested and are provided, or will provide themselves, with weapons,
to meet together at stated intervals for target-practice, which should be conducted
according to the rules which have been found most effectual for securing good
marksmanship. The mere interest of competition will be sufficient to insure
private practice in the intervals; and if properly and respectably conducted,
the interest will increase till it becomes general, and the target-ground will
become a central object of attraction.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>We earnestly invite the attention not only of all who are
impressed with the necessity of inculcating a thorough practical knowledge of
the use of weapons, as a measure of national interest, but of all who are
interested in the subject of physical, and we may add, moral education, to the
field which is here opened, and which, if not improved, as it may be, for noble
and useful ends, will certainly be perverted for low and immoral purposes.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>The interest which is beginning to be awakened in rifle-practice
is the germ of a great movement, which it is the duty of all who have the
national welfare at heart to use their influence in guiding and directing, as
may easily be done, so that only good may result from it. Let it be
countenanced and encouraged by the men, in every community, whose words and
example give tone to public opinion, and it will become, as it ought, a means
of health-giving and generous rivalry, while it infuses a sense of national
power, which we, of all people on earth, ought to derive from the consciousness
that it is based upon the physical ability of the people to maintain their own
rights. If, however, it is frowned upon and sneered at, as unworthy the
attention of a morally and intellectually cultivated people, we shall draw upon
ourselves the curse of creating a sin,—of poisoning at its source a
fountain whose elements in themselves are not only innocent, but abounding in
the best ingredients for the development of manly physical and intellectual
character.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>We trust, however, that such a caution is unnecessary. If
there are any among us who, after the past year's experience, can look with
doubt or coldness upon such a movement as we have indicated, we should hardly
care to waste words in arguing the point. That such a feeling should have
heretofore existed is not, perhaps, surprising. The possibility of such an
emergency as has come upon us has seemed so improbable, not to say impossible,
that it has appeared like a waste of time and labor to prepare for it; and the
result has been, that we had come to look upon military education with much the
same feeling as that with which we regard the pugilistic art, as of
questionable, if not decidedly disreputable character, and such as a nation of
our respectability could by no possibility have occasion for.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>From this dream of security we have been unexpectedly and
very disagreeably awakened, by finding ourselves engaged in a war whose
magnitude we were at first slow to appreciate; and it was not till we found
ourselves ominously threatened by a foreign power, while still engaged in a
fearful struggle at home, that we seemed to be fully aroused to the necessity
of being at all times prepared for <span lang=EN-GB>defence</span>.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>Then there came over us a universal consciousness of
undeveloped strength,—the feeling of a powerful man, who knows nothing of
"the noble art of self-<span lang=EN-GB>defence</span>," at finding
himself suddenly confronted by a professional boxer, who demands, with an
ominous squaring of the shoulders, what he meant by treading on his toes,—to
which he, poor man, instead of replying that it was so obviously unintentional
that no gentleman would think of demanding an apology, is fain, in order to
escape the impending blow, to answer by assuring the bully in the most soothing
terms that no insult was intended, that he never will do so again, and hopes
that the occasion may serve as a precedent for Mr. Bully himself to avoid the
corns of his neighbors for the future.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>It is comparatively but few years since the success of
Colonel Colt in the application of the repeating principle to fire-arms was
regarded as a feat in which every American felt a national pride. It was such a
vast improvement upon anything which had previously existed, and the importance
of it was so obvious, that it became as much a matter of necessity to the whole
civilized world as iron-clad steamers have become since the demonstration of
their power which was given by the performances of the Merrimack and the
Monitor. And, indeed, the best evidence of the universal acknowledgment of this
fact is afforded by the innumerable imitations and attempts at improvement
which have since made their appearance at home and abroad.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>We have used Colt's 51-inch rifle, and also his rifled
carbine, very freely, and tested them thoroughly for range, precision,
penetration, and capacity for continued service, and for our own use in hunting
are entirely satisfied with the performance of this rifle, and should be at a
loss to imagine any possible demand of a hunter's weapon which it would fail to
meet.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>An able and interesting article on "Rifled Guns"
in the "Atlantic Monthly" for October, 1859, has the following
passage: "No breech-loading gun is so trustworthy in its execution as a
muzzle-loader; for, in spite of all precautions, the bullets will go out
irregularly. We have cut out too many balls of Sharpe's rifle from the target,
which had entered sidewise, not to be certain on this point; and we know of no
other breech-loader so little likely to err in this respect."</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>We cannot speak of Sharpe's rifle from our own experience,
but from one of the best riflemen of our acquaintance we have heard the same
report,—that the cones will occasionally turn and strike sidewise. We do
not believe, however, that this fault is a necessary consequence of the
peculiar method of loading; but, whatever may be the cause, with Colt's rifle
the evil does not exist. For the past year we have <span lang=EN-GB>practised</span>
with it at ranges of from fifty to six hundred yards, and have fired something
like two thousand rounds; and only three balls have struck the target sidewise,
two of which were ricochets, and the third struck a limb of a bush a few feet
in front of the target. In no other instance has the shot failed to cut a
perfectly true round hole, and these exceptions would of course be equally
applicable to any gun. With the latest pattern of Colt's rifle we have never
known an instance of a premature discharge of either of the chambers; though,
from the repeated inquiries which have been made, it is obvious that such is
the general apprehension. In reply to the common assertion, that much of the
explosive force must be lost by escape of gas between the chamber and the
barrel, we simply state the fact that we have repeatedly shot through nine
inches of solid white cedar timber at forty yards. Finally, at two hundred
yards, we find no difficulty in making an average of five inches from the
centre, in ten successive shots, of which eight inches is the extreme
variation. This is good enough for any ordinary purposes of hunting or military
service,—for anything, in short, but gambling or fancy work; and for our
own use, against either man or beast, we should ask no better weapon. But we
should be very far from advocating its general adoption in military service;
and, indeed, our own experience with it has brought the conviction that the
repeating principle in any form is decidedly objectionable in guns for the use
of ordinary troops of the line. We do not extend the objection to pistols in
their proper place, but speak now solely of rifles in the hands of infantry.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>In action, the time of each soldier must of necessity be
divided between the processes of loading and firing; and it is better that
these should come in regular alternate succession than that a series of rapid
shots should be succeeded by the longer interval required for inserting a
number of charges. It would be hard to assign definitely the most important
reasons for this conviction, which are based upon, elements that prevail so
generally in the moral and physical characters of men, and which we have so
often seen developed in the excitement of hunting large game, that we can
readily appreciate the motives which have made sagacious military men very shy
of trusting miscellaneous bodies of soldiers with a weapon whose possible
advantages are more than counterbalanced by the probable mischief that must
ensue from the want of such instinctive power of manipulation as could result
only from constant and long-continued familiarity, and which even then might be
paralyzed in very many instances by nervous excitement.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>We would not, however, be understood as condemning breech-loading
guns for military service. On the contrary, we are firm in the conviction that
they are destined to supersede entirely every species of muzzle-loaders, which
will thenceforward be regarded only as curious evidences of the difficulty of
making an advance of a single step, which, when taken, seems so simple that it
appears incredible that it was not thought of before. The ingenuity of
thousands of our most skilful men is now turned in this direction, and
stimulated by a demand which will obviously insure a fortune to the successful
competitor. The advantages of a breech-loading gun consist in the greater
rapidity with which it can be loaded and fired, and the avoidance of the
exposure incident to the motions of drawing the ramrod and ramming the
cartridge. We are well aware that rapid firing is in itself an evil, and that a
common complaint with officers is that the men will not take time enough in
aiming to insure efficiency; but granting this, it by no means follows that the
evil will be increased by the ability to load rapidly. Its remedy lies in
thorough discipline and practical knowledge of the use of the gun; and the
soldier will be more likely to take time for aiming, if he knows he can be
ready to repeat his shot almost instantly.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>The contingencies of actual service demand the use of
different kinds of guns to suit the different circumstances which may arise. In
rifle-pits, against batteries, or for picking off artillerymen through the
embrasures of a fort, the telescope-rifle has established its reputation beyond
all question during the war in which we are now engaged. In repeated instances
the enemy's batteries have been effectually kept silent by the aid of this
weapon, till counter-works could be established, which could by no possibility
have been constructed but for such assistance. During the siege of Yorktown,
especially, the fact is historical that the Confederates acquired such a dread
of these weapons that they forced their negroes to the work of serving the
guns, which they did not dare attempt themselves, and our men were reluctantly
compelled, in self-<span lang=EN-GB>defence</span>, to pick off the poor
fellows who were unwillingly opposed to them. In more than one instance after
an engagement, members of the "Andrew Sharp-shooters" have indicated
precisely the spot where their victims would be found, and the exact position
of the bullet-holes which had caused their death; for with the telescope-rifle
the question is not, whether an enemy shall be hit, but what particular feature
of his face, or which button of his coat shall be the target. That this is no
exaggeration may be easily proved by the indisputable evidence of hundreds of
targets, every shot in which may be covered by the palm of the hand, though
fired from a distance at which no unassisted eye could possibly discern the
object aimed at.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>But the telescope-rifle is utterly useless, except for
special service. The great body of infantry comprised in an army must be
provided with guns whose general appearance and character admit of no essential
variation from the standard which experience has proved to be the best for the
wants of the service.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>We have given our objections to the whole class of repeating
guns in what we have said of Colt's rifles; and we proceed to note the defects
of other breech-loading guns, some of which would constitute no ground of
objection to the sportsman, but are inadmissible in the soldier's gun. It is,
of course, essential that any breech-loading gun which is offered for
introduction in the army should be at least equal in range, penetration, and
precision, to the best muzzle-loader now in use. It must be so simple in its
construction and mode of operation that its manipulation may readily become an
instinctive action, requiring no exercise of thought or judgment to guard
against errors which might effect a derangement,—for a large portion of
any miscellaneous body of men would be found incapable of exercising such
judgment in the excitement of action. The limbs and joints comprised in the
arrangement for introducing the charge at the breech must not only be so simple
as to avoid the danger of making mistakes in their use, but of such strength as
will bear the rough usage incident to field-service. They must, of course, make
a perfectly tight joint, and there must be no possibility of their becoming
clogged by fouling, so as to affect the facility with which they are worked.
And finally, it is vitally important that no special ammunition be required, a
failure in the supply of which may render the weapon useless.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>As this last objection would rule out the whole class of
guns requiring metallic cartridges, and as there are undeniable advantages connected
with their use, we deem it necessary to give our reasons for this decision
somewhat at length. The cartridges are made of copper and filled with powder,
and the ball being inserted in the end, they are compressed about its base so
as to render them perfectly water-tight. The fulminating powder, being in the
base of the cartridge, is exploded by the blow of the hammer, which falls
directly upon it. The advantages are, that there is no escape of gas, and no
liability of injury from water; and experience has abundantly proved the
excellence of the system in the essential qualities of precision and force. The
most obvious objection to them is the one above alluded to. The cartridges
must, of necessity, be made by special machinery, and can be supplied only from
the manufactory. To this it is replied, that the same objection may be urged
against the use of percussion-caps. We grant it; and if it were possible to
dispense with them, it would be an obvious gain. But because we must have caps,
in spite of their disadvantages, it does not follow that we should increase
unnecessarily the equipments against which the same objection exists in a much
greater degree, owing to the more intricate process of manufacture and the very
much greater difficulty of transportation. The additional weight for the
soldier to carry, also, is no trifle, and will not be overlooked by those who
appreciate the importance of every ounce that is saved. But apart from minor
objections, a fatal one lies in the fact that every cartridge-box filled with
this ammunition may be considered as a shell liable to explode by concussion
and spread destruction around it. The powder and fulminating composition being
always in contact in every cartridge, it is obvious that a chance shot may
explode the whole boxful; and we have proved by experiment that this is not an
imaginary danger.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>Since the appearance of our previous article on "The
Use of the Rifle," our attention has been called to several new inventions
for breech-loading, some of them exceedingly ingenious and curious, but only
one of which has at once commended itself as being so obviously and distinctly
an improvement as to induce a further test of its powers, and has proved on
trial so entirely efficient, and free from the faults which seemed to be
inseparable from the system, as to lead to the belief, which we confidently
express, that its general adoption as a military weapon must be a necessary
consequence of its becoming known.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>As a full description and report of the trial of this gun
has been officially prepared by a commission appointed for the purpose, and
will probably be published, we shall only say of it here that its performance
is equal in all respects to that of the best muzzle-loader, and, while
possessing all the advantages, it is entirely free from any of the objections
which pertain in one form or another to every breech-loading gun we have
heretofore had an opportunity to inspect. In appearance it is so nearly like
the ordinary soldier's musket that the difference can be perceived only on
examination; and, indeed, it may be used as a muzzle-loader either with a
cartridge or with loose powder and ball. It is so simple in its mode of
operation that there is less danger of error than with a muzzle-loader; yet the
anatomical construction of the limbs and joints secures a degree of strength
equal to that of a solid mass of iron. The force of the explosion causes so
perfect a closing of the joint as to prevent any possible escape of gas, yet
the breech may be removed by as simple a process as that of cocking the gun;
and we have in the course of experiment fired the gun three hundred times, and
have since seen it fired five hundred times, without once wiping or cleaning,
and the working of the joints was as easy and the shooting as good at the last
as at first.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>It is a singular fact in the history of arms, that the
successive improvements in their construction have occurred at long intervals,
and have made but slow progress towards general adoption even when their
advantages were apparent. It was more than a century after muskets were first
used in war before they were introduced in the English army to the exclusion of
bows and arrows; more than fifty years passed after the invention of flint-locks
before they were substituted for match-locks; and many years elapsed after the
invention of the percussion-lock before it came into general use.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>It is probable that the introduction of breech-loading guns
will be proportionally slow. A distinguished English military writer says:
"With respect to the choice between muzzle-loaders and breech-loaders, I
am quite satisfied that the latter will eventually carry the day. The best
principles of construction may not yet have been discovered; but I have no more
doubt of their advantage over the muzzle-loaders than I have of the superiority
of the percussion—over flint-lock guns."</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>We coincide entirely in this opinion, and we have a very
strong feeling of confidence that the gun we have alluded to is destined to
achieve the consummation here predicted.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>For clubs which propose to combine a military drill with
target-practice, it is of course essential that the guns should be of uniform
pattern. But in our country-towns, until some definite system of military
organization is established by law, it is not likely that volunteer
associations will be formed for anything more than the object of perfecting
themselves in marksmanship. Great numbers of able-bodied men may be found in
every community, who will be very ready to join associations to meet at stated
intervals for simple target-practice, but who could not afford the time which
would necessarily be required for the attainment of anything like efficient
discipline as soldiers. For such associations it is not only unimportant that
the arms should be of uniform pattern, but a diversity is even desirable, as
affording the means of testing their comparative merits, and thus giving the
members the opportunity of learning from actual observation the governing
principles of the science of projectiles.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>It is essential, however, to the attainment of any proper
degree of skill in the use of the rifle that it should be acquired
systematically. Experience has proved to the instructors at the <span
lang=EN-GB>Hythe</span> School, that, "the less practice the pupil has
previously had with the rifle, the better shot he is likely in a limited period
to become; for, in shooting, bad habits of any kind are difficult to eradicate,
and such is the <span lang=EN-GB>Hythe</span> system that it does not admit of
being grafted upon any other. Those who have been zealously engaged in maturing
it have left nothing to chance; they have ascertained by innumerable trials the
best way in which every minute portion of the task to be executed should be
performed, and no deviation, however slight, should be attempted from the
directions laid down. By rigid adherence to them, far more than average
proficiency in shooting is attainable without the expenditure of a single ball-cartridge.
Paradoxical as this may seem, it is nevertheless strictly true. It is only,
however, to be accomplished by a course of aiming and position drill."<a
href="#_edn2" name="_ednref2" title=""><span class=MsoEndnoteReference><span
class=MsoEndnoteReference><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman"'>[2]</span></span></span></a></p>
<p class=MsoNormal>We have seen too many instances of poor shooting by men who
passed for good riflemen, owing to ignorance of principles whose observance
would alone enable them to adapt their practice to varying circumstances, to
have any doubt of the important truth contained in the above extract; and we
would urge its careful consideration and a compliance with its suggestions upon
every association of riflemen.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>With all the instruction which can be got from books and
teachers, however, it is only by constant practice that one can attain the
degree of skill which inspires entire confidence in his capacity to develop the
best powers of the rifle. It seems a very simple thing to bring the line of
sight upon the target, and to pull the trigger at the right moment; but, in
reality, it is what no man can do without continued practice, and he who has
attained the power will confirm the assertion that the art of doing it is
indescribable, and must be acquired by every man for himself.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>For the sake of first becoming familiar with the powers of
the weapon, we advise beginners to <span lang=EN-GB>practise</span> for a time
with a rest. This should be a bag of sand, or some equally inelastic substance,
on which the gun can repose firmly and steadily; and a little practice with
such aid will enable the shooter to realize the relation of the line of sight
to the trajectory under varying circumstances of wind and light, and thus to
proceed knowingly in his subsequent training. But we are unwilling to give this
advice without accompanying it with the caution not to continue the practice
till it becomes habitual. It is very difficult for one who is accustomed to use
a rest to feel the confidence which is essential to success, when shooting from
the shoulder; and no one is deserving the name of a rifleman who requires such
aid.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>It is difficult for an inexperienced person to conceive of
the effect of even a light wind upon so small an object as a rifle-ball, when
shot from the gun. The difficulty arises from the impossibility of taking in
the idea of such rapid flight, or of the resistance produced by it, by
comparison with anything within the limits of our experience. We may attain a
conception of it, however, by trying to move a stick through the water. Moving
it slowly, the resistance is imperceptible; but as we increase the velocity, we
find the difficulty to increase very rapidly, and if we try to strike a quick
blow through the water, we find the resistance so enormous that the effort is
almost paralyzed. Mathematically, the resistance increases in the ratio of the
square of the velocity; and although the air is of course more easily displaced
than water, the same rule applies to it, and the flight of a ball is so
inconceivably rapid that the resistance becomes enormous. The average initial
velocity of a cannon- or rifle-ball is sixteen hundred feet in a second, and a
twelve-pound round shot, moving at this rate, encounters an atmospheric
resistance of nearly two hundred pounds, or more than sixteen times its own
weight. Perhaps a clearer idea may be attained by the statement of the fact,
that, were it possible to remove this resistance, or, in other words, to fire a
ball in a vacuum, it would fly ten miles in a second,—the same time it
now requires to move sixteen hundred feet. Bearing in mind this enormous
resistance, it will be more readily apparent that even a slight motion of the
element through which the ball is struggling must influence its course. For
this reason it is that the best time to shoot, as a general rule, is in the
morning or evening, when the air is most apt to be perfectly calm. It will
often be found, after making very satisfactory shots at sunrise, that by ten
o'clock, even on what would be called a calm day, it is impossible to attain to
anything like the accuracy with which the day's work was begun; and, owing to
the irregular motion of the air, the difficulty cannot be overcome, except to a
limited degree, by making allowance for it.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>It is well, however, to <span lang=EN-GB>practise</span> in
all possible conditions of weather, and not to be discouraged at finding
unaccountable variations at different times in the flight of balls. A few
weeks' experience will at least enable the learner to judge of the veracity of
a class of stories one often hears, of the feats of backwoodsmen. It is not
long since we were gravely assured by a quondam <span lang=EN-GB>travelling</span>
acquaintance, who no doubt believed it himself, that there were plenty of men
in the South who could shave off either ear of a squirrel with a rifle-ball at
one hundred yards, without doing him further injury. A short experience of
target-shooting will suffice to demonstrate the absurdity of all the wonderful
stories of this class which are told and often insisted on with all the bigotry
of ignorance. A somewhat extended acquaintance with backwoodsmen has served
only to convince us, that, while a practical familiarity with the rifle is more
general with them than with us, a scientific knowledge of its principles is
rare; and the best target-shooting we have ever seen was in New England.</p>
</div>
<div class=Section5>
<p class=Chapter>TWO SUMMERS.</p>
<p class=Poemnewstanza>Last summer, when athwart the sky</p>
<p class=PoemIndent2>Shone the immeasurable days,</p>
<p class=Poem>We wandered slowly, you and I,</p>
<p class=PoemIndent2>Adown these leafy forest-ways,</p>
<p class=Poemnewstanza>With laugh and song and sportive speech,</p>
<p class=PoemIndent2>And mirthful tales of earlier years,</p>
<p class=Poem>Though deep within the soul of each</p>
<p class=PoemIndent2>Lay thoughts too sorrowful for tears,</p>
<p class=Poemnewstanza>Because—I marked it many a time—</p>
<p class=PoemIndent2>Your feet grew slower day by day,</p>
<p class=Poem>And where I did not fear to climb</p>
<p class=PoemIndent2>You paused to find an easier way.</p>
<p class=Poemnewstanza>And all the while a boding fear</p>
<p class=PoemIndent2>Pressed hard and heavy on my heart;</p>
<p class=Poem>Yet still with words of hope and cheer</p>
<p class=PoemIndent2>I bade the gathering grief depart,</p>
<p class=Poemnewstanza>Saying,—"When next these purple bells</p>
<p class=PoemIndent2>And these red columbines return,—</p>
<p class=Poem>When woods are full of <span lang=EN-GB>piny</span> smells,</p>
<p class=PoemIndent2>And this faint fragrance of the fern,—</p>
<p class=Poemnewstanza>"When the wild white-weed's bright surprise</p>
<p class=PoemIndent2>Looks up from all the strawberried plain,</p>
<p class=Poem>Like thousands of astonished eyes,—</p>
<p class=PoemIndent2>Dear child, you will be well again!"</p>
<p class=Poemnewstanza>Again the <span lang=EN-GB>marvellous</span> days are
here;</p>
<p class=PoemIndent2>Warm on my cheek the sunshine burns,</p>
<p class=Poem>And fledged birds chirp, and far and near</p>
<p class=PoemIndent2>Floats the strange sweetness of the ferns.</p>
<p class=Poemnewstanza>But down these ways I walk alone,</p>
<p class=PoemIndent2>Tearless, companionless, and dumb,—</p>
<p class=Poem>Or rest upon this way-side stone,</p>
<p class=PoemIndent2>To wait for one who does not come.</p>
<p class=Poemnewstanza>Yet all is even as I foretold:</p>
<p class=PoemIndent2>The summer shines on wave and wild,</p>
<p class=Poem>The fern is fragrant as of old,</p>
<p class=PoemIndent2>And you are well again, dear child!</p>
</div>
<div class=Section6>
<p class=Chapter>MR. AXTELL.</p>
<p class=ChapterDescription>PART II.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>Katie (the doctor's name for her) said consolingly, as we
went up-stairs,—</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"I am going to sleep in Miss <span lang=FR>Lettie's</span>
little dressing-room; the door is close beside her bed. If you want me, you can
speak,—I shall be sure to hear"; and she lighted my footsteps to the
door.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>I went in hastily, for Katie was gone. The statuesque lady
became informed with life; she started violently, and said,—</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"Who is it?"</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"I beg pardon for the noise," I said; "how
are you?"</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"Thank you, a pain up here, Kate"; and she put her
hand, so long giving support to her chin, upon the top of her head.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"It isn't Kate"; and I came into full view.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>She looked up at me.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"Why, you are—yes, I know—Miss
Percival," she said.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"I am."</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"Have you been here long?"</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"Only since yesterday."</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>Why did she seem relieved at my reply?</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"Do they think me ill enough to have a stranger come to
me?"</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"Almost as polite as the grum brother," I thought;
but I said, "You mustn't let me be a stranger to you. I came,—I
wasn't sent for."</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>She made an effort to rise from her seat, but, unable,
turned her eyes toward the windows.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"What is it?" I asked.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"I thought I'd like to know what the weather looks
like."</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"Then let me lift the curtains"; and I drew aside
the folds, but there was nothing to be seen. The moon was not yet up; and even
had it been, there was slight chance for seeing it, as the sun had stayed
behind clouds all the day.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"Put them down, please; there's no light out
there."</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"The doctor left some medicine for you; will you take
it?"</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"No, I thank you. I hate medicines."</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"So do I."</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"Then pray tell me what you wish me to take it
for."</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"You mistake; it was the doctor's order, not
mine."</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"The very idea of asking that image of calm decision
there to do anything!—but then I must, I am nurse"; so I ventured,
"Had you not better go to bed?"</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"After a little. Would you bathe my head? this pain
distresses me, and I don't want to dream, I'd rather stay awake."</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>As I stood beside her, gently applying the cooling remedy,
trying to stroke away the pain, she asked,—</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"Did they tell you that my mother is dead?"</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"Yes."</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"She was my mother. Oh, why didn't I tell her? Why?
why?" and great spasms of torturesome pain drew her beautiful face. I
didn't tell you how beautiful she is. Well, it doesn't matter; you couldn't
understand, if I should try.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>She turned suddenly, caught my dress in her hands, and
asked,—</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"Have you a mother, Miss Percival?" and before I
could answer my sad "No," she said, "Forgive me. I forgot for
one moment"</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>My mother had been twenty years dead. What did she know
about it? I, three years old when she died, but just remembered her.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>Katie came in, bringing "thoughts of me" condensed
into aromatic draughts of coffee, which she put upon the hearth, "to keep
warm," she said.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>I asked her to bring some "sweet" to mix the
powder in.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"I hate disguises," said Miss Axtell; "I'd
rather have true bitters than cover them just a little with sugars. Give it me,
if I must take it."</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"But you can't,—not <i>this</i> powder."</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"A glass of water, Kate, please"; and she actually
took the bitter dose of Dover in all its undisguised severity.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"There! isn't that a thousand times better than
covering it all up in a sweetness that one knows isn't true?"</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>She looked a little as if expecting an answer. I would have
preferred not saying my thought, and was waiting, when she asked,—</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"Don't you think on the subject?"</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"Yes; I think that I like the bitter better when it is
concealed."</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"You wouldn't, if you knew, if you had tried it,
child."</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"Oh, I have taken a Dover's-powder often, and I always
bury it in sirup."</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>She looked a little startled, odd look at me.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"Do you think I'm talking about that simple powder that
I've been taking?"</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"Weren't you?"</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"Come here, innocent little thing!" she said, and
motioned me to a footstool at her feet.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>Her adjectives were both very unsuitable, when applied to
me; but I was nurse, and must yield to the whim of my patient.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"Kate, look after Mr. Axtell."</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>Poor Kate went out, more from the habit of obedience than
apparently to obey any such behest; but she went, nevertheless.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"I know who you are; I knew your mother," she
said. "Never attempt to cover up bitterness; it has its use in the
world."</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"Will you go to bed now? It's very late," I
ventured.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>She went on as though I had not spoken at all,—</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"There's somebody dead down-stairs, there,—now,—this
minute;—but dead,—dead,—gone beyond my reach.—Child!
child! do you know, do you feel what I mean?"</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"How can I? I haven't seen her; I never saw her."</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"She's dead,—she's dead,—and I meant to—oh!
I meant to do it before she died. Why didn't something tell me? Things do come
and speak to me sometimes,—why not last night?"</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>I got anxious. Was this what the doctor meant by incoherent
talking? Away up the village-street I heard the bell striking for midnight.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"It is time you were asleep; please try and
sleep."</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>My words did not stay her; she went on,—</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"If it only had,—then,—at the last,—she
might have forgiven;—yes,—think, it might have been,—and it <i>is</i>
not,—no, it <i>is not</i>!—and she lies dead, down-stairs, in the
very room!—But are you sure? Perhaps she isn't dead. Such things have
been."</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>Oh! what should I do? I thought of Katie. "The next
door," she said; there were but two in the room; it must be this one,
then. I opened it. "No, this is a closet,—dresses are hanging
there," I thought; "but there is a door leading out from it." I
looked back to the chair, where Miss Axtell still sat; she was talking to
herself, as if I had not left the room. I could not venture to open this
unknown door without a light to flow into its darkness. I went back into the
room and took up a lamp.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"What are you doing?" Miss Axtell stopped to ask;
then, forgetting me, she resumed her self-questioning.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>I lighted the lamp and went into the closet. I said that
there were dresses hanging there. Among them my eyes singled out one; it was
not bright,—no, it was a grave, brown, plaid dress. I tried to call Kate.
My voice would not obey me. My tongue was still. I grasped the knob and turned
it; the door opened. Poor Katie! she was asleep. She started up, bringing the
larger half of a dream with her, I'm sure. "It's not so dreadful. You have
me left, father," she said, with her young face rosy, and very sleepy. I
went close to her, put my hand upon the cover, and said,—</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"You must call Mr. Axtell, Katie."</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"For what? Is Miss Axtell worse?"</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"I think so; she will not <span lang=FR>lie</span>
down."</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"Do you think I might try to coax her?"—and
Katie rubbed her heavy eyelids, open too soon.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"If you think you can."</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>Miss Axtell had ceased to talk; she had fallen back into the
old absorbed state. Katie kneeled down beside her chair, and spoke.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"Miss Lettie!" she said.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>Miss Lettie did not answer. Katie put out one finger only. I
saw it shake a bit, as she laid it upon Miss <span lang=FR>Lettie's</span>
hand. As when the doctor touched her forehead, she came back to her proper self,
and said,—</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"What is it, Kate? Isn't it time you were asleep?"</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"Don't you know that my mother is dead?" said poor
motherless Katie.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"And so is mine," said Miss Axtell.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"And mine," added I.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"And is it for that that you don't sleep, Kate?"</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"No, Ma'am; but it is because you won't try to sleep;
and you told us all, when my mother died, that"—and Katie stopped
there.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"Why don't you go on?" I asked, in a low voice.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"I can't,—I don't remember the words; but you
said, Miss Lettie, that too much sorrow was wicked."</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"And so it is; and mine is, if it keeps you awake. I
will <span lang=FR>lie</span> down."</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>The little maid so kindly, gently arranged the pillows, and
made the lady comfortable, that there was little left for me to do.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>When she went back to bury the dream that I so suddenly drew
out of the balmy land, I had only to shade the light, stir the fire a little,
and then wait. From afar up the street came the stroke of one. Miss Axtell's
face was turned away from me. I could only fancy that her eyes were closed.
Once she put an arm over the pillow. I touched it. It burned with fever-heat.
Then all was still. I sat upon a lounge, comfort-giving, related to the chair
in style of covering. I fancied, after a long quiet, that my patient was
asleep. I kept myself awake by examining this room that I was in. It was, like
most of the other rooms, a hexagon, with two windows looking eastward. An air
of homeness was over, and in, its every appointment. It seemed a room to sing
in; <i>were</i> songs ever heard there? I laid my head upon my hand, and listened
to one that Fancy tried to sing,—I, who never sing, in whose soul music
rolls and swells in great ocean-waves, that never in this world will break
against the shore of sound; and so I builded one, very wild and porous and
wavering, a style of iceberg shore, far out in the limitless, waters, and
listened to the echoes that came,—and, listening, must have fallen into
sleep.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>I awoke with a chill feeling, as if the fire had gone down.
A draught seemed blowing upon me. I got up with a full sense of my position as
keeper of that fire, and went to it. The door into the hall was open. I glanced
at the bed; Miss Axtell was not there. The hall was dark. I caught up the lamp
and hurried out. I leaned over the balustrade and looked down the stairway.
Slowly going down I saw Miss Axtell. Was she a somnambulist? Perhaps so. I must
be cautious. I hastened after her, moving as noiselessly as she. I took the
precaution to leave the lamp in the upper hall. She was leaning against the
wall-side of the staircase. Just as she reached the lower step, I put my arm
around her. There was no need; she was fully awake.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"Will you go back to sleep?" she asked of me,
before I could find time to make the same request of her.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"No,—I came here for you. Where are you
going?"</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"In there"; and she pointed to the room where I
had seen the doctor and Katie go,—where she who was dead lay.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"Oh, come back! please do! that is no place for
you"; and I endeavored to turn her steps.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"It is well that you say it. She's in there; perhaps
she isn't dead. Such things have been. It was sudden, you know. Let me
go."</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>I held her with all the strength I had.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"Leave me to myself. I'm going to tell her,—to
tell her <i>now</i>. She'll hear me better than to-morrow; they'll have a
fathom of earth over her heart then: that will be deeper than all that love of
Abraham which covered up her heart from me."</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>What could I do? Despite my holding arms, she was gaining
toward that fatal door, and the light was very dim. I called Katie three times,
Miss Axtell still getting near to that I dreaded.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>I heard a door open. I looked back, and saw Mr. Axtell
coming from the library. He came quickly along the hall, arrested his sister's
progress, and said gently, as twice he had spoken before,—</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"Lettie, where are you going?"</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"In there, Abraham."</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"No, Lettie, you are sick; you must go back up-stairs."</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"I will, when I have told her what I wish."</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"Whom?"</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"Mother."</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>What could Mr. Axtell have meant? He asked me to bring down
the lamp; he took it in his own hand, and, supporting his sister, moved on. Was
he going to take her in there. He did. I fled back to the library; trembling in
affright, I sank into the first chair, and, covering my face with my hands,
thought,—</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"What terrible people these are! Why did I come here,
where I was not wanted?"</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"Poor child!"</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>I started up at the words. Mr. Axtell left the door open.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"You think it strange that I let my sister follow out
such a sick fancy, I suppose."</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"I think it is dreadful,—terrible."</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"Oh, no, it is not. Why do you think so?"</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"Talking to dead people!"</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"Well?"</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"They don't hear you."</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"Perhaps not."</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"You <i>know</i> they <i>can't</i>."</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"No, I do not."</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"Then go and learn it. Will you go and listen in
there?"</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"I will not."</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"Why?"</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"Lettie wished to be alone."</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"You're very strange people."</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"We are."</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>He got up quickly, confusedly, crossed the room, and turned
a picture that was upon the sofa. I had not noticed it before. I glanced up at
the wall. The face was gone. The picture that be turned must have been that. He
came back and stood before me.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"Were you frightened when Lettie came down?" he
asked.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"Yes; how could I help it?"</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"Why didn't you turn the lock?"</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"I was asleep when she went out."</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"What awakened you?"</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"The cold air from the hall."</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"A careful nurse, you are!"</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"I am not careful."</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"No?"</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>He teased me, this man. I hate to be teased. And all this
time, whilst he stood questioning me, Miss Axtell was in that lone, silent
room, confessing to the dead. It was worse than the tower-confessional; and
besides, what had she done that was so bad? Nothing, I felt convinced. Why would
she do such a thing?</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>I think I must have spoken the last thought; for Mr. Axtell
answered it in his next words.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"Lettie is only working out a necessity of her own
spirit. She is not harming any living soul. I cannot see why you should look so
white and terrified about it. Have you tasted the coffee?"</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>I had not thought of it: I told him so.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"Did you give my sister what the doctor left for
her?"</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>Honestly, I had forgotten that the powders were to be given
every half-hour, and I had offered only one.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"I don't think you have chosen your vocation
wisely," he said, when I had told him of my forgetfulness.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"It seems not."</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>He went out. Very gently he entered the place of the
soulless one. I heard a low, murmurous sound, with a deal of contentment in it.
After a few moments they came out. He asked me again to carry the lamp. I went
up before them. I couldn't go after; I was afraid of words, or I knew not what,
coming from that room.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>Mr. Axtell gave the second powder, evidently afraid to trust
me. Miss Lettie seemed quite tranquil,—a change had come over her. Her
brother poured a cup of coffee and <i>told</i> me to drink it. What right had
he to tell me to do anything? What right had I to notice it amid the scenes of
this night? but I did, and the coffee remained untasted.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"I cannot trust you alone," he said; and leaving
me sitting there in Miss <span lang=FR>Lettie's</span> chair before the fire,
he lay down upon the lounge and went to sleep.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>The half-hour went by; this time I would remember my duty.
Miss Axtell was awake still, but very quiet. Her face was scorched with fever,
when I gave her the third powder. I began to feel excessively sleepy; but to fail
the second time,—it would never answer. The coffee was the alternative; I
drank of it.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>Again Miss Axtell asked that I would bathe her head. That,
with the half-hour powders, which quite forgot their sleep-bestowing
characteristic, was the only change until the day began to dawn.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>Katie crept in with it, all in the little shivers March
mornings bring.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>She didn't see Mr. Axtell. She asked,—</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"How has Miss Lettie been?"</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"I haven't been asleep, I believe," answered Miss
Axtell.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>She called Katie to her, and gave some house-orders, in
which I thought I heard an allusion to breakfast, in connection with my name. I
knew nothing about the arrangements of this house, but ventured to follow Katie
out, and ask if there was any one to take my place, should I go home. Finding
that my longer stay was unneedful, I went. How lovely the earth seemed on that
morning, not long ago, and yet so long! Why could not people live with quiet
thoughts, and peaceful quietness of life, in this little country-village, where
there seemed nothing to wake up torrents?</p>
<p class=Drama> </p>
<p class=Drama> * * * * *</p>
<p class=Drama> </p>
<p class=MsoNormal>Sophie stood beside me, with a tempting little cup in her
hand; upon the table lay a breakfast,—for somebody destined, I was sure.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"I thought I'd waken you, so that you might not lose
your night's sleep," she said.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"Thank you. What time is it?"</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"Look at what the sun says."</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>She put up the shade, and the sun came in from the west.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"So long? Have I slept?"</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"So long, my dear"; and Sophie gave me a kiss.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>Sophie was not demonstrative. I answered it with—</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"What queer people you sent me to stay with!"</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"You make a mistake, Anna; think a moment; you're
dreaming; I did not send you there at all."</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"Well, what queer people I went to stay with!"</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"How was Miss Axtell, when you came away?"</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"Really, I don't know; better, I should think. But,
Sophie, pray tell me how it is that I should never have heard of them
before."</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"Partly because they have been away during the three
years that you have been in the habit of visiting us,—and partly because
Mr. Axtell, and his sister, too, I think, have a very decided way of avoiding
us. What induces Mr. Axtell to perform the office of sexton is more than any one
in the congregation can divine."</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"I intend to find out, Sophie."</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"How?"</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"In some way,—how, I cannot tell."</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"In the interim, take some breakfast, or you'll lose
your curiosity in hunger."</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>Aaron sent for Sophie just here, and, as usual, I was
deserted for him.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>I began to scheme a little. "If Miss Axtell had only
been the sexton, I could have found a thread; there must be one. Where shall I
look for it?"</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"How did you manage with our surly Abraham last night?
would he let you stay?" asked Aaron, when I joined the family of two.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"He was not very surly; I managed him considerably
better than I did his beautiful sister," I said.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>He proceeded to question me of the night-events. I told only
of the visit to the dead, leaving out the conversations preceding the event.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"An unwarrantable proceeding of Abraham's," said
Aaron.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"And that room, so cold, as they always keep such
rooms. I expect to hear that Miss Axtell is much worse to-day," was
Sophie's comment, when I had told all that I thought it right to tell.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>Aaron went away early in the afternoon, to visit some
parishioners who lived among the highlands, where the snows of winter had made
it difficult to go.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>Sophie said, she would read to me. My piece of
"knitting-work" was still unfinished, and I, sitting near a window
looking churchward, knitted, whilst Sophie pushed back from her low, cool brow
those bands of softly purplish hair, and read to me something that strangely
soothed my militant spirit, lifted me out of my present self, carried me
whither breezes of charity stirred the foliage of the world, and opened sweet
flower-blooms on dark, unpromising trees. I had been wafted up to a height
where I thought I should forever keep in memory the view I saw, and feel
charity toward all erring mortals as long as life endured, when a noise came to
my ears. I knew it instantly, before I could catch my dropping stitch and look
out. It was the first stroke on hard Mother Earth, the first knocking sound,
that said, "We've come to ask one more grave of you."</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>Sophie did not seem to have heard: she went on with her
reading. I looked out. Two men were in the church-yard: one held a measuring-line
in his hand, the other a spade. The one with the spade went on to mark the hard
winter-beaten turf,—the knotted grass he cut through. I saw him describe
the outline of a grave,—the other standing there, silently looking on.
When the grave was marked, the one wielding the spade looked up at the silent
looker-on, who bowed his head, as if to say, "It is right." Then he
began to strike deeper, to hit the stones under the sod.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"What is it?" asked Sophie, looking up, for now
she heard.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"I think it's Mrs. Axtell's grave that is to be
made," I said.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>Sophie came to the window.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"It's a wonder he don't make it himself."</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"Who make it?"</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"Why, Abraham Axtell. Look now,—see him look at
it. It would be very like him. He's fond of such doleful things. He has a way
of haunting the Church-yard. Aaron sees him there sometimes on moonlight
nights."</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>Even while she spoke, Mr. Axtell did take the spade from the
man; and striking down deeper, stronger than he, he rolled out stones, and the
yellow, hard earth, crusty with the frost not yet out of it.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"There! I thought he would. Just watch now, and see of
how much use that man is; he might as well be away," exclaimed Sophie.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>We two watched the other two in yonder church-yard, until
the pile of earth grew so high that it half-concealed them. Two or three times
the man seemed to offer to take the spade from Mr. Axtell, but he kept it and
worked away. At last the excavation grew so deep that one must needs go down
into it to make it deeper. Would Mr. Axtell go? We watched to see. Sophie said
"Yes" to the question; I thought "No." There grew a pause.
Mr. Axtell stopped in his work, looked at the man, and must have spoken; for he
picked up his coat and walked away.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"I wonder what is coming now," said Sophie.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"Nothing," answered I; "for Mr. Axtell
evidently is going."</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"Time enough to finish to-morrow," she said.—"Where
are you going, Anna?"</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"To ask after his sister," I answered, and
hastened out, for I had seen Mr. Axtell pick up the spade as if to go.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>But he did not go; he stood leaning upon the spade, looking
into the open grave, forgetful of everything above the earth. I thought to
approach him unheard and unseen; but it was willed otherwise, for I stepped
upon some of the crispy earth thrown out, and set the stones to rattling in a
very rude sort of way. He turned quickly upon me.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"You have chosen a very sad place to meditate
over," I said.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"Does it trouble you, if I have?" he asked, not
changing his position.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"No, not in the least, Sir. I came to ask after Miss
Axtell."</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"Lettie is much worse, very ill indeed, to-day."</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"I am very sorry to hear it. I ought not to have
thought myself wise enough to take care of her last night."</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"Yes, you ought; you pleased her; she has asked for you
several times to-day,—only she calls you another name. I wish you
wouldn't mind it, or seem to notice it either."</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"What is the name?"</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"Never mind it now; perhaps you will not see her until
she is sane, and then she will give you only your own."</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"I wish you would tell me."</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>The spade upon which Mr. Axtell leaned seemed suddenly to
have failed to do its duty, for it slid along the distance to the very edge of
the grave. Mr. Axtell regained his position and his strength, that had failed
only for the moment.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"No, you do not wish it," he said.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>What had become of all my sweet charity-blossoms, that
unfolded such a little time ago, when Sophie was reading to me? Surely the time
of withering had not come so soon? An untimely frost must have withered them
all, for I answered,—</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"You are dogmatical."</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"No, I am not. I only see farther on than you."</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"A pleasant way to say, 'You're blind.'"</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"And if it is true?"</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"To say it to one's self, I suppose, is the better way;
for others certainly will of you."</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"A sensible conclusion. Who taught you it?"</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"You, perhaps."</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"Did I? Then my life has been of some little use."</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"I saw you very usefully employed not long ago."</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"Doing that?" and he pointed to the open place.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"Yes, the strangest occupation I ever saw a man engaged
in."</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"The man did it awkwardly."</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"And you?"</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"Better, as you can see."</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"I'm no judge."</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"Yes, you are."</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>I saw Aaron coming, driving slowly on. I knew that I must go
in.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"Shall I come and stay with Miss Axtell to-night?"
I asked.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"You do not look able."</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"I am. I've not been long awake. I am quite
restored."</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>He looked up at me. It was the very first time that I had
seen him do so.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"Do you wish to come?" he asked.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>What a question! I couldn't answer. I thought of my tower-secret,
which I felt convinced was wrapped up in that large, <span lang=EN-GB>sombre</span>
mansion, where his dead mother (whom I had never seen) lay, and his beautiful
sister was. I had not answered him. He spoke again,—</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"As if it could please you to come where death and
suffering are! I will find some one; if not, I can stay up."</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"I will come, if you can trust me, after last night's
errors."</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"You look like one to be trusted."</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"I am glad you think so. Are my services
accepted?"</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"Gratefully, if you'll promise one thing."</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"Ask it."</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"Sleep until I send for you."</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"I can't promise."</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"You'll try?"</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"Perhaps"; and I went back to the parsonage.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>Sophie had deserted the reading and the window to do
something that she imagined would please Aaron when he came home. It was nearly
evening. The sun was gone. I resumed my seat and work.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"You look gloomy, Anna,—what is it?" asked
Aaron's evergreen voice, as Aaron's self came into the room, somewhat the worse
for mud and mountain wear. "Was last night's watching too much for
you?"</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"Oh, no; I'm going again to-night."</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"Going where?" Sophie was the questioner.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"To stay with Miss Axtell."</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"I wouldn't, Anna; one night has made you pale,"
she said.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"You're a frightened little thing," I said.
"You've Aaron's headachy eyes of yesterday."</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"Have you promised to go?" Aaron asked.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"I have. Mr. Axtell is to send for me in time."</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>No more was said on the subject. Aaron had learned many
things in his visit to the people's homes. I fancy that he gathered much
material for Sunday-sermons that afternoon. I could not help wishing that he
knew all of last night's teaching to me. An idle wish; how could he? What is
knowledge to one is but dry dust to another soul. The soils of the human heart
are as various as those of our planet, and therein as many and as strange
plants are grown. Why had I always thought mine to be adapted to the aloe?</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>The evening was dull. I asked Aaron to lend me a sermon. He
inquired,—</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"What for?"</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"To go to sleep over," I said.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"And are they so soporific?" he laughingly asked.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"It's a great while since I've read one. What have you
been doing lately in your profession? anything remarkable?"</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>He brought me one. It aroused me. The evening passed on. I
finished the sermon. Bedtime came in the parsonage, and no messenger from Mr.
Axtell for me.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>Aaron offered to go. I said, "No, they were such
strange people, I would rather not." Chloe came in from the kitchen to say
that "Kate, Miss Axtell's girl, had come, and said, 'Miss Lettie was too
ill for Miss Percival to take care of her. Mr. Abraham couldn't leave her.'"</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>The funeral was to be on the morrow.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal> </p>
<p class=MsoNormal> * * * * *</p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='text-autospace:none'><span style='font-size:8.0pt;
font-family:"Courier New"'> </span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal>The morrow came. Early after breakfast I went to the house
whereto I had gone with the neighbor's boy two nights before. I met Mr. Axtell
just leaving. I inquired after his sister.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"A bad night," he said; "the doctor is here;
are you come to stay?"</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"If I can be of use."</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>He walked back with me, went to the sick-room, and left me
there with the doctor and Miss Axtell.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>She didn't refuse medicines, it seemed; for Doctor Eaton was
administering something when I went in.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>The same eager look flashed out of his eyes when she spoke
to me. She did not remember me,—she called me Mary. Common name it is,
but the change seemed to please this quaint M.D.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"Have you found out about the face?" he asked,
when he had answered my inquiries after his patient.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"I have not."</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"It isn't there any longer. Somebody's taken it
away."</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"Ah!"</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"Don't you care to know about it?"</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"Yes, it was a pleasant face,—a prettiness of
youth about it."</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"Ask him,—do you hear, young lady?—ask
him"; and giving me directions for the morning, he left.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>Curious old doctor,—what care should he have
concerning it?</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>The opiate, if opiate it was, that Doctor Eaton gave Miss
Axtell, quickly worked its spell; for after he had gone, she scarcely noticed
me; she only moaned a little, and turned her head upon the pillow, as if to ease
the pain that made her face so flushed. The room was darkened; the fire upon
the hearth was almost out. It didn't seem the same room as that in which I had
heard my song so recently. I had nothing to do but to sit and watch,—a
sad, nerve-aching woman-work, at the best. In my pocket I had put the bit of
woman's wear that I had taken from the iron bar in my tower. I longed to open
the closet-door, and compare it with the dress that I had seen hanging there.
No opportunity came. Miss Axtell was very drowsy, if not asleep. For full three
hours not a varying occurred. Where had every one gone? Was I forgotten, buried
in with this sick lady out of the world? Not quite; for I heard the vitalizing
charm of a footstep, followed, by the gentlest of knocks, which I rejoicingly
answered. It was the brother, come to look at his sister. He walked quietly in,
stood several moments looking at her face, as she lay with half the repose of
sleep over it, then came to me and said,—</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"She looks better."</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"I am glad you think so," I replied; "she
seems very ill to me. She called me Mary, when I first came in; since then she
hasn't noticed me."</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"She called you Mary?" he said. "Are you Mary?"</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"My name is Anna," I answered.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"Then you are not Mary?"</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"Of course not; I am not two."</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>After a little while of silence, he said,—</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"My mother's funeral will be this afternoon."</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"Is there anything that I can do for you before the
time?"</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"Yes, if you will."</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"I am ready."</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"Wait here a little," he said, and went down.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>Katie came up, her young rosy face delightful to behold in
the half-way gloom that filled the place.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"Mr. Abraham is waiting to see you in the
library," she said. "I'll stay till you come up."</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>In my short journey down, I <span lang=EN-GB>marvelled</span>
much concerning what he might want. As I entered the room, I saw no visible
thing for hands to do. Now, if it were but a hat to fold the winding badge of
sorrow about, or a pair of gloves to mend; but no,—he, this strange man,
a sort of barbaric gentleman, looked down at me as I went in. "The doctor
was right; somebody has taken the face down," I thought, as my glance went
up the wall.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"What is there for me to do?" I asked; for Mr.
Axtell seemed to have forgotten that he had intimated the possibility of such
an event.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"Simply to look upon the face of my mother ere it goes
forever away."</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"Do you wish it?"</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"Very much."</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"I would rather not."</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"As you will"; and he turned away proudly, with
that high style of curling pride that has a touch of soul in it.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"No, Mr. Axtell, it is not as I will; it is very much
as I will not. I can go in there, and look at the face you wish; but it will
unfit me for the duties of life for days to come. The face that I see there
will tenant this house forever, and not this only,—it will be seen
wherever I go."</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"Can you not overcome it?"</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"Oh, yes."</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"Why not, then?"</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"It takes such sweet revenge that my overcoming is the
sorriest kind of victory."</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"It <i>is</i> strange," he said.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"What, Sir?"</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"I beg your pardon; I was thinking in words," he
replied.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"I am sorry that I cannot do as you wish," I said,
and resumed my profession in the room above.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>The day went on, never pausing one moment for the sorrow and
the suffering that another day had brought to this house in Redleaf.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>Just before the funeral-bell began to toll, Mr. Axtell came
again to the sickroom door. There was no change. I told him so. Why did the man
look as if he had been crying? Was it because he had, I wonder?</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>He did not come in. Poor man! He was the only relative, the
only one to stand at the last beside the grave he opened yesterday. I could not
help it, I held out my hand to him as he stood there in the hall, I had no
words wherewith to convey sympathy. He looked at it very much as he might have
done at one of the waxen hands that belong to waxen figures in a shop-window,
without one <span lang=FR>ray</span> of the meaning it was intended to convey
entering into his mind. I felt confused, uncomfortable. It seemed to me, then,
irreverent to his sorrow, that I, a stranger, should have attempted the proffer
of sympathy; but I must make him comprehend me.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"I wanted to say that I am sorry with you," I
said.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"Will you say it the same way again?"</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"How?" for this time it was I who did not
comprehend.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>He held out his hand. I fulfilled my original intention.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"I thank you," he said, and went down alone to his
mother's funeral.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>How do people ever live through funerals? The solemn tolling
of the bell went on. The village-people came, one by one. Aaron's voice it was
that was heard in the burial-service that came sounding in to me, sitting close
beside the bed whereon the sick one lay. There seemed a comfort in getting near
to her. At last—what a cycle of thought! time it was at last—I
heard the moving sound of many feet, and then I knew that they were carrying
her out, out of the house where she had lived, out of the house wherein she had
died, carrying her forth for burial,—forth to the grave her only son had
made for her; and I, little, shivering, cowardly soul, hid my face in my hands,
and let my tears fall,—not because I knew this proud lady dead,—not
because a <span lang=EN-GB>fibre</span> from my warm heart was being drawn out
to be knitted into that fathom-deep grave, for it never would be one of <i>my</i>
graves,—but because this death and sorrow <i>were in the world</i>, and I
must live my life out in a world <i>with them</i>. The funeral-bell stirred me.
I looked out from the window, and saw the long procession moving slowly on.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>Katie startled me, coming in.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"The minister's wife is down-stairs; she wants to know
if she may come up," she said.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"She is my sister, Katie; yes, I think she may
come."</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>I was so relieved to see Sophie; it was getting back to self
again, out of which I had gone in this house. I could not help expressing my
relief.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"There's no one down there to close the house and put
away the sad reminders," Sophie said, after asking about my patient.
"Some one ought to make it more cheerful down there before Mr. Axtell
comes."</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"Won't you, Sophie, since there's no one else?"</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>I could not yet go into the one room. Death had been too
recently there.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"I cannot put away the feeling that I am not wanted;
but it has no place here, now at least, and I will go," she said.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>So, with Katie to help, she went to throw an air of light
into the rooms below, to waft away the <span lang=EN-GB>sombre</span> shadows
that clouded them, to let in a little of the coming life that must still be
lived. And I waited on, up-stairs, and listened, counting each long, low peal
of the bell, as it shook out its solemn meaning into the March air, and lost
itself in quivering distances. They, the kindly hearts, who had come to perform
the last rite, must have moved very slowly on; for I counted out the years that
the one gone had lived, ere the bell stopped.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>Then was silence. In that stillness they were gently lifting
down the once more little one,—for are not our dead all little ones, to
be watchfully thought of, to be tenderly cared for?—yes, lifting her
gently down into the cradle that God hath prepared, and set the sun to rock,
until His smile shall awaken, and His arms lift us out of it.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>The opiate's power was past. Miss Axtell turned upon the
pillow, and asked Kate for a glass of water.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>I carried it to her, lifted her head, and she drank of it
without opening her eyes. She asked for Abraham.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"He will be here soon," I replied.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"I thought it was Kate," she said, calling me my
own name. "Have you been here long?"</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"Since morning."</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"Is it afternoon?"</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"Yes, three o'clock."</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"Why doesn't Abraham come?"</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"He was here not very long ago," I said, and asked
her to take some food, not wishing her to question me.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"Food!" she said, "what an odd word! Yes, so
that you give it to me in pleasant guise."</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"What is pleasant to you to-day?"</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"Something soft and cool."</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>What could I give her? It was very convenient having Sophie
so near. This must be Miss Axtell's self who had spoken. Delighted with the
change, I ran quickly down to beg of sister Sophie a little skill in preparing
some dish suitable to the illness up-stairs.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"I'll go and make something," she said.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>And straightway taking off her hat and cloak, and tossing
them just where mine had gone two nights before, she followed willing Katie to
regions where I had not been, and I went back to find my patient perfectly
herself,—only oblivious of time. She asked me if the various preludes to
the sad event had been properly done. I answered that it was over.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"And I was not to know it?"</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>I had heard that tone of voice, surely, somewhere else in
life. Where could it have been? I thought of my tower, and of that dress in
there. Was never to come chance of seeing it? It seemed quite probable, for the
lady asked to have the doors opened through.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"Through where?" I asked.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"All of them," she said.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>I opened the two into the dressing-room; there was still
another out of that. Uncertain if she might mean it as well, I went back to
ask.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"Yes," she said; and I opened it.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>The first object that met my sight was the painting—the
young girl's face—that had been in the library. The hair was covered, as
if one had been trying effects of light and shade. I saw this instantly, and
turned away.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"I would like you to raise the shades in there,"
Miss Axtell said. "I like the light that comes in through the distance,
the afternoon light; how much it sees upon the earth!"</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>Going in again, I drew up one, put the drapery of the
curtains back, and laid my hand upon the second, when the door from the hall
opened, admitting the owner of the place.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>Mr. Axtell did not look window-ward. He did not see me. A
stillness of thought and being crept over me. I stood, with fingers clasped
about the curtain-cord, enduring conscious paralysis. And he? He laid his
overcoat across one chair; next to it was the one on which the portrait of the
young girl had been placed. In front of it Mr. Axtell kneeled down, buried his
face in his hands, and remained motionless. A second tower I was imprisoned in,
higher up than the first,—a well, deep with veins of liquid soul, such as
man nor patriarch hath ever builded, and I, a bit of rock-moss, unable to reach
out to the light. I heard Miss Axtell's voice, and yet I could not move. She
called, "Miss Percival!"—Mr. Axtell did not lift his head; she
called, "Abraham!"—then I moved. With a slow swiftness of
silence I passed by the kneeling figure, and should have gained the door, had
not Mr. Axtell risen up. His eyes were, for the second time, upon me. A dark,
thunderous look of anger clouded his face. I stood still and looked at him. If
he had evinced emotion at my presence in any other mode, I could not have met
his look.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"Your sister wished me to raise the shades in here,"
I said; "she likes western light."</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"Why not do it, then?"—the anger rolling
sombrous as at the first,—he asked.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>I looked back. Noticing that only one of the shades was
lifted,—</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"I will leave it for you to do," I said; and with
one involuntary glance at the young, life-young face, painted there, I went.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"I thought I heard Abraham's footsteps in the
hall," said Miss Axtell, when I entered the room.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"You did," I replied. "He is come in."</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>The second time the sister called, "Abraham!"</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"Yes, Lettie," he answered; but he did not come.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"What is the matter, Abraham?" she asked.
"Why do you not come?"</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"I'm coming, Lettie."</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>I thought of the "something soft and cool" that
Sophie was making for the invalid; and the thought took me up and carried me
away before he came in.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>It was not destined that I should be long gone; for I met
Katie bringing up something, whose odor was not even a temperate one.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"How is this?" I asked of her; "did Mrs.
Wilton send it?"</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"Yes, Miss Percival."</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"Where is she, Katie?"</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"Gone home, she told me to tell you."</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>Why must Sophie run away? She fancies Aaron might not see
the stars come out, if she were not near to point their coming. I would not be
so simple, I think; but, whatever I thought, I took from rosy-faced Katie the
bowl of warm and fragrant gruel, and carried it in to Miss Axtell.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>She took it, looked up smilingly at me, and said,
"Something soft and cool."</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>Mr. Axtell held it for her, whilst slowly she took the
gruel.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>Doctor Eaton came in.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"How is this?" he asked; "we shall take great
skill and credit to our individual self for this recovery. Now tell me, Miss Lettie,
am I not the very best physician in all Redleaf?"</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"There being none other in the village, I'll permit you
to quaff the vain draught, so that you will season it with a little of my
gruel; I cannot fancy, even, where it came from," she said, playfully
extending to the doctor her spoon, half filled.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>Doctor Eaton bent forward, and put his lips to the spoon she
had not meant him to touch.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>Miss Axtell seemed surprised.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"Why did you do it?" she asked, with a little bit
of childish petulance.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"Because I think that you have taken all of it that is
good for you at present. I made use of the speediest remedy; vital cases demand
sure means, you know, Miss Lettie."</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>Mr. Axtell held the bowl of gruel no longer. Doctor Eaton
turned to me.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"Have you been here all day?" he asked.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"I have."</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"Will you put your hat on and walk in the air? There's
just time enough for you to walk to the parsonage and come back, before
dark."</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>Did Doctor Eaton know how to prescribe for cases which were
not vital? It so seemed; for he had given me my need this once. I put my hat
on, as he had recommended, and went out. The day was saying its soft, genial
farewells, that mingle so charmfully with the promise to come again, that is
repeated throughout the great city of Nature. Doctor Eaton evidently intended
to watch the effect of his dictation, for he joined me, giving me voice-intimation
of his presence.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"Have you asked him yet?" he said, coming to my
side, and speaking in his peculiar way, very much as if I were a little child,
and he its father.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"Please tell me what I am expected to do," I
replied.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"To ask Abraham Axtell about that picture, Miss
Percival. It will do him good."</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"I am afraid your prescriptions are not always the most
agreeable," I said.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"Maybe not; it seems quite possible; but bitters are
good,—try them."</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"I would rather not, Doctor Eaton."</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"No? Then offer them to others. Abraham Axtell is one
needing them."</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"You are his physician."</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"You think so?"</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"No, I take the seeming."</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"Unsafe road, young lady! don't take it,—take
mine. Just ask Abraham whose face that is, then come and tell me what he tells
you."</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"Breach of confidence, Doctor Eaton. I couldn't do it
possibly."</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"You'll tell me, though, depend upon it," he said,
and was carried off in great haste to repair a broken bone, and I saw him no
more, until—when?</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>I found the reason why Sophie must go home without one word
for me. Aaron had said that he would like some peculiar admixture of flour,
etc.; and she had feared that he might meet disappointment, unless she
prevented it by hurrying home and adding the ingredient of her hands for his
delectable comfort, which bit of spicery he undoubtedly appreciated to the
complete value of the sacrifice. Sophie is wise in her day and generation. I
look with affectionate, reverent admiration upon her life. It seems that she is
in just the position that Creating Wisdom fitted her for. I saw Aaron looking
at her across the table. She was preparing for him his cup of tea; and of
course he had <span lang=EN-GB>nought</span> to do save to wait, and in waiting
he watched her. What was it that I saw? I cannot tell. Why, how is this? the
world has two sides, two phases; how many more I cannot know. That which I saw
in Aaron's face was a something transitory, a nebulous luminousness of an
existence that I had not known, had not imagined, having never before received
intimation of it. Why will light evanish so soon?—the fragment that shone
in on this <i>Terra Incognita</i> went out, was submerged in the Cup of <i>Thea
Sinensis</i> that Aaron received from Sophie's hand. I cannot divine why all
this new world of being should fancy to unroll itself, an endless panorama of pansophical
mysteries, before my eyes. I do not appreciate it in the least. Philip Bailey's
"Mystic" is more comprehensible to me. This is a practical, matter-of-fact
world; I know it is. Sophie Percival, my sister, is the wife of Aaron Wilton,
country-clergyman in Redleaf,—nothing more; and I thought of my untasted
cup of tea, in which lay condensed all the fragrance of Wooeshan hill-sides.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"Why not take your tea, Anna?" Sophie asked, just
as I had decided not to think of the things that misted around me.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>My answer was a taste of it. I really thought I was doing my
duty, when Sophie's words came upon me, a little distractingly,—</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"Will you have more sugar in your tea, Anna?"</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"No, I thank you."</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>Aaron said,—</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"The house of Axtell seems to have stolen away your
proper self, Anna. I've been watching you, and I don't really think you've any
idea of what you are subsisting on. Tell me now, what <i>is</i> upon the
table?" and Aaron held a newspaper, lying conveniently near, before my
eyes.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"Confession and absolution are synonymous with you,
aren't they, Aaron?" I asked. "Please give me some bread"; and I
put the disagreeable paper away.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>There was no bread upon the table.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"My wisdom is confirmed," said Aaron; and he gave
me the delectable substitute, Sophie's handiwork.</p>
</div>
<div class=Section7>
<p class=Chapter>METHODS OF STUDY IN NATURAL HISTORY.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>XIV.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>If I succeeded in explaining my subject clearly in the last
article, my readers will have seen that the five Orders of the Echinoderms are
but five expressions of the same idea; and I will now endeavor to show that the
same identity of structural conception prevails also throughout the two other
Classes of Radiates, and further, that not only the Orders within each Class,
but the three Classes themselves, Echinoderms, Acalephs, and Polyps, bear the
strictest comparison, founded upon close structural analysis, and are based
upon one organic formula.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>We will first compare the three Orders of Acalephs,—Hydroids
being the lowest, Discophorae; next, and the Ctenophorae highest. The fact that
these animals have no popular names shows how little they are known. It is true
that we hear some of them spoken of as Jelly-Fishes; but this name is usually
applied to the larger Discophore, when it is thrown upon the beach and lies a
shapeless mass of gelatinous substance on the sand, or is seen floating on the
surface of the water. The name gives no idea of the animal as it exists in full
life and activity. When we speak of a Bird or an Insect, the mere name calls up
at once a characteristic image of the thing; but the name of Jelly-Fish, or Sun-Fish,
or Sea-Blubber, as the larger Acalephs are also called, suggests to most
persons a vague idea of a fish with a gelatinous body,—or, if they have
lived near the sea-shore, they associate it only with the unsightly masses of
jelly-like substance sometimes strewn in thousands along the beaches after a
storm. To very few does this term recall either the large Discophore, with its
purple disk and its long streamers floating perhaps twenty or thirty feet
behind it as it swims,—or the Ctenophore, with its more delicate,
transparent structure, and almost invisible fringes in parallel rows upon the
body, which decompose the rays of light as the creature moves through the
water, so that hues of ruby-red and emerald-green, blue, purple, yellow, all
the colors of the rainbow, ripple constantly over its surface when it is in
motion,—or the Hydroid, with its little shrub-like communities living in
tide-pools, establishing themselves on rocks, shells, or sea-weeds, and giving
birth not only to animals attached to submarine bodies, like themselves, but
also to free Medusae or Jelly-Fishes that in their turn give birth again to
eggs which return to the parent-form, and thus, by alternate generations,
maintain two distinct patterns of animal life within one cycle of growth.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>Perhaps, of all the three Classes of Radiates, Acalephs are
the least known. The general interest in Corals has called attention to the
Polyps, and the accessible haunts of the Sea-Urchins and Star-Fishes have made
the Echinoderms almost as familiar to the ordinary observer as the common sea-shells,
while the Acalephs are usually to be found at a greater distance from the
shore, and are not easily kept in confinement. It is true that the Hydroids
live along the shore, and may be reared in tanks without difficulty; but they
are small, and would be often taken for sea-weeds by those ignorant of their
true structure.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>Thus this group of animals, with all their beauty of form,
color, and movement, and peculiarly interesting from their singular modes of
growth, remains comparatively unknown except to the professional naturalist. It
may, therefore, be not uninteresting or useless to my readers, if I give some
account of the appearance and habits of these animals, keeping in view, at the
same time, my ultimate object, namely, to show that they are all founded on the
same structural elements and have the same ideal significance. I will begin
with some account of the Hydroids, including the story of the alternate
generations, by which they give birth to Medusae, while the Medusae, in their
turn, reproduce the Hydroids, from which they spring. But first, a few words
upon the growth of Radiates in general.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>There is no more interesting series of transformations than
that of the development of Radiates. They are all born as little transparent
globular bodies, covered with <span lang=FR>vibratile</span> cilia, swimming
about in this condition for a longer or shorter time; then, tapering somewhat
at one end and broadening at the other, they become attached by the narrower
extremity, while at the opposite one a depression takes place, deepening in the
centre till it becomes an aperture, and extending its margin to form the
tentacles. All Radiates pass through this Polyp-like condition at some period
of their lives, either before or after they are hatched from the eggs. In some
it forms a marked period of their existence, while in others it passes very
rapidly and is undergone within the egg; but, at whatever time and under
whatever conditions it occurs, it forms a necessary part of their development,
and shows that all these animals have one and the same pattern of growth. This
difference in the relative importance and duration of certain phases of growth
is by no means peculiar to the Radiates, but occurs in all divisions of the
Animal Kingdom. There are many Insects that pass through their metamorphoses
within the egg, appearing as complete Insects at the moment of their birth; but
the series of changes is nevertheless analogous to that of the Butterfly, whose
existence as Worm, Chrysalis, and Winged Insect is so well known to all. Take
the Grasshopper, for instance: with the exception of the wings, it is born in
its mature form; but it has had its Worm-like stage within the egg as much as
the Butterfly that we knew a few months ago as a Caterpillar. In the same way
certain of the higher Radiates undergo all their transformations, from the Polyp
phase of growth to that of Acaleph or Echinoderm, after birth; while others
pass rapidly through the lower phases of their existence within the egg, and
are born in their final condition, when all their intermediate changes have
been completed. We have appropriate names for all the aspects of life in the
Insect: we call it Larva in its first or Worm-like period, Chrysalis in its
second or Crustacean-like phase of life, and Imago in its third and last
condition as Winged Insect. But the metamorphoses of the Radiates are too
little known to be characterized by popular names; and when they were first
traced, the relation between their different phases of existence was not
understood, so that the same animal in different stages of growth has
frequently been described as two or more distinct animals. This has led to a
confusion in our nomenclature much to be regretted; for, however inappropriate
it may be, a name once accepted and passed into general use is not easily
changed.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>That early stage of growth, common to all Radiates, in which
they resemble the Polyps, has been called the Hydra state, in consequence of
their resemblance to the fresh-water Hydra to be found in quantities on the
under side of Duck-Weed and Lily-pads. For any one that cares to examine these
animals, it may be well to mention that they are easily found and thrive well
in confinement. Dip a pitcher into any pool of fresh water where Duck-Weed or
Lilies are growing in the summer, and you are sure to bring up hundreds of
these fresh-water Hydrae, swarming in myriads in all our ponds. In a glass bowl
their motions are easily watched; and a great deal may be learned of their
habits and mode of life, with little trouble. Such an animal soon completes its
growth: for the stage which I have spoken of as transient for the higher
Radiates is permanent for these; and when the little sphere moving about by
means of its <span lang=FR>vibratile</span> cilia has elongated a little,
attached itself by the lower end to some surface, while the inversion of the
upper end has formed the mouth and digestive cavity, and the expansion of its
margin has made the tentacles, the very simple story of the fresh-water Hydra
is told. But the last page in the development of these lower Radiates is but
the opening chapter in that of the higher ones, and I will give some account of
their transformations as they have been observed in the Acalephs.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal><img class=halfpage src="Atlantic59_files/image001.gif"
alt="Coryne mirabilis, natural size"></p>
<p class=MsoNormal>On shells and stones, on sea-weeds or on floating logs,
there may often be observed a growth of exquisitely delicate branches, looking
at first sight more like a small bunch of moss than anything else. But gather
such a mossy tuft and place it in a glass bowl filled with sea-water, and you
will presently find that it is full of life and activity. Every branch of this
miniature shrub terminates in a little club-shaped head, upon which are
scattered a number of tentacles. They are in constant motion, extending and
contracting their tentacles, some of the heads stretched upwards, others bent
downwards, all seeming very busy and active. Each tentacle has a globular tip
filled with a multitude of cells, the so-called lasso-cells, each one of which
conceals a coiled-up thread. These organs serve to seize the prey, shooting out
their long threads, thus entangling the victim in a net more delicate than the
finest spider's web, and then carrying it to the mouth by the aid of the lower
part of the tentacle. The complication of structure in these animals, a whole
community of which, numbering from twenty to thirty individuals, is not more
than an inch in height, is truly wonderful. In such a community the different
animals are hardly larger than a good-sized pin's head; and yet every
individual has a digestive cavity and a complete system of circulation. Its
body consists of a cavity inclosed in a double wall, continuing along the whole
length of each branch till it joins the common stem forming the base of the
stock. In this cavity the food becomes softened and liquefied by the water that
enters with it through the mouth, and is thus transformed into a circulating fluid
which flows from each head to the very base of the community and back again.
The inner surface of the digestive cavity is lined with brownish-red granules,
which probably aid in the process of digestion; they frequently become
loosened, fall into the circulating fluid, and may be seen <span lang=FR>borne</span>
along the stream as it passes up and down. The rosy tint of the little
community is due to these reddish granules.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal><img class=halfpage src="Atlantic59_files/image002.gif"
alt="Single head or branch of Coryne mirabilis magnified, with a Medusa bud: a, stem; c, club-shaped body; o, mouth; tt, tentacles; d, Medusa bud."></p>
<p class=MsoNormal>This crowd of beings united in a common life began as one
such little Hydra-like animal as I have described above,—floating free at
first, then becoming attached, and growing into a populous stock by putting out
buds at different heights along the length of the stem. The formation of such a
bud is very simple, produced by the folding outwardly of the double wall of the
body, appearing first as a slight projection of the stem sideways, which
elongates gradually, putting out tentacles as it grows longer, while at the
upper end an aperture is formed to make the mouth. This is one of the lower
group of Radiates, known as Hydroids, and long believed to be Polyps, from
their mode of living in communities and reproducing their kind by budding,
after the fashion of Corals. But if such a little tuft of Hydroids has been
gathered in spring, a close observer may have an opportunity of watching the
growth of another kind of individual from it, which would seem to show its
alliance with the Acalephs rather than the Polyps. At any time late in February
or early in March, bulb-like projections, more globular than the somewhat
elongated buds of the true Hydroid heads, may be seen growing either among the
tentacles of one of these little animals, or just below the head where it
merges in the stem,<a href="#_edn3" name="_ednref3" title=""><span
class=MsoEndnoteReference><span class=MsoEndnoteReference><span
style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman"'>[3]</span></span></span></a>
Very delicate and transparent in substance, it is hardly perceptible at first;
and the gradual formation of its internal structure is the less easily
discerned, because a horny sheath, forming the outer covering of the Hydroid
stock, extends to inclose and shield the new-<span lang=ES-TRAD>comer</span>,
whom we shall see to be so different from the animal that gives it birth that
one would suppose the Hydroid parent must be as much surprised at the sight of
its offspring as the Hen that has accidentally hatched a Duck's egg. At the
right moment this film is torn open by the convulsive contractions of the animal,
which, thus freed from its envelope, begins at once to expand. By this time
this little bud has assumed the form of a Medusoid or Jelly-Fish disk, with its
four tubes radiating from the central cavity. The proboscis, so characteristic
of all Jelly-Fishes, hangs from the central opening; and the tentacles, coiled
within the internal cavity up to this time, now make their appearance, and we
have a complete little Medusa growing upon the Hydroid head. Gradually the
point by which it is attached to the parent-stock narrows and becomes more and
more contracted, till the animal drops off and swims away, a free Jelly-Fish.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal><img class=halfpage src="Atlantic59_files/image003.gif"
alt="Little Jelly-Fish, commonly called Sarsia, the free Medusa, of Coryne mirabilis."></p>
<p class=MsoNormal>The substance of these animals seems to have hardly more
density or solidity than their native element. I remember showing one to a
friend who had never seen such an animal before, and after watching its
graceful motions for a moment in the glass bowl where it was swimming, he
asked, "Is it anything more than organized water?" The question was
very descriptive; for so little did it seem to differ in substance from the
water in which it floated that one might well fancy that some drops had taken
upon themselves organic structure, and had begun to live and move. It swims by
means of rapid contractions and expansions of its disk, thus impelling itself
through the water, its tentacles floating behind it and measuring many times
the length of the body. The disk is very convex, as will be seen by the wood-cut;
four tubes radiate from the central cavity to the periphery, where they unite
in a circular tube around the margin and connect also with the four tentacles;
from the centre of the lower surface hangs the proboscis, terminating in a
mouth. Notwithstanding the delicate structure of this little being, it is
exceedingly voracious. It places itself upon the surface of the animal on which
it feeds, and, if it have any hard parts, it simply sucks the juices, dropping
the dead carcass immediately after; but it swallows whole the little Acalephs
of other Species and other soft animals that come in its way. Early in summer
these Jelly-Fishes drop their eggs, little transparent pear-shaped bodies,
covered with <span lang=FR>vibratile</span> cilia. They swim about for a time,
until they have found a resting-place, where they attach themselves, each one
founding a Hydroid stock of its own, which will in time produce a new brood of Medusae.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>This series of facts, presented here in their connection,
had been observed separately before their true relation was understood.
Investigations had been made on the Hydroid stock, described as <i>Coryne</i>,
and upon its Medusoid offspring, described as <i>Sarsia</i>, named after the
naturalist <span lang=FR>Sars</span>, whose beautiful papers upon this class of
animals have associated his name with it; but the investigations by which all
these facts have been associated in one connected series are very recent. These
transformations do not correspond to our common idea of metamorphoses, as
observed in the Insect, for instance. In the Butterfly's life we have always
one and the same individual,—the Caterpillar passing into the Chrysalis
state, and the Chrysalis passing into the condition of the Winged Insect. But
in the case I have been describing, while the Hydroid gives birth to the
Medusa, it still preserves its own distinct existence; and the different forms
developed on one stock seem to be two parallel lives, and not the various
phases of one and the same life. This group of Hydroids retains the name of Coryne;
and the Medusa born from it, Sarsia, has received, as I have said, the name of
the distinguished investigator to whose labors we owe much of our present
knowledge of these animals.—Let us look now at another group of Hydroids,
whose mode of development is equally curious and interesting.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>The little transparent embryos from which they arise, oval
in form, with a slight, scarcely perceptible depression at one end, resemble
the embryos of Coryne already described. They may be seen in great numbers in
the spring, floating about in the water, or rather swimming,—for the
motion of all Radiates in their earliest stage of existence is rapid and
constant, in consequence of the <span lang=FR>vibratile</span> cilia that cover
the surface. At this stage of its existence such an embryo is perfectly free,
but presently its wandering life comes to an end; it shows a disposition to
become fixed, and proceeds to choose a suitable resting-place. I use the word
"choose" advisedly; for though at this time the little embryo seems
to have no developed organs, it yet exercises a certain discrimination in its
selection of a home. Slightly pear-shaped in form, it settles down upon its
narrower end; it wavers and sways to and fro, as if trying to get a firm
foothold and force itself down upon the surface to which it adheres; but
presently, as if dissatisfied with the spot it has chosen, it suddenly breaks
loose and swims away to another locality, where the same examination is
repeated, not more to its own satisfaction apparently, for the creature will
renew the experiment half a dozen times, perhaps, before making a final
selection and becoming permanently attached to the soil. In the course of this
process the lower end becomes flattened, and moulds itself to the shape of the
body on which it rests. Once settled, this animal, thus far hardly more than a
transparent oblong body without any distinct organs, begins to develop rapidly.
It elongates, forming a kind of cup-like base or stem, the upper end spreads
somewhat, the depression at its centre deepens, a mouth is formed that gapes
widely and opens into the digestive cavity, and the upper margin spreads out to
form a number of tentacles, few at first, but growing more and more numerous
till a wreath is completed all around it. In this condition the young Jelly-Fish
has been described under the name of <i>Scyphostoma</i>. As soon as this wreath
of tentacles is formed, a constriction takes place below it, thus separating
the upper portion of the animal from the lower by a marked dividing-line.
Presently a second constriction takes place below the first, then a third, till
the entire length of the animal is divided across by a number of such
transverse constrictions, the whole body growing, meanwhile, in height. But now
an extraordinary change takes place in the portions thus divided off. Each one
assumes a distinct organic structure, as if it had an individual life of its
own. The margin becomes lobed in eight deep scallops, and a tube or canal runs
through the centre of each such lobe to the centre of the body, where a
digestive cavity is already formed. At this time the constrictions have
deepened, so that the margins of all the successive divisions of the little
Hydroid are very prominent, and the whole animal looks like a pile of saucers,
or of disks with scalloped edges and the convex side turned downward. Its
general aspect may be compared to a string of Lilac-blossoms, such as the
children make for necklaces in the spring, in which the base of one blossom is
inserted into the upper side of the one below it. In this condition our Jelly-Fish
has been called <i>Strobila</i>.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal><img class=halfpage src="Atlantic59_files/image004.gif"
alt="Scyphostoma of Aurelia flavidula, our common white Jelly-Fish with a rosy cross."></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><img class=halfpage src="Atlantic59_files/image005.gif"
alt="Strobila of Aurelia flavidula."></p>
<p class=MsoNormal>While these organic changes take place in the lower disks,
the topmost one, forming the summit of the pile and bearing the tentacles,
undergoes no such modification, but presently the first constriction dividing
it from the rest deepens to such a degree that it remains united to them by a
mere thread only, and it soon breaks off and dies. This is the signal for the
breaking up of the whole pile in the same way by the deepening of the
constrictions; but, instead of dying, as they part, they begin a new existence
as free Medusae. Only the lowest portion of the body remains, and around the
margin of this tentacles have developed corresponding to those which crowned
the first little embryo; this repeats the whole history again, growing up
during the following season to divide itself into disks like its predecessor.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal><img class=halfpage src="Atlantic59_files/image006.gif"
alt="Strobila of Aurelia flavidula: a, Scyphostoma reproduced at the base of a Strobila, bb, all the disks of which have dropped off but the last."></p>
<p class=MsoNormal>As each individual separates from the community of which it
has made a part, it reverses its position, and, instead of turning the margin
of the disk upward, it turns it downward, thus bringing the mouth below and the
curve of the disk above. These free individuals have been described under the
name of <i>Ephyra</i>. This is the third phase of the existence of our Jelly-Fish.
It swims freely about, a transparent, umbrella-like disk, with a proboscis
hanging from the lower side, which, to complete the comparison, we may call the
handle of the umbrella. The margin of the disk is even more deeply lobed than
in the Hydroid condition, and in the middle of each lobe is a second
depression, quite deep and narrow, at the base of which is an eye. How far such
organs are gifted with the power of vision we cannot decide; but the cells of
which they are composed certainly serve the purpose of facets, of lenses and
prisms, and must convey to the animal a more or less distinct perception of
light and color. The lobes are eight in number, as before, with a tube
diverging from the centre of the body into each lobe. Shorter tubes between the
lobes alternate with these, making thus sixteen radiating tubes, all ramifying
more or less.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal><img class=halfpage src="Atlantic59_files/image007.gif"
alt="Ephyra of Aurelia flavidula."></p>
<img class=fullpage src="Atlantic59_files/image008.jpg"
alt="Aurelia flavidula, the common white Jelly-Fish of our sea-shores, seen
from above: c, mouth; eeeeee, eyes; mmmm, lobes or curtain of the mouth in
outlines; ooo, ovaries; ttt, tentacles; ww ramified tubes.">
<p class=MsoNormal>From
this stage to its adult condition, the animal undergoes a succession of changes
in the gradual course of its growth, uninterrupted, however, by any such abrupt
transition as that by which it began its life as a free animal. The lobes are
gradually obliterated, so that the margin becomes almost an unbroken circle.
The eight eyes were, as I have said, at the bottom of depressions in the centre
of the several lobes; but, by the equalizing of the marginal line, the gradual <span
lang=EN-GB>levelling</span>, as it were, of all the inequalities of the edge,
the eyes are pushed out, and occupy eight spots on the margin, where a faint
indentation only marks what was before a deep cut in the lobe. The eight tubes
of the lobes have extended in like manner to the edge, and join it just at the
point where the eyes are placed, so that the extremity of each tube unites with
the base of each eye. Those parts of the margin filling the spaces between the
eyes correspond to the depressions dividing the lobes or scallops in the
earlier stage, and to those radiate the eight other tubes alternating with the
eye-tubes, now divided into numerous branches. Along each of these spaces is
developed a fine, delicate fringe of tentacles, hanging down like a veil when
the animal is at rest, or swept back when it is in motion. In the previous
stage, the tubes ramified toward the margin; but now they branch at or near
their point of starting from the central cavity, so extensively that every part
of the body is traversed by these collateral tubes, and when one looks down at
it from above through the gelatinous transparent disk, the numerous
ramifications resemble the fine fibrous structure of a leaf with its net-work
of nervules.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>On the lower side, or what I have called in a previous
article the oral region of the animal, a wonderfully complicated apparatus is
developed. The mouth projects in four angles, and at each such angle a curtain
arises, stretching outwardly, and sometimes extending as far as the margin.
These curtains are fringed and folded on the lower edge, so that they look like
four ruffled flounces hanging from the lower side of the animal. On the upper
side of the body, but alternating in position with these curtains, are the four
ovaries, crescent-like in shape, and so placed as to form the figure of a
cross, when seen from above through the transparency of the disk. I should add,
that, though I speak of some organs as being on the upper and others on the
lower side of the body, all are under the convex, arched surface of the disk,
which is gelatinous throughout, and simply forms a transparent vaulted roof, as
it were, above the rest of the body.</p>
<img class=halfpage src="Atlantic59_files/image009.gif"
alt="Aurelia flavidula, seen in profile.">
<p class=MsoNormal>When these animals first make their appearance in the
spring, they may be seen, when the sky is clear and the sea smooth, floating in
immense numbers near the surface of the water, though they do not seek the
glare of the sun, but are more often found about sheltered places, in the
neighborhood of wharves or overhanging rocks. As they grow larger, they lose
something of their gregarious disposition,—they scatter more; and at this
time they prefer the sunniest exposures, and like to bask in the light and
warmth. They assume every variety of attitude, but move always by the regular
contraction and expansion of the disk, which rises and falls with rhythmical
alternations, the average number of these movements being from twelve to
fifteen in a minute. There can be no doubt that they perceive what is going on
about them, and are very sensitive to changes in the state of the atmosphere;
for, as soon as the surface of the water is ruffled, or the sky becomes overcast,
they sink into deeper water, and vanish out of sight. When approached with a
dip-net, it is evident, from the acceleration of their movements, that they are
attempting to escape.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>At the spawning season, toward the end of July or the
beginning of August, they gather again in close clusters. At this period I have
seen them at Nahant in large shoals, covering a space of fifty feet or more,
and packed so closely in one unbroken mass that an oar could not be thrust
between them without injuring many. So deep was the phalanx that I could not
ascertain how far it extended below the surface of the water, and those in the
uppermost layer were partially forced out of the water by the pressure of those
below.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>It is not strange that the relation between the various phases
of this extraordinary series of metamorphoses, so different from each other in
their external aspects, should not have been recognized at once, and that this
singular Acaleph should have been called Scyphostoma in its simple Hydroid
condition, Strobila after the transverse division of the body had taken place, Ephyra
in the first stages of its free existence, and Aurelia in its adult state,—being
thus described as four distinct animals. These various forms are now rightly
considered as the successive stages of a development intimately connected in
all its parts,—beginning with the simple Hydroid attached to the ground,
and closing in the shape of our common Aurelia, with its white transparent
disk, its silky fringe of tentacles around the margin, its ruffled curtains
hanging from the mouth, and its four crescent-shaped ovaries grouped to form a
cross on the summit. From these ovaries a new brood of little embryos is shed
in due time.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>There are other Hydroids giving rise to Medusae buds, from
which, however, the Medusae do not separate to begin a new life, but wither on
the Hydroid stock, after having come to maturity and dropped their eggs. Such
is the <i>Hydractinia polyclina</i>. This curious community begins, like the
preceding ones, with a single little individual, settling upon some shell or
stone, or on the rocks in a tide-pool, where it will sometimes cover a space of
several square feet. Rosy in color, very soft and delicate in texture, such a
growth of Hydractinia spreads a velvet-like carpet over the rocks on which it
occurs. They may be kept in aquariums with perfect success, and for that
purpose it is better to gather them on single shells or stones, so that the
whole community may be removed unbroken. These colonies of Hydractinia have one
very singular character: they exist in distinct communities, some of which give
birth only to male, others to female individuals. The functions, also, are
divided,—certain members of the community being appointed to special
offices, in which the others do not share. Some bear the Medusae buds, which in
due time become laden with eggs, but, as I have said, wither and die after the
eggs are hatched. Others put forth Hydroid buds only, while others again are
wholly sterile. About the outskirts of the community are more simple
individuals, whose whole body seems to be hardly more than a double-walled
tube, terminating in a knob of lasso-cells. They are like long tentacles placed
where they can most easily seize the prey that happens to approach the little
colony. The entire community is connected at its base by a horny net-work,
uniting all the Hydroid stems in its meshes, and spreading over the whole
surface on which the colony has established itself.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal><img class=halfpage src="Atlantic59_files/image010.gif"
alt="Hydractinia polyclina: a, sterile individual; b, fertile individual, producing female Medusae; d, e, female Medusae, containing advanced eggs; f, g, h, i, Cluster of female Medusas, with less advanced eggs; o, peduncle of month, with short globular tentacles; c, individual with globular tentacles, upon which no Medusae have appeared, or from which they have dropped."></p>
<p class=MsoNormal>There is a very curious and beautiful animal, or rather
community of animals, closely allied to the <i>Hydractinia polyclina</i>, which
next deserves to be noticed. The Portuguese Man-of-War—so called from its
bright-colored crest, which makes it so conspicuous as it sails upon the water,
and the long and various streamers that hang from its lower side—is such
a community of animals as I have just described, reversed in position, however,
with the individuals hanging down, and the base swollen and expanded to make
the air-bladder which forms its brilliant crested float. In this curious Acalephian
Hydroid, or <i>Physalia</i>, the individuality of function is even more marked
than in the Hydractinia. As in the latter, some of the individuals are Medusae-bearing,
and others simple Hydrae; but, beside these, there are certain members of the
community who act as swimmers, to carry it along through the water,—others
that are its purveyors, catching the prey, by which, however, they profit only
indirectly, for others are appointed to eat it, and these feeders may be seen
sometimes actually gorged with the food they have devoured, and which is then
distributed throughout the community by the process of digestion and
circulation.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal><img class=halfpage src="Atlantic59_files/image011.gif"
alt="Physalia, or Portuguese Man-of-War."></p>
<p class=MsoNormal>It would be hopeless, even were it desirable, to attempt
within the limits of such an article as this to give the faintest idea of the
number and variety of these Hydroids; and I will therefore say nothing of the
endless host of Tubularians, Campanularians, Sertularians, etc. They are very
abundant along our coast, and will well reward any who care to study their
habits and their singular modes of growth. For their beauty, simply, it is
worth while to examine them. Some are deep red, others rosy, others purple,
others white with a glitter upon them, as if frosted with silver. Their homes
are very various. Some like the fresh, deep sea-water, while they avoid the
dash and tumult of the waves; and they establish themselves in the depressions
on some low ledge of rocks running far out from the shore, and yet left bare
for an hour or two, when the tide is out. In such a depression, forming a stony
cup filled with purest sea-water, overhung by a roof of rock, which may be
fringed by a heavy curtain of brown sea-weed, the rosy-headed, branching Eudendrium,
one of the prettiest of the Tubularians, may be found. Others like the tide-pools,
higher up on the rocks, that are freshened by the waves only when the tide is
full: such are the small, creeping Campanularians. Others, again, like the tiny
Dynamena, prefer the rougher action of the sea; and they settle upon the sides
of rents and fissures in the cliffs along the shore, where even in calm weather
the waves rush in and out with a certain degree of violence, broken into eddies
by the abrupt character of the rocks. Others seek the broad fronds of the
larger sea-weeds, and are lashed up and down upon their spreading branches, as
they rock to and fro with the motion of the sea. Many live in sheltered
harbors, attaching themselves to floating logs, or to the keels of vessels; and
some are even so indifferent to the freshness of the water that they may be
found in numbers along the city-wharves.<a href="#_edn4" name="_ednref4"
title=""><span class=MsoEndnoteReference><span class=MsoEndnoteReference><span
style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman"'>[4]</span></span></span></a></p>
<p class=MsoNormal>Beside the Jelly-Fishes arising from Hydroids, there are
many others resembling these in all the essential features of their structure,
but differing in their mode of development; for, although more or less Polyp-like
when first born from the egg, they never become attached, nor do they ever bud
or divide, but reach their mature condition without any such striking
metamorphoses as those that characterize the development of the Hydroid Acalephs.
All the Medusas, whether they arise from buds on the Hydroid stock, like the Sarsia,
or from transverse division of the Hydroid form, like the Aurelia, or grow
directly from the egg to maturity, without pausing in the Hydroid phase, like
the <span lang=FR>Campanella</span>, agree in the general division and relation
of parts. All have a central cavity, from which arise radiating tubes extending
to the margin of the umbrella-like disk, where they unite either in a net-work
of meshes or in a single circular tube. But there is a great difference in the
oral apparatus; the elaborate ruffled curtains, that hang from the corners of
the mouth, occur only in the Species arising from the transverse division of
the Polyp-like young. For this reason they are divided into two Orders,—the
Hydroids and the Discophorae.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>The third Order, the Ctenophorae, are
among the most beautiful of the Acalephs. I have spoken of the various hues
they assume when in motion, and I will add one word of the peculiarity in their
structure which causes this effect. The Ctenophorae differ from the Jelly-Fishes
described above in sending off from the main cavity only two main tubes,
instead of four like the others; but each of these tubes divides and subdivides
in four branches as it approaches the periphery. From the eight branches
produced in this way there arise vertical tubes extending in opposite
directions up and down the sides of the body. Along these vertical tubes run
the rows of little locomotive oars, or combs, as they have been called, from
which these animals derive their name of Ctenophorae. The rapid motion of these
flappers causes the decomposition of the rays of light along the surface of the
body, producing the most striking prismatic effect; and it is no exaggeration
to say that no jewel is brighter than these Ctenophorae as they move through
the water.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal><img class=halfpage src="Atlantic59_files/image012.gif"
alt="Idyia roseola; one of our Ctenophorae: a, anal aperture; b, radiating tube; c, circular tube; d, e, f, g, h, rows of locomotive fringes."></p>
<p class=MsoNormal> </p>
<p class=Drama> * * * * *</p>
<p class=Drama> </p>
<p class=MsoNormal>I trust I have succeeded in showing that the three Orders of
the Acalephs are, like the five Orders of the Echinoderms, different degrees of
complication of the same structure. In the Hydroids, the organization does not
rise above the simple digestive cavity inclosed by the double body-wall; and we
might not suspect their relation to the Acalephs, did we not see the Jelly-Fish
born from the Hydroid stock. In the Hydroid-Medusae and Discophorae, instead of
a simple digestive sac, as in the Hydroids, we have a cavity sending off tubes
toward the periphery, which ramify more or less in their course. Now whether
there are four tubes or eight, whether they ramify extensively or not, whether
there are more or less complicated appendages around the margin or the mouth,
makes no difference in the essential structure of these bodies. They are all
disk-like in outline, they all have tentacles hanging from the margin, and a
central cavity from which tubes diverge that divide the body into a certain
number of portions, bearing in all the same relation to each other and to the
central cavity. In the Ctenophorae, another complication of structure is
introduced in the combination of vertical with horizontal tubes and the
external appendages accompanying them.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>But, whatever their differences may be, a very slight effort
of the imagination only is needed to transform any one of these forms into any
other. Reverse the position of any simple Hydra, so that the tentacles hang
down from the margin, and let four tubes radiate from the central cavity to the
periphery, and we have the lowest form of Jelly-Fish. Expand the cup of the
Hydra to form a gelatinous disk, increase the number of tubes, complicate their
ramifications, let eyes be developed along the margin, add some external
appendages, and we have the Discophore. Elongate the disk in order to give the
body an oval form, diminish the number of main tubes, and let them give off
vertical as well as horizontal branches, and we have the Ctenophore.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>In the Class of Polyps there are but two Orders,—the Actinoids
and the Halcyonoids; and I have already said so much of the structure of Polyps
that I think I need not repeat my remarks here in order to show the relation
between these groups. The body of all Polyps consists of a sac divided into
chambers by vertical partitions, and having a wreath of hollow tentacles around
the summit, each one of which opens into one of the chambers. The greater complication
of these parts and their limitation in definite numbers constitute the
characters upon which their superiority or inferiority of structure is based.
Here the comparison is easily made; it is simply the complication and number of
identical parts that make the difference between the Orders. The Actinoids
stand lowest from the simple character and indefinite increase of these parts;
while the Halcyonoids, with their eight lobed tentacles, corresponding to the
same number of internal divisions, are placed above them.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>We have the key-note to the common structure of the three
Classes whose Orders we have been comparing in the name of the division to
which they all belong: they are <i>Radiates.</i> The idea of radiation lies at
the foundation of all these animals, whatever be their form or substance.
Whether stony, like the Corals, or soft, like the Sea-Anemone, or gelatinous
and transparent, like the Jelly-Fish, or hard and brittle, like the Sea-Urchins,—whether
round or oblong or cylindrical or stellate, in all, the internal structure
obeys this law of radiation.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>Not only is this true in a general way, but the comparison
may be traced in all the details. One may ask how the narrow radiating tubes of
the Acalephs, traversing the gelatinous mass of the body, can be compared to
the wide radiating chambers of the Polyp; and yet nothing is more simple than
to thicken the partitions in the Polyps so much as to narrow the chambers
between them, till they form narrow alleys instead of wide spaces, and then we
have the tubes of the Jelly-Fish. In the Jelly-Fish there is a circular tube
around the margin into which all the radiating tubes open. What have we to
compare with this in the Polyps? The outer edge of each partition in the Polyp
is pierced by a hole near the margin. Of course when the partition is
thickened, this hole, remaining open, becomes a tube; for what is a tube but an
elongated hole? The comparison of the Acalephs with the Echinoderms is still
easier, for they both have tubes; but in the latter the tubes are inclosed in
walls of their own, instead of traversing the mass of the body, as in Acalephs,
etc.</p>
<p class=Drama> </p>
<p class=Drama> * * * * *</p>
<p class=Drama> </p>
<p class=MsoNormal>In preparing these articles on the homologies of Radiates, I
have felt the difficulty of divesting my subject of the technicalities which
cling to all scientific results, until they are woven into the tissue of our
every-day knowledge and assume the familiar garb of our common intellectual
property. When the forms of animals are as familiar to children as their A, B, C,
and the intelligent study of Natural History, from the objects themselves, and
not from text-books alone, is introduced into all our schools, we shall have
popular names for things that can now only be approached with a certain
professional stateliness on account of their technical nomenclature. The best
result of such familiarity with Nature will be the recognition of an
intellectual unity holding together all the various forms of life as parts of
one Creative Conception.</p>
</div>
<div class=Section8>
<p class=Chapter>GABRIEL'S DEFEAT.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>In exploring among dusty files of newspapers for the true
records of Denmark Vesey and Nat Turner, I have caught occasional glimpses of a
plot perhaps more wide in its outlines than that of either, which has lain
obscure in the darkness of half a century, traceable only in the political
events which dated from it, and the utter incorrectness of the scanty
traditions which assumed to preserve it. And though researches in public
libraries have only proved to me how rapidly the materials for American history
are vanishing,—since not one of our great institutions possesses, for
instance, a file of any Southern newspaper of the year 1800,—yet the
little which I have gained may have an interest which makes it worth
preserving. I have never been able to see why American historians should be
driven to foreign lands for subjects, when our own nation has furnished
tyrannies more terrible than that of Philip of Spain, and heroes more silent
than William of Orange,—or why our novelists must seek themes in Italy,
on the theory avowed by one of the most gifted of their number, that this
country is given over to a "broad commonplace prosperity," and
harbors "no picturesque or gloomy wrong." But since, as the Spanish
proverb says, no man can at the same time ring the bells and walk in the
procession, so it has perhaps happened that those most qualified to record the
romance of slave-institutions have been thus far too busy in dealing with the
reality.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>Three times, at intervals of thirty years, has a wave of
unutterable terror swept across the Old Dominion, bringing thoughts of agony to
every Virginian master, and of vague hope to every Virginian slave. Each time
has one man's name become a spell of dismay and a symbol of deliverance. Each
time has that name eclipsed its predecessor, while recalling it for a moment to
fresher memory: John Brown revived the story of Nat Turner, as in his day Nat
Turner recalled the vaster schemes of Gabriel.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>On September 8th, 1800, a Virginia correspondent wrote thus
to the Philadelphia "United States Gazette":—</p>
<p class=BlockQuote>"For the week past, we have been under momentary
expectation of a rising among the negroes, who have assembled to the number of
nine hundred or a thousand, and threatened to massacre all the whites. They are
armed with desperate weapons, and secrete themselves in the woods. God only
knows our fate; we have strong guards every night under arms."</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>It was no wonder, if there were foundation for such rumors. Liberty
was the creed or the cant of the day. France was being rocked by revolution,
and England by Clarkson. In America, slavery was habitually recognized as a
misfortune and an error, only to be palliated by the nearness of its expected
end. How freely anti-slavery pamphlets had been circulated in Virginia we know
from the priceless volumes collected and annotated by Washington, and now
preserved in the Boston Athenaeum. Jefferson's "Notes on Virginia,"
itself an anti-slavery tract, had passed through seven editions. Judge St.
George Tucker, law-professor in William and Mary College, had recently published
his noble work, "A Dissertation on Slavery, with a Proposal for the
Gradual Abolition of it in the State of Virginia." From all this agitation
a slave insurrection was a mere corollary. With so much electricity in the air,
a single flash of lightning foreboded all the terrors of the tempest. Let but a
single armed negro be seen or suspected, and at once on many a lonely
plantation there were trembling hands at work to bar doors and windows that
seldom had been even closed before, and there was shuddering when a gray
squirrel scrambled over the roof, or a shower of walnuts came down clattering
from the overhanging boughs.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>Early in September, 1800, as a certain Mr. Moseley Sheppard,
of Henrico County in Virginia, was one day sitting in his counting-room, two
negroes knocked at the door and were let in. They shut the door themselves, and
began to unfold an insurrectionary plot, which was subsequently repeated by one
of them, named Ben Woodfolk or Woolfolk, in presence of the court, on the
fifteenth of the same month.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>He stated that about the first of the preceding June he had
been asked by a negro named Colonel George whether he would like to be made a
Mason. He refused; but George ultimately prevailed on him to have an interview
with a certain leading man among the blacks, named Gabriel. Arrived at the
place of meeting, he found many persons assembled, to whom a preliminary oath
was administered, that they would keep secret all which they might hear. The
leaders then began, to the dismay of this witness, to allude to a plan of
insurrection, which, as they stated, was already far advanced toward maturity.
Presently a man named Martin, Gabriel's brother, proposed religious services,
caused the company to be duly seated, and began an impassioned exposition of
Scripture, bearing upon the perilous theme. The Israelites were glowingly
portrayed as a type of successful resistance to tyranny; and it was argued,
that now, as then, God would stretch forth His arm to save, and would
strengthen a hundred to overthrow a thousand. Thus passed, the witness stated,
this preparatory meeting. At a subsequent gathering the affair was brought to a
point, and the only difficult question was, whether to rise in rebellion upon a
certain Saturday, or upon the Sunday following. Gabriel said that Saturday was
the day already fixed, and that it must not be altered; but George was for
changing it to Sunday, as being more convenient for the country negroes, who
could travel on that day without suspicion. Gabriel, however, said decisively
that they had enough to carry Richmond without them, and Saturday was therefore
retained as the momentous day.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>This was the confession, so far as it is now accessible; and
on the strength of it Ben Woolfolk was promptly pardoned by the court for all
his sins, past, present, or to come, and they proceeded with their
investigation. Of Gabriel little appeared to be known, except that he had been
the property of Thomas Prosser, a young man who had recently inherited a
plantation a few miles from Richmond, and who had the reputation among his
neighbors of "behaving with great barbarity to his slaves." Gabriel
was, however, reported to be "a fellow of courage and intellect above his
rank in life,"—to be about twenty-five years of age,—and to be
guiltless of the alphabet.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>Further inquiry made it appear that the preparations of the
insurgents were hardly adequate to any grand revolutionary design,—at
least, if they proposed to begin with open warfare. The commissariat may have
been well organized, for black Virginians are apt to have a prudent eye to the
larder; but the ordnance department and the treasury were as low as if
Secretary Floyd had been in charge of them. A slave called "Prosser's
Ben" testified that he went with Gabriel to see Ben Woolfolk, who was
going to Caroline County to enlist men, and that "Gabriel gave him three
shillings for himself and three other negroes, to be expended in recruiting
men." Their arms and ammunition, so far as reported, consisted of a peck
of bullets, ten pounds of powder, and twelve scythe-swords, made by Gabriel's
brother Solomon, and fitted with handles by Gabriel himself. "These
cutlasses," said subsequently a white eyewitness, "are made of
scythes cut in two and fixed into well-turned handles. I have never seen arms
so murderous. Those who still doubt the importance of the conspiracy which has
been so fortunately frustrated would shudder with horror at the sight of these
instruments of death." And as it presently appeared that a conspirator
named Scott had astonished his master by accidentally pulling ten dollars from
a ragged pocket which seemed inadequate to the custody of ten cents, it was
agreed that the plot might still be dangerous, even though the resources seemed
limited.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>And indeed, as was soon discovered, the effective weapon of
the insurgents lay in the very audacity of their plan. The scheme, as it
existed in the mind of Gabriel, was as elaborate as that of Denmark Vesey, and
as thorough as that of Nat Turner. If the current statements of all the Virginia
letter-writers were true, "nothing could have been better contrived."
It was to have taken effect on the first day of September. The rendezvous for
the blacks was to be a brook six miles from Richmond. Eleven hundred men were
to assemble there, and were to be divided into three columns, their officers
having been designated in advance. All were to march on Richmond,—then a
town of eight thousand inhabitants,—under cover of night. The right wing
was instantly to seize upon the penitentiary building, just converted into an arsenal;
while the left wing was to take possession of the powder-house. These two
columns were to be armed chiefly with clubs, as their undertaking depended for
success upon surprise, and was expected to prevail without hard fighting. But
it was the central force, armed with muskets, cutlasses, knives, and pikes,
upon which the chief responsibility rested; these men were to enter the town at
both ends simultaneously, and begin a general <span lang=FR>carnage</span>,
none being excepted save the French inhabitants, who were supposed for some
reason to be friendly to the negroes. In a very few hours, it was thought, they
would have entire control of the metropolis. And that this hope was not in the
least unreasonable was shown by the subsequent confessions of weakness from the
whites. "They could scarcely have failed of success," wrote the
Richmond Correspondent of the Boston "Chronicle," "for, after
all, we could only muster four or five hundred men, of whom not more than
thirty had muskets."</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>For the insurgents, if successful, the penitentiary held
several thousand stand of arms; the powder-house was well stocked; the capitol
contained the State treasury; the mills would give them bread; the control of
the bridge across James River would keep off enemies from beyond. Thus secured
and provided, they planned to issue proclamations summoning to their standard
"their fellow-negroes and the friends of humanity throughout the
continent." In a week, it was estimated, they would have fifty thousand
men on their side, with which force they could easily possess themselves of
other towns; and, indeed, a slave named John Scott—possibly the dangerous
possessor of the ten dollars—was already appointed to head the attack on
Petersburg. But in case of final failure, the project included a retreat to the
mountains, with their new-found property. John Brown was therefore anticipated
by Gabriel, sixty years before, in believing the Virginia mountains to have
been "created, from the foundation of the world, as a place of refuge for
fugitive slaves."</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>These are the statements of the contemporary witnesses; they
are repeated in many newspapers of the year 1800, and are in themselves clear
and consistent. Whether they are on the whole exaggerated or understated, it is
now impossible to say. It is certain that a Richmond paper of September 12th
(quoted in the "New York Gazette" of September 18th) declares that
"the plot has been entirely exploded, which was shallow; and had the
attempt been made to carry it into execution, but little resistance would have
been required to render the scheme entirely abortive." But it is necessary
to remember that this is no more than the Charleston newspapers said at the
very crisis of Denmark <span lang=FR>Vesey's</span> formidable plot. "Last
evening," wrote a lady from Charleston in 1822, "twenty-five hundred
of our citizens were under arms to guard our property and lives. But it is a
subject <i>not to be mentioned</i> [so underscored]; and unless you hear of it
elsewhere, say nothing about it." Thus it is always hard to know whether
to assume the facts of an insurrection as above or below the estimates. This
Virginian excitement also happened at a period of intense political agitation,
and was seized upon as a boon by the Federalists. The very article above quoted
is ironically headed, "Holy Insurrection," and takes its motto from Jefferson,
with profuse capital letters,—"The Spirit of the Master is abating,
that of the Slave rising from the dust, his condition mollifying."</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>In view of the political aspect thus given to the plot, and
of its ingenuity and thoroughness likewise, the Virginians were naturally
disposed to attribute to white men some share in it; and speculation presently
began to run wild. The newspapers were soon full of theories, no two being
alike, and no one credible. The plot originated, some said, in certain
handbills written by Jefferson's friend Callender, then in prison at Richmond
on a charge of sedition; these were circulated by two French negroes, aided by
a "United Irishman," calling himself a Methodist preacher,—and
it was in consideration of these services that no Frenchman was to be injured
by the slaves. When Gabriel was arrested, the editor of the "United States
Gazette" affected much diplomatic surprise that no letters were <i>yet</i>
found upon his person "from Fries, Gallatin, or Duane, nor was he at the
time of his capture accompanied by any United Irishman." "He,
however, acknowledges that there are others concerned, and that he is not the
principal instigator." All Federalists agreed that the Southern Democratic
talk was constructive insurrection,—which it certainly was,—and
they painted graphic pictures of noisy "Jacobins" over their wine,
and eager, dusky listeners behind their chairs. "It is evident that the
French principles of liberty and equality have been effused into the minds of
the negroes, and that the incautious and intemperate use of the words by some
whites among us have inspired them with hopes of success." "While the
fiery Hotspurs of the State vociferate their <i>French babble</i> of the
natural equality of man, the insulted negro will be constantly stimulated to
cast away his cords and to sharpen his pike." "It is, moreover,
believed, though not positively known, that a great many of our profligate and
abandoned whites (who are distinguished by the burlesque appellation of <i>Democrats</i>)
are implicated with the blacks, and would have joined them, if they had
commenced their operations.... The Jacobin printers and their friends are panic-struck.
Never was terror more strongly depicted in the countenances of men." These
extracts from three different Federalist newspapers show the amiable emotions
of that side of the house; while Democratic Duane, in the "Aurora,"
could find no better repartee than to attribute the whole trouble to the policy
of the Administration in renewing commercial intercourse with San Domingo.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>I have discovered in the Norfolk "Epitome of the
Times," for October 9, 1800, a remarkable epistle written from Richmond
jail by the unfortunate Callender himself. He indignantly denies the charges
against the Democrats, of complicity in dangerous plots, boldly retorting them
upon the Federalists. "An insurrection at this critical moment by the
negroes of the Southern States would have thrown everything into confusion, and
consequently it was to have prevented the choice of electors in the whole or
the greater part of the States to the south of the Potomac. Such a disaster
must have tended directly to injure the interests of Mr. Jefferson, and to
promote the slender possibility of a second election of Mr. Adams." And,
to be sure, the "United States Gazette" followed up the thing with a
good, single-minded party malice which cannot be surpassed in these present
days, ending in such altitudes of sublime coolness as the following:—"The
insurrection of the negroes in the Southern States, which appears to be
organized on the true French plan, must be decisive with every reflecting man
in those States of the election of Mr. Adams and General Pinckney. The military
skill and approved bravery of the General must be peculiarly valuable to his
countrymen at these trying moments." Let us have a military Vice-President,
by all means, to meet this formidable exigency of Gabriel's peck of bullets,
and this unexplained three shillings in the pocket of "Prosser's
Ben"!</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>But Gabriel's campaign failed, like that of the Federalists,
and the appointed day brought disasters more fatal than even the sword of
General Pinckney. The affrighted negroes declared that "the stars in their
courses fought against Sisera." The most furious tempest ever known in Virginia
burst upon the land that day, instead of an insurrection. Roads and plantations
were submerged. Bridges were carried away. The fords, which then, as now, were
the ordinary substitutes for bridges in that region, were rendered wholly
impassable. The Brook Swamp, one of the most important strategic points of the
insurgents, was entirely inundated, hopelessly dividing Prosser's farm from Richmond;
the country negroes could not get in, nor those from the city get out. The
thousand men dwindled to a few hundred,—and these half paralyzed by
superstition; there was nothing to do but to dismiss them, and before they
could reassemble they were betrayed.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>That the greatest alarm was instantly created throughout the
community, there is no question. All the city of Richmond was in arms, and in
all large towns of the State the night-patrol was doubled. It is a little
amusing to find it formally announced, that "the Governor, impressed with
the magnitude of the danger, has appointed for himself three Aides-de-camp."
A troop of United States cavalry was ordered to Richmond. Numerous arrests were
made. Men were convicted on one day and hanged on the next,—five, six,
ten, fifteen at a time, almost without evidence. Three hundred dollars were
offered by Governor Monroe for the arrest of Gabriel; as much more for another
chief named Jack Bowler, <i>alias</i> Ditcher; whereupon Bowler, <i>alias</i>
Ditcher, surrendered himself, but it took some weeks to get upon the track of
Gabriel. He was finally captured at Norfolk, on board a schooner just arrived
from Richmond, in whose hold he had concealed himself for eleven days, having
thrown overboard a bayonet and bludgeon, which were his only arms. Crowds of
people collected to see him, including many of his own color. He was arrested
on September 24th, convicted on October 3d, and executed on October 7th; and it
is known of him further only, that, like almost all leaders of slave
insurrections, he showed a courage which his enemies could not gainsay.
"When he was apprehended, he manifested the greatest marks of firmness and
confidence, showing not the least disposition to equivocate or screen himself
from justice,"—but making no confession that could implicate any one
else. "The behavior of Gabriel under his misfortunes," said the Norfolk
"Epitome" of September 25th, "was such as might be expected from
a mind capable of forming the daring project which he had conceived." The
"United States Gazette" for October 9th states, more sarcastically,
that "the General is said to have manifested the utmost composure, and
with the true spirit of heroism seems ready to resign his high office, and even
his life, rather than gratify the officious inquiries of the Governor."</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>Some of these newspapers suggest that the authorities found
it good policy to omit the statement made by Gabriel, whatever it was. At any
rate, he assured them that he was by no means the sole instigator of the
affair; he could name numbers, even in Norfolk, who were more deeply concerned.
To his brother Solomon he is said to have stated that the real head of the plot
was Jack Bowler. Still another leader was "General John Scott,"
already mentioned, the slave of Mr. Greenhow, hired by Mr. McCrea. He was
captured by his employer in Norfolk, just as he was boldly entering a public
conveyance to escape; and the Baltimore "Telegraphe" declared that he
had a written paper directing him to apply to Alexander Biddenhurst or Weddenhurst
in Philadelphia, "corner of Coats Alley and Budd Street, who would supply
his needs." What became of this military individual, or of his Philadelphia
sympathizers, does not appear. But it was noticed, as usually happens in such cases,
that all the insurgents had previously passed for saints. "It consists
within my knowledge," says one letter-writer, "that many of these
wretches who were or would have been partakers in the plot have been treated
with the utmost tenderness by their masters, and were more like children than
slaves."</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>These appear to be all the details now accessible of this
once famous plot. They were not very freely published even at the time.
"The minutiae of the conspiracy have not been detailed to the
public," said the "Salem Gazette" of October 7th, "and,
perhaps, through a mistaken notion of prudence and policy, will not be
detailed, in the Richmond papers." The New York "Commercial
Advertiser" of October 13th was still more explicit. "The trials of
the negroes concerned in the late insurrection are suspended until the opinions
of the Legislature can be had on the subject. This measure is said to be owing
to the immense numbers who are interested in the plot, whose death, should they
all be found guilty and be executed, will nearly produce the annihilation of
the blacks in this part of the country." And in the next issue of the same
journal a Richmond correspondent makes a similar statement, with the following
addition:—</p>
<p class=BlockQuote>"A conditional amnesty is perhaps expected. At the
next session of the Legislature [of Virginia] they took into consideration the
subject referred to them, in secret session, with closed doors. The whole
result of their deliberations has never yet been made public, as the injunction
of secrecy has never been removed. To satisfy the court, the public, and
themselves, they had a task so difficult to perform, that it is not surprising
that their deliberations were in secret."</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>It is a matter of historical interest to know that in these
mysterious sessions lay the germs of the American Colonization Society. A
correspondence was at once secretly commenced between the Governor of Virginia
and the President of the United States, with a view to securing a grant of land
whither troublesome slaves might be banished. Nothing came of it then; but in
1801, 1802, and 1804, these attempts were renewed. And finally, on January 22d,
1805, the following vote was passed, still in secret session:—"<i>Resolved</i>,
that the Senators of this State in the Congress of the United States be
instructed, and the Representatives be requested, to use their best efforts for
the obtaining from the General Government a competent portion of territory in
the State of Louisiana, to be appropriated to the residence of such people of
color as have been or shall be emancipated, or hereafter may become dangerous
to the public safety," etc. But of all these efforts nothing was known
till their record was accidentally discovered by Charles Fenton Mercer in 1816.
He at once brought the matter to light, and moved a similar resolution in the
Virginia Legislature; it was almost unanimously adopted, and the first formal
meeting of the Colonization Society, in 1817, was called "in aid" of
this Virginia movement. But the whole correspondence was never made public
until the Nat-Turner insurrection of 1831 recalled the previous excitement, and
these papers were demanded by Mr. Summers, a member of the Legislature, who
described them as "having originated in a convulsion similar to that which
had recently, but more terribly, occurred."</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>But neither these subsequent papers, nor any documents which
now appear accessible, can supply any authentic or trustworthy evidence as to
the real extent of the earlier plot. It certainly was not confined to the mere
environs of Richmond. The Norfolk "Epitome" of October 6th states
that on the sixth and seventh of the previous month one hundred and fifty
blacks, including twenty from Norfolk, were assembled near Whitlock's Mills in
Suffolk County, and remained in the neighborhood till the failure of the
Richmond plan became known. Petersburg newspapers also had letters containing
similar tales. Then the alarm spread more widely. Near Edenton, N.C., there was
undoubtedly a real insurrection, though promptly suppressed; and many families
ultimately removed from that vicinity in consequence. In Charleston, S.C.,
there was still greater excitement, if the contemporary press may be trusted;
it was reported that the freeholders had been summoned to appear in arms, on
penalty of a fine of fifteen pounds, which many preferred to pay rather than
risk taking the fever which then prevailed. These reports were, however,
zealously contradicted in letters from Charleston, dated October 8th, and the Charleston
newspapers up to September 17th had certainly contained no reference to any
especial excitement. This alone might not settle the fact, for reasons already
given. But the omission of any such affair from the valuable pamphlet
containing reminiscences of insurrections in South Carolina, published in 1822
by Edwin C. Holland, is presumptive evidence that no very extended agitation
occurred.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>But wherever there was a black population, slave or
emancipated, men's startled consciences made cowards of them all, and
recognized the negro as a dangerous man, because an injured one. In Philadelphia
it was seriously proposed to prohibit the use of sky-rockets for a time,
because they had been employed as signals in San Domingo. "Even in Boston,"
said the New York "Daily Advertiser" of September 20th, "fears
are expressed, and measures of prevention adopted." This probably refers
to a singular advertisement which appeared in some of the Boston newspapers on
September 16th, and runs as follows:—</p>
<p class=BlockQuote>"NOTICE TO BLACKS.</p>
<p class=BlockQuote>"The officers of the police having made returns to the
subscriber of the names of the following persons who are Africans or negroes,
not subjects of the Emperor of Morocco nor citizens of any of the United
States, the same are hereby warned and directed to depart out of this
Commonwealth before the tenth day of October next, as they would avoid the
pains and penalties of the law in that case provided, which was passed by the
Legislature March 26, 1788.</p>
<p class=BlockQuote>"CHARLES BULFINCH,</p>
<p class=BlockQuote>"Superintendent.</p>
<p class=BlockQuote>"By order and direction of the Selectmen."</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>The names annexed are about three hundred, with the places
of their supposed origin, and they occupy a column of the paper. So at least
asserts the "United States Gazette" of September 23d. "It seems
probable," adds the editor, "from the nature of the notice, that some
suspicion of the design of the negroes is entertained, and we regret to say
there is too much cause." The law of 1788 above mentioned was "an act
for suppressing rogues, vagabonds, and the like," which forbade all
persons of African descent, unless citizens of some one of the United States or
subjects of the Emperor of Morocco, from remaining more than two months within
the Commonwealth, on penalty of imprisonment and hard labor. This singular
statute remained unrepealed until 1834.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>Amid the general harmony in the contemporary narratives of
Gabriel's insurrection, it would be improper to pass by one exceptional legend,
which by some singular fatality has obtained more circulation than all the true
accounts put together. I can trace it no farther back than Nat Turner's time,
when it was published in the Albany "Evening Journal"; thence
transferred to the "Liberator" of September 17th, 1831, and many other newspapers; then refuted in detail by the "Richmond Enquirer" of
October 21st; then resuscitated in the John-Brown epoch by the Philadelphia
"Press," and extensively copied. It is fresh, spirited, and full of
graphic and interesting details, nearly every one of which is altogether false.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>Gabriel in this narrative becomes a rather mythical being,
of vast abilities and life-long preparations. He bought his freedom, it is
stated, at the age of twenty-one, and then <span lang=EN-GB>travelled</span>
all over the Southern States, enlisting confederates and forming stores of
arms. At length his plot was discovered, in consequence of three negroes'
having been seen riding out of a stable-yard together; and the Governor offered
a reward of ten thousand dollars for further information, to which a Richmond
gentleman added as much more. Gabriel concealed himself on board the Sally Ann,
a vessel just sailing for San Domingo, and was revealed by his little nephew,
whom he had sent for a jug of rum. Finally the narrative puts an eloquent dying
speech into Gabriel's mouth, and, to give a properly tragic consummation,
causes him to be torn to death by four wild horses. The last item is, however,
omitted in the more recent reprints of the story.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>Every one of these statements appears to be absolutely erroneous.
Gabriel lived and died a slave, and was probably never out of Virginia. His
plot was voluntarily revealed by accomplices. The rewards offered for his
arrest amounted to three hundred dollars only. He concealed himself on board
the schooner Mary, bound to Norfolk, and was discovered by the police. He died
on the gallows, with ten associates, having made no address to the court or the
people. All the errors of the statement were contradicted when it was first
made public, but they have proved very hard to kill.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>It is stated at the close of this newspaper romance,—and
it may nevertheless be true,—that these events were embodied in a song
bearing the same title with this essay, "Gabriel's Defeat," and set
to a tune of the same name, both being composed by a colored man. The reporter
claims to have heard it in Virginia, as a favorite air at the dances of the
white people, as well as in the huts of the slaves. It would certainly be one
of history's strange parallelisms, if this fatal enterprise, like that of John
Brown afterwards, should thus triumphantly have embalmed itself in music. But I
have found no other trace of such a piece of border-minstrelsy, and it is
probable that even this plaintive memorial has at length disappeared.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>Yet, twenty-two years after these events their impression
still remained vivid enough for Benjamin Lundy, in Tennessee, to write,—"So
well had they matured their plot, and so completely had they organized their
system of operations, that nothing but a seemingly miraculous intervention of
the arm of Providence was supposed to have been capable of saving the city from
pillage and flames, and the inhabitants thereof from butchery. So dreadful was
the alarm and so great the consternation produced on this occasion, that a
member of Congress from that State was some time after heard to express himself
in his place as follows: 'The night-bell is never heard to toll in the city of
Richmond but the anxious mother presses her infant more closely to her
bosom.'" The Congressman was John Randolph of Roanoke, and it was Gabriel
who had taught him the lesson.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>And longer than the melancholy life of that wayward
statesman,—down even to the beginning of the present civil war, and
perhaps to this very moment,—there lingered in Richmond a memorial of those
days, most peculiar and most instructive. Before the days of Secession, when
the Northern <span lang=EN-GB>traveller</span> in Virginia, after traversing
for weary leagues its miry ways, its desolate fields, and its flowery forests,
rode at last into its metropolis,—now slowly expanded into a city of
twenty-eight thousand inhabitants,—he was sure to be guided erelong to
visit its stately Capitol, <span lang=EN-GB>modelled</span> by Jefferson, when
French minister, from the <span lang=FR>Maison</span><span lang=FR> </span><span
lang=FR>Carrée</span>. Standing before it, he might admire undisturbed the
Grecian outline of its exterior, or criticize at will the unsightly cheapness
of its stucco imitations; but he found himself forbidden to enter, save by
passing an armed and uniformed sentinel at the door-way. No other State of the Union
has thus found it necessary in time of profoundest quiet to protect its State-House
by a permanent cordon of bayonets; indeed, the Constitution expressly prohibits
to any State a standing army, however small. Yet there for sixty years has
stood sentinel the "Public Guard" of Virginia, wearing the suicidal
motto of that decaying Commonwealth, "<i>Sic </i><i><span lang=FR>semper</span><span
lang=FR> </span>Tyrannis</i>"; and when one asked the origin of the
precaution, one learned that it was the lasting memorial of Gabriel's
insurrection, the stern heritage of terror bequeathed by his defeat.</p>
</div>
<div class=Section9>
<p class=Chapter>BETHEL.</p>
<p class=Poemnewstanza>We mustered at midnight, in darkness we formed,</p>
<p class=Poem>And the whisper went round of a fort to be stormed;</p>
<p class=Poem>But no drum-beat had called us, no trumpet we heard,</p>
<p class=Poem>And no voice of command, but our Colonel's low word,—</p>
<p class=Poemspecial1>"Column! Forward!"</p>
<p class=Poemnewstanza>And out, through the mist and the murk of the morn,</p>
<p class=Poem>From the beaches of Hampton our barges were <span lang=FR>borne</span>;</p>
<p class=Poem>And we heard not a sound, save the sweep of the oar,</p>
<p class=Poem>Till the word of our Colonel came up from the shore,—</p>
<p class=Poemspecial1>"Column! Forward!"</p>
<p class=Poemnewstanza>With hearts bounding bravely, and eyes all alight,</p>
<p class=Poem>As ye dance to soft music, so trod we, that night;</p>
<p class=Poem>Through the aisles of the greenwood, with vines overarched,</p>
<p class=Poem>Tossing dew-drops, like gems, from our feet, as we marched,—</p>
<p class=Poemspecial1>"Column! Forward!"</p>
<p class=Poemnewstanza>As ye dance with the damsels, to viol and flute,</p>
<p class=Poem>So we skipped from the shadows, and mocked their pursuit;</p>
<p class=Poem>But the soft zephyrs chased us, with scents of the morn,</p>
<p class=Poem>As we passed by the hay-fields and green waving corn,—</p>
<p class=Poemspecial1>"Column! Forward!"</p>
<p class=Poemnewstanza>For the leaves were all laden with fragrance of June,</p>
<p class=Poem>And the flowers and the foliage with sweets were in tune;</p>
<p class=Poem>And the air was so calm, and the forest so dumb,</p>
<p class=Poem>That we heard our own heart-beats, like taps of a drum,—</p>
<p class=Poemspecial1>"Column! Forward!"</p>
<p class=Poemnewstanza>Till the lull of the lowlands was stirred by a breeze,</p>
<p class=Poem>And the buskins of Morn brushed the tops of the trees,</p>
<p class=Poem>And the glintings of glory that slid from her track</p>
<p class=Poem>By the sheen of our rifles were gayly flung back,—</p>
<p class=Poemspecial1>"Column! Forward!"</p>
<p class=Poemnewstanza>And the woodlands grew purple with sunshiny mist,</p>
<p class=Poem>And the blue-crested hill-tops with rose-light were kissed,</p>
<p class=Poem>And the earth gave her prayers to the sun in perfumes,</p>
<p class=Poem>Till we marched as through gardens, and trampled on blooms,—</p>
<p class=Poemspecial1>"Column! Forward!"</p>
<p class=Poemnewstanza>Ay! trampled on blossoms, and seared the sweet breath</p>
<p class=Poem>Of the greenwood with low-brooding vapors of death;</p>
<p class=Poem>O'er the flowers and the corn we were <span lang=FR>borne</span>
like a blast,</p>
<p class=Poem>And away to the fore-front of battle we passed,—</p>
<p class=Poemspecial1>"Column! Forward!"</p>
<p class=Poemnewstanza>For the cannon's hoarse thunder roared out from the
glades,</p>
<p class=Poem>And the sun was like lightning on banners and blades,</p>
<p class=Poem>When the long line of chanting <span lang=FR>Zouaves</span>, like
a flood,</p>
<p class=Poem>From the green of the woodlands rolled, crimson as blood,—</p>
<p class=Poemspecial1>"Column! Forward!"</p>
<p class=Poemnewstanza>While the sound of their song, like the surge of the
seas,</p>
<p class=Poem>With the "Star-Spangled Banner" swelled over the leas;</p>
<p class=Poem>And the sword of DURYEA, like a torch, led the way,</p>
<p class=Poem>Bearing down on the batteries of Bethel, that day,—<a
href="#_edn5" name="_ednref5" title=""><span class=MsoEndnoteReference><span
class=MsoEndnoteReference><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Courier New"'>[5]</span></span></span></a></p>
<p class=Poemspecial1>"Column! Forward!"</p>
<p class=Poemnewstanza>Through green-<span lang=EN-GB>tasselled</span>
cornfields our columns were thrown,</p>
<p class=Poem>And like corn by the red scythe of fire we were mown;</p>
<p class=Poem>While the cannon's fierce <span lang=EN-GB>ploughings</span> new-furrowed
the plain,</p>
<p class=Poem>That our blood might be planted for LIBERTY'S grain,—</p>
<p class=Poemspecial1>"Column! Forward!"</p>
<p class=Poemnewstanza>Oh! the fields of fair June have no lack of sweet
flowers,</p>
<p class=Poem>But their rarest and best breathe no fragrance like ours;</p>
<p class=Poem>And the sunshine of June, sprinkling gold on the corn,</p>
<p class=Poem>Hath no harvest that ripeneth like BETHEL'S red morn,—</p>
<p class=Poemspecial1>"Column! Forward!"</p>
<p class=Poemnewstanza>When our heroes, like bridegrooms, with lips and with
breath,</p>
<p class=Poem>Drank the first kiss of Danger and clasped her in death;</p>
<p class=Poem>And the heart of brave WINTHROP grew mute, with his lyre,</p>
<p class=Poem>When the plumes of his genius lay <span lang=EN-GB>moulting</span>
in fire,—</p>
<p class=Poemspecial1>"Column! Forward!"</p>
<p class=Poemnewstanza>Where he fell shall be sunshine as bright as his name,</p>
<p class=Poem>And the grass where he slept shall be green as his fame;</p>
<p class=Poem>For the gold of the Pen and the steel of the Sword</p>
<p class=Poem>Write his deeds—in his blood—on the land he adored,—</p>
<p class=Poemspecial1>"Column! Forward!"</p>
<p class=Poemnewstanza>And the soul of our comrade shall sweeten the air,</p>
<p class=Poem>And the flowers and the grass-blades his memory upbear;</p>
<p class=Poem>While the breath of his genius, like music in leaves,</p>
<p class=Poem>With the corn-tassels whispers, and sings in the sheaves,—</p>
<p class=Poemspecial1>"Column! Forward!"</p>
</div>
<div class=Section10>
<p class=Chapter>THE HORRORS OF SAN DOMINGO.</p>
<p class=ChapterDescription>CHAPTER IV.</p>
<p class=ChapterDescription>THE BUCCANEERS—<span lang=FR>FLIBUSTIERS</span>—<span
lang=ES-TRAD>TORTUGA</span>—SETTLEMENT OF THE WESTERN PART OF SAN
DOMINGO BY THE FRENCH.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>Peaceable voyagers in the West Indies were much astonished
at their first sight of certain men, who might have been a new species of
native, generated with slight advances upon the old stock by the principle of
selection, or spontaneous growths of a soil well guanoed by ferocity. They
sported the scarlet suit of the Carib, but of a dye less innocent, as if the
fated islands imparted this color to the men who preyed upon them. A cotton
shirt hung on their shoulders, and a pair of cotton drawers struggled vainly to
cover their thighs: you had to look very closely to pronounce upon the
material, it was so stained with blood and fat. Their bronzed faces and thick
necks were hirsute, as if overgrown with moss, tangled or crispy. Their feet
were tied up in the raw hides of hogs or beeves just slaughtered, from which
they also frequently extemporized drawers, cut while reeking, and left to
stiffen to the shape of the legs. A heavy-stocked musket, made at Dieppe or Nantes,
with a barrel four and a half feet long, and carrying sixteen balls to the
pound,<a href="#_edn6" name="_ednref6" title=""><span
class=MsoEndnoteReference><span class=MsoEndnoteReference><span
style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman"'>[6]</span></span></span></a>
lay over the shoulder, a calabash full of powder, with a wax stopper, was slung
behind, and a belt of crocodile's skin, with four knives and a bayonet, went
round the waist. These individuals, if the term is applicable to the phenomena
in question, were Buccaneers.<a href="#_edn7" name="_ednref7" title=""><span
class=MsoEndnoteReference><span class=MsoEndnoteReference><span
style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman"'>[7]</span></span></span></a></p>
<p class=MsoNormal>The name is derived from the arrangements which the Caribs
made to cook their prisoners of war. After being dismembered, their pieces were
placed upon wooden gridirons, which were called in Carib, <i><span
lang=ES-TRAD>barbacoa</span></i>. It will please our Southern brethren to
recognize a congenial origin for their favorite barbecue. The place where these
grilling hurdles were set up was called <span lang=FR>boucan</span>, and the
method of roasting and smoking, <i><span lang=FR>boucaner</span></i>. The
Buccaneers were men of many nations, who hunted the wild cattle, which had
increased prodigiously from the original Spanish stock; after taking off the
hide, they served the flesh as the Caribs served their captives. There appears
to have been a division of employment among them; for some hunted beeves merely
for the hide, and others hunted the wild hogs to salt and sell their flesh. But
their habits and appearance were the same. The beef-hunters had many dogs, of
the old mastiff-breed imported from Spain, to assist in running down their game,
with one or two hounds in each pack, who were taught to announce and follow up
a trail.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>The origin of these men, called Buccaneers, can be traced to
a few Norman-French who were driven out of St. <span lang=FR>Christophe</span>,
in 1630, by the Spaniards. This island was settled jointly, but by an
accidental coincidence, by French and English, in 1625. They lived tranquilly
together for five years: the hunting of Caribs, who disputed their title to the
soil, being a bond of union between them which was stronger than national
prejudice. But the Spanish power became jealous of this encroachment among the
islands, which it affected to own by virtue of Papal dispensation. Though Spain
did not care to occupy it, Cuba and the Main being too engrossing, she
determined that no other power should do so. She therefore took advantage of
disturbances which arose there, in consequence, the French writers affirm, of
the perfidious ambition of Albion, and chased both parties out of the island.
The French soon recovered possession of it, which they solely held in future;
but many exiles never returned, preferring to woo Fortune in company with the
French and English adventurers who swarmed in those seas, having withdrawn, for
sufficient reasons, from civilized society before a graceful retreat became
impossible. This medley of people settled at first upon the northern and
western coasts of San Domingo,—the latter being as yet unoccupied. A few
settlements of Spaniards upon the northern coast, which suffered from their
national antipathies and had endeavored to root them out, were quickly broken
up by them. The Dutch, of course, were friendly, and promised to supply them
with necessaries in payment for hides, lard, and meat, <i><span lang=FR>boucané</span></i>.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>Their favorite haunt was the little island <span
lang=ES-TRAD>Tortuga</span>,<a href="#_edn8" name="_ednref8" title=""><span
class=MsoEndnoteReference><span class=MsoEndnoteReference><span
style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman"'>[8]</span></span></span></a>
so named, some say, from its resemblance to a turtle afloat, and others, from
the abundance of that "green and glutinous" delight of aldermen. It
is only two or three leagues distant from the northern coast of San Domingo,
off the mouth of <span lang=FR>Trois</span><span lang=FR> </span><span lang=FR>Rivières</span>.
Its northern side is inaccessible: a boat cannot find a nook or cove into which
it may slip for landing or shelter. But there is one harbor upon the southern
side, and the Buccaneers took possession of this, and gradually fortified it to
make a place tenable against the anticipated assaults of the Spaniards. The
soil was thin, but it nourished great trees which seemed to grow from the
rocks; water was scarce; the hogs were numerous, smaller and more delicate than
those of San Domingo; the sugar-cane flourished; and tobacco of superior
quality could be raised. About five-and-twenty Spaniards held the harbor when
these adventurers approached to take possession. There were, besides, a few
other rovers like themselves, whom the new community adopted. The Spaniards
made no resistance, and were suffered to retire.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>There was cordial fellowship between the <i><span lang=FR>Flibustiers</span></i>
and Buccaneers, for they were all outlaws, without a country, with few national
predilections,—men who could not live at home except at the risk of
apprehension for vagrancy or crime,—men who ran away in search of
adventure when the public ear was ringing with the marvels and riches of the
Indies, and when a multitude of sins could be covered by judicious preying. The
Spaniards were the victims of this floating and roving St. Giles of the
seventeenth century. If England or France went to war with Spain, these
freebooters obtained commissions, and their pillaging grew honorable; but it
did not subside with the conclusion of a peace. They followed their own policy
of lust and avarice, over regions too far from the main history of the times to
be controlled.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>The word <i><span lang=FR>Flibustier</span></i> is derived
from the Dutch <i>Vlieboot</i>, fly-boat, swift boat, a kind of small craft
whose sailing qualities were superior to those of the other vessels then in
vogue. It is possible that the English made freebooter<a href="#_edn9"
name="_ednref9" title=""><span class=MsoEndnoteReference><span
class=MsoEndnoteReference><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman"'>[9]</span></span></span></a>
out of the French adaptation. The fly-boat was originally only a long, light pinnace<a
href="#_edn10" name="_ednref10" title=""><span class=MsoEndnoteReference><span
class=MsoEndnoteReference><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman"'>[10]</span></span></span></a>
or cutter with oars, fitted also to carry sail; we often find the word used by
the French writers to designate vessels which brought important intelligence.
They were favorite craft with the <i><span lang=FR>Flibustiers</span></i>, not
from their swiftness alone, but from their ease of management, and capacity to
run up the creeks and river-openings, and to <span lang=FR>lie</span>
concealed. From these they boarded the larger vessels, to plunder or to use
them for prolonged freebooting expeditions. The <i><span lang=FR>Flibustier</span></i>,
then, was a sea-hunter or pirate, as the Buccaneer was a land-hunter, but ready
also for pillaging expeditions, in which they coöperated. And their pursuits
were interchangeable: the Buccaneer sometimes went to sea, and the <i><span
lang=FR>Flibustier</span></i>, in times of marine scarcity, would don the hog-skin
breeches, and run down cows or hunt fugitive negroes with packs of dogs. The
Buccaneers, however, slowly acquired a tendency to settle, while the <i><span
lang=FR>Flibustiers</span></i> preferred to keep the seas, till Europe began to
look them up too sharply; so that the former became, eventually, the
agricultural nucleus of the western part of San Domingo, when the supply of
wild cattle began to fail. This failure happened partly in consequence of their
own extravagant hunting-habits, and partly through the agency of the Spaniards
of the eastern colony, who thought that by slaughtering the cattle their French
neighbors would be driven, for lack of employment, from the soil.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>The Buccaneers generally went to the chase in couples,
attended by their dogs and <i><span lang=FR>Engagés</span></i>. These hired or <i>engaged</i>
men first appear in the history of the island as valets of the Buccaneers. But,
in their case, misfortune rather than vice was the reason of their appearance
in such doubtful companionship. They were often sold for debt or inability to
pay a rent, as happened in Scotland even during the eighteenth century; they
were deluded to take ship by the flaming promises which the captains of vessels
issued in the ports of different countries, to recruit their crews, or with the
wickeder purpose of kidnapping simple rustics and hangers-on of cities; they
sometimes came to a vessel's side in poverty, and sold their liberty for three
years for the sake of a passage to the fabled Ind; press-gangs sometimes stole
and smuggled them aboard of vessels just ready to sail; very young people were
induced to come aboard,—indeed, one or two cases happened in France,
where a schoolmaster and his flock, who were out for a walk, were cajoled by
these purveyors of avaricious navigators, and actually carried away from the
country. There was, besides, a regular method of supplying the French colonies
in the different islands with voluntary <i><span lang=FR>engagés</span></i>,
who agreed to serve for three years at certain wages, with liberty and a small
allotment of land at the expiration of the time. These were called "thirty-six
months' men." Sometimes their regular indenture was respected, and
sometimes violently set aside to make the signers virtually slaves. This was
done occasionally by the French in imitation of the English. A number of <i><span
lang=FR>engagés</span></i> at St. <span lang=FR>Christophe</span>, finding that
they were not set at liberty at the expiration of their three years, and that
their masters intended to hold them two years more, assembled tumultuously, and
threatened to attack the colony. This was in 1632. Their masters were not in
sufficient force to carry out their plan, and the Governor was obliged to set
at liberty all who had served their time. In 1719, the French Council of State
decreed, in consequence of the scarcity of <i><span lang=FR>engagés</span></i>,
that all vagabonds and criminals sentenced to the galleys should be transported
for colonial service; and in order to diminish the expense of shipping them,
every vessel leaving France for the Antilles was compelled to carry three <i><span
lang=FR>engagés</span></i> free of expense.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>The amount of misery created by these various methods of
supplying the islands with human labor cannot be computed. The victims were
very humble; the manner of their taking-off was rarely noticed; the spirit of
the age never stooped to consider these trifles of sorrow, nor to protect by
some legislation the unfortunates who suffered in remote islands, whence their
cries seldom reached the ears of authority. It would have been surprising, if
many of these <i><span lang=FR>engagés</span></i> had not assumed the habits of
their masters, and kept the wandering hordes by land and sea recruited. Some of
the most famous Buccaneers—for that name popularly included also the <i><span
lang=FR>Flibustiers</span></i>—were originally thirty-six months' men who
had daring and conduct enough to make the best of their enforced condition.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>These <i><span lang=FR>engagés</span></i> were in all
respects treated as slaves, especially when bound to agricultural service.
Their master left them to the mercies of an overseer, who whistled them up at
daybreak for wood-cutting or labor in the tobacco-fields, and went about among
them with a stout stick, which he used freely to bring the lagging up to their
work. Many cruelties are related of these men, but they are of the ordinary
kind to be found in the annals of all slave-holding countries. The fact that
the <i><span lang=FR>engagés</span></i> were indentured only for three years
made no difference with men whose sole object was to use up every available
resource in the pursuit of wealth. Bad treatment, chagrin, and scurvy destroyed
many of them. The French writers accused the English of treating their <i><span
lang=FR>engagés</span></i> worse than any other nation, as they retained them
for seven years, at the end of which time they gave them money enough to
procure a lengthened debauch, during which they generally signed away their
liberty for seven more years. Oexmelin says that Cromwell sold more than ten
thousand Scotch and Irish, destined for Barbadoes. A whole ship-load of these
escaped, but perished miserably of famine near Cape Tiburon, at a place which
was afterwards called <i>L'Anse aux Ibernois</i>.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>The first <i><span lang=FR>engagés</span></i> were brought
by the French from Dieppe: they signed contracts before notaries previously to
quitting the country. This class of laborers was eagerly sought by all the
colonists of the West Indies, and a good many vessels of different nations were
employed in the trade. There was in Brazil a system of letting out land to be
worked, called a <i><span lang=ES-TRAD>labrados</span></i>,<a href="#_edn11"
name="_ednref11" title=""><span class=MsoEndnoteReference><span
class=MsoEndnoteReference><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman"'>[11]</span></span></span></a>
because a manager held the land from a proprietor for a certain share of the
profits, and cultivated it by laborers procurable in various ways. The name of Labrador
is derived by some writers from the stealing of natives upon our northern coast
by the Portuguese, to be enslaved. It is certain that they did this as early as
1501,<a href="#_edn12" name="_ednref12" title=""><span
class=MsoEndnoteReference><span class=MsoEndnoteReference><span
style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman"'>[12]</span></span></span></a>
and named the coast afterwards <i>Terra de Laborador</i>.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>The Buccaneers, hunting in couples, called each other <i><span
lang=FR>matelot</span></i>, or shipmate: the word expresses their amphibious
capacity. When a bull was run down by the dogs, the hunter, almost as fleet of
foot as they, ran in to hamstring him, if possible,—if not, to shoot him.
A certain mulatto became glorious in buccaneering annals for running down his game:
out of a hundred hides which he sent to France, ten only were pierced with
bullet-holes. When the animal was stripped of its skin, the large bones were
drawn from the flesh for the sake of the marrow, of which the two <i><span
lang=FR>matelots</span></i> made their stout repast. Portions of the flesh were
then <i><span lang=FR>boucané</span></i> by the followers, the rest was left to
dogs and birds, and the chase was pursued day by day till a sufficient number
of hides were collected. These were transported to the little coves and landing
places, where they were exchanged for powder and shot, spirits and silver. Then
a grand debauch at <span lang=ES-TRAD>Tortuga</span> followed, with the wildest
gratification of every passion. Comrades <span lang=EN-GB>quarrelled</span> and
sought each other's blood; their pleasure ran <i>amôk</i> like a mad Malay.
When wine was all drunk and the money gamed away, another expedition, with
fresh air and beef-marrow, set these independent bankrupts again to rights.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>The <i><span lang=FR>Flibustiers</span></i> had an
inexpensive way of furnishing themselves with vessels for prosecuting their
piratical operations. A dozen of them in a boat would hang about the mouth of a
river, or in the vicinity of a Spanish port, enduring the greatest privations
with constancy, till they saw a vessel which had good sailing qualities and a fair
equipment. If they could not surprise it, they would run down to board it
regardless of its fire, and swarm up the side and over the decks in a perfect
fury, which nothing could resist, driving the crew into the sea. These
expeditions were always prefaced by religious observances. On this point they
were very strict; even before each meal, the Catholics chanted the Canticle of Zacharias,
the <span lang=FR>Magnificat</span>, and the Miserere, and the Protestants of
all nations read a chapter of the Bible and sang a psalm. For many a Huguenot
was in these seas, revenging upon mankind its capability to perpetrate, in the
name of religion, a St. Bartholomew's.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>Captain Daniel was a <i><span lang=FR>Flibustier</span></i>
with religious tendencies. Finding himself out of poultry, as he lay between
Les <span lang=FR>Saintes</span> and Dominica, (1701,) he approached the former
island by night, landed and carried off the <i><span lang=FR>curé</span></i>
and some of the principal inhabitants. These were not the fowls he wanted, but
rather decoys to the fattest poultry-yards. The account of his exquisite mingling
of business and religion gives us a glimpse into the interior of flibustierism.
We translate from Father <span lang=FR>Labat</span>, who had the story from the
astonished <i><span lang=FR>curé</span></i>. They were very polite to them, he
says, "and while the people were bringing in the provisions, they begged
the <i><span lang=FR>curé</span></i> to say mass in their vessel, which he did
not care to refuse. They sent on shore for the proper accessories, and set up a
tent on the quarter-deck, furnished with an altar, to celebrate the mass, which
they chanted zealously with the inhabitants who were on board. It was commenced
by a discharge of musketry, and of eight pieces of cannon with which their bark
was armed. They made a second discharge at the Sanctus, a third at the
Elevation, and a fourth at the Benediction, and, finally, a fifth after the Exaudiat
and the prayer for the King, which was followed by a ringing <i>Vive le </i><i><span
lang=FR>Roi</span></i>. Only one slight incident disturbed a little our
devotions. One of the <i><span lang=FR>Flibustiers</span></i>, taking an
indecent posture during the Elevation, was reprimanded by Captain Daniel.
Instead of correcting himself, he made some impertinent answer, accompanied
with an execrable oath, which was paid on the spot by the Captain, who pistolled
him in the head, swearing before God that he would do the same to the first man
who failed in respect for the Holy Sacrifice. The <i><span lang=FR>curé</span></i>
was a little flustered, as it happened very close to him. But Daniel said to
him, 'Don't be troubled, father; 't was a rascal whom I had to punish to teach
his duty': a very efficacious way to prevent the recurrence of a similar fault.
After mass, they threw the body into the sea, and paid the holy father
handsomely for his trouble and his fright. They gave him some valuable clothes,
and as they knew that he was destitute of a negro, they made him a present of one,"—"which,"
says Father <span lang=FR>Labat</span>, "I received an order to reclaim,
the original owner having made a demand for him."</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>Such was Captain Daniel's rubricated copy of the Buccaneers'
<i>Λειτονργία</i>.
One may judge from this what the early condition of religion must have been in
the French colony of San Domingo, which sprang from these pirates of the land
and sea. And it seems that their reverence for the observances diminished in an
inverse proportion to their perils. Father <span lang=FR>Labat</span> said mass
in the little town of Cap <span lang=FR>Français</span>, in 1701. The chapel
was not much better than an <i><span lang=FR>ajoupa</span></i>, that is, a four-posted
square with a sloping roof of leaves or light boards. The aisle had half a foot
of dust in the dry season, and the same depth of mud during rain. "I asked
the sacristan, who also filled the office of chanter, if he should chant the
Introit, or begin simply with the <span lang=FR>Kyrie</span><span lang=FR> </span>Eleïson;
but he replied that it was not their custom to chant a great deal, they were
content with low mass, brief, and well hurried up, and never chanted except at
funerals. However, I did not omit to bless the water and asperse the people;
and as I thought that the solemnity of the day demanded a little preaching, I
preached, and gave notice that I should say mass on the following day."
This he did, but was infinitely scandalized at the behavior of the people,
comparing it with that of the thorough-going Catholics of the other French
islands. "They came into the chapel as to an assembly, or to some profane
spectacle; they talked, laughed, and joked. The people in the gallery talked
louder than I did, and mingled the name of God in their discourse in an
insufferable manner. I mildly remonstrated with them three or four times; but
seeing that it had no effect, I spoke in a way that compelled some officers to
impose silence. A well-behaved person had the goodness to inform me, after
mass, that it was necessary to be rather more indulgent with the <i>People of
the Coast</i>, if one wanted to live with them." This was an old euphemism
for <i><span lang=FR>Flibustiers</span></i>. The good father could expect
nothing better, especially as so many of his audience may have been Calvinists,
for the first habitant at Cap <span lang=FR>Français</span> was of that sect.
These men were trying to become settled; and the alternative was between rapine
with religion and raising crops without it. The latter became the habitude of
the island; for the descendants of the Buccaneers could afford the luxury of
absolute sincerity, which even their hardy progenitors were too weak to seize.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>In the other Islands, however, the priest had the colonists
well in hand, as may be understood from the lofty language which he could
assume towards petty sacramental infractions. At St. Croix, for instance, three
light fellows made a mock of Sunday and the mass, saying, "We go a-fishing,"
and tried to persuade some neighbors to accompany them.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"No; 't is Trinity Sunday, and we shall go to
mass."</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"And will the Trinity help you to your dinner? Come,
mass will keep for another time."</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>The decent neighbors refusing, these three unfortunate men
departed, and were permitted by an inscrutable Providence to catch a great
number of little fishes, which they shared with their conforming neighbors. All
ate of them, but with this difference, that the three anti-sabbatarians fell
sick, and died in twenty-four hours, while the others experienced no injury.
The effect of this gastric warning is somewhat weakened by the incautious
statement of the narrative, that a priest, who ran from one dying man to
another, became overheated, and contracted a fatal illness.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>The Catholic profession brought no immunity to the Spanish
navigators. Our <i><span lang=FR>Flibustiers</span></i>, strengthened by
religious exercises, and a pistol in each hand, stormed upon the deck, as if
they had fallen from the clouds. "<i>Jesus, son </i><i><span lang=ES-TRAD>demonios</span><span
lang=ES-TRAD> </span></i><i><span lang=ES-TRAD>estos</span></i>":
"They are demons, and not men." After they had thus
"cleared" their vessel, they entered into a contract, called <i>chasse-</i><i><span
lang=FR>partie</span></i>, the articles of which regulated their voyage and the
disposition of the booty. They were very minutely made out. Here are some of
the awards and reimbursements. The one who discovered a prize earned one
hundred crowns; the same amount, or a slave, recompensed for the loss of an
eye. Two eyes were rated at six hundred crowns, or six slaves. For the loss of
the right hand or arm two hundred crowns or two slaves were paid, and for both
six hundred crowns. When a <i><span lang=FR>Flibustier</span></i> had a wound
which obliged him to carry surgical helps and substitutes, they paid him two
hundred crowns, or two slaves. If he had not entirely lost a member, but was
only deprived of its use, he was recompensed the same as if the member had
disappeared.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"They have also regard to qualities and places. Thus,
the captain or chief is allotted five or six portions to what the ordinary
seamen have, the master's mate only two, and other officers proportionable to
their employ, after which they draw equal parts from the highest to the lowest
mariner, the boys not being omitted, who draw half a share, because, when they
take a better vessel than their own, it is the boys' duty to fire their former
vessel and then retire to the prize."</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>Among the conventions of English pirates we find some
additional articles which show a national difference. Whoever shall steal from
the company, or game up to the value of a piece of eight, (<span lang=FR>piastre</span>,
translated <i><span lang=FR>écu</span></i> by the French,—rated by the
English of that day at not quite five shillings sterling,—about a
dollar,) shall be landed on a desert place, with a bottle of water, gun,
powder, and lead. Whoever shall maltreat or assault another, while the articles
subsist, shall receive the Law of Moses: this was the infliction of forty
consecutive strokes upon the back, a whimsical memento of the dispensation in
the Wilderness. There were articles relative to the treatment and disposition
of women, which sometimes depended upon the tossing of a coin,—<i><span
lang=FR>jeter</span><span lang=FR> </span></i><i><span lang=FR>à</span><span
lang=FR> </span></i><i><span lang=FR>croix</span> pile</i>,—but they need
not be repeated: on this point the French were worse than the English.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>The English generally wound up their convention with the
solemn agreement that not a man should speak of separation till the gross
earnings amounted to one thousand pounds per head. Then the whole company
associated by couples, for mutual support in anticipation of wounds and danger,
and to devise to each other all their effects in case of death. While at sea,
or engaged in expeditions against the coasts of Terra Firma, their friendship
was of the most romantic kind, inspired by a common feeling of outlawry, and
colored by the risks of their atrocious employment. They called themselves
"Brothers of the Coast," and took a solemn oath not to secrete from
each other any portion of the common spoil, nor uncharitably to disregard each
other's wants. Violence and lust would have gone upon bootless ventures, if justice
and generosity had not been crimped to strengthen the crew.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>These buccaneering conventions were gradually imposed upon
all the West-Indian neighborhood, by the title of uncompromising strength, and
became known as the "Usage of the Coast." When the Brothers met with
any remonstrance which referred the rights of navigators and settlers back to
the Common Law of Europe, they were accustomed to defend their Usage, saying
that their baptism had absolved them from all previous obligations. This was an
allusion to the marine ceremony called in later times "Crossing the
Line," and administered only upon that occasion; but at first it was
performed when vessels were passing the <span lang=FR>Raz</span> de Fonteneau,
on their way to and from the Channel, and originated before navigators crossed
the Atlantic or passed the Tropic of Cancer. The <span lang=FR>Raz</span>, or
Tide-Race, was a dangerous passage off the coast of Brittany; some religious
observance among the early sailors, dictated by anxiety, appears to have
degenerated into the Neptunian frolic, which included a copious christening of
salt water for the raw hands, and was kept up long after men had ceased to fear
the unknown regions of the ocean. Perhaps an aspersion with holy-water was a
part of the original rite, on the ground that the mariner was passing into new
countries, once thought uninhabited, as into a strange new-world, to sanctify
the hardiness and propitiate the Ruler of Sea and Air. The Dutch, also,
performed some ceremony in passing the rocks, then called Barlingots, which <span
lang=FR>lie</span><span lang=FR> </span>off the mouth of the Tagus. Gradually
the usage went farther out to sea; and the farther it went, of course, the more
unrestrained it grew.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>This was the baptism which regenerated Law for the
Buccaneers. It also absolved them from the use of their own names, which might,
indeed, in many cases have been but awkward conveniences; and they were not
known except by <i>sobriquets</i>. But when they became <i>habitans</i> or
settlers, and took wives, their surnames appeared for the first time in the
marriage-contract; so that it was a proverb in the islands,—"You
don't know people till they marry."</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>The institution of marriage was not introduced among the
Buccaneers for many years after their settlement of the western coast. In the
mean time they selected women for extemporaneous partners, to whom they
addressed a few significant words before taking them home to their <i><span
lang=FR>ajoupas</span></i>, to the effect that their antecedents were not worth
minding, but <i>this</i>, slightly tapping the musket, "which never
deceived me, will avenge me, if <i>you</i> do."</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>These women, with the exception of one or two organized
emigrations of poor, but honest, girls, were the sweepings of the streets of Paris
and London. They were sometimes deported with as little ceremony as the <i><span
lang=FR>engagés</span></i>, and sometimes collected by the Government,
especially of France, for the deliberate purpose of meeting the not over nice
demands of the adventurers; for it was the interest of France to pet <span
lang=ES-TRAD>Tortuga</span> and the western coast. All the French islands were
stocked in the same manner. <span lang=FR>Du</span><span lang=FR> </span><span
lang=FR>Tertre</span> devotes a page to the intrigues of a Mademoiselle de la <span
lang=FR>Fayolle</span>, who appeared in St. <span lang=FR>Christophe</span>
with a strong force of these unfortunate women, in 1643. They were collected
from St. Joseph's Hospital in Paris, to prevent the colonists from leaving the
island in search of wives. Mademoiselle came with letters from the Queen and
other ladies of quality, and quite dazzled M. <span lang=FR>Aubert</span>, the
Governor, who proposed to his wife that she should be accommodated in the
chateau. She had a restless and managing temper, and her power lasted as long
as her merchandise.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>In 1667 there was an auction-sale of fifty girls without
character at <span lang=ES-TRAD>Tortuga</span>. They went off so well that
fifty more were soon supplied. <span lang=FR>Schoelcher</span> says that in the
twelfth volume of the "Archives de la Marine" there is a note of
"one hundred nymphs for the Antilles and a hundred more for San
Domingo," under the date of 1685.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>Here were new elements of civilization for the devoted
island, whose earliest colonists were pirates pacified by prostitutes. They
were the progenitors of families whom wealth and colonial luxury made famous;
for in such a climate a buccaneering nickname will soon flower into titles
which conceal the gnarled and ugly stock. Some of these French <span
lang=ES-TRAD>Dianas</span> led a healthy and hardy life with their husbands,
followed them to the chase, and emulated their exploits with the pistol and the
knife. Some blood was thus renewed while some grew more depraved, else the
colony would have rotted from the soil.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>Nature struggles to keep all her streams fresh and clear.
The children of adventurers may inherit the vices of their parents; but Nature
silently puts her fragrant graft into the withering tree, and it learns to bud
with unexpected fruit. Inheritance is only one of Mother Nature's emphatic
protestations that her wayward children will be the death of her; but she knows
better than that, unfortunately for the respectable vice and meanness which
flourish in every land and seek to prolong their line. California and Australia
soon reach the average of New York and London, and invite Nature to preserve
through them, too, her world. She drains and plants these unwholesome places;
powerful men and lovely women are the Mariposa cedars which attest her splendid
tillage. But a part of this Nature consists of conservative decency in men who
belong to law-abiding and Protestant races. For want of this, surgery and cautery
became Nature's expedients for Hayti, which was one of the worst sinks on her
great farm.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>If a greater number of female emigrants had been like Mary
Read, pirate as she was, the story of Hayti would have been modified. She had
the character which Nature loves to civilize.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>Mary Read was the illegitimate daughter of an Englishwoman,
who brought her up as a boy, after revealing to her the secret of her origin,
apparently wishing to protect her against the mischances which befell herself.
She was first a footman, then a sailor on board a man-of-war; afterwards she
served with great bravery in Flanders in a regiment of infantry. Then she
entered a cavalry regiment, where she fell deeply in love with a comrade, and
her woman's nature awoke. Obeying the uncontrollable instinct, she modestly
revealed her sex to him, and was married with great <i>éclat</i>, after he had
sought in vain, repelled by her high conduct, to make her less than wife. He
died soon after, and the Peace of <span lang=FR>Ryswick</span> compelled her to
assume her male attire again and seek employment. She went before the mast in a
vessel bound for the West Indies, which was taken by English pirates, with whom
she afterwards enjoyed the benefit of a royal proclamation pardoning all
pirates who submitted within a limited period. Their money gave out, and they
enlisted under a privateer captain to cruise against the Spaniards; but the
men, finding a favorable opportunity, took the vessel from the officers, and
commenced their old trade. Mary was as brave as any in boarding Spanish craft,
pistol in hand, to clear the decks; no peril made her falter, but she was
disarmed again by love in the person of a fine young pirate of superior mind
and grace. She made a friend of him, revealed her sex, and married him. Her
husband had a falling-out with a comrade, and a duel impended. Torn with love
and dread, she managed to pick a quarrel with his antagonist, appointed a
meeting an hour before the one which her husband expected, and was lucky enough
to postpone the latter indefinitely. At her trial in Jamaica, she would have
escaped through the compassion of the court, if some one had not deposed that
she often deliberately defended piracy with the argument that pirates were
fortunately amenable to capital punishment, and this was a restraint to
cowards, without which a thousand rascals who passed for honest people, but who
did nothing but pillage widows and orphans and defraud their neighbors, would
rush into a more honorable profession, the ocean would be covered with this <i>canaille</i>,
and the ruin of commerce would involve that of piracy. She died in prison of a
fever.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>Ann Bonny was born in Cork. She was of a truculent
disposition, and the murdering part of piracy was much to her taste. When her
husband was led out to execution, the special favor was granted of an interview
with her; but her only benediction was,—"I'm sorry to find ye in
this state; if ye had fought like a man, ye would not be seein' yerself hung
like a dog."</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>But what could angels themselves have done to make Captain
Teach presentable in the best society? <i>Blackbeard</i> was his <i>sobriquet</i>,
for he had one flowing over his chest which patriarchs might be forgiven for
coveting. The hair of his head was tastefully done up with ribbons, and inframed
his truculent face. When he went into a fight, three pairs of pistols hung from
a scarf, and two slow-matches, alight and projecting under his hat, glowed
above his cruel eyes. Certainly, the light of battle was not in his case a
metaphor.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>On board his vessel, one day, Captain Teach, just combing
upon strong-water, summoned his crew. "Go to, now, let us make a
hell," he cried, "and get a little seasoned. We'll find who can stand
it longest." Thereupon they all went down into the hold, which he had
carefully battened down; then he lighted sundry pots of <span lang=EN-GB>sulphur</span>,
and showed superior qualifications for the future by smoking them all out.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>On the day of his last combat, when advised to confide to
his wife where his money was hid, he refused, saying that only he and the Devil
knew where it was, and the survivor was to have it.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>Whenever these English pirates found a clergyman, they acted
as if pillaging had been only a last resort, owing to the scarcity of that
commodity in those seas. Captain Roberts took a vessel which had on board a
body of English troops with their chaplain, destined for garrison-duty. His
crew went into ecstasies of delight, as if they had separated themselves from
mankind and incurred atrocious suspicions from their desire to seek for
religious persons in all places. They wanted nothing but a chaplain; they had
never wanted anything else; he must join them; he would have nothing to do but
to pray and make the punch. As he steadily refused, they reluctantly parted
with him; but, smitten with his firmness, they retained of his effects nothing
but three prayer-books and a corkscrew.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>These were but common villains. The genuine <i><span
lang=FR>Flibustier</span></i> mingled national hatred with his avarice, and
harried the Spanish coasts with a sense of being the avenger of old affronts,
at least the divine instrument of his country's honest instincts, whose duty it
was to smite and spoil, as if the Armada were yet upon the seas as the
Inquisition was upon the land. Frenchmen and Englishmen, Huguenot and Dutch
Calvinists, Willis, Warner, Montbar the Exterminator, <span lang=FR>Levasseur</span>,
Lolonois, Henry Morgan, Coxon and Sharp, Bartholomew the Portuguese, Rock the
Dutchman, were representative men. They gave a villanous expression, and an
edge which avarice whetted, to the religious patriotism of their countrymen.
The <span lang=EN-GB>sombre</span> and deadly prejudices which lay half torpid
in their cage at home escaped from restraint in these men, and suddenly acted
out their proper nature on the highways of the world.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>We have no space to record particular deeds and cruelties.
The stories of the exploits of the <i><span lang=FR>Flibustiers</span></i> show
that their outlaw-life had developed all the powerful traits which make
pioneering or the profession of arms so illustrious. Audacity, cunning, great
endurance, tenacity of purpose, all the character of the organizing nations
whence they sprang, appeared in them so stained by murder and bestiality of
every kind, that the impression made by their career is revolting, and gets no
mitigation from their better qualities. They were generous to each other, and
scrupulously just; but it was for the sake of strengthening their hands against
mankind. They fought against the enemies of their respective nations with all
the fiendishness of popular hate that has broken loose from popular restraints
and civilizing checks and has become a beast. Commerce was nothing to them but
a convenience for plunder; a voyaging ship was an oasis in the mid-waste on
which they swarmed for an orgy of avarice and gluttony; the cities of the
Spanish Main were hives of wealth and women to be overturned and rifled, and
their mother-country a retreat where the sanctimonious old age of a few
survivors of these successful crimes could display their money and their piety,
and perhaps a titled panel on their coach. Henry Morgan was knighted, and made
a good end in the Tower of London as a political prisoner. Pierre le Grand, the
first <i><span lang=FR>Flibustier</span></i> who took a ship, retired to France
with wealth and consideration. Captain Avery, who had an immense fame, was the
subject of a drama entitled "The Happy Pirate," which inoculated many
a prentice-lad with cutlasses and rollicking ferocity. Others became the agents
of easy cabinets who always winked at buccaneering, because it so often saved them
the expense of war. What gift or place would a slave-holding cabinet, or a
Southern Confederacy, have thought too dear to bestow upon Captain Walker,
whose criminal acts were feeding the concealed roots of the Great Conspiracy,
if his murder and arson had become illustrious by success?</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>The <i><span lang=FR>Flibustiers</span></i> were composed of
many nations. The Buccaneers were mostly French. Their head-quarters, or
principal <i><span lang=FR>boucans</span></i>, upon San Domingo, were on the peninsula
of Samana, at Port Margot, Savanna Brulée near Gonaives, and the landing-place
of Mirebalais. The Spaniards gained at first several advantages over them by
cutting off the couples which were engaged in chasing the wild cattle. This
compelled the Buccaneers to associate in larger bands, and to add Spaniards to their
list of game. The word <i>massacre</i> on the maps of the island marks places
where sanguinary surprises were effected by either party; but the Spaniards
lost more blood than their wily antagonists, and were compelled to abandon all
their settlements on the northern and northeastern coasts and to fall back upon
San Domingo and their other towns. The <i><span lang=FR>Flibustiers</span></i>
blockaded their rivers, intercepted the vessels of slave-traders of all
nations, made prizes of the cargoes, and sold them to the French of the rising
western colony, to the English at Jamaica, or among the other islands, wherever
a contraband speculation could be made. This completed the ruin of Spanish San
Domingo; for the Government, crippled by land- and sea-fights with English,
French, and Dutch, was unable to protect its colonies. It is very strange to
notice this sudden weakness of the nation which was lately so domineering; the
causes which produced it have been stated elsewhere<a href="#_edn13"
name="_ednref13" title=""><span class=MsoEndnoteReference><span
class=MsoEndnoteReference><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman"'>[13]</span></span></span></a>
with great research and power.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>The Spaniards had made a few settlements in the western part
of the island, the principal one of which was <span lang=ES-TRAD>Yaguana</span>,
or Leogane. They were too far from the eastern population to be successfully
defended or succored, in case of the attacks which were constantly expected
after Drake's expedition. In 1592, the town of <span lang=ES-TRAD>Azua</span>
was taken and destroyed by an English force under Christopher Newport, who was
making war against the Spaniards on his own account. He afterwards attacked <span
lang=ES-TRAD>Yaguana</span>, was at first repulsed, but took it by night and
burned it to the ground. In consequence of this, all the western settlements
were abandoned; and not a Spaniard remained in that part of the island after
1606. Cruisers of other nations seized the ports for their private convenience.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>A brief outline will suffice to conduct us to the secure
establishment of the French in Western San Domingo. <span lang=ES-TRAD>Tortuga</span>
was attacked by the Spaniards in 1638; the Buccaneers were surprised, put to
the sword, and scattered. A few joined their brethren in San Domingo. Their
discomfiture was thought to be so complete that no garrison was left upon <span
lang=ES-TRAD>Tortuga</span>. At the same time the Spaniards organized bands of
fifty men each, called <i>la </i><i><span lang=FR>cinquantaine</span></i> by
the French Buccaneers, to serve as a kind of rural police to hunt down the
latter and exterminate them. For safety the French collected, and put at their
head Willis, an Englishman, who had just then appeared with two or three
hundred men, with the view of joining those of his countrymen who were
Buccaneers. He led them back to <span lang=ES-TRAD>Tortuga</span>, and threw up
some rude works to command the harbor. But the national antipathies soon
appeared, on the occasion of some encroachment of Willis, whose countrymen were
the more numerous party. The French <span lang=EN-GB>despatched</span> secret
agents to St. <span lang=FR>Christophe</span>, who made it clear to M. de Poincy,
the Governor of that island, that the English could be easily dispossessed by a
small force attacking them from without, while the French rose within. The
Governor thought it was a good opportunity to weed the Huguenots, who were
always making trouble about religious matters, out of his colony; he did not
hesitate, therefore, to cooperate with the outlaws for so nice a game as
driving out the English by getting rid of his heretics. The operation was intrusted
to M. <span lang=FR>Levasseur</span>, a brave and well-instructed Huguenot
officer, who took with him about a hundred men. Willis decamped at their first
summons, knowing the temper of his French subjects; and <span lang=FR>Levasseur</span>
landed, and immediately began to fortify a platform-rock which rose only a few
paces from the water's edge. This he intrenched, surrounding an open square
capable of accommodating three or four hundred men. A never-failing spring
gushed from the rock for the supply of a garrison. From the middle of this
platform there rose conveniently another rock thirty feet high, with scarped
sides, upon which he built a block-house for himself and the ammunition,
communicating with the platform by a movable ladder of iron. He made the place
so formidable as a buccaneering centre that the Spaniards resolved to attack it.
They tried it at first from the sea, but, being well battered, retired and
disembarked six hundred men by night to make a land-attack. They were defeated,
with the loss of a hundred men.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span lang=FR>Levasseur</span> appears to have grown
arrogant with his success. He began to abuse and persecute all the Catholics,
burned their chapel, and drove away a priest. He had stocks set up, made of
iron, which he called his Hell, and the fort where he kept it, Purgatory. <span
lang=FR>Du</span><span lang=FR> </span><span lang=FR>Tertre</span> says that he
wanted to make of <span lang=ES-TRAD>Tortuga</span> a little Geneva. He
disavowed the authority of M. de Poincy, and when the latter demanded
restitution of a <i><span lang=FR>Nôtre</span> Dame</i> of silver which the <i><span
lang=FR>Flibustiers</span></i> had taken from a Spanish vessel, he sent a model
of it, constructed of wood, with the message that Catholics were too spiritual
to attach any value to the material, but as for himself, he had a liking for
the metal. <span lang=FR>Levasseur</span> was assassinated by two of his
captains after a reign of a dozen years.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>The next Governor sent by De Poincy to <span lang=ES-TRAD>Tortuga</span>
was a Catholic, the Chevalier <span lang=FR>Fontenay</span>. The religion of
this stronghold changed, but not its habits. The Spaniards planned a second
attack upon it in 1653, and succeeded by dragging a couple of light cannon up
the mountain so as to command the donjon built by <span lang=FR>Levasseur</span>.
The French took refuge upon the coast of San Domingo, where they waited for an
opportunity to repossess their little island. This soon followed upon an
application made by De Rausset, one of <span lang=FR>Levasseur's</span> old
comrades, to the French West India Company for a sufficient force to drive out
the Spaniards. De <span lang=FR>Rausset's</span> plan succeeded, <span
lang=ES-TRAD>Tortuga</span> passed permanently into French hands, and the
Spaniards confined themselves for the future to annoying the new colonies of
Buccaneers which overflowed upon San Domingo. But their efforts disappear after
a terrible defeat inflicted upon them in 1665, which the <i><span lang=FR>Flibustiers</span></i>
followed up by the sack and destruction of Santiago, the town second in
importance to San Domingo. Henceforth the history of the island belongs to France.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>[To be continued.]</p>
<p class=Chapter>A COMPLAINT OF FRIENDS.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>If things would not run into each other so, it would be a
thousand times easier and a million times pleasanter to get on in the world.
Let the sheepiness be set on one side and the goatiness on the other, and
immediately you know where you are. It is not necessary to ask that there be
any increase of the one or any diminution of the other, but only that each
shall preempt its own territory and stay there. Milk is good, and water is
good, but don't set the milk-pail under the pump. Pleasure softens pain, but
pain embitters pleasure; and who would not rather have his happiness
concentrated into one memorable day that shall gleam and glow through a
lifetime, than have it spread out over a dozen comfortable, commonplace,
humdrum forenoons and afternoons, each one as like the others as two peas in a
pod? Since the law of compensation obtains, I suppose it is the best law for
us; but if it had been left with me, I should have made the clever people rich
and handsome, and left poverty and ugliness to the stupid people; because—don't
you see?—the stupid people won't know they are ugly, and won't care if
they are poor, but the clever people will be hampered and tortured. I would
have given the good wives to the good husbands, and made drunken men marry
drunken women. Then there would have been one family exquisitely happy, instead
of two struggling against misery. I would have made the rose-stem downy, and
put all the thorns on the thistles. I would have gouged out the jewel from the
toad's head, and given the peacock the nightingale's voice, and not set
everything so at half and half.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>But that is the way it is. We find the world made to our
hand. The wise men marry the foolish virgins, and the splendid virgins marry
dolts, and matters in general are so mixed up that the choice lies between nice
things about spoiled and vile things that are not so bad after all, and it is
hard to tell sometimes which you like best or which you loathe least.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>I expect to lose every friend I have in the world by the publication
of this paper—except the dunces who are impaled in it. They will never
read it, and if they do, will never suspect I mean them; while the sensible and
true friends, who do me good and not evil all the days of their lives, will
think I am driving at their noble hearts, and will at once haul off and leave
me inconsolable. Still I am going to write it. You must open the safety-valve
once in a while, even if the steam does whiz and shriek, or there will be an
explosion, which is fatal, while the whizzing and shrieking are only
disagreeable.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>Doubtless friendship has its advantages and its pleasures;
doubtless hostility has its isolations and its revenges: still, if called upon
to choose once for all between friends and foes, I think, on the whole, I should
cast my vote for the foes. Twenty enemies will not do you the mischief of one
friend. Enemies you always know where to find. They are in fair and square
perpetual hostility, and you keep your armor on and your sentinels posted; but
with friends you are inveigled into a false security, and, before you know it,
your honor, your modesty, your delicacy are scudding before the gales.
Moreover, with your friend you can never make reprisals. If your enemy attacks
you, you can always strike back and hit hard. You are expected to defend
yourself against him to the top of your bent. He is your legal opponent in
honorable warfare. You can pour hot-shot into him with murderous vigor; and the
more he wriggles, the better you feel. In fact, it is rather refreshing to
measure swords once in a while with such a one. You like to exert your power
and keep yourself in practice. You do not rejoice so much in overcoming your
enemy as in overcoming. If a marble statue could show fight, you would just as
soon fight it; but as it cannot, you take something that can, and something,
besides, that has had the temerity to attack you, and so has made a lawful
target of itself. But against your friend your hands are tied. He has injured
you. He has disgusted you. He has infuriated you. But it was most Christianly
done. You cannot hurl a thunderbolt, or pull a trigger, or lisp a syllable,
against those amiable monsters who with tenderest fingers are sticking pins all
over you. So you shut fast the doors of your lips, and inwardly sigh for a
good, stout, brawny, malignant foe, who, under any and every circumstance, will
design you harm, and on whom you can lavish your lusty blows with a hearty will
and a clear conscience.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>Your enemy keeps clear of you. He neither grants nor claims
favors. He awards you your rights,—no more, no less,—and demands
the same from you. Consequently there is no friction. Your friend, on the
contrary, is continually getting himself tangled up with you "because he
is your friend." I have heard that Shelley was never better pleased than
when his associates made free with his coats, boots, and hats for their own
use, and that he appropriated their property in the same way. Shelley was a
poet, and perhaps idealized his friends. He saw them, probably, in a state of pure
intellect. I am not a poet; I look at people in the concrete. The most obvious
thing about my friends is their avoirdupois; and I prefer that they should wear
their own cloaks and suffer me to wear mine. There is no neck in the world that
I want my collar to span except my own. It is very exasperating to me to go to
my bookcase and miss a book of which I am in immediate and pressing need,
because an intimate friend has carried it off without asking leave, on the
score of his intimacy. I have not, and do not wish to have, any alliance that
shall abrogate the eighth commandment. A great mistake is lying round loose
hereabouts,—a mistake fatal to many friendships that did run well. The
common fallacy is, that intimacy dispenses with the necessity of politeness.
The truth is just the opposite of this. The more points of contact there are,
the more danger of friction there is, and the more carefully should people
guard against it. If you see a man only once a month, it is not of so vital
importance that you do not trench on his rights, tastes, or whims. He can bear
to be crossed or annoyed occasionally. If he does not have a very high regard
for you, it is comparatively unimportant, because your paths are generally so
diverse. But you and the man with whom you dine every day have it in your power
to make each other exceedingly uncomfortable. A very little dropping will wear
away rock, if it only keep at it. The thing that you would not think of, if it
occurred only twice a year, becomes an intolerable burden when it happens twice
a day. This is where husbands and wives run aground. They take too much for
granted. If they would but see that they have something to gain, something to
save, as well as something to enjoy, it would be better for them; but they
proceed on the assumption that their love is an inexhaustible tank, and not a
fountain depending for its supply on the stream that trickles into it. So, for
every little annoying habit, or weakness, or fault, they draw on the tank
without being careful to keep the supply open, till they awake one morning to
find the pump dry, and, instead of love, at best, nothing but a cold habit of
complacence. On the contrary, the more intimate friends become, whether married
or unmarried, the more scrupulously should they strive to repress in themselves
everything annoying, and to cherish both in themselves and each other
everything pleasing. While each should draw on his love to neutralize the
faults of his friend, it is suicidal to draw on his friend's love to neutralize
his own faults. Love should be cumulative, since it cannot be stationary. If it
does not increase, it decreases. Love, like confidence, is a plant of slow
growth, and of most exotic fragility. It must be constantly and tenderly
cherished. Every noxious and foreign element must be carefully removed from it.
All sunshine, and sweet airs, and morning dews, and evening showers must
breathe upon it perpetual fragrance, or it dies into a hideous and repulsive
deformity, fit only to be cast out and trodden under foot of men, while,
properly cultivated, it is a Tree of Life.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>Your enemy keeps clear of you not only in business, but in
society. If circumstances thrust him into contact with you, he is curt and
centrifugal. But your friend breaks in upon your "saintly solitude"
with perfect equanimity. He never for a moment harbors a suspicion that he can
intrude, "because he is your friend." So he drops in on his way to
the office to chat half an hour over the latest news. The half-hour isn't much
in itself. If it were after dinner, you wouldn't mind it; but after breakfast
every moment "runs itself in golden sands," and the break in your
time crashes a worse break in your temper. "Are you busy?" asks the
considerate wretch, adding insult to injury. What can you do? Say yes and wound
his self-love forever? But he has a wife and family. You respect their
feelings, smile and smile, and are villain enough to be civil with your lips,
and hide the poison of asps under your tongue, till you have a chance to
relieve your o'ercharged heart by shaking your fist in impotent wrath at his
retreating form. You will receive the reward of your hypocrisy as you richly
deserve, for ten to one he will drop in again when he comes back from his
office, and arrest you wandering in Dreamland in the beautiful twilight.
Delighted to find that you are neither reading nor writing,—the absurd
dolt! as if a man weren't at work unless he be wielding a sledge-hammer!—he
will preach out, and prose out, and twaddle out another hour of your golden
even-tide, "because he is your friend." You don't care whether he is
judge or jury,—whether he talks sense or nonsense; you don't want him to
talk at all. You don't want him there any way. You want to be alone. If you
don't, why are you sitting there in the deepening twilight? If you wanted him,
couldn't you send for him? Why don't you go out into the drawing-room, where
are music, and lights, and gay people? What right have I to suppose, that,
because you are not using your eyes, you are not using your brain? What right have
I to set myself up as judge of the value of your time, and so rob you of
perhaps the most delicious hour in all your day, on pretence that it is of no
use to you?—take a pound of flesh clean out of your heart and trip on my
smiling way as if I had not earned the gallows?</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>And what in Heaven's name is the good of all this ceaseless
talk? To what purpose are you wearied, exhausted, dragged out and out to the
very extreme of tenuity? A sprightly badinage,—a running fire of nonsense
for half an hour,—a tramp over unfamiliar ground with a familiar guide,—a
discussion of something with somebody who knows all about it, or who, not
knowing, wants to learn from you,—a pleasant interchange of commonplaces
with a circle of friends around the fire, at such hours as you give to society:
all this is not only tolerable, but agreeable,—often positively
delightful; but to have an indifferent person, on no score but that of
friendship, break into your sacred presence, and suck your blood through
indefinite cycles of time, is an abomination. If he clatters on an indifferent
subject, you can do well enough for fifteen minutes, buoyed up by the hope that
he will presently have a fit, or be sent for, or come to some kind of an end.
But when you gradually open to the conviction that <i><span lang=FR>vis</span><span
lang=FR> </span>inertiae</i> rules the hour, and the thing which has been is
that which shall be, you wax listless; your chariot-wheels drive heavily; your
end of the pole drags in the mud, and you speedily wallow in unmitigated
disgust. If he broaches a subject on which you have a real and deep living
interest, you shrink from unbosoming yourself to him. You feel that it would be
sacrilege. He feels nothing of the sort. He treads over your heart-strings in
his cow-hide brogans, and does not see that they are not whip-cords. He pokes
his gold-headed cane in among your treasures, blind to the fact that you are
clutching both arms around them, that no gleam of flashing gold may reveal
their whereabouts to him. You draw yourself up in your shell, projecting a
monosyllabic claw occasionally as a sign of continued vitality; but the
pachyderm does not withdraw, and you gradually lower into an indignation,—smothered,
fierce, intense.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>Why, <i>why</i>, WHY will people inundate their unfortunate
victims with such "weak, washy, everlasting floods"? Why will they
haul everything out into the open day? Why will they make the Holy of Holies
common and unclean? Why will they be so ineffably stupid as not to see that
there is that which speech profanes? Why will they lower their drag-nets into the
unfathomable waters, in the vain attempt to bring up your pearls and gems,
whose <span lang=EN-GB>lustre</span> would pale to ashes in the garish light,—whose
only sparkle is in the deep sea-soundings? <i>Procul, O procul </i><i><span
lang=FR>este</span>, profani!</i></p>
<p class=MsoNormal>Oh, the matchless power of silence! There are words that
concentrate in themselves the glory of a lifetime; but there is a silence that
is more precious than they. Speech ripples over the surface of life, but
silence sinks into its depths. Airy pleasantnesses bubble up in airy, pleasant
words. Weak sorrows quaver out their shallow being and are not. When the heart
is cleft to its core, there is no speech nor language.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>Do not now, Messrs. Bores, think to retrieve your characters
by coming into my house and sitting mute for two hours. Heaven forbid that your
blood should be found on my skirts! but I believe I shall kill you, if you do.
The only reason why I have not laid violent hands on you heretofore is that
your vapid talk has operated as a wire to conduct my electricity to the
receptive and kindly earth; but if you intrude upon my magnetisms without any
such life-preserver, your future in this world is not worth a crossed six-pence.
Your silence would break the reed that your talk but bruised. The only people
with whom it is a joy to sit silent are the people with whom it is a joy to
talk. Clear out!</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>Friendship plays the mischief in the false ideas of
constancy which are generated and cherished in its name, if not by its agency.
Your enemies are intense, but temporary. Time wears off the edge of hostility.
It is the alembic in which offences are dissolved into thin air, and a calm
indifference reigns in their stead. But your friends are expected to be a
permanent arrangement. They are not only a sore evil, but of long continuance.
Adhesiveness seems to be the head and front, the bones and blood of their
creed. It is not the direction of the quality, but the quality itself, which
they swear by. Only stick, it is no matter what you stick to. Fall out with a
man, and you can kiss and be friends as soon as you like; the recording angel
will set it down on the credit side of his books. Fall in, and you are expected
to stay in, <i>ad infinitum</i>, <i>ad nauseam</i>. No matter what combination
of laws got you there, there you are, and there you must stay, for better, for worse,
till merciful Death you do part,—or you are—"fickle." You
find a man entertaining for an hour, a week, a concert, a journey, and <i>presto!</i>
you are saddled with him forever. What preposterous absurdity! Do but look at
it calmly. You are thrown into contact with a person, and, as in duty bound,
you proceed to fathom him: for every man is a possible revelation. In the deeps
of his soul there may <span lang=FR>lie</span> unknown worlds for you.
Consequently you proceed at once to experiment on him. It takes a little while
to get your tackle in order. Then the line begins to run off rapidly, and your
eager soul cries out, "Ah! what depth! What perpetual calmness must be
down below! What rest is here for all my tumult! What a grand, vast nature is
this!" Surely, surely, you are on the high seas. Surely, you will now
float serenely down the eternities! But by-and-by there is a kink. You find,
that, though the line runs off so fast, it does not go down,—it only
floats out. A current has caught it and bears it on horizontally. It does not
sink plumb. You have been deceived. Your grand Pacific Ocean is nothing but a
shallow little brook that you can ford all the year round, if it does not
utterly dry up in the summer heats, when you want it most; or, at best, it is a
fussy little tormenting river, that won't and can't sail a sloop. What are you
going to do about it? You are going to wind up your lead and line, shoulder
your birch canoe as the old sea-kings used, and thrid the deep forests, and
scale the purple hills, till you come to water again, when you will unroll your
lead and line for another essay. Is that fickleness? What else can you do? Must
you launch your bark on the unquiet stream, against whose pebbly bottom the
keel continually grates and rasps your nerves—simply that your reputation
suffer no detriment? Fickleness? There was no fickleness about it. You were
trying an experiment which you had every right to try. As soon as you were
satisfied, you stopped. If you had stopped sooner, you would have been
unsatisfied. If you had stopped later, you would have been dissatisfied. It is
a criminal contempt of the magnificent possibilities of life not to lay hold of
"God's occasions floating by." It is an equally criminal perversion
of them to cling tenaciously to what was only the <i>simulacrum</i> of an
occasion. A man will toil many days and nights among the mountains to find an
ingot of gold, which, found, he bears home with infinite pains and just
rejoicing; but he would be a fool who should lade his mules with iron-pyrites
to justify his labors, however severe.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>Fickleness! what is it, that we make such an ado about it?
And what is constancy, that it commands such usurious interest? The one is a
foible only in its relations. The other is only thus a virtue. "Fickle as
the winds" is our death-seal upon a man; but should we like our winds un-fickle?
Would a perpetual Northeaster lay us open to perpetual gratitude? or is a soft
South gale to be orisoned and vespered forevermore?</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>I am tired of this eternal prating of devotion and
constancy. It is senseless in itself and harmful in its tendencies. The dictate
of reason is to treat men and women as we do oranges. Suck all the juice out
and then let them go. Where is the good of keeping the peel and pulp-cells till
they get old, dry, and <span lang=EN-GB>mouldy</span>? Let them go, and they
will help feed the earth-worms and bugs and beetles who can hardly find
existence a continued banquet, and fertilize the earth which will have you give
before you receive. Thus they will ultimately spring up in new and beautiful
shapes. Clung to with constancy, they stain your knife and napkin, impart a bad
odor to your dining-room, and degenerate into something that is neither
pleasant to the eye nor good for food. I believe in a rotation of crops,
morally and socially, as well as agriculturally. When you have taken the
measure of a man, when you have sounded him and know that you cannot wade in
him more than ankle-deep, when you have got out of him all that he has to yield
for your soul's sustenance and strength, what is the next thing to be done?
Obviously, pass him on; and turn you "to fresh woods and pastures
new." Do you work him an injury? By no means. Friends that are simply
glued on, and don't grow out of, are little worth. He has nothing more for you,
nor you for him; but he may be rich in juices wherewithal to nourish the heart
of another man, and their two lives, set together, may have an <span lang=FR>endosmose</span>
and <span lang=FR>exosmose</span> whose result shall be richness of soil,
grandeur of growth, beauty of foliage, and perfectness of fruit; while you and
he would only have languished into aridity and a stunted crab-tree.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>For my part, I desire to sweep off my old friends with the
old year and begin the new with a clean record. It is a measure absolutely
necessary. The snake does not put on his new skin over the old one. He sloughs
off the first, before he dons the second. He would be a very clumsy serpent, if
he did not. One cannot have successive layers of friendships any more than the
snake has successive layers of skins. One must adopt some system to guard
against a congestion of the heart from plethora of loves. I go in for the much-abused
fair-weather, skin-deep, April-shower friends,—the friends who will drop
off, if let alone,—who must be kept awake to be kept at all,—who
will talk and laugh with you as long as it suits your respective humors and you
are prosperous and happy,—the blessed butterfly-race who flutter about
your June mornings, and when the clouds lower, and the drops patter, and the
rains descend, and the winds blow, will spread their gay wings and float
gracefully away to sunny southern lands where the skies are yet blue and the
breezes violet-scented. They are not only agreeable, but deeply wise. So long
as a man keeps his streamer flying, his sails set, and his hull above water, it
is pleasant to paddle alongside; but when the sails split, the yards crack, and
the keel goes staggering down, by all means paddle off. Why should you be
submerged in his whirlpool? Will he drown any more easily because you are
drowning with him? Lung is lung. He dies from want of air, not from want of
sympathy. When, a poor fellow sits down among the ashes, the best thing his
friends can do is to stand afar off. Job bore the loss of property, children,
health, with equanimity. Satan himself found his match there; and for all his
buffetings, Job sinned not, nor charged God foolishly. But Job's three friends
must needs make an appointment together to come and mourn with him and to
comfort him, and after this Job opened his mouth, and cursed his day,—and
no wonder.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>Your friends have an intimate knowledge of you that is
astonishing to contemplate. It is not that they know your affairs, which he who
runs may read, but they know you. From a bit of bone, <span lang=FR>Cuvier</span>
could predicate a whole animal, even to the hide and hair. Such moral
naturalists are your dear five hundred friends. It seems to yourself that you
are immeasurably reticent. You know, of a certainty, that you project only the
smallest possible fragment of yourself. You yield your universality to the bond
of common brotherhood; but your individualism—what it is that makes you you—withdraws
itself naturally, involuntarily, inevitably, into the background,—the dim
distance which their eyes cannot penetrate. But, from the fraction which you do
project, they construct another you, call it by your name, and pass it around
for the real, the actual you. You bristle with jest and laughter and wild
whims, to keep them at a distance; and they fancy this to be your every-day
equipment. They think your life holds constant carnival. It is astonishing what
ideas spring up in the heads of sensible people. There are those who assume
that a person can never have had any grief, unless somebody has died, or he has
been disappointed in love,—not knowing that every avenue of joy lies open
to the tramp of pain. They see the flashing coronet on the queen's brow, and
they infer a diamond woman, not recking of the human heart that throbs wildly
out of sight. They see the foam-crest on the wave, and picture an Atlantic
Ocean of froth, and not the solemn sea that stands below in eternal equipoise.
You turn to them the luminous crescent of your life, and they call it the whole
round globe; and so they love you with a love that is agate, not pearl, because
what they love in you is something infinitely below the highest. They love you
level: they have never scaled your heights nor fathomed your depths. And when
they talk of you as familiarly as if they had taken out your auricles and
ventricles, and turned them inside out, and wrung them, and shaken them,—when
they prate of your transparency and openness, the abandonment with which you
draw aside the curtain and reveal the inmost thoughts of your heart,—you,
who are to yourself a miracle and a mystery, you smile inwardly, and are
content. They are on the wrong scent, and you may pursue your plans in peace.
They are indiscriminate and satisfied. They do not know the relation of what
appears to what is. If they chance to skirt along the coasts of your Purple Island,
it will be only chance, and they will not know it. You may close your port-holes,
lower your draw-bridge, and make merry, for they will never come within gun-shot
of the "Round Tower of your heart."</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>There is no such thing as knowing a man intimately. Every
soul is, for the greater part of its mortal life, isolated from every other.
Whether it dwell in the Garden of Eden or the Desert of Sahara, it dwells
alone. Not only do we jostle against the street-crowd unknowing and unknown,
but we go out and come in, we <span lang=FR>lie</span> down and rise up, with
strangers. Jupiter and Neptune sweep the heavens not more unfamiliar to us than
the worlds that circle our own hearth-stone. Day after day, and year after
year, a person moves by your side; he sits at the same table; he reads the same
books; he kneels in the same church. You know every hair of his head, every
trick of his lips, every tone of his voice; you can tell him far off by his
gait. Without seeing him, you recognize his step, his knock, his laugh.
"Know him? Yes, I have known him these twenty years." No, you don't
know him. You know his gait, and hair, and voice. You know what preacher he
hears, what ticket he voted, and what were his last year's expenses; but you
don't know him. He sits quietly in his chair, but he is in the temple. You
speak to him; his soul comes out into the vestibule to answer you, and returns,—and
the gates are shut; therein you cannot enter. You were discussing the state of
the country; but, when you ceased, he opened a postern-gate, went down a bank,
and launched on a sea over whose waters you have no boat to sail, no star to
guide. You have loved and reverenced him. He has been your concrete of truth
and nobleness. Unwittingly you touch a secret spring, and a Blue-Beard Chamber
stands revealed. You give no sign; you meet and part as usual; but a Dead Sea
rolls between you two forevermore.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>It must be so. Not even to the nearest and dearest can one
unveil the secret place where his soul abideth, so that there shall be no more
any winding ways or hidden chambers; but to your indifferent neighbor, what
blind alleys, and deep caverns, and inaccessible mountains! To him who
"touches the electric chain wherewith you're darkly bound," your soul
sends back an answering thrill. Our little window is opened, and there is short
parley. Your ships speak each other now and then in welcome, though imperfect
communication; but immediately you strike out again into the great, shoreless
sea, over which you must sail forever alone. You may shrink from the far-reaching
solitudes of your heart, but no other foot than yours can tread them, save
those</p>
<p class=PoemIndent2 style='margin-top:6.0pt'>"That, eighteen hundred
years ago, were nailed,</p>
<p class=PoemIndent2>For our advantage, to the bitter cross."</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>Be thankful that it is so,—that only His eye sees
whose hand formed. If we could look in, we should be appalled at the vision.
The worlds that glide around us are mysteries too high for us. We cannot attain
to them. The naked soul is a sight too awful for man to look at and live. There
are individuals whose topography we would like to know a little better, and
there is danger that we crash against each other while roaming around in the
dark; but, for all that, would we not have the Constitution broken up. Somebody
says, "In heaven there will be no secrets," which, it seems to me,
would be intolerable. (If that were a revelation from the King of Heaven, of
course I would not speak flippantly of it; but, though towards Heaven we look
with reverence and humble hope, I do not know that Tom, Dick, and Harry's
notions of it have any special claim to our respect.) Such publicity would destroy
all individuality, and undermine the foundations of society. Clairvoyance—if
there be any such thing—always seemed to me a stupid impertinence. When
people pay visits to me, I wish them to come to the front-door, and ring the
bell, and send up their names. I don't wish them to climb in at the window, or
creep through the pantry, or, worst of all, float through the keyhole, and
catch me in undress. So I believe that in all worlds thoughts will be the
subjects of volition,—more accurately expressed when expression is
desired, but just as entirely suppressed when we will suppression.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>After all, perhaps the chief trouble arises from a prevalent
confusion of ideas as to what constitutes a man your friend. Friendship may
stand for that peaceful complacence which you feel towards all well—behaved
people who wear clean collars and use tolerable grammar. This is a very good
meaning, if everybody will subscribe to it. But sundry of these well-behaved
people will mistake your civility and complacence for a recognition of special
affinity, and proceed at once to frame an alliance offensive and defensive
while the sun and the moon shall endure. Oh, the barnacles that cling to your
keel in such waters! The inevitable result is, that they win your intense
rancor. You would feel a genial kindliness towards them, if they would be
satisfied with that; but they lay out to be your specialty. They infer your
innocent little inch to be the standard-bearer of twenty ells, and goad you to
frenzy. I mean you, you desperate little horror, who nearly dethroned my reason
six years ago! I always meant to have my revenge, and here I impale you before
the public. For three months, you fastened yourself upon me; and I could not
shake you off. What availed it me, that you were an honest and excellent man?
Did I not, twenty times a day, wish you had been a villain, who had insulted
me, and I a Kentucky giant, that I might have the unspeakable satisfaction of
knocking you down? But you added to your crimes virtue. Villany had no part or
lot in you. You were a member of a church, in good and regular standing; you
had graduated with all the honors worth mentioning; you had not a sin, a vice,
or a fault that I knew of; and you were so thoroughly good and repulsive that
you were a great grief to me. Do you think, you dear, disinterested wretch,
that I have forgotten how you were continually putting yourself to horrible
inconveniences on my account? Do you think I am not now filled with remorse for
the aversion that rooted itself ineradicably in my soul, and which now gloats
over you, as you stand in the pillory where my own hands have fastened you? But
can Nature be crushed forever? Did I not ruin my nerves, and seriously injure
my temper, by the overpowering pressure I laid upon them to keep them quiet
when you were by? Could I not, by the sense of coming ill through all my
quivering frame, presage your advent as exactly as the barometer heralds the
approaching storm? Those three months of agony are little atoned for by this
late vengeance: but go in peace!</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>Mysterious are the ways of friendship. It is not a matter of
reason or of choice, but of magnetisms. You cannot always give the premises nor
the argument, but the conclusion is a palpable and stubborn fact. Abana and Pharpar
may be broad, and deep, and blue, and grand; but only in Jordan shall your soul
wash and be clean. A thousand brooks are born of the sunshine and the
mountains: very, very few are they whose flow can mingle with yours, and not
disturb, but only deepen and broaden the current.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>Your friend! Who shall describe him, or worthily paint what
he is to you? No merchant, nor lawyer, nor farmer, nor statesman claims your
suffrage, but a kingly soul. He comes to you from God,—a prophet, a seer,
a revealer. He has a clear vision. His love is reverence. He goes into the <i>penetralia</i>
of your life,—not presumptuously, but with uncovered head, unsandalled
feet, and pours libations at the innermost shrine. His incense is grateful. For
him the sunlight brightens, the skies grow rosy, and all the days are Junes.
Wrapped in his love, you float in a delicious rest, rocked in the bosom of
purple, scented waves. Nameless melodies sing themselves through your heart. A
golden glow suffuses your atmosphere. A vague, fine ecstasy thrills to the
sources of life, and earth lays hold on heaven. Such friendship is worship. It
elevates the most trifling services into rites. The humblest offices are
sanctified. All things are baptized into a new name. Duty is lost in joy. Care
veils itself in caresses. Drudgery becomes delight. There is no longer anything
menial, small, or servile. All is transformed</p>
<p class=BlockQuote>"Into something rich and strange."</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>The homely household-ways lead through beds of spices and
orchards of pomegranates. The daily toil among your parsnips and carrots is plucking
May violets with the dew upon them to meet the eyes you love upon their first
awaking. In the burden and heat of the day you hear the rustling of summer
showers and the whispering of summer winds. Everything is lifted up from the
plane of labor to the plane of love, and a glory spans your life. With your
friend, speech and silence are one,—for a communion mysterious and
intangible reaches across from heart to heart. The many dig and delve in your
nature with fruitless toil to find the spring of living water: he only raises
his wand, and, obedient to the hidden power, it bends at once to your secret.
Your friendship, though independent of language, gives to it life and light.
The mystic spirit stirs even in commonplaces, and the merest question is an
endearment. You are quiet because your heart is over-full. You talk because it
is pleasant, not because you have anything to say. You weary of terms that are
already love-laden, and you go out into the highways and hedges, and gather up
the rough, wild, <span lang=EN-GB>wilful</span> words, heavy with the hatreds
of men, and fill them to the brim with honey-dew. All things great and small,
grand or humble, you press into your service, force them to do soldier's duty,
and your banner over them is love.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>With such a friendship, presence alone is happiness; nor is
absence wholly void,—for memories, and hopes, and pleasing fancies
sparkle through the hours, and you know the sunshine will come back.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>For such friendship one is grateful. No matter that it comes
unsought, and comes not for the seeking. You do not discuss the reasonableness
of your gratitude. You only know that your whole being bows with humility and
utter thankfulness to him who thus crowns you monarch of all realms.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>And the kingdom is everlasting. A thin, pale love dies weakly
with the occasion that gave it birth; but such friendship is born of the gods,
and is immortal. Clouds and darkness may sweep around it, but within the cloud
the glory lives undimmed. Death has no power over it. Time cannot diminish, nor
even dishonor annul it. Its direction may have been unworthy, but itself is
eternal. You go back into your solitudes: all is silent as aforetime, but you
cannot forget that a Voice once resounded there. A Presence filled the valleys
and gilded the mountain-tops,—breathed upon the plains, and they sprang
up in lilies and roses,—flashed upon the waters, and they flowed to spheral
melody,—swept through the forests, and they, too, trembled into song. And
though now the warmth has faded out, though the ruddy tints and amber clearness
have paled to ashen hues, though the murmuring melodies are dead, and forest,
vale, and hill look hard and angular in the sharp air, you know that it is not
death. The fire is unquenched beneath. You go your way not disconsolate. There
needs but the Victorious Voice. At the touch of the Prince's lips, life shall
rise again and be perfected forevermore.</p>
<p class=Chapter>THE LIFE OF BIRDS.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>When one thinks of a bird, one fancies a soft, swift,
aimless, joyous thing, full of nervous energy and arrowy motions,—a song
with wings. So remote from ours their mode of existence, they seem accidental
exiles from an unknown globe, banished where none can understand their
language; and men only stare at their darting, inexplicable ways, as at the
gyrations of the circus. Watch their little traits for hours, and it only
tantalizes curiosity. Every man's secret is penetrable, if his neighbor be
sharp-sighted. Dickens, for instance, can take a poor condemned wretch, like
Fagin, whose emotions neither he nor his reader has experienced, and can paint
him in colors that seem made of the soul's own atoms, so that each beholder
feels as if he, personally, had been the man. But this bird that hovers and
alights beside me, peers up at me, takes its food, then looks again,
attitudinizing, jerking, flirting its tail, with a thousand inquisitive and
fantastic motions,—although I have power to grasp it in my hand and crush
its life out, yet I cannot gain its secret thus, and the centre of its
consciousness is really farther from mine than the remotest planetary orbit.
"We do not steadily bear in mind," says Darwin, with a noble
scientific humility, "how profoundly ignorant we are of the condition of
existence of every animal."</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>What "sympathetic penetration" can fathom the
life, for instance, of yonder mysterious, almost voiceless, Humming-Bird,
smallest of feathery things, and loneliest, whirring among birds, insect-like,
and among insects, bird-like, his path untraceable, his home unseen? An image
of airy motion, yet it sometimes seems as if there were nothing joyous in him.
He seems like some exiled pigmy prince, banished, but still regal, and doomed
to wings. Did gems turn to flowers, flowers to feathers, in that long-past
dynasty of the Humming-Birds? It is strange to come upon his tiny nest, in some
gray and tangled swamp, with this brilliant atom perched disconsolately near
it, upon some mossy twig; it is like visiting Cinderella among her ashes. And
from Humming-Bird to Eagle, the daily existence of every bird is a remote and
bewitching mystery.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>Pythagoras has been charged, both before and since the days
of Malvolio, with holding that "the soul of our grandam might haply
inhabit a fowl,"—that delinquent men must revisit earth as women,
and delinquent women as birds. Malvolio thought nobly of the soul, and in no
way approved his opinion; but I remember that Harriet <span lang=FR>Rohan</span>,
in her school-days, accepted this, her destiny, with glee. "When I saw the
Oriole," she wrote to me, "from his nest among the plum-trees in the
garden, sail over the air and high above the Gothic arches of the elm, a stream
of flashing light, or watched him swinging silently on pendent twigs, I did not
dream how near akin we were. Or when a Humming-Bird, a winged drop of gorgeous
sheen and gloss, a living gem, poising on his wings, thrust his dark, slender,
honey-seeking bill into the white blossoms of a little bush beside my window, I
should have thought it no such bad thing to be a bird, even if one next became
a <span lang=FR>bat</span>, like the colony in our eaves, that dart and drop
and skim and skurry, all the length of moonless nights, in such ecstasies of
dusky joy." Was this weird creature, the <span lang=FR>bat</span>, in very
truth a bird, in some far primeval time? and does he fancy, in unquiet dreams
at nightfall, that he is one still? I wonder whether he can enjoy the winged
brotherhood into which he has thrust himself,—victim, perhaps, of some
rash quadruped-ambition,—an Icarus doomed forever <i>not</i> to fall.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>I think, that, if required, on pain of death, to name
instantly the most perfect thing in the universe, I should risk my fate on a
bird's egg. There is, first, its exquisite fragility of material, strong only
by the mathematical precision of that form so daintily <span lang=EN-GB>moulded</span>.
There is its absolute purity from external stain, since that thin barrier
remains impassable until the whole is in ruins,—a purity recognized in
the household proverb of "An apple, an egg, and a nut." Then, its
range of tints, so varied, so subdued, and so beautiful,—whether of pure
white, like the Martin's, or pure green, like the Robin's, or dotted and
mottled into the loveliest of browns, like the Red Thrush's, or aqua-marine,
with stains of moss-agate, like the Chipping-Sparrow's, or blotched with long
weird ink-marks on a pale ground, like the Oriole's, as if it bore inscribed
some magic clue to the bird's darting flight and pensile nest. Above all, the
associations and predictions of this little wonder,—that one may bear
home between his fingers all that winged splendor, all that celestial melody,
coiled in mystery within these tiny walls! Even the chrysalis is less amazing,
for its form always preserves some trace, however fantastic, of the perfect
insect, and it is but <span lang=EN-GB>moulting</span> a skin; but this egg
appears to the eye like a separate unit from some other kingdom of Nature,
claiming more kindred with the very stones than with feathery existence; and it
is as if a pearl opened and an angel sang.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>The nest which is to contain these fair things is a wondrous
study also, from the coarse masonry of the Robin to the soft structure of the
Humming-Bird, a baby-house among nests. Among all created things, the birds
come nearest to man in their domesticity. Their unions are usually in pairs,
and for life; and with them, unlike the practice of most quadrupeds, the male
labors for the young. He chooses the locality of the nest, aids in its
construction, and fights for it, if needful. He sometimes assists in hatching
the eggs. He feeds the brood with exhausting labor, like yonder Robin, whose
winged picturesque day is spent in putting worms into insatiable beaks, at the
rate of one morsel in every three minutes. He has to teach them to fly, as
among the Swallows, or even to hunt, as among the Hawks. His life is anchored
to his home. Yonder Oriole fills with light and melody the thousand branches of
a neighborhood; and yet the centre for all this divergent splendor is always
that one drooping dome upon one chosen tree. This he helped to build in May,
confiscating cotton as if he were a Union provost-martial, and singing many
songs, with his mouth full of plunder; and there he watches over his household,
all through the leafy June, perched often upon the airy cradle-edge, and
swaying with it in the summer wind. And from this deep nest, after the pretty
eggs are hatched, will he and his mate extract every fragment of the shell,
leaving it, like all other nests, save those of birds of prey, clean and pure,
when the young are flown. This they do chiefly from an instinct of delicacy;
since wood-birds are not wont to use the same nest a second time, even if they
rear several broods in a season.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>The subdued tints and notes which almost always mark the
female sex, among birds,—unlike insects and human beings, of which the
female is often more showy than the male,—seem designed to secure their
safety while sitting on the nest, while the brighter colors and louder song of
the male enable his domestic circle to detect his whereabouts more easily. It
is commonly noticed, in the same way, that ground-birds have more neutral tints
than those which build out of reach. With the aid of these advantages, it is
astonishing how well these roving creatures keep their secrets, and what sharp
eyes are needed to spy out their habitations,—while it always seems as if
the empty last-year's nests were very plenty. Some, indeed, are
very elaborately concealed, as of the Golden-Crowned Thrush, called, for this
reason, the Oven-Bird,—the Meadow-Lark, with its burrowed gallery among
the grass,—and the Kingfisher, which mines four feet into the earth. But
most of the rarer nests would hardly be discovered, only that the maternal
instinct seems sometimes so overloaded by Nature as to defeat itself, and the
bird flies and chirps in agony, when she might pass unnoticed by keeping still.
The most marked exception which I have noticed is the Red Thrush, which, in
this respect, as in others, has the most high-bred manners among all our birds:
both male and female sometimes flit in perfect silence through the bushes, and
show solicitude only in a sob which is scarcely audible.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>Passing along the shore-path by our lake, one day in June, I
heard a great sound of scuffling and yelping before me, as if dogs were hunting
rabbits or woodchucks. On approaching, I saw no sign of such disturbances, and
presently a Partridge came running at me through the trees, with ruff and tail
expanded, bill wide open, and hissing like a Goose,—then turned suddenly,
and with ruff and tail furled, but with no pretence of lameness, scudded off
through the woods in a circle,—then at me again fiercely, approaching
within two yards, and spreading all her furbelows, to intimidate, as before,—then,
taking in sail, went off again, always at the same rate of speed, yelping like
an angry squirrel, squealing like a pig, occasionally clucking like a hen, and,
in general, so filling the woods with bustle and disturbance that there seemed
no room for anything else. Quite overawed by the display, I stood watching her
for some time, then entered the underbrush, where the little invisible brood
had been unceasingly piping, in their baby way. So motionless were they, that,
for all their noise, I stood with my feet among them, for some minutes, without
finding it possible to detect them. When found and taken from the ground, which
they so closely resembled, they made no attempt to escape; but, when replaced,
they presently ran away fast, as if conscious that the first policy had failed,
and that their mother had retreated. Such is the summer-life of these little
things; but come again in the fall, when the wild autumnal winds go marching
through the woods, and a dozen pairs of strong wings will thrill like thunder
through the arches of the trees, as the full-grown brood whirrs away around
you.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>Not only have we scarcely any species of birds which are
thoroughly and unquestionably identical with European species, but there are
certain general variations of habit. For instance, in regard to migration. This
is, of course, a Universal instinct, since even tropical birds migrate for
short distances from the equator, so essential to their existence do these wanderings
seem. But in New England, among birds as among men, the roving habit seems
unusually strong, and abodes are shifted very rapidly. The whole number of
species observed in Massachusetts is about the same as in England,—some
three hundred in all. But of this number, in England, about a hundred
habitually winter on the island, and half that number even in the Hebrides,
some birds actually breeding in Scotland during January and February,
incredible as it may seem. Their habits can, therefore, be observed through a
long period of the year; while with us the bright army comes and encamps for a
month or two and then vanishes. You must attend their dress-parades, while they
last; for you will have but few opportunities, and their domestic life must
commonly be studied during a few weeks of the season, or not at all.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>Wonderful as the instinct of migration seems, it is not,
perhaps, so altogether amazing in itself as in some of its attendant details.
To a great extent, birds follow the opening foliage northward, and flee from
its fading, south; they must keep near the food on which they live, and secure
due shelter for their eggs. Our earliest visitors shrink from trusting the bare
trees with their nests; the Song-Sparrow seeks the ground; the Blue-Bird finds
a box or a hole somewhere; the Red-Wing haunts the marshy thickets, safer in
spring than at any other season; and even the sociable Robin prefers a pine-tree
to an apple-tree, if resolved to begin housekeeping prematurely. The movements
of birds are chiefly timed by the advance of vegetation; and the thing most
thoroughly surprising about them is not the general fact of the change of
latitude, but their accuracy in hitting the precise locality. That the same Cat-Bird
should find its way back, every spring, to almost the same branch of yonder
larch-tree,—that is the thing astonishing to me. In England, a lame
Redstart was observed in the same garden for sixteen successive years; and the
astonishing precision of course which enables some birds of small size to fly
from Australia to New Zealand in a day—probably the longest single flight
ever taken—is only a part of the same mysterious instinct of direction.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>In comparing modes of flight, the most surprising, of
course, is that of the Swallow tribe, remarkable not merely for its velocity,
but for the amazing boldness and instantaneousness of the angles it makes; so
that eminent European mechanicians have speculated in vain upon the methods
used in its locomotion, and prizes have been offered, by mechanical exhibitions,
to him who could best explain it. With impetuous dash, they sweep through our
perilous streets, these wild hunters of the air, "so near, and yet so
far"; they bathe flying, and flying they feed their young. In my immediate
vicinity, the Chimney-Swallow is not now common, nor the Sand-Swallow; but the
Cliff-Swallow, that strange emigrant from the Far West, the Barn-Swallow, and
the white-breasted species, are abundant, together with the Purple Martin. I
know no prettier sight than a bevy of these bright little creatures, met from a
dozen different farm-houses to picnic at a way-side pool, splashing and
fluttering, with their long wings expanded like butterflies, keeping poised by
a constant hovering motion, just tilting upon their feet, which scarcely touch
the moist ground. You will seldom see them actually perch on anything less airy
than some telegraphic wire; but, when they do alight, each will make chatter
enough for a dozen, as if all the rushing hurry of the wings had passed into
the tongue.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>Between the swiftness of the Swallow and the stateliness of
the birds of prey, the whole range of bird-motion seems included. The long wave
of a Hawk's wings seems almost to send a slow vibration through the atmosphere,
tolling upon the eye as yon distant bell upon the ear. I never was more
impressed with the superior dignity of these soarings than in observing a
bloodless contest in the air, last April. Standing beside a little grove, on a
rocky hill-side, I heard Crows cawing near by, and then a sound like great
flies buzzing, which I really attributed, for a moment, to some early insect.
Turning, I saw two Crows flapping their heavy wings among the trees, and
observed that they were teasing a Hawk about as large as themselves, which was
also on the wing. Presently all three had risen above the branches, and were
circling higher and higher in a slow spiral. The Crows kept constantly swooping
at their enemy, with the same angry buzz, one of the two taking decidedly the
lead. They seldom struck at him with their beaks, but kept lumbering against
him, and flapping him with their wings, as if in a fruitless effort to capsize
him; while the Hawk kept carelessly eluding the assaults, now inclining on one
side, now on the other, with a stately grace, never retaliating, but seeming
rather to enjoy the novel amusement, as if it were a skirmish in balloons.
During all this, indeed, he scarcely seemed once to wave his wings; yet he
soared steadily aloft, till the Crows refused to follow, though already higher
than I ever saw Crows before, dim against the fleecy sky; then the Hawk flew
northward, but soon after he sailed over us once again, with loud, scornful <i>chirr</i>,
and they only cawed, and left him undisturbed.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>When we hear the tumult of music from these various artists
of the air, it seems as if the symphony never could be analyzed into its
different instruments. But with time and patience it is not so difficult; nor
can we really enjoy the performance, so long as it is only a confused chorus to
our ears. It is not merely the highest form of animal language, but, in
strictness of etymology, the only form, if it be true, as is claimed, that no
other animal employs its tongue, <i>lingua</i>, in producing sound. In the
Middle Ages, the song of birds was called their Latin, as was any other foreign
dialect. It was the old German superstition, that any one who should eat the
heart of a bird would thenceforth comprehend its language; and one modern
philologist of the same nation (Masius declares) has so far studied the sounds
produced by domestic fowls as to announce a Goose-Lexicon. Dupont de Nemours
asserted that he understood eleven words of the Pigeon language, the same
number of that of Fowls, fourteen of the Cat tongue, twenty-two of that of
Cattle, thirty of that of Dogs, and the Raven language he understood
completely. But the ordinary observer seldom attains farther than to comprehend
some of the cries of anxiety and fear around him, often so unlike the
accustomed carol of the bird,—as the mew of the Cat-Bird, the lamb-like
bleating of the Veery and his impatient <i>yeoick</i>, the <i>chaip</i> of the
Meadow-Lark, the <i>towyee</i> of the Chewink, the petulant <i>psit</i> and <i>tsee</i>
of the Red-Winged Blackbird, and the hoarse cooing of the Bobolink. And with
some of our most familiar birds the variety of notes is so great as really to
promise difficulties in the American department of the bird-lexicon. I have
watched two Song-Sparrows, perched near each other, in whom the spy-glass could
show not the slightest difference of marking, even in the characteristic stains
upon the breast, who yet chanted to each other, for fifteen minutes, over and
over, two elaborate songs which had nothing in common. I have observed a
similar thing in two Wood-Sparrows, with their sweet, distinct, accelerating
lay; nor can I find it stated that the difference is sexual. Who can claim to
have heard the whole song of the Robin? Taking shelter from a shower beneath an
oak-tree, the other day, I caught a few of the notes which one of those cheery
creatures, who love to sing in wet weather, tossed down to me through the
drops.</p>
<p class=TablePlainText>(Before noticing me,) <i>chirrup, cheerup</i></p>
<p class=TablePlainText>(pausing in alarm, at my approach,) <i><span
lang=ES-TRAD>che</span>, </i><i><span lang=ES-TRAD>che</span>, </i><i><span
lang=ES-TRAD>che</span>;</i></p>
<p class=TablePlainText>(broken presently by a thoughtful strain,) <i>caw, caw,</i></p>
<p class=TablePlainText>(then softer and more confiding,) <i>see, see,
see;</i></p>
<p class=TablePlainText>(then the original note, in a whisper,) <i>chirrup, cheerup;</i></p>
<p class=TablePlainText>(often broken by a soft note,) <i>see, wee;</i></p>
<p class=TablePlainText>(and an odder one,) <i>squeal;</i></p>
<p class=TablePlainText>(and a mellow note,) <i>tweedle.</i></p>
<p class=MsoNormal>And all these were mingled with more complex combinations,
and with half-imitations, as of the Blue-Bird, so that it seemed almost
impossible to doubt that there was some specific meaning, to him and his peers,
in this endless vocabulary. Yet other birds, as quick-witted as the Robins,
possess but one or two chirping notes, to which they seem unable to give more
than the very rudest variation of accent.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>The controversy between the singing-birds of Europe and America
has had various phases and influential disputants. <span lang=FR>Buffon</span>
easily convinced himself that our Thrushes had no songs, because the voices of
all birds grew harsh in savage countries, such as he naturally held this
continent to be. Audubon, on the other hand, relates that even in his childhood
he was assured by his father that the American songsters were the best, though
neither Americans nor Europeans could be convinced of it. MacGillivray, the
Scottish naturalist, reports that Audubon himself, in conversation, arranged
our vocalists in the following order:—first, the Mocking-Bird, as
unrivalled; then, the Wood-Thrush, Cat-Bird, and Red Thrush; the Rose-Breasted,
Pine, and Blue Grosbeak; the Orchard and Golden Oriole; the Tawny and Hermit
Thrushes; several Finches,—Bachmann's, the White-Crowned, the Indigo, and
the Nonpareil; and finally, the Bobolink.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>Among those birds of this list which frequent Massachusetts,
Audubon might well put the Wood-Thrush at the head. As I sat the other day in
the deep woods beside a black brook which dropped from stone to stone beneath
the shadow of our Rattlesnake Rocks, the air seemed at first as silent above me
as the earth below. The buzz of summer sounds had not begun. Sometimes a bee
hummed by with a long swift thrill like a chord of music; sometimes a breeze
came resounding up the forest like an approaching locomotive, and then died
utterly away. Then, at length, a <span lang=FR>Veery's</span> delicious note
rose in a fountain of liquid melody from beneath me; and when it was ended, the
clear, calm, interrupted chant of the Wood-Thrush fell like solemn water-drops
from some source above—I am acquainted with no sound in Nature so sweet,
so elevated, so serene. Flutes and flageolets are Art's poor efforts to recall
that softer sound. It is simple, and seems all prelude; but the music to which
it is the overture must belong to other spheres. It might be the <i>Angelus</i>
of some lost convent. It might be the meditation of some maiden-hermit, saying
over to herself in solitude, with recurrent tuneful pauses, the only song she
knows. Beside this soliloquy of seraphs, the carol of the Veery seems a
familiar and almost domestic thing; yet it is so charming that Audubon must
have designed to include it among the Thrushes whose merits he proclaims.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>But the range of musical perfection is a wide one; and if
the standard of excellence be that wondrous brilliancy and variety of execution
suggested by the Mocking-Bird, then the palm belongs, among our New-England
songsters, to the Red Thrush, otherwise called the Mavis or Brown Thrasher. I
have never heard the Mocking-Bird sing at liberty; and while the caged bird may
surpass the Red Thrush in volume of voice and in quaintness of direct
imitation, he gives me no such impression of depth and magnificence. I know not
how to describe the voluble and fantastic notes which fall like pearls and diamonds
from the beak of our Mavis, while his stately attitudes and high-born bearing
are in full harmony with the song. I recall the steep, bare hill-side, and the
two great boulders which guard the lonely grove, where I first fully learned
the wonder of this lay, as if I had met Saint Cecilia there. A thoroughly happy
song, overflowing with life, it gives even its most familiar phrases an air of
gracious condescension, as when some great violinist stoops to the
"Carnival of Venice." The Red Thrush does not, however, consent to
any parrot-like mimicry, though every note of wood or field—Oriole,
Bobolink, Crow, Jay, Robin, Whippoorwill—appears to pass in veiled
procession through the song.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>Retain the execution of the Red Thrush, but hopelessly
impair his organ, and you have the Cat-Bird. This accustomed visitor would seem
a gifted vocalist, but for the inevitable comparison between his thinner note
and the gushing melodies of the lordlier bird. Is it some hopeless
consciousness of this disadvantage which leads him to pursue that peculiar
habit of singing softly to himself very often, in a fancied seclusion? When
other birds are cheerily out-of-doors, on some bright morning of May or June,
one will often discover a solitary Cat-Bird sitting concealed in the middle of
a dense bush, and twittering busily, in subdued rehearsal, the whole copious
variety of his lay, <span lang=EN-GB>practising</span> trills and preparing
half-imitations, which, at some other time, sitting on the topmost twig, he
shall hilariously seem to improvise before all the world. Can it be that he is
really in some slight disgrace with Nature, with that <span lang=FR>demi</span>-mourning
garb of his,—and that his feline cry of terror, which makes his
opprobrium with boys, is part of some hidden doom decreed? No, the lovely color
of the eggs which his companion watches on that laboriously builded staging of
twigs shall vindicate this familiar companion from any suspicion of original
sin. Indeed, it is well demonstrated by our American oölogist, Dr. Brewer, that
the eggs of the Cat-Bird affiliate him with the Robin and the Wood-Thrush, all
three being widely separated in this respect from the Red Thrush. The Red
Thrush builds on the ground, and has mottled eggs; while the whole household
establishment of the Wood-Thrush is scarcely distinguishable from that of the
Robin, and the Cat-Bird differs chiefly in being more of a carpenter and less
of a mason.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>The Rose-Breasted Grosbeak, which Audubon places so high on
his list of minstrels, comes annually to one region in this vicinity, but I am
not sure of having heard it. The young Pine Grosbeaks come to our woods in
winter, and have then but a subdued twitter. Every one knows the Bobolink; and
almost all recognize the Oriole, by sight at least, even if unfamiliar with all
the notes of his cheery and resounding song. The Red-Eyed Flycatcher, heard
even more constantly, is less generally identified by name; but his note sounds
all day among the elms of our streets, and seems a sort of piano-adaptation,
popularized for the million, of the rich notes of the Thrushes. He is not
mentioned by Audubon among his favorites, and has no right to complain of the
exclusion. Yet the birds which most endear summer are not necessarily the
finest performers; and certainly there is none whose note I could spare less
easily than the little Chipping-Sparrow, called hereabouts the Hair-Bird. To <span
lang=FR>lie</span> half-awake on a warm morning in June, and hear that soft
insect-like chirp draw in and out with long melodious pulsations, like the
rising and falling of the human breath, condenses for my ear the whole luxury
of summer. Later in the day, among the multiplicity of noises, the chirping
becomes louder and more detached, losing that faint and dream-like thrill.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>The bird-notes which have the most familiar fascination are
perhaps simply those most intimately associated with other rural things. This
applies especially to the earliest spring songsters. Listening to these
delicious prophets upon some of those still and moist days which slip in
between the rough winds of March and fill our lives for a moment with
anticipated delights, it has seemed to me that their varied notes were sent to
symbolize all the different elements of spring association. The Blue-Bird seems
to represent simply spring's faint, tremulous, liquid sweetness, the Song-Sparrow
its changing pulsations of more positive and varied joy, and the Robin its
cheery and superabundant vitality. The later birds of the season, suggesting no
such fine-drawn sensations, yet identify themselves with their chosen haunts,
so that we cannot think of the one without the other. In the meadows, we hear
the languid and tender drawl of the Meadow-Lark,—one of the most peculiar
of notes, almost amounting to affectation in its excess of laborious sweetness.
When we reach the thickets and wooded streams, there is no affectation in the
Maryland Yellow-Throat, that little restless busybody, with his eternal <i>which-is-it,
which-is-it, which-is-it</i>, emphasizing each syllable at will, in despair of
response. Passing into the loftier woods, we find them resounding with the loud
proclamation of the Golden-Crowned Thrush,—<i>scheat, scheat, scheat, scheat</i>,—rising
and growing louder in a vigorous way that rather suggests some great Woodpecker
than such a tiny thing. And penetrating to some yet lonelier place, we find it
consecrated to that life-long sorrow, whatever it may be, which is made
immortal in the plaintive cadence of the Pewee.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>There is one favorite bird,—the Chewink, or Ground-Robin,—which,
I always fancied, must have been known to Keats when he wrote those few words
of perfect descriptiveness,—</p>
<p class=PoemIndent4 style='margin-top:6.0pt'> "If an innocent bird</p>
<p class=PoemIndent4>Before my heedless footsteps <i>stirred and stirred</i></p>
<p class=PoemIndent4><i>In little journeys</i>."</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>What restless spirit is in this creature, that, while so shy
in its own personal habits, it yet watches every visitor with a Paul-Pry
curiosity, follows him in the woods, peers out among the underbrush, scratches
upon the leaves with a pretty pretence of important business there, and
presently, when disregarded, ascends some small tree and begins to carol its
monotonous song, as if there were no such thing as man in the universe? There
is something irregular and fantastic in the coloring, also, of the Chewink:
unlike the generality of ground-birds, it is a showy thing, with black, white,
and bay intermingled, and it is one of the most unmistakable of all our
feathery creatures, in its aspect and its ways.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>Another of my favorites, perhaps from our sympathy as to
localities, since we meet freely every summer at a favorite lake, is the King-Bird
or Tyrant-Flycatcher. The habits of royalty or tyranny I have never been able
to perceive,—only a democratic habit of resistance to tyrants; but this
bird always impresses me as a perfectly well-dressed and well-mannered person,
who amid a very talkative society prefers to listen, and shows his character by
action only. So long as he sits silently on some stake or bush in the
neighborhood of his family-circle, you notice only his glossy black cap and the
white feathers in his handsome tail; but let a Hawk or a Crow come near, and
you find that he is something more than a mere lazy listener to the Bobolink:
far up in the air, determined to be thorough in his chastisements, you will see
him, with a comrade or two, driving the bulky intruder away into the distance,
till you wonder how he ever expects to find his own way back again. He speaks
with emphasis, on these occasions, and then reverts, more sedately than ever,
to his accustomed silence.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>After all the great labors of Audubon and Wilson, it is
certain that the recent visible progress of American ornithology has by no
means <span lang=EN-GB>equalled</span> that of several other departments of
Natural History. The older books are now out of print, and there is actually no
popular treatise on the subject to be had: a destitution singularly contrasted
with the variety of excellent botanical works which the last twenty years have
produced. <span lang=FR>Nuttall's</span> fascinating volumes, and Brewer's
edition of Wilson, are equally inaccessible; and the most valuable
contributions since their time, so far as I know, are that portion of Dr.
Brewer's work on eggs printed in the eleventh volume of the "Smithsonian
Contributions," and four admirable articles in this very magazine.<a
href="#_edn14" name="_ednref14" title=""><span class=MsoEndnoteReference><span
class=MsoEndnoteReference><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman"'>[14]</span></span></span></a>
But the most important observations are locked up in the desks or exhibited in
the cabinets of private observers, who have little opportunity of comparing
facts with other students, or with reliable printed authorities. What do we
know, for instance, of the local distribution of our birds? I remember that in
my latest conversation with Thoreau, last December, he mentioned most
remarkable facts in this department, which had fallen under his unerring eyes.
The Hawk most common at Concord, the Red-Tailed species, is not known near the
sea-shore, twenty miles off,—as at Boston or Plymouth. The White-Breasted
Sparrow is rare in Concord; but the Ashburnham woods, thirty miles away, are
full of it. The Scarlet Tanager's is the commonest note in Concord, except the
Red-Eyed Flycatcher's; yet one of the best field-ornithologists in Boston had
never heard it. The Rose-Breasted Grosbeak is seen not infrequently at Concord,
though its nest is rarely found; but in Minnesota Thoreau found it more
abundant than any other bird, far more so than the Robin. But his most
interesting statement, to my fancy, was, that, during a stay of ten weeks on Monadnock,
he found that the Snow-Bird built its nest on the top of the mountain, and
probably never came down through the season. That was its Arctic; and it would
probably yet be found, he predicted, on Wachusett and other Massachusetts peaks.
It is known that the Snow-Bird, or "Snow-Flake," as it is called in
England, was reported by Audubon as having only once been proved to build in
the United States, namely, among the White Mountains, though Wilson found its
nests among the Alleghanies; and in New England it used to be the rural belief
that the Snow-Bird and the Chipping-Sparrow were the same.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>After July, most of our birds grow silent, and, but for the
insects, August would be almost the stillest month in the year,—stiller
than the winter, when the woods are often vocal with the Crow, the Jay, and the
Chickadee. But with patient attention one may hear, even far into the autumn,
the accustomed notes. As I sat in my boat, one sunny afternoon of last
September, beneath the shady western shore of our quiet lake, with the low
sunlight striking almost level across the wooded banks, it seemed as if the
last hoarded drops of summer's sweetness were being poured over all the world.
The air was full of quiet sounds. Turtles rustled beside the brink and slid
into the water,—cows plashed in the shallows,—fishes leaped from
the placid depths,—a squirrel sobbed and fretted on a neighboring stump,—a
katydid across the lake maintained its hard, dry croak,—the crickets
chirped pertinaciously, but with little fatigued pauses, as if glad that their
work was almost done,—the grasshoppers kept up their continual chant,
which seemed thoroughly melted and amalgamated into the summer, as if it would
go on indefinitely, though the body of the little creature were dried into
dust. All this time the birds were silent and invisible, as if they would take
no more part in the symphony of the year. Then, as if by preconcerted signal,
they joined in: Crows cawed anxiously afar; Jays screamed in the woods; a
Partridge clucked to its brood, like the gurgle of water from a bottle; a
Kingfisher wound his rattle, more briefly than in spring, as if we now knew all
about it and the merest hint ought to suffice; a Fish-Hawk flapped into the
water, with a great rude splash, and then flew heavily away; a flock of Wild
Ducks went southward overhead, and a smaller party returned beneath them,
flying low and anxiously, as if to pick up some lost baggage; and, at last, a
Loon laughed loud from behind a distant island, and it was pleasant to people
these woods and waters with that wild shouting, linking them with Katahdin Lake
and Amperzand.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>But the later the birds linger in the autumn, the more their
aspect differs from that of spring. In spring, they come, jubilant, noisy,
triumphant, from the South, the winter conquered and the long journey done. In
autumn, they come timidly from the North, and, pausing on their anxious
retreat, lurk within the fading copses and twitter snatches of song as fading.
Others fly as openly as ever, but gather in flocks, as the Robins, most piteous
of all birds at this season,—thin, faded, ragged, their bold note sunk to
a feeble quaver, and their manner a mere caricature of that inexpressible
military smartness with which they held up their heads in May.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>Yet I cannot really find anything sad even in November. When
I think of the thrilling beauty of the season past, the birds that came and
went, the insects that took up the choral song as the birds grew silent, the
procession of the flowers, the glory of autumn,—and when I think, that,
this also ended, a new gallery of wonder is opening, almost more beautiful, in
the magnificence of frost and snow, there comes an impression of affluence and
liberality in the universe, which seasons of changeless and uneventful verdure
would never give. The catkins already formed on the alder, quite prepared to
droop into April's beauty,—the white edges of the May-flower's petals,
already visible through the bud, show in advance that winter is but a slight
and temporary retardation of the life of Nature, and that the barrier which
separates November from March is not really more solid than that which parts
the sunset from the sunrise.</p>
<p class=Chapter>THE NEW OPPOSITION PARTY.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>In the rapid alternations of opinion produced by the varying
incidents of the present war, a few days effect the work of centuries. We may
therefore be pardoned for giving an antique coloring to an event of recent
occurrence. Accordingly we say, once upon a time, (Tuesday, July 1, 1862) a great popular convention of all who loved the Constitution and the Union, and all who
hated "niggers," was called in the city of New York. The place of
meeting was the Cooper Institute, and among the signers to the call were
prominent business and professional men of that great metropolis. At this meeting,
that eminently calm and learned jurist, the Honorable W.A. Duer, interrupted
the course of an elaborate argument for the constitutional rights of the
Southern rebels by a melodramatic exclamation, that, if we hanged the traitors
of the country in the order of their guilt, "the next man who marched upon
the scaffold after Jefferson Davis would be Charles Sumner."</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>The professed object of the meeting was to form a party
devoted to the support of "the Constitution as it is and the Union as it
was." Its practical effect was to give the Confederates and foreign powers
a broad hint that the North was no longer a unit. The coincidence of the
meeting with the Federal reverses before Richmond made its professed object all
the more ridiculous. The babbling and bawling of the speakers about "the
rights of the South," and "the infamous Abolitionists who disgraced
Congress," were but faint echoes of the Confederate cannon which had just
ceased to carry death into the Union ranks. Both the speeches and the cannon spoke
hostility to the National Cause. The number of the dead, wounded,
"missing," and demoralized members of the great Army of the Potomac
exceeded, on that Tuesday evening, any army which the United States had ever,
before the present war, arrayed on any battle-field. Jefferson Davis, on that
evening, was safer at Richmond than Abraham Lincoln was at Washington. A well-grounded
apprehension, not only for the "Union," but for the safety of loyal
States, was felt on that evening all over the North and West. It was, in fact,
the darkest hour in the whole annals of the Republic. Even the authorities at Washington
feared that the Army of the Potomac was destroyed. This was exactly the time
for the Honorable Mr. Wickliffe and the Honorable Mr. Brooks, for the Honorable
W. A. Duer and the Honorable Fernando Wood, to delight the citizens of New York
with their peculiar eloquence. This was the appropriate occasion to stand up
for the persecuted and down-trodden South! This was the grand opportunity to
assert the noble principle, that, by the Constitution, every traitor had the
right to be tried by a jury of traitors! This was the time to dishonor all the New
England dead! This was the time to denounce the living worthies of New England!
Hang Jeff. Davis? Oh, yes! We all know that he is secure behind his triumphant
slayers of the real defenders of the Constitution and the Union. Neither
hangman nor Major-General can get near <i>him</i>. But Charles Sumner is in our
power. We can hang him easily. He has not two or four hundred thousand men at
his back. He travels alone and unattended. Do we want a constitutional
principle for combining the two men in one act of treason? Here is a calm
jurist,—here, gentlemen of the party of the Constitution and the Laws, is
the Honorable W. A. Duer. What does he say? Simply this: "Hang Jeff. Davis
and Charles Sumner." Davis we cannot hang, but Sumner we can. Let us take
one-half of his advice; circumstances prevent us from availing ourselves of the
whole. There is, to be sure, no possibility of hanging Charles Sumner under any
law known to us, the especial champions of the laws. But what then? Don't you
see the Honorable W. A. Duer appeals, in this especial case, to "the
higher law" of the mob? Don't you see that he desires to shield Jeff. Davis
by weaving around his august person all the fine cobwebs of the Law, while he
proposes to have Sumner hanged on "irregular" principles, unknown to
the jurisprudence of Marshall and Kent?</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>But enough for the New York meeting. It was of no
importance, except as indicating the existence, and giving a blundering
expression to the objects, of one of the most malignant and unpatriotic
factions which this country has ever seen. The faction is led by a few cold-blooded
politicians universally known as the meanest sycophants of the South and the
most impudent bullies of the North; but they have contrived to array on their
side a considerable number of honest and well-meaning dupes by a dexterous
appeal to conservative prejudice and conservative passion, so that hundreds
serve their ends who would feel contaminated by their companionship. Never
before has Respectability so blandly consented to become the mere instrument
and tool of Rascality. The rogues trust to inaugurate treason and anarchy under
the pretence of being the special champions of the Constitution and the Laws.
Their real adherents are culled from the most desperate and dishonest portions
of our population. They can hardly indite a leading article, or make a stump
speech, without showing their proclivities to mob-law. To be sure, if a known
traitor is informally arrested, they rave about the violation of the rights of
the citizen; but they think Lynch-law is good enough for
"Abolitionists." If a General is assailed as being over prudent and
cautious in his operations against the common enemy, they immediately laud him
as a Hannibal, a Caesar, and a Napoleon; they assume to be his special friends
and admirers; they adjure him to persevere in what they conceive to be his
policy of inaction; and, as he is a great master in strategy, they hint that
his best strategic movement would be a movement, <i><span lang=FR>à</span> la</i>
Cromwell, on the Abolitionized Congress of the United States. Disunion,
anarchy, the violation of all law, the appeal to the lowest and fiercest
impulses of the most ignorant portions of the Northern people,—these
constitute the real stock-in-trade of "the Hang-Jeff.-Davis-and-Charles-Sumner"
party; but the thing is so managed, that, formally, this party appears as the
special champion of the Union, the Constitution, and the Laws.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>Those politicians who personally dislike the present holders
of political power, those politicians who think that the measures of
confiscation and emancipation passed by the Congress which has just adjourned
are both unjust and impolitic, unconsciously slide into the aiders and abettors
of the knaves they individually despise and distrust. The "radicals"
must, they say, at all events, be checked; and they lazily follow the lead of
the rascals. The rascals intend to ruin the country. But then they propose to
do it in a constitutional way. The only thing, it seems, that a lawyer and a
jurist can consider is Form. If the country is dismembered, if all its
defenders are slain, if the Southern Confederacy is triumphant, not only at
Richmond, but at Washington and New York, if eight millions of people beat
twenty millions, and the greatest of all democracies ignominiously succumbs to
the basest of all aristocracies, the true patriots will still have the
consolation, that the defeat, the "damned defeat," occurred under the
strictest forms of Law. Better that ten Massachusetts soldiers should be killed
than that one negro should be illegally freed! Better that Massachusetts should
be governed by Jeff. Davis than that it should be represented by such men as
Charles Sumner and Henry Wilson, notoriously hostile to the constitutional
rights of the South! Subjection, in itself, is bad; but the great American idea
of local governments for local purposes, and a general government for general
purposes, still, thank God! may survive it. To be sure, we may be beaten and
enslaved, The rascals, renegades, and <span lang=FR>liberticides</span> may
gain their object. This object we shall ever contemn. But if they gain it
fairly, under the forms of the Constitution, it is the duty of all good citizens
to submit. Our Southern opponents, we acknowledge, committed some
"irregularities"; but nobody can assert, that, in dealing with them,
we deviated, by a hair's-breadth, from the powers intrusted to the Government
by the Fathers of the Republic. While the country is convulsed by a rebellion
unprecedented in the whole history of the world, we are compelled by our
principles to look upon it as lawyers, and not as statesmen. We apply to it the
same principles which our venerated forefathers applied to Shay's Rebellion in Massachusetts
and the Whiskey Insurrection in Pennsylvania. To be sure, the
"circumstances" are different; but we need not remind the
philanthropic inhabitants of our section of the country, that "principles
are eternal." We judge the existing case by these eternal principles. We
may fail, and fail ignominiously; but, in our failure, nobody can say that we
violated any sacred form of the ever-glorious Constitution of the United States.
The Constitution has in it no provisions to secure its own existence by
unconstitutional means. It is therefore our duty, as lawyers as well as
legislators, to allow the gentlemen who have repudiated it, because they were
defeated in an election, to enjoy all its benefits. That they do not seem to
appreciate these benefits, but shoot, in a shockingly "irregular"
manner, all who insist on imposing on them its blessings, furnishes no reason
why we should partake in their guilt by violating its provisions. It is true
that the Government established by the Constitution may fall by a strict
adherence to our notions of the Constitution; but even in that event we shall
have the delicious satisfaction of contemplating it in memory as a beautiful
idea, after it has ceased to exist as a palpable fact. As the best constitution
ever devised by human wisdom, we shall always find a more exquisite delight in
meditating on the mental image of its perfect features than in enjoying the
practical blessings of any other Government which may be established after it
is dead and gone; and our feeling regarding it can be best expressed in the
words in which the lyric poet celebrates his loyalty to the soul of the
departed object of his affection:—</p>
<p class=Poemnewstanza>"Though many a gifted mind we meet,</p>
<p class=PoemIndent2>And fairest forms we see,</p>
<p class=Poem>To live with them is far less sweet</p>
<p class=PoemIndent2>Than to remember thee!"</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>It is fortunate both for our safety and the safety of the
Constitution, that these politico-sentimental gentlemen represent only a
certain theory of the Constitution, and not the Constitution itself. Their
leading defect is an incapacity to adjust their profound legal intellects to
the altered circumstances of the country. Any child in political knowledge is
competent to give them this important item of political information,—that
by no constitution of government ever devised by human morality and
intelligence were the rights of rascals so secured as to give them the
privilege of trampling on the rights of honest men. Any child in political
knowledge is competent to inform them of this fundamental fact, underlying all
laws and constitutions,—that, if a miscreant attempts to cut your throat,
you may resist him by all the means which your strength and his weakness place
in your power. Any child in political knowledge is further competent to furnish
them with this additional bit of wisdom,—that every constitution of
government provides, under the war-power it confers, against its own overthrow
by rebels and by enemies. If rebels rise to the dignity and exert the power of
enemies, they can be proceeded against both as rebels and as enemies. As
rebels, the Government is bound to give them all the securities which the
Constitution may guaranty to traitors. As enemies, the Government is restricted
only by the vast and vague "rights of war," of which its own military
necessities must be the final judge.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"But," say the serene thinkers and scholars whom
the rogues use as mouthpieces, "our object is simply to defend the
Constitution. We do not believe that the Government has any of the so-called
'rights of war' against the rebels. If Jefferson Davis has committed the crime
of treason, he has the same right to be tried by a jury of the district in
which his alleged crime was committed that a murderer has to be tried by a
similar jury. We know that Mr. Davis, in case the rebellion is crushed, will
not only be triumphantly acquitted, but will be sent to Congress as Senator
from Mississippi. This is mortifying in itself, but it still is a beautiful
illustration of the merits of our admirable system of government. It enables
the South to play successfully the transparent game of 'Heads I win, tails you
lose,' and so far must be reckoned bad. But this evil is counterbalanced by so
many blessings, that nobody but a miserable Abolitionist will think of
objecting to the arrangement. We, on the whole, agree with the traitors, whose
designs we lazily aid, in thinking that Jeff. Davis and Charles Sumner are
equally guilty, in a fair estimate of the causes of our present misfortunes.
Hang both, we say; and we say it with an inward confidence that neither will be
hanged, if the true principles of the Constitution be carried out."</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>The political rogues and the class of honest men we have
referred to are, therefore, practically associated in one party to oppose the
present Government. The rogues lead; the honest men follow. If this new party
succeeds, we shall have the worst party in power that the country has ever
known. Buchanan as President, and Floyd as Secretary of War, were bad enough.
But Buchanan and Floyd had no large army to command, no immense material of war
to direct. As far as they could, they worked mischief, and mischief only. But
their means were limited. The Administration which will succeed that of Abraham
Lincoln will have under its control one of the largest and ablest armies and
navies in the world. Every general and every admiral will be compelled to obey
the orders of the Administration. If the Administration be in the hands of
secret traitors, the immense military and naval power of the country will be
used for its own destruction. A compromise will be patched up with the Rebel
States. The leaders of the rebellion will be invited back to their old seats of
power. A united South combined with a Pro-slavery faction in the North will
rule the nation. And all this enormous evil will be caused by the simplicity of
honest men in falling into the trap set for them by traitors and rogues.</p>
<p class=Chapter>REVIEWS AND LITERARY NOTICES.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal><i>The Tariff-Question, considered in Regard to the Policy
of England and the Interests of the United States; with Statistical, and Comparative
Tables</i>. By ERASTUS B. BIGELOW. Boston: Little, Brown, & Co. 4to.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>Under this modest title, the American public is presented
with a work of uncommon research, and of great practical utility and value. Its
author is well known as a skilful and most successful inventor, in whose
admirable power-looms nearly all the carpets of the world are now woven. On the
subject of manufactures few can speak with more authority, whether in reference
to its general bearings or its minute details. The work before us affords ample
proof of his ability to discuss one of the most important questions in
political economy.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>The hundred pages of text are followed by two hundred and
thirty-four pages of tabular statistics. This large and well-arranged body of
invaluable information, though styled an appendix, was, in fact, the precursor
of the argument, and constitutes the solid base on which it rests. These tables
are "not mere copies or abstracts, but the result of labored and careful
selection, comparison, and combination." In this treasury of facts,
derived for the most part from official records, the commercial and industrial
interests of the United States and of England, especially, are presented in all
their most important aspects and relations. The amount of information here
given is immense; and knowing, as we do, the scrupulous care of the collector,
we cannot doubt its accuracy. Independently of its connection with the author's
argument, this feature of the work cannot fail to give it value and a permanent
place in every library, office, counting-room, and workshop of the country.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>In his discussion of the tariff question, Mr. Bigelow
assumes it as a settled principle of national policy that revenue should be
raised by duties on imports. To clear the ground from ambiguity, he states
exactly what he means when he uses the terms "free-trade" and
"protection," and then proceeds to describe and explain the tariff-policy
of Great Britain. Not without good reason does he give this prominence to the
action of that great power. It is not merely that England stands at the head of
manufacturing and commercial nations, or that our business-connections with her
are intimate and extensive. The fact which makes English policy so important an
element in the discussion is found in the persistent and too often successful
efforts of that country to shape American opinion and legislation on questions
of manufacture and trade. Nowhere else have we seen the utter fallacy of the
free-trade argument, as urged by Great Britain on other countries upon the
strength of her own successful example, so clearly shown. The nature, object,
extent, and motive of the tariff-reforms effected by Sir Robert Peel and Mr.
Gladstone are made plain, not only by the quoted explanations of those
statesmen, but by statistical facts and figures. Until she had carried her
manufactures to a height of prosperity where competition could no longer touch
them, England was, of all nations, the most protective. Then she became of a
sudden wondrously liberal. Her protective laws were abolished, and, with a
mighty show of generosity, she opened her ports to the commerce of the world.
Foreign producers were magnanimously told that they could send their goods
freely into England at a time when English manufactures were underselling and
supplanting theirs in their own markets. The sacrifice of duties actually made
by England on foreign manufactures, and which she paraded before the world as a
reason why other nations should imitate and reciprocate her action, amounted,
as we learn from the work before us, to this immense annual sum of two hundred
and eighteen thousand dollars, being "less than one-fourth part of the tax
which Englishmen annually pay for the privilege of keeping their dogs!"</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>It is true that the exports and trade of England have
increased with extraordinary rapidity since 1853, and that the free-trade
economists of that country ascribe this great prosperity in large degree to
their alleged reforms. That they have no good ground for such a representation
is shown conclusively by Mr. Bigelow. During the same period, France, with high
protection, and the United States, with moderate protection, made equal or even
greater advances. The causes of this increased prosperity must, therefore, have
been general in their nature and influence. The progress of invention and
discovery, and the increased supply of gold, are mentioned by the author as
among the most efficient.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>The immense extent and vast importance of English
manufactures, and especially of the cotton-manufacture, are fully unfolded, and
we cannot wonder at the earnest and unceasing efforts of that country to
preserve and to extend this great interest. This necessity is strikingly
evinced in the section on "The Dependent Condition of England." We
can only allude to this part of the argument, as full of striking suggestions,
and as showing that in some very important respects England is the most
dependent of all countries, and that the continued maintenance of her life and
power rests on the maintenance of her manufacturing supremacy. In the section
headed "Efforts of England to extend her Manufactures," we have some
curious and instructive history, and we specially commend this part of the work
to those who have been accustomed to lend a willing ear to British talk on the
subjects of protection and free-trade.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>Mr. Bigelow devotes a short, but graphic and comprehensive,
section to the "Condition and Resources of the United States."
"The Tariffs of the United States," their merits and defects, are
briefly considered. His "Reasons in Favor of a Protective Policy"
leave, as it seems to us, very little to be said on the other side. From a
multitude of passages which we have been tempted to quote, we select the
following, as a not unfavorable specimen of the work:—</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"War is an evil to which we are always liable, and
shall continue to be liable, until the Millennium comes. With reference to this
always existent danger, no nation which is not willing to be trampled on can
safely take its position on Quaker ground. That the possible event may not find
us unprepared, we build fortresses and war-ships, and maintain armies and
artillery at vast expense. No one but the mere visionary denies the propriety
or the necessity of this. Yet it is demonstrable that a nation about to be
involved in war will find a well-developed industrial and productive power of
more real value than any or than all of the precautionary measures above
mentioned; since, without such power, neither forts nor armies can long be
sustained.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"It is obvious that the doctrine of free-trade (I mean,
of course, genuine free-trade, and not the British counterfeit) ignores the
probability, if not, indeed, the possibility of war. Could peace, perpetual and
universal, be guarantied to the world, the argument against protection would
possess a degree of strength, which, as things now are, does not and cannot
belong to it. May it not be well for us to consider, whether, on the whole, we
can do better than to take things as they are, by conforming our national
policy, not to an imaginary era of universal peace and philanthropy, but to the
hard and selfish world in which we happen to live?</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>"Lest this remark should be misinterpreted, I disclaim
all intent to intimate that men acting in communities are released from those
obligations of morality and justice which bind them as individuals. As
civilization advances and mankind become more enlightened and virtuous, the
beneficial change cannot fail to show itself in the public councils of the
world, and in the kinder and broader spirit that will animate and control the
intercourse of nations. Meanwhile, let us not expect to find in collective
humanity the disinterested goodness which is so rarely exhibited by the
individual members. Let us rather assume that other nations will act, in the
main, on selfish principles; and let us shape our own course as a nation in
accordance with that presumption. Few, I think, will call this uncharitable,
when they recall to mind our own experience during the year past. Why were so
many among us surprised and disappointed at the course pursued by the English,
generally, in reference to our domestic difficulties? Simply because they
forgot, that, with the mass of mankind, self-interest is a far stronger motive
than philanthropy. That England should sympathize, even in the slightest
degree, with a rebellious conspiracy against a kindred and friendly nation,—a
conspiracy based openly and confessedly on the extension and perpetuity of an
institution—which Englishmen everywhere professed to regard with the
deepest abhorrence,—was certainly very inconsistent; but it was not at
all strange. In fact, it was precisely the thing which we might expect would
happen under the circumstances. Those who made the mistake have learned a
lesson in human nature which should prevent them from repeating the
blunder."</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>From the past opinions and present condition of our Southern
States, and from the history of the war thus far, the author strongly argues
the necessity of a policy designed and fitted to build up a diversified
industry and a vigorous productive power. In regard to the degree of
protection, he advocates no more than is necessary to equalize advantages. In
consequence of her abundant capital, lower rate of interest, and cheaper labor,
England can manufacture at less cost than we can; and this disadvantage can
be counteracted only by protective legislation. The benefits which have accrued
to the manufacturers of England from a governmental policy on whose stability
they could rely, the advantage of a long and firmly established business with
all its results of experience and skill, and the collateral aid of a widely
extended commerce, are points clearly brought out and presented to the
consideration of American economists.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>But our limits forbid that we should attempt any further
exposition of this excellent work. The section on "Free Trade" cannot
fail to arrest attention, and that upon "The Harmony of Interests among
the States" is full of common sense inspired by the broadest patriotism.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>Our imperfect abstract gives but a <span lang=EN-GB>meagre</span>
notion of the fulness and completeness of this admirable work. It will
accomplish its object, if it send the reader to the book itself. The appearance
of the volume is timely. Events and circumstances have prepared the minds of
our countrymen to understand and to appreciate the argument. The book cannot fail
to diffuse sounder views of the great topics which it discusses, and will
exert, we trust, a beneficial influence on the legislation of the country.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal><i>The Slave-Power; its Character, Career, and Probable
Designs: being an Attempt to explain the Real Issue involved in the American
Contest</i>. By J. E. <span lang=FR>CAIRNES</span>, M. A, London: Parker, Son,
& Bourn. 8vo.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>This book, which is dedicated to John Stuart Mill, and is in
excellent keeping with that writer's article on "The Civil War in America,"
deserves a respectful and even cordial welcome from the people of this country.
It has grown out of a course of university-lectures on North-American Slavery,
more especially considered in its economical aspects. But the author has been
led to enlarge his view, and has brought before the public one of the most
significant works that have yet appeared on this momentous subject. So far as
the treatise is a speculative one, it has an interest for all inquirers. So far
as it is intended to influence or modify the current estimate of the great
conflict in this country, it bears more directly on the people of England; but,
unless we have determined neither to seek nor to miss the sympathy of
intelligent Englishmen, we ought to hail so manly and powerful an attempt to
correct the errors which prevail in the mother-country. We do not undertake at
this time to subscribe to everything we find in this book, nor are we now about
to criticize its contents. Our wish is to introduce it to our readers as a
comforting proof that there is a leaven yet working among our English kinsmen
which it would be extremely unjust in us not to recognize. We quote an English
critic, who says:—"The work is exceedingly able, as well as
exceedingly opportune. It will do much to arrest the extraordinary tide of
sympathy with the South which the clever misrepresentations of Southern
advocates have managed to set running in this country, and to imprint the
picture of a modern slave-community on the imagination of thoughtful men."
Professor <span lang=FR>Cairnes</span> sets himself at the start against the
endeavor to refer this great crisis to superficial and secondary causes. He
pierces the question to the core, and finds there what has too often been
studiously kept out of sight, the cancer of Slavery. Acknowledging what has
been so diligently harped upon, that the motive of the war is not the overthrow
of the slave-power, he still insists that Slavery is the cause of the war. This
he attempts to establish historically and economically; nor does he leave the
subject without a searching look into Southern society and a prospective glance
at the issues of the contest. He has freely consulted American authorities,
most of which are familiar to many of our readers; he has also turned to good
account the reports of open-eyed English <span lang=EN-GB>travellers</span>,
and the opinions of sensible French writers, not overlooking the remarkably
clear narrative of our political history in the "<span lang=FR>Annuaire</span>
des <span lang=FR>Deux</span><span lang=FR> </span><span lang=FR>Mondes</span>"
for 1860. He handles his materials with great skill, and, in a word, has
brought to bear on his difficult subject an amount of good sense and sound
thought quite remarkable in a foreigner who is dealing with the complex
politics of a distant country.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>Professor <span lang=FR>Cairnes</span>, in opposition to the
Southern doctrine proclaimed at home and abroad, views the present rebellion as
unconstitutional, and as therefore amenable to the usual tests by which a
revolutionary movement is justified or condemned. He refers to the manner in
which the English people allowed their sympathies "to be carried, under
the skilful management of Southern agency acting through the press, round to
the Southern side"; and while he admires the spectacle of a people rising
"for no selfish object, but to maintain the integrity of their common country,
and to chastise a band of conspirators, who, in the wantonness of their
audacity, had dared to attack it," he attributes the "cold criticism
and derision" of the English public to a shallow, but natural,
misconception of the real issue. So far as in him lies, he does not intend that
the case shall be so misconceived any longer. Without declaring himself an
advocate or apologist of American democracy, he warmly pleads that democracy
ought not to bear the burdens of oligarchy,—that the faults and mistakes
in the policy of this country ought not all to be laid at the door of the
present National Government, and thus redound to the benefit of its Southern
foes, when so many of those faults and mistakes were committed under the sway
of the very class in whose behalf they are now quoted. Our sensitive
countrymen, who have so keenly smarted under English indifference or hostility,
may console themselves with the thought that there is one Englishman of
undoubted ability and sincerity who calls the Southern Confederation "the
opprobrium of the age."</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>Near the close of the volume the author strives to penetrate
the darkness which hangs over the present conflict. He does not think
"that the North is well advised in its attempt to reconstruct the Union in
its original proportions." He would have the North supported in striving
for "a degree of success which shall compel the South to accept terms of
separation, such as the progress of civilization in America and the advancement
of human interests throughout the world imperatively require." The terms
of his proposed settlement we have not room here to consider.</p>
<p class=MsoNormal>With this hasty notice, and without any attempt at
criticism, we dismiss a thoughtful and interesting book, which, however in some
particulars it may fail to meet the entire acceptance of all American readers,
is well worthy of their calm and deliberate perusal.</p>
</div>
<div><br>
<hr style="float: left; width: 33%; height: auto;">
<div id=edn1>
<p class=MsoEndnoteText><a href="#_ednref1" name="_edn1" title=""><span
class=MsoEndnoteReference><span class=MsoEndnoteReference><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman"'>[1]</span></span></span></a>
Are we as grateful as we should be to Mrs. Cowden Clarke? Did you ever try to
find anything by the help of Ayscough, when that was the best guide to be had?
If you have, you remember your teasing search for the principal word in the
passage,—how <i>day</i> seemed a less likely key than <i>jocund</i>, and
yet, as this was only an adjective, perhaps <i>tiptoe</i> were better; or, if
you pitched upon <i>mountain-tops</i>, it was a problem with which half of the
compound to begin the search. Consider that Mrs. Clarke is no dry word-critic,
to revel in pulling the soliloquy to pieces, and half inclined to carry the
work farther and give you the separate letters and the number of each, but a woman
who loves Shakespeare and what he wrote. Think of her sitting down for sixteen
years to pick up senseless words one by one, and stow each one away in its own
niche, with a ticket hanging to it to guide the search of any one who can bring
the smallest sample of the cloth of gold he wants. Think of this, whenever you
open her miracle of patient labor, and be grateful.</p>
</div>
<div id=edn2>
<p class=MsoEndnoteText><a href="#_ednref2" name="_edn2" title=""><span
class=MsoEndnoteReference><span class=MsoEndnoteReference><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman"'>[2]</span></span></span></a>
<i>Hand-Book for Hythe.</i> By Lieut. Hans Busk.</p>
</div>
<div id=edn3>
<p class=MsoEndnoteText><a href="#_ednref3" name="_edn3" title=""><span
class=MsoEndnoteReference><span class=MsoEndnoteReference><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman"'>[3]</span></span></span></a>
See lower wood-cut, p. 294, <i>d</i>.</p>
</div>
<div id=edn4>
<p class=MsoEndnoteText><a href="#_ednref4" name="_edn4" title=""><span
class=MsoEndnoteReference><span class=MsoEndnoteReference><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman"'>[4]</span></span></span></a>
Those who care to know more of the habits and structure of these animals will
find more detailed descriptions of all the various species, illustrated by
numerous plates, in the fourth volume of my <i>Contributions to the Natural
History of the United States,</i> just published.</p>
</div>
<div id=edn5>
<p class=MsoEndnoteText><a href="#_ednref5" name="_edn5" title=""><span
class=MsoEndnoteReference><span class=MsoEndnoteReference><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman"'>[5]</span></span></span></a>
The march on Bethel was begun in high spirits at midnight, but it was near noon when the Zouaves, in their crimson garments, led by Colonel Duryea, charged the
batteries, after singing the "Star-Spangled Banner" in chords. Major
Winthrop fell in the storming of the enemy's defences, and was left on the
battle-field. Lieutenant Greble, the only other officer killed, was shot at his
gun soon after. This fatal contest inaugurated the "war of posts"
which has since raged in Virginia.</p>
</div>
<div id=edn6>
<p class=MsoEndnoteText><a href="#_ednref6" name="_edn6" title=""><span
class=MsoEndnoteReference><span class=MsoEndnoteReference><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman"'>[6]</span></span></span></a>
This musket was afterwards called <i>fusil boucanier</i>. <i>Fusil demi-boucanier</i>
was the same kind, with a shorter barrel.</p>
</div>
<div id=edn7>
<p class=MsoEndnoteText><a href="#_ednref7" name="_edn7" title=""><span
class=MsoEndnoteReference><span class=MsoEndnoteReference><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman"'>[7]</span></span></span></a>
<i>Histoire des Avanturiers Flibustiers, avec la Vie, les Moeurs, et les
Coutumes des Boucaniers</i>, par A.O. Oexmelin, who went out to the West Indies
as a poor <i>Engagé</i>, and became a Buccaneer. Four Volumes. New Edition,
printed in 1744: Vol. III., containing the Journal of a Voyage made with <i>Flibustiers</i>
in the South Sea in 1685, by Le Sieur Ravenau de Lussan; and Vol. IV.,
containing a History of English pirates, with the Lives of two Female Pirates,
Mary Read and Ann Bonny, and Extracts from Pirate-Codes: translated from the
English of Captain Charles Johnson.—Charlevoix, <i>Histoire de St.
Domingue</i>, Vols. III. and IV.—<i>The History of the Bucaniers of </i><i>America</i><i>,
from the First Original down to this Time; written in several Languages, and
now collected into One Volume.</i> Third Edition, London, 1704: containing
Portraits of all the Celebrated <i>Flibustiers,</i> and Plans of some of their
Land-Attacks.—<i>Nouveaux Voyages aux Isles Françoises de l'Amérique</i>,
par le Père Labat, 1724, Tom. V, pp. 228-230. See also Archenholtz.</p>
</div>
<div id=edn8>
<p class=MsoEndnoteText><a href="#_ednref8" name="_edn8" title=""><span
class=MsoEndnoteReference><span class=MsoEndnoteReference><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman"'>[8]</span></span></span></a>
Not to be confounded with the Tortugas, the westernmost islands of the Florida
Keys (<i>Cayos</i>, Spanish for rocks, shoals, or islets).</p>
</div>
<div id=edn9>
<p class=MsoEndnoteText><a href="#_ednref9" name="_edn9" title=""><span
class=MsoEndnoteReference><span class=MsoEndnoteReference><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman"'>[9]</span></span></span></a>
Charlevoix will have it reversed, and derives <i>flibustier</i> from <i>freebooter;</i>
but this English word is not old enough to have been a vagrom in those seas at
that time. Webster derives it from the Dutch <i>Vrijbuiter;</i> but that and
the corresponding German word were themselves derived. Schoelcher says that it
is a corruption of an English word, <i>fly-boater</i>, one who manages a
fly-boat; and he adds,—"Our <i>flibot</i>, a small and very fast
craft, draws its origin from the English <i>fly-boat, bateau mouche, bateau
volant</i>." But this is only a kind of pun. Perhaps the Dutch named it
so, not from its swiftness, but from its resemblance, with its busy oars and
darting motions, to a slender-legged fly. There appears to be no ground for
saying that the boat was so called because it first came into use upon the
river Vlie in Holland. It might have been a boat used by the inhabitants of
Vlieland, a town on the island of the same name, north of Texel. <i>Freebooter</i>
is such a good word for <i>flibustier</i> that it was easy to accuse it of the
parentage.</p>
</div>
<div id=edn10>
<p class=MsoEndnoteText><a href="#_ednref10" name="_edn10" title=""><span
class=MsoEndnoteReference><span class=MsoEndnoteReference><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman"'>[10]</span></span></span></a>
Pinnaces of five or six tons, which could be packed on shipboard in pieces and
put together when wanted, were built in the reign of Elizabeth. The name is of
Spanish origin, from the pine used for material.</p>
</div>
<div id=edn11>
<p class=MsoEndnoteText><a href="#_ednref11" name="_edn11" title=""><span
class=MsoEndnoteReference><span class=MsoEndnoteReference><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman"'>[11]</span></span></span></a>
See a contract of this kind in <i>Histoire Générale des </i><i>Antilles</i>, Du
Tertre, Tom. I. p. 464.</p>
</div>
<div id=edn12>
<p class=MsoEndnoteText><a href="#_ednref12" name="_edn12" title=""><span
class=MsoEndnoteReference><span class=MsoEndnoteReference><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman"'>[12]</span></span></span></a>
Bancroft's <i>United States</i>, Vol. I. p. 14.</p>
</div>
<div id=edn13>
<p class=MsoEndnoteText><a href="#_ednref13" name="_edn13" title=""><span
class=MsoEndnoteReference><span class=MsoEndnoteReference><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman"'>[13]</span></span></span></a>
Buckle's <i>History of Civilization</i>, Vol. II. chap. 1.</p>
</div>
<div id=edn14>
<p class=MsoEndnoteText><a href="#_ednref14" name="_edn14" title=""><span
class=MsoEndnoteReference><span class=MsoEndnoteReference><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman"'>[14]</span></span></span></a>
"Our Birds and their Ways" (December, 1857); "The Singing-Birds
and their Songs" (August, 1858); "The Birds of the Garden and
Orchard" (October, 1858); "The Birds of the Pasture and Forest"
(December, 1853);—the first by J. Elliot Cabot, and the three last by
Wilson Flagg.</p>
</div>
</div>
<br>
<hr>
<pre>
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