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r*F 


SCRSBNER'S 


An  Illustrated  Magazine 

For  the  People. 


Conducted  by    J.   G.  Holland. 


Volume  XX.  ^ 

(May,   1 8 So,   to  Oct.   1880,   inclusive.) 


New -York: 

Scribner  &   Co.,   No.    743  Broadway. 

1880. 


Copyright,  1880,  by  SCRIBNER  &  Co. 


PRESS  OF  FRANCIS  HART  &  Co. 
NEW-YORK. 


I*) 


CONTENTS   VOL.   XX. 


FRONTISPIECES 


Edgar  Allan  Poe'     Engraved  b7  T-  Co'e  from  a  daguerreotype. 

Savonarola.     Engraved  by  T.  Cole  from  photograph  of  painting  by  Fra  Bartolommeo. 


PAGE. 
.   6oi 


ADVERTISING,  CURIOSITIES  OF William  H.  Rideing. 

Illustrations  by  A.  Btennan  and  H.  P.  Share. 

Illus.  Head-piece 601  A  Pantomimic  Advertisement 605 

A  Bakery  in  Ancient  Pompeii 603  The  Shirt  Man 605 

An  Ancient  Perfumer's  Advertisement —  On  the  Fence.— The  Rocks  Below 606 

Rome 603  Opening  of  the  Trout  Season 606 

A  Modern  Perfumer's  Advertisement —  The  Chiropodist 607 

New  York 603  A  Conference 607 

Many  Ads  of  Many  Kinds 604  The  Dumb-Bell  Wagon 608 

The  Two  Dromios 604 

BALKANS,  OVER  THE,  WITH  GOURKO Francis  V.  Greene,  U.  S.  A.  721 

BJORNSON,  BJORNSTJERNE Hjalmar  Hjorth  Boyesen. . .  336 

Illus.  Portrait  of  Bjornstjeme  Bjornson 336 

BLAKE,  WILLIAM — PAINTER  AND  POET Horace  E.  Scudder 225 

Illus.          Death's  Door •  223        Elijah  in  the  Chariot  of  Fire 233 

Portrait  of  William  Blake 227  Border  of  Plate  from  the  "  Book  of  Job  " . .  236 

Young  Burying  Narcissa 228  "  When  the  morning  stars  sang  together  " .  237 

Infant  Joy 230  The  Counselor,  King,  Warrior,  Mother  and 

Morning  or  Glad  Day 232  Child  in  the  Tomb 239 

BOLT,  To,  OR   NOT  TO  BOLT Washington   Gladden 906 

CALIFORNIA  ALPS,  IN  THE  HEART  OF  THE John  Muir 345 

CANADA,  THE  DOMINION  OF George  M.  Grant 80 

Illustrations  by  Henry  Sandham  and  others. 

Illus.  Running  the  Lachine  Rapids,  St.  Lawrence  A  Snow-storm  in  the  Matapediac  Valley. ..  433 

River 80  Junction  of  Matapediac  and  Restigouche 

Sable  Island,  A.  D.  1603 81  Rivers 433 

Jacques  Cartier 83  Valley  of  the  Matapediac 435 

Recollet  Friar 84  Manitoba  Dog- Train — Down  Brakes ! 437 

Long  Sault  Rapids,  St  Lawrence  River. . .     86  Low  Tide,  St.  John's  Harbor,  N.  B 440 

Gentleman  of  the  Order  of  St.  Sulpice,  in  Half-Breed    Netting   Salmon,    Hell    Gate, 

the  Costume  of  1700 87  Fraser  River 441 

Jean-Baptiste,  Indian  Pilot  on  the  St  Law-  Red  River  Ox-Cart  in  Water 443 

rence 88  Indian   Suspension   Bridge  in  the  North- 
View  in  the  Thousand  Islands 88  west 445 

Lake  Memphremagog .• 89  Glacier  Mountain,  Junction  of  Muddy  and 

Kingston  Harbor 91  North  Thompson  Rivers; 446 

On  the  St.  Lawrence,  near  Montreal 93  Nature's  Monument,  Canadian  Pacific  Coast  447 

View  on  the  Godbout 94  Indian  Monuments,  Canada  Pacific  Coast.  448 

Fort  Henry,  Kingston 95  Parliament  Buildings,  Ottawa 561 

Dyke  on  Canard  River  cut  by  the  Acadians  241  A  Montreal  Wharf  in  June 561 

Sherbrooke .   242  A  Montreal  Wharf  in  March 562  ! 

View  on  the  Magog  River 243  Open-Air  Market •_ 563 

A  Canadian  Homestead,  1830 246  Old  Bonsecours  Church,  from  the  River. . .  564 

A  Canadian  Homestead,  1850 247  Pulpit  in  Old  Bonsecours  Church 565 

Cape  Blomidon  from  Grand  Pre 248  Christian  Brothers  at  the  Gate  of  the  Sem- 

York  Redoubt,  Halifax  Harbor 249  inary  of  St.  Sulpice 566 

Cape  Split,  Bay  of  Fundy 253  A  Montreal  Street  in  Winter 567 

Cape  Blomidon •. 255  A  Fleet  of  Wood  Barges  on  the  St.  Law- 

Ye  Luxurious  Acadian 256  rence 568 

CHINESE  STUDENTS.     See  "Japanese  and  Chinese  Students  in  America." 

CONEY  ISLAND,  To William  H.  Bishop 353 

Illustrations  by  Douglas  Volk,  R.  Sayre,  R.  Blum,  H.  P.  Share,  J.  H.  Twachtman  and  W.  T.  Smedley. 

Illus.          To  Coney  Island 353  A  Ride  on  the  Donkey 360 

Bird's-eye  View  and  Plan  of  Coney  Island  354  Punch  and  Judy 3« 

Manhattan  Beach  Hotel 355  Under  the  Iron  Pier 3« 

Along  the  Beach 356  Up  in  the  Tower 

Hotel  Brighton 357  From  Brighton  Pier 3°4 

The  Silhouette  Artist 358  Oriental  Hotel 

Bathing  by  Electric  Light 359  The  Sand  Dunes,  back  from  the  Eeach ....  305 

CONGRESS  AND  INTERNATIONAL  COPYRIGHT Eugene  L.  Didier 132 

COPYRIGHT.     See  "  Congress  and  International  Copyright." 

CYPRIOTE  INSCRIPTIONS,  THE ^saac  **•  Hall 205 

Bilingual  of  De  Vogue  ...                     205  Inscription  on  Box  of  Stone,  votive  offering 

Bilingual  Tablet  of  Dali 206  to  Paphian  Aphrodite,  found  at  Kythrea.  209 

Dedicatory  Inscription  of  Statuette,  found  Bronze  Tablet  of  Dali— I.  Obverse 21 

at  Paphos          . . 208  «•  Reverse 210 

1    4889 


iv  INDEX. 

PAGE. 

DENVER,  COLORADO.     See   "  Metropolis   of  the  Rocky  Mountains,  The. " 
DICKENS,  ABOUT  ENGLAND  WITH 494,  641 

Illustrations  by  Charles  A.  Vanderhoof  and  Alfred  Rimmer. 

Illus.  Barnet,  where  Oliver  Twist  met  the  Artful  Deans  Court,  Doctors'  Commons 645 

Dodger  496        The  Abbey  Gate,  Bury  St.  Edmunds 646 

The  Clock  of  St.  Andrews 496  The  Green  Gate,  St.  Clement's  Church-yard, 

Seven  Dials 497  Ipswich  ....... 646 

Kew  Bridge  on  the  Thames 499  "  The  opposite  side  of  Goswell  Street " . . . .  647 

London  Bridge — The  Landing  Stairs 500        Gray's  Inn 648 

Newgale  Prison,  the  old  Bailey 501        Gate-way,  Lincoln's  Inn 649 

"  That  part  of  the  Thames  on  which  the  George  Inn 651 

church  at  Rotherhithe  abuts" 502        New  Inn 652 

Copperfield's  recollections  of  Canterbury  . .  641        Dotheboys  Hall 653 

Rochester  Castle 642        Pump  at  Dotheboys  Hall 654 

Bull  Inn  at  Rochester 643        Theater  at  Portsmouth 655 

White  Hart  Inn,  High  Street 644        Ralph  Nickleby's  Mansion 656 

DIPLOMACY,  AMERICAN,  A  SKETCH  OF Richard  Henry  Dana 616 

EIGHTEEN  YEARS  ALONE Emma  C.  Hardacre 657 

EXODUS  IN  KANSAS,  A  YEAR  OF  THE Henry  King 211 

FLORENCE,  LIFE  IN L.  L.  L 281 

FRENCH  REPUBLIC,  WILL  THE,  LAST  ? Juliette  Lamber  (Editor  of 

"La  Nouvelle  Revue "). . .  $22 
Translated  by  Helen  Stanley. 

GEORGETOWN  COLLEGE,  D.  C D.  A.  Casserly 665 

Illustrations  by  W.  L.  Shepard,  R .  Blum,  R.  Riordan,  Charles  A.  Vanderhoof  and  others. 

Illus.          Decatur's  Medal 666        The  Old  Pump 673 

"  Be  to  my  faults  a  little  blind  " 668        Old  Trinity  Church  674 

Feeding  the  Prisoner 669        Archbishop  Carroll 674 

Rev.  B.  A.  Maguire,  S.  J 672        General  View  of  Georgetown  College 675 

Rev.  James  Ryder,  S.  J 672        The  New  College 675 

The  Old  Stairway    673 

GRANDISSIMES,  THE.     Chapters  XXX— LXI.     (Concluded) George  W,  Cable 24 

194,  380,  527,  696,  812 

HADEN'S,  MR.  SEYMOUR,  ETCHINGS Philip  Gilbert  Hamerton.  .  .   586 

Illus.          Portrait  and  Autograph  of  F.  Seymour  Haden  593        From  the  Bridge  at  Cardigan 596 

Out  of  Study  Window 594        Erith  Marshes 597 

A  By-road  in  Tipperary 595        Breaking  up  of  the  Agamemnon 599 

Kilgaren  Castle 596        Sawley  Abbey 600 

HICKETTS  HOLLOW Lina  Redwood  Fairfax 758 

HUDSON  RIVER  (Illustrated).     See  "Our  River." 

IN  THE  M.  E.  AFRICAN Isabella  T.  Hopkins 422 

JAPANESE  AND  CHINESE  STUDENTS  IN  AMERICA Charles  F.  Thwing 450 

JIM  ALLTHINGS Alfred  B.  Street 542 

LA  SONNAMBULA Laura   Winthrop  Johnson . .   430 

LAWN-PLANTING,  SEA-SIDE Samuel  Parsons,  Jr 925 

Illustrations  by  W.  Hamilton  Gibson,  Charles  A.  Vanderhoof  and  others. 

Illus.  The  Maiden's  Pink 925        Large-Flowering  Tickseed 927 

Nierembergia  Rivularis 925        Blue  Harebell 928 

Rocky  Mountain  Columbine 926 

LIBRARY,  A  FREE  LENDING,  FOR  NEW  YORK Theodore  H.  Mead 929 

LOUISIANA.     Chapters  XV— XVIII.     (Concluded) Frances  Hodgson  Burnett.  .  .     16 

Illustration  by  Mary  Hallock  Foote :  "  '  Must  I  go  away  ? '  he  said  " 16 

MADJOON,  THE  SORCERY  OF George  Parsons  Lathrop ...     416 

Illustration  by  Francis  Lathrop  :  Interior  of  an  Opium  Den 416 

MAMMOTH  CAVE,  ONE  HUNDRED  MILES  IN H.  C.  Hovey 914 

Illustrations  by  J.  Barton. 

Illus.  A  Snow  Cloud 921        Stephen  Bishop,  the  Guide 922 

Egyptian  Temple 921        The  Styx 923 

The  Giants'  Coffin 922        The  Bottomless  Pit 924 

MARRYING  TITLES Albert  Rhodes ' 622 

METROPOLIS  OF  THE  ROCKY  MOUNTAINS,  THE Ernest  Ingersoll 543 


INDEX.  v 

MILLET,  JEAN  FRANCOIS — PEASANT  AND  PAINTER Alfred  Sensier  7-12  8a<; 

(Introduction  by  R.  W.  G.  Translation  by  H.  de  K.) 
Illustrations  by  Jean  Fran9ois  Millet. 

Illus.  Portrait  of  Madame  Millet 737  Shepherdess 

Birthplace  of  Millet 739  Shepherdess  Knitting! '..'.','.'.'.'. 

A  Spinner 740  Woman  Bathing 

Peasants  returning  Home 741  Carding  Wool  . . 

Women  bringing  home  Clothes  after  Wash-  Sheep-shearing. ...... . . . .  '. . . . .' ' ' ' .' " ' 

ing......... 742  CEdipus  being  taken  from  the  Tree...       '.'.  835 

Portrait  of  Millet 744  The  Woodman 

The  New-born  Lamb 745  Teaching  the  Baby  to  walk! . . 

Women  bringing  home  Milk  748  The  Plain  of  Barbizon 

Noon 749  The  Gleaners '.'.'.'.'.'.".'.'.'.'.'.'.'.'.'.'.  840 

MISSIONS,  CHRISTIAN,  ECONOMIC  DEFECTS  IN I02 

Miss  STOTFORD'S  SPECIALTY Philip  Bourke  Marsion 

MORMON,  THE  BOOK  OF Ellen  E.  Dickinson  '  6n 

MY  FRIEND  MRS.  ANGEL jufa  Schayer "  293 

NEW  YORK  SEVENTH,  THE Clarence  C.  Buel 63 

Illustrations  by  Francis  Lathrop,  Asher  Taylor,  J.  E.  Kelly,  Harry  Chase,  H.  P.  Share,  W.  Taber,  M.  J.  Bums,  G.  Gibson 

R.  Sayer  and  others. 

Illus.           Arms  of  the  New  York  Seventh  Regiment  63  The  Seventh  Off  to  the  War. ..                    .  70 

The  Seventh  Regiment  Memorial  Statue. .  64        Life  at  Camp  Cameron 71 

The  Shakspere  Tavern,  New  York 65        Advance  Picket \  n 

New  York   State   and   Seventh   Regiment               Theodore  Winthrop 73 

Colors 65         Target  Practice  at  the  Armory   73 

Selecting  the  Uniform 66        Colonel  Emmons  Clark 74 

Taylor's  Seventh  Regiment  Album 67        Target  Practice  at  Creedmoor 76 

The  Lafayette  Medal 67        The  May  Inspection 77 

The  Abolition  Riot  in  1834 68        The  New  Armory 78 

The  Astor  Place  Riot  in  1849 68        The  Armorer 79 

The  Drum  Major 69  A  Creedmoor  Sport,  "  The  Tug  of  War ".  79 

NOTES  OF  A  WALKER.     Ill .John  Burroughs 97 

"  ONEIDA,"  THE  Loss  OF  THE  T.  A.  Lyons,  U.  S.  N 750 

Illustrations  by  J.  O.  Davidson  and  others. 

Illus.           Homeward  Bound 750  Diagrams  showing  the  position  of  the  ves- 

The  Collision  of  the  £om&aj/  and  Oneida..  751  sels  at  the  time  of  the  collision  and  the 

The  Oneida  after  the  Collision 752  condition  of  the  Bombay  afterward 754 

Entrance  to  Yedo  Bay 753 

OPIUM.     See  "  Madjoon,  The  Sorcery  of." 

OUR    RIVER John  Burroughs 481 

Illustrations  by  Mary  Hallock  Foote. 

Illus.  Spring  Floods 482  Knitting  Shad-nets 488 

An  Ice-Floe 483  On  its  way  to  the  River 489 

Crossing  on  the  Ice  to  the  Train 484  Old  Cooper-shop  and  Shad-nets 490 

An  Old  River-road 485  Fisherman's  House  by  the  River 491 

A  Bird's-eye  View 486  Trying  out  Sturgeon 492 

The  Old  Cemetery  at  Marlborough  Landing  487 

PAINE,  THOMAS,  AND  THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION E.  B.  Washburne  771 

PAINTERS,  THE  YOUNGER,  OF  AMERICA William  C.  Brownell i,  321 

Illus.           Portrait.      J.  Alden  Weir 3  Autumn  Afternoon  in  Berkshire.   Abbott  H. 

Feeding  the  Pigeons.     Walter  Shirlaw. . .  5            Thayer 325 

Spring.      A .  P.  Ryder 6        The  Bather.     Henry  Muhrman 327 

Oyster  Gatherers  a'c  Cancale.   J.S.Sargent  7        The  Coming  Man.    Frank  Duveneck 328 

The  Chess  Players.     Thomas  Eakins 8        Reverie.     Wyatt  Eaton 329 

Portrait  of  Frank  Duveneck.     William  M.  Reverie— In  the  Time  of  the  First  French 

Chase 9            Empire.     Will  H.  Low 331 

The  Whistling  Boy.     J.  Frank  Currier. .  n  Oyster  Boats,  North  River.    J.  H.  Twacht- 

New  England  Cedars.     R.  Swain  Gifford.  12           man 33a 

The  Newsboy.     Frederick  Dielman 13         Early  Spring.     W.  S.  Macy 333 

Returning  from  the  Brook.    Geo.  Inness,  Jr.  14  Head  of  OldPrench  Peasant  Woman.  Fred- 

After  the  Rain.     F.  S.  Church 15            eric  P.  Vinton 334 

The  Romany  Girl.     George  Fuller 321         Miggles.     George  D.  Brush 335 

PALERMO,  FROM,  TO  SYRACUSE George  B.  McClellan 400 

Illustrations  by  Thomas  Moran,  John  Bolles,  Charles  A.  Vanderhoof.  R.  Riordan,  Francis  Lathrop  and  others. 

Illus.  Map  of  Sicily 400  The  Catacombs,  Palermo 4°8 

Palermo 401  Temple  of  Segeste 4°9 

Porta  Nuova,  Residence  of  Garibaldi 402  A  Papyrus  Thicket 4°9 

Porta  Felice,  Palermo 403  The  Fountain  of  Arethusa. • .  4" 

La  Ziza,  Palermo 404  Ruins  of  the  Roman  Amphitheater  at  byra- 

Entrance  to  the  Cathedral  of  Palermo 405  cuse • •• • 4*4 

Fragment  of  Mosaics  in  Cathedral  of  Mon-  Ruins  of  the  Greek  Theater  at  Syracuse. . .  414 

reale ..406  The  Ear  of  Dionysius 4«5 


VI 


INDEX. 


PETER  THE  GREAT.     Chapters  XIII — XXXII . 


.Eugene  Schuyler 
179,  366, 


PAGE. 

45 

70S,  878 


Illustrations  by  Charlemagne,  R.  Sayer,  Maurice  Howard,  R.  Riordan,  P.  L.  Szyndler,  E.  Egoroff,  A.  Edelfelt,  Chelmonski, 
E.  Repine,  A.  Brennan,  J.  C.  Philips,  Count  Masoyedoff,  Hughson  Hawley,  N.  Swertchkoff,  F.  H.  Lungren  and  others. 

Illus.          Russia  at  the  time  of  Peter  the  Great 46        Traveling  Sledge  of  Peter 379 

Russia  of  To-day 47  Peter  at   the  Troitsa  Monastery  receiving 

A  Religious  Procession  in  Moscow  during  the  Deputations  of  the  Streltsi 569 

the  Reign  of  Ivan  the  Terrible 49  The  Offending  Picture  of  Sophia,  by  Tar- 
Guards  of  the  Throne  at  State  Receptions.     51            asevitch 571 

Guards  of  State  at  Receptions  and  Proces-  Our  Lady  of  Kazan 572 

sions 51         Peter  was  Awakened 573 

The  Fortified  Monastery  of  Troitsa 52        Novodevitchy  Monastery 574 

The  City  of  Kief 53        Sophia's  Appeal  to  her  Partisans 576 

Sledge  of  Peter  during  his  Childhood 54        The  Young  Mother 705 

Courtiers  of  the  time  of  Peter 55  Partisans — Arms  of  the  Ancient  Court  Guard  706 

Peter  Playing  at  War 56  Arquebuse  of  Tsar  Alexis  Michaelovitch . .  707 

Globe  made  of  Metal,  from  which   Peter  Lock  of  Arquebuse 707 

studied  Geography 59        General  Patrick  Gordon 709 

Timmermann  explaining  to  Peter  the  use  of  Revolver  Cannon  of  Peter's  time 710 

the  Astrolabe 60        Circular  Mitrailleuse  of  Peter's  time 710 

Peter  launching  "The  Grandfather  of  the  Prince  Boris  Gahtsyn 711 

Russian  Fleet" 61  Pugilism  in  the  time  of  Ivan  the  Terrible.  712 

Old  Russian  Print  of  "  The  Grandfather  of  Marriage  of  Dwarfs  before  Peter 713 

the  Russian  Fleet " 62  .Peter   finding   "  The   Grandfather    of   the 

Mahomet  IV.,  Sultan  of  Turkey 185  Russian  Fleet" 716 

Eudoxia  Lopukhin,  First  Wife  of  Peter  the  Model  of  a  Ship  made  by  Peter 718 

Great 185        Peter  builds  his  first  Fleet 720 

Tan  Sobiesky,  King  of  Poland 186        Boyar  Alexis  Shein 888 

Pope  Innocent  XI 187        Scenes  in  Nizhni-Novgorod 889 

Kamenetz  in  Podolia 188  Tartar  Cavalry  attacking  a  Russian  Com- 

Sobiesky  consenting  to  the  Cession  of  Kief  189  missariat  Train 890 

Old  Russian   Sports :   Tsar  Hunting  with  Peter  on  the  Bourse  at  Archangel 891 

Falcon 190        Rural  Post  in  Russia 892 

Old  Russian  Sports:  Bear  Dancing  before  The  Message  to  Azof  on  the  Name's-day  of 

the  Tsar 192  the  Tsar 893 

Reception  of  a  Russian  Embassy  at  Ver-  Peter  in  the  dress  he  wore  at  Azof 894 

sailles 366         A  Peasant  Girl  from  near  Tula 894 

The  Russian  Embassadors  and  the  French  Plowing  on  the  Steppe 896 

Police  Officials 367        Companions  of  Peter 897 

Life  in  the  Ukraine:   "  The  Return  from  the  Sabers  of  Mazeppa,  Chief  of  the  Cossacks ..  899 

Market" 368        Views  in  Riga 900 

Medal  given  to  Prince  Galitsyn  for  the  Cri-  Modern  Tartars  of  the  Volga 901 

mean  Campaign 375         Towing  a  Russian  Barge 904 

PHILADELPHIA  CONVENTION  OF  1866,  THE.     See  "  Raymond,  Henry  J.,  Extracts  from  the  Journal  of." 

PICKWICK,  MR.,  AND  NICHOLAS  NICKLEBY  (Illustrated) 641 

POE,  EDGAR  ALLAN Edmund  Clarence  Stedman.  107 

With  Frontispiece  Portrait. 

PORPOISE-SHOOTING Charles  C.  Ward 801 

Illustrations  by  M.  J.  Burns,  H.  P.  Share  and  James  C.  Beard. 

Illus    ,        Shooting  a  Porpoise 801        Beaching  the  Canoe 806 

Sebatis  in  a  Perilous  Situation 802        Captain  Sam  and  his  Boy 807 

Spearing  a  Porpoise 803        Trying  out  Blubber 8.;7 

The  Camp  at  Indian  Beach 804        A  Porpoise  Diving 808 

Taking  a  Porpoise  on  Board 805 

RAYMOND,  HENRY  J.,  EXTRACTS  FROM  THE  JOURNAL  OF.     IV.     Edited 

by  his  son Henry  W.  Raymond 275 

ROCKY  MOUNTAIN  COOKERY Ernest  Jngersoll 125 

ROCKY  MOUNTAIN  NIGHTS Ernest  Ingersoll 218 

SAVONAROLA'S  LIFE,  THE  PLAIN  STORY  OF Linda  Villari 503 

Illustrations  by  S.  W.  Van  Schaick  and  others. 

Illus.           Interior  of  the  Church  of  San  Domenico . . .  503        Diversion  in  the  Cloister  508 

Savonarola  preaching  in  the  Duomo,  Flor-                The  Arrest  of  Savonarola 509 

ence 504        The  Night  before  the  Execution 510 

The  Death-bed  of  Lorenzo  de"  Medici 505  Savonarola's  cell  in   the    convent  of  San 

Piazza,  Church  and  Convent  of  San Marco 511 

Marco,  Florence 506        Tomb  of  San  Domenico 512 

With  the  Novices  at  San  Marco 507        The  Execution  of  Savonarola 513 

SEVENTH  REGIMENT,  NEW  YORK.     See  "  New  York  Seventh,  The." 

SHANTYTOWN H.  C.  Bunner 855 

Illustrations  by  F.  H.  Lungren,  R.  Blum,  Walter  Shirlaw,  H.  P.  Share  and  W.  Taber. 

Illus.          Corner  Sixty-eighth   Street  and    Eleventh  Water-works 862 

Avenue 857  Not  yet  Doomed 864 

A  Character 858  A  Timid  Observer 865 

In  the  German  Quarter 859  The  Leading  Business 865 

Shantytawn  Geese 860  A  Trucker's  Shanty 866 

Corner    Eighty-second    Street    and    Ninth  A  Touch  of  Refinement 867 

Avenu? 861  Odd  Bits  Here  and  There 867 

Sketching  under  Difficulties 862  Some  Bird  Shanties 868 

SICILY.     See  "  Palermo  to  Syracuse,  From." 


INDEX.  ^ 

PACK. 

SOUTH,  THE  NEW Sidney   Lanier 840 

SPRING  HEREABOUTS Clarence  Cook 161 

Illustrations  by  Winslow  Homer,  R.  Riordan,  Arthur  Quartley,  Thomas  Eakins  and  R.  Blum. 

Illus.          Spring  Lamb 161  Watching  the  Goats 166 

Budding  of  Oak  and  Vine 163  Driving  in  the  Flock 167 

A  Spring  Studio  :  Painting  an  old  Mill  in  Picking  Dandelions 168 

the  Suburbs 164  A  Spring  Morning  at  Mme.  Jumel's  in  the 

On  the  Harlem 165  old  time 168 

STODDARD,  RICHARD  HENRY A.  R.  Macdonough 686 

Illus.  Portrait  of  Richard  Henry  Stoddard 688 

SUN-SPOTS  AND  FINANCIAL  PANICS Richard  Anthony  Proctor. . .   170 

THACKERAY  AS  A  DRAUGHTSMAN .Russell Sturgis 256 

Illus.          An  Historical  Study 257  The  Titmarsh  Cupid  of  "  Love-Songs  made 

Adolphus  Simcoe,  Esq 257  Easy  " 267 

"  Sherry,  perhaps !  " 260  Mr.  Punch's  Artist  during  the  Influenza. . .   267 

"  Rum,  I  hope !  " 260        "  Is  it  a  supper  ball  or  a  lay  ball  ?  " 267 

"  Tracts  !  by  Jingo  !  " 260        A  Scrap  from  "  Punch  " 268 

Railroad  Speculators 262  The  Old   Gentleman  giving  his  views  of 

An  Old  Friend  recognizes  Mr.  de  la  Pluche  262  "  Punch  "  in  the  hearing  of  Jerrold  and 

Venus  preparing  the  Armor  of  Mars 264  Thackeray 268 

Costumes  of  1815 265        Major  Pendennis  growing  old 269 

Cuff  and  Dobbin 265        Initial  to  "  The  Ballad  of  Eliza  Davis  " 269 

The  Little  Postman 265        Henry  Esmond's  Portrait 270 

Thackeray  as  Jester 265        Initials  from  "  The  Virginians  " 270 

Tail-piece  to  "  Vanity  Fair" 265        Initial  from  "  The  Virginians  " 271 

Mr.  Hokey 266        Initial  Letter  W 271 

Mr.  Winkles 266        A  Scene  in  Glasgow 272 

Mr.  Hannibal  Fitch 266        The  Three  of  Spades 273 

A  Tea-Table  Tragedy 266  Thackeray  at  the  Play  (not  by  Thackeray) .  273 

VIVISECTION,  DOES,  PAY  ? Albert  J.  Lejfingwell,M.  D. .  391 

VIVISECTION,  THE  VALUE  OF H.  C.  Wood,  M.  D 766 

WALHALLA Rebecca  Harding  Davis  ....   139 

WESTERN  MAN,  THE Charles  Dudley  Warner  . .  .   549 

WHEN  WOODS  ARE  GREEN Alice  Wellington  Rollins  . . .  676 

Illustrations  by  R.  Swain  Gifford  and  Fannie  E.  Gifford. 

Illus.           The  South  Beach 676  "  The  sea-gulls  wheeling  through  the  air  " .  681 

The  Bathing  Beach  and  Headland 677  Autumn  Flowers  and  Plants 682 

Light-house  by  day 677  The  Salt  Vats 683 

The  Rocky  Headland 678  "  The  brave  quails  " 684 

"The  ship  has  spread  her  canvas" 679  " The  white-winged  coots " 685 

The  Light-house  by  Night 679  Tail-piece 685 

The  Marsh 680 

WooD-CUT  PRINTING,  THE  GROWTH  OF.     II Theodore  L.  De  Vinne 34 

Illus.  English  Printing-Machine  of  1819 35  Second  Overlay 40 

A  Sketch  by  Doyle . . '. 36  Third  Overlay 41 

Adams  Power  Press 37  Fourth  Overlay 41 

Stop-Cylinder  Printing-Machine 38  Fifth  Overlay 41 

A  Flat  Print  without  Overlay 40  The  Overlays  fixed  on  the  Cy Under 42 

First  Overlay 40  A  Print  from  Overlays 43 

POETRY. 

AMONG  THE  REEDS Maurice  F.  Egan 824 

APPLE-BLOSSOMS Horatio  Nelson  Powers 240 

Illustration  by  Will  H.  Low. 

AT  DAWN  (Rondeau) John  Moran 852 

AT  NIGHT R.  W.  G 601 

COMPENSATION Eliza  C.  Hall. . . 

COR  CORDIUM Horatio  Nelson  Powers. . 

CORONATION W.  D.  Kelsey 853 

DE  Rosis  HIBERNIS Edmund  W.  Gosse 449 

EXPOSTULATION Celia  Tliaxter 

FLUTE,  THE Lucrece »5r 

FORGOTTEN James  Berry  Bensel 

GUARDIAN  OF  THE  RED  DISK,  THE Emma  Lazarus     . ...... .  . 

KEATS,  To  THE  IMMORTAL  MEMORY  OF Richard  Henry  Stoddard .    .  224 

LAMENTATION  . .  Washington  Gladden 193 

LAST  HOUR,  THE •/»'*'  C.  Marsh. . . 

LOVER  AND  THE  ROSE,  THE E-  Allen  ***  •••• 

LOVE'S  AUTUMN Paul  H.  Hayne. . . 

MIDSUMMER   Celia  Thaxter    . . 

NUNC  DIMITTIS Margaret  J.  Preston . 

ON  ONE  WHO  DIED  IN  MAY Clarence  Look 

PARTING  OF  THE  WAYS,  THE 

PEAKS  OF  THULE,  THE 


c 

G-  H*r°e*  Sgu 

W-  W.  Young 


viii  INDEX. 

PAGE. 

POET  AND  ACTRESS Clarence  C.  Buel 379 

RECOMPENSE Mary  L.  Ritter 656 

ROSE,  THE Dora  Read  Goodale 664 

SAD  SPRING Mary  Ainge  De  Vere 274 

SERENADE E.  D.  R.  Biandardi 732 

SEVEN  SECONDS Zadel  Barnes  Gustafson ....   905 

So  BE  IT H.L.C 852 

STEDMAN,  EDMUND  CLARENCE,  To Caroline  A.  Mason 450 

STODDARD,  R.  H.,  To William  M.  Briggs 852 

SUCCESS Charles  de  Kay 169 

SWFFT  o'  THF  VFAR    THF  \  Words  by  Nellie  G.  Cone  >        6 

bWEET   O    THE   YEAR,    LIE ^   Mugic  by  £     c    pMps          J     53° 

"  THERE  is  A  NATURAL  BODY  " O.  E.  D 913 

TIDES,  THE Lucy  J.  Rider 854 

WATCHING  THE  Cow S.  M.  B.  Piatt 280 

WHIP-POOR-WILL,  THE A.  M.  Machar 493 

WoRLD-Music   Frances  Louisa  Bushnell. .  .   66$ 

DEPARTMENTS. 
TOPICS  OF  THE  TIME  : 


Pettiness  in  Art — International  Copyright — Common  Sense  and  Rum,  146;  The  Political  Machine 


COMMUNICATIONS  : 


The  Restoration  of  St  Mark's,  and  the  English  Protest  (D.  C.  P.),  465 ;  "  A  Year  of  the  Exodus 
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"  The  Apotheosis  of  Dirt " :  a  Reply  (Elizur  Wright),  939. 

HOME  AND  SOCIETY  : 

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Mothers :  Second  Series,  IV.  (Mary  Blake),  789 ;  Education  in  Europe  (L.  Clarkson),  940. 

CULTURE  AND  PROGRESS: 

Mme.  de  Remusat's  Memoirs  (Concluding  Part) — Gray's  "  Natural  Science  arid  Religion  " — A 
Book  about  Corea — Anderson's  "  Younger  Edda" — Thomas  Hughes' s  "  Manliness  of  Christ " — Boy- 
esen's  "  Gunnar,"  151 ;  Huxley's  "  Cray-fish  " — Hosmer's  "  Short  History  of  German  Literature  " 
— Mrs.  Burnett's  "  Louisiana  " — James's  "  Confidence  " — Matthews's  "  Theaters  of  Paris  " — Recent 
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Marion  Harland's  "  Loiterings  in  Pleasant  Paths" — Jansen's  "Spell-Bound  Fiddler" — Governor 
Long's  Translation  of  the  ^Eneid,  470;  Taylor's  "Critical  Essays  and  Literary  Notes" — Miss  Wool- 
son's  "Rodman  the  Keeper" — Adams's  "Gallatin" — Skelton's  "Essays  in  Romance" — Judge 
Ricord's  Translations,  632 ;  White's  "  Every-day  English  "—  Howells's  "  Undiscovered  Country  " — 
Roe's  "  Success  with  Small  Fruits  " — Lang's  "  Ballades  in  Blue  China  " — Gail  Hamilton's  "  Com- 
mon-School System,"  791 ;  "  Life  and  Letters  of  Horace  Bushnell " — Swinburne's  "  Songs  of  the 
Spring-tide  " — "  The  Ode  of  Life  " — King's  "  Echoes  from  the  Orient " — Wikoff's  "  Reminiscences 
of  an  Idler" — Gath's  "Tales  of  the  Chesapeake'' — About's  "Story  of  an  Honest  Man" — Mrs. 
Gray's  "Fourteen  Months  in  Canton" — Mrs.  Dickinson's  "Among  the  Thorns,"  942. 

THE  WORLD'S  WORK  : 


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-lAi-flllll^    u  Wtlllllji»^~-l  "t    UTVUUKW    Itlllllllg    0WBU6Ui    tlp^JH-U    IXI    JL^I  CUglllg— -i.^  C  W    fUCUUUB    V^UUIJJUUl. 

— Preservative  Wrapping-Papers— The  Profilograph — Light  from    Oyster    Shells — Extraction    < 
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Another  Hanging  Committee  Outrage  (drawing  by  L.  Hopkins) — Law  at  our  Boarding-House  (A . 
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Dianthus  Barbatus  (Josephine  Pollard) — A  Kind  of  Traveler  (Cendrillon) — On  the  Trapping  of  a 
Mouse  that  Lived  in  a  Lady's  Escritoire  (C.  C.  Buel) — The  Phonograph  in  the  Moon  Two  Centu- 
ries Ago — Portraits  in  Black  and  White,  319 ;  Two  Loves  (H.  W.  Austin) — Epigrams  (J.  A. 
Macon) — A  Practical  Young  Woman  (Irwin  KtfsseU)—Kera.mos — Advantages  of  Ballast  (Sketch), 
479;  Parting  Lovers  (Joel  Benton)  —  Uncle  Esek's  Wisdom  — A  Somnolent  Vagary  (H.  O. 
Knowlton)—MM<n*,ter,  639;  I  Promessi  Sposi  (J.  B.  M.) — The  Archery  Meeting  (Nathan  D. 
Urner)—1\ic  Ballade  of  the  Candidate  (Arthur  Penn)— Indecision  (Jacob  F.  Henrici)— Uncle 
Esek's  Wisdom,  799  ;  Love  and  Jealousy  (Rosa  Vertner  Jeffrey)  —Uncle  Esek's  Wisdom — Politics 
at  the  Log-Rolling  (J.  A.  Macon) — Signs  of  the  Times  (Bessie  Chandler) — A  Balladine  (Cornelia 
Seabring  Parker)— Revolution— Tell  me,  lady,  what  is  sweetest  ?  (J,  H.  Pratt)  951. 


EDGAR    ALLAN    POE. 


VOL.  XX. 


MAY,  1880. 


No.  i. 


THE   YOUNGER    PAINTERS   OF  AMERICA. 

FIRST    PAPER. 


THE  annals  of  art  in  America  have  not 
been  eventful,  but  the  year  1876-7  may  be 
said  to  mark  the  beginning  of  an  epoch  in 
them.  Before  that  year,  we  had  what  was 
called,  at  any  rate,  an  American  school  of 
painting;  and  now  the  American  school  of 
painting  seems  almost  to  have  disappeared 
— or  has,  at  the  least  calculation,  lost  the 
distinctive  characterlessness  which  won  for 
it  its  name  and  recognition.  We  are  be- 
ginning to  paint  as  other  people  paint. 
If  we  are  to  have  a  new  American 
"  school "  hereafter,  it  is  certain  that  it 
will  be  very  different  from  its  once  pop- 
ular predecessor;  but  at  present  it  is  quite 
evident  that  we  are  but  accumulating  and 
perfecting  the  material  for  such  a  na- 
tional expression,  and  even  to  the  taking 
of  so  initial  a  step  as  this,  the  destruction 
of  our  old  canons  and  standards  was  neces- 
sary. In  this  sense,  a  just  consideration  of 
the  younger  painters  who  appeared  in  New 
York  at  the  National  Academy  Exhibi- 
tion three  years  ago  is  in  the  nature  of  a 
paean  rather  than  of  a  dirge.  Even  the 
three  years  that  have  elapsed  since  then 
have  made  it  difficult  to  recall  the  general 
condition  of  our  painting  at  that  time. 
American  painters  of  genius  there  were,  cer- 
tainly ;  it  is  not  meant  to  insist  here  that  there 
are  many  more  now.  Nothing  is  so  diffi- 
cult or  so  invidious  as  to  single  out  indi- 
viduals in  a  matter  of  this  kind,  but  the 
youngest  of  ';  the  young  men  "  will  recog- 
nize the  long-since-established  reputations 
of  Elliott,  Page,  Hunt,  La  Farge,  Inness, 
Vedder,  Martin,  Homer,  and  others  easily 
recalled.  They  occupy  the  same  relative 
position  in  point  of  merit  in  their  genera- 
tion that  Stuart  and  Copley  and  Rembrandt 
Peale  did  in  theirs.  The  point  is  that  before 
VOL.  XX.— i. 


1876-7,  roughly  speaking,  this  notion  went 
begging.  None  of  them  could  be  called 
representative  men.  The  American  school 
of  painting  was  wholly  opposed  to  their 
spirit  and  methods.  It  was  represented  in 
portraiture,  not  by  Page,  but  by  Hunting- 
ton  ;  in  genre,  not  by  La  Farge,  but  by 
i  Eastman  Johnson ;  in  landscape,  not  by 

Inness '.  or    Martin,    but   by what   a 

galaxy  of  names  occurs  to  one  here,  from 
Church  and  Kensett  to  Bierstadt  and  Wil- 
liam Hart  !  Any  one  who  does  not  remem- 
ber the  American  contribution  to  .the  art 
display  of  the  Philadelphia  International  Ex- 
hibition may  refresh  his  recollection  of  the 
general  condition  of  American  art  three  or 
four  years  ago, — of  what  was  then  admired 
and  pointed  to  as  American, — by  thinking  of 
any  ordinary  exhibition  of  that  excellent  asso- 
ciation, the  Artist  Fund.Society.  The  Artist 
Fund  Society  is  by  ho  means  identical  in 
point  of  membership  with  the  National 
Academy  of  Design,  but  it  is  fairly  typi- 
cal of  it  in  this  respect;  namely,  that  one 
of  its  exhibitions  leaves  upon  the  mind 
very  much  the  same  general  impression 
of  the  spirit,  and  purport,  and  tendency 
of  the  kind  of  art  therein  revered  and  folr 
lowed  that  an  Academy  exhibition  used 
to.  In  the  first  place,  it  shuns  ideality 
as  something  profane,  substituting  therefor 
what  is  known  in  conservative  American 
art  circles  as  "  truth  " ;  in  the  second  place, 
for  real  truth — the  essential,  spiritual,  vital 
force  of  nature,  however  manifested — it  sub- 
stitutes what  is  known  as  "  fidelity  "  and 
what  the  early  pre-Raphaelites  who  pro- 
tested with  so  much  vigor  and  success 
against  the  false  classicism  current  nearly  a 
hundred  years  ago  would  greatly  marvel  at, 
we  may  be  sure.  It  is,  in  fine,  in  idea  and 

[Copyright,  1880.  by  Scribner  &  Co.     All  rights  reserved] 


THE    YOUNGER  PAINTERS   OF  AMERICA. 


in  technique,  born  of  that  benign  mother  of 
the  "  American  school,"  Diisseldorf.  The 
day  of  Diisseldorf  has,  however,  gone  by; 
and  to  say  that  the  long-continued  and  tri- 
umphant influence  of  Diisseldorf  in  Amer- 
ican art  has  at  last  perished  or  greatly 
declined  is  to  note  progress.  Only.in.gfni*. 
eral  terms  can  this  be  said,  perhaps.  VTftfcro 
are  as  many  painters  painting  in  the  old 
way,  of  course,  and  thinking  well  of  it ;  and 
the  disesteem  in  which  they  ixjld-tfie;  "tyotqTSg, 
fellows  "  is  quite  unafTectd.  lm  But,  yi  p  $MJ» 
eral  way,  it  is  true  th'at,*  beside  the  new 
leaven  which  is  unquestionably  working, 
there  are  different  ideas  going  upon  the  whole 
subject  of  art.  The  most  conservative  must 
admit  that  at  least  a  higher  order  of  cant  is 
prevalent.  For  example,  it  is  more  generally 
understood  that  when  one  talks  about  the 
advantage  of  those  two  preeminent  elements 
of  a  landscape,  light  and  air,  he  may  still  be 
serious;  that  such  phrases  as  "  large  masses," 
"broad  values,"  "  fluent  movement,"  "  color 
as  distinct  from  colors,  and  tone  from  either," 
really  have  a  meaning,  despite  much  cur- 
rent and  glib  abuse  of  them  in  art  chatter ; 
and  that,  whether  or  no  painting  is  pure 
illusion  and  an  independent  interpreter  of 
nature,  to  be  judged  by  its  own  beauty  with- 
out too  strict  insistence  on  "  imitation,"  the 
ability  to  draw  natural  forms  accurately  is 
only  a  small  part  of  a  painter's  equipment, 
instead  of  his  whole  stock  in  trade. 

Precisely  how  much  of  this  change  is  to 
be  credited  to  the  new  painters  it  would,  of 
course,  be  impossible  to  determine.  To 
credit  them  with  any  of  it  is  certain  to  ex- 
cite vigorous  protest.  But  it  is  fair  to  point 
out  the  coincidence  between  trjeir  appear- 
ance and  the  beginning  of  the  new  order, 
the  Renaissance,  so  to  speak,  of  1877. 
Any  one  who  visited  the  Academy  on  var- 
nishing day  of  that  year  will  remember  the 
wholly  new  aspect  of  things  which  greeted 
him.  It  created,  indeed,  a  memorable  sen- 
sation. The  Academy  was  profoundly 
agitated.  Certain  popular  and  estimable 
painters  who  had  had  a  generous  share  of 
"  the  line  "  from  time  immemorial  felt  as  if 
they  had  been  treated  not  only  with  injus- 
tice and  even  contumely,  but  with  absolute 
treachery  by  the  hanging  committee,  of 
which  a  majority  had  studied  at  Munich, 
and  had  given  the  pas  to  works  by  mere 
students  fresh  from  that  famous  but  sus- 
pected metropolis  of  art,  and  had  relegated 
the  American  school  of  painting  to  the 
limbo  of  the  upper  air.  At  a  speedily 
called  meeting  a  resolution  that  every  Acad- 


emician should  have  eight  feet  of  "the  line" 
to  himself  was  passed  in  spleen,  but  it  was 
soon  after  rescinded  with  magnanimous 
shamefacedness,  and,  after  restoring  the  old 
order  of  things  the  next  year,  the  Exhibition 
of  1870  was  hung  with  an  impartiality  elo- 
i]&£n|  of  {he  acceptance  on  the  part  of  the 
/IpadtmyJof  the  new  departure.  A  new 
departure  had,  indeed,  taken  place.  In  1878, 
the  new  painte/s.qverjflpwed  from  the  Acad- 
Jenj^'.ifit'e  .'the  *;Kiwlz  Gallery,  where  they 
*heW'"aii'*«xTitb1t!(5n**^f  their  own,  and  a 
highly  creditable  one,  though  no  doubt  it 
seemed  to  many  of  their  countrymen,  who 
had  been  painters  before  they  were  born, 
a  veritable  chamber  of  horrors.  Last 
year  they  emphasized  their  success  with 
another  which  showed  marked  improvement, 
and  the  excellence  of  that  recently  closed 
should  be  fresh  in  every  one's  mind. 

So  far  as  we  know,  there  has  been  no 
explanation  of  the  simultaneousness  with 
which  they  all  appeared  together  three 
years  ago,  but  it  may  be  called  a  happy 
accident.  The  Centennial  year  had  in  many 
ways  awakened  a  popular  interest  in  art. 
Aside  from  the  contents  of  Memorial  Hall 
at  the  Exhibition  itself,  a  study  of  which 
could  not  avoid  being  useful,  and  which,  for 
one  reason  and  another,  was  never  not 
crowded,  the  loan  exhibitions  all  over 
the  country,  and  especially  that  in  New 
York,  served  both  to  show  how  much 
artistic  wealth  there  was  in  America,  and  to 
extend  the  popular  acquaintance  with  the 
best  in  modern  art.  Renewed  interest  was 
taken  in  the  art-schools.  Mr.  Eaton  was 
secured  at  the  Cooper  Institute  and  Mr. 
Shirlaw  at  the  Art  Students'  League  almost 
immediately  upon  their  return  from  Paris 
and  Munich ;  and  these  schools,  and  those 
at  the  Academy  under  Mr.  Wilmarth,  felt 
and  showed  the  impetus  of  the  general 
movement.  In  a  sort,  the  soil  seemed  to 
have  been  prepared  for  the  seed  which 
the  new  "Society  of  American  Artists" 
evidently  felt  it  to  be  its  mission  to 
sow.  This  society  is  not,  it  should  be 
needless  to  explain,  composed  exclusively 
of  the  "  new  men,"  but  it  may  be  taken  to 
represent  the  new  movement,  with  which 
Mr.  Hunt,  Mr.  La  Farge  and  Mr.  Martin 
were  of  course  as  much  in  sympathy  as 
Mr.  Chase  or  Mr.  Shirlaw,  and  the  rationale 
of  which  was,  in  a  word,  hostility  to  every- 
thing mechanical,  enthusiasm  for  everything 
genuinely  artistic ;  and  those  qualities  they 
had  for  several  years  been  illustrating,  only 
without  attracting  the  attention  which  is 


THE    YOUNGER  PAINTERS   OF  AMERICA. 


PORTRAIT.       (J.    ALDEN    WEIR.) 


never  won  till  quantity  comes  to  the  aid  of 
quality.  Until  the  new  men  appeared,  it  is 
entirely  safe  to  say  the  mass  of  painters 
distinctly  not  in  sympathy  with  the  Ameri- 
can "  school  "  was  not  large  enough  to  make 
an  important  popular  impression. 

That  such  an  impression  has  now,  how- 
ever, been  made  there  is  no  doubt  expressed 
on  any  hand.  Pictures  which,  when  sur- 
rounded by  the  traditionary  and  regulation 
American  landscape  or  genre,  were  viewed 
askance  by  honest  folk  who  could  see  that  one 
or  the  other  sort  was  all  wrong,  and  argued, 


as  honest  folk  will,  that  the  exceptions  must 
be  at  fault, — such  pictures,  when  massed  as 
they  were  at  the  first  exhibition  of  the  new 
society,  or  even  when  "  given  the  show " 
they  had  at  the  Academy  in  1877,  could  not 
but  make  an  impression.  The  new  men 
have,  indeed,  not  only  ceased  to  be  a 
sensation,  but  they  have  come  to  be 
accepted,  in  many  quarters,  indeed,  with 
empressement,  or,  at  least,  cordial  un- 
questioningness.  It  would  not  be  surprising 
if  this  discovery,  that  instead  of  being 
proto-martyrs — a  position  they  probably 


THE    YOUNGER  PAINTERS   OF  AMERICA. 


contemplated  with  a  good  deal  of  satisfac- 
tion at  the  outset — they  had  become  heads 
of  corners,  had  made  them  as  a  body,  to 
use  an  expressive  vulgarism,  a  trifle  "  cocky." 
There  have  been  rumors  to  that  effect,  at 
all  events.  But  that  is  important  only  to 
themselves  and  their  detractors,  and  the 
public  is  only  concerned  that  they  have 
now  won  a  position  which  entitles  them  to 
candid  discussion  without  apology. 

One  of  the  most  distinctive  things  that 
strike  one  in  looking  at  the  works  of  nearly 
all  of  the  new  men — at  least  of  nearly  all  with 
whom  this  paper  has  to  do — is,  perhaps,  the 
strength  of  their  technique.  That  was  the 
noticeable  thing  about  their  work  in  the 
Academy  Exhibition  of  1877.  To  the  re- 
proach then  current  that  they  were  "merely 
students,"  it  was  pertinent  to  reply  that  at  any 
rate  they  were  that; — a  rejoinder  which  if 
directed  in  certain  quarters  contained  much 
pith.  Mr.  Duveneck,  Mr.  Shirlaw,  Mr.  Chase, 
Mr.  Eaton,  Mr.  Weir,  and  their  fellows,  had 
spent  years  of  careful  and  diligent  work 
under  such  masters  as  Diez,  Piloty,  Gerome 
and  Lindenschmidt;  they  were  fresh  from 
studios  where  real  painting  was  done  and  its 
principles  were  understood ;  to  say — as  was  so 
often  said — that  they  painted  in  the  Munich 
manner  or  the  Paris  manner  was,  except 
for  its  obvious  qualification,  merely  to  say 
that  they  painted  as  good  painters  paint; 
with  the  logical  inference  that  it  was  not  as, 
in  general,  they  paint  in  Diisseldorf.  Few 
people  who  saw  it  can  have  forgotten  Mr. 
Duveneck's  "Turkish  Page,"  to  take  a  note- 
worthy instance ;  it  was  a  good-sized  canvas 
exhibiting  a  skeleton-like  boy  sitting  on  a 
leopard  skin,  a  red  plush  fabric  covering  his 
extended  legs  from  his  ankles  to  his  waist, 
a  red  fez  on  his  head,  a  brass  basin  contain- 
ing fruit,  at  which  a  macaw  is  pecking,  in 
his  lap,  and  at  his  left  hand  a  copper  dish 
and  pitcher;  the  wall  behind  him,  against 
which  he  leans,  being  hung  with  striped 
tapestry.  In  pure  technique  this  was  cer- 
tainly one  of  the  best  pictures  we  have  ever 
had  exhibited  here  by  an  American.  What 
painters  call  quality,  it  had  in  surprising 
manner;  the  fez  was  clearly  wool,  the  basin 
brass,  the  pitcher  copper,  and  the  bird's 
plumage  as  feathery  as  one  might  see  in 
nature ;  the  flesh  was  only  less  admirably 
rendered.  And  in  the  higher  branch  of  tech- 
nique, pictorial  arrangement,  it  was  quite 
as  good,  the  whole  being  a  complete  entity, 
in  philosophical  phrase,  the  apparently  in- 
congruous materials  mentioned  reciprocally 
interdependent  and  auxiliary,  and  the  entire 


effect  single.  No  one  needs  to  be  told 
what  high  technical  excellence  these  two 
things  imply,  and  though  his  "Turkish 
Page"  is  a  conspicuous  example  of  them, 
they  are  evident  in  everything  Mr.  Duve- 
neck has  shown  here;  in  his  portraits,  and 
even  in  his  "  Coming  Man,"  of  which  the 
elements  were  so  few  as  almost  to  make 
the  picture  simply  a  study.  Mr.  Eakins 
is  another  instance  of  a  painter  who  knows 
how  to  paint.  Whatever  objection  a  sensi- 
tive fastidiousness  may  find  to  the  subject 
of  his  picture,  exhibited  here  a  year  ago, 
entitled  "An  Operation  in  Practical  Sur- 
gery," none  could  be  made  to  the  skill  with 
which  the  scene  was  rendered.  It  was  a 
canvas  ten  feet  high,  and  being  an  upright 
and  the  focus  being  in  the  middle  distance, 
it  presented  many  difficulties  of  a  practical 
nature  to  the  painter ;  the  figures  in  the  fore- 
ground were  a  little  more,  and  those  in  the 
background  a  little  less,  than  life  size,  but  so 
ably  was  the  whole  depicted  that  probably  the 
reason  why  nine  out  of  ten  of  those  who  were 
startled  or  shocked  by  it  were  thus  affected, 
was  its  intense  realism  :  the  sense  of  actuality 
about  it  was  more  than  impressive,  it  was  op- 
pressive. It  was  impossible  to  doubt  that  such 
an  operation  had  in  every  one  of  its  details 
taken  place,  that  the  faces  were  portraits, 
and  that  a  photograph  would  have  fallen  far 
short  of  the  intensity  of  reproduction  which 
the  picture  possessed.  What  accuracy  of 
drawing,  what  careful  training  in  per- 
spective and  what  skill  in  composition  this 
implies,  are  obvious.  Of  his  two  pictures  in 
last  year's  Academy  Exhibition  the  same 
may  be  said.  The  cleverness  of  Mr. 
Chase's  technique  is  equally  indisputable. 
In  most  technical  points,  his  picture  analo- 
gous to  Mr.  Duveneck's  "Turkish  Page," 
which  hung  in  the  same  Exhibition,  was 
quite  the  equal  of  it.  And  since  that  time, 
in  portraiture,  in  landscape  and  in  all  de- 
partments of  painting,  if  we  except  com- 
position as  such,  Mr.  Chase  has  improved 
upon  that.  His  rendering  of  textures  is  ad- 
mirable. That  most  difficult  of  the  paint- 
er's problems,  the  painting  of  flesh,  is 
perhaps  wherein  he  is  fondest  of  exhibiting 
the  resources  of  his  palette  and  the  unhes- 
itating stireness  of  his  brush ;  the  fullness  of 
a  cheek,  the  liquidity  of  an  eye,  or  the 
smooth  surface  of  a  bald  forehead,  he  gets 
with  a  success  which  few  painters  attain.  As 
to  what  is  called  "  catching  character,"  such 
as  the  feeble-handedness  of  an  old  man  or 
the  carriage  of  a  pretty  girl,  that  is,  perhaps, 
something  which  transcends  technique,  and 


THE    YOUNGER  PAINTERS  OF  AMERICA. 


FEEDING    THE     PIGEONS.        (WALTER    SHIRLAW.) 


should  be  spoken  of  further  on.  No  allusion 
to  flesh-painting  would  be  complete  here  if 
it  omitted  Mr.  Eaton,  whose  qualities  as  an 
artist,  however,  constantly  tempt  one  to  for- 
get his  capabilities  as  a  painter.  But  they 
are  distinct  and  noteworthy.  His  "  Venus," 
in  the  Exhibition  of  the  Society  of  American 
Artists  a  year  ago,  furnished  abundant  illus- 


tration of  this;  it  was  impossible  not  to  feel, 
whatever  qualifications  or  reservations  one 
might  be  inclined  to  make  in  regard  to  the  pic- 
ture as  a  whole,  that  in  pure  painting  this  was 
an  important  work;  any  one  who  recollects  it 
must  recall  the  scrupulous  and  successful  dif- 
ferentiation, so  to  speak,  of  the  flesh  and  the 
drapery,  which,  in  such  a  picture  as  this, 


THE    YOUNGER   PAINTERS   OF  AMERICA, 


SPRING.       (A.    P.    RYDER.) 


with,  technically  considered,  but  two  ele- 
ments, is  a  rare  merit.  Of  Mr.  Shirlaw's 
strength  of  technique  it  should  be  quite 
needless  to  speak ;  not  because  his  "  Sheep- 
Shearing  in  the  Bavarian  Highlands" 
was  the  "swell"  picture  of  the  exhibi- 
tion of  1877,  an<3  subsequently  received  a 
medal  at  the  Paris  Exposition — though  we 
may  be  sure  that  no  picture  would  commend 
itself  to  Parisian  jurors  which  had  not  skill 
in  painting  to  commend  it — but  because  he 
has  in  many  canvases  shown  an  unusual 
range  and  an  unusual  ability  adequately  to 
set  forth  whatever  he  sees  or  conceives.  But 
it  is  unnecessary  to  multiply  instances;  it 
should  be  patent  to  any  one  who  has  exam- 
ined the  work  of  the  "  new  men "  with 
any  care  and  attention  that  they  have  made 
it  their  first  business  to  get  command 
of  their  tools — to  the  end  that,  having 
command  of  them,  they  may  play  with  them 
artistically  ;  that  their  conception  of  painting 
is  wholly  different  from  that  of  accurately 
imitating  natural  forms  ;  that  drawing  is  with 
them  only  one  of  the  elements  of  the  paint- 
er's equipment;  and  that  the  years  they 
have  spent  in  Europe  have  been  productive 
of  something  beyond  a  catch-penny  ability 
to  imitate  the  "tricks  of  the  trade"  prac- 


ticed by  certain  charlatan  instructors  of  in- 
genious youth — such  as  Gerome  and  Piloty. 
The  "  tricks "  of  those  painters,  so  far  as 
technique  goes,  are  hard  to  imitate. 

However,  technique  goes  for  very  little 
in  a  large  reckoning.  The  slight  interest 
that  many  of  us  have  in  so  great  a  master 
of  it  as  Gerome,  for  example,  is  witness  of 
that.  And.  indeed,  excellence  of  technique 
— which  after  all  is  chiefly  a  matter  of  diligent 
training — is  not  more  characteristic  of  the 
new  men  than  what  may  be  called,  for  want 
of  a  more  definite  term,  the  genuine  impulse 
to  paint,  which  most  of  them  certainly  have. 
This  is  at  bottom  the  test  one  applies  to  a 
painter,  or  indeed  to  an  artist  of  any  sort, 
of  course.  Was  he  born,  "  cut  out,"  as 
they  say  in  New  England,  for  a  painter  ?  or  is 
it  rather  the  retail  dry-goods  business,  say,  to 
which  he  was  naturally  adapted  but  which 
some  perverse  fate  prevented  him  from  adopt- 
ing ?  For  painting  to  be  serious,  certainly 
requires  something  more  than  skill,  even  de- 
veloped by  education,  on  the  one  hand  ;  and, 
on  the  other,  it  is  surprising  of  how  slight  im- 
portance crudity  and  lameness  become  in 
comparison,  provided  they  are  associated  with 
indisputable  pictorial  impulse.  Thackeray 
showed  this  distinction  very  well,  every 


2 HE    YOUNGER  PAINTERS   OF  AMERICA. 


one  will  remember,  in  "  The  Newcomes," 
besides  illustrating  it  himself,  by  the  way; 
and  though  neither  he  nor  Clive  New- 
come  could  probably  have  attained  the  skill 
which  "J.  J."  possessed,  it  is  clear  that  it 
would  not  have  been  of  much  service  to 
them  if  they  could  have  done  so.  Of 
course,  the  distinction  is  elementary  and 
will  be  denied  by  no  one;  but,  like  many 
other  elementary  truths,  it  cannot  be  kept 
too  constantly  in  the  critical  mind,  it  is  so 
often  neglected  in  practice.  To  many  peo- 
ple, a  bad  line  in  a  thoroughly  pictorial 
landscape  would  appear  a  fatal  blemish. 
The  commonest  censure  with  us  has  been  to 
reproach  a  painter  with  ignorance,  without 
inquiry  as  to  his  capacity  and  aptitude. 
It  can  at  least  be  said  that  if  it  had 
not  been  for  the  Society  of  American 
Artists  it  is  doubtful  whether  such  an 
unmistakably  genuine  painter  as  Mr.  A.  P 
Ryder,  for  example,  would  ever  have  had 
his  pictures  hung  where  they  could  be  seen 
and  relatively  judged.  It  is  even  now 
very  doubtful  whether  he  would  fare  well  at 
the  Academy ;  to  hang  him  well  at  the 
Academy  would  indeed  be  to  give  up  the 
ship. 

Speaking  broadly,  therefore,  whereas  it 
used  to  be  the  main  effort  of  American 
painters  to  imitate  nature,  it  is  the  main 


effort  of  the  new  men  to  express  feeling. 
Hitherto,  admiration  of  American  paintings 
has  found  expression  in  such  statements  as, 
"  How  true  ! "  "  How  life-like! "  "  How  mar- 
velously  Mr.  Bristol  has  succeeded  in  ren- 
dering those  blue  Berkshire  hills!"  "How 
happily  Mr.  Heade  has  caught  the  hues  of 
that  humming-bird,  and  Mr.  Eastman  John- 
son the  attitude  of  that  old  man,  and  Mr. 
Brown  the  expression  of  that  urchin,  and 
Mr.  William  Hart  the  gorgeous  brilliance 
of  golden  October !"  and  so  on.  To  many 
people,  it  never  occurred  to  question  the 
fact  as  to  whether  nature  had  been  thus 
happily  imitated;  the  distinction  between 
a  photograph  and  a  picture  has  only 
recently  become  hackneyed  with  us ; 
few  American  connoisseurs  even  paused 
to  reflect  that  nothing  could  be  less  like 
nature  than  terra-cotta  cows  and  decalco- 
manie  foliage,  and  theatric  but  metallic 
cloud  "  effects,"  and  shiny  banks  of  moss,  of 
which  and  other  similar  elements  a  good  deal 
of  American  painting  has  been  and  is  com- 
posed. But  aside  from  accepting  thus 
unquestioningly  the  circumstance  of  "life- 
likeness,"  most  people  never  thought  of 
asking  of  a  painting  that  it  be  "  alive"  in- 
stead of  only  "  life-like."  And  yet,  of  course, 
this  is  the  one  thing  needful  to  demand  of  a 
picture.  And  this  characterizes  the  work 


STER    GATHERERS    AT    CANCALE.      (J.    S.    SARGENT.) 


THE    YOUNGER  PAINTERS   OF  AMERICA. 


THE    CHESS    PLAYERS.       (THOMAS   EAKINS.) 


of  the  new  men  almost  without  excep- 
tion. Almost  without  exception,  nature  is 
to  them  a  material  rather  than  a  model; 
they  lean  toward  feeling  rather  than 
toward  logic;  toward  beauty,  or  at  least 
artistic  impressiveness,  rather  than  toward 
literalness ;  toward  illusion  rather  than 
toward  representation.  With  the  order  of 
criticism  that  esteems  this  irreverence,  we  are 
all  familiar;  the  eloquence  of  Mr.  Ruskin 
over  not  Turner,  but  let  us  say  Stanfield,  has 
put  that  side  of  the  case  as  strongly  as  it  is 
possible  to  put  it.  perhaps.  But  it  has  long 
been  widely  known  that  it  is  for  Mr.  Rus- 
kin's  own  literary  art  rather  than  for  the  sound- 
ness of  his  art  criticism — or  anything  that 
calls  for  the  exercise  of  his  intelligence  rather 
than  of  his  genius — that  he  is  admirable. 
The  extravagances  of  the  gospel  of  "  art 
for  art "  have  quite  eclipsed  Mr.  Ruskin. 
But  it  is  not  necessary  to  subscribe  to  either 
in  order  to  recognize  the  justice  of  such  a 
remark  as  Goethe's,  "There  are  no  land- 
scapes in  nature  like  those  of  Claude,"  or 
indeed,  in  familiar  speech,  to  know  a  good 
thing  when  you  see  it,  whether  it  be  in  nature 
or  on  canvas.  There  is  no  doubt  that  as  a 
class  the  new  men  care  more  for  a  good 
thing  than  they  do  whence  they  get  it.  As 


to  the  possibility  of  getting  it  from  any 
source  but  nature,  there  is  very  little  to  be 
said  on  that  point,  one  may  admit,  spite  of 
the  literature  of  it  that  exists.  If  one  reflects 
upon  what  is  meant  by  inspiration,  however, 
he  will  not  lose  sight  of  the  most  important 
factor  of  all  art.  As  to  whether  there  is  any 
such  thing  as  actual  inspiration,  it  may  be 
well  for  painters  themselves  to  remain  in 
some  doubt ;  there  is  apt  to  be  a  pretty  con- 
stant ratio  between  a  painter's  "  conscious- 
ness "  of  inspiration  and  his  inability  to 
persuade  others  that  he  is  not  mistaken. 
Bacon's  wise  saying,  "Not  but  I  think  a 
painter  may  make  a  better  face  than  ever 
was,  but  he  must  do  it  by  a  kind  of  felicity  (as 
a  musician  that  maketh  an  excellent  air  in 
music)  and  not  by  rule,"  should  perhaps  be 
remembered  chiefly  by  painters  who  have  no 
suspicion  that  they  possess  "  a  kind  of  felic- 
ity." And  it  is  probable  that  the  new  men 
do  trust  too  much,  now  and  then,  to  this 
felicity  and  the  certainty  of  their  having  it, 
and  are  a  little  contemptuous  of  "  rule."  The 
two  common  merits  already  noted  in  them 
— a  strong  technique  and  a  genuine  artistic 
impulse — have  indeed  their  perils,  and 
tempt  to  the  neglect  of  those  qualities  which 
they  are  quite  right,  to  our  mind,  in  thinking 


THE    YOUNGER  PAINTERS  OF  AMERICA. 


PORTRAIT    OF     FRANK    DL'VENECK.       (WM.    M.    CHASE.) 


too  highly  thought  of  at  the  Academy.  It 
is  due  to  this  that  they  fall  short,  many  of 
them,  in  the  matter  of  style,  a  quality  hardly 
less  important  in  painting  than  motive  itself. 
Their  lack  of  style,  in  truth,  seems  their 
cardinal  defect.  Contempt  for  style  held 
sincerely  and  definitely  by  persons  of  recog- 
nized authority  in  criticism  is  common 


enough.  It  is  supposed  by  many  persons 
to  involve  of  necessity  lifelessness  and  for- 
mality. The  insistence  of  the  French  upon  it 
is  often  pointed  to  as  the  one  thing  which 
hampers  the  freedom  of  their  artistic  expres- 
sion. The  monotony  of  contemporary 
Parisian  architecture  with  its  miles  of  egg- 
and-dart  moulding,  the  correctness  and  cold- 


THE    YOUNGER  PAINTERS   OF  AMERICA. 


ness  of  French  classical  music,  the  rigorous 
restrictions  of  French  dramatic  poetry,  even 
the  limitations  of  the  French  novel,  are  fre- 
quently mentioned  as  illustrations.  And  it 
cannot  be  denied  that  these  illustrations  have 
much  force, — so  much  that  nowhere  has  the 
protest  against  classic  servility  been  made 
with  such  sharp  distinctness,  and,  one  may 
add,  so  much  temper,  as  it  has  been  in  Paris 
from  the  days  of  the  Romantic  School  of 
poetry  to  the  publication  of  the  protestant 
"  L'Art."  But  the  Frenchman  who  is  never 
tired  of  lamenting  the  injustice  of  the  French 
Academy  to  Balzac  would  never  think  of  con- 
doning the  extravagances  of  M.  Zola.  And 
given  over  as  Gallic  critics  are  to  fitting  for- 
mulae to  beliefs  with  more  precision  than  the 
nature  of  the  latter  quite  permits,  M.  Eugene 
Veron,  even,  would  probably  scout  such  a 
statement  as  that  recently  uttered  by  Mr. 
Hamerton,inhis  "Portfolio,"  in  criticism  of 
M.  Charles  Blanc  to  the  effect  that  "/<?  style 
was  an  exploded  superstition."  M.  Charles 
Blanc  is  one  of  the  Academy's  spokesmen,  and 
is  naturally  over-partial  perhaps  to  academic 
canons;  but  in  what  aroused  Mr.  Hamerton's 
disgust,  M.  Charles  Blanc  had  been  saying 
some,  in  our  view,  exceedingly  true  and 
useful  things.  He  had  been  criticising  a 
number  of  English  pictures,  and  accusing 
them  of  an  insular  lack  of  style,  which  he 
said  was  quite  pardonable  in  Mr.  Burne- 
Jones,  who  possessed  conspicuous  genius, 
but  which  in  less  inspired  painters  he  con- 
sidered regrettable.  That  is  precisely  the 
truth  about  style,  and  it  is  here  quoted  for 
the  clearness  with  which  it  puts  the  matter. 
In  other  words  intelligence  has  its  place  in 
art  as  well  as  genius,  and  mere  intelligence 
assuming  the  privilege  of  genius,  of  kicking 
over  the  traces  whenever  it  chooses,  is  never 
an  agreeable  spectacle  to  an  educated  person. 
Exactly  to  define  style  is  so  difficult  that  it 
is  fortunately  unimportant;  it  is  not  quite 
the  grammar,  but  perhaps  better  the  rhetoric 
of  art ;  it  is  so  far  from  being  manner  that  it 
is  the  thing  about  a  work  of  art,  which  is  a 
guide  to,  and  a  check  upon  manner  which 
is  essentially  individual;  what  is  always 
understood  by  it — and  its  presence  is  quite 
unmistakable — is  a  certain  result  of  the 
artist's  educated  intelligence  which  indi- 
cates that  he  has  an  intimate  enough  ac- 
quaintance with  and  deference  for  the 
method  of  the  greatest  professors  and 
practitioners  of  his  art  to  prevent  him 
from  committing  freaks  and  absurdities 
out  of  mere  whim.  It  distinguishes  bar- 
baric from  civilized  art  more  than  any  other 


one  quality,  perhaps ;  it  is  at  least  the  prod- 
uct of  cultivation,  and  the  only  danger  of 
it  is  that  it  may  thwart  or  even  stifle 
original  force. 

This,  however,  one  would  say  the  new  men 
need  not  greatly  fear.  Most  of  them  humor 
their  conceits  with  such  entire  independ- 
ence that  the  danger  lies  in  the  opposite 
direction.  In  the  absence  of  any  rigor- 
ous public  opinion,  and  in  the  presence  of  a 
professional  opinion  whose  provinciality  and 
lifelessness  are  only  too  strong,  it  could  not 
well  be  that  they  should  betray  any  ham- 
pering deference  to  style.  And  they  do  not. 
Mr.  Chase  sends  a  portrait,  of  which  the 
eyes  are  barely  modeled  and  not  painted  at 
all,  to  the  Exhibition  of  his  Society ;  Mr. 
Weir,  along  with  a  large  and  ambitious  can- 
vas, the  rapid  and  hasty  study  for  one  of  its 
heads;  Mr.  Ryder  a  number  of  pictures 
justly  to  be  denominated  freaks  in  respect 
of  their  serene  and  conscious  disregard  of  the 
conventions  of  painting ;  Mr.  Duveneck  is 
represented  by  a  canvas  which  is  a  mere  sketch, 
and  defiantly  leaves  off  when  its  principal 
effect  is  secured.  And  it  is  clear,  moreover, 
that  in  many  instances  this  is  wisely  done ; 
for  to  their  technique,  and  their  individuality, 
and  their  sense  for  what  is  pictorially  interest- 
ing, many  of  the  painters  have  not  yet  the 
ability  to  add  either  the  largeness  or  the  dis- 
tinction that  belong  to  an  impressive  style. 
For  the  present,  at  least,  if  Mr.  Ryder,  for 
example,  should  attempt  more  than  he  does, 
it  is  odds  that  it  would  be  disastrous,  to  a 
degree.  His  pictures  are  marked  by  an 
almost  contempt  for  form ;  they  assume  an 
attitude  of  almost  hostility  to  the  observer 
bent  on  "  making  them  out;"  they  seem  to 
take  it  for  granted  that  a  picture  is  a  simple 
rather  than  a  complex  thing,  and  to  assert 
directly  that  a  suggestive  hint  is  as  good  as 
a  complete  expression.  But  if  he  should 
suddenly  realize  their  short-comings  in  these 
respects  and  attempt  to  correct  them  out  of 
hand,  we  should  fear  for  their  poetic  feel- 
ing, their  engaging  color,  and  their  softness 
and  tenderness ;  even  to  iose  their  fragment- 
ariness  would,  one  feels,  be  risky.  Notice 
the  comparative  failure  of  Mr.  Weir's  at- 
tempt to  do  something  large  in  his  "  Park 
Bench,"  exhibited  a  year  ago  at  the  new 
Society.  Mr.  Weir  is  a  capital  painter,  in 
our  view.  His  portrait  of  his  father,  here  en- 
graved, is  an  admirable  thing  in  many  ways, 
large  and  simple  in  arrangement,  modeled 
with  firm  vigor,  and  possessing  the  unmistak- 
able merit,  as  even  a  stranger  may  see,  of 
excellent  portraiture.  There  is  plenty  of 


THE    YOUNGER  PAINTERS  OF  AMERICA. 


THE    WHISTLING    BOY.       (j.    FRANK    CURRIER.) 


good  painting  in  the  "  Park  Bench,"  too ; 
but  the  fact  is  fatal  to  it  as  a  composition, 
as  a  complete  thing,  that  it  does  not  go 
together.  The  figures  are  crowded,  and  at 
the  same  time  so  far  without  instantly  per- 
ceptible relations,  that  one  has  difficulty  in 
making  out  their  individual  place  and  move- 
ment. This  is  undoubtedly  because  Mr. 
Weir,  who  has  a  strong  feeling  for  charac- 
ter and  a  quick  eye  for  a  single  effect,  got  out 
of  his  usual  rut  and  attempted  to  combine 
a  number  of  distinct  impressions,  to  harmo- 
nize them,  and  to  make  a  single  picture  of 
them,  instead  of  conceiving  his  picture  as  a 
whole  at  the  outset,  as  he  does  so  well  in  so 
many  instances  when  the  problem  is  simpler. 


Mr.  Shirlaw  succeeds  far  better  in  this 
respect;  almost  all  of  his  works  have  that 
organic  unity,  the  focus  of  interest  and  of 
color,  and  the  subordination  of  details  which 
comes  of  thorough  study  and  continued 
practice.  Style,  too — painting,  that  is,  in 
non-essential  details,  and  in  everything 
which  does  not  need  the  accentuation  of 
individuality — Mr.  Eaton  possesses  to  a 
noticeable  degree.  He  conceives  a  picture 
admirably  for  the  most  part,  and  one  always 
feels  that  he  has  devoted  thought  and  study 
to  its  execution.  Mr.  Eakins  is  another 
example ;  nothing  is  clearer  than  that  if  he  is 
to  be  called  eccentric  it  is  because  of 
his  manner,  not  of  his  failure  in  style. 


THE    YOUNGER  PAINTERS  OF  AMERICA. 


NEW  ENGLAND  CEDARS.    (R.  SWAIN  GIFFORD.) 


Mr.  Currier  is  an  instance  of  the  reverse. 
Indeed,  the  exhibitions  of  the  new  So- 
ciety may  be  said  to  impress  one  as,  in 
a  greater  degree  than  most  exhibitions, 
a  collection  of  studies — admirably  strong 
and  picturesque,  but  not  a  little  crude,  and 
in  style  as  yet  not  thoroughly  formed.  And 
the  reason  is  because,  as  it  has  been 
said  of  the  outburst  of  English  poetry 
at  the  beginning  of  this  century,  they 
had  their  origin  "  in  a  great  movement  of 
feeling,  not  in  a  great  movement  of  mind," 
— though  to  be  exact  we  should,  perhaps, 
leave  out  the  epithet  "  great "  in  this  instance. 
If,  however,  these  exhibitions  are  in  a  meas- 
ure crude,  and  lack  both  the  largeness  and 
the  distinction  which  comes  of  "  knowing 
more,"  of  bringing  one's  educated  intelli- 
gence to  bear,  as  well  as  one's  artistic  impulse, 
their  crudity  is  refreshing.  If  they  are  not 
all  exactly  well-bred, — to  use  a  social  anal- 
ogy to  explain  what  we  mean  by  "  distinc- 
tion,"— and  have  not  the  bel  air,  they  at  all 
events  give  platitude  a  wide  berth. 

They  have,  nevertheless,  as  a  whole,  a  de- 
fect as  much  involved  often  in  the  avoid- 
ance of  platitude,  perhaps,  as  lack  of  style 
is  in  self-trustfulness, — namely,  a  lack  of 
poetry.  And  as  style  is  something  to  be 
acquired  and  poetry  is  not,  this  is  consider- 
ably more  serious.  Criticism  of  the  unpoet- 
ical  character  of  many  of  the  pictures  of 
the  new  Society,  as  we  have  said,  does 
not  apply  to  Mr.  Eaton's,  which  cer- 
tainly have  a  very  sweet  and  tender 


sentiment,  whether  they  be  large  and 
"  important  "  subjects,  such  as  his  "  Har- 
vesters at  Rest,"  which  he  brought  from  the 
Salon  to  the  Academy,  in  1877,  and  his 
"  Venus  "  heretofore  alluded  to,  or  such  slight 
and  unpretending  canvases  as  his  little, 
bright  and  fresh  Spring  idyl,  exhibited  a 
year  ago  at  the  Kurtz  Gallery.  Nor  does  it 
concern  Mr.  Ryder,  who  has  possibly  a  pro- 
portional excess  of  poetry,  as  it  has  been 
intimated;  nor  Mr.  Sargent,  whose  bent  is 
distinctly  poetic,  as  one  may  see  in  his 
charming  "  Oyster  Gatherers,"  here  en- 
graved, as  well  as  in  the  figure  piece,  or 
in  his  little  urchins  learning  to  swim,  both 
of  which  were  exhibited  last  year,  and  the 
latter  of  which  was  one  of  the  most  delight- 
ful canvases  at  the  Academy.  But  it  does 
apply,  we  suppose  it  will  be  admitted  (to 
select  some  of  the  very  ablest  painters 
on  our  list),  to  Mr.  Eakins,  to  Mr.  Chase, 
to  Mr.  Duveneck,  to  Mr.  Currier,  to  Mr. 
Shirlaw,  and  to  Mr.  Weir.  Mr.  Eakins's 
power  almost  makes  up  for  the  lack  of 
poetry.  His  "  Surgical  Operation  "  before- 
mentioned  as  a  masterpiece  of  realism  in 
point  of  technique,  is  equally  a  masterpiece 
of  dramatic  realism,  in  point  of  art.  The 
painter  increased  rather  than  diminished  the 
intensity  which  it  is  evident  he  sought  after, 
by  taking  for  a  theme  a  familiar  and  some- 
what vulgar  tragedy  of  e very-day  occur- 
rence in  American  hospitals,  instead  of  an 
historic  incident  of  Rome  or  Egypt.  The 
play  of  emotions  which  is  going  on  is  strong 


THE    YOUNGER  PAINTERS   OF  AMERICA. 


and  vivid.  The  chloroformed  patient  is 
surrounded  by  surgeons  and  students  whose 
interest  is  strictly  scientific,  his  mother  who 
is  in  an  agony  of  fear  and  grief,  and  the 
operator  who  holds  a  life  in  his  hand  and  is 
yet  lecturing  as  quietly  as  if  the  patient 
were  a  blackboard.  Very  little  in  American 
painting  has  been  done  to  surpass  the 
power  of  this  drama.  But  if  the  essence  of 
fine- art  be  poetic,  an  operation  in  practical 
surgery  can  hardly  be  said  to  be  related  to 
fine-art  at  all.  Many  persons  thought  this 
canvas,  we  remember,  both  horrible  and 
disgusting;  the  truth  is  that  it  was  simply 
unpoetic.  The  tragedy  was  as  vivid  as  that 
of  a  battle-field,  but  it  was,  after  all,  a 
tragedy  from  which  every  element  of  ide- 
ality had  been  eliminated.  The  same  thing 
is  true,  with  obvious  differences  of  degree,  of 
most  of  Mr.  Eakins's  work.  He  is  distinctly 
not  enamored  of  beauty,  unless  it  be  con- 
sidered, as  very  likely  he  would  contend, 
that  whatever  is  is  beautiful. 

Mr.  Currier's  pictures  are  another  instance 
of  what  can  be  done  in  art  without  poetry — 


even  with  the  negation  of  poetry.  The  water- 
colors  he  sent  here  in  the  winter  of 
1878-79  made  a  sensation.  They  became  the 
subject  of  endless  discussion  and  may  almost 
be  said  to  have  divided  "  art  circles"  into  two 
hostile  parties.  It  was  contended  on  the  one 
hand  that  they  were  wonderful  examples  of 
the  way  in  which  an  impressionist,  nobly 
careless  of  details  and  bent  only  on  the 
representation  of  the  spirit  of  nature  rather 
than  of  her  botanical  forms,  can  succeed  in 
the  truest  fidelity.  On  the  other  it  was 
argued  that  nothing  could  be  made  out  of 
them,  that  they  were  mere  daubs,  and  that 
the  only  landscape  which  could  in  the 
faintest  way  resemble  them  was  that  of 
which  one  caught  glimpses  from  the  win- 
dow of  an  express  train.  The  ayes  "  had 
it "  very  clearly,  in  our  view.  Mr.  Currier's 
"  impressions  "  were  masterly  in  technical 
qualities  and  very  real  at  a  proper  distance. 
The  fatal  trouble  with  them  was  that  they 
were  horribly  ugly.  That  is  the  difficulty 
with  all  of  Mr.  Currier's  work ;  it  is  the 
difficulty  with  his  genius.  Painters  such  as 


THE    NEWSBOY.       (FREDERICK    DIELMAN.) 


THE    YOUNGER  PAINTERS   OF  AMERICA. 


RETURNING    FROM     THE    BROOK.       (GEORGE    1NNESS,    JR.) 


he,  who  emulate  the  vigor  and  vividness  of 
Franz  Hals,  forget  that  vigor  and  vivid- 
ness are  not  the  only  nor  the  sufficient 
elements  of  a  picture,  and  were  never  yet  so 
deemed  by  any  master  even  of  the  Dutch 
school.  An  exquisite  and  almost  caressing 
art  there  is  in  the  most  intensely  real  Velas- 
quez or  in  the  most  superficially  ugly  Franz 
Hals.  Mr.  Duveneck  and  Mr.  Chase  are 
in  another  category,  though  we  suspect 
they  are  to  be  ranked  as  warm  admirers  of 
Mr.  Currier.  Mr.  Duveneck  atones  for  his 
absence  of  poetry  not  only  by  his  power,  and 
Mr.  Chase  by  his  extraordinary  facility  and 
swiftness,  so  to  speak,  but  both  by  their 
sense  of  character  of  what  is  pictorially 
impressive,  by  their  feeling  in  a  word 
for  picturesqueness.  Nothing  could  be  more 
picturesque  than  the  Spanish-like  portrait  Mr. 
Duveneck  sent  to  the  Academy  last  year,  and 
at  the  same  time  it  was  powerfully  and  subtly 
painted;  and  nothing  more  so  than  Mr. 
Chase's  best  work.  His  canvases  have  a 
life,  an  elan,  a  movement  and  an  artistic  in- 
terest in  the  highest  degree  noteworthy ;  we 
do  not  remember  one  of  them  which  relies  on 
beauty.  They  attract,  stimulate,  provoke  a 
real  enthusiasm  at  times  for  their  straight- 
forward directness,  their  singleness  of  aim, 
their  absolute  avoidance  of  all  sentimentality, 
— but  they  have  not  charm.  Mr.  Shirlaw 


inclines  more  to  things  poetic ;  we  remem- 
ber a  very  charming  picture  of  a  sleeping 
girl ;  his  "  Gooseherd  "  was  a  by  no  means 
prosaic  expression  of  jollity;  and  in  por- 
traiture he  loses  nothing  of  the  sweetness 
and  grace  of  an  attractive  subject.  In  the 
main,  however,  it  is  to  be  said  that  his 
strongest  leaning  is  toward  pure  pictur- 
esqueness, and  that  in  a  measure  he  com- 
promises a  natural  bent  in  essaying  sentiment, 
however  well  he  may  handle  it. 

Of  the  qualities  of  Mr.  Swain  Gifford's 
work  there  should  by  this  time  be  no  need 
to  speak ;  he  is  not  a  "  new  man,"  but  his 
sympathy  for  the  aims  and  character  of 
the  new  men,  in  contradistinction  from  the 
character  and  aims  for  the  most  part  cur- 
rent before  their  advent,  renders  his  asso- 
ciation with  them  pertinent.  Mr.  Dielman 
is  a  new  man  and  has  done  excellent  work, 
and  though  none  of  it  is  of  large  importance, 
it  has  the  evident  qualities  of  both  skill  and 
simplicity.  Mr.  George  Inness,  Jr.  came 
honestly  by  his  talent ;  more  than  any  of  the 
younger  painters,  perhaps,  his  progress  within 
the  past  four  or  five  years  has  been  notice- 
able, and,  apparently,  from  a  clever  amateur 
with  a  fondness  for  painting  animals  he  has 
become  one  of  the  painters  who  count.  He 
has  a  fondness  for  color  and  for  "  solidity 
of  handling"  that  is  on  many  accounts  pleasant 


THE    YOUNGER  PAINTERS   OF  AMERICA. 


to  see,  despite  the  fact  that  it  is  somewhat 
ingenuously  evident;  and  he  can  make  a 
picture  with  more  elements  of  interest,  bet- 
ter associated,  than  a  great  many  who  are 
both  more  deft  by  nature  and  more  experi- 
enced; as  may  be  seen  from  the  engraving 
of  his  "  Returning  from  the  Brook."  Mr.  F. 
S.  Church  has  been  drawing  and  painting 
in  New  York  for  a  number  of  years,  and  yet 
so  curiously  are  grotesquerie  and  wholesome- 
ness  combined  in  him,  that  it  is,  perhaps, 
more  difficult  to  speak  with  anything  like 
satisfactory  precision  of  him  than  of  any  of 
the  painters  we  have  referred  to.  He  has 
done  a  great  deal  of  a  kind  of  work  which 
neither  he  nor  any  one  else  would  regard 
as  serious,  and  which,  indeed,  is  generally 
very  justly  regarded  as  tending  to  unfit  one 
for  serious  work.  But  to  see  how  really 
subordinate  the  purely  humorous  side  of  his 
talent  is,  and  how  easily  he  frees  himself 
from  its  shackles  when  he  chooses,  one 
has  only  to  glance  at  his  "After  the  Rain," 
here  reproduced,  or  at  any  of  the  work  he 
has  been  doing  of  recent  years.  It  is  im- 
possible not  to  see  in  such  a  picture  as 
"After  the  Rain  "  a  good  deal  of  grace  and 
a  genuine  and  refined  sentiment;  to  our 
mind  there  is  something  very  agreeable  in 
its  nice  compromise  between  the  conven- 
tionality ordinarily  inseparable  from  such  a 
subject,  and  the  painter's  unmistakable 
individuality — or,  better  a  graceful  conces- 


sion of  the  latter  to  the  former.  It  is  unlikely 
that  Mr.  Church  will  ever  carry  this  too 
far,  we  should  say,  and  there  can  be  no 
need  to  fear  that  his  work  will  not  always 
keep  something  very  individual  about  it. 
Perhaps  he  could  not. do  better  than  to  rid 
himself  of  all  anxiety  concerning  the  result 
of  his  sturdiness  becoming  even  more  soft- 
ened than  it  is.  But  his  absolute  sincerity 
and  almost  awkward  dread  of  anything 
like  sentimentality,  added  to  his  clear 
bent  toward  painting  and  the  technical 
skill  with  which  his  steady  work  has  been 
rewarded — witness  his  Sandy  Hook  land- 
scapes and  his.  contribution  to  the  last 
Water-Color  Exhibition — make  him  one  of 
the  younger  painters  whose  constant  prog- 
ress is  a  guarantee  of  the  fulfillment  of  their 
promise. 

To  recall  our  conclusions  in  regard  to 
these,  taking  them  in  the  mass,  and  some- 
what loosely.  They  have  acquired  a  strong, 
if  not  too  flexible  or  comprehensive,  tech- 
nique ;  they  have  a  genuine  impulse,  a  natu- 
ral bent  toward  painting;  and,  though  as 
yet  they  lack  style,  and  seem  a  little  more 
content  to  lack  it  than  is  quite  deferential, 
and  have  no  noticeable  feeling  for  poetry, 
they  atone  for  this,  to  a  degree,  not  only  by 
the  qualities  just  mentioned  but  by  a  lively 
feeling  for  character  and  a  quick  sense  for 
picturesqueness — for  what  is  pictorially 
impressive. 


AFTER    THE    RAIN.       (F.    S.    CHURCH.) 


i6 


LOUISIANA. 


LOUISIANA.* 

BY    FRANCES    HODGSON    BURNETT, 
Author  of  "That  Lass  o'  Lowrie's,"  "Surly  Tim,  and  Other  Stories,"  "  Haworth's,"  etc. 


'MUST    I    GO    AWAY?"     HE    SAID. 


CHAPTER    XV. 

"  IANTHY ! " 

IT  was  later  than  usual  when  Louisiana 
awakened  in  the  morning.  She  awakened 
suddenly  and  found  herself  listening  to  the 
singing  of  a  bird  on  the  tree  near  her  win- 
dow. Its  singing  was  so  loud  and  shrill  that 
it  overpowered  her  and  aroused  her  to  a 
consciousness  of  fatigue  and  exhaustion. 

It  appeared  to  her  at  first  that  no  one 
was  stirring  in  the  house  below,  but  after  a 
few  minutes  she  heard  some  one  talking  in 
her  father's  room — talking  rapidly  in  monot- 
onous tone. 

"  I  wonder  who  it  is,"  she  said,  and  she 
lay  back  upon  her  pillow,  feeling  tired  out 
and  bewildered  between  the  bird's  shrill 
song  and  the  strange  voice. 

And   then   she  heard  heavy  feet  on  the 


stairs  and  listened  to  them  nervously  until 
they  reached  her  door  and  the  door  was 
pushed  open  unceremoniously. 

The  negro  woman  Nancy  thrust  her  head 
into  the  room. 

"  Miss  Louisianny,  honey,"  she  said. 
"Ye  aint  up  yet?  " 

"No." 

"  Ye'd  better  git  up,  honey — an'  come 
down-stairs." 

But  the  girl  made  no  movement. 

"  Why  ?  "  she  asked,  listlessly. 

"  Yer  pappy,  honey— he's  sorter  cur'us. 
He  don't  seem  to  be  right  well.  He  didn't 
seem  to  be  quite  at  hisself  when  I  went  to 
light  his  fire.  He " 

Louisiana  sat  upright  in  bed,  her  great 
coil  of  black  hair  tumbling  over  one  shoulder 
and  making  her  look  even  paler  than  she 
was. 

"  Father  !  "  she   said.      "  He   was  quite 


Copyright,  1880,  by  Frances  Hodgson  Burnett.      All  rights  reserved. 

Macmillan  &  Co. 


Copyright  in  England  by 


LOUISIANA. 


well  late  last  night.  It  was  after  midnight 
when  we  went  to  bed  and  he  was  well 
then." 

The  woman  began  to  fumble  uneasily  at 
the  latch. 

"  Don't  ye  git  skeered,  chile,"  she  said. 
"  Mebbe  'taint  nothin' — but  seemed  to  me 
like — like  he  didn't  know  me." 

Louisiana  was  out  of  bed,  standing  upon 
the  floor  and  dressing  hurriedly. 

"  He  was  well  last  night,"  she  said, 
piteously.  "  Only  a  few  hours  ago.  He 
was  well  and  talked  to  me  and " 

She  stopped  suddenly  to  listen  to  the 
voice  down-stairs — a  new  and  terrible 
thought  flashing  upon  her. 

"  Who  is  with  him  ?  "  she  asked.  "  Who 
is  talking  to  him  ?  " 

"  Thar  aint  no  one  with  him,"  was  the 
answer.  "  He's  by  hisself,  honey." 

Louisiana  was  buttoning  her  wrapper  at 
the  throat.  Such  a  tremor  fell  upon  her 
that  she  could  not  finish  what  she  was 
doing.  She  left  the  button  unfastened  and 
pushed  past  Nancy  and  ran  swiftly  down 
the  stairs,  the  woman  following  her. 

The  door  of  her  father's  room  stood  open 
and  the  fire  Nancy  had  lighted  burned  and 
crackled  merrily.  Mr.  Rogers  was  lying 
high  upon  his  pillow,  watching  the  blaze. 
His  face  was  flushed  and  he  had  one  hand 
upon  his  chest.  He  turned  his  eyes  slowly 
upon  Louisiana  as  she  entered  and  for  a 
second  or  so  regarded  her  wonderingly. 
Then  a  change  came  upon  him,  his  face 
lighted  up — it  seemed  as  if  he  saw  all  at 
once  who  had  come  to  him. 

"  lanthy  !  "  he  said.  "  I  didn't  sca'cely 
know  ye !  Ye've  bin  gone  so  long !  Whar 
hev  ye  bin  ?  " 

But  even  then  she  could  not  realize  the 
truth ;  it  was  so  short  a  time  since  he  had 
bidden  her  good-night  and  kissed  her  at  the 
door. 

"  Father  ! "  she  cried.  "  It's  Louisiana ! 
Father,  look  at  me  !  " 

He  was  looking  at  her,  and  yet  he  only 
smiled  again. 

"  It's  bin  such  a  long  time,  lanthy,"  he 
said.  "  Sometimes  I've  thought  ye  wouldn't 
never  come  back  at  all." 

And  when  she  fell  upon  her  knees  at  the 
bedside,  with  a  desolate  cry  of  terror  and 
anguish,  he  did  not  seem  to  hear  it  at  all, 
but  lay  fondling  her  bent  head  and  smiling 
still,  and  saying  happily  : 

"  Lord  !  I  am  glad  to  see  ye  !  " 

When  the  doctor  came — he  was  a  mount- 
VOL.  XX.— 2. 


aineer  like  the  rest  of  them,  a  rough,  good- 
natured  fellow  who  had  "read  a  course" 
with  somebody  and  "  'tended  lectures  in 
Cincinnatty" — he  could  tell  her  easily 
enough  what  the  trouble  was. 

"  Pneumony,"  he  said.  "  And  pretty  bad 
at  that.  He  haint  hed  no  health  fer  a  right 
smart  while.  He  haint  never  got  over  thet 
spell  he  hed  last  winter.  This  yere  change 
in  the  weather's  what's  done  it.  He  was 
a-complainin'  to  me  the  other  day  about 
thet  thar  old  pain  in  his  chist.  Things  hez 
bin  kinder  'cumylatin'  on  him." 

"  He  does  not  know  me !  "  said  Louis- 
iana. "  He  is  very,  very  ill ! " 

Doctor  Hankins  looked  at  his  patient  for 
a  moment,  dubiously. 

"  Wa-al,  thet's  so,"  he  said,  at  length. 
"  He's  purty  bad  off— purty  bad  !  " 

By  night  the  house  was  full  of  visitors  and 
volunteer  nurses.  The  fact  that  "  Uncle 
Elbert  Rogers  was  down  with  pneumony, 
an'  Louisianny  thar  without  a  soul  anigh 
her,"  was  enough  to  rouse  sympathy  and 
curiosity.  Aunt  'Mandy,  Aunt  Ca'line  and 
Aunt  'Nervy  came  up  one  after  another. 

"  Louisianny  now,  she  aint  nothin'  but  a 
young  thing,  an'  don't  know  nothin',"  they 
said.  "  An'  Elbert  bein'  sich  nigh  kin,  it'd 
look  powerful  bad  if  we  didn't  go." 

They  came  in  wagons  or  rickety  buggies 
and  brought  their  favorite  medicines  and 
liniments  with  them  in  slab-sided,  enamel- 
cloth  valises.  They  took  the  patient  under 
their  charge,  applied  their  nostrums,  and 
when  they  were  not  busy  seemed  to  enjoy 
talking  his  symptoms  over  in  low  tones. 
They  were  very  good  to  Louisiana,  relieving 
her  of  every  responsibility  in  spite  of  herself, 
and  shaking  their  heads  at  one  another  pity- 
ingly when  her  back  was  turned. 

"  She  never  give  him  no  trouble,"  they 
said.  "  She's  got  thet  to  hold  to.  An'  they 
was  powerful  sot  on  her,  both  him  an' 
lanthy.  I've  heern  'em  say  she  allus  was 
kinder  tender  an'  easy  to  manage." 

Their  husbands  came  to  "  sit  up  "  with 
them  at  night,  and  sat  by  the  fire  talking 
about  their  crops  and  the  elections,  and 
expectorating  with  regularity  into  the  ashes. 
They  tried  to  persuade  Louisiana  to  go  to 
bed,  but  she  would  not  go. 

"  Let  me  sit  by  him,  if  there  is  nothing 
else  I  can  do,"  she  said.  "  If  he  should 
come  to  himself  for  a  minute  he  would 
know  me  if  I  was  near  him." 

In  his  delirium  he  seemed  to  have  gone 
back  to  a  time  before  her  existence — the 
time  when  he  was  a  young  man  and  there 


i8 


LOUISIANA. 


was  no  one  in  the  new  house  he  had  built, 
but  himself  and  "  lanthy."  Sometimes  he 
fancied  himself  sitting  by  their  fire  on  a 
winter's  night  and  congratulating  himself 
upon  being  there. 

"  Jest  to  think,"  he  would  say  in  a  quiet, 
speculative  voice,  "  that  two  year  ago  I 
didn't  know  ye — an'  thar  ye  air,  a-sittin' 
sewin',  and  the  fire  a-cracklin',  an'  the  house 
all  fixed.  This  yere's  what  I  call  solid  com- 
fort, lanthy — jest  solid  comfort !  " 

Once  he  wakened  suddenly  from  a  sleep, 
and  finding  Louisiana  bending  over  him, 
drew  her  face  down  and  kissed  her. 

"  I  didn't  know  ye  was  so  nigh,  lanthy," 
he  whispered.  "  Lord !  jest  to  think  yer 
allers  nigh  an'  thar  cayn't  nothin'  separate  us." 

The  desolateness  of  so  living  a  life  outside 
his  was  so  terrible  to  Louisiana  that  at 
times  she  could  not  bear  to  remain  in  the 
room,  but  would  go  out  into  the  yard  and 
ramble  about  aimless  and  heart-broken, 
looking  back  now  and  then  with  a  pang 
at  the  new,  strange  house. 

"  There  will  be  nothing  left  if  he  leaves 
me,"  she  said.  "  There  will  be  nothing." 

And  then  she  would  hurry  back,  panting, 
and  sit  by  him  again,  her  eyes  fastened  upon 
his  unconscious  face,  watching  its  every 
shade  of  expression  and  change. 

"  She'll  take  it  mighty  hard,"  she  heard 
Aunt  Ca'line  whisper  one  day,  "  ef " 

And  she  put  her  hands  to  her  ears  and 
buried  her  face  in  the  pillow,  that  she  might 
not  hear  the  rest. 

CHAPTER  XVI. 
"DON'T  DO  NO  ONE  A  ONJESTICE." 

HE  was  not  ill  very  long.  Toward  the 
end  of  the  second  week  the  house  was 
always  full  of  visitors  who  came  to  sympa- 
thize and  inquire  and  prescribe,  and  who, 
in  many  cases,  came  from  their  farms  miles 
away  attracted  by  the  news  that  "  Uncle 
Elbert  Rogers "  was  "  mighty  bad  off." 
They  came  on  horseback  and  in  wagons  or 
buggies — men  in  homespun,  and  women  in 
sun-bonnets — and  they  hitched  their  horses 
at  the  fence  and  came  into  the  house  with 
an  awkwardly  subdued  air,  and  stood  in 
silence  by  the  sick  bed  for  a  few  minutes, 
and  then  rambled  toward  the  hearth  and 
talked  in  spectral  whispers. 

"  The  old  man's  purty  low,"  they  always 
said,  "he's  purty  low."  And  then  they 
added  among  themselves  that  he  had  "  allers 
bin  mighty  clever,  an'  a  good  neighbor." 


When  she  heard  them  speak  of  him  in 
this  manner,  Louisiana  knew  what  it  meant. 
She  never  left  the  room  again  after  the  first 
day  that  they  spoke  so  and  came  in  bodies 
to  look  at  him,  and  turn  away  and  say  that 
he  had  been  good  to  them.  The  men  never 
spoke  to  her  after  their  first  nod  of  greeting, 
and  the  women  but  rarely,  but  they  often 
glanced  hurriedly  askance  at  her  as  she  sat 
or  stood  by  the  sick  man's  pillow.  Some- 
how, none  of  them  had  felt  as  if  they  were  on 
very  familiar  terms  with  her,  though  they  all 
spoke  in  a  friendly  way  of  her  as  being  "  a 
mighty  purty,  still  kind  o'  a  harmless  young 
critter."  They  thought,  when  they  saw  her 
pallor  and  the  anguish  in  her  eyes,  that  she 
was  "  takin'  it  powerful  hard,  an'  no  won- 
der," but  they  knew  nothing  of  her  desper- 
ate loneliness  and  terror. 

"  Uncle  Elbert  he'll  leave  a  plenty,"  they 
said  in  undertones.  "  She'll  be  well  pervided 
fer,  will  Louisianny." 

And  they  watched  over  their  charge  and 
nursed  him  faithfully,  feeling  not  a  little  sad 
themselves  as  they  remembered  his  simple 
good-nature  and  neighborliness  and  the 
kindly  prayers  for  which  he  had  been  noted 
in  "  meetin'." 

On  the  last  day  of  the  second  week  the 
doctor  held  a  consultation  with  Aunt  'Nervy 
and  Aunt  Ca'line  on  the  front  porch  before 
he  went  away,  and  when  they  re-entered  the 
room  they  spoke  in  whispers  even  lower 
than  before  and  moved  about  stealthily. 
The  doctor  himself  rode  away  slowly  and 
stopped  at  a  house  or  so  on  the  way-side, 
where  he  had  no  patients,  to  tell  the  inhab- 
itants what  he  had  told  the  head  nurses. 

"  We  couldn't  hev  expected  him  to  stay 
allers,"  he  'said,  "  but  we'll  miss  him  mightily. 
He  haint  a  enemy  in  the  county — nary  one ! " 

That  afternoon  when  the  sun  was  setting, 
the  sick  man  wakened  from  a  long,  deep 
sleep.  The  first  thing  he  saw  was  the  bright 
pale-yellow  of  a  tree  out  in  the  yard,  which 
had  changed  color  since  he  had  seen  it  last. 
It  was  a  golden  tree  now  as  it  stood  in  the 
sun,  its  leaves  rustling  in  a  faint,  chill  wind. 
The  next  thing,  he  knew  that  there  were 
people  in  the  room  *who  sat  silent  and 
looked  at  him  with  kindly,  even  reverent, 
eyes.  Then  he  turned  a  little  and  saw  his 
child,  who  bent  toward  him  with  dilated 
eyes  and  trembling,  parted  lips.  A  strange, 
vague  memory  of  weary  pain  and  dragging, 
uncertain  days  and  nights  came  to  him  and 
he  knew,  and  yet  felt  no  fear. 

"  Louisianny  !  "  he  said. 

He   could  only  speak  in  a  whisper  and 


LOUISIANA. 


tremulously.  Those  who  sat  about  him 
hushed  their  very  breath. 

"  Lay  yer  head — on  the  piller — nigh  me," 
he  said. 

She  laid  it  down  and  put  her  hand  in  his. 
The  great  tears  were  streaming  down  her 
face,  but  she  said  not  a  word. 

"  I  haint  got  long — honey,"  he  faltered. 
"The  Lord,  He'll  keer — fer  ye." 

Then  for  a  few  minutes  he  lay  breathing 
faintly,  but  with  his  eyes  open  and  smiling 
as  they  rested  on  the  golden  foliage  of  the 
tree. 

"  How  yaller — it  is  !  "  he  whispered. 
"  Like  gold.  lanthy  was  powerful — sot  on 
it.  It — kinder  beckons." 

It  seemed  as  if  he  could  not  move  his 
eyes  from  it,  and  the  pause  that  followed 
was  so  long  that  Louisiana  could  bear  it  no 
longer,  and  she  lifted  her  head  and  kissed 
him. 

"  Father !  "  she  cried.  "  Say  something 
to  me  !  Say  something  to  me  /  " 

It  drew  him  back  and  he  looked  up  into 
her  eyes  as  she  bent  over  him. 

"  Ye'll  be  happy  —  "  he  said,  "  afore  long. 
I  kinder — know.  Lord  !  how  I've — loved 
ye,  honey — an'  ye've  desarved  it — all.  Don't 
ye — do.  no  one — a  onjestice." 

And  then  as  she  dropped  her  white  face 
upon  the  pillow  again,  he  saw  her  no  longer 
— nor  the  people,  nor  the  room,  but  lay 
quite  still  with  parted  lips  and  eyes  wide 
open,  smiling  still  at  the  golden  tree  waving 
and  beckoning  in  the  wind. 

This  he  saw  last  of  all,  and  seemed  still  to 
see  even  when  some  one  came  silently, 
though  with  tears,  and  laid  a  hand  upon  his 
eyes. 

CHAPTER   XVII. 
A    LEAF. 

THERE  was  a  sunny  old  grave- yard  half  a 
mile  from  the  town,  where  the  people  of 
Bowersville  laid  their  dead  under  the  long 
grass  and  tangle  of  wild  creeping  vines,  and 
the  whole  country-side  gathered  there  when 
they  lowered  the  old  man  into  his  place  at 
his  wife's  side.  His  neighbors  sang  his 
funeral  hymn  and  performed  the  last  offices 
for  him  with  kindly  hands,  and  when  they 
turned  away  and  left  him  there  was  not  a 
man  or  woman  of  them  who  did  not  feel 
that  they  had  lost  a  friend. 

They  were  very  good  to  Louisiana. 
Aunt  'Nervy  and  Aunt  Ca'line  deserted 
their  families  that  they  might  stay  with  her 


until  all  was  over,  doing  their  best  to  give 
her  comfort.  It  was  Aunt  'Nervy  who  first 
thought  of  sending  for  the  girl  cousin  to 
whom  the  trunkful  of  clothes  had  been 
given. 

"  Le's  send  for  Luther's  Jenny,  Ca'line," 
she  said.  "  Mebbe  it'd  help  her  some  to 
hev  a  gal  nigh  her.  Gals  kinder  onderstands 
each  other,  an'  Jenny  was  allus  powerful 
fond  o'  Lowizyanny." 

So  Jenny  was  sent  for  and  came.  From 
her  lowly  position  as  one  of  the  thirteen  in 
an  "onfort'nit"  family  she  had  adored  and 
looked  up  to  Louisiana  all  her  life.  All 
the  brightest  days  in  her  experience  had 
been  spent  at  Uncle  Elbert's  with  her  favor- 
ite cousin.  But  there  was  no  brightness 
about  the  house  now.  When  she  arrived 
and  was  sent  upstairs  to  the  pretty,  new 
room  Louisiana  occupied,  she  found  the 
girl  lying  upon  the  bed.  She  looked  white 
and  slender  in  her  black  dress,  her  hands 
were  folded  palm  to  palm  under  her  cheek, 
and  her  eyes  were  wide  open. 

Jenny  ran  to  her  and  knelt  at  her  side. 
She  kissed  her  and  began  to  cry. 

"  Oh !  "  she  sobbed,  "  somehow,  I  didn't 
ever  think  I  should  come  here  and  not  find 
Uncle  Elbert.  It  don't  seem  right — it  makes 
it  like  a  strange  place." 

Then  Louisiana  broke  into  sobs  too. 

"  It  is  a  strange  place !  "  she  cried- — "  a 
strange  place — a  strange  place !  Oh,  if  one 
old  room  was  left — just  one  that  I  could  go 
into  and  not  feel  so  lonely !  " 

But  she  had  no  sooner  said  it  than  she 
checked  herself. 

"  Oh,  I  oughtn't  to  say  that !  "  she  cried. 
"  I  wont  say  it.  He  did  it  all  for  me,  and 
I  didn't  deserve  it." 

"  Yes,  you  did,"  said  Jenny,  fondling  her. 
"  He  was  always  saying  what  a  good  child 
you  had  been — and  that  you'd  never  given 
him  any  trouble." 

"  That  was  because  he  was  so  good," 
said  Louisiana.  "  No  one  else  in  the  whole 
world  was  so  good.  And  now  he  is  gone, 
and  I  can  never  make  him  know  how  grate- 
ful I  was  and  how  I  loved  him." 

"  He  did  know,"  said  Jenny. 

"No,"  returned  Louisiana.  "It  would 
have  taken  a  long,  long  life  to  make  him 
know  all  I  felt,  and  now  when  I  look  back 
it  seems  as  if  we  had  been  together  such  a 
little  while.  Oh !  I  thought  the  last  night 
we  talked  that  there  was  a  long  life  before 
us — that  I  should  be  old  before  he  left  me, 
and  we  should  have  had  all  those  years 
together." 


2O 


LOUISIANA. 


After  the  return  from  the  grave-yard  there 
was  a  prolonged  discussion  held  among  the 
heads  of  the  different  branches  of  the  fam- 
ily. They  gathered  at  one  end  of  the  back 
porch  and  talked  of  Louisiana,  who  sat 
before  the  log  fire  in  her  room  upstairs. 

"  She  aint  in  the  notion  o'  leavin'  the 
place,"  said  Aunt  'Nervy.  "  She  cried  pow- 
erful when  I  mentioned  it  to  her,  an' 
wouldn't  hear  to  it.  She  says  over  an'  over 
ag'in,  '  Lemme  stay  in  the  home  he  made 
for  me,  Aunt  Ca'line.'  I  reckon  she's  a  kind 
o'  notion  Elbert  'lowed  fur  her  to  be  yere 
when  he  was  gone." 

"  Wa-al,  now,"  said  Uncle  Luther,  "  I 
reckon  he  did.  He  talked  a  heap  on  it 
when  he  was  in  a  talkin'  way.  He's  said  to 
me,  '  I  want  things  to  be  jest  ez  she'd  enjoy 
'em  most — when  she's  sorter  lonesome,  ez 
she  will  be,  mebbe.'  Seemed  like  he  hed  it 
in  his  mind  ez  he  warn't  long  fur  this  world. 
Don't  let  us  cross  her  in  nothin'.  He  never 
did.  He  was  powerful  tender  on  her,  was 
Elbert." 

"I  seed  Marthy  Lureny  Nance  this 
mornin',"  put  in  Aunt  Ca'line,  "  an'  I  told 
her  to  come  up  an'  kinder  overlook  things. 
She  haint  with  no  one  now,  an'  I  dessay 
she'd  like  to  stay  an'  keep  house." 

"  I  don't  see  nothin'  ag'in  it,"  commented 
Uncle  Steve,  "  if  Louisianny  don't.  She's  a 
settled  woman,  an's  bin  married,  an'  haint 
no  family  to  pester  her  sence  Nance  is  dead." 

"  She  was  allers  the  through-goin'  kind," 
said  Aunt  'Nervy.  "Things'll  be  well 
looked  to — an'  she  thought  a  heap  o'  El- 
bert. They  was  raised  together." 

"  S'pos'n'  ye  was  to  go  in  an'  speak  to 
Louisianny,"  suggested  Uncle  Steve. 

Louisiana,  being  spoken  to,  was  very 
tractable.  She  was  willing  to  do  anything 
asked  of  her  but  go  away. 

"  I  should  be  very  glad  to  have  Mrs. 
Nance  here,  Aunt  Minerva,"  she  said. 
"  She  was  always  very  kind,  and  father 
liked  her.  It  wont  be  like  having  a  strange 
face  near  me.  Please  tell  her  I  want  her  to 
come  and  that  I  hope  she  will  try  to  feel 
as  if  she  was  at  home." 

So  Marthy  Lureny  Nance  came,  and  was 
formally  installed  in  her  position.  She  was 
a  tall,  strongly  built  woman,  with  blue  eyes, 
black  hair,  and  thick  black  eyebrows.  When 
she  arrived  she  wore  her  best  alpaca  gown 
and  a  starched  and  frilled  blue  sun-bonnet. 
When  she  presented  herself  to  Louisiana 
she  sat  down  before  her,  removed  this  sun- 
bonnet  with  a  scientific  flap  and  hung  it  on 
the  back  of  her  chair. 


"Ye  look  mighty  peak-ed,  Louisianny," 
she  said.  "  Mighty  peak-ed." 

"  I  don't  feel  very  well,"  Louisiana  an- 
swered, "  but  I  suppose  I  shall  be  better 
after  a  while." 

"  Ye're  takin'  it  powerful  hard,  Louis- 
ianny," said  Mrs.  Nance, "  an'  I  don't  blame 
ye.  I  aint  gwine  to  pester  ye  a-talkin'.  I 
jest  come  to  say  I  'lowed  to  do  my  plum 
best  by  ye,  an'  ax  ye  whether  ye  liked  hop 
yeast  or  salt  risin'  ?  " 

At  the  end  of  the  week  Louisiana  and 
Mrs.  Nance  were  left  to  themselves.  Aunt 
'Nervy  and  Aunt  Ca'line  and  the  rest  had 
returned  to  their  respective  homes,  even 
Jenny  had  gone  back  to  Bowersville,  where 
she  boarded  with  a  relative  and  went  to 
school. 

The  days  after  this  seemed  so  long  to 
Louisiana  that  she  often  wondered  how  she 
lived  through  them.  In  the  first  passion  of 
her  sorrow,  she  had  not  known  how  they 
passed,  but  now  that  all  was  silence  and 
order  in  the  house,  and  she  was  alone,  she 
had  nothing  to  do  but  to  count  the  hours. 
There  was  no  work  for  her,  no  one  came  in 
and  out  for  whom  she  might  invent  some 
little  labor  of  love;  there  was  no  one  to 
watch  for,  no  one  to  think  of.  She  used  to 
sit  for  hours  at  her  window  watching  the 
leaves  change  their  color  day  by  day,  and  at 
last  flutter  down  upon  the  grass  at  the  least 
stir  of  wind.  Once  she  went  out  and  picked 
up  one  of  these  leaves  and,  taking  it  back 
to  her  room,  shut  it  up  in  a  book. 

"  Everything  has  happened  to  me  since 
the  day  it  was  first  a  leaf,"  she  said.  "  I  have 
lived  just  as  long  as  a  leaf.  That  isn't  long." 

When  the  trees  were  bare,  she  one  day 
remembered  the  books  she  had  sent  for 
when  at  the  Springs,  and  she  went  to  the 
place  where  she  had  put  them,  brought 
then  out  and  tried  to  feel  interested  in  them 
again. 

"  I  might  learn  a  great  deal,"  she  said,  "  if 
I  persevered.  I  have  so  much  time." 

But  she  had  not  read  many  pages  before 
the  tears  began  to  roll  down  her  cheeks. 

"  If  he  had  lived,"  she  said,  "  I  might  have 
read  them  to  him  and  it  would  have  pleased 
him  so.  I  might  have  done  it  often  if  I  had 
thought  less  about  myself.  He  would  have 
learned,  too.  He  thought  he  was  slow,  but 
he  would  have  learned,  too,  in  a  little  while, 
and  he  would  have  been  so  proud." 

She  was  very  like  her  father  in  the  simple 
tenderness  of  her  nature.  She  grieved  with 
the  hopeless  passion  of  a  child  for  the  wrong 
she  had  unwittingly  done. 


LOUISIANA. 


21 


It  was  as  she  sat  trying  to  fix  her  mind 
upon  these  books  that  there  came  to  her  the 
first  thought  of  a  plan  which  was  afterward 
of  some  vague  comfort  to  her.  She  had  all 
the  things  which  had  furnished  the  old  par- 
lor taken  into  one  of  the  unused  rooms — 
the  chairs  and  tables,  the  carpet,  the  orna- 
ments and  pictures.  She  spent  a  day  in 
placing  everything  as  she  remembered  it, 
doing  all  without  letting  any  one  assist  her. 
After  it  was  arranged,  she  left  the  room  and 
locked  the  door,  taking  the  key  with  her. 

"  No  one  shall  go  in  but  myself,"  she 
said.  "  It  belongs  to  me  more  than  all  the 
rest." 

"  I  never  knowed  her  to  do  nothin' 
notionate  but  thet,"  remarked  Mrs.  Nance, 
in  speaking  of  it  afterward.  "  She's  mighty 
still,  an'  sits  an  grieves  a  heap,  but  she  aint 
never  notionate.  Thet  was  kinder  notionate 
fer  a  gal  to  do.  She  sets  store  on  'em  'cause 
they  was  her  pappy's  an'  her  ma's,  I  reckon. 
It  cayn't  be  nothin'  else,  fur  they  aint  to  say 
stylish,  though  they  was  allers  good  solid- 
appearin'  things.  The  picters  was  the  on'y 
things  ez  was  showy." 

"  She's  mighty  pale  an'  slender  sence  her 
pappy  died,"  said  the  listener. 

"  Wa-al,  yes,  she's  kinder  peak-ed,"  admit- 
ted Mrs.  Nance.  "  She's  kinder  peak-ed, 
but  she'll  git  over  it.  Young  folks  allers 
does." 

But  she  did  not  get  over  it  as  soon  as 
Mrs.  Nance  had  expected,  in  view  of  her 
youth.  The  days  seemed  longer  and  lone- 
lier to  her  as  the  winter  advanced,  and  she 
had  at  last  been  able  to  read  and  think  of 
what  she  read.  When  the  snow  was  on 
the  ground  and  she  could  not  wander  about 
the  place,  she  grew  paler  still. 

"  Louisianny,"  said  Mrs.  Nance,  coming 
in  upon  her  one  day  as  she  stood  at  the 
window,  "  ye're  a-beginnin'  to  look  like 
ye're  Aunt  Melissy." 

"Am  I  ?  "  answered  Louisiana.  "  She  died 
when  she  was  young,  didn't  she  ?  " 

"  She  wasn't  but  nineteen,"  she  said  grimly. 
"  She  hed  a  kind  o'  love-scrape,  an'  when  the 
feller  married  Emmerline  Ruggles  she  jest 
give  right  in.  They  hed  a  quarrel,  an'  he 
was  a  sperrity  kind  o'  thing  an'  merried 
Emmerline  when  he  was  mad.  He  cut  off 
his  nose  to  spite  his  face,  an'  a  nice  time  he 
hed  of  it  when  it  was  done.  Melissy  was  a 
pretty  gal,  but  kinder  consumpshony,  an' 
she  hedn't  backbone  enough  to  hold  her 
up.  She  died  eight  or  nine  months  after 
they'd  quarreled.  Mebbe  she'd  hev  died 
atiyhow,  but  thet  sorter  hastened  it  up. 


When  folks  is  consumpshony  it  don't  take 
much  to  set  'em  off." 

"  I  don't  think  I  am  '  consumpshony,'  " 
said  Louisiana. 

"  Lord-a-massy,  no  ! "  was  the  reply,  "  an' 
ye'd  best  not  begin  to  think  it.  I  wasn't 
a-meanin'  thet.  Ye've  kinder  got  into  a 
poor  way  steddyin'  'bout  yer  pappy,  an  it's 
tellin'  on  ye.  Ye  look  as  if  thar  wasn't  a 
thing  of  ye — an'  ye  don't  take  no  int'russ. 
Ye'd  oughter  stir  round  more." 

"  I'm  going  to  '  stir  round '  a  little  as 
soon  as  Jake  brings  the  buggy  up,"  said 
Louisiana.  "  I'm  going  out." 

"  Whar  ?  " 

"  Toward  town." 

For  a  moment  Mrs.  Nance  looked  at  her 
charge  steadily,  but  at  length  her  feelings 
were  too  much  for  her.  She  had  been 
thinking  this  matter  over  for  some  time. 

"  Louisanny,"  she  said,  "  you're  a-gwine 
to  the  grave-yard,  thet's  whar  ye're  a-gwine, 
an'  thar  aint  no  sense  in  it.  Young  folks 
hedn't  ought  to  hold  on  to  trouble  thetaway 
— 'taint  nat'ral.  They  don't  gin'rally.  Elbert 
'd  be  ag'in  it  himself  ef  he  knowed — an'  I 
s'pose  he  does.  Like  as  not  him  an'  lan- 
thy's  a-worryin'  about  it  now,  an'  Lord  knows 
ef  they  air  it'll  spile  all  their  enjoyment. 
Kingdom  come  wont  be  nothin'  to  'em  if 
they're  oneasy  in  their  minds  'bout  ye. 
Now  an'  ag'in  it's  'peared  to  me  that  mebbe 
harps  an'  crowns  an'  the  company  o'  'postles 
don't  set  a  body  up  all  in  a  minnit  an'  make 
'em  forgit  their  flesh  an'  blood  an'  nat'ral 
feelin's  teetotally — an'  it  kinder  troubles  me 
to  think  o'  Elbert  an'  lanthy  worryin'  an' 
not  havin'  no  pleasure.  Seems  to  me  ef  I 
was  you  I'd  think  it  over  an'  try  to  cheer 
up  an'  take  int'russ.  Jest  think  how  keerful 
yer  pappy  an'  ma  was  on  ye  an'  how  sot 
they  was  on  hevin'  ye  well  an'  happy." 

Louisiana  turned  toward  her.  Her  eyes 
were  full  of  tears. 

"  Oh !  "  she  whispered,  "  do  you — do  you 
think  they  know  ?  " 

Mrs.  Nance  was  scandalized. 

"  Know ! "  she  echoed.  "  Wa-al,  now, 
Louisianny,  ef  I  didn't  know  yer  raisin',  an' 
thet  ye'd  been  brought  up  with  members  all 
yer  life,  it'd  go  ag'in  me  powerful  to  hear  ye 
talk  thetaway.  Ye  know  they  know,  an' 
thet  they'll  take  it  hard,  ef  they  aint  changed 
mightily,  but,  changed  or  not,  I  guess  thar's 
mighty  few  sperrits  ez  haint  sense  enough 
to  see  ye'r  a-grievin'  more  an'  longer  than's 
good  fur  ye." 

Louisiana  turned  to  her  window  again. 
She  rested  her  forehead  against  the  frame- 


THE   GRANDISSIMES. 


THE    GRANDISSIMES.* 


A    STORY    OF    CREOLE    LIFE. 


By  GEORGE  W.    CABLE,  author  of  "Old  Creole  Days." 


CHAPTER    XXX. 
PARALYSIS. 

As  WE  have  said,  the  story  of  Bras-Coupe 
was  told  that  day  three  times;  to  the  Grand- 
issime  beauties  once,  to  Frowenfeld  twice. 
The  fair  Grandissimes  all  agreed,  at  the 
close,  that  it  was  pitiful.  Specially,  that  it 
was  a  great  pity  to  have  hamstrung  Bras- 
Coupe,  a  man  who  even  in  his  cursing  had 
made  an  exception  in  favor  of  the  ladies. 
True,  they  could  suggest  no  alternative ;  it 
was  undeniable  that  he  had  deserved  his 
fate ;  still,  it  seemed  a  pity.  They  dispersed, 
retired  and  went  to  sleep  confirmed  in  this 
sentiment.  In  Frowenfeld  the  story  stirred 
deeper  feelings. 

On  this  same  day,  while  it  was  still  early 
morning,  Honore  Grandissime,  f.  m.  c.,  with 
more  than  even  his  wonted  slowness  of  step 
and  propriety  of  rich  attire,  had  re-appeared 
in  the  shop  of  the  rue  Roy  ale.  He  did  not 
need  to  say  he  desired  another  private  in- 
terview. Frowenfeld  ushered  him  silently 
and  at  once  into  his  rear  room,  offered  him 
a  chair  (which  he  accepted),  and  sat  down 
before  him. 

In  his  labored  way  the  quadroon  stated 
his  knowledge  that  Frowenfeld  had  been 
three  times  to  the  dwelling  of  Palmyre 
Philosophe.  Why,  he  further  intimated,  he 
knew  not,  nor  would  he  ask ;  but  he — had 
been  refused  admission.  He  had  laid  open 
his  heart  to  the  apothecary's  eyes — "It  may 
have  been  unwisely " 

Frowenfeld  interrupted  him ;  Palmyre  had 
been  ill  for  several  days ;  Doctor  Keene 
— who,  Mr.  Grandissime  probably  knew,  was 
her  physician 

The  landlord  bowed,  and  Frowenfeld 
went  on  to  explain  that  Doctor  Keene,  while 
attending  her,  had  also  fallen  sick  and  had 
asked  him  to  take  the  care  of  this  one  case 
until  he  could  himself  resume  it.  So  there, 
in  a  word,  was  the  reason  why  Joseph  had, 
and  others  had  not,  been  admitted  to  her 
presence. 

As  obviously  to  the  apothecary's  eyes  as 
anything  intangible  could  be,  a  load  of  suf- 


fering was  lifted  from  the  quadroon's  mind,, 
as  this  explanation  was  concluded.  Yet  he 
only  sat  in  meditation  before  his  tenant,  who 
regarded  him  long  and  sadly.  Then,  seized 
with  one  of  his  energetic  impulses,  he  sud- 
denly said : 

"  Mr.  Grandissime,  you  are  a  man  of 
intelligence,  accomplishments,  leisure  and 
wealth;  why"  (clenching  his  fists  and  frown- 
ing), "why  do  you  not  give  yourself — 
your  time — wealth — attainments — energies- 
— everything — to  the  cause  of  the  down- 
trodden race  with  which  this  community's- 
scorn  unjustly  compels  you  to  rank  your- 
self? " 

The  quadroon  did  not  meet  Frowenfeld's 
kindled  eyes  for  a  moment,  and  when  he  did, 
it  was  slowly  and  dejectedly. 

"  He  canno'  be,"  he  said,  and  then,  seeing 
his  words  were  not  understood,  he  added : 
"  He  'ave  no  Cause.  Dad  peop'  'ave  no 
Cause."  He  went  on  from  this  with  many 
pauses  and  gropings  after  words  and  idiom,, 
to  tell,  with  a  plaintiveness  that  seemed 
to  Frowenfeld  almost  unmanly,  the  reasons, 
why  the  people,  a  little  of  whose  blood 
had  been  enough  to  blast  his  life,  would 
never  be  free  by  the  force  of  their  own  arm. 
Reduced  to  the  meanings  which  he  vainly 
tried  to  convey  in  words,  his  statement  was 
this :  that  that  people  was  not  a  people. 
Their  cause — was  in  Africa.  They  upheld 
it  there — they  lost  it  there — and  to  those 
that  are  here  the  struggle  was  over;  they 
were,  one  and  all,  prisoners  of  war. 

"  You  speak  of  them  in  the  third  person,'r 
said  Frowenfeld. 

"  Ah  ham  nod  a  slev." 

"  Are  you  certain  of  that  ?  "  asked  the 
tenant. 

His  landlord  looked  at  him. 

"  It  seems  to  me,"  said  Frowenfeld,  "  that 
you — your  class — the  free  quadroons — are 
the  saddest  slaves  of  all.  Your  men,  for  a 
little  property,  and  your  women,  for  a  little 
amorous  attention,  let  themselves  be  shorn 
even  of  the  virtue  of  discontent,  and  for  a 
paltry  bait  of  sham  freedom  have  consented 
to  endure  a  tyrannous  contumely  which  flat- 
tens them  into  the  dirt  like  grass  under  a. 


Copyright,  1879,  by  George  W.  Cable.      All  rights  reserved. 


THE   GRANDISSIMES. 


25 


slab.  I  would  rather  be  a  runaway  in  the 
swamps  than  content  myself  with  such  a 
freedom.  As  your  class  stands  before  the 
world  to-day — free  in  form  but  slaves  in 
spirit — you  are — I  do  not  know  but  I  was 
almost  ready  to  say — a  warning  to  philan- 
thropists ! " 

The  free  man  of  color  slowly  arose. 

"  I  trust  you  know,"  said  Frowenfeld, 
"  that  I  say  nothing  in  offense." 

"  Havery  word  is  tru',"  replied  the  sad 
man. 

"  Mr.  Grandissime,"  said  the  apothecary, 
as  his  landlord  sank  back  again  into  his 
seat,  "  I  know  you  are  a  broken-hearted 
man." 

The  quadroon  laid  his  fist  upon  his  heart 
and  looked  up. 

"  And  being  broken-hearted,  you  are  thus 
specially  fitted  for  a  work  of  patient  and 
sustained  self-sacrifice.  You  have  only  those 
things  to  lose  which  grief  has  taught  you  to 
despise — ease,  money,  display.  Give  your- 
self to  your  people — to  those,  I  mean,  who 
groan,  or  should  groan,  under  the  degraded 
lot  which  is  theirs  and  yours  in  common." 

The  quadroon  shook  his  head,  and  after 
a  moment's  silence,  answered  : 

"  Ah  canned  be  one  Toussaint  POuverture. 
Ah  cannod  trah  to  be.  Hiv  I  trah,  I  h-only 
s'all  soogceed  to  be  one  Bras-Coupe." 

"You  entirely  misunderstand  me,"  said 
Frowenfeld  in  quick  response.  "  I  have  no 
stronger  disbelief  than  my  disbelief  in  insur- 
rection. I  believe  that  to  every  desirable 
end  there  are  two  roads,  the  way  of  strife 
and  the  way  of  peace.  I  can  imagine  a 
man  in  your  place,  going  about  among  his 
people,  stirring  up  their  minds  to  a  noble 
discontent,  laying  out  his  means,  sparingly 
here  and  bountifully  there,  as  in  each  case 
might  seem  wisest,  for  their  enlightenment, 
their  moral  elevation,  their  training  in  skilled 
work ;  going,  too,  among  the  men  of  the 
prouder  caste,  among  such  as  have  a  spirit 
of  fairness,  and  seeking  to  prevail  with 
them  for  a  public  recognition  of  the  rights 
of  all ;  using  all  his  cunning  to  show  them 
the  double  damage  of  all  oppression,  both 
great  and  petty " 

The  quadroon  motioned  "  enough."  There 
was  a  heat  in  his  eyes  which  Frowenfeld 
had  never  seen  before. 

"  M'sieu',"  he  said,  "  waid  till  Agricola 
Fusilier  ees  keel." 

"  Do  you  mean  '  dies  ?  '  " 

"  No,"  insisted  the  quadroon ;  "  listen." 
And  with  slow,  painstaking  phrase  this  man 
of  strong  feeling  and  feeble  will  (the  trait  of 


his  caste)  told— as  Frowenfeld  felt  he  would 
do  the  moment  he  said  "  listen  " — such  part 
of  the  story  of  Bras-Coupe  as  showed  how 
he  came  by  his  deadly  hatred  of  Agricola. 

"  Tale  me,"  said  the  landlord,  as  he  con- 
cluded the  recital,  "  w'y  deen  Bras-Coupe" 
mague  dad  curze  on  Agricola  Fusilier  ?  Be- 
coze  Agricola  ees  one  sorcier!  Elz  'e  bin 
dade  sinz  long  tamm." 

The  speaker's  gestures  seemed  to  imply 
that  his  own  hand,  if  need  be,  would  have 
brought  the  event  to  pass. 

As  he  rose  to  say  adieu,  Frowenfeld, 
without  previous  intention,  laid  a  hand  upon 
his  visitor's  arm. 

"  Is  there  no  one  who  can  make  peace 
between  you  ?  " 

The  landlord  shook  his  head. 

"  'Tis  impossib' ;  we  don'  wand." 

"  I  mean,"  insisted  Frowenfeld,  "  is  there 
no  man  who  can  stand  between  you  and 
those  who  wrong  you,  and  effect  a  peaceful 
reparation  ?  " 

The  landlord  slowly  moved  away,  neither 
he  nor  his  tenant  speaking,  but  each  know- 
ing that  the  one  man  in  the  minds  of  both, 
as  a  possible  peace-maker,  was  Honore 
Grandissime. 

"  Should  the  opportunity  offer,"  continued 
Joseph,  "  may  I  speak  a  word  for  you  my- 
self?" 

The  quadroon  paused  a  moment,  smiled 
politely  though  bitterly,  and  departed  repeat- 
ing again  : 

"  'Tis  impossib'.     We  don'  wand." 

"  Palsied,"  murmured  Frowenfeld,  look- 
ing after  him  regretfully, — "  like  all  of  them." 

Frowenfeld's  thoughts  were  still  on  the 
same  theme  when,  the  day  having  passed, 
the  hour  was  approaching  wherein  Raoul 
Innerarity  was  exhorted  to  tell  his  good- 
night story  in  the  merry  circle  at  the  distant 
Grandissime  mansion.  As  the  apothecary 
was  closing  his  last  door  for  the  night,  the 
fairer  Honore  called  him  out  into  the  moon- 
light. 

"  Withered,"  the  student  was  saying  audi- 
bly to  himself,  "not  in  the  shadow  of  the 
Ethiopian,  but  in  the  glare  of  the  white  man." 

"  Who  is  with-e'd  ?  "  pleasantly  demanded 
Honore. 

The  apothecary  started  slightly. 

"  Did  I  speak  ?  How  do  you  do,  sir  ? 
I  meant  the  free  quadroons." 

"  Including  the  gentleman  frhom  whom 
you  rhent  yo'  sto'  ?  " 

"Yes,  him  especially;  he  told  me  this 
morning  the  story  of  Bras-Coupe." 

M.  Grandissime  laughed.    Joseph  did  not 


26 


THE   GRANDISSIMES. 


see  why,  nor  did  the  laugh  sound  entirely 
genuine. 

"  Do  not  open  yo'  do',  Mr.  Frhowenfeld," 
said  the  Creole.  "  Get  yo'  grheat-coat  and 
cane  and  come  take  a  walk  with  me;  I 
will  tell  you  the  same  storhy." 

It  was  two  hours  before  they  approached 
this  door  again  on  their  return.  Just  before 
they  reached  it,  Honore  stopped  under  the 
huge  street-lamp,  whose  light  had  gone  out, 
where  a  large  stone  lay  before  him  on  the 
ground  in  the  narrow,  moonlit  street.  There 
was  a  tall,  unfinished  building  at  his  back. 

"  Mr.  Frhowenfeld," — he  struck  the  stone 
with  his  cane, — "  this  stone  is  Brhas-Coupe 
— we  cast  it  aside  because  it  turns  the  edge 
of  ow  tools." 

He  laughed.  He  had  laughed  to-night 
more  than  was  comfortable  to  a  man  of 
Frowenfeld's  quiet  mind. 

As  the  apothecary  thrust  his  shop-key 
into  the  lock  and  so  paused  to  hear  his  com- 
panion, who  had  begun  again  to  speak,  he 
wondered  what  it  could  be — for  M.  Grand- 
issime  had  not  disclosed  it — that  induced 
such  a  man  as  he  to  roam  aimlessly,  as  it 
seemed,  in  deserted  streets  at  such  chill  and 
dangerous  hours.  "  What  does  he  want 
with  me  ?  "  The  thought  was  so  natural 
that  it  was  no  miracle  the  Creole  read  it. 

"  Well,"  said  he,  smiling  and  taking  an 
attitude,  "  you  are-h  a  grheat  man  fo'  causes, 
Mr.  Frhowenfeld ;  but  me,  I  am  fo'  rhesults, 
ha,  ha !  You  may  pondeh  the  philosophy 
of  Brhas-Coupe  inyo'  study,  but  /have  got 
to  get  rhid  of  his  rhesults,  me.  You  know 
them." 

"  You  tell  me  it  revived  a  war  where  you 
had  made  a  peace,"  said  Frowenfeld. 

"  Yes — yes — that  is  his  rhesults ;  but 
good-night,  Mr.  Frhowenfeld." 

"  Good-night,  sir." 

CHAPTER  XXXI. 
ANOTHER  WOUND    IN   A   NEW   PLACE. 

EACH  day  found  Doctor  Keene's  strength 
increasing,  and  on  the  morning  following 
the  incidents  last  recorded  he  was  impru- 
dently projecting  an  out-door  promenade. 
An  announcement  from  Honore  Grandis- 
sime,  who  had  paid  an  early  call,  had,  to 
that  gentleman's  no  small  surprise,  produced 
a  sudden  and  violent  effect  on  the  little 
man's  temper. 

He  was  sitting  by  his  window,  looking 
out  upon  the  levee,  when  the  apothecary 
entered  the  apartment. 


"  Frowenfeld,"  he  instantly  began,  with 
evident  displeasure  most  unaccountable  to 
Joseph,  "  I  hear  you  have  been  visiting  the 
Nancanous." 

"  Yes,  I  have  been  there." 

"  Well,  you  had  no  business  to  go  !  " 

Doctor  Keene  smote  the  arm  of  his  chair 
with  his  fist. 

Frowenfeld  reddened  with  indignation, 
but  suppressed  his  retort.  He  stood  still  in 
the  middle  of  the  floor,  and  Doctor  Keene 
looked  out  of  the  window. 

"  Doctor  Keene,"  said  the  visitor,  when 
this  attitude  was  no  longer  tolerable,  "  have 
you  anything  more  to  say  to  me  before  I 
leave  you  ?  " 

"  No,  sir." 

"  It  is  necessary  for  me,  then,  to  say  that 
in  fulfillment  of  my  promise,  I  am  going 
from  here  to  the  house  of  Palmyre,  and  that 
she  will  need  no  further  attention  after  to- 
day. As  to  your  present  manner  toward 
me,  I  shall  endeavor  to  suspend  judgment 
until  I  have  some  knowledge  of  its  cause." 

The  doctor  made  no  reply,  but  went  on 
looking  out  of  the  window,  and  Frowenfeld 
turned  and  left  him. 

As  he  arrived  in  the  Philosophe's  sick- 
chamber — where  he  found  her  sitting  in  a 
chair  set  well  back  from  a  small  fire — she 
half  whispered  "  Miche  "  with  a  fine,  greet- 
ing smile,  as  if  to  a  brother  after  a  week's 
absence.  To  a  person  forced  to  lie  abed, 
shut  away  from  occupation  and  events,  a 
day  is  ten,  three  are  a  month ;  not  merely  in 
the  wear  and  tear  upon  the  patience,  but 
also  in  the  amount  of  thinking  and  recollect- 
ing done.  It  was  to  be  expected,  then,  that 
on  this,  the  apothecary's  third  visit,  Palmyre 
would  have  learned  to  take  pleasure  in  his 
coming. 

But  the  smile  was  followed  by  a  faint, 
momentary  frown,  as  if  Frowenfeld  had 
hardly  returned  it  in  kind.  Likely  enough, 
he  had  not.  He  was  not  distinctively  a 
man  of  smiles;  and  as  he  engaged  in  his 
appointed  task  she  presently  thought  of 
this. 

"  This  wound  is  doing  so  well,"  said  Jo- 
seph, still  engaged  with  the  bandages,  "  that 
I  shall  not  need  to  come  again."  He  was 
not  looking  at  her  as  he  spoke,  but  he  felt 
her  give  a  sudden  start.  He  thought,  "  All 
her  impulses  are  sudden  and  violent,"  but 
he  should  not  have  said  "  all."  He  said, 
presently :  "  With  the  assistance  of  your 
slave  woman,  you  can  now  attend  to  it 
yourself." 

She  made  no  answer. 


THE    GRANDISSIMES. 


27 


When,  with  a  bow,  he  would  have  said 
good-morning,  she  held  out  her  hand  for 
his;  and  when,  after  a  barely  perceptible 
hesitation,  he  gave  it,  she  held  it  fast,  in  a 
way  to  indicate  that  there  was  something  to 
be  said  which  he  must  stay  and  hear. 

She  looked  up  into  his  face.  She  may 
have  been  merely  framing  in  her  mind  the 
word  or  two  of  English  she  was  about  to 
utter;  but  an  excitement  shone  through  her 
eyes  and  reddened  her  lips,  and  something 
sent  out  from  her  countenance  a  look  of  wild 
distress. 

"  You  goin'  tell  'im  ?  "  she  asked. 

"  Who  ?     Agricola  ?  " 

"  Non!" 

He  spoke  the  next  name  more  softly. 

"  Honore  ?  " 

Her  eyes  looked  deeply  into  his  for  a  mo- 
ment, then  dropped,  and  she  made  a  sign 
of  assent. 

He  was  about  to  say  that  Honore  knew 
already,  but  saw  no  necessity  for  doing  so, 
and  changed  his  answer. 

"  I  will  never  tell  any  one." 

"  You  know  ?  "  she  asked,  lifting  her  eyes 
for  an  instant.  She  meant  to  ask  if  he 
knew  the  motive  that  had  prompted  her 
murderous  intent. 

"  I  know  your  whole  sad  history." 

She  looked  at  him  for  a  moment,  fixedly ; 
then,  still  holding  his  hand  with  one  of 
hers,  she  threw  the  other  to  her  face  and 
turned  away  her  head.  He  thought  she 
moaned. 

Thus  she  remained  for  a  few  moments, 
then  suddenly  she  turned,  clasped  both  hands 
about  his,  her  face  flamed  up  and  she 
opened  her  lips  to  speak,  but  speech  failed. 
An  expression  of  pain  and  supplication  came 
upon  her  countenance,  and  the  cry  burst 
from  her : 

"  Meg  'im  to  love  me  !  " 

He  tried  to  withdraw  his  hand,  but  she 
held  it  fast,  and,  looking  up  imploringly 
with  her  wide,  electric  eyes,  cried  : 

"  Vous  pouvez  lefaire,  vous  pouvez  le  faire 
(you  can  do  it,  you  can  do  it) ;  vous  etes  sor- 
rier, mo  conne  bien  vous  etes  sorrier  (you  are 
a  sorcerer,  I  know)." 

However  harmless  or  healthful  Joseph's 
touch  might  be  to  the  Philosophe,  he  felt 
now  that  her  touch,  to  him,  was  poisonous. 
He  dared  encounter  her  eyes,  her  touch, 
her  voice,  no  longer.  The  better  man  in 
him  was  suffocating.  He  scarce  had  power 
left  to  liberate  his  right  hand  with  his  left, 
to  seize  his  hat  and  go. 

Instantly  she  rose  from  her  chair,  threw 


herself  on  her  knees  in  his  path,  and  found 
command  of  his  language  sufficient  to 
cry  as  she  lifted  her  arms,  bared  of  their 
drapery : 

"  Oh  my  God !  don'  rif-used  me — don' 
rif-used  me ! " 

There  was  no  time  to  know  whether 
Frowenfeld  wavered  or  not.  The  thought 
flashed  into  his  mind  that  in  all  probability 
all  the  care  and  skill  he  had  spent  upon  the 
wound  was  being  brought  to  naught  in  this 
moment  of  wild  posturing  and  excitement ; 
but  before  it  could  have  effect  upon  his 
movements,  a  stunning  blow  fell  upon  the 
back  of  his  head,  and  the  Congo  dwarf,  un- 
der the  impression  that  it  was  the  most 
timely  of  strokes,  stood  brandishing  a  billet 
of  pine  and  preparing  to  repeat  the  blow. 

He  hurled  her,  snarling  and  gnashing  like 
an  ape,  against  the  farther  wall,  cast  the  bar 
from  the  street-door  and  plunged  out,  hat- 
less,  bleeding,  and  stunned. 


CHAPTER    XXXII. 
INTERRUPTED    PRELIMINARIES. 

ABOUT  the  same  time  of  day,  three  gen- 
tlemen (we  use  the  term  gentlemen  in  its 
petrified  state)  were  walking  down  the  rue 
Royale  from  the  direction  of  the  Faubourg 
Ste.  Marie. 

They  were  coming  down  toward  Pal- 
myre's  corner.  The  middle  one,  tall  and 
shapely,  might  have  been  mistaken  at  first 
glance  for  Honore  Grandissime,  but  was 
taller  and  broader,  and  wore  a  cocked  hat, 
which  Honore  did  not.  It  was  Valentine. 
The  short,  black-bearded  man  in  buckskin 
breeches  on  his  right  was  Jean-Baptiste 
Grandissime,  and  the  slight  one  on  the  left, 
who,  with  the  prettiest  and  most  graceful 
gestures  and  balancings,  was  leading  the 
conversation,  was  Hippolyte  Brahmin-Man- 
darin, a  cousin  and  counterpart  of  that  sturdy- 
hearted  challenger  of  Agricola,  Sylvestre. 

"  But  after  all,"  he  was  saying  in  Louis- 
iana French,  "  there  is  no  spot  comparable, 
for  comfortable  seclusion,  to  the  old  orange 
grove  under  the  levee  on  the  Point ;  twenty 
minutes  in  a  skiff,  five  minutes  for  prelim- 
inaries— you  would  not  want  more,  the 
ground  has  been  measured  off  five  hundred 
times — '  are  you  ready  ? ' " 

"  Ah,  bah !  "  said  Valentine,  tossing  his 
head,  "  the  Yankees  would  be  down  on  us 
before  you  could  count  one." 

"Well,   then,   behind  the  Jesuits'  ware- 


28 


THE   GRANDISSIMES. 


houses,  if  you  insist.  I  don't  care.  Perdition 
take  such  a  government !  I  am  almost  sorry 
I  went  to  the  governor's  reception." 

"  It  was  quiet,  I  hear ;  a  sort  of  quiet 
ball,  all  promenading  and  no  contra-dances. 
One  quadroon  ball  is  worth  five  of  such." 

This  was  the  opinion  of  Jean-Baptiste. 

"  No,  it  was  fine,  anyhow.  There  was  a 
contra-dance.  The  music  was — tarata  joonc, 
tara,  tara — ta  ta  joonc,  tararata  joonc,  tari 
— oh!  it  was  the  finest  thing — and  com- 
posed here.  They  compose  as  fine  things 

here  as  they  do  anywhere  in  the look 

there!  That  man  came  out  of  Palmyre's 
house ;  see  how  he  staggered  just  then  !" 

"  Drunk,"  said  Jean-Baptiste. 

"  No,  he  seems  to  be  hurt.  He  has  been 
struck  on  the  head.  Oho,  I  tell  you,  gen- 
tlemen, that  same  Palmyre  is  a  wonderful 
animal !  Do  you  see  ?  She  not  only  de- 
fends herself  and  ejects  the  wretch,  but  she 
puts  her  mark  upon  him ;  she  identifies  him, 
ha,  ha,  ha !  Look  at  the  high  art  of  the 
thing ;  she  keeps  his  hat  as  a  small  souvenir 
and  gives  him  a  receipt  for  it  on  the  back 
of  his  head.  Ah !  but  hasn't  she  taught  him 
a  lesson  ?  Why,  gentlemen, — it  is — if  it 
isn't  that  sorcerer  of  an  apothecary  !  " 

"  What  ?  "  exclaimed  the  other  two ;  "  well, 
well,  but  this  is  too  good  !  Caught  at  last, 
ha,  ha,  ha,  the  saintly  villain  !  Ah,  ha,  ha  ! 
Will  not  Honore  be  proud  of  him  now  ? 
Ah  /  voila  un  joli  Joseph  /  What  did  I  tell 
you  ?  Didn't  I  always  tell  you  so  ?  " 

"  But  the  beauty  of  it  is,  he  is  caught  so 
cleverly.  No  escape — no  possible  explana- 
tion. There  he  is,  gentlemen,  as  plain  as  a 
rat  in  a  barrel,  and  with  as  plain  a  case. 
Ha,  ha,  ha !  Isn't  it  just  glorious  ?  " 

And  all  three  laughed  in  such  an  ecstasy 
of  glee  that  Frowenfeld  looked  back,  saw 
them,  and  knew  forthwith  that  his  good 
name  was  gone.  The  three  gentlemen, 
with  tears  of  merriment  still  in  their  eyes, 
reached  a  corner  and  disappeared. 

"  Mister,"  said  a  child,  trotting  along 
under  Frowenfeld's  elbow, — the  odd  English 
of  the  New  Orleans  street-urchin  was  at  that 
day  just  beginning  to  be  heard — "  Mister,  dey 
got  some  blood  on  de  back  of  you'  hade ! " 

But  Frowenfeld  hurried  on  groaning  with 
mental  anguish. 

CHAPTER   XXXIII. 
UNKINDEST    CUT    OF    ALL. 

IT  was  the  year  1804.  The  world  was 
trembling  under  the  tread  of  the  dread  Cor- 


sican.  It  was  but  now  that  he  had  tossed 
away  the  whole  Valley  of  the  Mississippi, 
dropping  it  overboard  as  a  little  sand  from  a 
balloon,  and  Christendom  in  a  pale  agony 
of  suspense  was  watching  the  turn  of  his 
eye ;  yet  when  a  gibbering  black  fool  here 
on  the  edge  of  civilization  merely  swings  a 
pine-knot,  the  swinging  of  that  pine-knot 
becomes  to  Joseph  Frowenfeld,  student  of 
man,  a  matter  of  greater  moment  than  the 
destination  of  the  Boulogne  Flotilla.  For 
it  now  became  for  the  moment  the  foremost 
necessity  of  his  life  to  show,  to  that  minute 
fraction  of  the  earth's  population  which  our 
terror  misnames  "  the  world,"  that  a  man 
may  leap  forth  hatless  and  bleeding  from 
the  house  of  a  New  Orleans  quadroon  into 
the  open  street  and  yet  be  pure  white  with- 
in. Would  it  answer  to  tell  the  truth  ? 
Parts  of  that  truth  he  was  pledged  not  to 
tell ;  and  even  if  he  could  tell  it  all  it  was 
incredible — bore  all  the  features  of  a  flimsy 
lie. 

"  Mister,"  repeated  the  same  child  who 
had  spoken  before,  re-inforced  by  another 
under  the  other  elbow,  "  dey  got  some 
blood  on  de  back  of  you'  hade." 

And  the  other  added  the  suggestion  : 
"  Dey  got  one  drug-sto',  yondah." 
Frowenfeld  groaned  again.  The  knock 
had  been  a  hard  one,  the  ground  and  sky 
went  round  not  a  little,  but  he  retained 
withal  a  white-hot  process  of  thought  that 
kept  before  him  his  hopeless  inability  to  ex- 
plain. He  was  coffined  alive.  The  world 
(so-called)  would  bury  him  in  utter  loathing, 
and  write  on  his  head-stone  the  one  word — 
hypocrite.  And  he  should  lie  there  and 
helplessly  contemplate  Honor£  pushing  for- 
ward those  purposes  which  he  had  begun 
to  hope  he  was  to  have  had  the  honor  of 
furthering.  But  instead  of  so  doing  he 
would  now  be  the  by-word  of  the  street. 
"  Mister,"  interposed  the  child  once  more, 
spokesman  this  time  for  a  dozen  blacks  and 
whites  of  all  sizes  trailing  along  before  and 
behind,  "dey  got  some  blood  on  de  back  of 
you'  hade." 

That  same  morning  Clotilde  had  given  a 
music-scholar  her  appointed  lesson,  and  at 
its  conclusion  had  borrowed  of  her  patron- 
ess (how  pleasant  it  must  have  been  to 
have  such  things  to  lend!)  a  little  yellow 
maid,  in  order  that,  with  more  propriety,  she 
might  make  a  business  call.  It  was  that 
matter  of  the  rent — one  that  had  of  late 
occasioned  her  great  secret  distress.  "  It  is 
plain,"  she  had  begun  to  say  to  herself, 


THE   GRANDISSIMES. 


29 


unable  to  comprehend  Aurora's  peculiar  trust 
in  Providence,  "  that  if  the  money  is  to  be 
got  I  must  get  it."  A  possibility  had 
flashed  upon  her  mind ;  she  had  nurtured 
it  into  a  project,  had  submitted  it  to  her 
father-confessor  in  the  cathedral,  and  re- 
ceived his  unqualified  approval  of  it,  and 
was  ready  this  morning  to  put  it  into  execu- 
tion. A  great  merit  of  the  plan  was  its  sim- 
plicity. It  was  merely  to  find  for  her  heav- 
iest bracelet  a  purchaser  in  time,  and  a  price 
sufficient,  to  pay  to-morrow's  "maturities." 
See  there  again  ! — to  her,  her  little  secret 
was  of  greater  import  than  the  collision  of 
almost  any  pine-knot  with  almost  any  head. 

It  must  not  be  accepted  as  evidence 
either  of  her  unwillingness  to  sell  or  of  the 
amount  of  gold  in  the  bracelet,  that  it  took 
the  total  of  Clotilde's  moral  and  physical 
strength  to  carry  it  to  the  shop  where  she 
hoped — against  hope — to  dispose  of  it. 

'Sieur  Frowenfeld,  M.  Innerarity  said, 
was  out,  but  would  certainly  be  in  in  a  few 
minutes,  and  she  was  persuaded  to  take  a 
chair  against  the  half-hidden  door  at  the 
bottom  of  the  shop  with  the  little  borrowed 
maid  crouched  at  her  feet. 

She  had  twice  or  thrice  felt  a  regret  that 
she  had  undertaken  to  wait,  and  was  about 
to  rise  and  go,  when  suddenly  she  saw  be- 
fore her  Joseph  Frowenfeld,  wiping  the 
sweat  of  anguish  from  his  brow  and  smeared 
with  blood  from  his  forehead  down.  She 
rose  quickly  and  silently,  turned  sick  and 
blind,  and  laid  her  hand  upon  the  back  of 
the  chair  for  support.  Frowenfeld  stood  an 
instant  before  her,  groaned,  and  disappeared, 
through  the  door.  The  little  maid,  retreat- 
ing backward  against  her  from  the  direction 
of  the  street-door,  drew  to  her  attention  a 
crowd  of  sight-seers  which  had  rushed  up  to 
the  doors  and  against  which  Raoul  was  hur- 
riedly closing  the  shop. 

CHAPTER  XXXIV. 
CLOTILDE  AS   A   SURGEON. 

WAS  it  worse  to  stay,  or  to  fly  ?  The  de- 
cision must  be  instantaneous.  But  Raoul 
made  it  easy  by  crying  in  their  common 
tongue,  as  he  slammed  a  massive  shutter 
and  shot  its  bolt : 

"  Go  to  him !  he  is  down — I  heard  him 
fall.  Go  to  him !  " 

At  this  rallying  cry  she  seized  her  shield 
— that  is  to  say,  the  little  yellow  attendant, 
and  hurried  into  the  room.  Joseph  lay 
just  beyond  the  middle  of  the  apartment, 


face  downward.  She  found  water  and  a 
basin,  wet  her  own  handkerchief,  and 
dropped  to  her  knees  beside  his  head ;  but 
the  moment  he  felt  the  small,  feminine 
hands  he  stood  up.  She  took  him  by  the 
arm. 

"Asseyez-veus,  Monsierf — pliz  to  give  you'- 
sev  de  pens  to  see  down,  'Sieu'  Frowenfel'." 

She  spoke  with  a  nervous  tenderness  in 
contrast  with  her  alarmed  and  entreating 
expression  of  face,  and  gently  pushed  him 
into  a  chair. 

The  child  ran  behind  the  bed  and  burst 
into  frightened  sobs,  but  ceased  when  Clo- 
tilde  turned  for  an  instant  and  glared  at  her. 

"  Hague  yo'  'ead  back,"  said  Clotilde, 
and  with  tremulous  tenderness  she  softly 
pressed  back  his  brow  and  began  wiping 
off  the  blood.  "  Were  you  is  'urted  ?  " 

But  while  she  was  asking  her  question 
she  had  found  the  gash  and  was  growing 
alarmed  at  its  ugliness,  when  Raoul,  having 
made  everything  fast,  came  in  with  : 

"Wat's  de  mattah,  'Sieur  Frowenfel'? 
w'at's  de  mattah  wid  you  ?  Oo  done  dat, 
'Sieur  Frowenfel'  ?  " 

Joseph  lifted  his  head  and  drew  away 
from  it  the  small  hand  and  wet  handkerchief, 
and  without  letting  go  the  hand,  looked 
again  into  Clotilde's  eyes,  and  said  : 

"  Go  home ;  oh,  go  home !  " 

"  Oh !  no,"  protested  Raoul,  whereupon 
Clotilde  turned  upon  him  with  a  perfectly 
amiable,  nurse's  grimace  for  silence. 

"  I  goin'  rad  now,"  she  said. 

Raoul's  silence  was  only  momentary. 

"  Were  you  lef  you'  hat,  'Sieur  Frowen- 
fel' ?  "  he  asked,  and  stole  an  artist's  glance 
at  Clotilde,  while  Joseph  straightened  up, 
and  nerving  himself  to  a  tolerable  calmness 
of  speech,  said : 

"  I  have  been  struck  with  a  stick  of  wood 
by  a  half-witted  -person  under  a  misunder- 
standing of  my  intentions ;  but  the  circum- 
stances are  such  as  to  blacken  my  character 
hopelessly ;  but  I  am  innocent !  "  he  cried, 
stretching  forward  both  arms  and  quite  los- 
ing his  momentary  self-control. 

"  '  Sieu'  Frowenfel' ! "  cried  Clotilde,  tears 
leaping  to  her  eyes,  "  I  am  shoe  of  it ! " 

"  I  believe  you !  I  believe  you,  'Sieur 
Frowenfel' ! "  exclaimed  Raoul  with  sincerity. 

"  You  will  not  believe  me,"  said  Joseph. 
"You  will  not;  it  will  be  impossible." 

"  Mais"  cried  Clotilde,  "  id  shall  nod  be 
impossib' !  " 

But  the  apothecary  shook  his  head. 

"All  I  can  be  suspected  of  will  seem 
probable;  the  truth  only  is  incredible." 


28 


THE   GRANDISSIMES. 


houses,  if  you  insist.  I  don't  care.  Perdition 
take  such  a  government !  I  am  almost  sorry 
I  went  to  the  governor's  reception." 

"  It  was  quiet,  I  hear ;  a  sort  of  quiet 
ball,  all  promenading  and  no  contra-dances. 
One  quadroon  ball  is  worth  five  of  such." 

This  was  the  opinion  of  Jean-Baptiste. 

"  No,  it  was  fine,  anyhow.  There  was  a 
contra-dance.  The  music  was — tarata  joonc, 
tara,  tara — ta  ta  joonc,  tararata  joonc,  tara 
—oh!  it  was  the  finest  thing — and  com- 
posed here.  They  compose  as  fine  things 

here  as  they  do  anywhere  in  the look 

there!  That  man  came  out  of  Palmyre's 
house ;  see  how  he  staggered  just  then  !" 

"  Drunk,"  said  Jean-Baptiste. 

"  No,  he  seems  to  be  hurt.  He  has  been 
struck  on  the  head.  Oho,  I  tell  you,  gen- 
tlemen, that  same  Palmyre  is  a  wonderful 
animal !  Do  you  see  ?  She  not  only  de- 
fends herself  and  ejects  the  wretch,  but  she 
puts  her  mark  upon  him ;  she  identifies  him, 
ha,  ha,  ha !  Look  at  the  high  art  of  the 
thing ;  she  keeps  his  hat  as  a  small  souvenir 
and  gives  him  a  receipt  for  it  on  the  back 
of  his  head.  Ah !  but  hasn't  she  taught  him 
a  lesson  ?  Why,  gentlemen, — it  is — if  it 
isn't  that  sorcerer  of  an  apothecary  !  " 

"  What  ?  "  exclaimed  the  other  two ;  "  well, 
well,  but  this  is  too  good  !  Caught  at  last, 
ha,  ha,  ha,  the  saintly  villain  !  Ah,  ha,  ha  ! 
Will  not  Honore  be  proud  of  him  now  ? 
Ah  /  voilh  tin  joli  Joseph  /  What  did  I  tell 
you  ?  Didn't  I  a/ways  tell  you  so  ?  " 

"  But  the  beauty  of  it  is,  he  is  caught  so 
cleverly.  No  escape — no  possible  explana- 
tion. There  he  is,  gentlemen,  as  plain  as  a 
rat  in  a  barrel,  and  with  as  plain  a  case. 
Ha,  ha,  ha  !  Isn't  it  just  glorious  ?  " 

And  all  three  laughed  in  such  an  ecstasy 
of  glee  that  Frowenfeld  looked  back,  saw 
them,  and  knew  forthwith  that  his  good 
name  was  gone.  The  three  gentlemen, 
with  tears  of  merriment  still  in  their  eyes, 
reached  a  corner  and  disappeared. 

"  Mister,"  said  a  child,  trotting  along 
under  Frowenfeld's  elbow, — the  odd  English 
of  the  New  Orleans  street-urchin  was  at  that 
day  just  beginning  to  be  heard — "  Mister,  dey 
got  some  blood  on  de  back  of  you'  hade ! " 

But  Frowenfeld  hurried  on  groaning  with 
mental  anguish. 

CHAPTER  XXXIII. 
UNKINDEST    CUT   OF   ALL. 

IT  was  the  year  1804.  The  world  was 
trembling  under  the  tread  of  the  dread  Cor- 


sican.  It  was  but  now  that  he  had  tossed 
away  the  whole  Valley  of  the  Mississippi, 
dropping  it  overboard  as  a  little  sand  from  a 
balloon,  and  Christendom  in  a  pale  agony 
of  suspense  was  watching  the  turn  of  his 
eye ;  yet  when  a  gibbering  black  fool  here 
on  the  edge  of  civilization  merely  swings  a 
pine-knot,  the  swinging  of  that  pine-knot 
becomes  to  Joseph  Frowenfeld,  student  of 
man,  a  matter  of  greater  moment  than  the 
destination  of  the  Boulogne  Flotilla.  For 
it  now  became  for  the  moment  the  foremost 
necessity  of  his  life  to  show,  to  that  minute 
fraction  of  the  earth's  population  which  our 
terror  misnames  "  the  world,"  that  a  man 
may  leap  forth  hatless  and  bleeding  from, 
the  house  of  a  New  Orleans  quadroon  into 
the  open  street  and  yet  be  pure  white  with- 
in. Would  it  answer  to  tell  the  truth  ? 
Parts  of  that  truth  he  was  pledged  not  to 
tell;  and  even  if  he  could  tell  it  all  it  was 
incredible — bore  all  the  features  of  a  flimsy 
lie. 

"  Mister,"  repeated  the  same  child  who 
had  spoken  before,  re-inforced  by  another 
under  the  other  elbow,  "  dey  got  some 
blood  on  de  back  of  you'  hade." 

And  the  other  added  the  suggestion  : 
"  Dey  got  one  drug-sto',  yondah." 
Frowenfeld  groaned  again.  The  knock 
had  been  a  hard  one,  the  ground  and  sky 
went  round  not  a  little,  but  he  retained 
withal  a  white-hot  process  of  thought  that 
kept  before  him  his  hopeless  inability  to  ex- 
plain. He  was  coffined  alive.  The  world 
(so-called)  would  bury  him  in  utter  loathing, 
and  write  on  his  head-stone  the  one  word — 
hypocrite.  And  he  should  lie  there  and 
helplessly  contemplate  Honore  pushing  for- 
ward those  purposes  which  he  had  begun 
to  hope  he  was  to  have  had  the  honor  of 
furthering.  But  instead  of  so  doing  he 
would  now  be  the  by-word  of  the  street. 
"  Mister,"  interposed  the  child  once  more, 
spokesman  this  time  for  a  dozen  blacks  and 
whites  of  all  sizes  trailing  along  before  and 
behind,  "dey  got  some  blood  on  de  back  of 
you'  hade" 

That  same  morning  Clotilde  had  given  a 
music-scholar  her  appointed  lesson,  and  at 
its  conclusion  had  borrowed  of  her  patron- 
ess (how  pleasant  it  must  have  been  to 
have  such  things  to  lend!)  a  little  yellow 
maid,  in  order  that,  with  more  propriety,  she 
might  make  a  business  call.  It  was  that 
matter  of  the  rent — one  that  had  of  late 
occasioned  her  great  secret  distress.  "  It  is 
plain,"  she  had  begun  to  say  to  herself, 


THE   GRANDISSIMES. 


29 


unable  to  comprehend  Aurora's  peculiar  trust 
in  Providence,  "  that  if  the  money  is  to  be 
got  I  must  get  it."  A  possibility  had 
flashed  upon  her  mind;  she  had  nurtured 
it  into  a  project,  had  submitted  it  to  her 
father-confessor  in  the  cathedral,  and  re- 
ceived his  unqualified  approval  of  it,  and 
was  ready  this  morning  to  put  it  into  execu- 
tion. A  great  merit  of  the  plan  was  its  sim- 
plicity. It  was  merely  to  find  for  her  heav- 
iest bracelet  a  purchaser  in  time,  and  a  price 
sufficient,  to  pay  to-morrow's  "maturities." 
See  there  again  ! — to  her,  her  little  secret 
was  of  greater  import  than  the  collision  of 
almost  any  pine-knot  with  almost  any  head. 

It  must  not  be  accepted  as  evidence 
either  of  her  unwillingness  to  sell  or  of  the 
amount  of  gold  in  the  bracelet,  that  it  took 
the  total  of  Clotilde's  moral  and  physical 
strength  to  carry  it  to  the  shop  where  she 
hoped — against  hope — to  dispose  of  it. 

'Sieur  Frowenfeld,  M.  Innerarity  said, 
was  out,  but  would  certainly  be  in  in  a  few 
minutes,  and  she  was  persuaded  to  take  a 
chair  against  the  half-hidden  door  at  the 
bottom  of  the  shop  with  the  little  borrowed 
maid  crouched  at  her  feet. 

She  had  twice  or  thrice  felt  a  regret  that 
she  had  undertaken  to  wait,  and  was  about 
to  rise  and  go,  when  suddenly  she  saw  be- 
fore her  Joseph  Frowenfeld,  wiping  the 
/sweat  of  anguish  from  his  brow  and  smeared 
with  blood  from  his  forehead  down.  She 
rose  quickly  and  silently,  turned  sick  and 
blind,  and  laid  her  hand  upon  the  back  of 
the  chair  for  support.  Frowenfeld  stood  an 
instant  before  her,  groaned,  and  disappeared, 
through  the  door.  The  little  maid,  retreat- 
ing backward  against  her  from  the  direction 
of  the  street-door,  drew  to  her  attention  a 
crowd  of  sight-seers  which  had  rushed  up  to 
the  doors  and  against  which  Raoul  was  hur- 
riedly closing  the  shop. 

CHAPTER  XXXIV. 
CLOTILDE   AS   A   SURGEON. 

WAS  it  worse  to  stay,  or  to  fly  ?  The  de- 
cision must  be  instantaneous.  But  Raoul 
made  it  easy  by  crying  in  their  common 
tongue,  as  he  slammed  a  massive  shutter 
and  shot  its  bolt : 

"  Go  to  him !  he  is  down — I  heard  him 
fall.  Go  to  him !  " 

At  this  rallying  cry  she  seized  her  shield 
— that  is  to  say,  the  little  yellow  attendant, 
and  hurried  into  the  room.  Joseph  lay 
just  beyond  the  middle  of  the  apartment, 


face  downward.  She  found  water  and  a 
basin,  wet  her  own  handkerchief,  and 
dropped  to  her  knees  beside  his  head;  but 
the  moment  he  felt  the  small,  feminine 
hands  he  stood  up.  She  took  him  by  the 
arm. 

"Asseyez-vous,  Monsieu' — pliz  to  give  you'- 
sev  de  pens  to  see  down,  'Sieu'  Frowenfel'." 

She  spoke  with  a  nervous  tenderness  in 
contrast  with  her  alarmed  and  entreating 
expression  of  face,  and  gently  pushed  him 
into  a  chair. 

The  child  ran  behind  the  bed  and  burst 
into  frightened  sobs,  but  ceased  when  Clo- 
tilde  turned  for  an  instant  and  glared  at  her. 

"  Hague  yo1  'ead  back,"  said  Clotilde, 
and  with  tremulous  tenderness  she  softly 
pressed  back  his  brow  and  began  wiping 
off  the  blood.  "  Were  you  is  'urted  ?  " 

But  while  she  was  asking  her  question 
she  had  found  the  gash  and  was  growing 
alarmed  at  its  ugliness,  when  Raoul,  having 
made  everything  fast,  came  in  with  : 

"Wat's  de  mattah,  'Sieur  Frowenfel'? 
w'at's  de  mattah  wid  you  ?  Oo  done  dat, 
'Sieur  Frowenfel'  ?  " 

Joseph  lifted  his  head  and  drew  away 
from  it  the  small  hand  and  wet  handkerchief, 
and  without  letting  go  the  hand,  looked 
again  into  Clotilde's  eyes,  and  said : 

"  Go  home ;  oh,  go  home !  " 

"  Oh !  no,"  protested  Raoul,  whereupon 
Clotilde  turned  upon  him  with  a  perfectly 
amiable,  nurse's  grimace  for  silence. 

"  I  goin'  rad  now,"  she  said. 

Raoul's  silence  was  only  momentary. 

"  Were  you  lef  you'  hat,  'Sieur  Frowen- 
fel' ?  "  he  asked,  and  stole  an  artist's  glance 
at  Clotilde,  while  Joseph  straightened  up, 
and  nerving  himself  to  a  tolerable  calmness 
of  speech,  said : 

"  I  have  been  struck  with  a  stick  of  wood 
by  a  half-witted  -person  under  a  misunder- 
standing of  my  intentions ;  but  the  circum- 
stances are  such  as  to  blacken  my  character 
hopelessly ;  but  I  am  innocent !  "  he  cried, 
stretching  forward  both  arms  and  quite  los- 
ing his  momentary  self-control. 

"  '  Sieu'  Frowenfel' ! "  cried  Clotilde,  tears 
leaping  to  her  eyes,  "  I  am  shoe  of  it !  " 

"  I  believe  you  !  I  believe  you,  'Sieur 
Frowenfel' ! "  exclaimed  Raoul  with  sincerity. 

"  You  will  not  believe  me,"  said  Joseph. 
"You  will  not;  it  will  be  impossible." 

"  Mais"  cried  Clotilde,  "  id  shall  nod  be 
impossib' !  " 

But  the  apothecary  shook  his  head. 

"All  I  can  be  suspected  of  will  seem 
probable ;  the  truth  only  is  incredible." 


3° 


THE   GRANDISSIMES. 


His  head  began  to  sink  and  a  pallor  to 
overspread  his  face. 

"  Allez,  mon/ieur,  allez"  cried  Clotilde  to 
Raoul,  a  picture  of  beautiful  terror  which 
he  tried  afterward  to  paint  from  memory, 
"  appelez  Doctah  Kin  ! " 

Raoul  made  a  dash  for  his  hat,  and  the 
next  moment  she  heard,  with  unpleasant 
distinctness,  his  impetuous  hand  slam  the 
shop  door  and  lock  her  in. 

"Bailie  ma  do  Teau"  she  called  to  the 
little  mulattress,  who  responded  by  search- 
ing wildly  for  a  cup  and  presently  bringing 
a  measuring-glass  full  of  water. 

Clotilde  gave  it  to  the  wounded  man,  and 
he  rose  at  once  and  stood  on  his  feet. 

"  Raoul." 

"  'E  gone  at  Doctah  Kin." 

"  I  do  not  need  Doctor  Keene ;  I  am 
not  badly  hurt.  Raoul  should  not  have 
left  you  here  in  this  manner.  You  must 
not  stay." 

"Bud,  'Sieur  Frowenfel',  I  am  afred  to 
trah  to  paz  dad  gangue !  " 

A  new  distress  seized  Joseph  in  view  of 
this  additional  complication.  But,  unmind- 
ful of  this  suggestion,  the  fair  Creole  sud- 
denly exclaimed : 

"  'Sieu'  Frowenfel',  you  har  a  hinnocen' 
man !  Go,  hopen  yo'  do's  an'  stan'  juz  as 
you  har  ub  birfo  dad  crowd  an  sesso !  My 
God !  'Sieu'  Frowenfel',  iv  you  canned 
stan'  ub  by  you'sev " 

She  ceased  suddenly  with  a  wild  look, 
as  if  another  word  would  have  broken  the 
levees  of  her  eyes,  and  -in  that  instant  Frow- 
enfeld  recovered  the  full  stature  of  a  man. 

"  God  bless  you  ! "  he  cried.  "  I  will  do 
it !  "  He  started,  then  turned  again  toward 
her,  dumb  for  an  instant,  and  said :  "  And 
God  reward  you  !  You  believe  in  me,  and 
you  do  not  even  know  me." 

Her  eyes  became  wilder  still  as  she 
looked  up  into  his  face  with  the  words  : 

"  Mais,  I  does  know  you — betteh  'n  you 
know  annyt'in'  boud  it !  "  and  turned  away, 
blushing  violently. 

Frowenfeld  gave  a  start.  •  She  had  given 
him  too  much  light.  He  recognized  her, 
and  she  knew  it.  For  another  instant  he 
gazed  at  her  averted  face,  and  then  with 
forced  quietness  said : 

"  Please  go  into  the  shop." 

The  whole  time  that  had  elapsed  since 
the  shutting  of  the  doors  had  not  exceeded 
five  minutes;  a  sixth  sufficed  for  Clotilde 
and  her  attendant  to  resume  their  original 
position  in  the  nook  by  the  private  door  and 
for  Frowenfeld  to  wash  his  face  and  hands. 


Then  the  alert  and  numerous  ears  without 
heard  a  drawing  of  bolts  at  the  door  next 
to  that  by  which  Raoul  had  issued,  its 
leaves  opened  outward,  and  first  the  pale 
hands  and  then  the  white,  weakened  face 
and  still  bloody  hair  and  apparel  of  the 
apothecary  made  their  appearance.  He 
opened  a  window  and  another  door.  The 
one  locked  by  Raoul,  when  unbolted, 
yielded  without  a  key,  and  the  shop  stood 
open. 

"  My  friends,"  said  the  trembling  propri- 
etor, "  if  any  of  you  wishes  to  buy  anything, 
I  am  ready  to  serve  him.  The  rest  will 
please  move  away." 

The  invitation,  though  probably  under- 
stood, was  responded  to  by  only  a  few  at 
the  banquette's  edge,  where  a  respectable 
face  or  two  wore  scrutinizing  frowns.  The 
remainder  persisted  in  silently  standing  and 
gazing  in  at  the  bloody  man. 

Frowenfeld  bore  the  gaze.  There  was  one 
element  of  emphatic  satisfaction  in  it — it 
drew  their  observation  from  Clotilde,  at  the 
other  end  of  the  shop.  He  stole  a  glance 
backward;  she  was  not  there.  She  had 
watched  her  chance,  safely  escaped  through 
the  side  door,  and  was  gone. 

Raoul  returned. 

"  'Sieur  Frowenfel',  Doctor  Keene  is  took 
worst  ag'in.  'E  is  in  bed ;  but  'e  say  to  tell 
you  in  dat  lill  troubF  of  dis  mawnin'  it  is 
himseff  w'at  is  inti'lie  wrong,  an'  'e  hass  you 
poddon.  'E  says  sen'  fo'  Doctor  Conrotte, 
but  I  din-  go  fo'  him ;  dat  ole  scoun'rel — he 
believe  in  puttin'  de  niggas  fre'." 

Frowenfeld  said  he  would  not  consult  pro- 
fessional advisers;  with  a  little  assistance 
from  Raoul,  he  could  give  the  cut  the 
slight  attention  it  needed.  He  went  back 
into  his  room,  while  Raoul  turned  back  to 
the  door  and  addressed  the  public. 

"  Pray,  Messieurs,  come  in  and  be 
seated."  He  spoke  in  the  Creole  French 
of  the  gutters.  "  Come  in.  M.  Frowenfeld 
is  dressing,  and  desires  that  you  will  have  a 
little  patience.  Come  in.  Take  chairs. 
You  will  not  come  in  ?  No  ?  Nor  you, 
Monsieur  ?  No  ?  I  will  set  some  chairs 
outside,  eh  ?  No  ?  " 

They  moved  by  twos  and  threes  away, 
and  Raoul,  retiring,  gave  his  employer  such 
momentary  aid  as  was  required.  When 
Joseph,  in  changed  dress,  once  more  ap- 
peared, only  a  child  or  two  lingered  to  see 
him,  and  he  had  nothing  to  do  but  sit  down 
and,  as  far  as  he  felt  at  liberty  to  do  so,  an- 
swer his  assistant's  questions. 

During  the  recital,  Raoul  was  obliged  to 


THE    GRANDISSIMES. 


exercise  the  severest  self-restraint  to  avoid 
laughing, — a  feeling  which  was  modified  by 
the  desire  to  assure  his  employer  that  he 
understood  this  sort  of  thing  perfectly,  had 
run  the  same  risks  himself,  and  thought  no 
less  of  a  man,  providing  he  was  a  gentleman, 
because  of  an  unlucky  retributive  knock  on 
the  head.  But  he  feared  laughter  would 
over-climb  speech ;  and,  indeed,  with  all  ex- 
pression of  sympathy  stifled,  he  did  not  suc- 
ceed so  completely  in  hiding,  the  conflicting 
emotion  but  that  Joseph  did  once  turn  his 
pale,  grave  face  surprisedly,  hearing  a  snuf- 
fling sound,  suddenly  stifled  in  a  drawer  of 
corks.  Said  Raoul,  with  an  unsteady  utter- 
ance, as  he  slammed  the  drawer : 

"  H-h-dat  makes  me  dat  I  can't  'elp  to 
laugh  w'en  I  t'ink  of  dat  fool  yesse'dy  w'at 
want  to  buy  my  pigshoe  for  honly  one 
'undred  dolla' — ha,  ha,  ha,  ha !  " 

He  laughed  almost  indecorously. 

"  Raoul,"  said  Frowenfeld,  rising  and 
closing  his  eyes,  "  I  am  going  back  for  my 
hat.  It  would  make  matters  worse  for  that 
person  to  send  it  to  me,  and  it  would  be 
something  like  a  vindication  for  me  to  go 
back  to  the  house  and  get  it." 

Mr.  Innerarity  was  about  to  make  stren- 
uous objection,  when  there  came  in  one 
whom  he  recognized  as  an  attache  of  his 
cousin  Honore's  counting-room,  and  handed 
the  apothecary  a  note.  It  contained  Hon- 
ore's request  that  if  Frowenfeld  was  in  his 
shop  he  would  have  the  goodness  to  wait 
there  until  the  writer  could  call  and  see  him. 

"  I  will  wait,"  was  the  reply. 


CHAPTER  XXXV. 
"FO"  WAD  YOU  CRYNE?" 

CLOTILDE,  a  step  or  two  from  home,  dis- 
missed her  attendant,  and  as  Aurora,  with 
anxious  haste,  opened  to  her  familiar  knock, 
appeared  before  her  pale  and  trembling. 

"Ah,  mafille " 

The  overwrought  girl  dropped  her  head 
and  wept  without  restraint  upon  her  moth- 
er's neck.  She  let  herself  be  guided  to  a 
chair,  and  there,  while  Aurora  nestled  close 
to  her  side,  yielded  a  few  moments  to  rev- 
erie before  she  was  called  upon  to  speak. 
Then  Aurora  first  quietly  took  possession  of 
her  hands,  and  after  another  tender  pause 
asked  in  English,  which  was  equivalent  to 
whispering : 

"  W'ere  you  was,  cherie  ?  " 

"  'Sieur  Frowenfel' " 


Aurora  straightened  up  with  angry  aston- 
ishment and  drew  in  her  breath  for  an  em- 
phatic speech,  but  Clotilde,  liberating  her 
own  hands,  took  Aurora's,  and  hurriedly 
said,  turning  still  paler  as  she  spoke  : 

"  'E  godd  his  'ead  strigue !  Tis  all 
knog  in  be'ine !  'E  come  in  blidding " 

"  In  w'ere  ?  "  cried  Aurora. 

"  In  'is  shob." 

"  You  was  in  dad  shob  of  'Sieur  Frowen- 
fel' ?  " 

"  I  wend  ad  'is  shob  to  pay  doze  rend." 

"  How — you  wend  ad  'is  shob  to  pay " 

Clotilde  produced  the  bracelet.  The  two 
looked  at  each  other  in  silence  for  a  mo- 
ment, while  Aurora  took  in  without  further 
explanation  Clotilde's  project  and  its  failure. 

"An'  'Sieur  Frowenfel'— dey  kill  'im  ? 
Ah !  ma  chere,  fo'  wad  you  mague  me  to 
hass  all  doze  question  ?  " 

Clotilde  gave  a  brief  account  of  the  mat- 
ter, omitting  only  her  conversation  with 
Frowenfeld. 

"  Mais,  oo  strigue  'im  ? "  demanded  Au- 
rora, impatiently. 

"  Addunno  !  "  replied  the  other.  "  Bud  I 
does  know  'e  is  hinnocen' !  " 

A  small  scouting-party  of  tears  re-appeared 
on  the  edge  of  her  eyes. 

"  Innocen'  from  wad  ?  " 

Aurora  betrayed  a  twinkle  of  amusement. 

"  Hev'ryt'in',  iv  you  pliz !  "  exclaimed 
Clotilde,  with  most  uncalled-for  warmth. 

"  An'  you  crah  bic-ause  'e  is  nod  guiltie  ?  " 

"  Ah !  foolish  !  " 

"  Ah,  non,  mie  chile,  I  know  fo'  wad 
you  cryne  :  'tis  h-only  de  sighd  of  de  blood." 

"Oh,  sighd  of  blood!" 

Clotilde  let  a  little  nervous  laugh  escape 
through  her  dejection. 

"  Well,  den," — Aurora's  eyes  twinkled  like 
stars, — "  id  muz  be  bic-ause  'Sieur  Frowen- 
fel' bump  'is  'ead — ha,  ha,  ha  !  " 

"  'T  is  nod-true ' ! "  cried  Clotilde ;  but,  in- 
stead of  laughing,  as  Aurora  had  supposed 
she  would,  she  sent  a  double  flash  of  light 
from  her  eyes,  crimsoned,  and  retorted,  as 
the  tears  again  sprang  from  their  lurking- 
place,  "  You  wand  to  mague  ligue  you 
don'  cyah  !  Bud  /  know  !  I  know  verrie 
well!  You  cyah  fifty  time'  as  mudge  as 
me!  I  know  you!  I  know  you!  I  bin 
wadge  you  !  " 

Aurora  was  quite  dumb  for  a  moment, 
and  gazed  at  Clotilde,  wondering  what  could 
have  made  her  so  unlike  herself.  Then  she 
half  rose  up,  and,  as  she  reached  forward  an 
arm  and  laid  it  tenderly  about  her  daughter's 
neck,  said : 


32 


THE   GRANDISSIMES. 


"  Ma  lill  dotter,  wad  dad  meggin  you 
cry  ?  Iv  you  will  tell  me  wad  dad  mague 
you  cry,  I  will  tell  you — on  ma  second  word 
of  honor" — she  rolled  up  her  fist — "  juz  wad 
I  thing  about  dad  'Sieur  Frowenfel' !  " 

"  I  don'  cyah  wad  de  whole  worP  thing 
aboud  'im ! " 

"  Mais,  anny'ow,  tell  me  fo'  wad  you 
cryne  ?  " 

Clotilde  gazed  aside  for  a  moment  and 
tnen  confronted  her  questioner  consentingly. 

"  I  tole  'im  I  knowed  'e  war  h-innocen'." 

"  Eh,  bien,  dad  was  h-only  de  poli-i-id- 
enez.  Wad  'e  said  ?  " 

"  'E  said  I  din  knowed  'im  'tall." 

"  An'  you,"  exclaimed  Aurora,  "  it  is  nod 
pozzyble  dad  you " 

"  I  tole  'im  I  know  'im  bette'n  'e  know 
annyt'in'  'boud  id  !  " 

The  speaker  dropped  her  face  into  her 
mother's  lap. 

"  Ha,  ha  1 "  laughed  Aurora,  "  an'  wad  of 
dad  ?  I  would  say  dad,  me,  fo'  time'  a  day. 
I  gi'e  you  mie  word  'e  don  godd  dad  sens' 
to  know  wad  dad  mean." 

"  Ah  !  don  godd  sens' ! "  cried  Clotilde, 
lifting  her  head  up  suddenly  with  a  face  of 
agony.  "  'E  reg — 'e  reggo-ni-i-ize  me !  " 

Aurora  caught  her  daughter's  cheeks  be- 
tween her  hands  and  laughed  all  over 
them. 

"  Mais,  don  you  see  'ow  dad  was  luggy  ? 
Now,  you  know  ? — 'e  goin'  fall  in  love  wid 
you  an'  you  goin'  'ave  dad  sadizfagzion  to 
rif-use  de  biggis'  hand  in  Noo-'leans.  An' 
you  will  be  h-even,  ha,  ha !  Bud  me — you 
wand  to  know  wad  I  thing  aboud  'im  ?  I 
thing  'e  is  one — egcellen'  drug-cl — ah,  ha, 
ha!" 

Clotilde  replied  with  a  smile  of  grieved 
incredulity. 

"  De  bez  in  de  ciddy !  "  insisted  the  other. 
She  crossed  the  forefinger  of  one  hand  upon 
that  of  the  other  and  kissed  them,  reversed 
the  cross  and  kissed  them  again.  "  Mais, 
ad  de  sem  tarn,"  she  added,  giving  her 
daughter  time  to  smile,  "  I  thing  'e  is  one 
noble  gentleman.  Nod  to  sood  me,  of  coze, 
mats,  fa  fait  rien — daz  nott'n';  me,  I  am 
now  a  h'ole  woman,  you  know,  eh  ?  No- 
boddie  can'  nevva  sood  me  no  mo',  nod 
ivven  dad  Govenno'  Cleb-orne." 

She  tried  to  look  old  and  jaded. 

"  Ah,  Govenno'  Cleb-orne  !  "  exclaimed 
Clotilde. 

"  Yass  ! — Ah,  you ! — you  thing  iv  a  man 
is  nod  a  Creole  'e  bown  to  be  no  'coun' ! 
I  assu'  you  dey  don'  godd  no  boddy  wad  I 
fine  a  so  nize  gen'leman  lag  Govenno'  Cleb- 


orne  !     Ah !    Clotilde,   you    godd    no   lib'- 
ral'ty !  " 

The  speaker  rose,  cast  a  discouraged  part- 
ing look  upon  her  narrow-minded  compan- 
ion and  went  to  investigate  the  slumbrous 
silence  of  the  kitchen. 

CHAPTER   XXXVI. 
AURORA    INVESTS   THE    LAST   PICAYUNE. 

NOT  often  in  Aurora's  life  had  joy  and 
trembling  so  been  mingled  in  one  cup  as  on 
this  day.  Clotilde  wept ;  and  certainly  her 
heart  could  but  respond ;  yet  Clotilde's  tears 
filled  her  with  a  secret  pleasure  which  fought 
its  way  up  into  the  beams  of  her  eyes  and 
asserted  itself  in  the  frequency  and  hearti- 
ness of  her  laugh  despite  her  sincere  partici- 
pation in  her  companion's  distresses  and  a 
fearful  looking  forward  to  to-morrow. 

Why  these  flashes  of  gladness  ?  If  we  dc 
not  know,  it  is  because  we  have  overlooked 
one  of  her  sources  of  trouble.  From  the 
night  of  the  bal  masque  she  had — we  dare 
say  no  more  than  that  she  had  been  haunted : 
she  certainly  would  not  at  first  have  ad- 
mitted even  so  much  to  herself.  Yet  the 
fact  was  not  thereby  altered,  and  first  the 
fact  and  later  the  feeling  had  given  her  much 
distress  of  mind.  Who  he  was  whose  im- 
age would  not  down,  for  a  long  time  she  die 
not  know.  This,  alone,  was  torture ;  nol 
merely  because  it  was  mystery,  but  because 
it  helped  to  force  upon  her  the  consciousness 
that  her  affections,  spite  of  her,  were  read) 
and  waiting  for  him  and  he  did  not  come 
after  them.  That  he  loved  her,  she  knew  : 
she  had  achieved  at  the  ball  an  overwhelm- 
ing victory,  to  her  certain  knowledge,  or, 
depend  upon  it,  she  never  would  have  un- 
masked— never. 

But  with  this  torture  was  mingled  not 
only  the  ecstasy  of  loving,  but  the  fear  of 
her  daughter.  This  is  a  world  that  allows 
nothing  without  its  obverse  and  reverse, 
Strange  differences  are  often  seen  between 
the  two  sides ;  and  one  of  the  strangest  and 
most  inharmonious  in  this  world  of  human 
relations  is  that  coinage  which  a  mother 
sometimes  finds  herself  offering  to  a  daugh- 
ter, and  which  reads  on  one  side,  Bride- 
groom, and  on  the  other,  Step-father. 

Then,  all  this  torture  to  be  hidden  under 
smiles  !  Worse  still,  when  by  and  by  Mes- 
sieurs Agoussou,  Assonquer,  Danny  and  oth- 
ers had  been  appealed  to  and  a  Providence 
boundless  in  tender  compassion  had  an- 
swered, she  and  her  lover  had  simultane- 


THE    GRANDISSIMES. 


33 


ously  discovered  each  other's  identity  only 
to  find  that  he  was  a  Montague  to  her 
Capulet.  And  the  source  of  her  agony 
must  be  hidden,  and  falsely  attributed  to 
the  rent  deficiency  and  their  unprotected 
lives.  Its  true  nature  must  be  hidden  even 
from  Clotilde.  What  a  secret — for  what  a 
spirit — to  keep  from  what  a  companion  ! — 
a  secret  yielding  honey  to  her,  but,  it  might 
be,  gall  to  Clotilde.  She  felt  like  one  locked 
in  the  Garden  of  Eden  all  alone — alone  with 
all  the  ravishing  flowers,  alone  with  all  the 
lions  and  tigers.  She  wished  she  had  told 
the  secret  when  it  was  small  and  had  let  it 
increase  by  gradual  accretions  in  Clotilde' s 
knowledge  day  by  day.  At  first  it  had  been 
but  a  garland,  then  it  had  become  a  chain, 
now  it  was  a  ball  and  chain ;  and  it  was  Oh  ! 
and  oh !  if  Clotilde  would  only  fall  in  love 
herself.  How  that  would  simplify  matters  ! 
More  than  twice  or  thrice  she  had  tried  to 
reveal  her  overstrained  heart  in  broken  sec- 
tions; but,  on  her  approach  to  the  very  outer 
confines  of  the  matter,  Clotilde  had  always 
behaved  so  strangely,  so  nervously,  in  short, 
so  beyond  Aurora's  comprehension,  that  she 
invariably  failed  to  make  any  revelation. 

And  now,  here  in  the  very  central  dark- 
ness of  this  cloud  of  troubles,  comes  in  Clo- 
tilde, throws  herself  upon  the  defiant  little 
bosom  so  full  of  hidden  suffering,  and  weeps 
tears  of  innocent  confession  that  in  a  mo- 
ment lay  the  dust  of  half  of  Aurora's  per- 
plexities. Strange  world !  The  tears  of 
the  orphan  making  the  widow  weep  for  joy, 
if  she  only  dared. 

The  pair  sat  down  opposite  each  other  at 
their  little  dinner-table.  They  had  a  fixed 
hour  for  dinner.  It  is  well  to  have  a  fixed 
hour ;  it  is  in  the  direction  of  system.  Even 
if  you  have  not  the  dinner,  there  is  the 
hour.  Alphonsina  was  not  in  perfect  har- 
mony with  this  fixed-hour  idea.  It  was 
Aurora's  belief,  often  expressed  in  hungry 
moments  with  the  laugh  of  a  vexed  Creole 
lady  (a  laugh  worthy  of  study),  that  on  the 
day  when  dinner  should  really  be  served  at 
the  appointed  hour,  the  cook  would  drop 
dead  of  apoplexy  and  she  of  fright.  She 
said  it  to-day,  shutting  her  arms  down  to 
her  side,  closing  her  eyes  with  her  eyebrows 
raised,  and  dropping  into  her  chair  at  the 
table  like  a  dead  bird  from  its  perch.  Not 
that  she  felt  particularly  hungry ;  but  there 
is  a  certain  desultoriness  allowable  at  table 
more  than  elsewhere,  and  which  suited  the 
hither-thither  movement  of  her  conflicting 
feelings.  This  is  why  she  had  wished  for 
dinner. 


Boiled  shrimps,  rice,  claret  and  water, 
bread — they  were  dining  well  the  day  be- 
fore execution.  Dining  is  hardly  correct, 
either,  for  Clotilde,  at  least,  did  not  eat; 
they  only  sat.  Clotilde  had,  too,  if  not  her 
unknown,  at  least  her  unconfessed  emo- 
tions. Aurora's  were  tossed  by  the  waves, 
hers  were  sunken  beneath  them.  Aurora 
had  a  faith  that  the  rent  would  be  paid — a 
faith  which  was  only  a  vapor,  but  a  vapor 
gilded  by  the  sun — that  is,  by  Apollo,  or,  to 
be  still  more  explicit,  by  Honore  Grandis- 
sime.  Clotilde,  deprived  of  this  confidence, 
had  tried  to  raise  means  wherewith  to  meet 
the  dread  obligation,  or,  rather,  had  tried  to 
try  and  had  failed.  To-day  was  the  ninth, 
to-morrow,  the  street.  Joseph  Frowenfeld 
was  hurt ;  her  dependence  upon  .his  good 
offices  was  gone.  When  she  thought  of 
him  suffering  under  public  contumely,  it 
seemed  to  her  as  if  she  could  feel  the  big 
drops  of  blood  dropping  from  her  heart; 
and  when  she  recalled  her  own  actions, 
speeches,  and  demonstrations  in  his  pres- 
ence, exaggerated  by  the  groundless  fear 
that  he  had  guessed  into  the  deepest  springs 
of  her  feelings,  then  she  felt  those  drops  of 
blood  congeal.  Even  if  the  apothecary 
had  been  duller  of  discernment  than  she 
supposed,  here  was  Aurora,  on  the  oppo- 
site side  of  the  table,  reading  every  thought 
of  her  inmost  soul.  But  worst  of  all  was 
'Sieur  Frowenfel's  indifference.  It  is  true 
tMt,  as  he  had  directed  upon  her  that  gaze 
of  recognition,  there  was  a  look  of  mighty 
gladness,  if  she  dared  believe  her  eyes. 
But  no,  she  dared  not;  there  was  nothing 
there  for  her,  she  thought, — probably  (when 
this  anguish  of  public  disgrace  should  by 
any  means  be  lifted)  a  benevolent  smile  at 
her  and  her  betrayal  of  interest.  Clotilde  felt 
as  though  she  had  been  laid  entire  upon  a 
slide  of  his  microscope. 

Aurora  at  length  broke  her  reverie. 

"  Clotilde," — she  spoke  in  French — "  the 
matter  with  you  is  that  you  have  no  heart. 
You  never  did  have  any.  Really  and 
truly,  you  do  not  care  whether  'Sieur  Frow- 
enfeP  lives  or  dies.  You  do  not  care  how 
he  is  or  where  he  is  this  minute.  I  wish 
you  had  some  of  my  too  large  heart.  I  not 
only  have  the  heart,  as  I  tell  you,  to  think 
kindly  of  our  enemies,  doze  Grandissime, 
for  example  " — she  waved  her  hand  with 
the  air  of  selecting  at  random — "  but  I  am 
burning  up  to  know  what  is  the  condition 
of  that  poor,  sick,  noble  'Sieur  Frowenfel', 
and  I  am  going  to  do  it !  " 

The   heart  which   Clotilde  was   accused 


34 


THE    GROWTH  OF   WOOD-CUT  PRINTING. 


of  not  having  gave  a  stir  of  deep  gratitude. 
Dear,  pretty  little  mother !  Not  only  know- 
ing full  well  the  existence  of  this  swelling 
heart  and  the  significance,  to-day,  of  its 
every  warm  pulsation,  but  kindly  covering 
up  the  discovery  with  make-believe  re- 
proaches. The  tears  started  in  her  eyes ; 
that  was  her  reply. 

"  Oh,  now  !  it  is  the  rent  again,  I  sup- 
pose," cried  Aurora,  "  always  the  rent.  It 
is  not  the  rent  that  worries  me,  it  is  'Sieur 
Frowenfel',  poor  man.  But  very  well,  Mad- 
emoiselle Silence,  I  will  match  you  for  mak- 
ing me  do  all  the  talking."  She  was  really 
beginning  to  sink  under  the  labor  of  carry- 
ing all  the  sprightliness  for  both.  "  Come," 
she  said,  savagely,  "  propose  something." 

"  Would  you  think  well  to  go  and  in- 
quire ?  " 

"  Ah,  listen  !  Go  and  what  ?  No,  Mad- 
emoiselle, I  think  not." 

"  Well,  send  Alphonsina." 

"  What  ?  And  let  him  know  that  I  am 
anxious  about  him  ?  Let  me  tell  you,  my 
little  girl,  I  shall  not  drag  upon  myself  the 
responsibility  of  increasing  the  self-conceit 
of  any  of  that  sex." 


"  Well,  then,  send  to  buy  a  picayune's 
worth  of  something." 

"  Ah,  ha,  ha !  An  emetic,  for  instance. 
Tell  him  we  are  poisoned  on  mushrooms, 
ha,  ha,  ha  !  " 

Clotilde  laughed  too. 

"  Ah,  no,"  she  said.  "  Send  for  some- 
thing he  does  not  sell." 

Aurora  was  laughing  while  Clotilde 
spoke ;  but  as  she  caught  these  words  she 
stopped  with  open-mouthed  astonishment, 
and,  as  Clotilde  blushed,  laughed  again. 

"  Oh,  Clotilde,  Clotilde,  Clotilde  !  "—she 
leaned  forward  over  the  table,  her  face 
beaming  with  love  and  laughter — "  you 
rowdy !  you  rascal !  You  are  just  as  bad 
as  your  mother,  whom  you  think  so  wicked ! 
I  accept  your  advice.  Alphonsina  !  " 

"  Momselle ! " 

The  answer  came  from  the  kitchen. 

"  Come  go — or,  rather, — vini  'a  courridam 
boutique  de  Vapothecaire,  Clotilde,"  she  con- 
tinued, in  better  French,  holding  up  the  coin 
to  view,  "  Look !  " 

«  What  ?  " 

"  The  last  picayune  we  have  in  the  world 
— ha,  ha,  ha!  " 


(To  be  continued.) 


THE    GROWTH    OF   WOOD-CUT  PRINTING.     II. 


THE  MODERN  METHOD  BY  MACHINES. 


THE  early  decline  of  engraving  on  wood 
must  be  attributed  to  the  imperfect  methods 
and  materials  of  hand-press  printing.  If 
the  art  did  not  come  before  its  time,  it  did 
wait  nearly  four  centuries  for  the  cuts  which 
have  most  plainly  shown  the  beauty  and  use- 
fulness of  the  art — for  cuts  that  had  to  be 
printed  on  printing  machines  of  iron,  and  on 
machine-made  paper.  It  should  be  noted 
that  the  iron  press  and  iron  printing  machine 
which  gave  this  demonstration  could  not 
have  been  made  at  a  much  earlier  period. 
The  invention  of  the  machine  waited  for  the 
invention  of  the  steam-engine,  and  of  swiftly 
following  mechanisms  which  shaped  and 
planed  the  metal  of  which  it  was  made  as 
it  never  could  have  been  done  by  hand  labor. 
When  made,  the  machine  itself  could  not 
have  been  used  to  profit  without  steam. 

There  is  no  accessible  wood-cut  of  the 
first  printing  machine  made  for  the  London 
"  Times,"  but  it  must  have  been  a  marvel 


of  complexity,  for,  although  it  printed  by 
one  operation  only  one  side  of  the  sheet, 
it  had  more  than  one  hundred  pinion-wheels, 
The  engraving  shown  on  next  page  is  a 
representation  of  a  competing  machine  made 
in  1819,  which  printed  both  sides.  The  man- 
ufacturer plumed  himself  on  its  simplicity, 
and  said  it  was  "  susceptible  of  little  im- 
provement,"— a  statement  which  will  draw 
a  smile  from  pressmen  of  our  time,  who  note 
the  slenderness  of  its  frame-work  and  cylin- 
der-shafts, and  the  inconvenient  method  of 
delivery.  It  had,  however,  enough  of  merit 
to  persuade  Charles  Knight  that  it  was  pos- 
sible to  print  wood-cuts  by  machinery;  who. 
encouraged  by  the  support  of  the  Society 
for  the  Diffusion  of  Useful  Knowledge, 
begun,  in  1832,  the  "  Penny  Magazine,"  the 
pioneer  of  modern  illustrated  journalism. 
It  was  a  bold  undertaking.  Publishers  and 
printers  had  decided  that  wood-cuts  could 
not  be  printed  on  machines.  Artists  sneered 


THE    GROWTH  OF   WOOD-CUT  PRINTING. 


35 


at  an  illustrated  penny  magazine  as  a  degra- 
dation of  art  and  literature.  Most  of  them 
refused  help.  Critics  in  reviews  hooted  at 
it  in  this  fashion  :  "  As  there  is  no  royal 
road  to  mathematics,  so  we  say,  once  for 
all,  there  is  no  '  Penny  Magazine  '  road  to 
the  fine  arts.  The  cultivation  of  the  fine 
arts  must  be  carried  on  by  a  comparatively 
small  and  gifted  few,  under  the  patronage 
of  men  of  wealth  and  leisure."  Engravers 
who  could  cut  blocks  for  machine  work  were 
engaged  with  difficulty.  To  prevent  delays 
in  printing,  unusual  precautions  had  to  be 
taken  in  the  preparation  of  the  wood.  The 
blocks  so  prepared  often  broke  in  press, 
compelling  the  use  of  the  inferior  stereotype. 
The  printing  machine  and  its  inking  attach- 


been    secured   so   thoroughly  through    the 
patronage  of  a  few  men  of  wealth. 

The  quality  of  the  earliest  wood-cut  print- 
ing of  the  "  Penny  Magazine  "  was  not  of 
the  best,  but  it  was  as  good  as  that  of 
ordinary  books.  As  the  printers  got  experi- 
ence the  quality  improved.  One  of  the  fruits 
of  this  experience  was  the  discovery  that  the 
most  unsatisfactory  prints  were  those  that 
contained  the  most  "work,"  which  means 
that  they  were  over-full  of  elaborately  laid- 
in  copper-plate  lines, — a"  style  of  cutting 
from  which  many  engravers  never  could 
free  themselves.  Fine  as  these  cuts  seemed 
in  the  engraver's  proof,  they  were  either 
gray  or  muddy  in  the  print,  for  the  three 
in  king-rollers  of  the  best  machines  were  not 


A,  white  pape 
pape 


ENGLISH     PRINTING     MACHINE    OF    1019. 

IT  on  its  way  to  first  printing  cylinder;   B,  first  printing  cylinder ;   C  C,  intermediate  cylinders  for  reversing  the 
:r;    D,  second  printing  cylinder;   E  E,  inking  rollers ;   F,  inking  fountain ;   H,  delivery  of  printed  sheet. 


ments  often  got  out  of  order,  and  made 
great  disappointments.  Under  discourage- 
ments which  would  have  broken  down  most 
)ublishers,  Knight  persevered  and  pushed 
up  the  circulation  of  the  magazine  until,  at 
one  period,  it  reached  200,000  copies.  He 
had  a  right  to  claim,  as  he  did,  that  the 
'  Penny  Magazine  "  had  made  a  revolution 
in  popular  art;  that  it  had  given  to -the 
Drdinary  British  reader  a  knowledge  of  art 
reasures  of  painting  and  sculpture  which 
:ould  not  have  been  imparted  by  any  other 
igency ;  that  it  had  given  a  world-wide 
•eputation  to  the  works  of  rising  artists  like 
Harvey,  Doyle,  Cruikshank,  Leech,  Ten- 
liel,  and  Gilbert,  which  never  could  have 


enough  to  distribute  smoothly  over  them  a 
sufficient  quantity  of  ink.  Some  machines 
had  but  one  in  king-roller.  No  press-maker 
seemed  to  realize  the  gravity  of  this  defect, 

certainly  not  enough  to  compel  him  to 

make  new  machines  with  more  rollers. 
Printers  and  publishers  found  it  easier  to 
alter  the  style  of  engraving.  The  most 
satisfactory  prints  were  those  in  closest  imita- 
tion of  the  open,  free-hand  sketch  of  the  de- 
signer ;  prints  that  did  not  require  as  much 
ink  and  pressure  as  those  in  the  copper-plate 
style.  As  the  sketchy  style  was  most  pleas- 
ing to  the  artist,  as  well  as  easiest  to  the 
printer,  it  grew  in  favor,  and  became  one  of 
the  most  taking  features  of  "  Punch,"  when 


THE   GROWTH  OF   WOOD-CUT  PRINTING. 


it  appeared,  for  the  first  time,  in  1841.  For 
even  the  inartistic  reader  could  see  more 
freshness  and  real  merit  in  the  easy,  simple 
lines  of  Cruikshank  and  Doyle  than  in  the 


A     SKETCH     BY    DOYLE. 


exact,  insipidly  fine,  and  monotonously  gray 
wood-cuts  of  more  pretentious  publications. 

The  open,  sketchy  style  of  engraving  had 
its  disadvantages.  Stereotypes  of  cuts  in 
this  style  wore  down  too  soon  under  the 
rapid  beatings  of  the  cylinder.  On  a  long 
edition,  of  which  the  early  impressions  were 
sharp,  clean  and  pure,  the  last  were  too  often 
thick,  muddy,  disgraceful.  This  check  to 
the  development  of  wood-cut  press-work 
was  removed  by  the  invention  of  the  art  of 
electrotyping,  which  substituted  a  thin  shell 
of  copper  on  a  type-metal  base  for  the 
stereotype  of  soft  metal.  For  this  invention 
there  are  four  claimants, — Jacobi  of  St. 
Petersburg,  Jordan  and  Spencer  of  England, 
and  Joseph  A.  Adams,,  an  engraver  of  New 
York, — all  of  whom  were  experimenting  in 
1839.  Adams  seems  to  have  been  the  first 
who  did  practical  work,  as  he  fairly  showed 
in  an  electrotyped  wood-cut  printed  in 
"  Mapes's  Magazine"  in  1841,  as  well  as  in 
the  illustrations  (the  press-work  of  which 
he  superintended)  of  Harper's  "  Illustrated 
Bible,"  which  soon  followed. 

Electrotyping  was  soon  tested  to  its  ut- 
most limits.  As  soon  as  it  was  demon- 
strated that  the  electrotype  could  receive, 
unharmed,  an  unusually  large  number  of 
impressions,  there  followed  a  revival  of  the 
fondness  for  close  and  fine  work,  for  middle 
tint  and  dark  color.  Engravers  thought 
they  were  fully  justified  in  cutting  closer, 
finer,  shallower  than  they  would  have  dared 
on  a  block  destined  for  stereotyping.  This 


reversion  to  the*  older  style  of  engraving 
put  back  the  old  impediment  in  the  way  ol 
successful  machine  press-work,  for  the  cut: 
in  this  revived  style  were  too  fine  and  toe 
shallow  to  be  properly  inked  with  the  ma 
chinery  then  in  common  use. 

Nearly  all  the  printing  machines  madt 
in  this  country  before  1850  were  providec 
with  but  two  inking-rollers, — not  half  enougt 
for  the  inking  of  black  or  blackish-gray  cuts 
If  the  flow  of  ink  were  adjusted  to  give  jus 
enough  for  light  lines,  the  dark  grays  anc 
blacks  would  be  but  half  inked  ;  if  the  flov 
of  ink  were  increased  until  the  darker  por 
tions  of  the  cut  were  fairly  colored,  then  the 
lighter  lines  would  be  over-colored,  thick  anc 
muddy.  To  give  a  proper  measure  to  th< 
light  and  dark  parts  of  the  cuts,  it  was  nee 
essary  to  increase  the  number  of  rollers 
but  most  American  machine  makers  wer< 
not  entirely  convinced,  even  as  late  as  1856 
of  the  value  of  four  and  six-roller  machines 

This  hesitation  seems  surprising,  for  man) 
of  the  most  important  improvements  ii 
printing  machinery  are  American  inventions 
The  Columbian  hand-press  of  1817,  whicl 
was  preferred  to  the  Stanhope,  was  the  fore 
runner  of  a  great  many.  Of  most  import 
ance  was  the  Adams  power-press,  a  huge 
machine  which  printed  sheets  twice  as  large 
and  at  four  times  the  speed  of  the  hand 
press,  by  the  same  old  method  of  plater 
pressure.  It  supplanted  all  rivals,  almos 
without  opposition.  For  nearly  thirty  years 
it  was  regarded  by  publishers  as  the  onl} 
machine  fit  for  printing  books.  This  prefer 
ence  was  warranted  by  its  success  with  type 
work  and  with  the  small  wood-cuts  whicl 
were  sparsely  scattered  over  the  pages  ol 
American  books  thirty-five  years  ago.  I 
was  not  so  successful  with  large  and  blacl 
wood-cuts.  Engravers  complained  that  the 
Adams  press  did  not "  bring  out "  the  strengtl 
of  large  work,  but  it  was  then  supposed  tha 
the  fault  was  due  to  deficient  inking. 

It  was  on  this  press  that  the  experimen 
of  four  and  six  inking-rollers  was  first  made 
but  only  to  the  improved  printing  of  cut 
of  small  size  and  light  color;  on  full-pag* 
or  double-page  cuts  the  failure  of  the  pres 
to  face  the  cuts  was  as  decided  as  ever 
The  unavoidable  inference  that  the  Adam 
press  was  too  weak  for  heavy  wood-cu 
work  was  formed  very  slowly.  Printer 
who  had  no  other  form  of  press,  and  pub 
lishers  who  wished  to  save  the  extra  charge 
for  hand-press  work  on  half  sheets,  were  no 
yet  ready  to  be  convinced.  Its  occasiona 
failures  were  set  down  as  faults  of  paper,  o 


THE    GROWTH  OF   WOOD-CUT  PRINTING. 


37 


ink,  of  pressman, — of  anything  but  the  weak- 
ness of  the  press. 

The  stubborn  refusal  of  American  book- 
printers  to  use  for  fine  book-work  any  other 
form  of  press  than  the  Adams  was  a  great 
hindrance  to  the  development  of  engraving 
on  wood.  The  large  cuts  published  between 
1850  and  1865  were  not,  as  a  rule,  as  well 
printed  as  they  would  have  been  in  1840 
on  the  hand-press.  This  declension  was  the 
result  of  the  gratuitous  assumption  that  cuts 
could  be  fairly  printed  only  under  platen 
pressure.  Our  newspaper  critics  sneered  at 
American  wood-cut  printing.  The  old  ques- 
tion, "  Who  reads  an  American  book  ?  "  was 
varied  for  new  offenders.  "  Where  is  the 
American  printer  or  publisher  who  can  fairly 
or  decently  print  wood-cuts  ? "  It  was  a 
proper  taunt,  for  transatlantic  printers  were 
then  printing  cuts  of  the  highest  merit  on 
machines,  while  American  printers  were  spoil- 
ing many  of  their  best  blocks  through  their 
prejudice  in  favor  of  platen  pressure.* 

Prejudice  in  favor  of  platen  pressure  died 
hard.  It  was  asserted  that,  although  the 


their  choice  wood-cut  work  printed  by  hand. 
One  New  York  printer  put  up  ten  hand- 
presses,  with  intent  to  revive  this  neglected 
method  of  press-work.  It  was  a  disappoint- 
ing experiment.  About  one-half  of  the  work 
was  done  as  well,  but  no  better,  than  it 
could  have  been  done  on  a  machine ;  at 
least  one-half  was  much  worse.  For  it  was 
found  that  the  old  race  of  skilled  hand-press- 
men had  disappeared.  They  had  slipped  out 
of  the  ranks  when  the  Adams  power-press 
came  in.  In  the  hands  of  the  inexperts  who 
followed  them,  cuts  were  treated  worse  than 
they  would  have  been  by  cylinder  pressmen. 
To  the  few  connoisseurs  in  fine  printing,  who 
still  retain  an  admiration  for  hand  press- 
work,  it  may  be  proper  here  to  say  that  the 
skill  of  the  wood-cut  hand-pressman  of  forty 
years  ago  is  not  to  be  bought.  In  every 
large  city  there  may  be  left  one  or  two  of 
the  pupils  of  the  old  experts,  but,  as  a  trade 
or  art,  wood-cut  printing  by  hand-press  is  as 
extinct  an  art  as  that  of  making  paper  by 
hand. 

After  repeated  failures,  publishers  began 


ADAMS     POWER    PRESS. 


Adams  press  might  be  too  weak  for  large 
cuts,  the  theory  of  platen  pressure  was 
correct.  Old-fashioned  book-printers  con- 
tended so  stoutly  for  the  hand-press  and  for 
hand-rolling  that  several  publishers  were  in- 
duced, between  1860  and  1868,  to  have  all 


*  I  recall  the  astonishment  of  a  deceased  New 
England  printer,  who  told  me,  concerning  his  typo- 
graphical investigations  abroad,  that  he  had  seen 
with  his  own  eyes,  in  a  printing-house  at  Tours,  a 
cylinder  press  printing  the  wood-cuts  of  the  Dor6 
Bible  in  faultless  style.  He  would  not  have  be- 
lieved it  if  he  had  not  seen  it.  This  in  1866 ! 


to  look  into  the  matter.  They  found  that 
for  some  years  the  large  wood-cuts  in  manu- 
facturers' catalogues,  which  had  been  printed 
by  job-printers  on  cylinder  presses,  showed 
a  sharpness  of  line,  a  fulness  of  color  and  a 
clearness  of  tint  rarely  seen  in  good  library 
work.  It  was  plain  to  the  most  prejudiced 
that  the  despised  cylinder  did  work  which 
the  platen  press  could  not  do. 

The  easy  victory  won  by  the  cylinders 
was  largely  due  to  improvements  in  their 
construction  made  after  1860.  With  some 
machine-makers  these  improvements  were  so 


THE   GROWTH  OF   WOOD-CUT  PRINTING. 


many  and  so  radical  that  they  compelled 
an  abandonment  of  old  models  and  a  thor- 
ough reconstruction.  Machines  were  made 
with  four  and  six  inking-rollers,  rotating  in- 
cessantly, and  rolling  twice  or  thrice  over 
the  cuts  or  types  in  imitation  of  hand-press 
methods;  with  bed-plates  and  cylinders 
strong  enough  to  print  wood-cuts  as  large 
as  30  by  50  inches,  yet  so  nicely  adjusted 
that  they  could  give  almost  a  copper-plate 
clearness  to  the  thinnest  lines ;  with  such 
accurate  fittings  and  movement  that  a  regis- 
ter of  pages  or  of  meeting  colors  could  be 
made  with  the  greatest  precision. 

Old-fashioned  book  printers  were  obliged 
to  respect,  not  only  the  superior  advantages 


and  uniform  color  could  be  had  with  greatest 
certainty  on  dry  paper.  They  could  be  had, 
however,  only  when  this  dry  paper  was 
faultlessly  smooth.  This  smoothness  was 
common  enough  on  writing  and  rare  on 
printing  papers,  but  the  machinery  that 
served  for  one  grade  was  made  to  serve  for 
the  other.  Instead  of  imitating  the  expens- 
ive European  process  of  putting  the  sheets 
through  heated  plates,  the  American  manu- 
facturer put  the  newly-made  sheets  between 
cylinders  of  iron  and  hardened  paper  pulp. 
Under  this  calendering,  as  cold-rolling  is 
called,  paper  was  made  almost  as  smooth 
as  by  hot  pressing,  and  at  much  less  cost. 
Calendered  book  papers  are  now  as  com- 


STOP-CYLINDER    PRINTING    MACHINE. 


of  the  cylinder,  but  the  method,  new  to 
them,  of  printing  on  dry  paper.  It  had 
been  the  usage  in  all  book  offices  to  dampen 
paper  intended  for  printing;  to  dry  the 
sheets  after  pnnting,  and  to  smooth  out  the 
indentations  of  pressure  by  putting  the  dried 
sheets  between  the  press-boards  of  a  hydro- 
static press — tedious,  expensive  and  diffi- 
cult processes.  If  the  paper  had  been  over 
wet,  or  not  wet  enough,  the  quality  of  the 
press-work  was  damaged,  and  the  perform- 
ance of  the  press  was  diminished.  Printers 
on  cylinder  machines  had  already  proved 
that  the  wetting  of  paper  was  often  a  posi- 
tive injury  to  press-work,  and  that  sharp  lines 


mon  as  uncalendered,  and  the  dry  method 
of  printing  is  supplanting  the  wet  even  on 
ordinary  type-work. 

The  value  of  dry  and  smooth  paper  for 
fine  wood-cut  printing  cannot  be  over-esti- 
mated. A  fine  wood-cut  is  necessarily  shal- 
low. Even  with  the  smoothest  paper,  it  is 
difficult  to  keep  the  shallow  channels  made 
by  the  graver  free  from  the  ink  that  is 
pressed  on  the  surface  of  the  cut  by  the 
inking-roller  and  the  printing-cylinder.  If 
impression  be  made  on  the  swelled  and 
spongy  surface  of  damp  paper,  the  fibres 
of  the  paper  will  be  forced  more  or  less 
around  the  surface  lines  of  the  cut,  over- 


THE   GROWTH  OF  WOOD-CUT  PRINTING. 


39 


lapping  them  a  little,  closing  up  gradually 
the  white  channels,  and  making  what  en- 
gravers call  inky  press-work. 

Book-printers  gave  up  damp  paper  re- 
luctantly. For  the  new  method  of  printing 
dry  compelled  them  to  give  up  the  woollen 
blanket  which  had  been  used  between  the 
paper  and  the  pressing  surface  as  the  equal- 
izer of  impression  ever  since  the  invention 
of  printing.  That  such  an  elastic  medium 
was  needed  when  types  were  old  or  of  un- 
equal height,  or  when  the  pressed  and  press- 
ing surface  of  the  press  could  not  be  kept 
in  true  parallel,  needs  no  explanation ;  but 
the  use  of  an  elastic  printing-surface  was 
continued  long  after  these  faults  had  been 
corrected.  The  soft  blanket,  or  the  india- 
rubber  cloth,  often  used  in  place  of  it,  made 
an  uncertain  impression,  which  either  thick- 
ened the  fine  lines  of  a  cut,  or  made  them 
ragged  and  spotty.  It  would  have  been 
useless  to  get  smooth  paper  if  the  pressing- 
surface  behind  the  paper  could  be  made 
uneven.  To  get  a  pure  impression  it  was 
necessary  to  resort  not  only  to  the  engravers' 
•method  of  proving  on  dry  paper,  but  to  his 
method  of  proving  with  a  hard,  inelastic 
pressing  surface.  A  substance  was  needed 
which  could  be  pressed  with  great  force, 
without  making  indentation,  on  the  surface 
of  the  cut,  and  on  the  surface  only.  This 
substance  was  found  in  mill-glazed  "  press- 
board,"  a  .thin,  tough  card,  harder  than 
wood,  and  smooth  as  glass,  which  enabled 
the  pressman  to  produce  prints  with  the 
pure,  clean  lines  of  the  engraver's  proof. 
Old-fashioned  pressmen  prophesied  that  the 
hard  printing  surface  would  soon  crush  type 
and  cuts ;  but  experience  has  proved  that, 
when  skillfully  done,  this  hard  impression 
wears  types  and  cuts  less  than  the  elastic 
blanket. 

It  is  not  yet  ten  years  since  SCRIBNER'S 
MONTHLY  made  its  first  appearance,  with 
its  illustrations  printed  on  a  cylinder,  on  dry 
paper,  and  with  hard  impression — not  ten 
years  since  its  publishers  were  warned  by 
experts  that  it  was  ridiculous  to  attempt 
fine  printing  under  these  conditions;  but 
the  publishers  have  seen  the  propriety  of  the 
methods  (which  they  were  the  first  of  maga- 
zine men  to  adopt)  vindicated  not  only  by 
results  but  by  the  general  approval  of  the 
best  American  printers.  In  the  method  of 
hard-surface  impression,  the  printers  of 
SCRIBNER  have  pushed  experiments  to  the 
extreme.  On  two  machines  they  have  re- 
jected the  press-board  impression-surface 
as  not  hard  enough,  and  have  substituted 


sheets  of  brass  and  solid  iron  with  superior 
results.  The  finest  wood-cuts  have  been 
most  fairly  printed  when  their  surfaces  have 
been  brought  nearest  to  unyielding  metal, 
which  gives  a  clearness  and  sharpness  of 
line  that  could  be  had  in  no  other  way.  The 
wear  has  been  so  slight  that  not  one  ex- 
pert in  a  dozen  could  detect  any  difference 
between  the  first  and  the  last  thousand  in 
an  edition  of  100,000  copies. 

The  sustained  quality  of  the  press-work 
is  not  entirely  due  to  the  hard  impression. 
Plates  and  cuts  would  be  worn  out  very 
soon  were  it  not  for  the  preliminary  "  over- 
laying" of  the  cuts  and  "making  ready" 
of  the  plates.  Before  answering  the  ques- 
tions, What  are  making-ready  and  overlay- 
ing ?  something  must  be  said  about  the 
conditions  which  make  these  processes 
necessary. 

All  printing  machines  are  made  to  give 
an  even  impression  on  every  part  of  the 
printing  surface,  but  this  desired  evenness  of 
impression,  by  the  direct  or  unaided  action  of 
the  machine,  can  be  had  only  when  there  is 
evenness  in  resistance.  Different  kinds  of 
printing  surfaces  oppose  different  degrees 
of  resistance :  on  a  newspaper  form  the 
resistance  is  uniform ;  on  a  book  form,  con- 
taining black  wood-cuts,  open  spaces  and 
blank  pages,  the  resistance  is  unequal.  The 
black  cuts  resist  more  and  the  outline  cuts 
less  than  the  types;  the  blanks  do  not  resist 
at  all.  Cuts  with  strong  contrasts  of  light 
and  shade  need  much  impression  in  some 
parts  and  little  in  others.  It  follows  that  the 
even  or  flat  impression  of  the  best  machine 
cannot  make  a  good  print.  If  the  im- 
pression be  made  weak,  to  suit  outlines  or 
sky-tints,  it  will  not  transfer  the  dark  grays 
or  full  blacks  to  the  paper ;  if  it  be  made 
strong  enough  for  the  blacks  it  will  crush  the 
outlines  and  thicken  the  tints.  To  fairly  print 
the  cut  on  next  page,  the  pressure  on  every 
part  of  it  must  be  in  ratio  with  the  resist- 
ance. It  must  be  uneven, — very  hard  on  the 
blacks,  firm  on  the  middle  tints,  and  weak 
on  all  exposed  light  lines.  This  uneven- 
ness  of  impression,  which  must  be  made 
on  every  wood-cut  every  time  it  is  put  to 
press,  is  produced  by  pasting  bits  of  paper, 
carefully  cut,  of  different  thicknesses,  upon 
the  impression  surface,  in  every  place  where 
increased  impression  is  needed.  Every  thick- 
ness of  paper  added  to  the  impression  sur- 
face adds  to  the  force  exerted.  These  pieces 
of  cut  paper  are  known  as  "  overlays."  How 
they  are  cut  and  affixed  will  be  more  clearly 
shown  by  this  description  of  the  process  of 


THE    GROWTH  OF   WOOD-CUT  PRINTING. 


making 
cut. 


an  overlay  for  the  following  wood- 


A  FLAT  PRINT  WITHOUT  OVERLAY. 


The  pressman  begins  the  work  by  print- 
ing a  dozen  flat  proofs  of  the  cut  on  differ- 
ent thicknesses  of  fine  paper.  These  proofs 


are  called  flat  because  the  impression  that 
prints  them  is  perfectly  flat, — as  firm  on  the 
sky-tint  as  on  the  darkest  shadows.  The 
object  is  to  show  the  engraver's  work  on  the 
block  more  clearly  than  it  appears  in  the 
artist's  proof — to  show  it  without  attempt  to 
make  any  part  blacker  or  grayer  than  it  is  in 
the  wood.  The  overlay-cutter  compares  these 
flat  proofs  with  the  artist's  proof.  He  notes 
the  superior  blackness  and  greater  delicacy 
of  the  latter,  and  then  determines  how  many 
of  its  best  effects  can  be  imitated,  and  how 
many  thicknesses  of  paper  will  be  needed 
for  the  overlay.  He  decides  that  this  cut 
will  need  five  overlays  to  bring  out  the  five 


SECOND  OVERLAY. 


FIRST  OVERLAY. 


distinct  tints  of  pale  gray,  dark  gray,  mid- 
dle tint,  dull  black,  deep  black,  which  are 
clearly  shown  in  the  proof. 

Selecting  one  of  the  proofs,  he  carefully 
cuts  out  of  it  all  of  the  palest  gray  tints, 
and  all  thin  exposed  lines,  pencil  scrabble 
and  the  ends  of  thin  lines  near  the  high 
lights.  The  proof  treated  in  this  way  is  put 
aside  as  the  first  overlay. 

For  the  second  overlay  he  takes  another 
proof  out  of  which  he  cuts  everything  but 
the  deep  blacks.  He  then  half  cuts  or  picks 
up  the  prints  of  deep  black  in  a  manner 
which  cannot  be  shown  in  the  illustration, 
so  that  the  impression  will  give  increased 
blackness.  This  second  overlay  is  fastened 
upon  the  first  with  great  precision. 

The  third  overlay  is  cut  out  of  another 
proof  with  intent  to  bring  out  or  intensify 


THE    GROWTH  OF   WOOD-CUT  PRINTING. 


THIRD    OVERLAY. 


the  dull  blacks  of  the  cut.  It  is  a  skeleton 
of  all  the  blacks  and  of  some  of  the  middle 
tint.  This  third  overlay  is,  in  like  manner, 
fastened  on  the  second. 

The  fourth  overlay  is  made  up  of  the 
darker  grays  in  combination  with  the  blacks 
and  middle  tint.  It  should  be  noticed  that 
in  this,  as  in  all  previous  overlays,  except  the 
first,  the  paler  grays  are  carefully  cut  out. 

The  fifth  and  last  overlay  shows  the  dark 
gray  in  combination  with  middle  tint  and 
blacks. 

When  the  fourth  and  fifth  overlays  have 
been  placed  in  order  over  the  others,  there 
will  be  in  the  combined  piece  five  thick- 
nesses over  the  deep  blacks,  four  over  the 
dull  blacks,  three  over  the  middle  tint,  two 
over  the  dark  gray,  and  one  thickness  over 
the  pale  gray.  Properly  combined,  these 
overlays  make  in  one  piece  a  low  relief 
in  paper  of  the  engraving  on  the  wood. 
The  hollows  made  by  cutting  out  the  tints 
near  the  high  lights  and  the  projection  made 
by  the  deep  blacks  are  clearly  noticeable. 
Each  thickness  of  paper  in  the  combined 
overlay  makes,  or  is  intended  to  make,  a 
difference  in  impression.  Under  the  pressure 
of  the  five  thicknesses  the  deep  black  of  the 
cut  will  be  forced  not  only  on,  but  in  the 
paper,  while  the  single  thickness  over  the 
lines  that  represent  pale  gray  will  merely 
touch  the  surface  of  the  sheet. 

This  is  a  simple  cut,  in  which  the  tints 
are  clearly  marked ;  but  interior  views,  cut 
in  fac-simile  of  brush-work,  and  all  work  of 
like  nature  in  which  high  lights,  pale  grays 
and  deep  blacks  are  avoided,  and  the  subject 
is  developed  by  nice  graduations  of  middle 


FOURTH    OVERLAY. 


tints,  are  not  so  easily  overlaid.  Some  cuts 
need  but  three,  and  some  call  for  more  than 
six  overlays ;  some  want  little  ink  and  much 
impression,  and  others  much  ink  and  little 


FIFTH    OVERLAY. 


impression.  In  every  form  containing  dis- 
cordant cuts,  the  method  of  cutting  and 
combining  overlays  has  to  be  varied  to  suit 
its  peculiarities.  Every  overlay-cutter  and 


THE    GROWTH  OF   WOOD-CUT  PRINTING. 


every  pressman  has  his  own  way  of  getting 
results.  Some  would  make  but  three  over- 
lays of  this  cut,  and  some  six ;  some  would 
arrange  them  in  the  order  here  stated,  and 
others  would  transpose  them.  The  object 
sought  in  overlaying  is  to  do  mechanically 
what  the  engraver  does  intelligently  in  prov- 
ing, and  to  do  it  by  a  similar  method — by 
graduating  or  making  uneven  the  impression 
on  different  parts  of  the  cut.  The  most  skill- 
ful pressmen  try  to  do  their  work  with  the 
least  overlays.  Too  many  defeat  the  pur- 
pose. If  more  than  six  thicknesses  of  paper 
.are  used,  the  overlay  so  made  will  increase 
the  circumference  of  the  cylinder  so  much 
that  it  will  not  strike  exactly  in  the  right 
place  on  the  cut  at  the  point  of  the  impres- 
sion. Nor  is  the  overlay  of  any  value  if 
the  machine  be  shackly  or  inaccurate  in 
movement.  Bed  and  cylinder  must  travel 
together,  at  any  rate  of  speed,  and  under 
other  difficult  conditions,  so  exactly  that 
every  line  in  the  overlay  shall  fairly  meet 
.its  corresponding  line  in  the  electrotype 
plate. 

Overlay-cutting  is  tedious  work.  Many 
of  the  pieces  are  small;  each  must  be  exact, 
and  all  must  be  fitted  together  with  pre- 
cision. If  one  be  cut  too  large  or  small,  or 


if  it  bag  or  wrinkle  in  any  part,  all  the  work 
will  be  lost  and  must  be  begun  anew. 

When  all  the  overlays  for  the  wood-cuts 
of  a  form  of  sixteen  pages  have  been  pre- 
pared, and  the  electrotyped  plates  for  these 
pages  are  ready,  the  form  is  sent  to  press, 
and  the  work  of  making-ready  begins.  The 
electrotype  plates  are  firmly  fastened  on 
blocks,  and  the  blocks  are  secured  on  the 
bed  of  the  printing  machine.  A  sheet  of 
fine  paper  is  then  stretched  on  the  impres- 
sion cylinder,  to  receive  the  first  impression 
of  the  plates ;  the  plates  are  lightly  inked 
and  passed  under  the  cylinder,  which  has 
been  so  adjusted  that  it  will  but  lightly 
press  upon  them.  This  light  pressure  makes 
a  pale  print  upon  the  sheet  on  the  cylinder. 
The  first  impression  from  electrotype  plates 
is  never  even,  for  the  plates  are  seldom 
evenly  thick,  and  are  always  uneven  on 
the  surface.  In  one  spot,  the  impression 
will  be  hard ;  in  another,  so  light  as  to  be 
unreadable.  To  correct  the  latter  fault,  the 
pressman  underlays  the  plate,  by  pasting  on 
its  under  side  bits  of  paper  of  suitable  size, 
in  one  or  more  thicknesses.  This  addition 
to  the  plate  springs  it  up  in  every  part 
underlaid,  so  that  the  surface  fairly  meets 
the  inking  rollers  and  the  impression.  With 


THE    OVERLAYS    FIXED    ON    THE    CYLINDER. 


' 


THE    GROWTH  OF   WOOD-CUT  PRINTING. 


43 


the  same  intent,  he  puts  a  proper  underlay 
under  every  cut,  or  part  of  a  cut,  that  con- 
tains much  black  surface,  and  fairly  braces 
it  to  resist  hard  impression.  When  the  im- 
pression is  reasonably  even,  the  pressman 
firmly  pastes  the  overlays  on  the  cylinder 
sheet, — each  overlay  being  so  exactly  placed 
that  at  the  moment  of  impression  its  lines 
will  truly  cover  corresponding  lines  in  the 
•electrotype.  When  the  pasted  overlays  are 
•dry  and  fast,  the  pressman  takes  another 
impression,  on  a  clean  sheet,  which  fully  ex- 
poses the  merit  or  demerit  of  the  work.  If 
he  has  correctly  discerned  the  relative  value 
of  every  tint,  and  has  cut  the  overlays  care- 
fully, the  print  should  show  graduations  of 
•shade  and  receding  in  perspective  not  much 
inferior  to  those  in  the  engraver's  proof. 
If  he  has  blundered,  if  he  has  in  any  im- 
portant part  disturbed  the  relation  of  the 
tints,  he  will  get  a  harsh  print,  which  de- 
stroys the  effects  intended  by  the  engraver. 
Minor  errors  in  overlay-cutting  may  be  cor- 
rected, but  with  some  difficulty,  after  the 
•overlay  has  been  put  on.  Serious  mistakes 
.are  irreparable. 

The  value  of  overlays  will  be  seen  by 
comparing  the  flat  proof  with  the  print  from 
overlays.  What  is  dull  and  harsh  in  the  flat 
proof  is  bright  and  delicate  in  the  print.  It 
is  the  overlay  which  brings  out  the  effects 
intended  by  the  engraver.  Every  thickness 
of  paper  in  it  increases  the  impression  and 
deepens  the  tint.  On  the  single  thickness 
the  pressure  is  probably  not  more  than  ten 
pounds  to  the  square  inch,  and  the  tint  is 
pale  gray ;  on  two  sheets  the  pressure  will 
be  more  than  double,  with  a  corresponding 
darkening  of  the  gray ;  and  it  keeps  increas- 
ing with  every  thickness  in  increasing  ratio. 
On  the  fifth  sheet,  where  the  intense  black 
is  wanted,  the  pressure  is  probably  one 
thousand  pounds  to  the  square  inch.  The 
hard  card-board,  or  harder  metal  of  the  im- 
pression cylinder,  effectually  prevents  any 
sinking  or  yielding  of  pressure.  There  can  be 
no  flinching  or  giving  way  of  the  impression, 
as  was  too  often  the  case  in  the  hand-press. 

But  the  great  improvement  made  in 
the  appearance  of  the  wood-cut  has  been 
effected  by  sacrificing  the  appearance  of  the 
types.  The  thick  overlays  bear  off  the  im- 
pression from  the  surrounding  types,  mak- 
ing the  reading  matter  more  or  less  illegible. 
To  restore  this  impression,  it  is  necessary 
that  the  pressman  shall  overlay  the  type 
work,  by  cutting  out  bits  of  paper  of  the 
•shapes  of  the  illegible  portions,  which  bits 
he  pastes  down  on  the  impression  cylinder. 


When  one  thickness  has  been  pasted  down, 
he  takes  a  new  proof  of  the  plates,  which 
he  carefully  examines  for  defects  of  impres- 
sion that  have  not  been  corrected  by  this 
overlay.  Out  of  this  proof  he  cuts  a  new 
overlay,  which  he  pastes  down  in  like  man- 
ner. And  he  keeps  repeating  the  work  of 
proving  and  overlaying  until  he  gets  the 
impression  even  on  every  part  of  the  sheet 
— so  even  that  the  sheet  shows  on  its  back 
only  faint  marks  of  indentation. 


A    PRINT    FROM    OVERLAYS. 


This  is  a  tedious  method  of  preparing 
cuts  and  types  for  printing,  but  there  is  no 
shorter  way  to  a  satisfactory  result.  On  a 
long  edition  no  dependence  can  be  placed 
on  the  permanence  of  an  elastic  impression, 
which  soon  packs  and  requires  renewal,  with 
consequent  loss  of  time.  The  only  work- 
man-like way  of  making-ready  a  form  is 
to  make  the  impression  even  and  solid 
from  the  beginning.  If  properly  done  then, 
it  will  need  no  after-patching,  and  there 
should  be  no  difference  in  the  appearance 
of  the  first  and  last  impression.  To  insure 
this  result,  a  careful  printer  does  not  grudge 
the  time  given  to  making-ready.  It  may, 
however,  be  a  surprise  to  many  to  learn  that, 
even  after  the  overlays  have  been  cut,  the 
proper  making-ready  of  a  wood-cut  form  of 
sixteen  pages  of  this  magazine  occupies  the 


44 


THE   GROWTH  OF   WOOD-CUT  PRINTING. 


time  of  an  expert  and  a  helper  for  at  least 
thirty  hours — and  sometimes  for  fifty  hours. 

Much  of  the  wood-cut  printing  con- 
demned as  bad  is  the  sequel  of  shallow  en- 
graving. For  this  grave  fault  the  engraver 
is  not  always  blamable.  Shallowness  often 
comes  from  the  engraver's  efforts  to  repro- 
duce a  picture  nearly  fine  enough  on  the 
drawing-paper,  through  its  photograph  on 
the  wood,  one-fourth  the  size  of  the  original. 
To  fac-simile  marks  of  brush  or  crayon,  and 
to  keep  the  color  of  the  drawing  in  this  re- 
duced copy,  the  engraver  must  cut  fine  and 
shallow.  By  methods  of  his  own,  not  to  be 
used  by  a  printer  on  machine,  the  engraver 
can  get  an  admirable  proof  from  a  shallow 
block,  but  this  proof  is  a  true  non  sequitur. 
It  does  not  prove  that  the  block  can  be 
printed.  The  conditions  differ.  If  it  takes, 
as  it  usually  does,  one  hour's  skillful  work  to 
get  one  fair  proof,  it  should  be  plain  that 
the  finer  effects  of  this  proof  cannot  be  re- 
produced on  a  machine  which  must  print 
seven  hundred  large  sheets  in  one  hour.  It 
should  be  plain,  but  artists  seem  to  have  a 
confidence  in  the  ability  of  the  pressman  to 
print  a  shallow  block  which  is  not  justified 
by  experience.  If  the  block  is  shallow,  the 
print  will  be  gloomy ;  if  lines  are  thick  in 
the  wood,  although  "  grayed  down  "  in  the 
proof,  they  will  be  black  and  harsh  in  the 
print.  A  skillful  pressman  can  do  no  more 
than  lighten  up  the  harshness.  He  cannot 
make  a  thick  line  thin.  He  can  put  on  the 
paper  only  what  he  finds  in  the  block. 

To  make  a  good  wood-cut,  the  work 
should  be  mechanically  right  from  the  be- 
ginning. The  design  should  be  put  on  the 
paper  with  intent  to  make  a  print,  and  with 
consideration  for  the  difficulties  of  engraving 
and  printing.  Many  artists  miss  this,  the 
true  object,  and  aim  only  at  a  pleasing  pict- 
ure. Drawing  gray  lead-pencil  lines,  they 
wonder  why  these  lines  are  harsh  when  shown 
in  black  printing-ink.  Tinting  their  copy  for 
engravers  with  warm  tints  of  buff  and  brown, 
and  enlivening  it  here  and  there  with  dabs 
of  solid  white,  they  wonder  why  the  print 
made  after  it  in  plain  black  is  flat  and  heavy. 
When  the  sole  objective  point  of  the  artist 
has  been  an  artistic  sketch,  and  that  of  the 
engraver  a  pleasing  proof,  and  both  think 
that  the  needs  of  the  printer  are  of  little  con- 
sequence, the  printer's  chances  of  success 
with  the  wood-cut  are  doubtful. 

There  are  good  reasons  why  the  printer's 
needs  should  be  considered.  The  print,  as 
usually  made,  is  six  removes  from  the  orig- 
inal :  (i)  the  photograph  on  the  wood;  (2) 


the  engraving  on  the  block ;  (3)  the  mould 
in  the  wax ;  (4)  the  electrotyped  shell  of  cop- 
per; (5)  the  film  of  ink  on  the  copper;  (6) 
the  transferred  ink  on  the  paper.  In  every 
remove,  however  skillfully  done,  there  is  in 
some  feature  more  or  less  of  a  falling  off 
from  the  original.  This  falling  off  is,  perhaps, 
most  noticeable  in  the  fastening  of  this  film 
of  ink  on  the  paper  by  means  of  pressure. 
The  tendency  of  the  impression  is  to  flatten  ; 
to  thicken  light  and  fill  up  shallow  lines ;  to 
cloud  transparent  and  blacken  smoky  shad- 
ows ;  to  bring  everything  on  the  block  to  a 
dead  level  of  dullness — in  short,  to  defeat 
the  purpose  of  the  designer.  Overlays 
may  effectually  prevent  the  mischiefs  of  a 
needless  flattening  out  of  ink,  but  they 
cannot  remedy  the  fallings-off  which  the 
original  has  already  suffered  in  the  earlier 
removes — from  the  distortion  of  lines  or 
dulling  of  color  by  the  camera  to  the  thick- 
ening of  lines  in  the  electrotype.  To  under- 
stand the  causes  of  these  mechanical  defects, 
to  foresee  and  provide  for  them,  should  be  as 
much  a  part  of  the  designer's  duty  as  it  is 
that  of  a  painter  to  prevent,  as  far  as  he  can, 
the  fading-out  of  color,  or  of  a  modeller  to 
provide  for  the  shrinking  of  melted  metal. 

The  machine  most  liked  by  the  printers 
of  this  magazine  is  the  Hoe  stop-cylinder, 
yet  excellent  press- work  is  also  done  by 
the  large  cylinder.  These  machines  print, 
by  the  same  operation,  one  side  only  of 
the  sheet.  The  double  cylinder,  or  per- 
fecting machine,  which  is  constructed  to 
print  both  sides  of  the  sheet  by  one  opera- 
tion, is  highly  thought  of  in  England  and 
France,  but  it  is  not  approved  by  American 
printers,  who  say  that  a  fair  print  on  the 
second  or  reverse  side  of  a  sheet  cannot  be 
taken  until  the  print  on  the  first  side  is'  so 
dry  that  it  will  not  set  off  or  smear  under 
pressure.  The  pale  printing  so  often  found 
fault  with  in  modern  books  is  usually  caused 
by  printing  too  fast,  either  on  perfecting  press 
or  otherwise — by  printing  one  side  before 
the  other  is  dry — and  by  under-inking  with 
intent  to  prevent  the  greater  faults  of  set-off 
and  smearing. 

The  SCRIBNER  machines  were  made  to 
print  from  i,ooo'to  1,500  impressions  of 
ordinary  work  in  one  hour,  but  these  num- 
bers are  never  reached  in  wood-cut  press- 
work, — not,  however,  through  the  fault  of 
the  machines,  but  by  reason  of  the  stiffness 
of  the  ink,  which  tears  the  inking-rollers  and 
the  paper  when  the  machine  is  put  to  high 
speed.  Wood-cut  printers  have  to  be  con- 
tent with  about  half  the  performance  of  the 


PETER    THE   GREAT. 


45 


machine  on  ordinary  type-work.  Contrasted 
with  the  Hoe  web-machine,  which  can  print 
and  fold  30,000  perfect  newspapers  in  one 
hour,  the  stop-cylinder  seems  slow,  yet  it 
shows  a  great  gain  over  the  performance  of 
the  hand-press. 

To  have  printed,  within  the  time  allowed, 
the  125,000  copies  of  SCRIBNER'S  MAGA- 
ZINE for  last  February,  would  have  required 
200  of  the  best  iron  hand-presses  made  in 
1815.  If  one  can  suppose  this  feat  attempted 
in  the  days  of  the  two-pull  wood  hand-press 
(an  absurd  supposition,  which  implies  the 
aid  of  the  art  of  electrotyping  before  its 
invention),  then  there  would  have  been  need 
for  400  presses  and  twice  that  number  of 
pressmen.  A  publisher  may,  but  the  ordi- 
nary reader  cannot,  estimate  the  space  that 
would  be  occupied  by  these  presses,  the 
losses  by  waste,  errors,  imperfect  work,  the 
difficulty  of  managing  so  many  workmen. 
It  is,  perhaps,  enough  to  say  that  it  would 
be  impossible  by  hand  labor  to  print  SCRIB- 
NER'S MAGAZINE  as  it  is.  Deprived  of  the 
aid  of  machines,  of  steam,  and  of  electro- 
type, it  would  have  been  a  different  journal. 
It  would  have  had  to  follow,  with  less  than 
one-tenth  its  present  circulation,  in  the  dull 
path  laid  down  about  two  hundred  years 
ago  by  the  "  Journal  des  Savans  "  and  the 
"  Weekly  Memorials  for  the  Ingenious." 

That  machines  have  not  debased  the  qual- 
ity of  engraving  is  plain.  The  last  half 
year's  volume  of  SCRIBNER'S  contains  more 
meritorious  illustrations — meritorious  not 
altogether  through  the  technical  skill  shown 
in  the  handling  of  engraving  tools,  but  by 
reason  of  their  faithfulness  to  the  artist's 
design — than  could  be  found  in  any  book 
printed  before  the  invention  of  the  cylinder. 
So  .far  from  checking,  machines  have  really 


given  new  life  to  the  torpid  art.  They  have 
brought  out  the  skill  of  the  designer  and 
engraver  more  fully  than  it  was  ever  done 
before.  The  old  prejudice  against  engrav- 
ing on  wood  as  a  low  form  of  art  has  been 
effectually  broken. 

Much  has  been  done,  but  more  may  be, 
probably  will  be,  done.  Every  engraver 
laments  that  all  the  brilliant  effects  of  his 
proof  are  not  reproduced  in  the  print. 
Every  printer  regrets  that  the  perfect  grad- 
uation of  tint  he  secures  in  one  cut  cannot 
be  secured  in  all  cuts.  There  is  a  general 
belief  that  there  are  capabilities  in  the  art 
of  wood-cutting  which  have  not  been  fairly 
developed.  It  is  not  probable  that  the 
needed  improvements  will  be  made  through 
finer  engraving,  for  it  is  even  now  too  com- 
mon to  engrave  too  fine  for  printing.  Print- 
ing machines  are  abundantly  strong  and 
accurate.  Overlay  cutters  and  pressmen 
were  never  more  skillful,  but  they  are  not  in 
advance  of  the  increasing  requisitions  made 
upon  them.  The  further  development  of 
engraving  on  wood  is  waiting  for  improve- 
ments in  paper,  in  ink  and  inking-apparatus, 
in  electrotype  ami  other  and  minor  mech- 
anisms. It  waits  quite  as  much  for  the 
co-operation  of  artists  and  engravers  in  a 
study  of  the  mechanical  difficulties  of  print- 
ing, and  of  the  best  methods  of  evading 
or  conquering  them — for  artists  and  engrav- 
ers whose  objective  point  is  not  a  pleas- 
ing sketch  or  a  showy  proof,  but  a  faultless 
print,  and  who  will  neglect  nothing  that 
aids  this  purpose.  The  waiting  will  not  be 
long.  There  is  earnestness  enough  among 
the  men  who  contribute  to  the  making  of 
wood-cut  prints  to  warrant  the  hope  that 
the  next  ten  years  will  witness  many  great 
improvements  in  wood-cut  printing.  . 


PETER   THE    GREAT.      IV.* 


BY   EUGENE    SCHUYLER. 


CHAPTER    XIII. 


THE    EXECUTION    OF    HAVANSKY.       THE    SUB- 
MISSION   OF    THE    STRELTSI. 

ALTHOUGH  the  Dissenters  had  been  put 
down,  and  the  difficulties  of  the  church  had 
been  turned  rather  than  settled,  there  still 
remained  Havansky  to  deal  with.  He  had 
acquired  such  influence  and  authority — he 


had  made  himself  so  prominent  of  late, 
especially. in  the  dispute  of  the  Dissenters — 
he  was  a  man  of  such  arrogant  and  brag- 
gart disposition,  that  no  dependence  what- 
ever could  be  placed  on  him.  He  might  at 
any  time  use  his  influence  with  the  Streltsi 
to  become  dangerous  to  the  government, 
and  more  especially  to  Ivan  Miloslavsky, 
the  leading  figure  of  the  new  administra- 
tion, of  whom  he  was  a  personal  enemy.  It 


*  Copyright,  1880,  by  Eugene  Schuyler.     All  rights  reserved. 


PETER    THE    GREAT. 


is  not  necessary  to  infer  that  Havansky  had, 
actually,  any  thought  of  overturning  the 
government,  or,  relying  on  his  royal  descent 
from  King  Gedimin  of  Lithuania,  of  plac- 
ing the  crown  on  his ' own  head.  But  there 


about  to  rise  to  murder  the  boyars.  Oi> 
the  1 2th  of  July,  a  crowd  of  Streltsi  came 
with  a  demand  that  the  boyars  should  be 
delivered  up  to  them,  as  they  had  threatened 
to  make  away  with  them  and  torture  them. 


10 15  Longitude    25         3O         35       4O.Kast  from  5O       56          6O          65    Greenwich  76  SO 


RUSSIA 

AT  THE  TIME  OF  k 

PETER  THE  GREAT.  / 


SCALE  OF 
0     BO  100         200          300 

Explnna,  tions. 

Sfssia  as  P 
Found  it. 


25          Drawn  A    3O    Engraved  by    3 5  Jt. I). Senws  N- F.4O 


RUSSIA    AT    THE    TIME    OF    PETER    THE    GREAT. 


were  persistent  rumors  that  he  Avas  desirous 
of  marrying  his  eldest  son  to  one  of  the 
daughters  of  the  Tsar  Alexis,  and  the  slight- 
est words  which  he  spoke  were  repeated  at 
court  with  exaggerations  and  variations. 

Meanwhile,  the  town  was  far  from  quiet ; 
the  Streltsi  continued  still  to  have  their  own 
way,  to  be  riotous  and  disobedient,  and 
there  were  constant  rumors  of  coming  dis- 
turbances— at  one  time  that  the  boyars 
were  collecting  an  army  to  annihilate  the 
Streltsi,  and  at  another  that  the  Streltsi  were 


Inquiries  were  made  into  the  foundation  of 
such  rumors,  and  it  was  found  that  the  con- 
verted Tartar  prince,  Matthew,  had  said 
something  of  this  kind.  On  being  subjected 
to  torture,  Matthew  confessed  that,  dissatis- 
fied with  the  smallness  of  his  pension  and 
the  little  honor  he  received,  he  had  spread 
this  report,  hoping  to  gain  something  by  the 
disturbance.  The  Tartar  prince  was  drawn 
and  quartered.  Biziaef,  a  man  from  Yaro- 
slav,  who  had  spread  false  reports  of  a  simi- 
lar nature  against  Veshniakof,  a  nobleman  of 


PETER    THE    GREAT. 


47 


RUSSIA    OF    TO-DAY. 


Moscow,  and  his  son,  a  former  colonel,  was 
arrested  and  executed.  The  old  Veshniakof 
died  from  the  torture,  for  to  get  at  the  truth 
in  such  cases  torture  was  impartially  applied 
to  all  parties  alike.  An  old  colonel,  Yanof, 
a  very  honorable  and  worthy  man,  was  taken 
by  the  Streltsi,  who  were  displeased  with  him 
for  his  alleged  severity  in  times  gone  by, 


subjected  to  severe  torture,  and  afterwards, 
put  to  death  on  the  Red  Place,  in  front  of 
the  recently  erected  monument. 

The  new  commander-in-chief,  Havansky, 
and  his  son,  looked  through  their  fingers  at 
all  these  murders  and  cruelties,  and  took  no 
steps  to  prevent  them ;  on  the  contrary, 
they  always  took  the  side  of  the  Streltsi. 


PETER    THE    GREAT. 


and  supported  them  under  the  convenient 
pretext  that  it  would  be  dangerous  to  excite 
them.  On  the  26th  of  August,  Havansky 
brought  to  the  palace  a  petition  of  the 
Streltsi  that,  for  the  benefit  of  those  men 
who  were  taken  from  the  districts  belong- 
ing to  the  court,  there  should  be  collected 
equipment  money  to  the  amount  of  twenty- 
five  rubles  a  man,  making  altogether  an 
amount  of  more  than  100,000  rubles  which 
they  demanded.  The  boyars,  in  council, 
resisted  this  unlawful  demand.  Havansky 
indignantly  left  the  council,  and  it  was 
reported  to  the  Government  that  on  going 
back  to  the  Streltsi  he  had  said : 

"  Children,  the  boyars  are  threatening 
even  me  on  your  account  because  I  wished 
well  to  you.  I  can  do  nothing  more  for 
you ;  you  must  take  such  measures  now  as 
you  think  best." 

Whether  Havansky  said  this  or  not,  it 
was  quite  sufficient  that  he  was  reported  to 
have  said  it.  His  refusal  to  carry  out  orders 
and  his  general  conduct  had  become  insup- 
portable. Sophia  felt  herself  almost  in 
slavery  to  him  and  to  the  Streltsi;  while 
Ivan  Miloslavsky,  who  had  even  been 
•demanded  for  execution  by  the  Streltsi  at 
Havansky's  suggestion,  kept  increasing  the 
anger  and  indignation  of  Sophia  by  all  the 
means  in  his  power.  Miloslavsky  had  been 
in  such  fear  of  late  that  he  had  been  little  in 
Moscow,  and,  to  use  the  words  of  a  con- 
temporary, "  was  creeping  like  an  under- 
ground mole,"  and  had  been  concealing 
himself  in  his  villas  in  the  neighborhood  of 
the  capital.  A  plan  was  therefore  formed 
for  the  ruin  of  Havansky.  This  plan  was 
nothing  else,  indeed,  but  the  execution  of 
the  threat  which  Sophia  had  made  at  the 
time  of  the  Dissenter  riot — namely,  that  she 
would  leave  Moscow,  and  inform  the  peo- 
ple of  Russia  of  such  great  disturbance  and 
insubordination.  It  was,  however,  necessary 
to  blind  the  eyes  of  Havansky,  in  order  that 
he  might  not  see  the  danger,  and  conse- 
quently take  measures  of  precaution.  His 
own  self-confidence  rendered  this  all  the 
easier. 

On  the  2pth  of  July  it  was  the  custom  to 
have  a  religious  procession,  in  which  the  Tsar 
always  took  part,  from  the  Cathedral  of  the 
Assumption  to  the  Donskoy  monastery,  a  few 
miles  out  of  Moscow,  in  commemoration  of 
the  preservation  of  the  capital  from  the  attack 
of  the  Crim  Tartar,  in  the  reign  of  Theo- 
dore Ivanovitch.  A  rumor  was  set  afloat 
that  the  Streltsi  intended  to  profit  by  this 
occasion  to  seize  the  persons  of  the  Tsars 


and  kill  them.  Consequently,  neither  the 
Tsars  nor  any  other  member  of  their  family 
took  part  in  the  procession.  The  next  day 
— the  3oth — Sophia,  the  Tsars,  and  the 
members  of  the  family  went  to  the  villa  of 
Kolomenskoe,  which  had  been  the  favorite 
residence  of  the  Tsar  Alexis. 

All  the  members  of  the  imperial  family 
who  were  not  in  the  secret  were  naturally 
much  disturbed  by  this  sudden  move,  and 
the  whole  population  of  the  capital  was  agi- 
tated by  the  departure  of  the  court,  and 
feared  lest  some  new  calamity  was  about  to 
fall  on  them.  Other  people  began  also  to 
leave  Moscow;  the  Dutch  merchants  made 
preparations  for  going  to  Archangel,  with 
such  of  their  goods  as  they  could  transport ; 
the  Dutch  resident '  asked  Prince  JHavansky 
for  a  guard  to  protect  his  house.  •  The 
Streltsi,  also,  were  much  alarmed.  They 
feared  that  the  absence  of  the  court  from 
Moscow  foreboded  no  good.  A  few  days 
after,  on  the  ad  of  August,  a  deputation  of 
the  Streltsi  arrived  at  Kolomenskoe,  to 
express  their  regret  that  the  Tsars  had  left 
Moscow.  "  It  has  been  stated  to  our 
Lords,"  they  represented,  "  that  we,  the  Pal- 
ace Guard,  have  become  riotous,  and  have 
evil  designs  on  the  boyars  and  the  people 
near  the  sovereigns,  and  that  secret  corre- 
spondence is  going  on  between  the  regiments; 
that  we  are  wanting  to  go  to  the  Kremlin 
with  arms,  as  we  did  before,  and  this  is  the 
reason,  we  hear,  that  the  Tsars  have  deigned 
to  leave  Moscow.  But  there  is  no  design 
or  plot  at  all  in  any  of  the  regiments,  nor 
will  there  be,  and  we  beg  our  Lords  not  to 
believe  such  lying  words,  and  to  deign  to  go 
back  to  Moscow." 

The  answer  was  simply :  "  Your  Lords 
know  nothing  about  any  plots  of  yours. 
They  have  gone  from  Moscow  according  to 
their  imperial  will  and  pleasure.  Even 
before  this,  there  were  frequent  excursions 
by  the  imperial  family  to  the  village  of  Kol- 
6menskoe."  The  deputies  were  sent  away 
with  this  reply. 

The  Streltsi  quieted  down,  because  they 
saw  that  the  court  remained  at  Kolomenskoe, 
for  there  was  no  intention  of  going  else- 
where until  a  proper  occasion  arose,  in  order 
not  to  excite  distrust.  Havansky  came  to 
court,  in  part  to  see  what  was  going  on,  and 
in  part  to  try  to  frighten  Sophia  by  showing 
that  she  needed  the  support  of  the  Streltsi, 
and,  consequently,  his  assistance.  He 
stated,  before  the  boyars,  that  various  noble- 
men of  Novgorod  had  been  to  him  and 
said  that  their  comrades  intended  to  come 


PETER    THE    GREAT. 


A    RELIGIOUS     PROCESSION    IN    MOSCOW,    DURING    THE    REIGN    OF    IVAN    THE    TERRIBLE.        (FROM 
A    PAINTING    BY    CHARLEMAGNE,    PAINTER     TO    THE    PRESENT    COURT    OF    RUSSIA.) 


to  Moscow,  ostensibly  to  petition  about 
their  pay,  and  that  they  would  kill  the 
inhabitants  without  distinction  Sophia  re- 
plied :  "  Information  of  that  kind  should  be 
stated  publicly  in  Moscow,  in  the  council 
chamber  and  to  the  people  of  all  ranks,  and 
letters  with  the  great  seal  will  be  sent  to 
Novgorod  for  more  exact  information."  This 
disturbed  Havansky,  who  used  all  efforts  to 
prevent  the  public  announcement  of  the  fact, 
and  to  keep  back  the  letters  from  Novgorod. 
Taking  as  an  excuse  the  name's-day  of 
the  Tsar  Ivan, — the  28th  of  September, — 
VOL.  XX.— 4. 


Sophia  ordered  Havansky  to  send  to  Kol6m- 
enskoe  the  Stremenoy,or  Stirrup,  regiment — 
a  regiment  particularly  devoted  to  the  Tsars. 
Havansky  feared  letting  this  regiment  out  of 
his  hands.  Knowing  that  Sophia  had  greater 
influence  with  it,  and  dreading  lest  that 
influence  should  be  extended  over  the  other 
regiments,  he  refused  to  obey  the  order,  on 
the  ground  that  he  had  previously  ordered  the 
regiment — although  without  the  Tsars'  per- 
mission— to  go  to  Kief.  It  was  not  until 
after  the  order  had  been  repeated  several 
times  that  Havansky  yielded. 


5° 


PETER   THE   GREAT. 


The  Russian  year  at  that  time  began  on 
the  ist  of  September  (Old  Style,  that  is,  on 
the  nth  of  September  by  the  Gregorian 
calendar),  for  it  was  an  article  of  belief  in 
the  church  that  the  world  was  created  at 
the  beginning  of  the  autumn,  and  it  had 
been  the  custom  in  Moscow  to  celebrate  the 
first  day  of  the  year  with  great  solemnity. 
The  court,  nevertheless,  did  not  return  for 
this  festival,  although  orders  were  given  to 
Havansky  to  take  part  in  the  service  at  the 
cathedral.  He  did  not  go;  and,  to  the 
astonishment  of  ail  Moscow,  there  was  only 
one  man  of  the  higher  nobility  present. 
The  Patriarch  was  very  angry  that  the  cere- 
mony was  attended  with  so  little  of  the 
usual  pomp.  There  were  even  few  of  the 
common  people  there,  for  every  one  was 
afraid.  Rumors  had  been  assiduously  cir- 
culated, that,  on  this  or  some  other  festival, 
there  would  be  another  Streltsi  riot ;  and 
the  Streltsi  themselves  were  no  less  fright- 
ened, for  rumors  were  running  amongst 
them  that  on  this  or  some  other  festival,  an 
attack  would  be  made  on  them  by  the 
people  and  the  boyars,  after  they  had  gone 
on  guard,  and  that  their  wives  and  Children 
would  be  killed.  The  carriage  of  Havansky 
was  constantly  attended  by  a  guard  of  fifty 
men,  and  he  had  as  constantly  a  large  com- 
pany of  men  in  his  court- yard — a  thing 
which  previously  had  been  unknown  with 
the  Streltsi  commanders. 

To  us,  who  live  under  regular  and  set- 
tled governments,  such  fears  seem  exag- 
gerated and  ridiculous.  They  are  not 
impossible  or  unusual  in  a  different  state  of 
society.  In  Constantinople,  from  1876  to 
1878 — if  I  may  be  allowed  a  personal  rem- 
iniscence— scarcely  a  week  passed  without 
rumors  of  this  kind.  Now,  it  was  a  general 
massacre  of  Christians  by  the  Mohammed- 
ans fixed  for  the  Bairam,  and  then  post- 
poned to  another  feast,  when  all  preparations 
were  made  for  resistance,  and  the  commu- 
nications of  the  foreign  embassies  in  Pera 
with  their  ships  of  war  in  harbor  were  care- 
fully studied;  now,  it  was  arising  of  the 
Greeks  or  the  Armenians  for  Christmas,  or 
New  Year's  day,  or  Easter,  which  excited  no 
less  alarm  among  the  Mussulmans  of  Stambul. 
The  fear,  as  it  proved,  was  vain,  but  the 
alarm  was  real.  This  is  not  the  only  case 
when  the  Russia  of  two  hundred  years  ago 
has  recalled  to  me  the  Turkey  of  to-day. 

On  the  next  day,  the  i2th  of  September, 
the  court,  under  the  pretext  of  pilgrimage 
to  various  monasteries,  slowly  made  a  cir- 
cuit of  Moscow,  gradually  getting  further 


and  further  away  from  it;  going  first  to  the 
Sparrow  Hills ;  then  to  the  monastery  of 
St.  Savva  near  Zvemgorod,  for  the  Festival 
of  St.  Savva  on  the  i6th  of  September,  and 
then  through  Pavlovsky  Khliebovo  to  Voz- 
dvizhenskoe  for  the  festival  of  that  village — 
the  Elevation  of  the  Cross — on  the  24th  of 
September  (i4th  of  September,  Old  Style). 
In  this  village  Sophia  considered  herself 
safe,  for  it  was  only  about  two  hours'  journey 
from  the  strongly  fortified  monastery  of 
Troitsa.  Here  Sophia  commanded  the 
court  to  remain  for  several  days  to  celebrate 
her  own  name's-day  on  the  27th.  Orders 
were  therefore  sent  to  Moscow  for  all  the 
nobility  and  high  officials  to  come  to  Vozd- 
vizhenskoe,  partly  for  matters  of  state,  partly 
for  the  celebration  of  the  name's-day  of  the 
Princess,  and  partly  to  receive  the  son  of 
the  Hetman  of  the  Cossacks,  whose  arrival 
Havansky  had  announced.  Havansky  and 
his  son  were  also  invited,  and  it  is  prob- 
able that  Sophia  resolved  to  make  use  of 
the  excellent  occasion  which  the  arrival  of 
the  Hetman's  son  brought  about.  At  the 
same  time,  letters  were  sent — of  course  with- 
out Havansky's  knowledge — to  Vladimir, 
Suzdal  and  other  neighboring  towns,  calling 
upon  the  nobility  and  people  in  service  to 
come  to  protect  the  Tsars,  who  were  threat- 
ened with  death  through  the  treachery  of 
Havansky. 

On  the  27th — the  festival  of  St.  Sophia — 
a  large  number  ot  people  of  all  ranks  had 
collected  in  Vozdvizhenskoe.  After  mass 
and  a  collation,  at  which  the  Tsars  and  their 
sisters  were  present,  there  was  a  council  of 
boyars.  The  Privy  Councillor  Shaklovity 
made  a  report  of  the  crimes  attributed  to 
Prince  Havansky  and  to  his  son,  and  read 
a  long  anonymous  letter,  found,  it  was  said, 
at  Kolomenskoe,  in  which  Prince  Havansky, 
his  son,  and  their  adherents  were  accused 
of  plots  against  the  lives  of  the  Tsars  and 
the  boyars,  and  in  which  it  was  alleged  that 
they  themselves  desired  to  ascend  the 
Muscovite  throne.  In  all  probability  this 
letter  was  untrue,  and  may,  indeed,  have 
been  fictitious,  although  such  anonymous 
letters  were  frequent  in  those  days,  but  it 
served  the  purpose,  and  the  assembly,  with- 
out hearing  further  proof,  or  allowing  an 
opportunity  for  defense,  condemned  Havan- 
sky and  his  son  Andrew,  as  well  as  several 
of  their  adherents. 

Information  had  been  obtained  that 
Prince  Havansky,  who,  together  with  his 
son,  had  left  Moscow  the  day  before,  was 
encamped  among  the  peasants'  barns  near 


PETER    THE    GREAT. 


the  village  of  Pushkino,  and  that  young 
Havansky  was  in  his  villa  at  Bratovstchina 
on  the  river  Kliazma.  Prince  Lykof,  with  a 
considerable  force,  was  sent  down  the  Mos- 
cow road,  and  succeeded  in  surprising  and 


GUARDS    OF    THE     THRONE     AT    STATE     RECEPTIONS. 
(FROM    A    LITHOGRAPH     MADE    FOR   THE   AUSTRIAN   EMBASSY.) 

arresting  both  the  Havanskys  and  bringing 
them,  together  with  the  few  Streltsi  who 
were  with  them,  to  Vozdvizhenskoe,  where 
every  arrangement  had  been  made  for  the 
execution.  As  soon  as  the  arrival  of  the 
Havanskys  was  known,  orders  were  given 
to  stop  them  in  front  of  the  gates  of  the 
house  in  which  the  Tsars  were  staying; 
while  the  boyars  and  other  officials  went 
out  and  sat  on  benches  and  chairs  which 
were  brought  for  them.  The  accusation 
was  read  by  Shaklovity.  In  this  many  acts 
of  insubordination  and  illegal  conduct  were 
mentioned,  and  they  were  accused,  among 
other  things,  of  having  incited  the  first  riot 
of  the  Streltsi.  Prince  Havansky  immedi- 
ately made  a  protest,  and  offered,  if  time 
were  given  him,  to  show  who  were  the  real 
promoters  of  this  riot.  He  declared  his 
innocence  of  all  the  points  of  accusation, 
and  said  that  if  his  son  were  guilty  he  would 
be  the  first  to  curse  him  and  to  deliver  him 
over  to  justice.  Miloslavsky  immediately 
reported  this  to  Sophia,  and  urged  her  to 
execute  them  at  once,  and  she  consented, 
for  both — and  he  especially — feared  a  rev- 
olution would  be  brought  about  by  Havan- 
sky. A  severe  order  came  from  Sophia  to 
listen  to  nothing  on  the  part  of  Havansky, 
and  to  carry  justice  immediately  into  effect. 
No  executioner  could  be  found,  but  finally  a 
soldier  of  the  Stremenoy  regiment  beheaded 
Ivan  Havansky.  His  son  kissed  the  breath- 
less body  of  his  father,  and  then  laid  his  head 


upon  the  block.  Odyntsof,  who  had  taken 
part  in  the  first  Streltsi  rioting,  and  Yudin, 
who  had  assisted  in  the  riot  of  the  Dissenters, 
were  also  executed. 

The  same  day  a  rescript  in  the  name  of 
the  Government  was  sent  to  Moscow  to  the 
Streltsi,  informing  them  of  the  execution  of 
their  commander  Havansky  and  his  son, 
but  at  the  same  time  stating  that  there  was 
no  anger  or  dissatisfaction  with  the  Streltsi, 
and  ordering  them  to  serve  with  the  same 
fidelity  as  previously.  But  another  son  of 
Prince  Havansky,  Prince  Ivan,  had  suc- 
ceeded in  escaping  to  Moscow,  and,  arriv- 
ing there  that  very  night,  told  the  Streltsi 
that  his  father  had  been  captured  in  the 
village  of  Pushkino  by  the  boyars'  people, 
and  had  been  punished  without  the  orders 
of  the  Tsars,  and  that  it  was  the  intention 
of  the  boyars  to  march  to  Moscow  and  to 
burn  all  the  houses  of  the  Streltsi,  and  for 
that  reason  it  would  be  well  for  them  to  for- 
tify themselves  in  Moscow.  'The  counsel 
was  immediately  followed.  The  Streltsi 
seized  their  arms,  occupied  the  Kremlin, 
took  from  the  arsenal  the  cannon,  lead  and 
powder,  placed  a  strong  guard  everywhere, 
and  put  the  city  in  a  state  of  siege,  allowing 
no  one  to  enter  or  depart  from  it.  There 
were  cries  that  it  was  necessary  to  attack 
the  boyars,  and  people  went  in  crowds  to 
the  Patriarch,  who  endeavored  to  persuade 
them  to  remain  calm  and  not  to  resort  to 
force.  They  threatened  to  kill  him  for  what 
they  considered  to  be  siding  with  the  boy- 


GUARDS    OF    STATE   AT    RECEPTIONS   AND     PROCESSIONS. 
(FROM    A    LITHOGRAPH    MADE   FOR   THE    AUSTRIAN    EMBASSY.) 

ars ;  but  it  all  ended  in  threats,  for  fear  was 
the  prevailing  feeling.  The  Butyrki  sol- 
diers, who  had  taken  part  in  the  Streltsi 
riot,  were  also  frightened.  Some  of  their 
men  had  got  lost  in  the  Marina  wood,  and 


52 


PETER    THE    GREAT. 


THE    FORTIFIED    MONASTERY    OF    TROITSA.        (DRAWN    BY     R.    SAYER,    FROM     A    PHOTOGRAPH.) 


they  felt  it  necessary  to  get  some  cannon 
and  protect  themselves ;  and,  fearing  the 
advance  of  the  boyars,  of  which  there  were 
rumors,  they  sent  their  wives  and  children 
into  the  town  for  safety. 

Meanwhile,  the  movements  of  the  Streltsi 
were  immediately  reported  at  the  Court, 
and  couriers  were  sent  out  on  all  sides  to 
call  together  in  the  Troitsa  Monastery  all 
men  fit  for  service,  fully  armed.  To  this 
monastery  the  Court  immediately  repaired, 
and  the  place  was  put  into  a  condition  of 
defense,  the  chief  command  being  given  to 
the  most  faithful  follower  of  Sophia,  Prince 
Basil  Galitsyn. 

On  the  29th  of  September,  Andrew,  the 
Archimandrite  of  the  Miracle  Monastery, 
came  to  Troitsa  with  a  message  from  the 
Patriarch  that  the  Streltsi  petitioned  the 
Tsars  to  return  to  Moscow,  where  they  would 
suffer  no  harm,  and  begged  them  not  to  be 
angry  with  them,  as  they  had  no  evil 
designs.  The  Government  at  once  replied 
that  it  only  remained  for  the  Streltsi  to  show 
themselves  obedient  as  before,  and  cease  to 
terrify  the  whole  town  of  Moscow ;  and  as 
for  Havansky,  who  had  been  punished  for 
his  treachery,  not  to  meddle  with  that  mat- 
ter, as  punishment  and  mercy  were  left  by 
God  to  the  rulers. 

The  arrival  at  Troitsa  of  adherents  from 
all  sides  enabled  the  court  to  act  decisively. 
The  Boyar  Michael  Golovin  was  sent  to 
govern  Moscow,  and  by  his  actions  showed 
the  Streltsi  that  they  no  longer  inspired  fear. 
This  had  a  good  effect,  and  on  the  2d  of 


October  the  Streltsi  sent  a  delegation  to 
Golovin,  praying  that  they  might  be  allowed 
to  send  a  certain  number  from  each  regi- 
ment to  Tr6itsa,  to  give  their  submission,  as 
they  did  not  dare  to  do  so  without  an  order 
to  that  effect.  An  order  was  immediately 
given  that  twenty  men  from  each  regiment 
should  go  to  Troitsa.  Two  days  later  the 
Streltsi  petitioned  the  Patriarch  to  send  an 
archbishop  with  them  to  Tr6'itsa,  as  they 
were  afraid  to  go  alone.  The  Patriarch 
sent  with  them  Hilarion,  the  Metropolitan 
of  Suzdal;  but  even  this  did  not  entirely 
quiet  them.  Many  went  back  to  Moscow ; 
the  remainder  were  presented  to  Sophia, 
who  met  them  with  a  severe  reprimand  for 
their  misconduct,  and  showed  them  the  con- 
siderable army  which  had  been  collected 
to  punish  them.  The  Streltsi  gave  a  written 
submission,  in  which  they  alleged  that  they 
were  ready  to  obey,  that  those  regiments 
assigned  to  Kief  and  other  towns  would 
proceed  at  once,  that  they  would  restore  to 
the  arsenal  everything  which  had  been 
taken,  and  would  be  most  obedient  and 
faithful  servants.  This,  however,  was  not 
enough.  The  Regent  promised  the  pardon 
of  the  Streltsi  and  soldiers  only  on  condi- 
tions which  expressed,  in  very  exact  terms, 
the  obedience  which  would  be  required  of 
them.  The  Streltsi  consented.  Prince  Ivan 
Havansky  was  taken  to  Troitsa  and  sen- 
tenced to  death  ;  although,  when  his  head 
was  on  the  block,  his  punishment  was  com- 
muted to  exile. 

On   Sunday,  the    i8th   of  October,   the 


PETER    THE   GREAT. 


53 


Patriarch,  after  the  service  in  the  Cathedral 
of  the  Assumption,  which  was  filled  with 
Streltsi,  placed  on  the  reading  desks  the 
Gospel  and  a  precious  relic — the  arm  of  St. 
Andrew,  the  first  missionary  to  Russia,  and 
protector  of  the  country.  The  new  articles 
for  the  Streltsi  were  read,  and  those  present 
kissed  both  the  Gospel  and  the  relic  as  a 
sign  of  their  implicit  obedience.  The  Court 
remained  at  Troitsa,  guarded  by  the  levies 
of  the  nobility,  and  naturally  the  Streltsi 
were  brought  to  agree  to  a  final  concession. 
On  the  7th  of  November,  they  presented  a 
petition  asking  to  be  allowed  to  pull  down 
the  stone  column  which  had  been  erected 
on  the  Red  Place  in  commemoration  of  the 
events  of  May.  The  permission  was,  of 
course,  given.  The  column  was  destroyed 
to  its  foundation  on  the  i2th  of  November, 
the  iron  plates,  with  the  inscription,  were 
torn  off  and  burnt,  and  even  the  foundation 


surrounded  by  the  troops  of  the  nobility, 
who  acted  as  guards  instead  of  the  Streltsi. 
The  Department  of  the  Streltsi — for  now 
they  were  no  longer  to  be  called  the  "  Palace 
Guard" — was  placed,  temporarily,  in  the 
hands  of  the  Ok61nitchy  Zmeief,  and  a 
month  afterwards  was  given  to  the  Council- 
lor Theodore  Shaklovity. 

The  new  commander  soon  showed  his 
firmness,  and  by  his  vigorous  measures  suc- 
ceeded rapidly  in  getting  the  Streltsi  under 
control.  He  took  occasion  of  various  in- 
fringements of  discipline  to  re-arrange  all  the 
regiments  and  to  transfer  the  worst  and  most 
riotous  of  the  Streltsi  to  the  cities  of  the 
Ukraine.  In  this  way  he  succeeded  in 
restoring  quiet  to  the  town  without  exciting 
any  great  bad  feeling  on  the  part  of  the 
Streltsi,  for  he  was  conciliatory  as  well  as 
adroit  and  firm.  The  most  important  of  his 
measures  were  formed  into  a  new  code  for 


THE    CITY    OF    KIEF.       (DRAWN     BV    R.    SAVER,    FROM     A    PHOTOGRAPH.) 


was  dug  up  out  of  the  ground.  The  re- 
scripts given  to  the  Streltsi  after  the  May 
riots  were  returned,  and  new  ones  given  in 
their  stead.  All  the  troubles  of  the  spring 
and  summer  were  now  ascribed  to  Prince 
Havansky  and  the  Dissenter  Colonel  Alexis 
Yudin ;  and  it  was  forbidden  to  call  the 
Streltsi  traitors  or  rebels. 

Four  days  after  this,  on  the  i6th  of  No- 
vember, the    Court   returned    to    Moscow, 


the  government  of  the  troops,  and  inserted 
in  the  laws  as  an  act  to  punish  riotous  con- 
duct and  inflammatory  language.  It  took  a 
longer  time  to  put  down  the  disturbances 
in  the  remoter  provinces,  which  had  been 
set  going  by  news  of  the  success  of  the 
Streltsi,  and  by  seditious  letters  from  Mos- 
cow. It  was  of  the  more  importance  to 
restore  order  to  the  country  as  speedily  as 
possible,  because  the  Poles  had  taken  occa- 


54 


PETER    THE   GREAT. 


sion  of  the  riots  at   Moscow   to   produce 
disturbances  in  the  border  provinces,  with 
the  hope  of  again  getting  them  into  their 
possession.      Strict    orders    were   therefore 
sent  everywhere  to  governors  to  arrest  and 
punish   all   runaway   Streltsi,  to  restore  to 
their  masters  all  fugitive  serfs,  severely  to 
punish  robbery  and   marauding.      Various 
old  laws  which  had  been  abolished  or  mod- 
erated in  the  time  of  Theodore  were  restored 
in  all  their  severity.     The  fingers  of  thieves 
were  to  be  cut  off,  and  the  third  offense 
was  punishable  with  death.     Later  on  this 
was  mitigated,  in  so  far  that,  for  the  first 
offense,  the  criminals  lost  their  ears  and  not 
their  fingers.     Most  difficulty  was  found  in 
appeasing  the  always  unruly  country  of  the 
Don    Cossacks,  and   in   putting   down  the 
bands  of  marauders  which  started  from  that 
region,  and  which  constantly  threatened  to 
bring  about  a  new  revolution,  equaling  in 
proportion  that  of  the  famous  Stenka  Razin. 
The  perseverance  of  Sophia  and  the  firm- 
ness of  her  ministers  at  last  brought  about 
a  tolerable  pacification  of  the  whole  country. 
The   youth   of  Peter,  the  loneliness  and 
friendless  condition  of  his  mother,  and  the 
imbecility  of  Ivan,  left  Sophia  the  mistress 
of  the  situation.    Her  right  to  rule  had  been 
recognized   by  the   decree  which   inserted 
her  name  as  Regent,  and,  on  the  whole, 
she   ruled  well   for   seven  years,  and  with 
advantage  to  Russia.     At  first  she  made  no 
appearance   in  public  as  a  member  of  the 
Government,  although  she  transacted  busi- 
ness with  the  higher  officials  and  sometimes 
received  foreign  embassies.     She  was,  how- 
ever, so  little  in  public  view  that  the  diplo- 
mats of  that  time   rarely   speak  of  her  in 
their    dispatches,    but    always    of    Prince 
Galitsyn   as   the   real    ruler    of    Muscovy. 
Her  name  appeared  in  public  decrees  only 
as  "  The  Most  Orthodox  Princess,  the  Sis- 
ter of  Their   Majesties,"  until  the  end  of 
1685,  when,  for  the  first  time,  she  is  men- 
tioned  as   autocrat  on  an   equal  with  her 
brothers,   and  it  was  not   until   two   years 
later  that  a  formal   decree  was  issued   to 
this   effect,  punishing   certain  persons  who 
had  drawn  up  papers  without  inserting  the 
word  Autocrat  after  her  name. 

The  greatest  figure  during  Sophia's  reign 
is  Prince  Basil  Galitsyn,  whom  we  have,  al- 
ready had  occasion  to  mention  several 
times.  He  was  born  in  1643,  of  one  of  the 
great  Russian  families  descended  from  the 
rulers  of  Lithuania ;  had  served  with  dis- 
tinction in  the  campaigns  against  the  Turks 
at  Tchigirin,  and,  as  we  already  know,  hac 


taken  the  leading  part  in  the  abolition  of 
precedence.  During  the  May  riots  he  had 
Deen  given  the  direction  of  foreign  affairs  by 
the  temporary  Government,  and,  after  the 
Government  of  Sophia  had  become  regularly 
established,  he  received  by  a  decree  the  title 
of  Keeper  of  the  Great  Seal,  or  Chancellor. 
His  more  immediate  duties,  however,  al- 
ways remained  those  of  Minister  of  Foreign 
Affairs.  Of  his  character  as  a  statesman  it 


SLEDGE    OF    PETER    DURING    HIS    CHILDHOOD.        (DRAWN    BY 
MAURICE    HOWARD,    FROM    "THE    RUSSIAN    EMPIRE.") 

will  be  more  easy  to  judge  when  we  have 
considered  the  chief  events  of  Sophia's  reign, 
and  especially  the  new  relations  which  Rus- 
sia then  entered  into  with  foreign  powers. 
As  a  man,  Galitsyn  had  received  a  good 
education,  and  was  imbued   with  Western 
culture  and  Western  ideas.     By  his  dignity, 
his  ready  courtesy,  and,  above  all,  by  his 
wealth  and   magnificence,  he  produced   a 
great  impression  on  all  the  foreign  embassa- 
dors  with  whom  he  came  into  contact,  with 
whom  he  could  talk  in  Latin  without  the  aid 
of  an  interpreter;    and  Baron  van  Keller, 
and  especially  Neuville,  an  agent  sent  to 
Moscow  by  the  Marquis  de   Bethune,  the 
French  embassador  in  Poland,  were  partic- 
ularly under  his  charm.      Neuville   speaks 
of  the  '  splendor    of   his    house    and    the 
urbanity  of  his  manners,— so  different  from 
those  of  the  other  Russians  whom  he  met, 
calls  him  a    veritable  grand  seigneur,  and 
says  that  on  entering  the  house  of  Prince 
Galitsyn  he  thought  he  was  in  the  palace  of 
some  great  Italian  prince.     He  was  much 
struck,  too,  by  the  circumstance  that  Galit- 
syn, instead  of  pressing  him  to  drink,  as  was 
the  Russian  habit,  on  the  contrary,  advised 
him  not  to  take  the  small  glass  of  vodka 
brought  in  on   the  arrival  of  guests,  as  it 
could  not  be  pleasant  to  a  foreigner.    Galit- 
syn sought  the  society  of  foreigners,  dined 
and  supped  at  the  houses  of  the  foreign  en- 
voys, as  well  as  of  the  chief  officers  in  the 
German  suburb;   was  in  intimate  relations 
with  General  Gordon;   and,   among  other 
things,  protected  the  young  Swiss,  Lefort, 


PETER    THE    GREAT. 


55 


who  was  destined  afterward  to  hold  a  posi- 
tion rivaling  his  own.  If  we  may  judge 
from  the  ideas  and  plans  of  Galitsyn,  as  re- 
counted by  Neuville,  for  the  development 
of  trade  in  Siberia,  for  the  reform  of  the 
military  organization  of  the  country  and  of 
the  internal  legislation,  as  well  as  for  a  pos- 
sible emancipation  of  the  serfs,  all  of  which 
remained  merely  as  projects, — for  the  state 
of  things  during  the  government  of  Sophia 
left  no  chance  to  carry  them  out, — we  must 
consider  him  as  one  of  the  most  liberal- 
minded  men  of  that  epoch,  and  fully  fitted 
to  sympathize  with  and  carry  out  the  reforms 
of  Theodore,  and  even  of  Peter.  When 
Galitsyn  was  condemned  and  banished,  in 
1689,  a  full  inventory  of  all  the  property  in 
his  house  was  taken,  which  still  exists  in  the 
archives  of  the  Ministry  of  Justice.  From 
this  we  can  form  some  idea  of  his  magnifi- 
cence as  well  as  of  his  tastes.  Besides 
costly  furniture  and  tapestry  hangings,  equi- 
pages, busts,  painted  glass,  carvings  in  wood 
and  ivory,  mathematical  and  physical  instru- 
ments, a  tellurium  in  gold  and  silver,  por- 
traits of  the  Tsars  as  well  as  of  princes  of 
Western  Europe,  crystal,  precious  stones, 
and  silver  plate  and  musical  instruments, 
there  were  silver  mountings  for  horse  trap- 
pings and  harness  to  the  value  of  what 
would  now  be  forty  thousand  dollars,  and  an 
immense  sum  in  silver  coin.  In  his  library 
there  were  books  in  several  different  lan- 
guages, many  historical  works,  and,  what  is 
most  interesting,  a  manuscript  of  an  encyclo- 
paedical work  on  statesmanship  and  political 
economy,  with  a  special  reference  to  Russia, 
written  by  the  learned  Serbian,  Yury  Kryz- 
hanitch,  in  his  exile  at  Tobolsk,  which  now 
serves  as  most  precious  material  for  estimat- 
ing the  character  of  the  time  just  before 
Peter.  In  it  are  developed  all  the  ideas  of 
reform  then  current  among  the  few,  some 
of  which  were  carried  into  effect  by  Peter. 

Prince  Ivan  Miloslavsky  took  a  promi- 
nent part  in  the  councils  of  Sophia  until  his 
death,  which  occurred  soon  after.  But  the 
man  on  whom  she  and  Galitsyn  relied  more 
than  the  rest  for  the  execution  of  their 
designs  was  Theodore  Shaklovity,  the  new 
commander  of  the  Streltsi.  He  was,  by 
origin,  from  Little  Russia,  apparently  with- 
out more  than  the  rudiments  of  an  educa- 
tion, but  adroit,  decided,  and  devoted. 
He  was  ready  to  carry  out  any  order  of  his 
sovereign,  no  matter  what.  The  command 
of  his  superior  was  for  him  a  sufficient  rea- 
son, and,  at  the  same  time,  his  devotion 
was  such  that  he  was  willing  to  engage  in 


plots  and  intrigues  on  a  mere  hint,  in  order 
to  advance  the  interests  of  his  master. 

The  councils  of  Sophia  were  completed 
on  their  spiritual  side  by  the  Monk  Sylves- 
ter Medvedief,  a  countryman  of  Shaklovity, 
who  had  originally  been  a  brilliant  young 
civilian,  and  at  one  time  had  been  attached 
to  a  great  embassy  to  Courland.  He  pre- 
ferred, however,  to  give  up  civil  life  and  to 
enter  the  church.  He  was  a  zealous  disci- 
ple of  Simeon  Poldtsky,  the  tutor  of  the 
Tsar  Theodore  and  the  Princess  Sophia, 
and  as  such  was  thought  to  be  tainted  with 
Romish  heresies.  His  contemporaries  con- 
sidered him  the  most  learned  man  in  Russia, 
and  he  wrote  several  theological  works,  one 
of  them  called  "  Manna,"  in  which  he  carried 
on  a  heated  controversy  with  the  Patriarch 
Joachim,  on  a  question  which  then  greatly 
divided  both  clergy  and  laymen  in  Russia, 
namely,  the  actual  moment  when  Transub- 
stantiation  began  during  the  celebration  of 
the  Eucharist.  For  us,  he  chiefly  lives  in  his 
short  but  interesting  memoirs  of  the  early 
part  of  Sophia's  reign  and  of  the  troubles 
of  1682. 

CHAPTER    XIV. 

THE     BOYHOOD    OF    PETER.       HIS     MILITARY 

EXERCISES,    AND    THE    BEGINNING 

OF    BOAT-BUILDING. 

DURING  the  early  period  of  Sophia's  re- 
gency, Peter  was  left  very  much  to  him- 
self. But  as  his  name  was  used  in  all 


COURTIERS    OF   THE    TIME   OF    PETER.       (FROM    A    LITHOGRAPH 
MADE    FOR    THE    AUSTRIAN    EMBASSY.) 

public  documents,  he  was  required  to  sign 
many  of  them,  and  he  seems  to  have  per- 
formed this  part  of  his  duty  with  punctuality 
and  accuracy.  He  had  also  to  go  to  Mos- 


PETER   THE   GREAT. 


cow,  on  occasions  of  ceremony,  to  take  part 
in  the  reception  of  foreign  embassadors, 
and  to  be  present  at  court,  and  State  ban- 
quets, and  at  the  ceremonies  and  proces- 
sions on  religious  festivals.  The  Polish 
envoy,  in  his  report  on  affairs  at  Moscow, 
.  stated' that  Sophia  was  exceedingly  fond  of 
her  brother  Peter,  and  was  endeavoring  to 
put  the  State  in  good  condition  in  order  to 
hand  the  Government  over  to  him  when 
he  became  old  enough.  The  sincerity  of 
her  attachment  to  Peter  we  may  be  allowed 
to  doubt,  but  she  certainly  manifested  no 
open  ill-will  to  him,  and,  indeed,  there  are 
several  entries  in  the  books  of  the  court  of 


troubles  of  the  Dissenters  and  of  Prince 
Havansky  naturally  kept  him  from  indulg- 
ing the  full  bent  of  his  inclinations  in  the 
country,  and  for  the  rest  of  the  year  he 
was  detained  in  Moscow  by  official  duties. 
Early  in  1683,  however,  we  find  him  ordering 
uniforms,  banners,  and  wooden  cannon,  all 
of  which  were  immediately  furnished  by 
the  authorities,  and  as  soon  as  he  was  abk 
to  go  into  the  country  to  Preobrazhensk) 
and  to  the  Sparrow  Hills,  messengers  camt 
almost  daily  to  the  Kremlin  for  lead,  pow 
der  and  shot.  On  his  eleventh  birthday— 
in  1683 — he  was  allowed  for  the  first  tim< 
to  have  some  real  guns,  which  he  fired  him 


PETER    PLAYING    AT    WAR.       (FROM     A    RUSSIAN     PAINTING,    ARTIST'S    NAME    UNKNOWN.) 


her  favorable  disposition  to  him.  Thus,  in 
July,  1684,  she  presented  him  with  some 
clasps,  buttons  and  stars.  With  his  brother 
Ivan,  Peter  was  always  on  the  best  of  terms, 
and  especially  so  after  the  Government  had 
become  settled.  Van  Keller,  writing  in 
1683  of  Peter's  residence  in  the  country, 
says :  "  The  natural  love  and  intelligence 
between  the  two  Lords  is  even  better  than 
before.  God  will  it  long  continue  so." 

So  much  was  Peter's  mind  set  on  military 
objects  and  playing  at  soldiers,  that  even 
a  day  or  two  after  the  first  riot  of  the 
Streltsi  we  hear  of  his  sending  down  to  the 
arsenal  for  drums,  banners  and  arms.  The 


self,  in  the  way  of  salutes,  under  the  direc 
tion  of  a  German  artilleryman  named  Simo: 
Sommer,  who  had  recently  come  fror 
foreign  parts,  and  was  a  captain  in  the  regi 
ment  of  General  She'pelof.  After  this  h 
was  allowed  small  brass  and  iron  cannor 
and  could  indulge  his  taste  for  music  a 
well  as  for  military  pastime,  for  musician! 
and  especially  drummer  boys,  were  selecte 
for  him  from  the  different  regiments.  Abov 
that  time — July,  1683 — a  German  travele 
named  Engelbert  Kampfer,  passed  throug 
Moscow  on  his  way  to  Astrakhan,  and,  i 
his  diary,  which  still  exists  in  manuscript  i 
the  British  Museum,  tells  of  his  reception  < 


PETER    THE   GREAT. 


57 


the  Russian  Court,  as  acting  secretary  for 
the  Swedish,  Envoy,  Fabricius : 

"  Here  we  got  off  our  horses,  and,  handing  our 
swords  to  a  servant,  walked  up  some  steps  and 
passed  through  a  building  magnificent  with  gilded 
vaults,  and  then  through  an  open  stone  passage, 
again  to  the  left,  and  through  an  ante-room  into  the 
audience  hall,  the  floor  of  which  was  covered  with 
Turkish  carpets,  where  we  came  to  the  '  piercing 
eyes'  of  their  Tsarish  Majesties.  Both  their  Maj- 
esties sat  not  in  the  middle  but  somewhat  to  the 
right  side  of  the  hall,  next  to  the  middle  column, 
and  sat  on  a  silver  throne  like  a  bishop's  chair, 
somewhat  raised  and  covered  with  red  cloth,  as  was 
most  of  the  hall.  Over  the  throne  hung  a  holy 
picture.  The  Tsars  had  on,  over  their  coats,  robes 
of  silver  cloth  woven  with  red  and  white  flowers, 
and,  instead  of  scepters,  had  long  golden  staves 
bent  at  the  end  like  bishops'  croziers,  on  which,  as 
on  the  breast-plate  of  their  robes,  their  breasts  and 
their  caps,  glittered  white,  green  and  other  precious 
stones.  The  elder  drew  his  cap  down  over  his  eyes 
several  times,  and,  with  looks  cast  down  on  the 
floor,  sat  almost  immovable.  The  younger  had  a 
free  and  open  face,  and  his  young  blood  rose  to  his 
cheeks  as  often  as  any  one  spoke  to  him.  He  con- 
stantly looked  about,  and  his  great  beauty  and  his 
lively  manner — which  sometimes  brought  the  Mus- 
covite magnates  into  confusion — struck  all  of  us  so 
much  that  had  he  been  an  ordinary  youth  and  no 
imperial  personage  we  would  gladly  have  laughed 
and  talked  to  him.  The  elder  was  seventeen,  and 
the  younger  sixteen  years  old.  When  the  Swedish 
Envoy  gave  his  letters  of  credence,  both  Tsars  rose 
from  their  places,  slightly  bared  their  heads  and 
asked  about  the  king's  health,  but  Ivan,  the  elder, 
somewhat  hindered  the  proceedings  through  not 
understanding  what  was  going  on,  and  gave  his  hand 
to  be  kissed  at  the  wrong  time.  Peter  was  so 
eager  that  he  did  not  give  the  secretaries  the  usual 
time  for  raising  him  and  his  brother  from  their  seats 
and  patting  their  heads  :  he  jumped  up  at  once,  put 
his  own  hand  to  his  hat  and  began  quickly  to  ask 
the  usual  question :  '  Is  his  royal  Majesty,  Carolus 
of  Sweden,  in  good  health  ?  '  He  had  to  be  pulled 
back  until  the  elder  brother  had  a  chance  of  speak- 
ing." 

It  was  evident  that  Peter  must  have  been 
a  large,  healthy  boy,  if  when  he  was  only 
eleven  he  appeared  to  Kampfer  and  the 
Swedish  mission  to  be  sixteen. 

It  is  interesting  to  compare  with  this  the 
account  of  Johann  Eberhard  Hovel,  who, 
in  the  next  year.  1684,  came  on  a  mission 
from  the  Emperor  Leopold  I.  Peter  was  at 
that  time  ill  with  the  measles — an  illness 
which  excited  considerable  alarm  among  his 
partisans — and  was  unable  to  receive.  Hovel, 
therefore,  saw  no  one  but  the  Tsar  Ivan.  He 
says  that  when  the  health  of  the  Emperor  was 
asked  about,  the  Tsar  was  so  weak  from  long 
standing  that  he  had  to  be  supported  by  his 
two  chamberlains,  who  held  up  his  arms,  and 
he  spoke  with  a  very  weak  and  inarticulate 
voice.  General  Gordon,  who  was  received 
a  few  days  later,  the  22d  of  January,  had 
tried  to  put  off  his  reception  in  order  to  see 


both  the  Tsars  at  once ;  but,  as  he  was 
obliged  to  leave  soon  for  his  command  at 
Kief,  was  received  only  by  Ivan  and  by 
Sophia.  According  to  his  account,  Ivan 
was  sickly  and  weak,  and  always  looked 
toward  the  ground.  He  said  nothing  him- 
self, and  all  the  questions  were  put  through 
Prince  Galitsyn.  This  was  just  after  the 
marriage  of  Ivan  with  Praskovia  Soltykof, 
of  a  distinguished  family.  This  marriage 
Hovel,  as  well  as  many  other  people,  con- 
sidered to  be  a  plot  on  the  part  of  Sophia 
to  obtain  heirs  from  the  elder  brother,  and 
thus  get  rid  of  the  claims  of  Peter,  whom 
he  calls  "  a  youth  of  great  expectancy,  pru- 
dence, and  vigor."  Considering,  however, 
that  Ivan,  in  spite  of  the  infirmities  of  his 
eyes,  his  tongue  and  his  mind,  was  in  perfect 
physical  condition,  it  is  the  most  natural 
thing  in  the  world  that  his  friends  should 
have  desired  him  to  marry.  Later  in  the 
same  year,  in  June,  Laurent  Rinhuber,  a 
doctor  of  medicine,  coming  from  Saxony, 
was  received  at  court,  and  was  granted  an 
audience  by  the  Tsars.  He  says  :  "  Then  I 
kissed  the  right  hand  of  Peter,  who,  with  a 
half  laughing  mouth,  gave  me  a  friendly 
and  gracious  look  and  immediately  held 
out  to  me  his  hand ;  while  the  hands  of  the 
Tsar  Ivan  had  to  be  supported.  He  is  a 
remarkably  good-looking  boy,  in  whom 
nature  has  shown  her  power;  and  has  so 
many  advantages  of  nature  that  being  the 
son  of  a  king  is  the  least  of  his  good  qual- 
ities. He  has  a  beauty  which  gains  the 
heart  of  all  who  see  him,  and  a  mind  which, 
even  in  his  early  years,  did  not  find  its 
like." 

In  the  autumn  of  the  same  year,  1684, 
Peter  had  another  attack  of  illness,  which 
was  more  severe  than  the  measles  and 
which  caused  great  alarm.  His  recovery 
excited  universal  joy,  more  especially  in  the 
foreign  quarter  of  Moscow.  There  were 
many  banquets  and  feasts  in  honor  of  his 
convalescence,  and  Prince  Boris  Galitsyn, 
the  cousin  of  the  Chancellor  and  the  chief 
adviser  of  Peter,  together  with  other  Rus- 
sians of  that  party,  dined  with  the  Dutch 
minister,  and  caroused  till  a  late  hour.  A 
year  later,  in  September,  1685,  Van  Keller 
writes  : 

"  The  young  Tsar  has  now  entered  his  thirteenth 
year;  nature  develops  herself  with  advantage  and 
good  fortune  in  his  whole  personality ;  his  stature 
is  great  and  his  mien  is  fine;  he  grows  visibly,  and 
advances  as  much  in  intelligence  and  understanding 
as  he  gains  the  affection  and  love  of  all.  He  has 
such  a  strong  preference  for  military  pursuits  that 
when  he  comes  of  age  we  may  surely  expect  from 


PETER    THE   GREAT. 


him  brave  actions  and  heroic  deeds,  and  we  may 
hope  that  some  day  the  attacks  of  the  Crim  Tartars 
will  be  somewhat  better  restrained  than  at  present. 
This  was  the  noble  aim  always  set  before  the  ances- 
tors of  the  young  Tsar." 

The  military  exercises  of  Peter  brought 
him  into  constant  contact  with  German 
officers  at  Moscow,  for  all  the  best  officers 
and  even  soldiers  were  foreigners,  and  it 
was  necessary  to  draw  on  the  German 
suburb  for  the  officers  and  instructors  for 
the  new  regiment  which  was  Organized,  at 
the  end  of  1683,  for  Peter's  amusement. 
The  first  man  who  was  enrolled  as  a  soldier 
in  the  regiment  was  Sergius  Bukhvastof, 
one  of  the  grooms  of  the  palace,  and  Peter 
was  so  much  struck  with  his  readiness,  and 
so  much  pleased  with  the  formation  of  this 
regiment,  that  long  after  ward  he  ordered  the 
Italian  artist  Rastrelli,  then  a  favorite  in  St. 
Petersburg,  to  cast  a  life-size  statue  of  him 
as  the  first  Russian  soldier.  Other  volun- 
teers soon  presented  themselves,  and  Peter 
himself  enlisted  as  bombardier,  for  which 
duty  he  had  an  especial  fancy,  and  then 
passed  through  the  various  grades  until  he 
became  colonel  and  chief  of  the  regiment. 
Among  the  other  volunteers  were  Yekim 
Voronin  and  Gregory  Lukin — at  whose 
deaths,  during  the  siege  of  Azof,  Peter 
grieved  greatly,  "  as  he  and  they  had  been 
brought  up  together " — and  Alexander 
Menshikof,  the  future  favorite.  This  was 
the  beginning  of  the  celebrated  Preobra- 
zhensky Regiment,  even  now  the  first  regi- 
ment of  the  Imperial  guard,  and  of  which 
the  Emperor  is  always  the  chief.  The  name 
Preobrazhensky  was  given  to  it  first  because 
it  was  formed  and  quartered  at  the  palace 
and  village  of  Preobrazhensky,  or  the  Trans- 
figuration, which,  in  turn,  took  their  name 
from  the  village  church.  Peter  and  his 
friends  called  this  regiment,  and  others 
which  were  afterwards  formed,  "the  guards," 
but  the  common  name  for  them  at  Moscow 
was  the  Potieshnie  Koniukhi,  i.  <?., "  Amuse- 
ments Grooms,"  or  "  Troops  for  Sport." 

The  number  of  volunteers  for  this  regi- 
ment increased  so  rapidly  that  the  village  of 
Preobrazhensky  could  not  hold  them,  and 
it  was  necessary  to  quarter  some  of  the 
soldiers  in  the  adjoining  village  of  Semen- 
ofsky, where  another  regiment  called  the 
Semenofsky  Regiment  grew  up.  All  the 
young  nobles  who  desired  to  gain  Peter's 
good  graces  followed  his  example  by  enroll- 
ing themselves  in  some  way  or  other  in 
these  regiments.  Thus,  Prince  M.  M.  Gal- 
itsyn,  the  future  Field  Marshal,  began  his 


service  as  drummer  in  the  Semenofsky  Reg- 
iment, and  Ivan  Ivanovitc.h  Buturlin  served 
up  to  the  rank  of  major  in  the  Preobra- 
zhensky Regiment. 

Peter  entered  upon  his  military  exercises 
with  such  zest  that  they  ceased  to  be  mere 
child's  play.  He  himself  performed  every 
exercise,  giving  himself  no  rest  night  or  day. 
He  stood  his  watch  in  turn,  took  his  share 
of  the  duties  of  the  camp,  slept  in  the  same 
tent  with  his  comrades,  and  partook  of  their 
fare.  There  was  no  distinction  made  be- 
tween the  Tsar  and  the  least  of  his  subjects. 
When  his  volunteers  became  proficient  in 
their  discipline,  he  used  to  lead  them  on 
long  marches  in  the  neighborhood  of  his 
country-home,  and  went  at  times  even  as  far 
as  the  Monastery  of  Troitsa,  at  Kaliazin.  As 
his  followers  were  armed,  these  marches 
were  in  the  nature  of  campaigns,  and  the 
troops,  such  as  they  were,  were  under  strict 
military  discipline,  and  were  regularly  en- 
camped at  night  with  the  usual  military 
precautions.  In  1685,  when  Peter  was 
thirteen  years  old,  he  resolved  on  something 
further,  and,  in  order  to  practice  the  assault 
and  defence  of  fortifications,  began  to  con- 
struct a  small  fortress  on  the  banks  of  the 
Yauza,  at  Preobrazhensky,  the  remains  of 
which  are  still  visible  on  the  edge  of  the 
Sokolniki  wood.  This  fort,  probably  at  the 
suggestion  of  one  of  the  German  officers, 
was  called  Pressburg.  It  was  built  with  a 
considerable  amount  of  care,  timber  was 
drawn  for  the  purpose  from  Moscow,  and  its 
construction  took  the  greater  part  of  the 
year.  Peter  named  it  with  great  ceremony, 
including  a  procession  from  Moscow  which 
included  most  of  the  Court  officials  and 
nobles.  All  this,  as  I  have  said,  brought 
Peter  into  very  close  relations  with  the 
foreign  suburb,  and  the  foreigners  in  Mos- 
cow were  fond  of  social  amusements,  always 
accompanied,  according  to  their  habits,  with 
beer,  wine  and  tobacco.  Peter,  who  was 
precocious,  both  physically  and  mentally, 
took  his  full  share  in  these  entertainments, 
and  on  the  return  feasts  he  gave  it  may  be 
imagined  that  there  was  no  stint  of  drink. 
With  such  society  Peter  gained  not  only  a 
knowledge  of  men  and  of  the  world,  but  his 
inquiring  mind  led  him  to  be  curious  about 
many  subjects  which  rarely  before  had 
troubled  the  head  of  a  Russian  Prince. 
Without  regard  to  rank  or  position,  he  was 
always  glad  to  make  the  acquaintance  of 
any  one  from  whom  he  could  learn  any- 
thing, and  was  especially  attracted  by  any- 
thing mechanically  curious. 


PETER    THE    GREAT. 


59 


Frequently,  for  amusement,  he  used  to 
hammer  and  forge  at  the  blacksmith's  shop. 
He  had  already  become  expert  with  the 
lathe,  and  we  have  documentary  evidence 
to  prove  that  he  had  practically  learnt  the 
mechanical  operation  of  printing  as  well  as 
binding  books.  We  can  believe  that  the 
Electress  Charlotte  Sophia  did  not  exagger- 
ate when  she  said,  in  1697,  in  describing 
her  interview  with  Peter,  that  he  "  already 
knew  excellently  well  fourteen  trades." 

All  this  was  a  school  for  Peter;  but  do 
not  let  us  be  led  astray  by  the  word  school. 
Peter's  military  education  was  such  as  he 
chose  to  give  himself,  and  entirely  for  his 
own  amusement. 
There  was  nothing 
in  it  similar  to  the 
regular  course  of 
military  training 
practiced  in  a  ca- 
det's school.  Peter 
was  only  too  glad 
to  escape  from  the 
nursery  and  the 
house  to  the  amuse- 
ments of  the  street 
and  the  fields.  Al- 
though we  know 
that  in  the  Russia 
of  that  day  the  in- 
tellectual develop- 
ment of  a  youth 
did  not  at  all  keep 
on  an  equality  with 
his  physical  growth, 
and  that  when  a  lad  was  grown  to  the 
stature  of  a  man,  he  immediately  assumed 
the  duties  and  responsibilities  of  a  man, 
though  in  mind  he  might  be  still  a  child ; 
yet  the  way  in  which  Peter  seems  to 
have  slipped  through  the  hands  of  his  in- 
structors, tutors  and  guardians  shows  not 
only  his  strong  self-will,  but  the  disorganiza- 
tion of  his  party,  and  the  carelessness  of  his 
family.  Such  a  training  may  have  been 
useful,  and  indeed,  it  was  useful  to  Peter;  at 
all  events  it  was  better  tjian  nothing ;  but  in 
no  sense  of  the  term  can  it  be  considered 
education.  This  Peter  himself,  in  later  life, 
admitted,  and  the  Empress  Elizabeth  tells 
ho\v,  when  she  was  bending  over  her  books 
and  exercises,  her  father  regretted  that  he 
had  not  been  obliged  or  enabled  to  do  the 
same. 

One  more  word  with  regard  to  Peter's 
military  amusements.  They  were,  as  I  have 
said,  mere  amusements,  and  had  not  the 
regularity  or  the  plan  which  subsequent 


GLOBE  MADE  OF  METAL,  FROM 
WHICH  PETER  STUDIED  GEOGRA- 
PHY, FORMERLY  OWNED  BY  ALEX- 
IS. NOW  IN  THE  TREASURY  AT 
MOSCOW.  (DRAWN  BY  MAURICE 
HOWARD,  FROM  "THE  RUSSIAN 
EMPIRE.")  [SEE  P.  60.] 


chroniclers  and  anecdote- writers  ascribe  to 
them.  In  playing  at  soldiers,  Peter  followed 
his  natural  inclination,  and  had  in  his  head 
no  plan  whatever  for  reorganizing  or  putting 
on  a  better  footing  the  military  forces  of  his 
country.  The  reorganization  of  the  Russian 
army,  indeed,  grew  out  of  the  campaigns 
and  exercises  at  Preobrazhensky  ;  but  it  was 
not  until  real  war  began  that  Peter  saw  of 
what  service  these  exercises  had  been  to 
him  and  to  others,  and  found  that  the  boy- 
soldiers  could  easily  be  made  the  nucleus  of 
an  army. 

The  year  1688  was  an  important  one  for 
Peter.  In  January  he  was  induced  by  his 
sister  Sophia  to  take  part  for  the  first  time  in 
a  council  of  state,  and  thus  made  his  public 
appearance  in  political  life  in  something 
more  than  a  mere  formal  way.  But  his 
mind  was  at  that  time  too  full  of  his  military 
exercises  for  him  to  care  for  state  affairs,  and, 
after  visiting  all  the  public  offices  on  the 
day  of  commemoration  of  the  death  of  his 
father,  Alexis,  when  he  gave  money  to  some 
prisoners  and  set  others  free,  he  went  back 
again  to  the  country,  to  his  troops.  Later 
on,  his  intellect  began  to  awaken,  and  he 
seriously  applied  himself  to  study ;  and 
then,  too,  his  thoughts  were  first  turned  to 
navigation  and  things  naval,  which  soon 
became  the  ruling  passion  of  his  life.  He 
told  the  story  himself,  long  afterwards,  in  his 
preface  to  the  "  Maritime  Regulations." 

He  had  heard  somewhere  that  abroad,  in 
foreign  parts,  people  had  an  instrument  by 
which  distances  could  be  measured  without 
moving  from  the  spot.  When  Prince  Jacob 
Dolgoruky  was  about  to  start  on  his  mission 
to  France,  and  came  to  take  his  leave,  Peter 
told  him  of  this  wonderful  instrument,  and 
begged  him  to  procure  him  one  abroad. 
Dolgoruky  told  him  he  himself  had  once 
had  one,  which  was  given  him  as  a  present, 
but  it  had  been  stolen,  and  that  he  would 
certainly  not  forget  to  bring  one  home.  On 
Dolgoruky's  return,  in  May,  1688,  the  first 
question  of  Peter  was  whether  he  had  ful- 
filled his  promise  ;  and  great  was  the  excite- 
ment as  the  box  was  opened  and  a  parcel 
containing  an  astrolabe  and  a  sextant  was 
eagerly  unwrapped ;  but,  alas !  when  they 
were  brought  out  no  one  knew  the  use  of 
them.  Dolgoruky  scratched  his  head,  and 
said  that  he  had  brought  the  instrument,  as 
directed,  but  it  had  never  occurred  to  him  to 
ask  how  it  was  used.  In  vain  Peter  sought  for 
some  one  who  knew  its  use.  At  last  his  new 
doctor,  Zacharias  Von  der  Hulst,  told  him 
that  in  the  German  suburb  he  knew  of  a  man 


6o 


PETER   THE   GREAT. 


TIMMERMANN     EXPLAINING    TO    PETER    THE     USE    OF    THE    ASTROLABE. 

NAME    UNKNOWN.) 


(FROM     A    RUSSIAN     PAINTING,    ARTIST  S 


with  a  notion  of  mechanics, — Franz  Tim- 
mermann,  a  Dutch  merchant,  who  had  long 
ago  settled  in  Moscow,  and  had  a  certain 
amount  of  education.  Timmermann  was 
brought  next  day.  He  looked  at  the  instru- 
ment, and,  after  a  long  inspection,  finally 
said  he  could  show  how  it  should  be  used. 
Immediately  he  measured  the  distance  to  a 
neighboring  house.  A  man  was  at  once 
sent  to  pace  it,  and  found  the  measurement 
correct.  Peter  was  delighted,  and  asked  to 
be  instructed  in  the  use  of  the  new  instru- 
ment. Timmermann  said  :  "  With  pleasure ; 
but  you  must  first  learn  arithmetic  and  geom- 
etry." Peter  had  once  begun  studying  arith- 
metic, but  was  deficient  in  its  full  knowledge. 
He  did  not  even  know  how  to  subtract  or 
divide.  He  now  set  to  work  with  a  will, 
and  spent  his  leisure  time,  both  day  and 
night,  over  his  copy-books.  These  are  still 
preserved  at  St.  Petersburg,  and  we  find 
there  many  problems,  written  in  the  hand 
of  Timmermann,  with  Peter's  efforts  at  solu- 
tion. The  writing  is  careless,  and  faults  of 
grammar  abound ;  but  the  ardor  and  resolu- 
tion with  which  Peter  worked  are  evident 
on  every  page.  Geometry  led  to  geography 
and  fortification.  The  old  globe  of  his 
school-room  was  sent  for  repairs,  and  he 
had,  besides,  the  one  in  metal  presented  to 
his  father,  which  still  is  shown  in  the  treasury 
at  Moscow. 

From  this  time  Timmermann  became  one 


of  Peter's  constant  companions,  for  he  was 
a  man  from  whom  something  new  could 
always  be  learned.  A  few  weeks  later,  in 
June,  1688,  as  Peter  was  wandering  about 
one  of  his  country  estates  near  the  village 
of  Ismailovo,  he  pointed  to  an  old  build- 
ing in  the  flax-yard  and  asked  one  of  his 
attendants  what  it  was.  "  A  store-house," 
replied  the  man,  "  where  all  the  rubbish  was 
put  that  was  left  after  the  death  of  Nikita 
Ivanovitch  Romanof,  who  had  lived  here." 
This  Nikita  was  an  own  cousin  of  the  Tsar 
Michael  Romanof,  and  in  that  way  the 
estate  had  descended  to  Peter.  With  the 
natural  curiosity  of  a  boy,  Peter  had  the 
doors  opened,  went  in,  and  looked  about. 
There,  in  one  corner,  turned  bottom  upward, 
lay  a  boat,  yet  not  in  any  way  like  those 
flat-bottomed,  square-sterned  boats  which  he 
had  seen  on  the  Moskva  or  the  Yauza. 

"  What  is  that  ?  "  he  asked. 

"  That  is  an  English  boat,"  said  Timmer- 
mann. 

"  What  is  it  good  for  ?  Is  it  better  than 
our  boats  ?  "  asked  Peter. 

"  If  you  had  sails  to  it,  it  would  go  not 
only  with  the  wind,  but  against  the  wind," 
replied  Timmerman. 

"  How  against  the  wind  ?  Is  it  possible  ? 
Can  that  be  possible  ?  " 

Peter  wished  to  try  it  at  once.  But,  after 
Timmermann  had  looked  at  the  boat  on  all 
sides,  it  was  found  to  be  too  rotten  for  use; 


PETER    THE   GREAT. 


61 


it  would  need  to  be  repaired  and  tarred, 
and  beside  that  a  mast  and  sails  would 
have  to  be  made.  Timmermann  at  last 
thought  he  could  find  a  man  capable  of 
doing  this,  and  sent  to  Ismailovo  a  certain 
Carsten  Brandt,  who  had  been  brought 
from  Holland  about  1660  by  the  Tsar 
Alexis,  for  the  purpose  of  constructing  ves- 
sels on  the  Caspian  Sea.  After  the  troubles 
of  Astrakhan,  when  his  vessel,  the  Eagle, 
had  been  burnt  by  Stenka  Razin,  Brandt 
had  returned  to  Moscow  and  had  remained 
there,  making  a  living  as  a  joiner.  The  old 
man  looked  over  the  boat,  caulked  it,  put 
in  the  mast  and  arranged  the  sail,  and  then 
launched  it  on  the  River  Yauza.  There, 
before  Peter's  eyes,  he  began  to  sail  up  and 
down  the  river,  turning  now  to  the  right 
and  then  to  the  left.  Peter's  excitement 
was  intense.  He  called  out  to  him  to  stop, 
jumped  in,  and  began  himself  to  manage 
the  boat  under  Brandt's  directions.  "  And 
mighty  pleasant  it  was  to  me,"  he  writes  in 
the  preface  to  his  "  Maritime  Regulations," 
where  he  describes  the  beginning  of  the 
Russian  navy.  It  was  hard  for  the  boat  to 
turn,  for  the  river  was  narrow  and  the  water 
was  too  shallow.  Peter  eagerly  asked  where 
a  broader  piece  of  water  could  be  found, 
and  was  told  of  the  Prosyany  Pool.  The 
boat  was  dragged  overland  to  the  Prosyany 
Pool.  It  went  better,  but  still  not  to  his 
satisfaction.  At  last  Peter  found  that  about 


fifty  miles  beyond  the  Troitsa  Monastery 
there  was  a  good  large  lake  where  he  would 
have  plenty  of  room  to  sail — Lake  Plest- 
cheief,  near  Pereyaslavl.  It  was  not,  how- 
ever, so  easy  for  Peter  to  get  there.  It  was 
not  customary  for  the  Tsars  or  members  of 
their  family  to  make  journeys  without  some 
recognized  object,  and  what  should  a  boy 
of  this  age  do  so  far  away,  and  alone  ? 
An  idea  struck  Peter.  It  was  then  June, 
and  there  was  a  great  festival  at  the  Troitsa 
Monastery.  He  asked  his  mother's  per- 
mission to  go  to  Troitsa  for  the  festival,  and 
as  soon  as  the  religious  service  was  over  he 
drove  as  fast  as  he  could  to  Lake  Plest- 
cheief.  The  country  was  at  that  time 
delightful.  The  low  hills  were  covered 
with  the  fresh  green  of  the  birches,  mixed 
with  the  more  sturdy  lindens  and  the  pines 
black  by  contrast.  The  faint  smell  of  the 
lilies  of  the  valley  came  up  from  the  mead- 
ows on  the  lake  shore.  Peter  did  not  notice 
this.  His  mind  was  too  intent  upon  naviga- 
tion ;  he  saw  only  that  the  lake  was  broad 
enough,  for  it  stretched  out  of  sight.  But 
he  soon  learned  that  there  was  no  boat 
there,  and  he  knew  that  it  was  too  far  to 
bring  the  little  English  boat  which  he  had 
found  at  Ismailovo.  Anxiously  he  asked 
Brandt  whether  it  were  not  possible  to 
build  some  boats  there. 

"  Yes,  sire,"  said   Brandt,  "  but  we   will 
require  many  things." 


PETER    LAUNCHING     "THE    GRANDFATHER    OF    THE    RUSSIAN     FLEET. 


(FROM     A     RUSSIAN     PAINTING,    ARTIST    UNKNOWN.) 


PETER   THE    GREAT. 


"Ah,  well !  that  is  of  no  consequence," 
said  Peter.  "  We  can  have  anything." 

And  he  hastened  back  to  Moscow  with 
his  head  full  of  visions  of  ship-building. 
He  scarcely  knew  how  to  manage  it,  for  to 
engage  in  such  a  work  at  Lake  Plestcheief 
would  require  his  living  there  for  some  time, 
and  he  knew  that  it  would  be  hard  to  bring 
his  mother  to  consent  to  this.  At  last  he 
extorted  this  consent,  but  he  was  obliged  to 
wait  at  Moscow  for  his  name's-day,  when 
there  was  a  Te  Deum  at  the  Cathedral,  after 
which  the  boyars  and  grandees  paid  their 
respects  at  the  palace  and  received  cups  of 
vodka  from  Peter  and  goblets  of  wine  from 
the  hands  of  his  mother.  He  hastened  off 
the  next  day — the  loth  of  July — together 
with  Carsten  Brandt  and  a  ship-builder 
named  Kort,  an  old  comrade  whom  Brandt 
had  succeeded  in  finding  at  Moscow.  Tim- 
mermann,  probably,  also  accompanied  him. 
Fast  as  Peter  and  his  comrades  worked 
together — for  he  had  remained  with  them  in 
the  woods — there  was  so  much  to  do  in  the 


preparation  of  timber,  in  the  construction 
of  huts  to  live  in,  and  of  a  dock  from  which 
to  launch  the  boats,  that  it  came  time  for 
Peter  to  return  long  before  any  boat  was 
ready,  and  there  was  no  sign  that  any  could 
be  got  ready  before  winter  set  in.  The 
Tsaritsa  Natalia  had  grown  anxious  for  her 
son.  He  had  been  away  nearly  a  month, 
and  political  affairs  were  taking  a  serious 
turn.  Much  to  his  regret,  therefore,  Peter 
came  back  to  Moscow  for  his  mother's 
name's-day,  on  the  6th  of  September,  leav- 
ing his  faithful  Dutchmen  strict  injunctions 
to  do  their  utmost  to  have  the  boats  ready 
by  the  following  spring. 

The  place  chosen  by  Peter  for  his  ship- 
building was  on  the  east  side  of  Lake  Plest- 
cheief, at  the  mouth  of  the  river  Trubezh, 
which  runs  into  it.  The  only  traditions  still 
remaining  of  Peter's  visit  are  the  sight  of  a 
church  dedicated  to  the  Virgin  at  the  Ships, 
and  the  decaying  remains  of  some  piles  un- 
der water,  which  apparently  formed  the 
wharf  or  landing-stage.  Lake  Plestch6ief, 


OLD    RUSSIAN     PRINT    OF     "THE    GRANDFATHER    OF    THE    RUSSIAN     FLEET. 


THE  NEW  YORK  SEVENTH. 


63 


nowadays,  is  famous  for  nothing  but  an 
excellent  and  much  sought-for  variety  of 
fresh-water  herring. 

The  boat  which  Peter  found  at  Ismailovo 
is  thought  by  many  to  have  been  constructed 
in  Russia  by  Dutch  carpenters,  in  1688,  dur- 
ing the  reign  of  the  Tsar  Alexis,  at  a  place 
called  Dedinovo,  at  the  confluence  of  the 
rivers  Moskva  and  Oka.  By  others,  it  is 
thought  to  be  a  boat  sent  by  Queen  Eliza- 
beth to  the  Tsar  Ivan  the  Terrible.  Ever 
since  Peter's  time  it  has  borne  the  name  of 


the  "  Grandfather  of  the  Russian  fleet,"  and 
is  preserved  with  the  greatest  care  in  a  small 
brick  building  near  the  Cathedral  of  St. 
Peter  and  Paul,  within  the  fortress  at  St. 
Petersburg.  In  1870,  on  the  celebration  of 
the  zooth  anniversary  of  Peter's  birth,  it  was 
one  of  the  chief  objects  of  interest  in  the 
great  parade  at  St.  Petersburg ;  and  again, 
in  1872,  it  was  conveyed  with  much  pomp 
and  solemnity  to  Moscow,  where,  for  a  time, 
it  formed  a  part  of  the  Polytechnic  Exposi- 
tion. 


THE  NEW  YORK  SEVENTH. 


ARMS    OF    THE    NEW    YORK     SEVENTH     REGIMENT. 

GOOD  Americans,  in  foregoing  the  many 
fine  things  to  be  said  of  the  martial  scream 
of  the  American  eagle  over  an  ascending 
scale  of  a  hundred  years, — things  which 
would  be  regarded  as  boasts  by  some,  and 
as  superannuated  truisms  by  others, — can- 
not, however,  conceal  the  fact  that  they  are 
proud  of  the  military  prowess  of  their  country. 
This  pride  is  perhaps  all  the  stronger  in 
that  the  defense  of  the  republic  rests  with  a 
militia  system  whose  strength  lies  rather  in 
its  traditions,  and  in  the  "  grit"  and  flexibility 
of  the  American  character,  than  in  any  for- 
midable or  active  organization. 

Indeed,  so  far  as  active  organization  goes, 
with  the  exception  of  three  or  four  States, 
the  militia  service  of  the  country  has  been  a 
broad  farce.  Certain  ghostly  battalions  have 
existed  on  paper,  for  the  patriotic  purpose 
of  enabling  State  authorities  to  get  a  share 


of  the  $200,000  annually  appropriated,  since 
1792,  by  the  General  Government,  to  pro- 
vide arms  and  equipments  for  the  State 
militia.  By  this  plan,  the  State  of  New 
York,  with  a  bona  fide  uniformed  militia 
numbering  nearly  twenty  thousand,  has  been 
drawing  a  proportionate  share  of  the  $200,- 
ooo  provided  for  a  mythical  host  estimated 
at  four  hundred  thousand  men.  As  for  the 
regular  army,  the  contempt  some  Congress- 
man occasionally  bestows  on  it,  and  the 
growing  record  of  its  losses  by  Indian  war- 
fare, serve  now  and  then  to  remind  the 
country  that  a  few  of  the  "  boys  in  blue " 
are  still  left.  But  Avhether  or  not  the 
strength  of  the  standing  army  be  raised,  it 
is  evident  that  some  re-organization  of  the 
militia  is  necessary.  This  the  railroad  riots 
of  1877  have  clearly  demonstrated. 

With  this  purpose  in  view,  in  January, 
1879,  a  delegate  convention  from  the  differ- 
ent States  met  in  New  York,  and  framed  and 
urged  upon  the  attention  of  Congress  an  Act 
"  To  reorganize  and  discipline  the  militia  of 
the  United  States,"  its  provisions  having  pre- 
viously been  indorsed  by  the  militia  delegates 
of  about  twenty  States.  Congress,  however, 
has  been  too  much  absorbed  with  partisan 
thrusts  and  parries  to  consider  the  bill, 
which  has  been  interpreted  as  an  infringe- 
ment on  the  present  State  control  of  the 
militia,  and  consequently  a  new  attack 
upon  the  doctrine  of  States'  Rights.  On  the 
contrary,  it  carefully  provides  that  the  militia 
of  any  State  shall  be  wholly  under  the  con- 
trol of  the  authorities  of  that  State,  except, 
of  course,  where  the  militia  is  called  into  the 
service  of  the  United  States,  according  to  the 
laws  already  in  force.  The  fact  that  all  the 
provisions  of  the  bill  received  the  approval 
of  the  Southern  delegates,  proves  that  the 
convention  studiously  avoided  the  question 


THE  NEW  YORK  SEVENTH. 


of  State  Rights.  The  bill  asks  for  an  annual 
appropriation  by  the  General  Government 
of  one  million  dollars,  instead  of  the  two 
hundred  thousand  now  devoted  to  arms  and 
equipments ;  and,  to  secure  a  fair  division  of 


THE     SEVENTH     REGIMENT    MEMORIAL     STATUE     IN    CENTRAL 
PARK,    BY  J.    Q.    A.    WARD. 

the  money,  provides  that  only  the  regularly 
uniformed  and  disciplined  militia  be  taken 
into  account  in  making  the  distribution,  and 
that  no  State  be  allowed  to  draw  for  more 
than  700  officers  and  enlisted  men  to  each 
Congressional  district.  If  each  State  should 
organize  a  force  closely  approximating  to  this 
limit,  the  uniformed  and  disciplined  militia 
of  the  country,  capable  of  being  called  into 


service  at  a  few  hours'  notice,  would  make 
a  respectable  footing  of  two  hundred  thou- 
sand men.  It  has  also  been  charged  that  the 
clause  empowering  the  President  to  detail  an 
officer  on  the  retired  list  of  the  regular  army 
to  be  present  at  the  annual  inspection  of 
the  militia  by  the  State  authorities,  is  an 
infringement  on  State  rights.  But  the  Presi- 
dent's appointee  is  empowered  only  "  to 
observe  the  general  condition  of  the  troops 
and  public  property,  with  the  consent,  and 
under  the  general  directions,  of  the  Gov- 
ernor of  such  State  or  Territory,"  and 
is  accorded  "  no  authority  in  any  way  to 
control  or  interfere  with  the  State  In- 
spector, or  to  exercise  any  power  or 
authority,  during  such  inspection,  over  the 
officers  or  men  of  the  active  militia  inspected." 
If  the  spirit  of  Calhoun  had  inspired  this 
clause,  it  could  not  have  been  more  consid- 
erate of  the  feelings  of  State  authorities. 
It  simply  aims  to  protect  the  General  Govern- 
ment and  provident  States  against  the  negli- 
gence of  any  State. 

The  bill,  if  it  becomes  a  law,  will  make 
a  militia-man  of  every  able-bodied  male 
citizen  between  the  ages  of  eighteen  and 
forty-five,  who,  as  he  may  elect,  will  be  classed 
with  the  active  militia,  to  be  known  as  the 
National  or  State  Guard,  or  with  the  reserve 
militia.  Each  State  receiving  any  portion 
of  the  appropriation  must  maintain  at  least 
one  rifle-range,  and  provision  is  made  for 
prizes  to  excite  emulation.  Also,  there 
must  be  an  annual  encampment  of  the 
active  militia,  during  at  least  five  consecutive 
days.  Under  such  a  law,  the  full  quota  on 
which  the  State  of  New  York  could  draw  aid, 
would  be  23,100  men — 3,100  more  than  her 
active  militia,  as  fixed  by  the  State  law.  In 
January,  1878,  the  New  York  militia  con- 
sisted of  20,035  men,  or  1,152  commissioned 
officers  and  18,883  non-commissioned  offi- 
cers, privates,  and  musicians.  This  force 
was  organized  into  seven  divisions — one  of 
which  has  since  been  disbanded — comprising 
twenty-four  regiments,  seven  separate  battal- 
ions and  twenty-one  separate  companies  of 
infantry,  one  battalion  and  eleven  batteries 
of  artillery,  and  one  regiment  and  eleven  sep- 
arate troops  of  cavalry.  The  plan  is  being 
tried  of  disbanding  weak  regiments  and  bat- 
talions in  the  interior  counties  of  the  State, 
and  organizing,  partially  out  of  the  same  ma- 
terial, strong  battalions  and  separate  compa- 
nies,— the  effect  being  to  stimulate  local 
interest  and  more  widely  to  distribute  the 
militia,  that  it  may  the  better  supplement  the 
civil  authorities,  in  case  of  local  disturbance. 


THE  NEW  YORK  SEVENTH. 


Nine  infantry  regiments,  with  cavalry  and 
artillery  to  correspond, — about  eight  thou- 
sand, all  told, — constitute  the  active  militia 
of  New  York  city,  or  the  First  Division  N. 
G.  S.  N.  Y.,  under  the  command  of  General 
Alexander  Shaler.  This  is  the  finest  and 
largest  militia  organization  in  the  country, 
and  the  Seventh  has  the  honor  of  being  the 
"  crack  regiment"  in  it ;  though  there  are  two 
or  three  other  regiments  in  the  same  division 
standing  near  enough  to  the  favorite  to  keep 
alive  a  wholesome  feeling  of  emulation.  An 
account  of  this  regiment  must,  therefore,  to 
a  great  extent,  be  an  account  of  the  New 
York  militia  system. 

Early  in  the  present  century,  the  first  four 
companies  of  the  Seventh  Regiment  inher- 
ited from  yet  older  organizations  the  military 
spirit  and  tradition  of  revolutionary  days. 
Two  hundred  years  earlier,  the  Dutch 
Durgher  corps,  in  its  conflicts  with  the 
fndians  and  with  the  white  settlers  of  Con- 
necticut, founded  the  military  reputation  of 
the  inhabitants  of  Manhattan  Island.  In 
1691,  a  militia  law  was  enacted,  requiring 
every  male  between  the  ages  of  fifteen  and 
sixty  to  register  with  the  militia  Avithin  one 
month  after  coming  to  reside  or  sojourn  in 
the  colony,  under  penalty  of  a  fine  of  twenty 
shillings.  Eighty  years  of  English  tyranny 
produced  that  hardy  band  of  patriots  who 
called  themselves  the  "  Sons  of  Liberty ;  " 
who  erected  the  first  liberty-pole  in  the  fields, 
now  the  City  Hall  Park,  and  in  January, 
1770,  encountered  the  British  garrison  in  the 
'  battle  of  Golden  Hill,"  a  skirmish  fought  in 
John  street,  between  Gold  and  Pearl  streets. 
About  1807,  the  first,  second,  third  and  fourth 
companies  of  the  present  Seventh  Regiment 


THE  SHAKSPERE  TAVERN,  NEW  YORK.   (FROM  SKETCH  BY  ASHER  TAYLOR.) 

VOL.  XX.— 5. 


NEW   YORK     STATE    AND    SEVENTH    REGIMENT    COLORS. 

belonged  to  the  Third  Regiment  of  New 
York  Artillery,  prominent  among  the  militia 
organizations  of  that  day.  Only  one  battal- 
ion of  the  regiment  was  artillery  proper,  the 
other  battalion  being  armed  and  equipped 
like  infantry,  and  carrying  the  old-fashioned, 
smooth-bore  flint-locks.  Both  battalions 
wore  the  Continental  uniform.  These  four 
infantry  companies  had  been  organized  the 
year  before,  during  a  season  of  great  public 
excitement,  when  England  was  making  a 
practical  test  of  the  theory  that  an  English 
seaman  could  not,  of  his  own  free  will, 
sever  his  allegiance  to  the  British  crown 
and  take  protection  and  service  under  the 
American  flag.  Outrages  on  American 
commerce  fanned  the  war  feeling,  but  war 
was  not  declared  until  June,  1812.  Two 
months  earlier,  the  Third  Regiment,  by  a 
re-assignment  of  num- 
bers, had  become  the 
Eleventh  Regiment, 
New  York  Artillery, 
and  as  such  it  was 
foremost  in  manning 
the  fortifications  of 
the  city  and  harbor, 
at  different  periods  of 
alarm,  previous  to  the 
victory  of  New  Or- 
leans, in  January, 
1815,  and  the  close 
of  the  war. 

Lafayette's  last  visit 
to  America,  in  1824, 
as  the  guest  of  the 
Republic  whose  inde- 
pendence he  had 
helped  to  establish, 


66 


THE  NEW  YORK  SEVENTH. 


makes  a  prominent  chapter  in  the  history  of 
the  Seventh,  for  to  that  visit  is  referred  the 
origin  of  its  gray  uniform,  as  well  as  its  title  of 
"  National  Guard,"  since  appropriated  by  the 
entire  militia  of  the  Empire  State.  When  the 
cannon  of  Fort  Lafayette  broke  the  stillness 
of  the  morning  of  Sunday,  August  i5th,  with 
a  salute  of  twenty-three  guns,  flags  were 
hoisted  on  the  City  Hall,  and  many  citi- 


from  the  Battery,  stopping  at  each  prom- 
inent corner  to  sound  the  signal  for  the 
gathering  of  the  militia.  For  several  weeks 
the  Eleventh  Regiment  had  been  disturbed 
by  a  controversy  over  the  color  and  cut 
of  the  contemplated  new  uniform.  A 
compromise  pattern  was  wanted.  When 
Philetus  H.  Holt,  then  a  private,  heard 
the  bugle-call,  he  put  on  his  uniform 


SELECTING    THE    UNIFORM. 


zens  hastened  to  the  Battery  and  looked 
down  the  bay  to  the  Narrows,  where  might 
be  seen  the  stately  ship  Cadmus,  gliding, 
with  all  flags  flying,  to  her  anchorage 
off  Staten  Island.  Here  Lafayette  went 
ashore  and  remained  the  guest  of  Vice- 
President  Tompkins  over  Sunday.  Early 
Monday  morning  a  mounted  sergeant,  fol- 
lowed by  a  bugler,  dashed  up  Pearl  street 


with  the  exception  of  his  coat,  which  was 
with  a  tailor  in  Franklin  Square  directlj 
in  his  way  to  Chatham  Square,  the  pla« 
of  rendezvous.  So  he  put  on  his  business 
coat,  a  close-fitting  garment  of  gray  cloth 
with  short  tails  of  the  present  conventional 
dress-coat  style,  and  over  that  his  cross- 
belts,  and  started  for  the  tailor's.  On  the 
way,  he  met  Major  John  D.  Wilson  anc 


THE  NEW  YORK  SEVENTH. 


Captain  Prosper  M.  Wetmore  (afterward 
Colonel),  both  of  whom  were  struck  with  the 
neat  and  stylish  appearance  of  the  gray  coat 
in  conjunction  with  the  tall,  bell-crowned  hat 
and  white  trowsers  of  the  regular  uniform, 
and  they  ordered  the  private  to  halt  and 
parley.  They  concluded  on  the  spot  that 
the  compromise  uniform  had  been  found. 

By  noon,  the  whole  militia  force  of  the  city 
was  assembled  at  the  Battery,  and  the  artil- 
lery planted  on  the  water-front.  Men  who 
looked  upon  the  waters  of  New  York 
Harbor  on  that  bright  summer  day  say 
that  the  upper  bay,  with  its  fortressed 
islands  and  dimpled  shores,  flanked  by  the 
green  slopes  of  Long  Island,  the  graceful 
hills  of  Staten  Island,  and  the  far-off  blue 
of  the  Jersey  hills,  has  never  seemed  more 
lovely,  more  thronged  with  sail  than  when 
the  Guest  of  America  embarked  at  Staten 
Island  and  voyaged  with  almost  Venetian 
splendor  to  the  city.  As  Lafayette  em- 
barked on  the  Chancellor  Livingston,  the 
land  batteries  of  Staten  Island  fired  a  salute, 
to  which  Fort  Lafayette  and  the  Chancellor 
Livingston  made  response.  The  Robert  Ful- 
ton, dressed  from  the  rails  to  the  mast-head 
in  bunting,  and  manned  by  two  hundred 
sailors,  led  the  squadron,  followed  by  the 
Chancellor  Livingston,  the  Oliver  Ellsworth, 
the  Connecticut,  the  Olive  Branch,  and  the 
Nautilus,  while  the  good  ship  Cadmus,  with 
the  kindly  assistance  of  two  smart  tug-boats, 
brought  up  the  rear.  When  the  festive 
fleet,  which  was  surrounded  by  every  vari- 
ety of  small  craft,  was  off  Governor's 


THE  LAFAYETTE  MEDAL. 


TAYLOR'S  SEVENTH  REGIMENT  ALBUM. 

Island,  the  guns  of  Castle  William  began 
the  deafening  welcome,  while  the  brigade 
of  artillery  fired  a  Major-General's  salute, 


and  the  forts  in  the  harbor  sent  the  echoes 
flying  to  the  neighboring  hills  and  through 
the  city's  streets  with  a  national  salute  of  a 
hundred  guns.  Before  Lafayette  passed 
down  the  line  of  troops  drawn  up  in  review, 
some  of  the  officers  of  the  Eleventh  had 
been  talking  of  his  last  campaign  at  the 
head  of  the  National  Guards  of  France. 
The  suggestion  was  then  first  made  to  name 
the  infantry  battalion  of  the  Eleventh  the 
"  National  Guards  "  in  his  honor,  and  a  few 
evenings  afterward  the  name  was  formally 
adopted  at  the  old  Shakspere  Tavern,  at 
Fulton  and  Nassau  streets,  famous  as  the 
head-quarters  of  the  militia  officers  and  town 
gossips  for  half  a  century.  In  1832  Lafayette 
received  from  the  National  Guard,  through 
James  Fenimore  Cooper,  a  medal  in  com- 
memoration of  the  centennial  of  the  birth 
of  Washington.  The  gray  uniform  was 
first  worn  in  public  by  Orderly  Sergeant 
Asher  Taylor  of  the  Fourth  Company. 
Sergeant  Taylor  joined  the  National  Guard 
in  1822  and  labored  for  the  good  of  the 
regiment  until  his  death  in  1878.  After 
the  National  Guard  Battalion  (which  sepa- 
rated from  the  artillery  companies  of  the 
Eleventh  and  joined  the  Second  regiment 
in  1825)  became,  in  1826,  the  nucleus  of  a 
new  regiment,  the  Twenty-seventh,  Asher 
Taylor  designed  the  regimental  coat-of-arms 
and  also  the  National  Guard  standard.  In 
his  declining  years  he  compiled  two  large 
albums,  superbly  bound  and  mounted,  which 
contain  historical  accounts  of  the  Seventh 


68 


THE  NEW  YORK  SEVENTH. 


Regiment,  portraits  of  officers,  and  designs 
illustrating  the  life  of  the  organization  dur- 
ing half  a  century. 

For  over  twenty  years,  the  Twenty-seventh 
Regiment  occupied  the  foremost  place  in 
the  militia  of  New  York.  The  "dash 
and  fume  "  of  those  days  has  never  been 
equaled,  and  a  sober  earnestness  has  hap- 
pily supplanted  spread-eagle  oratory  and 
military  fuss  and  feathers.  Excursions  and 


to  the  officers  and  men  of  the  Twenty- 
seventh,  for  the  regiment  possessed  a  na- 
tional reputation;  but  the  number  seven, 
which  had  never  before  designated  a  New 
York  city  regiment,  was  accorded  to  them 


THE    ABOLITION    RIOT    IN     1834. 

summer  encampments  were  yearly  occur- 
rences. In  1847,  a  new  militia  law  hav- 
ing been  passed  during  the  previous  year, 
it  ^  was  found  desirable  to  renumber  the 
militia  organizations.  This  was  distasteful 


as  the  best  possible  sub- 
stitute for  twenty-seven,  and 
the  Seventh  Regiment  N.  G.  S.  N.  Y. 
entered  on   a  new  career  of  usefulness, 
which  was  first  exemplified  the  second 
year  afterward,  at  the  Macready- Forrest 
riot  in  Astor  Place.     Assembling  at  an 
hour's  notice,  211    officers   and  men  of 
the  Seventh  defended  public  order  against 
the  mob,    at  the   expense  of  injuries  to 
141  of  their  number.     Fifty-three  mem- 
bers were   disabled    and    carried    home. 
The  mob  suffered  severely  for  its  violence, 
for  thirty  persons  were   killed,  many  of 
whom  were  innocent  of  any  part  in  the  dis- 
turbance, and  upward  of  fifty  were  wounded. 
For  this  show  of  determination  to  kill  when 
the  public  peace  demanded  a  sacrifice,  the 
rabble  was  long  afterward  greatly  incensed 


THE  NEW.  YORK  SEVENTH. 


69 


against  the  Seventh,  which  it  nicknamed 
"Old  Gray-backs."  The  National  Guard 
had  before  defended  the  city  during  the 
election  and  Abolition  riots  of  '34,  the 
Stevedore  riots  of  '36,  the  flour  riot  of  '37 
and  the  Croton  water  riot  of  '40. 

The  Seventh  Regiment  band  and  drum 
corps  has  always  been  an  object  of  regi- 
mental pride.  How  the  Seventh  plumed 
itself  in  1850,  when  that  wonderful  phe- 
nomenon Drum-major  Teller  appeared  at 
its  head  !  Teller  was  six  feet  five  inches  in 
stature,  and  wore  a  bear-skin  that  elongated 
his  symmetrical  figure  to  nine  feet.  He  had 
twirled  the  baton  in  the  Prussian  army  and 
under  General  Scott  in  Mexico.  Satiated 
with  the  military  glory  of  two  hemispheres, 
there  remained  for  him  to  gain  only  one 
more  honor  worthy  of  his  majestic  tread 
and  gorgeous  carriage :  the  admiration  of 
New  York  as  he  marched  down  Broadway 
at  the  head  of  the  Seventh  Regiment. 

But  the  manly  Seventh  has  felt  a  nobler 
pride  than  that  inspired  by  its  famous  drum- 
major  :  the  pride  of  being  several  times  a 
grandfather.  In  1853,  a  little  maid  of  ten 
or  twelve  years  came  one  day  to  the  armory 
dressed  in  a  jaunty  military  suit,  and  as  she 
walked  down  the  long  line  with  Colonel 
Duryee,  every  man  of  it  took  her  shy  little 
hand  in  his  and  adopted  her  as  the  Daughter 
of  the  Regiment.  She  was  the  child  of 
Major  Joseph  A.  Divver,  who  had  been  for 
several  years  a  genial  and  popular  officer  of 
the  Seventh.  He  went  to  the  Mexican  war 
as  a  captain  of  dragoons,  and  escaped  death 
in  the  face  of  the  enemy  only  to  meet  it  in 
a  sad  way  after  his  return  home.  Out  of 
pity  for  the  orphan  and  love  for  the  officer, 
the  Regiment  cared  for  and  educated  his 
child,  each  officer  and  private  paying  one 
dollar  a  year  into  a  fund  for  that  purpose. 
When  the  young  lady  came  of  age,  though 
mistress  of  a  thousand  hearts,  she  deserted 
to  an  enemy  that  offered  her  only  one. 
However,  that  one  belonged  to  a  brave 
young  man ;  and  now,  the  Daughter  of  the 
Regiment  is  mother  to  a  small  regiment  of 
her  own. 

During  the  first  month  of  1861,  the  offi- 
cers of  the  Seventh  Regiment  privately 
expressed  to  Governor  Morgan  their  readi- 
ness to  march  at  the  first  act  of  threaten- 
ing rebellion.  On  Washington's  Birthday, 
the  Governor  reviewed  the  regiment,  and 
Colonel  Marshall  Lefferts  addressed  his 
men  from  the  balcony  of  the  armory.  When 
Sumter  fell,  the  Seventh  was  restless  for 
the  word  to  march.  On  the  i5th  of  April, 


President  Lincoln  called  for  75,000  men  to 
defend  the  capital.  The  Seventh  once 
more  proffered  its  services,  and  many  of 
its  men  waited  at  the  armory  in  hourly 
expectation  of  a  summons.  This  came  at 
eleven  o'clock  at  night  and  was  received 
with  cheers,  the  order  being  given  that 
the  regiment  would  march  on  the  igth. 
The  Seventh  soon  bitterly  regretted  this 
delay  of  a  single  day,  necessary  to  allow 
every  member  to  arrange  his  affairs  so  that 


THE    DRUM-MAJOR. 


they  might  depart  with  full  ranks.  On  the 
1 8th,  Major  Robert  Anderson  (the  hero  of 
Fort  Sumter)  disembarked,  and  the  city 
gave  him  a  great  ovation.  The  day  before, 
the  Sixth  Massachusetts,  zealous  of  being 


7° 


THE  NEW  YORK.  SEVENTH. 


THE    SEVENTH    OFF    TO    THE     WAR — APRIL    19,     1861. 


the  first  in  the  field  and  the  first  militia  to 
encounter  the  enemy,  had  passed  through 
the  city  on  its  way  to  Baltimore  and  Wash- 
ington. 

When  the  morning  of  the  igth  broke, 
clear  and  beautiful,  men  were  already  stir- 
ring in  the  Seventh  Regiment  armory.  The 
excitement  was  too  great  for  slumbers. 
Before  noon,  the  length  of  Broadway  was 
gay  with  countless  flags.  Every  house-top 
and  window  from  Astor  Place  to  Courtlandt 
street  was  occupied  with  spectators,  while 
men,  women,  and  children  swarmed  upon  the 
sidewalks  and  blocked  the  side  streets. 
Astor  Place  and  the  vicinity  of  the  armory 
were  a  dense  mass  of  human  beings.  At 
four  o'clock,  945  men  had  reported  to  their 
companies,  and  with  difficulty  the  regiment 
pressed  through  the  crowd  and  formed  in 
Lafayette  Place.  The  men  were  in  heavy 
marching  order.  Wealthy  citizens  and  the 
commercial  associations  had  given  liberally 
to  equip  the  Seventh  for  active  service. 
Rumors  of  the  conflict  in  Baltimore  between 
the  Massachusetts  Sixth  and  the  rebel  sym- 
pathizers were  in  everybody's  mouth,  and 
the  faces  of  the  spectators  who  filled  Lafay- 
ette Place  showed  a  realization  of  all  that 
such  a  farewell  might  mean,  and  of  the  fact 


that  the  Seventh  was  on  no  holiday  mis- 
sion. When  the  word  came  to  march  and 
the  impatient  Seventh  wheeled  round  into 
Broadway,  the  air  resounded  with  a  billow  of 
cheers  that  moved  along  with  the  advancing 
regiment.  Every  man  marched  with  a  firm 
step,  and  the  well-drilled  platoons,  joined  by 
a  common  aim  and  stimulus,  moved  in  per- 
fect unison.  The  effect  was  irresistible,  and 
the  excitement  knew  no  bounds.  Above 
the  loud  huzzas  could  be  heard  the  stirring 
notes  of  "  Hail  Columbia,"  and  in  the 
momentary  lull,  the  measured  tramp  !  tramp ! 
tramp  !  and  the  regular  sway  of  a  thousand 
mettled  men  told  with  exciting  effect  upon 
the  crowd,  that  felt  another  thrill  when  the 
fife  and  drum  took  up  the  step  to  the  tune 
of  "  The  Girl  I  left  Behind  Me."  At  Prince 
street,  Major  Anderson  reviewed  the  regi- 
ment from  a  balcony.  The  excitement  was 
overpowering,  and  the  men  gave  a  sigh  of 
relief  as  they  marched  aboard  the  ferry-boat 
at  the  foot  of  Courtlandt  street.  An  im- 
mense crowd  cheered  as  the  train  moved 
out  of  Jersey  City  and  sped  the  Seventh 
away  to  Philadelphia,  where  it  arrived  at 
two  o'clock  in  the  morning,  991  strong. 

The  hardships  and  difficulties  and  impor- 
tance of  the  Seventh's  march  to  Washington 


THE  NEW  YORK  SEVENTH. 


cannot  be  overestimated.  At  Philadelphia, 
Colonel  Lefferts  learned  that  the  Maryland- 
ers  had  already  burned  bridges  to  impede 
the  progress  of  the  Seventh,  and  were  mus- 
tering a  force  to  give  armed  resistance. 
General  B.  F.  Butler  was  then  at  Philadel- 
phia, with  the  Massachusetts  Eighth,  having 
arrived  the  evening  before.  Colonel  Lef- 
ferts, wisely  acting  on  his  own  judgment, 
chartered  the  steamer  Boston  to  convey  the 
Seventh  to  Annapolis,  via  the  ocean  and 
Chesapeake  Bay.  General  Butler  then  de- 
cided to  reach  the  bay  by  railroad  to  Havre 
de  Grace,  trusting  to  a  ferry-boat  for  transport 
to  Annapolis.  Sunday,  the  Seventh  was  at 
sea.  Early  on  Monday  morning,  the  Boston 
was  hailed  by  the  frigate  Constitution- — "  Old 
Ironsides,"  lying  at  anchor  in  Annapolis 
Harbor.  When  the  morning  mist  arose,  the 
Seventh  saw  the  ferry-boat  Maryland,  with 
the  Eighth  Massachusetts,  fast  aground  on  a 
mud-bank.  For  several  hours,  the  Boston 
tried  to  extricate  the  boat  and  the  thirsting 
and  famishing  Massachusetts  boys,  but  it  was 
compelled,  finally,  to  disembark  the  Seventh 
and  to  return  for  the  Eighth.  There  had 
been  no  communication  with  Washington 
since  the  Seventh  left  New  York.  Colonel 
Lefferts  realized  the  danger  of  a  moment's 
delay.  As  soon  as  he  could  gain  scanty 


rations  for  the  march,  he  set  out,  at  three 
o'clock  Wednesday  morning,  April  24th. 
An  ingenious  Yankee  of  the  Eighth  had 
patched  up  a  broken  engine,  and  two  old 
cars  had  been  found,  on  which  were  loaded 
the  howitzers  and  baggage.  The  soldiers 
mended  the  railroad  track  and  bridges  as  they 
advanced,  now  scouring  a  meadow  for  a  dis- 
placed rail,  now  diving  into  a  stream  for 
another,  and  occasionally  chasing  off  Mary- 
landers  who  were  destroying  the  railroad. 
The  day  was  fiercely  hot  and  the  night  cold, 
but  Colonel  Lefferts  gave  no  order  to  suspend 
the  march,  all  day  or  all  night,  until,  at  3:30 
the  next  morning,  they  arrived  near  Annap- 
olis Junction.  At  10  A.  M.,  they  proceeded 
from  the  Junction  by  train  to  Washington, 
and  at  noon  the  Seventh  marched  up  Penn- 
sylvania Avenue,  and  was  reviewed  by  Pres- 
ident Lincoln  from  the  portico  of  the  White 
House.  The  Eighth  Massachusetts  joined 
them  a  few  hours  later,  other  regiments  were 
oh  the  way,  and  Washington  was  safe.  The 
Seventh  soon  established  itself  at  Camp 
Cameron.  May  23d,  it  joined  the  advance 
into  Virginia,  and  worked  in  the  trenches  at 
Arlington  Heights,  returning  to  the  camp 
May  26 ;  and,  its  term  of  enlistment  for 
thirty  days  having  expired,  it  soon  started 
for  home,  arriving  in  New  York  June  ist. 


LIFE    AT    CAMP    CAMERON. 


72 


THE  NEW  YORK  SEVENTH. 


ADVANCE    PICKET. 


Many  of  the  officers  and  men  wanted  to  re- 
main in  the  field,  as  a  volunteer  regiment,  but 
Colonel  Lefferts  was  opposed  to  any  action 
which  should  deprive  the  regiment  of  its 
place  in  the  militia  organization.  And  while 
the  citizens  of  New  York  were,  in  general, 
disappointed  that  the  Seventh  should  return 
so  soon,  many  influential  citizens,  as  has 
always  been  the  case,  preferred  to  have  the 
regiment  where  it  could  act  in  home  emer- 
gencies. Its  contribution  to  the  war  was 
more  of  commanders  than  of  privates.  At 
Washington,  General  McDowell  had  said  to 
Captain  Clark,  "  Sir,  you  have  a  company  of 
officers."  By  June  i5th,  seventy  members 
of  the  regiment  had  been  commissioned 
lieutenants  in  the  regular  army.  And  during 
the  war,  606  members  served  as  officers  in  the 
regular  and  volunteer  army  and  navy.  Three 
became  major-generals,  nineteen  brigadier- 
generals,  twenty-nine  colonels,  and  forty- 
six  Iieutenant7colonels.  On  a  commanding 
granite  pedestal  in  Central  Park  stands  a 
bronze  statue,  by  J  Q.  A.  Ward,  erected 
"  In  honor  of  the  members  of  the  Seventh 
Regiment.  N.  G.  S.  N.  Y.— fifty-eight  in 


number — who  gave  their  lives  in  defence  of 
the  Union,  1861-1865." 

The  first  one  to  fall  will  be  the  last  remem- 
bered. Some  day  it  may  be  thought  fitting 
to  erect  a  separate  monument  to  the  patri- 
otism and  genius  of  Theodore  Winthrop, 
who  left  his  countrymen  a  picture  of  his  true 
heart  and  manly  fervor  in  the  pages  of 
"John  Brent,"  and  other  books,  and  of 
his  love  of  country  in  the  manner  of  his 
early  death.  He  marched  with  the  Seventh 
to  Washington,  as  a  member  of  the  Ninth 
Company,  and  after  the  first  campaign, 
accepted  a  place  on  General  Butler's  staff, 
with  the  rank  of  major.  In  the  battle  of 
Great  Bethel,  he  led  an  impetuous  assault 
on  the  enemy's  flank,  and  was  shot  dead  at 
the  head  of  his  troops.  His  writings,  pub- 
lished posthumously,  have  given  him  a 
durable  fame.  Doctor  Thomas  W.  Parsons, 
the  poet,  has  embalmed  his  memory  in  the 
"  Dirge  for  One  who  Fell  in  Battle,"  first 
printed  in  the  "Atlantic  Monthly,"  and 
beginning : 

"  Room  for  a  soldier !  lay  him  in  the  clover ; 
He  loved  the  fields,  and  they  shall  be  his  cover ; 
Make  his  mound  with  hers   who  called  him  once 
her  lover : 

"  Where  the  rain  may  rain  upon  it, 
Where  the  sun  may  shine  upon  it, 
Where  the  lamb  hath  lain  upon  it, 
And  the  bee  will  dine  upon  it." 

While  the  Seventh  was  sending  men  to 
the  field  to  take  command  of  volunteers  in 
1 86 1,  it  was  also  on  the  alert  at  home.  It 
was  again  in  the  field  when,  in  1862,  Stone- 
wall Jackson  raided  the  Shenandoah  Valley 
and  threatened  a  flank  movement  on  the 
National  Capital,  and  in  1863  it  hastened  to 
the  defense  of  Pennsylvania  against  General 
Lee's  advance.  It  returned  home  July  i6th, 
to  take  part  in  the  last  scenes  of  the  draft 
riots,  and  met  the  mob  with  spirit  and  success 
at  Second  Avenue  and  Twenty-third  street. 
In  June,  1864,  Colonel  Marshall  Lefferts 
resigned  his  command,  after  a  service  in  the 
regiment  of  fourteen  years,  and  Emmons 
Clark,  captain  of  the  Second  Company,  was 
elected  colonel.  While  the  Seventh  was  on 
its  way  to  Philadelphia  during  the  Centennial 
year,  to  occupy  Camp  Washington  on  the 
Exhibition  grounds,  Colonel  Lefferts  was 
overcome  with  the  heat  and  died  on  the 
cars  of  an  affection  of  the  heart. 

Colonel  Emmons  Clark  has  now  been 
fifteen  years  in  command  of  the  Seventh. 
Under  his  leadership  the  regiment  has  at- 
tained its  highest  prosperity  and  discipline, 


THE  NEW  YORK  SEVENTH. 


73 


THEODORE    W1NTHROP.       (AFTER    THE     CRAYON     SKETCH 
BY    ROWSE.) 

and  the  recent  subscriptions  to  the  new 
armory  fund  are  sufficient  proof  of  its  great 
popularity.  But  for  a  slight  circumstance, 
Colonel  Clark's  marked  abilities  as  an 
officer  might  have  been  altogether  devoted 
to  the  guidance  of  mercantile  affairs.  Both 


his  grandfathers  served  in  the  Revolution. 
Born  in  Wayne  County,  New  York,  in  1827, 
he  was  graduated  at  Hamilton  College  in 
his  twentieth  year,  and  came  to  the  city 
at  his  majority  to  begin  the  study  of  medi- 
cine, a  profession  which  was  deserted  for  a 
business  opportunity  which  soon  placed  him 
in  the  responsible  position  of  cashier  of  a 
transportation  company.  Only  one  thing 
disturbed  his  content  with  business  pursuits : 
his  name  was  placed  early  on  the  jury  list 
and  had  a  disagreeable  habit  of  turning  up 
whenever  a  jury  was  struck.  To  escape 
this  annoyance,  he  determined  to  seek  ex- 
emption from  jury  duty  by  entering  the 
militia,  and  joined  the  Second  Company  of 
the  Seventh.  The  first  few  evenings  at  the 
armory  kindled  the  latent  military  spark 
within  him.  He  bought  a  manual  and  an 
old  musket  for  home  practice  before  a  tall 
mirror.  In  the  same  year,  1857,  he  accom- 
panied the  Seventh  to  Boston  to  take  part 
in  celebrating  the  battle  of  Bunker  Hill. 


TARGET    PRACTICE     AT    THE    ARMORY. 


The  regiment  was 
reviewed  by  Govern- 
or Gardner  on  the 
Common.  Adjutant 
William  A.  Pond 


74 


THE  NEW  YORK  SEVENTH. 


(now  Colonel  of  the  veteran  corps  of  the 
Seventh)  wanted  a  regimental  guide  placed 
near  the  Governor.  He  happened  to  go  to 
the  Second  Company  and  laid  his  hand  on 
Private  Clark,  who  felt  the  dignity  of  his 
position  and  presented  such  a  soldierly 
figure  and  military  bearing  that  every  eye 
in  the  regiment  noticed  him.  Some  one 
said  to  Captain  Shaler,  "  That  young  fellow 
will  be  colonel,  yet."  The  next  year,  he 
reached  the  first  rung  of  the  ladder,  in  his 


Hill,  in  1862,  he  adopted  a  theory  for  the 
government  of  his  company,  opposed  to  the 
views  of  the  older  officers.  This  was  that 
the  best  way  to  keep  up  the  good  spirits  of 
the  men  was  to  give  them  something  to  do. 
He  drilled  his  company  before  breakfast, 
and  after  breakfast,  and  twice  in  the  after- 
noon. As  a  consequence,  the  Second  Com- 
pany became  remarkably  proficient  in 
company  and  skirmish  drill ;  the  men  slept 
well  and  were  the  life  of  the  regiment. 


COLONEL    EMMONS    CLARK. 


election  as  first  sergeant.  Another  twelve- 
month found  him  wearing  the  shoulder- 
straps  of  a  second  and  soon  of  a  first 
lieutenant.  In  1860,  Captain  Shaler  was 
elected  Major  of  the  Regiment,  and  Emmons 
Clark,  in  the  third  year  of  his  service,  be- 
came Captain  of  the  Second  Company,  at 
the  head  of  which  he  led  the  advance  in  that 
memorable  march  from  Annapolis  to  Wash- 
ington. While  in  garrison  at  Fort  Federal 


When  Colonel  LefFerts  resigned,  Captain 
Clark  was  elected  to  the  colonelcy.  The 
rank  and  file,  in  1873,  presented  their 
colonel  with  a  silver  service,  and  Grafulla 
dedicated  to  him  the  "  Tribute  Quickstep." 
Since  1866,  he  has  been  Secretary  of  the 
New  York  Board  of  Health  and  has  devoted 
his  spare  moments  mainly  to  the  Seventh. 

In  the  voluntary  militia  service,  the  mem- 
bers of  a  regiment  have  the  right  to  elect 


THE  NEW  YORK  SEVENTH. 


75 


new  members.  The  term  of  enlistment 
is  now  for  five  instead  of  seven  years. 
Militia-men  are  exempt  from  jury  duty  while 
in  active  service,  and  if  they  complete  their 
term  of  enlistment,  for  life.  About  one- 
third  do  not  complete  the  full  term,  and 
those  who  do  may  join  the  Veteran  Corps 
of  the  Seventh  Regiment. 

There  was  a  time  when  the  company 
feeling  in  the  Seventh  overbalanced  the  regi- 
mental feeling.  But  now,  while  every  mem- 
ber does  his  best  to  advance  the  interests 
of  his  particular  company,  he  takes  at  the 
same  time  a  larger  pride  in  the  prosperity 
and  reputation  of  the  regiment.  Social 
intercourse  is  somewhat  confined  within  the 
membership  of  the  different  companies, 
each  company  having  a  separate  room  in 
the  armory  for  its  meetings,  by-laws  of  its 
own,  and  separate  company  drill.  The  com- 
panies differ  slightly  also  as  to  the  tastes  arid 
social  position  or  occupation  of  their  mem- 
bers. To  indicate  a  few  characteristics  :  The 
Third  Company  claims  seniority.  At  the 
present  time,  the  Tenth  Company  contains 
more  of  the  sons  of  old  and  wealthy  New 
York  families  than  any  other.  (One  can 
hardly  mention  any  prominent  family  of 
wealth  or  social  prestige  that  has  not  a 
representative  in  the  regiment.)  The  Ninth 
Company  is  accorded  the  first  place  as 
being  the  best  drilled  and  evincing  the  most 
spirit ;  its  members  are  for  the  most  part 
connected  with  the  great  commercial  houses 
of  the  metropolis.  The  Second  Company  is 
a  rival  of  the  Ninth  in  discipline,  -and  re- 
sembles it  in  membership.  The  Eighth 
Company's  ambition  to  excel  in  rifle  prac- 
tice overshadows  every  other  characteristic. 
The  popularity  of  a  company  depends,  to  a 
great  extent,  on  its  captain.  The  slight 
social  distinctions  pertaining  to  the  different 
companies  change  very  slowly,  because, 
where  one  young  man  offers  himself  for 
membership  in  a  company  without  a  social 
acquaintance  with  some  of  its  members,  ten 
are  drawn  in  purely  on  account  of  such 
acquaintanceship.  Social  values  tell  in  the 
Seventh  Regiment  roll;  but  that  does  not 
necessarily  mean  money  or  ancient  lineage. 
The  regiment  is  recruited  mainly  from 
clerks  of  average  means  and  native  ability, 
as  well  as  education,  who  hold  good  posi- 
tions in  the  large  banks,  insurance  offices, 
wholesale  mercantile  houses  and  manufact- 
uring establishments.  There  are  always  in 
the  regiment  fifty  or  more  young  gentle- 
men who  take  care  of  their  estates,  or 
whose  estates  take  care  of  them.  They  are 


good  soldiers,  and  have  nothing  to  gain  in 
the  regiment  more  than  the  poorest  mem- 
ber— in  fact,  less,  for  it  is  very  rare  that  a 
man  born  to  wealth  becomes  an  officer  in 
the  Seventh,  for  he  does  not  apply  himself 
to  drill  and  details  with  the  energy  and 
assiduity  of  the  men  who  are  obliged  to 
make  their  own  way  in  the  world.  In  so  far 
that  merit,  and  neither  wealth  nor  family, 
counts  in  the  line  of  promotion,  the  Seventh 
is  a  pure  democracy.  Several  companies 
are  now  insisting  on  a  surgeon's  examination 
before  receiving  a  new  member. 

The  would-be  recruit  signs  an  application 
for  membership,  giving  his  name,  residence, 
place  and  kind  of  business,  the  name  of  the 
member  who  proposes  him,  and  the  names 
of  references.  This  is  posted  on  the  armory 
bulletin.  He  is  then  visited  by  a  commit- 
tee who  test  the  quality  of  his  ambition  to 
become  a  soldier,  and  who  make  inquiry 
of  acquaintances  concerning  his  character. 
If  the  report  of  the  committee  is  favor- 
able, he  is  balloted  for.  Five  black  balls 
exclude.  Once  elected,  he  signs  the  enlist- 
ment roll,  takes  the  "  iron-clad  "  oath  of  the 
United  States,  and  is  directed  to  purchase  a 
fatigue  uniform.  This  is  an  expense  of  $15 
or  $18.  He  is  then  promoted  to  the 
awkward  squad  for  instruction  in  the  school 
of  the  soldier.  About  this  time  he  wonders 
why  he  ever  joined  a  militia  regiment,  and 
is  astonished  to  find  that  for  years  his 
heels,  toes,  head,  shoulders,  and  arms,  have 
been  out  of  place  and  have  grown  obstinate 
by  habit.  Finally,  he  can  toe  the  mark 
and  stand  straight  without  feeling  dizzy. 
He  is  then  made  the  custodian  of  a  musket, 
and  feels  renewed  affliction  of  spirit  after 
tossing  this  musket  from  hand  to  shoulder 
until  his  arms  are  tired  and  disintegration 
sets  in  near  the  small  of  the  back.  Instruc- 
tion in  the  manual  once  a  week  for  six 
months  smooths  out  the  wrinkles  in  his  body 
and  disposition,  and  he  is  at  last  transferred 
to  his  company,  begins  to  talk  about  the  glori- 
ous privilege  of  military  drill  and  discipline, 
and  entices  one  of  his  outside  friends  into  the 
awkward  squad.  Once  allowed  to  parade,  he 
is  on  the  company  roll  and  liable  to  every 
duty  that  arises.  By  this  time  he  is  thor- 
oughly convinced  that  there  is  something 
dreadfully  earnest  about  the  life  of  a  militia 
regiment. 

The  new  member  has  never  been  accused 
of  a  disposition  to  hide  the"  7"  under  a  bushel. 
He  has,  of  course,  obtained  a  full  uniform 
before  appearing  on  parade.  His  dress-coat, 
of  graceful  cut  and  close  fit,  is  of  cadet-gray 


THE  NEW  YORK  SEVENTH. 


mer  and  gray  in  winter;  there  are  white  leather 
cross-belts  and  trappings ;  white  duck  trow- 
sers  in  summer,  and  gray,  with  a  black  stripe, 
in  winter,  and  a  stiff  black  French  cap  with 
pompon.  If  he  happen  to  have  a  fine  figure, 
this  uniform  will  bring  out  his  good  points ; 


001 


TARGET    PRACTICE    AT    CREEDMOOR. 

trimmed  with  black  cloth  and  gold  lace,  and 
with  white  worsted  shoulder-knots  in  sum- 


if  he  happen  to  have  a  bad  fig- 
ure, Apollo  help  him,  for  the  uni- 
form will  not.      Knapsack,  cap, 
belts,    and    cartridge-box    bear 
the  cipher,  or  monogram,  of  his 
•  regiment.     His  overcoat  has  a 
small  cape,  and  is  of  the  light 
blue    of    the    regular    army. 
The  fatigue  uniform  is  simply 
gray    jacket,    trowsers,    and 
cap.     Seventy  or  eighty  dol- 
^         lars,  it  is  said,  will  obtain  the 
whole  outfit,  the  arms  and 
accouterments   being   sup- 
plied by  the  State.     With 
a  little  care,  the  dress  uni- 
form will  last  through  the 
five  years'  term  of  service, 
unless,     indeed,     the 
young   soldier  thrives 
L^-.-'  too  well  on  militia  life 
and      outgrows      his 
clothes.     Only    slight 
changes     have     been 
made  in  the   uniform 
of  the  Seventh  during 
half  a  century.      The 
yearly  dues  are  $12  or 
$15,  varying  with  dif- 
ferent companies. 

From  October  to  April,  the  members  ok 
the  Seventh  meet  at  the  armory  once  a  week 


THE  NEW  YORK  SEVENTH. 


77 


for  company  drill.  Ten  battalion  drills,  by 
division,  are  held  in  the  course  of  the  year. 
The  Seventh  turns  out  for  public  parade  five 
or  ten  times  in  a  twelvemonth.  The  May 
inspection  and  parade  always  attract  public 
attention. 

Too  much  importance  cannot  be  attached 
to  rifle  practice,  as  it  is  being  fostered  by 
the  National  Guard  at  Creedmoor  and  other 


been  severely  drilled  in  the  armory  in  the 
manipulation  of  the  breech-loading  rifle. 
With  the  remarkable  precision  and  skill 
which  the  Seventh  has  acquired  in  the  use 
of  this  weapon,  short  work  would  be  made 
with  any  city  mob.  Almost  every  bullet 
would  go  on  a  death's  errand,  and  at  two 
blocks  kill  perhaps  two  or  even  three  men. 
Creedmoor  gives  the  men  confidence. 


THE    MAY    INSPECTION. 


rifle  ranges,  in  New  York  and  other  States. 
It  is  doing  more  than  any  other  agency  to 
awaken  interest  and  produce  efficiency  in  the 
militia.  General  George  W.  Wingate  is 
called  "the  father  of  rifle  practice  in  this 
country,"  and  deserves  credit  for  being 
mainly  instrumental  in  turning  the  new 
mania  to  useful  account.  Among  the  full 
regiments,  the  Seventh  takes  the  palm  for 
rifle  shooting.  Its  ten  companies  have 


Three  days  a  week,  from  May  to  No- 
vember, the  National  Guard  enjoy  the 
privileges  of  the  range.  When  all  the 
companies  of  the  Seventh  reach  the  general 
proficiency  of  the  four  or  five  crack  com- 
panies, ordinary  infantry  and  cavalry  could 
scarcely  cope  with  the  regiment  in  the  open 
field.  Four  or  five  companies  of  the  Seventh, 
deploying  as  close  skirmishers,  could  wit- 
ness the  onset  of  a  brigade  of  infantry  or 


THE  NEW   YORK  SEVENTH. 


a  regiment  of  cavalry  without  shrinking. 
Every  man  would  know  that  there  would  be 
one  less  of  the  enemy  after  each  shot  he 
fired;  and  while  the  attacking  column  was 
advancing  one  hundred  and  fifty  yards,  three 
hundred  skirmishers  could  deliver  such  a 
murderous  fire  that  no  ordinary  troops  could 
hold  their  ground.  It  was  lucky  for  the 
mob  which  the  Seventh  confronted  at  Eighth 
Avenue  and  Twenty-fourth  street,  during  the 
Orange  riots  of  July,  1871,  that  Creedmoor 
had  not  then  been  opened. 

The  New  Armory  is  a  monument  to  the 
hold  the  Seventh  Regiment  has  on  the 
gratitude  and ,  confidence  of  the  citizens  of 


fund.  The  city  government  is  in  duty 
bound  to  provide  its  regiments  with  quarters, 
and  it  pays  a  rental  on  the  building  for  a  lim- 
ited term  of  years — long  enough,  however, 
to  cancel  the  interest  and  principal  on  the 
bonds.  The  very  successful  issue  of  the 
New  Armory  Fair,  which  was  the  principal 
semi-social  event  of  the  autumn,  enabled 
the  regiment  properly  to  furnish  the  armory, 
which  will  be  occupied  about  the  time  this 
paper  comes  from  the  press.  The  reception 
and  ball  have,  however,  been  postponed 
until  the  coming  autumn  and  winter. 

The   Armory   building   covers   an  entire 
block,  with  a  frontage  of  200  feet  on  the 


THE    NEW    ARMORY. 


the  metropolis,  who  have  expressed  the 
pride  they  feel  in  the  regiment  by  putting 
their  hands  into  their  pockets  for  nearly  a 
quarter  million  dollars.  The  ground— the 
square  bounded  by  Sixty-sixth  and  Sixty- 
seventh  streets,  and  Fourth  and  Lexington 
avenues— is  a  part  of  old  Hamilton  Park 
and  belongs  to  the  city,  which  has  given 
the  Seventh  Regiment  a  perpetual  lease, 
the  armory  fund,  $200,000  was  the 
voluntary  contribution  of  members  of  the 
regiment  and  wealthy  citizens.  Bonds  were 
issued,  with  legislative  sanction,  for  $150- 
ooo,  secured  by  an  assignment  of  the  lease 
and  the  building  to  the  trustees  of  the  armory 


avenues  and  400  feet  on  the  streets.  It  is 
massively  built  of  red  brick,  with  granite 
trimmings.  The  Fourth  Avenue  front, 
of  200  feet,  with  a  depth -of  100  feet,  is 
built  three  stories  high,  and  forms  what  is 
called  the  administration  building.  A  tower 
rises  above  the  central  entrance,  and  in  this 
and  the  square,  slightly  projecting  corners 
there  are  narrow  loop-holes  for  musketry. 
The  long,  narrow  windows  and  the  castel- 
lated appearance  of  the  massive  cornice 
strongly  suggest  the  purposes  of  the  struct- 
ure. Three  stories  of  the  administration 
building  are  divided  into  ten  rooms  for 
the  several  companies,  a  council  cham- 


THE  NEW  YORK  SEVENTH. 


79 


ber,  veteran  corps  room,  library,  reception 
room,  staff  rooms,  band  and  drum  corps 
rooms,  armorer's  and  janitor's  rooms,  rifle 
gallery,  gymnasium,  and  a  cadet  corps  room, 
— for  it  is  the  intention  to  revive  the  Seventh 
Regiment  Cadets,  a  successful  feature  in  war 
times,  and  thus  to  give  the  spirited  boys  of  the 
city  an  opportunity  to  train  for  future  mem- 
bership in  the  regiment.  The  remaining 
space,  200  feet  wide  by  300  feet  deep,  is  a 
drill-room,  the  floor  on  the  solid  earth  and 
the  roof  a  broad  oval,  supported  by  iron 
truss  arches  designed  by  the  architect  as  an 
improvement  in  strength  on  the  supports  of 
the  arched  roof  of  the  Grand  Central  Depot. 
Care  has  been  taken  to  secure  a  perfect 
floor.  On  a  five-inch  layer  of  concrete,  cov- 
ered with  asphalt,  to  hold  back  the  moisture 
of  the  soil,  have  been  laid  sleepers  of  Long 
Island  locust,  sixteen  inches  apart,  the 
intervening  spaces  filled  in  with  concrete. 
The  flooring  strips  of  yellow  pine  plank, 
three  inches  wide  and  two  inches  thick,  are 
laid  on  this  solid  foundation,  the  planks 
being  cut  across  the  grain  to  prevent  sliver- 
ing. The  drill-hall  is  lighted  from  the  sides 
and  from  the  roof.  There  are  balconies 
for  spectators  at  each  end,  and  a  narrow 
raised  platform  encircles  the  walls.  Racks 
for  muskets  are  ranged  against  the  walls 
of  the  administration  building,  in  the  third 
story  of  which  is  a  lunch  and  coffee 
kitchen.  The  drill-room  may  not  be  all 


that  is  desirable 
in  a  dancing-hall, 
but  the  members 


will  probably  make  it  suffice  for  many 
grand  balls  of  the  future.  Colonel  Clark's 
ideas  of  such  a  building  are,  to  a  great 
extent,  embodied  in  the  general  plan  of  the 
armory,  which  was  designed  by  Mr.  C. 
W.  Clinton,  a  member  of  the  veteran  corps. 
The  architect  has  adapted  the  Italian  style 


A    CREEDMOOR    SPORT — "THE    TUG    OF    WAR. 


8o 


THE    DOMINION    OF    CANADA. 


to  a  special  purpose,  which  has  no  parallel 
in  any  part  of  Europe,  for  America  is  not  a 
camp,  and  the  militia  system  of  the  United 
States  is  indigenous  to  the  soil  and  atmos- 
phere of  republican  institutions.  The  New 
York  Seventh  wanted  for  an  armory  neither 
a  barracks  nor  a  fort.  It  sought  something 
between  a  military  club-house  and  a  bar- 
racks-arsenal— a  structure  that  should  look 
like  the  home  of  an  active  military  organ- 
ization, and  speak  in  its  plain,  massive  walls 


and  noble  aspect  of  the  utility  and  dignity 
and  firmness  and  strength  of  the  National 
Guard. 

With  the  new  armory,  the  Seventh  Regi- 
ment takes  upon  itself  greater  obligations 
of  duty,  that  only  untiring  discipline  and 
increased  public  devotion  can  fulfill.  Its 
many  warm  friends  believe  it  will  not  belie 
its  honorable  record  of  the  past,  and  that 
its  motto,  '•'•Pro  Patria  et  Gloria"  will 
be  the  watchword  of  its  future. 


THE   DOMINION    OF   CANADA.      I. 

THE    BRAVE    DAYS    OF   OLD. 


RUNNING    THE    LACHINE    RAPIDS,     ST.     LAWRENCE    RIVER. 


NEARLY  three  centuries  and  a  half  ago, 
Jacques  Cartier,  looking  for  the  Indies,  found 
the  St.  Lawrence.  The  Indian  village  of 
Stadacone",  hard  by  the  beetling  cliff  of  Que- 
bec, and  the  palisaded  Indian  town  of  Ho- 
chelaga  nestling  amid  corn-fields  under  the 
shadow  of  the  mountain, — which  he  named 
Mount  Royal,— gave  him  kindly  welcome. 
These  and  the  mighty  river  and  unbroken  for- 
estspnmeval  extending  to  unknown  horizons, 
were  fair  to  see  under  the  glowing  summer 
sun  and  the  marvelous  tints  of  autumn. 
But  an  apparently  endless  winter  succeeded, 
and  horrible  scurvy  wasted  his  men  like  a 
pestilence.  Returning  to  France  with  tales 

•  black  forests,  deep  snow,  and  thick  ice," 
instead  of  schooners  full  of  yellow  gold  and 
rosy  pearls,  he  received  from  his  patrons 


maledictions  instead  of  thanks.  Of  this 
introductory  chapter  of  Canadian  history, 
little  remains  but  the  memory  of  the  hardy 
mariner  of  St.  Malo. 

The  first  period  of  Canadian  history  begins 
with  the  first  years  of  the  seventeenth  cent- 
ury, and  ends  with  the  death  of  Count 
Frontenac  and  the  peace  made  with  the 
Irpquois  in  the  year  1700.  Through  all 
this  time,  Canada  had  to  fight  for  life  with 
the  Iroquois,  or  Five  Nations  of  the  Mo- 
hawks, Oneidas,  Cayugas,  Onondagas  and 
Senecas.  The  territory  of  this  formidable 
confederacy  extended  from  Lake  Champlain 
and  the  Mohawk  River  to  the  western 
extremity  of  Lake  Erie.  The  great  Cana- 
dian names  of  the  period,  Champlain,  Mais- 


THE  DOMINION  OF  CANADA. 


81 


onneuve,  La  Salle,  and  Count  Frontenac, 
are  but  the  brightest  stars  in  a  crowded 
firmament. 

Between  Jacques  Cartier  and  Champlain's 
time  comes  in  an  episode  that  frequently 
takes  hold  of  my  imagination.  The  Mar- 
quis de  la  Roche  undertook  to  colonize  and 
Christianize  New  France.  To  find  gold 
and  silver  mines,  and  to  spread  the  Gospel 
were  the  twin  motives  that  animated  the 
French  gentlemen  who  sailed  from  France 
to  the  New  World  in  those  brave  days  of 


gunwale  the  men  could  wash  their  hands 
in  the  sea.  Coasting  to  the  south  of  Nova 
Scotia,  he  came  to  those  long  low  ridges  of 
sand,  well  called  Sable  Island,  that  had 
been  the  dread  of  Basque  and  Norman  and 
Breton  fisherman  before  Jacques  Cartier's 
day,  and  that  are  the  dread  of  mariners 
still.  Here  he  landed  his  jail-birds,  intend- 
ing to  return  for  them  when  he  had  selected 
a  site  for  his  colony.  A  furious  storm 
drove  him  back  to  France,  and,  thrown  into 
prison  by  an  enemy,  he  could  neither  organize 


.XD-it»3. 


SABLE    ISLAND,     A.    D.     1603. 


The  quality  of  De  la  Roche's  colonists 
bad  enough,  and  the  quantity  not  much 
ter.     In    addition   to   his   crew  he  had 
ily  some  forty  convicts.     They  sailed  in  a 
so  small  that  from  the  cords  of  the 
VOL,  XX.— 6. 


another  expedition  nor  get  speech  of  the 
king.  When  the  little  craft  that  had  borne 
them  across  the  Atlantic  slowly  receded 
from  the  gaze  of  the  convicts,  suspicions 
may  have  crossed  their  minds.  When  the 


82 


THE   DOMINION  OF  CANADA. 


days  passed  into  weeks,  and  weeks  into 
months,  without  a  sail  appearing  on  the 
horizon,  the  suspicions  deepened  into  con- 
viction. Savagely  they  cursed  their  fate 
and  each  other,  and  the  patron  who  had 
proved  their  betrayer.  What  were  they 
to  do?  On  this  ocean-girt  Sahara,  nearly 
a  hundred  miles  from  the  mainland,  there 
was,  at  any  rate,  nothing  to  stir  ambition  or 
excite  passion ;  no  house  to  break  into,  no 
one  to  plunder,  no  society  that  had  been 
their  enemy,  and  against  which  instinct, 
necessity  or  revenge  impelled  them  to  wage 
war;  no  guards  to  enforce  work,  no  hand- 
cuffs, or  strait  and  lonely  cells.  They  were 
brothers  in  evil  fate;  surely  the  sentiment 
of  a  common  brotherhood  would  now  be 
born  in  them  and  restore  them  to  manhood ! 
The  island  is  a  wilderness  of  sand,  bow- 
shaped,  about  thirty  miles  long,  with  a  lake 
in  the  center,  on  the  shores  of  which  grow 
a  few  shrubs  and  sickly  plants.  Neither 
tree,  rock  nor  cave  offered  friendly  shelter 
from  the  driving  rain  and  wintry  sleet.  They 
gazed  on  long  reaches  of  sand,  broken  only 
by  sand  ridges  covered  with  rank  grass,  or 
whortleberry  and  cranberry  bushes  in  the 
depressions;  along  the  indented  shifting 
coast,  the  skeleton  or  ribs  or  broken  mast 
of  an  ancient  wreck ;  or — after  a  gale  of  wind 
— human  skeletons  exposed  to  view;  and 
beyond,  the  wild  waste  of  the  Atlantic, 
imprisoning  them  more  relentlessly  than 
their  old  prison  bars.  Fortunately  they 
were  able  to  build  rude  barracks  out  of  the 
remains  of  Spanish  vessels  which  had  been 
wrecked  on  their  way  to  Cape  Breton,  and 
they  found  on  the  island  cattle  and  sheep 
that  had  come  from  those  same  vessels. 
When  the  cattle  and  sheep  failed,  they  lived 
on  fish ;  and  when  their  clothes  were  worn 
out  they  clothed  themselves  with  the  pelts 
of  seals.  Without  adequate  protection  from 
the  cold;  surf-laden  winds  howling  night  and 
day;  impenetrable  fogs  hiding  the  sky;  the 
thunder  of  the  sea  striking  the  long  line  of 
land,  and  the  vibration  of  the  island  under 
the  tremendous  pressure  making  them  dread 
that  they  and  their  wretched  sand-lots  were 
to  be  swept  into  space ;  and,  to  crown  all,  the 
fellowship  of  naught  but  the  beast  in  them- 
selves! They  quarreled  and  murdered  one 
another,  till  only  twelve  were  left.  Seven 
miserable  years  passed,  when  one  day  a  sail 
was  seen  making  for  the  island,  instead  of 
giving  it  the  usual  wide  berth.  The  pilot — 
Chedotel — who  had  sailed  with  De  la  Roche 
was  in  charge.  The  Parliament  of  Rouen 
had  sent  him  to  ascertain  their  fate,  and  bring 


back  those  who  had  survived.  With  all  hast 
they  packed  up  the  stock  of  furs  they  ha< 
accumulated ;  but  their  ill-luck  did  not  desei 
them,  Chedotel  seized  upon  their  furs  a 
the  price  of  their  voyage.  Arrived  in  France 
the  king— Henry  IV. — desired  to  see  their 
They  were  presented  to  him,  "  covered  wit 
seal  skins,  with  hair  and  beard  of  a  lengtl 
and  disorder  that  made  them  resemble  th 
pretended  river  gods,  and  so  disfigured  a 
to  inspire  horror.  The  king  gave  them  fift 
crowns  apiece,  and  sent  them  home,  release* 
from  all  process  of  law."*  Chedotel,  toe 
was  obliged  to  give  back  to  them  half  thei 
furs ;  and  the  curtain  falls  on  the  convicts 
who  form  the  first  link  of  connection  betweei 
French  history  on  the  St.  Lawrence  and  ii 
Nova  Scotia. 

The  seventeenth  century  opens  on  Can 
ada,  not  with  the  St.  Lawrence,  but  wit! 
attempted  settlements  at  the  mouth  of  th 
river  St.  Croix,  in  New  Brunswick,  and  a 
Port  Royal,  in  Nova  Scotia.  The  name 
of  DeMonts,  Poutrincourt,  Champlain,  Les 
carbot,  and  others  like  them,  men  of  gentl 
birth  and  insatiable  enterprise,  are  linke< 
with  these  unsuccessful  attempts.  We  rea( 
sadly  and  sorrowfully  of  failure  wher< 
our  sympathies  cry  out  for  success ;  bu 
what  other  results  could  there  be  with  col 
onization  schemes  based  on  court  favor  am 
government  monopoly,  instead  of  patien 
industry,  and  with  a  rank  and  file  swep 
from  streets  and  jails,  instead  of  materia 
like  that  which  founded  and  made  Nev 
England  ? 

Champlain  did  not  linger  long  about  thi 
rugged  shores  of  Acadie.  It  was  from  th< 
St.  Lawrence  that  France  could  best  extern 
her  sway  in  all  directions  over  the  Nev 
World.  In  1 608  Champlain  founded  Quebec 
not  far  from  the  village  of  Stadacone,  when 
Jacques  Cartier  had  spent  a  miserable  wintei 
sixty-seven  years  before.  The  site  of  Cham 
plain's  town  is  the  market-place  of  th< 
present  Lower  Town  of  Quebec.  Above  i 
rose  the  fort  and  the  Upper  Town,  one  oi 
the  strongest  natural  fortresses  in  the  world 
Well  guarded  gates  defended  the  ap 
proaches  from  the  Lower  Town,  the  St 
Charles,  the  suburbs,  and  the  open  countrj 
in  the  rear.  From  Champlain's  time,  her< 
has  been  the  center  of  French  life  and  influ- 
ence in  America.  Till  Montcalm  fell  glori 
ously,  a  long  line  of  French  governors  rulec 
proudly  from  the  old  castled  rock.  Thei 

*  Charlevoix,  vol.  I,  p.  109.  Champlain's  Vojr 
ages,  p.  42. 


THE  DOMINION  OF  CANADA. 


the  lilies  of  France  gave  way  to  the  Cross 
of  St.  George,  which  has  waved  ever  since 
over  a  people  French  in  blood  and  senti- 
ment, but  who  in  every  hour  of  need  prove 
their  loyalty  to  the  British  throne,  and  their 
attachment  to  institutions  under  which  they 
first  learned  the  lessons  of  liberty.  Admira- 
bly situated  for  trade  and  commerce,  strong 
as  a  fortification,  surpassingly  beautiful  in 
situation,  the  center  of  almost  everything  that 
is  romantic  in  the  history  of  New  France, 
Quebec  was  also  fortunate  in  its  founder. 
While  he  lived,  Champlain  was  the  head, 
heart  and  hand  of  the  infant  Colony. 
No  name  more  deserving  of  honor  is  en- 


empire."  Patriotism  and  religion  deter- 
mined his  policy,  and  amid  infinite  labors 
and  explorations  his  policy  was  single.  With 
that  as  his  pole  star  he  forced  his  way  up 
the  Ottawa  to  the  mouth  of  the  Mattawan  ; 
thence  westerly  to  Lake  Nipissing,  and 
down  French  River  to  the  mighty  Lake 
Huron.  Pursuing  his  course  southward, 
along  the  eastern  shores  of  the  Georgian 
Bay,  he  came  to  the  rich  and  populous 
country  of  the  Hurons,  around  Lake  Sim- 
coe,  now  one  vast  wheat  field  in  the  heart 
of  the  great  Province  of  Ontario.  His 
policy  was  to  unite  the  Indians  of  the 
Saguenay,  of  the  Ottawa,  of  the  Georgian 


JACQUES    CARTIER. 


rolled  in  Canada's  book  of  gold — not  so 
_  much  for  what  he  did,  as  for  what  he  was. 
Leaving  out  Jacques  Carder's  name,  he 
was  the  first  of  that  race  of  intrepid  explor- 
ers, lay  and  clerical,  voyageurs  and  nobles, 
who  searched  out  the  farthest  recesses  of 
the  forest  wilderness,  and  gave  French 
names  to  mountains  and  lakes,  rivers, 
portages  and  forts,  from  Louisburg  to  the 
shadows  of  the  Rocky  Mountains,  and  from 
Hudson's  Bay  and  Lake  Athabasca  to 
'Louisiana.  Fervid  piety  rather  than  love 
of  adventure  is  the  explanation  of  his  life. 
"  The  saving  of  a  soul,"  he  would  often  say, 
"  is  worth  more  than  the  conquest  of  an 


Bay,  and  of  Lake  Erie  into  one  great  con- 
federacy, under  French  leadership.  Those 
tribes  were  to  be  converted  by  Franciscans 
and  Jesuits,  who  would  thus  win  a  new 
field  for  Mother  Church  in  compensation  for 
that  which  had  been  lost  in  the  Old  World. 
The  same  policy  would  ensure  the  pros- 
perity of  Quebec.  The  Indians  would  bring 
their  valuable  peltries  to  the  place  where, 
under  the  Governor's  own  eye,  they  could 
exchange  them  for  French  goods.  The 
growth  of  the  colony  would  be  stimulated, 
dividends  would  be  paid  to  the  company 
that  had  established  it,  and  the  loyalty  of  the 
Indians  and  their  respect  for  the  mission- 


THE  DOMINION  OF  CANADA. 


RECOLLET    FRIAR. 


aries  who  represented  France -in  their  far- 
away villages  would  be  increased,  when,  at 
each  annual  visit  to  Quebec,  they  beheld  the 
state  of  the  Governor,  partook  of  his  hospi- 
tality, and  heard  the  thunder  of  his  can- 
non. The  policy  seemed  feasible  enough. 
The  tribes  of  the  East  and  West  and  North 
willingly  acknowledged  the  supremacy,  and 
accepted  the  protection  of  Champlain. 
Admiration  of  the  French,  a  keen  desire  to 
exchange  their  furs  for  the  marvelous  things 
the  French  alone  could  give,  and  a  common 


dread  of  the  Iroquois  actuated  them.     To 
bind  them  as  his  allies,  Champlain  delib- 
erately  made   himself  the   enemy   of   the 
Iroquois.     This  was  the  one  fatal  defect  of 
his   policy.     He    should    have   conciliated 
those  formidable  warriors  at  any  cost.     A 
policy  of  conciliation  must  have  succeeded. 
Had  he  sent  among  them  his  gray  robes 
and  black   robes,  the  Recollet  Friars  and 
Jesuit  fathers ;  backed  these  with   presents 
that  would  have  been  irresistible   at   one- 
tenth  the  cost  of  war;  gradually  established 
a  few  forts  along  the  Richelieu   and   the 
Hudson — New  York  could  have   been  se- 
cured as  a  winter  port.     This  gained,  the 
great   game  would   have  been   gained  for 
New  France  at  the  first  move.    The  Pilgrim 
Fathers   would    have   landed    in    1620   at 
New  Plymouth,  but  they  would  have  been 
limited  to  rocky  New  England.      English 
advance    to    the   West   would   have   been 
blocked,  and  the  Atlantic  colonies  of  the 
future  cut  in   twain.     It  is  strange  that  a 
man  like  Champlain,  who  had  felt  the  dan- 
gers and  loss  resulting  from  being  locked 
out  from  the  ocean  half  the  year,  should 
have  wasted  his  time  on  explorations  to  the 
north  of  the  St.  Lawrence  instead  of  press- 
ing to  the  open  south.     The  Iroquois  alone 
barred  the  way.     With  these  on  his  side  he 
could  have    anticipated  the  feeble    Dutch 
colony  that,  in  1613,  settled  on  Manhattan 
Island,    or    could    have    swept    them   off. 
Probably   he   underestimated   the   strength 
of  the  Iroquois,  and  imagined  that  when 
he    had    consolidated    the    Northern    and 
Western  tribes,  these  would  not  resist  him 
long.    He  could  not  foresee  that  the  Dutch 
were    to    establish   themselves   at   Albany, 
and  by  supplying  the  Iroquois  with  fire-arms 
make  them  a  terror  to  Frenchmen  as  well 
as  to  Hurons;    or  that  along  those  rocky 
inlets  and  pine-covered  Atlantic  shores  that 
had    appeared   to   him   so  unpromising,  a 
great  commonwealth  would  grow, — slowly 
at  first,  but  resistlessly  as  fate.      Certainly 
it  is  not  for  us  to  mourn  Champlain's  mis- 
take.    After  all,  it  is  difficult  to  imagine  that 
any  one  head  could  have  changed  the  des- 
tinies of  America.     Mighty  forces  soon  came 
into  play,  which  swallowed  up  the  wisdom 
and  the  folly,  the  success  and  failure  of  the 
wisest  and  strongest.     We  know  that  what 
Champlain  undertook  to  do  he  did  with  grand 
self-forgetfulness,  and  two  and  a  half  centu- 
ries after  his  death  Quebec  continues  to  honor 
his  memory. 

Struggling  against  difficulty  and  misfor- 
tune, sustained  by  motives  and  hopes  that 


THE   DOMINION  OF  CANADA. 


baser  souls  never  know,  Champlain's  picture 
is  hung  up  in  the  national  heart.  Every- 
thing was  against  his  determination  to  make 
Quebec  prosperous.  Boundless  and  fair  as 
seems  the  view  from  Cape  Diamond,  the 
extent  of  good  soil  was  limited;  for  the 
rugged  Laurentides  press  down  almost  to  the 
river's  brink.  What  the  soil  yielded  in  sum- 
mer never  fed  the  colony  in  winter.  In 
spite  of  Champlain's  example,  few  of  the 
colonists  devoted  themselves  to  tillage. 
They  had  come  out,  not  to  farm,  but  to 
trade,  to  hunt,  and  to  make  money,  which 
they  intended  to  carry  back  to  France  and 
spend  there.  The  existence  of  Quebec 
depended  on  the  fur-trade ;  that  depended 
on  peace  being  kept  with  the  Iroquois; 
and  the  Iroquois  had  been  challenged  to 
do  their  worst.  The  city  was  thus  little 
better  than  one  of  the  Hudson  Bay  Com- 
pany's forts  of  the  present  day  in  the  north- 
west, except  that  there  was  about  it  more 
of  military  and  ecclesiastical  state.  It  was 
perpetually  in  peril  of  starvation.  Every 
winter  scurvy  decimated  the  wretched  inhabi- 
tants. Again  and  again  Champlain  saw 
that  it  was  on  the  verge  of  extinction;  but 
he  would  not  let  it  die.  Honor  to  that 
patient  courage  undismayed  by  long  con- 
tinued toil,  that  unselfishness,  that  religious 
continence  and  purity  of  life  that  long  made 
his  name  an  inspiration  to  the  infant  colony ! 
Champlain's  successor  was  De  Mont- 
magny.  In  his  time  the  Island  of  Mont- 
real was  settled.  Religion  had  much  to  do 
with  the  foundation  and  early  history  of 
Quebec.  It  had  everything  to  do  with  the 
foundation  of  Villemarie  de  Montreal.  The 
new  settlement  was  conceived  in  the  brain 
of  Jean  Jacques  Olier,  the  founder  of  the 
Seminary  of  St.  Sulpice.  The  picture  in 
his  brain  was  not  the  splendid  city  of 
to-day,  with  its  massive  quays,  palatial 
warehouses,  widening  and  far-extending 
streets,  but  a  religious  community,  full  of 
heavenly  zeal  to  propagate  the  true  faith  all 
through  the  illimitable  wildernesses  that 
extended  along  the  banks  of  the  two  mighty 
rivers  whose  currents  met  at  and  embraced 
the  beautiful  island.  Of  course,  when  the 
immense  commercial  value  of  the  position 
began  to  be  understood,  insinuations  were 
thrown  out  that  the  founders  had  been  ani- 
mated by  mundane  rather  than  purely  relig- 
ious motives.  So  talked  the  agents  and 
friends  of  the  great  company  of  one  hun- 
dred associates  to  whom  Louis  XIII.  had 
made  over  all  the  territory  of  New  France, 
with  its  capital,  Quebec.  They  saw  that 


Montreal  would  prove  a  serious  rival  to 
Quebec.  From  that  day  to  this  the  two 
cities  have  been  jealous  of  each  other.  The 
founders  of  Montreal  indignantly  repudiated 
the  insinuations  of  the  Company  and  its 
agents.  They  had  forsaken  France  for 
Canadian  winters,  the  privations  of  emi- 
grants, and  anticipated  tortures,  not  at  the 
call  of  ambition  nor  with  hope  of  gain,  but 
for  the  greater  glory  of  God.  They  had 
contributed  freely  all  their  worldly  goods 
as  well  as  themselves  to  the  enterprise,  and 
had  bound  themselves  to  seek  no  return  for 
the  money  expended.  Men  of  gentle  birth, 
ladies  who  had  been  accustomed  all  their 
lives  before  to  delicate  nurture  and  the 
refinements  of  the  most  refined  society  on 
earth,  braved  the  Atlantic  in  filthy,  infected 
little  ships,  made  their  home  in  the  thick 
of  the  gloomy  forest,  and  wore  their  lives 
out  in  ministering,  nursing,  and  teaching. 
From  the  first,  Montreal  consisted  of  three 
religious  communities,  in  honor  of  the  Holy 
Family — a  seminary  of  priests  consecrated 
to  Jesus,  a  hospital  tended  by  nuns  conse- 
crated to  Joseph,  and  a  school  consecrated 
to  the  Virgin.  Everything  else  in  the  set- 
tlement,— the  farming,  milling,  trading,  the 
military  guard,  existed  for  these,  for  these 
enshrined  the  heart  and  purpose  of  the  new 
colony.  Who  of  us  is  sufficiently  pure  in 
heart  to  pronounce  righteous  judgment  on 
the  members  of  the  Society  of  Notre-Dame 
de  Montreal  ?  Motives  cross  and  blend  in 
each  of  us  so  strangely  that  we  cannot  tell 
which  is  dominant  at  any  moment.  Dross 
may  have  mingled  with  the  gold  in  the  hearts 
of  Olier,  Marguerite  Bourgeoys,  Jeanne 
Mance,  and  the  other  founders  of  Mont- 
real, but  fine  gold  was  undoubtedly  there, 
and  it  is  the  gold  that  we  value.  Espe- 
cially are  we  attracted  to  the  first  governor, 
Paul  de  Chomedy,  Sieur  de  Maisonneuve. 
Like  Champlain,  devout  as  a  saint,  pure  in 
life  amid  surrounding  license  and  manifold 
temptations,  loving  adventure,  yet  always 
maintaining  a  steadfast  purpose,  adding  to 
the  innate  bravery  of  the  French  gentleman 
a  caution  that  could  cope  with  Indian  craft, 
Maisonneuve's  character  always  inspires 
respect.  Manly  strength  and  straightfor- 
ward piety  never  fail  him.  When  his  father 
opposed  his  embarking  in  the  seemingly  mad 
enterprise,  he  answered  :  "  Every  one  that 
hath  forsaken  houses,  or  brethren,  or  sis- 
ters, or  father,  or  mother,  or  wife,  or 
children,  or  lands,  for  my  name's  sake, 
shall  receive  a  hundred-fold,"  with  an  air 
so  matter-of-fact  that  the  worldly-minded 


86 


THE  DOMINION  OF  CANADA. 


old  gentleman  really  believed  his  son  was 
going  to  make  a  good  thing  out  of  it, 
and  ceased  further  opposition.  When  he 
arrived  at  Quebec,  and  the  Governor  and 
Council  represented  the  folly  and  imprac- 


autumn  crown,  and  the  St.  Lawrence  was 
bound  fast  under  crystal  gyves  as  strong  as 
steel,  could  the  settlers  venture  beyond  the 
fort  or  palisaded  hospital,  or  their  little  row 
of  houses  then,  as  now,  called  St.  Paul 


LONG    SAULT    RAPIDS,    ST.    LAWRENCE    RIVER. 


ticability  of  founding  a  settlement  so  far 
away  from  any  possible  succor,  and  offered 
him  the  Island  of  Orleans  instead,  he  an- 
swered :  "  It  is  my  duty  and  my  honor  to 
found  a  colony  at  Montreal,  and  I  would  go 
if  every  tree  were  an  Iroquois ! "  As  we  trace 
the  history  of  the  early  struggles  of  Mont- 
real for  existence,  we  know  not  whether  the 
prize  of  valor  should  be  awarded  to  nuns  or 
priests,  to  the  Governor,  the  soldiers,  or  the 
laborers.  Soldiers  lived  like  priests,  and 
priests  out-did  the  soldiers  in  fearlessness. 
Every  man  carried  his  life  in  his  hand,  and 
heaven  seemed  so  near  that  he  counted  life 
of  little  worth.  All  through  the  glowing 
summer  there  was  no  respite  from  watch- 
ing. During  the  day  the  laborers  took 
their  guns  to  the  fields  and  worked,  with 
anxious  glances  at  the  surrounding  forest. 
During  the  night  the  Iroquois  lay  in  wait 
behind  the  nearest  tree  or  among  the  black- 
ened stumps,  or  in  the  very  shadow  of 
the  fort  or  windmill.  Woe  to  the  heedless 
who  ventured  outside  !  Happy  he  who  got 
away  maimed  and  bleeding  from  an  enemy 
who  tortured  his  prisoners  with  inge- 
nuity, mercilessly  prolonging  life  that  agony 
might  be  prolonged!  Only  when  winter 
had  robbed  the  mountain  of  its  glorious 


street.  And  not  always  even  then,  for  the 
Iroquois  defied  the  winter  itself,  and  lurked 
for  weeks  in  the  deep,  dry  snow,  ready  to 
attack  should  the  slightest  carelessness  invite 
them.  I  never  hear  men  grudge  the  Sulpi- 
tians  their  property  in  Montreal  without 
thinking  of  how  it  was  acquired,  and  sug- 
gesting to  the  grumblers  that  property 
likely  to  be  equally  valuable  two  or  three 
centuries  hence,  if  not  sooner,  can  now  be 
secured  on  the  Saskatchewan  or  the  Peace 
river.  To  the  Sulpitians  we  owe  the  foun- 
dation of  the  city.  They  won  it  from  the 
forest  and  the  savage  by  years  of  unre- 
quited toil  and  continuous  expenditure  of 
blood  and  tears.  The  infant  colony  was 
in  the  jaws  of  wolves.  On  it  always  broke 
the  first  and  fiercest  surges  of  attack. 
Every  year  some  unfortunates  were  snatched 
away  to  a  horrible  death,  and  none  knew 
whose  turn  would  come  next.  These  were 
conditions  of  existence  to  nurture  heroism 
or  despair.  No  one  despaired.  Many  a 
story  of  the  time  has  been  preserved  for  us 
by  the  industrious  Abbe  Faillon.  One,  sym- 
pathetically told  by  Parkman,  is  well  worth 
the  reading.*  In  1660  a  young  officer, 

*  "  The  Old  Regime  in  Canada,"  Chapter  III. 


THE  DOMINION  OF  CANADA. 


87 


Adam  Daulac  by  name,  resolved  that  instead 
of  waiting  for  the  Iroquois  to  attack  Mon- 
treal, he  would  go  up  the  river,  wait  at 
some  point  they  must  needs  pass,  and 
attack  them  as  they  descended.  Sixteen 
others  joined  him,  the  oldest  thirty-one 
years  of  age.  You  caji  find  their  names, 
ages,  occupation,  property,  and  all  about 
them,  in  the  old  records  of  Montreal. 
Maisonneuve,  like  a  true  knight,  gave  them 
leave  to  go  on  their  quest.  They  made 
their  wills,  confessed,  received  the  sacra- 
ments, and  went  forth  with  joy,  like  ancient 
Paladins,  or  like  those  early  Christians  who 
rushed  on  martyrdom.  At  the  foot  of  the 
Long  Sault  they  found  a  little  palisade, 
"  scarcely  better  than  a  cattle-pen,"  and 
they  determined  to  make  this  their  fort  and 
their  grave.  Attacked  by  two  hundred  In- 
dians, they  held  their  own  for  a  week ;  and 
when  seven  hundred  hewed  a  breach  in  the 
palisades,  the  Frenchmen — sword  in  one 
hand  and  knife  in  the  other — threw  them- 
selves into  the  thickest  of  the  swarm  and 
fought  like  madmen  till  every  man  of  them 
was  shot  or  stricken  down.  Thus  died  the 
glorious  band,  like  the  Spartans  at  Ther- 
mopylae, obeying  the  law  of  honor.  The 
price  of  the  victory  made  the  Iroquois  relin- 
quish all  thought  of  attacking  Montreal  that 
year.  Full  of  fight  as  they  were,  they  had 
had  enough  of  it,  and  the  colony  was  saved 
by  the  devotion  of  a  handful  of  its  children. 
The  glory  of  Daulac  pales  before  the 
steady  light  that  enshrines  the  figures  of  the 
Jesuit  missionaries  to  the  Indians  of  Can- 
ada. Eyes  and  heart  alternately  glow  and 
fill  as  we  read  the  endless  "  Relations  "  of 
their  faith  and  failures,  their  heaped-up 
measure  of  miseries,  their  bootless  wisdom, 
their  heroic  martyrdoms.  We  forget  our 
traditional  antipathy  to  the  name  of  Jesuit. 
The  satire  of  Pascal,  the  memories  of  the 
Inquisition,  and  the  political  history  of  the 
order,  are  all  forgotten.  We  dislike  to  have 
our  sympathy  checked  by  reminders  that  in 
Canada,  as  everywhere  else,  they  were  the 
consistent,  formidable  foes  of  liberty;  that 
their  love  of  power  not  only  embroiled  them 
continually  with  the  civil  authorities,  but 
made  them  jealous  of  the  Recollets  and 
Sulpitians,  unwilling  that  any  save  their  own 
order,  or,  as  we  say — sect — should  share  in 
the  dangers  and  glory  of  converting  the 
infidels  of  New  France.  How  can  we — 
sitting  at  home  in  ease — we  who  have  entered 
into  their  labors,  criticise  men  before  whose 
spiritual  white  heat  every  mountain  melted 
away;  who  carried  the  cross  in  advance  of  the 


GENTLEMAN    OF    THE    ORDER    OF    ST.     SVLPICE,    IX    THE 
COSTUME    OF    1700. 


most  adventurous  coureurs  de  bois,  or  guides ; 
who  taught  agriculture  to  the  Indians  on 
the  Georgian  Bay  before  a  dozen  farms  had 
been  cleared  on  the  St.  Lawrence;  drove 
or  carried  cattle  through  unbroken  forest 
round  the  countless  rapids  and  cataracts 
of  the  Ottawa  and  French  River,  that  they 
might  wean  the  Hurons  from  nomadic  hab- 
its and  make  of  them  a  nation  ;  who  shrank 
from  no  hardship  and  no  indignity,  if  by 


88 


THE  DOMINION  OF  CANADA. 


JEAN-BAPTISTE,    INDIAN    PILOT    ON    THE    ST.    LAWRENCE. 

any  means  they  might  save  some  of  the 
miserable  savages  who  heaped  indignities 
upon  them ;  who  instituted  hospitals  and 
convents  wherever  they  went,  always  (in  the 
spirit  of  their  Master)  caring  most  for  the 
weak,  the  decrepit,  the  aged ;  and  submitted 
themselves,  without  thinking  of  escape,  to 
unutterable  tortures  rather  than  lose  an 
opportunity  of  administering  the  last  sacra- 
ments to  those  who  had  fallen  under  the 
hatchets  of  the  Iroquois !  Few  Protestants 


have  any  idea  of  the  extraordinary  mission- 
ary activity  of  the  church  of  Rome  in  the 
seventeenth  century.  Few  Englishmen  know 
to  what  an  extent  French  society  was  inspired 
then  by  religious  fervor.  Few  Canadians 
have  any  knowledge  of  the  spiritual  inherit- 
ance of  which  they  are  the  heirs.  It  would 
be  well  for  all  of  us  to  read  Parkman's  "Jes- 
uits in  North  America,"  if  we  cannot  get 
hold  of  the  original  "  Relations  " ;  for  the 
story  looked  at  even  from  a  Protestant  and 
Republican  standpoint  is  one  to  do  us  all 
good,  revealing  as  it  does  the  spiritual 
bonds  that  link  into  oneness  of  faith  Protest- 
ant and  Roman  Catholic,  and  teaching  that 
beneath  the  long  black  robe  of  the  dreaded 
Jesuit  is  to  be  found  not  so  much  that  dis- 
ingenuousness  and  those  schemes  of  worldly 
ambition  usually  associated  with  the  name, 
but  a  passionate  devotion  to  the  Savior,  love 
for  the  souls  of  men,  and  the  fixed  stead- 
fastness of  the  martyr's  spirit  that  remains 
unshaken  when  heart  and  flesh  faint  and 
fail.  The  extent  of  the  Jesuit  missions  in 
Canada  is  surprising,  in  a  century,  too, 
when  the  Protestant  churches  scarcely  gave 
a  thought  to  the  great  world  work  that  now 
so  largely  engages  their  sympathies.  In 
the  Huron  country  alone,  the  mission  con- 
sisted of  eighteen  priests,  four  lay  brothers, 
and  twenty-three  men  serving  without  pay, 
called  donnes,  or  given  men,  as  distinct 
from  engages,  or  hired  men  ;  besides  nineteen 
hired  laborers,  soldiers,  and  boys.  On  the 
towns  of  the  Mission  of  St.  Ignace — the 
majority  of  whose  inhabitants  had  accepted 
Christianity,  fell  the  heavy  hand  of  Iroquois 
invasion  in  the  spring  of  1649.  Here  the 


VIEW    IN    THE    THOUSAND    ISLANDS,    ST.     LAWRENCE    RIVER. 


THE  DOMINION  OF  CANADA. 


89 


two  Jesuit  missionaries  Brebeuf  and  Lale- 
mant  were  stationed.  Their  converts  im- 
plored them  to  fly,  but  they  refused.  It  was 
theirs  to  remain  at  their  post,  the  one  to  give 
baptism  at  the  last  moment  to  whomsoever 


Lalemant,  the  nephew  of  the  Superior  at 
Quebec,  was  the  counterpart  of  Brebeuf. 
Elijah  sought  and  found  his  complement 
in  Elisha.  Bold  St.  Peter  attached  to  him- 
self the  timid  John  Mark.  Stormful  Luther 


LAKE     MEMPHREMAGOG. 


sought  it,  the  other  to  give  absolution  to 
the  dying.  Sixteen  years  before,  Cham- 
plain  had  introduced  Br6beuf  and  two  oth- 
ers to  the  Hurons  who  had  come  down  to 
trade.  "  These  are  our  fathers,"  he  said. 
"  We  love  them  more  than  we  love  our- 
selves. The  whole  French  nation  honors 
them.  They  do  not  go  among  you  for 
your  furs.  They  have  left  their  friends  and 
their  country  to  show  you  the  way  to 
heaven.  If  you  love  the  French  as  you  say 
you  love  them,  then  love  and  honor  these, 
our  fathers."  Brebeuf  at  this  time  was  forty 
years  old.  The  enthusiasm  of  youth  had 
passed  into  a  deep,  overmastering  spiritual 
passion  that  fused  all  the  forces  of  his  being 
and  directed  them  to  the  one  great  end. 
An  iron  constitution — the  ready  servant  of 
a  strong,  fervid  will — enabled  him  to  do 
and  endure  anything.  He  might  easily  have 
won  worldly  distinctions,  but  his  sole  ambi- 
tion was  to  be  a  good  soldier  of  Jesus 
Christ.  For  fifteen  years  he  had  been  the 
"  decus  et  tutamen  "  of  the  Huron  Mission. 
His  zeal  had  never  flagged ;  and  now,  after 
seeing  success  coming  to  crown  his  labors, 
he  was  doomed  to  behold  the  destruction 
of  the  Mission -and  of  the  Huron  Nation. 


met  his  mild  Melancthon.  Not  more  un- 
like, physically  or  temperamentally,  were 
Brebeuf  and  Lalemant.  They  had  toiled 
together  in  life,  one  in  fervor  and  aim ; 
and  in  death  they  were  not  divided.  Space 
is  wanting  for  details  concerning  the  mis- 
sionary work  of  the  various  Roman  Catho- 
lic orders  in  Canada.  Nothing  discouraged 
them;  no  defeat  made  them  despair  of 
eventual  success.  As  brethren  in  Christ,  we 
rejoice  in  their  superb  faith,  though  we  may 
sometimes  smile  at  the  naive  form  in  which 
it  found  expression.  The  Recollet  friar, 
Joseph  le  Carou,  the  first  priest  who  visited 
the  Huron  country,  thus  sustains  his  sink- 
ing courage :  "  When  one  sees  so  many 
infidels  needing  nothing  but  a  drop  of 
water  to  make  them  children  of  God,  he 
feels  an  inexpre'ssible  ardor  to  labor  for 
their  conversion  and  sacrifice  to  it  his  repose 
and  his  life."  Zuinglius  himself  might  par- 
don the  bold  Sacramentarianism  from  such 
lips.  The  prophetic  words  of  the  Father 
Superior  of  the  Jesuits  in  1647  stir  the  heart 
of  the  Christian — by  whatsoever  name  known 
among  men — like  the  blast  of  a  trumpet : 
"  We  shall  die ;  we  shall  be  captured, 
burned,  butchered.  Be  it  so.  Those  who 


9° 


THE  DOMINION  OF  CANADA. 


die  in  their  beds  do  not  always  die  the  best 
death.  I  see  none  of  our  company  cast 
down."  And  truly,  in  spite  of  failures, 
these  men  did  a  great  work.  Seeds  of 
divine  truth  they  sowed  broadcast  over  the 
wilderness.  Gradually  they  tempered  the 
ferocity  of  the  Indian  character,  and  mit- 
igated the  horrors  of  Indian  war.  They  in- 
duced the  remnants  of  many  tribes  to  settle 
under  the  shadow  of  their  missions  pro- 
tected by  forts.  Portions  even  of  the  terri- 
ble Iroquois  settled  in  Canada,  and  the 
Church  has,  on  the  whole,  no  children  more 
obedient,  and  Queen  Victoria  certainly  no 
subjects  more  loyal.  Their  superiority  to 
other  Indians  is  as  plainly  marked  to-day  as 
it  was  two  centuries  ago.  No  better  voy- 
ageurs  exist.  In  traveling  among  the  Can- 
adian lakes  and  Lacustrine  rivers,  get 
Iroquois  to  man  your  canoes,  and  you  are 
all  right.  No  other  crew,  white  or  red,  can 
be  compared  to  them.  Never  intruding  on 
their  employers,  because  conscious  of  their 
own  dignity;  prompt  to  do  what  is  needed 
without  fuss  or  chatter;  ready  to  talk  when 
you  wish  it,  but  not  offended  should  you 
keep  silence  for  weeks;  never  grumbling; 
strong,  cleanly,  weather-wise,  and  expe- 
rienced in  all  the  mysteries  of  wood-craft 
and  canoeing,  they  are  splendid  fellows  to 
have  with  you. 

Other  orders  as  well  as  the  Jesuits  estab- 
lished missions  at  various  points,  and  the 
Christianized  Indians  from  these  did  good 
service  in  the  wars  of  the  next  period.  The 
Sulpitians  established  one  in  Montreal  on 
the  slope  of  the  mountain  near  the  present 
Seminary.  Two  stone  towers,  part  of  the 
defenses  of  this  Mission,  still  exist,  and  were 
recently  pointed  out  to  me  by  one  of  the 
priests  as  the  oldest  remains  of  former 
days  now  standing  in  Montreal.  Recently, 
Protestant  churches  in  Canada  have  sent 
missionaries  to  the  Indians,  but  the  church 
of  Rome  bore  the  burden  and  heat  of  the 
day,  and  still  occupies  the  post  of  honor. 
Her  missions  are  co-extensive  with  the  Do- 
minion. I  have  seen  them  in  New  Brunswick, 
where  the  Restigouche  mingles  its  waters 
with  the  Bay  Chaleur ;  on  the  great  Mani- 
toulin,  where  the  remains  of  the  Huron  Na- 
tion sought  refuge,  and  under  the  shadow 
of  the  Rocky  Mountains,  where  gentle  ladies 
who  had  traveled  across  the  great  loneland 
lovingly  ministered  to  Cree  and  Blackfeet 
children  orphaned  by  war  and  the  smallpox. 
Words  are  too  weak  to  acknowledge  the  de- 
votion to  God's  will  and  the  self-sacrifice  for 
man  that  the  histories  of  such  missionaries 


record.  They  have  laid  the  country  under  a 
large  debt  of  gratitude.  The  one  thing  that 
Canada  cannot  be  too  thankful  for  is  that  she 
has  no  Indian  wars.  For  this  unspeakable 
blessing,  how  much  do  we  owe  to  the  teach- 
ing, sacrifices,  and  long-continued  labors  of 
self-exiled  men  and  women  whose  names  are 
written,  not  in  the  columns  of  newspapers, 
but  in  the  Book  of  Life  ? 

The  first  period  of  Canadian  history 
closes  with  the  administration  of  Count 
Frontenac.  Previous  to  his  arrival  in  the 
colony  the  only  settlements  of  consequence 
were  in  the  neighborhood  of  Quebec,  Three 
Rivers  and  Montreal.  His  predecessor, 
Courcelles,  had  seen  the  advantages  of 
establishing  a  fort  at  the  outlet  of  Lake 
Ontario,  and  before  Frontenac  had  been 
long  in  the  country  this  step  was  urged 
on  his  attention  by  Robert  Cavalier,  Sieur 
de  La  Salle,  a  young  man  whose  brain 
teemed  with  vast  schemes  of  discovery,  and 
of  securing  to  France  the  trade  of  the  great 
unknown  West  and  the  Indies.  The  Sem- 
inary of  St.  Sulpice  had  given  to  La  Salle, 
soon  after  his  arrival  in  Montreal,  a  large 
grant  of  land  above  the  rapids,  now  known 
as  the  Lachine,  on  the  understanding  that  he 
should  form  an  outpost  there,  from  which, 
at  any  time,  intelligence  of  the  approach  of 
the  Iroquois  could  be  conveyed  to  the  city. 
While  engaged  on  this  seigniory,  clearing 
land  and  fur  trading,  some  Indians  from  the 
west  gave  him  information  of  a  river  called 
the  Ohio,  which  they  said  flowed  west  or 
south  until  it  reached  the  ocean.  Leaping 
to  the  conclusion  that  this  ocean  must  be 
the  "Vermilion  Sea,"  or  Gulf  of  California, 
his  imagination  was  fired  with  the  prospect 
of  finding  the  long-desired  western  passage 
across  America  to  China  and  India.  To 
this  great  work  of  discovery  he  at  once 
devoted  himself,  and  never  did  Knight  of 
the  Table  Round  seek  for  the  Sangreal,  or 
Crusader  press  forward  to  gain  the  Holy 
City,  with  more  disregard  of  difficulties  or 
contempt  of  dangers,  or  with  more  sustained 
faith,  than  animated  La  Salle.  His  first  step 
was  to  secure  a  permanent  foothold  on  Lake 
Ontario,  to  be  his  starting  point  and  base  of 
operations.  He  parted  with  his  seigniory, 
the  Seminary  paying  him  handsomely  for 
his  improvements;  and,  gaining  the  entire 
confidence  of  the  new  Governor,  he  induced 
him  to  establish  a  fort  at  the  point  where 
the  St.  Lawrence  issues  from  Lake  Ontario 
to  sweep  in  long  reaches  and  winding 
channels  around  and  past  the  countless 
islets  and  rocks  and  fairy  haunts  that  we 


THE  DOMINION  OF  CANADA. 


modestly  style  the  Thousand  Islands.  The 
new  fort,  called  Frontenac,  was  established 
at  the  mouth  of  the  Cataraqui,  near  the 
site  of  the  Tete  du  Pont  Barracks,  in  what 
is  now  the  city  of  Kingston.  Fort  Fronte- 
nac at  once  became  an  important  trading 
center  for  all  the  tribes  of  the  upper  lakes. 
Previously  their  trade  was  being  diverted 
through  the  country  of  the  Iroquois  to 
New  York,  and  Frontenac  felt  that  friend- 


acknowledged  failure,  nor  of  his  famous  dis- 
coveries and  untimely  end.  It  is  said  that 
the  rapids  beside  his  first  seigniory  received 
the  name  of  La  Chine  from  some  of  his 
recreant  followers,  in  derision  of  his  original 
dream  ;  but  derision  could  not  well  be  more 
out  of  place  in  connection  with  any  man 
than  with  La  Salle,  whose  failures  were 
more  splendid  and  fruitful  than  most  men's 
success.  In  1673  the  Jesuit  Marquettehad 


KINGSTON     HARBOR. 


ship  and  allegiance  would  soon  follow  trade. 
Kingston  is  still  of  importance  as  the  place 
of  transhipment  for  the  corn  and  lumber  of 
the  west  on  its  way  to  the  east.  The  lumber 
brought  from  Michigan  and  Lake  Superior 
in  vessels  is  made  up  into  rafts  at  Garden 
Island,  or  Collins'  Bay,  near  the  city,  and 
rafted  down  the  river  to  Quebec;  and  the 
corn  is  transferred  from  vessels,  by  means 
of  elevators,  into  barges  suited  to  the  canals 
of  the  St.  Lawrence.  Count  Frontenac  and 
La  Salle  saw  clearly  that  the  diversion  of 
the  trade  of  the  upper  lakes  out  of  Dutch 
and  English  hands  into  their  own  could  be 
made  a  personal  as  well  as  a  national  gain. 
Hence  opposition,  natural  enough  on  the 
part  of  the  Montreal  traders;  though  as 
La  Salle's  only  object  in  making  money  was 
to  spend  it  on  schemes  of  discovery  for  the 
aggrandizement  of  France,  his  personal 
gains  would  be,  in  a  manner,  national.  This 
is  not  the  place  to  speak  of  his  heart-break- 
ing failures,  and  of  the  fixed  will  that  never 


reached  the  "  Father  of  Waters  "  from  Lake 
Michigan,  by  the  Fox  and  Wisconsin  rivers. 
Now,  in  1680,  La  Salle  came  upon  it  from 
the  Illinois,  sailed  in  canoes  to  its  mouth, 
and  took  possession  of  it  and  its  valley  and 
coast  for  France  and  King  Louis  XIV. 
He  gave  the  name  of  Louisiana  to  the  vast 
region  extending  from  the  Gulf  of  Mexico 
to  the  head-waters  of  the  Missouri.  New 
France  and  Louisiana  thus  embraced  the 
whole  continent,  except  the  country  along 
the  Atlantic  coast  to  the  east  of  the  Alle- 
ghanies,  where  the  British  colonies  were 
struggling  into  existence.  New  France  in- 
cluded not  only  all  to  the  north  of  the  St. 
Lawrence  and  the  great  lakes,  but  that 
magnificent  prairie  and  timbered  country 
out  of  which  the  northwestern  States  of  the 
Union  were  subsequently  carved.  In  a 
triangle,  the  apex  of  which  is  the  junction 
of  the  Ohio  with  the  Mississippi — one  side 
the  line  of  the  Ohio,  the  other  the  line  of  the 
Missouri,  and  the  base  the  great  lakes  — we 


THE  DOMINION  OF  CANADA. 


find  the  very  core  of  the  United  States. 
This  great  region  was  admittedly  included 
in  New  France,  and  Louisiana  included  all 
to  the  south  of  it ;  while  the  country  between 
the  Ohio  and  the  Alleghanies  was  disputed 
territory.  At  every  important  strategic 
point  near  the  outlets  of  the  lakes  and 
along  the  rivers,  the  flag  of  France  waved 
over  some  kind  of  a  fort ;  and  in  every  fort 
you  found  a  soldier,  a  trader  and  a  mis- 
sionary. The  second  period  of  Canadian 
history  tells  of  the  long  contest  with  Britain 
and  the  British  Colonies  for  this  future  seat 
of  empire,  this  great  home  of  gathered  mil- 
lions, and  ends  with  the  death  of  Wolfe  and 
Montcalm  on  the  plains  of  Abraham,  and 
the  surrender  of  Canada  to  Great  Britain 
in  1760. 

Up  to  the  middle  of  the  eighteenth  century 
all  the  indications,  to  a  superficial  observer, 
were   in  favor  of  America   being    French 
rather  than  Anglo-Saxon.     Had  Louis  XIV. 
allowed   the    Huguenots  to  emigrate,  such 
might  have   been    the    result.     The    only 
people  in  old  France  anxious  to  leave  it  dur- 
ing his  reign  were  the  Huguenots,  and  only 
to  them  was  emigration  forbidden.     Gladly 
would  they  have  carried  their  skill  and  indus- 
try, their  national  versatility  and  enterprise, 
to  the  New  World,  and  built  up  round  their 
altar  fires  a  great  French  State.    They  would 
have  supplied  the  blood,  bone  and  muscle 
needed  to  make   the   vast   outline  of  New 
France  a  reality.     Expecting  nothing  from 
the   home   government,   seeking    no  court 
favor,  they  would  have  trusted  to  their  own 
initiative   for   everything.     From   very   ne- 
cessity  the    fabric  of  their   commonwealth 
would  have  grown  up  in  the  bracing  atmos- 
phere of  liberty.    But  while  neither  England 
nor   France  then   understood   religious   or 
civil  liberty,  England,  as  usual,  was  happily 
illogical.      She   permitted   her   Puritans  to 
exile  themselves  from  the  fatherland.     The 
boon,  perhaps,  seems  to  us  small,  but  not  so 
would  it  have  seemed  to  the  French  non- 
conformists.    The    English   Puritans  could 
seek,   and   they  found,  beyond  seas,  free- 
dom  to  worship  God.     And   though  their 
own  sufferings  for  conscience  sake  did  not 
teach  them  the  elements  of  toleration  prac- 
tically, it  came  to  this,  that  they  had  all  the 
freedom  they  themselves  desired.     In  Mas- 
sachusetts they  tolerated  only  "  the  truth," 
and  persecuted  Anabaptists    and    Antino- 
mians,  Quakers  and  witches ;  but  the  per- 
secutions in  the  Bay  State  simply  led  to  the 
founding  of  other  States.    They  had  freedom 
to  build  schools  and  churches  and  to  lay 


the  foundations  of  colleges  ;  to  take  posses- 
sion of  the  forest,  till  the  soil,  and  engage 
in  near  and  far-distant  fisheries.  They 
developed  naturally.  The  Imperial  Govern- 
ment treated  them  with  wholesome  neglect, 
allowing  them  to  grow  without  incasing 
their  young  bodies  in  strait-jackets,  or  flat- 
tening their  heads  out  of  shape  to  please 
the  eye  of  bishop  or  intendant  or  lieuten- 
ant-general of  the  king.  Slowly  but  surely 
the  illogically-treated  illogical  exiles  built 
up  a  series  of  sturdy  commonwealths,  self- 
governed  and  bound  together  by  that  best 
cement  of  society — the  strong  religious  con- 
victions of  the  individual  members. 

New  France  got  only  the  emigrants  that 
the  king  and  the  company  sent  out.  They 
would  send  any  but  Huguenots.  Unfor- 
tunately few  except  Huguenots  cared  to  go. 
The  Huguenots  were  the  victims  of  a  more 
logical  persecution  than  the  Puritans.  They 
might  not  live  in  France  unless  they  denied 
their  faith,  neither  might  they  depart  in 
peace  from  the  land  that  denied  them  the 
first  right  of  human  beings.  If  they  escaped 
beyond  the  border  they  could  enrich  Hol- 
land, Brandenburg,  England — any  land  save 
New  France,  the  land  that  needed  them 
most.  There  the  priest  and  the  soldier 
ruled, — pious  priest,  brave  soldier,  but  unfor- 
tunately out  of  their  place,  not  in  their 
place, — and  priest  and  soldier  were  one. 
By  the  law,  no  heretic  could  remain  on  the 
fair  virgin  soil  of  New  France.  Even  the 
Huguenot  merchants  of  Rochelle,  who  held 
in  their  hands  the  greatest  part  of  the  trade 
of  the  colony,  were  not  allowed  a  residence. 
The  principal  merchant  came  out  to  see 
after  his  property,  but  the  honest  man  could 
not  get  even  a  special  license  to  remain  all 
winter  and  collect  his  debts.  Doubtless  his 
debtors  believed  the  law  good !  Let  the 
New  World  remain  a  wilderness  rather  than 
be  converted  into  a  refuge  and  home  for 
heretics!  Great  efforts  were  indeed  made 
to  people  it  with  true  believers.  The  king 
did  his  best.  He  sent  soldiers  to  protect 
the  settlers,  and  ship-loads  of  women  to  be 
wives  for  them.  Royal  favors  and  bounties 
were  given  to  encourage  early  marriages 
and  large  families.  The  stimulants  proved 
more  successful  in  accomplishing  those  re- 
sults than  the  similar  stimulants  offered  to 
encourage  the  growth  of  hemp.  We  read 
of  gentilshommes  and  habitants  with  families 
of  thirteen  and  fifteen ;  but  with  only  two 
or  three  sheep,  and  sometimes  not  so  many. 
"When  the  father  went  off  to  hunt  or  fight, 
the  mother  and  children  would  have  starved 


THE  DOMINION  OF  CANADA. 


93 


ON  THE  ST.  LAWRENCE,  NEAR  MONTREAL. 


had  it  not  been  for  the  exhaustless  sup- 
plies of  eels  that  the  St.  Lawrence  yielded. 
Beneficent  and  mighty  stream — sacred  river 
of  Canada — its  Ganges  and  Nile  combined 
— well  may  Canadians  love  thee !  What 
other  river  can  be  compared  to  our  St. 
Lawrence  ?  None  other  pours  down  to 
the  ocean  such  a  mighty  flood  of  water — 
and  such  water !  Not  like  the  yellow  Tiber 
or  the  muddy  Mississippi;  but  a  crystal 
purity  in  current  vast  and  strong,  that  man, 
with  all  his  abominations  of  steamers  and 
sewers  and  factories  has  been,  as  yet,  unable 
to  pollute.  Why  should  poet  celebrate  the 
honey  of  Hymettus  and  the  vines  of  Rhine- 
land,  and  not  the  fish  of  the  St.  Lawrence, 
its  bass,  sturgeon,  muskallonge,  and  its  white 
fish,  most  delicious  of  all  fresh-water  fish  ? 
What  a  course  it  runs,  from  the  exhaustless, 
crystal  reservoir  of  Lake  Superior,  suspended 
600  feet  above  the  sea,  across  nearly  thirty 
degrees  of  longitude  to  the  Gulf!  Down 
the  Sault  Ste.  Marie,  and  among  the  multitu- 
dinous Huronian  rocks  of  the  Georgian  Bay; 
out  of  Lake  Huron,  and  along  the  low, 
fertile  banks  of  Lake  Erie ;  rushing  into 
Ontario  to  the  sound  of  the  thunder  of 
Niagara ;  stealing  quietly  away  from  Kings- 
ton and  seeking  to  lose  itself  amid  a 
marvelous  labyrinth  of  islands  that  offer  to 
it  in  wood  and  rock,  in  bluff,  bay  and  glen, 
every  variety  of  form  and  color ;  sedately 
emerging  from  those  fascinations  and  pur- 
suing the  quiet,  onward  flow  of  an  ordinary 
river,  only  to  break  loose  soon  and  leap 
madly  over  broken  precipices  in  a  succes- 
sion of  wonderful  rapids  during  the  next 


hundred  miles ;  now  gathering  itself  to- 
gether again  under  the  towers  of  Montreal, 
to  swing  grandly  down  to  the  far-distant 
sea,  past  the  storied  ramparts  of  Quebec 
and  the  frowning  cliffs  of  the  Saguenay  ! 
Proudly  Canadians  boast  that  there  is  no 
river  like  their  own  St.  Lawrence.  And 
well  may  we  sing  its  praises.  It  has  been 
everything  to  us  in  the  past,  and  promises  to 
be  more  in  the  future. 

But  to  return  to  our  narrative.  With 
the  best  intentions  in  the  world  on  the 
part  of  a  king,  who  believed  himself  to 
be  Providence,  the  infant  colony  was  kept 
in  leading  strings,  ecclesiastical,  civil  and 
industrial.  Men  went  to  mass  under  penalty 
of  being  made  fast  to  a  post  with  collar  and 
chain.  Profane  swearing  was  punished 
with  fines,  and  at  length  with  the  pillory. 
In  spite  of  religion  being  so  protected,  the 
good  priests  never  weary  of  lamenting  over 
the  stubborn  wickedness  of  the  people.  Of 
course,  too,  it  could  be  argued,  if  the  people 
are  so  bad  when  authority  does  its  utmost 
on  behalf  of  religion,  what  would  they  be 
if  the  bonds  were  relaxed!  The  regulations 
in  Massachusetts  and  the  blue  laws  of 
Connecticut  may  be  quoted  as  an  offset. 
True,  but  herein  lay  the  difference.  Instead 
of  being  imposed  on  them  by  external 
authority,  the  harsh  laws  of  New  England 
were  adopted  by  the  people  in  the  exercise 
of  their  own  intelligence,  and  could  be 
changed  as  the  people  became  politically 
more  intelligent.  But  in  New  France  there 
could  be  no  such  thing  as  popular  initiative 
or  change  in  politics,  education,  religion,  or 


94 


THE  DOMINION  OF  CANADA. 


trade.  These  included  every  activity  and 
department  of  life,  save  eating,  drinking  and 
amusements.  Local  legislation  was  forbid- 
den and  local  schools  undreamed  of.  In- 
dustrially, nothing  could  be  done  unless  His 
Majesty  pulled  the  strings.  He  must  give 
money  or  authority.  Charters  and  patronage 
as  well  as  honors  flowed  from  him.  Monop- 
olies rigidly  confined  trade  within  licensed 
bounds,  and  when  it  languished  in  conse- 
quence, the  only  cure  suggested  was  another 
monopoly.  Officials,  skilled  in  the  art  of 
"how  not  to  do  it,"  multiplied.  Knavery 
and  corruption  widened  their  baleful  influ- 
ence year  by  year.  As  far  as  the  people 


farms  with  the  absurd  old  implements  their 
fathers  had  known  in  Normandy.  They 
divided  and  subdivided  their  land  among 
children  and  grandchildren,  in  long,  narrow 
strips,  so  that  each  might  get  a  river  frontage, 
until  the  subdivision  of  the  original  paternal 
acres  afforded  a  fit  illustration  of  the  infinite 
divisibility  of  matter.  What  boundless  con- 
tempt these  ribband  farms — 663/3  or  33^ 
yards  broad  and  2,000  yards  long — inspire 
in  the  breast  of  a  prairie  farmer !  In  more 
ways  than  one,  however,  they  suited  the  gen- 
ius of  a  people  who  loved  society.  The  farm- 
houses of  an  agricultural  district  constituted 
a  continuous  village  of  neat  white-washed 


VIEW    ON     THE      GODBOUT,      A    CANADIAN     SALMON     RIVER. 


were  concerned,  this  centralized  system  of 
exclusiveness  and  authority  resulted  in  driv- 
ing adventurous  young  men  into  the  forest, 
there  to  become  lawless  coureurs  de  bois,  and 
in  stupefying  the  masses,— teaching  them  not 
to  put  their  own  shoulders  to  the  wheel,  but 
to  look  up  to  the  Government  as  a  Hercules 
ever  ready  and  able  to  deliver  them.  The 
feudal  land  tenure  also  stood  in  the  way  of 
agricultural  improvement  and  popular  ad- 
vance. The  knowledge  that  his  toil  goes  to 
improve  his  own  land,  for  his  own  and  his 
children's  benefit,  inspires  the  dullest  clodpoll. 
This  inspiration  the  habitans  had  not.  Labo- 
riously, yet  indolently,  they  worked  their 


cottages  along  the  line  of  the  main  road. 
Interminable  law-suits  and  fiddling  broke 
the  monotony  of  life ;  still  more  frequently, 
religious  festivals,  when  work  was  thrown 
aside,  and  gaiety — that  too  often  degener- 
ated into  drunkenness — reigned  supreme. 
The  people  enjoyed  life  like  children — 
enjoyed  it  more  than  their  prosperous  Puritan 
neighbors  to  the  south,  who  took  their  pleas- 
ures, like  their  religion,  sadly.  They  followed 
a  trusted  leader  through  the  deep  woods,  for 
an  onslaught  on  the  Iroquois  or  the  English, 
with  a  gayety  of  heart  very  different  from 
the  prayerful  deliberativeness  with  which  New 
England  made  war ;  but  their  attacks  were 


THE  DOMINION  OF  CANADA. 


95 


confined  to  exposed  settlements,  the  fate  of 
which  determined  nothing ;  whereas,  when 
the  British  laid  aside  axe  and  sickle  and 
grasped  the  musket,  they  struck  at  the  ene- 
my's capitals.  In  the  contest,  our  sympathies 
are  continually  enlisted  on  the  side  of  the 


hopeless  a  contest  he  had  been  sent;  but 
none  the  less  did  he  do  his  duty. 

The  first  period  of  Canadian  history  ends 
with  the  death  of  Frontenac.  The  second, 
with  the  death  of  Montcalm.  The  third 


FORT    HENRY,    KINGSTON. 


gallant,  kindly,  gay-hearted  Frenchmen; 
but  none  the  less  do  we  feel  that  the  issue 
was  predetermined.  France  deserved  to 
lose  New  France.  She  endeavored  to  gov- 
ern her  thin  line  of  settlers  for  her  benefit, 
and  not  their  own,  and  with  the  worn-out 
wisdom  of  Paris,  instead  of  the  fresh  expe- 
rience they  themselves  gained  in  the  wilder- 
ness. And  to  those  who  would  gladly  have 
emigrated  in  thousands,  and  who  would 
have  made  the  best  colonists  in  the  world, 
she  issued  imperative  orders :  "  Land  not 
on  the  wide,  extended  shores,  that  require 
only  the  hand  of  the  diligent ;  people  not 
the  banks  of  those  mighty  rivers,  that  are 
calling  so  loudly  for  you."  Her  orders  were 
perforce  obeyed.  Nemesis  followed,  as  it 
always  does ;  fpr  in  Nature  and  Providence 
there  is  no  such  thing  as  forgiveness.  And 
so  it  happened  that,  when  the  long  contest 
came  to  be  finally  fought  out  between  Eng- 
land and  France  for  the  prize  of  the  New 
World,  the  one  power  had  on  the  ground  two 
or  three  millions  of  hardy,  intelligent,  self- 
reliant  fishermen,  farmers,  and  backwoods- 
men ;  the  other  had  little  groups  of  soldiers, 
Indians,  and  coureurs  de  bois,  scattered  among 
scores  of  forts  and  over  illimitable  forests,  and 
a  militia  drawn  from  some  sixty  or  seventy 
thousand  colonists,  poor,  dependent,  uned- 
ucated ;  ready,  indeed,  at  a  moment's  notice 
for  dashing  foray  or  raid,  but  whose  families 
would  starve  if  their  bread-winners  enlisted 
en  masse  for  continuous  service.  No  one 
saw  more  clearly  than  Montcalm  to  how 


deals  with  Canada  as  a  colony  under  British 
rule,  and  ends  with  the  Act  of  1867,  which 
united  the  various  British  colonies  on  the 
main  land  of  North  America  into  the  Domin- 
ion of  Canada.  The  political  history  of 
Canada  begins  in  the  second  half  of  this 
period,  and  in  its  social  and  political  devel- 
opment consists  its  chief  interest. 

By  the  peace  of  1763,  virtually  the  whole 
continent  became  British.  Canada  and  the 
old  British  Colonies  had,  however,  walked 
too  long  apart,  to  be  easily  united.  They  did 
not  share  in  a  common  life.  The  thoughts 
that  stirred  the  heart  of  the  one  people  found 
no  echo  in  the  breast  of  the  other.  They  ac- 
knowledged the  same  authority  without  being 
linked  in  any  other  way.  Hence,  when  twelve 
years  afterward  the  struggle  began,  the  issue 
of  which  was  supposed  to  be  the  utter  destruc- 
tion of  British  authority  in  America,  though 
the  children  separated  themselves  from  the 
mother,  the  old  foe  remained  true  to  the  new 
allegiance.  At  the  beginning  of  the  war, 
Montgomery  captured  Montreal,  and  along 
with  Arnold  made  a  gallant  but  unsuccessful 
attempt  to  carry  Quebec,  by  escalade,  in  mid- 
winter. The  invasion  ended  in  failure,  and 
was  not  renewed  even  when  France  came  to 
the  assistance  of  the  States,  and  when  it 
might  be  supposed  the  sympathies  of  the  Can- 
adians would  incline  them  to  fight  side  by 
side  with  the  soldiers  of  France  against  the 
soldiers  of  England.  The  St.  Lawrence 
again  became,  and  still  remains,  the  dividing 
line  between  two  peoples  and  governments. 


ON  ONE    WHO  DIED  IN  MAY. 


ON    ONE   WHO    DIED    IN    MAY. 

(j.    H.    E.       MAY    3d,    1870.) 

WHY,  Death,  what  dost  them,  here, 

This  time  o'  year  ? 
Peach-blow,  and  apple-blossom; 
Clouds,  white  as  my  love's  bosom; 

Warm  wind  o'  the  West 

Cradling  the  robin's  nest; 

Young  meadows,  hasting  their  green  laps,  to  fill 
With  golden  dandelion  and  daffodil : — 

These  are  fit  sights  for  Spring; 

But,  oh,  thou  hateful  thing, 
What  dost  thou,  here? 

Why,  Death,  what   dost  thou  here 

This  time  o'  year  ? 
Fair,  at  the  old  oak's  knee, 

The  young  anemone; 
Fair,  the  plash  places  set 
With  dog-tooth  violet; 
The  first  sloop-sail, 
The  shad-flower  pale; 
Sweet  are  all  sights, 

Sweet  are  all  sounds  of  Spring; 
But  thou,  thou  ugly  thing, 
What  dost  thou,  here  ? 

Dark  Death  let  fall  a  tear. 

Why  am  I  here  ? 

Oh,  heart  ungrateful !     Will  man  never  know 
I  am  his  friend,  nor  ever  was  his  foe  ? 
Whose  the  sweet  season,  then,  if  it  be  not  mine  ? 
Mine,  not  the  bobolink's,  that  song  divine 
Chasing  the  shadows  o'er  the  flying  wheat! 
'Tis  a  dead  voice,  not  his,  that  sounds  so  sweet. 
Whose  passionate  heart  burns  in  this  flaming  rose 
But  his,  whose  passionate  heart  long  since  lay  still  ? 
Whose  wanhope  pales  this  nun-like  lily  tall, 

Beside  the  garden  wall, 

But  hers,  whose  radiant  eyes  and  lily  grace, 
Sleep  in  the  grave  that  crowns  yon  tufted  hill! 
All  Hope,  all  Memory 
Have  their  deep  springs  in  me, 

And  Love,  that  else  might  fade, 

By  me  immortal  made, 

Spurns  at  the  grave,  leaps  to  the  welcoming  skies, 
And  burns  a  steadfast  star  to  steadfast  eyes. 


NOTES   OF  A    WALKER. 


97 


NOTES  OF   A  WALKER.     III. 


NATURE  AND  THE  POETS,  AGAIN. 

IT  is  pleasant  to  note  how  many  persons 
throughout  the  country  stand  ready  to  defend 
our  poets  against  anything  that  seems  like 
unfair  treatment.  Question  but  the  minutest 
fact  of  Bryant,  or  Lowell,  or  Longfellow, 
-and  a  cloud  of  witnesses  rises  up  to  con- 
found you.  Since  my  article  on  the  above 
subject  in  the  December  SCRIBNER,  I  have 
been  taken  to  task  by  several  writers  in  the 
magazines  and  newspapers,  and  by  many 
private  letters,  and  the  fallacy  of  my  harm- 
less criticism  pointed  out  to  me.  A  bright 
school  girl,  whom  I  met  on  the  train,  said 
it  was  not  "fair,"  and,  for  the  moment,  I 
was  filled  with  confusion  and  contrition. 

But  I  am  not  now  going  to  take  back 
anything  I  have  said,  but  rather  to  add  to 
my  offending.  Only  a  few  days  since  I  was 
reading  a  poem,  in  one  stanza  of  which  the 
wild  rose,  the  golden-rod,  the  white  elder, 
and  the  meadow  lilies,  were  all  made  to 
bloom  at  the  same  time.  Our  two  species  of 
elder,  S.  Canadensis  and  S.  piebens,  bloom  in 
May  and  June ;  the  common  wild  rose,  or 
eglantine,  a  little  later;  the  yellow  lilies  are  in 
their  glory  in  July,  and  the  golden-rod  in  late 
August  and  September.  This  is  the  rule; 
exceptional  instances  might  occur  that 
would  justify  the  poet's  combination;  but 
.the  poet  is  not  to  deal  in  exceptions;  his 
'verse  is  to  reflect  the  large  universal  fact;  he 
must  keep  the  broad  highway  of  the  seasons, 
and  if  he  steps  aside  from  it  the  reader  is  to 
be  apprised  of  the  fact.  Every  flower  has 
its  period;  the  main  body  comes  at  some 
well-defined  time ;  there  are  stragglers  before 
and  after,  but  they  only  point  to  the  larger 
fact  I  have  stated. 

It  was  upon  this  ground  that  I  criticised 
Lowell's  use  of  the  dandelion  and  butter- 
cup, describing  his  lawn  as  gilded  with  them 
both  at  the  same  time.  Everybody  knows 
that  an  occasional  dandelion  may  be  observed 
in  bloom  any  time  from  May  to  November, 
especially  when  the  grass  is  kept  short,  and 
that  the  buttercup  holds  on  late  in  the  sea- 
son also,  yet  the  periods  of  the  main  inflo- 
rescence of  the  two  plants  are  separated  by 
at  least  a  month,  while  Lowell  speaks  of  them 
as  if  they  were  contemporaneous.  The  but- 
tercup (R.  acris)  is  a  tall  plant,  it  comes  when 
things  are  high  ;  it  holds  its  head  above  the 
clover  and  the  daisies,  and  shows  upon  the 
VOL.  XX.— 7. 


waving  fields  like  a  thin  wash  of  gold.  The 
dandelion,  on  the  other  hand,  belongs  to 
that  earlier  stage  of  the  season  when  the 
grass  is  short, — to  unfledged  May ;  it  is  a 
carpet  flower ;  it  sits  low  upon  the  ground, 
and  spots  the  lawn  with  gold  rather  than 
gilds  it.  Growing  amid  the  buttercups 
and  the  blooming  clover,  it  would  be  entirely 
hidden.  No,  nature  does  not  bid  against 
herself  in  this  way.  Lowell,  in  "  Al  Fresco," 
is  literally  in  clover ;  he  is  reveling  in  the 
height  of  the  season,  the  full  tide  of  summer 
is  sweeping  around  him,  and  he  has  no  right 
to  the  dandelion,  which  he  himself  elsewhere 
says  is  the 

"First  pledge  of  blithesome  May." 

(It  is  true  the  low,  or  bulbous,  buttercup 
comes  earlier  than  R.  acris,  and  this  would 
help  Lowell  out  by  a  week  or  two.) 

Our  genial  Autocrat  lays  himself  open  to 
the  same  kind  of  criticism  when,  in  his  poem 
on  spring,  even  stretching  spring  well  into 
June,  he  rings  in  the  pond  lily,  and  makes 
it  a  rival  of  the  rose. 

"  Queen  of  the  lake,  along  its  reedy  verge 

The  rival  lily  hastens  to  emerge, 
Her  snowy  shoulders  glistening  as  she  strips, 
Till  morn  is  sultan  of  her  parted  lips." 

The  white  pond  lily  belongs  to  the  last 
half  of  summer,  when  the  heat  has  reached 
the*  slime  and  ooze  at  the  bottom  of  the 
streams  and  lakes.  The  Autocrat  is  aware 
of  this  fact  too,  for  in  his  poem  on  "  Mid- 
summer," he  says : 

"I  hate  those  roses'  feverish  blood!  — 
Pluck  me  a  half-blown  lily-bud, 
A  long-stemmed  lily  from  the  lake, 
Cool  as  a  coiling  water  snake." 

The  poet  which  most  readers  and  critics 
seem  to  regard  as  the  high  priest  of  nature, 
and  incapable  of  error  of  this  kind,  is  Bry- 
ant. I  yield  to  none  in  my  admiration  of 
the  sweetness  and  simplicity  of  Bryant's 
poems  of  nature,  and,  in  general,  of  their 
correctness  of  observation;  yet  I  believe 
he  sometimes  tripped  upon  his  facts,  and 
that  at  other  times  he  deliberately  moulded 
them,  adding  to  or  cutting  off,  to  suit 
the  purposes  of  his  verse.  I  will  cite 
here  two  instances  in  which  his  natural 
history  is  at  fault.  In  his  poem  on  the 
bobolink  he  makes  the  parent  birds  feed 


g8 


NOTES  OF  A    WALKER. 


their  young  with  "seeds,"  whereas,  in  fact, 
the  young  are  fed  exclusively  upon  insects 
and  worms.  The  bobolink  is  an  insectiv- 
erous  bird  in  the  North,  or  until  its  brood 
has  flown,  and  a  granivorous  bird  in  the 

South. 

In  his  "Evening  Revery"  occur    these 

lines : 

"The  mother-bird  hath  broken  for  her  brood 

Their    prison   shells   and   shoved   them   from    the 

nest, 
Plumed  for  their  earliest  flight. 

It  is  not  a  fact  that  the  mother-bird  aids 
her  offspring  in  escaping  from  the  shell. 
The  young  of  all  birds  are  armed  with  a 
small  temporary  horn  or  protuberance  upon 
the  upper  mandible,  and  they  are  so  placed 
in  the  shell  that  this  point  is  in  immediate 
contact  with  its  inner  surface;  as  soon  as 
they  are  fully  developed  and  begin  to  strug- 
gle to  free  themselves,  the  horny  growth 
"  pips  "  the  shell.  Their  efforts  then  con- 
tinue till  their  prison  walls  are  completely 
sundered,  and  the  bird  is  free.  This  process 
is  rendered  the  more  easy  by  the  fact  that 
toward  the  last  the  shell  becomes  very 
rotten;  the  acids  that  are  generated  by  the 
growing  chick  eat  it  and  make  it  brittle,  so 
that  one  can  hardly  touch  a  fully  incubated 
bird's  egg  without  breaking  it.  To  help  the 
young  bird  forth  would  ensure  its  speedy 
death.  It  is  not  true  either  that  the  parent 
shoves  its  young  from  the  nest  when  they 
are  fully  fledged,  except,  possibly,  in  the  case 
of  some  of  the  swallows  and  of  the  eagle. 
The  young  of  all  our  common  birds  leave 
the  nest  of  their  own  motion,  stimulated 
probably  by  the  calls  of  the  parents,  and,  in 
some  cases,  by  the  withholding  of  food  for  a 
longer  period  than  usual. 

As  an  instance  where  Bryant  warps  the 
facts  to  suit  his  purpose,  take  the  "  Yellow 
Violet,"  of  which  I  spoke  in  the  previous 
article,  and  the  poem,  "  The  Fringed  Gen- 
tian." Of  this  last  flower  he  says  : 

"Thou  waitest  late  and  com'st  alone, 
When  woods  are  bare  and  birds  are  flown, 
And  frosts  and  shortening  days  portend 

The  aged  year  is  near  his  end." 

The  fringed  gentian  belongs  to  September, 
and,  when  the  severer  frosts  keep  away,  it 
runs  over  into  October.  But  it  does  not 
come  alone  and  the  woods  are  not  bare. 
The  closed  gentian  comes  at  the  same  time, 
and  the  blue  and  purple  asters  are  in  all 
their  glory.  Golden-rod,  turtle-head,  and 
other  fall  flowers  also  abound.  When  the 
woods  are  bare,  which  does  not  occur  in 


New  England  till  in  of  near  November,  the 
fringed  gentian  has  long  been  dead.  No, 
if  one  were  to  go  botanizing  and  take 
Bryant's  poem  for  a  guide  he  would  not 
bring  home  any  fringed  gentians  with  him. 
The  only  flower  he  would  find  would  be 
the  witch-hazel.  Yet  I  never  see  this  gen- 
tian without  thinking  of  Bryant's  poem, 
and  feeling  that  he  has  brought  it  im- 
mensely nearer  to  us. 

What  I  said  of  Bryant's  yellow  violet 
last  December,  I  repeat  now :  it  is  not  the 
first  flower  in  any  part  of  the  country,  and 
it  is  not  sweet-scented  in  any  proper  sense 
of  the  term.  It  doubtless  has  a  faint,  herby, 
grassy  smell,  as  have  all  fresh,  growing  things, 
but  perfume  that  one  can  detect  upon  the 
"  virgin  air  "  it  has  not ;  the  white  violet  K 
blanda  alone  of  our  violets  is  entitled  to 
this  praise. 

Bryant  speaks  of  the  yellow  violet  as  an 
April  flower  lasting  over  into  May,  and  two 
of  my  critics  confirm  this  statement.  Now 
Bryant  has  a  poem  called  "  The  Twenty- 
Seventh  of  March,"  in  which  he  makes 
mention  of  the  two  earliest  wild  flowers. 
Is  the  yellow  violet  one  of  them  ?  Here 

are  the  lines : 

"  Within  the  woods 

Tufts  of  ground-laurel,  creeping  underneath 
The  leaves  of  the  last  summer,  send  their  sweets 
Upon  the  chilly  air,  and,  by  the  oak, 
The  squirrel -cups,  a  graceful  company, 
Hide  in  their  bells,  a  soft  aerial  blue" — 

ground-laurel  being  a  local  name  for  trail- 
ing arbutus,  called  also  May-flower,  and 
squirrel-cups  for  hepatica,  or  liver-leaf.  I 
hope  my  critic  of  the  "  Evening  Post " 
can  reconcile  the  above  lines  with  his 
statement,  so  carefully  corroborated,  that 
the  yellow  violet  ( V.  lanciolata)  is  the  first 
spring  flower  in  Massachusetts.  In  which 
of  the  two  poems  is  Bryant  nearer  the 
truth  ?  Of  course  in  the  latter,  although 
he  doubtless  considered  himself  near  enough 
to  the  truth  for  poetical  purposes  in  the  for- 
mer. He  set  out  to  glorify  the  early  yellow 
violet,  to  enhance  and  magnify  its  charms, 
and  in  doing  so  he  endowed  it  with  virtues 
not  its  own.  In  some  localities  the  hous- 
tonia,  claytonia,  dicentra,  and  saxifrage 
come  before  it :  the  arbutus  is  generally 
earlier,  and  the  hepatica  always  is.  The 
last  two  plants  make  preparation  in  ad- 
vance, but  these  two, — as,  in  a  measure  of 
course,  do  all  plants, — carry  their  leaves 
through  the  winter  and  their  flower  buds 
fully  formed,  and  when  spring  comes  have 
less  to  do  than  the  violets,  which  have  to 
develop  both  leaf  and  flower  from  the  mold. 


NOTES   OF  A    WALKER. 


99 


They  have  the  protection  of  the  woods,  too, 
and  of  the  dry  leaves,  which  is  an  important 
matter.  They  ought  to  bloom  in  March  if 
the  violet  does  in  April. 

Speaking  of  the  arbutus  reminds  me  of 
Stedman's  charming  little  poem  upon  this 
subject,  called  "  Seeking  the  May-flower." 

"  I  see  the  village  dryad  kneel, 

Trailing  her  slender  fingers  through 

The  knotted  tendrils,  as  she  lifts 
Their  pink,  pale  flowers  to  view." 

"  Fresh  blows  the  breeze  through  hemlock-trees, 
The  fields  are  edged  with  green  below ; 

And  naught  but  youth  and  hope  and  love 
We  know  or  care  to  know  !  " 

The  arbutus  is  sweet,  but  this  couple 
found  something  sweeter,  as  all  may  who 
go  in  the  same  spirit. 

The  poem  recalls  the  robin's  jocund  note, 
and  the  tender  yearnings  and  wistfulness  of 
spring. 

A    SECOND    CROP   OF   WEEDS. 

THE  walker  makes  the  acquaintance  of 
all  the  weeds.  They  are  travelers  like  him- 
self, the  tramps  of  the  vegetable  world. 
They  are  going  east,  west,  north,  south; 
they  walk,  they  fly,  they  swim,  they  steal  a 
ride,  they  travel  by  rail,  by  flood,  by  wind ; 
they  go  underground,  and  they  go  above, 
across  lots  and  by  the  highway.  But,  like 
other  tramps,  they  find  it  safest  by  the  high- 
way ;  in  the  fields  they  are  intercepted  and 
cut  off,  but  on  the  public  road,  every  boy, 
every  passing  herd  of  sheep  or  cows  gives 
them  a  lift.  The  other  day,  along  the  road, 
I  met  the  viper's  bugloss  (Echium)  slowly 
making  its  way  north.  It  is  said  to  be  a 
troublesome  weed  in  Virginia,  but  I  do  not 
remember  to  have  seen  it  before  in  this 
State.  In  Orange  County  I  saw  near  the  rail- 
road a  field  overrun  with  what  I  took  to  be 
the  branching  white  mullein  ( V.  lychnitis]. 
Gray  says  it  is  found  in  Pennsylvania,  and  at 
the  head  of  Oneida  lake,  in  this  State. 
Doubtless  it  had  come  by  rail  from  one  place 
or  the  other.  Along  the  Wallkill  the  spiked 
loosestrife  (L.  Salicaria),  a  tall,  downy  weed, 
with  large,  purple  flowers,  has  long  been 
common ;  now  it  has  traveled  down  the 
stream  into  the  Hudson,  and  is  beginning 
to  appear  in  the  little  bays  and  marshy 
places  along  shore.  Doubtless  it  will,  in 
time,  make  its  way  down  the  whole  Atlantic 
coast  through  this  outlet.  Weeds,  like  ver- 
min, are  carried  from  one  end  of  the  earth 
to  the  other.  A  curious  illustration  of  this 


fact  is  given  by  Sir  Joseph  Hooker.  "  On 
one  occasion,"  he  says,  "  landing  on  a  small 
uninhabited  island,  nearly  at  the  Antipodes, 
the  first  evidence  I  met  with  of  its  having 
been  previously  visited  by  man  was  the 
English  Chickweed ;  and  this  I  traced  to  a 
mound  that  marked  the  grave  of  a  British 
sailor,  and  that  was  covered  with  the  plant, 
doubtless  the  offspring  of  seed  that  had 
adhered  to  the  spade  or  mattock  with  which 
the  grave  had  been  dug." 

Ours  is  a  weedy  country  because  it  is  a 
roomy  country.  Weeds  love  a  wide  mar- 
gin, and  they  find  it  here.  You  shall  see 
more  weeds  in  one  day's  travel  in  this 
country  than  in  a  week's  journey  in  Europe. 
Our  culture  of  the  soil  is  not  so  close  and 
thorough,  our  occupancy  not  so  entire  and 
exclusive.  The  weeds  take  up  with  the 
farmers'  leavings,  and  find  good  fare.  One 
may  see  a  large  slice  taken  from  a  field  by 
elecampane,  or  by  teasle,  or  milk-weed; 
whole  acres  given  up  to  white- weed,  golden- 
rod,  wild  carrots,  or  the  ox-eye  daisy ; 
meadows  overrun  with  bear-weed,  and 
sheep  pastures  nearly  ruined  by  St.  John's- 
wort  or  the  Canada  thistle.  Our  farms  are 
so  large  and  our  husbandry  so  loose  that 
we  do  not  mind  these  things.  By  and  by 
we  shall  clean  them  out.  Weeds  seem  to 
thrive  here  as  in  no  other  country.  When 
Sir  Joseph  Hooker  landed  in  New  England 
a  few  years  ago,  he  was  surprised  to  find 
how  the  European  plants  flourished  there. 
He  found  the  wild  chicory  growing  far  more 
luxuriantly  than  he  had  ever  seen  it  else- 
where, "  forming  a  tangled  mass  of  stems 
and  branches,  studded  with  torquoise-blue 
blossoms,  and  covering  acres  of  ground." 
This  is  one  of  the  weeds  that  Emerson  puts 
in  his  bouquet,  in  his  "  Humble-Bee."  : 

"  Succory  to  match  the  sky." 

Is  there  not  something  in  our  soil  and 
climate  exceptionally  favorable  to  weeds — 
something  harsh,  ungenial,  sharp-toothed 
that  is  akin  to  them  ?  How  woody  and 
rank  and  fibrous  many  varieties  become, 
lasting  the  whole  season,  and  standing  up 
stark  and  stiff  through  the  deep  winter 
snows, — desiccated,  preserved  by  our  dry 
air !  Do  nettles  and  thistles  bite  so  sharply 
in  any  other  country  ?  To  know  how 
sharply  they  bite,  of  a  dry  August  or  Sep- 
tember day,  take  a  turn  at  raking  and  bind- 
ing oats  with  a  sprinkling  of  blind  nettles  in 
them.  A  sprinkling  of  wasps  and  hornets 
would  not  be  much  worse. 


100 


NOTES   OF  A    WALKER. 


Yet  it  is  a  fact  that  all  our  more  perni- 
cious weeds,  like  our  vermin,  are  of  Old 
World  origin.  They  hold  up  their  heads 
and  assert  themselves  here,  and  take  their 
fill  of  riot  and  license ;  they  are  avenged  for 
their  long  years  of  repression  by  the  stern 
hand  of  European  agriculture.  Until  I 
searched  through  the  botanies  I  was  not 
aware  to  what  extent  we  were  indebted  to 
Europe  for  these  vegetable  Ishmaelites.  We 
have  hardly  a  weed  we  can  call  our  own ; 
I  recall  but  three  that  are  at  all  noxious  or 
troublesome,  viz. :  milk-weed,  rag-weed  and 
golden-rod ;  but  who  would  miss  the  latter 
from  our  fields  and  highways  ? 

"Along  the  roadside,  like  the  flowers  of  gold 
That  tawny  Incas  for  their  gardens  wrought, 
Heavy  with  sunshine  droops  the  golden-rod," 

sings  Whittier.  In  Europe  our  golden-rod 
is  cultivated  in  the  flower-gardens,  as  well  it 
might  be.  The  native  species  is  found 
mainly  in  woods,  and  is  much  less  showy 
than  ours. 

Our  milk- weed  is  tenacious  of  life;  its 
roots  lie  deep,  as  if  to  get  away  from  the 
plow,  but  it  seldom  infests  cultivated  crops. 
Then  its  stalk  is  so  full  of  milk  and  its  pod 
so  full  of  silk  that  one  cannot  but  ascribe 
good  intentions  to  it,  if  it  does  sometimes 
over-run  the  meadow. 

"  In  dusty  pods  the  milkweed 
Its  hidden  silk  has  spun," 

sings  "  H.  H.,"  in  her  "  September." 

Of  our  rag-weed  not  much  can  be  set 
down  that  is  complimentary,  except  that  its 
name  in  the  botany  is  Ambrosia,  food  of  the 
gods.  It  must  be  the  food  of  the  gods  if  of 
anything,  for,  so  far  as  I  have  observed, 
nothing  terrestrial  eats  it,  not  even  billy- 
goats.  Asthmatic  people  dread  it,  and  the 
gardener  makes  short  work  of  it.  It  is 
about  the  only  one  of  our  weeds  that  follows 
the  plow  and  the  harrow,  and,  except  that 
it  is  easily  destroyed,  I  would  suspect  it  to 
be  an  immigrant  from  the  Old  World.  Our 
fleabane  is  a  troublesome  weed  at  times, 
but  good  husbandry  makes  short  work  of  it. 
But  all  the  other  outlaws  of  the  farm  and 
garden  come  to  us  from  over  seas  ;  and  what 
a  long  list  it  is  : 


The  common  thistle, 
The  Canada  thistle, 
Burdock, 
Yellow  dock, 
Wild  carrot, 
Ox-eye  daisy, 
Chamomile, 
The  mullein, 


Nightshade, 
Buttercup, 
Dandelion, 
Wild  mustard, 
Shepherd's  purse, 
St.  John's-wort, 
Chick-weed, 
Purslane, 


Elecampane, 

Plantain, 

Motherwort, 

Stramonium, 

Catnip, 

Gill, 

Blue-weed, 

Stick-seed, 

Hound's-tongue, 

Henbane, 

Pig-weed, 

Quitch  grass, 


Mallow, 

Darnel, 

Poison  hemlock, 

Hop-clover, 

Yarrow, 

Wild  radish, 

Wild  parsnip, 

Chicory, 

Live-forever, 

Toad- flax, 

Sheep-sorrel, 


and  others  less  noxious.  To  offset  this  list 
we  have  given  Europe  the  vilest  of  all  weeds, 
a  parasite  that  sucks  up  human  blood, 
tobacco.  Now  if  they  catch  the  Colorado 
beetle  of  us  it  will  go  far  toward  paying 
them  off  for  the  rats  and  the  mice,  and  for 
other  pests  in  our  houses. 

The  more  attractive  and  pretty  of  the 
British  weeds,  as  the  common  daisy,  of 
which  the  poets  have  made  so  much,  the 
larkspur,  which  is  a  pretty  corn-field  weed, 
and  the  scarlet  field-poppy  which  flowers  all 
summer,  and  is  so  taking  amid  the  ripening 
grain,  have  not  immigrated  to  our  shores. 
Like  a  certain  sweet  rusticity  and  charm  of 
European  rural  life,  they  do  not  thrive 
readily  under  our  skies.  Our  fleabane  (Erig- 
eron  Canadensis)  has  become  a  common 
road-side  weed  in  England,  and  a  few  other 
of  our  native  less  known  plants  have  gained 
a  foothold  in  the  Old  World. 

Poke-weed  is  a  native  American,  and 
what  a  lusty,  royal  plant  it  is!  It  never 
invades  cultivated  fields,  but  hovers  about 
the  borders  and  looks  over  the  fences  like 
a  painted  Indian  sachem.  Thoreau  coveted 
its  strong  purple  stalk  for  a  cane,  and  the 
robins  eat  its  dark  crimson-juiced  berries. 

It  is  commonly  believed  that  the  mullein 
is  indigenous  to  this  country,  for  have  we 
not  heard  that  it  is  cultivated  in  European 
gardens,  and  christened  the  American  velvet 
plant  ?  Yet  it,  too,  seems  to  have  come  over 
with  the  pilgrims,  and  is  most  abundant  in 
the  older  parts  of  the  country.  It  abounds 
throughout  Europe  and  Asia,  and  had  its 
economic  uses  with  the  ancients.  The 
Greeks  made  lamp  wicks  of  its  dried  leaves, 
and  the  Romans  dipped  its  dried  stalk  in 
tallow  for  funeral  torches.  It  affects  dry 
uplands  in  this  country,  and,  as  it  takes  two 
years  to  mature,  it  is  not  a  troublesome 
weed  in  cultivated  crops.  The  first  year 
it  sits  low  upon  the  ground  in  its  coarse 
flannel  leaves  and  makes  ready ;  if  the  plow 
comes  along  now  its  career  is  ended ;  the 
second  season  it  starts  upward  its  tall  stalk, 
which  in  late  summer  is  thickly  set  with 
small  yellow  flowers,  and  in  fall  is  charged 


NOTES   OF  A    WALKER. 


101 


with  myriads  of  fine  black  seeds.  "  As  full 
as  a  dry  mullein  stalk  of  seeds  "  is  almost 
equivalent  to  saying,  "  as  numerous  as  the 
sands  upon  the  sea-shore." 

Perhaps  the  most  notable  thing  about  the 
weeds  that  have  come  to  us  from  the  Old 
World,  when  compared  with  our  native 
species,  is  their  persistence,  not  to  say  pug- 
nacity. They  fight  for  the  soil ;  they  plant 
colonies  here  and  there  and  will  not  be 
rooted  out.  Our  native  weeds  are  for  the 
most  part  shy  and  harmless,  and  retreat 
before  cultivation,  but  the  European  out- 
laws follow  man  like  vermin ;  they  hang  to 
his  coat  skirts,  his  sheep  transport  them  in 
their  wool,  his  cow  and  horse  in  tail  and 
mane.  As  I  have  before  said,  it  is  as  with 
the  rats  and  mice.  The  American  rat  is 
in  the  woods  and  is  rarely  seen  even  by 
woodmen,  and  the  native  mouse  barely 
hovers  upon  the  outskirts  of  civilization; 
while  the  Old  World  species  defy  our  traps 
and  our  poison,  and  have  usurped  the  land. 
So  with  the  weeds.  Take  the  thistles,  for 
instance;  the  common  and  abundant  one 
everywhere,  in  fields  and  along  highways,  is 
the  European  species,  while  the  native  this- 
tle is  much  more  shy,  and  is  not  at  all  trou- 
blesome ;  indeed,  I  am  not  certain  that  I 
have  ever  seen  it.  The  Canada  thistle  too, 
which  came  to  us  by  way  of  Canada,  what 
a  pest,  what  a  usurper,  what  a  defier  of  the 
plow  and  the  harrow !  I  know  of  but  one 
effectual  way  to  treat  it :  to  put  on  a  pair  of 
buckskin  gloves,  and  pull  up  every  plant 
that  shows  itself;  this  will  effect  a  radical 
cure  in  two  summers.  Of  course  the  plow  or 
the  scythe,  if  not  allowed  to  rest  more  than 
a  month  at  a  time,  will  finally  conquer  it. 

Or  take  the  common  St.  John's-wort 
{Hypericum  perforatum},  how  has  it  estab- 
lished itself  in  our  fields,  and  become  a 
most  pernicious  weed,  very  difficult  to  extir- 
pate, while  the  native  species  are  quite 
rare,  and  seldom  or  never  invade  cultivated 
fields,  being  found  mostly  in  wet  and 
rocky  waste  places.  Of  Old  World  origin, 
too,  is  the  curled  leaf-dock  (Itttmex  Crispus) 
that  is  so  annoying  about  one's  garden  and 
home  meadows,  its  long  tapering  root  cling- 
ing to  the  soil  with  such  tenacity  that  I  have 
pulled  upon  it  till  I  could  see  stars  without 
budging  it;  it  has  more  lives  than  a  cat,  mak- 
ing a  shift  to  live  when  pulled  up  and  laid  on 
top  of  the  ground  in  the  burning  summer 
sun.  Our  native  docks  are  mostly  found  in 
swamps,  or  near  them,  and  are  harmless. 

Purslane,  commonly  called  "  pusley,"  and 
which  has  given  rise  to  the  saying  "  as  mean 


as  pusley  " — of  course  is  not  American.  A 
good  sample  of  our  native  purslane  is  the 
Claytonia,  or  spring  beauty,  a  shy,  delicate 
plant  that  opens  its  rose-colored  flowers  in 
the  moist  sunny  places  in  the  woods  or 
along  their  borders,  so  early  in  the  season. 

There  are  few  more  obnoxious  weeds  in 
cultivated  ground  than  sheep-sorrel,  also  an 
Old  World  plant,  while  our  native  wood- 
sorrel,  with  its  white,  delicately  veined 
flowers,  or  the  variety  with  yellow  flowers,  is 
quite  harmless.  The  same  is  true  of  the 
mallow,  the  vetch,  or  tare,  and  other  plants. 

The  European  weeds  are  sophisticated, 
domesticated,  civilized;  they  have  been  to 
school  to  man  for  many  hundred  years  and 
they  have  learned  to  thrive  upon  him  ;  their 
struggle  for  existence  has  been  sharp  and 
protracted;  it  has  made  them  hardy  and 
prolific;  they  will  thrive  in  a  lean  soil,  or 
they  will  wax  strong  in  a  rich  one :  in  all 
cases  they  follow  man  and  profit  by  him. 
Our  native  weeds,  on  the  other  hand,  are 
furtive  and  retiring;  they  flee  before  the 
plow  and  the  scythe,  and  hide  in  corners 
and  remote  waste  places.  Will  they,  too, 
in  time,  change  their  habits  in  this  respect  ? 

"  Idle  weeds  are  fast  in  growth,"  says  Shaks- 
pere,  but  that  depends  whether  the  compe- 
tition is  sharp  and  close.  If  the  weed  finds 
itself  distanced,  or  pitted  against  great  odds, 
it  grows  more  slowly  and  is  of  diminished 
stature,  but  let  it  once  get  the  upper  hand 
and  what  strides  it  makes !  Red-root  will 
grow  four  or  five  feet  high,  if  it  has  a  chance, 
or  it  will  content  itself  with  a  few  inches  and 
mature  its  seeds  almost  upon  the  ground. 

Many  of  our  worst  weeds  are  plants  that 
have  escaped  from  cultivation,  as  the  wild 
radish,  which  is  troublesome  in  parts  of  New 
England,  the  wild  carrot,  which  infests  the 
fields  in  eastern  New  York,  and  live-forever, 
which  thrives  and  multiplies  under  the 
plow  and  harrow.  In  my  section  an  annoy- 
ing weed  is  Abutilon,  or  velvet-leaf,  also 
called  "  old  maid,"  which  has  fallen  from 
the  grace  of  the  garden  and  followed  the 
plow  afield.  It  will  manage  to  mature  its 
seeds  if  not  allowed  to  start  tilljnidsummer. 

Weeds  have  this  virtue :  they  are  not 
easily  discouraged;  they  never  lose  heart 
entirely;  they  die  game.  If  they  cannot 
have  the  best  they  will  take  up  with  the 
poorest ;  if  fortune  is  unkind  to  them  to-day, 
they  hope  for  better  luck  to-morrow ;  if  they 
cannot  lord  it  over  a  corn-hill,  they  will  sit 
humbly  at  its  foot  and  accept  what  comes ; 
in  all  cases  they  make  the  most  of  their 
opportunities. 


102 


ECONOMIC  DEFECTS  IN  CHRISTIAN  MISSIONS. 


ECONOMIC   DEFECTS  IN  CHRISTIAN    MISSIONS. 


IN  October,  1878,  an  International  Con- 
ference on  Foreign  Missions  was  held  in 
London.  This  was  the  third  meeting  of  the 
kind  since  1854,  numbering  about  six  hun- 
dred delegates,  representing  forty  different 
missionary  societies, —  English,  Scotch, 
French,  German  and  American, — and  it 
showed  that  the  tendency  toward  co-oper- 
ative action  among  men  of  different  nations 
is  not  confined  to  law  reformers  and  the 
interested  guardians  of  literary  property. 
Such  a  conference  could  not  fail  to  dis- 
cover some  of  the  economic  defects  of 
missionary  enterprise,  and  to  make  oppor- 
tune a  plea  for  a  division  of  labor  among 
the  Christians  of  Europe  and  America. 

The  founder  of  Christianity  did  not  pre- 
scribe   methods    and    machinery    for    the 
world's  conversion;  having  planted  the  seed 
of  right  living,  he  left  its  propagation  to  the 
varying  circumstances  of  time  and  place. 
In   the    apostolic    age,    the    founding    of 
churches   at   the  strategic  centers    of   the 
Roman   Empire   and    missionary  journeys 
through  its  provinces  were  the  simple  and 
obvious  work  of  the  disciples.      But  cen- 
turies   have  wrought   their    changes,    and 
to-day  there  is  a  missionary  problem,  com- 
plex and  difficult.     The  distance  between 
Jerusalem  and  Rome  no  longer  measures 
missionary   tours;    the   field    has    literally 
become   the   world.      Another    missionary 
religion  —  Mohammedanism  •»—  has   entered 
the  lists,  and  disputes  with  Christianity  the 
possession  of  Africa  and  Asia ;  within,  many 
sects   struggle   for  leadership,   while    rival 
missionary     boards     over-run     pre-empted 
ground   and   obliterate  the   boundaries   of 
Christian   comity.     In  its  infancy  mission- 
ary labor  proceeded  from  a  single  center; 
now  it  proceeds  from  many  centers.  Then,  it 
was  under  the  imperial  leadership  of  a  born 
organizer — Paul ;  now,  it  is  under  the  demo- 
cratic control  of  divided  counselors.    Then, 
there  was  no  need  of  elaborate  plans  for  a 
campaign ;  now,  the  weakness  of  missionary 
enterprise  is  its  want  of  system,  and  a  dis- 
regard of  the  economic  law  that  the  quality 
of  work  tends  to  improve,  and  the  product 
tends  to  increase,  with  the  subdivision  of 
labor.     In  industrial  and  commercial  affairs, 
division   of  labor  reduces  the   element  of 
waste,  both  of  power  and  of  material,  to  a 
minimum,  and  multiplies  and  cheapens  the 
product    till    the    luxuries    of   the   palace 


become  the  necessaries  of  the  hovel:  in 
social,  philanthropic  and  civil  organizations, 
it  increases  capacity  and  reduces  the  cost 
of  administration.  Unless,  then,  it  can  be 
shown  that  missionary  labor  is  not  subject 
to  economic  law, — which  will  hardly  be 
attempted  in  this  age, — failure  to  work  in 
harmony  with  it  must  be  less  than  wise.  But 
there  are  special  reasons  for  the  application 
of  the  principle  of  division  of  labor  to  mis- 
sions. We  mention  three : 

i.  The  physical  conditions  of  the  work. 
Gigantic  physical  facts,  continents,  oceans, 
deadly  climates,  populations  teeming  till 
plague  and  famine  are  a  boon  to  survivors, 
oppose  the  progress  of  Christianity.  These 
obstacles  are  often  underrated  in  that  glow 
of  enthusiasm  which  is  the  iridescence  of 
moral  courage  and  aspiring  self-sacrifice. 
We  can  gauge  the  resistance  of  brute  force 
by  days'  marches,  the  loss  of  blood  and 
treasure ;  we  cannot  measure  the  resistance 
of  mental  and  moral  inertia,  the  work  of 
opening  weak  and  prejudiced  minds  to  new 
ideas,  and  guarding  their  slow  growth  for 
centuries  till  through  the  loom  of  new 
institutions  the  warp  and  woof  of  national 
thought  and  feeling  are  changed.  That  this 
resistance  involves  yearly  sacrifice  of  life  and 
treasure  makes  it  an  important  factor  in  the 
missionary  problem  of  the  future.  Consider, 
then,  the  acreage  of  the  missionary  field.  The 
two  largest  continents,  Asia  and  Africa,  are 
barely  skirted  with  a  line  of  missionary 
pickets.  China  had  Nestorian  missionaries 
as  early  as  the  seventh  century,  French 
missionaries  as  early  as  the  twelfth  cen- 
tury ;  it  has  had  Protestant  missionaries 
since  1807,  yet  we  are  told  that  "  essen- 
tially that  great  empire  is  grim,  dark  and 
Christless"  as  in  the  first  century.  In 
Japan  and  India,  the  ancient  faiths  are 
losing  their  hold,  and  whole  populations  are 
out  in  search  of  a  religion.  In  Africa,  the 
heroic  age  of  missions  is  just  dawning.  A 
report  of  a  committee  of  the  Royal  Geo- 
graphical Society  (See  the  London  "  Mail," 
June  17,  1878)  contains  these  significant 
words : 

"  Were  all  the  inhabitants  of  Africa  equally  hostile 
and  intractable,  it  might  well  be  doubted  whether 
any  more  lives  should  be  imperiled  in  efforts  for  the 
redemption  of  the  country  and  of  the  whole  race 
from  barbarism  and  slavery.  But  there  is  abundant 
evidence  that  only  certain  tribes  and  regions  are 
dangerous  to  approach  ;  while  vast  tracts,  capable 


ECONOMIC  DEFECTS  IN  CHRISTIAN  MISSIONS. 


103 


of  supporting  an  agricultural  and  industrious  popu- 
lation, if  cultivated,  are  only  waiting  the  hand  of 
civilized  man  and  a  Christian  spirit  to  establish, 
with  willing  aid  from  native  tribes,  peaceable  com- 
munities over  the  greater  portion  of  Central  Africa. 
Enough  is  known  to  justify  the  supposition  that  from 
eighty  to  one  hundred  millions  would  not  be  an 
over  estimate  of  the  population  cruelly  oppressed 
and  kept  in  hopeless  barbarism  by  the  tyranny  and 
violence  of  comparatively  small  numbers  of  preda- 
tory and  bloodthirsty  tribes.  If  these  could  be  held 
in  check  but  for  a  short  period,  while  peaceable 
influences  had  time  to  work  among  the  better-dis- 
posed of  the  populations,  there  is  every  reason  to 
believe  that  a  sufficient  number  of  these  would  soon 
be  collected  into  communities  and  villages,  able 
successfully  to  defend  themselves  and  their  posses- 
sions under  European  guidance." 

Over  two  great  continents  then,  Asia  and 
Africa,  embracing  more  than  a  half  of  the 
earth's  acreage,  Christianity  neither  bears 
nominal  sway  nor  has  adequate  missionary 
machinery  to  make  its  early  triumph  prob- 
able. Nor  can  the  Western  world  be 
omitted  from  the  list  of  missionary  lands. 
Protestants  strive  for  converts  in  Italy, 
Austria  and  Spain,  and  the  Propaganda  of 
Rome  views  the  United  States  as  mission- 
ary ground.  In  South  America  and  Mexico, 
religious  life  is  stifled  by  the  poisonous 
exhalations  of  bigotry  and  intolerance  that 
make  civil  government  a  ghastly  masquer- 
ade. In  our  own  country,  one  State, — 
Texas, — largely  peopled  by  negroes  in  whom 
there  still  survives  a  tendency  to  fetishism, 
and  by  unassimilated  foreigners,  equals  in 
extent  ten  of  Paul's  Macedonias,  while  our 
Home  Missionary  Territory  is  larger  than 
the  Old  Roman  Empire. 

The  population,  also,  of  missionary  lands 
suggests  the  need  of  plan  for  their  conquest. 
Behm  and  Wagner's  well-known  "  Bevol- 
kerung  der  Erde "  states  the  estimated 
population  of  Asia  to  be  831,000,000,  and 
that  of  Africa  205,219,500.  Add  to  these 
elements  of  acreage  and  population  the 
difficulties  of  transportation  and  communi- 
cation, climatic  dangers  and  heathen  poverty, 
and  we  have  before  us  some  of  the  physical 
conditions  of  missionary  work  that  necessi- 
tate system  and  division  of  labor. 

2.  The  differing  mental  and  moral  con- 
ditions of  those  whom  it  is  sought  to 
Christianize. 

Of  these,  some  races  are  bright  and  specu- 
lative, others  dull  and  practical ;  some  are 
in  the  caves  of  superstition,  others  on  the 
heights  of  philosophy;  all  are  in  the  child- 
hood of  religion.  To  ignore  these  differences 
of  capacity  and  development,  and  to  apply 
methods  of  work  and  modes  of  worship 
without  anxious  study  of  their  adaptation 


to  temperament,  traits  of  character,  and 
mental  peculiarities,  is  to  court  defeat.  And 
yet  the  want  of  co-operation  between  the 
different  missionary  agencies  of  the  church 
makes  this  result  well  nigh  inevitable. 
Intense  zeal  and  passionate  hunger  for  the 
early  fruition  of  hope  often  blind  men  to 
the  essential  conditions  of  success.  If  mis- 
sionaries are  wanted  for  Central  Africa,  the 
Scotch  boards  look  well  to  the  relation 
between  climate  and  the  physical  constitu- 
tion of  candidates ;  but  the  adaptation  of 
Scotch  Presbyterianism  to  the  latitude  of 
Uganda  and  to  minds  tattooed  with  the 
marks  of  fetishism  is  assumed,  not  canvassed. 
And  yet  the  importance  of  adaptation  in 
the  latter  case  is  every  whit  as  great  as  in 
the  former. 

Inherited  beliefs  and  modes  of  thought 
cannot  be  changed  in  a  day.  Nature 
demands  centuries  for  such  work,  and  stamps 
violent  attempts  to  supplant  ancient  faiths 
with  failure.  She  educates  the  race  in 
religion  as  in  art,  politics,  morals — slowly 
and  through  error,  sloughing  off  falsehood 
and  grafting  in  truth  as  experience  widens. 
Creeds,  forms  of  worship,  modes  of  eccle- 
siastical government  are  only  means  to  an 
end ;  they  are  the  temporary  staging  of  the 
religious  nature,  which,  like  every  other 
growth,  tends  to  variety  of  form  and  mani- 
festation. Why,  then,  always  seek  to  train 
it  in  the  same  mold  ?  Why  apply  indis- 
criminately the  robes  of  Episcopacy  or  the 
straight-jacket  of  Calvinism  ?  Such  neglect 
of  relations  and  adaptations  must  issue  in 
defeat,  if  we  measure  results  by  the  yard- 
stick of  centuries.  There  is  no  short  cut 
from  fetishism  to  highly  speculative  dogma, 
and  the  attempt  to  make  one  produces 
mongrel  feeling  and  abortive  character. 

Are  the  friends  of  missions  afraid  to  face 
these  facts  ?  Will  they  not  be  frank  to 
acknowledge  that  the  negro  finds  attractive 
and  congenial  elements  in  the  Methodist 
and  the  Baptist  churches,  which  are  wanting 
in  the  Congregational  communion  ?  Or, 
again,  has  not  the  Episcopal  service  a  cap- 
tivating power  for  the  African  far  greater 
than  the  cold  barrenness  of  the  Kirk?  If 
aye,  then  nay  to  all  attempts  of  those  who 
seek  to  use  ecclesiastical  tools  at  present, 
unfit  for  the  upbuilding  of  African  manhood. 

The  same  law  of  adaptation  would  assign 
missionary  work  among  the  bigoted  Catho- 
lics of  Austria  and  Spain  to  the  Church  of 
England  rather  than  to  that  of  John  Robin- 
son ;  it  might,  by  reason  of  national  antipa- 
thy, allot  Russia,  if  opened  to  missionaries, 


104- 


ECONOMIC  DEFECTS  IN  CHRISTIAN  MISSIONS. 


to  the  Episcopalians  of  America,  rather 
than  to  Englishmen  of  the  same  body ;  and 
it  might  grant  leadership  in  the  assault  upon 
the  strongholds  of  Buddhism  to  the  followers 
of  Martineau  and  Channing.  If  it  is  thought 
that  any  form  of  Christianity  and  church 
government  will  do  equally  well  for  India, 
let  us  remember  that  educated  Hindoos 
incline  to  theism  rather  than  to  atheism, 
and  give  ear  to  the  following  testimony 
from  the  "Ceylon  Observer:" 

"  There  is  no  quarter  of  the  globe  where  there  is 
less  need  for  High  Churchmen  and  Ritualists  than 
in  India  and  Ceylon.  A  people  steeped  in  idolatry 
can  only  laugh  at  the  childish  playing  of  the  Angli- 
cans with  forms,  ceremonies  and  symbols,  in  the 
face  of  their  own  more  open,  honest  belief  in  the 
efficacy  of  an  outward  material  worship.  They  have, 
too,  from  the  Roman  Catholics,  a  far  more  complete 
and  splendid  substitute  for  heathenism ; " — 

or  to  this,  from  "The  Indian  Public 
Opinion": — 

"  An  Arya  Somaj  has  been  founded  to  restore  the 
Vedic  religion  to  its  original  position,  and  to  dis- 
courage, as  far  as  possible,  the  so-called  religious 
doctrines  contained  in  spurious  and  interpolated 
texts.  It  is,  in  fact,  a  movement  which  aims  at 
establishing  the  unity  of  God  and  setting  the  people 
free  from  the  trammels  of  superstition ;  " — 

or  to  this,  from  "The  Lucknow  Witness": 

"  The  service  on  Friday  night  was  especially  for 
educated  natives  of  India.  Some  thirty  or  forty  of 
them  assembled,  and  a  goodly  number  of  others 
made  up  a  large  and  attentive  audience.  The  speaker 
discussed  the  general  subject  of  Transformations  in 
Nature,  tracing  out  some  of  the  more  common  pro- 
cesses of  mechanical,  chemical  and  vital  change 
going  on  all  about  us,  and  also  touching  upon  the 
subject  of  the  conservation  and  correlation  of  forces. 
Occasion  was  taken  to  lead  the  mind  from  nature  up 
to  nature's  God,  and  it  is  to  be  hoped  many  good 
impressions  were  left." 

Such  evidence  shows  the  truth  of  the 
statement  that  "  the  intellectual  and  spirit- 
ual sympathies  of  Oriental  people  are  with 
Syria  and  Greece  rather  than  with  Rome 
and  Germany ;  that  they  move  with  greater 
freedom  along  the  lines  traced  by  Origen 
and  Athanasius  than  along  those  of  Augus- 
tine and  Anselm."  Need  we,  then,  feel 
surprise  when  a  high  English  official  pre- 
dicts that  the  Christian  church  of  India  will 
take  a  form  unknown  in  the  western  world  ? 
The  student  of  history  is  prepared  to  find 
this  difference  of  mental  attitude  between 
the  East  and  West ;  the  speculative  theolo- 
gies of  the  one  and  the  materialistic  my- 
thologies of  the  other  are  its  legitimate 
forerunners.  To  him  the  necessity  of  dif- 
ferent treatment  to  secure  an  inlet  for  Chris- 
tianity in  the  two  hemispheres  is  as  patent 


as  the  need  of  different  political  institutions 
in  Prussia  and  Siam.  But,  doubtless,  there  are 
those  who  will  insist  that  truth  is  absolute, 
and  should  be  presented  in  the  same  form 
to  all  ages  and  peoples.  We  do  not  believe, 
however,  that  this  Procrustean  treatment  of 
the  human  mind  commends  itself  to  those 
who  have  had  actual  experience  in  mission- 
ary work;  it  certainly  does  not  to  common 
sense.  Nor  does  it  avail  the  objector  that 
Nature's  provision  for  the  survival  of  that 
type  of  religion  and  worship  best  suited  to 
the  mental  environment  of  Chinese,  or  Ben- 
galese,  will  ultimately  secure  the  result  we 
seek.  Certainty  of  the  final  issue  cannot 
excuse  enormous  waste  of  power  meantime, 
unless  man  be  a  puppet  and  fatalism  become 
a  dogma  of  the  Christian  church. 

3.   The  economic  conditions  of  the  work. 

The  value  of  all  labor  to  those  who  sup- 
port it  is  the  net  result  of  two  elements,  one 
positive,  one  negative — work  and  waste. 
How  to  produce  with  the  minimum  of  waste, 
is  the  problem  of  all  successful  industry. 
In  the  early  stages  of  missions  this  negative 
element  of  waste  is  often  the  more  promi- 
nent element.  Rivalry  of  different  sects  for 
possession  of  eligible  stations  is  its  first 
occasion.  This  is  illustrated  by  the  follow- 
ing extract  from  a  pamphlet  issued  by  the 
American  Board :  "  In  Africa  we  have  one 
of  the  best  locations  to  be  found  on  that 
continent — a  chief  objection  to  it  being  that 
too  many,  appreciating  its  advantages,  have 
followed  us."  Home  missionaries  testify  to 
the  waste  that  results  from  the  ecclesiastical 
scramble  for  possession  and  leadership  on 
our  own  frontiers.  But,  both  at  home  and 
abroad,  this  indiscriminate  attempt  to  mag- 
nify Ism,  that  Christianity  may  be  honored, 
produces  costly  friction.  What,  for  instance, 
must  be  the  effect  in  the  missionary  field 
where  the  "  Ceylon  Diocesan  Gazette," 
speaking  of  the  Presbyterian  Mission,  says  : 

"  Perfect  as  its  machinery  may  be,  as  regards  its 
human  organization,  it  lacks,  of  course,  Episcopal 
authority,  without  -which  no  missionary  enterprise 
in  the  world  has  ever  been,  or  can  be,  really  and 
permanently  successful." 

Even  Foreign  and  Domestic  Bible  So- 
cieties do  not  find  the  world  large  enough 
without  treading  on  one  another's  ground. 
There  is  credible  authority  for  painful  state- 
ments as  to  these  rivalries.  The  Bible 
Society,  for  instance,  of  one  nation,  prepares 
an  Arabic  translation  of  the  Bible,  prints  it, 
fixes  the  price  upon  the  advice  of  all  the 
missionaries  in  the  field,  of  whatever  sect  and 


ECONOMIC  DEFECTS  IN  CHRISTIAN  MISSIONS. 


I05 


country,  gives  a  set  of  the  electrotype  plates 
to  a  Bible  Society  of  another  nation,  and, 
straightway,  the  latter  enters  upon  schemes 
to  undersell  the  former.  And  what  is  the  cost 
of  the  friction  produced  by  this  unseemly 
competition  ?  It  can  only  be  measured  in 
the  consequent  distrust  .and  confusion  of 
the  heathen  mind,  in  missionary  discourage- 
ment, and  in  increasing  deficits. 

One  of  our  Boards  tells  us  that  "  prosper- 
ous missions,  up  to  a  certain  point,  become 
more  and  more  expensive."  This  will  be 
readily  believed  when  it  is  remembered  that 
some  of  them  perform  the  seven  functions 
of  "  (i)  a  Foreign  Missionary  Society,  (2)  a 
Home  Missionary  Society,  (3)  a  Publishing 
Society,  (4)  a  Church  Erection  Society,  (5) 
a  School  Society,  (6)  a  College  Society,  (7) 
an  Education  Society." 

Such  being  the  loss  of  power  by  friction, 
and  such  the  law  governing  the  cost  of  mis- 
sionary enterprise,  .it  is  important  to  know 
how  this  element  of  waste  can  be  reduced. 

We  suggests  the  following  means : 

1.  Mission  "work  should  be  so  divided  as 
to  secure  adaptation  of  instrument  to  mate- 
rial.    The  economical  justification  of  this 
principle  has  been  already  stated. 

2.  Mission  fields  should  be  apportioned 
among  the  various  Christian  bodies  so  as  to 
bring  the  work  of  each  into  correspondence 
with  its  financial  capacity. 

3.  The  allotment  of  territory  should  be 
such  as  will  give  exclusive  possession  till  a 
native  self-supporting  church  is  established, 
and  fix  a  definite  responsibility  upon  each 
body  of  Christians.    Concentration  of  power 
upon  a  single  point  leads  to  great  economy 
in  its  use.     In  the  mission  field,  under  the 
conditions  named,  it  would  eliminate  the  fric- 
tion of  jarring  sects.    Nor  should  it  be  over- 
looked that  more  missionary  force  is  likely  to 
be  produced  where  each  body  of  Christians 
is  held  responsible  for  a  specific  field.    The 
idea  of  a  world's  conversion  has  educating 
power,  but  it  is  apt  to  induce  diffuse  and  un- 
productive activity.     The  mass  of  men  find 
difficulty  in  keeping  pace  with  the  affairs  of 
two  hemispheres;  the  mind  recoils  from  the 
infinitude  of  detail ;  the  common  imagina- 
tion cannot  represent  to  itself  the  moral  and 
religious  condition  of  many  peoples.     But 
to  generate  large  force — men  and  means — 
these   conditions    must   be  made  painfully 
real.     How  can  this  be  done  ?     Vividness 
of  conception  requires  intense  attention  to 
a  few  points.     Apply  this  well-known  psy- 
chological law  to  the   mission  field.     For 
instance,  let  the  Congregationalists  of  this 


country  be  charged  by  the  Christians  of 
Europe  and  America  with  the  sole  and 
exclusive  care  of  all  missionary  work  in 
Japan,  the  Madras  Presidency  of  India, 
and  Asiatic  Turkey,  and  it  is  inevitable 
that  they  would  come  into  fuller  knowledge 
of  the  history,  mental  habitudes  and  press- 
ing wants  of  the  peoples  of  these  three 
lands,  and  be  impelled  to  more  earnest 
effort  for  them  than  they  can  ever  make  for 
any  people  while  Congregational  sympathy 
and  labor  is  diffused  from  pole  to  pole, 
among  all  races,  kindreds,  and  tribes.  The 
rapid  growth  of  mission-schools  under  the 
care  of  a  particular  church  or  Sunday- 
school,  illustrates  the  advantage  of  concen- 
trating labor  and  responsibility.  Let  the 
object  of  interest  once  be  realized,  and  duty 
acquires  new  force  in  ministering  to  its  want. 

4.  Missionary  power  should  be  generated 
as  near  as  possible  to  the  point  where  it  is  to 
be  applied.  This  principle  is  elementary, 
both  in  physics  and  politics.  No  one  tries 
to  heat  a  large  city  with  steam  generated  in 
one  of  its  corners;  the  loss  by  radiation  and 
absorption  is  too  great.  No  free  government 
finds  it  economical  to  regulate  parish  and 
township  affairs  from  the  national  center. 
But  moral  and  religious  influences,  more  sub- 
tle than  steam  or  political  feeling,  are  trans- 
mitted with  greater  loss.  The  distance  of 
the  centers  of  Christendom  from  the  citadels 
of  paganism  makes  some  waste  inevitable ; 
but  the  loss  due  to  attempts  to  apply  mis- 
sionary force  generated  in  one  corner  of  the 
world — England  or  New  England — to  all 
quarters  of  the  globe,  is  needless  and  inex- 
cusable. It  goes  almost  without  saying 
that  when  an  American  board  tries  to  meet 
the  spiritual  wants  of  Spain,  Austria,  Euro- 
pean and  Asiatic  Turkey,  South  Africa,  India, 
Ceylon,  China,  Japan,  Micronesia,  Mexico, 
and  the  North  American  Indians,  the  work 
cannot  be  as  economically  done  as  it  might  be 
if  that  board  concentrated  its  attention  upon 
two  or  three  of  these  countries,  and  sought 
to  apply  its  power  at  points  relatively  near  to 
those  at  which  it  is  generated.  The  exist- 
ence of  a  steamship  line  between  the  United 
States  and  Japan,  and  the  want  of  one 
between  New  York  and  South  Africa,  are 
economic  facts  worthy  of  consideration  in 
allotment  of  mission  ground.  The  proximity 
of  the  United  States  to  Mexico,  and  our 
remoteness  from  Austria,  may  well  be 
weighed  in  apportioning  papal  lands,  if 
there  is  to  be  any  regard  for  economy  in 
the  conduct  of  Christian  enterprise. 

Doubtless  it  will  be  objected  that  such  a 


io6 


ECONOMIC  DEFECTS  IN  CHRISTIAN  MISSIONS. 


division  of  labor  in  mission  work  as  we  con- 
template is  impracticable — that  the  com- 
ity of  non-interference  is  all  that  can  be 
expected.  It  cannot  be  denied  that  great 
obstacles  exist.  The  victims  of  sect-culture, 
for  once,  would  unite  in  opposing  such  a 
movement;  surrender  of  pet  fields  to  what 
seems  a  spurious  form  of  the  faith  would  call 
for  a  higher  than  denominational  charity.* 
Sticklers  for  the  seven  points  of  Calvin- 
ism might  fail  to  see  how  a  less  metaphys- 
ical system  than  theirs  could  support  the 
germs  of  Christian  manhood;  Baptists 
might  find  difficulty  in  entering  a  co-opera- 
tive movement  with  those  whose  fleshly 
habiliments  had  not  been  immersed.  It 
would  be  very  hard  to  persuade  uncultured 
minds  that,  as  truth  often  advances  faster 
when  coated  with  error, — that,  as  the  rapid 
conquest  of  the  Roman  Empire  by  Chris- 
tianity was  accelerated  by  the  adhesion  to 
the  truth  of  apostolic  error  regarding  a 
second  advent  and  the  end  of  the  world, — so, 
now,  an  inferior  type  of  Christianity  may 
have  adaptations  to  particular  nations  be- 
cause of  its  inferiority  and  admixture  with 
error.  Yet  upon  the  possibility  of  overcom- 
ing these  objections  depends  the  future  suc- 
cess of  missions.  The  present  machinery 
is  inadequate  for  the  work.  We  have 
reached  a  point  where  nothing  less  than  an 
inter-church  treaty  between  the  Christians 
of  Europe  and  America  for  a  division  of  the 
missionary  field,  on  principles  of  adaptation 
and  economy,  can  give  reasonable  promise 
of  speedy  and  permanent  advance.  Chris- 
tianity itself  stands  at  a  pivotal  point  in  the 
centuries.  Sword  and  fagot  have  disap- 
peared from  its  path,  only  to  disclose  new 
obstacles.  In  the  East,  the  gates  of  walled 

*  Such  division  of  the  missionary  field  as  is  here 
advocated  need  not  interfere  with  contribution  to 
any  department  of  the  work.  In  1877  the  Unitari- 
ans, recognizing  their  own  unfitness  to  minister  to 
the  wants  of  the  freedmen,  gave  direct  pecuniary  aid 
to  a  fit  agency — the  Methodist  African  church. 


empires  have  opened  to  its  messengers ;  but 
within,  they  are  greeted  by  a  Mohammedan 
revival.  In  the  West,  the  rack  is  banished ; 
but  a  literary  scalpel  takes  its  place.  Even  if 
Christianity  be  valued  only  as  a  police  power 
curbing  the  animalism  of  society,  it  is  no 
time  to  haggle  over  isms  and  pet  fields  when 
Heathendom  is  making  earnest  appeal  "  for 
six  young  men,  free  from  Christian  taint,  to 
come  to  Ceylon,  study  the  Pali  and  the  Sin- 
ghalese, and  acquaint  themselves  with  the 
doctrines  of  Buddha,  that,  returning  to 
America,  they  may  indoctrinate  and  evan- 
gelize the  Christians  ;  "  when  Christendom 
is  giving  birth  to  proposed  substitutes  for 
religion,  which  are  winning  the  jealous  hom- 
age of  artisan  and  shop-keeper ;  and  when 
abroad  we  have  the  spectacle  (the  Wu-shih- 
shan  case  at  Trochow,  recently  reported  in 
the  Shanghai  "  Courier  ")  of  the  authorities 
of  a  pagan  temple  appealing  with  success  to 
a  British  court  of  justice  against  the  aggression 
and  wrong-doing  of  a  Christian  missionary 
society.  To  meet  the  responsibilities  of 
such  a  period,  the  missionary  treasury  of  the 
church  should  be  full.  Of  late  it  has  dis- 
closed serious  deficits.  If  its  revenues  are 
to  increase  with  the  revival  of  industrial 
and  commercial  prosperity  till  the  missionary 
budget  of  the  church  exhibits  ways  and 
means  equal  to  its  opportunities,  guerrilla 
warfare  must  give  way  to  co-operation  and 
division  of  labor.  Thus  only  can  the  church 
greatly  increase  the  contributions  of  its 
intelligent  members ;  thus  only  can  its  mis- 
sions command  the  aid  of  those  who,  reject- 
ing the  theology  of  the  church  as  a  patristic 
and  mediaeval  gloss,  still  believe  that  the 
world  cannot  do  without  Christianity,  and 
would  fain  help  in  wise  efforts  to  make  men 
better.  It  has  taken  Christianity  eighteen 
centuries  to  gain  nominal  control  of  Europe 
and  America;  unless  its  conquest  of  Asia 
and  Africa  is  to  take  eighteen  centuries  more, 
the  disciples  of  Jesus  must  acknowledge,  by 
their  acts,  the  reign  of  economic  law. 


EDGAR  ALLAN  POE. 


107 


EDGAR   ALLAN    POE. 

"  Man  doth  not  yield  himself  to  the  angels,  nor  unto  death  utterly,  save  only  through  the  weakness 
of  his  own   feeble  will. " — Joseph  Glanvil.     [Quoted  in"Ligeia."] 


UPON  the  roll  of  American  authors  a  few 
names  are  written  apart  from  the  rest.  With 
each  of  these  is  associated  some  accident 
of  condition,  some  memory  of  original  or 
eccentric  genius,  through  which  it  arrests 
attention  and  claims  our  special  wonder. 
The  light  of  none  among  these  few  has 
been  more  fervid  and  recurrent  than  that 
of  Edgar  Allan  Poe.  But  as  I  in  turn 
pronounce  his  name,  and  in  my  turn  would 
estimate  the  man  and  his  writings,  I  am  at 
once  confronted  by  the  question, — Is  this 
poet,  as  now  remembered,  as  now  portrayed 
to  us,  the  real  Poe  who  lived  and  sung  and 
suffered,  and  who  died  but  little  more  than  a 
quarter-century  ago  ? 

The  great  heart  of  the  world  throbs ' 
warmly  over  the  struggles  of  our  kind ;  the 
imagination  of  the  world  dwells  upon  and 
enlarges  the  glory  and  the  shame  of  human 
action  in  the  past.  Year  after  year,  the 
heart-beats  are  more  warm,  the  conception 
grows  more  distinct  with  light  and  shade. 
The  person  that  was  is  made  the  framework 
of  an  image  to  which  the  tender,  the  roman- 
tic, the  thoughtful,  the  simple  and  the  wise, 
add  each  his  own  folly  or  wisdom,  his  own 
joy  and  sorrow  and  uttermost  yearning. 
Thus,  not  only  true  heroes  and  poets,  but 
many  who  have  been  conspicuous  through 
force  of  circumstances,  become  idealized  as 
time  goes  by.  The  critic's  first  labor  often 
is  the  task  of  distinguishing  between  men 
as  history  and  their  works  display  them  and 
the  ideals  which  one  and  another  have  con- 
spired to  urge  upon  his  acceptance. 

The  difficulty  is  increased  when,  as  in  the 
case  of  Poe,  a  twofold  ideal  exists,  of  whose 
opposite  sides  many  that  have  written  upon 
him  seem  to  observe  but  one.  In  the  opinion 
of  some  people,  even  now,  his  life  was  not 
only  pitiful,  but  odious,  and  his  writings  are 
false  and  insincere.  They  speak  of  his  mor- 
bid genius,  his  unjust  criticisms,  his  weak- 
ness and  ingratitude,  and  scarcely  can  endure 
the  mention  of  his  name.  Others  recount 
his  history  as  that  of  a  sensitive,  gifted  being, 
most  sorely  beset  and  environed,  who  was 
tried  beyond  his  strength  and  prematurely 
yielded,  but  still  uttered  not  a  few  undying 
strains.  As  a  new  generation  has  arisen, 
and  those  of  his  own  who  knew  him  are 


passing  away,  the  latter  class  of  his  reviewers 
seems  to  outnumber  the  former.  A  chorus 
of  indiscriminate  praise  has  grown  so  loud 
as  really  to  be  an  ill  omen  for  his  fame;  yet, 
on  the  whole,  the  wisest  modern  estimate 
of  his  character  and  writings  has  not  les- 
sened the  interest  long  ago  felt  in  them  at 
home  and  abroad. 

It  seems  to  me  that  two  things  at  least 
are  certain.  First,  and  although  his  life  has 
been  the  subject  of  the  research  which  is 
awarded  only  to  strange  and  suggestive 
careers,  he  was,  after  all,  a  man  of  like  pas~ 
sions  with  ourselves,— one  who,  if  weaker 
in  his  weaknesses  than  many,  and  stronger 
in  his  strength,  may  not  have  been  so  bad, 
nor  yet  so  good,  as  one  and  another  have 
painted  him.  Thousands  have  gone  as  far 
toward  both  extremes,  and  the  world  never 
has  heard  of  them.  Only  the  gift  of  genius 
has  made  the  temperament  of  Poe  a  com- 
mon theme.  And  thus,  I  also  think,  we  are 
sure,  in  once  more  calling  up  his  shade, 
that  we  invoke  the  manes  of  a  poet.  Of 
his  right  to  this  much-abused  title,  there 
can  be  little  dispute,  nor  of  the  claim  that, 
whatever  he  lacked  in  compass,  he  was 
unique  among  his  fellows, — so  different  from 
any  other  writer  that  America  has  produced 
as  really  to  stand  alone.  He  must  have 
had  genius  to  furnish  even  the  basis  for  an 
ideal  which  excites  this  persistent  interest. 
Yes,  we  are  on  firm  ground  with  relation  to 
his  genuineness  as  a  poet.  But  his  narrow- 
ness of  range,  and  the  slender  body  of  his 
poetic  remains,  of  themselves  should  make 
writers  hesitate  to  pronounce  him  our  great- 
est one.  His  verse  is  as  conspicuous  for 
what  it  shows  he  could  not  do  as  for  that 
which  he  did.  He  is  another  of  those  poets, 
outside  the  New  England  school,  of  whom 
each  has  made  his  mark  in  a  separate  way, 
— among  them  all,  none  more  decisively 
than  Poe.  So  far  as  the  judgment  of  a  few 
rare  spirits  in  foreign  lands  may  be  counted 
the  verdict  of  "  posterity,"  an  estimate  of 
him  is  not  to  be  lightly  and  flippantly  made. 
Nor  is  it  long  since  a  group  of  his  contem- 
poraries and  successors,  in  his  own  country, 
spoke  of  him  as  a  poet  whose  works  are  a 
lasting  monument,  and  of  his  "imperish- 
able" fame. 


io8 


EDGAR  ALLAN  POE. 


After  every  allowance,  it  seems  difficult 
for  one  not  utterly  jaded  to  read  his  poetry 
and  tales  without  yielding  to  their  original 
and  haunting  spell.  Even  as  we  drive  out 
of  mind  the  popular  conceptions  of  his 
nature,  and  look  only  at  the  portraits  of  him 
in  the  flesh,  we  needs  must  pause  and  con- 
template, thoughtfully  and  with  renewed 
feeling,  one  of  the  marked  ideal  faces  that 
seem — like  those  of  Byron,  De  Musset, 
Heine — to  fulfill  all  the  traditions  of  genius, 
of  picturesqueness,  of  literary  and  romantic 
effect. 

Halpin's  engraving  of  Poe,  in  which  the 
draughtsman   was   no   servile   copyist,   but 
strove  to  express  the  sitter  at  his  best,  makes 
it  possible  to  recall  the  poet  delineated  by 
those  who  knew  and  admired  him  in  his 
nobler  seasons.     We  see  one  they  describe 
as   slight   but  erect  of  figure,  athletic  and 
well  molded,  of  middle  height,  but  so  pro- 
portioned  as  to  seem  every  inch  a  man; 
his  head  finely  modeled,  with  a  forehead 
and  temples  large  and  not  unlike  those  of 
Bonaparte ;  his  hands  fair  as  a  woman's, — 
in  all,  a   graceful,  well-dressed  gentleman, 
— one,  even  in  the  garb  of  poverty,  "  with 
gentleman  written  all  over  him."     We  see 
the   handsome,  intellectual   face,  the   dark 
and  clustering  hair,  the  clear  and  sad  gray- 
violet  eyes, — large,  lustrous,  glowing  with 
expression, — the    mouth,   whose    smile    at 
least  was  sweet  and  winning.     We  imagine 
the   soft,  musical   voice    (a  delicate   thing 
in  man  or  woman),  the  easy,  quiet  move- 
ment,   the   bearing   that    no   failure   could 
humble.     And  this  man  had  not  only  the 
gift  of  beauty  but  the  passionate   love  of 
beauty, — either  of  which  may  be  as  great  a 
blessing  or  peril  as  can  befall  a  human  being 
stretched  upon  the  rack  of  this  tough  world. 
But   look   at  some  daguerreotype  taken 
shortly  before  his  death,  and  it  is  like  an 
inauspicious  mirror,  that  shows  all  too  clearly 
the  ravage  made  by  a  vexed  spirit  within, 
and  loses  the  qualities  which  only  a  living 
artist  could  feel  and  capture.     Here  is  the 
dramatic,  defiant  bearing,  but  with   it  the 
bitterness    of   scorn.     The   disdain   of    an 
habitual  sneer  has  found  an  abode  on  the 
mouth,  yet  scarcely  can  hide  the  tremor  of 
irresolution.     In  Bendann's  likeness,*  indu- 


*  A  photograph  of  this,  from  the  daguerreotyp 
taken  in  Richmond,  is  the  frontispiece  of  thi 
"  Memorial  Volume,"  published  in  Baltimore,  1877. 
The  frontispiece-portrait  in  the  present  number  of 
SCRIBNER  is  reproduced,  on  an  enlarged  scale, 
from  what  is  thought  to  be  the  last  daguerreotype 


bitably  faithful,  we  find  those  hardened  lines 
of  the  chin  and  neck  that  are  often  visible 
in  men  who  have  gambled  heavily,  which 
Poe  did  not  in  his  mature  years,  or  who  have 
lived  loosely  and  slept  ill.  The  face  tells  of 
battling,  of  conquering  external  enemies, 
of  many  a  defeat  when  the  man  was  at  war 
with  his  meaner  self. 

Among  the  pen-portraits  of  Poe,  at  his 
best  and  his  worst,  none  seem  more  striking 
in  their  juxtaposition,  none  less  affected  by 
friendship  or  hatred,  than  those  left  to  us 
by  C.  F.  Briggs,  the  poet's  early  associate. 
These  were  made  but  a  short  time  before 
the  writer's  death, — after  the  lapse  of  years 
had  softened  the  prejudices  of  a  man  preju- 
diced indeed,  yet  of  a  kindly  heart,  and  had 
rendered  the  critical  habit  of  the  journalist 
almost  a  rule  of  action. 

If  these  external  aspects  were  the  signs 
of  character  within,  we  can  understand  why 
those  who  saw  them  should  have  believed 
of  Poe, — and  in  a  different  sense  than  of 
Hawthorne, — that 

"  Two  natures  in  him  strove 
Like  day  with  night,  his  sunshine  and  his  gloom." 

The  recorded  facts  of  his  life  serve  to 
enhance  this  feeling.  My  object  here  is  not 
biography,  but  let  us  note  the  brief  annals  of 
the  wayward,  time-tossed  critic,  romancer, 
poet.  Their  purport  and  outline,  seen 
through  a  cloud  of  obscurities,  and  the 
veil  thrown  over  them  by  his  own  love  of 
mystery  and  retreat, — made  out  from  the 
various  narratives  of  those  who  have  con- 
tended in  zeal  to  discover  the  minute  affairs 
of  this  uncommon  man, — the  substance  of 
them  all,  I  say,  may  readily  enough  be  told. 


obtained  of  the  poet.  The  editor  is  indebted  to 
the  kindness  of  Dr.  H.  S.  Cornwall,  of  New  London, 
for  the  use  of  this  picture,  and  for  the  facts  estab- 
lishing its  authenticity.  It  was  taken  by  the  late 
Mr.  Masury,  of  Providence,  R.  I.,  and  Mr.  Cornwell 
makes  it  probable  that  Poe  sat  for  it  within  a  year 
or  two  of  his  death  in  1849.  The  lines  of  the  neck 
and  chin  are  not  so  heavy  as  in  the  Bendann  daguer- 
reotype, but  my  comments  on  the  latter  otherwise 
apply  to  this  picture.  The  unusual  development  of 
Poe's  forehead  in  the  regions  where  the  analytic 
and  imaginative  faculties  are  thought  to  hold  theii 
seat,  is  here  shown  as  in  no  other  likeness  of  th« 
poet.  Mr.  Cornwell  writes  of  it : 

"  The  aspect  is  one  of  mental  misery,  bordering 
on  wildness,  disdain  of  human  sympathy,  and 
scornful  intellectual  superiority.  There  is  also  it 
it,  I  think,  dread  of  imminent  calamity,  coupled 
with  despair  and  defiance,  as  of  a  hunted  soul  al 
bay." 


EDGAR  ALLAN  POE. 


109 


ii. 


THE  law  of  chance,  that  has  so  much  to 
do  with  the  composition  of  a  man,  that 
makes  no  two  alike,  yet  adjusts  the  most  of 
us  to  a  common  average,  brings  about 
exceptional  unions  like  the  one  from  which 
the  poet  sprang.  A  well-born,  dissolute 
Maryland  boy,  with  a  passion  for  the  stage, 
marries  an  actress  and  adopts  her  profes- 
sion— taking  up  a  life  that  was  strolling,  pre- 
carious, half-despised  in  the  pioneer  times. 
Three  children  were  the  fruit  of  this  love- 
match.  The  second,  Edgar,  was  born  in 
Boston,  January  19, 1809.*  From  his  father 
he  inherited  Italian,  French  and  Irish  blood ; 
the  Celtic  pride  of  disposition  and  certain 
weaknesses  that  were  his  bane.  His  mother, 
Elizabeth  Arnold,  an  actress  of  some  talent, 
was  as  purely  English  as  her  name.  Two 
years  after  his  birth,  the  hapless  parents, 
wearied  and  destitute,  died  at  Richmond, 
both  in  the  same  week.  The  orphans 
"  found  kind  friends,"  and  were  adopted — 
the  oldest,  William,  by  his  grandfather  Poe, 
of  Baltimore;  Edgar  and  Rosalie  by  citi- 
zens of  Richmond.  Edgar  gained  a  de- 
voted protector  in  Mr.  Allan,  a  person  of 
great  fortune,  married,  but  without  a  child. 
The  boy's  beauty  and  precocity  won  the 
heart  of  this  gentleman,  who  gave  him  his 
name,  and  lavished  upon  him,  in  true  South- 
ern style,  all  that  perilous  endearment  which 
befits  the  son  and  heir  of  a  generous  house. 
Servants,  horses,  dogs,  the  finest  clothes,  a 
purse  well-filled,  all  these  were  at  his  dis- 
posal from  the  outset.  Great  pains  were 
taken  with  his  education,  the  one  element 
of  moral  discipline  seemingly  excepted. 
When  eight  years  old  he  went  with  Mr. 
Allan  to  England,  and  was  at  the  school 
in  Stoke-Newington,  to  which  it  is  thought 
his  memory  went  back  in  after  years,  when 
he  wrote  the  tale  of  "  William  Wilson."  At 
ten  we  find  him  at  school  in  Richmond, 
proficient  in  classical  studies  but  shirking 
his  mathematics — already  writing  verse; 
instinctively 

"  Seeking  with  hand  and  heart 
The  teacher  whom  he  learned  to  love 
Before  he  knew  'twas  Art." 

His  grace  and  strength,  his  free,  romantic, 
and  ardent  bearing,  made  him  friends  among 
old  and  young,  and  at  this  time  he  certainly 
was  capable  of  the  most  passionate  loyalty 

*  Gill's  Memoir.  Stoddard  says,  February  19, 
1809. 


to  those  he  loved.  Traditions  of  all  this — 
of  his  dreamy,  fitful  temperament,  of  his 
early  sorrows  and  his  midnight  mournings 
over  the  grave  of  a  lovely  woman  who  had 
been  his  paragon — are  carefully  preserved. 
He  was  a  school-boy,  here  and  there,  until 
1826,  when  he  passed  a  winter  at  the  Uni- 
versity of  Virginia.  He  ended  his  brief 
course  in  the  school  of  ancient  and  modern 
languages  with  a  successful  examination,  but 
after  much  dissipation  and  gambling,  which 
deeply  involved  him  in  debt.  His  thought- 
lessness and  practical  ingratitude  justly 
incensed  an  unwise,  affectionate  guardian. 
A  rupture  followed  between  the  two,  Mr. 
Allan  finally  refusing  to  countenance  Edgar's 
extravagances  ;  and  the  young  man  betook 
himself  to  his  aunt,  Mrs.  Maria  Clemm,  of 
Baltimore,  in  whose  house  he  found  a  home 
for  about  two  years.*  Her  daughter  Vir- 
ginia was  then  six  years  old,  and  Poe  inter- 
ested himself  in  the  training  of  the  sweet 
and  gentle  child,  who  loved  him  from  the 
first,  and  made  his  will  her  law  through  girl- 
hood and  their  subsequent  wedded  life. 
At  this  period  he  brought  out  his  first  book, 
a  collection  of  his  juvenile  poems.  In  1829 
his  heart  was  touched  by  news  of  the  death 
of  Mrs.  Allan,  who  had  always  given  him  a 
sympathetic  mother's  love,  and  he  easily 
effected  a  reconciliation  with  the  widower  in 
his  hour  of  loneliness  and  sorrow. 

Poe  now  was  asked  to  choose  a  profession; 
he  selected  that  of  arms,  and  his  benefactor 
secured  his  admission  to  West  Point.  Here 
we  find  him  in  1830,  and  find  little  good  of 
him.  Though  now  a  man  grown,  he  was 
unable  to  endure  discipline.  After  a  first 
success,  he  tired  of  the  place  and  brought 
about  his  own  expulsion  and  disgrace,  to  his 
patron's  deep,  and  this  time  lasting,  resent- 
ment. But  here  he  also  arranged  for  the 
issue,  by  subscription,  of  another  edition  of 
his  poems,  which  was  delivered  to  his  class- 
mates after  his  departure  from  the  academy. 

A  new  personage  now  comes  upon  the 
scene.  Mr.  Allan,  naturally  desiring  affection 
from  some  quarter,  married  again,  and  after  a 
time  heirs  were  born  to  the  estate  which  Poe, 
had  he  been  less  reckless,  would  have  inher- 
ited. The  poet,  returning  in  disgrace  to  Rich- 
mond, found  no  intercessor  in  the  home  of  his 

*The  unauthentic  story  of  Poe's  expedition  to 
Europe,  that  he  might  join  the  Greeks  in  their 
struggle  for  independence,  warrants  a  reference  to 
his  elder  brother,  the  real  hero  of  this  adventure. 
William  H.  L.  Poe  was  as  handsome  and  as  dissi- 
pated as  Edgar ;  he  also  wrote  verses,  but  died  in 
early  manhood. 


no 


EDGAR  ALLAN  POE. 


youth.  This  change,  and  his  manner  of  life 
thus  far,  render  it  needless  to  look  for  other 
causes  of  the  final  rupture  between  himself 
and  his  guardian.  It  was  the  just  avenge 
of  fate  for  his  persistent  folly,  and  a  defeat 
was  inevitable  in  his  contest  with  a  lady 
who,  by  every  law  of  right,  was  stronger 
than  he.  Poe  went  out  into  the  world  with 
full  permission  to  have  the  one  treasure  he 
had  seemed  to  value — his  own  way.  Like  a 
multitude  of  American  youths,  the  sons  or 
grandsons  of  successful  men,  he  found  him- 
self of  age,  without  the  means  proportionate 
to  the  education,  habits  and  needs  of  a  gen- 
tleman, and  literally,  in  the  place  of  an 
unfailing  income,  without  a  cent.  Better 
off  than  many  who  have  erred  less,  he  had 
one  strong  ally — his  pen.  With  this  he  was 
henceforth  to  earn  his  own  bed  and  board, 
and  lead  the  arduous  life  of  a  working  man 
of  letters. 

For  the  struggle  now  begun  his  resources 
of  tact,  good  sense,  self-poise,  were  as  defi- 
cient as  his  intellectual  equipment  was  great. 
It  would  not  be  strange  if  the  disputed 
legend  of  his  enlistment  as  a  private  soldier, 
under  his  first  sense  of  helplessness,  should 
prove,  in  spite  of  its  coincidence  with  an 
episode  in  Coleridge's  life,  to  be  founded 
on  fact.  Soon  after  the  loss  of  a  home- 
right,  which  he  forfeited  more  recklessly  than 
Esau,  his  professional  career  may  be  said 
to  have  begun.  It  embraced  a  period  of 
years, — from  1832  to  December  yth,  1849, 
the  date  of  his  untimely  death.  Its  first 
noteworthy  event  was  the  celebrated  intro- 
duction to  Kennedy,  Latrobe,  and  Miller, 
through  his  success  in  winning  a  literary 
prize  with  the  "  MS.  found  in  a  Bottle." 
This  brought  him  friends,  work,  and  local 
reputation, — in  all,  a  fair  and  well-earned 
start. 

Seventeen  years,  thenceforward,  of  work- 
ing life,  in  which  no  other  American  writer 
was  more  active  and  prominent.  I  have 
considered  elsewhere  the  influence  of  jour- 
nalism upon  authorship.  It  enabled  Poe 
to  live.  On  the  other  hand,  while  he  rarely 
made  his  lighter  work  commonplace,  it 
limited  the  importance  of  his  highest  efforts, 
gave  a  paragraphic  air  to  his  criticisms,  and 
left  some  of  his  most  suggestive  writings 
mere  fragments  of  what  they  should  be 
He  discovered  the  pretentious  mediocrity 
of  a  host  of  scribblers,  and  when  unbiased 
by  personal  feeling,  and  especially  when 
doing  imaginative  work,  was  one  of  the  few 
clear-headed  writers  of  his  day.  He  knew 
what  he  desired  to  produce,  and  how  to 


produce  it.  We  say  of  a  man  that  his  head 
may  be  wrong,  but  his  heart  is  all  right. 
There  were  times  enough  when  the  reverse  of 
this  was  true  of  Poe.  1  do  not  say  there  were 
not  other  times  when  his  heart  was  as 
sound  as  his  perceptions.  What,  after  all, 
is  the  record  of  his  years  of  work,  and  what 
is  the  significance  of  that  record  ?  We 
must  consider  the  man  in  his  environment, 
and  the  transient,  uncertain  character  of 
the  markets  to  which  he  brought  his  wares. 
His  labors,  then,  constantly  were  impeded, 
broken,  changed;  first  by  the  most  trying 
and  uncontrollable  nature  that  ever  poet 
possessed,  that  ever  possessed  a  poet;  by  an 
unquiet,  capricious  temper,  a  childish  en- 
slavement to  his  own  "Imp  of  the  Perverse," 
a  scornful  pettiness  that  made  him  "hard  to 
help,"  that  drove  him  to  quarrel  with  his 
patient,  generous  friends,  and  to  wage  igno- 
ble conflict  with  enemies  of  his  own  making; 
by  physical  and  moral  lapses,  partly  the 
result  of  inherited  taint,  in  which  he  resorted, 
more  or  less  frequently,  and  usually  at 
critical  moments — seasons  when  he  needed 
all  his  resources,  all  his  courage  and  man- 
hood— to  stimulants  which  he  knew  would 
madden  and  besot  him  more  than  other  men. 
None  the  less  his  genius  was  apparent,  his 
power  felt,  his  labor  in  demand  wherever 
the  means  existed  to  pay  for  it.  But  here, 
again,  his  life  was  made  precarious  and 
shifting  by  the  speculative,  ill-requited  nature 
of  literary  enterprises  at  that  time.  From 
various  causes,  therefore,  his  record — no 
matter  how  it  is  attacked  or  defended — is  one 
of  irregularity,  of  broken  and  renewed  en- 
gagements. From  1832  to  1835  Poe  had  but 
himself  to  support,  and  a  careless  young  fel- 
low always  gets  on  so  long  as  he  is  young, 
with  one  success  and  the  chance  of  a  future. 
The  next  year  his  private  marriage  to  his 
sweet  cousin  Virginia,  still  almost  a  child,  was 
reaffirmed  in  public,  and  the  two  set  up  their 
home  together.  The  time  had  come  when 
Poe,  with  his  sense  of  the  fitness  of  things, 
could  see  that  Bohemianism,  the  charm  of 
youth,  is  a  frame  that  poorly  suits  the  por- 
trait of  a  mature  and  able-handed  man.  So 
we  are  not  surprised  to  find  him  engaged, 
for  honest  wages,  upon  "The  Southern 
Literary  Messenger."  That  his  skillful  touch 
and  fantastic  genius,  whether  devoted  to 
realistic  or  psychological  invention,  were 
now  at  full  command,  is  shown  by  his  "  Hans 
Pfaall,"  and  by  his  first  striking  contribution 
to  the  "  Messenger,"  the  spectral  and  char- 
acteristic tale  of  "Berenice."  In  short,  he 
did  uncommon  work,  for  that  time,  upon 


EDGAR  ALLAN  POE. 


in 


the  famous  Southern  magazine,  both  as 
tale- writer  and  critic,  and  increased  its  repu- 
tation and  income.  Yet  he  felt,  with  all 
the  morbid  sensitiveness  of  one  spoilt  by 
luxury  and  arrogance  in  youth,  the  differ- 
ence between  his  present  work-a-day  life, 
and  the  independence,  the  social  standing, 
which  if  again  at  his  command  would  enable 
him  to  indulge  his  finer  tastes,  and  finish  at 
ease  the  work  best  suited  to  his  powers. 
From  this  time  he  was  subject  to  moods  of 
brooding  and  despair,  of  crying  out  upon 
fate,  that  were  his  pest  and  his  ultimate 
destruction.  And  so  we  again  are  not  sur- 
prised to  find  this  good  beginning  no  true 
omen  of  the  fifteen  years  to  come ;  and  that 
these  years  are  counted  by  Sittings  here  and 
there  between  points  that  offered  employ- 
ment ;  by  new  engagements  taken  up  before 
he  was  off  with  the  old ;  by  legends  of  his 
bearing  and  entanglements  in  the  social 
world  he  entered ;  by  alternate  successes  and 
disgraces,  in  Richmond,  Philadelphia,  Bos- 
ton, New  York, — by  friendships  and  fallings 
out  with  many  of  the  editors  who  employed 
him, — the  product,  after  all,  with  which  we 
are  chiefly  concerned  being  his  always  dis- 
tinctive writings  for  the  "  Quarterly,"  "The 
Gentleman's  Magazine,"  "  Graham's,"  "  Go- 
dey's,"  "The  Mirror,"  "The  American 
Review,"  and  various  other  fosterers  and 
distributors  of  such  literature  as  the  current 
taste  might  demand.  We  begin  to  under- 
stand his  spasmodic,  versatile  industry,  his 
balks  and  breaks,  his  frequent  poverty, 
despondency,  self-abandonment,  and  almost 
to  wonder  that  the  sensitive  feminine  spirit 
— worshiping  beauty  and  abhorrent  of  ugli- 
ness and  pain,  combating  with  pride,  with 
inherited  disease  of  appetite — did  not  sooner 
yield,  was  not  utterly  overcome  almost  at 
the  outset  of  these  experiences.  So  have  I 
wondered  at  seeing  a  delicate  forest-bird, 
leagues  from  the  shore,  keep  itself  on  the 
wing  above  relentless  waters  into  which  it 
was  sure  to  fall  at  last.  Poe  had  his  good 
genius  and  his  bad.  Near  the  close  of  the 
struggle  he  made  a  brave  effort,  and  never 
was  so  earnest  and  resolved,  so  much  his 
own  master,  as  just  before  the  end.  But  a 
man  is  no  stronger  than  his  weakest  part, 
and  with  the  snapping  of  that  his  chance  is 
over.  At  the  moment  when  the  poet,  ral- 
lying from  the  desolation  caused  by  the 
loss  of  his  wife,  found  new  hope  and  pur- 
pose, and  was  on  his  way  to  marry  a  woman 
who  might  have  saved  him,  the  tragedy  of 
his  life  began  again.  Its  final  scene  was  as 
swift,  irreparable,  black  with  terror,  as  that 


of  any  drama  ever  written.  His  death  was 
gloom.  Men  saw  him  no  more;  but  the 
shadow  of  a  veiled  old  woman,  mourning 
for  him,  hovered  here  and  there.  After 
many  years  a  laureled  tomb  was  placed 
above  his  ashes,  and  there  remain  to  Amer- 
ican literature  the  relics,  so  unequal  in 
value,  of  the  most  isolated  and  exceptional 
of  all  its  poets  and  pioneers. 

Poe's  misfortunes  were  less  than  those  of 
some  who  have  conquered  misfortune.  Oth- 
ers have  been  castaways  in  infancy  and 
friendless  in  manhood,  and  have  found  no 
protectors  such  as  came  at  his  need.  Oth- 
ers have  struggled  and  suffered,  and  have 
declined  to  wear  their  hearts  upon  their 
sleeves.  They  have  sought  consolation  in 
their  work,  and  from  their  crudest  expe- 
riences have  won  its  strength  and  glory. 
The  essential  part  of  an  artist's  life  is  that 
of  his  inspired  moments.  There  were  occa- 
sions when  Poe  was  the  master,  when  his 
criticism  was  true,  when  he  composed  such 
tales  as  "  Ligeia."  "  The  Fall  of  the  House 
of  Usher,"  poems  like  "  The  Raven,"  "  The 
Bells,"  "  The  City  in  the  Sea."  It  must  be 
acknowledged,  moreover — and  professional 
writers  know  what  this  implies — that  Poe, 
in  his  wanderings,  after  all,  followed  his 
market.  It  gradually  drifted  to  the  North, 
until  New  York  afforded  the  surest  recom- 
pense to  authors  not  snugly  housed  in  the 
leafy  coverts  of  New  England.  Nor  did  he 
ever  resort  to  any  mercantile  employment 
for  a  livelihood.  As  we  look  around  and  see 
how  authors  accept  this  or  that  method  of 
support,  there  seems  to  be  something  chival- 
rous in  the  attitude  of  one  who  never  earned 
a  dollar  except  by  his  pen.  From  first  to  last 
he  was  simply  a  poet  and  man  of  letters,  who 
rightly  might  claim  to  be  judged  by  the  lit- 
erary product  of  his  life.  The  life  itself 
differed  from  that  of  any  modern  poet  of 
equal  genius,  and  partly  because  none  other 
has  found  himself,  in  a  new  country,  among 
such  elements.  Too  much  has  been  written 
about  the  man,  too  little  of  his  times ;  and 
the  memoir  containing  a  judicial  estimate 
of  his  writings  has  not  yet  appeared.* 


*  I  have  a  collection  of  essays  and  articles  upon 
the  life  and  writings  of  Poe  and  references  to  his 
works,  some  anonymous,  others  byLathrop,  Ingram, 
Stoddard,  Fairfield,  Conway,  Gosse,  Swinburne, 
etc.  The  following  are  my  principal  sources  of 
information : 

I.  "Poe's  Works."  Memoir  by  Griswold. 
Notices  by  Willis  and  Lowell.  4  v.  [First  collec- 
tive edition.]  N.  Y. :  1850.  II.  "Edgar  Poe  and 
his  Critics."  By  Mrs.  Whitman.  N.  Y. :  1860. 
III.  "  Poetical  Works. "  Notice  by  James  Hannay. 


112 


EDGAR  ALLAN  FOE. 


His  story  has  had  a  fascination  for  those 
who  consider  the  infirmity  of  genius  its 
natural  outward  sign.  The  peculiarity  of 
his  actions  was  their  leaning  toward  what  is 
called  the  melodramatic ;  of  his  work,  that 
it  aimed  above  the  level  of  its  time.  What 
has  been  written  of  the  former—quite  out  of 
proportion  to  the  analysis  derivable  from 
his  literary  remains — frequently  has  been  the 
out-put  of  those  who,  if  unable  to  produce  a 
stanza  which  he  would  have  acknowledged, 
at  least  feel  within  themselves  the  possibili- 
ties of  his  errant  career.  Yet,  as  I  observe 
the  marvels  of  his  handicraft,  I  seem  unjust 
to  these  enthusiasts.  It  was  the  kind  which 
most  impresses  the  imagination  of  youth, 
and  youth  is  a  period  at  which  the  critical 
development  of  many  biographers  seems  to 
be  arrested.  And  who  would  not  recall  the 
zest  with  which  he  read,  in  school-boy  days, 
and  by  the  stolen  candle,  a  legend  so  fear- 
ful in  its  beauty  and  so  beautiful  in  its  fear 
as  "  The  Masque  of  the  Red  Death,"  for 
example,  found  in  some  stray  number  of  a 
magazine,  and  making  the  printed  trash 
that  convoyed  it  seem  so  vapid  and  drear  ? 
Not  long  after,  we  had  the  collected  series, 
"  Tales  of  the  Grotesque  and  Arabesque." 


London:  1856.  IV.  "Works.  With  a  Study, 
etc.,  from  the  French  of  C.  Baudelaire."  London  : 
1872.  V.  "  Poems."  Memoir  by  R.  H.  Stoddard. 
N.  Y.  :  Widdleton.  1875.  VI.  "Works."  4  v. 
Complete  revised  edition.  Memoir  by  Ingram,  etc., 
etc.  N.  Y. :  Widdleton.  1876.  VII.  "  Memo- 
rial volume."  By  Sara  Sigourney  Rice.  Baltimore: 
1877.  VIII.  "  Life."  By  William  F.  Gill.  4th 
edition  revised.  New  York  and  London :  1878. 
IX.  "  Life  and  Poems."  Memoir  by  Eugene  L. 
Didier.  N.  Y.  :  Widdleton.  1876.  4th  edition, 
1879. 

Some  of  the  ablest  estimates  of  Poe  are  to  be 
found  in  newspaper  editorials — for  example,  those 
which  appeared  in  the  New  York  "  Tribune  "  and 
"  Post,"  November,  1875,  the  time  when  a  monument 
was  placed  above  his  grave.  I  shall  refer  hereafter 
to  Griswold's  memoir  and  criticisms.  Of  the  succes- 
sive memoirs  issued  by  Mr.  Widdleton,  within  the 
last  five  years,  Mr.  Stoddard's  biographical  sketch 
is  that  of  a  poet  and  literary  expert.  Thus  far,  how- 
ever, we  are  indebted  chiefly  to  Mr.  Gill  for  an 
enthusiastic  and  diligent  exploration  of  Poe's  early 
life,  in  which  he  has  corrected  numerous  errors  of 
Griswold  and  other  writers,  and  brought  to  light 
facts  of  genuine  interest.  Mr.  Didier's  estimate  is 
a  eulogy,  valueless  compared  with  Stoddard's,  anc 
adding  little  of  worth  to  the  information  collectec 
by  Gill.  A  longer  memoir  by  Ingram  shortly  wil 
be  issued  from  the  London  press.  I  learn,  also 
that  Mr.  Widdleton  soon  will  publish  a  new  anc 
complete  edition  of  the  poet's  works,  accompaniec 
by  a  more  extended  life  from  the  pen  of  Mr.  Stod 
dard,  who  has  materials  in  his  possession  hitherto 
unused,  and  whose  poetic  sympathy  and  ability  as 
a  critic  scarcely  can  fail  to  give  us  a  book  tha 
shall  meet  the  just  wishes  of  the  public. 


iVith  what  eagerness  we  caught  them  from 
hand  to  hand  until  many  of  us  knew  them 
almost  by  heart.  In  the  East,  at  that  time, 
Hawthorne  was  shyly  putting  out  his 
'  Mosses  "  and  "  Twice  Told  Tales,"  and 
t  was  not  an  unfruitful  period  that  fostered, 
among  its  brood  of  chattering  and  aimless 
sentimentalists,  two  such  spirits  at  once, 
each  original  in  his  kind.  To-day  we  have 
a  more  consummate,  realistic  art.  But  where, 
now,  the  creative  ardor,  the  power  to  touch 
the  stops,  if  need  be,  of  tragedy  and  super- 
stition and  remorse !  Our  taste  is  more 
refined,  our  faculties  are  under  control ;  to 
produce  the  greatest  art  they  must,  at  times, 
compel  the  artist.  "  Poetry,"  said  Poe, 
"  has  been  with  me  a  passion,  not  a  pur- 
pose,"— a  remarkable  sentence  to  be  found 
in  a  boyish  preface,  and  I  believe  that  he 
wrote  the  truth.  But  here,  again,  he  dis- 
plays an  opposite  failing.  If  poetry  had 
been  with  him  no  less  a  passion,  and  equally 
a  purpose,  we  now  should  have  had  some- 
thing more  to  represent  his  rhythmical 
genius  than  the  few  brief,  occasional  lyrics 
which  are  all  that  his  thirty  years  of  life  as 
a  poet — the  life  of  his  early  choice — have 
left  to  us. 


in. 


IN  estimating  him  as  a  poet,  the  dates  of 
these  lyrics  are  of  minor  consequence. 
They  make  but  a  thin  volume,  smaller 
than  one  which  might  hold  the  verse  of 
Collins  or  Gray.  Their  range  is  narrower 
still.  It  is  a  curious  fact  that  Poe  struck, 
in  youth,  the  key-notes  of  a  few  themes,  and 
that  some  of  his  best  pieces,  as  we  now 
have  them,  are  but  variations  upon  their 
earlier  treatment. 

His  first  collection,  as  we  have  seen,  was 
made  in  his  twentieth  year,  and  re-printed, 
with  changes  and  omissions,  just  after  he 
left  West  Point.  The  form  of  the  longer 
poems  is  copied  from  Byron  and  Moore, 
while  the  spirit  of  the  whole  series  vaguely 
reminds  us  of  Shelley  in  his  obscurer  lyrical 
mood.  Poe's  originality  can  be  found  in 
them,  but  they  would  be  valueless  except 
for  his  after  career.  They  have  unusual 
significance  as  the  shapeless  germs  of  much 
that  was  to  grow  into  form  and  beauty, 
Crude  and  wandering  pieces,  entitled  "  Fairy 

Land"  and  "Irene,"  "To ,"  "A 

Paean,"  etc.,  were  the  originals  of  "  Th« 
Sleeper,"  "  A  Dream  within  a  Dream,"  and 
"Lenore";  while  "The  Doomed  City"  anc 
"  The  Valley  Nis  "  re-appear  as  "  The  Citj 


EDGAR  ALLAN  POE. 


in  the  Sea  "  and  "  The  Valley  of  Unrest." 
Others  were  less  thoroughly  re-written. 
Possibly  he  thus  remodeled  his  juvenile 
verse  to  show  that,  however  inchoate,  it 
contained  something  worth  a  master's  hand- 
ling. Mr.  Stoddard  thinks,  and  not  without 
reason,  that  he  found  it  an  easy  way  of 
making  saleable  "  copy."  The  poet  him- 
self intimates  that  circumstances  beyond 
his  control  restricted  his  lyrical  product. 
I  scarcely  remember  another  instance  where 
a  writer  has  so  hoarded  his  early  songs,  and 
am  in  doubt  whether  to  commend  or  depre- 
cate their  reproduction.  It  does  not  be- 
token affluence,  but  it  was  honest  in  Poe 
that  he  would  not  write  in  cold  blood  for 
the  mere  sake  of  composing.  This  he 
undoubtedly  had  the  skill  to  do,  and  would 
have  done,  if  his  sole  object  had  been  crea- 
tion of  the  beautiful,  or  art  for  art's  sake. 
He  used  his  lyrical  gift  mostly  to  express 
veritable  feelings  and  moods — I  might 
almost  say  a  single  feeling  or  mood — to 
which  he  could  not  otherwise  give  utter- 
ance, resorting  to  melody  when  prose  was 
insufficient.  Herein  he  was  true  to  the 
cardinal,  antique  conception  of  poesy,  and 
in  keeping  it  distinct  from  his  main  literary 
work  he  confirmed  his  own  avowal  that  it 
was  to  him  a  passion,  and  neither  a  purpose 
nor  a  pursuit. 

A  few  poems,  just  as  they  stood  in  his 
first  volume,  are  admirable  in  thought  or 
finish.  One  is  the  sonnet,  "  To  Science," 
which  is  striking,  not  as  a  sonnet,  but  for 
its  premonition  of  attitudes  which  poetry 
and  science  have  now  more  clearly  assumed. 
Another  is  the  exquisite  lyric,  "  To  Helen," 
which  every  critic  longs  to  cite.  Its  con- 
fusion of  imagery  is  wholly  forgotten  in 
the  delight  afforded  by  melody,  lyrical  per- 
fection, sweet  and  classic  grace.  I  do  not 
understand  why  he  omitted  this  charming 
trifle  from  the  juvenile  poems  which  he 
added  to  the  collection  of  1845.  It  is  said 
that  he  wrote  it  when  fourteen,  and  nothing 
more  fresh  and  delicate  came  from  his  pen 
in  maturer  years. 

The  instant  success  of  "The  Raven," — 
and  this  was  within  a  few  years  of  his  death 
• — first  made  him  popular  as  a  poet,  and 
resulted  in  a  new  collection  of  his  verses. 
The  lyrics  which  it  contained,  and  a  few 
written  afterward, — "  Ulalume,"  "  The  Bells," 
•"  For  Annie,"  etc., — now  comprise  the  whole 
of  his  poetry  as  retained  in  the  standard 
editions.  The  most  glaring  faults  of  "Al 
Aaraaf,"  "Tamerlane,"  phrases  such  as  "the 
eternal  condor  years,"  have  been  selected 

VOL.  XX.— 8. 


by  eulogists  for  special  praise.  Turning 
from  this  practice-work  to  the  poems  which 
made  his  reputation,  we  come  at  once  to 
the  most  widely  known  of  all. 

Poe  could  not  have  written  "The  Raven" 
in  youth.  It  exhibits  a  method  so  positive 
as  almost  to  compel  us  to  accept,  against 
the  denial  of  his  associates,  his  own  account 
of  its  building.  The  maker  does  keep  a  firm 
hand  on  it  throughout,  and  for  once  seems 
to  set  his  purpose  above  his  passion.  This 
appears  in  the  gravely  quaint  diction,  and  in 
the  contrast  between  the  reality  of  every- 
day manners  and  the  profounder  reality  of 
a  spiritual  shadow  upon  the  human  heart. 
The  grimness  of  fate  is  suggested  by  phrases 
which  it  requires  a  masterly  hand  to  subdue 
to  the  meaning  of  the  poem.  "  '  Sir,'  said  I, 
or  '  madam,' "  "  this  ungainly  fowl,"  and  the 
like,  sustain  the  air  of  grotesqueness,  and 
become  a  foil  to  the  pathos,  an  approach  to 
the  tragical  climax,  of  this  unique  produc- 
tion. Only  genius  can  deal  so  closely  with 
the  grotesque  and  make  it  add  to  the  solemn 
beauty  of  structure  an  effect  like  that  of  the 
gargoyles  seen  by  moonlight  on  the  fagade 
of  Notre  Dame. 

In  no  other  lyric  is  Poe  so  self-possessed. 
No  other  is  so  determinate  in  its  repetends 
and  alliterations.  Hence  I  am  far  from 
deeming  it  his  most  poetical  poem.  Its 
artificial  qualities  are  those  which  catch  the 
fancy  of  the  general  reader ;  and  it  is  of  all 
his  ballads,  if  not  the  most  imaginative,  the 
most  peculiar.  His  more  ethereal  produc- 
tions seem  to  me  those  in  which  there  is 
the  appearance,  at  least,  of  spontaneity, — 
in  which  he  yields  to  his  feelings,  while 
dying  falls  and  cadences  most  musical, 
most  melancholy,  come  from  him  unawares. 
Literal  criticisms  of  "The  Raven"  are  of 
small  account.  If  the  shadow  of  the  bird 
could  not  fall  upon  the  mourner,  the  shad- 
ows of  its  evil  presence  could  brood  upon 
his  soul;  the  seraphim,  whose  foot-falls  tinkle 
upon  the  tufted  floor,  may  be  regarded  as 
seraphim  of  the  Orient,  their  anklets  hung 
with  celestial  bells.  At  all  events,  Poe's 
raven  is  the  very  genius  of  the  Night's 
Plutonian  shore,  different  from  other  ravens, 
entirely  his  own,  and  none  other  can  take 
its  place.  It  is  an  emblem  of  the  Irrepara- 
ble, the  guardian  of  pitiless  memories,  whose 
burden  ever  recalls  to  us  the  days  that  are 
no  more. 

As  a  new  creation,  then,  "  The  Raven  " 
is  entitled  to  a  place  in  literature,  and  keeps 
it.  But  how  much  more  imaginative  is 
such  a  poem  as  "  The  City  in  the  Sea  " !  As  a 


EDGAR  ALLAN  FOE. 


picture,  this  reminds  us  of  Turner,  and, 
again,  of  that  sublime  madman,  John  Mar- 
tin. Here  is  a  strange  city  where  Death 
has  raised  a  throne.  Its 

"  shrines  and  palaces  and  towers 
(Time-eaten  towers  that  tremble  not !) 
Resemble  nothing  that  is  ours. 
Around,  by  lifting  winds  forgot, 
Resignedly  beneath  the  sky 
The  melancholy  waters  lie." 

This  mystical  town  is  aglow  with  light, 
not  from  heaven,  but  from  out  the  lurid  sea, 
— light  which  streams  up  the  turrets  and 
pinnacles  and  domes, — 

"  Up  many  and  many  a  marvelous  shrine, 
Whose  wreathed  friezes  intertwine 
The  viol,  the  violet,  and  the  vine. 


While,  from  a  proud  tower  in  the  town, 
Death  looks  gigantically  down." 

The  sea  about  is  hideously  serene,  but 
at  last  there  is  a  movement ;  the  towers 
seem  slightly  to  sink ;  the  dull  tide  has  a 
redder  glow : 

"  And  when,  amid  no  earthly  moans, 

Down,  down  that  town  shall  settle  hence, 

Hell,  rising  from  a  thousand  thrones, 
Shall  do  it  reverence." 

This  poem,  notwithstanding  its  somber- 
ness  and  terror,  depends  upon  effects  which 
made  Poe  the  forerunner  of  our  chief  ex- 
perts in  form  and  sound,  and  both  the  lan- 
guage and  the  conception  are  suggestive  in 
a  high  degree. 

"The  Sleeper"  is  even  more  poetic.  It 
distills,  like  drops  from  the  opiate  vapor  of 
the  swooning  moonlit  night,  all  the  melody, 
the  fantasy,  the  exaltation,  that  befit  the 
vision  of  a  beautiful  woman  lying  in  her 
shroud,  silent  in  her  length  of  tress,  waiting 
to  exchange  her  death-chamber 

for  one  more  holy, 


This  bed,  for  one  more  melancholy." 

Poe's  ideality  cannot  be  gainsaid,  but  it 
aided  him  with  few,  very  few,  images,  and 
those  seemed  to  haunt  his  brain  perpetually. 
Such  an  image  is  that  of  the  beings  who  lend 
their  menace  to  the  tone  of  the  funeral  bells : 

— "  The  people — ah,  the  people — 
They  that  dwell  up  in  the  steeple 

All  alone, 
And  who  tolling,  tolling,  tolling, 

In  that  muffled  monotone, 
Feel  a  glory  in  so  rolling 

On  the  human  heart  a  stone, — 


They  are  neither  man  nor  woman, 

They  are  neither  brute  nor  human, 

They  are  Ghouls." 

In  the  same  remarkable  fantasia  the  bells 
themselves  become  human,  and  it  is  a 
master-stroke  that  makes  us  hear  them 
shriek  out  of  tune, 

"  In  a  clamorous  appealing  to  the  mercy  of  the  fire," 

and'  forces  us  to  the  very  madness  with 
which  they  are 

"  -Leaping  higher,  higher,  higher, 

With  a  desperate  desire, 

And  a  resolute  endeavor 

Now — now  to  sit,  or  never 

By  the  side  of  the  pale-faced  moon." 

Clearly  this  extravagance  was  suggested 
by  the  picture  and  the  rhyme.  But  it  sc 
carries  us  with  it  that  we  think  not  of  its 
meaning;  we  share  in  the  delirium  of  the 
bells,  and  nothing  can  be  too  extreme  foi 
the  abandon  to  which  we  yield  ourselves 
led  by  the  faith  and  frenzy  of  the  poet. 

The  hinting,  intermittent  qualities  of  £ 
few  lyrics  remind  of  Shelley  and  Coleridge 
with  whom  Poe  always  was  in  sympathy 
The  conception  of  "  The  Raven "  wa: 
new,  but  in  method  it  bears  a  likeness  t( 
"  Lady  Geraldine's  Courtship,"  so  closely 
in  fact,  that  the  rhythm  of  the  one  probabl] 
was  suggested  by  that  of  the  other.  Ii 
motive  they  are  so  different  that  neithe: 
Poe  nor  Mrs.  Browning  could  feel  aggrieved 
After  an  examination  of  dates,  and  of  othe: 
matters  relating  to  the  genesis  of  each  poem 
I  have  satisfied  myself,  against  much  reason 
ing  to  the  contrary,  that  Poe  derived  hi: 
use  of  the  refrain  and  repetend,  here  am 
elsewhere,  from  the  English  sibyl,  by  whon 
they  were  employed  to  the  verge  of  man 
nerism  in  her  earliest  lyrics. 

"  The  Conqueror  Worm  "  expresses  in  i 
single  moan  the  hopelessness  of  the  poet': 
vigils  among  the  tombs,  where  he  demande( 
of  silence  and  the  night  some  tidings  of  th< 
dead.  All  he  knew  was  that 

"  No  voice  from  that  sublimer  world  hath  ever 
To  sage  or  poet  these  responses  given." 

The  most  he  dared  to  ask  for  "  Thi 
Sleeper  "  was  oblivion  ;  that  her  sleep  migh 
be  as  deep  as  it  was  lasting.  We  lay  th 
dead  "  in  the  cold  ground  "  or  in  the  warm 
flower-springing  bosom  of  dear  Earth,  a 
best  may  fit  the  hearts  of  those  who  mouri 
them.  But  the  tomb,  the  end  of  mortality 
is  voiceless  still.  If  you  would  find  th 
beginning  of  immortality,  seek  some  othe 


EDGAR  ALLAN  POE. 


"5 


oracle.  "  The  Conqueror  Worm  "  is  the 
most  despairing  of  lyrics,  yet  quite  essen- 
tial to  the  mystical  purpose  of  the  tale 
"  Ligeia."  But  to  brood  upon  men  as 
mimes,  ironically  cast  "  in  the  form  of  God 
on  high  " — mere  puppets,  where 

"  the  play  is  the  tragedy,  '  Man, 
And  its  hero  the  Conqueror  Worm," 

— that  way  madness  lies,  indeed.  In  the 
lyric,  "  For  Annie,"  death  is  a  trance;  the 
soul  lingers,  calm  and  at  rest,  for  the  fever, 
called  living,  is  conquered.  Human  love 
remains,  and  its  last  kiss  is  still  a  balm. 
Something  may  be  hereafter — but  what,  who 
knows  ?  For  repose,  and  for  delicate  and 
unstudied  melody,  it  is  one  of  Poe's  truest 
poems,  and  his  tenderest.  During  the  brief 
period  in  which  he  survived  his  wife,  he 
seemed  to  have  a  vision  of  rest  in  death, 
and  not  of  horror.  Two  lyrics,  widely  dif- 
ferent, and  one  of  them  of  a  most  singular 
nature,  are  thought  to  be  requiems  for  his 
lost  companion.  It  is  from  no  baseness, 
but  from  a  divine  instinct,  that  genuine 
artists  are  compelled  to  go  on  with  their  work 
and  to  make  their  own  misery,  no  less 
than  their  joy,  promote  its  uses.  Their 
most  sacred  experiences  become,  not  of 
their  volition,  its  themes  and  illustrations. 
Every  man  as  an  individual  is  secondary  to 
what  he  is  as  a  worker  for  the  progress  of 
his  kind  and  the  glory  of  the  gift  allotted  to 
him. 

Therefore,  whether  Poe  adored  his  wi'fe 
or  not,  her  image  became  the  ideal  of  these 
poems.  I  shall  add  little  here  to  all  that 
has  been  written  of  "  Ulalume."  It  is  so 
strange,  so  unlike  anything  that  preceded 
it,  so  vague  and  yet  so  full  of  meaning,  that 
of  itself  it  might  establish  a  new  method. 
To  me  it  seems  an  improvisation,  such  as  a 
violinist  might  play  upon  the  instrument 
which  had  become  his  one  thing  of  worth 
after  the  death  of  a  companion  had  left  him 
alone  with  his  own  soul.  Poe  remodeled 
and  made  the  most  of  his  first  broken  draft, 
and  had  the  grace  not  to  analyze  the  pro- 
cess. I  have  accepted  his  analysis  of  "  The 
Raven "  as  more  than  half  true.  Poets 
know  that  an  entire  poem  often  is  suggested 
by  one  of  its  lines,  even  by  a  refrain  or  a 
bit  of  rhythm.  From  this  it  builds  itself. 
The  last  or  any  other  stanza  may  be  writ- 
ten first ;  and  what  at  first  is  without  form  is 
not  void — for  ultimately  it  will  be  perfected 
into  shape  and  meaning.  If  "  Ulalume  " 
may  be  termed  a  requiem,  "  Annabel  Lee  " 
is  a  tuneful  dirge — the  simplest  of  Poe's 


melodies,  and  the  most  likely  to  please  the 
common  ear.  It  is  said  to  have  been  his 
last  lyric,  and  was  written,  I  think,  with 
more  spontaneity  than  others.  The  theme 
is  carried  along  skillfully,  the  movement 
hastened  and  heightened  to  the  end  and 
there  dwelt  upon,  as  often  in  a  piece  of 
music.  Before  considering  the  poet's  method 
of  song,  I  will  mention  the  two  poems  which 
seem  to  me  to  represent  his  highest  range, 
and  sufficient  in  themselves  to  preserve  the 
memory  of  a  lyrist. 

We  overlook  the  allegory  of  "The 
Haunted  Palace,"  until  it  has  been  read 
more  than  once;  we  think  of  the  sound, 
the  phantasmagoric  picture,  the  beauty,  the 
lurid  close.  The  magic  muse  of  Coleridge, 
in  "Kubla  Khan,"  or  elsewhere,  hardly 
went  beyond  such  lines  as  these: 

"  Banners  yellow,  glorious,  golden, 

On  its  roof  did  float  and  flow, 
(This — all  this — was  in  the  olden 

Time  long  ago;) 
And  every  gentle  air  that  dallied, 

In  that  sweet  day, 
Along  the  ramparts,  plumed  and  pallid, 

A  winged  odor  went  away." 

The  conception  of  a  "  Lost  Mind  "  never 
has  been  so  imaginatively  treated,  whether 
by  poet  or  painter.  Questioning  Poe's  own 
mental  state,  look  at  this  poem  and  see  how 
sane,  as  an  artist,  he  was  that  made  it. 
"  Do  you  act  best  when  you  forget  yourself 
in  the  part?"  "No,  for  then  I  forget  to 
perfect  the  part."  Even  more  striking  is 
the  song  of  "Israfel,"  whose  heart-strings 
are  a  lute.  Of  all  these  lyrics  is  not  this 
the  most  lyrical, — not  only  charged  with 
music,  but  with  light?  For  once,  and  in 
his  freest  hour  of  youth,  Poe  got  above  the 
sepulchers  and  mists,  even  beyond  the  pale- 
faced  moon,  and  visited  the  empyrean. 
There  is  joy  in  this  carol,  and  the  radiance 
of  the  skies,  and  ecstatic  possession  of  the 
gift  of  song : 

"  If  I  could  dwell 
Where  Israfel 

Hath  dwelt,  and  he  where  I, 
He  might  not  sing  so  wildly  well 

A  mortal  melody, 
While  a  bolder  note  than  this  might  swell 

From  my  lyre  within  the  sky ! 

All  this,  with  the  rapturous  harmony  of  the 
first  and  third  stanza,  is  awakened  in  the 
poet's  soul  by  a  line  from  the  Koran,  and 
the  result  is  even  finer  than  the  theme.  If  I 
had  any  claim  to  make  up  a  "Parnassus," 
not  perhaps  of  the  most  famous  English 
lyrics,  but  of  those  which  appeal  strongly 


n6 


EDGAR  ALLAN  POE. 


to  my  own  poetic  sense,  and  could  select 
but  one  of  Poe's,  I  confess  that  I  should 
choose  "  Israfel,"  for  pure  music,  for  exalt- 
ation, and  for  its  original,  satisfying  quality 
of  rhythmic  art. 


IV. 


FEW  and  brief  these  reliquuz  which  de- 
termine his  fame  asapoet.  What  do  they  tell 
us  of  his  lyrical  genius  and  method  ?  Clearly 
enough,  that  he  possessed  an  exquisite 
faculty  which  he  exercised  within  definite 
bounds.  It  may  be  that  within  those 
bounds  he  would  have  done  more  if  events 
had  not  hindered  him,  as  he  declared, 
"  from  making  any  serious  effort "  in  the 
field  of  his  choice.  In  boyhood  he  had  de- 
cided views  as  to  the  province  of  song,  and 
he  never  afterward  changed  them.  The 
preface  to  his  West  Point  edition,  rambling 
and  conceited  as  it  is — affording  such  a  con- 
trast to  the  proud  humility  of  Keats's  preface 
to  "  Endymion," — gives  us  the  gist  of  his 
creed,  and  shows  that  the  instinct  of  the 
young  poet  was  scarcely  less  delicate  than 
that  of  his  nobler  kinsman.  Poe  thought  the 
object  of  poetry  was  pleasure,  not  truth  •  the 
pleasure  must  not  be  definite,  but  subtile,  and 
therefore  poetry  is  opposed  to  romance; 
music  is  an  essential,  "  since  the  compre- 
hension of  sweet  sound  is  our  most  indefi- 
nite conception."  Metaphysics  in  verse  he 
hated,  pronouncing  the  Lake  theory  a  new 
form  of  didacticism  that  had  injured  even 
the  tuneful  Coleridge.  For  a  neophyte  this 
was  not  bad,  and  after  certain  reservations 
few  will  disagree  with  him.  Eighteen  years 
later,  in  his  charming  lecture,  "  The  Poetic 
Principle,"  he  offered  simply  an  extension 
of  these  ideas,  with  reasons  why  a  long 
poem  "  cannot  exist."  One  is  tempted  to 
rejoin  that  the  standard  of  length  in  a  poem, 
as  in  a  piece  of  music,  is  relative,  depending 
upon  the  power  of  the  maker  and  the 
recipient  to  prolong  their  exalted  moods. 
We  might,  also,  quote  Lander's  "  Pentam- 
eron,"  concerning  the  greatness  of  a  poet, 
or  even  Beecher's  saying  that  "  pint  meas- 
ures are  soon  filled."  The  lecture  justly 
denounces  the  "heresy  of  the  didactic," 
and  then  declares  poetry  to  be  the  child  of 
Taste, — devoted  solely  to  the  Rhythmical 
Creation  of  Beauty,  as  it  is  in  music  that 
the  soul  most  nearly  attains  the  supernal  end 
for  which  it  struggles.  In  fine,  Poe,  with 
"  the  mad  pride  of  intellectuality,"  refused 
to  look  beyond  the  scope  of  his  own  gift, 
and  would  restrict  the  poet  to  one  method 


and  even  to  a  single  theme.  In  his  post 
facto  analysis  of  "  The  Raven  "  he  conceives 
the  highest  tone  of  beauty  to  be  sadness, 
caused  by  the  pathos  of  existence  and  our 
inability  to  grasp  the  unknown.  Of  all 
beauty  that  of  a  beautiful  woman  is  the 
supremest,  her  death  is  the  saddest  loss — and 
therefore  "the  most  poetical  topic  in  the 
world."  He  would  treat  this  musically  by 
application  of  the  refrain,  increasing  the 
sorrowful  loveliness  of  his  poem  by  contrast 
of  something  homely,  fantastic  or  quaint. 

Poe's  own  range  was  quite  within  his 
theory.  His  juvenile  versions  of  what  after- 
ward became  poems  were  so  very  "  indefi- 
nite" as  to  express  almost  nothing;  they 
resembled  those  marvelous  stanzas  of  Dr. 
Chivers,  that  sound  magnificently — I  have 
heard  Bayard  Taylor  and  Mr.  Swinburne 
rehearse  them  with  shouts  of  delight — and 
that  have  no  meaning  at  all.  Poe  could 
not  remain  a  Chivers,  but  sound  always 
was  his  forte.  We  rarely  find  his  highest 
imagination  in  his  verse,  or  the  creation  of 
poetic  phrases  such  as  came  to  the  lips  of 
Keats  without  a  summons.  He  lacked  the 
dramatic  power  of  combination,  and  pro- 
duced no  symphony  in  rhythm  ;  was  strictly 
a  melodist,  who  achieved  wonders  in  a 
single  strain.  Neither  Mrs.  Browning  nor 
any  other  poet  had  "  applied  "  the  refrain 
in  Poe's  fashion,  nor  so  effectively.  In  "  The 
Bells  "  its  use  is  limited  almost  to  one  word, 
the  only  English  word,  perhaps,  that  could 
be  repeated  incessantly  as  the  burden  of 
such  a  poem.  In  "  The  Raven,"  "  Lenore," 
and  elsewhere,  he  employed  the  repetend 
also,  and  with  still  more  novel  and  poetical 
results : 

"An  anthem  for  the  queenliest  dead  that  ever  died 

so  young, 
A  dirge  for  her,  the  doubly  dead,  in  that  she  died 

so  young." 

"  Our  talk  had  been  serious  and  sober, 

But  our  thoughts  they  were  palsied  and  sere, 

Our  memories  were  treacherous  and  sere. " 

One  thing  profitably  may  be  noted  by 
latter-day  poets.  Poe  used  none  but  ele- 
mentary English  measures,  relying  upon  his 
music  and  atmosphere  for  their  effect.  This 
is  true  of  those  which  seem  most  intri- 
cate, as  in  "The  Bells"  and  "Ulalume." 
"  Lenore"  and  "  For  Annie"  are  the  simplest 
of  ballad  forms.  I  have  a  fancy  that  oui 
Southern  poet's  ear  caught  the  music  of 
"Annabel  Lee  "  and  "  Eulalie,"  if  not  theii 
special  quality,  from  the  plaintive,  melodious 
negro  songs  utilized  by  those  early  writers 


EDGAR  ALLAN  POE. 


117 


of  "  minstrelsy  "  who  have  been  denomi- 
nated the  only  composers  of  a  genuine  Ameri- 
can school.  This  suggestion  maybe  scouted, 
but  an  expert  might  suspect  the  one  to  be  a 
patrician  refinement  upon  the  melody,  feel- 
ing and  humble  charm  of  the  other. 

Poe  was  not  a  single-poem  poet,  but  the 
poet  of  a  single  mood.  His  materials  were 
rather  a  small  stock  in  trade,  chiefly  of 
angels  and  demons,  with  an  attendance  of 
Dreams,  Echoes,  Ghouls,  Gnomes  and  M  imes 
ready,  at  hand.  He  selected  or  coined, 
for  use  and  re-use,  a  number  of  what  Mr. 
Miller  would  call "  beautiful  words" — "  alba- 
tross," "halcyon,"  " scintillant,"  "  Ligeia," 
"  Weir,"  "  Yaanek,"  "Auber,"  "  D'Elormie," 
and  the  like.  Everything  was  subordinate 
to  sound.  But  his  poetry,  as  it  places  us 
under  the  spell  of  the  senses,  enables  us  to 
enter,  through  their  reaction  upon  the  spirit, 
his  indefinable  mood ;  nor  should  we  forget 
that  Coleridge  owes  his  specific  rank  as  a 
poet,  not  to  his  philosophic  verse,  but  to 
melodious  fragments,  and  greatly  to  the 
rhythm  of  "  The  Ancient  Mariner  "  and  of 
"  Christabel."  Poe's  melodies  lure  us  to 
the  point  where  we  seem  to  hear  angelic 
lutes  and  citherns,  or  elfin  instruments  that 
make  music  in  "  the  land  east  of  the  sun 
and  west  of  the  moon."  The  enchantment 
may  not  be  that  of  Israfel,  nor  of  the 
harper  who  exorcised  the  evil  genius  of  Saul, 
but  it  is  at  least  that  of  some  plumed  being 
of  the  middle  air,  of  a  charmer  charming  so 
sweetly  that  his  numbers  are  the  burden  of 
mystic  dreams. 


v. 


IF  Poe's  standing  depended  chiefly  upon 
these  few  poems,  notable  as  they  are,  his 
name  less  frequently  would  be  recalled.  His 
intellectual  strength  and  rarest  imagination 
are  to  be  found  in  his  "  Tales."  To  them, 
and  to  literary  criticism,  his  main  labors 
were  devoted. 

The  limits  of  this  article  compel  me  to 
say  less  than  I  have  in  mind  concerning  his 
prose  writings.  As  with  his  poems,  so  with 
the  "  Tales," — their  dates  are  of  little  im- 
portance. His  irregular  life  forced  him  to 
alternate  good  work  with  bad,  and  some 
of  his  best  stories  were  written  early.  He 
was  an  apostle  of  the  art  that  refuses  to  take 
its  color  from  a  given  time  or  country,  and 
of  the  revolt  against  commonplace,  and  his 
inventions  partook  of  the  romantic  and  the 
wonderful.  He  added  to  a  Greek  percep- 
tion of  form  the  Oriental  passion  for  dec- 


oration. All  the  materials  of  the  wizard's 
craft  were  at  his  command.  He  was  not 
a  pupil  of  Beckford,  Godwin,  Maturin, 
Hoffman,  or  Fouque ;  and  yet  if  these  writ- 
ers were  to  be  grouped  we  should  think 
also  of  Poe,  and  give  him  no  second  place 
among  them.  "  The  young  fellow  is  highly 
imaginative,  and  a  little  given  to  the  ter- 
rific," said  Kennedy,  in  his  honest  way. 
Poe  could  not  write  a  novel,  as  we  term  itr 
as  well  as  the  feeblest  of  Harper's  or  Roberts'^ 
yearh'ngs.  He  vibrated  between  two  points, 
the  realistic  and  the  mystic,  and  made  no- 
attempt  to  combine  people  or  situations  in 
ordinary  life,  though  he  knew  how  to  lead 
up  to  a  dramatic  tableau  or  crisis.  His 
studies  of  character  were  not  made  from  ob- 
servation, but  from  acquaintance  with  him- 
self; and  this  subjectivity,  or  egoism,  crippled 
his  invention  and  made  his  "  Tales  "  little 
better  than  prose  poems.  He  could  imag- 
ine a  series  of  adventures — the  experience 
of  a  single  narrator — like  "  Arthur  Gordon 
Pym,"  and  might  have  been,  not  Le  Sage 
nor  De  Foe,  but  an  eminent  raconteur  in 
his  own  field.  His  strength  is  unquestion- 
able in  those  clever  pieces  of  ratiocination, 
"  The  Murders  in  the  Rue  Morgue,"  "  The 
Mystery  of  Marie  Rog^t,"  "  The  Purloined 
Letter  ";  in  some  of  a  more  fantastic  type, 
"The  Gold  Bug"  and  "Hans  Pfaall"; 
and  especially  in  those  with  elements  of 
terror  and  morbid  psychology  added,  such 
as  "  The  Descent  into  the  '  Maelstrom," 
"  The  Black  Cat,"  "  The  Tell-tale  Heart," 
and  the  mesmeric  sketches.  When  com- 
posing these  he  delighted  in  the  exercise  of 
his  dexterous  intellect,  like  a  workman  test- 
ing his  skill.  No  poet  is  of  a  low  grade 
who  possesses,  besides  an  ear  for  rhythm, 
the  resources  of  a  brain  so  fine  and  active. 
Technical  gifts  being  equal,  the  more  intel- 
lectual of  two  poets  is  the  greater.  "  Best 
bard,  because  the  wisest." 

His  artistic  contempt  for  metaphysics  is 
seen  even  in  those  tales  which  appear  most 
transcendental.  They  are  charged  with  a 
feeling  that  in  the  realms  of  psychology  we 
are  dealing  with  something  ethereal,  which 
is  none  the  less  substance  if  we  might  but 
capture  it.  They  are  his  resolute  attempts 
to  find  a  clue  to  the  invisible  world.  Were 
he  living  now,  how  much  he  would  make  of 
our  discoveries  in  light  and  sound,  of  the 
correlation  of  forces !  He  strove  by  a  kind 
of  divination  to  put  his  hand  upon  the  links 
of  mind  and  matter,  and  reach  the  hiding- 
places  of  the  soul.  It  galled  him  that  any- 
thing should  lie  outside  the  domain  of 


u8 


EDGAR  ALLAN  POE. 


human  intelligence.  His  imperious  intellect 
rebelled  against  the  bounds  that  shut  us  in, 
and  found  passionate  expression  in  works 
of  which  "  Ligeia,"  "  The  Fall  of  the  House 
of  Usher,"  and  "  William  Wilson  "  are  the 
most  perfect  types.  The  tales  in  which 
lyrics  are  introduced  are  full  of  complex 
beauty,  the  choicest  products  of  his  genius. 
They  are  the  offspring  of  yearnings  that 
lifted  him  so  far  above  himself  as  to  make 
us  forget  his  failings  and  think  of  him  only 
as  a  creative  artist,  a  man  of  noble  gifts. 

In  these  short,  purely  ideal  efforts — fin- 
ished as  an  artist  finishes  a  portrait,  or  a 
poet  his  poem — Poe  had  no  equal  in  recent 
times.     That  he  lacked  sustained  power  of 
invention   is  proved,  not  by  his  failure  to 
complete  an   extended  work,   but  by   his 
under-estimation  of  its  value.     Such  a  man 
measures  everything  by  his  personal  ability, 
and  finds  plausible  grounds  for  the  resulting 
standard.      Hawthorne  had    the    growing 
power  and  the  staying  power  that  gave  us 
"  The  Scarlet  Letter  "  and  "  The  House  of 
the  Seven   Gables."     Poe  and  Hawthorne 
were  the  last  of  the  romancers.     Each  was 
a  master  in  his  way,  and  that  of  Poe  was  the 
more  obvious  and  material.     He  was  expert 
in    much   that  concerns   the   structure   of 
works,  and   the  modeling  touches   of  the 
poet    left    beauty-marks    upon    his    prose. 
Yet  in  spiritual  meaning  his  tales  were  less 
poetic  than  those  of  Hawthorne.     He  relied 
upon  his  externals,  making  the  utmost  of 
their  gorgeousness  of  color,  their  splendor 
and  gloom  of  light  and  shade.     Hawthorne 
found  the  secret  meaning  of  common  things, 
and  knew  how  to  capture,  from  the  plainest 
aspects  of  life,  an  essence  of  evasive  beauty 
which  the  senses  of  Poe  often  were  una- 
ble to  perceive.     It  was   Hawthorne  who 
heard  the  melodies  too  fine  for  mortal  ear. 
Hawthorne  was  wholly  masculine,  with  the 
great  tenderness  and  gentleness  which  belong 
to  virile  souls.     Poe  had,  with  the  delicacy, 
the  sophistry  and  weakness  of  a  nature  more 
or  less  effeminate.     He  opposed  to  Haw- 
thorne the  fire,  the  richness,  the  instability, 
of  the  tropics,  as  against  the  abiding  strength 
and  passion  of  the  North.     His  own  con- 
ceptions astonished  him,  and  he  often  pre- 
sents himself  "  with  hair  on  end,  at  his  own 
wonders."     Of  these  two  artists  and  seers, 
the   New   Englander  had   the  profounder 
insight ;  the  Southerner's  magic  was  that  of 
the  necromancer  who  resorts  to  spells  and 
devices,   and,  when   some    apparition    by 
chance  responds  to  his  incantations,  is  be- 
wildered by  the  phantom  himself  has  raised. 


Poe  failed  to  see  that  the  Puritanism  by 
which  Hawthorne's  strength  was  tempered 
was  also  the  source  from  which  it  sprang ; 
and  in  his  general  criticism  did  not  pay  full 
tribute  to  a  genius  he  must  have  felt.     In 
some  of  his  sketches,  such  as  "  The  Man  of 
the  Crowd,"  he  used  Hawthorne's  method, 
and  with  inferior  results.      His  reviews  of 
other  authors  and   his    occasional  literary 
notes  have  been  so  carefully  preserved  as  to 
show  his  nature  by  a  mental  and  moral  pho- 
tograph.    His   "  Marginalia,"  scrappy  and 
written  for  effect,  are  the  notes  of  a  think- 
ing man  of  letters.     The  criticisms  raised  a 
hubbub  _  in   their  day,  and  made   Poe  the 
bogy  of  his  generation — the  unruly  censor 
whom  weaklings  not  only  had  cause  to  fear, 
but   often   regarded  with  a  sense  of  cruel 
injustice.    I  acknowledge  their  frequent  dis- 
honesty,   vulgarity,  prejudice,  but  do   not, 
therefore,  hold  them  to  be  worthless.    Even 
a  scourge,  a  pestilence,  has  its  uses ;  before 
it  the   puny  and  frail  go  down,  the  fittest 
survive.     And  so  it  was  in  Poe's  Malayar 
campaign.     Better  that  a  time  of  unproduc- 
tiveness should  follow  such  a  thinning  oui 
than  that  false  and  feeble  things  should  con- 
tinue.     I  suspect  that  "  The  Literati "  mad< 
room  for  a  new  movement,  however  lon^ 
delayed,   in   American    authorship.      Thej 
are  a  prose   Dunciad,   waspish  and  unfair 
but  full   of    cleverness,    and    not    withou 
touches  of  magnanimity.     Poe   had  smal 
respect  for  the  feeling  that  it  is  well  for  •< 
critic  to  discover  beauties,  since  any  one  cai 
point  out  faults.     Yet  when,  as  in  the  case: 
of  Tennyson,  Mrs.   Browning,  Taylor  am 
others,  he  pronounced   favorably  upon  th« 
talents  of  a  claimant,  and  was  uninfluencec 
by  personal    motives,  his    judgments    no 
seldom   have   been   justified   by   the  after 
career.     Besides,  what  a  cartoon  he  dre\ 
of  the  writers  of  his  time, — the  corrective  oi 
Griswold's   optimistic  delineations  !     In  th 
description  of  a  man's  personal  appearanc 
he  had  the  art  of  placing  the  subject  befor 
us  with  a  single  touch.     His  tender  mercie 
were   cruel;  he  never   forgot   to   prod  th 
one  sore  spot  of  the  author  he  most  ap 
proved, — was     especially  intolerant  of  hi 
own  faults  in  others,  and  naturally  detecte< 
these  at  once.     When  meting  out  punisr 
ment  to  a  pretentious  writer,  he  revelled  i 
his   task,  and  often  made  short  work,  as  i 
the  pleasure  was  too  great  to  be  endurabl< 
The  keenness  of  his   satire,  just  or    unjus 
is  mitigated  by   its    obvious    ferocity:    on 
instinctively    takes    part   with    the    victirr 
Nothing  in  journalistic   criticism,  even    i 


EDGAR  ALLAN  POE. 


119 


that  time,  was  more  scathing  and  ludicrous 
than  his  conceit  of  a  popular  bookwright  in 
the  act  of  confabulation  with  the  Universe. 
But  he  marred  the  work  by  coarseness, 
telling  one  man  that  he  was  by  no  means  a 
fool,  although  he  did  write  "  De  Vere," 
and  heading  a  paper  on  the  gentlest  and 

most  forbearing  of  poets — "  Mr.  and 

other  Plagiarists."  In  short,  he  constantly 
dulled  the  edge  and  temper  of  his  rapier, 
and  resorted  to  the  broad-axe,  using  the 
latter  even  in  his  deprecation  of  its  use  by 
Kit  North.  Perhaps  it  was  needed  in  those 
salad  days  by  offenders  who  could  be  put 
down  in  no  other  wise ;  but  I  hold  it  a  sign 
of  progress  that  criticism  by  force  of  arms 
would  now  be  less  effective. 


VI. 


SOME  analysis  of  Poe's  general  equipment 
will  not  be  out  of  place.  Only  in  the  most 
perfect  tales  can  his  English  style  be  called 
excellent,  however  significant  his  thought. 
His  mannerisms — constant  employment  of 
the  dash  for  suggestiveness,  and  a  habit  of 
italicizing  to  make  a  point  or  strengthen  an 
illusion — are  wearisome,  and  betray  a  lack 
of  confidence  in  his  skill  to  use  plain 
methods.  While  asserting  the  power  of 
words  to  convey  absolutely  any  idea  of  the 
human  mind,  he  relied  on  sound,  quaintness, 
surprise,  and  other  artificial  aids.  His  prose 
is  inferior  to  Hawthorne's ;  but  sometimes 
he  excels  Hawthorne  in  qualities  of  form 
and  proportion  which  are  specially  at  the 
service  of  authors  who  are  also  poets.  The 
abrupt  beginnings  of  his  stories  often  are 
artistic : 

"  We  had  now  reached  the  summit  of  the  loftiest 
crag.  For  some  minutes  the  old  man  seemed  too 
much  exhausted  to  speak."  ("  Descent  into  the 
Maelstrom.") 

"  The  thousand  injuries  of  Fortunato  I  had  born  as 
best  I  could,  but  when  he  ventured  upon  insult  I 
vowed  revenge."  ("  The  Cask  of  Amontillado.") 

His  endings  were  equally  good,  when  he 
had  a  clear  knowledge  of  his  own  purpose, 
and  some  of  his  conceptions  terminate  at  a 
dramatic  crisis.  The  tone,  also,  of  his  mas- 
terpieces is  well-sustained  throughout.  In 
«  The  Fall  of  the  House  of  Usher,"  the 
approach  to  the  fated  spot,  the  air,  the 
landscape,  the  tarn,  the  mansion  itself,  are 
a  perfect  study, — equal  to  the  ride  of  Childe 
Roland; — and  here  Poe  excels  Browning : 
we  not  only  come  with  him  to  the  dark 


tower,  but  we  enter  and  partake  its  mystery, 
and  alone  know1  the  secret  of  its  accursed 
fate.  The  poet's  analytic  faculty  has  been 
compared  to  that  of  Balzac,  but  a  parallel 
goes  no  farther  than  the  material  side.  In 
condensation  he  surpassed  either  Balzac  or 
Hawthorne. 

His  imagination  was  not  of  the  highest 
order,  for  he  never  dared  to  trust  to  it  im- 
plicitly ;  certainly  not  in  his  poetry,  since  he 
could  do  nothing  with  a  measure  like  blank 
verse,  which  is  barren  in  the  hands  of  a  mere 
songster,  but  the  glory  of  English  metrical 
forms  when  employed  by  one  commanding 
the  strength  of  diction,  the  beauty  and  grand- 
eur of  thought,  and  all  the  resources  of  a 
strongly  imaginative  poet.  Neither  in  verse 
nor  in  prose  did  he  cut  loose  from  his  minor 
devices,  and  for  results  of  sublimity  and 
awe  he  always  depends  upon  that  which  is 
grotesque  or  out  of  nature.  Beauty  of  the 
fantastic  or  grotesque  is  not  the  highest 
beauty.  Art,  like  nature,  must  be  fantastic, 
not  in  her  frequent  but  in  her  exceptional 
moods.  The  rarest  ideal  dwells  in  a  realm 
beyond  that  which  fascinates  us  by  its  strange- 
ness or  terror,  and  the  votaries  of  the  latter 
have  masters  above  them  as  high  as  Raphael 
is  above  Dor6. 

In  genuine  humor  Poe  seemed  utterly 
wanting.  He  also  had  little  of  the  mother- 
wit,  that  comes  in  flashes  and  at  once;  but 
his  powers  of  irony  and  satire  were  so  great 
as  to  make  his  frequent  lapses  into  invective 
the  more  humiliating.  The  command  of 
humor  has  distinguished  men  whose  genius 
was  both  high  and  broad.  If  inessential  to 
exalted  poetic  work,  its  absence  is  hurtful 
to  the  critical  and  polemic  essay.  Poe 
knew  this  as  well  as  any  one,  but  a  measure- 
less self-esteem  would  not  acknowledge  the 
flaw  in  his  armor.  Hence,  efforts  which 
involved  the  delusion  that  humor  may  come 
by  works  and  not  by  inborn  gift.  Humor 
is  congenital  and  rare,  the  fruit  of  natural 
mellowness,  of  sensitiveness  to  the  light  and 
humane  phases  of  life.  It  is,  moreover,  set 
in  action  by  an  unselfish  heart.  Such  is 
the  mirth  of  Thackeray,  of  Cervantes  and 
Moliere,  and  of  the  one  master  of  English 
song.  Poe's  consciousness  of  his  defect, 
and  his  refusal  to  believe  it  incurable,  are 
manifest  in  trashy  sketches  for  which  he 
had  a  market,  and  which  are  humorous  only 
to  one  who  sees  the  ludicrous  side  of  their 
failure.  He  analyzed  mirth  as  the  product 
of  incongruity,  and  went  to  work  upon  a 
theory  to  produce  it.  The  result  is  seen 
not  only  in  the  extravaganzas  to  which  I 


I2O 


EDGAR  ALLAN  POE. 


refer, — and  it  is  a  pity  that  these  should 
have  been  hunted  up  so  laboriously, — but 
in  the  use  of  what  he  thought  was  humor  to 
barb  his  criticisms,  and  as  a  contrast  to  the 
exciting  passages  of  his  analytic  tales.  One 
of  his  sketches,  "The  Due  de  1'Omelette," 
after  the  lighter  French  manner,  is  full  of 
grace  and  jaunty  persiflage,  but  most  of  his 
whimsical  "pot-boilers"  are  deplorably 
absurd.  There  is  something  akin  to  humor 
in  the  sub-handling  of  his  favorite  themes, — 
such  as  the  awe  and  mystery  of  death,  the 
terrors  of  pestilence,  insanity,  or  remorse. 
The  grotesque  and  nether  side  of  these 
matters  presents  itself  to  him,  and  then  his 
irony,  with  its  repulsive  fancies,  is  as  near 
humor  as  he  ever  approaches.  That  is  to 
say,  it  is  grave-yard  humor,  the  kind  which 
sends  a  chill  down  our  backs,  and  implies  a 
contempt  for  our  bodies  and  souls,  for  the 
perils,  helplessness  and  meanness  of  the 
stricken  human  race. 

Poe  is  sometimes  called  a  man  of  extraor- 
dinary learning.  Upon  a  first  acquaintance, 
one  might  receive  the  impression  that  his 
scholarship  was  not  only  varied  but  thor- 
ough. A  study  of  his  works  has  satisfied 
me  that  he  possessed  literary  resources  and 
knew  how  to  make  the  most  of  them.  In 
this  he  resembled  Bulwer,  and,  with  far  less 
abundant  materials  than  the  latter  required, 
employed  them  as  speciously.  He  easily 
threw  a  glamour  of  erudition  about  his 
work,  by  the  use  of  phrases  from  old  authors 
he  had  read,  or  among  whose  treatises  he 
had  foraged  with  special  design.  It  was  his 
knack  to  cull  sentences  which,  taken  by 
themselves,  produce  a  weird  or  impressive 
effect,  and  to  reframe  them  skillfully.  This 
plan  was  clever,  and  resulted  in  something 
that  could  best  be  muttered  "  darkly,  at 
dead  of  night ";  but  it  partook  of  trickery, 
even  in  its  art.  He  had  little  exact  scholar- 
ship, nor  needed  it,  dealing,  as  he  did,  not 
with  the  processes  of  learning,  but  with 
results  that  could  subserve  the  play  of  his 
imagination.  Shakspere's  anachronisms  and 
illusions  were  made  as  he  required  them, 
and  with  a  fine  disdain.  Poe  resorted  to 
them  of  malice  aforethought,  and  under 
pretence  of  correctness.  Still,  the  work  of 
a  romancer  and  poet  is  not  that  of  a  book- 
worm. What  he  needs  is  a  good  reference- 
knowledge,  and  this  Poe  had.  His  irregular 
school-boy  training  was  not  likely  to  give 
him  the  scholastic  habit,  nor  would  his 
impatient  manhood  otherwise  have  con- 
firmed it.  I  am  sure  that  we  may  consider 
that  portion  of  his  youth  to  have  been  of 


most  worth  which  was  devoted,  as  in  the 
case  of  many  a  born  writer,  to  the  uncon- 
scious education  obtained  from  the  reading, 
for  the  mere  love  of  it,  of  all  books  to  which 
he  had  access.  This  training  served  him 
well.  It  enabled  him  to  give  his  romance 
an  alchemic  air,  by  citation  from  writers  like 
Chapman,  Thomas  More,  Bishop  King, 
etc.,  and  from  Latin  and  French  authors  in 
profusion.  His  French  tendencies  were 
natural,  and  he  learned  enough  of  the  lan- 
guage to  read  much  of  its  current  literature 
and  get  hold  of  modes  unknown  to  many 
of  his  fellow- writers.  I  have  said  that  his 
stock  in  trade  was  narrow,  but  for  the  adroit 
display  of  it  examine  any  of  his  tales  and 
sketches — for  example,  "  Berenice,"  or  "  The 
Assignation." 

In  knowledge  of  what  may  be  called  the 
properties  of  his  romance,  he  was  more  hon- 
estly grounded.  He  had  the  good  fortune 
to  utilize  the  Southern  life  and  scenery  which 
he  knew  in  youth.  It  chanced,  also,  that 
during  some  years  of  his  boyhood — that 
formative  period  whose  impressions  are  in- 
delible— he  lived  in  a  characteristic  part  of 
England.  He  had  seen  with  his  own  eyes 
castles,  abbeys,  the  hangings  and  tapes- 
tries and  other  by-gone  trappings  of  ancient 
rooms,  and  remembered  effects  of  decoration 
and  color  which  always  came  to  his  aid. 
These  he  used  as  if  he  were  born  to  them ; 
never,  certainly,  with  the  surprise  at  their 
richness  which  vulgarizes  Disraeli's  "Lo- 
thair."  In  some  way,  known  to  genius, 
he  also  caught  the  romance  of  France,  of 
Italy,  of  the  Orient,  and  one  tale  or  another 
is  transfused  with  their  atmosphere;  while 
the  central  figure,  however  disguised,  is 
always  the  image  of  the  romancer  himself. 
His  equipment,  on  the  whole,  was  not  a 
pedant's,  much  less  that  of  a  searcher  after 
truth ;  it  was  that  of  a  poet  and  a  literary 
workman.  Yet  he  had  the  hunger  which 
animates  the  imaginative  student,  and,  had 
he  been  led  to  devote  himself  to  science, 
would  have  contributed  to  the  sum  of  knowl- 
edge. In  writing  "  Eureka,"  he  was  unques- 
tionably sincere,  and  forgot  himself  more 
nearly  than  in  any  other  act  of  his  profes- 
sional life.  But  here  his  inexact  learning 
betrayed  him.  What  was  begun  in  convic- 
tion— a  swift  generalization  from  scientific 
theories  of  the  universe — grew  to  be  so  far 
beyond  the  data  at  his  command,  or  so 
inconsistent  with  them,  that  he  finally  saw 
he  had  written  little  else  than  a  prose  poem, 
and  desired  that  it  should  be  so  regarded. 
Of  all  sciences,  astronomy  appeals  most  to 


EDGAR  ALLAN  POE. 


121 


the  imagination.  What  is  rational  in  "  Eu- 
reka "  mostly  is  a  re-statement  of  accepted 
theories ;  otherwise  the  treatise  is  vague 
and  nebulous,  a  light  dimmed  by  its  own 
vapor.  The  work  is  curiously  saturated 
with  our  modern  Pantheism;  and  although 
in  many  portions  it  shows  the  author's  weari- 
ness, yet  it  was  a  notable  production  for  a 
layman  venturing  within  the  precincts  of 
the  savant.  The  poetic  instinct  hits  upon 
truths  which  the  science  of  the  future  con- 
firms ;  but  as  often,  perhaps,  it  glorifies  some 
error  sprung  from  its  too  ardent  generali- 
zation. Poe's  inexactness  was  shown  in  fre- 
quent slips, — sometimes  made  unconsciously, 
sometimes  in  reliance  upon  the  dullness  of 
his  rivals  to  save  him  from  detection.  He 
was  on  the  alert  for  other  people's  errors ; 
for  his  own  facts,  were  he  now  alive,  he 
could  not  call  so  lightly  upon  his  imagina- 
tion. Even  our  younger  authors,  here  and 
abroad,  now  are  so  well  equipped  that  their 
learning  seems  to  handicap  their  winged 
steeds.  Poe  had,  above  all,  the  gift  of 
poetic  induction.  He  would  have  divined 
the  nature  of  an  unknown  world  from  a 
specimen  of  its  flora,  a  fragment  of  its  art. 
He  felt  himself  something  more  than  a  book- 
man. He  was  a  creator  of  the  beautiful,  and 
hence  the  conscious  struggle  of  his  spirit  for 
the  sustenance  it  craved.  Even  when  he 
was  most  in  error,  he  labored  as  an  artist, 
and  it  is  idle  criticism  that  judges  him  upon 
any  other  ground. 

Accept  him,  then,  whether  as  poet  or 
romancer,  as  a  pioneer  of  the  art  feeling. in 
American  literature.  So  far  as  he  was  de- 
voted to  art  for  art's  sake,  it  was  for  her 
sake  as  the  exponent  of  beauty.  No  man 
ever  lived  in  whom  the  passion  for  loveli- 
ness so  governed  the  emotions  and  convic- 
tions. His  service  of  the  beautiful  was 
idolatry,  and  he  would  have  kneeled  with 
Heine  at  the  feet  of  Our  Lady  of  Milo, 
and  believed  that  she  yearned  to  help  him. 
This  consecration  to  absolute  beauty  made 
him  abhor  the  mixture  of  sentimentalism, 
metaphysics,  and  morals,  in  its  presentation. 
It  was  a  foregone  conclusion  that  neither 
Longfellow,  Emerson,  Lowell,  nor  Haw- 
thorne should  wholly  satisfy  him.  The 
question  of  "  moral "  tendency  concerned 
him  not  in  the  least.  He  did  not  feel 
with  Keats  that  "  Beauty  is  truth,  truth 
beauty,"  and  that  a  di.'ine  perfection  may 
be  reached  by  either  road.  This  deficiency 
narrowed  his  range  both  as  a  poet  and  as  a 
critic.  His  sense  of  justice  was  a  sense  of 
the  fitness  of  things,  and — strange  to  say — 


when  he  put  it  aside  he  forgot  that  he  was 
doing  an  unseemly  thing.  Otherwise,  he 
represents,  or  was  one  of  the  first  to  lead,  a 
rebellion  against  formalism,  commonplace, 
the  spirit  of  the  bourgeois.  In  this  movement 
Whitman  is  his  countertype  at  the  pole 
opposite  from  that  of  art ;  and  hence  they 
justly  are  picked  out  from  the  rest  of  us 
and  associated  in  foreign  minds.  Taste  was 
Poe's  supreme  faculty.  Beauty,  to  him, 
was  a  definite  and  logical  reality,  and  he 
would  have  scouted  Veron's  clajm  that  it  has 
no  fixed  objective  laws,  and  exists  only  in 
the  nature  of  the  observer.  Although  the 
brakes  of  art  were  on  his  imagination,  his 
taste  was  not  wholly  pure;  he  vacillated 
between  the  classic  forms  and  those  allied 
with  color,  splendor,  Oriental  decoration; 
between  his  love  for  the  antique  and  his 
impressions  of  the  mystical  and  grotesque. 
But  he  was  almost  without  confraternity. 
An  artist  in  an  unartistic  period,  he  had  to 
grope  his  way,  to  contend  with  stupidity 
and  coarseness.  Again,  his  imagination, 
gloating  upon  the  possibilities  of  taste, 
violated  its  simplicity.  Poe  longed  for  the 
lamp  of  Aladdin,  for  the  riches  of  the 
Gnomes.  Had  unbounded  wealth  been 
his,  he  would  have  outvied  Beckford,  Lan- 
dor,  Dumas,  in  barbaric  extravagance  of 
architecture.  His  efforts  to  apply  the  laws 
of  the  beautiful  to  imaginary  decoration, 
architecture,  landscape,  are  very  fascinating 
as  seen  in  "The  Philosophy  of  Furniture," 
"  Landscape  Gardening  "  and  "  Landor's 
Cottage."  "  The  Domain  of  Arnheim  "  is 
a  marvelous  dream  of  an  earthly  paradise, 
and  the  close  is  a  piece  of  word-painting  as 
effective  as  the  language  contains.  Regard- 
ing this  sensitive  artist,  this  original  poet,  it 
seems  indeed  a  tragedy  that  a  man  so  ideal 
in  either  realm,  so  unfit  for  contact  with 
ugliness,  dullness,  brutality,  should  have 
come  to  eat  husks  with  the  swine,  to  be 
misused  by  their  human  counterparts,  and 
to  die  the  death  of  a  drunkard,  in  the  refuge 
which  society  offers  to  the  most  forlorn  and 
hopeless  of  its  castaways. 


VII. 

SEEKING  our  illustrations  of  the  poetic 
life,  we  find  no  career  of  more  touching  and 
curious  interest  than  that  of  Poe.  It  is 
said  that  disaster  followed  him  even  after 
death,  in  the  vicious  memoir  which  Gris- 
wold  prefixed  to  his  collected  works ;  and 
doubtless  the  poet  should  have  had  for  his 


122 


EDGAR  ALLAN  POE. 


biographer  a  man  of  kind  and  healthy  dis- 
cernment, like  Kennedy,  his  townsman  and 
generous  friend.     Yet  Poe  showed  tact  in 
choosing  Griswold,  and  builded  better  than 
he  knew.     He  could  select  no  more  inde- 
fatigable bookwright  to  bring  together  his 
scattered   writings,  and   he   counted   upon 
Death's  paying  all  debts.     In  this  Poe  was 
mistaken.     For  once  Griswold  wrote  as  he 
thought  and  felt,  and  his  memoir,  however 
spiteful  and  unchivalrous,  was  more  sincere 
than  many  of  the  sycophantic  sketches  in 
the  bulky  volumes  of  his  "  Poets  and  Po- 
etry."    Malice  made  him  eloquent,  and  an 
off-hand  obituary  notice  of  the  poet  was  the 
most  nervous  piece  of  work  that  ever  came 
from  his  pen.    It  was  heartless  and,  in  some 
respects,  inaccurate.     It  brought  so  much 
wrath  upon  him  that  he  became  vindictive, 
and  followed  it  up  with  a  memoir,  which, 
as  an  exhibition  of  the  ignoble  nature  of 
its   author,   scarcely   has   a  parallel.     Did 
this  in  the  end  affect  Poe's  fame  injuriously? 
Far  otherwise ;  it  moved  a  host  of  writers, 
beginning  with  Willis  and  Graham,  to  recall 
his  habit  of  life,  and  reveal  the  good  side 
of  it.     Some  have  gone  as  far  in  eulogy  as 
Griswold  went  toward  the  opposite  extreme. 
It  seemed  a  cruel  irony  of  fate  that  Poe's 
own  biographer  should  plant  thorns  upon 
his  grave,  but  he  also  planted  laurels.    He 
paid  an  unstinted  tribute  to  the  poet's  genius, 
and  this  was  the  only  concession  which  Poe 
himself  would  care  to  demand.  With  sterner 
irony,  Time  brings  in  his  revenges  !     In  the 
present  edition  of  the  poet's  works,  for  which 
Griswold  laid  the  ground- work,  the  memoir 
by  Ingram  is  devoted  largely  to  correcting 
the  errors  of  the  Doctor's  long-since   ex- 
cluded sketch,  and  to  exposing  every  act  of 
malice  against  Poe  which  Griswold   com- 
mitted, either  before  or  after  his  foeman's 
death. 

After  years  of  censure  and  defense,  and 
in  the  light  of  his  own  writings,  the  poet's 
character  is  not  "beyond  all  conjecture." 
Here  was  a  man  of  letters  who  fulfilled  the 
traditions  of  a  past  century  in  this  western 
world  and  modern  time ;  one  over-possessed 
and  hampered  by  the  very  temperament  that 
made  him  a  poet — and  this,  too,  when  he 
thought  himself  deliberate  and  calculating. 
His  head  was  superbly  developed,  his  brain- 
power too  great  for  its  resources  of  supply 
and  control.  The  testimony  of  some  who 
knew  his  home-life  is  that  he  was  tender 
and  lovable.  Graham  and  Willis  aver  that 
he  was  patient  and  regular  in  work,  and 
scrupulous  to  return  a  just  amount  of  labor 


for  value  received.  But  many  who  knew 
and  befriended  him  have  spoken,  more  in 
sorrow  than  in  anger,  of  his  treachery  and 
thanklessness,  of  his  injustice  to  himself  and 
of  the  degrading  excesses  which  plunged 
him  into  depths  from  which  it  grew  more 
and  more  difficult  to  lift  him. 

Nevertheless,  Poe  was  not  a  man  of  im- 
moral habits.      I   assert   that   professional 
men  and  artists,  in  spite  of  a  vulgar  belief 
to  the  contrary,  are  purity  itself  compared 
with  men  engaged  in  business  and  idle  men 
of  the  world.     Study  and  a  love  of  the  ideal 
protect  them  against  the  sensuality  by  which 
too  many  dull  the  zest  of  their  appetites. 
Poe  was  no  exception  to  the  rule.     He  was 
not  a  libertine.     Woman  was  to  him  the 
impersonation  of  celestial   beauty,  her  in- 
fluence soothed  and  elevated  him,  and  in 
her  presence  he  was  gentle,  winning  and 
subdued.     There  is  not  an  unchaste  sug- 
gestion in  the  whole  course  of  his  writings, 
— a  remarkable  fact,  in  view  of  his  acquaint- 
ances with  the  various  schools  of  French 
literature.     His  works  are  almost  too  spirit- 
ual.    Not  of  the  earth,  earthy,  their  person- 
ages meet  with  the  rapture  and  co-absorption 
of  disembodied  souls.     His  verse  and  prose 
express   devotion   to    Beauty  in   her   most 
ethereal  guise,  and  he  justly  might  cry  out 
with  Shelley : 


"  I  vowed  that  I  would  dedicate  my  powers 
To  thee  and  thine;  have  I  not  kept  the  vow?" 

Nor  was  lie  undevotional.  His  sense  of  the 
sublime  and  mystical  filled  him  with  thoughts 
of  other  worlds  and  existences  than  ours ;  if 
there  is  pride,  there  is  reverence,  in  his  bold 
imaginings.  He  felt  a  spark  of  the  divine 
fire  within  him,  and  the  pride  of  his  intel- 
lectual disdain  was,  like  the  Titan's,  a  not 
inglorious  sin.  Finally,  Poe  was  not  an 
habitual  drunkard.  He  had  woful  fits  of 
drunkenness,  varying  in  frequency,  and 
sometimes  of  degradation ;  for  a  single  glass 
made  him  the  easy  prey  of  any  coarse  and 
pitiless  hands  into  which  he  might  fall.  He 
was  a  man  inebriate  when  sober,  his  brair 
surging  with  emotion,  and  a  stimulant  thai 
only  served  to  steady  common  men  bewil 
dered  him.  As  with  women,  the  least  con 
tamination  was  to  him  debasement.  Hii 
mature  years  were  a  battle  with  inheritec 
taint,  and  there  wer2  long  periods  in  whicl 
he  was  the  victor.  This  taint  had  been  in 
creased  by  drugging  in  infancy,  and  by  thi 
convivial  usages  of  his  guardian's  house 
hold.  Bearing  in  mind,  also,  the  lack  o 


EDGAR  ALLAN  POE. 


123 


self-control  inherent  in  Celtic  and  Southern 
natures,  I  think  he  made  a  plucky  fight. 
The  duty  of  self-support  was  not  one  to 
which  he  had  been  trained,  and  was  more 
than  he  could  bear.  Imagine  Shelley,  who 
made  his  paper  boats  of  bank-notes,  Byron 
and  Landor,  who  had  their  old  estates, 
forced  to  write  by  the  column  for  their 
weekly  board.  "  Poverty  has  this  disease : 
through  want  it  teaches  a  man  evil."  More, 
it  limits  the  range  of  his  possibilities.  Dou- 
dan  has  said,  with  truth  and  feeling,  that  he 
who  is  without  security  for  the  morrow  can 
neither  meditate  upon  nor  accomplish  a 
lasting  work.  The  delicate  fancies  of  cer- 
tain writers  are  not  always  at  quick  com- 
mand, and  the  public  is  loth  to  wait  and  pay 
for  quality.  Poe,  more  than  once,  fell  into 
disgrace  by  not  being  able  to  meet  his  liter- 
ary engagements  on  time.  His  most  absurd 
and  outrageous  articles,  such  as  the  one  put 
forth  after  his  Boston  lecture,  were  the  blus- 
ter of  a  man  who  strove  to  hide  a  sense  of 
humiliation  and  failure.  Doubtless,  he  se- 
cretly invoked  the  gods  in  his  own  behalf. 
He  knew,  like  Chenier  going  to  his  death, 
that  it  was  a  pity — he  was  worth  saving. 
Generous  efforts,  in  truth,  were  made  to  save 
him,  by  strong  and  tender  friends,  but  these 
were  quite  in  vain.  He  carried  a  death- 
warrant  within  him.  Well  might  he  feel 
that  a  spell  was  on  him,  and  in  one  tale 
and  another  try  to  make  the  world — which 
he  affected  to  despise — comprehend  its  fatal- 
ity, and  bespeak  the  sympathetic  verdict  of 
the  future  upon  his  defeat  and  doom. 

It  is  just  that  well-balanced  persons  should 
rebuke  the  failings  of  genius.  But  let  such 
an  one  imagine  himself  with  a  painfully 
sensitive  organization, — "  all  touch,  all  eye, 
all  ear";  with  appetites  almost  resistless; 
with  a  frame  in  which  health  and  success 
breed  a  dangerous  rapture,  disease  and  sor- 
row a  fatal  despair.  Surmount  all  this  with 
a  powerful  intelligence  that  does  not  so  much 
rule  the  structure  as  it  menaces  it,  and 
threatens  to  shake  it  asunder.  Let  him 
conceive  himself  as  adrift,  from  the  first, 
among  adverse  surroundings,  now  combating 
his  environment,  now  struggling  to  adjust 
himself  to  it.  He,  too,  might  find  his  judg- 
ment a  broken  reed ;  his  passions  might  get 
the  upper  hand,  his  perplexities  bring  him 
to  shamelessness  and  ruin.  It  was  thus  the 
poet's  curse  came  upon  him,  and  the  wings 
of  his  Psyche  were  sorrowfully  trailed  in  the 
dust.  I  have  said  to  friends,  as  they  sneered 
at  the  ill-managed  life  of  one  whose  special 
genius  perhaps  could  not  exist  but  in  union 


with  certain  infirmities,  that  instead  of 
recounting  these,  and  deriding  them,  they 
should  hedge  him  round  with  their  protec- 
tion. We  can  find  more  than  one  man  of 
sense  among  a  thousand,  but  how  rarely  a 
poet  with  such  a  gift!  When  he  has  gone 
his  music  will  linger,  and  be  precious  to 
those  who  never  have  heard,  like  ourselves, 
the  sweet  bells  jangled. 

Making  every  allowance,  Poe  was  terribly 
blamable.  We  all  are  misunderstood,  and 
all  condemned  to  toil.  The  sprites  have 
their  task- work,  and  cannot  always  be  danc- 
ing in  the  moonlight.  At  times,  we  are  told, 
they  have  to  consort  with  what  is  ugly,  and 
even  take  on  its  guise.  Unhappily,  Poe 
was  the  reverse  of  one  who  "fortune's  buffets 
and  rewards  has  ta'en  with  equal  thanks." 
He  stood  good  fortune  more  poorly  than 
bad;  any  emotion  would  upset  him,  and 
his  worst  falls  were  after  successes,  or  with 
success  just  in  sight.  His  devotion  to 
beauty  was  eagerly  selfish.  He  had  a  heart, 
and  in  youth  was  loyal  to  those  he  loved. 
In  this  respect  he  differed  from  the  hero  of 
"A  Strange  Story,"  born  without  affection 
or  soul.  But  his  dream  was  that  of  "  The 
Palace  of  Art" — a  lordly  pleasure-house, 
where  taste  and  love  should  have  their  fill, 
regardless  of  the  outer  world.  It  has  been 
well  said,  that  if  not  immoral,  he  was  un- 
moral. With  him  an  end  justified  the 
means,  and  he  had  no  conception  of  the 
law  and  limitations  of  liberty,  no  practical 
sense  of  right  or  wrong.  At  the  most,  he 
ignored  such  matters  as  things  irrelevant. 
Now  it  is  not  essential  that  one  should 
have  a  creed;  he  may  relegate  theologies 
to  the  regions  of  the  unknowable;  but  he 
must  be  just  in  order  to  fear  not,  and 
humane  that  he  may  be  loved ;  he  must  be 
faithful  to  some  moral  standard  of  his  own, 
otherwise  his  house,  however  beautiful  and 
lordly,  is  founded  in  the  sand. 

The  question  always  will  recur,  whether, 
if  Poe  had  been  able  to  govern  his  life 
aright,  he  would  not  also  have  been  conven- 
tional and  tame,  and  so  much  the  less  a 
poet.  Were  it  not  for  his  excesses  and 
neurotic  crises,  should  we  have  had  the 
peculiar  quality  of  his  art  and  the  works  it 
has  left  us  ?  I  cannot  here  discuss  the 
theory  that  his  genius  was  a  frenzy,  and 
that  poetry  is  the  product  of  abnormal 
nerve-vibrations.  The  claim,  after  all,  is  a 
scientific  statement  of  the  belief  that  great 
wits  are  sure  to  madness  near  allied.  An 
examination  of  it  involves  the  whole  ground 
of  fate,  free  will  and  moral  responsibility. 


124 


EXPOSTULA  TION. 


I  think  that  Poe  was  bounden  for  his  acts. 
He  never  failed  to  resent  infringements  upon 
his  own  manor ;  and,  however  poor  his  self- 
control,  it  was  not  often  with  him  that  the 
chord  of  self  passed  trembling  out  of  sight. 
Possibly  his  most  exquisite,  as  they  were  his 
most  poetic,  moments,  were  at  those  times 
when  he  seemed  the  wretchedest,  and 
avowed  himself  oppressed  by  a  sense  of 
doom.  He  loved  his  share  of  pain,  and 
was  an  instance  of  the  fact  that  man  is  the 
one  being  that  takes  keen  delight  in  the 
tragedy  of  its  own  existence,  and  for  whom 

"Joy  is  deepest  when  it  springs  from  woe." 

Wandering  among  the  graves  of  those  he 
had  cherished,  invoking  the  spectral  mid- 
night skies,  believing  himself  the  Orestes  of 
his  race — in  all  this  he  was  fulfilling  his 
nature,  deriving  the  supremest  sensations, 
feeding  on  the  plants  of  night  from  which 
such  as  he  obtain  their  sustenance  or  go 
famished.  They  who  do  not  perceive  this 
never  will  comprehend  the  mysteries  of  art 
and  song,  of  the  heart  from  whose  recesses 
these  must  be  evoked.  They  err  who  com- 
miserate Poe  for  such  experiences.  My 
own  pity  for  him  is  of  another  kind ;  it  is  that 
which  we  ever  must  feel  for  one  in  whom  the 
rarest  possibilities  were  blighted  by  an  in- 
herent lack  of  will.  In  his  sensitiveness  to 
impressions  like  the  foregoing  he  had  at 
once  the  mood  and  material  for  far  greater 
results  than  he  achieved.  A  violin  cracks 
none  the  sooner  for  being  played  in  a  minor 
key.  His  instrument  broke  for  want  of  a 
firm  and  even  hand  to  use  it — a  virile,  de- 
voted master  to  prolong  the  strain. 


Poe's  demand  for  his  present  wish  was 
always  strong,  yet  it  was  the  caprice  of  a 
child,  and  not  the  determination  that  stays 
and  conquers.  He  was  no  more  of  an  ego- 
ist than  was  Goethe;  but  self-absorption 
is  the  edged  tool  that  maims  a  wavering 
hand.  His  will,  in  the  primary  sense,  was 
weak  from  the  beginning.  It  became  more 
and  more  reduced  by  those  habits  which,  of 
all  the  defences  of  a  noble  mind,  attack  this 
stronghold  first.  It  was  not  able  to  pre- 
serve for  him  the  sanity  of  true  genius,  and 
his  product,  therefore,  was  so  much  the  less 
complete. 

"O  well  for  him  whose  will  is  strong! 
He  suffers,  but  he  will  not  suffer  long." 

Poe  suffered,  in  bitter  truth,  and  the  end 
came  not  through  triumph,  but  in  death. 
His  fame  is  not  what  it  might  have  been, 
we  say,  yet  it  is  greater  than  he  probably 
thought — dying  with  a  sense  of  incomplete- 
ness— it  would  be,  and  more  than  he  could 
have  asked.  In  spite,  then,  of  the  most 
reckless  career,  the  work  a  man  really  ac- 
complishes— both  for  what  it  is  in  itself  and 
for  what  it  reveals  of  the  author's  gift — in 
the  end  will  be  valued  exactly  at  its  worth. 
Does  the  poet,  the  artist,  demand  some 
promise  that  it  also  may  be  made  to  tell 
during  our  working  life,  and  even  that  life 
be  lengthened  till  the  world  shall  learn  to 
honor  it  ?  Let  him  recall  the  grave,  exalted 
words  which  Poe  took  at  hazard  for  his 
"  Ligeia,"  and  stayed  not  to  dwell  upon 
their  spiritual  meaning :  "  Man  doth  not 
yield  himself  to  the  angels,  nor  unto  death 
utterly,  save  only  through  the  weakness  of 
his  own  feeble  will." 


EXPOSTULATION. 


TEARS  in  those  eyes  of  blue! 
Sparks  of  fiery  dew, 
Scornful  lightnings  that  flash 
Twixt  dusky  lash  and  lash! 
Never  from  sorrow  grew 
That  rain  in  my  heaven  of  blue ! 


Full  of  disdain  are  you,— 
Scorn  for  these  fetters  new; 
Sweet,  you  were  free  too  long! 
Love  is  a  master  strong, 
Hard  are  the  words,  but  true, 
None  may  his  chain  undo. 


Nay!    Let  your  heart  shine  through 
And  soften  those  eyes  of  blue! 
Glide  from  your  chilly  height; 
Banish  your  anger  bright; 
Fairest,  be  gentlest,  too, 
Fate  is  too  mighty  for  you! 


ROCKY  MOUNTAIN  COOKERY. 


I25 


ROCKY   MOUNTAIN   COOKERY. 


THERE  is  an  unexpected  passage  in  a 
poem  of — perhaps  misguided — sentiment 
which  instructs  us  that  it  is  possible  to  get 
on  in  this  world  very  well  in  the  absence  of 
music,  science,  art,  et  cetera,  but  that  we 
must  eat ;  and,  the  presumption  is,  eat  well. 
Exclaims  this  veracious  and  vice-regal  poet : 

"  We  can  live  without  love — what  is  passion  but 
pining  ? 

But  where  is  the  man  who  can  live  without  din- 
ing?" 

Whatever  may  be  our  opinion  in  respect 
to  the  truth  of  this  theory,  it  is  certain  no 
better  illustration  of  it  can  be  had  than 
camp-life  in  the  sierra-haunted  territories 
of  the  west 

Those  old  heroes  who  made  a  beginning 
of  exploration  in  the  Rocky  Mountains,  half 
a  century  and  more  ago,  as  trappers  and 
hunters  for  the  fur  companies,  would  have 
thought  themselves  in  paradise  could  they 
have  seen  our  stores  in  '74  when  we  went 
searching  for  the  now  famous  ruins  of  the 
towns  of  the  Cliff-Dwellers,and  found  them; 
but  the  casual  reader  may  not  be  moved 
by  any  such  envious  feeling.  The  trappers 
used  to  make  their  headquarters  mainly  at 
Fort  Benton,  at  the  head  of  navigation  on 
the  upper  Missouri.  Everything  civilized 
had  to  be  taken  twenty-five  hundred  miles 
up  the  river  from  St.  Louis  in  batteaux,  and 
for  the  last  five  hundred  miles  these  heavy 
boats  had  to  be  hauled  mainly  by  men,  who 
walked  along  the  shore  with  ropes  over 
their  shoulders.  The  value  of  the  cargoes 
by  the  time  the  three  months'  voyage  was 
completed  may  be  imagined.  Flour  was 
unheard  of  at  Fort  Benton,  sugar  was  a  wild 
extravagance,  and  tea  and  coffee  were  only 
fit  for  the  nabobs  who  conducted  the  busi- 
ness of  the  post.  The  journey  was  too  fright- 
fully long,  dangerous  and  difficult  to  admit 
of  many  articles  of  food  being  transported, 
for  all  available  space  in  the  overladen 
mackinaws  needed  to  be  reserved  for  the 
indispensable  whisky.  Going  out  into  the 
wilderness  for  a  tour  of  lonely  trapping  last- 
ing four,  five  or  six  months,  hundreds  of  miles 
beyond  even  this  extreme  outpost  of  civiliza- 
tion, these  half-savages  took  nothing  in  the 
way  of  food  except  a  little  salt  and  pepper, 
and  perhaps  a  trifle  of  tea,  as  an  occasional 
indulgence.  An  iron  skillet  and  a  tin  cup 
comprised  their  only  furniture;  if  they  needed 


anything  more,  they  made  it  out  of  poplar 
bark  or  soap-stone.  For  many  months  to- 
gether these  men  would  live  wholly  on 
the  flesh  their  guns  brought  them,  varying 
this  diet  now  and  then  with  berries,  sweet 
roots,  or  a  pungent  decoction  of  sage-leaves 
and  the  bark  of  the  red  willow,  or  other 
plants  that  would  serve  the  purpose  of  tea. 
The  red  willow  bark,  mixed  with  killiki- 
nick,  made  very  good  smoking,  too,  after 
the  trapper's  tobacco  was  exhausted.  It 
often  happened  in  the  northern  mountains, 
where  little  alkali  occurs,  that  a  trapper 
would  even  have  no  salt  for  his  meat ;  but  in 
this  he  fared  no  worse  than  the  Indians, 
who,  indeed,  have  to  acquire  a  taste  for  it. 
"White  men  big  fools,"  they  say;  "want 
fresh  meat,  fresh  meat,  all  time, — then  put 
heap  salt  on  it!" 

The  history  of  these  trappers  adds  to  the 
record  of  human  endurance  and  abstinence, 
but  we  had  no  desire  to  imitate  them,  though 
in  the  earlier  years  of  the  Government  expe- 
ditions the  fare  was  primitive  and  scanty 
enough  whenever  game  proved  scarce.  Lat- 
terly we  lived  better,  and  finally  even  attained 
to  four-tined  forks! 

Dr.  Hayden's  survey  was  divided  into 
several  working  divisions  of  five  to  seven 
persons,  each  of  which  had  a  cook,  and 
spent  the  season  in  a  field  of  work  by  itself. 
Whether  or  not  one  thinks  these  cooks  had 
a  hard  time  of  it  depends  on  one's  point  of 
view.  It  seems  to  me  they  had,  because 
they  had  to  rise  at  such  an  unearthly  hour  in 
the  morning ;  but,  on  the  other  hand,  they 
were  not  obliged  to  climb  snowy  and  back- 
breaking  peaks,  nor  to  half  freeze  on  their 
gale-swept  summits  in"  taking  observations," 
nor  to  chase  a  lot  of  frantic  mules  and  horses 
that  chose  to  be  ugly  about  being  caught 
up.  However,  upon  having  a  fairly  satis- 
factory cook  depends  a  large  portion  of 
your  good  time. 

The  camp  cook  presents  himself  in  vari- 
ous characters.  There  are  not  many  col- 
ored men  in  the  West  in  this  capacity,  and 
few  Frenchmen ;  but  many  Americans  have 
picked  up  the  necessary  knowledge  by  hard 
experience,  not  one  of  whom,  perhaps,  regards 
it  as  a  "  profession,"  or  anything  better  than 
a  make-shift.  It  is  considered  by  the  ordi- 
nary mountaineer  as  a  rather  inferior  occupa- 
tion, and,  as  a  rule,  it  falls  to  the  lot  of  inferior 
men,  who  have  tried  and  failed  in  more 


126 


ROCKY  MOUNTAIN  COOKERY. 


energetic,  muscular  and  profitable  pursuits. 
Of  course  there  are  exceptions,  but,  as  a 
rule,  they  are  men  who  are  not  even  up  to 
the  level  of  picturesque  interest,  and  are 
worthy  of  small  regard  from  the  observer, 
unless  he  is  hungry.  We  are  hungry,  there- 
fore we  pursue  the  subject. 

Roads  being  non-existent  in  the  days 
whereof  I  am  speaking, — to  a  great  extent 
it  is  still  so, — and  it  often  being  necessary  to 
go  boldly  across  the  country  without  any 
regard  for  even  Indian  trails,  the  cuisine, 
like  everything  else,  had  to  accommodate 
itself  to  the  backs  of  the  sturdy  mules,  on 
whose  steady  endurance  depends  nearly  all 
hopes  of  success.  The  conditions  to  be  met 
by  kitchen  and  larder  are,  ability  to  be 
stowed  together  in  packages  of  small  size, 
convenient  shape,  and  sufficient  strength 
to  withstand,  without  injury,  the  severest 
strain  of  the  lash-ropes,  and  the  forty  or 
more  accidents  liable  to  happen  in  the 
course  of  a  thousand  miles  of  rough  mount- 
ain travel.  The  only  sort  of  package  that 
will  meet  these  requirements  is  the  bag. 
When  it  is  full  it  is  of  that  elongated  and 
rounded  shape  which  will  lie  well  in  the 
burden.  As  fast  as  it  is  emptied  space  is  util- 
ized and  the  weight  remains  manageable. 
In  bags,  then,  are  packed  all  the  raw 
material  except  the  few  condiments,  in 
bottles  and  flasks,  for  which,  with  other 
fragile  things,  a  pair  of  paniers  is  provided. 
Even  the  few  articles  of  iron- ware  per- 
mitted to  the  camp  cook  are  tied  up  in  a 
gunny-sack. 

Concerning  the  preparation  of  breakfast, 
I  must  confess  almost  entire  ignorance. 
My  first  intimation  of  the  meal  was  usually 
a  rough  shake,  with  a  loud  "  Breakfast 
is  just  ready,  sir.  Sorry,  sir,  but  you  must 
get  up."  Oh,  those  mornings !  If  Ben 
Franklin  and  all  the  rest  who  so  fluently 
advise  early  rising  could  have  spent  a  few 
nights  under  the  frosty  stars  of  the  high 
Rockies,  they  would  have  modified  their 
views  as  to  the  loveliness  of  dawn.  (Sunset 
glories  for  me  !)  The  snow,  or  the  hoar- 
frost, is  thick  on  the  grass  beside  your 
couch,  and  possibly  your  clothes,  carefully 
tucked  under  the  flap  of  your  canvas  cov- 
erlid last  night,  have  been  elbowed  outside 
and  are  covered  with  as  much  rime  as  the 
beard  of  St.  Nicholas,  while  your  boots  are 
as  stiff  as  iron,  and  twice  as  cold.  Having 
groaned  your  way  into  them,  you  hobble  to 
the  neighboring  stream,  duck  your  head  in 
icy  water,  and  wipe  your  face  on  a  frozen 
towel.  Usually,  you  must  next  seize  a  rope 


that  has  been  trailing  all  night  through  the 
frosty  grass  and  painfully  tie  up  your  horse, 
which  has  just  been  brought  in,  so  that  by 
the  time  you  do  kick  a  boulder  loose  and  lug 
it  up  to  the  table  for  your  breakfast-chair, 
your  teeth    chatter   until   you   can   hardly 
take  a  voluntary  bite,  and  your  fingers  are  too 
numb  to  pass  the  bacon  to  the  next  inva- 
lid.    This  frigid  condition  of  things  was  not 
invariable,  but  it  was  in  this  way  that  most 
of  our   breakfasts  were   eaten   among   the 
peaks.      The  matutinal  meal  over,  we  felt 
more  limber.     Overcoats  were  thrown  aside, 
and  every  one  hastened  to  roll  up  his  bed- 
ding,  strike   the    tents — if    any   had   been 
erected — and   help   saddle   and    pack   the 
mules.     By  the  time  this  was  accomplished 
the  cook  had  washed  his  dishes,  strapped 
up   his    "  munitions    of    peace,"   and    an- 
nounced that  he  was  ready  for  the  kitchen 
mule,  which  was  the  last  one  to  be  packed. 
This  completed,  he  mounted  the  bell-mare 
and  started  off,  the  train  of  pack  animals 
filed  along  behind,  and  we  began  another 
morning's   work   before    the  day  was   well 
aired. 

This  is  the  little  I  can  remember  concern- 
ing breakfast.  With  the  preparation  of  din- 
ner, however,  I  am  more  familiar. 

We  always  dined  at  the  fashionable  hour 
of  six  o'clock,  with  two  exceptions,  namely, 
when  we  dined  later,  and  when  we  did 
not  dine  at  all.  Camp  is  chosen  with  an 
eye  to  three  requisites — wood,  water  and 
grass ;  the  first  for  ourselves,  the  third 
for  the  mules,  the  second  for  both.  Fre- 
quently, however,  one  of  the  three,  and 
occasionally  all,  "  requisites  "  are  absent,  or 
nearly  so.  In  the  mountains,  of  course, 
there  is  never  any  lack  of  fire-wood,  and 
nothing  can  be  better  than  dead  quaking- 
asp,  which  burns  quick  and  hot,  and 
leaves  fine  embers.  Red  cedar  is  good, 
too,  and  the  aroma  from  a  big  heap  of  it 
ablaze  recalls  the  Arabian  Nights.  But  in 
the  parks  and  plains  trees  are  rarely  access- 
ible, and  the  next  best  thing  is  sage  brush. 
Where  it  grows  as  high  as  your  head  and 
as  thick  as  your  leg,  as  around  the  salt 
lakes  in  southern  Wyoming,  there  is  no  dif- 
ficulty, and  the  scraggy  limbs  and  roots  are 
quickly  boiling  the  pot — or,  rather,  the  cop- 
per kettle ;  but  where  it  is  small  and  sparse, 
only  ceaseless  diligence  and  a  recklessness 
of  palms  will  keep  the  fire  going.  This 
ragged,  prickly  shrub  is  full  of  "  grease," 
and  makes  an  exceedingly  hot  fire,  which 
snaps  and  sputters  like  hickory.  We  had  a 
full  illustration  of  its  heating  powers  one 


ROCKY  MOUNTAIN  COOKERY. 


127 


very  warm  evening  over  beyond  Whisky 
Gap.  The  sage  brush  was  dense  and  high 
where  we  camped,  so  that  it  was  hard  work 
to  clear  room  enough  for  camp.  Just  as 
dinner  was  ready  we  noticed  that  the  care- 
lessly kept  fire  had  strayed  away  from  its 
trench,  and  in  an  instant  the  whole  region  was 
in  a  blaze,  roaring  as  if  an  oil-vat  had  ig- 
nited, and  crackling  like  a  ship-load  of  parlor- 
matches  !  Wetting  pieces  of  canvas  we  fought 
it  until  we  were  nearly  dead  with  fatigue 
before  the  danger  was  over.  Though  we 
missed  our  longed-for  meal,  we  came  des- 
perately near  having  our  meat  barbecued  in 
the  way  that  taught  Lamb's  Chinaman  how 
to  appreciate  roast  pig.  More  than  one 
train  has  lost  all  its  stores  through  the 
carelessness  of  a  cook  and  the  inflamma- 
bility of  the  dry  grass  and  bushes.  Sage- 
brush and  grease-wood  failing  (which  is 
rare),  the  last  resource  is  "buffalo-chips," 
the  dried  ordure  of  cattle,  which  makes 
a  smouldering  fire  only  better  than  none. 

Water  is  even  more  essential,  and  the 
loveliest  trout  brooks  await  you  everywhere 
among  the  hills ;  but  now  and  then,  in  cross- 
ing the  plains  and  wide  valleys,  particularly 
if  the  region  tends  toward  bad  lands,  you 
must  search  long  before  you  find  it.  In  the 
south  the  Indians  have  worn  well-marked, 
deeply-trodden  trails  across  the  country, 
which  lead  where  water  is  usually  to  be 
found.  The  traveler,  even  though  a  topog- 
rapher, departs  from  these  trails  with  great 
peril,  for  he  may  die  in  the  desert  before  he 
strikes  a  spring  or  rivulet.  Sometimes, 
even  in  the  north,  you  hunt  all  day  to  find 
water  by  which  to  rest  at  night,  and  make  a 
dry  camp  after  all,  or  only  succeed  in  dis- 
covering a  few  warm  and  muddy  pools, 
around  which  the  men  must  stand  vigor- 
ously on  guard  to  keep  away  the  feverish 
mules,  lest  in  their  rush  they  obliterate  the 
whole  fountain.  We  once  dug  a  hole  six 
feet  deep  as  the  only  means  of  getting  at 
water,  and  furnished  it  to  the  animals  by 
the  hatful.  A  night  spent  without  water 
well  deserves  to  be  the  hunter's  abhorrence. 
When  he  is  attempting  to  instruct  his  part- 
ners in  theology,  he  simply  calls  the  lower 
regions  a  "  dry  camp,"  and  wastes  no  words 
over  details  of  torment. 

In  the  matter  of  grass,  there  is  usually 
little  trouble  to  find  enough  for  one  night's 
stoppage. 

The  place  for  the  camp  having  been  indi- 
cated, the  riding  animals  are  hastily  unsad- 
dled, and  then  every  one  turns  to  help 
unpack  and  place  the  cargo  in  orderly 


array.  The  very  first  mule  unloaded  is  the 
staid  veteran  distinguished  by  the  honor  of 
bearing  the  cuisine.  The  shovel  and  axe 
having  been  released  from  their  lashings, 
the  cook  seizes  them,  and  hurriedly  digs  a 
trench,  in  which  he  starts  his  fire.  While 
it  is  kindling,  he  and  anybody  else  whose 
hands  are  free  cut  or  pluck  up  fuel.  We 
are  so  stiff  sometimes  from  our  eight  or  ten 
hours  in  the  saddle  that  we  can  hardly 
move  our  legs ;  but  it  is  no  time  to  lie 
down.  Hobbling  round  after  wood  and 
water  limbers  us  up  a  little,  and  hastens 
the  preparation  of  dinner, — that  blessed 
goal  of  all  our  present  hopes.  If  a  stream 
that  holds  out  any  promise  is  near,  the  rod 
is  brought  into  requisition  at  once ;  and,  if 
all  goes  well,  by  the  time  the  cook  is  ready 
for  them,  there  are  enough  fish  for  the 
crowd. 

Flies,  as  a  general  thing,  are  rather  a  de- 
lusion to  the  angler  than  a  snare  for  the 
fish.  The  accepted  bait  is  the  grasshopper, 
except  when  there  are  great  numbers  of  this 
insect,  in  which  case  the  fish  are  all  so  well 
fed  that  they  will  not  bite.  The  best  fish- 
ing any  party  that  I  was  with  ever  had  was 
in  Wyoming,  along  the  head-waters  of  the 
Green  river,  and  in  eastern  Idaho,  on  the 
tributaries  of  the  Snake.  That  region,  the 
entomologists  say,  is  the  nursery  of  all  the 
'hopper  hordes  which  devastate  the  crops  of 
Dakota,  Colorado  and  Kansas,  but  when  we 
were  there  it  was  so  difficult  to  find  bait  that 
we  used  to  keep  our  eyes  open  all  day,  and 
pounce  upon  every  grasshopper  we  could 
find,  saving  them  for  the  evening's  fishing. 
The  usual  catch  was  salmon-trout — great 
two  and  three-pounders,  gleaming,  speckled, 
and  inside  golden  pink, — that  sunset  color 
called  "  salmon."  They  were  not  gamy, 
though,  and  we  were  glad  of  it,  since  the 
object  was  not  sport,  but  the  despised  "  pot." 
It  really  was  more  exciting  to  capture  the 
lively  bait  than  it  was  to  hook  the  trout. 
In  the  southern  Rocky  Mountains  we  got 
the  true  brook-trout,  of  smaller  size,  but 
of  excellent  flavor!  The  largest  I  ever  saw 
came  from  the  upper  Rio  Grande,  where  a 
charming  little  ranch  woman  fried  them  for 
us, — in  commemoration  of  which  the  canon 
where  they  lurked  was  named  "  Irene." 
A  rapid  decapitation  and  splitting  finished 
the  dressing.  The  flesh  was  always  hard 
and  firm  and  white,  as  it  ought  to  be  in  a 
fish  born  and  bred  in  snow-water.  If  by 
chance  any  were  left  over,  they  made  most 
toothsome  sandwiches  for  the  noon-day 
lunch,  especially  if  (as  was  once  our  happy 


128 


ROCKY  MOUNTAIN  COOKERY. 


lot)  there  was  currant  jelly  to  put  between 
the  bread  and  the  backbone. 

But  all  this  happens  while  the  cook  gets 
his  fire  well  a-going.  That  accomplished, 
and  two  square  bars  of  three-quarters  inch 
iron  laid  across  the  trench,  affording  a  firm 
resting-place  for  the  kettles,  the  stove  is 
complete.  He  sets  a  pail  of  water  on  to 
heat,  jams  his  bake-oven  well  into  the  coals 
on  one  side,  buries  the  cover  of  it  in  the 
other  side  of  the  fire,  and  gets  out  his  long 
knife.  Going  to  the  cargo,  he  takes  a  side 
of  bacon  out  of  its  gunny-bag,  and  cuts  as 
many  slices  as  he  needs,  saving  the  rind  to 
grease  his  oven.  Then  he  is  ready  to  make 
his  bread. 

Flour  is  more  portable  than  pilot  biscuit; 
therefore  warm,  light  bread,  freshly  made 
morning  and  night,  has  gratefully  succeeded 
hard-tack  in  all  mining  and  mountain  camps. 
Sometimes   a  large  tin   pan  is  carried,  in 
which   to  mould   the  bread;   but  often   a 
square  half-yard  of  canvas  kept  for  the  pur- 
pose, and  laid  in  a  depression  in  the  ground, 
forms  a  sufficiently  good  bowl,  and  takes  up 
next  to  none  of  the  precious  room.     When  a 
bread-pan  is  taken  it  is  lashed  bottom  up  on 
top  of  the  kitchen-mule's  pack.     If  it  breaks 
loose  and  slips  down  on  his  rump,  or  dan- 
gles against  his  hocks,  there  is  likely  to  be 
some  fun ;  and  when  a  sudden  squall  sweeps 
down  from  the  high  mountains,  and  the  hail- 
stones beat  a  devil's  tattoo  on  that  hollow 
pan,  the  mule  under  it  goes  utterly  crazy. 
The  canvas  bread-pan  is  therefore  preferred. 
Sometimes  even  this  is  dispensed  with,  and 
the  bread  is  mixed  up  with  water  right  in  the 
top  of  the  flour-bag,  and  is  moulded  on  the 
cover  of  a  box  or  some  other  smooth  sur- 
face.    Baking-powder,  not  yeast,  is  used,  of 
course.     This  species  of  leaven,  of  which 
there  are  many  varieties,  is  put  up  in  round 
tin  boxes.     You  find  these  boxes  scattered 
from  end  to  end  of  the  territories,  and  form- 
ing gleaming  barricades  around  all  the  vil- 
lages.    The  miners  convert  them  to  all  sorts  of 
utilities,  from  flying  targets  to  safes  for  gold- 
dust;   and   one  man   in  Colorado   Springs 
collected  enough  of  them,  and  of  fruit-cans, 
to  shingle  and  cover  the  sides  of  his  house. 
There  seems  now  to  be  found  no  region  so 
wild,  no    dell   so    sequestered,  that   these 
glittering   mementoes  do   not   testify  to  a 
previous   invasion;    on  the  highest  storm- 
splintered  pinnacle  of  Mt.  Lincoln,  I  dis- 
covered a  baking-powder  can  tucked  into  a 
cranny  as  a  receptacle  for  the  autographs  of 
adventurous  visitors. 

Sometimes   the    cook    used  the    Dutch 


Dake-oven  which  every  one  knows, — a  shal- 
ow  iron  pot,  with  a  close  fitting  iron  cover 
upon  which  you  can  pile  a  great  thickness 
of  coals,  or   can    build    a   miniature    fire. 
Having  greased  the  inside  of  the  oven  with 
a  bacon-rind,  bread  bakes  quickly  and  safely. 
A    better    article,    however,    results    from 
another  method.     Mould  your  bread  well, 
lay  the  round  loaf  in  the  skillet  and  hold 
it  over  the  fire,  turning  the  loaf  occasionally, 
until  it  is  somewhat  stiff;  then  take  it  out, 
prop  it  upright  before  the  coals  with  the  help 
of  a  twig,  and  turn  it  frequently.     It  is  soon 
done  through  and  through,  and  on  both  sides 
alike.     Sometimes  we  had  biscuits  made  in 
the  same  way,  but  these  were  more  trouble- 
some, and  the  one  great  object  in  the  prep- 
aration  of  dinner   after  a  day's   riding  or 
climbing  is  speed ;  men  must  eat  heartily  in 
this  oxygen-consuming  west,  and  are  eager 
to  discharge  that  duty ;  we  invariably  found 
ourselves  traveling  in  a  particularly  hungry 
latitude.     Occasionally,   also,  there   was  a 
corn-dodger  by  way  of  variety,  and  a  pound 
cake  of  maple  sugar  would  be  melted  into 
syrup. 

The  table  furniture,  and  a  large  portion 
of  the  small  groceries,  such  as  salt,  pepper, 
mustard,  etc.,  are  carried  in  two  red  boxes, 
each  two  and  a  half  feet  long,  one  and  a 
half  feet  broad,  and  a  foot  high.  Each  box 
is  covered  by  a  thin  board,  which  sets  in  flush 
with  the  top  of  the  box,  and  also  by  two  others 
hinged  together  and  to  the  edge  of  the  box. 
Having  got  his  bread  a-baking,  the  cook 
sets  the  two  boxes  a  little  way  apart,  unfolds 
the  double  covers  backward  until  they  rest 
against  each  other,  letting  the  ends  be  sup- 
ported on  a  couple  of  stakes  driven  into 
the  ground,  and  over  the  whole  spreads  an 
enameled  cloth.  He  thus  has  a  table  two 
and  a  half  feet  high,  one  and  a  half  feet  wide 
and  six  feet  long.  Tin  and  iron  ware  chiefly 
constitute  the  table  furniture,  so  that,  as  fre- 
quently happens,  the  mule  may  roll  a  hun- 
dred feet  or  so  down  the  mountain  and  not 
break  the  dishes. 

His  table  set,  John  returns  to  his  fire, 
and  very  soon  salutes  our  happy  ears  with 
his  stentorian  voice  in  lieu  of  gong: 
"Grub  P-i-i-i-le!" 

Coffee  is  the  main  item  on  our  bill  of  fare. 
It  is  water,  and  milk,  and  whisky,  and 
medicine,  combined.  Ground  and  browned 
in  camp,  made  in  generous  quantity  ovei 
the  open  fire,  settled  by  a  dash  of  cole 
water  and  drunk  without  milk,  it  is  a  cuj 
of  condensed  vigor,  the  true  elixir  -vita,  i 
perpetual  source  of  comfort  and  strength, 


ROCKY  MOUNTAIN  COOKERY. 


129 


Tea  is  pronounced  "no  good,"  and  choco- 
late is  only  used  to  distinguish  Sunday  by. 
Oh,  what  a  bitter  trial  it  was,  after  one 
particularly  hard  day's  work  in  Wyoming, 
and  a  stormy  day  at  that,  to  have  the 
steaming  and  fragrant  coffee-pail  kicked 
over  by  a  clumsy  foot!  There  was  an  irre- 
pressible howl  of  execration,  and  one  man's 
hand  actually  clutched  his  revolver. 

But  coffee,  though  the  mainstay,  is  not  all 
of  our  feast.  For  meat  we  have  bacon  and 
generally  steaks  or  roasted  ribs  of  elk,  mule- 
deer,  or  mountain  sheep,  with  fresh  crisp 
bread,  or  sometimes  wheaten  flapjacks,  made 
in  the  orthodox  way  and  properly  thrown 
into  the  air  during  the  cooking.  When, 
as  occasionally  happens,  two  parties  meet, 
the  rival  cooks  toss  the  flapjacks  to  each 
other,  when  they  require  turning,  so  that 
every  cake  begins  at  one  fire  and  is  finished 
at  the  other.  In  the  mining  camps  (it  is 
said)  they  toss  them  up  the  chimney  and 
catch  them  right-side  up  outside  the  door ! 
Butter  there  is  none,  nor  milk,  nor  potatoes, 
nor  vegetables,  except  rice  and  hominy;  but 
there  is  plenty  of  fruit  sauce — apricots, 
peaches,  prunes,  etc.,  which,  being  dried, 
are  very  portable,  and,  being  Californian, 
are  wonderfully  good.  For  dessert  we 
have  nothing  at  all  (and  are  content) 
save  when,  now  and  then,  the  cook  makes 
a  plum  duff  to  put  our  digestions  to  the 
test. 

But  I  had  nearly  forgotten  the  beans! 
A  camp  without  beans  would  be  a  curi- 
osity, though  a  doleful  one.  They  are 
at  once  the  vexation  and  the  comfort 
of  the  cook.  We  once  got  down  so 
low  in  our  supplies  that  nothing  remained 
but  lump-sugar  and  beans,  yet  nobody 
complained  much.  Beans  are  a  sort  of 
cook's  barometer.  Everybody  knows 
(though  few  remember)  that  the  higher 
above  the  level  of  the  sea  you  go  the 
lower  the  temperature  at  which  water  will 
boil.  When  you  get  up  to  ten  or  eleven 
thousand  feet  the  water  is  not  fairly  hot 
before  it  begins  a  lively  ebullition.  Some- 
times travelers  ate  at  this  height  for 
weeks  together,  and  it  is  hard  enough  to 
get  any  virtue  out  of  their  coffee,  let  alone 
out  of  such  tough  particles  of  nutriment 
as  dry  beans.  The  cook  therefore  keeps 
one  pail  for  his  beans,  and  cooks  them  for 
several  consecutive  days,  packing  them 
along  meanwhile;  at  the  end  of  a  week, 
perhaps,  if  he  is  faithful,  they  are  soft 
enough  to  serve  as  food.  Even  in  the 
towns  at  the  base  of  the  mountains,  a  dish 
VOL.  XX.— 9. 


of  pork  and  beans  is  the  result  of  three 
days'  steady  preparation. 

But  the  low  boiling  point  and  the  occa- 
sional scarcity  of  wood  and  water  are  not 
the  only  troubles  a  mountain  cook  has  to  con- 
tend with.  Sometimes  the  wind  sweeps  down 
and  blows  his  fire  nearly  all  away,  or 
sends  the  ashes  flying  in  such  clouds  as  to 
half  spoil  his  skill.  I  have  seen  viands  that 
were  hidden  in  a  whirlwind  of  dust  yet 
come  out  very  palatable.  Then  some- 
times everything  is  wet — the  ground  where 
you  halt,  the  fuel  you  seek,  the  sky  over- 
head. There  is  plenty  of  smoke,  but  little 
flame,  and  the  coals  are  quenched  by  a 
steady  rain.  Still,  if  the  cook  is  ingenious, 
and  you  are  willing  to  help,  you  will  manage 
to  get  a  good  meal.  What  matter  if  your 
bacon  and  coffee  and  apple-sauce  are  rained 
or  snowed  on  ?  The  water  is  clean  and  you 
are  saved  the  trouble  of  drinking. 

Under  how  many  varying  circumstances, 
then,  this  evening  meal  is  eaten!  Some- 
times, when  the  camp  is  stationary  for  two 
or  three  days,  in  a  pleasant  bower ;  next, 
out  on  the  dry  plains,  where  an  illimitable 
landscape  of  sere  grass  stretches  away  to 
where  the  delectable  mountains  lie  on  the 
snow-silvered  rim  of  the  world  ;  again,  it  is 
in  a  hot  valley  of  Arizona,  and  the  scalding 
alkali  dust  blows  in  your  face  and  filters 
through  your  food;  or  at  high  timber-line 
in  Colorado,  where  sleet  and  snow  contest 
the  passage  down  your  throat  with  rapidly 
cooling  coffee  and  chilly  bacon;  or  beside 
the  Yellowstone  in  August,  with  its  millions 
of  ravenous  flies  and  hordes  of  thirsty  mos- 
quitoes ;  or  it  is  anywhere  and  everywhere, 
with  the  royal  vigor  of  appetite  that  comes 
of  this  out-door  life,  and  the  marvelous 
grandeur  of  the  Rocky  Mountains  as  gar- 
niture for  your  dining-hall. 

Dinner  over  (and  much  as  our  bodies 
ached  with  ten  hours  in  the  saddle,  or  a 
day's  climb  to  make  some  topographical 
station,  the  brief  rest  and  the  help  of  the 
food  has  freshened  us  remarkably),  the  re- 
maining hour  or  two  of  daylight  is  employed 
in  odd  jobs — exploring  the  neighborhood, 
to  get  an  idea  of  next  day's  route  or  in 
search  of  the  natural  science  of  the  locality ; 
fishing,  mending  saddles  or  clothes  (hie  opus, 
hie  labor  est !},  in  making  beds,  writing 
letters,  and,  if  it  looks  like  rain,  in  putting 
up  the  little  dog-tents,  of  which  there  is  one 
for  each  two  of  us,  except  the  cook,  who  has 
a  tent  to  himself  and  his  comestibles.  This 
is  the  pleasant  hour  of  camp-life,  and  you 
forget  that  a  little  while  ago  you  were  vow- 


I3o 


ROCKY  MOUNTAIN  COOKERY. 


ing  that  if  ever  you  got  safely  home  you 
would  never  be  caught  out  again  on  such 
an  all-work,  no-play  expedition  as  this. 
Post-prandial  reflections  take  on  a  rosier 
hue,  and  your  pipe  never  tastes  sweeter 
than  now,  as  you  idly  creep  about  among 
the  brookside  willows  till  its  smoke  warms 
the  wings  of  the  birds  seeking  an  early  roost. 
You  come  back  to  camp,  just  as  the  sud- 
den darkness  falls,  to  find  all  quiet  and 
everybody  lounging  round  the  fire  where 
the  cook  is  preparing  for  the  morning  meal. 
This  done,  big  logs  are  piled  on  (unless  there 
are  hostile  Indians  near,  when  the  blaze  is 
extinguished  before  dark),  yarns  are  spun, 
and  presently  everybody  goes  to  bed. 

I  have  the  presumption  to  assume  that 
many  of  the  readers  of  the  foregoing  para- 
graphs would  enjoy  somewhat  similar  experi- 
ences, could  they  understand  how  to  do  so. 
The  trip  is  practicable,  easy,  and  not  very  ex- 
pensive, though  one  can  enlarge  upon  this 
latter  part  to  suit  his  purse.  There  are  tales 
extant,  all  through  the  mountains,  of  for- 
eigners who  have  camped  all  over  the  most 
remote  ranges  and  parks,  smoking  regalias 
from  morning  till  night,  and  opening  cham- 
pagne for  the  whole  party  every  day.  But 
this  is  not  my  idea  of  Rocky  Mountain 
living,  however  desirable  in  the  east.  In 
Denver,  for  instance,  the  fitting  out  of  ex- 
cursions is  coming  to  be  an  important  and 
special  feature  of  business.  A  party  of 
persons  arrives  from  the  Eastern  States,  or 
from  Europe,  in  July  or  August,  bent  upon 
a  hunting  and  fishing  trip  among  the  mount- 
ains. They  find  ready  for  them  a  strong, 
handsome  spring  wagon,  with  a  water- 
proof hood  of  canvas,  easy  seats,  a  provis- 
ion-chest which  unfolds  into  a  table,  a 
camp-stove,  tents,  and  so  on.  It  will  ac- 
commodate six  persons  in  great  comfort, 
and  can  be  rented  for  a  week,  or  a  number 
of  weeks,  at  an  average  total  cost  of  about 
five  dollars  a  day,  including  a  driver.  The 
tourists  can  go  where  they  please  and  do 
what  they  like.  If  they  carry  all  the  pro- 
visions and  other  things  for  an  extended 
trip,  as  is  the  favorite  method,  a  second, 
cheaper  baggage-wagon  will  be  required,  but 
other  plans  are  feasible.  Going  upon  such 
an  expedition  with  an  idea  of  being  boyish 
and  absurd,  and  having  just  as  foolish  and 
funny  a  time  as  the  changing  mood,  a 
naturalist's  enthusiasm,  or  an  artist's  pas- 
sion, directs,  the  mountain-bred  and  some- 
what bored  driver  will  no  doubt  be  found  a 
great  damper  upon  your  spirits  by  his  sneers 


and  grumblings.  My  earnest  advice  is  to 
thrash  him  soundly  at  about  the  second 
camp,  and  then  go  on  having  a  jolly  time 
just  as  though  nothing  had  happened ; 
before  applying  this  remedy,  nevertheless,  it 
would  be  well  to  be  quite  sure  of  your 
adversary,  for  these  western  men  are  like 
frogs,  in  that  you  can't  always  tell  by  the 
looks  of  them  how  far  or  how  much  they 
are  able  to  "jump,"  in  the  miner's  sense 
of  the  word. 

The  food  and  drink  for  such  a  party  is  a 
matter  purely  of  taste  and  pocket.  You 
may  live  on  corn-bread,  bacon  and  beans, 
or  you  may  be  served  like  gourmets  every 
day.  New  York  can  show  no  better 
selected  stocks  of  fancy  groceries  than 
Denver's  merchants  offer,  and  the  con- 
sumption of  them  in  the  course  of  a  year  is 
astonishing.  Except  a  few  staples,  the  out- 
fit is  put  up,  hermetically  sealed,  in  cans 
and  bottles  of  portable  shape,  and  costs  little. 
Beer  is  in  great  demand,  and  the  best  of 
wines  may  be  had.  The  merchants  have 
printed  a  variety  of  catalogues  and  price-lists, 
from  which  you  can  choose  your  supplies 
for  a  given  time,  of  a  given  character,  and 
find  them  in  good  shape  with  very  little 
trouble.  A  party  of  six  can  travel  through 
the  ranges  and  parks  for  three  months,  and 
live  like  nabobs,  for  about  $600.  Of  course, 
if  they  care  really  to  "  rough  it,"  they  can 
go  much  cheaper,  and  perhaps  in  the  end 
fare  no  worse  in  health  and  enjoyment. 

Transportation,  roof  and  kitchen  being 
thus  provided,  there  remains  the  outfit  of 
clothes,  bedding  and  provender.  As  for 
clothes,  the  oldest  and  strongest,  with 
plenty  of  heavy  under-flannel,  are  what  is 
wanted.  Buckskin,  elaborately  befringed, 
and  affected  by  some  new-comers,  is  a  de- 
lusion. 

Bedding  is  an  important  consideration. 
Its  amount  depends  on  where  you  are 
going  and  at  what  season.  In  the  high 
mountains  cold  storms  and  freezing  nights 
are  liable  to  come  any  time,  and  would 
better  be  prepared  for.  Having  secured  a 
water-proof  canvas  to  lay  underneath  and 
fold  up  over  your  couch,  as  a  coverlid,  the 
only  thing  needed  besides  is  blankets,  the 
number  of  which  will  depend  on  their 
quality.  The  best  California!!  blankets, 
thick  as  a  board  and  soft  and  pliable  as 
wool,  can  be  bought  for  ten  dollars  a  pair, 
and  a  poorer  quality  for  less.  Two  pairs 
of  the  best  sort  are  enough  for  almost  all 
occasions.  I  have  thus  slept  at  timber- 
line,  right  between  snow  banks  and  on  the 


ROCKY  MOUNTAIN  COOKERY. 


borders  of  an  .icy  lake,  with  various  other 
inclemencies  in  the  neighborhood,  night 
after  night,  with  perfect  comfort.  To  stitch 
your  blankets  into  a  bag  increases  their 
warmth,  and  when  you  get  through  you 
can  sell  them  at  a  small  discount,  if  you 
choose.  All  your  bedding  can  be  rolled 
into  a  compact  bundle,  and  stowed  away 
under  a  seat  of  the  wagon. 

The  next  question  is  the  one  of  food 
supply.  The  last  four  or  five  years  have 
made  a  great  change  in  regard  to  this,  as  I 
have  already  hinted.  The  bacon-and-beans 
era  has  disappeared,  except  in  the  annals 
of  the  wandering  "prospector,"  and  you 
may  take  to  camp  with  you  now  the  lux- 
uries of  your  home-table,  seasoned  with  the 
delight  of  out-door  cooking  and  the  gusto 
of  a  hearty  appetite.  Still  there  are  per- 
sons who,  from  motives  of  economy  or 
notions  of  heroism,  propose  to  live  frugally, 
and  trust  to  their  guns  and  fishing  tackle  for 
a  large  part  of  their  daily  repasts.  I  have, 
therefore,  thought  it  worth  while,  for  the 
assistance  of  both  these  classes  of  campers, 
to  give  a  notion  of  what  constitutes  a 
necessary,  and  what  makes  a  princely  com- 
missary's outfit,  with  the  approximate  costs 
of  each  at  Denver. 

Let  us  suppose  that  a  party  of  four 
young  men  propose  to  go  into  the  mount- 
ains for  one  month.  They  may  ride  on 
horseback,  in  which  case  they  will  take 
three  pack-mules  at  the  railway  terminus  to 
carry  tent,  bedding  and  provisions ;  or  they 
may  go  in  a  wagon,  and  act  as  their 
own  driver  and  cook.  They  insist  upon 
cheapness,  true  wild-wood  life,  and  propose 
to  trust  to  their  rifles.  In  buying,  therefore, 
they  consider  quality  as  well  as  quantity. 
Their  purchases  will  cost  as  follows  : 

Flour  (100  Ibs.) $  5.00 

Coffee,  tea  and  sugar 4-4-O 

Ham    and  bacon 14.00 

Beans,  rice,  corn-meal 2.80 

Syrup,  lard  and  condiments 3.20 

Crackers  and  baking-powder 3.20 

Potatoes  and  dried  fruit. 1.20 

Matches,  candles,  soap,  etc. i.oo 

$34.80 
These   are   jolly  fellows,    not   afraid    of 


weather,  and  taking  occasional  discomfort 
as  part  of  the  sport.  Ten  to  one  they  will 
have  more  fun  than  the  next  four,  who 
go  in  on  a  far  more  elaborate  plan  and  will 
be  hampered  by  forty  things  they  don't 
want — among  the  rest  bad  digestion.  Their 
provisions  are  in  greater  proportion  per  cap- 
ita, and  of  a  superior  grade.  The  list  is 
appended  : 

Flour  (120  Ibs.) $  7.20 

Coffee,  tea,  chocolate,  and  sugar 9.80 

Ham  and  bacon 16.00 

Beans,  rice,  and  oatmeal 4-4O 

Canned  fruit  and  vegetables 24.00 

Potted  meat,  soups,  and  jellies 18.40 

Preserves,  olives,  pickles,  sauce,  fancy  crack- 
ers, honey,  cheese  22.80 

Potatoes,    onions,   etc 2.00 

Yeast,  candles,  matches,  etc. 5.00 

$109.60 

Board  of  driver 30.00 

Hire  of  cook,  etc 50.00 

Purchases   of  fresh  beef,  butter,  eggs,   and 

milk .   20.00 


$209.60 

Between  these  two  estimates  there  is  a 
mean  which  each  party  may  find  for  itself. 
It  will  be  observed,  also,  that  no  account 
is  here  made  of  tobacco,  wine,  beer,  or  lem- 
ons. I  was  told  that  a  Prince  Somebody, 
— perhaps  a  relation  of  Mr.  Harte's  Cask- 
o'-whisky  family, — who  was  supposed  to  be 
something  unusual  as  a  connoisseur  of  wines, 
praised  very  highly  the  stock  to  be  obtained 
in  Denver.  The  beer  I  know  is  good,  for 
it  is  all  brought  from  St.  Louis  and  Milwau- 
kee. Prices  of  both  these  drinkables  rule 
about  as  in  New  York.  There  is  no  ac- 
count, either,  of  possible  railway  fares  and 
freight  charges  from  Denver  to  the  inland 
terminus  where  you  begin  your  tramp,  or 
of  the  cost  of  wagon  or  pack-mules,  hereto- 
fore mentioned. 

There  is  no  better  fun  in  the  world  than 
camping  in  the  Rockies,  and,  if  one  cares 
to  do  so,  he  can  live  cheaper  among  the 
mountains  than  in  the  city,  and  can  set  him- 
self a  far  better  table  in  the  wilderness  than 
any  French  waiter  will  lay  before  him,  for 
even  Delmonico  cannot  supply  elsewhere 
the  eager  zest  with  which  he  will  eat. 


I32 


CONGRESS  AND  INTERNATIONAL   COPYRIGHT. 


THE    LAST    HOUR. 

THE  long  day  dies  with  sunset  down  the  west; 

Comes  the  young  moon  through  violet  fields  of  air; 

A  fragrance  finer  than  the  south  winds  bear 
Breathes  from  the  sea — the  time  is  come  for  rest. 

I  wait.     Birds   nestward  fly  through  deepening  blue. 

O  heart!     Take  comfort,  peace  will  find   thee  too. 
For  lo !  between  the  lights,  when  shadows  wane, 

Heart  calls  to  heart  across  the  widening  breach 

Of  bitter  thought,  chill  touch,  and  jarring  speech, 
And  Love  cries  out  to  take  his  own  again. 

Give  me  the  kiss  of  peace. 

Hold  not  your  anger  after  the  spent  sun. 

Lo !     I  have  wrought  with  sorrow  all  the  day, 
With  tear- wet  cypress,  and  with  bitter  bay 

Bound  all  my  doors.     No  thread  of  song  has  run 
Beside  my  thought  to  lighten  it  for  me. 

Rise  up,  and  with  forgiveness  set  me  free. 

For  who  may  boast  a  gift  of  lengthened  breath  ? 
And,  lest  you  watch  to-morrow's  sun  arise 

Across  my  face,  new-touched  with  sudden  death 
And  the  mute  pathos  of  unanswering  eyes, 
Turn  not  aside  my  hand  outstretched,  or  smite 
The  yearning  heart.     Let  Love's  repentance  found 

Have  Love's  reward.     All  life  is  mixed  with  Fate. 

And,  O  beloved  !  Death's  angel  will  not  wait 
For  summoned  feet  to  haste  on  anxious  round 
With  quick  "  Forgive,  forgive,  we  pass  to-night !  " 

All  day  Regret  has  walked  and  talked  with  me, 

And,  lest  to-morrow  it  should  go  with  thee, 
Give  me  the  kiss  of  peace. 


CONGRESS  AND  INTERNATIONAL  COPYRIGHT. 


WASHINGTON  IRVING  humorously  attrib- 
uted his  literary  success  in  England  to  the 
fact  that  Englishmen  were  astonished  to  see 
an  American  with  a  quill  in  his  hand,  and 
not  on  his  head.  This  was  spoken  in  jest, 
but,  unfortunately,  there  was  some  cause 
for  the  remark.  Up  to  the  year  1819,  Con- 
gress had  failed  to  pass  a  copyright  law,  and 
our  publishers,  being  without  protection  or 
redress  in  law,  declined  to  purchase  Ameri- 
can books  when  they  had  the  pick  of  the 
world  for  nothing.  Congress  having  failed 
to  protect,  and  our  publishers  having  de- 
clined to  encourage,  American  literature,  the 
natural  talents  and  genius  of  our  people  re- 
mained latent  and  undeveloped.  Hence, 
toward  the  end  of  the  last  and  the  beginning 


of  the  present  century,  a  prejudice  against 
American  books  arose,  not  only  abroad 
but  at  home.  One  example  will  suffice. 
When  "  Marmion  "  took  the  world  by  storm, 
the  manager  of  a  Philadelphia  theater  em- 
ployed Major  Barker,  a  man  of  fine  literary 
ability,  to  dramatize  it.  The  manager  feared 
to  produce  the  play  as  the  work  of  an  Ameri- 
can, and,  having  had  it  carefully  packed  up 
with  the  imitations  of  the  English  postmarks, 
it  was  brought  out  as  an  English  production. 
It  was  a  great  success,  until  the  secret  leaked 
out,  when  the  public  immediately  discovered 
that  the  play  was  devoid  of  all  merit,  and  it 
had  to  be  withdrawn. 

The  constitution  expressly  declares   that 
"  Congress   shall   have  power  to   promote 


CONGRESS  AND  INTERNATIONAL    COPYRIGHT. 


the  progress  of  science  and  useful  arts,  by 
securing,  for  a  limited  time,  to  authors  and 
inventors,  exclusive  right  to  their  respective 
writings  and  inventions."  The  protection  of 
authors  from  any  infringement  of  their  rights 
is  clearly  within  the  design  of  the  constitu- 
tion. Yet  there  was  no  American  copyright 
law  passed  until  February  15,  1819.  By 
that  act  American  authors  and  their  assign- 
ees were  protected  in  their  rights.  But  that 
act  and  the  nine  subsequent  acts  had  the 
fatal  defect  of  refusing  protection  to  foreign 
authors.  Our  young  and  struggling  litera- 
ture was  thus  placed  in  competition  with  the 
mature  and  splendid  literature  of  Great 
Britain,  and  the  United  States  became  the 
"  intellectual  vassals  "  of  a  nation  we  had 
twice  beaten  in  war.  American  publishers 
printed  English  books  almost  exclusively; 
American  scholars  studied  English  editions 
of  the  ancient  classics ;  American  school- 
boys used  English  school-books;  English 
thinkers  guided  American  thought ;  our  lit- 
erary criticism  was  a  weak  dilution  of 'Eng- 
lish reviews.  But,  even  in  those  dark  hours  of 
literary  dependence,  the  light  of  our  native 
genius  occasionally  burst  forth,  and  some 
works  were  produced  which  the  world  will 
not  willingly  let  die.  These,  however,  were 
few  and  far  between  compared  with  the  mul- 
titude of  English  books  that  were  reprinted 
in  this  country.  American  publishers,  not 
having  to  pay  any  copvright  on  these  books, 
enjoyed  the  double  advantage  of  publisher 
and  author.  They  reaped  where  they  had 
not  sown.  The  Waverley  novels  and 
Byron's  poems  were  rich  mines  to  the  early 
American  publishers.  So,  also,  were  the 
novels  of  Bulwer,  Disraeli,  and  other  English 
writers.  In  fact,  it  was  the  regular  practice 
of  our  publishers  to  issue  cheap  editions  of 
all  popular  English  works  without  paying 
one  dollar  to  their  authors,  although  thou- 
sands of  copies  were  sold  in  this  country. 
American  authors  were  thus  excluded  from 
the  American  market,  while  English  authors 
received  no  compensation  for  sales  which 
yielded  a  handsome  profit  to  the  American 
publishers. 

The  first  trace  of  a  petition  to  Congress 
for  the  adoption  of  an  international  copy- 
right law  was  on  the  2d  of  February, 
1837,  when  Henry  Clay  presented  to  the 
Senate  an  address  of  fifty-seven  English  au- 
thors, representing  "  the  injury  to  their  rep- 
utation and  property  to  which  they  had  been 
long  exposed,  from  the  want  of  a  law  to 
secure  to  them  within  the  United  States  the 
exclusive  right  to  their  respective  writings, 


and  requesting  a  legislative  remedy." 
Among  the  distinguished  names  affixed  to 
this  petition  were  those  of  Thomas  Camp- 
bell, Samuel  Rogers,  Edward  Lytton  Bul- 
wer, Benjamin  Disraeli,  Thomas  Carlyle, 
Robert  Southey,  Henry  Hallam,  Maria 
Edgeworth,  and  Mary  Somerville.  The  ad- 
dress set  forth  that  "  American  authors  are 
injured  by  the  non-existence  of  the  desired 
law.  While  American  publishers  can  provide 
themselves  with  works  for  publication  by 
unjust  appropriation,  instead  of  by  equitable 
purchase,  they  are  under  no  inducement  to 
offer  to  American  authors  a  fair  remunera- 
tion for  their  labors."  The  address  closed 
by  citing  an  illustrious  example  of  the  in- 
justice of  a  refusal  of  copyright :  "  While 
the  works  of  Sir  Walter  Scott,  dear  alike  to 
your  country  and  to  ours,  were  read  from 
Maine  to  Georgia,  from  the  Atlantic  to  the 
Mississippi,  he  received  no  remuneration 
from  American  publishers  for  his  labors; 
yet  an  equitable  remuneration  might  have 
saved  his  life,  and  would,  at  least,  have  re- 
lieved its  closing  years  from  the  burden  of 
debts  and  destructive  toils." 

Mr.  Clay  introduced  the  petition  with  an 
earnest  speech,  in  which  he  said  that  honor, 
justice,  right  and  morality  demanded  such 
arlaw.  On  his  motion,  the  address  was  re- 
ferred to  a  select  committee  of  the  Senate. 
Messrs.  Clay,  Webster,  Preston,  Buchanan, 
Ewing  and  Ruggles  were  appointed  that 
committee.  On  the  i6th  of  February  Mr. 
Clay  made  a  report,  accompanied  by  a  bill 
to  amend  the  existing  copyright  law  of  the 
United  States.  The  following  extracts  from 
the  report  are  worthy  of  careful  attention : 

"  It  being  established  that  literary  property  is  enti- 
tled to  legal  protection,  it  results  that  this  protection 
ought  to  be  afforded  wherever  the  property  is  situ- 
ated. A  British  merchant  transmits  to  the  United 
States  a  bale  of  merchandise,  and  the  moment  it 
comes  within  the  jurisdiction  of  our  laws,  they  throw 
around  it  effectual  security.  But  if  the  work  of  a 
British  author  is  brought  to  the  United  States,  it  may 
be  appropriated  by  any  resident  here,  and  repub- 
lished  without  any  compensation  whatever  being 
made  to  the  author.  We  should  be  all  shocked  if 
the  law  tolerated  the  least  invasion  of  the  rights  of 
property  in  the  case  of  merchandise,  whilst  those 
which  justly  belong  to  the  works  of  authors  are  ex- 
posed to  daily  violation,  without  the  possibility  of 
their  invoking  the  aid  of  the  law. 

"  The  committee  think  that  this  distinction  in  the  con- 
dition of  the  two  descriptions  of  property  is  not  just. 
Already  the  principle  has  been  adopted  in  the  patent 
laws  of  extending  their  benefits  to  foreign  inventions. 
It  is  but  carrying  out  the  same  principle  to  extend 
the  benefit  of  our  copyright  law  to  foreign  authors." 

The  bill  reported  by  Mr.  Clay  provided 
that  the  copyright  law  of  the  United  States, 


134 


CONGRESS  AND  INTERNATIONAL    COPYRIGHT. 


passed  February  3,  1831,  should  be  so 
amended  as  to  extend  its  benefits  to  the  sub- 
jects of  Great  Britain  and  Ireland,  or  France, 
upon  depositing  a  printed  copy  of  the  title 
of  the  book,  or  other  work  for  which  a  copy- 
right is  desired,  in  the  clerk's  office  of  any 
district  court  in  the  United  States,  and  com- 
plying with  the  other  requirements  of  the 
law,  provided,  that  the  protection  secured 
by  the  bill  should  not  extend  to  those  works 
published  prior  to  its  passage,  and  that  an 
edition  of  the  work  for  which  protection  was 
sought  should  be  published  in  the  United 
States  simultaneously  with  its  issue  in  the 
foreign  country,  or  within  one  month  after 
depositing  the  title,  etc.  This  bill  failed  to 
receive  the  attention  of  the  Senate,  and 
Congress  adjourned  without  action  on  the 
matter. 

On  the  24th  of  April,  1838,  Edward  Ev- 
erett memorialized  Congress  for  an  amend- 
ment of  the  then  existing  copyright  law,  so 
as  to  extend  its  benefits  to  all  authors,  na- 
tive and  foreign,  for  works  simultaneously 
printed  and  published  in  this  country.  At 
the  same  session,  Mr.  Clay  presented  the 
petition  of  Henry  Ogden  and  others,  of  New 
York,  for  an  international  copyright  law. 
A  memorial  from  Philadelphia  stated  the 
following  unanswerable  argument  in  favor 
of  the  proposed  international  copyright  law  : 

"The  copyright  law  of  the  United  States  is  an 
anomaly  in  civilized  legislation.  The  effect  of  lim- 
iting the  protection  of  copyright  to  citizens  or  resi- 
dents is  as  impolitic  as  it  is  unjust.  It  was,  no 
doubt,  introduced  from  the  kindest  feelings  toward 
our  native  authors,  although  it  has  been  ruinous  in 
the  extreme  to  their  interests.  Under  this  clause, 
the  publishers  of  the  United  States,  with  some  few 
honorable  exceptions,  become  but  mere  re-pub- 
lishers of  foreign  books.  Confidently  relying  on 
the  justice  of  our  appeal,  we  beg  respectfully  to  so- 
licit the  extension  of  the  advantages  of  copyright  to 
all,  native  or  foreign,  resident  or  non-resident. 
This  measure  (virtually  an  international  copyright 
law)  is  not  only  demanded  by  a  just  regard  to  the 
property  of  foreign  writers,  but  it  is  imperatively 
required  for  the  advancement  of  our  own  literature. 

These  various  efforts  to  secure  an  interna- 
tional copyright  law  attracted  general  at- 
tention, and  soon  counter-petitions  were 
pouring  into  Congress.  Memorials  against 
the  law  were  presented  from  several  Boston 
book-sellers ;  from  the  New  York  Typo- 
graphical Society ;  from  a  number  of  pub- 
lishers of  Hartford  and  other  cities.  These 
different  petitions,  for  and  against  an  inter- 
national copyright  law,  were  referred  to  the 
Committee  on  Patents,  as  Mr.  Clay's  select 
committee  on  the  subject  had  expired. 
On  the  28th  of  June,  1838,  the  committee 


reported  back  Mr.  Clay's  original  bill,  with 
a  recommendation  that  it  do  not  pass.  The 
report  sets  forth  that  "  this  government  is  un- 
der no  obligations  to  extend  to  the  subjects 
of  any  foreign  power  exclusive  copyright 
privileges."  It  then  gives  the  economical 
argument  advanced  in  all  the  petitions 
against  the  law,  stating  that  200,000  persons 
and  $40,000,000  of  capital  were  interested 
in  book- making  in  the  United  States,  and 
asserting  that "  by  the  enactment  of  an  in- 
ternational copyright  law  in  favor  of  British 
authors,  the  profits  of  trade  and  manufact- 
ure, and  all  the  benefits  arising  from  en- 
couragement to  national  industry,  would 
be,  for  us,  on  the  wrong  side  of  the  ledger." 
Without  examining  any.  of  the  proposed 
means  of  preventing  this,  the  report  con- 
tinues :  "  It  may  be  asked  if  we  should 
not  have  an  offset  in  similar  advantages 
under  the  copyright  law  of  Great  Britain. 
The  answer  is  found  in  the  significant  inquiry 
of  the  British  reviewer — '  Who  reads  an 
American  book  ? ' " 

This  argument  was  certainly  not  only  very 
unpatriotic  but  also  very  unjust.  The  cele- 
brated query  of  Sydney  Smith — "  Who  reads 
an  American  book  ?  " — was  made  in  the  "  Ed- 
inburgh Review"  in  1820,  and  even  at  that 
early  day,  American  literature  was  not  so  bar- 
ren as  the  "  wittiest  of  divines  "  wished  to 
insinuate.  And  by  1838,  James  Fenimore 
Cooper  had  written  his  best  novels,  Haw- 
thorne, his  "  Twice  Told  Tales,"  William  Gil- 
more  Simms,  his  finest  romances,  John  P. 
Kennedy,  his  "  Swallow  Barn,"  "  Horse- 
Shoe  Robinson  "and  "Rob  of  the  Bowl"; 
Washington  Irving,  in  addition  to  Knicker- 
bocker's "History  of  New  York"  and  the 
"  Sketch-Book,"  published  before  1820,  had 
delighted  the  world  with"  Bracebridge  Hall," 
first  published  by  John  Murray  (who  paid  the 
author  ^1,000),  the  "  Tales  of  a  Traveler," 
(for  which  the  same  publisher  paid  him 
^1,500),  and  the "  Life  and  Voyages  of 
Columbus,"  also  published  in  London,  and 
which  yielded  3,000  guineas.  In  1838, 
Bryant  and  Longfellow  had  already  be- 
gun those  literary  careers  which  have 
been  so  full  of  splendor ;  Richard  Henry 
Dana,  Joseph  Rodman  Drake  and  Fitz- 
Greene  Halleck  had  made  their  mark; 
Oliver  Wendell  Holmes  was  a  rising 
young  poet;  John  G.  Whittier  had  writ- 
ten "  Legends  of  New  England " ;  N. 
P.  Willis  had  published  his  "  Scriptural 
Poems";  Bancroft,  the  first  volume  of  his 
"  History  of  the  United  States  " ;  Prescott, 
his  "  Ferdinand  and  Isabella  " ;  Sparks,  his 


CONGRESS  AND  INTERNATIONAL    COPYRIGHT. 


most  important  historical  and  biographical 
works,  and  Emerson  had  attracted  much 
attention  by  his  novel  transcendental  views. 

These  are  the  leading  American  authors 
only,  whose  works  were  before  the  world 
in  1838,  when  the  American  Senate  refused 
to  pass  a  bill  looking  to  an  international 
copyright.  The  American  Congress  has 
never  been  favorable  to  American,  or,  in 
fact,  any  literature.  It  has  always  been  in- 
clined to  look  upon  men  of  letters  as  drones 
in  our  busy  hives. 

The  wealthy  and  influential  opponents  of 
international  copyright  having  succeeded  in 
defeating  the  bill-,  the  matter  rested  for  four 
years.  In  January,  1842,  Mr.  Clay  again 
introduced  his  bill  asking  for  copyright  pro- 
tection to  foreign  authors,  under  certain 
conditions.  It  was  referred  to  that  tomb 
of  the  Capulets,  the  Judiciary  Committee. 

On  the  i4th  of  March,  1842,  a  petition 
from  Washington  Irving  and  twenty-four 
other  citizens,  praying  for  the  adoption  of 
an  International  Copyright  law,  was  pre- 
sented in  the  House  of  Representatives,  and 
referred  to  a  select  committee,  including 
John  P.  Kennedy  and  Robert  C.  Winthrop. 
Owing  to  the  unfavorable  view  of  the  mat- 
ter by  the  Senate  Committee,  the  House 
Committee  made  no  report.  We  find,  in 
the  Senate  report  of  May  n,  that  "  Mr. 
Preston  inquired  of  the  chairman  of  the 
Judiciary  Committee,  what  had  become  of 
the  international  copyright  bill  referred  to 
that  committee  four  months  before."  Mr. 
Berrien  replied  that  "the  committee  had 
considered  the  subject,  and  were  ready  to 
report  adversely  two  months  ago,  but  the 
report  was  withheld  solely  at  the  instance 
of  the  Senator  who  introduced  the  bill." 
Whereupon,  Mr.  Buchanan  and  several 
senators  expressed  in  an  audible  tone  their 
satisfaction  at  hearing  that  the  committee 
would  report  adversely  to  the  passage  of 
the  bill. 

About  the  time  when  Mr.  Clay's  bill  had 
attracted  general  attention  to  the  matter  of 
international  copyright,  Washington  Irving 
addressed  the  following  letter  to  Lewis 
Gaylord  Clarke,  then  and  for  many  years 
afterward  editor  of  the  "Knickerbocker 
Magazine": 

"  Sir  : — Having  seen  it  stated,  more  than  once,  in 
the  public  papers,  that  I  declined  subscribing  my 
name  to  the  petition  presented  to  Congress  during 
a  former  session,  for  an  act  of  international  copy- 
right, I  beg  leave,  through  your  pages,  to  say,  in 
explanation,  that  I  declined  not  from  any  hostility 
or  indifference  to  the  object  of  the  petition,  in  favor 
of  which  my  sentiments  have  always  been  openly 


expressed,  but  merely  because  I  did  not  relish  the 
phraseology  of  the  petition,  and  because  I  expected 
to  see  the  measure  pressed  from  another  quarter. 
I  wrote  about  the  same  time,  however,  to  members 
of  Congress  in  support  of  the  application. 

"  As  no  other  petition  has  been  presented  to  me 
for  signature,  and  as  silence  on  my  part  may  be 
misconstrued,  so  far  as  my  name  may  be  thought 
of  any  value,  I  now  enroll  it  among  those  who  pray 
most  earnestly  to  Congress  for  this  act  of  interna- 
tional equity.  I  consider  it  due  not  only  to  foreign 
authors,  to  whose  lucubrations  we  are  so  deeply 
indebted  for  constant  instruction  and  delight,  but  to 
our  own  native  authors,  who  are  implicated  in  the 
effects  of  the  wrong  done  by  our  present  laws. 

"  For  myself,  my  literary  career  as  an  author  is 
drawing  to  a  close,  and  cannot  be  much  affected  by 
any  disposition  of  this  question ;  but  we  have  a 
young  literature  springing  up,  and  daily  unfolding 
itself  with  wonderful  energy  and  luxuriance,  which, 
as  it  promises  to  shed  a  grace  and  luster  upon  the 
nation,  deserves  all  its  fostering  care.  How  much 
this  growing  literature  may  be  retarded  by  the 
present  state  of  our  copyright  law,  I  had  recently 
an  instance  in  the  cavalier  treatment  of  a  work  of 
merit,  written  by  an  American,  who  had  not  yet 
established  a  commanding  name  in  the  literary 
market.  I  undertook,  as  a  friend,  to  dispose  of  it 
for  him,  but  found  it  impossible  to  get  an  offer 
from  any  of  our  principal  publishers.  They  even 
declined  to  publish  it  at  the  author's  cost,  alleging 
that  it  was  not  worth  their  while  to  trouble  them- 
selves about  native  works  of  doubtful  success,  while 
they  could  pick  and  choose  among  the  successful 
works  daily  poured  out  by  the  British  press  for 
which  they  had  nothing  to  pay  for  copyright. 

"  This  simple  fact  spoke  volumes  tome,  as  I  trust 
it  will  to  all  who  peruse  these  lines.  I  do  not  mean 
to  enter  into  the  discussion  of  a  subject  that  has 
already  been  treated  so  voluminously.  I  will 
briefly  observe  that  I  have  seen  few  arguments  ad- 
vanced against  the  proposed  act  that  ought  to 
weigh  with  intelligent  and  high-minded  men,  while 
I  have  noticed  some  that  have  been  urged  so  sordid 
and  selfish  in  their  nature,  and  so  narrow  in  the 
scope  of  their  policy,  as  almost  to  be  insulting  to 
those  to  whom  they  were  addressed.  • 

"  I  trust  that,  whenever  this  question  comes  before 
Congress,  it  will  at  once  receive  an  action  prompt 
and  decided,  and  be  carried  by  an  overwhelming  if 
not  unanimous  vote,  worthy  of  an  enlightened,  a 
just,  and  a  generous  nation. 

"Your  obedient  servant, 
"WASHINGTON  IRVING." 

On  the  1 5th  of  December,  1843,  Rufus 
Choate  presented  to  the  Senate  a  memorial 
from  about  one  hundred  American  publishers 
and  book-sellers,  asking  for  the  passage  of 
an  international  copyright  law.  Among  the 
signatures  to  this  petition  were  the  follow- 
ing :  D.  Appleton  &  Co.,  Crocker  &  Brews- 
ter,  A.  S.  Barnes  &  Co.,  J.  B.  Lippincott  & 
Co.,  Wm.  D.  Ticknor  &  Co.,  and  John  F. 
Trow.  At  the  same  time,  John  Quincy 
Adams  presented  a  similar  petition  to  the 
House,  which  was  referred  to  a  select  com- 
mittee. Nothing  came  of  either  of  these 
petitions. 

For  three  years  the  matter  slept.     On  the 


'36 


CONGRESS  AND  INTERNATIONAL    COPYRIGHT, 


26th  of  January,  1846,  the  various  memo- 
rials on  the  file  of  the  Senate  in  relation  to 
copyright  were  referred  to  a  select  commit- 
tee, which  failed  to  report.  On  the  22d 
of  March,  1848,  a  petition  was  presented  in 
the  House  from  John  Jay,  William  Cullen 
Bryant,  and  others,  asking  for  the  passage 
of  an  international  copyright  law.  It  was 
referred  to  a  select  committee  of  nine,  con- 
sisting of  Messrs.  T.  Butler  King,  George 
P.  Marsh,  C.  J.  Ingersoll,  Horace  Mann, 
Isaac  E.  Morse,  Henry  W.  Hilliard,  A.  D. 
Sims,  W.  B.  Preston,  and  Henry  C.  Murphy, 
the  majority  of  whom  were  authors,  and,  of 
course,  naturally  interested  in  such  a  law. 
But  no  report  was  made,  although  the  ses- 
sion was  prolonged  until  the  i4th  of  August. 

On  the  igth  of  July,  1852,  Mr.  Sumner 
presented  a  petition  to  the  Senate  signed  by 
Washington  Irving,  James  Fenimore  Coop- 
er, William  H.  Prescott,  and  others,  asking 
for  an  international  copyright  law.  It  was 
referred  to  the  joint  committee  on  the  Library 
of  Congress,  where  it  remained  buried. 

One  of  the  last  official  acts  of  Daniel 
Webster,  as  Secretary  of  State,  was  the 
opening  of  a  negotiation  with  Mr.  Cramp- 
ton,  the  British  minister,  to  protect  the  liter- 
ary interests  of  the  United  States  and  Great 
Britain.  Unfortunately,  Mr.  Webster  died 
before  the  completion  of  his  noble  purpose, 
and  the  matter  was  allowed  to  drop.  The 
subject  slept  the  sleep  of  the  unjust  until 
1858,  when  the  Hon.  E.  Joy  Morris,  of 
Philadelphia,  a  member  of  the  House,  intro- 
duced a  bill  to  provide  for  an  international 
copyright  law.  It  was  referred  to  the  Li- 
brary Committee.  No  report  being  made, 
Mr.  Morris  renewed  the  introduction  of  the 
bill  two  years  later,  February  16,  1860,  and 
it  was  referred  to  the  Committee  on  Foreign 
Affairs.  The  most  exciting  Presidential  elec- 
tion ever  known  in  this  country  supervened, 
followed  by  four  years  of  civil  war,  and 
during  that  period  no  attention  was  paid  to 
the  subject. 

In  the  winter  of  1866,  a  determined  effort 
was  made  to  induce  Congress  to  render  the 
long  delayed  justice  to  native  and  foreign 
authors,  by  the  passage  of  an  international 
copyright  bill.  This  was  the  most  compre- 
hensive bill  upon  the  subject  which  had 
yet  been  brought  before  Congress.  It  con- 
tained four  sections,  the  first  of  which 
amended  the  existing  law  by  striking  out  all 
that  restricts  its  benefits  to  residents  of  the 
United  States.  The  second  section  was 
designed  to  protect  the  public,  by  requiring 
the  foreign  author  to  publish  here  at  the 


same  time  that  he  did  at  home,  or  within 
a  year  after,  depositing  his  title  at  once. 
The  third  section  limited  the  protection  of 
the  law  to  books  published  after  the  act 
went  into  effect.  The  fourth  section  pro- 
vided that  no  foreign  author  should  be  pro- 
tected here,  unless  the  nation  or  government 
of  which  said  author  was  a  citizen  or  subject 
should  confer  upon  citizens  of  the  United 
States  the  same  or  equal  privileges. 

The  petitions  accompanying  the  above 
bill  set  forth  that  "  the  true  interests  of 
American  literature  demand  the  adoption 
of  an  international  copyright  law  by  this 
government  and  Great  Britain,"  and  prayed 
for  the  "  enactment  of  such  measure  or  meas- 
ures as  will  secure  at  the  earliest  possible 
day  the  consideration  of  such  a  law  by  the 
two  governments."  These  petitions  were 
signed  by  some  of  the  most  distinguished 
literary  men  of  America,  including  Henry  W. 
Longfellow,  William  Cullen  Bryant,  James 
Russell  Lowell,  Parke  Godwin,  Jared  Sparks, 
James  Parton,  Bayard  Taylor,  N.  P.  Willis, 
George  S.  Hillard,  Oliver  Wendell  Holmes, 
Edwin  P.  Whipple,  and  Edwin  L.  Godkin. 
Among  the  publishers  who  signed,  were 
George  P.  Putnam,  Hurd  &  Houghton, 
Charles  Scribner  &  Co.,  Bunce  &  Hunting- 
ton,  and  Leypoldt  &  Holt. 

Mr.  Sumner,  in  offering  the  petitions, 
said  :  "  Some  fourteen  years  ago,  I  had  the 
honor  of  presenting  a  similar  petition  signed 
by  Washington  Irving,  J.  Fenimore  Cooper 
and  William  H.  Prescott.  Those  illus- 
trious persons  have  passed  away  without 
seeing  the  prayer  they  addressed  to  Con- 
gress answered.  I  trust  that  some,  at  least, 
of  these  numerous  petitioners  may  see  their 
prayer  answered  before  they,  too,  shall  have 
passed  away."  As  requested  by  Mr.  Sum- 
ner, and  as  desired  by  the  petitioners,  the 
matter  was  referred  to  the  Committee  on 
Foreign  Affairs,  of  which  he  was  the  chair- 
man. 

Hon.  John  P.  Baldwin,  of  Worcester, 
Mass.,  was  the  next  champion  of  interna- 
tional copyright.  He  was  permitted  by  the 
Joint  Committee  on  the  Library  to  report  a 
bill,  November  2ist,  1868;  but  he  himself 
states,  in  a  private  letter,  that  he  hoped  for 
little  more  than  a  public  discussion  of  the 
subject.  Even  this  was  put  out  of  the 
question  by  the  long  impeachment  trial  of 
President  Johnson,  which  presently  followed. 
Mr.  Baldwin  attributes  the  apathy  of  Con- 
gress chiefly  to  the  opposition  of  "  most  of 
the  great  publishing  houses,"  and  to  the  fear 
of  Republican  leaders  that  the  passage  of 


CONGRESS  AND  INTERNATIONAL    COPYRIGHT. 


such  a  bill  "  would  furnish  occasion  for  the 
opposition  party  to  make  political  capital." 

In  1872-3,  the  International  Copyright 
question  was  very  generally  discussed  in 
Great  Britain  and  the  United  States.  A 
memorial  of  British  authors  on  the  subject 
was  published,  strongly  urging  a  copyright 
convention  between  the  two  countries,  for 
the  protection  of  authors  independent  of 
publishers.  The  memorial  clearly  states  the 
facts  in  the  following  paragraph  : 

"Americans  distinguish  between  the  author,  as 
producing  the  ideas,  and  the  publisher,  as  producing 
the  material  vehicle  by  which  these  ideas  are  con- 
veyed to  readers.  They  admit  the  claim  of  the  Brit- 
ish author  -to  be  paid  by  them  for  his  brain-work. 
The  claim  of  the  British  book-manufacturer  to  a 
monopoly  of  their  book-market,  they  do  not  admit. 
To  give  the  British  author  a  copyright  is  simply  to 
agree  that  the  American  publisher  shall  pay  him  for 
work  done.  To  give  the  British  publisher  a  copy- 
right is  to  open  the  American  market  to  him  on 
terms  which  prevent  the  American  publisher  from 
competing.  Free  competition  with  the  British  book- 
manufacturer  would  be  fatal  to  the  American  book- 
manufacturer.  It  is  clear,  therefore,  that  the 
Americans  have  strong  reasons  for  refusing  to  permit 
the  British  publisher  to  share  in  the  copyright  which 
they  are  willing  to  grant  to  the  British  author." 

Among  the  fifty  names  to  this  petition  were 
those  of  Thomas  Carlyle,  Herbert  Spencer, 
John  Ruskin,  Thomas  Hughes,  John  Mor- 
ley,  William  Black,  Philip  James  Bailey, 
James  Martineau,  Charles  Darwin,  John 
Tyndall,  Shirley  Brooks,  Blanchard  Jerrold, 
George  Augustus  Sala,  Edmund  Yates,  Har- 
riet Martineau,  Robert  Buchana-n  and  Justin 
McCarthy,  all  of  whom  had  suffered  more 
or  less  from  the  "  appropriation  "  of  their 
works  by  American  publishers. 

About  the  same  time  that  this  memorial 
of  British  authors  was  published,  a  com- 
mittee of  American  authors  and  publishers 
was  before  the  Senate  committee  on  the 
library,  and  accepted  the  bill  known  as  Mr. 
William  H.  Appleton's  bill,  which  extended 
the  privileges  of  copyright  (including  the 
rights  over  translation)  to  foreign  authors, 
provided  simply  that  the  reprints  or  trans- 
lations were  manufactured  in  this  country. 
This  bill  shared  the  fate  of  all  the  previous 
attempts  in  the  same  direction. 

The  fact  is,  the  subject  of  international 
copyright  has  never  yet  been  thoroughly  and 
intelligently  discussed  in  Congress.  It  seems 
impossible  to  convince  that  honorable  body 
that  American  literature  can  be  benefited 
by  extending  copyright  protection  to  foreign 
authors.  It  is  only  necessary  to  refer  to 
the  adverse  report  of  Mr.  Morrill  on  inter- 
national copyright,  made  to  the  United 


States  Senate  in  1873.  The  learned  Sena- 
tor, after  stating  that  the  Constitution  gives 
to  Congress  the  power  of  enacting  copy- 
right laws,  "  to  promote  the  progress  of 
science,"  solemnly  asked,  "  How  will  an 
international  copyright  law  promote  the 
progress  of  science  ?  If  an  author  is  already 
incited  to  mental  labor  by  "the  laws  of  his 
own  country,  how  will  an  international 
copyright  operate  as  a  further  incitement  ?  " 
The  satisfaction  of  knowing  that  his  work 
— upon  which  he  has  expended  months, 
and  perhaps  years,  of  mental  labor — will 
be  published  and  paid  for,  might  seem  to 
operate  as  a  further  incitement.  An  inter- 
national copyright,  by  inducing  American 
publishers  to  buy  more  American  books, 
instead  of  "  appropriating  "  English  books, 
will  give  an  impetus  to  our  literature  such  as 
it  has  never  had  before.  And,  by  protecting 
the  pecuniary  interests  of  our  authors  abroad, 
it  will  "  operate  as  a  further  incitement  to 
mental  labor."  It  is  extraordinary  that  so 
clear  a  proposition  should  be  misunderstood 
by  men  of  average  understanding. 

Whatever  may  have  been  the  case  in  the 
past,  there  is  now  every  disposition  on  the 
part  of  American  publishers,  with  very  few 
exceptions,  to  do  full  justice  to  foreign 
authors.  Not  only  as  a  simple  piece  of  mer- 
cantile honesty,  but,  also,  as  a  measure  of 
mercantile  policy,  our  respectable  publishers 
are  decidedly  in  favor  of  the  international 
copyright.  Their  present  system  of  paying 
for  advance  sheets  of  English  books  gives 
them  no  legal  protection,  but  only  two  or 
three  weeks'  start  over  less  scrupulous  rivals, 
who,  paying  nothing  to  the  English  author, 
can  afford  to  undersell  honest  publishers. 
Under  an  international  copyright  law,  a 
payment  no  greater  than  what  is  now  given 
for  advanced  sheets  or  royalty  would  afford 
American  publishers  a  legal  protection  and 
enable  them  to  get  out  better  editions,  and 
also  to  reprint  English  books  of  a  higher 
class.  Thus,  foreign  authors  would  be  re- 
munerated, American  publishers  would  be 
legally  protected  in  their  legally  purchased 
property,  American  authors  would  no  longer 
have  to  contend  against  the  unbought  liter- 
ature of  Great  Britain,  and  the  odium  of 
countenancing  literary  piracy  would  no 
longer  blacken  our  national  honor. 

The  writer  has  corresponded  with  some 
of  our  largest  publishing  houses  upon  this 
subject,  and,  so  far  as  ascertained,  the  opin- 
ion is  universally  in  favor  of  international 
copyright.  Many  of  them  have  always 
favored  such  legislation  without  condition. 


CONGRESS  AND  INTERNATIONAL   COPYRIGHT. 


The  position  of  others  was  set  forth  by  Mr. 
W.  H.  Appleton,  in  1871,  in  a  letter  to  the 
"  London  Times  "  : 

"  It  is  taken  for  granted  all  round  in  this  discus- 
sion that  the  Americans  are  opposed  to  an  interna- 
tional copyright  law.  On  what  evidence?  That 
England  has  proffered  it,  and  we  have  rejected  it — 
perhaps  over  and  "over  again.  But  this  only  proves 
that  we  object  to  certain  forms  of  it.  I  deny  that 
the  Americans  have  ever  rejected  an  author's  inter- 
national copyright  law  from  you,  or  ever  had  a 
chance  to. 

"Avowedly  an  author's  copyright,  it  is  really 
an  author's  and  publisher's  copyright  that  is  de- 
manded of  us.  You  may  not  see  the  difference ; 
Americans  do. 

"  I  am  of  opinion  that  an  international  copyright 
law  rigorously  in  the  author's  interest,  requir- 
ing him  to  make  contracts  for  American  repub- 
lication  directly  with  American  publishers,  and 
taking  effect  only  upon  books  entirely  manufactured 
in  the  United  States,  would  be  acceptable  to  our 
people.  *  *  *  I  advocate  international  copy- 
right as  a  matter  of  principle  and  sound  policy,  and 
in  my  letter  to  Mr.  Ennis,  in  1853,  I  took  the 
ground  that  I  now  take." 

A  more  recent  movement  for  international 
copyright  is,  perhaps,  the  most  interesting 
of  all,  because  most  promising  of  practical 
results.  Under  date  of  November,  1878, 
Messrs.  Harper  &  Bros,  addressed  to  the 
Secretary  of  State  a  letter  suggesting  the 
appointment  of  an  international  commission, 
to  consist  of  three  authors,  three  publishers 
and  three  publicists  from  each  of  the  two 
countries,  which  might  arrange  the  terms 
of  a  treaty.  This  house  was  understood 
practically  to  oppose  international  copy- 
right, as  so  far  proposed  in  Congress,  on  the 
ground  that,  under  "  the  courtesy  of  the 
trade,"  English  authors  were  fairly  remuner- 
ated, and  that  the  proposed  methods  of 
international  copyright  would  place  our 
market  under  control  of  English  publishers 
and  prove  disastrous  to  the  interests  of 
American  readers.  The  growth,  within 
two  years,  of  the  ten-cent  novel  reprints, 
>  issued  by  houses  which  not  only  paid 
no  royalty  to  authors  but  freely  availed 
themselves  of  the  experience  and  outlay 
of  American  publishers  who  had  paid 
royalty,  has  put  a  different  face  on  the 
matter.  The  letter  to  Mr.  Evarts  was  made 
public  in  a  circular  issued  by  Messrs.  Harper 
in  March,  1879,  which  contained  also  the 
draft  of  a  treaty  presented  by  Lord  Clar- 
endon, in  1870,  with  such  modifications  as, 
in  the  judgment  of  this  house,  were  neces- 
sary to  protect  American  interests.  The 


treaty  is  intended  to  cover  "  publications  of 
books,  of  dramatic  works,  of  musical  com- 
positions, of  drawing,  of  painting,  of  sculpt- 
ure, of  engraving,  of  lithography,  and  of 
other  works  whatsoever  of  literature  and 
of  the  fine  arts."  Its  essential  article  pro- 
vides that 

"  the  subjects  or  citizens  of  either  of  the  two  coun- 
tries to  whom  the  laws  of  their  own  country  do  now 
or  may  hereafter  give,  as  authors  or  proprietors  of 
works  of  literature  or  art,  the  right  of  copyright  or 
property,  shall  be  entitled  to  exercise  that  right  in 
the  territories  of  the  other  of  such  countries  for  the 
same  term  and  to  the  same  extent  as  the  authors  or 
proprietors  of  works  of  the  same  nature,  if  published 
in  such  other  country,  would  therein  be  entitled  to 
exercise  such  right ;  provided  that  the  author  of  any 
work  of  literature  manufactured  and  published  in 
the  one  country  shall  not  be  entitled  to  copyright  in 
the  other  country  unless  such  work  shall  be  also 
manufactmred  and  published  therein,  by  a  subject  or 
citizen  thereof,  within  three  months  after  its  original 
publication  in  the  country  of  the  author  or  pro- 
prietor ;  but  this  proviso  shall  Hot  apply  to  paint- 
ings, engravings,  sculptures,  or  other  works  of  art ; 
and  the  word  '  manufacture '  shall  not  be  held  to 
prohibit  printing  in  one  country  from  stereotype 
plates  prepared  in  the  other  and  imported  for  this 
purpose." 

It  seems  probable  that  the  final  solution 
of  this  question  will  be  the  negotiation  of 
some  such  treaty  as  is  here  suggested. 
American  publishers  are  now  practically 
united  in  favor  of  the  reform,  and  it  is  hoped 
our  own  government  will  now  take  the 
initiative  in  official  action. 

It  should  be  mentioned,  to  the  credit  of 
several  of  our  largest  publishers,  that  they 
have  practically  anticipated  an  international 
copyright  law,  and  given  English  authors 
the  benefit  of  such  a  law,  as  though  it 
really  existed.  Indeed,  in  some  instances 
English  authors  have  been  paid  more  for 
their  books  than  they  would  have  received 
under  copyright  law.  Still,  the  true  interests 
of  American  and  English  literature  demand 
the  adoption  of  an  international  copyright 
law  by  the  two  Governments.  The  recent 
Royal  Copyright  Commission  magnani- 
mously commended  in  1878  the  offering 
of  copyright  on  equal  terms  to  foreign 
authors,  without  regard  to  the  action  of 
other  countries.  Shall  the  United  States 
take  up  the  gauntlet  thus  thrown  down  ? 
For  the  protection  of  our  sailors'  rights,  we 
engaged  with  England  in  a  long  and  bloody 
war.  Shall  we  not,  for  the  protection  of  our 
authors'  rights,  engage  with  her  in  a  friendly 
agreement  for  international  copyright  ? 


WALHALLA. 


WALHALLA. 


A  FEW  years  ago  a  young  English  artist, 
named  Reid,  who  was  traveling  through 
this  country,  stopped  for  a  day  or  two  at 
Louisville,  having  found  an  old  friend  there. 

He  urged  this  gentleman  to  go  with  him 
into  the  mountainous  region  of  Tennessee 
and  North  Carolina. 

"The  foliage,"  he  said,  "will  be  worth 
study  in  September;  and  besides,  I  have  an 
errand  there  for  my  brother.  He  is  a 
house- decorator  in  London,  and  when  he 
was  in  the  Alps  last  summer,  he  was  told 
that  a  wood-carver,  whose  work  he  saw  in 
Berne,  and  fancied,  had  emigrated  to  America 
two  or  three  years  ago,  turned  farmer,  and 
joined  a  small  German  colony  in  these  mount- 
ains. I  am  to  find  this  colony  if  I  can,  and 
if  there  is  any  workman  of  real  skill  in  it,  to 
offer  him  regular  work  and  good  wages  in 
London.  My  brother  is  in  immediate  need 
of  a  panel-carver." 

"  He  could  have  imported  a  dozen  from 
Berne." 

"  Certainly,"  said  Reid,  with  a  shrug ; 
"  but  Tom  has  his  whims.  He  fancied  that 
he  detected  a  delicacy,  a  spirit  in  this  man's 
work  —  an  undiscovered  Bewick,  in  fact. 
Where  do  you  suppose  the  fellow  is  hidden, 
Pomeroy  ?  Do  you  know  of  any  such 
colony?" 

"  No,  and  I  hardly  can  believe  that  there 
are  any  thrifty  Germans  among  those  im- 
pregnable mountains.  Why,  access  to 
many  of  the  counties  is  only  to  be  had  on 
mules,  and  at  the  risk  of  your  neck.  Your 
German  must  have  a  market  for  his  work ; 
he  would  find  none  there." 

They  were  talking  in  the  breakfast  room 
of  the  hotel.  A  man  at  the  same  table 
looked  up  and  nodded. 

"  Beg  pardon,  but  couldn't  help  over- 
hearing. Think  the  place  you  want  is  in 
South  Carolina.  Name  of  Walhalla.  Vil- 
lage. Queer  little  corner.  Oconee  county." 

"  Oh,  thanks ! "  said  Reid,  eyeing  him 
speculatively,  as  probably  a  new  specimen 
of  the  American.  "  Any  Swiss  there,  do 
you  know  ?  " 

"  That  I  can't  tell  you,  sir,"  said  the 
stranger,  expanding  suddenly  into  the  geni- 
ality of  an  old  acquaintance.  "  They're 
Germans,  I  take  it.  Shut  out  of  the  world 
by  the  mountains  as  completely  as  if  the 
place  was  a  '  hall  of  the  dead,'  as  they  call  it. 
There  it  is,  with  German  houses  and  German 


customs,  dropped  down  right  into  the  midst 
of  Carolina  snuff-rubbers,  and  Georgian  clay- 
eaters.  I  found  the  village  five  years  ago, 
while  I  was  buying  up  skins  in  the  mount- 
ains. I'm  a  fur  dealer.  Cincinnati.  One 
of  my  cards,  gentlemen  ?  "  *  *  * 

To  Walhalla,  therefore,  Mr.  Reid  and  his 
friend  went.  They  tried  to  strike  a  bee- 
line  to  it,  through  a  wilderness  of  mountain 
ranges,  by  trails  known  only  to  the  trap- 
pers; taking  them  as  their  guides,  and 
sleeping  in  their  huts  at  night.  After  two 
weeks  of  climbing  among  the  clouds,  of 
solitary  communion  with  Nature,  of  unmiti- 
gated dirt,  fried  pork,  and  fleas,  they  came 
in  sight  of  Walhalla. 

They  had  reached  Macon  county,  North 
Carolina,  where  the  Appalachian  range, 
which  stretches  like  a  vast  bulwark  along  the 
eastern  coast  of  the  continent,  closes  abruptly 
in  walls  of  rock,  jutting  like  mighty  promon- 
tories into  the  plains  of  Georgia  and  South 
Carolina. 

Reid  and  Pomeroy  stopped  one  morning 
on  one  of  these  heights,  to  water  their  mules 
at  a  spring,  from  which  two  streams  bubbled 
through  the  grass  and  separated,  one  to  flow 
into  the  Atlantic,  the  other  into  the  Gulf  of 
Mexico,  so  narrow  and  steep  was  the  ridge 
on  which  they  stood.  The  wind  blew  thin 
and  cold  in  their  faces;  the  sun  shone 
brightly  about  them ;  but  below,  great 
masses  of  cumulus  clouds  were  driven,  ebbing 
like  waves,  out  toward  the  horizon.  Far 
down  in  the  valley  a  rain-storm  was  raging. 
It  occupied  but  small  space,  and  looked  like 
a  motionless  cataract  of  gray  fog,  torn  at 
times  by  yellow,  jagged  lightning. 

Not  far  from  the  spring  a  brown  mare  was 
tethered,  and  near  it  a  stout  young  man  in 
blue  homespun  was  lying,  stretched  lazily 
out  on  the  dry,  ash-colored  moss,  his  chin 
in  his  palms,  watching  the  storm  in  the 
valley.  An  empty  sack  had  served  as  a 
saddle  for  the  mare ;  slung  about  the  man's 
waist  was  a  whisky  flask  and  a  horn.  He 
was  evidently  a  farmer,  who  had  come  up 
into  the  mountains  to  salt  his  wild  cattle. 

Reid  took  note  of  the  clean  jacket, 
the  steady  blue  eyes,  the  red  rose  in  his  cap. 

"  Swiss,"  he  said  to  Pomeroy.  "  Where 
is  Walhalla,  my  friend  ?  " 

The  man  touched  his  cap,  and  pointed  to 
a  wisp  of  smoke  at  the  base  of  the  mount- 


140 


WALHALLA. 


ain.  As  they  rode  on,  his  dog  snuffed  curi- 
ously at  their  horses'  heels,  but  Hans  did 
not  raise  his  head  to  look  after  them. 

"  That  is  the  first  man  I  have  seen  in 
America,"  said  Reid,  "  who  took  time  to 
look  at  the  world  he  lived  in." 

When  they  were  gone,  Hans  lay  watching 
the  cloud  below  soften  from  a  metallic  black 
mass  into  pearly  haze;  then  it  drifted  up 
into  films  across  the  green  hills.  On  the 
nearer  plain  below,  he  could  now  see  the 
white-boiled  cotton-fields,  wet  and  shining 
after  the  shower ;  threads  of  mist  full  of 
rainbow  lights  traced  out  the  water-courses ; 
damp,  earthy  scents  came  up  to  the  height 
from  the  soaked  forests.  After  a  long  while 
he  rose  leisurely,  his  eyes  filled  with  sat- 
isfaction, as  one  who  has  had  a  good  visit 
in  the  home  of  a  friend.  He  mounted  the 
mare  and  rode  down  the  trail ;  the  sun  shone 
ruddily  on  the  peaks  above  him,  but  there 
was  a  damp,  shivering  twilight  in  the  gorges. 
Both  seemed  holiday  weather  to  the  young 
fellow;  his  mare  whinnied  when  he  patted 
her  neck ;  the  dog  ran,  barking  and  jumping 
upon  him ;  it  was  a  conversation  that  had 
been  going  on  for  years  among  old  friends. 

Mr.  Reid  reached  Walhalla  just  before 
sundown.  As  his  mule  went  slowly  down 
the  wide  street,  he  looked  from  side  to  side 
with  pleased  surprise. 

"  It  is  a  street  out  of  some  German  vil- 
lage," he  said.  "  I  have  not  seen  such  thrift 
or  homely  comfort  in  this  country." 

"  It  is  only  the  sudden  contrast  to  the 
grandeur  and  dirt  behind  us,"  said  Pom- 
eroy.  "  If  you  miss  the  repose  and  exal- 
tation of  the  lofty  heights  which  you  talked 
of,  you  will  find  scrubbed  floors  and  flea-less 
beds  a  solid  consolation." 

The  sleepy  hamlet  consisted  of  but  one 
broad  street,  lined  by  quaint  wooden  houses, 
their  stoops  covered  with  grape-vines  or 
roses.  Back  of  these  houses  stretched 
trim  gardens,  gay  with  dahlias  and  yellow 
wall-flowers ;  back  of  these,  again,  were  the 
farms.  Along  the  middle  of  the  street,  at 
intervals,  were  shaded  wells,  public  scales,  a 
platform  for  town  meetings.  The  people 
were  gathered  about  one  of  the  wells,  in 
their  old  German  fashion,  the  men  with 
their  pipes,  the  women  with  their  knitting. 

Reid  remained  in  Walhalla  for  two  or 
three  days.  He  found  that  there  were  several 
Swiss  families  and  that  many  of  the  men  had 
been  wood-carvers  at  home.  He  hit  upon 
a  plan  to  accomplish  his  purpose.  He 
gave  a  subject  for  a  panel,— the  Flight  into 
announced  that  any  one  who 


chose  might  undertake  the  work;  that  he 
would  return  in  a  month  (he  had  found  there 
was  access  to  Columbia  by  railway  through 
the  valley),  and  would  then  buy  the  best 
panel  offered  at  a  fair  price,  and,  if  the  skill 
shown  in  the  work  satisfied  him,  would  send 
the  carver  to  London  free  of  expense,  and 
insure  him  high  and  steady  wages. 

The  day  he  left,  all  the  village  collected 
about  the  well  to  talk  the  matter  over. 
Here  was  a  strange  gust  from  the  outer 
world  blowing  into  their  dead  calm!  Most 
of  them  had  forgotten  that  there  was  a  world 
outside  of  Walhalla.  They  tilled  their  farms 
and  bartered  with  the  mountaineers.  Twice 
a  year  Schopf  went  to  Charlotte  for  goods 
to  fill  his  drowsy  shop.  London  ?  Riches? 
Fame  ?  The  blast  of  a  strange  trumpet, 
truly.  The  blood  began  to  quicken.  Such 
of  them-  as  had  been  wood-carvers  felt  their 
fingers  itch  for  the  knife. 

"  No  doubt  it  is  George  Heller  who  will 
win  it,"  everybody  said.  "  That  fellow  has 
ambition  to  conquer  the  world.  Did  you 
see  how  he  followed  the  Englishmen  about  ? 
He  could  talk  to  them  in  their  own  fashion. 
George  is  no  ordinary  man !  " 

"  If  Hans  had  but  his  wit  now !  "  said  one, 
nodding  as  Hans  on  his  mare  came  down 
the  street.  "  Hans  is  a  good  fellow.  But  he 
will  never  make  a  stir  in  the  world.  Now, 
George's  fingers  used  to  be  as  nimble  as  his 
tongue." 

Heller's  tongue,  meanwhile,  was  wagging 
nimbly  enough  at  the  other  side  of  the  well. 
He  was  a  little,  wiry,  red-haired,  spectacled 
fellow,  with  a  perpetual  movement  and  spar- 
kle about  him,  as  if  his  thoughts  were  flame. 

"  That's  the  right  sort  of  talk.  Fame — 
profit!  Why  should  we  always  drag  be- 
hind the  world  here  at  Walhalla  ?  Plough 
and  dig,  plough  and  dig !  The  richest  man 
in  New  York  left  Germany  a  butcher's  son, 
with  his  wallet  strapped  on  his  back ;  and 
what  is  New  York  to  London  ?  Just  give 
me  a  foothold  in  London  and  I'll  show  you 
what  a  baker's  son  can  do,  let  Hans  Becht 
laugh  as  he  chooses !  "  For  Hans,  who  had 
come  down  to  the  well,  was  listening  with  a 
quizzical  twinkle  in  his  eye.  He  filled  his 
pipe,  laughed,  sat  down  and  said  nothing. 
Everybody  knew  Hans  to  be  the  most  silent 
man  in  Walhalla. 

The  pretty  girls  gathered  shyly  closer  to 
Heller;  and  the  boys  thrust  their  hands  in 
their  pockets  and  stared  admiringly  up  at 
him.  Hans  was  their  especial  friend,  but 
what  a  stout,  common-place  creature  he  was 
beside  this  brilliant  fellow ! 


WALHALLA. 


141 


"  A  man  only  needs  a  foothold  in  this 
world!"  George  said,  adjusting  his  spectacles 
and  looking  nervously  toward  a  bench  where 
a  young  girl  sat  holding  her  baby  brother. 
The  child  was  a  solid  lump  of  flesh,  but  she 
looked  down  at  him  with  the  tenderest  eyes 
in  the  world.  The  sight  of  her  drove  the 
blood  through  Heller's  veins  almost  as  hotly 
as  the  smell  of  a  glass  of  liquor  would  do. 
"  Oh,  if  I  win,  I'll  take  a  wife  from  Wal- 
halla !  "  he  cried,  laughing  excitedly,  look- 
ing at  her  and  not  caring  that  the  whole 
village  saw  his  look.  "  I'll  come  back  for 
the  girl  I  love !  "  He  fancied  that  the  shy 
eyes  had  caught  the  fire  from  his  own  and 
answered  with  a  sudden  flash. 

Hans  thought  so,  too ;  his  pipe  went  out 
in  his  mouth.  When  she  rose  to  go  home, 
he  took  the  heavy  boy  out  of  her  arms,  and 
walked  beside  her.  Heller's  shrill  voice 
sounded  behind  them  like  a  vehement  fife. 

"  Success ....  money money !  " 

Hans  looked  anxiously  down  into  her 
face. 

"  They  are  good  things,"  she  said,  "  very 
good  things." 

Hans's  tongue  was  tied  as  usual.  He 
dropped  Phil  in  the  cradle  in  the  kitchen, 
and  then  came  out  and  led  Christine  down 
to  the  garden  of  his  own  house. 

What  was  London — money,  to  home? 
Surely  she  must  see  that!  He  led  her 
slowly  past  the  well-built  barn  and  piggeries, 
past  the  bee-hives  hidden  behind  the 
cherry-trees,  and  seated  her  on  the  porch. 
He  thought  these  things  would  speak  for 
him.  Hans  clung  as  closely  to  his  home  as 
Phil  yonder  to  his  mother's  breast.  But 
Christine  looked  sullen. 

Hans  said  nothing. 

"  A  man  should  not  be  satisfied  with  a 
kitchen  garden,"  she  said  sharply. 

They  sat  on  the  porch  steps.  The  night 
air  was  warm  and  pure,  the  moon  hung  low 
over  the  rice  fields  to  the  left,  throwing 
fantastic  shadows  that  chased  each  other 
like  noiseless  ghosts  as  the  wind  swayed  the 
grain.  To  the  right,  beyond  the  valley,  the 
mountains  pierced  the  sky.  They  were  all 
so  friendly,  but  dumb — dumb  as  himself.  If 
they  could  only  speak  and  say  of  how  little 
account  money  was,  after  all !  It  seemed  to 
Hans  as  if  they  were  always  just  going  to 
speak ! 

But  Christine  did  not  look  at  sky,  or 
mountains,  or  sleeping  valley.  She  looked 
at  the  gravel  at  her  feet,  and  gave  it  a  little 
kick. 

"  No  doubt  George  Heller  will  succeed. 


I  hope  he  will,  too !  "  she  said  vehemently. 
"If  a  man  has  the  real  stuff  in  him  let  him 
show  it  to  the  world !  I'll  go  home  now, 
Mr.  Becht." 

That  evening  Hans's  violin  was  silent. 
He  used  to  play  until  late  in  the  night ; 
but  he  was  sharpening  his  long  unused 
knives,  with  a  pale  face.  He,  too,  was  begin- 
ning a  Flight  into  Egypt. 

During  the  next  two  weeks  a  tremendous 
whittling  went  on  in  Walhalla.  Some  old 
fellows,  who  had  never  cut  anything  but 
paper-knives  and  match-boxes,  were  fired 
with  the  universal  frenzy.  Why  should  not 
Stein,  the  cobbler,  or  Fritz,  the  butcher, 
chip  his  way  to  wealth^  fame,  and  London  ? 
There  is  not  a  butcher  or  cobbler  of  us  all 
who  does  not  secretly  believe  himself  a  genius 
equal  to  the  best — barred  down  by  circum- 
stance. George  Heller  kept  his  work  secret, 
but  he  was  mightily  stirred  by  it  in  soul  and 
body.  Twice,  in  a  rage,  he  broke  the  panel 
into  bits,  and  came  out  pale  and  covered 
with  perspiration;  he  walked  about  mutter- 
ing to  himself  like  one  in  a  dream ;  he  went 
to  Godfrey  Stein's  inn  and  drank  wine  and 
brandy,  and  then  more  brandy,  and  forgot 
to  pay.  Genius  is  apt  to  leave  the  lesser 
virtues  in  the  lurch.  He  kicked  the  dogs 
out  of  the  way,  cursed  the  children,  and 
was  insolent  to  his  old  father  who  still  fed 
and  clothed  him. 

"He's  no  better  than  a  wolf's  whelp!" 
said  Stein.  "But  he's  got  the  true  artist 
soul.  He'll  win !  "  Now  if  anybody  knew 
the  world,  it  was  Godfrey  Stein. 

Nobody  thought  Hans  Becht  would  win 
but  his  old  mother.  She  was  sure  of  it.  She 
sat  beside  him  with  her  knitting,  talking  all 
the  time.  Why  did  he  not  give  himself  more 
time?  The  rice-field  must  be  flooded  ?  Let 
the  rice  go  this  year.  He  spent  three  hours 
in  the  cotton  this  morning.  And  what  with 
foddering  the  stock,  and  rubbing  down  even 

the  pigs .  What  were  cotton  and  pigs 

to  this  chance?  It  would  come  but  once  a 
life-time. 

Meanwhile,  Hans,  when  free  from  pigs 
and  rice  and  cotton,  sat  by  the  window 
and  cut,  cut,  and  whistled  softly.  The  door 
of  the  kitchen  stood  open,  and  the  chickens 
came  picking  their  way  on  to  the  white 
floor.  A  swift  stream  of  water  ran  through 
the  millet  field  and  across  the  garden,  shin- 
ing in  the  sun.  The  red  rhododendrons 
nodded  over  it,  and  the  rowan  bushes, 
scarlet  with  berries.  Beyond  the  millet 
field,  there  was  a  rampart  of  rolling  hills, 
bronzed  with  the  early  frost ;  but  here  blazed 


142 


WALHALLA. 


the  crimson  leaves  of  the  shonieho,  and 
there  a  cucumber  tree  thrust  its  open  golden 
fruit,  studded  with  scarlet  seeds,  through  the 
dull  back-ground.  Beyond  this  rising  ground 
were  the  peaks,  indistinct  as  gray  shadows, 
holding  up  the  sky. 

Sometimes  Mother  Becht  caught  Hans 
with  his  knife  idle,  looking  at  these  far  off 
heights,  or  at  the  minnows  glancing  through 
the  brook  near  at  hand.  There  was  a  great 
pleasure  in  his  eyes. 

"You  are  a  fool  to  throw  away  your 
time,"  she  cried.  "Can  you  cut  that  red 
weed  or  the  sky  into  your  wood?  You 
could  not  even  paint  them." 

"God  forbid  that  anybody  should  try!" 
thought  Hans. 

"  Stick  to  your  work !  work  counts.  The 
things  that  count  in  the  world  are  those 
which  push  you  up  among  your  neighbors." 

Hans  began  to  cut  a  tip  to  Joseph's  nose. 

"The  things  which  count  in  the  world 

"  he  queried  to  himself.  He  did  his 

thinking  very  slowly.  His  blind  father  sat 
outside  in  the  sun ;  he  came  in  every  hour 
or  two  to  hear  how  the  work  was  going  on, 
and  then  went  to  Schopf's  shop  to  report. 
His  wife  told  him.  that  there  was  no  doubt 
that  Hans  would  succeed. 

"Joseph  is  good,  and  Mary  is  very  fine," 
she  said.  "  But  the  mule  is  incomparable. 
If  you  could  only  see  the  mule!  When 
Hans  goes  to  London,  do  you  think  he  will 
take  us  at  once,  or  send  for  us  in  the  spring  ? 
I  think  it  would  be  safer  to  cross  the  ocean 
in  the  spring.  But  it  will  not  matter  to 
cabin-passengers — no  steerage  for  us,  then, 
father !  He  will  be  taking  three  of  us " 

"  Eh  ?     How's  that  ?     Three  ?  " 

"  Christine,"  she  said,  with  a  significant 
chuckle.  "  Oh,  she'll  be  glad  enough  to 
take  our  Hans,  then  !  She's  had  to  work 
her  fingers  to  the  bone.  She  knows  the 
weight  of  a  full  purse." 

"  Hans  is  welcome  to  bring  her  home 
whether  he  wins  or  not,"  said  Father  Becht. 
"  He  earns  the  loaf,  and  it's  big  enough  for 
four.  There's  not  a  sweeter  voice  in  Wal- 
halla  than  Christy  Vogel's." 

"  She's  well  enough,"  said  Mrs.  Becht, 
cautiously.  "Vogel's  tobacco  brought  half 
a  cent  in  the  pound  more  than  ours,  and  it 
was  Christine's  raising  and  drying.  Her 
beer's  fair,  too.  I've  tasted  it."  She  went 
in  and  talked  to  Hans.  "  Only  win,  and 
Christine  will  marry  you.  She'll  follow  the 
full  purse." 

"  She'll  follow  the  man  she  loves,  and 
that  is  not  I,"  thought  Hans,  and  he  stopped 


whistling.     His  mother's  voice  sounded  on, 
click-click. 

"  When  we  are  rich — when  we  are  in 
London — when  we  drive  in  a  carriage " 

"  She,  too  ?  "  he  considered,  looking  out 
thoughtfully  about  him  at  the  fat  farm-lands, 
the  pleasant  house,  the  cheery  fire,  and  then 
away  to  the  scarlet  rowan  burning  in  the 
brown  undergrowth,  and  the  misty,  heaven- 
reaching  heights. 

Even  his  mother  counted  these  things  as 
nothing  beside  fame,  London,  money. 
Was  he  then  mad  or  a  fool  ? 

Nobody  thought  he  would  win.  Yet, 
everybody  stopped  to  look  in  the  window, 
with  "  good-luck,  Hans !" 

"  See  what  a  favorite  you  are,  fny  lad," 
said  his  mother.  "There's  not  a  man  or 
a  woman  in  Walhalla  to  whom  you  have  not 
done  a  kindness.  Do  you  think  the  Lord 
does  not  know  you  deserve  success  ?  If  He 
does  not  give  you  the  prize  instead  of 
that  drunken  Heller,  there's  no  justice  in 
heaven!" 

At  last  the  Englishman  returned.  The 
decision  was  to  be  made  that  night.  Hans 
had  finished  his  panel  that  very  day.  He 
did  not  know  whether  it  was  bad  or  good. 
He  had  cut  away  at  it  as  faithfully  as  he  had 
rubbed  down  his  pigs.  He  wrapped  it  up 
that  evening  and  went  down  to  the  inn, 
stopping  at  Vogel's  on  the  way.  The  old 
people  were  at  the  well ;  Christine  had 
cooked  the  supper,  milked  the  cows,  and 
now  she  was  <up  in  her  chamber  singing 
little  Phil  to  sleep. 

Her  voice  came  down  to  Hans  below  full 
of  passion  and  sadness. 

"  Who  is  it  she  loves  in  that  way  ?  "  he 
wondered.  He  stood  in  the  path  of  the 
little  yard,  listening.  Heller,  coming  across 
the  street  eyed  the  square-jawed,  heavy 
figure.  What  an  awkward  figure  it  was, 
to  be  sure.  How  the  linen  clothes  bagged 
about  it!  He  glanced  down  at  his  own 
natty  little  legs  and  shining  boots,  and  tossed 
his  head  jerkily.  He  carried  his  panel 
wrapped  in  cloth,  and  came  in,  banging  the 
gate  after  him. 

"Is  that  you,  Becht?  Been  whittling, 
too  ?  "  he  said,  with  an  insolent  chuckle. 

Hans  looked  at  him  steadfastly,  not  hear- 
ing a  word  that  he  said.  Was  it  Heller 
she  loved  ?  If  he  were  sure  of  it,  he 
would  not  speak  a  word  for  himself.  No 
matter  what  became  of  him,  if  she  were  con- 
tent. He  was  hurt  to  the  core. 

Christine  came  down.  She  wore  some 
stuff  of  pale  blue,  and  had  fastened  a 


WALHALLA. 


bunch  of  wild  roses  in  her  bosom.  She  was 
so  silent  and  cold  with  both  the  young 
men  that  one  could  hardly  believe  that  it 
was  the  woman  who  had  sung  with  such 
passionate  longing  over  the  child. 

"Now  you  shall  see  my  panel!"  cried 
Heller,  nervously  adjusting  his  spectacles. 
He  set  it  on  the  bench  and  dragged  off  the 
cloth. 

"  Ah-h  !  "  cried  Christine,  clasping  her 
hands ;  then  she  turned  anxiously  to  Hans. 

Hans  was  not  ready  with  his  words.  His 
eyes  filled  with  tears.  He  laid  his  hand  on 
Heller's  shoulder  with  hearty  good-will. 
The  work  gave  him  keen  pleasure.  In  the 
face  of  the  mother  bending  over  the  child 
there  was  that  inscrutable  meaning  which 
he  found  in  the  quiet  valleys,  the  far 
heights.  But  Heller,  oddly,  did  not  seem 
to  see  it. 

"  Yes,  very  nice  bits  of  chipping  there  !" 
pulling  at  his  red  moustache.  "  I  shall  ask 
fifty  dollars  for  that." 

Christine  turned  her  searching  eyes  on 
him. 

"  Yes,  fifty,"  he  repeated,  feeling  that  he 
had  impressed  her. 

Hans,  too,  looked  at  him  wondering. 
How  could  this  paltry  sot  compel  the  secret 
into  his  work,  which  to  him  was  but  a  holy 
dream  ?  Christine  was  watching  him  anx- 
iously. 

"  Is  that  your  panel  ?"  she  said  at  last. 

Hans  nodded,  hesitated  a  moment,  and 
then  broke  the  thin  bit  of  wood  in  two  and 
flung  it  into  the  road. 

"  It  was  nothing  but  a  passably  cut  mule," 
he  said. 

Heller  laughed  loud. 

"  Well,  time  to  be  off.  Wish  me  good 
luck,  Christine !  " 

She  smiled  and  walked  with  him  to  the 
gate.  Hans  followed,  but  she  did  not  once 
look  at  Hans.  As  she  opened  the  gate 
Heller  laid  his  hand  quickly  on  hers ;  a  rose 
fell  from  her  dress,  he  caught  it  and  pressed 
it  to  his  lips.  His  breath  was  rank  with 
liquor.  Hans  thrust  him  back  and  strode 
between  them. 

"This  must  end.  Christine,  you  must 
choose  between  this  man  and  me." 

"  I  can  easily  do  that,"  she  said,  quickly. 

Heller  laughed.  Hans  gulped  down  a 
lump  in  his  throat. 

"  Not  to-night,"  he  said. 

By  to-morrow,  no  doubt,  Heller  would  be 
known  as  successful,  the  man  whose  purse 
would  always  be  full.  Christine  must  know 
precisely  what  she  was  choosing.  It  was 


like  Hans  to  think  of  these  things.  If — in 
spite  of  it  all — she  came  to  him 

"  There  is  another  rose  on  your  breast. 
Send  it  to-morrow  to  the  man  you  love." 

"I  will."  She  did  not  look  at  him.  She 
was  as  pale  as  himself.  He  went  down  the 
street,  leaving  her  with  Heller. 

Two  hours  afterward  he  went  to  the  inn 
where  Reid  was,  and  sat  on  a  bench  at  the 
door.  Half  the  village  was  inside  waiting 
to  hear  the  decision.  His  heart  beat  rebel- 
liously  against  his  breast.  What  if,  after  all, 
there  had  been  great  hidden  merit  in  his 
panel  ?  It  was  only  natural  that  Christine 
should  be  won  by  clap-trap  of  success  and 
money — she  was  only  a  woman.  "  But  no," 
he  answered  himself,  "  what  I  am — I  am. 
I  want  no  varnish  of  praise  or  money." 

Out  came  the  crowd. 

"  I  knew  it !  "  "  The  most  worthless  lout 
in  Walhalla!"  "A  drunkard  for  luck!" 
"  He  goes  to  London  next  week." 

"  Then  he  must  come  back  for  his  wife," 
said  Stein.  "  He  told  me  to-night  he  was 
betrothed  to  Christy." 

Hans  stood  up,  and  nodded  good-night  to 
them  as  he  pushed  through  the  crowd.  He 
did  not  go  home.  A  damp  breeze  blew  up 
the  valley.  Down  yonder  were  the  far- 
reaching  meadows,  the  lapping  streams,  the 
great  friendly  trees.  He  went  to  them  as  a 
child  goes  to  its  mother  in  trouble. 

About  six  miles  from  Walhalla  lies  the 
trunk  line  of  the  Atlanta  and  Richmond  rail- 
road. At  ten  o'clock  that  evening,  the  moon 
being  at  the  full,  the  engineer  of  the  express 
train,  going  north,  saw  a  man  at  a  turn  of 
the  road  signaling  him  vehemently  to  stop. 
Now,  a  way  train  in  that  leisurely  region  will 
pull  up  for  any  signal.  But  this  engineer 
looked  out  in  calm  contempt. 

"  Reckon  he  don't  know  the  express !  "  he 
said.  A  little  child  in  the  cars  saw  the  man 
gesticulating  wildly  and  laughed  at  him 
through  the  open  window. 

The  man  disappeared  over  the  brow  of 
the  hill.  The  road  made  a  long  circuit 
around  its  base.  When  the  engine  came 
around  this  bend,  the  engineer,  Hurst,  saw 
on  the  track  in  front,  a  prison  hand-car  used 
to  transport  the  convict  laborers  from  one 
division  to  another.  The  convicts  had  been 
taken  to  the  stockade  for  the  night,  and  the 
driver  of  the  car  was  inside  of  it,  dead  drunk. 

Hurst  had  been  twenty  years  in  his  busi- 
ness; he  understood  the  condition  of  affairs 
at  a  glance.  He  knew  it  meant  death  to 
all  those  people  in  the  crowded  cars  behind 


144 


WALHALLA. 


him,  to  him  first  of  all.  He  whistled  down 
brakes,  but  he  knew  it  was  of  no  use.  The 
brakes  were  of  the  old  kind,  and  before  the 
train  could  be  slackened  it  would  be  upon 
the  solid  mass  in  front. 

"  We're  done  for,  Zack,"  he  said  to  the 
fireman.  He  did  not  think  of  jumping  off 
his  engine.  It  is  noticeable  how  few  com- 
mon-place men  try  to  shirk  death  when  in 
the  discharge  of  duty. 

The  brakes  were  of  no  use.  The  engine 
swept  on,  hissing,  shrieking. 

Suddenly  Hurst  saw  that  the  car  was 
backing ! — creeping  like  a  snail ;  but  assur- 
edly backing. 

"  Y-ha !  "  yelled  Zack. 

Hurst  saw  the  man  who  had  warned 
him  standing  on  the  platform  of  the  car, 
working  it.  Now,  it  required  at  least  four 
men  to  work  that  car. 

In  another  minute  the  engine  would  be 
upon  him. 

"God!  You'll  be  killed!"  shouted 
Hurst.  The  terrible  hardihood  of  the  man 
stunned  him  into  forgetting  that  anybody 
else  was  in  danger.  At  that  instant  from 
the  train  came  a  frightful  shriek — women's 
voices.  The  passengers  for  the  first  time 
saw  their  danger. 

It  was  but  a  point  of  time,  yet  it  seemed 
like  an  hour.  The  train  did  not  abate  its 
speed.  The  man,  a  short  fellow  of  power- 
ful build,  threw  the  strength  of  a  giant  into 
his  straining  muscles,  his  white  face  with  its 
distended  eyes  was  close  in  front  in  the  red 
glare  of  the  engine. 

Hurst  shut  his  eyes.  He  muttered  some- 
thing about  Joe, — Joe  was  his  little  boy. 

The  train  jarred  with  a  long  scrunching 
rasp,  and — stopped.  They  were  saved. 

"Great  God!"  prayed  Hurst.  "Tight 
squeak  for  your  life,  Zack,"  he  said  aloud, 
wetting  his  lips  with  his  tongue. 

The  people  poured  out  of  the  train.  They 
went  up  to  the  car,  some  laughing,  some 
swearing.  But  every  man  there  felt  as  if 
Death  had  taken  his  soul  into  his  hold  for  a 
moment,  and  then  let  it  go. 

Three  stout  men  tried  to  move  the  car. 
They  could  not  do  it. 

"  Who  is  that  fellow  ?  " 

"  A  workman  on  the  road  ?" 

"  No,"  said  Hurst. 

"  Where  is  he  ?  "  asked  several. 

For  he  had  vanished  as  if  the  earth  had 
swallowed  him  up. 

"  He  was  a  youngish,  light  complexioned 
fellow,"  said  Zack.  "  Most  likely  a 
Deutcher  from  Walhalla." 


"  Whoever  he  may  be,  he  saved  our  lives," 
said  a  director  of  the  road.  "  I  never  saw 
such  desperate  courage.  I  vote  for  a  testi- 
monial." 

The  American  soul  exults  in  testimonials, 
and  the  Southerner  is  free  with  his  money. 
There  happened,  too,  to  be  a  delegation  of 
New  York  merchants  on  board,  who  valued 
their  lives  at  a  pretty  figure.  More  than 
all,  there  was  a  widow  from  California,  the 
owner  of  millions  and  of  the  pretty  boy 
who  had  looked  out  of  the  window.  "  He 
saved  my  baby,"  she  said  with  a  sob,  as  she 
took  the  paper. 

The  testimonial-  grew  suddenly  into  a  sum 
which  made  Hurst  wink  with  amazemenl 
when  he  heard  of  it.  "  That  fellow  will  be 
king  in  Walhalla,"  he  said. 

It  was  near  morning  when  Hans  came 
home.  He  went  to  his  room,  said  his 
prayers,  and  slept  heavily.  The  next  morn- 
ing the  village  was  on  fire  with  excitement, 
The  inn  was  full  of  passengers  from  the 
train ;  the  story  was  in  everybody's  mouth, 
The  director  of  the  road  had  driven  ovei 
from  the  station.  When  Hans  went  down  tc 
the  pasture  that  morning  he  saw  a  placard 
stating  the  facts  and  the  sum  subscribed,  anc 
requesting  the  claimant  to  present  himsel: 
at  the  station  that  evening  for  identificatior 
by  Hurst. 

Hans  went  on  to  the  pasture.  When  he 
came  back  and  was  at  work  in  the  garden, 
he  could  hear  through  the  paling  the  people 
talking  as  they  went  by. 

"  He  will  be  the  richest  man  in  Walhalla.' 

"  The  director  says  the  company  will 
give  him  a  situation  for  life.  So  the) 
ought ! " 

Nothing  else  was  talked  of.  The  contests 
of  yesterday  and  all  the  Flights  into  Egypl 
were  forgotten. 

"  Ah,  how  lucky  that  fellow  is,"  he  hearc 
his  mother  say  on  the  sidewalk.  "  Anc 
there's  Heller!  Some  people  are  born  tc 
luck ! "  looking  over  the  palings  with  bitte: 
disappointment  at  Hans,  digging  potatoes. 

But  blind  Father  Becht  listened  in  silence 
He  knew  but  one  man  in  the  world  brav< 
enough  for  such  a  deed.  "  I  give  that  lac 
my  blessing !  "  he  said,  striking  his  cane  or 
the  ground.  He,  too,  turned  toward  Han: 
digging  potatoes. 

"  Heller  is  packing  to  be  off  to  London,' 
somebody  said.  "  They  say  Vogel's  prettj 
daughter  is  to  follow  in  the  spring." 

Hans  stuck  in  his  spade  and  went  to  hi! 
mother.  "  I  am  going  to  salt  the  cattle  or 
the  north  mountain,"  he  said. 


WALHALLA. 


'45 


"  Very  well.  He  does  not  care  to  know 
who  this  brave  lad  is,"  she  said  to  his  father. 
*'  He's  a  good  boy,  but  dull — dull.  They 
say  there  is  a  woman  from  California  at  the 
inn.  She  says  she  must  see  the  man  who 
saved  her  boy's  life.  She  is  rich  and  has  her 
whims,  no  doubt." 

Night  came,  but  the  man  did  not  present 
liimself.  The  next  day  the  director,  who 
was  of  a  generous,  impatient  temper,  offered 
a  reward  to  anybody  who  could  make  him 
known.  It  was  certain  he  had  told  nobody 
what  he  had  done,  or  they  would  have  come 
forward  for  the  reward.  The  excitement 
grew  with  every  hour.  Hans  returned  late 
in  the  next  day.  He  went  to  his  spade  and 
began  to  dig  the  rest  of  the  potatoes.  His 
mother  followed. 

"  Well,"  she  exclaimed,  "  he  is  not 
found !  The  story  is  gone  by  telegraph  to  all 
parts  of  the  country.  Here  are  fame  and 
riches  waiting  for  him.  Some  people  cer- 
tainly are  born  on  lucky  Sundays.  There 
is  Heller,  the  drunken  beast,  gone  off  to 
London.  And  you  must  dig  potatoes ! 
There's  no  justice  in  heaven !  " 

She  clicked  away,  knitting  as  she  went. 

Now  I  may  as  well  say  here  that  although 
this  happened  years  ago,  the  missing  man 
is  not  yet  found.  He  is  the  mystery  and 
pride  of  all  that  region.  The  director  put 
the  money  out  at  compound  interest,  but 
it  is  yet  unclaimed. 

Concerning  Hans,  however,  who  digs  his 
potatoes  in  the  same  patch,  we  have  some- 
thing more  to  tell.  When  he  had  finished 
digging  that  morning  he  went  into  the 
liouse.  The  stout  fellow  had  lost  his  ruddy 
•color,  as  though  he  had  lately  gone  through 
some  heavy  strain  of  body  or  soul.  He 
«at  on  the  kitchen  steps  and  played  a  soft 
air  on  his  violin.  The  earth  he  had  been 
•digging  lay  in  moist,  black  heaps.  He  liked 
the  smell  of  it.  How  like  a  whispering 
voice  was  the  gurgle  of  the  stream  through 
the  roots  of  the  sumachs!  Yonder  was  a 
Peruvian  tree,  raising  its  trunk  and  branches 
in  blood-red  leaves  against  the  still  air ;  far 
"beyond  were  the  solemn  heights.  He  had 
just  come  from  there.  He  knew  how  quiet 
it  was  yonder  near  the  sky — how  friendly. 


All  these  things  came,  as  he  played,  into  the 
music  and  spoke  through  it,  and  a  great 
stillness  shone  in  his  eyes. 

And  at  that  moment — he  never  forgot  it 
in  all  his  life — a  woman's  hand  brushed 
his  cheek,  and  a  red  rose  came  before  his 
eyes. 

"  You  did  not  come  for  the  rose,  so  I 
brought  it  to  you,"  said  Christine. 

Later  in  the  morning  they  went  to  the 
well  together;  all  their  neighbors  were  there, 
and  it  was  soon  known  they  were  betrothed. 
Everybody  took  Hans  by  the  hand.  He 
had  never  guessed  he  had  so  many  friends. 
"  There  is  no  better  fellow  in  the  world," 
they  said  to  one  another.  "  He  deserves 
luck." 

"  That  is  why  I  was  impatient  with  you," 
whispered  Christine.  "  I  could  not  bear  to 
see  that  miserable  Heller  carry  away  all  the 
praise  and  the  money." 

"  These  are  not  the  things  in  the  world 
that  count,"  said  Hans,  quietly. 

Presently  an  open  carriage  drove  through 
the  street. 

"  That  is  the  lady  who  was  in  the  train," 
the  people  whispered.  "That  is  her  boy. 
She  says  she  will  not  go  until  she  finds  the 
man  who  saved  them." 

The  lady,  smiling,  held  her  baby  up  that 
it  might  see  the  women.  She  was  greatly 
amused  and  interested  by  the  quaint  German 
village.  When  the  boy  caught  sight  of  Hans 
he  laughed  and  held  out  his  hands.  The 
mother  nodded  kindly.  "  The  brave  man 
who  saved  us  also  wore  a  workman's  dress, 
I  am  told,"  she  said.  "  My  boy  saw  him 
as  he  passed." 

Hans  took  the  child  in  his  arms  for  a 
moment,  and  kissed  him.  When  he  gave 
him  back  to  his  mother  his  eyes  were  full  of 
tears.  Then  the  carriage  drove  on. 

He  stood  at  the  door  of  the  home  that 
was  so  dear  to  him.  Christine  held  his 
hand,  the  sun  shone  cheerfully  about  him. 

"  To  think,"  said  his  mother,  "  that  we  are 
not  to  know  who  that  brave  fellow  was." 

His  blind  father  took  Hans's  other  hand 
softly  in  his. 

"  God  knows"  he  said. 

But  no  one  heard  him. 


VOL.  XX.— 10. 


TOPICS   OF  THE    TIME. 


TOPICS.  OF  THE  TIME. 


Pettiness  in  Art. 


IN  an  article  published  some  months  since  in 
this  department,  entitled  "  Greatness  in  Art," 
we  gave  utterance  to  some  thoughts  which  we 
would  like  to  emphasize  here.  A  man  traveling 
in  Europe  discovers  at  once  a  different  style  of  art 
from  that  produced  here — a  larger  and  more  digni- 
fied style.  The  pictures  which  he  sees  there,  in 
public  galleries  and  in  the  multitudinous  Catholic 
churches,  are  such  as  are  never  produced  here. 
There  is  no  outlet  here  for  the  largest  thoughts  and 
highest  inspirations  of  the  artist  mind  and  hand. 
Men  must  paint  for  a  market.  If  there  are  no 
public  galleries  to  paint  for,  and  no  churches  demand 
their  work,  then  they  must  paint  for  the  walls  of 
the  homes  of  the  land.  This  necessarily  restricts 
their  paintings  in  the  matter  of  dimensions;  so 
everybody  paints  small  pictures.  A  small  picture 
is  a  restriction  in  the  matter  of  subjects.  A  digni- 
fied historical  picture  must  have  large  figures  to  be 
impressive:  and  however  serious  and  ambitious  a 
painter  may  be,  he  is  loth  to  place  a  work  that,  by 
its  nature,  demands  a  large  canvas  and  broad  hand- 
ling, on  a  small  canvas  that  compels  pettiness  of 
detail  and  effects. 

The  barrel  that  an  American  artist  may  have  in 
his  brain  cannot  be  sold  to  anybody.  The  largest 
thing  that  anybody  buys  is  a  gallon,  and  the  really 
marketable  things  are  quarts  and  pints.  An  artist 
may  hold  in  his  imagination  a  palace  for  kings  and 
queens  and  the  nobility  of  the  earth,  but  he  can 
only  sell  a  play-house  for  children,  and  he  is  obliged 
to  sell  to  get  food  and  shelter  for  himself  and  his 
dependents.  So  American  art  is  made  up  of  the 
quarts  and  pints  of  the  artistic  capacity  of  its  pro- 
ducers and  the  toy-houses  which  should  be  palaces 
and  broad  domains.  The  tendency  of  these  facts 
is  degrading  and  depressing  to  the  last  degree. 
They  have  already  dwarfed  American  art  and  cir- 
cumscribed its  development.  When  it  gets  to  this, 
— that  every  artist  who  undertakes  a  great  thing  is 
looked  upon  as  a  profligate  or  a  fool,  because  there 
is  no  market  for  a  great  thing, — matters  can  hardly 
be  worse.  The  necessarily  constant  consideration 
of  marketableness  in  pictures  is  very  degrading, 
and  tends  inevitably  to  unfit  the  artist  for  the  best 
work.  Crowded  into  the  smallest  spaces,  cut  off 
from  all  great  ambitions,  men  cease  to  think  largely, 
grow  petty  in  their  subjects,  reach  out  into  striking 
mannerisms  for  the  sake  of  effects  that  cannot 
be  produced  in  a  natural  way,  and  lavish  on 
technique  the  power  and  pains  that  should  go  into 
great  designs  and  a  free  and  full  individual  ex- 
pressiou. 

The  recent  exhibition  of  water  colors  in  this  city 
showed  how  far  into  pettiness  the  artists  in  that 
line  of  work  have  gone.  There  was  much  that  was 
bright  and  pretty  and  attractive,  but  how  irredeem- 
&bly  petty  it  all  was  !  It  may  be  said  that  nothing 


can  be  expected  of  water  colors  beyond  the  repre- 
sentation of  petty  things,  but  we  remember  three 
large  water-color  exhibitions  in  London,  all  open  at 
the  same  time,  where  there  were  pictures  so  large 
and  important  and  fine,  that  thousands  of  dollars 
were  demanded  for  them  and  commanded  by  them. 
The  painters  attempted  and  accomplished  great 
things.  They  showed,  at  least,  that  the  desire  and 
the  motive  to  do  great  things  were  not  absolutely 
extinguished  within  them.  There  were  up-reachings 
toward  high  ideals.  Here,  we  seem  to  be  on  a  dead 
level  of  conception  and  aim,  and  the  man  cleverest 
with  his  hand  leads.  The  catalogue  will  rehearse 
the  topics — too  trivial  to  engage  any  poet's  attention, 
too  petty  to  inspire  any  man's  respect.  The  worst 
of  this  is  that  this  collection  of  pettinesses  was  sold 
almost  to  the  last  picture.  We  are  glad  to  see  the 
purses  of  the  artists  filled ;  but  the  success  of  this 
unprecedented  sale  must  be  to  encourage  them  in  a 
path  of  degeneration  and  demoralization. 

It  pays  to  be  petty.  It  is  a  thousand  pities  thai 
there  is  no  outlet  in  America  for  the  best  and 
highest  that  her  artists  can  do.  Wandering 
through  the  beautiful  miles  of  pictures  in  Rome,  in 
Florence,  in  Munich,  in  Paris,  in  Versailles,  in  Lon- 
don,— gazing  upon  the  walls  of  splendid  churches 
scattered  all  over  Europe, — we  can  see  where  the 
inspirations  have  come  from  that  have  made  thai 
art  supreme.  The  market  for  great  work  was  open, 
and  the  best  and  greatest  that  the  best  and  greatest 
artist  could  do  was  sure  of  a  place  and  a  price. 
When  America  establishes  galleries  of  pictures,  and 
holds  the  funds  to  pay  for  all  that  is  great  and 
worthy,  the  great  and  worthy  pictures  will  undoubt- 
edly be  painted.  Meantime,  the  artists  of  the 
country  must  fight  the  influences  which  depress  and 
demoralize  them  as  best  they  can.  They  can  da 
more  and  better  than  they  are  doing,  we  are  sure; 
We  sincerely  hope  that  next  year  we  shall  have,  in 
all  our  exhibitions,  an  advance  in  the  subject" 
treated,  so  that  pettiness  in  size  of  pictures  may  be 
somewhat  atoned  for  by  dignity  and  interest  of  topic 
and  a  larger  and  more  natural  style  of  treatment 
The  nation  is  not  only  becoming  prosperous,  but  is 
constantly  progressing  in  the  knowledge  of  art,  so 
that  we  believe  all  good  artists  will  find  it  for  theii 
pecuniary  advantage  to  go  higher  in  their  work, 
— higher  in  excellence  and  higher  in  price.  If  they 
cannot  sell  large  pictures,  they  can  surely  sell  thosfl 
of  graver  import  and  more  elaborate  execution. 

International  Copyright. 

THERE  is  something  encouraging  to  the  friends 
of  international  copyright  in  the  present  condition 
of  things.  It  is  humiliating,  of  course,  to  every 
author  that  his  own  rights  have  had  very  little  con- 
sideration in  the  handling  of  this  question.  If  he 
has  asked  for  the  protection  of  literary  property  for 
himself  and  his  confreres,  at  home  and  abroad,  he 


TOPICS  OF  THE   TIME. 


'47 


has  been  opposed  by  the  publishing  and  paper-mak- 
ing interests,  and  on  their  behalf  he  has  uni- 
formly been  defeated.  He  has  been  obliged  to 
wait  for  the  adjustment  of  his  own  rights  until 
these  other  interests  should  be  ready ;  and  they  have 
never  been  ready.  Our  American  publishers  have 
cared  nothing,  as  a  rule,  for  the  author,  or  for  right. 
They  have  simply  been  looking  after  their  own 
interests.  American  authorship  has  nothing  to 
expect  from  the  publishing  interest  for  itself.  The 
trouble  is  that  American  publishers  dread  interna- 
tional copyright  for  the  sole  reason  that  it  is  possi- 
ble, under  it,  for  English  publishers  to  make  and 
sell  in  this  market  their  own  editions  of  books  that 
have  hitherto  been  stolen.  Could  this  apprehended 
difficulty  be  provided  against,  there  would  be  no 
hinderance  in  getting  an  international  copyright  to- 
morrow. The  American  publisher  wishes  to  make 
all  the  books,  American  and  foreign,  that  are  sold 
in  this  market,  and  the  paper-maker  desires  to 
manufacture  the  paper  for  them. 

Now,  w"e  would  like  to  emphasize  some  facts  con- 
nected with  this  matter,  and  to  call  attention  to  the 
natural  results  of  this  course  of  action  on  the  part 
of  American  publishers.  The  rights  of  literary 
property  have  been  steadily  ignored  throughout  the 
whole  of  American  history.  The  foreign  author  has 
had  no  rights  here,  and  the  American  author's  prop- 
erty has  had  li  ttle  protection  abroad.  The  publishers 
of  each  nation  have  had  the  privilege  of  stealing  liter- 
ary property  from  each  other  at  will.  Many  men  in 
America  have  been  greatly  enriched  by  availing 
themselves  of  the  inventions  and  works  of  foreign 
authors,  without  making  any  returns.  The  business 
—even  the  main  business — of  some  of  our  American 
publishers,  has  been  a  business  of  persistent  and 
industrious  theft.  The  author  has  had  no  chance 
by  the  side  of  the  inventor  of  a  machine.  Tenny- 
son, and  Browning,  and  Swinburne,  and  Dickens, 
and  Thackeray,  have  had  no  legal  protection 
•whatever.  What  "courtesies"  have  been  rendered 
them  we  do  not  know  and  we  do  not  care.  It  is 
enough  that  not  one  of  these  superb  writers,  who 
ministers,  or  has  ministered,  to  the  culture  and  the 
pleasure  of  the  American  people,  had  a  right,  under 
American  law,  to  a  penny  of  income  from  his  pro- 
ductions, while  the  inventor  of  a  rat-trap  could  have 
secured  a  patent  on  his  contrivance,  and  controlled 
the  sale  and  profits  of  it. 

We.  assume  and  assert  that  there  is  such  a  thing 
as  literary  property.  Our  own  copyright  law  recog- 
nizes it.  An  American  author  has  a  right  to  the 
literary  work  which  he  produces,  and  in  America 
he  is  protected  in  it.  The  foreign  author  has  the 
same  right,  which  our  Government  refuses  to  pro- 
tect. This  kind  of  property  is  very  jealously 
guarded  in  England,  as  in  other  European  countries, 
and  we  know  of  no  other  property  belonging  to  a 
foreigner,  which  can  be  landed  on  our  shores  that 
is  not  protected  by  our  laws.  We  could  not  steal 
a  knife,  or  a  pail,  or  a  piece  of  cloth,  belonging 
to  a  foreigner,  without  being  summoned  before  the 
courts  and  made  to  give  an  account  of  ourselves. 
And  be  it  said,  right  here,  that  the  publisher  has 


nothing  whatever  to  do  with  this  matter.  His  inter- 
ference is  a  gross  impertinence,  not  to  say  a  cruel 
wrong.  Right  is  right;  property  is  property;  and 
nothing  can  be  made  in  the  long  run  by  any  set  of 
men,  in  any  community,  by  denying  justice  to  a  class. 
It  is  right  that  the  literary  man  should  be  protected 
in  his  property  everywhere,  and  the  denial  of  this 
right  is  certain  to  work  mischief,  in  the  long  run,  to 
those  who  undertake  to  make  money  out  of  such 
denial. 

We  began  by  saying  that  there  is  something 
encouraging  to  the  friends  of  international  copyright 
in  the  present  condition  of  things.  What  is  that 
condition  ?  Universal  sickness  in  the  book-pub- 
lishing business  in  America,  in  consequence  of  the 
facility  with  which  foreign  works  are  stolen.  The 
cheap  "libraries,"  the  cheap  books  now  produced, 
are  ruining  the  book  trade.  The 'country  book- 
seller some  years  ago  went  out  of  his  business, 
and  surrendered  what  there  was  left  of  it  to  the 
periodical  dealer,  and  now  the  book-publisher  must 
die,  or  get  rid  of  these  cheap  books,  whose  copy- 
right has  been  stolen.  This  denial  of  the  right  of 
the  foreign  author  in  his  book  has  worked  all  the 
mischief.  Any  cut-throat  can  become  a  publisher 
now,  and,  by  stealing,  reduce  that  business  to  a 
simple  matter  of  job-printing.  So  this  denial  of  an 
author's  rights  on  the  part  of  publishers  is  working 
out  its  own  legitimate  results,  in  the  ruin  of  the 
publishing  business.  Not  only  is  it  doing  this,  but 
it  is  ruining  American  authorship  at  the  same  time, 
and  by  the  same  means.  There  is  no  American 
author  who  does  not  see  his  own  literary  revenues 
declining  year  by  year,  in  consequence  of  the  cheap 
books  that  are  now  turned  out  by  these  "  cheap 
John  "  pirates. 

All  this  is  very  encouraging,  because  this  stealing 
must  be  stopped  to  keep  the  American  publishing 
interest  from  drifting  to  absolute  wreck.  Under 
what  regulations  an  international  copyright  shall 
be  granted,  we  do  not  particularly  care.  We  should 
like  to  see  our  publishers  protected  in  the  manu- 
facture of  books  for  the  American  market,  but  that 
is  not  the  first  question.  The  first  question  is  one 
of  right  and  justice  to  the  authors  of  the  world. 
Let  that  be  settled  on  its  own  merits,  and  we  will 
risk  the  rest.  Nothing  can  be  so  ruinous  as  the 
present  system;  so  let  us  be  right,  and  trust  to 
right  for  the  results  to  all  the  interests  involved. 
We  rejoice  that  the  time  has  come  when  an  inter- 
national copyright  is  as  essential  to  the  welfare  of 
American  publishers  as  of  American  authors — when 
it  is  absolutely  essential  to  both.  Let  us  have  it  at 
once,  and  let  us  have  it  fixed,  first  and  foremost,  on 
a  basis  of  justice  to  authorship,  wherever  it  may 
exist. 

Common  Sense  and  Rum. 

To  THE  EDITOR  OF  SCRIBNER'S  MONTHLY: 

SIR  :  Under  the  heading  "  Topics  of  the  Time," 
you  have  introduced  in  the  February  number  a  tirade 
against  the  use  of  spirituous  liquors,  or  those  con- 
taining alcohol.  Do  you  know  that  this  evil  use  of 
alcohol  is  but  the  desire  of  men  for  the  casting  oat 


148 


HOME  AND   SOCIETY. 


of  evil  by  its  use  ?  Wines  and  spirits,  etc.,  are  sim- 
ply luxuries  for  nerves,  for  mind  and  heart.  In  the 
case  of  the  rich  man,  they  relieve  the  ennui  and 
burden  of  existence  ;  of  the  poor  man,  the  stupidity 
and  deprivation  of  his  condition.  In  the  case  of  the 
man  in  bodily  weakness  or  suffering,  they  give  pres- 
ent ease,  relief  or  strength,  and  good  spirits.  They 
are  a  quick,  though  brief,  panacea  for  all  the  evils  of 
our  mortal  lot. 

They  cannot  be  eradicated  from  our  use;  they 
have  been  used,  and  forever  will  be.  The  first  pro- 
ducer of  alcohol  called  it  "aqua  vita."  You  may 
call  it  poison  ;  but  men  will  have  it  till  some  other 
diviner  ether  shall  be  invented  to  take  its  place. 
Alcohol  is  in  all  substances,  or  nearly  all,  as  if  the 
Creator  intended  it.  Let  us  consider  that  the  only 
good  we  can  do  in  relation  to  it,  is  this :  to  prevent, 
so  far  as  we  can,  the  improper  use  of  it ;  to  secure, 
so  far  as  we  can,  the  proper  use  of  it.  Men  have 
tried  its  blessing  and  its  curse,  and  they  will  have 
it.  Very  truly  yours, 

A  CLERGYMAN  AND  A  CONSTANT  READER. 

We  presume  the  author  of  the  above  fancies  that 
he  has  written  an  eminently  sensible  note.  He  pro- 
poses simply  to  take  things  as  he  finds  them,  and 
make  the  best  of  them.  Rum  is  a  luxury  for  nerves, 
for  mind  and  heart;  a  quick,  though  brief,  panacea 
for  all  the  evils  of  our  mortal  lot.  Men  will  have 
it,  and  all  we  can  do  is  to  secure,  so  far  as  we  may, 
the  proper  use  of  it,  and  prevent,  so  far  as  we  can, 
the  improper  use  of  it. 

Very  well,  we  take  our  correspondent  on  his  own 
ground.  Let  us  take  things  as  we  find  them — as 
they  always  have  been  and  are  always  likely  to  be. 
And  how  do  we  find  them  ?  Do  we  find — have  we 
ever  found,  under  any  circumstances — that  rum  is  a 
blessing  to  society  ?  Has  it  ever  been  an  ally  of  the 
religion  and  morality  which  our  correspondent 
preaches  ?  Have  men  using  it  ever  made  a  "  proper  " 
use  of  it  ?  Have  they  not  persistently  made  a  most 
improper  use  of  it,  destroying  their  property,  their 
health,  their  morality,  the  peace  and  comfort  of  their 
families,  their  lives  ?  Can  our  correspondent  name  any 
curse  that  compares  in  horrible  efficiency  of  degrad- 
ing and  destructive  power,  with  this  curse  of  alcohol? 


We  weary  with  statistics.  They  have  been  given, 
over  and  over  again,  and  the  facts  are  so  sickening 
and  the  figures  are  so  astounding  that  we  tire  of 
reiterating  them.  But  if  we  are  to  accept  facts  as 
they  are,  we  have  only  to  refer  to  our  jurists  to  learn 
that  the  great  fountain-head  of  crime  is  the  rum- 
bottle  ;  our  statistics  of  pauperism  will  show  us  that 
drunkenness  is  the  source  of  most  of  our  poverty ; 
and  our  political  economists  will  prove  to  us  that 
our  national  prosperities  are  poured  down  the  throats 
of  a  guzzling,  infatuated  multitude,  while  most  of 
our  clergymen  will  testify  that  this  "luxury  for 
nerves  "  is  debasing  to  morals  and  destructive  of 
religion.  In  short,  when  we  come  to  take  facts  as 
they  are,  we  find  that  the  human  race  have  never 
made  a  "  proper"  use  of  alcoholic  drinks,  that  they 
cannot  be  trusted  with  them,  and  that  what  our 
divine  correspondent  regards  as  a  divine  ether,  only 
to  be  superseded  by  a  diviner,  is  an  infernal 
nuisance. 

What  does  our  clerical  correspondent  propose  to 
do  with  this  fact  that  mankind,  when  left  perfectly 
free,  have  never  made  a  "  proper  "  use  of  alcoholic 
drinks,  and  cannot  be  trusted  to  do  so  ?  He  knows 
that  wherever  there  is  an  open  rum-shop  there  is 
abuse.  He  knows  that  in  whatever  community 
this  divine  ether  is  for  sale,  there  drunkards  are 
made,  and  fortunes  are  squandered,  and  women  and 
children  are  ruined.  He  knows  that  the  use  of  this 
God-given  alcohol  is  the  cause  of  ten  thousand  times 
more  pain  and  loss  than  pleasure  and  gain,  and  that 
if  it  could  be  shut  off  from  the  use  of  the  world,  the 
world  would  be  incalculably  the  gainer.  What  does 
he  propose  to  do  with  facts  like  these  ?  For,  after 
all,  his  practical  proposition  is  the  same  as  our  own 
— to  restrict  the  improper  use  of  alcohol  and  pro- 
mote its  proper  use.  The  fact  is  that  it  is  a  drug 
which  has  the  power  to  unfit  men  for  using  it  prop- 
erly. It  is  not  like  bread  or  meat.  It  makes  insane. 
It  develops  uncontrollable  appetite.  It  is  such  a 
demoralizer  that  it  destroys  the  power  of  safe  and 
judicious  handling.  What  shall  be  done  with  this 
fact,  if  we  are  to  take  facts  as  we  find  them  ? 


HOME  AND   SOCIETY. 


Hints  for  the  Yosemite  Trip. 

LAST  July  I  found  myself  in  San  Francisco,  with 
my  face  toward  Yosemite.  I  began  reading  guide- 
books and  practical  manuals.  With  free  ranging 
ground  in  a  good  library,  two  days  gave  me  a  surfeit 
of  this  kind  of  mental  pabulum.  I  expected  to  find 
on  Yosemite  something  like  Whymper's  "  Scramble 
among  the  Alps,"  but  I  did  not.  Still  I  pored 
over  such  books  as  I  could  find,  taking  copious 
notes,  not  one  of  which  was  found  of  the  slightest 
service,  and  obtained  from  ticket  agents  and  tourists 
much  information  which  would  have  been  valuable 
if  any  of  it  had  been  true.  It  would  savor  of  the 


guide-books  to  give  many  details  of  our  trips.  But 
a  few  of  the  most  striking  features  will,  I  think, 
bear  notice. 

In  the  Valley  itself  one  gets  no  conception  of 
its  depth,  nor  of  the  height  of  the  mountains  that 
wall  it  in.  Hence,  a  trip  to  Yosemite  without  an 
ascent  of  at  least  one  of  the  neighboring  peaks  is  a 
sad  waste  of  time  and  effort.  The  easiest  trip  for 
one  who  is  not  strong  is  to  Glacier  Point,  returning 
by  the  Nevada  and  Vernal  Falls.  This  gives  one  a 
succession  of  fine  views  of  the  Valley  and  of  the  sur- 
rounding peaks,  and  carries  one  over  a  trail  almost 
as  wide  and  secure  as  a  roadway.  It  gives  an  ele- 
vation of  3,200  feet,  and  one  of  the  best  examples 


HOME  AND   SOCIETY. 


149 


of  a  sheer  descent  to  be  found  in  the  valley.  Mirror 
Lake,  Bridal  Veil  Fall,  the  base  of  El  Capital),  Sen- 
tinel Rock,  the  Yosemite  Falls — names  familiar 
as  household  words  to  every  owner  of  a  stereo- 
scopic collection  —  all  these  may  be  visited  in 
short  walks  or  drives,  without  fatigue.  To  the 
more  ambitious  there  remain  Eagle  Peak,  South 
Dome,  and  Cloud's  Rest.  These  form  a  nat- 
ural climax.  If  only  one  can  be  visited,  by  all 
means  choose  the  last.  The  view  repays  one  bet- 
ter than  that  from  any  other  point.  Eagle  Peak, 
which  is  the  highest  of  the  Three  Brothers — is  not 
a  difficult  climb,  and  the  way  is  rendered  agreeable 
by  the  most  delicious  springs  bubbling  from  the 
rock.  The  view  from  its  summit  is  one  of  surpass- 
ing beauty,  and  gives,  perhaps,  the  best  idea  of  a 
magnificent  vista  of  mountain -walled  valley  and 
of  the  encircling  chain  of  the  higher  Sierras.  The 
trip  to  Cloud's  Rest  is  the  most  substantial 
achievement.  The  trail  to  this  mountain  is  four- 
teen miles  in  length,  and  the  miles  are  like 
those  of  New  Jersey.  The  peak  lies  just  back  of 
South  Dome,  but  an  immense  circuit  is  required  to 
reach  it.  It  is  6,150  feet  above  the  Valley  and 
10,210  feet  above  the  sea  level.  Thus  it  is  almost 
as  high  above  the  Valley  as  Mt.  Mitchell,  or  Mt. 
Washington,  above  the  level  of  the  sea.  Other 
peaks  in  the  Sierras  surpass  it  greatly  in  elevation, 
but  I  doubt  whether  a  spectacle  so  unique  and  im- 
pressive may  be  enjoyed  from  Shasta  itself. 

Perhaps  the  best  way  to  give  a  clear  idea  of  the 
expenses  of  a  trip  to  Yosemite  will  be  to  add  my 
itinerary  and  expense  account  from  San  Francisco  : 


July 

July 
J"ly 

July 
July 

July 


10— Fare  for  round  trip  by  Madera  route — railroad 

and  coach $59.00 

— Sleeping-berth 1.50 

ii — Breakfast  at  Madera  (villainous) i.oo 

— Dinner  at  Fresno  Flats       do       i.oo 

12 — Supper,  lodging  and  breakfast  at  "  Clark's" . . .  4.50 
14 — Tnp  to  Glacier  Point,  Sentinel  Dome,  Nevada 

and  Vernal  Falls 3.25 

15 — Trip  to  Eagle  Peak 2.00 

16 —   "    "  Cloud"?   Rest 1.30 

18 —    "    "  South  Dome  (beverages) i.oo 

22 — Board  for  ten  days  at  $3  a  day 30.00 

— Laundry,  baths,  sundries 5.00 

— Expenses  on  return  trip 13.00 


Total,  $123.00 

For  this  amount  any  one  who  is  economical  may 
spend  ten  days  in  the  Valley.  Of  my  two  com- 
panions one  expended  but  $98,  while  the  other 
did  not  get  through  for  less  than  $200.  His  first 
day's  trip,  when  he  had  hired  a  horse,  paid  his  share 
of  guide  hire,  and  paid  for  tolls  and  refreshment,  cost 
him  $11.50;  mine  cost  me  $3.50;  the  other  (who 
carried  his  lunch)  spent  just  $1.25 — the  expense  of 
two  tolls ! 

An  impression  prevails  at  the  East  that  a  bearded 
ruffian,  armed  to  the  teeth,  stands  at  the  entrance 
of  all  the  trails  leading  up  to  the  peaks  about  Yosem- 
ite, and  levies  any  tax  on  travelers  that  caprice 
may  suggest.  The  truth  is  that  the  tolls  are  not 
high.  The  trails  have  been  dug  at  much  expense 
by  the  proprietors,  who  have  leased  the  right  from 
the  State.  These  men  are  checked  in  any  extortion 
by  a  guardian  of  the  Valley.  Tolls  on  trails  range 


from  fifty  cents  to  one  dollar,  and  one  payment  gives 
you  the  privilege  of  passing  over  a  trail  for  the 
season.  Board  at  the  hotels  is  very  reasonable, 
transient  rates  varying  from  $3.50  to  $2.50  a  day. 
Of  the  three  hotels,  the  best  one  has  the  finest  view  of 
the  Falls  and  consequently  charges  the  highest  price. 
But  the  table  is  excellent,  and,  considering  the  cost 
of  freight  on  all  supplies,  the  rates  are  singularly 
low.  Prices  for  saddle-horses  are  high — $3.50  for 
a  short  trip,  $5  for  a  long  one.  Guide  hire  is  $5 
a  day.  With  a  large  party,  of  course,  the  cost  of 
a  guide  is  reduced  to  a  small  sum  for  each;  unless 
one  has  made  a  very  careful  preparatory  study 
of  the  Valley  the  guide  is  a  necessary  evil. 

Practical  hints  for  visitors  to  Yosemite  may  be 
summed  up  under  the  following  heads : 

r.  Don't  buy  a  round-trip  ticket.  If  you  start 
from  San  Francisco,  as  you  probably  will,  enter  the 
Valley  by  the  Madera  route  and  come  out  by  the 
Big  Oak  Flat  road.  You  thus  see  two  groves  of 
big  trees,  and  at  Milton  you  may  diverge  to  the 
Calaveras  grove,  if  your  eye  is  not  satiated  with  the 
vastness  of  the  Sequoias.  With  a  round-trip  ticket 
you  are  foreclosed  from  any  choice  of  return  routes, 
as  it  is  not  transferable.  If  you  visit  the  Valley  on 
your  way  from  the  East,  stop  at  Stockton,  go  by 
rail  to  Milton  and  thence  by  coach  to  the  Valley, 
by  the  Big  Oak  Flat  road,  returning  by  the  way 
of  Madera.  The  rate  by  the  former  road  is 
about  one-third  less  than  by  the  Madera  route. 
The  latter  road  was  opened  last  year,  and  the  bed 
has  been  graded  so  that  in  time  a  narrow-gauge 
railroad  may  be  built  to  "Clark's."  Another 
route — the  Mariposa — which  runs  from  Merced  to 
"  Clark's  " — is  used  mainly  now  for  the  mail-stage, 
but  probably  will  be  used  only  a  few  years  longer. 
Still  another — the  Coulterville — from  Merced  by 
way  of  Snelling's,  Coulterville  and  Dudley's,  enjoys 
much  patronage. 

2.  Try  to  see  the  Valley  in  May  or  June.     From 
all  I  could  learn,  the   Falls  are  then  much   more 
majestic  than  later  in  the  season — and  the  trails  not 
so  heated  and  dusty.     Still,  a  considerable  body  of 
water  comes  over  the  Yosemite  Fall  as  late  as  the 
first  of  August,  and  it  is  not  usually  until  the  first 
week  of  September  that   the  waterfall   element  is 
entirely  eliminated. 

3.  If  your  trip  is  made  in  May,  wear  heavy  cloth- 
ing;  if  later,   wear    summer   clothes    with    heavy 
wraps.     In  summer  the  air  in  the  Valley  is  like  that 
of  a  New  York  September  day,  with  just  a  touch  of 
chill  at  morning  and  nightfall.     The  ticket  agents 
advised  me  to  wear  a  winter  suit  in  midsummer. 
My  sufferings   have  made  me  tender  toward  future 
victims  of  their  inaccuracy. 

4.  Reduce   your  luggage   to    a   satchel ;    other- 
wise, you  may  wait  several  days  for  a  trunk  that 
has  got  stranded  along  the  road.    The  coach  '•  boot  " 
is  limited  in  capacity,  and  the  driver  is  prejudiced 
against    Saratogas.      Wear    a    duster     of    brown 
linen   or    alpaca,   and    a   straw   hat   with    a    wide 
brim.      Male    tourists    should   take   a  change   of 
light  clothing,  if  possible,  to  put  on    after  a  day's 
trip.      If  you  walk  it  is  indispensable,  as  the  dust 


HOME  AND  SOCIETY. 


penetrates  everything.  The  most  serviceable  suit 
is  a  gray  tweed;  it  is  proof  against  everything, 
and  looks  as  presentable  after  a  week  of  rough- 
ing as  at  the  start.  A  gray  woolen  shirt  is 
the  best  thing  for  climbing,  and  you  need  wear 
neither  waistcoat  nor  coat.  Stout  English-soled 
shoes  are,  of  course,  the  only  thing  for  walking. 
With  leather  leggings  the  outfit  for  the  tramp  is  com- 
plete. Cram  your  satchel  with  linen,  for  you  will 
have  to  change  every  day.  Don't  forget,  also, 
to  take  two  or  three  dozen  limes — the  Mexican 
substitute  for  the  lemon — which  sell  in  San  Fran- 
cisco for  a  bit  (one  dime)  a  dozen.  A  few  limes 
are  better  than  a  flask  of  whisky  for  tramping: 
they  allay  thirst,  cost  little  and  cause  no  head- 
aches. 

To  those  who  contemplate  a  trip  to  the  far 
West  I  would  say :  Come  early  and  go  back  be- 
fore the  disagreeable  weather  sets  in.  Start  in 
April,  devote  the  remnant  of  the  month  and  May  to 
California,  and  return  in  early  June.  You  will  thus 
escape  the  alkali  dust  of  the  Plains  on  the  overland 
trip,  and  the  extreme  heat  of  the  Isthmus  should 
you  prefer  a  sea  voyage.  From  July  to  November 
San  Francisco  and  nearly  all  of  California  is  an  ex- 
cellent place  to  keep  away  from.  Dust  and  intense 
heat  in  the  interior,  dust  and  cold  winds  and  heavy 
fogs  on  the  coast,  make  it  a  most  undesirable 
place  of  residence. 

The  reduction  in  fares  to  California  by  rail  and 
steamer  ought  to  swell  the  already  large  number 
of  Eastern  visitors  who  go  to  the  Pacific  coast 
every  summer.  The  overland  trip  to  San  Francisco 
may  now  be  made  for  $150.  The  fare  is  $100; 
sleeping-car  ticket  $25  ;  board  $25.  This  is  a  close 
estimate,  but  one  may  get  through  on  it.  By 
steamer  the  fare  is  $75  in  the  saloon,  $85  in  deck 
cabins.  The  latter  are  well  worth  the  additional 
$10,  if  you  have  any  regard  for  pure  air.  This  in- 
cludes all  expenses  except  fees  to  the  steward  and 
waiter.  There  is  not  the  slightest  danger  of  fever 
on  the  Isthmus  if  one  abstains  from  liquors  and 
eats  tropical  fruits  in  moderation. 

In  San  Francisco  one  may  spend  a  fortnight  very 
pleasantly.  By  hiring  a  room  and  boarding  at 
French  restaurants  one  may  live  for  from  $10  to  $15 
in  comparative  luxury,  hampered  by  no  restrictions 
of  hotel  or  boarding-house.  Aside  from  Yosemite, 
which  perhaps  repays  one  better  for  a  visit  than 
any  other  place  in  the  country,  there  is  a  host  of 
pleasant  summer  resorts  in  the  State :  the  Geysers, 
Duncan's  Mills,  Lake  Tahoe,  Santa  Monica,  and 
Monterey, — a  delightful  old  Spanish  seaside  town, 
which  will  have  this  summer  several  new  hotels 
and  bathing-pavilions.  In  fine,  for  $500  you  may 
spend  a  month  in  a  city  and  State  which  give  as  many 
novel  sights  as  a  foreign  land ;  you  may  travel  over 
the  longest  railroad  in  the  world,  or  sail  down  the 
coast  of  California  and  take  a  jaunt  through  the 
strip  of  territory  that  is  now  vexing  the  souls  of 
believers  in  the  Monroe  Doctrine.  To  one  who  has 
seen  Europe  there  could  be  offered  no  more  at- 
tractive scheme  for  spending  a  holiday  season. 
GEORGE  H.  FITCH. 


Nerves  in  the  Household. 

THERE  is  hardly  an  American  family  in  which 
some  member  is  not  a  victim  to  some  sort  of 
nervous  disease — neuralgia,  hysteria,  the  extreme 
of  epilepsy,  or  the  mild  form  of  constant  "tire." 
Women,  oftener  young  than  old,  are  frequently 
mere  bundles  of  nerves :  thin  and  bloodless, 
living  on  morphine  and  valerian,  known  only 
in  their  homes  or  social  lives  by  their  suffer- 
ings, which  are  real  enough  to  carry  them  to 
the  edge  of  the  grave,  if  too  vague  for  any 
ordinary  medicine  to  touch.  An  eminent  physician 
has  hit  upon  a  system  of  treatment  for  this  class 
of  invalids,  which  is  said  to  be  successful.  He 
removes  them  from  home,  changes  the  whole  ma- 
terial and  moral  atmosphere  about  them,  puts  them 
to  bed,  and  forbids  them  to  move  hand  or  foot.  They 
are  overfed  five  times  a  day.  The  lack  of  exercise  is 
supplied  by  kneading  the  entire  body,  and  by  elec- 
tricity. The  patient  goes  to  bed  a  skeleton  and 
comes  out,  it  is  said,  fat  and  rosy.  The  secret 
in  this  treatment  is  absolute  rest,  and  the  re- 
duction of  the  patient  to  the  condition  of  a  mere 
animal. 

If  this  principle  be  correct,  there  is  no  reason  why 
every  mother  should  not  apply  it  in  the  treatment 
of  her  nervous  patient  (for  she  is  sure  to  have  one). 
Her  husband  is  overworked  in  the  office  or 
shop;  he  grows  thinner,  more  irritable;  every 
month  his  appetite  fails;  he  cannot  sleep,  com- 
plains of  dull  vacuity  at  the  base  of  the  brain, 
of  a  stricture  like  an  •  iron  band  about  his 
jaws.  There  is  no  time  to  lose.  If  possible  lift  the 
weight  a  little.  Adopt  a  cheaper,  simpler  style  of 
living,  let  the  floors  go  uncarpeted,  or  take  out  the 
money  in  the  savings-bank.  There  will  come  no 
rainier  day  than  this.  Give  him  a  month's  absolute 
holiday  free  from  worry  and  work,  feed  him  well, 
amuse  him.  Let  this  holiday  be  taken  in  the 
country,  or  somewhere  on  the  water,  out  of  sight 
or  hearing  of  his  daily  work  and  cares.  Nine 
chances  out  of  ten  he  will  come  back  a  new  man. 

Or  it  is  one  of  the  boys  who  is  pale,  who  has 
constant  headaches,  whose  face  jerks  strangely  in 
the  spring,  who  has  moody  fancies,  complains  of 
injustice,  has  doubts  of  the  Bible.  It  is  the  boy 
who  is  head  of  his  class,  too.  The  lad  does  not 
need  moral  discipline,  or  appeals  to  his  feelings  or 
his  faith.  Take  him  from  school,  and  from  home  ; 
turn  him  into  a  farm  for  a  year.  He  will  learn 
some  things  there  as  useful  in  his  future  life  as 
Greek  or  geometry.  Make  him  bathe  regularly, 
eat  heartily,  drink  milk  and  beef  tea,  sleep  early  at 
night  and  late  in  the  morning.  It  is  not  the  mind 
but  the  machine  that  needs  repairing. 

Or  it  is  the  mother's  own  arm  or  head  that  tor- 
tures her  with  neuralgia.  At  any  cost  give  the 
suffering  part  heat  and  absolute  rest;  wrap  it  in 
cotton  and  flannels  to  exclude  the  air.  Let  the  arm 
stop  its  working  and  the  brain  its  thinking. 

In  short,  the  home  treatment  of  all  nervous  dis- 
orders should  be  based  on  three  words :  change, 
warmth  and  rest. 


CULTURE  AND  PROGRESS. 


CULTURE  AND  PROGRESS. 


Alme.  de  Remusat's  Memoirs.  (Concluding  Part.)* 
THE  strong  prejudice  entertained  by  Madame  de 
Re"musat  against  Napoleon  and  the  Bonapartes, 
•which  was  undoubtedly  fostered  by  bad  behavior  on 
the  part  of  the  latter,  but  which  seems  to  have  sprung 
originally  from  the  natural  antagonism  between 
persons  of  ancient  lineage  and  comparatively  upstart 
nobles,  is  shown  in  the  last  pages  of  these  memoirs, 
as  it  was  in  the  first.  We  find  the  chronicler  of 
Napoleon's  court  biased  in  spite  of  herself  toward 
the  Beauharnais  and  against  the  Bonapartes. 
Speaking  of  the  behavior  of  Queen  Hortense  when 
she  had  rejoined  her  mother,  the  Empress  Josephine, 
at  Mayence,  and  had  escaped  for  a  time  from  the 
gloomy  and  jealous  neighborhood  of  King  Louis,  this 
steady  apologist  for  the  Beauharnais  speaks  only  in 
mild  disapproval  of  actions  upon  which  the  European 
gossip-mongers  placed  quite  a  different  construction. 
Remusat  wrote  to  his  wife  from  Mayence  that  the 
court  there  was  monotonously  regular.  "  There,  as 
elsewhere  and  in  all  places,  the  Empress  was  gentle, 
quiet,  idle  and  averse  to  take  anything  on  herself, 
because,  whether  far  or  near,  she  dreaded  the  dis- 
pleasure of  her  husband.  Her  daughter,  who  was 
delighted  to  escape  from  her  wretched  home,  spent 
her  time  in  diversions  of  a  nature  somewhat  too 
childish  for  her  rank  and  position."  To  this  pas- 
sage M.  Paul  de  Remusat  has  added  a  note  of  his 
own — one  of  the  few  occasions  upon  which  he 
alludes  to  the  late  Emperor: 

"  It  is  evident  that  Queen  Hortense  and  her  court 
amused  themselves  like  school-girls.  This  was  a 
result  of  their  intimacy  while  at  Madame  Campan's 
school.  Napoleon  III.  seemed  to  have  inherited 
his  mother's  tastes  in  this  respect.  Even  when  long 
past  youth  he  liked  children's  games,  blind-man's- 
buff  and  others.  Only  on  these  occasions  did  he 
clear  his  brow  and  seem  happy,  and  even  amiable, 
which  was  by  no  means  the  case  in  his  intercourse 
with  the  world,  social  or  political,  for  his  manner 
was  extremely  cold." 

M.  Paul  de  Remusat  confesses  in  one  place  to 
the  probability  that  his  grandmother  may  have 
looked  too  favorably  on  Queen  Hortense,  but  puts 
it  down  to  reaction  from  the  detestation  of  the  char- 
acter of  Louis  Bonaparte,  her  husband.  He  reprints 
the  following  letters  of  Napoleon  to  his  step-daugh- 
ter and  sister-in-law,  before  and  after  the  death  of 
her  son,  that  young  Napoleon  whose  loss,  ter- 
ribly deplored  by  his  mother,  brought  upon 
Josephine,  and  indeed  upon  all  Europe,  a  thousand 
«vils  which  perhaps  might  have  been  avoided 
had  he  lived.  It  will  be  remembered  that  the 
death  of  this  boy  led  to  the  divorce  and  the 
complications  with  Austria  which,  added  to  the 


*  Memoirs  of  Madame  de  Remusat  1802-1808.  Edited, 
-with  Preface  and  Notes,  by  her  grandson,  Paul  de  Remusat, 
Senator.  Translated  by  Mrs.  Cashel  Hoey  and  Mr.  John 
Lillie.  Part  III.  New  York:  Harper  &  Brothers  and  D. 
Appleton  &  Co. 


indignation  excited  in  Europe  by  the  interference 
of  Napoleon  with  the  most  sacred  laws  of  society, 
precipitated  his  own  fall.  Here  is  the  foot-note  : 

"  I  add  to  these,  in  order  better  to  depict  the  family 
life  of  the  King  and  Queen  of  Holland,  the  following 
letter,  written  to  the  King  by  his  brother,  and  dated 
Finckestein,  April  4th,  1807,  about  a  month  before 
the  child's  death  :  '  Your  quarrels  with  the  Queen 
are  becoming  public  property.  Do  show  in  your  own 
home  the  paternal  and  effeminate  character  that  you 
show  in  your  government,  and  evince  in  matters 
of  business  the  severity  you  display  at  home.  You 
manage  your  young  wife  as  you  would  a  regiment. 
*  *  You  have  the  best  and  most  virtuous  of 
wives,  and  you  make  her  wretched.  Let  her  dance 
as  much  as  she  likes  ;  it  is  natural  at  her  age.  My 
wife  is  forty,  but  from  the  battle-field  I  write,  telling 
her  to  go  to  balls.  And  you  want  a  girl  of  twenty, 
who  sees  her  life  passing  away,  who  retains  all  its 
illusions,  to  live  like  a  nun,  or  like  a  nurse,  always 
washing  her  baby  !  You  interfere  too  much  in  your 
home,  and  not  enough  in  your  government.  I 
would  not  tell  you  all  this,  only  for  the  interest  I 
bear  you.  Make  the  mother  of  your  children  happy ; 
there  is  but  one  way — it  is  to  show  her  great  esteem 
and  confidence.  Unfortunately  your  wife  is  too 
good;  were  you  married  to  a  coquette,  she  would 
lead  you  by  the  nose.  But  your  wife  is  proud,  and 
she  is  shocked  and  grieved  at  the  mere  idea  that 
you  can  think  ill  of  her.  You  should  have  had  a 
wife  like  some  I  know  of  in  Paris.  She  would  have 
played  you  tricks,  and  would  have  tied  you  to  her 
apron-string.  It  is  not  my  fault.  I  have  often  told 
your  wife  so.'  In  this  sensible  letter,  full  of  the 
sagacity  and  vulgarity  with  which  Napoleon  looked 
at  the  ordinary  events  of  life,  the  identity  of  his 
opinions  with  those  of  the  author  of  these  Memoirs 
as  to  the  cause  and  character  of  the  conjugal  discord 
of  which  they  are  treating,  is  remarkable.  King 
Louis  is  too  stiff,  too  austere,  too  jealous.  His 
wife  has  tastes  natural  to  youth  and  to  imagination. 
Her  husband  misjudges,  humbles,  depresses,  and 
offends  her.  Then  comes  the  death  of  the  young 
Prince,  and  this  affliction,  equally  felt  by  both 
parents,  draws  them  together  in  a  common  sorrow, 
lasting  only  on  the  part  of  the  Queen,  and  for  a 
time  her  one  only  thought,  and  not  hers  only,  but 
her  mother's  as  well.  In  Napoleon's  published  let- 
ters, he  appears  to  be  grieved  at  first,  but  afterward 
weary  of  their  continual  sadness.  There  is  a  curious 
mixture  of  kindness  and  imperious  egotism  in  his 
manner  of  comforting  them,  or  of  commanding  them 
to  be  comforted.  I  have  quoted  some  of  these  let- 
ters. Here  is  another,  dated  Friedland,  June  l6th, 
1807  :  '  My  daughter,  I  have  received  your  letter 
dated  from  Orleans.  I  am  grieved  at  your  sorrow, 
but. I  should  like  you  to  be  more  courageous.  To 
live  is  to  suffer,  and  a  brave  man  always  struggles 
to  be  master  of  himself.  I  don't  like  to  see  you 
unjust  toward  little  Napoleon  Louis  and  toward  all 
your  friends.  Your  mother  and  I  thought  we  were 
dearer  to  you  than  it  seems  we  are.  I  won  a  great 
victory  on  the  I4th  of  June.  I  am  in  good  health, 
and  send  you  my  love.'  It  will  be  seen  how 
greatly  the  Emperor  and  Josephine's  lady-in-wait- 
ing differ  in  their  estimate  of  Queen  Hortense  from 
the  general  opinion  of  her  character,  which  yet  does 
not  appear  to  have  been  altogether  unfounded.  It 
is  probable  that  both  were  swayed  by  their  unfavor- 


IS2 


CULTURE  AND  PROGRESS. 


able  opinion  of  the  Emperor's  brothers.  This  was 
certainly  deserved,  especially  by  Louis,  who  had  no 
redeeming  quality  to  atone  for  his  defects.— P.  R." 

Madame  de  Remusat  makes  fresh  mention  of  the 
Austrian  ambassadors  whose  memoirs  are  making 
a  stir  nowadays  only  second  to  her  own.  Accord- 
ing to  her,  he  was  handsome  and  fell  into  the  toils 
of  Napoleon's  sister  Caroline,  Murat's  wife,  or,  as 
she  was  then  called,  the  Grand-Duchess  of  Berg : 

"  In  the  course  of  the  summer  Count  Metternich, 
the  Austrian  ambassador,  arrived  in  Paris.  He 
occupied  an  important  position  in  Europe,  took  part 
in  events  of  the  highest  importance,  and  finally 
made  an  enormous  fortune ;  but  his  abilities  did 
not  rise  above  the  schemes  of  a  second-rate  policy. 
At  the  period  of  which  I  am  speaking  he  was  young, 
good-looking,  and  popular  with  women.  A  little 
later,  he  formed  an  attachment  to  Madame  Murat, 
and  he  retained  a  feeling  toward  her  which  for  a 
long  time  aided  to  keep  her  husband  on  the  throne 
of  Naples,  and  which,  probably,  is  still  of  service  to 
her  in  her  retirement.  *  *  * 

"  The  Grand-Duchess  of  Berg  applied  herself  to 
being  extremely  agreeable  to  us  all  at  Fontainebleau. 
She  could  be  very  gay  and  pleasant  when  she  was 
in  the  humor,  and  she  could  even  assume  an  air  of 
bonhomie.  She  lived  in  the  chateau  at  her  own 
expense,  very  luxuriously,  and  kept  a  sumptuous 
table.  She  always  used  gilt  plate,  in  this  outdoing 
the  Emperor,  whose  silver-gilt  services  were  used 
on  state  occasions  only.  She  invited  all  the  dwellers 
in  the  palace  by  turns,  receiving  them  most  gra- 
ciously, even  those  whom  she  did  not  like,  and 
appeared  to  be  thinking  of  nothing  but  pleasure; 
but,  nevertheless,  she  was  not  wasting  her  time. 
She  frequently  saw  Count  Metternich,  the  Austrian 
ambassador.  He  was  young  and  handsome,  and  he 
appeared  to  admire  the  sister  of  the  Emperor. 
From  that  time  forth,  whether  from  a  spirit  of 
coquetry,  or  from  a  far-sighted  ambition  which 
prompted  such  a  measure  of  precaution,  she  began 
to  accept  the  homage  of  the  Minister  with  readiness. 
He  was  said  to  be  held  in  high  consideration  and 
to  have  great  influence  at  his  Court,  and  he  might 
be  placed,  by  the  course  of  events,  in  a  position  to 
serve  her.  Whether  she  had  this  idea  beforehand 
or  not,  events  justified  it,  and  Metternich  never 
failed  her. 

"  In  addition  to  this,  she  took  the  influence  of  M. 
de  Talleyrand  into  consideration,  and  did  her  best 
to  cultivate  him  while  keeping  up  as  secretly  as  pos- 
sible her  relations  with  Fouche',  who  visited  her 
with  extreme  precaution,  in  consequence  of  the  dis- 
pleasure with  which  the  Emperor  regarded  any 
intimacy  of  the  kind.  We  observed  her  making  up 
to  M.  de  Talleyrand,  in  the  drawing-room  at  Font- 
ainebleau, talking  to  him,  laughing  at  his  ban  mots, 
looking  at  him  when  he  said  anything  remarkable, 
and  even  addressing  such  observations  to  him.  M. 
de  Talleyrand  showed  no  reluctance,  but  met  her 
advances,  and  then  their  interviews  became  more 
serious." 

Between  Beauharnais  and  Bonaparte  there  could 
be  little  question  that  a  preference  ought  to  have 
been  given  to  the  former ;  but  we  see  Madame  de 
Remusat  extending  a  certain  amount  of  charity 
toward  the  peccadilloes  not  only  of  Queen  Hor- 
tense,  but  of  the  nieces  of  Josephine.  One  of  the 
most  vivid  scenes  in  the  whole  course  of  the  mem- 


oirs, and  one  which  sums  up  as  well  as  any  other 
the  curious  condition  of  affairs  into  which  the  Revo- 
lution had  plunged  France,  is  the  bare-faced  flirta- 
tion which  occurred  at  a  ball  at  Fontainebleau  be- 
tween the  young  princess  Stephanie  of  Baden  (the 
niece  of  Josephine)  and  Jerome  Bonaparte,  the 
legal  husband  of  Elizabeth  Patterson  of  Baltimore, 
and  who  had  also  been  married  to  a  stout  German 
princess  as  a  step  to  the  Kingdom  of  Westphalia. 
The  memoirs  go  no  farther  than  the  outbreak  of 
the  revolution  in  Spain  against  the  arrogant  mar- 
shals of  Napoleon.  This  is  most  unfortunate,  for, 
notwithstanding  a  certain  share  of  bias  natural  to  a. 
person  who  lived  in  the  very  winds  of  intrigue  which 
blew  at  the  court,  Madame  de  Remusat  had  more 
than  a  mere  literary  style  and  a  knack  at  remember- 
ing anecdotes.  She  had  a  very  remarkable  mind 
for  serious  politics,  and  occasionally  displays  a 
breadth  of  thought  and  vigor  of  expression  quite 
unexampled  among  woman  writers.  Her  observa- 
tions on  the  actual  reasons  for  the  instability  of  the 
great  fortunes  made  by  the  generals  and  relatives 
of  Napoleon  show  how  clear  were  her  reasoning 
powers.  While  Napoleon  gave  enormous  revenues 
to  his  marshals,  he  gave  them  no  sure  method  of 
collecting  the  income,  and  yet  demanded  that  there 
should  be  a  show  kept  up  by  each  recipient  of  his 
bounty  fully  equal  to  the  revenue  as  estimated  on 
paper.  Many  ruined  their  fortunes  by  trying  to 
obey  his  orders.  Mme.  de  Remusat  says  : 

"  Meanwhile  the  old  nobility  of  France  lived  sim- 
ply, collecting  its  ruins  together,  finding  itself  under 
no  particular  obligations,  boasting  of  its  poverty 
rather  than  complaining,  but  in  reality  recovering  its 
estates  by  degrees  and  re-amassing  those  fortunes 
which  at  the  present  time  (1819)  it  enjoys.  The 
confiscations  of  the  National  Convention  were  not 
always  a  misfortune  for  the  French  nobility,  espe- 
cially in  cases  where  the  lands  were  not  sold. 
Before  the  Revolution  that  class  was  heavily  in  debt, 
for  extravagance  was  one  of  the  luxuries  of  the 
grands  seigneurs.  The  emigration  and  the  laws  of 
1 793>  by  depriving  them  of  their  estates,  set  them 
free  from  their  creditors  and  from  a  certain  portion 
of  the  charges  that  weighed  upon  great  houses." 

It  is  impossible  here  to  even  touch  upon  the 
points  of  interest  brought  out  by  Madame  de 
Remusat.  Her  memoirs  will  always  form  a  most 
prolific  source  of  suggestion  to  historians,  and  her 
letters,  which  her  grandson  proposes  to  edit  soon, 
will  have  an  interest  scarcely  inferior. 

Gray's  "  Natural  Science  and  Religion."* 

THESE  two  lectures  of  Professor  Gray  are  a  valu- 
able and  welcome  contribution  to  one  of  the  most 
interesting  departments  of  the  literature  of  our  day. 
They  are  a  "sign  of  the  times,"  coming  in  the  form 
they  do.  Fifty  years  ago,  what  would  have  been 
thought  of  lectures  on  science,  by  a  scientific  man,  to 
students  of  theology  ?  The  mere  fact  shows  how 


*  Natural  Science  and  Religion.  Two  lectures  delivered  to 
the  Theobgical  School  of  Yale  College.  By  Asa  Gray.  New 
York :  Charles  Scribner's  Sons.  1880. 


CULTURE  AND  PROGRESS. 


strong  a  hold  upon  modern  thought  modern  science 
has  taken;  as  well  as  how  catholic  an  interest  the 
church  is  taking  in  the  mental  movements  of  our 
time. 

Perhaps  no  man  better  represents  the  best  tend- 
encies of  both  scientific  naturalism  and  supernat- 
uralism  than  Asa  Gray.  A  savant  of  wide  distinction, 
a  master,  indeed,  in  his  department  of  botany,  he  is 
also  a  firm  believer  in  religious  truth,  and  a  member 
of  the  Christian  Church.  These  pages  show  him  to 
be  fearless  and  faithful  in  both  departments  of 
thought  and  investigation.  His  first  lecture,  on  "  Sci- 
entific Belief,"  points  out  with  great  clearness  the 
changes  in  scientific  belief  which  have  come  from 
the  studies  of  the  last  fifty  years.  He  shows  the 
causes  of  these  changes,  and  their  nature  in  obliter- 
ating many  old  distinctions  and  making  the  whole 
universe  one,  not  in  the  old  sense  of  a  united 
bundle  of  dissevered  facts  and  disjointed  truths,  but 
in  the  larger  sense  of  an  organic  unity,  where  part 
joins  on  to  part  and  into  part  by  a  living  affinity. 
He  gives  a  remarkably  clear  hint  of  the  essential 
oneness  of  the  vegetable  and  animal  creation,  by 
brief  and  striking  illustrations  of  the  facts  which 
show  how  they  overlap  each  other  and  share  each 
other's  characteristics.  There  is  no  reserve  here; 
no  ignoring  of  facts  to  suit  a  theory;  but  an  open 
and  hospitable  reception  is  given  to  all  the  truth 
which  has  been  discovered;  he  evidently  has  no 
fear  of  it,  but  gives  it  the  recognition  of  one  who 
"rejoices  in  the  truth."  In  doing  so  he  is  often 
very  happy  in  his  style,  and  gives  us  a  picture  when 
he  might  only  have  stated  the  statistics.  Thus,  on 
page  37,  speaking  of  the  nature  and  amount  of  the 
likeness  between  the  existing  flora  and  that  of  a 
preceding  geological  period,  he  states  it  thus : 

"It  is  like  visiting  a  country  church-yard,  where 
'  the  rude  forefathers  of  the  hamlet  sleep,'  and  spell- 
ing out,  one  by  one,  from  mossed  and  broken  grave- 
stones, the  names  of  most  of  the  living  inhabitants 
of  the  parish — names  differing,  it  may  be,  in  orthog- 
raphy fron.  those  on  the  village  signs;  but  as  of  the 
people,  so  of  the  trees, — it  is  beyond  reasonable 
doubt  that  the  later  are  descendants  of  the  earlier." 

The  second  lecture  is  on  "  The  Relations  of  Scien- 
tific to  Religious  Belief,"  and  in  it  he  gives  the 
reasons  why  one  may,  and  why  the  true  philosopher 
must,  hold  to  the  theistic  view  of  the  universe. 
Evidently  a  Darwinian  in  the  strict  sense,  as  holding 
to  development  by  natural  selection,  but  not  in  the 
loose  and  applied  sense  of  materialistic  agnosticism, 
he  goes  over  the  different  objections  which  may  be 
brought  against  theistic  beliefs  from  the  stand-point 
of  the  evolutionist,  and  tries  to  show,  and  we  think 
with  success,  that  they  are  futile.  He  declares 
(p.  63)  that  *  faith  in  a  just  sense  of  the  word 
assumes  as  prominent  a  place  in  science  as  religion, 
and  is  indispensable  to  both."  And  in  speaking  of 
the  power  of  natural  selection  in  determining 
results,  he  shows  that  circumstance,  or  the  en viron- 
ment  of  an  object,  is  not  the  cause  of  the  tendency 
to  variation  (which  is  an  implanted  quality),  but  only 
one  occasion  of  its  exercise  (p.  74).  He  does  not  think 


that  at  present  natural  selection  can  explain  all 
developments,  though  he  tends  to  acknowledge  the 
universal  sway  of  evolution  when  once  the  universe 
is  started  (p.  76).  But  he  declares  (p.  82)  that  if 
"  shut  up  to  nature  for  the  evolution  of  the  forms 
of  living  things,  as  theists  we  are  not  debarred  from 
the  supposition  of  supernatural  origination,  mediate 
or  immediate."  Religion  he  defines  (p.  106)  to  "  be 
based  on  the  idea  of  a  divine  mind  revealing  himself 
to  intelligent  creatures  for  moral  ends,"  and  noth- 
ing in  evolution  can  interfere  with  this,  since  Christ- 
ianity is  itself  an  historical  religion  which  has 
advanced  as  an  evolution  in  the  history  of  men. 

But  we  have  here  only  space  to  indicate  the 
nature  of  the  contents  of  this  valuable,  honest  and 
devout  little  book.  Those  who  have  been  troubled 
with  religious  doubts  occasioned  by  readings  in 
science  will  do  well  to  read  it,  and  learn  the  calm- 
ness and  the  confidence  which  come  from  full 
knowledge  and  enlightened  faith. 

A  Book  about  Corea.* 

MR.  ERNEST  OPPERT  has  been  most  fortunate 
in  the  selection  of  a  title*  for  his  fascinating  work  on 
Corea.  That  kingdom  has  for  many  centuries 
been  a  forbidden  land ;  and  to  this  day  it  remains  a 
veritable  terra  incognita,  so  far  as  the  explorations 
of  travelers  and  the  descriptions  of  the  geographers 
can  make  any  country  known  to  those  who  stay  at 
home  and  travel  only  by  flights  of  the  imagination. 
No  author  of  modern  times  has  had  such  an  oppor- 
tunity as  Mr.  Oppert.  His  is  the  first  connected  and 
authentic  account  of  the  forbidden  land.  Before 
this,  the  world  has  only  heard  vague  rumors  of  the 
riches  and  beauties  of  the  sealed  and  isolated  king- 
dom of  Corea,  At  long  intervals,  embassies  from 
that  country  to  China  have  appeared  in  Pekin,  and 
their  meager  and  unwilling  admissions  have  been 
almost  the  only  foundation  for  the  so-called  histories 
of  Corea  which  have  been  written.  Occupying  a 
bold  promontory  jutting  down  into  the  Yellow  Sea, 
and  defended  at  its  upper  extremity  by  a  lofty 
mountain  chain,  the  Corean  kingdom  has  been  able 
to  defy  the  approach  of  foreign  invaders  and  foreign 
traders,  alike.  It  has  been  the  policy  of  the  ruling 
class  to  preserve  a  seclusion  much  more  strict  than 
that  in  which  the  empire  of  Japan  was  buried  when 
the  diplomacy  and  perseverance  of  the  government 
of  the  United  States  pushed  open  its  gates  of  bronze. 
Unlike  Japan,  Corea  has  the  natural  protection  of 
reef-bound  shores,  an  unknown  coast-line,  and 
rivers  most  difficult  of  navigation.^ 

Here  is  a  nation  bound  hand  and  foot  under  the 
subjection  of  a  tyrannical  and  usurping  autocracy. 
The  traditional  policy  of  non-intercourse  is  now 
maintained  for  sinister  reasons.  Trade  and  com- 
merce with  foreign  nations  would  have  the  effect  to 
weaken  the  hold  which  the  central  government  has 
upon  the  simple  people  of  Corea.  The  coast  is 
guarded  with  the  strictest  jealousy,  and  the  approach 

*A  Forbidden  Land;  Voyages  to  the  Corea.  By  Ernest 
Oppert.  With  Charts  and  Illustrations.  New  York  :  G.  P. 
Putnam's  Sons.  1880.  pp.  334. 


'54 


CULTURE  AND  PROGRESS. 


of  a  strange  sail  creates  a  tumult  throughout  the 
length  and  breadth  of  the  land.  The  foreign  voyager 
is  warned  off  the  coast,  and  when,  as  in  the  case  of 
the  American  schooner  General  Sherman,  the  vessel 
of  a  foreign  country  is  cast  away  on  this  inhospita- 
ble strand,  the  crew  are  put  to  death  and  the  ship  is 
burned,  in  order  that  not  a  vestige  of  the  despised 
and  hated  foreigner  may  exist  on  the  land.  France 
and  the  United  States  have  made  futile  attempts  to 
effect  an  entrance  to  Corea.  The  defeat  of  these 
attempts  at  invasion  was  due  to  the  natural  defenses 
of  the  country,  rather  than  to  the  prowess  of  its  in- 
habitants. But  these  failures  have  not  only  brought 
discredit  on  the  Western  powers,  in  the  estimation 
of  the  Asiatics,  but  they  have  confirmed  the  Coreans 
in  their  opinion  of  their  impregnability. 

Mr.  Oppert's  mission  was  a  peaceful  and  a  com- 
mercial one,  undertaken  with  the  assistance  of  an 
influential  trading  firm  in  China.  He  made  three 
voyages  to  Corea,  almost  without  arms,  and  with- 
out any  sounding  of  martial  trumpets.  If  he  had 
essayed  three  voyages  to  the  moon  and  had  suc- 
cessfully returned  with  information  concerning  lunar 
scenery,  inhabitants,  and  material  resources,  his  re- 
port would  not  be  one  whit  more  novel  a»d  enter- 
taining than  are  his  notes  on  Corea.  He  found 
a  country  in  which  there  is  absolutely  no  luxury,  and 
in  which  gold  is  found  everywhere,  and  copper,  tin, 
lead,  antimony,  and  other  valuable  metals  abound. 
The  climate  is  perfect,  and  the  agricultural  produc- 
tions are  of  spontaneous  growth, — the  ginseng  of  the 
country,  which  is  worth  its  weight  in  gold,  being 
gathered  without  previous  husbandry.  The  waters 
teem  with  fish,  the  forests  and  plains  with  game, 
and  nature  plenteously  responds  to  the  slightest 
touch  of  the  husbandman.  But  the  people  may  be 
said  to  live  in  a  state  of  almost  primitive  simplicity. 
Their  dwellings  are  rude  huts,  for  the  most  part, 
only  the  houses  of  the  high  officials  showing  any 
evidence  of  architectural  skill  or  taste.  With  gold 
and  silver  lying  locked  in  the  ground,  guarded  by 
royal  edicts  from  thehand  of  the  miner,  the  only  cur- 
rency of  the  country  is  a  copper  coin  resembling 
the  copper  and  bronze  cash  of  China.  Though  the 
mulberry  tree  is  indigenous  to  the  soil,  the  culture 
of  the  silk-worm  is  an  almost  unknown  industry. 
And  while  noble  forests  of  rare  woods  are  igno- 
rantly  wasted,  or  left  to  decay  from  natural  causes, 
the  natives  have  no  commerce.  Their  simple  wants 
are  supplied  by  white  fabrics  of  hemp  and  flax, 
from  which  their  garments  are  made ;  and  paper  of 
extraordinary  fineness  and  strength  furnishes  them 
with  material  for  hats  and  umbrellas.  Manufac- 
tures of  plaited  grass  are  common,  and  in  the  larger 
cities  some  little  attention  is  paid  to  ornamental 
work  in  dress  and  equipage.  Glass  is  unknown; 
the  crockery  and  earthen-ware  of  the  country  are  of 
the  rudest  description.  In  short,  the  Coreans  seem 
to  have  found  out  how  few  and  simple  are  the 
wants  of  man,  and  to  have  agreed  that  they  will 
create  no  artificial  necessities.  The  common  people 
manifest  a  desire  to  meet  strangers  from  beyond 
the  sea,  and  Mr.  Oppert  was  uniformly  received  and 
treated  with  affability,  mingled  with  an  almost  affec- 


tionate curiosity.  But  the  official  policy  of  non- 
intercourse  rose  up  against  the  daring  invader  at 
every  step.  Short  excursions  along  the  shores  of 
the  country,  and  patient  questioning  of  the  natives, 
furnished  the  basis  of  the  conclusions  which  he 
brought  away  with  him.  He  was  purposely  kept 
at  a  distance  from  the  capital  of  the  kingdom,  and, 
wearied  out  at  last  by  the  baffling  delays  to  which 
he  was  subjected,  his  third  voyage  convinced  him 
that  the  country  was  impenetrable.  He  relinquished 
his  cherished  scheme  of  opening  trade  with  the 
people,  and  so  left  Corea  with  its  doors  closed  as 
immovably  as  ever  to  all  advances  from  without. 

Mr.  Oppert's  literary  style  is  so  very  bad  as  to 
attract  the  attemion  from  the  matter  of  the  author 
to  his  manner.  But  nothing  can  destroy  the  fasci- 
nating interest  of  a  book  which  treats  of  an  unknown 
kingdom,  and  this  work,  unique  in  its  way,  is  as 
entertaining  as  a  fairy  tale. 

Anderson's  "  Younger  Edda."  * 

THE  very  heterogeneous  collection  of  myths,  didac- 
tic treatises,  and  prosodic  rules,  known  as  the 
Younger  Edda,  has,  since  the  time  of  its  discovery, 
constituted  a  sort  of  challenge  to  the  ingenuity  of 
the  learned  world.  Enthusiasts  of  the  last  century, 
whose  imagination  was  developed  at  the  expense  of 
their  judgment,  pronounced  it  a  divine  inspiration, 
and  attributed  it  to  the  god  Odin,  the  Erythraean 
sibyl,  and  a  number  of  other  equally  distinguished 
personages.  German  scholars,  on  the  other  hand, 
who  could  not  claim  even  a  reflected  glory  from  the 
remarkable  discovery,  expended  much  energy  in 
efforts  to  prove  that  the  book  was  not  genuine,  but 
a  fabrication  of  idle  monks  who  had  beguiled  their 
leisure  by  inventing  wild  tales  of  a  pseudo- 
mythological  character.  Both  these  hypotheses 
modern  scholarship  has  exploded.  No  individual 
human  intellect  has  yet  been  found  equal  to 
inventing  a  consistent  and  organically  coherent 
mythology.  The  long  and  venerable  ancestry 
even  of  trifling  nursery  tales,  many  of  which  are 
but  distorted  myths,  has,  during  the  last  decades, 
made  scholars  distrustful  of  individual  invention, 
and  inclined  them  to  attribute  all  enigmatical  phe- 
nomena of  ancient  literature  to  the  poetic  and  imag- 
inative activity  of  collective  nations.  Thus,  until 
within  the  last  year,  the  results  of  learned  investiga- 
tion have  rather  tended  to  increase  the  value  and 
dignity  of  what  Professor  Anderson  is  fond  of 
calling  "  the  religion  of  our  ancestors,"  and  the 
Younger  Edda,  in  spite  of  the  obvious  absence  of 
design  in  its  composition,  has,  in  connection  with 
the  poetic  or  Saemundar  Edda,  been  revered  as  the 
sacred  book  of  an  indigenous  Gothic  paganism. 
But  now,  all  of  a  sudden,  Professor  Sophus  Bugge, 
formerly  an  ardent  believer  in  this  theory,  turns 
apostate,  and  expresses  his  belief  that  the  whole 

*The  Younger  Edda,  also  called  Snorre's  Edda,  or  the  Prose 
Edda.  An  English  Version  of  the  Foreword,  the  Fooling  of 
Gylfe,  Brage's  Talk,  and  the  Important  Passages  in  the  Poet- 
ical Diction.  Ry  Rasmus  B.  Anderson,  Professor  of  the  Scan- 
dinavian Languages  in  the  University  of  Wisconsin.  Chicago: 
S.  C.  Griggs  &  Co.  1880. 


CULTURE  AND  PROGRESS. 


'55 


Norse  mythology  is  directly  derived  from  the 
Creek,  and  can  henceforth,  merely  by  the  manner 
of  its  perversion  of  the  Greek  myths,  be  regarded  as 
the  exponent  of  the  Gothic  mind  and  genius.  If 
this  view  should  be  sustained  by  future  investiga- 
tions, the  Eddas  will,  of  course,  lose  much  of  their 
value ;  but,  as  yet,  the  argument  (as  reported  in  the 
London  "  Athenaeum  ")  seems  incomplete.  That  the 
Greek  and  the  Norse  mythologies  have  a  common 
Aryan  origin  no  one  has  disputed,  and  the  parallel- 
isms pointed  out  by  Professor  Bugge  (if  he  has  been 
accurately  reported)  might  indicate  merely  a  com- 
mon descent  from  some  extinct  Asiatic  mythology, 
and  a  later  mutual  approximation  through  the  unin- 
terrupted intercourse  between  Norway  and  the  Med- 
iterranean lands  during  the  Viking  period.  The 
very  curious  distortion  of  Greek  myths  in  the 
•"  Foreword"  of  the  Younger  Edda,  and  its  absurd 
conglomerations  of  Biblical  and  pseudo-classical 
lore,  might,  at  first  sight,  seem  to  argue  in  favor  of 
Professor  Bugge's  hypothesis ;  but  the  "  Foreword" 
is  obviously  only  an  accidental  appendage  to  the 
Edda,  written  by  some  scribe  or  editor  of  the  four- 
teenth century,  and  its  chief  interest  is  in  illustra- 
ting the  naive  cosmogony  and  the  confused  state 
of  learning  which  then  prevailed  in  the  North. 

The  really  valuable  portions  of  the  book  are  the 
Fooling  of  Gylfe  and  Brage's  Talk,  the  former  of 
•which  gives  a  complete  outline  of  the  religion  of  the 
Norsemen  as  expounded  by  the  gods  themselves  to 
•Gylfe,  while  the  latter  dwells  on  two  of  the  most 
attractive  myths,  the  Rape  of  Idun  and  the  origin 
•of  poetry.  Of  the  Scaldskaparmal,  or  ars  poetica, 
Professor  Anderson  has  selected  those  portions 
which  are  of  general  and  mythological  interest,  and 
lias  omitted  the  elaborate  enumeration  and  explana- 
tion of  the  poetic  figures  and  paraphrases  which 
were  in  vogue  among  the  Norse  scalds. 

Professor  Anderson  has  shown  taste  and  skill,  not 
only  in  his  omissions  of  unessential  and  more  diffi- 
cult portions  of  the  Edda,  but  also  in  his  rendering 
of  the  often  intricate  and  obscure  phraseology.  He 
never  fails  to  find  either  the  exact  or  the  approximate 
equivalent  for  the  Icelandic  idiom  or  figure  of  speech. 
As  a  very  trifling  criticism,  we  suggest  that  the  edi- 
tor, in  telling  the  story  of  Balder's  death,  forgets  to 
^tate  that  Frigg  had  neglected  to  take  the  oath  of 
the  mistletoe,  without  which  the  death  of  the  god 
is  unintelligible.  Whether  the  Icelandic  p  in  //  (as 
in  the  proper  name  Loptson)  should  not  be  ren- 
dered phonetically  in  English  by  f,  we  submit  for 
the  Professor's  consideration. 

Thomas  Hughes's  "Manliness  of  Christ."* 

THE  author  of  "Tom  Brown's  School-Days  "  has 
.put  forth,  in  "  The  Manliness  of  Christ,"  a  manly 
and  thoroughly  wholesome  book.  It  is  addressed 
to  boys  and  young  men  of  England,  but  there  are 
few  better  books  to  be  given  to  the  same  class  in 
America.  Without  any  attempt  at  such  narrative 

*The  Manliness  of  Christ  By  Thomas  Hughe,,  Q.  C., 
Author  of  Tom  Brown's  School-Days,  Etc.  Boston :  Hough- 
•ton,  Osgood  &  Co. 


as  gave  fascination  to  "  Tom  Brown,"  it  has  to  the 
full  the  same  moral  qualities  which  made  the  high 
value  of  that  charming  story — the  simplicity  and 
earnestness,  the  high  ideal  brought  home  to  the 
common  intelligence,  the  sympathetic  understanding 
of  the  life  of  the  young,  the  genuine  Christianity. 
The  treatment  of  Christ  is  that  which  in  our  best 
religious  literature  is  fast  replacing  the  barrenness 
of  theological  controversy.  It  is  an  interpretation 
of  the  Gospel  narrative  through  the  medium,  not 
of  any  theological  theory,  but  of  moral  sympathy 
with  the  central  figure.  Mr.  Hughes's  attitude 
toward  Christ  is  reverent  enough  to  satisfy  the 
devoutly  orthodox,  and  free  enough  to  win  the  sub- 
stantial accord  of  devout  Liberals.  He  accepts  the 
miracles,  but  treats  them  as  incidental  and  secondary. 
He  attempts  no  definition  of  Christ's  relation  with 
the  Father,  but  treats  it  as  the  supreme  instance  of 
that  true  and  perfect  sonship  into  which  all  men 
are  called  to  enter.  Using  Christ  as  the  great 
example  of  the  qualities  he  is  enforcing,  he  fixes 
chief  attention  on  those  traits  of  character  whose 
value  and  beauty  are  recognized  by  any  ingenuous 
mind  as  soon  as  they  are  presented.  For  his  col- 
lateral examples  he  draws  on  such  materials  as 
young  hearts  quickly  respond  to — such  as  the  thrill- 
ing stories  of  Napier's  "Peninsular  War";  the  loss  of 
the  Birkenhead,  with  the  troops  standing  steadily  in 
their  ranks  on  deck  as  she  sunk,  leaving  the  boats 
to  the  women  and  children ;  and  grand  old  John 
Brown  meeting  death  with  the  courage  of  a  martyr 
and  the  simplicity  of  a  child.  Mr.  Hughes  comes 
down,  too,  in  very  plain  language,  to  the  homely 
virtues,  and  talks  in  a  strong  and  effective  way 
against  the  extravagance  and  self-indulgence  of 
boys,  out  of  which  grow  the  sins  that  ruin  nations. 
The  national  feeling  is  strong  in  the  book — a  gen- 
erous love  for  the  ideal  England — and  it  is  tempered 
by  a  sobriety  which  verges  sometimes  on  deep  sad- 
ness before  the  materialism,  the  lust  of  vulgar  con- 
quest, the  "Jingoism,"  which  weigh  down  the 
nation  to-day.  That  noble  England  which  Mr. 
Hughes  loves  is  part  and  parcel  with  the  noble 
America  which  is  fighting  its  own  hard  battle  against 
corruption  and  greed.  It  is  a  good  book  to  be 
in  the  hands  of  every  young  American. 

Boyesen's  "Gunnar."    (A  New  Edition.)* 

IT  was  this  delightful  little  idyl  of  Norse  life  and 
scenery  which  six  years  ago  introduced  Mr.  Boyesen 
to  American  readers.  If  the  author's  range  has 
since  become  so  wide  that  this  volume  does  not 
represent  his  maturest  habit  of  thought,  it  may  none 
the  less  very  properly  stand  for  the  poetic  and 
romantic  qualities  which  have  kept  his  fiction  notice- 
ably free  from  the  objectionable  influences  allied  to 
the  so-called  realistic  school.  The  freshness  and 
simplicity  of  "  Gunnar  "  will  doubtless  be  found  to 
stand  the  test  of  new  acquaintance,  and  the  severer 
test  of  old  acquaintance  renewed. 

*  Gunnar:  By  Hjalmar  H.  Boyesen.  New  York  :  Charles 
Scribner's  Sons. 


THE    WORLD'S   WORK. 


THE    WORLD'S   WORK. 
'Western    River    Improvement. 


CROSS-SECTION    OF    CHANOINE    DAM,     SHOWING    THE    WICKET    IN    BOTH     POSITIONS. 


IN  the  early  settlement  of  the  Western  States  the 
rivers  formed  the  only  means  of  communication, 
and  marked  the  lines  along  which  commerce  was 
carried  on.  With  the  introduction  of  railroads 
traffic  was  largely  diverted  from  the  streams,  and 
water  transport  declined  somewhat  in  favor.  Now 
that  the  Western  territory  is  filling  up,  and  the  inter- 
nal traffic  has  increased  greatly,  transportation  by 
water,  by  reason  of  its  greater  cheapness,  is  attract- 
ing the  attention  it  deserves.  The  rivers  of  the 
West  are  the  great  natural  highways,  and  there  has 
sprung  up  a  demand  that  they  shall  be  improved  to 
their  utmost  capacity,  and  that  every  stream  be  made 
navigable  for  steamboats  throughout  its  available 
length.  The  success  that  has  followed  the  works 
at  the  Southwest  Pass  has  shown  that  even  the 
capricious  rivers  of  the  West  may  be  controlled,  and 
has  led  to  a  general  confidence  in  the  ability  of  our 
engineers  to  improve  all  our  streams,  whatever  their 
character  and  whatever  the  difficulties  that  beset 
their  navigation.  The  work  at  Port  Eads  has  been 
already  described  in  this  magazine,  and  it  may  now 
be  in  order  briefly  to  examine  the  works  proposed 
and  in  construction  for  improving  the  Ohio  and 
other  Western  rivers. 

The  bed  of  the  upper  Ohio  consists  essentially 
of  a  series  of  pools  of  irregular  depth  and  size,  and 
joined  to  each  other  by  shoals  and  ripples.  During 
the  high-water  season  steamboats  pass  from  pool  to 
pool  over  the  shoals  without  difficulty.  At  low- 
water  vessels  may  navigate  a  pool  for  some  dis- 
tance and  yet  may  not  be  able  to  pass  the  shoals  to 
the  next  pool,  and  thus  navigation  is  practically 
suspended,  though  whole  fleets  of  boats  may  be  at 
anchor  in  the  pools.  It  is  therefore  proposed  to  erect 
dams  and  make  a  slack  water  navigation  of  the 


river,  as  has  already  been  done  in  some  of  the 
smaller  streams.  Such  a  series  of  dams  would  be 
useless  during  high-water,  and  it  is  proposed  to  em- 
ploy the  Chanoine  system  of  movable  dams,  already 
widely  used  in  Europe.  The  first  of  these  dams 
is  now  in  process  of  erection  at  Davis  Island,  eight 
kilometers  (almost  five  miles)  below  Pittsburgh. 
The  work  is  commenced  here,  both  to  secure  a  long- 
stretch  of  slack-water  and  to  create  a  harbor  at 
Pittsburgh  that  will  be  navigable  at  all  stages  of 
the  water.  The  Ohio  at  Davis  Island  is  430  meters 
(1400  feet)  wide,  and  in  laying  out  the  plan  for  the 
dam  the  river  is  divided  into  three  parts,  each  121.96 
meters  (400  feet)  long,  called,  in  succession  from  the 
left  bank,  the  high  weir,  the  low  weir  and  the  navig- 
able pass.  The  remaining  space  is  occupied  by  a 
lock  for  the  passage  of  vessels  when  the  dam  is 
closed.  The  floor  of  the  dam  is  placed  on  the 
river  bottom,  the  weirs  being  of  different  levels,  the 
low  weir  being  below  low-water,  the  middle  weir 
being  at  low-water  mark,  and  the  navigable  pass 
somewhat  above  low-water  level.  On  the  floor  of 
these  weirs  are  to  be  placed  one  hundred  wickets 
or  panels,  any  one  or  all  of  which  may  be  used  in 
checking  the  flow  of  the  water  as  desired.  The 
design  of  the  Chanoine  system  is  to  provide  a  dam 
for  making  a  slack -water  during  the  low- water 
season,  and  at  the  same  time  to  provide  means  of 
removing  the  dam  during  high-water,  so  that  float- 
ing ice  and  vessels  can  pass  over  it  without 
obstruction. 

The  above  figure  is  a  cross-section  of  the  pro- 
posed dam,  showing  the  base  or  sill  of  the  dam,, 
and  one  of  the  movable  wickets  in  two  positions. 
The  foundation  is  of  concrete,  with  a  cut  stone  top 
that  forms  the  floor  of  the  pass  or  weir  on  which. 


THE    WORLD'S    WORK. 


'57 


the  wickets  rest  when  not  in  use.  A  B  is  the 
wicket,  C  D  is  the  "  horse,"  a  heavy  bar  of  iron 
journaled  to  the  dam  at  D,  and  to  the  box  C  at  the 
center  of  the  wicket,  and  C  E  is  the  prop  that 
supports  the  wicket  against  the  pressure  of 
the  water.  The  prop  C  E  is  attached  by  a 
joint  to  the  horse  C  D,  and  when  the  wicket 
is  erect  the  foot  of  the  prop  rests  against  the 
step  E,  called  the  ''hurter."  When  lying  at 
rest,  the  wicket  takes  the  position  B'A',  the 
horse  D'C'  and  the  prop  C'E'.  The  water  then 
flows  over  the  dam  freely,  and,  if  sufficiently  deep, 
steamboats  and  barges  may  pass  over  it  with- 
out difficulty.  In  front  of  each  wicket  is  an  iron 
trestle  H  I  K  L,  hinged  or  journaled  at  the  base 
K  L,  so  that  it  may  be  laid  down  at  a  right  angle 
with  the  river  on  the  bottom  of  the  dam,  so  that 
•when  not  in  use  it  is  no  obstruction  to  navigation. 
During  high  water  all  parts  of  the  dam  rest  on  the 
bottom  of  the  stream,  out  of  sight.  When  the 
•water  falls  and  it  is  desired  to  use  the  dam,  the 
trestles  are  raised,  one  at  a  time,  and  planks  are 
laid  on  top  to  form  a  temporary  bridge.  From  the 
trestle  that  supports  the  bridge  extend  the  chains  I 
B  and  I  A,  and  to  bring  a  wicket  into  position  to 
form  a  part  of  the  dam,  the  chain  I  B  is  hauled  in  by 
men  standing  on  the  bridge,  till  the  end  of  the  prop 
rests  against  the  "  hurter  "  at  E.  The  wicket  now 
rests  at  an  angle  of  about  45°  on  the  horse  and 
prop,  with  the  base  of  the  wicket  uppermost  and 
just  over  the  sill  of  the  dam.  The  chain  I  A  is 
then  drawn  in  from  the  bridge,  which  tends  to 
bring  the  wicket  upright  by  turning  it  on  a  pivot, 
when  the  pressure  of  the  water  comes  to  the  aid  of 
the  workmen  and  forces  the  base  of  the  wicket 
against  the  sill,  bringing  it  nearly  upright,  as 
shown  in  the  drawing.  As  one  wicket  is  raised  at 
a  time,  no  difficulty  is  encountered  in  overcoming 
the  pressure  of  the  water,  and  when  all  the  wickets 
are  erected  they  form  the  apron  of  the  dam.  There 
is  a  small  space  between  each  wicket  through 
which  some  of  the  water  escapes,  in  addition  to  the 
water  that  flows  over  the  stop,  but  this  wastage  is 
comparatively  small,  and  does  not  interfere  with  the 
practical  working  of  the  dam  in  making  a  navigable 
slack-water.  When  the  river  rises  and  the  dam  is  no 
longer  needed,  it  may  be  removed,  one  wicket  at  a 
time,  beginning  at  the  navigable  pass.  A  tripping 
bar  at  G  engages  the  foot  of  the  prop,  and  by  mov- 
ing it  the  prop  may  be  pushed  out  of  the  "  hurter," 
when  it  slides  down  stream,  letting  the  wicket  fall 
into  the  second  position  shown  in  the  figure. 

It  is  estimated  that  when  the  work  is  com- 
pleted the  engineer  in  charge  will  have  complete 
control  of  the  river  at  all  seasons.  During  floods 
the  dam  will  rest  on  the  bottom  of  the  river, 
and   the   channel   will    be    unobstructed.      As 
the   water  falls  the  wickets   will  be  raised,  a 
few  at  a  time,  and,  if  the  river  continues  falling, 
more  and  more  will  be  raised  until  the  entire 
stream   is    closed.     Navigation   will  be  continued 
through    the    navigable    pass    till    the    last    few 
wickets  are  raised,  and  then  the  lock  on  the  right 
tank  wiH  be   used  to   enable  steamboats  to  pass 


the   dam   in   either 
direction. 

The  figure  on  this 


I 

page  gives  a  plan  of 
this  lock.  It  has  a 
clear  space  inside 
of  183  meters  (600 
feet)  in  length,  and 
33-53  meters  (no 
feet)  in  width, which 
it  is  thought  will 
be  ample  for  the 
largest  boats  likely 
ever  to  be  built  on 
the  river.  The  lock 
presents  a  feature 
of  interest  in  the 
peculiar  form  of  its 
gates.  Each  gate  is 
to  be  straight,  and 
to  run  on  wheels  in 
and  out  of  a  recess 
in  the  bank.  These 
gates  will  be  each 
about  38  meters 
(nSfeet)  long,  and 
of  the  most  mas- 
sive and  durable 
character.  They  are 
to  be  drawn  in  or 
out,  to  open  and 
close  the  lock,  by 
means  of  chains 
controlled  by  a  tur- 
bine. The  parts 
for  the  entrance  and 
exit  of  the  water  are 
marked  on  the  plan, 
and  their  use  and 
location  can  be 
readily  understood. 
All  the  details  of 
this  most  important 
work  have  been 
carefully  studied, 
and  the  construc- 


o      5 

x      2 


tion,  as  far  as  finished,  is  marked  by  great  solidity 
and  strength. 

The  dry  season  of  last  summer,  that  for  many 
weeks  put  an  effectual  stop  to  navigation  at  Pitts- 


THE    WORLD'S    WORK. 


burg,  plainly  showed  the  necessity  of  making  the 
Ohio  navigable  atall  seasons.  During  the  low -water, 
though  the  deep  pools  were  crowded  with  laden 
coal  barges,  no  coal  could  leave  the  mines  except  by 
rail,  and  none  of  the  roads  were  equal  to  the  task ; 
and  in  consequence  the  price  of  coal  in  the  river 
ports  below  advanced  rapidly,  inflicting  serious 
loss  and  inconvenience  upon  large  manufacturing 
and  commercial  interests.  Our  Western  rivers  are 
the  people's  highways,  free  from  toll  and  beyond  the 
control  of  any  board  of  directors  chiefly  studious  of 
their  own  interests.  Whether  the  Davis  Island 
works  are  to  be  the  first  of  a  series  of  valuable 
improvements,  or  whether  other  methods  of  securing 
deep  water  will  be  tried,  remains  to  be  seen,  but  it 
is  certain  that  this  system,  or  something  like  it,  must 
eventually  be  employed  on  those  of  our  rivers  that 
are  not  navigable  at  all  stages  of  the  water.  While  the 
Chanoine  system  is  an  established  success  in  France, 
and  will  no  doubt  prove  of  great  value  at  Pitts- 
burg,  it  must  be  observed  that  a  late  invention  of 
American  origin  seeks  to  obtain  the  same  end  by 
another  form  of  movable  dam.  By  this  plan  the 
wickets  are  hinged  permanently  at  the  bottom 
to  the  sill  of  the  dam.  To  keep  the  wickets  erect 
during  low  water,  hollow  boxes  or  cylinders  are 
fastened  to  the  top  of  the  wickets,  that  by  floating 
keep  them  up  against  the  stream.  They  are  also 
provided  with  automatic  arrangements  for  raising 
and  lowering  the  wickets  by  the  changes  in  the 
level  of  the  river.  It  is  also  designed  that  they 
shall  be  arranged  to  sink  when  drifting  ice  or  ves- 
sels pass  over  them,  and  to  return  to  an  erect  posi- 
tion as  soon  as  the  boat  or  ice  has  passed.  So  far 
this  system  is  only  in  the  experimental  stage.  It 
is  viewed  with  favor  by  some  engineers,  and  it  is 
proposed  to  try  it  upon  a  large  scale  in  the 
Ohio. 

Upon  the  farther  Western  rivers  the  question  of 
navigation  is  not  so  much  one  of  deep  water  as  of 
the  permanence  of  the  channel  and  the  preservation 
of  the  river  banks.  The  rivers  flow  through  a  soft 
alluvial  soil  that  yields  readily  to  the  scouring  action 
of  the  current,  while  the  channel  continually  shifts, 
making  bends  at  inconvenient  places  so  that  docks 
and  landings  are  rendered  useless,  or  making  cut- 
offs that  sweep  away  valuable  farm  or  building  prop- 
erty. Besides  this  troublesome  shifting  of  the 
stream  there  is  the  resulting  formation  of  shoals  and 
bars,  so  that  the  obstructions  to  navigation  contin- 
ually move  about,  rendering  the  passage  of  boats 
dangerous  and  uncertain.  To  correct  these 
defects  various  methods  are  now  under  experiment. 
These  consist  of  willow  mattresses  laid  along  the 
banks  or  anchored  in  the  stream,  to  create,  by  catch- 
ing the  floating  sediment,  permanent  and  indestruct- 
ible banks  that  will  resist  the  scouring  action  of  the 
current.  Besides  these,  there  are  dykes  and  artificial 
banks  of  all  kinds,  matting  and  stone  work  for  pre- 
venting the  wash  of  the  waves  and  passing  boats. 
This  work,  while  it  is  much  cheaper  than  the  slack- 
water  navigation,  must  eventually  be  carried  out  on 
a  vast  scale  if  all  our  rivers  are  to  be  utilized  to 
their  utmost.  Our  railroad  system,  while  it  is  of  im- 


mense extent,  can  never  entirely  supplant  the  great 
natural  highways  provided  by  our  rivers,  and  any 
permanent  and  valuable  improvements  that  may  be 
made  to  render  these  more  useful  to  all  the  people, 
at  all  times,  must  be  regarded  as  judicious 
national  investments. 


New    Warehouse  Elevator. 

IN  the  ordinary  platform  elevator  used  in  warev 
houses  one  or  more  men  are  required  at  the  foot  of 
the  hoist-way  to  load  the  platform,  and  the  same 
number  at  the  top  to  unload  it,  or  the  men  must 
travel  up  and  down  with  the  load  and  the  empty  plat- 
form. This  involves  a  loss  of  time,  as  the  men  are  idle 
during  the  passage  of  the  load  and  in  stopping  and 
starting  the  elevator.  To  prevent  this  loss  of  time 
and  labor,  a  new  form  of  freight  elevator,  designed 
on  the  plan  of  the  belts  and  buckets  used  in  grain, 
elevators,  has  been  put  into  practical  operation  in 
this  city.  It  consists  essentially  of  an  endless 
band  formed  of  two  flat  chains  joined  by  wooden 
slats,  and  mounted  on  two  wheels  controlled  by  a 
steam  engine.  The  upper  wheel  supporting  the 
belt  is  placed  on  a  frame  above  the  second  floor  or 
loft  of  the  building,  and  the  lower  wheel  is  below 
the  first,  or  street  floor.  On  each  side  of  the  belt 
are  hatchways,  on  the  second  floor  of  a  sufficient 
size  to  admit  a  cotton  bale,  and  on  the  lower  floor 
are  smaller  hatchways.  At  intervals  on  the  band 
are  iron  brackets  supporting  a  platform.  This 
platform  is  pivoted  on  the  brackets  at  one  side  of 
its  centre  of  gravity,  so  that  when  at  rest  it  lays  flat 
on  the  brackets,  but  will  yield  and  tip  over  as  the 
bracket  passes  over  the  upper  wheel,  or  will  tip  up 
if  the  end  strikes  any  obstruction  in  its  passage- 
This  gives  practically  a  double  band  elevator  with 
two  series  of  platforms,  one  ascending  in  one 
hatchway  while  the  other  is  descending  in  the 
other.  On  the  second  floor  is  a  two  cylinder  en- 
gine of  16  horse-power  that  is  connected  directly, 
by  means  of  iron  gearing,  with  the  band.  It  is 
also  supplied  with  reversing  gear,  so  that  the  ele- 
vator may  be  sent  up  or  down  as  required  in  case 
only  one  hoistway  is  used.  In  raising  freight,  the 
engine  is  started  and  the  platforms  rise  one  after 
the  other  in  one  shaft,  pass  over  the  upper  wheel 
and  descend  the  other  shaft,  pass  under  the  lower 
wheel  and  so  on  continuously,  making  about 
eight  revolutions  a  minute.  The  freight,  if  in 
small  packages,  is  placed  by  hand  on  the  platforms, 
or.  if  in  barrels  or  bales,  may  be  rolled  on  the  plat- 
forms and  about  as  fast  as  a  gang  of  truckmen  can 
deliver  the  goods.  On  the  edge  of  the  floor  above 
is  a  trip  that  engages  the  edge  of  each  platform  as  it 
rises,  but  the  brackets  still  moving  up  tip  the  plat- 
form and  the  load  is  gently  rolled  or  thrown  out  on 
the  floor.  The  platform,  relieved  of  its  load,  drops- 
back  into  place  and  moves  on  over  the  upper 
wheel.  A  second  gang  of  truckmen  is  placed  on 
the  upper  floor  to  remove  the  goods  as  fast  as  deliv- 
ered, each  truck  being  brought  up  to  the  hatch, 
and  the  package  or  barrel  being  loaded  upon  it  with 
the  least  possible  labor.  In  sending  freight  down* 


THE    WORLD'S    WORK. 


'59 


the  engine  is  reversed  and  the  tripping  device  is 
removed,  and  the  goods  are  placed  or  rolled  upon  the 
platforms  as  fast  as  they  come  over  the  upper 
wheel.  On  the  lower  floor,  skids  are  placed  on  each 
side  of  the  descending  platforms  and  the  barrels  or 
bales  are  lifted  off  automatically,  and  rolled  or  placed 
upon  a  wagon  or  the  floor,  or,  in  the  case  of  small 
parcels,  the  goods  are  taken  off  by  hand.  If  required, 
both  shafts  may  be  used  at  once,  goods  descending 
in  one  while  ascending  in  the  other,  by  employ- 
ing a  second  gang  of  men  in  loading  and  unloading 
the  platforms.  In  practice  it  has  been  found,  how- 
ever, that  one  hoist-way  is  sufficient,  as  the  elevator 
works  quite  as  fast  as  any  number  of  men  can  con- 
veniently bring  and  take  away  the  goods.  This 
form  of  elevator  effects  a  great  saving  of  time  and 
labor,  and  at  a  decided  gain  in  speed  and  safety. 
The  one  examined  has  been  in  use  for  some  months, 
and  appears  to  be  well  designed  and  thoroughly 
constructed.  It  is  adapted  to  all  kinds  of  freight, 
and.  by  making  the  band  longer  and  with  platforms 
of  different  sizes,  and  with  more  power,  it  might 
prove  of  value  in  raising  coal,  ores  and  minerals  in 
mines  and  quarries. 

Transposing  Piano. 

ATTEMPTS  have  been  made  at  various  times  to 
construct  a  piano-forte  that  would  enable  the  player 
to  transpose  the  key  of  the  music  that  might  be 
played  upon  it.  To  raise  or  lower  the  key  note  of 
any  piece  of  music  without  transposing  the  key  in 
which  it  is  written,  or  without  reading  it  in  one  key 
and  playing  it  in  another,  would  be  a  great  conveni- 
ence, and  it  has  been  thought  that  this  might  be 
done  by  some  mechanical  means,  but  none  of  the 
experiments  in  this  direction  have  proved  perma- 
nently successful  on  a  commercial  scale.  More 
recently  a  new  piano  having  a  transposing  action 
has  been  made,  and,  from  personal  examination  of 
the  instrument,  it  would  seem  to  accomplish  all  that 
could  be  desired  in  this  direction  in  a  satisfactory 
manner.  It  is  an  upright  piano  and  externally  does 
not  differ  from  pianos  of  this  class,  except  that  the 
keyboard  has  a  lateral  movement  to  right  or  left  of 
about  one  octave,  the  keys  sliding  in  or  out  of  the 
lamp-rests  at  either  side  of  the  desk.  This  lateral 
movement  applies  only  to  the  keys  and  levers,  all 
the  other  parts  of  the  action  remaining  fixed,  and 
in  the  usual  position  in  such  pianos.  When  in  its 
normal  position,  the  keys  are  arranged  as  in  any 
piano  based  on  a  c  scale,  and  a  pointer  or  indicator 
on  the  casing  above  the  keyboard  points  to  the 
note  A  of  the  middle  octave.  The  piano  may  now 
be  used  as  any  other,  and  all  the  keys  are  in  their 
true  relation.  Suppose  it  is  now  desired  to  play 
a  piece  of  music  written  in  the  key  of  c  one  half- 
tone lower.  A  handle  at  the  side  of  the  piano  is 
drawn  out,  which  disconnects  the  keys  and  levers 
from  the  rest  of  the  action.  Under  the  desk  is  a 
small  crank  and,  on  turning  it  a  short  distance,  the 
entire  keyboard  is  moved  to  the  left  one  half-tone. 
This  movement  is  accompanied  by  a  slight  sound 
that  indicates  that  the  movement  was  one  half-tone. 


The  handle  at  the  side  is  pushed  in  and  the  piano  is 
ready  for  use.  The  music  written  and  played  in  C  is 
now  heard  in  B,  every  note  having  been  lowered 
half  a  tone.  Music  played  in  any  other  key  is  heard 
in  the  next  key  below  throughout,  F  being  in  E,  A 
in  A  flat,  and  so  on.  Suppose  the  piece  written  in 
C  is  desired  to  be  heard  in  E,  or  four  half-tones 
above  the  normal  key  of  c.  The  handle  is  drawn 
and  the  crank  is  turned  once  to  bring  the  action  to- 
C,  and  four  times  to  raise  it  to  E,  all  the  keys 
moving  that  distance  to  the  right.  The  handle  is 
pushed  in  again  and  the  piano  is  ready  for  use,  the 
indicator  pointing  to  the  note  c  sharp.  The  music 
written  and  played  in  c  is  now  heard  in  E.  In  like 
manner  all  other  keys  are  raised  four  half-tones,  G 
to  B  and  so  on,  and  in  whatever  key  the  music  is 
played,  it  is  heard  in  a  key  fonr  half-tones  above. 
The  transposing  action  appears  to  be  simple  and 
not  h'kely  to  get  out  of  order,  and  accomplishes  its 
work  with  precision.  The  only  defect  lies  in  the 
fact  that  the  indicator  does  not  show  in  what  key 
the  music  is  given.  If  it  were  placed  over  the  note 
c,  when  the  keyboard  is  in  the  normal  position,  it 
would  show  the  key  in  which  the  sounds  are  heard. 
As  it  stands,  the  changes  of  the  key  must  be  followed 
by  counting  the  sounds  made  by  the  crank  in  moving 
the  action,  or  by  mentally  estimating  the  changes 
from  the  indicator.  The  indicator  should  show  the 
key  note  automatically.  This  is  a  defect  easily 
remedied,  and  the  instrument  may  be  recommended 
to  vocal  teachers,  singers,  organists  and  others  as- 
a  useful  and  valuable  improvement  in  piano-fortes. 


Centrifugal   Milk  Tester. 

AN  apparatus  designed  to  take  the  place  of  the 
lactometer  in  testing  milk  has  been  brought  out,, 
and  deserves  attention  from  its  convenience,  sim- 
plicity and  cheapness.  A  wheel  of  any  convenient 
size  is  mounted  upright  and  connected  with  some 
device  for  giving  it  a  high  speed  by  hand-power. 
On  this  wheel  is  secured  two  or  more  radial  bars, 
and  on  these,  at  opposite  sides  of  the  wheel  near  the 
edge,  are  fastened  small  test  tubes,  closed  at  one 
end,  or  small  glass  vials  with  the  corked  ends  toward 
the  rim  of  the  wheel.  These  may  be  fastened  to  the 
wheel  by  spring  clamps,  or  by  wires,  or  in  any  other 
convenient  manner.  The  milk  to  be  tested  is 
poured  into  two  of  these  vials  placed  on  opposite 
sides  of  the  wheel,  and  the  wheel  is  then  turned  at 
a  high  speed  for  about  two  minutes.  On  stopping: 
the  wheel  and  taking  the  vials  off,  the  milk  will  be 
found  separated  into  its  constituent  parts — water, 
butter,  casein,  etc.  Pure  and  normal  milk  will 
separate  into  its  various  constituents  in  a  certain 
fixed  proportion,  and  will  give  a  scale  or  standard 
for  comparing  other  milk  tested  in  the  same  man- 
ner. If  adulterated  with  water,  the  milk,  when 
thus  divided,  will  show  the  exact  proportion  of 
water  added  by  comparison  with  the  normal  stan- 
dard. It  will  be  observed  that  the  apparatus  is 
equally  useful  in  testing  oils,  honey,  lard  aad  other 
liquids  liable  to  adulteration. 


i6o 


BRIC-A-BRAC. 


BRIC-A-BRAC. 


Another  Hanging  Committee  Outrage. 


Great  Artist. — "  Why,  you  see,  sir,  the  fact  is  I  understand 


Law  at  Our  Boarding-House. 

As  fresh  as  a  pink,  on  the  other  side 

Of  the  boarding-house  table  she  sits,  and  sips 

Her  tea ;  while  I  envy  the  china  cup 
That  kisses  her  rosy  lips. 

She's  a  school-girl  still  in  her  teens  ;  her  hair 
She  wears  in  a  plait:  we  are  vis-d-vis ; 

And  I  am  a  briefless  barrister, — 
Yet  she  sometimes  smiles  at  me. 

My  law  professor  would  scowl,  no  doubt, 

Could   he   know    what   havoc    those    eyes    have 
wrought 

With  the  doctrines  of  law  he  first  instilled, — 
What  lessons  those  lips  have  taught. 

"Attachment  can  never  come  before 

A  declaration,"  he  used  to  say; 
But  this  little  girl  at  our  boarding-house 

Doesn't  put  the  thing  that  way. 

"The  Clerk  will  issue  a  rule  to  plead, — 

And  pleadings  always  with  rules  must  chime;  " 

JNo  need  for  "a  rule  to  plead"  with  her, — 
And  her  rule-days  are— all  the  time ! 


That  old  law  maxim,  the  text-books  teach, 
And  the  judges  regard :  "  Qui  facit  per 

A  Hum,  facit  per  se,"  is  held 
In  ineffable  scorn  by  her. 

In  her  person  exist  together  at  once 

Defendant  and  judge  and  jury  and  clerk; 

So  that  one  would  imagine  to  win  a  cause 
In  this  court  were  an  uphill  work. 

Yet  whenever  1  sit  at  the  table  there, 

I  fancy  a  table  where  only  two 
Are  company — till  I  say  to  myself: 

"Though  you  lose  the  case,  why  sue! 

"  E'en  though  she  demur  at  first, — who  knows  ?•— 
For  the  rest  of  your  joint  lives  made  one  life, 

You  may  learn  together  the  lesson  taught 
In  respect  to  Husband  and  Wife." 

Still  I  dally  in  doubt;  though  in  other  things 

I  flatter  myself  I  am  resolute : — 
For  a  bankrupt  heart  will  be  the  result 

If  I'm  taxed  with  costs  in  this  suit. 

A.  C.  GORDON. 

An  Unpublished   Letter  from  John  Adams. 

QUINCY,  November  22,  1814. 
DEAR  SIR  :   Had  I  known  where  to  direct  my 
aim,  I  should  have  shot  at  you  long  ago ;  but, 
hit  or  miss,  I  will  now  hazard  a  random. 

But,  to  quit  this  rude  figure,  for  which  nothing 
but  my  connections  with  sportsmen,  or  perhaps 
the  military  fashions  of  the  times,  could  apolo- 
gize, let  me  return  to  simple  style,  and  tell  you 
plainly  that  I  have  nothing  to  write  but  what  you 
already  know,  except  as  hereafter  excepted. 
As  to  public  affairs,  I  could  write  you  nothing, 
unless  I  should  transcribe  the  descriptions  of  Chaos 
from  Ovid  and  Milton ;  but  these  you  already  have 
by  heart. 

If  you  think  it  worth  while  to  give  me  any  hints 
of  the  politicks  of  New  York,  and  dare  to  do  it,  I 
will  thank  you. 

Be  pleased  to  present  my  best  respects  to  your 
mother  and  love  to  your  sisters.  Tell  them  I  love 
them  all,  unsight  unseen,  not  only  as  your  relations, 
but  for  their  kindness  to  my  tender,  my  delicate, 

my  lovely  C . 

Tell  C that  I  advise  her,  that  I  beseech  her, 

and,  if  that  is  not  enough,  I  enjoin  it  upon  her,  by 
the  authority  of  a  grandfather,  not  to  forget  her 
French,  but  especially  to  keep  a  journal. 

This  advice  I  shall  not  cease  to  repeat  to  all 
my  grandchildren  and  great-grandchildren,  of  which 
third  generation  I  have  a  pleasant  prospect  of  a 

plentiful  crop.     N.  B. — Conceal  this  from  C ; 

she  will  be  shocked. 

Whatever  parts  of  this  letter  you  may  think 
jocular,  I  pray  you  to  consider  every  expression  of 
kindness,  to  you,  to  C ,  to  your  mother  and  sis- 
ters, as  the  sober  and  sincere  sentiments  of 

Your  affectionate  friend,       JOHN  ADAMS. 

N.  B.— Tell  C S is  very  good.  She  takes 

my  letters  to  copy  with  a  placid  countenance, — no 
frowns,  no  knitting  of  the  eyebrows,  but  very 
amiable. 

,  Esquire. 


SCRIBNER'S  MONTHLY. 


VOL.  XX. 


JUNE,  1880. 


No.  2. 


SPRING    HEREABOUTS. 


SPRING    LAMB. 


No  DOUBT,  if  some  wandering  philosopher 
could  record  his  observations,  it  would  be 
found  that  the  aspects  of  the  spring  in  the 
neighborhood  of  our  large  cities  differ  as 
widely  as  the  cities  themselves.  Not  that 
the  doings  of  Nature  are  very  different; 
"those  blind  motions  of  the  spring  that 
show  the  year  has  turned  "  are  much  the 
same  in  their  manifestation  all  along  the 
line  on  which  Boston  and  New  York, 
VOL.  XX.— u. 


Philadelphia  and  Chicago,  Cincinnati,  St. 
Louis  and  Cleveland  are  sown ;  and  anem- 
ones and  wood-violets,  marsh  marigolds  and 
maple  blossoms  have  neither  prejudices 
nor  partialities,  but  come  at  about  the  same 
time  to  all  who  live  on  the  track  along 
which  empire  has  chosen  its  westward  way. 
But  man  has  modified  the  landscape  at 
large,  though  he  cannot  affect  the  details, 
and  his  needs,  his  tastes,  his  temperament 

[Copyright,  1880,  by  Scribner  &  Co.     AH  rights  reserved.] 


162 


SPRING  HEREABOUTS. 


even,  give  a  local  coloring  to  the  look  of 
things  about  his  dwelling-places.  The 
wild-flowers  come  in  their  seasons,  the  sap 
stirs  and  the  blossoms  start  at  their  due 
time,  but  there  are  signs  about  our  cities 
that  show,  even  more  plainly  than  these, 
that  the  spring  has  arrived. 

What  characterizes  the  coming  of  spring 
about  New  York  is  the  odd  way  in  which 
the  city  and  the  country  dove-tail  into  each 
other  at  this  time.  I  am  comparing  it 
now  in  my  memory  with  the  spring  about 
Boston  and  Philadelphia,  and  not  with  the 
cities  of  the  West,  about  which  I  know  next 
to  nothing.  In  Boston  and  Philadelphia 
you  have  the  city  and  you  have  the  coun- 
try, but  they  are  separate;  a  sharp  line 
divides  the  suburb  from  the  town.  The 
suburbs  of  Boston  and  Philadelphia  are 
famous  for  their  beauty ;  the  suburbs  of  New 
York,  even  to  the  eye  of  the  most  partial 
New  Yorker,  are  tame  and,  in  some  places, 
even  ugly,  and  almost  everywhere  the  oppor- 
tunities they  afford  for  rural  beauty  have 
been  neglected ;  but  the  truth  is  they  are  not 
looked  upon  as  suburbs, — they  are  only  the 
ravelings  out  of  a  city  whose  web  is  loosely 
woven,  and  which  has  only  been  a  city  for  a 
comparatively  short  time.  Fifty  years  ago 
New  York  was  an  overgrown  village,  and 
her  citizens  had  the  domestic  and  mental 
habits  of  villagers ;  the  real  country  came 
up  to  their  doors,  and  their  city  life,  such 
as  it  was,  ran  out  into  the  fields.  But,  fifty 
years  ago,  the  cities  of  Boston  and  Phila- 
delphia stood  fast  where  they  do  now. 
Hardly  a  block  of  New  York  remains  as 
it  was  when  this  writer  was  a  boy,  and  had 
relatives  and  friends  living  about  the  Battery 
and  Bowling-green,  and  when  he  gathered 
dandelions  in  the  rocky  fields  about  Eighth 
street;  but  Boston  proper  is  the  same  now 
that  it  was  then ;  the  same  names  are  on  the 
door-plates  of  Beacon,  and  Mt.  Vernon  and 
Chestnut  streets,  and  one  has  to  ride  as  far 
now  as  he  had  to  ride  fifty  years  ago  to  get  to 
anything  like  the  real  country.  For  all  I 
can  see,  Brookline  is  what  it  always  was, — a 
lovely  rural  suburb,  with  a  finished  air,  as  if 
it  were  all  owned  by  the  first  families,  who 
mean  to  keep  it  looking  just  so  trim  and 
tamely  picturesque  to  the  end  of  time.  No 
doubt,  the  Boston  people  think  Brookline  is 
country,  and  it  is  a  pretty  imitation;  but  just 
so  they  think  their  streets  are  dirty,  though 
to  a  New  Yorker  they  look  like  extensions 
merely  of  their  cosy  drawing-rooms ;  and  of 
late  years  they  have  been  so  irritated  by 
New  York's  claim  to  pre-eminence  in- every- 


thing that  they  have  been  trying  to  get 
themselves  into  a  state  of  mind  about  the 
smells  on  the  Back  Bay  land,  though,  to  a 
New  Yorker,  the  Back  Bay  is  violets  and 
heliotropes  to  the  streets  of  his  city  when  the 
wind  blows  from  Hunter's  Point. 

Of  course,  spring  comes  to  Boston  as  to 
us,  but  it  comes  in  a  neat,  orderly  way,  con- 
fining itself  to  the  markets,  the  florists" 
shops  and  the  almanac,  giving  a  tardy  fillip 
to  the  trees  on  the  common,  and  adding 
now  a  deeper  violet  to  the  cold  noses  of  the 
hardy  girls  who  would  scorn,  as  much  as  a 
Viking,  to  stop  indoors  for  the  worst  weather 
that  ever  blew. 

In  New  York,  however,  the  spring  comes  in 
informally,  like  other  things,  and  we  may  even 
think  'tis  born  here,  and  that  the  country- 
side gets  it  at  second-hand.  Of  late,  we  are 
getting  confused  about  the  time  of  its  arrival,, 
in  consequence  of  the  invasion  of  untimely 
cucumbers  and  strawberries  from  the  South, 
although  things  had  been  growing  into  a 
bad  way  before,  with  canned  vegetables, 
and  Boston  lettuce  that  kept  up  a  make-be- 
lieve spring  all  winter  long.  To  hear  straw- 
berries hawked  about  the  streets  in  March,, 
two  or  three  months  before  they  are  due,  is  to 
rob  us  of  all  real  interest  in  spring  growths, 
and  make  us  weary  of  them  in  advance. 
But,  after  all,  these  things  do  not  affect  the 
veritable  spring,  whose  comings  and  goings, 
are  not  dependent  on  such  accidents.  You 
cannot  bring  the  spring  by  setting  your  table- 
with  peas  and  strawberries  and  lettuce  out. 
of  time,  any  more  than  you  can  make  New 
York  Paris  by  putting  all  the  women  in 
Worth  costumes  and  Virot  bonnets,  or  make- 
a  New  York  clerk  an  English  swell  by 
merely  dislocating  his  shoulders,  sticking; 
out  his  elbows,  and  dressing  him  like  a 
groom.  Spring  is  in  the  heart  of  things  and 
in  the  constitution  of  man,  and  it  doesn't 
really  come  till  the  heavens  and  the  earth 
are  of  one  mind  that  they  are  ready  for  it- 
Then  it  comes  in  reality,  and  we  all  know 
it,  and  canned  vegetables  and  southern 
strawberries  are  recognized  for  the  shams, 
they  are. 

Though,  with  land  reckoned  at  so  much  a 
square  inch,  New  York  has  lost  the  pristine 
glory  of  her  "  back-yards,"  yet,  in  old  quar- 
ters of  the  city,  the  back-yards  (the  one  lux- 
ury in  which  the  richest  man  in  new  New 
York  hardly  dares  indulge  himself)  are  still 
the  first  camping  places  of  the  spring  on  her 
arrival  in  this  quarter.  Looking  out  of  my 
window  upon  the  open  square  of  yards,  onljr 
broken  in  one  place  by  an  invading  "flat,"  L 


SPRING  HEREABOUTS. 


163 


•watch  the  spring  creeping  on, 
from  the  time  when  the  owner 
•or  some  itinerant-  gardener  climbs  on 
the  trellis,  or  lifts  himself  on  a  step- 
ladder,  to  prune  the  grape-vines,  to  the 
day  when  the  young  girls  next  door 
xun  to  the  house  from  their  first  visit  to 
the  back  "  garden "  to  announce  to 
mamma  and  the  neighborhood  that 
the  crocuses  are  in  bloom,  or  that  the 
first  shoots  of  the  peonies  have  broken 
the  ground  with  their  rosy  finger  tips. 
Then  work  begins  in  earnest,  and  more 
itinerant  gardeners,  or,  in  one  or  two  of 
the  yards,  more  skillful  and  expensive 
hands  from  the  florist's,  come  in  with 
spades  and  rakes  and  hoes,  and  turn 
up  the  beds,  and  rake  the  remains  of 
last  year's  vines  and  roots  in  heaps, 
and  lift  and  pound  the  grass-plot  in  the 
middle  into  shape,  or  even  sod  it  over 
freshly,  and  then  set  out  a  new  lot  of 
Tose-bushes,  geraniums,  border-pinks  and 
heliotropes,  with  tuberoses  and  lily  bulbs 
to  give  the  garden-plot  fresh  incidents  as 
the  weeks  roll  on.  Meanwhile,  in  the 
streets,  the  signs  of  spring, — worth  all  the 
cries  of  fictitious  imported  strawberries,  and 
all  the  wilted  southern  vegetables,  stifled 
into  ripeness  in  the  holds  of  ships  between 
ihere  and  Charleston, — are  the  cart-loads  of 
sods,  with  a  twig  of  pussy-cat  willow  stuck 
in  them  as  if  to  prove,  by  a  sort  of  collateral 
•evidence,  that  they  were  really  brought  from 
the  country  and  were  not  manufactured  by 
steam  in  some  city  factory ;  the  blowsy  Ger- 
man women  bawling  from  door  to  door 
their  flowering  plants  in  pots,  which  they 
•carry  in  big  baskets  on  their  heads;  or  the 
ash-barrels  on  the  front  sidewalks  (for  New 
York  has  no  alley-ways),  stuffed  with  the 
trimmings  of  vines,  and  the  tangle  of  gar- 
den-sweepings and  cuttings  of  last  year's 
growth  from  shrubs  and  trees,  in  addition 
to  their  usual  contents. 

The  sidewalks,  too,  have  their  new  life, 
and  swarm  with  children,  especially  in  the 
older  quarters,  who  make  the  stoops  and 
flagging  their  play-ground  all  the  out-of- 
school  hours,  and  set  up  such  a  round  of 
visiting  on  the  part  of  the  little  girls,  from  area 


BUDDING    OF    OAK    AND    VINE. 


to  area, 
and  stoop 
to  stoop, 
and  from 
one  side 
of  the  street  to  the 
other,  as  shows 
how  native  is  the 
social  instinct,  and 
how  it  feeds  on 
nothing.  Mean- 
while the  boys  ap- 
pear in  force,  with 
stilts,  tops  (which 
they  whip  in  the 
fashion  of  the  old 
Webster's  Spelling- 
Book),  and  in  some  few  places  with  kites, 
though  of  late  years  the  all-pervading  tele- 
graph-wires have  seriously  interfered  with 
that  pretty  sport.  And  yesterday,  on  the 
sidewalk  in  crowded  Sixth  avenue,  I  saw 
a  little  child  of  six  or  seven  standing,  all 
unconscious  of  the  passers-by,  nursing  on 
her  shoulder  a  black  kitten,  and  singing 
softly  to  herself  some  baby  song  with  neither 
words  nor  air.  And  on  the  smooth  asphalt  of 
the  Park  a  Marimon  of  a  sparrow,  neat  and 
trim  as  her  French  rival,  was  dancing  a 
shadow-dance  all  to  herself,  the  motif,  so  to 
speak,  being  a  refractory  straw  which  she 
kept  on  picking  up  and  dropping,  and  which, 
as  her  husband  in  the  tree  a  few  yards  off  sang 
thejina/e  of  his  accompanying  twitter  song, 
she  flew  successfully  off  with,  and  wove  into 
her  new  nest.  It  was  only  a  night  or  two 
before  that  I  had  seen  Dinorah  dance  her 
shadow-dance  upon  the  stage,  and  it  seemed 
natural  now  to  believe  that  the  first  sugges- 
tion came  from  seeing  some  such  bird-play 
as  this. 

The  shop  windows  are  other  indexes  to 
the  change  that  is  taking  place.  Those  of 
the  florists,  who  had  been  getting  on  rather 


164 


SPRING  HEREABOUTS. 


slowly  for  a  few  weeks  with  roses  and  vio- 
lets and  occasional  lilies-of-the- valley,  with  a 
few  white  hyacinths  (these  first  hyacinths, 
however,  with  their  loose  clusters  and  slender 
bells,  having  a  charm  that  is  somehow  want- 
ing to  the  more  perfect,  later  bloom),  now 
become  sweetly  gay  with  tulips,  narcissuses, 
crocuses,  daffodils,  and  hyacinths  in  glasses, 
while  the  trays  of  cut  roses  lying  in  fra- 
grant heaps  have  a  more  natural  out-of-door 
air  (though  likewise  raised  under  glass,  they 
require  less  care)  than  the  superb  Jacque- 
minots, Marechal  Niels,  and  Gloire  de  Di- 
jons  that  preceded  them  and'keep  alongside 
them  far  into  the  summer. 

The  street  flower-stands,  too, — sadly  bo- 
tanical and  scientific  late  into  the  winter, 
with  ferns  and  alder  berries,  and  berries  of 
the  bittersweet;  then,  about  holiday  time, 
ecclesiastically  somber  with  evergreens  and 
holly,  then  scientific  again  with  more  ferns 
and  mosses, — at  last  become  human  and  soci- 
able, with  jacks-in-the-pulpit,  club-mosses  j  ust 
arrested  in  the  act  of  taking  their  little  hats  off 
to  the  spring,  meek  bouquets  of  marsh  mari- 
golds, and  bunches  of  twigs  of  pussy-cat 
willows  or  maple  buds,  plaintive  reminders 
to  the  "  cit  "  of  country  boyhood  pleasures. 

It  is  riot  in  the  flower-shops  only  that  one 
sees  the  dull  winter  taking  his  leave.  The 
tailors'  windows  tempt  us  men  with  their 


lighter  cloths,  and  even  the  shoe-shops  hide 
their  heavy-soled  shoes  and  put  their  best 
foot  foremost,  clothed  in  the  dapper  gaiter 
or  the  low-cut  shoe  that  speaks  of  sunny 
days  and  dry  pavements.  The  trunk  shops, 
too,  seem  to  take  a  vigorous  start  in  the 
spring,  and  bring  out  upon  the  sidewalks  a 
great  array  of  trunks  and  bags  and  boxes, 
of  all  shapes  and  sizes ;  some  large  enough 
to  hold  the  clothes  of  an  entire  family, 
though  doubtless  intended  to  transport  only 
a  portion  of  the  dresses  of  some  newly  made 
bride  or  woman  of  fashion ;  others  reason- 
ably capacious,  but  made  so  shallow  in  form 
as  to  suggest  to  the  passer-by,  who  perhaps 
has  already  a  journey  in  his  mind,  the 
suitableness  of  just  such  a  traveling  com- 
panion for  his  state-room,  in  case  he  should 
decide,  in  this  fine  spring  weather,  to  go 
over  the  ocean  and  see  for  himself  how 
England  looks  in  May.  For  one  of  the 
effects  of  spring  is  to  make  us  all  restless,, 
and  Nature,  with  her  mounting  sap,  and 
pushing  grass  and  pairing  birds,  is  not  to 
have  a  monopoly  of  motion ;  man,  also,  will 
repair  and  build,  and  make  love,  and 
migrate,  as  well  as  the  bird. 

The  carpet  shops,  conscious  that  their  reg- 
ular stock  in  trade  is  now  beginning  to  look 
somewhat  worn,  put  out  more  attractive  bait 
to  beguile  the  passing  purchaser,  in  the  shape 


A    SPRING    STUDIO  :      PAINTING    AN    OLD    MILL    IN    THE    SUBURBS. 


SPRING  HEREABOUTS. 


165 


ON    THE    HARLEM. 


of  rolls  of  cool-looking  matting,  in  fresh 
tints  and  varied  patterns,  for  decorative  art 
has  invaded  even  stand-still  China,  and 
where  there  used  to  be  only  two  kinds  of 
matting, — the  red-and-white  check  and  the 
plain  straw, — there  are  now  a  dozen.  But  I 
may  remark  in  a  parenthesis  that,  let  deco- 
rative art  do  what  it  can,  it  will  never  invent 
any  pattern  prettier,  or  that  will  wear  better, 
than  the  red- and- white  check.  It  holds  its 
own,  century  after  century,  by  as  inalienable 
a  title  as  bread  and  butter,  roast  beef,  sun- 
shine and  potatoes. 

There  are  shops  to  which  spring  brings 
only  the  sad  conviction  that  their  occupation 
is  gone  for  as  long  as  spring  and  summer 
last ;  and  some  shops,  that  have  an  elastic 
trade  adapted  to  all  the  year,  have  to  put 
half  their  stock  on  the  retired  list  until  cool 
1  weather  comes  again.  Just  as  the  animals 
themselves  are  making  up  their  minds  to 
;  leave  winter  quarters,  the  furriers  begin  to  roll  • 
up  their  skins  and  pack  them  away  for  the 
season ;  the  plumbers,  to  whom  the  universal 
thaw  no  longer  promises  bursting  pipes  and 
leaking  leaders,  retire  to  their  back  offices  to 
devise  new  complications  and  more  intricate 
traps  for  another  season,  while  the  so-called 
furnishing  shops  feed  the  quickened  imagin- 
ation of  housekeepers  with  mops  and  pails 
and  scrubbing  brushes,  cheerful  emblems  of 


spring  cleaning,  and  remand  to  the  cellars 
their  coal-scuttles  and  fire-irons,  while  a 
background  of  refrigerators,  ice-pitchers 
and  lemon-squeezers  carries  the  mind  gaily 
forward  to  the  sweltering  heats  of  summer. 
About  this  time,  too.  expect,  as  the  almanacs 
say,  to  see  steamer-chairs,  with  the  initials  or 
the  full  names  of  their  owners  painted  on  them, 
standing  outside  these  shops,  provokingly 
suggestive  either  of  ocean  voyage  or  yacht 
cruising.  But  as  the  busy  man  cannot  hope 
to  enjoy  either  of  these  pleasures,  he  men- 
tally resolves  that  the  first  sunny  holiday  he 
can  find  he  will  sail  down  to  Staten  Island, 
and  through  the  pretty  Kills,  to  catch  sight 
of  spring  as  she  comes  rippling  up  our  beau- 
tiful Bay, — touching  the  marsh  grasses  with 
young  green  light,  throwing  a  misty  veil  of 
leaf-tips  and  swelling  buds  over  the  trees,  and 
sending  her  sea-gulls  as  couriers  to  an- 
nounce her  coming,  careering  in  their  beau- 
tiful flight  about  our  boat, — sea-gulls,  the 
last  of  April's  scurrying  snow-flakes,  flying 
first  blossoms  of  the  May,  scud  of  the 
breakers,  borne  inland  by  the  salt  south- 
wind. 

The  carpenters  and  masons,  who  have 
been  dormant  all  winter,  now  appear,  with 
the  first  audacious  fly,  and,  like  the  wood- 
pecker, make  their  presence  known  by  an 
energetic  tapping  and  hammering.  Look- 


i66 


SPRING  HEREABOUTS. 


ing  out  of  the  window  to  see  on  which  of 
tbese  old-neighbor  houses  they  have  alighted, 
we  find  it  is  our  next  door,  who  is  taking  ad- 
vantage of  these  first  unseasonably  warm  days 
to  enlarge  his  back  balcony  into  a  room; 
but  so  fickle  is  our  April  weather  that 
hardly  have  the  workmen  got  rid  of  the  old 
piazza  (for  with  such  a  high-sounding  name 
do  we  dignify  our  narrow  balconies,  for  the 
most  part  never  used),  and  so  deprived  the 
house  of  the  protection  it  afforded,  than  a 
rude  snow-storm  sends  them  back  to  their 
shop,  and  hides  their  new  lumber  for  twenty- 
four  hours  under  a  white  blanket.  It  is  odd 
to  see  how  citizens  seem  to  dislike  a  tree. 
The  pretty  apricot  that,  every  spring  for  the 
five  years  we  have  known  her,  has  covered 
herself  with  a  light  veil  of  pink  blossoms, 
and  in  the  cool  morning  just  touched  the 
city  air  with  a  whispered  breath  of  almond 
scent — the  pretty  tree  is  gone,  cut  off  ten 
feet  from  the  ground,  a  mangled  stump. 
The  light  brush  of  its  branches  lies  in  a  heap, 
the  infant  buds  are  nipped  in  their  swelling, 
and,  if  we  could  see  her,  the  ousted  Hama- 
dryad is  sitting  forlorn  by  her  dismantled 
home.  Etiquette  forbids  that  we  should  ask 
the  reason  for  this  bit  of  destructiveness,  but 
we  cannot  help  being  sorry  for  an  act  that 
seems  to  have  had  no  reason  in  it. 

But,  if  our  next-door  apricot  is  gone,  the 
opposite-house  baby  has  re-appeared,  and 
we  are  sure,  for  a  time  at  least,  of  some- 
thing always  prettier  than  any  apricot  tree 
could  be.  The  baby  was  born  in  the  early 
winter,  but  immediately  went  into  retire- 
ment. Its  first  appearance  at  the  window  in 
its  nurse's  arms,  very  pink  and  very  much 
swathed  in  flannel,  was  hailed  as  an  auspi- 


cious sign  on  our  first  taking  possession  of 
winter  quarters,  but,  as  has  been  said,  it 
disappeared  from  the  view  of  the  back-win- 
dow world,  and  was  naturally  forgotten. 
Now,  however,  it  has  appeared  again,  with 
the  tulips  and  jonquils,  and  the  old  artist 
Time  has  added  so  many  touches  to  his  first 
sketch, — working  over  the  red  ground  in 
which  he  always  lays  in  his  heads,  and  sub- 
tly managing  his  carnations,  with  gold  lights 
in  the  tendrils  of  the  hair,  and  blue  eyes 
dashed  in  with  a  full,  wet  brush,  a  mouth 
like  a  bud,  and — can  it  be  ? — why  does 
the  nurse  leave  the  window,  and  come  back 
with  the  mother,  all  nods  and  wreathed 
smiles  ?  Why  this  fumbling  in  the  baby's 
mouth  ?  Is  it  a  tooth  ?  Yes,  it  would 
seem  the  first  pretty  millet  seed  has  sprouted, 
the  first  pearl  has  been  strung  on  the  rosy 
thread.  Old  painter  Time  is  finishing  his  pict- 
ure, and  has  put  in  the  first  of  his  high  lights. 
Nature,  good  foster-mother,  isproviding  play- 
things for  her  child,  for  while  the  new  baby 
was  crooning  at  the  window,  the  black  cat 
brought  out  her  two  kittens  into  the  yard 
below,  and  gave  them  their  first  taste  of 
the  open  air  and  a  sight  of  the  fences  they 
are  one  day  to  climb.  Pretty,  soft  black 
accents  in  the  Munich-gray  of  the  picture! 
By  the  stir  on  the  roof  of  another  opposite 
neighbor's  "  extension,"  and  by  the  monoto- 
nous cooing  of  the  pigeons  that  live  there 
in  cotes  nailed  against  the  wall,  it  may  be 
guessed  that  babies  and  kittens  are  not  the 
only  young  things  whose  growth  and  nur- 
ture the  year  is  to  tend.  The  older  pigeons 
will  soon  be  training  their  pigeonettes  in 
flying  up  and  down  or-  across  the  open 
court,  and  it  will  not  be  many  weeks  or  days 


WATCHING    THE    GOATS. 


SPRING  HEREABOUTS. 


167 


DRIVING    IN     THE    FLOCK. 


before  we  shall  hear  the  pattering  of  the  red 
feet  and  the  cooing  of  the  iris-breasted 
visitors  on  our  tinned  roof,  with  the  quick 
whir  of  frightened  wings  as  we  step  to  the 
window  to  watch  their  restless  play.  How 
dull,  after,  all,  would  the  square  shut  in  by 
the  houses  be — sunny  and  bright  as  it  is — 
without  these  various  movements  of  animate 
life! 

Once,  when  we  could  not  go  to  the  coun- 
try ourselves,  a  bit  of  April  was  brought  to 
us  by  a  kind-hearted  maiden, — a  basket  of 
marsh-marigolds — greenish-yellow  blossom- 
flowers  just  now  leaves,  and  leaves  that  are 
all  but  flowers.  She  brought  them — this 
girl,  like  one  of  Botticelli's  Graces  floating  out 
of  his  Allegory  of  Spring — in  a  pretty  basket 
of  her  own  contriving,  a  softly-woven  hat 
of  straw,  the  edges  drawn  together  at  two 
sides  with  a  knot  of  ribbon,  and  the  flowers 
nestled  closely  together  in  the  open  ends. 
They  looked  out  with  their  homely,  friendly 
faces,  recalling  many  an  early  April  stroll 
in  Westchester  woods,  where  these  firstlings 
of  the  year  greeted  us,  thickly  clustered 
along  the  banks  of  the  creeping  streams. 

But  the  lover  of  spring  will  not  be  content 
with  her  city  smiles.  He  will  follow  her  to 
the  rocky  suburbs  if,  as  is  sadly  likely,  he 
cannot  woo  her  in  the  real  country.  How- 
ever, here  again  New  York  has  an  advan- 
tage over  some  other  cities,  in  the  curiously 
untamed  wildness  of  her  outlying  regions. 
Even  on  the  island  itself,  on  its  northern- 
most extension,  the  woods  and  rocks  are 
still  as  they  were  in  the  days  of  Peter  Stuy- 
vesant,  though,  now  that  the  elevated  rail- 
roads have  reached  to  the  borders  of  the 
wildwood,  it  cannot  be  long  before  it  will 
disappear,  or  be  so  broken  up  as  to  be  no 
longer  a  strolling  place  for  people  tired,  for 


a  time»  of  city  sights  and  sounds.  The 
Harlem  river  is  the  resort  of  innumerable 
boating  gentry,  but  its  shores  are  so  steep 
on  the  one  side  and  so  marshy  on  the  other 
as  to  give  no  opportunity  to  the  walker,  and 
the  railroad  that  now  skirts  its  northern 
shore  and  follows  its  windings  has  made 
such  enjoyment  as  we  once  had  in  it  no 
longer  possible.  But  boat-hiring  is  made  so 
easy  that  the  river  may  be  enjoyed  this 
way  with  more  pleasure,  perhaps,  than  if  we 
were  only  to  walk  along  its  banks.  In  a 
boat  we  are  double  owners  of  the  stream, 
— we  not  only  survey  it  from  side  to  side, 
we  command  its  inaccessible  places;  and 
now  in  the  spring  we  see  the  water  weeds 
brightening  with  answering  green,  as  the 
marsh  grass  quickens  along  the  edge  and 
the  arrowheads  sharpen  their  serried  tips  in 
the  sun,  while  the  minnows  flash  in  gather- 
ing and  dispersing  ranks,  moving  with  a 
swift  unanimity,  as  if  an  electric  flash  gave 
the  silent  signal,  while  at  every  fresh  boat- 
length  the  plash  of  the  vigilant  frog  is  heard. 
We  must  linger  long  after  the  world  is  still, 
however,  before  we  hear  that  sound  which  is 
one  of  the  few  in  nature  that  mark  an  era 
in  the  progress  of  the  year — the  sound  of 
the  "  peeper,"  as  clear  and  distinctly  recog- 
nizable as  the  cry  of  the  first  locust  or  the 
chirp  of  the  first  cricket — one  of  those 
sweet  surprises,  like  the  first  sight  we  get 
of  the  new  moon,  the  first  dandelion  in  the 
meadow,  or,  more  delightful  still,  in  the  city 
grass-plots, — sights  and  sounds 

"  That  always  find  us  young, 
And  always  keep  us  so." 

Of  these  firstlings,  however,  the  sight  of 
the  dandelion  is  cheerful,  and  so  is  the 
peeper's  cry,  albeit  its  monotone  may,  to 


1 68 


SPRING  HEREABOUTS. 


PICKING    DANDELIONS. 


some  ears,  be  melancholy  or  plaintive;  but 
the  cry  of  the  cicada  and  the  cricket  (which, 
of  course,  are  not  "  cries  "  at  all)  are  neces- 
sarily melancholy,  because  they  belong  to 
the  fading  year;  they  are  cadences  in  the 
song  of  Nature  as  she  sits  at  the  rushing 
loom  of  Time.  But  the  peeper's  note  is  the 
tinkling  bell  that  rings  the  curtain  up  and 
ushers  in  the  play-time  of  the  pleasant 
world. 

I  remember  to  have  once  brought  home 
from  a  Westchester-county  brook  a  formless 
mass  of  jelly,  through  which  were  distributed 
at  intervals  dark  points  like  seeds.  Bring- 
ing it  home,  I  put  it  into  a  glass  vessel  filled 
with  water,  and  set  it  in  the  window,  watch- 
ing it  day  by  day.  Each  of  these  little 
points  was  an  egg  of  the  common  frog,  and 
after  the  first  day  or  so  it  was  seen  that 
every  egg  was  surrounded  by  a  small  globe 
or  bubble  of  air.  Day  by  day,  as  they  in- 


creased in  size,  the  bubbles  grew  with  their 
growth,  and  at  length,  from  simple  dark 
points,  the  eggs  assumed  an  elongated  form, 
like  small  melon  seeds.  But  what  made 
them  magically  interesting  to  watch- was  the 
curious  phenomenon  by  which,  every  now  and 
then, — and  though  I  watched  them  long  and 
often  I  could  never  ascertain  any  settled 
periodicity  in  the  matter, — an  electric  thrill 
seemed  to  dart  through  the  inert,  gelatinous 
mass,  and  all  the  separate  eggs,  each  in  its 
transparent  bubble,  would  wriggle  simul- 
taneously— just  one  short,  sharp  wriggle — 
and  then  all  would  remain  quiet,  till  Nature 
had  generated  enough  electricity  for  another 
shock.  This  continued  until  the  eggs  had 
developed  the  beginnings  of  a  tail,  and  the 


A    SPRING    MORNING    AT    MME.    JUMEL's    IN    THE    OLD    TIME. 


SUCCESS. 


169 


air  bubbles  had  increased  so  that  they  nearly 
touched  one  another;  when,  having  no 
aquarium  in  which  to  keep  my  brood,  I 
carried  them  back  and  slipped  them  into 
their  native  brook  again.  Are  the  planets 
such  eggs  in  a  vast,  cosmicai,  nebulous  mass, 
each  with  its  own  bubble  of  atmosphere,  and 
does  an  electric  flash  run  through  our  inert 
mass  with  the  spring,  and  thrill  us  all  into 
new  life  after  winter's  stagnation  ?  Some- 
thing thrills  us,  and  the  simultaneousness  of 
it  is  past  all  scientific  explanation.  The 
very  roots  in  the  cellar  feel  the  impulse ;  the 
potato  strains  its  eyes  so,  to  get  a  sight  of 
what's  going  on,  that  they  project  from  its 
head  like  the  eyes  of  snails ;  the  onion  says 
to  itself:  "  I'd  be  a  hyacinth,  if  I  could, 
but  as  I  can't,  I'll  start  off  like  one.  Would 
that  a  bulb  by  any  other  name  would  smell 
as  sweet."  The  beets  and  carrots  try  to 
follow  suit,  but  they  are  a  clumsier  breed, 
and  the  only  change  that  comes  over  them 
when  the  spring  is  making  other  things  burst 
into  bud  and  leaf,  is  that  they  become  pith 
and  cork,  and  end  by  wilting  away. 

The  Park  is  the  place  where  most  New 
Yorkers  first  see  the  spring  in  its  full  beauty, 
and  perhaps  the  only  place  where  we  see  it  at 
all  beyond  the  city  bounds.  Here  are  broad 
swards  of  grass,  ampler  and  greener  than 
the  country  can  show,  and  sown  with  dande- 
lions so  thickly  as  literally  to  make  the 
green  one  yellow.  And  sheep  and  lambs 
really  enjoying  life,  and  ducks  and  geese 
and  swans  on  the  ponds  and  streams,  lead- 


ing their  young  broods  out  to  see  the  glad 
new  world  into  which  they  have  been  so 
lucky  as  to  be  born.  'Tis  all  very  pretty, 
and  we  must  enjoy  the  lush  exuberance  of 
the  leafage,  and  the  flower-garlanded  trel- 
lises and  rocky  walls,  hid  out  of  sight  with 
the  purple  wistaria  and  the  scented  honey- 
suckle; but  whoever  has  courage  to  push 
beyond  these  formal  walls  into  the  rude, 
unkempt,  but  very  much  alive  unbuilt-up 
world  outside  will  find  a  more  satisfying 
experience — unless,  indeed,  he  be  a  fore- 
ordained "  cit,"  and  must  go  only  where  he 
can  keep  his  boots  clean. 

The  roads  that  lead  by  the  now  tottering 
palings  of  old  New  York  houses  like  that 
of  Madame  Jumel's ;  the  bits  of  pasture  still 
uninvaded  by  city  improvements,  where 
children  watch  the  goats  or  pick  the  dande- 
lion leaves  that  make  a  dish  of  bitter 
"  greens "  to  season  the  spare  home  meal, 
or  keep  the  clamorous  geese  in  sight,  as 
they  nip  the  springing  grass  or  wrestle 
with  their  yellow  beaks  in  the  plashy  rivu- 
lets that  drain  the  rocky  lots, — in  all  these 
straying-places  about  the  city  we  may  find 
happy  substitutes,  if  we  will,  for  a  more 
ambitious  country  side,  and  bring  back  to 
the  work-a-day  world  and  the  round  of 
daily  toil  some  gleam  of  real  sunshine,  the 
remembrance  of  some  pretty  glimpse  of 
Nature,  or,  if  nothing  more  cheerful,  the 
conviction  that,  if  not  for  him  then  some- 
where for  others,  spring  is  bathing  the  earth 
in  sunshine  and  making  all  things  new. 


SUCCESS. 

WHO  wins  the  race  ?     The  boy  who  strives 
For  victory  solely,  and  derives 
No  pleasure  from  the  racer's  art, 
Nor  keen  delight  to  play  his  part, 
But,  struggling  for  his  flag  or  button, 
Must  bolt  his  triumph  like  a  glutton? 

Who  wins  the  race  ?     The  maid  who  craves 
That  all  her  friends  should  be  her  slaves  ? 
A  warm  look  here,  cold  shoulder  there, 
Now  wafting  bliss  and  now  despair! 
Amid  the  herd  her  charms  have  smitten 
Gives  one  a  finger,  ten  the  mitten  ! 

Who  wins  the  race  ?     The  man  who  pours 
His  every  nerve  where  he  adores, 
Outstrips  his  foes  at  any  rate 
And  gets  the  maid  by  efforts  great, 


VOL.  XX.— 12. 


SUN-SPOTS  AND  FINANCIAL  PANICS, 


So  set  on  owning  that   he's  blind 
To  hot  or  cold,  to  wet  or  wind  ? 

The  race — who  wins  it?     It  is  he 
Who  loses,  gains  the  loftier  fee! 
O  boy,  love  racing,  not  the  prize ; 
Love  love,  sweet  girl,  not  lover's  cries; 
And,  man,  far  sooner  bear  a  hurt 
Than  stoop  to  wrangle  for  a  flirt! 


SUN-SPOTS  AND   FINANCIAL    PANICS. 


I  RECEIVE  so  many  letters  relating  to  the 
imagined  troubles  which  the  movements  of 
the  planets  are  to  occasion  during  the  next 
few  years  (chiefly  through  the  intervention 
of  the  solar  spots),  that  I  think  many  may 
find  interest  in  the  most  recent  development 
of  the  sun-spot  mania, — Professor  Stanley 
Jevons's  theory  that  there  is  a  close  and 
intimate  connection  between  commercial 
crises  and  spots  upon  the  sun.  My  object  is 
not,  I  need  hardly  say,  to  advocate  Professor 
Jevons's  theory.  Nor  do  I  propose  merely 
to  show  how  slight  is  the  evidence  on  which 
his  theory  is  based,  and  that,  in  some 
respects,  it  is  even  opposed  to  those  views 
in  whose  support  it  was  adduced.  I  write 
more  with  the  view  of  discouraging  that 
flow  of  unscientific  speculation  with  regard 
to  sun-spots  which  has  recently  set  in. 

About  the  year  1862,  Professor  Jevons 
prepared  two  statistical  diagrams  relating  to 
monetary  matters,  the  price  of  corn,  etc. 
The  study  of  these  satisfied  him  that  the 
commercial  troubles  of  1815,  1825,  1836- 
39,  1847,  and  1857,  exhibited  a  true  but 
mysterious  periodicity.  There  was  no  ap- 
pearance of  like  periodicity,  indeed,  during 
the  first  fifteen  years  of  the  present  century, 
when  "  statistical  numbers  were  thrown  into 
confusion  by  the  great  wars,  the  suspension 
of  specie  payments,  and  the  frequently 
extremely  high  prices  of  corn."  He  admits, 
moreover,  that  the  statistical  diagram,  so 
far  as  the  eighteenth  century  is  concerned, 
presents  no  appreciable  trace  of  periodicity. 

In  1875,  attracted  by  questions  raised 
respecting  solar  influences,  Professor  Jevons 
discussed  the  data  in  Professor  Thorold 
Rogers's  "Agriculture  and  Prices  in  England 
since  1259."  He  then  believed,  he  tells  us 
somewhat  naively,  that  "  he  had  discovered 
the  solar  period  "  in  the  prices  of  corn  and 
various  agricultural  commodities,  and  he 


accordingly  read  a  paper  to  that  effect  at  the 
British  Association  at  Bristol.  Subsequent 
inquiry,  however,  seemed  to  show  that  periods 
of  three,  five,  seven,  nine,  or  even  thirteen 
years,  would  agree  with  Professor  Rogers's 
data  just  as  well  as  a  period  of  eleven  years; 
in  disgust  at  which  result,  Professor  Jevons 
withdrew  the  paper  from  further  publication. 
He  still  looks  back,  however,  with  some 
affection  on  this  paper,  and  quotes  with 
complacency  this  passage: 

"  Before  concluding  I  will  throw  out  a 
surmise,  which,  though  it  is  a  mere  sur- 
mise, seems  worth  making.  It  is  now 
pretty  generally  allowed  that  the  fluctua- 
tions of  the  money  market,  though  often  ap- 
parently due  to  exceptional  and  accidental 
events,  such  as  wars,  panics,  and  so  forth, 
yet  do  exhibit  a  remarkable  tendency  to 
recur  at  intervals  approximating  to  ten  or 
eleven  years.  Thus,  the  principal  commer- 
cial crises  have  happened  in  the  years  1825, 
1836-39,  1847,  1857, 1866,  and  I  was  almost 
adding  1879,  so  convinced  do  I  feel  that 
there  will,  within  the  next  few  years,  be 
another  great  crisis.  Now,  if  there  should 
be,  in  or  about  the  year  1879,  a  great  col- 
lapse comparable  with  those  of  the  years 
mentioned,  there  will  have  been  five  such 
occurrences  in  fifty-four  years,  giving  almost 
exactly  eleven  years  (10.8)  as  the  average 
interval,  which  sufficiently  approximates  to 
1 1. 1  "years,  the  supposed  exact  length  of 
the  sun-spot  period,  to  warrant  speculations 
as  to  their  possible  connection." 

However,  Professor  Jevons,  though  he 
had  done  his  best  to  follow  the  course  laid 
down  for  such  researches  "  by  those  who 
are  determined,  above  all  things,  that  some 
terrestrial  cycles  shall  be  made 'to  synchro- 
nize with  the  sun-spot  cycle,*  had  been  thus 

*  "  The  thing  to  hunt  down,"  says  one  of  these, 
"  is  a  cycle,  and  if  that  is  not  to  be  found  in  the  tern- 


SUN-SPOTS  AND  FINANCIAL  PANICS. 


171 


far  disappointed.  "  I  was  embarrassed,"  he 
says,  "  by  the  fact  that  the  commercial  fluc- 
tuations could  with  difficulty  be  reconciled 
with  a  period  of  n.i  years.  If,  indeed,  we 
start  from  1825  and  add  n.i  years'  time 
after  time,  we  get  1836.1,  1847.2,  1858.3, 
1869.4,  1880.5,  which  shows  a  gradually 
increasing  discrepancy  from  1837,  1&47, 
1857,  1866,  and  now  1878,  the  true  dates 
of  the  crises."  The  true  cycle-hunter,  how- 
ever, is  seldom  without  an  explanation  of 
such  discrepancies.  "  I  went  so  far,"  he 
says,  and  again  his  naivete  is  charming,  "  as 
to  form  the  rather  fanciful  hypothesis  that 
the  commercial  world  might  be  a  body  so 
mentally  constituted,  as  Mr.  John  Mill  must 
hold,  as  to  be  capable  of  vibrating  in  a 
period  of  ten  years,  so  that  it  would  every 
now  and  then  be  thrown  into  oscillation  by 
physical  causes  having  a  period  of  eleven 
years."  Unfortunately  for  the  scientific 
world,  which  could  not  have  failed  to  profit 
greatly  from  the  elucidation  of  so  ingenious 
a  theory,  even  though  it  had  subsequently 
been  found  well  to  withdraw  it,  Professor 
Jevons  became  acquainted  about  this  time 
with  some  inquiries  by  Mr.  J.  A.  Broun, 
tending  to  show  that  the  solar  period  is  10.45 
years,  not  n.i.  This  placed  the  matter  in 
a  very  different  light,  and  removed  all  diffi- 
culties. "  Thus,  if  we  take  Mr.  John  Mill's 
'  Synopsis  of  Commercial  Panics  in  the 
Present  Century,'  and  rejecting  1866,  as  an 
instance  of  a  premature  panic  "  (this  is  very 
ingenious),  "  count  from  1815  to  1857,  we 
find  that  four  credit  cycles  occupy  forty-two 
years,  giving  an  average  duration  of  10.5 
years,  which  is  a  remarkably  close  approxi- 
mation to  Mr.  Broun's  solar  period." 

Encouraged  by  the  pleasing  aspect  which 
the  matter  had  now  assumed,  Professor 
Jevons  determined  to  go  further  afield  for 
evidence.  "  It  occurred  to  me  at  last,"  he 
says,  "  to  look  back  into  the  previous  cen- 
tury, where  facts  of  a  strongly  confirmatory 
character  at  once  presented  themselves. 
Not  only  was  there  a  great  panic  in  1793, 
as  Dr.  Hyde  Clarke  remarked,  but  there 
were  very  distinct  events  of  a  similar  nature 
in  the  years  1783,  1772-3,  and  1763. 
About  these  dates  there  can  be  no  question, 
for  they  may  all  be  found  clearly  stated  on 
pp.  627,  628  of  the  first  volume  of  Mr. 

perate  zones,  then  go  to  the  frigid  zones  or  to  the 
torrid  zone  to  look  for  it ;  and  if  found,  then  above 
all  things  and  in  whatever  manner  (!)  lay  hold  of, 
study,  and  read  it,  and  see  what  it  means," — or  make 
a  meaning  for  it,  if  it  has  none,  he  should  have 
added. 


Macleod's  unfinished  '  Dictionary  of  Politi- 
cal Economy.'  Mr.  Macleod  gives  a  con- 
cise, but  I  believe  correct,  account  of  these 
events,  and  as  he  seems  to  entertain  no  the- 
ory of  periodicity,  his  evidence  is  perfectly 
unbiased."  It  is  true  that  neither  WolfPs 
nor  Broun's  period  can  be  strictly  reconciled 
with  the  occurrence  of  four  commercial 
crises,  at  intervals  of  exactly  ten  years ;  for 
three  times  n.i  are  33.3,  and  three  times 
10.45  are  3x-35i  whereas  the  interval  from 
1763  to  1793  amounts  only  to  30.  How- 
ever we  only  have  to  regard  the  crisis  of 
1793  as  a  "premature  panic"  to  remove 
this  difficulty.  Indeed,  with  premature 
panics  and  delayed  panics,  overhasty  sun- 
spot  crises  and  unduly  retarded  ones,  we 
can  get  over  even  more  serious  difficulties. 

This  "  beautiful  coincidence,"  as  Professor 
Jevons  called  it,  led  him  to  look  still  farther 
backward,  "  and  to  form  the  apparently 
wild  notion  that  the  great  crisis,  generally 
known  as  that  of  the  South  Sea  Bubble, 
might  not  be  an  isolated  and  casual  event, 
but  only  an  early  and  remarkable  manifes- 
tation of  the  commercial  cycle."  The 
South  Sea  Bubble  is  usually  assigned  to  the 
year  1720,  and,  as  that  would  be  43  years 
before  1763,  we  should  have  10^  years, 
instead  of  10^  years,  for  the  average  inter- 
val, if  three  commercial  crises  occurred 
between  1720  and  1763.  But  this  difficulty 
is  merely  superficial.  "  It  is  perfectly  well 
known  to  the  historians  of  commerce,"  says 
Professor  Jevons,  "that  the  general  collapse 
of  trade,  which  profoundly  affected  all  the 
more  advanced  European  nations,  especially 
the  Dutch,  French,  and  English,  occurred 
in  1721.  Now,  if  we  assume  that  there 
have  been,  since  1721,  up  to  1857,  thirteen 
commercial  cycles,  the  average  interval 
comes  out  10.46  years.  Or  if  we  consider 
that  we  are  in  this  very  month  (November, 
1878)  passing  through  a  normal  crisis,  then 
the  interval  of  157  years,  from  1721  to  1878, 
gives  an  average  cycle  of  10.466  years." 

Before  this  could  be  accepted,  however, 
three  commercial  panics  had  to  be  found 
to  fill  in  the  space  between  1721  and 
1763.  Professor  Jevons  felt  this  keenly.  He 
spent  much  time  and  labor,  during  the  sum- 
mer of  1878,  "  in  a  most  tedious  and  dis- 
couraging search  among  the  pamphlets, 
magazines,  and  newspapers  of  the  period, 
with  a  view  to  discover  other  decennial 
crises."  He  seems  to  have  done  everything 
he  could  think  of,  short  of  advertising — 
"Wanted,  three  crises,  fitted  to  fill  a  crisisless 
gap  in  last  century's  commercial  history  " — 


I72 


SUN-SPOTS  AND  FINANCIAL  PANICS. 


but  the  results  were  not  very  satisfactory. 
"  I  am  free  to  confess,"  he  says,  "  that  in 
this  search,  I  have  been  thoroughly  biased 
in  favor  of  a  theory,  and  that  the  evidence 
which  I  have  so  far  found  would  have  no 
weight  if  standing  by  itself.  It  is  impossible 
in  this  place,  to  state  properly  the  facts 
which  I  possess ;  I  can  only  briefly  mention 
what  I  hope  to  establish  by  future  more 
thorough  inquiry."  Even  this — which  has 
yet  to  be  established — amounts  to  very 
little;  but  that  is  the  fault  of  the  facts,  not  of 
Professor  Jevons. 

In  the  first  place,  it  is  remarkable,  he 
thinks,  that  the  South  Sea  Company,  which 
failed  in  1720-21,  was  founded  in  1711, 
just  ten  years  before,  "and  that  on  the  very 
page  (312)  of  Mr.  Fox  Broun's  'Romance 
of  Trade,'  which  mentions  this  fact,  the  year 
1701  also  occurs  in  connection  with  specu- 
lation and  stock-jobbing,  as  the  promotion  of 
companies  was  then  called.  The  occurrence 
of  a  crisis  in  the  years  1710-11,  12  is,  indeed, 
almost  established  by  the  list  of  bubble 
insurance  companies  formed  in  those  years, 
as  collected  by  Mr.  Cornelius  Walford." 

If  the  probability  that  a  commercial 
crisis  occurred  in  1710-12  (though  the 
history  of  trade  perversely  omits  to  mention 
such  a  crisis)  is  not  considered  sufficient,  in 
company,  even,  with  the  mention  of  1701  as 
a  year  of  stock-jobbing,  to  prove  beyond 
all  possibility  of  question  that  commercial 
crises  occurred  in  1731,  1742,  and  1752,  let 
the  hesitating  student  observe,  that  quite 
obviously  "  about  ten  years  after  stock -job- 
bing had  been  crushed  by  the  crisis  of  1721, 
it  reared  its  head  again."  It  is  remarked 
in  the  "Gentleman's  Magazine"  of  1732, 
that  "  stock -jobbing  is  grown  almost  epidem- 
ical. Fraud,  corruption  and  iniquity  in 
great  companies  as  much  require  speedy 
and  effectual  remedies  now  as  in  1720. 
The  scarcity  of  money  and  stagnation  of 
trade  in  all  the  distant  parts  of  England,  is 
a  proof  that  too  much  of  our  current  coin 
is  got  into  the  hands  of  a  few  persons." 
Before  1734  matters  had  become  still  worse, 
for  Mr.  Walford  says  that  "  gambling  in 
stocks  and  funds  had  broken  out  with  con- 
siderable fervor  again  during  the  few  years 
preceding  1734.  It  was  the  first  symptom 
of  recovery  from  the  events  of  1720."  In 
J734,  accordingly,  we  find  that  an  act  was 
passed  to  check  stock-jobbing. 

It  might  still  seem,  however,  to  some  of 
those  doubting  spirits  whom  no  arguments 
can  satisfy,  that  the  occurrence,  in  1734,  of 
"the  first  symptoms  of  recovery  from  the 


events  of  1720  "  is  not  in  itself  proof  positive 
of  the  occurrence  of  a  commercial  crisis  in 
1 732.  They  might,  in  their  perversity,  argue 
that  the  next  commercial  crisis  after  that 
of  1720—21  would  presumably  have  fol- 
lowed the  recovery,  in  1734,  from  the  effects 
of  the  South  Sea  collapse.  To  satisfy  these 
unbelievers,  Professor  Jevons  points  out  that 
in  1732  a  society  called  the  "  Charitable 
Corporation  for  Relief  of  the  Industrious 
Poor "  became  bankrupt.  Many  people 
were  ruined  by  the  unexpected  deficit  thus 
discovered,  and  Parliament  and  the  public 
were  asked  to  assist  the  sufferers. 

The  failure  of  a  charitable  corporation  in 
1732  is  not  perhaps  in  itself  demonstrative 
of  the  occurrence  of  a  commercial  crisis  in 
1732,  but  when  considered  in  connection 
with  the  founding  of  the  South  Sea  Com- 
pany in  1711,  the  occurrence  of  stock -job- 
bing in  1701,  the  revival  in  1734  from  the 
events  of  1720-21,  and  especially  with  the 
circumstance  that  Professor  Jevons's  theory 
absolutely  requires  a  crisis  in  1732,  it  must 
in  charity  be  accepted.  It  would  indeed 
be  exceedingly  unkind  to  reject  the  evidence 
thus  offered  for  a  commercial  panic  in  1732, 
because  none  can  be  found  to  show  that 
between  1732  and  1763,  "anything  ap- 
proaching to  a  mania  or  crisis,"  took  place. 
"My  learned  and  obliging  correspondents 
at  Amsterdam  and  Leyden."  says  Professor 
Jevons,  "  disclaim  any  knowledge  of  such 
events  in  the  trade  of  Holland  at  that  time, 
and  my  own  diagram,  showing  the  monthly 
bankruptcies  throughout  the  interval,  dis- 
plays a  flatness  of  a  thoroughly  discouraging 
character." 

This  would  dishearten  perhaps  any  one 
but  a  believer  in  sun-spot  influences.  But 
the  rule  laid  down  by  the  high-priest  of  their 
order,  to  hold  on  resolutely  to  any  cycle 
found  or  imagined,  "  above  all  things  and  in 
whatever  manner,  to  lay  hold  of"  such  a 
cycle,  despite  all  difficulties  and  every  dis- 
couragement, is  one  which  they  follow  with 
a  zeal  worthy  of  a  more  scientific  and  logi- 
cal system  of  procedure.  Though  Professor 
Jevons  would  find  no  evidence  whatever  of  a 
crisis  between  the  well-imagined  one  in  1732 
and  the  real  crisis  in  1763,  inquiry  leads  him 
to  believe,  he  says,  "  that  yet  there  were 
remarkable  variations  in  the  activity  of  trade 
and  the  prices  of  some  staple  commodities, 
such  as  wool  and  tin,  sufficient  to  connect 
the  earlier  with  the  later  periods."  The 
evidence  is  not  complete,  and  as  it  does  not 
quite  agree  with  the  sun-spot  theory,  it  is 
"  probably  misleading."  Any  one  "  who 


SUN-SPOTS  AND  FINANCIAL  PANICS. 


can  point  out  to  Professor  Jevons  a  series  of 
prices  of  metals,  or  other  commodities  not 
merely  agricultural,  before  1782,  will,  he 
announces,  confer  a  very  great  obligation 
upon  him  by  doing  so. 

However,  though  the  theory  absolutely 
requires  a  crisis  in  1742  and  another  in  1752, 
or  thereabouts,  let  us  defer  for  the  present 
any  minuter  inquiry  on  this  point.  "  I  per- 
mit myself  to  assume,"  says  Professor  Jevons, 
"  that  there  were,  about  the  years  1742  and 
1752,  fluctuations  of  trade  which  connect 
the  undoubted  decennial  series  of  1711, 
1721,  and  1732  with  that  commencing  again 
in  the  most  unquestionable  manner  in  1763." 
There  is  something  very  pleasing  in  this. 
We  permit  ourselves  to  assume  that  the 
strongest  possible  evidence  of  steady  com- 
mercial relations  between  1732  and  1763 
may  be  set  on  one  side.  We  make  a 
series  of  undoubted  crises  out  of  three  dates  : 
of  these  the  first  (1711),  marking  the  time 
when  one  of  the  greatest  commercial  swin- 
dles of  the  last  two  centuries  was  started, 
indicates  a  season  of  undue  confidence, 
instead  of  undue  depression;  the  second 
(1721)  is  not  the  true  date  of  the  event  with 
which 'it  is  connected;  and  the  third  (1732) 
was  not  marked  by  any  commercial  event 
in  the  remotest  degree  resembling  a  general 
panic  or  crisis.  Having  achieved  this  note- 
worthy deed  of  derring-do — running  atilt 
against,  and  for  the  time  being  overthrowing, 
all  the  rules  of  logic  (as  if,  in  a  tourney,  a 
knight  should  overthrow  the  marshals,  instead 
of  his  armed  opponents) — Professor  Jevons 
is  able  triumphantly  to  declare  that  the 
whole  series  of  decennial  crises  may  be 
stated  as  follows:  (1701?),  1711,  1721, 
J73*-32>  (i742?  i752  ?)>  i?63»  J772-3> 
*783»  *793>  (1804-5),  l8lS.  l825>  l836~39> 
(1837,  in  the  United  States),  1847,  1857, 
1866,  1878.  A  series  of  this  sort,  we  are 
told,  is  not,  like  a  chain,  as  weak  as  its 
weakest  part;  on  the  contrary,  the  strong 
parts  add  strength  to  the  weak  parts.  In 
spite,  therefore,  of  the  doubtful  existence 
of  some  of  the  crises,  as  marked  in  the  list, 
"I  can  entertain  no  doubt  whatever"  (the 
italics  are  most  emphatically  mine), — "I  can 
entertain  no  doubt  whatever  that  the  prin- 
cipal commercial  crises  do  fall  into  a  series 
having  the  average  period  of  about  10.466 
years.  Moreover,  the  almost  perfect  coin- 
cidence of  this  period  with  Broun's  estimate 
of  the  sun-spot  period  (10.45)  ^s  ^7  itself 
strong  evidence  that  the  phenomena  are 
causally  connected."  There  is  evidence  of 
splendid  courage  in  these  statements ;  it  is 


in  this  way  that,  according  to  the  Scotch 
proverb,  one  either  makes  a  spoon  or  mars 
a  horn. 

Before  proceeding  to  consider  the  evidence 
by  which  the  series  of  commercial  crises  is 
to  be  connected,  or  otherwise,  with  the  series 
of  sun-spot  changes,  let  it  be  permitted  to 
us  to  separate  the  actually  recorded  crises 
from  those  which  Professor  Jevons  has  either 
invented  (as  1701,  1711,  and  1732)  or 
assumed  (as  1742,  1752,  and  1804-5).  We 
have  left  the  dates  1721,  1763,  1772-3, 

!783,  i793>  *8l5>  l825>  i836-39>  l847>  l857» 
1866  and  1878.  The  corresponding  inter- 
vals (taking,  when  an  interval  instead  of  a 
date  is  given,  the  date  midway  between  the 
two  named)  are  as  follows:  42  years,  9^ 
years,  10^  years,  10  years,  22  years,  10 
years,  12^  years,  9^  years,  10  years,  9 
years,  and  1 2  years.  The  evidence  for  the 
decennial  period  is  not  demonstrative,  and 
the  logical  condition  of  the  mind  which,  in 
presence  of  this  evidence,  "  can  entertain  no 
doubt  whatever"  that  the  true  average  period 
is  10.466  years — which,  be  it  noted,  is  a 
period  given  to  the  thousandth  part  of  a 
year,  or  about  8^  hours — must  be  enviable 
to  those  who  possess  a  much  smaller  capac- 
ity for  conviction — that  is,  a  much  greater 
capacity  for  doubt. 

But  it  may  happen,  perchance,  that  the 
irregularity  of  the  recurrence  of  crises  affords 
evidence  in  favor  of  a  connection  between 
commercial  panics  and  the  sun-spot  period. 
It  is  well  known  that  the  epochs  when  the 
sun  is  most  spotted  do  not  occur  at  regular 
intervals,  either  of  n.i  years,  10.45  years, 
or  any  other  period.  If  the  irregularities 
of  the  sun-spot  period  should  be  reflected,  so 
to  speak,  in  the  irregularities  of  the  panic 
period,  the  evidence  would  be  even  more 
satisfactory  than  if  both  periods  were  quite 
regular  and  they  synchronized  together. 
For  in  the  latter  case  there  would  be  only 
one  coincidence, — a  coincidence  which, 
though  striking,  might  yet  be  due  to  chance ; 
in  the  other  there  would  be  many  coinci- 
dences, the  co-existence  of  which  could  not 
reasonably  be  regarded  as  merely  fortuitous. 

Only,  at  the  outset,  it  may  be  as  well  to 
determine  beforehand  what  our  conclusions 
ought  to  be,  if  no  such  resemblance  should 
be  recognized  between  the  irregularities  of 
the  two  periods.  We  must  not,  perhaps, 
expect  too  close  a  resemblance.  We  may 
very  well  believe  that  while  the  normal  re- 
lationship between  two  connected  sets  of 
phenomena  might  result  either  in  absolutely 
simultaneous  oscillations,  or,  at  least,  in 


'74 


SUN-SPOTS  AND  FINANCIAL  PANICS. 


oscillations  of  perfectly  equal  period  (so  that 
whatever  discrepancy  might  exist  between 
the  epochs  of  the  respective  maxima  or 
minima  should  be  constantly  preserved),  yet 
that  a  multitude  of  more  or  less  extraneous 
disturbing  influences  might  prevent  either 
form  of  synchronism  from  being  actually 
observed.  For  instance,  if  we  supposed 
that  the  absence  of  sun-spots  is  the  cause  of 
commercial  depression,  we  might  imagine 
that  at  the  time  of  fewest  sun-spots  a  com- 
mercial crisis  would  occur,  unless  extraneous 
causes  delayed  it;  or  we  might  imagine 
that,  as  a  regular  rule,  the  crisis  would  fol- 
low the  time  of  fewest  sun-spots  by  a  given 
interval,  as  a  year,  or  two  years;  yet  we 
might  very  well  understand  that  occasion- 
ally a  crisis  might  be  hastened  by  a  few 
months,  or  even  a  year,  or  might  be  in  equal 
degree  delayed.  Still,  there  are-  limits  to  the 
amount  of  disturbance  which  we  could  thus 
account  for  without  being  forced  to  abandon 
altogether  the  theory  that  sun-spots  influ- 
ence trade, — despite  the  antecedent  proba- 
bility (which  some  consider  so  great)  of  a 
relationship  of  this  kind.  For  instance,  if 
we  found  commercial  crises  occurring  in  a 
year  of  maximum  disturbance  at  one  time, 
while  at  another  they  occurred  at  years  of 
minimum  disturbance,  at  another,  midway 
between  a  maximum  and  the  next  following 
minimum,  and,  at  yet  another,  midway  be- 
tween a  minimum  and  the  next  following 
maximum,  we  should  not  feel  absolutely 
forced  to  accept  the  theory  that  sun-spots 
somehow  govern  trade  relations.  Nay,  I 
think  a  logically-minded  person  would  feel 
that  in  the  presence  of  such  discrepancies 
nothing  could  establish  the  theory — other- 
wise so  extremely  probable — of  the  influence 
of  sun-spots  on  trade. 

Professor  Jevons  has  not  definitely  indi- 
cated his  own  opinions  on  this  point.  Per- 
haps if  he  had,  we  should  have  found  that 
he  would  allow  wider  latitude  to  the  discrep- 
ancies which  may  exist  than  one  less  at- 
tached to  the  sun-spot  theory  of  trade  would 
consider  permissible.  We  have  seen  how 
readily  he  has  been  satisfied  respecting 
crises  which  had  to  be  either  invented  or 
assumed.*  Perhaps  a  little  further  evidence 

*  Professor  Roscoe,  in  a  lecture  on  "  Sun-spots 
and  Commercial  Crises"  (delivered,  strangely  enough, 
as  one  of  a  series  of  science  lectures  for  the  people), 
has  raised  Professor  Jevons's  assumed  crisis  a  grade 
higher  in  the  scale  of  probability.  The  dates,  1 742, 
1752,  and  1804-5,  vvhe»  a  crisis  ought  to  have  oc- 
curred, but  did  not.  were  given  by  Professor  Roscoe 
as  dates  of  doubtful  crises,  by  which  his  audience 
understood  that  crises  but  of  comparatively  small 


on  this  point  may  be  useful,  as  showing  the 
extent  to  which  that  bias  in  favor  of  his 
theory,  which  he  has  so  frankly  admitted, 
seems  really  to  have  influenced  him.  We 
have  seen  that  jf  crises  fail  to  occur  when 
his  theory  requires  them,  he  readily  con- 
structs or  assumes  crises  to  fit  into  the 
vacant  places.  He  is  equally  ready  to  deal 
with  what  others  would  regard  as  the  equally 
fatal  difficulty,  that  crises  take  place  when, 
according  to  the  decennial  theory  (a  wider 
theory  than  the  solar  one,  be  it  noticed), 
they  should  not  have  occurred.  "  There  is 
nothing  in  this  theory,"  he  says,  "  inconsist- 
ent with  the  fact  that  crises  and  panics  arise 
from  other  than  meteorological  causes. 
There  was  a  great  political  crisis  in  1798,  a 
great  commercial  collapse  in  1810-11, 
(which  will  not  fall  into  the  decennial  series); 
there  was  a  stock  exchange  panic  in  1859; 
and  the  great  American  collapse  of  1873-75. 
There  have  also  been  several  minor  disturb- 
ances in  the  money  market,  such  as  those 
of  February,  1861,  May  and  September, 
1864,  August,  1870,  November,  1873;  but 
they  are  probably  due  to  exceptional  and 
disconnected  reasons.  Moreover,  they  have 
seldom,  if  ever,  the  intensity,  profundity  and 
wide  extension  of  the  true  decennial  crises." 
In  other  words,  if  recognizable  crises  fail 
to  occur  when  the  decennial  period  requires 
them,  yet  we  may  assume  that,  at  the 
proper  time,  some  trade  disturbances  have 
taken  place,  only  on  so  small  a  scale  as  to 
escape  notice;  but  if  trade  disturbances 
occur  which  even  attract  notice,  at  times  not 
reconcilable  with  the  decennial  theory,  then 
we  may  overlook  them,  because  a  true  de- 
cennial crisis  is  intense,  profound,  and  wide- 
ly extended.  It  is  a  case  of  "  heads  I  win, 
tails  you  lose"  with  the  supporters  of  the 
decennial  theory.  Though  even  with  this 
free-and-easy  method  of  reasoning,  the 
American  crisis  in  1873-75  might  seem 
rather  awkward  to  deal  with.  Americans, 


extent  occurred  at  those  dates.  Certainly  the  audi- 
ence did  not  understand  that,  after  long  and  careful 
search  for  the  crises  which  theoretically  should  then 
have  taken  place,  Professor  Jevons  had  failed  to  find 
any  trace  whatever  of  their  occurrence.  By  the  way, 
the  audience  at  Manchester  would  not  seem  to  have 
been  very  profoundly  impressed  by  a  conviction  of 
the  antecedent  probability  of  the  theory  advocated 
by  the  lecturer.  At  first,  Professor  Roscoe's  state- 
ment of  the  theory  was  received  as  a  joke.  "  Laugh- 
ter," "laughter,"  and  "  renewed  laughter,"  followed 
the  enunciation  of  the  theory.  Only  when  the  evi- 
dence, carefully  freed  from  whatever  might  suggest 
doubt  or  difficulty,  was  brought  forward,  did  the 
audience  gradually  become  convinced  that  the  lec- 
turer was  in  earnest 


SUN-SPOTS  AND  FINANCIAL  PANICS. 


at  any  rate,  are  not  very  likely  to  accept 
the  doctrine  that  that  crisis  was  not  intense, 
profound,  and  widely  extended. 

I  may  remark  in  passing  that,  in  jestingly 
advancing  the  theory  which  Professor  Jevons 
has  since  adopted,  I  dealt — also  jestingly 
— with  this  very  difficulty  in  a  way  which 
seems  to  be  at  least  as  satisfactory  as  Pro- 
fessor Jevons's  method  of  treating  it.  "  The 
last  great  monetary  panic,"  I  wrote  in 
1877,  "occurred  in  1866,  at  a  time  of  mini- 
mum solar  maculation.  Have  we  here  a 
decisive  proof  that  the  sun  rules  the  money 
market,  the  bank  rate  of  discount  rising 
to  a  maximum  as  the  sun-spots  sink  to 
a  minimum,  and  vice  -versa?  The  idea  is 
strengthened,"  I  pointed  out,  "by  the  fact 
that  the  American  panic  in  1873  occurred 
when  spots  were  very  numerous,  and  its 
effects  have  steadily  subsided  as  the  spots 
have  diminished  in  number ;  for  this  shows 
that  the  sun  rules  the  money-market  in 
America  on  a  principle  diametrically  oppo- 
site to  that  on  which  he  (manifestly)  rules 
the  money-market  in  England;  precisely  as 
the  spots  cause  drought  in  Calcutta  and 
plenteous  rain-fall  at  Madras,  wet  south- 
westers  and  dry  south  casters  at  Oxford,  and 
wet  southeaster?  and  dry  south  westers  at  St. 
Petersburg.  Surely  it  would  be  unreason- 
able to  refuse  to  recognize  the  weight  of  evi- 
dence which  thus  tells  on  both  sides  at 
once."  This  is  nonsense,  and  was  meant 
to  be  taken  as  nonsense;  but  it  strikingly 
resembles  some  arguments  which  have  been 
urged,  within  the  last  hundred  years,  too, 
respecting  solar  influences. 

Let  us  turn,  however,  to  the  actual  records 
of  sun-spots,  and  compare  them  with  Pro- 
fessor Jevons's  list  of  commercial  crises. 

We  have  no  better  collection  of  evidence 
respecting  sun-spots  than  that  formed  by 
Professor  Wolff.  Broun  and  Lament  have 
called  in  question  some  of  Wolff's  conclu- 
sions, as  will  presently  be  more  particularly 
noticed.  But,  in  the  main,  Wolff's  evidence 
remains  unshaken.  Very  few  astronomers 
— I  may  even  say  not  one  astronomer  of 
repute — have  adopted  the  adverse  views 
which  have  been  thus  expressed,  and  cer- 
tainly none,  even  among  those  who  have 
admitted  the  possible  validity  of  such  views 
on  points  of  detail,  entertain  the  least  doubt 
respecting  the  general  validity  of  the  con- 
clusions arrived  at  by  Wolff. 

After  carefully  examining  all  the  evidence 
afforded  by  observatory  records,  the  note- 
books of  private  astronomers,  and  so  forth, 
Wolff  has  deduced  the  following  series  of 


dates  for  the  maxima  and  minima  of  solar 
disturbances  since  the  year  1700  : 


Intervals 
years. 

12.5. 
10. 0. 
II. O. 

«.;$. 

ii. 5 

8.5. 

95- 
9.0. 

15-5- 

12.8. 

12.7. 

7-7- 
11.4. 
ii. 6. 
10.6. 


Possible 

in  Dates  of  error  in 
Maxima,  years. 

1705.0      2.0 

1717  5 
"1727-5 

1738.5 

1750.0 
••1761.5 

1770.0 

'779-5 
'••1788.5 
1804.0 
1816.8 
1829.5 
1837.2 
1848.6 
1860.2 

1870.8 


I.O 
I.O 

i-5 

I.O 

05 
05 
05 
o .  c 

O.I 


Intervals 
in  years. 

II. O. . . 
10. O. . . 
12. O. . . 

10.7... 

10.8... 

9-3-    • 

9.0... 

13.7... 

12.0. . . 
12.7... 

10.6. . . 

10.2. . . 
12.2. . . 

II.4... 


Dates  of 

Minima. 

I7I2.0 
1723.0 

•1733 -o 

1745.0 

1755-7 
1766.5 

1775-8 
1784.8 
1798.5 
l8l0.5 
1823.2 
•l833.8 
1844.0 
1856.2 
1867.1 


Possible 
error  in 
years. 


'•5 

I.O 

°  5 
05 
o-5 
05 
o-5 
°  5 

0.2 
0.2 
O.2 
0.2 
O.I 


1878.5 


The  dates  below  the  line  are  not  in 
Wolff's  list. 

It  would  be  difficult,  I  conceive,  for  the 
most  enthusiastic  believer  in  sun-spot  influ- 
ences to  recognize  any  connection  between 
the  crises  and  the  curve  of  solar  maculation, 
whether  Professor  Jevons's  list  or  the  nat- 
ural crises  be  considered.  To  quote  from  an 
article  in  the  London  "  Times,"  which  has 
been  attributed  to  myself  (correctly) : 

"  Taking  5^  years  as  the  average  interval  between 
the  maximum  and  minimum  sun-spot  frequency,  we 
should  like  to  find  'every  crisis  occurring  within  a 
year  or  so  on  either  side  of  the  minimum  ;  though 
we  should  prefer,  perhaps,  to  find  the  crisis  always 
following  the  time  of  fewest  sun-spots,  as  this  would 
more  directly  show  the  depressing  effect  of  a  spotless 
sun.  No  crisis  ought  to  occur  within  a  year  or  so 
of  maximum  solar  disturbance;  for  that,  it  should 
seem,  would  be  fatal  to  the  suggested  theory.  Tak- 
ing the  commercial  crises  in  order,  and  comparing 
them  with  the  (approximately)  known  epochs  o? 
maximum  and  minimum  spot  frequency,  we  obtain 
the  following  results  (we  italicize  numbers  or  results 
unfavorable  to  the  theory) :  The  doubtful  [I  ought 
to  have  written  assumed]  crisis  of  1 701  followed  a 
spot  minimum  by  three  years;  the  crisis  '  (imagined)  ' 
of  1711  preceded  a  minimum  by  one  year ;  that  of 
1721  preceded  a  minimum  by  two  years ;  1731-32 
'  (imagined  crisis) '  preceded  a  minimum  by  one 
year  ;  1 742  '  (no  crisis  known) '  preceded  a  minimum 
by  three  years ;  1752  (no  crisis)  followed  a  maximum 
by  two  years  ;  1763  followed  a  maximum  by  a.  year 
and  a  half ;  1772-73  came  midway  between  a  maxi- 
mum and  a  minimum;  1783  preceded  a  minimum 
by  nearly  two  years;  1793  came  nearly  midway 
between  a  maximum  and  a  minimum  ;  1804-05 '  (no 
known  crisis)'  ' coincided  with  a  maximum;  1815 
preceded  a  maximum  by  two  years  ;  1825  followed 
a  minimum  by  two  years;  1836-39  included  the  year 
1837,  of  maximum  solar  activity  (that  being  the 
year,  also,  when  a  commercial  panic  occurred  in  the 
United  States) ; '  [1857  preceded  a  minimum  by  one 
year.  This  case  was,  by  some  inadvertence  of  mine, 
omitted  from  the  '  Times  '  article]  ;  1866  preceded 
a  minimum  by  a  year ;  and  1878  follows  a  minimum 


i76 


SUN-SPOTS  AND  FINANCIAL  PANICS. 


by  a  year.  Four  favorable  cases  [it  should  have 
been  five]  out  of  seventeen  [it  should  have  been 
eighteen]  can  hardly  be  considered  convincing. 
If  we  include  cases  lying  within  two  years  of  a  min- 
imum, the  favorable  cases  mount  up  to  seven  (eight), 
leaving  ten  unfavorable  cases." 

I  might  have  added,  at  this  point,  that 
if  a  number  of  dates  were  scattered  abso- 
lutely at  random  over  the  interval  1701- 
1880,  we  should  expect  to  find  some  such 
proportion  between  dates  falling  within  two 
years  on  either  side  of  a  minimum  and  those 
not  so  falling. 

It  must  be  remembered,  I  added  in  the 
"Times"  article,  that  a  single  decidedly 
unfavorable  case,  as  1815  and  1837,  "does 
more  to  disprove  such  a  theory  than  twenty 
favorable  cases  would  do  toward  establish- 
ing it." 

To  the  "  Times  "  article  Professor  Jevons 
replied  in  a  letter,  which  scarcely  seemed  to 
require  an  answer.  At  any  rate,  it  left 
entirely  undefended  the  weakest  part  of  his 
theory.  The  agreement  between  the  aver- 
age period  for  commercial  crises  and  Mr. 
Broun's  estimate  of  the  average  sun-spot 
period  was  insisted  upon  afresh;  but  the 
circumstance  that  crises  have  occurred  at 
every  phase  of  the  sun-spot  wave — at  the 
maximum,  at  the  minimum,  soon  after  either 
of  these  phases,  soon  before  either,  and  mid- 
way between  maximum  and  minimum,  both 
when  spots  are  increasing  and  when  they 
are  diminishing  in  number — was  in  no  way 
accounted  for.  General  doubts  were  thrown, 
indeed,  on  Wolff's  accuracy ;  but  no  special 
error  was  indicated  in  his  interpretation  of 
the  evidence  he  had  collected,  and  still  less 
was  any  definite  objection  taken  to  Wolff's 
spot  curve,  regarded  as  a  whole. 

Soon  after,  however,  in  the  "Athenaeum," 
Professor  Jevons  advanced  a  more  definite 
defence  of  his  theory.  He  first  argued  in 
favor  of  Broun's  average  period  of  10.45 
years,  and  then  commented  unfavorably  on 
some  definite  dates  in  Wolff's  series. 

By  the  elaborate  comparison  of  magnetic, 
auroral,  and  sun-spot  data,  he  said,  "  Mr. 
Broun  appears  to  show  conclusively  that  the 
solar  period  is  not  n.i  years,  but  about 
10.45,  tm's  last  estimate  confirming  the  ear- 
lier determination  of  Dr.  Lamont."  It 
should  be  mentioned  here  that  the  magnetic 
and  auroral  data  cannot  be  regarded  as  of 
themselves  proving  anything  respecting  the 
sun-spot  period;  they  are  as  invalid  in  this 
respect  as  some  of  the  evidence  which  Han- 
steen  and  others  have  derived  from  terrestrial 
relations  respecting  the  solar  rotation.  The 


real  fact  is,  that,  having  shown  clearly  enough 
that  the  average  magnetic  and  auroral  period 
has  (at  any  rate,  during  the  last  century) 
been  10.45  years,  Broun  has  endeavored  to 
invalidate  the  evidence  obtained  by  Wolff 
for  a  sun-spot  period  of  11.1  years,  simply 
because,  if  such  a  period  is  admitted,  the 
theory  of  synchronism  between  magnetic 
and  solar  disturbances  must  of  necessity 
be  rejected.  For  this  purpose,  Broun  has 
endeavored  to  show  that  Wolff  has  over- 
looked a  small  maximum  of  sun-spots  in 
1797.  The  table  given  above  shows  very 
clearly  that,  if  an  extra  maximum  is  to  be 
thrown  in  anywhere,  it  must  be  between  the 
maxima  of  1788.5  and  1804.0,  the  interval 
between  which  is  15^  years.  Mr.  Broun  has 
certainly  not  succeeded  in  demonstrating  that 
1797  was  a  year  of  many  spots,  nor  could  a 
small  maximum  then  occurring  be  regarded 
as  affecting  the  sun-spot  curve  more  than  the 
two  small  maxima  which  can  be  recognized 
in  Wolff's  picture  of  the  sun-spot  curve  at 
about  the  years  1793  and  1795.  Professor 
Jevons,  however,  complacently  adopts,  as 
proved,  what  Mr.  Broun  has  surmised  with 
very  little  probability.  "  The  fact  is,"  he 
says,  "  that  Dr.  Wolff  overlooked  a  small 
maximum  in  1797,  and  was  thus  led  to 
introduce  into  his  curve  an  interval  of  seven- 
teen years"  (15^  only),  "an  interval  quite 
unexampled  in  any  other  part  of  the  known 
solar  history."  This,  again,  is  incorrect: 
there  was  precisely  such  an  interval  between 
the  maxima  of  1639.5  and  ^SS-o  as  be- 
tween those  of  1788.5  and  1804.0;  while 
the  maximum  of  1655.0  was  followed  by  an 
interval  of  twenty  years  before  another  max- 
imum occurred.  We  have  on  this  point  the 
definite  information  of  Cassini,  who,  writing 
in  1671,  when  spots  were  beginning  to  re- 
appear, said:  "  It  is  now  nearly  twenty  years 
since  astronomers  have  seen  any  consider- 
able spots  on  the  sun."  "  Mr.  Broun  shows, 
moreover,"  proceeds  Professor  Jevons,  "  that 
the  1 1. 1  period  fails  to  agree  with  all  the 
earlier  portions  of  Dr.  Wolff's  own  data, 
which  yield  a  period  varying  between  10.21 
and  10.75  at  tne  utmost.  This  must  relate 
to  the  earlier  portion  of  what  Wolff  calls  the 
modern  series,  viz.,  from  1750  onward.  It 
would  be  just  as  much  or  as  little  to  the 
purpose  to  reply  that  the  six  intervals  from 
the  first  maximum  of  the  present  century, 
1804.0,  to  the  last,  which  cannot  be  set  ear- 
lier than  1870.6,  have  an  average  length  of 
exactly  n.i  years.  It  is  admitted  that  five 
or  six  periods  do  not  afford  sufficient  evi- 
dence to  determine  the  average,  and,  for  my 


SUN-SPOTS  AND  FINANCIAL  PANICS. 


177 


own  part,  I  may  as  well  admit  that  I  doubt 
the  stability  of  the  sun-spot  period  altogether, 
believing  that  in  one  century  it  may  amount 
to  fifteen  or  twenty  years,  and  in  another  to 
seven  or  eight.  But,  at  least,  the  observa- 
tions of  the  present  century  and  the  mean 
period  of  n.i  years  resulting  from  them  are 
open  to  no  sort  of  question,  whereas  the 
very  arguments  on  which  Professor  Jevons 
and  Mr.  Broun  insist  in  opposing  Wolff's 
conclusions  would  (if  admitted)  shake  all 
faith  in  the  evidence  he  adduces  from  Wolff's 
earlier  dates  of  maxima  and  minima. 

The  next  point  insisted  on  by  Professor 
Jevons  seems  still  less  to  the  purpose,  except 
as  bearing  on  Wolff's  general  accuracy. 
"Almost  more  serious,"  he  says, "  as  regards 
the  credibility  of  Dr.  Wolff's  results,  is  the 
fact  that  Mr.  Broun  gives  good  reasons  for 
believing  that  the  year  1776  was  a  year  of 
maximum  sun-spots,  whereas  Dr.  Wolff  sets 
that  very  year  down  as  one  of  minimum 
sun-spots."  The  following  are  Mr.  Broun's 
own  words :  "  There  are  no  means  of  testing 
the  earlier  epochs  of  Dr.  Wolff;  but  no  long 
period  given  by  him  will  be  satisfied  by 
them.  If  I  have  already  shown  good 
grounds  for  substituting  a  maximum  in  1776 
for  Dr.  Wolff's  minimum,  a  similar  change 
in  some  of  the  epochs  of  the  preceding  cen- 
tury and  a  half  may  be  quite  possible." 
"  Now,  a  highly  scientific  writer  in  the 
'  Times,' "  proceeds  Professor  Jevons,  "  has 
condemned  the  theory  of  decennial  crises, 
because  the  dates  assigned  will  not  agree 
with  those  of  maximum  and  minimum  sun- 
spots,  taken,  no  doubt,  according  to  Dr. 
WolfFs  estimates,  and  an  eminent  French 
statist  has  rejected  the  theory  on  the  same 
ground.  I  think  I  am  entitled,  therefore, 
to  poin  to  the  doubts  which  Mr.  Broun's 
careful  inquiries  throw  upon  the  accuracy 
of  Dr.  WolfFs  relative  numbers." 

Now,  a  study  of  the  curve  of  sun-spots 
will  show  how  little  Dr.  Wolff's  accuracy  is, 
in  reality,  impugned  by  Mr.  Broun's  attack. 
We  recognize  in  the  curve,  which,  be  it 
remembered,  is  Wolff's,  a  double  minimum 
in  the  space  between  the  year-ordinates  for 
1771  and  1781.  One  corresponds  to  the 
year  1773,  the  other  to  the  last  quarter  of 
the  year  1775.  As  the  latter  appeared,  from 
the  evidence  examined  by  Wolff,  to  be  a 
more  marked  minimum,  the  former  he  re- 
gards as  the  true  minimum  for  that  par- 
ticular wave  of  spots.  But  no  one  who 
knows  anything  about  the  varying  aspects 
of  the  sun's  disc  during  the  two  or  three 
years  which  include  the  minimum,  will 


wonder  if  the  study  of  records,  necessarily 
incomplete  (for  until  Schwabe's  time  no  one 
thought  of  keeping  the  sun  constantly  under 
survey),  should  have  left  the  time  of  the 
actual  minimum  rather  doubtful  in  one  or 
two  cases.  The  wonder  is  that  Wolff  should 
have  found  sufficient  evidence  to  determine 
the  true  minimum  in  so  many  cases.  This, 
of  itself,  would  suffice  to  show  how  laborious 
must  have  been  his  researches.  In  the  par- 
ticular case  about  which  Mr.  Broun  raises 
his  question,  it  can  be  seen  from  Wolff's 
curve  of  spots  that  after  an  apparent  mini- 
mum in  1773,  spots  began  to  appear,  then 
grow  fewer  in  number,  till  they  reached 
a  lower  minimum  in  1775,  neither  of  these 
minima,  however,  being  such  as  to  corre- 
spond to  an  absolute  spotlessness  (which  is 
represented  by  the  level  of  the  lowest  min- 
ima in  Wolff's  curve).  Then  they  increased 
rapidly  in  number,  being  greater  in  number 
in  1777  than  they  had  been  at  any  of  the 
three  preceding  maxima.  That  in  1776, 
when  the  spots  had  already  become  very 
numerous,  there  should  be  records  .from 
which  Mr.  Broun  could  infer  the  existence 
of  an  actual  maximum,  is  not  at  all  surpris- 
ing, though  no  astronomer  accepts  the  infer- 
ence ;  nor,  if  any  did,  would  the  inference  at 
all  carry  with  it  the  weight  which  Mr.  Broun 
and  Professor  Jevons  seem  to  recognize  in 
it.  Again,  it  is  absolutely  certain  that  there 
was  a  maximum  in  1779;  so  that  the  sup- 
posed maximum  of  1776  would  involve  one 
more  wave,  which,  with  the  new  wave  intro- 
duced between  1790  and  1800,  would  give 
seventeen  complete  waves  between  the  max- 
ima of  1705  and  1870,  an  interval  of  less 
than  one  hundred  and  sixty-five  years.  This 
would  make  the  average  length  of  the  sun- 
spot  period  9.7  years,  which  would  not  at 
all  suit  the  views  of  Mr.  Broun  and  M. 
Lament. 

In  passing,  I  may  remark  that  in  the  arti- 
cle in  the  "  Times"  (I  am  obliged  to  identify 
myself  with  Professor  Jevons's  "  highly  sci- 
entific writer,"  simply  because  I  wrote  the 
article  in  question)  I  did  not  condemn  the 
theory  of  commercial  crises ;  I  expressed  no 
opinion  on  that  theory.  What  I  indicated 
was  simply  that  no  possible  connection  can 
exist  between  that  theory  and  the  theory  of 
sun-spots.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  I  do  not 
believe  in  the  decennial  theory  of  crises, 
though  I  perceive  that  in  quite  a  number 
of  cases  commerce  has  oscillated  through 
depression,  revival  and  excitement  to  the 
next  depression  in  about  that  time.  Nor, 
again,  do  I  believe  in  the  sun-spot  theory, 


SUN-SPOTS  AND  FINANCIAL  PANICS. 


though  I  perceive  that  during  the  last  cen- 
tury or  two  the  average  sun-spot  period  has 
been  about  what  Dr.  Wolff  indicates.  But 
I  have  not  attacked,  and  certainly  I  have 
not  condemned,  either  of  these  theories. 
What  I  do  insist  upon  very  strongly,  how- 
ever, is,  that  the  oscillations  of  commercial 
credit  and  the  variations  of  the  sun's  con- 
dition as  to  maculation  have,  since  the 
beginning  of  the  last  century,  shown  no 
manner  of  agreement. 

"  I  will   even   go   a  step   further,    adds 
Professor  Jevons,  "and   assert   that,   in  a 
scientific  point  of  view,  it  is  a  questionable 
proceeding  to   dress   up  a   long  series   of 
relative  numbers  purporting  to  express  the 
number  of  sun-spots  occurring  during  the 
last  century,  with  the  precision  of  one  place 
of  decimals.    As  Mr.  Broun  has  pointed  put, 
there  were  no  regular  series  of  observations 
then,  and  results  deduced  from   the  occa- 
sional observations  of  different  astronomers 
cannot  be   reduced   into  one   consecutive 
series  without  a  large  exercise  of  discretion. 
As  Mr.  Broun  has  pointed  out,  Dr.  Lamont 
has  criticised  some  of  the  .epochs  which  Dr. 
Wolff  considers   certain    (sicker),   and   has 
shown  that  they  depend  on   few   observa- 
tions.     He    remarks     that   old    observers 
directed  their  attention  chiefly  to  large  sun- 
spots,   so    that    Flangergues   (one   of    the 
principal   observers   during   the   period   in 
question)  saw   the   sun   frequently  without 
spots,  when  many  were  seen  by  other  ob- 
servers. The  true  scientific  procedure  would 
have  been  that  which  Professor  Loomis  has 
pursued  in  regard   to   auroras,  namely,  to 
place  in  a  table  all  the  reasonable  observa- 
tions, carefully  distinguishing  those  by  differ- 
ent observers,  so  that  there  should  be  the 
least  possible  admixture  of  Dr.  Wolff's  own 
personal  equations."     I  have  quoted    this 
passage  in    full — first,   because  it  presents 
the  opinions  of  those  adverse  to  Dr.  Wolff 
in  this  matter;   secondly,  because  the  re- 
marks about  the  difficulties  of  the  subject 
(difficulties,  that  is,  with  which  Dr.  Wolff 
has  had  to   contend,  and  with  which   he 
has  contended  energetically  and  skillfully) 
are  in  the  main  just ;  but  thirdly,  and  chiefly, 
because  it  affords  sound  criterions  by  which 
to  test  Professor  Jevons's  method  of  pro- 
cedure.    If  we  should  eschew  one  place 
of  decimals  in  dealing  with  the  results  of 
observations  counted  by  hundreds,  what  are 
we  to  think  of  three  places  of  decimals  de- 
duced from  a  few  dozen  records  of  com- 
mercial matters  ?    If  a  sun-spot  period  based 
on  maxima  and  minima,  every  one  of  which 


is  based  on  real  observation,  is  untrust- 
worthy, what  opinion  are  we  to  form  of  a 
trade  period  based  on  crises  of  which  five, 
or  nearly  a  third  of  the  whole  number,  are 
either  imagined  or  assumed  ?  If,  in  fine,  Dr. 
Wolff's  method  is  unscientific,  what  name 
shall  we  find  for  that  by  which,  having 
derived  a  decennial  period  from  admittedly 
unsatisfactory  evidence,  and  having  rejected 
the  sun-spot  period  accepted  by  astrono- 
mers for  one  carefully  concocted  to  fit 
another  theory,  Professor  Jevons  insists 
on  the  agreement  of  this  fictitious  crisis 
period  and  this  incorrect  sun-spot  period, 
without  attempting  to  show  that  the  admit- 
ted variations  of  one  agree  with  the 
admitted  variations  of  the  other  ? 

For,  after  all,  the  strongest  evidence 
against  the  theory  that  commercial  crises 
depend  on  the  sun-spots,  is  given  by  those 
crises  and  sun-spot  waves  about  which  there 
is  no  sort  of  doubt  or  question — the  crises  on 
the  one  hand,  and  the  maxima  and  minima 
of  sun-spots  on  the  other,  recorded  during 
the  present  century.  The  study  of  the 
second  half  of  the  table  given  above  will 
satisfy  any  unprejudiced  person  that  this  is 
the  case;  from  the  crises  of  1804-5  (which 
never  took  place,  but  must  be  assumed  to 
have  taken  place  to  make  up  the  series  for 
the  decennial  theory  of  crises)  to  the  crises 
of  1866  and  1878,  we  have  crises  occurring 
in  every  part  of  a  sun-spot  wave,  on  the 
crest,  on  the  valley,  on  the  ascending  slope, 
and  on  the  descending  slope.  No  theory  of 
association  can  hold  out  against  such  obvious 
evidence  of  the  absolute  independence  of 
the  two  orders  of  events.* 

*  The  matter  has  been  well  summed  up  by  a 
correspondent  of  the  "Athenaeum."  "Professor 
Jevons,"  he  says,  "  seems  to  attach  great  weight  to 
the  length  of  the  average  sun-spot  period  ;  but  if  the 
average  length  of  the  period  between  commercial 
crises  during  a  couple  of  centuries  were  shown  to 
be  identical  with,  or  to  differ  but  slightly  from,  the 
average  period  of  sun-spots,  this  would  be  but  a 
small  step  toward  proving  association  between  the 
two  phenomena.  The  separate  periods  of  minima 
must  be  shown  to  correspond  with  speculative  crises, 
and  the  curve  also  must  be  proved  to  be  of  the  same 
character.  Professor  Jevons  does  not  appear  to  be 
aware  that  Dr.  Wolff  has,  in  the  forty-third  volume 
of  the  '  Memoirs  of  the  Astronomical  Society,'  given 
a  list  of  the  manuscripts  and  printed  authorities  from 
which  he  derives  his  data.  Similar  but  fuller  infor-  • 
mation  is  supplied  by  Dr.  Wolff  in  the  pages  of  his 
'  Astronomische  Mittheilungen.'  Dr.  Wolff  does 
not  pretend  to  equal  accuracy  for  all  the  periods,  but 
there  can  be  little  doubt  with  regard  to  the  sun-spot 
periods  which  have  occurred  during  this  century, 
and,  according  to  Professor  Jevons,  there  seem  to 
be  serious  discrepancies  between  these  and  the 
periods  of  commercial  depression." 


PETER   THE   GREAT. 


179 


PETER   THE    GREAT.      V.» 


BY   EUGENE   SCHUYLER. 


XV. 


PETER'S   MARRIAGE.     HIS   RETURN  TO  HIS 
BOATS. 

ON  account  of  another  festival,  the  name's- 
day  feast  of  the  Tsaritsa  Natalia  was  post- 
poned for  a  day.  After  a  religious  service 
in  the  cathedral,  the  nobility  and  the  dele- 
gates of  the  regiments  of  Streltsi  and  soldiers 
were  admitted  to  the  palace  to  express  their 
good  wishes,  and  were  entertained  at  dinner, 
before  which  they  each  received  a  glass  of 
vodka  from  the  hand  of  the  Tsaritsa.  This 
shows  that,  however  heated  might  be  the 
feelings  of  the  respective  parties  surrounding 
Sophia  and  her  brother,  at  all  events,  the 
formal  respect  due  to  the  widow  of  theTsar 
Alexis  was  preserved. 

There  was  no  use  of  Peter's  returning  to 
his  boats  now  that  winter  was  so  near,  even 
had  his  mother  and  his  friends  been  willing 
to  allow  him  to  go.  He  therefore  again 
turned  his  attention  to  his  soldiers,  who  had 
so  long  been  out  of  his  mind,  and  from  the 
demands  which  he  made  upon  General  Gor- 
don and  others  for  drummers,  fifers,  and 
drilled  recruits, — demands  which  were  with 
difficulty  granted,  both  by  Gordon  and  Ga- 
litsyn, — lie  was  evidently  preparing  maneu- 
vers of  considerable  importance.  Just  at 
that  time  a  second  campaign  was  decreed 
against  the  Turks  and  Tartars,  and  the 
Streltsi  and  regular  soldiers  were  all  ordered 
to  the  front,  in  order  to  reach  winter-quar- 
ters near  the  frontier,  and  maneuvers  on 
any  large  scale  at  Preobrazhensky  were 
therefore  given  up.  The  previous  campaign 
of  Galitsyn  against  the  Tartars  had  turned 
out  so  badly  that  there  was  discontent  at 
the  declaration  of  a  new  one.  There  was 
dissatisfaction  in  Moscow  with  the  rule  of 
Sophia  and  Galitsyn,  and  Peter's  partisans 
were  evidently  of  opinion  that  it  was  time 
for  him  to  take  upon  himself  the  burdens  of 
the  government,  and  that  they  were  strong 
enough  to  assist  him.  That  there  was  high 
feeling  between  the  parties  at  court  is  shown 
by  many  little  entries  in  Gordon's  diary, 
though,  usually,  he  was  most  careful  not 
to  mention  anything  which  might  in  any 
way  compromise  himself.  But  he  says,  for 


instance,  that  he  dined  with  General  Tabort, 
where  he  met  Prince  Basil  Galitsyn  and 
many  of  that  party;  and  a  fortnight  later  he 
tells  us  that  he  rode  back  from  Ismailovo 
with  Leontius  Nepluief,  with  whom  he 
talked  at  length  about  the  secret  plots  and 
plans.  Peter  himself  added  a  little  to  the 
flame  of  party  feeling  by  unthinkingly  get- 
ting into  conversation  with  an  army  scribe, 
who  happened  to  be  drunk,  and  asking  him 
many  details  about  the  pay  and  condition 
of  the  troops.  This  act  was  viewed  with 
displeasure  by  the  Government. 

Besides  the  preparations  for.  the  cam- 
paign, Galitsyn  and  Sophia  were  much 
troubled  by  the  position  of  affairs  abroad. 
There  was  fear  lest  France,  by  attacking 
Austria,  might  compel  the  Emperor  to  make 
a  separate  peace  with  the  Turks,  and  the 
question  came  up,  what  it  was  necessary  to 
do  in  such  a  conjuncture.  It  was  thought 
that  the  recent  capture  of  Belgrade  by  the 
Austrians  might  induce  them  more  readily 
to  compromise  with  the  Sultan,  and  messen- 
gers were  therefore  sent  both  to  Vienna  and 
Warsaw  to  stir  up  the  Emperor,  and,  in  any 
case,  to  obtain  for  Russia  as  good  terms  as 
possible.  A  great  deal  of  interest,  too,  was 
taken  at  this  time  in  the  affairs  of  England, 
for  William  of  Orange  had  just  landed  at 
Torbay,  and  James  II.  had  fled.  But  a 
short  time  before  this  last  piece  of  news, 
which  took  two  months  in  coming,  and  was 
communicated  in  official  despatches  to  the 
Dutch  Minister  and  in  private  letters  to 
General  Gordon,  the  latter  had  had  a  con- 
versation with  Prince  Basil  Galitsyn  at  din- 
ner, in  which  Galitsyn  had  said :  "  With  the 
father  and  brother  of  your  King  we  could 
get  along  very  well,  but  with  the  present 
King  it  is  perfectly  impossible  to  come  to 
an  understanding;  he  is  so  immeasurably 
proud."  Gordon  pretended  to  understand 
this  as  complaining  that  no  envoy  was  sent 
to  Russia,  and  answered  :  "  The  King,  as  I 
believe,  on  account  of  the  troubles  in  his  own 
States,  has  not  leisure  enough  to  think  of 
things  that  are  so  far  off."  But  Galitsyn 
said,  further :  "  The  English  cannot  do  with- 
out Russian  products,  such  as  hides,  hemp, 
potash,  tallow,  and  timber  for  masts;"  upon 
which  Gordon  gave,  as  he  says,  an  answer 


*  Copyright,  1880,  by  Eugene  Schuyler.     All  rights  reserved. 


i8o 


PETER    THE   GREAT. 


of  a  double  sense,  implying  that  he  agreed 
with  the  Prince.  Gordon,  who  was  a  zealous 
Catholic,  lost  no  opportunity  of  defending 
King  James,  and  for  his  steadfast  adherence 
to  the  Stuart  cause  gained  encomiums  even 
from  the  Dutch  Minister,  at  a  dinner  given 
by  him  on  King  William's  birthday. 

To  add  to  the  troubles  of  the  Government, 
and  the  prevailing  discontent,  Moscow  was 
plagued  with  fires.  As  in  most  Russian 
towns  of  the  present  day,  the  houses  at  Mos- 
cow were  built  of  logs,  the  interstices  being 
stuffed  with  tow,  the  roofs,  too,  being  gen- 
erally of  wood.  The  day  following  the 
name's-day  of  the  Tsaritsa  Natalia  a  fire 
broke  out  in  the  house  set  apart  for  the 
entertainment  of  foreign  embassadors,  just 
outside  the  Kremlin,  which  spread  to  the 
north-east  with  great  rapidity,  overleaped 
the  walls  of  the  Kitaigorod  and  the  White 
Town,  crossed  the  river  Yauza  into  the  quar- 
ter of  the  Streltsi,  and  the  suburb  called  the 
Ragoshkaya,  and  destroyed  over  10,000 
houses.  Besides  several  smaller  and  almost 
daily  fires,  there  was  one  on  the  i6th  of 
September,  in  the  Kremlin,  which  had  burnt 
down  all  the  priest-houses  of  the  cathedrals 
and  the  roofs  of  the  Department  of  Foreign 
Affairs  and  the  Department  of  Kazan.  On 
the  night  of  the  2oth,  the  stables  of  the 
Patriarch  and  the  palace  of  the  Tsars  nar- 
rowly escaped  destruction.  On  the  2yth, 
there  was  a  fire  at  Preobrazhensky,  in  the 
neighborhood  of  the  palace,  which  con- 
sumed the  house  of  Prince  Boris  Galitsyn. 
On  the  nth  October  a  fire  broke  out  near 
the  Ilinsky  Gate,  which  extended  as  far  as 
the  Ustre"tinka,  far  beyond  the  White  Wall, 
and  burnt  a  whole  quarter  of  the  town,  in- 
cluding many  public  buildings.  This  last 
fire  created  such  embarrassment  for  the 
Government,  that  when,  four  days  after- 
ward, Gordon  went  to  town  to  ask  for  a 
hundred  rubles  of  his  pay  for  that  year,  he 
was  told  that  he  could  not  receive  it,  be- 
cause the  treasury  was  exhausted,  so  much 
money  having  been  advanced  to  all  sorts  of 
people  who  had  suffered  by  the  great  fire, 
in  order  to  enable  them  to  rebuild  their 
houses. 

Peter  had  grown  so  tall  and  strong 
that  there  had  long  been  a  feeling  among 
his  party  that  it  was  time  for  him  to  marry. 
To  this  not  even  Sophia  offered  any  oppo- 
sition— above  all  things  the  succession  to  the 
throne  must  be  secured.  The  marriage  of 
Ivan,  which  she  had  brought  about,  had 
produced  daughters  only.  One  of  these, 
indeed,  subsequently  ascended  the  Russian 


throne  as  the  Empress  Anne,  but  at  that 
time,  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  the  Regent 
was  a  woman,  and  even  that  her  name  was 
inserted  in  public  acts  as  Autocrat,  it  was 
still  thought  desirable  to  have  male  heirs. 
Even  as  long  ago  as  the  end  of  1685,  when 
Prince  Archil  Georgia  came  to  Moscow, 
and  was  received  with  great  pomp,  there 
were  rumors  that  Peter  would  soon  marry 
his  beautiful  daughter.  In  December,  1687, 
Prince  Basil  Galitsyn  spent  a  few  days  with 
Peter  in  the  country,  which  was  thought  to 
be  a  very  good  omen,  and  again  there  was 
talk  of  Peter's  marrying — this  time  a  relative 
or  friend  of  Galitsyn.  A  month  later,  there 
was  more  talk  of  this  marriage  project,  but 
the  lady  was  not  named. 

Now  the  plan  was  a  more  serious  one. 
The  usual  preparations  were  made  for  col- 
lecting at  Court  young  girls  of  noble  family, 
and  out  of  these  there  was  chosen  Eudoxia 
Lopukhin,  the  daughter  of  the  Okolnitchy 
Hilary  Abramovitch  Lopukhin,  who,  on  the 
marriage,  according  to  custom,  changed  his 
name  and  received  that  of  Theodore. '  The 
Lopukhins  were  a  very  good  old  Russian 
family,  descended  from  the  Princes  of  Tmu- 
tarakan,  and  several  of  them  had  risen  to 
the  dignity  of  boyar.  In  this  generation 
they  were  likewise  connected  with  the 
Romodanofsky,  the  Galitsyn,  Troekurof  and 
Kurakin  families,  and  thus  with  the  prom- 
inent members  of  the  aristocratic  party. 
The  bride  is  said  to  have  been  young  and 
pretty,  quiet  and  modest,  brought  up  in 
the  old  Russian  way.  We  do  not  know 
whether  she  was  selected  by  Peter  himself 
for  her  good  looks,  or  whether  his  choice 
was  directed  by  his  mother  and  his  family. 
It  was  probably  thought  that  a  good,  quiet, 
stay-at-home  wife  would  be  likely  to  keep 
him  at  home,  would  put  a  stop  to  those  long 
excursions  for  military  maneuvers  and  for 
boat-building,  and,  above  all,  would  bring 
to  an  end  some  little  heart  affairs  in  the 
German  quarter. 

In  this  his  family  were  partly  mistaken. 
The  marriage  was  celebrated  on  the  6th 
of  February,  1689,  and  two  months  were 
scarcely  over  before  Peter,  seeing  the  ap- 
proach of  spring,  could  no  longer  resist  his 
inclinations,  and  started  off  again  for  his 
boat-builders  on  Lake  Plestche"ief. 

He  arrived  at  Pereyaslavl  on  the  i3th  of 
April,  and  found  two  boats  nearly  finished, 
and,  as  if  to  welcome  him,  the  ice  broke  up, 
affording  soon  the  opportunity  of  sailing  on 
the  lake.  He  immediately  set  to  work 
with  his  carpenters  to  complete  the  boats, 


PETER   THE    GREAT. 


181 


and  on  the  very  day  of  his  arrival  wrote  to 
his  mother: 

"To  my  most  beloved,  and,  while  bodily  life  en- 
dures, my  dearest  little  mother,  Lady  Tsaritsa  and 
Grand-Duchess  Natalia  Kirillovna.  Thy  little  son, 
now  here  at  work,  Petrushka,  I  ask  thy  blessing 
and  desire  to  hear  about  thy  health,  and  we,  through 
thy  prayers,  are  all  well,  and  the  lake  is  all  got  clear 
from  the  ice  to-day,  and  all  the  boats,  except  the 
big  ship,  are  finished,  only  we  are  waiting  for  ropes, 
and  therefore  I  beg  your  kindness  that  these  ropes, 
seven  hundred  fathoms  long,  be  sent  from  the 
Artillery  Department  without  delaying,  for  the  work 
is  waiting  for  them,  and  our  sojourn  here  is  being 
prolonged.  For  this  I  ask  your  blessing.  From 
Pereyaslavl,  April  2Oth  (O.  S.),  1689." 

Instead  of  sending  the  cables,  his  mother 
wrote  to  him  to  come  back  at  once,  as  on 
the  yth  of  May  there  would  be  the  funeral 
mass  in  commemoration  of  his  brother,  the 
Tsar  Theodore,  and  it  would  be  impolitic, 
as  well  as  indecent,  for  him  not  to  be 
present.  Heart-broken  at  the  thought  of 
leaving  his  boats  when  they  were  so  nearly 
ready,  he  was  at  first  inclined  to  refuse,  and 
wrote : 

"  To  my  most  beloved  and  dearest  mother,  Lady 
Tsaritsa  Natalia  Kirillovna,  thy  unworthy  son, 
Petnishka,  I  desire  greatly  to  know  about  thy 
health  ;  and  as  to  what  thou  hast  done  in  ordering 
me  to  go  to  Moscow.  I  am  ready,  only,  hey  !  hey ! 
there  is  work  here,  and  the  man  you  sent  has  seen 
it  himself,  and  will  explain  more  clearly ;  and  we, 
through  thy  prayers,  are  in  perfect  health.  About 
my  coming  I  have  written  more  extendedly  to  Leo 
Kirillovitch,  and  he  will  report  to  thee,  oh,  lady. 
Therefore,  I  must  humbly  surrender  myself  to  your 
will.  Amen." 

The  Tsaritsa  insisted,  as  did  also  his 
newly-married  wife,  who  writes : 

"  Joy  to  my  lord,  the  Tsar  Peter  Alex&vitch. 
Mayest  thou  be  well,  my  light,  for  many  years.  We 
beg  thy  mercy.  Come  to  us,  oh  !  lord,  without 
delay,  and  I,  through  the  kindness  of  thy  mother, 
am  alive.  Thy  little  wife,  Dunka,  petitions  this." 

There  was  no  resisting  longer :  he  had  to 
go.  His  mother  and  his  wife  kept  him  a 
whole  month  at  Moscow,  but  again  he  got 
away,  and  went  back  to  Pereyaslavl,  where 
he  found  that  the  ship-builder,  Kort,  had 
died  the  day  before.  He  set  to  work  him- 
self, and  at  last  the  boats  were  finished,  and 
he  wrote  to  his  mother : 

"  To  my  dearest  mother,  I,  the  unworthy  Pe- 
trushka, asking  thy  blessing,  petition.  For  thy 
message  by  the  Doctor  and  Gabriel,  I  rejoice,  just  as 
Noah  did  once  over  the  olive-branch.  Through  thy 
prayers  we  are  all  in  good  health,  and  the  boats  have 
succeeded  all  mighty  well.  For  this  may  the  Lord 
grant  thee  health,  both  in  soul  and  body,  just  as  I 
wish." 


Some  time  after,  Peter's  mother  sent  the 
boyar  Tikhon  Streshnef  to  see  how  he  was 
getting  on.  Peter  sent  back  by  him  a  few 
words  t<5  his  mother,  written,  like  all  the 
preceding,  on  a  scrap  of  dirty  paper,  with  a 
trembling  hand,  evidently  still  tired  with 
the  saw  and  hatchet : 

"  Hey !  I  wish  to  hear  about  thy  health,  and  beg 
thy  blessing.  We  are  all  well ;  and  about  the  boats, 
I  say  again  that  they  are  mighty  good,  and  Tikhon 
Nikititch  will  tell  you  about  all  this  himself.  Thy 
un  worthy  Petrus. ' ' 

The  Latin  signature,  although  the  rest  is 
in  Russian,  shows  strongly  Peter's  inclination 
to  things  foreign.  In  his  stay  at  the  lake 
and  his  daily  intercourse  with  the  carpenters, 
he  had  also  made  great  progress  in  learning 
Dutch. 

Another  death-mass  was  to  be  said  at 
Moscow.  Etiquette  required  Peter's  pres- 
ence, and  political  affairs  were  taking  such 
a  turn  that  the  Tsaritsa  insisted  on  his  com- 
ing back.  Again  he  abandoned  his  boats, 
and  went  hastily  to  Moscow,  though  not  so 
quickly  but  that  he  was  four  days  too  late 
for  the  death-mass.  The  members  of  the 
aristocratic  party  now  made  such  strong 
representations  that  he  was  persuaded  to 
remain  in  Moscow,  at  first  for  a  short  time 
and  then  longer,  until  the  situation  of  affairs 
had  become  such  that  an  open  rupture 
between  the  aristocratic  party  and  Sophia 
was  unavoidable.  Before  describing  the 
manner  in  which  this  was  brought  about,  it 
is  necessary  to  say  something  about  the 
condition  of  public  affairs  in  the  Empire. 


XVI. 

THE  INTERNAL  ADMINISTRATION  OF  SOPHIA. 

ARRANGEMENT    OF    THE    DISPUTE 

WITH    SWEDEN. 

THE  administration  of  internal  affairs  in 
Russia  by  Sophia's  Government  need  notlong 
detain  us.  The  reforms  projected  by  Theo- 
dore were  all  abandoned,  and  the  deputies 
from  the  provinces,  called  to  Moscow  by 
him,  were  immediately  sent  home.  There 
was  so  much  to  do  in  order  to  remove  the 
traces  of  the  riots  and  disturbances  of  1682 
that  there  was  no  time  left  for  reform.  The 
most  important  laws  on  the  statute  book  are 
those  relating  to  the  return  to  their  masters 
of  runaway  peasants,  to  the  dispute  con- 
nected with  the  boundaries  of  estates,  and 
to  the  punishment  of  robbery  and  maraud- 


l82 


PETER    THE   GREAT. 


ing.  Besides  this,  the  Dissenters  were 
everywhere  relentlessly  persecuted  and  sup- 
pressed. There  is  a  sad  old  Russian  prov- 
erb that  "when  wolves  fight,  sheep  lose 
their  wool."  So,  while  the  nobles  and 
grandees  were  quarreling  with  each  other 
—all  of  them  too  strong  to  be  put  down  by 
the  central  Government— the  peasantry  and 
poor  wretches  who  had  no  strong  protection 
were  suffering.  They  perhaps  might  have 
complained  to  Moscow ;  but  there  is  another 
proverb  that  "in  Moscow  business  is  not 
done  for  nothing";  and  people  sometimes 
suffered  for  their  complaints.  The  Govern- 
ment did  what  it  could,  and  some  male- 
factors were  punished.  But  a  special  decree 
had  to  be  issued  that  a  man  could  be  pun- 
ished if  he  sent  his  children  or  his  serfs  to 
commit  a  murder.  Later  on,  as  order  began 
to  be  restored,  punishments  were  somewhat 
mitigated,  and  some  care  began  to  be  taken 
of  the  suffering  common  people.  Wives 
were  no  longer  to  be  buried  alive  for  the 
murder  of  their  husbands,  but  merely  to 
have  their  heads  cut  off.  The  punishment 
of  death  was,  in  certain  cases,  commuted  to 
imprisonment  for  life,  with  hard  labor,  after 
severe  whipping  with  the  knout.  While 
peasants  who  had  run  away  and  joined  the 
Streltsi  regiments  were  to  be  sent  back,  serf- 
women  who  had  married  soldiers  were 
allowed  to  remain  free,  but  were  to  be 
heavily  fined.  Persons  who  had  been  tem- 
porarily enslaved  for  debt  were  to  be  no 
longer  left  entirely  at  the  mercy  of  their 
creditors,  but  were  to  work  out  the  debt  at 
the  rate  of  five  rubles  a  year  for  a  man,  and 
two  and  a  half  for  a  woman,  and  the  cred- 
itors were  no  longer  allowed  to  kill  or  maim 
them.  It  was  also  forbidden  to  exact  debts 
from  the  wives  and  children  of  debtors  who 
had  died  leaving  no  property. 

Many  edicts  were  issued  with  regard  to 
the  convenience  of  the  inhabitants  of  Mos- 
cow itself,  in  respect  to  Sunday  trading,  to 
indiscriminate  peddling  and  hawking  in  the 
streets,  to  putting  up  booths  in  unauthorized 
places,  for  the  better  prevention  of  fires,  and 
the  like.  People  were  forbidden  to  stop  and 
talk  in  the  middle  of  the  roadway,  and 
were  ordered  to  keep  to  the  right  side.  It 
was  forbidden  to  drive  at  full  speed  through 
the  streets  in  a  manner  which  is  still  fre- 
quently seen  both  in  Moscow  and  St.  Peters- 
burg, and  is  always  adopted  by  the  heads 
of  the  police  department, — that  is,  with  a 
trotting  horse  drawing  the  vehicle  and  a 
galloping  horse  harnessed  loosely  at  the 
side.  It  was  forbidden  to  beat  the  crowd 


right  and  left  to  make  one's  passage  through 
it.  It  was  forbidden  to  fire  guns  or  pistols 
in  the  houses  or  out  of  the  windows.  It 
was  forbidden  to  throw  filth  and  manure 
into  the  streets.  An  edict  beginning  like 
the  following  might  seem  strange,  were  it 
not  that  the  strictest  regulations  had  to  be 
made  to  keep  order  within  the  palace  itself: 

"Chamberlains,  lords  in  waiting,  and  nobles  of 
Moscow,  and  gentlemen  of  the  guard !  At  present 
your  servants  station  themselves  in  the  Kremlin 
with  their  horses  in  places  not  allowed,  without  any 
order,  cry  out,  make  noise  and  confusion,  and  come 
to  fisticuffs,  and  do  not  allow  passers-by  to  go  on 
their  road,  but  crowd  against  them,  knock  them 
down,  trample  them  under  foot  and  whistle  over 
them ;  and  as  soon  as  the  captains  of  the  watch 
and  the  Streltsi  try  to  send  them  away  from  the 
places  where  they  have  no  right,  and  prevent  them 
from  crying  out  and  from  ill-doing,  these  servants 
of  yours  swear  at  and  abuse  the  captains  and  Streltsi, 
and  threaten  to  beat  them." 

The  foreign  relations  of  Russia  at  this 
period  demand  a  little  longer  explanation. 

In  the  early  times,  the  dominion  of  Rus- 
sia extended  to  the  Gulf  of  Finland,  and 
the  greater  part  of  the  territory  now  included 
in  the  province  of  St.  Petersburg  was  Rus- 
sian. Extending  along  the  shore  of  the 
Gulf,  from  the  mouth  of  the  river  Nar6va 
on  the  southern  to  that  of  the  Sestra  on  the 
northern  side,  it  included  most  of  the  terri- 
tory watered  by  the  Vuoksa,  the  N£va,  the 
Izhore,  the  Tosna,  and  the  Luga,and  formed 
one  of  the  old  Fifths  of  Great  Novgorod, 
under  the  name  of  the  V6dska  Fifth  of  the 
land  of  Izhore.  In  this  district  were  some 
of  the  very  earliest  Russian  settlements, 
such  as  Korelia,  Ladoga,  and  the  fortress  of 
Ivangorod,  constructed  opposite  Narva,  at 
the  mouth  of  the  Narova,  by  Ivan  III.  In 
early  times  there  were  many  contests  with 
the  Swedes,  and  one  of  the  most  famous 
victories  in  early  Russian  history  is  that 
gained,  in  1242,  by  the  Grand- Duke  Alexan- 
der Yaroslavitch  against  the  Swedes  on  the 
banks  of  the  Neva,  which  gave  him  the  sur- 
name of  Nefsky,  and  which  led  to  his  being 
made  a  saint  in  the  Russian  calendar.  By 
the  treaty  of  Orie"khpvo,  in  the  beginning 
of  the  fourteenth  century,  the  boundaries 
between  Russian  and  Swedish  Finland  were 
the  rivers  Sestra  and  Vuoksa.  In  spite  of 
subsequent  wars  with  Sweden,  this  boundary 
remained  unchanged  until  the  Troublous 
Times,  in  the  beginning  of  the  seventeenth 
century,  when,  in  order  to  secure  his  pre- 
dominance over  his  rivals,  the  Tsar  Basil 
Shuisky  called  the  Swedes  to  his  assistance, 
and,  as  a  recompense  for  a  corps  of  five 


PETER    THE    GREAT. 


'83 


thousand  men,  ceded  the  town  and  territory 
of  Korelia,  or  Ke'xholm,  on  the  western  shore 
of  Lake  Ladoga.  The  Swedish  troops  at 
first  rendered  considerable  assistance  to  the 
Russians  against  the  pretender;  but  when 
the  Russians  had  been  defeated  in  a  decisive 
battle  with  the  Poles  at  Klushino,  they 
abandoned  their  allies,  went  over  to  the 
enemy,  and  seized  the  town  of  N6vgorod. 
They  easily  took  possession  of  the  Vodska 
Fifth,  and  all  the  efforts  of  the  newly  elected 
Tsar,  Michael  Romanof,  to  drive  them  out 
were  futile.  Peace  was  finally  brought  about, 
at  Stolbovo,  in  1617,  through  the  mediation 
of  Dutch  and  English  embassadors,  one  of 
whom  was  Sir  John  Merrick.  England  and 
Holland  were  desirous  of  retaining  Northern 
Russia  for  their  trade,  and  were  unwilling  to 
see  it  pass  into  Swedish  hands.  British 
interests  were  at  stake  here.  Michael  had 
to  yield  to  circumstances.  He  received  back 
N6vgorod,  Ladoga,  and  other  districts ;  but 
was  obliged  to  give  up  to  the  Swedes  the 
fortresses  of  Ivangorod  and  Oreshek — now 
Schlusselburg — and  the  whole  course  of  the 
Neva,  and  pay,  in  addition,  20,000  rubles, 
or  what  would  be  at  the  present  time  about 
^40,000  ($200,000).  What  was  perhaps 
still  harder,  the  Tsar  had  to  give  up  one  of 
his  titles,  and  allow  the  Swedish  king  to  style 
himself  ruler  of  the  land  of  Izhdre. 

In  the  reign  of  Alexis,  efforts  were  made 
to  gain  access  to  the  Baltic,  from  which 
the  Russians  had  been  cut  off,  by  taking  the 
town  of  Riga,  which  belonged  to  the 
Swedes.  Embarrassed,  however,  by  a  war 
with  Poland,  Alexis  was  unable  properly  to 
support  this  war.  His  troops  were  unsuc- 
cessful, and  he  was  compelled,  by  the  treaty 
of  Kardis,  to  reaffirm  all  the  conditions  of 
the  hated  treaty  of  Stolbovo.  It  was  the 
custom  at  that  time  for  the  monarch,  on 
ascending  the  throne,  to  confirm  all  the 
treaties  executed  by  his  predecessors.  The- 
odore refused  to  confirm  the  treaty  of  Kar- 
dis, without  some  concessions.  He  had  his 
grievance  against  the  Swedes — that  they  had 
in  official  documents  refused  to  speak  of  the 
Tsar  as  Tsar,  but  had  called  him  simply 
Grand  Duke  of  Muscovy,  and  the  subject 
of  title  was  one  about  which  all  the  Russian 
rulers  were  very  sensitive.  Besides  that,  the 
orthodox  church  had  been  subjected  to  per- 
secution in  the  lands  under  Turkish  rule. 
The  embassadors  of  Theodore  therefore 
demanded  that,  as  a  recompense  for  these 
insults,  the  land  of  Izhore,  which  had  been 
unjustly  seized  by  the  Swedes  during  the 
reign  of  his  grandfather,  should  be  returned 


to  Russia.  To  such  a  proposition  King 
Charles  XI.  refused  to  listen.  Negotiations 
continued  at  intervals,  and  Theodore  died 
without  the  treaty  of  Kardis  being  reaffirmed. 
The  policy  of  Sophia  was  in  direct  oppo- 
sition to  that  of  the  two  previous  reigns, 
and  was  a  far  more  healthy  one.  Both 
Alexis  and  Theodore  had  revolted  at  the 
idea  of  acquiescing  in  the  permanent  alien- 
ation of  any  portion  of  Russian  territory. 
Their  patriotism  and  their  love  of  national 
honor  made  them  feel  that  every  effort 
should  be  used  to  recover  to  Russia  those 
provinces  which  had  been  torn  from  it. 
They,  therefore,  were  unwilling  either  to- 
make  treaties  recognizing  the  Swedish  claims 
or  to  keep  them  when  they  were  made.  It 
is  not  to  be  supposed  that  Sophia  or  her 
counselors  were  less  patriotic  than  their 
predecessors,  but  they  felt  the  necessity  of 
reorganizing  the  Empire,  improving  its  in- 
ternal condition,  and  of  establishing  good 
government  on  a  firm  basis,  before  attempt- 
ing to  recover  the  lost  provinces.  In  fact, 
Sophia  acted  much  as  the  French  Govern- 
ment has  acted  since  the  war  of  1870.  She 
desired  to  devote  herself  to  internal  admin- 
•istration,  and  the  formation  of  an  army, 
before  engaging  in  a  struggle  with  her 
neighbors.  As  soon,  therefore,  as  Ivan  had 
been  proclaimed  Tsar,  the  Government 
hastened  to  put  an  end  to  any  designs  of 
its  neighbors,  who  had  already  got  wind  of 
the  rioting  of  the  Streltsi,  and  the  troubles 
consequent  on  the  death  of  Theodore. 
Couriers  were  sent  to  Stockholm,  Warsaw, 
Vienna,  and  even  to  Copenhagen,  the 
Hague,  London,  and  Constantinople,  to- 
announce  the  death  of  Theodore,  and  the 
accession  of  the  new  sovereigns  Ivan  and 
Peter,  and  the  speedy  arrival  of  plenipoten- 
tiaries for  the  purpose  of  affirming  existing 
treaties.  Immediately  afterward,  in  Octo- 
ber, 1683,  an  embassy  was  sent  to  Stockholm, 
consisting  of  the  Okolnitchy  and  Lord-Lieu- 
tenant of  Tcheboksary,  Ivdn  Prontchistchef, 
the  Chamberlain  and  Lord-Lieutenant  of 
Borofsk,  Peter  Prontchistchef,  and  the  Sec- 
retary Basil  Bobinin,  with  a  letter  from  the 
Tsars  completely  affirming  the  Treaty  of 
Kardis,  and  practically  giving  up  all  claims 
to  the  ancient  possessions  of  Russia  on 
the  Gulf  of  Finland.  Charles  XL,  as  may 
easily  be  believed,  received  this  embassy 
with  great  pleasure,  and  with  all  due  cere- 
mony he  took  the  oath  of  the -Holy  Gospel 
to  fulfill  the  treaty  exactly  and  honorably. 
He  dismissed  the  embassadors  with  the 
usual  presents,  and  intrusted  to  them  an 


PETER   THE   GREAT. 


autograph  letter  to  the  Tsars,  stating  that 
he  would  not  delay  sending  his  plempoten- 
taries  to  Moscow  to  renew  the  peace  in  the 
usual  form  by  the  oath  of  their  Tsarish  Maj- 
esties    The  Russian  embassadors  returned 
to   Moscow,  in  January,   1684,  and  three 
months    later    the    Swedish    embassadors 
arrived —the  Presidentof  the  Royal  Council, 
Conrad  Gildenstjern,  the  Councilor  of  the 
Royal  Chancery,  Jonas  Klingstedt,  and  the 
Libonian  nobleman,  Otto  Stackelberg.    1  he 
nobles  living   on  their  country  estates  for 
ICQ  miles  about  Moscow  were  ordered  to 
meet  the  embassy,  and  the  Regent  appointed 
a  commission  to  discuss  matters,  under  the 
presidency  of  Prince  Basil  Galitsyn,  includ- 
ing among  others  the  Okolmtchy  Buturlm, 
and  the  Privy-Councilor  Ukraintsef.  Appar- 
ently as  a  matter  of  form,  the  commission 
thought  it  necessary  to  make  certain  repre- 
sentations to  the  Swedes  which  were  entirely 
unexpected    by    them.      These    consisted 
chiefly  in  complaints  about  matters  of  eti- 
quette, in  which  it  was  said  that  the  Swedish 
Government  had  not  acted  properly ;   that 
they  had  purposely  refused  to  the  Tsars  the 
title  of  Tsarish  Majesty,  and  had  spoken 
of  them,  in  the  Treaty  of  Westphalia,  sim- 
ply as  Grand  Dukes  of  Muscovy,  and  that 
they    had    permitted    the    publication    of 
various  libels  and  pasquils,  as  well  as  false 
reports  about  occurrences   in  the  Russian 
Empire,  especially  with  regard  to  the  rebel- 
lion of  Stenka  Razin.    The  Swedes  answered 
these  complaints  with   very  little   trouble, 
expressed   their  perfect  willingness  to   call 
the  Tsars  by  any  name  they  pleased ;  and 
at  a  second  conference,  a  week  later,  man- 
aged to  raise  on  their  side  some  points  of 
disagreement,  such  as  that  the  name  of  the 
King  of  Sweden  had  been  written  "  Carlus," 
and  not  "  Caroms,"  expressing,  at  the  same 
time,  a  desire  that  the  Russians  should  enter 
into  an  alliance  with  Poland  and  the  Ger- 
man  Empire  against  the  Turks;   that  the 
boundaries    between    Sweden   and   Russia 
should    be   exactly   defined,   and   that,   in 
future,  resident  ministers  should  be  kept  at 
the  Swedish  court,  to  avoid  disputes.     At 
this  meeting  the  Russians  said  nothing  more 
about  their  former   complaints ;  agreed    to 
the  Swedish  demands,  with  the  exception  of 
that  concerning  the  treaty  of  alliance  with 
Poland,  and  finally  expressed  the  readiness 
of  the  Tsars  to  take  the  customary  oath  in 
confirmation  of  the  Treaty  of  Kardis. 

After  the  protocol  had  been  duly  signed, 
the  embassadors  were  invited  to  the  Palace 
to  be  witnesses  of  the  solemn  confirmation 


of  the  treaty  by  the  oaths  of  the  two  Tsars. 
They  were  driven  in  the  Imperial  carriages 
to  the  embassadorial  office,  where,  in   the 
Chamber  of  Responses,  they  were  received 
by  Prince  Galitsyn.     Afterward  they  were 
conducted  by  Privy-Councilor  Ukraintsef, 
between  lines  of  Streltsi,  up  the  Red  Stair- 
case,  and   then,   passing   through   files  of 
guards  armed  with  partisans  and  halberds, 
were  introduced   into  the  banqueting  hall, 
where  the  boy  Tsars,  clad  in  all  the  para- 
phernalia  of  royalty,  sat  on   their   double 
throne,  supported  on  either  side  by  rhinds 
or  guards-of-honor,  handsome   and  stately 
youths  of  noble  blood,  clad  in  white  satin 
and  cloth-of-silver,  and  carrying   halberds. 
The  boyars  and  state  officials  sat  on  benches 
along  the  wall.     The  Tsars,  through  Prince 
Galitsyn,  asked  the  usual  questions   about 
the  healths  of  the  embassadors,  for  which 
they  returned  thanks,  and  then  sat  down  on 
a  bench  placed  opposite  the  throne.      Some 
moments  after,  the  Tsars  personally  asked 
about  the  King's  health,  and,  on  a  sign  from 
Prince  Galitsyn,  read  a  speech,  in  which  they 
declared  their  unchangeable  intention  of  car- 
rying out  all  the  articles  of  the  treaty.     After 
the  speech  they  ordered  the  embassadors  to 
come  near  to  them,  and  the  priests  to  bring 
the  Gospels,  while  Prince  Galitsyn  placed 
on  the  desk  under  the  Gospels  the  protocols 
confirming  the  treaty.     The  Tsars  then  rose 
from  their   places,   took   off  their   crowns, 
which   they  gave  to  great  nobles  to  hold, 
advanced  to  the  desk  and  said  that,  before 
the  Holy  Gospel,  they  promised  sacredly  to 
keep  to  the  conditions  of  the  treaty  accord- 
ing to  the  protocols.     In  conclusion   they 
kissed   the    Gospels,   and   Prince   Galitsyn 
handed  the  paper  to  the  embassadors  and 
allowed  them  to  depart. 

The  same  day  the  embassadors  had  a 
farewell  audience  of  the  Princess  Sophia, 
who  received  them  in  the  Golden  Hall. 
On  coming  out  of  the  banqueting  hall, 
they  advanced  down  the  private  staircase 
to  the  Palace  Square,  then  through  lines  of 
the  Stremenoy  regiment,  armed  with  gilded 
pikes,  passed  the  guards  carrying  halberds, 
to  the  Golden  Entrance,  where  the  suite 
stopped,  while  the  embassadors  advanced. 
At  the  door  they  were  met  by  two  chamber- 
lains, who  announced  to  them  that  the 
great  lady,  the  noble  TsareVna,  the  Grand 
Duchess  Sophia  Alexe"ievna,  Imperial  High- 
ness of  all  Great  and  Little  and  White 
Russia,  was  in  readiness  to  meet  them.  The 
embassadors  bowed,  and  entered  the  room. 
The  Princess  Regent  sat  on  a  throne  orna- 


PETER    THE    GREAT. 


185 


merited  with  diamonds — a  present  from  the 
Shah  of  Persia  to  her  father,  Alexis.  She 
wore  a  crown  of  pearls,  and  a  robe  of  silver 
cloth  embroidered  with  gold,  edged  and 


MAHOMET  IV.,  SULTAN  OF  TURKEY.       (FROM  AN  OLD  ENGRAVING.) 

lined  with  sables,  and  covered  with  folds  of 
fine  lace.  On  each  side  of  her,  at  a  little 
distance,  stood  two  widows  of  boyars,  and 
further  off  two  female  dwarfs.  Around  the 
room  stood  chamberlains  and  a  few  boyars. 
Prince  Basil  Galitsyn  and  Ivan  Miloslavsky 
stood  near  the  Princess  Regent.  The  embas- 
sadors  were  announced  by  Ukramtsef,  and 
gave  the  salutation  from  the  King  and 
Queen,  and  the  Queen  Dowager.  The 
Princess,  rising,  asked  about  their  health  in 
these  words :  "  The  most  powerful  the  Lord 
Carolus,  King  of  Sweden,  and  her  Royal 
Highness,  his  mother,  the  Lady  Hedwig 
Elenora,  and  his  consort,  the  Lady  Ulrica 
Elenora,  are  they  well  ?  "  After  listening 
to  the  usual  reply,  she  beckoned  the  embas- 
sadors  to  approach  her,  and  after  they  had 
kissed  her  hand  she  asked  about  their  health. 
The  embassadors  thanked  her,  and  sat  down 
on  a  bench.  Then  the  gentlemen  of  the 
embassadorial  suite  were  called  up  and 
admitted  to  hand-kissing.  Finally,  the 
Princess  requested  the  embassadors  to  con- 
gratulate the  King  and  Queen,  and  dismissed 
them,  sending  them  subsequently  a  dinner 
from  her  own  table. 

XVII. 

ETERNAL     PEACE    WITH    POLAND.         THE    ME- 
TROPOLIS   OF    KIEF. 

MUCH   more  important  to  settle  than  the 
dispute  with  Sweden  was  the  dispute  with 
VOL.  XX.— 13. 


Poland,  and  complicated  with  this  was  the 
question  of  Little  Russia,  which  brought,  in 
its  turn,  the  question  of  war  with  the  Turks. 
The  Tsar  Alexis,  as  we  remember,  in  ac- 
cepting the  suzerainty  over  Little  Russia, 
broke  with  the  Poles ;  and  his  first  successes 
made  him  desirous  of  restoring  to  his  empire 
all  those  parts  of  Russia  which  entered  into 
the  principality  of  Lithuania.  He  con- 
quered them  rapidly,  one  after  another, 
declared  their  union  with  Russia,  and  took 
the  title  of  Grand  Duke  of  White  Russia, 
of  Lithuania,  and  of  Podolia  and  Volynia. 
The  obstinate  struggles  between  the  Poles 
and  Russia  lasted  twelve  years,  and,  in  spite 
of  the  domestic  difficulties  of  both  nations, 
would  probably  have  lasted  longer,  had  not 
the  Ottoman  Porte  interfered,  in  the  hope  of 
gaining  possession  of  Little  Russia.  Both 
countries  were  threatened  by  this  attempt 
of  the  Sultan,  whose  might  then  terrified  all 
Europe,  and  they  hastened  to  make  peace. 
But  as  it  was  impossible  to  agree  on  all 
points,  they  made,  at  Andrussova,  in  1667, 
a  truce  for  twelve  years,  on  conditions  that 
at  stated  intervals  envoys  should  be  sent  to 
the  frontier  to  endeavor  to  negotiate  a  per- 
manent and  substantial  peace ;  and  that  if 
these  overtures  failed,  recourse  should  be 
had  to  the  mediation  of  the  Christian  pow- 
ers. By  this  truce  the  Russian  Tsar  gave 
up  his  claim  to  Lithuania,  White  Russia, 
Volynia,  and  Podolia,  and  all  the  territory 
on  the  western  side  of  the  Dnieper,  with  the 
exception  of  the  ancient  town  of  KieT,  which 


EUDOXIA    LOPUKHIN,    FIRST   WIFE   OF    PETER    THE    GREAT. 


1 86 


PETER   THE   GREAT. 


he  was  allowed  to  retain  for  two  years,  in 
order  to  save  its  sacred  shine  from  Mussul- 
man profanation,  binding  himself,  at  the  end 
of  that  period,  to  return  it  to  Poland.  In 
return  for  this  concession  the  rights  of  the 
Tsar  were  made  good  to  Smolensk  and  its 
surrounding  district,  the  region  of  Seversk, 
and  the  Ukraine  east  of  the  Dnieper.  The 
Cossack  country  of  Zaporoghi,  or  "  beyond 
the  cataracts  "(of  the  Dnieper),  which  served 
as  a  mutual  barrier  against  the  Turks  and 
Tartars,  was  declared  common  property. 
Besides  this,  Alexis  promised  to  send  an 
army  of  25,000  men  for  the  defense  of  Po- 
land against  the  Turks,  promised  to  attempt 
the  subjugation  of  the  Crimea,  and  paid 
about  200,000  rubles  to  indemnify  the  Po- 
lish nobility  for  their  property  in  the  district 
ceded  to  Russia.  It  was  also  agreed  that 
neither  side  should  make  a  separate  peace 
with  the  Turkish  Sultan,  or  with  the  Cri- 
mean Khan.  The  first  commission  which 
met  in  consequence  of  this  treaty,  in  1669, 
was  unable  to  effect  a  peace,  and  could  only 
agree  in  confirming  in  every  point  and  par- 
ticular the  Truce  of  Andrussova.  But  the 
Russians  found  it  difficult  to  decide  to  give 
up  Kief,  as  they  were  obliged  to  do  at  this 
time,  and  brought  various  complaints  against 
Poland,  for  which  they  wished  satisfaction 
and  indemnity.  Rather,  however,  than  en- 
gage in  a  new  war,  both  sides  agreed  simply 
to  put  off  all  the  questions  until  the  meeting 
of  the  next  commission,  in  1674.  The  meet- 
ing of  1674  was  fruitless,  as  was  also  that  of 
the  final  commission  which  sat  in  Moscow 
in  1678,  in  the  reign  of  the  Tsar  Theodore. 
The  plenipotentiaries  could  once  more  agree 
only  to  leave  matters  in  statu  quo  until  the  end 
of  the  latest  term  fixed  by  the  Truce  of  An- 
drussova, June,  1693,  that  is,  for  fifteen  years 
longer.  Nevertheless,  the  Tsar,  alarmed  by 
the  threat  of  the  Polish  embassadors,  and 
fearing  to  break  off  all  relations,  returned 
to  the  King  the  districts  of  Nevl,  Sebezh, 
and  Velizh,  which  had  been  granted  to 
Russia  by  the  Treaty  of  Andrussova,  and 
paid  the  indemnity  of  200,000  rubles,  as 
agreed  upon.  All  other  questions  were  post- 
poned until  a  new  commission  had  been 
appointed,  to  meet  in  two  years  from  that 
k  time  with  mediators.  This  commission  never 
met.  Matters  got  more  complicated,  partly 
because,  in  spite  of  the  treaties,  first  Poland, 
and  then  Russia,  concluded  a  separate  peace 
with  the  Turks. 

As  soon  as  Ivan  and  Peter  were  crowned, 
their  Government  sent  to  Warsaw  an  em- 
bassy to  confirm  the  treaty  of  Andrussova 


and  receive  the  usual  oath  for  its  fulfillment. 
As  soon  as  King  Jan  Sobiesky  heard  of 
this  embassy,  he  sent  to  Warsaw  to  ask  if 
the  embassadors  had  full  power  to  treat  on 
the  points  in  dispute,  which  had  been  left 
by  the  Commission  of  1678,  especially  with 
regard  to  the  surrender  of  Kief  and  the 
sending  of  a  corps  of  twenty-five  thousand 
men  for  use  against  the  Turks.  The  embas- 
sadors had  come  without  full  powers  to 


JAN    SOBIESKY,    KING    OF    POLAND. 
ENGRAVING.) 


(FROM  AN  OLD 


this  effect,  and  the  King  in  consequence 
refused  to  take  the  oath  to  the  treaty,  and 
sent  a  special  messenger  to  Moscow  to  insist 
upon  some  arrangement  being  made.  Mean- 
while Sobiesky  persuaded  the  Polish  Diet 
to  agree  to  the  conclusion  of  a  treaty  of 
alliance  with  the  German  Empire ;  for  the 
rebellion  of  Emmeric  Tekeli  had  caused  an 
invasion  of  the  Turks,  and  the  overthrow  of 
Austria  would  be,  in  Sobiesky's  opinion,  of 
the  utmost  danger  to  Poland.'  The  treaty 
of  alliance  was  concluded  in  May,  1683, 
both  sovereigns  agreeing  to  the  use  of  their 
influence  to  induce  other  Christian  princes 
to  join  the  alliance,  'and  especially  the  Tsars 
of  Muscovy.  For  this  purpose  Sobiesky 
proposed  to  Russia  to  send  new  plenipoten- 
tiaries to  the  old  meeting  place  of  Andrus- 
sova, in  order  to  conclude  a  lasting  alliance. 
The  Russians  consented  to  the  commission, 
and  negotiations  began  in  January,  1684, 
at  Andrussova.  The  Commissioners — thirty- 
nine  in  number — met,  but  could  not  decide 
anything.  The  Poles  refused  to  give  up 
their  claim  to  Kief,  and  the  Russians  could 
not  give  their  consent  to  assist  them  against 
the  Turks.  Even  the  victory  of  Sobiesky 


PETER    THE   GREAT. 


187 


over  the  Turks,  before  Vienna,  in  September, 
1683,  could  not  persuade  the  Government 
of  Sophia  that  war  was  better  than  peace, 
although  it  made  it  waver.  The  importance 
of  this  victory,  and  of  the  deliverance  of 
Vienna  from  the  Turks,  was  not  under- 
estimated at  Moscow,  where  it  was  celebrated 
by  Te  Deums  in  the  churches  and  the  ring- 
ing of  bells.  Prince  Galitsyn  had  asked  the 
opinion  of  General  Gordon,  who  had  seen 
twenty  years'  service  in  Russia,  most  of  it 
against  the  Poles  and  the  Tartars.  Gordon, 
in  a  carefully-written  paper,  considered  the 
advantages  and  disadvantages,  both  of  peace 
and  war,  and  finally  concluded  in  favor 
of  war,  and  of  an  alliance  with  Poland. 
Galitsyn,  however,  was  too  undecided,  or 
had  too  little  confidence  in  the  good  inten- 
tion of  Poland  and  Austria  for  him  to  re- 
solve on  an  alliance,  and  the  Commission 
of  Andrussova,  as  has  been  already  said, 
had  no  result. 


bring  their  influence  to  bear  on  Russia  to 
join  them.  Although  this  new  crusade 
against  the  Turks  was  the  great  object  of  the 
foreign  policy  of  Innocent  XI.,  and  is  re- 
garded as  one  of  the  great  glories  of  his  pon- 
tificate, yet  this  was  not  the  first  time  that 
Rome  had  used  all  its  influence  at  Moscow 
for  the  furtherance  of  this  object.  The  pred- 
ecessors of  Innocent,  Clement  IX.  and 
Clement  X.,  had  this  matter  warmly  at  heart, 
and  did  their  best  to  excite  the  Russians  to 
join  their  neighbors  against  Turkey.  The 
despatches  to  the  Vatican  of  the  nuncios  at 
Warsaw  and  Vienna  are  full  of  information 
as  to  the  negotiations.  In  1668,  Clement 
XI.  even  began  a  correspondence — which 
was  kept  up  for  years — with  the  Shah  of 
Persia,  in  which  he  was  warmly  and  affec- 
tionately urged  to  join  the  Christian  league 
against  Constantinople.  Meanwhile,  France 
and  Sweden  were  intriguing  at  Constanti- 
nople against  Austria  and  the  Emperor,  and 


POPE    INNOCENT    XI.       (FROM    AN    OLD    ENGRAVING.) 


In  the  spring  of  1684  the  Republic  of  stirring  up  rebellion  in  Hungary.  The  dry 
Venice  entered,  with  Austria  and  Poland,  texts  of  despatches  and  documents  are,  in 
into  a  Holy  Alliance  against  the  Turks,  of  this  case,  wonderfully  instructive,  for  they 


which  Pope  Innocent  XI.  was  formally  pro- 
claimed the  patron.     All  parties  agreed  to 


prove  that  the  first  wars  of  Russia  against 
Turkey   were   caused,    not    by    Muscovite 


i88 


PETER   THE   GREAT. 


KAMENETZ,     IN    PODOLIA.       (DRAWN    BY    R.    RIORDAN,    FROM    A    PHOTOGRAPH.) 


ambition,  but  by  the  constant  urging  of  the 
Pope  and  the  Catholic  powers. 

In  pursuance  of  the  agreement  with  Po- 
land and  Venice,  in  the  spring  of  1684,  the 
Imperial  Embassadors,  Baron  Blumberg 
and  Baron  Sherofsky,  had  brought,  besides 
their  formal  letters,  a  personal  one  from  the 
Emperor  to  Galitsyn;  requesting  him  to  use 
his  influence  for  the  alliance.  Galitsyn 
thanked  the  Emperor  for  his  great  conde- 
scension and  kindness,  and  promised  to  use 
all  his  powers  for  the  benefit  of  Christianity ; 
but,  at  the  same  time,  declared  to  the  em- 
bassadors  that  Russia  would  enter  into  no 
engagement  of  the  kind  desired  until  per- 
manent peace  had  been  concluded  with 
Poland.* 

Meanwhile,  although  Austria  and  Venice 
were  successful  in  their  efforts  against  Tur- 
key, good  fortune  seemed  to  abandon  So- 

*  A  curious  and  very  rare  pamphlet,  printed  in  1684, 
entitled  "  Beschrelbung  des  Schau-und  lesswiirdigen 
Moscowitischen  Einzngs  und  Tractements,etc.,"  gives 
an  account  of  the  Embassy  of  Baron  Blumberg,  and, 
in  addition,  a  copy  of  the  speech  which  he  made  to 
the  Tsars  on  his  final  audience,  in  which  he  describes 
Turkey  as  the  "  sick  man  "—a  term  supposed  to  have 
been  invented  by  the  Russian  diplomacy  of  a  quarter 
ol  a  century  ago.  "  Now,"  he  says,  "  is  the  most 


biesky.  In  the  summer  of  1684,  he  was 
engaged  in  an  unsuccessful  siege  of  Kam- 
enetz,  in  Podolia,  and  afterward,  in  1685, 
not  being  himself  able  to  accompany  the 
army,  on  account  of  illness,  he  sent  the 
Hetman  Yablonofsky  into  Moldavia,  hoping, 
by  occupying  that  province,  to  cut  Podolia 
off  from  Turkey  and  force  Kamenetz  to  sur- 
render. Yablonofsky  crossed  the  Dniester 
and  advanced  into  Moldavia,  but  was  sig- 
nally defeated  by  the  Turks,  and  obliged 
to  retreat  with  great  loss.  These  failures 
caused  the  Polish  king  to  renew  the  negoti- 
ations for  an  alliance  with  Russia,  and  in 
January.  1686,  there  arrived  in  Moscow  from 
Poland  the  most  splendid  embassy  which 
that  city  had  ever  witnessed.  There  were 
four  embassadors,  at  the  head  of  which  were 
the  Voeivode  Grimultofsky  and  Prince 
Oginsky,  the  Chancellor  of  Lithuania,  with 

suitable  time  for  obtaining  the  desired  end.  Sweden 
is  in  a  condition  of  perfect  peace ;  Poland,  in  con- 
sequence of  the  truce  which  has  been  concluded, 
is  quiet  and  without  danger  to  you;  the  diseased 
and  dying  Ottoman  Empire  and  its  complete  power- 
lessness — for  it  is  only  a  body  condemned  to  death, 
which  must  very  speedily  turn  to  a  corpse— are  the 
auguries  for  a  complete  solution  of  the  question," 
etc.,  etc. 


PETER    THE   GREAT. 


189 


a  suite  of  about  a  thousand  men  and  fifteen 
hundred  horses.  The  embassadors  were 
splend'idly  received.  They  were  met  every- 
where by  the  Russian  nobility  and  their 
retainers.  They  were  escorted  into  Moscow 
and  through  the  crowded  streets  by  the 
Streltsi,  and  by  the  famous  "  winged  guard," 
or  Zhiltsi;  they  were  feasted  and  entertained. 
But  the  Russian  negotiators,  under  the  guid- 
ance of  Prince  Galitsyn,  disputed  for  seven 


immediately  to  send  troops  to  protect  the 
Polish  possessions  from  Tartar  invasion,  and 
in  the  next  year  to  send  an  expedition  against 
the  Crimea  itself.  Both  powers  agreed  not 
to  conclude  a  separate  peace  with  the  Sultan. 
Besides  this,  it  was  arranged  that  Russia, 
as  an  indemnity  for  Kief,  would  pay  Poland 
146,000  rubles.  A  considerable  amount  of 
territory  was  given  up  on  the  western  bank 
of  the  Dnieper,  together  with  Kief;  and 


IESKY    CONSENTING    TO    THE    CESSION    OF    KIEF.       (DRAWN     BY    P     L.    SZYNDLER.) 


long  weeks  over  the  conditions  of  the  peace. 
The  Poles  agreed  to  give  up  Kief,  but  would 
not  consent  to  the  surrender  of  the  adjoining 
territory,  demanded  too  great  a  sum  as 
indemnity',  and  were  unable  to  come  to  an 
understanding  with  regard  to  the  promise  of 
military  assistance  to  be  furnished  by  Russia 
to  Poland.  The  embassadors  finally  declared 
the  negotiations  broken  off,  and  took  their 
formal  leave  of  the  Tsars  and  Sophia.  They, 
however,  did  not  depart,  but  requested  a 
renewal  of  negotiations.  By  this  time,  the 
interchange  of  views  was  carried  on  entirely 
by  writing,  and  finally  an  arrangement  was 
arrived  at  by  which  Poland  ceded  forever 
Kief  to  Russia,  and  the  Tsar,  agreeing  to 
declare  war  against  the  Sultan  of  Turkey 
and  the  Khan  of  the  Crimea,  promised 


Tchigfrin  and  the  other  ruined  towns  on  the 
lower  course  of  the  Dnieper  were  not  to  be 
rebuilt.  Persons  of  the  Orthodox  faith  in 
the  Polish  dominions  were  to  be  subjected 
to  no  kind  of  persecution  on  the  part  of  the 
Catholics  and  Uniates,  and  were  to  be 
allowed  the  free  exercise  of  their  religion  ; 
while  in  Russia  Catholics  were  to  be  allowed 
to  hold  divine  service  in  their  houses,  although 
they  could  build  no  churches ;  the  Boyar 
Boris  Sheremetief,  and  the  Okolnitchy 
Tchaadaef  were  sent  to  Lemberg  to  obtain 
the  oath  and  the  signature  of  King  Jan 
Sobiesky  to  the  treaty.  They  were  obliged 
to  wait  two  months  for  him,  for  that  year 
he  had  himself  headed  an  invasion  of 
Moldavia,  and  had  occupied  Yassy.  But, 
being  surrounded  by  hosts  of  Tartars,  and 


1 90 


PETER   THE   GREAT. 


OLD    RUSSIAN    SPORTS.        TSAR    HUNTING    WITH     FALCON.       (FROM    A     PLACQUE    BY    A.    EGOROFF.) 


his  troops  being  stricken  with  disease  and 
almost  famished,  he  was  obliged  to  retreat. 
Saddened  by  his  military  disasters,  the  king 
was  still  more  grieved  over  the  cession  of, 
Kief;  and  although  he  received  the  embas- 
sadors  with  due  honors,  and  gave  his  solemn 
oath  to  the  treaty,  yet  tears  ran  from  his 
eyes  as  he  pronounced  it.  He  could  not 
even  conceal  his  vexation  in  a  letter  which 
he  wrote  to  the  Tsars  of  Russia,  complaining 
of  their  inaction. 

Sophia  and  her  government  considered 
this  peace  to  be  the  greatest  act  of  her 
regency.  In  the  proclamation  announcing 
it  to  the  people,  she  said  that  Russia  had 
never  concluded  such  an  advantageous  and 
splendid  peace.  In  one  sense  this  was  true. 
The  acknowledgment  by  Poland  of  the  right 
of  Russia  to  Kief  was  very  satisfactory  to 
the  pride  of  Russia,  and  fraught  with  great 
advantage.  It  was  an  advantage,  too,  to 
be  on  terms  of  solid  amity  with  such  an 
uneasy  neighbor  as  Poland.  The  disadvan- 
tages caused  by  the  ensuing  declaration  of 
war  against  Turkey  were  not  mentioned  in 
the  proclamation ;  and,  although  they  were 
great,  they  were,  in  point  of  fact,  outweighed 
by  the  advantages  of  the  treaty. 

At  the  same  time  that  the  political  union 


of  Kief  to  Russia  was  thus  assured,  a  relig- 
ious union  of  the  inhabitants  of  the  western 
provinces  and  of  the  Ukraine  to  the  provin- 
cial throne  of  Moscow  was  also  provided 
for.  Originally  Kief  had  been  subjected  to 
the  metropolis  of  Moscow,  but,  in  the 
fifteenth  century,  in  order  more  completely 
to  separate  the  inhabitants  of  these  prov- 
inces from  their  co-religionists  in  Russia, 
the  Prince  of  Lithuania  succeeded  in 
establishing  at  Kief  an  independent  Met- 
ropolitan, consecrated  by  the  Patriarch  of 
Constantinople.  When  the  Cossacks  of 
Bogdan  Khmelnitzky  accepted  the  Russian 
suzerainty,  it  was  stated  in  the  treaty  that 
the  Metropolitan  of  KieY  should  be  under 
the  jurisdiction  of  the  Patriarch  of  Moscow; 
but  neither  the  Metropolitan  of  Kief  at  that 
time  nor  his  successor  were  willing  to  accept 
the  diplomas  from  the  Tsars  without  the 
permission  of  the  Patriarch  of  Constantino- 
ple, lest  they  should  bring  upon  themselves 
the  curse  of  the  Eastern  church,  and  con- 
tinued to  style  themselves  Exarchs  of  the 
Patriarch  of  Constantinople.  Owing  to 
these  difficulties,  since  1676  there  had  been 
no  Metropolitan,  and  the  spiritual  affairs  of 
the  country  were  under  the  supervision  of 
Lazarus  Baranovitch,  the  aged  Archbishop  of 


PETER    THE  GREAT. 


191 


Tchernigof,  who  admitted  the  supremacy  of 
the  Patriarch  of  Moscow.  Negotiations  for 
the  election  of  a  new  Metropolitan,  and  his 
subjection  to  the  Patriarch  of  Moscow,  began 
in  1683  with  Samofiovitch,  the  Hetman  of 
the  Cossacks  of  the  Ukraine,  who  entered 
warmly  into  the  project  and  succeeded  in 
bringing  affairs  to  a  conclusion.  Much  as 
he  opposed  the  treaty  of  alliance  with  Poland, 
he  was  strongly  in  favor  of  the  union  with 
Moscow  of  the  Metropolis  of  Kief,  for  he 
felt  that  this  union  would-  bind  the  inhabit- 
ants of  Little  Russia  still  more  closely  to 
Great  Russia,  sever  their  connection  with 
Poland,  and,  at  the  same  time,  would  give 
the  Russian  Government,  through  the  Met- 
ropolitan, a  certain  amount  ,of  influence 
over  all  the  Orthodox  Christians  residing 
in  the  Polish  dominions.  He  made,  how- 
ever, several  reservations  and  conditions,  the 
chief  of  which  were :  that  all  the  ancient 
rights  and  liberties  of  the  provinces  should 
remain  untouched ;  that  the  Metropolitan 
of  Kief  should  occupy  the  first  rank  among 
the  other  Metropolitans  of  Russia ;  that  he 
should  still  have  the  title  of  Exarch  of  Con- 
stantinople ;  that  the  Patriarch  of  Constan- 
tinople should  properly  cede  the  province  to 
the  Patriarch  of  Moscow,  that  there  might 
be  no  schism  or  confusion  in  the  minds  of 
the  Little  Russians ;  that  the  Patriarch  should 
not  interfere  or  meddle  in  the  affairs  of  the 
province ;  that  the  printing  of  books  should 
be  allowed  at  the  Lavra  of  Kief;  an'd  that 
a  school  for  free  sciences  ih  the  Latin  and 
Greek  languages  should  be  allowed  in  the 
Bratsky  Monastery,  as  before.  These  de- 
mands were  all  allowed,  with  the  exception 
of  that  asking  for  the  Metropolitan  the  title 
of  Exarch  of  the  Patriarch  of  Constanti- 
nople, as  this  was  thought  to  be  contradictory 
and  useless.  Orders  for  the  election  of  a 
Metropolitan  of  Kief  were  then  issued,  and 
although  at  first  there  was  some  difficulty  in 
persuading  the  clergy  that  they  could  safely 
venture  on  the  election  without  running  the 
risk  of  the  curse  of  the  Patriarch  of  Con- 
stantinople, as  his  permission  had  not  yet 
been  obtained, — and,  indeed,  had  not  even 
been  asked, — yet,  under  the  skillful  guidance 
of  Lazarus  Baranovitch,  the  assemblage 
elected  as  Metropolitan  Prince  Gideon  Svia- 
topolk  Tchetvertinsky,  the  Archbishop  of 
Lutzk,  who  had  been  obliged  to  leave 
Poland  on  account  of  the  oppression  which 
he  suffered  at  the  hands  of  the  Catholics 
and  Uniates,  and  had  taken  refuge  in  the 
Monastery  of  Baturin,  the  capital  of  Little 
Russia  and  the  residence  of  the  Hetman. 


Prince  Gideon — for  the  title  of  prince,  in 
conformity  to  the  Polish  custom,  had  been 
left  to  him — went  to  Moscow,  and  was  duly 
consecrated,  on  the  8th  of  November,  1585, 
by  Joachim,  the  Patriarch  of  Moscow, 
although  no  answer  had  yet  been  received 
from  Constantinople.  The  Archbishop  of 
Tchernfgof  and  the  Archimandrite  of  the 
Lavra  of  Kief,  Yasinsky,  refused  to  acknowl- 
edge Gideon  as  their  superior,  as  they  had 
for  many  years  been  subject  only  to  the 
supremacy  of  the  Patriarch  of  Moscow. 
A  compromise  was  made,  and  their  claims, 
to  be  independent  of  the  new  Metropolitan, 
were  allowed  during  the  lives  of  the  actual 
incumbents. 

At  the  end  of  1684,  a  Greek,  Zachariah 
Sophia,  had  been  sent  to  the  Patriarch  Jacob, 
of  Constantinople,  to  obtain  his  consent  to 
a  change  in  the  supremacy  of  the  Metrop- 
olis, but  the  Patriarch  had  replied  that  the 
times  were  so  troublous  with  the  Church  in 
Turkey  that  it  was  impossible  to  do  any- 
thing. The  Grand  Vizier  was  on  the  point 
of  death,  and  no  one  knew  who  would  take 
his  place.  After  the  consecration  of  Gideon, 
a  Government  secretary,  Nikita  Alexeief, 
was  sent  to  Adrianople,  where  the  Sultan 
was  then  living,  partly  to  complain  to  the 
Sultan  about  his  calling  the  people  from  the 
eastern  bank  of  the  Dnieper  to  the  western, 
and  partly  to  arrange  with  the  Patriarch 
about  the  Metropolis  of  Kief.  Alexeief, 
and  Lisitsa,  who  was  sent  by  the  Hetman, 
received  information  from  the  Patriarch  that 
it  was  impossible  for  him  to  do  anything 
until  he  had  the  consent  of  the  Grand  Vizier, 
as  it  would  be  necessary  to  call  together  the 
Metropolitans,  some  of  whom  disliked  him, 
and  would  be  sure  to  report  to  the  Grand 
Vizier  that  he  was  in  treaty  with  the  Mus- 
covites, and  he  would  then  be  at  once 
executed.  Alexeief  then  tried  to  get  an  in- 
terview with  Dositheus,  the  Patriarch  of 
Jerusalem,  who  was  at  that  time  in  Adrian- 
ople, making  collections  of  money.  He 
refused  to  see  Alexeief  until  he  had  had  an 
interview  with  the  Grand  Vizier.  Alexeief, 
after  seeing  the  Grand  Vizier,  was  permitted 
to  see  the  Patriarch  of  Jerusalem,  but  could 
not  succeed  in  making  him  agree  to  the 
Russian  proposals.  He  at  first  positively 
refused,  basing  his  objections  partly  on  rules 
of  church  discipline  and  partly  on  the  want 
of  respect  that  had  been  manifested  by  the 
election  and  consecration  of  the  Metropoli- 
tan without  the  consent  of  the  Eastern 
Church ;  and  said  that  it  was  a  division  of 
the  Church;  that  he  would  never  consent  to 


192 


PETER    THE   GREAT. 


it,  and  would  oppose  it  by  every  means  in 
his  power.  Alexeief  tried  to  explain  that 
the  distance  of  Little  Russia  from  Constan- 
tinople made  the  relations  with  that  Patri- 
arch a  matter  of  difficulty,  and  that,  as  Little 
Russia  was  now  united  with  Great  Russia, 
the  good  of  all  the  Christians  there  demanded 
religious  union.  He  was,  however,  able  to 
effect  nothing  with  Dositheus,  who  said  it 
was  impossible  to  do  anything  without  the 


arrival,  and  order  him  to  comply  with  the 
wishes  of  the  Tsars.  Alexeief  then  returned 
to  Dositheus,  the  Patriarch  of  Jerusalem, 
and  found  a  total  change  in  his  sentiments. 
Dositheus  said  he  had  succeeded  in  finding 
a  rule — which,  it  appeared,  had  escaped  his 
memory — by  which  an  archbishop  could 
always  pass  over  a  portion  of  his  eparchy  to 
another  archbishop,  and  promised  to  advise 
the  Patriarch  Dionysius  to  comply  with  the 


OLD    RUSSIAN    SPORTS.       BEAR    DANCING    BEFORE    THE     TSAR.       (FROM     A    PLACQUE     BY     A.    EGOROFF.) 


Gfand  Vizier.  Alex6ief  was  not  inclined  to 
have  the  Mussulmans  mixed  up  in  the  mat- 
ter. Having  learned  that  the  Patriarch  of 
Constantinople  had  been  overthrown  by  an 
intrigue,  and  that  Dionysius,  the  previous 
Patriarch,  had  again  ascended  the  throne, 
and  was  about  going  to  the  Porte  to  receive 
his  berat,  he  went  to  the  Grand  Vizier, 
and  explained  to  him  the  desire  of  the  Tsars 
with  regard  to  the  Metropolis  of  Kief.  The 
Turks,  who  were  threatened  by  war  on  three 
sides  and  wished  to  keep  the  peace  with 
Moscow,  were  willing  not  only  to  satisfy  the 
Russian  complaints  with  regard  to  the  emi- 
gration of  the  people  from  the  eastern  to  the 
western  banks  of  the  Dnieper,  but  to  free  the 
Russian  prisoners;  and  the  Grand  Vizier 
promised  to  send  for  the  Patriarch  on  his 


Russian  requests.  Furthermore,  he  himself 
wrote  to  the  Tsars,  and  he  gave  the  Patri- 
arch of  Moscow  his  blessing,  not  together 
with  the  Patriarch  of  Constantinople,  but 
alone.  Dionysius,  the  new  Patriarch  of 
Constantinople,  made  not  the  slightest  objec- 
tion, and  promised  that  as  soon  as  he  re- 
turned to  Constantinople  and  had  assembled 
his  Metropolitans,  he  would  give  all  the 
necessary  documents.  The  Grand  Vizier 
told  Alexeief  that  he  had  heard  of  the  efforts 
of  the  Poles  to  induce  Russia  to  enter  into 
an  alliance  with  them,  begged  him  to  ex- 
press to  the  Tsars  the  hope  and  wish  of  the 
Sultan  that  this  would  not  be  done,  and  that 
they  would  always  remain,  as  before,  in  the 
increased  love  and  friendship  of  the  Sultan ; 
and,  furthermore,  allowed  Alexe'ief  to  rebuild 


LAMENTATION. 


in  Constantinople  the  church  of  St.  John 
the  Baptist,  which  had  recently  been  burnt 
down.  This  Alexeief  had  asked  as  an  act 
of  kindness  to  the  Patriarch  of  Constanti- 
nople, for,  according  to  Turkish  law,  while 
service  could  be  freely  carried  on  in  the 
existing  Christian  churches,  no  new  ones 
were  allowed  to  be  built,  nor  were  old  ones 
accidentally  destroyed  or  ruined  allowed  to 
be  rebuilt;  mosques  were  erected  in  their 
place.  On  arriving  at  Constantinople, 
Alex6ief  received  all  the  necessary  docu- 


ments from  the  Patriarch,  presented  the 
Patriarch  of  Constantinople  with  200  ducats 
and  three  "  forties"  of  sables,  and  the  Patri- 
arch of  Jerusalem  with  200  ducats,  and  was 
requested  by  them  to  ask  the  Tsars  for 
presents  for  all  the  archbishops  who  had 
signed  the  document,  as  similar  presents  had 
been  given  when  the  Metropolitan  of  Mos- 
cow took  the  title  of  Patriarch.* 

*  This  history  of  the  re-union  of  KieT  reminds 
one  strongly  of  the  recent  history  of  the  formation 
of  an  independent  Bulgarian  Church. 


LAMENTATION. 

GONE  is  the  snow,  and  the  cold  ground  is  warming; 
Red  is  the  maple  and  green  is  the  willow; 

Blackbirds  are  chattering  free; 
Earth,  air,  and  water,  with  new  life  are  swarming; 
Summer-tide  surges  in,  billow  on  billow ; 
What  is  it  bringing  to  me? 

Life  of  my  life,  in  the  cold  ground  they  laid  her : 
Black  were  the  lilies  and  brown  were  the  beeches, 

Twittered  the  lone  chickadee; 
There,  many  a  weary  day,  Winter  has  staid  her; 
Summer,  sweet  Summer,  my  sorrow  beseeches, 
Bring  back  my  daughter  to  me! 

Nay,  mock  me  not  with  your  buds  and   your  greenery ! 
Spread  me  no  flowering  carpet  to  walk  upon ! 

Make  me  no  music,  I  pray. 
Desolate  heart  maketh  desolate  scenery; 

Only  one  theme  deigneth  sorrow  to  talk  upon; 
Take  all  your  pleasance  away! 

Green  is  the  grass  on  the  grave  where  she  lieth ; 
Sweet  with  the  wind  the  birds'  carol  accordeth, 

Strong  are  the  pulses  of  spring; 
Yet  to  my  pleading  no  kind  voice  replieth, 

None  in  these  blithe  tribes  my  sorrow  regardeth, 
From  my  heart  plucketh  the  sting. 

"  Will  not  be  comforted  "  ?     Nay,  Master,  hear  me ! 
Mothers  in  Bethlehem  wept  by  the  manger, 

Whence,  in  the  night,  Thou  hadst  fled ! 
Come  back  to  me,  I  pray ;  stay  ever  near  me ! 
Lest  to  my  heavy  heart  hope  be  a  stranger; 
Faith  find  her  grave  with  my  dead. 


VOL.  XX.— 14. 


194 


THE   GRANDISSIMES. 


THE   GRANDISSIMES* 


A    STORY    OF    CREOLE    LIFE. 
By  GEORGE  W.   CABLE,  author  of  "Old  Creole  Days." 


CHAPTER   XXXVII. 
HONORS   MAKES    SOME   CONFESSIONS. 

"  Comment  (h  va,  Raoul  ?  "  said  Honore" 
Grandissime;  he  had  come  to  the  shop 
according  to  the  proposal  contained  in  his 
note.  "  Where-h  is  Mr.  Frhowenfeld  ?  " 

He  found  the  apothecary  in  the  rear 
room,  dressed,  but  just  rising  from  the  bed 
at  sound  of  his  voice.  He  closed  the  door 
after  him;  they  shook  hands  and  took 
chairs. 

"  You  have  fevah,"  said  the  merchant. 
"I  have  been  trhoubled  that  way  myself, 
some,  lately."  He  rubbed  his  face  all  over, 
hard,  with  one  hand,  and  looked  at  the  ceil- 
ing. "  Loss  of  sleep,  I  suppose,  in  both  of 
us;  in  yo'  case  volunta'y — in  pu'suit  of 
study,  most  likely;  in  my  case — effect  of 
anxiety."  He  smiled  a  moment  and  then 
suddenly  sobered  as  he  said : 

"  But  I  heah  you  are-h  in  trhouble ;  may 
I  ask " 

Frowenfeld  had  interrupted  him  with 
almost  the  same  words  : 

"  May  I  venture  to  ask,  Mr.  Grandis- 
sime,  what " 

And  both  were  silent  for  a  moment. 

"  Oh,"  said  Honore^  with  a  gesture.  "  My 
trhouble — I  did  not  mean  to  mention  it ;  'tis 
an  old  matteh — in  paht.  You  know,  Mr. 
Frhowenfeld,  there-h  is  a  kind  of  trhee  not 
drheamed  of  in  botany,  that  lets  fall  its 
frhuit  everhy  day  in  the  yeah — you  know? 
We  call  it — with  rheverhence — '  ow  dead 
fathe's  mistakes.'  I  have  had  to  eat  much 
of  that  frhuit ;  a  man  who  has  to  do  that 
mus'  expect  to  have  now  and  then  a  little 
fevah." 

"  I  have  heard,"  replied  Frowenfeld,  "  that 
some  of  the  titles  under  which  your  relatives 
hold  their  lands  are  found  to  be  of  the  kind 
which  the  States'  authorities  are  pronounc- 
ing worthless.  I  hope  this  is  not  the  case." 

"  I  wish  they  had  nevva  been  put  into 
my  custody,"  said  M.  Grandissime. 

Some  new  thought  moved  him  to  draw 
his  chair  closer. 

"  Mr.  Frhowenfeld,  those  two  ladies  whom 
you  went  to  see  the  other-h  evening " 


His  listener  started  a  little : 

"Yes?" 

"  Did  they  evva  tell  you  their  historhy  ?  " 

"  No,  sir ;  but  I  have  heard  it." 

"  An'  you  think  they  have  been  deeply 
wrhonged,  eh  ?  Come,  Mr.  Frhowenfeld, 
take  rhight  hold  of  the  acacia-bush." 

M.  Grandissime  did  not  smile. 

Frowenfeld  winced. 

"  I  think  they  have." 

"  And  you  think  rhestitution  should  be 
made  them,  no  doubt,  eh  ?  " 

"  I  do." 

"  At  any  cost  ?  " 

The  questioner  showed  a  faint,  unpleasant 
smile,  that  stirred  something  like  opposi- 
tion in  the  breast  of  the  apothecary. 

"  Yes,"  he  answered. 

The  next  question  had  a  tincture  even  of 
fierceness : 

"  You  think  it  rhight  to  sink  fifty  or-h  a 
hundrhed  people  into  povetty  to  lift  one  o' 
two  out  ?  " 

"  Mr.  Grandissime,"  said  Frowenfeld, 
slowly,  "you  bade  me  study  this  commu- 
nity." 

•"  I  adv — yes ;  what  is  it  you  find  ?  " 

"  I  find — it  may  be  the  same  with  other 
communities,  I  suppose  it  is,  more  or  less — 
that  just  upon  the  culmination  of  the  moral 
issue  it  turns  and  asks  the  question  which 
is  behind  it,  instead  of  the  question  which  is 
before  it." 

"  And  what  is  the  question  befo'  me  ?  " 

"  I  know  it  only  in  the  abstract." 

"  Well  ?  " 

The  apothecary  looked  distressed. 

"  You  should  not  make  me  say  it,"  he 
objected. 

"  Nevvatheless,"  said  the  Creole,  "  I  take 
that  libbetty." 

"Well,  then,"  said  Frowenfeld,  "the 
question  behind  is  Expediency  and  the 
question  in  front,  Divine  Justice.  You  are 
asking  yourself " 

He  checked  himself. 

"Which  I  ought  to  rhegahd,"  said  M. 
Grandissime,  quickly.  "  Expediency,  of 
co'se,  and  be  like  the  rhest  of  mankind." 
He  put  on  a  look  of  bitter  humor.  "  It  is 
all  easy  enough  fo'  you,  Mr.  Frhowenfeld, 


Copyright,  1879,  by  George  W.  Cable.      All  rights  reserved. 


THE   GRANDISSIMES. 


'95 


ray-de'seh ;  you  have  the  easy  paht — the 
theorhizing." 

He  saw  the  ungenerousness  of  his  speech 
as  soon  as  it  was  uttered,  yet  he  did  not 
modify  it. 

"  True,  Mr.  Grandissime,"  said  Frowen- 
feld ;  and  after  a  pause — "  but  you  have  the 
noble  part — the  doing." 

"  Ah,  my-de'-seh  !  "  exclaimed  Honore ; 
"  the  noble  paht !  There-h  is  the  bitter- 
ness of  the  drhaught !  The  oppo'tunity  to 
act  is  pushed  upon  me,  but  the  oppo'tunity 
to  act  nobly  has  passed  by." 

He  again  drew  his  chair  closer,  glanced 
behind  him  and  spoke  low : 

"  Because  fo'  yeahs  I  have  had  a  kind  of 
custody  of  all  my  kinsmen's  prhopetty  inter- 
hests,  Agrhicola's  among  them,  it  is  sup- 
posed that  he  has  always  kept  the  plantation 
of  Aurore  Nancanou  (or  rather-h  of  Clotilde 
— who,  you  know,  by  ow  laws  is  the  rheal 
heir).  That  is  a  mistake.  Explain  it  as 
you  please,  call  it  rhemoss,  prhide,  love — 
what  you  like — while  I  was  in  France  and 
he  was  managing  my  motheh's  business, 
unknown  to  me  he  gave  me  that  plantation. 
When  I  succeeded  him  I  found  it  and  all 
its  rhevenues  kept  distinct — as  was  but 
prhoper — frhom  all  other-h  accounts,  and 
belonging  to  me.  'Twas  a  fine,  extensive 
place,  had  a  good  ove-seer-h  on  it  and — I 
kept  it.  Why  ?  Because  I  was  a  cowa'd. 
I  did  not  want  it  or-h  its  rhevenues ;  but, 
like  my  fatheh,  I  would  not  offend  my  peo- 
ple". Peace  first  and  justice  afte'wa'ds — 
that  was  the  prhinciple  on  which  I  quietly 
made  myself  the  trhustee  of  a  plantation  and 
income  which  you  would  have  given  back 
to  their-h  ownehs,  eh  ?  " 

Frowenfeld  was  silent. 

"  My-de'-seh,  rhecollect  that  to  us  the 
Grhandissime  name  is  a  trheasu'e.  And 
what  has  prheserved  it  so  long  ?  Cherhish- 
ing  the  unity  of  ow  family ;  that  has  done 
it ;  that  is  how  my  fatheh  did  it.  Just  or-h 
unjust,  good  o'  bad,  needful  o'  not,  done 
elsewhere-h  o'  not,  I  do  not  say;  but  it  is 
a  Crheole  trhait.  See,  even  now "  (the 
speaker  smiled  on  one  side  of  his  mouth) 
"  in  a  cettain  section  of  the  terrhitorhy  cet- 
tain  men,  Crheoles  "  (he  whispered,  gravely), 
"  some  Grandissimes  among  them,  evading  the 
United  States  rhevenue  laws  and  even  beat- 
ing and  killing  some  of  the  officials  :  well ! 
Do  the  people  at  lahge  rhepudiate  those 
men  ?  My-de'-seh,  in  no  wise,  seh !  No  ; 
if  they  were  Amerhicains — but  a  Louisianian 
— is  a  Louisianian;  touch  him  not;  when 
you  touch  him  you  touch  all  Louisiana ! 


So  with  us  Grhandissimes ;  we  ah  legion, 
but  we  ah  one.  Now,  my-de'-seh,  the 
thing  you  ask  me  to  do  is  to  cast  ovaboa'd 
that  old  trhaditional  prhinciple  which  is  the 
secrhet  of  ow  existence." 

"/ask  you?" 

"  Ah,  bah !  you  know  you  expect  it.  Ah ! 
but  you  do  not  know  the  upro'  such  an 
action  would  make.  And  no  '  noble  paht ' 
in  it,  my-de'-seh,  eitheh.  A  few  months 
ago — when  we  met  by  those  grhaves — if  I 
had  acted  then,  my  action  would  have  been 
one  of  pure-h — even  violent — ^^/"-sacrifice. 
Do  you  rhemembeh — on  the  levee,  by  the 
Place  d'Armes — me  asking  you  to  send 
Agrhicola  to  me  ?  I  trhied  then  to  speak 
of  it.  He  would  not  let  me.  Then,  my 
people  felt  safe  in  their  land-titles  and  pub- 
lic offices ;  this  rhestitution  would  have  hurt 
nothing  but  prhide.  Now,  titles  in  doubt, 
gove'ment  appointments  uncettain,  no 
rheady  capital  in  rheach  for-h  any  purpose 
except  that  which  would  have  to  be  handed 
oveh  with  the  plantation  (fo'  to  tell  you  the 
fact,  my-de'-seh,  no  other-h  account  on  my 
books  has  prhospe'd),  with  mattehs  changed 
in  this  way,  I  become  the  destrhoyer-h  of 
my  own  flesh  and  blood !  Yes,  seh !  and 
lest  I  might  still  find  some  rhoom  to  boast, 
anothe-h  change  moves  me  into  a  position 
where-h  it  suits  me,  my-de'-seh,  to  make  the 
rhestitution  so  fatal  to  those  of  my  name. 
When  you  and  I  fust  met,  those  ladies 
were-h  as  much  strhangehs  to  me  as  to  you 
— as  far-h  as  I  knew.  Then,  if  I  had  done 

this  thing but  now — now,  my-de'-seh,  I 

find  myself  in  love  with  one  of  them !  " 

M.  Grandissime  looked  his  friend  straight 
in  the  eye  with  the  frowning  energy  of  one 
who  asserts  an  ugly  fact. 

Frowenfeld,  regarding  the  speaker  with  a 
gaze  of  respectful  attention,  did  not  falter ; 
but  his  fevered  blood,  with  an  impulse  that 
started  him  half  from  his  seat,  surged  up 
into  his  head  and  face ;  and  then — 

M.  Grandissime  blushed. 

In  the  few  silent  seconds  that  followed, 
the  glances  of  the  two  friends  continued  to 
pass  into  each  other's  eyes,  while  about 
Honore's  mouth  hovered  the  smile  of  one 
who  candidly  surrenders  his  innermost  secret, 
and  the  lips  of  the  apothecary  set  them- 
selves together  as  though  he  were  whisper- 
ing to  himself  behind  them,  "  Steady." 

"  Mr.  Frhowenfeld,"  said  the  Creole,  tak- 
ing a  sudden  breath  and  waving  a  hand,  "  I 
came  to  ask  about  yd1  trhouble ;  but  if  you 
think  you  have  any  rheason  to  withold  yo' 
confidence " 


196 


THE   GRANDISSIMES. 


"  No,  sir ;  no !  But  can  I  be  no  help  to 
you  in  this  matter  ?  " 

The  Creole  leaned  back  smilingly  in  his 
chair  and  knit  his  fingers. 

"No,  I  did  not  intend  to  say  all  this ; 
I  came  to  offeh  my  help  to  you;  but 
my  mind  is  full — what  do  you  expect  ? 
My-de'-seh,  the  foam  must  come  fust  out 
of  the  bottle.  You  see  " — he  leaned  for- 
ward again,  laid  two  fingers  in  his  palm 
and  deepened  his  tone — "I  will  tell  you: 
this  trhee — '  ow  dead  fathe's  mistakes  ' — is 
about  to  drhop  another-h  rhotten  apple. 
I  spoke  just  now  of  the  upro'  this  rhestitu- 
tion  would  make ;  why,  my-de'-seh,  just  the 
mention  of  the  lady's  name  at  my  house, 
when  we  lately  held  the  fete  degrandpere,  has 
given  rhise  to  a  qua'll  which  is  likely  to  end 
in  a  duel." 

"  Raoul  was  telling  me,"  said  the  apothe- 
cary. 

M.  Grandissime  made  an  affirmative  ges- 
ture. 

"  Mr.  Frhowenfeld,  if  you — if  any  one — 
could  teach  my  people — I  mean  my  family 
— the  value  of  peace  (I  do  not  say  the  duty, 
my-de'-seh,  a  mehchant  talks  of  values) ;  if 
you  could  teach  them  the  value  of  peace, 
I  would  give  you,  if  that  was  yo'  phrice  " 
— he  ran  the  edge  of  his  left  hand  knife- wise 
around  the  wrist  of  his  right — "  that.  And 
if  you  would  teach  it  to  the  whole  com- 
munity— well — I  think  I  would  not  give  my 
head ;  maybe  you  would."  He  laughed. 

"  There  is  a  peace  which  is  bad,"  said 
the  contemplative  apothecary. 

"  Yes,"  said  the  Creole,  promptly,  "  the 
verhy  kind  that  I  have  been  keeping  all  this 
time — and  my  fatheh  befo'  me !  " 

He  spoke  with  much  warmth. 

"  Yes,"  he  said  again,  after  a  pause  which 
was  not  a  rest,  "  I  often  see  that  we  Grhand- 
issimes  are-h  a  good  example  of  the  Crheoles 
at  lahge ;  we  have  one  element  that  makes 
fo'  peace ;  that — pahdon  the  self-conscious- 
ness— is  myself;  and  another-h  element  that 
makes  fo'  strhife — led  by  my  uncle  Agrhic- 
ola ;  but,  my-de'-seh,  the  peace  element  is 
that  which  ought  to  make  the  strhife,  and 
the  strhife  element  is  that  which  ought  to  be 
made  to  keep  the  peace !  Mr.  Frhowen- 
feld, I  prhopose  to  become  the  strhife- 
makeh ;  how,  then,  can  I  be  a  peace-makeh 
at  the  same  time  ?  There-h  is  my  diffy- 
cultie." 

"  Mr.  Grandissime,"  exclaimed  Frowen- 
feld,  "if  you  have  any  design  in  view 
founded  on  the  high  principles  which  I  know 
to  be  the  foundations  of  all  your  feelings, 


and  can  make  use  of  the  aid  of  a  disgraced 
man,  use  me." 

"  You  ah  verhy  generhous,"  said  the 
Creole,  and  both  were  silent.  Honor£ 
dropped  his  eyes  from  Frowenfeld's  to  the 
floor,  rubbed  his  knee  with  his  palm,  and 
suddenly  looked  up. 

"  You  are-h  innocent  of  wrhong  ?  " 

"  Before  God." 

"  I  feel  sure-h  of  it.  Tell  me  in  a  few 
words  all  about  it.  I  ought  to  be  able  to 
extrhicate  you.  Let  me  hear-h  it." 

Frowenfeld  again  told  as  much  as  he 
thought  he  could,  consistently  with  his 
pledges  to  Palmyre,  touching  with  extreme 
lightness  upon  the  part  taken  by  Clotilde. 

"  Tunn  arhound,"  said  M.  Grandissime  at 
the  close ;  "  Let  me  see  the  back  of  yo' 
head.  And  it  is  that  that  is  giving  you  this 
fevah,  eh  ?  " 

"  Partly,"  replied  Frowenfeld ;  "  but  how 
shall  I  vindicate  my  innocence  ?  I  think  I 
ought  to  go  back  openly  to  this  woman's 
house  and  get  my  hat.  I  was  about  to  do 
that  when  I  got  your  note;  yet  it  seems  a 
feeble — even  if  possible — expedient." 

"  My  frhiend,"  said  Honore",  "  leave  it  to 
me.  I  see  yo'  whole  case,  both  what  you 
tell  and  what  you  conceal.  I  guess  it  with 
ease.  Knowing  Palmyre  so  well,  and  know- 
ing (what  you  do  not)  that  all  the  voudous 
in  town  think  you  a  sorcerer,  I  know  just 
what  she  would  drhop  down  and  beg  you 
faw — a  ouangan,  ha,  ha  !  You  see  ?  Leave 
it  all  to  me — and  yo'  hat  with  Palmyre,  take 
a  febrhifuge  and  a  nap,  and  await  word  frhom 
me." 

"  And  may  I  offer  you  no  help  in  your 
difficulty  ? "  asked  the  apothecary,  as  the 
two  rose  and  grasped  hands. 

"  Oh  !  "  said  the  '  Creole,  with  a  little 
shrug,  "  you  may  do  anything  you  can — 
which  will  be  nothing." 


CHAPTER    XXXVIII. 
TESTS    OF    FRIENDSHIP. 

FROWENFELD  turned  away  from  the 
closing  door,  caught  his  head  between 
his  hands  and  tried  to  comprehend  the 
new  wildness  of  the  tumult  within.  Honor6 
Grandissime  avowedly  in  love  with  one 
of  them — which  one  ?  Doctor  Keene  vis- 
ibly in  love  with  one  of  them — which 
one  ?  And  he  !  What  meant  this  bound- 
ing joy  that,  like  one  gorgeous  moth 
among  innumerable  bats,  flashed  to  and 
fro  among  the  wild  distresses  and  dis- 


THE    GRANDISSIMES, 


197 


mays  swarming  in  and  out  of  his  distem- 
pered imagination  ?  He  did  not  answer 
the  question ;  he  only  knew  the  confusion 
in  his  brain  was  dreadful.  Both  hands 
could  not  hold  back  the  throbbing  of  his 
temples ;  the  table  did  not  steady  the  trem- 
bling of  his  hands  ;  his  thoughts  went  hither 
and  thither,  heedless  of  his  call.  Sit  down 
as  he  might,  rise  up,  pace  the  room,  stand, 
lean  his  forehead  against  the  wall — nothing 
could  quiet  the  fearful  disorder,  until  at 
length  he  recalled  Honore's  neglected 
advice  and  resolutely  lay  down  and  Sought 
sleep;  and,  long  before  he  had  hoped  to 
secure  it,  it  came. 

In  the  distant  Grandissime  mansion,  Agric- 
ola  Fusilier  was  casting  about  for  ways  and 
means  to  rid  himself  of  the  heaviest  heart 
that  ever  had  throbbed  in  his  bosom.  He 
had  risen  at  sunrise  from  slumber  worse  than 
sleeplessness,  in  which  his  dreams  had  antici- 
pated the  duel  of  to-morrow  with  Sylvestre. 
He  was  trying  to  get  the  unwonted  quaking 
out  of  his  hands  and  the  memory  of  the 
night's  heart-dissolving  phantasms  from  be- 
fore his  inner  vision.  He  had  resort  to  a  very 
familiar,  we  may  say  time-honored,  prescrip- 
tion— rum.  He  did  not  use  it  after  the  vou- 
dou  fashion;  the  voudous  pour  it  on  the 
ground — Agricola  was  an  anti-voudou.  It 
finally  had  its  effect.  By  eleven  o'clock  he 
seemed,  outwardly  at  least,  to  be  at  peace 
with  everything  in  Louisiana  that  he  consid- 
ered Louisianian,  properly  so-called ;  as  to  all 
else  he  was  ready  for  war,  as  in  pea'ce  one 
should  be.  While  in  this  mood,  and  perform- 
ing at  a  side-board  the  solemn  rite  of  las  ouze, 
news  incidentally  reached  him,  by  the  mouth 
of  his  busy  second,  Hippolyte,  of  Frowen- 
feld's  trouble,  and  despite  Tolyte's  protesta- 
tions against  the  principal  in  a  pending 
"affair  "  appearing  on  the  street,  he  ordered 
the  carriage  and  hurried  to  the  apothe- 
cary's. 

When  Frowenfeld  awoke,  the  fingers  of 
his  clock  were  passing  the  meridian.  His 
fever  was  gone,  his  brain  was  calm,  his 
strength  in  good  measure  had  returned. 
There  had  been  dreams  in  his  sleep,  too: 
he  had  seen  Clotilde  standing  at  the  foot 
of  his  bed.  He  lay  now,  for  a  moment,  lost 
in  retrospection. 

"  There  can  be  no  doubt  about  it,"  said 
he,  as  he  rose  up,  looking  back  mentally  at 
something  in  the  past. 

The  sound  of  carriage-wheels  attracted 
his  attention  by  ceasing  before  his  street 
door.  A  moment  later  the  voice  of  Agric- 


ola was  heard  in  the  shop  greeting  Raoul- 
As  the  old  man  lifted  the  head  of  his  staff 
to  tap  on  the  inner  door,  Frowenfeld  opened 
it. 

"  Fusilier  to  the  rescue !  "  said  the  great 
Louisianian,  with  a  grasp  of  the  apothecary's 
hand  and  a  gaze  of  brooding  admiration. 

Joseph  gave  him  a  chair,  but  with  mag- 
nificent humility  he  insisted  on  not  taking  it 
until  "Professor  Frowenfeld"  had  himself 
sat  down. 

The  apothecary  was  very  solemn.  It 
seemed  to  him  as  if  in  this  little  back  room 
his  dead  good  name  was  lying  in  state,  and 
these  visitors  were  coming  in  to  take  their 
last  look.  From  time  to  time  he  longed  for 
more  light,  wondering  why  the  gravity  of 
his  misadventure  should  seem  so  great. 

"  H-m-h-y  dear  Professor !  "  began  the 
old  man.  Pages  of  print  could  not  com- 
prise all  the  meanings  of  his  smile  and 
accent;  benevolence,  affection,  assumed 
knowledge  of  the  facts,  disdain  of  results, 
remembrance  of  his  own  youth,  charity  for 
pranks,  patronage — these  were  but  a  few. 
He  spoke  very  slowly  and  deeply  and  with 
this  smile  of  a  hundred  meanings.  "  Why 
did  you  not  send  for  me,  Joseph  ?  Sir, 
whenever  you  have  occasion  to  make  a  list 
of  the  friends  who  will  stand  by  you,  right  or 
wrong — h-write  the  name  of  Citizen  Agric- 
ola Fusilier  at  the  top !  Write  it  large  and 
repeat  it  at  the  bottom !  You  understand 
me,  Joseph  ? — and,  mark  me, — right  or 
wrong ! " 

"  Not  wrong,"  said  Frowenfeld,  "  at  least 
not  in  defense  of  wrong;  I  could  not  do 
that ;  but,  I  assure  you,  in  this  matter  I  have 
done " 

"  No  worse  than  any  one  else  would  have 
done  under  the  circumstances,  my  dear  boy ! 
— Nay,  nay,  do  not  interrupt  me ;  I  under- 
stand you,  I  understand  you.  H-do  you 
imagine  there  is  anything  strange  to  me  in 
this — at  my  age  ?  " 

"But  I  am " 

" all  right,  sir  !  that  is  what  you  are. 

And  you  are  under  the  wing  of  Agricola 
Fusilier,  the  old  eagle ;  that  is  where  you 
are.  And  you  are  one  of  my  brood ;  that  is 
who  you  are.  Professor,  listen  to  your  old 
father.  The — man — makes — the — crime  ! 
The  wisdom  of  mankind  never  brought 
forth  a  maxim  of  more  gigantic  beauty.  If 
the  different  grades  of  race  and  society  did 
not  have  corresponding  moral  and  civil 
liberties,  varying  in  degree  as  they  vary — 
h-why  !  this  community,  at  least,  would  go 
to  pieces !  See  here !  Professor  Frowen- 


198 


THE   GRANDISSIMES. 


feld  is  charged  with  misdemeanor.  Very 
well,  who  is  he  ?  Foreigner  or  native  ? 
Foreigner  by  sentiment  and  intention,  or 
only  by  accident  of  birth  ?  Of  our  mental 
fibre — our  aspirations — our  delights — our 
indignations?  I  answer  for  you,  Joseph, 
yes  !— yes !  What  then  ?  H-why  then  the 
decision!  Reached  how?  By  apologetic 
reasonings?  By  instinct,  sir!  h-h-that 
guide  of  the  nobly  proud !  And  what  is  the 
decision  ?  Not  guilty.  Professor  Frowen- 
feld,  absolvo  te  /  " 

It  was  in  vain  that  the  apothecary  repeat- 
edly tried  to  interrupt  this  speech.  "  Citizen 
Fusilier,  do  you  know  me  no  better?" — 
"  Citizen  Fusilier,  if  you  will  but  listen ! " 
—such  were  the  fragments  of  his  efforts  to 
explain.  The  old  man  was  not  so  confident 
as  he  pretended  to  be  that  Frowenfeld  was 
that  complete  proselyte  which  alone  satisfies 
a  Creole ;  but  he  saw  him  in  a  predicament 
and  cast  to  him  this  life-buoy,  which  if  a 
man  should  refuse,  he  would  deserve  to 
drown. 

Frowenfeld  tried  again  to  begin. 

"Mr.  Fusilier " 

"  Citizen  Fusilier !  " 

"  Citizen,  candor  demands  that  I  unde- 
ceive   " 

"  Candor  demands — h-my  dear  Professor, 
let  me  tell  you  exactly  what  she  demands. 
She  demands  that  in  here — within  this  apart- 
ment— we  understand  each  other.  That 
demand  is  met." 

"  But "  Frowenfeld  frowned  impa- 
tiently. 

"  That  demand,  Joseph,  is  fully  met ! 
I  understand  the  whole  matter  like  an 
eye-witness  !  Now  there  is  another  demand 
to  be  met,  the  demand  of  friendship  !  In 
here,  candor ;  outside,  friendship ;  in  here, 
one  of  our  brethren  has  been  adventurous 
and  unfortunate  ;  outside " — the  old  man 
smiled  a  smile  of  benevolent  mendacity — 
"  outside,  nothing  has  happened." 

Frowenfeld  insisted  savagely  on  speaking ; 
but  Agricola  raised  his  voice,  and  gray  hairs 
prevailed. 

"  At  least,  what  has  happened  ?  The 
most  ordinary  thing  in  the  world  ;  Professor 
Frowenfeld  lost  his  footing  on  a  slippery 
gunwale,  fell,  cut  his  head  upon  a  protrud- 
ing spike,  and  went  into  the  house  of  Pal- 
myre  to  bathe  his  wound;  but  finding  it 
worse  than  he  had  at  first  supposed  it,  imme- 
diately hurried  out  again  and  came  to  his 
store.  He  left  his  hat  where  it  had  fallen, 
too  muddy  to  be  worth  recovery.  Hippo- 
lyte  Brahmin- Mandarin  and  others,  passing 


at  the  time,  thought  he  had  met  with  vio- 
lence in  the  house  of  the  hair-dresser,  and 
drew  some  natural  inferences,  but  have  since 
been  better  informed;  and  the  public  will 
please  understand  that  Professor  Frowen- 
feld is  a  white  man,  a  gentleman  and  a 
Louisianian,  ready  to  vindicate  his  honor, 
and  that  Citizen  Agricola  Fusilier  is  his 
friend!" 

The  old  man  looked  around  with  the  air 
of  a  bull  on  a  hill-top. 

Frowenfeld,  vexed  beyond  degree,  re- 
strained himself  only  for  the  sake  of  an 
object  in  view,  and  contented  himself  with 
repeating  for  the  fourth  or  fifth  time, — 

"  I  cannot  accept  any  such  deliverance." 

"  Professor  Frowenfeld,  friendship — so- 
ciety— demands  it ;  our  circle  must  be  pro- 
tected in  all  its  members.  You  have 
nothing  to  do  with  it.  You  will  leave  it 
with  me,  Joseph." 

"No,  no,"  said  Frowenfeld.  "I  thank 
you,  but " 

"  Ah !  my  dear  boy,  thank  me  not ;  I 
cannot  help  these  impulses ;  I  belong  to  a 
warm-hearted  race.  But  " — he  drew  back 
in  his  chair  sidewise  and  made  great  pre- 
tense of  frowning — "  you  decline  the  offices 
of  that  precious  possession,  a  Creole 
friend  ?  " 

"  I  only  decline  to  be  shielded  by  a  fic- 
tion." 

"  Ah-h  !  "  said  Agricola,  further  nettling 
his  victim  by  a  gaze  of  stagy  admiration. 
" '  Sans  peur  et  sans  reproche  ' — and  yet  you 
disappoint  me.  Is  it  for  naught,  that  I 
have  sallied  forth  from  home,  drawing  the 
curtains  of  my  carriage  to  shield  me  from 
the  gazing  crowd  ?  It  was  to  rescue  my 
friend — my  vicar — my  coadjutor — my  son, 
from  the  laughs  and  finger-points  of  the  vul- 
gar mass.  H-I  might  as  well  have^staid  at 
home — or  better,  for  my  peculiar  position 
to-day  rather  requires  me  to  keep  in " 

"  No,  Citizen,"  said  Frowenfeld,  laying 
his  hand  upon  Agricola's  arm,  "  I  trust  it  is 
not  in  vain  that  you  have  come  out.  There 
is  a  man  in  trouble  whom  only  you  can 
deliver." 

The  old  man  began  to  swell  with  compla- 
cency. 

"  H-why,  really 


"  He,  Citizen,  is  truly  of  your  kind  • 


"  He  must  be  delivered,  Professor  Frow- 
enfeld  " 

"  He  is  a  native  Louisianian,  not  only  by 
accident  of  birth  but  by  sentiment  and 
intention,"  said  Frowenfeld. 

The   old  man  smiled  a  benign   delight. 


THE   GRANDISSIMES. 


IQ9 


but  the  apothecary  now  had  the  upper  hand, 
and  would  not  hear  him  speak. 

"  His  aspirations,"  continued  the  speaker, 
"  his  indignations — mount  with  his  people's. 
His  pulse  beats  with  yours,  sir.  He  is  a 
part  of  your  circle.  He  is  one  of  your 
caste." 

Agricola  could  not  be  silent. 

"  Ha-a-a-ah !  Joseph,  h-h-you  make  my 
blood  tingle !  Speak  to  the  point ;  who 


"  I  believe  him,  moreover,  Citizen  Fusi- 
lier, innocent  of  the  charge  laid " 

"  H-innocent  ?  H-of  course  he  is  inno- 
cent, sir !  We  will  make  him  inno " 

"Ah!  Citizen,  he  is  already  under  sen- 
tence of  death !  " 

"  What  ?  A  Creole  under  sentence  ! " 
Agricola  swore  a  heathen  oath,  set  his  knees 
apart  and  grasped  his  staff  by  the  middle. 
"  Sir,  we  will  liberate  him  if  we  have  to 
overturn  the  government ! " 

Frowenfeld  shook  his  head. 

"  You  have  got  to  overturn  something 
stronger  than  government." 

"  And  pray  what " 

"A  conventionality,"  said  Frowenfeld, 
holding  the  old  man's  eye. 

"  Ha,  ha !  my  b-hoy,  h-you  are  right. 
But  we  will  overturn — eh  ?  " 

"  I  say  I  fear  your  engagements  will  pre- 
vent. I  hear  you  take  part  to-morrow 
morning  in " 

Agricola  suddenly  stiffened. 

"  Professor  Frowenfeld,  it  strikes  me,  sir, 
you  are  taking  something  of  a  liberty." 

"  For  which  I  ask  pardon,"  exclaimed 
Frowenfeld.  "  Then  I  may  not  expect " 

The  old  man  melted  again. 

"  But  who  is  this  person  in  mortal  peril  ?  " 

Frowenfeld  hesitated. 

"  Citizen  Fusilier,"  he  said,  looking  first 
down  at  the  floor  and  then  up  into  the 
inquirer's  face,  "  on  my  assurance  that  he  is 
not  only  a  native  Creole,  but  a  Grandissime 


"  It  is  not  possible  !  "  exclaimed  Agricola. 

" a  Grandissime  of  the  purest  blood, 

will  you  pledge  me  your  aid  to  liberate 
him  from  his  danger,  '  right  or  wrong  '  ?  " 

"Will  It   H-why,  certainly!    Who  is  he?" 

"  Citizen it  is  Sylves " 

Agricola  sprang  up  with  a  thundering 
oath. 

The  apothecary  put  out  a  pacifying  hand, 
but  it  was  spurned. 

"  Let  me  go  !  How  dare  you  ?  How 
dare  you,  sir  ?  "  bellowed  Agricola. 

He  started  toward  the  door,  cursing  furi- 


ously and  keeping  his  eye  fixed  on  Frowen- 
feld with  a  look  of  rage  not  unmixed  with 
terror. 

"  Citizen  Fusilier,"  said  the  apothecary, 
following  him  with  one  palm  uplifted,  as  if 
that  would  ward  off  his  abuse,  "  don't  go ! 
I  adjure  you,  don't  go !  Remember  your 
pledge,  Citizen  Fusilier !  " 

Agricola  did  not  pause  a  moment;  but 
when  he  had  swung  the  door  violently  open 
the  way  was  still  obstructed.  The  painter 
of  "  Louisiana  refusing  to  enter  the  Union  " 
stood  before  him,  his  head  elevated  loftily, 
one  foot  set  forward  and  his  arm  extended 
like  a  tragedian's. 

"  Stan'  bag-sah  !  " 

"  Let  me  pass !  Let  me  pass,  or  I  will 
kill  you !  " 

Mr.  Innerarity  smote  his  bosom  and 
tossed  his  hand  aloft. 

"  Kill  me-firse  an'  pass  aftah !  " 

"Citizen  Fusilier,"  said  Frowenfeld,  "I 
beg  you  to  hear  me." 

"  Go  away !     Go  away  !  " 

The  old  man  drew  back  from  the  door 
and  stood  in  the  corner  against  the  book- 
shelves as  if  all  the  horrors  of  the  last  night's 
dreams  had  taken  bodily  shape  in  the  per- 
son of  the  apothecary.  He  trembled  and 
stammered : 

"Ke— keep  off!  Keep  off!  My  God! 
Raoul,  he  has  insulted  me  !  "  He  made  a 
miserable  show  of  drawing  a  weapon.  "  No 
man  may  insult  me  and  live !  If  you  are  a 
man,  Professor  Frowenfeld,  you  will  defend 
yourself! " 

Frowenfeld  lost  his  temper,  but  his  hasty 
reply  was  drowned  by  Raoul's  vehement 
speech. 

"  'Tis  not  de  trute  !  "  cried  Raoul.  "  He 
try  to  save  you  from  hell-'n'-damnation  w'en 
'e  h-ought  to  give  you  a  good  cuss'n !  " — and 
in  the  ecstasy  of  his  anger  burst  into  tears. 

Frowenfeld,  in  an  agony  of  annoyance, 
waved  him  away  and  he  disappeared,  shut- 
ting the  door. 

Agricola,  moved  far  more  from  within 
than  from  without,  had  sunk  into  a  chair 
under  the  shelves.  His  head  was  bowed,  a 
heavy  grizzled  lock  fell  down  upon  his  dark, 
frowning  brow,  one  hand  clenched  the  top 
of  his  staff,  the  other  his  knee,  and  both 
trembled  violently.  As  Frowenfeld,  with 
every  demonstration  of  beseeching  kindness 
began  to  speak,  he  lifted  his  eyes  and  said, 
piteously : 

"  Stop  !     Stop  !  " 

"  Citizen  Fusilier,  it  is  you  who  must  stop. 
Stop  before  God  Almighty  stops  you,  I  beg 


200 


THE   GRANDISSIMES. 


you.  I  do  not  presume  to  rebuke  you.  I 
know  you  want  a  clear  record.  I  know  it 
better  to-day  than  I  ever  did  before.  Citi- 
zen Fusilier,  I  honor  your  intentions " 

Agricola  roused  a  little  and  looked  up 
with  a  miserable  attempt  at  his  habitual  pat- 
ronizing smile. 

"H-my  dear  boy,  I  overlook" — but  he 
met  in  Frowenfeld's  eyes  a  spirit  so  superior 
to  his  dissimulation  that  the  smile  quite 
broke  down  and  gave  way  to  another  of 
deprecatory  and  apologetic  distress.  He 
reached  up  an  arm. 

"  I  could  easily  convince  you,  Professor, 
of  your  error" — his  eyes  quailed  and 
dropped  to  the  floor — "but  I — your  arm, 
my  dear  Joseph ;  age  is  creeping  upon  me." 
He  rose  to  his  feet.  "  I  am  feeling  really 
indisposed  to-day — not  at  all  bright;  my 
solicitude  for  you,  my  dear  b " 

He  took  two  or  three  steps  forward,  tot- 
tered, clung  to  the  apothecary,  moved 
another  step  or  two,  and  grasping  the  edge 
of  the  table  stumbled  into  a  chair  which 
Frowenfeld  thrust  under  him.  He  folded 
his  arms  on  the  edge  of  the  board  and 
rested  his  forehead  on  them,  while  Frowen- 
feld sat  down  quickly  on  the  opposite  side, 
drew  paper  and  pen  across  the  table  and 
wrote. 

"Are  you  writing  something,  Professor?" 
asked  the  old  man,  without  stirring.  His 
staff  tumbled  to  the  floor.  The  apothecary's 
answer  was  a  low,  preoccupied  one.  He 
wrote  and  rejected  what  he  had  written  two 
or  three  times. 

Presently  he  pushed  back  his  chair,  came 
areund  the  table,  laid  the  writing  he  had 
made  before  the  bowed  head,  sat  down 
again  and  waited. 

After  a  long  time  the  old  man  looked  up, 
trying  in  vain  to  conceal  his  anguish  under 
a  smile. 

"  I  have  a  sad  headache." 

He  cast  his  eyes  over  the  table  and  took 
mechanically  the  pen  which  Frowenfeld 
extended  toward  him. 

"  What  can  I  do  for  you,  Professor  ? 
Sign  something  ?  There  is  nothing  I  would 
not  do  for  Professor  Frowenfeld.  What 
have  you  written,  eh  ?  " 

He  felt  helplessly  for  his  spectacles. 

Frowenfeld  read : 

"Mr.  Sylvestre  Grandissime:  I  spoke  in 
haste." 

He  felt  himself  tremble  as  he  read.  Agric- 
ola fumbled  with  the  pen,  lifted  his  eyes 
with  one  more  effort  at  the  old  look,  said : 

"  My  dear  boy,  I  do  this  purely  to  please 


you,"  and  to  Frowenfeld's  delight  and  aston- 
ishment wrote : 

"  Your  affectionate  uncle,  Agricola  Fusi- 
lier." 

CHAPTER   XXXIX. 
LOUISIANA   STATES   HER   WANTS. 

"  'SiEUR  FROWENFEL',''  said  Raoul  as  that 
person  turned  in  the  front  door  of  the  shop 
after  watching  Agricola's  carriage  roll  away 
— he  had  intended  to  unburden  his  mind  to 
the  apothecary  with  all  his  natural  impetu- 
osity ;  but  Frowenfeld's  gravity  as  he  turned, 
with  the  paper  in  his  hand,  induced  a  differ- 
ent manner.  Raoul  had  learned,  despite  all 
the  impulses  of  his  nature,  to  look  upon  Frow- 
enfeld with  a  sort  of  enthusiastic  awe.  He 
dropped  his  voice  and  said — asking  like  a 
child  a  question  he  was  perfectly  able  to 
answer — 

"  What  de  matta  wid  Agricole  ?  " 

Frowenfeld,  for  the  moment  well-nigh 
oblivious  of  his  own  trouble,  turned  upon 
his  assistant  a  look  in  which  elation  was 
oddly  blended  with  solemnity,  and  replied 
as  he  walked  by  : 

"  Rush  of  truth  to  the  heart." 

Raoul  followed  a  step. 

"  '  Sieur  FrowenfeP " 

The  apothecary  turned  once  more. 
Raoul's  face  bore  an  expression  of  earnest 
practicability  that  invited  confidence. 

"  'Sieur  Frowenfel',  Agricola  writ'n'  to 
Sylvestre  to  stop  dat  dool  ?  " 

"  Yes." 

"  You  goin'  take  dat  lett'  to  Sylvestre  ?  " 

"  Yes." 

"  'Sieur  Frowenfel',  dat  de  wrong  g-way. 
You  got  to  take  it  to  'Polyte  Brahmin- Man- 
darin, an'  'e  got  to  take  it  to  Valentine 
Grandissime,  an'  V  got  to  take  it  to  Sylves- 
tre. You  see,  you  got  to  know  de  manner 
to  make.  Once  'pon  a  time  I  had  a  difty- 
cultie  wid " 

"  I  see,"  said  Frowenfeld ;  "  where  may  I 
find  Hippolyte  Brahmin- Mandarin  at  this 
time  of  day  ?  *' 

Raoul  shrugged. 

"  Jf  the  pre-parish-ions  are  not  complitted, 
you  will  not  fine  'im ;  but  if  they  har  com- 
plitted— you  know  'im  ?  " 

"  By  sight." 

"  Well,  you  may  fine  him  at  Maspero's,  or 
helse  in  de  front  of  de  Veau-qui-t£te,  or 
helse  at  the  Cafe  Louis  Quatorze — mos' 
likely  in  front  of  de  Veau-qui-tete.  You 
know,  dat  diffycultie  I  had,  dat  arise  itseff 


THE   GRANDISSIMES. 


2OI 


from  de  discush'n  of  one  of  de  mil-littery 
mov'ments  of  ca-valry;  you  know,  I " 

"  Yes,"  said  the  apothecary ;  "  here,  Raoul, 
is  some  money ;  please  go  and  buy  me  a 
good,  plain  hat." 

"All  right."  Raoul  darted  behind  the 
counter  and  got  his  hat  out  of  a  drawer. 
"  Were  at  you  buy  your  hats  ?  " 

"  Anywhere." 

"  I  will  go  at  my  hatter." 

As  the  apothecary  moved  about  his  shop 
awaiting  Raoul's  return,  his  ©wn  disaster 
became  once  more  the  subject  of  his  anxi- 
ety. He  noticed  that  almost  every  person 
who  passed  looked  in.'  "  This  is  the  place," 
— "  That  is  the  man," — how  plainly  the 
glances  of  passers  sometimes  speak !  The 
people  seemed,  moreover,  a  little  nervous. 
Could  even  so  little  a  city  be  stirred  about 
such  a  petty,  private  trouble  as  this  of  his  ? 
No ;  the  city  was  having  tribulations  of  its 
own. 

New  Orleans  was  in  that  state  of  sup- 
pressed excitement  which,  in  later  days,  a 
frequent  need  of  reassuring  the  outer  world 
has  caused  to  be  described  by  the  phrase 
"  never  more  peaceable."  Raoul  perceived 
it  before  he  had  left  the  shop  twenty  paces 
behind.  By  the  time  he  reached  the  first 
corner  he  was  in  the  swirl  of  the  popular 
current.  He  enjoyed  it  like  a  strong  swim- 
mer. He  even  drank  of  it.  It  was  better 
than  wine  and  music  mingled. 

"  Twelve  weeks  next  Thursday,  and  no 
sign  of  re-cession ! "  said  one  of  two  rapid 
walkers  just  in  front  of  him.  Their  talk 
was  in  the  French  of  the  province. 

"  Oh,  re-cession  !  "  exclaimed  the  other 
angrily.  "  The  cession  is  a  reality.  That, 
at  least,  we  have  got  to  swallow.  Incredu- 
lity is  dead." 

The  first  speaker's  feelings  could  find 
expression  only  in  profanity. 

"  The  cession — we  wash  our  hands  of  it !  " 
He  turned  partly  around  upon  his  compan- 
ion, as  they  hurried  along,  and  gave  his 
hands  a  vehement  dry  washing.  "  If  Incre- 
dulity is  dead,  Non-participation  reigns  in  its 
stead,  and  Discontent  is  prime  minister ! "  He 
brandished  his  fist  as  .they  turned  a  corner. 

"  If  we  must  change,  let  us  be  subjects  of 
the  First  Consul !  "  said  one  of  another  pair 
whom  Raoul  met  on  a  crossing. 

There  was  a  gathering  of  boys  and  vaga- 
bonds at  the  door  of  a  gun-shop.  A  man 
inside  was  buying  a  gun.  That  was  all. 

A  group  came  out  of  a  "  coffee-house." 
"he  leader  turned  about  upon  the  rest : 


"  Ah,  bah  !  cette  Amayrican  libetty  !  " 

"  See  !  see  !  it  is  this  way !  "  said  another 
of  the  number,  taking  two  others  by  their 
elbows,  to  secure  an  audience,  "  we  shall  do 
nothing  ourselves;  we  are  just  watching  that 
vile  Congress.  It  is  going  to  tear  the  coun- 
try all  to  bits ! " 

"  Ah,  my  friend,  you  haven't  got  the 
inside  news,"  said  still  another — Raoul 
lingered  to  hear  him — "  Louisiana  is  going 
to  state  her  wants  !  We  have  the  liberty  of 
free  speech  and  are  going  to  use  it !  " 

His  information  was  correct;  Louisiana, 
no  longer  incredulous  of  her  Americaniza- 
tion, had  laid  hold  of  her  new  liberties  and 
was  beginning  to  run  with  them,  like  a  boy 
dragging  his  kite  over  the  clods.  She  was 
about  to  state  her  wants,  he  said. 

"  And  her  don't-wants,"  volunteered  one 
whose  hand  Raoul  shook  heartily.  "  We 
warn  the  world.  If  Congress  doesn't  take 
heed,  we  will  not  be  responsible  for  the  con- 
sequences! " 

Raoul's  hatter  was  full  of  the  subject. 
As  Mr.  Innerarity  entered,  he  was  saying 
good-day  to  a  customer  in  his  native  tongue, 
English,  and  so  continued : 

"  Yes,  under  Spain  we  had  a  solid,  quiet 
government —  Ah !  Mr.  Innerarity,  over- 
joyed to  see  you !  We  were  speaking  of 
these  political  troubles.  I  wish  we  might 
see  the  last  of  them.  It's  a  terrible  bad 
mess ;  corruption  to-day — I  tell  you  what — 
it  will  be  disruption  to-morrow.  Well,  it  is 
no  work  of  ours ;  we  shall  merely  stand  off 
and  see  it." 

"  Mi-frien',"  said  Raoul,  with  mingled 
pity  and  superiority,  "  you  haven't  got  doze 
inside  nooz ;  Louisiana  is  goin'  to  state  w'at 
she  want." 

On  his  way  back  toward  the  shop  Mr. 
Innerarity  easily  learned  Louisiana's  wants 
and  don't-wants  by  heart.  She  wanted  a 
Creole  governor ;  she  did  not  want  Casa 
Calvo  invited  to  leave  the  country;  she 
wanted  the  provisions  of  the  Treaty  of  Ces- 
sion hurried  up ;  "as  soon  as  possible," 
that  instrument  said ;  she  had  waited  long 
enough ;  she  did  not  want  "  dad  trile  bi- 
ju'y " — execrable  trash !  she  wanted  an 
unwatched  import  trade  !  she  did  not  want  a 
single  additional  Americam  appointed  to 
office  ;  she  wanted  the  slave  trade. 

Just  in  sight  of  the  bare-headed  and 
anxious  Frowenfeld,  Raoul  let  himself  be 
stopped  by  a  friend. 

The  remark  was  exchanged  that  the  times 
were  exciting. 

"  And  yet,"  said  the  friend,  "  the  city  was 


202 


THE   GRANDISSIMES. 


never  more  peaceable.  It  is  exasperating 
to  see  that  coward  governor  looking  so  dili- 
gently after  his  police  and  hurrying  on  the 
organization  of  the  Americain  volunteer 
militia!"  He  pointed  savagely  here  and 
there.  "  M.  Innerarity,  I  am  lost  in  admi- 
ration at  the  all  but  craven  patience  with 
which  our  people  endure  their  wrongs  !  Do 
my  pistols  show  too  much  through  my  coat  ? 
Well,  good-day;  I  must  go  home  and  clean 
my  gun ;  my  dear  friend,  one  don't  know 
how  soon  he  may  have  to  encounter  the 
Recorder  and  Register  of  Land-titles." 

Raoul  finished  his  errand. 

"  'Sieur  FrowenfeF,  excuse  me — I  take  dat 
lett'  to  Tolyte  for  you  if  you  want."  There 
are  times  when  mere  shop-keeping — any 
peaceful  routine — is  torture. 

But  the  apothecary  felt  so  himself;  he 
declined  his  assistant's  offer  and  went  out 
toward  the  Veau-qui-te'te. 


CHAPTER   XL. 
FROWENFELD    FINDS    SYLVESTRE. 

THE  Veau-qui-t&e  restaurant  occupied 
the  whole  ground  floor  of  a  small,  low,  two- 
story,  tile-roofed,  brick-and-stucco  building 
which  still  stands  on  the  corner  of  Chartres 
and  St.  Peter  streets,  in  company  with  the 
well-preserved  old  Cabildo  and  the  young 
Cathedral,  reminding  one  of  the  shabby  and 
swarthy  Creoles  whom  we  sometimes  see 
helping  better-kept  kinsmen  to  murder  time 
on  the  banquettes  of  the  old  French  Quar- 
ter. It  was  a  favorite  rendezvous  of  the 
higher  classes,  convenient  to  the  court-rooms 
and  municipal  bureaus.  There  you  found 
the  choicest  legal  and  political  gossips,  with 
the  best  the  market  afforded  of  meat  and 
drink. 

Frowenfeld  found  a  considerable  number 
of  persons  there.  He  had  to  move  about 
among  them  to  some  extent,  to  make  sure 
he  was  not  overlooking  the  object  of  his 
search. 

As  he  entered  the  door,  a  man  sitting 
near  it  stopped  talking,  gazed  rudely  as  he 
passed,  and  then  leaned  across  the  table  and 
smiled  and  murmured  to  his  companion. 
The  subject  of  his  jest  felt  their  four  eyes  on 
his  back. 

There  was  a  loud  buzz  of  conversation 
throughout  the  room,  but  wherever  he  went 
a  wake  of  momentary  silence  followed  him, 
and  once  or  twice  he  saw  elbows  nudged 
He  perceived  that  there  was  something  in 


the  state  of  mind  of  these  good  citizens  that 
made  the  present  sight  of  him  particularly 
discordant. 

Four  men,  leaning  or  standing  at  a  small 
bar,  were  talking  excitedly  in  the  Creole 
patois.  They  made  frequent  anxious,  yet 
amusedly  defiant,  mention  of  a  certain 
Pointe  Canadienne.  It  was  a  portion  of  the 
Mississippi  River  "  coast "  not  far  above 
New  Orleans,  where  the  merchants  of  the 
city  met  the  smugglers  who  came  up  from 
the  Gulf  by  way  of  Barrataria  bay  and  the 
bayou.  These  four  men  did  not  call  it 
by  the  proper  title  just  given;  there  were 
commercial  gentlemen  in  the  Creole  city, 
Englishmen,  Scotchmen,  Yankees,  as  well 
as  French  and  Spanish  Creoles,  who  in 
public  indignantly  denied,  and  in  private 
tittered  over,  their  complicity  with  the 
pirates  of  Grande  Isle,  and  who  knew  their 
trading  rendezvous  by  the  sly  nickname  of 
"  Little  Manchac."  As  Frowenfeld  passed 
these  four  men  they,  too,  ceased  speaking 
and  looked  after  him,  three  with  offensive 
smiles  and  one  with  a  stare  of  contempt. 

Farther  on,  some  Creoles  were  talking 
rapidly  to  an  Americain,  in  English. 

"  And  why  ?  "  one  was  demanding ;  "  be- 
cause money  is  scarce.  Under  other  gov- 
ernments we  had  any  quantity ! " 

"  Yes,"  said  the  venturesome  Americain  in 
retort,  "  such  as  it  was ;  assignats,  liberanzas, 
bons — Claiborne  will  give  us  better  money 
than  that  when  he  starts  his  bank." 

"  Hah  !  his  bank,  yes  !  John  Law  once 
had  a  bank,  too ;  ask  my  old  father.  What  do 
we  want  with  a  bank  ?  Down  with  banks  1 " 
The  speaker  ceased;  he  had  not  finished, 
but  he  saw  the  apothecary.  Frowenfeld 
heard  a  muttered  curse,  an  inarticulate  mur- 
mur, and  then  a  loud  burst  of  laughter. 

A  tall,  slender  young  Creole  whom  he 
knew,  and  who  had  always  been  greatly 
pleased  to  exchange  salutations,  brushed 
against  him  without  turning  his  eyes. 

"You  know,"  he  was  saying  to  a  com- 
panion, "  everybody  in  Louisiana  is  to  be  a 
citizen,  except  the  negroes  and  mules ;  that 
is  the  kind  of  liberty  they  give  us — all  eat 
out  of  one  trough." 

"  What  we  want,"  said  a  dark,  ill-looking, 
but  finely-dressed  man,  setting  his  claret 
down,  "  and  what  we  have  got  to  have,  is  " 
— he  was  speaking  in  French,  but  gave  the 
want  in  English — "  Representesh'n  wizout 
Taxa "  There  his  eye  fell  upon  Frow- 
enfeld and  followed  him  with  a  scowl. 

"  Mah  frang,"  he  said  to  his  table  com- 
panion, "  wass  you  sink  of  a  mane  w'at 


THE   GRANDISSIMES. 


203 


hask-a  one  nee-grow  to  'ave-a  on  shair  wiz 
'im,  eh  ? — in  ze  sem  room  ?  " 

The  apothecary  found  that  his  fame  was 
far  wider  and  more  general  than  he  had 
supposed.  He  turned  to  go  out,  bowing,  as 
he  did  so,  to  an  Ame"ricain  merchant  with 
whom  he  had  some  acquaintance. 

"  Sir  ?  "  asked  the  merchant,  with  severe 
politeness,  "  wish  to  see  me  ?  I  thought 

you As  I  was  saying,  gentlemen,  what, 

after  all,  does  it  sum  up  ?  " 

A  Creole  interrupted  him  with  an  answer : 

"  Leetegash'n,  Spoleeash'n,  Pahtitsh'n, 
Disintegrhash'n !  " 

The  voice  was  like  Honore's.  P'rowen- 
feld  looked;  it  was  Agamemnon  Grandis- 
sime. 

A  I  must  go  to  Maspero's,"  thought  the 
apothecary,  and  he  started  up  the  rue  Char- 
tres.  As  he  turned  into  the  rue  St.  Louis, 
he  suddenly  found  himself  one  of  a  crowd 
standing  before  a  newly-posted  placard,  and 
at  a  glance  saw  it  to  be  one  of  the  inflam- 
matory publications  which  were  a  feature  of 
the  times,  appearing  both  daily  and  nightly 
on  walls  and  fences. 

"  One  Amerry-can  pull'  it  down,  an'  Ca- 
mille  Brahmin  'e  pas'e  it  back,"  said  a  boy 
at  Frowenfeld's  side. 

Exchange  Alley  was  once  Passage  de  la 
Bourse,  and  led  down  (as  it  now  does  to  the 
State  House — late  St.  Louis  Hotel)  to  an 
establishment  which  seems  to  have  served 
for  a  long  term  of  years  as  a  sort  of  mer- 
chants' and  auctioneers'  coffee-house,  with 
a  minimum  of  china  and  a  maximum  of 
glass :  Maspero's— certainly  Maspero's  as  far 
back  as  1810,  and,  we  believe,  Maspero's 
the  day  the  apothecary  entered  it,  March 
9th,  1804.  It  was  a  livelier  spot  than  the 
Veau-qui-t&e ;  it  was  to  that  what  commerce 
is  to  litigation,  what  standing  and  quaffing 
is  to  sitting  and  sipping.  Whenever  the 
public  mind  approached  that  sad  state  of 
public  sentiment  in  which  sanctity  signs  pol- 
iticians' memorials  and  chivalry  breaks  into 
the  gun-shops,  a  good  place  to  feel  the 
thump  of  the  machinery  was  in  Maspero's. 

The  first  man  Frowenfeld  saw  as  he  en- 
tered was  M.  Valentine  Grandissime.  There 
was  a  double  semi-circle  of  gazers  and  lis- 
teners in  front  of  him  ;  he  was  talking,  with 
much  show  of  unconcern,  in  Creole  French. 

"Policy?  I  care  little  about  policy." 
He  waved  his  hand.  "  I  know  my  rights — 
and  Louisiana's.  We  have  a  right  to  our 
opinions.  We  have" — with  a  quiet  smile 
and  an  upward  turn  of  his  extended  palm — 
"  a  right  to  protect  them  from  the  attack  of 


interlopers,  even  if  we  have  to  use  gunpow- 
der. I  do  not  propose  to  abridge  the  liber- 
ties of  even  this  army  of  fortune-hunters. 
Let  them  think."  He  half  laughed.  "  Who 
cares  whether  they  share  our  opinions  or  not? 
Let  them  have  their  own.  I  had  rather  they 
would.  But  let  them  hold  their  tongues. 
Let  them  remember  they  are  Yankees.  Let 
them  remember  they  are  unbidden  guests." 
All  this  without  the  least  warmth. 

But  the  answer  came,  aglow  with  passion, 
from  one  of  the  semi-circle  whom  two  or 
three  seemed  disposed  to  hold  in  check. 
It  also  was  in  French,  but  the  apothecary 
was  astonished  to  hear  his  own  name 
uttered. 

"  But  this  fellow  Frowenfeld  " — the  speaker 
did  not  see  Joseph — "  has  never  held  his 
tongue.  He  has  given  us  good  reason  half 
a  dozen  times,  with  his  too  free  speech  and 
his  high  moral  whine,  to  hang  him  with  the 
lamp-post  rope !  And  now,  when  we  have 
borne  and  borne  and  borne  and  borne  with 
him,  and  he  shows  up,  all  at  once,  in  all  his 
rottenness,  you  say  let  him  alone!  One 
would  think  you  were  defending  Honore" 
Grandissime !  "  The  back  of  one  of  the 
speaker's  hands  fluttered  in  the  palm  of  the 
other. 

Valentine  smiled. 

"  Honor6  Grandissime  ?  Boy,  you  do 
not  know  what  you  are  talking  about.  Not 
Honor6 — ha,  ha !  A  man  who,  upon  his 
own  avowal,  is  guilty  of  affiliating  with  the 
Yankees.  A  man  whom  we  have  good 
reason  to  suspect  of  meditating  his  family's 
dishonor  and  embarrassment !  "  Somebody 
saw  the  apothecary  and  laid  a  cautionary 
touch  on  Valentine's  arm,  but  he  brushed  it 
off.  "As  for  Professor  Frowenfeld,  he 
must  defend  himself." 

"  Ha-a-a-ah !  " — a  general  cry  of  deris- 
ion from  the  listeners. 

"  Defend  himself  ? "  exclaimed  their 
spokesman;  "shall  I  tell  you  again  what 
he  is  ? "  In  his  vehemence,  the  speaker 
wagged  his  chin  and  held  his  clenched  fists 
stiffly  toward  the  floor.  "  He  is — he  is — he 


He  paused,  breathing  like  a  fighting  dog. 
Frowenfeld,  large,  white,  and  immovable, 
stood  close  before  him. 

"  Dey  'ad  no  bizniz  led  'im  come  oud  to- 
day," said  a  bystander,  edging  toward  a 
pillar. 

The  Creole,  a  small  young  man  not 
unknown  to  us,  glared  upon  the  apothecary ; 
but  Frowenfeld  was  far  above  his  blushing 
mood,  and  was  not  disconcerted.  This 


204 


THE   GRANDISSIMES. 


exasperated  the  Creole  beyond  bound;  he 
made  a  sudden,  angry  change  of  attitude, 
and  demanded: 

"  Do  you  interrup'  two  gen'lemen  in  dey 
conve'sition,  you  Yankee  clown  ?  Do  you 
igno'  dad  you  'ave  insult  me,  off-scow'ing  ?  " 

Frowenfeld's  first  response  was  a  stern 
gaze.  When  he  spoke,  he  said : 

"  Sir,  I  am  not  aware  that  I  have  ever 
offered  you  the  slightest  injury  or  affront; 
if  you  wish  to  finish  your  conversation  with 
this  gentleman,  I  will  wait  till  you  are 
through." 

The  Creole  bowed,  as  a  knight  who  takes 
up  the  gage.  He  turned  to  Valentine. 

"  Valentine,  I  was  sayin'  to  you  dad  diz 
pusson  is  a  cowa'd  and  a  sneak ;  I  repead 
thad !  I  repead  id !  I  spurn  you !  Go 
f 'om  yeh !  " 

The  apothecary  stood  like  a  white  cliff. 

It  was  too  much  for  Creole  forbearance. 
His  adversary,  with  a  long  snarl  of  oaths, 
sprang  forward  and  with  a  great  sweep  of 
his  arm  slapped  the  apothecary  on  the 
cheek.  And  then — 

What  a  silence ! 

Frowenfeld  had  advanced  one  step;  his 
opponent  stood  half  turned  away,  but  with 
his  face  toward  the  face  he  had  just  struck 
and  his  eyes  glaring  up  into  the  eyes  of  the 
apothecary.  The  semi-circle  was  dissolved, 
and  each  man  stood  in  neutral  isolation, 
motionless  and  silent.  For  one  instant 
objects  lost  all  natural  proportion,  and  to 
the  expectant  on-lookers  the  largest  thing  in 
the  room  was  the  big,  upraised,  white  fist  of 
Frowenfeld.  But  in  the  next — how  was 
this  ?  Could  it  be  that  that  fist  had  not 
descended  ? 

The  imperturbable  Valentine,  with  one 
preventing  arm  laid  across  the  breast  of  the 
expected  victim  and  an  open  hand  held 
restrainingly  up  for  truce,  stood  between  the 
two  men  and  said  : 

"  Professor  Frowenfeld — one  moment —  " 

Frowenfeld's  face  was  ashen. 

"  Don't  speak,  sir! "  he  exclaimed.  "  If  I 
attempt  to  parley  I  shall  break  every  bone 
in  his  body.  Don't  speak !  I  can  guess 
your  explanation — he  is  drunk.  But  take 
him  away." 

Valentine,  as  sensible  as  cool,  assisted  by 
the  kinsman  who  had  laid  a  hand  on  his  arm, 
shuffled  his  enraged  companion  out.  Frow- 


enfeld's still  swelling  anger  was  so  near  get- 
ting the  better  of  him  that  he  unconsciously 
followed  a  quick  step  or  two ;  but  as  Valen- 
tine looked  back  and  waved  him  to  stop,  he 
again  stood  still. 

"  Proffesseur — you  know, —  "  said  a  stran- 
ger, "  daz  Sylvestre  Grandissime." 

Frowenfeld  rather  spoke  to  himself  than 
answered : 

"  If  I  had  not  known  that,  I  should  have 

"  He  checked  himself  and  left  the 

place. 

While  the  apothecary  was  gathering  these 
experiences,  the  free  spirit  of  Raoul  Inner- 
arity  was  chafing  in  the  shop  like  an  eagle 
in  a  hen-coop.  One  moment  after  another 
brought  him  straggling  evidences,  now  of  one 
sort,  now  of  another,  of  the  "  never  more 
peaceable  "  state  of  affairs  without.  If  only 
some  pretext  could  be  conjured  up,  plausi- 
ble or  flimsy,  no  matter ;  if  only  some  man 
would  pass  with  a  gun  on  his  shoulder,  were 
it  only  a  blow-gun ;  or  if  his  employer  were 
any  one  but  his  beloved  Frowenfeld,  he  would 
clap  up  the  shutters  as  quickly  as  he  had 
already  done  once  to-day,  and  be  off  to  the 
wars.  He  was  just  trying  to  hear  imaginary 
pistol-shots  down  toward  the  Place  d  'Armes, 
when  the  apothecary  returned. 

"  D'  you  fin'  him  ?  " 

"  I  found  Sylvestre." 

"  'E  took  de  lett'  ?  " 

"  I  did  not  offer  it."  Frowenfeld,  in  a  few 
compact  sentences,  told  his  adventure. 

Raoul  was  ablaze  with  indignation. 

"  'Sieur  FrowenfeP,  gimmy  dat  lett' !  " 
He  extended  his  pretty  hand. 

Frowenfeld  pondered. 

"  Gimmy  'er !  "  persisted  the  artist ;  "  befo' 
I  lose  de  sight  from  dat  lett'  she  goin'  to  be 
hanswer  by  Sylvestre  Grandissime,  an'  'e 
goin'  to  wrat  you  one  appo-logie !  Oh  !  I 
goin'  mek  'im  crah  fo'  shem !  " 

"  If  I  could  know  you  would  do  only  as 

"  I  do  it !  "  cried  Raoul,  and  sprang  for 
his  hat;  and  in  the  end  Frowenfeld  let  him, 
have  his  way. 

"  I   had   intended  seeing  him "  the 

apothecary  said. 

"  Nevvamine  to  see ;  I  goin'  tell  him  ! " 
cried  Raoul,  as  he  crowded  his  hat  fiercely 
down  over  his  curls  and  plunged  out. 


(To  be  continued.) 


THE    CYPRIOTE  INSCRIPTIONS. 


205 


THE   CYPRIOTE   INSCRIPTIONS. 


EARLY  in  1874,  before  the  Metropolitan 
Museum  of  Art  in  New  York  City  was  fairly  ! 
open  to  visitors,  the  writer  went  thither,  in 
company  with  one  of  the  prominent  Shemitic 
scholars  of  the  city,  to  decipher  the  Phoe- 
nician inscriptions  of  the  Cesnola  collection. 
While  thus  engaged,  some  small  sculptured 
stones  were  shown  us,  inscribed  with  strange 
characters,  and  bearing  the  label  "  Cypriote 
inscriptions.  Nobody  can  read  them  yet." 
At  the  other's  suggestion,  the  writer  took 
upon  himself  the  task  of  investigating  these 
strange  characters,  and  deciphering  them  if 
possible.  A  few  of  the  characters  bore  strong 
resemblance  to  certain  letters  of  the  Phoe- 
nician alphabet,  some  to  the  Lycian  charac- 
ters; but  most  of  them  presented  a  complete 
puzzle. 

On  hunting  over  the  libraries,  it  appeared 
that  this  corner  of  archaeological  research 
had  not  been  quite  overlooked.  The  sharp 
eyes  of  the  great  Hebrew  lexicographer 
Gesenius  had  found  in  the  writing  of  Von 
Hammer  a  pseudo-Phoenician  inscription 
from  Cyprus,  which  he  thought  not  really 
Phoenician,  but  in  characters  like  those 
occurring  on  the  coins  of  Pamphylia.  This 
inscription,  by  the  way,  the  writer  has  since 
had  the  satisfaction  of  studying  on  the  spot. 
It  is  over  the  entrance  to  an  artificial,  cir- 
cular-domed grotto,  cut  in  the  solid  rock, 
amidst  a  nest  of  tombs  at  Alonia  tou  Epis- 
copou,  near  New  Paphos.  The  inscription 
is  in  Cypriote  characters,  and  shows  that  the 
grotto  was  a  shrine  to  Apollo  Hylates. 

At  that  stage  of  the  work,  however,  the 
decipherer  naturally  looked  to  the  Phoe- 
nician, which  was  not  so  well  known  as  now, 
even  four  years  ago,  and  to  the  almost' 
unknown  Lycian  and  Pamphylian ;  and 
the  task  seemed  hopeless.  But  a  further 
search  showed  that  that  ever-to-be-honored 
investigator,  the  Due  de  Luynes,  as  long 
ago  as  1850, had  obtained  abronze  tabletthat 
was  found  near  Dali  (ancient  Idalium),  in 
Cyprus,  covered  with  Cypriote  characters, 
which  moved  him  to  collect  and  publish  all 
the  inscriptions  of  the  sort  then  known,  in- 
cluding coins  and  other  small  objects.  His 
work  appeared  in  1852,  a  beautiful  quarto, 
entitled  "  Numismatique  et  Inscriptions  Cyp- 
riotes," which  is  not  yet  entirely  superseded 
by  later  publications.  Naturally,  it  contains 
a  few  plates  and  descriptions  which  do  not 
belong  to  the  subject;  notably  one  object 


from  the  so-called  Tabula  Isiaca  in  the  museum 
at  Turin,  whose  history  has  been  traced  for 
upward  of  four  hundred  years,  but  which  is 
now  generally,  with  probable  justice,  consid- 
ered the  fabrication  of  some  Italian  silver- 
smith. The  Due  de  Luynes  attempted 
further  to  classify  an  alphabet  and  begin 
the  deciphering  ;  but  without  success.  One 
character  he  wrongly  took  to  be  a  mark  of 
punctuation  ;  and,  of  all  his  conjectures 
about  the  alphabet,  only  one  has  proved  ac- 
cidentally to  be  correct,  viz.,  that  a  character 
he  took  to  be  S,  actually  has  that  consonant 
power.  But  his  labor  shows  acumen  ;  he 
proved,  even  then,  that  the  writing,  whatever 
it  might  be,  read  from  right  to  left. 

Professor  E.  M.  Roth,  of  Heidelberg, 
made  the  next  attempt,  and  published  a 
beautifully  printed  quarto  in  1855,  at  tne  ex~ 
pense  of  the  Due  de  Luynes.  According  to 
his  conjectures  (for  they  were  nothing  else), 
he  concluded  the  writing  on  the  bronze  tab- 
let to  be  a  proclamation  of  Amasis,  the 
Egyptian  conqueror  of  Cyprus,  to  his  Cyp- 
riote subjects.  His  attempt  at  translation 
may  be  called  ingenious,  but  nothing  more. 

Adolph  Helfferich,  of  Frankfort-on-the- 
Main,  next  tried  his  hand  at  the  tablet,  in 
1869.  He  made  it  out  to  be  a  psalm  of 
praise  of  a  Phoenician  colony  in  Cyprus,  in 
which  the  fruits  of  Bacchus  and  Ceres  have 
a  share  in  the  colonists'  laudation.  But  this 
was  another  conjectural  flight. 

Meanwhile,  several  new  discoveries  had 
been  made  of  Cypriote  inscriptions,  one  of 
which,  had  it  been  correctly  published, 
would  have  helped  on  the  decipherment. 
This  was  a  bilingual  (or  digraphic,  as  both 
inscriptions  are  in  the  same  language),  pub- 
lished by  De  Vogue,  and  now  in  Paris.  It 
occurs  on  a  mortuary  monument,  just  be- 
neath the  sculptured  figures  of  two  lions- 
seated  back  to  back,  closely  resembling  a 
stone  figured  in  one  of  the  cuts  in  Cesnola's 
:<  Cyprus."  It  is  here  shown  as  Figure  i. 


FIG.    I.  -  BILINGUAL  OF  DE  VOGUE,  NOW   IN    THE   LOUVRE 
AT     PARIS. 

The  Greek  scholar  will  see  that  the  left  hand 
portion  is  in  Greek  uncials,  and  answers  to 
the  English  "  Karyx  am  I  "  ;  the  word  Karyx 
being  also  the  Greek  common  noun  for  a 


2O6 


THE   CYPRIOTE  INSCRIPTIONS. 


FIG.    2. — BILINGUAL    TABLET    OF    DALI,    NOW    IN    THE    BRITISH    MUSEUM. 


herald.  The  Cypriote  portion  on  the  right 
contains  the  syllables  ka,  ru,  xe,  e,  mi,  which 
is  precisely  the  same  as  the  Greek  portion, 
only  it  reads  from  right  to  left  in  the  in- 
scription. But  De  Vogue",  not  knowing 
more  than  the  rest  of  the  learned  world, 
mistook  a  scratch  on  the  stone  for  a  stroke  of 
the  first  character,  so  that  when  his  copy  came 
to  be  examined  in  the  light  of  later  years, 
this  character  seemed  to  read  ti.,  and  misled 
us  all,  retarding  the  work  of  decipherment 
in  no  small  degree.  It  fell  to  the  lot  of  the 
writer  to  rectify  this  mistake,  which  he  dis- 
covered in  a  moment  on  seeing  the  stone 
in  the  Louvre,  in  Paris.  Since  then,  three 
French  savants  have  confirmed  the  correc- 
tion. 

A  new  impulse  was  now  given  by  the  dis- 
coveries of  General  di  Cesnola.  Among  the 
numerous  inscriptions  found  by  him  are  two 
quasi  bilinguals ;  but  even  to  this  day  they 
have  not  helped  at  all,  while  others  of  his 
inscriptions  have  afforded  wonderful  aid. 
But  at  the  same  time  that  he  was  exploring 
Cyprus,  a  bilingual  inscription  was  found 
by  Mr.  R.  H.  Lang,  subsequently  British 
consul  to  Cyprus,  which  really  furnished 
the  key.  This  inscription,  now  in  the  Brit- 
ish Museum,  is  on  a  block  of  marble  that 
probably  was  once  the  pedestal  of  a  statue 
of  Apollo  Amyclaean,  the  Phoenician  Re- 
sheph  Mical,  at  Dali.  It  is  here  represented 
as  Fig.  2.  The  upper  part  is  in  the  Phoe- 
nician character  and  language,  the  lower  in 
Cypriote.  The  Phoenician  could  TDC  imme- 


diately translated.  It  reads  as  follows, 
being  somewhat  broken : 

"[On   the day   of  the  month ],   in   the 

year  four  (IIII)  of  the  reign  of  Melekiathon  [king 
of  Citium  and  Idalium,  a  statue]  this;  which  our 
Lord  Baal  Ra  [m,  son  of  Abdamelek],  gave  and 
dedicated  to  Resheph  Michal ;  when  he  heard  his 
voice,  he  blessed." 

This  king  Melekiathon,  or  Milkiathon, 
lived  about  370  B.  c.  Some  of  his  Phoe- 
nician inscriptions,  with  others  of  his  son 
Pumiathon,  are  in  the  Cesnola  collection  in 
New  York. 

This  inscription,  with  the  Cesnola  in- 
scriptions,— which  were  then  in  London  on 
exhibition,  before  their  purchase  by  the 
Metropolitan  Museum, — together  with  the 
work  of  De  Luynes,  furnished  abundant 
material  for  the  British  scholars  to  work 
upon,  before  the  Americans  had  a  chance. 

It  fell  to  a  most  deserving  man,  no  other 
than  the  brilliant  Assyrian  scholar,  the  late 
lamented  George  Smith,  to  light  upon  the 
key.  A  hint  at  his  process  will  not  be 
amiss  here.  After  many  false  starts,  in  the 
vain  attempt  to  pick  out  the  Cypriote 
groups  of  characters  that  represent  proper 
names,  he  observed  that  the  first  word 
(legible  to  him)  and  the  last  word  of  the 
first  line  were  evidently  the  same,  though 
having  different  endings.  He  therefore 
equated  them  with  the  Phoenician  word 
melek  (king),  as  that  word  appeared  to  him 
to  occur  twice  in  the  Phoenician  portion. 


THE   CYPRIOTE  INSCRIPTIONS. 


207 


He  was  not  entirely  right  here,  but  near 
enough  for  his  purpose.  Next,  he  equated 
the  longest  Cypriote  group  with  the  Phoe- 
nician name  Melekiathon,  and  so  on  with 
the  other  proper  names,  though  the  order 
of  words  is  different  in  the  two  portions  of 
the  inscription,  causing  many  difficulties. 
We  cannot  here  follow  the  interesting  detail, 
but  he  soon  found  that  probably  the  char- 
acters represented  syllables,  that  the  Cypriote 
nouns  were  inflected  by  case,  and  that  the 
word  for  king  was  the  Greek  word  basileus. 
Unable  to  proceed  farther  with  the  stone 
tablet,  he  tried  the  coins,  and  read  several 
proper  names.  He  finished  his  work  with 
a  list  of  fifty-four  characters,  of  which  nearly 
thirty  have  proved  to  be  approximately  cor- 
rect, though  far  from  absolutely  so.  The 
work  of  Smith,  however,  is  by  far  the  most 
brilliant  that  has  been  accomplished  in  the 
deciphering  of  Cypriote. 

The  work  was  next  taken  up  by  Dr. 
Samuel  Birch,  of  the  British  Museum.  In 
ingenuity  and  scholarly  ability  his  work  de- 
serves the  highest  praise.  It  is  almost 
certain  that,  had  he  not  been  misled  by  the 
mistake  already  noticed  in  the  publication 
of  De  Vogu6,  he  would  have  carried  the 
work  almost  to  its  present  point.  His 
results  were  full  of  brilliancy,  though  rather 
negative  than  positive,  consisting  more  in 
showing  what  could  not  be  true  than  in 
that  which  was  true.  Yet  he  determined 
several  new  characters,  showed  that  the 
language  was  substantially  Greek,  and  fixed 
the  approximate  date  of  the  bronze  tablet 
of  De  Luynes.  Thenceforward  the  sup- 
position that  the  language  was  Shemitic 
might  be  dropped.  It  had  misled  all  his 
predecessors.  A  hint  of  his  prepared  the 
way  for  Johannes  Brandis,  who  next  made 
a  positive  advance  in  the  decipherment, 
but  death  cut  him  short.  His  work  ap- 
peared as  a  posthumous  one,  edited  by 
Ernst  Curtius.  His  alphabet  may  be  seen 
in  Cesnola's  "  Cyprus,"  but,  though  the  best 
then  made,  it  is  far  from  perfect.  With  all 
its  help  not  a  single  Cypriote  inscription 
could  yet  be  read,  except  the  legend  on  a 
coin  or  two,  consisting  of  a  proper  name  and 
the  word  for  king. 

Such  was  the  state  of  the  investigation  at 
the  time  the  Cesnola  collection  arrived  in 
America,  when  the  writer  felt  called  to  the 
work.  The  farthest  advance  appeared  in 
Brandis,  and  nearly  half  of  that  was  errone- 
ous. He  had  not  yet  discovered  what 
George  Smith  had  believed — that  the  alpha- 
bet was  a  true  syllabary  throughout.  The 


Cesnola  inscriptions  were  known  through 
Europe  only  by  imperfect  paper  squeezes 
and  plaster  casts;  but  the  writer  had  the 
advantage  of  the  originals,  and  was  able  at 
once  to  detect  Brandis's  confusion  of  two 
characters,  and  thus  discover  another.  Very 
soon  the  Cypriote  portion  of  the  British 
Museum  bilingual  yielded  to  a  patient  attack, 
and  was  translated  nearly  as  perfectly  as 
ever  since,  except  a  word  and  some  charac- 
ters not  occurring  in  George  Smith's  copy, 
but  read  later  by  the  writer  when  he  saw  the 
stone  in  London.  For  the  benefit  of  those 
who  may  wish  to  follow  it  more  closely,  as 
well  as  to  give,  at  the  same  time,  a  specimen 
of  the  deciphered  writing,  the  Cypriote  por- 
tion is  here  appended  ;  first  in  Roman  syl- 
lables, and  then  in  Greek  letters.  The 
numbers  denote  the  lines  on  the  stone.  In 
Roman,  or  Italics  : 

(i.)  *  *  *  we,  te.  i,  |  pa.  si.  le.  wo.  se.  \  mi.  li. 
ki.  ia.  to.  no.  se.  \  ke.  ti.  o.  ne.  \  ka.  te.  ta.  li.  o.  ne.  \ 
pa.  si.  le.  u.  \ 

(2.  )  *  *  *  ko.  me.  na.  ne.  \  to.  pe.  pa.  me.  ro.  ne. 
|  ne.  wo.  so.  ta.  ta.  se.  I  to.  na.  ti.  ri.  ia.  ta.  ne.  \ 
to.  te.  ka.  te.  sa.  ta.  se.  \  o.  wa.  na.  xe.  \ 

(3.  )  o.  a.  pi.  ti.  mi.  li.  ko.  ne.  \  to.  a.  po.  lo.  ni. 
to.  a.  mu.  ko.  lo.  i.  \  a.  po.  i.  wo.  i.  \  ta.  se.  \  e.  u. 
ko.  la.  se.  | 

(4.)  e.  pe.  tu.  ke.  \  i.  tu.  ka.  i.  \  a.  ke.  ta.  i.  \ 

Lines  (i)  and  (2)  are  defective  at  the  be- 
ginning. Lines  (3)  and  (4)  are  intact.  In 
Greek  letters,  according  to  the  best  translit- 
eration : 


(i.)    *    *    *    Vfc'rei 
Krjnwv  xa  <r'  'H<5aX»uv 
(2.)  *     *      * 


MiXxnadwvog 
v    TW(V) 


(u£  xa.Tetira.6s  6 

(3.)      6     'A/3<5i|a»Xxuv     <ru     'A*oX(X)wvt 
fAnxXwi  dip'  uii  Voi  <ra£  sup^wXaj 
(4.)  eifsrv%e  /(v)  T 


This  is  a  sort  of  Greeek  not  readily  read  by 
the  tyro.     The  English  of  it  is  this  : 

"  In  the  year  -  King  Milkiathon,  being  king 
over  the  Citians  and  the  Idalians,  -  the  latest 
of  the  five  intercalary  days,  the  prince  -  (son) 
of  Abdimilcon,  set  up  this  statue  to  Apollo  Amy- 
clsean,for  the  (reason)  that  he  met  for  him  his  prayers 
in  happy  fortune." 

The  first  of  the  Cesnola  inscriptions  to 
yield  was  the  one  inscribed  on  a  pedestal  of 
soft  stone,  between  the  two  feet  of  a  broken- 
off  statuette.  The  stone  is  that  of  Golgoi,  but 
it  was  found  in  the  ruins  of  the  temple  of 
Aphrodite,  at  Old  Paphos.  It  is  here  given 


208 


THE   CYPRIOTE  INSCRIPTIONS. 


as  Fig.  3.  The  following  is  the  reading 
then  made ;  but  there  is  some  doubt  as  to 
the  article  and  adjective  in  the  second  line, 
which  is  not  yet  solved.  If  the  statuette 
was  really  dedicated  to  Apollo  at  Golgoi, 
this  reading  is  probably  correct.  If  to 
Aphrodite  at  Paphos,  then  another  reading 
must  be  substituted,  which  need  not  trouble 
us  here : 

(i.)  "Egotos  set  (this)  up  tp  the  (2.)  god,  the 
auspicious  (3.)  in  happy  fortune." 

During  the  spring  and  summer  of  1874, 
the  writer  was  at  work  at  the  Cesnola  inscrip- 
tions, together  with  those  of  D^  Luynes, 
and  succeeded  in  making  considerable  prog- 
ress. While  preparing  an  article  for  the 
October  meeting  of  the  American  Oriental 
Society  in  New  York,  there  arrived  from 
Europe  an  autograph-lithograph  publication 
on  the  subject,  by  Professor  Moriz  Schmidt, 
of  Jena.  This  was  an  able  and  learned 
treatise,  showing  knowledge  of  all  the  sources 
of  information  on  the  subject,  and,  in  the 
main,  arriving  at  the  same  conclusions  as  the 
writer.  As  to  the  differences:  in  some  of 
them  one  decipherer  has  been  sustained ; 
in  some  the  other;  in  some  neither. 
Schmidt  had  remarkable  fitness  for  the  work 
by  training,  having  already  edited  the  ancient 
lexicon  of  Hesychius,  which  contains  many 
peculiarities  of  the  ancient  Greek  of  Cyprus 
not  always  credited  hitherto  by  scholars, 
but  now  confirmed  in  many  particulars  by 
the  inscriptions.  Schmidt  has  secured,  as 
he  deserved,  the  priority  of  publication. 

There  were,  however,  other  independent 
workers.  Drs.  Wilhelm  Deecke  and  Justus 
Siegismund,  of  Strasburg,  the  latter  of  whom 
met  his  death  in  a  tomb  at  Amathus,  in 
Cyprus,  had  also  prepared  a  work,  which 
appeared  in  print  in  Europe  about  the  time 


some  instances  they  coincided  with  the  writer 
as  against  Schmidt;  and  in  one  case,  where 
Schmidt  had  made  no  attempt,  they  and  the 
writer  had  reached  the  same  probable  con- 
clusion by  different  lines  of  argument,  which 
has  since  been  shown  to  be  wrong  by  Dr. 
Ahrens,  of  Hanover. 

Since  the  work  above  related,  there  has 
been  little  progress  in  deciphering  unknown 
characters,  though  many  inscriptions  have 
been  read.  Very  soon  thereafter,  Dr.  Ahrens 
issued  a  treatise,  such  as  could  be  written 
only  by  a  life-long  student  and  able  master 
of  Greek  dialects ;  but  in  several  matters  he 
was  mistaken  as  to  the  reading  of  the  inscrip- 
tions. In  this  last  respect  it  has  been  the 
writer's  fortune  to  push  the  matter  to  the 
farthest  limits  yet  reached  ;  but  the  end  is  not 
reached  yet.  Difficulties  are  mingled  with 
encouragement.  The  Cesnola  Cypriote  in- 
scriptions of  the  first  collection  were  pub- 
lished in  fac-simile  by  the  writer,  in  Volume 
ten  of  the  "  Journal  of  the  American  Oriental 
Society,"  and  a  short  treatise  on  the  whole 
subject  was  presented  by  him  to  the  New 
York  State  University  Convocation  at  Albany 
in  1875,  when  first  appeared  in  English  a 
translation  of  the  bronze  tablet  above  re- 
ferred to  as  figured  in  the  work  of  De 
Luynes.  Sundry  English  attempts  at  vari- 
ous inscriptions,  published  independently  a 
little  later,  are  by  no  means  as  completely 
done  as  those  that  appeared  in  America. 

The  language  of  the  inscriptions,  as  has 
been  already  said,  is  Greek,  but  it  has  a 
number  of  remarkable  dialectic  peculiarities 
interesting  only  to  the  Greek  scholar.  It  is 
by  no  means  easy  to  read,  nor  can  a  fresh 
hand  who  knows  Greek  well  read  it  readily 
with  the  help  of  a  syllabary.  In  dialect  it 
is  nearest  to  the  Doric  and  Arcadian,  but 
its  strongest  peculiarities  are  its  own.  Each 


FIG.  3.— DEDICATORY    INSCRIPTION    OF    STATUETTE,    FOUND    AT    PAPHOS.       NOW    IN    THE 
METROPOLITAN    MUSEUM    OF    ART,    NEW   YORK. 


that  the  writer's  article  was  read  before  the 
Oriental  Society,  and  which  arrived  in  Amer- 
ica a  short  time  later.  They,  too,  had  arrived 
at  mainly  the  same  results ;  but  had  made 
some  discoveries  peculiarly  their  own.  In 


character  is  an  open  syllable,  either  a  vowel 
or  a  consonant  followed  by  a  vowel ;  and 
the  characters  have  their  own  laws  of  com- 
bination into  words.  There  is  no  difference 
between  the  different  classes  of  mutes  of  the 


THE    CYPRIOTE  INSCRIPTIONS. 


209 


same  vocal  organ  ;  the  same  character  stands 
for  pa,  ba  or  pha.  With  this  exception, 
together  with  the  fact  that  there  is  no  dis- 
tinction between  long  and  short  vowels,  the 
theoretical  Greek  syllabary  is  tolerably  com- 
plete. Very  striking,  as  well  as  refreshing 
to  the  digger-out  of  Greek  roots,  is  the  fact 
that  the  digamma  here  finds  its  resurrection. 
It  is  actually  in  use  in  the  Cypriote  writing, 
as  well  as  the  use  of/  (Germany  or  English 
y)  as  a  consonant.  The  Cypriote  writing 
also  adds  to  the  general  testimony  of  trans- 
literations of  Greek  words  into  Oriental 
languages,  that  the  ancient  pronunciation 
of  the  Greek  letter  eta  was  our  long  English 
€,  as  in  modern  Greek. 

The  variant  characters  present  much  dif- 
ficulty. There  is  quite  a  difference  between 
the  older  writing,  commonest  in  the  west 
«nd  of  the  island,  and  the  latex.  Often, 
also,  the  older  writing  reads  from  left  to 


finished  master.  He  seemed  to  see  the 
truth,  even  under  a  false  copy.  That  "  Na- 
ked Archer  "  inscription,  by  the  way,  though 
yet  undeciphered,  has  not  been  without  its 
use.  By  its  help  the  writer  was  enabled  to 
read  a  difficult  variant  on  the  gold  armlets 
of  King  Ethevander,  discovered  by  Cesnola 
at  Curium,  the  inscription  on  which  the 
writer  first  saw  in  London.  The  words 
"  king  "  and  "  Paphos  "  could  be  easily 
read ;  but  one  character  made  the  rest  a 
puzzle,  which  the"  Archer  "characters  solved. 
The  same  lesson  taught  the  writer  to  read 
the  inscriptions  on  a  couple  of  statuettes 
which  he  subsequently  saw  in  General  Di 
Cesnola's  magazine  in  Cyprus,  and  thus 
ascertain  that  they  had  been  dedicated  to 
Apollo  Hylates.  On  communicating  this 
conclusion  to  General  Di  Cesnola,  he  said 
at  once :  "  I  am  sure  of  it',  for  1  found  them 
in  the  temple  of  Apollo  Hylates  at  Curium, 


l-'p  5?  ?**/•** 

FIG.    4. — INSCRIPTION    ON     BOX    OF    STONE,    VOTIVE    OFFERING    TO    PAPHIAN    APHRODITE,    FOUND    AT    KYTHREA. 
NOW     IN    THE    METROPOLITAN    MUSEUM    OF    ART,    NEW     YORK. 


right.  The  imperfect  copies  published  in 
France  and  Germany  have  also  produced 
needless  difficulties.  The  writer  was  able 
to  read  immediately  from  the  stone  one  of 
the  Cesnola  inscriptions  which,  through  im- 
perfect copies,  had  baffled  all  the  Euro- 
peans, and  which  still  baffles  some  Germans 
who  either  do  not  know  or  cannot  trust  a 
better  copy.  On  arriving  in  London  in  the 
autumn  of  1875,  the  writer  read  immedi- 
ately an  inscription  that  had  baffled  him 
and  others  in  Schmidt's  imperfect  copy. 
Just  here  it  should  be  mentioned  that,  while 
at  the  time  discussing  with  the  late  George 
Smith  the  British  Museum  inscription  known 
as  the  "  Naked  Archer,"  Mr.  Smith  re- 
marked several  things  about  that  inscription 
and  those  of  the  Cesnola  collection  which 
had  quite  escaped  the  notice  of  the  Ger- 
mans, and  showed  that  in  a  keen,  strict  fol- 
lowing up  of  matters  of  epigraphy  he  was  a 
VOL.  XX.— 15. 


as  is  shown  by  a  Greek  inscription  on  a 
terra-cotta  vase."  The  statuettes  and  the 
pieces  of  the  vase  are  now  in  New  York. 

The  number  of  Cypriote  inscriptions  now 
gathered  into  the  museums  of  Europe  and 
America  is  not  far  from  two  hundred.  Of 
these,  by  far  the  largest  number  are  in  the 
Cesnola  collection.  The  others  are  in  Lon- 
don, Paris,  Cyprus,  Constantinople,  except 
that  the  coins  and  gems  are  scattered  over 
England,  France  and  Germany.  One  of 
the  most  important  bilinguals  is  in  Cyprus. 

The  writing  and  language  appear  to  have 
been  a  solemn  hieratic  or  magisterial  writ- 
ing that  existed  parallel  with  the  more  com- 
mon Greek  and  Phoenician.  The  so-called 
Hissarlik  inscriptions  have  nothing  in  com- 
mon with  the  Cypriote,  if,  indeed,  they  are 
writing  at  all.  Of  the  Cypriote  inscriptions, 
the  most  common  are  dedicatory  and  votive, 
if  we  except  the  mortuary  ones  now  beyond 


210 


THE   CYPRIOTE  INSCRIPTIONS. 


FIG.    5. — BRONZE    TABLET    OF    DALI, — I.,    OBVERSE.        NOW    IN    THE    CABINET    DBS    MEDAILLES,    ETC., 
BIBLIOTHEQUE    NATIONALE,    PARIS. 


recovery.  Of  these  last,  hundreds,  if  not 
thousands,  once  existed  on  the  tombs  of  the 
vast  city  of  the  'dead  near  New  Paphos. 
Their  traces  are  there,  but  their  legibility 
has  gone  forever.  But  those  that  are  left 
are  of  the  greatest  value  to  the  Greek 
scholar  and  the  philologist.  To  him  they 
bring  many  things  from  the  dead  to  life, 
and  raise  one  portion  of  his  studies  out  of 
the  realm  of  conjecture  into  that  of  science. 
To  the  archaeologist  and  historian  their  im- 
portance is  great,  but  their  full  value  in  that 
direction  is  not  yet  revealed. 

In  Fig.  4  is  shown  a  specimen  of  a  votive 


inscription  found  on  a  small  box  of  stone, 
whose  use  is  not  well  known.  It  was  found 
by  Cesnola  shortly  before  leaving  Cyprus 
for  the  last  time,  and  is  now  in  New  York. 
Its  translation  is  as  follows : 

"  Of  Prototimos,  priest  of  the  Paphian  am  I ; 
and  he  laid  me  up  as  an  offering  to  the  Paphian 
Aphrodite." 

This  is  a  beautiful  specimen  for  a  begin- 
ner to  work  upon ;  it  presents  few  puzzles 
and  much  instruction. 

But  the  most  important  and  extensive 
document  is  the  bronze  tablet.  The  inscrip- 


^PPMA'fF*'!H^'l*9!*f??iJWSW*lrA,1*Ku 

*w£#fa'*^^xgw  ftwwsii 

5i5ffi*.tp.j'^ttfp^f«ra*f<^»^sS.tUlil 


fi^H'yTFrHiJstbk'W 


FIG.    6.      BRONZE    TABLET    OF    DALI,— II.,    REVERSE.        NOW    IN    THE    CABINET    DES    MEDAILLES,    ETC., 
BIBLIOTHEQUE    NATIONALE,    PARIS. 


A    YEAR   OF  THE  EXODUS  IN  KANSAS. 


211 


tion  is  engraved  on  both  sides  of  the  tablet, 
which  is  heavy,  and  much  thicker  in  the 
middle  than  at  the  edges.  It  has  a  ring  at 
one  end,  by  which  it  was  hung  up  in  the 
temple  of  Athene.  Figs.  5  and  6  show 
the  two  sides  of  the  tablet.  It  is  now  in 
the  National  Library  at  Paris,  where  it  was 
deposited  by  De  Luynes.  Its  purport  will 
best  appear  by  the  following  translation  : 

"When  the  Medes  and  inhabitants  of  Citium 
attacked  the  city  of  Idalium,  in  the  year  of  Philo- 
cyprus  that  is  of  Onasagoras,  King  Stasicyprus 
and  the  city  the  Idalians,  commanded  Onasilus  the 
son  of  Onasicyprus,  the  physician,  and  his  brothers, 
to  heal  the  men  that  were  wounded  in  the  battle, 
without  compensation ;  and  whereas  the  king  and 
the  city  agreed  with  Onasilus  and  his  brothers,  in- 
stead of  compensation  and  instead  of  fee,  to  give 
from  the  king's  house  and  from  the  city  a  talent  of 
silver;  or  that  instead  of  this  talent  of  silver,  the 
king  and  the  city  would  give  to  Onasilus  and  to  his 
brothers  from  the  land  of  the  king  that  is  in  the 
Alampriation  district,  the  tract  in  the  meadow  land 
that  borders  on  the  vineyard  of  Okas,  and  to  have 
all  the  revenues  that  come  thereon,  with  all  the  sale 
thereof,  for  life,  without  tax.  If  any  one  shall  eject 
Onasilus  or  his  brothers,  or  the  sons  of  the  sons  of 
Onasicyrus  from  the  tract,  on  any  pretense  what- 
ever, he  that  ejects  shall  pay  to  Onasilus  and  to  his 
brothers,  or  to  the  sons,  this  silver  [to  wit],  a  talent 
of  silver.  And  to  Onasilus  alone,  apart  from  the 
others,  his  brothers,  the  king  and  the  city  bound 
themselves  to  give,  instead  of  the  reward,  forty 
minae,  two  drachmae  and  a  half  of  silver;  or  that 
the  king  and  the  city  would  give  to  Onasilus  instead 
of  the  said  silver,  from  the  land  of  the  king  that  is 
the  Malanian  plain,  the  tract  that  borders  Ameinias' 
vineyard,  and  all  the  revenues  coming  thereon, 
which  lies  next  to  Thorus  the  son  of  Thumias  (?) 


and  to  the  priestess  of  Athene,  and  to  the  inclosure 
which  is  in  the  arable  land  of  Simmis,  the  vineyard 
which  Dithemis,  the  son  of  Aramneus  possessed, 
which  borders  on  Passagoras  the  son  of  Onasagoras ; 
and  to  have  the  revenues  coming  thereon,  with  all  the 
sale  thereof  for  life,  without  tax.  If  any  one  shall 
eject  Onasilus  or  the  sons  of  Onasilus,  from  the  said 
land  in  the  said  enclosure,  for  whatever  cause,  who- 
ever ejects  shall  pay  to  Onasilus  or  to  his  sons  this 
silver,  forty  minse,  two  drachmas  and  a  half  of  sil- 
ver. Wherefore  the  words  of  this  tablet,  and  the 
things  thereon  written,  the  king  and  the  city  have  laid 
up  with  the  goddess  Athene  who  is  about  Idalium, 
with  oaths  not  to  break  these  declarations  for  life. 
Whenever  any  one  shall  break  these  declarations, 
may  it  become  unholiness  to  him.  These  lands  and 
these  enclosures  aforesaid  the  son  of  Onasicyprus 
and  the  sons  of  his  sons  shall  possess  forever,  who 
may  be  in  the  district  of  Idalium." 

A  word  or  two  more  must  end  this  brief 
account.  The  date  of  the  earliest  inscrip- 
tions we  have  no  means  of  knowing.  Only 
a  few  can  be  fixed  within  narrow  limits.  We 
have  already  seen  the  date  of  the  bilingual 
of  Milkiathon.  The  gold  armlets  of  Curium 
date  from  the  time  of  Manasseh,  king  of 
Judah,  an  age  before  the  Babylonish  cap- 
tivity, and  are  therefore  older  than  any  Greek 
letters  we  know  or  can  trace.  The  bronze 
tablets  date  not  far  from  one  of  the  times  of 
Persian  rule.  But  some  of  the  inscriptions 
must  be  much  older.  When  St.  Paul  landed 
at  New  Paphos,  most  of  the  inscriptions  in 
the  vast  necropolis  near  it  must  have  been 
still  legible,  though  to  us  they  must  have 
spoken  of  high  antiquity. 


A   YEAR   OF  THE   EXODUS  IN    KANSAS. 


ONE  morning  in  April,  1879,  a  Missouri 
River  steamboat  arrived  at  Wyandotte, 
Kansas,  and  discharged  a  load  of  colored 
men,  women  and  children,  with  divers 
barrels,  boxes  and  bundles  of  household 
effects.  It  was  a  novel,  picturesque,  pa- 
thetic sight.  They  were  of  all  ages  and 
sizes,  and  every  modulation  of  duskiness, 
these  new  comers ;  their  garments  were 
incredibly  patched  and  tattered,  stretched 
and  uncertain ;  their  "  plunder,"  as  they 
called  it,  resembled  the  litter  of  a  neglected 
back-yard;  and  there  was  not  probably  a 
dollar  in  money  in  the  pockets  of  the  entire 
party.  The  wind  was  eager,  and  they 
stood  upon  the  wharf  shivering;  and  when 
the  boat  backed  away,  a  sort  of  dumb 
awe  seemed  to  settle  upon  and  possess 
them.  They  looked  like  persons  coming 


out  of  a  dream.  And,  indeed,  such  they 
were,  in  more  than  casual  fancy;  for  this 
was  the  advance-guard  of  the  Exodus. 

Soon  other  and  similar  parties  came  by 
the  same  route,  and  still  others,  until,  within 
a  fortnight,  a  thousand  or  more  of  them 
were  gathered  there  at  the  gateway  of 
Kansas — all  poor,  some  sick,  and  none  with 
a  plan  of  future  action  beyond  the  abstract, 
indefinite  purpose  somehow  to  find  new 
homes.  There  was  an  element  of  wonder 
in  the  matter,  which  the  hungry  and  un- 
decided creatures  themselves  could  not 
explain ;  they  appeared  to  be  as  much  sur- 
prised at  being  there  as  others  were  at  seeing 
them  there.  They  had  not  quitted  the 
South  because  they  wished  to  do  so,  they 
were  mainly  prompt  to  say ;  when  ques- 
tioned for  the  specific  causes  of  their  com- 


212 


A    YEAR   OF  THE  EXODUS  IN  KANSAS. 


ing,  they  were  evasive  and  reticent.  But 
they  were  not  going  back.  That  much  they 
declared  with  one  voice,  and  a  resolute  and 
convincing  emphasis;  and  as  for  what  lay 
ahead  of  them,  well,  "de  good  Lord"  could 
be  trusted. 

The  case  was  one  to  appeal  with  force  to 
popular  sympathy,  even  in  its  surface  aspect 
alone ;  and  when  there  was  added  the 
reflection  that  these  patient  and  simple  peo- 
ple, steeped  in  poverty,  had  left  the  clime  of 
their  nativity  and  choice,  to  search,  however 
blindly,  for  a  chance  to  better  their  condition, 
the  heart  of  the  observer  had  to  own  a  spe- 
cial pity  for  the  poor  wanderers.  And  pity  in 
the  West  is  practical.  So  temporary  shelter 
was  speedily  provided  for  them  ;  food  and 
the  facilities  for  cooking  it  were  furnished 
them  in  ample  measure ;  and  local  philan- 
thropists hastened  to  devise  measures  that 
should  secure  them  homes  and  employment. 
Then  came  more  of  them.  The  tide 
swelled  daily.  Protests  began  to  go  up  from 
the  border  towns,  and  that  aroused  public 
feeling  throughout  all  Kansas,  and  brought 
meetings  and  speeches,  committees  and  con- 
tributions. The  sentimental  view  of  the 
question  quickly  took  precedence,  as  it  could 
hardly  fail  to  do  under  the  circumstances. 
In  a  certain,  effective  sense,  the  very  ragged- 
ness  and  misery  of  the  immigration  was 
accepted  as  its  best  excuse  for  being.  The 
peculiar  history  of  Kansas — a  history 
crowded  with  opportune  and  feverish  mem- 
ories— was  invoked,  like  a  piece  of  holy 
writ,  to  vindicate  and  exalt  the  movement; 
there  were  not  wanting,  as  there  are  never 
wanting  at  such  times,  those  who  saw  in  it 
the  hand  of  Providence ;  and  the  Governor 
himself,  speaking  from  the  capital,  welcomed 
the  thickening  freedmen,  in  impulsive  and 
glittering  rhetoric,  to  "  the  State  made  im- 
mortal by  Old  John  Brown." 

And  still  they  came,  hundreds  upon  hun- 
dreds of  them,  and  reports  announced  thou- 
sands more  on  the  way  or  about  to  start. 
So  fast  did  they  arrive,  and  so  needy  were 
they  all,  that  some  organized  and  systematic 
mode  of  dealing  with  them  became  a  neces- 
sity. To  such  end  there  was  incorporated, 
early  in  May,  a  State  Freedman's  Relief 
Association,  composed  of  the  State  officers 
and  a  few  other  leading  citizens,  and  hav- 
ing its  headquarters  at  Topeka.  It  was  not 
the  design  of  this  organization  to  invite  or 
promote  further  immigration;  the  object  was 
only  the  humanitarian  one  of  ministering  to 
the  necessities  of  several  thousands  of  poor 
people,  thrown  suddenly  upon  the  charity  of 


the  State.  At  first  it  was  thought  that  Kansas 
benevolence  alone  would  be  equal  to  the 
task;  but  a  few  weeks'  trial  served  to  re- 
fute this  idea,  and,  appeals  for  assistance 
were  accordingly  made  to  the  country  at 
large.*  During  the  ensuing  summer,  about 
$22,000  in  money  was  sent  in  to  the  Associ- 
ation, and  this  was  used  in  buying  food  and 
clothing  and  in  securing  homes  and  work  for 
the  freedmen.  Barracks  were  constructed  for 
them ;  farming  utensils  and  lumber  were 
supplied  them  to  some  extent,  and  the  ex- 
periment of  starting  a  colony,  on  land  pur- 
chased by  the  association,  was  begun  with 
hopeful  indications. 

All  through  the  summer  months  they  con- 
tinued to  come,  not  from  any  one  State  or 
section  in  particular,  but  from  nearly  all  parts 
of  the  South.  Perhaps  the  welcome  and 
assistance  extended  to  such  as  had  already 
reached  Kansas  operated  to  hurry  others 
northward,  and  to  take  them  to  that  friendly 
locality.  Certain  it  is  that  designing  agents 
of  transportation  lines,  anxious  only  to  se- 
cure passenger  traffic  and  pausing  at  no 
deception,  used  this  feature  of  the  case  to 
stimulate  a  general  colored  hegira  to  what 
was  thus  made  to  seem  a  new  Canaan.  All 
the  Missouri  River  boats  left  St.  Louis 
packed  with  them.  Every  train  brought 
squads,  companies,  battalions  of  them. 
Not  a  few  came  through  on  foot,  all  the 
way  from  Alabama.  The  barracks  were 
over-run,  the  resources  of  the  Relief  Asso- 
ciation taxed  to  the  utmost.  Public  sen- 
timent grew  critical  and  apprehensive; 
the  emotional  view  of  the  matter  gave  way 
to  considerations  involving  serious  fears 
and  perplexities.  Six  months  had  sufficed 
to  stamp  the  movement — the  problem, 
as  it  was  now  seen  to  be — with  national 
importance.  The  Exodus  was  no  longer  a 
mere  random  interlude;  it  had  become  a 
profound  and  baffling  study. 

The  closing  autumn  found  at  least  15,000 
of  these  colored  immigrants  in  Kansas.  Such 
of  them  as  had  arrived  early  in  the  spring  had 
been  enabled  to  do  something  toward  get- 
ting a  start,  and  the  thriftier  and  more  capa- 
ble ones  had  made  homestead-entries  and 
contrived,  with  timely  aid,  to  build  cabins; 
in  some  cases,  small  crops  of  corn  and  garden 
vegetables  were  raised.  They  had  settled, 
as  a  rule,  mainly  in  the  vicinity  of  five  or  six 

*  The  fact  is  worth  recording  here  that  not  a  dol- 
lar of  public  funds  has  ever  been  expended  in  any 
way  for  the  colored  immigrants  in  Kansas ;  even 
the  sick  and  infirm  have  been  taken  care  of  with- 
out municipal  or  county  help. 


A    YEAR    OF  THE  EXODUS  IN  KANSAS. 


213 


different  points  in  the  State,  where  others  of 
their  race,  who  had  gone  out  years  before, 
were  established ;  and  it  is  not  too  much  to  say 
that,  with  the  slender  appliances  at  their  com- 
mand, they  had  so  far  done  as  well  as  could 
have  been  expected.  But  they  were  yet 
pitifully  poor,  and  winter  was  close  upon 
them — their  first  winter  in  a  climate  of  ice 
and  snow  and  piercing  winds.  Their  out- 
look was  one  to  test  sorely  the  fortitude  and 
self-reliance,  the  fertility  and  endurance  of 
any  people.  It  was  likewise  an  outlook  that 
came  home,  with  the  significance  of  a  men- 
ace, to  the  whole  State.  They  could  not  be 
permitted  to  starve  and  freeze,  but  how  were 
they  to  be  fed,  clothed  and  housed  ?  To 
accept  them  as  so  many  paupers  and  make 
them  a  public  charge  was  impracticable,  not 
to  say  impossible  ;  to  prolong  the  existing 
relief  system,  with  its  quasi-official  character, 
and  thus  indirectly  pledge  the  State  to  the 
oversight  and  maintenance  not  only  of  these, 
but  of  all  who  might  choose  to  come,  was 
neither  right  nor  politic  ;  to  set  them  afloat  all 
over  Kansas  and  adjoining  States,  soliciting 
alms  on  their  own  account,  was  no  less 
dangerous  than  inhuman  and  ridiculous. 
There  seemed  to  be  but  one  way  out  of  the 
dilemma.  The  State  officers  withdrew  from 
the  Relief  Association,  and  confided  its  work 
to  representatives  of  the  various  churches, 
with  immediate  executive  control  in  the  hands 
of  the  Society  of  Friends;  and  the  task  was 
undertaken  of  carrying  the  burden  as  an 
organized  and  distinct  Christian  charity,  hav- 
ing no  political  taint  or  affiliation,  and  rely- 
ing solely  upon  the  generosity  of  religious 
people  everywhere.  How  this  task  was  per- 
formed, and  how  the  freedmen  came  through 
their  first  winter  in  Kansas,  it  is  the  chief 
object  of  this  paper  to  relate. 

The  weather  was  on  the  side  of  the  new- 
comers to  begin  with;  such  an  open,  friendly 
winter  was  never  known  in  Kansas  before. 
"  God  seed  dat  de  darkeys  had  thin  clothes," 
was  the  remark  of  one  of  their  preachers, 
"  an'  He  done  kep'  de  cole  off."  Most  of 
the  time  an  overcoat  could  be  dispensed 
with,  and  the  general  want  of  underwear  was 
not  so  cruelly  felt  as  had  been  feared ;  the 
fuel  necessity,  always  an  uppermost  one  in  a 
prairie  country, 'was  reduced  to  a  miminum; 
the  almost  utter  absence  of  snow,  so 
often  a  balk  and  terror  to  the  border  settler, 
made  out-door  work  easy,  and  labor  was  in 
more  than  usual  demand.  Even  plowing 
was  possible  a  fair  portion  of  the  winter,  and 
a  good  deal  of  it  was  done,  though  the 
scarcity  of  teams  and  plows  stood  constantly 


in  the  way :  in  one  instance,  in  Graham 
county,  a  man  "  broke "  five  acres  of  raw 
prairie  with  a  common  spade.  The  business 
of  house-building  had  little  to  "interrupt  it, 
and  in  this  respect  much  was  accomplished. 
Numerous  cabins  of  stone  and  sod  were  con- 
structed while  the  cold  season  lasted  ;  that  is 
to  say,  the  walls  were  laid  up,  with  ordinary 
black  mud  for  mortar,  and  then  they  had  to 
wait  for  roofs  and  floors,  doors  and  windows, 
until  money  could  be  earned  to  buy  lumber;  in 
many  cases,  the  women  went  to  the  towns 
and  took  in  washing,  or  worked  as  house- 
servants  to  meet  this  exigency,  while  the 
men  were  doing  the  building.  Those  who 
could  find  employment  on  the  farms  about 
their  "  claims,"  worked  willingly  and  for 
small  wages,  and  in  this  way  many  supported 
their  families,  and  procured  now  and  then  a 
calf,  a  pig,  or  a  little  poultry ;  others  obtained 
places  on  the  railroads,  in  the  coal-mines, 
and  on  the  public  works  at  Topeka.  Such 
as  got  work  at  any  price,  did  not  ask  assist- 
ance; those  who  were  compelled  to  apply 
for  aid  did  it  slowly,  as  a  rule,  and  rarely 
came  a  second  rime.  Not  a  single  colored 
tramp  was  seen  in  Kansas  all  winter;  and 
only  one  colored  person  was  convicted  of 
any  crime. 

It  is  impossible  accurately  to  measure  the 
succor  afforded  the  freedmen  during  this 
period  by  the  Relief  Association,  such  a 
large  share  of  it  was  in  the  way  not  so  much 
of  out-and-out  gifts  as  of  that  better  form 
of  charity  which  helps  people  to  help  them- 
selves. A  prominent,  if  not  the  leading, 
feature  of  this  relief  work  has  been  to  pro- 
cure homes  and  employment  for  all  who 
could  not  begin  farming.  A  kind  of  intelli- 
gence bureau  was  early  organized,  and 
applications  for  labor  of  all  kinds  were  invited ; 
and  as  fast  as  such  applications  were  received 
(they  came  plentifully  and  from  all  quarters) 
selections  were  made  of  suitable  parties  to 
fill  the  places,  and  they  were  sent  on,  usually 
at  the  expense  of  the  Association,  to 
the  persons  desiring  them,  sometimes  as 
many  as  two  hundred  in  a  day.  In  this 
way,  it  is  estimated,  quite  10,000  of  them 
were  provided  for,  at  least  for  a  time,  4,000 
of  the  number  going  to  other  States,  chiefly 
to  Iowa  and  Nebraska.  The  number  en- 
tirely supported  by  the  Association  has  at  no 
one  time  exceeded  500,  and  this  included 
a  daily  coming  and  going  average  of  300  in 
the  general  rendezvous  at  Topeka.  A  con- 
siderable sum  has  been  expended  in  lumber, 
farming  implements,  and  horses  and  cattle ; 
some  purchases  have  been  made  of  tracts 


214 


A    YEAR   OF  THE  EXODUS  IN  KANSAS. 


of  railroad  land,  at  low  figures,  and  this  has 
been  set  apart  to  families,  in  forty-acre  lots, 
to  be  paid  for  from  their  crops ;  and  quite 
a  number  of  individual  settlers  have  been 
supplied  with  funds  to  make  the  necessary 
payment  on  lands  "taken  up"  under  the 
homestead  and  pre-emption  laws.  The 
work  of  the  Association  has  been  done  con- 
scientiously, there  can  be  no  doubt,  and,  in 
the  main,  practically  and  with  beneficent 
and  justifying  results;  the  mistakes  and 
short-comings,  if  any,  have  been  on  the  side 
of  a  possibly  too  considerate  and  sympa- 
thetic course  of  action. 

This  Relief  Association  received  during 
the  winter,  in  round  numbers,  $25,000  in 
money,  and  300,000  pounds  of  merchandise, 
roughly  valued  at  $100.000.  It  is  a  note- 
worthy fact  that  much  of  the  money  came 
in  small  sums,  and  was  forwarded  by  the 
Christian  women  of  America,  through  their 
mite-societies  and  sewing-circles;  and  it  is 
also  noticeable,  as  well  as  characteristic, 
that  fully  one-third  of  the  entire  amount  was 
furnished  by  the  Society  of  Friends.  Ohio 
gave  more  than  any  other  single  State;  New 
York  and  Pennsylvania  next;  then  Massa- 
chusetts, Michigan,  Illinois  and  Iowa,  in 
the  order  named ;  and  the  other  States  in 
proportion,  nearly  every  one  sending  some- 
thing. Nor  will  it  do  to  omit  that  several 
thousand  dollars  came  from  England. 
Another  point ;  the  inference  is  self-suggest- 
ing— indeed,  the  records  avouch  it  as  a 
fact — that  the  bulk  of  the  personal  contribu- 
tions is  to  be  credited  to  the  industrial  and 
laboring  classes,  and  people  in  moderate 
circumstances.  The  largest  individual  gift 
was  $1,000  from  John  Hall,  a  Quaker,  of 
Westchester,  Pennsylvania;  the  only  known 
contribution  by  any  man  engaged  in  politics 
was  $100  sent  by  .Vice- President  Wheeler. 

The  supplies  received  were  principally 
made  up  of  clothing,  bedding  and  general 
household  goods.  One-fourth  or  more  of 
the  entire  quantity  came  from  England, 
and  was  forwarded,  freight-free,  from  Liver- 
pool to  Topeka — conspicuous  among  the 
larger  shipments  being  several  crates  of 
crockery  from  the  Staffordshire  potteries, 
one  of  the  most  thoughtful  and  serviceable 
of  all  the  donations.  These  supplies  were 
distributed  with  care  and  economy,  and 
upon  personal  acquaintance  with  each  case. 
It  was  difficult,  however,  to  go  amiss.  Few 
of  the  immigrants  had  furniture,  bedding, 
stoves  or  dishes,  and  their  wearing  apparel 
was,  as  has  been  hinted,  scant  and  thread- 
bare ;  scores  of  the  men  were  without  coats 


or  a  change  of  shirts ;  most  of  the  women 
had  but  one  frock  each  and  no  wraps  or 
stockings;  half  the  children  were  barefooted, 
and  clad  only  in  single  cotton  garments. 
Much  sickness  resulted,  of  course,  chiefly 
pneumonia  and  kindred  affections;  and 
there  are  plenty  of  graves  to  specify  and 
consecrate  that  first  winter  of  the  Exodus 
in  Kansas.  But  there  was  little  grumbling, 
and  less  lamenting,  and  no  talk  at  all  of 
returning  to  the  South.  They  ate  their 
humble  fare  with  thanksgiving  and  praise, 
and  put  avyay  their  dead  with  prayers.  In 
truth,  their  devout  manner  of  measuring 
privation  and  sorrow,  and  their  unwavering 
faith  in  a  direct  over-ruling  Providence,  was 
a  specially  arresting  and  significant  feature 
of  the  situation;  they  leaned  on  God  as  if  He 
had  been  manifested  to  them  jpi  the  flesh. 
Perhaps  it  was  all  a  trick  of  mimicry,  caught 
from  association  with  the  whites;  none  the 
less  it  was  admirable  and  impressive,  and 
who  shall  say  it  did  not  hush  many  a  fear, 
save  many  a  heartbreak  ? 

There  are,  at  this  writing  (April  i,  1880), 
from  15,000  to  20,000  colored  people  in 
Kansas  who  have  settled  there  during  the 
last  twelve  months — 30  per  cent,  of  them 
from  Mississippi,  20  per  cent,  from  Texas, 
15  per  cent,  from  Tennessee,  10  per  cent, 
from  Louisiana,  5  per  cent,  each  from 
Alabama  and  Georgia,  and  the  remainder 
from  the  other  Southern  States.  Of  this 
number,  about  one-third  are  supplied  with 
teams  and  farming  tools,  and  may  be  ex- 
pected to  become  self-sustaining  in  another 
year;  one-third  are  in  the  towns,  employed 
as  house-servants  and  day-laborers,  and  can 
take  care  of  themselves  so  long  as  the  mar- 
ket for  their  labor  is  not  over-crowded  ;  the 
other  one-third  are  at  work  in  a  desultory 
fashion  for  white  farmers  and  herders,  and 
doing  the  best  they  can,  but  powerless  to 
"  get  ahead  "  and  achieve  homes  and  an 
assured  support  without  considerable  assist- 
ance. The  poverty  of  these  people  cannot 
be  too  strongly  dwelt  upon  ;  for  that  has 
been  their  stumbling-block  from  the  start, 
and  is  to-day  the  one  paramount  considera- 
tion of  the  Exodus.  Neither  must  it  be 
forgotten  that,  as  a  class,  those  who  have 
so  far  gone  to  Kansas  are  ordinary  planta- 
tion hands,  unfamiliar  with  Northern  agri- 
culture and  modes  of  life.  The  men 
cannot  at  once  capably  take  hold  of  any 
but  the  rudest  forms  of  work,  however  will- 
ing they  may  be ;  not  one  out  of  a  hundred 
of  the  women  can  go  into  a  Northern 
kitchen  and,  without  teaching  or  oversight, 


A    YEAR   OF  THE  EXODUS  IN  KANSAS. 


cook  a  common  breakfast.  This  is  no 
reproach  to  them,  especially  as  they  are 
anxious  to  learn,  and  do  learn  rapidly ;  but 
it  is  a  drawback,  and  a  peril.  The  mere 
fact  that  they  have  to  begin  their  new  and 
empty-handed  life  by  dismissing  all  their 
old  habits  and  traditions,  and  learning,  for 
the  first  time,  as  it  were,  the  simple  art  of 
making  a  living  by  their  own  labor,  is  one 
of  deepest  import.  Poverty  alone  is  enough 
to  grapple  with,  particularly  in  a  new 
country ;  add  insufficiency  to  poverty,  weak- 
ness to  necessity,  and  the  balancing  of 
chances  becomes  more  than  doubly  grave 
and  difficult. 

The  area  of  land  bought  and  entered  by 
the  freedmen  during  their  first  year  in  Kan- 
sas is  about  20,000  acres,  of  which  they 
have  plowed  and  fitted  for  grain-growing 
3,000  acres.  They  have  built  some  300 
.cabins  and  dug-outs,  counting  those  which 
yet  lack  roofs  and  floors ;  and  in  the  way  of 
personal  property,  their  accumulations,  out- 
side of  what  has  been  given  to  them, 
will  aggregate  perhaps  $30,000.  It  is 
within  bounds  to  say  that  their  total  gains 
for  the  year,  the  surplus  proceeds  of  their 
own  efforts,  amount  to  $40,000,  or  about 
$2.25  per  capita.  This  calculation  includes 
those  in  the  towns,  and  all  those  at  work 
for  daily  and  monthly  wages,  as  well  as 
those  who  are  settled  on  the  public  lands 
and  trying  to  make  farms.  But  it  does  not 
take  into  account  the  exceptional  cases — 
one  in  twenty,  at  a  guess — where  families  that 
started  with  next  to  nothing  now  own  little 
homesteads  and  are  really  prosperous.  It 
should  also  be  remembered  that  they  have 
had  to  live  all  this  time,  and  that  the  prov- 
erb of  "  a  poor  man  for  children  "  obtains 
among  them  to  a  distressing  degree — not  to 
mention  their  numerous  aged  and  infirm 
dependents ;  eight  families,  living  in  a  single 
tenement-house  only  a  stone's  throw  from 
where  these  lines  were  written,  have  for- 
ty-two children,  the  eldest  not  yet  in  its 
fifteenth  year.  Fortunately,  they  long  ago 
learned  to  be  content  with  a  very  meager 
diet,  and  seem  able  to  make  a  feast  on  what 
would  haunt  white  persons  with  visions  of 
starvation.  "  Gimme  a  sack  o'  meal  an'  a 
side  o'  meat,"  said  one  of  them,  "  an'  my 
folks  kin  git  along  han'some,"  and  many  of 
them  did  get  along  throughout  the  winter 
with  little  more  than  corn-bread  and  bacon 
— and  there  were  chickens  nightly  roosting 
in  the  neighborhood,  too.  All  things  con- 
sidered, they  have  given  convincing  evidence 
of  their  disposition  to  work,  and  to  be  hon- 


est, and  sober,  and  frugal.  Their  savings 
are  not  remarkable,  to  be  sure,  but  they  are 
creditable,  and  not  to  be  lightly  passed 
over.  The  wonder  is  that  they  have  any- 
thing whatever  to  show  for  their  initiatory 
twelve  months  of  hand-to-mouth  hardship 
and  embarrassment. 

This  does  not  solve  the  problem,  how- 
ever. They  have  yet  to  master  the  forces 
that  dispute  with  them  for  the  control  of 
their  fortunes.  The  ability  and  opportunity 
barely  to  escape  actual  suffering  will  not 
bring  them  independence ;  a  gain  of  $2.25 
a  head  per  annum  will  not  rapidly  pur- 
chase horses  and  plows,  and  build  houses 
and  fences,  and  plant  orchards,  and  put 
money  in  the  bank  for  rainy  days  and  sea- 
sons of  ill-luck.  At  the  lowest  estimate,  it 
requires  $400,  or  its  equivalent,  to  "  take  up," 
improve,  and  make  remunerative  a  farm 
in  Kansas.  If  each  colored  family  had  that 
much,  -the  prediction  might  reasonably  be 
made  that  a  large  majority  of  them  would 
ultimately  succeed,  and  vindicate  the  Exo- 
dus as  a  wise,  prudent  and  practical  move- 
ment. But  so  long  as  they  lack  the  advan- 
tage of  means  sufficient  to  go  upon  a 
homestead  and  develop  and  manage  it  with- 
out help,  their  immigration  to  Kansas  or 
any  other  frontier  State  must  remain  hedged 
about  with  obvious  and  forbidding  hin- 
drances. A  scheme  is  on  foot  among  a 
number  of  wealthy  and  benevolent  Eastern 
men  to  purchase  large  tracts  of  unimproved 
lands  and  sell  them  to  the  freedmen  in 
small  lots,  on  long  credit,  at  the  same  time 
providing  them  with  teams  and  implements 
to  prosecute  their  farming.  With  proper 
supervision  such  a  scheme  could  hardly 
fail  to  operate  favorably,  as  limited  trial  in 
Kansas,  by  the  Relief  Association,  has 
already  shown.  In  the  hands  of  sympathiz- 
ing and  liberal  men,  it  might  even  be  made 
profitable  as  a  speculation;  but  unless 
chances  of  this  or  of  similar  character  shall 
be  opened  to  them,  it  is  not  easy  to  see  how 
the  most  of  these  people  are  ever  to  get  a 
secure  foothold  as  tillers  of  the  soil  on  the 
naked  western  prairies.  White  men,  intelli- 
gent and  experienced,  could  scarcely  be  ex- 
pected to  conquer  such  heavy  odds ;  how 
much  less  can  we  look  to  see  it  done  by  these 
unknowing  and  new-fashioned  pioneers. 
Grant  that  they  have  passed  their  first  year 
safely  and  with  credit ;  they  had  the  friendly 
and  untiring  services  of  the  Relief  Asso- 
ciation, and  benefactions  reaching  nearly 
$150,000  to  help  them  along,  and  they 
found  a  ready  demand  for  their  labor. 


2l6 


A    YEAR   OF  THE  EXODUS  IN  KANSAS. 


Take  away  the  props  and  incentives  of 
charity,  and  the  future  becomes  almost  as 
dark  and  precarious  as  ever  to  fully  two- 
thirds  or  more  of  them.  Increase  their 
number  by  new  accessions  until  the  labor 
market  is  glutted  and  public  kindness  over- 
tasked, and  the  inevitable  result  can  but 
too  certainly  be  foreseen. 

And  they  are  still  coming.  The  influx 
continued,  more  or  less,  through  all  the 
winter  months,  mainly  from  Texas.  Prob- 
ably three  or  four  thousand  arrived  between 
November  and  March ;  and  since  the  first 
of  March,  an  average  of  three  hundred  per 
week  have  reached  Topeka.  The  flight 
increases  instead  of  diminishing.  Those  in 
the  best  position  to  judge,  say  that  it  is  not 
unlikely  that  as  many  as  fifty  thousand  may 
come  during  the  approaching  summer.  A 
year's  experience  has  demonstrated  that 
there  is  method,  agreement,  determination, 
in  the  movement.  It  is  now  an  open  secret 
that  the  question  of  a  general  removal  to  the 
North  has  been  thought  and  talked  of  for 
several  years  by  the  freedmen  in  all  the  old 
slave-holding  States.  The  first  year's  out- 
come has  encouraged  them,  so  reports 
allege ;  the  infection  is  stronger  and  more 
pervasive  than  it  was  twelve  months  ago; 
and  the  shrewdest  observer  dare  not  venture 
to  name  the  possible  limit  of  the  strange, 
risk-beset  and  problematic  undertaking. 

It  is  not  within  the  writer's  purpose  to 
attempt  an  analysis  of  the  causes  of  the 
Exodus — least  of  all,  to  touch  its  politi- 
cal bearings  or  suggestions.  Any  survey 
of  the  subject  would  be  incomplete,  how- 
ever, which  omitted  to  set  forth,  candidly 
and  inquiringly,  the  statements  most  com- 
monly made  by  the  freedmen  in  Kansas 
regarding  their  abandonment  of  the  South. 
They  assert  that  there  is  no  security  for 
their  lives  and  property  in  their  old  homes ; 
that  the  laws  and  courts  are  studiedly 
inimical  to  them  and  their  interests ;  that 
their  exercise  of  the  electoral  franchise  is 
obstructed  and  made  a  personal  danger; 
that  no  facilities  are  afforded  or  permitted 
them  for  educating  their  children;  that 
their  family  rights  and  honor  are  scoffed 
at  and  outraged,  as  in  slave  days ;  and 
finally, — and  this  is  the  most  frequent  com- 
plaint,— that  they  are  so  unjustly  and  unfairly 
dealt  with  by  white  land-owners,  employers 
and  traders,  that  it  is  impossible  to  make  a 
living.  The  facts  they  offer  in  support  of 
these  statements  are  not  conclusive,  to  be 
sure,  since  they  relate  chiefly  to  special 
instances,  and  we  cannot  know  how  far 


such  instances  reflect  the  general  sentiment 
in  a  given  county  or  State.  Isolated  and 
individual  acts  of  fraud  and  outrage  are  not 
alone  sufficient,  of  course,  to  condemn  a 
whole  community,  particularly  without 
opportunity  for  explanation  and  defense; 
but  truth  requires  the  admission  that  these 
charges  are  too  numerous,  and  the  worst  of 
them  too  well  substantiated,  to  be  disposed 
of  as  mere  accidental  grievances ;  they  raise 
a  valid  presumption,  to  say  the  least,  that 
there  must  be  something  radically  wrong 
in  the  society  where  such  things  are  per- 
mitted. 

For  instance,  it  is  claimed,  upon  what 
seems  to  be  good  authority,  that  in  the 
State  of  Mississippi,  not  a  single  white  man 
has  been  convicted  and  punished  for  an 
offense  against  a  colored  man,  or  made  to 
pay  a  debt  due  to  a  colored  man,  in  the 
last  five  years.  They  tell  of  laws  in  Texas, 
Alabama  and  Georgia  under  which  colored 
men  are  arrested  for  debt,  and  their  labor 
(which  is  themselves,  practically)  sold  at 
auction — the  standard  bid  being  twenty-five 
cents  per  diem,  with  Sundays  and  rainy 
days  deducted  and  board  exacted  for  them. 
Contracts  between  white  planters  and  col- 
ored renters  are  exhibited,  in  which  the 
rates  fixed  for  the  use  of  land  for  one  season 
run  from  $5  to  $10  per  acre — more  than  its 
assessed  valuation,  and  more  than  it  would 
bring  at  public  sale.  Scores  of  landlords'  and 
shopkeepers'  bills  have  been  carried  to  Kan- 
sas, in  which  the  prices  charged  for  articles 
of  daily  use-are  shamefully  exorbitant;  from 
one  of  these  bills,  a  fair  sample  of  them  all, 
the  following  entries  are  copied  :  Hire  of 
mule  to  cultivate  crop,  $30  (the  mule  was 
sold  at  the  end  of  the  season  for  $25); 
mess  pork,  $35  per  barrel;  spring-wheat 
flour,  $17  per  barrel;  corn  meal,  $9  per 
barrel ;  bacon  sides  and  shoulders,  20  cents 
per  pound  ;  Rio  coffee,  25  cents  per  pound ; 
brown  sugar,  12^  cents  per  pound;  rice, 
12^  cents  per  pound;  molasses  (common 
"black-strap"),  $1.25  per  gallon;  tobacco 
(ordinary  "dog-leg"),  $1.50  per  pound; 
cotton  drilling,  40  cents  per  yard ;  domestic 
prints,  15  and  16  cents  per  yard.*  And 
behind  such  things  lay  multiplied  recitals 
of  personal  cruelty  and  corruption — well- 
attested  stories  of  men  beaten  and  murdered, 

*  By  a  singular  coincidence,  the  man  who  sold 
these  particular  goods  was  one  of  a  delegation  of 
planters  who  came  up  to  Kansas  last  summer  to 
persuade  the  freedmen  to  return  to  the  South,  and 
being  confronted  with  this  bill,  he  admitted  its 
genuineness,  and  said  it  was  in  his  own  handwriting. 


A    YEAR    OF  THE  EXODUS  IN  KANSAS. 


217 


and  women  degraded  and  despoiled — which 
it  is  hard  to  believe,  and  yet  impossible  to 
put  aside  as  wholly  fictitious. 

On  the  other  hand,  it  is  proper  to  say, 
there  are  intelligent  and  worthy  ones  among 
the  freedmen  who  insist  that  they  were 
themselves  well  treated  in  the  South,  and 
left  there  only  because  times  were  dull,  and 
they  hoped  to  do  better ;  and  that  much  of 
the  misfortune  of  others  is  due  to  their  own 
folly,  impudence  and  cowardice.  Some 
allowance  must  also  be  made  for  exaggera- 
tion, and  for  stories  told  at  second-hand, 
and  from  hearsay.  It  should  be  kept  in  mind, 
too,  that  farming  by  colored  men  in  the 
Southern  States  since  the  war  has  been  done 
almost  entirely  on  credit — the  landlord  fur- 
nishing or  becoming  responsible  for  all  that  the 
renter  needed  to  eat  and  wear  while  raising 
his  crop — and  some  share  of  their  adversity 
is  justly  referable,  no  doubt,  to  that  vicious 
system  of  doing  business.  But,  after  all 
has  been  said  that  can  be,  in  explication 
and  extenuation,  there  still  remains  a  vivid 
sense  of  some  rooted  and  potent  defect  in 
the  general  condition  and  tendency  of  affairs. 
Else  why,  to  take  the  simplest  view,  are 
these  people  leaving  there  by  thousands, 
and  refusing  to  go  back  ?  They  are  not  of 
an  immigrating  or  venturesome  nature ;  they 
prefer  the  South  to  the  North,  they  will  tell 
you;  land  is  as  plentiful  and  as  cheap  in 
Texas  and  other  Southern  States  as  it  is  in 
Kansas ;  in  the  nature  of  things,  they  should 
find  better  chances  for  homes  and  an  easier 
way  to  make  a  living  in  the  region  they  are 
quitting  than  in  the  one  they  are  going  to. 
It  is  idle  to  contend  that  a  whole  race, 
practically,  would  desert  the  country  of 
their  birth,  preference  and  peculiar  adapta- 
tion, with  apparently  no  thought  so  strong 
as  that  of  merely  getting  away,  unless  some 
vital  and  compelling  cause  bore  them  for- 
ward. They  believe,  at  least,  that  it  is  best, 
if  not  imperative,  for  them  to  leave  the 
South,  at  all  hazards  as  to  consequences;  so 
much  is  self-evident.  And  they  can  be  kept 
there,  or  induced  to  return  there,  only  as 
they  shall  be  convinced  that  their  reasons 
of  complaint  and  apprehension — sound  and 
sufficient  in  their  eyes,  however  others  of  us 
may  regard  them — have  been  thoroughly 
corrected  and  removed. 

Assuming,  then,  that  the  Exodus  is  to 
continue  (and  such  is  clearly  the  fact), 
prompt  efforts  should  be  directed  to  so  in- 
forming and  shaping  it  that  the  immigrants 
may  soonest  acquire  a  start  and  become  self- 
sustaining.  Their  right  to  go  where  they 


please  and  do  what  they  will,  as  free  men 
and  citizens,  is  not  to  be  questioned,  of 
course ;  but  there  are  some  sections  of  the 
country  to  which  they  should  not  flock,  some 
experiments  that  they  should  not  trifle  with, 
if  they  would  keep  the  possibilities  of  success 
on  their  side,  and  avoid  frittering  away  their 
strength  and  courage  to  no  purpose.  For 
one  thing,  and  principally,  they  ought  to 
keep  away  from  Kansas.  As  many  of  them 
are  there  now  as  can  hope  to  win  homes 
and  support  in  that  State,  unless  they  have 
money  at  the  outset.  The  idea  that  the 
colored  man — or  the  white  man,  either,  for 
that  matter — can  go  upon  the  public  lands 
with  a  special  dispensation  of  Providence 
in  his  favor,  and  make  for  himself  a 
farm,  without  a  team  and  tools  and  funds 
enough  to  provide  for  his  family  until  at 
least  one  crop  can  be  raised,  is  a  specious 
and  insnaring  fiction,  and  cannot  be  too 
soon  exploded.  For  abject  poverty,  like  that 
which  prevails  among  these  drifting  freedmen, 
there  is  no  more  unpromising  refuge  than 
the  Western  frontier.  The  progress  accom- 
plished by  many  of  them  in  the  last  year 
only  goes  to  show  what  they  can  and  will  do, 
with  means  sufficient  to  make  a  beginning ; 
for  so  much  they  have  all  had  given  to  them 
who  are  likely  to  succeed  as  homesteaders. 
But  those  who  go  there  this  year  cannot 
expect  to  find  such  good  fortune  waiting  for 
them ;  they  cannot  even  expect  to  get  work, 
at  any  price,  as  the  first  ones  did;  since  the 
demand  for  labor  in  Kansas  is  limited,  and 
the  supply  already  quite  equal  to  it.  The 
ability  of  the  State  to  turn  to  account  and 
furnish  chances  for  the  twenty  thousand 
now  within  her  borders  is  far  from  certain  ; 
she  surely  has  no  room  for  more.  And 
what  is  true  of  Kansas  is  relatively  true  of 
all  the  new  and  sparsely  settled  region  west 
of  the  Missouri,  where  land  is  so  cheap  and 
so  inviting.  To  send  more  of  these  indigent 
and  inexperienced  people  in  that  direction, 
with  only  their  empty  hands  to  rely  upon, 
is  to  make  of  the  Exodus  a  mockery  and  a 
calamity. 

The  project  of  colonization  in  some 
allotted  and  remote  quarter  of  the  public 
domain  has  been  suggested.  It  may  be 
doubted  if  the  freedmen  would  consent 
to  that  expedient;  but  it  can  hardly  be 
doubted  that,  if  tried,  it  would  end  in 
failure.  The  same  causes  that  conspire  to 
render  personal  settlement  hazardous  would 
not  be  lessened,  but  rather  augmented,  by 
huddling  them  together  in  crowds.  Their 
poverty  would  still  be  present,  their  oppor- 


2l8 


ROCKY  MOUNTAIN  NIGHTS. 


tunities  narrowed  and  removed  ;  they  would 
gain  little  by  experience,  for  they  could 
.  teach  one  another  nothing ;  and  their  slow 
ambition  would  miss  that  much-needed  spur 
which  comes  of  independent  contact  with 
the  world.  Any  colony  would  be  foredoomed 
which  did  not  supply  every  man  with  a 
separate  home  and  means  for  farming;  and 
such  an  equipment  would  much  better 
be  furnished  them  as  individuals  than  as 
colonists. 

The  true  and  only  practical  solution  of 
the  matter  lies,  not  in  keeping  the  freedmen 
together,  but  in  judiciously  scattering  them; 
not  in  trying  to  set  them  up  as  farmers 
where  they  must  have  $400  apiece  to  start 
with,  but  in  finding  occupation  for  them 
where  they  can  at  once,  and  without  help, 
earn  their  daily  bread.  They  have  no  time 
to  waste  on  experiments.  What  they  need 
is  an  immediate  assurance  of  enough  to  eat 
and  wear — not  as  a  bounty,  or  even  a  loan, 
but  as  wages  for  the  work  of  their  own  hands. 
The  great,  prosperous,  agricultural  States 
east  of  the  Mississippi,  in  which  productive 
land  is  largely  rented,  and  in  which  farm- 
hands are  never  too  numerous,  could  absorb 
them  by  thousands  and  make  them  a  benefit: 


Indiana  alone  might  readily  utilize  twice  as 
many  as  there  are  in  Kansas.  They  should 
be  met,  say  at  Cairo,  and  piloted  from 
there  to  certain  central  points  in  different 
Northern  States,  and  thence  distributed 
among  the  farmers  and  others  desiring  to 
employ  them ;  and  they  would  require  little 
further  attention.  As  has  been  herein  stated, 
10,000  were  sent  out  from  Topeka  in  this 
way  during  the  last  eight  or  nine  months, 
4,000  of  the  number  on  solicitations  from 
other  States — which  goes  to  show  that  there 
are  openings  for  them  and  a  disposition  to 
give  them  a  chance,  if  only  they  will  seek, 
or  can  be  sent  to,  the  proper  localities. 
Charity  will  find  its  best  occasion,  prudence 
its  foremost  duty,  in  the  use  of  all  proper 
means  to  divert  the  freedmen  from  any  one 
nook  or  corner  of  the  country,  and  to 
disperse  them  generally  over  all  sections 
where  unskilled  and  cheap  labor  is  de- 
sired, and  where  the  laborer  can  at  once 
get  the  upper  hand  of  his  poverty,  and, 
as  the  philosopher  says,  "  harmonize  him- 
self with  his  environment."  With  that 
much  compassed,  there  need  be  no  concern 
about  the  rest:  the  riddle  of  the  Exodus 
will  unravel  itself. 


ROCKY   MOUNTAIN   NIGHTS. 


ANY  one  who  is  of  the  opinion  that  it  is 
not  hard  work  to  ride  on  mule-back  in 
the  Rocky  Mountains  an  average  of  twenty 
miles  a  day  for  three  months,  is  respect- 
fully referred  to  practical  experience  for  an 
answer.  It  is  noteworthy,  though,  that  the 
wisest  entertain  widely  different  views  on 
the  point  of  hardship  at  six  A.  M.  and  six 
p.  M.  At  sunrise  breakfast  is  over,  the  mules 
and  everybody  else  have  been  good-natured, 
and  you  feel  the  glory  of  mere  existence  as 
you  vault  into  your  saddle  and  break  into 
a  gallop.  Not  that  this  or  that  particular 
day  is  so  different  from  other  pleasant 
mornings,  but  all  that  we  call  the  weather 
is  constituted  in  the  most  perfect  propor- 
tions. The  air  is  "  nimble  and  sweet,"  and 
you  ride  gayly  through  sunny  woods  of 
pine  and  aspen,  and  across  meadows,  be- 
tween granite  knolls  that  are  piled  up  in  the 
most  noble  and  romantic  proportions.  But 
later,  you  toil  up  a  mountain  thousands  of 


feet  high,  tramp  your  weary  way  through 
the  snow  and  loose  rocks  heaped  upon 
its  summit,  "  observe,"  and  get  laboriously 
down  again ;  or  search  through  forty  ledges 
and  swing  a  ceaseless  hammer  in  collecting 
fossils;  or  march  all  day  under  a  blazing 
sun,  or  in  the  teeth  of  a  dusty  gale,  munch- 
ing only  a  sandwich  as  you  plod  along, — 
till  gradually  your  "glory  of  existence" 
oozes  away,  while  the  most  dismal  reflec- 
tions arise  to  keep  company  with  your 
strained  muscles.  How  welcome  after  that 
is  the  evening  bivouac,  when  there  is  rest  for 
the  aching  limbs,  and  no  longer  need  to 
tighten  the  belt !  The  busy  hour  between 
the  end  of  the  march  and  sitting  down  to 
dinner  quickly  passes,  and  the  meal  is  not 
hurried ;  after  that,  leisure  and  the  solid 
comfort  of  camping. 

It  is  astonishing  how  greatly  recuperated 
one  feels  after  half  an  hour's  rest  and  his 
dinner,  following  the  most  tremendous  exer- 


ROCKY  MOUNTAIN  NIGHTS. 


219 


tions  all  day.  It  seems  sometimes,  when 
camp  is  reached,  that  one  has  hardly  strength 
to  make  another  move ;  but  after  dinner  one 
finds  himself  able  and  willing  to  do  a  great 
deal.  This  is  the  hour  for  exploring  the 
neighborhood,  preparatory  to  next  day's 
work;  for  investigating  the  natural  history 
of  the  locality,  or  putting  up  the  specimens 
accumulated  during  the  day ;  for  mending 
harness  and  arms  and  clothes,  and  writing 
memoranda,  or  perchance  letters,  against  a 
possible  opportunity  to  send  them  out  to 
the  civilized  world  by  some  Indian  or  friendly 
trapper.  But  the  most  important  work  is 
the  making  of  your  bed.  It  is  the  one 
thing  in  this  wandering  life  that  you  cannot 
afford  to  neglect. 

Unless  the  camp  is  to  be  fixed  in  that 
spot  for  several  days,  it  is  not  usual  to  put 
up  the  tents,  except  when  it  is  stormy. 
These  tents  are  of  the  army  pattern  known 
as  "  dog-tents." — just  large  enough  for  two 
persons  to  stretch  themselves  out  in,  side  by 
side,  but  not  more  than  three  feet  high,  even 
under  the  ridge.  The  canvas  is  of  good 
quality,  however,  and  will  stand  a  severe 
rain-fall  without  wetting  through,  so  long  as 
the  inside  of  the  cloth  is  not  touched;  if 
the  precaution  is  taken  to  dig  a  ditch 
around  the  tent,  so  that  the  water  will  run 
away  and  not  spread  underneath  the  edges 
to  make  pools  on  the  floor,  you  will  find 
yourself  secure  from  all  storms.  But,  as  a 
rule,  one  doesn't  bother  to  put  up  a  tent. 

No  matter  how  firmly  resolved  you  may 
be  upon  roughing  it,  you  soon  find  that  it 
pays  to  keep  your  bed  dry  and  warm,  and 
to  spend  all  needed  time  in  making  it  up. 
There  is  hardship  enough  inevitable ;  needless 
exposure  is  foolish.  The  proper  supplies 
in  the  way  of  bedding  consist  of  the  follow- 
ing articles :  a  piece  of  moderately  heavy 
canvas-ducking,  water-proofed,  fourteen 
feet  long  by  four  feet  wide ;  a  buffalo-robe 
trimmed  into  a  rectangular  piece,  sufficient 
to  lie  at  full  length  upon  ;  two  pairs  of  thick 
Californian  blankets,  and  a  small  pillow. 
This  appears  to  be  the  list  settled  upon  by 
the  best  experience.  They  are  light  and 
warm,  and  can  be  rolled  up  inside  the  canvas 
and  strapped  into  a  cylindrical  bundle,  so 
compact  as  easily  to  be  carried  in  one  hand, 
and  so  tight  that  it  may  be  rained  upon 
all  day  and  not  be  wetted  through.  The 
Californian  blankets  are  expensive,  but  it  is 
better  economy  to  buy  them.  A  pillow 
is  a  great  comfort ;  lacking  it,  one  finds  a 
fair  substitute  in  his  boots,  saddle,  war-bag, 
or  even  in  a  piece  of  wood.  A  thick  night- 


cap is  more  convenient  than  your  broad- 
brimmed  hat  to  sleep  in;  and  nothing  warms 
chilled  feet  so  much  in  bed  as  dry  woolen 
socks,  which  may  be  kicked  off  later  in  the 
night. 

At  every  opportunity  air  the  bedding 
thoroughly  in  the  sunshine.  Then,  before 
the  evening  dew  comes,  stretch  out  your 
long  piece  of  canvas,  lay  the  buffalo-robe 
smoothly  on  the  upper  end,  double  your 
blankets  and  place  them  one  over  the  other 
upon  the  robe.  After  smoothing  every 
wrinkle  out,  the  two  blankets  together  are 
evenly  folded  once  over  lengthwise,  the 
remainder  of  the  canvas  (seven  feet)  is 
drawn  up  over  the  foot  so  that  the  toes  can- 
not push  through,  and  the  bed  is  made.  You 
have  a  canvas,  buffalo-robe,  and  four  thick- 
nesses of  blanket  under  you,  and  (except  the 
robe)  the  same  over  you,  the  blankets  pass- 
ing full  thickness  behind  your  back,  which 
you  will  learn  to  place  to  windward.  Then 
you  fully  undress,  put  your  rifle,  revolver, 
and  clothes  under  the  flap  of  the  canvas 
cover  to  keep  the  frost  off,  slide  gently  into 
your  rough,  clinging  blankets,  pull  the 
edges  together  in  front,  jerk  the  canvas  over 
your  ears,  and — pleasant  dreams  to  you  ! 

Such  is  scientific  bed-making,  but  there 
are  niceties.  It  is  important,  for  example, 
that  the  surface  you  lie  on  shall  be — not 
soft,  that  is  little  matter — but  level ;  neither 
sloping  toward  one  side  nor  from  head  to 
foot.  Unless  you  are  sure  about  this,  you 
will  slide  out  of  bed  in  some  part.  Then, 
also,  common-sense  will  tell  you  to  clear 
all  stones  and  nodules  away  (though 
sometimes  this  is  impossible) ;  but  only  ex- 
perience, or  a  wise  friend,  will  inform  the 
camper  that  his  rest  will  be  ten-fold  better  if 
he  digs  a  depression  underneath  his  bed  where 
his  hips  come.  The  reason  why  persons  be- 
come so  stiff  who  pass  an  accidental  night 
on  the  floor,  or  on  a  railway  bench,  is 
mainly  because  they  have  had  no  support 
for  the  spine,  such  as  the  yielding  bed 
affords.  All  night  long  many  muscles  have 
had  to  keep  on  duty,  bearing  up  the  less 
prominent  parts  of  the  body.  The  spring 
of  a  mattress  cannot  be  found  in  the 
ground,  but  it  can  be  imitated  by  sinking 
the  hips  until  the  small  of  the  back  also 
rests  upon  the  earth.  Always  dig  a  hole 
under  your  bed.  If  you  fear  the  cold  (fre- 
quently an  altitude  is  attained  for  which  the 
bedding  sufficient  below  is  an  inadequate 
protection,  particularly  if  a  heavy  wind  is 
blowing  or  the  snow  is  flying),  a  good  plan  is 
to  fold  your  blankets,  turn  up  the  bottom 


ROCKY  MOUNTAIN  NIGHTS. 


as  usual,  and  then  stitch  the  whole  together 
into  a  bag.  Another  way  is  not  to  erect 
your  tent,  which  is  little  or  no  protection 
against  cold,  but  to  spread  it  over  you  and 
peg  it  down,  or  pile  enough  rocks  around 
the  edges  to  keep  it  from  blowing  away. 
The  former  plan  I  tried  in  1877,  with 
great  success,  but  it  was  the  hardest  work 
in  the  world  to  get  into  my  bag,  which  was 
just  large  enough  and  no  larger.  I  had  to 
insinuate  my  body  as  gently  as  a  surgeon 
probes  a  wound,  in  order  to  keep  the 
blankets  from  drawing  out  of  shape  before 
I  was  inside.  When  once  I  had  wriggled 
down  in,  how  snug  it  was !  I  could  not 
turn  over  without  rolling  the  larger  part 
of  my  bedding  with  me.  Yet  those*  very 
same  nights,  away  up  on  the  bald  brow  of 
a  lonesome  peak,  when  every  man  piled 
on  as  many  extra  canvas  manias  and  buffalo 
robes  as  he  could  find,  the  mosquitoes  were 
so  thick  that  we  had  to  build  miniature 
tents  of  netting  over  our  half-frozen  heads 
to  get  any  sleep  at  all.  It  was  the  most 
startling  conjunction  of  winter  and  sum- 
mer, zero  and  insects,  that  I  ever  heard  of! 

But  at  such  altitudes  one  must  expect 
to  find  it  often  very  cold  at  night,  even  in 
midsummer.  Often,  down  in  the  San  Juan 
country  near  the  head-waters  of  the  Rio 
Grande,  we  woke  up  to  find  the  canvas  over 
us  frozen  as  stiff  as  sheet-iron.  When  one 
rises  under  those  forbidding  circumstances,  he 
gets  into  his  frosty  trowsers  with  considerable 
celerity. 

I  think  the  very  coldest  night  I  ever  had 
in  the  mountains  was  on  the  occasion  of  a 
little  adventure  in  Mosquito  Pass,  long  before 
Leadville,  to  which  that  pass  has  since  been 
made  a  highway,  was  ever  dreamed  of.  It 
was  then  a  very  high,  rough  passage  over 
the  Range; — merely  a  place  where  it  was 
possible  to  get  up  and  down,  and  used 
mainly  with  donkeys, — but  I  had  to  go  across 
that  way,  and  started.  It-  was  a  long,  un- 
familiar road,  I  was  alone,  a  storm  came  up, 
and  I  got  widely  astray  from  the  dim  trail, 
and  had  a  variety  of  minor  adventures, 
which  I  have  chronicled  elsewhere.  The 
result  was  that  when  I  got  over  the  gale- 
swept  crest  and  down  to  timber-line  on  the 
right  side,  it  was  dark,  and  after  thresh- 
ing through  half  a  mile  of  wet  thickets 
and  dense  woods,  my  horse  and  I  at  last 
came  to  an  utter  standstill  in  front  of  where 
a  tornado  had  piled  fallen  timber  across  the ' 
already  half-obliterated  trail.  It  was  useless 
to  go  further,  so  I  unsaddled  at  a  little  open 
spot  among  some  spruces.  Securing  my 


exhausted  horse  by  his  long  lariat,  I  dragged 
the  heavy  ranger  saddle  to  an  evergreen,  and 
dived  into  the  pouches  after  matches,  for  if 
you  are  warm  being  hungry  does  not 
greatly  matter.  Alas,  there  were  none ! 
For  the  first  and — cela  va  sans  dire — for 
the  last  time  in  the  West,  I  had  not  a 
lucifer !  Then  I  took  an  inventory  of  my 
goods,  which  were  not  designed  for  such 
an  evil  fate  as  this.  First,  there  was  my 
saddle  and  saddle-bags,  which  contained 
only  a  stupid  flask  empty  of  everything 
save  odor,  a  tantalizing  pipe  which  could 
not  be  lit,  and  a  pair  of  woolen  socks  which 
I  pulled  on  as  an  attempt  at  a  night-dress. 
This  saddle  was  my  pillow,  and  a  thin,  worn- 
out  saddle-blanket,  with  my  rubber  poncho, 
constituted  my  bedding, — rather  scanty  for 
1 1 ,000  feet  or  so  above  the  sea !  I  spread  my 
poncho  under  the  drooping  branches  of  the 
spruce,  just  where  partridges  love  to  hide, 
gathered  the  ragged  blanket  about  my  legs, 
belted  my  army  overcoat  tight  about  me, 
and  lay  down.  I  was  very  weary,  my  nag's 
steady  crunching  was  the  only  disturbing 
sound,  and  I  soon  fell  asleep.  My  nap  was 
not  a  long  one,  however,  on  account  of  the 
cold,  but,  re-arranging  my  coverings,  I  again 
slept  an  hour  or  so.  This  time  I  awoke 
thoroughly  chilled,  yet  I  dozed  a  little  more, 
until  I  shook  in  every  member,  and  had  just 
sense  enough  left  me  to  raise  myself  up  and 
move  about.  My  poor  horse  was  standing 
head  down,  the  picture  of  lonesome  misery. 
With  a  low  neigh  as  I  approached,  he  came 
to  meet  me,  and  followed  me  with  his  nose  at 
my  shoulder  as  I  walked  back  and  forth. 
What  a  night  it  was !  All  around  the  glade 
stood  a  wall  of  black  forest,  except  wheie,  on 
one  side,  a  group  of  burned  trunks  held  aloft 
their  white,  skeleton  arms.  The  grass  was 
white  and  crisp  with  frost,  which  crackled 
under  my  feet  as  I  walked.  Overhead,  the 
stars  seemed  fairly  to  project  from  their  jetty 
background,  like  glittering  spear-points  aimed 
at  my  cantonment.  I  noted  the  slow  wheel- 
ing of  that  platoon  of  nebulae,  the  Milky 
Way.  I  studied  the  constellations,  but  got 
little  comfort.  Corona  only  suggested  that 

"  A  sorrow's  crown  of  sorrow  is  remembering  hap- 
pier things," 

and  the  Pleiades  seemed  to  beg  me  to  sym- 
pathize with  their  lost  sister.  At  one  side  a 
bit  of  the  creek  valley  was  visible,  over  which 
faintly  gleamed  the  whitish  snow-crest  of 
some  mountain.  It  was  profoundly  still. 
Icy  water  gurgled  softly  under  the  elders; 
tall,  muffled  trees  swayed  gently;  an  occa- 


ROCKY  MOUNTAIN  NIGHTS. 


221 


sional  ringing  snap  of  frost  was  heard,  like 
fairies  clinking  glasses;  but  these  sounds  were 
so  consonant  with  the  whole  scene  that  they 
did  not  break  the  stillness.  There  was 
nothing  particular  to  be  afraid  of,  my  walk- 
ing warmed  me,  and,  giving  myself  up  to 
imaginative  thought,  I  came  readily  to  en- 
joy the  novelty  of  the  experience,  and  the 
calm  delight  which  the  sweet  influences  of 
the  night  ever  exert.  Thus  quieting  myself, 
drowsiness  weighted  my  eyelids,  till,  scarcely 
feeling  what  I  did,  I  again  laid  my  head  on 
my  saddle,  and  did  not  awake  until  the  blue 
ridges  were  sharply  and  grandly  outlined 
against  a  glowing  background  of  auroral 
light. 

But  to  recur  to  the  camp. 

Dinner  over,  odd  jobs  finished,  the  last 
glance  at  the  mules  given,  and  the  short 
twilight  rapidly  falling  under  the  assault  of 
the  legions  of  darkness,  we  don  our  over- 
coats and  gather  for  our  nightly  chat  before 
going  to  bed. 

Much  of  the  pleasure  of  this  hour,  as  of 
every  other,  depends  on  our  surroundings. 
Persons  who  call  a  trip  with  a  government 
survey  all  a  pleasure  excursion,  would  bet- 
ter think  twice.  A  thousand  and  one  small 
vexations  attend  all  the  time.  As  a  picnic, 
the  expedition  would  be  a  lamentable  fail- 
ure. There  is  the  fatigue  at  night,  the  frost 
in  the  morning,  and  the  gale  or  the  scorch- 
ing sun  at  noonday  ;  your  peeled  nose  and 
scaling  ears  and  smarting  neck  testify  to  the 
power  of  the  last.  The  often-encountered 
alkali  dust  not  only  hurts  your  eyes  and 
parches  your  lips  till  they  crack  open,  but 
seems  to  decompose  your  skin,  rendering  it 
so  tender  that  the  least  rough  touch  produces 
a  painful  wound,  and  your  hands,  which  it 
is  almost  impossible  to  keep  clean,  become 
sore  and  unsightly.  Then,  half  the  time, 
your  feet  are  wet,  and  get  cold  in  the  stir- 
rups, or  the  blankets  become  damp  and  dis- 
turb your  rest,  or — but  there  are  plenty  of 
other  inconveniences.  Sometimes  the  camp 
has  to  be  placed  where  there  is  not  a  single 
pleasant  feature  near  or  remote, — in  the 
midst  of  a  tract  of  sun-baked  mud  and 
glaring  white  rocks,  for  instance, — where  the 
only  vegetation  is  prickly  grease-wood,  like 
so  many  Canada  thistles,  and  where  the 
principal  denizens  are  jack-rabbits,  rattle- 
snakes and  lizards.  But  this  is  not  a  chapter 
of  complaints,  and  I  hasten  to  dismiss  the 
wrong  side  of  the  texture. 

Of  all  the  lovely  camping  places  in  my 
recollection,  I  think  one  over  in  Western 
Wyoming,  among  the  nameless  heights  be- 


tween the  Green  and  the  Snake  rivers,  bears 
the  palm.  A  ravine  diverged  from  the  val- 
ley we  had  been  traveling  through,  one  side 
of  which  was  a  high,  grassy  bank,  and  the 
other  was  wooded ;  but  in  the  woods  opened 
a  little  glade,  down  which  came  an  icy  rill, 
tumbling  and  foaming  between  banks  of 
moss  solid  to  the  water's  edge.  All  about 
were  gigantic,  yellow-barked  spruces,  among 
which  this  little  level  spot  had  remained 
clear,  just  capacious  enough  for  our  tents. 
It  was  a  place  for  perfect  repose.  The  eye, 
weary  with  incessant  far-seeing,  rested  con- 
tent on  the  verdant  slope  that  cut  off  the  rest 
of  the  world.  As,  after  the  turmoil  and  noise 
of  the  city,  the  business  man  pulls  the  blinds 
close  together  and  drops  the  curtain,  shut- 
ting out  the  turbulent  scenes  of  his  daily 
struggle,  and  shutting  in  the  peace  and  love 
of  his  home,  so  we  were  thankful  that  we 
could  not  see  even  the  loftiest  summits,  and 
gladly  gathered  round  our  cosy  hearth- 
stones, where  the  spruce  boughs  crackled 
like  salt,  and  coils  of  black  smoke  writhed 
up  from  the  resinous  logs. 

The  night  "  effect,"  as  painters  phrase  it, 
of  such  a  bivouac  as  this,  is  weirdly  curious. 
One  need  not  be  afraid  to  walk  away  from 
it  into  the  gloom  :  the  Prince  of  Darkness 
is  said  to  be  a  gentleman.  And,  in  fact,  it 
is  not  dark  out  there  in  the  open  air;  for 
under  the  lamps  of  the  constellations,  and  in 
that  strange  light  from  the  north,  even  mid- 
night in  the  high  mountains  is  only  gray. 
But  beneath  the  star-proof  trees  there  is  the 
blackness  of  plagued  Egypt — a  darkness 
which  may  be  felt  in  thrusts  from  a  thousand 
needle-pointed  leaves  and  rough  cones,  if 
one  pushes  too  heedlessly  into  the  recesses 
of  the  woods.  The  blaze  is  orange-colored, 
the  smoke  heavy  and  black,  illumined  redly 
underneath.  The  pillars  of  the  smooth  fir 
trunks  within  reach  of  the  fire-light  stand 
like  a  stockade  about  the  camp,  but  the 
shifting  light  penetrates  between  thern  and 
summons  from  the  darkness  new  boles,  that 
step  out  and  retreat  again  as  the  capricious 
flame  is  wafted  by  the  wind  toward  or  away 
from  that  side. 

While  the  centers  of  the  great,  gummy  logs 
are  eaten  by  the  blaze,  and  while  we  sit  on  their 
ends  and  smoke  our  pipes,  what  soul-inspir- 
ing talk  is  heard  !  The  stories  flow  as  nat- 
urally as  the  sparks  explore  the  dark  arch 
overhead,  but  it  is  no  more  possible  to  com- 
municate the  point  and  living  fun  of  these 
narratives,  told  with  the  Western  freedom 
of  language  and  usually  apropos  of  some 
previous  tale,  than  it  is  to  tickle  your  senses 


222 


ROCKY  MOUNTAIN  NIGHTS. 


with  the  sizzle  and  delectable  flavor  of  the 
deer's  juicy  ribs  roasting  in  those  ashes.  Shut 
in  by  the  shadowy  forest,  we  seem  to  inhabit 
a  little  world  all  by  ourselves,  with  sky,  sun, 
moon  and  stars  of  our  own ;  and  we  converse 
of  you  in  New  York  as  Proctor  does  of  the 
inhabitants  of  other  planets,  and  speculate 
upon  the  movements  of  armies  along  the 
Danube  as  the  Greeks  discussed  the  life  of 
souls  across  the  Styx.  The  affairs  of  the 
outside  world  have  lost  interest  for  us,  since 
we  are  no  longer  spurred  by  the  heel  of  the 
morning  newspaper.  In  simplifying  our  life 
to  a  primitive  measure  we  have  ceased  to 
trouble  ourselves  about  problems  of  politics 
or  social  economy,  and  are  beginning  to 
discover  that  the  universe  is  less  complex 
than  we  had  made  it.  Thus  we  conduct  a 
sort  of  mental  exploration  parallel  with  the 
geodetic  survey. 

Sometimes  signs  of  previous  occupancy 
added  to  the  attractions  of  a  camp,  when  it 
was  made  near  some  trail,  and  we  specu- 
lated on  the  kind  of  man  who  had  been 
there  before  us.  How  long  before  ?  What 
was  his  object  ?  And  whither  ,was  he 
bound  ?  In  a  region  so  wild  and  utterly 
untenanted  as  this,  anything  pertaining  to 
humanity  is  invested  with  extraordinary 
interest.  From  these  foundation-sticks  we 
could  tell  the  size  and  kind  of  tent  he  had ; 
from  the  tracks  could  decide  that  his  one 
animal  was  a  horse,  not  a  mule  (which 
makes  a  smaller,  narrower  track),  and  knew 
that  at  this  stake  he  picketed  him  at  night, 
and  by  that  path  led  him  to  the  water  ;  from 
this  stump  we  guessed  the  sharpness  of  his 
axe;  that  wadding  told  the  size  of  his  rifle; 
here  was _ his  fire;  there,  where  the  grass  is 
trampled,  he  piled  his  night's  wood.  Where 
this  hunter  or  beaver- trapper  has  camped 
and  left  his  history  on  a  few  chips,  there 
remains  a  civilized  aspect  which  nature 
must  work  long  to  efface. 

Similarly,  if  we  remained  long,  our  own 
halting-ground  became  dirty  and  bedraggled, 
so  that  we  were  glad  to  change  often.  ~Yet 
a  strange  familiarity  attaches  even  to  a  bit  of 
brook  and  mountain  side,  and  knowing  there 
is  no  better  representation  of  home  within 
many  hundred  miles,  you  easily  give  it  that 
name.  "  Let  us  wander  where  we  will,  the 
universe  is  built  round  about  us,  and  we  are 
central  still."  Nowhere  did  this  homelike 
feeling  attach  itself  more  (and  with  less  good 
reason)  than  to  one  July  camp  high  up  on 
Wind  River  Peak,  at  the  very  sources  of  the 
great  Sweetwater.  Perhaps  because  we  in- 
vaded angry  solitudes,  and  boldly  held  our 


own,  in  spite  of  every  effort  on  the  part  of  the 
well-roused  spirits  of  the  place.  The  trees 
there  were  all  pines  and  stood  thickly,  but 
were  not  of  great  size,  though  straight  and 
tall.  Many  lay  at  full  length  upon  the 
ground,  for  they  had  shallow  root-hold 
among  the  boulders,  and  the  very  first  night 
the  forest  treated  us  to  an  exhibition  of  its 
power  to  injure,  as  a  hint,  perhaps,  that  we 
would  better  not  violate  its  sacred  shades 
with  our  presence,  and  consume  its  royal 
'timber  in  our  paltry  camp-fire.  "  When  I 
want  fire,"  the  forest  seemed  to  say,  "  I  rub 
my  limbs  together  and  the  flames  sweep  for 
miles  through  my  oily  cones  and  dry  tops, 
that  love  the  blaze."  The  trunks  began  to 
fall  all  around  us — dozens  at  a  time,  while 
the  air  was  full  of  tremendous  concussions, 
and  the  screams  of  rending  fibers.  But 
none  of  these  mighty  bolts  harmed  us,  be- 
yond the  crushing  of  a  single  tent,  and  when 
the  hurricane  was  over  we  found  our  fire- 
wood close  at  hand  ready  cut,  and  so  profited 
by  the  anger  of  the  resentful  gods. 

There  was  some  of  the  hardest  work  done 
in  the  history  of  the  survey  from  the  head- 
quarters of  this  camp,  but  one  night,  when 
the  snow  drifted  steadily  down  on  our  beds 
as  we  lay  in  quiet,  I  was  not  so  tired  but 
that  I  lay  awake  for  hours,  stowing  away  in 
the  coffers  of  my  memory  the  fast  crowding 
impressions ;  and  perhaps  it  was  those  hours 
of  reflection  that  fixed  all  the  details  of  the 
wild,  timber-line  carnp  so  firmly  in  my  mind. 

What  a  somber  world  that  of  the  pine 
woods  is!  None  of  the  cheerfulness  of  the 
ash  and  maple  groves, — the  alternation 
of  sunlight  and  changing  shadow,  the  rust- 
ling leaves  and  fragrant  shrubbery  under- 
neath, the  variety  of  foliage  and  bark  to  rest 
the  eye  and  excite  curiosity  and  delight. 
Only  the  straight,  upright  trunks,  the  color- 
less, dusty  ground,  the  dense  masses  of  dead 
green,  each  mass  just  like  another,  the 
scraggy  skeletons  of  dead  trees,  all  their 
bare  limbs  drooping  in  lamentation.  The 
sound  of  the  wind  in  the  pines  is  equally 
grewsome.  If  the  breeze  be  light  you  hear  a 
low,  melancholy  monody ;  if  stronger,  a 
hushed  sort  of  sighing.  When  the  hurri- 
cane lays  his  hand  upon  them,  the  groaning 
trees  wail  out  in  awful  agony,  and,  racked 
beyond  endurance,  cast  themselves  head- 
long to  the  stony  ground.  At  such  times 
every  particular  fiber  of  the  pine's  body 
seems  resonant  with  pain,  and  the  straining 
branches  literally  shriek.  This  is  not  mere 
fancy,  but  something  quite  different  from 
anything  to  be  observed  in  hard-wood  for- 


ROCKY  MOUNTAIN  NIGHTS. 


223 


ests.  There  the  tempest  roars ;  here  it  howls. 
I  do  not  think  the  idea  of  the  Banshee 
spirits  could  have  arisen  elsewhere  than 
among  the  pines;  nor  that  any  mythology 
growing  up  among  people  inhabiting  these 
forests  could  have  omitted  such  supernatural 
beings  from  its  theogony. 

But  do  not  conclude  that  the  gloom  of 
the  pine-woods  clouded  our  spirits.  So 
many  trees  had  fallen  where  our  tents  were 
pitched  that  the  sun  got  down  there,  and  at 
night  the  moon  looked  in  upon  us,  rising 
weird  through  a  vista  of  dead  and  lonely 
tree-tops.  Then,  too,  the  brook  was  always 
singing  in  our  ears — absolutely  singing! 
The  incessant  tumble  of  the  water  and  boil- 
ing of  the  eddies  makes  a  heavy  undertone 
like  the  surf,  but  the  breaking  of  the  current 
over  the  higher  rocks  and  leaping  of  the 
foam  down  the  cataracts,  produce  a  dis- 
tinctly musical  sound, — a  mystical  ringing 
of  sweet-toned  bells.  There  is  no  mistak- 
ing this  metallic  melody,  this  clashing  of 
tiny  cymbals,  and  it  must  be  this  miniature 
blithe  harmony  which  fine  ears  have  heard 
on  the  beach  in  summer,  where  the  surf 
broke  gently. 

But  these  are  drowsy  fancies,  and  one 
night  of  such  sleepless  dreaming  is  about  all 
a  healthy  man  can  afford  out  of  a  whole 
trip;  and  if  he  is  not  a  healthy  man  he  had 
better  not  go  into  the  Wind  River  Mount- 
ains at  all. 

Sometimes  one  is  kept  awake  by  worse 
disturbances  than  reveries,  though  not  often. 
With  complete  composure,  you  sleep  through 
a  steady  rain  falling  on  the  piece  of  canvas 
laid  over  your  face,  or  in  momentary  expec- 
tation of  being  surprised  by  Indians.  I 
have  heard  of  a  few  camps  in  the  old  days 
having  been  run  over  by  a  stampede  of 
buffaloes  now  and  then,  but  this,  fortunately, 
was  rare.  Now,  few  worse  interruptions  of 
this  sort  occur  to  rest  than  the  tramping 
among  the  sleepers  of  mules,  in  their  attempt 
to  make  some  felonious  attack  upon  the 
edible  portion  of  the  cargo,  and  this  only 
occurs  where  pasturage  is  scant ;  once, 
camping  near  a  Mexican  pack-train  of 
donkeys,  we  were  thus  greatly  annoyed  by 
those  little  brutes. 

Now  and  then,  on  the  'plains,  coyotes 
venture  close  to  camp,  and,  if  they  are  very 
hungry,  even  come  to  the  fireside  in  search 
of  meat,  and  perhaps  attempt  to  gnaw 
the  straps  off  the  saddle  or  boots  your  weary 
head  reclines  upon.  Foiled  in  this,  they 
adjourn  to  a  respectful  distance  and  set  up 
prolonged  and  lugubrious  howls,  which 


either  keep  you  awake  altogether  or  attune 
your  dreams  to  some  horrible  theme.  Per- 
haps I  ought  not  to  use  the  plural,  since 
one  coyote's  voice  is  capable  of  noise  enough 
to  simulate  a  whole  pack.  No  doubt  it 
often  happens  that  when  a  score  seem  howl- 
ing in  shrill  concert,  there  is  really  but  a 
single  wolf  raining  his  quick-repeated  and 
varied  cries  upon  our  unwilling  ears.  These 
small  wolves  are  justly  despised  by  all 
Western  men ;  but  the  big  gray  wolves  are 
a  different  matter.  However,  I  never  saw 
them  but  once. 

While  cougars  and  wolves  and  coyotes, 
and  even  Mexican  burros,  are  rare  infring- 
ers  on  the  sacred  privacy  of  your  sleep, 
numerous  "  small  deer  "  come  to  investigate 
the  curious  stranger  who  has  stretched  hjm- 
self  out  in  their  domain.  Rattlesnakes  are 
extremely  numerous  over  many  parts  of  the 
West,  and  we  used  to  fear  that,  with  their 
love  of  warmth,  they  would  seek  the  shelter 
of  our  bedding  to  escape  the  chill  of  the  night; 
but  I  do  not  know  of  any  such  an  unpleasant 
bed-fellow  having  been  found  by  any  of  the 
survey  people.  I  myself  came  pretty  near 
to  it,  however,  over  on  Cochetopa  creek,  in 
Colorado,  one  night,  when  I  unwittingly 
spread  my  blankets  over  a  small  hole  in  the 
ground.  I  snoozed  on,  unmindful  of  danger, 
but  when  I  moved  my  bed  in  the  morning, 
out  from  the  hole  crawled  a  huge  rattler, 
whose  doorway  I  had  stopped  up  all  night! 
He  would  better  have  stayed  in,  for  big  John 
of  Oregon  caught  him  by  the  tail  and  broke 
his  stupid  neck,  before  he  had  time  to  throw 
himself  into  a  coil  of  vantage  for  the  strike. 

If  you  camp  in  the  woods  you  are  certain 
of  late  visitors  in  the  shape  of  mice  and  the 
ubiquitous  and  squeaky  ground-squirrels, 
whose  nocturnal  rambles  lead  them  all  over 
your  bed-covers ;  often,  indeed,  their  rapid, 
sharp-toed  little  feet  scud  across  your  cheek, 
and  their  furry  tails  trail  athwart  the  bridge 
of  your  nose  and  brush  the  dew  from'  your 
sealed  eyelids.  To  the  thousand  insects 
rustling  in  the  grass  we  never  gave  attention ; 
and  not  even  the  most  home-bred  tender- 
foot ever  thought  of  cotton  in  his  ears !  How 
thus  could  he  hear  all  the  pleasant,  faint 
voices  speaking  through  the  night  so  close 
about  him  ?  Thoreau,  writing  from  his 
camp  on  a  sloping  bank  of  the  Merrimac, 
has  well  described  the  sounds  of  the  night : 

"  With  our  heads  so  low  in  the  grass,  we  heard 
the  river  whirling  and  sucking,  and  lapsing  down- 
ward, kissing  the  shore  as  it  went,  sometimes 
rippling  louder  than  usual,  and  again  its  mighty 
current  making  only  a  slight,  limpid,  trickling 


224 


ROCKY  MOUNTAIN  NIGHTS. 


sound,  as  if  our  water-pail  had  sprung  a  leak,  and 
the  water  were  flowing  into  the  grass  by  our  side. 
The  wind,  rustling  the  oaks  and  hazels,  impressed 
us  like  a  wakeful  and  inconsiderate  person  up  at 
midnight,  moving  about,  and  putting  things  to  rights, 
occasionally  stirring  up  whole  drawers  full  of  leaves 
at  a  puff.  There  seemed  to  be  a  great  haste  and  prep- 
aration throughout  Nature,  as  for  a  distinguished 
visitor;  all  her  aisles  had  to  be  swept  in  the  night, 
by  a  thousand  hand-maidens,  and  a  thousand  pots  to 
be  boiled  for  the  next  day's  feasting ;— such  a  whis- 
pering bustle,  as  if  ten  thousand  fairies  made  their 
fingers  fly,  silently  sewing  at  the  new  carpet  with 
which  the  earth  was  to  be  clothed,  and  the  new 
drapery  which  was  to  adorn  the  trees.  And  the 
wind  would  lull  and  die  away,  and  we,  like  it,  fell 
asleep  again." 

But  I  am  dwelling  too  long  upon  this 
rare  wakefulness  in  camp,  rather  than  the 
ordinary  and  business-like  repose  of  the 
nig ht.  One's  sleep  in  the  crisp  air,  after  the 
fatigues  of  the  hard  day,  is  sound  and 
serene.  But  the  morning  !  Ah,  that  is  the 
time  that  tries  men's  souls !  In  this  land  one 
would  find  it  very  unpleasantly  cold  to  be 

with  her  when 

"jocund  Day 

Stands  tiptoe  on  the  misty  mountain-top." 


You  awake  at  daylight  a  little  chilly,  re- 
adjust your  blankets,  and  want  to  go  to 
sleep.  The  sun  may  pour  forth  from  the 
"  golden  window  of  the  East "  and  flood 
the  world  with  limpid  light ;  the  stars  may 
pale  and  the  jet  of  the  midnight  sky  be 
diluted  to  that  deep  and  perfect  morning 
blue  into  which  you  gaze  to  unmeasured 
depths;  the  air  may  become  a  pervading 
champagne,  dry  and  delicate,  every  draught 
of  which  tingles  the  lungs  and  spurs  the 
blood  along  the  veins  with  joyous  speed ; 
the  landscape  may  woo  the  eyes  with  airy 
undulations  of  prairie  or  snow-pointed  pin- 
nacles lifted  sharply  against  the  azure, — yet 
sleep  chains  you.  That  very  quality  of  the 
atmosphere  which  contributes  to  all  this 
beauty  and  makes  it  so  delicious  to  be 
awake  makes  it  equally  blessed  to  slum- 
ber. Lying  there  in  the  utterly  open  air, 
breathing  the  pure  elixir  of  the  untainted 
mountains,  you  come  to  think  even  the 
confinement  of  a  flapping-tent  oppressive, 
and  the  ventilation  of  a  sheltering  spruce- 
bough  bad. 


TO  THE  IMMORTAL  MEMORY  OF  KEATS. 

(ON   COMING   INTO   POSSESSION   OF   HIS    COPY   OF    "  GUZMAN    D'  ALFARACHE.") 

GREAT.  Father  mine,  deceased  ere  I  was  born, 
And  in  a  classic  land  renowned  of  old ; 
Thy  life  was  happy,  but  thy  death  forlorn, 
Buried  in  violets  and  Roman  mould. 

Thou  hast  the  laurel,  Master  'of  my  soul ! 
Thy  name,  thou   said'st,  was  writ  in  water — No; 
For  while  clouds  float  on  high,  and  billows  roll, 
That  name  shall  worshiped  be.     Will  mine  be  so? 

I  kiss  thy  words,  as  I  would  kiss  thy  face, 
And  put  thy  book  most  reverently  away  : 
Beside  thy  peers  thou  hast  an  honored  place, 
Amid  our  kingliest,  Byron,  Wordsworth,  Gray. 


If  tears  will  fill  mine  eyes,  am  I  to  blame  ? 
"  O  smile  among  the  shades,  for  this  is  fame ! " 


WILLIAM  BLAKE,  PAINTER  AND  POET. 


22$ 


WILLIAM    BLAKE,  PAINTER   AND   POET. 


il;r   WBiaJt* 

"DEATH'S  DOOR."      (FROM   BLAIR'S  "GRAVE."    ACKERMAK,  LONDON,  1813.) 


THE  exhibition  in  Boston  of  a  number  of 
William  Blake's  pictures,  brought  together 
from  various  quarters,  gives  opportunity  for 
a  more  complete  view  of  his  singular  power 
than  has  been  possible  before  on  this  side  of 

VOL.  XX.— 16. 


the  Atlantic.     Ever  since  the  publication  of 
Gilchrist's  "  Life  of  Blake,"  in  1863,*  there 

*  A  new  edition  of  this  book,  with  a  number  of 
hitherto  uncollected  letters  of  Blake,  is  to  be  pub- 
lished during  the  present  year. 


226 


WILLIAM  BLAKE,  PAINTER  AND  POET. 


has  been  an  intelligent  curiosity  respecting 
him  as  a  painter,  stimulated  by  the  glimpses 
of  concealed  beauty  which  the  photo-litho- 
graphs in  that  book  grudgingly  permitted, 
and  not  wholly  discouraged  by  the  so-called 
fac-simile  reproductions  which  have  been 
published  at  different  times.  Blake's  fame 
as  a  painter  has  rested  mainly,  however,  up- 
on the  enthusiastic  testimony  of  a  few  capable 
witnesses ;  his  reputation  as  a  designer  has 
had  a  durable  foundation  in  the  copies  of 
the  "  Book  of  Job,"  which  have  found  their 
way  to  America ;  his  place  as  a  poet  has  been 
more  clearly  denned  by  the  attention  which 
has  been  given  to  his  lyrics,  and  the  obscur- 
ity in  which  his  visionary  books  have  been 
suffered  to  lie.  It  is  not  impossible,  now, 
with  the  added  evidence  of  this  interesting 
collection,  to  form  a  fairly  clear  conception 
of  the  limitations  of  Blake's  genius,  and  to 
note  some  of  the  directions  which  it  takes; 
of  its  scope  and  power  no  one  will  wish  to 
pronounce  confidently  until  he  has  seen  all 
of  his  work,  for  genius  has  a  way  of  surpris- 
ing the  unwary,  and  new  examples  of  power 
give  new  and  unexpected  pleasure. 

The  circumstances  of  Blake's  life  may 
quickly  be  recited.  He  was  born  in  London 
November  28,  1757,  and  he  died  in  London 
August  12,  1827.  Excepting  four  years 
spent  at  Felpham  by  the  sea,  in  Sussex,  the 
seventy  years  of  his  life  were  passed  in 
London.  He  married  Catherine  Boucher 
in  his  twenty-fifth  year,  and  left  her  a  child- 
less widow.  He  was  a  poor  man,  as  the 
world  counts  poverty,  and  at  no  time  during 
his  life  did  his  profuse  work  bring  him  more 
than  the  plainest  living.  When  ten  years 
old,  his  artistic  tendencies  were  so  strongly 
intimated,  that  his  father,  a  modest  hosier, 
did  not  hesitate  to  send  him  to  a  drawing- 
school,  and  afterward  to  apprentice  him  to 
an  engraver.  He  worked  from  the  designs 
of  others  until  ten  years  before  his  death, 
when  he  engraved  thirty-seven  plates  for 
Flaxman's  "  Hesiod,"  and  he  used  his  graver 
to  the  last  upon  his  own  inventions.  Before 
he  had  gained  his  freedom  he  had  begun 
original  work,  and  during  the  twenty  years 
of  his  maturity,  that  is,  from  his  thirtieth  to 
his  fiftieth  year,  he  was  engrossed  with  the 
execution  of  composite  works  in  text,  line 
and  color,  of  which  the  authorship,  design, 
and  mechanical  process  of  reproduction  were 
his  own.  Even  in  his  early  engraving  he 
imported  conceptions  of  his  own,  so  that 
we  may  set  aside  his  artisanship  as  an  en- 
graver, reckoning  it  of  little  value  in  any 
estimate  of  his  distinctive  work,  and  con- 


sider him  as  an  artist  armed  with  a  techni- 
cal knowledge  of  engraving,  and  an  experi- 
mental knowledge  of  certain  mechanical 
processes,  which  he  used  mainly  for  fixing 
and  multiplying  his  own  designs. 

Of  the  amount  of  work  done  by  him  it  is 
not  easy  to  make  an  exact  statement.  In 
Gilchrist's  "  Life,"  there  are  annotated  lists 
of  Blake's  paintings,  drawings,  and  engrav- 
ings, confessedly  imperfect,  in  which  between 
eight  and  nine  hundred  subjects  are  noted 
as  having  been  treated  by  him,  some  in 
color,  some  in  black  and  white,  and 
some  with  his  graver;  but,  besides  these, 
we  must  reckon  the  very  important  amount 
of  work  bestowed  on  the  prophetic  books, 
and  a  list  of  more  than  two  hundred  en- 
gravings from  the  designs  of  other  artists. 
Enough  can  be  gathered  from  this  to  show 
that  Blake  was  an  industrious  man,  and, 
what  is  more  to  the  purpose,  to  indicate  how 
very  imperfect  is  the  material  now  from 
whicli  we  may  estimate  his  genius.  The 
author  and  editors  of  Gilchrist's  "  Life " 
used  every  effort  to  get  sight  of  his  work,  yet 
they  are  obliged  to  confess  to  not  having 
seen,  among  other  things,  a  hundred  and 
fourteen  designs  to  Gray's  Poems,  owned  by 
the  Duke  of  Hamilton,  and  "  reported  to  be 
among  the  very  finest  works  executed  by 
Blake." 

The  published  designs  of  Blake,  those, 
that  is,  that  take  their  place  in  the  ordinary 
method  of  book-illustration,  afford  a  fairly 
good  introduction  to  a  study  of  his  more  un- 
usual work.  He  worked  at  a  time  when  there 
were  ambitious  enterprises  by  publishers, 
who  were  fired  with  zeal, perhaps,  by  witness- 
ing the  expansive  undertaking  of  Alderman 
Boydell  in  his  truly  British  monument  to 
Shakspere's  genius.  Blake  was  rather  an 
impracticable  man  with  the  publishers,  and 
they  fouifd  it  less  easy  to  make  a  card  of 
him  than  of  the  more  pliant  and  graceful 
Stothard,  yet  they  followed  the  advice  of 
Fuseli  and  others  and  went  to  Blake  for 
illustrations,  which  it  was  promised  by 
Blake's  admirers  would  sell  their  books.  In 
one  instance  only  was  there  anything  like 
substantial  success,  and  this  was  reached  by 
passing  Blake's  work  through  the  translating 
power  of  another  engraver.  Blair's  Grave, 
with  designs  by  Blake,  engraved  by  Schia- 
vonetti,  must  have  been  very  thoroughly  pub- 
lished, from  the  great  number  of  copies  which 
have  presented  themselves  in  all  quarters 
since  Blake's  name  has  come  forward.  In 
America,  some  bookseller's  enterprise  found 
a  fresh  field,  and  in  many  families  the  book 


WILLIAM  BLAKE,  PAINTER  AND  POET. 


227 


has  for  years  been  a  well-known  show-book. 
There  are  few,  open  to  any  influence  of  art, 
who  do  not  at  once  confess  the  attractive- 
ness of  these  engravings.  The  style  of 
execution  by  Schiavonetti  is  favorable  to  their 
popularity :  bold,  strong,  free  from  quid- 
dling  lines,  they  hold  with  a  firm  grasp 
the  conceptions  of  the  artist.  The  topics 
treated  also  are  elemental ;  they  are  typical 
passages  in  human  life  and  death,  and  re- 
quire no  subtle  interpretation.  Then  the 
statuesque  beauty  of  design  appeals  clearly 
to  the  eye,  the  classic  forms  are  presented  in 
a  tender  warmth,  and  palpitate  with  a  human 
sympathy.  One  does  not  need  to  be  a 
student  of  Blake,  or  indeed  to  know  any- 
thing of  his  place  in  art,  to  be  at  once 
impressed  and  moved  by  these  inventions. 

But  a  familiarity  with  the  artist's  mind  and 
mode  enables  one  to  penetrate  a  little  further, 
and  to  discover,  through  the  mask  of  Schia- 
vonetti, characteristic  features  of  Blake.  The 
visionary  eye,  that  far-seeing,  vivid,  and 
wide-open  orb  which  looks  at  one  from  so 
many  of  Blake's  figures,  and  most  signifi- 
cantly from  Blake's  own  face  in  both  the 
portraits  of  him,  is  here ;  and  here,  too,  that 
poetic  sense  of  youth's  slender  uprightness, 
and  of  age's  patriarchal  hoar  wisdom,  which 
again  and  again  stand  as  ever  renewed 
types  in  his  treatment  of  human  life.  The 
exaggerations  of  his  figure-drawing  have 
doubtless  been  toned  down  by  the  engraver, 
but  in  one  instance  Blake  himself  may 
have  been  to  blame,  since  it  is  hard  to 
believe  that  an  engraver  of  Schiavonetti's 
skill  would  have  chosen  deliberately  the 
feebler  and  less  grammatical  form;  the  title- 
page  of  Blair's  "  Grave  "  shows  an  angel 
with  a  trump  blowing  a  tremendous  blast 
in  the  ear  of  a  skeleton;  the  dead  bones 
are  half  raised  to  hear  the  alarm,  but  the 
skeleton  rests  on  the  forearm  in  an  entirely 
impossible  manner;  the  descending  angel 
is  hung,  unaccountably,  in  the  air — reverse 
the  page  and  one  sees  a  standing  figure; 
but  Blake  had  elsewhere,  in  his  own  engrav- 
ings of  his  designs  illustrative  of  Young's 
"Night  Thoughts,"  given  the  same  con- 
ception, only  there  the  descending  figure 
really  rushes  down  with  impetuous  speed, 
and  the  startled  skeleton  raises  itself  with  a 
weird  and  quite  possible  movement. 

The  illustrations  to  Young's  "  Night 
Thoughts  "  preceded  the  work  on  the  "Grave," 
and  were  engraved  by  Blake  himself.  The 
result  is  by  no  means  so  satisfactory,  partly 
through  Blake's  deficiencies  as  an  engraver 
at  this  time,  partly  through  what  we  may  call 


PORTRAIT    OF    WILLIAM     BLAKE.       ENGRAVED    ON   WOOD    FROM 
PORTRAIT   ON    IVORY   BY  JOHN    LINNELL,  FROM  GILCHRIST's 

"LIFE."    (BY  PERMISSION  OF  MACMILLAN  AND  co.) 

miscalculation  of  effect.  It  is  not  impossi- 
ble that  were  the  page  of  Young  reduced  in 
size  we  should  not  be  so  disturbed  by  the 
inadequacy  of  the  engraved  lines;  great 
figures  in  little  more  than  outline  stretch  in 
wide  reach  over  the  large  page,  and  wher- 
ever there  is  a  defect  in  drawing  or  feeling, 
it  is  exaggerated  by  the  rather  empty  style 
of  engraving.  Still,  there  are  some  passages 
of  great  sweetness  and  majesty,  and  very 
often  singularly  unique  adaptations  of  the 
design  to  the  thought.  One  thing,  especially, 
should  be  noticed, — the  persistence  with 
which  Blake  treated  his  work  in  a  decora- 
tive as  separate  from  a  pictorial  spirit,  aiming 
to  make  the  page  a  composition  in  which 
the  stubborn  square  of  printer's  type  should 
compose  with  his  engraved  lines ;  great  fer- 
tility of  resource  is  shown  in  this.  How 
perfectly  he  understood  and  displayed  this 
spirit  of  decorative  design  will  appear  when 
we  come  to  speak  of  other  more  character- 
istic work.  A  completely  illustrated  edition 
of  the  "  Night  Thoughts  "  was  projected,  but 
only  four  parts  were  ever  published ;  these 
appeared  in  a  luxuriousness  of  paper  and 
print.  In  the  list  of  Blake's  works,  among 
the  undated  ones,  is  a  subject  which  is 
shown  in  the  Boston  collection,  and  named 
conjecturally,  after  the  list,  "  Young  bury- 
ing Narcissa,"  illustrative  of  the  lines, 

"  With  pious  sacrilege,  a  grave  I  stole ; 

*****     and  muffled  deep 
In  midnight  darkness,  whispered  my  last  sigh." 


228 


WILLIAM  BLAKE,  PAINTER  AND   POET. 


YOUNG    BURYING    NARCISSA.       (KROM     AN     INDIA-INK    DRAWING,     OWNED    BY     MKS.     GILCHRIST.) 


It  is  an  impressive  picture,  which  has  little 
in  common  with  the  engraved  illustrations 
to  the  "  Night  Thoughts." 

An  episode  in  Blake's  life  brought  him 
for  four  years  into  close  connection  with  the 
commonplace  Hayley,  a  decorous  court  poet 
and  Cowper's  biographer.  For  him,  Blake 
made  and  engraved  designs,  including  one 
which  appears  in  the  Boston  collection,  a 
broadsheet,  "Little  Tom  the  Sailor."  Hayley 
wrote  a  humdrum  ballad  with  charitable  in- 
tent, and  Blake  furnished  two  designs  to 
stand  at  the  head  and  foot  of  the  sheet.  He 
calls  the  process  by  which  he  executed 
these,  "  wood-cutting  on  pewter,"  and  the 
inferiority  of  the  material  is  evident  in  the 
prints.  But  these  are  nevertheless  admira- 
ble illustrations  of  vigorous  wood-engraving, 
and  give  a  sense  of  Blake's  fine  judgment  as 
an  artist  in  his  handling  of  material.  The 
beauty  of  the  lower  design,  where  the 
mother  turns  from  her  cottage,  lingers  long 
in  one's  mind. 

Another  excellent  illustration  of  Blake's 
faculty  as  an  engraver  is  seen  in  his  very 
early  print,  "Joseph  of  Arimathea  on  the 
Rocks  of  Albion,"  professedly  a  copy  from 
Michael  Angelo,  done  in  Blake's  seventeenth 
year,  and  already  exhibiting,  especially  in 
its  treatment  of  light  on  the  water,  his 
mystic  sense  of  supernal  beauty.  The  most 
interesting  example,  however,  of  his  power 


in  the  kind  of  work  which  we  are  now 
examining,  is  to  be  found  in  his  large  en- 
graving of  Chaucer's  "  Canterbury  Pilgrims." 
A  comparison  of  the  work  with  Stothard's 
rival  picture  at  once  discloses  the  superior 
technical  skill  and  grace  of  the  successful 
artist,  but  a  comparison  of  Blake's  work  with 
Chaucer's  establishes  a  greater  agreement  of 
truth  between  poet  and  painter.  The 
harshness  of  Blake's  work  is  apparent ; 
so,  too,  is  its  quaint  mannerism,  but  a 
nearer  view  shows  a  vigor  of  treatment, 
a  broad  generalization  of  group  and  land- 
scape, and  an  attention  to  historically  con- 
ceived details,  which  bring  Blake's  work  very 
distinctly  into  range  as  a  presentation  of 
Chaucer's  images,  and  out  of  the  place  which 
Stothard's  picture  occupies,  of  a  temporary 
and  local  translation  of  Chaucer's  story. 
Not  that  we  do  not  here  have  Chaucer 
Blaked  off  upon  us,  but  Blake's  conception 
of  the  subject  was  from  an  angle  coincident 
with  Chaucer's,  and  the  acutest  reader  of 
Chaucer  will  be  the  most  ready  to  acknowl- 
edge Blake  as  a  showman.  When  Blake 
exhibited  with  other  pictures  the  fresco  from 
which  this  engraving  was  taken,  he  pub- 
lished a  descriptive  catalogue,  well  worth 
reading  for  its  shrewd  analysis  of  the 
characters  in  Chaucer's  "  Pilgrims,"  so  dif- 
ferent from  the  smooth,  conventional  in- 
terpretation which  Stothard,  in  common 


WILLIAM  BLAKE,  PAINTER  AND  POET. 


229 


with    other    contemporaries,    gave.      Says 
Blake : 

"  The  characters  of  Chaucer's  '  Pilgrims  '  are  the 
characters  which  compose  all  ages  and  nations.  As 
one  age  falls,  another  rises,  different  to  mortal  sight, 
but  to  immortals  only  the  same;  for  we  see  the 
same  characters  repeated  again  and  again,  in 
animals,  vegetables,  minerals,  and  in  men.  Nothing 
new  occurs  in  identical  existence.  Accident  ever 
varies.  Substance  can  never  suffer  change,  or 
decay.  Of  Chaucer's  characters,  as  described  in  his 
'  Canterbury  Tales,'  some  of  the  names  or  titles  are 
altered  by  time,  but  the  characters  themselves  for- 
ever remain  unaltered;  and  consequently  they  are 
the  physiognomies  or  lineaments  of  universal  human 
life,  beyond  which  Nature  never  steps.  Names 
alter,  things  never  alter.  I  have  known  multitudes 
of  those  who  would  have  been  monks  in  the  age  of 
monkery,  who  in  this  deistical  age  are  deists.  As 
Newton  numbered  the  stars,  and  as  Linnaeus 
numbered  the  planets,  so  Chaucer  numbered  the 
classes  of  mep.  The  painter  has  consequently 
varied  the  heads  and  forms  of  his  personages  into 
all  Nature's  varieties;  the  horses  he  has  also  varied 
to  accord  to  their  riders;  the  costume  is  correct 
according  to  authentic  monuments." 

He  then  proceeds  with  a  running  commen- 
tary upon  the  separate  characters,  answering 
to  what  he  has  undertaken  to  say  with  lines 
in  his  engravings.  Something  of  the  same 
vagary  will  be  discovered  in  both,  but  both 
justify  Lamb's  opinion  of  the  catalogue, 
that  it  was  "  the  finest  criticism  of  Chaucer's 
poem  he  had  ever  read." 

The  "  Canterbury  Pilgrims  "  was  published 
by  Blake  in  a  rivalry  with  Stothard's  print, 
and  at  this  distance  of  time  the  commercial 
aspects  of  the  competition  have  a  humorous 
touch.  Blake's  indebtedness  to  the  ordi- 
nary publishing  facilities  was  not  great,  as 
we  have  seen;  his  own  willfulness,  his  intract- 
able talents,  and,  above  all,  his  individual 
message  of  art  and  religion,  isolated  him 
from  the  common  channels  of  communica- 
tion with  the  public.  So  much  the  more 
did  he  place  reliance  upon  his  own  methods. 
Any  one  can  buy  now,  in  various  editions, 
Blake's  "  Poetical  Sketches"  and  his  "  Songs 
of  Innocence  "  and  "  Songs  of  Experience." 
These  are  included  in  Gilchrist's  "  Life,"  and 
they  have  been  separately  printed  under  the 
editorship  of  Mr.  W.  M.  Rossetti  and  of  Mr. 
R.  H.  Shepherd.  They  have  passed  into  the 
common  stock  of  literature,  and  some  of  the 
poems  have  long  had  a  life  in  anthologies. 
The  "  Poetical  Sketches  "  was  published  in 
the  ordinary  manner  in  1783;  "Songs  of 
Innocence  "  in  1789  and  "  Songs  of  Experi- 
ence" in  1794,  but  these  last  two  books 
were  published  in  a  very  extraordinary  man- 
ner by  Blake  himself,  and  happy  is  the 
occasional  owner  of  the  original  copies. 

To  speak  of  "  Songs  of  Innocence  "  first,  it 


consists  of  twenty  songs  written  by  Blake, 
engraved  by  him  on  copper,  each  page 
decorated,  with  an  occasional  separate 
design,  making  twenty-seven  plates  in  all. 
In  Gilchrist's  "  Life  "  this  account  is  given 
of  the  process. 

"The  verse  was  written  and  the  designs  and 
marginal  embellishments  outlined  on  the  copper 
with  an  impervious  liquid,  probably  the  ordinary 
stopping-out  varnish  of  engravers.  Then  all  the 
white  parts  or  lights—the  remainder  of  the  plate, 
that  is — were  eaten  away  with  aquafortis,  or  other 
acid,  so  that  the  outline  of  letter  and  design  was  left 
prominent,  as  in  stereotype.  From  these  plates  he 
printed  off  in  any  tint,  yellow,  brown,  blue,  required 
to  be  the  prevailing  or  ground  color  in  his  fac- 
similes ;  red  he  used  for  the  letter-press.  The  page 
was  then  colored  by  hand  in  imitation  of  the  original 
drawing,  with  more  or  less  variety  of  detail  in  the 
local  hues.  He  ground  and  mixed  his  water-colors 
himself.  The  colors  he  used  were  few  and  simple; 
indigo,  cobalt,  gamboge,  vermilion,  Frankfort  black 
freely,  ultramarine  rarely,  chromes  not  at  all.  These 
he  applied  with  a  camel's-hair  brush,  not  with  a 
sable,  which  he  disliked.  He  taught  Mrs.  Blake  to 
take  off  the  impressions  with  care  and  delicacy, 
which  such  plates  signally  needed,  and  also  to  help 
in  tinting  them  from  his  drawings  with  right  artistic 
feeling;  in  all  which  tasks  she,  to  her  honor,  much 
delighted.  The  size  of  the  plate  was  small,  for  the 
sake  of  economizing  copper,  something  under  five 
inches  by  three.  They  were  done  up  in  boards  by 
Mrs.  Blake's  hand,  forming  a  small  octavo;  so  that 
the  poet  and  his  wife  did  everything  in  making  the 
book, — writing,  designing,  printing,  engraving, — 
everything  excepting  manufacturing  the  paper;  the 
very  ink,  or  color,  rather,  they  did  make.  Never 
before,  surely,  was  a  man  so  literally  the  author  of 
his  own  book. " 

It  is  significant  of  this  discovery  of 
Blake's,  for  so  it  may  be  called,  that  he 
received  a  revelation  of  it  in  a  vision  of  the 
night.  It  is  easy  to  translate  into  common 
language  the  supernatural  experience  of  a 
man,  under  pressure  day  and  night  of  one 
controlling  purpose  to  make  public  his 
poems  and  designs,  but  it  is  still  easier  to 
take  Blake's  acceptance  of  the  happy  thought 
as  a  revelation,  and  count  it  as  a  harmonious 
part  of  the  visionary's  nature.  For.  mingled 
with  the  artistic  power  which  we  have  been 
gradually  illustrating,  there  was  from  the  be- 
ginning a  controlling  and  directing  influence 
to  which  we  find  it  hard  to  give  a  name. 
The  story  is  a  familiar  one,  that,  when  a 
child  of  eight  or  ten,  as  he  sauntered  through 
a  field  near  London,  he  looked  up  and  saw 
a  tree  filled  with  angels,  "bright,  angelic 
wings  bespangling  every  bough  like  stars," 
and  that  looking  upon  some  hay-makers  at 
work,  he  saw  angelic  figures  walking  among 
them.  A  letter  written  by  one  of  Blake's 
youthful  disciples,  just  after  his  death,  re- 
lates: "Just  before  he  died  his  countenance 


WILLIAM  BLAKE,  PAINTER  AND  POET. 


became  fair,  his  eyes  brightened,  and  he  burst 
out  singing  of  the  things  he  saw  in  heaven." 
Between  these  two  points  of  time  lay  a  life 
of  sixty  years,  which  owned,  with  unfaltering 
faith,  the  positive  presence  and  guidance  of 
the  spiritual  world.  Blake's  letters,  his  con- 
versations, his  writings,  his  pictures,  and  his 
whole  manner  of  life,  bore  unvarying  testi- 
mony to  the  dominance  in  his  nature  of  a 
spiritual  existence  which  comprehended, 
penetrated  and  controlled  this  earthly  life. 
It  is  difficult  to  present  this  subject  briefly 
without  falling  into  the  pitfalls  set  by  con- 
ventional statements  of  spiritual  experience. 
Life  would  be  too  short  to  explain  wherein 
Blake's  spiritual  belief  differed  from  the 
vulgarities  of  so-called  spiritualism,  from  the 
traditional  belief  of  the  church,  from  the  con- 
temporary doctrines  of  Svvedenborg,  or  from 
the  utterances  of  the  great  seers  of  the  ages. 
The  reader  of  the  "  Life  "  or  the  student  of  his 
art  finds  it  more  satisfactory  to  accept  the  fact 
of  Blake's  sincerity,  and  treat  the  results  of 
his  visionary  observation  in  their  individual 
appeal  to  the  intellectual  mind.  Whence 
Blake's  dreams  came,  opens  an  endless  vista 
of  speculation ;  what  the  forms  were  which 
were  precipitated  from  the  dreams,  is  of 
vastly  more  human  interest.  We  may  even 
concede  an  occult  meaning  in  verse  and 
picture  capable  of  being  discovered  only  by 
a  kindred  spirit,  interpretative  by  its  finer 
nature ;  there  is  nothing  in  such  concession 
to  prevent  us  from  enjoying  to  the  full  such 
loveliness  and  strength  as  we  do  see. 

Spiritual  things  are  spiritually  discerned, 
and  what  one  finds  in  Blake  will  depend 
largely  on  the  seeing  eye  which  he  brings. 
We  have  no  intention  of  shielding  Blake 
behind  any  mystic  veil,  drawing  it  aside  only 
for  the  initiated  ;  we  simply  say  that  genius 
always  holds  the  possibility  of  a  meaning, 
and  perception  always  holds  the  possibil- 
ity of  blindness.  However,  the  student  of 
Blake's  strangely  diverse  and  comprehen- 
sive art  may  stand  expectant  and  hopeful 
before  the  Songs  of  Innocence.  Here  one 
may  enjoy,  without  the  painful  conscious- 
ness of  a  failure  to  attain  the  meaning; 
painful,  we  say,  for  perhaps  the  subtlest 
charm  in  this  rainbow  of  poetic  beauty  is 
the  elusiveness  of  the  spell  which  it  throws 
over  us.  There  is  no  mockery  in  the  grace, 
no  tantalizing  of  the  soul,  but  the  gentlest 
of  echoes  to  one's  unspoken  thought.  In 
none  of  the  poems  is  this  more  manifest  than 
m  the  "  Introduction,"  as  it  is  called, — 

"  Piping  down  a  valley  wild." 


This  little  poem  has  been  adopted  into  many 
books ;  it  sings  itself  into  ears  that  desire  in 
vain  to  explain  its  meaning;  one  wishes  to 
hear  it  recited  by  some  ethereal  voice.  Pre- 
cisely here  is  the  explanation — it  is  a  voice 
from  the  air  that  sings  in  our  ears;  and  when 
we  have  made  this  precise  explanation  we 


J.F.JUK6LIHO-SC 


'INFANT  JOY."    (ENGRAVED  ON  WOOD  FROM  A  WATER-COLOR, 
OWNED  BY  MRS.  ALEXANDER  GILCHRIST.) 

have  simply  blown  the  whole  thing  away ! 
Or  take,  again,  the  lines  headed  "  Infant  Joy  " : 

"'I  have  no  name, 

I  am  but  two  days  old.' 

What  shall  I  call  thee? 

'I  happy  am, 

Joy  is  my  name.' — 

Sweet  joy  befall  thee  ! 

"Pretty  joy! 

Sweet  joy  but  two  days  old. 

Sweet  joy  I  call  thee. 

Thou  dost  smile, 

I  sing  the  while, 

Sweet  joy  befall  thee !  " 

The  simplicity  of  the  lines  is  extreme,  and  the 
design  accompanying  it  quite  as  simple  and 
unconstrained:  ahuman  figure holdinglightly 
above  the  head  a  dancing,  springing,  winged 
creature,  while  a  flock  of  sheep  graze  below. 
It  is  in  the  sweet  simplicity  that  Blake  rests, 
and  here  we  touch  upon  one  sign  of  his 


WILLIAM  BLAKE,  PAINTER  AND  POET. 


231 


genius  which  is  persistently  given.  He  is 
constantly  seeing  and  showing  natural  things 
as  types,  and  finds  no  surer  way  of  reveal- 
ing spiritual  realities  than  through  elemental 
forms.  Hence  the  recurrence  of  a  few 
special  figures,  typical  of  youth,  of  age,  of 
childhood,  of  motherhood;  hence  the  lamb; 
hence  the  flaming  fire.  It  would  seem  as 
if  he  were  perpetually  seeking  to  render  the 
large  visions  which  he  has  by  familiar  forms 
freed  of  their  merely  accidental  limitations. 
It  may  truthfully  be  said  that  he  saw  his 
visions  thus;  that  these  common  types  were 
expanded  for  him  into  wondrous  and  lumi- 
nous revelations  of  infinite  truth  and  beauty; 
that  when  he  saw  and  drew  the  lamb,  that 
little  creature,  with  its 

"  Softest  clothing,  woolly,  bright  " 
its  tender  voice 

"  Making  all  the  vales  rejoice ;  " 

was  sometimes  more  than  a  conventional  or 
even  revered  type  of  Divine  tenderness. 

"  He  is  meek  and  He  is  mild, 
He  became  a  little  child. 
I  a  child  and  thou  a  lamb. 
We  are  called  by  His. name." 

So  he  announces  in  his  poem,  and  the  en- 
trance of  the  Divine  love  into  the  human 
life  is  a  present  reality  whenever  Blake, 
recording  his  visions,  draws  the  lamb  with 
its  bowed  head  or  its  affectionate  caress. 

The  "  Songs  of  Innocence  "  gives  us  Blake 
in  the  youthfulness  of  his  visionary  life.  At 
that  time,  however  pinched  was  his  poverty, 
he  was  living  in  the  light  of  a  conscious 
power  to  wed  beautiful  visions  to  fitting 
words  and  lines.  He  had  already  had  some 
training  in  poetry,  as  witness  his  ''Poetical 
Sketches,"  from  which  one  draws  verses  of 
singular  merit;  he  had  already  mastered  his 
graving  tools,  and  served  his  apprenticeship 
to  drawing  masters;  he  was  in  the  early 
years  of  his  married  life;  he  was  at  the  height 
of  physical  youth.  Doubtless  all  these 
influences  conspired,  and  so  he  caught  upon 
his  listening  ear  those  accents  of  heavenly 
beauty  which  as  yet  admitted  dark  lines 
only  for  the  heightening  of  the  divine  fair- 
ness. Every  one  feels,  whether  or  not  he 
puts  it  into  words,  that  the  hymn-book 
picture  of  heaven  as 

"  One  sacred  high  eternal  noon," 

is  false  and  destructive  of  all  the  signs  of 
God's  creation;  that  the  recurrence  of 


seasons,  the  systole  and  diastole  of  the 
universe,  makes  rhythm,  and  that  without 
rhythm  heaven  could  not  be.  It  might  with 
far  clearer  truth  be  said  that  hell  was 

One  damned  high  eternal  noon. 

Blake  thus,  in  the  "  Songs  of  Innocence,"  has 
accented  the  sweetness  with  touches  of  a 
darker  side.  The  tears  that  follow  the 
piper's  song;  the  weariness  of  the  little 
ones  on  the  echoing  green ;  the  miserable 
sense  of  deformity  in  that  flawless  poem,  the 
"  Little  Black  Boy,"  with  its  tender  pity  so 
unsurpassably  expressed : — 

"  And  we  are  put  on  earth  a  little  space, 

That  we  may  learn  to  bear  the  beams  of  love ; 

And  these  black  bodies  and  this  sun-burnt  face 
Are  but  a  cloud,  and  like  a  shady  grove. 

"  For   when   our   souls   have   learnt    the    heat    to 

bear, 
The    cloud    will     vanish,    we    shall    hear    His 

voice. 

Saying,  'Come  from  the  grove,  my  love  and  care, 
And  round  my  golden  tent  like  lambs  rejoice  : '  " 

the  sobbing  of  the  robin  heard  by  the  happy 
blossom  ;  the  plaint  of  the  chimney-sweep ; 
the  cry  of  the  little  boy  lost  before 

"  God  ever  nigh 
Appeared  like  his  father,  in  white," 

the  weeping  of  the  child  Jesus  in  his  cradle 
for  all  the  human  race,  which  is  woven  so 
exquisitely  into  the  angelic  cradle-song ;  the 
contrast  of  age  and  childhood ;  the  blend- 
ing of  poverty  and  pity  of  "  Holy  Thurs- 
day "  ;  the  light  and  shade  in  that  solemn, 
majestic  poem  "  Night  "  ;  the  anxiety,  too 
real  to  be  grotesque,  of  the  lost  emmet; 
the  passage  of  all  pity  into  the  Divine  pity, 
and  the  final  voice  of  the  Ancient  Bard, 
with  its  one  warning  note  of  the  passage 
from  youth  into  life — all  these  are  supremely 
truthful  notes  in  the  "  Songs  of  Innocence," 
by  which  the  ethereal  loveliness  is  saved 
from  the  monotony  of  an  unreal  and  insipid 
sweetness.  Of  the  decorative  designs  which 
accompany  the  songs  we  cannot  speak  with 
assurance  gained  by  acquaintance  with  orig- 
inal copies,  but  to  those  who  have  seen 
similar  work  by  Blake,  as  in  the  "  Book  of 
Tli el,"  which  appears  in  the  Boston  collec- 
tion, the  reproduction  which  we  have  in 
Gilchrist's  "  Life  "  gives  a  teasing  conviction 
that  we  are  blind  men,  hearing  the  songs  but 
not  seeing  the  images  which  they  embody; 
that  their  beauty,  wonderful  as  it  is,  would 


232 


WILLIAM  BLAKE,  PAINTER  AND  POET. 


be  heightened  by  the  symphony  of  design 
into  some  strange  and  inexpressible  delight, 
assailing  eye  and  ear  at  once. 

The  "  Songs  of  Experience,"  following  five 
years  afterward,  are  to  the  "  Songs  of  Inno- 
cence "  what  we  have  shown  certain  notes  in 
the  earlier  songs  are  to  the  full  strain.  They 
present,  as  the  name  indicates,  the  obverse 


cence "  represents  a  state,  the  "  Songs  of 
Experience  "  a  mood.  The  rhythm  discov- 
ered in  the  former  by  the  accent  of  dark 
lines  is  absent  in  the  latter,  for  the  white 
lines  do  not  accent  the  dark.  Once,  indeed, 
may  we  say  that  the  sudden  entrance  of  light 
transforms  the  whole  poem  into  a  magnifi- 
cence which  otherwise  would  have  been  a 


MORNING,    OR    GLAD   DAY."      (ENGRAVED   ON    WOOD    FROM    ETCHING    BY    BLAKE,    OWNED    BY 
MRS.    ALEXANDER    GILCHRIST.) 


phase  of  the  soul.  In  most  cases  they  are 
direct  replies  to  the  several  "  Songs  of  Inno- 
cence "  ;  the  "  Tiger"  offsets  the  "  Lamb " : 
the  «  Little  Girl  Lost "  the  « Little  Boy 
Found  "  ;  «  Infant  Sorrow  "  "  Infant  Joy  " ; 
and,  sad  and  beautiful  as  many  of  the 
poems  are,  sometimes  terrible  in  their  reve- 
lation of  evil,  the  book  is  incontestably 
weaker,  and  in  the  main,  in  a  purely  poetic 
sense,  untruthful.  Nor  could  there  well 
be  found  a  finer  illustration  of  the  suprem- 
acy of  good  than  is  exhibited  by  the  con- 
trast of  these  two  books.  Blake's  sincerity 
is  unquestionable,  but  the  "  Songs  of  Inno- 


mere  lurid  dreadfulness;  it  is  when,  near 
the  close  of  that  fiery  poem  the  "  Tiger," 
the  poet  asks: 

"  Did  He  who  made  the  lamb  make  thee?" 

Let  any  one  read  the  poem  and  say  if  this 
line  is  not  the  salvation  of  it. 

In  these  two  books,  with  their  blended 
text  and  design,  Blake  presented  most  per- 
fectly that  side  of  his  genius  which  admits 
of  universal  apprehension.  If  he  was,  as 
he  would  claim,  'singing  and  drawing  in 
obedience  to  heavenly  visions,  we  are  so  in- 
tent upon  what  he  gives  us  that  we  are  not 


WILLIAM  BLAKE,  PAINTER  AND  POET. 


233 


ELIJAH     IN     THE     CHARIOT    OF    FIRE.        (FROM    A    WATER-COLOR    BY   BLAKE,    OWNED     BY    MRS.    GILCHRIST.) 


too  curious  over  the  sources  of  it.  But  we 
may  as  well  take  Blake's  word  for  it  that  the 
persons  who  sat  to  him  for  their  portraits, 
and  served  as  his  inexpensive  models,  were 
such  as  were  invisible  to  other  eyes.  There 
is  a  series  of  visionary  heads  by  Blake,  por- 
traits of  persons  whom  he  professed  to  see ; 
he  would  look  up  and  sketch  from  the  invis- 
ible subject  with  all  the  simplicity  and  direct- 
ness of  a  student,  who  could,  if  he  chose, 
touch  the  head  before  him.  These  heads 
show  the  result  of  Blake's  early  studies, 
when,  an  engraver's  apprentice,  he  was  left 
to  wander  among  the  stones  and  graves 
in  Westminster  Abbey.  They  are  drawn 
often  from  English  history,  but  the  charac- 
ters who  thronged  upon  him  came  often  from 
worlds  of  Blake's  own  discovery.  A  large 
body  of  suggestions,  however,  were  drawn 
from  Biblical  subjects,  where,  when  Blake 
had  his  own  choice,  those  points  were  taken 
chiefly  which  were  most  frankly  supernat- 
ural. Few  signs  of  Blake's  familiar  com- 
merce with  spiritual  conceptions  are  more 
striking  than  his  fearless  handling  of  subjects 
usually  avoided  by  artists,  and  his  eager 
rush  at  just  that  side  of  a  supernatural  sub- 


ject which  is  generally  veiled.  The  picture 
of  Elijah  mounted  in  the  Fiery  Chariot, 
shown  at  the  Boston  exhibition,  is  a  fine 
example  of  Blake's  treatment  of  such  scenes. 
Elijah  is  seated  in  a  chariot,  the  body  of 
which  is  partially  outlined  by  flames,  flames 
also  rolling  the  chariot  along.  The  prophet 
is  a  majestic  figure,  sitting  calm  in  the 
midst  of  the  light,  even  the  reins,  which  he 
holds  firmly  with  one  hand,  issuing  as  red 
lines  of  fire  to  the  horses,  which  are  bright 
with  an  interior  blaze  and  stand  restless. 
Beside  them  is  the  figure  of  Elisha,  his  head 
bowed  in  adoring  grief,  his  hair  and  beard 
making  a  rain  of  lamentation,  while  his 
hands  are  clasped  in  profound  reverence. 
The  movement  of  the  picture  is  increased  by 
the  chariot  being  placed  in  a  great  circle 
of  flames  upon  a  black  background,  the 
sky  a  rich  cloud  of  yellow,  and  a  magnifi- 
cent, mysterious  blackness  crowding  up  from 
below.  It  is  a  most  impressive  picture ;  the 
weight  of  the  supernatural  in  it  is  such  that 
one  gets  from  it  in  his  study  a  clearer 
perception  of  Blake's  habitual  dwelling 
among  such  themes,  than  he  could  derive 
from  any  detailed  description  of  his  mental 


234 


WILLIAM  BLAKE,  PAINTER  AND  POET. 


habits.  No  one  could  strike  so  unerringly 
at  the  central  idea  of  the  subject  whose 
temper  was  not  habitually  one  of  converse 
with  the  supernatural. 

Blake,  no  doubt,  imported  into  the  Bible 
a  crowd  of  fantastic  ideas  that  sprang  from 
his  own  fertile,  impetuous  brain.  He  went 
to  it  for  a  revelation  of  facts,  and  seized 
chiefly  upon  those  which  other  men  were 
trying  their  best  to  be  rid  of.  He  was 
orientalized  both  by  the  Bible  and  by  his 
passion  for  large,  swelling  conceptions  of 
life,  death  and  immortality.  By  degrees  he 
peopled  his  mind  with  a  strange  crowd  of 
figures,  many  with  biblical  outlines,  many 
also,  jostling  these, — variations  upon  a  few 
simple  themes.  The  elemental  facts  of  life, 
as  has  already  been  said,  were  those  which 
were  most  luminous  to  him  and  for  which  he 
found  visible  shapes,  which  were  repeated 
constantly  in  his  designs.  One  of  his  earliest 
designs,  engraved  by  himself,  and  called 
by  Gilchrist  "  Morning,  or  Glad  Day,"  is 
an  admirable  illustration  of  this  feeling  for 
Blake  after  a  simple,  yet  vitalized,  symbol. 
Another  favorite  one  was  the  familiar 
"  Death's  Door,"  so  often  engraved,  either 
alone  or  with  the  added  figure  of  the  enrapt- 
ured youth  above  it,  as  in  Blair's  "  Grave." 
It  is  found  in  "  America  "  and  in  separate 
sketches:  the  young  man  is  in  the  "Mar- 
riage of  Heaven  and  Hell,"  in  "America" 
and  in  various  sketches.  So  the  groups  which 
appear  in  "The  Descent  of  Man  into  the 
Vale  of  Death"  are  constantly  discoverable 
in  new  combinations.  It  would  seem  as  if 
Blake,  once  catching  at  these  forms,  was  so 
intent  upon  the  spiritual  energy  back  of 
them  that  he  was  constantly  emphasizing  it 
by  repetition,  and  in  each  drawing  was  not 
so  much  copying  a  favorite  design  as  repeat- 
ing a  spiritual  conception.  Wherever,  by 
some  fancied  fitness,  he  could  weave  these 
designs  into  his  writings  he  did  so,  and  he 
dwelt  upon  them  with  as  much  disregard  of 
petty  variations  as  a  minister  might  show 
who  preached  year  after  year  upon  certain 
great  themes  of  religion. 

In  truth,  Blake,  in  his  own  conception  an 
artist,  was  also  in  his  own  conception  a 
prophet;  and  whereas  Ezekiel,  uttering 
prophecies  of  righteousness,  illustrated  them 
by  astounding  visions  of  wheels  and  flames, 
Blake's  prophecies  were  first  and  foremost 
his  visions,  wheels  and  flames,  presented  to 
the  eye  with  such  textual  illustration  as 
seemed  to  him  to  say  the  same  thing  in 
words,  and  the  burden  of  the  whole  was  an 
incoherent  jumble  of  fundamental  principles 


of  justice,  pity,  vengeance  and  the  like. 
The  Songs  of  Innocence  and  of  Experi- 
ence were,  as  we  have  seen,  exclusively  his 
publication.  There  followed,  now,  on  a 
larger  scale,  a  series  of  so-called  prophetical 
books  which  grew  mistier  and  mistier,  as 
Blake,  familiarized  with  half-allegorical  forms 
of  expression,  wandered  further  and  further 
away  in  his  words  from  the  base  of  his  alle- 
gories. The  first  of  these  books,  "The  Book 
of  Thel,"  is  slight  in  bulk  and  by  no  means 
unintelligible.  A  pensive  loveliness  lies  in 
it,  and  without  seeking  for  too  deep  a  mean- 
ing one  glides  along  the  plaint  of  the 
mystical  Thel.  Fortunately,  the  Boston 
exhibition  has  a  copy  of  the  book,  and  the 
refinement  of  color,  the  grace  of  the  figures, 
the  enchanting  delicacy  of  touch  through- 
out, give  a  revelation  to  one  of  Blake's  genius 
in  the  first  blush  of  his  more  wayward  mood. 
Blake  abandoned  himself,  however,  more 
and  more  to  the  fascination  of  a  work  which 
enabled  him  to  set  down  in  formal  shape 
the  vagaries  of  his  fancy.  "The  Marriage 
of  Heaven  and  Hell,"  with  its  intelligible 
sporting  in  the  same  mood  from  which 
sprang  "Songs  of  Experience  " ;  "The  Gates 
of  Paradise,"  "Visions  of  the  Daughters  of 
Albion,"  "America:  a  Prophecy,"  "Europe: 
a  Prophecy,"  "The  Book  of  Urizen,"  "The 
Song  of  Los,"  "The  Book  of  Ahania," 
"Jerusalem,"  and  "Milton,"  were  all  first 
produced  between  1790  and  1804.  One 
hesitates  to  speak  positively  without  a 
study  of  them  in  the  original  copies. 
Mr.  Swinburne  has  devoted  a  large  part 
of  his  critical  study  of  Blake  to  an  exam- 
ination of  this  class  of  his  work,  and 
has  discovered  interesting  interpretations 
of  them.  Whoever  will  may  pursue  the 
lead  which  he  has  opened.  That  Blake 
had  certain  conceptions  regarding  abstract 
principles  of  the  moral  universe,  that  he 
chose  to  embody  these  in  literary  forms  which 
borrowed  names  from  familiar  objects,  and 
expressed  himself  also  through  graphic  forms 
consentaneous  to  these — this  is  all  that  we 
dare  say.  It  is  plain  that  by  America  he 
does  not  mean  what  the  world  calls  America, 
but  the  idea  of  freedom  and  futurity  sug- 
gested by  the  name ;  by  Albion  he  does  not 
mean  England ;  by  Europe  he  does  not 
mean  Europe;  by  Jerusalem  he  does  not 
mean  Jerusalem.  It  is  not  unlikely  that  the 
Biblical  and  prophetic  use  of  Jerusalem, 
Babylon,  Egypt,  as  signs  of  historic  and 
moral  ideas,  was  in  his  mind  when  he 
adopted  a  vocabulary  which  seems  at  first 
to  the  hopeful  student  to  contain  the  key  to 


WILLIAM  BLAKE,  PAINTER  AND  POET. 


235 


the  mystery.  The  less  curious  student,  the 
one  who  goes  to  Blake  for  what  shall 
please  his  eye  and  strike  his  imagination,  is 
satisfied  not  to  read  a  line  of  these  mighty  j 
books,  but  to  take  page  after  page  as  ex- 
amples of  subtle  decorative  beauty.  The 
art,  in  a  decorative  way,  which  may  be 
compared  with  this,  is  that  displayed  in 
illuminated  books  before  the  invention  of 
printing,  but  Blake,  freed  from  all  merely 
conventional  limitations,  used  his  liberty 
under  guidance  of  an  instinctive  knowledge 
of  the  laws  of  art.  The  endless  variety  of 
combination  of  text  and  line  hints  at  great 
spontaneity  of  invention ;  the  certainty  with 
which  the  forms  compose  indicates  the 
obedience  which  the  artist  showed  to  the 
unwritten  law  of  beauty.  One  may  almost 
find  an  excuse  here  for  the  doctrine  so  often 
boldly  put  forward,  that  intelligibility  in  art 
is  wholly  unessential,  the  entire  pleasure 
springing  from  the  obedience  of  form  and 
color  to  laws  of  beauty  which  are  wholly 
separate  from  those  of  the  understanding. 
The  subordination,  indeed,  of  the  thought  j 
in  the  text  indicates,  to  the  casual  observer, 
how  much  more  complete  mastery  Blake 
had  of  the  instrument  of  color  and  line  than 
of  the  instrument  of  language  ;  how  much 
sharper,  also,  the  bounding  lines  of  art  are 
than  those  of  literature.  The  ductility  of 
words,  the  power  to  whicli  they  may  be 
drawn  out  grammatically  to  a  tenuous 
length  while  one  endeavors  to  find  the 
thought  which  they  carry,  is  so  deceptive 
that  truth  wanders  in  the  mazes  of  Blake's 
writings  until  it  is  lost  to  sight.  In  art  it 
is  otherwise ;  the  first  departure  from  an 
intelligible  form  is  noticed,  and  the  artist 
is  himself  warned  that  he  is  untruthful.  Now 
Blake  errs  sometimes  in  design,  he  produces 
exaggerated,  enormous,  and  unregulated 
shapes,  just  as  huge  bulks  rise  to  the  im- 
agination through  the  swash  of  his  poetry; 
but  the  limitations  of  the  language  of  art 
are  constantly  guarding  him  against  excess, 
— the  apparently  boundless  horizon  of  the 
language  of  poetry  is  constantly  tempting 
him  into  mysterious  and  undistinguishable 
distance. 

Once,  at  any  rate,  Blake  wrought  under 
singularly  favorable  influences, — near  the 
close  of  his  life,  when  he  was  occupied  with 
the  "  Inventions  to  the  Book  of  Job."  The  re- 
sult which  we  have  in  the  series  of  engravings, 
follows  two  distinct  works  in  color,  a  series 
done  for  Mr.  Butts,  and  now  in  the  posses- 
sion of  Lord  Houghton,  and  a  second  series 
for  Mr.  Linnell,  from  which, substantially,  this 


engraved  series  is  made.  Differences  are 
pointed  out  in  individual  designs,  and  Mr. 
Rossetti,  in  his  catalogue  raisonne,  indicates 
where  a  superiority  has  been  gained  or  lost  in 
the  final  execution.  But  it  is  noticeable  how 
fresh  the  published  series  is,  and  how  in- 
frequently Blake  has  resorted  in  it  to  the 
familiar  types  from  which  he  had  been  copy- 
ing all  his  life.  That  is  to  say,  while  in 
Blair's  "  Grave  "  one  constantly  notes  par- 
ticular likenesses  to  individual  figures  and 
groups  elsewhere,  in  the  "  Job,"  one  remarks 
rather  the  general  conformity  to  a  well- 
established  Blake  type,  with  an  originality 
in  detail.  There  are  no  unusual  circum- 
stances about  Blake's  life  which  might  be 
held  to  account  for  this,  yet  there  were  con- 
ditions which  undoubtedly  had  their  in- 
fluence. He  was  now  in  his  sixty-fifth 
year,  and  at  a  low  ebb  in  fortune.  His  rich 
patrons  had  wearied  of  him,  and  toil  brought 
him  but  slight  return.  He  was,  however, 
the  center  of  a  small  group  of  artists  who 
looked  upon  him  with  admiration,  and  from 
one  of  these,  Mr.  Linnell,  he  received  an 
order  to  execute  this  set  of  engravings.  He 
was  to  receive  one  hundred  pounds  for  the 
designs  and  copyright,  to  be  paid  from  time 
to  time,  and  a  like  sum  from  the  profits, 
should  these  ever  yield  it;  the  entire  sum 
paid  was  a  hundred  and  fifty  pounds,  in 
small  weekly  instalments.  The  result  of  this 
arrangement  was  that  Blake  was  insured  the 
expenses  of  living,  by  a  regular  stipend,  while 
he  was  engaged  upon  the  engravings;  a  con- 
dition which  freed  him  from  the  necessity  of 
turning  aside  from  the  one  employment,  and 
disengaged  him  from  the  worries  of  a  broken 
life.  This  continuity  of  labor  unquestion- 
ably had  its  influence  in  securing  an  even- 
ness and  concentration  of  skill,  and  to  the 
provision  of  this  generous  friend  is  owing, 
possibly,  the  full  completion  of  a  task  which 
without  his  aid  Blake  could  scarcely  have 
compassed. 

A  higher  reason  for  Blake's  success  lies 
in  the  nature  of  the  work.  Certain  subjects 
had  heretofore  controlled  and  regulated 
his  imagination ;  such  a  subject  was  the 
Elijah ;  but  in  a  large  part  of  his  work  he 
had  followed  his  own  wayward,  and  often- 
times willful  fancy.  Here  he  was  invited  to 
illustrate  a  text  which  at  once  gave  him  the 
widest  range  in  his  own  chosen  field,  and 
offered  a  dramatic  unity  capable  of  regulat- 
ing and  ordering  his  invention.  The  drama 
of  "  Job,"  in  its  double  scene  of  heaven  and 
earth,  corresponded  with  the  locality  of 
Blake's  imagination ;  the  open  exhibition  of 


236 


WILLIAM  BLAKE,  PAINTER  AND  POET, 


•   ^^e  sweet  influgtnces  <?f  Pleudes  or  loose  tfic fcih^i,    r 

^___  ^ ^^— ^  'ov>,_ 


the  Almighty  as  one  of  the  dramatis  personae  justified 
Blake's  own  fearless  and  reverent  portraiture  of  Him; 
the  conflict  between  light  and  darkness  in  the  spiritual 
world,  a  conflict  in  which  man  is  involved  both 
actively  and  passively,  was  here  presented  with  a 
frankness  which  dismissed  allegory  as  impertinent; 
and  Blake's  philosophy  of  life  was  constantly  seeking 
a  similar  manifestation ;  the  speculation  of  "  Job  " 
busied  itself  with  the  high  themes  of  life  and  death, 
good  and  evil,  and  these  themes  were  no  strangers 
to  Blake's  mind;  then  the  human  figures  in  the 
drama,  large,  grave,  heroic  in  thought  rather  than 
in  stature  and  action,  elemental  in  their  type,  were 
the  men  and  women  whom  Blake  had  all  his  life 
been  drawing,  as  he  sought  to  separate  the  substantial 
from  the  accidental  in  human  existence.  Blake, 
therefore,  inevitably  found  in  this  book  a  congen- 
ial theme  for  illustration  ;  with  his  reverence  for 
whatever  appealed  to  him  as  emanating  from  Divine 
wisdom,  he  could  not  fail  of  approaching  the  "  Book 
of  Job  "  with  a  truly  devout  and  humble  obedience. 
In  one  of  his  letters  to  Mr.  Butts,  so  valuable  for 
their  commentary  on  Blake's  mind,  he  says,  and  the 
reader  must  take  the  expression  with  great  literalness: 

"  The  thing  I  have  most  at  heart — more  than  life,  or  all  that 
seems  to  make  life  comfortable  without — is  the  interest  of  true 
religion  and  science.  And  wherever  anything  appears  to  affect 
that  interest  (especially  if  I  myself  omit  any  duty  to  my  station 
as  a  soldier  of  Christ),  it  gives  me  the  greatest  of  torments.  I 
am  not  ashamed,  afraid,  or  averse  to  tell  you  what  ought  to  be 
told — that  I  am  under  the  direction  of  messengers  from  heaven, 
daily  and  nightly.  But  the  nature  of  such  things  is  not,  as  some 
suppose,  without  trouble  or  care.  If  we  fear  to  do  the  dictates 
of  our  angels,  and  tremble  at  the  tasks  set  before  us;  if  we 
refuse  to  do  spiritual  acts  because  of  our  natural  fears  or  natural 
desires;  who  can  describe  the  dismal  torments  of  such  a  state! — 
I  too  well  remember  the  threats  I  heard! — 'If  you,  who  are 


£ 


|  Ster  sang  together, 
bnsr  cFGbci  >s}toutet{!  fop  i 


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BORDER    OF     PLATE     PROM    THE    "  BOOK     OF    JOB."         (SEE    PLATE    ON    OPPOSITE    PAGE.) 


organized  by  Divine  Providence  for  spiritual  com- 
munion, refuse,  and  bury  your  talent  in  the  earth, 
even  though  you  should  want  natural  bread,— 
sorrow  and  desperation  pursue  you  through  life, 
and  after  death,  shame  and  confusion  of  face  to 
eternity.  Every  one  in  eternity  will  leave  you, 
aghast  at  the  man  who  was  crowned  with  glory  and 
honor  by  his  brethren,  and  betrayed  their  cause  to 
their  enemies.'  Such  words  would  make  any  stout 
man  tremble,  and  how,  then,  could  I  be  at  ease  ? 
But  I  a;n  now  no  longer  in  that  state,  and  now  go 


on  again  with  my  task,  fearless,  though  my  path  is 
difficult." 

Other  passages  might  be  found,  expressive 
of  the  same  sincere  humility  and  eagerness 
to  be  led  by  spiritual  powers.  It  may  even 
be  guessed  that  Blake  would  by  this  time 
have  wearied  somewhat  of  the  portentous 
inventions  of  his  prophetical  books,  which, 
owing  their  life,  as  he  asserted,  to  visions 


WILLIAM  BLAKE,  PAINTER  AND  POET. 


237 


"WHEN   THE  MORNING  STARS   SANG  TOGETHER."     (INSIDE   PANEL  OF  THE   PRECEDING.) 


which  he  had  seen,  would  after  all  insinuate 
an  endless  round  of  life,  issuing  from  him 
and  returning  to  him,  and  that  he  would 
rest  in  the  strong  structure  of  the  "  Book  of 
Job,"  with  a  sense  that  here  were  creations 
truly  independent  of  his  will.  At  any  rate 
there  was  a  great  authority  in  this  book,  and 
Blake,  acknowledging  it,  was  thereby  gov- 
erned and  restrained  when  he  came  to 
execute  his  inventions. 

The  student  making  his  acquaintance 
with  Blake  through  the  "Job"  would  not 
at  first  recognize  this  restraint;  however 
grandly  the  designs  might  strike  him,  free- 
dom and  audacity  would  be  first  discovera- 
ble. But  in  this  study  we  have  approached 
the  Job  by  a  course  which  has  familiarized 


us  somewhat  with  Blake's  genius,  and  we 
repeat  emphatically  that  the  greatness  of 
this  series  as  an  interpretation  of  the  thought 
of  Job  rests  largely  in  its  restrained  power. 
It  rests  also  in  the  fine  grasp  which  Blake 
shows  of  the  dramatic  conception  in- 
volved in  the  book.  The  series  is  not  a 
hap-hazard  illustration  of  various  points  in 
the  history  of  Job,  nor  even  only  a  recital 
of  salient  points  in  that  history.  It  is,  in  a 
large  sense,  an  illustration  of  the  book, 
throwing  light  upon  its  meaning  by  a  reve- 
lation not  contained  in  the  book  itself,  and 
by  a  profusion  of  subtle,  natural,  and  sym- 
bolic decoration,  enlarging  the  very  scope 
of  the  book.  In  a  strictly  theological  sense, 
the  plates  have  a  singular  value.  To  any 


238 


WILLIAM  BLAKE,  PAINTER  AND  POET. 


spiritual  discerner  of  the  truths  enfolded  in 
the  life  of  the  man  of  Uz,  Blake's  pictorial 
interpretation  is  rich  with  suggestion. 

Thus,  Blake,  following  the  book  in  its 
presentation  of  the  chief  actors  in  the 
drama,  God,  man,  and  Satan,  the  accuser, 
has  completed  the  dramatic  unity  of  the 
story  by  the  introduction  of  a  plate  in  the 
series,  the  sixteenth  in  the  twenty-one,  en- 
titled "  Thou  Hast  Fulfilled  the  Judgment 
of  the  Wicked."  In  this  the  central  figure 
is  Satan,  falling  as  lightning  from  heaven  into 
flames  which  leap  up  to  receive  him,  under 
the  Almighty's  uplifted  hand,  in  the  midst 
of  angels,  while  Job  and  his  wife  look  on  in 
unshrinking  awe,  and  the  three  friends  start 
back  with  conscious  terror.  This  is  the 
most  marked  instance  of  Blake's  interpreta- 
tive power,  but  every  plate  bears  witness  to 
the  fullness  of  spiritual  meaning  with  which 
he  invested  the  dramatic  series.  Each  plate 
is  surrounded  by  a  border  containing  out- 
line designs  and  texts,  either  taken  directly 
from  Scripture  or  so  couched  in  scriptural 
language  that  they  have  the  same  effect; 
and  when  one  has  rested  from  his  investi- 
gation of  the  picture  he  runs  to  the  decora- 
tive border  for  fresh  illumination.  The 
deep  religiousness  of  Blake's  nature  is  every- 
where apparent,  and  his  historical  apprehen- 
sion of  religion  was  made  to  give  a  fine 
subordinate  value  to  the  design.  An  excel- 
lent illustration  of  this  is  in  the  use  which 
he  makes  of  the  Gothic  minster  as  symbolic 
of  worship,  and,  in  contrast,  of  the  Druid 
stones  and  forms  as  symbolic  of  pagan  dark- 
ness. So,  too,  in  the  twentieth  plate, 
where,  by  a  significant  interpolation,  Job  is 
recounting  his  life  to  his  fair  daughters,  the 
scenes  of  terror  are  elaborated  as  tapestry 
upon  the  walls.  "  Everywhere,"  it  has  been 
said,  "  throughout  the  series  we  meet  with 
evidences  of  Gothic  feeling.  Such  are  the 
recessed  settle  and  screen  of  trees  in  plate 
two,  and,  too,  much  in  the  spirit  of  Orcagna. 
The  decorative  character  of  the  stars  in 
plate  twelve ;  the  Leviathan  and  Behemoth 
in  plate  fifteen,  grouped  so  as  to  recall  a 
mediaeval  medallion  or  wood-carving;  the 
trees,  drawn  always  as  they  might  be  carved 
in  the  wood- work  of  an  old  church."  There 
is  a  striking  use  made  of  the  tables  of  the 
law  in  the  eleventh  plate,  where  the  accuser, 
tormenting  Job  with  doubts  of  God,  hides 
from  him  and  yet  points  at  these  stones. 
The  plate,  "  When  the  Morning  Stars  Sang 
Together,  and  all  the  Sons  of  God  Shouted 
for  Joy,"  has  for  its  emblematic  border  the 
map  of  the  six  days  of  creation.  The  texts 


of  Scripture,  also,  are  used  with  admirable 
allusiveness.  Over  the  first  plate,  for  in- 
stance, where  Job  is  presented  in  the  inno- 
cence of  his  untried  faith,  are  the  words 
"  Our  Father  Who  Art  in  Heaven,"  while 
above  the  final  plate,  "  So  the  Lord  Blessed 
the  Latter  End  of  Job  more  than  the  Begin- 
ning," are  the  words  "  Great  and  Marvel- 
ous are  Thy  Works,  Lord  God  Almighty,  Just 
and  True  are  Thy  Ways,  O  Thou  King  of 
Saints ! "  as  if  the  man,  triumphant  in  his 
faith,  were  singing  praises  to  the  God  who 
had  made  his  submission  victorious. 

More  significant  still  is  the  entire  con- 
ception of  these  two  plates  as  the  beginning 
and  close  of  the  series.  In  the  first,  Job  and 
his  wife  are  seated  with  open  books  at  the 
foot  of  an  oak,  surrounded  by  the  seven  sons 
and  three  daughters,  Job  reciting  the  Word 
of  God,  while  his  wife  and  children,  with 
folded  hands  and  uplifted  faces,  respond 
with  worship.  The  sun  is  setting  behind 
gentle  hills,  the  moon  rising  over  frowning 
mountains.  Great  flocks  of  cropping  sheep 
extend  back  to  the  tents  of  the  patriarch, 
and  in  the  foreground  rams,  sheep,  and 
lambs  lie  placidly  before  the  human  group. 
"Thus  Did  Job  Continually,"  is  the  legend, 
and  at  the  base  of  the  decorative  border  is  an 
altar  with  aspiring  flame,  while  an  ox  and  a 
ram  show  their  heads  at  the  corners  of  the 
border,  awaiting  sacrifice.  Upon  the  face  of 
the  altar  are  the  words  "  The  Letter  Killeth  ; 
the  Spirit  Giveth  Life.  It  is  Spiritually  Dis- 
cerned." This  is  the  conception  of  childlike 
piety,  unquestioning,  untried,  happy  in  its 
possessions,  undisturbed  by  any  dissension  or 
any  outward  tumult.  There  are  grown  men 
among  the  sons,  but  all,  young  and  old, 
carry  on  their  faces  the  aspect  of  innocent 
purity.  Turn,  now,  to  the  last  plate.  There 
is  the  same  decorative  border,  as  to  lines 
and  grouping,  but  the  ram  and  ox  have 
changed  their  places ;  the  ram  has  a  shep- 
herd's crook  by  it,  the  ox  has  the  head  and 
action  of  a  beast  that  is  to  live  and  not  be 
slain.  The  fire  on  the  altar  is  no  longer  a 
simple  triple  flame,  but  bursts  out  in  ani- 
mated vigor  as  having  an  undying  power 
of  its  own,  requiring  no  fuel  or  flesh  to  feed 
it,  while  upon  the  face  of  the  altar  are  the 
words  "  In  Burnt  Offerings  for  Sin  Thou 
Hast  Had  no  Pleasure."  Then,  in  the  pict- 
ure itself,  the  locality  is  the  same  ;  the  great 
tree  is  in  the  center ;  the  sun  is  now  rising 
gloriously  over  gentle  hills,  the  moon  and 
stars  are  fading  out  in  a  gentle  dawn.  The 
creatures  in  the  foreground  are  still  there, 
but  with  alert,  uplifted  heads.  Before, 


WILLIAM  BLAKE,  PAINTER  AND   POET. 


239 


there  hung  upon  the  tree  lutes,  harps,  and 
viols,  as  instruments  unused  and  unneeded 
by  the  simple  worshipers;  now,  before  and 
about  the  tree,  Job,  his  wife,  his  sons 
and  daughters,  stand  triumphantly  singing 
and  playing  upon  the  uplifted  instruments, 
or  with  scrolls  of  beauty  flowing  in  their 
hands ;  between  and  among  the  forms  we 
catch  glimpses  of  the  same  flock  as  before, 
with  an  added  life  and  playfulness. 

This  detailed  analysis  of  the  two  plates 
will  indicate  something  of  the  methods  by 
which  Blake  expresses  his  conception,  but  it 
is  the  misfortune  of  most  such  analyses  to 
suggest  a  certain  mechanical  and  formalistic 
treatment.  There  is  an  archaic  naivete  in 
Blake's  handling  of  his  theme  here,  partly 
his  own  native  apprehension,  partly  the 
result  of  his  artistic  sympathies,  but  the  very 
openness  of  the  stratagem  by  which  he  cap- 
tures the  understanding  in  this  interpretation 
of  the  Book  of  Job  saves  him  from  the 
charge  of  a  perfunctory  method.  We  have 
been  compelled, in  outlining  the  above  plates, 
to  force  the  contrasted  parts  into  a  dry  enu- 
meration of  details,  but  the  spectator,  upon 
his  first  view  of  the  engravings,  sees  only 
the  lovely  harmony  of  each ;  the  unity 
in  diversity  which  possesses  them  steals 
over  him  slowly  and  with  enchanting  grace. 
Indeed,  rich  as  the  series  is  in  its  moral 
suggestion,  we  are  almost  impatient  with 
the  showman  who  points  this  out,  so  en- 
tirely does  the  aesthetic  interest  of  the  plates 


prevail.  As  examples  of  engraving  they 
are  marvels  of  beauty.  "  The  '  Book  of 
Job,'  "  says  Mr.  Ruskin  in  his  "  Elements  of 
Drawing,"  "  engraved  by  himself,  is  of  the 
highest  rank  in  certain  characters  of  imag- 
ination and  expression  ;  in  the  mode  of  ob- 
taining certain  effects  of  light,  it  will  also  be 
a  very  useful  example  to  you.  In  express- 
ing conditions  of  glaring  and  flickering 
light  Blake  is  greater  than  Rembrandt." 
"  The  engravings,"  we  are  told  by  Gilchrist, 
"  are  the  best  Blake  ever  did — vigorous, 
decisive,  and,  above  all,  in  a  style  of  expres- 
sion in  keeping  with  the  designs,  which  the 
work  of  no  other  hand  could  have  been  in 
the  case  of  conceptions  so  austere  and  prim- 
eval as  these." 

It  is  fortunate  that  copies  of  the  "  Book 
of  Job  "  exist  in  sufficient  number  to  make 
it  possible  for  students  to  get  access  to  it. 
An  excellent  set  is  on  exhibition  at  the 
Boston  collection,  and  both  private  and 
public  owners  can  easily  be  found.  One  is 
not,  therefore,  obliged  to  sing  the  praises 
of  these  wonderful  designs  to  incredu- 
lous ears;  the  best  of  witnesses  exist  in 
support  of  the  most  enthusiastic  words. 
One  hesitates  to  characterize  them,  not 
from  fear  of  speaking  too  strongly,  but  of 
entangling  the  subject  with  misleading  and 
inadequate  expression.  Without  this  series, 
it  may  be  said,  Blake's  career  as  an  artist 
would  fail  of  its  ripe  exhibition.  These  de- 
signs, by  their  form  and  character,  come 


THE    COUNSELOR,    KING,    WARRIOR,    MOTHER    AND    CHILD    IN    THE    TOMB.         (FROM     AN    ETCHING    BY    LOUIS     SCHIAVONETTI 
AFTER    DRAWING    BY     WM.    BLAKE,    FROM     BLAIR'S     "GRAVE.") 


240 


APPLE-BL  OS  SO  MS. 


specifically  into  place  among  the  enduring 
works  of  art,  and  may  be  so  examined; 
while  much  of  Blake's  other  work  is  of  a 
nature  to  illustrate  rather  a  wayward  artist 


than  one  who  moves  in  the  great  procession 
of  erratic  intelligence.  They  fitly  complete 
a  career  at  the  other  end  of  which  stands  the 
"  Songs  of  Innocence." 


APPLE-BLOSSOMS. 

THE  apple-trees  with  bloom  are  all  aglow — 
Soft  drifts  of  perfumed  light — 

A  miracle  of  mingled  fire  and  snow — 
A  laugh  of  Spring's  delight ! 

Their    ranks    of   creamy    splendor    pillow 

deep 

The  valley's  pure  repose ; 
On   mossy   walls,  in   meadow  nooks,  they 

heap 
Surges  of  frosted  rose. 

Around   old   homesteads,  clustering   thick, 

they  shed 

Their  sweets  to  murm'ring  bees, 
And  o'er  hushed  lanes  and  way-side  fount- 
ains spread 
Their  pictured  canopies. 

Green-breasted     knolls    and    forest    edges 

wear 

Their  beautiful  array  : 
And  lonesome   graves   are   sheltered,  here 

and  there, 
With  their  memorial  spray. 

The  efflorescence   on   unnumbered  boughs 

Pants  with  delicious  breath; 
O'er    me    seem    laughing    eyes   and   fair, 
smooth  brows, 

And  shapes  too  sweet  for  death. 

Clusters  of  dimpled  faces  float  between 

The  soft,  caressing  plumes, 
And   lovely   creatures  'mong  the  branches 
lean, 

Lulled  by  faint,  flower-born  tunes. 

A  rude  wind  blows,  and,  as  the  blossoms 

fall, 

^  My  heart  is  borne  away  : 
Fainter  and  fainter  tender  voices  call 
Of  my  enamored  May. 

Fainter   and    fainter— oh,   how    strange    it 

seems, 

With  so  much  sweetness  fled! 
I    go    like    one    who    dreams    within    his 

dreams 
That,  living,  he  is  dead  ! 


THE  DOMINION  OF  CANADA. 


241 


THE    DOMINION    OF   CANADA.     II. 

POLITICAL   AND    SOCIAL    HISTORY. 


DYKE    ON    CANARD     RIVER    CUT    BY    THE    ACAD1ANS    ON    THE    DAY    OF    THEIR    EXPULSION    BY    THE    BRITISH. 


THE  political  history  of  Canada  is  the 
history  of  a  pupilage  not  yet  completed. 
Hitherto  the  ever-broadening  stage  has 
been  occupied  with  actors — not  altogether 
uninteresting  to  the  student  of  political 
development — whose  work  lias  been  of  a 
preparatory  kind.  The  final  act  has  yet  to  be 
played.  The  comparative  calm,  which  has 
characterized  the  evolution  of  the  drama  so 
far,  promises  a  peaceful,  and  that  means  a 
satisfactory,  denouement ;  but  it  sometimes 
thunders  out  of  a  clear  sky.  At  any  rate,  no 
one  who  regards  his  reputation  as  a  seer 
would  care  to  speak  positively  as  to  what 
the  last  act  is  likely  to  be.  For  while  our 
foresight  is  generally  determined  by  our 
hopes  and  wishes,  we  are  warned  that  "  it  is 
the  unexpected  which  is  sure  to  happen." 
History  does  and  does  not  repeat  itself;  and, 
from  what  the  past  has  been,  different  men, 
therefore,  draw  contradictory  inferences  as 
to  the  future.  The  United  States  took  up 
their  position  as  a  sovereign  state  after  seven 
years'  hard  righting.  No  one  believes  that 
the  mother  country  would  now  fight  seven 
minutes  to  retain  any  part  of  Canada,  save, 
perhaps,  Halifax  on  the  Atlantic  and  Esqui- 
maux on  the  Pacific  coast ;  and  this,  not  be- 
cause she  has  less  courage,  but  because  she 
VOL.  XX.— 17. 


has  more  wisdom  ;  not  that  she  loves  Can- 
ada less,  but  that  she  loves  freedom  more. 
The  question  of  our  future  is  left  to  be  set- 
tled by  reason,  and  not  by  appeals  to  force ; 
by  our  loyalty,  and  not  by  our  fears.  Great 
Britain  owes  her  present  hold  of  the  self- 
governed  colonies  not  to  the  strong  hand  of 
authority,  but  to  the  natural  affection  with 
which  children  love  their  parents;  to  their 
pride  in  a  glorious  history  ;  to  their  attach- 
ment to  a  flag  which  has  always  been  to 
them  the  emblem  of  protection  ungrudg- 
ingly given ;  to  their  love  of  a  Queen  who 
incarnates  in  herself  the  unity  of  the  Empire ; 
to  their  desire  to  preserve  the  continuity 
of  their  national  life ;  to  their  participation 
in  the  benefit  of  great  warlike,  scien- 
tific and  literary  achievements;  to  their 
admiration  of  a  political  constitution  which, 
they  believe,  guarantees  freedom  more  im- 
mediately and  effectually  than  any  other, 
while  at  the  same  time  it  secures  a  vigorous 
exercise  of  authority ;  and  to  that  whole- 
some conservatism  in  human  nature  which 
causes  us  to  recoil  instinctively  from  unnec- 
essary revolution.  The  question  of  our 
future  does  not  press,  and  only  theorists 
desire  to  precipitate  a  solution.  True,  our 
position  is  anomalous.  We  have  no  recog- 


242 


THE  DOMINION  OF  CANADA. 


nized  share  in  the  conduct  of  international 
relations,  whether  of  trade  or  diplomacy,  or  in 
determining  the  supreme  questions  of  peace 
or  war.  We  govern  ourselves,  yet  are  not 
independent.  We  are  an  integral  part  of 
the  British  Empire,  yet  we  have  been  told, 
in  effect,  that  we  are  free  to  secede  when- 
ever we  choose  to  do  so.  We  assert  that  we 
are  now  not  simply  a  colony  or  dependency, 
but  we  are  unable  to  define  what  we  really 
are.  I  suppose  we  ought  to  be  dissatisfied, 
but  we  are  not.  Occasionally  we  are  re- 
minded that  we  may  be  plunged  into  war  at 
any  time,  without  our  having  a  word  to  say 
as  to  the  why ;  but  most  of  us  are  willing  to 
leave  this  and  other  matters  almost  equally 
important  in  the  hands  of  the  Imperial 


a  political  necessity.  Perhaps  the  fact  that 
as  a  people  we  are  satisfied  with  our  present 
undefined  condition,  shows  our  political 
immaturity.  But  those  most  conscious  of 
strength  are  willing  to  wait,  and  are  some- 
what scornful  of  mere  restlessness.  In  a 
word,  Canadians  are  better  satisfied  with 
things  as  they  are  than  with  anything  else 
that  has  yet  been  proposed.  Further  devel- 
opments will  ensue.  Tendencies  will  work 
themselves  out.  We  are  moving  onward, 
advancing  steadily  in  the  path  of  well- 
ordered  freedom;  and  when  the  hour  strikes 
for  another  advance,  leaders  will  come  to 
the  front  to  guide  us  to  the  fulfillment  of  a 
destiny  which  only  phrase-makers  can  now 
speak  of  as  manifest.  I  desire  to  point  out 


SHERBROOKE. 


Government.  We  feel  that  practically  we 
are  considered,  and  that  as  we  have  nothing 
2tter  to  propose  than  the  present  arrange- 
ment or  want  of  arrangement,  forbearance 
on  our  part  is  not  only  a  political  virtue  but 


how  Canada,  which  was  French  to  the 
core, — nothing  but  French,  at  the  conquest 
of  1759,  and  which  for  the  next  three  quar- 
ters of  a  century  remained  French  to  so 
great  an  extent  that,  in  1837,  popular  lead- 


THE  DOMINION  OF  CANADA. 


243 


ers  believed  that  an  independent 
French  nation  could  be  built  on 
the  St.  Lawrence, — has  now  be- 
come unquestionably,  and  with 
the  consent  of  all,  a  British 
nationality.  We  shall  thus  be 
led  to  see  that  though  nearly 
three  and  a  half  centuries  have 
passed  away  since  Jacques 
Cartier  planted  the  cross  at 
Gaspe,  the  Canada  with  which 
we  have  to  do  is  but  of  yester- 
day; that  she  knows  not  yet 
what  her  future  shall  be;  that 
she  is 

"  Standing  with  reluctant  feet 
Where  the  brook  and  river  meet ;  " 

and  that,  having  no  past  of  her 
own,  her  thoughts  are  all  turned 
to  the  future, — a  future  that  she 
can  best  prepare  for  by  doing 
her  duty  in  and  to  the  present. 

In  1791,  Great  Britain  divided 
the  old  province  of  Quebec  into 
two  distinct  colonies,  called  Up- 
per and  Lower  Canada.  With 
the  exception  of  British  resi- 
dents in  the  cities,  and  the 
beautiful  district  known  as  the 
Eastern  Townships,  which  re- 
ceived a  large  infusion  of  the 
American  element,  Lower  Can- 
ada was  French.  Those  Eastern 
Townships  have  always  pre- 
sented a  striking  contrast  to  the 
rest  of  the  Province.  The 
inhabitants  are  like  New  Eng- 
landers  in  their  readiness  to  start 
manufactures.  Sherbrooke,  the 
capital  of  the  district,  is  given 
over  to  mills,  and  the  people 
are  as  proud  of  them  as  Paris- 
ians are  of  the  Louvre.  Cattle 
are  raised  on  the  stock-farms 
that  vie  with  those  of  the  most 
noted  breeders  of  England.  And  the 
beauties  of  Lake  Magog,  and  the  Magog 
and  the  St.  Francis  rivers,  are  commended 
to  the  tourist  with  a  zeal  that  generally  has 
an  eye  to  the  main  chance. 

True  to  their  instincts,  the  American  and 
British  residents  of  Lower  Canada  cried  out 
from  the  first  for  a  Representative  Assembly. 
It  was  given,  and  before  long  they  found 
that  the  gift  was  a  rod  for  their  own  backs. 
No  Englishman  thenceforth  could  be  elected 
to  the  Assembly  unless  he  became  French- 
Canadian  in  language  and  spirit.  That,  in 


VIEW    ON    THE    MAGOG    RIV 


itself,  would  have  been  easy,  but  unfortu- 
nately it  committed  him  to  a  party  led  by 
men  of  no  judgment.  Visions  of  independ- 
ence, of  a  north-west  republic  of  Lower 
Canada,  of  "  a  great  and  powerful  French 
nation,"  consisting  of  uneducated  habitants 
scattered  in  a  thin  line  along  the  banks  of 
the  St.  Lawrence,  floated  before  the  minds 
of  feather-headed  popular  leaders.  Natu- 
rally enough,  in  such  a  case,  the  British 
minority  took  sides  with  the  British  Gov- 
ernor and  Executive  against  the  Represent- 
ative Assembly,  and  what  had  been  the 


244 


THE  DOMINION  OF  CANADA. 


Liberal  element  in  the  Province  became  a 
Conservative  party.  To  understand  the 
dead-locks  that  occurred  thereafter,  it  is 
necessary  to  explain  that  the  government  of 
Lower  Canada,  like  that  of  the  other  Prov- 
inces, consisted  then  of  three  bodies;  (i) 
a  House  of  Assembly,  composed  of  Repre- 
sentatives appointed  for  a  term  of  years  by 
the  people;  (a)  an  Upper  House  called  the 
Legislative  Council,  consisting  of  gentlemen 
appointed  by  the  Crown  for  life;  (3)  an 
Executive  appointed  by  the  Crown,  and 
responsible  to  the  Crown.  The  Governor, 
as  head  of  the  Executive,  represented  the 
Crown  immediately  and  directly.  From  him 
and  his  Executive  all  patronage  and  honors 
flowed.  This  form  of  government  was  sup- 
posed to  be  modeled,  and,  in  fact,  to  be  an 
"  exact  transcript,"  from  the  British  Constitu- 
tion. The  Assembly  represented  the  House 
of  Commons;  the  Legislative  Council  the 
House  of  Lords;  and  the  Executive  the 
Privy  Council.  It  was  exactly  like  what  the 
Stuart  kings  imagined  the  British  Constitu- 
tion to  be,  but  as  like  the  British  Constitution 
in  the  nineteenth  century  as  chalk  is  like 
cheese.  The  House  of  Assembly  could  talk 
and  petition,  but  without  the  co-operation 
of  the  Upper  House  it  had  little  power. 
Legislation  depended  on  the  assent  of  the 
Council;  and  generally  the  Council  sympa- 
thized with  the  Executive  rather  than  with 
the  demagogues  who  swayed  the  popular 
branch.  Occasionally  the  Assembly  and  the 
Council  might  be  animated  by  unity  of 
sentiment  and  aim ;  but  the  members  of  the 
Council  derived  their  places  from  the  same 
source  as  the  Executive;  they  represented 
the  same  social  elements ;  and  personal  links 
united  the  two  bodies.  It  can  easily  be  seen 
that  the  Council  and  the  Executive  would  be 
always  an  overmatch  for  the  popular  branch 
of  the  Legislature. 

The  Representatives  of  the  people  fretted 
continually  under  a  sense  of  impotency. 
They  could  agitate  and  bait  Governors,  and 
they  cultivated  both  arts  with  a  remarkable 
measure  of  success ;  but  the  agitations  effected 
little,  and  new  Governors,  though  they  might 
dispense  hospitality  more  liberally,  yet 
walked  pretty  much  in  the  same  paths  as 
their  predecessors.  Such  a  system  of  gov- 
ernment could  not  have  endured  long  had 
the  popular  leaders  been  loyally  desirous  of 
securing  its  reform  within  the  lines  of  their 
allegiance;  but  their  disloyalty  and  childish 
dreams  rallied  against  them  the  real  strength 
of  the  Province ;  and  though  the  habitant 
threw  up  his  hat  and  cheered  their  voluble 


speeches,  and  re-elected  them  to  the  Assem- 
bly as  often  as  the  Governor  dissolved  it,  he 
had  not,  as  a  rule,  the  remotest  idea  of  risk- 
ing land  or  limb  at  their  summons.  We  can 
estimate  the  character  of  their  supporters 
from  the  petition  presented  by  them  to  the 
Imperial  Parliament  in  1828.  Eighty-seven 
thousand  appended  their  names.  Of  these, 
only  9,000  could  write ;  the  rest  made 
their  marks.  When  it  became  evident  that 
the  leaders  were  bent  on  rebellion,  their 
apparent  strength  withered  in  a  few  weeks. 
The  influential  seigneurs,  the  leading  mer- 
chants, the  Church,  and  two-thirds  of  the 
habitants  ranged  themselves  in  active  or  pas- 
sive resistance  to  the  mad  enterprise.  And 
when  the  rebellion  actually  sputtered  into 
existence,  it  amounted  to  little  more  than 
poor  Smith  O'Brien's  cabbage-garden  fight  in 
Ireland.  To  cheer  eloquent  speeches  at  a 
village  tavern  was  one  thing;  to  shoulder 
a  musket  was  altogether  another.  The  re- 
bellion, however,  though  nothing  in  itself, 
led  to  important  results.  It  was  clearly 
impossible  to  govern  Lower  Canada  longer 
on  the  old  arbitrary  system.  The  logic  of 
events  about  the  same  time  in  Upper 
Canada,  and  in  the  maritime  Provinces,  also 
led  irresistibly  to  the  conclusion  that  self- 
government  must  be  conceded  all  along  the 
line.  But  it  was  equally  impossible  to  hand 
over  a  whole  colony,  one,  too,  that  con- 
trolled the  mouth  of  the  St.  Lawrence,  to 
the  will  of  a  majority  of  uneducated  voters. 
The  only  solution  that  presented  itself  was 
to  unite  the  two  Canadas  and  to  trust  the 
people  so  united.  In  1839,  Lord  Durham 
urged  this  policy  on  the  Imperial  Govern- 
ment, in  a  masterly  report  which  his  enemies 
said  he  had  neither  written  nor  read.  Be 
that  as  it  may,  he  advised  the  confederation 
of  all  the  British  American  Provinces ;  but 
as  practical  difficulties  put  so  vast  a  scheme 
out  of  the  question — Halifax  being  then  as 
far  removed  from  Quebec  as  from  Kam- 
schatka,  for  all  practical  purposes — he 
dropped  that  for  the  moment,  and  said,  in 
effect,  Unite  the  two  Canadas  into  one  Prov- 
ince, let  the  government  of  the  Provinces  be 
carried  on  according  to  the  constitutionally 
expressed  popular  will,  and  base  loyalty  on 
the  will  of  a  loyal  people.  The  majority  of 
the  French  Canadians  disliked  the  pro- 
posed re-union  of  the  two  Canadas;  but 
this  was  a  necessary  part  of  the  large, 
statesmanlike  policy  that  had  at  length  been 
agreed  upon.  The  British  Government 
acted  on  Lord  Durham's  report,  and  con- 
ceding to  all  the  Provinces  the  principle  of 


THE  DOMINION  OF  CANADA. 


245 


responsible  government,  placed  their  desti- 
nies in  their  own  hands.  In  criticizing  them, 
let  it  not  be  forgotten  that  their  history  as 
self-governing  communities  commenced  little 
more  than  thirty  years  ago. 

Prior  to  1840,  all  contests  in  Lower  Can- 
ada were  in  reality  contests  of  races,  lan- 
guages and  religions.  In  Upper  Canada 
and  the  other  Provinces  they  were  simply 
political,  the  struggles  of  a  free-born  and 
intelligent  people  to  be  allowed  to  govern 
themselves.  For  many  years  after  its 
organization  as  a  Province,  political  parties 
did  not  exist  in  Upper  Canada.  The  House 
of  Assembly,  the  Upper  House,  and  the 
Executive  worked  together  for  the  common 
good,  as  Romans  did  in  the  brave  days  of 
old,  when 

"  None  were  for  a  party, 
But  all  were  for  the  State.'' 


As  the  homespun  Representatives  wanted  to 
get  back  to  their  farms  as  soon  as  possible, 
they  wasted  no  time  in  speech-making,  but 
pushed  business  through  as  rapidly  as  British 
forms  permitted,  and  made  excellent  laws 
and  regulations  on  every  matter  that  came 
before  them.  The  bulk  of  the  people  had 
enough  to  do  with  clearing  their  farms,  and 
cared  little  for  politics.  But  as  population 
and  wealth  increased,  and  the  probable 
future  greatness  of  the  new  Province  began 
to  be  understood,  a  ruling  class,  popularly 
known  as  "  the  Family  Compact,"  grew  up. 
Its  growth  was  encouraged,  for  in  high 
quarters  it  was  dreamed  that  the  constitu- 
tion of  society  on  an  aristocratic  basis  would 
be  the  best  way  to  save  the  Province  from  the 
wolf  of  democracy.  This  ruling  class  con- 
sisted of  settlers  of  aristocratic  pretensions, 
half-pay  officers,  scions  of  good  families  in 
England  who  had  been  sent  out  to  fill  offices, 
and  leading  men  of  the  United  Empire, 
— loyalists  who  had  sacrificed  everything  for 
the  Empire,  and  who  hated  republicanism 
with  a  hatred  proportioned  to  the  sacrifices 
they  or  their  fathers  had  been  compelled  to 
make.  Men  of  ability  made  a  mistake  simi- 
lar to  that  which  caused  the  division  of 
Canada  in  1791.  Then,  so  great  a  man  as 
Pitt  thought  that  Lower  Canada  would  most 
likely  be  preserved  to  the  Crown  by  keeping 
it  isolated  from  the  democratic  colonists  who 
would  eventually  pour  into  the  forests  of 
Western  Canada.  The  re-union  of  the 
Canadas  fifty  years  afterward  was  the 
acknowledgment  of  a  mistake  that  originated 
in  a  mistrust  of  the  people.  Penetrated  with 


the  same  profound  distrust,  the  members  of 
"  the  Family  Compact,"  or  those  who  inspired 
them,  fancied  that  the  only  way  to  keep 
Upper  Canada  loyal  was  by  fostering  an 
aristocracy,  and  buttressing  it  with  a  Church 
establishment  and  an  University  fenced 
around  with  tests.  Convinced  of  this,  and 
actuated  by  the  best  of  motives,  men  of  re- 
finement and  learning,  of  probity  and  piety, 
toiled  industriously  to  chain  the  popular 
giant  with  straw-ropes.  When  good  men 
come  to  consider  themselves  and  their  offices 
the  bulwarks  of  the  constitution,  their  very 
selfishness  assumes  a  holy  tinge.  "  I  must 
bring  in  a  bill  to  reduce  your  salary  to 
^5,000  a  year,"  said  a  Prime  Minister  to  a 
worthy  Bishop.  "  B-but,  my  dear  sir," 
exclaimed  his  horror-stricken  Lordship, 
"  w-what,  then,  will  become  of  religion  ?  " 
To  patriots  of  this  class,  not  only  their  own 
positions  and  salaries,  but  fungi  or  barnacles 
become  portions  of  the  ark.  It  is  allowable 
to  call  men  who  propose  to  lay  unhallowed 
hands  on  the  sacred  thing  adventurers,  and 
then  disloyal,  or  sacrilegious  wretches,  in 
dealing  with  whom  summary  measures  are 
permissible.  "  Turn  him  oot,  turn  him  oot ! 
never  mind  the  laa!"  impatiently  cried  Dr. 
Strachan,  the  Anglican  Bishop  of  Toronto, 
in  his  broadest  Aberdeen  Doric,  to  a  mem- 
ber of  the  House  of  Assembly  who  hesitated 
as  to  the  legality  of  taking  such  a  step  with 
a  political  opponent.  Englishmen  who  came 
to  the  Colony  with  prejudices  in  favor  of 
everything  British  twined  round  every 
nerve  and  fiber,  found  a  class  in  Toronto 
who  looked  upon  them  as  only  one  or  two 
removes  from  radicals.  One  Governor 
naively  records  his  own  experiences  in  this 
respect,  and  his  easy  conversion  to  the 
belief  that  the  loyalty  of  the  Province  to 
the  mother  country  depended  on  a  cocked 
hat  and  the  social  dominance  of  a  political 
church.  After  minutely  detailing  how  he 
was  snubbed  by  an  official  for  his  free-and- 
easy  notions,  he  goes  on  to  say : 

"  I  could  mention  hearing  many  simi- 
lar reproofs  which  I  verbally  received  from 
native-born  Canadians,  especially  one  which 
very  strongly  condemned  me  for  a  desire  I 
had  innocently  entertained  to  go  once — 
merely  as  a  compliment — to  the  Presbyterian 
Church,  which,  when  quartered  in  Scotland, 
I  had  often  attended;  but  I  was  gravely 
admonished  by  the  son  of  the  soil  on  which 
I  stood  that,  although  I  ought  to  protect 
all  churches,  yet  as  the  representative  of 
the  Established  Church  I  ought  to  take 
part  in  no  other  service  but  my  own ;  and  a 


246 


THE  DOMINION  OF  CANADA. 


few  moment's  reflection  told  me  that  he  was 
right ;  and,  as  a  further  illustration  of  this 
transatlantic  doctrine,  I  may  state  that  when 
the  bold,  venerable  and  respected  leader  of 
the  Church  of  England  in  Upper  Canada 
was  lately  appointed  Bishop  of  Toronto,  he 
was  not  only  immediately  addressed  by  the 
title  of  '  My  Lord,'  but  his  humble  dwell- 
ing was  and  to  this  day  is  designated  '  The 
Palace,' "  *  and  so  on,  and  so  on.  Was  there 


who  with  all  their  superior  intelligence  mis- 
took bubbles  and  froth  on  the  current  for 
the  river,  the  Imperial  Government  con- 
ceded the  principle  of  responsible  govern- 
ment— or,  as  its  opponents  called  it,  "  Re- 
sponsible Nonsense."  t  "  Upper  Canada," 
says  Dr.  Scadding,  "  in  miniature  and  in  the 
space  of  half  a  century,  curiously  passed 
through  conditions  and  processes,  physical 
and  social,  which  old  countries,  on  a  large 


A    CANADIAN     HOMESTEAD,    1830. 


ever  such  twaddle?  And  his  Excellency 
gravely  gives  these  experiences  to  prove  that 
Canadians  longed,  with  intelligent  longing, 
after  a  system  of  social  and  political  ine- 
quality; and  he  greatly  bewails  the  fact  that 
neither  of  the  political  parties  in  England 
could  be  made  to  see  Canada  through  the 
spectacles  which  the  Toronto  men  had  put 
on  his  own  eyes.  In  spite  of  the  oppo- 
sition of  Governors  and  Family  Compact. 

*  "The  Emigrant,"  by  Lieutenant  Francis  B.  Head 
pages  40-50. 


scale  and  in  the  course  of  long  ages,  passed 
through.  Upper  Canada  had,  in  little,  its 
primeval  and  barbaric  but  heroic  era,  its 
mediaeval  and  high  prerogative  era,  and 
then,  after  a  revolutionary  period  of  a  few 
weeks,  its  modern,  de-feudalized,  democratic 
era.  *  *  *  All  men  now  acquiesce  in  the  final 
issue  of  the  social  turmoil  which  for  a  series 
of  years  agitated  Canada."  Of  these  three 
eras,  the  first,  I  confess,  has  most  charms  for 

t  "  Toronto  of  Old,"  page  435. 


THE  DOMINION  OF  CANADA. 


247 


A    CANADIAN     HOMESTEAD,    1850. 


me,  though  its  heroic  memories  are  of  life 
struggles  against  strange  and  uncongenial 
environments,  rather  than  of  border  wars 
and  ambuscades.  Its  poet  or  historian  has 
not  yet  appeared,  and  its  memories  are  fad- 
ing so  fast  from  the  minds  of  men  that 
probably  its  records  must  remain  forever 
unwritten.  Pity  that  it  should  be  so;  for 
wilderness  and  backwoods  life  in  Canada 
abounds  in  pictures  infinitely '  varied  in 
coloring,  and  in  dramas  full  of  poetic  inter- 
est. In  the  old  world,  country  life  is  the 
same  from  generation  to  generation.  In  a 
colony  the  scene  shifts  with  amazing  rapid- 
ity. After  a  few  years'  absence  you  go  back 
to  the  old  spot  and  find  everything  changed. 
The  first  period  is  one  of  savage  wrestling 
with  nature.  The  camp  or  shanty  of  the  lum- 
berman is  succeeded  by  the  solid  log-house 
of  the  settler.  This  is  the  time  of  logging  and 
building  " bees,"  and  "bees"  of  all  kinds, 
of  hard  drinking  and  "  corduroy "  roads. 
No  beauty  is  seen  in  a  living  tree;  it  is 
every  man's  enemy.  After  this  rude  period 
comes  a  golden  era.  Thrown  on  their  own 
resources,  the  inventive  faculties  are  stimu- 
lated. Every  young  fellow  becomes  a  thinker 
and  inventor  in  his  way.  One  constructs 
water-wheels  or  wind-mills,  another  cunning 
helps  for  the  women-folk;  a  third  makes 
gun-stocks  or  fiddles ;  a  fourth  puzzles  his 


brains  over  perpetual  motion.  Numbers 
go  to  college,  or  leave  home  to  seek  their 
fortunes  in  the  world.  In  a  few  years  more, 
the  tides  of  the  city's  life  find  their  way  into 
the  hitherto  isolated  spot,  sweep  over  it  and 
submerge  the  distinctive  peculiarities.  The 
place  is  "  improved,"  but  it  is  not  the  same 
dear  old  place,  where  every  house  was  a 
club  and  every  man  a  genius  in  his  way. 
Of  course,  the  social  development  of  a 
colony  depends  not  only  on  the  fixed  con- 
ditions of  soil  and  climate,  but  on  the  class 
of  emigrants  it  receives.  The  emigration  to 
Upper  Canada  included  representatives  of 
all  the  classes  that  make  up  the  composite 
society  of  Great  Britain,  and  these  mingled 
together  in  oddest  fashion,  for  a  colony,  like 
misfortune,  makes  us  acquainted  with  strange 
bed-fellows.  Half-pay  officers,  and  military 
men  who,  on  account  of  the  long  peace 
after  the  Napoleonic  wars,  had  no  hope  of 
rising  in  the  army,  gradually  found  their 
way  to  Upper  Canada.  Some,  who  had 
nothing  before  them  in  England  but  genteel 
starvation,  and  the  contemptuous  pity  or 
dole  of  wealthier  relations,  heard  that  for  the 
price  of  their  commissions  in  whole  or  part 
they  could  become  extensive  land-owners. 
Ashamed  to  dig  at  home,  it  would  be  no 
degradation  to  work  in  a  new  country  and 
on  their  own  land.  Unable  to  dig,  they 


248 


THE  DOMINION  OF  CANADA. 


CAPE  BLOMIDON  FROM  GRAND 


had  the  secret  conviction  that  a  gentleman, 
if  he  only  put  himself  to  it,  could  do  any- 
thing better  than  a  lout.  Others  heard 
that  an  old  companion  in  arms  had  been 
appointed  Governor,  and  that  he  had  offices 
in  his  gift,  or  land  grants  of  dimensions  suf- 
ficiently magnificent  to  inspire  the  grantees 
with  dreams  of  founding  a  family.  The 
prospect  of  combining  good  fishing  and 
shooting  with  profitable  farming — most 
deceitful  will-o'-the-wisp  that  ever  danced — 
allured  others.  The  possession  of  a  gun 
and  the  being  a  good  shot  were — and 
always  are  to  the  ordinary  farmer — tempta- 
tions rather  than  advantages.  Fifty  or 
sixty  years  ago  little  was  known  of  Upper 
Canada;  and  with  the  mingled  pluck 
and  bull-headedness  characteristic  of  the 
true  Briton,  few  cared  to  inquire  into 
details  before  resolving  to  go  out  into  an 
untrodden  wilderness,  where  every  condition 
of  life  was  sure  to  be  unlike  those  they 
had  been  previously  accustomed  to.  They 
were  taken  by  a  popular  cry,  or  they 
had  read  some  tourist's  book,  and,  trusting 
to  the  knowledge  thus  acquired,  they  took 
ship  for  the  St.  Lawrence,  and  rushed  into 
the  forest  as  confidently  as  Lord  Chelmsford 
— prepared  for  every  emergency  by  thor- 


ough knowledge  of  his  book  of  tactics — 
marched  into  Zulu-land.  Mrs.  Hoodie's 
"  Roughing  it  in  the  Bush  "  gives  a  capital 
account,  due  allowance  being  made  for 
feminine  screams  of  exaggeration  through- 
out, of  the  kind  of  life  lived  by  such  gallant 
fellows  and  their  families,  and  of  the  spell 
that  the  country  throws  around  its  adopted 
children,  despite  the  rough  welcome  it  gives 
them.  For  the  exclamation  of  the  French 
trader,  "  Toujours  en  maudisant  ce  vilain 
pays,  on  y  reviens  toujours  "  (while  cursing 
the  vile  country,  one  always  returns  to  it), 
has  proved  true  of  Canada  as  of  Africa  in  the 
case  of  almost  every  one  who  has  once  made 
his  home  in  it.  The  emigrant  of  to-day  to 
.  Manitoba  and  the  north-west,  I  believe,  has 
to  run  a  terrible  gauntlet  of  land  speculators 
and  kindred  sharks  at  Winnipeg.  In  those 
days  he  met  them  at  every  starting-point  into 
the  interior.  Escaping  from  them  with  less 
or  more  of  damage,  the  journey  to  the  prom- 
ised Eden  is  commenced  in  a  rough  wagon, 
over  corduroy  roads  and  through  mosquito- 
haunted  woods.  Such  traveling  almost 
finishes  the  tenderly  reared  wife,  half  broken 
down  already  with  the  long  voyage  and  the 
discomforts  of  the  emigrant  ship,  not  to 
speak  of  the  care  of  children  without  a  serv- 


THE  DOMINION  OF  CANADA. 


249 


ant  to  help.  Hope,  however,  inspires  her, 
for  every  hour  brings  them  nearer  their 
destination.  At  length  Eden  comes  in 
sight,  but  it  is  not  quite  the  place  the  agent 
represented.  With  sad  hearts  they  unload 
the  piano  and  the  guns,  the  fishing-tackle 
and  kitchen  gear,  among  the  stumps  and 
blackened  logs  in  the  clearing,  and  the  new 
life  begins.  At  first  they  struggle  to  keep 


houses  of  the  respectable  yeomanry,  married 
into  a  lower  class;  and  perhaps  the  old 
people,  when  their  money  was  all  spent  and 
their  spirit  hopelessly  crushed,  had  to  accept 
the  shelter  and  rude  plenty  of  the  boor's 
shanty.  Numbers  fared  very  differently. 
As  cheerily  as  they  had  fought  with  Wel- 
lington in  the  Peninsula,  they  fought  a  life- 
battle  with  gloomy  forest  and  dismal  swamp, 


YORK     REDOUBT,    HALIFAX     HARBOR. 


up  the  old  forms  and  courtesies.  Sooner 
or  later,  the  struggle  is  for  the  bare  neces- 
saries of  life.  We  need  not  go  into  details. 
The  story  ends  differently  in  different  cases. 
The  too  severe  ordeal  drives  one  to  whisky, 
and  then  the  end  is  not  far  off.  Another 
drifts  back  to  a  town,  and  perhaps  is  fortu- 
nate enough  to  get  some  government  ap- 
pointment or  work  that  a  gentleman  can  do. 
Some  began  by  disdaining  the  old  farmers 
and  "  dissenting  "  minister  in  their  neighbor- 
hood. Their  children,  excluded  from  the 


with  fever  and  ague,  with  tropical  heat,  and 
cold  that  froze  their  bread  and  water  beside 
the  big  chimney  fire.  We  sons  of  the  soil, 
who  know  how  pleasant  and  healthful  the 
climate  is,  can  hardly  realize  how  terribly  it 
bore  on  people  unprepared  to  meet  its  sud- 
den changes  and  wide  extremes.  At  first, 
everything  combined  against  educated  emi- 
grants, military  or  civilian.  Their  tastes 
became  their  torments,  and  their  supposed 
advantages  proved  stumbling-blocks.  The 
poorest  English  Hodge  or  Irish  Pat  was 


25° 


THE  DOMINION  OF  CANADA. 


better  suited  for  the  bush.  But  after  a  few 
years  things  began  to  look  brighter.  The 
country  prospered,  and  they  prospered  with 
its  rapidly  advancing  prosperity.  Land 
increased  in  value,  and  their  investments 
turned  out  better  even  than  they  had  hoped. 
Those  who  had  brought  with  them  a  little 
capital  and  had  known  how  to  take  care  of 
it,  could  buy,  sell,  or  lend  advantageously. 
Education  and  refinement  no  longer  handi- 
capped them.  In  no  country  is  superiority 
of  any  kind  more  readily  acknowledged 
than  in  Canada,  provided  it  does  not  haugh- 
tily assert  or  isolate  itself,  but  willingly  con- 
tributes to  the  common  weal.  The  most 
jealously  democratic  community  frankly 
concedes  position  and  respect  to  the  bet- 
ter-born and  better-educated  who  claim 
nothing  on  the  ground  of  prescription. 
Especially  in  a  new  country,  the  people  in 
every  district  are  glad  to  hear  of  any  one 
coming  to  settle  among  them  who  is  likely 
to  be  useful  in  any  way.  They  may  appoint 
a  swell  to  the  position  of  hog"-reeve,  but  will 
touch  their  hats  to  the  gentleman.  It  was 
always  so  in  Canada.  The  class  of  men  I 
have  been  describing  benefited  the  country 
in  many  ways.  They  set  examples  that,  as 
a  rule,  their  neighbors  were  not  slow  to  fol- 
low. They  improved  their  buildings,  drained 
the  land,  brought  in  superior  stock  and  im- 
plements; moreover,  they  kept  before  the 
people  higher  ideals  of  life  than  the  mere 
attainment  of  rude  plenty.  These  men 
proved  their  superiority  by  being  leaders  of 
the  community ;  their  gentle  blood  by  refine- 
ment, superior  force  of  character,  and  higher 
aims ;  and  in  many  parts  of  Canada  they 
moulded  society  and  raised  its  tone. 

Of  course,  the  great  majority  of  the  emi- 
grants consisted  of  people  from  the  lower 
walks  of  life — people  whom  the  straitness 
of  the  Old  World  had  driven  in  masses  to 
the  New — mechanics,  small  tenant  farmers, 
laborers  with  no  capital  but  their  strong 
arms  and  half  a  dozen  children,  servants 
who  intended  to  become  masters  and  mis- 
tresses, and  along  with  these,  Adullamites 
from  the  States,  and  French  Canadians 
whose  fathers'  farms  would  bear  no  further 
subdivision.  The  potato-famine  in  Ireland 
had  little  to  do  with  peopling  Upper  Can- 
ada. Ulster  has  given  us  most  of  our 
Irishry,  and  better  settlers  than  Ulstermen 
it  would  be  difficult  to  find.  On  account 
of  the  ancient  law  or  custom  of  tenant-right 
in  their  province,  they  could  always  get 
something  for  their  improvements  when 
leaving  their  old  farms.  Thus  it  happened 


that  they  generally  came  out  with  a  bit  of 
money  in  purse  or  stocking,  and  right  well 
did  they  know  how  to  take  care  of  the 
stocking.  England  contributed  a  large 
share  of  the  immigration.  From  the  High- 
lands of  Scotland  came  clans  in  almost  un- 
broken strength,  led  in  some  few  cases  by 
their  natural  leaders,  in  most  cases,  alas ! 
thrust  out  from  the  loved  glens,  or  "  the 
dim  shieling  on  the  misty  island,"  to  give 
place  to  sheep,  or  to  grouse,  black-cock 
and  deer.  Both  in  the  east  and  west  of 
Ontario  large  districts  are  peopled  entirely 
by  Gaelic- speaking  Highlanders;  and  in 
the  north  and  east  of  Nova  Scotia  and  Cape 
Breton  you  are  pretty  safe  in  addressing 
any  man  you  meet  by  the  name  of  Fraser 
or  McDonald.  The  Celtic  Highlanders, 
like  the  Celtic  Frenchmen,  emigrated  to- 
gether and  kept  together.  They  live  as 
they  fight,  "  shoulder  to  shoulder."  Poor, 
ignorant  of  the  climate,  uneducated,  they 
were  flung  on  our  shores  and  invited  to 
become  lairds  of  trackless  forests.  How 
they  managed  to  exist,  especially  in  the 
cruel  winter,  is  a  mystery.  Their  brotherli- 
ness  and  their  magnificent  morale  sustained 
them.  The  thought  that  children  and 
grandchildren  would  reap  the  fruit  of  their 
labors  cheered  their  hearts,  and  the  God  of 
their  fathers  was  to  them  a  pillar  of  cloud  by 
day  and  a  pillar  of  fire  by  night.  Frugal, 
hardy,  and  in  many  cases  God-fearing,  they 
laid  the  foundations  on  which  we  are  build- 
ing. A  virgin  soil  soon  yielded  them  more 
generous  fare  than  they  had  ever  known 
before.  The  log  hut  and  log  byre  gave 
way  in  a  few  years  to  the  neat  framed  house 
painted  outside  and  plastered  within,  with 
one  or  two  big  barns  in  the  field  near  by ; 
and,  perhaps,  before  the  old  people  were 
gathered  to  their  fathers,  the  oldest  son  had 
built  a  brick  or  stone  mansion  for  his  Can- 
adian bride.  I  have  sometimes  seen  on  the 
same  farm  the  three  houses,  log,  frame 
and  brick,  and  have  heard  the  owner  of 
all  three  declare  that  his  happiest  days  were 
spent  in  the  first.  Nothing  is  sweeter  to 
old  age  than  the  memory  of  hardships 
endured  in  a  good  cause. 

We  get  glimpses,  in  "  Roughing  it  in  the 
Bush "  and  Doctor  Cunningham  Geikie's 
"  Life  in  the  Woods,"  of  the  constitution 
of  society  in  different  parts  of  Upper  Can- 
ada during  the  period  when  the  stream  of 
emigration  was  flowing  strongly.  Such 
works  help  us  to  understand  the  political 
history  of  the  Province  and  to  forecast  its 
probable  development.  Quebec,  though 


THE  DOMINION  OF  CANADA. 


251 


Canadian  in  a  very  pronounced  degree, 
glories  in  tracing  its  ancestry  to  France,  and 
still  appeals  to  French  models  in  everything. 
A  vigorous  English-speaking  minority  gives 
variety  to  its  social,  educational  and  relig- 
ious life,  and  tone  to  its  commercial  and 
political  action ;  but  unfortunately  very  little 
fusion  takes  place  between  the  two  races. 
The  two  streams  run  side  by  side  without 
commingling.  Upper  Canada  has  been 
strongly  British  from  the  beginning,  and 
each  addition  to  its  population  has  helped 
to  make  it,  if  possible,  still  more  strongly 
British.  Considering  the  selected  stock 
from  which  they  have  sprung,  we  have  a 
right  to  expect  much  from  such  a  popula- 
tion. Clearly,  a  body  politic,  made  up  in 
great  part  of  energetic  and  aspiring  emi- 
grants, must  be  far  superior  to  an  ordinary 
community  in  the  mother  country.  The 
bolder  spirits  are  the  first  to  emigrate,  and 
this  holds  true,  to  a  certain  extent,  with 
respect  to  the  educated  as  well  as  to  the 
uneducated  classes  of  emigrants.  The  pri- 
vations at  the  outset  and  the  entirely  new 
conditions  of  life,  on  the  one  hand,  involve 
a  struggle  for  existence"  and  survival  of  the 
fittest,  and,  on  the  other  hand,  they  serve 
to  stimulate  the  general  intelligence  and  ex- 
cite ambition.  The  community  of  necessity 
becomes  acute,  self-reliant  and  progress- 
ive. It  is  willing  to  try  political  experi- 
ments, for  every  individual  has  unlimited 
confidence  in  himself,  but  at  the  same 
time  it  is  essentially  conservative,  because 
three  men  out  of  four  are  land-owners. 
To  entertain  political  distrust  of  such  a 
society  showed  profound  ignorance  of  its 
constituent  elements  and  of  human  nature. 
To  imagine  that  self-government  could 
be  denied  to  such  a  population  any  longer 
than  it  was  itself  indifferent  about  the 
possession  of  the  right,  was  a  blunder  that 
might  have  been  attended  with  far  more 
disastrous  consequences  than  actually  re- 
sulted. The  people  of  Upper  Canada 
proved  their  fitness  for  self-government  from 
the  hour  it  was  conceded  to  them.  They 
organized,  all  over  the  Province,  County  and 
Township  Councils.  These  are  the  basis 
of  the  whole  political  and  educational 
edifice.  Their  range  is  very  extensive,  in- 
cluding roads,  common  and  high  schools, 
county  courts,  jails,  and  all  local  purposes 
whatsoever.  They  are  the  truest  organs  of 
popular  sentiment,  and  the  best  possible 
training-schools  for  higher  political  life. 

The   political   history   of    the    maritime 
Provinces — the   old   Acadie — resembles   in 


all  leading  features  that  of  the  two  Canadas. 
I  can  barely  refer  to  their  general  history. 
The  last  bit  retained  by  France  was  the 
picturesque  island  of  Cape  Breton ;  and  to 
that  she  held  on  till  the  capture  of  Quebec  by 
Wolfe  put  an  end  to  her  long  rule  in  North 
America.  A  winter  port  was  a  necessity  as 
long  as  she  intended  to  retain  Canada. 
Driven  by  the  New  Englanders  again  and 
again  from  Port  Royal,  and  obliged  to  cede 
Nova  Scotia,  by  treaty,  to  Great  Britain, 
she  fortified  Louisburg  in  Cape  Breton  at 
immense  cost,  and  from  this  stronghold  was 
ever  ready  to  strike  at  Acadie  and  New 
England,  or  sail  to  the  succor  of  Canada 
when  returning  spring  opened  up  the  winter- 
barred  gateways  of  the  St.  Lawrence. 
Proudly  her  flag  floated  over  Louisburg  and 
Quebec,  the  twin  fortresses  that  guarded  her 
vast  wilderness  realms  and  linked  them  to 
the  might  of  old  France.  Zealous  priests 
proved  themselves  the  same  efficient  allies 
in  the  maritime  Provinces  that  they  had 
always  been  in  the  West;  and  as  often  as 
Louisburg  or  Quebec  gave  the  signal, 
Micmac  and  Melicete  Indians  and  Acadian 
French  armed  for  sudden  foray  or  regular 
war.  Nova  Scotia,  though  nominally  Brit- 
ish, was  thus  a  thorn  in  the  side  of  New 
England,  instead  of  the  effectual  shield  it 
could  be  made  by  a  vigorous  colonization 
policy.  In  answer  to  petitions  from  New 
England  urging  this  policy,  Great  Britain 
sent  out  an  expedition  in  1749,  with  a  large 
body  of  emigrants.  They  arrived  off  the 
harbor  of  Chebucto  on  the  2  ist  of  June,  and 
at  once  began  to  build  the  city  of  Halifax. 
The  Hon.  Edward  Cornwallis,  who  accom- 
panied the  expedition  as  the  future  Governor 
of  the  Province,  convened  on  board  ship 
in  the  harbor  a  council  of  five  gentlemen — 
afterward  increased  in  number  to  twelve — to 
act  as  his  executive,  and  to  discharge  all  the 
functions  of  government.  Halifax  now  be-, 
came  and  has  continued  to  be  the  capital  of 
Nova  Scotia,  an  honor  to  which  its  central 
position,  natural  strength,  magnificent  har- 
bor, and  facilities  for  trade  entitle  it.  Ships 
approach  from  the  ocean  by  an  entrance 
invitingly  broad.  At  the  mouth,  a  large  island 
acts  as  a  buffer  against  the  Atlantic  rollers. 
At  the  eastern  side  of  this  island  the  passage 
is  intricate  and  not  very  deep.  At  the  west- 
ern, a  beach,  shown  by  an  ancient  lighthouse, 
runs  out  in  the  direction  of  the  mainland 
leaving  a  deep,  open  entrance  to  the  har- 
bor, wide  enough  in  time  of  peace  for  the 
ships  of  the  world,  and  yet  so  narrow  that  in 
war  it  could  be  protected  at  short  notice 


252 


THE  DOMINION  OF  CANADA. 


by  torpedoes.  On  the  mainland  opposite 
the  beach,  York  Redoubt— a  venerable  fort 
with  a  formidable  modem  battery  on  the 
seaward  face — crowns  a  high,  steep  bluff,  its 
armament  of  nine  and  ten-inch  guns  sweep- 
ing the  approaches  for  miles  with  shot  and 
shell,  not  quite  as  big  as  a  barrel  of  flour, 
but  somewhat  heavier.  Inside,  in  the  very 
throat  of  the  harbor,  St.  George's  Island  lies, 
with  bold,  erect  front,  like  a  watch-dog  on 
the  threshold  of  the  house,  ready  and  able 
to  demolish  the  intruder  who  has  stolen  past 
York  Redoubt;  and  on  the  large  outer 
island,  and  the  high  shores,  and  in  the 
woods  of  the  mainland  on  both  sides,  bat- 
teries are  sleeping  which  an  electric  flash 
would  awaken  in  an  instant,  and  the  cross- 
fires from  which  ought  to  be  able  to  sink 
monitor,  ironclad,  or  anything  else  that  floats. 
By  this  time,  too,  the  citadel  might  have 
something  to  say.  Up  from  the  heart  of  the 
business  portion  of  the  city  the  bare  slopes 
of  the  glacis  rise  250  feet  above  the  level 
of  the  wharves,  the  granite  walls  on  the  sum- 
mit crowning  the  whole  city  in  queenly 
fashion;  and  from  such  a  vantage  ground 
good  guns  could  not  be  silent,  were  the 
least  occasion  given.  Royal  engineers  and 
artillery,  supported  by  volunteer  artillery- 
men good  enough  to  be  mistaken  for  regu- 
lars, are  on  hand  to  man  forts  and  batteries ; 
and  two  regiments  of  the  line  are  always 
stationed  in  Halifax.  These  and  the  West 
India  fleet  supply  society  with  a  steady, 
ever-changing  stream  of  fine  young  fellows, 
invaluable  in  the  meantime  at  lawn-tennis 
and  dances.  When  Britain  showed  that  she 
meant  to  make  Nova  Scotia  British,  the  old 
French  Acadians  had  no  choice  left  but 
open  resistance  or  genuine  submission. 
They  could  not  remain  as  traitors  in  the 
camp,  as  tools  to  be  used  and  laid  aside  as 
French  interests  required.  Unfortunately, 
they  did  not  seem  to  understand  this,  but 
acted  as  if  they  could  run  with  the  hare  and 
hunt  with  the  hounds.  So,  after  repeated 
provocations,  several  hundred  families  were 
expatriated,  and  their  lands  and  live  stock 
confiscated  to  the  Government.  This  cruel 
act — if  defended  at  all,  defensible  only  as 
a  war  measure — would  have  probably  been 
forgotten  long  ago  but  for  Longfellow. 
Thanks  to  him,  it  will  live  in  men's  memo- 
ries as  long  as  the  sad  story  of  Gabriel  and 
Evangeline  is  read.  The  poet  took  the 
poor  Acadians  under  his  wing  for  a  moment, 
and  they  became  immortal.  He  touched 
the  Grand  Pre,  and  made  every  meadow 
and  dyke  beautiful  with  a  new  beauty. 


There  are  lakes  in  Scotland  lovelier  than 
Loch  Katrine,  and  when,  after  driving  in 
a  close  coach  through  the  Trosachs,  the 
prosaic  tourist  gets  to  Callander,  he  won- 
ders why  he  left  home.  But  has  not  genius 
transmuted  for  him  common  into  sacred 
things  ?  What  Scott  has  done  for  him  once 
and  in  one  place,  he  may  now  do  for  him- 
self, perhaps  in  a  rude,  unconscious  fashion, 
at  all  other  times  and  in  every  other  place. 
He  has  learned  the  simple  lesson  that  poetry 
is  not  in  nature,  but  in  the  seeing  eye;  and 
thenceforth  "  the  light  that  never  was  on 
sea  or  land  "  may  shine  a  little  round  his 
own  farm  and  his  own  fireside.  In  some 
such  way  has  Longfellow  glorified  the 
Basin  of  Minas.  Every  year  tourists  flock 
to  see  Evangeline's  country.  In  truth,  were 
it  only  for  the  sake  of  the  holiday  they  could 
not  do  better.  The  wise  Acadians  had 
found  or  lighted  upon  the  garden  of  Nova 
Scotia.  Fairer  scenes  the  eye  seldom  looks 
upon  than  the  Valley  of  the  Gaspereau,  or 
that  wider  expanse  seen  from  Lookout,  or 
almost  any  point  on  the  North  or  South 
Mountain.  This  is  the  lovely  Annapolis 
Valley  where,  as  Joseph  Howe  used  to 
boast  exultingly,  "you  can  ride  for  fifty 
miles  under  apple-blossoms."  The  tidal 
waters  of  the  great  Bay  of  Fundy  rushing 
along  the  coast  outside,  seeking  for  admis- 
sion into  the  heart  of  the  Province,  have 
found  an  opening,  three  miles  wide,  between 
the  huge  trap  needles  of  Cape  Split  and  a 
cape  on  the  opposite  shore.  Swirling  round 
Cape  Split,  and  pressing  through  the  narrow 
passage  like  a  mill  stream,  the  turbid  waters 
peacefully  expand  into  the  Basin  of  Minas. 
The  broad  basin  reposing  at  your  feet  looks 
like  a  wide-opened  hand,  sending  out  long, 
beneficent  fingers  all  round  into  the  heart  of  a 
grateful  country.  One  of  these  fingers  touches 
the  valley  of  the  Cornwallis,  and  into  its  tips 
stream  the  tidal  rivers  dyked  by  the  old 
Acadians.  On  these  fat  and  fair  dyked 
lands  dwells  another  race,  with  other  customs 
and  language — in  large,  modern  farm-houses, 
embowered  in  roses  and  honeysuckle.  In 
fancy,  you  can  rebuild  the  old  thatched 
cottages  beside  ancient  apple-trees,  and  tall 
poplars,  and  young  willows  branching  widely 
out  from  decayed  roots, — sure  signs  of  the 
former  inhabitants.  At  Grand  Pre  the  first 
person  you  meet  points  where  the  sturdy 
blacksmith's  shop  stood,  and  the  village 
church,  and  the  wells,  and  the  once  well- 
filled  cellars,  now  only  grass-grown  depres- 
sions pockmarking  the  face  of  green  fields. 
The  great  features  of  the  landscape  are  still 


THE  DOMINION  OF  CANADA. 


253 


the  same; — the  vast  meadows  reclaimed 
from  the  sea,  and  worth  from  one  hundred 
to  four  hundred  dollars  an  acre,  the  orchards 
and  corn-fields  "spreading  afar  and  un- 
fenced"  o'er  the  plain;  while  away  to  the 


Canard  River,  not  one  from  Grand  Pre  to 
Annapolis  Royal.  Farmers  from  New  Eng- 
land received  the  reclaimed  lands;  and 
their  grandchildren — a  race  as  little  likely 
as  their  ancestors  to  surrender  their  fathers' 


CAPE    SPLIT,    BAY    OF     FUNDY. 


North,  across  the  Basin  of  Minas,  grand  old 
Blomidon  uplifts  to  the  sky  his  dark,  cindery 
forehead  over  bright  red  sandstone,  and 
scatters  agates  and  amethysts  at  his  feet. 
Not  one  Frenchman  is  to  be  found  where 
everything  reminds  us  of  them  and  of  their 
handiwork.  You  meet  their  descendants 
almost  everywhere  else  in  Old  Acadie — 
from  Cheticamp  to  Clare,  from  Chezzetcook 
to  the  Bay  Chaleur;  but  not  one  on  the 


inheritance — now  raise  potatoes  for  the  New 
England  of  to-day,  and  build  ships  from  the 
forest  primeval  on  Cape  Blomidon,  and  not 
only  build  but  own  and  sail  them  on  every 
sea. 

Passing  to  the  political  history  of  the 
maritime  Provinces,  we  find  that  it  centers 
round  the  same  transition  to  popular  govern- 
ment that  is  the  one  thing  interesting  in  the 
political  development  of  the  Upper  Prov- 


254 


THE  DOMINION  OF  CANADA. 


inces.  Here,  fortunately,  the  transition  took 
place  without  an  attempt  at  rebellion,  though 
nowhere  was  the  contest  waged  with  more 
political  acrimony  than  in  Nova  Scotia. 
Nowhere  was  the  old  system  so  strong,  be- 
cause nowhere  else  had  it  existed  so  long, 
or  been  administered  with  more  efficiency, 
and  nowhere  else  was  it  buttressed  and 
beautified  by  so  many  local  and  accidental 
supports.  Halifax  in  those  days  was  the 
Province.  As  compared  with  Quebec,  Kings- 
ton or  Toronto,  it  was  near  Great  Britain. 
The  harbor  was  open  all  the  year  round, 
giving  unbroken  communication  with  the 
mother  country.  The  presence  of  a  gar- 
rison and  the  fleet  led  a  number  of  Eng- 
lish gentlemen  to  settle  in  the  city;  and 
the  children  of  these  and  of  civilian  first 
families  entered  the  army,  navy  or  civil  serv- 
ice, where  many  highly  distinguished  them- 
selves. A  visit  to  St.  Paul's  Church,  the 
oldest  wooden  church  I  know,  and  a  glance 
at  the  inscriptions  on  the  marble  slabs  that 
cover  its  inner  walls,  show  how  old  a  history 
the  city  has,  and  the  many  distinguished 
names  recorded  in  its  annals.  In  no  other 
city  in  British  America  did  there  exist  an 
aristocracy  that  combined  such  power,  refine- 
ment, social  prestige  and  real  ability.  The 
bench  and  bar,  the  church  and  college,  the 
magistracy  and  great  mercantile  interests,  the 
bank,  the  army,  the  navy  and  "  society,"  all 
contributed  to  strengthen  the  old  political 
edifice.  It  looked  well;  and  as  the  people 
of  Nova  Scotia  were  loyal  and  generally 
contented,  there  seemed  no  reason  why  it 
should  not  endure  for  generations,  even 
though  changes  were  made  elsewhere.  So 
its  advocates  pleaded.  They  tossed  the 
other  Provinces  to  the  wolf  of  reform.  New 
Brunswick  they  declared  Yankee  in  spirit, 
Lower  Canada  French,  and  Upper  Canada 
hopelessly  democratic;  but  Nova  Scotia  was 
a  pure  and  perfect  chrysolite.  No  wonder 
that  they  scouted  all  mention  of  union  with 
such  Provinces,  and  that  they  vehemently 
attacked  Lord  Durham's  report,  chiefly  on 
the  ground  that  his  lordship  recommended 
such  an  union.  The  peninsula  of  Nova  Sco- 
tia they  thought  could  stand  by  itself,  even 
though  all  the  rest  of  British  America  fell 
a  prey  to  the  spoiler.  How  wise  the  great 
little  men  of  Pumpernickel  always  are ! 
But  the  men  who  stand  on  the  hill-top  afar 
off  can  see  better  than  those  who  are  fight- 
ing hand  to  hand  in  the  smoke.  When  the 
time  had  come  for  conceding  self-govern- 
ment to  the  British  Provinces,  it  had  to  be 
conceded  all  along  the  line.  The  destiny 


of  one  must  be  the  destiny  of  all;  and,  in 
1847,  it  was  finally  decided  that  the  Prov- 
inces themselves  must  determine  for  them- 
selves what  that  destiny  should  be. 

The  political  history  of  the  Provinces  for 
the  next  twenty  years  has  little  to  interest 
outsiders,  though  political  leaders  in  each, 
after  their  manner,  assured  the  intelligent 
voters,  from  time  to  time,  that  the  eyes  of  the 
world  were  upon  them.  Matters  connected 
with  their  own  internal  development  claimed 
their  attention :  the  establishment  of  free 
schools ;  the  principles  on  which  colleges  and 
universities  should  be  established  or  main- 
tained ;  the  abolition  of  every  relic  of  feud- 
alism from  the  tenure  of  land;  the  building 
of  canals  round  the  Falls  of  Niagara  and  the 
rapids  of  the  St.  Lawrence,  for  the  sake  of 
their  own  trade  and  the  development  of 
their  own  resources,  as  well  as  to  attract 
the  trade  of  the  Northwestern  States  to  the 
natural  channel  of  the  St.  Lawrence ;  the 
building  of  railways  in  every  direction ; 
the  best  means  of  promoting  more  intimate 
commercial  intercourse  with  the  United 
States, — measures  intensely  interesting  to  the 
Provinces  concerned,  and  subjects  for  unlim- 
ited discussion  between  the  ins  and  the  outs, 
but  of  no  particular  interest  to  any  one  else 
in  the  world.  Each  of  the  three  maritime 
Provinces  had  its  own  difficulties,  the  solu- 
tion of  which  proved  the  mettle  of  its  politi- 
cians. The  re-united  Province  of  Canada 
had  very  peculiar  difficulties  of  political 
dead-locks,  dual  leaderships  and  double 
majorities,  resulting  mainly  from  the  differ- 
ent races  in  the  Province  being  so  nearly 
matched.  Different  governments  and  sep- 
arate systems  of  taxation  and  finance  kept 
all  four  Provinces  apart  from  each  other. 
But,  notwithstanding  family  difficulties  and 
isolation,  all  made  material  progress.  They 
undertook  great  public  works,  in  order  to 
cheapen  the  means  of  conveyance  and 
communication  between  the  far  distant  pro- 
ductive parts  of  the  country  and  distribu- 
ting centers.  These  cost  immense  sums,  but 
the  Provincial  governments  went  fearlessly 
into  debt,  and  the  result  has  vindicated  the 
bold  policy.  If  they  had  not  undertaken 
or  encouraged  such  works,  the  development 
of  the  country  would  have  been  indefinitely 
postponed.  Extreme  free  traders  assailed 
the  policy  in  the  assured  tone  of  men  con- 
tending for  a  theory,  or  a  religion,  or  their 
own  interests.  They  declared  that  rail- 
ways, canals,  and  every  other  good  thing 
would  be  built  by  capitalists  whenever 
there  was  a  demand  for  them  sufficient  to 


THE  DOMINION  OF  CANADA. 


255 


make  the  investment  profitable;  that  if  the 
investment  would  not  be  good  for  the  cap- 
italist it  could  not  be  good  for  the  country; 
and  that  to  tax  the  whole  country  for  the 
sake  of  a  portion  of  the  people  was  unjust. 
As  the  Province  of  Canada,  in  particular, 
went  on  increasing  duties  on  British  goods, 
loud  and  repeated  murmurs  arose  from  Man- 
chester. British  newspapers  declared  that 
Canada  systematically  increased  duties  with 


would  not  wait.  They  saw  side  by  side  with 
them  another  people  building  gigantic 
works,  generally  with  money  borrowed  from 
Britain,  and  advancing  in  population  and 
wealth  with  rapid  strides,  and  they  felt  that, 
instead  of  lagging  longer  behind,  they  should 
take  a  leaf  from  their  book.  At  the  same 
time  the  sentiment  of  nationality  began  to 
stir  in  their  breasts.  The  war  between  the 
North  and  South, — the  issue  of  which  proved 


CAPE     BLOMIDON. 


hostile  intentions  to  the  industrial  inter- 
ests of  the  mother  country,  and  with 
a  view  to  follow  the  benighted  policy  of 
the  United  States.  A  few  years  showed 
that  the  legislation  so  bitterly  complained 
of  had  developed  trade  with  the  mother 
country.  What  was  a  duty  of  twenty  per 
cent,  compared  to  the  fifty  to  two  hundred 
per  cent,  practically  imposed  before,  by  the 
cost  of  conveying  goods  from  Britain  to  the 
consumers  on  the  lakes,  and  to  the  heavy 
charges,  on  the  other  hand,  that  the  grain, 
timber,  and  other  products  of  the  Provinces 
were  subjected  to  in  the  absence  of  facil- 
ities of  communication  and  transportation 
before  reaching  the  British  market  ?  The 
book-learned  free  trader  answered  readily 
enough  that  that  simply  proved  that  the 
time  had  not  come  for  the  development  of 
Canada,  and  that  duty  to  the  universe  de- 
manded that  it  should  wait  patiently  for  a 
century  or  two,  when  its  day  was  sure  to 
come.  The  people  immediately  concerned 


that  the  United  States  were  determined  to 
be  one  nation, — with  the  immense  popular 
and  patriotic  enthusiasm  evoked  in  the 
struggle,  quickened  similar  sentiments  in  the 
British  Provinces.  In  1864,  the  next  great 
move  in  their  political  development,  namely, 
their  confederation,  for  the  first  time  as- 
sumed practical  shape.  Local  difficulties 
in  Canada  had  made  confederation,  as  far 
as  this  Province  was  concerned,  almost  a 
necessity;  and  although  at  first  the  mari- 
time Provinces  opposed  the  project,  New 
Brunswick  on  second  thought  gave  a  popu- 
lar vote  in  its  favor,  and  then  the  legislature 
of  Nova  Scotia  voted  yea,  by  a  large  major- 
ity. In  the  legislature  of  the  Province  of 
Canada,  confederation  was  declared  feasible 
and  desirable  by  70  yeas  to  17  nays,  not 
one  member  of  British  origin  being  among 
the  nays.  A  strong  opposition  to  the  pro- 
ject was  promptly  organized  in  Nova  Scotia, 
with  the  Hon.  Joseph  Howe — long  popu- 
larly known  as  "  Joe  "  Howe — at  its  head. 


256 


THACKERAY  AS  A   DRAUGHTSMAN. 


He  had  been  the  idol  of  Nova  Scotians 
during  the  contest  for  responsible  govern- 
ment, and  in  those  days  and  afterward  had 
spoken  and  written  many  eloquent  words 
concerning  the  future  of  an  united  British 
America.  He  had  done  more  than  almost 
any  other  man— except,  perhaps,  Thomas 
D'Arcy  McGee,  the  author  of  "The 
Felon  Flag  of  England,"— to  inspire  the 
youth  of  British  America  with  love  of  coun- 
try, as  something  immeasurably  higher  than 
mere  Provincialism.  Actuated  by  a  variety 
of  motives,  Howe  resolved  to  oppose  con- 
federation. He  went  into  the  fight  without 
reserve.  He  set  the  heather  on  fire,  but  all 
in  vain.  Opposition  was  hopeless.  The 
time  had  come.  To  fancy  that  Nova  Scotia 
could  have  remained  out  in  the  cold,  with 
all  the  rest  of  British  America  grouped  into 
one  confederacy,  or,  as  Sir  John  A.  Mac- 
donald  put  it,  "  to  wreck  the  ship  for  the 


chance  of  saving  one  of  the  pieces,"  was  a 
policy  no  one  would  have  laughed  at  more 
heartily  than  he  himself,  in  his  better  days. 
The  Imperial  Parliament  passed  the  act, and 
the  Queen  appointed  the  first  of  July,  1867, 
as  the  day  on  which  the  Dominion  of  Canada 
should  commence  its  existence.  Howe 
secured  "better  terms"  for  Nova  Scotia 
than  those  originally  proposed,  and  then 
accepted  a  seat  in  the  cabinet.  For  the 
last  twelve  years,  Canada  has  been  not 
merely  the  ancient  French  Province,  nor 
Upper  and  Lower  Canada  united  into  one, 
but  a  dominion,  now  including  seven  Prov- 
inces and  two  Territories,  bounded  on 
three  sides  by  three  oceans,  and  on  the 
fourth  mainly  by  the  water  shed  of  the 
continent.  We  are  young,  but  hopeful  and 
lusty;  big  enough  to  hold  fifty,  though 
as  yet  counting  less  than  five,  millions  of 
people. 


YE    LUXURIOUS    ACADIAN. 


THACKERAY    AS    A    DRAUGHTSMAN. 


THE  instances  are  so  few  of  a  popular 
writer  illustrating  with  pictures  his  own 
literary  productions,  that  any  prominent  case 
is  worthy  of  attention.  In  the  case  of 
Thackeray,  the  generally  recognized  merit 
of  the  literary  work,  the  wide  popularity  it 
enjoys,  and  the  ready  admission  it  has 
received  into  the  rank  of  classical  English 
writing,  give  to  the  pictures  which  the  author 
himself  scattered  over  his  pages,  an  especial 
interest.  Thackeray  was  not  sparing  of  his 
sketches.  During  the  thirty  years  of  his 
manhood  he  was  always  making  memoranda 
of  faces  and  groups,  taking  notes  by  the 
way,  not,  indeed,  too  accurate,  not  showing 


very  profound  insight,  perhaps,  but  still 
clever,  amusing  and  lively.  During  the 
years  from  twenty- one  to  twenty-six,  he 
thought  about  an  artist's  life ;  at  first  as  a 
man  of  some  property  and  perfect  leisure, 
afterward  as  one  who  had  lost  everything 
but  youth  and  intellect,  and  who  had  his 
career  to  choose.  After  he  had  chosen,  or 
drifted  into,  a  literary  life,  and  during  all  the 
years  that  followed,  while  he  wrote  carica- 
ture sketches,  squibs,  stories,  poems,  gro- 
tesques, and  half-a-dozen  long  novels,  the 
author's  pen  constantly  served  him  as  a 
sketching  tool.  Not  only  was  the  greater 
part  of  his  literary  work  interspersed  with 


\ 


THACKERAY  AS  A    DRAUGHTSMAN. 


257 


a 


Ludovicus. 
NO.    I. — AN    HISTORICAL    STUDY. 


Ludovicus  Rex. 


his  own  designs,  but  his  children  and  friends 
found  amusement  in  the  constant  flow  of  his 
queer  fancy,  in  drawings  more  or  less  humor- 
istic,  more  or  less  pathetic,  never  highly 
finished,  never  technically  skillful,  but  gener- 
ally full  of  a  certain  native  vigor,  and 
often  expressive  and  significant. 

There  is  no  life  of  Thackeray.  There  are 
three  partial  memoirs  of  him  worth  consult- 
ing ;  that  of  Dr.  John  Brown,  reprinted 
in  "  Spare  Hours,"  and  also  in  Mr.  Stod- 


NO.    2. — ADOLPHUS    SIMCOE,    ESQUIRE. 


VOL.  XX.— 18. 


|  dard's  "  Anecdote  Biography  "  ;  that  of  Mr. 
Anthony  Trollope,  forming  part  of  the 
"  English  Men  of  Letters  "  series  ;  and  the 
book  called  "  Thackerayana,"  avowedly  an 
attempt  to  preserve  some  record  of  his  dis- 
persed library,  and  of  the  odd  sketches  on 
the  margins  of  its  books,  but  giving  much 
information  besides.  These  different  author- 
ities have  helped  us  to  string  our  remarks 
upon  a  chronological  thread.  But  in  none 
of  them  and  nowhere  else  has  been  pre- 
served any  record  of  the  early  editions  of 
his  books,  or  of  the  many  writings  scattered 
through  the  pages  of  different  periodicals, 
but  either  never  reprinted  or  reprinted  only 
in  part.  Nor  has  any  writer  spoken  of  his 
drawings  except  casually,  and  in  general 
terms  of  admiration.  Therefore,  there  re- 
mains plenty  to  say  that  will  be  new.  No 
work  of  Thackeray's  will  be  spoken  of  or 
quoted  here  except  at  first  hand ;  and,  more- 
over, it  is  believed  that  every  single  published 
design  of  his  has  been  examined  in  its 
original  form  and  place,  except  the  few  con- 
tained in  one  little  book  which  the  writer 
has  never  been  fortunate  enough  to  possess, 
or  even  to  meet  with. 

It  is  a  curious  tale  Mr.  Trollope  tells 
(attributing  it  to  Dickens,  who  must  have 
told  it  in  some  speech  or  address  after 
Thackeray's  death,  but  not  in  the  "  In 
Memoriam  "  in  the  "  Cornhill  Magazine  "), 
that  in  1835,  when  Thackeray  was  twenty- 
four  years  old,  and  had  just  achieved  the 
expending  and  scattering  of  his  inheritance, 


258 


THACKERAY  AS  A   DRAUGHTSMAN. 


he  proposed  to  Dickens  to  illustrate  that 
author's  next  book.  But,  in  1835,  Dickens 
had  published  nothing,  at  least  no  "  book" ; 
for  "  Sketches  by  Boz  "  did  not  appear  in  book 
form  till  later,  and  "  Pickwick  "  not  for  two  or 
three  years.*  They  were  boys — that  is  about 
the  truth — boys  who  dreamed,  the  one  of 
success  as  a  writer,  the  other  more  especially 
of  the  graphic  arts,  painting,  or  what  not. 
Dickens  was  a  year  younger  than  Thackeray, 
but  was  already  sure  of  his  career,  and  set- 
ting his  foot  forward.  In  three  years  he 
was  to  be  famous,  and  to  have  an  assured 
position.  Thackeray,  on  the  other  hand, 
played  with  his  own  powers  and  with  the 
varied  possibilities  of  youth  and  conscious 
ability  for  ten  or  twelve  years  before  he 
gained  great  success, — before  the  impulse 
came  which  was  to  guide  him  to  a  great 
success.  And  during  all  those  years  he 
played  with  drawing  as  well  as  with  litera- 
ture. His  first  independent  publication  was 
a  series  of  drawings  published  in  lithography, 
without  text  other  than  legends.  It  does 
seem  that  he  was  strongly  inclined  toward 
art; — perhaps  it  was  only  because  he  drew 
too  badly  to  get  employment  as  a  designer 
that  we  ever  got  "  Esmond  "  from  him.  For 
that  he  did  draw  badly  at  this  time  there 
can  be  no  doubt.  He  never  became  a  com- 
plete draughtsman,  nor  anything  approach- 
ing to  it,  but  some  of  his  work  in  after  life 
was  far  better  than  that  produced  before  he 
was  thirty  years  old. 

In  fact,  it  is  hard  to  select  an  illustration 
representing  these  early  years;  each  one 
that  seems  characteristic  or  interesting  is  so 
out  of  drawing  that  the  selection  of  it  would 
seem  unfair.  And  then  they  are  ugly,  down- 
right ugly,  and  disfigure  the  page.  Of  course, 
so  far  as  authenticity  goes,  it  is  better  to 
select  an  etching  than  a  wood-cut ;  the  one 
is  probably  by  the  designer's  own  hand 
throughout,  the  other  of  necessity  has 
passed  through  the  hands  of  an  engraver, 
who  may  well  have  changed  it  somewhat  in 
character.  But,  on  the  other  hand,  the 
process  of  etching,  although  only  in  line, 
may  have  been  difficult  to  Thackeray  •  it 
seems  that  it  must  have  been  so.  In  that 
case,  his  work  upon  copper  would  be  less 
good  than  his  freely  made  pencil  sketches. 
Certain  it  is  that  the  etchings  of  1837  and 

*  The  writer  is  assured  by  an  English  friend  that 
this  story  was  well  known  in  London  twenty  years 
ago,  with  the  addition  that  Dickens  gravely  assured 
the  aspirant  that  his  work  was  not  good  enough,  and 
that  he  ought  to  abandon  all  thoughts  of  making  art 
a  pursuit. 


the  following  years,  such  as  are  to  be  found 
in  the  volumes  of  "  Frazers  Magazine,"  or 
gathered  together  in  "  The  Paris  Sketch 
Book,"  are  exceptionally  poor.  Those  illus- 
trating the  stories  of  "  Cartouche "  and 
"  Griskinissa  "  are  total  failures,  not  only  in 
drawing,  artistic  composition,  etc.,  but  also 
as  failing  to  tell  the  story, — as  being  feeble 
renderings  of  the  scenes  chosen.  The  one  we 
reproduce  (cut  No.  i)  is  by  far  the  best  in  the 
"  Paris  Sketch  Book,"  because  a  successful 
jeu  d' esprit,  and  not  needing  much  mastery 
in  drawing  nor  any  in  grouping  and  arrange- 
ment. The  well-known  portrait  of  Louis 
XIV.  by  Rigaud,  or  the  engraving  from  it 
by  Pierre  Drevet,  has  served  as  the  hint  for 
this  most  clever  squib.  The  bad  side  of 
the  Great  King  and  his  kingship,  the  vanity  of 
the  prince  and  the  self-abasement  of  his 
flatterers,  the  pomposity  of  his  surroundings 
and  the  inhuman  remoteness  of  his  position, 
— all  of  that  is  well  suggested  in  the  original 
picture,  and  all  of  it  is  well  analyzed  and 
well  ridiculed  in  the  travesty.  But  for 
the  rest  of  the  designs  in  this  book  or 
of  this  epoch,  they  are  better  passed  by. 
The  singular  thing  is  that  Thackeray  should 
have  been  willing  to  use  them.  That  he 
should  make  such  designs  at  all,  at  the  age 
of  twenty-seven,  seems  to  argue  a  less 
strong  feeling  for  art  than  has  generally 
been  attributed  to  him,  for  one  who  feels 
the  value  of  fine  design  must  of  necessity 
see  something  of  the  difference  between  it 
and  feeble  design,  and  realize  the  relative 
value  of  his  own  work.  But  that  he  should 
publish  them  is  amazing !  Think,  too, 
what  admirable  work  he  was  doing  at  this 
time  as  a  writer.  During  the  two  years 
before  these  feeble  designs  were  made, 
he  had  been  contributing  to  "  Frazer "  the 
Yellowplush  Papers,  including  "Miss  Shum's 
Husband,"  the  frightful  tragedy  of  Mr. 
Deuceace,  "  Mr.  Yellowplush's  Ajew,"  and 
also  those  admirable  "  Epistles  to  the  Liter- 
ati, '  in  which,  as  in  the  former  collection, 
justice  is  done  to  that  great  novelist,  Sawed- 
wadgeorgearlittnbulwig.  Perhaps  no  very 
subtle  analysis  was  necessary  to  pick  to 
pieces  "The  Sea  Captain"  or  "The  Diary," 
and  Bulwer's  youthful  absurdities  have  been 
perceived  by  other  writers  than  Mr.  Yel- 
lowplush :  that  is  not  the  point.  These 
papers  are  exceedingly  well  written, — they 
are  real  works  of  art, — and  he  would  be  a 
bold  man  who  should  suggest  a  modification 
of  a  sentence.  And  when  we  compare  with 
such  work  as  that  the  lifeless  design  and 
utterly  bad  drawing  of  the  pictures  of  the 


THACKERAY  AS  A   DRAUGHTSMAN. 


259 


same  time,  we  have  only  to  renew  the  ex- 
pression of  our  amazement. 

But  something  better  was  to  come,  for 
there  was  in  Thackeray  a  power  of  burlesque 
fun,  and  a  power  of  simple,  domestic  pathos, 
expressible  in  design  as  well  as  in  words,  and 
when  fortune  bade  him  work  at  such  things  as 
he  was  fitted  for,  he  did  well  in  despite  of  lack 
of  power  to  draw.  In  1841  was  published 
"  Comic  Tales  and  Sketches,  edited  and 
illustrated  by  Mr.  Michael  Angelo  Tit- 
marsh."  The  first  volume  gives  the  papers 
of  Mr.  Yellowplush  in  full,  as  in  "  Frazer." 
The  second  contains  "  Some  Passages  in  the 
Life  of  Major  Gahagan,"  since  often  reprinted ; 
"  The  Professor,  a  Tale  of  Sentiment,"  of 
which  the  famous  oyster-eater  Dando  is  the 
hero,  and  which  is  not  generally  included  in 
collected  editions  or  reprinted  volumes, 
though  as  good  fun  as  any  of  those  that  are 
more  common;  "The  Bedford  Row  Con- 
spiracy," and  "The  Fatal  Boots."  Major 
Gahagan  and  the  Bedford  Row  story  were 
reprinted  from  the  "New  Monthly  Maga- 
zine," the  others  from  "  Frazer,"  except 
always  the  last-named,  which  came  out  in 
"  The  Comic  Almanac  "  for  1838.  But  there 
were  two  stories  by  Thackeray  in  "  The 
Comic  Almanac"  in  immediate  succession — 
the  above-named  diary,  in  1838,  and  another 
diary  in  1839, — videlicet,  that  of  Mr.  Coxe 
Tuggeridge  Coxe.  Why  did  Mr.  Titmarsh 
select  one  and  not  the  other  for  his  new 
volumes?  Those  two  journals,  each  with 
twelve  etchings  by  the  great  George  Cruik- 
shank,  filled  the  almanac  for  those  two 
years.  Mr.  Titmarsh,  in  his  preface  to  his 
two  volumes  which  are  now  under  consid- 
eration, says  that  "  if  the  author  has  not 
ventured  to  make  designs  for  it,  as  for  the 
other  tales  in  the  volumes,  the  reason  is  that 
the  '  Boots '  have  been  already  illustrated  by 
Mr.  George  Cruikshank,  a  gentleman  with 
whom  Mr.  Titmarsh  does  not  quite  wish 
to  provoke  comparisons."  The  designs  in 
this  book  are  very  amusing,  although  as  full 
of  faults  in  drawing  as  a  child's  scrawls  on 
a  slate.  The  illustrated  title-page  is  espe- 
cially clever,  with  full-length  portraits  of  the 
three  authors,  Mr.  Titmarsh,  Mr.  Yellow- 
plush  and  the  Major. 

In  the  same  year,  1841,  "The  Great 
Hoggarty  Diamond"  came  out  in  "Frazer." 
There  are  stories  of  its  having  been  rejected 
by  other  magazines,  of  its  having  seemed, 
even  to  the  accepting  editor,  too  long,  and 
of  its  having  been  cut  down.  Can  it  be 
that  the  delicate  charm,  the  gentle  humor, 
the  refinement  of  this  exquisite  story,  were 


so  slow  in  finding  a  market  ?  Mr.  Trollope 
thinks,  and  no  doubt  rightly,  for  all  the 
testimony  is  with  his  view,  that  Thackeray 
was  his  own  worst  enemy  at  this  time; 
that  he  was  indolent,  and  not  a  good, 
steady  workman ;  that  he  was  doubtful 
about  his  own  powers  and  about  the  work 
he  had  best  do.  All  this  may  be  so,  but 
all  this  does  not  suffice  to  explain  the  lack 
of  success  of  the  two  volumes  of  burlesques, 
and  of  this  last-named  masterpiece  of  good 
story-telling  and  simple  pathos.  How  do 
we  explain  the  fact  that  in  this  year,  1841, 
he  had  still  five  years  to  wait  for  recognized 
success  ?  It  is  a  pity  that  such  success  came 
so  slowly  and  so  late,  for  the  results  of  those 
years  of  anxiety  and  delay  are  to  be  found  in 
that  persistent  melancholy  and  constant  iter- 
ation of  gloomy  thoughts  about  men  and 
women  which  is  so  sad  and  so  annoying.  The 
story  of  "  The  Great  Hoggarty  Diamond  "  is 
by  Samuel  Titmarsh,  brother  of  the  artist 
Michael  Angelo  Titmarsh,  who  contributes 
the  illustrations,  which  are  engraved  on  metal 
in  an  odd  sort  of  fashion.  The  main  lines  of 
the  design  seem  to  be  produced  by  ordinary 
etching,  but  the  design  made  in  this  way  is 
little  more  than  an  outline.  Then  all  parts 
of  the  picture  which  are  not  to  be  in  high 
light  are  covered  with  a  pale  tint  of  fine 
ruled  lines.  It  is  an  unusual  style  of 
engraving,  but  lends  itself  to  the  sketchy 
character  of  the  designs.* 

In  1842  and  in  1843,  in  "Frazer,"  were 
published  without  pictorial  illustration  the 
"Fitz-Boodle  Papers,"  "  Dick  ens  in  France," 
with  the  comical  travesty  of  "  Nicholas 
Nickleby  "  into  a  popular  drama  of  the  Cafe 
Chantant  type,  and  "  Bluebeard's  Ghost," — 
in  which  the  disconsolate  widow  bewails, 
like  a  pious  relict,  the  martial  virtues  of  the 
defunct.  The  contributions  to  "  Frazer  "  are, 
in  these  years,  of  less  relative  importance  than 
previously,  and  none  are  known  to  us  in  other 
monthly  journals.  A  chance  had  been 
offered  to  Thackeray,  which,  fortunately,  he 
seized  with  readiness.  "  Punch  "  had  been 
started  in  1841,  and  after  some  early  strug- 
gles for  life,  and  after  changing  hands  from 
its  original  publishers  to  those  who  have  held 
it  firmly  ever  since,  began  its  third  volume 
in  July,  1842,  with  Thackeray  among  its 
contributors.  Whether  anything  of  his  had 


*  Mr.  Trollope  says  that  these  designs  were  not 
by  Thackeray  at  all.  But  Mr.  Trollope  has  not  been 
particular  about  accuracy  in  little  matters.  There 
are  many  slips  in  his  book,  and  this  must  be  one 
of  them. 


260 


THACKERAY  AS  A   DRAUGHTSMAN. 


been  printed  before  in  "  Punch,"  we  do  not 
undertake  to  say.  A  tolerable  acquaintance 
with  the  first  and  second  volume  has  not 
informed  us  of  any.  But  in  the  first  number 
of  the  third  volume  begin  "  Miss  Tickle- 
toby's  Lectures  on  English  History,"  the 


NO.   3. — "SHERRY,  PERHAPS!" 


NO.  4. — "RUM,  i   HOPE." 


NO.  5.— "TRACTS!   BY  JINGO." 

text  and  designs  of  which  are  admitted  on 
all  hands  to  be  Thackeray's  work.  The 
first  picture  is  an  ornamental  W,  not  very 
important ;  the  second  is  the  famous  por- 
trait of  Adolphus  Simcoe,  Esq.,  which, 
often  spoken  of  as  it  is,  we  must  needs  re- 
produce in  cut  No.  2.  This  picture  raises 


the  question,  which,  unfortunately,  can  never 
be  satisfactorily  answered,  how  far  the  wood- 
engravers  modified  his  designs.  This  figure, 
for  instance,  is  more  complete  in  its  drawing, 
less  carelessly  tossed  off, — not  as  if  the  most 
startling  errors  in  anatomy,  in  posture  and 
in  dress  were  of  no  consequence, — than  are 
the  etchings.  If  he  made  this  drawing  on 
the  block,  as  is  most  probable,  we  can 
only  conclude  that  he  took  some  unusual 
pains  to  get  it  right.  "  Miss  Tickletoby's 
Lectures  "  go  on  ;  in  each  number  there  is 
an  installment  of  the  text,  and  usually  a 
picture  or  two.  It  is  all  sufficiently  amusing, 
but  in  the  sixth  number  is  an  especially 
important  lecture.  A  poem  is  quoted  from 
"  Snoro  the  Bard  (so  called  because  of  the 
exciting  effect  which  his  poem  produced  upon 
his  audience),"  and  a  manuscript  is  carefully 
cited  for  the  original  text,  which  has  never 
been  reprinted  since  this  appearance  in 
"  Punch."  And  there  follows  another, 
the  well-known  song  of  King  Canute  from 
the  same  MS.  ("  Claud,  xxvii.,  xxviii."), 
and  "  translated,  word  for  word,  from  the 
Anglo-Saxon,  by  Adolphus  Simcox  [sic], 
Esq."  With  this  there  is  "  an  Anglo-Saxon 
drawing  *  *  *  never  seen"  before. 
The  poem,  unaltered,  but  not  the  drawing, 
is  in  "  Rebecca  and  Rowena,"  published 
eight  years  later. 

The  next  half-dozen  lectures  have  each 
a  picture  or  two:  but  the  technical  merit, 
such  as  it  is,  of  Mr.  Simcoe's  portrait  is 
not  found  in  them:  the  sketches  are  only 
farcical.  Queen  Eleanor  and  Fair  Rosa- 
mond have  only  such  fun  as  is  to  be 
found  in  contrasting  types  of  ugliness,  King 
Richard's  soldiers  have  modern  English 
uniforms,  and  Blondell  carries  a  barrel- 
organ;  we  are  glad  to  find,  farther  on,  the 
"  Englishman  with  cloth-yard  shaft,"  who  is 
a  very  good  counter-jumper  with  his  well- 
known  weapon.  At  this  point  the  "  Lect- 
ures" suddenly  cease;  nor  do  we  recognize 
our  artist  again  until,  in  the  next  volume, 
the  first  for  1843,  there  appears  a  letter 
inclosing  two  designs,  and  signed  "Alonzo 
Spec,  Historical  Painter."  The  designs 
hitherto  have  not  often  been  signed  in  any 
way;  the  cipher  M.  A.  T.,  in  the  title-page 
of  "  Comic  Tales  and  Sketches,"  is  not  ccm- 
mon;  another  cipher,  with  W.  T.  for  William 
Thackeray,  occurs,  but  is  also  rare.  But  in 
the  larger  of  Mr.  Spec's  two  designs,  he 
himself  holds  in  his  hands  the  pair  of  'specta- 
cles which  were  to  become  a  signature  as 
well  known  as  the  Leech  in  the  Bottle.  In 
this  same  Vol.  IV.  of  "Punch,"  on  page 


THACKERAY  AS  A   DRAUGHTSMAN. 


261 


199,  is  "A  Turkish  Letter  concerning  the 
Divertissement  'Les  Houris,'  translated  by 
our  own  Dragoman,"  which  has  a  cut — 
the  earliest  one  we  know  of  with  that  mark 
in  the  corner.  There  is  not  much  of 
Thackeray's  work  in  that  volume  :  Douglas 
Jerrold  is  in  great  force  with  two  of  his 
continued  or  "  serial "  papers,  and  seems  to 
fill  the  whole  journal  with  his  personality, 
while  the  illustrations  are  by  Kenny  Mead- 
ows, Leech  and  Hine.  -  Still,  there  is  a 
second  Turkish  letter,  but  the  little  cut  in 
this  has  no  signature.  In  the  fifth  volume 
are  one  or  two  cuts,  evidently  from  Thack- 
eray's designs,  not  signed ;  then,  on  page 
184,  is  a  poem,  "  Recollections  of  the 
Opera,"  which  is  an  imitation  of  Panard's 
"  Merveilles  de  1'Opera,"  though  not  a 
translation  of  any  part  of  it;  also  a  ballad, 
"The  Flying  Duke,"  to  each  of  which  are 
illustrations  with  the  spectacles  in  the  cor- 
ner. Are  the  poems  by  Thackeray  ?  They 
must  be,  though  they  are  not  included  in  any 
edition  of  his  works.  Among  the  Thackeray 
cuts  in  this  volume  are  the  originals  of  our 
cuts  Nos.  3,  4  and  5.  An  indignant  letter 
from  the  Regent  of  Spain,  Baldomero  Espar- 
tero,  quotes  from  the  "  Times  "  as  follows  : 

"  The  agents  of  the  Tract  Societies  have  lately 
had  resource  to  a  new  method  of  introducing  their 
tracts  into  Cadiz.  The  tracts  were  put  into  glass 
bottles  securely  corked;  ^and  *  *  *  floated  toward 
the  town,  where  the  inhabitants  eagerly  took  them 
upon  their  arriving  on  the  shore.  The  bottles  were 
then  uncorked,  and  the  tracts  they  contained  are 
supposed  to  have  been  read  with  much  interest ;  " 

it  then  goes  on  to  object  to  these  perform- 
ances of  the  "  Tractistero  dissentero  contra- 
bandistero,"  or  Dissenting-tract  smuggler. 
The  pictures  explain  sufficiently  the  point 
of  view  from  which  his  Highness  the  Regent 
looks  at  these  transactions. 

In  this  year,  1843,  appeared  "The  Irish 
Sketch  Book,"  in  two  volumes.  This  book 
also  is  by  M.  A.  Titmarsh,  though  the 
dedication  to  Charles  Lever  is  signed  W. 
M.  Thackeray.  It  is  the  simple  record  of  a 
journey  in  Ireland,  and  is  not  as  much  read 
as  it  ought  to  be.  The  narrative  is  delight- 
fully rapid  and  easy,  the  comments  on  what 
was  new  and  strange  are  judicious,  even  in 
treating  the  difficult  question  of  Irish  pov- 
erty and  shiftlessness,  as  contrasted  with 
what  is  poor  and  forlorn  in  other  lands. 
The  author  is  discreet,  moderate,  successful. 
Throughout  the  book  there  is  almost  noth- 
ing of  that  dreary  way  of  looking  at  people 
and  their  actions  which  already  had  be- 
come a  fashion  with  Thackeray,  and  was 


soon  to  be  an  irresistible  habit.  But,  good 
as  is  the  "  Irish  Sketch  Book,"  the  best  part 
of  it  is  the  poem  of  "  Peg  of  Limavaddy,"  a 
gem  well  known  to  many  people  who  have 
not  found  it  in  its  original  setting.  But 
how  much  more  delightful  it  is — any  poem 
is — in  its  place  !  There  ought  to  be  a  law 
against  taking  "Young  Lochinvar"  out  of 
"  Marmion,"  "  Under  the  Greenwood  Tree  " 
away  from  "  As  You  Like  It,"  or  "  The  Isles 
of  Greece  "  from  "  Don  Juan."  When  one 
wants  to  read  "  Peg  of  Limavaddy  "  it  may 
seem  hard  to  be  ordered  off  to  the  "  Irish 
Sketch  Book" — but  this  would  be  a  good 
general  law,  for  all  that.  And,  after  all,  the 
"  Irish  Sketch  Book  "  is  in  every  edition  of 
Thackeray,  from  cheap  little  Tauchnitz,  where 
it  fills  two  volumes  at  fifty-five  cents  each,  to 
the  stately  subscription  edition  of  Messrs. 
Smith,  Elder  &  Co.,  which  must  be  bought 
complete,  if  at  all,  but  which  gives  pictures  as 
well  as  text.  In  all  the  collected  editions, 
this  and  many  another  of  the  poems  of 
Thackeray  is  printed  twice — such  is  the  stupid 
result  of  this  habit  of  making  up  collections 
of  poems  from  an  author's  different  works  ; 
indeed,  the  ballad  of  "  Canute "  must  be 
given  three  times,  if  the  collected  edition  be 
but  complete  enough  to  give  "  Miss  Tickle- 
toby's  Lectures."  But  to  return  to  the 
poem  about  Peggy :  one  of  the  most 
sprightly  and  fascinating  little  chants  in  the 
language,  it  is  disfigured  in  its  original 
form  by  an  ugly  and  misshapen  little  pict- 
ure, too  hideous  to  reproduce.  The  verses 
describe  a  beauty:  the  illustration  gives  a 
deformity,  a  monster. 

In  1844,  "Little  Travels"  appear  in 
"  Frazer  "  and  "  Barry  Lyndon  "  begins  in 
the  same  journal, — the  wonderful  tale  of  a 
scoundrel  adventurer,  worthy  for  its  vigor 
and  picturesqueness  almost  to  stand  on  the 
same  shelf  with  the  real  memoirs  of  some  of 
the  famous  adventurers  of  the  last  century,  as 
if  belonging  to  autobiography  rather  than 
fiction.  This  was  the  last  of  "  Frazer  "  for 
Thackeray.  He  was  beginning  to  be  known 
as  an  author  of  solid,  independent  bound 
volumes  (for  the  "Irish  Sketch  Book"  had 
been  tolerably  successful),  and  besides  he 
was  very  busy  with  "Punch."  In  that 
weekly,  this  year,  is  "The  Next  French 
Revolution,"  running  through  many  num- 
bers, a  piece  of  broad  farce,  with  pictures  still 
more  farcical.  What  was  the  "scunner" 
which  Thackeray  had  taken  at  Louis 
Philippe?  What  had  France  done  to  him 
to  make  him  so  amusingly  uniform  in 
denunciation  of  everything  that  that  nation 


262 


THACKERAY  AS  A   DRAUGHTSMAN. 


NO.    6. — RAILROAD    SPECULATORS. 

might  do?  When  Hogarth  is  found  to  see 
nothing  in  France  but  spindle-shanks  and 
rags,  we  are  not  at  a  loss  to  account  for  that : 
great  talent  does  not  clear  a  man's 
eyes  as  to  all  things  at  once,  and 
the  more  he  sees  the  truth  of  life 
and  character  in  the  people  about 
him,  the  more  our  man  of  talent  will 
mistake  as  to  things  not  so  familiar, 
— fancying  he  sees,  and  convinced, 
by  his  habit  of  mind,  that  he  is 
right  in  his  fancies.  Nor  do  we 
claim  for  Thackeray  any  especial 
perspicacity.  He  was  as  hasty  a 
critic  of  things  he  had  not  thought 
about  as  anybody,  as  poor  a  judge 
of  books  and  men  whom  he  had 
not  especially  studied,  as  unreason- 
able and  narrow  in  his  notions  of 
other  nations  than  his  own.  What 
does  seem  strange  is  that  he  should 
have  these  insular  instincts  of  con- 
tempt for  a  land  and  a  community  \  p^ 
which  he  had  seen  so  much  of  as 
France  and  the  French.  He  had 
lived  in  Paris,  and  although  the  art- 
students'  life — with  which  Thack- 
eray was  largely  occupied — does 
not  tend  to  make  a  social  and  polit- 
ical observer,  yet  long  familiarity  N0 
with  people,  language  and  customs  ought 
to  have  brought  reflection  after  a  while, 
or  sympathy,  at  least.  However,  there 
was  a  ludicrous  and  even  contemptible 


side  to  the  Citizen  King,  no  doubt,  and 
it  is  well  enough  seized  in  these  pictures 
and  prose  sketches  in  Vol.  VI.  of  "  Punch." 
The  imitation  of  military  spirit  and  Na- 
poleonism  on  the  part  of  the  essentially 
bourgeois  kingship  of  Louis  Philippe  was 
a  fair  enough  butt,  in  this  and  in 
other  ways.  But  we  like  Thackeray  better 
when  he  gets  back  to  England.  One  must 
.  know  the  true  inwardness  of  things  to 
parody  them — to  make  good  fun  of  them; 
and  on  page  218  we  find  a  first  installment 
of  what  he  had  to  say  about  one  of 
his  favorite  subjects  of  study,  George  the 
Fourth.  Rumor  had  it  that  a  statue  to 
Beau  Brummel  was  to  be  set  up  in  Tra- 
falgar Square,  where  "will  dwell,  in  kindly 
neighborhood,  George  the  Beau  and  George 
the  Fourth. t  *  *  *  *  Looking  at 
Brummel,  we  shall  remember  with  glowing 
admiration  the  man  'who  never  failed  in 
his  tye.'  Beholding  George  the  Fourth, 
we  shall  not  readily  forget  the  man  to  whom 
all  ties  were  equally  indifferent.  *  *  *  * 
George  the  Beau  had  wit.  George  the  King 
had  only  malice.  George  the  Beau,  when 
in  beggary,  refused  to  sell  the  letters  of  his 
former  friends.  George  the  King,  when 


7. — AN     OLD    FRIEND    RECOGNIZES    MR.    DE   LA    PLUCHE.       . 

Prince  of  Wales,  sold  his  party  at  the  first 
profitable    opportunity."      And    so     on, — 

t  Equestrian  statue  of  George  IV.  by  Chantrey. 


THACKERAY  AS  A   DRAUGHTSMAN. 


263 


reminding  one  of  the  famous  "epitaphs,"* 
published  the  very  next  year,  and  of  the  well- 
known  lectures  first  delivered  in  America. 
The  picture  accompanying  this,  too  large  to 
reproduce,  gives  us  the  statue  of  Brummel, 
jerking  his  thumb  toward  the  King,  on  the 
other  side  of  the  page,  and,  inscribed  on  the 
pedestal,  the  immortal  words  :  "  Who's 
your  Fat  Friend ?"f  In  the  next  volume 
"A  Hint  to  Moses,"  with  two  capital  little 
cuts, .ought  to  be  in  the  collected  works; 
see  it  in  Vol.  VII.,  p.  19.  A  few  pages 
on  begin  the  contributions  of  "  Our  Fat 
Contributor."  His  articles,  with  a  picture 
to  every  one,  go  on  through  the  next 
volume,  VII.  ;  in  which  there  are  also 
several  small,  separate  papers  and  head- 
piece wood-cuts  by  Thackeray.  On  page 
244  appears  the  poem,  since  printed  in  the 
volume  of  "  Ballads,"  beginning: 

"  The  night  was  stormy  and  dark,  The  town  was 
shut  up  in  sleep;  Only  those  were  abroad  who 
were  out  on  a  lark,  Or  those  who'd  no  beds  to  keep." 

Cut  No.  6  is  copied  from  its  illustration. 
In  "  Punch  "  of  the  same  year  (Vol.  IX.) 
begins  the  story  of  another  and  greater 
railway  speculator,  James  Plush,  the  fortu- 
nate footman.  The  first  installment  contains 
the  "  Heligy,"  by  Maryanne  ("  Jeames  of 
Buckley  Square"),  with  the  prefatory 
account  of  Jeames's  successful  speculations, 
and  a  capital  illustration  by  Leech.  After- 
ward, our  designer  had  more  courage  or  more 
energy  and  made  his  own  pictures.  We 
give,  in  cut  No.  7,  the  scene  when  "Old 
Pump  asked  .me  to  drink  Shampane,  and 
on  turning  to  take  the  glass  I  saw  Chawls 
Wackles  (with  whomb  I'd  been  imployed 
at  Colonel  Spurrier's  house)  grinning  over 
his  shoulder  at  the  butler."  The  cuts 
hereabout  are  as  good  as  the  best  of 
Thackeray's;  a  very  good  one  in  the  same 
volume  is  "A  Doe  in  the  City."  This 
accompanies  a  prose  paper  not  republished, 
and  a  brief  poem,  which  is  in  some  copies 
of  Thackeray's  "  Ballads,"  but  not  in  all: 

"Little  Kitty  Lorimer, 

Fair  and  young  and  witty, 

What  has  brought  your  ladyship 
Rambling  to  the  city?" 

*  Punch,  Vol.  IX.,  p.  159. 

t  After  the  quarrel  between  them,  Brummel  was 
talking  with  a  lady  at  a  ball,  when  the  Regent  spoke 
to  her  without  noticing  her  companion.  "  Who's 

your  fat  friend,  Lady ?"  said  Brummel,  so  that 

all  around  could  hear.  The  story  is  told  in  many 
different  ways. 


The  "  doe  "  is,  of  course,  feminine  for  "  stag," 
a  bit  of  stock-exchange  slang,  which  we  have 
not  adopted  into  the  Wall-street  language 
along  with  "bull"  and  "bear."  Thackeray 
is  strong  in  this  volume;  "Punch's"  com- 
missioner at  Brighton  sends  in  capital 
drawings  of  the  well-known  type;  and  there 
are  two  ballads  never  since  republished,  and 
cuts  to  them ;  a  large  cut  with  legend,  of 
the  regular  Punch  style,  not  common  to 
him,  and  the  four  "Epitaphs  on  the  Four 
Georges." 

In  this  year,  1845.  Thackeray  contributed 
to  George  Cruikshank's  "Table  Book"  the 
"Legend  of  the  Rhine."  The  serio-comic 
story  itself  has  been  reprinted  in  several 
editions,  but  the  Cruikshank  wood-cuts  only 
of  late,  in  the  great  subscription  edition 
already  named.  In  this  same  year,  too, 
Thackeray  went  a  voyage  to  the  East,  on 
the  occasion  of  an  excursion  organized  by 
the  Peninsular  and  Oriental  Company.  The 
little  volume  he  made  out  of  it,  a  readable 
and  pleasant  book  of  travels,  though  of 
necessity  slighter  and  less  valuable  than 
the  Irish  one,  bears  date  1846,  and  is  en- 
titled, "Notes  of  a  Journey  from  Cornhill 
to  Grand  Cairo,  by  way  of  Lisbon,  Athens, 
Constantinople  and  Jerusalem."  The  name 
of  Titmarsh  appears  on  this  title  page,  too ; 
but  here,  as  in  the  "Irish  Sketch  Book,"  the 
dedication  is  signed  by  the  author's  real 
name.  This  dedication  is  to  "Captain 
Lewis,"  whom  every  reader  knows.  The 
book  contains  the  ballad  in  which  appears 
"  The  White  Squall,"  and  is  as  much  immor- 
talized by  including  it  as  is  the  "  Irish 
Sketch  Book  "  by  "  Peg  of  Limavaddy."  An 
etched  and  colored  frontispiece  and  twenty 
or  more  small  wood-cuts  decorate  this  little 
work;  they  are  not  of  great  importance. 
Leisure,  fun,  the  library  table  and  his 
friends  about  him — these  seem  to  have  been 
Thackeray's  favorite  conditions  for  making 
drawings. 

All  Thackeray's  other  work,  both  literary 
and  graphic,  becomes  for  the  moment  of 
comparatively  small  importance  as  "Vanity 
Fair  "  begins  to  appear.  Was  it  in  1846 
or  in  1847?  Our  bound-up  copy  will  not 
tell,  for,  of  course,  its  title-page  bears  the 
date  of  the  completed  first  edition,  1848. 
The  best  authority  seems  to  make  for  the 
i st  of  February,  1847.  The  manuscript,  or 
an  installment  of  it,  but  under  another  very 
different  name,  had  been  offered  to  at  least 
one  magazine,  and  declined.  Dickens's 
books  had  a  way  of  coming  out  in  monthly 
parts  in  green  wrappers,  two  "  Phiz"  etch- 


264 


THACKERAY  AS  A   DRAUGHTSMAN. 


ings  in  each;  and,  though  risky,  this  seemed 
a  good  way.  Thackeray's  publishers  tried 
it  with  yellow  covers  instead  of  green,  and 
with  forty  etchings  in  the  eighteen  parts, 
and  perhaps  a  hundred  and  fifty  wood- 


ends, — there  are  no  more  words  on  the 
page;  the  rest  of  it  (nearly  half)  is  filled 
with  the  scene  described,  Mrs.  O'Dowd 
bursting  in  and  taking  Amelia's  hand.  The 
full-page  etchings,  in  like  manner,  come 


iff 


NO.    8. — VENUS    PREPARING     THE    ARMOR    OF    MARS.       (FROM    "VANITY  FAIR.") 


cuts.  In  fact,  "  Vanity  Fair"  is  one  of 
the  best  illustrated  books  in  the  world. 
That  first  edition  ought  to  be  re-issued  in 
fac-simile,  and  brought  within  everybody's 
reach.  As  the  story  moves  along  on  its 
slow  and  winding  way,  with  eddies  and 
back-sets,  like  a  stream  in  a  flat  country, 
there  comes  a  little  picture  just  where  it  is 
needed,  at  every  picturesque  moment. 
'"Think  of  those  two  aides-de-camp  of  Mr. 
Moses,' "  says  Becky  to  her  husband,  who 
is  out  of  spirits  at  being  kept  out  of  London, 
by  fear  of  sheriff's  officers ;  and  here  are  the 
(wo  sheriff's  officers  on  the  page,  and  just 
after  the  line  we  have  quoted.  "  The  door 
was  flung  open,  and  a  stout,  jolly  lady  in  a 
riding  habit,  followed  by  a  couple  of  officers 
of  Ours,  entered  the  room."  The  sentence 


where  they  are  wanted.  Opposite  the 
beginning  of  chapter  thirty,  with  the  capital 
bit  about  Peggy  O'Dowd  getting  things 
ready  for  her  Major,  on  the  night  before 
Waterloo,  we  have  the  really  admirable  pict- 
ure carefully  fac-similed  in  our  cut  No.  8. 
But  in  the  pictures  we  have  named,  and 
in  all,  one  is  worried  by  finding  the  costume 
that  of  1847,  and  w/of  1815.  "  Why  that  ?  " 
asks  the  reader;  "why  should  the  people  of 
Waterloo  year,  and  before  it,  be  repre- 
sented in  crinoline  and  flounces,  in  trowsers 
and  low-collared  coats  ?  "  And  at  the  end 
of  the  sixth  chapter  we  find  this  note  and 
the  illustration,  cut  No.  9  :  "It  was  the 
author's  intention,  faithful  to  history,  to  de- 
pict all  the  characters  of  this  tale  in  their 
proper  costumes,  as  they  were  then  at  the 


THACKERAY  AS  A   DRAUGHTSMAN. 


265 


commencement  of  the  century.  But  when 
I  remember  the  appearance  of  people  in 
those  days,  and  that  an  officer  and  lady 
were  actually  habited  like  this 


1      >>^s 
NO.    II. — THE    LITTLE     POSTMAN.        (FROM    "VANITY    FAIR.-'j 

another  one,  in  his  preparation  for  "  Denis 
Duval." 

The  little  tail-pieces  and  initial  letters  in 
"  Vanity  Fair "   are  captivating,  and  these 


NO.    9.— COSTUMES    OF     1815.       (FROM     "VANITY    FAIR."> 

I  have  not  the  heart  to  disfigure  my  heroes 
and  heroines  by  costumes  so  hideous."    It 


NO.     10. CUFF     AND    DOBBIN.       (FROM     "VANITY    FAIR.") 


is  strange  to  read  those  words  to-day ; 
very  female  costume  that  he  laughs  at, 
thinks  too  bad  to  be  used  in  his  book, 
is  not  far  from  being  what  is  most  in 
fashion  now  for  ornamental  purposes, 
and  for  the  subjects  of  pictures. 
Moreover,  to  the  student  of  costume, 
the  little  figure  in  this  cut  which  he 
gives  as  a  sample  of  ugliness,  is  far 
more  sensibly  clothed  than  his 
Amelia ;  more  sensibly  as  to  the  bon- 
net, more  gracefully  as  to  the  gown.  ! 
Would  it  not  have  been  more  exactly  'J 
true,  had  our  author  said  at  once  ^ 
that  the  labor  of  looking  up  costumes,  i 
etc.,  was  not  at  all  to  his  taste  ? 
Long  afterward,  Thackeray  did  thor- 
oughly one  piece  of  hard  work,  and 
its  results  remain  in  "  Esmond,"  the 
"Virginians,"  and  the  "  Humorists." 
It  seems  as  if  he  had  begun  to  do 


that 
and 


NO.    12. — THACKERAY  AS    JESTER.       (PROM    "VANITY   FAIR."J 

are  so  small  that  we  have  made  room  for 
more  than  one  of  them.  The  C  (cut  No. 
10),  with  the  battle  of  the  boys,  is  the  initial 
of  the  chapter  which  tells  about  the  great 
battle  between  Cuff  and  Dobbin.  The  little 
postman  (cut  No.  n)  is  at  the  end  of  a 


NO.     13. — TAIL-PIECE    TO     "  VANITY    FAIR." 


266 


THACKERAY  AS  A   DRAUGHTSMAN. 


chapter  which  tells  of  Emmy's  love-letters 
to  her  poor  creature  of  a  lover.  No.  12  is 
a  cut  which  has  often  been  reproduced — on 
the  title  page  of  the  original  collection  of 
Thackeray's  "  Ballads  "  :  for  once  it  seems 
to  hit  the  taste  of  his 
readers,  as  an  embodi- 
ment of  his  peculiar 
humor  and  pathos.  Dr. 


played  out."  And  the  picture  follows  close 
under  those  words.  To  the  present  writer, 
that  constant  reiteration  of  disbelief  and  dis- 
content in  men  and  events  is  a  blemish,  and 
that  constant  poking  out  of  the  showman's 
head  among  his  pup- 
pets an  artistic  fault  of 
the  gravest  character. 
Thackeray's  pathos  and 


NO.    14. — MR.    HOKEY. 


NO.    l6. — MR.    HANNIBAL    FITCH. 


NO.    15. — MR.    WINKLES. 


John  Brown  copies  it,  and  speaks  of  it 
as  "  like  him  in  face  as  well  as  in  more. 
The  tired,  young,  kindly  wag  is  sitting  and 
looking  into  space,  his  mask  and  jester's  rod 
lying  idly  on  his  knees."  Cut  No.  13  is 
the  final  tail-piece.  The  last  words  of  the 
novel  are  these  :  "  Ah !  Vanitas  vanitatum, 
which  of  us  lias  his  desire,  or,  having  it,  is 
satisfied  ? — Come,  children,  let  us  shut  up 
the  box  and  the  puppets,  for  our  play  is 


NO.    I?. — A    TEA-TABLE    TRAGEDY.       (FROM     "PUNCH.") 

Miss  Potts.—"  Married  her  uncle's  black  footman,  as  I  am  a 
woman. 

Mrs.  70/&._"No?" 
Mrs.  Watts.— ."O!" 
Miss  Watts.—"  Law !  " 


humor  are  pleasant  in  spite  of  that  croak- 
ing mood,  and  his  stories  are  admirable 
in  spite  of  his  own  determination  that 
the  reader  shall  not  forget  himself  and  the 
author,  and  live  for  the  time  in  the  story. 
To  the  writer  these  two  cuts  embody,  in  a 
pictorial  form,  that  which  was  the  weakness 
of  Thackeray's  literary  art,  and  they  are 
given  because  they  do  so ;  though,  indeed, 
in  themselves  they  are  as  good  as  anything 
he  has  done. 

In  "Punch"  for  1846,  "  Jeames's 
Diary "  is  continued  in  serial  form, 
with  large  illustrations  and  fanciful 
initial  letters.  The  articles  are  so  ap- 
propriately illustrated,  the  little  pict- 
ures fit  so  pat,  and  the  big  ones  are  so 
expressive,  that  it  is  a  wonder  that  the 
book  has  been  reproduced  so  often 
without  the  clever  designs.  "I'm  a 
British  Lion,  I  am!"  exclaims  Jeames, 
"as  brayv  as'  Bonypart,  Hannible,  or 
Holiver  Crummle,"  and  immediately 
after  these  words  comes  a  sketch  of  the 
redoubtable  Oliver  with  drawn  sword, 
and  leading  his  Ironsides  at  a  tearing 
gallop  against  a  forest  of  pikes.  The 
full-length  portrait  of  Mr.  Jeames  de  la 
Pluche,and  that  of  Lady  Angelina, — the 
latter  the  famous  object  of  Lord  South- 
sinful  down's  lines,  beginning 

"  The  castle  towers  of  Bareacres  are  fair 
upon  the  lea," — 


THACKERAY  AS  A   DRAUGHTSMAN. 


267 


are  quite  necessary  for  the  comprehension 
of  the  narrative.  But  soon  after  these, 
which  mark  the  moment  of  Mr.  de  la 
Pluche's  highest  fortune,  the  downfall  be- 
gins, and  before  the  volume  is  half  done  the 
great  operator  is  "  Jeames  "  once  more,  and 
he  has  been  in  jail  and  got  out  of  it  again  to 
marry  Maryanne,  and  be  humble  and  happy. 
Thackeray  turns  away  from  their  story 
before  the  end  of  it,  and  begins  the  series  of 
papers  called  "  The 
Snobs  of  England,  by 
One  of  Themselves," 
with  no  pictures  at 
first  except  spirited 
little  initials,  until,  at 
the  end  of  the  fourth 
paper,  we  find  the 
English  mother  in- 
structing her  babes  in 
the  Peerage.  So  far 
he  has  shot  only  at  fair 
game,  but  the  mania 
to  find  everything  and 
everybody  snobbish 
carries  him  too  far, 
as  Mr.  Trollope  has  well  pointed  out,  and 
the  next  cut  represents  Raleigh  spreading 
his  cloak  for  Elizabeth  to  tread  on — the 
Queen  an  old  hag,  and* Raleigh  middle-aged 
and  black-bearded,  in  rather  an  anachro- 
nistic way — the  whole  scene  represented 
as  an  act  of  snobbery,  certainly  a  new  read- 
ing of  that  semi-historical  event.  But 


NO.  18. — THE  TITMARSH- 
CUPID  OF  "  LOVE-SONGS 
MADE  EASY." 


NO.    19. — MR.    PUNCH  S    ARTIST    DURING    THE     INFLUENZA. 


NO.    20. — "  IS    IT    A     SUPPER     BALL    OR     A    TAY     BALL  ? " 

meanwhile  Jeames  is  recalled  and  finally 
disposed  of,  in  the  chapters  which  describe 
his  tavern,  his  journey,  the  famous  "  break 
of  gauge,"  and  the  loss  and  recovery  of  the 
baby,  with  two  very  spirited 
cuts.  Mr.  Titmarsh,  too, 
writes  to  "  Punch  "  to  object 
to  remarks  made  upon  his 
having  gone  free  to  the  East 
in  the  journey  we  have  men- 
tioned, and  this  letter  he 
illustrates.  "  Modest  Merit " 
signs  a  letter  about  the 
Royal  Academy,  in  which, 
in  six  pictures  and  a  little 
text,  the  exhibitors  are  treat- 
ed instead  of  their  works, 
and  as  their  works  might 
have  been.  Our  cuts,  Nos. 
14,  15  and  1 6,  show  first 
"  Mr.  Hokey,  as  watching 
the  effect  of  his  picture"; 
then  Mr.  Winkles,  whose 
picture  is  floored;  and  Mr. 
Hannibal  Fitch,  whose  pict- 
ure is  on  the  line,  because 
"  his  aunt  washes  for  an 
Academician."  Volume  XI. 
begins  with  "  A  New  Naval 


268 


THACKERAY  AS  A    DRAUGHTSMAN. 


NO.    21. — A     SCRAP     FROM    "PUNCH." 

Drama,"  which,  if  by  Thackeray,  should  be 
among  his  burlesques;  the  pictures  certainly 
are  by  him.  "  The  Snobs  of  England  "  goes 
on  and  on  until,  in  chapter  forty-two,  is  the 
story  of  Goldmore's  dinner  with  Raymond 
Gray — such  a  good  story  !  And  such  a  good 
cut  of  Mrs.  Gray  bringing  in  the  pot  of 
beer  she  had  (seemingly)  fetched  from  the 
public-house  !  It  is  well  to  have  these  cuts 
in  the  huge  subscription  edition,  but  why  is 
not  the  "  Book  of  Snobs "  to  be  had,  with 


its  pictures,  for  35.  6d.  ?  In  this  volume, 
there  are  by  Thackeray  many  separate  short 
papers,  and  even  large  cuts  with  only  a 
legend,  of  which  we  give  one  in  No. 
17.  And  in  Volume  XII.,  in  1847,  the 
Snob  papers  are  renewed  until,  in  the 
fifty-second  number,  after  a  full  year  of  the 
discussion,  they  stop,  like  the  Iliad, — not 
ended,  but  only  cut  off.  There  is  also 
"  The  Mahogany  Tree."  under  the  title 
"  Punch  Singeth  at  Christmas,"  and  with  a 
stanza  which  is  not  generally  printed,  and 
is  as  well  left  out.  "  Love-Songs  made 
Easy "  are  scattered  through  this  volume, 
and  the  one  entitled  "  What  Makes  my 
Heart  to  Thrill  and  Glow  "  is  accompanied 
by  an  initial  letter  inclosing  the  design 
given  in  our  cut  No.  18.  Some  of  them 
are  called  "  Love-Songs  by  the  Fat  Con- 
tributor," and  "The  Cane-Bottom  Chair"  is 
one  of  these,  though  since  entirely  taken 
out  of  the  list.  "  Punch's  Prize  Novelists  " 
begins  here  and  runs  over  into  Volume 
XIII.,  including  several  novels  never  re- 
printed and  with  a  number  of  illustrations. 
"  Travels  in  London,"  with  no  pictures 
beyond  initials,  and  several  separate  papers, 
come  in  this  part  of  his  connection  with 
"  Punch,"  and  we  take,  from  a  tragic  account 
of  "  Punch's "  troubles  with  the  influenza, 
one  of  four  cuts  showing  how  the  chief  con- 
tributors behaved.  Cut  No.  19  is  the  artist, 
gallantly  drawing  on  the  block  in  spite  of  all. 
Of  the  other  three,  two  were  hard  at  work, 
it  appears,  but  the  third,  the  Fat  Contrib- 


NO.    22. — THE    OLD    GENTLEMAN     GIVING    HIS    VIEWS    OF    "PUNCH"    IN     THE     HEARING    OF    JERROLD    AND    THACKERAY. 


THACKERAY  AS  A   DRAUGHTSMAN. 


269 


NO.    23. — MAJOR    PENDENNIS     GROWING    OLD. 


utor,  had  given  up  wholly,  and  would  do 
nothing  but  wheeze  and  groan  out  objur- 
gations. "  He  was  the  only  man  that  failed 
'  Punch'  in  the  sad  days  of  the  influenza," 
says  Thackeray  of  his  double,  the  "  F.  C." 
as  he  likes  to  call  him,  making  his  own  fun 
of  that  laziness  and  dislike  to  work  steadily, 
and  in  despite  of  annoyances,  which  he 
shared  with  other  men  of  genius. 

At  Christmas,  1847,  was  published  "Our 
Street,"  a  thin  little  quarto  with  full-page 
wood-cuts,  and  thirty  pages  or  so  of  text. 
This  is  not  the  best  of  the  Christmas  books. 
The  pictures  in  particular  have  little  life,  and, 
although  better  drawn  than  some  of  the 
early  ones,  are  not  remarkable  even  in 
that  way.  "Mrs.  Perkins's  Ball,"  another 
Christmas  book  of  a  later  year,  is  a  more 
amusing  story,  and  has  better  illustrations. 
Mr.  M.  A.  Titmarsh  is  honored  by  a  request 
from  Mrs.  Perkins  to  bring  with  him  to  her 
ball  "  any  very  eligible  young  man"  :  and  as 
he  reads  the  lady's  note  the  Mulligan  of  Bal- 
lymulligan  happens  to  call,  and,  as  usual, 
leans  over  Mr.  Titmarsh  and  reads  the  letters 
on  his  desk  (cut  No  20).  "  Hwat's  this  ?  " 
says  the  Mulligan.  "  Who's  Perkins  ?  Is  it 
a  supper  ball  or  a  tay  ball  ?  "  and  he  goes  to 
it  with  Mr.  Titmarsh,  in  the  latter's  despite. 
He  is  immense,  both  in  the  text  and  in  the 
picture;  dancing  with  Miss  Little  he  is  a 
splendid  Hibernian  whirlwind;  but  we  have 
decided  for  the  scene  at  Mr.  Titmarsh's 
chambers.  This  book  is  said  to  have  been 


issued  with  colored  plates,  but  it  is  known  to 
us  as  printed  in  black  and  a  tint,  as  is  the 
case  with  "  Our  Street."  The  Christmas 
book  for  1848  was  "  Dr.  Birch  and  his 
Young  Friends,"  with  colored  etchings,  and 
a  pretty  little  bit  of  pathos  at  the  end  about 
Miss  Raby  and  Davison  Major.  Twenty 
years  ago  this  book  was  pretty  well  known 
in  New  York — everybody  had  it;  and  the 
pathetic  but  cheerful  poem  with  which  it 
ends,  one  of  Thackeray's  most  natural,  most 
manful,  and  most  poetical  utterances,  has 
retained  its  hold  on  its  old  readers : 

"  The  play  is  done,  the  curtain  drops, 
Slow  falling  to  the  prompter's  bell." 

The  Christmas  book  for  1849  was  the 
continuation  to  Ivanhoe,  "  Rebecca  and 
Rowena,"  with  several  of  the  best  poems  of 
our  poet — 


"  Ho,  pretty  page  with  the  dimpled  chin, 
That  never  has  felt  the  barber's  shear," 


and 


and 


"  Before  I  lost  my  five  poor  wits, 
I  mind  me  of  a  Romish  clerk," 


"  The  Pope  he  is  a  happy  man," 


together  with  the  Latin  epitaph  on  Ivanhoe 
and  Wamba's  translation  of  it,  and  "  Can- 
ute," reprinted  from  "  Miss  Tickletoby's 
Lectures."  But  this  famous  book  is  illustrated 


NO.    24. — INITIAL    TO    "THE     BALLAD    OF    ELIZA    DAVIS." 

by  Richard  Doyle,  and  we  must  pass  it  by. 
And  to  have  done,  for  the  present,  with 
Christmas  books,  that  for  1850  was  "  The 
Kickleburys  on  the  Rhine,"  in  which  that 
heavy  dragoon,  Captain  Hicks,  who  had 


270 


THACKERAY  AS  A   DRAUGHTSMAN. 


shop  of  Moses  &  Son ;  how  they  admired 
its  splendor — 

"  I've  looked  upon  many  a  pallace  before, 

But  splendor  like  this,  love,  I  never  yet  sor  '' — 

and  how  Mr.  Smith  became  a  complete 
Englishman  by  means  of  his  new  suit  of 

\  \    clothes. 

-3  V  Jeames  appears  in  print  again,  and  writes 
from  his  tavern  to  say  that  while  he  is  a 
"  pokercuranty  on  plitticle  subjix,"  he  yet 
longs  to  say  a  word  for  the  footmen  who 
have  been  so  abused  in  Paris  and  else- 
where. There  is  in  this  volume  a  deal  of 
Thackeray,  which,  like  the  pieces  we  have 
named,  is  left  there,  almost  unknown.  The 
little  picture  we  give  in  cut  21  belongs  to  a 
scrap  of  prose  of  no  permanent  value ;  but 
the  picture,  at  least,  should  be  added  to  our 
author's  collected  works.  Is  this  out  of  the 


NO.    25. — HENRY    ESMOND'S     PORTRAIT.       (FROM     "  THB 
VIRGINIANS.") 

served  rather  as  a  butt  for  his  satire, 
carried  off  Miss  Fanny  Kicklebury,  of 
whose  regard  he  himself  had  hopes. 

Volume  XIV.  of  "  Punch "  begins 
1848,  the  year  of  revolutions.  A  ballad 
and  a  picture,  never  reproduced,  but 
clearly  by  Thackeray,  relate  how  "  Mr. 
Smith."  formerly  known  as  King  Louis 
Philippe,  with  his  wife,  called  at  the 


NO.    26.— INITIAL,     FROM    "THE    VIRGINIANS. 


NO.    27. — INITIAL,    FROM    ''THE    VIRGINIANS." 

question?  and  may  we  not  hope  that  a 
supplementary  volume  will  be  added  to  that 
edition  of  Thackeray's  works  which  comes 
the  nearest  to  completion — the  subscription 
edition  in  twenty-four  volumes,  in  which, 
with  every  piece  of  Thackeray's  writing 
which  is  reproduced,  is  given  all  the  illus- 
trations which  have  ever  been  made  for  it, 
whether  by  Cruikshank,  Doyle,  Du  Maurier, 
or  the  author  himself  ?  "A  Little  Dinner  at 
Timmins's  "  is  in  this  volume  of  "  Punch"; 
that  is,  of  course,  in  the  edition  we  speak 
of,  and  in  that  edition  for  the  first  time  it 
has  the  cuts  that  belong  to  it;  but  why  are  not 
the  other  and  more  ephemeral  bits  preserved 
there  ?  The  opera  omnia  are  what  one  asks 


THACKERAY  AS  A   DRAUGHTSMAN. 


27r 


for  in  Thackeray's  case.  In  Volume  XV. 
(the  same  year)  there  is  "  a  comedy  in  four 
tableaux,"  that  is,  wood-cuts  with  legends, 
"The  Hampstead  Road,"  and  it  is  better 
worth  preserving  even  than  the  Timmins 
story,  which  is  very  like  a  host  of  others. 
And  whoever  it  was  that  wrote  "  Model 
Women"  (was  it  not  Mayhew?),  it  was 
certainly  Thackeray  that  illustrated  "  The 
Model  Wife,"  "The  Model  Mother,"  and 
the  rest  of  the  papers.  "Authors'  Miseries" 
are  here,  too,  larger  and  more  elaborate 
illustrations  than  usual,  and  the  largest  of 
them  we  give,  cut  No.  22.*  In  Volumes 
XVI.  and  XVII. — the  two  for  1849 — are  so 
many  things  by  Thackeray  that  we  can  only 
name  a  few,  Mr.  "  Spec  "writes  about  Child's 
Parties  that  lament  concerning  their  extrav- 
agance and  absurdity  which  we  have  all 
read;  but  to  this  he  has  added  little  pictures 
which  few  of  us  have  seen.  "The  Ballad 
of  Bouillabaisse,  from  the  Contributor  at 
Paris,"  is  found  here  without  illustration. 
"The  Story  of  Koompanee  Jehan,"  and  a 
host  of  small  studies  besides,  have  head- 
pieces or  initial  letters  which  ought  to  be 
known ;  and  "  Mr.  Brown's  Letters  to  a 
Young  Man  about  Town  "  runs  through  the 
whole  year,  in  a  dozen  or  more  numbers. 
It  was  in  this  year  that  the  first  volume 
of  "  Pendennis  "  was  finished.  Of  the  large 
etchings  in  that  volume  none  are  good 
enough  for  reproduction  ;  the  little  head 
and  tail  pieces  are  better,  certainly,  and 
we  give  one  of  these  in  our  cut  No.  23 :  but 
it  is  in  "  Punch,"  still,  that  his  best  illustra- 
tions appear. 

In  1850,  Volumes  XVIII.  and  XIX.,  there 

is   another   paper,   still    from    Mr.    J s 

Plush,  giving  his  thoughts  on  a  new  comedy. 
This,  we  think,  has  never  been  reprinted. 
"  Hobson's  Choice  "  has  a  head -piece;  "The 
New  House  of  Commons  "  another.  The 
papers  called  "  The  Proser,"  and  signed  by 
Solomon  Pacifico,  are  also  here,  but  have 
not  many  pictures;  and  there  are  many 
pieces  and  cuts  besides  of  the  authorship  of 
which  one  is  sure,  and  some  of  which  one  is 
not  so  sure.  But  the  charm  of  these  two 
volumes  is  their  poetical  element.  In  Vol. 
XVIII.  is  "  The  Ballad  of  Eliza  Davis,"  with 
the  big  initial  which  we  give  in  cut  No.  24, 
the  G  of  the  line 

"  Galliant  gents  and  lovely  ladies," 

with  which  that  poem  begins.  The  verses  are 
signed  "  X,"  but  there  is  no  heading  as  yet 

*  Punch,  Vol.  XV.,  p.  198. 


NO.    28. — INITIAL,    FROM     "THE    VIRGINIANS." 

identifying  this  with  other  of  that  author's 
poems.  The  next  one  of  "  X's "  poems, 
follows  soon ;  it  is  "  The  Lamentable  Ballad 
of  the  Foundling  of  Shoreditch,"  and  has 
also  a  large  cut.  Then  the  strain  changes, 
and  what  is  called  in  collected  editions. 
"Mr.  Molony's  Lament,"  appears  as  by  Mr. 
Finigan.  Then  "  X  "  strikes  his  lyre  again, 
and  chants  his  "  Lines  on  a  Late  Hospicious. 
Ewent :  by  a  Gentleman  of  the  Foot  Guards. 
(Blue)";  but  gives  us  no  picture  with  it. 
In  Volume  XIX.  is  "  Mr.  Molony's  Account 
of  the  Ball,"  and  a  greal  deal  more,  of  which 


NO.    2<> — INITIAL    LETTER     W.      (FROM    "THE    VIRGINIANS. "> 


272 


THACKERAY  AS  A    DRAUGHTSMAN. 


we  can  only  mention  the  numerous  squibs 
and  satirical  assaults  upon  the  new  Roman 
Catholic  hierarchy  for  England,  then  just 
created  by  a  bull  of  the  pope,  and  exciting 
plenty  of  jealousy,  terror  and  vague  antici- 
pation. Thackeray  is  as  hearty  a  partisan, 
as  bold  an  assailant  of  monks  and  monkery, 
foreign  priests,  clerical  aggression,  and  the 
rest,  as  the  most  Protestant  of  Englishmen 
could  desire.  In  Volume  XX.  (for  1851) 


for  this  that  he  thought  it  unwise  to  attack  the 
newly  self-made  Emperor  of  the  French  in 
the  savage  way  that  "  Punch  "  was  doing. 
But  it  is  certain  that  he  had  almost  stopped 
contributing  before  that  onslaught  on 
Napoleon  began. 

No  doubt  he  was  otherwise  constantly 
occupied,  for  in  1851  he  was  lecturing  on 
"The  English  Humorists";  in  1852  "Henry 
Esmond "  was  published,  in  the  charming 


NO.    30. — A    SCENE     IN    GLASGOW.        (FROM     "THE    ORPHAN     OF     PIMLICO     AND    OTHER    SKETCHES.") 


there  are  several  poems — "  The  Yankee  Vol- 
unteers "  and  "  Mr.  Molony's  Account  of 
the  Crystal  Palace."  This  last  appears 
in  the  number  for  April  26,  and  relates,  of 
course,  to  the  opening  of  the  original  old 
Paxton  "  Crystal  Palace,"  in  Hyde  Park, 
which  was  to  be  opened  formally  on  the 
first  of  May.  It  is  stated  that  this  poem 
had  been  intended  for  "  Punch,"  but  was 
late,  and  was  therefore  sent  to  the  "  Times," 
where  it  appeared;  but  here  it  is,  in 
"  Punch,"  and  where  it  should  be  !  It  is  one 
more  little  mistake  for  Mr.  Trollope;  he 
may  have  been  thinking  of  the  "  May  Day 
Ode,"  Thackeray's  graver  poem  on  the  same 
subject ;  that  is  not  in  "  Punch  "  and  may 
have  appeared  in  the  "  Times."  And  now, 
Thackeray's  contributions  to  "  Punch  "  be- 
come few  and  scattered,  and  by  and  by 
cease  altogether.  In  a  "  Quarterly  Review  " 
article,  three  years  later,  he  gives  as  a  reason 


first  edition  in  three  small  volumes,  of  old- 
style  typography  and  general  appearance; 
and  in  the  same  year  he  came  first  to 
America  with  the  above  named  lectures, 
and  while  here  delivered  for  the  first  time, 
for  the  benefit  of  "The  Society  for  the 
Employment  and  Relief  of  the  Poor,"  and 
in  Dr.  Dewey's  old  church,  since  turned 
into  a  theater,  the  lecture  called  "  Charity 
and  Humor."  Then  came  "The  New- 
comes,"  one  volume  in  1854  and  one  in 
1855.  In  1854  he  is  found  again  in 
"Punch,"  writing  the  letters  of  "Our  Own 
Bashi  Bazouk,  from  the  Seat  of  War  in 
Turkey,"  exactly  as  if  Major  Gahagan  had 
come  to  life  again.  And  in  1855  he  was 
again  in  America,  lecturing  on  the  "Four 
Georges"  at  Dr.  Chapin's  old  church,  in 
Broadway,  long  since  swept  away.  In  that 
year  there  was  one  more  Christmas  book, 
"The  Rose  and  the  Ring,"  a  fairy  story  ; 


THACKERAY  AS  A   DRAUGHTSMAN. 


273 


MT JOHHSOH 


NO.    31. — THE   THREE   OF   SPADES.       (FROM     "THE   ORPHAN    OF   PIMLICO,"    ETC.) 


but  Thackeray's  better  fun  and  better  taste 
are  both  wanting  to  it,  and  the  wood-cuts 
in  particular  are  hideous.  Some  of  our 
readers  may  know  Tom  Hood's  little  pict- 
ures in  "Hood's  Own"  or  the  "Comic 
Annual,"  and  may  remember  how  ugly  they 
are,  how  the  fun  of  them  seems  in  some 
way  to  be  mixed  up  with  monstrosity. 
Well,  it  is  in  that  way  that  some  of 
Thackeray's  pictures  are  ugly — it  is  a  pain 
to  have  to  look  at  them;  and  these  of 
"The  Rose  and  the  Ring"  are  of  that 
character.  "  Henry  Esmond "  had  had  no 
illustrations;*  "The  Newcomes"  was  illus- 
trated by  Richard  Doyle;  and  it  was  not  until 
1857  that  the  author  began  once  more  to 
illustrate  a  novel,  and  then  it  was  "  The 
Virginians,"  for  which  he  began  to  make 
large  etchings  and  small  head-pieces.  The 
latter  are  clever  enough;  Nos.  25  to  28  are 
all  initial  letters  from  "The  Virginians," 
needing  no  explanation,  except  that  No. 
25  seems  to  be  Henry  Esmond's  portrait, 
above  the  chimney-piece  at  the  Virginia 
house  of  Castle  wood.  As  for  the  large 
plates  here,  they  are  even  more  careless  and 
weak  than  those  in  "  Pendennis."  There  is 
not  one  which  we  should  care  to  reproduce, 
if  we  could  give  a  hundred  illustrations. 
What  does  it  mean  ?  Why  is  this  extra- 
ordinary difference  in  Thackeray's  work  ? 
Why  is  some  of  it  so  very  much  better  than 
the  rest  ?  It  is  true,  of  course,  that  he 
never  mastered  this  art  of  etching;  but  then 
he  was  usually  content  to  leave  his  work 
almost  in  mere  outline,  with  only  the  slight- 
est suggestion  of  light  and  shade.  And, 
besides,  no  want  of  skill  with  the  etching- 
needle  can  explain  the  impossible  action, 
the  vague  and  meaningless  gesture  and  atti- 

*  The    Du     Maurier    illustrations     to    "  Henry 
Esmond  "  did  not  appear  till  several  years  later. 

VOL.  XX.— 19. 


tude  of  the  characters  in  many  of  these 
plates.  The  writer  has  tried  to  describe  this 
awkward  untruthful  ness,  and  finds  it  a  very 
ungracious  task,  .and  tedious  reading, — 
better  at  once  struck  out,  and  criticism 
confined  to  the  general  statement  that  whole 
series  of  these  illustrations  are  too  devoid  of 
form  and  purpose  to  be  considered  at  all. 

There  was  published  in  1876  "  The  Or- 
phan of  Pimlico,  and  other  Sketches,"  etc., 
a  folio  of  carefully  made  reproductions  by 
photographic  process  of  many  of  Thackeray's 
drawings.  This  was  brought  out  under  the 
care  of  Miss  Thackeray,  and  avowedly  to 
counteract  the  false  impression  produced  by 
the  exceedingly  unpleasant  little  cuts  given 


NO.    32. — THACKERAY  AT  THE  PLAY.       (FROM   THE    "  CORNHILL 
MAGAZINE.") 


274 


SAD   SPRING. 


in  "  Thackerayana,"  in  which  are  given 
wood-cuts  of  the  hasty  little  scrawls  he  used 
to  make  in  his  books.  From  this  carefully 
made  book  we  take  one  most  spirited  study, 
a  drawing  worthy  even  of  John  Leech,  and 
somewhat  in  his  manner.  It  is  a  scene  in 
Glasgow,  which  Thackeray  found  dismal;  and 
of  the  drawing  Miss  Thackeray  speaks  very 
justly,  as  showing  that  "  the  whole  atmos- 
phere of  the  scene  stamped  itself  with  dismal 
vividness  upon  his  mind."  Now  it  is  noth- 
ing to  say  that  few  of  his  designs  were  as 
good  as  that  one :  had  many  of  them  been  so 
good  he  would  have  been  a  great  designer, 
instead  of  a  great  writer  with  a  knack  for 
drawing  ;  but  how  can  we  account  for  a  man 
who  could  do  that,  who  could  see  so  clearly  ! 
and  express  so  forcibly,  albeit  in  a  humble  • 
fashion,  contentedly  drawing,  engraving  and  ! 
publishing  such  lameness  as  the  large  pict-  \ 
ures  in  "  Pendennis  "  and  "  The  Virginians  "  ?  | 

Among  the  drawings  in  "  The  Orphan  of 
Pimlico  "  are  some  that  have  been  engraved 
on  wood.     Comparison   of  these  with  the 
prints   of  the   engravings   shows   that   the 
theory   that   the  wood-engravers  improved 
his  work  is  not  always,  or  as  a  rule,  correct.  I 
There  are  delicacies  of  expression  and  even 
of  drawing  which  are  lost  in  the  cuts.     The 
explanation    lies    in    some    part   of  these  i 
evident  peculiarities  of  the   man :  that  he  j 
was  by   nature  easily  tired,  easily  brought 
to  such  a  state  of  mind  that  he  could  not  i 
do  his  best ;  that  he  was  not  by  nature  an  i 
artist,  inasmuch  as  the  beauty  of  things  and 
the  true  and  profound  character  of  things 
did  not  strike  him  forcibly,  nor  stay  by  him 
long;   that  he  was  capable  of  excitement, 
both  by  pity  and   by  fun   and   friendship, 
which    would   make    him   for  a   half-hour 
draw  men,  women  and  children,  but  only 
then  swiftly  and  cleverly,  seizing  the  more 
important  lines  and  neglecting  the  others, 
in   true   artist  fashion  for  the   nonce.      In 
this  case  of  "  The  Virginians,"  we  all  know  i 
how  full  he  had  filled   his   mind  with  the 


men  of  Queen  Anne's  and  of  George  the 
First's  day,  and  with  their  manners  and 
speech.  He  had  written  that  wonderful 
novel,  "  Henry  Esmond,"  the  two  sets  of 
lectures,  and  part  of  "  The  Virginians  " — 
and  yet  in  his  designs  the  dress  of  his 
own  heroes  and  heroines  is  never  repre- 
sented with  any  accuracy,  the  decorated 
interiors  in  which  they  moved  are  not  even 
hinted  at,  scarcely  even  an  ornamental  letter 
suggests  any  notion  of  the  exterior  of  that 
old  life.  No,  the  external  world,  the  world 
of  forms  and  colors  in  which  the  artist  lives, 
Thackeray  hardly  knew.  Not  a  sketch 
exists  which  shows  any  truthful  observation 
of  architecture,  ornament,  fanciful  utensils 
and  dress  seen  by  him  in  his  Eastern  and 
continental  travel.  Not  a  sketch  exists 
showing  that  he  had  observed  light  and 
shade  as  an  artist  observes  it.  No.  31 
is  a  bit  of  fun,  of  child's  play,  and  of 
it  Miss  Thackeray  says :  "  My  father  was 
specially  pleased  with  the  likeness  to  Mr. 
Gibbon  which  he  discovered  in  the  three  of 
spades."  And  no  wonder!  Such  fun  as 
this  he  was  great  in,  and  these  drawings 
we  have  given  show  that,  in  so  far  as  a  liter- 
ary feeling  for  character — shall  we  say  a 
novelist's  feeling  for  character  ? — is  express- 
ible in  graphic  art,  so  far  he  was  able 
to  express  himself,  though  with  a  tripping 
pencil  which  he  never  fully  mastered.  In 
treating  his  book  illustration,  it  must  needs 
be  compared  with  the  standard  which  we 
have  already  set  up  for  Cruikshank  and 
Leech,  and  of  course  it  suffers  by  such  com- 
parison. That  he  should  have  been  willing 
to  invite  it,  for  so  many  years,  is  a  mystery 
which  criticism  from  the  outside  cannot 
hope  to  explain  in  a  final  way. 

Our  last  cut  (No.  32)  is  from  the  "  Corn- 
hill,"  to  which  Thackeray  devoted  the  last 
few  years  of  his  life,  and  is  the  head-piece  of 
one  of  those  "  Roundabout  Papers  "  which 
graced  its  early  volumes.  Of  many  portraits 
of  himself  that  he  drew,  it  is  probably  the  last. 


SAD    SPRING. 

THE  leaves  will  grow  again,  and  happy  birds 
Find  glad  new  songs  to  sing  above  the  nest; 

Sometime  again  the  wind  will  breathe  sweet  words 
Among  the  blossomed  trees,  from  east  to  west. 

But  ah,  but  ah,  when  violets  bud  and  grow 
Upon  a  grave, — when  birds  their  music  pour 

While  one  dear  nest  is  empty !     I  think  that  so 
Spring  must  be  sad  to  me  for  evermore. 


EXTRACTS  FROM  THE  JOURNAL    OF  HENRY  J.  RAYMOND.  275 


EXTRACTS   FROM   THE  JOURNAL   OF   HENRY  J.  RAYMOND.     IV. 

(EDITED  BY  HIS  SON.) 
FOURTH  PAPER  :    THE  PHILADELPHIA  CONVENTION  OF   1 866. 


IT  is  still,  perhaps,  an  open  question  as  to 
the  true  position  to  which  the  National 
Union  Convention,  held  at  the  city  of  Phil- 
adelphia in  1866,  should  be  assigned  in  the 
political  annals  of  our  country.  Some  will 
always  maintain — and  possibly  believe — 
that  it  was  in  its  inception  and  consumma- 
tion a  deliberate  scheme  on  the  part  of 
Southern  Democrats  and  their  Northern 
allies  to  disrupt  the  Republican  or  Union 
party,  and,  by  dividing  it  on  the  important 
question  of  reconstruction,  aid  the  Demo- 
cratic party  in  acquiring  power  and  encour- 
age President  Johnson  in  what  those  who 
hold  this  opinion  will  always  believe  to 
have  been  a  deliberate  betrayal  of  the 
political  party  which  made  him  the  successor 
of  Abraham  Lincoln. 

Others  believe  now  as  they  believed  then,  ' 
that   the  Convention  was  intended   to  be,  \ 
and  was,  a  gathering  of  prominent  men  of  j 
both  parties  from  every  State  and  Territory  \ 
in  the  Union,  assembled  to  add  authority, 
dignity  and  influence  to  the  action  already 
inaugurated    by   a   Conservative   minority, 
and  to  record  its  protest  against,  and  call 
public  attention  to,  the  manner  in  which,  as 
they  believed,  the  Constitution  was  being 
violated,  the  purpose  and  object  of  the  war 
forgotten,  victory  abused  by  a  reckless  major- 
ity, and   a   conquered   people   given   over 
to   the   tender  mercies   of  corrupt  adven- 
turers,  ignorant    demagogues,   and   needy 
politicians. 

I  believe  that  the  bitter  denunciation  to 
which  the  Convention  and  every  one  who 
took  part  in  it  was  subjected,  by  what  was 
then  known  as  the  Radical  wing  of  the 
Republican  party,  has  been  modified  in  no  \ 
small  degree  by  subsequent  events  and  by 
mature  reflection,  free  from  prejudice  or 
excitement;  and  that  many  who  were  so 
fierce  then  will  admit  to-day  that  their  first 
judgments  were  too  severe,  and  possibly  \ 
unwarranted.  The  Convention  failed  to 
accomplish  the  object  for  which  it  had  been 
called  into  being,  so  far  as  any  practical 
results  were  achieved.  The  passions  and 
temper  of  the  hour  prompted  a  rejection  of 
its  platform  and  principles  by  the  people — 
while  those  who  participated  in  its  deliber- 


ations were  either  viewed  with  suspicion  by 
their  political  associates  or  denied  all  further 
party  fellowship.  Yet,  what  unprejudiced 
mind  to-day  will  say  that  the  Philadelphia 
Convention,  at  least  so  far  as  its  Repub- 
lican delegates  were  concerned,  was  not 
intended  to  be  an  honest  and  patriotic 
attempt  to  forestall  and  prevent  certain  dan- 
gerous tendencies,  the  shadows  of  which  had 
even  then  been  cast  before.  We  fought  not 
for  conquest — but,  having  won  the  victory, 
claimed  and  exercised  the  rights  of  con- 
querors. It  is  as  a  result  of  this  policy  that 
we  have  before  us  to-day  the  same  duty  that 
we  had  in  1861 — to  repudiate  all  doctrines 
aiming,  in  their  logical  results,  at  a  destruc- 
tion of  our  national  life.  The  Chitten- 
den  resolutions  of  1861  declared  that  the 
war  was  not  waged  for  conquest,  but  to  pre- 
serve the  Union.  The  Reconstruction  Acts 
assumed  that  the  Union  was  a  league — that 
the  seceded  States  had  left  the  Union  and 
had  perfected  and  consummated  that  depart- 
ure, and  hence,  being  conquered,  were  to 
be  re-admitted  practically  as  new  States. 
The  delegates  to  the  Philadelphia  Conven- 
tion maintained  that  the  States  had  not  left 
and  could  not  leave  the  Union  by  their  own 
action,  and  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United 
States  has  placed  on  record  its  judicial  opin- 
ion sustaining  the  theory  so  cordially  repro- 
bated by  the  majority  in  1866.  "The  State 
[Tennessee]  remained  a  State  of  the  Union, 
and  never  escaped  the  obligations  of  the 
Constitution,  though  for  a  while  she  may 
have  evaded  their  enforcement."  * 

But  it  is  not  the  purpose  of  this  article 
either  to  provoke  a  political  discussion  or 
attempt  any  vindication  of  the  Convention, 
or  of  those  who  took  part  in  its  delibera- 
tions. Successful  or  unsuccessful,  it  was,  in 
many  respects,  one  of  the  most  important 
political  gatherings  ever  called  together  in 
this  country,  and,  as  such,  it  will  have  its 
place  in  any  history  of  this  nation  during 
the  past  twenty  years.  In  aid  of  such  a 
history,  it  is  my  desire  to  contribute  the 


*  J.  F.  Keith,  plaintiff  in  error,  vs.  E.  A.  Clark, 
Collector  of  the  State,  etc.,  in  error,  to  the  Supreme 
Court  of  Tennessee. 


276  EXTRACTS  FROM  THE  JOURNAL    OF  HENRY  J.  RAYMOND. 


reflections  and  impressions  formed  by  that 
Convention  upon  one  who,  willingly  or 
unwillingly,  became  one  of  its  controlling 
minds — and  to  give  them  as  recorded  by 
him  at  the  time.  That  my  father  sought  to 
accomplish  that  which  he  sincerely  and 
honestly  believed  to  be  for  the  greatest  good 
of  the  greatest  number,  none  who  knew 
him  could  ever  doubt ;  and  this  publication 
of  his  private  memoranda,  giving  an  inside 
history  of  the  origin  of  the  Convention  and 
the  manner  in  which  he  became  identified 
with  it,  will  only  confirm  what  perhaps  no 
one  ever  doubted. 
The  Journal  begins  : 

"  The  first  I  ever  heard  of  the  Philadelphia  Con- 
vention was  from  Mr.  Thurlow  Weed,  about  the  first 
of  July  ( 1866).  He  called  at  my  house  in  Washing- 
ton, and  in  the  course  of  conversation  said  that  it 
was  thought  important,  as  Congress  had  done  noth- 
ing toward  restoring  the  Union  and  providing  a 
national  basis  of  political  action,  that  a  convention 
should  be  called,  in  which  Union  men  from  all  the 
States  should  be  represented.  He  had  talked  with 
Mr.  Seward  about  it,  and  they  both  desired  me  to 
prepare  an  address  ;  and,  as  the  political  season  was 
already  well  advanced,  the  sooner  this  could  be  done, 
the  better.  I  told  him  that  I  would  think  of  it. 

"  The  same  day  I  saw  Mr.  Seward,  who  asked  me 
if  Mr.  Weed  had  spoken  to  me  on  the  subject.  I 
told  him  he  had,  and  that  I  would  take  it  into  con- 
sideration ;  it  seemed  to  me  not  free  from  difficulties 
and  dangers.  A  day  or  two  after,  he  asked  me  if  I 
had  prepared  an  address.  I  said  I  had  not — that, 
as  I  understood  it,  what  they  wanted  from  me  was 
an  argument  for  speedy  restoration,  addressed  to  the 
people,  and  that  this  would  come  with  more  effect 
from  the  Convention  than  in  a  call  for  one.  In 
this  he  acquiesced. 

"  Within  two  or  three  days  after  this  conversation, 
Senator  Doolittle  called  at  my  house  and  read  me 
the  draft  of  a  call  which  he  had  prepared— substan- 
tially as  it  was  afterward  issued.  I  suggested  that 
its  terms  were  too  broad — that  it  would  admit  all 
who  had  been  in  rebellion  against  the  Government, 
and  all  whose  political  sympathies  had  been  with 
them,  while  it  would  exclude  many  who  had  stood 
by  the  Government,  but  who  now  desired  national 
action  on  the  questions  resulting  from  the  war.  Mr. 
Dooliltle  said  it  ought  to  include  all  who  n<rw  accept 
the  Union,  whatever  had  been  their  previous  action, 
and  that  this  was  the  object  of  the  proposed  Conven- 
tion. I  expressed  some  fear  that  on  such  a  basis  it 
might  fail  to  command  popular  confidence  and  sym- 
pathy in  the  North  sufficient  to  give  it  success.  I 
did  not  sign  the  call,  but  expressed  to  him  my 
full  concurrence  in  the  general  object  which  was 
proposed. 

"  I  went  to  New  York  a  few  days  afterward,  and 
while  there  wrote  and  published  in  the  '  Times  •  an 
article  in  favor  of  a  National  Convention  for  the  pur- 
pose of  adopting,  if  possible,  a  platform  of  princi- 
ples upon  which  the  Northern  and  Southern  States 
could  take  common  political  action.  Before  I 
returned  to  Washington,  the  call  was  published— 
signed  by  Senators  Doolittle  and  Cowan  and  five  or 
six  other  Union  men.  Soon  afterward  a  card  was 
published,  signed  by  all  the  Democratic  members  of 
Congress,  assenting  to  the  call  and  expressing  their 


hope  that  their  constituents  would  unite  in  sending 
delegates  to  the  Convention. 

"  The  Congressional  Union  caucus,  of  July  I2th, 
occurred  after  this  action.  The  feeling  of  the  mem- 
bers was  exceedingly  bitter  toward  the  Convention, 
which  was  regarded  as  a  scheme  for  breaking  up  the 
Union  party  and  forming  a  new  Administration 
party  out  of  the  Conservative  elements  of  both  par- 
ties. The  Convention  was  bitterly  denounced  and  I 
was  directly  assailed,  especially  by  Judge  Kelley,  of 
Pennsylvania,  for  having  engaged  in  a  conspiracy 
thus  to  destroy  the  Union  party.  I  repudiated  any 
such  purpose,  but  declined  to  denounce  the  Conven- 
tion in  advance  of  its  action.  I  thought  it  calculated 
to  strengthen,  rather  than  to  injure,  the  Union  party; 
but  that,  whenever  I  found  that  this  was  not  likely 
to  be  its  effect,  I  should  oppose  it." 

No  full  report  of  either  of  these  two  cau- 
cus meetings  was  ever  made  in  the  newspa- 
pers. What  purported  to  be  a  report  of  the 
first  one  was  published  in  one  of  the  New 
York  journals,  but  was  very  inaccurate  and 
full  of  misstatements.  These  inaccuracies, 
it  was  stated  at  the  second  caucus,  were  due 
to  the  fact  that  the  reporter  was  concealed 
underneath  a  bench  in  the  reporters'  gallery 
during  a  part  of  the  meeting,  and  his  ina- 
bility to  see  rendered  it  impossible  for  him 
to  report  correctly.  I  found  among  my 
father's  papers  a  condensed  report  of  both 
of  these  meetings;  but  the  bitter  speeches 
made  then  would  hardly  prove  of  interest 
now. 

"  Soon  after,  another  call  appeared,  as  a  supple- 
ment to  the  first.  This  was  signed  by  a  joint  com- 
mittee, composed  of  members  of  the  Johnson 
committee  and  of  the  Democratic  committee.  It 
called  for  the  election  of  delegates  from  the  several 
Congressional  districts  of  the  United  States  to  the 
Convention, — four  from  each, — two  of  those  who 
voted  for  Lincoln  and  Johnson  in  1864,  and  two  who 
voted  against  them.  This  was  intended  to  divide 
the  Convention  between  the  two  political  parties. 
In  the  South,  of  course,  no  Lincoln  and  Johnson 
delegates  could  be  selected.  The  appearance  of 
this  call  increased  the  distrust  of  Union  men  in 
Congress,  and  throughout  the  country,  in  the  objects 
and  results  of  the  Convention,  against  which  the 
Union  feeling  in  the  North  began  to  be  very  strongly 
arrayed. 

"Mr.  Seward,  a  few  days  afterward,  referring  to 
the  Convention,  said  it  was  understood  that  I  would 
write  the  address.  I  told  him  I  did  not  feel  inclined 
to  attend  the  Convention.  He  asked  why.  I  said 
that  it  seemed  likely  to  be  in  the  hands  of  the 
former  rebels  and  their  Copperhead  associates,  and 
to  be  used  for  purposes  hostile  to  the  Union  party, 
of  which  I  was  not  only  a  member,  but  in  which  I 
held  an  official  position.  I  said  that  I  should  feel 
bound,  in  going  into  another  and  a  hostile  party 
organization,  first  to  resign  my  position  as  Chair- 
man of  the  National  Union  Committee,  and  I  did  not 
wish  to  do  this,  or  in  any  way  forfeit  my  standing 
as  a  member  of  the  Union  party. 

"  Mr.  Seward  replied  that  he  did  not  concur  in  this 
view.  The  Convention  was  simply  for  consultation. 
It  was  not  a  party  convention,  nor  need  it  affect  in 
any  way  the  party  standing  of  those  who  should 


THE  PHILADELPHIA    CONVENTION  OF  1866. 


277 


take  part  in  it.  He  was  a  Union  man,  he  said,  and 
he  did  not  admit  the  right  of  anybody  to  turn  him 
out  of  the  Union  party;  but  he  claimed  the  right 
to  meet  and  consult  with  any  portion  of  his  fellow- 
citizens.  Of  course  the  Convention  would  fall  into 
the  hands  of  Copperheads  if  all  our  friends  deserted 
it.  What  he  wanted  me  to  go  into  it  for  was  to  pre- 
vent that  result.  If  it  could  not  be  prevented,  then 
would  be  time  enough  to  bolt.  He  said  the  Presi- 
dent felt  anxious  on  the  subject,  and  he  proposed  that 
I  should  go  with  him  to  see  the  President.  I  did  so. 

"  When  we  went  in  to  the  President,  who  received 
us  in  the  library,  Mr.  Seward  said  to  him  that  we 
had  come  up  to  talk  about  the  Philadelphia  Conven- 
tion— that  I  had  expressed  fears  lest  it  should  fall 
into  bad  hands,  and  that  he  had  told  me  that  was 
what  they  wanted  me  to  prevent.  The  President 
said  yes — it  was  important  that  the  right  direction 
should  be  given  to  it.  It  ought  to  take  National 
ground  in  harmony  with  Union  principles,  and  in 
favor  of  a  speedy  restoration  of  the  Union.  He 
said  he  had  read  carefully  a  speech  I  had  lately 
made  on  the  relations  of  his  policy  of  restoration  to 
the  Union  party,  and  he  agreed  with  every  word 
of  it.  He  wanted  the  Philadelphia  Convention  to 
take  the  same  ground  exactly.  His  sympathies,  he 
said,  were  with  the  party  which  had  carried  the 
country  through  the  war — that  party  ought  to  restore 
the  Union,  and  although  it  ought  not  to  repel  Dem- 
ocrats who  were  willing  to  act  with  and  to  aid  it,  he 
did  not  wish  the  Democratic  party  to  get  control. 

"  I  told  him  I  did  not  quite  understand  what  the 
Philadelphia  Convention  was  expected  to  do  in  regard 
to  organized  political  action — whether  it  was  to 
create  a  new  party  for  general  action,  or  to  aim  at 
specific  results.  It  might  lay  the  basis  for  a  new 
party  which  should  nominate  candidates  of  its  own 
in  the  coming  State  elections,  or  it  might  merely 
bring  its  influence  to  bear  upon  the  election  of  mem- 
bers of  Congress  in  the  several  districts,  favorable 
to  the  admission  of  loyal  members — not  seeking  to 
disturb  their  party  relations  in  other  respects  at  all. 
For  the  first, — the  organization  of  a  new  party,  even 
if  that  were  desirable, — I  feared  it  was  too  late,  and 
the  only  effect  of  such  an  attempt  would  be  to 
strengthen  the  Democratic  party.  The  other  object 
might  be  secured.  If  the  Convention  would  simply 
seek  the  election  of  members  of  Congress  favorable 
to  the  admission  of  loyal  representatives — throw- 
ing its  weight  in  favor  of  Union  men  where  they 
would  take  this  ground,  and  in  favor  of  War  Dem- 
ocrats as  against  extreme  radicals,  I  thought  great 
good  might  be  accomplished. 

"The  President  replied  that  this  was  precisely 
what  he  wanted  done.  He  did  not  want  any  new 
party,  nor  did  he  want  the  Democratic  party  restored 
to  power.  He  wanted  Congress  to  restore  the 
Union,  and  if  those  who  favored  this  would  take 
hold  of  it  in  the  way  I  had  suggested,  he  felt  sure 
the  people  would  sustain  them  and  that  the  next 
Congress  would  be  overwhelmingly  on  our  side. 
He  declared  his  wish  to  have  this  matter  settled 
within  the  Union  party,  and  thought  the  Philadel- 
phia Convention  would  exert  a  wholesome  pressure 
on  the  several  Union  State  Conventions,  as  well  as 
on  the  nominations  for  Congress,  and  that  it  would 
be  a  great  step  gained  toward  the  restoration  of  the 
Union  when  delegates  from  all  the  States  could 
again  meet  in  convention.  The  very  fact  that  such 
a  convention  was  held,  he  thought,  would  have  a 
very  salutary  effect  on  public  sentiment,  and  would 
cause  the  leaders  of  the  Radical  movement  to  pause. 
He  spoke  with  a  good  deal  of  earnestness,  and  was 
urgent  that  I  should  take  part  in  the  Convention. 


"  Mr.  Seward  took  no  part  directly  in  this  conver- 
sation, but  he  occasionally  threw  in  a  word,  by  way 
of  comment  and  enforcing  the  suggestions  of  the 
President.  The  impression  made  upon  my  mind  by 
the  interview  was  that  the  President  was  very  anx- 
ious to  get  a  foothold  in  the  South  for  the  Conserva- 
tive wing  of  the  Union  party — that  he  thought  the 
Philadelphia  Convention  would  lay  the  foundation 
for  a  National  party,  which  would  absorb  the  Demo- 
cratic party  of  the  North  and  West,  and  all  of  the 
Union  party  but  the  Radicals ;  and  that  the  South 
would  also  join  this  new  party,  which  would  thus 
easily  gain  and  hold  the  political  ascendency.  It 
seemed  to  me  a  desirable  object — one  which  it  was 
well  worth  any  one's  while  to  aid.  On  the  other 
hand,  if  the  Union  men  generally  held  themselves 
aloof  from  the  Philadelphia  Convention,  that  body, 
which  in  any  event  was  destined  to  exercise  a  decided 
influence  on  the  public  mind,  would  inevitably  fall 
into  the  hands  of  the  Democratic  party  and  be  used 
to  secure  its  return  to  power.  It  seemed  to  me 
desirable  to  prevent  this  result,  if  possible,  and  I 
accordingly  decided  to  do  what  little  I  could  in  that 
direction." 

To  show  how  earnest  my  father  was  in 
this  conviction,  I  have  made  a  few  extracts 
from  editorials  in  the  "  Times,"  written  pre- 
vious to  the  assembling  of  the  Convention  : 

"July  77.  When  the  war  was  over  and  the 
rebellion  suppressed,  a  powerful  public  sentiment, 
pervading  all  parties,  demanded  the  prompt  restor- 
ation of  national  action  under  the  Constitution  and 
in  accordance  with  the  fundamental  principles  of  the 
Government.  *  *  If  Congress  had  admitted 

to  their  seats  loyal  members  from  the  Southern 
States,  who  could  take  the  oath  prescribed  by  law, 
the  Philadelphia  Convention  would  never  have  been 
heard  of." 

"  August  8.  The  Philadelphia  Convention,  as  we 
regard  it,  has  been  called  to  promote  the  restora- 
tion of  the  union  of  the  States  upon  principles  at 
once  honorable  and  safe,  and  in  the  spirit  of  har- 
mony and  peace.  *  *  *  Its  effect  will  probably 
be  moral  rather  than  political,  and  it  is  quite  as 
likely  to  accomplish  the  purpose  it  seeks  through 
its  effect  upon  the  action  of  the  existing  parties,  as 
by  organizing  a  new  one." 

" August  10.  The  object  of  the  Philadelphia  Con- 
vention is  to  bring  together  sections,  States,  and 
men,  now  separated  by  memories  of  war  and  by  the 
fact  of  victory  on  one  side  and  defeat  on  the  other. 
That  object  will  be  attained  just  in  proportion  as 
the  character  and  condition  of  the  Convention  may 
command  the  respect  and  confidence  of  the  great 
body  of  the  American  people." 

In  an  article  under  the  caption  "  Mr. 
Raymond  and  his  Censors,"  my  father  says: 

"  We  have  steadily  maintained  that  to  accomplish 
any  good  the  movement  must  be  confined  to  moder- 
ate, conservative  and  loyal  men,  of  both  sections 
and  of  either  party." 

And  General  Dix,  in  taking  the  chair  as 
temporary  president,  said : 

"  It  may  be  truly  said  that  no  body  of  men  have 
met  on  this  continent  to  consider  events  so  moment- 
ous and  so  important  since  1787.  *  *  We  are 


278  EXTRACTS  FROM.  THE  JOURNAL   OF  HENRY  J.  RAYMOND, 


here  to  assert  the  supremacy  of  representative  gov- 
ernment. *  *  We  are  not  now  living  under 
such  a  government.  Thirty-six  States  are  governed 
by  twenty-five  states,  etc.,  etc." 

The  Journal  continues : 

"  This  was  all  that  occurred  previous  to  the 
adjournment  of  Congress — though  I  had  several 
incidental  conversations  with  Mr.  Seward  on  the 
subject,  in  all  of  which  he  repeated  his  view  of  the 
xelation  of  himself  and  his  friends  to  the  Conven- 
tion. He  called  my  attention  to  an  article  in  the 
"  Springfield  Republican,'  which  began  by  saying 
that  Mr.  Seward's  friends  seemed  so  to  have  man- 
aged the  preliminary  movements  of  the  Philadel- 
phia Convention  that  they  could  go  into  it  if  it  was 
a  success,  and  go  out  of  it  if  it  should  prove  a  fail- 
ure. This,  he  said,  was  the  exact  state  of  the  case. 
Participation  in  it  involved  no  change  of  political 
relations;  those  could  be  effected  only  by  approv- 
ing or  disapproving  what  it  should  finally  do. 

"  A  call  was  soon  issued  in  New  York  for  a  State 
convention  to  be  held  at  Saratoga,  August  10,  for 
the  election  of  delegates  to  Philadelphia.  This  call 
was  arranged  under  the  direction  of  Mr.  Weed, 
whose  first  purpose  was  to  have  it  signed  by  lead- 
ing members  of  both  political  parties  throughout  the 
State.  He  afterward  explained  to  me  that  the  time 
was  too  short  for  this,  and  that  an  attempt  to  secure 
signatures  through  the  whole  State  would  be  neces- 
sarily so  incomplete  that  it  would  create  jealousies 
and  do  harm.  He  accordingly  decided  to  have  it 
signed  only  by  prominent  persons  in  New  York 
City  and  its  immediate  vicinity.  In  this  form  it 
was  issued.  The  names  were  highly  respectable 
and  influential — but  mainly  of  men  who  had  never 
been  actually  identified  with  political  or  party 
movements.  Mr.  Weed  gave  me  to  understand 
that  he  had  consulted  with  Dean  Richmond,  John 
Stryker,  and  other  leaders  of  the  Democratic  party, 
and  that  they  were  quite  ready  for  the  new  move- 
ment. They  fully  appreciated  the  extent  to  which 
the  Democratic  party  had  been  demoralized  and 
damaged  by  its  course  during  the  war,  and  that  it 
was  absolutely  necessary  to  rid  it  of  its  old  asso- 
ciations and  give  it  a  new  start. 

"  I  did  not  sign  the  call,  nor  did  I  attend  the  Sar- 
atoga Convention.  My  appointment  as  one  of  the 
four  delegates  from  the  State  at  large,  with  General 
Dix,  Ex-Governor  Church,  and  S.  J.  Tilden,  Esq., 
was  wholly  without  my  agency  or  knowledge.  I 
drew  up  an  address  to  the  people  of  the  United 
States,  in  accordance  with  the  wishes  of  the  Presi- 
dent and  Mr.  Seward,  to  be  submitted  to  the 
Convention. 

"  There  was  a  very  large  number  of  delegates 
and  others  in  attendance  on  the  Convention,  and  a 
very  great  interest  in  the  proceedings  seemed  to 
prevail.  The  Southern  delegates,  as  a  general 
thing,  were  from  the  more  moderate  class  of  South- 
ern politicians — men  who  had  not  been  original 
Secessionists,  but  who  had  gone  with  their  States 
after  war  was  resolved  upon,  and  had  done  every- 
thing in  their  power  to  carry  them  through  it  suc- 
cessfully. The  general  feeling  was  one  of  delight 
at  renewing  former  political,  social  and  personal 
relations  with  men  of  the  North,  and  no  extravagant 
expectations  seemed  to  be  entertained  in  any  quar- 
ter as  to  the  nature  or  extent  of  concessions  that 
would  be  made  to  the  South  by  the  victorious 
North. 

On  Tuesday,  the  main  point  of  interest  seemed  to 


be  the  presence  of  Fernando  Wood,  of  New  York, 
Clement  L.  Vallandigham,  of  Ohio,  and  Henry  Clay 
Dean,  of  Iowa,  also  delegates  to  the  Convention. 
The  feeling  was  very  strong  that  the  admission  of 
men  who  had  been  so  hostile  to  the  Government 
during  the  war,  and  who,  though  Northern  men, 
were  thoroughly  identified  in  the  public  mind  with 
the  rebel  cause,  would  be  of  serious  injury  to  the 
Convention,  by  alienating  the  sympathies  of  Union 
men  and  by  affixing  to  the  proceedings  the  stigma 
of  having  been  dictated  to  or  influenced  by  Copper- 
head counsels.  As  a  general  thing,  the  Democrats 
from  the  North  and  those  from  the  South  deprecated 
their  presence  quite  as  decidedly  as  did  the  mem- 
bers of  the  Union  party ;  but  the  proposal  to  exclude 
them  naturally  provoked  opposition  from  both 
quarters.  The  Democrats  felt  that  it  would  hardly 
answer  to  desert  members  of  their  own  party,  and 
Southern  men  thought  their  constituents  would  not 
approve  of  their  consenting  that  men  from  the 
North  should  be  ejected  for  having  been  their 
friends  during  the  war.  The  collision  of  sentiment 
gave  rise  to  the  usual  turmoil  and  heat  which  attends 
the  outside  discussions  of  such  a  body.  Wood  pru- 
dently withdrew  from  the  contest  early,  saying,  in  a 
brief  and  graceful  note,  that  in  view  of  the  difference 
of  opinion  that  had  arisen,  and  in  order  to  prevent 
possible  injurious  consequences,  he  should  decline 
to  present  himself  as  a  delegate.  Vallandigham 
and  Dean  were  more  obstinate.  The  latter  was 
noisy,  insolent,  and  offensive,  but,  after  the  proper 
amount  of  swagger  and  bravado,  followed  Wood's 
example.  Vallandigham  held  out  to  the  last,  though 
it  came  to  be  generally  understood  that  he  would 
not,  in  any  case,  be  admitted  to  a  seat  in  the  Con- 
vention. 

"  On  Tuesday  evening  I  read  the  address  I  had 
prepared  to  Reverdy  Johnson,  Senators  Cowan, 
Doolittle  and  Dixon — all  of  whom  spoke  of  it  in  very 
strong  terms  of  approbation.  Mr.  Johnson  said  he 
thought  a  portion  of  it,  which  discussed  historically 
the  effect  of  slavery  upon  the  South  and  the  national 
Government,  might  be  omitted  with  advantage — but 
the  point  was  not  discussed. 

"Senator  Cowan  showed  me  a  series  of  resolu- 
tions which  he  had  prepared,  as  he  said,  with  con- 
siderable care,  for  submission  to  the  committee. 
He  also  showed  me  a  declaration  of  principles, 
drawn  up,  as  he  said,  by  Mr.  William  B.  Reed,  of 
Philadelphia,  and  another  prepared  by  Governor 
Sharkey,  of  Mississippi.  Both  the  latter  seemed  to 
me  to  treat  the  subject  wholly  from  the  Southern 
point  of  view,  and  Mr.  Cowan's  struck  me  as  open 
to  the  same  objection,  or,  at  least,  to  that  of  evad- 
ing the  leading  principles  which  the  Union  party 
deemed  essential. 

"  The  Convention  met  on  Tuesday.  General 
Dix,  in  his  opening  remarks,  made  with  full  prepar- 
ation but  without  consultation  with  others,  so  far  as 
I  know — certainly  not  with  me — hit  upon  the  same 
point  that  I  had  made  the  leading  point  in  my  ad- 
dress, viz.  :  the  election  of  a  Congress  that  would  admit 
loyal  members  from  loyal  States.  Vallandigham 
sent  in  a  letter  withdrawing  from  the  Convention. 
The  preliminary  organization  was  completed,  and 
a  Committee  on  Resolutions,  consisting  of  two  from 
each  State,  was  appointed.  General  John  A. 
Dix  was  elected  Temporary  Chairman,  and  Mont- 
gomery Blair  Chairman  of  the  Committee  on  Per- 
manent Organization.  Senator  Doolittle  was  made 
Permanent  President,  with  one  Vice-President  and 
one  Secretary  from  each  State. 

The  Committee  on  Resolutions  was  composed  of 
the  following  members,  among  others  : 


THE  PHILADELPHIA    CONVENTION  OF  1866. 


279 


[Here  followed  a  partial  list  of  the  com- 
mittee, which  included  Hons.  Reverdy 
Johnson,  T.  A.  Hendricks,  Wm.  Beach 
Lawrence,  Senators  Cowan,  Dixon,  Davis, 
McDougal,  Chief-Justice  Sanford  E.  Church, 
and  other  prominent  men  of  both  parties.] 

"  The  two  members  of  the  Committee  from  New 
York  were  Governor  Church  and  myself.  The 
Committee  immediately  withdrew  to  an  adjoining 
room  and  elected  Senator  Cowan  Chairman,  after 
which  it  adjourned  to  meet  at  the  Continental 
Hotel  at  two  o'clock  P.  M. 

"  On  meeting  at  two,  Senator  Cowan's  resolutions 
were  read,  as  were  the  others  that  had  been  pre- 
pared. Before  they  were  discussed,  Reverdy  John- 
son said  that  I  had  prepared,  an  address,  which  he 
requested  me  to  read.  I  read  it  just  as  it  stood 
originally.  It  was  listened  to  respectfully  and  with- 
out comment,  but  I  could  hear  Garrett  Davis,  of 
Kentucky,  who  sat  near  me,  now  and  then  say  to  a 
gentleman  near  him,  'that's  not  true,'  'not  a 
word  of  truth  in  that,'  etc.  The  general  impression 
upon  Southern  members  struck  me  as  unfavorable. 
One  gentleman,  from  Massachusetts,  whom  I  did 
not  know,  protested  against  it  and  moved  that  it  be 
rejected.  No  one  seconded  this,  however,  and  it 
was  agreed  that  all  the  resolutions,  etc.,  should  be 
referred  to  a  Sub-Committee  of  thirteen,  which  was 
appointed  by  the  Chairman,  Mr.  Cowan.  Southern 
delegates  preponderated  on  this  Committee,  and 
were  mainly  strong  men.  The  Sub-Committee 
went  immediately  into  session,  and  at  their  request 
I  again  read  my  address,  just  as  it  stood.  It  was 
then  suggested  that  a  portion  of  it  relating  to  the 
effect  of  slavery  upon  the  politics  of  the  country 
(the  same  to  which  Reverdy  Johnson  had  objected) 
should  be  omitted,  not  merely  because  it  was  unac- 
ceptable to  the  South,  but  because  the  subject  which 
it  discussed  was  not  really  within  those  upon  which 
the  Convention  was  expected  to  act.  There  was 
force  in  this  suggestion,  and  I  acquiesced  in  it. 
The  passage  omitted  embraced  several  pages. 

"  In  another  part  of  the  address  I  had  spoken  of 
the  amendments  to  the  Constitution  proposed  by 
Congress — waiving  discussion  of  them  in  terms  on 
the  ground  that  such  discussion  came  rather  within 
the  scope  of  political  debate  in  the  several  States 
than  within  the  sphere  of  the  Convention, — but 
asserting  the  right  of  Congress  and  the  States 
to  make  amendments,  and  suggesting  that  some 
enlargement  of  the  powers  of  the  National  Govern- 
ment, in  the  respects  covered  by  the  amendments 
proposed,  might  be  desirable.  It  was  objected  to 
this  passage  that  it  might  be  construed  as  favoring 
the  amendments,  and  the  general  voice  of  the  Com- 
mittee was  for  omitting  it.  To  the  rest  of  the 
address  there  was  a  general  assent, — the  belief 
being  expressed  that  it  was  a  very  strong  appeal  to 
the  judgment  and  patriotism  of  the  people,  and  that 
it  would  produce  good  results.  Some  of  the  South- 
ern members  were  sensitive  as  to  the  frequent  use 
of  the  words  'rebellion,'  'insurrection,'  etc.,  as 
applied  to  the  action  of  the  seceding  States,  and 
expressed  a  wish  that  they  mighfr  be  avoided.  I 
said  that  in  certain  parts  of  the  address  they 
seemed  necessary  to  describe  in  accurate  language 
the  legal  character  of  the  acts  referred  to,  and  that 
in  such  cases  they  ought  not  to  be  changed,  but  that 
I  would  revise  the  paper  and  change  them  wher- 
ever they  seemed  to  be  unnecessary.  This  was 
assented  to  as  satisfactory,  and  I  did  change  them 


subsequently  in  several  places,   as  the  MSS.  will 
show.  * 

"  After  the  address  had  thus  been  accepted,  the 
Committee  proceeded  to  consider  the  resolutions. 
Senator  Cowan  read  his,  with  the  other  declarations 
already  referred  to,  and  the  Committee  proceeded 
to  consider  them  seriatim.  Exceptions  were  freely 
taken  to  them,  mainly  as  being  too  abstract  and 
not  sufficiently  clear  and  exact  in  statements  of 
principles,  and  finally  Mr.  Reverdy  Johnson,  who 
had  become  somewhat  impatient  at  the  length  of 
the  discussion  and  its  inconclusive  character,  asked 
me  if  I  had  not  also  prepared  some  resolutions 
embodying  the  general  principles  of  the  address. 
I  told  him  I  had,  and  at  his  request  read  them. 

"  I  had  written  these  resolutions  late  on  the 
preceding  evening.  Recalling  the  unsatisfactory 
character  of  those  I  had  seen,  I  thought  I  would 
put  into  form  what  seemed  to  me  the  declarations 
desirable  to  be  made.  I  mentioned  this  to  Mr. 
Weed  in  the  morning,  and  he  mentioned  it  to  Mr. 
Johnson,  who  spoke  to  me  about  it,  and,  after 
hearing  them,  desired  me  to  bring  them  to  the 
Committee. 

"  After  I  had  read  them  in  Committee,  Mr.  John- 
son moved  at  once  that  they  be  adopted  as  the 
series  to  be  reported,  after  amendments.  This  was 
at  once  carried,  and  they  were  taken  up  in  order. 
I  read  each  one  in  succession,  and  the  question  was 
taken  on  its  adoption.  They  were  all  adopted, 
without  any  special  discussion  and  by  general 
assent,  as  they  stood  originally,  with  one  or  two 
exceptions.  In  the  fifth,  the  following  clause — '  All 
the  powers  not  conferred  by  the  Constitution  upon 
the  General  Government  nor  prohibited  by  it  to 
the  States,  are  reserved  to  the  States  or  the  people 
thereof;  and  among  the  rights  thus  reserved  to  the 
States  is  the  right  to  prescribe  qualifications  for  the 
elective  franchise  therein,  with  which  right  Con- 
gress cannot  interfere,'  was  inserted  at  the  sug- 
gestion of  Mr.  Johnson  and  written  by  me. 

"  When  the  seventh  was  reached,  and  I  had 
read  the  first  line — 'Slavery  is  abolished  and  for- 
ever prohibited,'  Judge  Harger,  of  Mississippi, 
remarked :  '  Yes,  and  nobody  wants  it  back  again. ' 
I  at  once  remarked  that  if  we  could  say  that  on 
behalf  of  the  South  and  on  the  authority  of  its 
delegates,  it  would  strengthen  our  case  very  much. 
Judge  Harger  said  we  could  so  far  as  his  State  was 
concerned,  and  turned  to  Governor  Graham,  of 
North  Carolina,  who  sat  beside  him,  and  asked  if  it 
would  not  be  true  of  North  Carolina.  Gov.  Gra- 
ham answered  that  it  would,  and  of  the  whole  South 
also.  I  then  interlined  the  passage,  '  and  there  is 
neither  desire  nor  purpose  on  the  part  of  the  South- 
ern States  that  it  should  ever  be  re-established,'  and 
re-read  the  resolution  as  thus  amended.  It  passed 
unanimously,  as  did  the  eighth  and  tenth. 

"After  this  had  been  done,  some  one  suggested  that 
one  of  Senator  Cowan's  resolutions  relating  to 
soldiers  was  especially  appropriate,  and  ought  to  be 
included  in  the  series.  It  was  then  read,  as  follows: 

"'Seventh — That  it  is  with  proud  and  unfeigned 
satisfaction  that  we  recur  to  the  conduct  of  the 
American  soldier  all  through  the  recent  conflict — 
his  courage,  his  endurance  [and  his  patriotism]  merit 
our  highest  encomiums  [but  it  is  only  when  the 
strife  is  over  that  he  rises  to  his  proper  height  and 
shames  his  stay-at-home  neighbor].  Since  the  war 


[*The  address  was  written  twice.  In  re-writing,  the  phraseol- 
ogy was  often  changed,  and  the  address  shortened  by  the  omis- 
sions referred  to.  Both  copies  are  in  my  possession.  H.  W.  R.] 


280 


WATCHING    THE    COW. 


he  has  shown  magnanimity  and  generosity  in  mak- 
ing a  manly  and  moderate  use  of  his  victories,  and 
in  his  defeats  recognizing  the  skill  and  bravery  of 
his  opponents.  No  Northern  soldier  has  yet  been 
heard  to  cry  for  vengeance  against  the  South,  nor 
has  any  Southron  refused  a  graceful  submission  to 
the  fate  of  war,  and  they  are  again  brothers.' 

"  The  language  of  this  resolution  was  somewhat 
modified,  the  parts  in  brackets  being  stricken  out, 
but  the  sentiment  of  the  resolution  was  generally 
accepted  and  the  resolution  itself  elicited  little  dis- 
cussion. It  was  included  in  the  series  to  be  reported. 

"  The  General  Committee  re -assembled  at  five 
o'clock,  and  the  Sub-Committee  made  its  report.  I 
read  the  address,  which  gave  rise  to  very  little 
discussion  or  remark,  and  was  adopted.  The  reso- 
lutions were  also  read,  and,  after  canvassing  them  as 
they  came  up  in  succession,  they  were  adopted 
without  any  alteration  in  sentiment,  and  with  very 
few  and  unimportant  changes  in  phraseology.  The 
preamble  from  the  series  of  resolutions  said  to 
have  been  prepared  by  W.  B.  Reed,  was  called  for 
and  adopted,  as  a  proper  preamble  to  those  which 
had  been  adopted  by  the  Committee. 

"  Just  as  the  Committee  was  closing  its  labors,  Sen- 
ator Hendricks,  of  Indiana,  said  to  me :  '  I  don't 
quite  like  that  resolution  about  the  soldiers' — "the 
American  soldier."  What  soldier  does  it  mean  ?'  I 
said  I  supposed  it  meant  the  Union  soldier.  He  said 
it  did  not  seem  clear,  and  it  ought  not  to  be  left 
ambiguous.  I  replied  that  we  would  test  it.  I  then 
stated  to  the  Committee  the  point  that  had  been  raised, 
and  said  I  supposed  the  Union  soldier  was  referred 
to,  and  appealed  to  Judge  Harger  and  Mr.  Graham, 
both  of  whom  assented.  I  then  said  that  no  doubt 
should  rest  on  that  point,  and  suggested  that  it  be 
made  to  read  '  Union  soldier,' — to  which  .  both 
Judge  Harger  and  Governor  Graham  at  once  object- 
ed. This  led  to  considerable  conversation,  and  Sen- 
ator Cowan,  on  being  appealed  to,  said  he  intended 
it  to  include  the  soldiers  of  both  armies.  Thereupon, 
several  Northern  delegates  said  they  could  not  con- 
sent to  that, — the  people  never  would  endorse 
encomiums  passed  upon  men  in  arms  against  the 
Government, — and  they  insisted  on  a  change.  The 
Southern  delegates,  on  the  other  hand,  said  they  j 
could  never  be  sustained  in  consenting  to  an  approval 
of  Northern  soldiers,  which  was  not  equally  extended 
to  their  own.  The  debate  waxed  quite  warm.  Mr. 
Stewart,  of  Michigan,  said  he  had  sacrificed  his 
political  position  at  home  by  consulting  the  sensitive- 


ness of  the  South.  He  should  do  so  no  longer.  It 
was  that  which  had  prepared  the  way  for  the  rebel- 
lion, and  he  did  not  mean  to  repeat  the  mistakes  of 
former  years.  He  would  do  justice  and  nothing 
more.  He  thought  it  incumbent  on  us  to  applaud 
the  soldiers  who  fought  for  the  Union  and  saved  the 
Government,  though  he  did  not  know  that  we 
could  fairly  call  on  the  South  to  do  likewise.  But 
he  could  never  consent  to  extend  equal  applause  to 
the  men  who  had  been  in  arms  against  the  Govern- 
ment. These  remarks  were  received  in  silence  by 
the  Southern  delegates,  but  created  considerable 
feeling  in  the  Committee.  It  was  finally  suggested 
that  the  resolution  be  omitted  altogether,  and  this 
was  acquiesced  in,  as  the  only  mode  of  preserving 
harmony  of  feeling  and  of  action.  It  was  after 
twelve  o'clock,  and  the  Committee,  fatigued  and  im- 
patient, voted  to  adjourn.  They  had  risen  and 
taken  their  hats,  when  I  begged  their  attention  for  a 
moment  before  the  motion  was  put.  I  said  that  it 
seemed  a  pity  that  any  difference  should  arise  where 
everything  had  been  so  harmonious.  If  I  under- 
stand this  matter,  I  added,  the  difference  here  is 
purely  one  oi feeling.  You  of  the  South  are  unwill- 
ing that  anything  should  be  bestowed  upon  Arorthern 
troops  for  soldierly  qualities,  which  is  not  also  be- 
stowed upon  Southern,  as  being  equally  good  soldiers. 
The  Southern  delegates  assented  to  this.  Well,  I 
said,  I  can  understand  and  respect  that  feeling ;  I 
don't  think  it  generous  or  right  in  us  to  disregard  it. 
But  let  us  set  aside  feeling  and  go  to  business.  You 
cannot  doubt  that  it  is  the  duty  of  the  National 
Government  to  recognize  and  reward  the  services  of 
its  soldiers  by  paying  their  claims  and  pensioning 
their  widows  and  orphans,  can  you?  They  ac- 
quiesced. Very  well,  I  said,  let  us  pass  a  resolution ; 
asserting  that  duty,  going  no  further.  They  as- 
sented. I  hastily  drew  the  resolution  in  pencil — 
read  it,  and  it  passed  with  but  one  negative  vote,  and 
the  Committee  adjourned.  The  resolution  read  : 

"'It  is  the  duty  of  the  National  Government  to 
recognize  the  services  of  the  Federal  soldiers  and 
sailors  in  the  contest  just  closed,  by  meeting 
promptly  and  fully  all  their  just  and  rightful  claims 
for  the  services  they  have  rendered  the  nation,  and 
extending  to  those  of  them  who  have  survived,  and 
to  the  widows  and  orphans  of  those  who  have 
fallen,  the  most  generous  and  considerate  care.' 

"The  Convention  met  the  next  day,  and  the  reso- 
lutions and  address  were  adopted  unanimously,  and 
with  the  greatest  enthusiasm." 


WATCHING   THE    COW 


"  COME,  look  at  her,  and  you  will  love  her. 

Go,  lead  her  now  through  pleasant  places, 
And  teach  her  that  our  new  world's  clover 

Is  sweet  as  Jersey-island  daisies. 

"  Yes,  you  may  do  a  little  playing 
Close  to  the  gate,  my  pretty  warder, 

But,  meanwhile,  keep  your  cow  from  straying 
Across  the  elfin-people's  border." 


So  to  the  boy  his  mother  jested 

About  his  light  task,  lightly  heeding; 

While  in  the  flowering  grass  he  rested 
The  magic  book  that  he  was  reading. 

At  sundown,  for  the  cow's  returning, 
The  milkmaid  waited  long,  I'm  thinking ; 

Hours  later,  by  the  moonlight's  burning, 
Did  fairy-folk  have  cream  for  drinking? 


*     *     Wrhat  of  the  boy  ?     By  hill  and  hollow, 
Through  bloom  and  briar,  till  twilight  ended, 
His  book  had  charmed  him  on  to  follow 
The  cow — the  one  that  Cadmus  tended  ! 


LIFE    IN  FLORENCE. 


281 


LIFE  IN  FLORENCE. 


I  HAVE  so  often  expressed  an  indifference 
to  art,  or  to  the  antique,  that  friends  inces- 
santly ask  me  (with  a  touch  of  indignation 
in  their  tone)  why  I  chose  to  live  for  fifteen 
years  in  Florence — a  place  of  which  the 
chief  attractions  were  these  very  things.  I 
have  always  replied,  "  Because  I  loved  it." 
"  But  why  love  it,  if  you  are  blind  to  its 
charms  ?  "  The  question  is  a  natural  one, 
and  my  answer  a  womanly  one.  I  loved 
it  because  I  loved  it.  I  felt  an  affection  for 
every  dirty  old  broken-down  house,  merely 
because  it  was  in  Florence;  I  loved  the 
pigeons  that  walked  about  the  streets ;  I 
loved  the  air  I  breathed  there,  I  loved  the 
stones,  I  loved  the  streets,  the  old  maca- 
roni stores,  and,  in  fact,  everything  that  was 
connected  with  it.  And  yet  there  was  no 
particular  virtue  in  these  separate  items,  nor 
did  I  love  them  as  being  superior  to  those  of 
other  countries.  Certainly,  if  questioned 
closely,  I  should  condemn  the  broken-down 
houses  as  most  unsightly,  the  pigeons  as 
being  like  other  pigeons  (only  a  shade  dirt- 
ier, perhaps),  the  air  as  being  decidedly 
raw  the  greater  part  of  the  winter,  and  the 
streets  as  too  crowded  with  one's  fellow- 
creatures  —  bumping  and  hustling  each 
other  with  no  sort  of  ceremony ;  and  yet  all 
these  are  a  part  of  Florence,  and  help  to  make 
it  what  it  is,  one  of  the  most  fascinating,  lov- 
able cities  in  the  world.  Once  caught- there, 
but  very  few  are  able  to  extricate  them- 
selves from  the  web  of  its  allurements.  The 
foreign  society  is  always  shifting  and  chang- 
ing, but  faces  seen  there  once  are  sure  to  be 
seen  twice,  and  those  who  go  there  for 
a  few  weeks'  visit,  are  rarely  satisfied  with 
less  than  as  many  months ;  and  often  a  stay 
of  a  few  years  is  apt  to  end  in  a  permanent 
residence,  for  after  close  acquaintance  no 
place  on  earth  can  give  one  such  entire 
satisfaction.  Visitors  to  Florence  always 
remind  me  of  the  spinster  aunt,  who  went  to 
pay  her  relatives  a  week's  visit  and  staid 
thirty  years. 

Now,  why  is  this  ?  I  could  name  a  score 
of  disagreeable  traits  characteristic  of  Flor- 
entines, and  the  most  prominent  are  to  be 
found  amongst  the  lower  class,  who  are  lazy, 
ignorant,  and  totally  innocent  of  truth.  Ly- 
ing is  a  real  pleasure  to  them,  and  they  do 
not  half  enjoy  the  attainment  of  an  object 
unless  by  some  roundabout  means,  prob- 
ably entirely  unnecessary.  They  sweep 


truth  off  the  face  of  the  earth  as  a  super- 
fluous commodity  too  tame  and  common- 
place to  be  endured.  However,  reach- 
ing the  point  it  does  with  them,  falsehood 
becomes  a  virtue  by  reason  of  its  consistency. 
One  of  their  marked  peculiarities  is  dislike  to 
water,  either  for  washing  or  drinking.  In 
fact;  I  scarcely  understand  why  nature 
should  have  provided  it  in  that  region  at 
all,  they  avoid  it  so  studiously.  The  Ameri- 
can and  English  residents,  according  to 
their  ancient  rites,  insist  upon  the  use  of  it 
once  a  week  for  the  washing  of  their  linen. 
Florentines  of  the  higher  class  employ  it 
for  the  same  purpose  twice  a  year!  I  do 
not  by  this  mean  to  imply  that  they  wear 
the  same  garments  for  six  months,  and  so 
must  explain  that  when  married  the  bride 
is  provided  with  an  unconscionably  large 
trousseau,  which  enables  her  to  avoid  the 
weekly  washes  prevalent  in  most  other 
countries.  Being  a  most  economical  race, 
their  idea,  probably,  is  that  too  much  wash- 
ing wears  out  and  tears,  and  also,  being  lazy, 
that  it  gives  trouble.  As  to  the  drinking 
of  water,  they  look  upon  that  as  down- 
right insanity.  The  water  in  Florence  is 
not  as  pure  and  wholesome  as  in  America, 
but  it  is  not  so  bad  as  to  make  it  dangerous. 
Their  home-made  red  wine  is  so  cheap  as 
to  bring  it  within  the  means  of  all,  even  the 
poorest  beggar,  who  will  manage  to  scrape 
together  a  few  centimes  to  buy  his  "  daily  " 
wine.  They  even  think  it  a  risk  to  give 
children  water  alone,  and,  from  the  time 
they  are  weaned,  mix  with  it  a  goodly  por- 
tion of  red  wine.  It  is  strange  to  see  children 
scarcely  three  years  old  seated  at  dinner 
each  with  his  tumbler  of  wine.  And  yet, 
probably,  there  is  no  more  temperate  race 
in  the  world, — a  drunken  man  being  a  very 
rare  sight  in  Florence.  Lately,  however, 
drunkenness  has  begun  to  show  itself.  Some 
years  ago  the  grape  crop  failed,  and  for  that 
year  the  people,  of  course  not  being  able  to 
drink  water,  were  obliged  to  have  recourse  to 
rum  punch.  This  was  too  strong  for  their 
unaccustomed  heads,  and,  worse  than  all, 
gave  them  a  taste  for  liquor,  which  they 
had  not  previously  had,  making  them  unwill- 
ing to  return  to  their  comparatively  insipid 
vino  nostrale  (domestic  wine). 

Florentines  are  very  fond  of  gambling, 
but  in  the  smallest  kind  of  a  way.  They 
become  as  much  excited  over  a  two-sous 


282 


LIFE  IN  FLORENCE. 


stake  as  others  would  be  over  two  thousand 
francs.  The  public  lottery  is  their  "true, 
true  love."  Such  infatuation  and  supersti- 
tion I  never  saw.  The  last  centime  they 
owned  in  the  world  was  not  safe  from  that 
villainous  institution.  Year  after  year  of 
constant  loss  never  serves  to  convince  this 
confiding  people  that  they  can  gain  nothing, 
unless  by  a  great  stroke  of  most  exceptional 
luck.  The  lottery  consists  of  ninety  num- 
bers, five  of  which  are  drawn  every  Satur- 
day, at  two  o'clock,  in  the  public  square. 
During  the  week  the  gambler  selects  his 
number,  staking  his  money  upon  the  chance 
of  that  number  being  one  of  the  five  drawn. 
According  to  the  amount  risked,  is  the  sum 
won.  He  may  also  bet  on  two  numbers,  or 
three,  or  four,  or  all  five.  This,  naturally, 
lessens  his  chances  of  winning,but  it  increases 
the  amount  he  would  win,  should  his  num- 
bers be  drawn.  However,  one  rarely  bets  on 
all  five  numbers,  as  winning  in  such  a 
case  would  be  almost  a  miracle.  And  yet, 
most  curiously,  such  a  thing  once  happened. 
First,  let  me  explain  that  with  the  Floren- 
tines every  occurrence  in  life  has  its  own 
especial  number — as  a  fire  thirty-five,  a 
murder  ninety,  etc.  Thereupon,  should  any 
public  calamity  or  rejoicing  take  place,  it's 
number  is  immediately  selected  in  the 
lottery  by  all  these  superstitious  people. 
Each  one  owns  a  book  wherein  is  published 
the  number  belonging  to  every  heard-of,  or 
unheard-of  incident  that  can  by  any  possi- 
bility occur  to  the  human  race.  This  is 
their  daily  oracle,  unless,  as  I  said  before, 
some  great  national  event  supersedes  the 
necessity  of  such  a  divining-book.  A  few 
years  ago,  all  Florence  arose  in  one  great 
superstitious  body,  and  put  its  money  on 
certain' five  numbers  relating  to  the  annivers- 
ary of  the  late  Pope's  birthday.  One  of  the 
numbers  was  nine,  another  was  the  year  of 
his  birth  (taking  the  last  two  figures  only),  a 
third  was.  the  day  of  the  month,  a  fourth  his 
age,  and  a  fifth  the  number  of  years  he  had 
reigned.  Strange  to  say,  every  number 
came  up,  and  the  excitement  all  over  the 
city  was  tremendous.  This  was  temporarily 
a  fearful  stroke  of  ill-luck  for  the  National 
Treasury,  but  it  gained  by  it  enormously 
in  the  end,  the  people's  credulity  having 
been  so  strengthened  by  this  extraordi- 
nary coincidence  as  to  cause  them  to  bet 
more  rashly  and  blindly  than  ever.  A  few 
months  after  this  event,  while  the  circum- 
stance was  fresh  in  every  mind,  a  story  got 
about  that  a  monk  had  made  his  appearance 
in  Florence,  and  with  great  solemnity  and 


impressiveness  had  predicted  five  other  num- 
bers that  would  be  infallible.  Of  course,  the 
whole  town  rushed  pell-mell  to  the  lottery 
office,  and  the  result  was  as  might  be 
expected — disappointment.  Not  one  of  the 
numbers  predicted  was  drawn.  The  excite- 
ment was  so  intense  that  there  were  rumors 
of  mobbing  the  monk,  but  the  next  thing 
heard  was  that  he  had  quietly  left  Florence 
on  the  day  of  the  drawing.  So  long  as  this 
outrageous  system  of  gambling  is  legalized, 
so  long  will  the  Italians  be  poor,  for  every 
centime  is  saved  to  be  hopelessly  swallowed 
up  in  this  accursed  institution.  Winning  by 
it  is  so  rare  that  the  exceptional  cases  are 
known  far  and  wide.  One  peculiar  case 
occurred  a  few  years  ago.  A  scissors-grinder, 
returning  home  late  one  night  from  his  weary 
round,  conceived  the  thought  of  enter- 
ing a  cafe  for  refreshment.  He  did  so, 
but,  the  refreshment  being  strong,  it  got 
into  his  head.  In  this  state  he  staggered  off 
to  the  lottery  office  to  stake  his  weekly  franc, 
but,  in  the  condition  of  things,  being  unable 
to  see  plainly,  he  drew  from  his  pocket  a 
twenty-franc  piece,  his  savings  for  many  a 
weary  month,  and  his  cherished  treasure. 
The  next  morning,  discovering  his  loss,  he 
was  almost  beside  himself.  Conjecturing 
at  once  the  whole  state  of  the  case,  he 
rushed  headlong  to  the  office  and  there  im- 
plored the  ticket-seller  to  restore  it  to  him. 
He  cried  like  a  baby  (Italians  all  do  that, 
however,  on  the  smallest  provocation),  he 
tore  his  hair,  he  raved,  he  threw  himself  upon 
the  ground,  but  all  in  vain.  Nothing  could 
move  the  hard  heart  of  the  ticket-seller,  who 
had  got  twenty  francs  and  intended  keeping 
it.  The  poor  man  was  half  crazed,  and  for 
the  rest  of  the  week  went  about  like  one 
possessed,  unable  to  work,  unable  to  do  any- 
thing but  howl  aloud  over  his  stupidity  and 
ruin.  On  the  next  drawing  of  the  lottery 
he  was  the  triumphant  possessor  of  20,000 
francs. 

The  Florentines  are  an  economical  race, 
and  can  live  on  less,  probably,  than  any 
other  people  in  the  world.  They  are  content 
with  a  very  little — not  requiring  even  what 
we  should  call  the  necessaries  of  life. 
Their  diet  is  principally  dry  bread  (butter 
they  rarely  eat),  coffee,  macaroni,  "  lesso  " 
(boiled  beef),  and  "  minestra," — the  weak- 
est of  wishy-washy  soups.  The  last  two  are 
daily  inevitable  ;  no  matter  what  else  they 
eat,  "lesso"  and  "minestra"  they  must 
have,  or  they  would  consider  themselves 
defrauded  of  their  rights.  It  is  easy  to  live 
in  Florence  economically,  for  marketing  is 


LIFE  IN  FLORENCE. 


283 


arranged  to  suit  purses  of  any  size,  and  one 
can  buy  any  part  of  a  chicken,  even  to  a  slice 
of  the  breast  alone.  In  this  way  there  is 
no  waste,  and  only  enough  for  one  day's 
consumption  is  ever  provided. 

It  is  really  amusing  to  see  the  Florentines 
bargain.  They  would  not  consider  a  thing 
properly  bought  under  a  half  an  hour's 
talking  and  argument.  Buying  and  selling 
is  reduced  to  a  system  and  a  regular 
routine,  which,  if  neglected,  would  make 
them  unhappy,  and  consider  themselves  as 
cheated  beings.  Their  greatest  triumph  is 
the  purchase  of  an  article  at  the  lowest  rate 
possible,  and  this  is  a  source  of  boasting  for 
the  next  twenty-four  hours.  They  will  hag- 
gle over  two  or  three  centimes  until  an 
American  looker-on  could  cry  aloud  in  des- 
peration at  their  absurdity.  They  gesticu- 
late, both  talk  at  the  same  time,  and  lash 
themselves  into  such  a  state  of  excitement 
that  one  would  think  they  were  concocting 
no  less  a  plan  than  to  dethrone  the  king. 

Von  Biilow  tells  a  story  apropos  of  Ital- 
ian trading,  very  amusing,  and  scarcely 
exaggerated.  A  man,  observing  in  a  shop- 
window  an  article  marked  twelve  francs, 
thus  reasoned  to  himself :  "  The  price  is 
marked  twelve  francs.  That  means  ten. 
The  shopman  will  offer  it  for  eight.  It  is 
not  worth  more  than  six.  I  don't  want  to 
give  more  than  four — so  I'll  offer  him  two  !  " 
This  suggests  the  principles  upon  which 
trade  is  carried  on.  I  venture  to  give  an 
illustration  of  the  process,  in  the  words  that 
I  have  heard  so  often  that  they  glide  off  the 
end  of  my  pen  without  an  instant's  hesitation : 

Buyer :    "  What's  the  price  of  that  hat  ?  " 

Seller :     "  Twelve  francs,  sir." 

B.  (In  a  tone  of  astonishment.)  "  Twelve 
francs  ?  Heavens  !  What  a  price  !  " 

S.  "  It's  not  dear,  sir.  You  couldn't  get 
it  as  cheap  anywhere  else  in  town." 

B.  •  "  Nonsense  !  What's  the  lowest  price 
you'll  take  for  it  ?  " 

S.  "  Well,  as  it's  you,  I'll  give  it  for 
eleven." 

B.  "  Per  Bacco.  Why,  it's  not  worth 
half  that." 

S.     "  Well,  what  will  you  give  for  it  ?  " 

B.  "  I  wont  give  a  centime  over  six 
francs."  (This  very  decidedly,  as  if  he 
really  meant  it.) 

S.  "  Six  francs !  Why,  it  cost  me  more 
than  that ! " 

B.  "Go  along!"  (Tries  on  the  hat, 
which  is  very  becoming,  and  continues,  in  a 
coaxing  tone.)  "  Come,  now,  let's  finish  this 
affair.  Name  your  price." 


S.  "  Well,  well,  take  it  for  ten."  (Seizing 
it  as  though  everything  was  settled,  and  hur- 
riedly wrapping  it  up.) 

B.  "  Stop,  stop !  I'm  not  going  to  give 
that  price."  (Makes  for  the  door,  as  though 
he  also  thought  the  affair  ended.) 

S.  "  Stop,  sir !  Tell  me  now,  frankly, 
the  highest  price  you  will  give."  (This 
in  an  encouraging  tone,  with  head  on  one 
side  and  a  sweet  smile.) 

B.  "  Come,  I'll  give  you  seven."  (Makes 
show  of  pulling  out  pocket-book,  with  the  air 
of  having  made  a  handsome  offer  that  would 
be  snapped  at.) 

S.  (Now  beginning  to  get  excited.)  "  This 
is  more  than  I  can  bear !  We  will  talk  no 
more  about  it !  " 

B.  (Seeing  too  much  decision  in  adver- 
sary's manner.)  "  Well,  come  now  !  How 
much  will  you  take  ?  I'll  give  you  eight 
—there ! " 

S.  "  No,  no,  no  !  I  wont  sacrifice  the 
hat !  " 

This  is  the  right  moment  for  the  buyer 
to  rush  from  the  shop,  sometimes  even  get- 
ting to  the  corner  of  the  street,  when  the 
excited  seller  will  dash  after  him,  imploring 
him  to  come  back  and  take  it  for  nine  and 
a  half.  Then  work  begins  in  earnest,  and 
they  rise  and  fall  alternately  by  half-francs, 
and  sometimes  fight  over  the  last  two  sous, 
when  the  bargain  is  completed  amidst  a  tor- 
rent of  words  and  wild  gestures  and  glaring 
of  eyes,  which,  to  the  uninitiated,  would  look 
very  like  a  blood-thirsty  combat.  The  con- 
queror (which  is  the  conqueror  ?)  goes  off  with 
his  hat,  as  proud  as  the  victor  of  a  score  of 
battles,  to  show  his  hard-won  treasure  to 
admiring  friends,  who  turn  it  over  and  peer 
at  it  and  examine  it  critically,  praising  him 
for  his  shrewdness  in  making  such  a  bar- 
gain. This  hat  will  be  a  source  of  happi- 
ness to  him  for  two  or  three  days,  making 
him  a  hero  to  a  circle  of  admirers,  to  whom 
he  will  go  over  the  same  old  story  twenty 
times,  relating  his  powers  at  bargain-making 
with  as  much  interest  and  energy  the  twen- 
tieth time  as  the  first. 

The  English  merchants  in  Florence  say 
that  when  they  see  an  Italian  coming  into 
the  store  to  buy,  they  at  once  add  a  few 
francs  to  the  price  of  their  goods,  knowing 
that  those  few  francs  must  be  taken  off  before 
he  will  buy.  By  this  means,  they  get  the 
price  they  would  originally  ask  an  English- 
man. With  all  this,  the  Florentines  are  not 
avaricious.  They  only  look  upon  a  shop- 
keeper as  their  natural  enemy  for  the  time 
they  are  dealing  with  him,  and  upon  the 


284 


LIFE  IN  FLORENCE. 


amount  saved  from  his  clutches  as  so  much 
added  to  the  store  to  be  saved  for  amuse- 
ments. 

For  the  sake  of  an  evening  at  the  theater, 
or  a  few  hours  at  a  masked  ball  during  the 
months  of  carnival,  the  Florentines  will  pinch 
and  save  for  months,  and  their  enjoyment  of 
these  things  is  as  intense  as  a  child's.  Their 
histrionic  taste  generally  inclines  to  the 
old  melodrama,  in  which  the  villain  is  the 
intensest  kind  of  a  villain;  is  secret  and 
dark,  and  ready  for  any  iniquitous  proceed- 
ing, and  in  which  Innocence  is  of  the  most 
saint-like  order,  which  appeals  constantly 
and  in  a  loud  voice  to  heaven,  with  vir- 
tuous indignation,  and  which  comes  off 
triumphant  in  the  end,  causing  the  villain 
to  shrivel  up  into  a  small  heap  of  baffled 
rage  and  spite.  This  style  of  performance 
will  cause  these  excitable  people  to  shout 
and  hoot  in  derision  at  the  unfortunate  actor 
representing  the  scoundrel,  and  to  applaud 
with  loud  "bravas"  the  sallow,  dirty-look- 
ing girl  who,  under  the  guise  of  Virtue, 
flashes  her  dark  eyes  in  defiance.  The 
audience  will  even  cry  out "  Hafatto  bene  !  " 
(you  have  done  well),  or  to  the  ruffian  "Bir- 
bone.f"  (rascal),  or  shout  out  a  little  timely 
counsel  to  persecuted  Virtue. 

With  such  child-like  qualities  as  I  have 
.described,  a  propensity  to  murder  would 
scarcely  be  consistent,  and  yet  the  general 
impression  in  America,  I  find,  is  that  the 
entire  lives  of  Italians  are  given  up  to  creep- 
ing about  in  a  stealthy  manner,  for  the  pur- 
pose of  finding  some  one  to  kill.  There  are 
even  a  few — a  very  few,  though — who  always 
picture  to  themselves  an  Italian  as  a  dark, 
frowning  ruffian  wearing  a  slouch  felt  hat, 
ornamented  with  a  long  black  plume,  a 
loose  cloak  wrapped  around  him,  one  end 
being  thrown  over  his  shoulder,  and  with  a 
dagger — a  good  old  conventional  dagger — 
clutched  firmly  and  desperately.  Now,  of 
all  peoples,  I  really  must  give  the  Florentines 
credit  for  being  the  most  peaceable.  In  a 
densely  packed  crowd — a  position  prob- 
ably more  conducive  to  strong  language 
than  any  other  in  the  world — one  will  hear 
no  sounds  of  anger  or  quarreling — nothing 
but  laughter  and  good-natured  jokes  against 
one  another.  They  take  everything  easy, 
and  find  something  to  enjoy  in  every  position 
in  which  they  happen  to  be  placed. 

Respect  for  rank  is  part  of  the  education 
of  the  lower  classes.  Their  superiors  can- 
not exact  too  much,  but  are  born  to 
be  waited  on,  and  should  do  nothing 
but  amuse  themselves  or  lounge  in  an  ele- 


gant way  in  their  drawing-rooms,  and  ring 
for  the  servants  on  the  smallest  pretense, 
such  as  wanting  a  book  from  a  table  at  the 
other  end  of  the  room.  Your  servants  are 
apt  to  lose  respect  for  you  and  think  you 
no  better  than  themselves,  should  you  de- 
mean yourself  by '  opening  a  window  or 
helping  yourself  in  any  other  small  way  to 
save  them  trouble.  This  is  the  one  thing 
that  makes  them  such  capital  servants. 
They  are  taught,  not  only  to  do  everything 
that  is  told  them,  whether  it  is  their  business 
or  not,  but  to  do  it  with  a  cheerful  face  and 
polite  manner.  If  you  should  call  up  your 
cook  in  the  middle  of  the  night  to  sweep 
every  room  in  the  house,  he  would  look  so 
happy,  when  you  gave  him  the  order,  as  to 
impress  you  with  the  feeling  that  sweep- 
ing the  house  in  the  middle  of  the  night 
was  the  one  thing  he  had  eagerly  looked 
forward  to  all  the  days  of  his  life.  Their 
respect  is  shown  in  the  smallest  things;  in 
their  very  way  of  standing  in  your  presence, 
or  in  the  tones  of  their  voice  when  taking 
your  orders.  They  are  carefully  instructed 
in  every  movement  when  in  the  presence  of 
their  superiors.  I  once  heard  a  Florentine 
lady  angrily  complaining  of  the  stupidity 
of  a  new  butler;  she  said  she  had  been 
trying  to  teach  him  how  to  enter  a  room 
and  hand  her  a  note  with  the  proper  blend- 
ing of  grace,  elegance  and  respect,  and  was 
obliged  to  make  him  repeat  this  ceremony 
one  day,  with  an  imaginary  note,  six  or 
eight  times  before  he  succeeded  in  doing 
it  to  her  satisfaction. 

With  all  this  subserviency  on  the  part 
of  the  Italians,  a  lady  will  find  walking  in 
the  street  alone  a  most  annoying  proceeding, 
the  reverse  of  respect  being  shown  her. 
This  is  accounted  for  by  the  fact  that  ladies 
are  never  expected  to  be  seen  but  in  their 
carriages,  or  sauntering  about  the  cascine, 
followed  by  their  footmen ;  therefore,  the  Flor- 
entines cannot  understand  the  independent 
ways  of  American  ladies,  and  in  the  street  look 
upon  us  as  belonging  to  their  own  class.  A 
lady  has  to  fight  her  way  heroically,  and 
must  expect  to  get  shoved  about  and  hustled 
into  the  muddiest  places.  This  is.  of  course, 
exasperating,  and  at  times  I  would  lose  all 
patience  and  occasionally  attempt  to  get  the 
better  of  my  assailants.  I  never  shall  forget 
how  ingloriously  I  came  off  in  one  of  these 
encounters.  The  day  was  damp,  the  streets 
muddy,  and  the  sidewalks  too  narrow  for 
two  persons  to  pass  each  other  easily.  I  had 
been  hopping  down  off  the  pavement 
all  day,  to  make  way  for  these  men,  until 


LIFE  IN  FLORENCE. 


285 


at  last  my  temper  rose  and  I  resolved 
to  put  up  with  it  no  longer,  but  to  force  the 
next  man  I  met  down  into  the  mud.  Accord- 
ingly I  came  face  to  face  with  a  good- 
natured-looking  creature,  whom  I  thought 
it  would  be  easy  to  overthrow,  and  reso- 
lutely took  my  stand,  showing,  by  a  deter- 
mined and  unconquerable  expression  of  face, 
that  nothing  could  induce  me  to  move  from 
that  spot.  He  stopped,  looked  at  me  a 
moment  with  some  surprise,  then,  seizing 
me  suddenly,  he  waltzed  me  round  to  the 
other  side  of  him,  and  continued  on  his 
way.  I  stood  there  looking  after  him, — 
on  the  spot  he  had  whirled  me  to, — en- 
tirely speechless  with  rage,  and  I  fel:  that 
I  was  drawn  up  to  my  full  height  and  flash- 
ing lightning  from  my  eyes.  But  it  was 
quite  thrown  away  upon  him,  as  he  went 
on  entirely  unconscious  of  offense,  and, 
if  he  thought  of  it  at  all,  only  pleased 
with  himself  as  having  hit  upon  so  clever 
an  expedient  to  save  us  both  from  the 
mud. 

Only  one  other  time  did  I  assert  my  rights 
upon  this  question,  but  not  until  after  I  was 
asked  why  I  did  not  step  down  from  the 
sidewalk.  This  time  "my  grand  manner  and 
imposing  appearance  had  effect,  and  my 
opponent  hurriedly  made  way  for  me,  evi- 
dently laboring  under  the  impression,  in  a 
bewildered,  weak-minded  way,  that  I  was 
some  great  state  dignitary,  who  chose  to  be 
eccentric  for  that  occasion  and  rove  about 
Florence  alone.  On  a  rainy  day,  the  men 
would  always  keep  close  to  the  sides  of  the 
houses  under  their  broad  eaves, — the  only 
dry  part  of  the  pavement, — until  I  finally  hit 
upon  an  expedient  to  rout  them,  which  was 
simply  carrying  my  open  umbrella  close  be- 
fore my  face,  and  charging  at  them  with  the 
points.  They  would  hop  nimbly  out  of  the 
way  as  they  saw  me  dashing  recklessly  along, 
supposing  I  did  not  see  them  coming,  and 
only  on  one  occasion  was  I  obliged  to 
scratch  the  sticks  of  my  weapon  across  the 
face  of  a  man  who  attempted  making  a 
stand  in  front  of  me ;  but  I  did  it  with  such 
an  innocent  air  of  hurry  and  unconscious- 
ness of  his  presence  that  he  believed  it 
accidental. 

Rudeness  toward  women  is  not  confined 
to  the  lower  classes,  for  I  have  seen  ladies 
again  artd  again  subjected  to  such  con- 
duct, from  the  young  nobles  of  Florence, 
as  an  American  man  of  any  class  would 
blush  to  think  of.  They  will  stand  in 
crowds  about  the  door  of  their  club,  filling 
the  whole  sidewalk,  and  unless  a  lady  pass- 


ing be  personally  known  to  them  they  will 
not  stir  a  step  to  make  room  for  her,  not 
only  allowing  her  to  go  into  the  middle  of 
the  street,  but  staring  and  smiling  at  her 
in  the  most  insulting  way,  as  she  tries  to 
shrink  by  unnoticed,  and  often  calling  her 
" angela"  or  " bella"  or  " carina"  Such 
rudenesses  and  other  annoyances  are  only 
experienced  by  ladies  who  walk  alone. 
When  a  lady  is  accompanied  by  one  of 
the  muscular  sex,  none  more  weak  than  the 
Florentines,  they  being  by  no  means  a 
courageous  race.  They  are,  indeed, — not 
to  put  too  fine  a  point  upon  it, — cowardly. 
I  once  saw  a  lady  spoken  to  by  a  street 
loafer  who  supposed  her  alone,  and  when 
the  husband  stepped  forward  and  faced 
him  with  an  angry  glare,  it  was  amusing  to 
see  his  attempts  at  looking  unconscious, 
his  cough  of  unconcern  and  vacant  gaze 
into  the  sky. 

That  the  Italians  are  lazy,  in  every  class, 
high  and  low,  it  is  scarcely  necessary  for  me 
to  state.  Those  of  the  lower  classes  will 
work,  of  course,  being  obliged  to  do  so,  but 
in  a  very  unenergetic  way  and  by  fits  and 
starts,  as  they  require  a  little  money.  Go 
to  your  shoemaker,  order  a  pair  of  boots, 
and  you  will  get  them  in  two  days,  should 
he  at  that  time  have  need  of  a  few  francs 
for  the  letter}'  or  theater;  otherwise  you  may 
as  well  make  up  your  mind  to  have  your 
old  boots  blackened  up,  and  to  make  the 
best  of  them  for  another  month.  You  need 
not  send  to  him,  nor  go  to  him,  nor  scold 
him,  nor  reason  with  him.  You  might  stalk 
into  his  shop  in  a  high  state  of  indignation 
every  day  for  weeks,  and  only  wear  out 
your  temper  and  your  boots  more  than 
ever,  gaining  nothing  thereby.  He  would 
meet  you  with  the  same  good-natured 
smile,  exasperating  you  with  his  invariable 
"  Pazienza  "  (patience),  an  admonition  which 
will  never  fail  to  make  you  lose  the  little 
of  that  meritorious  quality  that  may  remain. 
You  might  perhaps  be  inclined  to  wait  with 
some  attempt  at  good  nature,  could  you  be 
sure  that  your  boots  would  be  satisfactory 
when  you  did  get  them.  But  as  surely  as 
the  sun  rises  in  the  east  will  they  be  nowhere 
near  your  size,  your  measure  having  been 
forgotten  in  the  lapse  of  time,  and  the 
whole  experience  has  to  be  repeated  again. 
This  may  seem  like  exaggeration,  but,  on 
the  contrary,  is  a  rather. mild  statement  of 
the  fact.  I  remember  a  very  severe  battle 
I  had  with  a  book-binder,  who  was  six 
months  doing  a  small  piece  of  work  for  me. 
During  the  first  few  weeks,  I  several  times 


286 


LIFE  IN  FLORENCE. 


sent  demands  that  the  two  books  should 
be  bound  and  sent  home.  The  invaria- 
ble answer  was,  "  The  signora  shall  have 
them  to-morrow."  Toward  the  end  of  the 
fifth  month  I  sent  almost  every  day,  not  for 
the  bound  books,  but  merely  for  the  two 
volumes  in  their  original  state,  as  they  were 
first  put  into  his  hands.  All  in  vain.  Then 
I  sent  threats  of  claiming  my  property  by 
means  of  the  police,  and  several  times  sent 
a  servant  with  orders  not  to  leave  the  shop 
without  them.  There  is  an  intensity  of 
rage  which  causes  extreme  outward  calm, 
and  even  suavity  of  manner ;  I  had  now 
reached  that  stage,  and  was  determined  to 
conquer  or  die.  I  decided  to  try  the  effect 
of  a  personal  interview.  As  I  entered  his 
shop  he  approached  me  with  a  sweet 
smile,  supposing  me  a  new  customer.  At 
sight  of  him,  my  rage  becoming  greater,  my 
manner  became  proportionately  blander,  and 
I  said,  with  an  equally  sweet  smile :  "  I  am 
the  proprietor  of  two  books,  sent  six  months 
ago  to  be  bound."  His  smile  took  a  sickly 
hue,  but,  true  to  his  colors,  he  said :  "  Oh, 
yes,  you  shall  have  them  to-morrow."  My 
only  reply  was,  "  Give  me  a  pen  and  paper." 
He  did  so  wonderingly,  and  with  a  slight 
look  of  alarm,  as  though  he  espied  gleams 
of  insanity.  "  Now,"  I  said,  sternly  but 
quietly,  "  write  these  words : 

"I  promise  to  send  to-morrow  to  their  rightful 
owner  two  books,  which  I  have  had  in  my  posses- 
sion, for  the  purpose  of  binding,  since  May  2d. 

L.  MOTTONI." 

He  demurred  at  this  proceeding  as  being 
a  little  out  of  the  usual  course,  but  I  merely 
said,  "  Write,  or  I  will  go  at  once  for  the 
police,"  whereupon  he  hurriedly  complied. 
So  I  got  my  books  and  bound,  too,  but  he 
was  true  to  himself  to  the  last — not  sending 
them  the  next  day,  but  the  day  after  that. 
He  was  as  difficult  to  be  bound  as  the  books 
were. 

The  upper  classes  are  idle,  partly  because 
labor  is  cheap,  and  partly  because  it  is  not 
considered  elegant  nor  befitting  a  high 
station  to  be  occupied  in  anything  that  bears 
the  remotest  resemblance  to  usefulness. 
Their  ideas  are  exclusively  confined  to 
dress,  amusements  of  all  kinds  and  flirt- 
ing. Their  chief  delight  is  the  theater  or 
opera,  where  they  go  every  night,  not  to  be 
interested  or  amused  by  the  play  or  the 
music,  but  to  meet  one  another.  However, 
let  me  do  them  the  justice  to  say  that  in- 
attention to  the  opera  is  scarcely  to  be 
wondered  at,  as  there  is  so  little  worth 


listening  to  in  that  way.  New  or  even  good 
operas  are  rarely  put  upon  the  stage,  and 
the  singing,  as  a  general  rule,  is  mediocre. 
The  reason  of  this  is  obvious,  viz.:  no  great 
singer  will  condescend  to  take  the  very 
small  compensation  offered  by  the  Floren- 
tine managers,  consequently  only  debutantes 
are  heard.  Many  of  these  poor  struggling 
girls,  far  from  expecting  even  a  moderate 
sum  for  their  exertions,  are  only  too  glad  to 
be  allowed  to  sing,  for  the  first  few  months, 
without  compensation.  They  merely  sing 
as  a  trial,  that  their  future  may  be  decided 
on.  The  critics  of  whom  they  are  most 
afraid,  and  who  really  are  the  makers  or 
maners  of  their  musical  reputation,  are 
those  of  the  middle  class — mechanics,  shop- 
keepers, etc.  I  was  very  much  astonished, 
a  few  days  after  my  arrival  in  Florence,  to 
hear  our  butler,  a  gray-haired,  respectable 
person  for  his  class,  criticise  the  singer  of 
the  evening  before  with  nice  judgment, 
seeing  small  defects,  and  using  language 
you  would  expect  only  from  an  educated 
musician.  "  She  had  a  good  voice,"  he 
said,  "but  her  method  was  bad — her  vocal- 
ization only  tolerable,"  etc.  It  is  sad,  in- 
deed, to  see  a  nation  once  so  musical,  and 
still  with  the  natural  gift  of  music  in  their 
souls,  thus  sinking  into  mediocrity.  Too 
jealous  and  too  swallowed  up  in  self-conceit 
to  keep  in  the  line  of  progress  with  othei 
nations,  the  Italians  are  content  to  rest  on 
their  old  long-established  reputation.  How- 
ever, indifferent  as  the  opera  is  there,  it  is 
always  patronized.  Each  lady  has  hei 
own  private  box  (which  is  among  the  things 
stipulated  for  in  the  marriage  settlement 
by  her  father);  here  she  sits  and  receives 
the  gentlemen  of  her  acquaintance,  who 
visit  from  box  to  box — a  nightly  New  Year's 
— until  the  end  of  the  play.  Then  she 
repairs  to  her  house,  and  at  midnight  her 
reception  begins  again — the  hour  at  which 
most  of  the  fashionable  women  open  their 
doors.  Until  two  or  three  o'clock,  or  even 
later,  this  entertainment  lasts,  consisting  of 
card-playing,  smoking  and  love-making. 
Then  the  party  breaks  up,  and  these  intel- 
lectual beings  retire  to  their  beds,  where 
they  remain  until  twelve  o'clock  the  next 
day.  Then  they  rise  and  breakfast,  smoke 
a  cigarette  and  dress  for  visiting — a  lengthy 
occupation,  as  the  minutest  details  must  be 
perfectly  carried  out,  each  gentleman  being 
especially  particular  to  see  that  the  flowers 
for  his  button-hole  harmonize  with  the 
color  of  his  coat.  I  have  heard  quite  a 
prolonged  discussion  between  two  young 


LIFE  IN  FLORENCE. 


287 


"  swells "  upon  this  subject.  Then  comes 
visiting,  and  after  that  the  event  of  the 
day,  viz.,  the  drive  to  the  cascine,  where 
the  band  plays  in  the  open  square,  and 
where  people  drive  up  and  down  in  their 
carriages,  perpetually  meeting  each  other. 
This  is  their  daily  routine,  and  all  that 
they  live  for.  They  have  no  resources,  and, 
when  the  early  dinners  of  summer  begin, 
they  fill  the  air  with  lamentations  of  ennui, 
and  say  they  have  nothing  to  do  between 
dinner  and  the  hour  for  driving.  The 
trouble  is,  very  distinctly,  want  of  education. 
They  are  superficially  brilliant— quick  at 
repartee  and  society  small-talk,  but  deeper 
than  that  they  cannot  go.  They  have  no 
solid  education  and  are  deplorably  ignorant. 
They  do  not  even  get  the  knowledge  ac- 
quired by  travel,  for  they  live  and  die  in. 
their  beloved  Florence,  never  imagining 
that  they  can  be  happy  out  of  it,  and  so 
not  trying  the  experiment.  As  to  crossing 
the  ocean,  the  bare  idea  fills  them  with 
horror  and  alarm. 

The  lower  classes  carry  their  ignorance  to 
a  point  that  is  quite  charming.  They 
have  rather  a  feeling  of  patronage  toward 
Americans  as  being  a  sort  of  Italian  creation. 
They  say  that,  had  it  not  been  for  one  of 
them,  we  never  should  have  been  discov- 
ered. My  maid  once  asked  me,  quite  earnest- 
ly, if  America  was  as  large  as  the  Baths  of 
Lucca — a  village  of  a  few  hundred  inhabit- 
ants. I  brought  to  this  country  with  me  an 
Italian  girl,  as  child's  nurse,  who  was  sublime 
in  her  knowledge  of  nothing  at  all.  While 
making  preparations  for  the  voyage  her 
mind  was  ever  on  the  stretch,  fearing  that 
she  might  forget  to  lay  in  some  common, 
necessary  article  that  it  would  be  impossible 
to  find  in  the  small  town  of  America.  She 
asked  me  if  it  would  not  be  advisable  to  get 
herself  a  pair  of  india-rubber  shoes  before 
leaving  Italy,  and  I  could  scarcely  convince 
her  that  the  very  shoes  she  purchased  there 
were  sent  from  America.  She  also  wanted 
soda,  for  washing  purposes,  and  she  took 
with  her  yards  of  common  buttons  strung  on 
a  thread.  She  confessed  to  me,  one  day, 
after  having  been  here  several  months,  that 
she  had  expected  to  find  us  all  with  monkey 
heads.  She  had  been  told  by  a  friend,  she 
said,  that  such  was  our  physiognomy. 

Even  royalty  is  not  so  well  informed  as 
it  might  be  on  points  of  general  knowledge. 
This  I  discovered  upon  the  occasion  of  my 
presentation  at  court,  when  Tuscany  was 
under  the  rule  of  its  last  Grand  Duke.  I 
stood  in  the  long  line  of  ladies,  waiting  my 


turn  to  be  honored  with  a  word  or  glance 
from  his  Highness,  feeling  a  little  nervous 
lest  I  should  fail  in  some  court  etiquette, 
to  which,  naturally,  as  an  American,  I  was 
unaccustomed.  I  watched  closely  as  the 
Grand  Duke  spoke  to  each  one,  and  noticed 
one  marked  rule,  that  he  must  not  be 
spoken  to  first.  His  chamberlain,  who  fol- 
lowed him  closely,  presented  the  lady,  who 
courtesied  to  the  ground,  and  then  stood 
respectfully  awaiting  a  word  of  greeting  or 
a  bend  of  his  head.  The  great  man  stood 
fairly  in  front  of  me,  and  the  moment  of  my 
trial  had  come.  I  braced  myself  to  do 
all  things  required  of  me  with  the  utmost 
propriety  and  rigidity  of  demeanor,  when, 
to  my  horror,  I  was  pushed  aside  by  an  old 
gentleman  who  had  accompanied  me  and 
had  been  standing  behind  me,  and  who, 
in  a  loud  tone  and  with  a  pompous  ring 
to  the  voice  (as  who  should  say,  Listen, 
Grand  Duke,  and  humble  your  haughty 
head),  exclaimed  in  English  : 

"  This  young  lady,  your  Highness,  is  the 
grand-daughter  of  Washington's  aid-de- 
camp." 

Heavens  !  Was  there  no  mouse-hole  that 
I  could  creep  into  and  be  no  more  seen  ? 
Could  I  not  gather  up  my  skirts  about  my 
feet  and  make  one  good  run  for  it,  and  get 
out  of  the  view  of  all  those  faces  looking 
at  me  with  a  half-perplexed,  half-amused 
smile  ?  The  poor  Duke  looked  utterly  be- 
wildered, seeming  at  a  loss  what  to  do.  In 
the  first  place,  all  court  etiquette  was  ruth- 
lessly swept  away  by  an  abrupt  presentation 
addressed  to  the  sovereign  himself,  and 
not  through  the  grand  chamberlain ;  in  the 
next  place,  the  language  employed  was  Eng- 
lish— an  unknown  tongue ;  and  in  the  third 
place,  even  had  he  understood,  Washington's 
aid-de-camp  was  of  no  importance  in  his 
mind,  and,  indeed,  one  might  doubt 
strongly  if  he  had  ever  even  heard  of  Wash- 
ington himself.  However,  after  a  minute  or 
two,  which  seemed  to  me  weeks  in  duration, 
he  bowed  to  me,  muttering  something  about 
"  happy  to  meet  you/'  and  "  fine  day," 
and  passed  on.  When  the  presentations 
were  past,  the  good  Duke  evidently  thought 
the  matter  over  and  made  some  historical 
inquiries,  finally  coming  to  the  conclusion 
that  Washington  had  been  a  great  man 
somewhere  or  other,  and  that  his  aid-de- 
camp was  entitled  to  honor.  The  conse- 
quence was  that  the  next  thing  I  was 
aware  of  was  the  hurrying  to  and  fro  of  the 
great  court  dignitaries  in  search  of  Washing- 
ton's aid-de-camp,  who  was  to  be  found  at 


288 


LIFE  IN  FLORENCE. 


all  costs,  and  taken  up  to  the  Duke  with 
due  formality.  Naturally  their  search  was 
fruitless,  but  for  months  afterward  I  went, 
among  my  friends,  by  the  name  of  "  Wash- 
ington's aid-de-camp."  The  old  gentleman 
who  got  me  into  this  dilemma  was  General 

M ,  a  man  well  known,  of  southern 

birth,  who  had  been  in  the  war  of  1812. 
He  was  a  gentleman  of  the  old  school,  and 
most  attractive  in  every  way,  but  unused  to 
European  customs,  as  one  may  suppose. 

After  the  frightful  incident  just  recorded, 

General  M distinguished  himself  still 

further,  in  the  course  of  the  evening,  but 
fortunately  this  time  only  to  his  own  detri- 
ment. He  had  never  seen  "  the  German  " 
danced,  and  consequently  saw  no  reason 
why  he  should  not  seat  himself  in  one  of  the 
chairs  which  he  saw  vacant  in  that  charmed 
circle.  He  did  so,  but  was  rather  aston- 
ished when  he  was  requested  to  leave  it 
by  the  gentleman  to  whom  it  belonged,  and 
who  had  just  been  dancing  in  one  of  the 
figures.  He  hesitated,  but  by  this  time  see- 
ing the  next  chair  empty,  he  got  up  and 
took  that.  The  rightful  owner  of  that  one, 
also,  soon  returned,  claiming  his  proprie- 
torship with  a  polite  bow.  General  M 

began  to  look  vexed,  and  muttered  some- 
thing not  complimentary  to  the  dancer; 
however,  again  he  moved.  And  so  the  thing 
went  on :  as  each  couple  left  to  dance  in 
turn  he  would  take  the  empty  seat,  until, 
finally,  his  patience  o'er-leaped  its  bounds, 
and  he  sturdily  refused  to  vacate  the  prem- 
ises, in  these  remarkable  words  : 

"  I'll  be  damned  if  I  move  another 
peg!" 

His  adversary,  being  Italian,  understood 
not  one  word  of  this  uncourtly  speech,  but 

seeing  by  General  M 's  manner  that 

there  was  rage  in  the  room  somewhere,  he 
became  a  little  fierce  himself.  Thereupon  the 
General  burst  into  a  torrent  of  words,  saying 
he  would  not  be  chased  about  the  room  by 
a  pack  of  whipper-snappers,  and  using  at  the 
same  time  a  little  strong  language.  At  last 
he  handed  his  card  to  the  foe,  challenging 
him  in  mortal  fight.  When  it  got  to  this 
point,  a  young  American,  seeing  the  trouble, 
came  to  the  rescue,  and  with  great  tact 
smoothed  it  all  over,  by  interpreting  the 
savage  expressions  in  each  language  as 
apologies  and  regrets,  whereupon  the  antag- 
onists shook  hands,  both  accepting  the 
excuses  which  neither  had  made. 

The  general  impression  in  this  country 
seems  to  be  that  the  Italian  women  are  all 
very  beautiful;  nothing  could  be  more 


erroneous.  In  the  lower  classes  one 
sometimes  sees  an  uncommonly  lovely  face, 
with  true  classic  features,  reminding  him  of 
the  madonnas  and  saints  of  the  old  masters; 
but  he  scarcely  recognizes  it  as  handsome 
until  some  little  time  passed  in  Italy  has 
accustomed  his  eye  to  that  peculiar  style, 
so  different  from  that  of  our  own  country- 
women, who  are  now  universally  acknowl- 
edged to  be  the  most  beautiful  women  in 
the  world.  With  the  regular  features  of  the 
Italians  there  will  always  remain  the  sallow 
complexion  and  coarse  hair.  Among  the 
upper  classes,  eyes  are  all  that  are  possessed 
in  the  way  of  beauty.  Those  features  are 
always  fine  with  the  whole  race,  and  they 
know  well  how  to  use  them  to  advantage. 
Their  features  must  be  regular  if  they  expect 
to  lay  claim  to  any  beauty,  for  they  never 
have — what  will  make  many  a  woman  pretty 
who  has  nothing  in  the  way  of  features  but 
a  turned-up  nose  and  largish  mouth,  and 
eyes  of  no  particular  charm — the  beauty  of 
youth.  A  young  face  is  rarely  seen.  I  am 
firmly  persuaded  that  they  are  thirty  years 
old  when  they  are  born  ;  at  any  rate,  I  have 
never  seen  a  woman  in  Florence  look  a  day 
younger,  but  very  many  several  days  older. 
These  remarks  refer  entirely  to  the  female 
portion.  The  men  are  handsome, — never 
very  manly  in  appearance,  but  with  very  un- 
common beauty  of  coloring,  expression  and 
features. 

In  manner  the  Italians  are  a  polished 
race,  with  a  gloss  of  refinement  which  goes  no 
deeper  than  the  surface,  their  true  nature 
being  coarse,  with  not  so  much  delicacy  of 
thought  and  feeling  as  you  would  find  in  the 
most  uneducated  American.  The  men  have 
no  chivalric  sentiment  for  women,  and  it  is 
little,  perhaps,  to  be  wondered  at,  for  their 
loose,  unhinged  ideas  of  propriety  do  not 
serve  to  make  them  objects  of  respect. 
Fashionable  life  in  Italy  is  undoubtedly 
most  corrupt,  and  the  least  said  about  it 
the  better. 

Religion  in  Italy  is  fast  dying  out,  and  a 
very  large  part  of  the  Florentines  are  not  far 
removed  from  infidels.  Rome  has  been 
edging  on,  and  arrogating  so  much  to  herself, 
that  even  the  ignorant  have  been  startled 
into  a  bewildered  feeling  that  all  was  not  as 
it  should  be.  I  one  day  saw  a  young  man  in 
the  open  streets  of  Florence  put  his  thumb  to 
his  nose  at  the  Pope's  Nuncio,  who  was 
passing  in  his  carriage.  The  common  priests 
have  no  respect  at  all  shown  them,  and,  on 
the  day  of  Victor  Emmanuel's  entrance  into 
Rome,  not  one  dared  show  himself  in  the 


LIFE  IN  FLORENCE. 


289 


street  for  fear  of  being  killed.  One  of 
the  Archbishops  of  the  Church  had  not  illu- 
minated his  house  on  the  evening  of  that 
day,  being,  no  doubt,  depressed  in  mind  at 
these  marked  signs  of  an  awakened  people. 
The  mob  surrounded  his  palace,  shouting  for 
him  in  most  peremptory  and  threatening 
style,  forcing  him,  finally,  not  only  to  appear 
upon  the  balcony,  but  to  shout,  "  Viva 
E  Italia!  Viva  Vittorio  Emmanuele!" 

Having  mentioned  many  traits  in  the  Flor- 
entine character  that  are  far  from  attractive, 
it  is  time  to  acknowledge  any  merit  that  they 
may  have.  Their  conduct  during  the  revo- 
lution of  1859  was  noble  in  its  moderation 
and  gentle  forbearance.  The  whole  affair 
was  carried  through  quietly  but  deter- 
minedly— no  threatenings,  no  violent  out- 
breaks, no  assassinations,  no  lawlessness  of 
any  kind.  A  committee  went  to  the  Grand 
Duke,  and  politely  but  firmly  requested  him 
to  leave  Florence,  with  all  the  royal  family. 
The  poor  old  man  quietly  accepted  what  he 
saw  was  inevitable,  simply  bowing  his  head 
in  acquiescence.  The  next  day  the  ducal 
carriages  were  seen  driving  through  the 
streets,  carrying  the  saddened  and  outcast 
family  past  the  gates  they  would  never  more 
enter.  They  drove  by  our  villa — a  sad  pro- 
cession— and  I  never  shall  forget  the  sight. 
The  whole  scene  was  most  touching;  in- 
side the  carriage,  the  old  Duke,  sad  and 
hopeless,  his  head  bowed  in  utter  dejection ; 
outside,  the  people  lining  the  road  to  witness 
his  departure,  and  taking  their  hats  off  in 
respectful  and  courteous  silence.  Not  one 
word  of  derision  or  triumph  was  heard ;  they 
had  gained  their  point,  and  with  true  gener- 
osity of  heart  forbore  to  insult  the  fallen. 

Why  is  it  that  so  many  Americans  choose 
Florence  as  their  residence  ?  Why,  I  ask 
again,  do  foreigners  who  live  there  enjoy 
every  moment  of  their  existence,  know- 
ing only  light-heartedness  and  catching 
the  spirit  of  the  Italians  themselves, 
entering  into  everything  gaily  and  joy- 
ously, letting  the  morrow  take  care  of 
itself?  There  is  no  doubt  in  the  world 
.  that  it  is  chiefly  owing  to  the  absence  of 
small  worries  in  the  housekeeping  line. 
There  the  house  takes  care  of  itself,  and 
rolls  along  on  the  easiest  of  casters.  The 
extent  of  your  housekeeping  in  Florence 
is  to  look  over  the  cook's  accounts  once  a 
week,  and  pay  him.  If  you  choose  to 
be  very  particular,  you  can  lock  up  your 
candles  and  sugar,  giving  them  out  when 
required.  Your  cook  goes  to  market  daily, 
choosing  provisions  to  the  amount  that  he 
VOL.  XX.— 20. 


knows  you  wish  to  lay  out  for  one  day's 
consumption,  each  item  of  which  he  puts 
down  in  a  book  for  your  inspection.  You 
are  never  obliged  to  order  your  dinner,  or, 
in  fact,  give  it  any  thought.  The  utmost 
labor  you  will  undergo  is  the  eating  of  it  when 
cooked.  Think  of  that,  you  poor  heart- 
broken American  housekeeper,  whose  mind 
can  rarely  soar  above  beef, — one-half  of 
your  day  being  occupied  in  buying  your 
food  and  the  other  half  in  trying  to  teach 
your  obstinate  or  ignorant  cook  how  to  pre- 
pare it.  Some  people  make  an  arrange- 
ment with  their  cook  to  serve  them  for  a 
certain  sum  weekly,  but  this  is  not  a  com- 
mon custom,  for  experience  has  taught  that 
one  does  not  fare  as  well  nor  as  cheaply  in 
the  long  run,  the  cook  generally  managing 
to  give  poorer  food  for  the  sake  of  pocket- 
ing what  he  can  save. 

Few  servants  are  required  for  an  average- 
sized  family,  as  they  know  their  place  and 
work  for  you  indiscriminately  and  promis- 
cuously, not  informing  you  every  .hour  of 
the  day  that  such  and  such  a  thing  is  "  not 
their  business."  And  what  wonder  that 
women,  old  before  their  time  from  constant 
conflicts  for  the  sake  of  hoxise  and  home, 
fly  in  despair  to  that  refuge  of  rest  and 
peace,  where,  in  a  few  years,  they  regain  all 
their  freshness  and  spirits,  and  "  servants  " 
form  no  longer  a  topic  of  conversation,  only 
being  thought  of  at  all  when  an  order  is  to 
be  issued.  Suppose  you  expect  a  dinner-party 
of  eight  guests.  You  merely  send  word  to  the 
cook  to  have  a  good  dinner  ready  for  that 
number,  and  tell  your  waiter,  to  whom  you 
pay  from  $10  to  $12  a  month,  to  lay  so 
many  plates.  Perhaps  you  intend  having  a 
"  conversazione  "  of  sixty  or  seventy  people. 
Instead  of  providing  oysters,  salads,  boned 
turkeys,  fillet,  ham,  etc.,  etc.,  which  will  all 
have  to  be  prepared  out  of  the  house,  you 
have  a  table  set  with  tea,  sandwiches  and 
cake — that  is  all ;  and  any  one  who  wants 
such  refreshments  in  the  course  of  the  even- 
ing can  help  himself  at  any  moment.  Of 
course,  for  a  ball  supper  is  required,  particu- 
larly as  the  guests  always  stay  until  daylight. 
One  memorable  ball,  a  most  magnificent 
affair  altogether,  was  kept  up  until  eleven 
o'clock  the  next  morning.  The  dancing-room 
was  only  opened  at  one  o'clock,  supper  was  at 
four,  the  German  commenced  at  six,  break- 
fast (chocolate,  etc.)  was  served  at  eight, 
when  dancing  recommenced  and  continued 
until  eleven  o'clock.  To  return  to  the 
housekeeping:  a  small  family  can  often 
live  comfortably  with  only  two  servants,  as 


290 


LIFE  IN  FLORENCE. 


you  can  engage  the  cook  to  take  care  of  the 
parlors  and  wait  on  table,  while  a  woman 
will  see  to  the  bed-rooms  and  very  likely 
take  care  of  a  child  or  two,  and  mend 
their  clothes,  etc.  Everything  is  so  com- 
paratively cheap  that  a  man  and  his  wife, 
with  three  children  and  three  servants,  can 
live  comfortably  and  yet  not  pay  more 
than  $25  or  $30  a  week  for  all  the  food 
consumed  in  the  house.  This  will  include 
meat,  vegetables,  butter,  bread — everything, 
in  fact,  even  red  wine  and  coal  for  cooking. 
These  are  prices  of  five  years  ago  ;  what 
they  are  now  I  should  not  venture  to  say, 
as  every  year  makes  a  difference.  Indeed, 
before  we  left  there  we  were  obliged  to 
raise  our  cook's  wages  from  $6  to  $8,  and 
felt  that  we  were  ruined.  A  woman,  too, 
who  had  been  with  us  for  several  years,  who 
was  nurse,  chamber-maid,  lady's-maid,  seam- 
stress, and  anything  else  that  she  was  told 
to  be,  had  her  wages  raised  to  $6,  which 
we  felt  was  more  than  we  could  stand. 
Mere  passing  travelers  cannot  live  as  cheaply 
as  this,  for  the  Florentines  have  two  dis- 
tinct prices — one  for  Italians  and  one  for 
Americans.  This  they  do  not  hesitate  to 
acknowledge.  I  would  always  say,  "  No, 
I  pay  no  such  price ;  I  am  a  Florentine." 
"  Ah,  I  did  not  know  that,"  would  be  the 
response ;  "  then,  of  course,  you  shall  have 
it  for  less." 

One  surfers  intolerably  from  cold  in 
Florence,  not  so  much  on  account  of  the 
outside  air,  but  owing  to  the  inadequate 
arrangements  for  heating  the  houses,  and  to 
the  stone  floors,  the  chillness  of  which  will 
penetrate  to  your  feet  through  the  thickest 
carpet.  There  is  small  doubt  that  the 
absence  of  furnace-heat  is  most  desirable 
as  regards  health,  but  it  seems  cruel  that  no 
happy  medium  can  be  struck  between  that 
and  no  heat  at  all, — between  floating  about 
one's  house  in  a  light  costume  and  thin 
slippers,  and  huddling  over  a  few  small 
sticks  of  wood,  smouldering  in  a  most 
minute  fire-place,  wrapped  up  in  the  thick- 
est clothes,  with  shawls  on,  and  your  feet 
clad  in  the  heaviest  walking-boots.  The 
only  true  way  to  keep  warm  there  is  to  go 
outdoors  and  stay  out,  and  this  probably 
accounts  for  the  constantly  crowded  streets. 
Gas,  too,  would  be  acceptable,  if  it  were 
only  used  to  light  up  the  dark  entrances  to 
houses,  in  many  of  which  one  is  obliged 
almost  to  grope  his  way  up  the  prison-like 
stone  stairs — the  common  property  of  each 
set  of  apartments  on  the  different  stories. 

The   charming    society   of   the   resident 


Americans  and  English,  of  which  there  is 
quite  a  large  circle,  is  a  very  great  attrac- 
tion, but  Florence  suits  all  tastes,  and  those 
who  like  variety  can  get  it  to  perfection 
in  the  traveling  society.  As  it  is  impossible 
to  get  the  natives  to  move  from  it,  so  in 
due  proportion,  making  the  most  accurate 
balance,  do  the  Americans  fly  in  and  out, 
hither  and  thither,  until  one  is  almost  dazed. 
These  restless  mortals  never  seem  able  to 
stay  in  one  place  a  week.  You  scarcely  get 
acquainted  with  their  names  before  they 
have  gone,  and  another  Jack-in-the-box 
jumps  up  at  you.  You  would  scarcely  be 
astonished  to  see  one  of  these  unsettled 
beings  in  the  course  of  an  introduction  fade 
away  before  your  eyes,  while  another  grad- 
ually makes  his  appearance.  It  requires  a 
constant,  painful  effort  of  memory  to  dis- 
tinguish and  remember  names  and  faces. 
Every  sort  of  person  from  every  sort  of 
motive  goes  to  Florence,  making  the  close 
observation  of  men  and  manners  there  a 
most  amusing  study.  Some  go  there  for 
their  health,  some  for  gayety,  some  for  rest 
and  some  for  excitement ;  some  because  they 
have  lost  money  and  wish  to  economize,  and 
others  because  they  have  made  a  fortune  and 
want  to  spend  it.  Among  the  last-named 
came  a  lady  of  newly  acquired  wealth,  wish- 
ing to  purchase  copies  of  the  old  masters  to 
ornament  her  New  York  residence.  She  was 
much  pleased  with  the  picture  of  "  Judith 
and  Holofernes,"  and  stood  entranced  be- 
fore it,  watching  the  grand  pose  of  Judith,  as 
shestands  erect  and  daring,  with  the  sword  in 
one  hand  and  the  bloody  head  of  Holofer- 
nes suspended  in  triumph  in  the  other. 
She  at  once  went  to  an  artist  and  ordered  a 
copy  of  this  renowned  work,  with  only  one 
"  slight "  alteration  :  the  bloody  head,  she 
said,  made  her  nervous  and  uncomfortable, 
so  she  desired  that  Judith  should  hold  a 
basket  of  flowers  instead. 

I  was  walking  one  day  through  the  Uffizzi 
Palace,  when  I  heard  a  voice  calling  out : 

"  Papa,  come  here,  and  look  at  Titian's 
'Flora.'" 

I  turned,  and  beheld  one  of  the  common- 
est sights  in  Florence — an  American  family 
dutifully  going  through  the  orthodox  won- 
ders of  the  place,  with  no  glimmer  of  real 
appreciation  for  the  works  of  art  about  them. 
The  reply  of  the  worthy  man  I  shall  never 
forget,  nor  its  tone  of  mildly  reproaching 
astonishment : 

"  My  dear,  I  don't  want  to  see  that.  I 
have  a  copy  of  it  at  home,  you  know." 

But  as  a  display  of  real  and  unblushing 


LIFE  IN  FLORENCE. 


291 


ignorance,  what  I  am  now  about  to  relate 
is  entirely  satisfactory.  An  American  youth, 
who  was  "  doing "  the  sights  under  the 
escort  of  a  friend  residing  in  Florence,  was 
shown,  among  other  works  of  art,  the 
famous  group  of"  The  Rape  of  the  Sabines." 
Seeming  rather  bewildered  in  regard  to  it, 
and  unable  to  see  its  meaning,  his  friend 
explained  it,  telling  him  briefly  the  historical 
event  which  the  marble  figures  represented. 
He  listened  with  rapt  attention  and  with 
evident  interest,  and  then,  stroking  his  chin 
with  a  thoughtful  air,  he  exclaimed  : 
"  Ah  !  Did  that  occur  lately  ?  " 
These  anecdotes  serve  as  specimens  to 
show  one  sort  of  traveling  foreigner  in 
European  lands.  It  was  my  fortune  to 
know  of  a  tourist  of  a  different  stamp,  one  of 
the  most  remarkable  characters  of  his  kind. 
During  our  residence  in  Florence  a  young 
man  suddenly  arose  in  the  social  horizon 
who  took  the  city  by  storm — not  owing 
to  his  appearance,  certainly,  which  was 
rather  common,  nor  to  his  manners,  which 
were  so  easy  that  an  enemy  might  in- 
cline to  call  them  impertinent.  He  was 
high-born  and  rich,  therefore  no  enemy 
appeared.  He  was  high-born,  for  he 
announced  himself  to  be  of  the  English 
Douglases;  he  was  rich,  for  he  gave 
grand  entertainments,  at  which  all  the  creme 
de  la  creme  of  Florentine  society  appeared,  in 
aristocratic  magnificence.  He  gave  splen- 
did presents  to  the  ladies,  kept  a  running 
account  at  all  the  principal  stores,  was  seen 
everywhere  dashing  about,  and  was  regarded 
with  envy  by  thousands.  He  was  honored 
by  notice  from  high  places,  was  one  of  the 
two  or  three  selected  as  fit  guests  to  meet 
Lord  Russell  at  dinner  while  the  latter  was 
on  a  visit  to  the  English  embassador,  and 
was  even  requested  to  dance  with  the  daugh- 
ter of  the  Grand- Duchess  Marie,  of  Russia. 
He  was  allowed  to  do  many  things  which 
would  be  considered  in  ordinary  mortals,  to 
put  it  mildly,  discourteous, — such  as  lying 
on  the  sofa  in  the  presence  of  ladies.  The 
excuse,  however,  for  this  peculiar  proceed- 
ing was  ill-health.  He  said  his  lungs  were 
affected,  and  if  by  accident  his  pocket-hand- 
kerchief fell  to  the  ground,  he  would  hur- 
riedly pick  it  up,  "  for  fear,"  he  would  say 
in  a  low  voice  to  some  one  near  him — "  for 
fear  the  ladies  should  see  the  blood  upon  it." 
He  became  very  intimate  with  Charles 
Lever/  the  novelist,  who  was  always  amiably 
inclined  to  rank,  and  at  whose  house  one 
was  always  sure  of  meeting  every  celebrity 
passing  through  Florence,  whether  aristo- 


cratic or  literary.  A  word  here  about  the 
writer  of  the  well-known  "  Charles  O'Mal- 
ley  "  would  not  be  out  of  place.  We  knew 
him  well,  and  a  more  genial,  'warm-hearted 
man  or  a  more  brilliant  talker  it  would  be 
hard  to  meet.  He  was  essentially  a  good 
companion,  full  of  wit  and  humor,  with  a 
fluency  and  command  of  language  most 
remarkable.  He  could  go  on  indefinitely 
with  amusing  stories  or  appropriate  anec- 
dotes, told  with  a  piquant  Irish  accent,  until 
hearers  would  fairly  cry  with  laughing, 
and  beg  him  to  stop.  It  is  said  he  wrote 
as  easily  as  he  talked,  his  pen  never  stop- 
ping for  an  instant.  His  ruling  passion 
was  whist,  which  he  played  every  night 
of  his  life  until  nearly  daylight.  With 
all  Lever's  worldly  knowledge,  he  was  a 
man  of  almost  child-like  credulity,  and  was 
easily  duped.  He  was  swindled  to  a  very 
heavy  amount  at  one  time,  by  a  man  whose 
name  presented  the  incredible  combination 
of  Napoleon  Finn,  and  who,  after  deceiving 
Lever  for  years,  was  caught  and  imprisoned 
at  Trieste. 

To  return  to  Douglas.  As  the  spring 
came  on,  the  Florentine  mind  began  to  bud 
and  put  forth  ideas,  and  at  last  became  sus- 
picious of  this  society  favorite.  Although 
many  bills  were  run  up,  none  seemed  to  be 
fully  paid.  He  always  had  a  plausible 
reason  why  he  was  out  of  money.  He 
resorted  to  the  cleverest  expedients  to  blind 
those  about  him.  A  few  days  after  his 
arrival  in  Florence  he  deposited  several 
valuable  articles  of  jewelry  at  the  principal 
jeweler's,  as  he  feared,  he  said,  to  keep 
such  things  at  a  hotel,  where  he  might  be 
robbed.  Of  course  this  deceived  the  jeweler, 
who  was  delighted  to  give  credit  to  so 
rich  a  man,  and  Douglas  bought  bracelets 
and  rings  to  an  alarming  extent,  which 
he  presented  to  different  ladies  as  little 
tokens  of  friendship  or  love.  His  credit 
once  established,  he  removed  the  jewels  he 
had  deposited  on  pretense  of  wishing  to  wear 
them.  The  man's  unblushing  coolness  and 
entire  fearlessness,  combined  with  such  rare 
powers  of  invention,  made  him  a  genius. 

He  managed  to  make  Count   B ,   a 

man  of  high  rank  in  Florence,  believe  him 
to  be  his  own  cousin,  whom  he  had  never 
seen,  owing  to  a  long  residence  in.  India. 
The  Count  was  connected  with  the'  Doug- 
lases, and,  the  relationship  being  most  satis- 
factorily proved,  invited  this  precious  youth 
to  stay  at  his  house,  and  introduced  him 
into  the  best  society.  The  ladies  all  ran 
after  him,  young  men  of  rank  and  wealth 


292 


LIFE  IN  FLORENCE. 


made  him  their  boon  companion,  and  he 
was  gazed  at  with  envy  by  admiring 
crowds.  Once  he  contrived  to  borrow  a  large 
sum  from  the  head  of  one  of  the  prin- 
cipal restaurants,  to  whom  already  he 
owed  enormous  sums,  on  the  excuse  that 
ladies  had  commissioned  him  to  get  gloves, 
etc.,  in  Paris,  where  he  was  going  for 
a  few  days,  and  had  not  advanced  the 
money  for  them.  "  Of  course,"  he  added, 
confidentially,  "  I  could  not  ask  them  for  it, 
or  tell  them  that  my  remittance  from  Eng- 
land did  not  arrive  yesterday  as  I  had  expect- 
ed." It  is  almost  unnecessary  to  state  that 
the  ladies  had  given  him  the  money,  which,  in 
addition  to  that  extorted  from  the  restaurant- 
keeper,  made  a  very  respectable  sum  to  pay 
his  traveling  expenses  and  start  credit  in  a 
new  field,  which  he  did.  As  some  time  elapsed 
and  he  did  not  return  from  "  Paris,"  suspi- 
cions crept  reluctantly  into  the  hearts  of  his 
adorers,  but  more  especially  into  the  heads 
of  his  bankers,  until  one  adventurous  soul, 
feeling  his  absence  more  keenly,  perhaps, 
than  the  others  pecuniarily,  took  the  bold 
resolution  of  sending  a  detective  after  him 
to  Genoa,  where  it  had  been  discovered 
he  was  residing.  For  some  reason  en- 
tirely inexplicable,  no  description  of  him 
was  taken,  and  the  detective  set  off  with  a 
bland  confidence  in  his  own  unassisted 
powers.  Upon  reaching  Genoa  he  went  to 
the  principal  hotel,  and  asked  if  Captain 
Douglas  was  staying  there.  A  gentleman 
lounging  about  the  hall  and  overhearing 
the  question,  stepped  forward,  and  told  him 
that  the  person  in  demand  was  not  at  this 
hotel  but  at  one  not  far  off,  and  that,  feeling 
himself  some  interest  in  Douglas's  capture, 
he  would  like  to  have  a  conversation  on  the 
subject  with  him,  adding  that  he  thought 
he  himself  might  be  of  some  assistance  in 
tracing  this  cunning  impostor. 

"But  first,"  the  gentleman  said,  "I  must 
have  my  breakfast.  I  will  order  it  now, 
and  should  be  glad  if  you  would  join  me. 
This  will  give  us  time  to  talk  matters  over, 
and  I  will  tell  you  what  I  know  of  him." 
Accordingly,  during  a  sumptuous  deje&ner 
a  lafourchette,  consisting  of  endless  courses 
and  expensive  wines,  they  did  talk  the  mat- 
ter over,  most  exhaustively.  When  break- 
fast was  at  an  end,  the  host  rose  from  the 
table  and  went  into  his  bed-room  adjoining 
to  get  his  hat,  telling  his  guest  he  would 
join  him  in  a  few  moments  and  start  on 
the  search.  The  detective  waited  so  long 


that  he  got  impatient,  went  to  the  bed-room 
door,  opened  it,  found  it  was  not  a  room, 
but  merely  another  exit  into  the  hall,  and 
then  gradually,  but  surely,  awoke  to  the  fact 
that  he  had  breakfasted  with  Douglas  him- 
self, who  had  decamped  and  left  him  to 
pay  the  breakfast  bill ! 

The  most  amusing  incident  in  this  man's 
Florentine  career  was  one  which  caused 
much  merriment  at  the  expense  of  Lever,  who 
went  off  to  Trieste  one  day  with  Douglas ; 
the  arrangement  having  been  made  between 
them  before  starting  that  Douglas  should 
"  do  the  ordering  "  on  the  way  and  Lever  the 
paying,  and  that  all  accounts  should  be  set- 
tled upon  their  return  home.  The  conse- 
quence was  that  the  ordering  was  on  a  very 
extensive  scale,  and  one  which  Lever  was 
unaccustomed  to  and  unable  to  afford.  He, 
however,'  had  not  the  moral  courage  to 
moderate  the  great  Douglas,  and  so  con- 
tinued meekly  paying  frightful  bills  wher- 
ever they  went,  for  which,  of  course,  no 
settlements  were  made.  During  their  stay  in 
Trieste,  Lever  told  Douglas  with  great  gustc 
of  the  Napoleon  Finn  swindle,  entering 
into  details,  and  telling  the  joke  againsl 
himself  most  good-humoredly.  Whereupon 
Douglas  expressed  a  wish  to  see  such  a  clevei 
fellow.  Accordingly  they  sauntered  off  tc 
the  prison,  and  were  at  once  admitted  to  the 
prisoner's  cell.  Lever  introduced  the  twc 
men,  who  at  once  displayed  the  most  cordial 
feeling  for  each  other.  Napoleon  Fine 
lamented  his  fate,  sighing  over  the  fact  that, 
when  his  term  of  imprisonment  should  end, 
he  would  be  an  "  outcast  and  friendless,  with 
no  means  of  getting  an  honest  living,"  etc. 
Douglas  grasped  him  by  the  hand  and  said, 
"  You  shall  never  want  a  friend  while  I  am 
alive.  Come  to  me  when  you  are  free,  and 
I  will  give 'you  work,  and  do  all  in  my  powei 
to  assist  you.  I  can  thoroughly  sympathize 
with  your  feelings," — and  I  really  think  he 
could.  Poor  Lever's  life  after  this  was 
scarcely  worth  having,  so  cruelly  was  he 
laughed  at  for  having  presented  the  two 
impostors  to  each  other. 

Florence  holds  peculiar  people  of  its  own 
and  of  every  other  nation.  Peculiarly  good 
people  and  peculiarly  bad,  and  peculiarly 
peculiar.  Taking  it  all  in  all,  there  is  an  inex- 
plicable charm  about  it  making  it  unique.  It 
is  a  bright,  cheerful,  gay,  easy-going,  lazy- 
lounging,  dear  old  town  that,  once  known 
and  lived  in,  can  never  be  forgotten,  or 
thought  of  with  indifference. 


MY  FRIEND  MRS.  ANGEL. 


293 


MY  FRIEND  MRS.  ANGEL. 


A    WASHINGTON    SKETCH. 


MY  acquaintance  with  Mrs.  Angel  dates 
from  the  hour  she  called  upon  me,  in  re- 
sponse to  my  application  at  a  ladies'  furnish- 
ing store  for  a  seamstress ;  and  the  growth 
of  the  acquaintance,  as  well  as  the  some- 
what peculiar  character  which  it  assumed, 
was  doubtless  due  to  the  interest  I  betrayed 
in  the  history  of  her  early  life,  as  related  to 
me  at  different  times,  frankly  and  with 
unconscious  pathos  and  humor. 

Her  parents  were  of  the  "  poor  white  " 
class  and  lived  in  some  remote  Virginian 
wild,  whose  precise  locality,  owing  to  the 
narrator's  vague  geographical  knowledge,  I 
could  never  ascertain.  She  was  the  oldest  of 
fifteen  children,  all  of  whom  were  brought  up 
without  the  first  rudiments  of  an  education, 
and  ruled  over  with  brutal  tyranny  by  a 
father  whose  sole  object  in  life  was  to'  vie 
with  his  neighbors  in  the  consumption  of 
"  black  jack "  and  corn  whisky,  and  to 
extract  the  maximum  of  labor  from  his 
numerous  progeny, — his  paternal  affection 
finding  vent  in  the  oft-repeated  phrase, 
"  Burn  'em,  I  wish  I  could  sell  some  on  'em!" 
The  boys,  as  they  became  old  enough  to 
realize  the  situation,  ran  away  in  regular  suc- 
cession;— the  girls,  in  the  forlorn  hope  of 
exchanging  a  cruel  master  for  one  less  so, 
drifted  into  matrimony  at  the  earliest  possible 
age.  Mrs.  Angel,  at  the  age  of  sixteen,  mar- 
ried a  man  of  her  own  class,  who  found  his 
way  in  course  of  time  to  Washington  and 
became  a  day-laborer  in  the  Navy  Yard. 

It  would  be  interesting,  if  practicable,  to 
trace  the  subtle  laws  by  which  this  woman 
became  possessed  of  a  beauty  of  feature  and 
form,  and  color,  which  a  youth  spent  in  field- 
work,  twenty  subsequent  years  of  maternity 
and  domestic  labor,  and  a  life-long  diet  of 
the  coarsest  description,  have  not  succeeded 
in  obliterating.  Blue,  heavily  fringed  eyes, 
wanting  only  intelligence  to  make  them 
really  beautiful ;  dark,  wavy  hair,  delicately 
formed  ears,  taper  fingers,  and  a  fair,  though 
faded  complexion,  tell  of  a  youth  whose 
beauty  must  have  been  striking. 

She  seldom  alluded  to  her  husband  at  all, 
and  never  by  name,  the  brief  pronoun  "  he  " 
answering  all  purposes,  and  this  invariably 
uttered  in  a  tone  of  resentment  and  contempt, 
which  the  story  of  his  wooing  sufficiently 
accounts  for. 


"His  folks  lived  over  t'other  side  the 
mount'n,"  she  related,  "  an'  he  was  dead  sot 
an'  determined  he'd  have  me.  I  never 
did  see  a  man  so  sot !  The  Lord  knows 
why!  He  used  ter  foller  me  'round  an'  set 
an'  set,  day  in  an'  day  out.  I  kep'  a-tellin' 
of  him  I  couldn't  a-bear  him,  an'  when  I 
said  it,  he'd  jess  look  at  me  an'  kind  o'  grin, 
like,  an'  never  say  nothin',  but  keep  on  a- 
settin'  'roun'.  Mother  she  didn't  dare  say  a 
word,  'cause  she  knowed  father  'lowed  I 
should  have  him  whether  or  no.  '  'Taint 
no  use,  Calline,'  she'd  say,  '  ye  might  as  well 
give  up  fust  as  last.'  Then  he  got  ter 
comin'  every  day,  an1  he  an'  father  jess  .  ot 
an'  smoked,  an'  drunk  whisky,  an'  he  a-star- 
in'  at  me  all  the  time  as  if  he  was  crazy,  like. 
Bimeby  I  took  ter  hidin'  when  he  come. 
Sometimes  I  hid  in  the  cow-shed,  an' 
sometimes  in  the  woods,  an'  waited  till 
he'd  cl'ared  out,  an'  then  when  I  come  in 
the  house,  father  he'd  out  with  his  cowhide, 
an'  whip  me.  '  I'll  teach  ye,'  he'd  say,  swearin' 
awful,  '  I'll  teach  ye  ter  honor  yer  father  an* 
mother,  as  brought  ye  inter  the  world,  ye 
hussy  ! '  An'  after  a  while,  what  with  that, 
an'  seein'  mother  a-cryin'  'roun',  I  begun 
ter  git  enough  of  it,  an'  at  last  I  got  so  I 
didn't  keer.  So  I  stood  up  an'  let  him  mar- 
ry me ;  but,"  she  added,  with  smouldering 
fire  in  her  faded  blue  eyes,  "  I  'lowed  I'd 
make  him  sorry  fur  it,  an'  I  reckon  I  hev  ! 
But  he  wont  let  gn.  Ketch  him  !" 

This,  and  her  subsequent  history,  her 
valorous  struggle  with  poverty,  her  industry 
and  tidiness,  her  intense,  though  blindly 
foolish,  love  for  her  numerous  offspring,  and 
a  general  soft-heartedness  toward  all  the 
world,  except  "  niggers  "  and  the  father  of 
her  children,  interested  me  in  the  woman 
to  an  extent  which  has  proved  disastrous  to 
my  comfort — and  pocket.  I  cannot  tell 
how  it  came  about,  but  at  an  early  period 
of  our  acquaintance  Mrs.  Angel  began  to 
take  a  lively  interest  in  my  wardrobe,  not 
only  promptly  securing  such  articles  as  I 
had  already  condemned  as  being  too  shabby, 
even  for  the  wear  of  an  elderly  Government 
employe,  but  going  to  the  length  of  sug- 
gesting the  laying  aside  of  others  which  I 
had  modestly  deemed  capable  of  longer 
service.  From  this,  it  was  but  a  step  to 
placing  a  species  of  lien  upon  all  newly 


294 


MY  FRIEND  MRS.  ANGEL. 


purchased  garments,  upon  which  she  freely 
commented,  with  a  view  to  their  ultimate 
destination.  It  is  not  pleasant  to  go 
through  the  world  with  the  feeling  of  being 
mortgaged  as  to  one's  apparel,  but  though 
there  have  been  moments  when  I  have  medi- 
tated rebellion,  I  have  never  been  able  to 
decide  upon  any  practicable  course  of 
action. 

I  cannot  recall  the  time  when  Mrs.  Angel 
left  my  room  without  a  package  of  some 
description.  She  carries  with  her  always 
a  black  satchel,  possessing  the  capacity  and 
insatiability  of  a  conjurer's  bag,  but,  unlike 
that  article,  while  anything  may  be  gotten 
into  it,  nothing  ever  comes  out  of  it. 

Her  power  of  absorption  is  simply  mar- 
velous. Fortunately,  however,  the  demon  of 
desire  which  possesses  her  may  be  appeased, 
all  other  means  failing,  with  such  trifles 
a  a  row  of  pins,  a  few  needles,  or  even 
stale  newspapers. 

"  He  reads  'em,"  she  explained,  concern- 
ing the  last,  "  an'  then  I  dresses  my  pantry- 
shelves  with  'em." 

"It  is  a  wonder  your  husband  never 
taught  you  to  read,"  I  said  once,  seeing  how 
wistfully  she  was  turning  the  pages  of  a 
"  Harper's  Weekly." 

The  look  of  concentrated  hate  flashed 
into  her  face  again. 

"  He  'lows  a  woman  aint  got  no  call  ter 
read,"  she  answered,  bitterly.  "  I  allers 
laid  off  to  larn,  jess  ter  spie  him,  but  I 
aint  never  got  to  it  yit." 

I  came  home  from  my  office  one  day 
late  in  autumn,  to  find  Mrs.  Angel  sitting  by 
the  fire  in  my  room,  which,  as  I  board  with 
friends,  is  never  locked.  Her  customary 
trappings  of  woe  were  enhanced  by  a 
new  veil  of  cheap  crape  which  swept  the 
floor,  and  her  round,  rosy  visage  wore 
an  expression  of  deep,  unmitigated  grief. 
A  patch  of  poudre  de  riz  ornamented  her 
tip-tilted  nose,  a  delicate  aroma  of  Farina 
cologne-water  pervaded  the  atmosphere, 
and  the  handle  of  my  ivory-backed  hair- 
brush protruded  significantly  from  one  of 
the  drawers  of  my  dressing-bureau. 

I  glanced  at  her  apprehensively.  My 
first  thought  was  that  the  somewhat  mythi- 
cal personage  known  as  "  he  "  had  finally 
shuffled  himself  out  of  existence.  I  ap- 
proached her  respectfully. 

"  Good-evenin',"  she  murmured.  "  Pretty 
day ! " 

"  How  do  you  do,  Mrs.  Angel  ?  "  I  re- 
sponded, sympathetically.  "You  seem  to 
be  in  trouble.  What  has  happened  ?  " 


"  A  heap ! "  was  the  dismal  answer. 
"  Old  Mr.  Lawson's  dead  !  " 

"  Ah  !  Was  he  a  near  relative  of  yours  ?  " 
I  inquired. 

"  Well,"  she  answered, — somewhat  dubi- 
ously, I  thought, — "  not  so  nigh.  He  wasn't 
rightly  no  kin.  His  fust  wife's  sister  married 
my  oldest  sister's  husband's  mother — but  we's 
allers  knowed  him,  an'  he  was  allers  a-comin' 
an'  a-goin'  amongst  us  like  one  o'  the  family. 
An'  if  ever  they  was  a  saint  he  was  one ! " 

Here  she  wiped  away  a  furtive  tear  with 
a  new  black-bordered  kerchief.  I  was 
silent,  feeling  any  expression  of  sympathy 
on  my  part  inadequate  to  the  occasion. 

"  He  was  prepared"  she  resumed,  pres- 
ently, "  ef  ever  a  man  was.  He  got  religion 
about  forty  year  ago — that  time  all  the 
stars  fell  down,  ye  know.  He'd  been  ter 
see  his  gal,  an'  was  goin'  home  late,  and  the 
stars  was  a-fallin',  and  he  was  took  then. 
He  went  into  a  barn,  an'  begun  prayin",  an' 
he  aint  never  stopped  sence." 

Again  the  black-bordered  handkerchief 
was  brought  into  requisition. 

"  How  are  the  children  ?  "  I  ventured, 
after  a  pause. 

"  Po'ly !  "  was  the  discouraging  answer. 
"Jinny  an'  Nely  an'  John  Henry  has  all 
had  the  croup.  I've  been  a-rubbin'  of  'em 
with  Radway's  Relief  an'  British  ile,  an' 
a-givin'  on  it  to  'em  internal,  fur  two  days 
an'  nights  runnin'.  Both  bottles  is  empty 
now,  and  the  Lord  knows  where  the  next  is 
ter  come  from,  fur  we  aint  got  no  credit  at 
the  'pothecary's.  He's  out  o'  work  ag'in, 
an'  they  aint  a  stick  o'  wood  in  the  shed, 
an'  'the  grocer-man  says  he  wants  some 
money  putty  soon.  Ef  my  hens  would  only 
lay " 

•"  It  was  unfortunate,"  I  could  not  help 
saying,  with  a  glance  at  the  veil  and  hand- 
kerchief, "  that  you  felt  obliged  to  purchase 
additional  mourning  just  when  things  were 
looking  so  badly." 

She  gave  me  a  sharp  glance,  a  glow  of 
something  like  resentment  crept  into  her 
face. 

"All  our  family  puts  on  black  fur  kin,  ef 
it  aint  so  nigh !  "  she  remarked  with  dignity. 

A  lineal  descendant  of  an  English  earl 
could  not  have  uttered  the  words  "  our 
family"  with  more  hauteur.  I  felt  the 
rebuke. 

"  Besides,"  she  added,  naively,  "  the  store- 
keeper trusted  me  fur  'em." 

"  If  only  Phenie  could  git  work,"  she 
resumed,  presently,  giving  me  a  peculiar 
side-glance  with  which  custom  had  rendered 


MY  FRIEND  MRS.  ANGEL. 


295 


me  familiar,  it  being  the  invariable  precursor 
of  a  request,  or  a  sly  suggestion.  "  She's 
only  fifteen,  an'  she  aint  over  'n'  above  strong, 
but  she's  got  learnin'.  She  only  left  off 
school  a  year  ago  come  spring,  an'  she  can 
do  right  smart.  There's  Sam  Weaver's  gal, 
as  lives  nex'  do'  to  us,  she's  got  a  place  in  the 
printin'- office  where  she  'arns  her  twenty-five 
dollars  a  month,  an'  she  never  seen  the  day 
as  she  could  read  like  Phenie,  an'  she's  ugly 
as  sin,  too." 

It  occurred  to  me  just  here  that  I  had 
heard  of  an  additional  force  being  tempo- 
rarily required  in  the  Printing  Bureau.  I 
resolved  to  use  what  influence  I  possessed 
with  a  prominent  official,  a  friend  of  "  better 
days,"  to  obtain  employment  for  "  Phenie," 
for,  with  all  the  poor  woman's  faults  and 
weaknesses,  I  knew  that  her  distress  was 
genuine.  Work  was  scarce,  and  there  were 
many  mouths  to  feed  in  that  forlorn  little 
house  at  the  Navy  Yard. 

"  I  will  see  if  I  can  find  some  employment 
for  your  daughter,"  I  said,  after  reflecting  a 
few  moments.  "  Come  here  Saturday  even- 
ing, and  I  will  let  you  know  the  result." 

I  knew,  by  the  sudden  animation  visible 
in  Mrs.  Angel's  face,  that  this  was  what  she 
had  hoped  for  and  expected. 

When  I  came  from  the  office  on  Saturday 
evening,  I  found  Mrs.  Angel  and  her  daughter 
awaiting  me.  She  had  often  alluded  to  Phe- 
nie with  maternal  pride,  as  a  "  good-lookin' 
gal/'  but  I  was  entirely  unprepared  for  such 
a  vision  as,  at  her  mother's  bidding,  ad- 
vanced to  greet  me.  It  occurred  to  me  that 
Mrs.  Angel  herself  must  have  once  looked 
somewhat  as  Phenie  did  now,  except  as  to  the 
eyes.  That  much-contemned  "  he "  must 
have  been  responsible  for  the  large,  velvety 
black  eyes  which  met  mine  with  such  a  timid, 
deprecating  glance. 

She  was  small  and  perfectly  shaped,  and 
there  was  enough  of  vivid  coloring  and  grace- 
ful curve  about  her  to  have  furnished  a  dozen 
ordinary  society  belles.  Her  hair  fell  loosely 
to  her  waist  in  the  then  prevailing  fashion,  a 
silken,  wavy,  chestnut  mass.  A  shabby  little 
hat  was  perched  on  one  side  her  pretty  head, 
and  the  tightly  fitting  basque  of  her  dress  of 
cheap  and  faded  blue  exposed  her  white 
throat  almost  too  freely.  I  was  glad  that  I 
could  answer  the  anxious  pleading  of  those 
eyes  in  a  manner  not  disappointing.  The 
girl's  joy  was  a  pretty  thing  to  witness  as 
I  told  her  mother  that  my  application  had 
been  successful,  and  that  Phenie  would  be 
assigned  work  on  Monday. 


"He  'lowed  she  wouldn't  git  in,"  remarked 
Mrs.  Angel,  triumphantly,  "  an'  as  fur 
Columbus,  he  didn't  want  her  to  git  in  no 
how." 

"  Oh  maw  .'  "  interrupted  Phenie,  blush- 
ing like  a  June  rose. 

"  Oh,  what's  the  use !  "  continued  her 
mother.  "  Columbus  says  he  wouldn't  'low 
it  nohow  ef  he'd  got  a  good  stan'.  He  says 
as  soon  as  ever  he  gits  inter  business  fur 
hisself " 

"  Oh  maw  !  "  interposed  Phenie  again, 
going  to  the  window  to  hide  her  blushes. 

"  Columbus  is  a  butcher  by  trade,"  went 
on  Mrs.  Angel,  in  a  confidential  whisper, 
"  an'  Phenie,  she  don't  like  the  idee  of  it. 
I  tell  her  she's  foolish,  but  she  don't  like  it. 
I  reckon  it's  readin'  them  story-papers,  all 
about  counts,  an'  lords,  an  sich,  as  has  set 
her  agin'  butcherin'.  But  Columbus,  he 
jess  loves  the  groun'  she  walks  on,  an'  he's 
a-goin'  ter  hucksterin'  as  soon  as  ever  he  can 
git  a  good  stan'." 

I  expressed  a  deep  interest  in  the  suc- 
cess of  Columbus,  and  rescued  Phenie  from 
her  agony  of  confusion  by  some  remarks 
upon  other  themes  of  a  less  personal 
nature.  Soon  after,  mother  and  daughter 
departed. 

Eight  o'clock  Monday  morning  brought 
Phenie,  looking  elated,  yet  nervous.  She 
wore  the  faded  blue  dress,  but  a  smart 
"  butterfly-bow  "  of  rose-pink  was  perched 
in  her  shining  hair,  and  another  was  at  her 
throat.  As  we  entered  the  Treasury  build- 
ing, I  saw  that  she  turned  pale  and  trembled 
as  if  with  awe,  and  as  we  passed  on  through 
the  lofty,  resounding  corridors,  and  up  the 
great  flight  of  steps,  she  panted  like  a  hunted 
rabbit. 

At  the  Bureau  I  presented  the  appoint- 
ment-card I  had  received.  The  superintend- 
ent gave  it  a  glance,  scrutinized  Phenie 
closely,  beckoned  to  a  minor  power,  and  in 
a  moment  the  new  employe  was  conducted 
from  my  sight.  Just  as  she  disappeared 
behind  the  door  leading  into  the  grimy, 
noisy  world  of  printing-presses,  Phenie  gave 
me  a  glance  over  her  shoulder.  Such  a 
trembling,  scared  sort  of  a  glance!  I  felt 
as  if  I  had  just  turned  a  young  lamb  into  a 
den  of  ravening  wolves. 

Curiously  enough,  from  this  day  the  for- 
tunes of  the  house  of  Angel  began  to  mend. 
"  He  "  was  re-instated  in  "  the  yard,"  the 
oldest  boy  began  a  thriving  business  in  the 
paper-selling  line,  and  Mrs.  Angel  herself 
being  plentifully  supplied  with  plain  sewing, 
the  family  were  suddenly  plunged  into  a 


296 


MY  FRIEND  MRS.  ANGEL. 


state  of  affluence  which  might  well  have 
upset  a  stronger  intellect  'than  that  of  its 
maternal  head.  Her  lunacy  took  the  mild 
and  customary  form  of  "  shopping."  Her 
trips  to  the  Avenue  (by  which  Pennsylvania 
avenue  is  presupposed)  and  to  Seventh  street 
became  of  semi- weekly  occurrence.  She 
generally  dropped  in  to  see  me  on  her  way 
home,  in  quite  a  friendly  and  informal  man- 
ner (her  changed  circumstances  had  not 
made  her  proud),  and  with  high  glee  ex- 
hibited to  me  her  purchases.  They  savored 
strongly  of  Hebraic  influences,  and  included 
almost  every  superfluous  article  of  dress 
known  to  modern  times.  She  also  supplied 
herself  with  lace  curtains  of  marvelous  de- 
sign, and  informed  me  that  she  had  bought 
a  magnificent  "  bristles  "  carpet  at  auction, 
for  a  mere  song. 

"  The  bristles  is  wore  off  in  some  places," 
she  acknowledged,  "  but  it's  most  as  good 
as  new." 

Her  grief  for  the  lamented  Mr.  Lawson 
found  new  expression  in  "  mourning  "  jew- 
elry of  a  massive  and  somber  character,  in- 
cluding ear-rings  of  a  size  which  threatened 
destruction  to  the  lobes  of  her  small  ears. 
Her  fledgelings  were  liberally  provided  with 
new  feathers  of  a  showy  and  fragile  nature, 
and  even  her  feelings  toward  "  him "  be- 
came sufficiently  softened  to  allow  the 
purchase  of  a  purple  necktie  and  an  em- 
broidered shirt-bosom  for  his  adornment. 

"  He  aint  not  ter  say  so  ugly,  of  a  Sun- 
day, when  he  gits  the  smudge  washed  off," 
she  remarked,  in  connection  with  the  above. 

"  It  must  have  been  a  great  satisfaction 
to  you,"  I  suggested  (not  without  a  slight 
tinge  of  malice),  "  to  be  able  to  pay  off  the 
grocer  and  the  dry-goods  merchant." 

Mrs.  Angel's  spirits  were  visibly  damp- 
ened by  this  unfeeling  allusion.  Her  beam- 
ing face  darkened. 

"  They  has  to  take  their  resks,"  she  re- 
marked, sententiously,  after  a  long  pause, 
fingering  her  hard-rubber  bracelets,  and 
avoiding  my  gaze. 

Once  I  met  her  on  the  Avenue.  She  was 
issuing  from  a  popular  restaurant,  followed 
by  four  or  five  young  Angels,  all  in  high 
spirits  and  beaming  with  the  consciousness 
of  well-filled  stomachs,  and  the  possession 
of  divers  promising-looking  paper  bags.  She 
greeted  me  with  an  effusiveness  which  drew 
upon  me  the  attention  of  the  passers-by. 

"We've  done  had  oyshters  /"  remarked 
John  Henry. 

"  'N'  ice-cream  'n'  cakes  !"  supplemented 
Cornelia. 


The  fond  mother  exhibited,  with  natural 
pride,  their  "  tin-types,"  taken  individually 
and  collectively,  sitting  and  standing,  with 
hats  and  without.  The  artist  had  spared 
neither  carmine  nor  gilt-foil,  and  the  effect 
was  unique  and  dazzling. 

"  I've  ben  layin'  off  ter  have  'em  took 
these  two  year,"  she  loudly  explained,  "  an' 
I've  done  it !  He'll  be  mad  as  a  hornet, 
but  I  don't  keer!  He  don't  pay  fur  'em !" 

A  vision  of  the  long-suffering  grocer  and 
merchant  rose  between  me  and  those  tri- 
umphs of  the  limner's  art,  but  then,  as  Mrs. 
Angel  herself  had  philosophically  remarked, 
"  they  has  to  take  their  resks." 

Phenie,  too,  in  the  beginning,  was  a  fre- 
quent visitor,  and  I  was  pleased  to  note 
that  her  painful  shyness  was  wearing  off  a 
little,  and  to  see  a  marked  improvement  in 
her  dress.  There  was,  with  all  her  childish- 
ness, a  little  trace  of  coquetry  about  her, 
— the  innocent  coquetry  of  a  bird  preening 
its  feathers  in  the  sunshine.  She  was  sim- 
ply a  soft-hearted,  ignorant  little  beauty, 
whose  great,  appealing  eyes  seemed  always 
asking  for  something,  and  in  a  way  one 
might  find  it  hard  to  refuse. 

In  spite  of  her  rich  color,  I  saw  that  the 
girl  was  frail,  and  knowing  that  she  had  a 
long  walk  after  leaving  the  cars,  I  arranged 
for  her  to  stay  with  me  over  night  when  the 
weather  was  severe,  and  she  often  did  so, 
sleeping  on  the  lounge  in  my  sitting-room. 

At  first  I  exerted  myself  to  entertain  my 
young  guest, — youth  and  beauty  have  great 
charms  for  me, — but  beyond  some  curiosity 
at  the  sight  of  pictures,  I  met  with  no  en- 
couragement. The  girl's  mind  was  a  vac- 
uum. She  spent  the  hours  before  retiring 
in  caressing  and  romping  with  my  kitten,  in 
whose  company  she  generally  curled  up  on 
the  hearth-rug  and  went  to  sleep,  looking, 
with  her  disarranged  curly  hair  and  round, 
flushed  cheeks,  like  a  child  kept  up  after  its 
bed-time. 

But  after  a  few  weeks  she  came  less  fre- 
quently, and  finally  not  at  all.  I  heard  of 
her  occasionally  through  her  mother,  how- 
ever, who  reported  favorably,  dilating  most 
fervidly  upon  the  exemplary  punctuality 
with  which  Phenie  placed  her  earnings  in 
.the  maternal  hand. 

It  happened  one  evening  in  mid- winter  that 
I  was  hastening  along  Pennsylvania  avenue 
at  an  early  hour,  when,  as  I  was  passing  a 
certain  restaurant,  the  door  of  the  ladies' 
entrance  was  pushed  noisily  open,  and  a 


MY  FRIEND  MRS.  ANGEL. 


297 


party  of  three  came  out.  The  first  of  these 
was  a  man,  middle-aged,  well-dressed,  and 
of  a  jaunty  and  gallant  air,  the  second 
a  large,  high-colored  young  woman,  the 
third — Phenie.  She  looked  flushed  and  ex- 
cited, and  was  laughing  in  her  pretty,  fool- 
ish way  at  something  her  male  companion 
was  saying  to  her.  My  heart  stood  still; 
but,  as  I  watched  the  trio  from  the  obscurity 
of  a  convenient  doorway,  I  saw  the  man 
hail  a  Navy  Yard  car,  assist  Phenie  to  en- 
ter it,  and  return  to  his  friend  upon  the 
pavement,  when,  after  exchanging  a  few 
words,  the  pair  separated. 

I  was  ill  at  ease.  I  felt  a  certain  degree 
of  responsibility  concerning  Phenie,  and 
the  next  day,  therefore,  I  waited  for  her 
at  the  great  iron  gate  through  which  the 
employes  of  the  Bureau  must  pass  out, 
determined  to  have  a  few  words  with  the 
child  in  private.  Among  the  first  to  appear 
was  Phenie,  and  with  her,  as  I  had  feared, 
the  high-colored  young  woman.  In  spite  of 
that  person's  insolent  looks,  I  drew  Phenie's 
little  hand  unresistingly  through  my  arm,  and 
led  her  away. 

Outside  the  building,  as  I  had  half- 
expected,  loitered  the  man  in  whose  com- 
pany I  had  seen  her  on  the  previous  evening. 
Daylight  showed  him  to  be  a  type  familiar 
to  Washington  eyes — large,  florid,  scrupu- 
lously attired,  and  carrying  himself  with  a 
mingled  air  of  military  distinction  and 
senatorial  dignity  well  calculated  to  deceive 
an  unsophisticated  observer. 

He  greeted  Phenie  with  a  courtly  bow, 
and  a  smile,  which  changed  quickly  to  a 
dark  look  as  his  eyes  met  mine,  and  turned 
away  with  a  sudden  assumption  of  lofty 
indifference  and  abstraction. 

Phenie  accompanied  me  to  my  room 
without  a  word,  where  I  busied  myself  in 
preparing  some  work  for  her  mother,  chat- 
ting meanwhile  of  various  trifling  matters. 

I  could  see  that  the  girl  looked  puzzled, 
astonished,  even  a  little  angry.  She  kept  one 
of  her  small,  dimpled  hands  hidden  under 
the  folds  of  her  water-proof,  too,  and  her  eyes 
followed  me  wistfully  and  questioningly. 

"Who  were  those  people  I  saw  you  with 

last  evening,  coming  from  H 's saloon?" 

I  suddenly  asked. 

Phenie  gave  me  a  startled  glance ;  her 
face  grew  pale. 

"  Her  name,"  she  stammered,  "  is  Nettie 
Mullin." 

"  And  the  gentleman  ?  "  I  asked  again, 
with  an  irony  which  I  fear  was  entirely 
thrown  away. 


The  girl's  color  came  back  with  a  rush. 

"  His  name  is  O'Brien,  General  O'Brien," 
she  faltered.  "  He — he's  a  great  man !  "  she 
added,  with  a  pitiful  little  show  of  pride. 

"  Ah !     Did  he  tell  you  so  ?  "  I  asked. 

"Nettie  told  me,"  the  girl  answered, 
simply.  "She's  known  him  a  long  time. 
He's  rich  and  has  a  great  deal  of — of  influ- 
ence, and  he's  promised  to  get  us  promoted. 
He's  a  great  friend  of  Nettie's,  and  he — he's 
a  perfect  gentleman." 

She  looked  so  innocent  and  confused  as 
she  sat  rubbing  the  toe  of  one  small  boot 
across  a  figure  of  the  carpet,  that  I  had  not 
the  heart  to  question  her  further.  In  her 
agitation  she  had  withdrawn  the  hand  she 
had  kept  hitherto  concealed  beneath  her 
cape,  and  was  turning  around  and  around 
the  showy  ring  which  adorned  one  finger. 

"  I  am  certain,  Phenie,"  I  said,  "  that  your 
friend  General  O'Brien  is  no  more  a  general 
and  no  more  a  gentleman  than  that  ring 
you  are  wearing  is  genuine  gold  and 
diamonds." 

She  gave  me  a  half-laughing,  half-resent- 
ful look,  colored  painfully,  but  said  nothing, 
and  went  away  at  length,  with  the  puzzled, 
hurt  look  still  on  her  face. 

For  several  days  following  I  went  every  day 
to  the  gate  of  the  Bureau,  and  saw  Phenie 
on  her  homeward  way.  For  two  or  three  days 
"  General  O'Brien "  continued  to  loiter 
about  the  door-way,  but  as  he  ceased  at 
length  to  appear,  and  as  the  system  I  had 
adopted  entailed  upon  me  much  fatigue  and 
loss  of  time,  I  decided  finally  to  leave  Phenie 
again  to  her  own  devices;  not,  however, 
without  some  words  of  advice  and  warning. 
She  received  them  silently,  but  her  large, 
soft  eyes  looked  into  mine  with  the  pathetic, 
wondering  look  of  a  baby,  who  cannot  com- 
prehend why  it  shall  not  put  its  hand  into 
the  blaze  of  the  lamp. 

I  did  not  see  her  for  some  time  after  this, 
but  having  ascertained  from  her  mother  that 
she  was  in  the  habit  of  coming  home  regu- 
larly, my  anxiety  was  in  a  measure  quieted. 

"  She  don't  seem  nateral,  Phenie  don't," 
Mrs.  Angel  said  one  day.  "  She's  kind  o' 
quiet,  like,  as  ef  she  was  studyin'  about  some- 
thing, an'  she  used  to  be  everlastin'  singin' 
an'  laughin'.  Columbus,  he's  a-gittin'  kind  o' 
oneasy  an'  jealous,  like.  Says  he,  '  Mrs.  An- 
gel,' says  he,  '  ef  Phenie  should  go  back  on 
me  after  all,  an'  me  a-scrapin,'  an'  a-savin', 
an'  a-goin'  out  o'  butch erin'  along  o'  her  not 
favorin'  it,'  says  he, '  why  I  reckon  I  wouldn't 
never  git  over  it,'  says  he.  Ye  see  him  an' 
her's  ben  a-keepin'  comp'ny  sence  Phenie  was 


298 


MY  FRIEND  MRS.  ANGEL. 


twelve  year  old.  I  tell's  him  he  ain't  no  call 
ter  feel  oneasy,  though,  not  as  /knows  on." 
Something  urged  me  here  to  speak  of  what 
I  knew  as  to  Phenie's  recent  associates,  but 
other  motives— a  regard  for  the  girl's  feel- 
ings, and  reliance  upon  certain  promises  she 
had  made  me,  mingled  with  a  want  of 
confidence  in  her  mother's  wisdom  and 
discretion — kept  me  silent. 

One  evening — it  was  in  March,  and  a  little 
blustering — I  was  sitting  comfortably  by  my 
fire,  trying  to  decide  between  the  attractions 
of  a  new  magazine  and  the  calls  of  duty 
which  required  my  attendance  at  a  certain 
"  Ladies'  Committee-meeting,"  when  a  muf- 
fled, unhandy  sort  of  a  knock  upon  my  door 
disturbed  my  train  of  thought.  I  uttered  an 
indolent  "  Come  in !  " 

There  was  a  hesitating  turn  of  the  knob, 
the  door  opened,  and  I  rose  to  be  confronted 
by  a  tall,  broad-chested  young  man,  of 
ruddy  complexion  and  undecided  features; 
a  young  man  who,  not  at  all  abashed,  bowed 
in  a  friendly  manner,  while  his  mild,  blue 
eyes  wandered  about  the  apartment  with 
undisguised  eagerness.  He  wore  a  new 
suit  of  invisible  plaid,  an  extremely  low- 
necked  shirt,  a  green  necktie,  and  a  cellu- 
loid pin  in  the  form  of  a  shapely  feminine 
leg.  Furthermore,  the  little  finger  of  the 
hand  which  held  his  felt  hat  was  gracefully 
crooked  in  a  manner  admitting  the  display 
of  a  seal  ring  of  a  peculiarly  striking  style, 
and  an  agreeable  odor  of  bergamot,  suggest- 
ive of  the  barber's  chair,  emanated  from 
his  person.  It  flashed  over  me  at  once  that 
this  was  Phenie  Angel's  lover,  a  suspicion 
which  his  first  words  verified. 

"Aint  Miss  Angel  here  ?"  he  asked,  in  a 
voice  full  of  surprise  and  disappointment. 
"  No,  she   is  not,"  I  answered.     "  You 

are  her  friend,  Columbus " 

"  Columbus  Padgett,  ma'am,"  he  re- 
sponded. "  Yes,  ma'am.  Aint  Phenie 
been  here  this  evenin'  ?  " 

"  No.     Did  you  expect  to  find  her  here  ?  " 
Mr.  Padgett's  frank  face  clouded  percep- 
tibly, and  he  pushed  his  hair  back  and  forth 
on  his  forehead  uneasily,  as  he  answered  : 

"  I  did,  indeed,  ma'am.  I — you  see, 
ma'am,  she  aint  been  comin'  home  reg'lar 
of  late,  Phenie  aint,  an'  I  aint  had  no  good 
chance  to  speak  to  her  for  right  smart  of  a 
while.  I  laid  off  to  see  her  to-night  for 
certain.  I've  got  somethin'  particular  to  say 
to  her,  to-night.  You  see,  ma'am,"  he  added, 
becoming  somewhat  confused,  "  me  an'  her 
— we — I — me  an'  her " 


He  stopped,  evidently  feeling  his  inability 
to  express  himself  with  the  delicacy  the  sub- 
ject required. 

"  I  understand,  Mr.  Padgett,"  I  said, 
smilingly,  "you  and  Phenie  are " 

"  That's  it !  "  interposed  Mr.  Padgett, 
much  relieved.  "Yes,  ma'am,  that's  how 
the  matter  stan's !  I  made  sure  of  findin' 
Phenie  here.  Her  ma  says  as  that's  where 
she's  been  a-stayin'  nights  lately." 

I  started.  I  had  not  seen  Phenie  for  two 
or  three  weeks. 

"  I  dare  say  she  has  gone  home  with 
one  of  the  girls  from  the  Bureau,"  I  said, 
reassuringly. 

I  had  been  studying  the  young  man's 
face  in  the  meantime,  and  had  decided 
that  Mr.  Padgett  was  a  very  good  sort  of 
a  fellow.  There  was  good  material  in  him. 
It  might  be  in  a  raw  state,  but  it  was  very 
good  material,  indeed.  He  might  be  a 
butcher  by  trade,  but  surely  he  was  the 
"  mildest-mannered  man  "  that  ever  felled 
an  ox.  His  voice  had  a  pleasant,  sincere 
ring,  and  altogether  he  looked  like  a  man 
with  whom  it  might  be  dangerous  to  trifle, 
but  who  might  be  trusted  to  handle  a  sick 
baby,  or  wait  upon  a  helpless  woman  with 
unlimited  devotion. 

"You  don't  have  no  idea  who  the  girl 
might  be  ? "  lie  asked,  gazing  dejectedly 
into  the  crown  of  his  hat.  "  'Taint  so  late. 
I  might  find  Phenie  yit." 

It  happened,  by  the  merest  chance,  that 
I  did  know  where  Nettie  Mullin,  in  whose 
company  I  feared  Phenie  might  again  be 
found,  boarded.  That  is  to  say,  I  knew  the 
house  but  not  its  number,  and  standing  as 
it  did  at  a  point  where  several  streets  and 
avenues  intersect,  its  situation  was  one  not 
easily  imparted  to  another.  I  saw,  by  the  look 
of  hopeless  bewilderment  on  Mr.  Padgett's 
face,  that  he  could  have  discovered  the 
North-west  Passage  with  equal  facility. 

I  reflected,  hesitated,  formed  a  hasty  reso- 
lution, and  said : 

"  I  am  going  out  to  attend  a  meeting, 
and  I  will  show  you  where  one  of  the  girls, 
with  whom  I  have  seen  Phenie,  lives.  You 
may  find  her  there  now." 

The  young  man's  face  brightened  a  little. 
He  expressed  his  thanks,  and  waited  for  me 
on  the  landing. 

The  house  where  Miss  Mullin  boarded 
was  only  a  few  squares  away.  It  was  one  of 
a  row  of  discouraged-looking  houses,  which 
had  started  out  with  the  intention  of  being 
genteel  but  had  long  ago  given  up  the  idea. 
It  was  lighted  up  cheerfully,  however,  we 


MY  FRIEND   MRS.  ANGEL. 


299 


saw  on  approaching,  and  a  hack  stood  be- 
fore the  door.  I  indicated  to  my  companion 
that  this  was  the  house,  and  would  have 
turned  away,  but  at  that  moment  the  door 
opened,  and  two  girls  came  out  and  de- 
scended the  steps.  The  light  from  the 
hall,  as  well  as  that  of  a  street-lamp,  fell 
full  upon  them.  There  was  no  mistaking 
Miss  Mullin,  and  her  companion  was  Phenie, 
— in  a  gay  little  hat  set  saucily  back  from 
her  face,  the  foolish,  pretty  laugh  ringing 
from  her  lips. 

The  two  girls  tripped  lightly  across  the 
pavement  toward  the  carriage.  As  they 
did  so,  the  door  was  opened  from  within 
(the  occupant,  for  reasons  best  known  to 
himself,  preferring  not  to  alight),  and  a 
well-clad,  masculine  arm  was  gallantly  ex- 
tended. Miss  Mullin,  giggling  effusively, 
was  about  to  enter,  followed  close  by  Phenie, 
when,  with  a  smothered  cry,  Padgett 
darted  forward  and  placed  himself  between 
them  and  the  carriage. 

"  Phenie,"  he  said,  his  voice  shaking  a 
little.  "  Phenie,  where  was  you  a-goin'  ?  " 

The  young  girl  started  back,  confused. 

"  Law,  Columbus ! "  she  faltered,  in  a 
scared,  faint  voice. 

In  the  meantime,  the  man  in  the  carriage 
put  his  face  out  of  the  door,  and  eyed  the 
intruder,  for  an  instant,  arrogantly.  Then, 
affecting  to  ignore  his  presence  altogether, 
he  turned  toward  the  two  girls  with  a 
slightly  impatient  air,  saying,  in  an  inde- 
scribably offensive  tone : 

"  Come,  ladies,  come.  What  are  you  stop- 
ping for  ?  " 

Mr.  Padgett,  who  had  been  holding 
Phenie's  little  hand  speechlessly,  let  it  fall, 
and  turned  toward  the  carriage  excitedly. 

"  Miss  Angel  is  stoppin'  to  speak  to  me, 
sir,"  he  said.  "  Have  you  got  anything  to 
say  ag'inst  it  ?" 

The  occupant  of  the  carriage  stared 
haughtily  at  him,  broke  into  a  short  laugh, 
and  turned  again  toward  the  girls. 

Mr.  Padgett,  pushing  his  hat  down  upon 
his  head,  took  a  step  nearer.  The  gentle- 
man, after  another  glance,  drew  back  dis- 
creetly, saying,  in  a  nonchalant  manner : 

"  Come,  Miss  Nettie.  We  shall  be 
late." 

"  I  suppose  you're  not  going  with  us,  then, 
Miss  Angel  ?  "  said  Miss  Mullin,  with  a  toss 
of  her  plumed  hat. 

Mr.  Padgett  turned,  and  looked  Phenie 
steadily  in  the  face. 

"Be  you  goin'  with  them  ?  "  he  asked,  in 
a  low  voice. 


"  N — no !  "  the  girl  faltered,  faintly.  "  I'll 
go  with  you,  Columbus." 

A  muffled  remark  of  a  profane  nature  was 
heard  to  proceed  from  the  carriage,  the  door 
was  violently  closed,  and  the  vehicle  rolled 
rapidly  away. 

I  had  kept  discreetly  aloof,  although  an 
interested  spectator  of  the  scene.  Phenie, 
after  one  swift  glance  in  my  direction,  had 
not  raised  her  eyes  again. 

"  We'll  go  with  you  where  you're  goin', 
ma'am,"  said  Mr.  Padgett,  as  the  carriage 
disappeared,  but  I  would  not  permit  this. 

"  Well,  good  evenin',  ma'am,"  he  said; 
"  I'm  a  thousand  times  obliged  to  you — good 
evenin'." 

With  an  indescribable  look  into  Phenie's 
pale,  down-cast  face, — a  look  made  up  of 
pain,  tenderness  and  reproach, — he  put  her 
hand  through  his  arm,  and  they  went  away. 

As  might  have  been  expected,  Phenie 
avoided  me,  after  this,  more  carefully  than 
ever.  I  was  glad  that  she  did  so.  I  was 
also  glad  when,  a  week  or  two  later,  Mrs. 
Angel  presented  herself,  in  a  towering  state 
of  indignation,  to  inform  me  that  Phenie 
had  received  her  discharge.  In  vain  I  re- 
minded her  that  Phenie's  position  had  been, 
from  the  beginning,  a  temporary  one. 

"  I  don't  keer ! "  she  persisted.  "  I'd 
like  ter  know  what  difference  it  would  'a' 
made  to  the  Government — jess  that  little 
bit  o'  money !  An'  me  a-needin'  of  it  so  ! 
Why  couldn't  they  have  discharged  some 
o'  them  women  as  sets  all  day  on  them  vel- 
vet carpets  an'  cheers,  a-doin'  nothin'  but 
readin'  story-papers  ?  Phenie's  seen  'em 
a-doin'  of  it,  time  an'  ag'in — an'  she 
a-workin'  at  a  old  greasy  machine ! " 

In  vain  I  endeavored  to  prove  that  no 
injustice  had  been  done.  Mrs.  Angel's  atti- 
tude toward  the  United  States  Government 
remains,  to  this  day,  inflexibly  hostile. 

"  Ef  Columbus  had  let  alone  interferin' 
between  Phenie  an'  them  that  was  intendin' 
well  by  her,  I  reckon  she'd  'a' been  settin' 
on  one  o'  them  velvet  cheers  herself  by 
this  time,"  she  remarked,  mysteriously,  "  or 
a-doin'  better  still." 

I  looked  at  her  sharply. 

"  They's  a  gentleman,"  she  went  on,  with 
a  foolish  smile,  "  a  gineral,  as  is  all  taken  up 
with  Phenie.  He's  a  great  friend  o'  the 
President's,  you  know,  an'  they's  no  knowin' 
what  he  might  do  for  the  gal,  ef  Columbus  'd 
let  alone  interferin'." 

"  Then  Phenie  has  told  you  of  her  new 
acquaintance  ?"  I  said,  much  relieved. 

Mrs.  Angel  looked  at  me  blankly. 


300 


MY  FRIEND  MRS.  ANGEL. 


"  Lord,  no ! "  she  answered,  "  she  never 
let  on !  No,  indeed  !  But  I  knowed  it — 
I  knowed  it  all  along.  Sam  Weaver's  gal, 
she  told  me  about  it.  I  knowed  she  was 
keepin'  company  with  him,  kind  o'." 

"  And  you  said  nothing  to  Phenie  ?" 

"  Lord,  no  !  Gals  is  bashful,  Mis'  Law- 
rence. No,  indeed ! " 

"  Nor  say  a  word  of  all  this  to  Colum- 
bus ?  "  I  asked  again. 

"  What  fur  ?  "  said  Mrs.  Angel,  impertur- 
bably.  "  He  aint  got  no  call  ter  interfere, 
ef  she  kin  do  better." 

I  was  silent  a  moment  in  sheer  despair. 

"  Do  you  imagine,  for  one  moment,"  I 
said,  finally,  "that  if  this  general,  as  he 
calls  himself,  is  really  what  he  pretends  to 
be,  a  gentleman  and  a  friend  of  the  Presi- 
dent's, that  he  means  honestly  by  Phenie  ?" 

Mrs.  Angel  regarded  me  with  a  fixed 
stare,  in  which  I  discerned  wonder  at  my 
incredulity,  and  indignation  at  the  implied 
disparagement  of  her  daughter. 

"  Why  not?"  she  asked,  with  some  heat. 
"  Phenie  was  a-readin'  me  a  story,  not  so 
long  ago,  about  a  man,  a  lord  or  somethin' 
like,  as  married  a  miller's  daughter.  The 
name  was  '  The  Secrit  Marriage,'  or  there- 
abouts. I'd  like  to  know  ef  she  aint  as  good 
as  a  miller's  daughter,  any  time  o'  day  ?" 

I  said  no  more.  "  Against  stupidity  even 
the  gods  strive  in  vain." 

A  month  later,  perhaps,  Mrs.  Angel, 
whom  I  had  not  seen  since  the  interview 
just  related,  came  toiling  up  the  stairs  with 
her  arms  piled  high  with  suggestive-looking 
packages,  and  beamingly  and  unceremoni- 
ously entered  my  sitting-room.  With  rather 
more  than  her  customary  ease  of  manner, 
she  deposited  herself  and  parcels  upon  the 
lounge,  and  exclaimed,  pantingly  : 

"  Wall !  Phenie  an'  Columbus  is  goin' 
ter  be  married  Sunday  week  !" 

"  Ah  ! "  I  responded,  with  a  sympathetic 
thrill;  "  so  they  have  made  it  up  again  ?" 

"  Yes,  indeed  ! "  she  answered,  "  they've 
done  made  it  up.  They  was  one  time  I  was 
most  afeard  Columbus  was  goin'  to  back  out, 
though.  'Twas  after  that  time  when  he 
come  down  here  after  Phenie,  an'  found  her 
a-goin'  out  'long  o'  that  Bureau  gal  an'  that 
man  as  called  hisself  a  gineral !  " 

"  So  you  found  out  the  character  of 
Phenie's  friend  at  last  ?  "  I  said. 

"  Columbus,  he  found  it  out.  I'll  tell  ye 
how  'twas.  Ye  see,  him  an'  Phenie  was 
a-havin'  of  it  that  night  after  they  got  home. 
They  was  in  the  front  room,  but  they's  right 


smart  of  a  crack  'roun'  the  do',  an'  you  kin 
hear  right  smart  ef  you  sets  up  clos't 
enough,"  she  explained,  naively. 

"  '  Phenie,'  says  Columbus,  kind  o'  hum- 
ble, like, '  I  don't  want  no  wife  as  don't  like 
me  better  'n  ary  other  man  in  the  world. 
Ef  you  likes  that  man,  an'  he's  a  good  man, 
an'  means  right  by  ye,  I  aint  one  ter  stan'  in 
your  way ;  but,'  says  he,  '  I  don't  believe 
he's  no  good.  I've  seen  them  kind  befo',  an' 
I  don't  have  no  confidence  into  him.' 

"  'Columbus,'  says  Phenie,  kind  o'  spirited, 
fur  her,  '  you  aint  got  no  call  to  talk  agin' 
him.  He's  a  gentleman, he  is!' 

"  'All  right ! '  says  Columbus,  chokin'  up, 
'  all  right.  Mebbe  he  is — but  I  don't  like 
this  meetin'  of  him  unbeknownst.  Phenie. 
It  aint  the  thing.  Now  I  want  you  ter 
promise  me  not  to  meet  him  any  more  unbe- 
knownst till  you  knows  more  about  him,  an' 
you  give  me  leave  ter  find  out  all  about  him, 
an'  see  ef  I  don't.' 

" '  I  wont  listen  to  no  lies,'  says  Phenie, 
kind  o'  fiery. 

"  '  I  wont  tell  ye  no  lies,  Phenie,'  he  says. 
'  I  never  has,  an'  I  aint  goin'  ter  begin  now.' 

"  Then  he  got  up  an'  shoved  his  cheer  back, 
and  I  had  ter  go  'way  from  the  crack. 

"  Wall,  Phenie  looked  real  white  an'  sick 
after  that,  an'  I  felt  right  down  sorry  fur  the 
gal,  but  I  didn't  let  on  I  knew  anything, 'cause 
'twaren't  my  place  ter  speak  fust,  ye  know  ! 
Wall,  she  dragged  'round  fur  three,  four 
days, — that  was  after  she  was  discharged,  you 
see, — an'  one  evenin'  Columbus  he  come  in 
all  tremblin'  an'  stirred  up,  an'  him  an'  her 
went  inter  the  room,  an'  I  sat  up  ter  the 
crack.  An'  Columbus  he  begun. 

"  '  Phenie,'  says  he,  his  voice  all  hoarse  an' 
shaky,  '  Phenie,  what  would  you  say  ef  I  was 
ter -tell  ye  your  fine  gineral  wasrit  no  gineral, 
an'  was  a  married  man  at  that  ? ' 

"  '  Prove  it! '  says  Phenie. 

"I  had  ter  laugh  ter  hear  her  speak  up  so 
peart,  like. '  I  didn't  think  'twas  in  her,  and 
she  not  much  more'n  a  child. 

"  '  Wall,'  says  Columbus, '  ef  /can't  prove 
it,  I  knows  them  as  kin.' 

"  '  Wall,'  says  Phenie,  '  when  he  tells  me 
so  hisself,  I'll  believe  it,  an'  not  befo' ! ' 

"  Then  Columbus  went  away,  an'  I  could 
see  he  was  all  worked  up  an'  mad.  His 
face  was  white  as  cotton.  Phenie,  she  went 
to  bed.  an'  I  heerd  her  a-cryin'  an'  a-snubbin', 
all  night.  She  couldn't  eat  no  breakfast, 
nuther,  though  1  made  griddle-cakes,  extry 
fur  her ;  an'  she  dressed  herself  an'  went  off 
somewheres — I  didn't  ask  her,  but  I  reckon 
she  went  down,  ter  the  city  ter  find  out  about 


MY  FRIEND  MRS.  ANGEL. 


301 


that  man.  Wall,  towards  night  she  come 
home,  an'  I  never  see  a  gal  look  so — kind 
o*  wild,  like,  an'  her  eyes  a-shinin'  an'  her 
cheeks  as  red  as  pinies.  She  sot  an'  looked 
out  o'  the  winder,  an'  looked,  an'  bimeby 
Columbus  he  come  in,  an'  they  went  into 
the  room.  I  couldn't  hear  rightly  what  they 
said,  the  chill'en  was  makin'  sich  a  noise, 
but  I  heared  Phenie  bust  out  a-cryin'  fit  to 
break  her  heart,  an'  then  Columbus,  he — 
wall,  Lord!  I  never  did  see  sich  a  feller! 
He  jess  loves  the  groun'  that  gal's  feet  walks 
on!" 

"  He  must  be  very  forgiving,"  I  said. 
"  Phenie  has  used  him  badly." 

"  Wall,  I  do'  know,"  she  replied,  with 
perfect  simplicity.  "  I  do'  know  as  she  was 
beholden  to  Columbus  ef  she  could  a-done 
better.  The  child  didn't  mean  no  harm." 

Although  aware  of  the  impracticability 
of  trying  to  render  Mrs.  Angel's  comprehen- 
sion of  maternaj  duty  clearer,  I  could  not 
help  saying : 

"  But  why  didn't  you,  as  the  girl's  own 
mother  and  nearest  friend,  have  a  talk  with 
Phenie  in  the  beginning  ?  You  might  have 
spared  her  a  great  deal  of  trouble." 

Mrs.  Angel's  eyes  dilated  with  surprise. 

"  Lord !  Mis'  Lawrence  !  "  she  exclaimed, 
"  you  do'  know !  Why,  gals  is  that  bash- 
ful !  They  couldn't  tell  their  mothers  sich 
things.  Why,  I'd  'a'  died  'fore  I'd  'a'  told 
mine  anything  about — love-matters !  Lord ! " 

"  Well,"  I  sighed,  "  I'm  glad  Phenie  is  go- 
ing to  marry  so  good  a  fellow  as  Columbus." 

"Y — yes,"  she  answered,  condescendingly, 
"  he's  a  good  feller,  Columbus  is.  He  don't 
drink  or  smoke,  an'  he's  mighty  savin'." 

I  remarked  here,  as  on  other  occasions, 
that  Mrs.  Angel  regarded  this  being  "savin"' 
as  a  purely  masculine  virtue. 

"  He's  give  Phenie  most  a  hundred  dol- 
lars a'ready,"  she  continued,  complacently. 
"  They  aint  no  gal  on  the  Navy  Yard  as  '11 
have  nicer  things  'n  Phenie." 

A  fortnight  later  the  newly  wedded  pair 
called  upon  me.  Phenie  looked  very  sweet 
in  her  bridal  finery,  but  there  was  something 
in  her  face  which  I  did  not  like.  It  meant 
neither  peace  nor  happiness.  She  looked 
older.  There  were  some  hard  lines  around 
her  lips,  and  the  childish  expression  of  her 
lovely  eyes  had  given  place  to  a  restless, 
absent  look.  Her  husband  was  serenely 
unconscious  of  anything  wanting — uncon- 
scious, indeed,  of  everything  but  his  absolute 
bliss,  and  his  new  shiny  hat.  He  wore  a 
lavender  necktie,  now,  and  gloves  of  the  same 
shade,  which  were  painfully  tight,  and,  with 


the  hat,  would  have  made  life  a  burden  to 
any  but  the  bridegroom  of  a  week's  standing. 
Phenie  had  little  to  say,  but  Columbus  was 
jubilantly  loquacious. 

"  I've  gone  out  o'  butcherin'  fur  good  an't 
all,"  he  declared,  emphatically.  "  Phenie 
didn't  like  it,  an'  no  more  do  I.  Huckster- 
in'  is  more  to  my  mind,  ma'am.  It's  cleaner 
an' — an*  more  genteel,  ma'am.  I've  got  a 
good  stan',  an'  I  mean  to  keep  Phenie  like  a 
lady,  ma'am !  " 

She  lived  but  a  year  after  this.  She  and 
her  baby  were  buried  in  one  grave.  That 
was  five  years  ago.  Columbus  still  wears  a 
very  wide  hat-band  of  crape,  and  mourns 
her  sincerely. 

Her  death  was  a  heavy  blow  to  her 
mother,  whose  grief  is  borne  with  constant 
repining  and  unreasoning  reflections.  The 
fountains  of  her  eyes  overflow  at  the  mere 
utterance  of  the  girl's  name. 

"  The  doctors  'lowed  'twas  consumption 
as  ailed  her,"  she  often  repeats,  "  but  I  aint 
never  got  red  o'  thinkin'  'twas  trouble  as 
killed  her.  I  used  ter  think,  Mis'  Law- 
rence," she  says,  with  lowered  voice,  "that 
she  hadn't  never  got  over  thinkin'  of  that 
man  as  fooled  her  so !  1  wish  I  could  see 
him  oncet !  Says  she  ter  me,  time  an'  agin', 
'  Ma,'  says  she,  '  I  reckon  I  aint  a-goin'  ter 
live  long.  I'm  right  young  ter  die,  but  I 
do'  know  as  I  keer! '  says  she." 

"  Did  her  husband  ever  suspect  that  she 
was  unhappy  ?  "  I  asked. 

"  Lord  no,  ma'am  !  Or  ef  he  did  he 
never  let  on !  An'  I  never  see  sich  a  man ! 
There  wasn't  nothin'  he  didn't  git  her  while 
she  was  sick,  an*  her  coffin  was  a  sight ! 
They  warn't  never  sich  a  one  seen  on  the 
Navy  Yard !  An'  he  goes  to  her  grave, 
rain  or  shine,  as  reg'lar  as  Sunday  comes." 

As  I  have  said,  several  years  have  passed 
since  Phenie's  death,  but  Mrs.  Angel's  visits 
have  never  ceased.  The  lapse  of  time  has 
left  hardly  any  traces  upon  her  comely  ex- 
terior. In  times  of  plenty,  her  soul  expands 
gleefully  and  the  brown -paper  parcels  mul- 
tiply. In  times  of  dearth,  she  sits,  an  elderly 
Niobe,  and  weeps  out  her  woes  upon  my 
hearth-stone.  The  black  satchel,  too,  by 
some  occult  power,  has  resisted  the  wear 
and  tear  of  years  and  exposure  to  the 
elements,  and  continues  to  swallow  up  my 
substance  insatiably  as  of  yore.  Occasionally, 
as  I  have  said,  something  within  me  rises  in 
arms  against  her  quiet,  yet  persistent  en- 
croachments, but  this  is  a  transitory  mood. 
Her  next  visit  puts  my  resolutions  to  flight.' 


302 


TOPICS    OF  THE    TIME. 


TOPICS   OF  THE  TIME. 


The  Political  Machine. 


IT  is  readily  observable  that  the  protests  against 
the  political  machine  and  the  efforts  on  behalf  of 
civil-service  reform,  as  a  practical  outcome  of  that 
protest,  originate  in  the  cities.  People  in  the  coun- 
try follow  their  political  leaders,  without  serious  ques- 
tion, and  do  not  come  much  into  contact  with  the  bad 
results  which  they  do  so  much  to  secure.  The  one 
or  two  men  in  each  town  who  are  relied  upon  at 
head-quarters  to  do  the  party  work,  get  office,  it  is 
true,  but  that  seems  to  be  because  they  are  "  fond 
of  politics  " ;  and,  as  office  has  so  long  been  the 
reward  of  party  work,  it  is  looked  upon  as  quite  the 
regular  and  legitimate  thing.  The  city  is  almost 
the  only  place  where  the  authority  of  the  political 
leader  is  questioned.  He  looks  to  the  country 
towns  for  loyalty  to  his  policy  and  decrees,  and 
relies  upon  them  to  carry  his  ends  in  the  State. 
The  managing  men  of  the  small  towns  are  always 
in  confidential  correspondence  with  head-quarters, 
and  their  work  is  done  so  quietly  and  cleverly  that 
the  country  voter  is  never  made  to  feel  the  yoke,  or 
led  to  suspect  that  he  is  the  tool  of  a  corrupt  cabal 
of  office-holders  and  office-seekers. 

In  the  city,  especially  the  great  city,  the  machin- 
ery comes  more  to  the  surface.  Here  we  find  a 
class  of  professional  politicians.  Their  business  is 
politics.  There  may  be  some,  above  them,  who  are 
working  for  power,  without  any  thought  of  office, 
but  they  know  that  every  man  under  them  is  at 
work  for  what  he  can  make  out  of  the  business. 
Some  work  with  very  small  aspirations  and  expecta- 
tions. There  are  wheels  within  wheels,  and  there  are 
those  who  work  for  so  small  a  consideration  as  their 
drink.  They  furnish  the  machinery  of  all  elections. 
They  attend  and  manage  the  primary  elections  and 
caucuses.  They  do  the  party  work,  and  will  per- 
mit no  one  else  to  do  it.  Good  men  are  often 
reproached  with  their  neglect  of  political  duty, 
especially  as  it  relates  to  what  are  called  "  the  pri- 
maries." The  reply  to  this  reproach  is  that  no  good 
man  can  undertake  to  have  anything  to  do  with  the 
primaries  unless  he  belongs  to  "  the  machine,"  with- 
out the  loss  of  self-respect.  Indeed,  all  attempt  to 
have  anything  to  do  with  them,  in  the  way  of  influ- 
encing their  policy  and  results,  is  useless.  If  any 
clear-headed  gentleman  doubts  this,  let  him  try  it. 
He  only  needs  to  do  this  once  to  be  convinced. 
It  has  been  tried  many  times,  and  always  unsuccess- 
fully. Even  in  our  Staten  Island  suburb,  the 
machine  has  proved  too  strong  for  our  excellent 
friend,  Mr.  George  W.  Curtis,  and  will  have 
none  of  him.  It  has  been  tried  here  in  the  city. 
The  moment  a  good  man  enters  a  meeting  where  a 
primary  is  held,  the  whole  crowd  know  him. 

The  latest  instance  reported  to  us  was  by  the 
victim  himself.  He  had  been  reproached  for  neg- 
lecting his  duty,  so  he  was  moved  to  do  it.  He 
attended  a  primary,  and  found  the  leaders  in  con- 


sultation in  a  private  room.  His  position  was  such 
that  they  could  not  deny  him  entrance,  and  they 
immediately  informed  him  that  he  must  act  as 
chairman.  He  protested  that  he  wished  to  be  at 
liberty  to  speak  to  such  questions  as  might  arise. 
The  protest  was  hushed  by  the  assurance  that  if  he 
wished  to  speak  he  could  call  some  one  else  to  the 
chair.  The  meeting  was  called  to  order,  and  he 
was  elected.  Immediately  a  man  jumped  to  his 
feet  and  moved  the  appointment  of  a  list  of  dele- 
gates to  a  certain  convention,  and  the  "  question  " 
was  called  from  all  parts  of  the  house.  Our  virtu- 
ous chairman  was  caught  in  a  trap,  and  had  to  put 
the  question.  As  soon  as  it  was  decided,  as  it  was 
nem.  con.  in  favor  of  the  nominations,  another  mem- 
ber rose  and  moved  that  the  meeting  should  imme- 
diately adjourn,  as  the  weather  was  warm  !  So  our 
friend  had  his  labor  for  his  pains,  and  the  men  who 
had  used  him  took  great  pleasure  in  showing  how 
respectable  their  meeting  was  by  publishing  his 
name  as  its  chairman,  and  thus  doing  what  they 
could  to  make  him  seem  to  approve  a  list  of  political 
scalawags  ! 

"  But  if  all  good  men  would  unite,  they  could 
have  their  own  way."  That  is  a  mistake.  If  all 
good  men  would  unite,  all  bad  men  would  do  the 
same,  and  the  bad  men  would  draw  for  voters  to 
help  them  through,  from  all  parts  of  the  city,  as 
there  would  be  nothing  illegal  in  outsiders  voting  at  a 
primary.  It  is  their  business  to  outvote  the  good 
men,  and  they  do  it  every  time,  because  they  have 
the  whole  machine  of  the  city  to  do  it  with,  and  have 
no  scruples  to  stand  in  their  way,  such  as  the  good 
men  have.  Now  do  our  country  friends  see  the 
point  at  which  we  are  aiming,  when  we  advocate  a 
reform  in  the  civil  service  ?  Can  they  not  see  that 
just  so  long  as  office  is  the  reward  of  party  work, 
just  so  long  party  work  will  and  must  be  done  by 
office-seekers,  who  work  for  their  party  from  the 
basest  motives  ?  Politics  can  never  be  purified  in 
this  country  until  there  is  a  reform  in  the  civil  ser- 
vice. Such  purification  is  practically  impossible, 
until  office  ceases  to  be  the  reward,  practically 
contracted  for,  of  party  service. 

The  machine  politician  has  a  contempt  for  what 
he  sneeringly  denominates  "  sentimental  politics." 
If  a  man  permits  either  moral  or  sentimental  con- 
siderations to  enter  into  his  motives  of  political 
action,  he  has  done  all  that  is  necessary  to  arouse 
the  suspicion — probably  the  contempt  or  hatred — 
of  the  average  party  politician.  Power  and  office 
are  what  the  party  men  are  after,  and  sentiment  and 
principle  are  generally  in  their  way.  The  attitude 
of  Mr.  Conkling  toward  Mr.  Curtis  is  a  sufficient 
illustration  of  this  point.  Mr.  Conkling  is  a  machine 
politician  who  is  fond  of  power  and  who  regards 
himself — with  a  strange  hallucination — as  a  candi- 
date for  the  Presidency  of  the  United  States.  Mr. 
Curtis  is  a  man  of  principle  who  has  refused  high  and 


TOPICS   OF  THE    TIME. 


3°3 


important  office  in  order  to  serve  his  country  more 
effectually  in  an  attempt  to  purify  its  politics.  Mr. 
Conkling  is  quite  incapable  of  appreciating  such 
disinterestedness  on  the  part  of  any  man  engaged 
in  politics,  and  his  contempt  for  Mr.  Curtis  is  prob- 
ably as  great  as  that  of  Mr.  Curtis  for  him — if  such 
a  thing  be  possible. 

In  the  great  election  lying  just  before  us,  there 
will  be,  on  both  sides,  no  small  amount  of  bolting 
and  scratching.  Some  of  this  will  be  preliminary, 
with  the  hope  of  influencing  the  selection  of  candi- 
dates. We  wish  to  bespeak  for  the  men  who 
engage  in  this  work  the  considerate  respect  of  the 
public,  and  especially  of  the  rural  public.  The  men 
who  bolt  and  scratch  are  not  after  office.  Office  lies 
in  another  direction.  They  mean  well  by  the  coun- 
try, and,  if  they  could  have  their  way,  would  do 
well  by  it.  Some  time  they  will  have  their  way. 
"Sentimental  politics"  have  just  triumphed  in 
Great  Britain,  and  the  time  will  come  when  they 
will  triumph  here,  and  the  political  machine  will  be 
overthrown. 

Beacor.sfield  and  Gladstone. 

No  ONE  who  has  familiarized  himself  with  Lord 
Beaconsfield's  history  can  witness  the  completion  of 
his  career  without  a  feeling  6f  sadness.  His  life 
has  been  a  courageous  and  persistent  fight  against 
tremendous  disadvantages.  Belonging  to  the  Jew- 
ish race,  he  suffered  all  the  tortures  possible  to  a 
sensitive  temperament,  as  a  child  and  youth,  from 
the  contempt  of  associates  whom  he  knew  to  be  his 
inferiors.  His  faith  in  his  own  powers  from  the 
very  beginning — before  those  powers  had  had  any 
trial  whatever — was  such  as  to  prepare  him  for  all 
the  assaults  of  ridicule  which  lay  before  him,  and 
the  defeats  that  were  in  store  for  him.  His  good 
opinion  of  himself,  his  unbounded  ambition,  his  un- 
wavering pluck,  under  all  discouragements,  may  well 
excite  our  admiration  and  attract  our  sympathy;  and 
though  we  rejoice  in  his  political  overthrow,  we 
cannot  witness  it  without  feeling  that,  in  its  personal 
aspects,  it  is  a  deeply  pathetic  event.  For  the  de- 
spised Jew,  who  was  brutally  hissed  and  hooted  into 
silence  on  the  occasion  of  his  first  speech  in  Parlia- 
ment, had  risen  to  be  the  nation's  master.  Next  to 
the  Queen,  he  was  the  highest  power  in  the  British 
realm — the  foremost  man  in  the  nation — and  one  of 
the  most  prominent  political  figures  of  the  world  and 
of  the  time.  Only  a  few  months  ago,  on  his  return 
from  the  Berlin  Congress,  he  was  the  recipient  of 
one  of  the  most  brilliant  ovations  ever  accorded  to 
an  Englishman.  Millions  greeted  him  with  huzzas, 
and  his  way  was  strewn  with  flowers.  It  was  an 
hour  of  triumph  that  must  have  equaled  all  his 
dreams  of  power,  splendid  as  they  had  undoubtedly 
been. 

To  any  man  who  admires  unfailing  pluck,  it  must 
be  sad  to  see  this  man  overthrown,  because  it  fin- 
ishes his  career.  His  old  Parliamentary  struggles 
can  never  be  repeated.  His  wit,  his  readiness  of 
sarcastic  repartee,  his  fertility  of  resource,  his  power 
of  leadership,  will  never  again  be  called  into  action, 


for  he  is  an  old  and  feeble  man,  who  stands  upon 
the  brink  of  the  grave.  He  appealed  to  the  people, 
and  the  people  have  decided  that  they  want  no  more 
of  him.  Lord  Beaconsfield  steps  down  and  steps 
out,  as  a  political  man  and  a  political  force.  He 
can  never  gather  his  powers  again,  or  reassert  his 
influence.  The  persecuted  boy,  the  youthful  dandy, 
the  novelist  and  litterateur,  rose  to  be  Prime  Minis- 
ter, Lord  Privy  Seal,  Earl  Beaconsfield  of  Beacons- 
field,  Viscount  Hughenden  of  Hughenden,  Knight 
of  the  Garter ;  and  to-day  his  titles  are  as  though 
they  had  never  been,  and  his  power  has  passed  into 
other,  and,  as  we  believe,  better  hands. 

At  the  time  we  write  this  article — more  than  two 
months  before  it  can  be  published — we  have  not 
heard  the  complete  result  of  the  English  elections, 
but  enough  is  known  to  see  that  the  ministry  must 
resign,  and  that  whether  Mr.  Gladstone  be  called 
upon  or  not  to  form  a  new  ministry,  he  will  be  3. 
powerful  influence  in  shaping  it,  as  he  has  been  an 
essential  agent  in  the  triumph  of  the  liberal  party. 
Will  the  Earl  of  Beaconsfield  repeat  the  act  of  1868, 
when  he  advised  the  Queen  to  name  Mr.  Gladstone 
as  his  successor  ?  We  hope  so.  We  are  not  famil- 
iar with  those  rules  of  party  procedure  which  are 
instanced  as  forbidding  his  return  to  his  old  place, 
but  there  is  where  he  belongs,  by  the  rights  con- 
ferred by  the  revolution  he  has  been  mainly  instru- 
mental in  effecting,  by  his  great  experience  and 
ability  in  government,  and  by  his  transcendent 
character. 

In  whatever  light  wemay  regard  the  triumph  of  the 
liberal  party  in  England,  it  is  the  result  of  a  struggle 
between  the  English  Premier  and  Mr.  Gladstone. 
They  are  respectively  the  representatives  of  the 
principles  and  policies  of  the  two  parties  that  have 
fought  out  their  battle  among  the  people,  with  the 
result  of  a  defeat  of  the  government.  This  result  is 
a  victory  of  Christian  England  over  barbarian  Eng- 
land; for  with  all  Beaconsfield's  brilliancy,  with 
all  his  power  of  oratory  and  his  gifts  of  finesse  and 
intrigue,  he  was  essentially  barbaric  in  his  ideas, 
his  tastes  and  his  policies.  It  was  in  the  nature  of 
the  man.  He  delighted  in  pageantry  ;  he  gloried  in 
dramatic  situations  and  effects ;  he  was  charmed 
with  the  exercise  of  power  ;  he  loved  titles.  The 
new  title  of  his  Queen  could  only  have  been  con- 
ceived in  his  brain ;  and  his  foreign  policy  was 
conceived  in  the  love  of  the  spectacular,  and  sup- 
ported by  the  bravado  of  the  barbarian.  The 
books  he  wrote  were  flooded  with  gold,  as  if  he  had 
a  barbaric  delight  in  the  conceit  of  easily  handled 
wealth  of  gold  and  gems. 

Mr.  Gladstone  is,  first  of  all,  a  Christian  man. 
In  an  age  and  country  in  which  science  seems  to  be 
doing  its  best  to  put  Christianity  out  of  fashion 
among  its  strongest  men,  Mr.  Gladstone — who  stands 
a  king  among  the  strongest — abides  by  the  old 
faith  not  only,  but  is  one  of  its  wisest  expounders 
and  promulgators.  He  has  always  been  a  man  of 
principle.  Lord  Beaconsfield  has  always  been  a  man 
of  policy,  when  he  has  not  been  one  of  caprice.  One 
has  been  devoted  to  the  betterment  of  the  condition 
of  the  British  people ;  the  other  has  directed  most 


3°4 


TOPICS   OF  THE    TIME. 


of  his  efforts  to  the  aggrandizement  of  the  British 
Government,  not  forgetting  himself.  In  literary 
skill,  in  learning,  in  scientific  acquirements,  in  the 
ability  to  handle  all  the  leading  questions  that  interest 
society,  in  the  power  of  debate,  in  sympathy  with  the 
great  popular  heart  of  England,  Mr.  Gladstone  is 
easily  Lord  Beaconsfield's  superior.  He  is  the  Eng- 
lishman of  Englishmen — an  Englishman  at  his  best ; 
and,  although  he  is  already  old,  he  is  still  hale  and 
hearty,  and  good  for  years  of  public  service. 

So,  while  we  congratulate  the  British  people  on 
the  revolution  that  has  taken  place  in  their  ruling 
political  forces,  we  repeat  the  proverbial  cry  with 
peculiar  satisfaction  and  with  special  meaning: 
"The  king  is  dead !  Long  live  the  king !  " 

The   Shadow  of  the  Negro. 

THE  history  of  negro  slavery,  extending  from  its 
beginning  in  Portugal  over  a  period  of  four,  hundred 
years,  and  involving  the  exportation  by  violence 
from  their  African  homes  of  forty  millions  of  men, 
women  and  children,  is  one  of  exceeding  and  unim- 
aginable bitterness.  It  is  too  late  to  criminate  those 
who  were  responsible  for  beginning  the  slave  trade, 
and  for  perpetuating  the  system  of  bondage  that 
grew  out  of  it.  Many  of  them  were  conscientious, 
Christian  men,  who  worked  without  a  thought  of  the 
wrong  they  were  doing.  Some  of  them,  as  we 
know,  really  believed  they  were  benefiting  the  negro, 
by  bringing  him  out  of  a  condition  of  barbarism  into 
the  enlightening  and  purifying  influences  of  Chris- 
tianity. For  many  years  negro  slavery  prevailed  in 
this  country,  and  greatly  modified  the  institutions 
and  the  civilization  of  a  large  portion  of  it.  It  be- 
came, at  last,  the  exciting  cause  of  the  greatest  civil 
war  known  in  the  history  of  the  world ;  and  when 
that  war  brought  abolition,  it  gave  to  the  black  race 
in  America  not  only  freedom  but  citizenship.  The 
question  as  to  what  all  these  centuries  of  wrong  and 
of  servitude  have  done  for  the  negro  is  not  a  difficult 
one  to  answer,  but  what  they  have  done  for  the  en- 
slaving race  is  not  so  evident  without  an  examina- 
tion. The  black  man  has  been  a  menial  so  long 
that  he  has  lost,  in  a  great  degree,  his  sense  of  man- 
hood and  his  power  to  assert  it.  The  negro  carries 
within  him  the  sense  that  his  blood  is  tainted — that  he 
is  something  less  than  a  man,  in  consequence  of  the 
blackness  of  his  skin.  He  may  be  whitened  out,  so 
that  only  the  most  practiced  eye  can  detect  a  trace  of 
the  African  in  him,  but  the  consciousness  of  the  pos- 
session of  this  trace  haunts  him  like  the  memory  of 
a  crime,  and  to  charge  it  upon  him  is  to  abase  him 
and  cover  him  with  a  burning  shame.  The  readiness 
of  the  negro  in  all  the  States  to  be  content  with 
menial  offices  in  the  service  of  the  white  man,  comes 
undoubtedly  from  the  fact  that  such  offices  relieve 
him  from  all  antagonism.  They  put  him  in  a  position 
free  from  the  pretension  to  equality,  where  he  is 
at  peace.  We  hear  it  said  that  the  negro  is  a  natural 
menial, — a  natural  servant, — but  the  truth  is  that  if 
the  negro  were  only  relieved  from  the  burden  of  con- 
tempt in  which  his  blood  is  held,  his  special  adapta- 
tion to  menial  work  would  disappear  at  once. 


The  harm  that  slavery  did  to  the  white  man 
was  one  that  touched  him  internally  and  externally, 
at  most  important  points.  It  vitiated  his  sense  of 
right  and  wrong.  Through  its  appeal  to  his  inter- 
ests, it  made  a  system  based  in  inhumanity  and 
standing  and  working  in  direct  contravention  of  the 
Golden  Rule,  seem  to  be  a  humane  and  Christian 
institution,  to  be  maintained  by  argument,  by  appeal 
to  the  authority  of  the  Bible,  and  by  the  sword. 
This,  of  course,  was  an  immeasurable  harm,  from 
which  only  a  slow  recovery  can  be  reached.  An- 
other evil  result  of  slavery  to  the  white  man  was  the 
disgrace  that  came  to  labor  through  its  long  years  of 
association  with  servitude.  No  people  can  be  pros- 
perous who  despise  labor,  and  who  look  upon  it  as 
something  that  belongs  only  to  a  servile  class.  Any 
people  that,  for  any  cause,  have  lost  the  sense  of  the 
supreme  respectability  of  labor; — any  people  that, 
for  any  cause,  have  come  to  regard  an  unproductive 
idleness  as  desirable  and  respectable,  have  met  with 
an  immeasurable  misfortune.  The  shadow  of  the 
negro  not  only  rests  upon  the  white  man's  sense  of 
right,  not  only  on  the  white  man's  idea  of  labor,  but 
upon  his  love  of  fair  play.  There  is  something  most 
unmanly  in  the  disposition  to  deny  any  man  who  has 
not  harmed  us  a  fair  chance  in  the  world.  Are  we, 
all  over  this  nation,  giving  the  negro  a  fair  chance  ? 
It  was  not  his  fault  that  he  was  born  to  slavery.  It 
was  not  his  act  that  released  him  from  it.  Notwith- 
standing all  his  years  of  servitude  and  wrong,  he  did 
not  revolt  when  his  opportunity  came,  but  bore  his 
yoke  with  patience  until  it  was  lifted  from  his 
shoulders.  He  did  not  wrest  from  unwilling  hands 
his  boon  of  citizenship.  Now,  however,  as  we  look 
into  our  hearts,  we  find  that  political  rights  were 
conferred  upon  him  rather  from  an  abstract  sense 
of  justice  than  for  any  love  of  the  negro,  or  any 
equal  place  that  we  have  made  for  him  in  our  hearts 
and  heads  as  he  stands  by  our  side.  The  North, 
to-day,  is  true  to  the  negro  rather  in  its  convictions 
than  in  its  sympathies.  It  never  in  its  heart  has 
admitted  the  negro  to  equality  with  the  white  man. 
It  may  consent  to  see  the  white  man  beaten  by  the 
negro  in  a.walking-match  at  Gilmore's  Garden,  but 
at  West  Point  the  smallest  measure  of  African  blood 
places  its  possessor  under  the  crudest  and  most  im- 
placable social  ban.  So  long  as  this  fact  exists — so 
long  as  the  Northern  white  man  utterly  excludes  the 
negro  from  his  social  sympathies,  and  refuses  to  give 
him  a  fair  chance  in  the  world  to  secure  respecta- 
bility and  influence,  it  poorly  becomes  him  to  rail  at 
his  Southern  brothers  who  do  the  same  thing,  and 
are  only  a  little  more  logical  and  extreme  in  their 
expressions  of  contempt.  The  shadow  of  the  negro 
lies  upon  the  North  as  upon  the  South.  It  has  ob- 
scured or  blotted  out  our  love  of  fair  play.  We 
do  not  give  the  negro  a  chance.  It  was  recently 
stated  in  one  of  our  metropolitan  pulpits,  by  a  min- 
ister of  wide  experience  and  observation,  that  he  had 
never  heard  in  any  country  better  speeches  made 
than  were  recently  made  in  this  city  by  four  colored 
men,  who  spoke  on  behalf  of  the  freedmen.  He  gave 
them  the  highest  place  in  all  the  powers  and  qualities 
that  go  into  the  making  of  eloquence.  At  Hampton, 


HOME  AND   SOCIETY. 


3°S 


the  negro  is  proving  himself  to  be  not  only  most 
susceptible  to  cultivation,  but  to  be  possessed  of  a 
high  spirit  of  self-devotion.  Under  the  charm  of 
this  most  useful  institution  the  African  ceases  to  be 
a  "nigger,"  and  achieves  a  self-respect  and  a  sense 
of  manhood  that  prepare  him  for  the  great  mission- 
ary work  of  elevating  his  race.  It  cannot  be  dis- 
puted that  the  great  obstacle  that  stands  to-day  in 
the  way  of  the  negro  is  the  white  man,  North  and 
South.  The  white  man  in  this  country  is  not  yet 
ready  to  treat  the  negro  as  a  man.  The  prejudice  of 
race  is  still  dominant  in  every  part  of  the  land.  We 
are  quite  ready  in  New  York  City  to  invite  Indians 
in  paint  and  feathers  into  social  circles,  from  which 
the  negro  is  shut  out  by  a  social  interdict  as  irrever- 
sible as  the  laws  of  the  Medes  and  Persians.  If  the 


negro  is  a  man,  let  us  give  him  the  chance  of  a  man, 
the  powers  and  privileges  of  a  man.  It  is  not  neces- 
sary for  us  to  give  him  our  daughters  in  marriage, 
although  he  has  given  a  good  many  of  his  daugh- 
ters to  us,  as  all  mulattodom  and  quadroondom 
abundantly  testify.  It  is  not  necessary  for  us  to  make 
an  ostentatious  show  of  our  conversion  to  just  and 
humane  ideas  in  regard  to  him.  We  should  like  to 
see  the  time  when  the  preacher  to  whom  we  have  al- 
luded would  feel  at  liberty  to  invite  one  of  these 
orators  whom  he  praised  to  occupy  his  pulpit,  and 
when  such  an  orator  would  feel  at  home  there  and 
seem  at  home  there.  When  this  time  arrives,  in  the 
coming  of  the  millennium,  all  other  relations  be- 
tween the  two  races  may  be  safely  left  to  adjust 
themselves. 


HOME  AND   SOCIETY. 


Letters  to  Young  Mothers.    Second  Series.    I. 

How  hard  it  is  to  amuse  children,  and  keep  them 
good-natured  on  rainy  days  !  They  miss  the  fresh 
air.  They  have  played  so  hard  in-doors,  they  are 
tired  and  cross.  They  squabble  with  one  another, 
and  finally  they  all  flock  about  your  chair,  restless 
and  impatient  for  something,  they  don't  know  what. 
You  are  perhaps  hurrying  to  finish  a  piece  of 
sewing  before  the  early  gathering  twilight  quite 
creeps  over  you,  and  are  possibly  a  trifle  impatient 
that  it  has  come  so  soon.  One  tired  little  head  comes 
down  into  your  lap  and  a  mischievous  hand  pulls 
your  work  out  of  your  hands.  Another  hand  upon 
your  chair  jogs  your  elbow  and  unthreads  your 
needle.  Behind  you,  Johnny  is  slyly  teasing  the 
baby. 

Now  lay  aside  your  work.  You  are  ruining  your 
eyes,  your  nerves,  your  temper,  and  accomplishing 
nothing.  First  take  the  children  to  the  washstand, 
bathe  the  hot  cheeks  and  wash  the  moist  little 
hands, — cold  water  is  sometimes  a  means  of  grace, — 
smooth  the  tangled  hair,  take  off  the  heavy  boots 
and  put  on  slippers.  The  judicious  distribution  of 
clean  aprons  also  adds  materially  on  these  occasions 
to  the  sum  total  of  human  happiness.  If  you  are 
so  fortunate  as  to  be  musical,  gather  your  little 
flock  about  the  piano,  start  off  with  some  bright  and 
rollicking  song  or  Mother  Goose  jingle,  the  "Muffin 
Man"  or  the  "Shaker  Dance."  Lead  them  grad- 
ually up  to  tenderer  and  quieter  songs.  Perhaps 
by  the  time  your  husband's  key  clicks  in  the  front 
door  he  will  be  greeted  by  the  strains  of  some 
such  good  old-fashioned  hymn  as  "  Glory  to  Thee, 
my  God,  this  night." 

If  you  tire  of  the  piano,  books  are  never-failing. 
Read  a  chapter  in  the  "  Arabian  Nights,"  "  Robin- 
son Crusoe,"  or  Whittier's  books  of  "Child-Life." 
If  these  are  beyond  your  audience,  try  "  Rhymes  and 
Jingles,"  or  the  ever-delightful  Mother  Goose.  Chil- 

VOL.  XX.— 21. 


dren  are  naturally  fond  of  melody  and  rhyme;  if 
they  never  hear  anything  better,  they  will  be  satis- 
fied with  mere  jingle.  But  try  spirited  ballads  and 
little  ballads  by  our  best  authors,  and  see  how 
quickly  they  will  respond.  Few  boys  will  be  deaf  to 
"  How  They  Brought  the  Good  News  from  Ghent 
to  Aix,"  and  few  girls  but  will  be  charmed  with 
Westwood's  "  Little  Bell." 

There  is  no- lack  of  books  to  cull  from.  Almost 
every  household  possesses  some  of  our  standard 
poets,  or  selections  from  their  works.  There  are 
little  compilations  like  Lucy  Larcom's  "  Hillside 
and  Roadside  Poems,"  Mrs.  Giles's  "  Hymns  and 
Rhymes  for  Home  and  School,"  "  Hymns  for  Moth- 
ers and  Children,"  to  say  nothing  of  the  school 
readers,  which  contain  many  excellent  selections. 
Of  larger  and  more  expensive  works,  there  are 
Dana's  "  Household  Book  of  Poetry,"  Mackay's 
"Thousand  and  One  Gems,"  or,  best  of  all  for  chil- 
dren, Whittier's  "Child-Life." 

You  can  make  a  book  for  yourself  by  saving 
favorite  bits  of  poetry,  by  known  and  unknown 
authors,  which  go  floating  through  our  news- 
papers and  magazines.  Before  you  are  aware 
you  will  have  an  attractive  book,  dear  to  the 
children  because  you  made  it,  and  an  education  and 
refreshment  to  yourself.  But  perhaps  the  children 
are  too  fretful  to  listen  quietly  to  reading.  Try  tell- 
ing a  story.  If  you  cannot  "  make  up  "  one,  fall 
back  on  the  classics.  "  Cinderella,' '  or  "  Jack 
the  Giant-Killer,"  or  Hans  Andersen's  tender  little 
"  Marchen."  Tell  "  Thumbelina  "  once,  and  see  if 
you  haven't  a  story  always  ready. 

When  the  children  are  old  enough  to  sit  up  for 
some  time  after  supper  there  is  another  hour  to  be 
provided  for.  Don't  you  remember  those  delightful 
evenings  spent  at  the  houses  of  your  playmates 
where  the  mother,  and  sometimes  the  father,  took 
part  in  the  games  of  "  Twenty  Questions,"  "  Stage- 


306 


HOME  AND   SOCIETY. 


Coach,"  or  "  Proverbs,"  where  they  popped  corn 
and  ate  apples  with  the  children  ?  But  you  cry  in 
dismay:  "What  is  to  become  of  my  reading  hour? 
The  evenings  are  the  only  times  I  have  for  myself." 
True,  but  by  eight  o'clock  the  younger  ones  are 
ready  for  bed,  and  the  older  to  go  to  their  lessons  or 
their  library  books.  You  may  become  interested 
in  your  book,  but  not  so  absorbed  that  you  cannot 
stop  to  help  Mary  about  her  map  questions,  or  to 
talk  with  Tom  about  Stanley's  "Across  the  Dark 
Continent."  Your  children's  reading  and  study,  as 
well  as  their  play,  ought  always  to  have  a  decided 
flavor  of  "  mother  "  in  it. 

This  does  not  provide  for  the  days,  and  that  is, 
after  all,  the  main  question.  Have  you  ever  tried 
a  scrap-book  ?  It  makes  no  end  of  litter,  unless 
managed  just  right;  but  let  it  once  become  an 
"institution,"  to  be  provided  for  as  you  do  for  the 
week's  washing,  and  it  will  keep  the  children 
wholesomely  busy  for  many  an  hour.  First  of  all, 
you  want  a  place  for  it.  If  you  must  drag  chairs 
and  tables  out  of  their  places  and  then  put  them  all 
away  again  in  a  hurry,  or  if  the  cuttings  are  littered 
over  everything,  "  the  game  is  not  worth  the 
candle."  But  make  a  broad,  low  table  (an  exten- 
sion table  leaf  will  do),  just  the  right  height  to 
match  the  little  chairs.  Put  this  table  in  a  snug 
corner  of  your  nursery  or  sitting-room.  Appropri- 
ate a  bureau-drawer  or  small  cupboard  close  by  the 
table  for  the  pictures,  books  and  papers.  Have 
the  waste-basket  so  near  that  the  waste-papers  will 
almost  go  in  themselves.  If  paste  will  injure  your 
carpet,  lay  down  a  drugget ;  or  mark  off  the  bound- 
aries of  this  "children's  corner"  with  a  piece  of 
chalk.  Make  them  understand  that  "  all  the  litter  " 
must  be  kept  within  that  line,  and  that  things  left  on 
the  floor  after  due  notice  of  clearing-up  time  will 
be  liable  to  confiscation.  If  you  make  these 
arrangements  convenient  for  them,  and  if  you  are 
firm  about  taking  things  away  (for  a  time)  which 
they  leave  out  of  place,  they  will  soon  learn  to  put 
scissors  and  pictures,  pencils  and  paste,  into  their 
proper  boxes  and  shelves,  to  stuff  papers  into  the 
basket,  and  be  ready  for  the  next  play.  In  this 
corner  they  can  paint  or  play  tea-set  or  dolls,  and, 
if  properly  managed,  it  will  be  a  delight  to  them, 
and  a  relief  to  you. 

But,  you  ask,  where  do  the  pictures  and  books 
come  from  ?  Everywhere — from  odd  magazines, 
old  papers,  publishers'  catalogues,  advertising  cir- 
culars, old  books  whose  bindings  are  hopelessly 
broken,  and  the  like.  You  can  make  the  books  for 
the  little  ones  of  brown  wrapping-paper,  or  get  large 
sheets  of  white  paper  at  a  printing-office.  Fold 
them  into  book-form,  and  make  stout  covers  of 
cotton  cloth,  pasted  on  stiff  paper.  Sew  it  all  firmly 
together,  book-binder  fashion. 

Understand,  to  begin  with,  that  the  object  of  all 
this  is  to  amuse,  not  to  produce  results.  The 
younger  children  will  be  pleased  with  anything  that 
will  paste,  especially  if  it  is  bright-colored.  It  is 
hardly  necessary  to  say  that  they  should  not  be 
allowed  to  have  pictures  that  are  really  bad,  either 
in  subject  or  design.  The  older  children,  with  the 


better  pictures,  if  you  can  direct  them  a  little,  will 
sometimes  make  very  handsome  books. 

Do  not  give  them  many  pictures  at  a  time,  and  in- 
sist that  they  finish  cutting  them  out  before  they  begin 
to  paste  them  in.  Otherwise,  they  will  have  paste, 
scissors,  pictures  and  waste-paper  "  heaped  in  con- 
fusion dire."  I  know  of  no  amusement  to  which 
children  will  return  with  greater  delight,  and  out  of 
which  they  will  get  so  much  pleasure  for  the  same 
expenditure  of  time  and  money. 

If  your  pictures  are  too  good  to  give  to  the  chil- 
dren, make  the  book  yourself,  if  you  have  time,  and 
let  them  stand  by  and  look.  They  can  help  by  pre- 
paring the  pictures  for  you  to  paste. 

In  such  a  book  you  can  put  all  these  bright  little 
reward  and  Christmas  and  Easter  cards,  pictures 
and  valentines  which  are  continually  floating  into 
a  family  of  children.  These  pretty  things  soon  get 
lost  and  spoiled,  but  if  put  into  a  book  at  once  they 
make  a  very  interesting  and  pretty  picture-book. 
If  the  leaves  are  made  of  cloth,  and  the  book,  when 
finished  is  simply  bound  by  a  book-binder,  it  will 
last  a  whole  generation  of  children  and  be  a  never- 
failing  delight. 

When  they  get  tired  of  pasting,  let  them  paint  the 
pictures.  The  little  ones  can  use  colored  crayons  or 
pencils  ;  the  older  ones  will  enjoy  best  the  toy 
water-color  paint  boxes.  Give  them  a  few  instruc- 
tions about  rubbing  off  the  colors,  and  teach  them 
to  use  the  tips  of  the  brushes,  not  to  daub  with  the 
whole  brush.  Provide  them  with  tiny  cups  for  the 
water,  and  something  on  which  to  wipe  the  brushes. 
A  few  minutes'  instruction  to  begin  with  will  help 
them  very  much,  and  they  will  paint  by  the  hour. 

Another  amusement  can  be  furnished  them  by 
cutting  tissue-paper  into  square  pieces  about  as 
large  as  an  ordinary  book,  and  letting  them  trace 
the  pictures  in  their  "  St.  Nicholas  "  or  "  Nursery  " 
or  scrap-books.  This  is  a  good  preparation  for 
their  writing  and  drawing  lessons  by  and  by.  Some 
systems  of  drawing  and  writing  begin  with  tracing 
lines  of  copies  through  thin  paper  in  just  this  way. 
The  little  folks  will  learn  a  great  deal  about  form 
and  color  by  all  this  handling  of  and  looking  at  pict- 
ures, to  say  nothing  of  what  they  learn  from  the 
pictures  themselves. 

The  success  of  these  amusements  will  depend 
very  much  upon  the  good  condition  of  their  tools 
and  materials.  If  the  paste  is  lumpy,  the  pencils 
dull,  the  paper  crumpled,  the  brushes  the  wrong 
kind  or  worn  out,  the  embryo  artists  will  soon  come 
flocking  back  to  your  sewing-chair,  complaining, 
"  Oh,  Mamma,  we  can't  do  anything  with  it.  Why 
can't  we  go  out  doors  ?  It  is  horrid  in  the  house." 

MARY  BLAKE. 

On  Landing  in  Liverpool. 

THE  Atlantic  steamers  arriving  in  Liverpool  usu- 
ally anchor  in  the  stream  and  land  their  passengers 
by  a  steam-tender,  to  which  all  the  baggage  is  trans- 
ferred by  the  sailors  and  stewards.  From  the  tender 
the  travelers  are  disembarked  upon  the  great  landing 
stage,  which  among  its  other  conveniences  has  a 


HOME  AND   SOCIETY. 


3°7 


spacious  customs  depot  for  the  examination  of  bag- 
gage or  "  luggage,"  as  one's  impediments  are  invari- 
ably called  in  England.  A  gang  of  badged  porters, 
licensed  by  the  municipality  and  supervised  by  the 
police,  carry  each  passenger's  effects  from  the  tender 
to  the  customs  depot,  where  they  are  deposited  in 
sections,  according  to  a  lettered  label  which  is  pasted 
upon  them  at  New  York.  Then,  if  your  letter  is  R, 
you  calmly  walk  ashore  and  ask  in  the  customs  de- 
pot for  the  corresponding  section,  in  which  your 
Saratogas  and  valises  will  be  found.  The  customs 
officers  are  civil  and  accommodating,  and  a  state- 
ment that  you  have  brought  no  wine  or  cigars  with 
you  usually  obviates  any  further  trouble  than  the 
unlocking  of  your  trunks.  Wine  containing  less 
than  twenty-six  degrees  of  spirits  is  dutiable  at  the 
rate  of  one  shilling  (twenty-five  cents)  a  gallon  ;  that 
containing  more  than  twenty-six  degrees  at  two  shil- 
lings and  sixpence  a  gallon ;  unmanufactured  tobacco 
at  three  shillings  and  twopence  a  pound,  and  cigars 
at  five  shillings  a  pound.  American  reprints  of 
English  books  are  liable  to  confiscation;  but,  except 
in  large  attempts  at  smuggling,  the  law  is  flexible, 
and  such  tobacco  and  cigars  as  a  gentleman  may 
have  with  him  for  personal  use,  provided  they  do 
not  exceed  two  pounds  in  weight,  are  not  charged. 
When  the  officer  has  written  his  illegible  shibboleth 
upon  your  trunk,  the  badge  porter  takes  them  on  his 
shoulders  and  carries  them  up  one  of  the  great  iron 
bridges  that  connect  the  landing  stage  with  the  mas- 
sive pier  wall.  Here  you  engage  a  cab,  and  when 
you  are  seated  in  it  and  your  luggage  has  been 
placed  on  the  roof,  you  pay  the  porter,  whose  tariff  is 
fixed  by  municipal  ordinance,  at  the  rate  of  a  shilling 
a  piece  for  large  packages  and  sixpence  for  small 
ones.  Seated  in  the  cab  you  probably  feel  gratified 
for  the  admirable  system  that  prevails  and  the  pro- 
tection given  to  passengers  from  "  touters  "  of  all 
kinds.  All  the  principal  hotels  and  railway  sta- 
tions in  Liverpool  are  within  a  mile  and  a  half  of  the 
landing  stage.  It  is  the  custom  of  tourists  to  hasten 
away  from  this  great  maritime  city  without  seeing  it, 
but  it  is  well  worth  a  day's  delay,  and  as  it  is  only  an 
hour's  ride  from  ancient  Chester,  a  run  may  be  made 
during  the  morning  or  afternoon  to  that  picturesque 
and  extremely  interesting  place,  if  it  is  not  otherwise 
included  in  your  itinerary.  The  two  leading  hotels 
in  Liverpool  are  the  Northwestern  and  the  Adelphi, 
and  the  cab  fare  to  either,  from  the  landing  stage,  is 
one  shilling  and  sixpence.  Both  are  vast,  modern, 
and  expensive.  The  average  price  of  a  room  with 
attendance  is  about  eight  shillings  a  day,  and  the  res- 
taurant tariff  is  about  the  same  as  in  any  first-class 
New  York  restaurant.  There  are  other  hostelries 
less  showy  and  less  expensive,  such  as  the  Angel, 
the  Imperial,  the  Alexandra,  and  the  Feather's,  all 
good,  "commercial"  houses,  where  rooms  may  be 
had  for  four  shillings,  attendance  included. 

If  you  stay,  visit  the  Birkenhead  Park,  Sefton  Park, 
the  Walker  Art-Gallery,  the  Derby  Museum  and  St. 
George's  Hall.  At  five  o'clock  every  evening  in  sum- 
mer a  four-in-hand  drag  leaves  the  Exchange  for 
Childwall  Abbey — avenerableold  place  now  occupied 
as  an  inn,  which  is  set  in  a  lovely  garden,  overlooking 


one  of  the  prettiest  landscapes  in  England.  The  fare 
is  only  one  shilling  and  sixpence,  and  the  route  is 
partly  through  a  fashionable  section  of  the  town  and 
partly  through  meadows.  After  a  supper  at  the  inn, 
and  a  tranquilizing  hour  in  the  garden  with  the 
wonderfully  soft  landscape  in  view,  you  can  return 
to  the  city  by  the  drag  or  by  rail,  after  walking 
between  hawthorn  bushes  to  Broad  Green,  a  distance 
of  about  a  mile  from  the  Abbey ;  however  precious 
your  time  may  be,  you  will  not  regret  the  evening 
given  to  this  foretaste  of  pastoral  England. 

Liverpool  is  the  terminus  of  three  railways  to 
London,  the  fare  by  all  of  which  is  the  same,  i.  e.,  first 
class,  twenty-nine  shillings;  second  class,  twenty- 
one  shillings  and  ninepence  ;  third  class,  sixteen 
shillings  and  ninepence.  The  London  and  North- 
western is  the  shortest,  and  some  of  its  trains  make 
the  distance,  over  two  hundred  miles,  in  a  little  more 
than  five  hours.  The  Midland,  passing  through 
Derbyshire,  has  the  finest  scenery,  and  should  be 
selected  if  time  allows ;  some  trains  by  this  route  do 
the  journey  in  about  six  hours,  while  others  are 
eight  or  nine  hours.  By  the  Great  Western,  via 
Chester,  the  time  is  about  ten  hours.  Before  start- 
ing you  should  see  that  your  luggage  is  ticketed  by 
the  guard  with  the  name  of  your  destination,  and 
that  it  is  put  in  a  through  carriage,  as  the  American 
system  of  checks  has  not  yet  been  adopted  by  the 
English  railways.  Remember,  also,  that  many 
respectable  people  travel  second  and  third  class  in 
England,  but  that  the  Pullman  cars  are  only  available 
by  those  holding  first-class  tickets. 

ALEXANDER  WAINWRIGHT. 

The  Culture  of  the  Rose. 

EVERY  rose  will  not  come  from  the  slip.  Of  the 
three  great  divisions  into  which  the  rose  family  is 
separated,  viz.,  the  damask,  the  noisette  and  the  tea, 
the  last  two  may  be  propagated  with  more  or 
less  readiness  from  the  slip,  or  by  budding;  the 
first  only  by  dividing  the  roots,  and  planting  the 
seed,  which  latter  method  is  resorted  to,  however, 
only  when  it  is  desired  to  obtain  new  varieties. 

The  best  season  for  taking  rose  slips  is  in  June, 
just  after  the  profuse  bloom  of  early  summer  is  over, 
although  a  person  who  knows  exactly  how  to  cut 
a  slip  may  find  good  cuttings  throughout  the  warm 
months.  Judgment  and  discernment  are  needed  for 
the  selection  at  all  seasons.  I  know  a  generous 
lady  who  sent  her  friends  immense  armfuls  of 
boughs,  with  hardly  a  real  cutting  upon  them. 

One  should  choose  from  a  good  vigorous  branch 
of  last  year's  growth  a  fresh  shoot,  containing 
two  or  three  buds,  such  as  will  always  be  found 
more  or  less  swollen  at  the  base  of  the  leaf  stems. 
It  should  be  cut  from  the  parent  branch  diagonally, 
with  a  smooth,  clean  cut  that  will  bring  off  a  little  of 
the  old  bark  as  well,  in  order  to  make  the  condition 
as  favorable  as  possible  for  the  formation  of  roots. 

Have  ready  a  box  or  pot  of  rich  mold.  With  a 
round,  pointed  stick,  make  a  hole  several  inches  deep, 
and  fill  it  up  with  clean  sand ;  insert  the  end  of  the 
slip  in  this  sand  to  the  depth  of  one  or  two  inches ; 


3o8 


CULTURE  AND  PROGRESS. 


be  sure  to  make  it  firm  in  the  soil,  and  the  sand 
acting  as  a  percolator  for  moisture,  you  may  keep 
your  slip  well  watered.  You  can  soon  see,  by  the 
swelling  of  the  buds  and  the  dropping  off  of  the  old 
leaves,  whether  the  slip  is  indeed  taking  root,  but 
do  not  attempt  to  remove  it  to  the  place  where  you 
would  wish  it  permanently  to  remain,  until  it  has 
put  out  several  sets  of  new  leaves. 

An  ingenious  way  to  raise  a  set  of  slips  has  been 
recommended  by  Mrs.  Loudon,  which  we  have 
tried  with  unvarying  success.  It  is  to  take  an 
earthen-ware  flower-pot,  gallon-size,  and  fill  it 
more  than  half  full  of  broken  potsherds,  pebbles, 
bits  of  slate  or  such  things;  now  set  in  the  middle, 
on  top  of  these  refuse  materials,  another  similar 
flower-pot,  half-pint  size,  with  the  hole  at  its  bot- 
tom stopped  up  tightly  with  a  cork ; — let  its  mouth 


be  even  with  that  of  the  large,  outer  one ; — fill  up  the 
interstices  with  silver  sand  or  other  pure  sand,  and 
set  in  a  row  of  slips  all  around,  cut  according  to  the 
directions  given  above.  Keep  the  inner  pot  full 
of  water  all  the  time,  but  do  not  water  the  slips, 
directly.  In  about  six  weeks  your  slips  will  have 
fine  roots,  and  can  be  potted.  A  hand-glass  always 
hastens  the  process  of  rooting,  and  enables  you  to 
take  advantage  of  the  sunshine,  but  if  you  are  not 
provided  with  one,  be  careful  to  keep  your  plants  in 
the  shade  until  they  show  certain  signs  of  independ- 
ence of  life. 

Roses  need  very  rich  soil  to  bring  them  to  per- 
fection, thriving  best  in  a  mixture  of  well-rotted 
manure,  sand  and  garden  loam,  and  to  stint  them 
of  nourishment  is  indeed  poor  economy. 

M.  S.  S. 


CULTURE  AND  PROGRESS. 


Huxley's  "  Crayfish."* 

A  MONOGRAPH  upon  the  crayfish  would  scarcely 
find  place  in  the  International  Scientific  Series, 
since  this  series  is  addressed  to  the  public  at  large, 
rather  than  to  the  select  scientific  few.  This  volume, 
however,  is  not  a  monograph,  but,  as  its  supplement- 
ary title  denotes,  an  introduction  to  the  study  of 
zoology.  It  will  therefore  prove  of  special  interest 
only  to  such  students  as  are  both  willing  and  able 
to  follow  the  author  patiently  through  every  step 
of  his  progress;  the  tedious  technicalities  which 
invest  the  discussion  of  arthrobranchise  and  podo- 
branchiae,  coxopodite  and  basipodite,  however,  are 
constantly  relieved  by  the  wide  outlook  over  organic 
nature  afforded  from  each  new  point  of  view. 

We  have  here,  in  fact,  a  profound  sermon  upon 
evolution,  with  the  crayfish  for  text.  Unlike  many 
of  his  brethren  of  the  pulpit,  Professor  Huxley 
does  not  use  his  text  as  a  mere  point  of  departure. 
The  structure,  development,  mode  of  life  and  repro- 
duction, the  geological  and  geographical  distribu- 
tion of  the  crayfish,  and  the  relation  which  it 
sustains  to  organic  nature,  are  all  clearly  set  forth. 
The  volume  might  be  called  an  introduction  to 
biology  or  physiology  with  almost  as  much  justice 
as  it  is  to  zoology,  since  every  physical  fact  is 
viewed  in  its  widest  relations.  There  is  no  problem 
involved  in  the  theory  of  transformism  which  is 
not  affected,  and  no  cardinal  point  in  human  physi- 
ology which  is  not  illustrated  by  the  processes  of 
life  and  death  in  this  simple  organism.  The  cray- 
fish derives  its  importance,  and  has  won  the  dis- 
tinction of  a  biography  in  the  present  volume,  not 
by  its  own  intrinsic  interest,  but  by  the  place  which 
it  occupies  in  the  series  of  typical  forms  selected 
to  illustrate  the  doctrine  of  evolution. 


*  The  Crayfish.    An  introduction  to  the  study  of  Zoologv 
yT-  H-  Huxley,   F.  R.  S.    New  York:  D.  Appleton  &  Co. 


The  inductive  method  of  scientific  study — as  old 
as  the  first  intellectual  stirrings  of  the  race,  though 
formulated  and  fathered  by  Bacon — has  begotten  a. 
passion  for  generalization  which  pervades  all  the 
science  of  our  day.  A  better  illustration  of  this 
tendency  could  scarcely  be  found  than  that  afforded 
by  this  book.  The  fairy  tales  of  science  are  no- 
more.  Facts  have  given  up  their  knight-errantry 
and  act  only  in  platoons.  And  so  the  outcome  of 
Professor  Huxley's  study  of  the  crayfish  is  a  flat 
denial  of  a  personal  Creator.  Nowhere  does  he  more 
plainly  express  his  views  upon  the  subject  of  evolu- 
tion or  transformism  than  here.  After  establishing 
a  certain  unity  of  organization  to  be  found  through- 
out the  organic  world,  he  says : 

"  But  if  this  is  a  just  mode  of  stating  these 
conclusions,  then  it  is  undoubtedly  conceivable  that 
all  plants  and  all  animals  have  been  evolved  from  a 
common  physical  basis  of  life,  by  processes  similar 
to  those  which  we  see  at  work  in  the  evolution  of 
individual  animals  and  plants  from  that  foundation. 
That  which  is  conceivable,  however,  is  by  no  means 
necessarily  true ;  and  no  amount  of  purely  morpho- 
logical evidence  can  suffice  to  prove  that  the  forms 
of  life  have  come  into  existence  in  one  way  rather 
than  another  "  (page  286). 

After  a  consideration  of  the  aetiology, — that  is,  the 
distribution  of  these  forms  with  reference  to  their 
probable  origin, — he  says : 

"  It  would  appear  difficult  to  frame  more  than  two 
fundamental  hypotheses  in  attempting  to  solve  this 
problem.  Either  we  must  seek  the  origin  of  cray- 
fishes in  conditions  extraneous  to  the  ordinary  course 
of  natural  operations,  by  what  is  commonly  termed 
creation ;  or  we  must  seek  for  it  in  conditions 
afforded  by  the  usual  course  of  nature,  when  the 
hypothesis  assumes  some  shape  of  the  Doctrine  of 
Evolution  "  (page  318). 

On  page  319,  he  clinches  his  argument,  if  argu- 
ment it  can  be  called,  or,  more  properly,  he  blows 


CULTURE  AND  PROGRESS. 


3°9 


scornfully  aside  with  a  single  puff  the  obstacles  in 
his  way,  by  this  begging  of  the  question : 

"  However,  apart  from  the  philosophical  worth- 
lessness  of  the  hypothesis  of  creation,  it  would  be 
a  waste  of  time  to  discuss  a  view  which  no  one 
upholds,"  etc.,  etc. 

It  is  somewhat  remarkable  that  a  man  so  keen 
and  clear-headed  as  Professor  Huxley  can  think  to 
settle  the  origin  of  all  things  by  merely  pushing  the 
difficulty  of  transformation  from  the  non-living 
elements  to  living  organisms  back  a  few  millions  of 
years.  A  miracle  differs  from  ordinary  phenomena, 
not  in  degree,  but  in  kind.  Granted  a  force  able  to 
transform  one  atom  of  inorganic  matter  into  a  living 
germ,  and  -we  have  a  God  capable  of  creating  a  uni- 
verse. With  all  his  brilliancy  of  intellect  and  power 
of  logical  thought,  Professor  Huxley  can  believe  that 
somehow,  in  some  infinite  distance  of  time,  by  a 
fortuitous  combination  of  force  and  matter,  some 
fragment  of  inorganic  matter  became  endued  with 
life,  which  was,  by  the  action  of  blind  force,  devel- 
oped into  the  well-ordered  system  of  the  organic 
world,  and  yet  he  scoffs  at  the  absurdity  of  the 
belief  that  Will,  the  one  uncorrelated  force  of 
which  we  know,  should  have  anything  to  do  with 
that  or  any  other  transformation.  Truly,  the  faith 
that  science  demands  puts  to  shame  the  faith  of 
religion. 

Professor  Huxley  has  not  lost,  even  in  the  mazes 
of  this  dry  and  technical  subject,  the  happy  faculty 
of  saying  things  graphically,  and  even  at  times  with 
a  flash  of  poetical  feeling,  or  a  gleam  of  humor. 
This  treatment  makes  oi  the  book — by  the  aid  of 
judicious  skipping — pleasant  reading  for  the  unin- 
itiated. 

Hosmer's  "  Short  History  of  German  Literature."  * 

THIS  is  an  entertaining  and  yet,  in  some  respects, 
a  disappointing  book.  It  betrays  considerable 
scholarship,  without  yet  being  scholarly.  The  author 
appears  to  have  read  a  vast  deal  about  German  liter- 
ature and  to  have  read  it  intelligently  and  critically, 
but  the  German  literature  itself,  or,  at  all  events,  that 
part  of  it  which  precedes  the  Reformation,  he  seems 
to  know  chiefly  from  anthologies  and  literary  histories. 
To  be  sure,  he  frankly  acknowledges  his  indebted- 
ness to  his  German  predecessors,  and  particularly 
to  Kurz  and  Vilmar,  and  endeavors,  both  in  his  pre- 
face and  in  foot-notes,  to  render  credit  where  credit  is 
due ;  but  we  are  inclined  to  think  that  the  method 
he  has  chosen  is  somewhat  imperfect.  In  some 
instances  he  continues,  for  page  after  page,  his  para- 
phrase of  a  German  authority,  taking  sufficient 
liberties  with  the  text  to  make  quotation  marks 
superfluous,  and  indicating  merely  where  his  depend- 
ence upon  Kurz,  Gervinus  or  Vilmar  ceases,  but  not 
invariably  where  it  begins. 

Again,  from  a  very  attentive  perusal  of  Professor 
Hosmer's  work  we  derive  the  impression  that  he 


*  A  Short  History  of  German  Literature.  By  Prof.  James  K. 
Hosmer.  Second  edition.  St  Louis:  G.  T.  Jones  &  Co. 
1879. 


has  not  had  a  full  appreciation  of  the  gravity  of  the 
task  which  he  has  undertaken.  He  interrupts  his 
serious  narrative,  at  odd  intervals,  with  accounts  of 
his  personal  experiences  and  adventures  during  a 
European  pilgrimage,  describes  his  interviews  with 
Hermann  Grimm,  Leopold  von  Ranke  and  Theo- 
dore Mommsen,  gives  free  rein  to  his  emotions  dur- 
ing a  visit  to  the  Cathedral  of  Speyer,  and  indulges 
in  semi-historical  and  semi-sentimental  meditations 
in  Weimar,  Nuremberg  and  other  localities  asso- 
ciated with  the  lives  of  the  intellectual  heroes  of  the 
Fatherland.  It  is  but  fair  to  admit  that  his  expe- 
riences are,  in  most  cases,  very  interesting,  and  that 
his  meditations  give  evidence  of  a  sensitive  and  cul- 
tivated mind ;  but  their  connection  with  German 
literature  is  not  sufficiently  apparent  to  excuse  the 
digression.  Even  as  illustrative  incidents  they 
seem  out  of  place,  and  interfere  with  the  dignity  of  a 
serious  historical  work. 

Questions  of  proportion  are  notably  elastic,  and  in 
a  book  which  makes  no  pretense  of  exhaustive  com- 
pleteness, it  would,  perhaps,  be  safest  to  accept  the 
author's  judgment  as  final.  We  are,  on  the  whole, 
disposed  to  think  that  he  has  rarely  erred  on  the 
side  of  prolixity,  except  when  the  autobiographical 
mood  attacks  him.  His  sense  of  the  relative  im- 
portance of  the  various  authors  and  literary  epochs 
is,  as  a  rule,  very  accurate.  Only  in  two  or  three 
instances  are  we  forced  to  take  issue  with  him. 
He  dismisses  the  most  ancient  literature  in  a  too 
summary  fashion,  devoting  but  five  lines  to  the 
Heliand  (a  most  profoundly  characteristic  and  inter- 
esting work,  to  which  even  so  short  a  history  as 
Vilmar's  devotes  nearly  two  closely-printed  pages) 
and  three  lines  and  a  half  to  Otfried  von  Weissen- 
burg's  "  Harmony  of  the  Gospels."  Again,  the  two 
Silesian  schools  are  disposed  of  in  a  dozen  lines,  and 
Paul  Flemming  is  mentioned  only  as  a  writer  of 
hymns,  although  the  authorities  to  which  Professor 
Hosmer  so  frequently  refers  (Vilmar  and  Kurz) 
agree  in  praising  him  also  as  a  secular  poet  of 
genuine  merit.  To  us  he  has  always  been  a  refresh- 
ing, lyrical  oasis  in  the  poetic  desert  of  the  seven- 
teenth century. 

Our  space  does  not  permit  us  to  enter  into  a  de- 
tailed criticism  of  each  successive  chapter.  Of  the 
many  notes  which  we  have  made  we  will,  however, 
select  a  few  which  suggest  topics  worthy  of  discus- 
sion. On  page  341  Professor  Hosmer  remarks  that 
"  Goethe  was  forced  to  leave  Wetzlar,"  and  on  page 
369,  that  "  Goethe  sees  them  (Kestner  and  Charlotte 
Buff)  given  to  each  other,  and  leaves  Wetzlar  suf- 
fering from  his  passion."  In  our  opinion,  and  in 
that  of  Grimm  (whose  account  of  Goethe's  relation 
to  Lotte  is  well  fortified  with  documents  and,  more- 
over, bears  an  internal  evidence  of  its  truthfulness) 
the  above  passages  convey  an  utterly  erroneous 
impression.  What  forced  Goethe  to  leave  Wetzlar 
was  his  own  conscience ;  or,  perhaps,  the  circum- 
stance that  after  having  discovered  Lotte's  love  for 
him  it  would  be  embarrassing  to  continue  the  same 
free  and  unrestrained  intercourse.  Secondly,  we 
should  conclude  from  Professor  Hosmer's  version 
of  the  Wetzlar  affair,  that  Kestner  and  Lotte  were 


3io 


CULTURE  AND  PROGRESS. 


married  before  their  friend  departed  ;  but  this  was 
not  the  case.  Engaged  they  were  already  when  he 
made  Lotte's  acquaintance.  That  Frederika  Brion 
served  Goethe  as  a  model  for  Gretchen  in  "  Faust," 
we  know  has  been  frequently  asserted,  and  some  of 
her  characteristic  traits  do  re-appear  in  Faust's  be- 
loved; but  we  think  a  closer  study  of  Goethe's 
autobiography  reveals  the  fact  (already  pointed  out 
by  Bayard  Taylor)  that  his  more  immediate  model 
was  his  own  youthful  love  Gretchen,  who  came  near 
bringing  him  into  an  unpleasant  scrape  while  he 
was  yet  under  the  parental  roof  in  Frankfort. 
Again,  we  submit  that  the  voices  which  arouse  the 
recollection  of  his  childhood,  in  "  Faust,"  when  he 
holds  the  goblet  of  poison  to  his  lips,  are  not  those 
of  cherubs  (page  396),  but  of  holiday  mummers  who, 
in  the  disguise  of  apostles,  angels,  etc.,  chanted  the 
solemn  Easter  choruses.  Such  mummers  were 
very  common  at  Christmas  and  Easter  in  mediaeval 
times,  and  are  yet  seen  in  Germany  during  the  great 
church  festivals.  Finally,  we  would  venture  a  criti- 
cism which,  finical  as  it  may  seem,  is  yet  its  own 
justification  ;  Hans  Christian  Andersen  was  not  a 
German,  but  a  Dane. 

In  spite  of  these  literal  defects,  Professor  Hosmer's 
"  Short  History "  may  be  recommended  for  its 
many  excellences.  The  style  is  remarkably  chaste 
and  clear,  and  not  needlessly  elaborate  or  over- 
loaded with  rhetorical  decorations.  The  author's 
reading  has  been  varied  and  extensive  and  his 
scholarship  is  highly  creditable,  although  we 
have  ventured  to  find  fault  with  his  evident  prefer- 
ence for  critical  writings  and  literary  histories,  in 
instances  where  an  acquaintance  with  the  criticised 
work  would  have  stood  him  in  better  stead ;  but, 
as  we  have  already  remarked,  this  stricture  is  only 
applicable  to  that  portion  of  his  book  which  relates 
to  the  earliest  German  literature.  His  mind  is  ap- 
parently as  judicial  and  as  free  from  prejudice  as 
any  human  mind  can  be ;  he  is  always  benevolently 
disposed  toward  every  author  whom  he  approaches, 
and  examines  in  a  just  and  fair-minded  spirit  his 
claims  to  greatness.  Especially  admirable  are  his 
chapters  on  Luther  and  Lessing,  with  both  of  whom 
he  is  in  perfect  sympathy.  Without  being  a  hero- 
worshiper  he  has  due  respect  and  reverence  for  a 
man  of  exalted  character  or  exceptional  intellectual 
endowments.  This  attitude  of  what  one  might  call 
sympathetic  neutrality,  is  especially  manifested  in 
Professor  Hosmer's  treatment  of  two  such  antago- 
nistic geniuses  as  Goethe  and  Heine,  to  both  of  whom 
he  endeavors  to  do  full  justice. 

It  is  but  fair  to  add  that  the  present  work,  being 
of  larger  compass  than  Bayard  Taylor's  "  Studies  in 
German  Literature,"  which  we  noticed  a  few  months 
ago,  is  necessarily,  when  dealing  with  modern 
authors,  more  complete,  while  in  the  period  preced- 
ing Luther,  it  does  not  remotely  rival  it.  Neverthe- 
less, it  is,  every  way,  a  more  useful  and  satisfactory 
book  than  Metcalf's  fragmentary  translation  of 
Vilmar,  and  is  also  a  considerable  advance  upon 
Bostwick  and  Harrison's  "Outlines  of  German 
Literature."  For  all  that,  it  covers  but  partly  a 
field  in  which  much  yet  remains  to  be  done. 


Mrs.  Burnett's  "  Louisiana. "* 

MRS.  BURNETT  is  always  at  her  best  when  dealing 
with  strong,  primitive  natures.  Her  "  cultivated  " 
young  women,  though  they  need  not  be  lacking  in 
interest,  are,  as  a  rule,  less  strikingly  characterized 
than  are  those  in  whom  nature  is  allowed  to  assert 
herself,  unobstructed  by  the  impediments  of  culture. 
Thus  the  conventional  types,  to  which  belong  Miss 
Barholm,  in  "That  Lasso'  Lowrie's."  Miss  Ffrench 
in  "  Haworth's "  and  Miss  Ferrol,  in  the  present 
story,  are  necessarily  at  a  disadvantage  when  con- 
trasted with  the  noble  barbarism  of  Joan  Lowrie, 
the  quaintness  of  Janey  Briarley,  and  the  primitive 
charm  of  Louisiana.  In  some  of  her  minor  stories, 
too,  such  as  "Lodusky"  and  "  Esmeralda,"  Mrs. 
Burnett  has  given  proof  of  her  deep  insight  into 
the  workings  of  minds  as  yet  untouched  or  only 
remotely  touched  by  modern  civilization.  In 
"  Surly  Tim,"  which  belongs  approximately  to  the 
same  order,  there  was  a  touch  of  sentimentality 
which  recalled  Dickens, — a  certain  morbid  and 
lachrymose  tendency  which  some  of  her  admirers 
feared  would  in  time  vitiate  the  wholesome  strength 
and  spontaneity  characteristic  of  Mrs.  Burnett's 
best  work.  "  Louisiana,"  however,  dispels  all  such 
fear  for  the  author's  artistic  future,  and  fortifies  the 
admiration  of  her  genius  and  character.  It  is  a 
fresh,  wholesome,  human  novel.  In  its  style 
there  is  an  unstudied  simplicity  which  impresses 
one  almost  as  improvisation.  The  situations  are 
all  well  conceived  and  possess,  in  some  instances, 
a  pathos  which  goes  directly  to  the  heart.  Thus, 
in  the  scene  where  Lawrence  and  his  sister  pay 
their  involuntary  visit  to  Louisiana's  home  and 
unwittingly  make  themselves  merry  at  the  ex- 
pense of  her  father,  there  is  a  rapid  succession  of 
situations  all  of  which  are  profoundly  moving. 
The  old  farmer's  discourse  on  novels  (the  scenes 
of  which  are  laid  in  Bagdad)  is  especially 
happy. 

We  might  mention  many  other  scenes  in  which 
Mrs.  Burnett  utilizes  apparently  slight  motives 
with  admirable  effect.  Thus,  we  are  readily  recon- 
ciled to  her  apotheosis  of  millinery  in  the  first  half 
of  the  story,  and  would  not  challenge  the  contempt 
of  any  of  her  female  admirers  by  questioning  the 
possibility  of  the  transformation  which  Louisiana 
undergoes  after  having  been  arrayed  by  Miss  Ferrol 
in  her  wonderful  Parisian  dresses.  The  weak  point 
in  the  book — though  one  which  is  hardly  felt  in  the 
reader's  absorption  in  Louisiana  herself — is  the 
vagueness  of  Miss  Ferrol's  and  her  brother's  person- 
ality. These  are  subordinate  elements,  no  doubt, 
and  we  fail  to  find  any  vigorous  attempt  at 
characterization  in  either  of  them,  while  the  por- 
traits of  Louisiana  and  Mr.  Rogers  abound  in 
touches  which  are  inimitable.  As  a  whole,  the 
story  is  dramatic  and  impressive,  and  the  reader  is 
sorry  that  it  comes  to  an  end  so  soon. 


*  Louisiana.  By  Frances  Hodgson  Burnett,  author  of 
"That  Lass  o' Lowrie's,"  "Haworth's,"  etc.  New  York: 
Charles  Scribner's  Sons.  1880. 


CULTURE  AND  PROGRESS. 


311 


James's  "  Confidence."  * 

IT  must  always  remain  a  matter  of  wonder  to 
those  who  admire  Mr.  James  most  sincerely,  that, 
being  so  great  as  he  is,  he  is  no  greater;  that  with 
all  the  artistic  perfection  of  his  style,  the  keenness 
of  his  observation  and  the  strength  and  brilliancy 
of  his  thought,  he  has  yet  so  little  real  depth  of  in- 
sight. Would  any  one,  for  instance,  venture  to 
assert  that  Mr.  James's  writings  display  an  adequate 
conception  of  what  love  is  ?  In  "  Confidence," 
the  cardinal  passion  manifests  itself  chiefly  as  a 
vague  unrest  which  has  the  power  of  propelling  its 
victim  an  indefinite  number  of  times  and  in  either 
direction  across  the  Atlantic  Ocean.  It  causes 
young  ladies  to  behave  in  an  enigmatical  fashion 
(which  of  course  is  perfectly  proper),  and  up  to  the 
moment  of  the  happy  consummation  makes  every- 
body mildly  and  discreetly  miserable.  However, 
this  is  undeniably  the  form  in  which  love  most 
frequently  asserts  itself  in  the  over-civilized  "  inter- 
national" society  with  which  Mr.  James's  books  are 
concerned ;  it  is  a  gentle  and  easily  manageable 
emotion,  not  a  passion  with  a  spark  of  Plutonian 
fire  in  it. 

Within  these  limitations, "  Confidence  "  is  an  enter- 
taining and  skillfully  constructed  novel.  Close  up  to 
the  line  of  real  emotion,  we  see  the  whole  inner  life 
and  character  of  Mr.  James's  men  and  women.  We 
see,  too,  the  influence  that  their  emotion  exerts  on 
their  conduct,  but  not  the  real  emotion  itself.  For  all 
that,  the  reader  who  can  supply  the  missing  links 
and  rewrite  the  love  passages  for  himself,  can  only 
admire  the  whole  outgrowth  of  the  conditions. 
Judged  by  itself,  each  character  is  a  skillful  study, 
and  is  accepted  into  the  circle  of  our  literary 
acquaintance  to  a  degree  not  usual  even  with 
those  which  have  stirred  us  more.  The  absurdly 
conscientious  Gordon  Wright,  with  his  intermin- 
able letter- writing ;  the  chattering  little  coquette 
Blanche  Evers  and  her  redoubtable  English  adorer 
Captain  Lovelock,  are  all.  so  originally  and  so 
piquantly  portrayed  as  almost  to  impress  us  as  new 
creations.  And  yet  Captain  Lovelock  is  quite  a 
common  type  in  the  English  novel  of  the  day,  and 
Blanche  Evers,  in  her  deliciously  inane  chatter, 
reminds  us  constantly  of  Daisy  Miller,  of  whom  she 
is  an  improved  and  further  elaborated  edition.  Mrs. 
Vivian,  the  "  perverted  Puritan,"  is  also  very  vividly 
conceived,  and  the  mixture  of  timid  worldliness  and 
minute  conscientiousness  in  her  character  has  a 
quaint,  serio-comic  effect.  Angela  is  so  needlessly 
enigmatical  that  we  doubt  if  Mr.  James  himself 
understands  her ;  but  this  does  not  deprive  her  of 
attractiveness  and  fascination.  Bernard  Longueville, 
the  nominal  hero,  is  a  slightly  modified  repetition 
of  the  author's  favorite  type.  Apart  from  his 
very  clever  talk  and  his  cosmopolitan  tendency 
to  roam  the  world  over  at  a  moment's  notice,  he 
is  in  no  wise  remarkable,  and  we  are  inclined 
to  think  that  he  was  blessed  beyond  his  deserts 


*  Confidence.  By  Henry  James,  Jr.,  author  of  "The 
American,"  " The  Europeans,"  etc.  Boston:  Houghton,  Os- 
good  &  Co.  1880. 


in  gaining  Angela.  The  plot,  as  usual  with  Mr. 
James,  is  conspicuous  chiefly  for  its  simplicity, 
but  contains,  nevertheless,  a  series  of  delightful  sur- 
prises dexterously  managed.  Especially  masterly 
is  Angela's  successful  stratagem  for  restoring  the 
disaffected  Gordon  to  his  innocent  flirt  of  a  wife. 

Matthews's  "Theaters  of  Paris."* 

IN  any  work  which  partakes  of  the  nature  of  a 
hand-book,  whether  in  outward  form  or  in  inward 
and  spiritual  essence,  we  look  for  three  points  of 
excellence — accuracy,'  agreeable  style,  and  a  judicious 
and  effective  presentation  of  the  subject  matter. 
Mr.  Matthews's  volume  on  "The  Theaters  of 
Paris,"  stands  well  this  three-fold  test.  In  form  it 
is  a  collection  of  smoothly  written  essays,  almost 
gossipy,  at  times,  in  tone,  which  sketch  the  history 
and  characteristics  of  the  famous  play-houses  of  the 
French  capital  in  such  a  way  that  the  reader  quite 
unconsciously  absorbs  much  correct,  specific  and 
well-chosen  information.  Thus  the  book  fulfills 
its  primary  object  in  suiting  the  needs  and  tastes 
of  the  general  public.  To  the  student  of  the  drama 
and  the  lover  of  the  stage  it  must  have  a  special 
value,  for  the  popular  form  in  which  its  theme  is 
treated  does  not  lessen  its  more  serious  merits. 
The  scheme  of  the  book  is  comprehensive ;  it  pictures 
persons  as  well  as  places,  and  ranges  at  will  over 
the  long  space  between  Moliere's  earliest  and  Sar- 
dou's  latest  play.  A  rather  disproportionate  amount 
of  space  is  devoted  to  "The  Musical  Theaters  of 
Paris,"  the  record  whereof  is  notable  for  its  barren 
frivolity ;  for  the  Opera  was  an  outgrowth  of  the 
nation's  social,  not  of  her  intellectual,  development ; 
it  has  never  been  a  vital  factor  in  civilization,  nor 
anything  more  than  a  luxury  of  super-refinement. 
An  index  would  add  to  the  usefulness  of  "The 
Theaters  of  Paris,"  and  it  is  to  be  observed  that 
the  author's  punctilious  care  in  translating  the  names 
of  books  and  plays  is  likely  to  confuse  the  reader 
who  is  unacquainted  with  the  original  French ;  but 
the  minor  details  of  the  book  leave  as  little  to  be 
desired  as  does  the  excellent  taste  shown  in  its 
material  dress  and  make-up. 

Recent  Books  of  Travel. 

ONE  of  the  most  attractive  books  for  young  folks 
brought  out  during  the  season  just  now  closing,  is 
Col.  Knox's  capital  story  of  the  travels  of  two  boys 
in  the  far  East.t  China  and  Japan  engage  the  atten- 
tion of  the  youthful  travelers,  who,  guided  by  a 
friendly  physician,  explore  precisely  those  parts  of 
the  world  which  most  boys  delight  to  read  about. 
The  little  caravan  starts  from  New  York,  across  the 
continent,  and  so,  ever  traveling  with  the  sun,  visits 
the  principal  cities  of  the  two  great  Asiatic  empires. 
The  doctor  is  guide,  philosopher,  and  friend.  He 
furnishes  to  the  wide-awake  youngsters  the  informa- 

*  The  Theaters  of  Paris.  By  J.  Brander  Matthews.  New 
York  :  Charles  Scribner's  Sons.  1880, 

t  Through  China  and  Japan.  The  Boy  Travelers  in  the  Far 
East.  Adventures  of  Two  Youths  in  a  Journey  to  Japan  and 
China.  By  Thomas  W.  Knox.  New  York :  Harper  &  Broth- 
ers. iE8o.  Pp.  421.  « 


3I2 


CULTURE  AND  PROGRESS. 


tion  which  is  naturally  to  be  brought  to  the  surface 
by  other  means  than  that  of  the  personal  observation 
of  the  boy  travelers ;  and  very  entertainingly  does  he 
perform  his  part  of  the  work.  As  the  author  is  an 
old  traveler,  his  pictures  of  manners,  customs,  and 
scenes  in  the  east  are  charged  with  local  color.  The 
reader  must  needs  be  carried  along  with  the  tourists, 
and  be  interested  at  every  step.  The  work  is  pro- 
fusely and  handsomely  illustrated,  and  is  bound  in 
the  most  sumptuous  manner.  The  boy  who  is  not 
attracted  and  held  to  a  careful  reading  of  this  book 
must  be  an  abnormal  development  of  boydom. 

Another  admirable  story  of  travel  is  Mrs.  Bras- 
sey's  second  book,  in  which  she  gives  an  account  of 
the  voyage  of  the  Sunbeam  to  the  eastern  ex- 
tremity of  the  Mediterranean,  from  England.*  The 
course  of  the  voyagers  lay  through  scenery  which 
has  already  been  made  familiar  to  readers  of  books 
of  travel.  But,  although  the  author  has  followed 
closely  on  the  track  of  countless  tourists,  she  has  not 
re-written  an  old  book.  Her  account  of  things  seen 
and  heard  is  as  fresh  as  if  she  were  the  first  to  write 
of  the  regions  visited.  The  voyage  extended  as  far 
east  as  the  Isle  of  Cyprus,  and  southward  to  Malta 
and  the  coast  of  Algeria.  The  party  enjoyed  the 
very  luxury  of  traveling,  and,  in  addition  to  the  usual 
personal  adventures  of  tourists,  they  met  with  a 
variety  of  accidents  and  incidents  which  were  pecul- 
iar to  what  might  be  called  a  private  nautical 
expedition.  The  author's  style  is  vivacious,  and, 
although  one  may  be  sometimes  impatient  with  the 
pettiness  of  detail  which  is  intruded,  this  does  not 
materially  detract  from  the  value  of  the  work. 

The  title  of  Miss  Bird's  book,  "A  Lady's  life  in 
the  Rocky  Mountains,"  is  somewhat  misleading.!  It 
is  a  very  small  part  of  a  life  which  is  described  in 
these  sprightly  pages.  Beginning  at  San  Francisco 
in  September,  the  writer  finishes  her  life  in  the 
Rocky  Mountains  early  in  the  following  December. 
She  is  charmed  by  all  she  sees,  and  a  truly  feminine 
sentiment  pervades  the  whole  work.  It  should  be 
remembered,  however,  that  the  book  has  grown  out 
of  a  series  of  private  letters  to  a  sister  of  the  author's 
living  in  England.  This  should  account  for  the 
familiar  style  adopted,  as  well  as  for  what  may  seem 
to  some  its  needless  minuteness  of  detail,  but  the 
enthusiasm  of  the  lady  is  contagious,  and  she  has 
made  a  really  enjoyable  book. 

Two  modest  and  unpretending  books  of  travel, 
just  published  by  Dodd,  Mead  &  Co.,  are  renewed 
proof  of  the  services  which  Christian  missionaries 
have  rendered  to  geography  and  ethnology.  Rev. 
Titus  Coan  is  well  known  as  a  missionary  to  the 
Sandwich  Islands.  But  while  he  was  yet  a  young 
man,  and  before  he  had  embarked  in  the  enterprise 
which  has  made  his  name  famous  in  the  annals  of 
missionary  adventures  and  labor,  he  spent  two 
or  three  months  among  the  savages  of  Patagonia. 

^  *  Sunshine  and  Storm  in  the  East ;  or,  Cruises  to  Cyprus  and 
Constantinople.  By  Mrs.  Brassey,  anthor  of  "  Around  the 
World  in  the  Yacht  Sunbeam."  New  York:  Henry  Holt  & 
Co.,  1880.  Pp.  404. 

t  A  Lady's  Life  in  the  Rocky  Mountains.  By  Isabella  T.  Bird, 
author  of  "Six  Months  in  the  Sandwich  Islands,  &c.  New 
York :  G.  P.  Putnam's  Sons.  1880.  Pp.  296. 


In  company  with  one  other  devoted  man,  he  was 
left  on  the  inhospitable  coast  of  Patagonia,  near  the 
Straits  of  Magellan,  while  the  vessel  which  had 
brought  them  from  the  United  States  pursued  her 
way  into  the  Pacific.  During  the  time  these  two  brave 
men  were  on  the  land,  they  were  the  guests  of  the 
natives,  traveling  with  them  from  point  to  point, 
sharing  in  their  privations,  and  enduring  numberless 
discomforts.  For  the  most  part,  however,  the 
strangers  were  well  treated,  and  the  entertaining 
narrative*  of  their  sojourn  among  the  Patagonians 
gives  us  a  vivid  and  striking  picture  of  the  manner 
of  life  of  a  people  of  whom  almost  nothing  is  known. 
The  two  missionaries  labored  under  the  serious 
disadvantage  of  not  being  able  to  hold  any  conver- 
sation with  the  Patagonians,  and  after  fairly  canvass- 
ing the  matter  they  returned  home,  stopping  at  the 
Falkland  Islands,  of  which  comparatively  unknown 
land  they  give  us  some  interesting  notes. 

The  other  volume  to  which  we  refer  is  Rev.  Dr.  Jack- 
son's account  of  the  establishment  of  the  Presbyterian 
missionin  Alaska.!  Alaska  is  noted  as  being  a  country 
more  frequently  reported  upon  than  any  of  which  we 
have  account.  Dr.  Jackson  draws  freely  from  the  va- 
rious sources,  official  and  unofficial,  which  are  now 
accessible  to  him  who  would  know  aught  of  Alaska, 
its  people,  resources  and  history.  The  author,  who 
takes  a  rosy  and  Sewardian  view  of  our  often-de- 
scribed purchase,  occupies  the  first  half  of  his  book 
with  extracts  from  the  reports.  The  rest  of  the 
work  is  taken  up  with  a  series  of  letters  from  the 
missionaries  and  their  helpers,  dove-tailed  together 
by  a  running  commentary  from  the  pen  of  the 
author  and  editor.  The  result  is  a  tolerably  inter- 
esting book,  whose  chief  value  consists  in  its  skillful 
condensation  of  information  previously  collected  by 
other  explorers.  The  work  is  copiously  illustrated 
by  some  particularly  bad  wood-cuts. 

The  Art  Season. 

NEW  YORK  has  had  a  winter  full  of  surprises  in  art 
matters,  but  not  always,  to  judge  from  the  tenor  of 
the  daily  press,  of  agreeable  surprises.  Perhaps 
never  before  have  so  many  unfavorable  criticisms 
been  made  upon  American  art  as  during  the  season 
of  1879-80.  The  minor  exhibitions,  such  as  those  by 
the  Salmagundi  Club  and  the  Water-Color  Society, 
have  received  grudging  praise,  while  the  Academy 
Exhibition  and  that  of  the  Society  of  American  Art- 
ists have  been  assailed  with  vigor.  Nor  is  this  only 
true  of  the  criticisms  in  the  press  of  New  York  City. 
Correspondents  of  New  England  journals  of  weight, 
and  of  the  leading  papers  of  St.  Louis  and  Cincinnati, 
have  been  even  more  out-spoken.  Yet  the  criticisms 
may  be  broadly  divided  between  those  that  come  from 
adherents  to  the  Academy  work  and  those  that  find 
something  to  tolerate,  if  not  to  admire,  in  the  some- 

*  Adventures  in  Patagonia  ;  A  Missionary'.,  Exploring  Trip. 
By  the  Rev.  Titus  Coan ;  with  an  introduction  by  Rev.  Henry 
M.  Field,  D.  D.  New  York  :  Dodd,  Mead  &  Co.  1880.  Pp. 
319- 

t  Alaska,  and  the  Missions  on  the  North  Pacific  coast.  By 
Rev.  Sheldon  Jackson,  D.  D.  New  York;  Dodd,  Mead  &  Co. 
Pp-  327- 


CULTURE  AND  PROGRESS. 


3*3 


what  chaotic  productions  of  the  younger  artists. 
Then  there  are  the  correspondents  of  Boston  journals, 
who  point  out,  with  ill-concealed  triumph  and  not  a 
little  justice,  that  New  York  painters  have  to  expose 
their  pictures  in  Boston  and  get  the  stamp  of  approval 
from  the  Hub  before  their  own  city  dares  to  appreciate 
them  to  the  extent  of  purchases.  Even  in  the  remote 
West,  in  new  States  like  Colorado,  the  journals  have 
their  correspondents  and  set  up  their  "  art  column  " 
for  local  and  foreign  items.  Denver  proposes  to  be 
an  art  center  a  few  years  hence,  and  a  Leadville 
paper  asks  in  an  exasperated  tone  why  a  certain 
local  millionaire  does  not  found  an  Art  Academy  ! 
To  the  north,  too,  there  is  an  awakening,  and 
Canada  has  at  last  an  Art  Academy,  opened  under  the 
patronage  of  the  Princess  Louise.  Southward  there 
is  less  stir.  Doubtless  Mobile  and  New  Orleans 
will  soon  be  heard  from ;  but,  at  any  rate,  Charleston 
begins  to  "  talk  art,"  and  Richmond  has  actually  com- 
passed the  dubious  honor  of  a  Loan  Exhibition ! 

The  tone  of  criticism,  as  we  said,  is  severe.  What 
else  could  it  be,  when  such  a  mass  of  art,  claiming 
to  be  of  the  highest  rank,  is  filling  our  galleries  ? 
Meanwhile,  great  injustice  is  done ;  artists  are  wor- 
ried and  made  desperate,  lose  their  heads  and  look  in 
vain  about  them  for  some  clue  to  follow,  for  some  one 
man  to  rest  their  faith  upon,  after  the  fashion  of  the 
indiscriminate  admirers  of  John  Ruskin.  But  surely, 
were  criticisms  mealy-mouthed,  far  greater  injustice 
would  be  done  and  the  healthy  advance  of  art  would 
be  retarded ;  radically  weak  men  would  be  bolstered 
up  and  the  rising  artists  misled  by  hollow  compli- 
ments. Take  them  all  in  all,  one  finds  that  with 
strong  men  sharp  criticism,  when  it  is  free  from 
personal  bias,  oftener  does  good  than  harm,  while  it 
disposes  a  poor  workman  to  try  at  something  else. 


THE    WATER-COLORS. 


WATER-COLORS  retained  their  hold  on  the  public 
and  the  affections  of  the  artists ;  and  although  several 
names  of  note  were  wanting  to  make  the  exhibition 
complete,  new  aspirants  were  abundantly  present. 
For  example  Mr.  Winslow  Homer,  who  is  always 
surprising  his  admirers,  chose  to  stay  away  from  the 
exhibition  altogether  this  year,  although  he  showed 
last  year  a  greater  number  of  pictures  than  any  other 
painter.  Instead  of  hazarding  again  his  reputation 
as  a  water-colorist  after  the  success  of  last  year,  he 
had  the  inspiration  to  doubt  the  -fickle  public  and 
prefer  a  sale  of  his  own,  in  which  it  is  said  that  good 
prices  were  obtained.  Mr.  Henry  Muhrman,  an 
artist  exclusively  devoted  to  this  charming  branch, 
presented  a  large  figure  piece  which  was  misnamed 
a  "  New  England  Girl,"  since  nothing  distinctively 
of  New  England  was  to  be  seen  in  the  picture.  As 
the  profile  portrait  of  an  innocent  little  girl  in  a 
peaked  cap,  gazing  upward,  the  picture  had  great 
attractiveness.  It  was  very  freely  treated,  but 
with  all  the  freshness  and  delicacy  which  Mr.  Muhr- 
.man  gives  his  best  work.  Criticism  was  offered  that 
insufficient  work  was  expended  upon  it — that  it  was 
too  sketchy  for  its  large  size.  But  between  the 
artist  who  wants  to  stop  when  he  has  obtained  his 
best  effects,  and  the  purchaser  who  insists  upon  a 


good  deal  of  labor  for  his  money,  there  seems 
destined  always  to  be  war.  Mr.  Muhrman's  Long 
Island  hovels,  corn  and  cabbage  fields  are  fresher 
and  sprightlier  work  than  the  views  of  church 
interiors  which  he  brings  from  Bavaria,  although 
the  latter  are  apt  to  be  more  strictly  correct,  and 
the  former  sometimes  faulty  in  the  perspective 
of  the  distance.  "  A  Bit  of  South  Cove "  and 
"  Buildings  in  Jersey  City  "  are  wonderfully  happy 
bits  of  painting.  Mr.  Muhrman  has  the  genuine 
artistic  temperament  that  sees  the  beautiful  in 
things  that  to  most  persons  appear  ordinary  and 
even  ugly.  He  is  rapidly  becoming  acclimated  once 
more  to  America,  and  will  doubtless  in  time  make  a 
name  for  himself.  Within  certain  narrow  limits 
Mr.  Henry  Farrer  is  a  water-colorist  of  individual 
force.  "  Sweet  is  the  Hour  of  Rest "  was  the  title  of 
a  cool,  quiet  scene  of  water-marshes  and  trees 
which  forms  a  good  example  of  Mr.  Farrer.  He 
seems  to  know  instinctively  the  limits  of  his  art,  for 
he  seldom  oversteps  them.  He  offered  fully  eighteen 
pieces,  of  which  "  Twilight  on  the  Creek "  was 
noticeable  for  its  breadth  and  solemnity,  two  quali- 
ties that  he  often  approaches,  but  by  no  means 
always  obtains.  Many  artists'  proofs  of  fine  etchings 
were  contributed  by  the  same  able  artist.  A  new- 
comer  among  the  water-colorists  was  Mr.  Alden 
Weir,  who  sent  several  sketches,  taken,  to  all  appear- 
ance, during  the  trip  of  the  Tile  Club  through  the 
Champlain  Canal.  Without  being  really  serious 
work,  they  showed  plainly  enough  that  the  vigorous 
and  individual  touch  of  Mr.  Weir  adapts  him  excel- 
lently for  water-colors.  But  even  water-colors  can 
not  be  dashed  off  during  the  intervals  of  oil-painting, 
and  one  cannot  regard  his  clever  raid  into  this 
branch  in  the  same  light  with  the  steady  and  thor- 
ough work  of  Messrs.  Muhrman  and  Farrer. 

Mr.  Falconer,  like  Mr.  Farrer,  is  a  hard-working 
artist  of  limited  scope.  His  water-colors  still  want 
much  of  a  good  scheme  of  color,  not  to  say  a  good 
feeling  for  color,  and  he  is  at  his  best  in  etched 
work.  Mr.  R.  Swain  Gifford  has  a  cleverer  touch. 
Without  doing  anything  very  inspiring,  the  water- 
colors  exhibited  by  Mr.  Gifford  are  remarkable 
for  nicety  of  observation  and  for  what  might  be 
called  their  taste.  What  he  lacks  in  boldness  and 
inventiveness  Mr.  Alfred  Kappes  possesses,  and 
what  is  a  grievous  want  in  the  water-colors  of 
the  latter,  namely,  quiet  and  tenderness,  is  present 
in  Mr.  Gifford's  landscapes  to  a  degree  not  often 
found.  For  thoroughly  charming  though  still  some- 
what indecisive  work,  the  poetical  sketches  of  J. 
Francis  Murphy  are  to  be  commended,  and,  as 
hardly  inferior,  the  works  of  Messrs.  Charles  Melville 
Dewey  and  R.  Bruce  Crane.  All  three  men  are 
just  now  rising  rapidly  out  of  the  ordinary  ranks  of 
artists,  but  their  work  does  not  yet  allow  of  any  safe 
prophecy  regarding  their  future.  Mr.  J.  D.  Smillie 
and  Mr.  George  H.  Smillie  are  making  good  the 
advance  which  of  recent  years  has  put  them  in  front 
of  their  brother  Academicians  for  artistic  spirit  and 
fine  taste.  A  "  Shepherdess  "  by  J.  S.  Davis  was 
noticed  at  once  for  admirable  workmanship,  and 
soon  found  a  purchaser. 


CULTURE  AND  PROGRESS. 


THE    SALMAGUNDI    CLUB. 

IN  black  and  white  there  is  so  much  work  being 
done,  especially  for  the  magazines,  that  the  Salmagundi 
Club  fills  a  real  demand.  The  Academy  Exhibition 
and  that  of  the  Society  of  American  Artists  have  little 
chance  to  display  this  kind  of  art.  What  there  is 
divides  itself  between  the  Water-Color  Exhibition  and 
the  Salmagundi,  and,  as  might  be  expected,  the  two 
leading  illustrated  magazines  were  drawn  upon  largely 
for  the  original  sketches  in  black  and  white  from  which 
remarkable  illustrations  had  been  photographed  and 
printed.  Messrs.  Walter  Shirlaw,  WT.  Taber,  Alfred 
Kappes  and  C.  S.  Reinhart  were  noticeable  contribu- 
tors, and  Mr.  J.  Francis  Murphy  exhibited  landscapes 
in  charcoal,  which  confirmed  the  good  opinion  of  his 
work  formed  from  what  was  shown  at  the  Water- 
Color  Society.  Mr.  Elihu  Vedder  sent  a  painting  in 
white  and  black,  representing  the  head  of  a  modern- 
ized Medusa.  George  Inness,  Jr.,  J.  D.  Smillie  and 
E.  A.  Abbey  had  excellent  effects.  Perhaps  most 
striking,  after  the  sculpturesque  "  Medusa  "  of  Mr. 
Vedder,  was  "  The  Rescue,"  of  Mr.  Alfred  Kappes, 
a  winter  scene  on  a  mill-pond,  where  a  strong,  burly 
man  is  anxiously  reaching  over  an  ice-hole  for  a 
half-submerged  child.  The  situation  was  boldly 
conceived  and  realistically  carried  out.  Mr.  Francis 
Lathrop's  portrait  of  Edison,  engraved  by  Mr.  Fred. 
Juengling  last  year  for  this  magazine,  was  another 
of  the  noteworthy  pictures  ;  Messrs.  F.  Hopkinson 
Smith,  Charles  H.  Miller  and  J.  Carleton  Wiggins 
had  good  landscape  work.  Miss  Oakey's  "  Dwarf 
Cedar  "  and  "  Sunlight  in  Orchard  "  found  admirers, 
and  Mr.  P.  L.  Senat  sent  from  Philadelphia  a  coast 
view  of  New  Jersey  wreckers.  Mr.  Swain  Gifford's 
"  Orchard  by  the  Sea,"  owned  by  Mr.  H.  Harper, 
deserves  a  mention,  while  Mr.  A.  F.  Bellows  sur- 
prised those  who  know  him  only  as  an  indifferent 
workman  in  oils,  by  offering  several  pleasant  studies 
in  pencil. 

SOCIETY   OF    AMERICAN    ARTISTS. 

UNQUESTIONABLY  the  most  cheering  sign  in 
American  art  of  recent  years  is  the  formation  of  this 
society.  Whether  it  has  been  conducted  in  the  best 
manner  or  not  is  a  question.  Its  effect  has  been 
most  beneficial  to  art  in  general,  and  most  of 
the  best  work  that  is  being  done  finds  its  way 
into  these  exhibitions.  Equally  unquestionably, 
sculpture  in  the  society  showed  more  advance  this 
year,  relatively,  than  painting.  While  few  of  the 
painters,  save  perhaps  Messrs.  Fuller,  of  Boston, 
and  Alden  Weir,  of  New  York,  offer  canvases  notice- 
ably superior  to  those  of  the  season  before,  the  busts 
by  Messrs.  Warner  and  St.  Gaudens  are  far  in  ad- 
vance of  late  productions.  One  of  our  older,  and 
certainly  one  of  our  best,  sculptors  is  Mr.  J.  Q. 
A.  Ward,  whose  noble  equestrian  .statue  of  Gen- 
eral Thomas  was  last  year  unveiled  in  the  city  of 
Washington.  But  the  Thomas  by  Mr.  Ward,  while  of 
course  a  far  more  difficult  undertaking,  being  of  life 
size  and  on  horseback,  did  not  offer  so  many  nice 
points  nor  show  so  much  genuine  artistic  feeling  as 
the  work  of  Messrs.  Warner  and  St.  Gaudens. 
The  former  has  modeled  a  strikingly  masculine  and 


yet  beautiful  bust  of  the  painter  Weir ;  the  lattei 
sent  from  Paris  a  marble  half-length  of  ex-Presidem 
Woolsey  of  Yale  College.  The  former  treated  hi; 
sitter  without  the  smallest  bit  of  drapery  or  acces 
sory  of  any  sort ;  the  latter  has  the  ex- President 
clothed  in  a  stiff  academic  gown  which  by  no  mean; 
aids  the  general  aspect.  Nevertheless,  it  may  b< 
fairly  said  that  the  beauty  and  truth  of  expression  ir 
pose  and  features  overcome  this  drawback.  Th< 
highest  art  has  been  used,  in  so  far  as  the  sculptoi 
was  at  liberty. 

Among  the  painters,  Mr.  Walter  Shirlaw  causec 
disappointment  by  exhibiting  an  unfinished  view  ol 
a  marble  quarry,  well  composed,  but  without  anj 
remarkable  beauty.  His  "  Chess  "  was  better  liked 
and  his  "  Jollity  "  highly  appreciated,  being  the  fac< 
of  a  girl  with  a  jaunty  expression.  The  pictures  o 
Mr.  George  Fuller,  of  Boston,  were  greatly  admirec 
by  the  artists,  although  they  could  hardly  compart 
with  his  contributions  to  the  Academy  exhibition 
One  was  an  afternoon  view  in  woods,  a  boy  driving 
a  calf  with  the  mother  cow  following ;  the  othei 
was  the  portrait  of  a  lady.  Mr.  Homer  D.  Martir 
exposed  a  very  beautiful  lake  scene  at  sunset,  illu 
minated  by  his  individual  and  subtle  coloring,  and  ; 
little  piece  of  evening  sky  above  a  bit  of  West  Tentl 
street — a  picture  that  has  a  fine  impression  in  it 
though  with  some  formality  in  the  shaded  parts 
Mr.  W.  Gedney  Bunce  made  a  charming  display  o: 
Venetian  scenes,  noticeably  a  large  canvas  of  "  Morn 
ing  on  the  Lagoon,"  most  exquisite  in  parts,  am 
quite  adequate  elsewhere.  A  life-size  portrait  of  ; 
young  woman  at  a  piano,  by  Mr.  Eakins,  of  Philadel 
phia,  was  little  liked  by  the  generality  of  critics  and  vis 
itors  to  the  gallery;  it  had,  however,  great  merit,  an< 
refused  to  be  passed  over  as  merely  ungraceful  an< 
harsh — there  was  some  inner  grace  which  mad< 
itself  felt.  Mr.  Wyatt  Eaton  had  a  fine  eveninj 
landscape  looking  down  a  road  through  tall  forests 
an  indifferent  river  view,  and  a  firmly-painted  por 
trait  of  an  old  lady.  Mr.  Albert  P.  Ryder  has  beei 
growing  in  favor  with  artists  and  critics;  whethe 
the  public  cares  for  him  yet  can  hardly  be  decided 
although  his  pictures  are  being  taken  up  here  an< 
there.  His  moonlight  scene  with  a  cow  in  the  fore 
ground  was  a  most  exquisite  bit  of  work.  Th< 
landscape  had  the  poetic  quality  of  his  best,  and  th 
animal  possessed  the  quality  which  is  oftenest  denie< 
to  Mr.  Ryder — that  of  good  drawing.  The  land 
scapes  and  marines  of  Mr.  Twachtman,  of  Cincinnati 
found  ready  buyers.  Frank  Fowler  showed  good  in 
terior  work  with  figures,  and  A.  H.  Thayer  receivec 
high  praise  for  his  landscapes,  although  criticise! 
too  severely  for  the  flesh-painting,  and,  in  sonn 
cases,  for  the  drawing,  in  his  "  Nymph  with  Tigers. ' 
Mr.  Thayer  deserves  great  credit  for  attemptinj 
an  imaginative  work  on  so  large  a  scale.  Then 
was  much  sweetness,  purity  and  charm  in  the  posi 
and  expression  of  his  nymph.  A  large  piece  by  Mr 
George  D.  Brush  repeated  easily  and  well,  thougl 
not  literally,  the  story  of  "  Miggles,"  who  lean 
against  her  pet  bear  in  front  of  the  hearth.  Mr 
John  La  Farge  contributed  nothing  very  new  o 
striking ;  of  the  three  pieces  sent,  the  portrait  of  him 


CULTURE  AND   PROGRESS. 


3*5 


self,  taken  in  1859,  was  alone  characteristic  and  sug- 
gestive. The  portraits  of  Mr.  William  M.  Chase 
showed  the  dexterity,  adaptability  and  invention  of 
this  painter ;  one  was  a  lady  in  maroon  against  a  ma- 
roon background;  another,  a  young  lady  with  a  hat; 
a  third,  an  able  portrait  of  General  Webb ;  a  fourth, 
and  perhaps  the  best,  a  simple,  quiet  side-face  of  a 
young  lady  in  gray.  Mr.  J.  Alden  Weir  created  a 
sensation  with  a  "Good  Samaritan"  of  almost  life- 
size, — a  large  picture  hastily  put  together,  but  full  of  a 
vigorous  personality,  and  illuminated  in  places  by 
passages  of  the  most  beautiful  brush-work — not 
passages  of  careful  handling,  but  of  inspiration. 

THE    ACADEMY. 

LIKE  the  exhibition  of  last  year,  the  Academy  con- 
tained a  great  quantity  of  pictures  with  few  of  high 
quality.  Among  the  best  were  those  of  Mr.  George 
Fuller  of  Boston,  especially  the  portrait  of  a  reading 
boy,  which  was  singularly  beautiful  in  the  simplicity 
and  breadth  of  its  painting.  A  quadroon  girl  in  a 
field  was  a  fine  composition,  whether  for  expressive- 
ness of  look,  or  for  the  mystery  which  the  painter  has 
had  the  art  to  throw  around  the  figure.  Mr. 
Winslow  Homer  had  several  good  studies  of 
Southern  negroes,  and  a  fresh,  unusual  and  auda- 
cious picture  of  a  camp-fire  with  men.  Portraits 
were  alarmingly  plentiful,  that  of  Mr.  Douglas  Volk 
being  among  the  very  best.  Mr.  Witt  redeemed 
bis  promise  of  fine  achievements  by  several  portraits 
of  decided  merit.  Mr.  Alden  Weir  showed  a  tol- 
erable, but  no  more  than  tolerable,  portrait  of  an 
elderly  gentleman,  while  Messrs.  Porter  and  Vinton, 
of  Boston,  exhibited  the  likenesses  of  a  handsome 
lady  and  fine-looking  gentleman.  Among  women 
artists  Mrs.  Dillon  and  Mrs.  Baker  were  remark- 
able for  fine  flower  pieces.  The  landscapists  Wyant, 
Smillie,  Murphy  and  Dewey  had  pleasing  views. 
Space  permits  us  to  say  only  that  the  Academy 
Exhibition,  on  the  whole,  was  neither  much  worse 
nor  much  better  than  those  of  late  years.  Diligent 
search  brought  to  light  pictures  that  commanded 
respect  and  even  admiration,  although  hardly  one 
could  be  said  to  have  that  nameless  charm  which 
stamps  a  work  as  a  masterpiece. 


THE    METROPOLITAN. 


THE  opening  of  the  Metropolitan  Museum  of  Art  in 
its  new  quarters  in  Central  Park  was  the  occasion  for 
bringing  together  a  large  loan  collection  of  American 
and  foreign  work  by  moderns.  Being  in  a  separate 
gallery  and  yet  under  the  same  roof  with  the  antiqui- 
ties and  the  old  pictures,  the  loan  exhibition  of  mod- 
ern paintings  afforded  a  good  chance  to  compare  the 
old  with  the  new,  ancient  art  with  mediaeval,  mediaeval 
with  that  of  to-day.  In  but  one  or  two  cases  the  old 
masters  were  of  the  highest  mark  ;  generally  speak- 
ing, they  were  more  representative  than  the  very  best 
would  have  been.  Similarly,  the  very  finest  work 
of  modern  foreigners  and  Americans  could  not 
be  borrowed ;  yet  for  that  very  reason  what  was 
offered  seemed  more  representative.  It  may  be 
safely  said  that  neither  did  the  old  pictures,  as  a 
collection,  put  the  moderns  to  the  blush,  nor  did  the 


foreign  quota  in  the  loan  collection  seriously  injure 
the  American  work  by  comparison.  This  latter  was 
a  surprise  even  to  American  artists,  for  the  advance 
of  American  art  has  been  necessarily  so  gradual  and 
unobserved,  that  it  is  no  wonder  even  the  artists 
were  afraid  of  comparisons.  Far  be  it  from  us  to  say 
that  America  is  as  yet  even  with  Europe  in  the  mat- 
ter of  the  fine  arts.  All  that  is  intended  to  say  is,  a 
collection  of  modern  American  and  Parisian  art 
being  made  somewhat  at  hap-hazard,  the  American 
pictures  held  their  own  in  the  most  gratifying  way. 
On  the  one  hand,  the  French  landscapists,  who  are 
unquestionably  the  strongest  in  this  century,  were 
not  represented  as  they  would  have  been  in  France  : 
the  greater  landscapes  of  Millet,  Corot  and  Rousseau 
were  not  there,  although  smaller  figures  and  views 
by  Millet,  Rousseau,  Corot,  Dupr£  and  Decamps 
were ;  there  was  no  Delacroix,  no  Ingres.  On 
the  other  hand,  the  American  work  included  none 
of  the  best  things  by  Martin,  La  Farge,  Ryder  and 
other  idealists.  This  showed,  at  least,  that  a  committee 
of  selection,  with  good  judgment  and  sufficient  breadth 
of  education  to  recognize  the  movement  in  the  art 
of  to-day,  could  form  a  collection  which  no  one  need 
be  ashamed  of,  by  simply  omitting  the  kind  of  paint- 
ing which  has  heretofore  made  American  art  the 
laughing  stock  of  cultivated  people. 

A  collection  of  a  few  paintings  by  the  old  masters, 
loaned  by  Mr.  M.  K.  Kellogg  to  the  Museum,  con- 
tained the  most  valuable  picture  ever  brought  across 
the  Atlantic.  It  is  a  "  Herodias  "  by  Leonardo  da 
Vinci,  which  once  belonged  to  a  noted  private  gal- 
lery of  Switzerland.  The  estate  of  the  late  William 
M.  Hunt  loaned  a  good  number  of  pictures  by  that 
much  regretted  genius.  The  inequality  and  whim- 
sicality of  Mr.  Hunt  was  seen  in  this  small  show. 
Along  with  pictures  having  every  evidence  of  direct 
imitation  of  European  masters  were  original  land- 
scapes, such  as  the  darker  view  of  Niagara,  the  sur- 
prising picture  of  a  New  England  surf,  the  exquisite 
scene  on  a  pond,  and  other  brilliant  pieces.  In  por- 
traiture, Mr.  Hunt  showed  most  unusual  sensitive- 
ness and  yet  great  inequality,  too. 

STUDIO    SALES,    ETC. 

DURING  the  past  season,  Schaus  imported  two  very 
beautiful  specimens  of  Corot,  and  Goupil  another. 
Added  to  the  specimens  brought  over  by  Cottier  and 
Avery,  these  landscapes — "The  Old  Manor,"  "Les 
Gaulois,"  "  Twilight  with  Nymphs  " — form  a  very 
striking  collection  of  the  products  of  this  master. 
New  York  maintains  its  former  admiration  for 
Meissonier,  and  buys  his  cabinet  pictures  as  well  as 
his  later  efforts  on  a  large  scale.  On  the  other 
hand,  there  is  a  marked  falling  off  in  the  admira- 
tion for  sentimentalists  like  Cabanel,  Merle  and 
Bouguereau. 

The  season  has  shown  an  unusual  number  of 
sales  of  the  studio  pictures  of  various  artists,  chiefly 
in  Boston.  Mr.  John  La  Farge  had  two  sales 
in  that  city,  in  which  he  got  good  prices  for  the 
works  that  remained  in  his  studio.  He  is  now 
devoting  himself  to  stained  glass  and  mural  decora- 
tion. Mr.  George  Inness  had  a  successful  sale  of 


316 


THE    WORLD'S    WORK. 


landscapes  in  Boston,  and  Messrs.  Elihu  Vedder 
and  C.  C.  Coleman,  long  residents  of  Rome,  also 
found  that  city  appreciative.  The  death  of  the 
great  artist  William  M.  Hunt  made  a  sale  of  his  work 
imperative,  and  being  a  local  celebrity  and  a  man 
of  unusual  individual  force  of  character,  his  memory 
was  honored  by  a  scramble  for  his  work  at  prices 
hitherto  unknown  to  any  but  our  flash  painters 
during  the  epoch  of  extravagance  after  the  war. 
These  sales  tend  to  make  the  exhibitions  less  inter- 
esting, but  are  otherwise  a  healthy  sign. 


At  the  Art  Students'  League  several  excellent 
little  exhibitions  have  been  made,  one  being  of  work 
by  Blake,  owned  chiefly  by  the  family  of  Gilchrist, 
the  editor  of  Blake.  This  exhibition  was  to  be 
repeated  on  a  larger  scale  in  Boston. 

In  conclusion,  it  must  be  said  that  American  art, 
although  grievously  defective  in  many  directions,  is 
showing  continual  proofs  of  sound  vitality.  If  the 
results  are  groping  and  ineffectual,  they  are  not 
sterile.  The  epoch  appears  to  be  one  of  rise,  not 
decline. 


THE    WORLD'S   WORK. 


Cheap  Ventilation. 


To  SECURE  a  constant  change  of  air  in  public  and 
private  buildings  so  that  it  may  never  be  breathed 
twice,  and  at  the  same  time  to  keep  the  place  warm 
in  winter,  is  a  question  that  has  been  settled  in 
various  ways  by  a  greater  or  less  expenditure  of 
money.  The  heating  and  ventilating  apparatus 
described  on  page  798  in  the  March  number  gives 
absolutely  perfect  ventilation  in  a  large  building, 
changing  the  air  every  six  minutes,  and  with  any 
required  temperature,  at  a  very  moderate  cost.  In  a 
dwelling-house  recently  erected  in  this  city  the  fol- 
lowing method  of  securing  warmth  and  pure  air  has 
been  tried  with  success. 

A  low-pressure  steam  boiler  located  under  the 
sidewalk,  outside  the  building,  supplies  steam  to 
groups  of  radiators  placed  in  different  parts  of  the 
basement  to  distribute  the  heat  evenly  through  the 
house.  These  groups  of  radiators  are  inclosed  in 
brick  air  chambers  in  the  usual  manner,  where  fresh 
air  taken  from  the  roof  is  warmed  and  distributed  to 
the  house.  The  novel  features  of  the  apparatus 
consist  of  a  sieve  or  strainer  for  purifying  the  air 
from  dust  and^  excessive  moisture,  and  appliances 
for  securing  a  rapid  current  in  the  air  passages,  and 
thus  obtaining  a  constant  change  of  air  or  good 
ventilation.  In  the  box  inclosing  the  radiators  is 
spread  a  wire  netting  covering  the  entire  space 
under  the  coils,  and  on  this  is  placed  a  thick  layer 
of  cotton  batting,  pressed  down  and  kept  in  place 
by  a  second  netting  laid  on  top.  This  makes  a 
strainer  for  arresting  dust,  moisture  and  impurities, 
so  that  the  air  sent  into  the  house  is  purer  and 
cleaner  than  out  of  doors.  Above  the  radiators  is  a 
large  tank  of  water.  This  is  not  a  new  feature  in  such 
apparatus  except  that  it  is  of  unusual  size,  so  that 
evaporation  proceeds  slowly  and  without  steaming. 
The  purified  air,  warmed  and  softened  with  moist- 
ure, passes  to  the  rooms  above  through  pipes  and 
registers  in  the  usual  manner,  and  were  there  noth- 
ing more  provided  the  apparatus  would  work  slowly 
and  in  the  half-effectual  manner  of  all  such  appli- 
ances, filling  the  house  gradually  with  warm  and 


comparatively  stagnant  air.  To  ventilate,  there 
must  be  a  removal  of  the  impure  air  by  mechanical 
means,  or  by  taking  advantage  of  the  specific  gravity 
of  the  air  without  and  within.  The  well  for  the  stairs 
occupies  a  central  position,  reaches  from  the  street 
floor  to  the  roof,  and  has  a  large  ventilator  con- 
stantly open  to  the  sky.  This  makes  the  stair-well 
an  "  upcast  shaft,"  through  which  the  air  moves 
rapidly.  The  air  having  a  free  escape  at  the  roof 
gives  the  currents  in  the  hot-air  passages  free 
movement,  and  a  very  large  volume  of  pure,  warmed 
air  flows  out  of  the  registers  at  all  times.  Were  the 
stair-well  the  only  place  to  be  warmed  and  venti- 
lated, this  would  be  all  that  would  be  needed.  For 
the  rooms,  each  provided  with  its  hot-air  register, 
ventilation  is  secured  by  other  and  independent 
means.  The  products  of  combustion  from  the  steam 
boiler  and  the  kitchen  range  are  taken  away  through 
stone-ware  pipes,  inclosed  in  brick  shafts  extending 
to  the  roof,  and  opening  below  by  means  of  registers 
into  the  various  rooms  in  the  house.  The  interior 
pipes  (chimneys),  heated  by  the  smoke  and  gas  from 
the  fires,  warm  the  air  in  the  annular  spaces  surround- 
ing the  pipes  and  set  it  in  rapid  motion,  quickly 
drawing  the  air  from  the  rooms  below.  In 
summer,  when  the  apparatus  is  not  in  use,  a  stove 
is  connected  with  the  chimney  of  the  boiler,  and 
a  small  coal  fire  serves  to  keep  the  ventilation  in 
operation. 

By  this  cheap  and  simple  arrangement  the  waste 
heat  of  the  house  fires  is  made  to  do  the  work  of 
moving  and  changing  all  the  air  in  the  house  every 
fifteen  minutes.  The  doors  and  windows  fit  tightly, 
and  never  need  be  opened,  as  the  air  is  always 
purer  within  than  without.  While  the  idea  of  inclos- 
ing a  chimney  within  an  air  shaft  and  using  it  for  a 
ventilator  is  not  new,  its  application  to  a  private 
dwelling  on  a  complete  and  liberal  scale  is  both 
a  novelty  and  a  decided  success,  well  worth  the 
attention  of  householders  and  architects. 

The  most  prolific  sources  of  impure  air  in  modern 
dwellings  are  the  gas  lamps.  An  argand  burner 
gives  only  six  per  cent,  in  light  and  ninety-four  per 
cent,  in  heat  as  the  result  of  the  combustion  of  the 


THE    WORLD'S    WORK. 


317 


gas,  besides  consuming  oxygen  and  throwing  upon 
the  air  a  stream  of  unburned  and  poisonous  gas. 
It  may  be  laid  down  as  a  rule  that  every  gas  lamp 
should  have  a  chimney  leading  to  the  open  air, 
and  that  none  of  the  products  of  combustion  should 
enter  the  room.  This  rule  is  beginning  to  be  rec- 
ognized, and  in  the  house  under  consideration  all  the 
hanging  gas  lamps  are  provided  with  ventilators 
directly  over  the  lamps  in  the  ceiling,  each  ventilator 
leading  by  a  tin  pipe  laid  between  the  floors  to  the 
nearest  ventilating  shaft.  The  ventilators  either 
form  a  part  of  the  ornamentation  of  the  ceiling  or 
the  center-piece  over  the  lamps,  or  the  center-piece 
is  lowered  a  few  centimeters,  so  as  to  permit  an 
escape  of  air  between  the  stucco  work  and  the  ceil- 
ing, and  thus  to  the  ventilator.  This  plan  of  pro- 
viding a  chimney  for  gas  lamps  has  received  special 
attention  of  late,  and  in  many  of  the  best  dwellings 
now  erecting  in  this  city  small  tin  pipes,  of  either 
round  or  rectangular  section,  are  being  laid  in  the 
floors  and  walls  as  the  house  is  built.  For  floors, 
and  leading  from  the  lamps  to  the  wall,  round  pipes 
of  about  ten  centimeters  (four  inches)  diameter  are 
used,  and  in  the  walls  the  pipes  are  made  wide  and 
shallow  to  economize  space,  and  they  are  either  led 
into  the  chimneys  or  to  special  ventilators  reaching 
to  the  roof,  the  heat  from  the  lamps  being  suf- 
ficient to  keep  the  current  of  air  in  the  pipes  in 
motion.  For  gas  fixtures,  hoods  of  metal  are  hung 
over  the  open  lights  or  over  the  globes  in  drop 
lights  and  chandeliers,  and  these  are  connected  with 
metal  pipes  that  form  part  of  the  fixture  and  are 
treated  as  part  of  the  design.  For  wall  lamps  on 
brackets,  with  either  argand  burners  or  fish-tail 
jets,  double  pipes  are  used,  the  inner  pipe  for  gas 
being  enclosed  in  the  ventilating  pipe.  The  tsvo 
pipes  are  covered  at  the  end  with  a  large  globe  or 
lantern  having  openings  for  the  entrance  of  fresh 
air. 

The  products  of  combustion  are  retained  by  the 
globe  or  lantern,  and  compelled  to  escape  through 
the  ventilator.  Single  hanging  lights  are  arranged 
in  the  same  manner,  the  gas-pipe  being  enclosed  in 
the  ventilator.  Those  ventilating  gas  lamps  have 
now  been  tried  in  private  dwellings,  hospitals  and 
theaters,  and  have  proved  of  very  great  advantage 
in  ventilating  the  rooms,  and  in  keeping  the  air  pure 
and  cool.  So  great  are  the  advantages  that  it  would 
seem  as  if  no  well-appointed  public  or  private  build- 
ings could  use  gas  unless  provided  with  separate 
chimneys  for  each  lamp  or  group  of  lamps.  Inci- 
dental advantages  have  also  been  found  to  spring 
from  these  ventilated  lamps.  There  is  a  decided 
economy  of  gas,  and  a  great  gain  in  the  steadiness 
and  power  of  the  light.  Concerning  this,  more  is 
said  under  the  head  of  ';  Regenerative  Gas-light- 
ing" in  this  department. 

Steam  Catamaran. 

THE  catamaran  or  double-hull  sail-boat  (already 
described  in  this  department)  has  been  found  to 
possess  certain  advantages  in  the  way  of  speed. 
Quite  a  number  have  been  built,  and  it  is  now  pro- 
posed to  apply  steam  power  to  this  style  of  boat. 


This  has  already  been  done  in  England,  but  with 
only  indifferent  results,  owing  chiefly  to  faulty  con- 
struction, and  a  new  boat  now  building  in  this 
country  seems  to  promise  great  stability  and  carry- 
ing capacity,  combined  with  light  draught  and  high 
speed.  The  chief  objection  to  the  catamaran  arises 
from  the  fact  that  the  two  hulls  act  as  funnels,  jam- 
ming and  crowding  up  the  water  between  them,  and 
retarding  their  headway.  To  overcome  this,  the  hulls 
have  been  made  with  straight  sides,  or  have  been 
placed  wide  apart,  or  have  been  built  of  very  light 
draught.  This  involves  heavy  bracing  to  keep  them 
upright,  or  very  long  bracing,  and  this  implies  weight 
at  the  expense  of  speed.  In  designing  the  new  boat 
the  whole  aim  has  been  to  gain  speed,  and  the  two  hulls 
are  iron  cylinders,  very  long  and  narrow  and  exactly 
alike.  They  are  each  6 1  meters  (200  feet)  long  and 
1.67  meters  (5^feet)  in  diameter  at  the  center,  and 
tapering  uniformly  to  a  sharp  point  at  each  end,  and 
upon  very  fine  lines.  The  material  is  boiler  iron, 
5  millimeters  (3-16  in.)  thick  at  the  center  and 
slightly  thinner  at  the  ends,  and  securely  riveted, 
leaving  a  smooth  surface  on  the  outside.  The 
cylinders  are  divided  into  five  water-tight  com- 
partments by  bulkheads,  each  being  securely 
stayed  to  the  sides  and  to  each  other,  the  whole 
being  held  together  by  radial  stays  and  braces 
of  angle  iron.  The  shape  of  these  hulls,  it  will 
be  observed,  is  designed  for  very  light  draught 
and  the  least  resistance  to  the  water.  When  finished 
with  engines,  boiler  and  house  they  will  be  sub- 
merged 76  centimeters  (2^  feet)  at  the  center,  the 
two  ends  being  out  of  water  for  some  distance,  the 
total  weight  being  only  forty  tons.  The  hulls  will 
be  placed  side  by  side,  with  a  clear  space  in  the 
middle  of  only  2.74  meters  (9  feet) ;  and  resting  on 
these  and  securely  fastened  to  them  will  be  a  single 
level  deck,  about  38  meters  (125  feet)  long,  and  7.62 
meters  (25  feet)  wide,  overhanging  the  hulls  on  each 
side  to  form  a  guard,  and  leaving  the  hulls  project- 
ing fore  and  aft.  On  this  deck  will  be  built  a  single 
house,  the  whole  width  of  the  deck  and  slightly 
shorter,  to  give  an  open  deck  at  each  end  for  hand- 
ling the  boat.  The  house  will  contain  a  ladies'  cabin 
forward,  a  smoking-room  aft,  and  a  main  saloon  with 
glass  sides  in  the  center.  The  pilot  house  at  the 
bows  will  be  kept  low,  and  there  will  be  no  deck  on 
the  house,  the  aim  being  to  offer  the  least  possible 
resistance  to  the  wind.  The  power  will  consist 
of  a  single  six-bladed  propeller  hung  at  a  slight 
angle  or  downward  pitch,  just  aft  of  the  center 
compartment  and  between  the  hulls.  This  wheel 
has  a  six-sided  hub,  so  placed  that  it  is  just  clear 
of  the  water,  leaving  two  blades  constantly 
submerged  and  four  in  the  air.  The  design  of  this 
is  to  save  the  friction  and  loss  of  power  spent  in 
dragging  the  hub  through  the  water.  The  wheel 
will  be  2.63  meters  (8  feet)  in  diameter,  and  of  the 
same  pitch.  The  low  pitch  of  the  screw  and  appar- 
ently wasteful  position  in  the  water  is  to  be  com- 
pensated by  a  very  high  speed  of  revolution  and 
great  power.  The  downward  pitch  gives  solid 
water  to  strike  against,  and  the  great  length  and 
peculiar  shape  of  the  hulls  gives  the  screw  free  play 


THE    WORLD'S    WORK. 


in  unbroken  water.  The  engine  is  to  be  of  the  new 
balanced  type  already  described  in  this  department, 
and  is  to  have  two  upright  cylinders,  leaning  slightly 
aft  to  conform  to  the  pitch  of  the  shaft,  and  is  to  be 
of  476  horse  power,  and  to  give  325  revolutions  a 
minute.  This  type  of  engine  runs  at  high  speed 
with  great  steadiness,  and  is  exceedingly  light  for 
the  power  developed.  To  gain  still  more  in  weight, 
the  boiler  is  to  be  of  the  high-pressure  coil  pattern 
now  being  introduced  as  a  marine  boiler,  and  is 
designed  to  supply  steam  at  a  pressure  of  125 
pounds.  It  is  the  combination  of  these  special 
features  that  makes  this  boat  of  interest.  The  whole 
aim  is  speed,  and  to  this  end  the  catamaran  type  of 
hull  is  adopted :  the  house  is  low  to  prevent  wind 
resistance,  the  screw  is  of  low  pitch  and  high  speed 
and  placed  in  unbroken  water,  and  the  engine  and 
boiler  are  of  great  power  and  very  light  weight. 
The  novelty  of  the  combination  will  no  doubt 
attract  attention,  and  the  practical  workings  of  the 
boat  will  be  watched  with  interest. 


Regenerative  Gas-lighting. 

EXPERIMENTS  with  the  regenerative  gas  lamps 
already  described  in  this  department  (page  948,  vol- 
ume xviii. )  have  been  continued  by  the  inventor,  and 
further  progress  is  reported,  showing  the  practical 
value  of  the  system.  The  best  form  of  lamp  appears 
to  be  a  pillar  lamp  (for  newel  posts),  carrying  a 
single  light  or  group  of  lights  in  a  lantern  at  the  top. 
The  supporting  pillar  is  composed  of  an  upright 
standard,  suitably  ornamented,  containing  in  the 
center  a  hollow  tube  of  large  diameter,  and  sur- 
rounded by  two  pipes,  thus  leaving  two  annular  spaces 
between  them,  all  the  spaces  and  pipes  being  filled 
with  fine  wire  netting.  The  gas  is  admitted  to  the 
inner  tube  at  the  bottom,  and  rises  through  the  wire 
netting  to  the  lamps.  The  second  pipe  is  open  at 
the  bottom  to  admit  fresh  air,  and  at  the  top 
directly  under  the  flame  of  the  lamps.  The  outer 
tube  is  open  at  the  top,  and  communicates  at  the 
bottom  with  a  ventilating  shaft  that  leads  to  the  top 
of  the  building.  The  globe  or  lantern  surmounts  the 
three  pipes,  inclosing  the  lamps  from  the  air.  The 
products  of  combustion  rise  to  the  top  of  the  lan- 
tern, and  finding  no  escape  move  along  the  cool 
sides  of  the  lantern  to  the  outlets  below,  and  de- 
scend through  the  outer  pipe,  imparting  their  heat 
to  the  netting,  which  soon  becomes  intensely  hot. 
This  heat  is  readily  transferred  to  the  netting  of  the 
second  pipe  and  the  interior  gas-pipe,  heating  the 
fresh  air  and  practically  making  a  hot  blast  for  the 
lamps.  The  gas  is  also  heated,  and  is  burned  at  a 
high  temperature.  The  gain  is  threefold.  The 
netting  acting  as  a  regenerator  gives  a  hot  blast  and 
hot  gas,  and  induces  a  more  complete  combustion 
at  a  material  saving  of  gas  and  a  gain  of  light.  At 
the  same  time,  all  the  products  of  combustion  are 
removed  from  the  room  and  made  to  do  useful  work 
in  heating  the  lamp  and  ventilating  the  room. 
The  system  is  reported  to  give  excellent  results  in 
economy  of  gas,  and  it  certainly  recommends  itself 
as  a  means  of  ventilation.  Three  styles  of  regener- 


ative lamps  have  been  tried — upright  lamps,  hanging 
lamps,  and  a  wall  light  having  the  regenerator  hung 
on  a  spindle.  The  products  of  combustion  escape 
through  the  upper  half  of  the  regenerator,  and  the 
fresh  air  enters  through  the  lower  half,  the  regener- 
ator also  serving  as  a  reflector  for  the  lamp. 
After  the  lamp  has  been  burning  a  few  minutes  the 
regenerator  is  turned  round,  the  heated  portion 
now  being  below,  and  the  fresh  air  passes  through 
it.  This  lamp  has,  however,  the  objection  that  no 
means  are  provided  for  ventilation,  and  is  only 
suitable  for  an  out-door  light.  In  connection  with 
the  new  ventilating  gas-fixtures  now  being  intro- 
duced (described  on  page  316),  it  may  be  observed 
that  the  regenerative  idea  is  used  in  part,  as  the  ven- 
tilating pipes  surrounding  the  gas-pipes  tend  to 
heat  the  gas  before  it  is  burned. 

Seamless  Paper  Boxes. 

A  NEW  article  of  manufacture  in  the  form  of  paper 
boxes  made  in  one  piece  and  without  seams  has 
been  introduced,  in  a  limited  way.  The  boxes  have 
been  made  direct  from  paper  pulp  by  hand,  and  have 
been  found  to  be  strong,  light  and  durable.  Machin- 
ery driven  by  power  has  now  been  perfected  for 
making  the  boxes  upon  a  large  scale.  The  pulp  is 
prepared  from  rags  in  a  paper-mill  in  the  usual 
manner,  and,  when  strained,  whitened  or  colored,  is 
pumped  through  pipes  to  the  box-forming  machine. 
This  consists  essentially  of  a  circular  revolving 
table,  carrying  on  the  edge  a  number  of  forms  or 
molds  made  of  fine  wire  netting.  As  the  table 
revolves  these  pass  in  turn  under  the  end  of  the 
pipe,  and  are  covered  with  a  flood  of  pulp  under 
heavy  atmospheric  pressure  that  tends  to  drive  the 
water  through  the  netting,  leaving  a  hood  or 
skin  of  pulp  on  the  mold.  The  water  escapes 
through  a  hole  in  the  table  into  the  sewer,  and  the 
mold  with  its  paper  hood  moves  away  to  make 
room  for  the  next,  and  passes  to  an  ingenious  piece 
of  mechanism  that  lifts  the  hood  off  the  mold  as  a 
soft  paper  box  without  seams.  The  boxes  are 
placed  by  the  machine  on  a  traveling  board  that 
conveys  them  to  a  drying-room.  When  partly  dry 
the  boxes  are  placed  in  a  hydraulic  press  and  stamped 
with  any  embossed  figure,  lettering  or  ornamenta- 
tion that  may  be  desired.  The  press  works  auto- 
matically, and  delivers  the  boxes  dry  and  finished 
ready  for  use.  If  desired,  they  may  then  be 
passed  to  a  papering  and  pasting  machine  for  cover- 
ing with  colored  or  printed  paper.  The  box-form- 
ing machine  in  principle  resembles  the  apparatus 
used  in  forming  felt  hats,  where  the  material  is 
driven  by  air  pressure  over  a  perforated  mold,  and  it 
appears  to  do  its  work  quickly  and  effectively.  The 
pulp  may  be  colored  to  give  the  boxes  any  desired 
tint  inside  and  out,  in  which  case  the  papering  may 
be  omitted.  Wood  or  rag  pulp  may  be  used,  and, 
if  sizing  is  added  to  it,  the  boxes  are  very  stiff  and 
strong.  The  machine  examined  was  the  first  of  the 
kind  ever  used  by  power,  and  larger  machines,  of  a 
capacity  of  thirty  boxes  a  minute,  are  to  be  erected 
for  the  manufacture  of  the  boxes  upon  a  large  scale. 


BRIC-A-BRAC. 


3*9 


Bi-sulphide  of  Carbon  in  Steam-Engines. 

ATTEMPTS  have  been  made  from  time  to  time  to 
ind  a  substitute  for  water  in  steam  boilers — to  find 
something  having  a  low  boiling  point  that  would 
rive  an  elastic  vapor  that  might  be  used  in  motors 
a  the  place  of  steam.  Bi-sulphide  of  carbon  has 
>een  made  the  subject  of  some  of  these  experiments, 
jut,  so  far,  none  of  the  experiments  have  been 
wholly  satisfactory.  The  latest  experiment  seems 
more  promising,  and  it  may  be  briefly  observed 
that  the  bi-sulphide  of  carbon  is  used  in  connection 
with  petroleum  in  the  proportion  of  three  of  the 
sulphide  to  two  of  the  oil.  A  twenty-horse-power 
engine,  supplied  with  a  mixed  vapor  of  steam  and 
:he  mixture  of  oil  and  bi-sulphide  of  carbon  from  a 
£n-horse-power  boiler,  has  been  made  the  subject 
of  experiments  that  certainly  seem  promising. 


Steam  is  first  obtained  from  water,  and  the  engine 
is  started.  The  power  obtained  is  then  used  to 
pump  the  prepared  mixture  into  the  boiler.  A  very 
minute  quantity  serves  to  raise  the  pressure  quickly, 
and  the  fires  may  then  be  dampened  and  the  boiler 
supplies  all  the  needed  vapor  for  the  engine  with 
a  very  moderate  use  of  fuel.  The  exhaust  of  the 
engine  is  taken  to  a  large  copper  coil  submerged  in 
cold  water,  in  which  it  is  condensed  to  a  liquid 
form  and  run  into  a  reservoir,  from  which  it  is 
pumped  back,  as  needed,  into  the  boiler.  The 
usual  disagreeable  smell  of  the  bi-sulphide  of  carbon 
appears  to  be  neutralized  by  the  oil,  and,  from  an 
examination  of  the  boiler  and  engine  at  work, 
it  appears  that  the  mixture  of  oil  and  bi-sulphide 
may  be  added  to  the  water  in  any  boiler  at  a  very 
decided  gain  in  economy  of  fuel,  ease  of  manage- 
ment, and  safety. 


BRIC-A-BRAC. 


Present  and  Past. 


'Tis  no  pleasant  task  contrasting 

Now  and  Then, 
Though  I  long  for  kindness  lasting — 

Once  again. 

Then  you  said  you  thought  me  clever ; 
Now  you  listen  to  me  never, 
And  your  silence  seems  to  sever 

Now  and  Then. 

Still  I  cannot  but  adore  you 

Now  and  then, 
Though  I  see  in  shoals  before  you 

All  the  men ; 

Women  are  but  cattle-kittle, 
And  their  promises  are  brittle ! — 
Can't  you  love  me — just  a  little — 

Now  and  then  ? 

ARTHUR  PENN. 

Dianthus  Barbatus. 

(SWEET    WILLIAM.) 

I  USED  to  know  him  in  the  olden  days, 
When   Love  and  I  were   young,  and  skies   w« 

mellow, 

And,  spite  of  his  demure  and  formal  ways, 
I  rather  liked  the  dear  old-fashioned  fellow 
Who  used  to  meet  me  in  my  garden  walk 
And  entertain  me  with  instructive  talk. 

He  was  a  miracle  of  common-sense ; 

His  brain  the  seat  of  learning  most  prolific ; 

And  if  a  flight  ideal  I'd  commence, 

He'd  bring  me  back  to  something  scientific : 

And  I  am  not  ashamed  to  own  it  here, 

I  loved  him — just  because  he  was  so  queer. 

Women  are  converts  to  the  latest  fashion, 
And  even  courting  will  assume  rare  grace 
If  the  fond  lover  but  declare  his  passion 
In  looks  and  tones  that  are  not  commonplace. 
My  pride  was  flattered  that  a  man  so  shy 
And  wise  should  care  for  such  a  dunce  as  I. 


Alas  !     We  parted ;  and  I  never  met 

Again  my  queer  and  antiquated  suitor, 

Although  I  hear  he's  living  single  yet, 

And  in  some  Western  college  is  a  tutor; 

Yet    to    this    day  my  cheeks   would    blush    with 

shame 
To  call  him  out  of  his  botanic  name ! 

JOSEPHINE  POLLARD. 

A  Kind  of  Traveler. 

HE  goes  from  Ecuador  to  Maine : 

He  studies  every  people, 
He  visits  every  crypt  in  Spain, 

And  every  German  steeple. 

He  roams  among  Liberian  rocks, 
He  haunts  Thibet's  wild  region ; 

Men  find  him  on  the  Styrian  lochs, 
And  on  the  lakes   Norwegian. 

Greece  he  has  seen  a  dozen  times. 

Iceland  has  hailed  him  loudly, 
And  in  the  bland  Hawaian  climes, 

He  oft  has  wandered  proudly. 

He  scales  the  Himalayan  peaks, 
He  strolls  through  vales  Ionian, 

He  hunts  the  buffalo  with  Creeks, 
And  puns  in   Patagonian  ! 

He  goes  to  Europe  every  year, 

Is  known  to  all  the  sailors, 
And  in  his  life  has  seen,  I  fear, 

More  than  ten  Bayard  Taylors ! 

A  modern  Wandering  Jew  is  he, 

A  student  of  all  races, 
And  when  there's  nothing  left  to  see 

In  strange,  exotic  places, 

He  homeward  turns  for  fame  to  look, 
Quite  sure  that  he  will  win  it, 

And  writes  a  most  ambitious  book, 
Without  one  new  thing  in  it! 

CENDRILLON. 


320 


BRIC-A-BRAC. 


On  the  Trapping  of  a  Mouse  that  Lived  in  a  Lady's 
Escritoire. 

POOR  mousie !  you  have  learned  too  late, 
This  lady's  scorn  of  mice — and  men, 

Who  envy  yet  thy  better  fate, — 
To  hear  the  music  of  her  pen; — 

To  kiss  the  rug  her  feet  have  kissed ; — 
To  gambol  round  her  dainty  slippers, 

And  wonder  if,  in  Beauty's  list, 
The  foot  of  Venus  could  outstrip  hers ; — 

To  draw  the  splendor  of  her  eyes, 

That  flash  as  they  discover  you, 
And  picture  in  their  swift  surprise 

Your  fleeting  bliss,  and  sentence,  too; — 

To  have  her  fingers  set  the  snare 

And  bait  with  crumbs  have  touched  her  lip, 
Inviting  to   ambrosial  fare 

And  sudden  death's  endearing  grip: 

While  men  may  sigh  and  sigh  in  vain, 
And  suffer  torturing  Love's  demur, 

Without  a  smile  to  ease  their  pain 

Or  even  leave  to  die  for  her.        C.  C.  BUEL. 

The  Phonograph  in  the  Moon  Two   Centuries   Ago. 

THE  editor  has  been  shown  a  curious  old  volume 
which  contains  a  passage  showing  that  there  is 
nothing  new  under  the  moon,  in  the  way  of  the 
phonograph,  at  least.  The  title  reads  :  "  The 
Comical  History  of  the  States  and  Empires  of  the 
Worlds  of  the  Moon  and  the  Son.  Written  in 
French  by  Cyrano  Bergerac.  And  newly  Englished 
by  A.  Lovell,  A.  M.,  London :  Printed  for  Henry 
Rhodes,  next  door  to  the  Swan  Tavern,  near  Bride 
Lane,  in  Fleet  Street,  1687." 

This  book  gives  an  account  of  the  writer's  travels 
in  the  Sun  and  Moon.  While  in  one  of  the  cities  of 
the  Moon,  he  meets  an  inhabitant  of  the  Sun,  who 
had  wandered  to  the  Moon,  and  they  take  a  stroll 
through  the  city,  discoursing,  as  they  go,  pleasantly 
concerning  their  new  surroundings.  The  citizen 
of  the  Sun  is  suddenly  called  away,  and  before  going 
gives  his  companion  two  books.  The  writer  says : 

"  No  sooner  was  his  back  turned,  but  I  fell  to 
consider  attentively  my  books  and  their  boxes,  that's 
to  say,  their  covers. 

"As  I  opened  the  box,  I  found  within  somewhat 
of  metal,  almost  like  to  our  clocks,  full  of  I  know 
not  what  little  springs  and  imperceptible  engines. 
It  was  a  book,  indeed,  but  a  strange  and  wonderful 
book,  that  had  neither  leaves  nor  letters.  In  fine, 
it  was  a  book  made  wholly  for  the  ears  and  not  the 
eyes.  So  that  when  anybody  has  a  mind  to  read  in 
it,  he  winds  up  that  machine,  with  a  great  many 
little  strings ;  then  he  turns  a  hand  to  the  chapter 
which  he  desires  to  hear,  and  straight  as  from  the 
mouth  of  a  man  or  a  musical  instrument,  proceed  all 
the  distinct  and  different  sounds,  which  the  Lunar 
Grandees  make  use  of,  for  expressing  their  thoughts, 
instead  of  language. 

"When  I  since  reflected  on  this  miraculous 
invention,  I  no  longer  wondered  that  the  young 
men  of  that  country  were  more  knowing  at  sixteen 
or  eighteen  years  old  than  the  graybeards  of  our 
climate ;  for  knowing  how  to  read  as  soon  as  speak, 
they  are  never  without  lectures,  in  their  chambers, 
their  walks,  the  town  or  traveling ;  they  may  have 
in  their  pockets,  or  at  their  girdles,  thirty  of  these 
books,  where  they  need  but  wind  up  a  spring  to  hear 


a  whole  chapter,  and  so  more,  if  they  have  a  mind 
to  hear  the  book  quite  through  ;  so  that  you  nevei 
want  the  company  of  all  the  great  men,  living  and 
dead,  who  entertain  you  with  living  voices." 

Portraits  in  Black  and  White. 

I.       A   WOMAN    OF   FASHION. 

UPON  her  brazen  cheek  the  color's  high ; 

Her  hair  has  risked  the  hazard  of  the  dye; 

Her  heels — but  why  of  such  a  trifle  talk  ? 

Her  conversation's  petty  as  her  walk. 

She  tries  to  hide,  by  some   linguistic  wrench, 

Her  lack  of  English  'neath  her  lack  of  French. 

She  wears  no  stocking  of  cerulean  hue, 

Blue,  darkly,  deeply,  beautifully  blue ; 

She  has  no  wish  to  vote,  and  make  things  worse 

She  always  leaves   her  children  with  their   nurse 

In  Lent  she  fasts,  she  prays,  she  hears  long  ser 

mons, 
Instead   of    chattering   French   and    dancing   Ger 

mans ; 

Indeed,  she  always  worships  God  on  Sunday, — 
On  week-days  she  bows  down  to  Mrs.   Grundy. 

II.      A   FAST   YOUNG   MAN. 

HE  prides  himself  upon   his  cockney  "togs," 
Goes  in  for  horses,  and  goes  to  the  dogs. 
Man  of  the  world,  with  not  a  thought  of  heaven 
He's  not  puffed  up  by  Pharisaic  leaven, 
But  tries,  like  Moses,  whom  he  thinks  a  dunce, 
To  break  the  ten  commandments  all  at  once. 
On  women  and   cards   he   spends   time — money- 
breath  ; 

Maids  of  dishonor  to  the  Queen  of  Death, 
Ixion-croupiers  toiling  at  the  wheel, 
Have  found  in  him  one  worthy  of  their  steal. 
Along  a  narrow  railroad,  black  and  fell, 
He  rushes  on — to  ruin,  death,  and  hell : 
Should  not  a  warning  shrill  to  this  vain  clown 
Whistle  "  down  brakes  !  "  ere  all  be  broken  down 

III.      POLITICAL  ORGAN-GRINDERS. 

THEY  dare  do  all — for  party  or  for  pelf; 

They  scold  and  scoff,  like  Ghibelline  and  Guelf. 

T3f  course  each  holds  himself  immaculate — 

And  damns  the  other  to  a  fiery  fate; 

All  virtues  in  himself  he  has  descried, 

And  all  the  vices  in  the  other  side. 

'Tis  pot  calls  kettle  black, — and  kettle,  pot. 

Believe  what  each  says  of  the  other  !  not 

What  each  says  of  himself:  and  thus,  forsooth, 

Believe  the  worst, — and  so  get  at  the  truth. 

IV.      AN   ADVANCED   THINKER. 

THIS  modern  scientist — a  word  uncouth — 
Who  calls  himself  a  seeker  after  truth, 
And  traces  man  through  monkey  back  to  frog, 
Seeing  a  Plato  in  each  pollywog, 
Ascribes  all  things  unto  the  power  of  Matter. 
The  woman's  anguish,  and  the  baby's  chatter, — 
The  soldier's  glory,  and  his  country's  need, — 
Self-sacrificing  love,— self-seeking  greed,— 
The  false  religion  some  vain  bigots  prize, 
Which  seeks  to  win  a  soul  by  telling  lies, — 
And  even  pseudo-scientific  clatter, — 
All  these,  he  says,  are  but  the  work  of  Matter. 
Thus,  self-made  science,  like  a  self-made  man, 
Deems  naught  uncomprehended  in  its  plan ; 
Sees  naught  he  can't  explain  by  his  own  laws. 
The  time  has  come,  at  length,  to  bid  him  pause, 
Before  he  strive  to  leap  the  unknown  chasm 
Reft  wide  'twixt  awful  God  and  protoplasm. 


ScRiBNER's  MONTHLY. 


VOL.  XX. 


JULY,   1880. 


No.  3. 


THE   YOUNGER   PAINTERS   OF    AMERICA. 

SECOND   PAPER. 


THE    ROMANY    GIRL.      (GEORGE    FULLER.)      OWNED    BY    I.   T.   WILLIAMS,    ESQ. 


SUCH  a  series  of  papers  as  this  carries  its 
aim  upon  its  face ;  and  as  this  is  explana- 
tory, descriptive  and,  so  far  as  may  be  in  a 
general  way,  critical,  nothing  that  savors  of 
VOL.  XX.— 22. 


the  controversial  spirit  need  be  suspected  if 
a  few  words  are  here  quoted  from  a  critic  who 
objected  to  the  predecessor  of  this  article  as 
"  vicious  and  petty."  A  criticism  upon  a 

[Copyright,  1880,  by  Scribner  &  Co.     AH  rights  reserved.  ] 


322 


THE    YOUNGER  PAINTERS  OF  AMERICA. 


magazine  article  has  generally  one  merit, 
however  perfunctory :  it  is  apt  to  express  the 
thought  of  the  writer  with  a  frankness  un- 
obscured  by  any  circumlocution,  and  is 
entitled  to  attention  in  proportion  to  the 
writer's  dignity  and  position.  The  critic 
here  referred  to  being  in  these  respects  un- 
exceptionable, I  take  it,  is  worth  listening  to 
when  he  says :  "  A  writer  who  commiserates 
the  state  of  American  art  at  a  time  when 
the  Church  and  Kensett  represented  it,  has 
little  claim  to  respect  for  his  opinion." 
Those  of  us  who,  if  not,  as  he  says  a  little 
loosely,  "disciples  (at  a  long  interval)  of 
impressionism,"  are  at  least  fonder  of 
"impressionism  "  than  of  "literalism, "need, 
it  may  be,  to  be  halted  and  compelled  to 
give  the  countersign  more  frequently  than 
of  late  we  have  been  asked  to  do.  If  it  is 
a  little  disconcerting  to  find  an  objecting 
laudator  temporis  acti  when  we  had  fancied 
the  debris  substantially  cleared  away  and 
that  the  question  now  concerned  the  best 
means  of  progression,  there  is  still  consola- 
tion in  the  reflection  that  the  danger  of  over- 
confidence,  of  having  the  thing  all  one's 
own  way,  heretofore  pointed  out,  is  not, 
after  all,  so  imminent.  Nothing  can  so 
convince  one  of  the  fact  that  there  is  yet 
much  ground  to  be  cleared  as  regards  art  in 
America,  nothing  can  be  so  salutary  a  warn- 
ing of  the  wisdom  of  "  going  slow  "  in  the 
presence  of  a  community  "  where  every  one 
has  some  culture  and  where  superiorities 
are  discountenanced "  as  an  authoritative 
statement  that  "  a  writer  who  commiserates 
the  state  of  American  art  at  a  time  when  the 
Church  and  Kensett  represented  it,  has 
little  claim  to  respect  for  his  opinion."  This 
is  another  thing  from  saying :  "  The  picture 
of  Duveneck  by  Chase  is  an  impertinence, 
whether  painted  or  engraved;  and  young 
Church's  grotesqueries  do  not  demand  seri- 
ous notice  as  art." 

A  writer  who  employs  that  tone  may 
not  be  esteemed  a  delicate  judge  of  '•  im- 
pertinences," but,  after  all,  his  meaning  is 
clear,  and  whether  or  no  Mr.  Chase's 
"  Duveneck  "  is  pictorially  complete,  and 
Mr.  Church's  "After  the  Rain  "  pretty  and 
graceful  or  only  trivial,  is  a  detail.  Whether 
or  no  the  Church  and  Kensett,  however, 
are  to  be  considered  great  painters,  whether 
or  no  their  art  is  so  admirable  as  to  sur- 
pass that  of  any  of  "  these  disciples  of  im- 
pressionism " — such  as  Mr.  Eakins,  possi- 
bly, or  Mr.  Eaton ! — is  so  far  from  being  a 
detail  as  to  be  the  essential  point  at  issue, 
since  there  is,  it  seems,  something  essential 


still  at  issue.  There  can  be  no  doubt  that 
the  Church  and  Kensett  still  have  a  large 
following,  and  the  sequence  from  this  cir- 
cumstance is  logical :  it  must  be  admitted 
that  the  art  of  the  "  new  men"  is  not  yet  as 
triumphant  as  it  has  been  rather  hastily, 
perhaps,  assumed  to  be.  And  any  one  who 
has  kept  abreast  of  the  times  lately  and  has 
witnessed  the  surprising  vogue  of  the  new 
men,  has  certainly  been  in  danger  of  for- 
getting that,  besides  the  painters  interested 
and  the  connoisseurs  to  whom  stock  notions 
are  precious,  there  does  exist,  among  conserv- 
ative people  whose  familiarity  with  pictures 
is  out  of  all  proportion  to  their  suscept- 
ibility to  art,  a  considerable  number  who 
may  be  called  the  dientelle  of  Church  and 
Kensett.  This  is  equivalent  to  saying  that 
there  are  many  people  who  have  not  yet 
taken  the  first  step  toward  understanding  the 
aims,  to  say  nothing  of  appreciating  the 
accomplishment,  of  the  new  men.  And  as 
their  aim  and  accomplishment  are  here  in 
question,  it  is  important  to  think  of  this,  and 
to  be  reminded  that  some  consideration  of 
the  art  of  Church  and  Kensett  to  this  end  is 
not  as  idle  as  some  of  us  had  supposed,  is  a 
service  for  which  acknowledgment  is  due. 
The  critic  referred  to,  it  should  be  borne  in 
mind,  does  not  speak  for  himself  simply; 
the  temper  of  what  he  says  betrays  his  con- 
sciousness of  weighty  and,  perhaps,  some- 
what impervious  backing. 

It  is  not  difficult  to  see  differences  be- 
tween the  work  of  Mr.  Church  and  that 
of  the  late  Mr.  Kensett ;  that  of  the  latter 
is  of  a  superior  genuineness,  it  is  in  general 
quite  unaffected,  it  has  little  that  is  theatric 
about  it, — it  is  less  pronounced,  less  striking, 
less  brilliant.  Mr.  Church  is  fond  of  paint- 
ing the  splendors  of  the  Andes ;  Mr.  Ken- 
sett  was  content  with  the  placidity  of  Lake 
George.  Mr.  Church  inclines  to  volcanoes; 
Mr.  Kensett  to  nooks  and  dells  and  reaches 
of  pleasant  country; — a  modern  Plutarch, 
indeed,  could  find  grounds  for  various  not 
too  subtle  antitheses  of  this  sort  in  a  con- 
trast of  the  two.  There  was,  undoubtedly, 
a  good  deal  that  was  pleasing  in  Mr.  Ken- 
sett's  landscapes.  They  were  rather  pale 
in  color,  rather  unintellectually  simple  in 
design,  in  no  way  impressive — altogether 
attuned  to  a  minor  key.  But  they  had  a 
certain  wholesomeness  and  even  a  soft 
vivacity  that  set  them  in  advance  of  most 
work  that  was  contemporary  with  them, 
and  enabled  them  to  be  of  a  real  advantage 
at  the  time  when  their  vogue  was  greatest. 
Mr.  Church's  vogue,  however,  has  never 


THE    YOUNGER  PAINTERS   OF  AMERICA. 


323 


been  of  service  to  the  best  interests  of  Amer- 
ican art ;  it  has,  on  the  contrary,  in  the 
opinion  of  many  people,  done  a  subtle  injury 
to  these.  The  essence  of  his  art  is  theatri- 
cality; its  effort  definitely,  distinctly,  one 
may  even  say  professedly,  to  excite  an  order 
of  admiration  whose  chief  constituent  is 
wonder.  So  far  as  we  know,  before  Mr. 
Church  no  painter  had  ventured  to  treat 
nature  in  this  way.  There  is  probably  noth- 
ing in  any  of  her  aspects  the  reproduction 
of  which  he  would  regard  as  too  ambitious 
a  task.  In  Turner's  most  theatrical  land- 
scapes there  is  a  decorative  and  dramatic 
purpose  at  the  enforcement  of  which  nature 
may  be  said  to  assist ;  Mr.  Church  has, 
in  a  sort,  laid  in  wait  for  her,  entrapped 
her  into  throwing  aside  for  the  moment 
her  simplicity,  serenity,  solemnity,  even  her 
grandeur,  in  order  to  indulge  whatever 
propensities  for  pure  display  she  may 
have. 

The  difference  between  Mr.  Church's 
report  of  nature  and  Mr.  Bierstadt's  is 
plainly  one  of  degree ;  and  if  the  fame  of 
Mr.  Bierstadt  is  more  evidently  in  decadence 
than  Mr.  Church's,  it  is  because  the  former 
has,  one  is  tempted  to  say,  carried  the 
joke  too  far;  it  cannot  be  so  very  long 
before  people  about  whose  care  for  art 
there  is  nothing  perfunctory  will  make  the 
same  discovery  in  the  instance  of  Mr. 
Church.  Nevertheless,  it  is  not  to  be  for- 
gotten that  he  exhibits  in  comparison  with 
Mr.  Bierstadt  a  certain  conservatism,  both 
mental  and  technical,  which  accounts  for 
the  superior  esteem  in  which  he  is  held, 
and  makes  it  as  possible  for  persons,  of  in- 
telligence— with  a  bias  for  that  sort  of  thing 
— to  protest  admiration  of  his  work  as  it  is 
difficult  to  assign  stark  reasons  for  disapprov- 
ing it.  His  cleverness  is  indisputable,  and 
his  powers  of  technical  imitation  unques- 
tionably great ;  and  this  is  more  evident  than 
the  mechanical  direction  which  the  former 
takes  (it  is  totally  unlike  the  mental  alert- 
ness of  the  "  Fortunistes,"  for  example),  and 
the  unsatisfactory  result  of  his  exercise  of  the 
latter.  This  is  the  world  of  Mayence  hams 
and  not  of  butterflies'  wings,  a  clever  French- 
man once  said,  and,  accordingly,  when 
formerly  Mr.  Church  exhibited  a  work  of 
panoramic  gorgeousness,  marked  by  great 
cleverness  and  intensity  of  illusion,  in  a  gal- 
lery from  which  the  daylight  was  carefully 
excluded,  and  in  which  an  impressive  still- 
ness was  broken  only  by  the  hushed  whis- 
pering of  the  attendants  and  the  spectators, 
it  could  scarcely  fail  to  create  a  sensation. 


It  could  hardly  be  that  the  subsidence 
of  this  sensation  should  not  be  gradual, 
and  that  "The  River  of  Light,"  now  at 
the  Metropolitan  Museum  of  Art,  and  the 
"  Chimborazo  "  at  the  Lenox  Library  Gal- 
lery, should  not  find  admirers  who  have 
never  seen  "  The  Heart  of  the  Andes." 

No  one  could  ask  for  a  better  test  of  Mr. 
Church's  art  than  these  two  pictures  now 
afford  to  any  one  interested  in  the  matter, 
and,  for  reasons  already  assigned,  it  is  an 
interesting  matter.  No  better  instances  could 
be  found  of  the  kind  of  painting  which 
that  of  the  new  men  distinctly  is  not.  To 
any  one  who  finds  either  of  them  capable 
of  stirring  the  emotions  as  profoundly  as  it 
is  legibly  and  somewhat  defiantly  stamped 
upon  them  that  they  hope  to  do,  there  is  cer- 
tainly nothing  to  be  said ;  he  is  clearly  for- 
tunate in  his  enjoyment  if  he  considers 
enjoyment  the  end  of  fine  art  and  is  undis- 
turbed by  Saint-Beuve's  criterion,  namely, 
the  reasonableness  of  one's  pleasure.  Any 
one  to  whom  they  prove  a  little  unsatisfactory, 
who  receives  no  sensations  from  them  be- 
yond perplexity  at  his  failure  to  receive  any, 
will  find  it  more  or  less  profitable  to  recall 
one  or  two  cardinal  principles  of  art,  and, 
using  these  as  points  de  repere,  to  examine 
anew  "  The  River  of  Light,"  say,  without 
any  scientific  strictness,  but  freely  and  sim- 
ply. Painting  is  certainly  a  language  of 
itself,  and  those  who  use  it  may  use  it  to 
express  their  own  ideas  and  emotions,  or 
to  translate  the  ideas  and  emotions  of  the 
language  of  nature.  One  of  the  most  un- 
compromising realists  among  living  writers 
upon  art,  calls  landscape-painting  "The 
expression  of  one's  emotions  in  the  pres- 
ence of  nature."  This  is  addressed  to 
Frenchmen,  however,  and  in  France  there 
is  a  great  fund  of  criticism  upon  these  mat- 
ters which  renders  it  unnecessary  to  make 
minute  explanations  at  every  step.  With 
us  it  may  seem  like  a  dangerous  concession 
to  "  idealization,"  though  it  occurs  in  a  book 
written  mainly  as  a  protest  against  classic- 
ism. But,  throwing  aside  everything  which 
relates  to  a  painter's  direct  personal  ex- 
pression, and  considering  only  his  interpret- 
ation, his  translation,  of  nature,  it  is  manifest 
that  literal  reproduction  is  satirically  insuf- 
ficient. It  is,  indeed,  out  of  the  question, 
since  the  relation  of  the  microcosm  to  the 
macrocosm  is  one  of  correspondence,  and 
not  of  equivalence.  An  attempt  at  exact 
imitation  is  sure  to  result  in  a  libel.  In  art, 
at  least,  the  axiom  that  the  whole  is  equal  to 
the  sum  of  all  its  parts  has  no  absolute 


324 


THE    YOUNGER  PAINTERS   OF  AMERICA. 


force  whatever,  and  even  if  it  were  possible 
to  reproduce  in  painting  the  actual  details 
of  the  natural  scene  or  object  it  essays  to 
translate,  the  something  that  exists  beyond 
the  sum  of  these  would  still  prove  elusive. 
For  a  good  translation,  a  translation  that  is 
not  a  libel,  the  sympathetic  personality  of 
the  translator  is  absolutely  indispensable. 
There  must  be  a  personal  quality  in  the 
most  literal  "  study  from  nature  "  to  make 
it  different  from  a  photograph,  and  it  must 
be  sympathetic  to  make  the  painter  superior 
to  the  camera.  "  The  real  question  is," 
said  Mr.  Matthew  Arnold  of  Mr.  Newman's 
"  Homer,"  "  not  whether  he  has  given  us 
full  change  for  the  Greek,  but  how  he  gives 
us  our  change ;  we  want  it  in  gold  and  he 
gives  it  us  in  copper."  That  is  exactly  ap- 
plicable to  the  painting  of  nature.  Some- 
thing in  the  technique  of  a  painter,  some 
artistic  quality  of  his  own  which  informs 
his  handiwork  and  stamps  him  a  proficient 
in  his  own  language,  as  well  as  a  sympa- 
thetic appreciation  of  the  subject  he  is 
treating,  is  requisite  before  even  a  bit  of 
still-life  can  be  made  interesting.  Bearing 
these  things  in  mind,  what  one  should  ask 
himself  about  such  imitative  painting  as 
"  The  River  of  Light,"  judging  it  by  its 
own  standards,  is,  first,  whether  it  gives  full 
change  for  the  natural  scene  it  attempts  to 
interpret,  and,  secondly,  whether,  if  it  does,  it 
gives  it  in  gold  or  in  copper.  The  observer 
who  notes  the  expenditure  of  force  upon  de- 
tails, the  emphasis  with  which  certain  trop- 
ical leaves  and  stems  are  accentuated,  the 
insistence  upon  certain  obvious  points,  such 
as  the  sun's  blazing  reflection,  the  general 
keying-up  of  contrasts,  the  frankness  which 
characterizes  the  illusion  of  the  whole,  will 
be  apt  to  answer  both  these  questions  ad- 
versely. And  reflecting  upon  the  attitude 
which  the  painting  of  such  a  scene  evinces, 
as  well  as  the  character  of  its  treatment,  he 
will  further  be  apt  to  ask  himself  wherein 
this  art,  which  has  had  so  great  a  vogue, 
which  is  marked  by  so  much  mechanical 
cleverness  and  whose  illusion  is  so  perfect 
to  so  many  minds,  differs  from  the  art  of  the 
scene-painter.  "  The  River  of  Light "  is  a 
magnificent  drop-curtain.  A  drop-curtain 
may  be  the  work  of  incontestable  genius ;  it 
may  have  a  thousand  merits,  and  we  have 
said  no  more  about  them  here  because  they 
are  so  evident  to  all  admirers  of  Mr. 
Church ;  it  is  simply  not  painting.  It  is 
probably  not  unfair  to  treat  Mr.  Church's 
work  as  imitative  art  solely.  So  far  as  we 
know,  he  has  never  attempted  to  illustrate 


M.  Veron's  definition  of  landscape-painting 
above  referred  to ;  and  the  only  instance  of 
anything  so  hostile  to  the  spirit  of  American 
art  (at  the  time  when  he  and  Mr.  Kensett 
represented  it)  as  "  idealization  "  that  we  re- 
member is  the  curiously  characteristic  one 
of  the  "  ^Egean  Sea,"  one  of  his  latest  and 
most  important  canvases,  which  represents, 
as  in  a  Titan's  goblet,  a  geographical  mi- 
crocosm of  those  famous  shores,  by  means  of 
the  simple  expedient  of  placing  in  an  ideal 
juxtaposition  the  really  wide-apart  objects 
to  be  found  there. 

More  palpable  examples  of  precisely  the 
opposite  of  all  this  could  not  be  found,  per- 
haps, than  the  work  of  Mr.  Fuller  and  Mr. 
Thayer,  both  of  whom  are  engaged  in  "  the 
expression  of  emotion  in  the  presence  of 
nature,"  and  both  of  whom  have  a  tech- 
nique which  gives  to  their  interpretation  of 
nature  an  interest  and  distinction  unknown 
to  literally  imitative  art.  They  are  thoroughly 
dissimilar  in  many,  if  not  in  most  respects, 
but  nevertheless  association  of  them  is  nat- 
ural on  account  of  the  distinctly  poetic  aim 
of  each,  and  the  serious  qualification  which 
both  of  them  render  necessary  in  a  judg- 
ment which  accuses  the  new  men  gen- 
erally of  a  lack  of  charm.  Mr.  Fuller  is  so 
far  from  being  a  young  painter,  even  in  the 
degree  in  which  the  oldest  of  those  here  con- 
sidered is  justly  to  be  called  young,  that  he 
is  a  veteran  of  art ;  but  there  was,  we  believe, 
a  long  period  during  which  he  painted  noth- 
ing, and,  at  all  events,  his  appearance  here 
two  or  more  years  ago  had  all  the  force  of 
a  debut.  Mr.  Thayer,  on  the  other  hand,  is 
among  the  youngest  of  the  new  men,  and  if 
it  be  admitted  that  the  tie  which  connects 
his  work  and  that  of  Mr.  Fuller's  is  not 
wholly  fancied,  the  leaning  which  the  two 
have  toward  each  other  not  only  suggests 
the  reality  and  dignity  of  their  common 
attitude  toward  art,  but  indirectly  testifies 
to  the  rather  surprising  singularity  of  this 
among  the  new  men ;  it  would  occur  to  no 
one  to  associate  them  if  the  quality  known 
as  ideality  were  more  generally  illustrated  by 
these.  Mr.  Fuller,  at  all  events,  it  will 
not  be  denied,  has  a  marked  individuality, 
and — which  is  perhaps  another  thing — in 
his  manner  of  expressing  it  a  marked 
originality.  He  completely  puzzled  the 
first  Academy  hanging  committee  which 
had  to  decide  upon  the  comparative  merit 
of  his  pictures.  Probably  they  were  so  dif- 
ferent from  anything  theretofore  submitted 
to  Academy  Exhibitions  as  to  appear 
rather  flagrant;  the  result  being,  at  any 


THE    YOUNGER  PAINTERS   OF  AMERICA. 


325 


AUTUMN    AFTERNOON    IN    BERKSHIRE.       (ABBOTT    H.    THAYER.) 


rate,  that  his  "  Turkey  Pasture  "  was  hung  on 
the  third  line,  and  its  companion  over  a  door, 
if  we  remember  rightly.  Even  in  these 
positions,  however,  they  made  an  impression 
and  got  talked  about,  not  only  by  that  por- 
tion of  the  public  whose  appetite  for  any- 
thing sensational  is  quite  as  eager  as  it  is 
fastidious,  but  by  persons  of  discernment  and 
knowledge,  the  painters  themselves,  of  course, 
being  included  in  such  a  category.  And  since 
that  time,  accordingly,  Mr.  Fuller's  canvases 
have  been  treated  at  the  Academy  as  well  as 
elsewhere  with  the  consideration  to  which,  if 
they  were  not  to  be  utterly  scouted,  it  was 
plain  they  were  entitled.  None  of  them 
have  conspicuously  surpassed  these  first 
works,  to  our  mind,  though  the  "  Romany 
Girl "  and  the  "  And  She  was  a  Witch,"  ex- 
hibited last  year  at  the  Academy,  are  far  more 
ambitious.  Not  that  they  are  marked  by 
a  pretension  made  palpable  by  an  evident 
falling  short  of  accomplishing  their  intention. 
On  the  contrary,  Mr.  Fuller  is  quite  capable 
of  conceiving  a  picture  in  a  large  way  and 
of  executing  it  with  a  directness  that  may 
have  blemishes,  but  avoids  short-comings 
very  successfully.  Indeed,  if  the  witch  pict- 
ure is  more  successful  than  the  "  Romany 
Girl,"  and  it  probably  is,  it  is  due  to  its  supe- 


rior dignity  as  a  conception,  and  the  ease 
with  which  this  is  sustained.  How  engag- 
ing the  "  Romany  Girl "  is,  those  who  have 
seen  it  will  remember,  and  those  who  have 
not  will  be  able  very  adequately  to  appre- 
ciate from  the  sympathetic  engraving  of  it 
here  printed ;  it  is  sweet,  frank,  picturesque, 
excellently  composed  and  thoroughly  simple. 
The  quality  of  the  other  picture,  however,  per- 
haps no  reproduction  could  quite  adequately 
convey.  It  is  one  of  the  best  instances  we 
have  ever  had  in  America  of  the  just  presen- 
tation of  what  is  morally  dramatic,  without 
having  this  for  the  sole,  or,  perhaps,  even  the 
main  pictorial  motive  of  the  work.  An  ac- 
cused woman  is  being  taken  from  her  house 
among  the  pines  by  the  officers  of  colonial 
fanaticism,  and  another,  entering  the  door,  is 
looking  around  at  the  disappearing  figures. 
The  observer  can  make  his  own  tragedy  out 
of  it,  imagine  the  short  trial  and  swift  con- 
demnation of  the  unhappy  victim  of  Puritan 
superstition,  and  fancy  the  psychological 
perplexities  of  the  young  woman  left  behind, 
a  daughter  of  the  witch,  possibly,  and  yet 
too  much  a  daughter  of  the  time  as  well  to 
be  able  to  persuade  herself  of  her  mother's 
innocence.  Nothing  of  this  appears,  and  to 
refer  to  a  picture  the  imaginings  of  which  it 


326 


THE    YOUNGER  PAINTERS   OF  AMERICA. 


is  only  the  occasion  and  not  the  cause  at  all 
is  a  mistake,  which  is  not  the  more  excus- 
able because  it  is  so  common.  What  does 
appear  is  precisely  what  an  analogous  natural 
scene  would  present,  refined  and  heightened, 
of  course,  by  the  painter's  art,  but  in  no 
radical  regard  contradictory  to  natural 
conditions. 

This  is  the  way  in  which  tragedy  has  now 
come  to  be  treated  in  art ;  and  it  is  a  great 
change  from  the  days  of  classicism.  In 
painting,  as  well  as  in  literature,  one  of  the 
changes  wrought  by  what  is  so  widely 
known  and  perhaps  so  little  understood  as 
"  modern  realism "  consists  in  stimulating 
the  imagination  instead  of  in  satisfying  the 
sensibility.  The  main  idea  has  ceased  to 
be  as  obviously  accentuated  and  its  natural 
surroundings  are  given  their  natural  place  ; 
there  is  less  expression  and  more  suggestion  ; 
the  artist's  effort  is  expended  rather  upon  per- 
fecting the  ensemble,  noting  relations,  taking 
in  a  larger  circle ;  a  complexity  of  moral 
elements  has  taken  the  place  of  the  old 
simplicity  whose  multifariousness  was  almost 
wholly  pictorial.  This,  at  all  events,  seems 
the  direction  which  the  artistic  tendency  of 
the  time  has  taken.  Philosophers  may  find 
it  a  fruitful  topic  for  speculation ;  if  the  age 
is,  as  it  is  frequently  called  (both  by  those 
who  seem  to  have  the  pas  and  those  who 
are  most  poignantly  jealous  of  them),  mate- 
rialistic, its  art  must  share  the  general  bent 
so  far  as  it  may  without  ceasing  to  be  art; 
and  we  are  undeniably  more  careful  about 
offending  against  natural  laws,  on  the  one 
hand — Kaulbach's  picture  at  the  Metro- 
politan Museum,  for  example,  jars  on  one 
as  an  anachronism — and,  on  the  other, 
more  given  to  searching  for  the  supernat- 
ural in  nature,  to  speak  paradoxically, 
instead  of  through  it  or  beyond  it,  than 
our  ancestors.  Instead  of  a  landscape  as 
a  background  to  a  Holy  Family,  and  having 
no  pertinence  but  an  artistic  one,  we  have 
Corot's  "  Orpheus,"  in  which  the  mysterious 
Dawn  is  so  subtly  significant  in  earth  and 
sky  and  trees  that  the  figure  has  no 
value  as  a  personification,  but  is  itself  so 
permeated  with  the  invisible  natural  forces 
at  play  about  it  as  to  blend  with  the  land- 
scape whatever  spiritual  individuality  it  may 
have  possessed  before  the  dusk  began  to 
grow  into  daylight.  That  is  why  Corot 
seems  to  me  the  greatest  painter  of  our 
time,  because  he  best  represents  what  the 
spirit  of  the  time  has  to  express  in  plastic 
art,  without  vain  attempts  to  recover  an  ideal 
of  entrancing  beauty,  but  now  indisputably 


grown  vague  and  unreal  to  us,  and  without 
surrendering  anything  to  the  vice,  the  de- 
fect corresponding  to  the  excellence,  of  our 
own  ideal — the  defect  of  material  detail. 
Any  one  who  will  compare  the  moral  treat- 
ment of  Mr.  Fuller's  witch  picture  with  Corot's 
"  Les  Gaulois,"  now  to  be  seen  in  the  city,  in 
which  les  Gaulois  play  the  same  relative  part 
that  Mr.  Fuller's  figures  do,  will  appreciate  the 
connection  between  all  this  and  the  picture 
which  suggested  it.  The  "  And  She  was  a 
Witch"  may  seem  to  be  of  more  value  than 
it  really  is  because  it  represents  so  admirably 
so  admirable  an  artistic  attitude.  But 
though  that  is,  after  all,  the  main  thing,  and 
with  it  we  could  consent  to  forego  certain 
less  important  excellences,  these  latter  are 
present,  too,  in  more  than  respectable  force, 
and  if  the  subject  had  been  a  less  forbidding 
one,  one  reflects,  the  picture  might  have 
been  great.  Charming  as  the  "  Romany 
Girl  "  is,  it  is  on  distinctly  a  lower  plane, 
— the  plane  of  Mr.  Fuller's  "  Quadroon  "  in 
the  last  Academy  Exhibition, — though  it  is  a 
success,  whereas  the  last  is  more  or  less  of  a 
failure. 

The  defects  of  Mr.  Fuller's  qualities  are 
evident  enough.  Occasionally  his  strong 
individuality  becomes  eccentricity,  and  the 
most  prominent  feature  of  his  work  now 
and  then  remains  on  acquaintance  what  it 
seemed,  perhaps,  at  the  first  glance, — his 
manner,  namely.  Occasionally,  too,  one  is 
conscious  of  the  wish  that  he  were  less  con- 
tent with  his  somewhat  monotonous  palette. 
At  such  times  there  is  about  it  a  certain 
vagueness  and  spectrality  that  he  shares 
with  Mr.  Thayer.  And  in  our  view  these 
qualities  are  much  more  at  home  with  Mr. 
Thayer,  who  reveals  in  them  possibilities  of 
delicate  suggestiveness,  indeed,  which  most 
of  us  have  never  suspected,  and  which  im- 
peratively demand  an  unaffected  sympathy 
in  whomsoever  would  illustrate  them.  It  is 
difficult  to  think  of  affectation  in  connection 
with  Mr.  Thayer's  work ;  it  is,  in  its  own 
way,  as  simple  and  straightforward  as  that 
of  Mr.  Winslow  Homer.  It  may  be  in 
doubtful  taste  to  mention  it,  but  his  pict- 
ures irresistibly  and  distinctly  suggest  a  fine 
moral  personality,  a  nature  that  has  no  dis- 
turbing emotions  to  complicate  its  percep- 
tions or  its  ambitions,  incapable  of  anything 
like  artifice,  and  even  unfamiliar  with  any- 
thing like  grossness.  His  delicacy  seems 
quite  foreign  to  what  we  ordinarily  under- 
stand by  daintiness  ;  his  fastidiousness  is  so 
far  from  being  finical  that  it  is  almost  aus- 
tere, apparently.  We  know  of  no  better 


THE    YOUNGER  PAINTERS   OF  AMERICA. 


327 


THE    BATHER.       (HENRY    MOHRMAN.) 


way  in  which  to  characterize  his  art  than 
to  say  that  it  is  the  poetry  of  simplicity  ; 
for  it  is  as  poetic  as  it  is  simple,  and  its  un- 
mistakable importance  reminds  one  how 
much  power  there  is,  after  all,  in  pure 
charm,  provided  there  be  nothing  factitious 
about  it.  Beside  Mr.  Thayer's  "  pearl  of 
portraiture  "  (as  it  was  very  happily  called 
by  a  writer  of  great  tact  in  the  use  of  epi- 
thets) in  the  recent  Academy  Exhibition,  it 
was  curious  to  notice  how  weak  much  of  the 
bravura  work  looked.  One  wonders  a  lit- 
tle, perhaps,  that  an  artist  of  such  character- 
istics should  devote  himself  so  largely  to 
cows ;  but  there  is  something  very  nice 
about  cows.  If  one  reflects,  there  is  a  pict- 
uresque honesty  in  their  aspect  and  bearing 
— such  as  Troyon,  for  example,  knew  how 
to  idealize,  without  being  able  to  teach  Van 
Marcke.  And,  like  Troyon,  Mr.  Thayer  treats 
his  cattle  in  the  way  just  now  referred  to. 
They  contribute  to  and  get  assistance  from 


the  landscape  so  as  to  make  with  it  an  agree- 
able whole.  He  is  not  so  successful  with  tigers, 
visitors  to  the  recent  exhibition  of  the  Society 
of  American  Artists  will  remember.  The  tiger, 
even  when  subdued  by  a  nymph,  must  man- 
age to  preserve  something  tigerish  about  him. 
If  in  Mr.  Thayer's  landscape,  pure  and  sim- 
ple, one  could  also  desire  more  firmness  and 
solidity, — and,  whatever  the  character  of  the 
general  effect,  it  is  probably  helped  by  dis- 
tinguishing the  substance  of  earth  from  the 
spaciousness  of  sky, — it  is  not  at  all  certain 
that  more  vigorous  "  handling  "  would  not 
detract  in  some  subtle  way  from  the  remark- 
able delicacy  which  inwraps  his  hill-sides, 
and  stretches  of  fields,  and  still  pools,  and 
hemlock  groves,  as  in  a  mist.  And  though 
they  do  sensibly  lack  color,  which  is  not 
only  the  main  element  of  landscape  but 
landscape  itself,  in  a  sense,  it  is  to  be  noticed 
that  the  atmosphere  and  light,  of  which 
they  are  full,  is  not  sought  by  any  cheap 


328 


THE    YOUNGER  PAINTERS   OF  AMERICA. 


devices,  but  by  a  nice  adjustment  of  gradu- 
ated tones  which  goes  for  color  in  the 
school  in  which  Mr.  Thayer  got  his  train- 
ing. In  comparison  with  Mr.  Church's 
"  gorgeousness,"  we  confess  it  has  an  almost 
decorative  look. 

Mr.  Muhrman  has  done  little  in  on, 
but  for  two  or  three  years  his  black  and 
white  and  water-color  drawings  have 
attracted  attention,  which,  indeed,  con- 


technically  it  goes  to  all  lengths  in  respect 
of  the  freedom  which  the  new  men  prize  so 
highly,  and  are  so  right,  of  course,  to  prize. 
If  it  be  thought  to  lose  in  vigor  by  sacrific- 
ing precision,  and  in  effectiveness  by  "  scat- 
tering," so  to  speak,  it  is  to  be  said  that,  in 
water-color  painting,  at  any  rate,  nothing  is 
so  important  technically  as  free-handedness. 
Anything  like  hesitancy,  or  even  anything 
like  deliberation,  operates  against  the  fresh- 


sidering  their  almost  defiant  aggressive- 
ness, could  hardly  be  withheld  from  them. 
His  work  may  be  said  to  deliver  itself  into 
the  hands  of  the  Philistines  (who  disapprove 
of  the  new  men  en  bloc)  with  a  frank- 
ness that  should  be  disarming.  It  has  a 
great  directness,  and  never  aims  to  dress 
up  its  material  into  any  semblance  of  beauty, 
or  even  temperate  attractiveness.  And 


(FRANK    DUVENECK.) 


ness  which  is  certainly  the  chief  charm  of 
water-color  drawing.  To  any  one  who  has 
noted  the  singular  confusion  as  to  the  limits 
and  possibilities  of  water-color  that  long 
prevailed  in  the  minds  of  most  of  the  mem- 
bers of  the  American  Society  of  Painters  in 
Water-color,  the  excellent  and  sensible  use  of 
his  material  by  Mr.  Muhrman  has  something 
refreshing  about  it.  It  seems  to  recognize 


THE    YOUNGER  PAINTERS  OF  AMERICA. 


329 


REVERIE.      (WYATT    EATON.) 


that  water-colors  are  strictly  in  the  nature 
of  impressions ;  that  they  are,  to  a  certain 
extent,  artistic  memoranda;  that  with  color, 
tone,  depth,  richness,  mellowness — the  mark 
and  end  of  true  painting  in  oil.  technically 
— they  have  almost  nothing  to  do;  and  that 
the  very  excuse  for  their  employment  pre- 
supposes a  distinct  difference  between  them, 
and  a  material  which,  if  not  more  serious,  is 
at  least  of  a  larger  dignity  and  importance. 
Failure  to  recognize  these  things  results  in 
the  always  unsatisfactory  and  sometimes 
painful  attempts,  of  which  we  have  all  seen 
so  many,  to  make  water-colors  do  the  work 
of  oils.  There  is,  to  be  sure,  no  truer 
maxim  of  art  than  that  which  authorizes  the 
use  of  any  means  to  produce  an  agreeable 
effect.  Hard  and  fast  rules  are  nowhere  so 
hurtful  as  in  art,  and  to  object  to  the  pick- 
ing out  of  a  high  light  here  and  there  in 
"  Chinese  white,"  is  to  lay  oneself  open  to 
the  imputation  of  purism.  After  all,  this  is 
a  question  of  the  extent  to  which  the  thing 
is  carried,  it  may  be  said.  To  which  it 
may  be  replied  that  the  only  reason  for 


ignoring  in  practice  the  distinction  between 
water-colors  and  oils  is  that  it  is  impossible 
to  get  as  agreeable  an  effect  in  this  way. 
If  it  is  impossible  to  get  "  depth "  with 
opaque  water-color,  why  should  it  be  em- 
ployed at  the  sacrifice  of  transparency  ? 

All  this  has,  however,-  been  so  long  well 
understood  by  the  water-color  painters  of 
countries  where  art  is  no  longer  in  its  experi- 
mental stage,  has  been  so  admirably  illus- 
trated by  the  water-colorists  of  France  and 
Holland  and  Italy  in  straits  where  even  Eng- 
lish artists  found  themselves  driven  to  the  use 
ot gouache,  and  has  been  recently  so  generally 
admitted  by  our  own  painters  in  water-color 
(witness  the  last  Exhibition,  which  displayed 
marked  progress  in  this  respect),  that  the 
treatment  of  Mr.  Muhrman  has  no  longer 
the  distinction  of  anything  like  singularity. 
And  it  is  his  accentuation  of  correct  treat- 
ment, seen  in  contrast,  that  in  the  main 
makes  his  work  noticeable.  Its  merit  is  not 
the  less  absolute,  of  course,  but  its  impressive- 
ness  ceases  when  it  loses  its  foil  of  stupid 
treatment.  Indeed,  when  our  water-color 


33° 


THE    YOUNGER  PAINTERS   OF  AMERICA. 


exhibitions  show  such  work,  at  once  artis- 
tic and  "legitimate,"  as  Mr.  La  Farge's 
flowers  and  Japanese  lacquer  and  inlaid 
mother-of-pearl,  Mr.  Weir's  and  Mr.  Rein- 
hart's  landscapes  with  clear  water  reflec- 
tions, Mr.  Martin's  airy  foliage,  and  Mr. 
Winslow  Homer's  rapid  memoranda  of  a 
score  of  quick  and  vivid  natural  impres- 
sions, saturated,  one  may  say,  with  pictur- 
esqueness,  work  that  is  only  "legitimate" 
is  at  once  relegated  to  the  second  rank. 
Moreover,  Mr.  Muhrman's  accentuation  of 
"legitimacy"  is  so  emphatic  as  to  be  a  little 
flagrant,  possibly.  His  work,  in  "handling," 
is  like  what  Thackeray  said  of  Hogarth's 
satire:  "If  he  has  to  paint  a  man  with  his 
throat  cut,  he  draws  him  with  his  head 
almost  off."  If  Mr.  Muhrman  has  to  paint 
a  figure  that  is  not  to  look  flat,  he  draws  it 
with  a  quantity  of  facets;  if  he  has  to 
emphasize  an  element  he  leaves  out  every 
other.  "The  Bather,"  here  engraved  for  ex- 
ample, is  the  reproduction  of  a  water-color 
of  obvious  merits,  the  difficulty  being  that 
they  are  too  obvious.  By  a  well-known 
principle,  common  to  art  and  physics,  its 
defects  become  equally  apparent.  I  shall 
confess  that  I  for  one  am  unable  to  see  all 
the  points  that  the  painter  evidently  tried  to 
make  plain :  I  do  not  know  what  the  dark 
mass  at  the  bottom  is  meant  to  represent; 
whether  the  man  is  in  front  of  or  behind  it; 
what  has  become  of  his  legs  in  the  former 
case,  or  what  he  can  be  doing  with  his 
swaddling  clothes  in  the  latter.  Neverthe- 
less, he  is  very  distinctly  a  man  or  the 
human  part  of  a  centaur,  and  characterized 
with  a  good  deal  of  force;  the  essential 
points  about  him  are  all  made  very  plain, 
and  it  is  perhaps  a  question  if,  consciously 
or  unconsciously,  the  painter  has  not  taken 
it  for  granted  that,  all  things  considered, 
minor  points  will  be  of  slight  interest  to 
any  one.  Mr.  Muhrman,  too,  is  really  a 
beginner  in  painting,  and  to  measure  him 
by  the  same  standards  which  his  work  will 
probably  call  for  some  years  hence  is  to  do 
him  an  injustice.  "The  Bather"  makes  no 
pretense  to  be  a  picture;  all  that  Mr. 
Muhrman  would  probably  claim  for  it  is 
that  it  is  a  good  portrait  of  a  rather  pictur- 
esque and  battered  model;  if  it  be  that, 
and  it  "has  the  look  of  it,"  it  certainly 
promises  far  better  for  his  future  than  if  it 
endeavored  to  atone  for  the  lack  of  por- 
traiture by  factitious  and  superficial  "  pict- 
ure-making." 

On  the  other  hand,  in  conjunction  with 
Mr.   Duveneck's    "Coming    Man,"  it  may 


be  taken  to  illustrate  one  of  the  short- 
comings of  some  of  the  new  men  of  which 
their  warmest  admirers  are  beginning  to 
betray  a  little  impatience.  Mr.  Duveneck 
may  be  said  to  be  at  one  end  of  the  list  of 
which  Mr.  Muhrman  is  at  the  other,  and 
yet,  speaking  strictly,  "The  Coming  Man" 
is  scarcely  more  of  a  picture  than  "The 
Bather";  it  is  quite  as  lacking  in  that  im- 
portant element  of  a  large  work  of  art 
which  we  call  structural  composition.  Com- 
position in  the  abstract  is  variously  regarded 
by  painters  and  critics,  of  course,  and  it  is 
not  meant  here  to  insist  on  its  precedence 
over  more  spiritual  qualities.  Unlike  the 
lack  of  poetry  and  of  style  heretofore  men- 
tioned as  characteristic  of  some  of  the  new 
men,  its  absence  is  unquestionably  not  so 
much  a  positive  defect  as  a  short-coming.  It 
is  certainly  the  nearest  to  what  is  mechanical 
of  all  pictorial  elements,  and,  though  it  is 
related  to  style  more  or  less  intimately,  it  is 
distinctly  not  style,  but  something  much 
more  easy  to  acquire  and  much  less  depend- 
ent upon  individuality  and  natural  force. 
A  "  study,"  for  example,  may  have  great 
distinction  of  style,  but  it  is  naturally  quite 
without  value  as  a  composition.  And  in 
the  work  of  the  new  men  studies  abound. 
Many  of  them  seem  to  have  avoided  any 
effort  for  excellence  in  composition  out  of  a 
wholesome  dread  of  formality,  which,  it 
must  be  admitted  on  all  hands,  is  often  its 
depressing  accompaniment.  Indeed,  it  has 
long  been  acknowledged  that  the  vice  in 
much  foreign  art-teaching — notably  that  of 
Germany — is  the  extent  to  which  the  study 
of  composition  is  carried.  One  of  the  ablest 
of  the  younger  painters  told  me  that  during 
his  four  years  under  Piloty  he  had  great  diffi- 
culty in  avoiding  this  before  he  felt  at  all  pre- 
pared for  it,  and  there  can  be  little  doubt  that 
to  his  resolute  persistence  in  learning  to  paint 
before  occupying  himself  with  anything  so 
artificial  as  composition  is  to  be  credited 
a  good  deal  of  his  present  deserved  suc- 
cess. A  youth  who,  having  barely  learned 
to  draw,  sets  about  the  blocking  out  of  an 
important  historical  picture  is,  in  nine  cases 
out  of  ten,  of  course,  wasting  his  time  after 
the  familiar  recipe  of  beginning  at  the  wrong 
end.  It  is  easy  to  see  how  formality  results 
from  this,  almost  inevitably;  and  formality 
is  plainly  one  of  the  worst  traits  a  work  of 
art  of  any  sort  can  possess;  it  is,  perhaps, 
to  be  called  the  worst,  because  it  is  so  inim- 
ical to  spontaneity,  which  in  plastic  art  is 
of  the  same  importance  that  Demosthenes 
assigned  to  action  in  oratory.  Whatever 


THE    YOUNGER  PAINTERS   OF  AMERICA. 


REVERIE — IN    THE   TIME   OF    THE   FIRST    FRENCH    EMPIRE.       (WILL   H.    LOW.)      OWNED   BY  JOHN    B.    THATCHER,    ESQ. 


else  they  have  done  or  failed  to  do,  the  new 
men  should  have  the  grateful  recognition  of 
every  American  interested  in  aesthetics  and 
familiar  with  the  apparently  permanent  way 
in  which  routine  had  intrenched  itself  here, 
for  their  emphatic  and  united  protest  against 
formality.  Moreover,  formality  is  possibly 
not  the  most  insidious  peril  of  premature 
attention  to  composition.  The  concentra- 
tion upon  details  which  it  involves  is  often 
fatal  to  totality:  the  result  is  a  lot  of  lesser 
pictures,  or  a  piece  of  a  larger  one, — the 
heterogeneity  or  else  the  amorphousness 
that  is  unavoidable  when  one  works  from 
the  parts  to  the  whole  instead  of  from  within 
outward;  no  direct  study  of  relations  can 


make  up  for  the  lack  of  a  single  impression 
as  a  starting-point. 

Nevertheless,  right  as  the  new  men  have 
been  in  their  order  of  procedure  hitherto,  it 
is  getting  to  be  time,  as  we  say,  for  a  larger 
proportion  of  pictures  in  their  exhibitions. 
The  circumstance  that  this  reproach  has 
been  made  against  them  from  the  first  by 
critics  wholly  given  over  to  routine  and 
exhibiting  all  the  perplexity  of  prejudice  at 
the  marks  of  their  almost  boisterous  spon- 
taneity, is  really  no  warrant  for  neglecting 
whatever  of  truth  it  may  embrace.  Mr. 
Duveneck's  " Coming  Man"  is  an  admirable 
study  from  nature ;  but  its  pictorial  impor- 
tance is  not  large,  and  is  wholly  dispropor- 


332 


THE    YOUNGER  PAINTERS   OF  AMERICA. 


tioned  to  his  pictorial  promise.  Considered 
as  a  study  from  nature,  there  is  no  possible 
objection  to  make  to  it,  so  far  as  we  can  see; 
for  its  lack  of  picturesqueness,  if  it  is  so 
lacking,  the  subject  is  plainly  responsible ; 
and  if  tender  sensibilities  are  displeased  at 
the  rude  realism' which  has  thus  caught  a 
baby  in  dishabille,  atonement  is  made  in  the 
art  with  which  the  mystic  non-significance 
of  its  eyes,  the  helplessness  of  its  limbs,  and 
its  general  aspect  of  formless  inutility  and 
aimless  inconsequence  are  rendered.  Con- 
sidered as  a  picture,  however,  it  is  not  to 
be  gainsayed  that  there  is  something  trivial 
about  its  emptiness  and  lack  of  accessory 
elements,  and  it  is  not,  upon  the  whole,  an 
unrepresentative  example  of  much  of  Mr. 
Duveneck's  work.  It  illustrates — a  non 
lucendo — the  principle  that  if  in  art  unity  is 
the  chief  requisite,  in  composition  that  of 
first  importance  is  that  this  unity  should  be 
organic.  Here,  indeed,  there  is  no  structure 
whatever;  it  is  simply  impossible  to  make  a 
"  picture  "  out  of  a  baby  and  a  background. 
And  subordinate  as  structure  is,  it  is,  never- 
theless, of  an  importance  that  may  almost 
be  called  vital.  The  assistance  it  affords  to 
expression  can  scarcely  be  overrated;  in 
fact,  anything  like  completeness  of  expres- 
sion is  unattainable  without  it.  To  the 
adequate  presentation  of  an  idea  it  is  indis- 
pensable, and  the  highest  kind  of  art  may 
be  said  to  have  as  much  to  do  with  ideas 


as  it  has  little  to  do  with  propositions.  If 
there  is  no  art  which  is  so  artistically  de- 
based as  that  whose  sole  motive  is  to  "  tell 
a  story  " — a  notion  which  obtains  currency 
as  art  advances  from  caricature  to  charac- 
terization— there  is  none  artistically  so  ele- 
vated as  that  which,  to  the  end  of  producing 
a  profound  emotion,  illustrates  a  lofty  idea. 
Structure,  moreover,  adds  another  element 
of  a  purely  plastic  character  to  a  work  of  art 
which  can  often  show  nothing  finer  than 
the  play  of  its  parts — the  combinations, 
contrasts,  juxtapositions  of  line,  mass  and 
color  that  distinguish  harmony  from  melody. 
And  this  element  heightens  and  enforces 
every  other.  Whether  in  decorative  paint- 
ing its  relative  importance  is  as  great  as  it 
is  in  the  arts  of  design  is,  perhaps,  a  ques- 
tion for  the  curious  in  "  comparative  criti- 
cism," but  we  suspect  that  it  is  not  the  less 
essential  because  its  significance  is  so  subtle. 
On  the  one  hand,  the  greatest  and  most  deco- 
rative paintings  are  as  admirable  in  their 
design  as  in  their  other  qualities,  and,  on  the 
other,  a  picture  without  design  must  always 
prove  unsatisfactory  because,  lacking  struct- 
ure, it  lacks  character  in  a  capital  direction. 
Hitherto  some  of  the  younger  painters  have 
treated  structure  rather  cavalierly.  It  is 
only  to  be  got  at  the  expense  of  some 
drudgery,  it  is  true;  a  dab  of  vermilion  to 
represent  a  pool  of  blood  and  suggest  to  the 
observer  that  some  one  has  been  put "  out  of 


OYSTER    BOATS,    NORTH    RIVER.       (J-    H.    TWACHT] 


THE    YOUNGER  PAINTERS  OF  AMERICA. 


333 


EARLY    SPRING.       (W.    S.    MACV.) 


the  way," — which  was  Mr.  Chase's  attempt 
to  make  a  "  picture  "  out  of  his  excellent 
study  of  an  interior  court  in  the  last  exhi- 
bition of  the  Society  of  American  Artists, — 
does  not  serve  the  purpose.  It  is  not  only 
because  there  is  far  more  work  in  his  "  Key- 
ing Up  "  that  we  find  that  pictorially  supe- 
rior, but  it  is  very  certain  that  to  make  it 
superior  a  good  deal  of  care  and  pains  had 
to  be  expended.  Mr.  Eaton's  charming 
"  Reverie  "  and  Mr.  Duveneck's  "  Coming 
Man"  afford  us  an  excellent  opportunity  to 
illustrate  by  a  striking  contrast  the  difference 
between  a  "  picture  "  and  a  "  study  "  ;  it 
would  be  difficult  to  find  in  the  work  of  the 
new  men  anything  more  gracefully  and  felici- 
tously composed  than  the  former;  its  de- 
sign quite  as  much,  perhaps,  as  its  treatment 
in  other  respects  is  responsible  for  the  suc- 
cess with  which  it  escapes  the  convention- 
ality a  hasty  glance  might  ascribe  to  it. 
And  it  illustrates,  too,  a  truth  that  it  is  well 
never  to  lose  sight  of:  namely,  that  in  the 
most  mechanical  element  of  a  work  of  art 
there  is  abundant  scope  for  the  spontaneity 
and  genuineness  which  are  too  often  con- 
tent with  merely  exhibiting  themselves 
instead  of  informing  their  material. 

Mr.  Low's  "  Reverie,"  too,  is  a  pleasantly 


and  simply  arranged  picture,  and  is  per- 
haps his  most  interesting  work.  Those  who 
have  never  seen  the  original  will  be  assisted 
to  see  how  broad  its  values  are  by  learning 
that  the  easily  disposed  young  woman  has 
dark  hair,  a  rich  red  dress  unrelieved  by 
anything  save  the  white  lace,  and  that  the 
greyhound  which  she  is  absently  caressing 
is  of  a  dull  fawn-color.  There  is  excellent 
work  in  it,  the  few  elements  being  directly 
and  largely  treated,  and  the  dog,  espe- 
cially, if  we  remember,  being  well  painted 
and  vigorously  drawn.  But  its  chief  merit, 
perhaps,  lies  in  the  pictorial  result  secured 
by  the  movement  of  its  lines  and  the 
arrangement  of  its  masses ;  and  neither 
of  these  could  be  as  felicitously  contrived 
as  they  are  if  the  picture  had  not  been  con- 
ceived at  the  outset  essentially  as  a  whole, 
and  worked  out  from  the  single  idea  to  the 
manifold  appearance,  so  to  speak.  That  is 
the  secret  of  what  is  called  "picture-making," 
and  the  test  of  its  successful  application  is 
that  when  the  picture  is  full  of  details  one 
should  note  no  confusion,  and  when,  as 
here,  there  are  very  few  elements,  one 
should  feel  no  sense  of  meagerness.  As  we 
have  intimated,  there  is  small  need  of  advice 
to  most  of  the  new  men  to  conceive  their 


334 


THE    YOUNGER  PAINTERS   OF  AMERICA. 


HEAD    OF    OLD     FRENCH     PEASANT    WOMAN.       (FREDERIC     P.    VINTON.)      OWNED    BY    MISS    MARY   CURTIS. 


pictures  simply  and  totally  as  well  as  pict- 
orially;  much  more  pertinent  is  the  advice 
to  work  out  sufficiently  in  the  direction 
they  seem  in  general  to  indicate  rather  than 
take  themselves.  This  cannot  be  urged 
too  often,  and  we  make  no  apology  for 
iteration  of  the  important  fact  that,  though 
a  picture  is  vitally  different  from  the  works 
of  a  Waltham  watch,  say,  and  though  the 
notion,  satirized  in  "  Punch's"  familiar  carica- 
ture, that  its  beauty  does  not  reside  in  sub- 
ject, drawing,  color  or  arrangement,  but  "  in 
the  pictchah,"  is  entirely  sound,  a  "  picture  " 
must  still  have  "  works,"  as  it  were,  and 
that,  to  the  end  of  "unity  in  variety,"  the 
latter  factor  contributes  as  well  as  the 
former.  Mr.  Low's  work  has,  much  of  it, 
evident  faults;  some  of  his  most  recent 
things  are  curiously  careless  from  a  mental 
point  of  view,  lacking  in  that  most  vital  of  all 
qualities,  spontaneity,  and  not  particularly 
interesting  in  subject  or  treatment.  He  has 
not  Mr.  Shirlaw's  breadth  and  elaborateness 
of  composition  on  the  one  hand,  and  his  work 
lacks  the  vigor  and  picturesqueness  of  some 
of  the  other  men's  "  studies  "  on  the  other, 
but  at  least  he  has  not  yet  to  learn  that  any 
work  of  art  is  technically  an  organic  unity. 


Mr.  Twachtman  evidently  does  not  con- 
cern himself  greatly  about  any  of  these 
things,  and  much  of  his  work  undeniably 
has  the  quality  of  "studies  from  nature." 
But  it  is  getting  to  have  less  and  less  of 
this  look  all  the  time,  and  is  losing  mean- 
while none  of  its  genuineness.  On  the 
contrary,  as  it  becomes  more  temperate,  more 
kempt,  as  it  were,  its  genuineness  becomes 
more  obvious.  The  first  canvases  Mr. 
Twachtman  exhibited  here  were  instances  of 
what  was  supposed  to  be  the  Munich  notion 
of  "breadth  of  handling  "  carried  to  the  limit 
of  sanity.  In  order  to  lose  the  tyrannizing 
sense  of  paintiness,  you  were  compelled  to 
stand  at  a  distance  too  great  to  discern  any 
design  that  might  exist  in  this  eclipse.  But 
with  everything  he  has  done  since,  Mr. 
Twachtman's  "  handling "  has  gained  in 
restraint  and  consequently  in  effectiveness. 
Indeed,  now  and  then  its  unquestionable 
vigor  has  shown  a  distinct  tincture  of  charm, 
even  in  mechanical  treatment.  He  sees 
things  very  directly  and  feels  them  very 
strongly,  and  furthermore  very  pictorially, 
noting  their  relations  as  well  as  themselves, 
and  bringing  out  their  picturesqueness  with 
a  good  deal  of  sympathetic  perception. 


THE    YOUNGER  PAINTERS   OF  AMERICA. 


335 


How  far  out  of  the  way  persons  have  been 
in  taking  his  work  for  a  reflection  merely  of 
Munich  attitude  and  instruction,  is  very 
plain  in  his  later  pictures.  It  may  be  in- 
directly illustrated  by  comparing  them  with 
those  of  Mr.  W.  S.  Macy,  who  for  several 
years  now  has  preserved  a  rather  unimpress- 
ive statu  quo  with  an  unvariableness  that 
is  a  little  remarkable.  The  reader  who  com- 
pares with  any  carefulness  even  the  engrav- 
ing of  his  "  Early  Spring  "  with  that  of  Mr. 
Twachtman's  "  Oyster  Boats,  North  River," 
will  hardly  fail  to  notice  in  one  an  individ- 
uality which  is  quite  absent  in  the  other.  I 
protest  an  inability  to  determine  for  my- 
self, for  example,  whether  I  have  ever  seen 
the  original  of  the  former  or  not,  but  I  fancy 
I  know  how  it  looks.  This  is  not  a  bad 
test,  perhaps,  and  if  it  is  here  correctly  ap- 
plied it  indicates,  not  that  Mr.  Macy  has  a 
monotonous  manner,  merely,  but  that  he 
shares  manner  and  inspiration  with  many 
other  painters  who  have  popularized  them 
and  made  them  the  common  property  of  all 
who  have  the  inclination  and  the  industry 
to  avail  themselves  of  them.  They  have 
undoubtedly  many  excellences,  but  these  are 
too  familiar  to  require  reference  in  any  paper 
whose  subject  is  not  the  Munich  school. 

Few  of  Mr.  Vinton's  pictures  have  been 
seen  in  New  York,  but,  of  those  that  have,  his 
portrait  in  the  last  Academy  Exhibition,  at 


least,  testifies  both  to  an  unusual  technical 
ability  and  to  a  marked  artistic  sense.  It  is 
excellently  conceived,  disposed,  drawn  and 
painted.  It  has  a  mellow  and  even  rich  dec- 
orative quality,  properly  subdued  and  sub- 
ordinated with  a  great  deal  of  tact  to  its 
portraiture  and  its  emphatic  insistence  on  the 
human  personality  which  it  is,  of  course,  its 
main  business  to  make  felt ;  any  one  who 
remembers  the  Exhibition  will  recall  its 
agreeable  contrast  in  this  respect  to  the 
over-rich  decorativeness  of  Mr.  Porter's  por- 
'trait,  which  hung  on  the  opposite  wall. 

Mr.  George  D.  Brush's  is  the  last  name  on 
our  present  list,  and  it  is  one  of  the  newest, 
— his  portrait  and  the  "  Miggles  "  being  his 
first  contributions  to  American  exhibitions,  we 
believe.  He  furnishes  another  illustration 
of  the  possibility  of  learning  how  to  paint  in 
Gerome's  studio  without  acquiring  a  man- 
nerism, or  in  any  way  surrendering  one's 
individuality  of  mental  attitude  or  technical 
expression.  "  Miggles "  has  much  good 
painting  in  it,  and  it  is  gracefully  drawn. 
Perhaps  the  name  may  suggest  its  failure  to 
portray  Mr.  Bret  Harte's  conception ;  but  it 
has  merit  enough  to  carry  such  a  handicap 
with  obvious  ease,  and  is  sufficiently  agree- 
able and  interesting  to  indicate  that  Mr. 
Brush  has  real  feeling  and  no  mean  skill, 
from  which  larger  works  may  not  unreason- 
ably be  expected. 


MIGGLES.       (GEORGE    D.    BRUSH.) 


336 


BJORNSTJERNE  BJORNSON. 


BJORNSTJERNE    BJORNSON. 


BJORNSTJERNE     BJORNSON. 


BJORNSTJERNE  BJORNSON  is  the  first  Nor- 
wegian poet  who  can  in  any  sense  be  called 
national.  The  national  genius,  with  its 
limitations  as  well  as  its  virtues,  has  found 
its  living  embodiment  in  him.  Whenever 
he  opens  his  mouth  it  is  as  if  the  nation 
itself  were  speaking.  If  he  writes  a  little 
song,  hardly  a  year  elapses  before  its 
phrases  have  passed  into  the  common 
speech  of  the  people ;  composers  compete 
for  the  honor  of  interpreting  it  in  simple, 


Norse-sounding  melodies,  which  gradually 
work  their  way  from  the  drawing-room  to 
the  kitchen,  the  street,  and  thence  out  over 
the  wide  fields  and  highlands  of  Norway. 
His  tales,  romances  and  dramas  express 
collectively  the  supreme  result  of  the  nation's 
experience,  so  that  no  one  to-day  can  view 
Norwegian  life  or  Norwegian  history  except 
through  their  medium.  The  bitterest  oppo- 
nent of  the  poet  (for  like  every  strong  per- 
sonality he  has  many  enemies)  is  thus  no 


BJORNSTJERNE  BJORNSON. 


337 


less  his  debtor  than  his  wannest  admirer. 
His  speech  has,  in  a  measure,  molded  the 
common  language  and  forced  it  to  move  in 
the  channels  that  he  has  prescribed ;  his 
thoughts  fill  the  air  and  have  become  the 
unconscious  property  of  all  who  have  grown 
into  manhood  and  womanhood  since  the 
day  when  his  titanic  form  first  loomed  up  on 
the  intellectual  horizon  of  the  North. 

Bjornstjerne  Bjornson  was  born  in  the 
parish  of  Quickne,  in  Northern  Norway, 
December  8th,  1832.  The  wildness  and 
solitude  of  these  desolate  mountain  regions 
must  have  tinged  with  a  pervading  solem- 
nity the  earliest  impressions  of  his  child- 
hood, and,  no  doubt,  remain  as  something 
more  than  memories  in  the  mind  of  the  full- 
grown  poet.  Later,  his  father,  who  was  a 
clergyman  in  the  Lutheran  Church,  re- 
moved to  Romsdal,  a  broad,  magnificent 
mountain  valley  abounding  in  those  violent 
contrasts  which  are  so  characteristic  of  the 
Norwegian  coast  scenery.  At  the  age  of 
twelve  Bjornson  was  sent  to  the  State  gym- 
nasium at  Molde,  where,  however,  his 
progress  was  not  very  encouraging.  He 
was  one  of  those  thoroughly  healthy  and 
unsentimental  boys  who  are  the  despair  of 
ambitious  mothers,  and  whom  fathers  (when 
the  futility  of  educational  chastisement  has 
been  finally  proved)  are  apt  to  regard  with 
a  resigned  and  half-humorous  regret.  His 
detestation  of  books  was  instinctive,  hearty 
and  uncompromising.  His  strong,  half- 
savage  boy-nature  could  brook  no  restraints, 
and  looked  longingly  homeward  to  the  wide 
mountain  plains,  the  foaming  rivers  where 
the  trout  leaped  in  the  summer  night,  and 
the  calm,  lucid  fjord  where  you  might  drift 
blissfully  onward,  as  it  were,  suspended  in 
the  midst  of  the  vast,  blue,  ethereal  space. 
And  when  the  summer  vacation  came,  with 
its  glorious  freedom  and  irresponsibility,  he 
would  roam  at  his  own  sweet  will  through 
forest  and  field,  until  hunger  and  fatigue 
forced  him  to  return  to  his  father's  parson- 
age. 

After  several  years  of  steadily  unsuccess- 
ful study,  Bjornson  at  last  passed  the  so- 
called  examen  artium,  which  admitted  him 
to  the  University.  He  was  now  a  youth  of 
large,  almost  athletic  frame,  with  a  hand- 
some, striking  face,  and  a  pair  of  blue  eyes 
which  no  one  is  apt  to  forget  who  has 
ever  looked  into  them.  There  was  a  cer- 
tain grand  simplicity  and  naivete  in  his 
manner,  and  an  exuberance  of  animal 
spirits  which  must  have  made  him  an  object 
of  curious  interest  among  his  town-bred 
VOL.  XX.— 23. 


fellow-students.  But  his  University  career 
was  but  of  brief  duration.  All  the  dimly 
fermenting  powers  of  his  rich  nature  were 
now  beginning  to  clear;  the  consciousness 
of  his  calling  began  to  assert  itself,  and  the 
demand  for  expression  became  imperative. 
His  literary  debut  was  an  historic  drama 
entitled  "  Valborg,"  which  was  accepted 
for  representation  by  the  directors  of 
the  Royal  Theater,  and  procured  for  its 
author  a  free  ticket  to  all  theatrical  repre- 
sentations; it  was,  however,  never  brought 
on  the  stage,  as  Bjornson,  having  had  his 
eyes  opened  to  its  defects,  withdrew  it  of  his 
own  accord. 

At  this  time  the  Norwegian  stage  was 
almost  entirely  in  the  hands  of  the  Danes, 
and  all  the  more  prominent  actors  were  of 
Danish  birth.  Theatrical  managers  drew 
freely  on  the  rich  dramatic  treasures  of 
Danish  literature,  and  occasionally,  for 
variety's  sake,  introduced  a  French  comedy 
or  farce,  whose  epigrammatic  pith  and  vigor 
were  more  than  half  spoiled  in  the  transla- 
tion. The  drama  was  as  yet  merely  an 
exotic  in  Norway  ;  it  had  no  root  in  the 
national  soil  and  could  accordingly  in  no 
respect  represent  the  nation's  own  struggles 
and  aspirations.  The  critics  themselves,  no 
doubt,  looked  upon  it  merely  as  a  nobler 
form  of  amusement,  a  thing  to  be  wondered 
and  stared  at,  and  to  be  dismissed  from 
the  mind  as  soon  as  the  curtain  dropped. 
Bjornson,  whose  patriotic  zeal  could  not 
endure  the  thought  of  this  abject  foreign 
dependence,  ascribed  all  the  existing  abuses 
to  the  predominance  of  the  Danish  element, 
and  in  a  series  of  violently  rhetorical  articles 
attacked  the  Danish  actors,  managers,  and 
all  who  were  in  any  way  responsible  for  the 
unworthy  condition  of  the  national  stage. 
In  return  he  reaped,  as  might  have  been 
expected,  an  abundant  harvest  of  abuse, 
but  the  discussion  he  had  provoked  fur- 
nished food  for  reflection,  and  the  rapid  de- 
velopment of  the  Norwegian  drama  during 
the  next  decade  is,  no  doubt,  directly  trace- 
able to  his  influence. 

The  freedom  for  which  he  had  yearned  so 
long,  Bjornson  found  at  the  International 
Students'  Reunion  of  1856.  Then  the  stu- 
dents of  the  Norwegian  and  Danish  Uni- 
versities met  in  Upsala,  where  they  were 
received  with  grand  festivities  by  their  Swed- 
ish brethren.  *  Here  the  poet  caught  the 


*  See  a  paper  by  the  present  writer  in  the  "North 
American  Review,"  for  January,  1873,  entitled 
"  Bjornstjerne  Bjornson  as  a  Dramatist." 


BJORNSTJERNE  BJORNSON. 


first  glimpse  of  a  greater  and  freer  life  than 
moved  within  the  narrow  horizon  of  the 
Norwegian  capital.  This  gay  and  careless 
student-life,  this  cheerful  abandonment  of  all 
the  artificial  shackles  which  burden  one's  feet 
in  their  daily  walk  through  a  half-aristo- 
cratic society,  the  temporary  freedom  which 
allows  one  without  offense  to  toast  a  prince 
and  hug  a  count  to  one's  bosom — all  this 
had  its  influence  upon  Bjornson's  sensitive 
nature ;  it  filled  his  soul  with  a  happy  intox- 
ication and  with  confidence  in  his  own 
strength.  And  having  once  tasted  a  life  like 
this  he  could  no  more  return  to  what  he  had 
left  behind  him. 

The  next  winter  we  find  him  in  Copen- 
hagen, laboring  with  an  intensity  and  crea- 
tive ardor  which  he  had  never  known  before. 
His  striking  appearance,  the  epigrammatic 
terseness  of  his  speech,  and  a  certain  naive 
self-assertion  and  impatience  of  social  re- 
straints, indicated  a  spirit  of  the  Promethean 
type,  a  soul  cast  in  a  larger  mold  than  na- 
ture is  wont  to  employ  in  this  democratic, 
all-leveling  century.  There  was  a  general 
expectation  at  that  time  that  a  great  poet 
was  to  come,  and  although  Bjornson  had  as 
yet  published  nothing  to  justify  the  expecta- 
tion, he  found  the  public  of  Copenhagen 
ready  to  recognize  in  him  the  man  who  was 
to  rouse  the  North  from  its  long  intellectual 
torpor,  and  usher  in  a  new  era  in  its  litera- 
ture. It  is  needless  to  say  that  he  did  not 
discourage  this  belief;  for  he  himself  fer- 
vently believed  that  he  should  before  long 
justify  it.  The  first  proof  of  his  strength  he 
gave  in  the  tale  "  Synnove  Solbakken"  (Syn- 
nove Sunny-Hill),  which  he  published  first 
in  an  illustrated  weekly,  and  afterward  in 
book-form.  It  is  a  very  unpretending  little 
story,  idyllic  in  tone,  severely  realistic  in  its 
coloring,  and  redolent  with  the  fragrance  of 
the  pine  and  spruce  and  birch  of  the  Nor-' 
wegian  highlands. 

It  had  been  the  fashion  in  Norway  since 
the  nation  gained  its  independence  to  inter- 
est oneself  in  a  lofty,  condescending  way  in 
the  life  of  the  peasantry.  A  few  well-mean- 
ing persons,  like  the  poet  Wergeland,  had 
labored  zealously  for  their  enlightenment 
and  the  improvement  of  their  physical 
condition ;  but,  except  in  the  case  of  such 
single  individuals,  no  real  and  vital  sym- 
pathy and  fellow-feeling  had  ever  existed 
between  the  upper  and  the  lower  strata 
of  Norwegian  society.  And  as  long  as 
the  fellow-feeling  is  wanting,  this  zeal  for 
enlightenment,  however  laudable  its  motive, 
is  pot  apt  to  produce  lasting  results ;  the 


peasants  view  with  distrust  and  suspicion 
whatever  comes  to  them  from  their  social 
superiors,  and  the  so-called  "  useful  books," 
which  were  scattered  broadcast  over  the 
land,  were  of  a  tediously  didactic  character, 
and,  moreover,  hardly  adapted  to  the  com- 
prehension of  those  to  whom  they  were 
ostensibly  addressed.  Wergeland  himself, 
with  all  his  self-sacrificing  ardor,  had  but  a 
vague  conception  of  the  real  needs  of  the 
people,  and  wasted  much  of  his  valuable  life  in 
his  efforts  to  improve,  and  edify  and  instruct 
them.  It  hardly  occurred  to  him  that  the 
culture  of  which  he  and  his  colleagues  were 
the  representatives  was  itself  a  foreign  im- 
portation, and  could  not  by  any  violent  pro- 
cess be  ingrafted  on  the  national  trunk, 
which  drew  its  strength  from  centuries  of 
national  life,  history  and  tradition.  That 
this  peasantry,  whom  the  bourgeoisie  and 
the  aristocracy  of  culture  had  been  wont 
to  regard  with  half-pitying  condescension, 
were  the  real  representatives  of  the  Norse 
nation,  that  they  had  preserved  through  long 
years  of  tyranny  and  foreign  oppression  the 
historic  characteristics  of  their  Norse  fore- 
fathers, while  the  upper  classes  had  gone  in 
search  of  strange  gods,  and  bowed  their  necks 
to  the  foreign  yoke;  that  in  their  veins  the  old 
strong  Saga-life  was  still  throbbing  with  vig- 
orous pulse-beats — this  was  the  lesson 
which  Bjornson  undertook  to  teach  his  coun- 
trymen, and  a  very  fruitful  lesson  it  has 
proved  to  be.  It  has  inspired  the  people 
with  a  renewed  vitality,  it  has  turned  the 
national  life  into  fresh  channels,  and  it  is  at 
this  day  quietly  revolutionizing  the  national 
politics. 

To  be  sure,  all  this  was  not  the  result 
of  the  idyllic  little  tale  which  marked  the 
beginning  of  his  literary  and  political  career. 
But  this  little  tale,  although  no  trace  of 
what  the  Germans  call  "  a  tendency  "  is  to 
be  found  in  it,  is  still  significant  as  being 
the  poet's  first  indirect  manifesto,  and  as 
such  distinctly  foreshadowing  the  path 
which  he  has  since  consistently  followed. 

First,  in  its  purely  literary  aspect  "Synnove 
Solbakken"  was  a  striking  innovation.  The 
author  did  not,  as  his  predecessors  had  clone, 
view  the  people  from  the  exalted  pedestal 
of  superior  culture;  not  as  a  subject  for 
benevolent  preaching  and  charitable  con- 
descension, but  as  a  concrete  historic  phe- 
nomenon, whose  raison  d'etre  was  as  abso- 
lute and  indisputable  as  that  of  the  bourgeoisie 
or  the  aristocracy  itself.  He  depicted  their 
soul-struggles  and  the  incidents  of  their 
daily  life  with  a  loving  minuteness  and  a 


BJORNSTJERNE  BJORNSON. 


339 


vivid  realism  hitherto  unequaled  in  the 
literature  of  the  North.  He  did  not,  like 
Auerbach,  construct  his  peasant  figures 
through  laborious  reflection,  nor  did  he 
attempt  by  anxious  psychological  analysis 
to  initiate  the  reader  into  their  processes  of 
thought  and  emotion.  He  simply  depicted 
them  as  he  saw  and  knew  them ;  their  feel- 
ings and  actions  have  their  immediate,  self- 
evident  motives  in  the  characters  themselves, 
and  the  absence  of  reflection  on  the 
author's  part  gives  an  increased  energy  and 
movement  to  the  story.  A  reader  is  never 
disposed  to  cavil  with  a  poet  who  is  himself 
so  profoundly  convinced  of  the  reality  of 
his  narrative. 

Bjornson's  style,  as  exhibited  in  "Synnove 
Solbakken,"  was  no  less  novel  than  his 
theme.  It  can  hardly  be  said  to  have  been 
consciously  modeled  after  the  Saga  style,  to 
which,  however,  it  bears  an  obvious  resem- 
blance. In  his  early  childhood,  while  he 
lived  among  the  peasants,  he,  no  doubt, 
became  familiar  with  their  mode  of  thought 
and  speech,  and  it  entered  into  his  being, 
and  became  his  own  natural  mode  of  ex- 
pression. There  is  even  in  his  common 
conversation  a  certain  grim  directness,  and 
a  laconic  ponderosity,  which  give  an  air 
of  importance  and  authority  even  to  his  sim- 
plest utterances.  While  listening  to  him  the 
thought  has  often  urged  itself  upon  me 
that  it  was  thus  King  Sverre  and  St.  Olaf 
spoke,  and  it  was  not  hard  to  compre- 
hend how  they  swayed  the  turbulent  souls 
of  their  Norsemen  by  the  power  of.  such 
speech. 

In  Bjornson's  tales  and  dramas  this  innate 
tendency  to  compression  frequently  has  the 
effect  of  obscurity,  not  because  his  thought 
is  obscure,  but  rather  because  this  energetic 
brevity  of  expression  has  fallen  into  disuse, 
and  even  a  Norse  public,  long  accustomed 
to  the  wordy  diffuseness  of  latter-day  bards, 
have  in  part  lost  the  faculty  to  comprehend 
the  genius  of  their  own  language.  The  old 
scalds,  even  if  translated  into  Danish,  would 
hardly  be  plain  reading  to  modern  Norse- 
men. Before  becoming  personally  acquainted 
with  Bjornson  I  admit  that  1  was  disposed 
to  share  the  common  error,  believing  his 
laconic  sententiousness  to  be  a  mere  literary 
artifice ;  but  when,  at  a  certain  political 
meeting  in  Guldbrandsdale,  in  July,  1873,  I 
heard  him  hurl  forth  a  torrent  of  impassioned 
rhetoric,  every  word  and  phrase  of  which 
seemed  bursting  with  a  fullness  of  compressed 
meaning,  I  felt  that  here  was  a  man  of 
the  old  heroic  mold,  inspired  with  the 


greatness  of  his  mission,  wielding  granite 
masses  of  words  as  if  they  had  been  light 
as  feathers  and  pliable  as  clay.  And  such  a 
man  does  not  stoop  to  artifices.  The 
thought  burns  at  a  white  heat  within  him, 
melting  the  stubborn  ore  of  language  into 
liquid  streams,  and  molding  it  powerfully 
so  as  to  express  the  subtlest  shades  of 
meaning.  If  a  style  accomplishes  this 
result,  if  it  reproduces  the  genius  of  the 
thing  it  is  to  represent,  what  more  do 
you  want  of  it  ?  What  does  it  matter  whence 
it  comes,  or  after  whom  it  is  modeled? 
Bjornson's  style,  moreover, abounds  in  strong, 
sensuous  color,  is  at  the  same  time  warmly 
tinged  by  an  all-pervading  poetic  tone ;  it  is 
swiftly  responsive  to  every  shifting  mood, 
and  with  all  its  ponderosity  reflects  faithfully 
the  characteristic  features  of  the  national 
physiognomy.  It  has  already  conquered 
or  is  conquering  the  rising  generation  ;  or  as 
a  former  fellow- student  of  mine  remarked 
to  me  during  my  last  visit  to  Norway : 
"  Bjornsonian  is  the  language  of  the 
future." 

"  Synnove  Solbakken "  has  been  trans- 
lated into  nearly  ail  the  European  lan- 
guages ;  in  England  it  was  published  several 
years  ago  under  the  title  "  Love  and  Life  in 
Norway."  Singularly  enough,  no  American 
edition  has  as  yet  appeared. 

In  1858,  Bjornson  assumed  the  director- 
ship of  the  theater  in  Bergen,  and  there 
published  his  second  tale,  "  Arne,"  which  is 
too  well  known  on  this  side  of  the  Atlantic 
(though  in  a  very  poor  translation)  to  require 
a  detailed  analysis.  The  same  admirable 
self-restraint,  the  same  implicit  confidence 
in  the  intelligence  of  his  reader,  the  same 
firm-handed  decision  and  vigor  in  the  char- 
acter drawing,  in  fact,  all  the  qualities  which 
startled  the  public  in  "  Synnove  Solbakken," 
were  found  here  in  an  intensified  degree. 

In  the  meanwhile,  Bjornson  had  also 
made  his  debut  as  a  dramatist.  In  the  year 
1858  he  had  published  two  dramas,  "Mellem 
Slagene"  (Between  the  Battles)  and  "Hake 
Hulda "  (Limping  Hulda),  both  of  which 
deal  with  national  subjects,  taken  from  the 
old  Norse  Sagas.  As  in  his  tales  he  had 
endeavored  to  concentrate  into  a  few 
strongly  defined  types  the  modern  folk-life 
of  the  North,  so  in  his  dramas  the  same 
innate  love  of  his  nationality  leads  him  to 
seek  the  typical  features  of  his  people  as 
they  are  revealed  in  the  historic  chieftains 
of  the  past.  And  in  the  Saga  age  Norway 
was  still  an  historic  arena  where  vast  forces 
were  wrestling,  and  whence  strong  spiritual 


340 


BJORNSTJERNE  BJORNSON. 


currents  went  forth  to  infuse  fresh,  uncor- 
rupted  life-blood  into  the  drowsier  civiliza- 
tions of  the  south.  Life  then  moved  with 
full-throbbing,  vigorous  pulse-beats,  the  rov- 
ing habits  and  indomitable  valor  of  the 
Norseman  extended  his  horizon  over  the 
whole  known  world,  the  liberal,  though 
half-barbaric  organization  of  the  state,  which 
placed  the  subject  nearly  on  a  level  with 
the  ruler,  allowed  the  widest  scope  for  indi- 
vidual development.  In  such  an  age  one 
may  confidently  look  for  large  types,  strong 
antithesis  of  character  and  situations  full 
of  spontaneous  dramatic  vigor. 

Again,  as  the  creator  of  a  national  drama, 
Bjornson,  as  well  as  his  great  rival  Henrik 
Ibsen,  had  another  advantage  which  is  not 
to  be  lightly  estimated.  That  he  must 
have  been  conscious  of  it  himself,  his  con- 
sistency in  the  selection  of  his  themes  is  a 
sufficient  proof.  Only  in  a  single  instance  (in 
his  "  Maria  Stuart")  has  he  strayed  beyond 
the  soil  of  his  fatherland  in  search  of  his 
hero.  It  had  been  the  fashion  in  Norway, 
as,  unfortunately,  it  is  in  the  United  States 
at  the  present  day,  to  measure  the  worth 
of  a  drama  by  the  novelty  and  ingenuity  of 
its  situations,  by  its  scenic  effects,  and  its 
power  to  amuse  or  to  move.  The  poet  was 
required  to  invent,  and  the  more  startling 
his  inventions  the  greater  his  meed  of 
praise.  That  a  national  drama  could  never 
be  founded  on  such  purely  subjective  in- 
vention seemed  never  to  have  occurred  to 
any  one.  Professors  and  scholars  might 
praise  the  Attic  drama  and  marvel  at  its 
wonderful  effect  upon  the  populace  as  an 
educational  agency  and  a  powerful  stimulus 
to  patriotism,  but  they  would  probably  have 
denounced  it  as  a  wild  theory,  if  any  one  had 
maintained  that  a  similar  or  corresponding 
effect  might  be  reproduced  in  Norway  and 
in  the  nineteenth  century.  Nevertheless, 
this  is,  mutatis  mutandis,  exactly  what  Bjorn- 
son has  attempted  to  do.  yEschylus,  Soph- 
ocles, and  Euripides  dramatized  the  national 
traditions;  they  represented  upon  the  stage 
the  deeds  of  Agamemnon,  Orestes,  Ajax 
— deeds  and  heroes  which  were  familiar 
to  every  Athenian  from  his  earliest  child- 
hood ;  they  built  upon  a  sure  national  basis, 
appealed  to  strong  national  instincts,  and, 
if  they  violated  no  aesthetic  law,  were  sure 
of  a  ready  response.  Tradition  and  history 
furnished  their  themes,  which  admitted  of  but 
few  and  slight  variations ;  but  in  the  dram- 
atization of  these  long-established  events,  in 
the  dialogue  and  characterization,  in  the 
introduction  of  choruses,  in  scenic  effects 


and  in  all  the  dramatic  accessories  of  the 
action,  their  genius  had  full  scope,  and  in 
accordance  with  the  amount  of  ability  they 
displayed  in  the  invention  and  disposition  of 
these,  the  value  of  their  work  was  estimated. 
In  Norway,  too,  as  in  Athens,  there  are 
historic  heroes  and  events  which  are  deeply 
engraved  in  the  hearts  of  every  Norse  man 
and  woman.  There  is  hardly  a  boy  whose 
cheeks  have  not  glowed  with  pride  at  the 
mention  of  the  Fair-haired  Harold's  name, 
who  has  not  fought  at  Svolder  at  Olaf  Tryg- 
vesson's  side,  who  has  not  stood  on  Kjolen's 
ridge  with  St.  Olaf,  gazing  out  over  Norway's 
fair  valleys,  who  has  not  mourned  the  death 
of  the  saintly  king  at  Stiklestad,  and  followed 
Sverre  Sigurdson  through  fair  and  foul 
weather  while  he  roamed  over  the  mount- 
ains with  his  hardy  Birchlegs.  Among  the 
peasantry,  tradition  has  long  been  busy  with 
these  names ;  ballads  are  sung  and  tales  are 
told  in  which  their  deeds  are  praised  and 
adorned  with  many  fabulous  accessories; 
and  until  this  very  day  their  names  have  a 
potent  charm  to  the  Norseman's  ear  Here, 
then,  is  the  historic  and  traditional  basis 
upon  which  a  great  and  enduring  national 
drama  can  safely  be  built.  Bjornson,  with 
all  the  warm  Gothic  strength  of  his  nature, 
has  set  himself  to  his  task,  and  the  structure 
is  now  already  well  advanced. 

The  old  Norse  history,  as  related  in  the 
Heimskringla  of  the  Icelander  Snorre  Sturl- 
ason,  is  an  inexhaustible  mine  of  treasure  to 
the  dramatic  poet.  It  abounds  in  tragic 
themes,  vivid  character-drawing,  and  mag- 
nificent situations  which  leap  and  throb  with 
intense  dramatic  life.  Existence  was  a 
comparatively  simple  affair  then,  as  long  as 
one  managed  to  keep  it.  Life  was  held 
cheap,  and  death  in  a  good  cause  glorious. 
Men's  motives  were  plain,  strong,  and 
sharply  defined,  and  their  actions  prompt 
and  decisive.  The  things  that  you  must  re- 
frain from  doing  were  easily  counted  on  the 
fingers  of  one  hand.  No  complicated  so- 
cial or  moral  machinery  obstructed  the 
hero's  path  toward  the  goal  he  had  set  him- 
self. Strength  of  will  then  made  the  hero. 
There  was  no  greatness  without  it — no  virt- 
ue. And  this  must  be  kept  steadily  in 
mind  while  viewing  Bjornson's  Sigurds  and 
Sverres  and  Eyolfs.  To  take  an  instance, 
and  evidently  a  favorite  one  with  the 
poet: 

Sigurd  (afterward  surnamed  Slembe),  a 
brave  lad  of  eighteen,  enters  St.  Olaf's 
Chapel,  throws  his  cap  on  the  floor,  kneels 
before  the  altar  and  thus  addresses  the  saint: 


BJORNSTJERNE  BJORNSON, 


"Now  only  listen  to  me,  saintly  Olaf! 
To-day  I  whipped  young  Beintein !     Beintein  was 
The  strongest  man  in  Norway.     Now  am  I ! 
Now  I  can  walk  from  Lindesnas  and  on, 
Up  the  northern  boundary  of  the  snow, 
To  no  one  step  aside  or  lift  my  hat. 
There  where  I  am,  no  man  hath  leave  to  fight, 
To  make  alarm,  to  threaten,  or  to  swear — 
Peace  everywhere  !     And  he  who  wrong  hath  suf- 
fered 

Shall  justice  find,  until  the  laws  shall  sing. 
And  as  before  the  great  have  whipped   the  small, 
So  will  I  help  the  small   to  whip  the  great. 
Now  I  can  offer  counsel  at  the  Ting,* 
Now  to  the  King's  board  I  can  boldly  walk 
And  sit  beside  him,  saying  '  Here  am  I ! ' ' 

Sigurd  has  a  dim  presentiment  that  he  is 
born  for  something  great.  His  foster-father, 
Adalbrekt,  has  in  wrath  betrayed  that  he  is  not 
his  son,  and  the  boy's  restless  fancy  is  fired 
by  the  possibilities  which  this  knowledge 
opens  up  to  him.  In  the  next  scene  he 
compels  his  mother,  in  the  presence  of  the 
chieftain  Koll  Saebjornson,  to  reveal  the 
secret  of  his  birth,  and  on  learning  that  he 
is  the  son  of  King  Magnus  Barefoot,  he 
turns  toward  the  image  of  the  royal  saint 
and  cries : 

"  Then  you  and  I  are  kinsmen  !  " 

The  ennobling  or  destroying  power  of  a 
great  mission  is  the  central  thought  in 
nearly  all  of  Bjornson's  dramas.  To  Sigurd 
the  knowledge  of  his  birth  is  a  clue  by 
the  aid  of  which  his  whole  past  inner  life 
grows  clear  to  him.  He  is  not  Hamlet, 
who  shuns  the  results  of  his  own  thoughts. 
He  rather  burns  to  shape  them  into  actions 
that  shall  resound  far  and  near  over  the 
land.  It  must  be  borne  in  mind  that, 
according  to  Norwegian  law,  every  son 
of  a  king,  whether  legitimate  or  not,  was 
heir  to  the  throne  and  entitled  to  his  share 
of  the  kingdom.  Illegitimacy  was  at  that 
time  hardly  considered  as  a  stain  upon 
a  man's  honor.  Sigurd  therefore  deter- 
mines to  go  to  the  king  and  demand  recog- 
nition, but  Koll  Saebjornson  convinces  him 
of  the  utter  hopelessness  of  such  an  errand, 
and  induces  him  to  give  it  up.  But  the 
fatal  knowledge  has  come  like  a  new  power 
into  his  narrow  life ;  it  lifts  the  roof  from  his 
soul ;  it  sends  down  sun-gleams  of  strange 
and  high  things,  opens  long,  shining  vistas 
of  hope,  and  the  thoughts  rise  on  strong 
wings  toward  loftier  goals  than  hitherto 
were  dreamt  of.  It  becomes  an  inspiration, 
an  exalted  mission  in  whose  service  tears, 
and  sorrow,  and  suffering  are  as  nought. 
The  old  cramped  existence,  with  its  small 

*  Assembly,  parliament 


aims  and  its  limited  horizon,  becomes  too 
narrow  for  the  soul  that  harbors  the  royal 
thought.  By  the  aid  of  Koll  he  fits  out  a 
ship,  takes  the  cross,  and  steers  for  southern 
lands. 

In  the  second  division  of  the  trilogy,  en- 
titled "  Sigurd's  Second  Flight,"  we  find 

I  him  eight  years  later  in  Scotland,  where  his 
ship  has  been  wrecked  and  his  crew  scat- 
tered. He  has  served  with  distinction  at 
the  court  of  the  Scottish  king,  and  has 

'  gained  great  fame  for  prowess  and  daring. 

!  The  king  has  now  sent  him  to  the  farm 
Kataness,  where  Harold,  the  Earl  of  the 
Orkpeys,  lives,  having  been  defeated  and 
driven  from  his  heritage  by  his  brother 
Paul.  After  a  brief  love-affair  with  Aud- 
hild,  a  young  kinswoman  of  the  Earl's,  he 
conquers  the  usurper,  makes  peace  between 
the  brothers,  and  starts  once  more  for  the 
Holy  Land. 

In  this,  as  in  the  last  division  of  the 
drama  (Sigurd's  Return),  the  gradual  trans- 
formation of  the  hero's  character  is 
traced  with  marvelous  minuteness  and 
skill.  Through  all  his  long  wanderings  the 
ever-present  thought  that  he  is  a  king,  the 
born  heir  to  Norway's  throne,  pushes  all 
mere  considerations  of  prudence  out  of 
sight,  and  fills  his  whole  soul.  After 
another  absence  of  eight  years  he  arrives  in 
Norway,  and  demands  recognition  of  his 
brother,  king  Harold  Gille.  The  king,  who 
is  a  weak  and  vainglorious  man  and  an  un- 
conscious tool  in  the  hands  of  his  chieftains, 
is  at  first  disposed  to  receive  him  well,  but 
in  the  end  allows  evil  counsel  to  prevail. 
No  one  doubts  the  justice  of  Sigurd's  claim, 
for  he  bears  on  his  brow  the  mark  of  his 
royal  birth.  But  the  ambitious  chiefs,  who 
now  rule  the  king  as  well  as  the  land,  fear 
him,  knowing  well  that  if  he  shall  seize  the 
rudder  of  the  State,  their  power  will  end. 
They  plan  treachery  against  him,  arrest 
him  in  the  name  of  the  king,  and  make  an 
attempt  against  his  life.  Sigurd,  however, 
escapes  to  the  mountains,  spends  the  winter 
among  the  Finns,  and  in  the  spring  gathers 
flocks  of  discontented  men  about  him.  A 
long  and  bloody  civil  war  commences,  and 
Sigurd  wreaks  cruel  vengeance  on  his  ene- 
mies. The  cold-blooded  treachery  of  the 
king  has  hardened  him,  and  he  repays  like 
for  like.  He  lands  in  the  night  with  a 
band  of  men  at  the  wharves  of  Bergen  and 
kills  his  brother.  Many  of  those  who  have 
secretly  or  openly  favored  him  now  desert 
his  cause,  and  after  his  last  battle  at  Hol- 
mengraa  he  is  captured  and  tortured  to 


342 


BJORNSTJERNE  BJORNSON. 


death.  The  drama  closes  with  a  beautiful 
scene  between  Sigurd  and  his  mother  during 
the  battle,  the  result  of  which  is  distinctly 
foreshadowed. 

The  trilogy  of  Sigurd  Slembe  is  not  easy 
reading ;  the  dialogue  is  ponderous,  full  of 
grave  and  weighty  thoughts  and  moving 
with  the  heavy  dignity  of  a  steel-clad  war- 
rior. It  is  absolutely  lacking  in  plastic 
grace,  and  has  no  superfluous  rhetorical 
ornaments.  Each  thought  fills  its  phrase  as 
completely  as  if  molded  in  liquid  form 
within  it.  It  is  a  play  to  be  seen  rather 
than  read.  The  effects  are  everywhere  mas- 
sive, and  the  tragic  problem  is  stated, with 
a  clear  conciseness  that  leaves  nothing  to 
be  desired.  The  moral  atmosphere  of  the 
twelfth  century  is  so  artistically  reproduced 
that  we  are  unconsciously  forced  to  judge 
the  hero  by  the  standards  and  ideals  of  his 
own  age.  Even  though  his  path  is  strewn 
with  misdeeds,  he  never  loses  our  sym- 
pathy; we  feel  the  tragic  force  that  hurries 
him  onward,  and  the  psychological  consist- 
ency of  his  development  from  a  trustful, 
warm-hearted  youth  to  a  hard,  reluctantly 
cruel,  and  withal  nobly  inspired  man.  It 
is  no  longer  a  mission  he  fights  for,  but  a 
right;  and  in  this  single-handed  battle 
against  society  the  individual  must  suc- 
cumb. Even  though  justice  be  on  its  side, 
this  very  justice,  violated  by  questionable 
deeds  in  its  own  pursuit,  demands  a  tragic 
denouement;  it  is  the  iron  force  of  the  law, 
from  which  even  the  hero  is  not  exempt. 

This  gradual  deepening  and  intensifying 
of  a  life  under  the  stress  of  a  grand  thought 
or  passion  is  Bjornson's  favorite  problem. 
The  very  grandeur  of  the  hero's  character 
places  him  in  antagonism  to  the  narrow, 
short-sighted  interests  of  society  which,  on 
every  side,  hedge  him  in.  His  keenly  felt 
right  of  self-determination  clashes  with  the 
same  right  on  the  part  of  his  neighbor,  and, 
in  the  inevitable  conflict  that  ensues,  the 
weaker  is  sacrificed.  Individually  the  neigh- 
bor may  be  the  weaker,  and  individually  he 
may  accordingly  succumb,  but  as  represent- 
ing the  eternal  right  he  will,  in  the  end, 
prevail. 

In  another  of  Bjornson's  dramas  ("  Limp- 
ing Hulda  ")  the  passion  of  love  plays  a 
rdle  similar  to  that  here  assigned  to  the 
"  royal  thought."  Eyolf  Finnson,  a  warrior 
of  the  king's  body-guard,  loves  Hulda,  the 
wife  of  the  chieftain  Gudleik  Aslakson. 
She  returns  his  love,  and  they  plot  the 
death  of  Gudleik,  whom  Eyolf  slays. 
Hulda  has  lived  a  bitter  life  of  dependence, 


steeped  in  commonplace  cares,  and  has  been 
forced  to  smother  all  the  high  ideal  yearn- 
ings of  her  heart.  But  at  the  sight  of  Eyolf 
they  blaze  up  into  a  wild,  devouring  flame, 
all  the  depths  of  her  strong  nature  are 
stirred,  and  she  marches  with  a  royal 
heedlessness  toward  her  goal,  thrusting  down 
by  her  lover's  arm  every  obstacle  in  her 
way.  Measured  by  the  standards  of  her 
own  age,  she  appears  grand  and  exalted ; 
and  the  problem  is  so  stated  that,  however 
much  we  may  condemn  each  separate  deed, 
the  doer  never  becomes  sordid,  never  loses 
our  sympathy.  The  motive  is  overwhelm- 
ingly potent.  The  titanic  passion,  whether 
lawful  or  not,  has  a  sublimity  of  its  own 
which  compels  a  breathless  admiration  and 
awe.*  The  poet's  ethical  conception  of  his 
problem  is  in  no  way  confused ;  he  sees 
himself  the  expiation  which  the  guilt  neces- 
sitates, and  the  vengeance  which  overtakes 
the  lovers  in  the  last  act  satisfies  poetic  as 
well  as  ethical  justice,  and  reasserts  the 
rights  of  society  in  its  relation  to  the  heroic 
transgressor.  But  apart  from  all  ethical 
considerations  a  supreme  passion  has  its 
aesthetic  justification,  and  what  the  great 
Danish  critic  Brandes  has  said  of  the  poet 
Ibsen  would,  no  doubt,  as  correctly  define 
Bjornson's  attitude  toward  the  moral  law  in 
his  capacity  of  dramatist :  "  Strength  of  will 
— this  it  is  which  to  him  is  the  really 
sublime." 

Bjornson  has  several  times  been  the  "  ar- 
tistic director  "  of  the  Norwegian  stage,  first 
in  Bergen  and  later  in  Christiania,  and  has, 
no  doubt,  while  in  this  position,  made  the 
discouraging  discovery  that  the  theatrical 
public  are  seldom  apt  to  take  a  favorable 
view  of  any  enterprise  that  savors,  even  re- 
motely, of  the  didactic.  The  newspapers 
in  Norway,  as  elsewhere,  are  fond  of  talk- 
ing unctuously  of  the  elevating  influence  of 
the  stage,  and  the  city  of  Christiania,  and,  if 
we  are  not  mistaken,  the  Parliament  itself, 
have  frequently  subsidized  the  principal 
theater  when  it  seemed  to  be  on  the  verge 
of  financial  ruin.  The  inhabitants  of  the 
Norwegian  capital  are  justly  proud  of  their 
excellent  stage,  which  compares  favorably 
with  that  of  any  European  capital,  exclusive 
of  Paris  and  Vienna.  But  as  the  repertoire 
of  national  dramas  is  as  yet  very  small,  and 
Bjornson's  and  Ibsen's  historic  tragedies 
have  been  played  so  often  that  half  the  pub- 


*  See  "  Bjornstjerne  Bjornson  as  a  Dramatist," 
"North  American  Review,"  January,  1873,  where 
an  analysis  and  extracts  of  this  drama  are  given. 


BJORNSTJERNE  BJORNSON. 


343 


lie  must  by  this  time  almost  know  them  by 
heart,  the  managers  have  been  forced  to 
rely  chiefly  on  translations  of  French  com- 
edies and  operas  bouffes,  which  are  fre- 
quently anything  but  elevating.  This  state 
of  things  Bjornson  has  tried  to  counteract 
by  the  publication  of  a  series  of  short  historic 
plays,  the  plots  of  which  are  invariably  taken 
from  the  Sagas.  In  his  preface  to  the  first  of 
these  ("  Sigurd  the  Crusader  ")  he  develops 
his  plan  as  follows  : 

" '  Sigurd  the  Crusader '  is  meant  to  be  what  is 
called  a  'folk-play.'  It  is  my  intention  to  make 
several  dramatic  experiments  with  grand  scenes 
from  the  Sagas,  lifting  them  into  a  strong  but  not 
too  heavy  frame.  By  a  '  folk-play '  I  mean  a  play 
which  should  appeal  to  every  eye  and  every  stage 
of  culture,  to  each  in  its  own  way,  and  at  the  per- 
formance of  which  all,  for  the  time  being,  would 
experience  the  joy  of  fellow-feeling.  The  common 
history  of  a  people  is  best  available  for  this  pur- 
pose— nay,  it  ought  dramatically  never  to  be  treated 
otherwise.  The  treatment  must  necessarily  be  sim- 
ple and  the  emotions  predominant ;  it  should  be 
accompanied  with  music,  and  the  development 
should  progress  in  clear  groups.  *  * 

"  The  old  as  well  as  the  new  historic  folk-litera- 
ture will,  with  its  corresponding  comic  element,  as 
I  think,  be  a  great  gain  to  the  stage,  and  will  pre- 
serve its  connection  with  the  people  where  this 
has  not  already  been  lost — so  that  it  be  no  longer  a 
mere  institution  for  amusement,  and  that  only  to  a 
single  class.  Unless  we  take  this  view  of  our 
stage,  it  will  lose  its  right  to  be  regarded  as  a  na- 
tional affair,  and  the  best  part  of  its  purpose,  to  unite 
while  it  lifts  and  makes  us  free,  will  be  gradually 
assumed  by  some  other  agency.  Nor  shall  we  ever 
get  actors  fit  for  anything  but  trifles,  unless  we 
abandon  our  foreign  French  tendency  as  a  leading 
one  an'd  substitute  the  national  needs  of  our  own 
people  in  its  place." 

It  would  be  interesting  to  note  how  the 
author  has  attempted  to  solve  a  problem 
so  important  and  so  difficult  as  this.  In 
the  first  place,  we  find  in  the  "  Sigurd  the 
Crusader  "  not  a  trace  of  a  didactic  purpose 
beyond  that  of  familiarizing  the  people  with 
its  own  history,  and  this,  as  he  himself  ad- 
mits in  the  preface  just  quoted,  is  merely 
a  secondary  consideration.  He  wishes  to 
make  all,  irrespective  of  age,  culture,  and 
social  station,  feel  strongly  the  bond  of  their 
common  nationality;  and,  with  this  in  view, 
he  proceeds  to  unroll  to  them  a  panorama 
of  simple  but  strikingly  dramatic  situations, 
firmly  knit  together  by  a  plot  or  story  which, 
without  the  faintest  tinge  of  sensationalism, 
is  instinct  with  a  certain  emotional  vigor, 
appealing  to  those  broadly  human  and 
national  sympathies  which  form  the  com- 
mon mental  basis  of  Norse  ignorance  and 
Norse  learning.  He  seizes  the  point  of  the 
Saga  where  the  long-smouldering  hostility 
between  the  royal  brothers,  Sigurd  the  Cru- 


sader and  Ey stein,  has  broken  into  full  blaze, 
and  traces,  in  a  series  of  vigorously  sketched 
scenes,  the  intrigue  and  counter-intrigue 
which  hurry  the  action  onward  toward  its 
logically  prepared  climax — of  a  mutual  rec- 
onciliation. The  dialogue,  it  must  be  ad- 
mitted, is  almost  glaringly  destitute  of  poet- 
ical graces,  but  has,  perhaps  on  that  very 
account,  a  certain  simple  impressiveness 
which,  no  doubt,  was  the  effect  the  author 
primarily  designed. 

In  looking  back  upon  the  long  series  of 
monumental  works  which  have  come  from 
Bjornson's  pen  during  the  last  twenty  years, 
no  one  can  escape  a  sense  of  wonder  at  the 
versatility  and  many-sidedness  of  his  gen- 
ius. His  creative  activity  has  found  ex- 
pression in  almost  all  the  more  prominent 
branches  of  literature,  and  in  each  he  has 
labored  with  originality  and  force,  breaking 
his  own  path  and  refusing  to  follow  the 
well-worn  ruts  of  literary  precedents.  His 
tales  and  dramas  penetrated  into  the  hidden 
depths  of  Norse  folk-life  in  the  present  and 
in  the  past,  his  lyrics  have  expressed,  in 
striking  words  though  in  heavily  moving 
rhythm,  the  deepest  needs  and  yearnings  of 
the  Norseman's  heart,  and  his  epic  ("  Arn- 
Ijot  Gelline  "),  which  in  artistic  merit  falls 
considerably  below  his  other  productions, 
has  a  wild  waywardness  of  thought  and 
movement  which  we  have  called  epic  merely 
because  it  refuses  to  class  itself  under  any 
other  accepted  species  of  literary  expression. 
Whatever  he  writes  is  weighty  and  vital — 
fraught  with  the  life-blood  of  his  profound- 
est  experience.  He  never  condescends,  like 
so  many  who  now  claim  the  name  of  poets, 
to  make  experiments  for  literary  effect;  and 
whatever  may  be  the  technical  deficiencies 
of  this  or  that  work,  this  living,  nervous, 
blood-veined  vitality  gives  it  an  abiding 
value  of  which  no  amount  of  caviling  criti- 
cism can  ever  deprive  it.  He  is  no  "  par- 
lor poet,"  who  stands  aloof  from  life,  retir- 
ing into  the  close-curtained  privacy  of  his 
study  to  ponder  upon  so'me  abstract,  blood- 
less and  sexless  theme  for  the  edification  of 
a  blase,  over-refined  public,  delighting  in 
mere  flimsy  ingenuity  because  their  dis- 
eased nerves  can  no  longer  relish  the  soul- 
stirring  passions  and  emotions  of  a  healthy 
and  active  humanity.  Bjornson's  poetry  is 
bound  by  strong  organic  chords  to  his  life, 
and  his  life  is  his  nation's  life.  If  you 
sever  the  vital  connection  between  the  two, 
the  former  could  no  more  live  than  the 
plant  uprooted  from  its  native  soil.  He 
walks  with  keen,  wide-awake  senses  through 


344 


BJORNSTJERNE  BJORNSON. 


the  thick  of  life,  rejoicing,  in  the  fullness  of 
his  great  heart  at  every  sign  of  his  people's 
progress,  burning  with  indignation  at  every 
public  wrong,  lifting  his  voice  boldly  for 
human  right  and  freedom,  and  whoever 
comes  but  for  a  moment  within  the  sphere 
of  his  mighty  personality,  feels  himself  lifted 
into  loftier,  more  ideal  views  of  existence — 
feels  himself  inspired  with  a  brighter  hope 
for  the  future  of  his  race.  Nothing  small 
and  mean  and  sordid  can  endure  the  light 
of  his  eye ;  and  the  purblind  conservatives 
of  Norway,  soul-crippled  by  prosperity  and 
gout,  can  only  cry  themselves  hoarse  through 
the  newspapers,  but  seldom  dare  to  meet 
him  face  to  face  to  measure  strength  with 
him  in  open  debate.  They  rather  intrench 
themselves  behind  the  formidable  barricades 
of  traditional  and  ancestral  virtue  and  de- 
nounce the  innovator  with  shrill  indigna- 
tion, though  his  arguments  may  still  remain 
impregnable. 

From  this  daily  battle  with  political 
obscurantism  and  superstition,  from  his  inti- 
mate association  with  people  of  all  classes 
and  ages,  from  his  own  manful  struggles  for 
the  right,  he  has  gained  and  is  ever  gaining 
a  great  fund  of  knowledge,  which  in  time 
crystallizes  in  his  mind  and  assumes  the 
form  of  poetic  utterance.  It  is  the  natural 
process  of  his  mind,  and  to  him  the  only 
process.  The  common  notion  that  the  poet 
must  be  a  mere  ideal  thinker,  unsoiled  by 
the  dust  of  vulgar  life,  he  utterly  scouts. 
It  must  be  said  in  praise  of  the  conservative 
majority  which  at  that  time  ruled  the  Nor- 
wegian Parliament  (Storthing),  that  it  did  riot 
stop  to  cross-question  him  on  his  political 
convictions,  before  recognizing  the  worth 
of  his  poetic  activity  to  the  nation.  To  be 
sure,  he  had  not  then  unfurled  his  political 
banner,  and  very  likely  many  of  those  who 
then  voted  him  an  annual  poet's  salary  for 
life,  from  the  national  treasury,  may  now 
heartily  regret  their  own  generosity.  Since 
then,  however,  the  power  has  passed  into 
the  hands  of  the  more  radical  peasant- 
party,  the  majority  of  which  were,  until  very 
recently,  in  cordial  sympathy  with 'the  poet. 
How  long  will  it  be  before  our  American 
Congress  shall  have  arrived  at  the  stage 
of  development  when  it  will  of  its  own 
accord — and  without  any  friendly  lobbying 
on  the  part  of  anybody — thus  frankly  rec- 
ognize a  poet's  claim  to  the  nation's  grati- 
tude ?  How  long  before  it  will,  in  mere 
common  justice,  allow  an  author  to  reap 
the  full  profits  of  his  own  labor  ?  In  Nor- 
way there  is  now  hardly  a  man  of  any  dis- 


tinction in  literature  who  is  not,  without  any 
direct  stipulation  to  render  anything  in  re- 
turn, by  the  munificence  of  the  Storthing 
enabled  to  pursue  his  vocation  untroubled 
by  the  care  for  bread.  Beside  Bjornson, 
Henrik  Ibsen,  Jonas  Lie  and  Kristofer 
Janson,  and  possibly  several  more,  receive 
such  a  "  poet's  salary,"  and  all  classes  seem 
to  be  agreed  that  never  has  a  state  invest- 
ment yielded  a  richer  return.  As  regards 
Bjornson,  he  has  taught  the  Norsemen 
what  their  nationality  means,  and  thereby 
transformed  the  vain  patriotic  boasting  of 
former  years  into  a  deep  and  abiding  love. 
He  is  laboring,  in  song  and  speech  and 
action,  to  break  down  the  feudal  reminis- 
cences of  the  Middle  Ages  which  still  linger 
on  in  Norwegian  politics  and  society;  and 
he  is  striving  to  make  each  forget  his 
petty,  accidental  advantages  of  birth,  or 
wealth,  or  culture,  by  uniting  all  under 
the  broad,  battle-scarred  shield  of  nat- 
ural fellow-feeling.  And  a  man  of  such 
grand  intellectual  stature,  a  man  of  such 
fire  of  thought,  and  such  valor  in  action, 
a  man  who  has  the  strength  to  force  a 
whole  nation  to  follow  in  his  path — how 
can  we  judge  and  measure  him,  how  can 
we  estimate  his  work  ?  The  poet  is  decried 
and  overwhelmed  with  petty  abuse  by 
those  who  have  reason  to  dread  the  re- 
sults of  his  mighty  and  fearless  thought; 
but  he  heeds  little  the  raven-cry  from  the 
camp  of  frightened  prudence,  knowing  well 
that  he  is  strong  and  can  afford  to  be  gen- 
erous. For  the  people's  heart  still  beats  in 
unison  with  his  own — that  people  whose 
deepest  emotions  and  thoughts  he  has 
interpreted,  and  whose  secluded  life  he  has 
lifted  into  a  bright,  far-seen  niche  in  the 
great  literature  of  the  world. 

Since  the  foregoing  was  written,  Bjorn- 
son has  published  several  dramas  and  tales, 
dealing  with  the  various  social  and  political 
problems  of  modern  life.  Some  of  them, 
as,  for  instance,  "  The  Editor,"  and  "  Bank- 
ruptcy," have  had  a  well-deserved  success 
on  the  stage  at  home  and  abroad,  while 
others  ("  Leonarda  "  and  the  novel  "  Magn- 
hild  ")  have  been  a  great  disappointment  to 
many  of  the  author's  sincerest  admirers.  In 
both,  the  social  reformer  seems  to  have  run 
away  with  the  poet.  In  "  Magnhild,"  the 
characters  are  but  vaguely  sketched,  and 
their  language  is  exasperatingly  enigmatical, 
unnatural  and  full  of  mannerisms.  In  a 
poem  entitled  "  The  King,"  Bjornson  de- 
clares monarchy  to  be,  of  necessity,  a  lie, 


IN  THE  HEART  OF  THE   CALIFORNIA  ALPS. 


345 


and,  in  the  guise  of  the  republican  prince, 
he  announces  his  own  allegiance  to  the 
republic. 

Singular  as  it  may  seem,  his  popularity  in 
Norway  has  suffered  severely  by  his  refusal 
to  believe  in  a  personal  devil.  His  political 
heterodoxy  has  long  been  tolerated,  and 
he  has  had  innumerable  partisans,  always 
ready  to  shout  for  him  and  to  raise  him 


upon  their  shoulders ;  but  his  disrespect  for 
Satan  has  frightened  the  majority  of  these 
away,  and  the  petty  persecution  of  the  re- 
actionary press  and  the  official  Philistines 
has  made  his. life  at  home  during  the  last 
year  very  bitter  to  him.  He  has,  therefore, 
resolved  to  sell  his  homestead  in  Guld- 
brandsdale  and  to  live  henceforth  perma- 
nently abroad. 


IN   THE    HEART   OF  THE    CALIFORNIA   ALPS. 


EARLY  one  bright  morning  in  the  mid- 
dle of  Indian  summer,  while  the  glacier 
meadows  were  still  crisp  with  frost  crys- 
tals, I  set  out  from  the  foot  of  Mount 
Lyell,  on  my  way  down  to  Yosemite  Valley. 
I  had  spent  the  past  summer,  and  many 
preceding  ones,  exploring  the  glaciers  that 
lie  on  the  head-waters  of  the  San  Joaquin, 
Tuolumne,  Merced,  and  Owen's  rivers; 
measuring  and  studying  their  movements, 
trends,  crevasses,  moraines,  etc.,  and  the 
part  they  had  played  during  the  period  of 
their  greater  extension  in  the  creation  and 
development  of  the  landscapes  of  this  Alpine 
wonderland.  Having  been  cold  and  hun- 
gry so  many  times,  and  worked  so  hard,  I 
was  weary,  and  began  to  look  forward  with 
delight  to  the  approaching  winter,  when 
I  would  be  warmly  snow-bound  in  my 
Yosemite  cabin,  with  plenty  of  bread  and 
books ;  but  a  tinge  of  regret  came  on  when 
I  considered  that  possibly  I  was  now  look- 
ing on  all  this  fresh  wilderness  for  the  last 
time. 

To  describe  these  glorious  Alps,  with 
their  thousand  peaks  and  spires  dipping  far 
into  the  thin  sky,  the  ice  and  snow  and 
avalanches,  glad  torrents  and  lakes,  woods 
and  gardens,  the  bears  in  the  groves,  wild 
sheep  on  the  dizzy  heights — these  would 
require  the  love-work  of  a  whole  life.  The 
lessons  and  enjoyments  of  even  a  single  day 
would  probably  weary  most  readers,  how- 
ever consumingly  interested  they  might  be 
if  brought  into  actual  contact  with  them. 
Therefore,  I  am  only  going  to  offer  some 
characteristic  pictures,  drawn  from  the  wild- 
est places,  and  strung  together  on  a  strip 
of  narrative. 

Few  portions  of  the  California  Alps  are, 
strictly  speaking,  picturesque.  The  whole 
massive  uplift  of  the  range,  four  hundred 
and  fifty  miles  long,  by  about  seventy  wide, 
is  one  grand  picture,  not  clearly  divisible  into 
smaller  ones  ;  in  this  respect  it  differs  greatly 


from  the  older  and  riper  mountains  of  the 
Coast  range.  All  the  landscapes  of  the 
Sierra  were  born  again — remodeled  deep 
down  to  the  roots  of  their  granite  founda- 
tions by  the  developing  ice-floods  of  the  last 
geological  winter.  But  all  were  not  brought 
forth  simultaneously;  and,  in  general,  the 
younger  the  mountain  landscapes,  the  less 
separable  are  they  into  artistic  bits  capable 
of  being  made  into  warm,  sympathetic, 
lovable  pictures. 

Here,  however,  on  the  head- waters  of  the 
Tuolumne,  is  a  group  of  wild  Alps  on  which 
the  geologist  may  say  the  sun  has  but  just 
begun  to  shine,  yet  in  a  high  degree  pictur- 
esque, and  in  all  its  main  features  so  regu- 
lar and  evenly  balanced  as  almost  to  appear 
conventional — one  somber  cluster  of  snow- 
laden  peaks  with  gray  pine-fringed  granite 
bosses  braided  around  its  base,  the  whole 
surging  free  into  the  sky  from  the  head  of  a 
magnificent  valley,  whose  lofty  walls  are 
beveled  away  on  both  sides  so  as  to  embrace 
it  all  without  admitting  anything  not  strictly 
belonging  to  it.  The  foreground  was  now 
all  aflame  with  autumn  colors,  brown  and 
purple  and  gold,  ripe  in  the  mellow  sun- 
shine; contrasting  brightly  with  the  deep, 
cobalt  blue  of  the  sky,  and  the  black  and 
gray,  and  pure,  spiritual  white  of  the  rocks 
and  glaciers.  Down  through  the  midst, 
the  young  Tuolumne  was  seen  pour- 
ing from  its  crystal  fountains,  now  resting 
in  glassy  pools  as  if  changing  back  again 
into  ice,  now  leaping  in  white  cascades  as 
if  turning  to  snow ;  gliding  right  and  left 
between  the  granite  bosses,  then  sweeping 
on  through  the  smooth,  meadowy  levels  of 
the  valley,  swaying  pensively  from  side  to 
side  with  calm,  stately  gestures  past  dipping 
willows  and  sedges,  and  around  groves  of 
arrowy  pine ;  and  throughout  its  whole 
eventful  course,  flowing  fast  or  slow,  sing- 
ing loud  or  low,  ever  filling  the  landscape 
with  spiritual  animation,  and  manifesting 


346 


IN  THE  HEART  OF  THE   CALIFORNIA   ALPS. 


the  grandeur  of  its  sources  in  every  move- 
ment and  tone. 

Pursuing  my  lonely  way  down  the  valley, 
I  turned  again  and  again  to  gaze  on  the 
glorious  picture,  throwing  up  my  arms  to 
inclose  it  as  in  a  frame.     After  long  ages  of 
growth  in  the  darkness  beneath  the  glaciers, 
through  sunshine    and   storms,   it    seemed 
now  to  be  ready  and  waiting  for  the  elected 
artist,  like  yellow  wheat  for  the  reaper;  and 
I  could  not  help  wishing  that  I   were  that 
artist.     I  had  to  be  content,  however,  to 
take  it  into  my  soul.    At  length,  after  round- 
ing a  precipitous  headland  that  puts  out  from 
the  west  wall  of  the  valley,  every  peak  van- 
ished from  sight,  and  I  pushed  rapidly  along 
the  frozen  meadows,  over  the  divide  between 
the  waters  of  the  Merced  and  Tuolumne, 
and  down  through  the  lower   forests  that 
clothe  the  slopes  of  Cloud's  Rest,  arriving 
in  Yosemite  in  due  time — which,  with  me,  is 
any  time.     And,  strange  to  say,  among  the 
first  human   beings   I   met  here  were  two 
artists  who  were  awaiting  my  return.    Hand- 
ing me  letters  of  introduction,  they  inquired 
whether  in  the  course  of  my  explorations  in 
the  adjacent  mountains  I  had  ever  come 
upon  a  landscape  suitable  for  a  large  paint- 
ing;  whereupon  I  began  a  description  of 
the  one   that  so  lately  excited   my  admi- 
ration.     Then,  as  I  went   on  further  and 
further  into   details,  their  faces  began   to 
glow,  and  I  offered  to  guide  them  to  it,  while 
they  declared  they  would  gladly  follow,  far 
or  near,  whithersoever   I   could   spare  the 
time  to  lead  them. 

Since  storms  might  come  breaking  down 
through  the  fine  weather  at  any  time,  bury- 
ing the  meadow  colors  in  snow,  and  cutting 
off  their  retreat,  I  advised  getting  ready  at 
once. 

Our  course  lay  out  of  the  valley  by  the 
Vernal  and  Nevada  Falls,  thence  over  the 
main  dividing  ridge  to  the  Big  Tuolumne 
Meadows,  by  the  old  Mono  trail,  and  thence 
along  the  river-bank  to  its  head.  This  was 
my  companions'  first  excursion  into  the 
High  Sierra,  and  the  way  that  the  fresh 
beauty  was  reflected  from  their  faces  made 
for  me  a  novel  and  interesting  study.  They 
naturally  were  affected  most  of  all  by  the 
colors.  The  intense  azure  of  the  sky,  the 
purplish  grays  of  the  granite,  the  red  anc 
browns  of  dry  meadows,  and  the  translucen 
purple  and  crimson  of  huckleberry  bogs ;  th< 
flaming  yellow  of  aspen  groves,  the  silvery 
flashing  of  the  streams,  and  the  bright  green 
and  blue  of  the  glacier  lakes.  But  the 
general  expression  of  the  scenery — rocky  anc 


avage — seemed  sadly  disappointing;  and 
as  they  threaded  the  forest  from  ridge  to 
idge,  eagerly  scanning  the  landscapes  as 
hey  were  unfolded,  they  said :  "  All  this 
s  sublime,  but  we  see  nothing  as  yet  al 
all  available  for  effective  pictures.  Art  is 
ong,  and  art  is  limited,  you  know;  and  here 
ire  foregrounds,  middle-grounds,  back' 
;rounds,  all  alike ;  bare  rock- waves,  woods 
Droves,  diminutive  flecks  of  meadow,  anc 
strips  of  glittering  water."  "  Never  mind,' 
:  replied,  "only  bide  a  wee."  At  length 
.oward  the  end  of  the  second  day,  the  Siern 
crown  began  to  come  into  view,  and  whei 
we  had  fairly  rounded  the  projecting  head 
and  mentioned  above,  the  whole  pictun 
stood  revealed  in  the  full  flush  of  the  alpen 
*low.  Now  their  enthusiasm  was  excite< 
Deyond  bounds,  and  the  more  impulsiv 
of  the  two  dashed  ahead,  shouting  an< 
gesticulating  and  tossing  his  arms  in  th 
air  like  a  madman.  Here,  at  last,  was 
typical  Alpine  landscape. 

After  feasting  awhile,  I  proceeded  to  mak 
camp  in  a  sheltered  grove  a  little  way  bac 
from  the  meadow,  where  pine-boughs  coul 
be  obtained  for  beds,  while  the  artists  ran  her 
and  there,  along  the  river-bends  and  up  th 
side  of  the  canon,  choosing  foregrounds  fc 
sketches.  After  dark,  when  our  tea  ws 
made  and  a  rousing  fire  kindled,  we  bega 
to  make  our  plans.  They  decided  to  remai 
here  several  days,  at  the  least,  while  I  coi 
eluded  to  make  an  excursion  in  the  meai 
time  to  the  untouched  summit  of  Ritter. 

•It  was  now  about  the  middle  of  Octobe 
the  spring-time  of  snow-flowers.  The  fir 
winter  clouds  had  bloomed,  and  the  peal 
were  strewn  with  fresh  crystals,  without,  hov 
ever,  affecting  the  climbing  to  any  dangeroi 
extent.  And  as  the  weather  was  still  pr 
foundly  calm,  and  the  distance  to  the  foot  < 
the  mountain  only  a  little  more  than  a  da 
I  felt  that  I  was  running  no  great  risk  i 
being  storm-bound. 

Ritter  is  king  of  our  Alps,  and  had  nev 
been  climbed.  I  had  explored  the  adjace 
peaks  summer  after  summer,  and,  but  for  tl 
tendency  to  reserve  a  grand  masterpiece  li 
this  for  a  special  attempt,  it  seemed  stran 
that  in  all  these  years  I  had  made  no  effc 
to  reach  its  commanding  summit.  Its  heig 
above  sea-level  is  about  13,300  feet,  and 
fenced  round  by  steeply  inclined  glaciers,  ai 
canons  of  tremendous  depth  and  ruggedne 
rendering  it  comparatively  inaccessible.  I 
difficulties  of  this  kind  only  exhilarate  t 
mountaineer. 

Next  morning,  the  artists  went  heartily 


IN  THE   HEART  OF   THE    CALIFORNIA   ALPS. 


347 


their  work  and  I  to  mine.  Former  experi- 
ences had  given  good  reason  to  know  what 
storm  passion  might  be  brooding,  invisible 
as  yet,  in  the  calm  sun-gold ;  therefore,  before 
bidding  farewell,  I  warned  them  not  to  be 
alarmed  should  I  fail  to  appear  before  a  week 
or  ten  days,  and  advised  them,  in  case  a 
snow-storm  should  set  in,  to  keep  up  big 
fires  and  shelter  themselves  as  best  they 
could,  and  on  no  account  to  become  fright- 
ened and  attempt  to  seek  their  way  back  to 
Yosemite  alone. 

My  general  plan  was  simply  this  :  to  scale 
the  canon  wall,  cross  over  to  the  eastern 
flank  of  the  range,  and  then  make  my  way 
southward  to  the  northern  spurs  of  Mount 
Ritter,  in  compliance  with  the  intervening 
topography;  for  to  push  on  directly  south- 
ward from  camp  through  the  innumerable 
peaks  and  pinnacles  that  adorn  this  position 
of  the  axis  of  the  range  is  simply  impossible. 

All  my  first  day  was  pure  pleasure ;  crossing 
the  dry  pathways  of  the  grand  old  glaciers, 
tracing  happy  streams,  and  learning  the 
habits  of  the  birds  and  marmots  in  the  groves 
and  rocks.  Before  I  had  gone  a  mile  from 
camp,  I  came  to  the  foot  of  a  white  cascade 
that  beats  its  way  down  a  rugged  gorge 
in  the  canon  wall,  from  a  height  of  about 
nine  hundred  feet,  and  pours  its  throbbing 
waters  into  theTuolumne.  I  was  acquainted 
with  its  fountains,  which,  fortunately,  lay  in 
my  course.  What  a  fine  traveling  companion 
it  proved  to  be,  what  songs  it  sang,  and  how 
passionately  it  told  the  mountain's  own  joy ! 
Gladly  I  climbed  along  its  dashing  border, 
absorbing  its  divine  music,  and  bathing  from 
time  to  rime  in  waftings  of  irised  spray. 
Climbing  higher,  higher,  new  beauty  came 
streaming  on  the  sight :  painted  meadows, 
late-blooming  gardens,  peaks  of  rare  archi- 
tecture, lakes  here  and  there,  shining  like 
silver,  and  glimpses  of  the  forested  lowlands 
seen  far  in  the  west.  Over  the  summit,  I 
saw  the  so-called  Mono  desert  lying  dreapi- 
ily  silent  in  thick,  purple  light — a  desert  of 
heavy  sun-glare  beheld  from  a  desert  of 
ice-burnished  granite.  Here  the  mountain 
waters  divide,  flowing  east  to  vanish  in  the 
volcanic  sands  and  dry  sky  of  the  Great 
Basin;  west,  to  flow  through  the  Golden 
Gate  to  the  sea. 

Passing  a  little  way  down  over  the  sum- 
mit until  I  had  reached  an  elevation  of  about 
ten  thousand  feet,  I  pushed  on  southward 
toward  a  group  of  savage  peaks  that  stand 
guard  around  Ritter  on  the  north  and  west, 
groping  my  way,  and  dealing  instinctively 
with  every  obstacle  as  it  presented  itself. 


Here  a  huge  gorge  would  be  found  cutting 
across  my  path,  along  the  dizzy  edge  of 
which  I  scrambled  until  some  less  precipi- 
tous point  was  discovered  where  I  might 
safely  venture  to  the  bottom  and,  selecting 
some  feasible  portion  of  the  opposite  wall, 
re-ascend  with  the  same  slow  caution.  Mas- 
sive, flat-topped  spurs  alternate  with  the 
gorges,  plunging  abruptly  from  the  shoulders 
of  the  snowy  peaks,  and  planting  their  feet 
in  the  warm  desert.  These  were  everywhere 
marked  and  adorned  with  characteristic 
sculptures  of  the  ancient  glaciers  that  swept 
over  this  entire  region  like  one  vast  ice- 
wind,  and  the  polished  surfaces  produced  by 
the  ponderous  flood  are  still  so  perfectly 
preserved  that  in  many  places  the  sunlight 
reflected  from  them  is  about  as  trying  to 
the  eyes  as  sheets  of  snow. 

God's  glacial-mills  grind  slowly,  but  they 
have  been  kept  in  motion  long  enough  to 
grind  sufficient  soil  for  any  Alpine  crop, 
though  most  of  the  grist  has  been  carried  to 
the  lowlands,  leaving  these  high  regions  lean 
and  bare ;  while  the  post-glacial  agents  of 
erosion  have  not  yet  furnished  sufficient 
available  food  for  more  than  a  few  tufts  of 
the  hardiest  plants,  chiefly  carices  and  cri- 
ogonae.  And  it  is  interesting  to  learn  in  this 
connection  that  the  sparseness  and  repressed 
character  of  the  vegetation  at  this  height  is 
caused  more  by  want  of  soil  than  by  harshness 
of  climate ;  for,  here  and  there,  in  sheltered 
hollows  countersunk  beneath  the  general 
surface  into  which  a  few  rods  of  well-ground 
moraine  chips  have  been  dumped,  we  find 
groves  of  spruce  and  pine  thirty  to  forty  feet 
high,  trimmed  around  the  edges  with  willow 
and  huckleberry  bushes,  and  oftentimes  still 
further  by  an  outer  ring  of  tall  grasses,  bright 
with  lupines,  larkspurs,  and  showy  colum- 
bines, suggesting  a  climate  by  no  means  re- 
pressingly  severe.  All  the  streams,  too,  and 
the  pools  at  this  elevation  are  furnished  with 
little  gardens,  which,  though  making  scarce 
any  show  at  a  distance,  constitute  charming 
surprises  to  the  appreciative  observer  in  their 
midst.  In  these  bits  of  leafiness  a  few  birds 
find  grateful  homes.  Having  no  acquaint- 
ance with  man,  they  fear  no  ill,  and  flock 
curiously  around  the  stranger,  almost  allow- 
ing themselves  to  be  taken  in  the  hand.  In 
so  wild  and  so  beautiful  a  region  my  first  day 
was  spent,  every  sight  and  sound  novel  and 
inspiring,  leading  one  far  out  of  oneself,  yet 
feeding  and  building  a  strict  individuality. 

Now  came  the  solemn,  silent  evening. 
Long,  blue,  spiky-edged  shadows  crept  out 
across  the  snow-fields,  while  a  rosy  glow, 


348 


IN  THE  HEART  OF  THE    CALIFORNIA   ALPS. 


at  first  scarce  discernible,  gradually  deep- 
ened and  suffused  every  mountain-top,  flush- 
ing the  glaciers  and  the  harsh  crags  above 
them.  This  was  the  alpenglow,  to  me  the 
most  impressive  of  all  the  terrestrial  mani- 
festations of  God.  At  the  touch  of  this  divine 
light,  the  mountains  seemed  to  kindle  to 
a  rapt,  religious  consciousness,  and  stood 
hushed  like  devout  worshipers  waiting  to  be 
blessed.  Just  before  the  alpenglow  began 
to  fade,  two  crimson  clouds  came  streaming 
across  the  summit  like  wings  of  flame,  ren- 
dering the  sublime  scene  yet  more  intensely 
impressive;  then  came  darkness  and  the 
stars. 

Ritter  was  still  miles  away,  but  I  could 
proceed  no  further  that  night.  I  found  a 
good  camp-ground  on  the  rim  of  a  glacier 
basin  about  11,000  feet  above  the  sea.  A 
small  lake  nestles  in  the  bottom  of  it,  from 
which  I  got  water  for  my  tea,  and  a  storm- 
beaten  thicket  near  by  furnished  abundance 
of  rousing  fire- wood.  Somber  peaks,  hacked 
and  shattered,  circled  half-way  around  the 
horizon,  wearing  a  most  savage  aspect  in 
the  gloaming,  and  a  water-fall  chanted 
solemnly  across  the  lake  on  its  way  down 
from  the  foot  of  a  glacier.  The  fall  and  the 
lake  and  the  glacier  were  almost  equally 
bare;  while  the  scraggy  pines  anchored  in  the 
rock-fissures  were  so  dwarfed  and  shorn  by 
storm-winds  you  might  walk  over  their  tops. 
The  scene  was  one  of  the  most  desolate  in 
tone  and  aspect  I  ever  beheld.  But  the 
darkest  scriptures  of  the  mountains  are  illu- 
mined with  bright  passages  of  love  that 
never  fail  to  make  themselves  felt  when  one 
is  alone. 

I  made  my  bed  in  a  nook  of  the  pine- 
thicket,  where  the  branches  were  pressed 
and  crinkled  overhead  like  a  roof,  and  bent 
down  around  the  sides.  These  are  the  best 
bed-chambers  our  Alps  afford — snug  as  squir- 
rel-nests, well  ventilated,  full  of  spicy  odors, 
and  with  plenty  of  wind-played  needles  to 
sing  one  asleep.  I  little  expected  company, 
but,  creeping  in  through  a  low  side  door,  I 
found  five  or  six  birds  nestling  among  the 
tassels.  The  night-wind  began  to  blow  soon 
after  dark  ;  at  first,  only  a  gentle  breathing, 
but  increasing  toward  midnight  to  a  violent 
gale  that  fell  upon  my  leafy  roof  in  ragged 
surges,  like  a  cascade,  and  bearing  strange 
sounds  from  the  crags  overhead.  The 
water-fall  sang  in  chorus,  filling  the  old  ice- 
fountain  with  its  solemn  roar,  and  seeming 
to  increase  in  power  as  the  night  advanced 
— fit  voice  for  such  a  landscape.  I  had  to 
creep  out  many  times  to  the  fire  during  the 


night ;  for  it  was  biting  cold  and  I  had  no 
blankets.  Gladly  I  welcomed  the  morning 
star. 

The  dawn  in  the  dry,  wavering  air  of  the 
desert  was  glorious.  Everything  encouraged 
my  undertaking  and  betokened  success.  No 
cloud  in  the  sky,  no  storm-tone  in  the 
wind.  Breakfast  of  bread  and  tea  was  soon 
made.  I  fastened  a  hard,  durable  crust  to 
my  belt  by  way  of  provision,  in  case  I  should 
be  compelled  to  pass  a  night  on  the  mount- 
ain-top; then,  securing  the  remainder  of  my 
little  stock  from  wolves  and  wood-rats,  I  set 
forth  free  and  hopeful. 

How  glorious  a  greeting  the  sun  gives 
the  mountains!  To  behold  this  alone  is 
worth  the  pains  of  any  excursion  a  thou- 
sand times  over.  The  highest  peaks  burned 
like  islands  in  a  sea  of  liquid  shade.  Then 
the  lower  peaks  and  spires  caught  the  glow, 
and  long  lances  of  light,  streaming  through 
many  a  notch  and  pass,  fell  thick  on  the 
frozen  meadows.  The  majestic  form  of 
Ritter  was  full  in  sight,  and  I  pushed  rapidly 
on  over  rounded  rock-bosses  and  pavements, 
my  iron-shod  shoes  making  a  clanking 
sound  as  in  walking  a  marble  floor,  but 
suddenly  hushed  now  and  then  in  rugs  ot 
bryanthus,  and  sedgy  lake-margins  soft  as 
moss.  Here,  too,  in  this  so-called  "land 
of  desolation,"  I  met  Cassiope,  growing  in 
fringes  among  the  battered  rocks.  Her 
blossoms  had  faded  long  ago,  but  they  were 
still  clinging  with  happy  memories  to  the 
evergreen  sprays,  and  still  so  beautiful  as  to 
thrill  every  fiber  of  one's  being.  Winter  and 
summer,  you  may  hear  her  voice,  the  low, 
sweet  melody  of  her  purple  bells.  No 
evangel  among  all  the  mountain  plants 
speaks  Nature's  love  more  plainly  than 
Cassiope.  Where  she  dwells,  the  redemption 
of  the  coldest  solitude  is  complete.  The 
very  rocks  and  glaciers  seem  to  feel  her 
presence,  and  become  imbued  with  her  own 
fountain  sweetness.  All  things  were  warm- 
ing and  awakening.  Frozen  rills  began  to 
flow,  the  marmots  came  out  of  their  nests  in 
bowlder-piles  and  climbed  sunny  rocks  to 
bask.  The  lakes  seen  from  every  ridge-top 
were  brilliantly  rippled  and  spangled,  shim- 
mering like  the  needles  of  the  low,  dwarfy 
pines.  The  rocks,  too,  seemed  responsive 
to  the  vital  heat — rock-crystals  and  snow- 
crystals  thrilling  alike.  I  strode  on  exhila- 
rated, as  if  never  more  to  feel  fatigue,  limbs 
moving  of  themselves,  every  sense  unfolding 
like  the  thawing  flowers,  to  take  part  in  the 
new  day  harmony. 

All  along  my  course,  excepting  when  down 


IN  THE  HEART  OF  THE    CALIFORNIA   ALPS. 


349 


in  the  canons,  the  landscapes  were  open  to 
me,  and  expansive.  On  the  left,  the  purple 
plains  of  Mono, reposing  dreamily  and  warm; 
on  the  right,  the  near  Alps  springing  keenly 
into  the  thin  sky  with  more  and  more  im- 
pressive sublimity.  But  these  larger  views 
were  at  length  lost.  Rugged  spurs,  and 
moraines,  and  huge,  projecting  buttresses 
began  to  shut  me  in.  Every  feature  became 
more  rigidly  Alpine,  without,  however,  pro- 
ducing any  chilling  effect;  for  going  to  the 
mountains  is  like  going  home.  We  find 
that  the  strangest  objects  in  these  fountain 
wilds  are  in  some  degree  familiar,  and  we 
look  upon  them  with  a  vague  sense  of  hav- 
ing seen  them  before. 

On  the  southern  shore  of  a  frozen  lake, 
I  encountered  an  extensive  field  of  hard, 
granular  snow,  up  which  I  scampered  in  fine 
tone,  intending  to  follow  it  to  its  head,  and 
cross  the  rocky  spur  against  which  it  leans, 
hoping  thus  to  come  direct  upon  the  base 
of  the  main  Ritter  peak.  The  surface  was 
pitted  with  oval  hollows,  made  by  stones 
and  drift  pine-needles  that  had  melted 
themselves  into  the  mass  by  the  radiation 
of  absorbed  sun -heat.  These  afforded  good 
footholds,  but  the  surface  curved  more  and 
more  steeply  at  the  head,  and  the  pits  be- 
came shallower  and  less  abundant,  until  I 
found  myself  in  danger  of  being  shed  off 
like  avalanching  snow.  I  persisted,  how- 
ever, creeping  on  all  fours,  and  shuffling  up 
the  smoothest  places  on  my  back,  as  I 
had  often  done  on  burnished  granite,  until, 
after  slipping  several  times,  I  was  compelled 
to  retrace  my  course  to  the  bottom,  and 
make  my  way  around  the  west  end  of  the 
lake,  and  thence  up  to  the  summit  of  the 
divide  between  the  head-waters  of  Rush 
Creek  and  the  northernmost  tributaries  of 
the  San  Joaquin. 

Arriving  on  the  summit  of  this  dividing 
crest,  one  of  the  most  exciting  pieces  of  pure 
wildness  was  disclosed  that  the  eye  of  man 
ever  beheld.  There,  immediately  in  front, 
loomed  the  majestic  mass  of  Mount  Ritter, 
with  a  glacier  swooping  down  its  face  nearly 
to  my  feet,  then  curving  westward  and  pour- 
ing its  frozen  flood  into  a  dark  blue  lake, 
whose  shores  were  bound  with  precipices  of 
crystalline  snow ;  while  a  deep  chasm  drawn 
between  the  divide  and  the  glacier  separated 
the  massive  picture  from  everything  else. 
Only  the  one  sublime  mountain  in  sight,  the 
one  glacier,  and  one  lake ;  the  whole  vailed 
with  one  blue  shadow — rock,  ice  and  water, 
without  a  single  leaf.  After  gazing  spell- 
bound, I  began  instinctively  to  scrutinize 


every  notch  and  gorge  and  weathered  but- 
tress of  the  mountain,  with  reference  to  mak- 
ing the  ascent.  The  entire  front  above  the 
glacier  appeared  as  one  tremendous  preci- 
pice, slightly  receding  at  the  top,  and  brist- 
ling with  spires  and  pinnacles  set  above  one 
another  in  formidable  array.  Massive  lichen- 
stained  battlements  stood  forward  here  and 
there,  hacked  at  the  top  with  angular  notches, 
and  separated  by  frosty  gullies  and  recesses 
that  have  been  vailed  in  shadow  ever  since 
their  creation;  while  to  right  and  left,  as 
far  as  I  could  see,  were  huge,  crumbling  but- 
tresses, offering  no  hope  to  the  climber.  The 
head  of  the  glacier  sends  up  a  few  finger-like 
branches  through  narrow  couloirs;  but  these 
were  too  steep  and  short  to  be  available, 
especially  as  I  had  no  axe  with  which  to  cut 
steps,  and  the  numerous  narrow-throated 
gullies  down  which  stones  and  snow  are 
avalanched  seemed  hopelessly  steep,  besides 
being  interrupted  by  vertical  cliffs;  while  the 
whole  front  was  rendered  still  more  terribly 
forbidding  by  the  chill  shadow  and  the 
gloomy  blackness  of  the  rocks. 

Descending  the  divide  in  a  hesitating 
mood,  I  picked  my  way  across  the  yawning 
chasm  at  the  foot,  and  climbed  out  upon 
the  glacier.  There  were  no  meadows  now  to 
cheer  with  their  brave  colors,  nor  could  I 
hear  the  dun-headed  sparrows,  whose  cheery 
notes  so  often  relieve  the  silence  of  our 
highest  Alps.  The  gurgling  of  small  rills 
down  in  the  veins  and  crevasses,  and  ever 
and  anon  the  rattling  report  of  falling  stones, 
with  the  echoes  they  shot  out  into  the  crisp 
air, — these  were  the  only  sounds. 

I  could  not  distinctly  hope  to  reach  the 
summit  from  this  side,  yet  I  moved  on  across 
the  glacier  as  if  driven  by  fate.  Contend- 
ing with  myself,  the  season  is  too  far  spent, 
I  said,  and  even  should  I  be  successful, 
I  might  be  storm-bound  on  the  mountain ; 
and  in  the  cloud-darkness,  with  the  cliffs 
and  crevasses  covered  with  snow,  how 
would  I  escape?  No.  I  must  wait  until 
next  summer.  I  would  only  approach  the 
mountain  now,  and  inspect  it,  creep  about 
its  flanks,  learn  what  I  could  of  its  history, 
holding  myself  ready  to  flee  on  the  approach 
of  the  first  storm-cloud.  But  we  little  know 
until  tried  how  much  of  the  uncontrollable 
there  is  in  us,  urging  across  glaciers  and 
torrents,  and  up  dangerous  heights,  let  the 
judgment  forbid  as  it  may. 

I  succeeded  in  gaining  the  foot  of  the 
cliff  on  the  eastern  extremity  of  the  glacier, 
and  discovered  the  mouth  of  a  narrow  ava- 
lanche gully,  through  which  I  began  to  climb, 


35° 


IN  THE  HEART  OF  THE   CALIFORNIA   ALPS. 


intending  to  follow  it  as  far  as  possible,  and 
at  least  obtain  some  fine  wild  views  for  my 
pains.     Its  general  course  is  oblique  to  the 
plane  of  the  mountain-face,  and  the  meta- 
morphic  slates  of  which  it  is  built  are  cut 
by  cleavage  planes  in  such  a  way  that  they 
weather  off  in  angular  blocks,  giving  rise  to 
irregular  steps  that  greatly  facilitate  climb- 
ing on  the  sheer  places.     I  thus  made  my 
way  into  a  wilderness  of  crumbling  spires 
and  battlements,  built  together  in  bewilder- 
ing   combinations,    and   glazed    in    many 
places  with  a  thin  coating  of  ice,  which  I 
had   to    hammer   off  with   a   stone.     The 
situation    was    becoming    gradually    more 
perilous;  but,  having  passed  several  danger- 
ous spots,  I  dared  not  think  of  descending ; 
for,  so  steep  was  the  entire  ascent,  one  would 
inevitably  fall  to  the  glacier  in  case  a  single 
misstep   were   made.     Knowing,   therefore, 
the  tried  danger  beneath,  I  became  all  the 
more  anxious  concerning  the  developments 
to  be  made  above,  and  began  to  be  con- 
scious of  a  vague  foreboding  of  what  actually 
befell;  not  that  I  was  given  to  fear,  but 
rather  because  my  instincts,  usually  so  posi- 
tive and  true,  seemed  vitiated  in  some  way, 
and  were  leading  me  wrong.     At   length, 
after  attaining  an  elevation  of  12,800  feet,  1 
found  myself  at  the  foot  of  a  sheer  drop  in 
the  bed  of  the  avalanche  channel  I  was  trac- 
ing, which  seemed  absolutely  to  bar  all  fur- 
ther progress.    It  is  only  about  forty-five  or 
fifty  feet  high,  and  somewhat  roughened  by 
fissures  and  projections;  but  these  seemed 
so  slight  and  insecure,  as  footholds,  that  I 
tried  hard  to  avoid  the  precipice  altogether, 
by  scaling  the  wall  on  either  side.     But, 
though  less  steep,  the  walls  were  smoother 
than   the   obstructing   rock,    and    repeated 
efforts  only  showed  that  I  must  either  go 
right  ahead  or  turn  back.     The  tried  dan- 
gers beneath  seemed  even  greater  than  that 
of  the  cliff  in  front ;  therefore,  after  scanning 
its  face  again  and  again,  I  commenced  to 
scale  it,  picking  my  holds  with  intense  cau- 
tion.    After  gaining  a  point  about  half-way 
to  the  top,  I  was  brought  to  a  dead  stop, 
with  arms  outspread,  clinging  close  to  the 
face  of  the  rock,  unable  to  move  hand  or 
foot  either  up  or  down.     My  doom  appeared 
fixed.     I  must  fall.     There  would  be  a  mo- 
ment of  bewilderment,  and  then  a  lifeless 
rumble  down  the  one  general  precipice  to 
the  glacier  below. 

When  this  final  danger  flashed  in  upon 
me,  I  became  nerve-shaken  for  the  first  time 
since  setting  foot  on  the  mountain,  and  my 
mind  seemed  to  fill  with  a  stifling  smoke. 


But  this  terrible  eclipse  lasted  only  a 
moment,  when  life  blazed  forth  again  with 
preternatural  clearness.  I  seemed  suddenly 
Lo  become  possessed  of  a  new  sense.  The 
other  self — the  ghost  of  by-gone  experiences, 
Instinct,  or  Guardian  Angel — call  it  what 
you  will — came  forward  and  assumed  con- 
trol. Then  my  trembling  muscles  became 
firm  again,  every  rift  and  flaw  in  the  rock, 
was  seen  as  through  a  microscope,  and  my 
limbs  moved  with  a  positiveness  and  pre- 
cision with  which  I  seemed  to  have  nothing 
at  all  to  do.  Had  I  been  borne  aloft  upon 
wings,  my  deliverance  could  not  have  been 
more  complete. 

Above  this  memorable  spot,  the  face  of  the 
mountain  is  still  more  savagely  hacked  and 
torn.  It  is  a  maze  of  yawning  chasms  and 
gullies,  in  the  angles  of  which  rise  beetling 
crags  and  piles  of  detached  bowlders  that 
seem  to  have  been  gotten  ready  to  be 
launched  below.  But  the  strange  influx  of 
strength  I  had  received  seemed  inexhaustible. 
I  found  a  way  without  effort,  and  soon  stood 
upon  the  topmost  crag  in  the  blessed  light. 

How  truly  glorious  the  landscape  circled 
around  this  noble  summit ! — giant  mountains, 
valleys  innumerable,  glaciers  and  meadows, 
rivers  and  lakes,  with  the  wide  blue  sky  bent 
tenderly  over  them  all.  But  in  my  first  hour 
of  freedom  from  that  terrible  shadow,  the  sun- 
light in  which  I  was  laving  seemed  all  in  all. 

Looking  southward  along  the  axis  of  the 
range,  the  eye  is  first  caught  by  a  row  of  ex- 
ceedingly sharp  and  slender  t  spires,  which 
rise  openly  to  a  height  of  about  a  thousand 
feet,  from  a  series  of  short,  residual  glaciers 
that  lean  back  against  their  bases;  their  fan- 
tastic sculpture  and  the  unrelieved  sharpness 
with  which  they  spring  out  of  the  ice  render- 
ing them  peculiarly  wild  and  striking.  These 
are  "  The  Minarets,"  and  beyond  them  you 
behold  a  most  sublime  wilderness  of  mount- 
ains, their  snowy  summits  crowded  together 
in  lavish  abundance,  peak  beyond  peak, 
swelling  higher,  higher  as  they  sweep  on 
southward,  until  the  culminating  point  of  the 
range  is  reached  on  Mount  Whitney,  near  the 
head  of  the  Kern  River,  at  an  elevation  of 
nearly  15,000  feet  above  the  level  of  the  sea. 

Westward,  the  general  flank  of  the  range 
is  seen  flowing  sublimely  away  from  the 
sharp  summits,  in  smooth  undulations;  a 
sea  of  gray  granite  waves  dotted  with  lakes 
and  meadows,  and  fluted  with  stupendous 
canons  that  grow  steadily  deeper  as  they 
recede  in  the  distance.  Below  this  gray  re- 
gion lies  the  dark  forest-zone,  broken  here 
and  there  by  upswelling  ridges  and  domes; 


IN  THE  HEART  OF  THE    CALIFORNIA   ALPS. 


35' 


ind  yet  beyond  is  a  yellow,  hazy  belt,  marking 
the  broad  plain  of  the  San  Joaquin,  bounded 
an  its  further  side  by  the  blue  mountains  of 
the  coast.  Turning  now  to  the  northward, 
there  in  the  immediate  foreground  is  the 
glorious  Sierra  Crown,  with  Cathedral  Peak 
i  few  miles  to  the  left — a  temple  of  marvel- 
jus  architecture,  hewn  from  the  living  rock ; 
;he  gray,  giant  form  of  Mammoth  Mount- 
lin,  13,000  feet  high;  Mounts  Ord,  Gibbs, 
Dana,  Conness,  Tower  Peak,  Castle  Peak, 
ind  Silver  Mountain,  stretching  away  in  the 
iistance,  with  a  host  of  noble  companions 
;hat  are  as  yet  nameless. 

Eastward,  the  whole  region  seems  a  land 
rf  pure  desolation  covered  with  beautiful 
.ight.  The  torrid  volcanic  basin  of  Mono, 
jvith  its  one  bare  lake  fourteen  miles  long ; 
Owen's  Valley  and  the  broad  lava  table-land 
it  its  head,  dotted  with  craters,  and  the 
nassive  Inyo  range,  rivaling  even  the  Sierra 
n  height.  These  are  spread,  map-like,  be- 
icath  you,  with  countless  ranges  beyond, 
Dassing  and  overlapping  one  another  and 
fading  on  the  glowing  horizon. 

At  a  distance  of  less  than  3,000  feet  below 
:he  summit  of  Mount  Ritter  you  may  find 
.ributaries  of  the  San  Joaquin  and  Owen's 
ivers,  bursting  forth  from  the  eternal  ice  and 
mow  of  the  glaciers  that  load  its  flanks; 
vhile  a  little  to  the  north  of  here  are  found 
:he  highest  affluents  of  the  Tuolumne  and 
Merced.  Thus,  the  fountains  of  four  of  the 
principal  rivers  of  California  are  within  a 
•adius  of  four  or  five  miles. 

Lakes  are  seen  gleaming  in  all  sorts  of 
alaces, — round,  or  oval,  or  square,  like  very 
nirrors ;  others  narrow  and  sinuous,  drawn 
':lose  around  the  peaks  like  silver  zones,  the 
jiighest  reflecting  only  rocks,  snow  and  the 
,ky.  But  neither  these  nor  the  glaciers,  nor 
he  bits  of  brown  meadow  and  moorland 
(hat  occur  here  and  there,  are  large  enough 
o  make  any  marked  impression  upon  the 
nighty  wilderness  of  Alps.  The  eye  roves 
iround  the  vast  expanse,  rejoicing  in  so  grand 

freedom,  yet  returning  again  and  again  to 
be  fountain  peaks.  Perhaps  some  one  of 
lie  multitude  excites  special  attention,  some 
jigantic  castle  with  turret  and  battlement, 

Gothic  cathedral  more  abundantly  spired 
han  Milan's.  But,  generally,  when  looking 
or  the  first  time  from  an  all-embracing  stand- 
>oint  like  this,  the  inexperienced  observer 
s  oppressed  by  the  incomprehensible  grand- 
air  of  the  peaks,  and  it  is  only  after  they 
lave  been  studied  one  by  one,  long  and 
ovingly,  that  their  far-reaching  harmonies 
>ecome  manifest.  Then,  penetrate  the  wil- 


derness where  you  may,  the  main  telling 
features  to  which  all  the  topography  is  sub- 
ordinate are  quickly  perceived,  and  the  most 
ungovernable  Alp-clusters  stand  revealed, 
regularly  fashioned,  and  grouped  like  works 
of  art, — eloquent  monuments  of  the  ancient 
ice-rivers  that  brought  them  into  relief.  The 
grand  canons  are  likewise  recognized  as 
the  necessary  effects  of  causes  following 
one  another  in  melodious  sequence — Nat- 
ure's poems,  carved  on  tables  of  stone — the 
simplest  and  most  emphatic  of  her  glacial 
compositions. 

Could  we  have  been  here  to  observe  dur- 
ing the  glacial  period,  we  should  have  over- 
looked a  wrinkled  ocean  of  ice  continuous  as 
that  now  covering  the  landscapes  of  North 
Greenland ;  filling  every  valley  and  canon, 
flowing  deep  above  every  ridge,  with  only 
the  tops  of  the  fountain  peaks  rising  darkly 
above  the  rock-encumbered  waves  like  islets 
in  a  stormy  sea — these  clustered  islets  the 
only  hints  of  the  glorious  landscapes  now 
smiling  in  the  sun.  Now,  in  the  deep,  brood- 
ing silence  all  seems  motionless,  as  if  the  work 
of  creation  were  done.  But  in  the  midst  of 
this  outer  steadfastness  we  know  there  is  in- 
cessant motion.  Ever  and  anon,  avalanches 
are  falling  from  yonder  peaks.  These  cliff- 
bound  glaciers,  seemingly  wedged  and  im- 
movable, are  flowing  like  water  and  grinding 
the  rocks  beneath  them.  The  lakes  are  lap- 
ping their  granite  shores  and  wearing  them 
away,  and  every  one  of  these  rills  and  young 
rivers  is  fretting  the  air  into  music,  and 
carrying  the  mountains  to  the  plains.  Here 
are  the  roots  of  all  the  life  of  the  valleys,  and 
here  more  simply  than  elsewhere  is  the  eter- 
nal flux  of  nature  manifested.  Ice  changing 
to  water,  lakes  to  meadows,  and  mountains 
to  plains.  And  while  we  thus  contemplate 
Nature's  methods  of  landscape  creation,  and, 
reading  the  records  she  has  carved  on  the 
rocks,  reconstruct,  however  imperfectly,  the 
landscapes  of  the  past,  we  also  learn  that  as 
these  we  now  behold  have  succeeded  those 
of  the  pre-glacial  age,  so  they  in  turn  are 
withering  and  vanishing  to  be  succeeded  by 
others  yet  unborn. 

But  in  the  midst  of  these  fine  lessons  and 
landscapes,  I  had  to  remember  that  the  sun 
was  wheeling  far  to  the  west,  while  a  new 
way  had  to  be  discovered,  at  least  to  some 
point  on  the  timber-line  where  I  could  have 
a  fire ;  for  I  had  not  even  burdened  myself 
with  a  coat.  I  first  scanned  the  western 
spurs,  hoping  some  way  might  appear  through 
which  I  might  reach  the  northern  glacier, 
and  cross  its  snout;  or  pass  around  the  lake 


352 


into  which  it  flows,  and  thus  strike  my  morn- 
ing track.     This  route  was  soon  sufficiently 
unfolded  to  show  that,  if  practicable  at  all, 
it  would  require  so  much  time  that  reaching 
camp  that  night  would  be  out  of  the  ques- 
tion.    I  therefore  scrambled  back  eastward, 
descending  the  southern  slopes  obliquely  at 
the  same  time.     Here  the  crags  seemed  less 
formidable,  and  the  head  of  a  glacier  that 
flows   north-east   came   in   sight,   which   I 
determined   to   follow   as    far   as   possible, 
hoping  thus  to  make  my  way  to  the  foot  of 
the  peak  on  the  east  side,  and  thence  across 
the  intervening  canons  and  ridges  to  camp. 
The   inclination   of  the   glacier   is  quite 
moderate  at  the  head,  and,  as  the  sun  had 
softened  the  neve,  I  made  safe  and  rapid 
progress,  running  and  sliding,  and  keeping 
up  a  sharp  outlook  for  crevasses.     About 
half  a  mile  from  the  head,  there  was  an  ice- 
cascade,  where   the   glacier   pours   over  a 
sharp  declivity,  and  is  shattered  into  mas- 
sive blocks  separated  by  deep,  blue  fissures. 
To   thread  my  way   through   the  slippery 
mazes   of   this   crevassed    portion   seemed 
impossible,  and  I  endeavored  to  avoid  it  by 
climbing  off  to  the  shoulder  of  the  mountain. 
But   the   slopes  rapidly  steepened   and  at 
length  fell  away  in  sheer  precipices,  com- 
pelling  a  return  to  the   ice.     Fortunately, 
the  day  had  been  warm  enough  to  loosen 
the  ice-crystals  so  as   to  admit  of  hollows 
being   dug   in   the  rotten   portions  of  the 
blocks,  thus  enabling  me  to  pick  my  way 
with  far  less  difficulty  than  I  had  anticipated. 
To  continue  down  over  the  snout,  and  along 
the  left  lateral  moraine,  was  only  a  confident 
saunter.    Though  my  eyes  were  free,  I  could 
afford  but  little  time  for  observation.     I  no- 
ticed, however,  that  the  lower  end  of  the 
glacier  was  beautifully  waved  and  barred  by 
the  outcropping  edges  of  the  bedded  ice-lay- 
ers, representing  the  annual  snow  accretions 
made  at  the  head.     Small  rills  were  gliding 
.and  swirling  over  the  melting  surface  with  a 
.-smooth,  oily  appearance,  in  channels  of  pure 
ice — their  quick,  compliant  movements  con- 
trasting  most   impressively  with  the  rigid, 
invisible  flow  of  the  glacier  itself,  on  whose 
back  they  all  were  riding. 

Night  drew  near  before  I  reached  the 
•eastern  base  of  the  mountain,  and  my  camp 
lay  many  a  rugged  mile  to  the  north ;  but 
ultimate  success  was  assured.  It  was  now 
only  a  matter  of  endurance  and  ordinary 
mountain-craft.  The  sunset  was,  if  possible 
yet  more  glorious  than  that  of  the  day  pre- 
vious. The  Mono  landscape  seemed  to  be 
fairly  saturated  with  warm,  purple  light.  The 


peaks  marshaled  along  the  summit  were  ir 
shadow,  but  through  every  notch  and  pasi 
streamed  living  sun-fire,  soothing  and  irradi 
ating  their  rough,  black  angles,  while  compa 
nies  of  small, luminous  clouds  hovered  abov( 
them  like  very  angels  of  light. 

Darkness  came  on,  but  I  found  my  wa; 
by  the  trends  of  the  canons  and  the  peak 
projected  against  the  sky.  All  excitemen 
died  with  the  light,  and  then  I  was  weary 
But  the  joyful  sound  of  the  water-fall  acros 
the  lake  was  heard  at  last,  and  soon  th 
stars  were  seen  reflected  in  the  lake  itsel: 
Taking  my  bearings  from  these,  I  discovere< 
the  little  pine  thicket  in  which  my  nest  wa; 
and  then  I  had  a  rest  such  as  only  a  mounl 
aineer  may  enjoy.  Afterward,  I  made  a  sur 
rise  fire,  went  down  to  the  lake,  dashe 
water  on  my  head,  and  dipped  a  cupful  fc 
tea.  The  revival  brought  about  by  brea 
and  tea  was  as  complete  as  the  exhaustio 
from  excessive  enjoyment  and  toil  had  beei 
Then  I  crept  beneath  the  pine-tassels  t 
bed.  The  wind  was  frosty  and  the  fii 
burned  low,  but  my  sleep  was  none  the  les 
sound,  and  the  evening  constellations  ha 
swept  far  to  the  west  before  I  awoke. 

After  warming  and  resting  in  the  sui 
shine,!  sauntered  home, — that  is, back  to  th 
Tuolumne  camp, — bearing  away  toward 
cluster  of  peaks  that  hold  the  fountain  snov 
of  one  of  the  north  tributaries  of  Rus 
Creek.  Here  I  discovered  a  group  ( 
beautiful  glacier  lakes,  nestled  together  in 
grand  amphitheater.  Toward  evening, 
crossed  the  divide  separating  the  Mor 
waters  from  those  of  the  Tuolumne,  ar 
entered  the  glacier  basin  that  now  hol< 
the  fountain  snows  of  the  stream  that  fom 
the  upper  Tuolumne  cascades.  This  strea 
I  traced  down  through  its  many  dells  ar 
gorges,  meadows  and  bogs,  reaching  tl 
brink  of  the  main  Tuolumne  at  dusk. 

A  loud  whoop  for  the  artists  was  answen 
again  and  again.  Their  camp-fire  can 
in  sight,  and  half  an  hour  afterward  I  w 
with  them.  They  seemed  unreasonab 
glad  to  see  me.  I  had  been  absent  on 
three  days;  nevertheless,  they  had  alreac 
been  weighing  chances  as  to  whether 
would  ever  return,  and  trying  to  decii 
whether  they  should  wait  longer  or  beg 
to  seek  their  way  back  to  the  lowlanc 
Now  their  curious  troubles  were  ov< 
They  packed  their  precious  sketches,  ai 
next  morning  we- set  out  homeward  boun 
and  in  two  days  entered  the  Yosemite  V; 
ley  from  the  north  by  way  of  Indian  Cane 
and  our  fine  double  excursion  was  done. 


TO    CONEY  ISLAND. 


353 


VOL.  XX.— 24. 


IT  is  not  quite  the  easy 
matter  it  might  seem  to  de- 
cide how  to  go  to  Coney 
Island  for  the  first  time. 
Shall  it  be  by  the  Manhat- 
tan Beach,  the  Sea  Beach, 
the  Long  Island,  the  Brook- 
lyn, Bath  and  Coney  Island, 
the  Brooklyn,  Flatbush  and 
Coney  Island,  the  Prospect 
Park  and  Coney  Island  rail- 
way, or,  if  not,  by  which  of 
the  many  lines  of  steamers 
plying  direct  to  Locust 
Grove,  to  Norton's  Point, 
or  to  the  great  tubular  iron 
pier?  There  is  absolutely 
nothing  to  fix  the  determin- 
ation— unless,  indeed,  it  be 
individual  nearness  to  a 
particular  terminus.  By  the 
railways,  there  is  little  that 
is  prepossessing  at  the  start 
about  the  roads  beginning  at  Hunter's  Point 
and  Greenpoint,  in  close  proximity  to  the 
odors  with  which,  for  its  sins,  in  spite  of 
injunctions,  the  metropolis  is  still  allowed  to 
be  afflicted.  The  roads  lie  at  first  through 
squalid  suburbs,  then  across  black  marshes, 
but  afterward  through  a  pleasanter  country. 
The  Brooklyn  roads  from  near  the  city 
limits  are  much  more  interesting  in  them- 
selves, but  they,  to  be  sure,  have  to  be 
reached  by  long  preliminary  journeys  in  the 
horse-cars  (from  New  York),  and  are  only 
for  the  leisurely. 

There  are  two  of  them  that  start  from 
Greenwood    Cemetery,  one  at   each    side. 


354 


TO    CONEY  ISLAND. 


Their  fast  excursion-trains,  rushing,  with  their 
striped  awnings  flying,  past  the  city  of  the 
dead,  and  scattering  back  wanton  cinders 
over  the  passengers  in  their  open  cars,  have 
a  certain  shock  for  the  sensibilities.  First 
it  is  the  Prospect  Park  and  Coney  Island.. 
Crossing  then  through  the  pensive  Rose 
Paths,  and  Sumac  Paths,  and  Twilight  Dells, 
we  come  upon  the  Brooklyn,  Bath  and 
Coney  Island.  These  lines  are  given  to 


route  which  gives  you  so  unusually  intimate 
and  amusing  a  view  of  the  life  of  the  country. 
There  is  a  certain  fitness,  however,  in 
going  to  the  sea-side,  when  it  can  be  done, 
by  boat,  and  beginning  the  enjoyment  of  its 
cooling  breezes  at  once.  There  seems  a 
fitness,  too,  in  going  first  to  the  improve- 
ments (particularly  as  they  are  of  the  largest 
scale)  of  the  shrewd,  liberal,  happily  ven- 
turesome company  which  has  been  princi- 


BIRD'S-EVE   VIEW  AND   PLAN   OF 
CONEY   ISLAND. 


using  a  good  half  of  the  country  road 
without  any  separation  from  its  ordinary 
traffic.  The  disguised  locomotive,  or  "  dum- 
my," mitigates  in  part  the  asperities  of  the 
situation,  but  the  beasts  of  burden,  its  fel- 
low travelers  on  the  way,  are  not  always 
reassured  even  so.  We  buzz  close  to  front 
door-yard  gates,  among  the  red  barns  and 
gray  houses,  into  the  center  of  a  quiet  vil- 
lage, past  the  feed  store,  the  blacksmith's,  the 
post-office,  and  up  to  the  old  stone  church 
and  the  flag-staff,  where  the  engineer  must 
needs  pull  the  throttle  valve  and  shriek. 
You  blush  at  being  so  much  a  party  to  the 
desecration  as  to  have  paid  your  fare,  and 
yet,  when  convenient,  you  take  again  a 


pally  instrumental  in  re- 
deeming the  island  from 
barbarism.  Both  objects 
may  be  combined  by  taking 
the  one  of  the  Manhattan 
Beach  routes  which  sets  out 
by  boat  from  the  foot  of 
Twenty-third  street,  Hudson  River,  and 
continues  by  train  from  Bay  Ridge  to  the 
company's  hotel. 

The  foot  of  West  Twenty-third  street 
is  a  place  of  departure  for  boats  for  numer- 
ous other  points  as  well,  and  all  have  can- 
vassers warmly  devoted  to  their  interests 
waiting  on  the  docks.  That  one  who  takes 
the  lunch-baskets  of  the  Ferguson  family,  as 
they  alight  from  the  horse-car,  and  leads 
off  the  children  by  the  hand,  with  an 
intuitive  divination  of  their  purpose  and  a 
kindliness  of  heart  that  seems  charming,  is 
embarking  them  for  Poughkeepsie  instead 
of  Coney  Island.  But  they  discover  his 
falseness  and  turn  indignant  faces  upon  him 


TO   CONEY  ISLAND. 


355 


MANHATTAN     BEACH     HOTEL. 


and  march  away  with  another,  through  a 
file  of  rivals,  one  of  whom  protests  :  "  Will 
you  risk  your  life,  madam,  on  a  craft  of  that 
character,  condemned  by  the  boiler  inspectors 
and  without  a  sound  plank  in  her  frame, 
when  the  Leonora  is  the  only  luxurious  new 
water-tight  floating  palace  making  unerring 
connections,  and  at  twenty  per  cent,  below 
the  regular  fare  ?  " 

The  breeze  is  somewhat  fresh  on  the 
sharp  forward  deck,  and  is  likely  to  blow 
your  hat  off.  At  the  same  time  it  is  the 
more  favorable  point  from  which  to  see  how 
narrowly  we  escape  a  row-boat  or  a  mal- 
adroit schooner  now  and  then,  and  to  view 
the  crowded  water-front  of  the  city,  the 
heights  of  Hoboken,  with  a  Bremen 
steamer  just  gliding  into  port  below  them, 
and,  farther  down,  the  harbor  forts  and  the 
blue,  villa- covered  slopes  of  Staten  Island. 

As  the  boat  puts  off,  a  trio  of  musicians,  in 
velveteen  jackets,  prelude  on  a  flute,  a  vio- 
lin and  a  battered  golden  harp,  and  strike 
up  "  My  Johanna  lives  in  Harlem."  In  the 
little  circle  that  closes  in  to  listen  to  them  are 
two  maid-servants  conveying  the  children  of 
a  wealthy  family;  a  number  of  young  men  in 
tweed  suits,  carrying  small  sticks,  the lefthand 
of  each  in  his  trowsers-pocket,  a  young  Ger- 
man matron  and  an  unmarried  sister  gaudily 
dressed.  Then  there  is  a  sinewy,  stern,  portly 
man,  perhaps  a  prosperous  mechanic  from 
theinterior,  who  has  brought  aboard  an  angu- 
lar, poorly  dressed,  silent  daughter,  certainly 


very  tall  of  her  age,  for  half-price.  One  fears 
there  may  yet  be  trouble  about  this,  and  so 
there  is.  A  scowl  overspreads  the  otherwise 
adamantine  face  of  the  very  next  puncher  of 
our  tickets  and,  though  powerless  to  prevent, 
he  delivers  his  opinion  audibly  on  the  prob- 
abilities of  the  case.  "  That  child  was  born 
on  the  1 2th  of  October,  1867,"  the  parent, 
who  has  passed  through  the  stile,  cries  back 
in  a  quivering  voice,  and  tries  to  make  head 
against  the  surging  crowd  to  engage  in  heated 
controversy.  Failing  in  this,  he  can  only 
launch  back  fierce  denunciations  at  the  total 
incapacity  of  the  other  in  all  questions  re- 
quiring nice  discernment. 

We  emerge  from  the  train  in  a  station 
forming  part  of  the  hotel  itself.  A  Coney 
Island  hotel  of  consequence  has  its  railway 
station,  and  two  or  three  special  lines  of 
land  and  water  transportation,  as  another 
might  have  elevators  or  steam-heating.  We 
pass  through  a  wide  corridor,  wainscoted  and 
ceiled  up  (as  are  all  the  interiors  that  meet 
the  eye  in  the  neighborhood)  with  cheerful, 
varnished  pine,  and  out  upon  the  enormous 
piazza..  A  multitude  of  people  are  dining  at 
little  tables  on  it,  set  with  linen,  glass  and 
silver,  and  others  are  moving  up  and  down 
in  close  procession. 

Thalatta !  thalatta  /  what  a  charming 
glimpse  of  the  sea !  A  wide  esplanade 
between  is  green  with  turf  and  gay  with 
flowers — geranium,  heliotrope,  lobelia,  co- 
leus,  the  queenly,  tropical  leaves  of  the 


356 


TO    CONEY  ISLAND. 


Canna  Indica — all  growing  finely  out  of  the 
two  feet  of  earth  the  careful  gardeners 
have  put  down  for  their  sustenance.  They 
have  a  peculiar  value  from  their  situation ; 
a  lively  fancy  makes  a  species  of  jewels  of 
them  instead  of  flowers,  in  their  setting  of 
silvery  white  sand.  In  the  center  is  a 
music  stand  shaped  like  a  scallop  shell. 
Benches  are  scattered  profusely  along ; — the 
beach  below  is  full  of  parasols  and  summer 
costumes  bright  against  the  water;  pink- 
legged  children  with  their  skirts  very  much 
tucked  up,  are  wading  in  it,  reflected  in 
the  shallows ;  and  an  eccentric  sloop,  cruis- 
ing lazily  with  some  curious  inscription  in 
large  letters  on  her  mainsail,  luffs  up  and 
goes  about  just  in  the  edge  of  the  surf. 
What  in  the  name —  ?  "  Go  to  Gullmore's 
for  Your  Clothing."  I  for  one  shall  never 
do  so  if  there  be  another  establishment  in 
the  town  where  clothing  may  be  had.  This 
was  once  an  honest  fishing-boat,  and  me- 
thinks  the  once  honest  fisherman  has  a 


irregularities  of  every  kind.  As  a  dwelling, 
and  this  is  true  of  those  of  the  island  generally, 
it  is  as  uneasy  as  the  crowds  trooping  through 
it,  or  the  surf  in  front;  something  more 
restful  here  and  there,  some  moderate  space 
of  untroubled  surface,  would  be  a  relief  from 
the  universal  movement.  It  is  nearly  an 
eighth  of  a  mile  in  length,  and  its  vast 
piazzas,  running  the  entire  length  of  the 
building,  are  rather  to  be  regarded  as  great 
open  pavilions.  The  fantastic  island  is  not 
a  spectacle  to  be  reduced  to  tape-line  and 
level,  and  I  shall  not  do  the  guide-books 
the  injury  of  vying  with  them  in  statistics, 
but  here  in  a  lump  are  a  few  of  the  most 
considerable.  There  are  some  sixty  hotels, 
and  five  thousand  separate  bathing-rooms. 
The  great  tubular  iron  pier  runs  out  a  thou- 
sand feet  into  the  sea,  the  tubular  iron 
observatory  three  hundred  feet  into  the 
air,  and  the  captive  balloon  a  thousand 
feet,  carrying  up  fifteen  persons  at  a  time. 
The  Brighton  Beach  hotel,  the  second  in 


ALONG    THE     BEACH. 


shamefaced  look  even  from  here,  as  he 
sits  sulkily  at  the  tiller,  under  the  shade  of 
his  weather-beaten  mainsail,  trimmed  now 
to  this  sentiment-destroying  traffic. 

Turn  and  look  back  at  the  hotel.  It  is 
of  wood,  as  the  American  hotel  in  the  open 
country  will  probably  be  while  our  forests 
hold  out,  and  is  painted  a  pleasant  shade 
of  ocher,  with  "trimmings."  It  bristles 
with  towers,  turrets,  dormers,  "  offsets," — 


size,  is  five  hundred  and  twenty  feet  long, 
and  seats  two  thousand  persons  at  dinner. 
The  Manhattan  Beach  bathing-pavilion  is 
five  hundred  feet  long,  has  twenty-seven 
hundred  separate  rooms,  and  a  capacity  of 
sending  away  two  thousand  wet  bathing- 
costumes  an  hour  along  an  endless  belt, 
to  be  washed  in  the  laundry.  The  figures, 
in  fact,  however  detailed,  are  quite  idle. 
The  coming  season,  if  the  rumors  of  the 


TO   CONEY  ISLAND. 


357 


HOTEL    BRIGHTON. 


piazzas  be  true,  our  acquaintance  must  be 
formed  all  over  again,  and  our  wonder  ex- 
cited anew.  The  size  of  the  two  principal 
hotels  is  to  be  doubled,  the  pavilion  at  the 
eastern  end  is  to  be  erected  into  a  great 
new  hotel,  and  still  another  of  the  first 
magnitude  is  to  be  built  on  the  long  vacant 
stretch  between.  As  it  is,  the  face  of 
things  is  altered  at  each  successive  visit. 
One  recalls  no  such  wholesale  improve- 
ment since  he  went  to  school  with  pious 
^Eneas  at  the  building  of  Carthage.  In- 
stant ardenies  Tyrii;  the  enthusiastic  lessees 
ply  the  work.  Some  dump  the  white  sand 
of  the  beach  from  the  cars  of  miniature 
railways  into  the  marsh,  and  extend  the 
borders  of  the  solid  land ;  others  fashion 
a  new  French  roof  to  surpass  all  other 
French  roofs  hitherto  conceived.  Yester- 
day the  Sea  Beach  road  was  completed,  and 
its  palace,  once  "  Machinery  Hall  "  of  the 
Philadelphia  Exhibition,  was  thrown  open  to 
the  public.  To-day  the  finishing  touches 
are  being  put  to  the  grand  stand  of  the  race 
course,  and  a  spirited  sight  it  is  to  see  the 
horses,  brought  down  for  practice,  run  like 
the  wind  along  the  sands.  As  water  always 
flows  to  the  river,  it  is  not  unreasonable  to 
suppose  in  time  that  the  great  mass  of  con- 
structions already  established  will  beget  sat- 
ellites and  additions  till  the  limits  of  the 
space  under  cover  coincide  with  the  bound- 
aries of  the  island. 

Four  local  subdivisions  are  to  be  borne  in 


mind, — Manhattan  Beach,  Brighton  Beach, 
West  Brighton,  and  Norton's.  Each  has  its 
peculiar  characteristics,  and  there  is  some- 
thing of  a  descending  scale  of  fashion  in 
them,  in  the  order  named.  We  alighted  at 
the  first  mentioned,  and  may  be  supposed 
to  begin  from  there  a  desultory  stroll.  Its 
bathing-pavilion  is  picturesque  and  has 
unheard-of  conveniences  in  the  way  of 
security,  privacy,  foot-tubs  and  plate-glass 
mirrors.  It  has  the  novel  feature  of  an 
amphitheater  open  to  the  water,  in  which 
spectators  are  supposed  to  sit  and  watch 
the  bathers,  and  listen  to  the  strains  of  a 
band  perched  up  behind.  But  this  does  not 
prove  to  be  quite  all  that  could  be  desired. 
It  appears  that  bathers  were  not  found  so 
ready  to  be  made  a  formal  spectacle  of  as 
the  spectators  may  have  wished,  and  so  an 
interposed  fence  shuts  them  practically  out 
of  the  field  of  vision,  and  leaves  visitors  but 
a  feeble  inducement  to  enter. 

In  a  vast  pavilion  dining-hall  near  at 
hand,  excursionists  for  the  day  may  order 
from  a  restaurant  below,  or  spread  out 
freely  on  the  tables  the  more  frugal  pro- 
vision of  their  lunch-baskets.  The  man 
with  the  half-price  daughter  is  here,  dis- 
puting with  a  German  waiter  the  quality 
of  the  clams  they  have  eaten,  and  the  Fer- 
guson family,  encompassed  with  fragments 
of  egg-shells  and  plebeian  gingerbread,  drink 
cold  coffee  in  tumblers  from  what  was  once 
a  chow-chow  bottle.  The  same  kind  of 


TO   CONEY  ISLAND. 


THE    SILHOUETTE    ARTIST. 


hospitality  is  afforded  by  most  of  the  houses 
of  entertainment  on  the  beach.  It  is  both 
kindly  and  politic,  considering  that  out  of 
all  the  great  swarms  that  arrive  daily  the 
island  as  yet  "  sleeps,"  as  the  landlords  say. 
These  family  groups  lunching  within  their 
means,  without  shamefacedness  or  the  trou- 
bled consciousness  of  extravagance  which 
is  too  often  the  sub-accompaniment  of  the 
American  day's  pleasure,  are  one  of  the 
most  honest  and  cheerful  features  of  the 
place. 

The  captive  balloon  rises  out  of  a  mys- 
terious-looking structure  of  white,  with  a 
green  border  round  it,  within  which  is  an 
amphitheater  for  those  who  do  not  care  to 
make  the  venture  of  an  ascent  in  person. 
Further  along,  the  Alexandra  Exhibition 
Company,  in  a  vast  quadrangular  inclosure, 
devoted  at  present  to  cabalistic  frames  and 


trellises  prepared  for  a 
display  of  fireworks,  has 
another  amphitheater 
holding  four  thousand 
persons.  As  a  rule, 
Coney  Island  amphithe- 
aters, when  they  do  not 
hold  two  thousand  or 
three  thousand  persons, 
do  hold  four  thousand. 

A  narrow-gauge  "  Ma- 
rine Railway  "  extends 
to  the  eastern  end.  The 
long  stretch  of  beach 
here  is  still  agreeably  un- 
improved and  desolate. 
There  is  the  wrecking 
station,  it  is  true,  but  it 
is  fast  locked  till  the 
winter  storms,  when  ice- 
cakes  shall  come  to 
crackle  in  the  surf. 
Here,  and  here  only  on 
this  populous  beach,  you 
may  cast  yourself  down 
undisturbed  and  inter- 
rogate the  surf  on  those 
vague,  melancholy  sub- 
jects, fate,  free-will,  the 
affections  and  disappoint- 
ments, on  which  surf 
and  sea- coal  fires  remain 
imperturbably  willing  to  be  interrogated 
to  the  end  of  time.  The  passing  steamers 
ride  high  on  the  water;  the  highlands  of 
Navesink  are  cobalt  blue,  and  the  white 
sails  of  a  brig  are  projected  against  them. 
To  think  that  Captain  Webb  swam  over 
from  there,  ten  miles,  while  we  mean  to 
take  the  Marine  Railway  only  to  go  back 
to  Brighton  Beach ! 

The  Brighton  Beach  bathing-pavilion 
must  be  accounted  one  of  the  most  original 
of  the  buildings  in  its  form,  as  well  as  one 
of  the  most  entertaining  in  the  variety  of  life 
within  and  around  it.  It  has  a  picturesque 
foot-bridge  coming  sinuously  down  from  the 
upper  story,  in  which  the  disrobing  rooms 
are  situated,  to  a  wide  terrace  and  thence  to 
the  beach,  giving  access  to  the  waves.  The 
interdict  laid  at  Manhattan  Beach  on  show- 
men and  small  merchants  of  the  holiday 
order,  is  lifted  here,  though  their  really 
triumphant  reign  is  yet  further  to  the  west. 
A  fruit-seller  has  set  up  his  richly  colored 
booth  in  the  veranda.  Next  to  him  is  a 
dealer  in  sea-shell  jewelry,  an  indigenous 
product  to  correspond  in  its  modest  way  to 
the  corals  of  Naples,  the  glass  mosaics  of 


TO   CONEY  ISLAND. 


359 


Venice,  and  the  costumed  fisher-dolls  of  the 
French  watering-places.  An  elderly  man, 
who  professes  his  inability  to  draw  a  stroke 
in  any  other  way,  cuts  excellent  likenesses 
in  black  paper  for  a  small  consideration. 
The  smallest  midgets  in  the  world  give 
unceasing  exhibitions,  and  their  miniature 
coach  drives  gravely  on  the  Concourse  by 
way  of  advertisement.  You  can  gratify  any 
national  prejudice  you  may  happen  to  cherish, 
by  knocking  over  Turks,  Frenchmen,  High- 
landers and  Prussians  in  the  shooting-galler- 
ies ;  and  one  Crandall,  who  professes  himself 
the  especial  patron  of  children,  and  has  signs 
set  up  all  over  the  place  adjuring  parents  not 
to  be  bothered  with  the  little  folks  but  to  let 
them  come  to  him,  sets  innumerable  small 
legs  in  striped  stockings  twinkling  up  and 
down  a  long,  plank-floored  rink  in  three- 
wheeled  velocipedes. 

Whoever  has  not  had  enough  of  bathing  in 
the  day-time,  may  bathe  here  at  night  by 
electric  light.     One  could  take  many  a  long  | 
journey  and  never  meet  elsewhere  with  so  j 
strange,  so  truly  weird  a  sight  as  this.     The  { 
concentrated  illumination  falls  on  the  formi-  j 
dable  breakers  plunging  in  against  the  foot  of  j 
the  bridge,  and  gives  them  spots  of  sickly 
green  translucence  below  and  sheets  of  daz- 
zlingly  white  foam  above.     There  is  a  start- 
ling spot  of  foreground  and  nothing  more. 
A  couple  who  are  confident  swimmers,  pos- 
sibly a  man  and  his  wife,  come  down  the 
bridge  and  put  off  into  the  cold  flood.     The 


woman  holds  by  the  man's  belt  behind,  and 
he  disappears  with  her  into  the  darkness.  A 
circle  disports  with  hobgoblin  glee  around  a 
kind  of  May-pole  in  the  water. 

A  multitude  of  coachmen  solicit  your  beck 
and  nod,  at  the  last  piazza,  of  the  Brighton, 
to  convey  you  across  the  broad  asphalt  drive 
a  mile  long,  known  as  the  Concourse,  to  the 
next  principal  division.  Hereabouts  is  the 
especial  domain  of  the  horsemen.  They 
come  jogging  down  the  Ocean  Parkway  in 
a  desultory  cavalcade,  with  that  air  of  sub- 
dued insolence,  and  those  minor  peculiarities 
of  costume  to  which  the  control  of  horse- 
flesh gives  rise.  They  throw  their  reins 
to  hostlers,  who  bestow  their  "  teams  "  in 
extensive  court-yards  of  sheds.  When  the 
sheds  are  full  they  tie  them  in  long  rows  to 
lines  sustained  by  poles,  and.  regarding  the 
tangled  perspective  of  legs  and  wheels,  you 
think  of  nothing  so  much  as  the  battle 
chariots  of  old. 

The  great  pier  demanded  increasing  curi- 
osity as  we  progressed  toward  it,  and  now  we 
are  in  a  position  to  observe  it.  How  dif- 
ferent it  is  from  the  formal,  utilitarian  idea 
one  had  conceived  of  it !  It  is  not  a  clumsy 
jetty  or  breakwater.  It  is  an  interminable, 
dainty  palace,  pinnacled,  gabled,  arcaded, 
many-storied,  raised  on  slender  columns 
above  the  water,  like  a  habitation  of  some 
charming  race  of  lake-dwellers.  The  bot- 
tom story  is  full  of  bathing-rooms ;  the  next 
is  a  grand  open  promenade,  with  Grafulla's 


BATHING    BY    ELECTRIC    LIGHT. 


36° 


TO   CONEY  ISLAND. 


\v 


A     RIDE     ON    THE    DONKEY. 


band  posted  at  the  outer  end  to  set  a  rhythm- 
ical pace  to  the  movement  upon  it,  and 
the  third  a  mass  of  irregular  roofs.  The  only 
visible  tubular  iron  is  the  columns  constituting 
its  support.  The  sky  shows  through  them 
and  through  the  promenade.  From  afar,  in 
a  soft  atmosphere,  the  whole  is  like  a  pattern 
of  lace-work,  a  beautiful  mirage,  a  veritable 
bit  of  such  stuff  as  dreams  are  made  of. 
It  is  an  excellent  place  from  which,  sitting 
at  a  small  table  by  the  guard-rail,  with  re- 


freshments upon  it,  to  look  down  at  the 
bathers.  The  view  shoreward  either  way 
is  one  expanse  of  gay,  coquettish,  ephem- 
eral forms  and  colors.  They  cannot  be 
said  to  have  mass,  more  than  meringue  a  la 
creme.  All  is  arcaded,  festooned,  floating, 
honey-combed,  with  the  free  air  blowing 
through.  Here,  at  the  West  Brighton  Beach, 
is  the  very  focus  and  white  heat  of  the 
revelry.  The  central  space  filled  and  sur- 
rounded with  minor  hotels,  kiosks,  booths, 


TO    CONEY  ISLAND. 


361 


pavilions,  theaters,  galleries, 
an  aquarium,  merry-go-rounds, 
restaurants,  and  music-stands, 
is  floored  with  plank,  and 
terminates  at  the  beach  in  ir- 
regular terraces.  Further  up 
the  shore,  carpets  of  rushes 
are  spread  on  the  fatiguing 
loose  sand. 

Here  is  "Cable's,"  and 
"Bauer's,"  patronized  by  the 
sangerbunds  and  schiitzenverein  of  his 
German  fello \v-citizens.  Once,  of  a  mid- 
summer night,  Bauer  had  the  Arion  Soci- 
ety ;  and  Arion  himself,  with  Neptune  and 
Aphrodite  and  all  their  court  of  Nereids 
and  Tritons,  came  ashore  out  of  the  sea 
from  a  raft  which  they  made  the  basis  of 
their  unique  divertisement.  See  the  square 
car  mounting  noiselessly  in  the  lattice-work 
observatory,  to  the  strains  of  "  Lurline." 
Remark  yonder  monstrous  effigy  of  a  cow, 
with  actual  hide  and  horns  and  staring 


PUNCH    AND    JUDY. 

glass  eyes,  set  up  in  a  kiosk,  and  the  people 
eagerly  bowing  down  around  her.  It  is 
not  the  worship  of  paganism  revived,  but 
the  shrewd  idea  of  a  man  who  has  bethought 
him  to  construct  a  reservoir  of  iced  milk  in 
this  form  and  has  set  milk-maids  to  drawing 
it  from  the  udders. 

A  little  inland  from  this,  in  the  midst  of 
the  levity,  is  found  a  bit  of  seriousness,  an 
amiable  charity — the  Brooklyn  sea-side  home 
for  invalid  poor  children.  A  fortunate  few 
hundreds  of  them  and  their  mothers,  from 


362 


TO    CONEY  ISLAND. 


the  tenement  houses,  here  get  their  fill  for  a 
week  at  a  time,  in  a  domain  of  their  own, 
of  pure  air,  salt  water,  and  digging  in  the 
sand.  A  photographer  is  making  a  general 
view  of  them.  "  Madam,  will  you  keep 


twenty-seven,  thirty-four,  and  so  on  up  to 
eighty-one,  which  is  certainly  an  allowance 
of  life  well  worth  the  money ;  but  I  ought 
not  to  marry  the  young  woman  whose  fas- 
cinating likeness  is  annexed  before  the  age 


UNDER    THE    IRON     PIER. 


your  baby  still  ?  "  he  requests.  "  Troth,  I 
will,  sir !  There'll  be  never  a  cry  out  of 
him,"  she  replies,  and  she  dandles  the  infant 
vigorously  up  and  down. 

Along  the  beach  establishments  of  many 
sorts  and  a  regiment  of  charlatans  detain 
you,  one  after  another.  The  Hotel  de  Clam 
sets  forth  its  tempting  bill  of  fare ;  the  minor 
bathing  establishments  vie  with  one  another 
in  advertisements  of  the  newness  of  their 
bathing-suits;  children  ride  on  donkeys; 
the  pail-and -shovel  tree  springs  numerously 
from  the  sand ;  the  tin-type  man  is  driven 
to  distraction  with  business;  the  Punch-and- 
Judy  shows  give  Americanized  exhibitions, 
of  which  the  ethnologist  should  take  note, 
with  negroes  and  so  on  in  the  companies ; 
and  I  buy,  for  a  dime,  of  two  glass  demons, 
worked  by  hydraulic  pressure,  called  by  the 
merry  German- American,  their  proprietor, 
Solomon  and  Columbia,  an  envelope  con- 
taining my  fortune  and  a  picture  of  the  girl 
I  shall  marry.  Pray  heaven  the  decree  of 
fate  be  not  immutable,  upon  this  showing! 
I  am  a  person,  for  the  rest,  whose  fortune 
lies  in  the  east,  south,  and  west,  who  is 
courageous,  and  understands  well  to  speak. 
My  good  years  will  be  twenty,  twenty-five, 


of  twenty-four.  Solomon  and  Columbia, 
do  not  give  yourselves  one  second's  un- 
easiness ;  it  shall  not  be  done. 

It  is  a  mile  and  a  half  yet  to  Norton's,  at 
the  extreme  western  end,  if  by  railway, 
through  sand  dunes,  some  of  which  are 
white  as  hills  of  snow,  and  through  a 
scenery  not  dissimilar  to  what  we  have 
noted.  By  the  time  it  is  compassed  the 
sun  is  setting,  throwing  its  mellow,  level 
light  against  the  fantastic  encampment  be- 
hind us  and  against  the  white  sails  scat- 
tered flower-like  over  the  blue  ocean  field. 
The  sunset  should  be  seen  once  from  the 
bare  sands  at  the  eastern  end :  the  cobweb 
observatory  is  like  the  disembodied  spirit  of  a 
campanile ;  the  sharp-towered  mass  gathers 
solidity  and  dignity  as  the  shadows  fall  into 
it,  and  might  be  of  stone  and  be  a  German  or 
Italian  medieval  city.  Having  all  day  been  a 
dream  of  Venice,  it  might  now,  till  the  lamps 
are  lit,  be  Vicenza.  Some  shallows  of  water 
stretch  in  between,  and  lie  gleaming  in  the  bare 
sand  like  the  naked  steel  of  halberd  blades. 

The  sunset  should  be  seen  again  from 
the  observatory,  among  whose  fascinating 
bird's-eye  views  a  previous  hour  can  well 
be  passed.  In  the  last  subtile  moments  of 


TO    CONEY  ISLAND. 


363 


transition  from  day  to  evening,  the  patches 
of  sand  among  the  bunch-grass  become 
indistinguishable  from  the  patches  of  the 
creek  ruffed  by  the  wind  ;  the  green  and 
blue,  land  and  water,  at  the  verges  of  the 


for  a  day  and  night  only,  on  the  occasion  of 
some  important  fete,  they  would  pass  into 
history ;  but  here  they  are  for  every  day  and 
every  night  the  whole  summer  long. 

Coney  Island  is  curiously  like  the  Cen- 


UP    IN    THE    TOWER. 


island  melt  into  each  other.  Then  the  gas 
jets  come  out,  one  by  one,  and  sprinkle  at 
last  the  whole  expanse,  defining  its  forms. 
The  colored  lanterns,  yellow,  red  and  green, 
are  set  along  the  pier,  and  the  electric  lights, 
suspended  high  from  invisible  wires,  hang 
like  celestial  orbs  in  the  midst.  Celestial, 
did  I  say  ? — the  poor,  far-away  constellations 
are  faded  by  all  this  into  the  pettiest  insig- 
nificance. Were  such  spectacles  arranged 


tennial ;  that  is  the  only  description  that 
does  it  justice.  It  is  a  Centennial  of  pleas- 
ure, pure  and  simple,  without  any  tiresome 
ulterior  commercial  purposes,  held  amid 
refreshing  breezes,  by  the  sea.  There  is  the 
same  gay  architecture,  the  same  waving 
flags,  the  same  delightful,  distracting  whirl, 
the  same  enormous  masses  of  staring,  good- 
natured,  perpetually  marching  and  counter- 
marching human  beings.  Its  essential 
character. is  bound  up  with  the  crowd.  Its 
virtues  are  those  of  a  crowd,  and  so  are 
its  faults.  Waiters  and  landlords  in  such 
circumstances  are  apt,  like  some  philanthro- 
pists, to  lose  their  interest  in  the  individual 
in  their  devotion  to  the  race.  There  are 


364 


TO    CONEY  ISLAND. 


FROM     BRIGHTON     PIER. 


numerous  minor  failings  which  are  no  doubt 
to  be  looked  after  as  things  settle  quietly 
into  place. 

There  are  permanent  guests  at  the  best 
hotels  who  have  certain  privileges  which  the 
mere  excursionist  cannot  enjoy.  For  them 
are  warm,  misty  mornings,  when  the  light  is 
mysterious,  the  sea  white,  and  only  a  dark 
figure  here  and  there  on  the  distant  bars 
at  low  tide  occupies  the  shore,  before  the 
crowd  has  come  down.  For  them  are  lone- 


some strolls,  if  they  will,  on  the  beach  at 
night,  when  the  crowd  has  gone  and  the 
initials  and  myriad  footprints  it  has  left  look 
strange  under  a  crescent  moon  ;  and, 
again,  evenings  of  storm  without,  when  they 
sit  in  pensive  small  groups  on  the  piazza 
and  look  beyond  the  burning  lights  into  the 
blackness.  They  have  charming  parlors  and 
piazza  promenades  reserved  to  them  and 
jealously  guarded  from  intrusion,  in  an  upper 
story.  Still,  even  these  permanent  boarders 


ORIENTAL     HOTEL. 


TO    CONEY  ISLAND. 


365 


are  not  like  permanent  boarders  elsewhere. 
There  is  no  in-door  life.  They  cross  the 
dining-room  at  every  meal  to  greet  newly 
arrived  friends,  and  hardly  expect  to  see 
them  again,  and  are  not  surprised  to  see 
those  from  the  most  remote  States,  for  they 
have  found  that  Coney  Island  is  as  cos- 
mopolitan as  Broadway.  The  crowd  fasci- 
nates them,  and  they  come  down  and  mingle 
with  it  and  make  it  their  study  and  are  pos- 
sessed with  its  fever  of  arrival  and  depart- 
ure. It  is  not  a  place  to  be  very  permanent 
in.  One  could  imagine  the  merry-go-round 
becoming  something  of  a  dismal-go-round 
with  too  long  continuance.  It  does  not 
seem  likely  ever  to  be  a  restful  place  of  the 
peaceful,  meditative  order.  Of  a  summer  re- 
sort so  near  to  a  metropolis  that  the  metrop- 
olis can  pour  itself  out  in  mass  upon  it  with 
perfect  ease,  such  a  quality  must  not  be  de- 
manded, and  this  may  have  been  the  secret 
reason  preventing  the  development  of  Coney 
Island  before.  But  another  kind  of  enter- 
tainment takes  its  place.  Instead  of  the 
saturnalia  of  vulgarity  and  discomfort  that 
may  have  been  dreaded,  it  happily  turns 
out  that  the  people,  arriving  in  such 
unique  bulk  and  so  splendidly  received, 
constitute  a  most  interesting  distraction  in 
themselves.  Even  those  who  do  not  like 
crowds  may  be  reconciled  to  this  one.  It  is 
excellently  behaved.  It  scarcely  seems  to 


need  the  vigilant  special  police  enlisted  for  the 
island,  and  the  justice  who  holds  court  every 
morning  at  the  Manhattan  Beach  Hotel  has 
rarely  an  offender  to  consign  to  his  stout 
wooden  Bastile  in  the  basement.  This 
crowd  is  clean  and  neatly  dressed,  of  very 
respectable  social  grade,  of  great  good- 
humor,  and  on  honest  pleasure  bent,  and  the 
spirits  are  insensibly  raised  in  moving  with  it. 
A  touch  of  patriotic  pride  really  ought  to 
mingle  with  our  contemplation  of  Coney 
Island.  It  is  quite  original,  distinctively 
American,  and  charming.  There  is  nothing 
like  it  abroad,  and  its  proximity  and  extraor- 
dinary ease  of  access  seem  to  insure  it  against 
rivalry  at  home.  Trouville  is  six  hours  by 
express  from  Paris ;  and  Brighton  and  Mar- 
gate and  Ramsgate  (all  of  which  it  is  the 
habit  to  mention  as  in  the  season  mere 
suburbs  of  their  parent  city)  are  fifty  or 
sixty  miles  from  London.  Even  were  they 
nearer,  and  had  they  white  sand  and  blue 
ocean  for  shingle  beach  and  muddy  Channel 
waves,  there  are  not,  in  either  metropolis,  the 
fierce  heats  of  a  New  York  summer  to  drive 
the  populace  forth  to  seek  their  refreshment 
in  anything  like  an  equal  degree.  It  is  dif- 
ficult to  see  why  the  strange  new  island 
which  has  all  at  once  taken  so  considerable 
a  place  in  the  chart,  should  not  permanently 
remain  what  it  seems  now  to  be — the  greatest 
resort  for  a  single  day's  pleasure  in  the  world. 


THE    SAND    DUNES,    BACK    FROM    THE    BEACH. 


366 


PETER    THE    GREAT. 


PETER   THE    GREAT.      VI.* 

BY    EUGENE    SCHUYLER. 


RECEPTION     OF    A    RUSSIAN     EMBASSY    AT    VERSAILLES. 


CHAPTER    XVIII. 
EMBASSIES    TO    VIENNA    AND    PARIS. 

RUSSIA  accepted  in  all  seriousness,  and 
lost  no  time  in  carrying  out  one  part  of  the 
treaty  of  Eternal  Peace  with  Poland,  in 
endeavoring  to  induce  the  Christian  powers 
of  Europe  to  join  them  in  a  struggle  against 
the  Turks.  Boris  Sheremetief  and  Ivan 
Tchaadaef,  who  took  the  treaty  to  King 
John  Sobiesky  for  his  ratification,  headed 
an  embassy  to  Vienna,  to  prevail  upon 
the  Emperor  Leopold  to  join  the  Russian- 
Polish  alliance.  In  the  negotiations  which 
took  place  at  Vienna,  the  Russian  embassa- 
dors  set  forth  their  treaty  with  Poland,  their 
ancient  friendship  with  Austria,  the  cam- 
paign which  they  had  made  against  the 
Tartars  in  the  previous  year,  which,  without 
bringing  any  particular  benefit  to  themselves, 
had  kept  the  Tartars  from  Poland,  and 
had  left  the  hands  of  the  Austrians  and  Ven- 
etians free,  and  which  had,  in  reality,  been 
in  part  the  cause  of  their  successes  against 
the  Turks.  For  this  they  now  asked  nothing 
more  than  that  the  Emperor  should  become 
a  member  of  tlieir  league,  that  the  title  of 
"  Majesty,"  and  not  "  Serenity,"  should  be 
given  to  the  Tsars  by  the  Austrian  Court, 
and  that  the  embassadors  should  receive 


their  letters  of  farewell  from  the  hand  of 
His  Majesty,  and  not  from  the  Chancellor. 
On  being  asked  what  princes  they  intended 
to  invite  to  join  this  league,  they  replied : 
"  The  greatest  among  the  Christians  :  the 
King  of  France,  the  King  of  England,  the 
King  of  Denmark,  the  Elector  of  Bran- 
denburg; and  that  they  also  intended  to  send 
an  embassy  to  the  King  of  France  and  to  the 
Duke  of  Baden."  One  of  the  Austrian 
negotiators  replied  that  the  Russians  might 
do  this  if  they  thought  it  best,  but  that  His 
Imperial  Majesty  had  sufficient  allies  to 
ruin  the  Turk :  the  Holy  Father,  the  King 
of  Spain,  the  King  of  Sweden,  the  King  of 
Poland,  the  Republics  of  Venice  and  Hol- 
land, the  Electors  of  Saxony  and  Bavaria, 
and,  in  a  word,  all  the  Empire,  which  was 
capable  enougli  of  destroying  the  Ottoman 
if  they  went  at  it  in  good  faith  and  with 
vigor.  To  the  application  for  the  title  of 
"  Majesty,"  and  the  threat  to  sever  friendly 
relations  until  it  should  be  given,  they  were 
told  to  say  nothing  more  about  it,  or  they 
would  be  sent  away,  but  that  the  Emperor 
would  grant  the  other  points,  would  receive 
from  their  hands  the  letters  from  the  Tsars, 
and  would  give  them  letters  from  his  own 
hand,  on  condition  that  the  Tsars  would 
grant  in  their  domains  entire  liberty  to 
the  Catholic  religion.  To  this  the  Rus- 


Copyright,  1880,  by  Eugene  Schuyler.     All  rights  reserved. 


PETER    THE    GREAT. 


367 


sian  ambassadors  replied  that  they  had  no 

instructions  on   this  point;   that  it   was   as 

much  as  their  heads  were  worth  to  listen  to 

any  propositions  which  would  change  the 

established    order  of   things   in  Muscovy ; 

that  there  could  be   no  public  exercise  of 

other  religions,   but   that   mass    could    be 

said  in  private  houses,  and  private  schools 

could  be    established,  and    that   the  Tsars 

would    protect    the    Catholic 

religion  as  well  as  all  others 

as   soon    as  quiet 

should  be  re-estab- 


THE    RUSSIAN     EMBASSADORS 


ALBERT    EDELFELT.) 


lished.  The  Austrians  said  that  if  this  were 
so,  the  Emperor  would  give  them  a  reply 
by  his  own  hand.  At  the  last  conference 


there  was  another  of  the  interminable  dis- 
putes about  title,  and  the  Austrian  Commis- 
sioner blamed  the  embassadors  for  having,  in 
the  letter  of  credence,  translated  the  Russian 
word  for  "  autocrat"  by  the  Latin  word 
"  imperator"  and  not  "dominator"  as  they 
claimed  it  should  be.  After  a  full  explana- 
tion of  the  three  titles  of  the  Russian  Tsar, 
the  great,  the  medium,  and  the  small,  the 
Austrians  agreed  to  what  they  considered  a 
considerable  concession  in  granting  that 
letters  and  decrees  given  by  the  chancel- 
lories and  signed  by  the  secretaries,  should 
give  the  Tsars  the  title  of  Majesty,  but  that 
in  letters  signed  by  his  own  hand  the 
Emperor  would  not  confer  this  title,  as  he 
gave  it  to  no  one.  So  great  was  the  fear  of 
the  embassadors  at  having  overstepped 
their  powers  that  at  this  conference  they 
gave  back  the  protocols  and  note  which 
they  had  received,  signed  by  the  Sec- 
retary of  the  Chancellor,  saying  that 
they  did  not  wish  them;  whereupon  they 
were  told  that  the 
substance  of  the  ne- 
gotiations would  be 
inserted  in  the  letter 
of  re-credence.  They 
begged  that  no  de- 
tails should  be  men- 
tioned in  this  letter, 
as  it  was  not  custom- 
ary, and  especially 
urged  that  nothing 
should  be  said  on, 
the  head  of  religion, 
as  it  might  do  them 
harm  at  home.  Nev- 
ertheless, they  were 
forced  to  take  a  pro- 
tocol signed  by  the 
Secretary,  under  the 
threat  of  being  sent 
back  without  any 
letter  of  reply.  The 
tenor  of  this  was 
that,  as  the  Russians 
had  desired  that  they 
should  be  treated  like 
the  other  Christian 
princes,  His  Imperial 
Majesty  wished  the 
Tsars,  in  future,  when 
they  sent  embas- 
sies, to  pay  their  ex- 
penses, offering  to  do 

the  same  when  he  dispatched  embas- 
sies to  Russia.  The  Austrians,  it  seemed, 
claimed  that  their  last  Embassador,  Baron 


OFFICIALS.       (FROM    A   DRAWING    BY 


368 


PETER   THE   GREAT. 


LIFE    IN    THE    UKRAINE.       "THE    RETURN     FROM    THE     MARKET."       (FROM    THE    PAINTING    BY    CHELMONSKI.) 


Scher6fsky,  did  not  receive  carts  for  the 
transportation  of  the  presents  to  the  Tsars, 
and  had  been  obliged  to  keep  at  his 
own  expense  those  which  he  had  hired 
in  Poland.  This  was  the  first  attempt  to  put 
Russian  embassies  on  a  footing  with  other 
powers.  Up  to  that  time  they  had  been 
treated  in  the  Oriental  manner, — that  is, 
the  expenses  of  foreign  embassies  sent  to 
Russia  had  been  defrayed  by  the  Russian 
Government,  and,  in  a  similar  way,  the  cost 
of  Russian  embassies  abroad  had  been  paid 
by  the  powers  to  whom  they  were  sent.  The 
total  expenses  of  the  Russian  Embassy  to 
Vienna  were  about  one  hundred  thousand 
florins,  including  the  presents;  but  the 
presents  to  the  embassadors  were  reduced 
from  thirty  thousand  florins,  as  originally 
proposed,  to  fourteen  thousand  florins, 
with  presents  amounting  to  two  thousand 
florins  more  for  the  secretaries.  The  reason 
of  this  was,  that  it  was  reported  to  the 
Austrian  Government  that  the  Tsars  had 
sent  as  presents  furs  to  the  amount  of 
thirty  thousand  florins,  while  those  the 
embassadors  had  actually  given  were  worth 
only  five  or  six  thousand  florins.  The  con- 
duct, too,  of  the  embassadors  and  of  their 
numerous  suite, — many  of  whom  were  fre- 
quently drunk  and  made  disturbances  in 
the  street, — and  the  numerous  complaints 


brought  against  them,  made  the  Austrian 
Government  anxious  to  get  rid  of  them  as 
soon  as  possible.  After  they  had  finished 
their  negotiations  and  had  had  an  interview 
with  Prince  Lubomirsky,  the  Grand  Mar- 
shal of  Poland,  who  had  just  come  from 
Rome;  and  after  they  had  been  invited  to 
the  Imperial  hunt  at  Aspern,  and  had  been 
received  by  the  Empress,  who  had  just 
recovered  from  her  accouchement,  they  were 
granted  a  farewell  audience  by  the  Em- 
peror. In  a  letter  which  the  Emperor 
handed  them  he  said  that  he  had  learned, 
with  much  joy,  of  the  resolution  of  the 
Tsars  to  make  war  against  the  common 
enemy  of  the  Christian  name,  as  well  as 
of  their  treaty  with  Poland;  that  there  was 
no  need  to  make  any  special  treaty  between 
Austria  and  Russia : — "  For,"  he  added, 
"  the  treaty  that  your  secretaries  have  just 
concluded  with  Poland  is  also  sufficient  to 
keep  us  in  the  same  alliance,  and  when  we 
shall  come  to  the  treaty  of  peace  with  the 
Turks  we  will  inform  you  through  the  King 
of  Poland  or  by  letter.  With  regard  to  the 
title  of  '  Majesty,'  the  embassadors  to  your 
Serenities  will  inform  you  that  it  is  not  in 
the  power  of  our  Imperial  Majesty  to  give 
%  it,  since  there  has  been  no  example  that 
we  have  given  it  to  any  other  power. 
Nevertheless,  to  show  your  Serenities  our 


PETER    THE    GREAT. 


369 


fraternal  friendship  and  cordiality,  we  have 
willed  that  our  ministers  and  officers  should 
give  you  the  title  of  '  Majesty,'  and  we  have 
received  at  the  audience  of  leave  your 
ambassadors,  and  given  our  letters  from  our 
Imperial  hand,  which  we  shall  do  in  future 
to  all  the  embassadors  and  envoys  who 
shall  come  from  your  Serenities.  This  is 
on  the  condition,  however,  that  your  Seren- 
ities shall  take  under  their  protection  the 
Catholic  and  Roman  religion  which  we  pro- 
fess, and,  although  we  have  spoken  about  it 
to  your  embassadors  in  several  conferences, 
they  have  always  protested  their  unwilling- 
ness to  hear  of  it.  Nevertheless,  we  find 
ourselves  obliged  to  say  to  your  Serenities 
that  what  we  shall  do  in  this  matter  accord- 
ing to  our  Imperial  good  pleasure  shall 
be  of  no  value  in  case  your  Serenities 
are  unwilling  to  protect  the  Catholic  and 
Roman  religion — a  case  which,  we  think,  will 
never  arise  on  account  of  your  great  and 
fraternal  friendship." 

Volk6f,  one  of  the  Mission,  went  from 
Vienna  to  Venice  with  similar  instructions. 
Through  the  kindness  of  the  Austrian 
Government,  he  was  provided  with  letters 
of  introduction  from  the  Emperor  to  the 
Chevalier  Cornaro. 

The  same  year,  Prince  Jacob  Dolgoruky 
and  Prince  Jacob  Mysh£tsky  were  sent  on 
an  embassy  to  Holland,  France  and  Spain. 

The  choice  of  embassadors  seems  to  have 
been  unfortunate,  for  none  of  them  spoke 
any  other  language  than  Russian,  and  they 
were  unacquainted  with  the  ways  or  even 
the  manners  of  diplomacy.  In  Holland 
they  were  well  received,  and  sent  from 
there  a  courier  to  announce  their  arrival  at 
Paris.  Owing  to  ignorance  of  usage,  the 
courier  refused  to  deliver  the  letter  with 
which  he  was  charged  to  any  one  but  the 
King  in  person.  He  could  not  be  persuaded 
to  communicate  it  to  the  Minister  of  Foreign 
Affairs,  and  his  request  for  an  audience  was 
refused,  and  he  was  sent  back  without  the 
actual  contents  of  the  letter  being  known. 
News,  however,  of  the  approaching  em- 
bassy had  been  received  by  the  Court  of 
Versailles  from  its  agents  in  Holland. 
When  the  Russian  embassadors  reached 
Dunkirk,  they  were  met  by  M.  de  Torff,  a 
gentleman  in  ordinary  of  the  King's  house- 
hold, who  was  sent  to  compliment  them, 
and  to  ascertain  the  object  of  their  mission. 
They  promised  De  Torff  that  they  would 
fully  explain  the  objects  of  their  mission  to 
Monseigneur  de  Croissy,  the  Secretary  for 
Foreign  Affairs,  before  demanding  audience 

VOL.  XX.— 25. 


of  the  King,  and  promised  further  that  they 
would  in  all  respects  conform  to  the  royal 
wishes.  Not  satisfied  with  verbal  promises, 
De  Torff  insisted  that  they  should  be  put  in 
writing,  which  was  done,  and,  at  their  dicta- 
tion, he  wrote  a  letter  to  that  effect,  which 
was  signed  by  them,  and  which  he  sent  to 
Versailles.  On  the  return  of  the  courier  the 
Embassy  set  out  for  Paris  (on  the  22d  of 
July),  in  carriages  sent  from  the  Court.  All 
their  luggage  was  sealed  at  the  Custom 
House,  and  was  not  to  be  opened  until  they 
reached  Paris.  It  was  fully  explained  to 
the  embassadors  that  there  it  would  be 
examined  and  passed,  and  that  in  the  mean- 
time the  royal  seals  must  not  be  touched. 
In  spite  of  this,  and  of  their  promise  to 
comply  with  the  royal  wishes,  they  broke 
the  seals  of  their  luggage  at  St.  Denis,  where 
they  exposed  for  sale  the  articles  they 
brought  with  them.  "Their  house  was 
thronged  with  merchants,  and  they  made  a 
public  commerce  of  their  stuffs  and  furs, 
forgetting,  so  to  speak,  their  dignity  as  em- 
bassadors, that  they  might  act  as  retail 
merchants,  and  preferring  their  profit  and 
private  interests  to  the  honor  of  their 
masters."  De  Torff  managed  to  put  a  stop 
to  this  proceeding,  and  the  embassadors 
formally  entered  Paris  in  a  great  procession, 
on  the  Qth  of  August,  and  three  days  after- 
ward had  their  first  audience  of  the  King 
at  Versailles.  In  Paris  there  was  another 
difficulty.  The  embassadors  refused  to 
allow  their  luggage  to  be  examined  by  the 
customs  officers ;  locksmiths  were  brought, 
and  a  police  official,  sent  by  the  provost, 
undertook  to  search  the  luggage.  He  was 
reviled  and  insulted,  and  one  of  the  embas- 
sadors actually  drew  a  knife  upon  him.  The 
affair  was  at  once  reported  to  the  King,  who 
sent  to  the  embassadors  the  presents  he  had 
intended  for  the  Tsars,  and  ordered  them  to 
leave  the  country  at  once;  but  the  embassa- 
dors refused  to  accept  the  presents  without 
an  audience  of  the  King.  Louis  XIV.,  in- 
dignant at  this,  sent  back  to  the  embassa- 
dors the  presents  they  had  brought  him  from 
the  Tsars,  and  again  ordered  them  to  leave. 
They  refused  to  budge,  and  De  Torff  was 
obliged  to  take  all  the  furniture  out  of  the 
house  in  which  they  were  living,  and  for- 
bid them  anything  to  eat.  Next  day  the 
embassadors  were  brought  by  hunger  and 
discomfort  to  a  sense  of  their  position,  and 
begged  De  Torff  to  intercede  for  them ;  for 
they  feared,  they  said,  that  if  the  King  should 
refuse  the  presents,  or  if  they  should  go  away 
without  an  audience  of  leave,  they  would 


37° 


PETER    THE   GREAT. 


lose  their  heads  on  their  return  to  Moscow. 
They  even  consented  to  allow  their  luggage 
to  be  examined,  and  to  conduct  negotiations 
with  the  Minister  of  Foreign  Affairs  and  not 
with  the  King  personally,  which  they  had 
previously  refused  to  do.  Not  receiving  a 
favorable  answer,  they  started,  and  it  was 
not  until  they  had  reached  St.  Denis,  where 
De  Torff  made  a  little  delay, — though  he  sent 
on  the  luggage  to  show  that  no  long  stay 
must  be  thought  of, — that  the  affair  was 
arranged.  The  luggage  was  at  last  exam- 
ined, the  embassadors  had  a  political  inter- 
view with  Monseigneur  de  Croissy,  in  which 
they  explained  the  object  of  their  mission, 
and  two  days  afterward  had  a  parting  audi- 
ence of  King  Louis  XIV.,  dined  at  Court, 
and  were  shown  the  gardens  and  fountains 
of  Versailles.  By  this  time  they  had  become 
so  pleased  with  France  that  they  did  not 
wish  to  leave  on  the  day  fixed,  and  used 
every  pretext  to  prolong  their  stay.  They 
finally  departed  from  St.  Denis  on  the  loth 
of  September,  and  reached  Havre,  with  the 
speed  of  those  times,  in  four  days.  Here, 
after  a  few  days'  detention  from  bad 
weather,  they  were  put  on  board  a  French 
man-of-war,  which  was  to  take  them  to 
Spain,  for,  on  account  of  the  difficulties  they 
had  caused,  permission  was  refused  them 
to  go  overland.  Before  they  sailed,  De 
Torff  made  a  request,  in  the  name  of  the 
King,  that  thenceforth  the  Tsars  should  pay 
the  expenses  of  their  own  embassies.  The 
King  promised  to  do  the  same.  To  please 
the  embassadors,  the  request  was  put  into 
writing. 

This  proposal,  like  the  similar  one  made 
at  Vienna,  aimed  at  the  assimilation  of  Rus- 
sian embassies  to  those  of  European  powers, 
and  at  the  abolition  of  the  Oriental  method 
of  mutual  entertainment.  No  more  Russian 
embassies  came  to  France  for  a  long  time, 
and  the  matter  seems  to  have  been  so  far 
forgotten  that  no  specific  instructions  on  this 
subject  were  given  to  the  French  agents  in 
Moscow.  At  least  M.  de  Baluze,  the 
French  minister  at  Moscow,  writes  to  the 
King  in  August,  1704,  complaining  that  the 
hundred  rubles  (about  four  hundred  French 
livres)  which  he  received  weekly  from  the 
Tsar's  treasury,  was  not  regularly  paid,  and 
saying  that  he  thought  he  had  a  right  to  this 
money,  as  Russian  embassies  to  France  were 
paid  for  by  the  king.  In  the  preliminary 
examination  given  to  all  dispatches  at  the 
Foreign  Office,  the  Minister  of  Foreign 
Affairs  has  run  his  pencil  through  this  pas- 
sage, with  the  remark  "  skip,"  addressed  to 


the  secretary  whose  duty  it  was  to  read  it 
aloud  to  the  King. 

With  regard  to  the  commerce  which  the 
Embassy  appeared  to  have  carried  on  in  St. 
Denis  and  in  Paris,  it  must  be  said  that,  ow- 
ing to  the  very  bad  financial  system  prevailing 
in  Russia,  the  salary  of  the  embassadors  was 
chiefly  paid  in  furs,  which  they  were  to  dis- 
pose of  as  they  could,  and  unless  they  were 
allowed  to  sell  them  they  might  be  unpro- 
vided with  current  funds.  The  history  of 
this  Embassy  is  as  important  as  it  is  curious,, 
because  the  embassadors,  on  their  return, 
presented  false  reports  to  the  Tsars  as  to- 
the  treatment  which  they  had  undergone. 
Those  reports  produced  a  strong  impression 
at  Moscow,  and  brought  about  great  cool- 
ness, almost  hostility,  in  the  relations  between 
the  two  countries.  It  was  some  time  before 
the  reason  of  this  was  ascertained  at  Paris. 
When  it  became  known,  a  memorandum, 
giving  a  true  account  of  what  did  pass,  was 
sent  to  the  French  residents  in  Poland  and 
Germany. 

The  sum  and  substance  of  the  conference 
at  St.  Denis  was  this  :  The  embassadors. 
began  by  saying  that  Russia  had  made  a 
league  with  Poland  against  the  Turks,  and 
they  had  come  on  behalf  of  their  masters  to 
His  Majesty,  as  the  greatest  Prince  in  the 
world,  to  beg  him  to  enter  into  this  league,, 
and  to  join  his  arms  with  theirs  for  the  glory 
of  the  Christian  name.  De  Croissy  replied 
that  His  Majesty  had  much  friendship 
for  the  Tsars,  and  had  always  approved 
and  still  approved  of  them  turning  their 
arms  against  the  Turks;  that  he  had  also 
heard,  with  pleasure,  of  the  treaty  of 
alliance  which  they  had  concluded  with 
Poland ;  that  he  had  made  known,  on 
several  occasions,  the  sincerity  of  his  inten- 
tion for  the  glory  of  the  Christian  name;, 
that  in  reality  he  ought  to  go  to  war  against 
the  Emperor  of  Germany  on  his  sister-in- 
law's  account,  in  view  of  the  oppression  she 
had  suffered  in  the  Palatinate,  but  that  he 
abstained  because  he  did  not  wish  to  trouble 
the  prosperity  of  the  Christian  arms.  He 
could  not  declare  war  against  Turkey  with- 
out reason,  for  he  had  recently  renewed  the 
capitulations,  and,  besides,  a  war  would 
injure  the  commerce  of  his  subjects  in  the 
East,  and,  on  account  of  the  great  distance,, 
would  be  too  expensive.  The  embassadors 
replied  that  the  Tsars  had  also  been  at 
peace  with  the  Turks  when  they  declared 
war  against  him,  and  that,  in  acting  for  the 
glory  of  Jesus  Christ,  one  ought  not  to 
have  regard  for  treaties  :  that  they  had  not 


PETER    THE   GREAT. 


hesitated  on  that  score  to  attack  the  Turk. 
As  far  as  commerce  was  concerned,  that 
could  be  carried  on  equally  well,  and  possi- 
bly much  better,  with  the  successors  of  the 
Turks — the  Christian  nations  of  the  East. 
But  still,  if  the  King  would  not  enter  the 
league,  they  hoped  at  least  he  would  not 
trouble  the  prosperity  of  their  arms  by  a 
declaration  of  war.  De  Croissy  answered  : 
"The  King  has  no  wish  to  disturb  the 
Christians  in  their  enterprise.  Tell  the 
Tsars  that,  so  long  as  the  allied  princes  do 
not  give  to  His  Majesty  legitimate  cause  for 
complaint,  he  will  always  be  very  glad  to 
see  them  continue  to  employ  their  arms  in 
putting  down  the  Infidels."  The  embassa- 
dors  then  set  forth  to  the  minister  the  great 
advantage  which  would  accrue  to  France  by 
entering  into  commerce  with  the  Russians 
by  way  of  Archangel,  and  promised  French 
traders  all  the  advantages  then  enjoyed  by 
the  English  and  the  Dutch.  This  De 
Croissy  said  he  would  take  into  considera- 
tion, and  then  suggested  that,  as  the  King 
of  France  sent  missionaries  to  China,  and 
learned  that  caravans  for  Pekin  left  Tobolsk, 
the  capital  of  Siberia,  every  six  months,  he 
would  be  glad  if  the  Tsars  would  permit  the 
passage  through  Siberia,  with  these  cara- 
vans, of  Jesuits  and  other  missionaries,  as 
the  last  named  journey  was  much  easier 
than  that  by  the  sea.  The  embassadors  said 
they  had  no  power  to  consent  to  this,  but 
thought  that  no  difficulty  would  be  raised. 

At  this  time  there  was  prevalent  at 
Moscow  a  sort  of  suspicion  of  everything 
French,  similar  in  nature  and  effects  to  the 
Russophobia  so  prevalent  in  England  at  the 
present  day.  Sensible  as  the  Dutch  Resident 
was,  he  was  afflicted  with  this  disease,  and 
saw  everywhere  French  intrigues.  It  was 
plain  to  him  that  the  Danish  Resident,  Von 
Horn,  was  acting  in  the  interests,  if  not  in 
the  pay,  of  Louis  XIV.  He  calls  him,  in 
one  of  his  dispatches,  "  a  better  Turk  than 
Christian";  and  in  another  he  says:  "  He 
makes  such  a  show,  and  spends  so  much 
money,  that  it  must  necessarily  come  out  of 
some  other  purse  than  his  own."  He  even 
discovered  a  Frenchman  in  the  Danish 
suite.  He  believed,  and  apparently  suc- 
ceeded in  making  the  Russians  believe,  that 
Van  Horn  had  come  to  Moscow  for  the 
purpose  of  putting  a  stop  to  a  good  under- 
standing between  Sweden  and  Russia.  It 
also  seemed  plain  to  the  Dutch  Resident 
that  the  French  had  intrigued  at  Constanti- 
nople to  incite  the  Turks  to  make  war  on 
Austria  and  invade  Hungary,  and  that  they 


intrigued,  both  at  Warsaw  and  at  Vienna, 
to  prevent  the  triple  alliance.  It  was  for 
the  interest  of  France  that  the  German  Em- 
pire should  be  humbled,  and  for  that  pur- 
pose it  seemed  to  him  natural  that  France 
should  not  desire  Russia  to  enter  into  an 
alliance  with  Austria,  or  Sweden  to  be  on 
friendly  terms  with  its  neighbor.  I  do  not 
discuss  the  basis  for  these  statements;  I 
am  only  amused  at  the  conviction  with 
which  they  were  made. 

The  negotiations,  therefore,  at  Moscow 
were  not  always  easy  matters,  and  from 
time  to  time  persons  came  there  who  were 
really  nothing  but  adventurers,  but  to  whom 
a  fictitious  importance  was  given,  either 
from  their  own  braggart  airs  or  from  the 
suspicion  that  they  were  French  spies. 
Among  these  was  a  man  calling  himself 
sometimes  M.  de  Sanis,  sometimes  Comte  de 
Sanis,  sometimes  Sheikh  Alibeg,  but  always 
a  relative  of  the  Shah  of  Persia,  and  a 
brother-in-law  of  the  renowned  traveler 
Tavernier.  He  made  out  that  he  had  been 
baptized,  and  therefore  could  not  at  once  go 
back  to  Persia,  but  at  the  same  time  he 
would  set  forth  his  great  importance  in  that 
country,  and  wrote,  or  pretended  to  write, 
frequent  letters  to  the  Shah — at  least  some 
drafts  of  letters  were  subsequently  found 
among  his  effects.  He  came  with  a  certain 
amount  of  money,  he  spent  more,  and 
borrowed  besides.  He  gave  entertainments 
at  which  the  grandees  and  the  most  notable 
foreign  residents  appeared ;  he  was  on  good 
terms  with  the  Danish  Resident,  and  it  was 
plain  to  all  right-thinking  Dutch  and  English 
that  he  was  nothing  less  than  a  French  spy. 
In  hopes,  perhaps,  to  worm  out  some  secrets, 
they  even  lent  him  money.  One  night, 
however,  he  disappeared,  leaving  nothing 
but  debts  and  cast-off  clothing;  he  suc- 
ceeded somehow  in  spiriting  himself  across 
the  frontier,  and  was  never  heard  of  after, 
except  through  a  small  pamphlet  published 
at  Geneva  in  1685,  which  purported  to  give 
his  veracious  history. 

The  prejudice  against  France  lingered  on 
for  a  long  time,  even  until  the  visit  of  Peter 
to  the  Court  of  Versailles  in  1716,  and  it 
was,  perhaps,  as  much  due  to  this  prejudice 
as  to  any  better  reason  that  the  government 
of  Sophia,  on  the  proposition  of  the  Envoy 
from  Brandenburg,  gave  full  and  free  per- 
mission to  all  Protestants  driven  out  of 
France  by  the  revocation  of  the  Edict  of 
Nantes  to  settle  in  Russia,  to  establish 
themselves  there,  and  to  enter  the  public 
service. 


372 


PETER    THE    GREAT. 


XIX. 
TROUBLES  WITH  TURKS  AND  TARTARS. 

EVEN  before  the  conclusion  of  the  perma- 
nent peace  with  Poland,  Russia  had  been 
brought  into  hostile  relations  with  Turkey, 
through  the  intrigues  of  Doroshenko,  the 
chief  of  the  Zaporovian  Cossacks  on  the 
lower  Dnieper.  Wishing  to  secure  the  in- 
dependence of  his  band,  Doroshenko  had 
played,  by  turns,  into  the  hands  of  Russia 
and  Poland,  and  had  even  finally  given  in 
his  submission  to  the  Turks.  He  had 
extended  his  domain  to  the  western  side  of 
the  Dnieper,  and  had  established  his  capital 
at  Tchigirin,  or  Cehryn,  a  small  fortified 
town  on  the  river  Tiasmin,  near  the  Dnieper, 
and  on  the  very  frontiers  of  Turkey.  Al- 
though the  Turks  insisted  upon  their  suprem- 
acy, they  rendered  him  no  assistance,  and 
Doroshenko,  to  insure  himself  against  the 
Turks,  swore  allegiance  to  the  Russian  Tsar 
— an  allegiance  that  was  considered  so  lax 
that  the  Government  felt  it  necessary  to 
occupy  Tchigirin  with  troops  and  send 
Doroshenko  to  private  life  in  Little  Russia. 
Up  to  this  time  there  had  never  been  any 
hostilities  between  the  Russians  and  the 
Turks,  for  the  capture  of  the  town  of  Azof, 
in  the  early  part  of  the  reign  of  the  Tsar 
Alexis,  had  been  effected  by  the  Cossacks 
of  the  Don,  and  their  proceedings,  after 
careful  consideration  in  a  grand  council, 
were  disapproved  by  the  Russian  Govern- 
ment, and  the  town  was  returned  to  the 
Turks.  The  relations  between  Russia  and 
Turkey  had  been  so  friendly  that  the  Rus- 
sian embassadors  at  Constantinople  were 
always  treated  with  greater  consideration 
than  those  of  other  powers,  and  they  more 
generally  succeeded  in  accomplishing  their 
ends.  Russia  was  at  that  time  virtually  an  Ori- 
ental power ;  its  embassadors  understood  the 
feelings  and  ways  of  Orientals,  and  its  rela- 
tions with  the  Turks  were,  therefore,  simpler 
and  more  easily  managed  than  those  of  the 
Western  nations.  The  occasional  incursions 
of  the  Crim  Tartars  into  the  Russian  border 
provinces  had  produced  disputes  and  dis- 
agreements, but  these  were  readily  settled. 
The  troubles  caused  by  the  Cossacks  of  the 
Ukraine,  since  their  separation  from  Poland 
and  their  first  oath  of  allegiance  to  Russia, 
had  lasted  so  long,  and  had  been  the  cause 
of  so  many  forays  of  the  Tartars,  that 
it  was  almost  in  an  imperceptible  manner 
that  the  friendly  relations  of  Russia  and 
Turkey  became  so  far  cooled  as  to  pro- 


duce an  open  war.  On  the  representa- 
tion of  the  Tartar  Khan  that  Doroshenko 
had  gone  over  to  the  Russians,  the 
Sultan  drew  forth  from  the  Seven  Towers, 
in  which  he  was  imprisoned,  Yury  Khmel- 
nitsky,  the  son  of  old  Bogdan,  a  fugitive 
Cossack  Hetman,  and  proclaimed  him  Het- 
man  and  Prince  of  Little  Russia.  He  de- 
clared his  claim  to  the  whole  of  the  Ukraine 
and  Little  Russia,  and  his  intention  of  tak- 
ing possession  of  the  country  by  force  of 
arms.  The  efforts  of  the  Russians  to  ward 
off  the  war  were  futile,  as  they  could  not 
consent  to  deliver  up  the  whole  of  the 
Ukraine  to  the  Turks.  War  with  Turkey 
seemed  to  the  Russians  of  that  day  a  much 
more  dangerous  and  terrible  thing  than  it 
really  proved  to  be.  The  Turks  were  then 
at  the  height  of  their  success ;  they  still  held 
the  greater  part  of  Hungary,  and  their  troops 
had  not  yet  been  defeated  before  Vienna. 
In  point  of  fact,  the  whole  war  was  reduced 
to  two  campaigns  against  Tchigirin.  In 
August,  1677,  the  Seraskier  Ibrahim  Pasha, 
together  with  Khmelnitsky,  appeared  before 
Tchigirin,  where  they  were  to  be  met  by  the 
Tartar  Khan.  Prince  Romodanofsky  had 
command  of  the  Russian  forces,  supported 
by  the  Hetman  Samoilovitch  and  his  Cos- 
sacks. The  efforts  of  the  Turks  and  Tartars 
to  prevent  the  crossing  of  the  Russians 
failed.  The  Pasha  of  Bosnia,  with  sixteen 
thousand  troops,  was  routed,  and  on  the 
seventh  of  September,  only  three  weeks  after 
his  first  appearance  there,  and  on  the  anni- 
versary of  the  evacuation  of  Corfu  by  the 
Turks,  and  the  deliverance  of  Malta,  Ibra- 
him Pasha  was  obliged  to  raise  the  siege  and 
hastily  retire,  pursued  by  the  whole  garrison 
of  Tchigirin.  The  Turks  retreated  in  such 
haste  that  in  three  days  they  arrived  at  the 
river  Bug,  although  they  had  taken  thirteen 
to  advance  from  there  to  Tchigirin.  They 
lost  all  their  artillery  and  all  their  baggage, 
and  their  loss  in  men  was  estimated  by  them- 
selves at  10,000,  and  by  the  Russians  at  only 
4,000, — a  circumstance  almost  unique  in 
military  annals,  where  it  is  a  received  rule  to 
undervalue  your  own  losses  and  exaggerate 
those  of  the  enemy.  When  the  Turks  had 
got  out  of  reach,  the  Russians  put  Tchigirin 
into  a  state  of  defense  and  withdrew  the 
great  body  of  their  troops  to  Little  Russia, 
while  they  discussed  whether  it  were  better 
to  abandon  Tchigirin  entirely,  or  to  increase 
its  garrison  and  hold  it  against  the  Turks. 
The  latter  alternative  was  considered  prefer- 
able, for  Samoilovitch  represented  that,  if  the 
town  were  destroyed,  the  Turks  could  easily 


PETER    THE   GREAT. 


373 


rebuild  it,  and  would  then  have  an  open 
road  into  the  heart  of  the  Ukraine.  As  soon 
as  the  news  of  the  Turkish  disaster  reached 
Constantinople,  great  preparations  were  made 
for  a  new  campaign.  Taxes  were  increased, 
and  all  persons  in  service  were  ordered  to  be 
ready  f0r  departure.  The  Seraskier  Ibrahim 
Pasha  was  disgraced,  and  the  Khan  of  the 
Crimea,  Selim  Ghirei,  who  was  charged  with 
the  blame  of  the  defeat,  was  deposed.  A 
Russian  embassador,  Porosukof,  was  sent  to 
Constantinople  to  endeavor  to  make  peace, 
as,  in  spite  of  their  defeat,  the  Turks  still  in- 
sisted on  the  surrender  of  Tchigirin  and  the 
lower  Dnieper,  and  the  Russians  were  obliged 
to  continue  their  preparations  for  a  new 
campaign.  About  the  middle  of  July,  1678, 
the  Grand  Vizier  Kara  Mustafa  Pasha  ap- 
peared before  Tchigirin,  and,  after  a  solemn 
sacrifice  to  God,  to  implore  his  protection, 
the  siege  was  begun.  The  investment  pro- 
gressed slowly,  and  the  Turks  were  in  such 
straits  that  they  were  about  to  abandon  the 
siege,  when,  on  the  advice  of  Ahmed  Pasha, 
they  resolved  to  throw  themselves  between 
the  Russians  and  the  fortress  on  the  other  side 
of  the  river,  and  risk  everything  in  a  battle. 
They  were  signally  defeated,  and  retreated 
with  great  loss.  Nine  days  later  they  re- 
solved to  make  one  more  attack,  and  while 
the  Russians  and  Cossacks  were  celebrating, 
with  an  unusual  amount  of  drunkenness,  the 
feast  of  St.  Matthew,  which  fell  on  a  Sun- 
day, they  exploded  two  mines,  which  made 
a  breach  in  the  wall,  and  took  the  town  by 
assault.  Subsequently  they  succeeded  in  re- 
pelling a  night  attack  on  their  camp  by  the 
Russians ;  but  news  having  reached  the 
Grand  Vizier  that  the  Russians  contemplated 
another  such  attack,  he  thought  it  best  to 
retire,  and  was  subsequently  worsted  in  an 
encounter  with  the  troops  of  Romodanofsky, 
who  followed  him  up.  Although  one  aim 
of  the  Turkish  campaign  had  been  accom- 
plished— the  destruction  of  Tchigirin — no 
part  of  the  Ukraine  had  been  occupied,  and 
barely  a  quarter  of  the  Turkish  army  returned 
with  the  Grand  Vizier  to  Adrianople. 

The  Turks  made  no  further  campaign, 
but  the  Russians  were  constantly  agitated  by 
the  prospect  of  greater  sacrifices  and  greater 
losses.  Negotiations  for  peace  were  carried 
on,  and  were  at  last  successful  in  1680, 
when,  by  the  advice  of  the  Grand  Vizier, 
these  negotiations  were  continued  with  the 
Khan  of  the  Crimea.  By  the  peace  thus 
concluded,  which  was  ratified  at  Constanti- 
nople in  1 68 1,  a  truce  for  twenty  years  was 
agreed  upon  with  the  Tartars  and  the  Turks, 


the  Turkish  dominions  were  allowed  to  ex- 
tend to  the  Dnieper,  and  even  the  Zapero- 
vian  Cossacks  were  for  the  moment  given  up 
to  them,  while  Kief  and  all  the  Ukraine  was 
recognized  as  belonging  to  Russia.  Al- 
though the  Russians  were  at  first  unwilling 
to  consent  to  the  surrender  of  the  Zaporo- 
vians,  yet  the  news  of  the  treaty  was  received 
with  great  joy,  not  only  at  Moscow,  but  also 
through  the  whole  of  Little  Russia,  for  it  was 
thought  that  the  relief  from  the  dangers  of 
war  with  Turkey  were  cheaply  bought  at  the 
sacrifice  of  a  bare  steppe  and  a  troublesome 
population.  In  spite  of  the  treaty  concluded 
in  the  reign  of  Theodore,  the  action  of  Tur- 
key toward  Russia  was  frequently  very  un- 
friendly. Contrary  to  the  provisions  of  the 
treaty,  the  towns  on  the  lower  Dnieper  were 
allowed  to  be  again  inhabited  ;  more  than 
that,  the  inhabitants  of  the  eastern  bank  of 
the  river  were  invited  to  cross  and  settle  on 
the  other  side,  and  even  Tchigirin  was  colo- 
nized by  Wallachs.  In  addition  to  this,  in- 
cendiaries were  sent  across  the  river  to  set 
fire  to  towns  and  farm-houses,  in  hopes  that 
the  population  would  thus  be  forced  to 
emigrate  to  the  western  side. 

The  Government  of  Sophia  was  bound  by 
the  Treaty  of  Eternal  Peace  with  Poland  to 
make  war  upon  the  Turks,  and  was  incited 
besides  by  the  splendid  success  of  the  Aus- 
trians  in  recapturing  Buda.  and  by  the 
progress  of  the  Venetians  in  the  Morea,  but 
it  intended  to  direct  the  Russian  arms  not 
so  much  against  the  Turks  themselves  as 
against  their  dependents,  the  Tartars.  The 
relations  with  the  Tartars  had  become 
almost  unendurable.  Although  the  old 
lines  of  defensive  walls  through  the  country 
still  existed,  they  were  badly  kept  up,  and 
in  the  early  part  of  the  seventeenth  cen- 
tury, and  even  during  the  reign  of  Alexis, 
in  the  midst  of  peace,  towns  were  surprised 
and  their  inhabitants  all  carried  off  to 
slavery.  In  1662,  the  Tartars  captured  the 
town  of  Putivl,  and  carried  off  twenty  thou- 
sand prisoners.  There  was  not  a  harbor  in 
the  East,  in  Greece,  Turkey,  Syria  or  Egypt, 
where  Russian  slaves  were  not  to  be  seen 
rowing  in  the  galleys;  the  Khan  of  the 
Crimea  sent  at  one  time  to  the  JSultan  eighty 
Russian  boys  as  a  present.  The  Servian 
Kryzhanitch  says  that,  so  great  was  the 
crowd  everywhere  of  Russian  slaves,  that 
the  Turks  asked  in  mockery  whether  any 
inhabitants  still  remained  in  Russia.  For  a 
while  the  Tartars  were  kept  in  some  kind 
of  order  by  the  yearly  payment  of  large 
sums,  which  the  Russians  called  presents, 


374 


PETER    THE    GREAT. 


and  the  Tartars  called  tribute;  but  even  dur- 
ing the  regency  of  Sophia  the  Tartar  incur- 
sions were  renewed  and  the  inhabitants  of 
whole  villages  were  carried  away,  although 
these  forays  were  on  a  much  smaller  scale 
than  before.  In  1682,  the  Russian  Envoy 
Tarakanof  was  seized  by  order  of  the  Khan, 
taken  into  a  stable  and  beaten  with  a  cudgel, 
as  well  as  tortured  by  fire,  in  order  to  ex- 
tort his  consent  to  the  payment  of  a  larger 
tribute.  As  a  result  of  this,  the  Russians 
refused  to  send  any  more  envoys,  and  in- 
sisted that  all  negotiations  should  be  carried 
on  at  some  place  on  the  frontier.  The 
Government  at  Moscow  was  influenced 
more  and  more  by  a  feeling  of  national 
honor,  but  it  was  remote  from  the  scene  of 
hostilities.  The  Cossacks  of  the  Ukraine, 
who  would  have  to  bear  the  burden  of  the 
campaign,  and  who  would  be  exposed  to 
reprisals  in  case  of  disaster,  were  not  so  in- 
clined to  engage  in  war,  either  against  the 
Turks  or  the  Tartars.  If  war  must  be,  they 
preferred  it  against  their  old  enemies,  the 
Poles.  For  that  reason  the  Hetman  Sam- 
oflovitch  constantly  opposed  the  alliance 
with  Poland,  and  deprecated  any  campaign 
against  the  Tartars.  He  thought  the  Tar- 
tars easy  to  manage — at  the  expense,  to  be 
sure,  of  a  sum  of  money — and  preferred  the 
comfort  and  security  of  his  subjects  to  the 
delicate  feelings  of  honor  of  the  regency  at 
Moscow.  Curiously  enough,  more  advice 
against  the  war  came  from  the  Patriarch  of 
Constantinople,  who,  in  the  name  of  the 
Eastern  Christians,  begged  the  Tsars  to 
remain  at  peace  with  Turkey,  as  in  case  of 
war  the  Sultan  would  turn  all  his  rage 
against  them.  "  We  beg  and  pray  your 
Tsarish  Majesty,"  wrote  Dionysius,  in  Jan- 
uary, 1687,  "do  not  be  guilty  of  shedding 
the  blood  of  so  many  Christians  ;  do  not 
help  the  French  and  extirpate  the  orthodox 
Christians.  This  will  be  neither  pleasing  to 
God  nor  praiseworthy  to  men." 

War,  however,  had  been  resolved  upon, 
and,  in  the  autumn  of  1686,  the  order  was 
given  to  prepare  for  a  campaign  against 
the  Crimea.  In  the  decree  of  the  Tsars  it 
was  declared : 

"  The  campaign  is  undertaken  to  free  the  Russian 
land  from  unendurable  insults  and  humiliations. 
From  no  place  do  the  Tartars  carry  away  so  many 
prisoners  as  from  Russia  ;  they  sell  Christians  like 
cattle,  and  insult  the  orthodox  faith.  But  this  is 
little.  The  Russian  Empire  pays  the  Infidels  a 
yearly  tribute,  for  which  it  suffers  shame  and 
reproaches  from  neighboring  states,  and  even  this 
tribute  does  not  at  all  protect  its  boundaries.  The 
Khan  takes  money,  dishonors  Russian  envoys,  and 


destroys  Russian  towns,  and  the  Turkish   Sultan 
has  no  control  whatever  over  him." 

An  army  of  100,000  men  was  collected  at 
the  river  Merlo,  under  the  chief  command 
of  Prince  Basil  Galftsyn,  and  in  May,  1687, 
he  was  joined  on  the  Samara  by  Hetman 
Samoilovitch,  with  50,000  Cossacks.  Gal- 
itsyn,  though  a  great  statesman,  was  not  a 
good  general,  and  accepted  the  command 
much  against  his  will.  It  was  forced  on 
him  by  his  enemies ;  he  himself  would  have 
preferred  to  remain  at  Moscow  to  counter- 
act their  schemes.  This  was  the  time  when 
the  aristocratic  party  was  forming  itself 
around  Peter,  and  was  using  his  name  in 
their  opposition  to  the  regency  of  Sophia. 
Galftsyn  was  especially  hated  by  that  party. 
He  had  only  one  faithful  adherent  in  Mos- 
cow on  whom  he  could  thoroughly  depend, 
and  their  interests  were  closely  bound  to- 
gether. That  was  Shaklovity.  Galftsyn  had 
no  sooner  started  on  his  campaign  than  he 
began  to  perceive  the  machinations  of  his 
enemies,  not  only  in  Moscow,  but  in  the 
camp.  From  Moscow  he  heard  that  his 
old  enemy  Prince  Michael  Tcherkasky  was 
rising  in  power,  and  was  about  to  succeed  to 
the  place  of  the  Boyar  StreshneT.  Galftsyn 
wrote  to  Shaklovity,  as  he  did  constantly  dur- 
ing the  campaign,  telling  his  griefs,  and  beg- 
ging his  assistance: 

"  We  always  have  sorrow  and  little  joy,  not  like 
those  who  are  always  joyful  and  have  their  own  way. 
In  all  my  affairs  my  only  hope  is  in  thee.  Write  me, 
pray,  whether  there  are  not  any  devilish  obstacles 
coming  from  these  people.  For  God's  sake,  keep  a 
sleepless  eye  on  Tcherkasky,  and  don't  let  him  have 
that  place,  even  if  you  have  to  use  the  influence  of 
the  Patriarch  or  of  the  Princess  against  him." 

The  reason  why  Galftsyn  talked  about 
using  the  influence  of  the  Patriarch  was 
because  he  found  that  the  Patriarch  was  not 
entirely  well  disposed  to  him,  and  had  taken 
various  vestments  from  a  church  which  he 
had  built  and  decorated,  and  had  prohibited 
their  use.  In  the  camp,  the  boyars  were 
disobedient  and  quarreled  over  their  places, 
and  did  much  to  annoy  him.  At  the  out- 
set of  the  campaign,  Prince  Boris  Dol- 
goruky  and  Yury  Stcherbatof  appeared, 
dressed  in  deep  black,  with  all  their  retainers 
in  mourning,  and  long  black  housings 
spread  over  their  horses.  This  was  not 
only  a  personal  insult  to  Galftsyn,  but  also, 
owing  to  the  superstition  of  the  time,  from 
which  Galftsyn  was  not  entirely  free,  exer- 
cised a  powerful  influence  on  the  minds  of 
the  soldiery,  as  a  presage  of  ill-luck.  This 
presage  was,  to  a  great  extent,  justified  by 


PETER    THE    GREAT. 


375 


the  results  of  the  campaign.  The  united 
army  of  the  Russians  and  Cossacks  advanced 
southward  through  the  steppe  till  they 
reached  a  place  called  the  Great  Meadow, 
near  the  little  stream  of  Karatchakrak,  about 
one  hundred  and  fifty  miles  from  the  Isthmus 
of  Perekop.  Not  a  sign  of  any  kind  could 
be  seen  of  the  Tartars,  but  the  Russians 
were  met  by  a  worse  enemy — a  fire  on  the 
steppe  which  destroyed  all  the  grass  and 
forage  for  miles  around,  threatened  the  loss 
of  the  baggage  and  provision  trains,  and 
at  the  most  oppressive  period  of  a  southern 
summer,  caused  the  army  great  suffering, 
from  flame  and  smoke.  A  timely  rain  filled 
the  streams,  but  still  there  was  no  forage, 
and  the  army  was  obliged  to  retreat  with- 
out even  having  seen  the  enemy.  Galitsyn 
•encamped  at  the  first  suitable  locality,  pro- 
posed to  send  a  force  of  30,000  men  to  the 
lower  Dnieper,  and  reported  to  Moscow 
for  further  orders.  Meanwhile  a  rumor  got 
into  circulation  in  the  camp  that  the  steppe 
had  been  set  on  fire,  not  by  the  Tartars,  but 
by  the  Cossacks,  with  the  intention  of  re- 
lieving themselves  from  the  burden  of  the 
further  campaign.  This  story,  in  the  highest 
degree  improbable,  found  some  credence, 
when  connected  with  what  was  called  the 
obstinacy  of  the  Hetman  Samoilovitch  in 
originally  opposing  the  war  against  the  Tar- 
tars, and  with  the  numerous  complaints  of 
oppression  against  him  from  his  own  subjects. 
The  Government,  after  sending  Shaklovity 
to  investigate  the  case,  decided  to  remove 
Samoilovitch.  Preparations  were  secretly 
made,  and,  on  the  2d  of  August,  he  was 
arrested  in  the  night,  relieved  of  the  post  of 
hetman,  and  sent  to  Moscow.  The  ukase 
dismissing  him  said  nothing  about  the  ac- 
cusation of  setting  fire  to  the  steppes,  but 
stated  merely  that,  in  order  to  prevent  an 
outbreak,  the  interests  of  Little  Russia 
required  the  removal  of  a  hetman  who  had 
no  longer  the  confidence  of  the  population. 
This  able,  energetic  and  remarkable  man 
was  succeeded  as  hetman  by  the  famous 
Mazeppa,  then  the  Secretary  General  of  the 
Cossack  Government.  Mazeppa's  election, 
as  well  as  the  fall  of  Samoilovitch,  was  due 
in  a  very  great  measure  to  the  personal 
influence  of  Galitsyn,  who  disliked  Samoilo- 
vitch. Mazeppa  showed  his  gratitude,  not 
oy  words  alone,  but  by  a  present  of  10,000 
rubles.  This  change  was  detrimental  to 
Russian  interests.  Samoilovitch  had  been 
thoroughly  devoted  to  his  people  and  to  the 
Russian  Government,  while  Mazeppa  began 
a  policy  of  deceit  which  culminated  in  his 


rebellion  against  Russia  during  the  Swedish 
invasion.  Samoilovitch  died  in  banishment 
in  Siberia,  and  one  of  his  sons  was  executed. 
His  whole  property  was  confiscated,  and 
half  of  it  given  to  Mazeppa. 

Galitsyn  returned  to  Moscow  late  in  the 
evening  of  the  i4th  of  September,  and  the 
next  morning  was  admitted  to  kiss  the  hands 
of  the  Regent  and  the  two  Tsars.  Although, 
according  to  the  Swedish  Envoy  Kochen, 


MEDAL  GIVEN  TO  PRINCE  GALITSYN  FOR  THE  CRIMEAN 
CAMPAIGN.     (DRAWN  BY  MAURICE   HOWARD.) 

forty  or  fifty  thousand  men  had  been  lost 
in  the  campaign,  yet  Galitsyn  was  hailed  as 
a  victorious  general,  and  speedily  regained 
all  his  former  power  and  prestige.  He 
received  a  gold  chain  and  three  hundred 
ducats,  and  gold  medals  were  struck  and 
given  to  the  officers  and  nobility,  while 
smaller  medals,  all  of  them  bearing  the 
effigies  of  Sophia,  Ivan  and  Peter,  as  well 
as  the  initial  letters  of  their  names,  were 
given  to  the  soldiery.  Money  and  land 
were  bestowed  lavishly,  as  never  before 
after  a  Russian  campaign,  and  even  the 
troops  who  came  too  late  were  not  left 
without  reward.  The  proclamation  of  the 
Regent  to  the  Russian  people  spoke  of  the 
campaign  as  a  splendid  victory,  recounted 
the  speedy  and  difficult  march,  the  panic  of 
the  Tartar  Khan,  the  horrors  of  the  burning 
steppes,  and  the  safe  retreat.  In  order  to 
keep  up  the  credit  of  the  Russian  arms, 
equally  glowing  accounts  of  the  success  of 
the  expedition  were  sent  abroad,  and  printed 
in  Dutch  and  German,  and  Baron  Van 


376 


PETER    THE  GREAT. 


Keller  himself  saw  that  an  apology  for 
Galitsyn  was  properly  printed  in  the  Dutch 
newspapers. 

xx. 

THE    SECOND    CRIMEAN    EXPEDITION. 

THE  Poles  were  no  more  lucky  than  the 
Russians  in  the  campaign  of  1687.  They 
vainly  besieged  the  fortress  of  Kamenetz,  in 
Podolia,  and  were  obliged  to  retire  in 
disgust.  Their  allies,  the  Austrians  and 
Venetians,  were  more  fortunate.  They 
beat  the  Turks  in  Hungary,  Dalmatia  and 
the  Morea,  and  took  possession  of  the  chief 
frontier  fortresses.  It  was  in  this  campaign 
that  Morosini  took  Athens,  a  conquest 
glorious  to  the  Venetians,  but  regretted  by 
posterity.  An  unfortunate  bomb  struck  the 
Parthenon,  and  exploded  the  Turkish  pow- 
der stored  in  it,  and  reduced  this  wonderful 
building  to  its  present  state.  From  the  Piraeus 
Morosini  took  the  four  marble  lions  which 
now  decorate  the  front  of  the  arsenal  at 
Venice.  The  Turkish  defeat  and  disasters 
resulted  in  a  military  rebellion,  which  cost 
the  Grand  Vizier  his  life,  and  the  Sultan 
Mohammed  IV.  his  throne.  He  was  re- 
placed by  his  elder  brother,  Suleiman  II. 
Turkey  had  never  been  in  such  straits,  and 
there  seemed  to  the  Christian  inhabitants 
every  chance  of  freeing  themselves  from  the 
Turkish  yoke.  Dionysius,  the  former  Patri- 
arch of  Constantinople,  who  had  been  de- 
posed for  the  fourth  time  through  the  intrigues 
of  rival  bishops  who  paid  higher  bribes  to 
the  Divan,  but  according  to  his  own  account 
for  having  yielded  in  the  matter  of  the 
metropolis  of  Kief,  wrote  to  the  Tsars  from 
his  refuge  at  Mount  Athbs,  and  in  the  name 
of  the  orthodox  Christians  besought  the 
Russians  to  turn  their  arms  once  more 
against  the  Turks. 

"  All  states  and  powers,"  he  wrote,  "  all 
pious,  orthodox  kings  and  princes  have 
together  risen  up  against  Anti-christ,  and 
are  warring  with  him  by  land  and  sea,  while 
your  empire  sleeps.  All  pious  people — 
Serbs,  Bulgarians,  Moldavians  and  Wallach- 
ians — are  waiting  for  your  holy  rule.  Rise ; 
do  not  sleep  ;  come  to  save  us." 

The  same  messenger,  Isaiah,  Archi- 
mandrite of  the  Monastery  of  St.  Paul  at 
Mount  Athos,  brought  a  letter  from  Stcher- 
ba^n  Cantacuzene,  the  Hospodar  of  Wal- 
lachia,  who  also  wrote  that  all  orthodox 
people  begged  the  Tsars  to  deliver  them 
from  the  hands  of  the  "  Pharaoh  in  the 


flesh."  A  similar  letter  came  from  Arse- 
nius,  the  Patriarch  of  Serbia.  The  Chris- 
tians, however,  prayed  the  Russians  not  so- 
much  against  the  Turks  as  against  the 
Latins  and  Papists.  They  feared  that  if 
Turkey  were  subjugated  by  the  Austrians 
and  Venetians,  without  the  intervention  of 
Russia,  the  religious  tyranny  of  the  Romish 
Church  would  be  worse  than  the  oppression 
of  the  Sultan.  The  Regent  replied  to  these 
demonstrations  by  urging  the  Wallachians 
to  send  the  large  Slavonic  forces,  of  which 
they  had  boasted,  to  assist  them  in  another 
campaign  against  the  Tartars,  saying  that 
after  the  Crimea  was  conquered  they  would 
see  to  the  freedom  of  the  countries  of  the 
Danube  and  the  Balkans.  Panslavism  had 
already  been  preached  in  Moscow,  and 
especially  by  the  Serb  Yiiry  Kryzhanitch,  the 
first  great  Slavophile,  and  it  is  interesting  to- 
see  how,  even  in  the  earliest  time  of  difficulty 
between  Turkey  and  Russia,  the  Slavonic 
populations  subject  to  the  Sultan  looked  to- 
Russia  as  their  natural  friend  and  protector. 

There  were  many  difficulties,  however,  in 
the  way  of  a  second  campaign.  The  finan- 
cial condition  of  Russia  was  very  bad,  the 
Russian  Envoy  Postnikof  had  been  unsuc- 
cessful in  concluding  a  loan  in  England — 
if  other  reasons  were  wanting,  the  troubles 
of  the  last  year  of  James  II.  were  sufficient 
— and  taxes  were  already  most  burdensome. 
Fears  lest  Poland  and  Austria  might  con- 
clude a  separate  peace  with  the  Turks 
which  would  be  disadvantageous  to  Russia ; 
the  urgent  demands  of  the  Poles  for  assist- 
ance, and  the  fact  that  the  Tartar  Khan,, 
in  spite  of  strict  orders  from  the  Sultan, 
had  himself  taken  the  offensive  and  had 
ravaged  the  border  provinces  of  Russia  and 
Poland,  advancing,  in  March,  1688,  through 
Volhynia  and  Podolia  nearly  to  Lemberg,. 
and  carrying  off  60,000  of  the  inhabitants- 
into  slavery, — these  were  sufficient  reasons- 
for  a  new  campaign. 

In  the  autumn  of  1688  the  new  cam- 
paign against  the  Crimea  was  proclaimed. 
All  preparations  were  made  for  starting  at 
an  early  period  in  the  spring,  and  for  guard- 
ing against  the  calamities  which  had  frus- 
trated the  previous  campaign,  and  the 
troops  were  ordered  to  be  at  their  rendez- 
vous no  later  than  February,  1689.  This 
time  it  was  absolutely  necessary  for  Galitsyn 
to  defeat  the  Tartars,  in  order  to  frustrate 
the  machinations  of  his  political  and  per- 
sonal enemies.  Hatred  to  him  went  so- 
far  that  it  is  said  an  assassin  even  attacked 
him  in  his  sledge,  and  was  arrested  by 


PETER    THE   GREAT. 


377 


I  one  of  his  servants.  The  assassin  was 
tortured,  but  no  publicity  was  given  to  the 
I  affair,  just  as  Galitsyn  was  starting  out  on 
I  the  campaign,  a  coffin  was  found  in  front 
|  of  the  door  of  his  palace,  with  a  warning 
that  if  this  campaign  were  as  unfortunate  as 
the  preceding  one,  a  coffin  would  be  made 
ready  for  him.  An  example  not  only  of  the 
suspicions  which  Galitsyn  entertained  of 
those  about  him,  but  of  the  superstition  in 
which  he,  as  well  as  many  other  eminent  and 
educated  men  of  that  time,  believed,  was 
that  one  of  his  servants,  Ivan  Bunakof,  was 
subjected  to  torture  for  having  "taken  his 
trace" — that  is,  for  having  taken  up  the  earth 
where  Galitsyn's  foot  had  left  an  imprint. 
Bunakof  explained  it  by  saying  that  he  took 
the  earth  in  his  handkerchief  and  tied  it 
round  him  to  cure  the  cramp,  as  this  remedy 
had  been  recommended  to  him,  and  always, 
when  any  cramp  seized  him,  he  immediately 
took  up  some  of  the  surrounding  earth. 
The  explanation  was  judged  insufficient, 
and  the  man  was  punished. 

By  the  end  of  February,  Galitsyn  had 
collected  112,000  men,  and  set  out  on  his 
march.  A  month  later,  he  reported  that  the 
expedition  was  greatly  retarded  by  the  snow 
and  the  extreme  cold.  He  was  soon  joined  by 
Mazeppa,  with  his  Cossacks.  About  the 
middle  of  April,  news  reached  Moscow  that, 
although  there  had  yet  been  no  fires  in  the 
steppe,  the  Khan  had  announced  his  inten- 
tion to  set  fire  to  it  as  soon  as  the  Russians 
approached  Perek6p,  and  orders  were  sent  to 
Galitsyn  to  have  the  steppe  burnt  in  ad- 
vance of  the  Russian  troops  in  order  that 
they  might  find  fresh  grass  springing  up  for 
them  as  they  went  on.  No  misadventure 
of  any  kind  took  place;  there  was  plenty  of 
water,  and  by  the  middle  of  May  Galitsyn 
drew  near  to  Perekop,  and  first  met  the 
Tartar  troops.  The  nomads,  in  great  multi- 
tudes, attacked  the  Russians  on  all  sides, 
and  were  beaten  off  with  some  difficulty, 
although  they  still  continued  to  harass  the 
Russian  advance.  We  learn  from  the  diary 
of  General  Gordon  that  the  troops  were  en- 
gaged in  several  slight  contests  of  this  kind, 
but  that  there  was  no  decisive  battle. 
Galitsyn,  however,  reported  to  the  Govern- 
ment that  he  had  gained  a  great  victory  over 
the  Tartars,  and  had  inflicted  enormous 
losses  upon  them.  On  the  3oth  of  May, 
the  Russians  reached  the  famous  Perekop,  a 
fort  protected  by  a  high  wall  and  a  deep 
ditch,  running  entirely  across  the  isthmus. 
It  had  seemed  that  Perekop  was  to  be  the 
end  of  the  campaign,  and  Galitsyn  had 


apparently  thought  that  once  they  arrived 
there  the  Tartars  would  be  frightened,  and 
would  immediately  surrender.  He  found, 
however,  that  the  fort  of  Perekop  was  not 
to  be  easily  taken,  especially  by  troops  that 
had  already  been  two  days  without  water; 
and  that,  even  when  Perekop  was  taken,  the 
steppes  of  the  Crimea,  being  arid  plains, 
destitute  of  water,  and  possessing  only  a 
little  saltish  vegetation,  were  even  worse 
than  the  places  he  had  already  passed 
through.  He  therefore  sent  a  message  to 
the  Khan,  hoping  to  get  from  him  a  peace 
advantageous  to  Russia.  The  negotiations 
lingered,  and  it  was  impossible  for  Galitsyn 
to  wait  longer.  He  therefore  began  his 
retreat  without  having  captured  Perekop, 
and  without  having  secured  peace.  That 
Galitsyn  should  have  returned  at  all,  that 
he  should  have  extricated  his  army  from 
this  uncomfortable  position  without  losing 
the  greater  part  of  it,  was  interpreted  by  the 
Government  at  Moscow  as  a  great  success, 
and  glowing  bulletins  were  issued,  and  great 
rewards  were  promised  to  those  who  had 
taken  part  in  the  campaign.  For  reasons 
of  state  it  was  necessary  to  uphold  Galit- 
syn, who  was  the  ablest  and  strongest 
member  of  the  Government.  But  Sophia 
had  other  excuses — her  passionate  affection 
for  Galitsyn  blinded  her  to  his  defects.  She 
implicitly  believed  the  exaggerated  dis- 
patches which  he  had  sent  home,  in  which 
defeat  was  skillfully  converted  into  victory, 
and  replied  in  letters  which  plainly  indicate 
the  relations  which  existed  between  them  : 

"  MY  LIGHT,  BROTHER  VASSENKA  : — Mayst 
thou  be  in  good  health,  little  father,  for  many  years. 
Through  the  mercy  of  God  and  the  Holy  Virgin, 
and  by  thy  own  good  sense  and  good  fortune,  thou 
hast  been  victorious  over  the  children  of  Hagar,  and 
may  the  Lord  give  thee  in  future  to  overcome  our 
enemies.  And  yet,  my  love,  I  can  scarcely  believe 
that  thou  art  returning  to  us  ;  I  shall  only  believe 
it  when  I  see  thee  in  my  embrace.  Thou  hast 
asked  me,  love,  to  pray  for  you.  In  truth  I  am  a 
sinner  before  God  and  unworthy,  yet,  even  though  a 
sinner,  I  dare  to  hope  in  his  mercy.  I  always 
petition  him  to  let  me  see  my  love  again  in  joy." 

When  Galitsyn  had  written  that  he  had 
begun  to  retire  from  Perekdp,  Sophia  an- 
swered : 

"  This  day  is  mighty  joyful  to  me  because  the 
Lord  God  has  glorified  his  holy  name,  as  also  that 
of  his  mother,  the  Holy  Virgin,  for  you,  my  love. 
Such  a  thing  was  never  heard  of,  nor  did  our 
fathers  see  such  mercy  of  God.  Like  the  children 
of  Israel  has  God  led  you  from  the  land  of  Egypt — 
then  by  Moses,  his  disciple,  now  by  you,  my  soul. 
Praise  to  our  God,  who  has  thus  been  merciful  to 
us  through  thee.  Oh !  my  little  father,  how  shall  I 


PETER   THE   GREAT, 


ever  pay  you  for  these,  your  countless  labors  ?  Oh ! 
my  joy,  light  of  my  eyes,  how  can  I  believe  my 
heart  that  I  am  going  to  see  thee  again,  my  love ! 
That  day  will  be  great  to  me  when  thou,  my  soul, 
shalt  come  to  me.  If  it  were  only  possible  for  me, 
I  would  place  thee  before  me  in  a  single  day.  Thy 
letters,  confided  to  God's  care,  have  all  reached  me 
in  safety.  Thy  letters  from  Perekop  came  on  Friday, 
the  nth.  I  was  going  on  foot  from  Vozdvizhens- 
koe,  and  had  just  arrived  at  the  monastery  of  the 
Miracle- Working  Sergius,  at  the  holy  gates  them- 
selves, when  your  letter  came  about  the  battles.  I 
do  not  know  how  I  went  in.  I  read  as  I  walked. 
What  thou  has  written,  little  father,  about  sending 
to  the  monasteries,  that  I  have  fulfilled.  I  have 
myself  made  pilgrimages  to  all  the  monasteries  on 
foot.  Thou  writest  that  I  should  pray  for  thee. 
God,  my  love,  knows  how  I  wish  to  see  thee,  my 
soul,  and  I  hope,  in  the  mercy  of  God,  that  he  will 
allow  me  to  see  thee,  my  hope.  With  regard  to 
the  troops,  do  just  as  thou  hast  written.  I,  my 
father,  am  well,  through  thy  prayers,  and  we  are 
all  well.  When  God  gives  me  to  see  thee,  my 
love,  I  will  tell  thee  about  all  I  have  done  and 
passed  through." 

The  official  thanks  sent  to  Galitsyn  were 
in  strong  terms,  though  in  somewhat  differ- 
ent form.  He  himself  was  most  anxious  to 
magnify  his  victories,  and  sent  messengers 
direct  from  the  camp  to  the  King  of  Poland, 
informing  him  of  the  defeat  of  150,000  Tar- 
tars, of  the  flight  of  the  Khan,  and  of  the 
general  panic.  Employing  a  trick  which  is 
now  so  common  as  not  to  cause  surprise, 
Galitsyn  instructed  the  Resident  at  Warsaw 
to  send  extracts  from  his  letter  to  Vienna, 
Venice  and  Rome,  and  to  take  measures 
that  accounts  of  his  victory,  printed  in  all 
parts  of  Europe,  should  come  back  to 
Moscow. 

Not  all,  however,  took  such  a  rosy  view 
of  the  campaign  as  did  Galitsyn.  General 
Gordon,  in  a  letter  to  his  relative,  the  Earl 
of  Errol,  says :  "  The  2oth  wee  came  befor 
the  Perecop,  et  lodged  as  wee  marched, 
where  wee  were  to  enter  into  a  treaty  with 
the  Tartars,  which  tooke  no  effect,  our 
demands  being  too  high,  and  they  not  con- 
discending  to  any  other  thing  as  to  establish 
a  peace  of  the  former  conditions,  so  that 
not  being  able  to  subsist  here  for  want  of 
water,  grass  et  wood  for  such  numbers  as 
wee  had,  and  finding  no  advantage  by  take- 
ing  the  Perecop,  the  next  day  wee  returned, 
and  from  midday  till  night  we  were  hotly 
persued  by  the  Tartars,  the  danger  being 
great  et  fear  greater,  if  the  Chan  with  all  his 
forces  should  persue  us,  so  that  I  was  com- 
manded from  the  left  wing  with  7  Regiments 
of  Foot,  et  some  of  horse  (yet  all  on 
Foot),  to  guard  the  Rear.  They  persued  us 
very  eagerly  8  dayes  together,  yet  gained  but 
litle,  haveing  no  such  great  numbers  as  wee 


suspected.  Nothing  troubled  us  et  our  horses 
et  draught  beasts  so  much  in  this  march  as 
the  want  of  water,  for  albeit  wee  had  so 
many  great  caskes  with  water  along  with 
yet  was  farr  short  of  giveing  relieffe  to  all, 
and  had  not  God  almighty  send  us  rains 
more  as  ordinary  in  these  places,  wee  had 
suffered  great  losses.  On  the  i2th  of  June, 
we  came  to  the  River  Samara,  where  wee 
were  past  danger,  yet  hold  on  our  march 
circumspectly  until!  we  came  to  the  R. 
Merlo."  And  Lefort,  who  took  part  in  the 
campaign,  wrote  to  his  family  at  Geneva : 
"  The  Muscovites  lost  35,000  men — 20,000 
killed  and  15,000  taken  prisoners.  Besides 
that,  seventy  cannon  were  abandoned,  and 
all  the  war  material."  The  remembrance 
of  the  loss  of  these  cannon  remained  for  a 
long  time,  and  Manstein  tells  us  that  Miin- 
nich,  in  his  campaign  in  the  Crimea  in  the 
reign  of  the  Empress  Anne,  recovered  some 
of  the  cannon  lost  by  Galitsyn. 

Accusations  were  subsequently  brought 
that  Galitsyn  had  been  bribed  by  the  Tartar 
Khan  to  retreat  from  Perekop,  and  there 
was  a  story  that,  before  Perekop,  the  Tartar 
emissaries  brought  secretly  to  Galitsyn's  tent 
two  barrels  of  gold  pieces,  which  turned  out 
afterward  to  be  nothing  but  copper  money 
slightly  gilded.  This  story  rests  on  the 
testimony  of  deserters  and  renegades,  and 
scarcely  deserves  notice,  except  that  it 
formed  part  of  the  charges  of  high  treason 
preferred  against  Galitsyn.  It  was  not, 
however,  so  much  his  imaginary  treason  as 
it  was  his  carelessness,  his  incapacity,  and 
his  self-will  in  carrying  on  negotiations  with- 
out consulting  the  other  superior  officers, 
that  caused  this  disaster  to  the  Russian 
arms. 

Not  by  any  means  the  best  satisfied 
with  the  Crimean  campaign  was  Peter. 
Apart  from  the  severity  with  which  the  party 
of  boyars  who  surrounded  him  judged  all 
the  acts  of  the  Government  of  Sophia,  he 
himself  had  been  pursuing  so  vigorously  his 
military  studies,  and  was  so  deeply  impressed 
with  the  importance  of  putting  an  end  to 
the  Tartar  domination,  that  he  was  a  severe 
critic  of  Galitsyn's  military  operations. 
Galitsyn  arrived  at  Moscow  on  the  8th 
of  July,  was  received  in  great  state  at 
the  banqueting-hall  by  Sophia  and  her 
brother  Ivan,  and  was  publicly  thanked; 
but  the  rewards  promised  to  those  who  had 
taken  part  in  the  campaign  could  not  then 
be  published,  because  Peter  refused  his  con- 
sent, as  he  was  unwilling  that  they  should 
receive  so  much  as  had  been  promised  with- 


POET  AND  ACTRESS. 


379 


out  consulting  him.     It  was  not  until  the 
5th  of  August  that,  after  much  entreaty,  and 
with  great  difficulty,  Peter  was  induced  to 
allow  the  rewards  of  the  campaign  to  be 
announced.     On  the  next  day  they  were 
read  out  to  the  boyars  and  their  comrades 
in  the  inner  rooms  of  the  Palace,  and  after- 
ward to  the  general  public  on  the  Broad 
Staircase.     Galitsyn   received  a  large  gold 
cup,  a  caftan  of  cloth  of  gold  lined  with 
sables,  a  large  sum  of  money,  and  an  estate 
in  the  district  of  Suzdal;   while  the  other 
Russian  officers  received  money,  silver  cups, 
stuff  for  caftans,  and  part  of  the  estates  which 
they    already    enjoyed    as    crown    tenants 
were   made  hereditary  with  them.     The 
foreign  officers  received  each  a  month's 
wages,  sables,  cups  and  rich  stuffs.   Com- 
memorative gold  medals  were  given  to 
every  one,  and  it  was  ordered  that  the 
names  of  all  who  died  in  the  campaign 
should    be    mentioned    in    the     public 
prayers  in  the  Cathedral.     Etiquette  then 
required  that  the  officers  who  had  been 
thus  distinguished    should   go  to   Preo- 
brazhe"nsky,  to  pay  their  respects  to  the 
Tsar  Peter,  and  thank  him  for  his  grace. 
They  went,  but  they  were  not  received; 
"  at  which  some  were  much  troubled," 
says    Gordon,    "but    others   were    not, 


because  they  thought  that  it  was  better  to 
take  the  bitt  and  the  buffet  with  it,  for  every 
one  saw  plainly  and  knew  that  the  consent 
of  the  younger  Tsar  had  not  been  extorted 
without  the  greatest  difficulty,  and  that  this 
merely  made  him  more  excited  against  the 
generalissimo  and  the  most  prominent  coun- 
selors of  the  other  party  at  court;  for  it  was 
now  seen  that  an  open  breach  was  imminent, 
which  would  probably  result  in  the  greatest 
bitterness.  Meanwhile  everything  was,  as 
far  as  possible,  held  secret  in  the  great 
houses,  but  yet  not  with  such  silence  and 
skill  but  that  every  one  knew  what  was 
going  on." 


TRAVELING  SLEDGE  OF  PETER. 


POET   AND    ACTRESS. 

WHEN  Avon's  Bard  his  sweetest  music  scored, 
A  woman's  vision  with  the  numbers  blent; 
His  weaving  fancy  robed  the  form  adored, 
And  each  the  other  equal  beauty  lent. 

O  Poet!  didst  thou  haply  see  again 

In  living  presence  playful  Rosalind, 

Sweet  Viola,  and  saintly  Imogen, 

Fair  Juliet,  swept  by  passion's  withering  wind  ?- 

'Twas  thine  to  give  the  music-mated  lines, 
But  heaven  alone  empowers  the  counterpart 
To  walk  in  splendor  where  such  genius  shines. 
Twice  happy  we,  blest  heirs  of  dual  art : 

To  own  as   mother-tongue  Will  Shakspere's  writ- 
To  live  when  kindling  Neilson  voices  it. 


38o 


THE   GRANDISSIMES. 


THE    GRANDISSIMES.* 

A    STORY    OF    CREOLE    LIFE. 
By   GEORGE   W.    CABLE,  author  of  "Old   Creole  Days." 


CHAPTER   XLI. 
TO    COME   TO   THE    POINT. 

IT  was  equally  a  part  of  Honore  Grand- 
issime's  nature  and  of  his  art  as  a  merchant 
to  wear  a  look  of  serene  leisure.  With  this 
look  on  his  face  he  re-entered  his  count- 
ing-room after  his  morning  visit  to  Frowen- 
feld's  shop.  He  paused  a  moment  outside 
the  rail,  gave  the  weak-eyed  gentleman  who 
presided  there  a  quiet  glance  equivalent  to 
a  beckon,  and,  as  that  person  came  near, 
communicated  two  or  three  items  of  intelli- 
gence or  instruction  concerning  office  de- 
tails, by  which  that  invaluable  diviner  of 
business  meanings  understood  that  he  wished 
to  be  let  alone  for  an  hour.  Then  M. 
Grandissime  passed  on  into  his  private 
office,  and,  shutting  the  door  behind  him, 
walked  briskly  to  his  desk  and  sat  down. 

He  dropped  his  elbows  upon  a  broad 
paper  containing  some  recently  written,  un- 
finished memoranda  that  included  figures 
in  column,  cast  his  eyes  quite  around  the 
apartment,  and  then  covered  his  face  with 
his  palms — a  gesture  common  enough  for  a 
tired  man  of  business  in  a  moment  of  seclu- 
sion ;  but  just  as  the  face  disappeared  in  the 
hands,  the  look  of  serene  leisure  gave  place 
to  one  of  great  mental  distress.  The  paper 
under  his  elbows,  to  the  consideration  of 
which  he  seemed  about  to  return,  was  in 
the  handwriting  of  his  manager,  with  addi- 
tions by  his  own  pen.  Earlier  in  the  day 
he  had  come  to  a  pause  in  the  making  of  these 
additions,  and,  after  one  or  two  vain  efforts 
to  proceed,  had  laid  down  his  pen,  taken 
his  hat,  and  gone  to  see  the  unlucky  apoth- 
ecary. Now  he  took  up  the  broken  thread. 
To  come  to  a  decision ;  that  was  the  task 
which  forced  from  him  his  look  of  distress. 
He  drew  his  face  slowly  through  his  palms, 
set  his  lips,  cast  up  his  eyes,  knit  his  knuckles, 
and  then  opened  and  struck  his  palms 
together,  as  if  to  say :  "  Now,  come ;  let 
me  make  up  my  mind." 

There  may  be  men  who  take  every  moral 
height  at  a  dash;  but  to  the  most  of  us 
there  must  come  moments  when  our  wills 
can  but  just  rise  and  walk  in  their  sleep. 
Those  who  in  such  moments  wait  for  clear 


views,  find,  when  the  issue  is  past,  that  they 
were  only  yielding  to  the  devil's  chloroform. 

Honore  Grandissime  bent  his  eyes  upon 
the  paper.  But  he  saw  neither  its  figures 
nor  its  words.  The  interrogation,  "  Surren- 
der Fausse  Riviere  ? "  appeared  to  hang 
between  his  eyes  and  the  paper,  and  when 
his  resolution  tried  to  answer  "  Yes,"  he 
saw  red  flags;  he  heard  the  auctioneer's 
drum;  he  saw  his  kinsmen  handing  house- 
keys  to  strangers ;  he  saw  the  old  servants 
of  the  great  family  standing  in  the  market- 
place ;  he  saw  kinswomen  pawning  their 
plate;  he  saw  his  clerks  (Brahmins,  Man- 
darins, Grandissimes)  standing  idle  and  shab- 
by in  the  arcade  of  the  Cabildo  and  on 
the  banquette  of  Maspero's  and  the  Veau- 
qui-te'te;  he  saw  red-eyed  young  men  in 
the  Exchange  denouncing  a  man  who,  they 
said,  had,  ostensibly  for  conscience's  sake, 
but  really  for  love,  forced  upon  the  woman 
he  had  hoped  to  marry  a  fortune  filched 
from  his  own  kindred.  He  saw  the  junto 
of  doctors  in  Frowenfeld's  door  charitably 
deciding  him  insane;  he  saw  the  more 
vengeful  of  his  family  seeking  him  with 
half-concealed  weapons ;  he  saw  himself 
shot  at  in  the  rue  Royale,  in  the  rue  Tou- 
louse, and  in  the  Place  d'Armes ;  and,  worst 
of  all,  missed. 

But  he  wiped  his  forehead,  and  the 
writing  on  the  paper  became,  in  a  measure, 
visible.  He  read : 

Total  mortgages  on  the  lands  of  all  the  Grand- 
issimes   $ — 

Total  present  value  of  same,  titles  at  buyers' 

risk — 

Cash,  goods,  and  account — 

Fausse  Riviere  Plantation  account   — 

There  were  other  items,  but  he  took  up 
the  edge  of  the  paper  mechanically,  pushed  it 
slowly  away  from  him,  leaned  back  in  his 
chair  and  again  laid  his  hands  upon  his  face. 

"  Suppose  I  retain  Fausse  Riviere,"  he 
said  to  himself,  as  if  he  had  not  said  it 
many  times  before. 

Then  he  saw  memoranda  that  were  not  on 
any  paper  before  him — such  a  mortgage  to 
be  met  on  such  a  date;  so  much  from  Fausse 
Riviere  Plantation  account  retained  to  pro- 
tect that  mortgage  from  foreclosure;  such 


Copyright,  1879,  by  George  W.  Cable.     All  rights  reserved. 


THE   GRANDISSIMES. 


another  to  be  met  on  such  a  date — so  much 
more  of  same  account  to  protect  it.  He  saw 
Aurora  and  Clotilde  Nancanou,  with  an- 
guished faces,  offering  woman's  pleadings  to 
deaf  constables.  He  saw  the  remainder  of 
Aurora's  plantation  account  thrown  Jo  the 
lawyers  to  keep  the  question  of  Grandissime 
titles  languishing  in  the  courts.  He  saw  the 
meanwhile-rallied  fortunes  of  his  clan  com- 
ing to  the  rescue,  himself  and  kindred  grow- 
ing independent  of  questionable  titles,  and 
even  Fausse  Riviere  Plantation  account 
restored,  but  Aurora  and  Clotilde  nowhere 
to  be  found.  And  then  he  saw  the  grave, 
pale  face  of  Joseph  Frowenfeld. 

He  threw  himself  forward,  drew  the 
paper  nervously  toward  him,  and  stared  at 
the  figures.  He  began  at  the  first  item  and 
went  over  the  whole  paper,  line  by  line,  test- 
ing every  extension,  proving  every  addition, 
noting  if  possibly  any  transposition  of  fig- 
ures had  been  made  and  overlooked,  if 
something  was  added  that  should  have  been 
subtracted,  or  subtracted  that  should  have 
been  added.  It  was  like  a  prisoner  trying 
the  bars  of  his  cell. 

Was  there  no  way  to  make  things  happen 
differently  ?  Had  he  not  overlooked  some 
expedient  ?  Was  not  some  financial  maneu- 
ver possible  which  might  compass  both 
desired  ends  ?  He  left  his  chair  and  walked 
up  and  down,  as  Joseph  at  that  very  mo- 
ment was  doing  in  the  room  where  he  had 
left  him,  came  back,  looked  at  the  paper, 
and  again  walked  up  and  down.  He 
murmured  now  and  then  to  himself: 
"Self-denial — that  is  not  the  hard  word. 
Penniless  myself — that  is  play,"  and  so  on. 
He  turned  by  and  by  and  stood  looking  up 
at  that  picture  of  the  man  in  the  cuirass 
which  Aurora  had  once  noticed.  He  looked 
at  it,  but  he  did  not  see  it.  He  was  think- 
ing— "  Her  rent  is  due  to-morrow.  She  will 
never  believe  I  am  not  her  landlord.  She 
will  never  go  to  my  half-brother."  He 
turned  once  more  and  mentally  beat  his 
breast  as  he  muttered :  "  Why  do  I  not 
decide  ?  " 

Somebody  touched  the  door-knob.  Hon- 
ore  stepped  forward  and  opened  it.  It  was 
a  mortgager. 

"Ah !  entrhez,  Monsieur" 

He  retained  the  visitor's  hand,  leading 
him  in  and  talking  pleasantly  in  French 
until  both  had  found  chairs.  The  conversa- 
tion continued  in  that  tongue  through  such 
pointless  commercial  gossip  as  this : 

"  So  the  brig  Equinox  is  aground  at  the 
head  of  the  Passes,"  said  M.  Grandissime. 


"  I  have  just  heard  she  is  off  again." 

"  Aha  ?  " 

"  Yes ;  the  Fort  Plaquemine  canoe  is 
just  up  from  below.  I  understand  John 
McDonough  has  bought  the  entire  cargo 
of  the  schooner  Freedom" 

"  No,  not  all ;  Blanque  et  Fils  bought 
some  twenty  boys  and  women  out  of  the 
lot.  Where  is  she  lying  ?  " 

"  Right  at  the  head  of  the  Basin." 

And  much  more  like  this ;  but  by  and  by 
the  mortgager  came  to  the  point  with  the 
casual  remark : 

"  The  excitement  concerning  land-titles 
seems  to  increase  rather  than  subside." 

"  They  must  have  something  to  be  ex- 
cited about,  I  suppose,"  said  M.  Grandis- 
sime, crossing  his  legs  and  smiling.  It  was 
tradesman's  talk. 

"Yes,"  replied  the  other;  "there  seems 
to  be  an  idea  current  to-day  that  all  holders 
under  Spanish  titles  are  to  be  immediately 
dispossessed,  without  even  process  of  court. 
I  believe  a  very  slight  indiscretion  on  the 
part  of  the  Governor- General  would  precip- 
itate a  riot." 

"  He  will  not  commit  any,"  said  M. 
Grandissime  with  a  quiet  gravity,  changing 
his  manner  to  that  of  one  who  draws  upon 
a  reserve  of  private  information.  "  There 
will  be  no  outbreak." 

"  I  suppose  not.  We  do  not  know,  really, 
that  the  American  Congress  will  throw  any 
question  upon  titles;  but  still " 

"  What  are  some  of  the  shrewdest  Amer- 
icans among  us  doing?"  asked  M.  Grand- 
issime. 

"  Yes,"  replied  the  mortgager,  "  it  is  true 
they  are  buying  these  very  titles ;  but  they 
may  be  making  a  mistake  ?  " 

Unfortunately  for  the  speaker,  he  allowed 
his  face  an  expression  of  argumentative 
shrewdness  as  he  completed  this  sentence, 
and  M.  Grandissime,  the  merchant,  caught 
an  instantaneous  full  view  of  his  motive ;  he 
wanted  to  buy.  He  was  a  man  whose 
known  speculative  policy  was  to  "  go  in " 
in  moments  of  panic. 

M.  Grandissime  was  again  face  to  face 
with  the  question  of  the  morning.  To  com- 
mence selling  must  be  to  go  on  selling.  This, 
as  a  plan,  included  restitution  to  Aurora; 
but  it  meant  also  dissolution  to  the  Grand- 
issimes,  for  should  their  sold  titles  be  pro- 
nounced bad,  then  the  titles  of  other  lands 
would  be  bad;  many  an  asset  among  M. 
Grandissime's  memoranda  would  shrink  into 
nothing,  and  the  meager  proceeds  of  the 
Grandissime  estates,  left  to  meet  the  strain 


THE   GRANDISSIMES. 


without  the  aid  of  Aurora's  accumulated 
fortune,  would  founder  in  a  sea  of  liabilities; 
while  should  these  titles,  after  being  parted 
with,  turn  out  good,  his  incensed  kindred, 
shutting  their  eyes  to  his  memoranda  and 
despising  his  exhibits,  would  see  in  him  only 
the  family  traitor,  and  he  would  go  about 
the  streets  of  his  town  the  subject  of  their 
implacable  denunciation,  the  community's 
obloquy,  and  Aurora's  cold  evasion.  So 
much,  should  he  sell.  On  the  other  hand, 
to  decline  to  sell  was  to  enter  upon  that 
disingenuous  scheme  of  delays  which  would 
enable  him  to  avail  himself  and  his  people 
of  that  favorable  wind  and  tide  of  fortune 
which  the  Cession  had  brought.  Thus  the 
estates  would  be  lost,  if  lost  at  all,  only 
when  the  family  could  afford  to  lose  them, 
and  Honore  Grandissime  would  continue 
to  be  Honor6  the  Magnificent,  the  admira- 
tion of  the  city  and  the  idol  of  his  clan. 
But  Aurora — and  Clotilde — would  have  to 
eat  the  crust  of  poverty,  while  their  fortunes, 
even  in  his  hands,  must  bear  all  the  jeopardy 
of  the  scheme.  That  was  all.  Retain  Fausse 
Riviere  and  its  wealth,  and  save  the  Grand- 
issimes ;  surrender  Fausse  Riviere,  let  the 
Grandissime  estates  go,  and  save  the  Nan- 
canous.  That  was  the  whole  dilemma. 

"  Let  me  see,"  said  M.  Grandissime. 
"  You  have  a  mortgage  on  one  of  our 
Golden  Coast  plantations.  Well,  to  be  frank 
with  you,  I  was  thinking  of  that  when  you 
came  in.  You  know  I  am  partial  to  prompt 
transactions — I  thought  of  offering  you 
either  to  take  up  that  mortgage  or  to  sell 
you  the  plantation,  as  you  may  prefer.  I 
have  ventured  to  guess  that  it  would  suit 
you  to  own  it." 

And  the  speaker  felt  within  him  a  secret 
exultation  in  the  idea  that  he  had  succeeded 
in  throwing  the  issue  off  upon  a  Providence 
that  could  control  this  mortgager's  choice. 

"  I  would  prefer  to  leave  that  choice  with 
you,"  said  the  coy  would-be  purchaser ;  and 
then  the  two  went  coquetting  again  for 
another  moment: 

"  I  understand  that  Nicholas  Girod  is  pro- 
posing to  erect  a  four-story  brick  building 
on  the  corner  of  Royale  and  St.  Pierre. 
Do  you  think  it  practicable  ?  Do  you 
think  our  soil  will  support  such  a  structure  ?  " 

"  Pilot  thinks  it  will.  Bore"  says  it  is 
perfectly  feasible." 

So  they  dallied. 

"  Well,"  said  the  mortgager,  presently  ris- 
ing, "  you  will  make  up  your  mind  and  let 
me  know,  will  you  ?  " 

The   chance  repetition   of   those   words 


"  make  up  your  mind "  touched  Honore 
Grandissime  like  a  hot  iron.  He  rose  with 
the  visitor. 

"  Well,  sir,  what  would  you  give  us  for  our 
title  in  case  we  should  decide  to  part  with  it  ?  " 

The  two  men  moved  slowly,  side  by  side, 
toward  the  door,  and  in  the  half-opened 
door-way,  after  a  little  further  trifling,  the 
title  was  sold. 

"  Well,  good-day,"  said  M.  Grandissime. 
"  M.  de  Brahmin  will  arrange  the  papers  for 
us  to-morrow." 

He  turned  back  toward  his  private  desk. 

"  And  now,"  thought  he,  "  I  am  acting 
without  resolving.  No  merit ;  no  strength 
of  will;  no  clearness  of  purpose;  no  em- 
phatic decision ;  nothing  but  a  yielding  to 
temptation." 

And  M.  Grandissime  spoke  true ;  but  it 
is  only  whole  men  who  so  yield — yielding 
to  the  temptation  to  do  right. 

He  passed  into  the  counting-room,  to  M. 
De  Brahmin,  and  standing  there  talked  in 
an  inaudible  tone,  leaning  over  the  up- 
turned spectacles  of  his  manager,  for  nearly 
an  hour.  Then,  saying  he  would  go  to  din- 
ner, he  went  out.  He  did  not  dine  at  home 
nor  at  the  Veau-qui-te'te  nor  at  any  of  the 
clubs;  so  much  is  known;  he  merely  dis- 
appeared for  two  or  three  hours  and  was 
not  seen  again  until  late  in  the  afternoon, 
when  two  or  three  Brahmins  and  Grandis- 
simes,  wandering  about  in  search  of  him, 
met  him  on  the  levee  near  the  head  of  the 
rue  Bienville,  and  with  an  exclamation  of 
wonder  and  a  look  of  surprise  at  his  dusty 
shoes,  demanded  to  know  where  he  had  hid 
himself  while  they  had  been  ransacking  the 
town  in  search  of  him. 

"  We  want  you  to  tell  us  what  you  will 
do  about  our  titles." 

He  smiled  pleasantly,  the  picture  of 
serenity,  and  replied : 

"  I  have  not  fully  made  up  my  mind  yet; 
as  soon  as*  I  do  so  I  will  let  you  know." 

There  was  a  word  or  two  more  exchanged, 
and  then,  after  a  moment  of  silence,  with  a 
gentle  "  Eh,  bien  "  and  a  gesture  to  which 
they  were  accustomed,  he  stepped  away 
backward,  they  resumed  their  hurried  walk 
and  talk,  and  he  turned  into  the  rue  Bien- 
ville. 

CHAPTER   XLII. 
AN   INHERITANCE    OF   WRONG. 

"  I  TELL  you,"  Doctor  Keene  used  to  say, 
"  that  old  woman's  a  thinker."  His  allusion 


THE   GRANDISSIMES. 


383 


was  to  Clemence,  the  marchande  des  calas. 
Her  mental  activity  was  evinced  not  more 
in  the  cunning  aptness  of  her  songs  than  in 
the  droll  wisdom  of  her  sayings.  Not  the 
melody  only,  but  the  often  audacious,  epi- 
grammatic philosophy  of  her  tongue  as  well, 
sold  her  calas  and  gingercakes. 

But  in  one  direction  her  wisdom  proved 
scant.  She  presumed  too  much  on  her  insig- 
nificance. She  was  a  "  study,"  the  gossiping 
circle  at  Frowenfeld's  used  to  say ;  and  any 
observant  hearer  of  her  odd  aphorisms  could 
see  that  she  herself  had  made  a  life-study 
of  herself  and  her  conditions;  but  she  little 
thought  that  others — some  with  wits  and 
some  with  none — young  hair-brained  Grand- 
issimes,  Mandarins  and  the  like — were 
silently,  and  for  her  most  unluckily,  charging 
their  memories  with  her  knowing  speeches ; 
and  that  of  every  one  of  those  speeches  she 
would  ultimately  have  to  give  account. 

Doctor  Keene,  in  the  old  days  of  his 
health,  used  to  enjoy  an  occasional  skirmish 
with  her.  Once,  in  the  course  of  chaffering 
over  the  price  of  calas,  he  enounced  an 
old  current  conviction  which  is  not  with- 
out holders  even  to  this  day;  for  we  may 
still  hear  it  said  by  those  who  will  not  be 
decoyed  down  from  the  mountain  fastnesses 
of  the  old  Southern  doctrines,  that  their 
slaves  were  "the  happiest  people  under  the 
sun."  Clemence  had  made  bold  to  deny 
this  with  argumentative  indignation,  and 
was  courteously  informed  in  retort  that  she 
had  promulgated  a  falsehood  of  magnitude. 

"W'y,  Mawse  Chawlie,"  she  replied, 
"does  you  s'pose  one  po'  nigga  kin  tell  a 
big  lie?  No,  sah!  But  w'en  de  whole 
people  tell  w'at  ain'  so — if  dey  know  it,  aw 
if  dey  don'  know  it — den  dat  is  a  big  lie!" 
And  she  laughed  to  contortion. 

"What  is  that  you  say?"  he  demanded, 
with  mock  ferocity.  "You  charge  white 
people  with  lying  ?  " 

"  Oh,  sakes,  Mawse  Chawlie,  no !  De 
people  don't  mek  up  dat  ah;  de  debblepass 
it  on  'em.  Don'  you  know  de  debble  ah  de 
grett  cyounte'feiteh  ?  Ev'y  piece  o'  money 
he  mek  he  tek  an'  put  some  debblemen'  on 
de  under  side,  an'  one  o'  his  pootiess  lies  on 
top;  an'  "e  gilt  dat  lie,  an'  'e  rub  dat  lie  on 
'is  elbow,  an'  'e  shine  dat  lie,  an'  'e  put  'is 
bess  licks  on  dat  lie;  entel  ev'ybody  say : 
'  Oh,  how  pooty ! '  An'  dey  tek  it  fo'  good 
money,  yass — and  pass  it!  Dey  b'lieb  it!" 

"  Oh,"  said  some  one  at  Doctor  Keene's 
side,  disposed  to  quiz,  "you  niggers  don't 
know  when  you  are  happy." 

"Dass  so,  Mawse — c'est  vrai,  ouif"  she 


answered  quickly ;  "  we  donno  no  mo'n 
white  folks!" 

The  laugh  was  against  him. 

"  Mawse  Chawlie,"  she  said  again,  "  w'a's 
dis  I  yeh  'bout  dat  Eu'ope  country  ?  's  dat 
true  de  niggas  is  all  free  in  Eu'ope  ?  " 

Doctor  Keene  replied  that  something  like 
that  was  true. 

"  Well,  now,  Mawse  Chawlie,  I  gwan  t'  ass 
you  a  riddle.  If  dat  is  so,  den  fo'  w'y  I  yeh 
folks  bragg'n'  'bout  de  '  stayt  o'  s'iety  in 
Eu'ope'?" 

The  mincing  drollery  with  which  she 
used  this  fine  phrase  brought  another  peal 
of  laughter.  Nobody  tried  to  guess. 

"I  gwan  tell  you,"  said  the  marchande; 
"  'tis  becyaze  dey  got  a  '  fixed  wuckin'  class.' " 
She  sputtered  and  giggled  with  the  general 
ha,  ha.  "  Oh,  ole  Clemence  kin  talk  proctah, 
yass ! " 

She  made  a  gesture  for  attention. 

"D'y*  ebber  yeh  w'at  de  cya'ge-hoss  say 
w'en  'e  see  de  cyaht-hoss  tu'n  loose  in  de  sem 
pawstu'e  wid  he,  an'  knowed  dat  some'ow 
de  cyaht  gotteh  be  haul'  ?  W'y  'e  jiz  snawt 
an'  kick  up  'is  heel' " — she  suited  the  action 
to  the  word — "an'  tah'  roun'  de  fiel'  an' 
prance  up  to  de  fence  an'  say:  'Whoopy! 
shoo!  shoo!  dis  yeh  country  gittin'  too 
free!'" 

"  Oh,"  she  resumed,  as  soon  as  she  could 
be  heard,  "  white  folks  is  werry  kine.  Dey 
wants  us  to  b'lieb  we  happy — -dey  wants  to 
b'lieb  we  is.  W'y,  you  know,  dey  'bleeged 
to  b'lieb  it — fo'  dey  own  cyumfut.  'Tis  de 
sem  weh  wid  de  preache's ;  dey  buil'  we  ow 
own  sep'ate  meet'n-houses ;  dey  b'leebs  us 
lak  it  de  bess,  an'  dey  knows  dey  lak  it  de 
bess." 

The  laugh  at  this  was  mostly  her  own. 
It  is  not  a  laughable  sight  to  see  the  com- 
fortable fractions  of  Christian  communities 
everywhere  striving,  with  sincere,-  pious, 
well-meant,  criminal  benevolence,  to  make 
their  poor  brethren  contented  with  the  ditch. 
Nor  does  it  become  so  to  see  these  efforts 
meet,  or  seem  to  meet,  some  degree  of  suc- 
cess. Happily  man  cannot  so  place  his 
brother  that  his  misery  will  continue  unmiti- 
gated. You  may  dwarf  a  man  to  the  mere 
stump  of  what  he  ought  to  be,  and  yet  he  will 
put  out  green  leaves.  "  Free  from  care,"  we 
benignly  observe  of  the  dwarfed  classes  of 
society ;  but  we  forget,  or  have  never  thought, 
what  a  crime  we  commit  when  we  rob  men 
and  women  of  their  cares. 

To  Clemence  the  order  of  society  was 
nothing.  No  upheaval  could  reach  to  the 
depth  to  which  she  was  sunk.  It  is  true, 


THE   GRANDISSIMES. 


she  was  one  of  the  population.  She  had 
certain  affections  toward  people  and  places; 
but  they  were  not  of  a  consuming  sort. 

As  for  us,  our  feelings,  our  sentiments, 
affections,  etc.,  are  fine  and  keen,  delicate 
and  many;  what  we  call  refined.  Why? 
Because  we  get  them  as  we  get  our  old 
swords  and  gems  and  Jfces-irom  our 
grandsires,  mothers,  and  all.  Refined  they 
are— after  centuries  of  refining.  But  the 
feelings  handed  down  to  Clemence  had 
come  through  ages  of  African  savagery; 
through  fires  that  do  not  refine,  but  that 
blunt  and  blast  and  blacken  and  char;  starv- 
ation, gluttony,  drunkenness,  thirst,  drown- 
ing nakedness,  dirt,  fetichism,  debauchery, 
slaughter,  pestilence  and  the  rest— she  was 
their  heiress;  they  left  her  the  cinders  of 
human  feelings.  She  remembered  her 
mother.  They  had  been  separated  in  her 
childhood,  in  Virginia  when  it  was  a  prov- 
ince. She  remembered,  with  pnde,  the 
price  her  mother  had  brought  at  auction,  and 
remarked,  as  an  additional  interesting  item, 
that  she  had  never  seen  or  heard  of  her 
since.  She  had  had  children,  assorted 
colors— had  one  with  her  now,  the  black 
boy  that  brought  the  basilic  to  Joseph ;  the 
others  were  here  and  there,  some  in  the 
Grandissime  households  or  field-gangs, 
some  elsewhere  within  occasional  sight, 
some  dead,  some  not  accounted  for.  Hus- 
bands—like the  Samaritan  woman's.  We 
know  she  was  a  constant  singer  and 
laugher. 

And  so  on  that  day,  when  Honore"  Grand- 
issime had  advised  the  Governor-General  of 
Louisiana  to  be  very  careful  to  avoid  dem- 
onstration of  any  sort  if  he  wished  to 
avert  a  street  war  in  his  little  capital, 
Clemence  went  up  one  street  and  down 
another,  singing  her  song  and  laughing 
her  professional  merry  laugh.  How  could 
it  be  otherwise  ?  Let  events  take  any 
possible  turn,  how  could  it  make  any 
difference  to  Clemence  ?  What  could  she 
hope  to  gain  ?  What  could  she  fear  to 
lose?  She  sold  some  of  her  goods  to 
Casa  Calvo's  Spanish  guard  and  sang  them 
a  Spanish  song ;  some  to  Claiborne's  sol- 
diers and  sang  them  Yankee  Doodle  with 
unclean  words  of  her  own  inspiration,  which 
evoked  true  soldiers'  laughter;  some  to  a 
priest  at  his  window,  exchanging  with  him 
a  pious  comment  or  two  upon  the  wicked 
ness  of  the  times  generally  and  their  Ameri 
cain- Protestant-poisoned  community  in  par 
ticular ;  and  (after  going  home  to  dinne 
and  coming  out  newly  furnished)  she  sole 


ome  more  of  her  wares  to  the  excited 
Oroups  of  Creoles  to  which  we  have  had 
occasion  to  allude,  and  from  whom,  insensi- 
ble as  she  was  to  ribaldry,  she  was  glad  to 
escape.  The  day  now  drawing  to  a  close, 
she  turned  her  steps  toward  her  wonted 
crouching  place,  the  willow  avenue  on  the 
evee,  near  the  Place  d' Amies.  But  she 
lad  hardly  defined  this  decision  clearly  in 
icr  mind,  and  had  but  just  turned  out  of  the 
rue  St.  Louis,  when  her  song  attracted  an 
ear  in  a  second-story  room  under  whose 
window  she  was  passing.  As  usual  it  was 
fitted  to  the  passing  event : 

"  Apportez  moi  mo1  sabre, 

Ba  bourn,  ba  bourn,  bourn,  bourn" 

"  Run,  fetch  that  girl  here,"  said  Dr. 
Keene  to  the  slave  woman  who  had  just 
entered  his  room  with  a  pitcher  of  water. 

"Well,  old  eaves-dropper,"  he  said,  as 
Clemence  came,  "  what  is  the  scandal  to- 
day ?  " 

Clemence  laughed. 

"  You  know,  Mawse  Chawlie,  I  dunno 
noth'n'  'tall  'bout  nobody.  I'se  a  nigga 
w'at  mine  my  own  business." 

"  Sit  down  there  on  that  stool,  and  tell 
me  what  is  going  on  outside." 

"  I  d'no  noth'n'  'bout  no  goin's  on ;  got 
no  time  fo'  sit  down,  me ;  got  sell  my  cakes. 
I  don't  goin'  git  mix'  in  wid  no  white  folks's 
doin's." 

"  Hush,  you  old  hypocrite;  I  will  buy  all 
your  cakes.  Put  them  out  there  on  the 
table." 

The  invalid,  sitting  up  in  bed,  drew  a 
purse  from  behind  his  pillow  and  tossed  her 
a  large  price.  She  tittered,  courtesied  and 
received  the  money. 

"  Well,  well,  Mawse  Chawlie,  'f  you  ain' 
de  funni'st  gen'leman  I  knows,  to  be  sho  ! " 

"  Have  you  seen  Joseph  Frowenfeld  to- 
day ?  "  he  asked. 

"He,  he,  he!  W'at  I  got  do  wid 
Mawse  Frowenfel'  ?  I  goes  on  de  off  side 
o'  sich  folks — folks  w'at  cann'  'have  deysefl 
no  bette'n  dat — he,  he,  he!  At  de  same 
time  I  did  happen,  jis  chancin'  by  accident, 
to  see  'im." 

"How  is  he?" 

Dr.  Keene  made  plain  by  his  mannei 
that  any  sensational  account  would  receive  hij 
instantaneous  contempt,  and  she  answered 
within  bounds. 

"Well,  now,  tellin'  the  simple  trufe,  he 
ain'  much  hurt." 

The  doctor  turned  slowly  and  cautiousl) 
in  bed. 


THE   GRANDISSIMES. 


385 


"Have  you  seen  Honore  Grandissime ? " 

"W'y — das  funny  you  ass  me  dat.  I  jis 
now  see  'im  dis  werry  minnit." 

"Where?" 

"Jis  gwine  into  de  house  wah  dat  laydy 
live  w'at  'e  runned  over  dat  ah  time." 

"  Now,  you  old  hag,"  cried  the  sick  man, 
his  weak,  husky  voice  trembling  with  pas- 
sion, "you  know  you're  telling  me  a  lie." 

"No,  Mawse  Chawlie,"  she  protested 
with  a  coward's  frown,  "  I  swah  I  tellin'  you 
de  God's  trufe!" 

"  Hand  me  my  clothes  off  that  chair." 

"Oh!  but,  Mawse  Chawlie " 

The  little  doctor  cursed  her.  She  did  as 
she  was  bid,  and  made  as  if  to  leave  the 
room. 

"  Don't  you  go  away." 

"  But  Mawse  Chawlie,  you'  undress' — he, 
he!" 

She  was  really  abashed  and  half  fright- 
ened. 

"I  know  that;  and  you  have  got  to  help 
me  put  my  clothes  on." 

"You  gwan  kill  yo'se'f,  Mawse  Chawlie," 
she  said,  handling  a  garment. 

"  Hold  your  black  tongue." 

She  dressed  him  hastily,  and  he  went  down 
the  stairs  of  his  lodging-house  and  out  into 
the  street.  Clemence  went  in  search  of  her 
master. 

CHAPTER  XLIII. 
THE  EAGLE  VISITS  THE  DOVES  IN  THEIR  NEST. 

ALPHONSINA — only  living  property  of 
Aurora  and  Clotilde — was  called  upon  to 
light  a  fire  in  the  little  parlor.  Elsewhere, 
although  the  day  was  declining,  few  persons 
felt  such  a  need;  but  in  No.  19  rue  Bien- 
ville  there  were  two  chilling  influences  com- 
bined requiring  an  artificial  offset.  One 
was  the  ground  under  the  floor,  which  was 
only  three  inches  distant,  and  permanently 
saturated  with  water;  the  other  was  despair. 

Before  this  fire  the  two  ladies  sat  down 
together  like  watchers,  in  that  silence  and 
vacuity  of  mind  which  come  after  an  ex- 
haustive struggle  ending  in  the  recognition 
of  the  inevitable ;  a  torpor  of  thought,  a 
stupefaction  of  feeling,  a  purely  negative 
state  of  joylessness  sequent  to  the  positive 
state  of  anguish.  They  were  now  both 
hungry,  but  in  want  of  some  present  friend 
acquainted  with  the  motions  of  mental 
distress  who  could  guess  this  fact  and  press 
them  to  eat.  By  their  eyes  it  was  plain 
they  had  been  weeping  much;  by  the  sub- 
VOL.  XX.— 26. 


dued  tone,  too,  of  their  short  and  infrequent 
speeches. 

Alphonsina,  having  made  the  fire,  went 
out  with  a  bundle.  It  was  Aurora's  last 
good  dress.  She  was  going  to  try  to  sell  it. 

"It  ought  not  to  be  so  hard,"  began 
Clotilde,  in  a  quiet  manner  of  contemplating 
some  one  else's  difficulty,  but  paused  with 
the  saying  uncompleted,  and  sighed  under 
her  breath. 

"  But  it  is  so  hard,"  responded  Aurora. 

"No,  it  ought  not  to  be  so  hard " 

"How,  not  so  hard?" 

"It  is  not  so  hard  to  live,"  said  Clotilde; 
"but  it  is  hard  to  be  ladies.  You  under- 
stand  "  she  knit  her  fingers,  dropped 

them  into  her  lap  and  turned  her  eyes 
toward  Aurora,  who  responded  with  the 
same  motions,  adding  the  crossing  of  her 
silk-stockinged  ankles  before  the  fire. 

"  No,"  said  Aurora,  with  a  scintillation 
of  irrepressible  mischief  in  her  eyes. 

"After  all,"  pursued  Clotilde,  "what 
troubles  us  is  not  how  to  make  a  living,  but 
how  to  get  a  living  without  making  it." 

"Ah!  that  would  be  magnificent!"  said 
Aurora,  and  then  added,  more  soberly:  "but 
we  are  compelled  to  make  a  living." 

"No." 

"No-o?  Ah!  what  do  you  mean  with 
your  no  ?  " 

"I  mean  it  is  just  the  contrary;  we  are 
compelled  not  to  make  a  living.  Look  at 
me :  I  can  cook,  but  I  must  not  cook ;  I 
am  skillful  with  the  needle,  but  I  must  not 
take  in  sewing;  I  could  keep  accounts;  I 
could  nurse  the  sick;  but  I  must  not.  I 
could  be  a  confectioner,  a  milliner,  a  dress- 
maker, a  vest-maker,  a  cleaner  of  gloves 
and  laces,  a  dyer,  a  bird-seller,  a  mattress- 
maker,  an  upholsterer,  a  dancing-teacher,  a 
florist " 

"  Oh ! "  softly  exclaimed  Aurora,  in  Eng- 
lish, "  you  could  be — you  know  w'ad  ? — an 
egcellen'  drug-cF — ah,  ha,  ha!" 

«  Now " 

But  the  threatened  irruption  was  averted 
by  a  look  of  tender  apology  from  Aurora, 
in  reply  to  one  of  martyrdom  from  Clotilde. 

"  My  angel  daughter,"  said  Aurora, "  if  soci- 
ety has  decreed  that  ladies  must  be  ladies,  then 
that  is  our  first  duty;  our  second  is  to  live. 
Do  you  not  see  why  it  is  that  this  practical 
world  does  not  permit  ladies  to  make  a 
living  ?  Because  if  they  could,  none  of  them 
would  ever  consent  to  be  married.  Ha! 
women  talk  about  marrying  for  love;  but 
society  is  too  sharp  to  trust  them,  yes !  It 
makes  it  necessary  to  marry.  I  will  tell  you 


'386 


THE  GRANDISSIMES. 


m • 

the  honest  truth;  some  days  when  I  get  very, 
very  hungry,  and  we  have  nothing  but  nee 
—all  because  we  are  ladies  without  male  pro- 
tectors—I think  society  could  dnve  even  me 
to  marriage  '.—for  your  sake,  though,  darling; 
of  course,  only  for  your  sake!" 

"Never!"  replied  Clotilde;  "for  my  sake, 
never;  for  your  own  sake  if  you  choose.  I 
should  not  care.  I  should  be  glad  to  see 
you  do  so  if  it  would  make  you  happy;  but 
never  for  my  sake  and  never  for  hungers 
sake;  but  for  love's  sake,  yes;  and  God  bless 
thee,  pretty  maman." 

«  Clotilde,  dear,"  said  the  unconscionable 
widow,  "  let  me  assure  you,  once  for  all, — 
starvation  is  preferable.  I  mean  for  me, 
you  understand,  simply  for  me ;  that  is  my 
feeling  on  the  subject." 

Clotilde  turned  her  saddened  eyes  with  a 
steady  scrutiny  upon  her  deceiver,  who  gazed 
upward  in  apparently  unconscious  reverie, 
and  sighed  softly  as  she  laid  her  head  upon 
the  high  chair-back  and  stretched  out  her 

feet. 

"I  wish  Alphonsina  would  come  back," 
she  said.  "Ah!"  she  added,  hearing  a 
footfall  on  the  step  outside  the  street-door, 
"  there  she  is." 

She  arose  and  drew  the  bolt.  Unseen  to 
her,  the  person  whose  footsteps  she  had  heard 
stood  upon  the  doorstep  with  a  hand  lifted 
to  knock,  but  pausing  to  "make  up  his 
mind."  He  heard  the  bolt  shoot  back, 
recognized  the  nature  of  the  mistake,  and, 
feeling  that  here  again  he  was  robbed  of 
volition,  rapped. 

"That  is  not  Alphonsina!" 
The  two  ladies  looked  at  each  other  and 
turned  pale. 

"  But  you  must  open  it,"  whispered  Clo- 
tilde, half  rising. 

Aurora  opened  the  door,  and   changed 

from  white  to  crimson.     Clotilde  rose  up 

quickly.     The  gentleman  lifted  his  hat. 

"  Madame  Nancanou." 

"M.  Grandissime?" 

"Oui,  Madame." 

For  once,  Aurora  was  in  an  uncontrollable 

flutter.     She   stammered,   lost  her    breath 

and   even   spoke   worse    French   than   she 

needed  to  have  done. 

"  Be  pi — pleased,  sir — to  enter.  Clo 
tilde,  my  daughter — Monsieur  Grandissime 
P-please  be  seated,  sir.  Monsieur  Grandis 
sime," — she  dropped  into  a  chair  with  an 
air  of  vivacity  pitiful  to  behold, — "  I  suppos 
you  have  come  for  the  rent."  She  blushec 
even  more  violently  than  before,  and  he 
hand  stole  upward  upon  her  heart  to  stay  it 


violent  beating.  "  Clotilde,  dear,  I  should 
be  glad  if  you  would  put  the  fire  before  the 
screen;  it  is  so  much  too  warm."  She 
pushed  her  chair  back  and  shaded  her  face 
with  her  hand.  "I  think  the  warmer^is 
growing  weather  outside,  is  it — is  it  not?" 

The  struggles  of  a  wounded  bird  could  not 
have  been  more  piteous.  Monsieur  Grand- 
issime sought  to  speak.  Clotilde,  too, 
nerved  by  the' sight  of  her  mother's  embar- 
rassment, came  to  her  support,  and  she  and 
ic  visitor  spoke  in  one  breath. 

"  Maman,  if  Monsieur — pardon " 

"  Madame  Nancanou,  the — pardon,  Mad- 
moiselle." 

"  I   have   presumed  to  call   upon   you, 
esumed  M.    Grandissime,  addressing  him- 
elf  now  to  both  ladies  at  once,  "  to  see  if 
may  enlist   you  in   a  purely  benevolent 
undertaking  in  the  interest  of  one  who  has 
)een  unfortunate — a  common  acquaintance 


•«  Common  acquaint — "  interrupted  Au- 
rora, with  a  hostile  lighting  of  her  eyes. 

"  I  believe  so — Professor  Frowenfeld." 
M.  Grandissime  saw  Clotilde  start,  and  in 
her  turn  falsely  accuse  the  fire  by  shading 
ler  face ;  but  it  was  no  time  to  stop.  "  La- 
dies," he  continued,  "  please  allow  me,  for 
the  sake  of  the  good  it  may  effect,  to  speak 
plainly  and  to  the  point." 

The  ladies  expressed  acquiescence  by  set- 
tling themselves  to  hear. 

"Professor  Frowenfeld  had  the  extraor- 
dinary misfortune  this  morning  to  incur  the 
suspicion  of  having  entered  a  house  for  the 

purpose  of— at  least,  for  a  bad  design " 

"  He  is  innocent ! "  came  from  Clotilde, 
against  her  intention ;  Aurora  covertly  put 
out  a  hand,  and  Clotilde  clutched  it  nerv- 
ously. 

"  As,  for  example,  robbery,"  said  the  self- 
recovered  Aurora,  ignoring  Clotilde's  look 
of  protestation. 

"  Call  it  so,"  responded  M.  Grandissime 
"  Have   you    heard    at  whose   house  this 
was  ?  " 
"  No,  sir." 

"  It  was  at  the  house  of  Palmyre  Philo 
sophe." 

"  Palmyre  Philosophe ! "  exclaimed  Aurora 
in  low  astonishment.     Clotilde  let  slip,  in  j 
tone  of  indignant  incredulity,  a  soft  "  Ah  ! ' 
Aurora   turned,  and  with  some  hope   tha 
M.  Grandissime  would  not  understand,  ven 
tured  to  say  in  Spanish,  quietly : 
"  Come,  this  will  never  do." 
And  Clotilde  replied,  in  the  same  tongue 
"  I  know  it,  but  he  is  innocent." 


THE   GRANDISSIMES. 


387 


"  Let  us  understand  each  other,"  said 
their  visitor.  "There  is  not  the  faintest 
idea  in  the  mind  of  one  of  us  that  Professor 
Frowenfeld  is  guilty  of  even  an  intention  of 
wrong;  otherwise  I  should  not  be  here. 
He  is  a  man  simply  incapable  of  anything 
ignoble." 

Clotilde  was  silent.  Aurora  answered 
promptly,  with  the  air  of  one  not  to  be 
excelled  in  generosity : 

"  Certainly,  he  is  very  incapabF." 

"  Still,"  resumed  the  visitor,  turning  espe- 
cially to  Clotilde,  "  the  known  facts  are 
these,  according  to  his  own  statement:  he 
was  in  the  house  of  Palmyre  on  some  legiti- 
mate business  which,  unhappily,  he  consid- 
ers himself  on  some  account  bound  not  to 
disclose,  and  by  some  mistake  of  Palmyre's 
old  Congo  woman,  was  set  upon  by  her 
and  wounded,  barely  escaping  with  a  whole 
skull  into  the  street,  an  object  of  public 
scandal.  Laying  aside  the  consideration 
of  his  feelings,  his  reputation  is  at  stake  and 
likely  to  be  ruined  unless  the  affair  can  be 
explained  clearly  and  satisfactorily,  and  at 
once,  by  his  friends." 

"And  you  undertake "  began  Aurora. 

"  Madame  Nancanou,"  said  Honore 
Grandissime,  leaning  toward  her  earnestly, 
"  you  know — I  must  beg  leave  to  appeal  to 
your  candor  and  confidence — you  know 
everything  concerning  Palmyre  that  I  know. 
You  know  me,  and  who  I  am ;  you  know  it  is 
not  for  me  to  undertake  to  confer  with  Pal- 
myre. I  know,  too,  her  old  affection  for  you ; 
she  lives  but  a  little  way  down  this  street  upon 
which  you  live ;  there  is  still  daylight  enough 
at  your  disposal ;  if  you  will,  you  can  go  to 
see  her,  and  get  from  her  a  full  and  complete 
exoneration  of  this  young  man.  She  can- 
not come  to  you ;  she  is  not  fit  to  leave  her 
room." 

"  Cannot  leave  her  room  ?  " 

"  I  am,  possibly,  violating  confidence  in 
this  disclosure,  but  it  is  unavoidable — you 
have  to  know :  she  is  not  fully  recovered 
from  a  pistol-shot  wound  received  between 
two  and  three  weeks  ago." 

"  Pistol-shot  wound !  " 

Both  ladies  started  forward  with  open  lips 
and  exclamations  of  amazement. 

"  Received  from  a  third  person — not  my- 
self and  not  Professor  Frowenfeld — in  a  des- 
perate attempt  made  by  her  to  avenge  the 
wrongs  which  she  has  suffered,  as  you, 
Madame,  as  well  as  I,  are  aware,  at  the 
hands  of " 

Aurora  rose  up  with  a  majestic  motion 
for  the  speaker  to  desist. 


"  If  it  is  to  mention  the  person  of  whom 
your  allusion  reminds  me,  that  you  have 
honored  us  with  a  call  this  evening,  Mon- 
sieur  " 

Her  eyes  were  flashing  as  he  had  seen 
them  flash  in  front  of  the  Place  d'Armes. 

"  I  beg  you  not  to  suspect  me  of  mean- 
ness," he  answered,  gently,  and  with  a  re- 
monstrative  smile.  "  I  have  been  trying  all 
day,  in  a  way  unnecessary  to  explain,  to  be 
generous." 

"  I  suppose  you  are  incapabl',"  said 
Aurora,  following  her  double  meaning  with 
that  combination  of  mischievous  eyes  and 
unsmiling  face  of  which  she  was  master. 
She  resumed  her  seat,  adding :  "  It  is  gen- 
erous for  you  to  admit  that  Palmyre  has 
suffered  wrongs." 

"  It  would  be,"  he  replied,  "  to  attempt 
to  repair  them,  seeing  that  I  am  not  respon- 
sible for  them,  but  this  I  cannot  claim  yet 
to  have  done.  I  have  asked  of  you,  Mad- 
ame, a  generous  act.  I  might  ask  another 
of  you  both,  jointly.  It  is  to  permit  me  to 
say,  without  offense,  that  there  is  one  man, 
at  least,  of  the  name  of  Grandissime  who 
views  with  regret  and  mortification  the  yet 
deeper  wrongs  which  you  are  even  now 
suffering." 

"  Oh  !  "  exclaimed  Aurora,  inwardly  ready 
for  fierce  tears,  but  with  no  outward  be- 
trayal save  a  trifle  too  much  grace  and  an 
over-bright  smile,  "  Monsieur  is  much  mis- 
taken ;  we  are  quite  comfortable  and  happy, 
wanting  nothing,  eh,  Clotilde? — not  even 
our  rights,  ha,  ha  !  " 

She  rose  and  let  Alphonsina  in.  The 
bundle  was  still  in  the  negress's  arms,  and 
she  passed  through  the  room  and  disap- 
peared in  the  direction  of  the  kitchen. 

"  Oh  !  no,  sir,  not  at  all,"  repeated  Aurora, 
as  she  once  more  sat  down. 

"You  ought  to  want  your  rights,"  said 
M.  Grandissime.  "  You  ought  to  have 
them." 

"  You  think  so  ?  " 

Aurora  was  really  finding  it  hard  to  con- 
ceal her  growing  excitement,  and  turned, 
with  a  faint  hope  of  relief,  toward  Clotilde. 

Clotilde,  looking  only  at  their  visitor,  but 
feeling  her  mother's  glance,  with  a  tremulous 
and  half-choked  voice,  said  eagerly  : 

"  Then  why  do  you  not  give  them  to  us  ?  " 

"  Ah !  "  interposed  Aurora,  "  we  shall  get 
them  to-morrow,  when  the  sheriff  comes." 

And,  thereupon,  what  did  Clotilde  do  but 
sit  bolt  upright,  with  her  hands  in  her  lap, 
and  let  the  tears  roll,  tear  after  tear,  down 
her  cheeks. 


388 


THE   GRANDISSIMES. 


«Yes    Monsieur,"   said   Aurora,   smiling 
still,  "those  that  you  see  are  really  tears 
Ha  ha,  ha!-excuse  me,  I  really  have  to 
laueh  •  for  I  just  happened  to  remember  our 
melting  at  the  masked  ball  last  September. 
We  had  such  a  pleasant  evening  and  were 
so  much  indebted  to  you  for  our  enjoyment, 
—particularly  myself— little   thinking,  you 
know  that  you  were  one  of  that  great  fam- 
ily  which  believes  we  ought  to  have   our 
rights,  you  know.     There  are  many  people 
who  ought  to  have  their  rights.     There  was 
Bras-Coup6;   indeed  he   got  them— found 
them  in  the  swamp.     Maybe  Clotilde  and 
I  shall  find  ours  in  the  street.     When  we 
unmasked  in  the  theater,  you  know,  I  did 
not  know  you  were  my  landlord,  and  you 
did  not  know  that  I  could  not  pay  a  few 
picayunes  of  rent.     But  you  must  excuse 
those  tears;    Clotilde  is  generally  a  brave 
little  woman,  and  would  not  be  so  rude  as 
to  weep  before  a  stranger ;  but  she  is  weak 
to-day— we  are  both  weak  to-day,  from  the 
fact  that  we  have  eaten  nothing  since  early 
morning,  although  we  have  abundance  of 
food— for  want  of  appetite,  you  understand. 
You  must  sometimes  be  affected  the  same 
way,  having  the  care  of  so  much  wealth, 
of  all  sorts" 

Honore  Grandissime  had  risen  to  his  feet 
and  was  standing  with  one  hand  on  the 
edge  of  the  lofty  mantel,  his  hat  in  the 
other  dropped  at  his  side  and  his  eye  fixed 
upon  Aurora's  beautiful  face,  whence  her 
small  nervous  hand  kept  dashing  aside  the 
tears  through  which  she  defiantly  talked 
and  smiled.  Clotilde  sat  with  clenched 
hands  buried  in  her  lap,  looking  at  Aurora 
and  still  weeping. 

And  M.  Grandissime  was  saying  to  him- 
self: 

"  If  I  do  this  thing  now — if  I  do  it  here 
— I  do  it  on  an  impulse;  I  do  it  under 
constraint  of  woman's  tears;  I  do  it  because 
I  love  this  woman ;  I  do  it  to  get  out  of  a 
corner ;  I  do  it  in  weakness,  not  in  strength ; 
I  do  it  without  having  made  up  my  mind 
whether  or  not  it  is  the  best  thing  to  do." 

And  then  without  intention,  with  scarcely 
more  consciousness  of  movement  than  be- 
longs to  the  undermined  tree  which  settles, 
roots   and  all,  into  the  swollen  stream   he 
turned  and  moved  toward  the  door. 
Clotilde  rose. 
"  Monsieur  Grandissime." 
He  stopped  and  looked  back. 
"  We  will  see  Palmyre  at  once,  according 
to  your  request." 

He  turned  his  eyes  toward  Aurora. 


"  Yes,"  said  she,  and  she  buried  her  face 
in  her  handkerchief  and  sobbed  aloud. 

She  heard  his  footstep  again ;  it  reached 
the  door;  the  door  opened— closed ;  she 
heard  his  footstep  again ;  was  he  gone  ? 

He  was  gone. 

The  two  women  threw  themselves  into 
each  other's  arms  and  wept.  Presently 
Clotilde  left  the  room.  She  came  back  in 
a  moment  from  the  rear  apartment,  with  a 
bonnet  and  veil  in  her  hands. 

"  No,"  said  Aurora,  rising  quickly,  "  I  must 

"  There  is  no  time  to  lose,"  said  Clotilde. 
"  It  will  soon  be  dark." 

It  was  hardly  a  minute  before  Aurora 
was  ready  to  start.  A  kiss,  a  sorrowful 
look  of  love  exchanged,  the  veil  dropped 
over  the  swollen  eyes,  and  Aurora  was  gone. 
A  minute  passed,  hardly  more,  and — 
what  was  this  ?— the  soft  patter  of  Aurora's 
knuckles  on  the  door. 

"  Just  here  at  the  corner  I  saw  Palmyre 
leaving  her  house  and  walking  down  the  rue 

Royale.      We  must  wait  until  morn " 

Again  a  footfall  on  the  doorstep,  and  the 
door,  which  was  standing  ajar,  was  pushed 
slightly  by  the  force  of  the  masculine  knock 
which  followed. 

"Allow  me,"  said  the  voice  of  Honore 
Grandissime,  as  Aurora  bowed  at  the  door. 
I  should  have  handed  you  this;    good- 
day." 

She  received   a  missive.      It   was  long, 
like  an  official  document ;  it  bore  evidence 
of  having  been  carried  for  some  hours  in  a 
coat  pocket,  and  was  folded  in  one  of  those 
old,  troublesome  ways  in  use  before  the  days 
of  envelopes.     Aurora  pulled  it  open. 
"  It  is  all  figures ;  light  a  candle." 
The  candle  was  lighted  by  Clotilde  and 
held  over  Aurora's   shoulder;  they  saw   a 
heading  and  footing  more  conspicuous  than 
the  rest  of  the  writing. 
The  heading  read : 


"  Aurora  and  Clotilde  Nancanou,  owners  of  Fausst 
Riviere  Plantation,  in  account  with  Honore  Grandts- 
sime." 

The  footing  read: 

"Balance  at  credit,  subject  to  order  of  Aurora  am 
Clotilde  Nancanou,  $105,000.00." 

The  date  followed : 

"  Mar.  9, 1804," 
and  the  signature : 

"H.  Grandissime." 

A  small  piece  of  torn  white  paper  slippe< 
from  the  account   to   the  floor.     Clotilde' 


THE   GRANDISSIMES. 


389 


eye  followed  it,  but  Aurora,  without  any 
acknowledgment  of  having  seen  it,  covered 
it  with  her  foot. 

In  the  morning  Aurora  awoke  first.  She 
drew  from  under  her  pillow  this  slip  of  paper. 
She  had  not  dared  look  at  it  until  now. 
The  writing  on  it  had  been  roughly  scratched 
down  with  a  pencil.  It  read  : 

"  Not  for  love  of  woman,  but  in  the  name  of  *ustice 
and  the  fear  of  God." 

"And  I  was  so  cruel,"  she  whispered. 

Ah  !  Honore  Grandissime,  she  was  kind 
to  that  little  writing !  She  did  not  put  it 
back  under  her  pillow ;  she  kept  it  warm, 
Honore  Grandissime,  from  that  time  forth. 


CHAPTER   XLIV. 
BAD   FOR   CHARLIE    KEENE. 

ON  the  same  evening  of  which  we  have 
been  telling,  about  the  time  that  Aurora 
and  Clotilde  were  dropping  their  last  tear 
of  joy  over  the  document  of  restitution,  a 
noticeable  figure  stood  alone  at  the  corner 
of  the  rue  du  Canal  and  the  rue  Chartres. 
He  had  reached  there  and  paused,  just  as 
the  brighter  glare  of  the  set  sun  was  growing 
dim  above  the  tops  of  the  cypresses.  After 
walking  with  some  rapidity  of  step,  he 
had  stopped  aimlessly,  and  laid  his  hand 
with  an  air  of  weariness  upon  a  rotting 
China-tree  that  leaned  over  the  ditch  at  the 
edge  of  the  unpaved  walk. 

"  Setting  in  cypress,"  he  murmured  in 
Creole  French.  We  need  not  concern  our- 
selves as  to  his  meaning. 

One  could  think  aloud  there  with  impu- 
nity. In  1804,  Canal  street  was  the  upper 
boundary  of  New  Orleans.  Beyond  it,  to 
southward,  the  open  plain  was  dotted  with 
country  houses,  brick-kilns,  clumps  of  live- 
oak  and  groves  of  pecan.  At  the  hour 
mentioned  the  outlines  of  these  objects  were 
already  darkening.  At  one  or  two  points  the 
sky  was  reflected  from  marshy  ponds.  Out 
to  westward  rose  conspicuously  the  old 
house  and  willow-copse  of  Jean-Poquelin. 
Down  the  empty  street  or  road,  which 
stretched  with  arrow-like  straightness  toward 
the  north-west,  the  draining-canal  that  gave 
it  its  name  tapered  away  between  occasional 
overhanging  willows  and  beside  broken 
ranks  of  rotting  palisades,  its  foul,  crawling 
waters  blushing  and  gilding  and  purpling 
under  the  swiftly  waning  light,  and  ending 
suddenly  in  the  black  shadow  of  the  swamp. 


The  observer  of  this  dismal  prospect  leaned 
heavily  on  his  arm,  and  cast  his  glance  out 
along  the  beautified  corruption  of  the  canal. 
His  eye  seemed  quickened  to  detect  the 
smallest  repellant  details  of  the  scene ;  every 
cypress  stump  that  stood  in  or  overhung 
the  slimy  water ;  every  ruined  indigo  vat  or 
blasted  tree,  every  broken  thing,  every 
bleached  bone  of  ox  or  horse — and  they 
were  many — for  roods  around.  As  his  eye 
passed  them  slowly  over  and  swept  back  again 
around  the  dreary  view,  he  sighed  heavily 
and  said  :  "  Dissolution,"  and  then  again — 
"  Dissolution  !  order  of  the  day " 

A  secret  overhearer  might  have  followed, 
by  these  occasional  exclamatory  utterances, 
the  course  of  a  devouring  trouble  prowling 
up  and  down  through  his  thought,  as  one's 
eye  tracks  the  shark  by  the  occasional  cut- 
ting of  his  fin  above  the  water. 

He  spoke  again : 

"  It  is  in  such  moods  as  this  that  fools 
drown  themselves." 

His  speech  was  French.  He  straightened 
up,  smote  the  tree  softly  with  his  palm,  and 
breathed  a  long,  deep  sigh — such  a  sigh,  if 
the  very  truth  be  told,  as  belongs  by  right 
to  a  lover.  And  yet  his  mind  did  not  dwell 
on  love. 

He  turned  and  left  the  place;  but  the 
trouble  that  was  plowing  hither  and  thither 
through  the  deep  of  his  meditations  went 
with  him.  As  he  turned  into  the  rue  Char- 
tres it  showed  itself  thus  : 

"Right;  it  is  but  right;"  he  shook  his 
head  slowly — "  it  is  but  right." 

In  the  rue  Douane  he  spoke  again: 

"  Ah  !  Frowenfeld  " — and  smiled  unpleas- 
antly, with  his  head  down. 

And  as  he  made  yet  another  turn,  and 
took  his  meditative  way  down  the  city's 
front,  along  the  blacksmith-shops  in  the 
street  afterward  called  Old  Levee,  he  re- 
sumed, in  English,  and  with  a  distinctness 
that  made  a  staggering  sailor  halt  and  look 
after  him  : 

"  There-h  ah  but  two  steps  to  civilization, 
the  first  easy,  the  second  diffycult ;  to  con- 
strhuct — to  rheconstrhuct — ah !  there-h  it  is ! 
the  tearhing  down  !  The  tear " 

He  was  still,  but  repeated  the  thought 
with  a  gesture  of  distress  turned  into  a  slow 
stroke  of  the  forehead. 

"  Monsieur  Honore  Grandissime,"  said  a 
voice  just  ahead. 

" Eh,  Men?  " 

At  the  mouth  of  an  alley,  in  the  dim  light 
of  the  street  lamp,  stood  the  dark  figure  of 
Honore  Grandissime,  f.  m.  c.,  holding  up 


THE   GRANDISSIMES. 


— 

the  loosely  hanging  form  of  a  small  man, 
the  whole  front  of  whose  clothing  was  sat- 
urated with  blood. 

"Why,  Chahlie  Keene!     Let  him  down 
again,  quickly— quickly ;  do  not  hold  him 


so ! 


«  Hands  off,"  came  in  a  ghastly  whisper 
from  the  shape. 

«  Oh,  Chahlie,  my  boy 

«  Go  and  finish  your  courtship,"  whispered 
the  doctor. 

"  Oh,  Chahlie,  I  have  just  made  it  for- 
hever  impossible ! " 

"  Then  help  me  back  to  my  bed ;  1  don  t 
care  to  die  in  the  street." 


CHAPTER   XLV. 
MORE   REPARATION. 

"THAT  is  all,"  said  the  fairer  Honor6, 
outside  Doctor  Keene's  sick-room  about 
ten  o'clock  at  night.  He  was  speaking  to 
the  black  son  of  Clemence,  who  had  been 
serving  as  errand  boy  for  some  hours.  He 
spoke  in  a  low  tone  just  without  the  half- 
open  door,  folding  again  a  paper  which  the 
lad  had  lately  borne  to  the  apothecary  of 
the  rue  Royale,  and  had  now  brought  back 
with  Joseph's  answer  written  under  HonoreVs 
inquiry. 

"  That  is  all,"  said  the  other  Honore, 
standing  partly  behind  the  first,  as  the  eyes 
of  his  little  menial  turned  upon  him  that 
deprecatory  glance  of  inquiry  so  common 
to  slave  children.  The  lad  went  a  little 
way  down  the  corridor,  curled  up  upon  the 
floor  against  the  wall,  and  was  soon  asleep. 
The  fairer  Honore  handed  the  darker  the 
slip  of  paper ;  it  was  received  and  returned 
in  silence ;  the  question  was : 

"  Can  you  state  anything  positive  concerning  the 
duel?" 

And  the  reply : 

"  Positively  there  will  be  none.  Sylvestre  my  sworn 
friend  for  life.'1'1 


The  half-brothers  sat  down  under  a  dim 
hanging  lamp  in  the  corridor,  and  except 
that  every  now  and  then  one  or  the  other 
stepped  noiselessly  to  the  door  to  look  in 
upon  the  sleeping  sick  man,  or  in  the  oppo- 
site direction  to  moderate  by  a  push  with 
the  foot  the  snoring  of  Clemence's  "  boy," 
they  sat  the  whole  night  through  in  whis- 
pered counsel. 

The   one,  at  the   request  of  the   other, 


explained  how  he  had  come  to  be  with  the 
little  doctor  in  such  extremity. 

It  seems  that  Clemence,  seeing  and  under- 
standing the  doctor's  imprudence,  had  sallied 
out  with  the  resolve  to  set  some  person 
on  his  track.  We  have  said  that  she  went 
in  search  of  her  master.  Him  she  met,  and 
though  she  could  not  really  count  him  one 
of  the  doctor's  friends,  yet,  rightly  believing 
in  his  humanity,  she  told  him  the  matter. 
He  set  off  in  what  was  for  him  a  quick 
pace  in  search  of  the  rash  invalid,  was  mis- 
directed by  a  too  confident  child  and  had 
given  up  the  hope  of  finding  him,  when  a 
faint  sound  of  distress  just  at  hand  drew 
him  into  an  alley,  where,  close  down  against 
a  wall,  with  his  face  to  the  earth,  lay  Doc- 
tor Keene.  The  f.  m.  c.  had  just  raised 
him  and  borne  him  out  of  the  alley  when 
Honore  came  up. 

"  And  you  say  that,  when  you  would 
have  inquired  for  him  at  Frowenfeld's,  you 
saw  Palmyre  there,  standing  and  talking 
with  Frowenfeld  ?  Tell  me  more  exactly." 
And  the  other,  with  that  grave  and  gen- 
tle economy  of  words  which  made  his 
speech  so  unique,  recounted : 

Palmyre  had  needed  no  pleading  to  in- 
duce her  to  exonerate  Joseph.  The  doc- 
tors were  present  at  Frowenfeld's  in  more 
than  usual  number.  There  was  unusualness, 
too,  in  their  manner  and  their  talk.  They 
were  not  entirely  free  from  the  excitement 
of  the  day,  and  as  they  talked,  with  an  air 
of  superiority,  of  Creole  inflammability,  and 
with  some  contempt,  concerning  Camille 
Brahmin's  and  Charlie  Mandarin's  efforts  to 
precipitate  a  war,  they  were  yet  visibly  in 
a  state  of  expectation.  Frowenfeld,  they 
softly  said,  had  in  his  odd  way  been  indis- 
creet among  these  inflammables  at  Maspero's 
just  when  he  could  least  afford  to  be  so,  and 
there  was  no  telling  what  they  might  take 
the  notion  to  do  to  him  before  bedtime.  All 
that  over  and  above  the  independent,  unex- 
plained scandal  of  the  early  morning.  So 
Joseph  and  his  friends  this  evening,  like 
Aurora  and  Clotilde  in  the  morning,  were, 
as  we  nowadays  say  of  buyers  and  sellers, 
"  apart,"  when  suddenly  and  unannounced, 
Palmyre  presented  herself  among  them. 
When  the  f.  m.  c.  saw  her,  she  had  already 
handed  Joseph  his  hat  and  with  much  sober 
grace  was  apologizing  for  her  slave's  mistake. 
All  evidence  of  her  being  wounded  was 
concealed.  The  extraordinary  excitement 
of  the  morning  had  not  hurt  her,  and  she 
seemed  in  perfect  health.  The  doctors  sal 
or  stood  around  and  gave  rapt  attention  tc 


DOES   VIVISECTION  PA  Y? 


39* 


her  patois,  one  or  two  translating  it  for 
Joseph,  and  he  blushing  to  the  hair,  but 
standing  erect  and  receiving  it  at  second- 
hand with  silent  bows.  The  f.  m.  c.  had 
gazed  on  her  for  a  moment,  and  then  forced 
himself  away.  He  was  among  the  few  who 
had  not  heard  the  morning  scandal,  and 
he  did  not  comprehend  the  evening  scene. 
He  now  asked  Honore  concerning  it,  and 
quietly  showed  great  relief  when  it  was 
explained. 

Then  Honore,  breaking  a  silence,  called 
the  attention  of  the  f.  m.  c.  to  the  fact  that  the 
latter  had  two  tenants  at  No.  1 9  rue  Bienville. 
Honore  became  the  narrator  now  and  told 
all,  finally  stating  that  the  die  was  cast — the 
restitution  made. 

And  then  the  darker  Honore  made  a 
proposition  to  the  other,  which,  it  is  little 


to  say,  was  startling.  They  discussed  it  for 
hours. 

"  So  just  a  condition,"  said  the  merchant, 
raising  his  whisper  so  much  that  the  rentier 
laid  a  hand  in  his  elbow, — "  such  mere  jus- 
tice," he  said,  more  softly,  "  ought  to  be  an 
easy  condition.  God  knows  " — he  lifted  his 
glance  reverently — "  my  very  right  to  exist 
comes  after  yours.  You  are  the  elder." 

The  solemn  man  offered  no  disclaimer. 

What  could  the  proposition  be  which 
involved  so  grave  an  issue,  and  to  whick 
M.  Grandissime's  final  answer  was  "  I  will 
do  it "  ? 

It  was  that  Honore  f.  m.  c.  should  become 
a  member  of  the  mercantile  house  of  H. 
Grandissime,  enlisting  in  its  capital  all  his 
wealth.  And  the  one  condition  was  that  the 
new  style  should  be  Grandissime  Brothers. 


(To  be  continued.) 


DOES   VIVISECTION    PAY? 


THE  question  of  vivisection  is  again 
pushing  itself  to  the  front.  A  distinguished 
American  physiologist  has  lately  come  for- 
ward in  defense  of  the  French  experimenter, 
Magendie,  and,  parenthetically,  of  his  meth- 
ods of  investigation  in  the  study  of  vital 
phenomena.  On  the  other  hand,  the  Soci- 
ety for  the  Prevention  of  Cruelty  to  Animals 
made  an  unsuccessful  attempt,  in  the  New 
York  Legislature  last  winter,  to  secure  the 
passage  of  a  law  which  would  entirely  abol- 
ish the  practice  as  now  in  vogue  in  our 
medical  schools,  or  cause  it  to  be  secretly 
carried  on,  in  defiance  of  legal  enactments. 
In  support  of  this  bill  it  was  claimed  that 
physiologists,  for  the  sake  of"  demonstrating 
to  medical  students  certain  physiological 
phenomena  connected  with  the  functions  of 
life,  are  constantly  and  habitually  in  the 
practice  of  cutting  up  alive,  torturing  and 
tormenting  divers  of  the  unoffending  brute 
creation  to  illustrate  their  theories  and 
lectures,  but  without  any  practical  or  bene- 
ficial result  either  to  themselves  or  to  the  stu- 
dents, which  practice  is  demoralizing  to  both 
and  engenders  in  the  future  medical  practi- 
tioners a  want  of  humanity  and  sympathy 
for  physical  pain  and  suffering."  How  far 
these  statements  are  true  will  be  hereafter 
discussed ;  but  one  assertion  is  so  evidently 
erroneous  that  it  may  be  at  once  indicated. 
No  experiment,  however  atrocious,  cruel 


and,  therefore,  on  the  whole,  unjustifiable, 
if  performed  to  illustrate  some  scientific 
point,  was  ever  without  "  any  beneficial 
result."  The  benefit  may  have  been  infini- 
tesimal, but  every  scientific  fact  is  of  some 
value.  To  assert  the  contrary  is  to  weaken 
one's  case  by  overstatement. 

Leaving  out  the  brute  creation,  there  are 
three  parties  interested  in  this  discussion. 
In  the  first  place,  there  are  the  professors 
and  teachers  of  physiology  in  the  medical 
colleges.  Naturally,  these  desire  no  inter- 
ference with  either  their  work  or  their 
methods.  They  point  out  the  fact  that 
were  the  knowledge  acquired  by  experi- 
ments upon  living  organisms  swept  out  of 
existence,  in  many  respects  the  science  oi 
physiology  would  be  little  more  than  guess- 
work to-day.  The  subject  of  vivisection, 
they  declare,  is  one  which  does  not  concern 
the  general  public,  but  belongs  exclusively 
to  scientists  and  especially  to  physiologists, 
and,  in  the  present  century,  to  permit  senti- 
mentalists to  interfere  with  scientific  investi- 
gations is  preposterous. 

Behind  these  stand  the  majority  of  men 
belonging  to  the  medical  profession.  Hold- 
ing, as  they  do,  the  most  important  and 
intimate  relations  to  society,  it  is  manifestly 
desirable  that  they  should  enjoy  the  best 
facilities  for  the  acquirement  of  knowledge 
necessary  to  their  art.  To  most,  the  ques- 


392 


DOES   VIVISECTION  PA  Y? 


tion  is  merely  one  of  professional  privilege 
against  sentiment,  and  they  cannot  hesitate 
which  side  to  prefer.  In  this,  as  in  other 
professions  or  trades,  the  feeling  of  esprit  de 
corps  is  exceedingly  strong;  and  no  class 
of  men  like  interference  on  the  part  of  out- 
siders. To  most  physicians  it  is  wholly  a 
scientific  question.  It  is  a  matter,  they 
think,  with  which  the  public  has  no  concern ; 
if  society  can  trust  to  the  profession  its 
sick  and  dying,  they  surely  can  leave  to  its 
feeling  of  humanity  a  few  worthless  brutes. 
The  opinion  of  the  general  public  is, 
therefore,  divided  and  confused.  On  the 
one  hand,  it  is  profoundly  desirous  to  make 
systematic  and  needless  cruelty  impossible ; 
yet,  on  the  other,  it  cannot  but  hesitate  to 
take  any  step  which  shall  hinder  medical 
education,  impede  scientific  discovery,  or 
restrict  search  for  new  methods  of  treating 
disease.  What  are  the  sufferings  of  an 
animal,  however  acute  or  prolonged,  com- 
pared with  the  gain  to  humanity  which  would 
result  from  the  knowledge  thereby  acquired 
of  a  single  curative  agent  ?  Public  opinion 
hesitates.  A  leading  newspaper,  comment- 
ing on  the  introduction  of  the  Bergh  bill, 
doubtless  expressed  the  sentiment  of  most 
people  when  it  deprecated  prevention  of 
experiments  "by  which  original  investiga- 
tors seek  to  establish  or  verify  conclusions 
which  may  be  of  priceless  value  to  the  pres- 
ervation of  life  and  health  among  human 
beings." 

The  question  nevertheless  confronts  soci- 
ety,— and  in  such  shape,  too,  that  society  can- 
not escape,  even  if  it  would,  the  responsibility 
of  a  decision.     Either  by  action  or  inaction 
the  State  must  decide  whether  the  practice 
of  vivisection  shall  be  wholly  abolished,  as 
desired  by  some;  whether  it  shall  be  re- 
stricted  by  law   within   certain  limits  and 
for   certain    definite   objects,   as    in    Great 
Britain ;  or  whether  we  are  to  continue  in 
this  country  to  follow  the  example  of  France 
and  Germany,  in  permitting  the  practice  of 
physiological  experimentation  to  any  extent 
devised  or  desired  by  the  experimentalisl 
himself.     Any  information  tending  to  indi- 
cate which  of  these  courses  is  best  cannot 
be  inopportune.     Having  witnessed  experi- 
ments by  some  of  the  most  distinguishec 
European    physiologists,    such    as   Claude 
Bernard     (the     successor     of    Magendie) 
Milne-Edwards  and  Brown-Sequard ;  and 
still  better   (or  worse,  as  the  reader   may 
think),  having  performed  some  experiments 
in  this  direction  for  purposes  of  investiga 
tion  and  for  the  instruction  of  others,  th 


present  writer  believes  himself  justified  in 
molding  and  stating  a  pronounced  opinion 
on  this  subject,  even  if  it  seem,  to  some 
extent,  opposed  to  the  one  prevailing  in  the 
>rofession.  Suppose,  therefore,  we  review 
Briefly  the  arguments  to  be  adduced  both 
n  favor  of  the  practice  and  against  it. 

Two   principal   arguments   may   be    ad- 
vanced in  its  favor. 

I.  It  is  undeniable  that  to  the  practice 
of  vivisection  we  are  indebted  for  nearly  all 
our  present  knowledge  of  physiology.     This 

s  the  fortress  of  the  advocates  of  vivisection, 
and  a  certain  refuge  when  other  arguments 
are  of  no  avail.  However  questionable  it 
may  be  whether  from  future  experiments — 
and  especially  from  that  class  of  experiments 
in  which  the  infliction  of  pain  is  a  necessity 
— any  additions  to  our  present  knowledge 
are  likely  to  be  acquired,  it  is  certain  that 
about  all  we  have  we  owe  to  this  source. 

II.  As  a  means  of  teaching  physiological 
facts,  vivisection  is  unsurpassed.    No  teacher 
of  science  needs  to  be  told  the  vast  supe- 
riority of  demonstration    over   affirmation. 
Take,  for  instance,  the   circulation    of  the 
blood.     The   student   who   displays  but   a 
languid   interest   in  statements  of  fact,  or 
even   in   the  best   delineations  and  charts 
obtainable,  will  be   thoroughly  aroused  by 
seeing  the  process  actually  before  his  eyes. 
A  week's   study   upon   the   book  will   less 
certainly  be  retained  in   his  memory  than 
a   single   view   of   the   opened   thorax   of 
a  frog   or   dog.      There  before  him  is  the 
throbbing   heart;  he   sees   its   relations   to 
adjoining    structures,    and    marks,    with    a 
wonder  he  never  before  knew,  that  mystery 
of  life  by  which  the  heart,  even  though  ex- 
cised from  the  body,  does  not  cease  for  a 
time  its  rhythmic  beat.     To  imagine,  then, 
that  teachers  of  physiology  find  mere  amuse- 
ment   in    these  operations   is   the   greatest 
of  ignorant  mistakes.     They  deem  it  desira- 
ble  that   certain  facts  be   accurately  fixed 
in  memory,  and  they  know  that  no  system 
of  mnemonics  equals  for  such  purpose  the 
demonstration  of  the  function  itself. 

Just  here,  however,  arises  a  very  important 
question.  Admitting  the  benefit  of  the  dem- 
onstration of  scientific  facts,  how  far  may 
one  justifiably  subject  an  animal  to  pain  for 
the  purpose  of  illustrating  a  point  already 
known  ?  It  is  merely  a  question  of  cost. 
For  instance,  it  is  an  undisputed  statement 
in  physical  science  that  the  diamond  is 
nothing  more  than  a  form  of  crystallized 
carbon,  and,  like  other  forms  of  carbon, 
under  certain  conditions,  may  be  made  to 


DOES   VIVISECTION  PAY? 


393 


burn.  Now  most  of  us  are  entirely  willing 
to  accept  this,  as  we  do  the  majority  of 
truths,  upon  the  testimony  of  scientific  men, 
without  making  demonstration  a  requisite 
of  assent.  In  a  certain  private  school,  how- 
ever, it  has  long  been  the  custom,  once  a 
year,  to  burn  in  oxygen  a  small  diamond, 
worth  perhaps  $30,  so  as  actually  to  prove 
to  the  pupils  the  assertion  of  their  text- 
books. The  experiment  is  a  brilliant  one ; 
no  one  can  doubt  its  entire  success.  Never- 
theless, we  do  not  furnish  diamonds  to  our 
public  schools  for  this  purpose.  Exactly 
similar  to  this  is  one  aspect  of  vivisection — 
it  is  a  question  of  cost.  Granting  all  the 
advantages  which  follow  demonstration  of 
certain  physiological  facts,  the  cost  is  pain — 
pain  sometimes  amounting  to  prolonged  and 
excruciating  torture.  Is  the  gain  worth  this  ? 
Let  me  mention  an  instance.  Not  long 
ago,  in  a  certain  medical  college  in  the  State 
of  New  York,  I  saw  what  Doctor  Sharpey, 
for  thirty  years  the  professor  of  physiol- 
ogy in  the  University  Medical  College, 
London,  once  characterized  by  antithesis  as 
"  Magendie's  in-famous  experiment,"  it  hav- 
ing been  first  performed  by  that  eminent 
physiologist.  It  was  designed  to  prove 
that  the  stomach,  although  supplied  with 
muscular  coats,  is  during  the  act  of  vomit- 
ing for  the  most  part  passive ;  and  that  ex- 
pulsion of  its  contents  is  due  to  the  action 
of  the  diaphragm  and  the  larger  abdominal 
muscles.  The  professor  to  whom  I  refer 
did  not  propose  to  have  even  Magendie's 
word  accepted  as  an  authority  on  the  sub- 
ject: the  fact  should  be  demonstrated 
again.  So  an  incision  in  the  abdomen  of  a 
dog  was  made ;  its  stomach  was  cut  out ;  a 
pig's  bladder  containing  colored  water  was 
inserted  in  its  place,  an  emetic  was  injected 
into  the  veins, — and  vomiting  ensued.  Long 
before  the  conclusion  of  the  experiment  the 
animal  became  conscious,  and  its  cries  of 
suffering  were  exceedingly  painful  to  hear. 
Now,  granting  that  this  experiment  impressed 
an  abstract  scientific  fact  upon  the  memories 
of  all  who  saw  it,  nevertheless  it  remains 
significantly  true  that  the  fact  thus  demon- 
strated had  no  conceivable  relation  to  the 
treatment  of  disease.  It  is  not  to-day 
regarded  as  conclusive  of  the  theory  which, 
after  nearly  two  hundred  repetitions  of  his 
experiment,  was  doubtless  considered  by 
Magendie  as  established  beyond  question. 
Doctor  Sharpey,  a  strong  advocate  of  vivi- 
section, by  the  way,  condemned  it  as  a 
perfectly  unjustifiable  experiment,  since  "  be- 
sides its  atrocity,  it  was  really  purposeless." 


Was  this  repetition  of  the  experiment  which 
I  have  described  worth  its  cost?  was  the 
gain  worth  the  pain  ? 

Let  me  instance  another  and  more  recent 
case.  Being  in  Paris  a  year  ago,  I  went  one 
morning  to  the  College  de  France,  to  hear 
Brown-Sequard,  the  most  eminent  experi- 
menter in  vivisection  now  living — one  who, 
Doctor  Carpenter  tells  us,  has  probably 
inflicted  more  animal  suffering  than  any 
other  man  in  his  time.  The  lecturer  stated 
that  injury  to  certain  nervous  centers  near 
the  base  of  the  brain  would  produce  pecul- 
iar and  curious  phenomena  in  the  animal 
operated  upon,  causing  it,  for  example,  to 
keep  turning  to  one  side  in  a  circular  man- 
ner, instead  of  walking  in  a  straight-forward 
direction.  A  Guinea-pig  was  produced — a 
little  creature,  about  the  size  of  a  half- 
grown  kitten — and  the  operation  was  effected, 
accompanied  by  a  series  of  piercing  little 
squeaks.  As  foretold,  the  creature  thus 
injured  did  immediately  perform  a  "circular" 
movement.  A  rabbit  was  then  operated 
upon  with  similar  results.  Lastly,  an  unfor- 
tunate poodle  was  introduced,  its  muzzle  tied 
with  stout  whip-cord,  wound  round  and  round 
so  tightly  that  it  must  necessarily  have  caused 
severe  pain.  It  was  forced  to  walk  back 
and  forth  on  the  long  table,  during  which  it 
cast  looks  on  every  side,  as  though  seeking 
a  possible  avenue  of  escape.  Being  fastened 
in  the  operating  trough,  an  incision  was 
made  to  the  bone,  flaps  turned  back,  an 
opening  made  in  the  skull,  and  enlarged 
by  breaking  away  some  portions  with  for- 
ceps. During  these  various  processes  no 
attempt  whatever  was  made  to  cause  un- 
consciousness by  means  of  anaesthetics, 
and  the  half- articulate,  half-smothered  cries 
of  the  creature  in  its  agony  were  terrible  to 
hear,  even  to  one  not  unaccustomed  to 
vivisections.  The  experiment  was  a  "  suc- 
cess " ;  the  animal  after  its  mutilation  did 
describe  certain  circular  movements.  But 
I  cannot  help  questioning  in  regard  to  these 
demonstrations,  did  they  pay  ?  This  exper- 
iment had  not  the  slightest  relation  what- 
ever to  the  cure  of  disease.  More  than 
this :  it  teaches  us  little  or  nothing  in  physi- 
ology. The  most  eminent  physiologist  in 
this  country,  Doctor  Austin  Flint,  Jr.,  ad- 
mits that  experiments  of  this  kind  "  do 
not  seem  to  have  advanced  our  positive 
knowledge  of  the  functions  of  the  nerve 
centers,"  and  that  similar  experiments  "  have 
been  very  indefinite  in  their  results."  On 
this  occasion,  therefore,  three  animals  were 
subjected  to  torture  to  demonstrate  an 


DOES    VIVISECTION  PAY? 


abstrac.  fact,  which  probably  not  a  single  one 
of  the  two  dozen  spectators  would  have 
hesitated  to  take  for  granted  on  the  word 
of  so  great  a  pathologist  as  Doctor  Brown- 
Sequard.  Was  the  gain  worth  the  cost  ? 

This,  then,  is  the  great  question  that  must 
eventually  be  decided  by  the  public.     Do 
humanity  and  science  here  indicate  diverging 
roads  ?    On  the  contrary,  I  believe  it  to  be  an 
undeniable  fact  that  the  highest  scientific  and 
medical  opinion   is  against  the  repetition  of 
painful  experiments  for  class  teaching.     In 
1875,  a  Royal  Commission  was  appointed  in 
Great  Britain  to  investigate  the  subject  of 
vivisection,  with  a  view  to  subsequent  legis- 
lation.    The  interests  of  science  were  repre- 
sented   by  the    appointment   of  Professor 
Huxley  as  a  member  of  this  commission. 
Its  meetings  continued  over  several  months, 
and  the  report  constitutes  a  large  volume 
of  valuable   testimony.     The   opinions   of 
many   of    these    witnesses   are    worthy   of 
special  attention,  from  the  eminent  position 
of  the  men  who  hold  them.     The  physi- 
cian  to   the   Queen,  Sir  Thomas  Watson, 
with   whose  "  Lectures   on   Physic  "  every 
medical  practitioner  in  this  country  is  famil- 
iar, says  :  "  I  hold  that  no  teacher  or  man 
of  science  who,  by  his  own  previous  experi- 
ments,   *     *     *     has  thoroughly  satisfied 
himself  of  the  solution  of  any  physiological 
problem,  is  justified  in  repeating  the  experi- 
ments, however  mercifully,  to  appease  the 
natural  curiosity  of  a  class  of  students  or  of 
scientific   friends."     Sir  George  Burroughs, 
President  of  the  Royal  College  of  Physicians, 
says :  "  I  do  not  think  that  an  experiment 
should  be  repeated  over  and  over  again  in 
our  medical  schools   to   illustrate  what   is 
already  established."  *     Sir  James  Paget, 
Surgeon  Extraordinary  to  the  Queen,  said 
before  the  commission  that  "  experiments  for 
the  purpose  of  repeating  anything  already 
ascertained   ought  never  to   be  shown  to 
classes."      [363.]      Sir   William   Fergusson, 
F.  R.  S.,  also  Surgeon  to  her  Majesty,  as- 
serted  that  "  sufferings   incidental  to  such 
operations  are  protracted  in  a  very  shock- 
ing manner " ;    that   of  such   experiments 
there  is  "  useless  repetition,"  and  that "  when 
once  a  fact  which  involves  cruelty  to  ani- 
mals has   been  fairly  recognized   and   ac- 


*  "  Report  of  the  Royal  Commission  on  the  Prac- 
tice of  Subjecting  Live  Animals  to  Experiments  for 
Scientific  Purposes."  Question  No.  175.  Reference 
to  this  volume  will  hereafter  be  made  in  this  article 
by  inserting  in  brackets,  immediately  after  the 
authority  quoted,  the  number  of  the  question  in 
this  report  from  which  the  extract  is  made. 


cepted,  there  is  no  necessity  for  a  continued 
repetition."     [1019.]     Even  physiologists- 
some  of  them    practical   experimenters   in 
vivisection — join  in  condemning  these  class 
demonstrations.     Dr.  William  Sharpey,  be- 
fore referred  to  as  a  teacher  of  physiology  for 
over  thirty  years  in  University  College,  says  : 
"  Once   such  facts  fully  established,  I   do 
not  think  it  justifiable  to  repeat  experiments 
causing  pain  to  animals."    [4°5-]    Dr-  Rol~ 
leston,  Professor  of  Physiology  at  Oxford, 
said  that  "  for  class  demonstrations  limita- 
tions should  undoubtedly  be  imposed,  and 
those  limitations  should  render  illegal  painful 
experiments  before  classes."    [1291.]    Charles 
Darwin,  the  greatest  of  living   naturalists, 
stated  that  he  had  never  either  directly  or 
indirectly  experimented  on  animals,  and  that 
he  regarded  a  painful   experiment  without 
anaesthetics   which    might    be    made   with 
anaesthetics  as  deserving  "  detestation  and 
abhorrence."    [4672.]    And  finally  the  report 
of  this  commission,  to  which  is  attached  the 
name   of  Professor    Huxley,  says:    "With 
respect  to  medical  schools,  we  accept  the 
resolution  of  the  British  Association  in  1871, 
that   experimentation   without   the   use   of 
anaesthetics   is  not  a  fitting   exhibition  for 
teaching  purposes." 

It  must  be  noted  that  hardly  any  of 
these  opinions  touch  the  question  of  vivi- 
section so  far  as  it  is  done  without  the  in- 
fliction of  pain,  nor  object  to  it  as  a  method 
of  original  research;  they  relate  simply  to  the 
practice  of  repeating  painful  experiments  for 
purposes  of  physiological  teaching.  We 
cannot  dismiss  them  as  sentimental  or 
unimportant.  If  painful  experiments  are 
necessary  for  the  education  of  the  young 
physician,  how  happens  it  that  Watson 
and  Burroughs  are  ignorant  of  the  fact? 
If  indispensable  to  the  proper  training  of  the 
surgeon,  why  are  they  condemned  by  Fer- 
gusson and  Paget?  If  requisite  even  to 
physiology,  why  denounced  by  the  physi- 
ologists of  Oxford  and  London  ?  If  neces- 
sary to  science,  why  viewed  with  abhorrence 
by  the  greatest  of  modern  scientists  ? 

Another  objection  to  vivisection,  when 
practiced  as  at  present  without  supervision 
or  control,  is  the  undeniable  fact  that  habit- 
ual familiarity  with  the  infliction  of  pain  upon 
animals  has  a  decided  tendency  to  engender 
a  sort  of  careless  indifference  regarding 
suffering.  "  Vivisection,"  says  Professor 
Rolleston,  of  Oxford,  "is  very  liable  to 
abuse.  *  *  *  It  is  specially  liable  to  tempt 
a  man  into  certain  carelessnesses;  the  passive 
impressions  produced  by  the  sight  of  suffer- 


DOES   VIVISECTION  PAY? 


395 


ing  growing  weaker,  while  the  habit  and 
pleasure  of  experimenting  grows  stronger 
by  repetition."  [1287.]  Says  Doctor  Elliot- 
son  :  "  I  cannot  refrain  from  expressing 
my  horror  at  the  amount  of  torture  which 
Doctor  Brachet  inflicted.  I  hardly  think 
knowledge  is  worth  having  at  such  a  pur- 
chase." *  A  very  striking  example  of  this 
tendency  was  brought  out  in  the  testimony 
of  a  witness  before  the  Royal  Commis- 
sion,— Doctor  Klein,  a  practical  physi- 
ologist. He  admitted  frankly  that  as  an 
investigator  he  held  as  entirely  indifferent 
the  sufferings  of  animals  subjected  to  his 
experiments;  that,  except  for  teaching 
purposes,  he  never  used  anesthetics  un- 
less necessary  for  his  own  convenience. 
Some  members  of  the  Commission  could 
hardly  realize  the  possibility  of  such  a  con- 
fession. 

"  Do  you  mean  you  have  no  regard  at 
all  to  the  sufferings  of  the  lower  animals  ?  " 

"  No  regard  at  all"  was  the  strange 
reply ;  and,  after  a  little  further  questioning, 
the  witness  explained : 

"  I  think  that,  with  regard  to  an  experi- 
menter— a  man  who  conducts  special  re- 
search and  performs  an  experiment — he 
has  no  time,  so  to  speak,  for  thinking  what 
the  animal  will  feel  or  suffer  "/  [3540.] 

Of  Magendie's  cruel  disposition  there 
seems  only  too  abundant  evidence.  Says 
Doctor  Elliotson  :  "  Doctor  Magendie,  *  *  * 
in  one  of  his  barbarous  experiments,  which 
I  am  ashamed  to  say  I  witnessed,  *  *  be- 
gan by  coolly  cutting  out  a  large  round 
piece  from  the  back  of  a  beautiful  little 
puppy,  as  he  would  from  an  apple  dump- 
ling !  "  "  It  is  not  to  be  doubted  that  inhu- 
manity may  be  found  in  persons  of  very 
high  position  as  physiologists.  We  have 
seen  that  it  was  so  in  Magendie"  This  is 
the  language  of  the  report  on  vivisection,  to 
which  is  attached  the  name  of  Professor 
Huxley. 

But  the  fact  which,  in  my  own  mind, 
constitutes  by  far  the  strongest  objection  to 
unrestrained  experiments  in  pain,  is  their 
general  worthlessness  in  relation  to  thera- 
peutics. Probably  most  readers  are  aware 
that  physiology  is  that  science  which  treats 
of  the  various  functions  of  life,  such  as 
digestion,  respiration  and  the  circulation 
of  the  blood,  while  therapeutics  is  that  de- 
partment of  medicine  which  relates  to  the 
discovery  and  application  of  remedies  for 

*  "  Human  Physiology,"  by  John  Elliotson,  M. 
D.,  F.  R.  S.  (page  448). 


disease.  Now  I  venture  to  assert  that, 
during  the  last  quarter  of  a  century,  inflic- 
tion of  intense  torture  upon  unknown  myr- 
iads of  sentient,  living  creatures,  has  not 
resulted  in  the  discovery  of  a  single  remedy  of 
acknowledged  and  generally  accepted  value  in 
the  cure  of  disease.  This  is  not  known  to 
the  general  public,  but  it  is  a  fact  essential 
to  any  just  decision  regarding  the  expediency 
of  unrestrained  liberty  of  vivisection.  It  is 
by  no  means  intended  to  deny  the  value  to 
therapeutics  of  well-known  physiological 
facts  acquired  thus  in  the  past — such,  for 
instance,  as  the  more  complete  knowledge 
we  possess  regarding  the  circulation  of  the 
blood,  or  the  distinction  between  motor  and 
sensory  nerves,  nor  can  original  investiga- 
tion be  pronounced  absolutely  valueless  as 
respects  remote  possibility  of  future  gain. 
What  the  public  has  a  right  to  ask  of  those 
who  would  indefinitely  prolong  these  experi- 
ments without  State  supervision  or  control 
is,  "  What  good  have  your  painful  experi- 
ments accomplished  during  the  past  thirty 
years — not  in  ascertaining  facts  in  physi- 
ology, or  causes  of  rare  or  incurable  com- 
plaints, but  in  the  discovery  of  improved 
methods  for  ameliorating  human  suffering, 
and  for  the  cure  of  disease  ?  "  If  pain 
could  be  estimated  in  money,  no  corpora- 
tion ever  existed  which  would  be  satisfied 
with  such  waste  of  capital  in  experiments 
so  futile ;  no  mining  company  would  permit 
a  quarter-century  of  "  prospecting  "  in  such 
barren  regions.  The  usual  answer  to  this 
inquiry  is  to  bring  forward  facts  in  physiol- 
ogy thus  acquired  in  the  past,  in  place  of 
facts  in  therapeutics.  Thus,  in  a  recent 
article  on  Magendie  to  which  reference  has 
been  made,  we  are  furnished  with  a  long 
list  of  such  additions  to  our  knowledge. 
It  may  be  questioned,  however,  whether 
the  writer  is  quite  scientifically  accurate 
in  asserting  that,  were  our  past  expe- 
rience in  vivisection  abolished,  "  it  would 
blot  out  all  that  we  know  to-day  in  regard 
to  the  circulation  of  the  blood,'  *  *  the 
growth  and  regeneration  of  bone,  *  *  *  the 
origin  of  many  parasitic  diseases,  *  *  * 
the  communicability  of  certain  contagious 
and  infectious  diseases,  andj  to  make  the 
list  complete,  it  would  be  requisite  *  *  to 
take  a  wide  range  in  addition  through  the 
domains  of  pathology  and  therapeutics" 
Surely  somewhat  about  these  subjects  has 
been  acquired  otherwise  than  by  experi- 
ments upon  animals  ?  For  example,  an 
inquiring  critic  might  wish  to  know  a  few 
of  the  "  many  parasitic  diseases  "  thus  dis- 


DOES    VIVISECTION  PA  Y? 


396 

covered;  or  what  contagious  and  infectious 
diseases,  whose  communicabihty  was  pre- 
viously unknown,  have  had  this  quality 
demonstrated  solely  by  experiments  on 
animals?  And  what,  too,  prevented  that 
«  wide  range  into  therapeutics "  necessary 
to  make  complete  the  list  of  benefits  due 
to  vivisection?  In  urging  the  utility  of 
a  practice  so  fraught  with  danger,  the 
utmost  precaution  against  the  slightest 
error  of  overstatement  becomes  an  impera- 
tive duty.  Even  so  distinguished  a  scien- 
tist as  Sir  John  Lubbock  once  rashly 
asserted  in  Parliament  that,  "  without  ex- 
periments on  living  animals,  we  should 
never  have  had  the  use  of  ether  "  !  Nearly 
every  American  school-boy  knows  that  the 
contrary  is  true — that  the  use  of  ether  as  an 
anaesthetic — the  grandest  discovery  of  mod- 
ern times— had  no  origin  in  the  torture  of 
animals. 

I   confess    that,    until   very    recently,    ] 
shared   the   common  impression  regarding 
the  utility  of  vivisection  in  therapeutics.     It 
is  a  belief  still  widely  prevalent  in  the  med- 
ical profession.     Nevertheless,  it  is  a  mis- 
take.    The  therapeutical   results  of  nearly 
half  a  century  of  painful  experiments — we 
seek  them  in  vain.     Do  we  ask   surgery  ? 
Sir    William     Fergusson,    surgeon    to    the 
Queen,   tells   us :  "  In   surgery   I    am   not 
aware  of  any  of  these  experiments  on  the 
lower  animals  having  led  to  the  mitigation 
of  pain  or  to  improvement  as  regards  surgi- 
cal details."     [1049].     Have   antidotes   to 
poisons   been   discovered   thereby  ?      Says 
Doctor  Taylor,  lecturer  on  Toxicology  for 
nearly  half  a  century  in  the  chief  London 
Medical   School  (a  writer  whose  work   on 
Poisons  is  a  recognized  authority) :  "  I  do 
not  know  that  we  have  as  yet  learned  any- 
thing, so  far  as  treatment  is  concerned,  from 
our  experiments  with  them  (i.  e.  poisons)  on 
animals."    [1204.]    Doctor  Anthony,  speak- 
ing of  Magendie's  experiments,  says  :     "  I 
never   gained    one    single   fact    by   seeing 
these  cruel  experiments  in  Paris.     I  know 
nothing  more  from  them  than  I  could  have 
read."     [2450.]     Even  physiologists  admit 
the  paucity  of  therapeutic  results.     Doctor 
Sharpey  says : '"  I  should  lay  less  stress  on  the 
direct  application  of  the  results  of  vivisection 
to  improvement  in  the  art  of  healing,  than 
upon  the  value  of  these  experiments  in  the 
promotion  of  physiology."    [394.]    The  Ox- 
ford professor  of  Physiology  admitted  that 
Etiology,  the   science  which   treats  of  the 
causes  of  disease,  had,  by  these  experiments 
been  the  gainer,  rather  than   therapeutics 


1302.]  "  Experiments  on  animals,"  says 
doctor  Thorowgood, "  already  extensive  and 
lumerous,  cannot  be  said  to  have  advanced 
therapeutics  much."*  Sir  William  Gull, 
VI.  D.,  was  questioned  before  the  commis- 
sion whether  he  could  enumerate  any  thera- 
peutic remedies  which  have  been  discovered 

vivisection,  and  he  replied,  with  fervor : 
The  cases  bristle  around  us  everywhere  !  " 
Yet,  excepting  Hall's  experiments  on  the 
nervous  system,  he  could  enumerate  only 
various  forms  of  disease,  our  knowledge  of 
which  is  due  to  Harvey's  discovery,  two 
hundred  and  fifty  years  ago !  The  question 
was  pushed  closer,  and  so,  brought  to  the 
necessity  of  a  definite  reply,  he  answered  : 
"  I  do  not  say  at  present  our  therapeutics 
are  much,  but  there  are  lines  of  experi- 
ment which  seem  to  promise  great  help  in 
therapeutics."  [5529.]  The  results  of  two 
centuries  of  experiments,  so  far  as  therapeu- 
tics are  concerned,  reduced  to  a  seeming 
promise ! 

On  two  points,  then,  the  evidence  of  the 
highest  scientific  authorities  in  Great  Britain 
seems   conclusive — first,    that    experiments 
upon    living   animals    conduce    chiefly   to 
the  benefit  of  the   science   of  physiology, 
and  little,  if  at  all,  at  the  present  day  to 
the  treatment  of  disease  or  the  amelioration 
of   human  suffering;    and,   secondly,    that 
repetition  of  painful  experiments  for  class- 
teaching  in  medical  schools  is  both  unneces- 
sary and  unjustifiable.    Do  these  conclusions 
affect   the  practice    of  vivisection    in   this 
country  ?     Is  it  true   that  experiments  are 
habitually  performed  in  some  of  our  med- 
ical schools,  often  causing   extreme   pain, 
to  illustrate  well-known  and  accepted  facts 
— experiments  which  English  physiologists 
pronounce    "  infamous  "   and    "  atrocious," 
which  English  physicians  and  surgeons  stig- 
matize as  purposeless  cruelty  and  unjustifia- 
ble— which  even  Huxley  regards  as  unfitting 
for   teaching    purposes,   and    Darwin    de- 
nounces as  worthy  of  detestation  and  abhor- 
rence ?     I    confess   I  see   no   occasion  for 
any  over-delicate  reticence  in   this  matter. 
Science   needs   no   secrecy   either   for   her 
methods  or  results;    her  function  is  to  re- 
veal, not  to  hide,  facts.     The  reply  to  these 
questions   must  be  in  the  affirmative.     In 
this  country  our  physiologists  are  rather  fol- 
lowers of  Magendie  and  Bernard,  after  the 
methods  in  vogue  at  Paris  and  Leipsic,  than 
governed    by    the   cautious    and    sensitive 
conservatism  in  this  respect  which  generally 

*  "  Medical  Times  and  Gazette,"  October  5,  1872. 


DOES    VIVISECTION  PAY? 


397 


characterizes  the  physiological  teaching  of 
London  and  Oxford.  In  making  this  state- 
ment, no  criticism  is  intended  on  the  mo- 
tives of  those  responsible  for  ingrafting 
continental  methods  upon  our  medical 
schools.  If  any  opprobrium  shall  be  in- 
ferred for  the  past  performance  of  experi- 
ments herein  condemned,  the  present  writer 
asks  a  share  in  it.  It  is  the  future  that  we 
hope  to  change.  Now,  what  are  the  facts  ? 
A  recent  contributor  to  the  "  International 
Review,"  referring  to  Mr.  Bergh,  says  that 
"  he  assails  physiological  experiments  with 
the  same  blind  extravagance  of  denuncia- 
tion as  if  they  were  still  performed  without 
anaesthetics,  as  in  the  time  of  Magendie." 
In  the  interests  of  scientific  accuracy  one 
would  wish  more  care  had  been  given  to 
the  construction  of  this  sentence,  for  it 
implies  that  experiments  are  not  now  per- 
formed except  with  anaesthetics — a  mean- 
ing its  author  never  could  have  intended 
to  convey.  Every  medical  student  in  New 
York  knows  that  experiments  involving 
pain  are  repeatedly  performed  to  illustrate 
teaching.  It  is  no  secret;  one  need  not  go 
beyond  the  frank  admissions  of  our  later 
text-books  on  physiology  for  abundant 
proof,  not  only  of  this,  but  of  the  extent 
to  which  experimentation  is  now  carried 
in  this  country.  "  We  have  long  been 
in  the  habit,  in  class  demonstrations,  of 
removing  the  optic  lobe  on  one  side  from 
a  pigeon,"  says  Professor  Flint,  of  Belle- 
vue  Hospital  Medical  College,  in  his 
excellent  work  on  Physiology.*  "  The  ex- 
periment of  dividing  the  sympathetic  in 
the  neck,  especially  in  rabbits,  is  so  easily 
performed  that  the  phenomena  observed  by 
Bernard  and  Brown-Sequard  have  been  re- 
peatedly verified.  We  have  often  done  this 
in  class  demonstrations."  t  "  The  cerebral 
lobes  were  removed  from  a  young  pigeon  in 
the  usual  way,  an  operation  *  *  which 
we  practice  yearly  as  a  class  demonstration. "  } 
Referring  to  the  removal  of  the  cerebellum, 
the  same  authority  states :  "  Our  own  ex- 
periments, which  have  been  very  numerous 
during  the  last  fifteen  years,  are  simply  repe- 
titions of  those  of  Flourens,  ami  the  results 
have  been  the  same  without  exception"  § 
"  We  have  frequently  removed  both  kidneys 
from  dogs,  and  when  the  operation  is  care- 
fully performed  the  animals  live  for  from 

*  A  Text-book  of  Human  Physiology,  designed 
for  the  use  of  Practitioners  and  Students  of  Medi- 
cine, by  Austin  Flint,  Jr.,  M.  D.  D.  Appleton  & 
Co.  New  York  :  1876  (page  722). 

t  Page  738.        \  Page  585.         $  Page  710. 


three  to  five  days.  *  *  Death  always 
takes  place  with  symptoms  of  blood  poison- 
ing." *  In  the  same  work  we  are  given  pre- 
cise details  for  making  a  pancreatic  fistula, 
after  the  method  of  Claude  Bernard — "  one 
we  have  repeatedly  employed  with  success." 
"In  performing  the  above  experiment  it  is  gen- 
erally better  not  to  employ  an  anaesthetic,"  t 
but  ether  is  sometimes  used.  In  the  same 
work  is  given  a  picture  of  a  dog,  muzzled 
and  with  a  biliary  fistula,  as  it  appeared  the 
fourteenth  day  after  the  operation,  which, 
with  details  of  the  experiment,  is  quite  sug- 
gestive. |  Bernard  was  the  first  to  succeed 
in  following  the  spinal  accessory  nerve  back 
to  the  jugular  foramen,  seizing  it  here  with  a 
strong  pair  of  forceps  and  drawing  it  out  by 
the  roots.  This  experiment  is  practiced  in 
our  own  country.  "  We  have  found  this  result 
(loss  of  voice)  to  follow  in  the  cat  after  the 
spinal  accessory  nerves  have  been  torn  out 
by  the  roots,"  says  Professor  John  C.  Dalton, 
in  his  Treatise  on  Human  Physiology.  § 
"  This  operation  is  difficult,"  writes  Professor 
Flint,  "  but  we  have  several  times  performed 
it  with  entire  success  " ;  ||  and  his  assistant  at 
Bellevue  Medical  College  has  succeeded  "  in 
extirpating  these  nerves  for  class  demonstra- 
tions." In  withdrawal  of  blood  from  the 
hepatic  veins  of  a  dog, "avoiding  the  admin- 
istration of  an  anaesthetic  "  is  one  of  the  steps 
recommended,  fl  The  curious  experiment 
of  Bernard,  in  which  artificial  diabetes  is  pro- 
duced by  irritating  the  floor  of  the  fourth 
ventricle  of  the  brain,  is  carefully  described, 
and  illustrations  afforded  both  of  the  instru- 
ment and  the  animal  undergoing  the  opera- 
tion. The  inexperienced  experimenter  is 
here  taught  to  hold  the  head  of  the  rabbit 
"  firmly  in  the  left  hand,"  and  to  bore  through 
its  skull  "  by  a  few  lateral  movements  of  the 
instrument."  It  is  not  a  difficult  operation; 
it  is  one  which  the  author  has  "  often  re- 
peated." He  tells  us  "  //  is  not  desirable  to 
administer  an  anasthetic"  as  it  would  pre- 
vent success;  and  a  little  further  we  are  told 
that  "  we  should  avoid  the  administration  of 
anaesthetics  in  all  accurate  experiments  on 
the  glycogenic  function."  x  It  is  true  the 
pleasing  assurance  is  given  that  "  this  experi- 
ment is  almost  painless  " ;  but  on  this  point 
could  the  rabbit  speak  during  the  operation, 
its  opinion  might  not  accord  with  that  of  the 
physiologist. 

There  is   one   experiment   in   regard   to 
which  the  severe  characterization  of  Eng- 

*  Page  403.    t  Pages  269-70.    \  Page  282.    §  Page 
489.     ||  Page  629.     H  Page  463.     ]  Pages  470-71. 


398 


DOES   VIVISECTION  PA  Y? 


lish  scientists  is  especially  applicable,  from 
the  pain  necessarily  attending  it.    Numerous 
investigators  have  long  established  the  fact 
that  the  great  sensory  nerve  of  the  head 
and   face   is   endowed   with    an    exquisite 
degree   of  sensibility.     More   than   half  a 
century  ago,  both  Magendie  and  Sir  Charles 
Bell  pointed  out  that  merely  exposing  and 
touching   this   fifth    nerve    gave    signs   of 
most  acute  pain.     "All  who  have  divided 
this  root  in  living  animals  must  have  recog- 
nized, not  only  that  it  is  sensitive,  but  that 
its  sensibility  is  far  more   acute  than  that 
of  any  other  nervous  trunk  in  the  body."  * 
"The  fifth   pair,"  says   Professor  John  C. 
Dalton,  "  is  the  most  acutely  sensitive  nerve 
in  the  whole  body.     Its  irritation  by  me- 
chanical means  always  causes  intense  pain, 
and  even  though  the  animal  be  nearly  un- 
conscious from  the  influence  of  ether,  any 
severe   injury   to   its   large   root   is  almost 
invariably  followed  by  cries."  t     Testimony 
on   this   point   is    uniform   and   abundant. 
If  science  speaks  anywhere  with  assurance, 
it  is  in  regard  to  the  properties  of  this  nerve. 
Yet  every  year  the  experiment  is  repeated 
before  medical  classes,  simply  to  demonstrate 
accepted   facts.     "This    is   an    operation," 
says  Professor  Flint,  referring  to  the  division 
of' this    nerve,   "that  we    have    frequently 
performed   with    success."     He   adds   that 
"it  is  difficult  from   the   fact   that   one  is 
working    in   the    dark,   and   it    requires   a 
certain  amount  of  dexterity,  to  be  acquired 
only   by  practice"      Minute   directions   are 
therefore  laid  down  for  the  operative  pro- 
cedure, and    illustrations    given    both    of 
the  instrument  to  be  used  and  of  the  head 
of  a  rabbit  with  the  blade  of  the  instrument 
in   its  cranial  cavity.}     Holding  the  head 
of  our  rabbit  firmly  in  the  left  hand,  we  are 
directed  to  penetrate  the  cranium  in  a  par- 
ticular manner.     "  Soon  the  operator  feels 
at  a  certain  depth  that  the  bony  resistance 
ceases ;  he  is  then  on  the  fifth  pair,  and  the 
cries  of  the  animal  give  evidence  that  the 
nerve    is  pressed  upon."     This  is   one  of 
Magendie's   celebrated    experiments;    per- 
haps the  reader  fancies  that  in  its  modern 
repetitions  the  animal  suffers  nothing,  being 
rendered  insensible  by  anaesthetics  ?     "  It  is 
much   more  satisfactory  to   divide  the  netve 
without  etherizing  the  animal,  as  the  evidence 
of  pain  is  an  important  guide  in  this  delicate 
operation."    Anaesthetics,  however,  are  some- 

*  Flint :    "  Text  Book   on   Human  Physiology  " 
(page  641). 

\  Dalton's  "  Human  Physiology  "  (page  466). 
\  Flint  (pages  639-40). 


times  used,  but  not  so  as  wholly  to  overcome 
the  pain. 

Testimony  of  individuals,  indicating  the 
extent   to  which   vivisection   is  at  present 
practiced  in  this  State  might  be  given  ;  but  it 
seems   better   to   submit   proof  within   the 
reach  of  every  reader,  and  the  accuracy  of 
which  is  beyond  cavil.     No  legal  restrictions 
whatever  exist,  preventing  the  performance 
of  any  experiment  desired.     Indeed,  I  think 
it  may  safely  be  asserted  that,  in  the  city  of 
New  York,  in  a  single  medical  school,  more 
pain  is  inflicted  upon  living  animals  as  a 
means  of  teaching  well-known  facts,  than  is 
permitted  to  be  done  for  the  same  purpose  in 
all  the  medical  schools  of  Great  Britain  and 
Ireland.     And   cut   bono  ?      "I    can    truly 
say,"  writes  a  physician  who   has  seen  all 
these  experiments,  "that  not  only  have  I 
never  seen  any  results  at  all  commensurate 
with  the   suffering  inflicted,  but  I  cannot 
recall   a   single   experiment   which,   in  the 
slightest  degree,  has  increased  my  ability  to 
relieve  pain,  or  in  any  way  fitted  me  to  cope 
better  with  disease." 

In  respect  to  this  practice,  therefore,  evi- 
dence abounds  indicating  the  necessity  for 
that  State  supervision  which  obtains  in 
Great  Britain.  We  cannot  abolish  it  any 
more  than  we  can  repress  dissection;  to 
attempt  it  would  be  equally  unwise. 
Within  certain  limitations,  dictated  both  by 
a  regard  for  the  interest  of  science  and  by 
that  sympathy  for  everything  that  lives  and 
suffers  which  is  the  highest  attribute  of 
humanity,  the  practice  of  vivisection  should 
be  allowed.  What  are  these  restrictions  ? 

The  following  conclusions  are  suggested 
as  a  basis  for  future  discussion  : 

/.  Any  experiment  or  operation  whatever 
upon  a  living  animal,  during  which  by  recog- 
nized anasthetics  it  is  made  completely  insen- 
sible to  pain,  should  be  permitted. 

This  does  not  necessarily  imply  the  taking 
of  life.  Should  a  surgeon,  for  example,  de- 
sire to  cause  a  fracture  or  tie  an  artery,  and 
then  permit  the  animal  to  recover  so  as  to 
note  subsequent  effects,  there  is  no  reason 
why  the  privilege  should  be  refused.  The 
discomfort  following  such  an  operation 
would  be  inconsiderable.  This  permission 
should  not  extend  to  experiments  purely 
physiological  and  having  no  definite  relation 
to  surgery ;  nor  to  mutilation  from  which  re- 
covery is  impossible,  and  prolonged  pain 
certain  as  a  sequence. 

//.  Any  experiment  performed  thus,  under 
complete  ancesthesia,  though  involving  any 
degree  of  mutilation,  if  concluded  by  theextinc- 


THE  LOVER  AND    THE  ROSE. 


399 


tion  of  life  before  consciousness  is   regained, 
should  also  be  permitted. 

To  object  to  killing  animals  for  scientific 
purposes  while  we  continue  to  demand  their 
sacrifice  for  food,  is  to  seek  for  the  ap- 
petite a  privilege  we  refuse  the  mind.  It  is 
equally  absurd  to  object  to  vivisection  be- 
cause it  dissects,  or  "  cuts  up."  If  no  pain 
be  felt,  why  is  it  worse  to  cut  up  a  dog 
than  a  sheep  or  an  ox  ?  Such  experiments 
as  the  foregoing  might  be  permitted  to  any 
extent  desired  in  our  medical  schools.  Far 
more  difficult  is  the  question  of  painful  ex- 
perimentation. Unfortunately,  it  so  happens 
that  the  most  attractive  physiological  inves- 
tigations are  largely  upon  the  nervous  sys- 
tem, involving  the  consciousness  of  pain  as 
a  requisite  to  success.  Toward  this  class  of 
experiments  the  State  should  act  with  cau- 
tion and  firmness.  It  seems  to  me  that  the 
following  restrictions  are  only  just: 

III.  In  view  of  the  great  cost  in  suffering, 
as  compared  with  the  slight  profit  gained  by 
the  student,  the  repetition,  for  purposes  of  class 
instruction,  of  any  experiment  involving  pain 
to  a  vertebrate  animal  should  be  forbidden  by 
law,  and  made  hereafter  a  penal  offense. 

IV.  In  view  of  the  slight  gain  to  practical 
medicine  resulting  from  innumerable  past  ex- 
periments of  this  kind,  a  painful  experiment 
upon  a  living  vertebrate  animal  should  be  per- 
mitted by  law  solely  for  purposes  of  original 
investigation,  and  then  only  under  the  most 
rigid  surveillance,  and  preceded  by  the  strictest 
precautions.     For  every  experiment  of  this 
kind  the  physiologist  should  be  required  to 
obtain  special  permission  from  a  State  board, 
specifying  on  application    (i)  the  object  of 
the  proposed  investigation,  (2)  the  nature 


and  method  of  the  operation,  (3)  the  species 
of  animal  to  be  sacrificed,  and  (4)  the  short- 
est period  during  which  pain  will  probably  be 
felt.  An  officer  of  the  State  should  be  given 
an  opportunity  to  be  present ;  and  a  report 
made,  both  of"  the  length  of  time  occupied, 
and  the  knowledge,  if  any,  gained  thereby. 
If  these  restrictions  are  made  obligatory  by 
statute,  and  their  violation  made  punishable 
by  a  heavy  fine,  such  experiments  will  be 
generally  performed  only  when  absolutely 
necessary  for  purposes  of  scientific  research. 
In  few  matters  is  there  greater  necessity 
for  careful  discrimination  than  in  everything 
pertaining  to  this  subject.  The  attempt  has 
been  made  in  this  paper  to  indicate  how 
far  the  State — leaning  to  mercy's  side — may 
sanction  a  practice  often  so  necessary  and 
useful,  always  so  dangerous  in  its  tendencies. 
That  is  a  worthy  ideal  of  conduct  which  seeks 

"Never  to  blend  our  pleasure  or  our  pride 
With  sorrow  of  the  meanest  thing  that  feels." 

Is  not  this  a  sentiment  in  which  even  sci- 
ence may  fitly  share  ?  Are  we  justified  in 
neglecting  the  evidence  she  offers,  pur- 
chased in  the  past  at  such  immeasurable 
agonies,  and  in  demanding  that  year  after 
year  new  victims  shall  be  subjected  to  tor- 
ture, only  to  demonstrate  what  none  of  us 
doubt  ?  That  is  the  chief  question.  For, 
if  all  compromise  be  persistently  rejected 
by  physiologists,  there  is  danger  that  some 
day,  impelled  by  the  advancing  growth  of 
humane  sentiment,  society  may  confound 
in  one  common  condemnation  all  experi- 
ments of  this  nature,  and  make  the  whole 
practice  impossible,  except  in  secret  and 
as  a  crime. 


THE  LOVER  AND  THE  ROSE. 


ROSE,  you  were  at  the  feast, — 
The  feast  I  could  not  share; 
Rose,  your  charms  increased 
The  charms  most  lovely  there. 

As  on  her  breast  you  lay 
And  watched  her  red  lips  move- 
Was  there  any,  pray, 
To  whom  they  spoke  of  love  ? 


Rose,  you  could  see  her  eye 
Of  soft  and  star-like  beam — 
On  any  one  near  by 
Cast  it  a  loving  gleam  ? 

As  on  her  breast  you  lay, 
And  heard  her  beating  heart,- 
Came  there  any  nigh 
Who  made  it  quicker  start  ? 


"  No,"  breathed  the  rose,  "  I  vow. 

But  had  there  been — I  wis 

His  I  had  been  now, 

Nor  known  your  loving  kiss." 


400 


FROM  PALERMO    TO   SYRACUSE. 


FROM    PALERMO    TO    SYRACUSE. 


ONGITUDE  EAST  H  FROM  GREENWICH  ir> 


IT  is  difficult  to  decide  in  what  part  of 
Sicily  lies  the  chief  interest  of  this  most  richly 
endowed  of  islands.  In  point  of  scenery, 
one  can  imagine  nothing  more  charming 
than  many  of  the  views  in  the  vicinity  of 
Palermo,  Termini,  Messina,  Taormina,  Ca- 
tania and  Syracuse.  In  the  way  of  ruins, 
Segeste,  Girgenti,  Selinunte,  Taormina  and 
Syracuse  offer  attractions  not  easily  excelled. 
In  regard  to  historical  associations,  few  areas 
of  similar  extent  have  been  the  scene  of  such 
important  and  interesting  dramas  as  those 
wrought  out  on  this  island,  for  whose  wealth 
the  Phoenician,  the  Carthaginian,  the  Greek, 
the  Roman,  the  Saracen  and  the  Norman 
struggled  in  succession  for  nearly  two  thou- 
sand years.  On  these  shores  the  power  of 
Athens  was  wrecked,  when  Nicias,  with  the 
shattered  remnant  of  the  proudest  armament 
that  ever  sailed  from  the  Piraeus,  surrendered 


to  the  Spartan  Gylippus ;  here  Timoleon  con- 
quered, using  his  victories,  as  few  con- 
querors have  ever  done,  for  the  benefit  of 
liberty  and  'of  his  fellow-men,  without  one 
thought  for  his  own  interests;  here  Gelon, 
Dionysius,  Agathocles,  Himilcon,  Hannibal, 
and  Marcellus  appeared  upon  the  world's 
stage,  as  statesmen  or  as  soldiers;  here 
Archimedes  lived  and  died;  here  the  arts 
and  sciences  flourished  to  an  extent  not  sur- 
passed in  the  mother  land  of  Greece ;  here 
was  the  largest  and  most  beautiful  of  all  the 
Grecian  cities.  There  is  something  in  Sicily 
to  gratify  every  taste;  and  as  the  prosaic 
march  of  modern  improvement  has  not  yet 
fairly  commenced  in  that  smiling  land,  it 
will  be  to  many  not  the  least  of  its  attractions 
that  men  and  things  appear  there  very 
much  as  they  did  long  years  ago.  The 
island  can  now  be  approached  from  almost 


FROM  PALERMO    TO   SYRACUSE. 


401 


any  point,  as  steamers  ply  along  its  entire 
shore-line ;  and  on  the  eastern  side  a  rail- 
way extends  from  Messina  to  Syracuse, 
while  from  this,  at  Catania,  a  branch  is  in 
operation  some  fifty  miles  to  Leonforte ; 
and  from  Palermo  another  railway  skirts  the 
shore  some  twenty-five  miles  to  Termini, 
and  then  strikes  inland  about  as  much 
further  to  Lecara.  These  lines  mark  the 
limits  within  which  one  can  travel  with  per- 
fect safety  and  reasonable  comfort.  To 
reach  the  interior,  it  is  not  literally  necessary 
to  take  one's  life  in  hand,  but  one  must  be 
prepared  for  a  total  absence  of  anything  ap- 
proaching to  civilized  comfort,  and  must  not 
be  surprised  if,  traveling  in  the  western  or 
central  portions  of  the  island  without  escort, 
or  in  small  parties,  he  is  politely  requested  to 
hand  over  such  articles  of  value  as  may  be  on 
hand,  and  convenient.  The  eastern  part  of 
the  island  is  perfectly  safe  for  travelers; 
and  even  in  the  other  portions  we  believe 
there  are  not  such  regularly  organized  bands 
of  brigands  as  those  which  formerly  infested 


foreigner  from  these  gentry,  and  even  this 
precaution  is  seldom  necessary. 

We  went  to  Palermo  from  Marseilles — a 
very  pleasant  trip  of  nearly  forty- eight  hours, 
for  during  the  daylight  hours  land  is  con- 
stantly in  sight.  When  darkness  falls,  on 
the  day  of  leaving  Marseilles,  the  coast  of 
Hyeres  and  the  Golden  Isles  are  quite  near, 
and  upon  rising  next  morning  you  are  off 
the  bold  coasts  of  Corsica  and  Sardinia, 
and  spend  most  of  the  forenoon  in  threading 
the  narrow  straits  of  La  Bonifaccia.  During 
this  operation  you  have  a  good  view  of 
Garibaldi's  home,  and  ample  time  to  wonder 
what  odd  freak  of  the  fancy  ever  drew  to 
such  a  place  a  man  who  had  mixed  much 
in  the  stirring  affairs  of  the  world,  unless 
he  was  utterly  disgusted  with  mankind. 
Garibaldi's  Island  —  Caprera — is  perhaps 
two  miles  long;  its  most  elevated  point 
may  be  700  or  800-  feet  high ;  it  is  quite 
rocky,  and  presents  few  signs  of  verdure  as 
you  pass  it  on  a  steamer;  a  small  village 
exists  there,  and  the  island  impresses  one 


PALERMO. 


Southern  Italy,  but  simply  occasional  rob- 
bers, who  rarely  interfere  with  foreigners, 
and  confine  their  operations  almost  entirely 
to  their  fellow  countrymen.  The  escort  of  a 
gendarme  is  quite  enough  to  protect  the 
VOL.  XX.— 27. 


as  desirable  only  for  its  pure  sea  air,  its 
fisheries,  and  fine  views  of  the  bright  blue 
water.  The  shores  of  Corsica  and  Sardinia 
are  remarkably  bold  and  beautiful,  but,  as 
seen  from  the  steamer  passing  between  the 


402 


FROM  PALERMO   TO   SYRACUSE. 


PORTA    NUOVA,    PALERMO.       RESIDENCE    OP    GARIBALDI. 


islands,  very  few  indications  of  cultivation 
or  habitation  are  visible,  and  the  effect  pro- 
duced is  that  of  the  almost  complete  absence 
of  population.  Next  morning,  soon  after  day- 
break, you  pass  by  the  little  island  of  Ustica, 
and,  if  the  day  is  clear,  the  mountains  of 
Sicily  are  already  in  sight.  About  10  o'clock 
you  are  fairly  entering  the  famous  Bay  of 
Palermo,  and  find  a  semi-circle  of  splendid 
mountains  terminating  abruptly  in  the  sea 
in  Pellegrino  on  the  right  hand,  and  Catal- 
fano  on  the  left — with  the  plain  of  Palermo, 
the  far  famed  "  Conca  d'Oro  "  at  their  feet. 
The  sweep  of  the  mountains  around  Palermo 
is  certainly  superb,  but  it  really  seems  an  ex- 
aggeration to  say,  as  some  have  said,  that  the 
bay  with  its  surroundings  is  superior  to  that 
of  Naples.  The  city  itself,  although  inferior 
in  beauty  and  interest  to  the  great  cities  of 
the  Italian  main-land,  is  yet  a  fine  one,  and 
possesses  many  attractions  well  worth  a  visit. 
No  sooner  is  the  steamer  moored  within 
the  port  than  it  is  surrounded  by  a  fleet 
of  small  boats,  the  boatmen  gesticulating, 
shrieking,  and  offering  to  do  all  sorts  of 
things,  in  the  most  unintelligible  Sicilian. 
After  some  little  delay  you  get  your  luggage 
into  one  of  their  boats,  and  follow  it  in 
person;  a  long  detour  is  made  to  the  cus- 
tom house,  and,  having  complied  with  the 


very  unexacting  formalities,  you  are  at 
liberty  to  seek  rest  within  the  comfortable 
precincts  of  the  "  Trinacria,"  which  is  an 
excellent  hotel,  situated  directly  upon  the 
shore  of  the  bay,  of  which  it  commands  a 
charming  view.  The  interest  of  Palermo 
consists  in  its  present  surroundings,  and  in 
the  remains  of  the  comparatively  recent 
period  of  the  Saracens  and  early  Normans. 
The  ancient  Palermo — Panormos — was  a 
Phoenician  and  Carthagenian  and  after- 
ward a  Roman  city;  although  it  was 
wealthy  and  powerful,  there  is  nothing 
left  to  recall  those  early  days,  except  the 
unchanged  mountains  and  the  lovely  plain 
upon  which  they  have  looked  down  since 
Sicily  rose  from  the  seas.  So  far  as  art 
and  architecture  are  concerned,  Palermo 
possesses  only  some  fragments  of  palaces 
of  Moorish  Emirs,  some  glorious  churches 
and  convents  of  the  early  Norman  rulers, 
and  the  impressive  private  palaces  of  a 
century  or  two  ago.  Of  pictures  she  has 
few  to  show;  but  among  them  some  very 
good  ones  by  Pietro  Novelli,  a  native  artist 
called  Monrealese,  from  the  suburb  in  which 
he  was  born ;  these  are  certainly  good — 
some  of  them  especially  so;  and  there  is  a 
gem  in  the  museum,  in  the  shape  of  a  little 
tryptich  (about  as  large  as  that  in  the  room 


FROM  PALERMO    TO   SYRACUSE, 


403 


of  the  Holbein  Madonna  at  Dresden)  by 
an  unknown  artist. 

Modern  Palermo  occupies  only  a  portion 
of  the  ground  covered  by  its  more  ancient 
and  populous  predecessor.  It  is  divided 
into  four  nearly  equal  parts  by  two  broad, 
straight  streets,  which  cross  each  other  at 
right  angles  in  the  very  heart  of  the  city. 
The  cut  opposite  presents  a  view  of  the 
Porta  Nuova  as  seen  from  the  outside,  the 


ning  along  the  shore,  and  at  right  angles 
to  the  Corso,  is  the  Marina,  one  of  the 
favorite  drives.  It  is  on  the  Marina  that 
all  Palermo  congregates,  on  summer  nights, 
to  enjoy  the  cool  sea-breezes,  and  to  listen 
to  the  bands  which  play  until  midnight. 
During  the  winter  it  is  much  frequented 
in  the  afternoon.  •  From  the  Marina  the 
view  is  very  beautiful;  toward  the  north 
the  most  prominent  and  the  finest  feature 


PORTA    FELICE,    PALERMO. 


Corso  being  visible  through  the  gate.  The 
Palermitans  believe  that  the  lower  portion 
of  the  structure  was  designed  by  Michael 
Angelo,  and  the  upper  by  Pietro  Novelli. 
Be  this  as  it  may,  the  effect  is  imposing,  and 
the  mass  forms  a  fine  termination  for  the 
long  street  which  ends  there.  The  upper 
portion  is  of  historical  interest,  for  it  was 
there  that  the  liberator  Garibaldi  made  his 
residence  while  virtually  Dictator  of  Sicily, 
in  1860,  and  again  when  preparing  for  his 
ill-starred  expedition  which  terminated  so 
sadly  on  the  heights  of  Aspramonte.  It  is 
highly  characteristic  of  Garibaldi's  simplic- 
ity of  life  that,  with  the  great  palace  close 
at  hand,  fully  prepared  for  occupation  and 
entirely  in  his  power,  he  preferred  the  sim- 
ple pavilion  over  the  Porta  Nuova.  At  the 
other  extremity,  the  Corso  terminates  in  the 
Porta  Felice,  which  is  shown  in  the  above 
illustration,  taken  from  within.  On  the 
right  is  seen  the  pretty  little  square  of 
the  Spirito  Santo.  Outside  the  gate,  run^ 


is  the  grand,  bare,  rocky  mass  of  Pelle- 
grino,  bounded  on  all  sides  by  lofty  preci- 
pices, save  for  a  small  space  toward  the 
city,  where  a  zig-zag  road  leads  to  the 
summit.  Although  not  quite  2,000  feet 
high,  this  mountain  is  very  imposing  from 
its  isolated  position,  its  bold,  massive  shape, 
and  the  color  of  its  rock — for  it  is  almost 
entirely  devoid  of  vegetation.  In  ancient 
times  it  more  than  once  played  a  promi- 
nent part,  for  it  was  on  Pellegrino  .  that 
the  Carthagenians  made  almost  their  last 
effort  to  drive  Pyrrhus  back ;  and  it  was 
here  that  Himilcon  for  some  three  years 
offered  a  successful  opposition  to  the  Ro- 
mans. In  more  recent  times,  independent 
of  the  superb  views  to  be  had  from  its 
summit  and  the  prominent  place  it  holds 
in  views  of  Palermo,  its  chief  interest  lies 
in  its  connection  with  Santa  Rosalia,  the 
patron  saint  of  Palermo,  who  for  many  years 
lived,  and  at  length  died,  in  a  grotto  of  the 
mountain.  More  than  half  of  the  base  of 


404 


FROM  PALERMO    TO   SYRACUSE. 


LA    ZIZA,    PALERMO. 


Pellegrino  is  washed  by  the  sea,  whose 
waves  come  sheer  up  to  the  foot  of  the 
cliffs.  Beyond  it,  to  the  north  and  west 
and  between  it  and  Monte  Gallo,  is  the 
lovely  little  Bay  of  Mondello.  More  than 
once  have  we  loitered  lazily  on  the  shores 
of  this  little  bay,  awaiting  the  orders  of 
a  certain  pair  of  little  people  busily  engaged 
in  digging  in  the  sand,  and  called  away 
now  and  then  to  tell  the  name  of  some 
new  wonder  they  have  found,  or  to  share 
their  delight  in  the  discovery  of  some 
especially  brilliant  treasure;  but,  in  the 
main,  thinking  only  of  the  strange  things 
this  now  lonely  bay  has  seen  in  the  last 
2,500  years.  The  little  fishing  village  is  sq 
far  away  that  no  sound  from  it  strikes  the 
ear ;  no  voice  is  to  be  heard  but  those  of  the 
two  busy  little  explorers  ;  no  living  thing  is 
in  sight  but  them  and  the  carriage  horses, 
with  the  silent  driver,  awaiting  our  pleasure 
on  the  road.  Yet  the  time  once  was  when 
this  smooth  beach  was  furrowed  by  Cartha- 
genian  keels  and  trodden  down  by  the  feet 
of  African  and  Spanish  mercenaries;  or, 
again,  when  the  soldiers  of  Pyrrhus  or  of 
Rome  stalked  by,  while  the  rocky  heights 
of  Pellegrino  were  crowded  with  the  dense 
masses  of  Carthagenian  troops,  and  the 
now  still  air  resounded  with  the  sounds  of 
strife. 

From  Belmonte,  and  from  the  Marina  as 
well,  one  sees  beyond  Bagaria  the  Madonian 
mountains — the  highest  save  y£tna  in  the 


island — crowned  with  snow  in  winter  and 
spring  ;  and,  in  a  clear  day,  grand  old  ^Etna 
itself,  towering  among  the  clouds  beyond. 
Between  our  point  of  view  and  the  semi- 
circle of  mountains  lies  the  Conca  d'Oro, 
that  famous  and  fruitful  plain  of  Palermo, 
so  often  celebrated  in  story  and  in  song. 
We  look  down  upon  it  from  Belmonte  and 
see  it  dotted  with  villas,  with  domes  and 
spires,  orange  and  olive  groves,  green  fields 
and  straggling  villages. 

But  we  must  leave  this  enchanting  spot, 
and  return  for  a  time  to  the  interior  of  the 
city.  We  have  already  said  that  the  most 
interesting  features  of  Palermo  date  back 
only  to  the  Saracenic  and  Norman  times. 
Of  the  former  class,  the  most  characteristic 
and  the  best  preserved  specimen  is  probably 
the  Ziza,  shown  in  the  accompanying  cut. 
It  was  originally  a  country  palace  or  villa  of 
the  Emirs,  situated  in  the  outskirts  of  the 
city,  and  surrounded  by  gardens,  artificial 
lakes  and  fountains,  in  the  fashion  the  Moors 
loved  so  well.  It  is  now  a  palace,  the 
interior  so  changed  as  to  preserve  few  of  its 
original  features,  save  in  the  entrance  hall. 
The  only  important  change  in  the  exterior 
is  that  the  large  old  pointed  windows  have 
been  partially  walled  up,  and  replaced  by 
square  windows,  smaller,  and  of  a  very  pro- 
saic pattern.  Whether  the  grand  old  um- 
brella pine,  that  tree  so  characteristic  of 
Southern  Italian  landscapes,  stood  there 
in  the  time  of  the  Moslem,  we  know  not,  but 


FROM  PALERMO    TO   SYRACUSE. 


405 


ENTRANCE  TO  THE  CATHEDRAL  OF  PALERMO. 


loubtless  in  those  days  many  others  quite 
as  beautiful  formed  a  main  feature  in  the 
gardens  of  delight,  when  the  luxurious 
Emirs  rested  here  from  the  toils  and  cares 
of  government.  A  portion  of  the  Royal 
Palace  dates  also  from  the  Saracenic  period, 
and  is  quite  similar  in  style  to  the  Ziza. 

The  Cuba,  the  Cubala,  and  an  old  build- 
ing on  the  banks  of  the  Oreto,  at  the  crossing 
of  the  Santa  Maria  di  Gesu  road,  are  the 
other  most  noticeable  relics  of  Saracenic 
rule.  One  of  the  earliest  and  most  exten- 
sive of  the  Norman  structures  is  the  Cath- 
edral, on  the  Corso,  not  far  within  the  Porta 
Nuova.  We  give  an  illustration  of  the  por- 
tion adjoining  the  main  side  entrance.  In 


this  will  be  seen  some  of  the  features  of  the 
Siculo-Norman  style,  marred  in  effect,  how- 
ever, by  an  Italian  dome  added  long  after 
the  erection  of  the  building,  and  entirely 
out  of  keeping  with  it.  The  most  interesting 
objects  in  the  interior  are  the  tombs  of  the 
earliest  Norman  kings.  But  the  two  gems 
of  the  city  are  the  Cappella  Palatina  and  the 
Martorana,  both  similar  in  the  style  of  inter- 
nal decoration  to  the  unrivaled  Cathedral  of 
Monreale,  but  on  a  much  smaller  scale. 
The  Cappella  Palatina — or  Palace  Chapel — 
is  so  literally  buried  in  the  mass  of  the  royal 
palace  that  it  has  no  exterior,  save  the 
mosaic-covered  entrance  from  a  piazza  in 
one  of  the  palace  courts.  It  is  much  smaller 


406 


FROM  PALERMO   TO   SYRACUSE. 


FRAGMENT    OF    MOSAICS    IN    CATHE- 
DRAL    OF    MONREALE. 


than     the 
Cathedral 
of  Monre- 
ale, but  so 
precisely  similar 
in  style  that  a 
description     of 
the    latter    will 

for        it  J 


CXCCDt 


that  the  drawing  of  many  of  the  mosaics 
is  of  a  rather  better  style,  and  more  graceful 
than  at  Monreale,  and  that  the  dimensions 
of  the  chapel  are  such  that  every  detail  is 
readily  seized  by  the  eye.  It  is  certainly 
one  of  the  most  charming  and  perfect  little 
churches  in  the  world.  The  palace,  of  ; 
which  the  chapel  forms  a  part,  is  one  of 
those  buildings  which  has  gradually  grown 
up  in  the  course  of  ages  from  small  begin- 
nings, until  from  its  very  size  and  situation 
it  has  become  imposing. 

The  road  to  Monreale  leaves  the  city  by 
the  Porta   Nuova,    and  is  bordered   by   a 
long  and  compact  suburb,  extending  nearly 
to  the  base  of  Monte  Caputo,  and  contain- 
ing several  large  and  impressive  buildings. 
The  Cuba  now  forms  part  of  a  cavalry  bar- 
rack on  the  left  of  the  road ;  the  Cubala  is 
in  a  garden  on  the  right — both  simple  Sara- 
cenic   structures    of    some    interest.     The 
immense  Almshouse  is  on  this  road;  also 
the  great "  Young  Ladies'  Boarding  School," 
so  closely  barred  and  grated  to  the  very 
parapet  of  the  roof  that  it  more  resembles  a 
prison  for  the  most  dangerous  and  desperate 
criminals.    The  Garden  of  Acclimation  and 
Count  Tasco's  villa  are  also  on  this  road, 
and  should  be  visited. 

We  made  this  trip  on  a  bright  and  pleas- 
ant day,  with  a  most  charming  guide  and 
cicerone  in  the  person  of  one  of  our  friends 


among  the  old  residents  of  Paler- 
mo.   We  did  not  find  the  drive  es- 
pecially-interesting until  we  reached 
the  foot  of  Monte  Caputo,  and  com- 
menced  the    long,    gentle   ascent 
leading  to  our  destination.     With 
every  foot  of  the  ascent  new  beau- 
ties were  revealed.     Soon  the  whole 
plain  was  stretched  before  us  in  all 
its  beauty  of  rich  vegetation,  while 
the  eye  was  distracted  almost  every 
moment  from  the  view  by  the  pict- 
uresque and  striking  living  groups 
constantly    encountered.     Now   it 
would  be  a  group  of  Bersaglieri, 
swinging  along,  with  their  peculiar 
and  rapid  step— their  long  cocks' 
plumes  waving  in  the  air.     Now  a  group 
of  priests,   generally  jolly  enough  in  spite 
of  their  huge  hats  and  black  gowns.     Now 
a  string  of  the   high  carts  so  peculiar  to 
Sicily,— painted  with  bright  yel!6w  ground, 
covered  with  arabesques  or  pictures,  of  the 
most   primitive   drawing  but   in   the   most 
brilliant   colors.      On   one  would   be   seen 
the  history  and  achievements  of  Orlando, 
or  of  Tancred,  on  another  some  holy  sub- 
ject— a  madonna,  a  martyrdom,  or  a  mira- 
cle.   Very  wonderful  are  these  quaint  Sicilian 
carts,  with  perhaps  a  dozen   peasant   men 
and    women — not    counting    children    and 
an   occasional   priest,  tucked  away  in   the 
corners — the  whole  drawn  by  a  mite  of  a 
pony,  or  a  very  small  donkey,  fairly  gor- 
geous   in    harness    of    extreme   brilliancy. 
Sometimes  these  astonishing  vehicles  travel 
along  soberly  enough,  but  the  chances  are 
that  they  will  pass  you  at  a  frantic  gallop, 
which  the  diminutive  beasts  seem  to  enjoy 
quite   as   much    as  their  drivers.      Groups 
of  smiling,  gaily  dressed    peasants  on  the 
road  have  a  pleasant  nod  for  you,  and  seem 
really  delighted  to  see  you.     They  appear 
|  to  be  a  good-humored   set,   these   Sicilian 
'  peasants,  and  it  is  delightful  to  see  on  what 
1  terms  of  perfect  intimacy  they  live  with  their 
four-footed  companions.     The  chances  are 
that  the  few  chairs  they  possess  are  occupied 
by  the  cats  and  dogs,  while  the  masters  sit 
on  the  ground ;  and   as  these  chairs  often 
have  little  of  the  seat  left  save  the  frame,  it 
is  very  funny  to  see  the  efforts  and  twists 
and  turns  of  the  animals  to  make  a  comfort- 
able resting-place  of  them.     The  pigs  walk 
into  the  houses  with  as  much  self-possession 
and  complacency  as  the  owners  ;  root  about 
under   beds,    chairs   and    tables,    and    are 
perfectly   at  home.      Chickens,    goats  and 
donkeys  follow  their  example. 


FROM  PALERMO    TO   SYRACUSE. 


407 


But  we  are  forgetting  Monreale,  the  object 
of  our  expedition.  The  beauty  of  this  Cathe- 
dral is  altogether  in  the  interior,  the  outside 
being  entirely  unattractive  except  the  main 
portal,  which  is  finely  proportioned  and  pre- 
sents some  very  striking  and  attractive  de- 
tails, characteristic  of  the  Siculo-Norman 
architecture  in  its  early  period.  Its  ancient 
bronze  doors  also  possess  great  merit. 
But,  on  the  other  hand,  the  interior  is  very 
beautiful.  The  opposite  illustration  will 
give  only  a  very  faint  idea  of  a  portion  of 
this  interior,  showing  parts  of  one  side-aisle 
and  of  the  nave.  The  walls,  up  to  the  sills 
of  the  windows  in  the  aisles  and  nearly  to 
the  height  of  the  capitals  of  the  columns  in 
the  nave,  are  lined  with  slabs  of  white  mar- 
ble, separated  by  narrow  bands  of  mosaics 
in  the  Saracenic  style,  and  having  continuous 
horizontal  borders  of  the  same  workman- 
ship. These  mosaics  are  of  the  most  exquis- 
ite beauty  and  delicacy,  and  the  variety  of 
patterns  is  something  almost  incredible. 
The  pavement  of  the  altar  and  of  the  church 
is  of  the  so-called  Opus  Alexandrinum, — that 
is,  it  is  made  up  of  bands  of  mosaics  form- 
ing a  great  variety  of  geometrical  figures, 
filled  in  with  pieces  of  porphyry,  serpentine, 
etc.  The  Bishop's  chair  and  the  old  royal 
throne  are  of  white  marble,  also  very  richly 
ornamented  with  Saracenic  mosaics.  Above 
the  white  marble  lining  of  the  lower  portion 
of  the  walls,  every  square  inch  of  the  church, 
up  to  the  roof,  is  covered  with  mosaics  of 
the  richest  and  most  varied  description. 
Here  are  depicted  the  most  striking  scenes 
from  the  Old  and  New  Testaments,  angels, 
prophets,  saints,  kings  and  judges.  The 
roof,  the  interior  of  which  is  of  wood,  is 
richly  carved  and  is  a  mass  of  gilding  and 
rich  coloring,  in  perfect  keeping  with  the 
unequaled  .mosaics  that  adorn  the  walls. 
No  description  can  cbnvey  the  faintest  con- 
ception of  the  exquisite  beauty  of  this  build- 
ing. After  having  seen  most  of  the  great 
churches  of  Europe,  from  Saint  Sophia  and 
the  Great  Isaacs,  on  the  one  hand,  to  Rouen, 
Tours  and  Westminster  on  the  other,  we 
remember  no  interior  so  beautiful  as  those 
of  Monreale  and  the  Cappella  Palatina. 
They  alone  are  worth  a  much  longer  voyage 
than  that  tO|  Palermo.  The  fatigue  of  the 
somewhat  long  climb  to  the  roof  of  the 
Cathedral  is  amply  repaid  by  the  glorious 
view  gained  from  the  summit. 

A  custom  prevails  in  Palermo  which  is  quite 
peculiar  to  that  city — preserving  the  mum- 
mies of  the  dead  of  the  better  classes  in  the 
convent  vaults.  This  custom  is  not  at  all  con- 


fined to  the  monks,  as  is  the  case  with  the 
Cappuccini  at  Rome,  but  extends  to  the  laity 
as  well.  We  give  a  view  of  a  small  part  of 
the  extensive  catacombs  of  the  Cappuccini  at 
Palermo.  Here  are  to  be  seen  the  mortal 
remains  of  men,  women  and  children  (of 
course  in  the  better  walks  in  life,  for  the 
privilege  of  being  a  mummy  is  not  accorded 
for  nothing)  fully  attired,  even  down  to 
white  kid  gloves ;  some  recumbent,  some 
erect,  some  in  chairs,  all  ghastly,  and  all 
duly  ticketed  with  names  and  date.  Some 
— more  retiring  in  disposition — are  modestly 
put  away  in  the  boxes  which  appear  in  the 
sketch.  Every  year  or  two  the  gloves,  and 
less  frequently  the  clothes,  are  renewed  by 
the  affectionate  survivors,  who  go  out  on 
feast  days  to  gladden  their  eyes  by  the 
sight  of  their  family  mummies,  in  which  it 
is  said  they  actually  find  much  consolation 
and  no  little  amusement. 

We  were  fortunate  in  being  in  Palermo 
during  a  portion  of  the  Carnival,  so  that  we 
witnessed  the  so-called  "  Battaglia  dei  Fiori" 
— battle  of  the  flowers.  The  field  of  battle 
is  the  Marina,  bouquets  being  the  weapons. 
On  the  eventful  day,  usually  Sunday,  about 
three  in  the  afternoon,  the  drive  of  the 
Marina  is  completely  filled  with  carriages, 
and  the  wide  side-walks  packed  with  pedes- 
trians of  all  classes  of  life.  Some  of  the 
regimental  bands  are  stationed  on  the  Mar- 
ina, playing  in  turn.  The  carriages  drive 
up  and  down  in  several  lines,  and  the  air  is 
filled  with  bouquets  thrown  from  carriage 
to  carriage,  amidst  laughing  and  shouts  of 
merriment.  Sometimes,  toward  evening,  the 
sport  becomes  a  little  rough,  for  some  of  the 
lower  order  of  pedestrians  will  occasionally 
throw  a  stone ;  but  this  is  the  exception  to 
the  rule,  for  there  are  no  people  in  the 
world  of  a  more  kindly  disposition  than 
the  Italians  of  all  ranks,  and  generally  the 
most  reprehensible  thing  done  is  the  smash- 
ing down  of  "  high  hats,"  which,  all  Italy 
over,  are  fair  game  in  Carnival  times. 

We  should  tire  out  our  readers  com- 
pletely did  we  attempt  a  description  of  a 
tithe  of  the  charming  excursions  that  can 
be  made  from  Palermo, — such  as  the  an- 
cient city  of  Selinunte,  Bagaria,  Termini, 
Segeste,  etc., — and  will  content  ourselves 
with  presenting  a  sketch  of  the  lovely  unfin- 
ished temple  of  Segeste,  as  an  indication  of 
the  reward  in  store  for  the  traveler  who 
undertakes  this  trip. 

In  spite  of  much  bad  weather — for  the 
winter  months  are  sometimes  very  unpleas- 
ant there — we  left  Palermo  with  much 


408 


FROM  PALERMO    TO   SYRACUSE. 


regret,  partly  for  the  charming  surroundings 
of  the  place  itself,  and,  to  a  great  extent,  for 
the  kind  friends  who  did  so  much  to  make 
our  visit  pleasant. 

The  trip  from  Palermo  to  Messina  would, 
no  doubt,  be  very  charming  if  made  in  a 
comfortable  boat  and  on  a  smooth  sea, 


very  remarkable  church  of  San  Gregorio; 
for  we  preferred  spending  our  time  in  driv- 
ing through  the  city  and  on  the  road  to  the 
Faro.  Toward  the  east  of  the  city  the 
view  is  bounded  by  the  flat-topped  mount- 
ains of  Calabria,  whose  slopes  are  generally 
bare  and  steep,  while  at  the  base  number- 


THE    CATACOMBS,    PALERMO. 


but  such*  was  not  our  fortune.  The  un- 
comfortable night,  however,  at  length  came 
to  an  end,  and,  upon  waking  in  the  morn- 
ing, we  were  not  a  little  gratified  to  find 
ourselves  in  still  waters,  and,  on  looking 
out  of  the  narrow  ports,  to  see  the  coast 
close  abeam.  By  eight  o'clock  we  were  at 
anchor  in  the  busy  and  crowded  harbor, 
and,  after  a  long  and  very  unnecessary 
detour  to  the  custom  house,  reached  the 
hotel  at  an  early  hour.  The  situation  of 
Messina  is  very  beautiful,  and  is  entirely  dif- 
ferent from  that  of  Palermo.  It  is  built 
upon  the  lower  slopes  of  the  mountains, 
which  here  border  directly  upon  the  sea  and 
usually  leave  only  sufficient  space  for  one 
narrow  road  along  the  shore.  The  city 
itself,  without  being  at  all  grand,  is  bright 
and  attractive,  and  full  of  life  and  activity. 
It  is  not  rich  in  remarkable  buildings,  and 
the  limited  time  at  our  disposal  permitted 
us  to  see  only  the  cathedral,  a  fine  Norman 
structure  of  the  eleventh  century,  and  the 


less  white  villages  are  scattered  along  the 
shore,  from  Nicotera,  on  the  one  hand,  to 
distant  Reggio  on  the  other.  To  the  left, 
close  under  the  Calabrian  coast,  is  distinctly 
seen  the  well-known  Scylla — a  bold,  square 
mass  of  rock  projecting  into  the  sea,  crowned 
by  a  ruined  castle,  which  serves  to  mark  it 
readily  to  the  eye.  Charybdis  is  not  so 
easily  pointed  out ;  in  truth,  there  is  not 
now  any  such  terrible  whirlpool  as  that 
which  the  ancients  professed  to  dread,  and, 
among  the  numerous  eddies  produced  by 
the  currents  and  counter-currents  along  the 
Sicilian  shore,  one  may  give  full  play  to  the 
imagination  and  place  Charybdis  where  the 
fancy  wills.  It  was  at  Cape  Pelorus  that 
the  Corinthian  cavalry  of  Timoleon  passed 
the  straits,  about  three  centuries  and  a  half 
before  the  Christian  era ;  and  it  was  here, 
also,  that  Count  Roger,  with  his  handful  of 
Normans,  crossed,  some  fourteen  centuries 
later,  to  make  the  conquest  of  the  island. 
Early  in  the  afternoon  of  the  day  we 


FROM  PALERMO    TO   SYRACUSE. 


409 


TEMPLE    OF     SEGESTE. 


reached  Messina,  we  took  the  train  for 
Taormina.  The  road  generally  passes 
close  to  the  sea,  and,  throughout  its  whole 
extent,  commands  most  charming  views  of 
water,  of  mountain,  and  of  valley.  Every 
turn  of  the  road,  every  moment,  brings  to 
the  eye  some  new  delight — now  a  glimpse 
of  the  blue  sea,  through  orange  or  olive 
groves ;  now  a  quiet  village,  with  quaint 
church  and  dingy  houses,  in  the  midst  of 
bright  gardens  and  luxuriant  vegetation ; 
now  mountain  spurs  crowned  by  ruined 
castles,  or  strange  old  villages ;  now  a  dis- 
tant view,  up  some  broader  valley,  of  the  high, 
snow-crowned  mountains,  with  villages,  or 
perhaps  a  monastery,  on  the  slopes;  all 
these  under  the  clear  sunlight  give  a  suc- 
cession of  pictures  so  enchanting  and  so 


varied  that  you  are  almost  wearied  by  the 
constant  change  and  excitement.  A  ride 
of  about  an  hour  and  a  half  brings  us 
to  Giardini,  the  station  for  Taormina. 
Here  the  carriage  of  the  Hotel  Bella  Ve- 
duta  is  waiting,  and  we  are  soon  rapidly 
ascending  the  excellent  road  that  winds  up 
the  mountain  side  to  our  destination,  some 
800  or  900  feet  above  the  sea.  Exquisite, 
indeed,  are  the  views  that  gladden  the  eye 
at  every  turn  of  the  road.  At  one  moment 
you  see  the  whole  coast-line  to  Messina  and 
the  opposite  Calabrian  shore ;  then  the 
coast  to  the  southward,  with  y£tna  in  the 
background,  gilded  by  the  last  rays  of  the 
setting  sun  ;  now  you  pass  by  a  series  of 
ancient  tombs,  almost  under  the  foundations 
of  a  convent ;  now  you  see  the  ruins  of  the 


A     PAPYRUS    THICKET. 


FROM  PALERMO   TO   SYRACUSE. 


410 

Roman   theater  above   you,  and   pass   by 
other   relics   of  the   Greeks  and   Romans. 
At  length  you  enter  the  gate  of  the  bara- 
renic  walls,  and,  after  a  short  drive  through 
the   narrow   and   dingy   streets,  reach   the 
hotel      Knowing  that  the  accommodations 
were'limited  in  extent,  we  had  telegraphed 
two  or  three  days  in  advance  for  "rooms 
with  fire  and  sun,"  for  the  weather  was  still 
cold     The  polite  old  Cavaliere  who,  strange 
to  say,  is  the  master  of  the  establishment, 
escorted  us  to  the  rooms  assigned  us.     We 
passed   through    a   corridor   precisely   like 
that   of  a   convent,  and  found  our  rooms 
quite   like   convent   cells,  with  bare   brick 
floors  and  whitewashed  walls,  and  furnished 
quite  in  convent  style— small  iron  bedsteads, 
and  the  scantiest  supply  of  chairs  and  wash- 
ing  arrangements.     The   evening   was  by 
this   time  well   advanced  and   the  air  was 
biting,   so   we   naturally   directed  our   first 
glances  at  the  walls  for  the  fire-places,  but 
in  vain.     In  reply  to  our  pressing  and  em- 
phatic inquiries,  the  Cavaliere  pointed  out  a 
solitary  "  scaldino  "— a  bronze   brazier  for 
charcoal— in  one  of  the  rooms,  and  asked 
imploringly  if  that  was   not   a   very  good 
fire !     To  cut  a  long  story  short,  we  found 
that  fire-places  are  unknown  in  Taormina, 
and  that  scaldini  are  the  only  substitutes. 
The   Cavaliere   was    so    good-natured,   so 
ready  to  provide  another  scaldino,  so  ear- 
nest in  his  assurances  that  we  would  find 
plenty  of  sun   on  our  terrace  and   in  our 
rooms    during   those   hours   when   it    is   a 
proper  and  legitimate  thing  for  the  sun  to 
show  himself,  and  regretted  so  keenly  that 
he  could  not  keep  the  sun  on  duty  for  us 
all  night,  that   we  were  fain  to   be  good- 
natured  too. 

In  explanation  of  the  peculiarities  of  the 
Bella  Veduta  it  is  but  just  to  say  that  the 
Cavaliere — who  is  a  kind  and  charming  old 
gentleman — is  not  by  any  means  a  hotel- 
keeper  by  profession  or  by  training.     He  is 
one  of  the  wealthiest  and  most  influential 
of  the  resident  gentlemen  of  the  vicinity. 
Two  or  three  years  ago  he  was  so  unfortu- 
nate as  to  lose  his  wife,  and,  being   very 
depressed  and  lonely,  was  persuaded  by  an 
English  gentleman,  recently  established  in 
a  neighboring  convent-building  as  a  success- 
ful maker  of  wines,  to  convert  his  palace 
into  a  hotel,  and  to  relieve  his  solitude  and 
inaction  by  supplying  to  tourists  that  which 
did  not  before  exist  in  Taormina — a  'clean 
and  decent  abiding-place.     It  thus  happens 
that   the    ideas   of   comfort    prevailing    in 
the  Bella  Veduta  are  rather  Sicilian   than 


American.    Our  first  dinner  was  quite  amus- 
ing, for 'it  happened  that  the  guests  were 
more  numerous  that  day  than  ever  before  in 
the  history  of  the  hotel,  so  that  there  was 
some  uncertainty  as  to  whether  the  supplies 
would  hold  out.     The  laughing  Italian  man 
and  woman  who  waited  on  the  table  inter- 
changed the  funniest  running  comments  as 
each  dish  progressed  toward  emptiness.     If 
one  guest  helped  himself  too   bountifully, 
the  bearer's  face  would  fall,  and  a  despair-' 
ing  remark  be  made  to  the  companion;  if 
another  guest  were  moderate  in  his  demands, 
or.  still  better,  passed  the  dish  altogether, 
there  would  be  a  laugh  and  a  shout  of  triumph. 
The  whole  thing  was  so  natural,  so  childlike, 
and   so  thoroughly  good-natured,  that  we 
were  all  convulsed  with  laughter  throughout 
the  meal.     But  we  did  better  afterward,  and 
finally  left  the  Bella  Veduta  with  the  kindest 
feelings  toward  the  good  old  Cavaliere,  and 
not  unpleasant  recollections  of  the  hotel ;  no 
doubt  if  we  had  been  so  fortunate  as  to 
have  had  some  of  the  rooms  which  were 
carpeted,  etc.,  our  first  impressions  would 
have  been  more  agreeable. 

The  situation  of  Taormina  is  singularly 
happy,  for  it  is  built  upon  a  long  and  nar- 
row plateau,  on  the  steep  mountain  side, 
some  800  feet  above  the  sea.     So  precipitous 
is  the  slope  below,  that  the  Mediterranean 
is  literally  at  your  feet;  while  high  above 
rise  the  peaks  and  crests  of  the  bold  mount- 
ains   which    form    the    background.     The 
modern  town — scarce  worthy  of  the  name — 
occupies  a  portion  only  of  the  area  covered 
by  the  ancient  Tauromenium ;  it  is  dirty, 
stagnant  and  dilapidated,  and  contains  noth- 
ing interesting  of  a  more  recent  date  than 
its  churches  and  palaces  of  the  fourteenth 
and  fifteenth  centuries;   the  truly  modern 
constructions  are  unusually  devoid  of  interest 
for  an  Italian  town.     The  ancient  city  was 
founded  about  400  B.  c.,  by  the  native  tnbe 
to  whom  Dionysius  made  over  the  territory 
of  the  neighboring  Naxos  after  its  destruc- 
tion.    Some  fifty  years  later,  the  remnants 
of    the     Naxians    and    their    descendants 
established  themselves  here,  and  made  it  a 
Greek  city.    This  site  was  no  doubt  preferred 
to  that  of  the  elder  Naxos,  founded  nearly 
350  years  earlier,  as  affording  greater  facili- 
ties for   defense   against   the   hostile  Syra- 
cusans.    It  became  rich  and  prosperous,  and 
underwent    many    vicissitudes   of    fortune, 
passing  at  long  intervals  into  the  possession 
of  the  Syracusans,  the  Romans,  the  Saracens 
and  the  Normans.     It  contains  remains  be- 
longing to  each  of  these  periods,  some  of 


FROM  PALERMO    TO   SYRACUSE. 


411 


them  of  great  interest.  The  chief  treasure 
of  Taormina,  the  crowning  glory  of  its  at- 
tractions, is  the  Roman  Theater,  and  the 
unrivaled  view  therefrom. 

This  theater  is  built  upon  the  foundations 
of  an  older  Greek  structure,  and,  so  far  as 
the  "  scena  "  is  concerned,  is  in  better  pres- 
ervation than  any  ancient  theater  save  one. 
Enough  of  the  scena  remains  to  give  a 
correct  idea  of  the  whole,  so  that  it  is  easy 
to  reconstruct,  ideally,  the  entire  edifice. 
But,  unless  one  is  a  most  enthusiastic  anti- 
quary, he  no  sooner  reaches  that  summit  of 
the  structure  most  remote  from  the  stage 
than  he  forgets  all  questions  of  construction, 
turns  a  deaf  ear  to  the  babbling  of  the 
custode,  and  abandons  himself  to  the 
delights  of  the  most  noble  view  that  ever 
greeted  the  eyes  of  man, — the  same  pros- 
pect that  gladdened  the  hearts  of  so  many 
generations  of  Greeks  and  Romans,  who, 
year  after  year,  century  after  century,  stood 
just  where  you  now  stand,  gazed  upon  the 
same  wonderful  works  of  God,  and  listened 
withal  to  the  strains  of  the  sweetest  bards 
and  grandest  tragic  poets  of  the  Greek  and 
Latin  races.  Few  things  bring  more  closely 
home  to  the  mind  the  vast  difference  be- 
tween those  ancient  races  and  ourselves, 
between  their  civilization  and  habits  and 
our  own,  than  the  contrast  between  such  a 
theater  as  that  of  Taormina  and  one  of 
our  modern  places  of  amusement.  We,  at 
unnatural  hours,  by  hot  and  unhealthy  gas- 
lights, with  tawdry  scenery,  listen,  seldom 
to  the  good,  often  to  the  worst  productions 
of  our  language.  They,  in  the  pure  air  of 
heaven,  under  the  bright  light  of  the  south- 
ern sun,  listened  to  the  noblest  poems  of 
the  noblest  languages, — and  with  what  a 
background  !  Towering  high  above  theater 
and  intervening  hills,  reaching  almost  to 
heaven  in  its  pure  garment  of  snow,  stands 
jiEtna,  the  grandest  and  most  beautiful  of 
European  volcanoes.  A  wreath  of  smoke 
almost  always  rests  upon  its  summit,  to 
show  that  the  fires  beneath  are  slumbering, 
not  extinct.  Following,  with  the  eye,  down 
the  long  slope  of  snow,  you  see  first  thick 
forests  of  oak  and  chestnut ;  lower  down 
farms  and  villas,  and  finally  the  superb 
plain  of  Piedimonte  and  the  Cantara,  so 
vividly  and  richly  green  that  it  really 
rivals  the  emerald  in  brilliancy.  Almost  at 
your  feet  is  the  low  green-and-black  promon- 
tory on  which  once  stood  Naxos,  the  earliest 
of  the  Greek  colonies  in  Sicily.  To  the 
left  of  all,  the  glorious  Mediterranean,  with 
its  rich  hues  of  blue  and  green ;  its  shores 


stretching  in  graceful  curves  as  far  as  the 
eye  can  reach,  to  Catania  and  beyond.  To 
the  right,  mountain  peaks,  far  inferior,  it  is 
true,  to  JEtna,  yet  very  bold  and  beautiful 
in  themselves;  one  crowned — now,  as  when 
this  theater  was  new — by  a  village  and 
castle,  that  of  Mola ;  another  now  topped 
by  the  ruined  Saracenic  citadel,  occupying 
no  doubt  the  site  of  some  much  older  build- 
ing. At  the  foot  of  these  the  old  city  itself, 
with  its  steep  slopes  covered  with  orange 
and  mandarin,  olive  and  almond,  countless 
vines  and  flowers.  Such  was  the  view  that 
greeted  the  old  Greek  or  Roman  as  he 
looked  toward  the  stage.  If  he  turned 
toward  the  north,  he  saw  the  whole  coast 
line  to  Messina,  with  its  infinite  variety, 
and  in  the  distance  the  coast  of  the  main- 
land of  Calabria.  Such  is  the  view  that 
greets  the  traveler  to-day  as  he  rests  among 
the  ruins  of  buildings  erected  by  nations 
long  ago  no  more. 

It  does  not  fall  within  our  purpose  to 
do  more  than  mention  some  few  of  the 
objects  of  interest  in  and  near  Taormina, 
such  as  the  battlemented  Saracenic  walls; 
the  mediaeval  churches  and  palaces ;  that 
most  charming  ruin  known  as  the  Badia 
Vecchia,  with  its  exquisite  Gothic  win- 
dows; the  Piscina  Mirabile,  the  Nauma- 
chia,  and  various  other  fragments  of  ancient 
structures.  Some  of  these  are  well  enough 
to  occupy  an  occasional  spare  hour,  but  the 
theater  and  the  various  views  are  sufficient 
in  themselves  to  satisfy  the  most  exact- 
ing traveler,  and  it  is  enough  to  say  that 
no  one  traveling  in  Sicily  should  omit 
Taormina. 

Quite  reluctantly  we  left  the  bracing  air 
and  clear  sky  of  Taormina  to  take  the  rail 
for  Catania.  A  ride  of  a  little  more  than 
an  hour  and  a  half,  through  a  beautiful  and 
highly  cultivated  region,  abounding  in  vil- 
lages, farms  arid  villas,  with  occasionally  a 
Spanish  fort  or  a  Moorish  castle,  brought  us 
to  the  city,  and  to  that  comfortable  haven 
known  as  the  Grand  Hotel  of  Catania. 
Opinions  appear  to  differ  much  in  relation 
to  Catania.  Before  we  reached  it,  some 
persons  described  it  to  us  as  very  black  and 
gloomy — not  only  the  city  itself,  but  also  the 
environs ;  others  held  a  different  view.  As 
usual,  much  depends  upon  the  temperament 
of  the  visitor,  the  weather,  etc.  We  found 
bright  sunlight,  and  failed  to  perceive  any- 
thing gloomy  about  the  place.  It  is  true 
that,  were  it  in  America,  we  should,  with  our 
habit  of  conferring  descriptive  epithets  upon 
cities,  probably  call  it  the  "  Lava  City,"  for 


412 


FROM  PALERMO    TO   SYRACUSE. 


there  is  lava  to  the  right  and  left  of  it,  ava 
behind  and  below  it,  and  occasionally  lava 
above  it.  The  streets  are  paved,  and  the 
houses  often  built,  of  lava,  the  cellars  exca- 
vated in  it,  the  port  nearly  choked  up  with  it, 
portions  of  the  old  city  buried  beneath  lava, 
most  of  the  modern  city  built  upon  it;  the 
railway  enters  the  city  through  lava  cuts,  and 
leaves"  it  by  a  tunnel  through  lava.  It  is 
also  true  that  the  lava  hereabouts  is  of  a 


minus  a  distant  view  of  one  or  two  large 
villages  perched  on  commanding  summits. 
Very  little  has  been  done  toward  the  exten- 
sion of  this  railroad  for  several  years,  but  it 
now  seems  probable  that  within  a  few  years 
the  very  important  connection  between 
Catania  and  Palermo  will  be  completed,  as 
well  as  the  branch  to  Girgenti.  With  the 
development  of  railroads  in  the  interior  of 
the  island  a  new  future  will  soon  open  for 


THE  FOUNTAIN  OF  ARETHUSA. 


very  dark  color,  usually  black.  But  the  two 
most  recent  volcanic  streams  which  have 
approached  the  city  are  respectively  a  little 
more  than  200  and  1000  years  old,  so  that 
a  good  deal  of  disintegration  and  accumu- 
lation of  soil  has  taken  place,  and,  after  all, 
the  black  masses  only  form  a  setting  for  the 
spots  of  brilliant  vegetation  which  in  every 
direction  meet  the  eye.  To  us  it  seemed 
that  the  contrast  heightened  the  richness  of 
the  vegetation,  and  afforded  some  of  the 
most  exquisite  pictures  imaginable. 

From  what  we  saw  and  heard,  the  impres- 
sion was  derived  that,  away  from  the  mount- 
ain ranges,  the  interior  of  the  island 
consists  chiefly  of  undulating  plains  covered 
with  grass  or  grain,  without  trees,  with 
very  few  detached  farm-houses,  but  occa- 
sional villages,  in  which  the  agricultural 
laborers  gather.  That  they  go  long  dis- 
tances to  their  work  is  shown  by  the  fre- 
quent straw  huts,  not  unlike  wigwams, 
erected  for  their  use  in  the  fields.  Near 
Leonforte  the  country  becomes  bolder  and 
more  picturesque,  because  the  main  range 
of  the  Madonian  mountains  is  closer  at 
hand,  and  one  has  from  the  railroad  ter- 


Sicily.  While  we  were  at  Catania  there  was 
a  trifling  break  in  the  railroad  to  Syracuse, 
sufficient,  however,  to  derange  matters  so 
completely  as  to  render  it  advisable  to  go 
there  by  the  weekly  steamer,  rather  than  by 
land.  One  bright  Monday  morning,  then, 
we  took  the  Florio  boat  for  Syracuse. 

It  need  hardly  be  said  that  we  had  now 
reached  the  most  interesting,  although  not 
the  most  beautiful  city  of  Sicily— indeed, 
there  are  few  cities  in   Europe  so  replete 
with   classical   interest   as    the    once    great 
Syracuse.     Sadly  shrunken  is  the  Syracuse 
of  to-day;  for  the  modern  city  just  covers  the 
area  of  the  old  Ortygia,  the  first  settlement  of 
the  Corinthian  adventurers  who  established 
themselves  here  in  734  B.  c.— only  one  year 
later   than   the    Chalcidians    and    lomans 
founded    Naxos.      The  four  great  suburbs 
which  belonged  to  the  city  in  its  prime,  and 
which  covered  an  area  more  than  twenty 
times  greater  than  that  of  Ortygia,  are  now 
abandoned,  and  mostly  desolate  ;  here  and 
there  a  farm  dots  the  surface,  but  over  the 
greater  part  of  the  expanse  you  search  in  vair 
for  any  traces  of  the  hand  of  man.     So  pro- 
nounced are  the  topographical  features  of  the 


FROM  PALERMO    TO   SYRACUSE. 


environs  of  Syracuse  that,  with  Thucydides 
in  hand,  it  is  easy  to  follow  the  movements 
of  the  Athenian  siege,  to  locate  the  most 
important  points,  and  to  follow  the  principal 
movements  of  the  campaign.  We  have  no 
intention  of  repeating  the  story  of  that 
famous  and  ill-advised  siege,  which,  partly 
through  the  errors  of  the  brave,  able  and 
virtuous  Athenian  commander  Nicias,  and 
partly  through  the  ability  and  vigor  of  the 
Lacedaemonian  Gylippus,  resulted  in  the  com- 
plete destruction  of  the  most  powerful  arma- 
ment that  Athens  had  ever  sent  forth,  in  the 
loss  of  her  prestige,  and  thus  prepared  the 
way  for  her  downfall.  He  who  sympathizes 
with  the  Athenians  will  regret  that  the  first 
landing  and  victory  near  Dascon,  the  great 
harbor,  was  not  at  once  followed  up,  as  it 
would  doubtless  have  resulted  in  the  capture 
of  the  city.  The  re-embarkation  and  post- 
ponement of  the  attack  for  several  months 
gave  the  Syracusans  and  their  allies  ample 
time  to  prepare,  while  the  Athenians  had 
nothing  to  gain  by  delay. 

As  already  stated,  modern  Syracuse  occu- 
pies the  island  of  Ortygia,  where  the  first 
Greek  colonists  established  themselves  a 
little  more  than  2,600  years  ago.  The 
modern  city  is  inclosed  within  massive  for- 
tifications, chiefly  of  the  time  of  Charles  V. 
These  are  now  of  interest  only  in  a  historical 
point  of  view,  for  they  are  of  little  use  under 
the  conditions  of  modern  war.  They  occupy 
the  site  of  the  old  walls  of  Dionysius,  of 
which  nothing  now  remains  save  here  and 
there  a  huge  stone.  But  there  are  in  Ortygia 
other  relics  of  ancient  days  not  without 
interest.  The  first  place  to  which  the  steps 
will  naturally  be  directed  is  the  famous 
fountain  of  Arethusa,  no  longer  pure  as  of 
old,  and  shorn  of  much  of  its  pristine  glory, 
yet,  with  all  drawbacks,  still  an  attractive 
spot.  The  illustration  opposite  will  give 
something  of  an  idea  of  the  quiet  pool,  with 
its  tufts  of  papyrus,  and  will  show  how  it  is 
separated  from  the  waters  of  the  great  har- 
bor by  the  massive  city  walls,  precisely  as 
in  classical  times.  Long,  long  ago,  an 
earthquake  shook  the  foundation  of  the  earth 
[just  here,  and  allowed  the  salt  water  of 
j  the  harbor  to  mingle  with  the  pure  water  of 
I  the  fountain. 

Recent  excavations  have  laid  bare  numer- 
lous  columns  of  the  temple  of  Diana,  until 
lately  quite  concealed  by  houses  of  the  mod- 
ern city;  they  present  no  special  beauty, 
and  are  of  interest  chiefly  for  the  reason  that 
their  details  prove  that  they  are  some  2,400 
lor  2,500  years  old.  The  most  satisfactory 


remnant  of  Ortygia  is  the  far-famed  temple 
of  Minerva,  which  had  on  its  roof  the  great 
golden  shield  so  well  known  to  ancient 
mariners.  The  columns  and  much  of  the 
architecture  and  frieze  still  remain,  for  very 
fortunately  the  temple  was  early  converted 
into  a  Christian  church,  and  the  columns  of 
the  peristyle  and  the  walls  of  the  Cella  were 
retained  as  portions  of  the  sacred  edifice,  so 
that,  as  the  diameter  of  the  columns  is  much 
greater  than  the  thickness  of  the  walls  filling 
the  intervals  between  them,  you  see  the 
columns  very  satisfactorily.  This  temple  was 
erected  in  the  sixth  century  before  our  era, 
and  was  renowned  for  the  richness  of  its 
decorations  and  the  value  of  its  treasures. 
The  Greek  theater  is  a  noble  monument 
of  the  energy  and  skill  of  the  old  Syracu- 
sans. It  is  hewn  out  of  the  solid  rock 
nearly  at  the  top  of  the  steep  slope  of  Epip- 
olae,  and  is  so  large  that  it  could  accommo- 
date 25,000  auditors.  The  seats  are  well 
preserved,  notwithstanding  that  for  some 
centuries  a  water-course  made  its  way  over 
them,  and  on  the  face  of  one  of  the  corridor 
walls  can  still  be  traced,  in  Greek  charac- 
ters, the  designations  of  the  wedge-shaped 
subdivisions  into  which  the  auditorium  was 
divided — such  as  "  Queen  Philistia,"  "  King 
Hieron,"  etc.  Some  little  of  the  scena  and 
of  the  dressing-rooms  remain,  but  nothing  of 
the  stage.  Here,  as  usual,  the  theater  com- 
manded a  lovely  view,  in  this  case  over  the 
great  harbor  and  out  to  sea.  This  building 
is  at  least  2,300  years  old.  Not  far  from 
here,  and  also  mostly  in  excavation,  is  the 
Roman  amphitheater,  dating  from  about 
the  time  of  Augustus.  An  interesting  fea- 
ture in  this  amphitheater  is  the  podium,  or 
masonry  wall  surrounding  the  arena.  In 
some  parts  this  is  well  preserved,  and  on  its 
cornice  may  be  read  some  of  the  inscrip- 
tions (in  Latin),  giving  the  titles  of  the  offi- 
cials who  occupied  seats  on  the  platform 
just  above.  This  amphitheater  is  larger 
than  that  of  Verona.  The  Latomie,  or  an- 
cient quarries,  form  one  of  the  most  marked 
and  interesting  features  of  Syracuse.  They 
are  usually  somewhat  below  the  clift  and 
cut  deeply  into  its  sides,  although  sometimes 
they  are  cut  sheer  down  into  the  mass  of  the 
plateau,  directly  from  the  surface.  It  was 
from  these  that  the  materials  were  obtained 
for  the  construction  of  the  ancient  Ortygia, 
its  extensions  and  defenses,  so  that  they 
are  of  great  antiquity,  very  numerous,  and 
of  vast  dimensions.  Originally  they  were  to 
a  considerable  extent  excavated  under  the 
plateau,  with  a  roof  left  over  portions  ;  but 


FROM  PALERMO    TO   SYRACUSE. 


" 


RUINS    OF    THE    GREEK 
THEATER    AT    SYRACUSE. 


the  frequent  and 
violent  shocks  of 
earthquake  have 
thrown  down  the 
most  of  the  roof- 
ing, so  that  they 
are  for  the  great- 
er part  now  un- 
covered. But  in 

ff^M^fil^r.^  V"^         some  cases,  as,  for  instance,  in  the  Latomia  del 

Paradiso,  which  contains  the  "Ear  of  Dionysius 
there  still  remain  vast  and  lofty  chambers  in  the 
solid  rock,  some  of  which  are  used  for  the  manu- 
facture of  saltpeter,  for  rope-walks,  etc.,  etc.    . 
of  these  quarries  cover  many  acres  in  extent,  am 
have   vertical  sides  a  hundred    or   more   feet 
height    The  marks  made  by  the  tools  used  in  get- 
ting out  the  stone  still  can  be  plainly  perceived 
The  form  and  dimensions  of  the  blocks  can i  to 
traced,  and  the  holes  may  still  be  seen  in   whict 
were  inserted  the  bars  employed  by  the  quarrymet 
as  substitutes  for  ladders.     Often  the  walls  are  covered  with  a  thick  curtain  of  vines  ar 
the  floor  overgrown  with  the  most  luxuriant  vegetation.      Some  of  the  Lat< 
been  laid  out  with  the  greatest  taste  and  with  all  the  arts  of  landscape  garc 


RUINS    OF    THE    ROMAN     AMPHITHEATER 
AT    SYRACUSE. 


FROM  PALERMO   TO    SYRACUSE. 


for  example,  the  Latomie  dei  Cappuccini, 
di  Casale  and  di  Venere,  and  it  would  be 
difficult  to  imagine  anything  more  pictur- 
esque than  these  charming  spots.  It  must 
be  understood  that  the  quarry  is  not  a  single 
large  chamber  excavated  throughout  its 
entire  area,  but  that  it  is  divided  into  many 
compartments'  by  masses  of  fallen  roof,  and 
huge  walls  never  cut  away,  and  that  you  pass 
from  one  portion  to  another  by  winding 
passages  and  by  tunnels,  unexpectedly  find- 
ing new  and  still  more  beautiful  chambers 
opening  out  before  you.  Orange  groves, 
lemon  trees,  olives,  palms,  pepper  trees,  the 
cypress,  the  pine, — all  the  trees  that  flourish 
in  this  climate, — are  to  be  found  in  these  quar- 
ries, with  the  pomegranate,  the  oleander, 
flowers  innumerable  and  of  all  hues,  and  the 
graceful  acanthus;  add  to  these  the  thick 
vines  festooning  the  walls,  and  clinging  to 
the  fallen  masses  of  rock.  Imagine  all  these 
most  picturesquely  arranged,  and  in  the 
greatest  profusion,  and  you  may  form  some 
conception  of  the  beauties  of  the  Syracusan 
Latomie,  which  are  certainly  unique.  But 
their  interest  is  not  limited  by  their  beauty. 
In  one  is  the  "  Ear  of  Dionysius  "  ;  in  another 
the  famous  prison  of  the  ill-fated  Athenians 
and  their  allies,  who  survived  the  final  de- 
feat on  the  banks  of  the  Asinarus.  The 
accompanying  sketch  shows  the  entrance  of 
the  "  Ear  of  Dionysius,"  a  long,  narrow  and 


THE     EAR     OF     DIONYSIUS. 


lofty  excavation,  extending  in  a  winding 
direction  some  200  feet  into  the  mass  of  the 
hill.  It  will  be  seen  that  its  outline  is  not 
unlike  a  horse's  ear  in  shape.  It  is  about 
seventy  feet  high,  and  varies  in  width  from 
about  ten  to  nearly  forty  feet.  Whatever 
may  have  been  the  purpose  for  which  it  was 
originally  intended,  it  certainly  possesses 
singular  acoustic  properties  in  the  way  of 
producing  repeated  echoes,  and  in  greatly 
magnifying  slight  noises.  At  the  inner  end, 
near  the  roof,  is  a  chamber  which  the  guides 
point  out  as  the  place  where  Dionysius  was 
in  the  habit  of  posting  himself  when  he 
desired  to  listen  to  the  conversation  of  his 
prisoners ;  we  did  not  test  the  peculiar 
acoustic  qualities  of  this  position,  and  will 
be  content  to  allow  the  guides  to  have  their 
way  in  regard  to  it.  It  is  worthy  of  notice 
that  in  the  Latomia  di  Casale  there  is 
another  unfinished  ear  similar  to  that  of 
Dionysius ;  there  is  nothing  to  indicate  the 
purpose  it  was  intended  to  serve,  and  its 
construction  was  left  incomplete  because  a 
layer  of  soft  and  dangerous  rock  was  en- 
countered. The  Latomia  dei  Cappuccini 
bears  now  no  traces  of  the  sufferings  of  the 
'7,000  wretches,  survivors  of  the  Athenian 
host,  who  nearly  2,300  years  ago  were  con- 
fined within  it;  for  the  probabilities  are  that 
this  is  the  quarry  described  by  Thucydides. 
With  its  absolutely  vertical  walls  of  solid 
rock,  never  less  than  about  eighty  feet  high, 
it  forms  the  most  secure  prison  possible. 
Looking  down  now  into  its  wide  expanse  of 
luxuriant  tropical  vegetation,  it  is  difficult  to 
realize  the  scenes  of  abject  misery  of  which 
it  was  once  the  theater;  7,000  brave  men,  of 
the  most  enlightened  and  civilized  race  of  the 
age,  allowed  to  die  from  hunger  and  thirst, 
disease  and  squalor,  in  the  hands  of  men  ot 
the  same  race,  and  inhabitants  of  a  city 
rivaling  their  own  in  refinement  and  devotion 
to  the  arts.  The  theater  of  Taormina  pre- 
sents one  side  of  the  high  heathen  civiliza- 
tion; the  quarries  of  Syracuse  show  the 
obverse  of  the  medal. 

The  old  walls  of  Dionysius,  and  of  subse- 
quent times,  encircled  the  entire  plateau  of 
Epipolae,  from  Ortygia  and  the  sea  to  Fort 
Euryalus.  They  may  be  traced  throughout 
almost  the  whole  extent,  and  enough  of  the 
structure  remains  to  indicate  quite  clearly 
what  it  was  when  perfect,  and  to  show  that, 
although  the  walls  of  Dionysius  were  built  in 
great  haste,  the  work  was  well  and  solidly 
done.  To  reach  Fort  Euryalus,  a  distance 
of  more  than  four  miles  from  the  modern 
city,  you  can  go  by  carriage  to  within  a  few 


THE   SORCERY  OF  MADJOON. 


hundred  yards  of  your  destination.  So 
much  of  this  fort  is  excavated  m  the  solid 
rock  that  it  is  admirably  preserved;  it 
affords,  perhaps,  the  best  existing  example 
of  Greek  military  architecture. 

At  length  the  time  had  come  for  our 
departure  from  Sicily;  so,  one  Saturday 
morning,  we  left  Catania,  reaching  Mes- 
sina in  season  to  dine  ashore  before  taking 
the  three  o'clock  steamer  for  Naples.  As 
long  as  daylight  lasted  the  beautiful  coasts 
of  Sicily  and  the  main-land  were  in  sight, 
with  the  Lipari  Islands  gradually  coming 
more  clearly  into  view.  In  the  evening,  the 
bright  moonlight  was  enlivened  by  the  sing- 
ing of  the  Italian  officers.  As  we  approached 


Stromboli,  faint  glows  of  red  light  were  from 
time  to  time  perceptible.     Gradually  they 
grew  more  distinct,  until,  when  we  had  passed 
a  little  beyond  the  island  and  were  in  full  view 
of  the  crater,  the  puffs  of  light  became  very 
brilliant  and  distinct.     Altogether  it  was  one 
of   the  most  charming  experiences  imagin- 
able, and,  although  at  a  later  hour  the  sea 
became  very  rough,  it  was  by  that  time  so 
late  that  we  were  glad  to  retire  to  our  state- 
rooms.    The  first  thing  that  greeted  our  eyes 
in  the  morning  was  the  bold  mass  of  Capri 
rising  from  the  sea  close  to  us;    soon  we 
passed  by  the  Cape  of  Sorrento,  and  before 
the  morning  was  over  were  landed  on  the 
quays  of  Naples. 


THE   SORCERY    OF   MADJOON. 


INTERIOR    OK    AN    OPIUM    DEN. 


AT  night,  fable  returns  from  the  shelter 
of  ruined  antiquity  and  broods  over  the  city 
where, -during  the  hours  of  sunlight,  we  have 
walked  with  such  confidence  in  the  order, 
the  reasonableness  and  the  enlightenment 
of  our  century.  Circe,  the  Sirens,  Were- 
wolves and  Basilisks — all  the  more  cruel 
forms  of  mystic  life — do  they  not  come 


back  in  the  darkness,  to  hover  along  the 
confines  of  modern  life  and  reassert  their 
old  dominion  ? 

We  stand  in  a  dusk-encircled,  barren  spot, 
a  cold  wind  blowing  into  our  eyes,  almost 
seeming  to  whirl  dizzily  hither  and  thither 
the  scattered  lights  of  the  desolate  street. 
Do  you  wish  to  know  where  we  are  ?  In 


THE   SORCERY  OF  MAD  JO  ON. 


the  squalid  quarters  of  a  cosmopolis,  at 
night,  you  may  fancy  yourself — but  for  the 
cold  wind — in  almost  any  part  of  the  world. 
Pekin,  Vienna,  Paris,  London,  New  York — 
what  does  it  matter  which  one  of  these  it  is, 
when  you  have  left  behind  the  distinctions 
that  belong  to  higher  society,  and  have 
descended  to  that  stratum  of  poverty,  vice 
and  dirt  which  encircles  the  globe,  and  is 
found  where  the  distinctions  are  not  found  ? 
Fortunately  we  have  a  guide  to  carry  us 
through  the  sullen  labyrinth — a  man  in  plain, 
unofficial  clothes,  but  armed  with  a  secret, 
undemonstrative  power  against  any  snares 
or  monsters  we  may  encounter,  among  the 
many  that  infest  this  neighborhood.  The 
guide  says  we  are  close  by  the  Five  Points, 
a  region  understood  to  be  reformed,  and 
certainly  changed  by  a  marvel  from  what 
it  was  ;  but,  as  the  world  is  at  present,  it 
•does  not  take  one  long  to  pass  the  limits 
of  reform,  and  in  a  minute  or  two  we  have 
plunged  away  easterly  from  the  edge  of  the 
Five  Points,  and  again  follow  our  friend, 
who,  being  by  habit  as  a  detective  averse 
to  telling  beforehand  what  he  is  going  to 
do,  moves  on  briskly,  and  suddenly  halts 
at  a  narrow  doorway. 

"  In  here,"  he  says. 

It  proves  to  be  the  entrance  to  a  Chinese 
gambling-room,  where  a  picture  of  His  Ex- 
cellency the  Grasping  Cash  Tiger  hangs  on 
the  wall,  with  a  votive  light  in  front,  and 
men  are  gathered  in  impassive  absorption 
around  a  table  where  they  are  shuffling 
counters,  or  lounge  about,  drinking  tea  out 
of  little  cups.  Passing  out  as  we  have 
entered,  quite  unnoticed,  we  proceed  on 
our  way,  and  halt  at  another  door,  not  far 
beyond.  Through  a  corridor  piercing  the 
house  we  have  entered,  we  emerge  upon  a 
dark  and  unaccountable  alley  of  some  sort 
— a  narrow,  dismal  alley  running  between 
two  board  fences,  and  distinguished  as  the 
scene  of  several  murders.  It  is  by  no  means 
picturesquely  horrible;  on  the  contrary, 
very  plain  and  practical  in  appearance ; 
but  one  shudders  all  the  more  at  the  thought 
of  the  business-like  criminal  waiting  here 
patiently  for  his  victim,  or  of  the  miserably 
intoxicated  slayer  who  has  wrought  his 
deed  of  double  ruin  in  this  coarse  obscurity, 
with  nothing  about  him  to  relieve  its  hideous- 
ness  by  a  touch  of  "bewildering  romance. 
At  the  gambling-rooms,  just  now,  we  were 
practically  in  China ;  here,  we  are  once 
more  in  our  own  fortunate  country.  But  a 
low  door  in  another  building,  close  at  hand, 
admits  us  to  a  dark  and  noisome  den,  where 
VOL.  XX.— 28. 


that  strangest  and  most  destructive  of  in- 
toxicating witchcraft  is  practiced — the  sor- 
cery of  madjooti,  the  dreary  rite  of  opium 
smoking. 

At  the  back  of  the  room  is  an  opening 
into  another  blind  apartment,  where  we  can 
dimly  make  out  certain  bunks  placed  one 
over  the  other  around  the  walls,  for  the 
convenience  of  confirmed  and  thoroughly 
stupefied  debauchees.  From  one  of  these  a 
lean,  wan  face,  belonging  to  a  creature  who 
is  just  arousing  himself  from  his  drugged 
sleep,  stares  out  upon  us  with  terrible  eyes 
— eyes  that  dilate  with  some  strange  interior 
light ;  ferocious  yet  unaggressive  eyes  ;  fixed 
full  upon  us,  yet  absolutely  devoid  of  that 
unconscious  response  for  which  we  look  in 
human  eyes  as  distinguishing  them  from 
those  of  brutes.  This  is  the  gaze  of  what 
is  called  an  "  opium  devil," — one  who  is 
supremely  possessed  by  the  power  of  the 
deadly  narcotic  on  which  he  has  leaned  so 
long.  Without  opium  he  cannot  live; 
though  human  blood  runs  in  his  veins,  it 
is  little  better  than  poppy-juice ;  he  is  no 
longer  really  a  man,  but  a  malignant  essence 
informing  a  cadaverous  human  shape.  No 
one  notices  him,  however,  in  this  close, 
sordid  atmosphere,  and  in  the  minds  of  these 
miserable  devotees  there  is  no  space  for 
compassion  or  reflection.  All  are  seeking 
oblivion,  and  neither  observe  nor  apparently 
are  observed  by  one  another. 

Nearer  at  hand,  in  the  outer  chamber, 
are  a  stove  and  a  low  wooden  platform — 
the  only  furniture,  excepting  a  broken  chair 
or  two.  The  stove  is  probably  not  meant 
so  much  for  warmth  as  for  other  purposes ; 
for  in  so  confined  a  place  the  air  is  suitably 
Asiatic,  poisoned  by  too  many  Chinese 
lungs  and  the  laudanum-scented  fumes 
from  the  pipes.  No ;  the  stove  supplies 
heat  for  the  boiling  of  the  smokers'  material, 
and  the  low  platform  is  for  the  smokers  them- 
selves to  rest  upon.  Curious  as  it  may 
seem  to  those  accustomed,  as  most  persons 
are,  to  thinking  of  opium-smoking  as  akin 
to  the  use  of  tobacco  in  pipes,  this  is  the 
mode  of  preparing  the  narcotic.  Crude 
opium  is  the  evaporated  juice  of  the  white 
poppy  ( ' Papaver  somniferum)  molded  into 
cakes  that  remain  moist  and  malleable,  and 
in  which  the  strength  is  unevenly  distributed. 
For  medicinal  use  it  has  to  be  dried,  pow- 
dered, and  then  prepared  in  the  various 
approved  forms ;  for  smoking,  it  is  reduced 
by  boiling  to  a  fluid  somewhat  thicker  than 
molasses.  Of  this  a  small  particle  is  taken 
on  the  end  of  a  pointed  instrument,  and 


THE   SORCERY  OF  MADJOON. 


held  by  the  half-reclining  smoker  close  to 
the  flame  of  an  open  lamp,  or  a  candle.     He 
turns  and  twirls  it  dexterously,  to  equalize 
the  heat,  and  the  little  point  of  glutinous 
brown  stuff  begins  to  melt  and  swell  like 
sealing-wax.      When,  by  this  process,  the 
opium  has  been   distended    to    the   right 
degree,  it  is  hastily  transferred  to  the  pipe. 
That  implement  differs  totally  from  the  one 
used  for  tobacco.     It  has  on  the  flat  upper 
side  of  its  hemispherical  bowl  a  small  open- 
ing,  or  several   minute   perforations,   over 
which  the  heated  opium  is  smeared.     This 
is  then  ignited  by  a  flame  and  the  suction 
of  the  smoker's  breath ;  but  three  or  four 
short   whiffs    suffice    to    both   kindle    and 
consume  the  small  allowance  rated  as  "a 
smoke."     The  whole  proceeding,  which  oc- 
cupies a  trifle  more   time   than   the  filling 
and  emptying  of  a  glass  of  liquor,  costs,  I 
think,  about  the  same  number  of  cents  as 
indulgence  in  the  latter  form  of  stimulation ; 
and  the  slaves  of  madjocn  repeat  the  act 
as  often  as  individual   endurance,  taste  or 
length  of  habit  may  determine. 

As  we  enter,  the  keeper  of  this  loathsome 
haunt,  the  purveyor  to  "  opium  devils  "  and 
for  a  time  their  master,  appears  to  be  in  an 
unpleasant  mood.      Shuffling  along  in  his 
bamboo-woven    slippers,    with    one    hand 
holding  the  kettle  he  has  just  lifted  from  the 
stove,   he  pauses,   crouching    in   a   rather 
tigerish  way,  and  shaking  his  other  skinny 
hand  with  a  satirical  out-stretching  of  the 
fingers  at  a  long-boned  fellow,  who,  having 
finished  his  dissipation,  has  risen  yawning. 
This  partaker  of  the  pleasures  and  pains  of 
opium,  it  appears,  has  had  several "  smokes  " 
and  cannot  pay  for  them  all ;  but  he  is  in- 
different to  the  hissing  and  chattering  sar- 
casms of  the  tigerish  little  proprietor.    What 
does  such  a  man  care  for  the  petty  passions 
aroused  by  a  question  of  money  ? — he  who 
is  the  possessor  of  two  worlds,  the  world 
of  reality  and  the  world  of  illusion  stronger 
than   the  actual,  yet  sits  amid  his  empire 
shattered  and  powerless,  without   strength 
of  limb  or  will,  wasted  in  mind  and  purse  ? 
Besides,  has  not  this  snarling  keeper  helped 
to  rob  him  of  his  manhood,  and  why  should 
he  hesitate  to  steal  a  few  grains  of  opium  in 
retaliation  ?     After  Coleridge's  example,  no 
further  proof  is  needed  to  establish  the  fact 
that  as  to  the  mode  of  procuring  his  only 
solace,  the  opium-taker  has  no  moral  sense. 
There  is  a  wide  interval  between  the  mind 
of  Coleridge   and   that   of  this    miserable 
candy-dealer,  whose  pennies,  slowly  gath- 
ered by  day  at  the  street  corner,  are  vaporized 


at  night ;  but,  quite  without  plagiarism,  the 
Chinaman  has  arrived    at  the  same  moral 
condition  as  that  of  the  poor  bewitched  poet. 
The  proprietor  looks  around  as  we  enter. 
He  is  a  horrible  little  man,  with  an  insidi- 
ous expression  ;  bald  on  the  top  of  his  head 
(which  is  shaped  like  a  cartridge  and  has  a 
dangerous   look),   but   making   up  for   the 
scarcity  there   by  an   amazingly  long   pig- 
tail.    Although  plainly  disgusted  on  recog- 
nizing his  old  friend  the  police-officer,  and 
seeing  a  couple  of  strangers  with  him,  he 
instantly  subdues  the  visage  puckered  by  con- 
tempt for  the  defaulter,  and,  concealing  the 
new  annoyance,  comes  forward  with  an  ingra- 
tiating mien.     But  as  he  is  not  an  agreeable 
companion,  and  can  speak  only  a  few  words 
of  English,  we  have  not  much  more  conver- 
sation with  him  than    can   be  maintained 
with  an  unusually  shrewd  monkey.     So  he 
goes  crawling  about  his  work  again,  with  a 
suspicious   indirect  glance   at  us  now  and 
then ;  and  the  long-boned  candy-man  goes 
on  yawning  and  stretching,  and  gradually 
freeing  himself  from  the  cramped  position  in 
which  he  had  slept,  until  in  the  dim  light 
of  the  place  he  seems  to  develop  an  un- 
natural height,  and  almost  to  be  growing 
momently  taller.     What  most  impresses  us, 
now,  is  the  silence  of  the  scene.     The  pro- 
prietor's harangue  being  over,  not  a  word  is 
spoken;  everything  proceeds  in  a  wicked, 
ominous   hush,  which  becomes  oppressive. 
How  unlike  the  prodigal  gas  of  the  bar- 
rooms, with  their  silver-mounted  taps,  their 
glittering,  vari-colored  bottles,  their  seductive 
air  of  social  re-union,  are  the  hesitating  dusk 
of  this  gloomy  interior,  the  motionless  forms 
and  the  silence !     In  the  bar-room  there  is 
bewildering  brilliance;  here,  no  concealment 
or  palliation  is  attempted — everything  is  in 
harmony  with  the  work  of  death  that  is  be- 
ing done,  and  the  repulsion  we  feel  is  not 
much  unlike  that  which  comes  with  passing 
through  the  murderers'  alley,  just  outside. 
The   frequenters  of  either  resort  detest  the 
other ;  yet  it  is  only  a  choice  of  stations  on 
the  same  highway.     But  that  tall  fellow! 
Will  he  never  stop  growing  ?     Has  his  hab- 
ituation   to   opium-smoke  gifted   him  with 
some  incredible  capacity  for  self-extension, 
an  elasticity  resembling  that  of  the  thin  blue 
vapor  itself  that  is  even  now  curling  up  be- 
hind him  ?     Or  is  he'  nothing  more  than  an 
apparition,  a  phantasm  evolved  from  a  brain 
touched  by  the  misleading  potency  that  has 
left  its  trace  in  the  air  we  are  breathing  ? 
Come,  guide,  let  us  get  out  of  this  place!  We 
cannot   endure   the  hideousness  of  it   any 


THE   SORCERY  OF  MADJOON. 


419 


longer.  And  there  is  the  wan  creature  with 
the  dehumanized  eyes,  advancing  from  the 
further  room.  Come ! 

We  waste  no  time  in  leave-takings,  but 
hurriedly  go  out,  closing  the  door  on  that 
\voe-begone  picture.  It  is  a  relief  to  inhale 
the  air  of  the  murderers'  alley.  It  is  a 
relief  to  be  threading  the  cold  streets  again. 
No  matter  where  we  go — anywhere,  so  that 
we  get  other  impressions  for  the  eye,  and 
try  to  persuade  ourselves  that  what  we  have 
just  seen  is  not  real,  but  merely  the  dark 
record  of  some  deadly  thing  that  once  had 
an  existence,  but  is  passed  away  now  and 
has  faded  into  the  improbability  of  super- 
stition. There  are,  in  fact,  people  so 
cheerfully  confident  in  their  own  limited 
knowledge  that,  although  they  have  heard 
of  this  thing,  they  do  not  believe  it  exists. 
But  even  they,  I  fear,  could  not  obliterate 
our  recollection  just  now.  Such  glimpses 
of  unutterably  ruined  life  pursue  one  long 
after  the  eyes  have  turned  away  from  them 
and  found  refreshment  in  the  beauty  of  health, 
and  hope,  and  noble  action.  For  when  we 
have  once  tracked  a  particular  vice  to  its 
lair  and  seen  it  in  its  basest  form,  it  is 
almost  inevitable  that  we  should  begin  to 
discern  its  less  obvious  workings  in  other 
phases,  and  to  trace  with  apprehension  its 
relations  toward  the  whole  of  society. 
This  handful  of  yellow-faced  foreigners, 
whom  we  have  left  in  their  wretched  den, 
represent  a  disorder  not  less  dreadful  than 
insanity  or  the  disease  of  inebriety.  In- 
deed, to  remember  them  is  to  think  of  a 
parcel  of  maniacs,  struck  with  dumbness  and 
sudden  lassitude,  but  not  the  less  mad,  sev- 
ered from  the  sane  activity  which  holds 
things  together.  If  the  vice  could  be  shut 
up  within  that  space,  or  any  similar  retire- 
ment, it  would  be  less  terrible ;  but  it  can- 
not be.  Perhaps  the  spread  of  this  particular 
habit  is  not  alarmingly  rapid ;  but  there  are 
more  secret  ways  of  taking  opium  that 
thrive  apace,  and  these  are  encouraged  in 
the  neighborhoods  where  the  Mongolian 
has  introduced  his  pipe  and  kettle.  Good 
example  filters  down  from  high  places  into 
the  lower  levels  of  humanity ;  but  bad  ex- 
ample sends  up  its  poisonous  gases  to  the 
upper  levels  also. 

The  smoking  of  opium  is  chiefly  practiced 
by  the  Chinese.  It  is  only  within  a  cen- 
tury that  they  have  used  it  for  other  than 
medical  ends.  Yet  so  completely  have  they 
now  associated  opium-intoxication  with 
their  national  name,  that  the  two  things 
suggest  each  other,  and  one  seldom  hears 


the  Turkish  name  for  the  drug,  madjoon,  or 
associates  it  with  the  Turks  as  more  than  a 
mildly  enervating  influence  exerted  by  means 
of  confections  which  contain  it.  It  is  an 
odd  circumstance  that,  while  opium  has 
gained  so  strong  a  hold  upon  the  Chinese 
nature,  with  which  it  seems  in  mysterious 
accord,  the  famous  English  eater  of  opium  and 
laudanum-drinker,  Thomas  De  Quincey,  in 
his  essay  on  his  own  habit,  should  write 
thus  of  China : 

"  I  have  often  thought  that  if  I  were  compelled  to 
forego  England  and  live  in  China  and  among  Chi- 
nese manners  and  modes  of  life  and  scenery,  I 
should  go  mad.  In  China  I  am  terrified  by  the 
modes  of  life,  by  the  manners,  and  the  barrier  of 
utter  abhorrence  and  want  of  sympathy  placed  be- 
tween us  by  feelings  deeper  than  1  can  analyze.  I 
could  sooner  live  with  lunatics  or  brute  animals." 


Fitzhugh  Ludlow  maintains  that  hasheesh 
(Indian  hemp)  has  wrought  itself  into  the 
genius  of  the  Eastern  peoples,  developing 
the  rich  and  strange  and  changeful  imagery 
of  their  romances,  as  in  the  Arabian  Nights; 
and  De  Quincey  attributed  to  opium  great 
cogency  in  the  stimulation  of  dreams.  But 
his  recently  published  life — and  other  testi- 
mony on  the  general  subject — shows  that  it 
has  not  this  power.  As  for  the  suggestion 
of  Ludlow,  however  it  may  at  first  strike  the 
fancy,  its  acceptance  would  force  us  to  admit 
that  the  literature  of  a  people  is  colored  by  its 
stimulants.  This  idea  cannot  be  borne  out 
by  anything  more  than  a  mere  fanciful  and 
humorous  construction  of  the  facts.  We 
might  better  assume  that  peoples  select  their 
stimulants  and  their  modes  of  imagination 
quite  independently,  by  an  instinct  or  tend- 
ency of  that  almost  indefinable  thing,  their 
race  character.  But  I  do  not  see  any  room 
for  a  theory  among  these  anfractuosities. 
The  simple  fact  remains  that  Coleridge  and 
De  Quincey  were  fascinated  by  the  same 
dangerous  sap  of  the  sleep-giving  poppy, 
which  is  carrying  desolation  and  anguish 
into  the  empire  of  the  "  Anglo-Saxons  of 
Asia,"  for  whom  one  of  the  European  Anglo- 
Saxons  had  such  an  abhorence.  In  the  sur- 
render to  a  common  vice,  these  opposites 
meet.  We  know  how  the  two  chief  English 
expositors  of  its  effects  first  happened  to  have 
recourse  to  the  drug,  in  order  to  relieve 
pain,  and  we  know  from  them  also  what  is 
the  pleasure  that  allures  to  a  continuance  of 
its  use,  until  the  dependent  upon  it  is  mor- 
ally manacled,  and  thrust  into  a  torture 
chamber  from  which  there  is  small  chance  of 
his  ever  escaping.  From  the  confession  of 


420 


THE   SORCERY  OF  MADJOON. 


William  Blair,*  who  exemplified  the  danger 
of  De  Quincey's  ecstatic  praises  by  read- 
ing only  "  The  Pleasures  "  and  not  "  The 
Pains  of  Opium"  (thus  being  led  on  into 
a  fatal  bondage),  we  get  the  most  vivid 
idea  of  the  worse  than  mortal  sufferings  that 
the  constant  use  of  large  doses  at  last  in- 
flicts. In  what  degree  the  attraction  is  the 
same  for  the  Chinese,  we  do  not  seem  to  be 
informed.  There  is  authority  for  supposing 
that  after  injuries  and  surgical  operations  the 
Chinese  suffer  little  from  nervous  irritation, 
and  show  much  less  sensitiveness  than 
Europeans  to  affections  of  the  spine.t  Their 
comparative  insensibility  to  pain  may  di- 
minish the  first  exhilarating  effect  of  opium, 
but  it  does  not  seem  to  lessen  the  destructive 
physical  anguish  that  attends  any  omission 
of  the  doses  after  the  habit  is  once  formed. 
I  do  not  learn  whether  the  custom  of  smok- 
ing is  more  immediately  injurious  than  that 
of  taking  opium  in  pills,  or  in  the  form  of 
laudanum  ;  but  as  the  Chinese  are  less  sen- 
sitive physically  than  Europeans,  it  may  be 
that  they  are  led  into  taking  larger  quantities. 
Why  they  succumb  to  the  temptation  in  such 
great  numbers  may  be  partly  owing  to  their 
willingness  to  throw  away  their  lives  in  other 
more  violent  modes,  and  to  a  reaction  from 
the  restrictive  pressure  of  their  institutions 
and  manners.  There  is  a  popular  inclina- 
tion among  us  to  believe  those  writers  who 
have  attributed  all  manner  of  vileness  to  the 
Chinese ;  but  plenty  of  evidence  is  offered,  by 
equally  good  authorities,  to  show  that  these 
views  are  often  superficial  and  unjust. 
In  respect  of  opium,  to  go  no  further,  trust- 
worthy writers  have  but  one  thing  to  say, 
and  this  is  that  the  majority  of  the  Chinese 
are  strenuously  opposed  to  its  importation  or 
sale,  and  that  the  Imperial  Government  has 
striven  most  earnestly  to  exclude  it, 

It  is  barely  twenty  years  since  the  second 
"opium  war,"  ending  with  the  barbarous 
destruction  of  the  Hundred  Palaces  by  the 
"  civilized  "  allies,  and  the  final  legalization 
of  the  opium  trade  for  which  humane  Eng- 
land, the  mother  of  slave  emancipators,  had 
taken  up'  arms.  But  the  wrongs  then  and 
in  1840  inflicted  on  China  are  remembered 
by  few.  Few  know .  how  vigorously  the 
Chinese  Government  sought  to  prevent  the 
introduction  of  opium  by  the  Portuguese 
East  India  Company,  and  afterwards  by  the 


*  See  "The  Opium  Habit."  Harper  &  Brothers, 
1065. 

t"  Oriental  Religions,  China"  (page  41).  By 
Samuel  Johnson.  Boston:  J.  R.Osgood& Co.  1877. 


British  East  India  Company;  how  the 
directors  of  the  latter  declared  that  they 
"  would  gladly  have  put  an  end  to  the  con- 
sumption of  opium  if  they  could,  out  of 
compassion  to  mankind,  so  repugnant  to 
their  feelings  was  the  trade,"  and  then  con- 
tinued to  corrupt  customs  officers  and  assist 
smugglers  till,  in  1833,  half  the  British  import 
trade  in  China  was  in  opium.  At  last 
" compassion  to  mankind"  led  to  the  making 
a  breach  with  cannon  for  the  more  commo- 
dious passage  of  the  contraband  article.  "  I 
cannot  prevent  the  introduction  of  the  flow- 
ing poison,"  said  the  Emperor  Tan  Kuang 
to  Sir  Henry  Pottinger,  in  1842.  "Gain- 
seeking  and  corrupt  men  will,  for  profit  and 
sensuality,  defeat  my  wishes;  but  nothing 
will  induce  me  to  derive  a  revenue  from  the 
vice  and  misery  of  my  people."  But  this 
nobly  humane  voice  was  drowned  in  the 
noises  of  another  war  in  1858  ;  the  pestilent 
practice  is  even  said,  by  that  time,  after 
spreading  among  thousands  of  the  best 
homes,  to  have  been  taken  up  by  Tan 
Kuang's  son,  who  came  to  the  throne  in 
1851 ;  and  opium  is  now  carried  into  China 
from  India  at  the  rate  of  from  5000  to 
6000  tons  yearly.  Pumpelly  says*  that  a 
considerable  quantity  is  raised  also  in  China 
(contrary  to  law) ;  and  when  it  is  remem- 
bered that  one  pound  of  this  makes  7000 
troy  grains,  and  that  forty  or  fifty  grains  is 
a  large  supply  for  a  day's  consumption,  one 
has  a  better  conception  of  the  damage  that 
can  be  done  by  the  importation  of  over 
115,000,000  grains  a  day.  And  for  this 
gigantic  piece  of  devil's  work  the  Christian 
merchants  of  England  have  thus  far  received 
a  clear  profit  of  $350,000,000. 

The  medicinal  offices  of  opium  are,  of 
course,  not  to  be  confounded  with  its  abuse. 
There  is  a  case  on  record  of  a  physician 
who  took  opium  for  many  years,  to  counter- 
act a  consumptive  tendency,  and,  when  his 
health  became  established,  abandoned  it  by 
slow  stages  extending  over  two  years.  He 
lived  to  be  ninety.  The  London  "  Specta- 
tor," arguing  from  the  analogy  that  whisky 
has  a  different  effect  on  different  races,  pro- 
fesses to  believe  that  East  Indian  opium 
does  not  permanently  injure  the  Chinese  of 
the  Delta,  "  who  may  find  in  it  a  protection 
against  fatigue  and  malaria,  such  as  the 
Peruvians  find  in  coca."  But  the  differences 
in  the  effect  of  whisky  are  not  of  kind,  but 
of  degree ;  and  any  palliation  of  opium  from 
an  English  source  is  to  be  read,  in  the  light 

*  "Across  America  and  Asia." 


of  "  compassion  to  mankind,"  with  distrust. 
Of  the  merciful  interposition  of  this  agent 
in  the  celebrated  instance  of  De  Quincey 
there  seems  to  be  little  doubt ;  *  but  his 
ill-regulated  exhibition  of  the  medicine  en- 
tailed upon  him  prodigious  suffering  which 
he  might  have  been  spared  ;  and  in  general 
it  is  impossible  to  trust  in  the  beneficial  char- 
acter of  opium  where  the  consumption  of  it 
is  left  to  the  ungoverned  appetite. 

On  the  other  hand,  its  insidious  character, 
even  when  it  is  first  taken  into  the  system 
with  moderation  under  the  advice  of  phy- 
sicians, is  indisputable.  In  1877,  some 
criminal  trials  in  Berkshire  county,  western 
Massachusetts,  revealed  the  fact  that  great 
quantities  of  opium  in  the  form  of  morphine 
are  consumed  by  the  inhabitants  of  the 
lonely  hills  of  that  region ;  and  that  more 
recently  laudanum  had  come  into  general 
favor  among  hard  drinkers  there,  to  quiet 
the  tremors  caused  by  excess  in  liquor.  One 
man  earning  small  wages  swore  that  he 
bought  from  two  to  three  dollars'  worth  of 
laudanum  every  week.  Cases  were  not 
rare,  it  was  found,  in  which  the  habit  had 
become  fixed  by  medical  prescription. 
Similar  discoveries  are  made  at  intervals  in 
different  parts  of  the  country,  exciting  little 
interest  because  the  public  does  not  know 
their  significance.  The  injection  of  mor- 
phia under  the  skin,  to  quiet  certain  disor- 
ders, has  become  one  of  the  most  prolific 
sources  of  continued  and  destructive  resort 
to  its  use;  the  patients  being  tempted,  by 
the  soothing  effect  of  this  process,  to  pro- 
cure morphia  and  inject  it  without  medical 
sanction.  This  desire  becomes  a  frightful  dis- 
ease, almost  incurable. 

Dr.  Edward  Levinstein,  principal  medical 
officer  of  the  insane  asylum  at  Schoneberg, 
Berlin,  describes  various  cases  of  persons, 
mostly  of  high  social  position,  who  came 
voluntarily  to  him  to  be  treated  for  this 
morbid  inclination,  t  After  being  deprived 
of  morphia  for  a  short  time,  they  became  vio- 
lent and  suicidal ;  some  of  them,  although 
people  of  character  and  culture,  secreted 
the  necessary  materials  and  took  the  mor- 
phia subcutaneously,  even  while  professing 
a  desire  to  be  cured  of  the  habit,  and  while 
denying  that  they  had  morphia  at  hand. 
Dr.  Levinstein  places  these  instances  under 
the  head  of  a  new  phase  of  insanity,  mor- 


*  See  the  paper  on  "Some  Aspects  of  De  Quin- 
cey," "Atlantic  Monthly"  for  November,  1877. 
(Vol.  XL.,  page  573.) 

t"  London  Medical  Record,"  Feb.  15,  1876. 


phomania,  and  records  that,  out  of  a  large 
number  of  patients,  only  twenty-five  per 
cent,  fully  recovered.  All  the  rest  relapsed 
after  leaving  the  institution. 

That  physicians  do  not  sufficiently  consider 
the  risk  to  which  they  expose  patients  in 
placing  them  under  this  spell,  is  hardly  to  be 
doubted  by  any  one  who  has  had  experience 
or  made  observation  of  the  subject.  Opium, 
in  some  one  of  its  forms,  is  often  employed 
by  them  without  the  knowledge  of  the  victim, 
shall  we  call  him  ?  In  the  city  where  this 
article  was  written,  a  case  came  to  my  no- 
tice where  a  man,  who  had  first  been  given 
opium  for  inflammatory  rheumatism,  with- 
out knowing  the  nature  of  the  remedy,  be- 
came dependent  on  it ;  used  great  quantities 
of  laudanum  for  several  years,  and  suffered 
most  excruciating  pangs  before  he  could 
succeed  in  breaking  away  from  its  sorcery 
by  a  powerful  effort  of  the  will.  In  "The 
Opium  Habit"  a  man  is  mentioned  who 
was  habituated  to  morphine  in  the  same  way,, 
took  it  for  seven  years,  and,  becoming  utterly 
broken  down  in  health,  abandoned  the 
treacherous  remedy  after  a  struggle  of  sixty- 
five  days.  So  thoroughly  had  it  mastered 
him  that,  in  ten  months  after  leaving  it  off,  he 
had  only  just  begun  to  obtain  a  little  sleep. 
And  even  where  this  specific  is  wittingly 
taken  up,  I  have  yet  to  hear  of  one  instance 
where,  if  continued,  it  has  not  brought  on 
some  form  of  ill-health,  incapacity,  or  agony 
quite  as  intolerable  as  that  which  it  was 
meant  to  remove.  One  of  the  most  pathetic 
illustrations  of  this  was  the  fate  of  the  Rev. 
G.  W.  Brush,  of  Ohio,  who,  having  been  ad- 
vised to  take  morphine  to  relieve  a  dormant 
cancer  in  the  tongue,  relied  on  it  for  sixteen 
years,  when,  attempting  to  do  without  it,  he 
relapsed  under  the  necessity  of  stimulating 
himself  to  preach  a  sermon,  and  committed 
suicide  a  few  days  afterward  in  despair. 
Williams,  in  his  "  Middle  Kingdom,"  says 
that  alcohol  in  western  countries  kills  ten 
persons  to  one  that  opium  kills  in  China ; 
but  the  Rev.  Mr.  Brush's  attending  physi- 
cian remarks  that,  in  a  long  practice,  he  has 
"known  of  more  deaths  from  the  use  of 
opium  in  some  of  its  forms  than  from  all  the 
forms  of  alcoholic  drinks."  One  morphine- 
taker  who  has  published  his  story*  suggests 
whisky  as  an  antidote ;  but  his  evidence  is 
not  conclusive.  David  Hatch  Barlow,  on 
the  other  hand,  who  for  years  preached 
under  the  influence  of  opium,  had  recourse 

*  James  Coulter  Layard,  "  Atlantic  Monthly," 
June,  1874. 


422 


IN  THE  M.   £.   AFRICAN. 


to  that  drug  in  order  to  free  himself  from 
the  dominion  of  liquor,  under  which  he 
had  fallen  through  the  influence  of  the  gen- 
eral custom  of  drinking  practiced  among 
clergymen  in  his  youth.  He  became  the 
slave  of  both  alcohol  and  opium,  besides 
using  to  excess  strong  tea,  and  coffee  and 
tobacco.  Opium  suppresses  the  lower  pro- 
pensities which  alcohol  excites,  and  for  a 
time  intensifies  thought,  or  enlarges  the 
capacity  for  emotion,  while  debilitating 
"  hardihood,  manliness,  resolution,  enter- 
prise, ambition, — whatever  the  original  de- 
gree of  these  qualities."  Otherwise,  there 
is  not  much  room  for  choice  between  them  ; 
and  to  play  off  one  against  the  other  is  to 
run  the  risk  of  forging  a  double  chain  of 
captivity  instead  of  escaping  into  freedom. 

The  curse  which  England  forced  upon 
China  at  the  point  of  the  bayonet,  in  a  war 
which  our  John  Quincy  Adams  approved, 
is  silently  and  surely  returning  upon  the 
mother  country  and  upon  us.  Intelligent 
observers,  despite  the  concealment  that 
accompanies  it,  see  the  habit  of  opium-eat- 
ing spreading  through  all  classes  of  our  social 
system,  secretly  assisted,  no  doubt,  by  the 
quack  nostrums  in  which  it  forms  a  chief 
ingredient,  and  by  the  opium-tinctured  cig- 
arettes with  which  our  young  collegians  con- 
stantly perfume  the  still  air  of  their  delightful 
studies.  It  is  a  noiseless  enchantment, 
against  which  there  will  be  great  difficulty  in 
proceeding.  But  shall  nothing  be  done  ? 
A  writer  in  the  "  New  York  Times  "  once 
published  an  estimate,  based  on  the  im- 
portations of  1876,  fixing  the  number  of 
opium  habituates  in  the  United  States  at 
about  200,000.  It  is  probably  unsafe  to  trust 
to  such  a  calculation,  for  a  large  portion  of 
the  imports  must  be  devoted  to  occasional 


medical  purposes ;  and  it  is  to  be  observed 
that  only  286,137  pounds  were  imported  in 
1 87 6,  against  3 1 9, 1 34  pounds  in  1873 — a  fall- 
ing off  of  over  30,000  pounds.  Still,  there  is 
foundation  enough  forthe  writer's  sensible  and 
humane  suggestion  that  an  asylum  should 
be  established  for  the  cure  of  opium-eaters. 
Better  still  would  it  be  if,  in  addition  to  this, 
the  requirements  for  medical  practitioners 
should  be  elevated,  and  the  sale  of  "patent 
medicines  "  be  overhauled  and  restricted  in 
this  country.  The  Rev.  Joseph  Edkins, 
D.  D.,  a  British  missionary,  has,  in  his  lately 
republished  work  on  "  Religion  in  China," 
reiterated  emphatically  the  statement  that 
the  English  connection  with  opium  has 
raised  a  formidable  barrier  to  the  progress  of 
Christian  teaching  in  China;  and  Johnson 
asserts  that,  if  the  British  advocacy  of  a  legal- 
ized opium  trade  were  withdrawn,  the  whole 
empire  would  be  opened  freely  to  commerce. 
But  even  these  arguments  have  not  thus  far 
availed  to  rouse  the  apathy  of  public  opinion 
against  the  traffic.  When,  however,  it  be- 
comes fully  known  that  we  ourselves  are  in 
danger  of  fostering  by  neglect  an  evil  in  our 
midst  that  may  some  day  assume  vast  pro- 
portions, public  sentiment  may  perhaps  be 
enlisted  in  the  right  way.  First,  an  asylum 
should  be  established  for  the  patient  treat- 
ment of  the  disease;  then  the  too  free  use 
of  the  drug,  even  among  good  physicians, 
should  be  discountenanced  and  the  present 
nefarious  sales  of  the  disguised  poison  be 
stopped;  at  last,  a  true  civilization  may 
|  bring  its  weight  to  bear  upon  the  East 
Indian  cultivation  of  opium.  Print  and  pict- 
ure supply,  to-day,  the  best  exorcism  against 
evil  spirits.  They  should  have  power  to 
banish  the  horrible  fetich  of  whose  dominion 
only  a  glimpse  has  here  been  given. 


IN  THE  M.  E.  AFRICAN. 


**  DE  African  church  ?  You  doesn't  mean 
go  to  de  M.  E.  African  you'self !  Have  to 
make  ready  to  hear  mighty  big  noise  ef 
you  goes  dere.  De  Mefdis'  church  got  big 
mouf  enough,  but  de  African  got  bigger!" 
And  a  low  ripple  of  amusement  broke 
from  the  well-cut  lips  of  our  mulatto  wait- 
ress, Scylla.  Her  imagination  was  seating 
us  among  the  swaying  forms  and  soulful 
cries  of  the  "seekers,"  in  the  little  pal- 
metto-guarded structure  bearing  "  M.  E. 
African  "  above  its  door. 


But  the  ripple  died  away  and  a  dusky 
stillness  returned  to  the  olive  face,  as  silence 
gathers  again  over  a  lonely  shore  after  a 
plash  has  broken  its  twilight  rest.  Where 
had  she  learned  that  stately  solitude  ?  Had 
grief  bestowed  it  on  her,  for  a  wrapping,  in 
heavy  days  gone  by  ? 

We  waited,  and  another  gleam  broke  the 
shadowy  repose.  Was  this  the  first  day  of 
March  ?  Scylla  would  like  to  know. 

We  started,  and  turned  over  a  leaf  in  our 
mental  almanac.  This  sudden,  scathing 


IN  THE  M.   E.   AFRICAN. 


423 


wind,  that  whistled  under  orange  boughs, 
stripped  banana  leaves  into  ribbons,  and 
dared  the  skies  of  Florida  with  threats  of 
frost — was  this  a  "lion"  promise,  for  a 
month  to  come  ? 

"  No,  Scylla,  it  is  not.  It  is  the  last  day 
of  February,"  interposed  Flit,  who  had 
brought  her  name  upon  herself  by  dipping 
from  one  discovery  to  another  with  a  but- 
terfly sweep,  as  we  traveled  on. 

"  De  las'  of  Febuerry  ?  Thank  you,  Miss 
Flit.  I'm  glad  o'  dat.  I  thought  may  be 
March  coming  in  vexed !  " 

And  with  her  bandana-crowned  head 
well  poised  upon  her  slender  neck,  Scylla 
turned  to  go. 

"  But,  Scylla — wait  a  moment !  What  is 
the  matter  with  the  African  church  ?  They 
have  a  minister  of  their  own  color,  haven't 
they?" 

"  Yes,  indeed — African  church  and  every 
other  church !  Can't  persuade  de  colored 
people  to  have  any  odder,  since  de  war. 
Dat's  de  very  trouble  of  it,  too " 

"  The  trouble  of  it  ?  Why,  wouldn't  you 
rather  hear  your  own  people  preach  ?  " 

Scylla  turned,  and  her  pathetic  almond 
eyes  lifted  for  quite  a  Cleopatra  flash. 

"  I  radder  when  dey  knows  what  dey  got 
to  say !  But  when  dey  done  waste  all  deir 
time,  or  spend  it  drivin'  mule,  and  den, 
some  day,  think  dey'll  be  minister  all  at 
once,  I  got  no  use  for  such  preacher  work  as 
dat!  An'  dere's  so  much  of  'em,  too !  It 
all  minister,  minister, — never  see  so  much 
minister  since  I  was  bawn  ! " 

Scylla  was  certainly  discouraging,  but  no 
matter — we  would  go  to  the  African  church 
for  all  that. 

We  stepped  through  the  open  window  to 
the  balcony  outside;  the  wind  could  only 
strike  there  in  spent  little  puffs  that  scattered 
the  fragrance  of  jessamine  over  us  like  a 
bath.  The  road  wound  away  toward  the 
town,  bordered  with  great  fan-like  leaves  of 
scrub  palmetto  in  a  heavy  fringe,  while  here 
and  there  the  boughs  of  a  water-oak  glistened 
against  the  sky.  The  dim  murmur  of  voices 
floated  toward  us,  and  a  gleam  of  gor- 
geous hats  betokened  a  party  of  colored 
sisters  returning  from  the  "  big-mouffed  " 
church.  On  they  came,  with  their  finery 
and  their  loose-jointed  limbs,  their  gurgle 
of  childlike  laughter,  and  their  rolling, 
shambling  gait ;  but  one  tall  figure  towered 
in  their  midst,  her  ebony  head,  turbaned 
like  an  October  maple,  held  erect  against 
the  sky,  and  her  long  black  arm  gesticulat- 
ing with  commanding  force  as  she  strode 


along,  the  Miriam  of  the  thronging  group. 
"  Tell  ye,  chillen," — and  her  voice  rang 
with  a  clear,  high-pitched  thrill  on  the  em- 
phasized words, — "  tell  ye,  ye  can't  do  ev'y- 
thing  in  a  day.  God  say  '  love  me  little, 
love  me  long,'  but  doarfi  love  me  all  in  a 
day!"  The  palmetto  scrub  rustled,  the 
shambling  feet  shuffled  away,  and  Miriam 
and  her  troop  were  gone. 

"  Come  along,  sinner,  if  you're  coming!" 
Flit's  voice  was  heard  calling  at  the  door. 
Not  that  the  words  conveyed  the  slightest 
personal  reflection — they  were  only  a  snatch 
from  the  first  installment  of  "colored  hymns" 
she  had  succeeded  in  picking  up  : 

"  You  come  now,  ef  you  comin' ! 

Ole  Satan  is  a-loose  an'  a-bummin' ! 
De  wheels  o'  destruction  am  a-hummin' ! 

Oh,  come  along,  sinner,  ef  you  comin' !  " 

Not  through  the  palmetto  scrub,  however, 
but  round  by  the  Fort  Crass  road — one 
long,  bowered  avenue  of  two  miles  in  stretch, 
with  oak,  magnolia  and  bay  trees  embrac- 
ing each  other  overhead,  sunset  sky  gleam- 
ing through  their  glistening  leaves,  ferns 
nodding  along  their  crossing  boughs,  and 
rose-pink  lichens  dotting  their  gnarled  and 
leaning  trunks.  We  should  hear  the  sea 
murmuring  on  our  right  all  the  way,  and 
come  round  by  the  beach  and  the  old  mill, 
and  so  into  town,  by  the  time  the  first  lamp 
glimmered  in  the  "  African." 

The  old  sexton,  March,  had  just  lighted 
it  as  we  approached,  and  bobbed  his  crown 
of  white  wool  deferentially  as  he  led  us  in. 
A  "  dim,  religious  light "  it  was,  certainly,  but 
March  added  one  gleam  after  another  till  the 
rows  of  pine  pews  came  clearly  into  sight, 
and  then  he  retired  to  set  the  bell  clang- 
ing over  our  heads  with  a  wild,  discordant 
crash.  The  crash  seemed  an  electric  sum- 
mons to  "  Brudder  Brockus's "  flock,  and 
saints  and  "  seekers  "  came  hurrying  in,  the 
brethren  ranging  into  an  army  of  brawny 
charcoal  sketches  on  one  side,  while  on  the 
other,  shawls,  handkerchiefs  and  head-gear 
swayed  and  fluttered  like  a  garden  of  pop- 
pies all  abroad — and  there  was  Miriam,  with 
the  same  prophetic  glamour  about  her 
striding  form ! 

The  younger  women  gathered  themselves 
together  and  made  way  until  she  should 
choose  her  seat,  but  she  pressed  on;  the 
little  cluster  of  pews  standing  endwise  on 
either  side  the  desk  was  evidently  a  nucleus 
for  "  pillars  "  and  "  'ficial  members,"  gath- 
ered in  their  strength. 

But  where  was  "  Brudder  Brockus  "  ?   The 


424 


IN  THE  M.   E.   AFRICAN. 


church  was  full,  not  a  vacant  seat  could 
reproach  him,  and  only  the  pulpit  looked 
spiritless  and  cold.  Fervor  was  beginning 
to  stir  in  the  pews — low  murmurs  and  stifled 
sounds  pulsated  from  seat  to  seat  as  medi- 
tation roused  here  and  there  a  quickened 
throb.  Between  the  murmurs  the  hush 
grew  deeper  and  deeper  still — we  could 
almost  hear  the  communings  of  the  souls 
about  us  with  hidden  things.  We  could 
see  Aunt  Miriam's  broad,  gaunt  chest  rising 
and  falling  with  the  out-reachings  of  her 
soul.  Suddenly  a  voice,  clear,  resonant 
and  rich,  broke  upon  the  silence  with  a 
thrill.  It  was  Uncle  Remus,  one  of  the 
"  pillars  "  under  the  pulpit  eaves,  striking 
up  a  "  spirityubble  song."  The  thrill  fell 
into  the  audience  like  sparks  among  rus- 
tling autumn  leaves,  their  glow  broke  into 
flame,  and  swept  in  a  burning  chorus  upon 
Uncle  Remus's  lines : 

"  Feel  like  I'm  on  my  journey  home ! 
Feel  like  I'm  on  my  journey  home ! 
Feel  like  I'm  on  my  journey  home ! 
Jesus!     He  meet  me  at  de  do'!  " 

The  harmony  swelled  pure,  sweet  and 
triumphant,  the  gay  wrappings  of  the  sisters 
gleamed  as  their  broad  shoulders  swayed 
under  the  fervor  that  was  too  much  for 
their  song,  and  then  silence  fell  again,  and 
the  kindled  faces  dropped  back  into  their 
mournful,  expectant  gaze. 

But  hark!  Uncle  Remus  breaks  forth 
once  more,  and  this  time  his  "  linings  "  are 
like  vivid  ^Etna  flashes,  alternated  by  the 
deep,  rolling  outbreak  of  upheaving  souls. 

The  "  spirityubble "  song  dies  out  in  a 
wild,  triumphant  strain,  expectant  eyes 
glow  as  if  they  saw  the  promise  dawn  be- 
fore them,  but  the  day  is  not  yet !  Even 
Brudder  Brockus  tarries,  and  Uncle  Remus 
sways  restlessly  in  his  seat.  His  great  eye- 
balls gleam  as  they  roll  over  the  assembled 
flock,  as  if  separating  sheep  from  goats  and 
counting  up  the  odds.  The  odds  seem  dis- 
heartening, and  this  time  a  rich,  rolling  solo 
breaks  reproachfully  forth  : 

"  'Zekiel  saw  a  valley ! 

Roley !     Roley ! 
Full  of  bones  as  dry  as  dust ! 

Roley  !     Roley ! 

**'**» 

"  He  gib  de  bones  a  mighty  shake ! 

Roley  !     Roley  ! 
Fin'  de  ole  sinner  too  dry  to  quake! 

Roley !     Roley  !  " 

*  *  *  *  *  * 

His  eyes  rolled  and  gleamed,  his  body 
rocked  to  and  fro,  his  No.  12  boot  beat 


time  wildly  on  the  floor,  his  mouth,  like  a 
red-tipped  cavern,  yawned  wide  as  line 
followed  line,  and  his  hands  clapped  the 
measure  with  a  hollow  clang. 

The  reproach  seemed  to  be  falling  like 
arrows  among  the  flock,  and  "  amens," 
swayings  and  cries  thickened  across  the 
church.  "  N'ha ! "  "  N'ho ! "  "  N'ha ! "  broke 
out  in  unearthly  nasal  tones,  and  Uncle 
Remus's  soul  took  hope,  and  his  No.  12 
broke  into  a  more  inspiring  beat : 

"Now  de  bones  begin  to  move  ! 
De  dry-y  bones  begin  to  move!  " 

The  wind  flapped  in  through  a  broken 
pane,  and  shook  its  green  cambric  curtain 
with  a  hollow  gust,  the  lamps  flickered 
restlessly,  the  murmurs  thickened,  and  a 
stir  rustled  over  the  room.  Should  we  see 
a  ghostly  army  rattling  itself  into  shape 
with  the  next  refrain  ? 

"  Yes!  Look  !  There  is  the  first  one  ! " 
whispered  Flit,  with  eyes  fixed  on  a  little 
window  at  the  side  of  the  desk,  just  at  the 
end  of  Uncle  Remus's  seat.  It  was  black 
as  Egypt  outside  there,  but  a  figure  muffled 
in  some  huddled  wrapping  had  stepped 
close  to  the  pane,  and  the  outline  of  a  face 
was  pressed  against  it  with  a  swift  and 
eager  look.  In  another  instant  a  side-door 
opened  and  "  Brudder  Brockus,"  throwing 
his  cloak  upon  a  chair,  stood,  immaculate 
white  necktie  and  all,  on  the  pulpit  floor. 

There  were  no  dry  bones  about  Brother 
Brockus;  that  was  plain.  He  gave  his 
hands  a  quick,  inspiring  rub,  a  blessing  was 
invoked  and  a  "hymn-tune  "  read,  in  a  clear, 
well-modulated  voice  that  scattered  the 
spectral  fancies  of  Uncle  Remus's  song ;  the 
choir  followed  the  organ  steadily  through 
the  six  verses  "  given  out,"  and  a  gentle 
rustle  settled  the  hearers  down  for  Brud- 
der Brockus's  "  text." 

A  broad,  white  handkerchief  laid  elabo- 
rately on  the  desk  took  the  place  of  manu- 
script, and  Brother  Brockus  was  ready. 

"  Sisters  and  bredren,  I  ask  your  'tendons 
dis  evenin'  to  a  few  words  in  de  life  of  de 
celebrated  character  history  call  King 
David.  Probably  dere's  very  few  present  in 
dis  congregation  but  what  sometime — some- 
where in  dere  life — hasn't  been  very  apt 
to  hear  some  anecdote,  of  one  nature  or 
another,  mention  about  King  David.  When 
de  great  gettin'-up  mornin'  come,  and  de 
everlastin'  church,  slumberin'  dese  millions 
of  years,  wake  up  and  rise  wid  healin's 
in  her  wings,  one  o'  de  firs'  spectacles 
glissen  in  her  dazzlin'  eyes  will  mos'  proba- 


IN  THE  M.   E.   AFRICAN. 


425 


bly  be  dis  same  King  David,  done  wrap  in 
glory  and  shakin'  de  golden  tambourine  ! 
But  when  he  pass  through  dis  howlin'  wil- 
derness, wid  de  res'  of  us,  he  was  a  man  dat 
had  his  puffections,  and  also  his  impuf- 
fections  at  de  same  time.  I  doesn't  intend 
to  ask  your  attentions  to  de  impuffections. 
I  don'  believe  in  it — dere's  jus'  one  thing  I 
wants  you  to  recollec',  and  dat's  all.  De 
failures  of  de  great  men  of  de  Bible  wasn't 
recorded  for  us  to  patronize  !  Doan'  make 
believe  you  can  go  do  one  thing  an'  anoder 
'cause  King  David  done  done  it  once. 
Jus'  remember  dat,  I  say,  an'  go  'long  an' 
let  de  res'  alone — an'  so  we  comes  back  to 
see  what  his  puffections  was. 

"  In  de  firs'  place,  King  David  was  de 
king  o'  de  Hebrew  men — I  wont  ask  your 
'tentions  to  de  much  provokin'  question 
whether  dere  was  any  women  in  de  Hebrew 
flock.  It's  one  dere's  been  disputin'  about, 
I  might  say,  since  de  firs'  pulpit  built,  an'  I 
believe  preachers  is  got  better  business  to 
do  dan  cussin'  an'  discussin',  when  de  ques- 
tion can't  make  a  single  pavin'  stone,  help 
dere  people  through  de  wilderness  to  glory. 
I  jus'  got  one  thing  to  mention,  as  I  goes 
along.  When  I  finds  a  hard  question  in  de 
way,  I  goes  to  de  good  Book  wid  it,  an'  I 
took  dis  one  dere,  an'  I  got  my  mind  settled, 
once  for  all.  If  dere  had  'a'  been  any  She- 
brew  women  among  King  David's  flock, 
wouldn'  de  good  Book  said  so  ?  Wouldn' 
de  good  Book  said  '  Shebrew  women  '  ? 
But  jus'  let  any  one  o'  you  take  ten  years 
an'  learn  to  read,  den  hunt  dat  book  fo'  de 
res'  you  lifetime,  an'  you'll  fin'  Hebrews  in 
de  story  an'  no  other  sect  mention,  as  far  as 
you  mind  to  go. 

"So  we'll  jus'  look  back,  peacefully,  to 
see  what  a  few  mo'  de  puffections  was. 
Dere's  one  mo'  illustration  King  David  set 
fo'  our  minds,  good  for  po'  stumblin'  sinners, 
dat  find  dey  done  some  little  t'ing  dey  wish 
dey  hadn't,  once  in  a  while.  Doan'  lie  in  de 
dus'  an'  cry,  all  you  lifes,  'cause  you  happen 
stub  you'  toe !  Get  up,  an'  go  long  'bout 
you'  business ! 

"  Now  you  all  knows  enough  to  know  I 
doan'  mean  you's  apt  to  fall  in  de  street 
where  de  mule-cart  run.  I'se  only  usin' 
what's  called  a  metafore,  an'  it's  one  many 
of  you's  met  up  with,  fore  now,  times 
enough,  too — don'  talk  to  me!  So  when 
you  come  across  it  again,  jus'  remember 
King  David,  an'  get  up  an'  go  on  nex'  time 
with  a  walk  dat'll  leave  foot-prints  on  de 
walls  o1  time  /  Dat's  another  metafore,  but 
doan'  think  I'm  a  tryin'  tickle  yo'  ear  wid  a 


fine  philosophy !  I  means  to  leave  foot- 
prints on  dose  walls  myself,  an'  King  David 
lef  'em,  when  he  feed  de  flock,  long  ago  ! 
An'  every  minister,  like  King  David,  to-day, 
for  he  feed  de  flock  of  God.  Dere's  some 
flock  have  mighty  po'  leaders,  an'  some 
leaders  feed  improper  food  to  de  flock,  an' 
dere's  different  flocks  to  feed,  but  dey's  all 
makin'  foot-prints  on  de  walls.  Dere's  de 
flock  of  infidells.  Tom  Paine  done  lead 
dat  flock,  but  he's  gone  to  his  reward.  I 
wont  say  jus'  zactly  where  he  gone,  but  it's 
some  place  o'  trouble,  I  promise  you  about 
dat.  An'  dere's  de  flock  of  Universalers. 
I  don'  jus'  precisely  agree  wid  them  in  all 
points.  Dey  say,  dere's  a  plan  for  all.  Dat's 
true  enough,  but  if  de  sick  man  wont  take 
his  medicine,  he  got  to  die,  dat's  all. 

"And  dere's  de  flock  dat  says  dey  once 
start  for  heaven  dey  get  dere  shore — but  tell 
you  ef  any  lamb  fall  back,  and  de  wolf  hap- 
pen to  be  about,  somebody  very  likely  to  get 
hurt !  So  I'm  not  tryin'  furnish  you  philos- 
ophy, I'm  tryin'  to  wake  up  dese  sinners 
here  to-night !  When  de  great  Wesley  break 
de  Mefodis'  church  out  from  the  'Piscopal 
church,  he  say,  de  'Piscopal  church  all 
asleep,  and  I  see  heaps  of  po'  sinners  sleepin' 
here  to-night.  Sinners. /" — and  Brudder 
Brockus's  voice,  which  had  been  gradually 
rising  higher  and  higher  through  the  quick, 
undulating  sentences  that  seemed  almost 
rubbed  together  with  the  deep,  African 
smoothness  of  his  tone,  burst  into  a  wild 
trumpet-like  call  that  might  almost  have 
startled  the  dry  bones  themselves — "  Sin- 
ners f  Awake!  Arise  from  where  yo'  are, 
an'  come  in  de  porch  of  de  church,  an'  join 
de  holy  family  what's  marchin'  through  de 
howlin'  wilderness  to  de  glorious  Ian'  above, 
and  you'll  never  do  a  better  t'ing  in  yo' 
lifes." 

"  Wha  /  "  "Who!  "  flew  back  from  the 
sleepers  as  if  a  few  sparks  had  fallen  on 
the  tinder,  and  Brudder  Brockus  went  on — 

"  When  de  thunders  roll,  and  de  light- 
nin'  play  nimble  games  in  de  sky,  mos' 
people,  'specially  de  ladies,  shake  and  quake 
and  feel  like  dey  mus'  get  hold  o'  some  man 
or  'nother,  but  dere'll  be  a  heap  more  reason 
when  de  great  and  fearful  day  of  wrath  come ! 
Tell  you,  sinners,  dere's  a  wakin'  up  time 
comin',  whether  youse  ready  for  it  or  not, 
and  God'll  be  there  to  help  dese  saints 
pull  off  mortality  and  fix  'em  up  in  heavenly 
robes,  and  where'll  bejvwrever-dyin'  souls  ?" 

The  last  cry  hissed  through  the  air,  and 
fell  among  the  listeners  with  an  explosive 
crash,  and  a  debris  of  fragmentary  cries  flew 


426 


IN  THE  M.   E.   AFRICAN. 


scattering  back.  But  Brudder  Brockus  had 
dropped  his  voice  suddenly  to  the  deep  and 
steady  roll  of  the  surf  upon  the  shore,  and 
its  low,  regular  beat  seemed  to  strike  more 
mercilessly  than  before. 

"  Tell  you,  sinners,"  he  continued,  "  where 
de  great  sea  of  Time  swim  back  and 
fo',  dere  done  stan'  a  little  island  dey 
call  Potmash,  and  de  great  'postle  to  de 
Gentiles  get  lock  up  dere  fo'  to  stay  awhile, 
and  he  see  mighty  strange  sights,  an'  de 
whisper  of  a  thousand  men.  He  see  a  pale 
horse  ride  forth,  conquering  unto  conquer, 
an'  oh-h,  what  a  terrible  horse  !  It  wasn't 
Satan  ride  dis  terrible  horse !  Satan  can't 
kill  nobody.  He  plague  'em  till  dey  mos' 
wish  dey  was  dead  a  hundred  times,  but  he 
can't  kill.  It's  the  rider  of  this  terrible 
horse,  and  his  name  is  Death !  He  can  over- 
take all,  for  Death  wasn'  walkin',  Death  was 
riditf.  Ridirf  /  An'  when  he  strike  he  change 
all  de  general  'pearance  of  mortality, — dere's 
only  de  mangle  form  of  a  corpse.  De  man 
given  up  de  ghos'  an' £»#<?.  We  don't  know 
where,  but  he  gone.  Ever  since  Cain  HP  up 
his  mallet  an'  slay  his  brudder,  history  tell 
us,  de  Bible  tell  us  man  mus'  die.  Leave 
his  occupation — can't  walk  no  mo' — lie  down 
and  cover  up  wid  de  cold  sod  !  "  The  cries 
were  thickening  into  a  wild,  unearthly  din, 
but  Brudder  Brockus  pressed  relentlessly  on, 
with  only  a  slight  upward  swell  in  the  undu- 
lation of  his  steady  beat.  "  De  terrible 
hoise  go  on,  but  one  mo'  rider  come  swif 
behind.  He  ride  out  on  a  black  horse,  an' 
he  say,  '  He  dat  believe  in  me  shall  never 
die,'  an'  Death  HP  up  his  arm  an'  say  he 
conquer  all,  an'  de  rider  o'  de  black  horse 
shall  fall !  An'  de  pale  horse  ride  away  to 
a  lonely  hill  an'  wait,  an'  de  rider  o'  de 
black  horse  go  on.  But  he  come  to  de 
lonely  hill  at  las',  and  find  it  a  garden  where 
olives  grow,  and  he  go  in,  an'  Death  cry, 
'  Aha !  I  fin'  him  now ! '  and  he  wrastle, 
and  de  rider  o'  de  black  horse  cry  out ! 

"An'  who  is  dis  dear  rider  o'  de  black 
horse,  in  de  lonely  garden  now  ?  Ah,  is 
dere  any  seeker  here  say  he  doan'  know  ?  " 
And  a  sudden  crash  of  inquiry  broke 
through  the  speaker's  voice  and  thrilled 
shivering  through  every  soul. 

"  It  de  dear  Son  of  Heaven,  God  send 
down  for  you !  An'  he  wrastle  again,  but 
de  rider  o'  de  pale  horse  terrible  !  Ah-h  ! 
Has  he  conquer  him  now  ?  Mus'  de  dear 
Son  of  Heaven  die  ?  " 

"No!  No!"  came  stifled  cries  from 
every  side.  Brudder  Brockus  had  left  the 
desk,  and,  with  wild  gestures  and  full,  un- 


shackled voice,  was  striding  back  and  forth 
in  sympathy  with  the  strife. 

"  No !  De  rider  o'  de  pale  horse  force 
from  de  garden,  and  go  to  another  hill  to 
wait  once  mo'.  Dere  no  olives  dere,  but 
he  haven't  long  to  wait,  an'  he  cry  '  Aha ! 
Now  !  Dis  time  ! '  An'  he  wrastle  again. 
Oh,  shall  he  die  ?  Shall  de  dear  rider  o' 
de  black  horse  die  dis  time  ?  " 

Piercing  sobs  broke  from  every  side. 
Aunt  Miriam's  breast  heaved  wildly,  and 
her  long  black  arms  were  stretched  entreat- 
ingly  forth.  "  Oh,  doan'  die  !  Doan'  die!  " 
rose  in  bitter  cries  from  different  corners  of 
the  room,  and  Brother  Brockus  went  on : 

"  Oh,  sinner,  de  rider  o'  de  pale  horse 
wrastle  hard!  De  hour  terrible  an'  he 
wrastle  for  you  !  Shall  de  dear  rider  o'  de 
black  horse  die  dis  time  ?  Ah,  can't  hold 
out  no  mo' !  All  turn  pale,  and  Death 
shout,  'I  conquer  all!'  and  he  ride  away 
proud,  an'  all  done  ! 

"But  wait /"  and  the  moans  hushed  be- 
fore the  sudden  piercing  lift  of  the  speaker's 
cry.  "  Wait  three  days  with  me !  De  rider 
o'  de  black  horse  leap  forth  glorious  from 
sleep,  and  cry,  '  I  HP  immortality  to  life!' 
And  Death  feel  de  arrow  pierce  into  his  flesh, 
an'  he  flee  away  an'  lie  down  to  die,  and 
we  shout, '  Oh,  Death,  where  is  thy  victory? 
oh,  Grave,  you  got  no  sting  !'  De  murrec- 
tion  drawin'  nigh  !" 

Panting,  breathless  and  trembling,  Brud- 
der Brockus  stood  still.  The  strife  was 
ended,  his  wild  imaginary  share  in  the  con- 
test ceased,  and  he  stretched  forth  his  hands 
to  his  people  in  mute  appeal. 

Suddenly  he  withdrew  them,  caught  the 
handkerchief  from  the  desk,  cooled  his 
heated  face  in  its  broad  folds  and  stepped 
down  to  a  chair  beside  a  little  table,  where 
mysterious  cups  of  water  and  fragments  of 
bread  were  placed.  "  Church  "  was  over ; 
it  was  "  love-feast"  now.  Brother  Brockus 
was  transformed  into  audience  and  sat,  re- 
ceptive and  still,  on  the  back  legs  of  his 
chair,  waiting  for  the  testimony  of  his  saints. 

A  moment's  hush  ensued,  and  Uncle 
Remus's  thoughts  floated  on  from  the  last 
ringing  words  of  the  sermon  to  the  up- 
rising of  the  "  promise  day,"  and  another 
spirityubble  song  burst  forth  : 

"  Oh,  who  all  dem  come  dress'  in  white  ? 
CHO.     (De  rmirrection  drawin'  nigh!) 

Mus'  be  de  chillen  de  Isyalites. 
CHO.     (De  murrection  drawin'  nigh!) 

CHORUS.     "  Oh,  what  you  say,  John  ?  * 
Oh,  what  you  say,  John  ? 

*  St.  John. 


IN  THE  M.   E.   AFRICAN. 


427 


Oh,  what  you  say  ? 

De  murrection  drawin'  nigh ! 

"  Oh,  who  all  dem  come  dress  in  red? 

De  murrection   drawin'  nigh  ! 
Mus'  be  de  people  dat  Moses  led — 

W  de    murrection  drawin'  nigh ! 
CHO.     Oh,  what  you  say,  John?  etc. 

"  Oh,  who  all  dem  come  dress  in  black  ? 

'N'  de  rwurrection  drawin'  nigh  ? 
Mus'  be  de  mohners  a-turnin'  back — 

'N'  de  murrection  drawin'  nigh ! 

"  The  devil  is  a  liar  and  a  cungiour,  too ! 

'N'  de  murrection  drawin'  nigh ! 
You  don't  look  out,  he  cungiour   you ! 

'N'  de  murrection  drawin'  nigh ! 

"  I  heard  a  voice  in  de  promise'  land, 

De  murrection  drawin'  nigh  ! 
Make  me  t'ink  my  time  at  hand — 

De  murrection  drawin'  nigh  !  " 

The  song  rose  and  fell  in  strange,  weird 
cadences,  with  subtle  inflections  almost 
impossible  to  catch,  and  the  harmony 
swelled  melting  and  rich  with  the  rare 
melody  of  the  African  voice;  but  triumph 
by  and  by  seemed  more  inspiring  than 
struggles  by  the  way,  and  another  "  pillar," 
in  the  seat  behind  Uncle  Remus,  lifted  his 
voice  and  began  the  beating  of  his  boot: 

"  Oh,  look  at  de  Moses  ! 
Look  at  de  Moses ! 

Oh-h  Lord! 
Jus'  look  at  de  Moses, 

Smotin'  on  de  water! 
Chillens  !  we's  all  a-gwine  home! 

CHO.     "  Oh,  de  ole  ferry-boat  stan'  a-waitin'  at  de 
landin' — 

Oh-h  Lord! 

Oh,  de  ole  ferry-boat  stan'  a-waitin'  at  de  landin' — 
Chillens  !  we's  all  a-gwine  home  ! 

"  Moses  smote  de  water,  and  de  sea  gabe  way ! 

Oh-h  Lord! 

De  Is'lites  ate  de  fishes,  an'  de  sea  gabe  way ! 
Chillens,  we's  all  a-gwine  home  ! 

CHO.     "  Oh,  de  ole  ferry-boat  stan'  a-waitin'  at  de 
landin' ! 

Oh-h  Lord! 

Oh,  de  ole  ferry-boat  stan'  a  waitin'  at  de  landin' ! 
Chillens  !  we's  all  a-gwine  home ! " 

On  went  the  verses — the  pillars  were  evi- 
dently improvisators  as  well — the  choruses 
came  in  fervid  and  wild,  and  the  trembling 
legs  of  Brudder  Brockus's  chair  swayed  back- 
ward and  forward,  while  Brudder  Brockus 
himself  broke  in  here  and  there  with  stac- 
cato bursts  of  the  "  holy  laugh  " — "  Ha !  " 
"  Ha !  ha !  ha !  "  "  Ha !  ha!  "  while  a  spirit- 
ual ecstasy  brought  his  palms  together  and 
wrung  his  hands.  It  was  time  for  the  flock 
to  draw  together  for  the  feast. 


One  by  one  the  "members"  rose  and 
pressed  to  the  forward  seats.  They  were 
ready,  but  feasters  must  prove  their  claim  as 
guests  before  the  feast  begins.  Had  they 
"  kep'  de  fast, — come  all  right — all  straight  ?  " 
Brudder  Brockus  wished  to  know,  and  a 
charcoal  sketch  rose  suddenly  to  its  feet, 
against  the  wall. 

"  Bredren !  I  done  kep'  de  fas' !  I  feel 
all  right — all  straight — an'  I's  gwine  to 
heaven,  I  determined!  Clar!" 

"Ha!  ha!  ha!"  laughed  Brudder 
Brockus,  and  another  arose,  and  another 
voice,  low,  deep  and  clear,  confessed : 

"  Brudder,  I  hasn't  been  always  marchin1 
on,  in  days  gone  by !  I  have  camped  on 
de  road,  and  I  have  slep'  in  my  tent,  but  I 
done  burn  dat  now !  I's  gwine  on ! 
Gwine  on,  bredren !  On,  de  res'  de  way !  " 

"  Ha!  ha  ! "  came  the  holy  laugh,  ecstatic- 
ally, and  a  gay  plaid  shawl  and  swinging 
arm  arose  in  another  seat. 

"  Sisters  and  bredren  !  I  got  nothin'  in 
my  heart  'gainst  any  here  to-night.  My 
enemies  or  my  frien's,  dey  all  alike,  and  I's 
gwine  to  heaven  !  Sisters !  I's  determined  ! 
I's  gwine  dere !  " 

She  sank  down,  and  March's  woolly 
crown  arose : 

"  Bredren !  I  got  nothin'  in  my  heart 
'gainst  any  here  to-night !  Ef  I  had,  I 
should  rung  dat  bell  and  sot  dat  table,  an' 
gone  home !  I's  gwine  to  heaven !  I's 
determined  on  dat ! " 

"  Ef  you  want  to  catch  de  heavenly  breeze, 
Get  down  in  de  valley  on  yo'  knees  !  " 

rose  a  wild,  shouting  voice,  and  testimonies 
and  determinations  followed  from  one  and 
another  saint,  till  the  round  was  gone,  and 
Brudder  Brockus  brought  his  chair  slowly 
down  to  rest  upon  four  legs. 

"  Now,  bredren,"  he  said,  in  a  lively  voice, 
"de  time  whiskin'  on.  We  mus'  be  brief, 
for  we  want  to  get  dat  basket  pass  roun'  fo' 
de  frien's  I  see  here  to-night  gets  tired  and 
goes  out.  I'd  like  to  have  a  prayer  from 
some  of  you,  one  or  two,  as  you's  moved, 
but  I  doan'  want  no  dry  prayer  !  De  Lord 
doan'  want  any !  Suppose  one  of  you  come 
to  me  an'  say,  '  Brother  Brockus,  I's  in  a 
heap  of  trouble ;  I  mus'  have  a  little  help ! 
Can't  you — someway — make  out,  and  let 
me  have  a  few  dollars  to-night  ?  '  An'  I 
look  in  you'  face  and  see  de  tears  streamin' 
down,  and  distress  shore  'nough,  an'  I  say, 
quick  an'  brisk,  '  Yes,  I  reckon  I  can ! ' 
I  jus'  han'  it  out,  right  now  !  But  you  come 
along  'nother  time  an'  say  de  same  thing, 


428 


IN  THE  M.   E.   AFRICAN. 


an'  I  looks  up,  see  all  calm — all  dry — no 
trouble  runnin'over  de  eyelids — none  at  all — 
an'  I  say,  '  Go  'long  about  your  business. 
I  got  nothin'  for  you.'  An'  so,  bredren — 
so,  I  tell  you — de  Lord  want  tears!  De 
Lord  want  tears  !  " 

A  nod  to  Brother  Jackson  in  one  of  the 
"  eave "  pews,  and  the  latter  dropped  on 
his  knees,  his  monstrous  shoulders  and  up- 
lifted arms  seeming  bulwarks,  indeed,  for 
weaker  souls  to  look  to. 

"  We  has  assembled  dis  evenin',  oh 
Lord,  for  de  purpose  of  washin'  up !  Oh-h, 
help,  dis  evenin',  to  washup  in  spirit  and  in 
truf !  Thou  has'  promise,  if  we  come  axin' 
for  faith,  thou'll  give  it  out  to  us.  Oh-h, 
give  it  out  to  us  dis  evenin',  and  be  our 
rock  and  our  shelter  in  a  mighty  storm  ! 
Oh-h-h  Lord,  unloose  de  shackles  dis  evenin' ! 
Ef  any  mohner  try  to  get  out  o'  prison  dis 
evenin',  unloose  de  prison  do' !  Oh-h-h, 
save  right  now !  Fight  de  battles  for  us ! 
Oh-h,  walk  up  an'  down  dis  little  place  till 
de  wicked  men  an'  dyin'  women,  los'  in  de 
desert,  gets  save  from  shipwreck,  and  sail 
safe  in  de  vineyard  forever  mo' !  Oh-h ! 
help  "em  make  dere  'scape  dis  evenin' ! 
Help  thy  mouf-piece  in  de  pulpit  to  hoi'  up 
de  blood-stain'  banner  King  Emmanull ! 
Oh-h,  help  wake  up  these  sleepers  here,  but 
show  mercy,  too !  Give  dese  sinners  an 
almighty  shake  over  hell,  BUT  DEFER  DE 

DREADFUL  DROP ! " 

The  prayer  went  on,  but,  as  one  appeal 
followed  another,  Brudder  Jackson's  en- 
treaty strengthened  into  a  shout,  his  voice 
into  a  roar,  and  the  roar  deepened  into  the 
bellowing  of  the  beasts  of  the  woods. 
Would  he  tear  himself  limb  from  limb  with 
these  wild  contortions,  those  frantic,  tossing 
gestures,  that  wrenching  of  the  breath  from 
the  depths  of  quivering  lungs  ?  Could 
Heaven's  ear  itself  gather  one  wish  whole 
out  of  the  deafening  confusion  of  indescrib- 
able cries,  shrieks,  wails,  amens,  "  n'ha's  " 
and  "  n'ho's  "  that  shot  up  like  rockets  from 
every  side,  and  followed  in  the  train  of  the 
prayer,  a  hideous  din  ? 

Horror,  and  a  sense  of  the  inexpressibly 
absurd,  strove  for  the  mastery  in  poor  Flit's 
face,  and  she  stretched  out  a  dainty  hand 
with  a  quivering  grasp — but  the  prayer 
came  to  an  end  and  the  saints  in  the  for- 
ward seats  began  to  stir. 

"  Are  they  going  away  ?  Have  they 
finished  ?"  whispered  Flit.  But  no!  The 
brethren  were  forming  along  the  chancel  in 
two  open  lines,  like  a  picket  fence  with  a 
lane  between,  and  the  sisters,  headed  by 


Aunt  Miriam,  were  sailing  down  the  middle 
in  single  file,  shaking  hands  "  in  love  "  with 
every  brother  as  they  went.  On  they 
moved,  one  following  the  other,  slowly  at 
first,  but  with  a  quicker  and  quicker  step, 
and  the  clasp  must  have  proved  sweeter 
with  every  touch,  for  there  was  no  stopping 
when  the  round  of  the  lines  was  made.  It 
was  only  to  begin  again,  this  time  back- 
ward, forward,  or  round  about,  no  one 
could  tell  how,  for,  as  hearts  grew  warm, 
shoulders  began  to  sway  and  feet  to  spring. 
Springs  quickened  into  leaps,  the  leaps 
rocked  to  one  side  and  then  to  the  other  of 
the  charcoal  file.  The  brethren  could  not  with- 
stand that,  and  inspiration  also  seized  their 
limbs,  till  the  whole  array  melted  and  broke 
into  a  wild  confusion  of  swinging,  leaping 
and  plunging  forms,  with  gay  shawls,  black 
faces,  shoulders,  head-handkerchiefs  and 
grasping  hands,  mingled  in  one  mad  dance. 

Brudder  Brockus  had  stood  at  the  head 
of  the  line,  getting  the  first  ;'  shake  "  from 
every  sister  as  she  made  her  start,  but  he 
was  lost  now,  though  still  alive  somewhere 
in  the  war-dance,  for  his  holy  "  ha !  ha !  " 
came  ringing  up  from  among  the  "  n'ha's," 
"  n'ho's,"  snatches  of  song  and  deafening 
shouts  that  completed  the  melee.  On  it 
went ;  Flit  was  snatching  at  us  for  another 
grasp,  and  the  cloud  of  dust  from  the 
stamping,  plunging  feet  was  thickening  till 
the  saints  seemed  vanishing  out  of  sight. 
But  either  breath  failed,  or  Brother  Brockus- 
cried  "  enough  !  "  at  last.  The  storm  lulled 
away  to  a  gale  of  wind,  then  to  half  a  gale ; 
the  half-gale  rocked  slowly  down  to  a  calmr 
and  the  panting  lovers  stole  one  by  one  ex- 
hausted to  their  seats. 

"  Yes  !  There  he  is  !  He's  alive !  "  gasped 
Flit,  as  Brother  Brockus,  with  protruding 
eyeballs  and  trembling  hand,  emerged 
from  the  cloud;  but  the  eyeballs  fell  on  the 
contribution-basket,  and  he  sprang  once 
more  to  work.  The  bread  and  water  were 
quickly  passed  to  each  participant  in  the 
dance,  and  the  love-feast  was  complete. 

"  Now,  bredren  ! "  and  the  white  necktier 
miraculously  preserved,  looked  over  the 
edge  of  the  desk  once  more.  "  We's  got  to 
have  a  little  contribution  taken  up  here  to- 
night. Ef  dese  frien's  have  de  kindness  to 
wait  while  de  basket  pass  roun',  we'll  enter- 
tain 'em  wid  a  few  songs,  which  I  hopes 
will  also  wake  up  some  po'  sinner  an'  bring 
him  home  to  res'.  A  pretty  good  collec- 
tion we  want  'is  time,  too.  Our  dear  pre- 
siding elder  done  gone  home  to  glory  dis 
week,  and  we's  called  on  to  help  his  'flicted 


IN  THE  M.   E.   AFRICAN. 


429 


family  lef '  behin',  lef  behirf,  bredren ! 
Never  took  'em  wid  him.  How  dey's 
gwine  to  get  along  now?"  And  Brother 
Jackson  and  another  pillar  stepped  forward 
to  the  basket. 

"  What  are  they  doing  ?  Aren't  they 
going  round  with  it  ? "  asked  Flit,  who 
already  had  her  "  two  bits  "  pinched  between 
her  fingers.  Evidently  they  were  not. 
The  table  was  cleared,  the  basket  placed 
upon  it,  while  Brother  Brockus,  leaning 
over  the  desk,  started  a  "  spirityubble  "  song, 
with  a  hawk's  eye  fixed  on  the  receptacle 
below : 

"  Oh,  what  you  reckon  de  debbil  say  ? 
CHO.     (Keep  inchin' along !   Keep  inchin' along!) 
De  Lord's  asleep  an'  your  God  gone  away ! 
(Keep  inchin' along !  Keep  inchin'  along!) 

"  Stan'  "right  still  an'  study  you'self, 

(Keep  inchin'  along!   Keep  inchin'  along!) 

God's  gwine  to  move  dis  ark  himself. 

(Keep  inchin'  along !  Keep  inchin'  along ! )  " 

The  song  was  caught  up  in  full  chorus, 
Brudder  Brockus  beat  time  with  an  excited 
sweep,  and  one  by  one  his  flock  arose  and, 
marching  to  the  table,  dropped  in  their 
offering,  while  the  "  pillars  "  watched  that 
no  pilfering  finger  found  anything  sticking  to 
it  as  it  came  away,  and  the  hawk-eye  glance 
from  the  desk  watched  pillars  and  all. 

"  But  aren't  they  coming  to  us  ?  "  whis- 
pered Miss  Flit  once  more. 

She  need  not  have  been  anxious.  The 
arm  of  Brother  Brockus  that  was  not  needed 
for  beating  time  had  slipped  under  the 
desk,  and,  without  disturbing  a  ripple  of  the 
song,  had  whisked  out  a  basket  of  extra 
gorgeousness,  and  passed  it  to  a  "  light  man," 
who,  almost  as  pale  and  straight-featured 
as  the  "  visitors  "  to  whose  seats  he  brought 
it,  was  still  evidently  one  and  the  same  with 
the  blackest  of  his  "  color."  Flit  dropped 
in  her  two  bits,  the  rest  of  the  company 
followed,  and  the  rounds  seemed  complete. 
Brother  Brockus  struck  up  another  song, 
the  flock  joined  in  wild  accord,  cries  of 
"  Come,  sinner !  Aint  you  coming  ?  "  crashed 
discordantly  in,  and  the  dust  began  to  fly 
again,  but  Brother  Jackson  and  his  mate 
were  steadily  counting  up  the  returns,  and 
piling  bits  and  quarters  in  separate  heaps — 
with  Brother  Brockus's  unswerving  eye  still 
sharp  upon  them. 

"  How  you  make  it  ?  "  he  caught  a  breath 
to  ask. 


The  answer  was  whispered  back,  and  the 
song  came  to  an  end. 

"  I's  obliged  to  say,  bredren,  I  doesn't  feel 
satisfied  with  dis  collection,  so  far.  I  make 
up  my  mind  I  want  'bout  ten  dollars  to-night 
— dere's  some  other  little  'spenses  of  de 
church,  besides  de  family  I  mention — an' 
it's  only  six  an'  a  quarter  yet !  We  have  to 
try  once  mo'.  Don't  be  backward,  bredren. 
'Bout  ten  dollars  what  I  like  to  have  to- 
night, 'fo'  we  part.  And  de  anxious  seat 
waiting!  De  kingdom  all  open  !  Hope  dere'll 
be  one  po'  sinner  come  to-night ! "  and 
once  more  Brudder  Brockus's  arm  beat 
wildly  the  measure  of  his  song. 

"  Wise  man !  Wise  man  !   Don't  delay  ! 
Foolish  lady!   Foolish  lady!  Come!" 

The  cries  and  shouts  rose  louder  than 
before,  mingled  with  the  boots  of  saints 
beating  time  to  the  song,  and  the  shoes  of 
sinners  moving  one  by  one  toward  the 
door.  Flit  turned  with  a  beseeching  look 
of  distress. 

"  Oh,  this  is  dreadful !  Can't  we  get 
away  ?  See !  Some  of  them  are  beginning 
to  go ! " 

We  needed  no  second  appeal.  We  had 
gasped  for  every  flap  of  the  green  window- 
curtain  for  an  hour,  and  the  sense  of  suffo- 
cation was  growing  equally  strong  on  heart 
and  soul.  In  another  moment  we  were  at 
the  door,  and  sprang  toward  the  open  air. 
Black  figures  were  pressing  in  and  out  and 
the  chant  from  the  inside  followed  us;  it 
was  but  a  step  to  our  hotel,  but  we  glanced 
hesitatingly  out  under  the  low,  shadowing 
branches  of  the  water-oaks. 

"  See  you  'cross  de  way,  ladies  ? "  asked 
a  respectful  voice  at  our  side,  and,  starting, 
we  beheld  Robert,  the  faithful  porter  of 
the  drawing-room  car  in  which  we  had 
come.  He  had  come  "  home "  to  take 
charge  of  a  young  orange  grove  for  a  former 
master. 

"  A  very  good  thing  dey  made  no  noise 
to-night,"  Robert  quietly  observed. 

"  Made  no  noise ! "  we  repeated,  in  ex- 
cited tones. 

"  Not  quite  yet.  'Bout  de  middle  o' 
next  week  dey'll  begin,  when  Brudder 
Brockus  commence  on  his  revival.  He  like 
better  defer  a  little  longer  till  de  hotel  close, 
but  he  been  here  three  months  now,  an'  de 
church  gettin'  restless  fo'  him  to  show  what 
him  can  do." 


43° 


LA   SONNAMBULA. 


LA  SONNAMBULA. 


UNDER  the  great  pine-tree,  with  its  wind- 
harps  sounding  in  my  ears  through  the  quiet 
noonday,  I  am  trying  to  read  Motley, 
though  I  would  rather  wear  it.  It  is  my 
duty  to  read,  to  prepare  myself  for  my  essay 
on  "  Race  and  Climate."  But  it  seems  to 
me  that,  like  Bottom,  "I  have  an  exposition 
of  sleep  come  upon  me  " ;  and  as  for  climate, 
this  delicious  June  day  was  not  made  for  phil- 
osophizing upon,  but  for  feeling  and  drinking 
in  at  every  pore.  The  little  white  clouds 
are  blinking  at  me  through  the  branches, 
and  the  birds  are  considering  me  curiously, 
with  sidelong  glances  of  their  sparkling  eyes, 
and  the  hammock  is  swinging,  yes,  swing- 
ing, to-and-fro-swinging,  yes,  swinging  to 
and But  what  is  this  ?  the  wild- 
est of  rocky  gorges,  at  the  foot  -of  Mt. 
Ventour?  We  have  just  dined — have  we 
not  ? — on  eels  and  raisins,  trout,  chicken,  and 
nougat,  at  the  odd  little  inn  of  "  Petrarch 
et  Laure,"  in  the  brick-paved,  rough  dining- 
room,  adorned  with  wooden  portraits  of 
those  ancient  lovers.  If  Laura  looked  like 
that,  wonderful  was  the  love  of  Petrarch ! 
The  green  sparkling  waters  of  the  Sorgues 
are  rushing  past  us  down  the  ravine,  which 
every  moment  grows  more  savage  and 
lonely,  as  if  it  were  winding  into  the  very 
roots  of  the  mountains.  As  we  climb  up  the 
rocky  path,  between  wild  broken  cliffs, 
where,  far  up  above,  the  gloomy  castle 
frowns  in  which  Laura  dwelt,  lo!  a  weird 
little  dwarf,  deformed  and  grimacing  and 
unpleasant,  begins  to  gibber  at  us  strangely. 
He  is  surely  the  right  man  in  the  right  place 
for  picturesque  effect,  as  he  starts  from  be- 
hind an  angle  of  rock.  But  our  guide  does 
not  seem  to  think  so,  for  she  answers  him  in 
her  singular  patois,  jabbering  in  return,  and 
indignantly  waves  him  away.  We  think  he 
is  a  rival  guide,  but  we  can  understand  but 
one  of  her  words,  "  Ivrogne  !  " 

How  the  strong  little  river  darts  and 
swirls  along  among  the  rocks  that  are  tum- 
bled upon  it,  and  finds  its  way,  as  we  all  do,  to 
light  and  freedom  among  obstacles  that  would 
seem  insurmountable :  under,  over,  leaping, 
sliding,  waiting,  till  it  reaches  the  wider 
valley  below !  Now  the  precipices  close  in 
on  us  on  all  sides,  and  rise  higher  in  front, 
and  there  seems  no  egress  from  this  cut  de 
sac.  How  did  Petrarch  ever  reach  that  in- 
accessible castle,  perched  on  the  crags  so 
high?  But  below  the  great  wall  of  rock 


that  fronts  us  is  an  emerald  pool  that  bub- 
bles up  in  wavering  light  from  the  white 
sand  below.  It  is  the  fountain  of  Vaucluse  1 

No !  what  was  I  saying  ?  what  did  you 
say  ?  We  are  in  the  pretty  theater  at 
Weimar ;  the  good-natured  duke  and  dumpy 
duchess  sit  on  high  in  their  box,  with  sons 
and  daughters,  but  their  eyes,  and  all  other 
eyes,  are  fixed  upon  one  man.  The  house  rings 
with  his  name,  and  with  shouts  and  cries ; 
the  bouquets  and  wreaths  fly  about  him  like 
rain,  and  Liszt  stands  in  his  Abb6's  coat, 
quiet  and  happy,  and  crowns  with  his  wreaths 
the  bust  of  Beethoven,  for  it  is  his  fete  that 
Liszt  has  honored  with  his  presence,  and  we 
are  still  reeling  and  spinning  with  the  intoxi- 
cation of  the  Ninth  Symphony. 

Did  I  say  a  theater  ?  Surely  it  is  a  field 
full  of  orchis,  and  purple  sage,  and  golden 
globe  ranunculus,  and  we  are  knee-deep  in 
grass  and  flowers,  beside  such  a  lazy  little 
stream.  But  as  the  May  sunshine  falls  on 
the  rippling  grasses,  they  turn  to  waves,  and 
I  hear  them  dashing  over  the  sternest,  lone- 
liest coast  in  the  world.  It  is  the  eleventh 
of  November,  a  true  summer's  day  of  St. 
Martin,  that  sweet  saint,  _who  divided  his 
cloak  with  a  beggar,  and  could  even  pity 
the  devil  and  hope  for  his  salvation.  Far 
and  near  the  sun  flashes  on  the  blue  and 
green  and  purple  of  the  sea.  We  look 
down  the  great  cliffs,  a  dizzy  height,  and 
hear  the  wild  cries  of  the  choughs  and  gulls, 
and  the  long  waves,  as  they  roll  in  from  the 
Atlantic,  breaking  in  foam  and  spray  upon 
the  rocks  far  below,  and  rushing  into  the 
dark  clefts  and  fantastic  sea  caves.  Bowl- 
ders and  islet  rocks,  of  strange  forms  and 
still  stranger  Cornish  names,  stand  boldly 
off  the  shore.  We  gather  speedwell,  daisies, 
and  wild  pansies  on  the  downs,  near  to  a 
little  cabin,  "  the  last  house  in  England," 
from  whence  issue  forth  a  little  man  and 
woman,  like  those  in  Cowper's  "  weather 
house,  that  useful  toy,"  and  they  offer  us 
photographs  and  minerals  to  buy,  for  a  me- 
morial of  Land's  End.  It  is  a  strange  place. 
Far  away  the  Scilly  Isles,  those  outposts  of 
England,  are  dimly  seen;  landward,  on  the 
hills,  the  tall  creaking  machinery  of  the 
miners  looms  against  the  sky,  like  great 
instruments  of  torture ;  little  birds  they  call 
"tinners"  flit  pass  me,  and  my  eyes  wander  off 
to  sea  as  if  to  cross  it,  thinking  of  absent  ones 
of  home,  home — and  we  are  no  longer  here ! 


LA   SONNAMBULA. 


It  is  a  lonely,  grass-grown  square,  so 
calm,  so  pensive !  the  sun  shines  as  if  he 
never  wished  to  shine  in  any  other  spot. 
The  wonderful  creamy  white  buildings,  un- 
changed in  that  gentle  sunshine  and  sweet 
air,  stand  in  their  quiet  glory,  as  they  have 
stood  so  long ;  the  leaning  tower  flings  its 
long  shadow  across  the  old  grass-grown 
pavement.  It  is  dreamlike,  tender,  and 
delicious,  like  no  other  spot  on  earth.  We 
climb  the  white  tower  and  look  down  over 
the  bright  plains  of  Lombardy  and  trace  the 
windings  of  the  Po;  we  enter  the  sacred 
cloister  and  look  upon  its  mystic  pictures 
and  its  hallowed  grass-plot;  we  hear  the 
grand  echoes  in  the  Baptistery  that  have 
sounded  there  so  many  centuries,  and — 

How  strange !  we  are  gazing  down  upon 
the  sea  again,  over  a  foreground  of  gorse 
and  a  tangle  of  ferns,  brambles,  and  broom. 
The  sun  floods  the  sea  and  the  cliffs.  Below, 
the  tiny  village  of  Lynmouth  is  huddled 
beside  the  stream,  that  loses  itself  on  a 
stony  beach,  where  the  queer  little  light- 
house stands.  Behind  us  from  among  the 
majestic  hills  of  Exmoor,  twin  glens  come 
sweeping  down,  each  with  its  wild  mountain 
stream ;  grand  headlands  inclose  the  bay, 
and  the  lonely  enchanted  Valley  of  Rocks 
winds  away  behind  the  shores,  overhung 
with  fantastic  forms  of  cliff  and  bowlder. 

But  this  is  surely  Paris !  Yes !  the  long 
rows  of  closed  magazines  tell  that  the  siege 
is  near,  and  so  do  the  little  shops,  with 
their  shopkeepers,  men  and  women,  without 
customers,  asleep  behind  their  counters. 
The  Bois  de  Boulogne  is  filled  with  a  sea 
of  tossing  heads  and  horns  of  cattle,  and 
great  flocks  of  sheep  as  far  as  the  eye  can 
see,  graze  under  the  trees,  and  the  sun  shines 
upon  the  yellow  dust  that  their  hoofs  are 
raising.  A  regiment  of  soldiers  passes 
through  the  street,  singing  the  Marsellaise 
with  their  hoarse  voices. 

"Dieu merci!  Il-y-a des veterans!"  screams 
a  shop  girl,  running  forward. 

Her  scream  changes  to  a  long  musical 
shout,  and  we  are  back  again  in  Cornwall, 
standing  upon  those  great  downs  that  over- 
look the  sea.  Away  near  the  horizon  the 
water  is  strangely  agitated  and  shining  with 
short  ripples.  The  great  shoals  of  fish,  the 
pilchards,  are  coming  in!  The  "Huers" 
stand  on  the  hills  watching,  and  giving 
notice  of  their  motions,  by  clear  ringing 
cries.  Below  is  the  queer  little  town  of  St. 
Ives,  with  its  picturesque  headlands,  and  all 
is  buzzing  and  humming,  for  there  has  been 
one  great  haul  of  fish,  and  there  will  soon 


be  another.  More  than  "  seven  wives  "  are 
there,  and  all  the  cats;  women  in  short 
petticoats  are  running  about,  and  the  streets 
are  slippery  with  fish-scales.  Below  the 
promontory  and  the  fort  swarms  the  fish- 
market  with  crowds  of  fishermen  and  sail- 
ors in  their  sea-going  rig,  and  there  the  little 
vessels  lie  making  ready  and  mending  nets 
and  sails.  There  is  a  great  excitement  at 
St.  Ives. 

I  pass  from  the  market-place,  but  it  is  not 
that  one,  but  another,  and  the  fishermen 
have  changed  to  market-women  in  high 
Norman  caps,  and  they  are  chattering  over 
bright  heaps  of  peaches  and  grapes.  It  is 
night-fall  as  I  enter  the  dark,  solemn  cathe- 
dral; vespers  are  over,  and  all  is  empty  and 
quiet.  One  priest  is  gliding  about,  saying 
mass  at  a  distant  altar,  whose  candles  shed 
long  shadows  across  the  pillared  aisles. 
The  last  faint  rays  of  twilight  glimmer 
through  the  rose  window, — not  a  sound 
breaks  the  stillness.  I  cannot  but  kneel 
there,  and  pray  for  the  distant  and  the  dear. 
Thank  God,  I  can  do  that  anywhere, — in 
cathedral  or  forest  aisle. 

How  did  I  come  to  be  upon  this  lofty 
mountain  in  Switzerland  ?  The  cathedral 
was  lonely  and  still,  but  here  is  solitude  in- 
expressible ;  depths  of  stillness,  heights  of 
quiet  and  calm,  as  on  a  mount  of  Trans- 
figuration. A  girl  lies  near  me  asleep  upon 
the  short,  flowery  grass,  wrapped  in  a  scar- 
let cloak.  Eight  grand  glaciers,  not  far 
away,  pour  their  icy  streams  into  one,  so 
vast,  so  pure,  that  words  cannot  express  its 
fiery  glow,  its  penciled  shadows,  its  spark- 
ling pinnacles,  its  green  depths.  One  of 
them  seems  to  stop  suddenly,  a  frozen  Ni- 
agara ;  the  rest,  in  exquisite  grace,  slope  and 
wave  and  splinter  into  the  lovely  manifold 
forms  that  ice  alone  has  learned  to  seek. 
Beyond  are  the  beautiful,  the  terrible  mount- 
ains, the  snow-peaks  gleaming  against  the 
blue,  where  clouds  and  glory  flying  across, 
now  shroud  and  now  reveal,  and  make 
every  moment  splendid  with  a  new  crea- 
tion. There  they  stand,  Monte  Rosa,  the 
Twins,  Lyskamm,  and  the  rest  of  those 
great,  still  forms,  that  hardly  seem  to  belong 
to  this  world.  To  the  right,  the  weird  and 
witchlike  Matterhorn,  strangest  and  most 
uncanny  of  mountains,  plays  hide  and  seek 
through  the  hooded  mists,  and  seems  so 
near  that  one  might  touch  it.  Near  by  a 
lakelet  glitters,  and  nearer  a  patch  of  pure 
snow,  and  all  around  the  short  grass  is 
covered  with  the  tiny,  brilliant,  alpine  flow- 
ers. Never  are  such  colors  seen  elsewhere, 


432 


LA   SONNAMBULA. 


nor  can  our  fields  and  gardens  show  such 
intensity  of  pink  and  blue,  of  crimson  and 
gold.  They  glow  and  glisten  like  metals 
and  gems,  the  true  jewels  of  the  mountain- 
tops,  and  show  such  hues  in  the  pure  air 
and  light  as  others  alone  display  under  the 
rays  of  the  setting  sun,  while  each  tiny 
creature  is  as  perfect  as  if  it  were  the  only 
one  in  the  world,  the  specimen  upon  which 
all  the  art  of  Nature,  all  the  love  of  God 
had  been  lavished.  To  be  thus  alone  upon 
the  heights  is  most  solemn  and  sweet,  for 
one  seems  to  be  in  the  secret,  and  to  see 
that  He  hath  done  all  things  well. 

One  figure  moves  slowly  about  in  the  dis- 
tance (he  must  be  a  mile  away,  though  he 
looks  so  near),  and  taps  the  rocks  with  a 
hammer,  then  disappears  over  a  hillock. 
Perhaps  it  is  Mr.  Tyndall  himself!  Cow- 
bells tinkle  below,  and  now  the  soft  gray 
creatures  come  slowly  along,  followed  by  a 
cowherd,  who  stops  to  talk  with  our  guide. 
He  is  a  ragged  fellow,  rustic  and  simple, 
with  stockings  inconceivably  coarse.  The 
girl  awakes,  no  longer  tired,  and  we  share 
with  these  simple  boys  our  bread  and  wine. 
They  dilute  it  with  water, — the  thin,  sour 
liquid, — to  make  it  go  farther,  and  enjoy  it 
highly.  Then  the  boy  milks  a  cow,  and 
gives  us  a  drink,  while  the  gentle,  large- 
eyed  animals  gaze  on  us  with  curiosity.  He 
joes  off,  calling,  Bio  !  bio !  bio ! 

"  What  does  that  mean  ?  " 

"  It  is  a  country  word  to  call  the  cows," 
says  our  guide. 

Quick  as  lightning  I  have  seen  and  felt 
all  these  details,  and  now  the  scene  changes 
to  a  narrow,  cool  cleft  in  a  rocky  coast  of 
Massachusetts.  Beyond,  at  the  end  of  the 
long  aisle,  the  sea  shines  in  with  living 
green,  crossed  with  purple  shadows  from 
the  flying  clouds.  The  tide  beats  slowly  to 
and  fro,  with  a  gentle  plash  upon  the  peb- 
bly bottom,  and  dashes  louder  upon  the 
rocks  without,  and  the  gulls  rise  and  fall 
upon  the  waves,  and  whistle  their  strange, 
wild  call,  as  they  fly  across  the  opening  with 
white  flapping  wings.  The  girl  in  the  red 
cloak  is  here,  too,  and  we  are  reading 
Spenser, — for  what  else  could  we  be  reading 
then  and  there  ? — of  the  fair  garden  of 
Adonis,  and  of  the  birth  of  Belphcebe,  and 
Amoret,  and  yet — 


I  stand  at  sunrise  on  the  highest  point  of 
the  most  wonderful  cathedral  of  the  world 
and  see  hosts  of  snowy  statues  shining  with 
the  same  rosy,  alpine  glow  that  is  lighting 
the  snow  mountains  upon  the  horizon.  Sud- 
denly, a  shower  glitters  around  us  that 
quickly  passing  away,  leaves  across  Montt 
Rosa  a  divine  rainbow,  glory  upon  glory 
light  upon  light.  The  rich  plains,  the  lakes 
the  city  spread  out  below  us,  are  all  variousl) 
beautiful;  but  I  can  look  at  nothing  bu 
the  mountain  and  the  bow,  for  such  a  visior 
is  seldom  vouchsafed  to  us  here. 

The  great  roof  and  its  silent  population  i; 
gone,  and,  from  the  brow  of  Overlook,  I  se< 
lovely  valleys  spread  out  as  on  a  map,  anc 
the  Hudson  winds  through  them,  gleaming 
On  all  sides  the  mountains  rise  and  inter 
lock  together,  shining  in  all  the  softest  shade: 
of  blue,  like  flowers. — campanula,  forget-me 
not,  violet,  and  periwinkle.  On  one  side  ol 
the  great  glen  in  front  the  noonday  pours 
and  deep  shadow  lies  on  the  other ;  whit< 
villages  gleam  in  winding  vales ;  there  is  nc 
fairer  view  in  all  the  land. 

Ah !  what  a  change !  In  Seven  Dials,  ir 
the  heart  of  London,  I  am  surrounded  bj 
the  stolid,  dull  faces  of  the  poor,  that  mak< 
my  heart  sick  with  their  utter  vacuity  anc 
ignorant  patience ;  and  yet,  is  it  not  in  ou: 
own  city  of  New  York  that  I  am,  among  th< 
eager  faces  of  these  sharp,  ragged  street 
children,  crowding  round  me  from  thei; 
school  benches  to  ask  for  flowers?  Alas 
how  little  do  they  know  of  flowers!  Bu 
all  things  seem  to  be  waving  and  changing 
before  my  eyes.  We  land  upon  St.  Michael'; 
Mount,  under  the  fine  old  castle,  and  th< 
devil  whispers  to  the  boatman,  "  Take,  ol 
boatman,  thrice  thy  fee,"  and  he  does  i 
willingly,  for  we  are  green.  And  Hilda'; 
tower  stands  at  the  head  of  the  narrow 
Roman  street,  but  some  one  calls  it  th< 
Monkey's  tower,  and  the  castle  of  Heidel- 
berg looks  down  upon  the  quaint  street; 
and  houses  of  Nuremberg,  and  Oxford's 
fairest  colleges,  and — where  am  I  ?  I  have 
not  been  asleep  !  "  strange  countries  foi 
to  see!"  I  have  only  been  thinking  2 
little,  and  trying  to  read  here,  under  the 
pine-tree,  and  swinging,  swinging,  swing — 
No !  I  am  not  going  to  sleep  again !  ] 
am  NOT ! 


THE  DOMINION  OF  CANADA. 


433 


THE   DOMINION   OF   CANADA.     III. 

THE    GREAT   NORTH-WEST. 


A    SNOW-STORM     IN    THE    MATAPEDIAC    VALLEY. 


IN  1867,  the  old  British  North  American 
Provinces  became  confederated  into  a 
Dominion — whatever  that  word  may  mean. 
Previously  neither  Upper  nor  Lower  Canada 
had  access  to  the  sea  during  winter,  except 
through  the  United  States.  Then  they 
got  a  frontage  on  the  Atlantic,  with  the  har- 
bors of  St.  John,  Halifax  and  a  few  score 
more,  and  a  maritime  element  in  virtue  of 
which  the  Dominion  takes  rank  as  the  fifth 


maritime  power  in  the  world.  True,  the 
connection  between  the  Provinces  on  the 
sea  and  the  inland  Provinces  is  by  rather 
a  roundabout  and  rocky  strip  of  country. 
"  Union  is  strength,"  urged  the  advocates  of 
confederation ;  "  for  example,  look  at  sepa- 
rate sticks  bound  into  a  fagot."  "Very 
good,"  was  the  answer,  "  but  will  the  argu- 
ment hold  if  you  tie  a  number  of  fishing- 
rods  together  by  their  ends  ?  "  The  State 


VOL.  XX.— 29. 


JUNCTION    OF    MATAPEDIAC     AND    RESTIGOUCHE    RIVERS. 


434 


THE  DOMINION  OF  CANADA. 


of  Maine  runs  up  like  a  huge  wedge,  all 
but  splitting  asunder  the  Province  of  New 
Brunswick   from    Quebec,   approaching   so 
near  the  St.  Lawrence  that,  for  a  consider- 
able distance,  the  international  boundary  is 
only  from  twenty-six  to  thirty  miles  distant 
from    the   river.      The   Inter-colonial  Rail- 
way that  now  links  the  maritime  with  the  in- 
land Provinces  has,  in  consequence,  to  sweep 
round  to  the  north  shore  of  New  Brunswick, 
and  find  its  way  to  Quebec  by  the  Resti- 
gouche  and  the  gorges  of  the  Matapediac. 
It's  an  ill  wind  that  blows  nobody  good,  and 
this  almost  semi- circular  sweep  of  the  railway 
has  proved  convenient  for  the   gentlemen 
who  whip  the  Matapediac  in  the  salmon  sea- 
son.    The  Matapediac  and  Cascapedia  are 
magnificent  rivers  for  tourists  and  fishermen. 
Their   pools,   deep,   cool   and   clear,  lying 
under  the  shadows  of  enfolding  mountains, 
ravish  the  sportsman's  heart.     And,  if  you 
are  un-British  enough  not  to  think  killing 
some  of  God's  beautiful  creatures  the  great- 
est delight  possible  to  man,  it  may  be  enjoy- 
ment sufficient  to  wander  over  the  hills,  or  by 
the  river  banks  the  long  summer  day,  and 
"  no   think  lang "  as,  from  the  shore  or  a 
canoe,  you  watch  the  great  thumping  forty- 
pounders  taking  their  ease  at  the  bottom  of 
the  pools,  scarcely  deigning  to  move  when  you 
disturb  them,  or  only  flashing  for  a  moment 
in  and  out  among  their  fellows.    Accessibility 
to  the  best  sporting  grounds   is,   however, 
rather  a  slim  financial  return  to  the  Domin- 
ion for  two  hundred  miles  of  additional  rail- 
way, as  the  Minister  of  Railways  has  found 
out  by  this  time. 

In  spite  of  the  narrowness  of  the  ribbon 
of  land  by  which  Central  Canada  connects 
with  the  Atlantic,  Upper  Canadians  hailed 
with  rapture  the  confederation  that  gave 
them  an  ocean  front.  The  creation  of  the 
new  Dominion  was  accompanied  with  an 
uprising  of  national  sentiment,  instructive 
as  showing  that  the  colonists  felt  that  they 
were  getting  out  of  the  merely  colonial 
position.  "  Canada  first  "  societies  sprang 
into  existence  all  over  the  west.  Though 
these  could  not  last,  for  they  had  no  defi- 
nite political  aim  or  work,  and  mere  "  testi- 
fying "  is  apt  to  become  monotonous,  their 
formation  revealed  the  deepest  sentiments 
of  young  Canadians.  Canada  had  got  to 
the  Atlantic  on  one  side.  Every  one  felt 
that  the  next  step  must  be  to  the  Pacific  on 
the  other  side.  On  a  small  map  that  next 
step  did  not  appear  so  very  ambitious,  but 
— as  Lord  Salisbury  advised  with  reference 
to  Asia — take  a  big  map,  and  look  at  the 


size  of  the  old  Provinces  of  Canada  com- 
pared with  the  size  of  the  rest  of  British 
America,  and  you  get  some  notion  of  what 
t  involved.     It  meant  that  the  Dominion 
aimed  at  annexing  nearly  half  a  continent, 
a  region  about  eight  times  as  big  as  itself, 
and  of  which  it  knew  next  to  nothing.     If 
a  good  appetite  is  a  sign  of  health,  confeder- 
ation had  made  Canada  surprisingly  healthy. 
This  vast  and  almost  unknown  region — if  it 
belonged  to  any  one  but  the  Indians,  half- 
breeds    and    buffaloes — belonged     to    the 
Hudson's  Bay  Company  as  far  west  as  the 
summit  of  the  Rocky  Mountains.     There, 
where   the  fountains  and  streamlets  trickle 
toward  the  Pacific  instead  of  to  the  Arctic 
and  Atlantic,  begins  the  Province  of  British 
Columbia,  which  extends  over  multitudinous 
and  interlaced  snow-clad  mountains  down 
the  slope  to  the  Pacific,  and  there  reaches 
across  the  Gulf  of  Georgia  to  include  the 
island  that  last  century  was  thought  worthy 
to  bear  the  name  of  that  stout  navigator, 
Captain  Vancouver.     With  great  lightness 
of  heart,  Canada  bought  up  the  Hudson's 
Bay  Company's  rights  in  the  North-west; 
then  a  bargain  was  lightly  made  with  Brit- 
ish  Columbia,  which    induced   her  to  cast 
in  her  lot  with  the  new  Dominion.     From 
that   day  to    this,  the  question  in  Canada 
has  been,  how  shall  we  carry  out  the  bar- 
gain with    British  Columbia  ?     That  ques- 
tion has  made  and  unmade  our  ministries. 
It  lies  at  the  bottom  of  our  tariff  questions, 
and  throws  its  shadow  over  our  future.      It 
is  our  Gordian  knot,  and  the  harder  we  try 
to  unloose  or  cut  it,  the  worse  it  gets.     The 
fact  is,  that  the  bargain  turned  out  to  be  im- 
possible of  fulfillment.     One  of  its  terms — 
the  principal  term — was  that  Canada  should 
construct  a  railway  in  ten  years  from  her 
existing  railways  to  the  Pacific.    Though  the 
terms  were  afterward  modified  and  the  time 
extended,  the  bargain  is  still  so  completely 
beyond  our  means  that,  if  pressed,  there  can 
be  only  the  one  issue  of  Dominion  bank- 
ruptcy.    It   might    be   supposed   that    the 
British  Columbians,   being  partners  in    the 
confederacy,  would  dislike  such  a  fate   as 
much  as  other  Canadians.     "  For,"  as  one 
of  their  own  commissioners  put  it,  "not  even 
Shylock  would  have  demanded  his  pound 
of  flesh  if  it  had  to  be  cut  from  his   own 
body."     But   no;    they,  or  the   gentlemen 
who  undertake  to  represent  them,  are  fear- 
less.     Their   cry   is,   let  justice   be   done, 
though    the   heavens   should   fall;    and   to 
them  justice  means  immediate  expenditures 
of  money  within  their  own  borders,  and  the 


THE  DOMINION  OF  CANADA. 


435 


purchase  by  Government  of  lands  secured 
by  gentlemen  with  a  view  to  the  railway 
.terminus  and  track.  Canada  is  doing  her 
best  to  cairry  out  the  spirit  of  the  bargain. 
From  one  point  of  view,  she  is  doing  more 
than  she  undertook.  The  truth  is.  that 
the  original  covenant  contained  mutually 
inconsistent  clauses.  The  railway  was  to  be 
commenced  at  both  ends  in  two  and  to  be 
completed  in  ten  years,  but  our  taxation 
was  not  to  be  increased  in  order  to  build  it. 
In  other  words,  we  undertook  to  learn  to 
swim,  and  undertook,  at  the  same  time,  not 
to  go  into  the  water.  The  land-holders  and 
their  friends  on  the  Pacific  resolutely  look 
only  at  the  first  part  of  the  covenant ;  and 
what  makes  the  situation  irresistibly  com- 
ical is  that  these  same  gentlemen  urge  the 
Dominion  Parliament  to  exclude  Chinamen 


Ottawa  River  and  the  plains  of  the  North- 
west; that  nobody  lived  in  the  North-west; 
and,  worst  of  all,  that  no  one  knew 
anything  to  speak  of  about  the  mountain- 
ranges  and  the  passes  which  intervened 
between  the  plains  and  the  Pacific,  or  about 
the  harbors  supposed  to  be  at  the  head  of 
every  fjord  on  the  Pacific  coast.  The 
mistake  Canada  made  was  in  being  too 
sanguine  in  her  calculations ;  but  remem- 
ber, his  Lordship  significantly  added  to 
the  British  Columbians,  "  the  blame  for 
concluding  a  bargain  impossible  of  fulfill- 
ment cannot  be  confined  to  only  one  of 
the  parties  to  it.  The  mountains  which 
have  proved  our  stumbling-block  Avere  your 
own  mountains,  and  within  your  own  ter- 
ritory, and  it  is  impossible  to  forget  that 
yourselves  are  by  no  means  without  responsi- 


VALLEY    OF     THE    MATAPEDIAC. 


from  British  Columbia,  though  without  Chi- 
nese labor  the  railway  could  not  be  built 
through  the  Cascades  and  Rocky  Mountains 
Adoring  this  century  or  the  next.  Inquiring 
minds  may  ask:  How  came  Canadian 
public  men  to  pledge  themselves  so  lightly 
to  a  physical  and  financial  impossibility  ? 
Lord  Dufferin  made  answer  in  British 
Columbia  somewhat  as  follows :  At  the 
time,  the  finances  of  Canada  were  flour- 
ishing, her  revenue  was  expanding,  and 
the  discovery  of  her  great  North-west  had 
inflamed  her  imagination.  It  had  come  to 
be  considered  that  a  railway  could  be  flung 
across  the  Rocky  Mountains  as  readily  as 
across  a  hay-field.  Difficulties  were  over- 
looked. Men  apparently  forgot  that  a 
boiled-up-sea  of  rugged  Laurentian  rocks 
extended  for  a  thousand  miles  between  the 


bility  for  the  miscarriage  of  the  time  terms  of 
the  compact."  The  force  of  every  part  of 
this  answer  is  undoubted,  but  convincing 
reasons  are  poor  substitutes  for  fat  contracts, 
and  therefore  it  is  not  to  be  wondered  at  that 
some  of  the  British  Columbians  loudly 
threaten  secession. 

We  are  committed  to  a  Canada  Pacific 
Railway.  Our  various  provinces  must  be 
bound  together  by  iron.  No  one  wants  to 
escape  from  the  bond,  but  we  object  to  com- 
mitting suicide  in  attempting  the  impossible. 
Authorities  are  not  clear  as  to  the  best  ter- 
minus. The  engineers  are  not  clear  as  to  the 
best  passes,  though  the  mountains  have  been 
crowded  with  their  mule-trains  and  theodo- 
lites for  years.  But  the  greatest  difficulty  is 
in  the  background.  If  our  North-west,  the 
country  north  of  our  boundary  line,  between 


436 


THE  DOMINION  OF  CANADA. 


the  ninety-fifth  and  the  hundred  and  fifteenth 
degrees  of  longitude,  is  not  capable  of  sus- 
taining a  large  population  and  is  not  to  be 
peopled  speedily,  it  would  be  a  thousand 
times  better  to  let  the  mountain  and  island 
Province  on  the  Pacific  depart  in  peace  and 
at  once.  On  the  fitness  of  the  North-west 
on  this  side  of  the  Rocky  Mountains  for  be- 
ing the  abode  of  millions  depends  our  future. 
The  experiment  is  now  being  tried,  suc- 
cessive governments  doing  their  utmost,  and 
the  people  seconding  their  efforts  with  a 
heartiness  inexplicable  to  those  who  do  not 
understand  the  power  of  national  sentiment. 
Only  gamblers,  however,  risk  everything  on 
an  untried  experiment,  and  the  Dominion 
cannot  afford  to  stake  its  existence  even  on 
the  North-west.  It  is  the  key  to  the  posi- 
tion, and  there  must  be  no  doubt  that  it  can 
open  the  lock. 

In  the  two  preceding  articles  I  sketched 
the  military,  social  and  political  history  of 
the  older  Provinces  of  Canada.  This  article 
deals  with  new  Canada,  those  vast  regions 
to  the  north-west  that  have  no  history. 
Long  inaccessible  to  all  but  the  hardy  ex- 
plorers who  pushed  into  its  virgin  solitudes 
to  hunt  buffalo  and  trap  beaver,  it  is  now 
thrown  wide  open.  My  only  qualification 
for  attempting  a  description  is  that  seven 
years  ago  I  traveled  across  it,  getting  a  bird's- 
eye  view  from  the  saddle  that  enables  me  to 
read  intelligently  the  writings  of  others. 

Captain  Butler  gave  the  name  of  "  The 
Great  Lone  Land "  to  the  country  that 
drains  by  the  Red  and  Saskatchewan  rivers 
into  Lake  Winnipeg,  and  thence  by  the 
Nelson  River  into  Hudson's  Bay,  and  event- 
ually into  the  Atlantic.  Away  to  the  farther 
north-west  again  is  another  region  equally 
vast,  draining  by  the  Peace  and  Mackenzie 
rivers  into  the  Arctic  Ocean,  that  he  calls 
"  The  Wild  North  Land."  Those  two  re- 
gions constitute  our  North-west.  For  200 
years  they  were  popularly  known  in  England 
as  "  Rupert's  Land,"  from  that  Prince  Ru- 
pert of  the  Rhine  who  dashed  his  fiery  Cava- 
liers into  useless  spray  on  Cromwell's  Iron- 
sides. To  him,  and  a  company  of  associates 
called  "  The  Governor  and  Company  of 
Adventurers  of  England  trading  into  Hud- 
son's Bay,"  Charles  II.  gave  a  charter  that 
constituted  them  proprietors  of  territories  of 
wonderfully  mis-defined  extent,  on  condition 
that  they  paid  to  the  King  "  two  elks  and  two 
black  beavers,  whensoever  and  as  often  as 
we,  our  heirs  and  successors,  shall  happen  to 
enter  into  the  said  countries,  territories  and 
regions  hereby  granted."  The  King  of  Eng- 


land claimed  those  wildernesses,  though  un- 
able to  define  their  boundaries,  on  the 
grounds  that  Cabot,  Grand  Pilot  to  King 
Henry  VII.,  first  discovered  Hudson's 
Bay ;  that  Martin  Frobisher  and  Cap- 
tain Davis  made  voyages  there;  and  that 
Henry  Hudson  "  took  possession  of  them  in 
the  name  of  the  King  of  England,  traded 
with  the  salvages,  and  gave  English  names" 
to  coasts  and  bays  and  headlands  nameless 
before.  All  those  famous  old-world  sailors 
made  these  discoveries  while  seeking  for  a 
north-west  passage  to  China  and  Cathay. 
But  while  the  King  of  England  claimed  the 
North-west  on  such  grounds,  the  King  of 
France  claimed  the  whole  of  North  America, 
from  the  St,  Lawrence  to  the  Pole,  by  reason 
of  the  actual  possession  of  Canada.  Look- 
ing on  the  English  as  intruders,  even  when 
they  confined  themselves  to  the  coast  line 
of  Hudson's  Bay,  French  Canadians  fell 
upon  them,  and  broke  up  the  forts  and 
factories  that  the  company  had  established 
for  trading  with  the  Indians.  These  sta- 
tions were,  indeed,  restored  to  Britain  at  the 
Peace  of  Utrecht.  The  company  re-occu- 
pied them,  but  did  not  penetrate  far  into  the 
interior.  They  hung  about  the  Albany, 
Nelson  and  Churchill  rivers  on  the  frozen 
shores  of  James  and  Hudson's  Bays.  The 
discoverers  of  the  great  lone  land  watered 
by  the  Red  and  Saskatchewan  rivers  were 
not  the  agents  of  the  company,  but  the 
gallant  Verendryes,  unaided  by  country  or 
company.  Peter  Gaultier  de  Varenne,  Sieur 
de  la  Verendrye,  is  one  of  those  heroic 
figures  that  well  deserve  to  be  rescued  from 
obscurity  and  hung  up  in  our  national  gal- 
lery. He  fought  at  Malplaquet,  and,  ac- 
cording to  the  testimony  of  the  Marshal  de 
Contades,  among  comrades  "  who  them- 
selves did  wonders,"  his  valor  shone  con- 
spicuously. Left  for  dead  on  the  field 
where  France  suffered  a  glorious  defeat,  he 
recovered,  and  his  lieutenancy  was  given 
him  as  a  reward  for  bravery.  Allured,  like 
other  cadets  of  noble  families,  by  the  distant 
enchantments  of  au  unexplored  continent, 
he  found  his  way  out  to  Canada.  While 
in  command  of  a  trading  post  on  the  north 
of  Lake  Superior,  he  hears  from  Indians  of 
a  river  that  flowed  to  the  west.  He  leaps 
to  the  conclusion  that  this  must  be  the  long- 
desired  Riviere  du  Couchant  that  would  lead 
the  explorer  to  that  Grand  Ocean  of  the 
West  on  the  other  side  of  which  was  China. 
He  laid  the  matter  before  the  Governor, 
but  France,  bleeding  at  every  pore  after  her 
long  wars  on  the  Rhine  and  the  Low 


THE  DOMINION  OF  CANADA. 


437 


MANITOBA    DOG    TRAIN. — DOWN    BRAKES  ! 


Countries,  could  give  no  money,  even  to 
further  an  enterprise  that  promised  to  lift 
the  veil  from  the  ends  of  the  earth.  Ve- 
rendrye  thereupon  girded  himself  for  the 
glorious  undertaking.  He  had  four  sons 
and  a  nephew  inspired  with  his  own  spirit. 
They  built  forts  on  Rainy  Lake,  and  the 
Lake  of  the  Woods — the  beautiful  sheet  of 
water  memorable  as  the  starting-point  for  a 
boundary  line  in  every  treaty  between  Brit- 
ain and  the  States,  and  which  divides  the 
thousand  miles  of  rugged  Laurentian  rocks 
to  the  east  from  the  thousand  miles  of  fertile 
alluvial  that  extends  westerly  to  the  Rocky 
Mountains.  From  this  point  they  extended 
their  forts  along  the  Winnipeg,  Red  and 
Assineboine  rivers,  and  traded  all  over 
the  Winnipeg  basin.  What  they  gained 
by  trading  they  devoted  to  further  explora- 
tions. To  extend  the  dominion  and  com- 
merce of  France  to  the  Grand  Ocean  was 
their  aim.  Inspired  by  the  heroic  lieutenant 
who,  a  quarter  of  a  century  before,  had  been 
left  on  the  terrible  fiel$  of  Malplaquet 
covered  with  nine  wounds,  they  patiently 
endured  privations  and  dared  dangers  that 
few  can  imagine  except  those  who  know 
something  of  the  climate  and  the  distances 
of  the  North-west.  All  five  were  heroes,  and 
they  obeyed  the  greatest  hero.  He  was 


their  brain  and  soul.  He  taught  them  how 
to  prepare  maps,  when  to  march,  and  what 
to  do  in  emergencies.  He  led  the  advance 
and  secured  their  base;  made  friends  with 
powerful  and  warlike  Indian  tribes,  opened 
trails,  stimulated  the  zeal  of  faint-hearted 
engages,  and  superintended  the  whole  enter- 
prise. One  son  with  his  party  of  twenty- 
one  men,  including  the  inevitable  Jesuit,  was 
massacred  by  the  Sioux  on  an  island  of  the 
Lake  of  the  Woods.  At  the  same  time  that 
the  news  of  this  disaster  reached  the  father, 
he  heard  also  of  the  death  of  the  nephew 
who  had  been  his  right  hand  from  the  be- 
ginning. But  neither  delays  nor  disasters 
could  break  the  spirit  of  Verendrye.  He 
sent  his  remaining  sons  on  new  and  more 
adventurous  expeditions.  As  they  said,  "He 
marched  and  made  us  march  in  such  a 
way  that  we  should  have  reached  our  goal, 
wherever  it  might  be  found,  had  we  been 
better  aided."  They  penetrated  south- 
westerly to  the  Upper  Missouri  and  its 
tributaries,  reaching  the  Mandan  Indians 
whom  Catlin  has  made  so  familiar  to  us; 
and  on  a  subsequent  expedition  the  Cheva- 
lier and  his  brother,  accompanied  by  two 
other  Frenchmen,  pushed  on  by  the  Yellow- 
stone to  the  Rocky  Mountains,  being  the 
first  to  discover  the  country  that  Lewis  and 


THE  DOMINION  OF  CANADA. 


Clark,  in  the  beginning  of  the  nineteenth 
century,  with  a  numerous  troop  in  the 
pay  of  the  United  States  Government  (and 
Fremont  afterward),  became  celebrated  all 
over  America  for  rediscovering.  They  actu- 
ally saw  rising  in  the  far  distance  the  long, 
silver-tipped  range  of  the  Rocky  Mountains, 
from  the  tops  of  which  they  believed  the 
western  sea  could  be  beheld  ;  but,  just  as 
they  felt  success  within  their  grasp,  their 
Indian  allies  forced  them  to  return.  Still 
actuated  by  the  hope  of  solving  the  problem 
of  this  long-desired  western  sea,  they  pene- 
trated north-westerly  to  the  Saskatchewan 
and  the  Athabasca. 

While  Verendrye  and  his  sons  were  wear- 
ing their  lives  out  in  far  distant  wilder- 
nesses for  the  glory  of  the  King  and  the 
welfare  of  the  colony,  enemies  at  Quebec 
ceased  not  to  insinuate  that  their  sole  aim 
was  to  make  a  great  fortune  from  the 
beaver  trade,  and  scouted  their  discoveries 
as  travelers'  tales.  Wearied  with  sacrificing 
his  own  fortune  and  his  children's  lives, 
pressed  by  sickness  and  creditors,  he  gave 
up  the  contest,  and,  returning,  resigned  his 
charge  into  the  hands  of  the  Governor. 
His  poverty,  and  the  subsequent  failures  of 
others  who  tried  to  bend  his  bow,  silenced 
his  enemies.  The  ministry  at  length  became 
convinced  that  "  discoveries  cause  greater 
expenses,  and  expose  to  greater  fatigues 
and  greater  dangers,  than  do  open  wars  " ; 
but  as  they  began  to  give  scant  measures 
of  justice  to  the  old  hero,  and  as  he  began 
to  prepare  for  the  renewal  of  the  enterprise 
on  which  his  heart  was  set,  death  came  and 
took  from  New  France  the  last  of  her  great 
explorers,  one  worthy  to  rank  with  Cham- 
plain  and  La  Salle.  Eleven  years  after  his 
death,  Quebec  ceased  to  belong  to  France. 
The  transfer  of  Canada  to  Britain  struck  a 
severe  blow  at  the  trade  of  the  North-west. 
For  a  time  those  far  distant  plains  were 
forgotten.  Many  of  the  old  French  com- 
mandants retired  from  their  posts.  Adven- 
turous coureurs  des  bois  took  the  place  of 
the  regular  organization  that  Verendrye 
had  established.  But  the  trade  was  too 
tempting  to  be  left  long  in  such  hands. 
The  North-west  Company,  consisting  of 
Canadian  merchants  with  their  head-quar- 
ters in  Montreal,  took  it  up,  and  prosecuted 
both  trade  and  discovery  with  astonishing 
vigor.  Their  voyageurs  and  surveyors 
spread  ^themselves  over  the  northern  half 
of  the  Continent,  from  Minnesota  to  Oregon, 
from  Lake  Superior  to  the  two  Saskatche- 
wans,  and  thence  north  to  the  Arctic  and 


north-west  to  Alaska.  The  names  ol 
Alexander  Henry,  David  Thompson  am 
Sir  Alexander  Mackenzie  still  live  in  th< 
rivers,  passes  and  posts  of  the  North-west 
and  their  journals  show  that  they  wer< 
worthy  successors  of  the  Verendryes.  Dur 
ing  all  this  time,  the  Hudson's  Bay  Compan; 
had  confined  their  operations  pretty  mucl 
to  their  original  field  around  the  frozen  coast 
but  the  success  of  the  new  company  forcec 
them  to  push  into  the  interior.  The; 
claimed  the  whole  North-west  as  theirs 
under  the  charter  given  to  Prince  Rupert 
and  denounced  the  Canadian  compan; 
as  poachers.  For  years,  competition  wa 
carried  on  between  the  two  companies,  t( 
the  apparent  benefit  but  real  loss  of  the  re( 
man.  Rival  traders  sought  him  out  by  laki 
and  river  side ;  planted  posts  to  suit  his  con 
venience ;  coaxed  and  bribed  or  bullied  hin 
not  to  take  his  peltries  to  the  oppositioi 
shop ;  gave  him  his  own  price  for  them 
and,  what  he  liked  still  better,  paid  the  pric< 
in  rum.  The  companies  armed  their  serv 
ants  and  voyageurs,  and  many  a  time  tin 
quarrel  was  fought  out  in  the  old-fashione( 
way,  in  remote  wildernesses,  where  n< 
courts  could  interfere.  The  contest  mean 
eventual  destruction  to  the  Indians  and  thi 
companies,  and  so,  in  1821,  the  rivals  wiseb 
agreed  to  shake  hands  and  amalgamati 
into  the  present  Hudson's  Bay  Company.  A 
the  period  of  coalition  the  British  company 
had  thirty-six  stations  and  the  Canadiai 
had  ninety-seven — a  pretty  good  illustratioi 
of  the  energy  with  which  the  latter  ha( 
pushed  business.  After  the  amalgamation 
the  Hudson's  Bay  Company  became  th< 
sole  representative  of  civilization  and  Chris 
tianity  over  nearly  half  a  continent,  and  sol< 
monarch,  too.  Whether  judged  as  a  mercan 
tile  company  or  a  semi-sovereign  power,  i 
challenges  our  admiration  as  much  as  the  Eas 
Indian,  or  any  other  of  those  great  proprie 
tary  companies  to  which  Britain  formerly 
owed  the  extension  of  her  commerce  anc 
dominion.  It  paid  good  dividends  to  th< 
shareholders,  and  proved  that  the  bes 
way  of  doing  so  in  the  long  run  was  bj 
benefiting  the  Indians.  The  discipline  anc 
etiquette  maintained  among  the  official! 
were  of  the  strictest  kind,  and  an  esprit  d 
corps  existed  between  its  three  thousanc 
commissioned  and  non-commissioned  offi 
cers,  voyageurs  and  servants  such  as  yoi 
find  only  in  the  army,  or  in  connection  with  ar 
ancient  and  honorable  service.  They  treatec 
Indians — even  Indian  prejudices — with  re 
spect,  and  this  from  policy  as  much  as  fron 


THE  DOMINION  OF  CANADA. 


439 


common  justice.  I  have  yet  to  see  the  man — 
red-skin,  yellow-skin,  black-skin, or  white-skin 
— whom  it  is  safe  to  treat  with  injustice  or  con- 
tempt. Besides,  every  Indian  in  the  savage 
state  has  the  dignity  and  self-respect  of  a 
gentleman,  almost  as  much  so  as  the  Scottish 
Highlander.  There  will  be  fewer  Indian 
wars  and  atrocities  when  frontier-men  and 
Government  agents  have  imagination  if  not 
Christianity  sufficient  to  understand  this. 

The  Hudson's  Bay  Company  did  well;  but 
the  fertile  plains  along  the  Red  River  and 
the  two  Saskatchewans  could  not  be  kept  for- 
ever as  a  preserve  for  fur-bearing  animals. 
The  company  allowed  its  agents  to  say 
little  or  nothing  about  the  pastoral  and 
agricultural  capabilities  of  the  country.  The 
facts  about  remote  stations  that  chiefly 
circulated — such  as  mercury  remaining  solid 
for  months,  trees  so  ice-bound  to  the  heart 
that  the  woodman's  axe  splintered  on  them 
like  glass,  the  ground  frozen  so  deep  that 
the  warmest  summer  thawed  only  the  sur- 
face— the  popular  mind  applied  to  the  whole 
of  the  North-west.  In  1857,  a  Parliamentary 
Committee  examined  the  subject,  but  found 
it  difficult  to  get  at  all  the  facts.  Among 
other  witnesses,  Sir  George  Simpson,  the 
Governor  of  the  company,  gave  unfavorable 
evidence  about  the  country.  A  member  of 
the  committee,  who  had  dipped  into  current 
literature,  called  his  attention  to  the  fact 
that  he  had  described  Rainy  River  in  a  very 
different  strain  "  in  his  very  interesting  work 
entitled  '  A  Journey  around  the  World.'  " 
Sir  George  appearing  somewhat  confused, 
a  friendly  member  interposed  with,  "  It  is 
too  glowing  a  description,  you  think  ? " 
"  Exactly  so,"  answered  Sir  George,  no 
doubt  sincerely  regretting  that  he  had  ever 
allowed  himself  to  write  a  book.  In  1869, 
after  long  negotiations,  Canada  bought  up 
the  company's  territorial  rights  for  a  sum  of 
money,  and  perquisites  and  considerations 
that  proved  that  the  company  had  not  for- 
gotten how  to  trade.  As  a  monopoly  and 
semi-sovereign  power  it  then  ceased  to  exist, 
though  for  many  a  day  to  come  it  will  be 
a  great  commercial  and  political  power  in 
the  North-west. 

When  the  Dominion  acquired  the  country, 
the  only  district  with  a  population  other 
than  Indian  was  around  Fort  Garry,  at  the 
confluence  of  the  Red  and  Assineboine 
rivers.  On  these  rivers  some  ten  thousand 
half-breeds,  English,  Scotch  and  French, 
had  settled,  a  hardy,  horse-riding,  adven- 
ture-loving race,  who  maintained  them- 
selves by  a  little  farming  and  a  good  deal  of 


buffalo-hunting.  These  swarthy  sons  of  the 
soil  felt  that  the  country  was  theirs  by  right 
of  possession.  The  Indians  believed  that 
they  had  a  prior  claim.  Recent  immigrants 
from  Ontario  acted  as  if  it  was  theirs. 
When  the  company,  after  a  bargain  made 
in  London,  transferred  it  to  Canada,  the 
bois-brules  broke  out  into  rebellion  and  mur- 
dered a  man.  On  the  appearance  of  Col- 
onel— now  Sir  Garnet — Wolseley,  with  a  body 
of  regulars  and  Canadian  militia,  the  rebellion 
collapsed.  The  partially  inhabited  district 
— a  mere  corner  at  the  door  of  the  North- 
west, one  hundred  and  thirty-five  miles  long 
by  one  hundred  and  five  broad — was  formed 
into  the  Province  of  Manitoba  with  all  the 
elaborate  apparatus  of  Parliamentary  insti- 
tutions; a  Governor  with  $9000  a  year, 
a  Chief  Justice,  nearly  equal  in  dignity 
and  salary,  local  Houses,  representation 
at  Ottawa,  and  all  the  rest  of  it,  regardless 
of  expense.  We  Canadians  are  not  rich  : 
the  mass  of  us  have  to  live  very  economi- 
cally to  make  both  ends  meet ;  but  we  can 
boast  that  we  are  the  most  governed  and 
the  most  expensively  governed  people  in  the 
world.  No  wonder  that  almost  every  one 
is  a  politician,  and  aspires  to  a  position  "  in 
the  Government." 

I  have  sketched  the  history  of  the  North- 
west. The  next  question  is,  how  to  get  into 
or  out  of  it  ?  This  would  have  been  hard  to 
answer  ten  years  ago,  when  no  one  but  a 
trapper  or  well-equipped  tourist  could  have 
taken  the  road.  Now,  the  ordinary  emigrant 
with  his  household  gods  and  goods  has 
no  difficulty.  There  are  three  routes — the 
American,  the  Canadian  and  the  British. 
The  first  is  all  rail.  The  railway  has  been 
completed  through  Minnesota  to  the  bound- 
ary line,  and  thence  to  Winnipeg.  Winnipeg 
the  other  day  was  only  a  sort  of  back-yard  to 
Fort  Garry,  where  the  Hudson  Bay  factor  or 
commissioner  lived  and  reigned  in  state. 
Now,  the  glory  has  departed  from  the  com- 
pany, and  Winnipeg  is  stretching  across  the 
prairie  with  the  strides  of  a  giant.  The 
second  route  is  "  the  Dawson  road,"  from 
the  north  shore  of  Lake  Superior  to  the 
Winnipeg  basin.  This  was  the  old  route 
of  the  North-west  Company.  To  the  main 
depot  at  Fort  William,  on  Lake  Superior, 
came  its  great  canoes  from  Montreal.  At 
this  distributing  point  they  discharged 
freight,  and  loaded  with  furs  to  take  back 
to  Montreal;  while  the  merchandise  was 
transferred  to  rather  smaller  canoes,  that 
moved  into  the  interior  in  brigades  of  from 
four  to  eight.  The  height  of  land  dividing  the 


440 


THE  DOMINION  OF  CANADA. 


LOW    TIDE,    ST.    JOHN  S    HARBOR,    N.    B. 


streams  that  run  into  Lake  Superior  from 
those  running  Winnipeg-way  is  only  about 
forty  miles  north  of  Superior.  Here  a  wilder- 
ness of  interlaced  lakes  or  tarns,  in  granite 
basins  fringed  with  dark  forest,  extends  far  to 
the  north,  east  and  west.  Canoeing  westward 
on  these  lakelets  and  lacustrine  rivers,  and 
portaging  between,  we  come  to  the  Lake  of 
the  Woods.  Out  of  it  flows  the  river  Win- 
nipeg, winding  among  green  islets  and  dash- 
ing over  primeval  rocks  in  an  interminable 
series  of  rapids  and  cataracts  till  it  reaches 
Lake  Winnipeg.  The  railway  line  now 
being  constructed  along  this  route  is  414 
miles  long.  It  will  be  open  about  two  years 
hence,  at  a  cost  to  the  Dominion  of  eighteen 
millions  of  dollars,  and  will  afford  the  short- 
est and  best  line  between  the  prairie  region 
and  the  navigation  of  Lake  Superior.  The 
third  route  is  the  Nelson  River,  by  which  the 
Hudson's  Bay  Company  formerly  entered  the 
North-west.  A  recent  number  of  the  "  Nine- 
teenth Century  "  review  gives  a  rose-colored 
description  of  the  Red  River  and  Saskatch- 
ewan plain,  and  of  the  possibility  of  Britain 
being  supplied  with  cereals  by  this  ancient 
route.  For  the  last  two  hundred  years 


vessels  have  sailed  from  London  past  the 
Orkney  Islands  through  Hudson's  Straits 
to  York  Factory  or  Port  Nelson,  with 
British  goods,  returning  with  peltries. 

According  to  the  descriptions  of  those  who 
have  been  privileged  to  dwell  in  the  neigh- 
borhood for  a  few  years,  Siberia  would  be 
a  pleasant  exchange  for  York  Factory.  Mr. 
Ballantyne  describes  it  as 

"  A  monstrous  blot 
On  a  swampy  spot, 
Within  sight  of  the  frozen  sea." 

Sanguine  men  expect  it  to  rival  Montreal 
or  even  New  York  some  day,  because  it  is 
eighty  miles  nearer  Liverpool  than  New 
York  is,  and  not  Tar  from  vast  wheat  fields 
that  are  to  be.  There  may  be  "  millions 
in  it,"  but  I  am  inclined  to  think  that 
the  chances  are  not  such  as  to  warrant 
any  immediate  expenditure  of  money. 
"  Hypothetical  geography,"  says  Major 
Emory,  of  the  United  States  Frontier  Com- 
mission, "  is  pushed  sufficiently  far  in  the 
United  States."  The  remark  applies  equally 
well  to  some  British  and  Canadian  descrip- 
tions of  unknown  regions. 


THE  DOMINION  OF  CANADA. 


441 


There  is  no  difficulty,  then,  in  getting  into 
or  sending  produce  out  of  the  North-west. 
The   people   have  railway  communication, 
and   will  soon  be  in  a  position  to  choose 
between  competing  routes.     The  wrappings 
in  which  the  fair  unknown  was  long  swathed 
have  been  removed,  and  we  now  can  look 
upon  her  open  face  and  gigantic  limbs,  and 
speculate   as  to   her  probable   future  and 
influence   upon  the   Dominion.     I   entered 
the  North-west  by  the  second  or  Canadian 
route.      Coming   suddenly   in   midsummer 
upon  the  Red  River  prairie  on  this  side  of 
Fort  Garry,  I  saw  an  unbroken  floral  garden 
extending  like  the   sea   all  around  to   the 
horizon.     No  one  is  likely  to  forget  his  first 
sight  of  the  prairie  any  more  that  his  first 
sight  of  the  ocean.     My  feelings  were  prob- 
ably intensified  by  having  traveled  across  a 
rugged  granite  country,  and  by  an  uncomfort- 
able journey  the  previous  night  through  dark 
woods  under  rainy   skies.     At  any  rate,  I 
sympathized  with  the  trapper  who,  in  similar 
circumstances,  could  only  express  his  feelings 
by  exclaiming :  ';  Jack,  hold  my  horse  till  I 
get  off  and  roll ! "     An  immense  profusion 
of  prairie  roses,  and  an  apparently  endless 
variety  of  asters  and  other  compositae  thickly 
bedded  among  the  rich  green  grass,  formed 
a  carpet  rolled  out  by  Nature  from  her  looms 
richer,  fairer,  softer  than  those  of  the  Gobelins 
or  the  Indies.    We  rode  onward,  across  miles 
of  meadow,  with  intervening  marshes  full  of 
tall,  coarse  grasses.     Here  and  there,  islets 
of  aspens,  or  an   oak-covered  ridge,  or  a 
line  of  wood  betraying  the  course  of  a  hid- 
den stream  or  "  creek,"  rose  out  of  the  sea 
of  green   and    gold.      We   reveled  in  the 
beauty  of  this  new  world,  where  everything 
was  soft  and  sweet  without  a  suspicion  of 
enervating  influence;  for  the  flower-scented 
atmosphere  is  wondrously  bracing,  and  every 
plant  and  grass  looks  fresh  and  full  of  vig- 
orous life.     But  the  supreme  thought  to  the 
colonist  is  not  of  the  panorama  of  beauti- 
ful scenes  spread  out  before  him,  but  of  the 
farms  so  easily  made  and  so  easily  worked 
under  such  conditions.     No  chopping,  log- 
ging, grubbing,  rooting,  burning  and  waiting 
for  long  years  here  for  a  first  crop ;  in  with 
the  plow  at  once,  and  run  your  furrow  from 
one  end  of  your  farm  to  the  other.     Here  is 
the  country  for  steam-plows,  mowers,  horse- 
rakes,  and  every  other  labor-saving  imple- 
ment.    "This  sort  of  thing  extends  to  the 
Rocky  Mountains,"  exclaimed  an  enthusi- 
astic friend.     His  geography  was   slightly 
"  hypothetical,"  but  pardonable  because  of 
his  genuine  enthusiasm. 


HALF-BREED  NETTING   SALMON.       HELL  GATE,    FRASER   RIVER. 

It  is  scarcely  possible  to  exaggerate  the 
fertility  of  the  Red  River,  and  much  of  the 


442 


THE  DOMINION  OF  CANADA. 


Assineboine  Valley.  A  heavy  mat  of  the 
richest  loam  covers  a  tenacious  white  clay, 
which  rests  on  limestone.  Its  productive 
power  seems  exhaustless.  Year  after  year 
the  same  field  yields  wheat,  without  asking 
for  rest  or  change.  Tickling  the  soil  brings 
fair  crops,  while  care  or  skill  insures  an 
extraordinary  yield.  Of  course,  there  ar,e 
drawbacks,  and  Winnipeg,  like  every  other 
western  town,  is  filled  with  disappointed 
emigrants,  who  would  be  glad  to  get  home 
again.  There  is  not  a  State  nor  Province  on 
the  continent  in  which  this  has  not  been  the 
experience  of  thousands.  They  went  in,  and 
remained  because  they  could  not  get  out. 
At  the  best,  the  ordinary  emigrant's  lot  for  the 
first  few  years  is  a  hard  one.  No  sensible,, 
man  will  "  go  West "  who  is  fairly  well  off 
East;  and  should  he  go  to  Manitoba  he 
need  not  expect  a  fool's  paradise..  A  formi- 
dable list  of  horrors  can  be  drawn  up  at  a 
moment's  notice;  severe  winters,  ferocious 
mosquitoes,  scarcity  of  wood  and  water  in 
some  places,  destructive  summer  storms,  and, 
worst  of  all,  probable  visits  from  the  "  hop- 
per." This  last  is  the  most  dreaded  enemy. 
The  Minnesota  or  Red  River  farmer  wel- 
comes the  maddest  buffalo  bull,  and  is  not 
afraid  of  Indians ;  tolerates  the  prairie  wolf 
and  the  mosquito;  takes  precautions  against 
"  blizzards,"  and  laughs  at  frozen  mercury ; 
but  all  his  courage  leaves  him  at  the  sight  of 
a  grasshopper.  But,  notwithstanding  diffi- 
culties and  drawbacks,  the  tide  of  emigra- 
tion rolls  onward  over  the  prairie  lands. 
Overflowing  Minnesota  and  Manitoba,  it 
has  now  reached  nearly  to  the  Saskatche- 
wan. Twenty-five  years  ago  the  population 
of  Minnesota  was  somewhere  about  five 
thousand ;  now  it  must  be  mounting  up  to 
a  million.  Previous  to  1857,  enough  wheat 
was  not  raised  in  the  State  to  supply  the 
wants  of  the  few  thousand  lumbermen — 
its  first  settlers.  The  crop  last  year  amounted 
to  nearly  forty  millions  of  bushels.  In  Man- 
itoba the  same  history  is  repeating  itself. 
The  half-breeds  are  selling  their  lands  and 
scrip,  moving  west,  and  establishing  them- 
selves on  the  Qu'Appelle,  the  Saskatche- 
wan and  its  tributaries,  and  as  far  away 
as  the  Great  Peace  River.  These  hardy 
bois-brules  will  always  be  the  advance 
guard  of  the  army  of  regular  emigrants. 
Good  farmers  with  large  families,  chiefly 
from  Ontario  and  the  maritime  provinces  of 
Canada,  and  Canadians  who  had  previously 
settled  in  Wisconsin  and  southern  Min- 
nesota, are  taking  their  places  and  following 
in  their  footsteps.  It  is  a  stirring  sight  to 


contemplate  this  quiet,  resistless  flow  of  the 
people  to  possess  the  waste  spaces,  to  sub- 
stitute Durhams  for  buffalo,  and  to  found  an 
empire  where  formerly  a  few  scattered  bands 
of  Indians  gained  a  precarious  existence. 
When  shall  King  Nature  say  with  prevail- 
ing voice  to  this  advancing  human  tide, 
"  Hitherto  shall  thou  come,  and  no  farther." 
Can  the  tide  first  overflow  the  "  Great  Lone 
Land  "  and  the  "  Wild  North  Land  "  ?  If 
so,  the  North-west  must  eventually  control 
the  old  Provinces  of  Canada.  The  question 
cannot  be  answered  yet,  "  with  the  dogma- 
tism of  a  God,"  except  by  students  of  "  hy- 
pothetical geography,"  but  the  signs  are 
promising. 

In  1872,  accompanying  the  Chief  Engi- 
neer of  the  Canada  Pacific  Railway,  I  rode 
across  the  North-west  from  Fort  Garry  to 
Fort  Edmonton  on  the  North  Saskatchewan ; 
thence  through  the  woods  to  the  Rocky 
Mountains,  and  by  the  Yellow  Head  Pass  to 
the  Pacific.  All  the  way  to  Fort  Edmon- 
ton— a  distance  of  nine  hundred  miles — Red 
River  carts  carrying  our  luggage  accom- 
panied us,  easily  keeping  up  with  the  sad- 
dles, doing  an  average  forty  miles  a  day 
on  the  trail  across  the  plains.  This  one  fact 
speaks  volumes  as  to  the  open  character  of 
the  country.  It  leads  travelers  who  confine 
themselves  to  the  trail  to  fancy  that  there  is 
little  or  no  wood  anywhere — a  natural  con- 
clusion, for  do  we  not  all  judge  other  people 
by  ourselves,  and  the  world  by  what  we 
have  seen  of  it  ?  The  Red  River  cart  was 
rather  a  curiosity  to  us  at  first,  but  we  soon 
found  that  it  was  the  right  thing  in  the  right 
place.  Fancy  a  clumsy-looking  but  really 
light  box  cart,  with  wheels  six  or  seven  feet 
in  diameter  and  without  an  ounce  of  iron, 
and  you  have  it.  The  small  bodies  and 
high  wheels  of  these  primitive  conveyances 
enable  them  to  cross  the  miry  creeks  partially 
borne  up  by  the  grass  roots,  where  ordinary 
vehicles  would  stick  hopelessly.  Rivers 
are  no  more  impediments  than  marshes. 
Whip  off  the  wheels,  put  them  and  the  bpdy 
on  a  buffalo  skin,  and  your  cart  is  meta- 
morphosed into  a  coracle  on  which  you 
float  across,  your  horses  swimming  beside 
you.  Should  any  part  break  in  the  course 
of  a  thousand-mile  journey,  shaganappi,  or 
buffalo  raw-hide  thong,  is  in  requisition.  On 
the  plains,  shaganappi  does  all  that  leather, 
cloth,  rope,  nails,  glue,  strap,  cord,  tape  and 
sundry  other  articles  are  used  for  elsewhere. 
More  than  the  potato  to  the  Irishman,  or 
the  date-palm  to  the  Arab,  is  the  buffalo  to 
Indians  and  half-breeds.  By  "  provisions," 


THE  DOMINION  OF  CANADA. 


443 


in  the  North-west  everybody  means  pemmi- 
can,  or  buffalo  meat  preserved  in  a  pounded 
and  triturated  state.  The.  best  tents  are 
made  of  the  hides ;  good  robes  are  better 
than  coats  or  blankets  ;  and  no  one  thinks 


ting  Bull  and  his  Sioux,  when  they  crossed 
the  boundary  line  two  or  three  years  ago, 
had  it  not  been  for  the  interference  of 
the  Canadian  Government.  They  felt  ag- 
grieved when  permission  was  given  to  thou- 


RED    RIVER    OX-CART     IN     WATER. 


of  traveling  without  abundant  supplies  of 
shaganappi.  A  buffalo  hunt  is  the  great 
excitement  and  joy  of  the  Indian's  life,  and 
the  dead  buffalo  is  house,  food,  clothing  and 
leather  to  him.  A  land  without  buffalo 
means  utter  hopelessness.  The  Indian  does 
not  understand  what  brings  the  white  man, 
possessed  as  he  is  of  all  wealth  and  wonders, 
to  his  poor  country,  till  he  learns  that 
there  are  no  buffaloes  where  he  comes  from. 
That  explanation  is  perfectly  satisfactory. 
But  the  buffalo  is  getting  "  crowded  out  "  of 
the  North-west.  This  is  the  dark  cloud  that 
the  Indian  sees  coming  over  his  sky.  He 
is  enraged  at  anything  that  drives  away  the 
buffalo,  or  makes  the  supply  scanty.  He 
has  no  more  idea  of  allowing  other  tribes  to 
come  to  his  old  hunting-grounds  than  we 
would  allow  strangers  to  use  our  pastures,  or 
fishing-waters,  or  shooting-grounds  without 
permission.  Crees  and  Blackfeet  in  our 
North-west  would  have  united  against  Sit- 


sands  of  strangers  to  live  on  their  buffalo. 
And  now,  when  buffaloes  are  becoming 
scarce !  Hungry  men  are  apt  to  be  un- 
reasonable, and  though  the  cost  of  feeding 
them  till  they  are  taught  to  farm  is  consid- 
erable, anything  is  better  than  breaking  our 
long,  honorable  peace  and  crushing  them 
with  brute  force.  The  Indians  deserve 
well  of  us.  Some  of  their  virtues  I  cannot 
admire  too  much.  In  an  age  when  Chris- 
tians think  it  legitimate  to  pay  their  creditors 
from  fifty  to  five  cents  on  the  dollar,  it  may 
not  be  amiss  to  call  attention  to  their  hon- 
esty. Here  is  an  extract  from  Alexander 
Henry's  journal  in  1768.  "On  May  2oth 
the  Indians  came  in  from  their  winter's  hunt. 
Out  of  two  thousand  '  skins,'  which  was  the 
amount  of  my  outstanding  debts,  not  thirty 
remained  unpaid ;  and  even  the  trivial  loss 
which  I  did  suffer  was  occasioned  by  the 
death  of  one  of  the  Indians,  for  whom  his 
family  brought,  as  they  said,  all  the  skins 


444 


THE  DOMINION  OF  CANADA. 


of  which  he  died  possessed,  and  offered  to 
pay  the  rest  from  among  themselves.  His 
manes,  they  observed,  would  not  be  able  to 
enjoy  peace  while  his  name  remained  in 
my  books,  and  his  debts  were  left  unsatisfied." 
What  would  our  wholesale  merchants  give 
if  such  an  article  of  faith  became  current 
with  their  customers!  That  is  a  creed  to  do 
business  with  !  And  the  same  spirit  remains 
to  this  day.  In  remote  posts  on  the  Macken- 
zie River,  and  wherever  it  does  not  pay  the 
Hudson's  Bay  Company  to  keep  an  agent 
all  the  time,  the  Indian  enters  the  store, 
deposits  his  furs,  takes  the  exact  equivalent  in 
goods  from  the  shelves,  and  departs,  leaving 
the  door  securely  fastened  against  wild  beasts. 
During  the  last  eight  years,  the  Canada 
Pacific  surveyors  and  engineers  have  lived 
among  and  employed  men,  women  and 
children  from  twenty  or  thirty  tribes  between 
the  Ottawa  River  and  the  Pacific  Ocean,  and 
I  have  heard  the  Chief  Engineer  say  that  he 
had  yet  to  hear  of  the  first  quarrel,  or  of  an 
ounce  of  pork  stolen  by  an  Indian  ! 

The  secret  of  our  success  in  dealing  with 
the  Indians  can  be  told  in  a  few  words. 
We  acknowledge  their  original  title  to  the 
land.  Billowy  prairies  rolling  on  to  an 
unknown  horizon,  wooded  slope  and  broken 
hill,  sparkling  lakes  covered  with  wild  fowl, 
are  theirs  by  inheritance  and  possession. 
Who  can  question  the  title  ?  True,  they 
did  not,  after  the  manner  of  white  men, 
divide  the  vast  property  up  into  separate 
estates,  and  keep  registers  of  deeds.  Had 
they  done  so,  no  one  would  have  questioned 
their  title.  Their  law  is  that  the  tribe  holds 
land  and  wood  and  water  for  the  common 
use  of  the  tribe.  But  that  the  country  which 
has  always  yielded  them  support  is  theirs, 
and  not  ours,  they  believe  as  firmly  as  any 
English  squire  or  American  farmer  believes 
concerning  his  land.  We  recognize,  then, 
that  it  is  our  first  duty  to  meet  each  Indian 
tribe  in  friendly  council,  buy  its  rights,  and 
extinguish  its  title.  A  treaty  once  made 
with  them,  we  keep  it  as  sacredly  as  we 
would  any  other  treaty.  I  am  not  aware 
that  Indians  ever  broke  a  treaty  fairly  and 
solemnly  made.  They  believe  in  the  sanc- 
tity of  an  oath. 

So  much  for  the  old  lords  and  sons  of  the 
soil.  What  of  the  country  itself  ?  It  slopes 
upward  to  the  west  and  downward  to  the 
north,  so  that  the  rivers  run  northerly  or 
north-easterly.  When  we  came  to  the  Red 
River,  it  seemed  to  us — accustomed  to  see 
rivers  flowing  to  the  south — to  be  running 
up  hill.  Winnipeg  is  700  feet  above  the 


sea  level,  and  a  rise  of  2300  feet  is  spread 
over  the  thousand  miles  between  it  and  the 
base  of  the  Rocky  Mountains — not  a  uni- 
form rise,  but  defined  by  three  distinct 
steppes.  Each  steppe  is  marked  by  changes 
in  the  composition  of  the  soil  and  the  charac- 
ter of  the  vegetation,  though  soil  and  flora 
are  really  very  much  the  same  all  the  way 
from  east  to  west,  and  as  far  north  as  Peace 
River.  Prairie  roses,  gentians,  asters,  cas- 
tilias,  anemones,  golden-rods,  accompanied 
us  from  the  eastern  verge  of  the  prairie  to 
Fort  Edmonton.  We  traveled  in  the  month 
of  August.  The  air  during  the  days  was 
all  that  man  could  wish — fresh,  flower- 
scented  and  generally  breezy ;  and  at  nights 
so  cool  that  blankets  and  in  the  early  morn- 
ing a  cup  of  hot  tea  were  always  welcome. 
Instead  of  being  a  dead  level  of  monotonous 
prairie  all  the  time,  the  scene  varied  from 
day  to  day.  After  a  treeless,  waterless 
plain  from  five  to  twenty  miles  wide,  we 
would  come  upon  a  beautiful  country  broken 
into  fields  by  rounded  hillocks  and  ridges 
covered  with  clumps  of  aspens,  or  a  succes- 
sion of  shallow  basins  inclosed  in  a  larger 
basin.  Then  the  road  would  lead  over  a 
rich,  undulating  country,  or  among  hills, 
with  pools  fringed  with  willows  glistening 
in  the  hollows  at  every  turn.  About  the 
little  Touchwood  Hills  is  a  country  of  un- 
equaled  beauty  and  fertility,  of  swelling  up- 
lands inclosing  in  their  hollows  lakelets,  the 
homes  of  snipe,  plover  and  duck,  fringed  with 
tall  reeds,  and  surrounded  with  a  belt  of  soft 
woods ;  long  reaches  of  rich  lowlands,  with 
hill-sides  spreading  gently  away,  on  which 
we  easily  imagined  the  houses  of  contented 
owners ;  avenues  of  whispering  trees, 
through  which  we  rode  on  without  ever 
coming  to  lodge  or  gate.  Here  is  my  note 
of  a  day's  ride  along  the  North  Saskatche- 
wan, good  horses  under  us,  a  cloudless 
sky  and  bright  sun  above,  and  an  atmos- 
phere exhilarating  as  the  purest  champagne : 
"  A  country  of  varied  beauty,  rich  in  soil, 
grasses,  flowers,  wood  and  water ;  infinitely 
diversified  in  color  and  outline.  In  the 
forenoon,  we  rode  up  two  or  three  hill-sides 
to  get  wider  views.  With  all  the  beauty  of 
former  days,  there  was  now  what  we  had 
often  craved, — variety  of  wood.  Clumps 
and  groves  of  tall  white  spruce  in  the  gul- 
lies and  valleys  and  along  lake-sides,  branch- 
ing poplars  with  occasional  white  birch  and 
tamarack,  mingled  with  the  still  prevailing 
aspen.  In  the  afternoon,  we  crossed  plateaus 
extending  between  the  streams  that  meander 
southward  to  join  the  Saskatchewan.  Here 


THE   DOMINION   OF  CANADA. 


445 


the  trail  ran  by  what  looked  like  old  culti- 
vated clearings,  hemmed  in  at  varying  dis- 
tances by  graceful  trees,  through  the 
branches  of  which  gleamed  the  waters  of  a 
lake  or  the  rough  back  of  a  hill.  As  we 
crossed  the  last  plateau,  a  glorious  view  of 
rivers,  valleys,  plains  and  mountains  opened 
out  in  the  glowing  twilight.  We  camped 
here,  and  enjoyed  our  mighty  supper  of  buf- 
falo steak,  with  limitless  pemmican  for  our 
Cree  visitors,  before  the  twilight  had  for- 


ripening  of  cereals  and  expose  them  to 
complete  destruction.  At  other  times,  a  sim- 
ilar result  may  follow  drought.  *  *  *  Winter 
has  arrived  in  the  beginning  of  November, 
and  continues,  more  or  less,  in  April,  and, 
great  God  !  what  winter  !  I  have  noted 
a  common  centigrade  spirit  thermometer 
every  day  during  tenyears.  Thrice  during 
that  period  it  has  recorded  40°  below  zero, 
and  it  has  also  thrice  marked  40°  above,  and 
on  one  occasion  43°.  Often  mercury  is  frozen 


INDIAN     SUSPENSION     BRIDGE    IN    THE    NORTH-WEST. 


saken  the  west."  So  the  North-west  ap- 
peared to  us  who  rode  rapidly  across  it  in 
the  golden  summer.  Bishop  Tache,  who 
has  traversed  it  in  all  directions  during  his 
twenty-three  years'  residence,  gives  the 
other  side.  "  I  am  not  surprised,"  he  says, 
"  at  the  impression  produced  on  the  tourist 
while  he  experiences  the  real  delights  of  a 
summer  excursion  over  these  plains.  *  *  * 
But  here  comes  the  end  of  August.  Already 
cold  is  threatening  ;  severe  frosts  prevent  the 


during  entire  weeks."  But  the  Bishop  not- 
withstanding, and  in  spite  of  the  terrible 
winter  cold  and  the  summer  frosts,  droughts 
and  hail-storms,  I  have  faith  in  the  future  of 
the  Saskatchewan.  It  invites  only  hardy  emi- 
grants, and  it  promises  to  rear  a  hardy  race. 
Fort  Edmonton  on  the  North  Saskatche- 
wan is  one  of  the  objective  points  of  the 
Canada  Pacific  Railway.  Here  it  must 
strike  west  through  thick  woods,  and  cross 
the  Rocky  Mountains  by  the  Yellow  Head 


446 


THE  DOMINION  OF  CANADA. 


GLACIER    MOUNTAIN,    JUNCTION    OF    MUDDY     AND    NORTH    THOMPSON     RIVERS,    BRITISH    COLUMBIA. 


Pass,  or  strike  north-west  to  tap  the  bound- 
less prairies  of  the  Great  Peace  River,  and 
then  cross  the  mountains  by  the  Pine  River 
Pass.  Recent  testimony  regarding  Peace 
River  recalls  stories  of  the  Arabian  Nights. 
It  would  seem  that,  in  the  North-west,  the 
farther  north  we  go  the  better  the  coun- 
try becomes,  and  the  milder  the  climate. 
Bishop  Tache  told  me  that  at  Lac  la  Biche, 
100  miles  north  of  the  North  Saskatche- 
wan, his  missionaries  had  their  favorite 
wheat  ground,  where  the  wheat  crop  could 
always  be  depended  on.  A  reliable  Hudson 
Bay  officer  assured  us  that  he  had  never  seen 
better  wheat  or  root  crops  than  are  raised 
regularly  at  Fort  Liard,  on  the  Liard  River, 
in  latitude  60°.  At  Fort  Dunvegan  the 
winters  are  milder  than  at  Fort  Garry, 
more  than  400  miles  farther  south.  Two  of 
our  fellow-travelers  left  us  at  Fort  Edmon- 
ton for  Peace  River.  They  struck  the  mighty 
stream  below  Dunvegan,  and  sailed  on  it  up 
into  the  heart  of  the  Rocky  Mountains, 
through  a  country  rich  in  soil,  wood,  water, 
coal,  bituminous  fountains  and  salt  that  can 
be  gathered  from  the  sides  of  springs,  fit  for 
the  table.  A  scientific  expedition  that  visited 
this  far-north  land  in  1875  asserts  that 
Peace  River  is  the  richest  part  of  Canada ; — 
that  an  area  of  250,000,000  acres  is  as  suit- 
able for  the  cultivation  of  grain  as  Ontario  ; 
that  coal,  coal  oil,  and  coal  inter-stratified 
with  iron  ore  abound ;  that  there  are  thou- 
sands of  acres  of  pure  crystallized  salt,  and 


that  miles  and  miles  of  the  purest  gypsum 
beds  crop  out  of  the  river  banks.  No  wonder 
that  the  Canadian  Government  should  strain 
every  nerve  to  open  its  North-west,  and  seek 
to  guide  to  it  the  great  tidal  wave  of  emigra- 
tion from  the  old  world  ! 

At  Fort  Edmonton,  the  objective  points 
of  our  party  were  Jasper  House,  an  old 
Hudson's  Bay  station  in  the  valley  of  the 
Athabasca,  and  then  the  Yellow  Head 
Pass.  Necessarily  discarding  wheels  at 
Edmonton,  each  of  us  driving  a  pack-horse, 
we  struggled  for  200  miles  through  woods 
and  muskegs,  which  often  threatened  to 
ingulf  horse  and  man  in  bottomless  depths 
of  oozy  swamp.  At  the  western  verge  of 
the  plains,  where  their  elevation  is  three 
thousand  feet,  the  "  Rockies  "  rise  boldly 
in  naked  grandeur  five  or  six  thousand 
feet  higher,  and  form  in  unbroken  line  across 
our  onward  path,  save  where  cleft  in  the 
center  of  the  line  down  to  their  feet  by  the 
chasm  that  the  Athabasca  long  ago  forced  or 
found  for  itself.  The  mingled  beauty  and 
grandeur  of  the  scenery  at  this  portal  can 
hardly  be  exaggerated.  On  the  left,  the 
mighty  shoulder  of  Roche  a  Perdrix  towered 
a  mile  above  our  heads,  scuds  of  clouds  kiss- 
ing its  snowy  summit,  and  each  plication 
and  angle  of  the  different  strata  up  the  giant 
sides  clearly  revealed.  Beyond,  Roche  a. 
Myette,  the  characteristic  mountain  of  the 
Jasper  valley,  upreared  the  great  cubical 
block — two  thousand  feet  high — which  forms 


THE  DOMINION  OF  CANADA. 


447 


its  imposing  sphinx-like  head.  Only  those 
who  readily  accept  tradition  will  believe  that 
the  daring  French  hunter  whose  name  it 
bears  ever  ascended  that  apparently  scarped 
and  chiseled  cube.  On  our  right,  Roche 
Ronde  was  reflected  in  a  beautiful  lakelet 
that  showed  not  only  every  color  of  its  sides, 
— the  grey  and  blue  of  the  limestone,  and 
the  red  and  green  shales  that  separate  the 
strata, — but  the  vvavings  and  windings  of  the 
stratification  as  distinctly  as  leaves  of  a 
half-opened  book.  Our  trail  led  up  a  wooded 
hill  that  nearly  filled  the  mouth  of  the  valley; 
and  then  down  the  other  side,  among  tall, 
dark  green  spruces,  over  rose  bushes  and 
vetches  that  covered  little  bits  of  lawn,  the 
soft  blue  of  the  mountains  everywhere  gleam- 
ing through  the  woods,  and  sometimes  re- 
flected in  quiet,  rush-bordered  lakelets.  A 
little  cultivation  would  make  the  Jasper 
portals  of  the  Rocky  Mountains — with  all 
the  stern  and  savage  grandeur  hard  by — as 
dainty  and  beautiful  as  an  English  gentle- 
man's park. 

The  passage  from  the  east  through  the* 
Rocky  Mountains  by  the  Yellow  Head  Pass 
is  wonderfully  easy.  But  once  in  British 
Columbia  and  on  the  Pacific  slope,  difficul- 
ties commence  enough  to  daunt  the  most 


hospitable  the  country  becomes.  It  maybe 
necessary  to  explain  that  no  reflection  on  the 
hospitality  of  the  people  is  meant  by  this  ad- 
jective. When  Mr.  Blake  used  it  in  the  House 
of  Commons,  vehement  was  the  indignation 
excited  in  the  breast  of  one  of  the  people's 
representatives.  "  To  accuse  us  of  want  of 
hospitality  !  "  Such  a  charge  justified  anger 
and  vigorous  vernacular!  British  Colum- 
bians are  open-handed  to  a  fault.  But  the 
canons  of  the  Fraser  River  are  close.  And 
the  Cascade  or  Coast  Mountains  are  in- 
hospitable. They  have  been  pierced  by  at 
least  twelve  lines  of  survey,  terminating  on 
the  Pacific  at  seven  distinct  harbors,  but,  on 
every  line,  construction  involves  enormous 
outlay.  If  the  line  goes  by  the  Yellow  Head 
Pass,  and  the  North  Thompson  and  Fraser 
rivers,  the  terminus  must  be  Burrard  Inlet — 
a  harbor  with  its  best  approach  guarded  by 
the  island  of  San  Juan,  which  the  Emperor 
of  Germany's  decision  gave  to  the  United 
States.  Should  it  go  by  Peace  River  and 
the  Pine  River  Pass — as  perhaps  it  should — 
the  terminus  must  be  Port  Simpson,  450 
miles  further  north,  and  450  miles  nearer  the 
Asiatic  coast.  No  matter  which  route  is 
taken,  the  Dominion  should  not  spend  mil- 
lions among  the  western  mountains  while 


NATURE'S  MONUMENT,  CANADIAN  PACIFIC  COAST. 


stout-hearted.  A  sea  of  snow-clad  mount- 
ains, often  connected  by  huge  glaciers, — 
each  range  requiring  a  long  detour,— extends 
in  every  direction  for  hundred  of  miles,  and 
the  nearer  we  get  to  the  coast,  the  more  in- 


the  North-west  is  unpeopled.  The  western 
end  will  cost  an  enormous  sum,  and  when 
built  there  is  no  population  to  furnish  local 
traffic.  The  China  trade  is  talked  of,  but 
how  could  we  trade  with  pagans  who  live 


THE  DOMINION  OF  CANADA. 


INDIAN     MONUMENTS,    CANADA     PACIFIC    COAST. 


cheaply,  and,  like  Joseph,  desire  their 
bones  to  be  buried  in  their  own  country  ? 
The  total  white  population  is  about  10,000! 
Vancouver's  Island  has  been  called  the 
Great  Britain  of  the  Pacific  by  students  of 
"  hypothetical  geography."  It  has  coal, 
building-stone,  harbors,  and  a  delightful 
climate.  The  main-land  boasts,  and  with 
reason,  of  exhaustless  supplies  of  lumber, 
notably  the  Douglas  pine.  Its  gold  mines 
have  again  and  again  attracted  armies  of 
gold-hunters.  Its  rivers  are  at  times  choked 
with  fish.  But  the  amount  of  good  farming 
land  accessible  to  cultivation  is  so  limited 
that  the  Province  does  not  feed  its  handful 
of  people.  The  rivers  wind  to  the  sea,  or 
rather  to  the  head  of  the  long,  narrow  fjords 
with  which  the  iron  coast  is  everywhere 
pierced,  round  gloomy,  snow-clad  mountains, 
through  granite  or  trap  rocks  against  which 
they  chafe  uselessly.  They  cannot  overflow 
their  banks,  and  so  there  are  no  bottom 
lands  to  speak  of.  They  are  confined  to 
deep  gorges  instead  of  expanding  over  open 
valleys.  Towering  rocks,  with  cataracts 
gleaming  amid  dark  pines,  and  leaping  from 
point  to  point,  mountain  sides  curtained  with 
glaciers  rising  in  the  background  into  the 
region  of  eternal  snow,  are  the  characteristic 


features  of  British  Columbian  scenery.  It  is 
a  paradise  for  artists  and  engineers  rather 
than  for  ordinary  emigrants.  The  Indians 
greatly  outnumber  the  whites,  and  promise 
to  be  a  permanent  element  of  the  population. 
Journeying  along  the  great  wagon-road  of 
the  Province,  the  principal  pictures  we  get 
of  them  are  their  elaborate  grave-yards  by 
the  road-sides,  and  down  in  the  gorges  in 
which  the  Fraser  is  hemmed,  the  half-naked 
savage,  perched  like  a  bird  of  prey  in  a  red 
blanket  upon  a  rock,  or  clinging  to  his  fragile 
platform  on  the  face  of  the  cliff,  and  scoop- 
ing up  salmon  from  the  raging  torrent,  while 
his  wife,  with  a  creel  full  of  fish  on  her  back, 
toils  homeward  up  the  precipice.  But  go 
into  the  saw-mills,  the  logging  camp,  the 
field  or  the  store,  and  you  find  them  work- 
ing well  and  earning  good  wages.  In  no 
other  part  of  America  known  to  me  are  the 
Indians  as  a  class  so  self-reliant.  But  even 
should  the  30,000  Indians  be  raised  to  our 
level,  and  the  resources  of  British  Columbia 
fully  developed,  the  future  of  the  Dominion 
depends  not  on  its  Pacific  Province,  but  on 
its  North-west. 

I  have  taken  my  readers  over  a  wide  field, 
but  I  could  not  otherwise  give  them  an  in- 
telligent idea  of  the  component  parts  of  the 


DE  ROSIS  HIBERNIS. 


449 


new  Dominion,  and  the  work  that  lies  imme- 
diately to  our  hands.  Canada  has  been 
/called  "  raw,  rough  and  democratic,"  and  the 
more  frankly  the  impeachment  is  acknowl- 
edged the  better.  How  could  it  be  otherwise  ? 
We  are  in  our  raw  youth,  have  rough  work 
to  do,  and  can  do  it  only  by  each  man  put- 
ting his  shoulder  to  the  wheel.  We  carinot 
afford  an  aristocracy,  still  less  can  we  afford 
to  ape  one.  We  can  hardly  afford  literature 
or  art.  We  have  half  a  continent — a  stern 
and  rugged  half — to  reclaim,  to  people,  to 
animate  with  a  common  spirit.  That  is 
the  work  of  to-day,  and  it  is  enough  to 
task  all  our  energies.  The  previously  iso- 
lated conditions  and  independent  histories 
of  the  Provinces  make  it  all  the  more 
difficult.  Grattan's  remark,  "  England  is 
not  one  country;  it  will  take  a  century 
before  she  becomes  so,"  applies  with  greater 
truth  to  Canada.  Half  of  the  people  do 
not  understand  yet  the  meaning  of  the 
name  their  own  country  bears.  "  How  do 
you  like  Canada  ? "  I  am  asked  when  I 
visit  Halifax,  as  if  I  came  from  some  for- 
eign land.  "  We  are  English,"  said  a  lady 
to  me  in  Quebec,  not  many  years  ago; 
"  these,"  pointing  the  least  mite  disdainfully 
to  habitans  streaming  out  of  church,  "  are 
Canadians."  Not  long  since,  the  anger  of 
Manitobans,  burning  against  all  the  world, 
burned  hottest  against  "Canadians."  And 
in  British  Columbia,  where  gold-dust  once 
so  abounded  that  every  one  considered 


economy  worse  than  vice,  we  were  popu- 
larly known  as  "  North  American  China- 
men." All  this  is  changing.  Young  men 
are  beginning  to  feel  that  there  is  a  future 
for  their  country.  A  national  spirit  is  being 
formed,  which,  in  due  time,  will  bear  dis- 
tinctive fruit.  But  for  many  years  the  men 
who  can  do  rough  work  best  will  be  and 
ought  to  be  our  kings. 

All  the  way  across,  from  ocean  to  ocean, 
from  the  bleak,  rugged  Atlantic  shores  to 
where  the  long  rollers  of  the  Pacific  break 
at  the  feet  of  the  Cascades,  or  eat  far  into 
the  core  of  the  range  in  fjords  too  deep  for 
•lead  or  anchor,  a  geographical  line  separates 
us  from  the  United  States.  Nature  has  de- 
creed that  in  all  matters  of  intercourse  we 
must  be  one  with  you,  and  if  our  common 
Christianity  be  worth  anything,  friends  as 
well  as  neighbors  we  must  ever  be.  We  started 
in  the  race  long  after  you.  We  have  neither 
your  wealth  nor  your  resources.  The  rude 
boats  of  our  fishermen  on  the  Atlantic  make 
a  poor  show  beside  the  trim  craft  that  hail 
from  the  Massachusetts  coast;  and  on  the 
Pacific,  the  barbaric  columns,  with  their 
strange  devices  and  fantastic  figures,  that 
adorn  the  ancient  Hydah  villages,  are 
almost  all  that  we  can  set  off  against  the 
glories  of  the  Golden  Gate.  But,  rich  or 
poor,  this  wild,  cold  north-land  is  all  that  we 
have,  and  we  intend  to  make  the  most  of  it. 
We  are  content  to  take  a  back  seat  now,  but 
give  us  time  and  we  may  come  to  the  front. 


DE    ROSIS   HIBERNIS. 


AMBITIOUS  Nile,  thy  banks   deplore 

Their  Flavian  patron's  deep  decay ; 
Thy  Memphian  pilot  laughs  no  more 

To  see  the  flower-boat  float   away; 
Thy  winter  roses  once  were  twined 

Across  the  gala  streets  of  Rome, 
And  thou,  like  Omphale,  couldst  bind 

The  vanquished  victor  in  his  home. 


But  if  the  barge  that  brought  thy  store 

Had  foundered  in  the  Lybian  deep, 
It  had  not  slain  thy  glory  more 

Nor  plunged  thy  rose  in  salter  sleep ; 
Not  gods  nor  Caesars  wait  thee  now, 

No  jealous  Paestum  dreads  thy  spring, 
Thy  flower  enfolds  no  augur's  brow, 

And  gives  no  poet  strength  to  sing. 


Yet,  surely,  when  the  winds  are  low, 

And  heaven  is  all  alive  with  stars, 
Thy  conscious  roses  still  must  glow 

Above  thy  dreaming  nenuphars; 
They  recollect  their  high  estate, 

The  Roman  honors  they  have  known, 
And  while  they  ponder  Caesar's  fate 

They  cease  to  marvel  at  their  own. 


VOL.  XX.— 30. 


45° 


JAPANESE  AND   CHINESE   STUDENTS  IN  AMERICA. 


TO    EDMUND    CLARENCE    STEDMAN. 

AFTER    READING    HIS    ESSAY    ON    POE. 

WHO  but  a  poet  knows  a  poet's  heart  ? 
O  tender  critic !  weaving  such  sweet  woof 
Of  pity  with  your  warp  of  sad  dispraise, — 
Unvailing  a  dead  brow  to  lay  on  it 
At  last  the  crown  of  justice !     Not  too  soon 
Your  generous  words  for  one  who  needs  them  all, 
Your  passionate  "  O  friends,  instead  of  sneers, 
With  your  protection  gently  hedge  him  round!" 
Then,  bravely,  like  a  mother  for  her  child, 
You  plead  his  strange  environments,  his  weird 
And  fitful  fancies,  his  sick,  wayward  brain, 
His  fatal  birth-gift,  a  weak,  wavering  will, — 
Owning  him  wrong  with  such  sweet  skill  of  words 
That  in  our  pity  we  forget  our  blame. 

Oh,  if  his  hunted  spirit,  held  at  bay 
This  side  of  death,  has  covert  found  at  last, 
How  restful  must  the  change  be,  and  how  sweet ! 
And  if  he  heeds  our  censure  or  our  praise, 
As  once,  how  glad  he  must  be  now  to  know — 
If  know  he  does — that  in  some  generous  hearts 
The  balances  are  just  that  measure  him, 
And  that  some  lips  are  pitiful  and  kind, 
Saying,  "  He  might  have  been,  and  but  for  this, 
And  this, — dead  weights  that  circumstance 
Threw  in  the  scale — he  would  have  been,  a  man, 
A  hero,  worthy  of  his  poet-soul !  " 


JAPANESE  AND  CHINESE  STUDENTS  IN  AMERICA. 


FOR  a  score  of  years,  the  Japanese 
government  has  been  accustomed  to  send 
a  few  of  its  young  citizens  to  the  schools 
of  foreign  nations.  The  first  delegation 
entered  Holland  in  1859,  anc^  engaged  in 
the  study  of  law,  navigation  and  ship- 
building. Before  the  year  1873,  about  two 
hundred  Japanese  students  had  studied, 
under  the  care  of  the  home  government,  in 
Germany,  Russia,  Austria,  England,  France, 
Italy,  Switzerland,  Belgium  and  Holland. 
At  the  present  time  the  number  of  govern- 
ment students  residing  in  European  coun- 
tries hardly  exceeds  a  dozen.  The  majority 
of  this  number  have  already  been  graduated 
at  college  or  university ;  and  some  of  them 
are  now  engaged  in  the  study  of  the  military 
arts.  Several  private  students  are  con- 
nected with  the  schools  of  England,  France, 
Italy  and  Germany. 


The  first  delegation  of  Japanese  student; 
that  entered  the  United  States  landed  a 
Boston,  in  1868.  In  the  course  of  the  sue 
ceeding  five  years,  at  least  one  hundre( 
pursued  courses  of  study  either  under  pri 
vate  tutors  or  in  the  schools  of  the  Easten 
States,  of  Pennsylvania  and  of  the  city  o; 
Washington.  In  the  present  year,  abou 
seventy  are  members  of  American  school: 
and  colleges.  A  third  of  the  number  ar< 
connected  with  institutions  of  the  Westen 
and  Pacific  States ;  and  the  remainder  an 
enrolled  in  Eastern  schools.  Six-seventh: 
of  the  entire  body,  however,  are  pri 
vate  students,  and,  as  such,  bear  no  direc 
relation  to  the  home  government.  Onl] 
nine  are  under  the  care  of  the  educationa 
department  of  the  empire.  The  extent  an( 
the  variety  of  the  past  and  of  the  presen 
work  of  the  ordinary  Japanese  student  ii 


JAPANESE  AND   CHINESE   STUDENTS  IN  AMERICA. 


American  institutions  are  succinctly  indi- 
cated in  the  following  extract  from  a  letter 
of  Tanetaro  Megata,  the  Japanese  Commis- 
sioner of  Education  in  this  country,  in  refer- 
ence to  his  government  students  : 

"  Two  of  them  were  graduated  at  Boston  Law 
School,  and  are  studying  the  practice  of  law.  One  of 
them  was  graduated  at  Cambridge  Law  School,  and 
is  also  studying  the  practice  in  New  York.  One  of 
them  was  graduated  at  Columbia  Law  School,  and 
got  another  degree  from  the  Yale  Law  School,  where 
he  is  studying  now.  Three  of  them  were  graduated 
at  Columbia  School  of  Mines,  and  they  are  studying 
the  branch  by  practical  investigation  there.  Two  of 
them  were  graduated  at  the  Polytechnic  Institute, 
Troy,  N.  Y.,  and  are  studying  now  practically." 

The  Chinese  students  in  America  are 
more  in  number  than  the  Japanese,  and,  as 
a  body,  they  are  under  the  supervision  of 
native  officers  residing  in  this  country. 
Near  the  beginning  of  the  decade  just  closed, 
— August,  1871, — the  Chinese  government 
determined  to  educate  a  corps  of  its  young 
citizens  for  its  service.  In  the  foreigners 
employed  in  conducting  its  international 
relations,  in  collecting  its  customs,  in  com- 
manding its  armies  and  ships  of  war,  it  had 
failed  to  find  public  servants  of  that  effi- 
ciency it  desired.  It  also  realized  the  pro- 
priety of  employing  its  own  subjects  for 
the  performance  of  its  official  work.  By 
the  persuasion,  therefore,  of  Yung  Wing,*  at 
present  the  associate  Chinese  minister  in 
this  country,  it  decided  to  educate  its  own 

*As  the  head  of  the  Chinese  educational  mission 
in  the  United  States,  a  brief  sketch  of  the  life  of 
Yung  Wing  should  be  presented.  Born  in  South- 
ern China,  in  1828,  he  spent  several  years  of  his 
boyhood  in  the  schools  conducted  by  Christian  mis- 
sionaries. In  1847,  under  the  charge  of  Rev.  S.  R. 
Brown,  an  American  missionary,  he  came  to  this 
country,  entered  an  academy  at  Monson,  Mass., 
and,  after  two  and  a  half  years  spent  in  preparation, 
was  admitted  to  Yale  College  in  1850.  Repeatedly 
during  his  college  course  he  won  prizes  for 
English  composition,  and  also  contributed  several 
papers  to  the  press  which  attracted  much  attention. 
At  this  time  he  conceived  the  idea  of  the  educational 
mission  which  is  now  in  process  of  realization. 
Soon  after  graduation  he  sailed  for  China.  For 
sixteen  years  he  was  engaged  in  work  both  public 
and  private,  but  throughout  this  time  he  nursed  his 
scheme,  and  was  constantly  watching  for  an  oppor- 
tunity to  forward  it.  This  opportunity  occurred  in 
1870.  In  June  of  that  year  the  notorious  Tientsin 
massacre  took  place.  The  disadvantages  under 
which  the  Chinese  commissioners  labored,  in  settling 
the  sad  affair  with  foreign  powers  whose  subjects 
had  been  murdered,  allowed  Yung  Wing  to  press 
his  scheme  very  forcibly  upon  the  attention  of  the 
government.  At  last  he  was  successful.  He  was 
at  once  appointed  the  chief  commissioner  of  the 
mission,  an  office  which  he  still  holds,  notwithstand- 
ing his  recent  promotion  to  the  position  of  associate 
minister,  with  Chin  Lan  Pin,  in  the  United  States. 


citizens  for  those  pursuits  which  it  had 
hitherto  been  obliged  to  intrust  to  Amer- 
icans and  Englishmen.  A  million  and  a 
half  dollars  was  appropriated  to  the  ex- 
ecution of  the  scheme.  Advertisements 
were  placed  in  the  Chinese  papers,  request- 
ing all  boys  who  wished  to  go  to  America 
to  spend  fifteen  years  in  study,  and,  on 
returning  home,  to  enter  the  service  of  the 
government,  to  assemble  at  Shanghai. 
About  a  hundred  complied  with  the  request. 
For  several  months  they  pursued  the  study 
of  the  English  and  Chinese  languages ;  and 
at  the  conclusion  of  the  allotted  period,  the 
thirty  who  had  made  the  most  rapid  advance 
were  selected.  They  at  once  embarked  for 
America.  The  selection  of  this  country  was 
founded  on  the  preference  of  Yung  Wing. 
He  could  have  procured  the  establishment 
of  the  mission  in  either  England,  France  "or 
Germany ;  but  his  regard  for  America  and 
American  colleges  and  schools  persuaded 
him  to  establish  it  in  this  country.  In 
each  of  the  three  years  succeeding  the  de- 
parture of  the  first  body  of  students,  thirty 
additional  students  embarked;  and  at  the 
close  of  the  year  1876,  one  hundred  and 
twenty  Chinese  students  had  landed  on 
American  shores.  A  large  mansion  was 
erected  at  Hartford,  Connecticut,  intended  to 
serve  both  as  a  home  and  as  a  school  build- 
ing; but  after  a  brief  residence,  either  in 
this  home  or  in  families,  the  young  stu- 
dents were  placed  in  the  different  academies 
and  schools  of  New  England  to  prepare 
for  college.  In  the  last  school  year,  one 
was  a  member  of  Yale  College,  two  of  its 
Scientific  School,  two  of  the  Troy  Polytechnic 
Institute,  eight  of  each  of  the  academies  at 
Andover  and  Easthampton,  several  of  the 
Hopkins  Grammar  School  at  New  Haven, 
of  the  Norwich  Academy,  and  the  others 
are  scattered  through  the  schools  of  Massa- 
chusetts and  Connecticut.  Owing  to  sick- 
ness, lack  of  interest  in  study  or  similar 
causes,  twelve  have  returned  to  China;  and 
at  present  one  hundred  and  eight  are  in  this 
country. 

In  the  selection  of  his  studies,  great  lib- 
erty is  allowed  each  student.  Intending  to 
enter  one  of  the  five  professions  of  law, 
engineering,  mining,  the  navy,  or  the 
military,  he  chooses  those  studies  which 
are  best  fitted  to  prepare  him  for  that  work 
which  he  designs  to  adopt.  If  he  intends  to 
become  an  engineer,  he  selects  scientific 
studies,  and  enters  a  scientific  school.  If 
he  intends  to  become  a  lawyer,  he  pursues 
the  regular  course  preparatory  for  college, 


452          JAPANESE  AND   CHINESE   STUDENTS  IN  AMERICA. 


and  enters  Yale,  Harvard,  or  a  similar 
institution. 

Comparing  the  Japanese  and  Chinese 
students  now  enrolled  in  American  schools 
and  colleges,  several  marked  contrasts  and 
likenesses  are  made  evident.  The  most 
prominent  difference  in  respect  to  external 
characteristics  is  the  greater  readiness  with 
which  the  former  adopt  the  dress  and  man- 
ners of  the  Western  world.  The  Japanese 
dresses  a  la  Europeen,  and  in  excellent  taste ; 
the  Chinaman  still  braids  his  cue,  and  wears 
his  loose  trowsers  and  blouse.  The  Japan- 
ese is  more  easily  denationalized ;  the  Chi- 
naman is  constantly  impressed  with  the  duty 
of  loving  and  serving  the  land  that  gave  him 
birth  and  is  giving  him  education.  The  lat- 
ter learns  the  English  language  with  greater 
ease,  and  uses  it  with  greater  facility ;  the 
former,  after  a  residence  of  even  five  or  six 
years,  experiences,  in  the  case  of  not  a  few 
individuals,  difficulty  in  conducting  an  ordi- 
nary conversation.  Both  manifest  much 
deference  to  authority,  and  are  models  of 
decorum  and  politeness.  The  Japanese 
belong  relatively  to  a  higher  caste ;  the  ma- 
jority of  the  Chinese  students  are  from  the 
middle  class  of  the  empire. 

In  mental  characteristics,  the  contrasts 
are  less  marked  than  in  physical.  The 
excellences  and  the  defects  of  the  two 
types  of  mind  are  similar.  In  each  the 
memory  is  developed  to  a  degree  not  com- 
monly attained  by  an  American  school-boy; 
and  the  Chinese  draw  forms  and  figures 
which  they  have  once  seen  with  marvel- 
ous accuracy.  The  superior  development 
of  the  memory  seems  to  weaken  the  growth 
of  the  logical  faculties ;  and  a  difficulty  in 
conducting  processes  of  thought  of  ordi- 
nary intricacy  is  one  of  the  first  defects 
which  a  teacher  notices  in  their  mental 
constitution.  Intellectually,  both  are  clear- 
sighted rather  than  far-sighted;  and  are 
distinguished  for  exactness  in  thought  and 
statement.  Considered  as  a  whole,  the  Chi- 
nese make  more  rapid  progress  in  linguistic, 
and  the  Japanese  in  mathematical  studies. 
The  former  are  by  temperament  the  more 
passive,  the  latter  the  more  impulsive.  Both 
are  hard  students,  and,  though  seldom  rank- 
ing first,  maintain  a  creditable  stand  in  their 
classes.  In  respect  to  moral  character,  also, 
as  well  as  intellectual,  a  high  degree  of 
similarity  is  obvious.  Neither,  as  a  body, 
is  addicted  to  the  use  of  liquors,  or  of 
tobacco,  and  both  are  free  from  the  vices  to 
which  American  college  youth  are  somewhat 
subject. 


In  regard  to  their  adoption  of  Christianity 
both  classes  of  students  are  allowed  ful 
liberty  of  choice  by  their  respective  gov 
ernments.  During  the  first  years  of  thi 
residence  of  the  Chinese  in  America,  con 
siderable  opposition  was  made  to  their  com 
ing  under  distinctively  Christian  influences 
at  present,  however,  this  opposition  is  re 
moved.  They  attend  the  religious  service 
of  the  church  and  of  the  school  as  thei 
brother  students ;  and  should  any  of  then 
desire  to  adopt  Christianity,  as  several  o 
them  have  already  done,  the  governmen 
would  not  refuse  them  the  privilege.  Ii 
fact,  Yung  Wing  is  recognized  as  a  mos 
devout  Christian,  and  would  be  glad,  it  i 
said,  to  adopt  more  aggressive  measures  fo 
the  conversion  of  all  his  young  countrymei 
than  his  government  might  approve.  O 
the  Japanese  students,  a  few  are  Christians 
and  one,  Joseph  Neesima,  formerly  a  stu 
dent  at  Amherst  and  the  Andover  Theo 
logical  Seminary,  is  now  doing  a  grea 
religious  and  educational  work  in  his  nativ< 
island.  Several  of  the  students  of  botl 
nationalities  manifest  a  high  degree  of  fond 
ness  for  theological  discussion ;  their  voice 
are  frequently  heard  in  the  prayer-meeting 
of  the  schools  to  which  they  belong ;  am 
for  the  conversion  of  their  friends  am 
nation  to  the  religion  of  Christ,  many  o 
them  are  exceedingly  eager. 

Numerous  are  the  results  which  will  flow  t< 
their  native  lands  from  the  education  of  thi 
large  body  of  Japanese  and  Chinese  youtl 
in  the  United  States;  but  the  precise  nat 
ure  of  these  results  it  is  not  easy  to  antici 
pate.  It  is  certain,  however,  that  they  wil 
prove  to  be  wide  and  permanent.  Ii 
developing  the  material  resources  of  th 
country,  and  in  aiding  the  government  ii 
the  management  of  its  various  departments 
its  citizens  thus  trained  will  be  of  mud 
service.  Their  influence  in  educational  an< 
intellectual  movements  will  be  pervasive 
Japan  is  adopting  modern  methods  o 
education  with  greater  facility  than  China 
and  graduates  of  Harvard,  Yale,  Bowdoii 
and  other  colleges  are  professors  in  he 
great  university.  But  the  presence  ii 
China  of  a  hundred  young  men,  educate! 
during  the  most  susceptible  period  of  thei 
lives,  from  the  age  of  twelve  to  twenty 
five,  in  American  schools  and  colleges 
will  rapidly  develop  the  public  schoo 
system  of  that  enormous  empire.  Thei 
influence,  moreover,  in  sustaining  a  higl 
type  of  personal  morality  and  in  favoring  o 
opposing  Christianity  will  be  great.  Thi 


THE  METROPOLIS   OF  THE  ROCKY  MOUNTAINS. 


453 


verdict  of  .a  single  Chinese  or  Japanese 
educated  in  America,  regarding  a  system 
of  religion,  will  be  of  greater  weight  with  his 
countrymen  than  the  testimony  of  a  dozen 
missionaries  of  the  American  Board.  Pre- 
cisely how  far  the  Chinese  may,  on  his  re- 
turn in  1887,  be  allowed  to  proselyte  his 


countrymen  without  incurring  the  censure 
of  his  government,  is  uncertain ;  yet,  in  gen- 
eral, upon  the  material,  intellectual,  moral 
and  religious  condition  of  these  two  vast  em- 
pires, the  influence  of  their  youth,  now  being 
educated  in  American  schools  and  colleges, 
will  of  necessity  be  great  and  enduring. 


THE    METROPOLIS   OF   THE    ROCKY    MOUNTAINS. 


THAT  gold  existed  in  the  Rocky  Mount- 
ains has  certainly  been  known  since  the 
earliest  exploration  of  them ;  it  is  one  of 
the  most  curious  facts  about  the  whole  mat- 
ter, indeed,  that  the  utilization  of  this  wealth 
did  not  begin  sooner.  About  1803,  for  in- 
stance, a  Kentuckian  named  James  Pursley, 
while  traveling  with  a  band  of  Indians 
"  into  the  mountains  which  give  birth  to  the 
La  Platte,  Arkansaw,  etc.,  etc."  (the  locality 
seems  to  have  been  near  Mt.  Lincoln), 
found  gold  there  and  "  carried  some  of  the 
virgin  mineral  in  his  shot-pouch  for  months." 
Other  wanderers  at  various  times  reported 
it,  according  to  tradition,  but  no  publicity 
was  given  to  the  fact,  so  that  the  real  his- 
tory of  the  mining  excitement  in  the  lofty 
mid-continent  ranges,  and  the  annals  of 
Denver,  their  metropolis,  begin  with  the 
summer  of  1858. 

These  early  annals  are  intimately  asso- 
ciated with  the  name  of  W.  Green  Russell. 
This  gentleman  was  a  Georgian  who  had 
learned  the  delights  of  gold-digging  where 
the  gentle  Etowah  rolls  its  enticing  sands 
through  charming  gorges  of  the  Blue  Ridge. 
When  the  gold  excitement  of  the  Pacific 
coast  aroused  the  country  he  started  West, 
and,  taking  his  course  up  the  Arkansas, 
passed  along  the  eastern  base  of  Pike's 
Peak,  and  so  northward  to  the  emigrant 
trail.  He  observed  at  that  time  what 
seemed  to  him  indications  of  gold-gravel, 
but  did  not  pause  to  verify  them.  When, 
therefore,  a  few  years  later,  he  retraced  his 
steps,  he  halted  long  enough  in  Colorado  to 
assure  himself  of  the  richness  of  its  bars, 
and  then  proceeded  homeward  to  organize 
a  party  to  return  with  him  to  this  point. 
Two  brothers,  some  friends  and  a  few  Cher- 
okee Indians  joined  him.*  Following  up 
the  Arkansas  River,  they  were  joined  by  ad- 


venturers until  finally  the  party  numbered 
thirty  or  forty ;  these  reached  the  base  of  the 
mountains  early  in  the  summer.  Finding 
nothing  in  the  neighborhood  of  Pike's 
Peak,  they  followed  northward  up  Squirrel 
Creek  and  then  across  to  Cherry  Creek, 
where  they  built  a  village  fifty  miles  south- 
east of  Denver.  Their  sluicing  was  of  small 
consequence,  however,  and  finally  they 
worked  down  to  this  point,  where  Cherry 
Creek  empties  into  the  South  Platte.  Here, 
building  a  permanent  camp,  they  prepared 
to  spend  the  winter.  Exaggerated  reports 
of  their  success  having  gone  back  to  the 
border  States,  recruits  came  steadily  until, 
by  the  time  cold  weather  really  set  in,  three 
or  four  hundred  persons  (only  three  of  them 
women)  were  gathered  in  the  camp.  The 
settlement  was  christened  Auraria,  after  the 
mining  town  of  that  name  near  Dahlo- 
nega,  Georgia,  and  the  straggling  immigra- 
tion brought  in,  during  the  winter,  many 
merchants  and  artisans  as  well  as  gold- 
seekers. 

Meanwhile,  the  story  of  the  new  discov- 
eries of  gold  in  Pike's  Peak  (for  all  the 
mountain  region  was  known  by  that  name, 
though  the  peak  itself  was  seventy-five 
miles  from  the  diggings)  hastened  east- 
ward, gathering  marvels  as  it  ran,  and  was 
attested  by  sundry  goose-quills  full  of  dust. 
Just  following  the  financial  distresses  of  '57, 
thousands  of  men  were  ready  for  anything, 
and  the  spring  of  1859  witnessed  the  be- 
ginning of  such  an  emigration  across  the 
plains  as  had  only  been  equaled  by  the 

*  The  Cherokees  had  previously  been  through 
here,  searching  for  a  promised  land  for  their  tribe, 
and  had  themselves  reported  gold.  They  concluded 
to  remain  in  the  Indian  Territory,  but  left  their  name 
attached  to  several  springs,  mountains,  etc.,  as  a 
memento  of  their  visit  of  inspection. 


454 


THE  METROPOLIS  OF  THE  ROCKY  MOUNTAINS. 


wildest  hours  of  the  rush  to  California  a 
decade  before.  Council  Bluffs,  Atchison, 
Kansas  City  and  all  the  other  outposts  of 
civilization  became  filled  with  excited 
crowds  hastily  preparing  for  the  two- 
months'  journey  across  the  plains,  and  an 
almost  continuous  procession  of  wagons  of 
every  description  filed  out  from  their  streets 
to  undergo  the  hardships  and  perils  of  that 
eager  race  to  be  first  at  the  gold-fields.  He 
who  could  not  pay  for  the  swift  stage 
became  driver  or  escort  of  a  freight  wagon, 
or  followed  along  with  his  ambulance ; 
while  thousands  rode  on  horseback,  or 
walked,  trundling  their  luggage  in  a  hand- 
cart or  wheelbarrow,  or  slung  upon  their 
backs.  Those  were  the  storied  days  when 
the  motto  "  Pike's  Peak  or  Bust "  was  in- 
scribed on  many  a  wagon-sheet  by  jubilant 
owners,  and  those  also  the  days  when  the 
same  wagons,  hopelessly  bogged  in  some 
treacherous  fording  of  the  Arkansas,  or 
broken  down  among  the  rocks  of  a  stony 
bit  of  butte-road,  were  grimly  labeled 
"  Busted,  by  Thunder ! " 

The  van-guard  of  this  exodus  reached 
the  Platte  in  April,  and  it  is  estimated  that 
nearly  a  hundred  thousand  persons  followed 
during  the  summer.  We  are  told  that  they 
were  in  the  main  from  the  better  classes  of 
men  at  home,  but  that  nineteen-twentieths 
were  entirely  ignorant  of  gold-mining. 
Thousands  were  disappointed,  of  course, 
and  a  thin  returning  stream  met  but  failed 
to  discourage  the  new  comers,  who  pressed 
across  the  weary,  bone-marked  plains,  sure 
that  their  lot  would  be  an  exception  to  all 
the  misfortunes  described. 

As  soon  as  the  snows  were  sufficiently 
melted,  the  Russells  and  others  pushed  into 
the  mountains,  reasoning  that  if  these  outer 
streams  contained  a  sediment  of  drifted  gold, 
the  source  of  the  riches  must  yet  remain  in 
the  rocks  whence  the  waters  came.  One 
party,  under  the  leadership  of  J.  H.  Gregory, 
started  up  Clear  Creek,  to  a  point  just 
above  where  Black  Hawk  now  is,  and  began 
prospecting  in  the  gulch.  "  He  climbed  the 
hill,"  says  a  written  account  of  the  inci- 
dent, "  where  he  believed  the  wash  or  gold- 
dirt  would  naturally  come  from,  scraped 
away  the  grass  and  leaves  and  filled  his 
gold-pan  with  dirt,  and  took  it  down  to  the 
gulch.  Upon  panning  (washing)  it  down, 
there  was  about  four  dollars'  worth  of  gold 
in  it !  He  dropped  his  pan  and  immediately 
summoned  all  the  gods  of  the  universe  to 
witness  his  astounding  triumph.  That  night 
he  could  not  sleep." 


Whether  any  immortals  obeyed  the  sum- 
mons the  record  fails  to  inform  us,  but  it  is 
certain  that  it  was  a  very  few  days  onlj 
before  the  rugged  trails,  slippery  with  ice 
and  gagged  with  snow,  became  thronged 
with  eager,  though  disheartened  emigrants 
fired  with  a  new  hope.  Almost  simulta- 
neously, discoveries  of  rich  bars  and  vein; 
were  made  at  Idaho  Springs,  Boulder 
Golden,  and  elsewhere,  and  the  mountains 
from  Estes  Park  to  the  Sangre  de  Cristo 
began  to  be  overrun  with  prospectors 
while  gold  and  silver  ledges  and  placers 
were  discovered  so  rapidly  that  no  one 
could  keep  track  of  them,  and  thousands  ol 
claims  were  taken  up  on  both  sides  and 
among  the  very  summits  of  the  Snow) 
Range,*  under  laws  and  regulations  framec 
by  the  miners  themselves.  Valleys  hithertc 
undisturbed,  except  by  the  light  tread  oi 
the  moccasin  and  the  hardly  timid  game  i 
followed ;  cliffs  that  had  echoed  to  no  othei 
sound  than  the  noise  of  the  elements  or  the 
voices  of  bird  and  beast,  now  resoundec 
with  human  energy  and  were  despoiled  by 
the  ruthless  shovel  and  axe.  The  sage-brush 
yielded  place  to  wagon-tracks,  and  the 
splendid  spruces  were  felled  to  lie  docile  ir 
the  walls  of  log  cities  that  sprang  into  shape 
with  the  startled  swiftness  and  decision  ol 
magic. 

When  the  Georgians  built  their  cabins 
for  winter  quarters  among  the  lofty  cotton- 
woods  between  the  Platte'  and  Cherrj 
Creek,  they  thought  "  Indian  Row "  £ 
good  enough  name  ;  but  when  a  settlemeni 
grew  up  around  them  and  more  men  kepi 
coming,  they  surveyed  a  town-site  anc 
named  it  "  Auraria,"  as  already  stated 
At  the  same  time,  a  few  persons  crossed  tc 
the  east  side  of  Cherry  Creek  and  built  z 
group  of  cabins,  which  they  called  "  St 
Charles,"  and  a  few  others  "  located  "  on  z 
bench  northward  under  the  name  of  th« 
"  Highlands."  These  last  two  were  abor- 
tive attempts  at  city-making,  however,  and 
during  the  winter  of  1858-9  a  party  with 
General  Larimer  at  its  head  came  to  St 
Charles,  "jumped"  the  now  deserted  set- 
tlement, laid  out  a  96o-acre  town-site  of 
their  own  and  christened  it  Denver  City,  in 
honor  of  the  Governor  of  Kansas,  of  which 
territory  all  this  region  soon  became  a 
county  known  as  Arapahoe. 


*Fine  mines  of  silver,  which  are  still  worked, 
were  opened  a  few  years  later  on  the  brow  of  Mount 
Lincoln,  at  an  elevation  considerably  over  14,000 
feet,  in  the  midst  of  perpetual  snow. 


THE  METROPOLIS   OF  THE   ROCKY  MOUNTAINS. 


455 


This  last  deliberate  movement  was  a 
direct  recognition  of  the  advantages  which 
this  point  offered  as  a  town-site.  It  lay 
midway  between  the  routes  of  travel  to  the 
Pacific  coast  along  the  North  Platte,  and 
by  the  way  of  Santa  Fe\  It  was  at  the 
junction  of  two  water-courses,  along  which 
grew  abundant  timber  and  unlimited  pas- 
turage. It  was  a  situation  central  to  the 
half-dozen  passes  and  canons  which  then, 
as  now,  constituted  the  gateways  through 
the  mountain-barrier  into  the  interior  val- 
leys and  parks.  Lastly,  it  had  priority,  and 
was  fast  getting  the  advertising  which  has 
ever  since  been  so  liberally  accorded  to  it, 
and  to  which  it  owes,  in  no  small  degree, 
its  present  success. 

Each  of  the  forty-one  shareholders  was 
required  to  erect  a  cabin  at  once,  and  Gen- 
eral Larimer  was  the  first  man  to  put  up 
his  roof.  Denver  thus  sprang  at  one  bound 
into  rivalry  with  Auraria,  but  the  strife  for 
supremacy  was  brief,  and  resulted  in  a  con- 
solidation by  which  the  older  sister  of  the 
twain  lost  her  name  and  became  simply 
West  Denver,  or,  when  spoken  of  with  con- 
tumely (as,  until  lately,  she  frequently  de- 
served to  be),  simply,  "  'cross  the  creek." 

Those  were  wild  days  in  the  young 
city's  history.  Thousands  of  excited  people 
thronged  her  streets,  living  in  tents,  in 
wagons,  in  dug-outs  and  in  the  rudest  of 
log  huts  and  shanties, — the  best  way  they 
could.  All  the  provisions  had  to  be  brought 
across  the  plains,  except  game  and  some 
cattle  that  Mexicans  would  drive  up  from 
Santa  Fe.  Yet  there  was  no  great  scarcity, 
and  though  prices  were  almost  uniformly 
ten  times  as  high  as  at  present,  gold-dust 
and  coin  were  abundant,  and  wages  in  pro- 
portion. If  a  man  thought  ii  cheap  to  be 
able  to  buy  a  sack  of  flour  at  ten  dollars,  he 
felt  outraged  if  he  was  not  getting  fifteei  or 
twenty  dollars  a  day  for  his  labor. 

The  fall  of  '59  saw  Denver  very  city-like 
and  busy.  Machinery  poured  in,  and  with 
it  every  appliance  of  civilization  possible  at 
such  a  distance  from  even  the  frontier  of  the 
Western  States.  All  kinds  of  business  enter- 
prises were  projected,  and  among  others  a 
newspaper.  The  late  Hon.  William  N.  Byers, 
a  gentleman  who  has  been  identified  with  the 
best  interests  of  Colorado,  was  the  moving 
spirit  in  this  latter  venture,  and  its  history  is 
a  good  illustration  of  ways  and  means  in 
"  Pike's  Peak  "  twenty  years  ago.  At  Belle- 
view,  near  Omaha,  Mr.  Byers  and  his 
associates  heard  that  there  was  lying  idle 
such  a  printing-office  as  they  wanted, — a 


relic  of  a  starved-out  journal.  Mr.  Byers 
went  there  and  secured  the  property,  leaving 
Omaha  with  it  on  the  8th  of  March,  1859. 
The  streams  were  all  flooded,  snow  and 
rain  storms  were  frequent,  and  the  third  day 
out  the  trains  waded  through  a  frozen  sheet 
of  water,  three  feet  deep  and  two  miles  wide, 
breaking  the  ice  as  they  progressed.  The 
wagon  carrying  the  press  had  a  variety  of 
disheartening  mishaps,  and  at  the  end  of  the 
month  had  only  reached  Fort  Kearney,  185 
miles  from  Omaha.  Beyond  there,  however, 
the  roads  were  firm  and  faster  time  was  made, 
so  that  on  the  2oth  of  April  the  precious 
press  and  types  entered  Denver.  The  name 
of  this  fair-sized  and  nicely  printed  weekly 
was  the  "  Rocky  Mountain  News."  To-day 
it  is  an  eight-page  daily,  and  owned  by  a 
different  company,  but  the  name  remains, 
and  is  widely  known.  Its  salutatory  is  worth 
quoting  as  a  piece  of  brave  crowing,  for  that 
very  week  was  the  time  of  the  remarkable 
stampede  which  carried  back  in  a  panic 
four-fifths  of  the  emigrants  who  had  set  out 
for  the  promised  land, — scared  by  a  cry  of 
fraud  and  certain  starvation  : 

"  We  make  our  debut  in  the  far  West,  where  the 
snowy  mountains  look  down  upon  us  in  the  hottest 
summer  day  as  well  as  in  the  winter's  cold ;  here, 
where  a  few  months  ago  the  wild  beasts  and  wilder 
Indians  held  undisturbed  possession — where  now 
surges  the  advancing  wave  of  Anglo-Saxon  enterprise 
and  civilization,  where  soon,  we  proudly  hope,  will 
be  erected  a  great  and  powerful  State,  another  em- 
pire in  the  sisterhood  of  empires." 

This  was  plucky  and  partook  of  the  char- 
acter of  "bluff,"  for  the  stoutest-hearted 
really  had  intelligent  doubts  about  the  truth 
of  the  boast ;  but  the  journal  can  take  to  it- 
self much  credit  for  staying  the  stampede, 
and  bringing  capital  and  brains  to  the 
development  of  the  new  camp. 

It  was  not  long  before  rivals  sprang  up, 
and,  in  May  of  the  following  year,  a  daily 
edition  was  begun,  to  which  a  second  daily, 
"  The  Herald,"  opposed  itself  within  a  few 
weeks.  At  first  the  nearest  post-office  was 
at  Fort  Laramie,  220  miles  northward,  and 
the  mail  reached  there  from  the  East  only 
once  or  twice  a  month.  About  the  ist  of 
May,  1859,  a  messenger  was  induced  to  go 
to  this  post-office,  and  through  an  utter 
wilderness  he  brought  a  mule-load  of  letters 
and  newspapers,  which  were  delivered  on 
payment  of  twenty-five  cents  each  for  the 
former,  and  fifty  cents  for  the  latter.  Nor 
did  affairs  speedily  improve.  More  than  two 
years  passed  before  Denver  had  its  own  post- 
office,  all  mails  being  carried  from  the  East 


456 


THE  METROPOLIS   OF  THE  ROCKY  MOUNTAINS. 


on  the  overland  coaches,  which  came  regu- 
larly after  June,  1859,  and  letters  were 
charged  for  as  express  matter,  at  twenty-five 
cents  apiece.*  The  war  of  the  rebellion  was 
raging  in  the  East,  and  a  general  Indian 
war  harassed  the  plains.  In  1863,  mails 
were  so  irregular  that  weeks  would  elapse 
without  one,  and  what  was  received  came 
by  the  way  of  Panama  and  San  Francisco. 
The  freighting  business  was  so  demoralized 
that  many  a  hundred  pounds  of  paper  cost 
a  hundred  dollars  for  its  transportation  alone, 
and  wrapping,  tissue  and  even  letter  paper 
were  used  to  keep  up  the  daily  issues  of  the 
"  News,"  which  often  shrunk  to  a  mere 
bulletin  of  military  orders,  etc.,  for  lack  of 
something  to  print  upon.  In  1861,  the 
telegraph  reached  Fort  Kearney,  where  it 
rested  two  years.  Then  the  Denver  journals 
began  taking  news  dispatches,  which  were 
printed  here  only  four  days  after  their  origin 
in  New  York.  This  increased  the  competi- 
tion between  the  papers,  and  the  most  bitter 
personalities  were  indulged  in  through  the 
editorial  columns.  It  is  great  fun  to  read 
these  old  files ;  it  is  like  witnessing  a  battle 
between  men  of  straw.  Both  offices  estab- 
lished pony-express  lines  to  the  principal 
mining  camps  in  the  mountains,  and  their 
daily  editions  were  delivered  in  Black  Hawk, 
Central  City  and  other  neighborhoods,  forty 
or  fifty  miles  away,  more  quickly  than  the 
steam-cars  now  manage  to  do  it.  Under 
these  circumstances,  twenty-five  dollars  a 
year  was  not  a  high  subscription  rate,  the 
retail  price  being  twenty -five  cents  a  copy 
in  gold,  which,  at  that  time,  was  worth  twice 
as  much  as  currency.  There  was  no  lack 
of  local  news,  of  course,  in  so  wide-awake 
a  community,  and  these  journals  were  more 
successful  than  is  usual  in  manufacturing 
"  items  "-  for  themselves. 

In  1859,  the  town  became  overrun  with 
gamblers  and  cut-throats,  who  thought  them- 
selves too  far  from  authority  and  too  strong 
in  numbers  to  be  interfered  with ;  but  one 
night  several  of  them  were  hanged,  and  the 
next  night  others.  Rumors  of  a  Vigilance 
Committee  got  abroad,  and  the  leading  des- 
peradoes found  it  to  their  advantage  to 

*  There  is  a  whole  book  to  be  written  some  day — 
and  a  book  of  thrilling  interest — on  the  overland 
coach  lines,  the  pony  express  and  the  fast  freight 
arrangement,  which  preceded  the  trans-continental 
railways.  Their  histories  might  properly  come  in 
here,  but  would  take  up  so  much  space  that  I  prefer 
passing  them  by  altogether  to  making  an  unsatisfac- 
tory mention.  Denver  owed  much  in  its  infancy  to 
the  enterprise  and  pluck  of  its  stage  and  express 
managers. 


"  skip."  As  a  consequence,  the  reign  of  ter- 
ror which  forms  a  part  of  the  early  histor) 
of  all  the  Pacific  railroad  towns  nevei 
amounted  to  much  in  Denver.  Still  then 
were  plenty  of  bad  men,  and  the  carrying  ol 
fire-arms  was  a  universal  custom .  Ga  mblin  g 
too,  was  as  open  and  prevalent  as  it  is  nov 
in  Leadville,  Canon  City  or  Cheyenne,  anc 
tanglefoot  whisky,  at  two  bits  a  drink,  wai 
to  be  had  on  every  corner,  and  two  or  three 
times  between.  As  a  natural  result,  quarrel 
ing  and  bloodshed  were  of  so  frequent  occur 
rence  as  to  excite  no  notice;  and  wher 
anybody  was  killed  "  they  piled  the  stiff; 
outside  the  door,"  and  went  on  with  the 
game  under  the  impression  that  it  servec 
the  dead  man  right  for  not  being  quid 
enough  to  "  get  the  drop "  on  the  othei 
fellow. 

Although  Auraria  had  long  before  losi 
its  identity,  yet  the  west  side  remained  ttu 
business  part  of  Denver  until  1864;  and  one 
circumstance  which  caused  a  change  of  base 
was  the  memorable  flood  of  that  spring,  one 
of  the  events  from  which  Denver  people 
date.  For  several  days  a  mixture  of  rair 
and  snow  had  fallen  over  the  whole  regior 
in  an  almost  continuous  storm,  and  Cherrj 
Creek,  ordinarily  an  insignificant,  civil  stream 
was  full  to  the  top  of  its  banks.  At  last  there 
came  an  unprecedented  fall  of  hail,  followec 
by  an  hour  or  two  of  warmth,  and  then  by  i 
thunder-storm.  Hundreds  of  small  reser 
voirs  up  on  the  divide  were  thus  unlockec 
at  a  stroke,  and  in  pitchy  darkness,  rain 
thunder  and  lightning  their  loosened  con 
tents  swept  down  the  valley  of  Cherry  Creek 
and  struck  the  town  in  a  series  of  prodigiou: 
waves.  Uprooted  trees,  drifting  houses  anc 
barns,  and  floating  debris  of  every  sort  were 
borne  along  vpon  the  swift  water,  and  the 
inhabitants  of  half  the  city,  particularly  or 
the  west  side,  were  driven  from  their  sway- 
ing  houses  by  this  unexpected  black  anc 
icy  flood.  It  was  a  night  of  destruction  of 
property  and  horror  to  mankind  throughoul 
the  whole  region,  for  Cherry  Creek  was  onl) 
one  of  many  streams  that  rose  into  majestic 
proportions  and  asserted  themselves  as  the 
channels  of  awful  power.  Yet  less  than  s, 
score  of  persons  lost  their  lives,  and  it  was 
all  over  in  a  few  hours.  The  most  serious 
loss  sustained  was  that  of  the  county's  safe, 
wherein  were  deposited  a  large  number  of 
deeds,  leases,  mining  records  and  other  im- 
portant documents,  the  destruction  of  which 
has  been  the  source  of  a  vast  deal  of  litiga- 
tion. Shrewd  ones  suspect  that  the  safe  was 
found  long  ago,  and  that  those  who  prefei 


THE  METROPOLIS   OF  THE  ROCKY  MOUNTAINS. 


457 


it  should  never  turn  up  have  paid  so  much 
more  highly  to  have  it  buried  again  than  the 
public  authorities  offered  for  its  production, 
that  it  never  will  be  seen  until  exhumed  by 
some  future  antiquary. 

Cherry  Creek  has  "  boomed "  without 
warning  three  or  four  times  since  then,  and 
will  do  so  in  future ;  but  the  guards  along 
its  banks  and  channel  are  such  as,  it  is  hoped, 
will  ward  off  disaster.  When  the  water  is 
heard  and  seen  coming  down,  in  a  mighty 
flood,  crested  with  great  waves  and  spread- 
ing from  one  trembling  bank  to  another,  the 
fire-bells  ring  and  the  creek-side  becomes 
thronged  with  spectators,  and  men  with 
ropes,  grapnels  and  hooks.  As  night  ad- 
vances they  build  great  bonfires  at  the  end 
of* each  street  that  touches  the  creek,  and 
the  angry,  chocolate-colored,  swift-racing 
waters  run  this  long  gauntlet  of  fires,  that 
throw  their  rays  far  across  the  turbid  waste, 
and  lend  new  vividness  to  what  is  always  an 
exciting  picture. 

Meanwhile,  Denver  had  grown  to  possess 
fifteen  hundred  or  two  thousand  people, 
more  and  more  persons  had  gone  into  the 
mountains,  and  every  available  point  near 
the  town  had  been  preempted  for  ranch- 
ing. The  Arapahoes  of  the  plains  and  the 
Utes  of  the  mountains,  seeing  this  inroad 
of  white  men,  were  far  from  pleased,  and  by 
the  spring  of  1864  their  depredations  had 
culminated  in  united  war  over  the  whole 
length  and  breadth  of  the  plains.  The 
transportation  of  merchandise  from  the  East 
became  impossible  except  in  great  com- 
panies under  armed  escort,  and  even  then 
hundreds  of  men  lost  their  lives.  My  mem- 
ory teems  with  thrilling  incidents  as  I  write. 
The  mail-service  along  the  Platte  became 
broken  up,  and  Colorado  was  practically  cut 
off  from  the  Atlantic  coast.  Even  the  city 
itself  was  fearful  of  attack  and  massacre. 
Knowing  this,  it  is  not  strange  that  so  com- 
plete a  panic  should  have  occurred  as  hap- 
pened one  memorable  night  early  in  June, 
when  the  report  that  an  army  of  Arapahoes 
were  about  to  sack  the  town  spread  through 
the  streets.  It  was  a  wonderfully  propitious 
moment  for  the  savages.  Most  of  the  able- 
bodied  men  of  the  town  were  away  in  the 
mountains,  with  teams  on  the  plains,  or 
doing  service  in  the  three  regiments  that 
Colorado  sent  into  the  Union  army.  After 
a  night  of  scouting  and  patrolling,  waiting 
and  watching,  praying  and  cursing,  fear  and 
fury,  morning  dawned  and  no  trace  of  In- 
dians was  discovered.  The  whole  scare 
had  originated  with  a  nervous  old  couple 


who  were  surprised  at  milking-time  by  the 
advent  of  a  band  of  horses.  Never  stop- 
ping to  see  that  they  were  unsaddled  and 
driven  by  only  a  Mexican  boy  or  two,  they 
had  leaped  into  their  wagon  and  rushed 
off  to  tell  Denver  that  three  thousand  Ara- 
pahoes were  coming.  The  outcome  of  all 
this  excitement  was  the  proclamation  of 
martial  law,  and  the  sudden  organization 
of  a  regiment  for  Indian  fighting.  The 
"Sand  Creek"  campaign,  followed,  and 
secured  instant  peace  to  the  harassed  set- 
tlers and  miners,  over  whose  heads  a  toma- 
hawk had  been  suspended  for  months. 

The  flood  and  the  Indian  scares  lost  to 
West  Denver  its  pre-eminence,  and  business 
moved  to  the  east  side,  building  up  Blake, 
Holliday,  Larimer  and  Fifteenth  streets. 
Its  expansion  since  has  been  eastward  and 
northward.  A  walk  through  these  scores 
of  solid  blocks  of  salesrooms  and  factories 
exhibits  at  once  the  fact  that  it  is  as  the 
commercial  center  of  the  mountainous 
interior  that  Denver  thrives,  and  congratu- 
lates herself  upon  the  promise  of  a  con- 
tinually prosperous  future.  Her  assertion 
that  she  is  to  be  the  largest  city  between 
Chicago  and  San  Francisco  is  likely  to 
be  realized.  Most  of  her  leading  business 
men  came  here  at  the  beginning,  but,  when 
every  article  had  to  be  hauled  six  hundred 
miles  across  the  plains  by  teams,  their  ener- 
gies were  limited.  It  frequently  used  to 
happen  that  merchants  would  sell  their 
goods  completely  out,  put  up  their  shut- 
ters and  go  a-fishing  for  weeks  before  the 
new  semi-yearly  supplies  arrived.  Every- 
body therefore  looked  forward  with  good 
reason  to  railway  communication  as  the 
beginning  of  a  new  era  of  prosperity  and 
growth,  and  watched  with  keen  interest 
the  approach  of  the  iron  track.  In  1868, 
the  Union  Pacific  company  was  running 
trains  to  Cheyenne,  directly  north  of  Denver, 
and  about  100  miles  away;  to  which  point 
the  Denver  Pacific  railway  was  being  pushed, 
being  completed  in  the  spring  of  1869.  In 
the  following  August,  the  Kansas  Pacific's 
tracks  connected  Denver  with  Kansas  City 
and  St.  Louis.  Thus,  the  young  city  found 
itself  removed  in  a  single  year  from  total 
isolation  to  a  central  point  on  two  through 
lines  of  railway  east  and  west.  Later,  it  was 
given  a  third  line  by  the  way  of  Atchison. 

Now  followed  the  season  of  business  pros- 
perity which  sagacious  eyes  had  foreseen. 
When  the  railways  were  finished  the  town 
had  less  than  four  thousand  inhabitants. 
A  year  from  that  time  her  population  was 


THE  METROPOLIS   OF  THE  ROCKY  MOUNTAINS. 


nearly  fifteen  thousand,  and  her  tax- valuation 
had  increased  from  three  to  ten  millions  of 
dollars.  It  was  a  time  of  happy  investment, 
of  incessant  building  and  improvement, 
and  of  great  speculation.  Mines  flourished, 
crops  were  abundant,  cattle  and  sheep 
grazed  in  a  thousand  valleys  hitherto  ten- 
anted only  by  antelopes,  and  everybody  had 
plenty  of  money.  Then  came  a  shadow 
of  storm  in  the  East,  and  the  sound  of  the 
thunder-clap  of  1873  was  heard  in  Denver, 
if  the  blow  of  the  panic  was  not  felt.  The 
banks  became  suddenly  cautious  in  loans, 
speculators  declined  to  buy  and  sold  at  a 
sacrifice.  Merchants  found  that  trade  was 
dull  and  ranchmen  got  less  for  their  prod- 
ucts. It  was  a  "  set-back  "  to  Denver,  and 
two  years  of  stagnation  followed ;  but  she 
only  dug  the  more  money  out  of  the  ground 
to  fill  her  depleted  pockets,  and  survived 
the  "  hard  times  "  with  far  less  sacrifice  of 
fortune  and  pride  than  did  most  of  the 
eastern  cities.  None  of  her  banks  went 
under,  nor  even  certified  a  check,  and  most 
of  her  business  houses  weathered  the  storm. 
The  unhealthy  reign  of  speculation  was 
effectually  checked,  and  business  was  placed 
upon  a  compact  and  solid  foundation. 
Then  came  1875  and  1876,  which  were 
"  grasshopper  years,"  when  no  crops  of  con- 
sequence were  raised  in  the  whole  State, 
and  a  large  amount  of  money  was  sent 
East  to  pay  for  flour  and  grain.  It  was  a 
particularly  hard  blow  just  at  that  time, 
but  the  bountiful  harvest  of  1877  compen- 
sated, and  the  export  of  beeves  and  sheep, 
with  their  wool,  hides  and  tallow,  was  the 
largest  ever  made  up  to  that  time.  The 
result  of  this  successful  year  with  miner, 
farmer  and  stock-ranger,  yielding  them 
more  than  $15,000,000,  a  large  propor- 
tion of  which  was  an  addition  to  the 
intrinsic  wealth  of  the  world,  had  an  almost 
magical  effect  upon  the  city.  Commerce 
revived,  business  was  brisk,  a  buoyant  feel- 
ing prevailed  among  all  classes,  and  mer- 
chants enjoyed  a  remunerative  trade.  Money 
was  "  easy,"  rents  advanced,  and  the  real- 
estate  business  assumed  a  healthier  tone. 
Generous  patronage  of  the  productive  indus- 
tries throughout  the  whole  State  was  made 
visible  in  the  quickened  trade  of  the  city, 
which  rendered  the  year  an  important  one 
in  the  history  of  Denver's  progress. 

So,  out  of  the  barrenness  of  the  cactus- 
plain,  and  through  this  turbulent  history,  has 
arisen  a  cultivated  and  attractive  city  of  30,- 
ooo  people,  which  is  truly  the  metropolis  of  the 
mountains.  Her  streets  are  broad,  straight, 


and  everywhere  well  shaded  with  lines  of 
cottonwoods  and  maples,  abundant  in  foliage 
and  of  graceful  shape.  On  each  side  of 
every  street  flows  a  constant  stream  of  water, 
often  as  clear  and  cool  as  a  mountain  brook, 
moistening  the  air  and  furnishing  water  for 
household  use  to  the  poor.  There  are  said 
to  be  over  260  miles  of  these  irrigating 
ditches  or  gutters,  and  250,000  shade-trees. 
The  source  is  a  dozen  miles  northward, 
whence  the  water  is  conducted  in  an  open 
channel,  at  a  cost  to  the  city  of  $10,000  a 
year.  For  many  miles  in  the  southern  and 
western  quarter  of  the  town, — from  Four- 
teenth to  Thirtieth  streets,  and  from  Arapa- 
hoe  to  Broadway  and  the  new  suburbs 
beyond, — you  will  see  only  elegant  and 
comfortable  houses.  A  city  of  equal  size*in 
the  East  would  show  dwellings  arranged 
to  a  great  extent  in  solid  blocks ;  but  in 
Denver  there  are  only  two  or  three  instances 
of  this.  Homes  succeed  one  another,  in 
endlessly  varying  styles  of  architecture,  and 
vie  in  attractiveness,  each  surrounded  by 
lawns  and  gardens  abounding  in  flowers. 
All  looks  new  and  ornamental,  while  some 
of  the  dwellings  of  wealthy  citizens  are  pal- 
atial in  size  and  furniture,  and  with  porches 
which  are  well  occupied  during  the  long, 
cool  twilight  characteristic  of  this  climate. 

The  power  which  has  wrought  all  this 
change  in  a  short  score  of  years,  truly  mak- 
ing the  desert  to  bloom,  is  water;  or,  more 
correctly,  that  is  the  great  instrument  used, 
for  the  power  is  the  will  and  pride  of  the 
cultivated  men  and  women  who  form  the 
leading  portion  of  the  citizens.  Water  is 
pumped  from  the  Platte  by  the  Holly  sys- 
tem and  forced  over  the  city  with  such 
power  that,  in  case  of  fire,  no  steam-engine 
is  necessary  to  send  a  strong  stream  through 
the  hose.  The  keeping  of  a  turf  and  gar- 
den, after  it  is  once  begun,  is  merely  a  mat- 
ter of  watering.  The  garden  is  kept  moist 
mainly  by  flooding  from  the  irrigating  ditch 
in  the  street  or  alley,  but  the  turf  of  the 
lawn  and  the  shrubbery  owe  their  greenness 
to  almost  incessant  sprinkling  by  the  hand- 
hose.  Fountains  are  seen  in  nearly  every 
yard.  After  dinner  (for  Denver  dines  at 
five  o'clock,  as  a  rule),  the  father  of  the  house 
lights  his  cigar  and  turns  hoseman  for  an  hour, 
while  he  chats  with  friends ;  or  the  small 
boys  bribe  each  other  to  let  them  lay  the 
dust  in  the  street,  to  the  imminent  peril  of 
passers-by.  The  swish  and  gurgle  and 
sparkle  of  water  are  always  present,  and 
always  must  be ;  for  so  Denver  defies  the 
desert  and  dissipates  the  dreaded  dust. 


459 


Considering  this  abundance  of  water,  the 
dirty  and  unsanitary  condition  of  central 
Denver  is  a  disgrace  to  her,  and  will  pres- 
ently be  an  alarm.  Many  alleys  are  filled 
with  disgusting  refuse,  and  the  gutters, 
where  there  is  not  a  swift  stream,  are  choked 
with  filth.  It  is  not  so  bad  as  the  same 
condition  of  things  in  a  southern  or  eastern 
town  would  be,  because  the  dryness  of  the 
air  causes  desiccation  rather  than  the  pu- 
trescence of  decaying  matter.  But  it  is  bad 
enough,  and  long  ago  it  was  understood 
that  well-water  must  not  be  consumed 
inside  the  city  limits.  Now  the  surface- 
drainage  has  affected  even  the  Platte  and 
the  Holly  water,  and  during  the  summer 
of  1879  much  sickness  resulted  from  drink- 
ing it.  At  this  rate,  Denver's  population 
will  be  changed  from  a  race  of  recon- 
structed invalids  to  one  of  newly  afflicted 
candidates  for  the  hospital.  It  is  offered  in 
defense  against  these  charges  that  the  city 
has  increased  in  population  ahead  of  its 
accommodations — has  outgrown  itself;  and 
new  works  of  great  magnitude  are  being  pro- 
jected, which  will  bring  the  melted  snows 
directly  from  their  rocky  reservoirs  in  the 
foot-hills  and  distribute  the  purest  water  in 
the  greatest  abundance.  Then  it  is  prom- 
ised that  sewers  will  be  dug,  proper  escape- 
pipes  be  arranged,  and  an  era  of  sanitation 
begun.  Hasten  the  day  !  There  is  no  ex- 
cuse for  ill-health  to  a  sound  body  in  this 
dry,  clear,  exhilarating  atmosphere. 

Its  climate  is  one  of  the  things  Den- 
ver boasts  of ;  but  a  region  where  the 
temperature  will  fall  48  degrees  in  a  single 
hour,  as  it  actually  did  one  January  day  in 
1875,  is  °Pen  to  criticism,  to  say  the  least. 
That  the  air  is  pure  and  invigorating  is  to 
be  expected  at  a  point  right  out  on  a  plat- 
eau a  mile  above  sea-level,  with  a  range 
of  snow-burdened  mountains  within  sight. 
From  the  beginning  to  the  end  of  warm 
weather  it  rarely  rains,  except  occasional 
thunder  and  hail  storms  in  July  and  Au- 
gust. September  witnesses  an  ugly  storm, 
succeeded  by  cool,  charming  weather,  when 
the  haze  and  smoke  is  filtered  from  the 
bracing  air,  and  the  landscape  robes  itself 
in  its  most  enchanting  hues.  The  coldest 
weather  occurs  after  New  Year's  Day  and 
lasts  until  April.  Then  come  the  May 
storms  and  floods,  followed  by  a  hot,  dry 
summer.  The  barometer  holds  itself  pretty 
steady  throughout  the  year,  but  the  ther- 
mometer goes  crazy,  and  the  anemometer 
is  sometimes  "  driven  almost  to  death." 
There  is  a  vast  quantity  of  electricity  in  the 


air,  and  the  displays  of  lightning  are  mag- 
nificent and  often  destructive.  Sunshine  is 
superabundant.  Records  show  less  than  a 
score  of  days  in  seven  years  when  the  sun 
has  been  totally  obscured.  It  glares  down 
through  the  thin,  brilliant  air  with  burning 
heat  and  an  insupportable  brightness  which 
it  pains  the  eye  to  encounter.  One  can  by 
no  means  judge  from  the  brightest  day  in 
New  York  of  the  wonderful  dazzle  sunlight 
has  here ;  nor  can  he  fail  to  notice  the  in- 
stant relief  felt  when  he  steps  out  of  the 
direct  rays  into  the  shadow.  Summer  heat 
often  reaches  a  hundred  in  the  shade,  and 
is  stifling  at  midday ;  but  with  sunset  comes 
coolness,  and  the  nights  allow  refreshing 
sleep.  In  winter,  the  mercury  sometimes 
sinks  thirty  degrees  below  zero  and  stays 
there  for  long  periods, — the  average  for  Jan- 
uary is  frequently  more  than  ten  degrees 
below, — but  one  doesn't  feel  this  severity  as 
much  as  he  would  a  far  less  degree  of  cold 
in  the  damp,  raw  climate  of  the  coast. 
Snow  is  frequent,  but  not  very  useful  for 
sleighing  on  account  of  the  wind. 

This  wind,  in  fact,  is  the  great  feature 
about  the  weather  at  all  seasons.  It  does 
not  always  blow,  but  the  pauses  are  so  rare 
as  to  be  a  positive  relief.  In  congratulating 
herself  that  Cheyenne  has  from  1500  to 
2000  more  miles  of  wind  a  month  than  she, 
Denver  asserts  no  strong  claim  to  being  a 
calm  locality.  The  dust,  which  is  Denver's 
bete  noir,  is  swept  in  blinding  clouds  at  the 
shortest  notice  away  from  before  you,  to  be 
deposited  in  some  less  desirable  place,  while 
you  get  the  full  benefit  of  some  else's  pul- 
verulent property.  Nor  has  this  Colorado 
wind  a  decent  and  fixed  purpose.  It  is  a 
perfect  Puck  of  a  wind,  dashing  down  from 
the  mountains,  or  tearing  in  off  the  plains,  at 
a  pace  that  defies  all  preparation  or  caution. 
All  the  cinders  resulting  from  kitchen  fires 
are  required  by  law  to  be  put  into  little  close 
domes  of  brick, — quaint  little  structures,  like 
Mexican  ovens,  that  attract  a  stranger's  eye 
at  once  as  he  glances  over  the  palings  of 
the  back-yard.  In  one  breeze  a  family  lost 
three  wash-tubs,  among  numberless  other 
things,  blown  miles  away  on  the  plains.  A 
good,  motherly  woman,  hating  frivolity  and 
camping  to  please  her  children  in  the  mouth 
of  a  canon,  is  what  this  dare-devil  wind 
loves  above  all  things  to  meet  with.  It 
holds  still  till  she  has  made  everything  ready, 
and  is  just  reaching  out  to  set  her  frying-pan 
upon  the  nicely  glowing  coals;  then — piff! 
and  the  embers  are  going  over  the  top  of 
the  hill,  and  the  whole  camp  devotes  itself 


460 


THE  METROPOLIS   OF  THE  ROCKY  MOUNTAINS. 


for  the  rest  of  the  evening  to  collecting 
scattered  articles.  There  is  a  yarn  about 
a  miner  who,  being  swift  of  foot,  chased  his 
vagrant  fire  and  held  his  skillet  over  it  as  it 
traveled.  When  his  bacon  was  done  he 
found  himself  fifteen  miles  from  camp  ! 

Denver  is  not  only  built  with  the  cap- 
ital of  her  own  citizens,  but  constructed  of 
materials  close  at  hand.  Very  substantial 
bricks,  kilned  in  the  suburbs,  are  the  favorite 
material,  and  no  less  than  twenty  millions 
will  be  put  into  walls  this  year.  Then  there 
is  a  pinkish  trachyte,  almost  as  light  as 
pumice,  and  ringing  under  a  blow  with  a 
metallic  clink,  that  is  largely  employed  in 
trimmings.  Sandstone,  marble  and  lime- 
stone are  abundant  enough  for  all  needs, 
and  the  foundations  of  most  of  the  large 
buildings  are  made  of  stone  which  will  as- 
say eight  dollars'  worth  of  silver  to  the  ton ! 
Coarse  lumber  is  supplied  by  the  high  pine- 
forests,  for  the  great  cotton  woods  that  shade 
the  lower  streams  are  of  no  account,  but  all 
the  hard  wood  and  fine  lumber  is  brought 
from  the  East.  The  fuel  of  the  city  is  wholly 
lignite  coal,  which  comes  from  the  foot-hills. 
It  is  dirty  stuff,  yielding  a  dense  smoke,  and 
a  noticeable  effect  follows.  A  dozen  years 
ago,  it  seemed  some  days  as  though  the 
mountains  rose  abruptly  from  the  Platte,  and 
one  can  almost  credit  the  popular  yarn  of 
the  Englishman  who  started  to  walk  out  to 
them  before  breakfast,  never  dreaming  their 
nearest  slopes  were  a  dozen  miles  away ;  now, 
however,  close  as  they  sometimes  approach, 
and  wonderfully  as  they  loom  up  before  the 
eye,  they  always  seem  more  distant  and 
dim.  No  doubt  the  smoke  of  thousands 
of  fires  and  the  exhalations  of  a  crowded 
and  somewhat  dirty  city  have  made  the 
whole  atmosphere  perceptibly  dense  and 
impure. 

While  she  has  thus  been  looking  well 
after  the  material  attractions,  Denver  has 
not  forgotten  the  mental  inducements  to 
make  her  midst  your  dwelling-place.  She 
is  very  proud  of  her  school-buildings,  con- 
structed and  managed  upon  the  most  ap- 
proved plans ;  of  her  fine  churches,  of  her 
flower-bedecked  State  offices,  her  seminaries 
of  higher  learning,  and  her  recently  organ- 
ized natural  history  and  historical  asso- 
ciation. Society  is  cosmopolitan.  Five 
hundred  people  a  day,  it  is  said,  enter 
Denver.  Nowadays  "  the  tour  "  of  the 
United  States  is  incomplete  if  this  mount- 
ain city  is  omitted.  Thus,  the  registers  of 
her  hotels  bear  many  foreign  autographs 
of  world-wide  reputation. 


Surprise  is  often  expressed  by  the  critical 
among  these  visitors  (why,  I  do  not  under- 
stand) at  the  totally  unexpected  degree  of 
intelligence,  culture  in  music  and  art,  appre- 
ciation of  the  more  refined  methods  of 
thought  and  handiwork,  and  the  knowledge 
of  science  that  greets  them  here.  Do  they 
think  because  we  live  on  the  western  side 
of  the  plains  that  we  are  out  of  the  world  ? 
or  because  we  are  pioneers  that  we  are, 
therefore,  boors  ?  Or  do  they  cling  to  the 
old  notion  that  Denver  is  a  place  where  one 
half  the  population  is  practicing  with  revolv- 
ers on  the  other  half?  Art  and  music,  par- 
ticularly, find  friends  and  cultivation  among 
the  educated  and  generous  families  who  have 
built  up  society  here.  There  are  schools  and 
societies  devoted  to  sustaining  the  interest, 
just  as  there  are  reading  circles  and  Shaks- 
pere  clubs.  And,  withal,  there  is  the 
most  charming  freedom  of  acquaintance  and 
intercourse, — polish  and  good-breeding,  de- 
livered from  all  chill  and  exclusiveness,  or 
regard  for  "  who  was  your  grandfather  ?  " 
Yet,  this  winsome  good-fellowship  by  no 
means  descends  to  vulgarity  or  permits  itself 
to  be  abused.  After  all,  it  is  only  New  York 
and  New  England  and  Ohio,  transplanted 
and  considerably  enlivened. 

One  result  of  this,  unfortunately  for  the 
magazinist,  is  that  there  is  little  distinctive 
character  in  the  community.  What  there  is 
is  merely  off-color,  if  not  criminal,  and  can- 
not be  dwelt  upon.  There  used  to  be 
plenty  of  life  and  color  in  the  streets  that 
was  picturesque,  but,  if  not  all  gone,  it  is  fast 
going,  and  Denver  has  become  as  tame  and 
conventional  as  any  Ohio  town.  I  can 
think  of  only  one  single  custom  that  maybe 
regarded  as  altogether  local.  In  the  sub- 
urbs nearly  every  citizen  keeps  a  cow ;  and 
this  requires  a  pasture.  But  about  Denver 
there  are  no  fenced  fields, — when  you  get 
away  from  the  houses  you  are  at  once  out 
on  the  open  plains,  and  could  walk  to  the 
Missouri  without  jumping  a  fence.  A  few 
men,  therefore,  make  it  their  business  to  col- 
lect all  the  cows  in  a  certain  quarter  of  the 
city  every  morning,  drive  them  out  on  the 
plain  to  feed,  and  bring  them  back  at  night. 
It  is  a  pleasant  sight  to  see  this  "town- 
herd"  come  in,  in  the  evening,  and  find 
their  way  lazily  to  their  own  doors,  while 
the  weary  herder  on  his  decrepit  broncho 
lags  behind,  or  spurs  with  sudden  zeal  and 
much  Mexican  profanity  after  some  truant 
beast  that  refuses  to  go  right. 

To  return  to  our  consideration  of  Den- 
ver's resources,  it  will  readily  be  seen  that 


THE  METROPOLIS  OF  THE  ROCKY  MOUNTAINS. 


461 


she  stands  as  the  supply  depot  and  money- 
receiver  of  three  great  branches  of  industry 
and  wealth,  namely,  mining,  stock-raising 
and  agriculture. 

The  first  of  these  is  the  most  important. 
Many  of  the  richest  proprietors  live  here 
and  spend  their  profits.  Then,  too,  the  ma- 
chinery which  the  mining  and  reduction  of 
the  ores  require,  and  the  tools,  clothing 
and  provisions  of  the  men,  mainly  come 
from  here.  About  65,000  lodes  have  been 
discovered  in  Colorado,  and  numberless 
placers.  Only  a  small  proportion  of  these, 
of  course,  were  worked  remuneratively,  but 
the  cash  yield  of  the  twenty  years  since  the 
discovery  of  the  precious  metals  has  aver- 
aged nearly  $5,000,000  a  year,  and  has 
increased  from  $200,000  in  1869  to  over 
$10,000,000  in  1879.  Not  half  of  this  is 
gold,  yet  it  is  only  since  1870  that  silver 
has  been  mined  at  all  in  Colorado.  These 
statistics  show  the  total  yield  of  the  State 
in  gold  and  silver  thus  far  to  approximate 
$100,000,000,  not  to  mention  tellurium, 
copper,  iron,  lead  and  coal. 

The  second  great  means  of  revenue  to 
Denver  is  the  cattle  and  sheep  of  the  State. 
The  wonderful,  worthless-looking  buffalo- 
grass,  growing  in  little  tufts  so  scattered  that 
the  dust  shows  itself  everywhere  between, 
and  turning  sere  and  shriveled  before  the 
spring  rains  are  fairly  over,  has  proved  one 
of  Colorado's  most  prolific  sources  of  wealth. 
The  herds  now  reported  in  the  State  count 
up  800,000,  and  the  annual  shipments 
amount  to  100,000,  at  an  average  of  $22 
apiece,  giving  $2,200,000  as  the  yearly 
yield.  Add  the  receipts  from  the  sales  of 
hides,  tallow  and  beef  butchered  here,  and 
the  dairy  consumption,  and  you  have  a 
figure  not  far  from  $3,000,000  to  represent 
the  total  annual  income  from  this  branch  of 
productive  industry.  The  whole  value  of 
the  cattle  investments  in  the  State  is  esti- 
mated by  good  judges  at  $12,000,000, 
nearly  one-fourth  of  which  is  the  property  of 
citizens  of  Denver.  Yet  this  sum,  great  as 
it  is  for  a  pioneer  region,  represents  only 
half  of  Colorado's  live  stock.  Last  year 
(1878),  over  2,000,000  sheep  were  sheared, 
and  more  and  more  capital  is  being  invested 
in  this  industry.  Perhaps  the  total  value 
of  sheep-ranches  in  the  State  is  not  less 
than  $6,000,000,  the  annual  income  from 
which  approaches  $1,000,000. 

The  third  large  item  of  prosperity  to  the 
State  is  agriculture,"  although  it  advances  in 
'the  face  of  much  opposition.  The  main 
planting,  of  course,  is  of  wheat,  and  the 


total  crop  at  present  amounts  to  about 
2,000,000  bushels,  averaging  seventy  cents 
in  price.  Add  to  this  other  grains,  etc.,  and 
the  annual  yield  of  the  soil  in  Colorado  is 
brought  to  over  $2,000,000  in  value. 
Farmers  are  learning  better  and  better 
how  to  combat  the  great  obstacles  to  agri- 
culture in  this  State,  and  the  tillage  is 
annually  wider. 

Nor  is  this  the  whole  story.  Denver  is 
coming  more  and  more  to  be  a  manufactur- 
ing center.  The  largest  ore-reduction  works 
in  the  West  are  here ;  and  there  are  rolling- 
mills,  iron-foundries,  machine-shops,  woolen- 
mills,  shoe  factories,  carriage  and  harness 
factories,  breweries,  and  so  on  through  a 
long  list.  The  most  valuable  of  all,  possi- 
bly, are  the  flouring-mills,  representing  an 
investment  of  $350,000,  and  handlinghalf  the 
wheat  crop  of  Colorado.  I  have  dwelt  upon 
these  somewhat  prosy  statements  in  order  to 
point  out  fully  what  rich  resources  Denver  has 
behind  her,  and  how  it  happens  that  she  finds 
herself  at  twenty  years  of  age  amazingly 
strong  commercially.  Not  only  a  large  pro- 
portion of  the  money  which  gives  existence 
to  these  enterprises  (nearly  every  householder 
in  the  city  has  a  financial  interest  in  one  or 
several  mines,  stock-ranges  or  farms),  but  the 
current  supplies  that  sustain  them,  are  pro- 
cured in  Denver,  and  a  very  large  percentage 
of  their  profits  finds  its  way  directly  to  this 
focus. 

Denver  thus  becomes  to  all  Colorado  what 
Paris  is  to  France.  Through  all  the  enormous 
area,  from  Wyoming  far  into  New  Mexico,  and 
westward  to  Utah,  she  has  no  respectable 
rival,  and  she  keeps  pace  with  its  rapidly 
thickening  population  and  increasing  needs. 
Every  extension  of  the  railways,  ever}'  good 
crop,  every  new  mineral  district  developed, 
every  increase  of  stock-ranges,  directly  and 
instantly  affects  the  great  central  mart.  This 
sound  business  basis  being  present,  the 
opportunity  to  dispose  pleasantly  of  the 
money  made  is,  of  course,  not  long  in  pre- 
senting itself.  It  thus  happens  that  Denver 
shows  in  a  wonderful  measure  the  amenities 
and  means  of  intellectual  culture  that  make 
life  so  attractive  in  the  old-  established  cen- 
ters of  civilization,  where  selected  society, 
thoughtful  study  and  the  riches  of  art  have 
ripened  to  slow  maturity  through  long  time 
and  under  gracious  traditions.  There  is  an 
abundance  here,  therefore,  to  please  the  eye 
and  touch  the  heart,  as  well  as  fill  pockets,  and 
year  by  year  the  city  is  becoming  more  and 
more  a  desirable  place  in  which  to  dwell  as 
well  as  to  do  business. 


462 


TOPICS    OF  THE    TIME. 


TOPICS  OF  THE  TIME. 


The  West  Point  Affair. 

THERE  are  certain  qualities  and  characteristics 
which  always  distinguish  the  gentleman.  He  is 
always  kindly  in  spirit,  courteous  in  manner,  and 
gallant  in  the  defense  of  the  weak,  and  especially  of 
those — whether  men  or  women — who  have  no 
power  to  defend  themselves.  Describe  any  man, 
anywhere,  in  these  words,  and  there  would  be  no 
hesitation,  in  any  society,  in  pronouncing  him  a  gen- 
tleman. Great  surprise  has  been  manifested  among 
the  people  in  different  parts  of  the  country  that  a 
system  of  offensive  and  persistent  discourtesy  has 
been  practiced  toward  the  cadet  Whittaker  at  West 
Point,  on  account  of  the  fact  that  he  had  a  tincture 
of  African  blood  in  his  veins.  It  was  supposed  that 
the  typical  West  Point  cadet  was  a  gentleman,  and 
that  such  treatment  as  had  been  bestowed  upon 
Whittaker  would  be  impossible  there. 

Now,  there  is  a  very  simple  explanation  of  the 
social  treatment  of  Whittaker,  and  there  is  really 
no  occasion  for  surprise  in  the  matter.  For,  con- 
sider how  the  school  is  made  up.  Nothing  more 
miscellaneous  than  the  components  of  the  West 
Point  school  can  possibly  be  imagined.  A  large 
number  seek  appointments  here  because  they  can- 
not afford  to  pay  for  a  first-class  education  them- 
selves. They  are  often  the  sons  of  helpless  widows 
— perhaps  sometimes  of  pushing  and  thrifty  trades- 
men. Indeed,  we  suppose  that  the  most  of  those 
who  go  to  West  Point  are  in  circumstances  which 
render  it  desirable  to  get  an  education  for  nothing. 
What  sort  of  an  assemblage  would  this  condition 
naturally  bring  together  ?  Would  it  naturally  bring 
those  who  have  been  well  bred — those  who  have 
had  the  culture  of  polite  society,  and  of  high-toned 
Christian  homes  ?  Is  it  reasonable  to  expect  that 
the  average  cadet  will  be  a  gentleman  ?  Is  it  not 
asking  too  much  that  he  shall  make  equal  progress 
in  mathematics  and  polite  ideas  ?  The  smart  boy 
of  a  Congressional  district  may  have  been  regarded 
with  pride  in  the  little  community  he  came  from, 
but  he  could  not  reasonably  be  expected  to  blos- 
som at  once  into  a  gentleman  when  ingrafted  upon 
a  community  whose  roots  strike  into  the  same  soil 
from  which  he  has  hitherto  drawn  all  his  nourish- 
ment. 

Now,  the  difference  between  West  Point  and  Har- 
vard, so  far  as  the  manners  of  the  students  are  con- 
cerned, is  the  difference  between  the  parentage  and 
home  and  social  culture  of  the  students.  There  are 
other  colleges  which  share  with  Harvard  the  pat- 
ronage of  those  whom  we  call  our  best  people — 
those  who  stand  highest  in  the  social  scale — but 
Harvard  is,  without  question,  the  institution  which 
holds  the  largest  number  of  students  from  the  best 
homes  and  highest  society  of  the  nation.  Well, 
how  does  Harvard  treat  the  African,  when  brought 
into  direct  association  with  him  as  a  student? 
Professor  Greener,  who  appeared  at  West  Point  in 


the  trial  of  the  Whittaker  case,  was  a  man  of  African- 
blood,  and  a  Harvard  man.  While  in  Harvard,  he 
roomed  with  a  white  man — that  is,  they  had  their 
parlor  together,  like  the  other  students,  with  sep- 
arate beds  in  alcoves  or  rooms  opening  into  the 
parlor — and  he  was  treated  in  all  respects  as  if  he 
had  been  a  white  man,  eating  at  the  table  with  white 
students.  Indeed,  the  testimony  seems  to  be  that 
he  was  much  more  of  a  favorite  than  many  of  the 
white  students,  and  particular  pains  were  taken  that 
he  should  never  feel  that  he  was  at  any  sort  of  dis- 
count on  account  of  his  color.  In  other  words,  they 
treated  him  as  men  of  good  breeding  always  treat 
those  with  whom  circumstances  bring  them  into 
association,  provided  they  themselves  are  well-be- 
haved and  inoffensive.  They  answered  our  descrip- 
tion of  gentlemen.  They  were  kindly  in  spirit; 
they  were  courteous  in  manner ;  and,  knowing  the 
history  of  the  African  in  this  country,  they  took 
special  pains  that  their  African  associate  should  not 
feel,  while  among  them,  any  social  disadvantage 
which  that  history  had  subjected  him  to  in  the 
minds  of  rude  or  snobbish  men.  There  can  hardly 
be  more  than  one  opinion  among  our  readers  in 
regard  to  the  nature  of  the  treatment  of  Greener 
and  Whittaker  in  the  institutions  to  which  they 
respectively  belonged.  Greener  was  treated  like  a 
gentleman  by  gentlemen ;  Whittaker  has  been 
treated  with  rude  and  disdainful  discourtesy  by 
men  who  were  not  gentlemen.  And  here  lies  the 
pity  of  it :  the  West  Point  boys  have  conceived 
themselves  to  be  gentlemen,  and  have  looked  upon 
and  treated  Whittaker  as  their  social  inferior,  and 
by  so  doing  have  proved  themselves  not  to  be  gen- 
tlemen at  all.  They  have  made  a  great  mistake. 
What  they  have  done  has  proved  them  to  be  ill- 
bred  boors.  It  has  also  testified  to  an  uncomforta- 
ble consciousness  on  their  part  of  weakness  in  their 
polite  associations.  Men  of  good  families  and  an 
assured  position  in  society  have  no  fear  of  com- 
promising their  position  by  being  polite  to  a  negro. 
On  the  contrary,  they  are  gentlemen  enough  to 
know  that  they  would  compromise  their  position 
very  much  by  giving  a  negro  any  slight  whatever  on 
account  of  his  color.  Whittaker,  before  the  law  and 
at  the  ballot-box,  is  any  man's  equal.  The  Govern- 
ment gives  him  an  equal  place  in  the  West  Point 
institution,  and  the  slights  put  upon  him  and  all  the 
bitterness  of  race  contempt  that  has  been  dealt  out 
to  him  there  is  an  insult  to  the  Government  whose 
bread  he  has  eaten  in  common  with  those  who  have 
persistently  shunned  or  abused  him. 

There  must  be  some  among  the  cadets,  of  good 
families  and  good  instincts,  whose  impulses  would 
naturally  be  to  treat  Whittaker  in  a  gentlemanly 
way.  We  are  sorry  for  these,  for  they  have  been 
morally  overborne  by  the  baser  elements  in  the 
institution.  They  have  not  had  the  backbone  to 
stand  by  the  poor  African,  and  take  the  proscrip- 
tion that  would  come  of  it.  They  must  settle  it 


TOPICS   OF  THE    TIME. 


463 


with  themselves  as  to  whether  this  bending  to  pub- 
lic opinion  is  an  evidence  of  bravery  or  cowardice, 
and  as  to  whether  they  can  afford  to  have  their 
sense  of  justice  sophisticated  and  their  character  for 
Christian  courtesy  sacrificed  by  yielding  deference 
to  a  collection  of  ill-bred  snobs. 

The  West  Point  Academy  may  be  a  very  useful 
institution  in  its  educational  and  military  aspect, 
but  until  an  African  can  have  as  good  a  chance 
there  as  a  white  man,  through  the  social  respect  and 
kindness  of  all  who  come  into  contact  with  him,  it 
can  lay  no  valid  claim  to  being  a  collection  of  gen- 
tlemen. 

The  Apotheosis  of  Dirt. 

A  NOTABLE  meeting  was  held  at  one  of  the  public 
halls  of  this  city,  on  Sunday  night,  May  2d.  It 
appears  from  the  report  of  the  gathering  that  Mr. 
Bradlaugh,  the  English  infidel,  had  been  invited  to 
make  a  special  journey  to  America  to  preside,  and 
that  he  excused  himself  on  account  of  his  parliament- 
ary duties,  and  expressed  the  hope  that  Mr.  Elizur 
Wright  would  be  invited  to  the  honor  which  he 
was  compelled  to  decline.  Mr.  Wright  was  offered 
the  very  doubtful  honor,  and  accepted  it.  At  this 
meeting  various  men  and  women  spoke,  wjth  a  show 
of  a  good  deal  of  feeling,  to  a  large  number  of  appar- 
ently sympathetic  people.  What  was  the  occasion  ? 
Mr.  D.  M.  Bennett  had  just  emerged  from  the 
Albany  Penitentiary,  and  been  invited  by  those  who 
had  the  matter  in  charge  to  put  in  his  appearance 
as  a  martyr.  It  was  originally  proposed  that  he 
should  appear  in  his  prison  clothes,  but  we  presume 
that  he  was  not  permitted  to  bring  them  away,  so 
that  part  of  the  programme  failed. 

And  what  had  Mr.  D.  M.  Bennett  done — first,  that 
he  should  have  been  sent  to  prison,  and,  secondly, 
that  he  should  have  the  honor  of  a  public  reception 
thrust  upon  him  on  the  expiration  of  his  term  of 
confinement  ?  He  had  been,  by  due  process  of  law, 
after  a  full  hearing  of  testimony  and  examination 
of  facts,  convicted  of  sending  obscene  matter  through 
the  mails — a  book  which  could  only  have  been  written 
by  its  author  from  an  impure  motive,  and  could 
only  have  been  received  by  the  public  with  a  pollut- 
ing and  degrading  effect.  The  claim  that  this  book 
was  of  a  scientific  nature,  or  that  it  only  contained 
certain  advanced  views  of  social  and  sexual  ques- 
tions, was  not  admitted  by  the  court,  and  could  not 
have  a  moment's  consideration  by  any  body  of  men 
excepting  one  made  up  of  bawds,  blackguards  and 
free-lovers  generally.  After  Bennett  was  incarcerated, 
while  serving  out  his  sentence,  there  appeared  a 
series  of  letters  written  by  him  to  a  young  woman, 
with  whom  he  seems  to  have  had  criminal  associa- 
tion, so  reeking  with  nastiness  that  even  Bob  Inger- 
soll  would  not  believe  them,  or  believe  Bennett  was 
the  author  of  them,  until  assured  of  the  fact  by  him- 
self. Well,  the  assurance  came  in  the  form  of  a 
letter  from  Bennett,  dated  at  the  Penitentiary. 
"  Yes,  my  dear  friends,"  he  says,  "  I  wrote  those 
indiscreet  letters."  In  one  of  these  letters,  he 
says :  "  I  have  no  reverence  for  the  ceremony 
mouthed  over  by  a  priest."  This  declaration  gives 


the  man's  status,  as  he  stands  related  to  one  of  the 
great  social  questions,  while  the  details  of  the  letters 
are  so  gross  and  vile,  fairly  groveling  in  moral 
filth  and  delighting  in  it,  that  it  is  quite  impossible 
to  conceive  that  he  could  work  in  any  field  of  moral 
effort  with  anything  but  a  foul  motive. 

This,  then,  is  the  man ;  and,  now,  what  is  the 
point  of  all  this  excitement  over  him?  It  is  claimed 
that  the  liberties  of  the  people  are  compromised  by 
the  suppression  of  free  discussion!  It  is  claimed 
that  Mr.  Bennett  has  the  right  to  send  any  opinions 
on  anything  that  he  chooses  to  print  through  the 
United  States  mails,  and  that  this  right  has  been 
infringed  upon  by  his  condemnation  and  incarcera- 
tion !  Who  are  those  who  sympathize  with  him  ? 
Infidels — to  a  man ;  infidels — to  a  woman  ;  for  it  is 
to  be  remembered  that  some  of  the  speakers — to 
their  everlasting  shame  be  it  spoken  ! — of  the  Sun- 
day-night meeting  were  women.  Now,  we  have  a 
natural  sympathy  with  doubters.  We  appreciate 
the  force  of  Tennyson's  most  suggestive  couplet : 

"There  lives  more  faith  in  honest  doubt, 
Believe  me,  than  in  half  the  creeds — " 

but  the  doubt  must  be  honest.  We  have  great 
respect  for  a  doubt  that  makes  a  man  better,  but  we 
have  no  respect  at  all  for  one  that  makes  him 
worse.  The  conclusion  is  entirely  legitimate  that 
when  a  man's  infidelity  leads  to  a  loosening  of  the 
sense  of  moral  obligation  and  to  the  bestializing  of 
his  character,  his  doubts  come  from  his  dishon- 
est heart,  and  not  from  his  honest  head.  The  great 
majority  of  the  infidels  of  this  country  have  sympa- 
thized with  Bennett.  A  noble  minority  have  de- 
nounced him.  The  Boston  "  Index,"  an  infidel 
paper  representing  this  minority,  in  an  issue  of  last 
October,  says : 

"  There  is  not  another  man  in  America  who  has 
wrought  such  incalculable  injury  to  the  Liberal 
cause  as  D.  M.  Bennett,  by  confounding  its  name 
with  free  love  and  obscenity  in  the  public  mind,, 
depraving  the  tone  of  its  literature,  misleading  its 
adherents  into  a  mad  crusade  against  necessary- 
laws,  sacrificing  its  highest  interests  to  his  own. 
vindictiveness  and  greed,  and  disgracing  it  by  his- 
character  and  life." 

There  speaksan  honest  man,  and,  we  have  nodoubt,. 
an  honest  doubter ;  but  the  great  majority  of  the  infi- 
dels of  this  country  are,  heart  and  soul,  with  Ben- 
nett. They  have  openly  and  blatantly  confessed 
themselves  to  be  sympathetic  with  the  free-love  doc- 
trines of  the  man  whom  they  have  undertaken  to- 
make  a  hero  and  a  martyr  of.  The  "  Index  "  makes- 
one  mistake.  Mr.  Bennett  has  not  transformed 
his  aiders  and  abettors  in  the  infidel  ranks  into- 
men  and  women  like  himself.  He  has  only  fur- 
nished them  an  occasion  for  the  expression  of  their 
opinions  and  sympathies.  He  is  not  a  man  of  such 
intellectual  force  and  magnetic  influence  that  he  has 
been  able  to  draw  the  great  majority  of  infidels  in 
the  country  after  him,  but  he  has  been  able  to 
show,  or,  rather,  the  country  has  been  able,  through 
him  and  the  sympathy  manifested  for  him,  to  see,, 
that  the  prevailing  infidel  sentiment  of  this  country 


464 


TOPICS   OF  THE    TIME. 


is  impure  to  the  last  degree,  and  is  not  to  be  trusted 
with  any  social  interest  or  with  any  political  influence 
whatever.  The  safety  and  purity  of  society  rests, 
as  it  always  has  rested,  with  the  believers  in  and 
professors  of  Christianity.  The  purer  influences 
among  the  "  Liberals,"  as  they  delight  to  call  them- 
selves, have  been  formally  and  effectually  voted  down. 

Of  course,  no  considerable  meeting  of  such  a 
crowd  as  now  compose  the  infidel  population  of  this 
country  could  be  held  without  the  abuse  of  Anthony 
Comstock, — a  man  whose  neck  some  of  them  would 
be  as  glad  to  wring  as  they  would  that  of  a  Thanks- 
giving turkey,  but  who  stands  by  his  duty  like  the 
Christian  man  he  indubitably  is.  When  Mr.  Com- 
stock came  into  the  field  which  he  now  occupies  so 
efficiently,  there  were  165  obscene  books  published 
in  this  country.  Of  these  he  has  seized  and  de- 
stroyed the  plates  of  163,  and  the  owners  of  the 
remaining  two,  getting  scared,  destroyed  them 
themselves.  He  has  seized  and  confiscated  twenty- 
four  tons  of  obscene  printed  matter,  and  arrested 
425  persons  for  dealing  in  this  matter.  He  has 
seized  and  destroyed  1700  photographic  negatives 
of  obscene  pictures,  530  wood-cuts,  and  350  steel  and 
copper-plate  engravings.  All  this  filthy  material, 
and  the  power  of  its  multiplication,  he  has  saved 
from  being  unloaded  upon  the  youth  of  this  coun- 
try. The  watchfulness,  the  intrepidity,  the  self-devo- 
tion with  which  he  has  effected  these  wonderful 
results,  stamp  him  as  one  of  the  most  useful  and 
remarkable  of  the  Christian  workers  of  our  time. 
We  know  of  no  social  reformer  who  deserves  more 
gratitude  from  the  American  people  than  Anthony 
Comstock.  May  God  spare  him  long  to  stand 
between  the  villainous  host  who  hate  him,  and  our 
beloved  children,  whom  they  are  trying,  with  fiend- 
ish malignity,  to  pollute  and  destroy ! 

And  may  Elizur  Wright  live  to  be  ashamed  of 
the  use  the  free-lovers  have  made  of  him  ! 


Industrial   Education  Again. 

To  THOSE  who  look  intelligently  and  thoughtfully 
•upon  the  popular  life  of  the  nation,  a  certain  great 
and  notable  want  manifests  itself, — a  want  that  is 
comparatively  new,  and  that  demands  a  new  adjust- 
ment of  our  educating  forces.  At  the  time  when 
the  public  school  system  of  our  country  was  founded, 
nearly  everybody  was  poor,  and  the  girls  of  every 
family,  in  the  absence  of  hired  service,  were  neces- 
sarily taught,  not  only  to  knit  and  sew,  but  to  cook 
and  keep  the  house.  Then  women  could  not  only 
weave  but  make  up  the  garments  which  they  wore, 
and  keep  them  in  repair.  At  the  same  time,  boys 
were  taught  to  do  the  farm  work  of  their  fathers, 
and,  in  case  they  chose  a  mechanical  employment, 
they  entered  an  apprenticeship,  under  regulations 
well  understood  and  approved  at  the  time.  In 
short,  there  were  ways  by  which  every  girl  and  boy 
could  learn  to  take  care  of  themselves  and  the 
families  that  afterward  came  to  them. 

Various  changes  have  come  over  the  country 
since  that  day.  In  the  first  place,  a  great  change 
has  been  made  in  the  course  and  amount  of  study 


in  the  schools  themselves.  So  great  has  been  the 
pressure  of  study  upon  the  schools  of  some  of  our 
cities,  that  physicians  have  united  to  protest  against 
it  as  a  prolific  source  of  insanity.  Girls,  for  instance, 
cannot  fulfill  the  requirements  of  their  teachers  and 
have  any  time  at  home  to  learn  any  of  the  house- 
hold arts  which  are  so  necessary  to  them,  not  only 
as  wives  and  mothers,  but  as  maidens  having  only 
to  take  care  of  themselves.  Boys  are  absorbed  by 
their  studies  in  the  same  way,  and  the  apprentice- 
ship system  has  been  given  up;  our  foreign  mechan- 
ics have,  through  their  trades  unions,  entered  into 
a  thoroughly  organized  conspiracy  against  it.  A 
boy  is  not  at  liberty  now  to  decide  what  handicraft 
he  will  learn,  because  the  boss  is  shamefully  in  the 
hands  of  his  despotic  workmen,  and  the  workmen 
decide  that  the  fewer  their  number  the  better  wages 
they  will  get.  Their  declared  policy  is  to  limit 
apprenticeships  to  the  smallest  possible  number. 

The  result  of  these  changes — for  some  of  which 
the  public  school  is  itself  responsible — is  the  great 
and  notable  want  to  which  we  have  alluded,  viz., 
the  lack  of  sufficient  knowledge,  or  of  the  right 
kind  of  knowledge,  on  the  part  of  boys  and  girls, 
to  take  care  of  their  own  persons  and  to  earn  their 
own  living.  Girls  grow  up  without  learning  to 
sew,  and  multitudes  of  them  do  not  know  how  to 
mend  their  own  garments.  Boys  leave  the  public 
schools  without  fitness  for  any  calling  whatever, 
except  it  may  be  some  one  which  calls  into  requi- 
sition that  which  they  have  learned  of  writing  and 
arithmetic.  Some  sort  of  clerkship  is  what  they 
try  for,  and  a  mechanical  trade  is  the  last  thing  that 
enters  their  minds.  So  we  import  our  mechanics, 
and  they  legislate  against  the  Yankee  boy  in  all 
their  trades  unions. 

Now,  there  are  two  points  which  we  would  like  to 
present : 

1.  The  public  school,  as  at  present  conducted,  not 
only  does  not  fit  boys  and  girls  for  the  work  of  taking 
care  of  themselves  and  their  dependents,  but  absolutely 
hinders  them  from  undertaking  it,  or  engenders  ideas 
that  are  impracticable  or  misleading, 

2.  That  the  public  has  to  pay  in  some  way  for 
all  the  ignorance  of  practical  life  in  which  the  public 
school  leaves  its  pupils. 

The  pauperism  that  grows  out  of  this  ignorance  is 
an  almost  intolerable  burden  upon  the  public  purse. 
The  crime  that  attends  it  is  so  notable  that  all  who 
are  familiar  with  the  subject  know  that  a  very  large 
percentage  of  culprits  and  convicts  never  learned  a 
trade.  When  a  man  of  low  moral  sense  and  weak 
will  finds  that  he  knows  no  trade  by  which  he  can 
make  a  living,  he  becomes  a  thief  by  a  process  as  nat- 
ural as  breathing.  Pauperism  and  crime  are,  there- 
fore, the  inevitable  result  of  ignorance  in  the  way 
of  taking  care  of  one's  self  and  earning  one's  living. 
The  question  of  expense  is  one  which  an  intelligent 
and  enterprising  public  ought  easily  to  settle.  This 
ignorance  is  to  cost  money.  Shall  this  money  be 
paid  for  the  purpose  of  removing  the  ignorance/  and 
obviating  the  necessity  for  pauperism  and  crime,  or 
shall  it  be  paid  for  the  pauperism  and  crime  ? 

We  know,  or  appreciate,  the  practical  difficulties 


COMMUNICA  TIONS. 


465 


that  stand  in  the  way  of  a  system  of  industrial 
schools,  supported  by  public  tax,  but  surely  if  it  is 
needed — imperatively  needed — American  ingenuity 
will  be  sufficient  to  give  it  practical  direction,  and 
secure  a  satisfactory  result.  Our  good  neighbors  in 
Boston  have  been  trying  to  do  something,  more 
particularly  for  the  girls.  They  have  introduced 
not  only  plain  sewing  into  their  schools,  but  the 
making  of  dresses  and  other  garments.  Only  two 
hours  of  each  week  are  devoted  to  the  matter,  and 
twenty-nine  special  teachers  employed,  but  the 
results  are  most  encouraging.  Mrs.  Jonathan 
Sturges  and  her  associates  in  the  Wilson  Industrial 
School  for  Girls,  of  this  city,  more  than  a  year  ago 
appealed  to  the  New  York  Board  of  Education  on 
behalf  of  the  project  of  introducing  sewing  into  our 
public  schools  here,  and  backed  their  appeal  by 
this  quotation  from  a  Boston  report :  "  Every  girl 
who  passes  through  the  Boston  schools  now  receives 
three  years'  instruction  m  various  kinds  of  needle- 
work, and  is  capable  of  being  an  expert  seamstress. 
It  is  said  the  benefits  resulting  from  this  instruction 
are  seen  in  the  appearance  of  the  children's  clothing 
in  the  schools,  and  are  felt  in  thousands  of  homes." 
Now,  we  ask  our  Board  of  Education  if  they  have 
anything  to  show,  in  their  reports  of  the  last  ten 
years,  that  is  calculated  to  give  a  practical  man  or 
woman  the  pleasure  and  satisfaction  to  be  found  in 
such  an  announcement  as  this.  Can  they  not  see 


that  what  these  girls  in  Boston  have  learned  in  this 
way,  with  a  comparatively  small  expenditure  of  time 
and  money,  is  of  incalculable  value  ?  What  is  a 
little  less  of  algebra,  or  geography,  or  even  of  arith- 
metic, by  the  side  of  this  surpassing  gain  ? 

Well,  our  Board  reported  against  Mrs.  Sturges, 
though  Commissioner  Wheeler  presented  a  minority 
report  in  favor,  very  much  to  his  credit ;  and  now 
we  assure  our  good  friends  of  the  Board  that  this 
subject  will  not  down,  and  that  the  times  and  the 
public  exigency  demand  that  they  shall  take  the 
matter  up  again,  and  treat  it  effectively  in  the  inter- 
est of  the  public  welfare,  safety  and  economy. 
Their  own  nautical  school  indorses  the  principle 
involved.  Even  the  Normal  College  and  the  Col- 
lege of  the  City  of  New  York  may,  in  one  sense, 
be  considered  industrial  schools.  Teaching  is  an 
industry,  and  these  institutions,  supported  at  the 
public  charge,  are  mainly  devoted  to  preparing  men 
and  women  for  the  pursuit  of  that  industry.  It 
would  be  the  brightest  feather  that  New  York  ever 
won  for  her  cap  if  she  would  establish  a  great  free 
industrial  school,  in  which  boys  could  get  instruc- 
tion in  the  mechanic  arts,  so  that  every  poor  boy 
could  learn  a  trade. 

There  certainly  is  no  good  reason  why  we  should 
not  at  least  do  for  our  girls  what  Boston  has  done 
for  hers,  even  if  the  boys  are  obliged  to  wait 
awhile  longer. 


COMMUNICATIONS. 


The    Restoration    of    St.    Mark's,    and    the    English 
Protest. 

EDITOR  SCRIBNER'S  MONTHLY  : 

DEAR  SIR  :  I  have  read,  with  interest  and  some 
amusement,  the  English  protest  against  the  "  res- 
toration "  of  St.  Mark's,  to  which  your  corre- 
spondent refers  in  the  February  number.  This 
protest  is  characteristic,  but  singularly  anomalous, 
and  it  directs  attention  to  a  remarkable  state  of 
things  in  England  as  well  as  Italy. 

It  is  agreed  that  the  "  restoration  "  or  alteration 
of  St.  Mark's  facade  would  be  a  loss  next  a  calamity; 
but  that  a  nation  of  iconoclasts  should  so  consider  it 
excites  surprise.  For  generations  the  Britons  have 
battered  the  architectural  structures  and  monuments 
of  their  fathers.  Thus  perished  many  grand  old 
abbeys  and  cathedrals,  their  very  ruins  pathetically 
eloquent  of  former  greatness.  Was  the  destruction 
of  these  ecclesiastical  edifices  necessary?  What  of 
the  mutilation  of  the  tombs  and  the  breaking  of  the 
more  than  three  hundred  ancient  crosses  at  lona  ? 
What  of  the  heaps  of  ivy-covered  stones  all  over  Great 
Britain  ?  What  a  besom  of  destruction  at  Oxford ! — 
spoliated  chapels,  demolished  statuary  and  plastered 
up  niches.  And  of  the  present, — if  the  old  zeal  ran 
mad,  has  its  spirit  departed?  The  lunacy  which 
VOL.  XX.— 31. 


suggested  tinkering  with  St.  Mark's  is  violent  in 
Britain  to-day.  Witness  the  modernization  and 
restoration  at  Chester.  In  1878  the  work  upon  the 
cathedral  had  cost  immense  sums  of  money  ;  it  was 
to  continue,  and  to  include  the  ancient  cloisters.  As 
to  the  work  itself,  if  the  exterior  chancel  wall  is  a 
specimen, — to  what  blundering  incompetence  is  it 
committed  :  this  restored  wall  is  many  inches  out 
of  perpendicular  ;  a  window  in  it  is  ludicrously 
irregular, — the  defects  are  so  apparent  that  street  boys 
laugh  at  them.  What  important  feudal  castle, 
stronghold,  palace  or  old  cathedral  has  escaped  this 
mania  for  restorative  desecration  ?  Not  Stirling. 
Not  old  Grey  Friars'  on  the  hill.  Not  St.  Giles'  or 
Grey  Friars',  Edinborough;  not  the  Castle.  Not 
the  noble  Cathedral  at  Durham.  Not  the  Chapter 
House  and  Cathedral  at  York.  Not  the  round  tem- 
ple of  the  Knights,  London ;  with  its  new  tile-and- 
wood  work,  its  fashion  is  much  like  a  museum  at 
Kensington.  Not  the  church  in  whose  steeple  ring 
the  "  sweet  Bow  Bells. "  Not  poor  St.  Margaret's  by 
Westminster — to  destroy  which  was  talked  of;  it 
looks, in  its  "restoration,"  all  white  within,  like  our 
new  temple  in  ash  on  Fifth  avenue.  Not  the  London 
Tower.  Not  its  Norman  arched  St.  John's  Chapel. 
Nor  its  St.  Peter's  Chapel,  melancholy  witness  of 


466 


HOME  AND   SOCIETY. 


the  funeral  gloom  which  hung  so  heavily  when  the 
headless  bodies  of  England's  proudest  were  laid 
away  under  its  pavement  or  chancel.  Not  any  of 
its  towers  have  escaped,  where  "  restorationist's  " 
chisel  could  cut  or  hammer  strike.  What  of  the 
Cathedral  at  Dublin,  "  restored  by  the  munificence 
of  Sir  B.  L.  Guiness,  the  wealthy  brewer"  ?— or  of 
Christ's  Church,  where  another  brewer  has  ex- 
pended thousands  to  break  the  lines  which  tie  pres- 
ent and  past  ?  Space  forbids  the  continuation  of 
even  the  shortest  catalogue.  Almost  countless 
buildings  are  now  undergoing  the  carving  and 
polishing  process,  or  have  just  been  finished.  As  at 
Oxford  little  escaped  mutilation,  so  now,  less  escapes 
this  ambition  to  restore.  In  a  few  instances,  it  is 
true,  the  ancient  is  uncovered  and  brought  to  light. 
If,  as  the  English  memorialists  hold  in  the  case  of 
St.  Mark's,  "it  is  within  the  power  of  science  to 
devise  a  remedy  which  would  restore  its  stability 
without  moving  a  stone  or  altering  the  present  sur- 
face in  the  least,"  why  was  the  same  not  true  of 
old  Temple  Bar?  What  in  Britain  more  interest- 
ing? It  was  the  eye  of  all  England;  it  swept  the 


whole  historic  page.  Did  the  royal  family  or  the 
prime-minister  interfere  ?  Not  they.  No  foreign 
people  protested.  "  Unsafe  ?  "  Where  the  boasted 
science  which  could  save  St.  Mark's  ?  In  August, 
1878,  two  piles  of  solid  masonry,  perhaps  ten  feet 
high,  were  all  that  were  left  of  the  ancient  gate- 
way either  side  the  Strand.  Show-bills  covered 
them.  How  were  the  mighty  fallen!  Kings 
waited  beneath  the  arch  erected  here,  while  Lord 
Mayors,  with  golden  key  and  pomp  and  state,  swung 

!  wide  the  bar  giving  lordly  entrance  to  the  city. 
Queens  !  Elizabeth,  Mary,  all,  even  Victoria.  On 
iron  spikes  above,  many  a  time  the  bloody  heads 

'  of  traitors  had  been  set  in  ghastly  order.  England 
had  nothing  its  equal,  save  possibly  the  Tower. 
English  science,  vaunted  by  "  memorialists,"  knew 
not  how  to  open  way  one  side  or  to  strengthen  and 
save  historic  Temple  Bar. 

A  nation  which  destroys  its  own  memorials  of  the 
past  and  ruthlessly  "  restores  "  with  savage  hand 
the  few  it  spares,  looks  ill  indeed,  when  as  a  valiant 
champion  for  the  "  old  "  it  goes  among  the  nations 
to  "protest."  Yours  respectfully,  D.  C.  P. 


HOME   AND   SOCIETY. 


The  Slavery  of  To-day. 


A  VERY  clever  hit  entitled  "  Hidden  Despotism" 
appeared  in  one  of  our  weeklies  a  number  of  years 
ago.  The  first  Japanese  Embassy  had  come  and 
gone,  and  the  national  flutter  thereafter  had  scarcely 
subsided.  The  sketch,  written  in  a  grave,  historical 
form,  purported  to  give  the  impression  produced 
upon  the  Japanese  mind  by  our  American  institu- 
tions, customs  and  manners.  Beneath  the  freedom 
conferred  by  the  Constitution  a  subtle  but  control- 
ling tyranny  was  detected,  though  its  nature  and  its 
source  remained  hidden  in  mystery.  After  much 
discussion  and  philosophizing,  a  Japanese  savan  was 
dispatched  to  seek  out  and  formulate  this  subtle 
power,  and  to  determine  and  measure  the  modifica- 
tion it  exercised  upon  the  republican  freedom  of 
society.  The  tireless  efforts  of  the  philosopher 
were  at  last  rewarded  by  success :  the  rod  of  iron 
by  which  society  was  ruled  was  discovered  to  be  in 
the  hands  of  the  Irish  "  girl." 

Few  mistresses  have  been  so  fortunate  as  entirely 
to  escape  this  subjugation.  And  yet,  whose  fault  is 
it  ?  It  is  more  than  could  be  expected,  even  of  the 
most  enlightened  human  nature,  to  refrain  from 
ruling  when  willing  subjects  present  themselves. 
Where  tyranny  is  exercised  there  must  of  neces- 
sity be  two  elements — the  tyrant  and  the  slave. 

There  are  many  reasons  why  really  excellent, 
efficient  servants  attain  a  complete  ascendency  in  a 
multitude  of  homes.  Girls  of  the  present  day — 
each  one  of  whom  in  a  few  years  will,  in  all  prob- 
ability, be  at  the  head  of  a  large  establishment 
— are  educated  to  do  absolutely  nothing.  They 
are  sent  to  school,  probably  to  a  fashionable  board- 


ing-school ;  they  dip  into  all  the  "  ologies "  and 
come  out  with  a  smattering  of  many  subjects,  but 
with  minds  in  a  far  less  vigorous,  healthy  and 
rational  condition  than  that  in  which  they  went  in. 
They  rush  into  the  rapid  and  empty  whirl  of  society 
— balls,  parties,  kettledrums,  calls,  theater,  opera, 
and,  when  other  things  fail,  inordinate  church- 
going — till  the  small  remnant  of  what  they  have 
learned  is  effectually  dissipated. 

Without  any  special  training  for  her  duties,  and, 
what  is  of  infinitely  more  consequence,  lacking  a 
well-disciplined  reason,  self-control  and  moral  ear- 
nestness, such  a  girl  marries,  and  is  installed  as  queen 
of  her  own  little  kingdom, — a  kingdom  that  needs 
constant  vigilance,  intelligence  and  executive  ability. 
The  first  tyranny  is  the  worst  of  all — anarchy. 
The  poor  little  wife,  after  the  misery  and  discom- 
fort of  trying  to  rule  ignorant  servants,  and  endeav- 
oring to  teach  them  what  she  does  not  herself  know, 
falls  an  easy  victim  to  the  first  efficient  woman  who, 
as  cook  or  housekeeper,  consents  to  take  charge  of 
her  ill-regulated  menage  and  reduce  it  to  order. 
She  gladly  sells  her  birthright  for  a  mess  of  pottage, 
always  providing  the  pottage  be  well  cooked  and 
well  served. 

No  woman,  capable  of  doing  higher  work,  should 
consent  to  become  a  mere  drudge  if  her  circum- 
stances permit  her  to  delegate  the  household  work 
to  other  hands.  But,  just  for  this  very  reason,  she 
should  inform  herself  in  regard  to  every  kind  of 
work  which  is  to  be  done  in  her  house.  A  large 
part  of  it  she  should  know  how  to  do  with  her  own 
hands.  She  should  be  able  to  go  into  the  kitchen 
and  show  her  cook  how  to  make  bread,  roast  meat, 
prepare  vegetables  ;  she  should  understand  the  cor- 


HOME  AND   SOCIETY. 


467 


rect  ways  of  sweeping,  dusting,  bed-making ;  she 
should  be  able  to  set  a  table,  wash  dishes,  polish 
silver.  She  should  know  when  the  laundry  work 
is  badly  done,  why  the  clothes  are  muddy  in  color, 
streaked  with  blue,  flimsy  or  ill-smelling — and  how 
to  rectify  the  evil.  Such  knowledge  will  not  add  to 
the  drudgery  of  life,  but  will  save  an  immense 
amount  of  worry,  anxiety,  waste  and  trouble.  To 
know  just  how  to  do  a  thing  is  the  way  to  com- 
mand and  insure  its  being  well  done  by  dependents. 

As  a  matter  of  common  honesty,  no  woman  has 
a  right  to  marry — even  to  marry  a  rich  man,  in  our 
unsettled  state  of  society — who  does  not  know  how 
to  order  a  house,  how  to  apportion  and  direct  the 
work  of  her  servants,  and  how  to  oversee  it  intelli- 
gently. She  is  entering  into  a  contract  which  she 
has  not  taken  the  trouble  to  fit  herself  to  fulfill. 
Marriage  is,  or  should  be,  something  far  above  and 
beyond  this;  but  there  is,  nevertheless,  a  material 
side  to  it.  All  the  grace,  the  beauty  of  life  are 
valueless,  apart  from  a  fulfillment  of  the  homely 
duties  which  belong  to  it.  Putting  aside  all  the 
higher  obligations,  as  beyond  the  question  at  issue, 
a  woman  when  she  marries  tacitly  undertakes  to 
perform  the  inside  duties  of  the  home,  just  as  her 
husband  undertakes  the  outside  work  which  shall 
insure  its  support.  Her  obligation  to  administer 
the  means  supplied  her  is  just  as  solemn  as  his  to 
supply  them.  If  the  household  work  does  not  go 
smoothly  and  well,  she  will  find  that  she  has  no 
time  or  spirits  to  make  home  bright  and  sweet. 

A  girl  who  has  grown  up  in  a  well-ordered  home, 
has  at  least  the  advantage  of  possessing  a  good  ideal 
of  household  comfort.  Though  she  may  have  been 
kept  in  dense  ignorance  of  the  means  by  which  such 
results  have  been  attained,  she  will  at  least  know 
toward  what  she  is  working ;  the  not  knowing  how 
to  reach  her  result  will  entail  much  heart-sickening 
despondency,  many  failures,  and  many  tears.  It 
is  the  most  foolish,  the  most  cruel  policy  on 
the  part  of  a  mother  to  permit  a  young  girl  to 
undertake  the  duties  of  married  life  without  ade- 
quate preparation,  special  or  general,  to  meet  the 
responsibilities  involved.  And  yet,  how  many 
mothers  do  this,  and  justify  themselves,  with  a  curi- 
ous mixture  of  indolence,  selfishness  and  tenderness, 
by  saying,  "  She  will  never  be  young  but  once;  I 
want  her  to  enjoy  life  while  she  can." 

One  of  the  main  difficulties  in  the  adjustment  of 
domestic  service  comes  from  our  artificial  mode  of 
life.  The  machine-like  regularity  with  which  our 
daily  life  moves  on  has  a  sadly  dehumanizing  ten- 
dency. The  relation  between  those  who  serve  and 
those  who  are  served  has  come  to  be  so  rigidly 
fixed,  aqd  the  human  element  so  entirely  eliminated, 
that  it  might  almost  be  expressed  by  a  mathemati- 
cal formula.  Every  day  and  many  times  a  day  we 
come  into  contact  with  people  who  have  no  claims 
upon  us,  nor  we  upon  them.  We  meet  for  the  pur- 
pose of  making  a  cold  and  calculating  exchange  of 
service  or  property,  on  the  one  hand,  for  a  stipu- 
lated amount  of  money  on  the  other.  In  many 
cases  this  is  as  it  should  be.  We  cannot  and  do 
not  want  to  be  on  terms  of  social  equality  with  the 


man  who  sells  us  our  beef,  or  sharpens  our  knives. 
The  orbit  of  our  lives  must  touch  many  others 
which  it  is  neither  necessary  nor  right  that  they 
should  intersect. 

There  are  relations,  however,  quite  as  incompati- 
ble with  any  recognition  of  social  equality  as  these, 
where  the  humanities  have  a  place ;  such,  for 
instance,  as  that  between  mistress  and  maid.  In  a 
certain  sense,  a  servant  coming  into  a  family  severs 
her  relation  with  her  own  people;  in  that  sense  the 
new  relations  should  supply  the  loss.  The  kitchen 
walls  should  not  inclose  a  dependency  in  revolt, 
where  the  prevailing  feeling,  under  the  outward 
appearance  of  cheerful  civility,  is  that  of  a  strong 
class  antagonism ;  they  should  include  a  part  of  the 
organic  family  life.  The  house  should  never  be 
divided  against  itself. 

A  young  housekeeper  is  always  in  danger  of  ship- 
wreck upon  one  of  two  dangerous  rocks.  She  is 
apt  either  to  treat  her  servants  as  equals,  or  as 
machines,  and  so  forfeit  either  their  respect  or  their 
love.  The  suggestion  of  loving  service  in  our 
modern  life  is  so  foreign  to  our  notions  as  to  seem 
almost  ludicrous.  And  yet,  just  here  it  is  that  the 
secret  of  perfect  service  lies.  And  just  here  it  is, 
too,  that  we  American  women  make  the  fatal  mis- 
take. The  relation  is  usually  founded  upon  a  cold, 
hard,  purely  mercenary  basis.  We  give  our  money 
and  our  work  to  foreign,  possibly  to  domestic  mis- 
sions, and  we  forget  that  into  our  hands  have  been 
given,  in  a  certain,  though  limited  sense,  souls  per- 
haps starving  for  sympathy,  or  hanging  on  the  very 
verge  of  destruction.  It  is  not  quite  enough  that 
you,  as  mistress  of  a  household,  should  be  firm  and 
kind,  high-principled  and  self-controlled,  though 
that  is  far  more  than  most  women  can  pretend  to 
be ;  but  you  should  feel  a  sense  of  personal  obliga- 
tion in  the  relation  between  yourself  and  your  serv- 
ants. A  young,  ignorant,  perhaps  pretty,  girl  is 
brought  into  your  house,  and  this  is  her  first  situa- 
tion. She  is  cut  off  from  such  restraints  as  have 
been  around  her  in  the  home  she  has  left.  Her  new 
sense  of  liberty  is  sweet  to  her,  and  is  apt  to  be  too 
much  for  her.  It  is  not  enough  that  you  train  her 
in  her  special  work,  though  that  is  much.  You 
must  remember  that  she  is  human,  that  she  is 
young  and  a  woman  ;  that  she  has  her  joys  and  sor- 
rows, her  heart-sickness  and  disappointments  ;  her 
small  vanities,  and  fluttering  hopes,  and  peculiar 
temptations.  The  very  fact  that,  with  all  the  work 
she  has  to  do,  her  material  surroundings  are 
brighter  and  easier  than  those  to  which  she  has 
been  accustomed,  that  she  is  warmed,  clothed  and 
fed,  leaves  her  free  to  feel  the  flatness  and  monotony 
of  her  life.  The  familiarity  with  elegancies  before  un- 
known to  her  creates  a  want;  temptations  crowd  thick 
upon  her.  You,  her  mistress,  who  have  introduced 
her  into  this  new  life  of  temptation,  are  in  a  degree 
responsible.  You  should  take  some  oversight  of 
her  evenings ;  you  should  leave  as  little  temptation  to 
small  pilfering  as  possible  in  her  way.  This  first 
experience  may  determine,  for  good  or  for  evil,  her 
life  here  and  hereafter. 

The  only  way  open  to  a  mistress  for  the  exercise 


468 


HOME  AND   SOCIETY. 


of  such  an  influence,  without  that  meddling  to  which 
no  lady  can  condescend,  is  to  remember  always 
that  this  servant  is  not  merely  a  device  for  the 
accomplishment  of  certain  work,  but  a  human 
being  who  has  claims  upon  her  consideration  and  her 
sympathy.  Servants  are  unquestionably  hired  to 
perform  certain  offices,  and  do  certain  work ;  it  is 
no  kindness  to  them  to  accept  as  satisfactory  care- 
less and  imperfect  service.  But  since  we  are  always 
failing  in  our  duties  as  mistresses,  let  us  cultivate 
charity  and  forgiveness  for  the  frailties  of  others. 
It  is  quite  possible  to  be  both  strict  and  lenient — 
strict  in  maintaining  a  high  ideal  even  in  regard 
to  the  petty  details  of  daily  life,  and  lenient  to  the 
frailty  which  fails  of  reaching  our  standard. 

Special  directions  how  to  deal  with  servants  would 
be  almost  as  impertinent  as  such  directions  in  regard 
to  the  training  of  children,  but  if  the  true  relation 
is  established  and  the  proper  feeling  cherished, — that 
feeling  which  recognizes  the  difference  of  station 
and  at  the  same  time  the  oneness  of  nature, — the 
details  can  scarcely  fail  of  presenting  and  adjusting 
themselves. 

In  order  to  establish  the  proper  state  of  things,  a 
lady  should,  in  the  first  place,  know  precisely  to  the 
minutest  detail  the  work  which  each  servant  in  her 
house  is  to  do;  and  know  as  well  how  that  work 
should  be  done.  The  new  waitress,  chambermaid, 
maid-of-all-work,  or  whatever  she  may  be,  should, 
when  she  is  hired,  be  told  what  will  be  expected  of 
her.  She  should  also  be  given  general  directions 
each  day  as  to  the  duties  of  the  day,  and  the 
order  in  which  they  are  to  be  done.  If  she  is 
familiar  with  the  duties  of  the  place  she  has  taken, 
it  is,  perhaps,  best  to  let  her  go  to  work  in  her 
own  way,  and  then  make  such  changes  as  the  indi- 
vidual tastes,  wishes  or  habits  of  the  mistress  may 
dictate.  Every  servant  who  is  a  good  worker  has 
ways  peculiar  to  herself,  and  she  will  work  better  in 
her  own  way  than  in  any  other.  If  the  results  are 
thoroughly  satisfactory,  it  is  well  to  give  individual- 
ity a  little  play.  If,  however,  the  work  is  new  to  the 
servant,  the  same  routine  should  be  followed  each 
day,  the  same  orders  given  and  the  same  oversight 
exercised  as  at  first,  till  she  is  thoroughly  drilled. 
Particular  orders  conflicting  with  the  general  should 
be  given  with  a  recognition  in  words  that  the  general 
duties  must  be  deferred  for  the  special.  Nothing  is  so 
paralyzing,  even  to  the  disciplined  mind,  as  a  conflict 
between  duties.  A  margin  of  time  and  energy 
should  be  allowed  each  day,  in  which  special  or 
unexpected  work  may  be  accommodated.  While  a 
mistress  sees  that  her  orders  are  reasonable, 
she  should  also  insist  that  they  be  received  in 
respectful  silence  or  with  cheerful  assent,  and  stand- 
ing, and  also  that  they*  be  literally  obeyed. 

Whatever  is  done  imperfectly  or  forgotten,  no  mat- 
ter how  small  the  thing  may  be,  should  be  noticed 
and  corrected,  and  whatever  is  especially  well  done 
commended.  A  kind  word  of  notice  is  not  very 
hard  to  bestow,  and  it  gives  point  and  emphasis  to 
reproof,  raising  it  above  the  mere  level  of  fault- 
finding. 

While  it  is  a  cardinal  mistake  to  do  servants'  work 


for  them,  it  is  only  right  and  Christian  to  notic< 
when  they  are  ill  and  unfit  for  work,  and  then  tc 
offer  practical  sympathy  in  the  way  of  aid.  Then 
is  a  vast  deal  of  cruelty  practiced  on  servants  ir 
keeping  them  to  their  work  when  they  are  reallj 
ill.  Of  course,  in  such  a  case  the  poor  creature  ha; 
the  liberty  of  leaving,  but  if  she  is  honest  and  ha: 
not,  by  means  of  small  pilferings,  feathered  a  nes 
for  herself  outside  to  which  she  may  go,  it  may  no 
always  be  possible  for  her  to  forfeit  part  of  a  month'; 
wages,  or  even  to  lose  her  place. 

It  is  always  good  policy,  if  nothing  more,  to  be 
courteous  to  servants,  to  recognize  little  voluntar) 
acts  of  politeness  on  their  part.  Done  in  the  righl 
way  it  never  makes  a  rule  less  stringent,  but  onlj 
less  galling.  And  it  is  always  the  worst  possible 
policy  to  scold.  Quiet  and  dignified  reproof,  of 
course,  must  be  given,  but  scolding  never.  Noth- 
ing that  cannot  be  effected  without  scolding  was 
ever  effected  with  it,  unless  it  be  the  silent  contempl 
of  the  servant  for  her  mistress. 

S.   B.   H. 

On  Arriving  in  London. 

THE  Liverpool  lines  approach  London  through 
miles  and  miles  of  cuttings  and  tunnels,  and  ovei 
high  viaducts.  You  see  very  little  of  the  city  unti! 
you  alight,  and  then  its  vastness  dawns  upon  you 
with  mingled  impressiveness  and  uneasiness.  Lon- 
don read  about  and  heard  of,  wondered  at  and 
dreamed  of,  is  at  last  under  your  feet ;  and  the  traffic 
in  the  streets  seems  to  have  unusual  proportions 
and  vitality.  If  you  are  a  stranger,  the  distances 
and  the  relations  of  one  part  of  the  city  to  anothei 
are  perplexing,  and  it  is  on  the  supposition  that  yov 
are  a  stranger  that  I  propose  to  offer  a  few  hints, 
The  North-western  Railway  lands  its  passengers 
at  Euston  Square,  the  Great  Western  at  Paddington, 
and  the  Midland  at  St.  Pancras.  Euston  and  St. 
Pancras  are  in  the  northern  division  of  the  city, 
Paddington  is  in  the  north-western  district,  anc 
each  of  the  three  stations  is  about  equidistant  from 
Charing  Cross — a  cab  fare  being  one  shilling  and  six- 
pence. The  cab  charges  are  one  shilling  for  anj 
distance  less  than  two  miles,  and  sixpence  for  eacli 
additional  mile,  with  twopence  extra  for  each  piece 
of  luggage ;  but  it  is  the  custom  to  pay  a  trifle  more 
than  the  amounts  prescribed  by  the  municipality. 
There  is  an  excellent  hotel  at  each  of  the  stations, 
controlled  by  the  railway  company,  and  that  at  St. 
Pancras  is  probably  the  finest  in  the  kingdom.  If 
your  means  will  allow  it,  and  you  have  not  made 
other  arrangements,  it  might  be  well  to  stop  at  one 
of  these  until  you  have  learned  the  elementarj 
geography  of  the  city.  If,  however,  you  wish  to  be 
economical,  buy  a  copy  of  Bradshaw's  "  Railway 
Guide,"  and  consult  the  advertisements  of  hotels. 
You  will  find  the  announcements  of  many  in  sucJ 
streets  as  Norfolk,  Surrey  and  Arundel,  off  the 
Strand,  which  offer  bed,  breakfast  and  attendance 
for  from  four  to  six  shillings.  The  neighborhdot 
of  the  Strand  is  noisy,  but  it  is  convenient  to  ever) 
part  of  the  city,  and  is  traversed  by  omnibuses,  the 
under-ground  railways,  and  the  Thames  ferry-boats 


HOME  AND    SOCIETY. 


469 


A  better  class  of  hotels  in  the  same  locality  are  the 
Charing  Cross,  the  Golden  Cross  and  Morley's.  The 
Langham,  which  is  much  frequented  by  Americans, 
has  rooms  to  let  at  prices  from  five  shillings  a  day, 
including  attendance,  and  is  also  a  convenient 
point  for  visitors.  The  Strand  has  a  further  advan- 
tage in  its  proximity  to  innumerable  good  restaur- 
ants. You  can  walk  from  your  hotel  to  St.  James 
Hall,  or  the  Criterion  of  the  famous  Spiers  and 
Pond,  and  dine  at  the  table  d'hote  for  three  shillings 
and  sixpence ;  or  in  the  Criterion  grill-room,  where 
all  the  appointments  are  unexceptionable,  you  can 
have  a  chop,  or  steak,  or  a  cut  off  the  joint  with  veg- 
etables and  bread,  for  one  shilling  and  sixpence. 
At  the  same  time,  in  forming  your  estimates,  it  is 
advisable  to  calculate  the  cost  of  living  as  being  no 
less  than  it  is  in  American  cities,  while  at  the  fash- 
ionable hotels  it  is  considerably  more  than  at  similar 
establishments  in  Boston  or  New  York. 

Let  us  suppose  that  you  wish  to  limit  your 
expenses  to  about  ten  shillings  a  day.  You  have 
obtained  a  cab  at  the  station  on  arriving  from  Liv- 
erpool, and  selected  a  hotel  in  one  of  the  streets  off 
the  Strand.  You  take  your  baggage  in  the  cab  with 
you,  and  the  fare  is  two  shillings.  There  are  no 
expressmen  in  London.  The  room  that  you  obtain 
with  breakfast  for  four  or  five  shillings  will  not  be 
large  or  handsomely  furnished,  and  the  breakfast 
will  consist  of  cold  meat  or  a  chop ;  but  the  room 
will  be  moderately  comfortable  and  the  chop  good. 
You  can  lunch  and  dine  at  a  restaurant  in  any  part 
of  the  metropolis  you  may  reach  in  your  wanderings, 
and  it  is  always  possible  to  obtain  a  good  dinner 
"  off  the  joint  "  for  two  shillings  and  sixpence.  A 
dinner  off  the  joint  means  roast  or  boiled  beef  or 
mutton,  with  vegetables  and  cheese  ad  libitum. 

If  you  are  to  be  in  the  city  several  weeks,  you 
will,  of  course,  take  lodgings,  the  best  means  of 
finding  which  are  the  advertising  columns  of  the 
London  "Telegraph,"  "Times,"  or  "Echo."  A 
small  parlor  and  bedroom  may  be  rented  for  a 
guinea  a  week,  which  should  include  fire,  gas  and 
attendance.  Do  not  select  a  regular  lodging-house. 
There  are  innumerable  pretty  villas  in  the  suburbs, 
in  which  you  can  obtain  charming  apartments  at  a 
reasonable  price,  and,  if  you  require  it,  the  landlady 
will  cook  any  provisions  you  may  buy  without 
additional  charge. 

ALEXANDER  WAINRIGHT. 

Letters  to  Young  Mothers.    (Second  Series.)    II. 

GIRLS*    DOLLS   AND    BOYS*    COLLECTIONS. 

I  THINK  Eve  must  have  been  the  only  woman  who 
couldn't  recollect  playing  with  paper  dolls.  There  is 
a  limit  to  a  family  of  ordinary  dolls,  for  the  dresses  are 
generally  beyond  the  power  of  the  little  mothers  to 
make ;  and  the  patience  of  the  best-natured  real  mother 
fails  if  she  has  too  many  grandchildren  to  sew  for. 
But  paper  dolls  !  Why,  a  child  can  have  a  hundred  or 
two,  and  if  she  makes  and  clothes  them  all,  who  can 
complain  ?  Of  course,  those  they  make  themselves 
are  a  great  deal  more  precious  than  any  you  can  buy. 
Besides,  like  almost  everything  else,  the  doing  is 
better  than  the  thing  done.  But  home-made  dolls 


are  apt  to  have  homely  faces.  To  remedy  this,  let 
them  make  bodies  to  match  the  pretty  little  heads 
that  come  among  the  embossed  pictures  used  for 
decorating.  An  ingenious  girl  will  soon  learn  how 
to  do  it,  if  you  give  her  a  single  pattern,  and  will 
vary  the  bodies  to  suit  the  heads.  As  for  the  ladies, 
a  body  is  not  at  all  necessary, — the  elaborately 
trimmed  and  trailed  skirts  make  up  for  that  slight 
deficiency.  Old  fashion-plates  and  pattern  catalogues 
will  furnish  hosts  of  dolls,  and  tissue  paper  and  a 
little  ingenuity  will  provide  wardrobes.  I  saw  a 
little  girl  of  eight  years  made  as  happy  as  a  queen  by 
a  birthday  present  of  a  complete  dress-making  estab- 
lishment for  her  paper  dolls.  It  was  a  small  wooden 
box,  neatly  lined  with  colored  paper,  and  holding  a 
bottle  of  mucilage,  a  pair  of  blunt-pointed  scissors 
"  for  her  very  own,"  and  a  dozen  half-sheets  of 
bright-colored  tissue  paper.  The  other  half-sheets 
were  laid  one  side  to  be  brought  out  when  these 
were  gone.  The  cost  of  such  a  box,  as  you  see, 
is  trifling,  but  more  amusement  could  be  got  out  of 
it  than  from  many  a  costly  toy. 

If  your  little  girls  are  like  mine,  they  are  con- 
stantly teasing  for  "something  to  sew,"  and  that, 
too,  when  you  are  too  busy  to  oversee  their  patch- 
work, or  anything  you  wish  them  to  do  well.  If  you 
give  them  an  old  stocking  to  darn,  it  takes  only 
a  few  minutes  to  mend  that  all  up  into  a  heap,  and 
then  the  cry  begins,  "  Mamma,  that  is  all  sewed  up ; 
I  want  something  more."  At  your  leisure  cut  some 
perforated  card-board  into  pieces  small  enough  to  be 
handled  easily ;  mark  with  a  lead  pencil  some  sort  of 
a  pattern, — flowers,  birds,  letters,  animals,  anything, 
— and  let  them  embroider  it  with  bright-colored 
worsted.  (Between  you  and  me,  they  will  not  be 
much  more  hideous  and  useless  than  a  good  deal  of 
the  "  fancy  work  "  with  which  grown-up  girls  amuse 
themselves.)  Older  children  can  prick  patterns  in 
stiff  paper  with  a  large  needle.  Words  like  papa, 
mamma,  sister,  etc.,  can  be  marked  for  them  to  prick 
and  work  into  "book-marks  "  for  birthday  presents. 
Do  not  expect  any  of  these  things  to  be  either  pretty 
or  good  for  anything;  then  you  will  not  worry 
yourself  or  the  children  over  them.  All  you  care 
for  is  to  keep  them  busy  and  interested ;  it  is  only 
another  form  of  play. 

When,  however,  the  children  are  large  enough  to 
sew  in  good  earnest,  they  can  amuse  themselves 
and  learn  a  great  deal  about  cutting,  fitting  and 
sewing  by  making  their  dolls'  clothes.  Cut  paper 
patterns  for  them,  show  them  how  to  lay  these  pat- 
terns on  the  cloth,  and  give  them  a  few  directions 
about  beginning;  then  let  them  cut  the  garments 
out  themselves.  When  the  cutting  is  finished,  pin 
the  separate  pieces  together  and  let  them  baste  the 
garment.  Stitch  the  long  seams  on  your  machine, 
leaving  them  to  do  such  short  ones  as  will  teach 
them  the  various  stitches  without  discouraging  them 
by  the  amount.  "  What !  "  says  one,  who  believes 
that  woman  was  made  for  the  needle,  not  the  needle 
for  woman, — "teach  a  girl  to  sew  by  stitching  her 
doll's  clothes  on  the  sewing-machine?"  Yes;  why 
not  ?  We  do  not  teach  children  to  walk  by  starting 
them  on  a  pedestrian  tour  from  New  York  to  Bos- 


47° 


CULTURE  AND  PROGRESS. 


ton.  Nor  is  it  necessary,  in  order  to  teach  a  girl  to 
sew,  that  she  should  do  a  great  deal  at  once  of  one 
stitch.  (I  never  could  see  any  sense  in  giving  the 
tiresome  "over-and-over  "  to  beginners.  It  is  one  of 
the  most  difficult  stitches  to  do  well,  and  yet "  patch- 
work" is  usually  the  first  lesson.)  Many  a  woman 
harbors  a  life-long  dislike  to  sewing  because  of  the 
coarse  towels  and  dull  patch- work  she  dragged  over 
in  those  dreary  hours  when  she  was  "learning  to 
sew."  Don't  you  remember  how  you  used  to  say, 
"  If  I  could  only  have  something  pretty  and  inter- 
esting, and  that  could  ever  be  finished ! "  What 
grown  woman  does  not  get  "  tired  to  death  "  of  a 
garment  which  lies  in  her  work-basket  for  weeks  ? 
And  a  little  girl's  sewing-work,  soiled  by  long 
handling,  and,  perhaps,  by  bitter  tears,  is  anything 
but  inviting;  she  hates  it  long  before  she  finishes 
it.  But  if  it  is  a  doll's  dress  which  she  has  helped 
cut  out  and  partly  sewed,  if  it  "  goes  together  "  in  a 
single  afternoon,  she  is  eager  to  see  it  on  the  doll, 
and  she  works  happily  and  quickly  under  the  spur 
of  the  present  interest. 

An  ingenious  mother  can  use  many  of  the  "  gifts  " 
and  "occupations"  of  the  Kindergarten,  even  if 
she  does  not  carry  out  the  plays  fully.  There  are 
paper-pricking  and  mat-weaving,  for  instance. 
Children  delight,  too,  in  clay-modeling ;  it  is  a  sort 
of  scientific  mud-pie, — but  it  is  rather  dirty  work. 

But  we  must  not  forget  the  boys.  Through  the 
summer  days  let  them  turn  their  country  rambles  to 
good  account  by  making  "collections."  The  ar- 


ranging and  re-arranging  of  these  things  will  keep 
them  busy  many  a  stormy  winter's  day.  It  is  not 
the  things  collected  which  are  of  any  value, 
usually, — though  they  do  pick  up  a  good  deal  of  in- 
formation from  their  bugs,  butterflies,  stones,  shells, 
coins  or  postage  stamps, — but,  most  of  all,  the  school- 
ing in  energy  and  perseverance.  Even  a  collection 
of  stamps  and  postmarks  from  old  envelopes,  insig- 
nificant as  it  may  seem  at  first  sight,  will  help  to 
organize  their  geographical  knowledge.  The  coun- 
tries, states  or  subdivisions  arrange  themselves, 
and  form  a  rough  frame-work  to  uphold  the  facts 
learned  from  books  or  general  reading  in  after 
years.  That  is  the  Kindergarten  idea,  I  believe, — 
to  use  the  brains,  and  eyes,  and  fingers ;  to  learn  to 
be  deft,  and  quick,  and  neat. 

Besides,  these  collections  will  furnish  a  wide- 
awake mother  constant  favorable  opportunities  for 
training  her  children,  morally  as  well  as  mentally. 
An  over-generous  child,  who  will  be  tempted  to 
give  everything  away,  will  learn  to  count  the  cost 
before  he  commits  himself.  A  careless  one  will, 
perhaps,  learn  to  take  care  of  his  treasures,  if  he 
finds  that  is  the  only  way  to  have  any.  Again, 
the  continual  exchanges  with  their  playmates  may 
be  the  means  of  teaching  them  to  be  both  honest 
and  prudent.  A  boy  who  has  learned  to  be 
thoroughly  fair,  and  who  is  not  often  imposed  upon, 
has  made  good  progress  in  the  principles  of  a  sound 
business  education. 

MARY  BLAKE. 


CULTURE  AND  PROGRESS. 


De  Kay's  "Hesperus  and  Other  Poems." 

THE  tendency  of  the  imaginative  literature  of 
our  day,  and  especially  of  poetry,  to  feminize  itself, 
if  we  may  coin  the  word,  meets  in  this  powerful, 
manly  verse  the  same  wholesome  corrective  that 
has  hitherto  been  supplied  by  such  men  as 
Browning,  Emerson  and  Whitman.  In  boldness 
of  expression,  passion  as  distinguished  from 
sentiment,  freshness  and  accuracy  of  observation, 
and  the  invariable  prominence  given  to  the  idea 
over  the  form,  Mr.  de  Kay  suggests  without  imita- 
ting one  or  another  of  these  widely  varying  poets.  His 
originality  is  that  of  one  who  sees  every-day  nature 
with  his  own  eyes,  who  hears  her  message  with  his 
own  ears,  and  is  bent  upon  translating  to  the  world 
in  his  own  words  the  beauty  that  has  been  revealed 
to  him.  A  glance  over  the  table  of  contents  will 
show  how  wide  is  his  range  of  subjects,  while  his 
skillful  reproduction  of  archaic  or  foreign  forms  ac- 
complished in  the  "  Poems  of  Other  Lands,"  evinces 
a  sympathy  as  deep  and  keen  as  it  is  broad.  The 
elaborate  workmanship  which  Rossetti,  Swinburne 
and  Morris  have  bestowed  upon  their  Northern 
ballads  contrasts  unfavorably  with  the  rugged,  terse 
simplicity  of  "  Ulf  in  Ireland."  Here  Mr.  de  Kay 
succeeds  in  dramatically  reviving  the  primitive  sav- 
age passion  of  the  brutal  Celt,  and  proves  himself 


equal  to  the  crucial  test  of  managing  a  refrain  so 
that  it  shall  be,  not  an  excrescence,  but  an  integral 
part  of  the  whole,  adding  to  the  climax  of  horror. 
However,  he  need  not  resort  to  remote  periods  and 
countries  for  his  inspiration, — he  is  nowhere  stronger 
than  on  his  own  soil,  dealing  with  the  commonest 
scenes  and  emotions  (as  in  the  love-songs  and  some 
of  the  miscellaneous  poems, — "  Serenade,"  "  In 
Central  Park,"  "Off  Sandy  Hook,"  "On  Revisiting 
Staten  Island,"  etc.),  or  when  he  narrows  or  rather 
localizes  his  thought  to  a  national  theme,  as  in 
the  poem  referring  to  the  Tuly  riots  of  1863,  and 
"The  Seer."  His  work  when  he  is  not  treating 
foreign  subjects  is  essentially  American,  not  only  in 
its  tone  of  fearless  independence,  but  in  the  hues  and 
figures  of  the  landscape,  its  flora  and  fauna,  its  at- 
mosphere, and,  so  to  speak,  its  whole  aroma. 

The  singular  union  of  a  luxuriant  imagination 
with  a  keen  perception  and  strong  grasp  of  the 
actual, — a  streak  of  morbid  fantasy  lying  side  by 
side  with  an  intensely  practical  and  realistic  vein, — 
which  we  have  seen  already  twice  exemplified  in 
American  literature,  by  Hawthorne  and  Poe,  we 
find  repeated  in  Mr.  de  Kay.  Contrast  in  his 
volume  such  poems  as  "  Goats,"  "  Friendship," 
"  Spring  in  the  City"  (at times  realistic  to  the  verge 
of  baldness),  with  the  spectral  eeriness  and  glamour 
of  the  sonnets  on  the  Beethoven  sonata,  the  snake- 


CULTURE  AND  PROGRESS. 


like  beauty  and  brightness  of  "  Longings,"  the 
terrible  fascination  of  such  lines  as  this  from  "  Sur- 
render ": 

"  There's  a  strange  luxury  in  being  undone, 
Crushed  flat,  brayed  fine,  wiped  out  and  all  destroyed, 

A  mighty  joy  to  meet  that  glorious  one 

Whose  power  is  boundless  as  the  unsounded  void, — 
To  feel  a  force  that  plays  with  you  a  while, 
Takes  your  best  life's  blood  for  his  lawful  spoil 
Till,  fed  superb  by  you,  the  careless  render 
Stalks  on  in  splendor." 

Like  all  true  poets,  he  is  near  enough  to 
nature  to  entertain  intimate  relations  with  the 
little  creatures  whose  secrets  are  hidden  from  the 
prose-sense  of  the  world.  He  is  never  more 
charming  or  more  original  than  when  he  plays  with 
these  children  of  his  imagination.  We  know  of 
nothing  more  graceful,  more  sportively  elfin  and 
picturesque,  than  the  woodsy  poem  entitled  "  Little 
People."  The  last  two  lines  of  the  third  stanza 
are  a  poem  in  themselves  : 

"  They  sighed  and  ogled,  whispered,  kissed, 

In  meetings  of  the  swaying  dance ; 
Then  fled  not,  but  were  swiftly  missed, 

Like  love  Jrom  out  a  well-known  glance." 

As  for  the  uncanny  beauty  of  the  satyrs'  revel 
around  the  "  smooth  red  lizard  "  in  the  "  Arcana 
Sylvarum,"  we  should  be  at  a  loss  to  find  a  parallel 
for  its  mysterious  and  powerful  charm. 

That  Mr.  de  Kay  should  have  the  "defaitts  de  ses 
qualites  "  is  only  to  be  expected.  His  faults  are  all  on 
the  surface,  and  lie  so  much  more  within  the  range 
of  the  ordinary  reader's  mind  than  do  the  subtle, 
vigorous  characteristics  of  his  genius,  that  in  all 
probability  they  will  materially  delay  a  fitting  gen- 
eral estimate  of  his  work.  The  most  conspicuous 
is  the  absence  of  a  proper  standard  of  taste ;  this 
makes  him  at  times  overshoot,  at  times  fall  short  of 
his  aim.  His  aversion  to  the  artificial,  the  senti- 
mental and  the  false  makes  him  sometimes  sink  into 
the  trivial  and  commonplace;  on  the  other  hand, 
his  audacity  of  imagination  sometimes  misleads  him 
into  sheer  bombast  and  caricature,  as  in  "  The  Two 
Giants."  Occasionally  he  comes  so  near  to  the 
proverbial  limit  of  the  sublime,  that  one  is  inclined 
to  think  him  lacking  in  a  delicate  sense  of  humor. 
Throughout  the  volume  we  are  also  not  infrequently 
disturbed  by  a  clumsiness  of  expression  which 
sometimes  entangles  him  in  hopeless  obscurity. 
The  four  season  poems,  while  containing  some 
of  his  finest  passages  of  description  and  most  faith- 
ful report  of  nature,  are  altogether  lacking  in  struct- 
ural beauty, — both  in  symmetry  of  shape  and  unity 
of  design.  The  opening  stanza  is  crude,  defective 
in  rhyme,  and  so  abrupt  as  to  be  well-nigh  unintel- 
ligible. Mr.  de  Kay,  unfortunately  for  his  popular 
success,  has  reversed  the  usual  order  of  poetic  de- 
velopment: his  thought  and  intellect  have  ripened 
in  disproportionate  advance  of  his  power  of  expres- 
sion. His  verse  is  not  the  melodious  echo  of  his 
predecessors  or  contemporaries,  but  the  bold,  some- 
times stammering  utterance  of  an  original  observer. 
As  the  admirable  M.  Doudan  says :  "  It  is  not 


enough  [for  the  artist]  to  see  and  feel;  he  must 
make  others  see  and  feel."  This  will  be  an  almost 
impossible  task  for  Mr.  de  Kay,  as  far  as  the  general 
public  is  concerned,  until  he  has  more  completely 
mastered  the  technical  difficulties  of  his  art.  We 
are  not  sure  that  the  fault  is  not  deeper-rooted  in 
an  excess  of  self-consciousness,  hampering  expres- 
sion, and  only  giving  way  before  the  most  genuine 
impulse  of  intellect  or  feelings.  Certain  it  is  that 
we  find  on  one  page  a  boyish  inflation  or  triviality 
of  style ;  on  the  next,  a  depth  and  originality  of 
reflection  or  feeling  which  prove  the  earnest  man 
and  the  born  poet. 

From  these  criticisms,  as  we  have  already  sug- 
gested, a  good  portion  of  the  book  must  be  excepted. 
The  best  poems,  especially  the  love-lyrics,  are 
complete  gems.  "The  Blush,"  besides  having  that 
rare  tenderness  which  accompanies  masculine 
strength,  is  perfect  as  a  mere  specimen  of  style, 
recalling  the  rich,  manly  sonnets  of  the  Elizabethan 
period.  "  Dawn  in  the  City"  is  full  of  fresh,  imag- 
inative beauty.  "  The  Serenade  "  is  a  masterpiece 
of  spontaneity,  and  but  for  the  worldly-Quaker 
mixture  of  "  thee  "  and  "you,"  a  good  example  of 
metrical  finish  : 

"  When  on  the  pane  your  face  you  press, 
The  twin  lights  gazing  toward  the  shore 
Are  my  two  eyes  forevermore. 

Behold  and  weigh  their  dumb  distress: 
Against  that  one  sweet  fleeting  sight 
They  bide  them  constant  all  the  night. 

"  The  gray  gull  blown  from  out  the  sea, 
That  gams  swift-winged  your  purple  shore 
When,  far  put,  grievous  tempests  roar 

Is  my  embodied  thought  of  thee. 

My  world,  so  dry  with  hopeless  drouth, 
Grows  fresh  at  thought  of  one  red  mouth. 

"  The  wild  rose  reaching  forth  a  hand 
To  grasp  your  robe  on  bridle-path 
Be  sacred  from  your  gentle  wrath — 

It  is  my  longing  fills  the  land. 
The  grasses  on  each  favored  sod 
Bow  down  to  kiss  where  you  have  trod. 

The  winds  that  in  the  chimney  blow 
Are  babbled  words  of  tenderness, 
And  tributes  to  your  loveliness 
The  red  leaves  falling  from  the  bough ; 
In  love  so  wide  and  yet  so  rare 
Each  thing  of  nature  asks  a  share." 

Mr.  de  Kay  paints  his  pictures  with  a  large  brush, 
and  with  a  glowing  wealth  of  color;  it  seems  as 
if  a  background  of  gold  relieved  and  heightened 
the  bold  imagery  of  these  verses  on  Summer : 

"Love,  love,  yes,  love! 
AU  up  the  wood  the  faint  aromas  creep; 

Sonorous  bells  are  pealing  from  the  lake, 
And  wide-eyed  night  is  drinking  —  breathless,  deep  — 

A  marsh-born  chorus,  glorious  for  the  sake 
Of  some  great  joy.     But  we  are  couched  on  mold, 

Wliere  webs  of  steep  trees  etch  a  mellow  moon  ; 

From  rhythmic  waters,  pulsing  to  a  tune, 
Our  low  lids  catch  a  shifting  foil  of  gold, — 

For  you  are  found,  the  riddle  known  not  of, 
But  longed  for  long,  my  sun-moon-stars  of  love. 

"Yea,  life,  life,  life! 
At  my  first  change,  the  glad  earth  rustled  green 

At  thy  first  coming,  sharper  grew  the  shades. 
But  now  close-linked,  the  tasseled  maize  between, 

We  guide  the  hurrying  sap,  we  part  the  blades 
Where  thin  ears  peep ;  we  pull  the  buckwheat  head, 

And  as  we  pass  the  peach  turns  golden-brown; 


472 


CULTURE  AND  PROGRESS. 


Great  roses  blow;  the  blackberry  its  crown 
Sinks  heavily,  while  deeper  grows  its  red. 

Oh,  love  is  work,  our  life-work,  love;    we  strive 
In  love  for  new  life,  and  our  aims  arrive." 

It  is  difficult  to  convey  in  a  brief  notice  an  ade- 
quate idea  of  Mr.  de  Kay's  descriptive  power,  for  it 
pervades  whole  poems,  and  consists  rather  in  im- 
parting the  feeling, — the  spirit  of  the  scene, — than 
in  accumulating,  after  the  manner  of  most  modern 
word-painters,  highly  finished  single  traits.  Our 
meaning  is  exemplified  by  the  striking  poem,  "  An 
Arab/' — sultry,  vivid  and  real  in  its  orientalism: 

"Yes,  like  an  Arab,  sworn  the  desert  still 
Shall  hold  him  gaunt  within  its  virgin  bounds, 
Like  him  I  march.     For  he,  perceiving  sounds, 

Sees  through  the  gate-ways  of  an  and  hill 
Wide-gleaming  lakes,  where  birds  of  luscious  notes 
Swing  the  green  palms  to  throbbing  of  their  throats. 
Where  flowers  expand,  whose  face,  eyes,  ears  form  one 
Clear,  trembling  cup,   to  drink  of  the  filtered  sun, 
And  mark  the  time  to  harmonies  begun. 

"  Yes,  like  the  Arab,  for  he  may  not  bide, 
Should  these  be  real;  but  false,  why  then  he  may 
Prick  with  his  spear  the  shadowy  array, 

And  chase  the  enchantment  o'er  the  desert  wide. 
But  if! — but  if!     The  senses  are  not  clear 
When  long  the  sun  has  charred,  and  hideous  glare 
Of  baked  gray  plain  to  weary  brain  has  stung; 
When  heat  roars  past  the  ears  like  anthems  sung 
Deep  down  in  hills  by  many  an  Afreet's  tongue.  ' 

Here  is  a  separate  bit  of  a  different  color,  no  less 
fresh  and  graphic,  from  the  spirited  Irish  legend  of 
"  The  Four  Konans  " : 

"  The  stranger  laughed,  and  quaffed  with  lips  as  cranberries 

red. 

All  golden  were  the  curls  about  his  shoulders  shed  ; 
His  eyes  flashed  blue  as  ice  when  north- winds  yarely  blow; 
His  forehead  had  the  splendor  of  newly-fallen  snow. 

Mr.  de  Kay  is  one  of  the  very  few  living  writers 
of  English  who  can  write  a  song ;  witness  "  The 
Tall  Wheat,"  "  Song  for  Wet  Weather,"  "  In  the 
Green  Woods,"  and  this  rippling  little  nameless 
stream  of  melody,  which  seems  to  set  itself  to 
music  : 

"  Light,  light,  light  is  the  hand  of  my  love  in  the  morning, 
Light  as  the  foam,  cool  as  the  breeze,  white  as  the  day  ; 

Dear,  dear,  dear  the  vein  that  her  arm  is  adorning, 
Blue  as  the  hills,  irises  smothered  in  spray. 

"  Warm,  warm,  warm  is  the  shoulder  I  press  in  our  roaming, 
Kind  as  a  pet,  timid  and  brave,  tender  and  true; 

Hush,  hush,  hush  !    guess  what  I  found  in  the  gloaming, 
Richer  than  roses,  sweeter  than   wine,  fresher  than   dew." 

An  encouraging  feature  of  the  book  is  that  it 
steadily  progresses  to  the  end,  to  the  ringing  ballad 
of  "  The  Seer  "  (pithy,  direct  and  stern,  like  an  echo 
of  the  Eddas),  closing  with  the  noble  poem  which 
gives  the  volume  its  title,  and  which  strikes  a 
deeper  note,  and  sustains  a  fuller  and  broader  har- 
mony than  any  of  its  predecessors. 

The  last  stanza  of  this  thoroughly  modern  piece 
of  verse  may  fitly  close  our  view  of  this  remarkable 
young  poet,  whose  genius  may  be  trusted  to  work 
out  its  own  salvation. 

"  Some  one  foreknew  the  desperate  heart  of  man 
When  stars  and  moon  and  the  bright  northern  sky, 
Obedient  to  a  Sun-of-suns,  began 
Through  the  dark  night  the  name  of  Light  to  cry. 
A  fly's  love-lantern  to  the  swamp  is  pledge 
That  somewhere  dwells  a  midmost  soul  of  flame ; 


Through  the  black  storm  a  sword  of  dazzling  edge 
Flashes  a  hope  and  scores  an  eternal  name. 
And  since  the  night  forms  but  a  lovely  version 
Of  glorious  day,  different  but  no  less  real — 
Mortal,  look  up !   so  shall  this  clay's  dispersion 
Prove  but  the  step  into  a  life  ideal." 


"  Certain  Dangerous  Tendencies  in  American  Life."* 

THIS  book  has  merit  of  an  unusual  kind,  and  is  to 
be  judged  by  other  than  a  merely  literary  standard. 
It  is  in  the  main  a  close  study  of  aspects  of  Amer- 
ican life  which  are  of  great  importance  to  the 
national  welfare,  and  which  have  failed  to  receive 
the  attention  they  deserve.  The  author  has  gone 
as  a  careful  observer  among  the  industrial  classes  in 
towns  and  manufacturing  villages.  He  has  studied 
the  condition,  tendencies,  dangers,  and  opportu- 
nities of  these  classes,  and  the  duty  toward  them  of 
the  educated  and  the  wealthy.  Several  of  the 
chapters  have  essentially  the  quality  of  first-class 
newspaper  reporting.  They  are  testimony,  and 
not  mere  theorizing.  Such  is  the  graphic  and 
valuable  description  of  "  A  New  England  Village  "; 
such  are  the  papers  on  "Three  Typical  Working- 
men"  and  " Workingmen's  Wives."  But  the 
writer  is  something  more  than  an  observer.  He 
has  drawn  large  inferences,  and  enforces  them  with 
vigor,  as  to  the  remedial  appliances  which  our  in- 
dustrial  and  social  system  calls  for.  He  is  not  the 
expounder  of  any  new  creed,  nor  does  he  offer  any 
patent  panacea.  The  substantial  ideas  which  un- 
derlie his  recommendations  are  largely  the  old,  and, 
in  a  sense,  familiar  ones  of  education,  thrift,  and 
mutual  helpfulness.  But  he  deals  in  specifics  and 
not  in  generalities.  He  sharply  points  out  the 
habitual  mistake  of  educated  people  in  thinking 
that  when  an  idea  has  once  been  lucidly  presented 
to  the  world  it  may  be  trusted  thereafter  to  do  its 
own  work.  He  urges  the  systematic  and  vigorous 
diffusion  among  the  mass  of  the  people  of  those 
notions  which  are  already  commonplace  among  the 
well-educated.  The  wide  prevalence  of  the  crudest 
superstitions  in  regard  to  labor,  social  organization 
and  religion,  is  strikingly  represented.  There  is 
shown  the  ultimate,  and,  in  some  cases,  the  near 
danger  to  property  and  the  fundamental  interests  of 
the  State,  if  a  higher  intelligence  and  more  rational 
morality  are  not  diffused.  One  of  the  strongest 
points  of  the  book  is  its  enforcement  of  the  direct 
and  vital  interest  of  capital  in  the  moral  elevation 
of  labor.  It  is  forcibly  shown  to  be  not  a  matter  of 
mere  sentiment  or  disinterested  philanthropy,  but  of 
dollars  and  cents,  for  the  wealthy  class  to  see  to  it 
that  the  laboring  poor  are  directed  and  helped  into 
more  rational  ways  of  thinking  and  living.  The 
need  is  well  presented  of  another  class  of  news- 
papers and  books,  of  more  direct  utility  and  sim- 
plicity,— intellectual  food  at  once  nutritious  and 
easy  of  digestion.  We  mention  these  only  as 
specimens  of  the  special  recommendations  of  the 
volume.  It  covers,  condensedly,  a  large  and  some- 
what various  field.  Occasionally  the  author  falls 
into  misstatement  or  exaggeration.  Thus,  he  puts 

*  Certain  Dangerous  Tendencies  in  American  Life,  and 
Other  Papers.  Boston :  Houghton,  Osgood  &  Co.  1880. 


CULTURE  AND  PROGRESS. 


473 


the  national  debt  incurred  by  the  war  at  two  thou- 
sand millions — about  half  the  real  amount ;  and  also 
speaks  of  the  national  debt  as  being  prodigiously  in- 
creased after  the  war,  which  is  incorrect.  When  he 
says  :  "  Perhaps  a  majority  of  the  members  of  the 
Evangelical  Protestant  Churches  in  this  country 
have  at  some  time  consulted  the  spirits  of  dead 
people,  by  the  help  of  some  professional  ghost-seer 
or  medium,"  we  are  inclined  to  think  that  his 
"  perhaps  "  covers  an  enormous  exaggeration.  An 
occasional  something  of  this  kind  a  little  impairs  our 
confidence  in  his  trustworthiness  as  a  witness  to 
points.  The  book  is  sober  and  realistic  in  style, 
but  we  have  an  impression  that  the  author  is  at 
bottom  a  thorough  idealist,  and  liable  to  interpret 
facts  through  the  medium  of  his  own  perceptions. 
His  pet  aversion  is  the  optimists,  the  people  who 
believe  that  all  is  coming  out  right  anyhow,  and 
that  our  chief  duty  is  to  sing  hallelujah  over  human 
progress.  He  leans,  we  think,  toward  the  other  ex- 
treme, is  more  gloomy  in  his  prognostications  than 
facts  fairly  warrant,  and  does  not  make  due  account 
of  the  reserve  forces  of  intelligence  and  moral 
sobriety  in  the  American  people.  Our  political 
history,  especially  since  the  war,  is  full  of  threaten- 
ing lurches  of  the  ship  of  state,  from  which 
she  trims  herself  and  recovers  balance  as 
time  and  talk  bring  out  the  quiet  second 
thought  of  the  people.  The  conservative  forces 
which  thus  show  themselves  in  politics  are  no 
less  at  work  in  the  other  phases  of  national  life. 
But,  in  the  main,  we  consider  this  book  truthful  in  its 
views  and  most  valuable  in  its  lessons.  It  is  a  fine 
example  of  one  of  the  most  promising  manifestations 
of  intellectual  activity  among  us, — the  close  and 
serious  study  by  earnest  men  of  the  real  conditions 
and  requirements  of  American  life.  The  long  anti- 
slavery  conflict,  culminating  in  the  passion  of  the 
war,  trained  a  generation  of  reformers  into  reliance 
upon  broad  and  simple  moral  sentiments,  and  com- 
parative disregard  of  the  complicated  phenomena  of 
free  industrial  civilization.  Now  we  are  beginning 
to  study  more  closely  the  relations  of  classes,  and 
the  mutual  requirements  ,of  the  millions  who  toil 
with  their  hands  and  those  who  possess  science 
and  culture  and  capital.  This  book  deals  with  its 
subject  in  the  true  spirit  of  high  moral  aim  united 
to  sober  study  of  fact.  It  deals  in  no  technicalities ; 
its  style  is  lucid  and  simple;  and  it  will  do  good 
service  in  stimulating  and  suggesting. 

Lanier's  "Science  of  English  Verse."* 

IT  is  scarcely  too  much  to  say  that  this  is  the 
most  important  as  it  is  the  most  original  work  on 
versification  with  which  we  are  acquainted.  In  his 
preface,  Mr.  Lanier  cites  at  length  a  number  of  treat- 
ises on  verse-making,  from  the  twelve-hundred-year- 
old  "  Epistola  ad  Acircium,"  of  Aldgate,  to  the 
"  Laws  of  Verse  "  of  Professor  J.  J.  Sylvester,  and  to 
the  "  Essay  on  Alliterative  Metre,"  by  the  Rev.  W. 


*  The  Science  of  English  Verse,  by  Sidney  Lanier.     New 
if  ork  :   Charles  Scribner's  Sons.     1880. 


W.  Skeat :  he  omits,  we  notice,  the  unpretending  but 
useful  "  Rules  of  Rhyme,"  by  the  late  Tom  Hood, 
and  the  pretentious  and  useless  "  Treatise  on  Eng- 
lish Versification,"  by  Mr.  Gilbert  Conway,  pub- 
lished in  London  only  two  years  ago;  but  no  one 
of  these  many  books,  old  or  new,  good  or  bad, 
attempts  to  cover  the  ground  Mr.  Lanier  has  here 
pre-empted.  Hitherto  the  subject  has  been  treated 
with  entire  inadequacy,  and  it  calls  strenuously  for 
reconsideration  in  the  light  of  later  ideas.  A  study 
of  foreign  meters,  especially  old  French  and  Italian, 
has  done  much  during  this  century  to  break  the 
bonds  of  the  rigid  heroic  couplet  in  which  Eng- 
lish poetry  had  for  a  hundred  years  or  more  been 
bound ;  and  there  was  urgent  call  for  a  book  which 
should  set  forth  the  foundations  on  which  the  science 
of  versification  rests,  for  the  benefit  both  of  those 
who  may  seek  to  speak  in  numbers,  for  the  numbers 
come, — a  class  which  includes,  at  some  period  of 
their  lives,  nearly  all  who  may  be  in  any  way  tinct- 
ured with  literature, — and  of  those  who,  merely 
reading  poetry,  need  more  or  less  knowledge  of  the 
mechanism  of  verse  for  the  fuller  enjoyment  of  the 
poet's  work.  A  book  was  wanted  which  should  set 
before  us  the  internal  structure  of  the  verse  of 
Shakspere  and  of  Milton, — "mighty-mouthed  invent- 
or of  harmonies," — and  which  should  tell  us  wherein 
consisted  the  charm  of  the  emptier  meters  of  Poe 
and  Swinburne.  It  is  only  in  the  discussion  of  these 
purely  artistic  questions  that  Mr.  Lanier's  book  is 
wanting ;  he  has  confined  himself  strictly  within  the 
limits  indicated  by  his  title, — indeed,  if  he  were  to 
discuss  the  art  as  well  as  the  science  of  verse,  twice 
his  ample  three  hundred  pages  would  scarce  suffice. 

After  this  statement  of  what  Mr.  Lanier's  prede- 
cessors have  not  done,  and  of  what  he  has  not  done 
himself,  it  may  be  well  to  declare  just  what  it  is  that 
he  has  done.  And  this  is  no  easy  task.  Mr. 
Lanier  has  not  made  any  modification  of  the  accepted 
theories  of  English  verse;  he  has  torn  them  up  by 
the  roots ;  and  he  offers  us  in  their  stead  another 
theory  of  his  own,  in  accordance  with  the  latest  dis- 
coveries of  the  essentially  modern  science  of  sound. 
That  Mr.  Lanier's  theory  will  meet  with  much 
opposition,  and  even  ridicule,  is  possible  and  even 
probable.  That  it  is,  in  the  main,  the  right  one, 
and  will  therefore  in  the  end  prevail,  we  have  no 
doubt.  To  set  forth,  in  the  scant  space  here  at  our 
disposal,  this  new  theory  of  Mr.  Lanier's  is  ob- 
viously impossible.  Its  radical  basis  may,  however, 
be  briefly  indicated,  and  as  far  as  may  be  in  Mr. 
Lanier's  own  terms  and  phrases. 

Verse  is  a  set  of  specially  related  sounds.  Now, 
sounds  may  be  studied  with  reference  only  to  four 
particulars — duration,  intensity,  pitch,  and  a  quality 
which  Mr.  Lanier  terms  tone-color,  including  there- 
under, rhyme,  alliteration  and  the  proper  apportion- 
ment of  vowels  and  consonants.  For  exact  co-ordi- 
nations of  intensity  the  human  ear  has  no  means; 
but  the  other  three  qualities  it  can  exactly  co-ordinate ; 
when  it  does  so  with  primary  reference  to  dura- 
tion, the  result  is  rhythm ;  when  the  primary  reference 
is  to  pitch,  the  result  is  tune.  After  an  introductory 
chapter,  therefore,  Mr.  Lanier  divides  his  volume 


474 


CULTURE  AND  PROGRESS. 


into  three  parts,  in  which  he  discusses,  first,  the 
rhythms  of  English  verse;  next,  the  tunes  of  English 
verse,  and  finally  the  colors  of  English  verse. 

This  explanation  may  seem  unduly  technical,  but 
Mr.  Lanier  carefully  explains  and  illustrates  every 
term  as  he  introduces  it,  and  any  one  may  follow  his 
lead  without  difficulty.  Even  the  frequent  analogies 
he  finds  in  music  are  so  set  down  that  even  those 
ignorant  of  musical  terms  cannot  but  understand. 
It  is  in  the  first  part,  on  the  rhythms  of  English  verse, 
that  Mr.  Lanier  is  most  radically  original,  and,  it  is 
a  pleasure  to  add,  most  undoubtedly  right.  The 
pages  in  which  he  lays  the  foundation  of  versifica- 
tion on  the  rock  of  modern  physics  deserve  study 
by  all  who  have  ever  given  any  attention  to  prosody. 
Indeed,  if  it  be  not  deemed  impertinent,  one  might 
suggest  a  careful  perusal  of  it  to  the  learned  gentle- 
men who  continue  to  befog  Latin  verse  with  medie- 
val theories  of  scanning.  To  that  ubiquitous 
person,  the  general  reader,  the  third  part  of  the  book 
is  perhaps  the  most  interesting;  it  is  pleasant  to  see 
that  with  logical  exactness  Mr.  Lanier  gives  in  to  no 
out-of-date  theory  of  "  allowable  rhymes,"  and  of 
"rhymes  to  the  eye,"  both  palpable  absurdities  which 
have  only  too  long  cumbered  the  text-books.  Before 
leaving  the  volume  it  should  be  noted  for  the  benefit 
of  Shaksperean  students  that  Mr.  Lanier  has  occa- 
sion to  consider  carefully  the  Shakspere  verse-texts, 
at  which  Mr.  Swinburne,  with  characteristic  un- 
wisdom, has  lately  taken  it  upon  himself  to  sneer. 


"  DEMOCRACY  "  falls  short  of  being  a  clever 
novel,  but  its  pages  bear  evidence  to  the  fact  that  it 
has  been  written  by  a  very  clever  author.  The 
criticism  on  Madame  de  R6musat's  memoirs,  that 
they  showed  some  observation  and  much  imagina- 
tion, may  be  applied  to  this  American  novel. 
The  author's  cleverness  is  manifested  in  that  charm- 
ing colloquial  and  easy  style  which,  with  us,  in 
conversation  and  books,  is  the  woman,  and  by  the 
power  of  rendering  the  usual  "society"  novelist's 
lay  figures  interesting  and  pleasant,  while  they 
move  without  volition  of  their  own,  although  the 
author  occasionally  galvanizes  them  into  a  sem- 
blance of  naturalness.  The  principal  personages  in 
the  book  are  the  pretty,  cultivated,  wealthy  and  unin- 
cumbered  widow,  Mrs.  Lightfoot  Lee;  her  sister 
Sybil,  a  babyish  young  lady  of  twenty-five ;  Victo- 
ria Dare,  an  American  girl  of  the  type  which  Mr. 
James  tones  down  and  Ouida  exaggerates,  who 
captivates  a  stupid  and  good-hearted  young  earl; 
Silas  P.  Ratcliffe,  a  compound  of  Daniel  Webster 
and  the  Honorable  Bardwell  Slote ;  Carrington,  the 
melancholy  and  aristocratic  Southerner  ;  the  British 
Minister ;  and  the  diplomatist  Baron  Jacobi,  a  Vol- 
tairian, and  of  the  Old  World  to  the  tips  of  his 
fingers.  Of  these  Jacobi  is  decidedly  the  best. 
The  tilts  between  this  old  cynic  of  the  eighteenth 
century  and  the  senatorial  Ratcliffe,  "the  Prairie 

^/Democracy.      An  American    Novel.    New  York :    Henry 
Holt  &  Co. 


Giant  of  Peoria,"  the  favorite  son  of  Illinois,  an 
neatly  described.  The  two  are  in  love  with  Made 
leine  (Mrs.  Lee) — Ratcliffe  earnestly,  the  baroi 
because  it  is  his  habit  to  be  in  love  with  the  pret 
tiest  woman  in  his  set.  Here  is  a  glimpse  ol 
Jacobi's  courtship : 

"  He  delighted  in  exposing  to  Madeleine's  eye 
some  new  trait  of  Ratcliffe's  ignorance.  His  con 
versation  at  such  times  sparkled  with  historical  allu 
sions,  quotations  in  half-a-dozen  different  languages 
references  to  well-known  facts  which  an  old  man' 
memory  could  not  recall  with  precision  in  all  their  de 
tails,  but  with  which  the  Honorable  Senator  was  famil 
iarly  acquainted,  and  which  he  could  readily  supplj 
And  his  Voltairian  face  leered  politely  as  he  listene 
to  Ratcliffe's  reply,  which  showed  invariable  ignc 
ranee  of  common  literature,  art  and  history.  Th 
climax  of  his  triumph  came  one  evening  when  Ral 
cliffe  unluckily,  tempted  by  some  allusion  to  Molier 
which  he  thought  he  understood,  made  reference  t 
the  unfortunate  influence  of  that  great  man  on  th 
religious  opinions  of  his  time.  Jacobi,  by  a  flas 
of  inspiration,  divined  that  he  confused  Moliere  wit 
Voltaire,  and,  assuming  a  manner  of  extreme  suavitj 
he  put  his  victim  on  the  rack  and  tortured  him  wit! 
affected  explanations  and  interrogations,  until  Made 
leine  was,  in  a  manner,  forced  to  interrupt  th 
scene." 

In  an  earlier  part  of  the  book,  Senator  Ratcliff 
offends  the  proprieties  by  wearing  at  dinner  "  th 
largest  and  whitest  pair  of  French  kids  that  coul 
be  bought  for  money  on  Pennsylvania  avenue,"  bu 
it  does  not  seem  to  strike  the  author  that  his  offens 
was  venial  compared  with  the  vulgarity  of  the  littl 
diplomatist  in  quoting  from  "  half-a-dozen  differen 
languages." 

As  an  evidence  of  the  tendency  of  a  certain  clas 
of  Anfericans  to  despise  themselves  and  their  in 
stitutions,  "  Democracy  "  is  significant.  It  woul< 
teach  us  that  Silas  P.  Ratcliffe,  ignorant,  savagel1 
immoral  in  the  sense  of  not  comprehending  moral 
ity,  is  a  fair  specimen  of  the  men  whom  the  Wes 
delights  to  honor,  and  that  the  aristocratic  and  unex 
ceptionable  Carrington  is  a  fair  specimen  of  thi 
Virginian  gentleman — that  democracy  is  a  failure 
and  that  life  abroad  is  so  infinitely  higher  and  bet 
ter,  that  no  American  of  culture  ought  to  endure  thi 
demoralizing  contact  of  the  masses. 

Well-known  names  are  very  thinly  disguised  ii 
the  novel,  and  some  of  the  characters  may  possibh 
be  considered  portraits  by  persons  who  have  nevei 
lived  in  Washington.  The  British  Minister,  Lore 
Skye,  who,  being  a  bachelor,  cannot  be  supposec 
to  represent  the  present  amiable  envoy,  offers  ; 
favorable  contrast  to  the  wild  Western  people  ii 
the  book,  and  even  Lord  Dunbeg,  though  he  is  i 
mild  idiot,  is  redeemed  by  the  Americans  who 
whatever  brains  they  may  own,  have  actually  beer 
known  to  wear  flaming  colored  cravats  at  a  dinner 
party !  The  stars  and  stripes  refuse  to  drop  a: 
effectively  as  the  British  flag  at  Lord  Skye's  f£te 
and,  on  the  whole,  the  base  Western  people  an 
always  shown  in  the  attitude  of  refusing  to  apolo 
gize  to  the  cockneys  for  not  dropping  their  "h's.' 
And  yet,  with  all  its  faults  of  exaggeration,  and  bar 
taste,  and  that  cadishness  which  is  only  a  reactior 


CULTURE  AND  PROGRESS. 


475 


after  many  Fourth-of-Julys  of  defiance  of  the  "  effete 
monarchies,"  "  Democracy  "  is  worth  reading,  if 
only  as  a  study  of  our  political  and  social  position 
from  the  point  of  view  of  a  class  which  the  author 
thoroughly  represents. 

Marion  Harland's   "Loitering  in  Pleasant  Paths."* 

MARION  HARLAND  had  established  a  wide  repu- 
tation for  herself  as  a  novelist  when  she  entered 
the  well-trodden  field  of  cookery-book  literature. 
Her  household  essays  gave  her  a  new  and  enviable 
fame.  And  now  that  she  has  printed  her  impres- 
sions of  foreign  travel,  there  will  naturally  be  some 
curiosity  manifested  to  discover  if  the  novelist  and 
model  housekeeper  is  equally  at  home  in  these  new 
paths.  It  must  be  confessed  that  it  requires  a  little 
audacity  to  write  a  book  of  travel  nowadays ;  espe- 
cially does  it  to  give  to  the  world  pictures  of  Euro- 
pean scenery  and  places  already  made  familiar  to  the 
million  of  traveling  Americans  by  their  own  jaded 
experience,  and  to  the  other  millions  of  untraveled 
Americans  by  the  multitudinous  books  of  travel 
which  groaning  presses  have  thrown  off  during 
the  past  few  years  of  the  republic.  Nevertheless, 
the  writer  has  contrived  to  make  a  readable  book. 
We  shall  none  of  us,  probably,  ever  grow  weary  of 
reading  about  the  things  with  which  we  are  already 
well  acquainted,  whether  these  are  at  home  or 
abroad ;  it  is  only  necessary  that  the  telling  shall 
be  well  done,  and  we  are  ready  to  be  told  the  same 
old  story  many  times.  This  loiterer  in  pleasant 
paths  was  clearly  most  at  home  in  Old  England, 
"our  old  home."  It  is  here  that  she  is  most  deeply 
touched  by  the  memories  of  the  past,  most  willing 
to  be  imposed  upon,  if  need  be,  when  sight-seeing ; 
for  her  charity  is  very  great  when  she  looks  through 
the  England  of  the  present  to  the  dear  old  England 
of  the  past.  But  she  quickens  the  reader's  classic 
recollections,  also,  when  she  reaches  Rome  and 
ponders  over  its  monuments,  and  brings  history  out 
of  its  moldering  ruins.  If  there  were  a  little  less 
of  the  ego  in  the  book,  less  of  the  intrusion  of  the 
invalid  and  her  personal  worries,  less  of  the  individ- 
ualities of  the  traveling  party,  the  reader,  who  is 
not  apt  to  care  so  much  for  a  traveler  as  for  what  he 
sees,  would  be  better  pleased.  But  it  is  not  given 
to  every  writer  of  a  book  of  foreign  travel  to  efface 
himself  from  the  pages  of  his  work. 

Janson's  "Spell-Bound   Fiddler. "f 

THIS  is  a  very  unpretentious  little  tale,  and,  like  all 
Mr.  Janson's  later  writings,  it  has  a  pronounced 
tendency.  The  moral  lesson,  which  undoubtedly 
needed  to  be  impressed  upon  the  audience  which  the 
author  particularly  had  in  view,  has  not  the  interest 
of  novelty  on  this  side  of  the  ocean,  although  it  is 

*  Loitering  in  Pleasant  Paths.  By  Mnrion  Harland,  author 
of  "  The  Dinner  Year-book,"  "  Common  Sense  in  the  House- 
hold," etc.  New  York:  Charles  Scrihner's  Sons.  Pp.  435. 

1  The  Spell-Bound  Fiddler.  A  Norse  romance.  By  Kris- 
tofer  Janson.  Translated  from  the  original  by  Auber  Forestier, 
author  of  "  Echoes  from  Mist-Land,"  etc.  With  an  introduction 
by  Rasmus  B.  Anderson.  Chicago :  S.  C.  Griggs  &  Company. 


one  which  has  its  application  everywhere,  and  there- 
fore may  well  bear  repetition.  That  healthy  and 
innocent  pleasure  is  more  ennobling  than  morbid 
and  lachrymose  piety  is  a  proposition  which  is  by 
no  means  universally  recognized  among  the  peas- 
antry of  Norway,  and  religious  movements  of  a 
fiercely  Puritanic  character  frequently  sweep  through 
the  distant  mountain-valleys,  making  the  little  world 
between  the  mountains  in  the  most  literal  sense  "  a 
vale  of  tears."  The  various  phases  which  such  a 
movement  assumes  in  a  primitive  community  are 
impressively  depicted  in  the  present  volume,  although 
of  course  the  author's  chief  interest  centers  in  its 
effect  upon  the  hero — a  weak,  sensitive  and  imagina- 
tive nature,  and  apparently  with  Mr.  Janson  a 
favorite  type  of  the  artistic  temperament. 

The  fanatical  preacher,  though  we  get  but  a  few 
brief  glimpses  of  him,  is  by  all  odds  the  best  piece 
of  psychological  characterization  in  the  book.  The 
fiddler  himself,  too,  and  his  faithful  and  sensible 
wife,  are  sufficiently  vivid  to  enable  us  to  sympathize 
in  their  sorrows  and  aspirations.  We  venture  to 
assert,  however,  that  the  judgment  of  God,  as  ex- 
pressed in  the  land-slide,  the  very  morning  after  the 
rich  man  has  scornfully  rejected  Jon's  suit,  will 
fail  in  its  effect  upon  the  transatlantic  reader. 
It  is  too  tremendous,  too  direct,  too  old-testamental 
to  gain  credence  even  with  the  most  sternly  ortho- 
dox of  these  days. 

Professor  Anderson's  explanatory  preface,  which 
deals  chiefly  with  incidents  from  the  life  of  Ole 
Bull  (who  also  figures  in  the  book),  is  more  than 
half  as  long  as  the  tale  itself,  but  is  sufficiently 
entertaining  to  be  its  own  excuse  for  being.  The 
translator,  in  our  opinion,  makes  a  serious  mistake 
in  violating  good  English  usage  for  the  purpose, 
not  of  finding  the  equivalents,  but  the  exact  cognates 
of  Norwegian  words.  Thus,  for  instance,  the  word 
force  used  in  the  sense  of  cataract  (corresponding 
to  the  Norwegian  Foss)  is  a  piece  of  affectation  with 
which  we  have  no  patience. 

Gov.  Long's  Translation  of  the  ^Eneid.  * 

THE  slight  prejudice  entertained  by  most  critics 
against  a  Governor's  ability  to  translate  the  classic 
authors,  has  given  way  before  the  genuine  and  sim- 
ple merit  of  this  book.  It  is,  in  fact,  a  good  version 
of  a  poem  by  no  means  easy  to  render  into  English 
— as  the  impaled  corpses  of  William  Morris  and 
other  poets  who  have  unsuccessfully  tried  it  suffi- 
ciently indicate.  Morris  is  a  much  better  poet  than 
Governor  Long,  but  he  has  made  a  far .  inferior 
translation.  The  volume  before  us  is  spirited,  easy 
and  clear  in  its  style ;  by  no  means  free  from  faults 
of  version  and  of  diction,  but  on  the  whole  easy  to 
read.  The  short  preface  is  the  worst  part  of  the 
book,  giving  a  wholly  inadequate  view  of  Virgil  and 
his  chief  poem.  Indeed,  it  is  on  the  poetic  side  that 
Mr.  Long  is  most  defective.  He  is  a  good  rhetori- 
cian, but  a  mediocre  poet.  His  work  was  too  has- 
tily done,  and  could  be  much  improved  by  a  leisurely 

*  The  jEneid  of  Virgil.  Translated  into  English  by  John  D. 
Long.  Boston :  Lockwood,  Brooks  &  Co. 


476 


THE    WORLD'S    WORK. 


revision,  such  as  the  chief  magistrate  of  Massachu- 
setts can  hardly  have  time  for  until  he  leaves  the 
chair  of  state. 

Although  Mr.  Long  is  no  poet  and  has  not  aimed 
at  poetic  effects  in  his  version,  he  yet  cannot  avoid 
them  when  translating  closely  and  with  a  picturesque 
diction.  For  Virgil  is  a  great  poet,  whose  force  is 
somewhat  concealed  by  the  elegance  with  which  he 
always  writes,  and  which  reminds  us  more  of  the 
modern  Italians  than  of  the  old  Romans.  Thus, 
in  the  Fourth  Book,  where  betrayed  Dido  falls  by 
her  own  hand,  we  have  this  picture  of  the  quiet 
night,  in  which  she  forms  her  sad  resolve  : 

"  "Twas  night ;  and  weariness  o'er  all  the  earth 
In  peaceful  slumber  sank  to  rest.     No  breath 
Was  in  the  woods  or  on  the  fitful  sea. 
It  was  the  time  when,  half  their  circuit  o'er, 
The  stars  began  to  fall;  when  fields  and  flocks 
Lay  still,  and  birds  were  nestling  'neath  their  wings 
Of  many  hues  ;  when  all  that  lives  within 
The  water-depths,  and  all  that  in  the  fields 
And  forest  dwell,  under  the  silent  night 


In  deep  sleep  lying,  dreamed  all  care  away, 
And  human  hearts  forgot  that  life  is  toil." 

Book  IV.,  lines  697-707. 

In  a  different  and  more  Roman  vein  is  the  passage 
where  ^Eneas  has  just  depicted  the  murder  of  Priam, 
—the  poet  thinking,  no  doubt,  of  the  murder  of 
Pompey,  on  the  Egyptian  shore,  in  his  own  time : 

"  Such  was  the  end 

Of  Priam's  fortunes,  such  the  fate  of  him 
Who,  Asia's  sovereign  once,  so  many  lands, 
So  many  tribes  beneath  his  haughty  sway, 
Saw  Troy  to  ashes  burn  and  Pergamos 
In  ruins.     On  the  shore  his  great  trunk  lies, 
His  head  from  off  his  shoulders  torn,  a  corse 
Without  a  name." 

Book  II.,  lines  691-9. 

These  passages  indicate  the  graphic  merit  of  the 
new  translation,  while  they  also  show  how  it  falls 
short  of  the  melody  that  Bryant  or  Tennyson  would 
have  found  natural  in  turning  the  Latin  hexameters 
into  English  blank  verse. 


THE    WORLD'S    WORK. 


Improved   Methods  of  Heating   Dwellings. 

WITH  the  steady  decline  in  the  price  of  gas,  has 
sprung  up  an  increased  interest  in  the  subject  of 
heating  dwellings  and  conservatories  by  means  of 
gas  stoves.  All  the  appliances  for  heating  by  gas 
now  in  use  are  more  or  less  defective,  and,  in  the 
interest  of  the  housekeeper,  it  may  be  worth  while 
to  point  out  briefly  the  most  effective,  the  most 
healthful,  and  the  cheapest  method  of  burning  gas 
for  its  heat.  Air,  in  contact  with  heated  surfaces, 
absorbs  heat  slowly,  and,  for  this  reason,  a  gas 
stove  will  raise  the  temperature  of  a  room  or  green- 
house to  a  high  point  in  its  immediate  neighbor- 
hood, while  the  other  end  of  the  room  may  be 
freezing.  Added  to  this  is  the  still  greater  defect, 
that  none  of  the  gas  stoves  for  sale  has  any  chim- 
ney. The  products  of  combustion  from  a  gas  stove 
must  be  got  rid  of  before  it  can  be  of  any  value  in 
heating  dwellings,  shops,  or  green-houses.  The 
most  simple  and  effective  way  to  do  this  is  to  in- 
close the  stove  in  an  air-tight  box,  or  to  make  the 
stove  itself  air-tight,  and  to  take  the  air  needed  for 
combustion  from  out-of-doors,  and  to  add  a  chim- 
ney. For  a  small  gas  stove,  an  iron  pipe,  an  inch 
in  diameter,  passing  directly  through  the  wall  of 
the  house  and  communicating  with  the  bottom  of 
the  stove,  will  be  sufficient  to  supply  air  to  the 
burners.  A  two-inch  iron  pipe  from  the  top  of  the 
stove,  led  through  the  wall  on  the  same  side  as 
the  smaller  pipe,  will  make  a  chimney  that  will 
never  smoke  or  cause  the  flame  of  the  burner  to 
"  strike  back,"  whatever  the  force  or  direction  of 
the  wind.  There  is  only  one  effective  and  econom- 
ical method  of  burning  gas  in  heating,  and  that 
is  in  connection  with  a  water  circulation.  Heating 
by  a  water  circulation,  familiar  to  every  house- 
holder in  the  water-back  system,  needs  no  special 
description.  It  is  very  simple,  merely  a  flow  and 


return  system  of  pipes  in  which  hot  water  circulates 
by  its  own  expansion.  It  is  estimated  that  a  gas 
stove  having  two  Bunsen  burners,  consuming  14 
feet  of  gas  an  hour,  will  heat  28  feet  of  3-inch 
water-pipes.  This  is  sufficient  for  a  "lean-to" 
green-house  20  x  7  feet,  or  a  room  in  a  dwelling- 
house  one-third  larger.  No  such  results  are  likely 
to  be  obtained  from  an  ordinary  two-burner  gas 
stove  merely  heating  the  air.  A  gas  stove  for  heat- 
ing water  must  be  practically  a  boiler  with  a  suffi- 
cient number  of  flues  to  absorb  all  the  heat  of  the 
gas-jets.  A  tin  stove,  10  inches  high,  by  10  inches 
long,  by  7  inches  wide,with  six  narrow  sheet  flues 
nearly  the  whole  width  of  the  boiler,  will  give  three 
square  feet  of  heating  surface,  which  will  be  suffi- 
cient to  absorb  all  the  heat  of  two  burners.  Such  a 
boiler  could  be  made  by  any  skillful  tinman,  and 
ought  to  last  two  years.  Made  of  sheet  copper,  it 
would  last  much  longer.  It  will  heat  28  feet  of 
3-inch  pipe,  and  give  out  far  more  heat  than  can 
be  obtained  from  any  two-burner  stove  now  in  use. 
Such  a  system  of  heating  would  cost  about  as  much 
as  an  ordinary  coal  stove,  and,  with  the  exception 
of  the  boiler,  would  last  in  good  order  for  many 
years.  It  will  be  seen  that,  by  this  method  of  em- 
ploying gas,  all  the  heat  is  saved  by  means  of  the 
very  large  heating-surface,  the  heat  is  carried  to  all 
parts  of  the  room  (or  wherever  the  pipes  may 
lead),  and  it  is  distributed  slowly  and  evenly,  and 
without  the  slightest  injury  to  the  most  delicate 
plant  or  lungs. 

In  this  connection  it  may  be  observed  that,  in 
some  new  styles  of  open  fire-places  recently  intro- 
duced in  France,  use  is  made  of  a  hot-water  circu- 
lation to  warm  one  or  more  chambers  from  the 
waste  heat  of  an  open  fire  in  a  room  below.  Sev- 
enty per  cent,  of  the  heat  of  an  open  fire,  whether 
of  wood,  coal  or  gas,  is  spent  in  heating  the  chimney 


THE    WORLD'S    WORK. 


477 


flue,  or  is  thrown  away  out  the  top  of  the  chimney. 
Attempts  to  save  this  waste  heat  have  been  often 
made,  and  there  are  base-burning  stoves  in  this 
market  that  heat  two  rooms,  the  one  below  by  a 
stove  and  the  one  above  by  a  hot-air  flue  in  the 
chimney.  These  stoves  work  well,  but  are  still 
somewhat  wasteful  and  are  generally  vicious,  because 
the  air  heated  in  the  flues  is  often  taken  from  the 
room  below,  instead  of  from  out-of-doors.  The 
French  stoves  made  on  this  plan  appear  to  be  of 
much  better  design,  as  they  have  more  heating  sur- 
face. The  water  circulation  stoves  consist  simply  of 
a  cast-iron  water-back  placed  in  the  chimney  above 
the  open  fire,  and.  connected  with  a  system  of  flow 
and  return  hot- water  pipes  in  the  rooms  above.  A 
cheap  and  unpatented  method  of  economizing  the 
heat  of  an  open  fire  would  be  to  give  the  fire  a 
rather  large  flue,  and  in  this  flue,  extending  down- 
ward from  the  room  above  and  reaching  nearly  to 
the  fire-place,  to  hang  two  pieces  of  wrought-iron 
pipe  (an  inch  in  diameter),  joined  at  the  lower  end 
by  a  common  coupling,  or  "return  bend."  One  of 
these  pipes  must  be  a  few  inches  longer  than  the 
other,  and  must  be  connected  with  the  flow-pipe 
of  a  hot-water  system,  the  shorter  pipe  connected 
with  the  return  pipe.  Every  housekeeper  is  aware 
that  a  few  feet  of  brass  pipe  bent  around  the  inside 
of  a  cook-stove  will  supply  a  family  with  abundance 
of  hot  water,  without  apparent  effect  on  the  fire. 
The  stove  cooks  as  well  with  the  pipe  as  without  it, 
and  the  heat  in  the  hot  water  is  a  direct  saving  of 
heat  that  would  otherwise  go  up  the  chimney.  In 
like  manner,  a  length  of  pipe  hung  in  a  chimney  will 
save  heat  that  otherwise  would  be  lost,  and  by  a 
well-designed  water  system  the  heat  may  be  used  to 
warm  a  room  on  the  second  floor.  Where  strong 
coal  fires  are  maintained  in  open  grates,  a  second 
pipe  reaching  down  from  the  third  story  might  also 
be  added,  and  another  room  might  be  warmed  by 
the  same  fire. 

The  Hydraulic  Mining  System  Applied  to  Dredging. 

DIAMOND  REEF,  in  New  York  Harbor,  has  always 
been  troublesome  to  navigation,  and  many  efforts 
have  been  made  to  remove  it.  All  the  larger  rock- 
masses  were  blown  up  and  removed,  and  then 
nothing  remained  but  a  mass  of  hard-pan  contain- 
ing bowlders,  gravel,  and  sand.  Blasting  was  not 
available,  and  efforts  were  then  made  to  mine  the 
reef  by  means  of  a  powerful  water-jet,  precisely 
as  gravel  banks  are  torn  down  by  a  stream  from 
a  hose  in  hydraulic  mining.  It  was  found  that 
with  a  powerful  steam  pump,  and  an  iron  pipe,  and 
hose  lashed  to  a  spar  and  held  in  position  by  guy- 
ropes,  suspended  from  the  dredging-scow,  the  clay 
could  be  easily  torn  up.  This  sub-aqueous  jet, 
when  directed  downward,  soon  made  a  hole  or 
"  pot "  in  the  reef,  and  much  of  the  fine  material 
was  swept  away  into  deep  water  by  the  tide,  or 
could  be  raked  away  by  divers,  or  by  means  of 
rakes  moved  by  steam-power  from  the  scow  and 
guided  by  ropes.  When  the  jet  was  directed 
against  the  side  or  face  of  the  reef,  it  was  rapidly 


torn  down,  until  the  accumulation  of  the  loosened 
material  blocked  up  the  jet  and  stopped  the  work. 
This  obstruction  led  to  the  invention  of  a  second 
and  quite  novel  application  of  the  same  idea.  The 
reef  is  surrounded  by  deep  water,  and  it  is  not 
necessary  to  dredge  up  this  loosened  material,  but 
merely  to  push  it  a  short  distance  away  into  deep 
water.  A  long  iron  pipe,  of  large  diameter,  was 
then  fitted  with  a  hose,  the  nozzle  being  placed 
within  the  pipe,  under  one  end,  and  pointed  toward 
the  other  end.  A  grating  was  then  fitted  over  the 
end  next  the  hose,  and  the  whole  apparatus  was 
suspended  by  chains  in  a  horizontal  position  from 
the  scow,  with  the  inlet  end  next  to  the  reef.  The 
other  hose  was  then  brought  to  bear  on  the  reef, 
and  a  powerful  stream  was  driven  through  each 
hose.  It  will  be  observed  that  the  water-jet  di- 
rected through  the  large  pipe  formed  an  injector, 
inducing  a  powerful  current  through  the  pipe. 
The  outer  hose  stirred  up  the  gravel  (the  grating 
keeping  back  all  the  large  stones),  the  induced 
current  sweeping  all  the  loosened  sand  and  gravel 
through  the  pipe,  and  discharging  it  at  the  other 
end,  in  deep  water.  A  long  series  of  experiments 
with  the  apparatus  was  tried,  and  it  was  found  to 
work  to  great  advantage  in  removing  all  except  the 
largest  bowlders,  even  in  very  deep  water  and  in  a 
strong  tide-way.  When  the  discharge-end  of  the 
pipe  was  raised  to  the  surface,  it  was  found  that  the 
stream  of  mingled  sand  and  gravel  and  water  was 
thrown  out  of  the  top,  quite  clear  of  the  surface,  so  that 
by  proper  arrangements  it  could  have  been  caught 
in  floating  barges  or  in  sluices  leading  to  the  shore. 
In  this  instance  this  was  not  necessary,  as  the  aim 
was  simply  to  sweep  the  material  away  into  deep 
water.  Modifications  of  this  idea  of  stirring  up  a 
sand  bar  by  hydraulic  jet  have  already  been  tried 
elsewhere,  but  not  on  so  effective  a  scale,  and  the 
valuable  suggestion  has  been  made,  that  the  injector 
apparatus  would  be  useful  in  raising  all  kinds  of 
light  material  in  dredging,  and  in  lifting  argentifer- 
ous sands  in  sea-coast  mining. 

New  Metallic   Compound. 

A  NEW  metal,  possessing  several  novel  and  valu- 
able properties  useful  in  the  mechanic  arts,  has  been 
introduced  under  the  name  of  "  Spence's  metal." 
Its  discovery  arose  from  the  fact  that  the  sulphides 
of  metal  combined  with  melted  sulphur  formed  a 
liquid  that  on  cooling  gave  a  solid  mass  that  exhib- 
ited several  new  properties.  It  was  found  that 
many  metallic  sulphides  would  combine  with  an  ex- 
cess of  sulphur,  and  nearly  all  gave  the  same  results, 
— an  ore  of  pyrites  containing  zinc  and  lead  sulphides 
being  found  among  the  most  useful  in  making  the 
new  alloy.  It  is  chemically  regarded  as  belonging 
to  the  class  known  as  "  thiates,"  and  the  name  "  fer- 
ric thiate  "  has  been  proposed  for  it.  The  melting 
point  is  320°  Fahr.,  and  on  cooling  it  has  the  un- 
usual property  of  expanding.  It  resists  the  action 
of  common  commercial  acids  and  alkalies  and  the 
action  of  the  weather,  and  readily  takes  a  very  high 
polish.  These  properties  make  it  of  special  value  in 


478 


THE    WORLD'S    WORK. 


art  casting,  as  its  tendency  to  expand  on  cooling 
causes  it  to  fit  the  most  delicate  moulds  accurately, 
and  to  reproduce  the  design  so  perfectly  as  to  re- 
quire very  little  after  finishing.  Its  low  melting- 
point  makes  it  useful  in  casting  in  plaster  and 
even  gelatine  molds,  for  the  metal  cools  so  rapidly 
that  the  form  of  the  mold  is  impressed  upon  it 
before  the  gelatine  can  melt,  and  if  the  gelatine 
softens  it  again  hardens  over  the  metal  and  re-adapts 
itself  to  the  form  it  gave  the  metal,  reproducing  the 
design  ready  for  a  second  casting.  For  joining  iron 
water-pipes  the  new  metal  has  the  advantage  of  use 
without  "  calking"  or  after  finish  of  any  kind,  as  its 
expansion  on  cooling  causes  it  to  fill  any  irregular- 
ities in  the  pipe,  and  to  fit  the  joint  perfectly.  Four 
lengths  of  moderate-sized  street  mains,  supported 
equally  everywhere,  were  joined  together  by  pouring 
the  metal  into  the  joints,  with  a  clay  rope,  as  in  mak- 
ing lead  joints.  Then,  without  further  finishing,  the 
supports,  except  at  the  ends,  were  removed;  the 
joined  pipes  bent  somewhat  but  remained  unbroken 
and  water-tight.  The  metal  is  said  to  be  valuable 
for  tanks  in  the  manufacture  of  sulphuric  acid  (in 
place  of  lead),  and  as  a  sheathing  for  cellar  walls  to 
prevent  the  entrance  of  moisture.  Its  price  is  about 
one-sixth  less  than  lead,  while  its  bulk  is  three 
times  greater,  which  reduces  its  cost  to  about  one- 
fourth. 

Preservative  Wrapping-papers. 

Two  new  preservative  wrapping-papers  have 
been  recently  brought  out,  one  designed  for  fruit 
and  one  for  furs,  cloths^  etc.  The  first  is  made  by 
dipping  a  soft  tissue-paper  in  a  bath  of  salycilic 
acid  and  hanging  it  in  the  air  to  dry.  The  bath 
should  be  made  from  a  strong  alcoholic  solution  of 
salycilic  acid,  diluted  with  as  much  water  as  it  will 
bear  without  precipitation.  The  apples,  oranges,  or 
other  fruit  may  be  wrapped  in  the  paper  before 
packing,  and  when  the  fruit  reaches  its  market  the 
paper  can  be  removed  and  used  again.  A  manilla 
wrapping-paper  may  be  prepared  for  resisting  moths 
and  mildew  by  dipping  it  in  a  prepared  bath,  squeez- 
ing it  and  drying  it  over  hot  rollers.  This  bath  is 
made  by  mixing  70  parts  of  the  oil  removed  by  the 
distillation  of  coal  tar  naphtha,  5  parts  of  crude  car- 
bolic acid  containing  at  least  50  per  cent,  of  phenola, 
20  parts  of  thin  coal  tar  at  160°  Fahr.,  and  5  parts 
of  refined  petroleum. 

The  Profilograph. 

THE  profilograph  is  a  new  automatic  device  for 
tracing  the  profile  of  a  road  or  district.  It  consists 
essentially  of  a  two-wheeled  carriage  having  sus- 
pended from  the  body  between  the  wheels  a  heavy 
pendulum,  free  to  swing  in  a  line  with  the  direction 
in  which  the  carriage  moves.  As  the  carriage  is 
drawn  by  a  horse  over  the  ground,  the  pendulum 
maintains  a  vertical  position,  whether  moving  on  a 
level  or  up  or  down  hill.  The  upper  end  of  the 
pendulum,  above  the  point  of  support,  carries  a  pen- 
cil that  touches  a  ribbon  of  paper  moved  by  clock- 
work or  by  the  movement  of  the  wheels  of  the 
carriage,  and,  as  long  as  the  carriage  is  moving, 


makes  a  trace  on  the  paper  that  is,  as  may  be  read- 
ily seen,  a  profile  of  the  country  passed  over  by  the 
machine.  At  the  same  time  one  of  the  wheels,  by  a 
simple  pedometric  device,  gives  the  distance  trav- 
ersed and  makes  a  scale  for  comparison  with  the 
profile  trace,  to  show  the  relations  of  the  two  meas- 
ures of  height  and  distance  passed  over  by  the 
machine. 

Light  from  Oyster  Shells. 

IT  has  long  been  known  that  certain  compounds 
of  lime  and  sulphur  had  the  property  of  absorbing 
light,  and  giving  it  out  again  when  placed  in  the 
dark.  A  simple  way  to  do  this  is  to  expose  clean 
oyster-shells  to  a  red  heat  for  half  an  hour.  When 
cold,  the  best  pieces  are  picked  out  and  packed 
with  alternate  layers  of  sulphur  in  a  crucible, 
and  exposed  to  a  red  heat  for  an  hour.  When 
cold,  the  mass  is  broken  up  and  the  whitest 
pieces  are  placed  in  a  clean  glass  bottle.  On  ex- 
posing the  bottle  to  bright  sunshine  during  the  day, 
it  is  found  that  at  night  its  contents  will  give  out 
a  pale  light  in  the  dark.  Such  a  bottle  filled  more 
than  a  hundred  years  ago  still  gives  out  light  when 
exposed  to  the  sun,  proving  the  persistency  of  the 
property  of  reproducing  light.  Very  many  experi- 
ments have  been  more  recently  made  in  this  direc- 
tion, and  the  light-giving  property  greatly  enhanced. 
The  chemicals,  ground  to  a  flour,  may  now  be  mixed 
with  oils  or  water  for  paints,  may  be  powdered  on 
hot  glass,  and  glass  covered  with  a  film  of  clear 
glass,  or  mixed  with  celluloid,  papier-mache,  or  other 
plastic  materials.  As  a  paint,  it  may  be  applied  to  a 
diver's  dress,  to  cards,  clock  dials,  sign-boards  and 
other  surfaces  exposed  to  sunlight  during  the  day ; 
the  paint  gives  out  a  pale  violet  light  at  night  suffi- 
cient to  enable  the  objects  to  be  readily  seen  in  the 
dark.  If  the  object  covered  with  the  prepared 
paint  is  not  exposed  to  the  sun,  or  if  the  light  fades 
in  the  dark,  a  short  piece  of  magnesium  wire  burned 
before  it  serves  to  restore  the  light-giving  property. 
The  preparation,  under  various  fanciful  names,  is 
about  to  be  made  upon  a  commercial  scale. 

Extraction   of  Perfumes. 

BY  the  use  of  a  new  material  in  a  new  way,  the 
usual  process  of  extracting  perfumes  from  scented 
woods  and  flowers  has  been  quite  superseded  by 
methods  that  promise  better  results  than  ever  before 
reached.  The  new  material  is  chloride  of  methyl, 
purified  and  rendered  inodorous  by  the  use  of  con- 
centrated sulphuric  acid.  The  process  employs  a 
series  of  vessels  combined  somewhat  after  the  man- 
ner of  a  refrigerating  apparatus.  The  first  vessel, 
called  the  digester,  is  filled  with  roses,  jasmine  or 
other  flowers,  and  a  portion  of  the  liquid  chloride 
of  methyl  is  showered  over  them  through  an  open- 
ing, controlled  by  a  stop-ceck,  at  the  top.  After  a 
short  delay  for  digestion  the  liquid  is  drawn  off 
below  into  an  air-tight  tank,  and  a  second  and 
third  showering  is  given  to  the  flowers,  the  liquid 
being  removed  after  each  digestion.  When  the 
perfume  is  nearly  all  taken  up  in  this  manner, 


BRIC-A-BRAC. 


479 


:eam  is  forced  under  pressure  through  the  digester, 
id  then  removed  to  another  tank  where  it  is  cooled 
id  condensed,  and  the  liquid  chloride  of  methyl  is 
hturned  to  the  vessel  containing  the  original  store 
f  liquid  and  may  be  used  again.     The  liquid  from 
ic  digester  containing  the  extracted  perfume  is  now 
Lraporated,  by   passing  water,  at  86°   Fahrenheit, 
[trough  a  jacket  surrounding  the  vessel,  and  at  the 
.me  time  producing  a  vacuum  in  the  tank  by  means 
an  air-pump.    At  a  pressure  of  half  an  atmosphere 
e  chloride  of  methyl  is  removed,  leaving  a  waxy 
d  fatty  matter  behind  that  contains  all  the  per- 
imes  in  a  highly  concentrated  form,  and  on  treat- 
icnt  with  alcohol  this  residuum  gives  up  the  per- 
me  in  all  its  original  strength  and  delicacy.     The 
loride  of  methyl  is  afterward  passed  through  cold 
ils,  and  returns  to  its  liquid  state  ready  for  use  in 
apparatus  again.     All  kinds  of  flowers,  seeds, 
arks,  woods  and  roots  may  be  readily  treated  by 
e  methylic  process,  and  at  a  very  decided  gain  in 
uality  and  quantity  over  any  of  the  methods  now 
use.     The  process  is  one  that  should  find  employ- 
ent   in   our    Southern    States,   where    the    floral 
ason  is  much  longer  than  in  France,  where  the 
erfume-extracting  business  is  now  chiefly  concen- 
•ated.     Many  Southern  plants  and  flowers  would, 
o  doubt,  give  new  and  valuable  perfumes  by  this 
rocess,   the   delicacy   of  the   flowers   having  pre- 
anted  their  use  by  the  old  processes  of  extraction. 


Novel  Application  of  Frictional  Electricity. 

THE  use  in  the  arts  of  electricity  obtained  by 
friction  (as  in  the  common  school  electrical  appara- 
tus) has  not  made  much  progress,  magneto-electricity 
and  electricity  from  batteries  having  apparently 
covered  the  whole  industrial  field.  A  new  use  for 
frictional  electricity — in  the  manufacture  of  flour 
— promises  not  only  important  improvements  in  that 
business,  but  suggests  an  entirely  new  field  for 
electrical  work.  In  bolting  machines,  as  now  used 
in  flour  mills,  the  bran  is  separated  from  the  flour 
by  a  blast  of  air,  designed  to  blow  away  the  light 
bran  and  leave  the  flour  behind.  This  is  accom- 
plished, but  at  a  serious  loss  of  fine  flour  blown 
away  with  the  bran,  and  the  inconvenience  of  great 
quantities  of  flour-dust,  to  say  nothing  of  the  danger 
of  dust  explosions  in  such  bolting  machines.  In 
place  of  the  air-blast,  hard  rubber  cylinders  are 
placed  horizontally  over  the  moving  bolting-cloths 
containing  the  mingled  flour  and  bran.  These 
cylinders  are  made  to  revolve  by  any  convenient 
power,  and  as  they  turn  they  press  against  pieces 
of  sheep-skin  (or  other  electrical  excitant)  and  be- 
come charged  with  frictional  electricity  ;  the  loose 
bran  is  attracted  to  them,  flies  up  and  clings 
to  the  cylinders  precisely  as  a  bit  of  paper  will 
cling  to  a  rod  of  sealing-wax  when  electrically  ex- 
cited by  friction.  Apparatus  is  provided  for  taking 
off  the  bran  as  fast  as  it  gathers  on  the  rollers. 


BRIC-A-BRAC. 


Two   Loves. 

"  The  cure  for  love  is  more  love." — THOREAU. 

'NEATH  olden  trees,  to  which  the  breeze 

Spoke  soft  of  summer  weather, 
(A  book  of  verses  on  our  knees) 

We  sat  and  read  together. 

Her  voice  was  low  with  lulling  flow ; 

Her  lips  had  rosy  fragrance; 
And  round  her  ran  with  golden  glow 

Her  tresses — lovely  vagrants  ! 

She  turned  and  shook  the  dreamy  book, 

And  said,  with  dreamier  murmur : 
"  When  on  such  lovely  lines  we  look, 
We  feel  love's  faith  grow  firmer." 

Methought  the  birds  had  caught  her  words, 

They  sang  so  sweetly  after; 
Methought  the  brook  her  cadence  took 

Of  love  amid  its  laughter. 

But  from  the  book  she  lightly  shook 
Fell  something,  which  went  curling 

A  moment  gay  on  the  wind  away — 
Then  down  the  brook  came  whirling. 

"Child  of  an  hour,  vain  flying  flower!  " 
She  said,  with  tuneful  measure : 

"  Poor  Arthur  thought  my  heart  was  caught, 
When  I  received  that  treasure." 


Was  it  her  tone,  or  look  alone? 

Or  was  it  but  the  letting 
That  love-gift  go  with  little  show 

Of  care  or  kind  regretting  ? 

I  know  not.     Something  deep,  though  dumb, 

Within  my  soul  gave  warning. 
I  know  not — but  there  seemed  to  come 

A  shade  across  the  morning. 

The  brook's  gay  bound  seemed  but  a  sound- 

A  mere  melodious  murmur; 
It  lost  the  note  of  her  sweet  throat 

Who  said,  "Love's  faith  grew  firmer." 

I  turned  away;  and  from  that  day 

The  siren  spell  was  broken, 
And  I  with  thankful  heart  can  say: 

"Of  me  she  has  no  token." 

For  fairest  face  and  rarest  grace 

And  beauty  most  Elysian, 
Which  have  'of  tenderness  no  trace, 

Are  emptier  than  a  vision. 

So  let  fair  maids  remember  this: 

The  gem  exceeds  the  setting, 
And  love  that  never  gained  a  kiss 

May  yet  be  worth  regretting. 

H.  W.  AUSTIN. 


480 


BRIC-A-BRAC. 


Epigrams. 

ILLUMINATION. 


'  WHAT  splendor  lights  my  sweetheart's  eyes  ?- 
What  heavenly  beam,  so  strangely  bright?" 

'  No  '  heavenly  beam,' "  the  maid  replies, 
"  But  only  the  Electric  Light !  " 


TO   FATE    RESIGNED. 


FAIR  Maud  is  weary  of  her  lonely  lot ; 

Her  friends  are  gone, — why  should  she  wish  to 

tarry  ? 
The  world's  vain  pleasures  now  delight  her  not  ;— 

She  has  resolved  to  take  the  vail  and — marry ! 


AN  unplucked  rose  saw  fairest   Annie  tie 

Its  neighbor  on  her  throat,  with  tender  grace; 

And,  envious,  thought  'twere  happiness  to  die 
In  such  a  way — on  such  a  resting-place ! 


DURABILITY. 


THE  ladies  of  the  present  day 

Quite  frequently  endeavor 
To  find  a  practicable  way 

To  keep  their  charms  forever ; 
There  was  a  dame  with  such  a  fault, 

Of  some  historic  nation, 
Was  transmigrated  into  salt 

For  surer  preservation  ! 


A    MODERN   CUPID. 


IN  papers  that  are  sent  about 

We  every  day  discover 
The  suicidal  snuffing  out 

Of  some  unhappy  lover ; 
It  worries  little  Cupid  so 

To  slay  a  modern  suitor, 
He  lays  aside  his  cedar  bow 

And  tries  a  seven-shooter ! 


A  Practical  Young  Woman. 

YOUNG  Julius  Jones  loved  Susan  Slade ; 

And  oft,  in  dulcet  tones, 
He  vainly  had  besought  the  maid 

To  take  the  name  of  Jones. 

"  Wert  thou  but  solid,  then,  be  sure, 
'Twould  be  all  right,"  said  she, 

"But,   Mr.  J.,  whilst  thou  art  poor 
Pray  think  no  more  of  me." 

Poor  Jones  was  sad;  his  coat  was  bad; 

His  salary  was  worse ; 
But  hope  suggested  :  "Jones,  my  lad, 

Just  try  the  power  of  verse." 

He  sat  him  down  and  wrote  in  rhyme 

How  she  was  in  her  spring, 
And  he  in  summer's  golden  prime — 

And  all  that  sort  of  thing. 

The  poem  praised  her  hair  and  eyes — 

Her  lips,  with  honey  laden. 
He  wound  it  up — up  in  the  skies — 

And  mailed  it  to  the  maiden. 

She  read  it  over,  kept  it  clean, 

Put  on  her  finest  raiment, 
And  took  it  to  a  magazine 

And  got  ten  dollars  payment. 

IRWIN  RUSSELL. 


Keramos. 

THERE  was  a  young  lady  named  Nancy, 
Who  for  bric-a-brac  had  such  a  fancy 

That  a  family  jar 

'Twixt  her  ma  and  her  pa 
Delighted  the  soul  of  Miss  Nancy. 


Advantages  of  Ballast. 


A  WILD  ANIMAL  OFFERS  A 
TEMPTING  NECK  TO  THE 
HUNTER'S  LASSO. 


THE  WILD  ANIMAL  SPRINGS, 
AND  THE  HUNTER  FINDS 
THAT  HE  IS  JUST  ABOUT 
UK  OWN  WEIGHT. 


HE    THROWS    OUT    BALLAST. 


THIS    PLAN     SUCCEEDS. 


NOTE.— Both  the  process  and  the  beast  above  described  are  th< 
vention  and  property  of  the  artist ;  readers  may  as  well  be  inforr 
once  for  all,  that  the  inventor  is  protected  from  them  by  the  gen 
copyright  on  this  magazine. 


-~  f.- £'  f    "4  »--.  <r-  JP? 


SAVONAROLA. 

[FROM    A    PAINTING    BY    FRA    BARTOLOMMEO.l 


MIDSUMMER  HOLIDAY  NUMBER 

ScRiBNER's  MONTHLY. 


VOL.  XX. 


AUGUST,  1880. 


No.  4. 


OUR  RIVER. 


RIVERS  are  as  various  in  their  forms  as 
forest  trees.  The  Mississippi  is  like  an  oak 
with  enormous  branches.  What  a  branch 
is  the  Red  River,  the  Arkansas,  the  Ohio, 
the  Missouri!  The  Hudson  is  like  the  pine 
or  poplar — mainly  trunk. 

From  New  York  to  Albany  there  is  only 
an  inconsiderable  limb  or  two,  and  but 
few  gnarls  and  excrescences.  Cut  off  the 
Rondout,  the  Esopus,  the  Catskill  and  two 
or  three  similar  tributaries  on  the  east  side, 
and  only  some  twigs  remain.  There  are 
some  crooked  places,  it  is  true,  but,  on  the 
whole,  the  Hudson  presents  a  fine,  symmetri- 
cal shaft  that  would  be  hard  to  match  in 
any  river  of  the  world. 

Among  our  own  water-courses  it  stands 
pre-eminent.  The  Columbia — called  by 
Major  Winthrop  the  Achilles  of  rivers — is 
a  more  haughty  and  impetuous  stream  ;  the 
Mississippi  is,  of  course,  vastly  larger  and 
longer ;  the  St.  Lawrence  would  carry  the 
Hudson  as  a  trophy  in  his  belt  and  hardly 
know  the  difference ;  yet  our  river  is  doubt- 
less the  most  beautiful  of  them  all.  It 
pleases  like  a  mountain  lake. 

It  has  all  the  sweetness  and  placidity 
that  go  with  such  bodies  of  water,  on  the 
one  hand,  and  all  their  bold  and  rugged 
scenery  on  the  other.  In  summer,  a  pas- 
sage up  or  down  its  course  in  one  of  the 
day  steamers  is  as  near  an  idyl  of  travel  as 
can  be  had,  perhaps,  anywhere  in  the  world. 
Then  its  permanent  and  uniform  volume,  its 
fullness  and  equipoise  at  all  seasons,  and  its 
gently  flowing  currents  give  it  further  the 
character  of  a  lake,  or  of  the  sea  itself. 

When  Henry  Hudson  discovered  it,  he 
was  searching  for  the  North-west  passage  to 
India,  and  he  may  well  have  hoped  that 
this  stately  ebbing  and  flowing  water  led 
into  some  northern  sea,  by  means  of  which 
the  vexed  problem  might  at  last  be  solved. 
VOL.  XX.— 32. 


Of  the  Hudson  it  may  be  said  that  it  is 
a  very  large  river  for  its  size, — that  is,  for 
the  quantity  of  water  it  discharges  into  the 
sea.  Its  water-shed  is  comparatively  small 
— less,  I  think,  than  that  of  the  Connecticut. 

It  is  a  huge  trough  with  a  very  slight  in- 
cline, through  which  the  current  moves 
very  slowly,  and  which  would  fill  from  the 
sea  were  its  supplies  from  the  mountains 
cut  off.  Its  fall  from  Albany  to  the  bay  is 
only  about  five  feet.  Any  object  upon  it, 
drifting  with  the  current,  progresses  south- 
ward no  more  than  eight  miles  in  twenty- 
four  hours.  The  ebb  tide  will  carry  it 
about  twelve  miles,  and  the  flood  set  it 
back  from  seven  to  nine.  A  drop  of  water 
at  Albany,  therefore,  will  be  nearly  three 
weeks  in  reaching  New  York,  though  it  will 
.  get  pretty  well  pickled  some  days  earlier. 

Some  rivers  by  their  volume  and  impetu- 
osity penetrate  the  sea,  but  here  the  sea 
is  the  aggressor,  and  sometimes  meets  the 
mountain  water  nearly  half-way. 

This  fact  was  illustrated  a  couple  of  years 
ago,  when  the  basin  of  the  Hudson  was 
visited  by  one  of  the  most  severe  droughts 
ever  known  in  this  part  of  the  State.  In 
the  early  winter,  after  the  river  was  frozen 
over  above  Poughkeepsie,  it  was  discovered 
that  immense  numbers  of  fish  were  retreat- 
ing up  stream  before  the  slow  encroach- 
ment of  the  salt  water.  There  was  a 
general  exodus  of  the  finny  tribes  from  the 
whole  lower  part  of  the  river ;  it  was  like 
the  spring  and  fall  migration  of  the  birds, 
or  the  fleeing  of  the  population  of  a  district 
before  some  approaching  danger :  vast 
swarms  of  cat-fish,  white  and  yellow  perch 
and  striped  bass  were  en  route  for  the  fresh 
water  farther  north.  When  the  people 
along  shore  made  the  discovery,  they  turned 
out  as  they  do  in  the  rural  districts  when 
the  pigeons  appear,  and,  with  small  gill-nets 

[Copyright,  1880,  by  Scribner  &  Co.     AH  rights  reserved.] 


482 


OUR  RIVER. 


SPRING    FLOODS. 


let  down  through  holes  in  the  ice,  captured 
them  in  fabulous  numbers.  On  the  heels 
of  the  retreating  perch  and  cat-fish  came 
the  denizens  of  the  salt  water,  and  cod-fish 
were  taken  ninety  miles  above  New  York. 
When  the  February  thaw  came  and  brought 
up  the  volume  of  fresh  water  again,  the  sea 
brine  was  beaten  back,  and  the  fish,  what 
were  left  of  them,  resumed  their  old  feeding- 
grounds. 

It  is  this  character  of  the  Hudson,  this 
encroachment  of  the  sea  upon  it,  that 
led  Professor  Newberry  to  speak  of  it  as  a 
drowned  river.  We  have  heard  of  drowned 
lands,  but  here  is  a  river  overflowed  and  sub- 
merged in  the  same  manner.  It  is  quite 
certain,  however,  that  this  has  not  always 
been  the  character  of  the  Hudson.  Its 
great  trough  bears  evidence  of  having  been 
worn  to  its  present  dimensions  by  much 
swifter  and  stronger  currents  than  those  that 
course  through  it  now.  Hence,  Professor 
Newberry  has  recently  advanced  the  bold 
and  striking  theory  that  in  pre-glacial  times 
this  part  of  the  continent  was  several  hun- 
dred feet  higher  than  at  present,  and  that 
the  Hudson  was  then  a  very  large  and 
rapid  stream,  that  drew  its  main  supplies  from 
the  basin  of  the  Great  Lakes  through  an 
ancient  river-bed  that  followed  pretty  nearly 


the  line  of  the  present  Mohawk ;  in  other 
words,  that  the  waters  of  the  St.  Lawrence 
once  found  an  outlet  through  this  channel, 
debouching  into  the  ocean  from  a  broad, 
littoral  plain,  at  a  point  eighty  miles  south- 
east of  New  York,  where  the  sea  now  rolls 
500  feet  deep.  According  to  the  soundings 
of  the  coast  survey,  this  ancient  bed  of  the 
Hudson  is  distinctly  marked  upon  the  ocean 
floor  to  the  point  indicated. 

To  the  gradual  subsidence  of  this  part  of 
the  continent,  in  connection  with  the  great 
changes  wrought  by  the  huge  glacier  that 
crept  down  from  the  north  during  what  is 
called  the  ice  period,  is  owing  the  char- 
acter and  aspects  of  the  Hudson  as  we  see 
and  know  them.  The  Mohawk  valley  was 
filled  up  by  the  drift,  the  Great  Lakes  scooped 
out,  and  an  opening  for  their  pent-up  waters 
found  through  what  is  now  the  St.  Lawrence. 
The  trough  of  the  Hudson  was  also  partially 
filled,  and  has  remained  so  to  the  pres- 
ent day.  There  is,  perhaps,  no  point  in 
the  river  where  the  mud  and  clay  are  not 
from  two  to  three  times  as  deep  as  the 
water. 

That  ancient  and  grander  Hudson  lies 
back  of  us  several  hundred  thousand  years — 
perhaps  more,  for  a  million  years  are  but  as  one 
tick  of  the  time-piece  of  the  Lord ;  yet  even 


OUR  RIVER. 


483 


it  was  a  juvenile  compared  with  some  of  the 
rocks  and  mountains  the  Hudson  of  to-day 
mirrors.  The  Highlands  date  from  the  ear- 
liest geological  age — the  primary  ;  the  river 
— the  old  river — from  the  latest,  the  terti- 
ary ;  and  what  that  difference  means  in  terres- 
trial years  hath  not  entered  into  the  mind  of 
man  to  conceive.  Yet  how  the  venerable 
mountains  open  their  ranks  for  the  strip- 
ling to  pass  through.  Of  course,  the  river 
did  not  force  its  way  through  this  barrier, 
but  has  doubtless  found  an  opening  there 
of  which  it  has  availed  itself,  and  which  it 
has  enlarged. 

In  thinking  of  these  things,  one  only  has 
to  allow  time  enough,  and  the  most  stupen- 
dous changes  in  the  topography  of  the 
country  are  as  easy  and  natural  as  the  going 
out  or  the  coming  in  of  spring  or  summer. 
According  to  the  authority  above  referred 
to,  that  part  of  our  coast  that  flanks  the 


mouth  of  the  Hudson  is  still  sinking  at  the 
rate  of  a  few  inches  per  century,  so  that  in 
the  twinkling  of  a  hundred  thousand  years 
or  so,  the  sea  will  completely  submerge  the 
city  of  New  York,  the  top  of  Trinity-church 
steeple  alone  standing  above  the  flood. 
We  who  live  so  far  inland,  and  sigh  for 
the  salt  water,  need  only  to  have  a  little 
patience,  and  we  shall  wake  up  some  fine 
morning  and  find  the  surf  beating  upon 
our  door-steps. 

But  I  must  not  tarry  longer  over  this 
phase  of  my  subject. 

No  man  sows,  yet  many  men  reap  a  har- 
vest from  the  Hudson.  Not  the  least  im- 
portant is  the  ice  harvest,  which  is  eagerly 
looked  for,  and  counted  upon  by  hundreds, 
yes,  thousands  of  laboring  men  along  its 
course.  Ice  or  no  ice  sometimes  means 
bread  or  no  bread  to  scores  of  families, 
and  it  means  added  or  diminished  comfort 


AN     ICE-FLOE. 


486 


OUR  RIVER. 


lite 


A    BIRD  S- EYE    VIEW. 


sun  first  strikes  the  ice.  At  other  times  it  is 
like  a  great  gong;  then  it  sounds  like  a 
giant  staff  beating  the  air.  It  is  more  no- 
ticeable during  a  change  of  temperature 
either  way,  but  is  most  pronounced  when 
the  water  is  yielding  up  its  heat  under  the 
pressure  of  severe  cold.  It  seems  to  pro- 
ceed from  something  in  swift  motion.  It 
bounds  and  rebounds  from  shore  to  shore. 
It  will  apparently  start  from  under  one's 
very  feet,  with  a  snort  or  a  whoop,  and  van- 
ish in  the  distance.  When  the  ice  is  new 
and  strong  it  makes  a  shining  path  through 
it,  as  if  it  might  be  a  current  of  electricity ; 
this  path  or  track  has  a  spiral  character,  as 
if  the  force  that  made  it  went  with  a  twist. 
It  is  quite  different  from  an  ordinary  crack. 

The  expansive  force  of  the  sun  upon  the 
ice  is  sometimes  enormous.  I  have  seen 
the  ice  explode  with  a  loud  noise  and  a 
great  commotion  in  the  water,  and  a  crevasse 
shoot  like  a  thunderbolt  from  shore  to  shore, 
with  its  edges  overlapping  and  shivered  into 
fragments. 

A  beautiful  phenomenon  may  at  times  be 
witnessed  in  the  morning  after  a  night  of 
extreme  cold.  The  new  block  ice  is  found 
to  be  covered  with  a  sudden  growth  of  frost- 
ferns — exquisite  fern-like  formations  from  a 


half-inch  to  an  inch  in  length,  standin 
singly  and  in  clusters,  and  under  the  mori 
ing  sun  presenting  a  most  novel  appearanci 
They  impede  the  skate,  and  are  presentl 
broken  down  and  blown  about  by  the  wine 
The  scenes  and  doings  of  summer  ai 
counterfeited  in  other  particulars  upon  thes 
crystal  plains.  Some  bright,  breezy  day  yo 
casually  glance  down  the  river  and  behol 
a  sail — a  sail  like  that  of  a  pleasure  yacht < 
summer.  Is  the  river  open  again  belo 
there,  is  your  first  half-defined  inquiry.  Bi 
with  what  unwonted  speed  the  sail  is  moi 
ing  across  the  view!  Before  you  ha\ 
fairly  drawn  another  breath  it  has  turne( 
unperceived,  and  is  shooting  with  equ; 
swiftness  in  the  opposite  direction.  Wh 
ever  saw  such  a  lively  sail !  It  does  nc 
bend  before  the  breeze,  but  darts  to  an 
fro  as  if  it  moved  in  a  vacuum,  or  like 
shadow  over  a  scene.  Then  you  remembe 
the  ice-boats  and  you  open  your  eyes  to  th 
fact.  Another  and  another  come  into  vie' 
around  the  elbow,  turning  and  flashing  i 
the  sun,  and  hurtling  across  each  other 
paths  .like  white-winged  gulls.  They  tur 
so  quickly  and  dash  off  again  at  such  speec 
that  they  produce  the  illusion  of  somethin 
singularly  light  and  intangible.  In  fact,  a: 


OUR  RIVER. 


487 


ice-boat  is  a  sort  of  disembodied  yacht ;  it  is 
a  sail  on  skates.  The  only  semblance  to  a 
boat  is  the  sail  and  the  rudder.  The  platform 
under  which  the  skates  or  runners — three  in 
.number — are  rigged,  is  broad  and  low ; 
upon  this  the  pleasure-seekers,  wrapt  in  their 
furs  or  blankets,  lie  at  full  length,  and,  look- 
ing under  the  sail,  skim  the  frozen  surface 
with  their  eyes.  The  speed  attained  is 
sometimes  very  great — more  than  a  mile  per 
minute,  and  sufficient  to  carry  them  ahead  of 
the  fastest  express  train.  When  going  at  this 
rate  the  boat  will  leap  like  a  greyhound, 
and  thrilling  stories  are  told  of  the  fearful 
crevasses,  or  open  places  in  the  ice,  that  are 
cleared  at  a  bound.  And  yet,  withal,  she 
can  be  brought  up  to  the  wind  so  suddenly 
as  to  shoot  the  unwary  occupants  off,  and 
send  them  skating  on  their  noses  some 
yards. 

Navigation  on  the  Hudson  stops  about 
the  last  of  November.  There  is  usually  more 
or  less  floating  ice  by  that  time,  and  the  river 
may  close  very  abruptly.  Beside  that,  new 


the  naked  earth  with  great  intensity.  On  the 
29th  the  ground  was  a  rock,  and,  after  the 
sun  went  down,  the  sky  all  around  the  hori- 
zon looked  like  a  wall  of  chilled  iron.  The 
river  was  quickly  covered  with  great  floating 
fields  of  smooth,  thin  ice.  About  three 
o'clock  the  next  morning — the  mercury  two 
degrees  below  zero — the  silence  of  our  part 
of  the  river  was  suddenly  broken  by  the 
alarm  bell  of  a  passing  steamer ;  she  was  in 
the  jaws  of  the  icy  legions,  and  was  crying  for 
help ;  many  sleepers  along  shore  remembered 
next  day  that  the  sound  of  a  bell  had  floated 
across  their  dreams,  without  arousing  them. 
One  man  was  awakened  before  long  by  a 
loud  pounding  at  his  door.  On  opening  it, 
a  tall  form,  wet  and  icy,  fell  in  upon  him  with 
the  cry, "  The  Sunny  side  is  sunk !  "  The  man 
proved  to  be  one  of  her  officers  and  was  in 
quest  of  help.  He  had  made  his  way  up  a 
long  hill  through  the  darkness,  his  wet 
clothes  freezing  upon  him,  and  his  strength 
gave  way  the  moment  succor  was  found. 
Other  dwellers  in  the  vicinity  were  aroused, 


THE    OLD    CEMETERY    AT    MARLBOROUGH    LANDING. 


ice  an  inch  or  two  thick  is  the  most  danger- 
ous of  all ;  it  will  cut  through  a  vessel's  hull 
like  a  knife.  In  '75,  there  was  a  sudden  fall 
of  the  mercury  the  28th  of  November.  The 
hard  and  merciless  cold  came  down  upon 


and  with  their  boats  rendered  all  the  assist- 
ance possible.  The  steamer  sank  but  a  few 
yards  from  shore,  only  a  part  of  her  upper 
deck  remaining  above  water,  yet  a  panic 
among  the  passengers — the  men  behaving 


488 


OUR  RIVER. 


KNITTING    SHAD-NETS. 


very  badly — swamped  the  boats  as  they  were 
being  filled  with  the  women,  and  a  dozen  or 
more  persons  were  drowned. 

The  subsequent  fate  of  the  sunken  steam- 
er was  tragic  enough.  The  tide  presently 
carried  her  out,  when  she  sunk  in  twelve 
fathoms  of  water.  Here  she  lay  until  the 
May  following,  slowly  filling  up  with  mud. 
In  May  a  band  of  wreckers  from  New 
York  undertook  to  raise  her.  Floats  and 
boxes  and  canal-boats,  and  various  non- 
descript crafts  were  collected  above  her, 
with  great  derricks  and  cables  and  colossal 
timbers.  Divers  went  down,  and  after  many 
efforts  succeeded  in  getting  huge  chains 
under  her,  when  the  work  of  lifting  her 
began.  It  was  a  tedious  process,  and  re- 
quired great  skill  and  patience  and  an  enor- 
mous outlay  of  power. 

Late  in  June,  the  vessel  swung  in  her 
chains  many  feet  from  the  bottom.  One 
day,  with  an  auspicious  wind  and  tide,  the 
wreckers  started  with  her  for  the  shallower 
water  of  the  flats,  a  few  miles  above.  It 
was  no  holiday  procession  that  went  by.  It 
moved  slowly  and  solemnly.  The  steamer 
could  not  be  seen,  but  the  great  empty 
hulls  that  bore  her  settled  low  in  the  water 
under  their  enormous  burden.  The  scene 
was  tragic  and  impressive.  The  flats  were 


reached,  and  at  low  water  another  hitch  was 
taken  on  her.  Then  the  flood  tide  lifted 
her  again.  Finally  her  upper  works  emerged 
from  the  water.  Her  walking-beam  was 
exposed ;  her  bell  emerged,  and  was  cleaned 
and  rung  in  triumph.  But  the  jealous  river- 
gods  were  not  going  to  be  robbed  of  theii 
victim  so  easily.  That  night  the  wind  shifted 
and  blew  a  furious  gale  from  the  north ;  the 
tide  joined  hands  with  it,  and  before  the  twc 
the  wrecker's  fleet  was  unable  to  stand 
hawsers  and  anchor-chains  broke,  stean 
was  powerless,  and  back  the  processior 
started.  The  hold  upon  the  steamer  waj 
maintained,  but  every  effort  to  arrest  it 
backward  progress  proved  futile.  The  tid< 
below,  the  wind  above,  and  fate  at  the  helm 
When  within  a  few  yards  of  her  old  ceme 
tery — again  in  the  early  morning — shi 
broke  loose  from  her  captors,  demolished  o 
overturned  the  floats,  parted  huge  timbers 
and,  with  a  sound  like  a  young  earthquake 
plunged  to  the  bottom  again,  in  sevent; 
feet  of  water. 

The  wrecking  fleet  was  literally  scattere* 
to  the  four  winds.  The  next  day  one  boa 
was  observed  tied  to  the  shore  here,  anothe 
there,  while  some  had  disappeared  entirely 
But  the  wreckers  were  plucky,  and  were  nc 
going  to  give  up  their  prey  neither.  Afte 


OUR  RIVER. 


489 


weeks  of  delay  they  got  together  their 
forces,  strengthened  and  recruited,  and  grap- 
pled with  the  sunken  vessel  a  second  time, 
and  in  the  fall  bore  her  again  in  their  talons 
to  the  flats  above.  Here  she  was  finally 


but  a  slow  and  deliberate  movement  of  the 
whole  body  of  the  ice,  like  an  enormous 
raft  quietly  untied.  You  are  looking  out  up- 
on the  usually  rigid  and  motionless  surface, 
when  presently  you  are  conscious  that  some 


ON     ITS    WAY    TO    THE 


taken  out  piecemeal,  a  complete  and  almost 
worthless  wreck. 

In  March,  usually,  though  some  seasons 
not  till  April,  the  river  breaks  up.  It  is  no 
sudden  and  tumultuous  breaking  of  the  fet- 
ters, as  in  more  rapid  and  fluctuating  streams, 


point,  perhaps  a  cedar  bough  used  by  the 
ice  men,  or  the  large  black  square  of  open 
water  which  they  recently  uncovered,  has 
changed  its  place;  you  take  steadier  aim 
with  your  eye,  and  with  a  thrill  of  pleasure 
discover  that  the  great  ice-fields  are  slowly 


49° 


OUR  RIVER. 


drifting  southward.  I  happened  to  be  cross- 
ing the  river  one  spring  when  the  first  move- 
ment of  the  ice  took  place.  My  attention 
was  attracted  by  a  heavy  crunching  and 
grinding  sound  on  shore,  in  front  of  me. 
Looking  thither  I  saw,  but  not  with  a  feel- 
ing of  pleasure  this  time,  that  I  was  being 
borne  up  stream.  My  dog,  who  was  a  few 
rods  in  advance  of  me,  had  taken  the 
hint  before  I  had,  and  was  now  making 
a  sudden  rush  for  shore.  I  was  quick 
to  act  upon  the  same  impulse,  and  reached 
the  land  in  safety,  though  I  quite  neglected 
the  precaution  I  had  hitherto  taken  of 
examining  the  ice  with  the  heavy  staff 


presents :  in  one  part  of  the  day  the  great 
masses  hurrying  down  stream,  crowding  and 
jostling  each  other,  and  struggling  for  the 
right  of  way ;  in  the  other,  all  running  up 
stream  again,  as  if  sure  of  escape  in  that 
direction.  Thus  they  race  up  and  down, 
the  sport  of  the  ebb  and  flow ;  but  the  flow 
wins  each  time  by  some  distance.  Large 
fields  from  above,  where  the  men  were  at 
work  but  a  day  or  two  since,  come  down ; 
there  is  their  pond  yet  clearly  defined  and 
full  of  marked  ice ;  yonder  is  a  section  of 
their  canal  partly  filled  with  the  square 
blocks  on  their  way  to  the  elevators;  a 
piece  of  a  race-course,  or  a  part  of  a  road 


OLD  COOPER-SHOP  AND  SHAD-NETS. 


I  carried  in  my  hand,  avoiding  the  places 
— and  there  were  many  of  them — where 
I  could  punch  it  through.  Both  dog  and 
man  were  considerably  demoralized,  and 
it  was  some  time  before  either  could 
bring  his  courage  up  to  the  point  of  mak- 
ing the  return  trip  home,  though  the  ice 
had  moved  up  thirty  feet,  the  width  of  the 
ice-harvesters'  canal  above,  and  had  stopped. 
If  it  had  been  a  downward  movement  or 
the  work  of  the  ebb  tide,  any  attempt  to 
recross  would  have  been  foolhardy  indeed. 

After  the  ice  is  once  in  motion,  a  few 
hours  suffice  to  break  it  up  pretty  thoroughly. 
Then  what  a  wild,  chaotic  scene  the  river 


where  teams  crossed,  comes  drifting  by 
The  people  up  above  have  written  theii 
winter  pleasure  and  occupations  upon  this 
page,  and  we  read  the  signs  as  the  tide 
bears  it  slowly  past.  Some  calm,  brigh 
days  the  scattered  and  diminished  masse; 
flash  by,  like  white  clouds  across  an  Apri 
sky. 

Ducks  now  begin  to  appear  upon  th< 
river,  and  the  sportsman,  with  his  whit< 
canvas  cap  and  cape,  crouched  in  his  lov 
white  skiff,  simulates  as  far  as  possible  J 
shapeless  mass  of  snow  ice,  and  thus  seeks 
to  drift  upon  them. 

When  the  river  is  at  its  wildest,  usuallj 


OUR  RIVER. 


491 


FISHERMAN  S    HOUSE    BY    THE    RIVER. 


in  March,  the  eagles  appear.  They  prowl 
about  amid  the  ice-floes,  alighting  upon 
them  or  flying  heavily  above  them  in  quest 
of  fish,  or  a  wounded  duck,  or  other  game. 
I  have  counted  ten  of  these  noble  birds 
at  one  time,  some  seated  grim  and  motion- 
less upon  cakes  of  ice,  usually  surrounded 
by  crows,  others  flapping  along,  sharply 
scrutinizing  the  surface  beneath.  Where 
the  eagles  are,  there  the  crows  do  congre- 
gate. The  crow  follows  the  eagle  as  the 
jackal  follows  the  lion,  in  hope  of  getting 
the  leavings  of  the  royal  table.  Then  I 
suspect  the  crow  is  a  real  hero-worshiper. 
I  have  seen  a  dozen  or  more  of  them  sitting 
in  a  circle  about  an  eagle  upon  the  ice,  all 
with  their  faces  turned  toward  him,  and 
apparently  in  silent  admiration  of  the  dusky 
king. 


The  eagle  seldom  or  never  turns  his 
back  upon  a  storm.  I  think  he  loves  to 
face  the  wildest  elemental  commotion.  I 
shall  long  carry  the  picture  of  one  I  saw 
floating  northward  on  a  large  raft  of  ice  one 
day,  in  the  face  of  a  furious  gale  of  snow. 
He  stood  with  his  talons  buried  in  the  ice, 
his  head  straight  out  before  him,  his  closed 
wings  showing  their  strong  elbows — a  type 
of  stern  defiance  and  power. 

When  the  chill  of  the  ice  is  out  of  the 
river,  and  of  the  snow  and  frost  out  of  the 
air,  the  fishermen  along  shore  are  on  the 
lookout  for  the  first  arrival  of  shad.  A  few 
days  of  warm  south  wind  the  latter  part  of 
April  will  soon  blow  them  up:  it  is  true, 
also,  that  a  cold  north  wind  will  as  quickly 
blow  them  back.  Preparations  have  been 
making  for  them  all  winter.  In  many  a 


492 


OUR  RIVER. 


farm-house  or  other  humble  dwelling  along 
the  river,  the  ancient  occupation  of  knitting 
of  fish-nets  has  been  plied  through  the  long 
winter  evenings,  perhaps  every  grown  mem- 
ber of  the  household,  the  mother  and  her 
daughters  as  well  as  the  father  and  his  sons, 
lending  a  hand. 

The  ordinary  gill  or  drift  net  used  for 
shad  fishing  in  the  Hudson  is  from  a  half  to 
three-quarters  of  a  mile  long,  and  thirty  feet 
wide,  containing  about  fifty  or  sixty  pounds 
of  fine  linen  twine,  and  it  is  a  labor  of  many 
months  to  knit  one.  Formerly  the  fish  were 
taken  mainly  by  immense  seines,  hauled  by 
a  large  number  of  men ;  but  now  all  the 
deeper  part  of  the  river  is  fished  with  the 
long,  delicate  gill-nets,  that  drift  to  and  fro 
with  the  tide,  and  are  managed  by  two  men 
in  a  boat.  The  net  is  of  fine  linen  thread, 
and  is  practically  invisible  to  the  shad 
in  the  obscure  river  current;  it  hangs  sus- 
pended perpendicularly  in  the  water,  kept  in 
position  by  buoys  at  the  top,  and  by  weights 
at  the  bottom;  the  buoys  are  attached  by 
cords  twelve  or  fifteen  feet  long,  which  allow 
the  net  to  sink  out  of  the  reach  of  the  keels 
of  passing  vessels. 

The  net  is  thrown  out  on  the  ebb  tide, 
stretching  nearly  across  the  river,  and  drifts 
down  and  then  back  on  the  flood,  the  fish 
being  snared  behind  the  gills  in  their  efforts 
to  pass  through  the  meshes. 


I  envy  the  fishermen  their  intimate  ac- 
quaintance with  the  river.  They  know  it 
by  night  as  well  as  by  day,  and  learn  all  its 
moods  and  phases.  The  net  is  a  delicate 
instrument  that  reveals  all  the  hidden  cur- 
rents and  by-ways,  as  well  as  all  the  sunken 
snags  and  wrecks  at  the  bottom.  By  day 
the  fisherman  notes  the  shape  and  position 
of  his  net  by  means  of  the  line  of  buoys  ;  by 
night  he  marks  the  far  end  of  it  with  a  lan- 
tern fastened  upon  a  board  or  block. 

The  night-tides  he  finds  differ  from  the 
day — the  flood  at  night  being  much  strongei 
than  at  other  times,  as  if  some  pressure  had 
been  removed  with  the  sun,  and  the  freed 
currents  found  less  hindrance. 

The  fishermen  have  terms  and  phrases 
of  their  own.  The  wooden  tray  upon 
which  the  net  is  coiled,  and  which  sits  in 
the  stern  of  the  boat,  is  called  a  "  cuddy/ 
The  net  is  divided  into  "shots."  If  a  pass- 
ing sloop  or  schooner  catches  it  with  hei 
center-board  or  her  anchor,  it  gives  way 
where  two  of  these  shots  meet,  and  thus  the 
whole  net  is  not  torn.  The  top  cord  01 
line  of  the  net  is  called  a  "  cimline."  One 
fisherman  "plugs"  another  when  he  puts 
out  from  the  shore  and  casts  in  ahead  of 
him,  instead  of  going  to  the  general  starting 
place,  and  taking  his  turn.  This  always 
makes  bad  blood. 

The  luck  of  the  born  fisherman  is  about 


TRYING    OUT    STURGEON. 


THE    WHIP-POOR-WILL. 


493 


as  conspicuous  with  the  gill-net  as  with  the 
rod  and  line,  some  boats  being  noted  for 
their  great  catches  the  season  through.  No 
doubt  the  secret  is  mainly  thorough  applica- 
tion to  the  business  in  hand,  but  that  is  about 
all  that  distinguishes  the  successful  angler. 

The  shad  campaign  is  one  that  requires 
pluck  and  endurance :  no  regular  sleep,  no 
regular  meals,  wet  and  cold,  heat  and  wind 
and  tempest,  and  no  great  gains  at  last. 
But  the  sturgeon  fishers,  who  come  later  and 
are  seen  the  whole  summer  through,  have 
an  indolent,  lazy  time  of  it.  They  fish 
around  the  "  slack- water,"  catching  the  last 
of  the  ebb  and  the  first  of  the  flow,  and 
hence  drift  but  little  either  way.  To  a 
casual  observer  they  appear  as  if  anchored 
and  asleep.  But  they  wake  up  when  they 
have  a  "  strike,"  which  may  be  every  day, 
or  not  once  a  week.  The  fisherman  keeps 
his  eye  on  his  line  of  buoys,  and  when  two  or 
more  of  them  are  hauled  under,  he  knows  his 
game  has  run  foul  of  the  net,  and  he  hastens 
to  the  point.  The  sturgeon  is  a  pig,  without 
the  pig's  obstinacy.  He  spends  much  of  the 
time  rooting  and  feeding  in  the  mud  at  the 
bottom,  and  encounters  the  net,  which  is  also 
a  gill-net,  coarse  and  strong,  when  he  goes 
abroad.  He  strikes  and  is  presently  hopelessly 
entangled,  when  he  comes  to  the  top  and  is 
pulled  into  the  boat,  like  a  great  sleepy  sucker. 

For  so  dull  and  lubberly  a  fish,  the  stur- 
geon is  capable  of  some  very  lively  antics  ; 
as,  for  instance,  his  habit  of  leaping  full 
length  into  the  air  and  coming  down  with 
a  great  splash.  He  has  thus  been  known 


to  leap  unwittingly  into  a  passing  boat,  to 
his  own  great  surprise,  and  to  the  alarm  and 
consternation  of  the  inmates. 

I  have  spoken  of  the  equipoise  and  in- 
variableness  of  the  Hudson  as  like  that  of 
a  lake  or  of  the  sea  itself.  Only  once  or 
twice,  perhaps,  in  a  life-time  is  there  a  fall 
of  rain  upon  its  water-shed  sufficiently  heavy 
to  markedly  increase  its  volume. 

The  Columbia  during  the  spring  floods 
often  rises  fifteen  feet,  completely  over- 
coming and  annulling  the  tides  its  entire 
length,  but  the  heaviest  fall  of  rain  in  the 
valley  of  the  Hudson  for  fifty  years  (that 
of  December  gth  and  loth,  1878)  only 
caused  the  river  to  rise  three  or  four  feet. 
But  this  was  sufficient  at  the  point  where  my 
observations  were  made — namely,  midway 
of  its  course — to  push  back  the  tide,  and  the 
current  ran  down  for  three  days.  Its  waters 
were  as  turbid  as  those  of  the  Missouri,  and 
its  surface  covered  with  the  wrecks  of  farms 
and  villages,  brought  down  mainly  by  the 
Rondout  and  the  Esopus.  It  was  an  un- 
wonted spectacle  to  dwellers  upon  its  banks  to 
see  barns,  and  sheds,  and  out-houses,  and  hay- 
stacks, together  with  vast  masses  ofdS&roand 
drift- wood,in  which  were  mingled  beds,chairs, 
tables,  parts  of  houses  and  roofs  of  barns,  and 
the  contents  of  the  cellars  and  larders,  apples, 
cabbages,  barreled  pork,  flour,  cider,  fowls, 
alive  and  dead,  the  bodies  of  horses,  borne 
along  by  the  current  or  driven  by  the  wind 
into  the  coves  and  bays  along  shore.  By 
rare  good  luck  no  lives  were  lost,  but  many 
humble  homes  were  engulfed  and  blotted  out. 


THE  WHIP-POOR-WILL. 


OH,  whip-poor-will, — oh,  whip-poor-will! 
Nhen  all  the  joyous  day  is  still, 
Vhen  from  the  sky's  fast  deepening  blue 
"ades  out  the  last  soft  sunset  hue, 
'hy  tender  plaints  the  silence  fill, 
)h,  whip-poor-will, — oh,  whip-poor-will ! 

n  the  sweet  dusk  of  dewy  May, 
Or  pensive  close  of  Autumn  day, 

"hough  other  birds  may  silent  be, 
3r  flood  the  air  with  minstrelsy, 

u  carest  not, — eve  brings  us  still 
Thy  plaintive  burden, — whip-poor-will ! 


When  moonlight  fills  the  summer  night 
With  a  soft  vision  of  delight, 
We  listen  till  we  fain  would  ask 
For  thee  some  respite  from  thy  task; 
At  dawn  we  wake  and  hear  it  still, — 
Thy  ceaseless  song, — oh,  whip-poor-will ! 

We  hear  thy  voice,  but  see  not  thee; 

Thou  seemest  but  a  voice  to  be, — 

A  wandering  spirit, — breathing  yet 

For  parted  joys  a  vain  regret; — 

So  plaintive  thine  untiring  thrill, 

Oh,  whip-poor-will, — oh,  whip-poor-will! 


Oh,  faithful  to  thy  strange  refrain, — 
Is  it  the  voice  of  love  or  pain  ? 
We  cannot  know — thou  wilt  not  tell 
The  secret  kept  so  long  and  well; 
What  moves  thee  thus  to  warble  still, 
Oh,  whip-poor-will, — oh,  whip-poor-will  ? 


494 


ABOUT  ENGLAND    WITH  DICKENS. 


ABOUT   ENGLAND   WITH   DICKENS. 


RICH   as  England   is   in   historic   mem- 
ories,  she  possesses   a   charm   far    subtler 
than  this.     The  associations  which  bind  city 
and  country  alike  to  the  creations  of  her 
great  novelists  have  a  fascination  to  Ameri- 
cans impossible  to  an  Englishman,  to  whom 
such  places  have  long  been  familiar  in  a 
common,  every-day  sort   of  way.     Of  no 
one  of  the  great  English  romancers  is  this 
truer  than  of  Charles  Dickens.     He  caught 
the   inspiration  of  the  ancient   dramatists, 
and  made  nature  herself  serve  as  the  scenic 
background  to  his  dramatis  persona.     He 
felt  what  he  wrote  with  such  vividness,  his 
characters  were  to  him  so  real,  that  it  would 
have  been  scarcely  possible  for  him  to  assign 
them  to  shadowy  homes  in  imaginary  places. 
It  is  somewhat  singular  that,  while  the 
scenes  which  Scott  and  Burns  used  in  their 
pictures  of  life  have  been   illustrated,   the 
same  has  never  been  attempted  for  Dickens. 
No   modern   author   has  ever    given  surer 
data  for  the  identification  of  the  localities 
to   which   he   refers.     Many    of   the   most 
interesting    of    these    old    landmarks    are 
disappearing,  and  many  more  are  irrevo- 
cably gone,  but  enough  still  remain  to  war- 
rant an  attempt  to  bring  them  together  in 
this  way ;  and  these  few  which  do  remain, 
like   the  remnant   of  the   sibylline   books, 
have  gained  an  added  preciousness.     The 
country  landmarks  are  naturally  more  per- 
manent, though  usually  more  difficult  to  dis- 
cover, than  those  of  the  city,  where  reform 
is  wiping  dUt  in  the  purlieus  of  London 
many  of  those  buildings,  streets  or  neigh- 
borhoods with   which  he  made   his  pages 
picturesque.     Being  more    at  home  in  the 
city,  and  so  surer  of  his  ground,  he  usually 
gives  there  the  clearest  indications  of  the 
place  to  which  he  is    referring,   sometimes 
naming  street  after  street,  so  that  one  can 
follow  with  perfect  ease  expeditions  through 
the  by-ways  of  old  London. 

Again  and  again,  in  reading  the  life  or 
letters  of  Dickens,  the  reader  is  impressed 
with  the  reality  which  his  characters  had  to 
himself.  They  were  no  more  phantasms  to 
him  than  to  his  readers  ;  the  wonderful  life- 
likeness  which  he  has  imparted  to  them  was 
no  mere  trick  of  writing  ;  the  power  which 
has  peopled  our  memories  and  added  to 
our  experiences  lay  far  below  the  mere 
aesthetic  perceptions,  or  even  the  cold  intel- 
lectual faculties,  deep  down  in  the  heart 


of  the  man.  His  life  was  so  bound  up 
with  the  life  of  his  own  creations  that  he 
seems  sometimes  a  little  dazed,  and  hardly 
to  know  which  world  he  lives  in — the  world 
he  was  born  into  or  the  world  to  which  he 
has  given  birth.  Speaking  of  Nell,  who 
seems  to  have  taken  peculiar  hold  upon  his 
affections,  he  says,  in  a  letter  to  Forster : 

"  You  can't  imagine  how  exhausted  I  am 
with  yesterday's  labors.     I  went  to  bed  last 
night  utterly   dispirited  and  done  up.     Ail 
night  I  have  been  pursued  by  the  child,  am 
this  morning  I  am  unrefreshed  and  miser- 
able      I    don't    know    what    to   do    with 
myself.     *     *     *     I   have  only  this  mo- 
ment put  the  finishing  touch   to   it.     The 
difficulty  has  been  tremendous,  the  angui; 
unspeakable." 

In  the  volume  of  letters  comes  anothei 
allusion.  In  writing  to  Cattermole,  with  ref- 
erence' to  an  illustration  for  the  "  Old  Curi- 
osity Shop,"  he  says : 

"I  am  breaking  my  heart  over  this  story 
and  cannot  bear  to  finish  it." 

It  is  not  only  the  pathetic  character 
which  possess  this  reality  to  him.  He  ha 
a  whimsical  and  altogether  charming  wa; 
of  mixing  up  his  own  experiences  with  tb 
of  the  creatures  of  his  imagination.  Relal 
ing  something  in  regard  to  his  miserabl 
childhood,  he  says : 

"  A  back  attic  was  found  for  me  at  t. 
house  of  an  insolvent  court  agent,  wh 
lived  in  Lant  street,  in  the  borough  whei 
Bob  Sawyer  lodged  many  years  afterward, 
What  is  true  of  his  people  was,  in  a  less< 
degree,  true  of  the  places  where  they  hve< 
He  usually,  perhaps  always,  mastered  tt 
situation  topographically,  as  well  as  dr 
matically.  He  studied  up  the  localities  of  h 
novels  with  nearly  the  same  zeal  which  1 
bestowed  upon  the  study  of  the  characte 
themselves.  This  is  common  enough  no' 
when  studying  from  «  the  life  "  is  the  fas 
ion  and  has  become  a  cant  expression 
everybody's  mouth,  but  Dickens  was  wor 
ing  from  conviction,  and  in  the  face  of 
fashion  of  his  day. 

By  such  faithful  study  persons  and  plac 
alike  became  complete,  rounded  realities 
his  memory  or  imagination;  and  even  t 
mere  hints  which  we  find  scattered  throuj 
his  books  hold  together  because,  howev 
slight  they  may  be,  they  are  always  parts 
an  organic  whole.     His  bits  of  testimony, 


ABOUT  ENGLAND    WITH  DICKENS. 


495 


incomplete,  are  yet  true,  and  so  cannot  be 
reciprocally  destructive.  As  an  illustration 
of  the  pains  he  took,  even  in  minor  matters, 
a  few  words  may  be  quoted  from  a  letter  to 
Forster : 

"  I  intended  calling  on  you  this  morning 
on  my  way  back  from  Bevis  Marks,  whither 
I  went  to  look  for  a  house  for  Sampson 
Brass." 

This  house,  it  will  be  remembered,  scarcely 
figures  in  the  story,  receiving  little  more 
than  an  allusion. 

Since  "Oliver  Twist "  is  the  first  complete 
novel  by  Dickens,— the  earliest  work  which 
possesses  a  connected  plot  and  serious  pur- 
pose, and  since,  moreover,  the  scenes  through 
which  Oliver  passed  recall  much  of  Dickens's 
own  early  life,— it  has  some  claim  to  be  con- 
sidered first  in  this  imperfect  series. 

The  new  poor-law  had  come  into  force, 
and  some  of  its  provisions  had  served  to 
arouse    the   righteous   anger    of    Dickens. 
Against  these  enormities,  and  many  others 
besides,  this  earliest  novel  of  the  great  author 
was  directed.     The  time  had  come  when  a 
reaction  against  the  idealizing  of  crime  was 
to  take   place,   and   this    reaction  was  led 
by  Dickens.     There  is  no  romantic  flavor 
about  the  pictures  which  he  so  graphically 
drew.     Vice  is  always  hateful  under  his  de- 
lineations, and  usually  loathsome.     To  the 
charge  that,  in  dealing  with  vice  and  misery, 
he  is  liable  to  work  an  evil  to  society,  he 
brings  rebutting  testimony,  enforced  by   a 
plea  full  of  eloquence  and  earnestness.     "  I 
have  yet  to  learn,"  he  says,  "  that  a  lesson 
>f  the  purest  good  may  not  be  drawn  from 
the  vilest  evil.     I  have  always  believed  this 
to  be  a  recognized  and  established  truth  laid 
down  by  the  greatest  men  the  world  has  ever 
seen,  constantly  acted  upon  by  the  best  and 
wisest  natures,  and  confirmed  by  the  reason 
and  experience   of  every   thinking   mind." 
He  evidently  had  in  mind  Pelham,  or  some 
of  the  earlier  works  of  "  Sawedwadgeorge- 
rhttnbulwig."     For,  in  his  own  terse  Eng- 
lish, he  goes  on  to  define  his  purpose  : 

"  I  had  read  of  thieves  by  scores — seduct- 
ive fellows  (amiable  for  the  most  part),  fault- 
less in  dress,  plump  in  pocket;  choice  in 
orseflesh,  bold  in  bearing,  fortunate  in  gal- 
antry ;  great  at  a  song,  a  bottle,  pack  of 
cards,  or  dice-box—fit  companions  for  the 
>ravest.  But  I  had  never  met  (except  in 
Sogarth)  with  the  miserable  reality.  It 
ippeared  to  me  that  to  draw  a  knot  of  such 
issociates  in  crime  as  really  do  exist;  to 
aaint  them  in  all  their  deformity;  in  all 
heir  wretchedness ;  in  all  the  squalid  pov- 


erty of  their  lives ;  to  show  them  as  they 
really  are— forever  skulking  uneasily  through 
the  dirtiest  paths  of  life,  with  the  great, 
black,  ghastly  gallows  closing  up  their  pros- 
pect, turn  where  they  may,— it  appeared  to 
me  that  to  do  this  would  be  to  attempt 
something  which  was  greatly  needed,  and 
which  would  be  a  service  to  society." 

No  sound  and  healthy  mind  can  fail  to 
respond  to  such  words.  It  is  not  the  sub- 
jects selected,  but  the  manner  in  which  they 
are  treated,  that  constitutes  the  difference 
between  a  bad  or  a  good,  a  helpful  or  a 
hurtful  literature. 

"  Oliver  Twist "  opens,  as  every  one  knows, 
m  the  parish  work-house.  Just  where  this 
work  house  was  to  be  found  it  is  impossible 
to  determine.  Later  on  in  the  book,  we 
find  that  the  city  of  Oliver's  nativity  was 
seventy-five  or  eighty  miles  north  of  London. 
With  a  radius  corresponding  with  this  dis- 
tance, and  taking  London  as  a  center,  a 
circle  may  be  described  which  passes  through 
Market  Harboro  and  Peterboro — either  of 
which  might  claim  the  honor.  The  minuter 
description  given  in  the  thirty-eighth  chapter 
enables  us  to  select  Peterboro  as  the  more 
likely  of  the  two,  though  not  precisely  to 
identify  the  place. 

He   there   speaks  of  "a   scattered   little 
colony  of  ruinous  houses,  distant  from   it 
[the  town]  some  mile  and  a  half,  or  there- 
abouts, and  erected  in  a  low,  unwholesome 
swamp  bordering  upon  the  river.     *     *     * 
This  place  was  far  from  being  of  a  doubt- 
ful character,  for  it  had  long  been  known  as 
the  residence  of  none  but  low  ruffians,  who, 
under  various  pretenses  of  living  by  their 
labor,  subsisted  chiefly  on  plunder  and  crime." 
A  collection  of  houses  resembling   that 
described  in  the    passage  just  quoted  may 
be  found  in  Peterboro,  bordering   on    the 
Nen  River,  though,  perhaps,  not  quite  so 
disreputable  in  all  respects  as  Dickens  has 
made  it.     It  appears  to  be  a  collection  of 
dwellings  occupied  by  the  poorer  class  of 
bargemen  or  fishermen. 

It  is,  however,  probable  that  Dickens 
selected  no  special  work-house,  nor  beadle, 
but  only  some  good  type,  which  Peterboro' 
as  well  as  another  city,  might  afford,  for  it 
was  not  against  places  but  against  powers 
that  he  directed  his  artillery.  He  made 
war  upon  such  institutions  as  the  poor- 
houses;  such  systems  as  that  of  uncondi- 
tional apprenticeship;  such  wrongs  as  arose 
from  intrusting  irresponsible  power  to  the 
keeping  of  dense  ignorance,  or  brutal  indif- 
ference, if  to  nothing  worse.  He  showed  the 


496 


ABOUT  ENGLAND    WITH  DICKENS. 


weary,  that    Oliver   was    accosted  by    the 
immortal   Mr.    John   Dawkins,   the   Artful 
Dodger,  who  undertook  to  supply  his  tem- 
porary wants,  and  to  find  him  a  home 
in  London. 

It  is  somewhat  difficult  for  an  Ameri- 
can, used  to  the  all-embracing  charity  of 
our  city  limits,  to  understand 
what  a   number  of  villages, 
each  bearing  its  own  name, 
go  to  make  up  London,  and 
are  mere  suburbs  of  the  great 
city.     Barnet  is  one  of  these 
suburbs,  though  eleven  miles 
north  of  London  proper. 
It  is  a  pretty  village, 
still     retaining    some- 
thing of  its  rural  char- 
acter, and  built  upor 
the  highest  ground  be- 
tween    London     anc 
York,  its  full  name  be 
ing  High  Barnet. 

We  now  follow  th< 
poor  child  from  th< 
misery  of  such  guardianship  as  the  la\ 
afforded  him,  to  the  equally  wretched 
where  lawlessness  reigned.  Under  th 
guidance  of  the  Artful  Dodger,  at  eleve: 


BARNET,   WHERE    OLIVER    TWIST    MET    THE   ARTFUL    DODGER. 

crime,  and  shame,  and  misery  into  which 
thousands  upon  thousands  of  innocent  chil- 
dren were  every  year  born,  and  the  dens 
of  infamy  which  alone  were  open  to  the 
penniless  outcast 'in  the  midst  of  a  prosper- 
ous, Christian  civilization. 

A  little    later    on   in   the   story,   where 
Oliver,  shaking  off  the  intolerable  burden 
of  parish  tyranny,  escapes,  and,  taking  his 
life  in  his   hands,  sets   out  on   his   weary 
trudge  of  seventy-five  miles,  we  leave  the 
region  of  conjecture  and  are  able  to  follow 
upon  the  map  his  journey.     "  On  the  seventh 
morning  after  he  had  left  his  native  place,' 
says  the  record,  «  Oliver  limped  slowly  into 
the   little   town   of  Barnet.     The  window- 
shutters  were  closed,  the  street  was  empty; 
not  a  soul  had  awakened  to  the  business  of 
the   day.     The   sun   was   rising  in   all  his 
splendid  beauty ;  but  the  light  only  seemed 
to  show  the  boy  his  own  lonesomeness  and 
desolation  as  he  sat,  with  bleeding  feet  and 
covered  with  dust,  upon  a  cold  door-step." 
Here  it    was,   crouching    desolate    and 


THE    CLOCK    OF    ST.    ANDREW  S. 


ABOUT  ENGLAND    WITH  DICKENS. 


497 


j'clock  at  night  Oliver  struck  into  the 
'  turnpike  at  Islington.  They  crossed  from 
;he  Angel  into  St.  John's  road,  struck  down 
;he  small  street  which  terminates  at  Sadler's 
Wells  Theater ;  through  Exmouth  street  and 
Coppice  Row,  down  the  little  court  by  the 
side  of  the  work-house,  across  the  classic 
ground  which  once  bore  the  name  of 
Hockley  in  the  Hole,'  thence  into  Little 
saffron  Hill  and  so  into  Saffron  Hill  the 


bravery  of  brick,  and  plate-glass,  and  many- 
jetted  gas,  it  figures  merely  as  the  stop- 
ping-place for  many  of  the  London  omni- 
buses and  as  a  first-class  'beer  and  spirit 
shop.  After  leaving  the  Angel,  they  struck 
down  St.  John's  road,  and  passed  Sadler's 
Wells  Theater.  This  place  has  experienced 
many  vicissitudes,  being  at  one  time  a  favor- 
ite resort  for  invalids,  the  water  resembling 
that  of  Tunbridge  Wells,  and  at  another 


SEVEN    DIALS. 


eat;  along  which  the  Dodger  scudded  at 
rapid  pace,  directing  Oliver  to  follow 
se  at  his  heels.  *  *  *  *  Oliver 
just  considering  whether  he  hadn't 
ter  run  away,  when  they  reached  the 
ttom  of  the  hill.  His  conductor,  catch- 
him  by  the  arm,  pushed  open  the  door 
a  house  near  Field  Lane,  and,  drawing 

into   the    passage,   closed    it    behind 
> 

The  Angel  Inn  at  Islington,  as  seen  by 
:kens,  is  no  longer  in  existence  :  it  has 
en  replaced  by  a  spick  and  span  new 
stelry  bearing  the  same  name.  It  for- 
:rly  possessed  some  interest  from  the  fact 
it  was  the  terminus  for  the  line  of 
rthern  coaches.  Now,  with  all  its  new 
VOL.  XX.— 33. 


containing  one  of  the  most  widely  known 
theaters  in  Europe.  At  this  theater  the 
celebrated  clown  Grimaldi,  whose  life 
Dickens  edited,  acted  and  made  himself 
famous.  After  being  for  many  years  under 
a  cloud,  the  theater  has  again  been  opened 
under  the  auspices  of  Mrs.  Bateman. 
After  passing  the  work-house,  or  Clerken- 
well  house  of  correction,  as  it  is  now  called, 
they  probably  took  Farringdon  road,  and  so, 
through  an  intricate  maze  of  streets,  came 
into  Field  Lane.  Hockley  in  the  Hole  was 
the  ancient  ground  for  outdoor  sports : 
bull-baiting,  bear-fights,  contests  with  back- 
sword, dagger,  single  falchion  and  quarter- 
staff  were  held  here.  Thackeray  several 
times  alludes  to  this  fact  in  "The  Virginians." 


498 


ABOUT  ENGLAND    WITH  DICKENS. 


The  name  Hockley  is  the  Saxon  for  muddy 
field, a  name  derived  from  the  overflow- 
ing of  the  Fleet.      Holborn  viaduct,  one  of 
the   greatest    feats  of  modern   engineering 
skill  in  London,  has  greatly  changed  that 
portion   of  the  city,  and  in  doing  this  has 
excised  that  foul  ulcer  from  the  city's  life. 
It  is  extremely  interesting  to  follow  on  a 
map  of  London  the  route  of  the  poor  foot- 
sore   Oliver    from    the   streets  of    Barnet 
to  Fagin's  loathsome  den.      The  desolate 
childhood  of  Oliver  Twist  after  coming  to 
London  holds  in  it  a  suggestion  of  Dickens's 
own  experience,  more  fully  shown  forth  in 
young  Copperfiel-d's  London  life.    He  came, 
like  Oliver  Twist,  a  little  boy  to  the  great 
city,   and   received    his  impressions   at    a 
similar  age.     Though  not,  as  Oliver  was,  an 
orphan,  he  was  scarcely  better  off  in  point 
of  parental   care;   with  a  father  who  was 
the  original  Mr.  Micawber,  and  a  mother 
pictured  in  Mrs.  Nickleby,  it,is  scarcely  sur- 
prising that  the  boy  had  pretty  much  to 
shift  for  himself. 

It  is  very  interesting  to  notice  how,  out 
of  the  barrenness  of  his  early  experiences, 
the  germ  of  his  future  life  began  to  push 
itself  up.  London,  at  first  the  type  of 
dreary  desolation  to  his  childish  eyes,  as  his 
vision  became  adjusted  presented  to  him 
the  richest  field  his  genius  ever  found. 
Even  as  a  little  child,  the  picturesqueness 
of  its  misery  laid  hold  upon  his  fancy. 
Long  before  he  was  able  to  formulate  his 
feelings,  he  had  begun  to  recognize  the 
fascination  of  its  most  squalid  life,  as  no 
ordinary  child  would  have  done.  Forster 
says,  speaking  of  the  time  when  Dickens  as 
a  child  lived  there : 

"  There  were  then  at  the  top  of  Bayham 
street  some  almshouses,  and  were  still  when 
he  revisited  it  with  me  nearly  twenty-seven 
years  ago,  and  to  go  to  this  spot,  he  told 
me,  and  look  from  it  over  the  dust-heaps, 
and  dock-leaves,  and  fields  (no  longer  there 
when  we  saw  it  together),  at  the  cupola  of 
St.  Paul's  looming  through  the  smoke,  was 
a  treat  that  served  him  for  hours  of  vague 
reflection  afterward.  To  be  taken  out  for 
a  walk  into  the  real  town,  especially  if  it 
were  anywhere  about  Covent  Garden,  or 
the  Strand,  perfectly  entranced  him  with 
pleasure." 

This  last,  of  course,  was  normal  to  any 
observant  child,  but  what  was  really  re- 
markable Forster  goes  on  to  tell : 

"  But,  most  of  all,  he  had  a  profound 
attraction  of  repulsion  to  St.  Giles.  If  he 
could  only  induce  whomsoever  took  him 


out  to  take  him  through  Seven  Dials  he  was 
supremely  happy.  '  Good  heavens  ! '  he 
would  exclaim,  '  what  wild  visions  of  prod- 
gies  of  wickedness,  want  and  beggary  arose 
n  my  mind  out  of  that  place  ! ' ' 

But  to  return  to  Oliver's  new  home,  o 
rather  his  habitat.     Saffron  Hill,  formerly 
the  abode  of  Fagin  and  his  crew,  has  utterl; 
changed  character ;  yet,  though  the  dirt,  th< 
crime  and  the  misery  are  gone,  the  plac 
has  not  entirely  lost  all  interest.     When  th 
old  houses  of  Field  Lane  were  torn  down  t 
make  improvements  in  the  district,  it  ws 
discovered   that   they  were  built  over  a 
ancient  ditch,  and  that  some  of  them  wei 
provided  with  convenient  trap-doors  for  tr. 
safe  and  easy  disposal  of  the  bodies  of  sue 
unfortunates  as  had  been  lured  to  these  dei 
and  made  away  with.     Saffron  Hill  is  no 
the  abode  of  the  peripatetic  Italian  orgai 
grinders  of  London,  while  in  Field  Lai 
the  miserable  buildings  of  fifty  years  ago  a 
replaced  by  large  warehouses,  decent  bee 
houses  and  apartment-houses  for  the  poc 
their  unpleasing  baldness  touched  to  bngh 
ness,  here  and  there,  by  the  brilliant  cont 
dina  dress  of  some  Italian  girl.     Upon  tl 
sign  of  the  first  warehouse  which  greets  tl 
eye  as  one  enters  the  precincts  of  old  Fie 
Lane   from   the  Holborn  side,  one   reac 
oddly    enough,  "T.   Dawkins,   warehous 
man."    Has  the  Artful  as  well  as  Mr.  Char] 
Bates  reformed,  and  taken  unto  himself  wi 
his  new  trade  a  new  Christian  name? 

Though  Field  Lane,  with  all  the  squal 
misery  which  infested  it,  is  no  more,  it 
not  difficult  to  discover  in  London  and 
Liverpool  streets  which  answer  accurately 
Dickens's  description  of  this  resort  of  thiev 
Fontenoy  street,  in  Liverpool,  for  example 
said  to  be  its  counterpart  by  one  who  is  w 
acquainted  with  both. 

Exception  has  been  taken  to  the  fact  tl 
Dickens  should  have  chosen  a  Jew  as  1 
typical  trainer  of  thieves.  But  it  must 
borne  in  mind  that  Fagin's  heavy  busin 
was  not  as  a  mere  thief-trainer,  but  as 
broker  in  the  spoils  of  their  calling.  Lik. 
true  Jew,  he  traded  first  in  their  industry  a 
finally  in  themselves,  when  they  were  \ 
ficiently  involved  to  be  worth  selling  to  i 
law;  and  moreover  Fagin  was  a  port] 
from  the  life.  Later  on,  to  the  charge 
having  held  the  Jews  up,  in  the  pen 
of  this  wretch,  to  undeserved  opprobrw 
Dickens  offered  the  amende  honorable  in 
creation  of  Riah,  the  stately  old  Hebi 
in  "  Our  Mutual  Friend." 


The  facility  with  which  street  robbei 


ABOUT  ENGLAND    WITH  DICKENS. 


499 


KEW     BRIDGE    ON    THE    THAMES. 


were  committed  in  those  days  seems  some- 
what surprising  to  us,  and  more  so  to  an 
Englishman,  for  the  new  police  present  a 
happy  contrast  to  the  old.  The  ancient 
night-watchman  was  a  fit  companion  to 
Dogberry  and  Verges.  When  the  darkness 
closed  in,  this  official  was  wont  to  retire  to 
his  watch-box,  and,  if  he  did  not  "  snore 
out  the  watch  of  night,"  he  contented  him- 
self with  taking  his  rounds  periodically, 
giving  ample  warning  of  his  approach  to 
misdoers  by  vociferating  the  hour.  The 
new  police  which  superseded  the  watchman 
were  introduced  by  Sir  Robert  Peel, — hence 
the  sobriquets  "  Peelers "  and  "  Bobbies," 
as  the  members  of  the  force  are  indifferently 
called  by  their  natural  enemies,  the  populace. 
When,  at  last,  Oliver's  marvelously  inno- 
cent eyes  were  opened  to  the  real  calling 
of  his  companions  by  the  picking  of  Mr. 
Brownlow's  pocket,  when  he  found  himself 
under  arrest  as  the  thief,  and  brought  to 
the  police  court  to  answer  before  the  magis- 
trate Fang,  we  have  a  portrait  from  the  life. 
This  magistrate,  whose  name  was  Laing, 
actually  ruled  in  one  of  the  London  courts. 
Some  of  his  sentences  are  no  less  extraordi- 
nary than  that  pronounced  upon  Oliver,  and 
very  similar  in  character.  One  may  be  cited 
which  will  give  some  idea  of  the  fitness  of 
this  gentleman  for  the  magisterial  office,  and 


of  the  happy  manner  in  which  Dickens  has 
caught  his  characteristics. 

On  one  occasion  a  witness  came  into 
court,  attended  by  a  stray  dog  which  had 
attached  himself  to  him. 

"  Why  do  you  bring  your  dog  into  court  ?  " 
demanded  the  magistrate. 

"  He  is  not  mine,  your  worship,"  said  the 
witness. 

"  Not  yours!  Whose  is  it,  then  ?  "  said  the 
justice.  "  I,  myself,  saw  it  come  into  court 
with  you." 

"  I  do  not  know  whose  it  is,  your  worship." 

"Do  you  hear  that?"  said  the  vigilant 
administrator  of  justice,  with  cheerful  alacrity, 
— "  a  dog  stealer ! " 

"  But,  your  worship,"  said  the  unfortunate 
witness,  "  he  followed  me,  and  I  could  not 
shake  him  off." 

"Well,  well,  sirrah!"  said  the  irate  mag- 
istrate, "  give  your  evidence  for  what  it  is 
worth,  and,  clerk  !  make  out  a  dog  case  to 
follow.  A  very  likely  story,  indeed !  " 

The  witness,  however,  escaped  the  trial 
by  the  favor  of  the  clerk,  who  understood 
how  to  manage  the  magnate,  and  succeeded 
in  settling  the  matter  without  appeal  to 
the  law. 

The  expedition  of  Sikes  and  Oliver  to 
Chertsey,  on  the  house-breaking  business,  is 
one  of  the  finest  pieces  of  description  in  all 


5°° 


ABOUT  ENGLAND    WITH  DICKENS. 


Dickens's  writings.  They  set  out  from  Sikes's 
den  in  Clerkenwell  and  passed  through  Beth- 
nal  Green,  which  was  near  his  abode.  This 
was  then  a  most  disreputable  neighborhood, 
but  it  has  since  been  greatly  improved.  A 


LONDON    BRIDGE — THE    LANDING    STAIRS. 

committee  of  the  council  on  education  have 
redeemed  in  part  this  forsaken  locality.  A 
branch  of  the  Kensington  Museum  has  been 
established  here,  where  there  are  some  per- 
manent collections,  though  in  the  main  it  is 
supplied  by  loans — the  first  of  which  was  the 
magnificent  collection  of  paintings  and  other 
works  of  art  which  for  three  years  were  lent 
by  Sir  Richard  Wallace;  and  after  they  were 
removed  their  place  was  supplied  by  other 
loans,  including  the  Indian  presents  to  the 
Prince  of  Wales — admission  being  usually 
free.  The  picture  of  this  walk,  as  Dickens 


gives  it,  is  full  of  color.     The  dull,  cheerless 
morning ;    the  somber  light  of  the  coming 
day,  "  only  seeming  to  pale  that  which  the 
street  lamps  afforded,  without  shedding  any 
warmer  or  brighter  tint  upon  the  wet  house- 
tops and  dreary  streets  " ;  the  waking 
of  the  busier  portions  of  the  great 
town  as  they  came  along,  until  the 
center   of  activity  was   reached   in 
Smithfield  market.     The  description 
of  the  market  was  applicable  then 
as  it  is  not  now.     The   stalls   and 
spaces  filled  with  sheep,  and  oxen, 
and  pigs  all  tell  of  the  time  when  a 
lively  trade  was  driven  here  in  cattle 
"  upon  the  hoof."     Annually  a  mill- 
ion and  a  half  animals  were  brought 
thus  into  the  very  heart  of  London, 
and   offered  up  in  sacrifice  on  the 
ground  made  sacred  by  the  Smith- 
field  fires  of  centuries  before.     Now 
the  slaughtering  is  done  upon  the 
farms  where   the   cattle   are  raised 
— much  of  it    on  this  side  of  the 
water;  and  the  market,  instead  of 
the  open  squares  filled  with  booths 
and   shambles,   is   a   fine  building, 
within  which  the  comparatively  quiet 
traffic   in   "  dead   meat "   goes   on. 
Upon   all    this    medley   and   these 
shifting   scenes,  St.  Bartholomew's, 
in   its   cloistered   calm,  has  looked 
down  unchanged  for  centuries. 

As  they  turned  out  of  Smithfield 
market  into  Holborn— " '  Now, 
young  un,'  said  Sikes,  looking  up  at 
the  clock  of  St.  Andrew's  church, 
'  hard  upon  seven  !  You  must  step 
out.  Come,  don't  lag  behind  al- 
ready, lazy  legs.' "  The  face  of  St. 
Andrew's  clock,  which  is  transparent 
and  lighted  from  within,  had  prob- 
ably served  to  tell  the  time  to  Sikes 
and  his  companions  on  many  of 
their  nocturnal  expeditions. 

Passing  Hyde  Park  corner  and 
so  on  through  Kensington,  Isle  worth  and 
Hammersmith,  they  came  to  Kew  Bridge.  A 
very  good  idea  of  this  latter  is  given  in  the 
illustration.  Notwithstanding  its  nearness 
to  London  it  retains  a  quiet  country  look, 
having  lost  less  of  its  distinctive  character 
than  most  of  the  resorts  about  the  city. 
The  bridge  is  an  old  stone  structure,  one 
end  of  which  abuts  on  the  village  green  and 
the  other  on  Brentford.  The  chief  inter- 
est of  Kew  belongs  to  its  botanic  garden 
and  its  botanists,  the  Hookers,  father  and 
son,  with  whom  it  is  closely  associated. 


ABOUT  ENGLAND    WITH  DICKENS. 


501 


Having  passed  Brentford, — Falstaff's 
Brentford, — Hampton,  Sunbury  and  Shep- 
perton,  they  finally,  through  the  city's  roar 
and  the  country's  quiet,  reached  the  dilapi- 
dated dwelling  where  flash  Toby  Crackit 
and  Barney  received  them,  till  the  hour  for 
the  burglary  in  Chertsey  should  arrive. 

By  far  the  most  touching  portion  of 
"  Oliver  Twist,"  and  that  which  shows  the 
most  masterly  perception  of  character,  is  the 
story  of  Nancy — the  lost,  degraded  creature 
who  yet  feels  an  outgoing  of  tenderness 
toward  the  innocent  boy  whom'  she  has 
helped  to  recapture,  and  a  loyalty  for  the 
man  who  maltreats  her.  The  story  culmi- 
nates after  her  visit  to  London  Bridge,  where 
she  endeavors  to  harmonize  the  two  best 
instincts  of  her  nature, — to  save  the  boy  and 
cling  still  to  the  man  who  would  ruin  him, 
— and  for  the  effort  pays  the  penalty  of  her 
life. 

The  steps  down  which  Nancy  and  Oliver's 
friends  go  to  escape  all  observation  are  on 
the  further  end  in  the  illustration — the  Surrey 
side.  By  day  this  thoroughfare  across  the 
bridge  is  one  of  the  busiest  in  the  world ; 
1  four  streams  of  wagon  traffic  flow  on  in  a 
steady  stream,  while  on  each  side  is  an  un- 
broken procession  of  pedestrians. 

Nancy's  murder  is  the  pivot  upon  which 
the  whole  story  turns :  by  it  Oliver  is  saved, 
and  Fagin  and  Sikes  are  lost.  It  is  one  of 
those  scenes  in  which  the  brutal  and  the 
pathetic  are  so  closely  interwoven  that  one 
shrinks  from  re-reading,  and  even  from  too 
vividly  recalling  it. 

Newgate  Prison,  the  predestined  end  of 
Fagin's  miserable  career,  stands  under  the 
same  roof  as  the  Central  Criminal  courts. 
It  fronts  on  the  Old  Bailey,  the  street  lead- 
ing from  Ludgate  Hill  to  Newgate  street. 
This  portion  of  the  city  itself,  low  and  vile 
in  the  olden  time,  formed  an  outskirt  of 
the  neighborhood  which  extends  between 
Blackfriars  Bridge  and  the  Temple.  This 
region  is  interesting  from  the  fact  that  here 
lay  the  ojd  Alsatia,  that  portion  of  London 
which  was  reserved  as  a  city  of  refuge  for 
criminals.  Here  they  could  flee  and  be 
safe  from  pursuit,  for  into  this  "  sanctuary  " 
no  officer  of  justice  was  permitted  to  enter. 
A  cesspool  of  wickedness  in  the  very  heart 
of  the  city,  into  which  crime  and  lawless- 
jness  were  permitted  to  pour  unchecked, 
and  there  to  lie  festering  and  rotting  un- 
disturbed. What  hope  could  there  be  for 
I  the  moral  health  of  London  while  the  cen- 
srs  of  disease  and  death  were  sacredly 

irded  from  purification  by  the  will  of  the 


king?  Later,  this  sanctuary  was  removed 
south  of  the  Thames  to  the  Borough,  and 
called  the  Mint. 

At  Newgate  was  originally  one  of  the  old 
city  gates,  of  which  only  the  names  remain, 
such  as  Ludgate,  Bishop's  gate,  etc.,  to 
remind  modern  London  that  she  was  once 
a  walled  town.  The  debtor's  prison  which 
was  formerly  here  has  been  removed. 
Pictures  drawn  with  great  power  are  to  be 
found  in  "  Pickwick,"  "  David  Copperfield  " 
and  "  Little  Dorrit,"  of  the  miserable  fatuity 
of  the  laws  which  condemned  a  man,  who 
had  been  unfortunate  or  thriftless,  to  perpetu- 
ate his  folly  to  the  end  of  time  in  these 
debtors'  prisons.  But  "  Oliver  Twist "  deals 
with  the  somberer  side  of  prison  life. 

Dickens  had  occasion  to  learn  some- 
thing of  the  courts  from  the  fact  that  he 
was  at  first  clerk  in  a  law  office,  and  later 
a  reporter  in  Doctors'  Commons  and  other 
courts  ;  and  this  intimate  knowledge  is  mani- 
fest in  the  correct  and  characteristic  sketches 
he  gives  of  them,  and  of  the  administration 
of — let  us  say — justice  in  them. 

The   ease   with    which  Oliver   and    Mr. 


NEWGATE    PRISON,    TH 


Brownlow  gained  admission  to  Fagin's 
cell  is  calculated  to  excite  some  surprise  in 
these  days,  when  such  access  is  very  difficult. 
Prison  reform  was  still  in  its  inception.  A 
glance  into  "  Sketches  by  Boz  "  shows  how 


502 


ABOUT  ENGLAND    WITH  DICKENS, 


"THAT  PART  OF  THE  THAMES  ON  WHICH  THE  CHURCH  AT  ROTHERHITHE  ABUTS. 


easily  Dickens  was  admitted  into  Newgate 
— that  singular  court  where  life  waits  in  the 
antechambers  of  death — and  to  what  pur- 
pose he  used  his  opportunities. 

Close  by  Newgate  stands  St.  Sepulchre's 
church.  Here  the  knell  is  tolled  for  the  poor 
wretch  who  is  about  to  pay  the  penalty  of 
his  crimes,  and  here,  at  one  time,  the  singular 
and  beautiful  custom  prevailed,  of  present- 
ing a  bunch  of  flowers  to  the  malefactor,  as 
he  passed  from  the  prison  to  the  gallows 
at  Tyburn  Hill.  A  little  further  on  in  the 
same  journey  he  was  supplied  with  a  tankard 
of  beer. 

The  companion  picture  to  the  Jew's 
death  is  that  of  his  coadjutor  Sikes.  The 
contrast  between  the  Jew's  miserable  end, 
almost  like  that  of  a  poisoned  rat  dying  in 
his  hole,  and  the  desperate  death  of  the 
robber,  brought  to  b*ay,  is  drawn  with  a 
masterly  hand.  The  scene  of  Sikes's  death 
is  on  the  southern  or  Surrey  side  of  the 
Thames,  just  at  the  bend  below  Tower  Hill. 
The  little  island  formed  by  the  mill-pond 
or  Folly  ditch,  into  which  the  wretched 
man  attempted  to  escape,  is  still  to  be  found 
upon  the  maps  of  London.  But  the  place 
itself  no  longer  exists.  Indeed,  its  existence 


was  denied,  even  at  the  time  of  Dickens's 
description ;  and  one  Alderman  Lawrie 
publicly  expressed  his  belief  that  "  there 
aint  no  sich  a  place  as  Jacob's  Island."  In 
consequence  of  which,  in  his  new  edition 
of  1867,  the  novelist  declared  in  his  preface 
that  it  might  even  then  be  seen,  just  as  he 
had  originally  described  it.  Now,  the  crazy 
old  houses  with  their  overhanging  galleries, 
the  great,  empty  warehouses,  roofless  and 
decaying,  the  shaky  little  bridge,  spanning 
the  slimy  ditch, — all  are  swept  away.  The 
description  of  the  pursuit,  and  the  escape  of 
Sikes  from  the  hands  of  his  pursuers,  is  thus 
introduced : 

"  Near  that  part  of  the  Thames  on  which 
the  church  at  Rotherhithe  abuts,  where  the 
buildings  on  the  banks  are  dirtiest  and  the 
vessels  on  the  river  blackest  with  the  dust 
of  the  colliers  and  the  smoke  of  close-built 
and  low-roofed  houses,  there  exists  at  the 
present  day  the  filthiest,  the  strangest,  the 
most  extraordinary  of  the  many  localities 
that  are  hidden  in  London,  wholly  unknown 
even  by  name  to  the  great  mass  of  its  inhab- 
itants." 

Near  here  were  gathered,  in  the  upper 
rooms  of  a  crumbling  and  deserted  ware- 


THE  PLAIN  STORY  OF  SAVONAROLA'S  LIFE. 


5°3 


house,  the  three  men  who  constituted  the 
remnant  of  the  gang  scattered  by  Sikes's 
flight  and  Fagin's  apprehension,  and  hither 
Sikes  had  fled  before  the  fury  of  the  mob. 

"  Oliver   Twist "   is  strongest  in  the  iso- 
lated dramatic  scenes,  like  these  illustrated 


in  the  present  article.  Not  even  in  "  Bleak 
House,"  or  "  The  Tale  of  Two  Cities,"  has 
the  author  been  more  forcible  in  effect,  as  is 
evinced  in  the  fact  that  one  of  the  very  few 
successful  attempts  at  dramatization  of  his 
works  has  been  based  upon  this  theme. 


THE    PLAIN    STORY    OF   SAVONAROLA'S    LIFE. 


INTERIOR    OF    THE    CHURCH    OF     SAN    DOMENICO. 


FRA  GIROLAMO  SAVONAROLA,  priest  and 
prophet,  patriot  and  politician,  is  one  of  the 
grandest  figures  of  Italian  history.  His 
whole  life  was  a  protest  against  the  corrup- 
tion of  his  age,  his  death,  the  fitting  and 
inevitable  crown  of  the  career  of  one  who — 
in  that  age — "  conceived  and  almost 


achieved  the  splendid  notion  of  an  equal 
republic  of  Christian  men  acting  on  the 
highest  Christian  principles."* 

Savonarola  has  been  the  subject  of  so 
much  controversy,  his  career  the  theme  of 
so  many  celebrated  works,  that  it  is  no  part 
of  our  purpose  to  enter  into  any  examina- 

*  Dean  Milman. 


S°4 


THE  PLAIN  STORY  OF  SAVONAROLA'S  LIFE. 


SAVONAROLA    PREACHING    IN    THE    DU< 


tion  of  his  doctrines.  One  fact,  however, 
emerges,  clear  as  sunlight,  from  the  mass  of 
evidence  collected  by  his  most  competent 
biographers  ;  namely:  that  although  to  main- 
tain his  cause  of  reform  he  braved  single- 
handed  the  whole  power  of  the  Papacy,  he 
was  a  reformer  of  morals  rather  than  of 
creed,  and  remained  to  the  last  a  devout 
believer  in  the  dogmas  of  the  Roman  Cath- 
olic church. 

The  plain  story  of  his  life  will  serve  to 
show  what  ardent  faith  stirred  this  man's 
soul,  burnt  through  all  obstacles,  and  con- 
verted the  shrinking,  meditative  student  into 
the  fervid  orator  whose  words  roused  sin- 
ners to  repentance,  into  the  sagacious  ruler, 
who,  for  a  space  of  more  than  three  years, 
evolved  order  out  of  chaos,  and  governed 
factious  Florence  with  consummate  tact  and 
statesmanship. 


Girolamo  Savonarola  saw  the  light  a 
Ferrara  on  the  2ist  September,  1452,  an< 
was  the  third-born  of  an  honorable  family  o 
Paduan  origin.  His  grandfather,  a  physiciai 
of  talent  and  celebrity,  author  of  man; 
works*  on  medicine,  settled  in  Ferrara  at  th 
invitation  of  Marchese  Nicholas  III.  of  Este 
But  little  is  known  of  Michele,  Girolamo' 
father ;  he  is  said  to  have  devoted  much  tun 
to  scholastic  learning,  but  he  does  not  appea 
to  have  turned  his  studies  to  any  practica 
account,  for  he  led  the  life  of  a  courtier  am 
speedily  dissipated  the  fortune  accumulate! 
by  the  elder  Michele's  labors.  But  his  wife 
Elena  Buonaccorsi,  of  Mantua,  was  of  an 
other  stamp,  and,  like  the  majority  of  th 
mothers  of  great  men,  was  a  woman  o 
elevated  mind  and  remarkable  strength  o 
character.  Girolamo's  letters  to  her  provi 
the  depth  of  tender,  respectful  affection  shi 


THE  PLAIN  STORY  OF  SAVONAROLA'S  LIFE. 


5°5 


inspired  in  her  son,  and  show  her  to  have 
possessed  his  fullest  confidence  in  every 
vicissitude  of  his  extraordinary  career. 

The  little  Girolamo  was  a  serious,  quiet 
child,  and  his  biographers  agree  that  he 
showed  precocious  signs  of  superior  capacity. 
Even  in  his  early  childhood  the  hopes  of 
the  family  were  centered  in  his  future;  he 
was  to  be  a  great  physician,  good  and  gifted 
as  the  wise  old  grandfather  who  guided 
his  first  footsteps  to  knowledge.  He  was 
barely  ten  years  old  when  his  grandfather 
died,  but  he  had  already  drawn  much  profit 
from  his  teachings,  and  was  passionately 
fond  of  study.  Few  details  remain  to  us  of 
his  boyish  years ;  we  only  know  that  he  read 
St.  Thomas  Aquinas  and  the  Arab  com- 
mentators upon  Aristotle  with  intense  de- 
light, and  acquired  much  mastery  of  scho- 
lastic subtleties.  He  also  wrote  verses ; 
learnt  drawing  and  music,  avoided  gayety 
and  pleasure,  and  loved  to  take  solitary 
walks  by  the  banks  of  the  Po.  In  those 
days  Ferrara  was  a  busy,  populous  city,  its 
reigning  prince,  Duke  Borso  D'Este,  one  of 
the  most  magnificent  potentates  of  the  times, 
and  his  glittering  court  the  scene  of  per- 
petual festivities  and  entertainments.  All 
sorts  of  exalted  personages,  popes  and  em- 
perors even,  were  continually  passing 
through  Ferrara,  and,  of  course,  all  sorts  of 


pageants  were  got  up  in  their  honor.  Mi- 
chele  Savonarola  being  a  hanger-on  of  the 
court,  his  household  must  have  breathed  an 
atmosphere  of  parade  and  excitement,  and 
Girolamo's  repulsion  for  all  these  pagan  re- 
joicings proves  the  early  development  of  his 
individuality.  Once,  while  still  a  mere  child, 
he  was  taken  by  his  parents  to  the  Ducal  Pal- 
ace, but  they  could  never  persuade  him  to 
go  there  again.  It  may  be  that  his  first  fer- 
vor for  religion  was  awakened  by  the  pas- 
sage of  Pope  Pius  II.  on  his  way  to  Mantua 
to  preach  the  crusade  against  the  Turks;  at 
any  rate  the  grave,  quiet  child  soon  devel- 
oped into  an  earnest,  melancholy  student, 
zealous  in  fasting  and  in  prayer,  and  strangely 
out  of  harmony  with  his  gay  surroundings. 
Before  long  a  fresh  element  of  unrest,  in  the 
shape  of  an  unrequited  love,  came  to  add 
to  the  tumult  in  his  soul.  He  conceived  an 
ardent  passion  for  the  daughter  of  an  exiled 
Strozzi  with  whom  his  family  lived  on  neigh- 
borly terms,  but  when  one  day  he  found 
courage  to  reveal  his  love,  he  was  crushed 
by  the  girl's  scornful  reply  that  no  Strozzi 
could  stoop  to  wed  a  Savonarola.  At  that 
time  he  was  not  yet  twenty.  Then  followed 
two  years  of  bitter  internal  struggle.  His 
mind  revolted  from  his  destined  profession, 
and  day  by  day  it  became  clearer  to  him 
that  his  vocation  was  to  cure  men's  souls  111- 


THE    DEATH-BED    OF     LORENZO    DE      MEDICI. 


506 


THE  PLAIN  STORY  OF  SAVONAROLA'S  LIFE. 


PIAZZA,    CHURCH    AND    CONVENT    OF 


IARCO.    FLORENCE. 


stead  of  men's  bodies.    Yet  he  was  distracted 
by  a  thousand  doubts,  a  thousand  conflicting 
emotions.     His  longing  for  the  cloister  was 
no  desperate  resolve  born  of  Madamigella 
Strozzi's  disdain,  though  the  pain  of  rejection 
must    have   confirmed  his   disgust  for   the 
world.     His  purpose  had  nobler  roots  than 
any  personal  suffering,  and  he  was  slowly 
gathering    strength   to  flower   into   action. 
His  daily  prayer  was  "  Lord !  teach  me  the 
way  my  soul  must  walk,"  and  suddenly,  in 
1474,  when  he  was  twenty-two,  he  heard  a 
sermon  at  Faenza  that  gave  him  the  answer 
he  sought.     His  way  was  clear  now,  and  he 
returned  home  decided  to  become  a  monk. 
But  now  came  a  still  more  painful  wrestle  with 
domestic   affections;    his  resolution     often 
quailed   when   he   met   his  mother's   eyes, 
fixed  upon  him  with  a  sad  tenderness  that 
seemed  to  divine  his  unspoken  purpose.    He 
could  not  face  the  ordeal  of  farewell,  so,  on 
the  24*  of  April,  1475,  when  all  the  rest  of 
the  family  were  abroad  at  the  festival  of  St. 
George,   he   stole    away   from   the    empty 
house  and,  hurrying  to  Bologna,  entered  the 
convent  of  St.  Domenico.      The  same  day 
he  wrote  a  tender  letter  to  his  father,  asking 
his  blessing,  and  explaining  why   he   had 
sought  refuge  in  the  cloister.     The  world 
was  intolerably  wicked,  he  said ;  everywhere 
in  Italy  he  beheld  vice  exalted,  virtue  de- 


spised. Among  the  papers  he  left  at  Ferrara 
was  an  epistle  on  "  Contempt  of  the  World," 
in  which  he  inveighed  against  the  prevailing 
corruption,  and  foretold  divine  punishment 
—such  as  had  befallen  Sodom  and  Go- 
morrah. 

But  now,  with  fasting,  prayer  and  contin- 
ual mortification  of  the  flesh,  Girolamc 
entered  upon  his  novitiate  and  gave  himself 
up  to  the  contemplation  of  celestial  things 
Contemporary  writers  tell  us  that,  at  this 
period,  he  looked  more  like  a  shadow  thar 
a  man. 

All  painted  portraits  of  this  extraordinary 
monk  are,  at  first  sight,  almost  repulsive 
but  written  descriptions  assure  us  that  thos< 
strange,  irregular  features  of  his  were  beau 
lifted  by  an  expression  of  singular  force  am 
goodness;  that  his  blue  eyes  sparkled  am 
flamed  beneath  his  black  eyebrows  am 
rugged  forehead,  that  the  large  mouth  am 
projecting  under-lip,  if  sometimes  closed  n 
lines  of  power  and  resolve,  would  also  rela: 
into  smiles  of  exceeding  sweetness  am 
gentleness.  He  was  of  middle  height,  of  da 
complexion,  of  a  sanguine  bilious  tempera 
ment  and  a  nervous  system  of  very  dehcat 
fiber.  His  manners  were  simple,  his  speec 
unadorned  and  almost  uncultivated, 
wonderful  power  of  oratory  was  as  yet  ur 
suspected,  although  his  superiors,  recogmzm 


THE  PLAIN  STORY  OF  SAVONAROLA  'S  LIFE. 


5°7 


his  intellectual  gifts,  employed  him  to  in- 
struct the  novices  instead  of  in  the  menial 
offices  he  had  humbly  asked  to  fulfill.  He  re- 
mained in  this  Bologna  convent  for  six  years, 
years  of  outward  tranquillity,  although  the 
poems  he  composed  during  the  period  attest 
to  his  fever  of  indignation  against  the  grow- 
ing corruptions  of  the  church,  and  his  intense 
grief  for  the  afflictions  of  his  country. 

In  1482  he  was  sent  to  Ferrara.  He  went 
with  reluctance,  and  avoided  his  family  as 
much  as  possible,  regarding  the  promptings 
of  earthly  affections  as  so  many  snares  of  the 
evil  one.  His  sermons  seem  to  have  made 
little  mark  in  the  city,  for,  as  he  lamented 
later,  no  man  is  a  prophet  in  his  own  land. 
He  was  soon  recalled,  for,  one  of  the  usual 
petty  wars  with  Venice  being  imminent, 
Ferrara  was  no  longer  a  fitting  home  for  the 
peaceable  Dominican,  and  he  was  then  dis- 
patched to  Florence  to  the  convent  of  St. 
Mark,  the  scene  of  his  future  triumphs  and 
trials. 


n. 


!.  AT  the  time  of  Savonarola's  arrival  in 
Florence,  Lorenzo  il  Magnifico  was  in  the 
heyday  of  his  power  and  prosperity,  the  city 


was  given  up  to  pleasure,  and  lost  liberty  was 
forgotten  in  a  trance  of  luxurious  ease.  Fresh 
from  gloomy  Bologna,  the  friar  was  at  first 
enchanted  with  his  new  surroundings.  It 
seemed  like  a  foretaste  of  heaven  to  become 
the  inmate  of  a  cloister  sanctified  by  the 
memory  of  St.  Antonino,  adorned  by  the 
inspired  paintings  of  Fra  Angelico,  in  the 
midst  of  this  fairest  of  Italian  cities.  But 
his  illusions  were  speedily  dispelled;  he 
heard  Lorenzo's  canti  carnascialeschi  re- 
sounding through  the  streets,  he  found  the 
smooth,  cultured  citizens  dead  to  all  sense 
of  faith  or  virtue,  St.  Marco  itself  invaded  by 
the  prevailing  mania  for  pagan  philosophy. 
In  1483,  Savonarola  was  appointed  Lenten 
preacher  at  St.  Lorenzo,  but  his  sermons 
had  no  attraction  for  hearers  accustomed  to 
pulpit  oratory  replete  with  classic  learning 
and  fashionable  graces  of  style.  How  could 
they  listen  to  a  man  who,  in  plain  rough 
words,  earnestly  called  them  to  repentance, 
instead  of  pleasing  their  taste  by  a  display 
of  elegant  subtleties?  So  all  the  world 
thronged  to  Fra  Mariano's  adorned  dis- 
courses in  Santo  Spirito,  and  San  Lorenzo 
was  deserted. 

Discouraged  by  this  failure,  which  seemed 
to  close  one  career  of  usefulness,  Savona- 


WITH    THE    NOVICES     AT    SAN    MARCO. 


5o8 


THE  PLAIN  STORY  OF  SAVONAROLA'S  LIFE. 


DIVERSION     IN    THE    CLOISTER. 


rola  almost  determined  to  abandon  the 
pulpit  and  devote  himself  to  teaching  in 
the  convent,  but  zeal  for  the  redemption  of 
those  corrupt  Florentines  soon  prevailed 
over  self-love ;  he  must,  he  would  stir  them 
from  their  lethargy  of  sin — the  Almighty 
would  show  him  the  way  to  their  hearts. 
For,  already  convinced  of  his  divine  mission, 
the  colder,  the  more  indifferent  his  hearers, 
the  greater  the  need  of  saving  them  from 
perdition.  Already,  too,  he  saw  visions,  and 
discovered,  in  the  Apocalypse,  symbols  of 
the  heavenly  vengeance  about  to  overtake 
this  guilty  people.  We  find  bis  pent-up 
feeling  expressed  in  a  poem  addressed  to 
the  Saviour,  written  at  this  period.  Innocent 
XIII.  now  occupied  the  pontifical  throne, 
and  the  atrocious  scandals  of  his  reign  threw 
into  the  shade  the  infamy  of  his  predecessor, 
Sixtus  IV. 

It  was  at  the  little  hill  town  of  St.  Gemig- 
nano  that  the  friar  had  the  first  gleam  of 
success  as  a  preacher,  found  his  voice,  as  it 
were,  and  gained  some  confidence  in  his 
own  powers,  but  it  was-  only  a  year  or  two 
later,  at  Brescia,  that  he  suddenly  revealed 
his  might  as  an  orator.  On  this  occasion 
he  had  to  treat  of  his  favorite  theme,  the 
Apocalypse,  and  he  shook  men's  souls  by 


his  predictions,  brought  them  around  h 
in  panting,  awe-struck  crowds.  This  rr 
sion  proved  the  foundation  of  his  fame ; 
hearers  were  transported  by  an  ecstasy 
mingled  terror  and  faith,  when,  at  the  cl< 
of  awful  denunciations  of  the  wrath  to  cor 
his  tones  of  thunder  sank  to  accents  of 
finite  tenderness  in  describing  the  lovi 
mercy  of  God.  A  Brescian  friar  rela 
that  more  than  once  an  aureole  of  light  v 
seen  flashing  round  the  preacher's  head. 

Soon,  at  Reggio,  during  a  Dominic 
council  attended  by  many  eminent  laym 
Savonarola  had  an  opportunity  of  showi 
himself  to  be  not  otily  a  fervid  orator  bul 
learned  theologian,  versed  in  all  the  subl 
ties  of  the  schools.  The  celebrated  P 
Delia  Mirandola  was  so  impressed  by  1 
friar's  ability,  that  he  is  said  to  have  urg 
Lorenzo  de'  Medici  to  obtain  his  recall 
Florence.  Thither  he  finally  returned 
the  Lent  of  1490,  intending  to  resume 
humble  office  of  reader  to  the  novices,  1 
his  fame  had  gone  before  him,  the  gr 
Pico  had  sounded  his  praises,  and  I 
Florentines  were  in  a  fever  of  impatiei 
to  listen  to  the  orator  they  had  forme 
despised. 

At  first, — perhaps  doubtful  of  his  pov 


THE  PLAIN  STORY  OF  SAVONAROLA'S  LIFE. 


5°9 


THE    ARREST    OF     SAVONAROLA. 


*j  to  compel  Florentine  attention, — his  lectures 
ic|were  delivered  in  the  convent  garden,  and 
£  only  a  small  audience  admitted.  But  day 
*by  day  fresh  hearers  obtained  entrance; 
Eithey  besought  him  to  choose  a  wider  arena, 
-and  at  last  one  Saturday,  at  the  conclusion 
;:<of  his  discourse,  the  friar  implored  the 
sprayers  of  his  congregation,  and  simply 
:  :said : 

"  To-morrow   we    will    address   you    in 


church ;  there  will  be  a  lecture  and  a  ser- 
mon." 

Legend  adds  that  he  announced  that  he 
should  preach  for  eight  years. 

The  morrow  was  the  ist  of  August,  1490. 
St.  Mark's  was  crowded  to  suffocation,  and 
Savonarola  delivered — as  he  himself  tells  us 
— a  "  terrible  sermon."  From  that  moment 
his  success  was  complete.  Florence  went 
mad  with  admiration,  and  in  discussing  the 


510 


THE  PLAIN  STORY  OF  SAVONAROLA'S  LIFE. 


THE    NIGHT    BEFORE    THE    EXECUTION. 


was  the   aim   of  every  word,  every   line,  every  ac 
of  Girolamo  Savonarola. 

And  now,  early  in  1491,  St.  Mark's  church  n 
longer   sufficing  for  the  friar's  hearers,  h 
was  invited  to  preach  in  the  cathedra 
and  from  the  moment  when  his  voic 
was  first  heard  beneath  Brunelle: 
chi's   dome,  his  rule  over  Floi 
ence   may   be   said   to    begh 
That  he  was  now   a  pow< 
was  plain  from  the  angt 
and  uneasiness  of  Lorenz 
de'  Medici.     Five  of  th 
leading  men  were  depute 
to  recommend  the  preach* 
to  moderate  his  tone,  an 
— in    his    own    and    th 
convent's     interest — sho' 
more   respect   to   author 
ties.  This  Savonarola  cur 
ly   refused   to  do,  addin 
that   he   well    knew    wh 
had  prompted  the  advia 
"  Tell    your    master,"    h 
said,  in  conclusion,  "  tru 
although  I  am  an  humbl 
stranger,  he  the  city's  lore 
yet  that  I  shall  remain,  h 
will  depart."      Afterwarc 
in  the  presence  of  man 
witnesses,  he  declared  tha 
mighty  changes  were  ovei 
hanging  Italy ;  that  Loren 
zo,  the  Pope  and  the  kin 
of  Naples   were   all   nea 
unto  death. 

In  July  of  the  same  yea 
he  was  elected  Prior  of  Si 
Mark's.  The  convent  hai 
been  rebuilt  by  Cosimc 


enriched  by  the  donation 
merits   of    this    wonderful    preacher    even 
Plato  was  for  a  time  forgotten. 

But  Savonarola,  warned  by  experience, 
knew  that  this  momentary  triumph  would 
not  silence  learned  skeptics ;  he  foresaw.that 
he  would  be  accused  of  insufficient  doctrine, 
and  determined  to  publish  a  collection  of 
his  writings  for  the  instruction  of  the  people, 
and  a  confutation  of  hostile  pedants.  These 
writings  proved  him  to  be  an  accurate  stu- 
dent of  the  pagan  philosophy  he  so  fiercely 
denounced,  and  that  it  was  no  ignorance  of 
the  fathers  that  drove  him  to  seek  texts  and 
inspiration  from  the  Word  of  God  alone. 
"  The  Triumph  of  the  Cross  "  is  his  princi- 
pal theological  work,  and  all  are  animated 
by  the  burning  religious  spirit  that  informed 


his  whole  life.     To  bring  mankind  to  God 


of  the  Medici;  it  was  therefore  judgei 
necessary  for  the  new  Prior  to  pay  a  visit  o 
respect  and  homage  to  Lorenzo.  Savona 
rola  would  not  conform  to  the  usage.  H 
owed  his  election  to  God,  not  to  Lorenzo 
and  to  God  alone  would  he  render  obedi 
ence.  Lorenzo  was  furious.  "  This  stran 
ger  comes  to  inhabit  my  house,  and  doe 
not  stoop  to  pay  me  a  visit."  He  trie( 
conciliatory  measures ;  it  was  beneatl 
his  dignity  to  recognize  the  hostility  Ol 
a  simple  monk.  Accordingly,  he  severa 
times  attended  mass  at  St.  Mark's,  anc 
then  walked  in  the  convent  garden 
but  the  Prior  always  remained  invisible 
and  took  no  notice  of  the  Magnifico's  pres 
ence.  He  then  placed  large  sums  of  money 
in  the  alms-box,  and  Savonarola  sent  his 


THE  PLAIN  STORY  OF  SAVONAROLA'S  LIFE. 


gold-pieces  to  the  Buoni  Uomini  di  S.  Mar- 
tino,  for  distribution  among  the  poor.  He 
felt  nothing  but  the  keenest  abhorrence  for 
the  tyrant  who  had  robbed  Florence  of  her 
liberty,  and  demoralized  her  people.  In 
his  eyes,  Lorenzo's  pagan  learning  and  rare 
intellectual  gifts  were  only  so  many  engines 
of  ill  and  corruption.  To  come  to  any 
compromise  with  the  Magnifico  would  be 
an  offense  against  God. 

Lorenzo  now  tried  other  means.  Fra 
Mariano  da  Genazzano  was  invited  to  re- 
sume his  preachings,  and  on  Ascension  Day 
chose  for  his  text:  "It  is  not  for  you  to 
know  the  times  and  seasons  "  (Acts  i.  7). 
Crowds  flocked  to  hear  him ;  he  had  the 
prestige  of  former  popularity;  had  he  kept 
his  temper,  he  might  have  severely  damaged 
his  rival's  rising  reputation.  But  rage  and 
envy  carried  him  beyond  all  bounds,  and 
his  scandalous  invectives  and  accusations 
against  Savonarola  thoroughly  disgusted  his 
hearers.  Meanwhile,  Fra  Girolamo  had 
taken  up  the  challenge  by  preaching  on 
the  same  text,  and  his  arguments  and  elo- 
quence combined  made  his  victory  so  com- 
plete that  Fra  Mariano  was  silenced.  The 
Franciscan  feigned  indifference  to  his  defeat, 
invited  Savonarola  to  his  convent,  and  there 


was  an  interchange  of  clerical  courtesies. 
But  he  never  forgave  him,  and  later,  in  Rome, 
became  one  of  the  most  active  instruments 
of  his  downfall. 


THE    CONVENT    OF    SAN    MARCO. 


III. 


WE  now  approach  one  of  the  best-known 
scenes  of  Savonarola's  life.  In  April,  1492, 
Lorenzo  de'  Medici  lay  dying  in  his  pleasure 
palace  at  Careggi,  burdened  by  the  load  of 
his  crimes.  Neither  the  affection  of  his 
most  faithful  friends  nor  the  full  absolution 
granted  by  his  confessor,  availed  to  appease 
his  guilty  terrors.  How  could  he  feel  as- 
sured of  Divine  pardon  when  it  was  only 
announced  by  lips  too  obsequious  to  contra- 
dict his  lightest  wish  ?  Formerly  it  was  his 
boast  that  no  man  dared  to  say  him  nay ;  now 
it  was  his  despair.  Suddenly  he  remembered 
the  unyielding  monk  who  had  withstood 
both  his  flattery  and  his  threats ;  this  man,  at 
least,  would  tell  him  the  truth ;  absolved  by 
him,  his  sins  would  drop  from  him  and  leave 
him  white  as  snow!  In  hottest  haste  a 
messenger  was  dispatched  to  St.  Mark's, 
and,  although  with  much  reluctance,  Savon- 
arola obeyed  the  surprising  summons.  Of 
the  many  versions  of  this  celebrated  inter- 
view Politian's  and  Burlamacchi's  are  the 
best  known.  Politian  denies  that  Savona- 
rola refused  absolution,  but  Politian  was  a 
courtier  and  a  devoted  adherent  of  the 
Medici.  Burlamacchi  was  a  contemporary 
and  friend  of  Savonarola,  and  wrote  his  ac- 
count at  a  period  when  public  opinion  was 
hostile  to  the  friar's  memory,  and  many  were 
living  to  contradict  his  tale  had  it  been  false. 

This,  then,  is  what  he  tells  us :  Savonarola 
gravely  listened  to  Lorenzo's  agitated  con- 
fession, and  tried  to  soothe  him  by  repeat- 
ing :  "  God  is  good,  God  is  merciful."  But 
to  obtain  Divine  forgiveness  three  things 
are  necessary  :  I.  Sincere  and  living  faith  in 
His  mercy. 

Lorenzo  professed  his  faith. 

II.  The  restitution  of  all  ill-gotten  gains. 

The  dying  man  hesitated,  but  soon  bowed 
his  head  in  token  of  assent. 

Then  Savonarola  rose  up,  and  fixed  his 
wonderful,  blazing  eyes  on  the  cowering 
prince — "  And  thirdly,"  he  solemnly  cried, 
"  thirdly,  you  must  restore  the  liberty  of 
Florence."  Upon  this,  Lorenzo  turned  his 
face  to  the  wall  and  made  no  reply.  Savon- 
arola waited  a  few  moments,  but  the  silence 
was  unbroken,  so  he  left  the  room  without 
giving  absolution,  and  shortly  after  Lorenzo 
de'  Medici  drew  his  last  breath,  aged  only 


512 


THE  PLAIN  STORY  OF  SAVONAROLA'S  LIFE. 


TOMB    OF    SAN    DOMENICO. 


forty-four  years.  After  this  event  Savona- 
rola's influence  rapidly  increased,  and  he 
gained  many  fresh  adherents  among  men 
who  had  been  admirers  of  Lorenzo,  but 
who  were  disgusted  by  the  coarse  violence 
and  inefficient  policy  of  his  successor,  Piero. 
The  affairs  of  the  state  went  from  bad  to 
worse ;  Florence  was  fast  losing  the  pre- 
dominance she  had  acquired  under  the 
astute  rule  of  Lorenzo.  Men  recalled  Sa- 
vonarola's predictions,  and  in  the  July  of 
the  same  year  the  second  of  these  was  ful- 


filled by  the  death  of  Innocent  XIII.  The 
woes  of  Italy  approached  their  climax  in  the 
scandalous  election  of  Cardinal  Borgia  to 
the  Papal  chair. 

Savonarola's  discourses  were  marked  by 
continually  increasing  fervor;  his  medita- 
tions on  the  state  of  his  country,  on  the 
one  hand,  on  the  other  his  study  of  the 
prophets,  had  wound  him  up  to  a  religious 
frenzy,  in  which  he  saw  visions  and  believed 
himself  the  mouth-piece  of  Divine  revelation. 
It  was  while  preaching  one  of  his  terrible  ad- 


THE  PLAIN  STORY  OF  SAVONAROLA'S  LIFE. 


vent  sermons  that  he  beheld  the  famous 
vision,  recorded  in  contemporary  medals  and 
wood-cuts,  which  has  almost  become  a  sym- 
bol of  his  doctrines.  He  saw  a  hand  with  a 
flaming  sword,  on  which  was  inscribed  : 
"  Gladius  Domini  supra  terram  tito  et  veloc- 
iter,"  He  heard  supernatural  voices  pro- 
claiming mercy  to  the  faithful  and  punishment 
to  sinners,  and  cries  that  the  wrath  of  God 
was  at  hand.  Then  the  sword  bent  toward 
earth,  the  sky  darkened,  thunder  pealed, 
lightning  flashed  and  the  whole  earth  was 
wasted  by  famine,  war  and  pestilence. 

Soon  after  this,  Savonarola  was  removed 
from  Florence,  and  we  find  him  preaching 


happen  in  Bologna."  He  is  said  to  have  seen 
visions  on  his  lonely  journey,  to  have  been 
accompanied  by  a  celestial  messenger  who 
restored  his  strength  with  food  and  drink, 
and  who  only  disappeared  at  the  St.  Gallo 
gate.  Certain  it  is,  that  he  reached  Florence 
without  molestation,  and  was  rapturously 
welcomed  by  his  brethren  at  St.  Mark's. 

His  first  undertaking  was  to  re-establish 
the  former  rigid  discipline  of  his  order,  and 
the  better  to  carry  out  this  reform,  he  con- 
trived, after  battling  through  innumerable 
difficulties,  to  obtain  a  Papal  brief  freeing 
St.  Mark's  from  its  subjection  to  the  Lom- 
bard vicars  of  the  Dominican  order.  Now, 


THE    EXECUTION    OF    SAVONAROLA.        (FROM    AN    OLD    PAINTING.) 


to  excited  crowds  in  the  north  of  Italy. 
The  principal  incident  of  these  missions 
was  the  danger  he  ran  at  Bologna,  by  pub- 
icly  rebuking  the  wife  of  Bentivoglio,  lord 
of  that  city,  for  her  noisy  entrance  in  church 
during  divine  service.  Assassins  were  sent 
to  dispatch  the  insolent  monk,  but  it  is 
said,  they  were  so  awed  by  Savonarola's 
words  and  demeanor,  that  they  fled  in 
dismay  from  his  presence.  At  the  conclu- 
5ion  of  his  last  sermon,  the  friar,  with 
:haracteristic  boldness,  announced  the  day 
md  hour  of  his  departure  from  Bologna, 
>ade  those  who  had  business  with  him  seek 
i  at  once  and  added  with  significant 
Jmphasis  :  "  I  know  that  my  death  will  not 
VOL.  XX.— 34. 


at  last,  his  hands  were  free ;  he  was  an  in- 
dependent authority,  and  no  longer  liable  to 
be  sent  hither  and  thither  at  the  pleasure  of 
superiors  in  the  north.  One  of  his  new 
measures  was  to  relegate  a  portion  of  the 
brotherhood  to  a  quieter  retreat  outside  the 
city,  only  leaving  in  Florence  those  best 
furnished  with  intellectual  gifts.  Henceforth 
the  convent  was  to  be  self-supporting,  and 
the  friar  opened  schools  for  various  branches 
of  art,  and  promoted  the  study  of  Oriental 
languages.  St.  Mark's  flourished  as  it  had 
never  flourished  before  and  many  Floren- 
tines of  noble  birth  flocked  to  take  the  vows, 
fired  with  enthusiasm  for  Savonarola's  saintly 
life.  Meanwhile  he  was  hurling  from  the 


THE  PLAIN  STORY  OF  SAVONAROLA'S  LIFE. 


pulpit  fiercer  and  fiercer  denunciations  of 
the  abuses  of  the  church  and  the  sins  and 
corruptions  of  mankind,  never  ceasing  his 
prediction  of  divine  wrath. 

And  now,  in  1494,  the  sword  of  God  was 
in  truth  near  at  hand,  for  the  Duke  of  Milan 
had  summoned  France  to  his  aid,  and  King 
Charles  and  his  army  had  crossed  the  Alps. 
Piero  de'  Medici,  in  an  agony  of  weak  con- 
sternation, forgot  that  in  all  former  wars 
Florence  had  been  the  firm  ally  of  the 
French,  and  entered  into  close  alliance  with 
the  Neapolitan  king  whose  throne  Charles 
claimed  as  his  own.  But,  with  characteristic 
vacillation,  Piero  immediately  repented  this 
step,  and  hurried  in  person  to  the  French  camp 
at  Pietra  Santa.  Here,  without  asking  coun- 
sel of  any  one,  he  at  once  succumbed  before 
Charles  VIII.,  conceded  even  more  than  was 
asked,  promising  a  huge  sum  of  money  and 
the  surrender  of  the  fortresses  of  Pisa  and 
Leghorn  up  to  the  termination  of  the  war. 

Thereupon  Florence  rose  to  arms.  The 
popular  fury  was  so  great  that  excesses  of 
the  worst  kind  seemed  inevitable.  But, 
wonderful  to  relate — notwithstanding  the 
confusion  of  those  terrible  days — Savona- 
rola's sermons  quieted  the  passions  of  the 
mob  and  a  bloodless  revolution  was  effected. 
Piero  di  Gino  Capponi  was  the  first  to 
embody  in  words  the  universal  feeling  that 
"  it  was  time  to  have  done  with  this  baby 
government,"  and  to  declare  the  deposition 
of  Piero  de'  Medici.  The  first  act  of  the  re- 
suscitated republic  was  to  dispatch  a  fresh 
embassy  to  the  French  king,  to  arrange 
the  terms  of  that  dangerous  friend's  recep- 
tion in  Florence.  Of  course  Savonarola 
was  one  of  the  envoys,  for  it  was  known 
that  Charles  had  an  almost  superstitious 
veneration  for  the  friar  who  had  so  long 
prophesied  his  descent  into  Italy  and  de- 
clared it  to  be  divinely  ordained.  With 
characteristic  humility,  Fra  Girolamo  elected 
to  make  the  journey  on  foot,  and  lingered 
in  Florence  after  the  departure  of  Cappo- 
ni and  the  other  embassadors  in  order  once 
more  to  exhort  the  citizens  to  maintain 
peace  and  order.  "  Remember,"  he  said, 
"  the  cry  of  the  Lord :  '  Misericordiam  volo?  " 
Woe,  woe  to  those  who  should  disobey  the 
command.  Probably  it  was  to  these  exhort- 
ations that  Piero  de'  Medici  owed  his  life, 
for  when  the  arrival  of  the  new  embassa- 
dors showed  him  that  Florence  rejected 
his  yoke,  and  he  hurried  back  to  the  city  to 
snatch  hysterically  at  the  reins  that  had 
dropped 'from  his  impotent  fingers,  he  was 
allowed  to  re-enter  without  molestation,  and 


though  driven  into  exile  after  a  few  days  of 
agitated,  purposeless  striving,  he  was  peacea- 
bly expelled.  His  former  subjects  treated  him. 
like  a  bad  child  and  literally  hissed  him  out 
of  the  city.  His  brother,  the  Cardinal,  re- 
mained behind  for  a  day  or  so,  and  stealthily 
collecting  his  more  portable  treasures,  in- 
trusted them  to  the  safe  keeping  of  the 
monks  of  St.  Mark's.  When  we  remember 
that  the  convent  was  the  head-quarters  of 
the  victorious  party,  it  is  hard  to  imagine  a 
stronger  proof  of  the  esteem  inspired  by 
Savonarola's  community. 

During  these  events,  Savonarola  had  been 
received  in  the  French  camp  with  every 
demonstration  of  respect.  The  king  listened 
more  attentively  to  the  friar's  emphatic  dis- 
course than  to  the  conciliatory  statements 
of  his  fellow  envoys,  and  although  he  de- 
clined binding  himself  to  any  definite  course 
of  action  before  going  to  Florence,  Savon- 
arola returned  there  full  of  hope  and  cour- 
age. Yet  to  ordinary  minds  the  aspect  of 
public  affairs  was,  from  all  points  of  view, 
of  the  gloomiest.  Pisa  had  revolted  on  the 
very  day  of  the  expulsion  of  Piero  from 
Florence,  and  the  rebellion  was — at  least 
tacitly — encouraged  by  the  French  king;  no 
new  government  had  as  yet  been  organized, 
and  the  foreigner  was  knocking  at  their 
.gates.  To  preserve  public  confidence  at  this 
crisis  needed  all  the  efforts  of  Savonarola 
and  Capponi,  who  were  truly  the  head  and 
arm  of  the  bewildered  city. 

And  now,  on  November  i7th,  Charles 
entered  Florence  at  the  head  of  an  impos- 
ing force — more  like  a  conqueror  than  a 
visitor — and  encircled  by  a  pompous  cortege 
of  unprecedented  magnificence.  Yet,  not- 
withstanding their  just  cause  for  fear,  much 
of  the  uneasiness  of  the  Florentines  vanished 
at  the  first  sight  of  the  dreaded  monarch. 
This  the  threatened  scourge!  They  beheld 
a  puny,  ill-made  youngster,  with  a  ridicu- 
lously ugly  face,  ignoble  gestures  and  hesi- 
tating speech,  whose  weak  insignificance 
was  all  the  more  apparent  in  this  setting  of 
regal  splendor.  Florence  was  moved  to 
laughter  rather  than  awe.  Charles  was 
lodged  in  the  Medici  palace  (Palazzo  Ric- 
cardi),  and  soon,  under  the  influence  of 
Piero's  wife  and  mother,  began  to  show  his 
hostility  toward  the  Florentines,  and  to  put 
forward  the  most  exorbitant  pretensions. 
The  greatest  agitation  reigned  in  the  city, 
serious  collision  with  the  foreign  troops 
seemed  inevitable,  already  riots  had  broken 
out,  and  the  citizens  had  shown  their  teeth. 

The  Signory  saw  that  the  moment  had 


THE  PLAIN  STORY  OF  SAVONAROLA'S  LIFE. 


5'5 


:ome  to  make  a  decisive  arrangement  with 
:heir  troublesome  guest,  and  when  the  king 
igain  dictated  ridiculous  terms,  /'.  <?.,  the 
•estoration.  of  the  Medici  and  exorbitant 
sums  of  money,  the  magistrates  indignantly 
•efused  their  consent. 

"Then  we  will  sound  our  trumpets!" 
;ried  the  little  sovereign,  beside  himself 
vith  rage.  At  this  Capponi  snatched  the 
reaty  from  the  secretary's  hands,  indignantly 
ore  it  to  shreds,  and  made  his  immortal  reply : 

"  And  we  will  ring  our  bells." 

The  king  was  cowed,  he  withdrew  his 
pretensions,  signed  a  more  satisfactory 
;reaty,  and,  yielding  to  Savonarola's  urgent 
>ersuasions,  rid  Florence  of  his  presence  on 
November  28th. 

We  may  imagine  the  joy  of  the  Floren- 
ines.  Now,  at  last,  they  could  breathe 
reely,  and  so  great  was  their  relief  that  at 
irst  they  hardly  grudged  their  light-fingered 
quests  the  numberless  art-treasures  they  had 
:arried  off  from  the  precious  accumulations 
n  the  Medici  palace.  But  if  Florence  was 
ree  she  had  yet  to  learn  the  use  of  her 
iberty.  During  the  seventy  years  of  Medi- 
nan  rule,  there  had  been  more  than  time 
enough  to  forget  the  art  of  self-government, 
md,  like  a  newly  released  prisoner,  her  eyes 
vere  still  dazzled  by  the  light  of  day,  her 
imbs  still  stiff  with  the  weight  of  her  chains. 
Vith  commerce  ruined,  exchequer  drained, 
lisorder  everywhere,  Florence  felt  the  need 
f  a  strong  hand  to  guide  her  tottering  steps, 
nd  with  one  accord  all  eyes  were  turned 
Dward  the  patriot  monk  whose  words  had 
d  them  of  King  Charles,  and  Savonarola 
ecame  the  lawgiver  of  Florence. 

IV. 

SAVONAROLA'S  first  care  was  to  provide 
[r  the  material  necessities  of  his  flock.  He 
jiUected  money  for  the  poor  of  the  city 
ltd  of  the  outlying  territory;  he  caused 
ops  to  be  opened  to  give  employment  to 
Is  needy ;  he  lightened  all  taxes,  especially 
pse  weighing  on  the  lower  classes ;  he  en- 
rced  strict  justice  and  exhorted  all  men  to 
jplore  the  Divine  assistance. 

was  soon  found  that  the  exigencies  of 
I;  times  precluded  the  revival  of  the  old 
jchinery  of  government  as  it  existed  before 
domination  of  the  Medici.     It  was  alto- 
|her  too  cumbrous  for  a  state,  at  war  with 
three  revolted  provinces  of  Pisa,  Arezzo 
M  ontipulciano,  and  the   Medici    had 
|wn  how  easily  all  the  jealous  precautions 
insuring  impartiality  and  independence 


could  be  converted  into  efficacious  engines 
of  tyranny.  Thus,  while  it  proved  easy 
enough  to  choose  the  twenty  Accoppiatori 
charged  with  the  nomination  of  the  magis- 
trates, serious  disputes  arose  regarding  the 
councils  or  assemblies  of  the  Republic.  The 
Council  of  Seventy,  so  flexible  in  the  hands 
of  the  Medici,  was  promptly  abolished,  but 
it  was  found  impossible  to  reconstitute  the 
councils  of  the  people  and  the  commune, 
because  these  had  represented  a  state  of 
things,  a  division  of  citizens,  no  longer  in 
existence  and  impossible  to  be  renewed. 
Animated  discussions  took  place, — noisy  de- 
bates in  council-chamber,  street  and  market- 
place. The  popular  party,  headed  by  Paolo 
Antonio  Soderini,  fresh  from  Venice  and 
hot  with  admiration  for  Venetian  institu- 
tions, proposed  a  great  council,  open  to  all 
citizens,  and  a  less  numerous  council  of 
Ottimati,  precisely  on  the  pattern  of  the 
Grand  Council  and  the  Pregadi  of 
Venice.  This  proposal  was  combated  by 
the  party  led  by  Guido  Antonio  Vespucci, 
who  desired  a  more  restricted  form  of 
government.  The  great  council,  they  said, 
might  be  useful  in  Venice,  where  it  was 
composed  of  aristocrats,  but  would  be  most 
perilous  in  Florence,  where — for  lack  of 
nobles — it  would  be  necessary  to  admit  citi- 
zens of  all  ranks.  The  majority  of  the 
magistrates  sided  with  Vespucci,  for  they 
numbered  many  secret  partisans  of  the 
Medici,  ,and  also  the  Accoppiatori  whose 
office  was  about  to  cease,  and  who  desired  a 
government  in  which  they  could  retain 
power.  Fortunately,  at  the  moment  when 
it  seemed  most  impossible  to  come  to  an 
agreement,  Savonarola  threw  the  weight  of 
his  influence  on  Soderini's  side  by  preaching 
in  favor  of  an  "  Universal "  or  general 
government,  with  a  great  council  on  the 
Venetian  plan,  but  modified  to  the  needs 
and  customs  of  Florence. 

Great  was  the  joy  of  the  Florentine  people 
when,  after  long  days  of  anxiety  haunted  by 
fears  of  a  narrow  rule  that  would  lead  the 
way  to  tyranny  as  grievous  as  that  from 
which  they  had  but  now  escaped,  they 
heard  the  voice  of  their  beloved  preacher 
boldly  uplifted  in  defense  of  their  rights. 
They  were  given  a  great  council  of  1500 
citizens,  of  blameless  antecedents  and  over 
twenty-five  years  of  age, — a  third  of  this 
total  number  was  to  sit  for  six  months  in 
turn ;  *  and  also  a  sort  of  upper  council  of 

*  The  Hall  of  the  Cinque  Cento  in  the  Palazzo 
Vecchio  was  built  expressly  for  this  assembly. 


THE  PLAIN  STORY  OF  SAVONAROLA'S  LIFE. 


eighty,  in  which  all  magistrates  were  entitled 
to  sit,  and  which — conjoined  with  the  Sig- 
nory — held  weekly  meetings  to  decide  ques- 
tions of  too  grave  and  delicate  a  nature  to 
be  discussed  in  the  larger  assembly.  These 
institutions  amply  satisfied  the  demands  of 
the  people,  and  offered  a  fair  prospect  of 
equitable  government.  And  here — space 
lacking  for  closer  details — it  may  be  inter- 
esting to  give  the  precise  formula  in  which 
Savonarola  summed  up  his  programme  of 
the  new  constitution  : 

I.  The  fear  of  God,  and  purification  of 
manners.  II.  The  promotion  of  public 
well-being  rather  than  of  private  interests. 
III.  A  general  amnesty  to  all  political  of- 
fenders. IV.  A  council  on  the  model  of 
that  of  Venice,  without  a  Doge. 

At  first  all  went  well,  public  business  was 
carried  on  with  sufficient  regularity,  men's 
minds  were  at  rest,  and  the  war  with  Pisa, 
not  as  yet  of  threatening  proportions,  served 
the  good  purpose  of  keeping  the  Floren- 
tines from  quarreling  among  themselves. 
What,  it  may  be  asked,  was  the  position  in 
the  new  commonwealth  of  the  man  to  whose 
authority  it  owed  its  birth  ?  He  held  no 
recognized  office  save  his  normal  one  of 
Prior  of  St.  Mark's,  yet  he  was  chief  guard- 
ian of  the  public  weal,  and  de  facto  Dictator 
of  Florence.  As  an  instance  of  his  remark- 
able political  wisdom,  we  may  mention  that  it 
was  at  his  instance  that  the  whole  oppressive 
system  of  arbitrary  imports,  and  so-called 
voluntary  loans,  was  swept  away,  and  re- 
placed by  a  tax  of  ten  per  cent,  (la  decima) 
on  all  real  property.  All  the  laws  and  edicts 
of  this  memorable  period  read  like  para- 
phrases of  Savonarola's  sermons,  although 
his  political  counsels  were  only,  as  it  were, 
interpolated  among  his  religious  admoni- 
tions, with  which  he  tasked  the  sins  of  his 
countrymen,  the  degradation  of  the  church, 
and  urged  Florence  to  purge  itself  of  its 
corruptions  until  it  should  become  a  truly 
Christian  city,  a  model,  not  to  Rome  only, 
but  to  the  world  at  large.  Now  it  was  that 
his  eloquence  poured  forth  in  fullest  tide. 
Day  after  day  his  impassioned  exhortations, 
pregnant  with  the  spirit  of  the  Old  Testa- 
ment, wrought  upon  the  minds  of  the  Flor- 
entines, stirring  them  to  a  fervor  of  holiness 
to  which  they  had  never  before — have 
never  since  attained.  The  tension,  indeed, 
was  too  strong  to  be  lasting,  and  Savona- 
rola was  too  uncompromising  a  partisan  not 
to  arouse  the  keenest  hatred  of  his  political 
adversaries,  as  well  as  of  the  shameless  court 
of  Rome.  Thus,  even  when  his  authority 


seemed  most  firmly  established,  when  \ 
fame  drew  even  inhabitants  of  distant  citi 
around  his  pulpit,  and  the  Piazza  del  D 
omo  would  frequently  be  filled  with  tl 
overflowing  throng  who  could  find  no  pla 
within  the  vast  cathedral,  his  enemies- 
as  yet  afraid  to  raise  their  voices — we 
secretly  intriguing  for  his  downfall. 

Meanwhile,  pleasure-loving  Florence  f< 
lowed  the  routine  of  the  cloister;  half  t 
year  was  devoted  to  abstinence,  and  hard 
any  citizen  ventured  to  purchase  meat  < 
a  day  set  apart  by  Savonarola  as  a  fa 
Houses,  schools  and  shops  were  closed  < 
the  days  when  he  preached.  Lauds,  char 
and  psalms  were  heard  in  the  streets  th 
not  long  before  had  echoed  the  ribald  son 
of  Lorenzo  de'  Medici.  Men  dressed  in  s 
ber  colors,  and  women  discarded  finery  ai 
jewels.  Wives  quitted  their  husbands  to  ent 
convents,  and  husbands  left  their  wives.  Mi 
riage  became  an  awful  and  barely  permitti 
rite ;  women  now  nursed  their  own  infant 
and  people  of  all  ranks,  scholars,  artis 
literati,  gave  up  the  world,  and  assumed  tl 
Dominican  habit.  But  it  was  to  the  childn 
of  Florence  that  Savonarola  addressed  r 
tenderest  appeals,  and  there  is  no  great 
proof  of  the  marvelous  magnetic  power 
the  man,  of  his  genuine  goodness  and  puri 
of  soul,  than  the  enthusiasm  with  which  tl 
youth  of  the  city  responded  to  his  ca 
Soon  he  had  them  organized  into  a  sort  < 
sacred  militia,  into  a  republic  within  tl 
republic,  with  special  magistrates  and  fun 
tionaries  charged  with  the  enforcement  < 
all  his  rules  of  holy  living.  It  was  with  tl 
aid  of  these  youthful  bands  of  inquisitors- 
who,  as  was  to  be  expected,  frequent 
abused  their  singular  power,  and  tyrannize 
over  the  elder  citizens — that  Savonarola  c 
ganized  the  sacred  carnival  of  1496,  wh< 
people  surrendered  their  costliest  possessioi 
for  the  good  of  the  poor,  and  the  square  < 
St.  Mark's  beheld  the  curious  spectacle  < 
tonsured  monks,  crowned  with  garlanc 
singing  lauds  and  performing  wild  dances  f 
the  glory  of  God.  David  had  danced  b 
fore  the  ark,  and  therefore  Savonarola  ini 
ated  and  encouraged  these  novel  religio 
exercises.  The  following  year,  in  the  sar 
spirit,  and  to  emphasize  the  doctrine  of  i 
nunciation  of  carnal  gauds,  he  celebrat 
the  carnival  by  the  famous  Burning  of  t 
Vanities.  This  ceremony,  however,  had 
modern  precedent,  for  St.  Bernardino 
Sierra  had  held  a  bonfire  at  Perugia  of  t 
same  species,  although  on  a  smaller  sea 
Some  of  the  old  writers  have  greatly  ex£ 


THE  PLAIN  STORY  OF  SAVONAROLA'S  LIFE. 


gerated  the  value  of  the  objects  consumed 
on  Savonarola's  pyre  in  the  Piazza  della 
Signoria,  but  it  is  a  fact  that  a  certain  Vene- 
tian merchant  scandalized  the  Piagnone  Sig- 
nory,  then  in  office,  by  asking  to  be  allowed 
to  purchase  the  pyramid  of  vanities,  and 
offering  the  sum  of  22,000  gold  florins.  The 
offer  was  indignantly  rejected,  and  a  por- 
trait of  the  godless  Venetian  promptly  added 
to  the  pile. 

Meanwhile,  events  were  darkening;  Sa- 
vonarola's power  drooping  to  its  fall. 
Already,  two  years  before,  Pope  Alexander 
had  repented  his  consent  to  the  enfran- 
chisement of  St.  Mark's  from  the  authority 
of  the  Lombard  Dominicans.  A  transcript 
of  one  of  the  terribly  graphic  sermons,  in 
which  the  Prior  ascribed  the  past  and 
present  evils  of  Italy  and  the  whole  world 
to  the  scandalous  vice  of  the  pontifical 
court,  had  reached  the  Pope's  eyes,  and 
he  resolved  to  silence  the  daring  preacher, 
who  so  openly  denounced  his  crimes.  Fair 
means  were  first  tried ;  the  Prior  was  even 
offered  the  archbishopric  of  Florence ;  hints 
of  a  forthcoming  cardinal's  hat  whispered 
in  his  ear. 

But  Alexander  had  mistaken  the  man 
with  whom  he  had  to  deal ;  personal  ambi- 
tion had  no  entrance  in  Fra  Girolamo's  soul. 
His  indignation  rose  to  its  fiercest  height, 
and  from  his  pulpit  he  uttered  these  pro- 
phetic words :  "  I  will  have  no  hat  but  that 
of  the  martyr,  red  with  mine  own  blood." 

As  long  as  the  French  king  remained  in 
Italy,  the  Pope  was  too  much  harassed  about 
his  own  safety  to  take  any  vigorous  steps 
to  indulge  his  hatred  of  Savonarola.  But 
he  was  only  biding  his  time ;  the  Borgias 
never  forgot  their  enemies,  and  the  news  of 
the  marvels  accomplished  by  the  friar — of 
skeptical  Florence  transformed  into  an 
austerely  Christian  republic,  claiming  our 
Saviour  for  its  head — served  to  inflame  his 
rage  and  dread  to  the  highest  pitch.  This 
friar  must  be  crushed !  Other  enemies 
were  also  at  work,  among  them  Ludovico 
Sforza,  the  powerful  Duke  of  Milan,  and 
already,  in  July,  1495,  a  Papal  brief  had 
courteously  summoned  Savonarola  to  Rome. 
The  Prior,  with  equal  courtesy,  alleged  vari- 
ous excuses  for  declining  to  go.  In  Sep- 
tember came  another  summons — less  softly 
worded — and  soon  after  a  third,  threatening 
1  to  lay  an  interdict  on  Florence  in  case  of 
I  refusal.  Savonarola  would  not  obey  the 
citation,  but  for  a  while  he  suspended  his 
(sermons  in  Florence,  preaching  instead  in 
other  Tuscan  cities.  In  the  Lent  of  1496  he 


gave  his  famous  series  of  sermons  upon  the 
Prophet  Amos,  reiterated  the  necessity  of 
church  reform  and  ingeniously  strove  to  rec- 
oncile his  rebellion  against  Alexander,  the 
man,  with  his  unalterable  fidelity  to  the  suc- 
cessor of  St.  Peter.  By  this  time  the  eyes 
of  all  Italy  were  turned  on  the  simple  friar, 
who  dared,  single-handed,  to  brave  the 
Papal  authority.  It  was  a  deadly  duel,  in 
which  one  of  the  combatants  must  succumb, 
and  Savonarola's  utterances  were  arousing 
a  storm  which  might  not  impossibly  van- 
quish even  the  tremendous  force  of  Rome. 
This  the  Pope  knew,  so  his  enemy  must  be 
destroyed.  The  religious  carnival  of  1496 
furnished  the  desired  pretext  for  new  pro- 
ceedings against  Savonarola.  A  commission 
of  Dominicans  found  him  guilty  of  her- 
esy, schism  and  disobedience  to  the  Holy 
See.  The  threatened  sentence  of  anathema 
was  still,  for  some  reason,  delayed ;  but 
meanwhile  a  fresh  brief  united  the  convent 
of  St.  Mark's  to  a  new  Tuscan  province  of 
the  order,  and  Savonarola  was  no  longer 
vicar-general.  Fortunately  for  him,  the 
Piagnoni  were  in  power  at  the  beginning  of 
1497,  and  his  firm  friend,  Francesco  Valori, 
took  the  lead  in  public  affairs.  In  March, 
however,  things  changed.  The  Arrabbiati 
and  the  partisans  of  the  Medici  merged 
their  political  differences  in  common  hatred 
of  the  friar.  Piero  de'  Medici  attempted  to 
enter  the  city,  and,  although  he  failed,  his  ad- 
herents actively  pursued  their  intrigues,  and 
party  spirit  burst  out  with  all  its  virulence. 
The  citizens  were  growing  weary  of  the  re- 
ligious constraints  imposed  upon  them,  and 
Alexander  saw  that  the  moment  was  coming 
when  revenge  would  be  within  his  grasp. 
In  May,  a  Signory  avowedly  hostile  to  the 
friar  came  into  office,  and  on  Ascension 
Day  his  enemies  exchanged  sullen  silence 
for  active  insult.  Stealing  secretly  into  the 
cathedral,  they  heaped  his  pulpit  with  filth, 
spread  an  ass's  skin  over  the  cushion,  and 
ran  sharp  nails  into  the  board  on  which  the 
preacher  would  strike  his  hand.  His  vigilant 
disciples  discovered  the  atrocity.  In  time 
the  pulpit  was  purified,  and,  although  the 
church  was  half-filled  with  clamoring  Ar- 
rabbiati, who  even  tried  to  make  an  attempt 
upon  his  life,  Savonarola  calmly  delivered 
a  most  impressive  sermon,  which  speedily 
found  its  way  to  distant  provinces.  Still,  the 
incident  showed  the  strength  of  the  hostile 
current,  and  the  Signory,  in  feigned  anxiety 
for  the  public  peace,  begged  the  Prior  to 
suspend  his  preaching  for  a  while. 

Almost  immediately  afterward,  the  long- 


THE  PLAIN  STORY  OF  SAVONAROLA'S  LIFE. 


threatened  bull  of  excommunication  was 
launched.  Fra  Mariano  was  in  Rome,  and 
had  urged  the  Pope  to  no  longer  delay 
his  vengeance.  Still  Savonarola  was  un- 
daunted, and  declared  the  sentence  to  be 
null  and  void ;  adding,  too,  that  his  mission 
came  direct  from  the  Almighty,  and  that 
Alexander,  elected  simoniacally  and  stained 
with  crime,  could  be  no  true  Pope.  Never- 
theless, the  public  proclamation  of  the  sen- 
tence, on  the  22d  of  June,  could  not  fail  to 
make  a  deep  impression  on  the  public  mind. 
All  the  clergy  and  the  members  of  several 
orders  hostile  to  Savonarola  assembled  in 
the  Duomo ;  the  brief  was  solemnly  read, 
and  then  all  the  lights  were  extinguished  to 
symbolize  the  spiritual  darkness  that  had 
fallen  on  the  friar  and  his  disciples.  The 
Arrabbiati  being  still  in  office,  the  Com- 
pagnacci  had  full  liberty  of  action,  and  the 
city  gave  itself  up  to  license  as  in  the  days 
of  Lorenzo  il  Magnifico.  But  in  July  the 
new  Government  was  favorable  to  the  friar, 
and  corresponded  actively  with  Rome  to  ob- 
tain the  removal  of  the  excommunication. 

Meanwhile,  the  plague  had  broken  out  in 
Florence,  and  for  a  time  party  strife  was 
stayed  by  the  presence  of  this  invincible 
foe.  Savonarola  calmly  faced  the  danger 
and  supported  the  courage  of  his  two  hun- 
dred and  fifty  brethren,  taking  wise  pre- 
cautions for  their  safety,  and  sending  the 
younger  monks  into  the  country  away  from 
the  contagion.  His  enemies  blamed  him 
for  not  going  about  the  town  visiting  the 
sick,  willfully  forgetting  that  such  ministra- 
tions were  forbidden  to  an  excommunicated 
man.  About  this  time  Rome  was  in  com- 
motion about  the  mysterious  murder  of  the 
Duke  of  Gandia,  and  the  Pope,  his  bereaved 
father,  was  plunged  in  the  wildest  despair. 
Savonarola  sent  a  letter  of  condolence  in 
which  he,  the  excommunicated,  boldly  bade 
the  Pontiff  bow  to  the  heavenly  wrath,  and 
repent  of  his  sins  while  there  was  yet  time. 

The  cessation  of  the  plague  brought  no 
peace  to  Florence,  for  Medician  intrigues 
were  spreading,  and  a  powerful  conspiracy 
aiming  at  Piero's  restoration  was  discov- 
ered. Five  leading  citizens  were  impli- 
cated in  the  plot;  among  them  Bernardo  del 
Nero,  an  old  man  of  seventy-five  years,  of 
high  talent  and  position.  The  Gonfalonier, 
Francesco  Valori,  exercised  his  influence 
to  obtain  their  condemnation,  and  all  five 
were  put  to  death.  It  is  said  that  Sa- 
vonarola might  have  saved  at  least  Ber- 
nardo del  Nero,  had  he  wished ;  and  'it  is 
certain  that,  although  he  took  no  active 


part  against  the  prisoners,  he  refused  to  rais 
his  voice  in  the  cause  of  mercy.  Whateve 
his  motives,  his  silence  destroyed  his  pop 
ularity  with  moderate  men,  and  gained  th 
Arrabbiati — crushed  as  they  were  for  th 
moment — numerous  fresh  adherents.  Th 
execution  of  the  guilty  men  served  to  ex 
asperate  the  fury  of  the  Pope,  of  Sforza  an< 
all  potentates  friendly  to  the  Medici,  t 
the  highest  point.  Fra  Girolamo  was  no\ 
interdicted  from  preaching  even  in  his  owi 
convent,  and  he  was  again  summoned  t 
Rome.  He  again  refused  obedience,  am 
although  consenting  to  abstain  from  pub 
lie  preaching,  he  held  conferences  in  Si 
Mark's  that  were  attended  by  all  his  dis 
ciples,  and  on  Christmas  day  he  defied  th 
interdict  by  publicly  celebrating  mass  am 
heading  a  solemn  procession  through  th 
cloisters. 


v. 


THE  next  year,  1498,  which  was  to  wil 
ness  the  close  of  his  wonderful  careei 
opened  under  apparently  favorable  auspice; 
Now,  again,  the  Piagnoni  ruled  affairs,  am 
at  their  invitation  Savonarola  resumed  hi 
sermons  in  the  Duomo,  while  his  best-be 
loved  disciple,  Fra  Domenico  Buonvicin 
preached  in  San  Lorenzo.  Again  a  scaffold 
ing  of  seats  had  to  be  erected  in  the  cathe 
dral  to  accommodate  the  throng  of  the  Prior1 
hearers,  and  the  Arrabbiati  could  only  ver 
their  spite  by  rioting  on  the  Piazza  outsidt 
This  year — for  the  last  time — the  carnivj 
was  again  celebrated  with  fantastic  religiou 
displays,  and  a  second  burning  of  the  Vani 
ties,  in  which  perished  many  priceless  vol 
umes  and  treasures  of  art. 

Briefs  more  and  more  furious  arrived  fror 
Rome;  the  Pope  had  read  one  of  Savona 
rola's  recent  sermons  on  Exodus ;  Florenc 
itself  was  threatened  with  interdict,  and  th 
Florentine  embassador  with  difficulty  ob 
tained  a  short  delay.  But  now  the  Piag 
noni  term  of  office  had  expired ;  the  nei 
men  were  less  favorable  to  the  Prior,  am 
accordingly  his  friends  persuaded  him  t 
withdraw  to  St.  Mark's.  There,  howeve 
he  continued  to  preach  with  unabated  fei 
vor,  and  one  day  in  the  week  was  set  apai 
for  his  sermons  to  women  who  could  nc 
brook  entire  deprivation  of  his  teaching! 
The  Signory  tried  to  mitigate  the  Pope' 
rage  by  representing  the  wonderful  spiritui 
effects  of  Savonarola's  words ;  the  Pope 
plied  that  they  must  either  silence  the 
or  send  him  to  be  judged  in  Rome. 


THE  PLAIN  STORY  OF  SAVONAROLA'S  LIFE. 


But  in  his  own  danger  Savonarola  saw 
only  an  additional  motive  for  denouncing 
the  unrighteous  ruler  of  the  church.  He 
resolved  to  appeal  to  all  Christendom  against 
this  wicked  Pope,  and  dispatched  letters  to 
all  the  potentates  of  Europe,  solemnly  ad- 
juring them  to  call  a  council  to  judge  this 
anti-pope.  The  council  of  Constance  and  the 
deposition  of  John  XXIII.  were  still  fresh  in 
men's  memories.  One  of  these  letters  was 
destined  to  be  the  friar's  death-blow,  for, 
being  intercepted  by  the  Duke  of  Milan,  it 
was  by  him  forwarded  to  Rome.  And  now 
so  tremendous  a  bull  was  hurled  at  Florence 
that  the  Signory  were  thoroughly  alarmed, 
and  entreated  the  friar  to  cease  preaching. 
Savonarola  unwillingly  consented.  He  bade 
his  hearers  a  tender  farewell,  and  so  mourn- 
ful, so  solemn  were  his  concluding  words, 
that  possibly  he  felt  a  presentiment  that  he 
would  never  again  mount  his  pulpit  stairs. 
It  was  hoped  that  now  the  Pope  would 
be  appeased,  and  Florence  permitted  to 
breathe. 

The  prophet  was  dumb,  but  now  the  folly 
of  his  disciples  brought  about  the  often 
related  event  that  precipitated  his  fate.  In- 
stigated by  the  Arrabbiati,  a  Franciscan 
monk,  Fra  Francesco  di  Vuglia,  challenged 
Savonarola  to  the  ordeal  by  fire,  in  order  to 
prove  the  falsity  of  the  friar's  doctrines. 
At  first  Savonarola  treated  the  unseemly 
provocation  with  the  contempt  it  deserved, 
but  unfortunately  his  zealous  disciple,  Fra 
Domenico,  took  it  upon  him  to  accept  the 
challenge.  The  Franciscan  declared  that 
his  defiance  was  directed  to  Savonarola;  with 
him  only  would  he  go  through  the  fire. 
Fra  Domenico,  conceiving  the  honor  of  the 
whole  Dominican  order  to  be  at  stake,  vowed 
to  maintain  by  the  trial  of  fire  the  truth 
of  his  master's  prophecies.  As  Savonarola 
[persisted  in  refusing  the  trial  for  himself, 
Fra  Francesco  deputed  a  convert,  one  Giu- 
I  liano  di  Rondinelli,  to  go  through  the  ordeal 
with  Fra  Domenico.  The  preliminaries  of 
this  dispute  were  long;  Savonarola  perceived 
[that  his  foes  were  laying  a  trap  for  him,  and 
[discountenanced  the  "  experiment  "  until 
[overcome  by  Fra  Domenico's  supplications, 
llndeed,  he  showed  a  curious  wavering  of 
Imind  throughout  this  affair,  which  was  a 
[kind  of  reductio  ad  absurdum  of  his  most 
Cherished  beliefs.  Yet,  so  genuine  was  his 
iith  in  the  divinity  of  his  mission  that,  in 
liis  more  ardent  moments,  he  anticipated  the 
Imccess  of  the  terrible  ordeal  a  sperimento. 
|x>  he  hesitated,  now  listening  to  the  voice 
|)f  reason,  now  swayed  by  passionate  zeal, 


till  at  last  he  let  his  calmer  judgment  be 
overborne  by  the  fanaticism  of  his  followers. 
The  Arrabbiati  and  Compagnacci  pressed 
the  matter  on,  aided  therein  by  the  Signers 
who  were  playing  into  the  hands  of  Rome. 
Now,  at  last,  the  way  was  clear  to  the  ac- 
complishment of  the  friar's  destruction. 

On  the  yth  April,  1491,  an  immense  crowd 
gathered  in  the  Piazza  della  Signoria  to  wit- 
ness the  barbarous  spectacle.  The  Francis- 
cans on  one  side,  the  Dominicans  on  the 
other,  came  in  procession  to  the  scene  of 
action,  and  stationed  themselves  beneath  the 
Loggia  di  Langi,  divided  by  a  boarding  into 
two  compartments.  A  double  hedge  of 
combustibles,  forty  yards  long,  with  a  nar- 
row path  between,  had  been  erected  in  front 
of  the  palace,  and  a  force  of  five  hundred 
soldiers  kept  a  clear  circle  around.  Some 
writers  assert  that  the  pile  was  charged  with 
gunpowder.  Never,  perhaps,  had  so  dense 
a  throng  been  seen  in  Florence.  Not  only 
the  square  itself,  but  every  roof,  every  win- 
dow, every  balcony  commanding  the  small- 
est glimpse  of  it,  was  filled  with  eager 
spectators.  Savonarola,  after  celebrating 
mass  at  St.  Mark's,  headed  in  person  the 
Dominican  procession.  He  bore  the  Host 
in  his  hands,  and  placed  it  on  an  altar 
erected  in  his  portion  of  the  Loggia.  As 
Fra  Domenico  bent  his  knee  before  it, 
the  Piagnoni  burst  into  an  enthusiastic 
chant.  The  magistrates  now  gave  the 
signal  for  the  advance  of  the  two  champions. 
Fra  Domenico  stepped  forward,  but  neither 
Rondinelli  nor  Fra  Francesco,  the  origi- 
nator of  the  strife,  was  anywhere  to  be  seen. 
Then  the  Franciscans  began  to  make  all 
manner  of  strange  objections.  Fra  Domen- 
ico's sacerdotal  robes  might  be  enchanted, 
they  said.  He  quickly  changed  his  dress 
for  a  friar's  robe ;  still  they  were  not  con- 
tent; he  had  stood  near  the  friar  and 
probably  had  been  re-enchanted.  At  least, 
he  must  remove  his  cross.  He  removed  it ; 
he  was  ready  to  consent  to  anything  in 
order  to  enter  the  fire.  Still  the  Francis- 
cans found  fresh  pretexts  for  delay,  and 
when  Savonarola  insisted  that  his  champion 
should  bear  the  Host,  they  raised  loud  cries 
against  the  sacrilege  of  exposing  the  Re- 
deemer's body  to  the  flames.  The  crowd, 
meanwhile,  was  frenzied  with  impatience — 
all  was  confusion  and  turmoil.  Fra  Giulio 
came  not,  yet  the  Signory  sent  an  impatient 
message  to  inquire  of  the  Dominicans 
why  the  trial  was  delayed.  The  Arrabbiati 
went  about  among  the  people  foment- 
ing their  discontent,  and  throwing  the 


C2O 


THE  PLAIN  STORY  OF  SAVONAROLA'S  LIFE. 


blame  of  all  upon  Savonarola.     A  band  of 
Compagnacci    made    a    rush    toward   the 
Loggia,  intending   to   seize  the  Prior  and 
slaughter   him   on   the   spot,  but  were  re- 
pulsed by  Salviati  and  his  Piagnom. 
foreign   troops,   seeing   the   excited  crowd 
pressing  toward  the  Palazzo  Vecchio,  reso- 
lutely drove  them  back,  and  for  a  moment 
the  tumult   was   hushed.     By  this   time  it 
was  late  in  the  afternoon  ;  a  heavy  thunder- 
shower  gave  the  Signory  an  excuse  for  de- 
claring  that  heaven   was  opposed   to  the 
ordeal.     The  wily  Franciscans  quietly  dis 
appeared,  but  Savonarola,  bearing  the  Host, 
began  to  lead  his  brethren  away  across  the 
Piazza  in  the  same  solemn  order  as  they  had 
come.     This  was  the  signal  for  the  bursting 
of  the   storm.      Cheated   of  their  bloody 
diversion,  the  populace  were  mad  with  rage 
and    excitement.      Fra   Girolamo's   power 
had  suddenly  crumbled  away ;  these  Flor- 
entines   who     had    worshiped    him    now 
turned   on   him  with   virulent   hate;    their 
blind  devotion  had  changed  to  blind  fury. 
But  for  the  efforts  of  Salviati  and  his  men, 
neither  Savonarola  nor  his  brethren  would 
have  regained  St.  Mark's  alive.     As  it  was, 
they  were  pelted,  stoned,  and  insulted  by 
the    bitterest    execrations.      No    word   of 
blame   for  the  real  culprits,  the  cowardly 
Franciscans;  the  devoted  friar,  the  prophet, 
the   lawgiver   was   the  popular   scapegoat. 
We  may  imagine  the  intensity  of  Savon- 
arola's  grief.     Yet  he   preserved   a   noble 
calm,  and  going  straight  to  his  own  pulpit 
in   St.    Mark's,    he   quietly   recounted   the 
events  of  the  day  to  the  kneeling  congre- 
gation and  then  withdrew  to  his  own  cell, 
while  the  Piazza  outside  was  ringing  with 
the  yells  of  the  mob. 

On  the  following  day  the  Signory  decreed 
the  Prior's  banishment  from  Florence,  and 
Francesco  Valori,with  other  Piagnoni,  hur- 
ried to  St.  Mark's  to  deliberate  how  best  to 
assure  his  safety.     Presently  it  was   made 
public  that  the  Government  had  decided  to 
arrest   Savonarola,  and  this  was  the  signal 
for   a   ferocious  assault  upon  the  convent. 
The  gates  of  St.  Mark's  were  hastily  secured, 
arms  and  munitions  were  brought  out,  and 
it  was  found  that,  unknown   to  the  Prior, 
his  adherents  had  carefully  prepared  it  for  a 
siege.     Thereupon  the  Signory  commanded 
all  laymen  to  quit  the  convent,  and  specially 
summoned     Francesco    Valori    to    appear 
before   them.      After   much    hesitation   he 
decided  on  obedience,  in  the  hope  that  his 
influence  would   rally   all    Piagnoni  to  the 
rescue.     A  few  minutes  later  he  was  mur- 


dered in  the  street,  and  his  palace  was  sacked 
by  the  mob.     The  monks  and  their  remain- 
ing companions  rushed   to  arms,  prepared 
to  resist  to  the  death.     Savonarola  in  vain 
begged  them  to  desist.     The  defense  was 
desperate.     Some  tore  tiles  from  the  roof 
and  hurled  them  down  on  the  assailants. 
Fra    Benedetto,   the    painter,   and    others, 
fought  like  lions.     When  at  last  the  church 
was  stormed,  Savonarola  was  seen  praying 
at  the  altar,  with  Fra  Domenico  near  him, 
keeping  off  the  assassins  with  the  blows  of 
an  enormous  candlestick.     Then,  amid  the 
smoke  and  confusion,  Savonarola  was  borne 
by  his  disciples  to  the  inner  convent  library, 
and   earnestly  besought   to  seek  safety  by 
flight  from  a  window.     For  a  moment  he 
seemed  about  to  consent;  then  the  voice  of 
a  cowardly  monk,  one  Malatesta,  was  heard 
crying  that  the  shepherd  ought  to  lay  down 
his  life  to  save  his  flock.     Savonarola's  brief 
hesitation  ended.     In  a  few  soul-touching 
words  he  bade  farewell  to  his  friends,  and, 
with   faithful  Fra    Domenico  at   his   side, 
quietly   gave   himself  up   to  his    enemies, 
Later  followed  the  arrest  of  Fra  Silvestro 
betrayed  by  the  same  Malatesta.    The  pris- 
oners were  conveyed  through  the  streets  sur 
rounded  by  the  exultant,  bloodthirsty  mob 
who  reviled  them,  spat  upon  them  and  tor 
tured  them  as  they  passed.    Savonarola  wa: 
confined  in  the  same  little  cell  in  the  towe 
of  the  Palazzo  Vecchio  in  which  Cosimo  de 
Medici  had  once  been  a  prisoner. 

The  Pope  was  intoxicated  with  joy  01 
receipt  of  the  welcome  news  from  Florence 
Now  the  Florentines— said  his  brief—  wer 
indeed  true  sons  of  the  church ;  all  thei 
prayers  should  be  granted,  fullest  absolutio: 
should  be  theirs,  but— the  trial  over,  th 
three  friars  must  forthwith  be  sent  to  Rom 
to  suffer  punishment.  Sforza  was  equall 
rejoiced  at  Savonarola's  downfall,  and  th 
single  potentate  who  would  perhaps  hav 
interposed  to  save  him  from  the  stake- 
Charles  of  France— had  expired  on  th 
very  day  appointed  for  the  ordeal  by  fire. 
Thus  another  of  the  friar's  propheci* 
was  fulfilled,  at  a  moment  when  its  fumllmei 
deprived  him  of  his  sole  protector. 


VI. 


WE  must  hurry  to  the  fatal  end.  Tl 
result  of  the  trial  was  decided  even  befo 
it  began.  The  Signory  would  not  sei 
their  prisoners  to  Rome,  but  they  determm* 
to  do  Rome's  will.  The  judges  charg< 


THE  PLAIN  STORY  OF  SAVONAROLA'S  LIFE. 


521 


with  Savonarola's  examination  were  chosen 
from  his  worst  enemies.  His  fragile  body, 
weakened  by  asceticism  and  by  the  anxie- 
ties and  mental  struggles  of  the  past  months, 
was  brutally  tortured  day  after  day.  And 
day  after  day,  for  nearly  a  fortnight,  his 
delicate  frame  quivering  in  agony,  he  ad- 
mitted all  that  his  tormentors  wished,  only 
to  recant  the  forced  confession  directly  the 
examination  was  over.  The  first  wrench  of 
the  cords  threw  him  into  delirium,  and 
no  legal  process  could  be  framed  on  his 
incoherent  declarations.  At  last,  a  notary 
of  infamous  character,  one  Ceccone,  offered 
his  services  as  reporter.  Concealed  in  the 
torture-chamber,  he  composed  a  garbled 
account  of  the  friar's  confessions,  filled  with 
monstrous  falsehoods  and  exaggerations, 
and  this  was  published  instead  of  the  genu- 
ine report. 

Notwithstanding  Savonarola's  physical 
incapacity  to  resist  torture,  his  mind  regained 
its  clearness  whenever  he  was  left  in  peace 
in  his  prison.  Until  pen  and  paper  were 
withheld,  he  employed  himself  in  composing 
a  commentary  on  the  Psalms,  in  which, 
while  re-asserting  all  his  doctrines,  he  de- 
clared his  innocence  of  heresy,  and  his  un- 
shaken belief  in  the  Roman  Catholic  faith. 
His  death,  however,  was  resolved  upon,  and 
was  only  delayed  by  the  difficulty  of  ob- 
taining the  Pope's  permission  for  the  exe- 
cution to  take  place  in  Florence.  Alexander 
frantically  desired  to  have  his  enemy  in  his 
own  hands,  and  to  enjoy  the  satisfaction  pf 
punishing  him  himself.  But  the  Signory 
remained  firm.  It  was  absolutely  neces- 
sary, they  said,  that  the  deluded  Florentines 
should  witness  the  death  of  the  false  prophet 
who  had  for  so  long  led  them  astray. 

At  last,  the  matter  was  compromised  by 
the  appointment  of  Apostolic  commissioners 
to  hold  a  second  mock  trial  of  the  doomed 
man  and  his  fellow-prisoners.  It  was  nec- 
essary to  preserve  a  certain  show  of  for- 
mality and  justice  in  the  prosecution  of  a 
member  of  the  priesthood.  One  of  the 
new  judges  was  a  Venetian,  general  of  the 
Dominican  order,  the  other  a  Spaniard  of 
the  true  inquisitorial  type.  Meanwhile,  the 
trial  of  Fra  Domenico  and  Fra  Silvestro  was 
going  on.  The  former  remained  nobly 
consistent  with  his  faith,  true  to  his  master 
and  to  himself.  The  most  atrocious  torture 
could  not  induce  him  to  recant,  nor  to  utter 
a  syllable  to  the  injury  of  Savonarola.  He 
had  the  genuine  martyr  spirit,  and  it  was 
plain  that  his  ardor  for  the  ordeal  by  fire 
had  been  no  passing  fit  of  zeal,  but  the 


expression  of  firm — if  fanatic— conviction  in 
the  divinity  of  his  master's  mission.  As 
for  poor  Fra  Silvestro,  the  hysteric  seer  of 
visions,  he  at  once  gave  way  utterly,  own- 
ing himself  and  his  master  guilty  of  every 
crime  laid  to  their  charge. 

The  Papal  Commissioners  made  short 
work  of  their  deadly  task.  They  came 
armed  with  the  Pontiffs  command  that 
Savonarola  must  die,  "  were  he  even  another 
St.  John  the  Baptist."  On  three  successive 
days  the  Prior  appeared  before  them,  and  was 
tortured  more  cruelly  than  at  first.  Now, 
however,  he  withstood  the  pain  better,  and, 
although  now  and  again  the  intensity  of 
his  sufferings  made  him  promise  to  recant, 
no  sooner  was  he  unbound  than  he  re-asserted 
his  innocence,  crying  :  "  Oh,  God  !  I  have 
denied  thee  for  fear  of  pain."  Then,  on  the 
evening  of  the  22d  May,  the  death  sentence 
was  communicated  to  him  and  his  two  fol- 
lowers. Savonarola  listened  calmly  to  the 
awful  words,  and  quietly  resumed  his  inter- 
rupted prayers.  Fra  Domenico  heard  his 
doom  with  joy ;  at  least  he  should  die  by 
his  master's  side.  Fra  Silvestro,  as  might 
have  been  expected,  fell  into  weak  trans- 
ports of  despair.  Then  came  the  most 
touching  scene  of  this  cruel  tragedy. 

When  Jacopo  Niccolini,  member  of  a  re- 
ligious association  dedicated  to  the  office  of 
consoling  the  last  hours  of  condemned  pris- 
oners, entered  Savonarola's  cell  and  asked 
what  service  he  could  render  him,  the  Prior 
begged  to  be  allowed  a  short  interview  with 
his  fellow-prisoners.  Niccolini  hastened  to 
the  Signory  to  obtain  the  favor,  only  granted 
after  long  debate, — for  the  tortured  victim 
still  excited  the  fears  of  his  judges, — and 
meanwhile  a  monk  was  sent  to  shrive  the 
dying  men.  They  were  then  conducted  to 
the  hall  of  the  Cinque  Cento.  This  was 
their  first  meeting  after  forty  days  of  confine- 
ment and  torture,  forty  days  during  which 
each  had  been  told  that  the  others  had  re- 
tracted everything,  and  the  two  monks  had 
been  shown  the  false  report  of  Savonarola's 
confessions.  Yet,  the  instant  the  two  men 
beheld  the  face  of  their  chief,  their  old  love 
and  loyalty  was  rekindled.  Savonarola 
prayed  with  them,  blessed  them  and  ex- 
horted them  to  copy  their  Divine  Master, 
and  submit  silently  to  their  fate. 

The  night  was  far  advanced  by  the  time 
Savonarola  was  led  back  to  his  prison. 
Spent  with  fatigue  and  weakness,  he  asked 
permission  to  rest  his  head  on  Niccolini's 
lap  and  quickly  fell  into  a  quiet  sleep.  As 
he  slumbered,  happy  smiles  flitted  over  his 


522 


WILL    THE  FRENCH  REPUBLIC  LAST? 


face  and  his  wan,  worn  features  became  se- 
rene as  a  child's.  On  awakening,  he  spoke 
kind  words  to  Niccolini,  and  then  is  said 
to  have  prophesied  that  heavy  calamities 
would  befall  Florence  during  the  reign  of 
a  pope  named  Clement.  The  carefully 
recorded  prediction  was  verified  by  the 
siege  of  1527. 

The  next  morning  the  execution  took 
place.  On  the  spot  before  occupied  by  the 
pile  for  the  ordeal  a  great  platform  had 
been  erected,  with  a  huge  cross  at  one  end 
heaped  about  with  fagots.  The  scaffold  was 
connected,  by  means  of  a  wooden  bridge, 
with  the  Ringhiera,  which  was  occupied  by 
the  magistrate.  As  the  prisoners  crossed 
the  bridge,  clad  in  penitential  garb,  wanton 
boys  thrust  pointed  sticks  between  the 
planks  to  wound  their  bare  feet.  Then 
followed  the  ceremony  of  degradation.  For 
the  last  time  they  were  dressed  in  their 
sacerdotal  robes,  which  were  then  roughly 
stripped  off  by  two  Dominicans,  the  Bishop 
of  Vasona  and  the  Prior  of  Santa  Maria 
Novella. 


"  /  separate  you  from  the  church  militant 
and  the  church  triumphant"  said  the  Bishop. 

" Not  from  the  church  triumphant"  re- 
plied Savonarola,  i-n  a  firm  voice.  "  That 
is  beyond  thy  power." 

By  a  refinement  of  cruelty,  Savonarola 
was  the  last  to  be  put  to  death.  Only 
when  his  companions'  bodies  were  already 
dangling  from  the  two  arms  of  the  cross 
was  he  hung  from  the  center  stake.  Then 
the  pile  was  fired.  For  a  moment  the  wind 
blew  the  flames  aside,  leaving  the  corpses 
untouched.  "  A  miracle,  a  miracle !  "  cried 
the  trembling  Piagnoni,  but  the  next  instant 
the  fire  leapt  up  and  the  Piazza  resounded 
with  shouts  of  ferocious  triumph.  The 
martyrs'  remains  were  carted  away  at  dusk 
and  cast  into  the  Arno. 

Savonarola  was  dead,  his  party  crushed, 
but  when,  in  later  years,  Florence  was  a 
prey  to  the  horrors  his  voice  had  predicted, 
the  most  heroic  defenders  of  his  beloved  and 
ungrateful  city  were  Piagnoni  who  ruled 
their  lives  by  the  Prior's  precepts  and 
revered  his  memory  as  that  of  a  saint. 


WILL   THE    FRENCH    REPUBLIC    LAST? 

"FRANCE,  gradually  transformed,  has  become  a  pure    democracy." — Jules  Grevy    (~Le   Gouvernement 
Necessaire,  pamphlet,  1873). 


WHEN  an  American,  even  one  the  most 
friendly  toward  France,  questions  a  French 
republican  regarding  his  government,  he 
always  finds  in  some  moment  of  the  con- 
versation, no  matter  how  amicable  it  may 
be,  an  occasion  for  saying:  "You  have 
already  overthrown  two  republics,  almost 
three,  if,  as  your  great  Lafayette  affirmed, 
he  selected  the  best  one  for  you  in  1830; 
do  you  believe  that  this  one  will  last  ?  " 

I  reply  to  the  doubt : 

Without  going  back  as  far  as  the  Deluge, 
it  is  easy  to  show  that  the  primitive  char- 
acter of  our  race  was  democratic. 

Our  ancestors,  the  Gauls,  were  levelers, 
attached  to  the  form  of  an  elective  govern- 
ment; they  only  recognized  worth  in  those 
who  proved  it  individually,  either  in  the 
art  of  speech  in  the  assemblies  of  the  nation, 
or  in  the  art  of  war  in  battle.  At  the  time 
of  great  national  crises  the  Gaulish  confed- 
erations elected  a  chief  for  the  duration 
of  the  danger,  and  set  him  aside  if  he  proved 


himself  unworthy  of  the  suffrages  of  free 
men. 

After  the  Prankish  conquest,  while  a 
victorious  foreign  aristocracy  raised  the 
walls  of  its  strongholds,  to  oppress  and 
dominate  the  slaves,  the  freemen  and  the 
affranchised  colonists  of  Rome,  reconciled 
before  the  common  enemy,  imitated  the 
Latin  cities,  fortified  the  Gaulish  clans, 
raised  the  ramparts  of  towns,  to  close  with- 
in them  and  to  defend  therein  democracy 
and  liberty. 

At  the  beginning  of  the  nineteenth  century, 
Philippe-le-Bel,  copying  the  old  Gaulish 
charters  that  were  carefully  guarded  in  the 
archives  of  cities,  convoked  the  assemblies 
of  the  nation.  At  the  Etats-Generaux  the 
democratic  element  re-appeared  in  two 
orders :  in  the  clergy, — composed  of  the 
younger  sons  of  the  nobility,  of  merchants' 
sons,  of  bourgeois,  of  affranchised  serfs, — and 
in  the  Third  Estate. 

The  great  Gaulish  tribe  of  free  men,  tl 
Latin  colony  of  citizens,  had  not  therefor 


WILL    THE  FRENCH  REPUBLIC  LAST? 


523 


been  annihilated  by  the  feudal  aristocracy. 
It  found  itself  again,  after  eight  centuries,  in 
the  communes  t'hatwere  affranchised  by  royal 
power,  ready  to  deliver  royalty  from  the  yoke 
of  the  lords  and  from  the  yoke  of  Papacy. 

Scarcely  rescued,  by  the  united  help  of 
the  cities  and  of  the  States,  the  French 
monarchy,  attributing  to  itself  the  tyrannical 
privileges  of  the  vanquished  powers,  became 
despotic,  declared  itself  infallible,  and  op- 
pressed those  who  had  snatched  it  from 
oppression.  The  king  of  France,  throwing 
a  challenge  to  the  nation,  dared  to  say: 
"  L'Etat,  Sestmoi/" 

The  old  Latin-Gaul  at  once  re-under- 
took, against  royalty,  the  struggle  it  had 
carried  on  against  feudalism.  It  was  the 
national  assemblies,  the  Etats-Generaux, 
that  overthrew  the  monarchy  which  had  be- 
come aristocratic  and  Prankish  in  its  turn. 

The  French  Revolution  proclaimed  the 
victory  of  democracy,  which  had  not  ceased 
its  growth  throughout  the  ages  of  our  his- 
tory; to  the  recognition  of  the  Gaulish 
principles  of  the  rights  of  free  men,  the 
revolution  added  the  classical  form  of  the 
Latin  republic. 

There  issued  from  this  great  national  up- 
rising— like  a  tempest  that  throws  impuri- 
ties to  the  shore — a  singular  fact :  while 
the  Gaulish  territories  and  the  Gallo- 
Roman  cities  proclaimed  the  triumph  of 
the  nation,  the  Frankish  nobility  returned 
to  Coblentz,  on  the  other  side  of  the  Rhine, 
whence  it  had  come. 

At  this  moment,  the  Gallo-Latin  revolu- 
tion was  personified  in  three  men  belonging 
to  the  Third  Estate  :  Mirabeau,  of  a  Latin 
family ;  Danton,  born  in  the  Aube,  (whence 
foreigners  were  driven  by  the  law  which 
compelled  forfeiture  to  the  crown  of  an 
alien's  property,  on  his  death  ;)  and  Monsieur 
de  Robespierre,  of  a  Picard  stock,  a  Gaulish 
race  that  had  given  birth  to  Velleda. 

Why  did  not  the  French  Revolution  that 
had  been  prepared  so  long,  during  centuries, 
and  that  was  based  upon  the  primitive 
elements  of  democracy,  which  had  unceas- 
ingly increased, — why  did  not  this  revolu- 
tion that  remained,  after  all,  mistress  of  the 
power  of  the  nation — why  did  it  not  know 
how  to  preserve,  on  its  first  trial  of  govern- 
ment, the  republican  form  ? 

Because  the  lower  classes  of  France  that 
were  thoroughly  Gaulish  did  not  identify 
the  republic  with  the  revolution.  Left  to 
themselves  they  would  have  raised  a  military 
chief,  which  they  did  do  later.  Still  bar- 
barous, they  were  ignorant  of  the  traditions 


of  the  Latin  or  Italian  republics,  from  which 
the  cities  gathered  strength, — and  it  was  the 
cities  that  proclaimed  the  republic. 

What  the  majority  of  the  nation  wished 
was  that  democracy  should  reign,  should 
govern.  Not  one  of  the  castes  that  was 
favored  by  the  revolution  would  have  con- 
sented to  have  allowed  itself  to  be  dis- 
possessed of  a  franchise.  The  earth  was 
cultivated  without  taxation  ;  the  merchant 
followed  his  trade  freely;  the  soldier  did  not 
see  fetters  of  birth  raised  between  himself 
and  his  rank.  The  government  seemed,  in 
comparison  to  these  immortal  conquests,  an 
affair  of  but  little  importance,  especially  as 
it  had  been  conceived  in  all  its  parts  by  men 
of  letters,  by  "philosophers,"  as  they  said 
then,  and  from  the  fact  that  the  two-thirds  of 
the  country  did  not  understand  its  formulas 
and  phrases,  overflowing  as  they  were  with 
classical  reminiscences. 

The  idea  of  the  nation  alone  excited  the 
Gauls ;  they  even  went  so  far  as  to  substi- 
tute for  it  the  idea  of  country.  The  Romans 
found  in  it  the  city,  the  commune,  the  strug- 
gle of  opposite  parties,  but  very  few  persons 
attached  themselves  to  the  republic — a  con- 
ception too  elevated  for  them,  and  appreci- 
able only  by  a  small  number  of  educated 
people. 

When  the  nation,  the  country,  the  fields, 
the  commune,  were  in  danger,  those  who 
perhaps  would  not  have  given  their  lives  for 
the  republic,  feeling  awakened  within  them 
the  military  instincts  of  two  races,  rushed 
almost  without  arms  to  the  frontier. 

To  the  French  people,  composed  of  these 
elements  which  I  have  analyzed,  the  first 
revelation  of  national  pride  did  not  come 
from  institutions,  but  from  renown,  and  the 
victories  of  military  men  fascinated  them 
more  than  did  the  quarrels  of  lawyers. 

The  love  of  war  and  of  battle  was  so 
great  in  France  that  those  who  remained 
away  from  the  armies  wished  to  have  their 
share  in  heroic  combats  also.  They  sought 
enemies  around  them,  and  they  found  them. 
The  country  was  in  danger  without,  they 
saw  it  imperiled  within.  Patriots  rained 
death  externally,  they  made  it  rain  inter- 
nally. More  than  one  Jacobin  thought  he 
was  saving  France  by  killing  his  enemies 
the  royalists,  while  the  delegates  of  the 
Comite  de  Salut  Public  exterminated  for- 
eigners, the  friends  of  the  emigres. 

The  Terror  was  considered  as  powerful  a 
means  for  delivering  France  as  was  victory 
in  the  field.  By  suppressing  the  nobility  and 
the  courageous,  active  individualities  of  the 


524 


WILL    THE  FRENCH  REPUBLIC  LAST? 


privileged  classes,  by  raising  farmers,  masons, 
blacksmiths  and  postillions  to  the  rank  of 
army  commanders,  the  Government  made 
havoc  of  democracy,  but  did  not  consoli- 
date the  republic. 

The  disciples  of  Rousseau,  of  Voltaire, 
of  the  reformers  of  all  ages,  of  the  philoso- 
phers of  all  times,  might  disappear,  the 
republic  might  be  repudiated,  without  the 
majority  of  the  country  believing  that 
equality  and  democracy  were  menaced,  and 
the  Emperor  Napoleon  could  be  crowned 
without  the  peasant  in  his  field  and  in  his 
municipality,  without  the  national  clergy  in 
its  parishes,  sheltered  by  the  Concordat, 
without  the  soldier  in  his  ambition,  fearing 
the  re-establishment  of  "  privileges." 

It  is  necessary  to  reiterate  these  facts 
in  spite  of  the  protestation  of  partisans. 
Csesarism  is  democratic,  although  it  creates 
a  disturbing  democracy, — the  institutions  of 
the  Empire  and  those  of  the  Republic  are 
identical.  There  is  only  one  differential 
point  between  the  two  forms  of  government— 
an  imperceptible  point  for  the  people,  until 
it  has  seen  it  enlarge,  extend,  swell  and 
pour  frightful  calamities  over  the  nation. 

The  Empire,  which  is  a  personal  govern- 
ment, develops  democratic  institutions  for 
its  own  profit ;  one  man  directs  the  national 
sovereignty  for  his  benefit  and  for  that  of 
his  dynasty :  while  the  Republic  is  national 
sovereignty  developing  itself,  the  country 
governing  itself,  and  being  benefited  by  its 
own  resources  and  conforming  its  institu- 
tions for  the  general  need,  not  for  individual 
wants. 

The  Emperor  Napoleon — and  there  is  no 
reason  for  being  astonished  at  this — seemed, 
therefore,  to  the  masses  the  continuator  of 
the  revolution,  the  defender  of  democracy. 
After  a  time,  it  had  to  be  recognized  that 
the  private  interests  of  an  emperor  may 
be  in  contradiction  to  the  public  interests 
of  the  nation.  The  peasant  saw  invasion 
ravage  his  land,  war  overburden  him  with 
taxes,  the  Imperial  government  carry  off  his 
sons;  merchants  saw  blockade  stop  com- 
merce, the  army  take  away  arms  from  indus- 
try, the  fortune  of  France  compromised. 
The  soldiers  themselves,  wearied  by  defeat, 
saw  only  the  miseries  of  glory. 

The  nation,  for  a  moment  exhausted  and 
vanquished,  let  itself  be  surprised  by  the 
European  coalition  and  by  the  invasion, 
and,  as  it  could  not  resist  it,  in  spite  of  the 
united  efforts  of  the  false  Imperial  democ- 
racy and  of  the  true  democracy  of  the 
revolution,  it  capitulated  and  endured  the 


government  of  a  Bourbon,  "  a  friend  to  his 
enemies." 

The  exhaustion  lasted  but  a  little  while; 
the  strength  of  the  French  democracy  was 
revived  with  the  force  of  an  indestructible 
body !  The  old  ideas  of  charter,  of  reform 
were  taken  up  again,  and  followed  out  in 
history  by  liberal  writers ;  an  opposition  was 
formed  which  endeavored  to  instruct  the 
French  democracy,  and  to  associate  in  its 
mind,  in  a  better  manner,  democratic  and 
republican  principles. 

The  revolution   of   1830   arose,   created 
again  by  the  educated  classes  of  the  cities, 
and  was  accepted  as  before  by  the  French 
democratic  nation  ;   but  it  was  powerless  to 
attempt    even   a  bad  republic.     The  bour- 
geoisie, becoming   aristocratic   after  having 
conquered  the  aristocracy,  as  royalty  had 
become   despotic  after  having   vanquished 
feudalism,   took  possession  of  power,  and 
created  a  privileged  caste  in  the  democracy. 
But  already  the  republican  party,  free  from 
its   classical   conceptions   of   republics,   its 
illusions  destroyed  with  regard  to  the  bene- 
fits of  an  Imperial  democracy,  no  more  in 
contact  with  a  certain  number  of  educated 
workmen,  and   increased   by  the  addition 
of  "capacity," — which  had  till   then  been 
unrecognized   by   the   leading   classes,  but 
which  was  already  influential, — looked  be- 
low, saw  the  depths  of  the  disorganizatior 
of  the  democracy,  the  hunger  of  its  wants 
and  became  eager  to  satisfy  demands  tha' 
were  without   doubt   legitimate,  but  whicl 
were  still  violent,  disorderly  and  infeasible 
and  it   went  wrong  a   second  time.     Th< 
republican  party,   which  at  the   epoch  ol 
the    first    revolution    had   not    sufficient!] 
taken   into   account   the   silent  masses   o: 
the  French   democracy,  was  lost   in    184! 
with  it,  and  with  them. 

The  democratic  and  socialist  republican 
regarded  the  State  as  an  individuality,  a 
a  person,  whose  duty  it  was  to  make  i 
distribution  of  riches,  to  create  labor,  t< 
establish  credit,  to  decree  reform — a  danger 
ous,  Utopian  dream,  which  made  the  masse 
believe  that  they  could  exact  public  pros 
perity  and  a  benign  government. 

The  systems  of  Fourier,  of  Cabet,  of  Loui 
Blanc,  etc.,  were  therefore  held  in  hono 
until  they  had  thrown  the  people  into  th 
arms  of  a  second  Emperor,  "destined  t 
extinguish  pauperism."  Again  was  wil 
nessed  the  spectacle  of  an  empire  wit 
popular,  democratic  institutions,  re-establish 
ing  universal  suffrage  (which  had  bee 
suppressed  by  the  reaction),  taking  care  c 


WILL    THE  FRENCH  REPUBLIC  LAST? 


525 


laborers,  giving  a  forced  impulse  to  credit, 
to  commerce,  to  industry,  and  creating  by 
this  false  democracy  a  false  prosperity  and 
a  false  extinction  of  pauperism. 

The  republicans,  who  had  become  more 
numerous,  less  ignorant,  less  Utopian,  less 
passionate,  were  struck  by  the  similitude  of 
the  advent  of  the  two  empires,  and  they 
studied  and  investigated  more  seriously  the 
bearings  and  relations  of  democracy  and 
republican  government. 

Influential  men  of  the  leading  classes, 
united  with  the  eminent  personalities  of  the 
"  new  social  stratas,"  foresaw  the  disasters 
brought  about  by  the  empire,  and  endeav- 
ored to  destroy  the  terrible  impression  which 
the  republic  of  1793  had  left  upon  the 
country,  and  to  calm  the  anxiety  which  the 
bourgeoisie  and  the  peasants  felt  in  conse- 
quence of  the  Utopian  ideas  concerning  the 
division  of  land  and  of  money  disseminated 
by  1848.  Instructed  by  the  working  of 
universal  suffrage  for  twenty  years,  struck  by 
the  irresistible  power,  of  the  popular  masses, 
and  convinced  of  their  growing  capacity, 
they  finally  conceived  a  republic  born  of  the 
democracy,  the  living  expression  of  national 
sovereignty,  which  should  invite  the  country 
to  take  the  initiative  itself,  the  responsibility 
of  reforms,  and  to  endow  every  freeman  with 
the  power  of  participating  in  the  govern- 
ment in  the  person  of  his  representatives. 

The  republic  became,  therefore,  in  the 
minds  of  liberal  statesmen  of  all  parties,  the 
regulated  working  of  the  democracy,  the  one 
logical  and  necessary  government,  and,  ac- 
cording to  the  judgment  of  Monsieur  Thiers, 
gathered  from  his  own  lips  by  Edmund 
Adam,  a  few  years  before  the  end  of  the 
empire :  "  The  republic  would  rise  from  out 
the  first  national  calamity,  and  henceforth 
be  indestructible." 

The  calamities  came,  and  the  republic 
rose  from  them.  The  mistakes  of  a  democ- 
racy warped  by  the  revolution  of  1848, 
excited  by  the  empire,  maddened  by  pub- 
lic misfortunes  (turned  to  profit  by  our 
enemies  of  all  kinds — both  external  and 
internal),  would  certainly  for  a  third  time 
have  overthrown  the  republic,  if  the  divi- 
sions of  the  monarchical  parties  had  not 
contributed  to  increase  the  number  of  the 
partisans  of  the  republican  government. 

"  France,"  wrote  Monsieur  Jules  Grevy, 
at  the  time  of  the  attempts  toward  a  legiti- 
mist restoration.  "  will  only  find  its  safety  in 
the  organization  of  the  democracy." 

"  The  coming  of  the  new  social  stratas," 
said  Monsieur  Gambetta,  "by  creating  a 


middle  power  between  the  directing  classes 
and  the  people,  permits  France  to  advance 
with  equilibrium." 

It  is  thus  that  both  tradition  and  develop- 
ment permit  the  Gallo-Latin  and  French 
mind  to  be  summed  up  in  one  word : 
Democracy.  Thus  French  democracy  is  in 
possession  of  all  its  rights  through  universal 
suffrage.  Thus  two  attempts  of  the  empire, 
ending  in  two  national  catastrophes,  have 
convinced  the  democracy  of  the  need  of  a 
republican  form  of  government. 

It  is  true  that  the  wheels  of  the  republic 
still  grind  harshly  sometimes;  the  dissensions 
of  the  republican  groups  among  themselves, 
the  ignorance  of  the  greater  part  of  the 
nation,  or  a  false  political  education, — a  fault 
due  to  socialism  on  one  side,  to  Imperialism 
on  the  other, — give  to  certain  political  mani- 
festations, to  certain  speeches,  to  certain 
opinions  proclaimed  in  journalism,  a  super- 
ficial importance,  and  foreigners  living  in 
a  capital  where  everything  is  exaggerated, 
where  everything  resounds,  where  every- 
thing reverberates,  believe  that  France  is 
still  disturbed,  and  that  the  republic  is  not 
durable. 

Since  I  am  addressing  the  great  American 
nation,  that  is  so  republican,  so  devoted  to 
its  government,  so  careful  of  order,  of 
democracy  and  of  liberty,  I  will  end  with  a 
contradictory  comparison  between  it  and 
France,  and  I  hope  to  convince  my  readers 
of  the  inutility  of  the  fears  which  our  friends 
express  concerning  our  political  future. 

When  America  established  the  republican 
government,  she  was  able  to  endow  it  with 
unlimited  liberty.  If  the  exact  formula 
of  the  liberty  of  citizens  is  this  :  "  the  liberty 
of  each  individual  is  limited  by  the  liberty 
of  others,"  in  America  during  many  years, 
on  account  of  the  immensity  of  its  wide- 
spread surface,  her  citizens  did  not  easily 
encounter  this  limit,  and  the  words  unlim- 
ited liberty  were  well  chosen  for  the  earliest 
institutions  of  the  American  republic. 

However,  in  proportion  to  the  agglomer- 
ation of  the  population,  when  the  great 
centers  were  overflowing  with  inhabitants, 
did  not  the  limit  created  by  the  liberty  of 
others  become  narrower,  thus  diminishing 
the  sum  of  each  one's  liberty  ? 

Instead  of  seeking  reform  in  the  conquest 
of  a  larger  amount  of  liberty  for  the  indi- 
vidual, the  American  democracy  sought  it  in 
the  larger  amount  of  protection. 

I  could  cite  a  great  many  facts  to  prove 
that  the  difficulty  in  reform  comes  from  the 
condition  of  surroundings,  from  interests, 


526 


MIDSUMMER. 


and  that  when  it  is  a  question  of  liberty,  it 
is  necessary  to  take  into  consideration  the 
limits  existing  between  citizens. 

What  was  more  disturbed  than  the  small 
Italian  republics  shut  up  in  cities  ? 

We  are  advancing  in  France  toward  lib- 
erty amid  a  great  number  of  impediments, 
because,  at  the  smallest  reform,  obstacles 
arise  between  individuals  who  are  closely 
united,  and  between  interests  that  are  en- 
tangled. The  new  rights  overthrow  too 
many  old  ones ;  and  the  apparent  disorder, 
the  groping,  the  drawing  back,  the  hesita- 
tion, the  resistance  come,  so  to  speak,  from 
our  agglomeration. 

I  claim,  therefore,  for  my  party,  and  for 
the  establishment  of  the  French  republic, 
the  work  of  time.  The  history  of  the  two 
Presidential  terms  of  Washington,  and  the 
correspondence  of  the  admirable  founder  of 
the  American  republic,  furnish  me  an  ex- 
ample of  the  puerility  of  weakness,  of  the 


conflicts,  of  the  competitions  of  individuals 
which  must  be  overcome  to  establish  a  free 
government. 

I  have  said  of  the  republic,  which  the 
insurrection  of  the  Commune  might  have 
overthrown,  that  it  triumphed  over  its  ene- 
mies on  account  of  their  divisions.  The 
triumph  of  the  republican  party  is  a  definite 
one  for  the  same  reason. 

The  republican  parliamentary  groups  in 
the  Senate  and  in  the  Chamber  of  Deputies 
in  Paris,  accustomed  to  struggle  against  the 
Empire,  against  the  24th  of  May,  against 
the  1 6th  of  May,  though  committing  faults 
unceasingly,  have  all  the  qualities  of  the 
party  of  opposition,  and  none  of  those  of 
the  governmental  party.  The  danger  would 
be  grave,  if,  for  the  same  reasons,  the  con- 
servative parties,  and,  above  all,  the  Imperial 
party,  which  is  the  most  numerous,  had  not 
more  governmental  qualities  than  qualities 
of  opposition. 


MIDSUMMER. 

WHITE  as  a  blossom  is  the  kerchief  quaint, 
Over  her  sumptuous  shoulders  lightly  laid; 

Fairer  than  any  picture  men  could  paint, 

In  the  cool  orchard's  fragrant  light  and  shade. 

She  stands  and  waits:  some  pensive  dream  enfolds 
Her  beauty  sweet,  and  bows  her  radiant  head; 

The  delicate  pale  roses  that  she  holds 

Seem  to  have  borrowed  of  her  cheek  their  red. 

She  waits,  like  some  superb  but  drooping  flower, 
To  feel  the  touch  of  morning  and  the  sun, 

And  o'er  her  head  the  glowing  petals  shower, 
And  to  her  feet  the  shifting  sunbeams  run. 

I  follow  to  her  feet  their  pathway  fine, 

And  while  my  voice  the  charmed  silence  breaks, 

What  startled  splendors  from  her  deep  eyes  shine! 
Into  what  glory  my  rich  flower  awakes ! 


THE    GRANDISSIMES. 


527 


THE    GRANDISSIMES.* 


A    STORY    OF    CREOLE    LIFE. 


By  GEORGE  W.    CABLE,  author  of  "  Old  Creole  Days." 


CHAPTER    XLVI. 

THE    PIQUE-EN-TERRE    LOSES    ONE    OF    HER 
CREW. 

ASK  the  average  resident  of  New  Orleans 
if  his  town  is  on  an  island,  and  he  will  tell 
you  no.  He  will  also  wonder  how  any  one 
could  have  got  that  notion, — so  completely 
has  Orleans  Island,  whose  name  at  the  be- 
ginning of  the  present  century  was  in  every- 
body's mouth,  been  forgotten.  It  was  once 
a  question  of  national  policy,  a  point  of  dif- 
ference between  Republican  and  Federalist, 
whether  the  United  States  ought  to  buy 
this  little  strip  of  semi-submerged  land,  or 
whether  it  would  not  be  more  righteous  to 
steal  it  The  Kentuckians  kept  the  question 
at  a  red  heat  by  threatening  to  become  an 
empire  by  themselves  if  one  course  or  the 
other  was  not  taken;  but  when  the  First 
Consul  offered  to  sell  all  Louisiana,  our  com- 
missioners were  quite  robbed  of  breath. 
They  had  approached  to  ask  a  hair  from 
tie  elephant's  tail,  and  were  offered  the 
lephant. 

For  Orleans  Island — island  it  certainly 
was  until  General  Jackson  closed  Bayou 
danchac — is  a  narrow,  irregular,  flat  tract  of 
brest,  swamp,  city,  prairie  and  sea-marsh 
ying  east  and  west,  with  the  Mississippi, 
rending  south-eastward,  for  its  southern 
>oundary,  and  for  its  northern,  a  parallel 
and  contiguous  chain  of  alternate  lakes 
and  bayous,  opening  into  the  river  through 
Jayou  Manchac,  and  into  the  Gulf  through 
he  passes  of  the  Malheureuse  Islands. 
)n  the  narrowest  part  of  it  stands  New 
Drleans.  Turning  and  looking  back  over 
the  rear  of  the  town,  one  may  easily  see 
from  her  steeples  Lake  Pontchartrain  glis- 
ening  away  to  the  northern  horizon,  and 
in  his  fancy  extend  the  picture  to  right  and 
eft  till  Pontchartrain  is  linked  in  the  west 
by  Pass  Manchac  to  Lake  Maurepas,  and 
Ji  the  east  by  the  Rigolets  and  Chef  Men- 
eur  to  Lake  Borgne. 

An  oddity  of  the  Mississippi  Delta  is  the 
labit  the  little  streams  have  of  running 
tway  from  the  big  ones.  The  river  makes 
ts  own  bed  and  its  own  banks,  and  contin- 


uing season  after  season,  through  ages  of 
alternate  overflow  and  subsidence,  to  elevate 
those  banks,  creates  a  ridge  which  thus  be- 
comes a  natural  elevated  aqueduct.  Other 
slightly  elevated  ridges  mark  the  present 
or  former  courses  of  minor  outlets,  by  which 
the  waters  of  the  Mississippi  have  found  the 
sea.  Between  these  ridges  lie  the  cypress 
swamps,  through  whose  profound  shades  the 
clear,  dark,  deep  bayous  creep  noiselessly 
away  into  the  tall  grasses  of  the  shaking 
prairies.  The  original  New  Orleans  was 
built  on  the  Mississippi  ridge,  with  one  of 
these  forest-and- water-covered  basins  stretch- 
ing back  behind  her  to  westward  and  north- 
ward, closed  in  by  Metairie  Ridge  and 
Lake  Pontchartrain.  Local  engineers  pre- 
serve the  tradition  that  the  Bayou  Sauvage 
once  had  its  rise,  so  to  speak,  in  Toulouse 
street.  Though  depleted  by  the  city's  pres- 
ent drainage  system  and  most  likely  poisoned 
by  it  as  well,  its  waters  still  move  seaward 
in  a  course  almost  due  easterly,  and  empty 
into  Chef  Menteur,  one  of  the  watery  threads 
of  a  tangled  skein  of  "passes"  between  the 
lakes  and  the  open  Gulf.  Three-quarters 
of  a  century  ago  this  Bayou  Sauvage  (or 
Gentilly — corruption  of  Chantilly)  was  a 
navigable  stream  of  wild  and  somber  beauty. 

On  a  certain  morning  in  August,  1804, 
and  consequently  some  five  months  after 
the  events  last  mentioned,  there  emerged 
from  the  darkness  of  Bayou  Sauvage  into 
the  prairie-bordered  waters  of  Chef  Menteur, 
while  the  morning  star  was  still  luminous  in 
the  sky  above  and  in  the  water  below,  and 
only  the  practiced  eye  could  detect  the  first 
glimmer  of  day,  a  small,  stanch,  single- 
masted,  broad  and  very  light-draught  boat, 
whose  innocent  character,  primarily  indicated 
in  its  coat  of  many  colors, — the  hull  being 
yellow  below  the  water  line  and  white 
above,  with  tasteful  stripings  of  blue  and 
red, — was  further  accentuated  by  the  peace- 
ful name  of  Pique-en-terre  (the  Sandpiper). 

She  seemed,  too,  as  she  entered  the  Chef 
Menteur,  as  if  she  would  have  liked  to  turn 
southward;  but  the  wind  did  not  permit  this, 
and  in  a  moment  more  the  water  was  rip- 
pling after  her  swift  rudder,  as  she  glided 
away  in  the  direction  of  Pointe  Aux  Herbes. 


Copyright,  1879,  by  George  W.  Cable.     All  rights  reserved. 


528 


THE   GRANDISSIMES. 


But  when  she  had  left  behind  her  the  mouth 
of  the  passage,  she  changed  her  course  and, 
leaving  the  Pointe  on  her  left,  bore  down 
toward  Petites  Coquilles,  obviously  bent 
upon  passing  through  the  Rigolets. 

We  know  not  how  to  describe  the  joyous- 
ness  of  the  effect  when  at  length  one  leaves 
behind  him  the  shadow  and  gloom  of  the 
swamp,  and  there  bursts  upon  his  sight  the 
wide-spread,     flower-decked,    bird-haunted 
prairies  of  Lake  Catharine.     The  inside  and 
outside  of  a  prison  scarcely  furnish  a  greater 
contrast;  and  on  this  fair  August  morning 
the  contrast  was  at  its  strongest.     The  day 
broke  across  a  glad  expanse  of  cool  and 
fragrant  green,  silver-laced  with  a  net-work  of 
crisp  salt  pools  and  passes,  lakes,  bayous  and 
lagoons,  that  gave  a  good  smell,  the  inspir- 
ing odor  of  interclasped  sea  and  shore,  and 
both  beautified  and  perfumed   the  happy 
earth,  laid  bare  to  the  rising  sun.     Waving 
marshes  of  wild   oats,  drooping  like  sated 
youth  from  too  much  pleasure;  watery  acres 
hid  under  crisp-growing  greenth  starred  with 
pond-lilies  and  rippled  by  water-fowl;  broad 
stretches  of  high  grass,  with  thousands  of 
ecstatic  wings  palpitating  above  them ;  hun- 
dreds of  thousands  of  white  and  pink  mal- 
lows clapping  their  hands  in  voiceless  rapt- 
ure, and   that   amazon  queen  of  the  wild 
flowers,  the   morning-glory,  stretching   her 
myriad  lines,  lifting  up  the  trumpet  and  wav- 
ing her  colors,  white,  azure  and  pink,  with 
lacings  of  spider's  web,  heavy  with  pearls  and 
diamonds — the  gifts  of  the  summer  night. 
The  crew  of  the  Pique-en-terre  saw  all  these 
and  felt  them;  for,  whatever  they  may  have 
been  or  failed  to  be,  they  were  men  whose 
heart-strings  responded  to  the  touches  of 
nat.    fure.     One  alone  of  their  company,  and 
he  the  o^  ^e  who  should  have  felt  them  most, 
showed  inseu*.   -..^h'ty,  sighed  laughingly  and 
then  laughed  si^  tangly  in  the  face  of  his 
fellows  and  ot  all  t-     hig  beautVj  and  profanely 
confessed  that  his     ^,g  degire  wag  tQ  get 
back  to  his  wife.     *  « nt      d  been  absent  from 
her  now  for  nine  hours',   c 

But  the  sun  is  Se"«J  hi  h  Petites 
Coquilles  has  been  passeo -P^f^  ^^ 
the  eastern  end  ot  i,as  ^^  .g  ^  ^ 

after-larboard-quarter    the    ^n 

Lake  Borgne  flash  far  ^  fee  the 
zling  white  and  blue,  and  ^ s  ^ 

issues  from  the  deep  channel  o 
the  white-armed  waves  catch L  n  8        , 


their  daz- 


waters  of  Bayou  Sauvage,  declared  in  favor 
of  the  Rigolets  as — wind  and  tide  consid- 
ered — the  most  practicable  of  all  the  passes. 
Now  that  they  were  out,  he  forgot  for  a 
moment  the  self-amusing  plaint  of  conjugal 
separation  to  flaunt  his  triumph.  Would 
any  one  hereafter  dispute  with  him  on  the 
subject  of  Louisiana  sea-coast  navigation  ? 
He  knew  every  pass  and  piece  of  water  like 
A,  B,  C,  and  could  tell,  faster,  much  faster 
than  he  could  repeat  the  multiplication 
table  (upon  which  he  was  a  little  slow  and 
doubtful),  the  amount  of  water  in  each  at 
ebb  tide — Pass  Jean  or  Petit  Pass,  Unknown 

Pass,  Petit  Rigolet,  Chef  Menteur, - 

Out  on  the  far  southern  horizon,  in  the 
Gulf — the  Gulf  of  Mexico — there  appears  a 
speck  of  white.  It  is  known  to  those  on 
board  the  Pique-en-terre,  the  moment  it  is 
descried,  as  the  canvas  of  a  large  schooner. 
The  opinion,  first  expressed  by  the  youth- 
ful husband,  who  still  reclines  with  the  tillei 
held  firmly  under  his  arm,  and  then  by 
another  member  of  the  company  who  sits 
on  the  center-board-well,  is  unanimousl) 
adopted,  that  she  is  making  for  the  Rigolets 
will  pass  Petites  Coquilles  by  eleven  o'clock 
and  will  tie  up  at  the  little  port  of  St.  Jean 
on  the  bayou  of  the  same  name,  before  sun 
down,  if  the  wind  holds  anywise  as  it  is. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  master  of  the  dis 
tant  schooner  shuts  his  glass,  and  says  to  th< 
single  passenger  whom  he  has  aboard  tha 
the  little  sail  just  visible  toward  the  Rigolet 
is  a  sloop  with  a  half-deck,  well  filled  witl 
men,  in  all  probability  a  pleasure-part; 
bound  to  the  Chandeleurs  on  a  fishinj 
and  gunning  excursion,  and  passes  int 
comments  on  the  superior  skill  of  landsmei 
over  seamen  in  the  handling  of  small  sailin 
craft. 

By  and  by  the  two  vessels  near  eac 
other.  They  approach  within  hailing  dis 
tance,  and  are  announcing  each  to  eac 
their  identity,  when  the  young  man  at  th 
tiller  jerks  himself  to  a  squatting  posture,  am 
from  under  a  broad-brimmed  and  slouche 
straw  hat,  cries  to  the  schooner's  one  pa; 
senger : 

"  Hello,  Challie  Keene!" 
And  the  passenger  more  quietly  answei 
back: 

"  Hello,  Raoul,  is  that  you  ?  " 
M.   Innerarity   replied,    with    a    profar 
parenthesis,  that  it  was  he. 

"  You  kin  hask  Sylvestre !  "  he  conclude 

The  doctor's  eye  passed  around  a  sern 

circle  of  some  eight  men,  the  most  of  who 

were  quite  young,  but  one  or  two  of  who 


THE   GRANDISSIMES. 


529 


were  gray,  sitting  with  their  arms  thrown 
out  upon  the  wash-board,  in  the  dark  neg- 
lige of  amateur  fishermen  and  with  that 
exultant  look  of  expectant  deviltry  in  their 
handsome  faces  which  characterizes  the  Cre- 
ole with  his  collar  off. 

The  mettlesome  little  doctor  felt  the  odds 
against  him  in  the  exchange  of  greetings. 

"  Ola,  Dawctah  ! " 

"  He,  Doctah,  que-ce  qui  fapresfe?  " 

"  Ho,  ho,  compere  Noyo  /" 

"  Comment  va,  Docta  ?  " 

A  light  peppering  of  profanity  accom- 
panied each  salute. 

The  doctor  put  on  defensively  a  smile  of 
superiority  to  the  juniors  and  of  courtesy  to 
the  others,  and  responsively  spoke  their 
names  : 

"  Tolyte — Sylvestre — Achille —  Emile — 
ah!  Agamemnon." 

The  doctor  and  Agamemnon  raised  their 
hats. 

As  Agamemnon  was  about  to  speak,  a 
general  expostulatory  outcry  drowned  his 
voice;  the  Pique-en-terre  was  going  about 
close  abreast  of  the  schooner,  and  angry 
questions  and  orders  were  flying  at  Raoul's 
head  like  a  volley  of  eggs. 

"Messieurs,"  said  Raoul,  partially  rising 
but  still  stooping  over  the  tiller,  and  taking 
his  hat  off  his  bright  curls  with  mock 
courtesy,  "  I  am  going  back  to  New  Orleans. 
I  would  not  give  that  for  all  the  fish  in  the 
sea;  I  want  to  see  my  wife.  I  am  going 
back  to  New  Orleans  to  see  my  wife — and 
to  congratulate  the  city  upon  your  absence." 
Incredulity,  expostulation,  reproach,  taunt, 
malediction — he  smiled  unmoved  upon  them 
all.  "  Messieurs,  I  must  go  and  see  my 
wife." 

Amid  redoubled  outcries  he  gave  the 
helm  to  Camille  Brahmin,  and  fighting  his 
way  with  his  pretty  feet  against  half-real 
efforts  to  throw  him  overboard,  clambered 
forward  to  the  mast,  whence  a  moment 
later,  with  the  help  of  the  schooner-master's 
hand,  he  reached  the  deck  of  the  larger 
vessel.  The  Pique-en-terre  turned,  and  with 
a  little  flutter  spread  her  smooth  wing  and 
skimmed  away. 

"Doctah  Keene,  look  yeh!"  M.  Inner- 
arity  held  up  a  hand  whose  third  finger 
wore  the  conventional  ring  of  the  Creole 
bridegroom.  "  Wat  you  got  to  say  to  dat  ?  " 

The  little  doctor  felt  a  faintness  run 
through  his  veins,  and  a  thrill  of  anger  follow 
it.  The  poor  man  could  not  imagine  a 
love  affair  that  did  not  include  Clotilde 
Nancanou. 

VOL.  XX.— 35. 


"  Whom  have  you  married  ?  " 

"  De  pritties'  gal  in  de  citty." 

The  questioner  controlled  himself. 

"  M-hum,"  he  responded,  with  a  contrac- 
tion of  the  eyes. 

Raoul  waited  an  instant  for  some  kind- 
lier comment,  and  finding  the  hope  vain, 
suddenly  assumed  a  look  of  delighted  ad- 
miration. 

"Hi,  yi,  yi!  Doctah,  'ow  you  har  look- 
ingue  fine." 

The  true  look  of  the  doctor  was  that  he 
had  not  much  longer  to  live.  A  smile  of 
bitter  humor  passed  over  his  face,  and  he 
looked  for  a  near  seat,  saying : 

"  How's  Frowenfeld  ?  " 

Raoul  struck  an  ecstatic  attitude  and 
stretched  forth  his  hand  as  if  the  doctor 
could  not  fail  to  grasp  it.  The  invalid's 
heart  sank  like  lead. 

"  Frowenfeld  has  got  her,"  he  thought. 

"Well?"  said  he,  with  a  frown  of  impa- 
tience and  restraint;  and  Raoul  cried: 

"  I  sole  my  pig-shoe ! " 

The  doctor  could  not  help  but  laugh. 

"  Shades  of  the  masters !  " 

"  No ;  '  Louizyanna  rif-using  to  hantre  de 
h-Union.' " 

The  doctor  stood  corrected. 

The  two  walked  across  the  deck,  following 
the  shadow  of  the  swinging  sail.  The 
doctor  lay  down  in  a  low-swung  hammock, 
and  Raoul  sat  upon  the  deck  a  la  Turque. 

"  Come,  Raoul,  tell  me,  what  is  the  news  ?  " 

"  News  ?  Oh,  I  donno.  You  'card  con- 
cernin'  the  dool  ?  " 

"You  don't  mean  to  say " 

"Yesseh!" 

"  Agricole  and  Sylvestre  ?  " 

"Wat  de  dev'!  No!  Burr  an'  'Ammil- 
tong;  in  Noo-Juzzylas-June.  Collonnel 
Burr,  'e " 

"  Oh,  fudge !  yes.     How  is  Frowenfeld  ?  " 

"'E's  well.  Guess  'ow  much  I  sole  my 
pig-shoe." 

"Well,  how  much?" 

"Two  'ondred  fifty."  He  laid  himself 
out  at  length,  his  elbow  on  the  deck,  his 
head  in  his  hand.  "I  believe  I'm  sorry  I 
sole  'er." 

"  I  don't  wonder.  How's  Honore  ?  Tell 
me  what  has  happened.  Remember,  I've 
been  away  five  months." 

"  No ;  I  am  verrie  glad  dat  I  sole  'er. 
What  ?  Ha !  I  should  think  so !  If  it  have 
not  had  been  fo'  dat  I  would  not  be  mar- 
ried to-day.  You  think  I  would  get  mar- 
ried on  dat  sal'rie  w'at  Proffis-or  Frowenfel' 
was  payin'  me?  Twenty-five  dolla'  de 


53° 


THE   GRANDISSIMES. 


mont'  ?  Docta  Keene,  no  gen'leman  h-ought 
to  git  married  if  'e  'ave  not  anny'ow  fifty 
dolla'  de  mont'!  If  I  wasn'  a  h-artiz  I 
wouldn'  git  married ;  I  gie  you  my  word ! ' 

« Yes,"  said  the  little   doctor,  "  you  are 
right.     Now  tell  me  the  news." 

"  Well,  dat  Cong-ress  gone  an'  male'  — 
« Raoul,  stop.  I  know  that  Congress 
has  divided  the  province  into  two  territories; 
I  know  you  Creoles  think  all  your  liberties 
are  lost ;  I  know  the  people  are  in  a  great 
stew  because  they  are  not  allowed  to  elect 
their  own  officers  and  legislatures,  and  that 
in  Opelousas  and  Attakapas  they  are  as 

wild  as  their  cattle  about  it " 

"  We  'ad  two  big  mitting'  about  it,"  inter- 
rupted Raoul ;  "  my  bro'r-in-law  speak  at 
both  of  them !  " 
«  Who  ?  " 

"  Chahlie  Mandarin." 
"  Glad  to  hear  it,"  said  Doctor  Keene, — 
which  was  the  truth.  "  Besides  that,  I 
know  Laussat  has  gone  to  Martinique ;  that 
the  Ame"ricains  have  a  newspaper,  and  that 
cotton  is  two  bits  a  pound.  Now  what  I 
want  to  know  is,  how  are  my  friends  ?  What 
has  Honore  done  ?  What  has  Frowenfeld 
done?  And  Palmyre,— and  Agricole  ? 
They  hustled  me  away  from  here  as  if  I 
had  been  caught  trying  to  cut  my  throat. 
Tell  me  everything." 

And  Raoul  sank  the  artist  and  bridegroom 
in  the  historian,  and  told  him. 


CHAPTER   XLVII. 


THE   NEWS. 


"  MY  cousin  Honore", — well,  you  kin  jus' 
say  'e  bit-ray'  'is  'ole  fam'ly." 

"  How  so  ?  "  asked  Doctor  Keene,  with  a 
handkerchief  over  his  face  to  shield  his  eyes 
from  the  sun. 

« Well,— ce't'nly  'e  did!  Di'n'  'e  gave 
dat  money  to  Aurore  De  Grapion  ? — one 
'undred  five  t'ousan'  dolla'  ?  Jis'  as  if  to 
say, '  Yeh's  de  money  my  h-uncle  stole  from 
you*  'usban'.'  Hah !  w'en  I  will  swear  on  a 
stack  of  Bible'  as  'igh  as  yo'  head,  dat 
Agricole  win  dat  'abitation  fair! — If  I  see 
it?  No,  sir;  I  don't  'ave  to  see  it!  I'll 
swear  to  it !  Hah  !  " 

"  And  have  she  and  her  daughter  actually 
got  the  money  ?  " 

«  she — an' — heh — daughtah — ac— shilly 
— got-'at-money-sir !  W'at  ?  Dey  livin' 
in  de  rue  Royale  in  mag-;/^ycen'  style  on 
top  de  drug-sto'  of  Proffis-or  Frowenfel'." 


"  But     how,    over     Frowenfeld's,    when 

Frowenfeld's  is  a  one-story " 

"  My  dear  frien' !  Proffis-or  FrowenfeP 
is  moove  !  You  rickleck  dat  big  new  free- 
story  buildin'  w'at  jus'  finished,  in  de  rue 
Royale,  a  lill  mo'  farther  up  town  from  his 
old  shop  ?  Well,  we  open  dare  a  big  sto'  ! 
An'  listen!  You  think  Honore  di'n'  bit- 
rayed  'is  family  ?  Madame  Nancanou  an' 
heh  daughtah  livin'  upstair'  an'  rissy-ving 
de  finess  soci'ty  in  de  Province  ! — an'  me  ? 

down-stair'  meckin'  pill' !     You  call   dat 

justice  ?  " 

But  Doctor  Keene,  without  waiting  for 
this  question,  had  asked  one  : 

"  Does  Frowenfeld  board  with  them  ?  " 
"  Psh-sh-sh !  Board !  Dey  woon  board 
de  Marquis  of  Casa-Calvo !  I  don'  b'lieve 
dey  would  board  Honor£  Grandissime !  All 
de  king'  an'  queen'  in  de  worl'  couldn'  boarc 
dare!  No,  sir! — 'Owever,  you  know,  1 
think  dey  are  splendid  ladies.  Me  an'^  m) 
wife,  we  know  them  well.  An'  Honore — ] 
think  my  cousin  Honore's  a  splendid  gen'le 
man,  too."  After  a  moment's  pause  h< 
resumed,  with  a  happy  sigh,  "  Well,  I  don 
care,  I'm  married.  A  man  w'at's  married,  '< 
don'  care.  But  I  di'n'  think  Honore  coul< 
ever  do  lak  dat  odder  t'ing." 

Do    he     and     Joe     Frowenfeld     visi 

there  ?  " 

"Doctah  Keene,"  demanded  Raoul,  ig 
noring  the  question,  "I  hask  you  now 
plain,  don'  you  find  dat  mighty  disgressfi 
to  do  dat  way,  lak  Honore"  ?  " 

"  What  way  ?  " 

"W'at?  You  dunno?  You  don'  ye 
'ow  'e  gone  partner'  wid  a  nigga  ?  " 

"  What  do  you  mean  ?  " 

Doctor  Keene  drew  the  handkerchief  o 
his  face  and  half-lifted  his  feeble  head. 

"  Yesseh!  'e  gone  partner'  wid  dat  qua( 
roon  w'at  call  'imself  Honore  Grandissim 

seh!" 

The  doctor  dropped  his  head  again  an 
laid  the  handkerchief  back  on  his  face. 

"  What  do  the  family  say  to  that  ?  " 

"  But  w'at  can  dey  say  ?  It  save  de 
from  ruin !  At  de  sem  time,  me,  I  think 
is  a  disgress.  Not  dat  he  h-use  de  mone 
but  it  is  dat  name  w'at  'e  give  de  h-establis 
men'— Grandissime  Freres  !  H-only  for 
money  we  would  'ave  catch'  dat  quadro< 
gen'leman  an'  put  some  tar  and  fedd< 
Grandissime  Freres!  Agricole  don'  spii 
to  my  cousin  Honore  no  mo' !  But  I  thu 
dass  wrong.  W'at  you  t'ink,  Doctor  ?  " 

That  evening,  at  candle-light,  Raoul  g 
the  right  arm  of  his  slender,  laughing  w 


THE   GRANDISSIMES. 


about  his  neck;  but  Doctor  Keene  tarried 
all  night  in  suburb  St.  Jean.  He  hardly 
felt  the  moral  courage  to  face  the  results  of 
the  last  five  months.  Let  us  understand 
them  better  ourselves. 


CHAPTER    XLVIII. 
AN  INDIGNANT  FAMILY  AND  A  SMASHED  SHOP. 

IT  was  indeed  a  fierce  storm  that  had 
passed  over  the  head  of  Honore  Grandissime. 
Taken  up  and  carried  by  it,  as  it  seemed  to 
him,  without  volition,  he  had  felt  himself 
thrown  here  and  there,  wrenched,  torn, 
gasping  for  moral  breath,  speaking  the 
right  word  as  if  in  delirium,  doing  the  right 
deed  as  if  by  helpless  instinct,  and  seeing 
himself  in  every  case,  at  every  turn,  tricked 
by  circumstance  out  of  every  vestige  of 
merit.  So  it  seemed  to  him.  The  long 
contemplated  restitution  was  accomplished. 
On  the  morning  when  Aurora  and  Clotilde 
had  expected  to  be  turned  shelterless  into 
the  open  air,  they  had  called  upon  him  in 
his  private  office  and  presented  the  account 
of  which"  he  had  put  them  in  possession  the 
evening  before.  He  had  honored  it  on  the 
spot.  To  the  two  ladies  who  felt  their  own 
hearts  stirred  almost  to  tears  of  gratitude, 
he  was — as  he  sat  before  them  calm,  un- 
moved, handling  keen-edged  facts  with  the 
easy  rapidity  of  one  accustomed  to  use 
them,  smiling  courteously  and  collectedly, 
parrying  their  expressions  of  appreciation — 
to  them,  we  say,  at  least  to  one  of  them, 
he  was  "  the  prince  of  gentlemen."  But,  at 
the  same  time,  there  was  within  him, 
unseen,  a  surge  of  emotions,  leaping,  lash- 
ing, whirling,  yet  ever  hurrying  onward 
along  the  hidden,  rugged  bed  of  his  honest 
intention. 

The  other  restitution,  which  even  twenty- 
four  hours  earlier  might  have  seemed  a  pure 
self-sacrifice,  became  a  self-rescue.  The 
f.  m.  c.  was  the  elder  brother.  A  remark 
of  Honore,  made  the  night  they  watched  in 
the  corridor  by  Doctor  Keene's  door,  about 
the  younger's  "  right  to  exist,"  was  but  the 
echo  of  a  conversation  they  had  once  had 
together  in  Europe.  There  they  had  prac- 
ticed a  familiarity  of  intercourse  which 
Louisiana  would  not  have  endured,  and 
once,  when  speaking  upon  the  subject  of 
their  common  fatherhood,  the  f.  m.  c.,  prone 
to  melancholy  speech,  had  said : 

"  You  are  the  lawful  son  of  Numa  Grand- 
issime; I  had  no  right  to  be  born." 


But  Honore"  quickly  answered : 

"  By  the  laws  of  men,  it  may  be ;  but  by 
the  law  of  God's  justice,  you  are  the  lawful 
son,  and  it  is  I  who  should  not  have  been 
born." 

But,  returned  to  Louisiana,  accepting, 
with  the  amiable,  old-fashioned  philosophy 
of  conservatism,  the  sins  of  the  community, 
he  had  forgotten  the  unchampioned  rights 
of  his  passive  half-brother.  Contact  with 
Frowenfeld  had  robbed  him  of  his  pleasant 
mental  drowsiness,  and  the  oft-encountered 
apparition  of  the  dark  sharer  of  his  name 
had  become  a  slow-stepping,  silent  embodi- 
ment of  reproach.  The  turn  of  events  had 
brought  him  face  to  face  with  the  problem 
of  restitution,  and  he  had  solved  it.  But 
where  had  he  come  out  ?  He  had  come 
out  the  beneficiary  of  this  restitution,  extri- 
cated from  bankruptcy  by  an  agreement 
which  gave  the  f.  m.  c.  only  a  public  recog- 
nition of  kinship  which  had  always  been  his 
due.  Bitter  cup  of  humiliation ! 

Such  was  the  stress  within.  Then  there 
was  the  storm  without.  The  Grandissimes 
were  in  a  high  state  of  excitement.  The 
news  had  reached  them  all,  that  Honore 
had  met  the  question  of  titles  by  sell- 
ing one  of  their  largest  estates.  It  was 
received  with  wincing  frowns,  indrawn 
breath  and  lifted  feet,  but  without  protest, 
and  presently  with  a  smile  of  returning  con- 
fidence. 

"  Honore  knew ;  Honore  was  informed ; 
they  had  all  authorized  Honore ;  and  Hon- 
ore, though  he  might  have  his  odd  ways 
and  notions,  picked  up  during  that  unfor- 
tunate stay  abroad,  might  safely  be  trusted 
to  stand  by  the  interests  of  his  people." 

After  the  first  shock,  some  of  them  even 
raised  a  laugh : 

"  Ha,  ha,  ha !  Honore  would  show  those 
Yankees ! " 

They  went  to  his  counting-room  and 
elsewhere,  in  search  of  him,  to  smite  their 
hands  into  the  hands  of  their  far-seeing 
young  champion.  But,  as  we  have  seen, 
they  did  not  find  him;  none  dreamed  of 
looking  for  him  in  an  enemy's  camp  (19 
Bienville)  or  on  the  lonely  suburban  com- 
mons, talking  to  himself  in  the  ghostly  twi- 
light; and  the  next  morning,  while  Aurora 
and  Clotilde  were  seated  before  him  in  his 
private  office,  looking  first  at  the  face  and 
then  at  the  back  of  two  mighty  drafts  of 
equal  amount  on  Philadelphia,  the  cry  of 
treason  flew  forth  to  these  astounded  Grand- 
issimes, followed  by  the  word  that  the  sacred 
fire  was  gone  out  in  the  Grandissime  temple 


532 


THE   GRANDISSIMES. 


(counting-room),  that  Delilahs  in  duplicate 
were  carrying  off  the  holy  treasures,  and  that 
the  uncircumcised  and  unclean — even  an 

£  m>  c. Was  about  to  be  inducted  into  the 

Grandissime  priesthood. 

Aurora  and  Clotilde  were  still  there, 
when  the  various  members  of  the  family 
began  to  arrive  and  display  their  outlines  in 
impatient  shadow-play  upon  the  glass  door 
of  the  private  office;  now  one,  and  now 
another,  dallied  with  the  door-knob  and 
by  and  by  obtruded  their  lifted  hats  and 
urgent,  anxious  faces  half  into  the  apart- 
ment ;  but  Honore  would  only  glance  toward 
them,  and  with  a  smile  equally  courteous, 
authoritative  and  fleeting,  say  : 

"Good-morning,  Camille"  (or  Chahlie — 
or  Agamemnon,  as  the  case  might  be), 
"  I  will  see  you  later;  let  me  trouble  you  to 
close  the  door." 

To  add  yet  another  strain,  the  two  ladies, 
like  frightened,  rescued  children,  would 
cling  to  their  deliverer.  They  wished  him 
to  become  the  custodian  and  investor  of 
their  wealth.  Ah,  woman  !  who  is  a  tempter 
like  thee?  But  Honore  said  no,  and 
showed  them  the  danger  of  such  a  course. 

"  Suppose  I  should  die  suddenly.  You 
might  have  trouble  with  my  executors." 

The  two  beauties  assented  pensively ;  but 
in  Aurora's  bosom  a  great  throb  secretly 
responded  that  as  for  her,  in  that  case,  she 
should  have  no  use  for  money — in  a  nunnery. 
"  Would  not  Monsieur  at  least  consent  to 
be  their  financial  adviser  ?  " 

He  hemmed,  commenced  a  sentence 
twice,  and  finally  said : 

"You  will  need  an  agent;  some  one  to 
take  full  charge  of  your  affairs ;  some  per- 
son on  whose  sagacity  and  integrity  you  can 
place  the  fullest  dependence." 

"  Who,  for  instance  ?  "  asked  Aurora. 
"  I  should  say,  without  hesitation,  Pro- 
fessor Frowenfeld,  the  apothecary.  You 
know  his  trouble  of  yesterday  is  quite  cleared 
up.  You  had  not  heard  ?  Yes.  He  is 
not  what  we  call  an  enterprising  man,  but 
— so  much  the  better.  Take  him  all. in 
all,  I  would  choose  him  above  all  others ;  if 

you " 

Aurora  interrupted  him.  There  was  an  ill- 
concealed  wildness  in  her  eye  and  a  slight 
tremor  in  her  voice,  as  she  spoke,  which 
she  had  not  expected  to  betray.  The  quick, 
though  quiet,  eye  of  Honore  saw  it,  and  it 
thrilled  him  through. 

"  'Sieur  Grandissime,  I  take  the  risk ;  I 
wish  you  to  take  care  of  my  money." 

"  But,  Maman,"    said    Clotilde,   turning 


with  a  timid  look  to  her  mother,  "  if  Mon- 
sieur Grandissime  would  rather  not " 

Aurora,  feeling  alarmed  at  what  she  had 
said,  rose  up.  Clotilde  and  Honore  did 
the  same,  and  he  said : 

"With  Professor  Frowenfeld  in  charge 
of  your  affairs,  I  shall  feel  them  not  entirely 
removed  from  my  care  also.  We  are  very 
good  friends." 

Clotilde  looked  at  her  mother.  The  three 
exchanged  glances.  The  ladies  signified 
their  assent  and  turned  to  go,  but  M.  Grand- 
issime stopped  them. 

"  By  your  leave,  I  will  send  for  him.     If 

you  will  be  seated  again " 

They  thanked  him  and  resumed  their 
seats;  he  excused  himself,  and  passed  into 
the  counting-room  and  sent  a  messenger 
for  the  apothecary. 

M.  Grandissime's  meeting  with  his  kins- 
men was  a  stormy  one.  Aurora  and  Clotilde 
heard  the  strife  begin,  increase,  subside,  rise 
again  and  decrease.  They  heard  men  stride 
heavily  to  and  fro,  they  heard  hands  smite 
together,  palms  fall  upon  tables  and  fists  upon 
desks,  heard  half-understood  statement  and 
unintelligible  counter-statement  and  derisive 
laughter ;  and,  in  the  midst  of  all,  like  the 
voice  of  a  man  who  rules  himself,  the  clear- 
noted,  unimpassioned  speech  of  Honore, 
sounding  so  loftily  beautiful  to  the  ear  of 
Aurora  that  when  Clotilde  looked  at  her, 
sitting  motionless  with  her  rapt  eyes  lifted 
up,  those  eyes  came  down  to  her  own  with 
a  sparkle  of  enthusiasm,  and  she  softly 
said: 

"  It  sounds  like  St.  Gabriel ! "  and  then 
blushed. 

Clotilde  answered  with  a  happy,  meaning 
look,  which  intensified  the  blush,  and  then 
leaning  affectionately  forward  and  holding 
the  maman's  eyes  with  her  own,  she  said : 
"  You  have  my  consent." 
"  Saucy  !  "  said  Aurora.     "  Wait  till  I  get 
my  own !  " 

Some  of  his  kinsmen  Honore  pacified; 
some  he  silenced.  He  invited  all  to  with- 
draw their  lands  and  moneys  from  his  charge, 
and  some  accepted  the  invitation.  They 
spurned  his  parting  advice  to  sell,  and  the 
policy  they  then  adopted,  and  never  after- 
ward modified,  was  that  "all-or-nothing'1 
attitude  which,  as  years  rolled  by,  bled  them 
to  penury  in  those  famous  cupping-leeching- 
and-bleeding  establishments,  the  courts  of 
Louisiana.  You  may  see  their  grandchil- 
dren, to-day,  anywhere  within  the  angle  of 
the  old  rue  Esplanade  and  rampart,  hold 
ing  up  their  heads  in  unspeakable  poverty 


THE   GRANDISSIMES. 


533 


their  nobility  kept  green  by  unflinching  self- 
respect,  and  their  poetic  and  pathetic  pride 
reveling  in  ancestral,  perennial  rebellion 
against  common  sense. 

"  That  is  Agricola,"  whispered  Aurora, 
with  lifted  head  and  eyes  dilated  and  askance, 
as  one  deep-chested  voice  roared  above  all 
others. 

Agricola  stormed. 

"  Uncle,"  Aurora  by  and  by  heard  Hon- 
ore  say,  "shall  I  leave  my  own  counting- 
room  ?  " 

At  that  moment  Joseph  Frowenfeld  en- 
tered, pausing  with  one  hand  on  the  outer 
rail.  No  one  noticed  him  but  Honore,  who 
was  watching  for  him,  and  who,  by  a  silent 
motion,  directed  him  into  the  private  office. 
"  H-whe  shake  its  dust  from  our  feet !  " 
said  Agricola,  gathering  some  young  retain- 
ers by  a  sweep  of  his  glance  and  going  out 
down  the  stair  in  the  arched  way,  unmoved 
by  the  fragrance  of  warm  bread.  On  the 
banquette  he  harangued  his  followers. 

He  said  that  in  such  times  as  these  every 
lover  of  liberty  should  go  armed ;  that  the 
age  of  trickery  had  come ;  that  by  trickery 
Louisianians  had  been  sold,  like  cattle,  to  a 
nation  of  parvenues,  to  be  dragged  before 
juries  for  asserting  the  human  right  of  free 
trade  or  ridding  the  earth  of  sneaks  in  the 
pay  of  the  government ;  that  laws,  so-called, 
had  been  forged  into  thumb-screws,  and  a 
Congress   which  had  bound  itself  to  give 
:  them  all  the  rights  of  American  citizens — 
I  sorry  boon  ! — was   preparing   to   slip   their 
birthright  acres  from  under  their  feet,  and 
I  leave  them  hanging,  a  bait  to  the  vultures 
I  of  the  Americain  immigration.     Yes ;    the 
|,  age  of  trickery  !     Its  apostles,  he  said,  were 
['  even  then  at  work  among  their  fellow-citi- 
j>  zens,  warping,  distorting,  blasting,  corrupting, 
poisoning  the  noble,  unsuspecting,  confiding 
I  Creole  mind.     For  months  the  devilish  work 
;  had  been  allowed,  by  a  patient,  peace-loving 
people,  to  go  on.     But  shall  it  go  on  for- 
ever ?      (Cries   of  "No!"    "No!")     The 
t  smell  of  white  blood   comes  on  the  south 
I  breeze.     Dessalines   and    Christophe    have 

I  recommenced  their  hellish  work.      Virginia, 
i  too,   trembles   for  the    safety    of   her   fair 
j '  mothers  and  daughters.    We  know  not  what 

is  being  plotted  in  the  cane-brakes  of  Louis- 
i  iana.     But  we  know  that  in  the  face  of  these 

I 1  things  the  prelates  of  trickery  are  sitting  in 
I  Washington  allowing  throats  to  go  unthrot- 
:  tied  that  talked  tenderly  about  the  "  negro 
|  slave";    we   know   worse:    we   know   that 
k  mixed  blood  has  asked  for  equal  rights  from 
f  a  son  of  the  Louisiana  noblesse,  and  that 


those  sacred  rights  have  been  treacherously, 
pusillanimously  surrendered  into  its  posses- 
sion. Why  did  we  not  rise  yesterday,  when 
the  public  heart  was  stirred  ?  The  forbear- 
ance of  this  people  would  be  absurd  if  it 
were  not  saintly.  But  the  time  has  come 
when  Louisiana  must  protect  herself!  If 
there  is  one  here  who  will  not  strike  for  his 
lands,  his  rights  and  the  purity  of  his  race, 
let  him  speak !  (Cries  of  "  We  will  rise 
now !  "  "  Give  us  a  leader !  "  "  Lead  the 
way ! ") 

"  Kinsmen,  friends,"  continued  Agricola, 
"  meet  me  at  nightfall  before  the  house  of 
this  too-long-spared  mulatto.  Come  armed. 
Bring  a  few  feet  of  stout  rope.  By  morning 
the  gentlemen  of  color  will  know  their 
places  better  than  they  do  to-day;  h-whe 
shall  understand  each  other !  H-whe  shall 
set  the  negrophiles  to  meditating." 

He  waved  them  away. 

With  a  huzza  the  accumulated  crowd 
moved  off.  Chance  carried  them  up  the 
rue  Royale ;  they  sang  a  song ;  they  came 
to  Frowenfeld's.  It  was  an  Americain 
establishment ;  that  was  against  it.  It  was  a 
gossiping  place  of  Americain  evening 
loungers ;  that  was  against  it.  It  was  a  sor- 
cerer's den — (we  are  on  an  ascending  scale) ; 
its  proprietor  had  refused  employment  to 
some  there  present,  had  refused  credit  to 
others,  was  an  impudent  condemner  of  the 
most  approved  Creole  sins,  had  been  beaten 
over  the  head  only  the  day  before;  all  these 
were  against  it.  But,  worse  still,  the  build- 
ing was  owned  by  the  f.  m.  c.,  and,  unluck- 
iest  of  all,  Raoul  stood  in  the  door  and 
some  of  his  kinsmen  in  the  crowd  stopped 
to  have  a  word  with  him.  The  crowd 
stopped.  A  nameless  fellow  in  the  throng 
— he  was  still  singing — said :  "  Here's  the 
place,"  and  dropped  two  bricks  through 
the  glass  of  the  show-window.  Raoul,  with 
a  cry  of  retaliative  rage,  drew  and  lifted 
a  pistol;  but  a  kinsman  jerked  it  from 
him,  and  three  others  quickly  pinioned  him 
and  bore  him  off  struggling,  pleased  to 
get  him  away  unhurt.  In  ten  minutes, 
Frowenfeld's  was  a  broken-windowed,  open- 
doored  house,  full  of  unrecognizable  rubbish 
that  had  escaped  the  torch  only  through  a 
chance  rumor  that  the  Governor's  police 
were  coming,  and  the  consequent  stampede 
of  the  mob. 

Joseph  was  sitting  in  M.  Grandissime's 
private  office,  in  council  with  him  and  the 
ladies,  and  Aurora  was  just  saying  : 

"  Well,  anny'ow,  'Sieur  FrowenfeP,  ad  laz 
you  consen' !  "  and  gathering  her  veil  from 


534 


THE  GRANDISSIMES. 


her  lap,  when  Raoul  burst  in,  all  sweat  and 

rage. 

"  'Sieur  Frowenfel',  we  ruin' !     Ow  phar- 
macie  knock  all  in  pieces  !     My  pig-shoe  is 

los' ! " 

He  dropped  into  a  chair  and  burst  into 

tears. 

Shall  we  never  learn  to  withhold  our  tears 
until  we  are  sure  of  our  trouble  ?  Raoul 
little  knew  the  joy  in  store  for  him.  Tolyte, 
it  transpired  the  next  day,  had  rushed  in 
after  the  first  volley  of  missiles,  and  while 
others  were  gleefully  making  off  with  jars  of 
asafcetida  and  decanters  of  distilled  water, 
lifted  in  his  arms  and  bore  away  unharmed 
«  Louisiana  "  firmly  refusing  to  the  last  to 
enter  the  Union.  It  may  not  be  premature 
to  add  that  about  four  weeks  later  Honor6 
Grandissime,  upon  Raoul's  announcement 
that  he  was  "betrothed,"  purchased  this 
painting  and  presented  it  to  a  club  of  nat- 
ural connoisseurs. 

CHAPTER    XLIX. 
OVER   THE   NEW    STORE. 


THE   accident   of   the  ladies   Nancanou 
making  their  new  home  over  Frowenfeld's 
drug-store,  occurred  in  the  following  rather 
amusing  way.     It  chanced  that  the  build- 
ing was  about  completed  at  the  time  that  the 
apothecary's  stock  in  trade  was  destroyed ; 
Frowenfeld  leased  the  lower  floor.     Honore 
Grandissime  f.  m.  c.  was  the  owner.     He 
being  concealed  from  his  enemies,  Joseph 
treated    with     that    person's    inadequately 
remunerated  employe.      In  those  days,  as 
still  in  the  old  French  Quarter,  it  was  not 
uncommon  for  persons,  even  of  wealth,  to 
make  their  homes  over  stores,  and  buildings 
were  constructed  with  a  view  to  their  par- 
tition in  this  way.     Hence,  in  Chartres  and 
Decatur  streets,  to-day — and  in  the  cross- 
streets    between,   so    many   store-buildings 
with  balconies,  dormer  windows,  and  some- 
times even  belvideres.     This  new  building 
quickly  caught  the  eye  and  fancy  of  Au- 
rora and  Clotilde.     The  apartments  for  the 
store    were   entirely  isolated.     Through   a 
large  porte-cochere,  opening  upon  the   ban- 
quette immediately  beside  and  abreast  of  the 
store-front,    one    entered   a  high,   covered 
carriage-way   with    a   tesselated   pavement 
and  green  plastered  walls,  and  reached,  just 
where  this  way  (corridor,  the  Creoles  always 
called   it)  opened  into   a  sunny  court  sur- 
rounded  with   narrow    parterres,    a  broad 
stairway  leading  to  a  hall  over  the  "  corri- 


dor" and  to  the  drawing-rooms  over  the 
store.  They  liked  it !  Aurora  would  find 
out  at  once  what  sort  of  an  establishment 
was  likely  to  be  opened  below,  and  if  that 
proved  unexceptionable  she  would  lease  the 
upper  part  without  more  ado. 

Next  day  she  said  : 

•'  Clotilde,  thou  beautiful,  I  have  signed 
the  lease ! " 

"  Then  the  store  below  is  to  be  occupied 
by  a — what  ?  " 

"  Guess ! " 
Ah!" 

"  Guess  a  pharmacien  !  " 

Clotilde's  lips  parted,  she  was  going  to 
smile,  when  her  thought  changed  and  she 
blushed  offendedly. 

«Not " 

"  'Sieur  Frowenf ah,  ha,  ha,  ha ! — ha, 

ha,  ha  !  " 

Clotilde  burst  into  tears. 
Still  they  moved  in — it  was  written  in  the 
bond;  and  so  did  the  apothecary;  and 
probably  two  sensible  young  lovers  never 
before  nor  since  behaved  with  such  abject 
fear  of  each  other— for  a  time.  Later,  and 
after  much  oft-repeated  good  advice  given 
to  each  separately  and  to  both  together, 
Honore  Grandissime  persuaded  them  that 
Clotilde  could  make  excellent  use  of  a  por- 
tion of  her  means  by  re-enforcing  Frowen- 
feld's very  slender  stock  and  well  filling  his 
rather  empty-looking  store,  and  so  they 
signed  regular  articles  of  copartnership, 
blushing  frightfully. 

Frowenfeld  became  a  visitor.  Honore 
not;  once  Honore  had  seen  the  ladies' 
moneys  satisfactorily  invested,  he  kept  aloof. 
It  is  pleasant  here  to  remark  that  neither 
Aurora  nor  Clotilde  made  any  waste  of 
their  sudden  acquisitions;  they  furnished 
their  rooms  with  much  beauty  at  moderate 
cost,  and  their  salon  with  artistic,  not  ex- 
travagant, elegance,  and,  for  the  sake  of 
greater  propriety,  employed  a  decayed  lady 
as  housekeeper;  but,  being  discreet  in  al. 
other  directions,  they  agreed  upon  one  bole 
outlay — a  volante. 

Almost  any  afternoon  you  might  hav< 
seen  this  vehicle  on  the  Terre  aux  Bceuf,  o: 
Bayou,  or  Tchoupitoulas  Road ;  and  becaus< 
of  the  brilliant  beauty  of  its  occupants  i 
became  known  from  all  other  volantes  a 
the  "  meteor." 

Frowenfeld's  visits  were  not  infrequent 
he  insisted  on  Clotilde's  knowing  just  wha 
was  being  done  with  her  money.  Withou 
indulging  ourselves  in  the  pleasure  of  cor 
templating  his  continued  mental  unfolding 


THE   GRANDISSIMES. 


535 


we  may  say  that  his  growth  became  more 
rapid  in  this  season  of  universal  expansion ; 
love  had  entered  into  his  still  compacted 
soul  like  a  cupid  into  a  rose,  and  was  crowd- 
ing it  wide  open.  However,  as  yet,  it  had 
not  made  him  brave.  Aurora  used  to  slip 
out  of  the  drawing-room,  and  in  some 
secluded  nook  of  the  hall  throw  up  her 
clasped  hands  and  go  through  all  the  mo- 
tions of  screaming  merriment. 

"  The  little  fool !  " — it  was  of  her  own 
daughter  she  whispered  this  complimentary 
remark — "  the  little  fool  is  afraid  of  the 
fish !  " 

"  You  !  "  she  said  to  Clotilde,  one  even- 
ing after  Joseph  had  gone,  "  you  call  your- 
self a  Creole  girl !  " 

But  she  expected  too  much.  Nothing 
so  terrorizes  a  blushing  girl  as  a  blushing 
man.  And  then: — though  they  did  some- 
times digress — Clotilde  and  her  partner  met 
to  "  talk  business  "  in  a  purely  literal  sense. 

Aurora,  after  a  time,  had  taken  her  money 
into  her  own  keeping. 

"  You  mighd  gid  robb'  ag'in,  you  know, 
'Sieur  Frowenfel',''  she  said. 

But  when  he  mentioned  Clotilde's  fortune 
as  subject  to  the  same  contingency,  Aurora 
replied  : 

"  Ah  !  bud  Clotilde  mighd  gid  robb' !  " 

But  for  all  the  exuberance  of  Aurora's 
spirits,  there  was  a  cloud  in  her  sky.  Indeed, 
we  know  it  is  only  when  clouds  are  in  the 
sky  that  we  get  the  rosiest  tints ;  and  so  it 
was  with  Aurora.  One  night,  when  she 
had  heard  the  wicket  in  the  porte-cochere 
shut  behind  three  evening  callers,  one  of 
whom  she  had  rejected  a  week  before, 
another  of  whom  she  expected  to  dispose 
similarly,  and  the  last  of  whom  was 
Joseph  Frowenfeld,  she  began  such  a  merry 
raillery  at  Clotilde  and  such  a  hilarious 
ridicule  of  the  "  Professor "  that  Clotilde 
would  have  wept  again  had  not  Aurora,  all 
at  once,  in  the  midst  of  a  laugh,  dropped  her 
face  in  her  hands  and  run  from  the  room 
in  tears.  It  is  one  of  the  penalties  we  pay 
for  being  joyous,  that  nobody  thinks  us 
capable  of  care  or  the  victim  of  trouble  until, 
in  some  moment  of  extraordinary  expansion, 


our  bubble  of  gayety  bursts.  Aurora  had 
been  crying  of  nights.  Even  that  same  night, 
Clotilde  awoke,  opened  her  eyes  and  beheld 
her  mother  risen  from  the  pillow  and  sitting 
upright  in  the  bed  beside  her;  the  moon, 
shining  brightly  through  the  bars,  revealed 
with  distinctness  her  head  slightly  drooped, 
her  face  again  in  her  hands  and  the  dark 
folds  of  her  hair  falling  about  her  shoulders, 
half-concealing  the  richly  embroidered 
bosom  of  her  snowy  gown,  and  coiling  in 
continuous  abundance  about  her  waist  and 
on  the  slight  summer  covering  of  the  bed. 
Before  her  on  the  sheet  lay  a  white  paper. 
Clotilde  did  not  try  to  decipher  the  writing 
on  it ;  she  knew,  at  sight,  the  slip  that  had 
fallen  from  the  statement  of  account  on  the 
evening  of  the  ninth  of  March.  Aurora 
withdrew  her  hands  from  her  face — Clotilde 
shut  her  eyes;  she  heard  Aurora  put  the 
paper  in  her  bosom. 

"  Clotilde,"  she  said,  very  softly. 

"  Maman,"  the  daughter  replied,  opening 
her  eyes,  then  she  reached  up  her  arms  and 
drew  the  dear  head  down. 

"  Clotilde,  once  upon  a  time  I  woke  this 
way,  and,  while  you  were  asleep,  left  the  bed 
and  made  a  vow  to  Monsieur  Danny.  Oh ! 
it  was  a  sin !  But  I  cannot  do  those  things 
now;  I  have  been  frightened  ever  since.  I 
shall  never  do  so  any  more.  I  shall  never 
commit  another  sin  as  long  as  I  live ! " 

Their  lips  met  fervently. 

"  My  sweet  sweet,"  whispered  Clotilde, 
"  you  looked  so  beautiful  sitting  up  with  the 
moonlight  all  around  you  !  " 

"  Clotilde,  my  beautiful  daughter,"  said 
Aurora,  pushing  her  bedmate  from  her  and 
pretending  to  repress  a  smile,  "  I  tell  you 
now,  because  you  don't  know,  and  it  is  my 
duty  as  your  mother  to  tell  you — the  mean- 
est wickedness  a  woman  can  do  in  all  this 
bad,  bad  world  is  to  look  ugly  in  bed !  " 

Clotilde  answered  nothing,  and  Aurora 
dropped  her  outstretched  arms,  turned  away 
with  an  involuntary,  tremulous  sigh,  and, 
after  two  or  three  hours  of  patient  wakeful- 
ness,  fell  asleep. 

But  at  daybreak  next  morning,  he  that 
wrote  the  paper  had  not  closed  his  eyes. 


(To  be  continued.) 


536 


THE  SWEET  O'  THE    YEAR. 


THE     SWEET     O'    THE     YEAR, 


ACT   I. 
SCENE.— A  LOWLY  COT. 

TENANT  (Tenor). 
TENANT'S  WIFE  (Soprano}. 
TENANT'S  MOTHER-IN-LAW  (Contralto). 
LANDLORD  (Basso). 

Words  by  NELLIE   G.  CONE.  Music  by  E.  C.  PHELPS. 

Allegro  Moderate.  TENOR   SOLO,    mf 

=f=f=*= 


-»-'—f-\-f— f— 9 1—  I     "t*   ^P 

1 1 M-; 1 P 0 f J 0  -U 

=•   =y3?=fct=:       === 


How  happy    is  our  lot,  Beneath  our  vines  and  fig-trees,  In 


PIANO. 


3^ 


— *-*H — «,  i  i — P>-      P — i — •} 
— » F+  7  M--TI  -*-l — 

^^'1 


this  sub  -  ur  -  ban    spot,     A  -  m«ng  so    man  -  y     big     trees  !  Our  landlord's  ver  -  y    kind,     His 


f- f. — 50 — _ W. — E 

4 —  — 8^ C 


P^* 0- 

$ — V — y- 


-y- 


V — y- 


speech  is    mild  and  gen  -  tie,    He     nev  -  er    was     inclined         To    go    and  raise  the    ren   -   taL 


!  -  1  — 


^ i 

*  i  *: 


§lfpjl=?= 


^ 


f-1 


THE   SWEET  O'  THE    YEAR. 


537 


TRIO. 


,N__  N    _ft_ 


How  hap  -  py      is     our    lot       Beneath    our  vines  and  fig  -  trees,    In    this  suburban  spot,      A- 
mf 


& — ?: 


i=5 


i=:iS=$=$=^_\ K       fv 

bfr-EjUj      jN=i— jS^ 
— g~  ^     ^— * »- 


*=£=£ 


1- 


mong   so  man  -  y     big    trees ;  How    hap  -  py     is     our     lot !   How   hap  -  py     is     our    lot ! 

rit.  /-s 


ENTER  LANDLORD— BASSO. 


-    ^  _ .      — r-fty- f    ^     h-r 

7  A  brrjEr1?^- jVg^ 


How  do  you  do  ?  [-^.wVfe.]  I'll  try    a  few  de  -vi  -  ces ;  I've 


5335 


^: 


paid     a     five -cent  fare,       To      see     if     my   prem-i  -  ses      Were     wanting  much   re -pair. 


-*• 
ff* 


--*=*--} 


533 


THE   SWEET  O'    THE    YEAR. 


TENOR. 


BASSO  [aside']. 


Sir,     the  whole  house  neat    and    nice     is,    And     re  -  quires  no     ex  -  tra  care.      Got     him 

~±r=z±=pzzr 


mf                                         -4 

j—  pL-  j-..—  jr-j   ^ 

Y  *-          -1 

•»•-»•                     -*• 

TENOR. 


BASSO 


:^=p: 


there  !     This    is      in  -  deed    a     love  -  ly    spot,   "  Beyond     com  -  pare.    Got  him  there  !         I 


YftT  ? 

TENOR.      BASSO  [aside].        [Direct.] 


TENOR. 


P-=»=3B:-qw=L_| — — 

i H P—Jl — ^H — B 

:--       t=i±=±5^ii=_ 


thinkyou  never  find  it  hot?    Fine  cool  air.    Got  him  there!      Handy    to  the  cars  and  boats?  Pretty 


^^a^^^^^bUd-3^^ 
-^-^-.j.-      -=ifi^-  -^-i^?1^ 


>T|p?E  EEiE  ^^3^£?"E?: 

3=?--=^=*=^^=^=p 


fair.  Got  him  there  !        Far  removed  from  geese  and  goats  ?  So  we  air.  Got  him  there  !  Think  IV. 


=f=f= 


•4     _T 


-y — y— ^ — b 


got    him    ev  -ery  -where;  Bless  you  !  af  -  ter     so  much  praise,    I    shall   real-ly  have  to   raise^ 


THE   SWEET   O'    THE    YEAR. 


539 


MOTHER-IN-LAW — CONTRALTO  [to  Tenor]. 


=3= 

'S. 

Agitato. 


— rs — k — -N 


oh,        oh !  No,        no,        no !       Have    you  the    feelings       of      a    man     To 


f*  %*  tp 


I 


* 


=P=P^=~r~j — -N—  is        j^z^zz^-HT^jzzj-fo 

:•=*=•= *=f      *- j? ^=t=zg=^=i*=*= & 


stand   such    wick  -  ed        im  -    po    -    si  -   tion  ?   An       old  house  built   on  such    a    plan,    And 


-J ?- 


afczst: 


^ 


--h- 


SOPRANO.  / 


CONTR. 


lit 4 


-N ly 


J    *    «h^ 


H 1 (- 


in       the      ver    -    y      worst    con  -  di  -   tion.     The      pa  -  per's  hanging    on    the   wall.     The 


*> K 2>  — gi— V  g1  N — t r 

P fs — N— B— N-R — N — it v- 


~ff         K        K        K        N        K 


0 0 «l * 0 * * 


plas  -  ter's    tumbling  from    the     ceil  -  ing.    The  front  pi  -  az  -  za.    is     li-  a-  ble  to   falL     Oh, 


TENOR.  / 


^^^ 

« » f ^| P ^ 1 ^ — I 1 1 ff 1 


are      you     a    man       of        an    -    y       feel  -  ing  ?  I      won't    pay !        First      of      May. 


1 — *=\i=*p3£=q=  =it=ii=iE^ 

i* _i , j j i         *• 

f — •<— J — 3 — uw — d— i     ^ — itn^tnzj: 

-+     W       •&-         -!-+<&• 


[INTERMISSION — Agent  heard  without  tacking  up  bill.] 


Y 


54° 


THE  SWEET  O'    THE    YEAR. 


ACT   II. 

ENTER  LEFT—  Chorus  of  Feminine  House-Seekers  and  Chorus  of  Masculine  House-Seekers,  waving 

permits. 
Allegro.  FULL  CHORUS,      mf  TENOR. 


ff       I  want  to  see.  Oh,  certainly  !  Be  kind  e- 


It  X   WCLllL  \>\J  3t\i.  \*r*-*y  VA.I.  M-M»»»^     • 


FEM.  CHO. 


nough  to  fed-low  me.     This  par  -  lot's  ra  -  ther  nice  ;  This  par  -  lor's  ra  -  ther  small ;   Are  you 


V        •* 


=t 


•*         •*      J* 


-» — P 


MALE  CHO.         ^__^M>  CHO' 
•oubled  with  rats  and  mice?  Will  the  landlord  paint  the  wall?  Does  the  roof  leak  when  it's  clear?  Are  the 

*•    •*•    4  ^. ._      __& =_ 1 r r- ^ —         ^        — I- 


JL    +. 


fat 


3t 


b^roomstint-edbte?  Ho»    tog  have  you  lived  here  ?  Willthe 


r 


THE   SWEET  O'    THE    YEAR. 


y- 


FULL  CHO. 


FEM.  CHO.        MALE  CHO. 


FEM.  CHO. 


MALE  CHO. 


--* N f» 

=j— «i— «L- 


5-±: 


V      V      V 

It  would-n't     do  1 
[Re-enter  R.] 


K      I      :===:^+»==0 ^ ^    ^— ZZZZSZir 


It's  warm !  It's  cold  !  It's  quite  too  new  !  It's  quite  too  old  ! 

V- 


•fit  ' 
FULL  CHO.   f  Animate. 


I    want   -    ed  gas  !     I    wanted  grass  !  We  all  expected  fine  plate-glass  !  And  shelves  for  cheese  !  And 

*•     •*•  *       +-  ~        »      T*  *      H*--*-*-*-      *     * 
- 


P^5 — . 5555 1 — I— 1 — . — I 


— • — a — * g— B— f-g— i^^    «.  -M~^ 

-- — -         - - 


o  -  range  trees,  And  beds  for  raising  straw-ber-ries.    I         dwell    in     a    mar-ble  hall,  And  I 

|S       d  N    S      N  j          *  - 

-•—r-t—0—ft—^       r     N— N- 


* 1^ w 

.  ft  y    Er?-p 

couldn't  make  it  do  ;     And  I     don't  see  how  you  live  at  all ;  And      I'm    much  obliged  to  you. 


542 


JIM  ALLTHINGS. 


JIM  ALLTHINGS. 


ONE  thing  was  very  extraordinary  about 
Tim  Allthings— he  never  could  be  found. 
It  was  a  faculty  or  misfortune,  which  lay 
entirely  beyond  my  comprehension.       He 
had  certainly  become  possessed  of  the  ring 
of  Gyges  without  knowing  it,  for  he  never 
meant   to   be   invisible.      He   never  kept, 
knowingly,  and  in  malice  prepense,  out  of 
the  way.     On  the  contrary  he  was  always 
happy  to  see  his  friends,  and  at  a  picnic,  or 
ride  or  boating  excursion,  he  was  as  punctual 
as  any  one,  and  always  happy  to  go,  besides 
being  the  life  of  the  company.     So  agree- 
able he  made  himself  that  he  was  always 
wanted,  and,  if  never  searched  for,  was  ever 
on  the  spot.     For  instance,  Jim  is  in  my 
office.     (I  am  a  great  man  in  a  small  way, 
viz  •  a   Justice   of  the   Peace.)     He   lives 
about  a  mile  from  the  village  (Eaglepme). 
It  is  a  beautiful  golden  day,  just  the  day  for 
a  ride  to  White  Lake,  a  lovely  sheet  of 
water  a  few  miles  from  the  village. 

"What  do  you  say,  Jim,  shall  we  make 
up  a  party  this  afternoon?" 

«  Certainly,  with  all  my  heart !"  and  away 
Tim  would  go,  happy  as  a  lark,  the  party 
would  be  invited,  and  at  the  proper  time 
two  horses'  heads  would  rise  above  the 
brow  of  the  village  hill,  and  there  would  be 
Jim  with  his  bright,  new  wagon  and  a 
young  lady  beside  him,  almost  the  first  for 

the  ride. 

So,  if  in  the  glow  of  a  lovely  sunset  the 
desire  should  rise  on  my  part  for  a  bath  in 
the  cool  silver  of  Pleasant  Lake,  a  short 
distance  from  Eaglepine,  and,  wishing  a 
companion,  I,  not  thinking  particularly  of 
him,  should  cast  my  eye  along  the  village 
street;  ten  chances  to  one,  the  first  person  I 
saw  would  be  Jim,— either  lounging  along 
the  maple  sidewalk,  or,  with  his  chin  tipped 
back  and  his  heels  in  air,  in  Raffle's  Tavern 
stoop,  whittling ;  and  he  was  always  ready 
to  accept  my  proposition. 

And  not  only  was  Jim  a  compamonabl< 
fellow  but  a  keen  sportsman.    He  knew  th 
finest  streams  and  ponds  for  pickerel,  trout 
or  yellow  perch,  and  the  best  run-ways  for 
deer  the   region   round,  and  that  was   an 
added  reason  why  I  liked  his  society — that 
is,  whenever  I  chanced  to  obtain  it  j  as  for 
finding  him — but  why  repeat? 

Before  I  begin,  however,  be  it  known, 
that  not  a  suspicion  of  this  strange  invisi- 
bility of  Jim  had  dawned  upon  me  at  that 


time.  I  used  to  think  it  singular  he  could 
never  be  found,  but  I  had  not  the  least  idea 
a  wayward  angel,  or  rather  fiend,  had  taken 
possession  of  my  friend.  If  so,  I  should  not 
have  tried  so  faithfully  to  seek  him  out,  but 
have  abandoned  the  search  at  the  first  dis- 
appointment. I  was  always  led  on,  however, 
by  the  idea  that  the  next  moment,  or  at  the 
next  place,  I  should  undoubtedly  find  him. 
Only  lately  has  this  truth  opened  upon  me 
and  I  now  chronicle  the  phenomenon  a; 
one  of  those  oddities  in  life,  strange  anc 
unaccountable  as  a  lusus  natura,  or  atmos 
)heric  wonder. 

One  June  morning  a  longing  came  ove 
me  for  a  day's  fishing.  It  was  just  th« 
time  for  it.  The  wind  was  southerly,  mell 
mg  over  the  person  like  liquid  balm  an< 
bringing  two  messages  blended  on  its  breath 
One  was  from  the  woods — the  rich  fra 
grance  swung  from  the  golden  balls  of  th 
bass-wood,  telling  me  how  pleasant  it  wa 
in  the  dark,  green  coverts  whence  it  wa 
wafted;  the  other  was  from  the  wild  stream 
therein,  the  pungent  scent  "fuming  (a 
Leigh  Hunt  says)  from  the  thick-clusterm 
mint  that  lines  their  borders,  and  saying  i 
its  bland  kisses,  "The  trout  are  all 

to-day."  ,.        . 

A  soft  vail  of  silver  was  overspreading  tl 
sky  so  evenly,  and  sheathing  the  sunshir 
so  completely  and  yet  so  transparently  th; 
the  whole  arch  seemed  a  dome  of  silv 
somewhat  like  that  visioned  to  the  rapt  e 
of  Coleridge  in  that 


or  as  if 


"  Miracle  of  rare  device," 

"Through  fog-smoke  white 
Glimmered  the  white  moonshine. 

I  threw  aside  the  book  whose  leaden  co 
tents  I  was  endeavoring  to  thrust  into  r 
«  palace  of  the  soul,"  and  withdrew  my  he< 
deliberately  from  the  desk.  I  next  aro 
saying  mentally  (in  the  interim  of  my  d 
tressing  labors  as  Justice,  I  was  also  tl 
prominent  candidate  for  the  poor-house 
village  Attorney)  that  clients  might  go 
where  they  chose,  and  stalked  out,  addi 
also  in  my  mind,  "  I  will  go  find  Jim  A 
things  and  have  a  fish."  I  knew  no  bet 

Collecting  my  lines  and  bait,  I  started 
my  mile's  walk  for  Jim,  and  soon  reachi 


JIM  ALLTHINGS. 


543 


the  tavern  kept  by  his  father  (one  of  the 
first  settlers),  saw  the  old  Captain,  who  was 
very  deaf,  .sitting  on  the  antique  porch  that 
squared  its  elbows  in  front  of  the  edifice. 

"  How  do  you  do,  Captain !  Is  Jim 
in?" 

"  Yes,  we've  got  gin,  but  I  like  brandy 
myself.  However,  we've  got  both." 

"  True,  but  I  want  to  find  whether  your 
son  is  here  or  not!  " 

"  Yes,  I  find  the  sun  hot,  too.  Come  in, 
come  in ! " 

"  No,  I  thank  you.     I'm  after  James  !  " 

"  Laughing  at  James !  Ah,  well,  I  laugh 
at  him  myself  sometimes." 

"  Is  James  in  ?  "  I  roared. 

Bless  my  soul,  this  last  upheaval  was 
awful. 

"Yes,  you'llfind  him  in  the  bar-room. 
He  went  there  about  ten  minutes  ago." 

I  turned  the  corner  of  the  house,  and 
entered  the  bar-room.  It  was  perfectly 
empty.  I  thought,  however,  I  would  wait  a 
little  time  for  him.  There  was  the  small, 
green  counter  with  the  bar-picket  in  one  cor- 
ner, showing  its  kegs,  bottles,  cigars  and 
lemons;  there  was  the  bench,  stretching 
along  a  portion  of  the  wall ;  the  six  wooden 
chairs ;  the  gaudy  print  of  the  death  of 
Wolfe,  and  a  ferocious  one  of  a  huge  panther 
grinning  from  a  limb  hardly  large  enough  to 
hold  his  paws,  with  a  squat  hunter  beneath, 
who  was  aiming  a  rifle  larger  than  himself. 
(What  a  terribly  long-winded  story  the  Cap- 
tain used  to  tell  about  the  death  of  the 
"painter."  "  Bang!  and  George  Washing- 
ton! boys,  the  critter  fell  dead  at  my  feet." 
We  all  used  to  believe  that  story.) 

On  the  counter  was  a  glass  with  a  sugar- 
crusher  in  it,  and  a  portion  of  sugar  melted 
in  a  few  drops  of  liquid  which  looked  mar- 
velously  like  punch  (Jim  was  fond  of  punch), 
which  look  was  assisted  by  the  squeezed  half 
of  a  lemon  lying  near,  like  a  little  yellow 
chapeau.  In  the  glass  were  a  score  of  flies 
trooping  toward  the  bottom — a  real  El 
Dorado  for  the  little  adventurers.  A  circle 
of  dark  backs  were  at  the  very  spot  sipping 
like  mad,  while  two  or  three  had  ventured 
on  the  sticky  surface  itself,  and  were  lifting 
up  one  hairy  foot  and  then  another,  in  a 
vain  attempt  at  extrication.  A  rivulet  of  the 
melted  sugar  was  also  setting  slowly  from  the 
rim  of  the  glass  toward  the  bottom,  evidently 
the  trace  of  the  liquor  on  its  way  to  Jim's 
throat,  and  along  this  channel  other  flies  in 
double  row  were  drinking  to  their  hearts' 
content.  A  large  drop  or  two  had  splashed 
upon  the  counter,  and  here  was  another 


drinking  bout  among  the  flies.  One  little 
fellow  particularly  amused  me.  He  had  evi- 
dently been  drinking,  either  in  the  glass  or 
at  the  counter,  and  now  was  feeling  very 
jolly.  First  he  lowered  the  gray  of  his  body 
to  the  counter,  pointed  his  fore-limbs  up- 
ward and  screwed  them  over  each  other  as 
swift  as  lightning;  then  he  patted  his  dull- 
red,  gold-banded  head  repeatedly,  ducking 
it  all  the  while  like  a  mandarin ;  then  he 
rubbed  the  deep  ring  that  served  for  his  neck ; 
then  he  balanced  himself  on  his  fore-feet  and 
twisted  his  hind-legs  together ;  stroked  them 
down  with  his  gauzy,  veined  wings,  and  then 
off  he  cantered,  with  that  queer  gait  peculiar 
to  flies,  once  more  toward  the  liquor. 

All  this  time  a  large  blue-bottle,  who  had, 
without  doubt,  been  indulging  scandalously 
in  the  punch — in  fact,  until  he  was  blind 
drunk,  was  darting  furiously  from  floor  to 
ceiling,  now  and  then  dashing  himself  head- 
foremost against  the  window-panes,  and 
then  bob,  bobbing  over  the  glass  with  a  hor- 
rible humming,  as  if  determined  to  discover 
what  struck  his  head  so  pertinaciously.  I 
soon  became  tired  of  this,  however,  and 
went  out  again  to  the  Captain. 

"  Jim  is  not  there,  Captain  !  " 

"  Yes,  there's  a  little  more  air  there  than 
here." 

"  No,  no ;  Jim  is  not  in  the  bar-room, 
Captain !  " 

"  Well,  he  may  have  gone  over  to  the 
barn.  I  rayther  guess  he  has,  on  the  hull." 

So,  over  to  the  barn  I  went. 

A  broad  beam  of  hazy  light  was  slanting 
through  and  through — a  grindstone  was 
standing  by  the  door,  with  its  smooth  gray 
wheel  so  still  that  it  seemed  as  if  it  never 
had  and  never  could  stir;  the  two  horses 
of  Allthings  were  munching  their  hay  and 
stamping  lightly;  a  ladder  was  leaning 
against  the  mow,  and  a  great  black  cat  as- 
cending from  round  to  round  with  a  most 
vinegary  aspect,  as  if  resolved  on  silencing  the 
squeaking  up  there  which  told  of  belligerent 
mice ;  there  was  an  open  bin  of  oats,  with  a 
dusty  cloud  hovering  and  sparkling  in  a  pen- 
cil of  sunshine  above  it,  as  though  Jim,  or 
some  one,  had  just  disturbed  the  contents 
beneath  ;  a  two-horse  harness  was  hanging 
from  a  beam,  with  a  buckle,  ring  or  clasp 
gleaming  out  in  bits  of  light — but  no  Jim. 

"  Jim  !     Jim  !  " 

The  echo  roamed  from  corner  to  corner, 
like  a  bat  trying  to  escape.  The  horses 
ceased  stamping  and  munching,  and  pricked 
their  ears.  The  cat  re-appeared  at  the  edge 
of  the  hay-mow  and  looked  down  with 


544 


JIM  ALLTHINGS. 


eyes  like  two  balls  of  green  fire,  and  I 
caught  the  flight  of  a  huge  gray  rat  from 
the  oat-bin,  but  no  answer.  On  the  con- 
trary the  stillness  was  so  intense  I  heard 
the  slight  rustling  that  runs  through  a  barn 
in  quiet,  as  if  insects  were  stirring  in  the 

Well,  Tim  was  not  here,  at  all  events,  so 
I  sallied  out.  While  going,  I  saw  in  the 
dust,  chaff,  and  chopped  straw,  the  print  of 
a  human  foot.  It  was  the  size  Jim  boasted. 
It  doubtless  belonged  to  Jim. 

On  the  other  side  of  the  barn  was  a  hen, 
scratching  up  the  earth  with  her  yellow  feet, 
clucking  occasionally  to  a  solitary  chicken 
with  a  specter  of  a  tail,  like  a  knobbed  dump- 
ling   A  superb  rooster  was  near  her,  stretch- 
ing his  head  majestically  and  glancing  every 
way  as  if  amazed  that  any  one  should  dare 
intrude  into   his  presence.      Another,  but 
smaller,  of  the  species  was  sneaking  about 
like  a  sheepish  bumpkin  in  a  ball-room.     A 
large  hog  was  lifting  his  round  snout  at  me, 
gazing  wisely  and  solemnly,  "  umph,  umph, 
umpiring"  all   the  time,  as   if  asking   my 
business;  a  pair  of  ducks,  waddling  along, 
were  quacking  to  each  other  as  if  convers- 
ing on  a  deep  subject,  while  a  great  turkey- 
cock,  after  bursting  out  into  such  a  full  orb  of 
glory  as  to  lift  himself  almost  off  his  feet, 
commenced   strutting,  jerking   up  his   legs 
and  turning,  in  a  sort  of  slow  polka,— but  no 

Jim!  ,. 

At  length  I  detected  a  large  lump  of  dirt 
stuck  between  the  boards  of  a  fence,  which, 
at  last,   resolved    itself   into   a    mouth,   a 
nose,  and  a  pair  of  eyes.     Looking  a  little 
closer,  I  discerned  the  face  of  a  small  lad. 
"  I  say,  my  boy,  can  you  tell  me  where 
Jim  Allthings  is  ?  " 
"  I  dunno,  man ! " 
"  Have  you  seen  him  lately  ?  " 
"  I  seed— I  seed— I  seed  'm  go  up— go 
Up_to  that— that  aire— aire — aire — aire — to 
that  aire  saw-mill,  man ! " 
"When?" 

"  A  little  while  ago,  man ! " 
"Thank   you,  my   little   fellow.     Here's 
sixpence  for  you.     Now  trot  home  and  tell 
your  mammy  you're  a  good  boy,  but  your 
face  wants  washing ! " 

And  off  I  started  for  the  mill.  I  was 
somewhat  surprised  on  approaching  that  I 
did  not  hear  the  usual  cheerful  clatter.  I, 
nevertheless,  descended  the  slope  leading 
to  the  low,  dark,  slabbed  structure.  The  saw 
had  been  stopped  when  half-way  through  a 
beautiful,  smooth  pine-log,  a  few  grains  of 
sawdust  still  clinging  to  the  edge  of  the 


particular  tooth  just  raised  above  the  cut. 
The  clean  white  boards,  lately  sawed,  stood 
piled  neatly  on  one  side,  forming  alleys  and 
lanes  like  a  worm-eaten  cheese.     The  hand- 
spike, used  to   fit   the  log  under  the  iron 
claws  of  the  "  slider,"  lay  at  full  length,  as 
if  thrown  down  in  a  hurry.     The  axe  and 
beetle  were  in  their  place.     On  the  loose- 
boarded  loft  above,  a  beautiful  tame  rabbit 
belonging  to  Jake,  the  sawyer,  was  crouched, 
gazing  down  upon  me  with  great  rounded 
eyes   and   erected   ears.     The   huge,   dark 
wheel,  the  drops  falling  from  the  buckets 
with  a  light,  splashing  sound,  stood  motion- 
less.    I   heard    the    gurgle   of   the    water 
through  the  throat  of  the  mill-race, 
whole  scene  was  one  of  solitude  and  silence. 
No  Jim  there,  to  a  certainty.     In  the  saw- 
dust I  perceived  once  more  the  same  large 
print  of  a  man's  foot,  certainly  Jim's,  and 
leading   outward.     Just  then  I   heard  the 
click  of  a  hammer  underneath,  and  looking 
there,  through  the  parted  slabs  that  form 
the  floor,  saw  Jake  tinkering  at  the  machin- 
ery.    I  entered  at  once  into  my  business. 
"  Where's  Jim  Allthings,  Jake  ?  " 
"  He    just    went    away   from   here,   sir, 
hardly  a  moment  ago,  to  the  grist-mill." 
"  Thanks !    machinery   a  little    awry,    ] 

suppose ! " 

"  A  little  out  of  tune,  sir.     Can  fix  it  in  a 
few  minutes,  though." 

Sure  enough.  I  had  not  more  than 
threaded  my  way  through  the  labyrinth  of 
logs  that,  peeled  and  ready,  lay  in  then 
sleek,  russet  coats,  ready  for  their  turn  upon 
the  "slider,"  before  Jake  ascended, 
then  pulled  the  handle  of  the  machined 
protruding  near  the  frame-work  of  the  per 
pendicular  saw,  like  the  scaffoldings  of  I 
guillotine,  a  throb  followed  from  the  mill 
then  a  jarring  groan,  the  saw  began  t 
move  and  the  log  to  slide,  the  clat-clatter 
clat-clatter  of  the  mill  rose  mernly,  and,  11 
the  midst,  the  keen  whistle  of  Jake  pierce< 
my  ears,  executing  the  air  of 


"  Happily  glides  the  sawyer's  life !  " 

All  these  were  seen  and  heard  during  m 
swift   way   toward    the    grist-mill, 
becoming  very  impatient,  as  the  day  wa 
going  to  waste. 

'  I  soon  entered  the  dusty  precincts  ( 
the  mill.  Here  I  should  certainly  fin 
Tim  No  doubt  of  it.  There  he  wa 
by  that  very  first  hopper.  Deacon  Pester 
horses  and  wagons  were  by  the  door,  01 
of  the  former  giving  his  mate  a  sly  I 


JIM  ALLTHINGS. 


545 


then  hanging  his  head  in  a  very  docile 
and  innocent  manner,  while  the  mate  set  one 
ear  back  and  then  the  other,  his  tail  sweep- 
ing on  this  side  and  that,  like  a  pendulum,  he, 
at  the  same  time,  keeping  a  constant  winking 
with  his  sleepy  eyes,  as  if  he  were  cogitating 
some  knotty  point  to  the  extent  of  winking 
himself  into  a  dead  slumber.  In  the  wagon 
was  a  multiplicity  of  sacks  for  the  mill.  I 
entered.  Here  were  the  customary  sights ; 
bags  lolling  on,  backed  up  against,  and  stand- 
ing aloof  from  each  other ;  two  or  three  hop- 
pers,— one  filled  with  yellow,  glazy  corn, 
another  with  brown  rye,  and  still  another 
with  tawny  wheat.  The  contents  of  these 
hoppers  was  whirling  around,  each  with  a 
whirlpool  in  the  midst,  the  grains  creeping 
stealthily  yet  swiftly  around  its  mouth,  into 
which,  at  last,  they  slipped  with  a  twirl  and 
vanished,  while  the  tubs  underneath  were 
letting  forth  the  white  threads  of  warm  flour 
into  the  boxes,  and  thence  into  the  sacks. 
The  rafters  overhead  dangled  with  cobwebs, 
filled  with  white  dust  so  that  even  the  spi- 
ders in  them  were  whitened.  While  I  was 
gazing,  a  great  sulphur  butterfly  flew  in  at  the 
open  window,  but  before  he  had  accom- 
plished many  turns  his  eye-spotted  pinions 
became  so  powdered  with  the  dusty  particles 
that  he  was  transformed  to  silver. 

Ha,  there,  at  last,  is  Jim !  there  in  the 
half-light  of  that  nook,  looking  into  a 
hopper. 

"  Well,  Jim,  I  have  at  last  found  you, 
thank  fortune!  I  want  you  to  go  fishing 
with  me !  " 

The  former  suddenly  turns  and  discloses, 
iiot  the  frank  face  of  Jim,  but  the  stern, 
Puritanical  features  of  Deacon  Pester. 

Now,  if  there  was  a  person  in  the  village 
hat  I  detested,  it  was  the  deacon.  He  was 
|ilways  upon  the  strictest  propriety  of  speech 

d  manner,  and  abhorred  harmless  pleas- 
ntry ;  never  was  guilty  of  a  slip  of  the 
ongue,  but  when  it  came  to  a  bargain,  then 

>k  out !     Steel  is  sharp,  and  a  vice  griping, 
nit  Deacon  Pester — ahem  !     As  for  fishing, 
had  a  perfect  horror  of  it.     He   turned 
!.is  forbidding  gaze  at  me. 

"  Ah,  is  it  you,  Deacon !  Pardon ;  I 
lought  it  was  Mr.  Allthings !  " 

"  Look  closer,  young  man,  next  time.  I 
on't  want  to  be  taken  for  any  idle  Vagabond 
'ho  thinks  more  of  fishing  and  hunting  than 
f  the  good  of  his  soul." 

"  Pardon  again,  Deacon.     By  the   way, 

.1    Mr.    Poundpulpit    leave    the    parish, 

ink  you  ?  " 

I  really  don't  know.     He  talks  a  good 
VOL.  XX.— 36. 


deal  of  the  inadequacy  of  his  salary.  I'm 
'feared  he  thinks  too  much  of  laying  up 
treasure  here  on  airth  for  a  minister." 

"  Ah ; — allow  me  to  ask  what  is  his 
salary  ?  " 

"  A  hundred  dollars  per  annum,  a  bar'l 
of  apples  a  month,  a  pair  of  fowls  monthly, 
donation-bee  once  a  winter,  with  two  demi- 
johns of  cider !  Now,  what  do  you  think 
of  that,  sir  ?  And  yet,  in  spite  of  this  liber- 
ality of  the  parish,  that  impudent  school- 
teacher, Robson,  says  the  salary  is  a  dis- 
grace to  Eaglepine,  and  he  livin'  on  the  fat 
of  the  land,  boardin'  'round,  as  he  does : 
pancakes  every  mornin'  and  sassengers  al'ays 
for  dinner  ! " 

I  turned  away,  and  ascended  the- stairs  to 
the  upper  loft,  in  the  hope  of  encountering 
Jim.  By  this  time  I  had  almost  relin- 
quished the  idea  of  fishing,  but  still  contin- 
ued the  search,  more  from  a  determination 
of  finding  my  friend,  if  possible,  than  any- 
thing else. 

At  some  distance  down  the  white,  glim- 
mering perspective,  webbed  with  straps  glid- 
ing round  large,  whirling  wheels,  I  espied  a 
form  that  looked  to  my  excited  fancy  like 
Jim's. 

"  Halloo,  Jim,  how  are  you?" 

The  figure  turned.     It  was  the  miller. 

"  Have  you  seen  Allthings  lately  ?  "  in- 
quired I,  with  the  emphasis  of  despair. 

"  He  was  here  a  moment  ago,  Squire,  but 
he  went  to  the  woods  out  there,  to  look  at  a 
bee-tree  he  found  yesterday." 

I  advanced  to  the  square  window  out  of 
which  the  miller  had  been  looking,  and 
gazed  in  blank  hopelessness  upon  the  woods. 
Below  lay  the  mill-pond.  It  was  framed  in 
by  the  forest.  The  back-water  of  the  new 
dam  had  lately  reached  far  beyond  the 
pond's  former  limits,  and  hundreds  of  trees, 
some  mossy  and  dead,  some  full-leaved 
and  luxuriant,  some  scattered  saplings, 
were  standing  in  the  sable  water.  There 
was  the  tamarack  hanging  its  boughs 
with  a  slouching  look,  but  beautiful  with 
its  vivid  green,  star-like  fringes;  there  low- 
ered the  great  burly  hemlock,  stretching 
like  a  tent  its  canopy  of  tiny  particles ; 
there  soared  the  white  pine,  with  a  trunk  as 
large  as  a  pillar  of  the  Parthenon,  lifting 
straight  upward  a  mass  of  short  fringes  that 
murmured  softly  in  the  wind  like  the  mono- 
tone of  the  bee ;  there,  also,  crooked  the 
gnarled  yellow  pine,  jagged,  gaunt,  fierce- 
looking  and  hideous,  with  its  head  with- 
ered, and  striving  to  cover  its  baldness  with 
gray  moss.  Clusters  of  laurel,  too,  were 


546 


JIM  ALLTHINGS. 


there,  glossy,  fresh,  and  bright  as  the  drink- 
ing of  cold  water  all  their  days  could  make 

them. 

I  saw,  also,  islets  of  splendid  tiger-lilies, 
their  sweet  blue  leaves  streaked  with  furzy 
gold ;  the  bulrush  with  its  brown  wig-;  the 
sedge  like  an  emerald  dagger,  and  the  water- 
cress looking  so  loose  it  seemed  it  might 
break  with  any  ordinary  ripple,  and  a  score 
of  other  lovely  things. 

The  black  head  of  a  musk-rat,  too,  would 
occasionally  peep  up,  or  a  slight  nibble,  forc- 
ing some  water-lily  to  give  a  slight  courtesy, 
would  tell  the  presence  below  of  a  fish. 

I  gained  from  the  miller  the  exact  where- 
abouts of  the  bee-tree,  left  the  mill  and 
crossed  the  outlet  of  the  pond  by  a  little 
rustic  bridge  of  slabs  from  Jake's  saw-mill. 
The  stream  went  sparkling  along,  bright  as 
a  romp's  eye  in  a  dance,  to  be  whirled  in 
daily  waltzes  over  the  great  wheel  of  the 
mill  above  mentioned.  I  then  turned  sharp 
to  the  right,  and  entered  a  wood  path 
leading  through  the  forest  to  an  upland 
called  South  Ridge.  The  cool,  green  light 
of  the  thick  woods  was  grateful ;  the  sun- 
shine lay  upon  the  shrubs  and  moss  like 
golden  net-work ;  birds  sparkled  in  and  out 
their  "  leafy  house,"  but  I  was  thinking  of 
Jim,  and  on  I  went.  At  last  I  came  to  the 
bee-tree.  It  stood  in  a  little  glade — a  sweet, 
sunny,  sylvan  spot,  with  a  grass  carpet  like 
green  velvet,  grouped  with  bushes  and 
walled  with  forest.  In  the  center  stood  the 
bee-tree,  like  a  gigantic  plume. 

The  glade  was  steeped  in  quiet — no  Jim. 
A  few  bees  were  darting  about  the  stem  of 
the  tree;  a  ground-bird,  like  a  great  brown 
spider,  was  skipping  around,  shooting  his 
black  speck  of  an  eye  here  and  there,  and 
turning  his  cunning  little  striped  head  to 
every  side  as  if  on  a  hinge,  but  no  Jim. 

Just  then  I  heard  a  whistling  further  in 
the  woods.  It  was  Jim's  whistle.  He  was 
whistling  his  favorite  song.  Off  I  started 
The  faster  I  went,  the  further  the  whistle 
receded.  It  was  a  "  winged  voice,"  like  the 
cuckoo's,  according  to  Wordsworth,  or  like 
our  bluebird's  when  he  carols  from  bush 
to  bush  in  April.  First,  it  sounded  near  a 
great  pine  I  saw  lifting  its  green  banner  ir 
the  blue.  Through  the  laurels  I  burst,  anc 
reached  the  tree — no  Jim.  Then  it  pierced 
the  air  close  to  where  I  knew  gleamed  a 
pure  gem  of  a  spring.  I  bounded  there  so 
swiftly,  the  soft  ooze  of  the  margin  closec 
over  my  feet  before  I  could  recover  nr 
impetus.  No  Jim.  Then  it  seemed  to  comi 
from  a  rock  with  a  birch-tree  hanging  ove 


t,  like  a  feather  over  a  helmet.  I  dart- 
d  there— no  Jim !  Still,  ahead  of  me, 
ounded  the  tantalizing  whistle,  until  I  heard 
t  close  and  shrill  by  the  brush  fence  that 
ined  the  hill-lot  on  the  south  side  of  South 
Ridge.  The  lot  was  scattered  with  stumps 
and  covered  with  bushes,  with  here  and 
here  ashy  spots  plumed  with  fire-weeds. 
'Aha," thought  I,  "Ihaveyounow.  I  Would 
certainly  see  you  a  quarter  of  a  mile  through 
these  low  bushes."  I  accordingly  sprang  tc 
the  spot  and — found  it  vacant.  Yes,  abso- 
utely.  The  whistle  was  heard  no  more 
There,  smooth  and  printless,  was  the  margir. 
of  black  mold  that  striped  the  brush  fence 
at  the  only  gap  where  a  man  would  natural!} 
cross,  or,  in  fact,  could  cross,  without  grea 
trouble.  I  looked  over  the  fence ;  the  hill 
lot  lay  sloping  up  certainly  a  quarter  of  : 
mile  in  plain  sight — no  human  form  coul( 
I  see.  I  shouted  "J-i-m!"  No  answer 
"  J-i-m !  "  I  began  to  feel  wild  !  Was  h< 
really  uncanny?  "J-i-m!"  It  could  no 
be  possible!  He  could  not  have  hiddei 
himself.  He  had  no  means  of  knowing 
was  on  his  track,  and  playing  on  me  a  prac 
tical  joke.  "J-i-m/"  Well,  this  beat 
everything  !  I'll— I'll— I'll  go  home. 

I  subsequently  ascertained  from  him  tha< 
in  a  very  great  hurry,  he  went  from  the  bee 
tree  to  visit  a  distant  trap  he  had  set  on 
little  stream  flowing  through  a  beaver-dar 
meadow,  to  catch  its  single  otter.  Tha 
reaching  the  brush  fence,  he  had  turne 
short  round  a  laurel  cluster,  where  began 
line  of  old  blazed  trees,  unknown  to  m< 
and  was  soon  beyond  the  hearing  of  m 
shouts  of  his  name. 

Another  time  I  wanted  his  companionshi 
deer-hunting.  It  was  a  sweet,  genial,  Ii 
dian  summer  day.  The  red  sun  ha 
plunged  the  evening  before  in  a  bath  ( 
purple  mist,  and  the  thick,  soft  night  ha 
called  out  nearly  all  the  summer  music,  tr. 
crickets,  the  tree-frogs,  and  re-awakened  tr. 
katydid — "  most  musical,  most  melancholy 
of  voices.  Now  that  voice  recalls  fl 
romance  of  my  youth,  when  I  heard  the  sa 
sweetness  on  moonlit  nights,  telling  rr 
that  autumn  was  at  hand,  and  that  fl- 
air so  soft  and  kindly  would  change  1 
tempest  soon,  and  bring  decay  and  withe 
ing  to  Nature. 

The  day  opened  swathed  in  a  pink-silv 
fog,  and  with  an  atmosphere  so  mild  at 
gentle  that  the  blood  glowed  like  decante 
champagne.  The  distant  forests  winke 
like  a  child's  eye  in  a  doze,  as  did  the  woo< 
and  streams  the  June  before,  giving  me  i 


JIM  ALLTHINGS. 


547 


invitation  to  come  and  spend  the  day  with 
them,  and  furthermore  they  would  probably 
present  me  with  a  haunch  of  venison  for 
dinner.  So  I  thought  of  Jim.  There  was 
a  run-way  by  the  Sheldrake  Brook  that  my 
friend  knew  all  about,  and  I  didn't.  Inde- 
pendently of  this,  I  really  liked  and  wished 
him  as  a  comrade.  The  Joseph's-coat  the 
woods  had  flaunted  for  a  fortnight — purple 
like  the  mantle  Caesar  wore  the 

"  Summer  evening  in  his  tent, 
The  day  he  overcame  the  Nervii," — 

red,  like  a  maiden's'  love-blush,  green  as 
Virgil's  grottoes  of  the  naiads,  yellow  as  the 
golden  spangle  of  the  Yuba,  was  now  torn, 
defaced,  and  lying  partly  in  shreds  and 
patches  on  the  forest  floor,  ankle  deep. 
The  trees  would  therefore  yield  sight  of  a 
deer  half  a  mile  off — all  plain  sailing. 

As  I  passed  the  tavern,  I  saw  the  small, 
green  box-wagon  belonging  to  Jim,  under 
the  shed,  a  certain  sign  of  his  being  in  the 
village. 

"  Aha,"  thought  I,  "  a  walk  is  saved  me. 
I'll  lend  Jim  one  of  my  rifles,  so  he  need  not 
go  home  for  his." 

The  first  person  I  met  was  Loafer  Joe. 
I    "Joe,  have  you  seen  Mr.  Allthings  lately  ?  " 
"  Yes,  Squire,  I  see  him  but  a  minute  ago 
at  Owlet's." 

Owlet's  smithy  stood  on  the  downward 
slope  of  the  village  hill,  a  low,  black  struct- 
ure, next  his  little  red   cabin  of  a  house. 
I  entered  the  shop.     Owlet's  son,  a  boy  of 
sixteen,  with  two  black  streaks  at  the  corners 
pf  his  mouth,  like  mustaches,  was  at  the 
[bellows.     With  his  left  elbow  he  was  press- 
ing down  the  handle ;  his  right  hand  held 
the   iron    instrument  with   which  he  every 
aow  and  then  raked  up  the  coals,  whenever 
the  red  spots  glowing  in  the  sable  heap  of 
:he  hearth  threatened  to  break  out  into  a 
>laze.     Horse-shoes  were  ranged  along  the 
lark  beams,  and  on  one  side  was  a  frame- 
ork  with  a  broad  leathern  band,  for  shoe- 
ng  oxen.     Two   anvils,  glimmering   dully, 
•ere  squatting  on  the  earthen  floor,  and  a 
crew  machine  was  yawning  from  a  rude 
nch  beneath  the  eyeball  of  a  window. 
It  was  in  vain,  however,  I  scanned  the 
[hop — no  Jim  did  I  see.     Nearest  me  was 
|)wlet,  with  the  rear  foot  of  a  fractious  gray 
olt  in  his  leathern  lap,  shoeing  him. 
"  Good-morning,  Mr.  Owlet.     Have  you 
n  Mr.  Allthings  lately  ?  " 
"  Tack,  tack,  tack,  whoa,  you  brute,  you. 
"things  ?  "  (jerking  out  his  words  in  a  sharp, 


pettish  way*  his  usual  custom)  "Allthings  ? 
tack,  tack,  tack,  whoa  !  "  as  the  colt  tried  with 
all  venom  to  give  a  kick,  making  Owlet 
stagger  so,  he  came  mighty  near  dropping 
on  the  sharp  point  of  his  anvil.  "  Of 
all  things  in  this  world,  deliver  me  from  this 
cross  young  divil-a-most,  of  old  Gripes. 
Allthings  ?  whoa,  now  !  tack,  tack!  Jacob  " 
(to  his  boy),  "  hand  me  the  other  box;  these 
tacks  are  all  wrong!  Allthings,  did  you 
say  ?  "  (An  awful  attempt  at  kicking  by  the 
colt.)  "  Whoa,  whoa,  whoa !  The  deuce 
take  the  critter !  No,  I  haven't !  Yes,  I 
have !  He  left  the  shop  not  a  minute  ago, 
for  Shaver's,  over  the  way." 

Over  I  went  to  the  shop  of  the  carpenter. 
There  was  a  fresh  scent  of  pine  shavings  in 
the  room  of  four  wooden  walls  with  two  car- 
penters' benches  running  along,  and  a  board 
or  two  just  planed,  looking  bright  as  silver 
in  a  corner.  Shaver,  himself,  was  planing  a 
pine  board  as  I  entered.  No  Jim. 

"  Good-morning,  Shaver  !  Can  you  tell 
me  where  Mr.  Allthings  is  ?  " 

"  Sh  -  a  -  a  -  ave, — sh-a-a-ave, — sh-a-a-ave- 
shuck  "  (as  he  tore  a  shaving  off).  "  All- 
things  ?  Sh-a-a-ave, — Yes,  I  can  !  "  (taking 
up  the  board,  squinting  along  the  edge,  then 
replacing  it  and  grasping  his  plane).  "  All- 
things?  Sh-a-a-ave, — sh-a-a-ave, — he  was 
here — sh-a-a-ave — a  minute  ago, — sh-a-a-ave 
— but  he  went  to  the  corner  store." 

This  store  was  of  granite,  and  went  by  the 
name  of  the  "  stone  house  "  throughout  the 
village. 

I  hurried  over  to  Seabright's.  There  was 
a  little  square  counter,  heaped  with  calicoes 
and  other  gear,  except  a  small  space  clear 
for  measuring,  with  the  yards  tacked  off  with 
brass  tacks.  Everything  that  could  be 
thought  of  dangled  from  the  rafters  over^ 
head, — whips,  whip-lashes,  'sugar-loaves, 
baskets,  etc.  Rows  of  crockery  stood  on  one 
side ;  axe-helves  were  in  the  corners,  saws 
hanging  all  around.  Boxes  filled  with  nails 
occupied  recesses,  on  the  walls  were  niched 
shelves  of  dry  goods;  in  the  background 
were  ranged  casks  marked  in  gilt  with  the 
names  of  various  liquors  ;  in  short,  the  whole 
picture  of  a  country  store  was  there  presented. 

Seabright  stood  at  the  counter  waiting  on 
his  customers. 

"  Good-morning,  Seabright !  Have  you 
seen  Allthings  lately  ?  " 

"  Did  you  say  a  yard,  Miss  !  Thimbles  ! 
yes,  mam !  Allthings  ?  Two  and  sixpence  ! 
Four  shillings  a  yard  !  That  calico  ?  a  shil- 
ling a  yard!  Allthings?  Yes;  he  was 
here.  John,  hand  Deacon  Pester  a  glass  of 


JIM  ALLTHINGS. 


spirits!      Allthings?     Yes;   he 'was  here  a 
moment  ago !  " 

«  Where  has  he  gone  ? 

»  Sixpence  for  that  tape.  Allthings?  Beg 
pardon  !  He's  gone  to  Strap's.1; 

To  the  shoe-maker's  I  accordingly  went. 

I  found  him,  with  his  two  journeymen, 
each  on  his  low,  leather-basined bench, stitch- 
ing and  tapping  away,  and  talking  industri- 
ously over  the  scandal  of  the  village. 

«  How  do  you  do,  Strap  !  Have  you  seen 
Mr.  Allthings  lately  ?  " 

"  I  sez,  sez  I  to  him,—'  Pete,  sez  I,  1 
don't  hardly  bleeve  that  aire  last  story  of 
yourn,'  sez  I.  Sez  he,  'You  may  depend 
on't,'  sez  he,  <  I  heerd  it,'  sez.  he,  'from  the 

very  best  'thority,'  sez  he " 

"  I  say,  Strap,  have  you  seen  Allthings  to- 

"  Allthings  ?  tap-tap,rattlety-tap-tap.  All- 
things?  Sw-i-tch.  Hev  you  heerd  about  that 
aire  other  story,  about  that  aire 


^  Vfcu«        r*-ji  -  ,  .          -  „ 

"  Strap,  have  you  seen  Allthings  t     _ 

"Allthings  ?  tap-tap,  rattlety-tap,  sw-i-tch, 
Mr.  Allthings?  Yes;  he  was  here  a  min- 
ute ago,  and  said  he  was  going  over  to 
Cabbage's." 

Cabbage  was  the  village    tailor,  and  s 
I  hurried  to  the  shop. 

The  room  was  warm  and  close  with  a 
scent  pervading  it  from  the  hot  pressure  of 

cloth.  , 

"Good-morning,  Cabbage!  Has  Mr. 
Allthings  been  here  lately  ?  " 

Now  Cabbage  stuttered  dreadfully,  sput- 
tering till  red  in  the  face,  then  bolting  out 
his  word  as  from  a  catapult ;  always  flying 
into  a  passion  at  his  difficulty  of  articulation 
before  he  ended. 

"An-an-an-Allthings?  N-n-n-no.  He 
1-1-1-1-left  he-he-here  con-con-con-/0««* 
the  und-a  min-min-minute  ago"  (dashing 
down  his  shears,  knocking  his  goose  over, 
and  jumping  from  his  tailor's  knot,  where  he 
was  coiled  like  a  rattlesnake),  "  bub-bub- 
bub-but  he's  gah-gah-gah-gah-gog-gog-gog 
(rattling  in  his  throat  and  bending  back- 
ward and  forward  until  I  really  thought  he 
was  on  the  eve  of  choking,  while  his  eyes 


rolled  as  if  he  were  going  mad),  "  gone  to 
S-s-s-swingle's." 

Swingle  was  the  tinman  of  Eaglepme, 
and  in  I  rushed.  As  I  entered,  a  chaos  of 
sounds  almost  crushed  my  brain. 

"  Tink,  tink,  swink,  swink,  tingle,  tangle, 
tang,  swang,  racketty,  clacketty,  ncketty, 
clicketty." 

"  Halloo !  "  as  loud  as  I  could  scream. 

"  Tink,  tink,  swink,  swank,  clang,  swang, 
tingle,  tangle,  racketty-clacketty,  ncketty- 
clicketty." 

"  Is  Jim  Allthings  h-e-r-e  ? 

"  Tink,  tank,  swing,  swang,  tingle,  tangle, 
tang,  clang,  racketty-clacketty,  ncketty- 

clicketty." 

«  Halloo,  there !     Swingle,  for  conscience 

sake,  come  here !  " 

"What's  wanting?"  answered  Swingle 
popping  his  head  out  of  a  recess  whence  th< 
horrible  clangor  proceeded. 

"  Do  tell  me  if  Allthings  has  been  here  i 

"Allthings?  tang,  swang,  tingle,  jingle 
ricketty-clicketty." 

"Yes,   Allthings,"  I    gasped,    out  of  al 

patience.  ,   „ 

"  He  was  here,  but  he  went  to  Karri' 
With  tremendous  strides  I  went  to  th 

tavern.  , 

An  irruption  from  the  tannery  at  th 

Mongaup  was  there,  clamorous  for  drink. 
"Do  tell  me,  Raffle!  is  Jim  AUthin| 

here  ?  " 

"Some  whisky  you  want.  Allthings 
here's  your  glass,  sir;— punch, did  you  say 
Allthings  ?  he  was— old  Jamaiky  ?  here  it  i 
cigar,  three  cents— Allthings  ?  He  w; 
here  a  moment  ago,  but  he's  gone! 
took  a  punch,  and  that's  the  last  I  ve  se< 
of  him." 

Off  I  dashed.  At  that  moment  I  hea 
a  wagon  leaving  the  tavern  shed,  and,  as 
reached  the  porch,  I  saw  the  green  back  « 
a  box  wagon  just  lowering  the  brow  ot  t 
hill,  flashing  in  a  ray  of  the  noontide  hgl 
with  the  white  hat  of  Jim  Allthings 
aglow  with  it.  . 

That  was  the  last  time  I  ever  tried  to  i 
Jim  Allthings. 


THE    WESTERN  MAN. 


549 


THE    WESTERN  MAN.* 


I  HAVE  always  observed  that  an  audience 
is  most  interested  in  that  about  which  it 
knows  the  most.  On  the  other  hand,  you 
may  have  noticed  that  writers  are  apt  to 
write  on  subjects  of  which  they  know  the 
least.  It  will  seem  reasonable  to  you, 
therefore,  that  I  should  say  something  here 
about  the  Western  Man. 

There  has  always  been  a  Western  Man. 
There  has  always  been  a  man  leading  the 
advance  in  discovery,  exploration,  settle- 
ment; the  mass  of  mankind  has  removed 
westward  with  this  aggressive  fringe.  It  has 
often  happened  that  the  Western  Man  has 
deflected  in  his  course,  or  turned  back ;  and 
when  he  turned  aside  or  turned  back  he 
usually  brought  trouble,  in  his  wanton  and 
playful  way,  to  the  older  civilizations. 

We  find  the  Western  Man  on  the  march 
as  soon  as  he  could  collect  his  effects  after 
the  Deluge.  The  emigrants  journeyed  from 
the  east  till  they  found  a  plain  in  the  land 
of  Shinar;  and  they  dwelt  there.  They 
were  adventurous,  mighty  men,  full  of  ambi- 
tion and  genius.  They  said :  Go  to,  let  us 
build  a  city,  and  a  tower — let  us  make  us  a 
name.  They  were  great  men,  these  West- 
erners, strong  of  limb  and  mighty  in  brain, 
full  of  invention  and  daring,  men  of  renown ; 
but  the  Lord  saw  how  dangerous  they  were 
becoming,  and  he  said,  now  nothing  will  be 
restrained  from  them  which  they  have  im- 
agined to  do,  and  he  came  down  and  con- 
founded their  language,  and  scattered  them 
abroad  on  the  face  of  all  the  earth.  He 
scattered  them ;  but  the  ablest  men  of  them 
pulled  themselves  out  of  the  confusion  and 
went  westward  into  the  land  of  Canaan. 

It  is  true  that  the  very  first  emigration  of 
the  race  was  to  the  east.  When  the  Lord 
drove  Adam  and  Eve  out  of  Paradise,  he 
placed  at  the  east  of  the  garden  of  Eden 
cherubims  and  a  flaming  sword.  Cain  also 
moved  into  the  land  of  Nod,  on  the  east 
of  Eden.  This  experiment  of  emigration  to 
the  east  was,  however,  a  failure,  and  ended, 
as  is  well  known,  in  the  catastrophe  of  the 
Deluge.  After  that  event,  man  took  his 
way  westward  along  the  path  of  prosperity 
and  empire. 

It  has  always  been  characteristic  of  the 
Western  Man  that  he  could  never  rest,  nor  be 
content  with  any  prosperity  or  success,  so 
long  as  there  was  anything  beyond  him  to  the 


westward  to  explore.  When,  before  the  in- 
vention of  the  mariner's  compass,  he  reached 
his  limit  in  Europe,  he  was  like  a  traveler 
stayed  unwillingly  in  his  journey ;  he  foamed 
along  the  shore  of  the  Atlantic  as  restless  as 
the  surges  he  encountered ;  and,  since  he 
could  not  overpass  it,  he  turned  southward 
and  eastward,  back  upon  the  old  civilizations 
which  he  had  passed  by,  and  set  his  barba- 
rian strength  against  their  refinements.  He 
was  never  a  welcome  visitor,  this  rough- 
rider,  in  Rome,  or  Athens,  or  Constantinople. 
He  had  an  immense  capacity  of  enjoyment 
and  appropriation,  and  what  he  could  not 
understand  he  could  destroy.  He  was  a 
refluent  wave  of  destruction  for  a  time. 
But  always,  in  the  end,  the  result  was  the 
same ;  the  conqueror  was  conquered.  About 
his  sturdy  limbs  were  slowly  woven  the  fine 
nets  of  an  artificial  society,  and  before  he 
knew  that  his  strength  had  gone  from  him 
he  was  a  bound  slave  in  the  meshes  of  luxury. 
His  battle-axe  was  of  no  use  against  the 
invisible  net  of  desire.  The  Western  Man 
eventually  came  to  grief  when  he  turned  aside 
or  turned  back : — the  Greek  in  Asia  Minor, 
the  Roman  in  Egypt  and  Syria,  the  Goth, 
the  Vandal,  the  Hun  in  North  Africa  and 
Italy.  You  may  have  seen  in  your  own 
time  the  independent  Western  Man,  who 
knows  no  master,  not  even  the  old  masters, 
and  has  a  well-sustained  contempt  for  the 
past,  for  the  arts,  for  conventionality,  and  a 
charming  confidence,  born  of  inexperience, 
in  his  own  opinion — since  knowledge  makes 
a  man  diffident, — bound  hand  and  foot,  and 
a  captive  beyond  the  chance  of  escape,  in 
the  rosy  tissues  which  Paris  weaves  about 
the  profitable  stranger. 

It  was  an  immense  relief  to  the  Western 
Man  to  find  his  way  across  the  Atlantic.  To 
leap  ashore  on  a  new  continent,  to  run  to 
and  fro  on  it,  to  penetrate  it,  hack  it,  dig  it, 
appropriate  it,  has  been  his  masculine  joy 
for  three  centuries.  For  the  first  time  in 
history  he  has  been  unrestrained.  Here  was 
room  enough.  Every  night  he  could  pitch 
his  tent  on  virgin  soil;  every  morning  he 
drank  from  a  new  spring ;  at  every  sunrise  he 
was  invigorated  by  a  fresh  western  breeze 
which  came  to  him  untainted  by  any  other 
civilization;  every  day  he  hewed  a  new  path 
through  primeval  forests.  He  carried  his . 
laws  in  his  knapsack.  He  enforced  them 


*  Read  before  the  annual  Psi  Upsilon  Convention  at  Michigan  University,  May  26,  1880. 


55° 


THE    WESTERN  MAN. 


with  his  rifle.  For  the  first  time  he  was  be- 
yond the  reach  of  custom,  beyond  the  tram- 
mels of  tradition.  He  could  not  be  touched 
any  more  by  the  Oriental— the  Asiatic 
civilization,  which  forever  had  pursued  him, 
reclaimed  him,  civilized  him,  destroyed  him. 
How  he  exulted  in  his  liberty ! 

I  need  not  sketch  his  lively  history  on  this 
continent.    He  is  the  insatiable  mover.    With 
him  it  is  always  the  first  of  May.     He  is  the 
historical  character  who  never  sleeps  twice 
in    the  same  bed.     He  always  builds  his 
house  to  sell.     When  it  is  finished,  that  is  the 
signal  for  him  to  move.     His  ancestors  must 
bury  themselves,  his  posterity  are  heirs  of 
the    future.     He  has  time  neither  to   inherit 
nor  to  make  his  will.     It  is  always  in  his  plan 
to  settle  down,  but  never  in  the  place  where 
he  is.     He  pays  his  debts  by  incurring  new 
ones.     He  is  the  great  laborer  and  hardship- 
endurer  of  the  nineteenth  century.     But  he 
always   expects  to  reach  a  spot  to-morrow 
where  he  will  have  nothing  to  do.     Almost 
within  the  memory  of  men  now  living,  the 
Western  Man  has  passed  the  Atlantic  slopes, 
flowed  over  the  table-lands  and  prairies  of 
the  interior,    crossed    the    Mississippi,   laid 
highways   over  the  plains,  seized  and  pos- 
sessed the  Rocky  Mountains,  honey-combed 
the  Sierras  with  his  drills  and  sluices,  made 
a  garden  of  California,  and  occupied  all  the 
Pacific    coast    between    thirty   degrees   of 
latitude. 

The  Western    Man,    you    perceive,    has 
reached  his  limit.     If  he  goes  a  step  further 
he  becomes  an    Oriental.     He   would  not 
violate  his  restless  character  if  he  took  this 
step,  and  began  over  again  his  circuit  of  the 
globe.     But  I  think  he  will  not  do  it,  not 
for  some  centuries  at  least.     You  may  say 
for   the  moment  that  there  is  no  Western 
Man.     For  the  first  time  in  the  history  of 
the  world,  he  has  come  to  a  place  where  he 
must  stay  his  march,  where  he  must  rest. 
For  the    first  time   in  history,  he  has  the 
opportunity  forced   upon   him   to   develop 
himself,  to  let  the  world  see  what  manner 
of  man  he  will  become  when  he  is  stationary 
He   is,  so  to  say,  turned  back  on  himself 
There  is  no  other  outlet  for  his  superabun- 
dant   energy    except    in    his   self-develop- 
ment.    He  lias  nowhere  else  to  go.     There 
is  nothing  for  him  to  do  but  to  grow.     The 
interest   of  this   experiment  is  its    absoluti 
novelty.     It  is  a  situation  in  human  affair 
which  we    have  scarcely   as  yet  begun   to 
comprehend.     There  are  two  points  of  inter 
est  : — what  the  world    will   be  henceforth 
what  course  history  will  take,  what  the  rac 


trill  do  without  its  primeval  escape-valve  in 
he  Western  Man,  is  one  thing ;  what  the 
Western  Man  himself  will  become,  forced  to 
top  and  grow  like  a  tree,  instead  of  running 
ike  a  cucumber-vine,  is  another  thing. 

Fortunately  he  has  stopped  in  a  gooc 
place.  He  has  room  enough  to  spread 
limself.  He  has  no  neighbors, — at  leasi 
none  whom  he  cannot  gently  persuade  tc 
depart  into  another  world.  The  resource; 
at  his  command  are  simply  unparalleled 
There  has  been  nothing  invented  or  dis 
covered  in  all  time  that  he  has  not  at  hand 
His  desires  can  scarcely  go  beyond  hi 
opportunities;  and  it  is  saying  all  that  cai 
be  said  of  his  opportunities,  that  they  an 
only  excelled  by  his  opinion  of  his  deserts 
He  is  planted  on  a  soil  which  is  bottomless 
He  is  the  first  man  in  history  who  has  eve 
had  enough  to  eat.  And  now  he  has  leisur 
to  eat,  to  grow,  to  possess  life. 

What  the  Western  Man,  stationary,  wi' 

become  is  the  most  interesting  study  eye 

offered  to   the  observer  of  human    affairs 

What  manner  of  man  will  he  be  ?     Whs 

sort  of  civilization  will  he  produce  ?     Th 

elements  are  so  complex  that  the  foreca; 

of  it  must  be  purely  speculative.     The  siti 

ation  has  been  so  suddenly  created  that  w 

scarcely  yet  apprehend  its  novel  feature 

It  is  only  a  little  while  ago,  in  this   grez 

State  of  Michigan,  that  the  emigrants  di 

puted'the  possession  of  the  oak  opening 

with  the  gray  wolf.     I  remember  when  tr 

State  capitol  was  built  in  the  woods  at  Lai 

sing.     It  was  said  that  the  members  of  tl 

State  legislature  used  to  shoot  deer  from  tl 

front  steps.     Unless  your  legislature  diffe 

greatly  from  some  others,  it  has  never  sin< 

been  more  profitably  or  harmlessly  employe* 

But  the  change  has  been  rapid.    The  spe 

ulator  was  too  sharp  for  the  wolves;  tl 

farmer,  the  merchant,  the  lumberman,  tl 

miner,  supplanted    in  turn  the  speculate 

competition  speedily  developed  wealth;  wi 

wealth  came  more  leisure  and  opportumti 

of  culture  ;  and  now,  while  we  hear  yet  tl 

echoes  of  the  first  axe  in  the  forest  th 

broke  the  ancient  silence  when  only 

"The  blackbird  was  singing  on  Michigan  shor< 

we   meet    here    at   a    great   university 

learning,  risen  as  rapidly  as  King  Fortage: 

palace  by  the  aid  of  Merlin  on  Sahsbu 

Plain,  thronging   with   students,   and    vil 

with  a  noble  emulation — the  sign  and  crov 

of  a  high  civilization.     It  is  an  astonishu 

transformation. 

There  is  ample  field  for  speculation  < 


THE    WESTERN  MAN. 


the  future  of  the  Western  Man.  I  can  offer 
only  a  few  suggestions. 

The  mingling  of  races,  traditions,  religions, 
varied  civilizations,  which  we  see  here,  is 
not  new  in  the  world,  nor  has  it  always 
resulted  in  progress, — some  of  the  most  stag- 
nant communities  in  the  Orient  are  the  least 
homogeneous  ;  but  it  is  unique  in  this,  that 
the  field  of  operation  is  fresh,  that  the  meet- 
ing elements  represent  the  youth  and  advent- 
ure of  many  people,  the  restless  spirit  of 
aspiration,  of  dissatisfaction  with  the  present, 
of  willingness  to  cut  loose  from  the  past; 
and  the  moving  energy  of  the  whole  is 
the  old  Teutonic  passion  for  acquisition  and 
achievement.  This  is  the  motive  of  progress. 

The  question  of  physical  ability  is  settled. 
We  hear  no  more  of  the  deterioration  of  the 
Americans.  The  delusion,  which  has  occa- 
sioned so  much  anxiety  to  foreign  critics, 
that  Americans  would  shake  themselves 
to  pieces  or  shrivel  up  in  the  dry  air,  that 
there  could  never  be  in  this  climate  a  robust 
and  enduring  race,  has  passed.  The  lank 
and  parchment-skinned  settler,  who  leaned 
against  his  cabin  door,  on  the  off  days  of  his 
private  earthquake,  and  pitied  the  passing 
emigrant,  is  no  longer  a  type.  The  subju- 
gation of  the  soil  to  cultivation,  a  generation 
of  abundance,  with  more  orderly  living  and 
improved  cooking,  have  produced  a  different 
type  of  men  and  women.  The  lines  have 
filled  out,  the  eager  look  has  given  place  to 

more  placid  expression.  The  Western 
Man  is  to  be  large,  powerful,  full-blooded, 
filled  with  the  confidence  of  physical  su- 
premacy, perhaps  with  a  tendency  to  a  too 
pronounced  adipose  superiority.  The  West- 
ern Woman  is  to  be  fair,  comely,  handsome 
if  she  chooses,  with  conquest  in  her  eyes, 
and  clemency  in  her  heart. 

Under  these  tremendous  physical  im- 
pulses, what  sort  of  society  will  be  formed  ? 
How  soon  will  the  conventionalities  of  the 
Old  World  overtake  it,  and  how  will  they 
affect  it  ?  How  far  will  it  represent  merely 
material  prosperities  ?  Will  it  be  what 
other  societies  have  been,  with  much  wealth 
and  the  temptations  of  leisure  ?  With  the 
added  breadth  and  freedom  of  the  new 
condition,  I  think  it  cannot  be  a  reproduc- 
tion of  any  other.  Will'  it  be  better  or 
worse  ?  This  depends,  I  apprehend,  upon 
two  things,  education  and  religion,  or 
rather,  I  should  say,  upon  the  results  of  a 
diffused  education,  and  the  place  of  religion 
in  the  social  structure.  It  is  not  a  question 
of  houses,  of  dress,  of  manners,  of  style,  but 
of  character. 


I  am  not  of  those  who  think  that  univer- 
sal education  is  the  panacea  of  mankind, 
any  more  than  universal  suffrage  is.  Both 
are  instruments,  not  ends.  The  one  fails  if 
it  does  not  produce  a  people  having  in 
them  the  everlasting  verities,  keepers  of 
the  commandments  out  of  a  love  of  virtue, 
who  are  truthful,  industrious,  patriotic ;  the 
other  fails  if  it  does  not  make  a  good 
government.  What  is  the  value  of  a  uni- 
versal election  unless  it  selects  the  best  men? 
We  have  invented  what  we  call  a  system  of 
education  approaching  perfection  as  an  or- 
ganization, comprehensive,  diffused,  all-in- 
clusive, necessarily  more  or  less  superficial. 
Its  aim  is  to  teach  everybody  everything. 
Perhaps  a  more  exact  statement  of  the  truth 
is,  that  the  aim  is  to  train  everybody  to  pass 
an  examination  in  everything.  It  may  be 
said  that  the  exclusive  examination  system 
encourages  two  virtues — to  forgive  and  to 
forget — in  time  to  forgive  the  examiner,  and 
to  forget  the  subject  of  the  examination. 
The  tests  of  the  value  of  our  system  of  edu- 
cation, already  tending  to  become  too 
machine-like,  will  be  two-fold,  and  the  re- 
sults may  not  be  marked  before  the  lapse  of 
a  generation  or  two.  First,  what  kind  of  an 
education,  as  to  the  more  important  elements 
of  character,  are  we  to  get;  and,  second, 
what  is  to  be  the  effect  of  a  universal  educa- 
tion, or  a  universal  smattering  of  learning, 
upon  the  inclination  to  work,  to  work  with 
the  hands,  to  earn  a  living  by  manual  labor? 
The  noblest  aspiration  of  youth  is  the  culti- 
vation of  the  mind — if  the  body  is  not  neg- 
lected. But  if  the  Western  Man  should  get 
the  notion  that  it  is  any  less  honorable,  or  in 
the  end  less  satisfactory,  to  work  with  a  hoe 
than  with  a  pen  or  a  yard-stick,  he  will 
foster  an  idea  that  is  neither  new  nor  needed 
in  the  world,  for  the  Eastern  Man  has  already 
run  it  into  the  ground.  What  is  to  be  the 
Western  Man's  religion  ?  This  is,  perhaps, 
the  most  serious  question  of  all,  considering 
the  great  physical  abundance  in  which  he 
riots  and  grows  strong,  the  pride  in  national 
acquisition  and  display,  the  tendency  born 
of  national  success,  and  of  an  imported 
philosophy,  to  deny  the  supernatural.  Has 
the  Western  Man  a  notion  that  somehow 
he  is  sufficient  to  himself,  and  that  he  is  to 
build  a  new  heaven  as  well  as  a  new 
earth  ?  That  the  Atlantic  is  a  veritable  cut- 
off in  the  stream  of  historical  Christianity? 
When  I  was  a  boy,  a  man  pounded  away 
from  sunrise  to  sunset  to  maul  out  a  few 
bushels  of  wheat,  and,  after  swinging  the 
flail  all  day,  felt  that  he  needed  the  aid  of 


452 


THE    WESTERN  MAN. 


Providence.  Now,  by  steam,  you  thresh 
out  a  whole  county  in  the  morning,  ship 
your  fortune  in  the  afternoon,  draw  your  bill 
on  Liverpool,  and  at  night  "  cable  "  to  your 
wife,  who  is  in  Paris — is  she  not  ? — to  buy 
out  the  Bon  Marc  he  if  she  takes  a  fancy  to 
it.  On  the  spot  where  the  Caliph  Omar 
prayed,  his  followers  built  a  minaret.  The 
spot  of  our  most  successful  aspirations  is 
marked  by  an  elevator.  Go  to,  we  say,  let 
us  build  a  city  and  a  town,  let  us  make  a 
name,  and  the  Lord  said,  now  nothing 
will  be  restrained  of  them  which  they  have 
.  imagined  to  do. 

To  the  Western  Man  life  is  evidently 
worth  living,  for  itself.  Never  before  did 
man  have  so  many  solicitations  to  develop 
himself  in  it  freely.  But,  unless  human 
nature  is  changed,  no  material  success  can 
long  satisfy  him.  I  am  not  saying  that 
western  civilization  has  been  irreligious. 
Far  from  it.  We  are  making  an  observa- 
tion of  the  future,  under  the  new  conditions 
we  have  named.  We  are  speculating  upon 
the  prodigious  development  close  at  hand, 
which  already  has  in  it  so  much  hunger  for 
the  material,  so  much  skepticism  of  the 
supernatural,  so  much  tendency  to  abate 
the  importance  of  historical  Christianity. 
Is  the  Western  Man  going  to  make  the  ex- 
periment of  a  new  sort  of  culture,  say  of  art, 
which  shall  take  the  place  of  a  religion 
worn  out?  Has  he  a  notion  that  conserv- 
atories of  music,  academies  of  painting, 
decorating  and  wood-carving,  habits  of 
refinement  and  polite  living,  mitigated  by 
systematized  charities,  in  place  of  faith  in 
the  unseen,  will  keep  his  society  sweet  and 
strong  ?  There  are  indications,  here  and 
there,  in  more  than  one  great  city,  of  an 
attempt  to  build  society  upon  a  gospel  of 
culture,  shored  up  by  a  philosophy  of  nega- 
tions, worshiping  in  a  Temple  of  Art,  using 
an  agnostic  shorter  catechism  beginning  : 

Question.     Who  made  you  ? 

Answer.     I  don't  know. 
And  ending  with : 

Q.     What  is  your  destiny  ? 

A.     I  don't  know. 

I  have  a  vision  of  a  society  very  differ- 


ent from  this.  The  possibilities  of  a  noble 
life  and  a  noble  empire  are  immense ;  so  are 
the  hindrances.  And  the  hindrances  are 
the  very  material  abundance  and  physical 
exuberance  which  create  the  possibilities 
of  a  splendid  future.  On  this  great  arena 
is  renewed  the  struggle  of  liberty  and 
authority,  a  struggle  that  in  the  nature  of 
things  can  never  end  in  the  world,  but  the 
violence  of  which  can  be  mitigated  by  a 
recognition  of  the  limits  of  each.  The 
pendulum  of  these  two  forces  swings  back 
and  forth  in  history.  Perhaps  the  mosl 
needful  lesson  of  our  time  is  to  learn  thai 
all  liberty  is  a  delusion  that  is  not  exercised 
in  the  discipline  of  authority. 

I  have  said  nothing  of  manners,  or  the 
contrasts  of  the  manners  of  Europe  anc 
America  which  are  the  theme  of  so  much  ol 
our  recent  literature,  not  because  I  under 
value  the  interest  of  the  matter,  but  it  fail; 
to  assume  a  comparative  importance  in  th< 
presence  of  things  more  vital.  We  know 
that  self-assertion  and  a  certain  "bump 
tiousness"  of  position  go  along  with  self 
consciousness  and  newness  of  position 
Good  manners  are  called  the  final  flowei 
of  civilization,  some  say  they  are  the  sigr 
of  its  decay.  Much  depends  upon  race,  nc 
doubt.  The  polishing  of  a  nation  is  a  slow 
process  and  a  mystery.  After  a  thousanc 
years  of  civilization  the  typical  Englishmar 
is  a  chestnut  bur;  the  meat  is  apt  to  b< 
sweet  when  you  get  •  it,  but  you  are  prett) 
certain  to  prick  your  fingers  in  getting  it 
Perhaps  not  in  two  thousand  years  will  th< 
Western  Man  have  the  high  breeding  of  th< 
desert  Arab,  the  social  polish  of  the  Turk 
Perhaps  never.  For  the  conditions  her< 
are  new  under  which  manners  are  to  b< 
formed,  new  not  only  in  the  absence  of  th< 
traditions  of  caste,  chivalries,  ceremonials 
but  new  in  the  addition  of  the  dogma  ol 
equality. 

The  Western  Man,  as  a  moving,  geo 
graphical  factor,  is  about  to  disappear  fron 
history.  The  progress  of  the  race  in  al 
time  does  not  offer  so  interesting  a  study  a: 
he  is  at  this  moment. 


THE  DOMINION  OF  CANADA. 


553 


THE    DOMINION    OF    CANADA.     IV. 


PRESENT    POSITION    AND   OUTLOOK. 


I  HAVE  tried  to  sketch  Canada's  develop- 
ment, down  to  the  time  when  she  emerged 
from  the  status  of  the  ancient  French  Prov- 
ince, or  the  British  colony  hermetically 
sealed  from  the  sea  for  six  months  of  the 
year,  into  the  present  Dominion,  with  a  terri- 
tory about  the  size  of  Europe,  her  frontiers 
on  three  oceans,  and  in  possession,  for  all 
practical  purposes,  of  political  and  commer- 
cial independence.  We  have  now — as  a 
friend  from  Maine  remarked — "  quite  a  big 
farm,  but  it  wants  fencing  badly."  What 
about  the  fencing,  or  the  organization,  for 
purposes  of  government,  of  our  numberless 
arpents  of  snow  and  ice? 

We  have  imitated  both  the  United  States 
and  Great  Britain  in  framing  our  constitu- 
tion. It  is  on  the  federal  principle,  with  the 
central  authority  strong,  and  tending  to  be- 
come stronger.  The  various  Provinces  pre- 
serve their  autonomy  for  local  and  private 
matters,  for  property  and  civil  rights,  and 
for  education.  All  other  important  matters 
are  handed  over  to  the  General  Parliament 
that  meets  in  the  city  of  Ottawa,  and  acts 
through  a  cabinet,  which,  after  the  British 
model,  may  be  considered  a  committee  of 
Parliament.  The  limits  of  the  local  and  of 
the  Dominion  authorities,  respectively,  and 
the  superiority  of  the  latter  as  regards  all 
questions  on  the  boundary  line  between  the 
two,  are  so  clearly  denned  that  questions  of 
State  rights,  or  rather  Province  rights,  can 
hardly  emerge,  or  at  any  rate  become  seri- 
ous. The  appointment  of  the  Provincial 
Governors,  and  of  the  inferior  and  supreme 
Provincial  Judges,  as  well  as  of  the  Judges 
of  the  Court  of  Appeal  for  the  Dominion,  is 
in  the  hands  of  the  Central  Government. 

ll  our  lawyers  look  to  Ottawa.  Our  judges 
are  independent,  and  are  almost  our  only 
aristocracy.  Though  appointed  by  a  Gov- 
ernment representing  one  party  in  the  State, 
they  hold  office  during  good  behavior,  and 
have  no  temptation  to  carry  their  previous 
political  bias  to  the  bench.  The  Central 
Government  regulates  trade  and  commerce, 
navigation  and  shipping,  banking,  and  every- 
thing thereto  pertaining.  It  has  also  entire 
control  of  the  war  power.  If,  as  Carlyle 
puts  it,  "  the  ultimate  question  between  every 
two  human  beings  is  '  Can  I  kill  thee,  or 
canst  thou  kill  me,'"  such  ultimate  question 


is  not  likely  to  be  agitated  at  any  time  be- 
tween a  Province  and  the  Central  Govern- 
ment. There  is  no  military  or  naval  force 
of  any  kind  to  do  the  bidding  of  the  Provin- 
cial authorities.  The  sword  is  indubitably 
in  the  hands  of  the  Dominion  as  a  whole. 
The  powers  of  the  General  Parliament 
being  so  large,  the  necessity  for  local  parlia- 
ments is  sometimes  questioned.  Young 
men  ardent  for  a  speedy  unification  of  the 
country,  and  old  men  who  would  model 
all  creation  on  the  British  Constitution 
as  if  it  had  originally  been  let  down  from 
heaven,  advocate  a  legislative  union  of 
the  Provinces  similar  to  that  which  binds 
together  England,  Scotland  and  Ireland ; 
with  one  Parliament  to  take  cognizance  of 
everything  not  strictly  municipal.  Practi- 
cally, that  would  be  as  difficult  in  our  case 
as  the  United  States  would  have  found 
it  a  century  ago,  or  would  find  it  now.  The 
British  Parliament,  legislating  for  two  small 
islands,  finds  itself  overworked,  though  its 
members  work — and  without  pay — like  gal- 
ley-slaves for  more  than  half  the  year.  It  is 
easy  to  run  up  to  London  from  John  O'  Groat's 
or  the  Land's  End,  but  the  expense  of 
getting  small  local  bills  through  Parlia- 
ment is  enormous.  What  would  it  be . 
in  our  case !  Provincial  legislatures  are 
necessary,  but  certainly  not  such  as  those 
we  have, — which,  like  a  well-known  class 
of  horses,  are  pretty  much  "  all  action 
and  no  go."  Their  work,  except  where  it 
touches  on  education,  is  municipal  rather 
than  political,  but  they  ape  the  parapher- 
nalia of  the  Central  Parliament  all  the 
same  as  when  they  had  real  power,  and 
fight  out  trumpery  matters  as  if  political 
issues  were  involved.  What  with  our  Cen- 
tral Parliament  and  these  seven  local  par- 
liaments revolving  round  it  like  satellites 
round  a  sun,  we  Canadians  have  a  govern- 
mental machinery  as  extensive  and  expen- 
sive as  the  heart  of  politician  could  desire. 
|  There  are  signs  that  even  our  patient  people 
i  are  getting  tired  of  the  burden,  however, 
{  and  a  new  party  will  probably  arise  on  this 
issue.  Very  simple  machinery  would  be 
j  sufficient  for  all  that  our  local  legislatures 
have  to  do.  Their  revenue  comes  chiefly 
from  the  Dominion  treasury,  and  flows  into 
!  them  without  effort  The  chief  items  of 


554 


THE  DOMINION  OF  CANADA. 


expenditure  are  fixed.     More  business,  and 
business  requiring  more  thought,  is  done  by 
many  a  mercantile  house  with  two  or  three 
clerks  than  is  done  by  several  of  them  ;  but 
they  maintain  party  lines  with   ridiculous 
tenacity,    make   political   speeches  for  the 
electorate,  vote  themselves  large  indemnities, 
and    cling    to     Windsor    uniforms,    black 
rods,  ushers  with  swords  and  all  the  trap- 
pings that  may  be  excused  as  the  gilding 
of  power,  but  are  offensive  as  the  symbols 
of    nothing.      A    paddle    in   a   birch-bark 
canoe  is  better  than  a  steam-engine,   and 
cheaper.     The  expense  at  present  is  incred- 
ible.    Thus,  the   three   Atlantic   Provinces 
with  a  population  between  them  about  that 
of  Maine,  have  three  Governors,  five  or  six 
local    houses    of  parliament,    and    I    shall 
not  venture   to   say  how  many   heads   of 
departments.     Let    us   stick    to   the   three 
Governors.     Their    salaries   and    the   cost 
of  keeping   up    their     residences     amount 
to   about   forty  thousand    dollars    a   year ! 
Maine,  I  believe,  gets  a  very   good  Gov- 
ernor— occasionally    a    duplicate — for    one 
thousand     dollars.       When    the    Province 
of  Manitoba  was   carved   out   of  the    un- 
plowed    prairie,   the    Central    Government 
sent  a  Governor  to  rule  over  it  with  a  salary 
equal  to  nearly  a  dollar   per  head  of  the 
population.     Think  of  the  poor  little  Prov- 
ince, not  yet  out  of  moccasins,  with  such 
finery!     This  was  the  doing  of  one  Govern- 
ment.    The  next  bettered  the  example  by 
sending  another  Governor,  with   the  usual 
salary,  Windsor  uniform,  and  so  forth,  to  the 
adjacent  territory  before  it  had  got  even  the 
moccasins  on.     The  Dominion  Legislature 
itself  is  on  the  same  extensive  and  expensive 
scale.     Few  grudge  the  fifty  thousand  dol- 
lars that   our   Governor- General    receives. 
He  is  the  personal  link  between  the  mother 
country  and  Canada.      We  could  not   get 
the  right  kind  of  man  for  less.     He  is  the 
crown  and  apex  not  only  of  our  politica. 
edifice, — which  is  on  the  King,  Lords  anc 
Commons  model, — but  of  our  social  life  as 
well.     His  indirect  influences  and  function: 
more    valuable    than    those   that  are 


are 


expressed  in  statutes.  Having  never  be- 
longed to  either  of  our  political  parties 
he  exercises  a  powerful  influence  on  both 
He  can  bring  the  leaders  of  Govern 
nvent  and  Opposition  together  under  his 
roof  in  circumstances  where  political  dif 
ferences  have  to  be  ignored,  and  where 
the  asperities  of  conflict  are  softened.  Yoi 
see  the  good  features  of  your  adversary 
through  the  flowers  of  the  dinner-table,  or  a 


.  bonspiel  on  the  ice,  far  better  than  through 
lie  thundery  atmosphere  of  debate,  and  it  is 
lardtopiay  the  irreconcilable  with  opponents 
*vhen  you  ask  their  wives  and  daughters  to 
oboggin  or  dance.    Our  Governors-General 
ire   expected  to  encourage  art,  education 
and   all  that  tends  to  develop   the   higher 
ife  of  the  country ;  and  to  diffuse  charity  as 
well  as  hospitality  liberally.     This  they  do 
at  a  cost  that  leaves  very  little  of  the  fifty 
housand  dollars  by  the  time  the  year  is  half 
over.     So  that  few  object  to  the  salary,  who 
consider  the  circumstances.     But  in  every- 
thing   else  about  our   Legislature  there  is 
room  for  the  axe  or  pruning-knife.      When 
Dr.    Chalmers   surveyed   the    Cowgate   of 
Edinburgh  and  saw  the  thousands  of  dirty, 
unkempt  men  and  women  streaming  out  of 
the  whisky  shops,  his  eye  glowed  with  en- 
thusiasm   and   turning  to   one  of  his  city 
missionaries,  he  remarked,  "A  fine  field,  sir; 
a  fine  field  for  us  ! "     Certainly,  were  I  a  poli- 
tician, I  could  wish  for  no  finer  field  than 
that  which    Ottawa  presents.     The  United 
States  think  a  cabinet  of  eight  sufficient.   We, 
with  one-twelfth  of  the  population,  surround 
our  Governor-General  with  thirteen,  giving 
to  each  of  the  baker's  dozen  seven  thousanc 
dollars  a  year,  and  his  indemnity  of  anothei 
thousand.     Eight   thousand    a    year    in    i 
country  where  most  clergymen  have  to  b< 
content  with  eight  hundred  or   less,  adju 
tants-general  of  militia  with  seventeen  hun 
dred,    and    where    bishops,    principals    oi 
universities,  and  such  like  celestial  mortal; 
live  comfortably  on  two  or  three  thousand 
'<  <  Mori]  the  more  you  get,  ' pro  patria}  ou 
of  your  country,  '•duke  est]  the  sweeter  i 
is,"  says  Mr.   Samuel  Slick.     The  thirteei 
colonies   began    with   twenty-six   senators 
we,  with  seventy-two.     Our  House  of  Com 
mons  starts  with  nearly  as  many  member 
as  your  House  of  Representatives  now  has 
At  our  rate  of  representation,  your  Housi 
should   have   some    three   thousand  mem 
bers.    Every  man  of  our  three  hundred  an< 
odd  senators  and  commoners  gets  a  thou 
sand    dollars  for  the  two  or  three   white 
months  he  spends  in  Ottawa,  besides  mile 
age  and  franking  perquisites.    Some  of  ther 
live   the  whole   year   on   half  the  mone> 
But  I  must  not  go  on  or  every  politician  i 
the  United  States  will  migrate  to  Canada. 

Partly  because  the  Queen  has  given  title 
to  sundry  individuals  who  are  or  were  pol 
ticians,  a  suspicion  seems  to  be  arising  i 
some  quarters  in  the  United  States  that 
deep  scheme  exists  for  establishing  an  an; 
tocracy  in  Canada.  No  one  acquainte 


THE  DOMINION  OF  CANADA. 


555 


with  our  conditions  of  living,  and  with  the 
temper  of  our  people,  would  entertain  such  an 
idea.  We  are  devoted  to  the  monarchical 
principle,  but  any  aristocracy  save  that  of 
genius,  worth  or  wealth,  is  as  utterly  out  of 
the  question  with  us,  as  with  you.  We  think 
it  a  good  thing  that  the  Queen,  as  the  fount- 
ain of  honor,  should  recognize  merit  in 
any  of  her  subjects;  but  such  recognitions 
have  to  stand  the  test  of  public  opinion,  and 
except  in  as  far  as  the  titles  are  upborne  by 
desert,  they  give  no  more  real  weight  than 
"  Honorable  "  or  "  Colonel  "  gives  in  the 
United  States.  If  men  will  work  harder  in 
the  public  service,  inspired  by  the  hope  of 
getting  a  ribbon,  a  medal  or  a  handle  to 
their  name,  it  would  be  Puritanical  to  grudge 
them  the  reward.  Knighthood  bestowed  on 
judges  or  nineteenth-century  politicians  does 
seem  somewhat  of  an  anachronism.  But 
men  are  queer  creatures  and  even  when 
they  care  little  for  the  title,  their  wives  may 
care  much.  Educated  as  she  is,  the  thought 
of  being  one  day  addressed  as  "  your  Lady- 
ship "  thrills  every  one  of  the  pericardial  tis- 
sues of  the  average  woman.  That  is  about 
all  the  title  does  for  her  or  her  husband.  It 
gives  neither  money,  place  nor  privilege. 
The  idea  of  a  privileged  aristocracy,  or  a 
court,  between  the  representative  of  the 
throne  in  Canada  and  our  homespun  farmers, 
no  sane  man  would  entertain.  The  fact  is, 
that  while  we  have  strong  monarchical  predi- 
lections and  traditions,  and  would  fight  to  the 
death  for  our  own  institutions  that  recognize 
monarchical  supremacy,  we  are,  perhaps, 
more  democratic  than  you.  Our  institutions? 
reflect  the  national  will,  and  our  Executive 
can  be  unmade  in  a  day  by  the  breath  of 
the  popular  branch  of  Parliament.  The 
-"Executive  is  composed  of  men  who  must  be 
members  either  of  the  popular  or  the  sena- 
torial House.  There  they  are  during  the 
session,  face  to  face  with  their  opponents, 
obliged  to  defend  every  measure  and  to 
withdraw  it  if  they  cannot  command  a 
majority  in  its  favor.  If  beaten  they  must 
resign,  and  the  Governor-General  at  once 
sends  for  some  one  who  reflects  the  views  of 
the  House  more  faithfully,  and  intrusts  the 
seals  of  office  to  him.  If  no  one  can  form  a 
stable  government,  His  Excellency  dissolves 
the  popular  House,  and  the  people  have  the 
opportunity  of  returning  new  men,  or  the  old 
members  back  again,  re-invigorated  by  their 
descent  among  their  constituents.  The 
Governor-General,  the  center  of  our  govern- 
ment, is  fixed  and  above  us.  His  responsible 
advisers  may  remain  in  office  during  a  life- 


time, or  may  be  turned  out  after  having 
tasted  its  sweets  for  twenty-four  hours.  We 
have  no  idea  of  throwing  the  central  point  of 
government  periodically  into  dispute,  and  just 
as  little  of  putting  a  yoke  on  our  necks 
that  by  no  possibility  can  be  got  rid  of  till 
after  a  term  of  years.  We  think  that  our 
present  system  combines  the  opposite  advan- 
tages of  being  stable  and  elastic,  and  that 
there  is  nothing  like  it  in  the  world. 

When  the  Queen  selected  Ottawa  as  the 
capital  of  Canada,  loud  mutterings  rose 
from  cities  like  Toronto,  Kingston,  Mont- 
real and  Quebec,  each  of  which  had  pre- 
viously been  the  capital  for  a  longer  or 
shorter  time,  and  each  of  which  considered 
its  claims  superior  to  those  of  a  city  just 
being  built  of  slabs  away  up  in  the  back- 
woods. But  time  is  vindicating  the  wisdom 
of  the  selection  and  at  any  rate  Ottawa  is 
certain  to  be  the  capital  for  a  century  or 
two,  when  it  may  give  place  to  Winnipeg. 
Without  comparing  it  with  Quebec — the 
historical  capital — the  site  of  which  is  the 
finest  in  America,  Ottawa  can  hold  its  own 
with  most  of  our  cities  as  regards  beauty, 
accessibility,  possibilities  of  defense  and 
central  position.  Two  rivers  winding 
through  and  around  it,  and  tumbling  over 
the  picturesque  falls  of  the  Chaudiere  and 
Rideau,  the  broken  wooded  cliffs  rising 
abruptly  from  the  Ottawa,  crowned  with  the 
magnificent  Parliament  buildings,  the  Laur- 
entian  range  giving  a  well-defined  back- 
ground of  mountain  forms,  are  the  features 
that  at  once  arrest  a  stranger's  attention  and 
that  never  pall.  'From  the  cliffs  and  from  the 
windows  of  the  Government  offices  above,  a 
glorious  picture  is  hung  up  that  makes  one 
anxious  to  be  a  Government  clerk  or  deputy 
or  employe  of  some  kind  or  other — the 
Chaudiere  Falls,  pouring  a  volume  of  water 
almost  equal  to  Niagara  into  the  broad  basin 
below.  This,  and  the  view  from  the  Sap- 
per's bridge,  redeem  Ottawa  in  my  eyes  and 
reconcile  me  to  its  being  the  capital.  Of 
course,  I  am  bound  to  believe  that  Kingston 
should  have  been  chosen,  but  that  "  the 
king  can  do  no  wrong "  is  an  axiom  in 
British  law  and  opinion.  Canals,  railways 
and  the  river  give  all  parts  of  the  country 
easy  access  to  Ottawa;  and  though,  ten  or 
twelve  years  ago,  it  looked  more  like  the 
back-yard  of  the  Government  buildings  than 
anything  else,  it  is  becoming  more  and  more 
a  fit  center  for  the  Dominion.  In  the  win- 
ter months  it  is  crowded  with  strangers, 
lobbyists  preponderating,  though  Rideau 
Hall,  first  under  the  sway  of  the  Dufferins 


556 


THE  DOMINION  OF  CANADA. 


and  now  with  Lord  Lome  and  H.  R.  H. 
the  Princess  Louise,  is  a  formidable  com- 
petitor of  the  lobby,  and  attracts  a  different 
class  of  visitors.     Lord  Dufferin,  as  a  won- 
derful advertising  agent,  was  worth  more  to 
Canada  than  all  her  emigration  agencies.     A 
fair  speaker  in  the  House  of  Lords,  the  air  of 
this  continent,  where  every  man  naturally 
orates,  made  him  blossom  out  into  oratory 
that  surprised  those  who  had  known  him 
best.     Having  begun,  there  seemed  no  end 
to  him.     He  was  ready  for  a  speech,  and 
always    a   good   one,    on    every   occasion. 
Unless  his  Irish  heart  and  fancy  deceived 
himself  as  well  as  us,  he  took  a  genuine 
pride  and  interest  in  Canada,  and  "  cracked 
us  up  "  after  a  style  that  Mr.  Chollop  would 
have  envied.     Lord  Lome  is  not  equally 
florid  or   exhaustless  and  we  like  him  all 
the   better.     The   mass  of  our  people  are 
very  plain,  matter-of-fact  farmers,  and  it  is 
questionable  if  they  ever  fully  appreciated 
Lord  Dufferin.     They  read  his  wonderful 
speeches    and    did    not    feel    quite    sure 
whether    he   was    in    fun    or    in    earnest, 
whether   he  spoke  as   a  business  man,  or 
post-prandially  and  as  an  Irishman.     They 
only  half-believed  that  they  were  the  great, 
good  and  generous  people  he  declared  them 
to  be,  or  that  they  had  such  a  paradisaical 
country  as  he  constantly  averred.     Never 
could  man  make  a  summer  more  readily 
out   of  one  swallow,  than  Lord    Dufferin. 
Under"  his   magic  wand  long  winters  fled 
away,  or  forty  degrees  below  zero  seemed 
the  appropriate  environment  for  humanity; 
snow-clad  mountains  appeared  covered  with 
vineyards,  and  rocky  wildernesses  blossomed 
as  the  rose.     Our  terribly  prosaic   people 
were  just  beginning  to  get  slightly  tired  of 
the  illimitable  sweetmeats  and  soap-bubbles, 
and  even  to  fancy  that  the  magician  was 
partly  advertising  himself.     Lord  Lome  is 
commending  himself  to  them  as  one  deter- 
mined  to   know  facts,    anxious   to  do  his 
duty,  and   not   unnecessarily   toadying   to 
the   press.      He   and  his  wife  are  already 
exercising  a  salutary  influence  on  Canadian 
society.     I  do  not  know  if  the  citizens  of  a 
republic   quite   understand   the    feeling   of 
loyalty  that  binds  us  to  a  house  that  repre- 
sents the  history  and  unity  of  our  Empire, 
and  how  the  feeling  becomes  a  passion  when 
the  members  of  that  house  are  personally 
worthy.     A  thrill    of  subdued    enthusiasm 
runs  through  the  crov/d  in  whatever  part  of 
Canada  the  Princess  appears,  simply  because 
she  is  a  daughter  of  the  Queen ;  and  when 
it  is  known  that  her  life  and  manners  are 


simple  and  her  own  household  well  man- 
aged, that  she  is  a  diligent  student,  an 
artist  and  a  friend  of  artists,  and  that  her 
heart  is  in  every  attempt  to  mitigate  the 
pains  and  miseries  of  suffering  humanity,  she 
leaps  into  the  inmost  heart  of  the  people, 
and  they  rejoice  to  enthrone  her  there. 
The  spirit  of  chivalry,  far  from  being  dead, 
has  gone  beyond  the  old  charmed  circle 
of  noblesse  and  knights,  and  found  its  home 
among  the  common  people.  The  influence 
of  such  a  Princess,  especially  over  our  girls, 
before  whom  a  worthy  ideal  is  set  by  the 
acknowledged  leader  of  fashion,  is  one  that 
no  true  philosopher  will  despise.  Many 
of  us  are  grateful  for  such  an  influence  in  a 
new  country  where  the  great  prize  sought 
is  material  wealth,  its  coarse  enjoyment  the 
chief  happiness  dreamed  of  by  the  winners, 
and  opportunities  of  selfish  idleness  and 
dissipation  popularly  considered  the  boons 
enjoyed  by  their  sons  and  daughters;  where 
the  claims  of  culture  are  apt  to  be  over- 
looked in  the  struggle  against  nature,  and 
the  laws  of  honor  disregarded  in  the  con- 
test for  place.  What  Shakspere  says  of 
Queen  Elizabeth  we  apply  to  our  own 
Princess : 

"She  shall  be     *     *     * 
A  pattern  to  all  princes  living  with  her, 
And  all  that  shall  succeed:     '  Those  about 

her 

From  her  shall  read  the  perfect  ways  of  honor, 
And  by  those  claim  their  greatness,  not  by  blood." 

Whatever  influences  society  in  Ottawa, 
^will  reach  over  the  country,  for  the  capital 
is  becoming  more  than  the  political  center 
of  the  Dominion.  Our  legislators  come 
from  the  people,  and  we  need  not  be 
ashamed  of  the  personnel  of  either  House. 
In  Canada,  as  in  Great  ^Britain,  the  best 
men  are  willing  to  serve'  the  state,  and  a 
stranger  who  judges  us  by  our  legislatures 
will  not  go  far  astray.  They  are  divided 
into  two  great  parties,  and  each  party  in- 
cludes representatives  of  the  various  denom- 
inations and  races  that  compose  our  people. 
The  dividing  line  between  them  is  neither 
race,  nor  religion,  nor  geography.  It  is 
sometimes  difficult  to  know  what  the  divid- 
ing line  is,  yet  the  necessities  of  party  sc 
completely  prevent  them  from  splitting  up 
into  the  various  sections  and  cross-sections 
to  be  found  in  the  legislatures  of  Franc* 
and  Germany,  that,  as  in  Great  Britain  and 
the  States,  independent  members  are  few  ir 
number.  With  us,  too,  the  "  independents  ' 
have  the  rather  shady  reputation  of  being 
waiters  on  Providence  or  sitters  on  the  fence 


THE  DOMINION  OF  CANADA. 


557 


After  confederation,  the  main  question 
between  the  two  great  political  parties  turned 
on  the  best  method  of  constructing  the 
Canada  Pacific  Railway.  During  the  dis- 
cussion, the  Liberal  Conservative  leaders 
fatally  compromised  themselves  with  a 
would-be  contractor,  and  a  general  election 
in  1873  sent  the  Reformers  into  power  with  an 
enormous  majority.  In  1878,  a  fiscal  ques- 
tion predominated  over  all  others.  The  Re- 
formers contended  that  Canada's  industrial 
and  commercial  policy  should  be  deter- 
mined generally  by  the  principles  of  free 
trade.  The  Liberal  Conservatives  urged 
the  adoption  of  protectionist  principles  or 
"  a  national  policy."  At  the  general  elec- 
tion, all  the  Provinces — New  Brunswick 
excepted — voted  heavily  in  favor  of  the 
national  policy.  Several  facts  indicate  that 
this  decision  reflected  more  than  a  passing 
sentiment  on  the  part  of  the  people;  and 
that,  though  details  may  be  changed  from 
year  to  year,  the  two  principles  will  be 
kept  in  view  of  "measure  for  measure" 
with  all  neighbors,  and  the  adjustment  of 
the  tariff  so  as  to  foster  industries  suited 
to  Canada.  For  instance,  the  great  Prov- 
ince of  Ontario,  which  always  gave  a  ma- 
jority to  the  Reformers,  deserted  its  leaders 
on  this  question,  and  returned  Liberal  Con- 
servatives in  the  proportion  of  three  to 
one.  Again,  the  provinces  of  Nova  Scotia 
and  Prince  Edward  Island  are  historically 
and  naturally  free-traders,  but  they,  too, 
gave  large  majorities  in  favor  of  the  national 
policy.  To  understand  the  full  significance 
of  the  position  taken,  it  must  be  remem- 
bered that  almost  all  our  public  men  had 
previously  been  free-traders.  We  have  few 
independent  thinkers,  and  are  accustomed 
to  take  our  opinions  on  most  subjects  from 
England.  Probably  nineteen  out  of  twenty 
writers  there  are  not  only  free-traders,  but 
consider  belief  in  protection,  more  absurd 
than  belief  in  witchcraft.  It  is  no  longer 

"  Jew,  Turk  or  Atheist 

May  enter  here,  but  not  a  Papist." 

Any  one  may  enter  good  society  in  Great 
Britain  but  a  protectionist.  For  all  purposes 
of  trade,  it  is  held  that  nations  do  not  or 
should  not  exist.  Various  causes  predisposed 
us  to  hold  the  same  views  on  the  subject. 
Being  in  favor  of  maintaining  our  connec- 
tion with  Britain,  there  was  no  desire  to 
adopt  a  radically  different  commercial  pol- 
icy. The  desire  was  all  the  other  way. 
Besides,  the  arguments  in  favor  of  free 
trade  as  the  right  system  for  all  nations  are 


demonstrable.  Every  one  must  admit  that, 
confining  ourselves  to  the  region  of  abstract 
principles,  the  protectionist  has  little  to  say 
for  himself;  that  the  truths  of  free  trade 
are  truths  of  common  sense ;  that  it  would 
be  well  to  have  trade  as  free  and  unfettered 
as  labor ;  that  when  trade  is  free  the  buyer 
and  the  seller  are  benefited,  and  that  when  it 
is  shackled  both  are  injured.  Most  persons 
also  admit  that  protection  is  not  a  good 
thing  in  itself;  that  it  is,  at  the  best,  only  a 
weapon  of  defense  or  retaliation,  and  that  it 
is  intended  to  be  temporary ;  that  its  gen- 
eral effect  is  to  enrich  the  few  at  the  ex- 
pense of  the  many,  and  that  its  tendency  is 
to  form  rings  to  control  legislation  in  the 
interests  of  the  few.  All  this  was  under- 
stood thoroughly,  yet  the  Canadians  voted 
protection  with  an  enthusiasm  quite  per- 
plexing when  we  consider  what  evoked  the 
enthusiasm.  Bishop  Berkeley  once  started 
the  question  of  whether  it  was  possible  for 
a  whole  nation  to  go  mad.  In  the  judgment 
of  an  orthodox  free-trader  or  an  ordinary 
Englishman,  the  Dominion  must  have  gone 
mad  in  1878.  The  great  aim  of  politi- 
cians and  people  in  England  is  to  get  taxes 
reduced.  A  ministry  trembles  for  its  exist- 
ence if  it  imposes  an  additional  tax.  But 
here  the  general  cry  was  "  Increase  the 
taxes !  "  The  great  dread  of  the  people 
was  that  the  men  they  had  returned  to  Par- 
liament, would  prove  false  to  them  by  not 
taxing  them  enough.  And  when  new  du- 
ties were  imposed  and  old  duties  doubled, 
enthusiastic  votes  of  thanks  were  sent  from 
popular  associations  to  the  Cabinet  ministers 
for  so  nobly  redeeming  their  pledges.  It 
was  altogether  a  very  curious  phase  of  na- 
tional sentiment. 

How  did  the  thing  come  about  ?  Tem- 
porary and  permanent  causes  co-operated. 
Financial  depression  made  many  people 
willing  to  try  a  new  policy.  Some  be- 
lieved that  it  was  possible  to  get  rich 
not  only  by  the  old-fashioned  ways  of 
working  and  saving,  but  by  a  new  patent 
according  to  which  everybody  would  take 
from  everybody,  and  yet  nobody  be  any  the 
poorer.  Then,  with  the  debt  and  expendi- 
ture of  the  Dominion  increasing  and  the 
revenue  decreasing,  we  had  the  unpleasant 
fact  of  annual  deficits  to  face.  Since  the 
formation  of  the  Dominion  its  debt  has 
nearly  doubled,  and  at  the  present  rate  of 
increase  it  will  soon  be  equal  per  head  of 
population  to  yours,  with  the  important  dif- 
ferences that  in  the  United  States  the  debt  is 
becoming  smaller,  while  the  revenue  shows 


558 


THE  DOMINION  OF  CANADA. 


remarkable  elasticity,  whereas  in  the  Do- 
minion prospective  liabilities  are  indefinite, 
and  revenue  can  be  increased  only  by  fresh 
taxes.     Neither  of  the  two  political  parties 
proposed   to   diminish  expenditure,  and  as 
additional  revenue  had  to  be  raised,  a  cry 
for  re-adjustment  of  taxation,  with  the  object 
of  fostering  native  industries,  could  plead  a 
solid   basis  of  necessity   as    a  justification. 
Two  other  causes  co-operated.    In  this,  as  in 
all  the  other  important  steps  taken  by  them 
in   political  development,    Canadians  have 
been  greatly  influenced  by  the  example  of 
the  United  States.     Half  a  century  ago,  the 
spectacle  of  a  people  on  the  other  side  of 
what  is  only  a  "line,"  self-reliant,  self-govern- 
ing and  prosperous,  had  much  to  do  with 
determining   us  to  have  a  government  re- 
sponsible to  ourselves.     Again,  the  national 
spirit  evoked   in  the  United  States  during 
the  civil  war  influenced  us  toward  confed- 
eration.     We   saw  on  a  grand  scale  that, 
where  the  dollar  had  been  called  almighty, 
national    sentiment   was    mightier.     Cana- 
dians, with  such  an  example  before  them, 
could  hardly  help  feeling  that  they  must  rise 
above  pett    provincialism,  and  aim  at  being 
a  nation.     In  the  same  way,  they  felt  that  if 
a  protectionist  policy  was  good  for  you,  it 
must  be  good  for  them.     They  are  quite 
sure  that,  whether  you  can  do  other  things 
or  not,  you  can  do  business,  and  that  you 
seldom   get  the  worst  of  a  bargain.     Cer- 
tainly, if  imitation  be  the  sincerest  flattery, 
they  ought  to  get  the  credit  of  being  your 
greatest  admirers.     Along  with  the  feeling 
that  it  would  be  wise  to  imitate,  was  a  sore- 
ness begotten  of  the  fact  that  they  had  tried 
to  charm  you  into  free  trade  or  reciprocity, 
and  had  failed.     You  would  not  reciprocate 
their  semi-free-trade  attitude.     The  Cana- 
dian manufacturer  waxed  angry,  and  even 
the  farmer  became  irritated.     The  manufac- 
turer saw  that  if  he  established  himself  on  one 
side  of  the  line,  he  had  forty-four  millions  of 
customers,  and  if  on  the  other  side  he  hac 
only  four  millions  ;   and,  still  worse,  that  his 
rival,  who  had  forty  millions  as  a  special  mar 
ket,  could  afford  to  "  slaughter"  him  who  had 
no  special  market  at  all.     And  the  farme 
felt  that  his  neighbors  would 'not  likely  tax 
his  grain  unless  it  was  their  interest  to  do  so 
and  argued  accordingly  that  it  must  be  fo 
his  interest  to  tax  their  grain  as  much  a: 
they  taxed  his.     As  a  matter  of  fact,  sue] 
notions  influenced  the  average  bucolic  mind 
Besides,   there   is  a  certain    satisfaction  t< 
human  nature  to  hit  back,  even  though  i 
may   injure   rather  than    benefit.     Nation 


lave  not  got  yet  beyond  the  spirit  of  the 
ewish  code  of  an  eye  for  an  eye,  and  a 
ooth  for  a  tooth.     Perhaps  few  have  got  so 
ar.     Another   cause   that   made   the   pro- 
posal of  a  national  policy  popular  was  the 
distinctively  Canadian  spirit  that  is  growing 
tronger   every  year.     Men  in  whom  this 
pirit  is  strong  believe  that  each  country  must 
egislate   entirely   with    a   view  to  its  own 
nterests;    and  that  if  Great  Britain  found 
ree  trade  beneficial,  and  the  United  States 
bund  protection  necessary,  Canada  might 
hid  a  mixture  of  the  two  best  adapted  to  its 
special  position.      These  men  were  irritated 
at  the  patronizing  language  too  often  used  by 
British  newspapers,  and  at  the  inconsistent 
anguage  of  politicians  of  the  Manchester 
school,  who   with   one  breath  declare  the 
colonies  useless  to  the  Empire,  and  with  the 
icxt  express  amazement   that  they  should 
Dresume  to  understand  their  own  business 
and  to  act  independently  in  fiscal  matters. 
The   changes   recently  made  in   the  tariff 
will  have,  at  least,  the  one  effect  of  teach- 
ing  all   concerned   that  •  Canada,  like   the 
mother-country  itself,  studies  what  it  con- 
siders its  own  interests,  and  does  so  in  the 
faith  that  what  benefits  it  most  will  in  the 
long   run  benefit  the  Empire   most.     Any 
other  relationship  in  fiscal  matters  between 
Canada  and  the  rest  of  the  Empire  must  be 
matter  of  special  agreement.     Until  such  is 
come  to,  the  present  relationship  of  commer- 
cial independence  must  continue. 

It  is  interesting  to  note  how  the  countries 
most  concerned  have  taken  this  change  of 
fiscal  policy  on  our  part.  You,  on  the 
whole,  have  recognized  our  right  to  cut 
our  coat  according  to  our  cloth  and  accord- 
ing to  our  fancy.  You  have  been  accus- 
tomed to  do  so  yourselves,  and  must  have 
wondered  at  our  entertaining  the  question, 
"  Will  other  countries  be  offended  if  we  act 
as  if  we  were  no  longer  in  a  state  of  com- 
mercial pupilage?"  But  Manchester  has 
scolded  as  it  never  scolded  before.  Mr. 
John  Bright  declares  that  our  present  trade 
policy  is  not  only  injurious  to  the  inhabitants 
of  the  Dominion,— poor  children  who  cannot 
take  care  of  themselves, — but  that,  "  if  per- 
sisted in,  it  will  be  fatal  to  its  connection 
with  the  mother  country."  There  is  the 
shop-keeper's  last  word  to  his  pastor—"  If  you 
don't  deal  at  my  shop,  I  will  leave  the 
church."  If  the  life  of  man  could  be  sum- 
med up  in  the  one  duty  of  buying  in  the 
cheapest  and  selling  in  the  dearest  market, 
a  change  in  the  Canadian  tariff  might  break 
up  that  wonderful  thing  called  the  British 


THE  DOMINION  OF  CANADA. 


559 


Empire.  But  only  Manchester  thinks  so 
and  Manchester  is  not  the  Empire.  You 
are  far  more  guilty  of  the  deadly  heresy  of 
protection  than  we.  But  of  you,  Mr.  Bright 
writes  more  in  sorrow  than  in  anger.  Of 
us,  always  more  in  anger  than  in  sorrow. 

Whether  the  change  in  our  trade  policy 
will  prove  beneficial  to  the  Canadian  peo- 
ple, or  the  reverse,  I  will  not  predict ;  but  it 
is  safe  to  say  that  in  spirit  it  will  be  con- 
tinued henceforth,  except  in  so  far  as  it  may 
be  modified  by  treaties.  There  is  now  on 
our  statute-book  a  resolution  to  the  effect 
that,  as  you  lower  duties  on  our  products, 
we  will  lower  duties  on  yours.  We  thus 
hold  out  the  flag  of  peace.  But  the  tend- 
ency of  the  present  state  of  things  is  not 
only  to  hamper  free  intercourse  between 
two  peoples  who  should  be  one  for  all  pur- 
poses of  internal  communication,  but  to 
build  up  new  walls  between  them.  The 
longer  men  build  at  these  the  higher  they 
make  them,  until,  at  length,  important  in- 
terests in  Canada  will  be  opposed  to  every 
form  of  reciprocity. 

Besides,  the  treaty  of  Washington  did  not 
settle  the  fishery  question.  And  surely  the 
time  for  a  satisfactory  settlement  has  come. 
All  the  points  in  dispute,  the  question  of 
headlands  and  bays  especially,  are  as  much 
in  dispute  as  ever.  After  1883,  when  the 
present  term  of  occupation  for  which  you 
have  paid  us  terminates,  they  will  crop  up 
again.  The  responsibility  rests  upon  you 
as  it  is  your  turn  to  take  the  initiative. 

The  commercial  relations  of  Canada  are 
simple  and  easily  understood.  Our  trade 
is  pretty  much  confined  to  three  countries, — 
the  United  States,  Great  Britain  and  the 
West  Indies.  The  commercial  capital  is 
Montreal.  A  walk  in  spring  or  autumn 
along  the  massive  stone  wharfage  that  lines 
the  glorious  river,  flowing  oceanward  with 
the  tribute  of  half  a  continent,  is  sufficient 
to  show  its  unrivaled  facilities  for  trade.  A 
dozen  lines  of  ocean-going  steamships  are 
taking  in  cargo,  and  improvements  are  pro- 
jected to  afford  indefinite  expansion  for 
others.  But  Montreal  has  the  great  disad- 
vantage of  a  long  winter  to  contend  against. 
The  contrast  between  October  and  January 
is  the  contrast  between  life  and  death. 
Quays,  docks,  sheds  and  everything  else  up 
to  the  revetment  wall  have  been  wiped  out. 
The  ice-covered  river  has  risen  to  the  level 
of  the  lowest  streets,  and  an  unbroken  ex- 
panse of  ice  and  snow  stretches  up  and 
down  and  across  to  the  opposite  side. 
Business  has  fled,  except  that  which  keen 


curlers  delight  in,  with  the  thermometer  at 
20°  below  zero.  In  April,  the  ice  begins 
to  groan,  melt  and  shove.  Everything  that 
resists  has  to  yield  to  the  irresistible  pres- 
sure, and,  therefore,  everything  had  been 
removed  in  time.  Huge  cakes  pile  above 
each  other,  and,  as  the  river  rises,  the  lower 
parts  of  the  city  are  often  completely  inun- 
dated. Scarcely  has  the  ice  commenced  to 
move,  when  the  laborers  are  at  work  fitting 
the  sections  of  sheds,  clearing  the  railway 
track,  and  putting  the  wharves  in  order  for 
the  spring  work.  The  channels  of  trade 
open,  and  life  throbs  again  in  all  the  arteries 
of  the  city. 

Montreal  abounds  in  contrasts.  No- 
where else  in  America  are  past  and  present 
to  be  seen  so  close  to  each  other.  Landing 
near  the  Bonsecours  Market,  from  the 
steamer  in  which  you  have  run  the  Lachine 
Rapids,  everything  speaks  of  nineteenth- 
century  life  and  rush.  You  have  just  passed 
under  the  Victoria  bridge,  one  of  the  great- 
est monuments  of  modern  engineering  skill, 
and  steamers  are  ranged  along  the  extensive 
wharfage  as  far  as  the  eye  reaches.  But 
go  up  the  lane  leading  to  the  quaint,  rusty- 
looking  Bonsecours  church,  hard  by,  and  at 
once  you  find  yourself  in  the  seventeenth 
century.  A  small  image  of  the  Virgin, 
standing  on  the  gable  nearest  the  river, 
points  out  the  church,  which  otherwise 
would  be  scarcely  distinguishable  from  the 
ruck  of  old  buildings  built  all  around  and' 
on  it.  Pass  the  queer  little  eating-houses 
and  shops,  thrown  out  like  buttresses  from 
the  walls  of  the  church,  and  turn  in  from  the 
busy  market  to  say  a  prayer.  The  peasants 
who  have  come  to  market  deposit  their 
baskets  of  fish,  fruit  or  poultry  at  the  door, 
and  enter  without  fear  of  anything  being 
stolen  while  they  are  at  their  devotions;  or 
sailors,  returned  from  a  voyage,  are  bringing 
with  them  an  offering  to  her  who  they  be- 
lieve succored  them  when  they  prayed,  in 
time  of  peril,  on  the  sea.  Inside,  you  can 
scarce  believe  you  are  in  America, — you  are 
in  some  ancient  town  in  Brittany  or  South 
Germany,  where  the  parish  church  has  not 
yet  been  desecrated  by  upholstery  or  mod- 
ern improvements.  The  building,  and  every- 
thing in  and  about  it,  the  relievos  on  the 
walls,  the  altar,  the  simple  but  exquisite 
antique  pulpit,  are  a  thousand  times  more 
interesting  than  the  huge,  stiff  towers  of 
Notre  Dame  and  the  profusion  of  tawdry 
gilt  and  color  inside,  which  everybody  goes 
to  see,  while  not  one  in  a  hundred  has 
heard  of  the  Bonsecours  church.  The 


56° 


THE  DOMINION  OF  CANADA. 


cathedral  and  the  Jesuits'  church  are  loudly 
modern ;  but  the  Bonsecours — though  the 
old  church  was  burnt  in  1754 — takes  us  back 
to  the  past,  and  reminds  us  of  Marguerite 
Bourgeoys,  who  laid  the  foundation-stones 
more  than  two  centuries  ago.  The  Baron 
de  Fancamp  gave  her  a  small  image  of  the 
Virgin,  endowed  with  miraculous  virtue,  on 
condition  that  a  chapel  should  be  built  for 
its  reception  in  Montreal.  Gladly  she  re- 
ceived the  precious  gift  and  carried  it  out 
to  Canada.  As  enthusiastically,  the  people 
of  Montreal  seconded  an  undertaking  which 
would  bring  such  a  blessing  to  the  city. 
From  that  day,  many  a  wonderful  deliver- 
ance has  been  attributed  to  our  Lady  of 
Gracious  Help.  No  wonder  that  the  de- 
vout French  sailor,  as  he  goes  up  and  down 
the  river,  looks  out  for  the  loved  image  and 
utters  a  prayer  to  Mary  as  it  comes  in  sight. 

From  the  Bonsecours  (the  first  stone 
church  built  on  the  island),  a  short  walk 
along  St.  Paul  street  (the  street  that  consti- 
tuted the  city  at  first)  leads  to  Jacques  Car- 
tier  Square,  where  Nelson  stands  with  his 
back  to  the  water — the  first  time  he  ever 
stood  in  such  a  position,  as  an  old  salt 
grumbled  when  he  saw  the  monument. 
Passing  around  the  corner  to  the  magnifi- 
cent new  City  Hall  and  the  old  Government 
House  opposite,  where  Benjamin  Franklin 
set  up  a  newspaper  with  the  remark  that,  if 
Canada  was  to  be  Americanized,  it  would 
.be  only  through  the  printing-press,  a  semi- 
subterranean  smithy  suddenly  arrests  your 
attention.  The  sight  and  the  sounds  are  so 
unexpected  in  such  a  center  that  you  look 
down.  Through  the  horses,  carters,  and 
rows  of  horse-shoes  hanging  from  the  low 
roof,  you  see  that  the  modern  blacksmith 
has  taken  possession  of  one  of  the  old, 
strongly  built,  arched  vaults  where  the  Gov- 
ernment long  ago  kept  its  archives  and 
other  valuables.  Here,  too,  the  past  and 
the  present  are  clasping  hands,  for  the 
current  of  life,  running  more  strongly,  has 
the  same  color  and  direction  as  in  Franklin's 
day.  The  French  tongue  is  universally 
spoken,  and  the  ultramontane,  conversing 
with  his  compatriots,  still  speaks  of  English- 
men in  Canada  as  foreigners. 

The  west  end  is  altogether  another  city. 
Formerly  some  of  the  best  French  families 
lived  here,  but  gradually  they  moved  away 
to  the  east  end,  drawn  by  the  influences  of 
race,  religion,  traditions  and  sympathies. 
The  splendid  mansions  on  Sherbrooke  street 
are  occupied  by  English  and  Scotch  mer- 
chants ;  and  the  Windsor  is  an  American 


hotel  after  the  best  model.  But,  go  where 
you  will  in  Montreal,  it  is  not  possible  to 
forget  that  you  are  in  a  Roman  Catholic 
city.  A  group  from  the  Seminary ;  a  proces- 
sion of  Christian  Brothers ;  a  girls'  school  out 
for  a  walk,  with  softly  treading  nuns  quietly 
guiding  them ;  a  church  near  the  Windsor 
silently  taking  form  in  imitation  of  St  Peter's; 
the  Hotel  Dieu;  the  enormous  and  ever-grow- 
ing establishment  of  the  "Sceurs  Crises," 
who  care  for  every  form  and  class  of  suffer- 
ing humanity,  from  helpless  foundlings  to 
helpless  second  childhood; — thus  by  match- 
lessly organized  bands,  in  medieval  garb, 
shaping  the  lives  of  the  boys  and  girls,  and 
by  stone  and  lime  on  a  scale  that  Protest- 
antism never  attempts,  Rome  everywhere 
declares  herself,  and  claims  Montreal  as  her 
own. 

Toronto  considers  itself  the  intellectual 
capital  of  Canada,  grudgingly  acknowledg- 
ing Ottawa  and  Montreal  as,  in  the  mean- 
time, the  political  and  commercial  centers. 
University  College  is  a  noble  building,  and 
respectably  endowed.  The  act  of  confeder- 
ation left  education  in  the  hands  of  the 
respective  Provinces,  and  as  there  is  no  uni- 
formity in  laws  or  practice,  a  separate  article 
would  be  needed  to  do  justice  to  the  sub- 
ject. The  general  principles  of  the  educa- 
tional system  of  Ontario  and  the  maritime 
Provinces  are  those  that  prevail  in  the 
United  States.  All  public  schools  are  free, 
are  supported  chiefly  by  local  rates,  and  the 
rate-payers  elect  trustees  to  manage  the 
schools.  The  main  difference  between  the 
Provinces  which  I  have  specified,  is  that  in 
Ontario  education  is  not  only  free  but — if 
the  bull  be  permitted — compulsory,  and  that 
Roman  Catholics  who  desire  to  establish 
separate  schools  with  their  rates  may  do  so 
where  they  are  strong  enough  to  support 
them.  In  such  localities,  the  school-rates  of 
those  who  desire  a  separate  school  are  col- 
lected for  that  purpose,  and  those  schools 
share  in  the  Legislative  grant  in  proportion 
to  their  attendance.  In  the  Province  of 
Quebec,  the  religious  principle  divides  the 
public  schools  into  two  classes  still  more 
markedly.  A  council  of  public  instruction 
appointed  by  the  Provincial  Government  is 
divided  into  two  committees, — the  one  with 
certain  powers  so  far  as  schools  for  Roman 
Catholics  are  '  concerned,  the  other  with 
similar  powers  over  the  Protestant  schools. 
Local  boards  are  constituted  on  the  same 
principle  of  division  according  to  religion, 
but  as  in  most  parishes  there  is  only  the  one 
church,  and  the  masses  are  devout  and  sub- 


THE  DOMINION  OF  CANADA. 


PARLIAMENT    BUILDINGS.    OTTAWA. 


missive,  the  schools  are  practically  in  the 
hands  of  the  hierarchy.  Their  condition  is 
far  from  being  satisfactory,  except  in  the 
principal  cities,  where  co-ordinate  boards 
exist  side  by  side  and  where  enough  of 
wholesome  rivalry  exists  to  insure  a  meas- 
ure of  excellence. 

In  Montreal,  the  system,  so  far  as  the  Prot- 


estant community  is  concerned,  is  as  perfect 
as  in  the  best  cities  of  Ontario,  the  course  from 
the  common  schools  to  the  University  being 
open  to  all,  and  free  the  whole  way  up  to  every 
promising  scholar.  While  elementary  schools 
have  always  been  defective  in  quality  and 
quantity  in  Quebec  Province,  it  is  otherwise 
as  regards  provision  for  the  higher  kinds  of 


VOL.  XX.— 37. 


A    MONTREAL    WHARF    IN    JUNK. 


562 


THE  DOMINION  OF  CANADA. 


elementary  and  collegiate  education.  Clas- 
sical, industrial,  commercial  and  theological 
colleges  are  to  be  found  in  every  center,  con- 
nected with  one  or  other  of  the  various 
educational  communities  that  the  church 
encourages,  and  with  every  Bishop's  see.  In 
these  institutions  the  children  of  the  best 
families  and  promising  boys  obtain  an  educa- 
tion which,  though  neither  comprehensive  in 
range,  nor  scientific  in  method  and  spirit, 
equips  them  fairly  for  their  proposed  work  in 
life,  and  enables  them  to  appear  to  advantage 
in  the  world  and  in  Parliament.  The  French 
members  of  the  legislature  are  a  better  aver- 
age in  point  of  education  than  the  English. 


rate  work ;  and  when  Dr.  Dawson  became 
principal  it  got  something  better  than  money. 
Education  in  Canada  is  left  to  the  respect- 
ive Provinces.  Religion,  except  in  Quebec 
Province,  where  the  church  of  Rome  reigns 
over  homogeneous  masses  of  submissive 
children  and  enjoys  a  semblance  of  State 
Churchism,  is  left  to  the  individual.  With  us, 
as  with  you,  the  fruits  of  individualism  are 
seen  in  the  multiplication  of  sects,  and  in  the 
keen  rivalry  existing  between  them  that  leads 
to  the  erection  of  half  a  dozen  churches,  and 
the  genteel  starvation  of  half  a  dozen  minis- 
ters, in  almost  every  village.  It  is  instructive 
to  note  the  different  outcome  of  the  principles 


A     MONTREAL    WHARF    IN     MARCH. 


They  are  certainly  their  superiors  in  preci- 
sion and  elegance  of  language.  In  found- 
ing institutions  for  higher  education,  the 
Protestants  of  Quebec  have  not  shown  as 
much  liberality  in  proportion  to  their  wealth 
as  the  Roman  Catholics.  The  rich  Mon- 
treal merchants,  who  have  built  palatial  resi- 
dences for  themselves  by  the  hundred  at  the 
foot  of  the  mountain,  have  done  compara- 
tively little  even  for  McGill  College.  The 
Scotchman  who  founded  it  more  than  half 
a  century  ago  built  for  himself  a  monument 
more  lasting  than  brass ;  but  few  of  his  fel- 
low-citizens have  been  animated  by  his  spirit. 
But  with  scanty  means  McGill  has  done  first- 


of  Protestantism  in  Germany,  in  Great 
Britain,  and  on  this  side  of  the  Atlantic. 
We  see  how  the  same  fundamental  princi- 
ples are  modified  by  the  character  of  peoples 
and  by  their  historical  developments.  In 
Germany  an  almost  boundless  liberty  of 
thought  in  theology  is  allowed  within  the 
church.  The  results  of  scholarship,  and 
theories  on  the  results,  are  published  withoul 
fear  of  consequences,  while  in  outward  things 
the  church  is  bound  hand  and  foot,  and 
works  simply  as  the  Government's  moral 
police.  There  is  no  dissent  to  speak  of, 
The  church  represents  whatever  spiritual 
force  there  has  been,  or  is,  in  each  kingdom 


THE  DOMINION  OF  CANADA. 


OPEN-AIR    MARKET. 


or  duchy;  and  the  churches  to-day  are 
geographically  and  in  all  outward  things, 
about  as  the  peace  of  Westphalia  left  them, 
though  the  state  of  theological  opinion  varies 
with  every  generation. 

In  Great  Britain  the  established  churches 
enjoy  more  outward  liberty,  and  allow  less 
liberty  of  thought  than  in  Germany ;  they 
include  great  varieties  of  theological  opin- 
ion, but  this  is  made  ground  of  serious 
reproach  against  them  by  vigorous  dissent- 
ing organizations  that  constitute  an  import- 
ant element  in  the  spiritual  life  of  the 
nation.  There  are  religious  circles  in  Eng- 
land and  in  Scotland,  that  assume  that  the 
church  ought  to  be  based  on  peculiarities  of 
dogma,  ritual  and  discipline,  and  not  on  the 
broad  principles  of  Christianity,  and  that 
anything  like  breadth  is  inconsistent  with 
moral  and  spiritual  earnestness.  In  Canada, 


as  in  the  United  States,  no  Protestant  church 
has  any  official  recognition  or  advantage 
above  another,  and  our  boundless  liberty  of 
organization  has  led  to  the  formation  of 
sects  representing  every  variety  of  opinion. 
Astonishing  outward  religious  zeal  and  clat- 
tering activity  has  been  generated  by  our 
"  fair  field  and  no  favor  "  plan.  Each  sect 
feels  that,  if  it  is  active  enough,  the  whole 
country  may  be  won  over  to  its  side.  Half 
a  dozen  zealous  men,  or  half  the  number  of 
zealous  women,  will  build  a  church,  with  a 
mortgage  on  it,  probably,  and  engage  a 
minister  who  well  knows  that,  whether  he 
quickens  spiritual  life  or  not,  "  those  pews 
must  be  filled."  A  competition  among 
ministers  is  insured,  in  which  the  sensitive 
and  honorable  often  come  off  second  best. 
People  who  have  made  large  money  sacri- 
fices for  the  sect  are  not  inclined  to  be- 


564 


THE  DOMINION  OF  CANADA. 


OLD    BONSECOURS    CHURCH,    FROM     THE     RIVER. 


little  its   peculiarities.      The  sect   is   "  the 
cause,"  and  the  cause  is  the  Lord's.     The 
old  idea  of  the  church  as  the  visible  body  of 
Christ,  including  all  who  are  professedly  His, 
and  all  who  are  animated  by  His  spirit,  is 
lost.     A  church  is  merely  a   club,  with  its 
well-defined    constitution  and  by-laws.     If 
you  think  outside  of  these,  you  must  leave 
the  club,  and  form  or  join  another,  or  live 
without  connection  with  any  club  ecclesi- 
astical.    That   our   condition  of  things   is 
favorable   to  the   development  of   sects   is 
undoubted.     Whether,  notwithstanding  the 
advantage  of  free  church  government,  it  is 
more  favorable  to  the  growth  of  true  religion 
than  even  the  condition  of  things  in  Ger- 
many, may  be  doubted.     The  German  army 
marched   in  the  last  war  to  the  tunes  of 
popular  hymns  as  often  as  of  patriotic  songs. 
Their  serried  ranks  swung  into  Metz  singing 
a  grand  old  hymn  dear  to  the  heart  of  every 
true  son  of  fatherland.     Would  or  could  a 
British  or  American  army  do  likewise  ?    But 
the  church  of  the  future  has  not  taken  shape 
yet,  in  the  old  nor  in  the  new  world. 

In  Canada,  there  is  little  theological 
scholarship  and  less  speculation.  I  am  not 
acquainted  with  a  Canadian  author  or  vol- 
ume known  in  Europe,  so  far  as  these  de- 


partments of  literature  are  concerned.  It 
may  be  that  the  churches  have  too  much 
rough  missionary  work  on  their  hands  to 
give  their  strength  to  scholarship;  or  that 
the  conditions  of  things  in  the  churches 
do  not  encourage  independent .  thinking ; 
or  that  nineteenth-century  mental  and 
spiritual  inquietude  has  not  yet  influenced 
the  Canadian  mind.  The  people  generally 
are  attached  to  Puritan  and  evangelical 
theology,  and  possess  much  of  the  old 
robust  faith.  They  contribute  with  extra- 
Ordinary  liberality  to  build  churches,  and, 
according  to  their  means,  to  support  the 
ministry.  The  trouble  is  that  in  many 
places  they  have  too  varied  a  ministry  to 
support.  Many  of  our  ecclesiastical  edifices, 
notably  the  Anglican  cathedrals  of  Frederic- 
ton  and  Montreal,  and  the  Scottish  (St 
Andrew's)  churches  of  Montreal  and  To- 
ronto, are  as  perfect  specimens  of  architec- 
ture, after  their  kind,  as  could  be  desired. 

Robust  health  characterizes  the  Cana- 
dians, not  only  religiously  but  from  whatevei 
point  of  view  you  look  at  them, 
world  has  no  finer  oarsmen  than  those  ol 
Halifax,  St.  John  and  Lake  Ontario.  f. 
look  at  the  crowds  who  throng  the  fain 
held  every  autumn  near  the  chief  centers 


THE  DOMINION  OF  CANADA. 


565 


or  at  the  army  of  the  Ottawa-river  lumber- 
men, or  at  our  volunteer  reviews,  is  enough 
to  show  that  they  "  bulk  largely  in  the  fore- 
front of  humanity."  That  they  preserve  the 
military  spirit  of  their  ancestors  recent  in- 
stances evidence.  On  the  occasion  of  the 
last  Fenian  raid,  companies  of  militia,  sup- 
posed from  their  muster-rolls  to  represent 
ten  thousand  men,  were  called  out.  Mak- 
ing allowances  for  absentees,  cases  of  sick- 
ness and  other  causes,  a  total  of  eight 
thousand  were  expected  to  appear  at  the 
rendezvous.  Instead  of  eight  or  ten,  four- 
teen thousand  actually  presented  themselves. 
The  explanation  is  that  clothing  is  issued  to 
the  companies  every  third  year.  As,  new 
men  take  the  place  of  those  who  from  year 
to  year  drop  out,  the  company  is  main- 
tained at  the  regular  rate;  but,  in  every 
district,  members  whose  names  are  not  re- 
tained on  the  rolls  keep  their  uniforms. 
When  there  was  a  prospect  of  service,  these 
oldsters  flocked  to  the  standard  and  com- 
panies appeared  with  double  their  normal 
strength.  Two  Irishmen  were  looking  out 
for  a  good  point  from  which  to  see  a 
steeple-chase.  "  Mike,"  exclaimed  one,  as 
they  came  to  the  worst-looking  ditch, 
"  here's  the  spot  for  us ;  there's  likely  to 
be  a  kill  here,  if  anywhere."  Our  volun- 
teers are  as  eager  to  be  in  at  the  death  as  if 
they  were  all  Irish.  Four  years  ago,  the 
Government  established  a  military  college 
at  Kingston,  on  the  model  of  Woolwich 
and  West  Point,  for  training  officers.  As 
we  have  no  standing  army,  it  looked  like  a 
case  of  putting  the  cart  before  the  horse, 
and  "they"  said  that  young  men  would 
not  attend  when  no  prospects  of  future  em- 
ployment were  held  out.  But  young  men 
of  the  best  class  are  eager  to  attend.  The 
institution  is  well  officered  and  has  about 
a  hundred  cadets.  I  do  not  know  what 
examination  is  required  before  entering 
West  Point,  but  the  standard  at  Kingston 
is  lower  than  at  Woolwich.  The  duty  of 
Xself-defense  has  been  imposed  by  the  im- 
perial government  on  Canada,  as  part  of  a 
predetermined  policy,  and  the  duty  has 
been  cheerfully  assumed.  This  is  simply 
another  step  taken  in  the  course  of  our  de- 
velopment from  political  nonage  to  the  full 
responsibilities  of  maturity,  and,  like  all  the 
previous  steps,  each  of  which  was  thought 
dangerous  at  the  time,  it  has  had  the  effect 
of  binding  Canada  more  firmly  to  the  Em- 
pire. The  opponents  of  responsible  govern- 
tnent  declared  that  it  meant  the  creation 
of  several  little  provincial  republics.  The 


opponents  of  confederation  argued  that  it 
involved  separation  from  the  Empire'.  When 
Great  Britain  withdrew  her  regiments  from 
the  inland  Provinces,  and  sold  or  shipped 
off  even  the  sentry-boxes,  people  on  both 
sides  of  the  water  asserted  that  this,  at  any 
rate,  meant  the  dissolution  of  the  Empire. 
And  when  a  change  is  made  in  our  tariff,  or 
when  an  official  has  his  salary  diminished, 
Cassandras  all  around  prophesy  that  this  must 
lead  to  separation.  Yet  Canada  is  more  in 
love  with  the  old  flag  to-day  than  ever,  and 
though  the  general  commanding  bitterly 
complains  that  the  militia  vote  is  always 
the  one  most  easily  reduced,  the  real  reason 
is  not  indifference,  but  a  sense  of  security. 
Some  companies  of  mounted  police  to  pro- 
tect and  watch  the  Indians  in  the  North- 
west, two  batteries  of  artillery  stationed 
respectively  at  Kingston  and  Quebec,  and 
an  effective  militia  of  40,000, — the  whole 
costing  about  one  million  dollars  a  year, — 
constitute  the  present  war  power  of  the 
Dominion.  In  case  of  need  the  militia 


PULPIT    IN    OLD    BONSECOURS    CHURCH. 


566 


THE  DOMINION  OF  CANADA. 


CHRISTIAN    BROTHERS    AT    THE    GATE    OF    THE    SEMINARY    OF    ST.     SULPICE. 


could  be  increased  indefinitely.  The  war- 
like spirit  of  the  people  and  their  sympathy 
with  the  mother-country  were  shown  two 
years  ago,  when  the  Eastern  question 
seemed  likely  to  culminate  in  war  with 
Russia.  Though  it's  a  far  cry  from  Canada  to 
Constantinople,  ten  thousand  of  the  militia 
volunteered  for  service,  and  had  war  broken 
out,  their  offer  would  have  been  accepted. 

And  what  as  to  the  probable  future  of 
this  "  Canada  of  ours  "  ?  The  preceding 
articles  indicate  the  point  of  view  from 
which  I  am  likely  to  regard  such  a  ques- 
tion. Attempts  have  been  made  to  enlist 
popular  sympathy  in  favor  of  schemes  of 
independence,  annexation,  Britannic  con- 
federation and  the  like,  but  in  vain.  None 
of  these  schemes  has  ever  risen  to  the  dig- 
nity of  the  hustings  Or  the  ballot-box.  They 
have  all  been  still-born.  No  interest  has 
been  taken  in  them  by  the  people.  Cana- 
dians, like  all  liberty-loving  people,  are  keen 


politicians.  In  this  respect  we  err  by  ex- 
cess rather  than  defect.  We  have  too 
much  politics.  Our  press  takes  up  nothing 
else  heartily.  Give  a  practical  question, 
and  the  country  will  ring  with  it  to  the  ex- 
clusion of  almost  everything  else.  Let  a 
statesman  propose  to  the  people  a  remedy 
for  one  of  the  evils  of  their  present  consti- 
tution or  condition,  such  as  sectionalism  or 
over-government,  and  they  will  deal  with  it  in- 
telligently. But  they  calmly  ignore  fancypoli- 
tics.  And  just  as  a  healthy  man  does  not 
know  that  he  has  a  stomach,  so  the  best  sign 
of  their  robust  political  health  is  that  eloquent 
writers  cannot  persuade  them  that  their  pres- 
ent condition  involves  serious  dangers,  and 
that  something  dreadful  will  happen  unless 
they  tack,  or  back,  or  do  something  heroic. 
Some  years  ago  the  Canada  First  party 
was  supposed  to  favor  independence,  but 
they  rid  themselves  of  the  imputation,  and 
the  common  sense  of  the  people  rejected 


THE  DOMINION  OF  CANADA. 


567 


the  scheme  before  it  was  formulated.  To 
break  our  national  continuity!  Did  any 
people  ever  do  that  in  cold  blood  ?  To 
face  the  future  with  a  population  of  four 
millions  scattered  over  half  a  continent, 
whereas  we  now  belong  to  an  empire  of 
two  or  three  hundred  millions  !  Would  we 
be  stronger  in  case  of  war,  or  more  respected 
in  time  of  peace  ?  Would  we  govern  our- 
selves more  purely  or  economically,  or 
would  there  be  more  avenues  of  distinction 
-open  to  our  young  men  ? 

Mr.  Goldwin  Smith,  who  formerly  advo- 
cated independence,  believes  that  annex- 
ation is  inevitable.  Mr.  Smith's  literary 
ability  is  so  marked  that  everything  he 
writes  is  widely  read;  but  in  his  estimate 
of  the  forces  at  work  he  has  never  taken 
full  account  of  the  depth  and  power  of 
popular  sentiment.  One  of  his  phrases 
indicates  that  he  could  understand  if  he 


would.  Referring  to  extravagant  English 
eulogies  on  Lord  Dufferin,  he  remarked 
that  Lord  Dufferin  had  as  much  to  do  with 
creating  Canadian  loyalty,  as  with  creating 
the  current  of  the  St.  Lawrence.  The  illus- 
tration is  a  happy  one.  The  force  of  the 
most  deeply  seated  sentiment,  like  that  of 
a  mighty  river,  is  seen  only  where  some- 
thing opposes  itself  to  the  current.  Cotton 
is  king,  it  used  to  be  said.  Every  one 
thought  so,  but  when  action  was  taken 
accordingly,  a  kinglier  power  made  light  of 
cotton.  Sentiment  is  the  strongest  thing  in 
human  nature.  It  binds  the  family  and 
nation  together,  and  rules  the  world.  Where 
true  and  deep  sentiment  exists,  everything 
is  possible.  "  But  see  how — as  in  your  trade 
policy — sentiment  gives  way  to  business 
considerations,"  it  has  been  said.  It  does 
not  give  way.  A  more  vulgar  fallacy  was 
never  put  in  words.  Because  a  bank  man- 


A    MONTREAL    STREET    IN    WINTER. 


568 


THE  DOMINION  OF  CANADA. 


A    FLEET    OF    WOOD     BARGES    ON    THE     ST.      LAWRENCE. 


ager  refuses  to  give  special  accommodation 
to  his  father,  is  he  necessarily  unfilial  ? 
Canadians  are  willing  to  entertain  any  pro- 
posals that  the  mother-country  may  make 
with  regard  to  closer  political  and  commer- 
cial relations.  These  must  be,  not  on  the 
old  basis  of  dependence,  but  on  the  present 
basis  of  equality.  And  such  proposals  may 
be  made  before  long.  If  not,  why  then  a 
century  or  two  hence  we  may  set  up  house 
for  ourselves.  In  the  meantime,  we  give 
affection  for  affection,  and  share  the  fortunes 
of  the  mother-country  and  the  dangers  of 
our  connection  with  her. 

Toward  the  United  States  there  is  no 
feeling  in  Canada  but  friendship,  and  a  de- 
sire for  increased  intercourse  of  every  kind. 
It  is  not  our  fault  that  there  are  so  many 
custom-houses  on  the  frontier  lines.  But, 
were  there  no  other  reasons,  the  one  consid- 
eration that  puts  annexation  totally  out  of 
the  question  with  us  is  that  it  involves  the 
possibility  of  our  having  to  fight  some  day 


against  Great  Britain.  I  dislike  to  suggest 
such  an  unnatural  possibility.  The  sugges- 
tion would  be  criminal  in  any  other  con- 
nection. But  my  object  now  is  to  go  down 
to  the  ultimate  basis  on  which  our  present 
relations  rest.  It  is  easy  to  declare  that 
such  a  contingency  is  impossible.  Improb- 
able !  yes.  But  impossible !  no ;  as  long  as 
Great  Britain  and  the  United  States  remain 
separate,  and  human  nature  is  human  nature. 
Therefore,  annexation  is  an  impossibility  to 
us  until  the  grander  scheme  outlined  by  our 
Joseph  Howe  can  be  carried  into  effect,— 
namely,  some  kind  of  alliance  or  league  of 
all  the  English-speaking  peoples.  That 
would  be  a  consummation  worth  hoping  for, 
worth  praying  for  as  men  used  to  pray.  It 
would  be  the  first  step  to  the  "  federation 
of  the  world." 


"  Then  let  us  pray  that  come  it  may, 
As  come  it  will,  for  a'  that — 
That  men  to  men  the  world  o'er 
Shall  brothers  be,  and  a'  that." 


PETER    THE   GREAT. 


569 


PETER   THE    GREAT.      VI.* 

BY   EUGENE    SCHUYLER. 


PETER    AT    THE    TROITSA    MONASTERY    RECEIVING    THE    DEPUTATIONS    OF   THE    STRELTSI. 


CHAPTER    XXI. 


THE      FINAL     STRUGGLE      BETWEEN 
AND    PETER. 


SOPHIA 


THIS  unfortunate  campaign  of  Galitsyn 
was  the  turning  point  in  the  struggle  between 
the  aristocratic  party  and  the  Government 
of  Sophia.  The  boyars  had  gradually  been 
getting  stronger,  and  had*  even  succeeded  in 
forcing  their  way  to  power  and  preferment. 
One  of  the  Naryshkins  had  been  made  a 
boyar  shortly  before.  The  gravamen  of  any 
charge  against  Sophia  was  that  she  had 
made  herself  the  equal  of  her  brothers,  the 
Tsars,  by  assuming  the  title  of  Autocrat,  in 
commemoration  of  the  peace  with  Poland.  So 
long  as  her  government  had  been  successful, 
this  assumption  might  have  been  permitted, 
but  now  that  two  campaigns  had  shown  the 
weakness  and  inefficiency  of  the  regency,  now 
that  the  aristocratic  party  was  strong  enough 
to  take  matters  into  its  own  hands,  this 
could  be  used  as  an  accusation  against  her. 
(This  was  foreseen  by  others,  if  not  by  Galit- 
syn himself,  and  even  as  early  as  April  Van 


Keller  had  written  to  Holland:  "If  the 
campaign  against  the  Tartars  shall  be  no 
more  successful  than  the  last,  there  will 
probably  be  a  general  rebellion,"  saying,  at 
the  same  time,  that  he  dared  not  write  much 
lest  his  letters  should  be  opened. 

Another  point  of  accusation  against 
Sophia,  although  at  this  time  it  was  not 
proved  that  there  was  anything  criminal  in 
her  design,  was  her  desire  to  have  herself 
crowned  as  Empress  and  Autocrat.  In  point 
of  fact,  in  August,  1687,  Shaklovity  had 
endeavored  to  persuade  the  Streltsi  to 
petition  the  Tsars  for  the  coronation  of  the 
Regent.  This,  however,  was  such  an  un- 
heard-of thing  that  the  Streltsi  received  the 
proposition  coldly,  and  no  more  was  done 
at  that  time.  The  next  year  the  idea  was 
revived,  and,  after  the  end  of  the  first 
Crimean  campaign,  a  Russian,  or  rather,  a 
Polish  artist  from  Tchernigof,  named  Tar- 
asevitch,  engraved  a  portrait  of  Sophia, 
together  with  her  brothers,  and  also  a  por- 
trait of  Sophia  alone,  with  crown,  scepter 
and  globe ;  her  full  title  as  Grand  Duchess 
and  Autocrat  encircled  the  portrait  and 


Copyright,  1880,  by  Eugene  Schuyler.     All  rights  reserved. 


57° 


PETER   THE   GREAT. 


about  this,  in  the  style  of  the  portraits  of  the 
German  Emperors,  were  placed,  instead  of  the 
portraits  of  the  Electors,  the  symbolic  figures 
of  the  seven  cardinal  virtues  of  Sophia.  The 
monk  Sylvester  Meclvedief  composed  an 
inscription  in  verse  of  twenty-four  lines,  in 
which  the  Princess  was  declared  to  be  the 
equal  and  superior  of  the  Babylonian  Semira- 
mis,  of  Elizabeth  of  England,  and  of  the  Greek 
Pulcheria.  Copies  of  these  portraits  were 
printed  on  satin,  on  silk  and  on  paper,  and 
were  distributed  in  Moscow.  None  now 
exist.  One  impression  was  sent  to  Amster- 
dam, to  the  Burgomaster  Nicholas  Witsen, 
with  the  request  that  he  would  have  the  in- 
scription and  titles  translated  into  Latin  and 
German,  and  a  new  portrait  engraved  in 
Holland,  for  distribution  in  Europe.  Copies 
of  this  engraving  reached  Russia  just  before 
the  fall  of  Sophia,  and  were  nearly  all 
destroyed  by  order  of  Peter,  so  that  now  it 
is  the  greatest  rarity  among  Russian  histori- 
cal portraits.  Two  copies  only  are  known 
to  exist. 

A  sketch  of  Sophia,  written  by  De  Neu- 
ville  in  this  very  year,  1689,  will  perhaps 
assist  us  in  forming  a  more  accurate  idea  of 
her: 

"  Her  mind  and  her  great  ability  bear  no  relation 
to  the  deformity  of  her  person,  as  she  is  immensely 
fat,  with  a  head  as  large  as  a  bushel,  hairs  on  her 
face  and  tumors  on  her  legs,  and  at  least  forty  years 
old.  But  in  the  same  degree  that  her  stature  is 
broad,  short  and  coarse,  her  mind  is  shrewd,  unpre- 
judiced and  full  of  policy." 

An  incident  which  occurred  about  the 
time  of  the  return  of  Galitsyn  shows,  in  a 
measure,  the  position  of  affairs  at  Moscow 
about  this  time.  On  the  i8th  of  July — the 
festival  of  the  miraculous  appearance  of  the 
Picture  of  the  Virgin  of  Kazan — there  was  a 
procession  from  the  Kremlin  to  the  Kazan 
Cathedral,  founded  by  Prince  Pozharsky,  in 
commemoration  of  the  delivery  of  Moscow 
from  the  Poles,  in  which  the  Tsars  usually 
took  part.  The  Regent  Sophia  appeared 
in  the  Cathedral  of  the  Assumption  with  her 
two  brothers,  just  as  she  had  done  in  pre- 
ceding years.  On  the  conclusion  of  the 
liturgy,  Peter,  in  consequence  of  a  remark 
of  one  of  his  counsellors,  approached  his 
sister  and  ordered  her  not  to  walk  in  the 
procession.  This  was  an  open  declaration 
of  war.  To  prevent  Sophia  from  appearing 
in  public  at  a  state  ceremony,  as  she  had 
done  during  her  whole  regency,  meant  to 
remove  her  from  the  conduct  of  public 
business.  She  accepted  the  declaration  but 
refused  to  obey  the  command.  She  took 


from  the  Metropolitan  the  Picture  of  th 
Virgin,  and  walked  after  the  crosses  an 
banners.  Peter  angrily  left  the  processior 
went  for  a  moment  into  the  Cathedral  c 
St.  Michael  the  Archangel,  and  immediatel 
afterward  left  Moscow  and  went  to  h: 
villa  at  Kolomenskoe. 

The  tension  of  the  two  parties  was  no 
very  great,  and,  as   always  in  such   case 
private    individuals  loudly  expressed  the 
grievances,    their    hopes    and   their    fear 
Such  irresponsible  utterances  were  natural! 
exaggerated  by  rumor,  and  each  party  w; 
-convinced  that  the  other  was  threatenir 
and  had  an  intention  of  attacking  it.     E: 
tracts  from   Gordon's  diary    give  us  son 
slight  idea  of  the   feeling   then   prevaler 
On  the  yth  of  August,  he  writes :  "  Thin] 
continue  to  have  a  bad  look,  as  they  pror 
ised    to  do    on    Saturday."     On   the   gtl 
"  The  heat  and  bitterness  are  even  great 
and  it  appears  that   they  will   soon   bra 
out."     On  the  i6th  he  mentions   "rumo 
unsafe  to  be  uttered."     Both  parties  natural 
took   up   a   defensive    position.     Whatev 
might  be  their  suspicions  of  the  motives  ai 
intentions  of  their  opponents,  it  was  saf< 
with  the  forces  at  their  disposal,  to  meet  i 
attack  than  to  make  one,  and  at  the  same  tir 
the  moral  effect  was  stronger.     What  excu 
could  Peter  have  to  attack  his  elder  broth 
and    his    sister    in    the    Kremlin    while 
would  be  very  difficult  to  get  even  the  Stn 
tsi  to  assist  in  an  attack  on  Preobrazhensk} 
They  still  had  too  much  respect  for  the  p< 
son  of  the  Lord's  anointed,  and  remember 
too  well  the  consequences  of  the  riots 
1682.    In  such  a  situation,  as  every  where,  be 
parties  were  on  their  guard,  and  both  w€ 
suspicious.   As  when  Sophia,  in  August,  i6£ 
went  to  visit  Peter  at  Preobrazh£nsky, 
the   occasion   of    the    benediction    of   t 
river  Yauza,  she  took  with  her  three  hu 
dred  Streltsi  to  guard  against  any  sudd 
attack  of  his   guards,  so  now  on  St.  Ann 
day,  when  Peter  was  expected  at  the  Kre 
lin  to  visit  his  aunt  the  Princess  Anne,  at  t 
Ascension  Convent,  Shaklovity  posted  fi 
men  in  a  concealed    place  near   the    R 
Staircase,  to  be    ready    for  an   emergen< 
The  Princess  Anne  had  long  been  an  im 
lid   and  was  greatly  loved  and  respect 
by    the   whole    Imperial    family,  especia 
by  Peter.     Peter  came  from  Kolomensk< 
remained  several  hours  with  his  aunt  a 
went   away   to    Preobrazhensky,  and  th< 
was    no   need   of  alarm.     Nevertheless, 
needed  but  a  spark  to  cause  a  general  < 
plosion  and  it  was  not  long  before  it  came. 


PETER    THE    GREAT. 


•3 

THE    OFFENDING    PICTURE    OF    SOPHIA    BY    TARASEVITCH,    WITH    THE    INSCRIPTION    BY    SYLVESTER    MEDVEDIEF. 


In  order  to  strengthen  her  position, 
icphia  took  whatever  occasion  offered  to 
ound  the  Streltsi,  and  to  urge  them  to  be 
ithful  to  her  side  in  case  of  a  conflict. 
[eeting  some  Streltsi  in  the  church  of  the 
lantle  of  the  Virgin,  she  said  :  "  Can  we 
ndure  it  any  longer  ?  Our  life  is  already 
urdensome  through  Boris  Galitsyn  and 
•eo  Naryshkin.  They  have  had  the  room 
~  our  brother,  the  Lord  Ivan  Alexeievitch, 
Jed  up  with  firewood  and  shavings,  and  they 
ave  desired  to  cut  off  the  head  of  Prince 
asil  Galitsyn  who  has  done  much  good. 


He  made  peace  with  Poland  and  had  suc- 
cesses on  the  Don ;  and  it  is  for  his  very 
successes  that  they  hate  him.  Do  not 
abandon  us.  May  we  depend  upon  you  ? 
If  we  are  unnecessary,  my  brother  and  I 
will  take  refuge  in  a  monastery." 

"Your  will  be  done,  O  lady,"  they 
replied;  and  for  their  acclamation  they 
received  a  present  of  money.  It  was  by 
speeches  of  this  kind  and  frequent  gifts, 
that  Sophia  attempted  to  maintain  an 
authority  and  influence  which  she  felt  to  be 
gradually  declining.  Prince  Basil  Galitsyn, 


572 


PETER    THE  GREAT. 


who  was  always  averse  to  taking  decided 
measures,  remained  quiet,  assisted  Sophia 
with  his  advice,  but  opposed  any  plans  of 
open  attack  on  the  party  of  boyars  who 
surrounded  Peter,  and  thought  it  best  to 
await  events.  Shaklovity  was  much  more 
decided.  He  held  frequent  meetings  with 
those  Streltsi  in  whom  he  had  the  greatest 
confidence,  and  was  unsparing  in  his 
denunciations  of  the  party  of  Peter.  While 
not  absolutely  inciting  any  attempt  against 
Peter  himself,  he  constantly  suggested  the 
possibility  of  doing  away  with  Prince  Boris 
Galitsyn  and  Leo  Naryshkin,  and  sending 
the  Tsaritsa  Natalia  into  a  convent  or 
otherwise  getting  rid  of  her.  In  order 
to  encourage  his  supporters,  he  professed 
the  greatest  contempt  for  the  boyars  of 
the  opposite  party,  calling  them  all "  withered 
apples." 

On  the  i  yth  of  August,  Sophia  ordered  a 
small,  body  of  Streltsi  to  come  armed  to 
the  Kremlin,  in  order  to  accompany  her 
on  a  pilgrimage  she  intended  making  to 
the  Donskoy  Monastery.  They  were  to 
be  armed  because,  in  a  similar  pilgrimage 
which  she  had  made  a  few  days  before  to 
another  convent,  a  man  had  been  killed  in 
the  neighborhood  shortly  before  her  arrival. 


OUR    LADY    OF    KAZAN. 


After  these  arrangements  were  made, 
placard  or  anonymous  letter,  was  broug 
to  the  palace,  stating  that  on  that  very  nig] 
the  guards  from  Preobrazhensky  would  ma 
an  attack  on  the  Kremlin.  Apparently,  ] 
inquiry  was  made  into  the  origin  of  this  1< 
ter,  and  it  may  possibly  have  been  invent 
by  Shaklovity,  or  one  of  his  men,  for  t 
purpose  of  giving  an  excuse  for  a  larg 
collection  of  Streltsi.  Still,  in  the  positii 
of  affairs,  it  is  very  natural  that  Sophia  w 
rendered  uneasy,  even  by  anonymous  1< 
ters,  and  that  she  took  what,  under  the  c 
cumstanceSjWere  very  necessary  precautior 
Shaklovity  thereupon  collected  many  me 
Streltsi,  part  of  them  inside  the  Kremli 
others  in  the  old  town,  and  others  still 
the  Lubianka  Place,  outside  the  wall,  in  t 
direction  of  Preobrazhensky.  Orders  we 
also  given  that  the  gates  of  the  Kreml 
should  be  closed  all  night,  and  that  in  futu 
a  rope  should  be  tied  to  an  alarm  bell  of  t 
Cathedral,  so  that  it  could  be  pulled  frc 
the  palace,  and  Shaklovity  with  sevei 
officers,  came  to  the  Kremlin  and  slept  ; 
night  in  the  banqueting  hall.  The  ordf 
for  the  assemblage  of  Streltsi  in  the  o 
town,  and  on  the  Lubianka,  were  not  ace 
rately  carried  out.  There  was  much  ridii 
to  and  fro,  and  consequently  gre 
confusion,  as  no  one  knew  t 
exact  reasons  for  their  assembliri 
and  Shaklovity  did  not  considei 
necessary  to  inform  them.  Th 
were  there  to  wait  for  orders,- 
that  was  enough.  Some  explain* 
that  they  were  there  to  prote 
the  Kremlin  against  an  attai 
from  Preobrazhensky,  while  othe 
thought  they  were  to  mar* 
that  night  against  the  Naryshk 
party. 

In  Preobrazhensky  there  w 
also  much  excitement  in  cons 
quence  of  the  rumors  broug 
there  from  Moscow.  Many  < 
Peter's  adherents  had  gone  the 
during  the  day  and  many  of  the 
had  remained  there  during  tl 
night,  but  no  measures  of  preca 
tion  seem  to  have  been  taken  ar 
there  was  no  apprehension  of  i 
immediate  attack.  During  tl 
night  Plestcheief,  one  of  Petei 
chamberlains,  brought  a  dispatc 
to  the  Kremlin.  It  was  on  currei 
routine  business  and  had  nothir 
to  .do  with  the  present  circur 
stances.  In  the  disorder  and  excit 


PETER    THE    GREAT. 


573 


ment  which  prevailed  there,  espe- 
cially with  numbers  of  soldiers 
tired  of  waiting  and  .eager  for  the 
melee  to  begin,  this  arrival  was 
wrongly  interpreted,  and  one  of  the 
Streltsi  named  Gladky  seized  on 
Plestcheief,  dragged  him  from  his 
horse,  tore  away  his  saber,  beating  him,  and 
after  took  him  into  the  palace  to  Shaklovity. 
Among  the  Streltsi,  and  even  among  the 
confidants  of  Shaklovity,  Prince  Boris  Galit- 
syn  and  Leo  Naryshkin  had  succeeded  in 
gaining  over  a  number  of  men  to  serve 
them  as  spies  and  give  information  of  what 
passed.  With  money,  with  promises,  with 
assurances  that  Peter  would  inevitably  come 
into  power,  and  that  in  the  end  it  would  be 
far  more  profitable  to  serve  than  to  oppose 
him,  it  was  comparatively  easy  to  obtain 
tools.  Seven  men,  the  chief  of  whom  was 
the  Lieutenant-Colonel  Larion  Yelisarof,  had 
orders  to  bring  immediate  information  to 
Preobrazhensky  of  any  decisive  step.  Yel- 
isarof, who  had  been  given  by  Shaklovity 
command  of  the  forces  stationed  that  night 
on  the  Lubianka,  met  his  fellow-conspirators, 
compelled  the  sacristan  to  open  the  church 


PETER    WAS    AWAKENED. 


of  St.  Theodosius,  and  called  up  a  priest, 
when  they  all  took  solemn  oath  of  mutual 
fidelity  and  secrecy.  On  learning  from  one  of 
them  who  had  been  sent  to  the  Kremlin  to 
see  what  was  going  on,  that  Plestcheief  had 
been  pulled  from  his  horse  and  beaten,  they 
apparently  believed  that  the  crisis  had  come, 
and  two  of  their  number,  Melnof  and  La- 
dogin,  rode  at  full  speed  to  Preobrazhensky 
to  give  notice  of  the  murderous  attack  which 
was  being  organized  against  Peter  and  his 
mother.  They  arrived  a  little  after  mid- 
night. Peter  was  awakened  out  of  a  sound 
sleep  and  told  to  run  for  his  life,  as  the 
Streltsi  were  marching  against  him.  In  his 
night-dress  and  bare-footed,  he  ran  to  the 
stables,  had  a  horse  quickly  saddled  and 
rode  off  to  the  nearest  woods,  where  he 
directed  his  companions  to  bring  his  clothes 
as  soon  as  possible.  Dressing  in  the  woods, 


574 


PETER    THE   GREAT. 


he  rode  in  haste  to  the  neighboring  village 
of  Alexe"ievo,  and  thence  to  the  monastery  of 
Troitsa,  where  he  arrived  about  six  o'clock 
in  the  morning,  so  weary  that  he  had  to  be 
lifted  from  his  horse  and  put  to  bed.  Burst- 
ing into  tears,  he  told  the  Abbot  of  his  sad 
fate  and  of  the  attack  his  sister  was  mak- 
ing upon  him.  His  mother,  his  wife  and 
his  sister,  attended  by  the  boyars  and  the 
guards  of  Preobrazhensky,  arrived  at  Tr6'itsa 
two  hours  later,  and  shortly  after  came  the 
Sukharef  regiment  of  Streltsi,  which  was  de- 
voted to  Peter,  and  to  which  Naryshkin  and 
Galitsyn  had  immediately  sent  marching 
orders. 

Meanwhile,  if  there  had  been  any  inten- 
tion in  the  Kremlin — which  is  very  doubt- 
ful— of  advancing  on  Preobrazhensky,  it  had 
been  given  up,  and  no  one  there,  except  the 
seven  spies  of  Peter,  knew  of  the  message 
sent  to  Preobrazhensky.  Two  hours  before 
daylight,  the  Princess  Sophia  went  to  matins 
at  the  church  of  Our  Lady  of  Kazan,  ac- 
companied by  Shaklovity  and  many  Streltsi. 
Yelisarof  himself  was  there,  and  to  a  re- 
mark made  by  one  of  the  scribes  attending 
Shaklovity,  that  it  was  unusual  to  have  so 
many  Streltsi  assembled  in  the  Kremlin  at 
night,  replied  simply  that  it  was  unusual, 
nothing  of  the  kind  having  been  done  be- 
fore. After  matins,  Sophia,  turning  to  the 
Streltsi  who  accompanied  her,  said :  "  Except 
for  my  alarms  and  my  precautions  the  guards 
would  have  murdered  all  of  us."  On  re- 
turning from  church,  Shaklovity  sent  a 


message  to  Prince  Basil  Galitsyn,  tellir 
him  that  the  Princess  wished  to  see  hin 
Galitsyn  excused  himself  on  the  ground  < 
illness  and  remained  at  home.  Very  short 
afterward,  the  messengers  sent  by  Shal 
lovity  to  watch  on  the  road  to  Preobrazhei 
sky  for  the  movements  of  Peter's  adherent 
two  of  whom  had  been  among  those  bougl 
up  by  the  Naryshkins,  returned  as  if  the 
had  faithfully  performed  their  mission,  an 
reported  that  Peter  had  ridden  away  in  tl 
night,  bare-footed,  with  nothing  on  but  h 
shirt,  and  that  none  knew  whither  he  ha 
fled.  "  He  has  plainly  gone  mad,"  sai 
Shaklovity;  "let  him  run."  When  Shal 
lovity  said  this,  it  was  very  possible  he  di 
not  feel  the  full  force  of  the  effect  of  Peter 
escape  from  his  fictitious  danger.  But  it  di 
not  require  a  long  reflection  to  show  Soph 
and  her  counsellors  that  a  most  decisive  ste 
had  been  taken.  Sophia  herself  had  show 
the  advantages  of  a  refuge  at  Troitsa  in  tr. 
affair  with  Prince  Havansky.  It  would  h 
impossible  to  induce  the  Streltsi  to  marc 
against  a  monastery  of  such  sanctity  i 
Troitsa,  and  against  their  anointed  rule 
Peter  would  have  the  support  of  the  coui 
try  at  large,  as  Sophia  had  previously  ha< 
and  would  eventually  be  able  to  dictate  h 
own  terms.  The  flight  to  Tr6'itsa  had  bee 
prepared  beforehand  by  Galitsyn  and  Na: 
yshkin,  and  everything  had  been  arrange 
in  view  of  an  emergency.  It  was  a  gre< 
coup  cPetat,  but  it  was  only  saved  from  bein 
also  a  comedy  by  Peter's  plain  good  faith,- 


PETER    THE   GREAT, 


575 


by  his  manifest  ignorance  of  the  plans  of 
his  friends,  and  by  his  evident  fright  when  he 
was  told  that  an  attack  was  imminent.  Al- 
though the  flight  had  been  arranged  before- 
hand,— although  the  information  given  by 
Yelisarof  and  his  companions  of  the  ex- 
pected attack  was  false, — we  are  not  neces- 
sarily to  suppose  that  it  was  arranged  for 
this  very  night.  The  plan  was  that  Peter 
should  escape  to  Troitsa  whenever  the  emer- 
gency made  it  necessary;  and  it  was  the 
zeal  of  Yelisarof  and  his  companions  to  earn 
their  reward  which  incited  them  to  send 
such  startling  news  with  such  little  founda- 
tion. The  struggle  between  the  two  parties 
could  no  longer  have  been  avoided,  but  it 
might  have  been  a  struggle  of  a  very  differ- 
ent character. 

The  next  day,  the  nineteenth,  Peter  sent  a 
messenger  to  his  brother  and  sister,  inquiring 
the  reason  of  the  great  assemblage  of  Streltsi 
in  the  Kremlin.  The  answer  was  that  the 
Streltsi  were  assembled  for  the  simple  purpose 
of  accompanying  Princess  Sophia  to  the 
Donskdy  Monastery.  No  other  reason 
could  be  given,  for  it  was  impossible  to  say 
that  the  Streltsi  were  brought  together  in 
apprehension  of  an  attack.  It  was  equally 
natural  that  this  answer  was  in  the  highest 
degree  unsatisfactory,  and  gave  the  party  of 
Peter  additional  strength,  because  it  seemed 
to  every  one  equivocal.  Immediately  after- 
ward, Peter  sent  a  request  for  the  presence 
of  Colonel  Tsykler  and  fifty  Streltsi.  After 
some  hesitation,  Tsykler  was  sent  with  fifty 
men  carefully  selected  from  those  who  had 
no  knowledge  of  the  affairs  of  the  Govern- 
ment. It  subsequently  became  known  that 
this  was  a  little  intrigue  of  Tsykler,  who  had 
been  one  of  the  chief  men  in  the  first  revolt 
of  the  Streltsi  in  May,  1682,  and  who,  hop- 
ing to  win  favor  with  Peter,  who  was  strong 
and  whose  claims  seemed  to  be  in  the  as- 
cendant, had  sent  word  by  a  friend  to  have 
lim  called  to  Troitsa.  As  soon  as  he  arrived, 
lie  revealed  all  that  he  knew  and  gave  in 
writing  copies  of  all  secret  orders  which,  to 
tris  knowledge,  had  been  given  to  the  Streltsi 
and  officers.  Immediately  afterward,  Yelis- 
arof, Melnof  and  others  of  Peter's  spies 
succeeded  in  making  their  way  to  Troitsa, 
where  they  gave  such  information  and  made 
such  denunciation  as  they  could.  Sophia, 
in  particular  trouble  of  mind,  resolved  to  at- 
tempt a  reconciliation,  and  sent  to  Troitsa 
Prince  Ivan  Troekurof,  whose  son  was  an 
intimate  friend  of  Peter,  charging  him  to 
persuade  her  brother  to  return  to  Moscow. 
This  was  the  only  way  of  ending  the  quar- 


rel honorably  for  her  and  of  preserving  some 
semblance  of  power  and  dignity.  Peter's 
friends,  however,  saw  that  this  was  inadvis- 
able for  them,  and  that  the  advantages  he 
possessed  by  remaining  at  Troitsa  he  might 
lose  by  being  at  Moscow.  Troekurof  re- 
turned with  neAvs  by  no  means  reassuring. 
Immediately  afterward,  there  followed  writ- 
ten orders  from  Peter  to  the  colonel  of  each 
regiment  of  the  Streltsi  and  of  the  regular 
soldiers,  commanding  him  to  make  his  ap- 
pearance at  Tr6itsa  before  the  3oth  of  Au- 
gust, accompanied  by  ten  of  his  men.  These 
orders  were  the  subject  of  a  council  at  the 
Kremlin,  and  ultimately  the  picked  men  of 
each  regiment  were  called  together  and  told 
not  to  go  to  Tr6itsa,  nor  to  meddle  in  the 
dispute  between  Sophia  and  her  brother. 
The  colonels  still  hesitated  and  said  their 
going  to  Tr<5itsa  would  make  no  difference 
in  the  position  of  affairs.  Sophia,  hearing 
of  this,  came  out  again  and  said  very  deci- 
sively to  the  colonels  that,  if  one  of  them  at- 
tempted to  go  to  the  Tr6itsa  Monastery,  he 
would  immediately  lose  his  head.  Prince 
Galitsyn  gave  an  absolute  command  to  Gen- 
eral Gordon  not  to  leave  Moscow  on  any 
order  or  under  any  excuse.  Next  day,  Peter 
sent  word  to  Ivan  and  Sophia  that  he  had 
sent  for  the  officers  of  the  Streltsi,  and  re- 
quested that  his  orders  should  be  complied 
with.  Prince  Prosorofsky,  the  tutor  of  Ivan, 
together  with  Peter's  confessor,  were  sent  to 
Troitsa  with  instructions  to  give  reasons 
why  the  officers  were  not  allowed  to  go,  and 
to  make  another  attempt  at  conciliation. 
They  returned  two  days  after,  without  hav- 
ing been  able  to  accomplish  their  mission, 
and  reports  were  spread  through  Moscow 
that  the  orders  for  the  journey  of  the  col- 
onels to  Troitsa  had  been  given  without 
the  knowledge  of  the  Tsar. 

Shaklovity  sent  spies  to  Tr6itsa  to  ascer- 
tain what  was  going  on  there.  Some  were 
caught;  those  who  returned  brought  him 
anything  but  comforting  intelligence.  An 
endeavor  was  then  made  to  work  on  the 
feelings  of  the  wives  and  families  of  the 
Streltsi,  that  they  might  induce  those  men 
who  were  at  Tr6itsa  to  return,  especially  the 
soldiers  of  the  Sukharef  regiment.  These 
tentatives,  however,  were  vain  and  more 
and  more  people  went  to  Troitsa  every  day. 
Finally,  Sophia  persuaded  the  Patriarch  to 
go  to  Troitsa  and  try  to  bring  about  a  rec- 
onciliation. The  Patriarch  Joachim  was 
probably  very  ready  to  abandon  the  camp 
of  those  who  were  actually  his  enemies. 
Though  he  had  supported  the  Government 


576 


PETER    THE   GREAT. 


SOPHIA'S    APPEAL    TO     HER    PARTISANS. 


of  Sophia,  he  was  by  his  family — the  Sav£- 
liefs — closely  connected  with  the  aristocratic 
party  and  had  never  been  in  the  most 
cordial  relations  with  Sophia's  immediate 
adherents.  He  especially  hated  Sylvester 
Medve'dief,  and  had  reasons  for  being  sus- 
picious of  Shaklovity.  As  soon  as  he  reach- 
ed Tr6itsa  he  was  shown  the  revelations  of 
the  spies,  and  the  confessions  obtained  by 
torture  from  the  prisoners,  in  which  mention 
was  made  of  plots  not  only  against  the  life 
of  Peter,  but  against  his  own.  This  con- 
vinced him.  He  believed  without  further 
inquiry,  and  remained  in  Tro'itsa,  thus 
openly  taking  the  side  of  Peter.  After  a 


few  days'  waiting,  on  the  6th  of  Septembe: 
still  more  urgent  letters  were  sent  to  Mo; 
cow,  addressed  not  only  to  the  Streltsi,  bx 
also  directly  to  the  people,  ordering  th 
immediate  appearance  at  Tro'itsa  of  th 
colonels  and  ten  ot  their  men,  together  wit 
deputies  from  each  class  of  the  populatioi 
Disobedience  was  punishable  with  deatl 
In  the  disturbed  state  of  the  city,  agitate 
by  constant  rumors,  these  letters  produced 
very  great  impression.  It  became  apparer 
that  the  Tr6'itsa  party  would  be  the  wii 
ners.  A  crowd  of  Streltsi,  with  five  colonel 
marched  to  Tro'itsa.  They  were  receive 
by  the  Tsar  and  the  Patriarch,  who  state 


PETER   THE   GREAT. 


577 


to  them  the  results  of  the  investigation  into 
the  alleged  plot,  urged  them  to  confess  all 
they  knew,  and  promised  them  pardon. 
The  Streltsi  with  one  voice  affirmed  their 
allegiance  to  Peter's  Government,  disclaimed 
any  intention  of  insubordination,  and  denied 
all  knowledge  of  any  plot  or  conspiracy. 
Two  men  only  accused  Shaklovity  of  plots 
against  the  Tsar. 

Finally,  Sophia  resolved  as  a  last  effort 
at  conciliation,  to  go  herself  to  Troitsa  and 
seek  a  personal  explanation  with  her  brother. 
Taking  with  her  an  image  of  the  Saviour, 
she  set  out  from  Moscow  on  the  8th  of 
September,  accompanied  by  Prince  Basil 
Galitsyn,  Shaklovity,  Nepluief  and  a  guard 
of  Streltsi.  She  halted  about  eight  miles 
from  Troitsa,  in  the  village  of  Vodvizhen- 
skoe,  where  Havansky  had  been  executed, 
and  was  met  by  the  chamberlain,  Ivan 
Buturlm,  with  the  order  not  to  come 
to  the  monastery.  "  I  shall  certainly  go," 
replied  Sophia,  angrily,  but  afterward  Prince 
Troekurof  appeared,  with  a  threat  from  Peter 
that,  if  she  should  be  bold  enough  to  come, 
she  would  be  treated  as  perhaps  she  might 
not  like.  Disappointed  and  furious  with 
anger,  Sophia  immediately  returned  to  Mos- 
cow, which  she  reached  on  the  night  of  the 
nth  September,  and  two  hours  before  dawn 
sent  for  the  most  faithful  of  her  adherents. 
Telling  them  of  the  insults  she  had  received, 
she  said :  "  They  almost  shot  me  at  Vodvi- 
zhenskoe.  Many  people  rode  out  after  me 
with  arquebuses  and  bows.  It  was  with 
difficulty  I  got  away,  and  I  hastened  to 
Moscow  in  five  hours.  The  Naryshkins 
and  the  Lopukhins  are  making  a  plot  to  kill 
the  Tsar  Ivan  Alexeievitch,  and  are  even 
aiming  at  my  head.  I  will  collect  the  regi- 
ments and  will  talk  to  them  myself.  You 
obey  us  and  do  not  go  to  Troitsa.  I  believe 
you;  whom  should  I  believe  rather  than 
you,  O  faithful  adherents  !  Will  you  also 
run  away  ?  Kiss  the  cross  first,"  and  So- 
phia herself  held  out  the  cross  for  them  to 
kiss.  "  Now,  if  you  run  away,"  she  added, 
41  the  life-giving  cross  will  not  let  you  go. 
Whatever  letters  come  from  Troitsa,  do  not 
read  them ;  bring  them  to  the  palace." 

The  same  day,  Colonel  Ivan  Netchaef 
came  from  Troitsa  to  Moscow  with  letters, 
'both  to  Ivan  and  to  Sophia,  containing  an 
official  statement  of  the  plot  against  Peter's 
iife,  and  with  a  demand  that  Shaklovity, 
the  monk  Sylvester  Medvedief  and  other 
accomplices  should  be  immediately  arrested 
and  sent  to  Troitsa  for  trial.  This  pro- 
duced very  great  confusion  in  the  palace 
VOL.  XX.— 38. 


and  general  disturbance  among  the  people. 
Sophia  asked  Netchaef  how  he  dared  take 
upon  himself  such  a  commission.  He 
answered  that  he  did  not  dare  to  disobey 
the  Tsar.  The  Princess,  in  her  rage, 
ordered  his  head  to  be  struck  off  at  once,  a 
command  which  would  probably  have  been 
faithfully  fulfilled  had  an  executioner  been 
found  at  hand.  The  Streltsi  who  had 
escorted  Netchaef  from  Troitsa  were  ordered 
to  present  themselves  in  the  court  of  the 
palace,  together  with  those  other  Streltsi 
who  happened  to  be  at  the  Kremlin. 
Sophia  went  out  to  them  and  made  a  long 
and  earnest  speech,  in  the  course  of  which 
she  said : 

"  Evil-minded  people  have  consented  to  act  as 
tools.  They  have  used  all  means  to  make  me  and 
the  Tsar  Ivan  quarrel  with  my  younger  brother. 
They  have  sown  discord,  jealousy  and  trouble. 
They  have  hired  people  to  talk  of  a  plot  against 
the  life  of  the  younger  Tsar,  and  of  other  people. 
Out  of  jealousy  of  the  great  services  of  Theodore 
Shaklovity,  and  of  his  constant  care,  day  and  night, 
for  the  safety  and  prosperity  of  the  empire,  they  have 
given  him  out  to  be  the  chief  of  the  conspiracy,  as  if 
one  existed.  To  settle  the  matter  and  to  find  out  the 
reason  for  this  accusation,  I  went  myself  to  Tr6Usa, 
but  was  kept  back  by  the  advice  of  the  evil  coun- 
selors whom  my  brother  has  about  him,  and  was 
not  allowed  to  go  further.  After  being  insulted  in 
this  way,  I  was  obliged  to  come  home.  You  all 
well  know  how  I  have  managed  for  these  seven 
years;  how  I  took  on  myself  the  regency  in  the 
most  unquiet  times ;  how  I  have  concluded  a  famous 
and  true  peace  with  the  Christian  rulers,  our  neigh- 
bors, and  how  the  enemies  of  the  Christian  religion 
have  been  brought  by  my  arms  into  terror  and 
confusion.  For  your  services  you  have  received 
great  reward  and  I  have  always  shown  you  my 
favor.  I  cannot  believe  that  you  will  betray  me  and 
will  believe  the  inventions  of  enemies  of  the  general 
peace  and  prosperity.  It  is  not  the  life  of  Theodore 
Shaklovity  that  they  want,  but  my  life  and  that  of 
my  elder  brother." 

She  concluded  by  promising  to  reward 
those  who  should  remain  faithful,  who 
should  not  mix  in  the  matter.;  and  threat- 
ened to  punish  those  who  should  be  dis- 
obedient and  assist  in  creating  confusion. 
Then  the  notables  of  the  burghers  and 
of  the  common  people  were  sent  for, 
and  Sophia  addressed  them  in  a  sim- 
ilar tone.  A  third  time,  on  the  same  day, 
she  called  them  all  together  and  made  them 
"along  and  fine  speech,"  as  Gordon  calls 
it,  in  the  same  spirit.  As  the  Patriarch 
was  away  and  the  elder  Tsar  was  not  in 
perfect  health,  all  the  preparations  for  the 
festival  of  the  New  Year,  which  occurred 
on  this  day,  the  nth  (ist  O.  S.)  of  Septem- 
ber, were  abandoned ;  vodka  was  given  to 
the  Streltsi;  the  chief  nobles  and  the 
foreigners  were  asked  to  wait  awhile,  and 


PETER   THE   GREAT. 


about  noon  received  a  cup  of  vodka  from 
the  hand  of  the  elder  Tsar.  Meanwhile, 
the  wrath  of  Sophia  against  Netchaef  had 
passed  away.  She  sent  for  him,  pardoned 
him,  and  was  then  gracious  enough  to  offer 
him  also  a  cup  of  vodka.  Some  of  the 
Streltsi  whose  surrender  had  been  demanded 
by  Peter  were  concealed  by  their  comrades ; 
Shaklovity  found  refuge  in  the  palace  of 
Sophia;  Medvedief  and  some  others  ran 
away.  It  was  reported,  nevertheless,  that 
the  Tsar  Peter  had  promised  to  spare  the 
lives  of  those  persons  in  case  they  surren- 
dered. 

The  next  day,  Prince  Boris  Galitsyn,  who, 
as  Peter's  chief  counselor,  had  the  manage- 
ment of  affairs  at  Troitsa,  sent  a  counsel  to 
his  relative,  Prince  Basil  Galitsyn,  to  come 
to  Trditsa  and  "  preoccupate  the  Tsar's 
favor."  Basil  Galitsyn  replied  by  sending 
a  scribe  to  his  cousin  to  ask  him  to  be  the 
means  of  reconciliation  between  the  two  par- 
ties. The  answer  was,  that  the  best  thing 
he  could  do,  in  any  case  for  himself,  was  to 
come  as  soon  as  possible  to  Trditsa,  being 
assured  of  a  good  reception  from  Peter. 
But  honor  and  duty  both  forbade  him  leav- 
ing the  side  of  Sophia. 

In  spite  of  the  orders  which  had  come 
from  Troitsa  to  the  Streltsi  to  keep  quiet  and 
make  no  disturbance,  and  in  spite  of  the  re- 
quests made  to  them  by  Sophia,  they  began 
to  fret  at  this  long  period  of  commotion,  so 
that  Sophia  finally  gave  out  that  she  would 
again  try  to  go  to  Tr6"itsa  and  her  brother 
Ivan.  The  Streltsi  at  Trd'itsa  were  anxious 
to  return  to  Moscow,  promising  to  win  the 
others  to  their  side;  and  many  officers  of 
Peter  thought  it  would  be  better  for  him  to 
transfer  himself  to  Preobrazhensky,  or  Alex- 
e'ievo,  or  some  other  village  in  the  imme- 
diate neighborhood  of  Moscow,  where  his 
adherents  would  be  greatly  increased  without 
danger  to  himself.  Galitsyn  and  Naryshkin, 
however,  feared  bloodshed,  and  it  was 
thought  better  to  remain  at  Tr6itsa.  On 
the  I4th  of  September,  there  was  brought  to 
the  German  suburb  a  rescript  to  all  the  gen- 
erals, colonels  and  other  foreign  officers, 
although  no  one  was  mentioned  by  name, 
giving  a  brief  statement  of  the  conspiracy 
of  Shaklovity,  Medve"dief  and  ten  Streltsi 
against  the  Tsar,  the  Patriarch,  the  Tsaritsa 
Nataliaand  several  distinguished  boyars,  and 
announcing  that  an  order  had  been  given  for 
the  arrest  of  the  persons  implicated,  and 
commanding  furthermore,  all  officers  into 
whose  hands  this  rescript  should  come  to 
appear  at  Tr6itsa,  fully  armed  and  on  horse- 


back. This  paper  was  received  by  Colone' 
Ridder,  who  brought  it  to  General  Gordon 
and  the  latter  called  together  all  the  foreigr 
generals  and  colonels  and  in  their  presence 
unsealed  the  packet.  On  consultation,  ii 
was  resolved  to  communicate  it  to  Prince 
Basil  Galitsyn.  He  was  much  disturbed 
but,  appearing  as  calm  as  he  could,  saic 
he  would  report  it  to  the  elder  Tsar  anc 
the  Princess,  and  would  send  him  wore 
how  to  act.  Gordon  remarked  that  the] 
risked  their  heads  in  case  of  disobedience 
The  boyar  replied  that  he  would  certainly 
give  an  answer  by  evening,  and  askec 
him  to  let  his  son-in-law,  Colonel  Strasburg 
wait  at  the  palace  for  it.  Gordon  mad< 
preparations  for  immediate  departure,  anc 
told  every  one  who  asked  his  advice  that 
no  matter  what  the  order  might  be,  h< 
was  resolved  to  go.  The  other  foreigi 
officers  followed  his  example.  They  se 
out  that  evening  and  arrived  at  Troitsa  th< 
next  morning,  where  they  were  given  ai 
audience  of  Peter  and  allowed  to  kiss  hi 
hand.  The  departure  of  the  foreign  officer: 
from  Moscow  practically  decided  the  con  test 
Sophia,  on  receiving  information  that  sh< 
would  not  be  allowed  to  go  to  Tr6'itsa,  wai 
very  indignant,  and  did  not  wish  to  give  he 
consent  to  the  surrender  of  Shaklovity.  Th< 
Streltsi,  who  had  begun  to  see  the  impru 
dence  of  their  long  support  of  Sophia,  cam< 
in  crowds  to  the  palace  and  asked  tha 
Shaklovity  might  be  given  up,  offering  t( 
take  him  to  Tr6itsa  themselves.  The  Regen 
refused  absolutely,  and  again  besought  then 
not  to  meddle  in  the  quarrel  between  he: 
and  her  brother.  The  Streltsi  were  discon 
tented  with  this ;  voices  were  raised  in  th< 
crowd,  saying :  "  You  would  better  finish  the 
matter  at  once.  If  you  wont  give  him  up 
we  will  sound  the  alarm  bell."  This  cr] 
stupefied  Sophia,  who  saw  that  it  was  al 
over.  Those  who  surrounded  her  fearec 
violence,  and  told  her  that  it  was  in  vain  tc 
oppose  this  demand ;  that  in  case  of  a  rising 
many  people  would  be  killed,  and  it  woulc 
be  better  to  give  him  up.  She  reluctantlj 
gave  her  consent,  and  Shaklovity,  who  uj 
to  this  time  had  been  concealed  in  the  pal 
ace  chapel,  received  the  eucharist  and  was 
sent  to  Tr6itsa  that  night,  the  iyth  of  Sep 
tember,  with  the  Streltsi  who  had  come  foi 
him.  Those  boyars  who  had,  up  to  that  time 
remained  in  Moscow,  all  took  their  leave  foi 
Troitsa,  except  Prince  Basil  Galitsyn,  whc 
retired  to  his  villa  of  Medvie"dkovo,  when 
the  news  of  the  surrender  of  Shaklovftj 
greatly  disturbed  him.  Shaklovity,  on  his 


PETER   THE   GREAT. 


579 


arrival,  was  straightway  put  to  the  torture 
of  the  knout.  After  the  first  fifteen  blows 
he  made  a  confession,  in  which,  however,  he 
denied  that  there  was  any  plot  whatever 
against  the  life  of  the  Tsar  Peter,  and  that 
any  plans  had  ever  been  concocted  for  the 
murder  of  the  Tsaritsa  Natalia,  the  Narysh- 
kins  or  the  boyars  of  Peter's  party,  although 
the  subject  had  been  mentioned  in  conver- 
sation. The  same  day,  Prince  Basil  Galit- 
syn,  Nepluief  and  others  of  his  adherents 
presented  themselves  at  Tro'itsa.  They  were 
not  allowed  to  come  within  the  walls  of  the 
monastery  but  were  ordered  to  remain  in 
the  village  outside.  At  nine  o'clock  in  the 
evening,  Galitsyn  and  his  son  Alexis  were 
ordered  to  come  to  the  abode  of  the  Tsar. 
When  they  appeared  on  the  staircase  they 
were  met  by  a  councilor,  who  read  to  them 
an  order  depriving  them  of  the  rank  of 
boyar,  and  sending  them,  with  their  wives 
and  children,  into  exile  at  Kargopol,  and 
confiscating  all  their  property,  on  the  ground 
that  they  had  reported  to  the  sister  of  the 
Tsars  without  reporting  to  the  Tsars  person- 
ally; that  they  had  written  her  name  in 
papers  and  dispatches  on  an  equality  with 
that  of  the  Tsars,  and  also  because  Prince 
Basil  Galitsyn,  by  his  conduct  in  the  Cri- 
mean expedition  of  1689,  had  caused  harm 
to  the  Government  and  burdens  to  the 
people. 

CHAPTER  XXII. 
VICTORY   AND   VENGEANCE. 

THERE  had  been  great  disputes  among 
the  friends  of  Peter  about  Galitsyn.  Pre- 
cedence had  still  left  its  traces.  Time  had 
not  yet  sufficiently  elapsed  for  the  new  sys- 
tem to  come  into  play.  The  condemnation 
of  Prince  Basil  Galitsyn  for  treason  would 
have  been  a  disgrace  to  the  whole  family, 
and  Boris  Galitsyn  was  therefore  anxious  to 
save  his  cousin,  himself  and  his  family  from 
such  a  calamity.  But  the  enemies  of 
Galitsyn  did  their  best  to  excite  Peter's 
anger  and  to  render  the  fate  of  Basil 
harder.  After  Shaklovity  had  been  tortured 
once,  and  when  he  was  expecting  his 
second  trial,  he  determined  to  give  the 
Tsar,  in  writing,  an  exact  account  of  the 
whole  matter.  Prince  Boris  Galitsyn  him- 
self took  him  paper  and  pen.  Shaklovity 
wrote  eight  or  nine  sheets,  and  as  it  was 
after  midnight  when  he  had  finished  and  the 
Tsar  had  gone  to  bed,  Prince  Boris  took 
the  papers  home  with  him,  intending  to 


give  them  to  the  Tsar  on  the  following 
morning.  The  enemies  of  Galitsyn,  espe- 
cially the  Naryshkins,  who  carefully  followed 
all  his  movements,  hastened  to  report  to 
Peter  that  the  Prince  had  taken  away  the 
confession  of  Shaklovity,  with  the  intention 
of  taking  out  all  that  reflected  on  his  cousin, 
Basil  Galitsyn.  The  Tsar  immediately  sent 
to  Shaklovity  to  ask  whether  he  had  written 
a  confession,  and  ascertained  that  he  had 
given  it  to  Prince  Boris  Galitsyn.  The 
latter,  however,  was  luckily  informed  by  a 
friend  of  the  impending  catastrophe,  and 
hastened  with  the  papers  to  the  Tsar,  who 
asked,  in  a  threatening  tone,  why  he  had 
not  presented  them  immediately.  Galitsyn 
replied  that  it  was  too  late  at  night,  which 
satisfied  Peter,  who  continued,  as  before,  to 
keep  Galitsyn  in  his  confidence,  although 
the  Tsaritsa  Natalia  and  her  friends  were 
still  hostile  to  him. 

After  listening  to  his  sentence,  Prince 
Basil  Galitsyn  wished  to  hand  to  the  coun- 
cilor who  read  it  to  him  an  explanation,  in 
which  he  had  briefly  set  forth  the  services 
he  had  rendered  to  the  Government  during 
the  time  he  had  taken  a  part  in  public 
affairs.  He  wished  to  be  allowed  to  write 
this  to  the  Tsar  or  to  the  council,  but 
the  councilor  did  not  dare  receive  it. 
Galitsyn  afterward  found  some  way  of 
having  it  presented  to  the  Tsar,  but  it 
produced  no  effect.  Nepluief  was  con- 
demned to  exile  in  Pustozersk  (afterward 
changed  to  Kola),  ostensibly  for  his  harsh 
treatment  of  the  soldiers  under  his  com- 
mand, and  was  deprived  of  his  rank  and 
property.  Zm&ef  was  ordered  to  reside  on 
his  estate  in  Kostroma,  while  Kosogof  and 
Ukraintsef  were  retained  in  their  former 
posts.  These  noblemen  went  back  to 
their  quarters,  when  they  were  advised 
by  some  of  their  friends  at  court  to  start 
immediately  for  their  places  of  exile.  This 
they  did,  but  rumors  were  immediately 
spread  that  they  had  run  away,  and  they 
were  sent  for  and  finally  went  off  under 
guard.  Galitsyn's  enemies  still  attacked 
him,  and  insisted  that  banishment  to  Kar- 
gopol was  too  light  a  punishment,  and  that 
he  should  be  sent  to  Pustozersk.  Finally, 
the  place  of  his  exile  was  changed  to 
Yarensk,  a  wretched  village  in  the  province 
of  Archangel,  but  much  better  than  Pusto- 
zeVsk,  where  Matveief  had  lived  so  long. 
Galitsyn's  enemies  still  insisted  that  he 
should  undergo  examination  and  torture, 
and  finally  an  official  was  sent  out  to  meet 
him  at  Yaroslav.  He  was  again  examined, 


58o 


PETER    THE    GREAT. 


although  he  escaped  the  torture.  He  con- 
fessed to  no  complicity  in  any  plot  or 
conspiracy,  and  stated  that  he  was  not  in 
any  way  an  intimate  friend  of  Shaklovity, 
but  merely  an  acquaintance.  His  suite  was 
diminished,  he  was  allowed  altogether  only 
fifteen  persons,  and  the  money,  furniture  and 
clothes  with  which  he  started  were  taken 
away  from  him,  and  orders  were  given  that  he 
should  be  kept  closely  guarded  on  the  jour- 
ney and  not  permitted  to  speak  to  anybody. 
In  Vologda  he  was  met  by  the  Chamberlain, 
Prince  Kropotkin,  not,  however,  with  any 
further  order  from  the  Government,  but 
with  a  tender  message  from  Sophia,  who 
hoped  soon  to  procure  his  release,  through 
the  intercession  of  the  Tsar  Ivan,  and  who 
sent  him  a  packet  of  money  for  the  journey. 
With  great  difficulty  in  the,  wintry  weather 
he  reached  Yarensk  in  January,  but  even 
here  he  was  pursued  by  new  denunciations, 
had  to  submit  to  fresh  examinations,  and 
finally  was  removed,  first  to  Pustozersk,  and 
later  to  Pinega,  where,  after  nearly  a  quar- 
ter of  a  century  of  wretched  existence, — his 
numerous  petitions  for  mercy  being  disre- 
garded,— he  died  in  1714. 

Shaklovity  and  his  accomplices  were  con- 
demned to  death.  It  was  reported  that 
Peter  was  utterly  averse  to  this  sentence, 
and  only  yielded  on  the  insistence  of  the 
Patriarch.  When  it  was  known  that  Shak- 
lovity was  to  be  punished  without  under- 
going a  second  torture,  many  of  the  officials 
collected  in  the  monastery  and  petitioned 
that  Shaklovity  should  be  again  tortured, 
that  he  might  be  forced  to  declare  all  his 
accomplices.  The  Tsar,  however,  sent  word 
to  them  that  he  himself  was  satisfied  with 
the  confessions  of  Shaklovity,  and  it  was 
not  for  them  to  meddle  in  this  affair.  The 
investigation  of  the  plot — so  far  as  we  can 
judge  from  the  fragmentary  papers  which 
have  come  down  to  us — does  not  seem  to 
have  been  very  careful.  Reliance  was 
chiefly  placed  on  the  denunciations  of  Yelis- 
arof  and  his  band,  and  on  the  evidence 
obtained  by  torture.  The  evidence  is  very 
contradictory ;  and,  apart  from  that,  very 
little  reliance  can  be  placed  on  confessions 
obtained  in  this  way.  There  was  appar- 
ently no  cross-examination  of  the  denouncers, 
and  in  very  few  cases  were  they  confronted 
with  the  accused.  Yet,  notwithstanding  all 
this,  very  few  persons  were  found  to  be 
actually  guilty,  and  even  the  extent  of  their 
guilt  is  very  doubtful.  There  does  not 
appear  to  have  been  any  plot  for  the  mur- 
der of  Peter,  although  attempts  were  made 


to  excite  the  Streltsi  against  Peter's  friends, 
and  in  private  it  was  hinted  that  it  would 
be  an  advantage  if  the  Tsaritsa  Natalia, 
the  Naryshkins  and  two  or  three  other 
of  the  nobles  were  out  of  the  way.  In 
no  case  was  the  Princess  Sophia  at  all 
implicated  by  the  testimony,  although  it  is 
very  probable  that  she  knew  of  what  had 
been  going  on — that  is,  of  the  attempts  to 
excite  the  Streltsi.  She  was  ambitious  ;  the 
habit  of  power  had  fed  the  love  of  it ;  and 
she  would  doubtless  have  been  glad  to  take 
advantage  of  a  successful  rising,  by  which 
she  might  have  contrived  to  retain  for  some 
time  to  come  a  certain  share  of  the  supreme 
authority. 

On  the  2ist  of  September,  Shaklovity, 
Petrof  and  Tchermny  were  beheaded. 
Major  Muromtsef,  Colonel  Riazantsef  and 
the  private  Lavrentief  were  beaten  with  the 
knout,  and  after  having  their  tongues  torn 
out,  were  exiled  to  Siberia.  Sylvester  Med- 
vedief had  escaped  from  Moscow,  and  had 
gone  toward  the  Polish  frontier,  where  he 
was  arrested  in  the  monastery  of  Biziuk, 
together  with  Major  Gladky,  and  sent  to 
Trditsa.  When  tortured,  he  refused  to  con- 
fess himself  guilty  of  conspiracy,  admitted 
that  he  had  heard  proposals  against  the 
lives  of  some  of  Peter's  adherents,  but  that 
he  had  threatened  those  who  spoke  in  such 
wise  with  ruin  in  this  life  and  hell-fire  in 
the  life  to  come,  if  they  should  engage  in 
any  such  attempt;  he  denied  that  he  had 
committed  any  act  whatever  against  the 
Government,  or  had  any  designs  against 
the  Patriarch;  but  admitted  having  written 
an  inscription  with  complimentary  verses 
for  the  engraved  portrait  of  Sophia.  He  was 
degraded  from  the  clergy,  and  was  placed 
in  a  monastery  under  strict  surveillance, 
Here  he  was  induced  to  retract  the  views 
expressed  in  his  book  on  religion,  called 
"The  Heavenly  Manna."  He  was  subse- 
quently again  denounced  by  Strizh6f,  who 
had  been  in  the  confidence  of  Shaklovity, 
and  who  accused  him  of  having  been  in 
league  with  a  Polish  sorcerer  who  had  come 
to  Moscow  to  cure  the  eyes  of  the  Tsai 
Ivan;  that  there  they  had  told  him  of  the 
approaching  marriage  of  Sophia  to  Prince 
Basil  Galitsyn,  and  that  Medvedief  would 
be  made  Patriarch  instead  of  Joachim, 
Medvedief  was  again  subjected  to  the  severe 
torture  of  fire  and  hot  irons,  and  was  finally 
executed  in  1691. 

After  the  surrender  of  Shaklovity,  Petei 
wrote  from  Trditsa  to  his  brother  Ivan  thai 
the  scepter  of  the  Russian  state  had  been 


PETER    THE   GREAT. 


confided  to  them — two  persons — by  the 
solemn  decree  and  ceremony  of  the  church, 
and  that  nothing  had  been  said  about  any 
third  person  who  should  be  on  equality  in 
the  Government,  and  that,  as  their  sister 
Sophia  had  begun  to  rule  of  her  own  will, 
and  had  interfered  in  affairs  of  state,  in  a 
manner  disagreeable  to  them  and  hard  for 
the  people,  and  as  Shaklovity  and  his  com- 
rades had  made  criminal  attempts  against 
his  life  and  that  of  his  mother,  he  therefore 
thought  the  time  had  come,  as  he  was  now 
of  full  age,  for  himself  and  his  brother  to 
govern  the  country  without  the  interference 
of  a  third  person  such  as  his  sister,  who,  to 
their  lasting  shame,  had  even  wished  to  be 
crowned.  He  therefore  begged  his  brother 
to  grant  him  permission  to  change  all  unjust 
judges  and  to  appoint  just  ones, — without 
specially  consulting  him  in  each  case, — for 
the  good  of  the  state,  and  ended  by  asking 
his  paternal  and  fraternal  blessing.  The 
demands  of  Peter  were  of  course  complied 
with.  Nothing  was  said  at  that  time  about 
the  future  fate  of  Sophia,  but  shortly  after  an 
order  was  given  excluding  the  name  of  So- 
phia from  all  the  official  documents  where  it 
had  previously  been  inserted.  Immediately 
afterward,  Peter  sent  Prince  Ivan  Troekurof 
to  his  brother  to  request  the  removal  of  his 
sister  Sophia  from  the  palace  of  the  Krem- 
lin to  the  Novodevitchy  monastery,  where 
he  had  appointed  her  to  live  in  a  sort  of 
honorable  confinement.  Sophia  for  a  long 
time  was  unwilling  to  retire  into  this  monas- 
tery, and  did  not  remove  there  until  about 
the  end  of  September.  Well-furnished 
rooms  were  prepared  for  her  there,  looking 
out  on  the  Devichy  plain.  She  had  a  large 
number  of  servants  and  everything  which 
was  necessary  for  a  pleasant  and  peaceful 
life.  She  was  not,  however,  allowed  the 
liberty  of  going  out  of  the  monastery,  and 
could  see  no  one  but  her  aunts  and  her 
sisters,  and  these  only  on  the  great  festivals 
of  the  church. 

So  long  as  Sophia  remained  in  the  Krem- 
lin, Peter  refused  to  return  to  Moscow,  and 
it  was  only  after  she  had  gone  to  the  convent 
that  he  set  out  from  Trditsa,  passed  a  week 
or  more  in  cavalry  and  infantry  maneuvers, 
under  the  direction  of  General  Gordon,  in 
the  neighborhood,  and  finally  arrived  at 
Moscow  on  the  i6th  of  October.  He  went 
first  to  the  Cathedral  of  the  Assumption, 
where  he  was  received  by  his  brother 
Ivan,  who  rushed  to  his  embrace,  and  after- 
ward, arrayed  in  his  robes  of  state  and 
standing  at  the  top  of  the  Red  Staircase, 


showed  himself  to  his  people  as  their  lawful 
ruler. 

In  the  middle  of  this  revolution,  when 
the  city  was  all  in  confusion  and  terror, 
Mazeppa,  Hetman  of  the  Cossacks  of  the 
Ukraine,  arrived  at  Moscow.  By  order  of  the 
Regency,  he  was  met  at  the  Kaluga  gate  by 
a  secretary  with  one  of  the  Tsar's  carriages, 
which,  apparently,  was  somewhat  the  worse 
for  wear,  for  Mazeppa,  on  taking  his  seat, 
said :  "  Thank  the  Lord !  Through  the  grace 
of  the  Tsar  I  am  now  riding  in  one  of  the 
Imperial  carriages.  But  what  sort  of  a  car- 
riage is  it  ?  "  (with  a  sniff).  "  It  is  apparently 
an  old  German  one."  "  In  this  carriage  the 
extraordinary  embassadors  of  foreign  rulers 
always  ride,"  answered  the  secretary,  with 
dignity.  In  his  further  conversation,  and 
also  in  the  speech  which  he  made  on  being 
received  at  the  palace,  he  spoke  of  the  un- 
heard-of victories  which  Galitsyn  had  won 
in  the  Crimea,  as  surpassing  those  of  Darius, 
the  Persian  King. 

When  matters  began  to  go  badly  for  So- 
phia and  Galitsyn,  when  Shaklovity  had  been 
surrendered,  and  every  one  was  going  to 
Troitsa,  Mazeppa  became  alarmed  about 
his  relations  to  the  new  Government,  fear- 
ing it  might  be  remembered  against  him 
that  he  had  been  an  ardent  partisan  of 
Galitsyn.  He,  too,  therefore,  hastened  to 
Troitsa.  Among  the  advisers  of  Peter, 
there  were  some  who  thought  it  better 
to  get  rid  of  Mazeppa,  but  others  more 
wisely  represented  that  the  Hetman  had 
been  changed  for  misconduct  or  unpopu- 
larity only;  that  it  would  be  dangerous  to 
introduce  a  new  precedent;  and  that  in 
any  case,  in  the  disturbed  state  of  affairs, 
it  would  be  difficult  to  find  a  successor  to 
Mazeppa  without  the  expenditure  of  much 
money.  Mazeppa  was  therefore  well  re- 
ceived, and,  seeing  his  good  reception,  he 
thought  to  make  sure  of  the  future  by  break- 
ing completely  with  his  past.  He  said  that 
Galitsyn  had  extorted  large  sums  of  money 
from  him  before  being  willing  to  install  him 
as  Hetman,  and  begged  to  be  remunerated 
from  the  property  of  the  traitor.  This  re- 
quest was  regarded  as  a  sign  of  complete  sub- 
mission, and  all  his  demands  were  complied 
with.  He  received  a  charter  confirming  all 
the  previous  rights  and  liberties  of  Little  Rus- 
sia; he  obtained  additional  Russian  troops 
for  the  defense  of  the  Ukraine ;  he  induced 
the  Government  to  consent  to  keep  the  Rus- 
sian officials  and  soldiery  in  better  order  and 
under  stricter  discipline,  and  with  less  incon- 
venience to  the  Cossacks;  and  was  also 


582 


PETER    THE    GREAT. 


successful  in  carrying  out  some  plans  of 
vengeance  against  his  personal  enemies. 
Satisfied  with  this  and  with  the  presents  of 
money  he  received,  he  returned  to  the 
banks  of  the  Dnieper. 


CHAPTER  XXIII. 
OUTBURST    OF    FANATICISM. 

THE  only  practical  result  of  the  downfall 
of  Sophia  was  that  the  aristocratic  party 
filled  the  offices  of  state  and  administered 
the  Government.  Peter  himself  left  every- 
thing in  the  hands  of  his  counselors,  and  for 
several  years  took  nothing  but  a  merely  formal 
part  in  the  administration.  He  confined 
himself  almost  entirely  to  military  exercises 
and  boat-building,  and  to  indulging  his 
mechanical  tastes.  He  had  no  care  for 
things  of  state,  and  felt  no  interest  in  them. 
His  uncle,  the  Boyar  Leo  Naryshkin,  occu- 
pied the  most  prominent  position  in  the  new 
Government  as  Director  of  Foreign  Affairs, 
in  which  office  he  was  assisted  by  the  coun- 
cilor Ukramtsef,  a  man  of  great  experience 
and  capacity.  The  other  prominent  offices 
were  divided  among  the  chief  families  of  the 
aristocratic  party,  especially  among  those 
most  nearly  connected  with  Peter,  his  moth- 
er and  his  wife, — Urusof,  Ramodanofsky, 
Troekurof,  Streshnef,  Prozor6fsky,  Lopuk- 
hin,  Gol6vkin,  Lvof,  Sheremetief,  Dolgoruky, 
Lykof, — so  that  the  whole  cabal  was  well  rep- 
resented. Prince  Boris  Galitsyn,  in  spite 
of  his  difficulty  with  the  Naryshkins,  retained 
his  old  position  as  Director  of  the  Depart- 
ment of  the  Palace  of  Kazan,  and  four  other 
prominent  men  who  served  under  Sophia — 
Repnin,  Sokovnin,  Od6iefsky  and  Vinius 
— were  kept  in  their  posts.  The  provincial 
administration,  and  even  the  government  of 
the  army,  remained  almost  untouched.  The 
Boyar  Boris  Sheremetief,  in  spite  of  the 
favor  with  which  he  was  regarded  by  the 
Regency,  was  maintained  as  general-in-chief 
of  the  army  which  protected  the  southern 
frontier  against  the  Tartars.  General  Gor- 
don, too,  kept  his  place  and  his  influence. 
Except  that  the  energy  of  Sophia,  Galitsyn 
and  Shaklovity  was  wanting,  the  policy  of 
the  new  ministers  differed  little  from  that  of 
their  predecessors. 

One  of  the  first  consequences  of  the 
change  of  administration  was  an  outburst 
of  the  popular  hatred  against  foreigners,  a 
hatred  which  had  long  been  accumulating 
in  the  minds  of  the  people,  and  which  had 


not  infrequently  manifested  itself  in  various 
and  even  violent  forms.  There  was  a  seem- 
ingly ineradicable  feeling  in  the  Russian 
mind  that  the  country  suffered  from  foreign- 
ers, that  foreign  merchants  came  like  a 
swarm  of  locusts  and  ate  up  all  the  good 
things  of  the  land,  and  that  foreign  countries 
were  in  conspiracy  to  keep  Russia  poor. 
The  political  economists,  Ivan  Pososhkdf 
and  Yiiry  Kryzhanitch,  sensible  men  as  they 
were  in  other  respects,  shared  this  feeling, 
and  wished  to  put  a  sort  of  Chinese  wall 
around  Russia,  so  as  to  keep  people  from 
going  in  or  out.  They  were  protectionists  in 
the  most  positive  form.  Very  few  Russians 
had  been  abroad,  except  on  Government 
embassies,  and  those  were  diligently  occu- 
pied in  carrying  out  the  prescriptions  of  a 
formal  etiquette,  and  were  cut  off,  by  their 
ignorance  of  foreign  languages,  from  the 
possibility  of  understanding  western  Europe. 
There  was  the  fear  lest  contact  with  the  west 
and  with  foreigners  should  corrupt  Russia, 
and  above  all  lead  to  heresy,  especially 
Roman  Catholicism.  The  few  cases  where 
Russians  had  gone  abroad  for  purposes  of 
study  were  not  re-assuring.  Of  all  the  young 
men  sent  abroad  by  Boris  Godunof,  not 
more  than  two  or  three  returned,  and  the 
son  of  the  celebrated  Boyar  Ordin  Nastcho- 
kin,  who  had  been  educated  by  a  Polish 
teacher  and  had  traveled  in  Poland,  finally 
ran  away  from  his  father  and  his  country, 
and  renounced  his  religion.  This  possible 
corruption  of  Russian  orthodoxy  and  of 
Russian  manners  seemed  to  weigh  the  most 
heavily  on  the  mind  of  the  Russian  Conserv- 
atives. There  were  but  few  men  at  different 
epochs  who  rose  superior  to  this  preju- 
dice— Ivan  the  Terrible,  Godunof,  the  so- 
called  false  Demetrius,  Theodore,  Sophia, 
Prince  Basil  Galitsyn  and  Peter.  But  the 
aristocratic  party  that  surrounded  Peter  was 
deeply  conservative,  and,  therefore,  very 
prejudiced.  The  Patriarch,  who  was  now 
one  of  the  leaders  of  the  aristocratic  party, 
had,  even  before  the  last  Crimean  cam- 
paign, protested  against  the  employment  of 
foreign  soldiers,  and  especially  of  that  arch- 
heretic  General  Gordon,  and  had  predicted 
disaster  to  the  Russian  arms  in  consequence. 
His  advice  was  naturally  disregarded,  for 
the  foreigners  were  the  only  officers  capable 
of  taking  command ;  but,  as  disaster  did 
come,  his  predictions  were  by  many  thought 
to  be  verified.  Prince  Basil  Galitsyn,  in  a 
way  an  enlightened  man  and  well-disposed 
to  foreigners,  had,  to  a  certain  degree,  pro- 
tected the  Jesuits.  Such  protection  was 


PETER   THE   GREAT. 


583 


necessary,  for,  in  spite  of  the  toleration  at  the 
Court  of  Moscow  toward  Calvinists  and 
Lutherans,  the  Catholics  were  never  allowed 
for  long  to  have  churches  specially  set  apart 
for  the  purpose,  although  they  were  admit- 
ted at  times  to  say  mass  in  private  houses. 
As  soon  as  Galitsyn  was  overthrown,  a 
decree  was  issued  for  the  banishment  of  the 
Jesuits  within  two  weeks,  and  the  Austrian 
Envoy  found  it  impossible  to  obtain  excep- 
tions, or  even  much  delay.  It  required  a 
long  diplomatic  correspondence,  the  urgent 
demand  of  the  Emperor  Leopold,  and  all 
the  personal  influence  of  General  Gordon 
with  Peter,  to  get  permission  for  one  priest, 
not  a  Jesuit,  to  reside  in  Moscow. 

One  case  of  religious  persecution  had  be- 
gun months  before.  A  German  fanatic 
from  Breslau,  Quirinus  Kuhlmann,  another 
German  preacher,  Nordermann,  and  a 
painter,  Henin,  were  accused  of  teaching 
and  disseminating  heretical  and  blasphe- 
mous doctrines.  Their  case  was  investigated 
by  the  translators  of  the  Foreign  Office,  and, 
for  better  information,  referred  to  the  Prot- 
estant pastors  then  living  in  Moscow,  as 
well  as  to  all  the  Jesuits  then  there.  Ap- 
parently Kuhlmann  was  a  sort  of  Quaker, 
but  had  developed  a  body  of  doctrine  based 
on  the  mystical  works  of  Jacob  Bohme. 
The  report  of  Pastor  Meincke  was  very 
strong  against  Kuhlmann,  and  after  the 
three  men  accused  had  been  subjected  sev- 
eral times  to  violent  tortures  without  bring- 
ing them  to  yield,  they  were  condemned 
to  death.  Kuhlmann  and  Nordermann 
were  burned  alive  in  the  Red  Place  at  Mos- 
cow on  the  1 4th  of  October,  four  days  before 
Peter  came  to  the  capital.  Henin  avoided 
a  like  death  by  taking  poison  in  prison  and 
committing  suicide. 

We  must  remember  the  time  at  which 
this  took  place.  Thomas  Aikenhead  was 
executed  for  heresy  at  Edinburgh  in  1696, 
witches  were  burned  in  England  in  1676, 
and  hanged  even  in  1716.  A  witch  was 
burned  at  Wurtzburg  in  1749,  and  nineteen 
were  hanged  at  Salem,  Massachusetts,  in 
1692. 

Not  only  were  the  Jesuits  expelled,  but, 
within  a  year  from  the  permission  given  to  the 
exiled  Huguenots  to  settle  in  Russia,  strict 
orders  were  sent  to  the  frontier  to  stop  all 
foreigners  and  thoroughly  examine  them  as 
to  where  they  came  from  and  what  reasons 
they  had  for  visiting  Russia,  and  to  detain 
them  until  orders  were  received  from  Mos- 
cow. Among  others  kept  in  this  way  was 
Dr.  Jacob  Pelarino,  a  Greek  physician  recom- 


mended to  the  Tsar  by  the  Emperor  of 
Germany.  Another  physician  of  Peter,  Dr. 
Carbonari,  also  recommended  by  the  Em- 
peror Leopold,  had  his  letters  and  papers 
seized  and  was  strictly  forbidden  to  carry 
on  any  further  correspondence  with  Vienna 
or  with  the  Jesuits,  under  pain  of  expulsion. 
At  the  same  time,  orders  were  given  to 
Andrew  Vinius,  the  Director  of  Posts,  to 
inspect  all  letters  which  passed  the  Russian 
frontier,  either  going  or  coming.  This 
measure  regarded  especially  the  exchange 
of  correspondence  with  persons  in  Poland. 
The  Polish  minister  complained  greatly 
that  either  he  did  not  receive  his  letters  at 
all,  or  else  that  they  had  been  opened. 
According  to  Van  Keller,  this  was  denied 
by  the  Government,  but  General  Gordon 
wrote  to  his  son,  who  was  in  Poland,  not  to 
date  his  letters  from  any  place  in  that 
country,  and  always  to  send  them  by  the 
way  of  Riga  or  Danzig,  in  order  to  prevent 
their  being  opened  or  confiscated. 

The  previous  system  of  exclusion  had,  in 
fact,  changed  very  little.  The  second  son 
of  General  Gordon,  James,  had  been  edu- 
cated in  the  Jesuit  College  at  Douai.  In 
1688  he  came  to  Moscow,  but  showed  an 
unwillingness  to  enter  the  service  of  the 
Tsar  and  went  to  England,  took  up  arms 
for  King  James  II.,  was  wounded  in  a 
fight  with  the  Dutch  and  forced  to  leave 
the  country.  He  next  went  to  Warsaw 
with  the  intention  of  entering  the  Polish 
service,  but  his  father  pressed  him  hard  to 
come  back  to  Russia.  One  thing  only 
stood  in  the  way — James  did  not  desire  to 
enter  the  Tsar's  service  unless  he  could 
have  the  privilege  of  leaving  Russia  at  the 
expiration  of  the  term  for  which  he  should 
be  engaged.  This  was  an  unheard-of  thing 
in  Russia,  for  all  foreigners  in  the  Russian 
service  were  obliged  to  remain  there  until 
they  died,  and  even  General  Gordon 
himself,  in  spite  of  his  excellent  position  at 
court  during  the  whole  of  the  reign  of 
Sophia,  although  allowed  to  go  abroad  for 
business  and  on  special  missions,  could 
never  get  permission  to  resign.  After  many 
requests  on  Gordon's  part,  all  he  could 
obtain  was  that  if  his  son  came  to  Russia 
he  would  not  be  compelled  to  enter  the 
Russian  service,  and  could  return,  but  that 
if  he  once  took  the  oath  he  must  remain. 
Gordon,  on  this  business,  was  in  frequent 
correspondence  with  his  son  during  the 
whole  of  1690,  and  finally  advised  him  to 
come  to  Russia,  but  not  to  engage  himself, 
and  to  remain  a  free  man  "until  circum- 


584 


PETER    THE   GREAT. 


stances  changed."  By  this  expression  — 
"until  circumstances  changed"  —  General 
Gordon  evidently  meant  the  same  thing  as 
he  did  when,  in  a  letter,  he  said :  "  If  the 
Tsar  Peter  should  take  upon  himself  the 
government,"  referring  to  the  fact  that  Peter 
not  only  took  no  part  in  public  affairs,  but 
had  very  little  influence  with  the  real  rulers  of 
the  country,  who  were  nominally  his  ministers. 

On  the  loth  of  March,  1690,  Gordon  was 
invited  to  dine  at  court  at  the  banquet 
given  in  honor  of  the  recent  birth  of  Peter's 
son,  Alexis;  but  the  Patriarch,  who  now 
felt  himself  strong,  protested  against  the 
presence  of  foreigners  on  such  an  occasion, 
and  the  invitation  was  withdrawn.  On  the 
next  day,  nevertheless,  Peter  invited  him  to 
a  country  house,  dined  with  him  there,  and 
rode  back  to  town  with  him,  conversing  all 
the  way. 

A  few  days  later,  on  the  27th  of  March,  the 
Patriarch  Joachim  died.  In  the  form  of  a 
testament  especially  directed  to  the  Tsars, 
he  left  a  powerful  expression  of  his  hatred 
toward  the  foreigners.  He  counseled  the 
Tsars  to  drive  out  from  Russia  all  heretics 
and  unbelievers,  foreigners  and  enemies  of 
the  orthodox  church,  and  warned  them 
against  adopting  foreign  customs,  habits 
and  clothing,  begged  them  to  forbid  all 
intercourse  of  any  kind  with  heretics, 
whether  Lutherans,  Calvinists  or  Catholics, 
and  laid  great  stress  on  the  danger  fraught 
to  the  country  if,  in  the  blessed  land  ruled 
over  by  the  Tsars,  foreigners  should  hold 
high  places  in  the  army  and  thus  rule  over 
orthodox  men.  He  advised  the  immediate 
destruction  of  the  foreign  churches,  and  was 
especially  bitter  against  the  Protestants  for 
their  attacks  on  the  adoration  of  the  Virgin 
and  the  saints.  He  held  up  the  fate  of  the 
Princess  Sophia  and  of  Basil  Galitsyn  as  a 
warning;  they  had  rejected  his  advice 
about  the  employment  of  foreigners  in  the 
last  Crimean  campaign.  He  said,  in  con- 
firmation of  his  complaints  :  "  I  wonder  at 
the  counselors  and  advisers  of  the  Tsar 
who  have  been  on  embassies  in  foreign 
countries.  Have  they  not  seen  that  in 
every  land  there  are  peculiar  rites,  customs 
and  modes  of  dress,  that  no  merit  is  allowed 
to  be  in  any  one  of  another  faith,  and  that 


foreigners  are  not  permitted  to  build 
churches  there?  Is  there  anywhere  in 
German  lands  a  church  of  the  orthodox 
faith  ?  No !  not  one.  And  what  here 
never  should  have  been  permitted  is  now 
allowed  to  heretics.  They  build  for  their 
accursed  heretical  gatherings  temples  of 
prayer,  in  which  they  evilly  curse  and  bark 
against  orthodox  people,  as  idle  worshipers 
and  heathens." 

Great  difficulty  was  found  in  choosing  a 
new  Patriarch,  and  it  was  five  months  be- 
fore the  election  was  made.  Peter  and  the 
higher  and  more  educated  clergy  were  in 
favor  of  Marcellus,  the  Metropolitan  of 
Pskof,  '•'  a  learned  and  civilized  person," 
while  the  Tsaritsa  Natalia,  the  monks  and 
the  lower  clergy  were  in  favor  of  Adrian, 
the  Metropolitan  of  Kazan.  According  to 
General  Gordon,  "the  greatest  fault  they  had 
to  lay  to  the  charge  of  Marcellus  was  that 
he  had  too  much  learning,  and  so  they 
feared  and  said  he  would  favor  the  Catholics 
and  other  religions,  to  which  purpose  the 
Abbot  of  the  Spasky  monastery  had  given  in 
a  writing  to  the  Queen  Do  wager,  accusing  him 
of  many  points,  and  even  of  heresy.  But 
the  younger  Tsar,  continuing  firm  for  him, 
removed  with  the  elder  Tsar  and  the  whole 
court  to  Kolomenskoe."  At  a  later  date, 
the  3d  of  September,  Gordon  says :  "  The 
Metropolitan  of  Kazan,  Adrian,  was  chosen 
Patriarch,  notwithstanding  the  Tsar's  incli- 
nation for  Marcellus,  the  Metropolitan  of 
Pskof,  whom  the  old  Boyars  and  the  gener- 
ality of  the  clergy  hated,  because  of  his 
learning  and  other  great  good  qualities,  and 
chose  this  one  because  of  his  ignorance 
and  simplicity."  Subsequently,  when  Peter 
passed  through  Livonia,  according  to  Blom- 
berg :  "  He  told  us  a  story  that,  when  the 
Patriarch  in  Moscow  was  dead,  he  designed 
to  fill  that  place  with  a  learned  man,  that 
had  been  a  traveler,  who  spoke  Latin,  Ital- 
ian and  French ;  the  Russians  petitioned 
him,  in  a  tumultuous  manner,  not  to  set  such 
a  man  over  them,  alleging  three  reasons  : 

(1)  because  he  spoke  barbarous  languages; 

(2)  because  his  beard  was  not  big  enough 
for  a  Patriarch ;  (3)  because  his  coachman 
sat  upon  the  coach-seat  and  not  upon  the 
horses,  as  was  usual." 


(To  be  continued.) 


COR   CORDIUM.  585 


COR   CORDIUM. 

THE  freshness  of  the  woods  is  mine. 

I  lie  in  baths  of  mountain  air ; 
The  forest's  depths  of  beech  and  pine 

Fold  grandly  round  me  everywhere. 

The  thrush's  song  is  sweet  and  low ; 

A  water-spirit  stirs  the  ferns 
Down  where  the  silvery  trickles  flow 

O'er  em'raid  brims  of  sylvan  urns. 

On  leafy  glade  and  granite  walls 

The  sunshine's  misty  splendors  stream. 

Afar  a  lone  dove  sorrowing  calls 

As  if  the  wood  moaned  in  its  dream. 

I  see  where  purple  lichens  glow, 

Where  mosses  drink  supreme  content, 

Where  spreads  the  clematis,  like  snow, 
The  curtains  of  its  spotless  tent. 

I  see  what  chronicles  are  graved 
On  splintered  cliff  and  weird  ravine, 

And  how  the  teeming  ground  is  paved 
With  beauteous  forms  of  what  has  been. 

The  pine-tree's  sigh  and  brooklet's  mirth 
Are  in  my  heart  with  joy  and  pain, 

And  all  the  sad  and  sweet  of  earth 
Pleads  in  the  pathos  of  the  strain. 

Far  o'er  me  palpitates  the  blue, 
As  if  Love  hovered  softly  there, 

And,  from  her  tender  bosom,  drew 
The  holy  calm  that  fills  the  air. 

O  sky  above  and  world  below ! 

What  is  the  secret  of  your  speech  ? 
Oh,  why,  beyond  your  glorious  show, 

Does  soul  with  restless  yearnings  reach  ? 

What  is  the  Life  that  life  conceals  ? 

The  inner  force  ?  the  primal  fire  ? 
The  potency  that  makes,  and  feels, 

And  baffles  most  as  we  aspire  ? 

What  is  the  end,  the  good  at  last, 
When  each  appointed  task  is  done, 

When  every  phase  of  change  is  past, 
And  being's  goal  of  conquest  won  ? 

The  mystic  pageant  comes  and  goes ; 

The  old  is  new ;  the  sad  is  gay ; 
The  Everlasting  Order  flows 

While  hearts  grow  still  and  suns  decay ! 

Amid  the  Infinite  I  grope; 

I  faint  with  reaching  for  a  shore, 
But  hear  the  angels,  Faith  and  Hope, — 

"  To  Love  shall  life  be  more  and  more." 


S86 


MR.    SEYMOUR  HADEN'S  ETCHINGS. 


MR.   SEYMOUR   HADEN'S   ETCHINGS. 


[WE  venture  to  preface  Mr.  Hamerton's  notice  of  Mr.  Seymour  Haden's  work  with  a  few  words  upon  th 
general  subject  of  etching.  The  uninitiated  public  seems  to  be  divided  in  its  estimate  of  the  place  whicl 
etching  should  take  among  the  arts ;  it  is  considered  by  some  as  mere  pen-drawing,  and  by  others  as  ai 
inferior  kind  of  engraving.  It  is,  however,  an  art  quite  distinct  from  either,  with  capabilities  and  limitation 
peculiar  to  itself.  Briefly,  the  process  is  as  follows  :  A  metal  plate,  preferably  copper,  is  covered  with 
coat  of  blackened  varnish  or  wax.  On  this  surface  the  artist — with  a  needle  not  unlike  a  common  sewing 
needle,  set  in  a  handle — sketches  in  his  composition.  The  needle  usually  only  removes  the  varnish,  leav 
ing  the  design  in  glittering  lines  upon  a  black  background.  The  plate  is  then  immersed  in  an  acid  batt 
and  when  the  lines  have  been  sufficiently  bitten  it  is  removed.  If  variation  of  tone  and  a  difference  of  fore 
in  the  lines  is  required,  as  is  usually  the  case,  the  more  delicate  portions  of  the  sketch  are  "  stopped  out,! 
that  is,  covered  by  varnish  so  that  they  shall  not  be  affected  by  any  subsequent  exposure  in  the  bath.  Th 
plate  is  again  immersed,  and  the  process  of  stopping  out  repeated.  In  the  plate  by  Maxime  Lalann 
entitled  "  Fribourg,  Switzerland,"  for  example,  the  copper  was  five  times  subjected  to  the  action  of  the  acid 
After  three  minutes'  biting,  the  most  delicate  lines,  indicating  the  extreme  distance,  were  stopped  out  am 
the  plate  was  exposed  for  three  minutes  more.  After  this  the  nearer  distance  was  stopped  out,  and  so  01 
with  successive  portions  of  the  plate,  protected  from  the  action  of  the  acid  for  four,  ten  and  again  tei 
minutes  respectively — making  the  entire  time  occupied  by  the  biting  process  only  thirty  minutes. 

It  will  be  seen,  even  from  this  cursory  explanation  of  etching,  not  only  that  the  work  is  autographic,  but  tha 
it  requires  the  mastery  gained  only  by  thorough  artistic  training,  as  well  as  natural  powers  of  no  meai 
order,  to  become  a  master  etcher.  The  hand  must  be  firm  and  true,  the  lines  must  all  have  meaning,  th 
mind  must  be  clear  to  grasp  essentials,  and  the  whole  process  must  be  purely  intellectual,  as  no  greate 
difference  in  effect  can  be  imagined  than  that  produced  by  glittering  lines  on  a  black  surface,  on  the  om 
hand,  and  that  of  delicately  graded  black  lines  upon  a  white  background,  on  the  other.  A  positive  proces 
is  sometimes  used,  when  the  etching  appears  upon  the  plate  as  black  lines  upon  a  white  surface,  but  ii 
this  process  other  difficulties  occur — as  the  lines  have  to  be  etched  in  the  order  of  their  depth  to  insur 
the  relative  amount  of  biting.  The  numbers  in  this  article  refer  to  Sir  William  Drake's  recently  publishei 
catalogue.  ] 


THE  mental  constitution  of  mankind  dif- 
fers so  very  widely  in  different  individuals 
that  the  old  adage,  "  What  is  one  man's 
food  is  another  man's  poison,"  is  as  true  of 
the  intellectual  as  it  is  of  the  physical  life. 
The  stronger  the  nature  of  the  food  and 
poison  the  more  decided  are  its  effects  when 
administered ;  one  recipient  affirming  that  it 
is  particularly  good  food,  and  another  that  it 
is  a  particularly  toxic  poison.  In  art  criti- 
cism, the  ultimate  reason  is  never  anything 
more  than  a  statement  of  the  relation  be- 
tween the  critic's  own  mental  constitution 
and  the  sort  of  art  which  it  rejects  or 
assimilates. 

The  art  of  etching,  as  practiced  by  the 
few  powerful  men  who  have  really  attained 
to  mastery  in  it,  is  an  excellent  example  of 
the  double  effect  which  I  have  just  been 
attempting  to  describe.  Some  minds  ac- 
cept it  with  avidity  as  a  kind  of  art  precisely 
adapted  to  their  natures, — a  language  they 
were  born  to  understand;  while  others 
reject  it  at  once  as  a  coarse,  rude  and  im- 
perfect means  of  expression.  Before  exam- 
ining Mr.  Haden's  work,  it  may  be  well, 
as  an  introduction  to  the  subject,  to  state 
the  case  for  and  against  as  briefly  and  clearly 
as  possible. 

The  two  sides  of  the  question  are  repre- 
sented in  England  by  two  writers  upon  art, 


Mr.  Ruskin  and  the  writer  of  this  article 
Mr.  Ruskin  is  hostile  to  etching  as  practicec 
by  Rembrandt  and  other  great  etchers ;  thi 
writer  of  this  article  is  in  its  favor.  Thi 
English  public  has  thus  the  opportunity  o 
hearing  both  sides  of  the  question.* 

Mr.  Ruskin's  argument  is  to  the^followinj 
effect :  Etching  is  at  the  best  an  indolen 
and  blundering  art :  indolent  because  it  i 
easier  to  draw  a  line  with  the  etching 
needle  than  to  engrave  it  with  the  burin 
blundering  because  the  biting  cannot  bi 
properly  controlled,  and  the  result,  such  a 
it  is,  is  attained  by  a  mixture  of  art  anc 
accident.  Nobody  can  shade  properly  ii 
etching ;  even  Rembrandt's  shading  is  coarst 
and  imperfect,  and  bad  as  chiaroscuro.  Th< 
art  is  so  imperfect  that  nature  cannot  b< 
satisfactorily  imitated  by  its  means :  nobod] 
ever  etched  a  cloud,  or  a  head  of  hair 
Artists  ought  not  to  etch, — they  should  lean 
to  engrave ;  and  art  students  ought  not  t( 
study  etchings.  If,  however,  etching  ii 
done  at  all,  it  should  be  of  the  simplest  kind 
with  one  or  two  deep  bitings, — one  ii 
enough, — and  shade  should  only  be  indi 
cated,  all  delicate  bitings  being  avoided.  J 


*  Every  word  of  the  paragraph  given  as  th( 
expression  of  Mr.  Ruskin's  opinion 'can  be  substan' 
dated  by  quotations  from  his  writings. 


MR.    SEYMOUR  If  A  DEN'S  ETCHINGS. 


587 


disapprove  of  chiaroscuro  altogether,  in  en- 
gravings of  all  kinds.  I  dislike  it  in  etch- 
ing especially,  and  only  like  engraving  in 
pure  line,  without  shade,  done  patiently 
with  the  burin,  like  the  engravings  of  the 
early  Italian  masters. 

The  answer  to  this  may  be  divided  into 
two  parts.  There  is  room  in  the  fine  arts  for 
the  most  various  and  opposite  tastes,  and  we 
must  learn  not  only  to  tolerate  them  but  to 
welcome  them,  because  they  keep  up  an  in- 
terest in  the  subject.  Nevertheless,  although 
a  critic  may  say  that  he  does  not  like  an  art, 
he  ought  not  to  be  unjust,  as  Mr.  Ruskin  is  in 
this  instance,  to  the  art  which  is  the  object  of 
his  dislike,  and  to  those  who  pursue  it.  It  is 
unjust  to  say  that  etching  is  an  indolent  art, 
merely  because  it  is  comparatively  rapid;  for 
an  artist  may  be  as  industrious  in  etching  as 
in  anything  else,  and  good  etching,  however 
apparently  slight,  can  never  be  done  in  a 
really  careless  or  indolent  spirit.  It  is  quite 
true  that  there  is  a  certain  manual  facility  in 
etching  as  compared  with  engraving  with  the 
burin ;  but  this  facility  imposes  responsibilities 
of  its  own  which  the  etcher  does  not  accept 
without  anxiety,  and  yet  which  he  cannot 
avoid.  Having  a  free  instrument,  he  is  ex- 
pected to  put  all  the  more  knowledge  and 
intelligence  into  his  drawing.  Now,  as  to 
the  accusation  of  blundering,  Mr.  Ruskin 
says  that  biting  is  uncertain,  so  that  the 
etcher  blunders  to  his  result.  Bad  etchers 
do,  no  doubt,  but  bad  workmen  blunder  in 
everything.  Etching  is  well  within  the  com- 
mand of  a  good  workman,  who  knows 
beforehand  how  to  advance  safely  to  his 
conclusion.  When  Flameng  engages  to 
deliver  a  plate  at  a  fixed  date,  and  a  near 
date,  too,  leaving  no  margin  for  any  serious 
mistake,  the  plate  is  always  delivered,  prop- 
erly bitten,  at  the  date  agreed  upon.  If 
errors  are  committed,  the  art  has  abundant 
resources  for  their  correction,  but  they  may 
generally  be  avoided  by  proceeding  gradu- 
ally. If  a  plate  happens  to  be  insufficiently 
bitten  in  parts,  it  can  be  made  darker  by  re- 
biting  in  the  old  lines — a  process  which  has 
become  much  easier  since  the  use  of  the 
roller  has  been  properly  understood.  If  the 
plate  is  over-bitten,  the  lines  can  be  made 
paler  with  a  burnisher,  or  reduced  still  fur- 
ther with  charcoal.  A  consummate  etcher 
under-bites  and  over-bites  on  purpose  dur- 
ing the  progress  of  his  work,  with  the 
intention  of  reducing  or  deepening  certain 
parts  afterward.  Flameng  always  does 
this.  Again,  Mr.  Ruskin  describes  Rem- 
brandt's work  as  a  mixture  of  art  and  acci- 


dent. To  this  it  may  be  replied  that  in  all 
the  fine  arts,  as  in  the  military  art,  when 
accidents  happen  favorably  the  true  master 
always  avails  himself  of  them,  and  when 
they  happen  unfavorably  he  takes  care  to 
neutralize  their  effects. 

Our  most  serious  conflict  with  Mr.  Ruskin 
refers  to  the  use  of  chiaroscuro,  which  he  dis- 
likes. I  should  say  that  it  is  far  too  valuable 
a  means  of  expression  to  be  sacrificed,  more 
particularly  in  landscape.  At  the  same  time, 
I  want  to  point  out  an  injustice  in  Mr.  Rus- 
kin's  way  of  thinking  about  the  chiaroscuro 
of  etchers.  He  seems  to  think  that,  when 
their  chiaroscuro  is  arbitrary  or  incomplete, 
it  is  so  from  ignorance  of  the  true  relations  of 
tones  in  nature.  This  is  a  misunderstanding. 
The  etchers  may  know,  and  in  some  in- 
stances certainly  have  known,  as  much  about 
chiaroscuro  as  the  most  delicately  observant 
painters ;  but  they  have  used  their  right  of 
selection  and  given  what  they  pleased — what 
seemed  to  them  most  necessary  to  the  effect 
to  be  produced  upon  the  mind.  I  have  not 
space  to  enter  fully  into  this  question  of 
chiaroscuro  here,  but  may  say  that  I  am 
clearly  aware  of  all  that  criticism  has  to  say 
on  the  subject,  and  that  when  I  praise  an 
etching  which  is  arbitrary  and  incomplete  in 
its  chiaroscuro,  I  know  that  it  is  so,  and  am 
content  that  it  should  be  so.  There  is  a 
stage  in  criticism  beyond  that  of  simple  fault- 
finding— a  stage  in  which  the  critic  sees  quite 
clearly  the  difference  between  art  and  nature, 
perceives  the  liberties  which  the  artist  has 
taken,  but  does  not  blame  them  because  he 
knows  the  reasons  for  them.* 

Etching  is  a  valuable  art  because  it  ena- 
bles the  artist  to  express  himself  plainly  and 
directly  to  people  scattered  all  over  the  world. 
To  this  it  may  be  answered  that,  since  the 
invention  of  the  photographic  process  of  re- 
production, a  simple  drawing  does  as  well, 
because  it  can  be  photographed  and  so  dis- 
tributed. No,  this  is  a  mistake:  photographic 
reproductions  are  always  different  from, 
and  generally  very  far  inferior  to,  the  orig- 
inals, whereas  an  etching,  properly  printed, 
is  the  original  expression  itself.  Again,  the 
best  photographic  processes  (those  on  plates 
of  metal)  really  are  etchings,  bitten  with  acid 
as  we  bite  our  plates,  and  under  conditions 

*  We  cannot  but  think  that  Mr.  Hamerton  makes 
too  much  of  his  controversy  with  Mr.  Ruskin — 
since  it  is  to  be  doubted  whether  another  man  in 
England,  other  than  Mr.  Ruskin  himself,  holds  his 
views  on  the  subject  of  etching  and  of  Rembrandt ; 
in  a  word,  whether  his  opinions  on  the  subject  really 
do  exist  in  England. — ED.  S.  M. 


588 


MR.    SEYMOUR  HAD  EN'S  ETCHINGS. 


of  still  greater  technical  difficulty.*  How 
much  better,  then,  that  the  artist  should  do 
the  work  himself,  when  he  can  do  it! 
Again,  with  reference  to  drawings,  I  have 
seen  it  asserted,  by  a  critic  who  ought  to 
have  known  better,  that  an  etching  has  only 
the  technical  qualities  of  any  other  sort  of 
drawing.  This  is  entirely  untrue  ;  an  etch- 
ing has  technical  qualities  which  cannot  be 
imitated  by  any  other  process.  Mr.  Haden 
has  shown  the  reasons  for  this  in  his  excel- 
lent lectures  on  etching,  delivered  at  the 
Royal  Institution,  and  published  afterward, 
though  very  incompletely,  in  "  CasselFs 
Magazine  of  Art."  An  impression  from 
an  etching  is  not  simply  stained  paper; 
it  is  really  a  cast,  and  so  much  so  that 
a  plaster  cast  of  an  etched  plate,  without 
ink  or  stain  of  any  kind,  will  reveal  the 
state  of  the  plate  better  to  a  practiced  eye 
than  a  flat  copy  of  it  with  pen  and  ink.  A 
line  etched  in  metal  is  a  hollow  of  a  very 
peculiar  kind,  which  gives  a  cast  quite  un- 
like any  other  sort  of  line,  drawn  or  engraved, 
and  the  peculiar  quality  of  a  properly  bitten 
etching  is  due  in  great  measure  to  the  nature 
of  this  cast.  Again,  one  of  the  advantages 
of  etching  on  metal  over  simple  drawing 
on  paper  is  that  dry-point  work  can  be  com- 
bined with  it  on  the  copper,  and  dry-point, 
again,  has  its  own  peculiar  qualities  of  soft- 
ness like  mezzotint  when  the  bur  is  not  re- 
moved, and  extreme  delicacy,  far  surpassing 
any  delicacy  attainable  with  the  pen,  when 
the  bur  is  removed,  t  Now  a  critic  may  or 
may  not  like  these  technical  qualities  of 
etching,  and  we  have  seen  that  Mr.  Ruskin 
does  not  like  them;  but  only  a  very  ignorant 
critic  would  deny  their  existence,  and  say 
that  etching  had  only  the  qualities  of  any 
other  kind  of  drawing. 

"Opinions  differ,"  says  Mr.  Haden,  "as 
to  what  is  the  best  metal  on  which  to  etch. 
Steel  is  never  used  by  etchers ;  it  is  entirely 
an  engraver's  material.  Copper  is  usually 
used,  but  I  prefer  zinc.  Copper  is  sometimes 
soft,  sometimes  hard,  and  this  very  materi- 
ally affects  the  execution,  the  biting-in  and 

*  I  know  the  inside  of  M.  Amand  Durand's  pri- 
vate laboratory,  where  he  works  without  an  assistant, 
and  I  know  all  the  instruments  he  uses,  and  all  his 
processes.  The  only  secret  of  the  extreme  perfection 
with  which  he  reproduces  the  etchings  of  Rem- 
brandt is  that  he  himself,  Amand  Durand,  is  an  un- 
commonly skillful  master  of  the  common  processes 
of  etching.  The  photographic  work  is  merely  pre- 
paratory, and  gets  nothing  but  the  drawing  of  the 
plates. 

t  The  bur  is  the  copper  raised  by  the  dry-point  as 
it  makes  its  furrow. 


the  endurance  of  a  plate.  An  etching  on 
copper  is,  perhaps,  more  delicate  and  refined, 
but  one  on  zinc  gives  a  more  painter-like  and 
artistic  impression,  is  richer  in  color,  and  is 
bolder  and  bigger ;  it  has  besides  the  advan- 
tage of  being  more  easily  bitten. 

"  The  biting-in  of  the  etching  is,  though 
it  may  hardly  be  thought  so,  the  most  im- 
portant part  of  the  whole  process ;  it  corre- 
sponds to  the  painting  of  the  picture — on 
it  depends  all  the  color  and  effect  of  the 
work.  It  is  astonishing  how  few  of  our 
etchers  possess  the  two  essentials  to  a  good 
etching — the  power  of  drawing  and  biting- 
in.  Many  have  one  without  the  other. 
Samuel  Palmer  and  Meryon,  Herkomer  and 
Hook  combine  both.  Turner  possessed  the 
power  of  biting-in  to  a  marvelous  degree." 

Samuel  Palmer  is  the  most  astonishing 
master  of  biting  whom  I  have  ever  known 
personally,  because  he  gets  his  results, 
(which  are  always  just  what  they  ought  to 
be)  without  rebiting.  Flameng,  as  we  have 
seen,  is  very  sure,  but  his  work  is  systemat- 
ically tentative.  Mr.  Haden  himself  effects 
the  biting-in  of  his  plates  grandly  and  with 
much  power,  but  his  chiaroscuro  is  often 
very  much  simplified  by  intentional  omis- 
sions of  tones  which  a  professional  etcher 
from  pictures  would  be  obliged  to  render ; 
and,  besides  this,  as  Mr.  Haden's  purpose 
is  generally  more  artistic  and  intellectual 
than  technical,  he  does  not  mind  over-bit- 
ing occasionally.  Of  the  two  faults,  under- 
biting  and  over-biting,  he  prefers  the  latter 
as  giving  more  vigor  and  force.  Any  kind 
of  acid  that  will  eat  into  the  metal  will  de- 
fer biting,  and  the  most  different  mordants 
are  used  by  different  artists.  I  give  those 
employed  by  Mr.  Haden  : 


FOR   COPPER. 


Nitrous  acid,  33^ 
Water, 66% 


2. 


Hydrochloric  acid,  20 
Chlorate  of  potash,  3 
Water, 77 


FOR  ZINC. 


Nitric  acid, . .  25 
Water, 75 


Hydrochloric  acid,  lo 
Chlorate  of  potash,  2 
Water, 88 


The  chlorate  of  potash  is  first  dissolved  in  boil- 
ing water,  the  hydrochloric  acid  is  mixed  with  cold 
water,  and  then  the  two  are  mixed  together.  The 
above  are  slow  but  safe  mordants. 

Before  quitting  this  part  of  the  subject,  I 
may  mention  that  Mr.  Haden  has  been  the 


MR.  SEYMOUR  H ADEN'S  ETCHINGS. 


589 


first  to  practice  in  any  complete  way  the 
biting  of  an  etching  while  the  drawing  was 
going  on.  Some  of  his  plates  have  been 
drawn  in  the  bath  itself,  and  bitten  as  they 
were  drawn.  This  is  what  he  calls  the 
"  continuous  method."  It  is,  of  course,  a 
great  saving  of  time,  and  is  practically 
available  for  sketches;  but  it  hurries  the 
artist  unpleasantly  for  plates  of  importance, 
unless  he  does  them  part  by  part,  and  it  is 
not  pleasant,  when  working  in  the  house,  to 
have  acid  always  under  one's  nose.  In  the 
continuous  method,  the  dark  lines  have  to 
be  all  drawn  first,  and  the  pale  lines  reserved 
to  the  last,  which  is  a  cause  of  embarrass- 
ment. I  have  done  a  good  deal  of  work 
according  to  this  method,  and  fully  appre- 
ciate those  advantages  which  it  possesses, 
but,  for  the  reasons  just  given,  I  do  not 
consider  it  likely  to  come  into  general  use.* 
Mr.  Haden  owes  much  of  his  knowledge 
of  etching  to  his  long-established  habit  of 
having  a  printing-room.  An  etcher  can 
hardly  be  expected  to  print  whole  editions 
of  his  works,  but  he  ought  to  be  able  to 
take  his  own  trial  proofs,  which  will  teach 
him  more  than  anything  about  the  progress 
of  a  plate.  Mr.  Haden  has  been  for  many 
years  handsomely  equipped  as  a  printer, 
and  of  recent  years  magnificently.  Whilst 
on  this  subject,  I  may  tell  a  little  anecdote 
in  illustration  of  the  importance  of  a  press. 
Mr.  Samuel  Palmer  had  etched  a  beautiful 
plate,  which  had  been  a  good  deal  printed, 
but  nobody  ever  suspected  how  beautiful 
the  plate  really  was  until,  some  years  after, 
Mr.  Palmer  set  up  a  press,  and  his  son 
took  impressions  under  his  superintendence 
which  were  quite  incomparably  superior  to 
all  the  earlier  ones.  A  parallel  anecdote  is 
narrated  by  Mr.  Haden :  "  The  most  ex- 
quisite series  of  plates  which  Whistler  ever 
did — his  sixteen  Thames  subjects — were 
originally  printed  by  a  steel-plate  printer, 
and  so  badly,  that  the  owner  thought  the 
plates  were  worn  out,  and  sold  them  for  a 
small  sum  in  comparison  to  their  real  worth. 
The  purchaser  took  them  to  Goulding,  the 

*  My  positive  process  is  a  further  development 
of  the  continuous  method.  In  this  process,  the 
plate  is  first  thinly  coated  with  pure  silver,  and 
then  with  a  very  thin  covering  of  pure  white  wax. 
Being  placed  in  a  potash  bath  (No.  2,  copper,  in 
preceding  note),  it  is  then  etched  on  the  continuous 
principle.  The  lines  show  black  upon  white,  and. 
though  all  are  drawn  with  a  fine  point,  the  dark 
lines  enlarge  gradually  and  regularly  in  a  manner 
that  can  be  calculated  upon.  The  process  is  good 
for  clever  sketchers  in  the  open  air,  but  by  no  means 
to  be  recommended  for  tyros. 


best  printer  of  etchings  in  England,  and  it 
was  found  that  they  were  not  only  perfect,  but 
that  they  produced  impressions  which  had 
never  before  been  approached,  even  by 
Delatre."  Mr.  Haden  recommends  etchers 
to  print  their  works  themselves, — good  advice 
so  far  as  the  trial  proofs  are  concerned,  but 
an  etcher  might  prefer,  for  the  other  impres- 
sions, to  follow  Mr.  Haden's  own  practice, 
which  is  to  have  his  plates  printed  by  a 
good  workman  under  his  own  superintend- 
ence. 

Messrs.  J.  Hogarth  &  Sons,  of  Mount 
street,  Grosvenor  Square,  London,  published 
in  1877  a  list  of  Mr.  Haden's  etchings,  which 
was  nearly  complete  up  to  that  date.  It 
included  one  hundred  and  thirty-five 
works,  but  others  have  since  been  executed 
or  published.  Sir  William  Drake  has  just 
published  a  complete  catalogue,  which  men- 
tions about  one  hundred  and  eighty  works 
of  the  most  various  degrees  of  importance.* 

It  was  known  long  ago,  amongst  artists 
and  lovers  of  art  in  London,  that  an  eminent 
London  surgeon  had  been  pursuing  etching 
with  some  success,  but  the  subject  of  this 
notice  did  not  become  famous  as  an  etcher 
till  the  appearance  of  his  "  Etudes  k  1'Eau- 
forte,"  in  1865.  This  set,  published  in  a 
portfolio,  contained  twenty-five  etchings 
mounted  on  boards  and  six  of  minor  im- 
portance pasted  on  the  title-page,  and  the 
sheets  of  a  printed  introduction  by  Mr. 
Burty.  There  was  also  a  catalogue  of  fifty- 
four  subjects,  both  catalogue  and  introduc- 
tion being  in  the  French  language,  as  the 
intention  was  to  publish  the  work  in  Paris, 
because  it  was  supposed  that  the  English 
public  would  receive  a  set  of  etchings  with 
comparative  indifference.  The  result  proved 
that  the  progress  of  general  information 
about  the  fine  arts  in  Great  Britain  had 
prepared  a  sufficient  number  of  people  for 
the  appreciation  of  original  work  in  etching. 
Many  reviews  in  the  London  press,  and 
especially  an  article  in  "  The  Times,"  made 
people  flock  to  Mr.  Colnaghi's,  where  Mr. 
Haden's  works  were  exhibited,  so  that  he 
became,  in  the  course  of  a  few  weeks,  one 
of  the  most  famous  artists  in  town.  There 
has  never  been  a  previous  instance  of  an 
amateur  who  attained  such  a  position,  and 
what  is  still  more  remarkable  is  that,  during 
the  fifteen  years  which  have  elapsed  since 
then,  the  position  has  not  only  been  kept, 


*  A  Descriptive  Catalogue  of  the  Etched  Works 
of  Francis  Seymour  Haden,  by  Sir  William  Richard 
Drake,  F.  S.  A.  Large  8vo.  Macmillan.  1880. 


59° 


MR.  SEYMOUR   HADEN'S  ETCHINGS. 


but  strengthened,  notwithstanding  many 
attempts  at  rivalry  which  have  never  in  a 
single  instance  done  anything  to  displace 
the  etcher  of  "  Shere  Mill-pond." 

Of  the  "  Etudes  &  PEau-forte,"  two  hun- 
dred and  fifty  sets  were  announced  for  pub- 
lication, but  only  one  hundred  and  eighty 
were  printed,  because  some  of  the  more 
delicate  plates  began  to  show  signs  of  wear. 
The  edition  was  soon  exhausted,  and  a  good 
copy,  when  it  happens  to  fall  into  the  mar- 
ket, now  commands  at  least  double  its  pub- 
lished price.*  The  earliest  period  of  Mr. 
Haden's  work  was  not  represented  amongst 
the  "  Etudes."  He  began  to  etch  in  the  year 
1843,  producing  six  Italian  subjects  in  that 
and  the  following  year,  t  He  then  seems  to 
have  abandoned  etching  entirely  until  the 
year  1858,  though  he  drew  in  other  ways. 
That  year  was  productive,  as  we  find  its 
results  to  be  nineteen  plates.  There  is  noth- 
ing to  the  credit  of  1859,  but  the  following 
year  gives  ten  plates,  and  by  this  time  the 
artist's  skill  had  attained  its  full  develop- 
ment. Then  there  is  a  pause,  till  1863 
comes  with  eleven  plates.  The  next  year 
is  a  good  one,  giving  thirty-three  etchings, 
and  there  are  twenty-two  in  1865.  The 
following  year  is  a  blank,  but  the  art  was 
resumed  in  1867  with  two  plates,  and  fully 
resumed  in  1868  with  nineteen.  There  are 
three  plates  for  1870,  including  the  famous 
"  Breaking  up  of  the  Agamemnon"  three 
for  1873,  and  seven  for  1874,  including  the 
magnum  opus  after  Turner,  "Calais  Pier." 
Since  that  date  five  or  six  etchings  have  been 
executed  by  Mr.  Haden,  the  last  being  a 
view  of  Greenwich  with  which  he  intends 
to  close  his  career  as  an  etcher,  though 
without  abandoning  the  practice  of  the  fine 
arts,  amongst  which  he  has,  of  course 
(like  all  good  etchers),  other  means  of  ex- 
pression at  command. 

*  The  "  Etudes  a  1'Eau-forte  "  were  published  at 
a  loss  at  fifteen  guineas  a  copy  (of  which  only  twelve 
guineas  found  their  way  into  the  pockets  of  the 
artist),  while  every  copy  in  reality  cost  him  sixteen 
guineas.  Now,  when  a  copy  comes  to  auction  it 
brings  thirty  guineas,  and  when  broken  up  (as  it 
generally  is  by  the  dealers),  they  make  sixty  guineas 
by  it.  In  this  way  an  artistic  work  passes  at  once 
out  of  the  possession  of  the  artist  and  becomes  the 
property  of  the  trade,  and  this  is  the  reason  why  the 
trade  are  always  anxious  that  there  should  be  as  few 
impressions  taken  from  a  plate  as  possible. — ED. 
S.  M. 

t  The  titles  of  these  may  interest  some  readers. 
They  are  as  follows:  I.  "Tomb  of  Porsena." 
2.  "Castle  of  Ischia."  3.  "Gate  of  Belisarius." 
4.  "Houses  on  the  Tiber."  5.  "Pisa."  6.  "Villa 
of  Maecenas." 


The  "  Etudes  a  1'Eau-forte  "  were  a  selec- 
tion from  the  plates  executed  up  to  the  year 
1865.  They  were  very  various  in  subject 
and  in  treatment,  some  being  rapid  and 
slight  sketches,  whilst  others  were  much 
more  elaborately  finished,  but  they  had  one 
or  two  valuable  qualities  in  common.  They 
all,  without  exception,  possessed  a  remark- 
able freshness.  However  much  labor  may 
have  been  bestowed  upon  them,  there  was 
never,  in  any  instance,  the  slightest  appear- 
ance of  weariness,  and  so  the  spectator  in 
his  turn  was  refreshed  by  them  instead  of 
being  wearied.  Again,  they  had  been  done 
in  the  true  spirit  of  an  amateur,  which  is  the 
best  of  all  spirits  for  the  production  of  happy 
art;  I  mean  that  the  artist  had  worked  from 
a  pure  love  of  nature  and  art,  not  for  some 
outside  purpose,  such  as  the  acquisition  of 
fame  or  wealth.  In  an  excellent  essay  on 
"  Elementary  Principles  in  Art,"  Professor 
Seeley  has  shown,  conclusively,  as  it  seems  to 
me,  that  art  even  of  the  most  serious  kind  is 
a  play  of  the  faculties,  accompanied,  of 
course,  by  earnest  endeavor  to  play  well,  but 
still  the  presiding  spirit  of  art  is  not  labor 
but  delight.  Whatever  there  is  of  toil  and 
trouble  in  art  should  be  kept  as  much  as 
possible  out  of  sight,  and  conquered  in  pre- 
liminary and  preparatory  training.  We  do 
not  wish  to  see  the  poet  squeezing  his  brains 
for  similes  or  consulting  the  rhyming  diction- 
ary; we  like  to  believe  that  poetry  flows 
easily  from  the  lips  of  the  inspired  poet,  as  a 
form  of  speech  natural  to  him  though  so  supe- 
rior to  ours.  We  do  not  care  to  hear  the 
violinist  conquering  the  difficulties  of  his  in- 
strument, but  we  like  to  hear  him  play  as  if 
it  presented  no  difficulty  whatever.  So,  in 
the  graphic  arts,  we  are  not  perfectly  satisfied 
till  they  look  easy.  Mr.  Haden's  etchings 
had  the  merit  of  seeming  to  be  done  with- 
out an  effort,  and  they  were  really  done 
without  effort  in  this  sense,  at  least,  that  there 
was  no  strain,  though  the  etcher  always  did 
his  best,  even  when  apparently  most  care- 
less. He  understood,  too,  the  real  nature  of 
a  sketch,  which  did  not  prevent  him  from 
drawing  more  elaborately  when  he  had 
time,  and  felt  disposed  so  to  employ  it.  "  The 
Teivy  at  Cardigan  "  (D.  60)  was  a  rapid  mem- 
orandum of  a  sunset  on  a  broad  stream,  with 
houses  and  trees  on  the  opposite  bank,  the; 
whole  done  at  a  single  sitting,  whilst  the  im-j 
pression  was  quite  fresh,  and  scarcely  re- 
touched afterward,  except  by  two  or  three 
scratches  of  dry-point.  "Kilgaren  Castle"  (D. 
58)  was  another  sketch  of  the  same  class,  with 
a  simple  opposition  of  light  and  dark,  the 


MR,  SEYMOUR  HADEN'S  ETCHINGS. 


591 


castle  and  the  ground  on  which  it  stood  be- 
ing all  in  light,  and  the  wooded  foreground 
bank  in  shade.  There  is  not  two  hours' 
work  in  the  whole  plate,  though  it  quite  con- 
veys the  idea  of  a  castle's  grandeur,  both  of 
construction  and  situation.  "  The  House 
of  Benjamin  Davis  "  (D.  57),  "  Kenarth"  (D. 
55)  and  "  Newcastle  in  Emlyn  "  (D.  56)  are 
three  other  small  etchings  of  the  same  rapid 
character,  with  simple  and  exaggerated  op- 
positions of  light  and  dark,  and  point-sketch- 
ing too  hasty  to  be  accurate,  yet  always  in 
the  highest  degree  suggestive.*  "  Shere 
Mill-pond  "  (D.  35)  is  a  work  of  quite  differ- 
ent character,  much  larger  in  size,  the  copper 
measuring  thirteen  and  a  quarter  inches  by 
seven,  and  much  more  elaborately  finished. 
I  have  always  considered  that  this  and  the 
"Herdsman  "  of  Claude  ("  Le  Bouvier"  in  the 
French  catalogues)  were  the  two  most  perfect 
landscape  etchings  ever  executed.  Mr.  Haden 
chose  to  represent  the  pond  at  a  moment 
of  extreme  calm,  disturbed  only  in  the  right 
corner  by  the  motion  of  a  wild  duck  starting 
in  hasty  flight  from  the  rushes.  There  are  no 
clouds  in  the  sky,  which  is  left  blank  (white 
paper  often  plays  a  very  important  part  in 
fine  etchings),  and  there  is  nothing  in  the 
water  but  the  reflection  of  the  trees  and 
plants.  A  very  few  words  will  suffice  to  ex- 
plain the  whole  artistic  purpose  of  the  plate. 
Its  object  is  to  convey  the  idea  of  calm,  and 
to  present  a  contrast  between  very  massive, 
rich  trees  and  very  delicate  and  elegant 
Ones,  each  having  its  own  virtue  and  quality. 
There  is  also  a  contrast  between  bold,  strong 
work  in  the  nearer  rushes,  and  very  delicate 
work  in  the  details  of  the  opposite  shore. 
This  plate  has  been  copied  on  wood  for  a 
French  illustrated  newspaper  and  is  here 
represented  also,  but  from  the  nature  of  etch- 
ing its  qualities  cannot  be  really  represented 
in  block-printing  of  any  kind,  and  the  reader 
who  cares  about  the  subject  should  try  to  see 
the  original,  if  he  can.  Another  of  the  more 
highly  finished  plates  was  "  Lord  Harring- 
ton's House  from  Kensington  Gardens "  (D. 
12),  executed  in  an  effective  combination  of 
etching  and  dry-point  work,  and  worth  atten- 
tion as  a  fine  example  of  Mr.  Haden's  treat- 
ment of  trees.  He  always  pays  loving  atten- 
tion to  stems  and  branches,  especially  rugged 
ones,  of  which  he  gets  the  texture  admirably, 
and  he  is  a  master  of  foliage  in  the  mass,  but 
hardly  ever  troubles  himself  to  draw  indi- 

*  These  five  Welsh  plates  were  all  done  out-of- 
doors  in  one  day — xyth  August,  1864.  Drake  cata- 
logue. 


vidual  leaves,  even  when  they  would  be 
clearly  visible.  As  the  foliage  is  thin  in 
the  plate  under  consideration,  it  is  nearer  to 
leaf- drawing  than  is  generally  the  case  with 
Mr.  Haden's  work,  and  it  has  the  advantage 
of  letting  us  see  the  branches.  There  are 
some  vigorously  sketched  poplar-trunks  in 
the  foreground  of  the  plate  called  "  Ful- 
ham"  (D.  18),  but  they  are  printed  too 
black.  There  is  no  objection  to  the  most 
intense  blackness  of  line  in  etching  (when 
it  occurs  in  the  right  place),  but  a  per- 
fectly black  space  of  any  breadth  is  always 
heavy  and  objectionable.  The  houses  and 
tower  in  this  plate  are  beautifully  sketched, 
and  Mr.  Haden  lets  us  see  in  the  trees  to 
the  right,  and  in  the  bridge,  some  work  left 
intentionally  in  its  very  earliest  stage.  It 
is  not,  as  a  general  rule,  prudent  to  attempt 
much  finish,  or  any  complete  tonality  in 
etched  skies.  The  best  way  to  etch  a  sky, 
unless  the  artist  is  able  to  give  the  tone  as 
soundly  as  Samuel  Palmer  does,  is  to  sketch 
it  frankly  like  a  memorandum  with  the  point 
of  a  hard  pencil — a  method  of  treatment  of 
which  Mr.  Haden  has  given  an  admirable 
example  in  the  view  "  Out  of  Study  Window  " 
(D.  17).  Another  very  good  example  of  his 
treatment  of  skies,  this  time  with  fuller  tone,  is 
the  "  Sunset  on  the  Thames  "  (D.  83),  which  in 
its  own  way  can  hardly  be  surpassed.  It  is 
easy,  of  course,  to  imagine  clouds  with  more 
form  in  them,  but  it  is  always  rather  a  peril- 
ous experiment  to  draw  clouds  too  definitely, 
and  it  is  very  possible  that,  if  these  had  been 
more  carefully  defined,  we  should  have  lost 
the  flush  of  light  which  radiates  from  the 
setting  sun  to  the  upper  part  of  the  picture. 
This  word  picture  has  just  been  used  by  a 
happy  accident,  and  is  preserved  because 
the  etching  really  suggests  color  and  light, 
so  that  the  spectator's  imagination  easily 
turns  it  into  a  painting.  The  dry-point  called 
"  Sunset  in  Ireland"  ( D.  44),  or"  SunsetinTip- 
perary,"  is  rich  in  tone,  but  not  very  luminous, 
so  that  the  idea  of  sunset  does  not  occur  to 
us  before  we  read  the  title.  The  same  sub- 
ject was  afterward  etched  in  the  bath  (by 
the  continuous  process)  and  published  in  the 
"  Fine  Arts  Quarterly  Review,"  and  the  etch- 
ing was  more  luminous  than  the  dry-point. 
The  softness  of  dry-point  is  pleasing  to  many, 
but  the  intrinsic  superiority  of  etching  as  a 
kind  of  drawing  is  plainly  visible  after  any 
serious  comparison.  The  etcher  can  give 
rapidly  the  most  various  lines ;  the  worker  in 
dry-point  is  confined  either  to  straight  lines 
or  to  restrained  curves,  at  least  when  he 
works  with  facility,  though  drawing  appar- 


592 


MR.  SEYMOUR  HADEN'S  ETCHINGS. 


ently  free  may  be  done  in  dry-point,  with  an 
effort,  by  a  very  clever  man.  "  Mytton  Hall" 
(D.  13)  is  one  of  the  finest  of  Mr.  Haden's  dry- 
points  ;  the  entrance  to  the  house  is  shown 
at  the  end  of  a  very  deeply  shaded  avenue, 
with  two  large  stone  balls  on  the  ground 
near  the  spectator.  The  rich  soft  blacks 
attainable  in  this  kind  of  engraving  always 
win  the  admiration  of  critics  not  much  accus- 
tomed to  it,  but  the  real  merit  of  a  dry-point 
is  to  have  luminous  quality  in  its  darks — 
anybody  can  make  a  dark  smudge  with  the 
necessary  amount  of  labor.  On  this  ground, 
I  prefer  the  right  side  and  the  middle  of 
this  plate  to  the  left  side,  which  is  like  mid- 
night, though  there  is  sunshine  on  the  house- 
front.  A  similar  criticism  might  be  applied 
to  the  etching  of  "  Kidwelly  "  (D.  22),  in 
which  the  roofs  of  the  houses  are  unfortu- 
nately much  too  black  for  their  distance  and 
for  the  light  work  around  them,  so  that  they 
produce  the  effect  of  spots  or  patches. 

When  these  etchings  appeared,  in  1865,  Mr. 
Palgrave  considered  the  "  Egham  "  (D.  14) 
to  be  the  best  of  the  whole  collection.  It  is 
one  of  the  best,  but  I  do  not  quite  like  the 
license  by  which  the  trees  in  the  middle 
distance  (a  good  way  from  the  spectator) 
are  made  absolutely  black.  Of  course, 
this  was  not  done  from  ignorance, — Mr. 
Haden  knows  as  well  as  any  of  us  that  they 
could  not  be  so;  but  he  wanted  the  true 
opposition  between  the  trees  and  the  sky, 
and  sacrificed  everything  to  that.  The  dis- 
tance is  charmingly  drawn,  and  with  the  min- 
imum of  labor.  The  "  Egham  Lock  "  (D.  15) 
is  a  more  perfect  plate,  though  not  so  pretty 
and  pleasing,  nor  so  rich ;  it  has  throughout 
the  qualities  just  noticed  in  the  distance  of 
the  "  Egham."  A  very  beautiful  plate  in  a 
mixed  manner,  including  etching,  dry-point 
and  a  salissure  of  the  copper  in  imitation 
of  mezzotint,  is  "  Early  Morning  in  Rich- 
mond Park"(D.  21),  a  poetical  and  luminous 
piece  of  work  with  many  of  the  qualities  of  a 
good  charcoal  drawing.  After  this  success, 
it  is  rather  surprising  that  Mr.  Haden  did 
not  make  more  use  of  a  combination  which, 
in  his  hands,  whether  legitimate  or  not, 
promised  such  good  results.  In  the  plate 
the  artist  showed  us  some  of  those  noble 
trunks  of  trees  which  adorn  Richmond  Hill, 
lighted  by  the  early  sunshine,  with  a  sketch 
of  the  view  over  river  and  plain,  not  made 
out  topographically,  but  sufficiently  sug- 
gested. A  lark  just  visible  in  the  sky  illus- 
trates a  quotation  from  Shakspere  lightly 
scratched  in  dry-point  in  the  foreground, — 
"  The  lark  at  heaven's  gate  sings." 


This  hasty  account  of  the  "  Etudes  a  1'Eau- 
forte  "  does  them  insufficient  justice,  but  it  is 
scarcely  possible  to  go  much  further  into 
detail  without  wearying  the  general  reader 
who  can  take  little  interest  in  technical 
matters.  It  will  be  enough  to  say  that,  in 
the  way  of  free  etching  from  nature,  nothing 
so  good  as  these  plates  had  ever  appeared 
in  England,  and  to  find  their  equals  in  their 
own  kind  we  must  cross  over  to  Holland 
and  go  back  to  another  century.*  The  only 
English  landscape  etchers  who  stand  on  the 
same  level  of  absolute  rank  with  Mr.  Haden 
are  Turner  and  Samuel  Palmer,  but  their 
art  is  so  fundamentally  different  in  principle 
that  a  comparison  cannot  properly  be  made. 
Turner  never  executed  etchings  which  were 
intended  to  stand  by  themselves.  He  was 
a  very  powerful  workman  in  what  we  call 
the  organic  line,  but  he  did  not  combine 
much  shading  with  it,f  as  the  shading  in 
his  scheme  was  dependent  upon  mezzotint, 
which  was  allowed  for  from  the  beginning. 
In  Mr.  Haden's  work,  line  and  shade  are 
conceived  and  drawn  simultaneously  in  a 
complete  synthesis.  Again,  there  is  no 
evidence  that  Turner  ever  etched  from 
nature;  his  plates  are  studio  compositions, 
either  from  various  sketches  or,  in  many 
instances,  from  pure  invention.  Mr.  Haden 
has  always  preferred,  whenever  possible,  to 
etch  from  nature  directly  upon  the  copper, 
and  as  engravings  are  never  done  from 
nature,  this  practice  widely  differentiates  his 
etchings  from  all  engravers'  work  what- 
ever. When  we  come  to  Samuel  Palmer 
we  find  a  great  artist,  both  in  conception 
and  in  extraordinary  technical  skill,  but 
the  principles  of  his  work  are  deliberation 
and  elaboration,  whilst  its  qualities  are 
those  which  come  of  patient  and  profound 
thinking,  whereas  Mr.  Haden  has  made 
it  his  principal  business  to  seize  passing 
impressions  in  their  freshness.  Some  at- 
tempts have  been  made  in  recent  years 
to  elevate  John  Crome  to  the  rank  of  a  I 
master  etcher,  but  he  is  not  to  be  com- 
pared for  one  moment  with  Haden,  either  ] 
for  mental  or  technical  power.  Crome  was  ] 
a  niggler  with  the  needle,  with  the  ideas  < 


*  A  letter  is  extant  from  Meryon,  the  great  French 
etcher,  to  the  editor  of  the  "  Gazette  des  Beaux 
Arts,"  cautioning  him  against  being  taken  in  by 
these  plates,  which  he  declared  were  "  not  done  by 
Mr.  Seymour  Haden,  and  moreover  not  in  that 
century." — ED.  S.  M. 

t  There  is  a  little  shading  in  the  etchings  of 
Turner,  always  simply  and  deeply  bitten  to  sustain 
rather  dark  or  very  dark  parts. 


MR.  SEYMOUR  HA  DEN'S  ETCHINGS. 


593 


nd  execution  of.  an  amateur,*  Haden  is  a 
arge-minded  and  powerful  artist.  He  is  a  far 
>etter  etcher  than  Ruysdael  ever  was,  and  the 
nly  master  of  landscape  etching  with  whom 
e  can  be  fairly  and  profitably  compared  is 
is  illustrious  master,  Rembrandt,  who  taught 
im  nearly  half  of  what  he  knows,  whilst 
ature  taught. the  other  half.  Of  course, 

*  This  refers  exclusively  to  Crome's  etchings, 
hich  have  all  the  characteristics  of  amateur's 
ork,  and  not  to  his  pictures,  some  of  which  are 
ic. 

VOL.  XX.— 39. 


he  is  not  to  be  compared  with  Rembrandt  in 
range  and  extent  of  invention,  or  in  the 
delineation  of  humanity,  but  in  landscape 
the  comparison  is  fair  and  reasonable.  In 
this  department,  Mr.  Haden  has  had  the 
advantage  of  combining  Rembrandt's  teach- 
ing with  the  beneficial  influences  of  the 
modern  English  mind,  in  which  the  love 
of  landscape  is  more  connected  with  a 
poetic  feeling  for  beauty  than  it  ever  was 
in  Holland. 

After  the  publication  ofhis  "  Etudes  a  1'Eau- 


594 


MR.  SEYMOUR  If  A  DEN'S  ETCHINGS. 


forte,"  the  etcher  continued  at  intervals 
the  practice  of  his  art.  It  had  been  at  first 
a  relief  for  physical  and  mental  fatigue 
brought  on  by  overwork  in  the  medical  pro- 
fession, but  after  recovery  from  this  the  love 
of  the  art  remained,  and  production  could 
not  be  wholly  abandoned,  though  it  was 
suspended  at  times  for  considerable  inter- 
vals. Etchings  were  quietly  accumulating 
for  another  projected  portfolio,  but  after 


ing  luminary  as  typical  of  the  departing  glories  o: 
both,  and  I  will  try  to  do  this  yet  if,  when  you  hav 
taken  off  the  impressions  you  require,  you  will  le 
me  have  the  plate  back  again — reserving  the  secom 
state  for  the  new  book  which  I  hope  one  clay,  bu 
not  yet,  to  publish. 

"  Be  so  kind  as  to  let  me  know  whether  you  fee 
inclined  to  accept  a  crude  performance  of  this  son 
and,  if  so,  where  and  how  I  am  to  get  it  printed 
The  plate  is  sixteen  inches  long  by  seven  and  a  hal 
high,  and  the  object  itself  no  less  than  nine  inches 
If  it  is  too  big  and  gaunt  for  your  purpose,  tell  m 


OUT    OF    STUDY    WINDOW.       (1858.) 


some  time  this  idea  was  abandoned,  the 
artist  fearing  that  the  trade  would  break  up 
the  collection  and  sell  the  etchings  separately. 
The  history  of  Mr.  Haden's  next  publication, 
the  isolated  plate  of  the  Agamemnon  (D.  1 28), 
is  for  a  peculiar  reason  better  known  to  me 
than  to  most  people.  I  had  asked  Mr.  Haden, 
in  the  beginning  of  1870,  to  etch  a  plate  for 
an  art  magazine  edited  by  me  and  then  re- 
cently founded.  The  following  letter,  which 
I  am  permitted  to  print,  as  the  reader  will 
see  by  the  postscript,  explains  itself  and  is 
a  document  of  great  interest  in  the  history 
of  etching,  for  reasons  to  be  given  shortly : 

"  MY  DEAR  MR.  HAMERTON  :  Yesterday,  in  the 
belief  that  I  had  lost  the  power  of  working  on  cop- 
per in  (the  open  air,  and  with  a  load  on  my  con- 
science as  to  a  request  of  yours  that  I  would  furnish 
an  etching  for  the  '  Portfolio,'  I  went  out  and 
made,  or  rather  tried  to  make,  a  free-handed  draw- 
ing (on  the  plate  sous  entendu)  of  the  hull  of  the 
Agamemnon,  now  breaking  up  opposite  Deptford. 
That  drawing  I  take  the  liberty  to  offer  to  you. 
From  its  size  and  the  space  it  occupies  on  the  plate 
it  is  scarcely  capable  of  pictorial  treatment,  and  you 
are  to  be  good  enough  to  regard  it  as  a  conscientious 
effort  only  to  lay  down  on  copper,  without  mechani- 
cal aid,  the  lines,  curves  and  proportions  proper  to 
a  ship-of-the-line  of  the  old  class.  I  do  not  mind 
confessing  to  you  that,  simple  as  it  looks,  I  never 
undertook  a  more  perplexing  job.  I  had  thought 
of  making  the  sun  set  behind  the  old  hulk  and  the 
distant  cupolas  of  Greenwich,  and  of  using  the  sink- 


so,  please,  at  once,  as  I  will  try  in  that  case  to  fir 
ish  the  plate  whilst  the  ribs  of  the  old  warrior  hoi 
together. 

"  I  hope  you  are  well  and  that  your  labors  do  ne 
try  you.  For  me,  I  am  old,  blind  and  unhand) 
The  faculties  (/'.  e.,  the  mechanical  ones)  no  longe 
obey  the  will. 

"Yours, 

"  F.  SEYMOUR  HADEN. 

"P.  S.  —  As  I  read  this  letter  over  before  commii 
ting  it  to  the  post,  it  strikes  me  that  it  may  help  yo 
to  explain  to  your  readers  the  ghost  I  am  offerin 
you.  If  so,  print  it  with  the  etching  just  as  it  i: 

SLOANE  STREET,  July  3d." 

It  was  determined  not  to  print  the  etchin 
of  the  Agamemnon  in  the  "  Portfolio,"  wher 
it  could  not  have  appeared,  on  account  o 
its  length,  without  being  folded,  and  instea< 
of  it  we  published  a  small  plate  called  i: 
the  catalogue  "  Brig  at  Anchor,  Purfleet"  (E 


. 

This  decision  was  most  fortunate,  as  ; 

turned  out,  for  an  appearance  in  the  maga 
zine  would  have  entirely  taken  away  th 
freshness  from  the  plate  in  the  eyes  of  th 
public  and  of  collectors,  whereas  when  put 
lished  separately  at  Colnaghi's,  at  the  con 
siderable  price  of  five  guineas  a  copy,  : 
reached  an  extraordinary  sale,  which  ma 
be  accounted  for  in  various  ways.  First,  i 
was  an  excellent  etching,  which  counts  fc 
something,  but,  besides  this,  the  now  famou 


MR.  SEYMOUR  HAD  EN'S  ETCHINGS. 


595 


"  Etudes  a  1'Eau-forte  "  had  created  a  desire 
to  possess  some  specimen  of  Mr.  Haden's 
work,  and  the  price  (fifteen  guineas)  was 
so  high  and  the  copies  printed  (one  hun- 
dred and  eighty)  too  few  for  that  publication 
to  be  generally  accessible,  so  people  seized 
on  the  new  opportunity.  Besides  this,  pa- 
triotism had  something  to  do  with  it,  as  it 
had  with  the  fame  of  Turner's  analogous 
subject,  "  The  fighting  Temeraire  tugged 
to  her  last  berth,  to  be  broken  up."  What- 
ever may  be  the  reasons,  this  etching,  in 
its  pecuniary  return,  was  the  most  suc- 
cessful ever  published  in  the  world.  It 
brought  in  a  regular  income  of  more  than 


artist    in   this  instance  had  no  thought  of 
pecuniary  results.* 

There  is  an  interesting  melancholy  ex- 
pression at  the  end  of  Mr.  Haden's  letter 
— "  for  me,  I  am  old,  blind  and  unhandy  " ; 
but  this  is  not  to  be  taken  literally.  It 
means  simply  that  the  artist  was  no  longer 
disposed  for  minute  work,  and  was  passing  to 
a  broader  style  of  drawing,  which  he  has 
since  pursued  and  developed.  Again,  as  to 
the  plate  being  a  ghost,  this  has  reference 
only  to  the  very  first  state.  After  the 
addition  of  the  sky  and  some  other  work, 
the  etching  at  once  showed  the  inherent 
strength  of  its  nature,  and  revealed  itself  as 


A     BY-ROAD    IN    TIHPERARY.     (1860.) 


a  hundred  pounds  a  week  for  a  considerable 
time,  and,  even  after  that  slackened,  the  sale 
was  still  very  profitable.  As  I  happen  to  have 
calculated,  on  imperfect  information,  that 
the  "Agamemnon  "  paid  its  author  a  guinea 
a  minute  for  the  time  spent  upon  it,  I  may 
say  here  that  a  more  accurate  calculation, 
made  since  on  fuller  data  and  including 
subsequent  sales,  proves  the  etcher's  pay- 
ment to  have  been  three  guineas  a  minute 
for  the  time  spent  in  actual  work.  This 
does  not  affect  the  rank  of  the  performance 
|  as  a  work  of  art,  but  it  is  a  curiosity  of  art- 
story,  and  the  more  remarkable  that  the 


one  of  the  most  robust  things  ever  produced 
either  by  its  author  or  anybody  else.  The 
work  is  extremely  simple  in  style,  the  lines 

*  The  first  state  of  the  Agamemnmi  brought,  from 
first  to  last,  2500  guineas.  Money  could  not  falL 
into  better  hands.  As  Mr.  Haden  is  not  a  profes- 
sional artist,  the  profits  of  his  etchings  enable  him 
to  increase  his  charities,  and  especially  to  help  the 
Hospital  for  Incurables,  of  which  he  was  really  the 
founder.  He  has  also  made  etching  support  etch- 
ing by  devoting  the  sums  it  has  brought  him  to  the 
acquisition  of  his  magnificent  collection  of  etchings 
by  the  great  masters,  in  the  formation  of  which  he 
has  more  than  once  given  as  much  as  ^300  for  an 
impression  at  auction. 


596 


MR.  SEYMOUR  H ADEN'S  ETCHINGS. 


KILGAREN     CASTLE.       (1864.) 


being  kept  very  visible  and  well  open  and 
strongly  bitten,  without  any  attempt  at  com- 
pleteness of  tone,  though  effect  is  well  sug- 
gested. On  this  some  dry-point  work  was 
used  in  moderation.  It  is  seldom  really 
necessary  to  carry  etching  much  further,  if 
the  artist  has  the  intelligence  to  make  it 
suggestive  in  the  right  way.  The  disman- 
tled vessel  was  presented  to  the  spectator 
with  a  directness  which  was  most  impres- 
sive, occupying  as  much  of  the  drawing  as 
it  could  without  being  too  overwhelming, 


and  very  artfully  prevented  from  appearing 
too  monotonous  by  being  shown  beyond  a 
floating  crane,  which,  with  all  its  cordages, 
was  etched  with  remarkable  power.  A  dis- 
tant view  of  Greenwich  hospital  to  the  left 
recalled  the  old  age  of  sailors,  whilst  that 
of  ships  was  still  further  illustrated  by  the 
hull  of  the  Dreadnought  in  the  middle 
distance. 

The  strong  style  of  etching  adopted  for 
the  Agamemnon  was  carried  still  further  in 
the  same  direction  when  Mr.  Haden  success- 


FROM    THE     BRIDGE    AT    CARDIGAN          (1864.) 


MR.  SEYMOUR  H ADEN'S  ETCHINGS. 


597 


fully  attempted  to  translate  into  his  own  art 
an  important  picture  by  Turner,  the  well- 
known  "Calais  Pier  "in  the  National  Gallery. 
This  etching  measures  two  feet  nine  inches  by 
one  foot  eleven  inches,  and  in  its  earlier 
states  has  no  pretension  to  the  full  tone  of 
the  original  picture,  of  which  it  gives  the 
drawing  and  composition  powerfully,  with  a 
suggestion  of  the  chiaroscuro,  but  in  a  much 
lighter  key.  It  is  a  grand  etching,  but  as  it 
is  carried  out  entirely  on  the  principles  of 
interpretation,  and  exhibits  no  work  which 
can  be  called  imitative  either  of  painting  or 
of  nature,  it  generally  offends  those  who 
are  not  accustomed  to  interpretative  work. 
The  large  size  of  this  etching  and  its  high 


and  the  "Agamemnon"  would  sustain  mezzo- 
tinting well,  but  a  real  lover  of  etching  does 
not  feel  the  necessity  for  it,  as  his  imagina- 
tion easily  supplies  what  is  wanting  when 
the  suggestion  is  made  intelligently.  Sug- 
gestive etching,  when  of  the  right  kind,  is 
decidedly  of  a  higher  class  than  imitative 
etching,  cleverly  as  the  latter  is  often  done 
in  these  times.  Really  good  suggestive 
work,  not  carried  too  far,  is  a  noble  exer- 
cise of  the  mind,  both  in  the  artist  who 
brings  the  whole  force  of  his  mind  to  its 
execution,  and  in  the  student  or  critic  who 
uses  his  intelligence  to  understand  it.* 

Since  the  publication  of"  Calais  Pier,"  Mr. 
Haden  has  applied  the  same  style  of  execu- 


ERITH      MARSHES.       (1865.) 


price  (twenty-five  guineas)  have  also  been 
obstacles  to  its  popularity.  Even  the  depth 
of  the  biting  offends  some  people,  who  look 
at  it  too  near  and  do  not  bear  in  mind  that 
it  is  intended  for  its  own  distance.  I  re- 
member a  very  mistaken  criticism  on  it,  in 
which  the  writer  affirmed  that  it  had  been 
over-bitten,  and  that  to  conceal  this  defect 
it  had  been  printed  in  brown.  The  fact  is, 
that  the  sepia  printing  was  decided  upon 
from  the  beginning,  most  probably  in  defer- 
ence to  the  example  given  by  the  "  Liber 
Studiorum  "  of  Turner,  which  is  also  remark- 
able for  very  deep  bitings.  There  has  been 
some  intention  of  having  the  plate  mezzo- 
tinted, as  Turner's  were.  Both  this  plate 


tion  to  a  plate  called  "  Greenwich"  (D.  184), 
measuring  twenty  and  a  half  inches  by  thir- 
teen and  a  half.  In  this  etching  the  sun  is 
declining  very  nearly  in  the  same  place  as 
in  the  "  Agamemnon"  and  we  have  a  noble 
view  of  the  fronts  of  Greenwich  hospital 
catching  the  evening  light.  The  sky  is 
cloudy  and  vigorously  sketched,  the  water 
a  blank, — in  nature  probably  a  dull  gray, — 

*  Mr.  Haden  says  that  "  Calais  Pier  "  was  done 
as  an  interesting  study  and  in  homage  to  the  genius 
of  Turner,  of  which  it  was  a  sort  of  analysis.  It 
was  never  intended  as  a  copy.  One  hundred  im- 
pressions (of  which  ten  only  remain)  were  taken 
from  the  plate,  which  was  then  prepared  for  mezzo- 
tinting. A  press  had  to  be  built  to  print  ^it. 


MR.  SEYMOUR  HAD  EN'S  ETCHINGS. 


which  Mr.  Haden  has  not  attempted  to 
render  in  its  equivalent  of  tone.  Every- 
thing in  the  plate  is  treated  with  a  settled 
determination  not  to  go  beyond  a  certain 
well-understood  point  in  the  rendering  of 
light  and  shade,  which  is  indicated  but  not 
imitated.  This  restraint  may  be  disap- 
proved of  by  artists  accustomed  to  the  full 
tones  of  painting,  and  we  know  that  the 
regular  professional  etcher-engravers  now 
take  a  pride  in  getting  as  near  full  tone  as 
they  can,  whilst  there  are  critics  who  always 
look  for  it  and  blame  a  work  as  inferior 
when  they  do  not  find  it.  To  this  the  an- 
swer is  simple.  You  cannot  possibly  have 
the  peculiar  qualities  of  a  sketch-etching  in 
line  and  those  of  an  etching  in  tone  at  the 
same  time.  The  line-etching  is  the  more 
conventional  and  the  more  intellectual  and 
rapidly  expressive  ;  the  tone-etching  or  en- 
graving (when  the  tones  are  correct,  which 
they  very  seldom  are)  comes  nearer  to  the 
aspect  of  nature.  For  example,  take  the 
sky  and  water  in  this  "  Greenwich."  The 
sky  itself  is  left  blank,  by  which  the  tran- 
quillity of  the  natural  sky  is  conveyed  to  the 
spectator's  mind,  but  not  the  shade-value 
of  its  color.  The  clouds  are  boldly  outlined 
with  the  point,  and  there  is  a  rough  indica- 
tion of  shade  without  the  slightest  attempt 
to  hide  the  lines;  but  all  these  lines  would 
have  been  inadmissible  in  a  tone-sky,  and 
the  blank  water  would  have  required  a  week's 
work  in  delicate  shading — work  perfectly  un- 
necessary to  the  intellectual  result,  and  which 
would  have  completely  destroyed  the  effect  of 
the  performance  as  a  rapid  and  spontaneous 
expression.  There  is  no  objection  to  labor- 
ious tone-etching  when  it  is  good,  but  it  is  an- 
other thing — it  is  a  slow  expression  full  of 
technical  delays  and  elaboration,  whereas 
line-etching,  in  which  tone  is  suggested  but 
not  imitated,  is  a  direct  and  rapid  expression, 
suitable  for  working  from  nature.  I  ask 
pardon  for  insisting  so  much  upon  this  dis- 
tinction ;  I  do  so  because  it  ought  to  be 
generally  understood,  and  might  be  under- 
stood quite  easily  if  people  would  give  it  a 
little  serious  attention.  The  importance  of 
it  is  such  that,  when  critics  will  not  take  the 
trouble  to  master  it,  they  fall  of  necessity  into 
sins  against  justice,  which  are  as  deplorable 
as  they  are  easily  preventable.  For  example, 
I  remember  seeing  an  etcher  blamed  be- 
cause he  had  left  a  country  lane  white  in 
summer,  no  country  lanes  in  nature  being 
really  white,  except  under  snow.  The 
criticism  would  have  been  just  if  the  artist 
had  pretended  to  full  tone,  as  painters  gen- 


erally do,  but  he  had  been  working,  with 
perfect  judgment,  in  limited  tone,  which  the 
critic  was  too  ignorant  to  understand.  So 
with  Mr.  Haden's  ''Greenwich":  it  is  a 
work  in  line  with  restricted  tone,  suggestive 
of  more  than  it  expresses,  and  a  critic  who 
did  not  understand  this  would  be  sure  to 
write  about  it  unjustly.  It  is  a  noble  work 
in  its  own  order,  perfectly  suggestive  of 
light  and  space,  of  water  and  sky,  of  magnifi- 
cent buildings  and  stately  shipping.  It  is 
perfectly  harmonious  throughout,  being  the 
clear  statement  of  one  mental  impression, 
and  if  the  reader  cares  to  know  the  difference 
between  art  and  fact,  he  has  nothing  to  do 
but  to  compare  this  etching  with  a  photo- 
graph of  the  same  well-known  and  very 
accessible  locality. 

The  twelve  etchings  published  for  Mr. 
Haden,  by  Messrs.  J.  Hogarth  &  Sons,  in 
1878,  were  not  all  of  recent  production. 
"Mount's  Bay"  (D.  114),  the  "Three  Sis- 
ters "  (D.  116),"  Battersea  Bridge"  (D.  120) 
and  "Purfleet"  (D.  122)  were  etched  in 
1868.  "On  the  Test— Twilight"  (D.  19) 
was  done  ten  years  earlier.  The  plates  pro- 
duced after  the  beginning  of  1874  were 
"  The  Complete  Angler"  (D.  149),  '•'  Dusty 
Millers"  (D.  165),  "Windmill  Hill"  (D. 
146)  and  "  Grim  Spain  "  (D.  168).  Not- 
withstanding these  wide  differences  of  date, 
there  is  little  inequality  of  treatment  until  we 
come  to  "  The  Mill-wheel  "  (D.  136),  1874, 
and  "  Dusty  Millers,"  1877,  which  are  plainly 
in  the  later  and  broader  manner  that  began 
with  the  "  Agamemnon  "  and  culminated 
in  the  "  Greenwich." 

Of  the  plates  just  enumerated,  some  con- 
tain a  good  deal  more  than  others.  "The 
Complete  Angler  "  and  "  Dusty  Millers  "  are 
very  slight  sketches,  legible  by  a  practiced 
eye,  but  which  the  general  public  might  well 
be  excused  for  not  appreciating.  "  Mount's 
Bay  "  is  a  study  of  tumbling  sea  waves  with 
a  cloudy  sky,  and  St.  Michael's  Mount 
in  the  distance.  The  waves  are  well 
sketched,  but  the  clouds  are  hard  and  too 
much  shaded,  considering  the  crude  quality 
of  the  horizontal  shading.  The  sentiment 
of  this  plate  is  fine,  and  this  is  all  that  can  be 
fairly  said  in  its  favor.  "  Battersea,"  etched 
on  zinc,  is  fine  in  intention  but"  too  hasty  in 
execution,  more  particularly  in  the  sky,  where 
the  clouds  are  formless.  "Grim  Spain,  Bur- 
gos," makes  us  feel  the  grim  grandeur  of  the 
towers  on  the  city  walls  most  efficaciously. 
"A  Water  Meadow "  (D.  20)  is  a  lovely 
etching  of  a  meadow  partly  flooded  from  a 
sluice,  with  some  groups  of  trees  in  the  mid- 


MR.  SEYMOUR  HADEN'S  ETCHINGS. 


599 


die  distance,  exquisitely  drawn.  Another 
very  charming  plate  is  "The  Three  Sisters  " 
— three  old  trees  near  a  forest  glade,  on  slop- 
ing ground.  This  is  a  capital  specimen  of 
Mr.  Haden's  masterly  treatment  of  trunks. 
Here,  with  a  moderate  allowance  of  deeply 
bitten  lines,  he  gives  the  texture  of  the  bark, 
the  light  and  the  reflection  at  a  minimum 
cost  of  labor.  There  is  a  charming  variety 
of  lighter  tone  in  other  parts  of  the  plate. 
"  On  the  Test  "  is  a  rich  dry-point,  a  kind  of 
drawing  on  copper  done  entirely  without  cor- 
rosion by  acid,  in  which  the  bur  raised  by  the 
point  catches  the  printer's  ink  and  produces 
soft  darks  very  much  resembling  mezzotint.* 
It  is  very  good  for  the  soft  mystery  of  twi- 
light effects,  and  Mr.  Haden  is  one  of  the 
very  few  etchers  who  can  use  it.  Engrav- 
ers' dry-point,  as  used  with  great  skill  by 


ground  seem  too  big,  but  altogether  this  is  one 
of  the  liveliest  and  most  expressive  plates  in 
the  collection. 

The  general  impression  left  by  a  careful 
examination  of  Mr.  Haden's  works  is  that  he 
is  really  a  good  and  even  a  great  etcher, 
worthy  on  some  points  to  be  compared  with 
the  very  greatest.  Without  pushing  eulogy 
too  far,  it  is  evident,  I  think,  that  Mr.  Haden 
is  the  most  accomplished  and  most  powerful 
landscape  and  marine  etcher  of  modern  times 
amongst  original  artists.  It  is  of  no  use  to 
compare  him  with  etchers  from  pictures,  who 
are  engravers  in  another  form.  His  pur- 
poses are  as  distinct  from  theirs  as  oratory 
from  parliamentary  reporting.  It  is  their 
business  to  make  themselves  masters  of  set 
methods  of  interpretation ;  it  has  been  Mr. 
Haden's  purpose  and  pleasure  to  convey  to 


BREAKING    UP    OF    THE     AGAMEMNON.        (1870.) 


Waltner,  is  quite  a  different  thing,  the  bur 
being  removed.  If  the  bur  were  taken  off 
such  a  plate  as  "  On  the  Test,"  all  the  tone 
would  be  gone  in  an  instant.  The  sketch  on 
zinc,  "  The  Mill-wheel,"  is  good  and  fine  in 
method  for  a  rapid  sketch,  but  the  subject  is 
rather  unfortunately  chosen  because  the  view 
is  entirely  blocked  up  by  an  uninteresting 
house.  Another  etching  on  zinc,  "  Pur- 
fleet,"  is  admirable  for  the  lively  confusion 
of  boats  on  the  water,  all  of  them  capitally 
sketched,  with  a  true  understanding  of  a 
boat's  nature.  The  two  figures  in  the  fore- 

*  Dry-point  and  mezzotint  are  really  just  the  same 
thing,  the  only  difference  being  that  in  dry-point  the 
bur  is  raised  in  lines,  whilst  in  mezzotint  it  is  raised 
with  sharp  points  in  small  dots;  but  the  tone  of  both 
is  got  by  bur,  whilst  there  is  no  bur  at  all  on  a  pure 
etching. 


others  by  means  of  etching  the  sensations 
he  receives  from  nature,  with  as  small  a  loss 
of  freshness  as  possible.  The  public  can 
hardly  know  how  very  rare  such  a  talent  as 
that  of  Mr.  Haden's  is  in  the  world  and 
how  very  common,  in  comparison,  are  the 
abilities  required  to  make  a  respectable 
etcher  from  pictures.  The  one  talent  is  as 
rare  as  that  of  the  poet,  the  other  as  com- 
mon as  that  of  a  respectable  translator.  It 
is  for  this  reason  that  the  position  occupied 
by  Mr.  Haden  in  the  world  of  art  is  superior 
to  that  of  the  very  cleverest  etcher-engravers, 
though  his  work  may  often  appear  rude  and 
defective  in  comparison  with  their  skilled 
and  careful  handicraft.  It  may  seem  won- 
derful that  an  amateur  should  have  attained 
to  such  a  position  that  his  works  should  be 
treasured  in  the  most  exclusive  collections, 


6oo 


MR.  SEYMOUR  HADEN' S  ETCHINGS. 


./      4  ja^  .<&>.••.>  V» 


SAWLEY    ABBEY.       (1873.) 


and  admired  by  the  most  fastidious  artists 
and  critics,  but  i(  the  reader  could  only 
know  as  I  do  how  miserably  low  the  level 
of  amateur  performance  in  etching  generally 
is,  the  wonder  would  seem  to  him  far 
greater.  It  can  be  explained,  however,  in 
two  ways.  Mr.  Haden  was  born  with  a 
strong  artistic  gift,  which  is  quite  distinct 
from  the  mere  love  of  nature, — the  gift,  I 
mean,  of  a  masterful  power  and  disposition, 
which  impels  an  artist  to  deal  with  natural 
material  in  his  own  fashion.  Besides  this,  Mr. 
Haden  has  constantly  surrounded  himself 
with  the  best  works  of  the  great  masters, 
especially  Rembrandt,  whom  he  knows  so 
well  that,  on  any  given  occasion,  he  can 
almost  divine  the  treatment  Rembrandt 
would  have  adopted.  It  is  something  to 
have  the  spirit  of  such  a  master  always  by 


your  side  to  give  you  a  kindly  hint;  but 
although  Rembrandt  is  always  in  Mr.  Ha 
den's  mind  to  be  referred  to,  the  Englisl 
master  works  in  his  own  way.  It  is  thi 
mixture  of  originality  and  tradition  in  hi 
style  which  makes  his  work  attractive  t< 
the  intelligent.  That  work  is  often  willfu 
and  apparently  careless,  full  of  those  de 
viations  from  absolute  truth  which  aboum 
in  all  masterful  drawing,  and  it  is  opei 
enough  to  the  attacks  of  criticism,  whicl 
the  artist  treats  with  a  wise  indifference 
Whatever  may  be  its  defects  it  has  grea 
and  rare  virtues — vitality,  intelligence 
freshness,  not  merely  knowledge,  but  als< 
the  free  play  of  the  human  faculties  ii 
the  enjoyment  of  knowledge,  and  ii 
the  communication  of  that  enjoyment  t< 
others. 


[We  are  indebted  to  Mr.  Samuel  P.  Avery  for  kind  assistance  in  the  illustration  of  this  article  and  fo 
his  courtesy  in  loaning  us  proofs  of  the  etchings,  here  reproduced.] 


CURIOSITIES   OF  ADVERTISING. 


60 1 


AT  NIGHT. 

THE  skies  are  dark,  and  dark  the  bay  below, 
Save  where  the  midnight  city's  pallid  glow 
Lies  like  a  lily  white 
On  the  black  pool  of  night. 

O  rushing  steamer,  hurry  on  thy  way 
Across  the  swirling  Kills  and  gusty  bay, 
To  where  the  eddying  tide 
Strikes  hard  the  city's  side ! 

For  there,  between  the  river  and  the  sea, 
Beneath  that  glow — the  lily's  heart  to  me — 
A  sleeping  mother  mild 
And  by  her  breast  a  child. 


CURIOSITIES   OF   ADVERTISING. 

HE  world  was  not  very  old  in  civilization 
when  it  began  to  advertise.  Disinterred 
Pompeii  reveals  among  its  ashes  many  ap- 
peals of  its  tradesmen  and  public  enter- 
tainers for  patronage.  The  populace  was 
reminded  of  the  location  and  existence  of 
the  school  by  the  sign  of  a  boy  enduring  a 
penitential  thrashing ;  of  the  dairy  by  the  sign 
of  a  goat  and  of  the  baker  by  the  sign  of  a 
mill-stone  or  a  sheaf  of  wheat.  The  sym- 
bols were  made  of  stone  or  terra-cotta 
relievo,  set  in  pilasters  at  the  sides  of  the 
buildings,  and  more  explicit  announcements 
were  made  in  tablets  affixed  to  pillars.  In 
Rome,  the  physician  proclaimed  himself  by 
putting  a  cupping-glass  outside  his  door; 
the  poulterer  by  a  coop  of  fowls ;  the  sur- 
veyor by  a  measure;  the  perfumer  by  the 
representation  of  four  men  carrying  vases 
A  filled  with  his  exquisite  distillations,  and  the 
«  tavern-keeper  by  a  bush,  which,  from  its 
omission  by  certain  conservative  and,  no 
doubt,  self-sufficient  vintners,  gave  existence 
to  the  proverb  flatteringly  cherished  among 
themselves — "  Good  wine  needs  no  bush." 
But  commerce  leads  to  competition  and 
competition  to  pressure,  and  whether  the  wine 
is  as  pure  as  April  snow  on  the  top  of  the  Mat- 
terhorn  or  as  vile  as  the  ordinaire  served  at 
some  dinners  we  have  experimented  with,  it 
must  be  "  bushed  "  nowadays,  or,  except  by 
some  old  and  steady  (or  unsteady)  topers,  it 


6O2 


CURIOSITIES   OF  ADVERTISING. 


will  never  be  found  out.  If  man  universally 
could  make  a  point  of  ascertaining  precisely 
what  he  wants,  and  having  done  that  have 
the  leisure  to  devote  himself  to  a  search  for 
the  most  appropriate  place  in  which  to 
obtain  it,  the  "bush"  would  be  unnecessary. 
But  the  world  is  either  too  preoccupied  or 
too  lazy  to  find  out  many  of  its  own  wants, 
and  the  advertisement  is  a  perpetual  re- 
minder, insistent  and  omnipresent,  and 


as  ivory,  fastening  them  and  sweetening  the 
breath,"  may  be  obtained  at  the  Holy 
Lamb,  East  End  of  St.  Paul's  Church-yard  ; 
that  "the  barber  and  perry wigge-maker, 
over  against  the  Grayhound  Tavern,  gives 
notice  that  any  one  having  long  flaxen  hayre 
to  sell  may  repayr  to  him  and  shall  have  ten 
shillings  the  ounce  ";  that  at  the  Miter  is  to 
be  seen  "a  rare  collection  of  curiosityes,  much 
resorted  to  and  admired  by  persons  of  great 


A    BAKERY    IN     ANCIENT    POMPEII. 


indispensable  under  modern  conditions. 
When  newspapers  were  invented — between 
the  middle  and  end  of  the  seventeenth  cen- 
tury— the  notices  and  puffs  of  tradesmen 
and  others  found  them  a  more  convenient 
vehicle  than  had  hitherto  been  known,  and 
the  merits  of  advertising  were  appreciated 
as  they  had  not  been  before.  The  an- 
nouncements were  brief  and  simple.  •  We 
read  that  "  the  excellent  China  drink  called 
by  the  Chineans  Tcha,  by  other  nations 
Tay  alias  Tee,  is  sold  at  the  Sultan's  Head 
Cophee  House" ;  that  at "  the  Queen's  Head 
Alley,  in  a  Frenchman's  house,  is  an  excel- 
lent West  India  drink,  called  chocolate"; 
that  "  Mr.  Theophilus  Buckworth  doth  at 
his  house,  on  Mile-End  Green,  make  and 
expose  to  sale,  for  the  public  good,  those  so 
famous  lozenges  or  pectorals  " ;  that  "  most 
excellent  and  approved  dentifrices  to  scour 
and  cleanse  the  teeth,  making  them  as  white 


learning  and  quality " ;  and  that  "  small 
bagges  to  hang  about  children's  necks,  which 
are  excellent  both  for  the  prevention  and 
cure  of  rickets,  are  prepared  by  Mr.  Edmund 
Buckworth." 

The  quack,  the  showman  and  the  publi- 
can are  here  with  lineaments  that  are  little 
different  from  those  we  are  familiar  with  in  our 
own  day.  But  out  of  these  five  and  ten  line 
paragraphs  have  grown  this  modern  wonder 
that  we  spread  out  before  us  with  breakfast 
— the  newspaper  of  twenty  pages — twelve 
of  them  filled  with  advertisements  that  are 
so  various  in  motive  and  object  and  so  com- 
prehensive of  all  current  affairs,  that  we 
question  if  they  are  not  the  most  inviting  as 
they  are  the  preponderating  part  of  the  con- 
tents ;  for  while  the  news  may  be  unauthentic 
and  the  comments  biased,  the  advertisements 
are  ex  parte  and  obviously  give  us  only  the 
advertiser's  views,  without  the  pretense  of 


CURIOSITIES   OF  ADVERTISING. 


603 


AN    ANCIENT    PERFUMER  S     ADVERTISEMENT — ROME. 


admitting  an  opponent's  light  upon  the  sub- 
ject. Here,  indeed,  is  "  Vanity  Fair  "  revealed 
to  us  at  a  glance  through  the  compactly  set 
columns — "bullies  pushing  about;  bucks 
ogling  the  women;  knaves  picking  pockets: 
policemen  on  the  look-out;  quacks  bawling 
in  front  of  their  booths  and  yokels  look- 
ing up  at  the  tinseled  dancers  and  poor  old 
rouged  tumblers,  while  the  light-fingered 
folks  are  operating  on  their  pockets  behind." 
Here  we  can  see  the  traffic  of  the  world,  the 


condition   of  trade,  the    fashions    and  the 
manners  of  the  hour. 

To  those  who  read  between  the  lines  there 
are  humor,  mystery  and  many  salient  ele- 
ments of  character  beyond  the  epitome  of 
the  times ;  the  commercial  activity  or  quiet 
is  infallibly  reflected,  and  we,  at  least,  find 
no  end  of  entertainment  in  these  columns, 
which  often  contain  much  more  than  com- 
monplace announcements  of  things  for  sale 
and  services  to  be  disposed  of.  A  grocer, 


A    MODERN     PERFUMER  S    ADVERTISEMENT — NEW    YORK. 


604 


CURIOSITIES   OF  ADVERTISING. 


MANY    ADS    OF    MANY     KINDS. 


with  a  vocabulary  that 
would  do  credit  to  a 
penny-a-liner,  adver- 
tises, not  tea  and 
coffee,  but  "  the  pecul- 
iar delicacies  of  the 
far-off  Ind,  and  the  finely  flavored  and 
humanizing  leaf  of  the  still  farther-off  Cathay ; 
the  more  exciting  though  not  less  delicious 
berry  of  Brazil,  and  the  spices,  sugars  and 
luscious  fruits  of  the  Antilles;  the  sugar, 
condiments  and  blood-enriching 
wines  of  the  Mediterranean,  and  the 
salt-cured  and  brain-renewing  fish  of 
our  own  waters." 

A  young  lady  "  who  has  received 
a  good  education,  can  read  and 
write,  and  is  versed  in  geography, 
history,  music,  dancing  and  ele- 
mentary mathematics,  wishes  a  sit- 
uation in  a  respectable  family  as 
washer  and  ironer."  A  converted 
burglar  is  announced  to  preach  at  a 
certain  hall,  where  he  will  "break 
the  doors  of  hell  with  a  gospel 
jimmy."  A  large  number  of  "  oil 
paintings  by  the  ancient  masters  of 
the  day  "  are  offered  for  sale,  and 
"  Reformation  "  wants  a  pew  in  "  a 
Protestant  Episcopal  Church,  where 
the  services  are  the  same  as  they 
have  been  for  three  hundred  years 
— no  candles,  no  choral  services, 
no  incense,  no  gaudy  robes  or  other 
mummery  or  nonsense." 

Too  often  truth  is  sacrificed  to 
personal  interest  in  advertisements, 
but  here  are  two  instances  of  extraor- 
dinary disinterestedness.  A  large 
quantity  of  whisky  is  offered,  "  not 
particularly  good,  but  as  good  as 
most  of  the  whisky  sold  in  this 
neighborhood,"  and  a  country-seat, 
in  a  village  where  fever  and  ague 
prevails,  is  thus  described  by  its  ten- 


ant :  "  I  hereby  offer  for  sale  my  country 
residence,  at  West  Morrisania,  near  Melrose 
station,  where  I  have  lived  for  the  past  three 
years,  and  where  I  could  not  live  much 
longer.  I  have  always  heard  that  people 
looking  for  places  to  purchase  could  nevei 
find  one  where  they  had  chills  and  fever — 
they  always  had  it  about  a  mile,  a  mile  and 
a  half  or  two  miles  off,  but  never  right  there 
at  the  place  for  sale.  Now  I  offer  for  sale, 
as  a  curiosity,  something  rare — the  precise 


THE    TWO    DROMIOS. 


CURIOSITIES   OF  ADVERTISING. 


605 


LHST  NIGHTS!  LHST  MATWEtS! 


A    PANTOMIMIC    ADVERTISEMENT. 


and  exact  spot  where  fever  and  ague  is.  I 
will  warrant  it  to  be  there.  Three  of  my 
children  have  it ;  my  groom  has  sure  pre- 
monitory symptoms  of  it,  and  I  have  it  my- 
self. The  place,  in  fact,  is  beautiful,  and 
beside  fever  and  ague  has  all  that  befits  an 
American  gentleman's  country  residence. 
I  bought  it  to  please  my  wife,  and  I  leave 
it  to  please  the  whole  family." 

In  another  column,  a  farmer  warns  the 
public  against  harboring  his  wife,  who  has 
left  him  at  the  beginning  of  summer's  work, 
though  he  has  had  the  expense  of  "  winter- 
ing her,"  and  a  laundress  is  wanted  who 
will  be  willing  to  "  take  her  pay  in  lessons 
on  the  guitar,  and  board  on  washing  days." 

The  facetiae  is  but  incidental,  however, 
and  the  predominant  effect  is  that  of  the 
extraordinary  variety  of  interests  put  in 
juxtaposition,  and  the  freedom  with  which 
space  is  used.  In  the  afternoon  and  evening 
long  strings  of  people  may  be  seen  in  the 
main  office  of  the  paper,  patiently  waiting 
to  deliver  their  advertisements — people  of 
the  most  diverse  aspect,  purpose  and  con- 
dition: the  threadbare  clerk  out  of  a  position; 
the  amply  proportioned  cook,  conspicuous 
and  unmistakable  Anonyma  in  illy-earned 
gorgeur;  the  small  tradesman  and  conse- 
quential advertising  agents.  At  the  branch 
offices  about  town  the  crowd  is  also  great  on 
some  nights,  and,  as  the  advertisements  are 
delivered,  they  are  telegraphed  by  private 
wires  to  the  main  office.  Thousands  of 
dollars  are  paid  for  the  announcements  of 
one  issue — millions  of  dollars  in  a  year,  and 


of  twenty   pages   three-fifths  are   filled  by 
advertisements. 

Let  us  glance  at  those  perambulatory 
advertisements  which  are  set  in  motion 
through  the  busy  arteries  of  a  city,  following 
the  movements  of  the  crowds,  and  pertina- 


THE     SHIRT     MAN. 


6o6 


CURIOSITIES   OF  ADVERTISING. 


crously  thrusting 
themselves  into 
positions  where 
they  must  be 
observed.  The 
strong  element  of 
human  interest 


THE    ROCKS    BELOW. 


which  the  peripa- 
tetic "sandwich 
man "  excites  is 
often  supplemented 
by  the  grotesqueness 
of  his  apparel.  Car- 
ing little  for  what  his 
announcement  is, 
there  is  a  disposition  on  the  part  of  most 
pedestrians  to  look  into  the  face  of  the  un- 
fortunate, who,  with  all  his  emotion  and 
immortality,  is  reduced  to  the  level  of  a  bill- 
board, and  from  the  face,  which  often  enough 
is  sad  and  worn,  the  glance  is  continued 
to  the  big  lettering  which  emphasizes  the 
fame  of  Brown's  shirts  or  Kydd's  indestruct- 
ible pen-wipers.  The  sandwich  man,  so  far 
from  being  a  purveyor  of  any  kind,  as  the 
reader  unlearned  in  city  slang  might  suppose, 
is  a  bill-board,  or,  more  properly  speaking, 
two  bill-boards,  between  which  he  is  braced 
and  set  adrift  in  the  crowded  streets  early 


interest  him  in  the  stream  of  traffic — motives 
to   fathom   and   passions  to   read ;  but  he 
bears  himself  with  an  air  of  preoccupation, 
and,  being  himself  a  cynosure,  pays  no  atten- 
tion to  the  other  sights  that  surround  him. 
Up  and  down  the  street,  puffing  at  a  phe- 
nomenal pipe  which,  apparently  without  re- 
filling, emits  smoke  in  all  sorts  of  positions, 
and  which  neither  wind  nor  rain  puts  out, 
solitary  and  uncommunicative,  he  marches 
hither  and  thither;  and  no  wonder  that 
his  countenance  sours,  that  the  purposes 
of  existence  seem  frustrated,  when  his  eye 
falls  upon  any  vacant  wall  covered  with 
posters,    and   he   is   forced    to   exclaim : 
"  That  wall  is  as  much  as  I  am,  and  that 
automatic  bear,  in  the  toy-shop  window, 
is  a  more  versatile  creation  than  me  !  " 

The  world  knows  little  of  the  wounds  it 
inflicts  on  the  peripatetic  sandwich  man; 
and  he  conceals  his  embitterment  under  a 
placid  condition  of  mental  reservation,  un- 
rippled  by  the  faintest  indication  of  any  dis- 
turbance. He  is  silent  and  cogitative,  like 
a  philosopher.  Nothing  is  left  to  his  discre- 
tion. Pinned  to  his  back  or  heart  is  a  small 
open  case  containing  his  employer's  cards, 
with  a  request  to  "  take  one  "  painted  across 
it ;  even  the  courtesy  of  offering  the  passing 
crowd  a  circular  is  not  left  to  him,  and  the  one 
thing  required  of  him  is  constant  motion. 

A  shrewd  manager,  at  whose  theater 
D'Ennery's  capital  drama  was  being  acted, 
took  advantage  of  the  habitual  and  charac- 


— 
STEWED 
TERRAPIN 

&*-*•*••  I 


OPENING    OF    THE    TROUT    SEASON. 


in  the  morning,  to  confront  the  public  with 
his  employer's  advertisement  until  dusk 
brings  him  a  welcome  relief.  His  pace  is 
not  hurried,  but  his  motion  is  constant.  If 
he  were  an  observer,  he  might  find  much  to 


teristic  gloom  of  the  sandwich  man  to  ad- 
vertise his  attraction.  He  selected  two  of 
the  saddest  he  could  find,  and  set  them 
adrift  in  the  bleak  November  weather,  bear- 
ing between  them  the  name  of  the  play,  the 


CURIOSITIES   OF  ADVERTISING. 


607 


THE    CHIROPODIST. 


"  Two  Orphans."  The  two  orphans  were 
met  in  the  street  when  the  rain  was  soaking 
them,  and  when  the  sleet  was  falling  chill 
against  the  panes.  Smileless,  voiceless  and 
bedragged,  those  men  embodied  in  uncon- 
scious burlesque 
the  bereavement 
of  the  parentless ; 
and  as  Brown, 
Jones  or  Robin- 
son saw  them 
trudging  along  in 
the  twilight,  as  he 
went  home  from 
business  to  din- 
ner, he  naturally 
mentioned  so 
good  an  adver- 
tisement to  his 
wife,  and  that 
lady,  being  re- 
minded of  the 
piece,  of  course 
insisted  upon  his 
taking  her  to  see  it.  The  very  woe  of  the 
sandwich  men  thus  became  a  medium  of 
the  astute  manager's  success,  and 
while  they  braved  the  wintry  weather 
for  an  incredible  pittance,  he  sat  in 
the  box-office  contentedly  smoking  a 
"  big  cigar." 

The  sandwich  man  of  London  is 
the  object  of  an  amusing  sketch  in 
"  Punch."  He  is  boarded  between 
an  advertisement  of  Mr.  Toole,  the 
comedian,  in  the  farce  of  "  Id  on 
Parle  franfaise."  "  Ha!  Un  inter- 
prete  ambulant.  Quelle  bonne  idee ! " 
exclaims  a  stranger  from  Paris  who 
meets  him  in  the  street,  and  who 
wishes  to  know  the  way  to  the  South 
Kensington  Museum,  "  Pardon, 
Monsieur  Tole,"  this  gentleman  says, 
"  mais  par  ou  faut-il  prendre,  s'il  vous 
plait,  pour  arriver  au  Musee  de  Soutte 
Quinzingqueton  ?  " 

But,  after  all,  extravagantly  lugu- 
brious  as  he  is — sometimes  carrying 
a  scarlet  umbrella,  with  great  white 
letters  and  stars  upon  it,  that  invites 
custom  to  a  certain  manufacturer 
when  the  country  is  suffering  from  a 
drouth ;  sometimes  exhibiting  two 
immaculate  shirt  bosoms,  framed  and 
glazed,  counterparts  of  which  may  be 
purchased  at  the  small  price  of  a 
dollar,  though  no  shirt  at  all  is  visible 
upon  him,  and  sometimes  bearing 
above  the  double  sign-boards,  or 


"sandwiches,"  which  conceal  his  body,  a  third 
advertisement  imposed  upon  a  heavy  pole — 
after  all,  his  melancholy  goes  too  far  in  some 
instances  for  any  mirth.  No  one  who  saw 
a  lofty  and  handsome  old  man,  straight,  ex- 
cept in  the  shoulders,  with  a  large-featured, 
candid  face  and  white  hair,  patrolling  Nas- 
sau street  last  Christmas  Eve,  with  a  ban- 
ner advertising  some  sort  of  stuff,  could 
have  smiled  at  him.  This  ignoble  and 
wearisome  business,  with  its  few  cents  a  day, 
had  spared  him  from  starvation  when  that 
gaunt  wolf  was  staring  him  in  the  face,  and 
one  need  not  have  been  very  penetrative  to 
see  the  humiliation  and  despair  that  lay 
beneath  his  faded  overcoat.  At  the  same  sea- 
son there  was  another  old  man,  with  a  for- 
eign, aquiline  face  like  that  of  Meissonier's 
organ-grinder,  who  marched  to  and  fro  on 
Broadway  with  an  announcement  of  a  cheap 
edition  of  the  "  Turkish  March  ";  and  though 
there  was  something  nearly  laughable  in  the 
incongruity  between  his  own  abject  appear- 
ance and  the  lively,  martial  tune  that  he  pro- 
claimed, his  misery  turned  the  laugh  into 
more  decent  pity. 


A  CONFERENCE. 


6o8 


CURIOSITIES   OF  ADVERTISING. 


As  a  sub- 
stitute for 
the  "  ani- 
mated sandwich,"  the  tradesmen  occasion- 
ally employ  men  and  boys  whom  they 
bedeck  in  fantastic  costumes  and  place  in 
the  streets  to  distribute  circulars.  But,  in 
the  opinion  of  experts,  the  hand-bill  as  a 
means  of  advertising  is  worth  little,  and  who- 
ever has  seen  how  it  is  treated  by  the  unwill- 
ing persons  upon  whom  it  is  thrust  must  also 
conclude  that  its  value  is,  at  least,  obsolete. 
The  most  valuable  advertisement  is  that 
which  creates  a  permanent  impression  by  the 
pertinence,  wit  and  freshness  of  the  device. 
Devices  of  this  sort  are  not  often  seen,  but 
a  clever  one  was  set  in  motion  some  months 
ago  by  the  manufacturer  of  a  certain  soap, 
and  the  writer's  experience  of  it  was  probably 
identical  with  that  of  thousands  of  others  who 
happened  to  be  in  Broadway. 

There  came  down  the  street,  with  long 
strides  and  an  air  of  ineffable  superiority,  a 
handsome  young  negro,  full  six  feet  high, 
with  broad  shoulders,  and  an  assiduously 
cultivated  moustache.  A  new  yachting  suit 
of  blue  flannel  fitted  him  like  a  glove  ;  his 
boots  were  polished  to  a  degree  of  luster 
unattainable  by  ordinary  methods;  a  dainty 
cane  swung  between  his  fingers,  and  a  Derby 
hat  of  the  latest  fashion  was  set  on  his  head, 
with  a  fastish  inclination  over  the  right  eye. 
The  whole  effect  was,  in  the  vernacular  of 


the  hatter,  extremely  "  nobby."  In  the 
rest  of  the  dress  there  was  nothing  extrava- 
gant except  neatness,  but  the  collar,  of  a 
standing  pattern  known  as  the  "  clipper," 
was  tremendous ;  the  collar  made  us  all 
smile,  though  it  was  not  at  all  so  ostensible 
as  the  articles  worn  in  negro-minstrel  enter- 
tainments. The  good  taste  that  had  served 
him  in  other  things  vanished  at  the  collar, 
which  was  more  than  he  could  manage,  and 
with  it  he  degenerated  into  a  silly  vulgarian. 
Amused  at  the  self-consciousness  of  his 
magnificence,  we  continued  on  our  way  up- 
town, thinking,  perhaps,  that  some  lucky 
stroke  had  befallen  him ;  but  not  far  ahea'd 
we  were  confronted  by  two  exact  coun- 
terparts of  him,  each  wearing  the  same 
sort  of  blue  suit,  the  same  sort  of  hat,  the 
same  sort  of  shoes,  and  the  same  amplitude 
of  linen  about  the  neck.  They  were  the 
same  height,  and  carried  themselves  with 
the  same  mock  dignity  and  indifference  to 
observation  as  their  precursor,  twirling 
their  canes  with  the  same  elegance,  and 
having  their  Derbys  set  with  precisely  the 
same  inclination.  They  came  toward  us 
and  passed  us  with  a  lofty  and  inimitable 
unconcern  for  the  attention  which  they  at- 
tracted. This  was  too  much  for  human 
curiosity ;  it  was  impossible  to  resist  looking 
after  them  ;  we  yielded,  and  saw,  in  clear 
black  letters  around  the  backs  of  those  won- 
derful collars,  a  simple  invitation  to  use 


CURIOSITIES   OF  ADVERTISING. 


609 


Lye's  German  Laundry  Soap!  Had  the  col- 
lars been  half  an  inch  narrower,  they  would 
not  have  been  noticed  ;  had  they  been  half 
an  inch  broader,  their  purpose  would  have 
been  obvious.  There  was  genius  in  the  ad- 
vertisement: a  nice  sense  of  comedy,  and  a 
masterly  control  of  resource ;  those  who 
saw  it  will  always  remember  it,  though  other 
soaps  than  Lye's  may  be  as  unfamiliar  to 
them  as  to  the  Patagonians. 

In  addition  to  his  bill-boards,  the  sand- 
wich man  carries  in  glass  cases  sample  boots, 
sample  shirts,  sample  weather-strips,  and  a 
variety  of  other  incumbrances;  but  his 
strength  is  human,  and  when  the  advertiser 
to  whom  he  belongs  wishes  to  make  what 
he  would  call  a  "  splurge,"  he  supersedes 
him,  or  compliments  him  by  a  wagon  with 
various  devices  erected  upon  it.  When 
;  Pinafore  "  was  being  played  at  a  west-side 
theater,  a  full-rigged  frigate,  at  least  eight 
feet  long,  was  carted  through  the  principal 
avenues  of  traffic  as  a  counterfeit  present- 
ment of  that  famous  vessel ;  when  "  Uncle 
Tom's  Cabin "  was  revived  at  the  Grand 
Opera  House,  a  large  truck  was  seen  in  the 
streets  with  a  little  log  house  built  upon  it, 
and  out  of  the  window  an  old  negro  with 
white  hair  was  peering ;  when  the  Modoc 
war  was  dramatized  at  the  Old  Bowery 
Theater,  a  detachment  of  real  Indians,  with 
the  genuine  brogue  of  Killarney,  were  dis- 
played in  Broadway  on  fine  afternoons;  and 
at  all  times  elaborate  exhibitions  are  made 
on  wheeled  vehicles  by  certain  tradesmen. 

One  of  the  most  familiar  in  lower  Broad- 
way is  the  perambulatory  advertisement  of 
a  dealer  in  dumb-bells  and  Indian  clubs, 
who  is  evidently  somewhat  uncertain  in 
ethnology  and  as  to  the  derivation  of  the 
name  of  his  principal  article.  His  sign  is 
made  conspicuous  on  a  wagon  fantastically 
decorated,  and  drawn  by  a  feeble  and  pitia- 
ble nag,  whose  extreme  attenuation  is  partly 
covered  by  a  diverse  and  incongruous  mass 
of  adornment,  including  plumes,  bells  and 
the  American  flag.  In  front  of  the  wagon 
a  papier-mache  cat  blinks  with  vacuous 
solemnity  at  the  hurrying  crowds,  and  the 
reins  are  carried  over  her  ears  to  the  driver, 
who  sits  high  upon  a  pedestal  behind,  and 
embodies  his  employer's  confusion  in  a 
nondescript  dress,  mixing  the  Oriental,  the 
American  and  the  undefinable  with  bewilder- 
ing license.  The  designer  of  the  costume 
seems  not  to  have  known  whether  the  mus- 
cle-developing implements  were  an  invention 
of  the  prairies  or  of  the  land  of  the  Taj 
Mahal,  and  he  has  nearly  crushed  the 
VOL.  XX.— 40. 


patient  little  colored  boy,  who  sits  upon  the 
seat  with  smileless  dignity,  under  a  composite 
ensemble  which  at  one  glance  recalls  a  Cos- 
sack of  the  line,  a  scout  and  a  feather-duster. 
The  "big  Injun,"  as  the  business  men  call 
the  little  fellow,  is  imperturbable  in  his 
gravity,  and  continues  his  parade  all  day 
long,  nodding  now  and  then  to  an  un- 
mounted comrade  on  the  sidewalk,  who  is 
also  a  slave  to  the  Indian  clubs,  in  a  dress 
almost  as  heterogeneous  as  his  own. 

One  of  the  more  recent  advertisements  is 
a  vast  balloon  secured  to  a  truck,  and  a 
more  familiar  one  is  the  wagon  carrying  an 
enormous  transparency,  illuminated  after 
dark,  upon  which  some  panacea  or  patent 
dentifrice  is  extolled.  Sometimes  a  bell 
placed  within  the  transparency  is  rung  by 
an  invisible  small  boy,  and  a  few  months 
ago,  a  cornet  player  discoursed  his  music 
under  the  cover  of  a  transparency  announc- 
ing the  production  of  a  thrilling  new  serial, 
the  "  Brigand's  Lair,  or,  the  Tin  Sixpence," 
and  the  "  Mystery  of  Sir  Hildebrand,"  in  the 
"  Chambermaid's  Companion."  The  vari- 
ety of  street  advertisements  in  New  York 
is  almost  inexhaustible.  Furniture  dealers, 
nostrum  venders,  tobacconists,  clothiers 
and  grocers  compete  in  the  display,  and 
though  an  advertisement-hater  may  confine 
himself  to  the  news  matter  in  his  paper,  re- 
fuse every  circular  offered  him,  and  close  his 
eyes  wherever  the  bill-poster  has  been,  he 
cannot  avoid  having  impressed  upon  his 
mind  the  existence  and  location  of  certain 
indefatigable  tradesmen.  People  who  will 
not  waste  time  at  the  shop  windows  loiter 
to  see  the  street-show.  The  inventor  of  a 
portable  bed  finds  a  large  audience  when  he 
exhibits  his  article  upon  a  wagon,  taking  it 
apart,  putting  it  together,  lying  down  upon 
it,  and  refolding  it  in  a  minute.  The  stere- 
opticon  at  the  junction  of  Broadway  and 
Fifth  Avenue  never  fails  to  hold  a  crowd. 
Up  there,  on  the  roof  of  a  small  building, 
magic-lantern  pictures  are  cast  upon  a 
screen,  the  disinterested  ones  alternated  by 
advertisements.  Niagara  Falls  dissolves  into 
a  box  of  celebrated  blacking,  and  the  cele- 
brated blacking  is  superseded  by  a  jungle 
scene,  which  fades  into  an  extraordinarily 
cheap  suite  of  furniture.  On  very  cold  and 
unpleasant  nights  the  stereopticon  has  spec- 
tators, and,  though  it  is  no  longer  a  novelty, 
its  attractiveness  continues. 

The  pertinacity  of  the  American  adver- 
tiser, which  lets  no  circumstance  thwart  it, 
was  forcibly  instanced  at  Coney  Island  last 
summer.  All  the  city  was  there,  and  all 


6io 


CURIOSITIES   OF  ADVERTISING. 


eyes  were  turned  seaward;  but  intervening 
between  them  and  the  soft  purple  horizon 
were  innumerable  sloops,  cruising  up  and 
down  the  beach,  with  staring  advertisements 
painted  on  their  sails.  The  procession  of 
sandwich  men,  the  banners  and  transpar- 
encies, and  the  various  advertisements  on 
wheels  are  usually  unobjectionable,  and  lend 
additional  activity  and,  perhaps,  interest  to 
the  city  streets,  as  a  sort  of  every-day  carni- 
val. But  many  advertisers  have  exceeded 
both  taste  and  discretion,  especially  the 
proprietors  of  quack  medicines  and  patent 
soaps;  they  have  emblazoned  the  ridiculous 
names  of  their  wares  upon  the  loveliest 
spots,  and  have  invaded  the  most  sacred 
precincts  of  nature  with  their  undesirable 
notoriety.  The  offense  given  to  all  sensible 
people  by  their  vandalism  counteracted  any 
beneficial  effect  their  advertisements  might 
have  had,  and  now,  when  there  is  scarcely  a 
prominent  cliff  or  bluff  in  a  frequented  part 
of  the  country  that  is  undefaced  by  them, 
they  perceive  theprofitlessnessof  the  method. 

One  thing  about  the  otherwise  monstrous 
business  compelled  some  degree  of  admira- 
tion. It  was  the  ubiquity  and  audacity  of 
the  sign-painter,  who,  in  many  instances, 
must  have  imperiled  his  life  to  accomplish 
his  purpose.  When — last  summer — whirl- 
ing toward  the  Pacific,  we  saw  his  handi- 
work high  up  on  the  colossal  escarpments 
of  Echo  Canon ;  again  on  the  somber  granite 
cliffs  of  Weber ;  further  west  on  the  arid  rocks 
of  the  Humboldt ;  even  on  the  forlorn  wig- 
wams of  the  Piutes,  straggling  over  the  fallow 
desert,  and  continuously  over  the  sierras  and 
down  the  golden  valley  of  the  Sacramento 
— sign  after  sign  high  above  the  level,  and 
often  in  positions  the  manner  of  reaching 
which  was  inexplicable, — our  first  impulse 
of  indignation  was  mitigated  by  a  faint 
stirring  of  admiration  for  the  pluck  and 
impudence  of  the  one  individual  whose  name 
under  most  of  the  inscriptions  indicated  how 
completely  he  had  done  his  work. 

When  we  came  back  to  New  York,  we 
sought  him  out  and  found  him.  He  was 
neither  penitent  nor  apologetic.  "  I  guess 
I've  desecrated  more  nature  than  any  other 
man  in  the  United  States,"  he  said,  with 
cool  defiance  and  a  twinkling  eye  that  told 
us  he  -appreciated  his  own  audacity,  "  and 
what  of  it  ?  I  guess  a  pretty  bit  of  lettering's 
a  heap  nicer  than  an  ugly  rock,  and  though 
I  use  the  word  '  desecrate,'  and  a  whole 
crowd  of  people  and  newspapers  are  blow- 
ing at  me,  I  guess  I've  beautified  more  or 
less  every  city  in  the  United  States.  I'm  a 


gazetteer  of  the  United  States ;  not  a  towi 
or  village  I  aint  been  into,  and  I  can  pain 

S (mentioning  the  name  of  a  paten 

medicine)  standing  on  my  head  with  m; 
eyes  shut.  Often  do  it  with  my  eye 
shut,  too,  especially  when  they  are  tire< 
and  the  sun's  strong.  I've  walked  si: 
times  up  and  down  the  Hudson;  painte< 
on  rocks  while  standing  up  to  my  necl 
in  water,  and  I've  put  up  the  name  o 
'  Vitality  Bitters '  on  Lookout  Mountain 
Seen  a  good  deal  of  human  nature 
and  had  many  queer  experiences  in  ou 
business.  That  was  one  at  Lookout  Mount 
ain.  I'd  slung  myself  up  on  a  face  of  roclf 
with  my  brushes  and  pots,  and  was  slap 
dashing  away,  when  spat!  something  hi 
the  rock.  I  supposed  may  be  it  was  a  ston 
rolling  from  above,  when  spat!  came  anothe 
one,  and  spat !  spat!  spat!  spat!  four  more 
Well,  I  glanced  at  the  rock  and  saw  a  lo 
of  little  dents  in  it,  like  bullet  marks;  but 
couldn't  see  where  they  came  from.  Spat 
again — five  more  spats!  This  was  begin 
ning  to  get  lively,  and  I  stretched  mysel 
out  to  make  an  investigation,  and  awa; 
down  below  I  saw  a  mean  old  photographe 
who  took  pictures  of  the  fellows  and  thei 
girls  who  came  to  see  the  mountain.  H 
was  standing  in  the  smoke  of  his  owi 
revolver,  and  was  loading  it  again  to  peppe 
me  because  I  was  painting  a  part  of  th< 
mountain  that  came  into  the  backgroun* 
of  his  darned  old  photographs.  Well, 
dabbed  away  as  fast  as  I  could;  spat!  si: 
times  more,  but  I  finished  the  sign  and  thei 
vamoosed.  Didn't  I  remonstrate  with  th 
old  man  when  I  got  down  ?  No,  sir ;  yoi 
bet  I  didn't.  They  shoot  remarkably  we! 
in  that  country,  and  it  was  lucky  for  me  tha 
I  was  just  out  of  the  old  man's  range." 

He  was  evidently  exhilarated  by  his  owi 
recital,  and,  as  he  lighted  a  fresh  cigar,  hi 
eyes  were  sparkling  and  his  face  was  smilinj 
with  immense  satisfaction. 

"  Why,  my  partner,  old  man  Brad,"  hi 
continued,  "  painted  '  Kaiser  Bitters '  on  tin 
pyramid  of  Chops,  or  whatever  you  cal 
him,  and  just  after  the  war  I  stuck  up  '  Buf 
lo's  Liver  Pills'  in  letters  three  feet  higl 
around  old  Fort  Sumter.  You  see,  I  got  •< 
darkey  to  take  me  over  from  Charleston  ii 
one  of  those  little  boats  that  they  sail  dowr 
there,  closer  to  the  wind  than  anything  J 
ever  saw  before.  The  fort  was  unoccupied 
except  by  an  old  soldier,  who  showed  m( 
all  over  the  place.  'Have  a  drink,  cor 
poral  ? '  said  I  to  him,  after  a  while.  '  Nc 
objections,'  said  he,  and  we  walked  anc 


CURIOSITIES   OF  ADVERTISING. 


6ir 


talked  a  little  further.  '  Pretty  lonesome 
here,  eh,  sergeant?'  'Very,  indeed,'  an- 
swered the  old  duck,  warming  to  me  as  I 
brevetted  him  a  grade  higher  every  two  or 
three  minutes.  'Ah,'  said  I,  'it's  a  tough 
old  biz,  the  army,  aint  it,  lieutenant?' 
'  Faith,  an'  it  is,  upon  me  life,'  said  he.  Well, 
I  brought  my  flask  out  again,  and  pressed 
it  upon  him.  '  Now  look  here,  captain,' 
said  I,  '  you  don't  mind  me  painting  a  sign 
around  the  old  fort,  do  you  ? '  '  Not  a  bit, 
my  son ;  paint  as  much  as  ye  plaze,'  he 
answered,  quite  willingly,  and  away  I  went 
to  work,  finishing  the  lettering  before  sun- 
down. That  little  business  nearly  got  me 
into  trouble;  it  raised  an  awful  dust,  and  I 
left  Charleston  in  a  hurry.  Nearly  as  bad 
as  the  time  when  I  was  painting  '  Dr.  D id- 
ler's Elixir  of  Life '  on  a  bee-hive.  I  was 
walking  along  the  railway  track  with  my 
pots  and  brushes,  and  saw  the  hive,  which 
was  in  an  A  No.  i  position,  bound  to  be 
seen  by  everybody  in  the  trains.  I  stole 
up  to  it  and  slathered  on  the  paint,  taking 
care  not  to  make  much  noise.  Buz-z-z! 
one  little  fellow  came  to  look  at  me,  then 
another,  then  another,  and  then  a  score  or 
more  all  at  once.  They  didn't  seem  to  ob- 
ject— in  fact,  seemed  to  admire  the  richness 
of  the  coloring;  but  in  slinging  my  leg 
over  the  top  of  the  hive  I  upset  my  can  of 
turpentine,  and  not  one  bee  in  the  crowd 
would  listen  to  a  word  of  reason.  I  was 
laid  up  for  a  week  or  two  after  that ;  but  I 
can't  be  quiet  long;  it  aint  in  me  to  be 
still ;  I'm  an  out  and  out  Yankee,  and  it 
warms  my  heart  to  be  off  with  the  paints — 
and  it  aint  incumbent  upon  me  now." 

He  added  this  with  a  complacent  and 
pregnant  glance  at  his  massive  watch-chain 
and  jeweled  sleeve-buttons,  which  indicated 
no  little  prosperity. 

"  When  anybody  gets  his  back  up  at  me, 
I  just  let  him  blow  his  steam  off  and  then 
I  talk  to  him,"  he  continued.  "  Down  in 
Maryland,  one  day,  I  was  painting  a  sign  on 
a  fence,  and  a  fellow  working  in  a  field  near 
by  hollered  out :  '  Hi!  Get  away  from  that 
yar  fence ! '  I  let  on  not  to  hear  him. 
'  You  git,  now ! '  the  old  man  shouted  once 
more,  but  I  dabbed  and  dabbed  away  as 
industriously  as  ever.  'You  wont,  wont 
yer?'  said  he,  and  then  he  came  for  me 
with  a  pitchfork  in  his  hands.  Folks  in 
Maryland  are  generally  pretty  much  in 
earnest  when  they  are  mad,  but  I  didn't 
move  an  inch ;  he'd  have  lifted  me  like  a 
piece  of  toast  if  I  had,  and  instead  of  toast 
it  would  have  been  a  roast  for  me.  I 


looked  as  mild  and  innocent  as  I  could  ; 
shaped  out  the  letters,  and  held  my  head 
back  now  and  then  as  if  to  study  the  effect. 
'Don't  you  like  it?'  said  I,  as  he  got  up  to 
me.  Well,  he  met  me  with  some  highly 
seasoned  expostulations,  but,  as  I  told  you, 
I  never  interfere  with  a  man  when  he's 
blowing  off  steam — it  isn't  safe.  The  pitch- 
fork did  not  look  salubrious,  but  I  held  to 
my  work,  and  as  I  was  finishing  it  he  began 
to  cool  off,  and  at  the  same  time  to  take 
an  interest  in  the  sign.  'Got  a  family?' 
said  I.  '  Yes,'  said  he.  '  Young  uns,  too, 
may  be?'  'Yes,'  said  he,  again.  'Well, 
now,'  said  I,  '  aint  you  ashamed  of  yourself, 
to  let  your  temper  get  the  better  of  you  in 
this  way?  Think  of  the  bad  effect  on  the 
children.  But  I'll  paint  it  out.'  '  No ;  leave 
it  on,  stranger;  I  like  it,'  he  answered,  and 
we  went  over  to  the  house  together,  which 
proves  that,  when  a  man's  blowing  off,  it's 
best  not  to  sit  on  his  safety-valve.  I  went 
up  the  Mississippi  with  old  Captain  Leath- 
ers, in  the  Natchez,  with  her  smoke-stacks 
painted  crimson  to  signify  that  they  would 
be  burned  red-hot  before  she  should  be 
passed ;  and  at  the  first  landing  I  set  to 
work  on  all  the  rocks.  The  old  captain  was 
immensely  tickled  with  the  idea.  '  Look  at 
that  darned  Yank!'  he  cried  to  the  passen- 
gers. '  How  long  before  you  start,  Cap  ? ' 
shouted  I.  '  We'll  wait  till  you  get  through,' 
he  answered,  and  he  did  the  same  thing  at 
every  other  landing.  But  the  newspapers 
have  made  such  an  outcry  against  the  dese- 
cration of  nature,  as  they  call  it,  that  a  law 
forbidding  it  has  been  passed  in  some  of 
the  States,  and  on  the  whole  rock-painting 
is  discouraged  by  our  patrons,  who  think  it 
spoils  the  sale  of  their  articles,  and  we  are 
limited  to  bill-boards  and  fences,  in  which 
we've  got  the  prettiest  business  to  be  found. 
Yes,  I'm  a  Yankee,  and  have  gone  through 
life  with  one  motto:  'Don't  be  bashful,  and 
never  allow  yourself  to  be  set  down  upon 
by  nobody.' " 

These  very  simple  principles  have  led 
him  to  a  most  substantial  success.  In  the 
winter  of  1858,  a  young  sign-painter  in  the 
Bowery  found  his  business  failing,  and,  hav- 
ing nothing  else  to  do,  went  along  Harlem 
Lane  painting  his  name,  occupation  and 
address  on  the  rocks  and  fences.  Several 
business  men  were  struck  by  the  novelty 
of  the  method,  and  employed  him  to  adver- 
tise their  wares  in  a  similar  manner.  His 
customers  increased  in  number.  He  trav- 
eled with  his  brush  and  paint  up  the  Missouri 
River  by  steamer,  and  across  the  plains  and 


6l2 


CURIOSITIES   OF  ADVERTISING. 


Rocky  Mountains  by  pack-mules  in  1858, 
when  that  expedition  was  not  the  easy  matter 
it  is  to-day.  His  signs  appeared  under  the 
palmettos  of  the  Gulf  and  among  the  flow- 
ers of  the  Antilles.  He  reached  Oregon ;  he 
daubed  the  pyramids;  the  railways  were 
hedged  in  by  his  handiwork.  But  his  suc- 
cess was  harassed  by  a  competitor,  who  was  as 
bold,  as  pushing,  as  adroit  and  as  irreverent 
as  he  was.  He  converted  this  enemy  into 
a  friend,  and  the  two  together  continued  the 
profanation  of  nature,  until  the  whole  face 
of  the  country  near  the  main  lines  of  traffic 
was  degraded  into  a  vast  bill-board. 

"  We  traveled  over  a  million  and  a  half 
of  miles,  sir,"  said  the  arch  vandal  whose 
adventures  we  have  given ;  "  painted  more 
than  ninety  thousand  signs,  and  used  more 
than  five  hundred  barrels  of  linseed  oil, 
mixed  with  five  hundred  barrels  of  turpen- 
tine and  a  hundred  and  fifty  tons  of  white 
lead.  I  say  tons,  sir,  and  will  show  you  the 
books  to  prove  it." 

He  beamed  with  exultation  in  mentioning 
this  stupendous  fact,  and  seemed  to  breathe 
with  difficulty  whenever  he  recurred  to  it. 
He  overwhelmed  us  with  figures,  and  begged 
that,  if  anybody  questioned  their  authentic- 
ity, he  would  either  "put  up  or  shut  up," 
jingling  the  coin  in  his  own  pockets  to  indi- 
cate that  he  was  prepared  to  back  all  his 
assertions. 

The  firm  has  over  eighteen  hundred  agents, 
he  told  us,  and  in  addition  to  painting  it  has 
facilities  for  distributing  and  posting  bills  in 
every  city.  The  cost  of  painting  the  name 
of  any  article  containing  not  more  than  ten 
letters,  each  about  eight  inches  long,  is  about 
one  dollar,  and  small  posters  are  designed, 
printed,  distributed  and  hung  in  every  city 
east  of  Omaha  at  a  cost  of  about  six  cents 
each.  Over  three  million  "  gutter-snipes  " 
are  distributed  for  one  tobacco-manufactur- 
ing concern  in  a  year,  and  a  certain  patent 
medicine  was  "  billed  and  painted  "  in  seven- 
teen different  States  one  year  for  thirty  thou- 
sand dollars.  A  "  gutter-snipe,"  let  us  add, 
is  a  long,  narrow  bill  usually  pasted  on  the 
curb-stones  of  prominent  streets.  In  all  large 
places  the  bill-stickers'  privileges  are  valu- 
able, and  there  is  a  good  deal  of  competition 
where  any  are  to  let.  They  consist  of  dead- 
walls,  fences  and  boards,  upon  which  one 
concern  usually  acquires  by  purchase  the 
right  of  exhibiting  their  advertisements ;  and 
as  an  example  of  the  prices  sometimes  paid 
we  may  mention  that,  during  the  erection  of 
a  new  building  on  Broadway,  three  thousand 
dollars  were  offered  for  the  use  of  the  boards 


surrounding  it.  There  are  also  "  window 
privileges,"  of  which  theatrical  managers 
avail  themselves,  exhibiting  their  pro- 
grammes and  lithographs  in  the  windows  of 
the  smaller  stores  and  saloons,  and  rewarding 
the  tradesmen  for  their  permission  with 
three  or  four  gratuitous  tickets  a  month 
while  the  season  lasts.  But  the  average 
bill-sticker  does  not  limit  his  operations  to 
the  extent  of  the  privileges  which  he  has 
purchased ;  he  has  a  lawless  instinct  to  put 
up  one  of  his  posters  in  every  position  where 
it  can  possibly  attract  attention,  and  through 
his  lack  of  principle  he  sometimes  becomes 
involved  in  dispute  with  the  competitor  upon 
whose  space  he  has  encroached.  A  bill- 
sticker's  war  is  chiefly  damaging  to  the  ad- 
vertisers whose  posters  are  being  distributed, 
as  the  combatants  efface  the  bills  of  one 
another  as  fast  as  they  are  put  upon  the 
walls.  The  bill-sticker  is  also  open  to  the 
charge  of  being  a  nuisance,  from  his  habit 
of  using  his  paste  where  it  is  obviously 
inappropriate ;  but,  charitably  overlooking 
these  proclivities,  which  are  less  the  out- 
come of  evil  than  of  excessive  zeal,  he  is  an 
industrious,  honest  and  sober  person;  and 
if  in  a  bleak  winter  you  should  see  him  start- 
ing out  at  midnight  on  his  round,  with  ladder, 
brushes  and  paste,  to  cover  his  boards  with 
announcements  that  will  be  fresh  in  the 
morning,  your  antipathies  would  vanish. 

The  craft  is  so  numerous,  prosperous  and 
special  in  its  nature  that  it  has  a  newspaper 
wholly  devoted  to  its  interests — a  curious 
publication,  which  is  printed  on  one  side 
with  red  ink  and  on  the  other  side  with 
blue  ink,  and  which  sometimes  appears  on 
yellow  paper,  the  object  being  that  of  all 
bill-stickers'  endeavors — to  excite  interest  and 
comment  by  its  dress,  if  not  by  its  contents. 
But  the  contents  are  unique  and  forcible. 
The  column  of  editorial  scraps  is  called 
"  snipes,"  after  the  gutter  posters  which  we 
have  mentioned,  and  a  department  of  biog- 
raphy is  devoted  to  the  vicissitudes  and 
successes  of  various  "  men  of  paste."  The 
style  is  as  unrestrained  and  familiar  as  the 
conversation  of  a  smoking-car  filled  with 
drummers.  "  Give  ample  credit  to  fair  and 
square  men,"  says  the  editor  to  his  corre- 
spondents, "  and  the  interlopers  and  cheats, 
lash  them  unmercifully," — which  indicates 
a  lofty  interpretation  of  the  functions  of 
journalism.  "  To  be  successful  in  this  voca- 
tion," he  says  further  on,  in  tribute  to  the 
bill-poster,  "  is  a  guarantee  of  ability  that 
cannot  be  surpassed  in  any  class  of  society 
or  position  in  life.  The  bill-poster's  is  a 


THE  BOOK  OF  MORMON. 


613 


rough  experience,  and  the  actor  is  a  bold, 
eccentric  fellow.  But  for  generous,  genial, 
kindly  traits  of  character,  the  bill-poster  and 
sign-advertiser  are  proverbially  noted."  He 
acknowledges  a  compliment  to  his  paper 
thus:  "Thanks;  the  boys  in  all  directions 
are  shouting  the  same  tune,  and  if  we  did 
not  keep  a  very  level  head,  our  blushes 
would  scorch  our  shirt-collars."  Announcing 
that  a  certain  issue  will  be  on  red,  green, 
blue  and  yellow  paper — "  We  are  open," 
he  writes,  "  for  comment  or  ridicule.  You 
ghostly  white  metropolitan  dailies;  all-pow- 
erful country  weeklies ;  dry,  stale  and  staid 
old  monthlies,  we've  got  the  cake !  Chew 
us  up,  annihilate  us — we  can  stand  the  blunt 
— twig  ?  " 

Probably  we  have  gone  far  enough  with 
these  choice  extracts;  the  reader  is  mysti- 
fied by  the  "blunt — twig,"  and  we  cannot 
enlighten  him  as  to  its  meaning.  Among 
the  other  contents  is  a  catechism  worth 
reproducing,  however : 

"  Q.  What  is  advertising  ? 

A.  The  art  of  exciting  curiosity. 

Q.  What  is  curiosity  ? 

A.  A  feeling  of  inquisitiveness,  which  nothing 
short  of  investigation  or  trial  will  satisfy. 

Q.  What  is  the  result  of  creating  this  feeling  ? 

A.   Prosperity  and  riches  to  the  advertiser. 

Q.  Who  are  the  most  inquisitive  people  in  the 
world  ? 

A.  Americans.  Therefore,  if  you  would  succeed 
in  advertising,  excite  curiosity,  and  you  will  hit  the 
mark  every  time. " 

Some  of  the  advertisements  are  metrical, 


and  are    worthy   of  Silas  Wegg.     Here   is 
poetry  for  you : 

"  Go  forth  in  haste 
With  bills  and  paste ; 
Proclaim  to  all  creation 

"  That  men  are  wise 
Who  advertise 

In  this  our  generation." 

"  Would  you  have  your  pasting  done, 

Your  bills  put  up  quite  natty  ? 
Then  do  not  fail  to  send  the  same 

Straightway  to  your  friend  Batty. 

"  To  post  and  paste  in  proper  haste 
Such  orders  as  you'll  send  him, 

'Tis  his  delight;  he'll  do  it  right, 
You  bet ;  now  don't  forget  him. 

"  He'll  circulate  your  ads  wide-spread, 
Through  Mystic's  pleasant  valley ; 

So  call  attention  to  your  wares, 
That  buyers  soon  may  rally." 

The  name  of  the  paper  is  elaborately  de- 
signed on  a  landscape  of  town  and  country, 
but  both  town  and  country  are  almost  invis- 
ible under  examples  of  the  bill-sticker's  and 
sign-painter's  "  art."  The  same  advertise- 
ments that  have  appeared  far  and  wide  on 
rocks  and  fences  are  reproduced  in  minia- 
ture ;  the  pyramids  are  "  decorated  "  with  the 
legend  of  "  Fizzler's  Bitters  " ;  "  stove-polish  " 
is  inscribed  around  a  mountain  peak,  and  an 
extended  arm  in  the  clouds,  with  a  paste- 
brush  in  hand — the  symbol  of  the  trade — 
is  branded :  "  A  power  in  the  land." 


THE  BOOK  OF  MORMON. 


FROM  my  earliest  childhood  there  has 
been  a  tradition  in  my  family  that  the  Mor- 
mon Bible  was  taken  from  a  manuscript 
written  by  my  great-uncle,  the  Rev.  Solomon 
Spaulding.  Recently,  while  in  Washington, 
D.  C.,  I  had  the  pleasure  of  meeting  for  the 
first  time  Mrs.  M.  S.  McKinstry,  the  only 
child  of  Mr.  Spaulding,  and  received  from 
her  lips  full  confirmation  of  the  story.  Mrs. 
McKinstry  is  a  remarkably  intelligent  and 
conscientious  woman,  of  about  seventy-five 
years  of  age.  She  has  lived  for  fifty  years 
in  Monson,  Massachusetts,  and  has  a  son, 
who  is  a  well-known  physician  at  Long 
Meadow,  near  Springfield,  in  the  same  State, 
and  a  son-in-law,  Mr.  Seaton,  chief  clerk  in 
the  Census  Bureau,  Washington,  D.  C. 


Soon  after  the  first  excitement  on  the  sub- 
ject of  Mormonism,  Mr.  Spaulding's  widow 
and  daughter  were  interviewed  by  the  re- 
porter of  a  Boston  newspaper ;  but  the  fol- 
lowing statement,  taken  on  oath  from  Mrs. 
McKinstry,  is  the  first  full  statement  of  the 
subject,  and  the  only  attempt  ever  made  by 
Mr.  Spaulding's  family  to  set  th  is  matter  right. 

In  order  to  give  the  statement  its  full 
force,  it  will  be  necessary  to  prelude  it  by 
a  slight  explanation  of  some  facts  bearing 
upon  the  subject.  Solomon  Spaulding  was 
born  at  Ashford,  Connecticut,  in  1761, 
graduated  at  Dartmouth  College  in  1785, 
studied  divinity,  preached  a  few  years  and 
then,  from  ill-health,  gave  up  the  ministry. 
He  was  a  peculiar  man,  of  fine  education, 


614 


THE  BOOK  OF  MORMON. 


especially  devoted  to  historical  study,  and 
with  a  great  fondness  for  the  writing  of 
romances.  In  1812,  he  resided  in  Con- 
neaut,  Ashtabula  county,  Ohio.  In  the 
vicinity  there  are  several  earth-mounds, 
which  excited  his  curiosity  and  fired  his 
imagination.  He  was  one  of  the  earliest 
persons,  if  not  the  very  first,  in  that  part  of 
the  country  to  become  interested  in  these 
curious  monuments  of  a  past  civilization. 
He  caused  one  of  the  mounds  near  his  house 
to  be  explored,  and  discovered  numerous 
portions  of  skeletons  and  other  relics. 

This  discovery  suggested  to  him  the  sub- 
ject for  a  new  romance,  which  he  called  a 
translation  from  some  hieroglyphical  writing 
exhumed  from  the  mound.  This  romance 
purported  to  be  a  history  of  the  peopling  of 
America  by  the  lost  tribes  of  Israel,  the  tribes 
and  their  leaders  having  very  singular  names 
— among  them  Mormon,  Maroni,  Lamenite, 
Nephi.  The  romance  the  author  called 
"  Manuscript  Found."  This  all  occurred 
in  1812,  when  to  write  a  book  was  a  distinc- 
tion, and  Mr.  Spaulding  read  his  manuscript 
from  time  to  time  to  a  circle  of  admiring 
friends.  He  determined  finally  to  publish  it, 
and  for  that  purpose  carried  it  to  Pittsburgh, 
Pennsylvania,  to  a  printer  by  the  name  of 
Patterson.  After  keeping  it  awhile,  Mr. 
Patterson  returned  it,  declining  to  print  it. 
There  was,  at  this  time,  in  this  printing- 
office  a  young  man  named  Sidney  Rigdon, 
who  twenty  years  later  figured  as  a  preacher 
among  the  Saints. 

In  1823,  Joseph  Smith, — a  disreputable 
fellow  who  wandered  about  the  country 
professing  to  discover  gold  and  silver  and  lost 
articles  by  means  of  a  "  seer  stone," — gave 
out  that  he  had  been  directed  in  a  vision  to 
a  hill  near  Palmyra,  New  York,  where  he 
•discovered  some  gold  plates  curiously  in- 
scribed. In  1825,  he  called  upon  Mr.  Thur- 
low  Weed,  who  was  the  proprietor  of  a 
newspaper  in  Rochester,  New  York,  and 
asked  him  to  print  a  manuscript,  as'  appears 
from  the  following  statement,  which  has 
never  before  been  given  to  the  public  : 

MR.  THURLOW  WEED'S  STATEMENT. 

NEW  YORK,  April  I2th,  1880. 

In  1825,  when  I  was  publishing  the  "  Rochester 
Telegraph,"  a  man  introduced  himself  to  me  as  Jo- 
seph Smith,  of  Palmyra,  New  York,  whose  object,  he 
said,  was  to  get  a  book  published.  He  then  stated 
he  had  been  guided  by  a  vision  -to  a  spot  he 
described,  where,  in  a  cavern,  he  found  what  he 
called  a  golden  bible.  It  consisted  of  a  tablet  which 
he  placed  in  his  hat,  and  from  which  he  proceeded 
to  read  the  first  chapter  of  the  Book  of  Mormon. 

I  listened  until  I  became  weary  of  what  seemed 


to  me  an  incomprehensible  jargon.  I  then  told  him 
I  was  o'nly  publishing  a  newspaper,  and  that  he 
would  have  to  go  to  a  book  publisher,  suggesting  a 
friend  who  was  in  that  business.  A  few  days  after- 
ward Smith  called  again,  bringing  a  substantial 
farmer  with  him  named  Harris.  Smith  renewed 
his  request  that  I  should  print  his  book,  adding  that 
it  was  a  divine  revelation,  and  would  be  accepted, 
and  that  he  would  be  accepted  by  the  world  as  a 
prophet.  Supposing  that  I  had  doubts  as  to  his 
being  able  to  pay  for  the  publishing,  Mr.  Harris, 
who  was  a  convert,  offered  to  be  his  security  for  pay- 
ment. Meantime,  I  had  discovered  that  Smith  was 
a  shrewd,  scheming  fellow  who  passed  his  time  at 
taverns  and  stores  in  Palmyra,  without  business,  and 
apparently  without  visible  means  of  support  He 
seemed  about  thirty  years  of  age,  was  compactly 
built,  about  five  feet  eight  inches  in  height,  had  reg- 
ular features,  and  would  impress  one  favorably  in 
conversation.  His  book  was  afterward  published  in 
Palmyra.  I  knew  the  publisher,  but  cannot  at  this 
moment  remember  his  name.  The  first  Mormon 
newspaper  was  published  at  Canandaigua,  New 
York,  by  a  man  named  Phelps,  who  accompanied 
Smith  as  an  apostle  to  Illinois,  where  the  first  Mor- 
mon city,  Nauvoo,  was  started. 

(Signed)  THURLOW  WEED. 

In  1830,  the  Mormon  Bible  was  printed 
at  Palmyra,  New  York,  by  E.  B.  Grandin. 
Two  years  later,  the  Mormon  religion  seemed 
to  be  gaining  ground.  A  band  of  thirty 
were  settled  at  Kirkland,  Ohio.  Later,  these 
converts,  with  large  accessions  to  their  num- 
bers, went  to  Missouri,  from  which  place 
they  were  expelled.  They  then  crossed  the 
river  and  made  a  settlement  at  Nauvoo,  in 
Illinois.  In  1845  they  removed  to  Salt 
Lake,  where  their  numbers  have  enor- 
mously increased. 

Joe  Smith  seems  to  have  lacked  the 
inventive  genius  common  to  religious  fanat- 
ics. He  followed  the  story  of  Mr.  Spauld- 
ing with  almost  servile  closeness.  Mr. 
Spaulding's  book  purported  to  be  a  transla- 
tion from  some  metal  plates  found  in  the 
earth-mound  to  which  he  had  been  guided 
by  a  vision. 

This  was  precisely  Smith's  story.  As  the 
new-made  prophet  could  scarcely  lay  claim, 
with  any  hope  of  credence,  to  sufficient 
learning  to  translate  the  hieroglyphical 
writing,  he  added  to  the  original  story 
the  Urim  and  Thummim, — the  great  spec- 
tacles which  he  professed  to  have  found  in 
a  stone  box,  together  with  the  golden  plates, 
and  by  means  of  which  he  could  decipher 
the  mysterious  characters. 

Smith  had  now  become  a  prophet,  and 
he  proceeded  forthwith  to  add  his  peculiar 
tenets  in  regard  to  marriage,  etc.,  to  the 
original  manuscript. 

The  statement  of  Mrs.  McKinstry  is  as 
follows : 


THE  BOOK  OF  MORMON. 


MRS.  MATILDA  SPAULDING  MCKINSTRY'S  STATE- 
MENT REGARDING  THE  "  MANUSCRIPT  FOUND  "  : 

WASHINGTON,  D.  C.,  April  3d,  1880. 

So  much  has  been  published  that  is  erroneous  con- 
cerning the  "  Manuscript  Found,"  written  by  my 
father,  the  Rev.  Solomon  Spaulding,  and  its  supposed 
connection  with  the  book  called  the  Mormon  Bible, 
I  have  willingly  consented  to  make  the  following 
statement  regarding  it,  repeating  all  that  I  remember 
personally  of  this  manuscript,  and  all  that  is  of  im- 
portance which  my  mother  related  to  me  in  connection 
with  it,  at  the  same  time  affirming  that  I  am  in  toler- 
able health  and  vigor,  and  that  my  memory,  in  com- 
mon with  elderly  people,  is  clearer  in  regard  to  the 
events  of  my  earlier  years,  rather  than  those  of  my 
maturer  life. 

During  the  war  of  1812,  I  was  residing  with  my 
parents  in  a  little  town  in  Ohio  called  Conneaut.  I 
was  then  in  my  sixth  year.  My  father  was  in  bus- 
iness there,  and  I  remember  his  iron  foundry  and  the 
men  he  had  at  work,  but  that  he  remained  at  home 
most  of  the  time,  and  was  reading  and  writing  a 
great  deal.  He  frequently  wrote  little  stories,  which 
he  read  to  me.  There  were  some  round  mounds  of 
earth  near  our  house  which  greatly  interested  him, 
and  he  said  a  tree  on  the  top  of  one  of  them  was  a 
thousand  years  old.  He  set  some  of  his  men  to 
work  digging  into  one  of  these  mounds,  and  I  vividly 
remember  how  excited  he  became  when  he  heard 
that  they  had  exhumed  some  human  bones,  portions 
of  gigantic  skeletons,  and  various  relics.  He  talked 
with  my  mother  of  these  discoveries  in  the  mound, 
and  was  writing  every  day  as  the  work  progressed. 
Afterward  he  read  the  manuscript  which  I  had  seen 
him  writing,  to  the  neighbors,  and  to  a  clergyman,  a 
friend  of  his  who  came  to  see  him.  Some  of  the 
names  that  he  mentioned  while  reading  to  these  peo- 
ple I  have  never  forgotten.  They  are  as  fresh  to  me 
to-day  as  though  I  heard  them  yesterday.  They  were 
"Mormon"  "  Afaroni"  "  Lamenite"  "JVepAi." 

We  removed  from  Conneaut  to  Pittsburgh  while  I 
was  still  very  young,  but  every  circumstance  of  this 
removal  is  distinct  in  my  memory.  In  that  city  my 
father  had  an  intimate  friend  named  Patterson,  and  I 
frequently  visited^  Mr.  Patterson's  library  with  him, 
and  heard  my  father  talk  about  books  with  him.  In 
1816,  my  father  died  at  Amity,  Pennsylvania,  and 
directly  after  his  death  my  mother  and  myself  went 
to  visit  at  the  residence  of  my  mother's  brother,  Wil- 
liam H.  Sabine,  at  Onondaga  Valley,  Onondaga 
county,  New  York.  Mr.  Sabine  was  a  lawyer  of 
distinction  and  wealth,  and  greatly  respected.  We 
carried  all  our  personal  effects  with  us,  and  one  of 
these  was  an  old  trunk,  in  which  my  mother  had 
placed  all  my  father's  writings  which  had  been  pre- 
served. I  perfectly  remember  the  appearance  of  this 
trunk,  and  of  looking  at  its  contents.  There  were 
sermons  and  other  papers,  and  I  saw  a  manuscript 
about  an  inch  thick,  closely  written,  tied  with  some 
of  the  stories  my  father  had  written  for  me,  one  of 
which  he  called  "  The  Frogs  of  Wyndham. "  On  the 
outside  of  this  manuscript  were  written  the  words, 
"  Manuscript  Found."  I  did  not  read  it,  but  looked 
through  it  and  had  it  in  my  hands  many  times,  and 
saw  the  names  I  had  heard  at  Conneaut,  when  my 
father  read  it  to  his  friends.  I  was  about  eleven 
years  of  age  at  this  time. 

After  we  had  been  at  my  uncle's  for  some  time, 
my  mother  left  me  there  and  went  to  her  father's 
house  at  Pomfret,  Connecticut,  but  did  not  take  her 
furniture  nor  the  old  trunk  of  manuscripts  with  her. 
In  1820,  she  married  Mr.  Davison,  of  Hartwicks,  a 
village  near  Cooperstown,  New  York,  and  sent  for 


the  things  she  had  left  at  Onondaga  Valley,  and  I 
remember  that  the  old  trunk,  with  its  contents, 
reached  her  in  safety.  In  1828,  I  was  married  to 
Dr.  A.  McKinstry,  of  Monson,  Hampden  county, 
Massachusetts,  and  went  there  to  reside.  Very  soon 
after  my  mother  joined  me  there,  and  was  with  me 
most  of  the  time  until  her  death,  in  1844.  We 
heard,  not  long  after  she  came  to  live  with  me — I  do 
not  remember  just  how  long, — something  of  Mor- 
monism,  and  the  report  that  it  had  been  taken  from 
my  father's  "  Manuscript  Found  ";  and  then  came  to 
us  direct  an  account  of  the  Mormon  meeting  at 
Conneaut,  Ohio,  and  that,  on  one  occasion  when 
the  Mormon  Bible  was  read  there  in  public,  my 
father's  brother,  John  Spaulding,  Mr.  Lake,  and 
many  other  persons  who  were  present,  at  once  rec- 
ognized its  similarity  to  the  "  Manuscript  Found," 
which  they  had  heard  read  years  before  by  my 
father  in  the  same  town.  There  was  a  great  deal 
of  talk  and  a  great  deal  published  at  this  time  about 
Mormonism  all  over  the  country.  I  believe  it  was 
in  1834  that  a  man  named  Hurlburt  came  to  my 
house  at  Monson  to  see  my  mother,  who  told  us 
that  he  had  been  sent  by  a  committee  to  procure  the 
"  Manuscript  Found,"  written  by  the  Reverend  Solo- 
mon Spaulding,  so  as  to  compare  it  with  the  Mor- 
mon Bible.  He  presented  a  letter  to  my  mother 
from  my  uncle,  William  H.  Sabine,  of  Onondaga 
Valley,  in  which  he  requested  her  to  loan  this  man- 
uscript to  Hurlburt,  as  he  (my  uncle)  was  desirous 
"  to  uproot "  (as  he  expressed  it)  "  this  Mormon 
fraud."  Hurlburt  represented  that  he  had  been  a 
convert  to  Mormonism,  but  had  given  it  up,  and 
through  the  "  Manuscript  Found  "  wished  to  expose 
its  wickedness.  My  mother  was  careful  to  have  me 
with  her  in  all  the  conversations  she  had  with  Hurl- 
burt, who  spent  a  day  at  my  house.  She  did  not 
like  his  appearance  and  mistrusted  his  motives ;  but, 
having  great  respect  for  her  brother's  wishes  and 
opinions,  she  reluctantly  consented  to  his  request. 
The  old  trunk,  containing  the  desired  "  Manuscript 
Found,"  she  had  placed  in  the  care  of  Mr.  Jerome 
Clark,  of  Hartwicks,  when  she  came  to  Monson,  in- 
tending to  send  for  it.  On  the  repeated  promise  of 
Hurlburt  to  return  the  manuscript  to  us,  she  gave 
him  a  letter  to  Mr.  Clark  to  open  the  trunk  and  de- 
liver it  to  him.  We  afterward  heard  that  he  did 
receive  it  from  Mr.  Clark  at  Hartwicks,  but  from 
that  time  we  have  never  had  it  in  our  possession, 
and  I  have  no  present  knowledge  of  its  existence, 
Hurlburt  never  returning  it  or  answering  letters  re- 
questing him  to  do  so.  Two  years  ago  I  heard  he  was 
still  living  in  Ohio,  and  with  my  consent  he  was  asked 
for  the  "  Manuscript  Found."  He  made  no  response, 
although  we  have  evidence  that  he  received  the  letter 
containing  the  request.  So  far  I  have  stated  facts  within 
my  own  knowledge.  My  mother  mentioned  many 
other  circumstances  to  me  in  connection  with  this  sub- 
ject which  are  interesting,  of  my  father's  literary  tastes, 
his  fine  education  and  peculiar  temperament.  She 
stated  to  me  that  she  had  heard  the  manuscript  alluded 
to  read  by  my  father,  was  familiar  with  its  contents, 
and  she  deeply  regretted  that  her  husband,  as  she  be- 
lieved, had  innocently  been  the  means  of  furnishing 
matter  for  a  religious  delusion.  She  said  that  my 
father  loaned  this  "  Manuscript  Found "  to  Mr. 
Patterson,  of  Pittsburgh,  and  that,  when  he  returned 
it  to  my  father,  he  said :  "  Polish  it  up,  finish  it, 
and  you  will  make  money  out  of  it. "  My  mother  con- 
firmed my  remembrances  of  my  father's  fondness  for 
history,  and  told  me  of  his  frequent  conversations 
regarding  a  theory  which  he  had  of  a  prehistoric 
race  which  had  inhabited  this  continent,  etc.,  all 
showing  that  his  mind  dwelt  on  this  subject.  The 


6x6 


A   SKETCH  OF  AMERICAN  DIPLOMACY. 


"  Manuscript  Found,"  she  said,  was  a  romance 
written  in  Biblical  style,  and  that  while  she  heard  it 
read  she  had  no  especial  admiration  for  it  more  than 
for  other  romances  he  wrote  and  read  to  her.  We 
never,  either  of  us,  ever  saw,  or  in  any  way  com- 
municated with  the  Mormons,  save  Hurlburt, 
as  above  described,  and  while  we  had  no  per- 
sonal knowledge  that  the  Mormon  Bible  was  taken 
from  the  "  Manuscript  Found,"  there  were  many 
evidences  to  us  that  it  was,  and  that  Hurlburt  and 
others  at  the  time  thought  so.  A  convincing  proof 
to  us  of  this  belief  was  that  my  uncle,  William  H. 
Sabine,  had  undoubtedly  read  the  manuscript  while 
it  was  in  his  house,  and  his  faith  that  its  production 
would  show  to  the  world  that  the  Mormon  Bible 
had  been  taken  from  it,  or  was  the  same  with  slight 
alterations.  I  have  frequently  answered  questions 
which  have  been  asked  me  by  different  per  sons  regard- 
ing the  "  Manuscript  Found,"  but  until  now  have 
never  made  a  statement  at  length  for  publication. 

(Signed)  M.  S.  McKiNSTRY. 

Sworn  and  subscribed  to  before  me  this  3d  day  of 
April,  A.  D.  1880,  at  the  city  of  Washington,  D.  C. 
CHARLES  WALTER,  Notary  Public. 

I  wrote  this  statement  at  Mrs.  McKinstry's 
dictation,  and  was  obliged  to  change  it  and 
copy  it  four  times  before  she  was  satisfied, 
so  anxious  was  she  that  no  word  nor  expres- 
sion should  occur  in  it  to  which  she  could 
not  solemnly  make  oath. 

About  forty  years  ago,  affidavits  were 
made  by  John  Spaulding,  the  brother,  and 
Mr.  Lake,  the  partner  of  Mr.  Solomon 
Spaulding,  and  afterward  published,  con- 
taining the  statement  that  they  had  heard  the 
author  read  his  manuscript  in  1812,  and 
that  there  was  a  striking  similarity  between 
it  and  the  Book  of  Mormon;  but  these  affi- 
davits cannot  now  be  found. 


There  is  no  possible  way  of  finding  out 
what  Hurlburt  did  with  the  manuscript  which 
he  carried  away,  since  he  has  ignored  the 
letter  of  application  which  was  personally 
put  into  his  hands.  There  was  a  report  to 
the  effect  that  he  sold  it  to  the  Mormons  for 
$300,  and  that  they  then  destroyed  it. 

The  question  remains :  how  did  Smith 
become  possessed  of  the  "  Manuscript 
Found  "  ?  Rigdon,  who  was  in  Patterson's 
office  while  the  manuscript  was  lying  there, 
had  ample  opportunity  of  copying  it,  and  as 
he  was  afterward  a  prominent  Mormon 
preacher  and  adviser  of  Smith,  this  is  not 
improbable.  Smith,  however,  could  easily 
have  possessed  himself  of  the  manuscript  if 
he  had  fancied  it  suitable  to  his  purposes,  for 
it  is  understood  that  he  was  a  servant  on  the 
farm,  or  teamster  for  Mr.  Sabine,  in  whose 
house  the  package  of  manuscript  lay  exposed 
in  an  unlocked  trunk  for  several  years.  At 
all  events,  it  is  evident  that  Smith  had  access 
to  the  manuscript,  since  both  stories  are 
alike, — the  peculiar  names  occur  nowhere 
else  but  in  these  two  books, — and  that  Mr. 
Spaulding's  romance  had  been  read  by  a 
number  of  people  in  1812,  while  the  Mor- 
mon Bible  was  not  published  till  1830,  and 
not  heard  of  earlier  than  1823.  Out  of  the 
curious  old  romance  of  Solomon  Spaulding, 
and  the  ridiculous  "  seer-stone  "  of  Joseph 
Smith,  has  grown  this  monstrous  Mormon 
State,  which  presents  a  problem  that  the 
wisest  politician  has  failed  to  solve,  and  whose 
outcome  lies  in  the  mystery  of  the  future. 


SKETCH   OF    AMERICAN    DIPLOMACY. 

[AT  the  dinner  given  by  the  American  residents  in  Paris,  on  February  igth  last,  to  General  Lucius  W. 
Fairchild,  on  the  occasion  of  his  quitting  his  post  of  Consul-General,  at  that  city,  for  the  office  of  Minister  to 
the  Court  of  Spain,  Mr.  Richard  H.  Dana  responded  to  the  toast  respecting  the  diplomatic  history  of  the 
United  States.  At  our  request,  he  has  written  out  the  notes  prepared  for  this  occasion. — ED.  S.  M.] 


MR.  PRESIDENT,  MY  COUNTRYMEN  AND 
COUNTRY-WOMEN:  You  have  done  well,  Mr. 
President,  in  selecting  as  one  of  your  subjects 
to-night  the  international  relations  of  our 
country — not  only  because  they  form  one  of 
the  noblest  chapters  of  our  history,  but  be- 
cause this  place,  Paris,  was  the  birthplace  of 
American  diplomacy.  Few  probably  con- 
sider how  instantly,  and  with  what  zeal,  those 
who  had  charge  of  our  public  affairs  in  the 
struggle  for  our  independence  betook  them- 
selves to  international  relations.  They  saw 
that  the  cause  of  our  independence  hung 


upon  a  war  of  diplomacy  on  the  continent 
of  Europe,  and  not  solely  upon  a  contest 
with  the  weapons  of  war  at  home.  Before 
we  declared  our  independence,  immediately 
after  Lexington,  Concord  and  Bunker  Hill, 
our  Congress  appointed  a  Committee  on 
Foreign  Affairs,  and  a  secret  agent  was  sent 
out  to  France,  who  succeeded  in  sending 
home  half  a  million  of  pounds  sterling,  with 
ammunition  and  clothing  for  our  troops,  on 
the  credit  of  a  government  which  could  be 
hardly  said  to  exist;  for  we  had  not  even 
adopted  any  articles  of  confederation.  Yet 


A   SKETCH  OF  AMERICAN  DIPLOMACY. 


617 


this  committee  did  a  good  deal  of  work, 
and  had  the  management  of  all  foreign  corre- 
spondence, already  voluminous  and  critical. 
Within  two  months  of  the  Declaration  of 
Independence,  hoped-for  treaties  of  com- 
merce and  of  alliance  were  drawn  up  at 
Philadelphia,  and  Benjamin  Franklin  was 
sent  out  at  the  head  of  our  commission, — 
for  commissioners  we  are  obliged  to  call  our 
agents,  as  our  independence  had  been  no- 
where acknowledged.  Little  could  be  ex- 
pected in  Europe  for  a  country  which  fought 
a  year  before  committing  itself  to  independ- 
ence, and  two  years  more  before  establish- 
ing a  form  of  confederate  government ;  yet, 
during  all  that  time,  with  both  the  instinct 
and  fact  of  unity  determining  everything, 
our  Congress  levied  men,  borrowed  money, 
sent  ministers,  concluded  treaties,  and  per- 
formed most  of  the  acts  of  a  sovereign 
government ;  and  the  world,  with  the  same 
kind  of  prescience,  seemed  to  take  us  at  our 
word. 

When  the  confederation  was  adopted, 
among  the  foremost  of  its  provisions  was  the 
following : 

"  The  United  States,  in  Congress  assembled,  shall 
have  the  sole  and  exclusive  right  and  power  of 
determining  on  peace  and  war,  of  sending  and 
receiving  embassadors,  entering  into  treaties  and 
alliances." 

And  when,  in  1781,  a  "  Department  of 
Foreign  Affairs  "  was  created,  in  place  of 
the  committee,  the  preamble  to  the  report 
declared : 

"  The  extent  and  rising  power  of  these  United 
States  entitle  them  to  a  place  among  the  great  po- 
tentates of  Europe,  while  our  political  and  commer- 
cial interests  point  out  the  propriety  of  cultivating 
with  them  a  friendly  correspondence  and  connection. 
That,  to  render  such  an  intercourse  advantageous, 
the  necessity  of  a  competent  knowledge  of  interests, 
views,  relations  and  systems  of  those  potentates  is 
obvious.  That  a  knowledge  in  its  nature  so  compre- 
hensive is  only  to  be  acquired  by  a  constant  attention 
to  the  state  of  Europe,  and  an  unremitted  application 
to  the  means  of  acquiring  well-grounded  information. 
That  Congress  are,  moreover,  called  upon  to  main- 
tain, with  our  ministers  at  foreign  courts,  a  regular 
correspondence,  and  to  keep  them  fully  informed  of 
every  circumstance  and  event  which  regards  the 
public  honor,  interest  and  welfare.  Whereupon, 
resolved,  that  an  office  be  forthwith  established  for 
the  Department  of  Foreign  Affairs." 

From  that  time  until  the  adoption  of  the 
Constitution,  the  post  of  head  of  that  de- 
partment was  held  successively  by  Robert 
R.  Livingston  and  John  Jay. 

I  am  mentioning  these  things,  my  coun- 
trymen and  country  women,  to  show  you 
how  the  United  States  from  the  beginning 


met  and  dealt  with  its  foreign  relations. 
Poor  and  ill-equipped  as  we  were,  we  filled 
every  post  abroad  creditably  to  ourselves, 
and  with  an  eye  to  the  creditable  appearance 
of  our  representatives.  Dr.  Franklin  was 
at  the  head  of  the  French  Commission ; 
John  Adams  was  added  to  it.  John  Jay 
was  sent  to  Spain,  Arthur  Lee  and  William 
Lee  to  Vienna  and  Berlin,  Francis  Dana 
to  Russia,  Henry  Laurens  to  Holland  and 
Ralph  Izard  to  Tuscany.  However  slight 
might  be  our  chance  of  obtaining  a  treaty 
of  commerce  with  a  power  having  but  one 
port,  we  must  not  let  it  escape  us:  it  might, 
perhaps,  at  least  give  shelter  to  our  cruisers 
and  privateers. 

I  have  said  that  Congress  meant  our 
agents  to  present  a  creditable  appearance. 
The  report  of  the  head  of  the  Department 
of  Foreign  Affairs  says : 

"  Dr.  Franklin  has  a  part  of  Mr.  Chaumont's  house 
at  Passy.  He  keeps  a  chariot  and  pair,  and  three  or 
four  servants,  and  gives  a  dinner  occasionally  to  the 
Americans  and  others.  Mr.  Adams  lives  in  lodg- 
ings, keeps  a  chariot  and  pair  and  two  men  servants. 
Mr.  Dana's  salary,  even  if  he  should  assume  a  public 
character  in  Russia,  where  the  value  of  money  is  so 
high,  is  very  ample.  Of  Mr.  Jay's  manner  of  living 
I  have  been  able  to  give  no  account ;  but  I  should  con- 
clude from  the  price  of  the  necessaries  of  life  in  that 
part  of  Spain  in  which  he  lives,  from  the  port,  the 
court  and  the  people  main  tain,  and,  above  all,  from  its 
sitting  in  different  parts  of  the  kingdom,  that  to  live 
in  the  same  style  with  Dr.  Franklin,  his  expenses 
must  amount  to  nearly  double  of  theirs." 

Comparing  the  cost  of  living  now  in 
Europe,  with  what  it  was  in  1780,  Mr.  Ly- 
man  is  justified  in  saying,  in  his  history 
of  our  diplomacy :  "  The  confederation 
generally  paid  their  ministers  better  than  is 
now  done."  Among  the  documents  sent  to 
the  ministers  was  an  engraved  design  of  the 
uniform  to  be  worn  by  them  at  foreign 
courts  when  full-dress  should  be  required. 

But  these  liberal  preparations  led  at  first 
to  no  results.  No  nation  would  acknowl- 
edge our  independence ;  not  even  France 
nor  Spain  would  move.  Tuscany,  with  her 
one  sea-port,  Leghorn,  was  in  fear  of  Great 
Britain,  and  would  make  no  treaty  of  any 
kind  nor  receive  our  minister,  and  Mr.  Izard 
returned  to  Paris.  As  far  as  I  recollect,  the 
Lees  could  accomplish  nothing  in  Austria  nor 
Prussia — not  even  the  prevention  of  the  Hes- 
sian mercenaries.  But  whatever  else  failed, 
Franklin  triumphed.  His  reputation  as  a 
philosopher  put  him  very  high  in  France, 
and  his  dress  and  manners  made  him  a 
great  favorite  with  those  ladies  of  the  court 
who  were  wearied  with  stars  and  ribbons, 


6i8 


A   SKETCH  OF  AMERICAN  DIPLOMACY. 


with  pomatum  and  perfume.  Besides  his 
receptions  among  men  of  letters,  think  of 
that  hour  when,  amid  the  court  beauties, 
the  most  beautiful  out  of  three  hundred 
was  selected  to  place  a  crown  of  laurels  on 
his  head,  and  to  implant  two  kisses  upon 
his  cheeks !  Ah,  Benjamin  !  Benjamin !  I 
fear  it  was  then  thou  feltest  that  thou  hadst 
indeed  drawn  the  electricity  from  heaven  ! 

The  cause  of  the  colonies  at  the  close  of 
1777  was  at  its  lowest  ebb.  New  York  and 
Philadelphia  had  been  taken ;  our  army 
had  been  driven  through  the  Jerseys  into 
the  interior  of  Pennsylvania  and  was  dwin- 
dling away,  and  an  expedition  of  the  highest 
promise  had  been  formed  by  Burgoyne,  to 
march  from  Canada  to  join  Clinton  from 
New  York,  on  the  Hudson,  and  so  separate 
New  England,  which  furnished  the  most 
men  and  money  ;  and  he  seemed  to  be  car- 
rying everything  before  him.  The  French 
were  apologizing  and  explaining  to  England, 
and  abandoning  us.  But  the  turn  in  the 
tide  was  to  come.  Beaumarchais,  in  a  state 
of  agony  and  despair,  in  December,  1777, 
was  at  the  house  of  Franklin,  at  Passy, 
when  the  intelligence  was  brought  of  the 
surrender  of  the  army  of  Burgoyne.  He 
set  off  instantly  for  the  capital,  but  in  such 
haste  that  he  overthrew  his  carriage  and 
dislocated  his  arm.  But  such  news  did  not 
depend  upon  one  man.  It  spread  itself. 
The  rapidity  with  which  events  followed 
was  remarkable.  In  the  same  month  in 
which  the  news  was  received,  the  American 
commissioners  were  informed  that,  after 
long  and  mature  deliberation,  His  Christian 
Majesty  had  determined  to  acknowledge 
their  country's  independence,  and  the  com- 
missioners were  invited  to  a  formal  confer- 
ence as  diplomatic  agents  of  an  independent 
country;  and  a  little  more  than  a  month 
after  all  the  details  of  two  treaties,  one  of 
commerce  and  one  of  alliance,  had  been 
agreed  upon  and  were  signed  on  the  6th 
of  February,  1778. 

I  have  said,  Mr.  President,  that  Paris  was 
the  birthplace  of  American  diplomacy. 
Am  I  not  justified  ?  Our  first  commission 
was  sent  to  Paris.  Paris  was  made  the 
head-quarters  of  our  European  diplomacy, 
with  which  all  the  more  distant  members 
held  correspondence.  The  first  diplomatic 
letter  dispatched  by  an  American  agent  from 
Europe  was  dated  at  Paris,  January  17, 1777. 
After  the  recognition  of  our  independence, 
the  first  minister  ever  sent  from  the  United 
States  was  sent  to  Paris,  and  the  first  min- 
ister we  ever  received  came  from  Paris. 


Our  negotiations  with  Holland  were  mostly 
conducted  at  Paris,  and  it  was  at  Paris  that 
a  Swedish  embassador,  specially  instructed 
to  that  purpose  by  his  king,  made  a  treaty 
with  Dr.  Franklin,  in  January,  1782,  saying 
that  Sweden  was  the  first  country  in  Europe 
which  had  volunteered  to  make  a  treaty 
with  the  United  States,  without  request  on 
our  part,  and  that  he  hoped  it  would  be 
remembered.  The  treaties  of  peace  with 
England,  the  provisional  treaty  of  1782  and 
the  final  treaty  of  September  3d,  1783,  were 
executed  at  Paris.  And,  lastly,  it  was  at 
Paris  that  Dr.  Franklin,  in  July,  1785, 
affixed  his  signature  to  the  celebrated  treaty 
with  Prussia  of  that  year,  the  last  public  act 
of  his  life  in  Europe. 

But  the  war  had  again  its  vicissitudes.  We 
lost  more  cities  and  some  battles,  the  expec- 
tations from  the  French  fleet  were  disap- 
pointed, and  all  this  had  its  effect  in  Europe. 
Holland,  sinking  in  naval  importance  and 
obliged  to  pass  her  commerce  through  the 
British  Channel,  was  unwilling  to  give  any 
cause  of  offense  to  England,  though  her 
feelings  were  favorable  to  us.  William  Lee, 
on  his  way  back  from  Berlin,  made  at  Frank- 
fort a  treaty  with  the  Dutch  agent,  in  such 
a  way  that  the  Dutch  Government  need  not 
acknowledge  it,  unless  the  treaty  itself  should 
be  seen ;  and  this  did  take  place  by  a  singu- 
lar accident.  The  treaty  was  hustled  safely 
out  of  Europe  and  put  on  board  a  Congress 
packet,  and  got  as  far  as  the  banks  of  New- 
foundland, when  the  packet  was  pursued 
and  taken  by  the  British  frigate  Vestal, 
Captain  Keppel.  The  precious  document 
was  thrown  overboard,  but  an  enterprising 
sailor  from  the  Vestal  sprang  after  it  and 
brought  it  aboard  in  safety,  but  little  injured. 
It  was  dried  and  sent  to  the  Foreign  Office, 
and  dispelled  all  misconception  the  British 
were  under  as  to  the  real  position  of  the 
Dutch.  We  sent  Mr.  Henry  Laurens  Min- 
ister to  Holland,  but  he  was  captured  on 
his  way  over  and  confined  in  the  Tower 
nearly  two  years.  But  Mr.  Adams,  Mr.  Lee 
and  Mr.  Dana  succeeded  in  getting  consid- 
erable loans  from  Holland,  and,  in  1782, 
Mr.  Adams,  after  vexatious  and  annoying 
delays,  succeeded  in  completing  a  treaty  of 
amity  and  commerce.  With  Russia  we  had 
no  direct  success,  for  the  Empress  had  re- 
served for  herself  the  office  of  mediator,  and 
would  not  acknowledge  our  independence 
nor  receive  our  minister.  Yet  Russia  hung 
poised,  a  menacing  avalanche  that  might 
at  any  time  descend  upon  British  trade 
and  commerce  in  the  Baltic  and  German 


A    SKETCH  OF  AMERICAN  DIPLOMACY. 


619 


Ocean.  But,  if  nothing  else,  we  escaped  a 
misfortune.  In  its  zeal  to  obtain  the  co- 
operation of  Russia,  Congress  had  authorized 
Mr.  Dana  to  accede  to  the  armed  neutrality 
of  the  North.  This  is  the  only  instance  in 
our  history  in  which  we  have  volunteered  to 
become  a  party  to  European  belligerent 
affairs,  and  had  it  taken  effect  it  might  have 
seriously  altered  the  history  of  the  United 
States.  And,  after  the  peace,  Congress  was 
very  anxious  lest  some  step  of  this  kind  had 
been  taken.  But,  fortunately,  the  rigid 
neutrality  of  Catherine  forbade  all  treaties, 
and  the  general  peace  that  followed  the 
treaty  of  Paris  broke  up  the  league  of  the 
armed  neutrality. 

If  my  hearers,  Mr.  President,  are  willing 
to  go  with  me  farther,  we  will  transfer  the 
scene  to  the  other  continent,  the  home  of 
most  of  us.  The  Constitution  had  been 
adopted  less  than  four  years,  and  was  still 
an  experiment  as  to  which  many  were  doubt- 
ful and  some  hostile;  the  Government  was 
but  little  experienced,  and  Washington  was 
without  a  navy,  or  even  a  naval  department ; 
we  had  only  a  few  troops  employed  on  the 
Indian  frontiers,  with  a  very  long  coast  and 
numerous  bays  and  harbors  to  look  after, 
when  the  ground-swell  of  the  great  war  of  the 
French  Revolution  broke  upon  our  coast. 
Yielding  to  the  necessity  of  obtaining  the 
French  aid  in  1778,  we  had  incorporated  into 
the  treaty  of  that  year  some  provisions  re- 
specting maritime  warfare  which  were  incon- 
sistent with  neutrality  and  impartiality,  in 
case  France  should  be  engaged  in  a  war  of 
that  description.  The  republic  had  taken 
the  place  of  the  monarchy,  and  the  envoy 
of  the  republic,  M.  Gen£t.  a  hot-headed 
man,  relying  upon  the  sympathy  of  the 
Americans  for  his  republic,  and  our  grati- 
tude for  the  aid  of  France,  as  well  as  what 
he  supposed  would  be  a  natural  hatred  on 
our  part  against  England,  had  pushed  the 
claims  of  the  French  Government  for  the 
exclusive  use  of  our  ports  for  all  purposes 
of  naval  outfitting  and  prize  tribunals,  be- 
yond all  endurance.  And  so  little  respect 
had  he  for  our  sparse  and  unarmed  repub- 
lic that,  when  Washington  remonstrated,  he 
appealed  from  the  President  to  the  people. 
Great  Britain  objected  to  what  had  been 
done,  and  was  still  going  on,  and  with 
reason.  It  was  impossible  to  stop  M.  Genet, 
for  he  had  in  truth  the  sympathy  of  a 
considerable  part  of  the  American  people, 
especially  in  the  more  southern  sea-ports. 
A  history  of  this  famous  struggle  is  too  long 
and  complex  for  me  to  hope  to  hold  your 


attention  to  it.  Let  it  be  enough  for  me  to 
say  that  our  affairs  were  in  the  hands  of 
three  such  men  as  AVashington,  Hamilton 
and  Jefferson.  On  the  22d  of  April,  1793, 
Washington  issued  his  renowned  proclama- 
tion of  neutrality,  and  on  the  25th  of  May 
following,  Mr.  Jefferson,  as  Secretary  of  State, 
wrote  his  celebrated  letter  laying  down  the 
principles  of  maritime  neutrality  as  regards 
both  commerce  and  belligerency,  in  a  man- 
ner which  will  move  the  admiration  of  the 
student  of  those  subjects  who  has  followed 
them  through  the  subsequent  eighty-seven 
years.  The  next  week  appeared  Washing- 
ton's dispatch  to  the  British  and  French 
ministers.  In  that,  he  admitted  to  Great 
Britain  the  range  he  had  been  compelled  by 
the  treaty  to  allow  to  France;  gave  notice 
to  France  that  from  the  date  of  the  dispatch 
the  articles  of  the  treaty  were  terminated; 
declined  to  make  compensation  for  what 
had  preceded  his  proclamation,  and  made  it 
understood  that  from  that  time  the  United 
States  would  hold  itself  answerable  to  do  its 
utmost  to  preserve  neutrality  upon  the  prin- 
ciples laid  down  by  these  several  documents. 
In  a  circular  letter  of  August  following, 
Washington  gave  directions  of  the  most 
stringent  character  to  the  officers  of  the 
revenue  and  the  customs,  to  prevent  any 
acts  in  violation  of  neutrality ;  and,  imme- 
diately upon  the  assembling  of  Congress, 
Washington  suggested  legislation  for  the 
preservation  of  neutrality,  and  on  the  5th 
of  June,  1794,  we  passed  the  first  statute  for 
that  purpose,  known  in  the  history  of  the 
world.  And  these  statutes  and  proclama- 
tions were  put  into  execution,  feeble  as  our 
Government  was  in  military  force  by  sea  or 
by  land.  The  militia  of  New  York  seized 
one  French  vessel  and  held  it  for  a  year,  and 
a  company  of  militia  from  Richmond,  Vir- 
ginia, on  a  few  minutes'  notice,  marched  a 
hundred  miles  to  seize  an  armed  vessel  about 
to  sail  from  the  James  River  under  French  col- 
ors. Washington  complained  of  the  conduct 
of  M.  Gen6t,  and  the  French  Government 
recalled  him,  substituting  a  reasonable  and 
acceptable  person.  Nor  let  it  be  forgotten 
that,  in  addition  to  all  his  other  difficulties, 
Washington  had  to  contend  against  Jacobin 
clubs  and  journals,  which  had  started  up 
through  the  country,  and  against  a  strong 
party  which  did  not  wish  to  see  neutrality 
enforced,  and  scarcely  recognized  its  obliga- 
tions. Let  me  conclude  this  part  of  what  I 
have  to  say,  by  the  assertion,  I  make  with- 
out fear,  that  there  is  no  part  of  the  inter- 
nal administrative  history  of  any  country  of 


620 


A   SKETCH  OF  AMERICAN  DIPLOMACY. 


modern  times  which,  under  all  the  circum- 
stances, lias  done  more  honor  to  its  ability 
and  purposes  than  has  the  preservation  of 
the  neutrality  of  the  United  States  under  the 
administration  of  Washington.  And,  besides 
the  acts  done,  we  may  take  pride  in  remem- 
bering that  the  documents  composed  and 
issued  by  him  and  his  cabinet  are  regarded 
as  masterpieces  by  the  scholars  of  jurispru- 
dence throughout  Christendom. 

Nearly  one  generation  after  this,  our  neu- 
trality was  put  to  a  severe  test  by  the  wars, 
largely  maritime,  between  Spain  and  Portu- 
gal and  their  South  American  provinces, 
which  had  declared  their  independence.  As 
they  had  all  adopted  the  republican  form 
of  government  and  were  struggling  against 
foreign  powers  which  they  had  outgrown, 
the  sympathy  with  them  in  the  United 
States  was  very  general,  and  cupidity  was 
appealed  to  by  the  opportunities  for  Amer- 
ican privateering  under  the  South  American 
colors  against  a  rich  Spanish  and  Portu- 
guese commerce.  Besides,  our  coast  was 
very  long,  including  our  side  of  the  Gulf  of 
Mexico,  and  full  of  harbors  and  rivers  in 
which  those  clipper  schooners  which  did 
most  of  the  privateering  could  be  easily 
fitted  out  and  dispatched.  The  case  was 
not  one  of  large  steamers  built  in  great  sea- 
ports like  New  York  or  Boston,  whose  pur- 
pose and  destination  would  be  seen  and 
known  of  all  men.  It  must  be  acknowl- 
edged that  the  Spanish  and  Portuguese  suf- 
fered greatly  at  our  hands.  From  the  port 
of  Baltimore  alone  twenty- three  vessels  had 
sailed  under  the  American  flag,  to  bring  up 
their  armaments  and  crew  and  hoist  their 
privateer  colors  as  soon  as  they  had  passed 
the  capes  of  Virginia.  But  we  have  some 
things  to  say  in  our  favor.  The  republic 
had  a  complete  judicial  system  extending 
over  the  whole  country,  with  prosecuting 
officers  in  every  State,  and  a  neutrality  stat- 
ute which  had  satisfied  Great  Britain  and 
which  we  thought  sufficient.  The  Portu- 
guese minister  suggested  additions  to  our 
neutrality  act  of  a  preventive  character. 
We  have  not  found  that  our  own  sugges- 
tions of  improvement  in  statutes  of  that 
character  have  been  well  received,  even  by 
our  nearest  relations.  President  Monroe 
immediately  suggested  these  additions  to 
Congress.  They  were  adopted  at  once, 
and  in  less  than  two  months  from  the  date 
of  his  letter  of  request,  the  Portuguese  min- 
ister had  occasion  to  express  his  satisfaction 
to  the  Secretary  of  State.  We  had  pre- 
viously, at  the  request  of  the  Spanish  minis- 


ter, introduced  into  that  statute  a  new 
clause  adding  to  the  word  "  state,"  wher- 
ever it  occurred,  the  words  "colony,  dis- 
trict or  people,"  to  quiet  his  apprehension 
that  the  South  American  republics,  whose 
independence  had  not  been  acknowledged, 
might  not  be  included  by  the  courts  under 
the  previous  phrase.  And,  at  the  request  of 
the  Portuguese  Government,  we  went  be- 
yond our  obligation  and  suppressed  by  a 
naval  force  semi-piratical  establishments  at 
Amelia  Island  and  Galveston,  beyond  our 
jurisdiction,  which  were  preying  upon  her 
commerce.  We  prosecuted  criminally  both 
citizens  and  foreigners,  made  restitution  of 
prizes  brought  into  our  courts,  and  with  an 
admiralty  court  in  every  State,  opened  for 
complaints  for  any  violation  of  the  neutral- 
ity laws,  the  Government  put  itself  in  such 
a  position  that  the  Portuguese  minister  did 
not  allege  that  the  executive  had  failed  of 
its  duty,  but,  on  the  contrary,  spoke  of  its 
"  conscientious  earnestness."  Still,  the  claims 
of  her  citizens  for  losses  have  not  been  met 
to  her  satisfaction.  With  Spain,  a  series  of 
negotiations  and  balancing  of  claims  must 
be  considered  as  having  settled  all  ques- 
tions arising  out  of  those  wars. 

I  wish  I  had  lime  to  speak  to  you  of  our 
judicial  system,  and  to  remind  you  of  its 
glories  achieved  upon  the  sea.  There  is 
nowhere  in  the  world  a  court  having  so 
great  a  jurisdiction  and  such  enlarged 
functions  as  the  Supreme  Court  of  the 
United  States.  Among  other  things,  it  is 
our  supreme  court  of -admiralty  and  prize. 
During  the  period  when  these  great  ques- 
tions principally  came  up,  we  had  Marshall 
and  Story  upon  the  bench,  and  Pinckney, 
Webster — I  was  going  to  mention  other 
names  scarcely  less  illustrious,  but  I  must 
stop.  We  had  a  great  bar,  and  the  officers 
of  the  inferior  courts  of  admiralty  were  men 
of  high  reputation.  Look  at  any  book  on 
the  international  laws  of  war,  and  especially 
maritime  war,  published  within  this  gener- 
ation, and  your  American  hearts  will  beat 
high  with  pride  as  the  long  rolls  of  those 
now  world-renowned  decisions  pass  before 
you,  and  you  see  what  honor  and  authority 
are  accorded  by  all  nations  to  your  judicial 
tribunals. 

But  the  South  American  wars  of  independ- 
dence  did  not  cease  without  putting  the 
diplomatic  powers  of  the  United  States 
again  to  the  test.  The  result  of  the  con- 
gresses at  Leybach  and  Verona  was  an  alli- 
ance between  Russia,  Prussia,  Austria  and 
France,  against  all  changes  in  the  direction 


A   SKETCH  OF  AMERICAN  DIPLOMACY. 


621 


of  liberal  institutions  not  made  with  the 
entire  consent  of  the  sovereign.  In  accord- 
ance with  the  spirit  of  this  alliance,  the 
movements  for  free  constitutions  in  1821,  in 
Spain,  Naples  and  Piedmont,  were  put 
down  by  armed  intervention,  and  absolutism 
re-instated.  And,  in  1823,  France  invaded 
Spain,  suppressed  the  constitutional  govern- 
ment of  the  Cortes  and  restored  absolutism 
in  the  person  of  Ferdinand  VII.  Immedi- 
ately there  were  signs,  which  could  not  be 
misread,  that  it  was  the  purpose  of  those 
powers  to  assist  Ferdinand  in  regaining  his 
American  possessions.  Against  this  Eng- 
land stood  alone, — England,  the  home  of 
free  principles — though  sometimes  perse- 
cuted— the  birthplace  of  popular  govern- 
ment, and,  above  all,  the  inventor  of  that 
political  and  judicial  machinery  which  can 
only  work  in  free  air,  and  without  which  no 
declarations  nor  constitutions,  whatever  their 
language,  furnish  any  real  security.  The 
popular  feeling  of  England  had  been  for 
war  in  defense  of  Spain,  and  it  could  hardly 
be  controlled  even  on  the  question  of  the 
colonies ;  but  the  odds  were  overwhelming. 
England  sought  to  counteract  the  purposes 
of  the  alliance  by  diplomacy,  and  Mr.  Can- 
ning was  in  the  midst  of  his  manly  corre- 
spondence with  Prince  Polignac  when  the 
message  of  President  Monroe,  of  December 
2d,  1823,  was  received  in  London.  It  was 
received  not  only  with  satisfaction,  but  with 
enthusiasm.  Mr.  Brougham  said,  in  the 
House  of  Commons  : 

"  The  question  with  regard  to  Spanish  America  is 
now,  I  believe,  disposed  of,  or  nearly  so;  for  an 
event  has  recently  happened  than  which  none  has 
ever  dispersed  greater  joy,  gratitude  and  exultation 
over  all  the  free  men  of  Europe ;  that  event,  which 
I  think  is  decisive,  is  the  language  held  with  respect 
to  Spanish  America  in  the  message  of  the  President 
of  the  United  States." 

It  was  on  that  occasion  that  Sir  James 
Mackintosh  spoke  of  England  and  the 
United  States  as  "  the  two  great  English 
commonwealths,"  which  he  prayed  might 
ever  be  united  "  in  the  cause  of  justice  and 
liberty,"  and  "  whose  attitude  now  cannot 
be  contemplated  without  the  utmost  pleasure 
by  every  enlightened  citizen  of  the  earth." 
And  the  question  was  settled,  and  without 
any  further  diplomacy.  Those  absolutist 
dynasties  had  no  disposition  to  hazard  a 
war  with  such  a  power,  moral  and  material, 
as  Great  Britain  and  the  United  States 
would  have  presented,  when  united  in  the 


defense  of  independent  constitutional  gov- 
ernments. 

What  more  I  might  say  in  honor  of  the 
diplomacy  of  my  country  would  be  too  near 
to  our  own  times  to  be  presented  without 
fear  of  exciting  sensibilities  which  it  is  just 
and  generous  to  respect.  If  I  were  to  point 
out  the  few  cases  which  present  themselves 
most  strongly  to  my  mind  at  this  moment, 
I  would  refer  to  the  management  by  Mr. 
Seward  of  the  attempt  of  Napoleon  III.  to 
establish  an  empire  of  the  Latin  races  in 
place  of  the  Mexican  republic,  to  his  meet- 
ing the  demand  of  Lord  Palmerston  in  the 
matter  of  the  Trent — a  demand  couched 
in  terms  which  made  it  very  difficult  for 
the  administration  of  a  popular  government 
not  to  resent,  even  after  it  had  been  shorn 
of  its  worst  features  by  the  intervention  of 
the  kindly  spirits  of  Her  Majesty  and  her 
admirable  consort — acts  for  which  their 
memories  will  always  be  cherished  by 
American  patriots,  for  they  probably  made 
it  possible  for  us  to  extend  the  mantle  of 
diplomacy  over  an  embarrassing  maritime 
occurrence. 

I  will  add  to  my  list  what  is  perhaps  the 
shortest  diplomatic  letter  on  record, — that 
with  which  Mr.  Adams  closed  his  corre- 
spondence with  Lord  Russell  respecting  the 
rams  building  for  the.  Confederates  at  Liv- 
erpool, in  which  he  says  : 

"  It  is  superfluous  for  me  to  point  out  to  your  lord- 
ship that  this  is  war." 

I  know  you  all  have  in  your  thoughts 
what  many  will  esteem  the  most  honorable 
achievement  .of  the  diplomacy  of  this  gen- 
eration :  I  mean  the  arbitration  at  Geneva. 
It  was  our  latest  act  of  marked  diplomatic 
distinction,  and  may  well  form  a  close  of 
this  sketch  of  our  diplomatic  history.  That, 
too,  was  not  without  its  intimate  connec- 
tions with  Paris.  Paris  was,  for  much  of 
the  time,  the  head-quarters  of  the  mem- 
bers of  the  tribunal  and  of  the  counsel  of 
the  respective  countries ;  and  it  was  here 
that  a  diplomatic  arrangement  was  skill- 
fully made  between  the  leading  counsel  on 
each  side,  and  acceded  to  by  the  tribunal, 
without  which  it  is  probable  that  the  arbi- 
tration could  not  have  gone  on.  To  carry 
through  and  close  this  international  debate 
and  adjudication,  "  the  two  English  com- 
monwealths "  came  together  in  that  spirit 
of  "  unity,  peace  and  concord  "  which  the 
Litany  invokes  for  all  nations. 


622 


MARRYING    TITLES. 


MARRYING    TITLES. 


IT  is  the  subject  of  general  remark  that  the 
majority  of  the  marriages  of  American  girls 
with  foreigners  are  unhappy.  This  is  suffi- 
ciently indicated  in  the  newspapers,  where, 
from  time  to  time,  is  recorded  the  evidence 
of  such  domestic  infelicity.  There  are  nat- 
urally many  instances  of  the  kind  which  do 
not  reach  publicity,  through  a  desire  of  those 
concerned  to  avoid  the  exposure  of  private 
misfortune  and  the  common  discussion  of 
their  domestic  affairs.  A  natural  inquiry 
arises  as  to  the  cause  or  causes  of  such 
unfortunate  result,  in  response  to  which  sev- 
eral reflections  suggest  themselves. 

In  this  case,  the  Englishman  can  hardly 
be  regarded  as  a  foreigner,  for  his  mode  of 
life  and  thought  approximate  to  our  own,  and 
his  language  is  the  same.  Hence  he  must 
be  regarded  as  exceptional.  What  brings 
him  still  nearer  to  the  American  in  the  mat- 
ter of  marriage,  is  the  absence  of  the  dowry 
system  which  prevails  in  most  of  the  other 
countries  of  Europe. 

The  countries  which  chiefly  furnish  these 
titular  distinctions  to  American  aspirants  are 
Germany,  Italy  and  France,  where,  it  is 
hardly  necessary  to  say,  the  titles  are  not 
held  in  much  esteem  unless  they  represent 
talent,  character  or  wealth ;  not  being  in  this 
respect  as  in  England,  where  the  title  is 
usually  backed  by  houses,  lands,  stocks,  and 
social  and  political  power.* 

There  is  in  America,  perhaps  more  than 
in  any  other  country,  a  desire  for  some  kind 
of  distinction,  which  is  another  and  charac- 
teristic form  of  the  ambition  of  a  young 
people.  Indeed,  the  desire  to  be  something 
better  than  their  neighbors  belongs,  in  greater 
or  less  degree,  to  all  people.  The  ancestral 
lines  which  mark  out  the  elect  in  old  coun- 
tries are  absent  here,  and  the  Americans  are 
obliged  to  seek  for  superiority  in  the  material 
they  have  at  hand.  To  be  wealthy  is  of 
course  desirable ;  but  there  are  now  so  many 
who  are  wealthy  that  to  be  so  does  not  con- 
fer the  distinction  it  once  did.  Riches,  being 
largely  held  in  the  hands  of  the  vulgar  as 
well  as  the  refined,  something  else  is  found 


*  A  distinction  which  is,  of  course,  due  to  the  law 
of  primogeniture  in  regard  to  titles  and  the  custom 
of  entail  of  property  in  England  ;  whereas,  on  the 
Continent,  while  the  property  is  dissipated  by  fre- 
quent subdivision,  the  titles  often  belong  alike  to  all 
the  descendants. — ED.  S.  M. 


necessary.  Men  strive  to  be  distinguished 
in  the  arts  and  sciences ;  but  as  special  gifts 
are  requisite,  comparatively  few  reach  the 
coveted  honors,  and  it  never  can  be  other- 
wise. The  old  question,  Is  lie  rich?  is  now 
supplemented  with,  What  has  he  done  ?  If 
the  man  is  neither  rich  nor  talented,  he 
must,  under  pain  of  social  excommunication, 
belong  to  a  "good  family." 

The  desire  to  be  of  good  family  is  intense 
throughout  the  Union,  and  the  man  is  yet 
to  be  found  who  admits  that  he  belongs  to 
a  bad  one.  One  thinks  of  the  child,  read- 
ing the  records  of  tombstone  virtues,  who 
asked  where  the  wicked  were  buried.  It  is 
exhibited  in  the  popular  speech  by  F.  F.  V.'s, 
F.  F.  K.'s,  and  so  on.  The  subject  is  so 
dwelt  upon  that  a  stranger  might  suppose 
that  we  were  made  up  of  Montmorencies 
and  Howards.  He  finds,  to  his  surprise, 
that  more  importance  is  attached  to  this 
feature  in  this  democratic  country  than  in 
an  aristocratic  one.  This  naturally  arises 
from  the  insecurity  of  the  position  here, 
where  no  strong  lines  of  demarkation  sep- 
arate the  ordinary  from  the  distinguished 
people.  Hence,  every  town,  village  and 
cross-roads  is  composed  principally  of  "good 
families,"  a  notification  thereof  being  com- 
municated to  the  stranger  immediately  on 
his  arrival.  This  reaches  a  point  that  is 
grotesque  in  some  States,  where  almost 
every  shanty  is  pointed  out  as  containing 
"  blue  blood." 

It  has  passed  into  a  proverb  that  the  Eng- 
lishman loves  a  lord;  but  he  must  be  an 
English  lord,  with  an  ancestral  scroll,  and 
the  Englishman  who  loves  him  most,  belongs 
to  the  middle  and  lower  classes.  To  see  an 
obsequious  tradesman  of  London,  in  his  self- 
abasement  before  such  a  one,  is  a  painful 
sight,  which,  so  far,  is  foreign  to  American 
experience  in  these  States.  In  the  intel- 
lectual class  of  England,  however,  much 
less  importance  is  attached  to  a  title.  Many 
Englishmen  think  Disraeli  made  a  mistake 
in  becoming  the  Earl  of  Beaconsfield,  mean- 
ing that  he  has  thereby  lost  political  in- 
fluence. The  same  affirm  that  a  good  share 
of  Pitt's  influence  arose  from  remaining  him- 
self a  commoner,  whilst  distributing  titles  to 
others  with  a  generous  hand.  There  is  an- 
other influence  operating  against  the  accept- 
ance of  titles  in  this  class,  and  that  is  the 
Englishman's  inbred  distaste  of  novelty  and 


MARRYING    TITLES. 


623 


innovation,  and  his  love  of  his  identity  in 
name,  character  and  associations. 

This  is  still  more  the  case  with  the  intel- 
lectual class  of  France.  Under  the  reign 
of  Louis  Philippe,  when  a  distinguished  per- 
son persisted  in  addressing  Guizot  and 
Thiers  as  barons,  the  former  at  length  ob- 
served: "We  are  not  barons,  Thiers  and  I;  if 
we  wanted  titles  we  would  be  at  least  dukes." 

Italy  has  furnished  the  United  States  with 
a  good  many  gentlemen  of  rank,  who  have 
put  foot  on  the  soil  at  the  Battery,  from  the 
steerage.  A  number  of  them,  in  the  pursuit 
of  a  livelihood  in  the  country  of  their  adop- 
tion, have  shown  a  familiarity  in  the  man- 
ipulation of  the  razor  and  the  making  of 
lather,  which  has  led  to  some  doubts  in  the 
minds  of  the  young  women  with  rank  aspira- 
tions as  to  the  authenticity  of  the  names 
they  bear,  especially  as  there  are  enough  of 
undoubted  titles  from  whom  to  choose. 
The  genuine  and  the  spurious,  however,  are 
always  alike  in  their  poverty.  The  fortunes 
of  Italy's  nobility  appear  to  have  been  pur- 
sued with  especial  disaster.  In  Naples  I  saw 
a  tailor  who  was  a  marquis,  and  a  water- 
carrier  who  was  a  prince,  and  several  gentle- 
men of  the  same  race  and  caste  have  come 
within  my  observation  in  America  in  the 
pursuit  of  various  callings,  such  as  the  vend- 
ing of  fruits  and  nuts,  and  the  playing  of  a 
hand-organ  as  an  accompaniment  to  the 
performance  of  a  monkey.  This  is  not  noted 
as  a  reproach,  but  as  an  interesting  fact  in 
connection  with  the  titled.  They  were  sad- 
faced  men,  not  disposed  to  make  light  of 
their  misfortunes.  As  one  turned  the  crank 
of  the  organ  to  the  air  of  "  Lannigan's 
Ball,"  and  the  other  turned  the  roasting 
chestnuts,  the  minds  of  both,  probably,  dwelt 
on  the  splendor  of  ancestral  halls.  There 
were  tears  in  their  voices  as  they  spoke  to 
each  other,  and  no  allusion  was  made  to 
another  life  beneath  Italian  skies.  Their 
lips  uttered  no  title.  The  chestnut-roaster 
addressing  the  monkey-carrier  as  "  my  dear 
marquis  "  would  have  produced  a  grotesque 
effect  of  which  only  an  American  humorist, 
or  a  French  claqueur,  would  have  been 
capable. 

As  has  been  intimated,  the  young  woman 
who  desires  rank  no  longer  encourages  the 
interesting  stranger  who  is  introduced  to 
metropolitan  society  through  the  Battery. 
A  rude  experience  has  taught  her  that,  even 
when  the  noble  foreigner  comes  in  the  cabin, 
it  is  well  to  wait  for  confirmatory  testimony 
as  to  the  name  he  bears  before  accepting 
his  account  of  himself. 


Germany  also  furnishes  America  with  a 
number  of  noblemen — as  a  rule,  barons; 
but  as  almost  every  fourth  man  one  meets 
in  that  land  is  a  baron,  the  title  is  not  so 
highly  esteemed  among  the  title-hunters  of 
the  United  States  as  some  others.  Ger- 
many may  be  considered  as  the  home  of 
titles,  for  professional  names  are  used  in 
ordinary  conversation  as  well  as  those 
created  by  royal  patent.  Not  only  is  the 
doctor,  the  director  and  the  lawyer  spoken 
to  with  this  prefix,  but  it  is  shared  in  by 
their  wives,  and  is  exacted  by  the  rules  of 
politeness. 

There  are  conditions  under  which  mar- 
riages may  be  effected  in  a  foreign  land, 
with  approximate  chances  of  happiness,  as 
in  the  native  one.  They  involve  a  long 
residence  in  the  country,  and  intimate  ac- 
quaintance with  its  people  and  friendly  rela- 
tions with  some  honest  families.  Familiarity 
with  the  language  is  naturally  implied.  The 
exercise  of  ordinary  prudence  under  such 
circumstances  is  attended  with  the  results 
following  marriage  at  home.  These  con- 
ditions are  hardly  feasible  to  Americans, 
who  are  generally  travelers,  or  at  best  so- 
journers  of  a  year  or  two.  Those  who 
reside  abroad  longer  are  usually  deprived 
of  the  prudent  presence  of  the  head  of  the 
family,  who  cannot  absent  himself  from  his 
business,  whatever  it  may  be,  for  an  undue 
length  of  time.  There  are  men,  however, 
entertaining  this  singular  idea  of  domestic 
life,  who  permit  their  families  to  dwell  in 
foreign  parts  for  years,  they  remaining  at 
home  to  toil  and  supply  them  with  money, 
from  which  separation,  it  is  hardly  necessary 
to  add,  estrangement  and  unhappiness  fre- 
quently follow. 

To  establish  friendly  relations  with  honest, 
decorous  and  esteemed  families  of,  say,  a 
country  like  France  is  exceedingly  difficult 
for  the  foreigner,  unless  opened  up  with 
kindred  ties,  and  these  very  few  Americans 
possess.  If  the  American  girl  does  not 
encounter  the  nobleman  on  what  is  con- 
sidered, by  a  fiction  of  international  law, 
American  soil — the  floor  of  the  legation — 
she  meets  him  in  one  of  the  houses  of 
the  American  colonists  which  keeps  up  a 
social  connection  therewith,  and  where  a 
group  of  noblemen  may  always  be  found. 
Although  such  a  colonist  may  have  been 
residing  ten  years  or  more  in  the  place,  it 
is  rarely  that  a  French  woman  is  seen  in 
her  house;  of  the  sisters  and  mothers  of 
these  needy  noblemen  she  knows  nothing. 
The  freedom  and  accessibility  of  such  a 


624 


MARRYING    TITLES. 


drawing-room  are  contrary  to  the  customs 
of  the  country,  and,  if  no  other  reason  ex- 
isted, this  would  be  sufficient  to  account 
for  their  absence.  The  nobleman  in  quest 
of  money  goes  there  rather  for  business 
than  pleasure,  in  his  continuous  hunt  after 
the  American  heiress.  Indeed,  this  prac- 
tical way  of  looking  on  marriage  is  a  feat- 
ure that  extends  through  all  classes  of  the 
French  nation ;  and  yet  it  is  a  fashion 
among  French  publicists  to  look  upon  the 
French  as  a  people  of  sentiment  and  ideas, 
while  they  regard  Americans  as  a  positive, 
practical  people,  given  over  to  the  pursuit  of 
the  dollar  to  the  exclusion  of  the  gentle  sen- 
timents of  romance.  For  instance,  that 
impractical  leaning  toward  mysticism  which 
conduces  to  vague,  unsatisfactory  results,  in 
theology  and  spiritualism,  is  a  trait  of  Amer- 
ican character  which  the  Frenchman  cannot 
comprehend,  and,  not  comprehending,  he 
attributes  it  to  what  he  calls  American  hum- 
bug,— that  is,  something  done  with  an  ulte- 
rior motive  of  pocketing  a  gain.  In  all  the 
affairs  of  material  life,  the  French  are  really 
the  most  practical  people  in  the  world. 

The  nobleman  in  quest  of  money  to 
regild  his  blazon  says  in  his  defense  that  a 
title  should  be  regarded  in  the  same  way  as 
a  valuable  commodity ;  it  has  a  high  market- 
value  in  America, — higher,  perhaps,  than  in 
any  other  country, — and  of  this  he  proposes 
to  take  advantage  ;  the  young  woman  wants 
his  title  and  he  wants  her  money,  and  the 
marriage  becomes  a  fair  exchange.  The 
owner  of  the  titular  ornament  of  course 
holds  it  at  its  highest  value,  and  garlands 
it  with  the  traditions  of  his  ancestors,  from 
the  founder  of  the  family  down  to  himself. 
This  account  often  produces  the  same  effect 
on  the  fair  American  listener  which  the 
story  of  Othello  did  on  the  gentle  Desde- 
mona.  What  most  probably  contributes  to 
the  birth  of  this  love,  however,  is  the  coro- 
net of  a  countess  on  cards,  coupe"-panels, 
plates,  knives  and  forks,  and  all  the  para- 
phernalia of  a  household. 

This  explanation  or  defense  of  the  noble- 
man, from  his  point  of  view,  may  satisfy  his 
conscience,  but  as  much  can  hardly  be  said 
of  the  father  of  the  young  woman,  reared 
in  the  midst  of  republican  institutions,  who 
pays  down  the  money.  With  an  equa- 
nimity surprising  in  one  who  has  been 
taught  from  childhood  that  marriage  should 
be  based  on  affection,  and  affection  only, 
the  father  sometimes  enters  into  money 
stipulations,  as  if  he  were  selling  a  horse  or 
a  bale  of  cotton.  In  thus  disposing  of  his 


daughter,  he  has  nothing  to  say  in  vindica- 
tion of  the  home  principles  in  the  midst  of 
which  he  has  been  reared,  and  they  go 
down  before  the  first  vigorous  attack  in  a 
foreign  land.  The  cause  of  this  surrender 
is  naturally  to  be  found  in  a  new-born 
vanity.  He  is  going  to  become  the  father 
of  a  countess.  He  would  probably  like  to 
become  a  count,  but,  that  being  unfeasible, 
he  contents  himself  with  the  second  part; 
and  it  is  this  variance  between  profession 
and  practice  which  often  makes  of  the 
American  father  a  fair  target  for  ridicule. 

It  is  not  the  intention  of  the  writer  to  be 
understood  as  saying  that  moral  deficien- 
cies are  the  traits  of  noblemen  as  a  class, 
for  there  are  probably  as  many  good  men 
among  them  in  proportion  to  their  number 
as  in  any  other  class,  but  these  the  young 
American  woman  seldom  meets,  for  they 
are  not  the  kind  to  haunt  legations  and  the 
houses  of  Americans  in  quest  of  marriage 
settlements,  making  of  it  the  business  of 
their  lives. 

Thus  it  is  that  the  young  stranger  from  the 
other  side  of  the  Atlantic  is  apt  to  meet 
only  the  worst  of  the  titled  people.  It  is  a 
rule  in  France  that  those  who  are  of  easiest 
access  in  social  life  are  the  least  desirable 
as  friends  or  acquaintances.  Among  these, 
the  titled  who  are  bankrupt  in  character  and 
money  press  forward,  at  the  possible  chance 
of  filling  their  purse  by  marriage  with  some 
stranger  who  knows  nothing  of  them  and 
their  past. 

All  this  before  the  wedding;  for  the 
American  father  and  mother  and  sisters  of 
the  bride  expect,  after  that  event,  that  the 
doors  of  the  noble  groom's  family  will  be 
thrown  open  to  them,  and  that  they  will 
enjoy  intimacies  before  denied.  This  hope 
is  dwelt  and  built  upon  by  the  expect- 
ant republicans  with  an  alacrity  and  joyous- 
ness  sad  to  contemplate.  Their  future  entry 
into  the  noble  world  is  made  known  to 
friends  on  both  sides  of  the  Atlantic.  Copies 
of  the  coat-of-arms  of  the  husband  that  is 
to  be  are  contained  in  most  of  their  let- 
ters. A  slight  damper  may  be  thrown  over 
this  expectant  gladsomeness  in  the  rigid  per- 
sistency of  the  noble  groom  in  drawing  up 
each  clause  of  the  marriage  contract,  and  in 
his  insisting  that  the  exact  sum  shall  be  paid 
down  previous  to  the  ceremony.  They, 
however,  soon  recover  from  this  passing 
chill,  in  view  of  the  great  results  which  are 
to  follow  the  marriage. 

This  ante-marriage  draft  on  the  fortune 
of  the  American  family  is  not  so  much 


MARRYING   TITLES. 


625 


minded  by  the  women  as  by  the  father,  who 
probably  himself  has  made  every  cent  he 
possesses,  and  knows,  in  consequence,  the 
value  of  money. 

Generally,  it  then  occurs  to  him,  if  it  has 
not  before,  that  he  is  paying  a  heavy  sum 
for  an  unknown,  unsubstantial  thing  which 
cannot  be  estimated  in  dollars  and  cents. 
And  yet  he  is  obliged  to  recognize  that  it 
has  a  market  value  among  his  own  fel- 
low-countrymen. The  women-members  of 
the  household  are  in  such  a  state  of  beatific 
hope,  usually,  that  they  would  as  soon  think 
of  haggling  with  St.  Peter  about  the  price 
of  admission  within  the  celestial  gates  as 
to  challenge  that  demanded  by  the  noble 
groom  for  opening  unto  them  the  portals 
of  the  new  world  to  which  it  is  his  privilege 
to  belong. 

After  the  marriage  consummation,  the 
American  family  are  prepared  to  become 
the  friends  of  the  noble  husband's  family. 
Calls  are  exchanged,  and  politeness  is 
shown  to  the  transatlantic  people — a 
politeness  that  is  unexceptionable.  The 
Americans  wait  for  that  expansion  which 
usually  precedes  intimacy,  and,  as  they 
wait,  discover  that  the  newly  made  countess 
is  being  gradually  withdrawn  from  them, 
that  she  is  surrounded,  and  that  barriers  are 
being  erected  between  her  and  them.  In  a 
word,  the  parents  learn  that  they  have 
served  as  a  ladder  to  what  they  considered 
a  higher  social  life.  The  relatives  of  the 
new  husband  have  virtually  said  to  him : 
"  Your  wife  is  now  one  of  us,  and  we  re- 
ceive her,  but  you  have  not  married  her  rel- 
atives, and  we  draw  the  line  there." 

The  young  American  woman,  with  the 
natural  affection  which  belongs  to  her  sex, 
may  protest  against  this  virtual  separation 
from  her  parents,  but  is  trained  and  amused 
in  such  a  way  that  she,  as  a  rule,  grad- 
ually becomes  accustomed  to  it. 

The  separation  does  not  take  place  at  once, 
but  the  visits  between  mother  and  daughter 
become  fewer  and  then  at  longer  intervals,  un- 
til finally  the  mother  ceases  to  enter  into  the 
daily  life  of  the  daughter.  And  yet  neither 
the  father  nor  mother  can  find  an  act  or  a 
word  in  their  brief  intercourse  with  their 
daughter's  new  relatives  which  they  can 
term  positively  unfriendly  or  impolite. 
Everything,  in  appearance,  is  smooth  and 
conventional,  and  an  objection  is  difficult  to 
find. 

The  American  father  chafes  under  this. 
He  would  rather  receive  some  act  of  prov- 
ocation, give  them  a  piece  of  his  mind 
VOL.  XX.— 41. 


and  be  done  with  it ;  but  the  provocation 
never  comes,  and  at  last  he  finds  it  incon- 
sistent with  his  dignity  to  hold  any  inter- 
course with  people  who  keep  him  at  such  a 
distance,  and  he  will  have  nothing  more  to 
do  with  them.  The  mother  may  still  yearn 
for  her  daughter,  but  the  aroused  father  will 
permit  her  to  make  no  further  visits  to  the 
daughter's  house ;  then,  only  once  in  a  long 
while,  the  countess  comes  to  them.  Thus 
is  brought  about  what  the  husband  and. his 
family  have  desired. 

The  following  case,  which  will  throw  light 
on  another  side  of  this  subject,  came  within 
the  personal  knowledge  of  the  writer.  The 
count,  a  good-looking  fellow  with  a  fair 
family  name  and  no  money,  sought  to 
remedy  this  deficiency  by  wooing  a  young 
American  woman,  and  in  a  short  time  he 
won  her  affections — after  he  had  ascertained 
that  her  father  was  rich.  The  titular  orna- 
ment on  sleeve-buttons,  handkerchiefs  and 
note-paper,  joined  to  an  agreeable  person, 
did  their  work  speedily  and  effectively. 

The  count  whispered  in  her  ear,  between 
love's  murmurings,  that  he  would  be*  mod- 
erate in  his  demands  on  the  paternal  purse 
—enough  in  hand  to  repair  the  house  of  his 
ancestors,  and  ten  thousand  dollars  a  year. 
The  infatuated  young  woman  was  not 
affrighted  at  the  language  of  tenderness 
thus  sandwiched  with  financial  demands. 
But  when  he  proposed  to  put  on  his  black 
coat  and  white  cravat,  in  accordance  with 
the  custom  of  his  country,  to  talk  over  the 
matter  with  her  father,  it  occurred  to  her 
that  the  latter,  with  his  American  notions, 
might  discover  some  impropriety  in  the 
overtures  of  the  man  she  loved,  and  she 
begged  him  to  leave  the  matter  in  the  hands 
of  herself  and  mother.  This  was  "  irregu- 
lar," but  he  submitted  in  deference  to  the 
wishes  of  his  beloved. 

The  ornaments  appertaining  to  the  title, 
set  in  sleeve-buttons  and  wearing  apparel, 
had  also  produced  their  effect  on  the  mother, 
and  she  was  ready  to  do  anything  in  her 
power,  to  enable  her  daughter  to  share  the 
privilege  of  the  count,  in  wearing  and  display- 
ing this  Gallic  wampum ;  but,  knowing  her 
husband  as  she  did,  she  stood  aghast  at  the 
conditions  which  her  proposed  son-in-law 
imposed,  and  that  person  was  informed  by 
the  daughter  that  the  terms  were  out  of  the 
question. 

Between  love's  murmurings,  the  count 
knocked  off  the  sum  intended  for  the  repair 
of  the  ancestral  home,  because  he  could  not 
live  without  her.  When  the  mother  was  in- 


626 


MARRYING    TITLES. 


formed  of  this  concession,  she  thought,  even 
without  that,  the  terms  were  still  excessive, 
and  he  was  made  acquainted  with  her 
opinion. 

The  count  consulted  with  his  sister  and 
his  cousins,  and  particularly  with  his  uncle, 
who  also  was  a  count,  the  head  of  the  family, 
and  nearly  as  penniless  as  his  nephew.  The 
result  of  this  conference  was  that,  at  the 
next  interview  with  the  young  woman,  inter- 
lined between  the  tender  speeches,  he  softly 
confided  to  her  that  he  would  make  it  five 
thousand  dollars  a  year, — only  twenty-five 
thousand  francs, — because  he  loved  and 
could  not  possibly  live  without  her.  He 
gently  whispered,  as  he  told  her  that  she 
was  an  angel,  that  this  was  his  ultimatum — 
his  uncle,  sisters  and  cousins  would  not 
permit  him  to  come  down  another  dollar. 

When  the  mother  was  persuaded  that  the 
nobleman  would  not  recede  from  this  posi- 
tion, she  communicated  his  proposition  to 
her  husband,  an  oil-striker,  who  had  worked 
with  his  hands  for  a  living,  before  he  "struck 
oil."  It  was  received  with  an  expletive  which 
was  too  forcible  to  write,  and  coupled  with  the 
remark  that  he  would  never  give  one  cent  to 
the  man  who  married  his  daughter,  count 
or  no  count.  This  stern  resolution  was  made 
known  by  the  weeping  daughter  to  her  noble 
swain,  who  kissed  away  her  tears,  swore  he 
loved  her  more  than  ever — but  was  obliged 
to  adhere  to  the  last  figures  he  had  named. 

With  a  view  of  further  impressing  the 
American  family  with  the  dignity  and  im- 
portance of  his  title  and  connection,  he 
invited  them  to  make  a  visit  with  him  to  his 
uncle,  who  dwelt  in  the  country,  about  two 
hours'  ride  from  Paris  by  rail.  The  oil-striker 
refused  the  invitation,  but  the  mother  and 
daughter  accepted.  The  head  of  the  noble 
family  burnished  up  everything  for  their  re- 
ception. An  additional  servant  was  had  up 
from  the  neighboring  village,  and  put  into  a 
black  coat  to  do  general  duty  during  the 
visit  of  the  Americans.  The  old  woman- 
cook  did  her  best  in  the  preparation  of 
a  deje finer  a  la  fourchette  at  twelve.  The 
man-of-all-work  had  dusted  down  the  old 
furniture  and  waxed  the  floors.  The  re- 
past was  flanked  with  two  or  three  of  the 
last  bottles  of  the  old  gentleman's  wine. 
He  received  the  visitors  with  the  suavity  of 
the  old  school,  exhibited  to  them  the  parch- 
ments of  the  family,  showing  the  deeds  and 
honors  which  had  crowded  thick  and  fast 
along  the  whole  ancestral  line,  and  when  he 
had  satisfied  their  hunger  with  appetizing 
food,  and  their  thirst  with  toothsome  Yquem, 


he  brought  them  out  in  front  of  the  old 
house,  by  way  of  crowning  his  work,  and 
showed  them  the  statue  in  bronze  of  the 
founder  of  the  family.  This,  in  a  word,  the 
language  of  his  own  countrymen,  he  had 
reserved  as  the  bouquet. 

Mother  and  daughter  were  more  enam- 
ored than  ever  with  nobility,  and  a  system- 
atic suit  was  instituted  by  them  to  induce 
the  oil-striker  to  make  the  marriage-settle- 
ment asked  for ;  but  he  remained  obdurate. 
The  twain  averred  that  the  nobleman  was 
not  the  mercenary  person  which  the  ancient 
striker  of  oil  believed  him  to  be,  but  wanted 
to  be  married  because  he  loved  ;  whereupon 
the  old  man  proposed  to  submit  the  matri- 
monially inclined  nobleman  to  a  test,  to 
which  the  women  reluctantly  consented. 

In  two  or  three  days  it  came  to  the  ears 
of  the  count  that  the  oil-well  belonging  to 
the  father  of  his  beloved,  Avhich  heretofore 
had  poured  forth  its  oleaginous  wealth  in  a 
continuous  stream,  had  stopped,  and  the 
large  stock  of  oil  comprising  the  bulk  of  his 
fortune,  held  for  a  rise,  had  caught  fire,  and 
there  was  no  insurance  thereon. 

The  count  and  the  members  of  his  family 
held  a  consultation,  after  being  apprised  of 
the  double  disaster,  when  it  appeared  to 
them  that  the  path  of  duty  was  clear.  In 
accordance  with  and  in  pursuance  of  this 
general  conclusion,  the  love-smitten  noble- 
man presented  himself  before  the  object  of 
his  adoration  and  told  her  that  he  had  come 
to  perform  the  saddest  task  which  could  pos- 
sibly be  imposed  upon  him — to  relinquish 
all  claim  on  the  woman  he  loved.  It  "tore 
his  heart  "  to  do  so,  but  a  sense  of  duty 
impelled  him  to  rise  above  all  other  consid- 
erations. Her  father  could  give  her  no 
assistance ;  he,  himself,  had  no  money  ;  and 
if  he  were  to  be  united  to  her,  the  union 
would  compel  her  to  live  a  life  of  privation 
and  misery.  He,  himself,  might  undergo 
the  misfortunes  which  such  a  union  offered ; 
but  he  never  could  entertain  the  idea  of  ask- 
ing her  to  share  them — he  loved  her  too 
much  for  that.  Even  were  he  so  far  to  for- 
get himself  and  what  was  due  to  her  as  to 
ask  her  to  share  such  a  humble  and  misera- 
ble life,  his  family  would  never  consent  to  it. 
Saying  which,  the  French  ^Eneas,  with  a 
face  of  anguish,  bowed  himself  out,  never 
to  return,  and  left  a  pale  American  Dido  on 
the  sofa  who  refused  to  be  comforted. 

The  comment  of  the  oil-striker  was  sig- 
nificant. It  was  comprised  in  the  question 
of,  "  What  did  I  tell  you  ?  "  The  result  of 
the  test,  however,  did  not  bring  the  daughter 


TOPICS   OF  THE    TIME. 


627 


to  the  same  conclusion  as  her  father,  and  it 
is  an  article  of  faith  with  her  to  this  day  that 
the  count  loved  her,  with  a  love  unknown  to 
ordinary  men. 

Six  months  later,  it  was  discovered  by 
the  count  and  his  uncle  that  the  well  con- 
tinued to  flow,  and  the  stock  of  oil,  held  for 
a  rise,  was  unburned,  except  in  lamps,  after 
furnishing  a  handsome  profit  on  the  topmost 
wave  of  the  rise.  Another  family  confer- 
ence was  held,  when  the  path  of  duty  again 
became  clear,  and  in  compliance  therewith 
the  young  nobleman,  at  the  earliest  moment, 
presented  himself  at  the  residence  of  the 
oil-striker ;  but,  through  the  orders  of  that 
person,  admittance  was  denied  to  him. 

Another  instance  is  found  of  a  French- 
man who  met  this  demand  in  a  way  that  is 
not  new,  but  it  was  successful.  Learning, 
soon  after  his  arrival  in  America,  that  some 
of  the  young  women  were  possessed  of  an 
intense  desire  to  become  countesses,  he 
straightway  called  himself  a  count,  which 
it  is  needless  to  say  he  had  never  done  in 


his  own  land.  "  //  n'avait  que  jeter  son 
mouchoir."  He  -selected  a  good-looking 
young  woman  with  money,  whom  he 
married.  She  experienced  the  sensation  of 
hearing  herself  called  a  countess,  and  of  see- 
ing the  appellation  inscribed  on  her  visiting- 
cards.  He  could  not  take  her  to  his  pro- 
vincial home  in  France,  where  he  and  his 
'•  father  were  known  as  ameliorated  peasants, 
but  he  took  her  to  Paris,  where  she  at  pres- 
ent resides  under  the  pleasing  fiction  that 
she  has  become  part  of  a  noble  and  illustrious 
family. 

In  conclusion,  it  must  be  owned  that  the 
evidence  of  conjugal  unhappiness,  however 
strong,  will  hardly  deter  the  young  American 
woman  from  striving  to  be  a  countess,  if  her 
head  be  once  filled  with  the  notion.  Were 
it  proved  to  her  that,  in  nine  cases  out  of 
ten,  such  unions  are  miserable,  she  would 
with  a  fatal  facility  believe  hers  to  be  the 
exceptional  tenth,  and  unhesitatingly  place 
upon  her  head  tbe  coronet  destined  in  the 
end  to  become  a  crown  of  thorns. 


TOPICS  OF  THE  TIME. 


Life  in  Large  and  Small  Towns. 

IT  is  said,  by  those  who  have  good  opportunities 
of  judging,  that  fifty  thousand  strangers  spent  last 
winter  in  this  city.  Every  hotel  and  every  board- 
ing house  was  full.  Of  these  fifty  -thousand,  prob- 
ably more  than  half  were  permanent  boarders  for 
the  winter,  while  the  remainder  were  merchants, 
coming  and  going,  on  errands  of  business.  The 
fact  shows  that  New  York  is  becoming  more  and 
more  regarded  as  the  great  capital  of  the  country, 
and  is  beginning  to  hold  toward  the  country  the 
same  relation  that  London  holds  to  Great  Britain, 
and  Paris  to  France.  This  latter  fact  means  more 
than  winter  boarding :  it  means  that  New  York  is 
coming  to  be  regarded  as  a  desirable  home  for  all 
who  have  money  enough  made  to  enable  them  to 
live  at  leisure.  The  Californian  who  has  become 
rich  has,  in  many  instances,  brought  his.  family  to 
New  York,  and  bought  his  house  on  Fifth  avenue. 
The  country  manufacturer,  who  has  grown  to  be  a 
nabob  in  his  little  village,  domiciles  himself  on  Mur- 
ray Hill,  that  his  family  may  have  a  better  chance 
at  life  than  they  get  in  the  narrow  village. 

What  is  true  of  the  commercial  capital  of  the 
country  is  also  true,  to  a  considerable  extent,  of  the 
political.  Washington  has  grown  to  be  a  beautiful 
city,  and  nothing  has  more  directly  ministered  to  its 
growth  than  the  gathering  to  it  from  far  and  near  of 


wealthy  and  cultivated  families,  who  have  sought  it 
as  a  residence  and  a  resort.  New  York,  the  com- 
mercial capital,  and  Washington,  the  political,  will, 
for  many  years,  divide  between  them  those  families 
whom  wealth,  instead  of  binding  to  the  place  where 
its  stores  were  acquired,  has  made  migratory. 
Those  who  wish  to  hear  the  best  operas  and  witness 
the  best  acting,  and  who  desire  to  be  where  the  best 
in  art  of  all  kinds  is  to  be  found,  and  especially 
those  whose  tastes  are  commercial,  will  come  to 
New  York ;  while  those  who  are  fond  of  politics,  and 
the  peculiar  social  life  that  reigns  at  a  political  cen- 
ter, will  go  to  Washington ;  and  it  is  hard  to  say 
which  will  have  the  better  home.  Few  who  have 
not  kept  themselves  familiar  with  Washington  can 
appreciate  the  long  strides  she  has  made,  during  the 
past  few  years,  in  population,  and  in  all  desirable 
conditions  as  a  residence.  Her  climate,  her  lovely 
position,  her  possession  of  the  national  Government, 
the  residence  she  gives  to  the  high  officials  of  the 
nation  and  the  representatives  of  other  nations, 
conspire  to  make  her  one  of  the  most  attractive  cities 
in  America. 

But  we  do  not  undertake  to  represent  the  beauties 
and  attractions  of  the  two  cities.  They  do  not  seem 
to  need  our  help ;  but  we  would  like  to  say  a  word 
about  those  conditions  of  life  in  small  towns  which 
make  these  changes  of  residence  desirable.  Inter- 
ested in  New  York,  it  is  pleasant  for  us  to  see  it 


628 


TOPICS   OF  THE    TIME. 


prospering  and  growing,  but  our  interest  in  its 
growth  does  not  blind  us  to  the  fact  that  it  ought 
not  to  grow  because  life  within  it  is  more  significant 
and  fruitful  than  it  is  in  the  country.  It  seems  to 
us  a  great  mistake  for  a  man  to  leave  the  region 
where  he  makes  his  money  to  spend  it  and  his  life 
in  another.  If  the  life  he  leaves  is  not  significant  to 
him,  it  is  quite  likely  to  be  his  fault  more  than  that 
of  any  and  all  other  men.  For  he  has  had  the 
money  more  than  others  to  enrich  the  character  of 
the  life  around  him ;  and  the  possession  of  that  money 
has  placed  upon  him  the  burden  of  certain  duties 
which  he  has  left  unperformed.  Wealth  acquired  in 
any  modest  locality  belongs  there,  by  a  certain 
right,  for  it  cannot  exist  there  for  a  moment  without 
assuming  certain  very  definite  relations  to  the  popu- 
lar needs  and  the  public  good.  To  take  money 
away  from  where  it  has  been  made  is  to  impoverish 
all  the  life  of  the  community.  It  reduces  its  means 
of  living  and  its  possibilities  of  progress.  It  not 
only  takes  bread  and  clothing  from  the  poor,  but  it 
reduces  all  its  means  of  social  improvement. 

The  city  of  Cincinnati  has  recently  held  another 
musical  festival,  and  won  to  herself  the  glory  of  sur- 
passing New  York  and  Washington  in  musical  cult- 
ure and  the  power  of  producing  great  musical 
works.  It  cannot  be  hard  to.  see  that  the  life  of 
Cincinnati  has  been  made  so  significant  to  its  people 
that  they  can  have  no  temptation,  however  rich  they 
may  be,  to  go  to  New  York  or  Washington  to  live. 
A  commercial  town  that  can  give  up  a  week  to 
music,  and  furnish  all  the  money  and  the  time  nec- 
essary to  produce  a  great  musical  triumph,  has  no 
call  to  go  elsewhere  to  find  a  more  interesting  life 
than  it  secures  at  home.  People  are  much  more 
apt  to  go  to  Cincinnati  to  live  than  to  go  away  from 
there,  because  it  is  an  honor  to  live  there,  and  to  be 
associated  with  the  generous  life  and  development 
of  the  place. 

What  we  say  of  Cincinnati  illustrates  all  that  we 
have  to  say  about  the  smaller  towns  and  cities. 
Men  of  wealth  who  have  sense  enough  to  long  for  a 
better  life  than  they  can  find  in  their  little  city  or  vil- 
lage are  to  blame  for  not  making  the  life  around  them 
as  good  as  they  want  it  to  be.  There  is  not  a  city  or 
a  village  in  America  that  has  not  within  itself — in  its 
men  and  women  and  money — the  means  for  doing 
some  good,  or  noble,  or  interesting  thing,  that  shall 
lift,  its  life  above  the  commonplace,  and  hold  its  own 
against  all  the  attractions  of  metropolitan  life.  Where 
a  man  makes  his  money  there  he  should  make  his 
home,  and,  as  a  rule,  it  will  be  mainly  his  fault  and 
that  of  his  family  if  he  cannot  spend  his  life  there 
with  profit  and  satisfaction. 

Personal  Economies. 

IN  this  country,  we  naturally  go  to  New  England, 
and,  alas !  to  an  earlier  time,  for  examples  of  per- 
sonal economy  and  thrift.  Almost  any  New- 
Englander  can  recall  a  country  minister  who,  on 
his  little  yearly  salary  of  three  or  four  hundred 
dollars,  managed,  by  the  help  of  his  wife,  to  live  re- 
spectably and  comfortably,  educate  a  large  family  for 


self-support  and  social  usefulness,  and  lay  up  some- 
thing every  year  against  the  rainy  day  which  comes 
in  all  men's  lives.  We  have  wondered  how  it  was 
done,  but  we  know  it  was  done,  and  that  he  died  at 
last  the  possessor  of  a  nice  little  property.  New 
England  has  been  noted  for  its  hard  soil  and  its 
hard  conditions  generally,  yet  there  is  no  other  spot 
on  the  face  of  the  earth  that  contains  so  much  human 
comfort  to  the  square  mile.  Every  man  born  on 
New  England  soil  tries  and  expects  to  better  his 
condition  during  his  life,  and  he  goes  to  work  at  the 
beginning  with  this  end  definitely  in  view.  The 
rich  men  of  New  England  are  men  who  began  their 
prosperity  with  humble  savings.  Whatever  their 
income  was,  they  did  not  use  it  all.  Twenty-five 
or  fifty  dollars  a  year  was  considered  quite  worth 
saving  and  laying  by.  These  small  sums,  placed  at 
interest,  accumulated  slowly  but  surely,  until  the 
day  came  at  last  when  it  was  capital,  to  be  invested 
in  business  with  larger  profits.  A  fortune  acquired 
in  this  way  was  cohesive,  strong  and  permanent. 

We  are  quite  aware  that  something  of  grace  and 
lovableness  was  lost  in  the  habit  of  these  small 
economies.  Men  grew  small  quite  too  often,  and 
pinched  and  stingy,  by  the  influence  of  the  habit  of 
penny  savings.  This  has  been  brought  against 
New  England  as  a  reproach,  but  New  England  has 
replied,  with  truthfulness  and  pride,  that  no  people 
of  the  country  or  of  the  world  have  been  more  be- 
nevolent than  her  own  economical  children.  She 
points  to  the  vast  sums  she  has  expended  on  Chris- 
tian missions,  and  to  the  great  public  charities 
whose  monuments  crown  her  hill-tops,  and  shows 
that  at  the  call  of  Christianity  and  humanity  her 
purse,  filled  with  such  painstaking  and  self-denial, 
flies  open  and  empties  itself  to  fill  the  measure  of  the 
public  need.  At  any  rate,  we  know  that  there  is 
not  a  State  in  all  the  West  that  has  not  gone  to  New 
England  for  the  money  to  build  her  towns  and  her 
railroads,  and  that  if  she  has  ever  been  laggard  in 
her  hospitalities,  such  as  she  has  practiced 
have  been  at  her  own  expense,  and  not  at  that  of 
her  creditors.  New  England  is  rich — and  this,  after 
all,  is  what  we  are  trying  to  say — notwithstanding  a 
hard  soil  and  an  inhospitable  climate.  Circum- 
stances were  against  her  from  the  beginning,  and 
economy  was  what  enabled  her  to  conquer  circum- 
stances, and  to  lift  herself  to  the  commanding  posi- 
tion of  wealth  and  influence  which  she  holds  to-day. 
The  men  who  had  an  income  of  $300  a  year,  at  the 
beginning  lived  on  $200.  The  men  who  had  an 
income  of  $500  lived  on  $300.  Those  whose  in- 
come reached  $1000  lived  on  half  of  that  sum,  and 
so  on.  They  practiced  self-denial.  They  had  no 
great  opportunities  for  making  money,  and  knew 
that  wealth  could  only  come  to  them  through  saving 
money.  The  old  farmer  who,  when  asked  what  the 
secret  of  his  wealth  was,  replied :  "  When  I  got  a 
cent  I  kep'  it,"  told  the  whole  story  of  New  Eng- 
land thrift  and  comfort.  Now,  if  we  look  around 
us  here  in  the  city  of  New  York,  we  shall,  in  the 
light  of  this  New  England  example,  learn  why  it  is 
that  so  many  men  and  women  drop  into  pauperism 
with  such  fearful  rapidity  on  the  first  stoppage  of 


TOPICS    OF  THE    TIME. 


629 


income.  We  know  very  few  men  of  fixed  incomes 
who  do  not  live  up  to  the  limit  of  these  incomes, 
whatever  it  may  happen  to  be.  A  man  who  this 
year  has  a  salary  of  $2000  uses  it  all,  and  when  it 
goes  up  to  $3000  or  $4000  he  uses  it  all  in  the 
same  way.  It  seems  to  make  no  difference  how 
much  he  receives — the  style  and  cost  of  living  ex- 
pand immediately  so  as  to  absorb  all  that  comes. 
Those  who  have  no  fixed  income,  and  are  engaged 
in  trade,  adopt  the  style  of  the  prosperous  men 
around  them,  and  strain  every  effort  to  bring  up 
their  income  to  meet  the  requirements  of  that  style. 
Every  family,  instead  of  endeavoring  to  see  how 
small  they  can  make  their  expenses,  endeavor  to  see 
how  large  they  can  make  them,  or  how  large  their 
income  will  permit  them  to  be.  The  fixed  purpose 
to  save  something  out  of  every  year's  income,  and 
so  to  graduate  expenses  that  something  shall  be 
saved — the  policy  of  rigid  self-denial  for  the  purpose 
of  accumulating  property,  even  though  it  be  slowly, 
does  not  apparently  exist  in  this  community.  So, 
when  the  bread-winner  is  disabled,  or  dies,  his 
family  drops  into  abject  and  utterly  helpless  poverty 
in  a  day,  and  all  life  is  embittered  thenceforward, 
simply  because  no  self-denial  had  been  practiced 
while  the  worker  lived,  or  was  able  to  work.  The 
man  of  small  or  modest  income  looks  around  him 
and  sees  many  who  are  rich  and  who  are  not  obliged 
to  think  of  every  penny  they  spend.  He  regards 
himself  as  their  social  equal,  and  wonders  why  it 
should  be  necessary  for  him  to  be  so  pinched  in  his 
spendings  and  so  plain  in  his  surroundings.  He 
does  not  consider  how  much,  and  exactly  what,  the 
wealth  which  moves  his  envy  has  cost.  He  may  be 
sure  that  somewhere,  at  the  foundation  of  all  the 
wealth  he  sees,  there  was  once  a  man  who  prac- 
ticed rigid  self-denial,  and  studiously  lived  within  his 
income,  and  saved  money  although  his  income  was 
small.  All  fortunes  have  their  foundations  laid  in 
economy.  The  man  who  holds  the  money  to-day 
may  have  inherited  it  through  the  accident  of  birth, 
but  it  cost  his  father  or  his  grandfather  years — per- 
haps a  life-time — of  economy  and  self-denial.  There 
is  no  royal  road  to  wealth  any  more  than  there  is  to 
learning.  It  costs  hard  work,  and  the  relinquish- 
ment  of  many  pleasures,  and  most  men  may  have 
it  who  will  pay  its  price.  If  they  are  not  willing  to 
do  this,  why,  they  must  not  complain  of  their  lot 
when  their  day  of  adversity  comes  ;  and  they  ought 
to  have  the  grace  to  make  themselves  just  as  little 
of  a  nuisance  as  possible  to  those  who  have  secured 
a  competence  and  paid  the  honest  price  for  it. 

The  Legitimate  Novel. 

IT  is  a  curious  fact  that  while  the  novel,  as  a  form 
of  literary  art,  is  becoming  every  year  more  universal, 
it  is  hardening  into  a  conventional  form.  What  is  a 
novel  in  its  broadest  definition?  It  is  an  invented 
history  of  human  lives,  brought  into  relations  with 
each  other,  whose  first  office  is  to  amuse.  Some  of 
these  inventions  have  no  end  nor  aim  but  amusement, 
and  those  which  have  other  aims  rely  upon  amuse- 
ment for  effecting  them.  The  novelist  who  has  a 


lesson  to  teach,  or  a  reform  to  forward,  or  a  truth  or 
principle  to  illustrate,  does  not  hope  to  do  it  through 
his  work,  unless  he  can  secure  its  reading  through 
its  power  to  amuse.  Mr.  Dallas,  in  his  "  Gay 
Science,"  says  that  the  first  business  of  all  art  is  to 
please,  which,  after  all,  is  only  our  doctrine  in  other 
words.  Any  work  of  literary  art,  whether  novel  or 
poem,  has  no  apology  for  existence,  if  it  do  not  have 
the  power  to  convey  pleasure  of  some  kind. 

Now,  the  fact  that  the  novel  has  been  seized  upon 
the  world  over,  for  a  great  number  of  offices,  shows 
how  naturally  it  is  adapted  to  a  wide  range  of  aims 
and  ends  in  its  construction.  Political,  moral,  social 
and  religious  topics  can  be  treated  through  the  medi- 
um of  invented  stories,  and  they  have  been  treated 
in  this  way  with  the  most  gratifying  success.  We 
have  the  political,  the  moral  and  the  religious  novel, 
and  we  have  also  the  society  novel,  and  it  is  only  at 
a  comparatively  recent  date  that  a  set  of  critics  have 
appeared  who  are  inclined  to  rule  out  of  the  category 
of  legitimacy  everything  but  the  society  novel.  Even 
this  must  be  a  certain  kind  of  society  novel  in  order 
to  meet  their  approval.  It  must  always  deal  with  the 
passion  of  love,  as  its  ruling  motive,  and  consist  of 
the  interplay  of  the  relations  between  men  and 
women.  It  must  have  absolutely  no  mission  but 
that  of  amusement.  In  performing  this  mission  it 
must  be  true  to  certain  ideas  of  art  that  relate  to  the 
delineation  of  character,  the  development  of  plot, 
and  the  arrangement  of  dramatic  situations  and  cli- 
maxes. If  the  rules  are  all  complied  with — if  the 
love  is  properly  made,  and  the  characters  are  properly 
handled,  and  the  novel  is  interesting, — the  book  is 
legitimate.  If,  however,  the  book  is  made  to  carry 
a  burden — if  it  illustrates — no  matter  how  powerfully 
— an  important  truth  or  principle  in  politics,  economy, 
morals  or  religion,  its  legitimacy  is  vitiated,  or  posi- 
tively forfeited. 

Now,  it  is  to  protest  against  this  ruling  that  we 
write  this  article.  The  dilettanti  assuming  author- 
ity in  this  matter  should  have  no  weight  among 
earnest  men  and  women,  because  they  are  not  earnest 
themselves.  They  have  no  moral,  religious,  social 
or  political  purpose,  and  they  are  offended  when  they 
meet  it  in  the  writings  of  others.  It  is  beyond  their 
comprehension  that  a  man  should  have  any  purpose 
in  writing  beyond  the  glorification  of  himself  through 
his  power  to  interest  and  amuse  others.  If  he  un- 
dertakes anything  beyond  this,  then  they  pronounce 
him  no  true  artist,  and  place  his  book  outside  of  all 
consideration  as  a  work  of  art.  In  the  overwhelming 
popularity  of  such  works  as  "  Uncle  Tom's  Cabin  " 
and  "Nicholas  Nickleby,"  written  with  a  humane 
or  Christian  purpose,  these  fellows  cannot  make 
their  voices  heard,  but  Mrs.  Stowe  has  only  to  retire 
and  Dickens  to  die,  to  bring  them  out  of  their  holes 
in  protest  against  all  that  does  not  accord  with  their 
petty  notions  of  novel- writing. 

We  claim  for  the  novel  the  very  broadest  field. 
It  may  illustrate  history,  like  the  novels  of  Walter 
Scott,  or  philosophy,  like  those  of  George  Eliot,  or 
religion,  like  those  of  George  MacDonald,  or  domestic 
and  political  economy,  like  those  of  the  late  Mrs. 
Sedgwick,  or  it  may  represent  the  weak  or  the  ludi- 


630 


HOME  AND   SOCIETY. 


crous  side  of  human  nature  and  human  society,  like 
many  of  those  of  Dickens  and  Thackeray,  or  it  may 
present  the  lighter  social  topics  and  types,  like  those 
of  James  and  Howells,  or  it  may  revel  in  the  ingenu- 
ities of  intricate  plots,  like  those  of  Collins  and 
Reade — every  novel  and  every  sort  of  novel  is  legiti- 
mate if  it  be  well  written.  It  may  rely  upon  plot  for 
its  interest,  or  upon  the  delineation  of  character,  or 
upon  its  wit  or  its  philosophy,  or  upon  its  dramatic 
situations,  and  it  may  carry  any  burden  which  its 
writer  may  choose  to  place  upon  its  shoulders,  and 
it  shall  never  forfeit  its  claim  to  legitimacy  with  us. 

The  man  who  denies  to  art  any  kind  of  service  to 
humanity  which  it  can  perform  is  either  a  fool  or  a 
trifler.  Things  have  come  to  a  sad  pass  when  any 
form  of  art  is  to  be  set  aside  because  a  board  of  self- 
constituted  arbiters  cannot  produce  it,  or  do  not  sym- 
pathize with  its  purpose.  There  is  more  freshness 
and  interest  in  "  The  Grandissimes  "  of  Mr.  Cable, 
with  its  reproduction  of  the  old  Creole  life  of  New 
Orleans,  and  its  revival  of  early  Louisiana  history, 
than  in  all  the  novels  these  dilettanti  have  written 
in  the  last  ten  years.  It  is  unmistakable  that  the 


tendency  of  modern  criticism  upon  novels  has  been 
to  make  them  petty  and  trifling  to  a  nauseating 
degree.  It  is  a  lamentable  consideration  that  the 
swing  of  a  petticoat,  or  the  turn  of  an  ankle,  or  the 
vapid  utterance  of  a  dandy,  or  even  the  delineation 
of  a  harlot  and  a  harlot's  disgusting  life,  shall  be 
counted  quite  legitimate  material  for  a  novel,  when 
the  great  questions  which  concern  the  life  and  pros- 
perity of  the  soul  and  the  state  are  held  m  dishonor, 
and  forbidden  to  the  novelist  as  material  of  art. 

It  is  all  a  part  and  parcel  of  the  heresy  that  art  is 
a  master  and  not  a  minister — an  end  and  not  a  means. 
The  men  who  maintain  it  have  a  personal  interest  in 
maintaining  it.  Any  art  or  form  of  art,  that  does 
not  end  in  itself  or  in  themselves  is  one  of  which 
they  are  consciously  incapable,  or  one  with  which 
they  cannot  sympathize.  So  they  comfort  themselves 
by  calling  it  illegitimate  ;  and  as  they  are  either  in  a 
majority  or  in  high  or  fashionable  places,  the  public 
are  misled  by  them,  so  far  as  the  public  think  at  all 
on  the  subject.  It  is  a  doctrine  of  literary  pretend- 
ers and  practical  triflers,  and  the  public  may  prop- 
erly be  warned  to  give  it  no  heed  whatever. 


HOME  AND   SOCIETY. 


Letters  to  Young  Motners.     Second  Series.— III. 

THE  QUESTION  OF  ORDER  AND  SUNDAY. 

Now  a  word  as   to  the  disorder  and  dirt  these 
amusements  make. 

Have  you  not  a  room,  that  you  can  devote  to  the 
children  and  their  playthings  ?  Not  some  dark 
and  dismal  corner,  good  for  nothing  else,  but  warm 
and  light,  and  not  too  far  away  from  you.  Such  a 
room  needs  some  furniture,  too.  An  empty  room  is 
as  desolate  and  uninviting  for  them  as  for  you.  An 
old  lounge,  not  too  good  to  be  climbed  all  over  and 
made  into  a  coach  or  railroad  train,  a  large  table  for 
the  pasting  and  painting  and  drawing,  with  chairs  of 
the  right  height  for  them  to  sit  comfortably  at  it,  an 
old  book-case  for  the  boys'  "  collections,"  an  old 
bureau  or  trunk  for  the  doll's  clothes,  will  make  it  a 
child's  paradise.  Every  article  of  furniture  will  have 
a  dozen  different  uses.  The  girls  will  curtain  off  the 
corners  with  sheets  or  mosquito  nettings  for  their 
separate  houses,  and  will  display  much  taste  and 
ingenuity  in  arranging  their  dolls  and  furniture. 
The  boys  can  fit  up  their  side  with  their  work-bench 
and  tools,  and  make  ships  and  shavings  without 
disturbing  anybody.  If  the  room  has  a  large  closet 
with  shelves  and  drawers,  so  much  the  better.  It 
will  sometimes  be — as  a  forcible  old  lady  said  once 
of  &  similar  place — "a  perfect  old  glory-hole." 
There  will  be  dolls  in  various  kinds  of  undress 
uniform  all  over  the  floor.  The  large  wooden  box 
you  have  covered  with  carpet  for  the  playthings 
will  hold  all  sorts  of  toys  in  all  stages  of  demolition. 
If  a  child  wants  to  find  one,  he  tips  the  box  over, 
empties  them  all  on  the  floor,  then  runs  away  and 
leaves  mamma  to  pick  them  up,  if  she  will.  But  she 


mustn't — for  here  is  just  the  place  to  teach  the 
children  hcnv  to  be  neat  and  orderly ;  a  larger  how 
than  we  are  apt  to  think,  sometimes.  Habits  of 
neatness  and  order  are  something  to  be  learned  as. 
well  as  Latin  grammar,  and  for  most  people  they  are 
quite  as  difficult.  The  children  will  enjoy  their 
play-place  moch  better  if  their  playthings  are  where 
they  can  find  them.  They  will  not  play  long  in  a 
room  in  hopeless  disorder,  though  they  will  do  their 
best  to  get  it  so. 

I  am  inclined  to  think  that  one  cause  of  our  ill- 
success  in  teaching  our  children  to  be  orderly  is  often 
that  they  really  do  not  know  where  different  articles 
belong;  perhaps  they  do  not  belong  anywhere. 
Ought  we  to  blame  a  child,  when  his  playthings  are 
kept  in  a  closet  at  the  end  of  a  long,  dark  passage- 
way, if  he  dreads  to  put  them  up,  and  runs  off  when 
he  can,  leaving  you  to  "  pick  up  "  after  him  ? 

It  will  be  a  good  deal  easier  for  you  to  do  all  this 
yourself  than  to  teach  him  to  do  it.  It  will  be  much 
more  convenient  for  you  to  clear  away  blocks  than  to 
stand  over  him  and  patiently  direct  his  unwilling 
efforts  and  firmly  insist  that  no  other  play  shall  be 
begun  till  these  things  are  put  in  their  places ;  but 
mothers  must  not  ask  what  is  the  easiest  way,  but 
what  is  the  best. 

Of  course,  even  if  they  have  the  responsibility  of 
keeping  their  play-place  in  order,  you  will  have  to 
exercise  considerable  supervision.  But  a  few  min- 
utes of  your  practiced  hand,  when  you  are  making 
your  morning  rounds,  will  straighten  out  a  good 
many  matters.  The  children  can  spend  an  hour  or 
two  occasionally  on  a  rainy  day,  under  your  direc- 
tion, playing  "clean  house."  Just  think  what 
"  eternal  vigilance  "  our  houses  demand  of  us,  and 


HOME  AND   SOCIETY. 


631 


be  charitable  toward  the  children's  short-comings  in 
their  domains. 

Other  people's  children,  visitors,  not  so  carefully 
trained  as  yours,  perhaps,  will  sometimes  bring  dis- 
may and  disorder.  I  knew  a  mother  who  was  much 
annoyed  by  her  child-visitors,  who  would  scatter 
everything  over  the  floor  till  the  instant  of  depart- 
ure arrived,  then  leave  the  poor  little  host,  tired  and 
flushed,  to  do  the  "  clearing  up,"  which,  of  course, 
seemed  very  stupid  after  the  fun  was  all  over  and  the 
company  gone.  She  told  her  boy  when  he  went 
visiting  that  he  might  stay  five  minutes,  after  the 
time  set  for  coming  home,  to  help  his  little  play- 
mates put  their  things  away.  Whether  the  other 
mothers  took  the  hint  and  gave  their  children  similar 
directions,  I  have  never  heard. 

But  perhaps  you  cannot  set  apart  and  warm  a 
room  expressly  for  the  children.  Or  even  if  you 
could,  the  children  may  be  too  young  and  timid  to 
be  happy  away  from  you.  There  is  no  place  quite 
like  mamma's  room,  after  all.  In  such  cases,  a 
"children's  corner,"  like  the  one  described  in  my  first 
letter,  and  under  such  restrictions,  would  satisfy  some 
of  the  needs  of  the  younger  children.  For  their 
other  plays  you  must  provide  other  places.  For 
instance,  give  up  one  of  the  lower  shelves  of  your 
library  book-case  for  their  picture  and  story  books. 
Let  the  girls  have  a  hall-chamber  for  their  dolls' 
houses,  where  boys  are  not  allowed  except  in  slip- 
pers and  "on  good  behavior."  Give  the  boys  a 
corner  in  the  wood-shed  or  attic,  for  their  bench  and 
tools,  and  you  will  be  able  to  solve  more  or  less 
satisfactorily  the  problem  of  where  to  keep  the 
children's  things. 

I  know  a  household  where  the  boys'  turning-lathe 
and  jig-saw  occupies  a  corner  of  the  back-parlor, 
opposite  the  piano.  A  large  square  of  oil-cloth  pro- 
tects the  carpet  and  defines  the  boundaries,  but 
there  the  boys  make  chess-men  and  chips,  wall- 
pockets  and  saw-dust,  right  "in  the  midst  of  things." 
Not  every  mother  could  or  would  give  up  her  back- 
parlor,  but  many  mothers  would  be  willing  to  set  up 
a  jig-saw  in  every  corner  of  the  house  if  it  would 
insure  her  boys  growing  up  into  such  fine,  manly 
fellows,  such  a  help  and  comfort,  as  this  mother's 
sons  are  to  her. 

Another  very  important  thing,  and  one  too  often 
forgotten,  is  to  teach  the  children  to  respect  each 
other's  property.  Let  each  child  have  his  or  her 
shelf  or  drawer  for  his  most  precious  possessions,  and 
allow  no  one  else  to  molest  it.  Give  the  older 
children  the  high  shelves,  out  of  the  reach  of  the 
younger  ones,  for  their  treasures.  It  is  not  a  small 
matter  to  come  home  from  school  and  find  that 
something  very  precious  has  been  ruined  beyond 
repair,  and  to  be  carelessly  told  in  excuse,  "  Oh,  the 
baby  got  it."  I  fear  we  do  not  always  appreciate 
how  much  suffering  the  havoc  of  the  "  baby  "  causes 
the  older  ones.  And  see  that  you  respect  their 
rights,  too.  It  may  be  nothing  but  a  ragged  bit 
of  lace,  or  a  string  tied  to  a  button,  which  you  are 
sweeping  into  the  dust-pan,  but  if  you  are  as  well 
acquainted  with  your  children's  pastimes  as  you 
ought  to  be,  you  will  recognize  dolly's  best  lace  col. 


lar  or  a  part  of  Ned's  "  machinery."  It  is  only  in 
your  eyes  a  stray  picture  from  an  old  SCRIBNER,  or 
perhaps  a  cast-off  blank-book  which  you  are  throw- 
ing into  the  fire,  but  it  is  the  frontispiece  for  Jane's 
scrap-book,  or  Mary's  diary,  precious  to  her  soul. 
It  takes  only  a  minute  to  rescue  these  trifles  and  put 
them  in  their  places,  and  that  minute  is  well  and 
wisely  spent;  for  in  it  you  have  shown  your  sympa- 
thy with  your  children's  pleasures  and  given  them  a 
practical  lesson  on  the  rights  of  property. 

Amusements  of  some  kind  children  must  and  will 
have.  It  depends  upon  you  whether  they  have  them 
under  your  eye  and  with  your  cordial  co-operation, 
or  whether,  repressed  and  chidden  at  home,  they 
steal  slyly  away  to  other  and  quieter,  but  perhaps 
disreputable  sports.  To  forbid  children  doing  every- 
thing they  like  is  not  training  them.  Children  who 
are  constantly  hushed  and  repressed,  so  far  from  be- 
ing trained,  grow  up  spiritless  and  subdued,  or  sullen 
and  defiant.  Even  noise,  trying  as  it  is  to  us,  is  a 
necessary  part  of  a  child's  life,  just  as  is  his  con- 
stant restless  activity.  To  play  "  bear  "  or  "  blind 
man's  buff"  without  the  noise  is,  as  Kingsley  says 
of  something  else,  "  like  playing  '  Hamlet '  with 
the  part  of  Hamlet  left  out,  and  the  ghost  and 
queen  into  the  bargain."  It  is  not  always,  or  even 
usually,  the  quietest  children  who  are  the  most 
trusty.  Said  a  lady  of  much  experience  in  a  boys' 
boarding-school,  "  I  often  think  that  these  noisy 
fellows,  who  '  slam  and  bang '  around  their  rooms 
and  wear  out  the  carpets  and  nick  the  crockery,  are 
not  half  as  apt  to  have  vicious  habits  as  these  quiet, 
sly  fellows  who  always  move  about  as  if  they  had 
rubbers  on." 

Now  as  to  the  question,  what  to  do  on  Sunday 
with  the  little  ones  who  are  too  young  to  read.  It 
is  true  that  if  the  mother  spends  all  her  spare  time 
reading  and  talking  to  them,  Sunday  is  anything  but 
a  day  of  rest  to  her,  and  the  children  are  apt  to  get 
nervous  and  restless,  and  by  night  are  "  too  cross 
for  anything."  But  we  recognize  that  the  day  must 
be  made  different  from  others.  It  ought  to  be  the 
pleasantest  and  sunniest  of  the  whole  week.  I 
know  of  one  family  in  which  the  custom  was 
adopted  of  giving  some  trifling  present  on  Sunday 
morning  at  the  breakfast-table.  It  was  often  noth- 
ing more  than  an  orange  or  a  bunch  of  white 
grapes  or  a  paper  doll,  but,  slight  as  it  was,  it 
marked  the  day  and  made  it  one  to  be  pleasantly 
anticipated.  The  experiment  has  been  tried  of 
having  Sunday  toys,  or  a  book  of  Sunday  pictures, 
not  to  be  brought  out  except  on  that  day.  Noisy 
plays  should  be  forbidden — the  croquet  set  and  the 
carts  should  be  put  away.  If  the  little  girls  have 
their  dolls,  they  are  not  to  make  dresses  for  them, 
but  only  to  take  care  of  them,  just  as  mamma  takes 
care  of  the  baby  on  Sunday.  It  is  carefully  explained 
to  the  little  ones  that  when  they  get  old  enough  to 
read  they  will  be  "  too  big "  to  play  on  Sunday. 
All  this  sets  apart  the  day  as  one  of  quiet  enjoyment, 
and  prepares  them  to  understand  real  Sabbath- 
keeping  when  they  grow  up.  Happy  that  family 
where  the  father,  perhaps  too  busy  through  the  week 
to  get  much  acquainted  with  his  children,  takes  an 


632 


CULTURE  AND  PROGRESS. 


hour  or  two  of  the  precious  Sunday-time  to  talk  or 
read  to  them.  We  hear  a  great  deal  of  the  value  of 
the  mother's  influence — the  father's  ought  to  be  just 
as  valuable.  The  children  need  the  invigorating 
influence  of  another  mind,  fresh  from  a  new  sphere 
of  thought  and  action.  Papa's  stories  are  different 
from  mamma's,  and  so  refresh  the  children.  While 
the  weary  mother  steals  away,  out  of  all  the  chil- 
dren's chatter  and  confusion  (so  necessary  and  yet  so 
wearisome  when  you  hear  it  all  the  time)  for  a 
precious  quiet  hour  or  two  all  by  herself,  she  has  the 
inexpressible  comfort  of  feeling  that  the  children  are 
not  left  to  hear  the  gossip  of  servants,  but  are  being 
taught  in  some  things  even  better  than  she  could  do 
it.  Our  younger  children  are  sometimes  too  much 
left  to  feminine  influence.  The  servants  and  their 
day  and  Sunday-school  teachers  are  almost  always 
women ;  good  and  faithful  ones  they  may  be,  but  the 
children  need  the  masculine  element  of  strength  and 
enterprise  to  supplement  the  feminine  teachings  of 


docility  and  gentleness.  One  balances  and  com- 
pletes the  other.  The  girls  ought  to  be  stimulated 
and  strengthened  in  character  by  contact  with  their 
father's  mind;  the  boys  should  learn  from  his  ex- 
ample what  true  manliness  is.  They  see  sham 
manliness  enough  every  week-day  among  their 
school-fellows.  To  our  busy  business  and  working 
men,  Sunday  is  the  only  time  they  have  to  really 
reach  their  children.  The  fact  that  papa  is  to  be  at 
home  all  day  ought  to  be  the  very  biggest  and  best 
treat  of  the  whole  happy  Sunday-time.  I  heard  a 
four-year-old  "tot  "  say,  last  night,  in  the  midst  of 
the  bed-time  frolic :  "  Oh,  isn't  it  most  time  for 
Thunday  to  come  again  ?  I  think  Thunday  is  the 
bethtest  of  all." 

Do  not  be  troubled.  Children  can  be  taught  to 
be  orderly  without  becoming  precise  little  prigs, 
and  they  can  have  jolly  good  times  without  being 
riotous. 

MARY  BLAKE. 


CULTURE  AND  PROGRESS. 


Taylor's  "  Critical  Essays  and  Literary  Notes."* 

BAYARD  TAYLOR  was  by  nature  an  optimist.  It 
gave  him  pleasure  to  praise  and  he  was  always  loth 
to  condemn.  His  indomitable  optimism  asserts  it- 
self especially  in  his  "  Prince  Deukalion,"  and  also, 
though  less  directly,  in  his  prose  writings  ;  it  formed, 
as  it  were,  a  rose-colored  medium  which  imparted 
a  tinge  of  beauty  to  whatever  object  he  might  hap- 
pen to  gaze  upon.  As  a  critic,  it  disposed  him 
to  err  on  the  side  of  leniency,  rather  than  that 
of  severity,  and  the  present  volume,  containing 
many  of  his  scattered  contributions  to  newspapers 
and  magazines,  gives  evidence  of  a  tolerance  in 
aesthetic  matters  and  a  moderation  and  catholicity 
of  judgment  which  would  of  themselves  suffice  to 
raise  him  above  the  herd  of  modern  critics.  In 
addition  to  this,  his  scholarship  (which  was  extensive 
rather  than  profound)  always  stood  him  in  good 
stead,  and  enabled  him  to  draw  his  illustrations  and 
comparisons  from  a  wider  field  of  knowledge  than 
was  at  the  command  of  any  of  his  colleagues  in  crit- 
ical journalism ;  hence  the  broad  and  liberal  spirit 
which  animates  all  his  writings,  their  fresh  and 
wholesome  tone  and  their  freedom  from  literary 
cant. 

In  the  present  series  of  essays,  which,  belonging 
to  different  periods  of  the  author's  life,  are  neces- 
sarily of  varying  quality  and  merit,  Bayard  Taylor 
unconsciously  gives  the  reader  occasion  to  admire 
the  intellectual  equipment  of  his  mind.  In  his 
review  of  Tennyson's  literary  activity,  which  could 
have  been  written  by  no  one  but  a  poet,  he  traces 
with  minute  critical  acumen  the  laureate's  slow  and 
gradual  growth,  emphasizes  his  complete  surrender 
to  his  art,  and  shows  how  he  has  pressed  every  form 

*  Critical  Essays  and  Literary  Notes.  By  Bayard  Taylor. 
New  York :  G.  P.  Putnam's  Sons.  1880. 


of  knowledge  into  the  service  of  poetry.  We  are 
not  surprised  to  find  that  he  has  no  sympathy  with 
Tennyson's  over-conscientious  realism,  that  he  ob- 
jects to  Lilia's  "  silken-sandaled  foot  "  in  "  The 
Princess,"  and  is  positively  shocked  at  the  elabora- 
tion of  unessential  details  in  "  Audley  Court."  He 
would  rather  remain  in  ignorance  as  to  the  pattern 
of  the  napkin  and  the  ingredients  of  the  pasty,  and 
"  the  flask  of  cider,  *  *  *  prime  which  I  knew  " 
impresses  him  as  being  almost  ludicrous.  On  the 
other  hand,  he  has  a  very  sensitive  appreciation  of 
Tennyson's  rhythmical  gift,  and  analyzes  strikingly 
the  subtly  interchanging  effects  of  sound  and  sense 
in  his  finest  lyrics.  He  holds  that  the  laureate  has 
yielded  a  little  too  often  to  what  might  be  styled  the 
musical  temptation,  that,  although  a  vigorous  thinker, 
he  has  unduly  subordinated  the  thought  to  the  har- 
mony of  his  verse,  and  is  thus  indirectly  responsible 
for  the  inane  but  musical  jingle  which  his  many 
imitators  annually  present  to  us  under  the  title  of 
poetry.  It  is,  however,  especially  in  tracing  the 
intellectual  ancestry  of  the  Tennysonian  poems  that 
Bayard  Taylor  incidentally  reveals  the  fineness  of  his 
own  insight,  as  well  as  his  wide  acquaintance  with 
the  literatures  of  many  lands.  Even  so  volatile  a 
thing  as  a  rhythm  or  a  musical  cadence  he  is  able 
to  pursue  to  what  was  probably  its  source  or  its 
first  suggestion,  and  few  will  question  the  correctness 
of  the  conjecture  which  derives  the  melody  of  Ten- 
nyson's " Brook"  from  Burns's  " Hallow-e'en,"  while 
perhaps  (as  Taylor  himself  hints)  the  connection 
between  the  lullaby  in  "  The  Princess "  and  the 
Corsican  cradle-song  quoted  by  Gregorovius  is  more 
than  problematic.  Another  parallelism  which  is 
still  more  striking  is  to  be  found  between  "  The 
Miller's  Daughter  "  and  a  song  by  the  Danish  poet 
Christian  Winther,  in  which  the  lover's  three  desires, 
to  be  a  jewel  in  his  mistress's  ear,  the  girdle  around 


CULTURE  AND  PROGRESS. 


633 


her  waist  and  the  necklace  about  her  throat,  all 
occur ;  and  if  Taylor  did  not  cite  this  instance,  it  was 
probably  because  he  was  aware  that  these  conceits 
are  as  old  as  love  itself  and  are  to  be  found  in  the 
Minnesingers  and  in  the  ballads  of  several  nations. 
In  summing  up  his  impressions  of  Tennyson  and 
denning  his  position  among  English  poets,  Taylor 
uses  the  following  imaginative  comparison : 

"  When  he  reaches  a  high  level,  he  does  not  hang 
on  moveless  wings,  like  a  Theban  eagle,  but  keeps 
his  place  by  a  rapid  succession  of  strokes.  Yet, 
whatever  he  may  lack  of  that  '  supreme  dominion  ' 
which  belongs  only  to  the  masters  of  song,  his  life 
has  been  an  effort  to  conquer  and  to  possess  it. " 

The  essays  treating  of  German  subjects,  which 
occupy  about  one-third  of  the  volume,  are  chiefly 
made  up  of  personal  reminiscences  interspersed 
with  literary  studies  and  criticisms.  In  the  latter  we 
are  inclined  to  question  some  of  the  conclusions  at 
which  the  author  has  arrived,  believing  that  in  his 
estimate  of  poets  like  Hebel  and  Riickert  he  has 
accepted  a  little  too  readily  the  uncritical  verdict  of 
their  compatriots.  There  can  be  no  doubt  that 
Riickert  was  an  excellent  Oriental  scholar  and  a 
rhythmical  artist  of  surprising  dexterity  and  skill,  but 
with  his  monstrous  productivity  (he  wrote  some- 
times more  than  400  poems  a  year)  it  was  but 
natural  that  his  thought  should  in  time  become  thin 
and  diluted.  His  "  Sonnets  in  Armor  "  impress  any 
one  who  reads  them  for  their  literary  worth  as  mere 
rhymed  patriotism,  and  his  "  Wisdom  of  the  Brah- 
min "  is  p.  vast  desert  of  sententious  maxims  and 
aphorisms,  in  whose  arid  waste  are  scattered  at  wide 
intervals  little  green  oases  of  poetry.  Bayard  Tay- 
lor, who  made  the  acquaintance  of  Ruckert  in  his 
old  age  and  was  greatly  delighted  with  his  gentle 
and  yet  imposing  personality,  naturally  dwells  on  the 
indisputable  excellence  of  his  versification,  his  won- 
derful command  of  the  tuneful  resources  of  his 
mother  tongue  and  his  great  accomplishments  as 
an  Orientalist,  but  he  passes  very  lightly  over  his 
evident  deficiencies,  and  manages  thereby  to  give 
the  impression  of  a  much  greater  man  than  Ruck- 
ert in  reality  was.  Whether  the  translations  (all 
extremely  cleverly  done)  of  Rebel's  Alemannic 
dialect  poems  quite  sustain  Bayard  Taylor's  high 
estimate  of  his  poetic  gift,  we  leave  to  the  decision  of 
our  readers.  And  yet  there  is  so  much  positive 
knowledge  to  be  gained  from  these  very  essays 
which  we  have  ventured  to  criticise,  and  they  con- 
vey both  directly  and  by  inference  so  much  valuable 
information  concerning  the  authors  with  which  they 
deal,  and  concerning  the  modes  of  thought  and  life 
in  the  Fatherland,  that  no  one  who  is  interested  in 
modern  German  literature  can  afford  to  ignore 
them. 

The  most  valuable  portion  of  the  book  is  perhaps 
the  two  chapters  on  .Weimar,  in  which  the  author 
sketches  in  2  vivid  and  entertaining  manner  the 
still  surviving  members  of  the  circle  of  which  Goethe 
was  once  the  center.  Bayard  Taylor,  being  a 
welcome  guest  in  all  the  old  families  of  Weimar 
and  having  discovered  an  inexhaustible  mine  of 


anecdote  in  the  venerable  Alwine  Frommann,  had 
the  most  favorable  opportunities  for  collecting  all 
the  facts  and  documents  which  (as  he  devoutly  be- 
lieved) were  in  time  to  compel  the  world  to  revise 
its  judgment  concerning  him  whom  many  believe  to 
be  the  greatest  of  modern  poets.  There  are,  as  yet, 
unpublished  diaries  and  many  other  important  papers 
in  the  possession  of  Goethe's  grandsons,  who,  for 
reasons  of  their  own,  stubbornly  refuse  to  admit  the 
public  into  their  grandfather's  confidence.  They 
were,  however,  comparatively  gracious  to  Bayard 
Taylor,  gave  him  full  liberty  to  inspect  the  house, 
and  accorded  him  other  exceptional  favors.  More 
valuable,  however,  in  view  of  Taylor's  special  object 
in  coming  to  Weimar,  were  the  personal  reminis- 
cences of  the  artist  Preller,  and  the  Frommann 
family  in  Jena,  of  which  Minna  Herzlieb  was  once  an 
adopted  member.  The  vast  amount  of  gossip,  Tay- 
lor argues,  which  has  accumulated  concerning 
Goethe  has  been  too  credulously  and  indiscrimi- 
nately accepted  by  his  biographers,  who  were  them- 
selves incapable  of  comprehending  a  mind  of  such 
Titanic  structure.  The  small  and  distorted  anec- 
dotes, circulated  chiefly  by  his  enemies,  were  magni- 
fied and  elaborated,  instead  of  being  guardedly 
accepted  or  rejected,  allowance  having  been  made 
for  the  temper  of  the  original  narrator  and  the 
myth-making  propensity  of  communities  in  which  a 
great  man  has  lived.  Bayard  Taylor  agrees  with 
Hermann  Grimm  (whose  admirable  "  Lectures  on 
Goethe  "  had  not  appeared  at  the  time  when  these 
essays  were  first  printed)  in  his  essential  estimate 
of  Goethe's  moral  character,  and  having  received 
the  true  version  of  the  Minna  Herzlieb  episode  from 
the  girl's  surviving  relatives,  he  very  naturally  con- 
cludes that  there  are  many  other  incidents  in 
Goethe's  life  that  have  been  as  persistently  mis- 
represented. Lewes's  "  Life  "  was,  in  Taylor's 
opinion,  not  a  biography,  but  an  elaborate  apology, 
written  by  a  man  who  was  clever  but  had  no  real 
sympathy  with  the  spirit  of  the  master's  life. 

It  is  very  evident  to  any  one  who  reads  these 
essays  attentively  that  the  author  was  holding  back 
his  most  important  facts  regarding  Goethe,  fearing  to 
commit  himself  before  he  could  properly  fortify  his 
position  and  give  full  sway  to  his  mind,  as  he  was 
yet  hoping  to  do  in  his  projected  biography  of  his 
hero.  But,  as  this  work  must  forever  remain  un- 
written, we  accept  with  gratitude  the  vague  hints 
of  what  it  would  have  been,  and  the  fragmentary 
reflections  contained  in  this  posthumous  volume. 

Miss  Woolson's  "Rodman  the  Keeper."* 

POETRY  and  rhetoric  are  not  necessarily  antago- 
nistic elements ;  but  in  a  mind  where  they  are  not 
perfectly  fused  they  are  apt  to  interfere  sadly  with 
each  other.  Thus,  in  Miss  Woolson's  "  Southern 
Sketches,"  a  rhetorical  vein  appears  every  now  and 
then  and  spoils  the  illusion  produced  by  the  vividly 


*  Rodman  the  Keeper  :  Southern  Sketches.  By  Constance 
Fenimore  Woolson,  author  of  "Castle  Nowhere,"  "Two 
Women,"  etc.  New  York  :  D.  Appleton  &  Co.  1880. 


634 


CULTURE  AND  PROGRESS. 


poetic  descriptions  of  Southern  life  and  scenery. 
We  dare  not  positively  assert  that  Southern  girls, 
when  wrought  up  sufficiently,  may  not  make  use  of 
such  hollow  phrases  as  the  following :  "  Shall  I 
forget  these  things  ?  Never !  Sooner  let  my 
right  hand  wither  by  my  side !  "  etc.,  but  if  they 
do,  they  are  not  so  genuine  in  their  grief  or  in  their 
wrath  as  Miss  Woolson  would  have  us  believe. 
So,  also,  when  that  semi-savage  little  mongrel 
Felipa,  a  girl  of  twelve  who  wears  a  boy's  trowsers, 
remarks,  apropos  of  these  same  trowsers  :  "  The 
son  of  Pedro  being  dead  at  a  convenient  age,  and  his 
clothes  fitting  me,  what  would  you  have?  It 
was  a  chance  not  to  be  despised," — we  are  again 
incredulous.  It  is  per  se  a  delightful  little  touch, 
but  it  is  utterly  untrue.  The  humorous  idea  that 
Pedro's  son  died  just  at  the  proper  age  to  bequeath 
his  trowsers  to  her,  or  rather  the  consciousness 
of  its  being  humorous,  which  is  plainly  indicated 
in,  the  above  quotation,  implies  a  complexity  of 
thought  which  is  out  of  keeping  with  Felipa's  primi- 
tive nature.  In  the  case  of  Felipa,  however  (who  is  a 
charming  creature,  or,  we  rather  suspect,  a  charmingly 
elaborated  sketch  from  some  living  original),  this  is 
the  only  lapse  from  psychological  realism.  The 
passionate  attachment  of  the  yellow  little  savage  to 
the  beautiful,  fair-skinned  Northern  lady,  her  hunger 
for  praise  and  her  resolute  despair  at  being  repulsed, 
are  in  themselves  very  pathetic,  and  the  pathos  is 
nowise  weakened  by  the  half-humorous  manner  in 
which  the  story  is  related. 

The  other  nine  sketches  in  the  volume  also  show 
that  Miss  Woolson  has  had  excellent  opportunities 
for  observation,  and,  what  is  more,  that  she  possesses 
the  faculty  of  observing  accurately  and  of  reporting 
vividly  and  without  exaggeration  what  she  has  seen. 
Her  chief  merit,  to  our  mind,  apart  from  her  mere 
literary  gifts,  which  are  too  well  known  to  be  com- 
mented upon,  is  that  in  all  essential  things  she  is 
convincing.  It  is  impossible,  after  having  read  her 
book,  to  doubt  that  the  South  is  just  as  she  pictures 
it  With  artistic  impartiality  she  draws  the  promi- 
nent types  which  now  figure  on  the  social  and 
political  arena  of  the  Southern  States ;  the  unscrupu- 
lous carpet-bagger,  who  incites  the  negroes  to  blood- 
shed and  riot  and  sells  them  whisky  at  exorbitant 
prices;  the  noble  New  England  enthusiast  who, 
driven  by  his  own  stern  conscience,  grapples  with 
the  gravest  problem  of  emancipation,  viz.  :  how 
to  educate  the  freedmen  into  intelligent  citizens  ;  the 
embittered  and  impoverished  planter,  whom  the  war 
has  left  nothing  but  his  family  pride  and  his  hatred 
of  the  North;  the  superfluous  little  gentleman  of 
blue  blood  who  studies  his  pedigree,  copies  family 
documents  and  is  entiiusiastic  about  the  history  of 
the  lady  who  married  his  grandfather's  second 
cousin ;  the  poor  little  haughty  lady  who  guards  her 
aristocratic  and  fiercely  relentless  heart  under  a 
faded  muslin  or  a  worn-out  calico  gown,  and  at 
length  the  wounded  soldier,  of  high  and  low  degree, 
who  finds  himself  unable  to  adapt  his  shattered  ex- 
istence to  the  altered  state  of  things.  Amid  all  these 
forlorn  and  broken  lives  the  Northern  tourist  appears 
as  a  dnus  ex  machina,  falls  in  love  happily  or  un- 


happily, is  benevolent  or  rascally,  in  accordance 
with  his  nature  and  temperament.  There  is  no 
indication  of  partisanship  in  the  author's  attitude 
toward,  and  treatment  of,  Southern  men  and  women. 
She  has  a  deep  sympathy  for  the  inevitable  afflictions 
brought  upon  unoffending  individuals  by  the  war. 
She  comprehends  fully  and  respects  their  grief  and 
even  their  hatred  of  their  oppressors,  and  she  evi- 
dently regrets  (as  every  patriotic  citizen  would)  that 
the  bitterness  of  the  struggle  should  have  been  need- 
lessly prolonged  by  the  thievish  rule  of  the  carpet- 
baggers. 

The  most  artistically  complete  of  these  ten  stories 
is  "  Miss  Elizabetha,"  which  abounds  in  delightful 
situations.  Miss  Daarg's  interview  with  the  prima 
donna  is  especiably  admirable.  "  Rodman  the 
Keeper  "  strikes  us  as  being  a  little  superfluously 
fantastic  in  some  of  its  minor  details ;  thus,  for  in- 
stance, we  cannot  help  smiling  at  Rodman's  heroism 
in  refraining  from  smoking  because  his  fourteen 
thousand  comrades  under  the  sod  could  not  partake 
of  the  same  enjoyment.  The  best  writing  (if  com- 
parisons were  not  so  odious)  is  probably  to  be  found 
in  the  "  South  Devil,"  which  is  brilliantly  tropical 
and  lingers  long  in  the  memory.  In  fact,  the  whole 
book  makes  a  strong  impression  and  refuses  to  be 
forgotten. 

Adams's    "  Gallatin."  * 

ALBERT  GALLATIN'S  career  was  singularly  varied 
and  romantic.  He  was  a  member  of  one  of  the 
most  distinguished  families  of  the  little  republic  of 
Geneva.  The  family  was  a  very  ancient  one,  though 
not  so  ancient  as  it  was  believed  to  be  by  a  certain 
Jean  de  Gallatin,  who  maintained  that  it  was  de- 
scended from  Atilius  Callatintis,  Consul  in  the  Ro- 
man years  494  and  498.  In  support  of  this  opinion, 
he  fought  a  duel  on  horseback  with  Baron  de  Pap- 
penheim.  The  family  really  appears  to  date  from 
the  thirteenth  century.  The  original  seat  of  the 
future  Genevan  Gallatins  was  near  the  Rhone,  and 
some  thirty  or  forty  miles  below  Geneva.  In  about 
the  year  1510,  the  representative  of  the  family  had 
enrolled  himself  a  citizen  of  Geneva.  From  that 
time  on,  the  Gallatins  were  perhaps  the  first  people 
in  the  State. 

Albert  Gallatin  was  born  in  1761.  Both  his  par- 
ents died  before  he  was  ten  years  old,  and  Gallatin 
was  adopted  and  brought  up  by  a  Mile.  Pictet,  a 
distant  relation  of  his  father.  Gallatin  came  to 
America  in  1780,  having  run  away  from  home. 
An  incident  which  is  described  by  Mr.  Adams  as 
in  part  the  cause  of  this  act  is  somewhat  curious. 
Gallatin's  grandmother  was  a  friend-  of  the  Land- 
grave of  Hesse,  a  Royal  Highness  somewhat  noto- 
rious in  revolutionary  American  history.  Madame 
Gallatin  proposed  to  obtain  for  her  grandson  a  com- 
mission of  lieutenant-colonel  in  the  service  of  her 
friend.  On  speaking  to  young  Gallatin  about  the 


*  The  Life  of  Albert  Gallatin,  by  Henry  Adams.  Philadel- 
phia :  J.  B.  Lippincott  &  Co. 

The  Writings  of  Albert  Gallatin,  edited  by  Henry  Adams. 
Three  vols.  Philadelphia :  J.  B.  Lippincott  &  Co. 


CULTURE  AND  PROGRESS. 


635 


matter,  he  replied,  rather  disrespectfully,  that  he 
would  never  serve  a  tyrant.  For  this  his  grand- 
mother gave  him  a  box  on  the  ear.  Gallatin's  de- 
parture from  Geneva  was  secret,  and  was  made  in 
the  company  of  a  friend  named  Serre.  The  two 
sailed  from  Nantes  to  Boston  in  an  American  ship. 
For  several  years  Gallatin  lived  in  various  parts  of 
the  country,  and  was  at  one  time  a  teacher  of  French 
at  Harvard  College.  He  found  his  way  afterward 
to  Richmond,  where  he  was  very  kindly  received. 

In  1 784,  he  carried  out  the  purpose  with  which  he 
came  to  America,  which  was  to  settle  in  the  wilder- 
ness. He  had  learned  from  the  philosophers  of  the 
French  Revolution  that  a  wise  man  should  live  away 
from  society.  This  crotchet,  imbedded  in  a  will  of 
unusual  strength,  accompanied  him  through  life. 
The  mistake  appears  to  have  brought  him  less  harm 
than  similar  mistakes  bring  to  many  able  and  self- 
willed  people.  Gallatin  bought  land  and  settled  on 
the  Monongahela  River.  But  it  was  his  destiny  to 
live  mainly  in  cities.  Nearly  forty  years  later,  on 
his  retirement  from  the  mission  in  Paris,  he  sent  his 
son  home  to  enlarge  and  make  ready  for  him  the 
house  which  he  had  built  in  this  part  of  the  world. 
Here  he  went  to  live  for  a  time  in  1823. 

Mr.  Adams's  work  contains  a  valuable  discussion 
of  Gallatin's  career  as  Secretary  of  the  Treasury,  and 
a  particularly  interesting  account  of  his  conduct  of  the 
negotiations  which  resulted  in  the  Treaty  of  Ghent. 
The  book  is  full  of  suggestions  to  persons  inter- 
ested in  the  present  and  future  of  this  country. 
Among  these  may  be  mentioned  the  account  given 
by  Mr.  Adams  of  Gallatin's  treatment,  while  Min- 
ister in  France,  of  his  instructions  concerning  the 
seizure  of  the  Apollon.  The  frank  expression  of 
his  opinion  of  the  badness  of  their  case  which  Galla- 
tin then  made  to  his  Government  is  most  unlike  the 
habit  of  later  diplomatists,  who  rarely  have  the 
hardihood  to  hold  opinions  of  their  own,  much  less 
express  them.  Diplomatists,  of  course,  should  be 
obedient,  but  they  should  not  be  automatons.  The 
telegraph  has,  no  doubt,  rendered  it  unnecessary 
that  they  should  enjoy  their  former  liberty  of  discre- 
tion, but  it  has  not  destroyed  the  advantage  of  the 
man  who  is  on  the  spot  where  the  negotiation  takes 
place  over  one  who  is  3000  miles  away ;  it  has  not 
and  never  can  destroy  the  advantage  of  intelligence 
and  attainments  like  Gallatin's. 

The  book  has  also  many  situations  of  a  natural 
human  interest.  After  making  the  Treaty  of  Ghent, 
Mr.  Gallatin  took  the  road  to  Geneva,  which  he  had 
not  seen  since  he  left  it  as  a  boy.  Even  to  one  ap- 
proaching Geneva  as  a  stranger,  the  impression 
made  by  the  first  sight  of  Mont  Blanc  is  lively 
enough.  What  must  it  have  been  to  one  who,  after 
an  absence  of  thirty-five  years,  revisits  the  place  as 
the  home  of  his  boyhood  and  of  his  ancestors !  He 
left  only  one  allusion  to  the  subject.  He  said  that 
as  he  approached  Geneva,  calm  as  he  was  by  nature, 
his  calmness  deserted  him.  Just  previous  to  his 
death,  at  the  age  of  ninety,  one  of  the  signs  which  he 
detected  in  himself  of  failing  mind  was  that  when 
alone  he  caught  himself  talking  in  French  as  when  a 
a  boy.  "  His  mind,"  says  Mr.  Adams,  "  recurred 


much  to  his  early  youth,  to  Geneva,  to  his  school,  to 
Mile.  Pictet,  and  undoubtedly  to  that  self-reproach  for 
his  neglect  of  her  and  of  his  family  which  seems  to 
have  weighed  upon  him  through  life." 

Mr.  Adams  might  have  made  his  work  possibly 
more  interesting  and  effective,  and  certainly  more 
popular,  had  he  made  it  shorter  and  less  technical. 
He  has  investigated  the  circumstances  of  Mr.  Gal- 
latin's career  with  great  industry  and  with  perfect 
fairness  of  purpose.  He  has  evidently  spared  no 
trouble  which  would  enable  him  to  comprehend  the 
man  himself,  his  achievements  and  the  time  in  which 
he  lived.  Doubtless  all  biographers  should  be  as 
thorough  as  this — very  few,  we  imagine,  actually  are. 
A  biographer  should  aim  to  know  everything  about 
his  subject,  no  matter  how  much  of  his  knowledge 
he  may  think  it  necessary  to  suppress.  It  is  pos- 
sible that,  had  Mr.  Adams  written  a  book  of  smaller 
size,  he  might  have  produced  a  better  work  of  art. 
But  he  is  deeply  interested  in  the  history  of  the 
time  with  which  Gallatin  was  connected,  and  he  has 
thought  best  to  give  us,  with  some  detail,  the  re- 
sults of  his  very'sincere  study.  The  reader  will  be 
the  less  likely  to  regret  Mr.  Adams's  course  because 
of  the  paucity  of  really  good  writing  upon  matters 
connected  with  American  history.  Mr.  Adams's  work 
is  very  simple  and  conscientious,  and  entirely  devoid 
of  that  affectation  which  is  sometimes  adopted  by 
weak  writers  in  order  to  conceal  their  want  of  real 
industry  and  ability.  We  have  also  much  pleasure 
in  praising  the  author  for  his  modesty.  Along  with 
the  energy  and  vigor  to  be  expected  in  one  of  Mr. 
Adams's  name  and  connection,  we  note  with  satis- 
faction his  freedom  from  narrowness  and  bumptious 
self-conceit. 

The  life  is  accompanied  by  a  selection  from  the 
writings  of  Albert  Gallatin,  prepared  by  Mr.  Adams 
with  great  pains.  This  is  in  three  volumes,  the  first 
two  containing  the  correspondence  of  Mr.  Gallatin 
with  distinguished  persons,  and  the  third  containing 
essays  and  publications. 

Skelton's   "  Essays  in  Romance."  * 

FROM  an  author  little  known  perhaps  to  American 
readers,  comes  in  goodly  dress  a  volume  made  up 
of  stories',  sketches,  and  verses,  gleaned  from  the 
literary  work  of  many  years,  and  covering  a  wide 
variety  of  topic  and  treatment.  Here  are  Scotch  idyl 
and  Venetian  romance;  love-songs,  and  rambles  like 
Izaak  Walton's,  and  the  experiences  of  a  heretical 
minister.  There  is  throughout  the  touch  of  a 
skillful  workman,  and  passages  of  strong  feeling 
and  description.  The  charm  is  strongest  when  the 
author  is  on  Scottish  ground.  The  rugged  and 
picturesque  national  character  comes  out  in  vivid 
glimpses ;  but  it  is  especially  on  the  heather  and 
among  the  hills,  alone  with  nature,  that  we  are  con- 
scious of  a  fresh  and  invigorating  atmosphere,  and 
draw  deep  breaths  of  enjoyment,  for  which  we 
gratefully  remember  the  author. 

*  Essays  in  Romance  and  Studies  from  Life.  By  John  Skel- 
ton,  author  of  "The  Impeachment  of  Mary  Stuart,"  and  other 
works.  William  Blackwood  &  Sons,  Edinburgh  and  London. 


636 


COMMUNICA  TIONS. 


Judge   Ricord's  Translations.* 

IT  would  be  remarkable,  indeed,  if  the  necessary 
requirements  for  poetic  translating — so  rare  even  in 
poets  of  acknowledged  ability— could  be  fulfilled  by 
Judge  Ricord,  a  gentleman  whose  honored  position 
in  his  native  city  leads  him  in  the  farthest  possible 
direction  from  the  world  of  fantasy  and  art  (and 
who,  we  understand,  has  only  devoted  to  this  ardu- 
ous task  "  his  leisure  hours  during  the  four  or  five 
years  that  he  has  been  upon  the  bench  ").  Like  all 
untrained  versifiers,  he  finds  himself,  in  despite  of 
his  literary  conscience,  frequently  obliged  to  sacrifice 
the  thought  to  the  rhyme  ;  and  not  being  endowed 
with  the  broad  sympathy  and  the  keen  intuition  of 
the  true  poet,  he  fails  to  render  the  individual  spirit 
and  the  varying  styles  of  the  different  authors.  Thus 
in  reading  these  translations,  which  number  about  a 
hundred,  and  which  embrace  a  range  wide  enough 
to  extend  from  the  classic  French  of  Voltaire,  Mo- 
liere  and  Sainte-Beuve,  to  the  Swabian  and  Aleman- 
nic  dialects  of  obscure  or  nameless  authors ;  from 
the  scholarly  elegance  of  Petrarch  to  the  colloquial 
freedom  of  La  Fontaine  and  Beranger;  from  the 
dainty  grace  of  Metastasio  and  Voiture,  the  grandiose 
vigor  of  Victor  Hugo,  the  flawless  perfection  of 
Goethe,  the  finished  miniature  painting  of  Leconte 
de  Lisle,  to  the  reckless,  almost  insolent,  charm  of 
Heine — we  derive  the  impression  of  only  a  single 
style.  The  familiar  rhymed  prose  of  La  Fontaine 
and  Florian  finds  a  fair  interpretation  at  Mr. 
Ricord's  hands.  His  excellent  translations  of  "  Love 
and  Folly"  and  "Truth  and  Fiction"  suggest  the 
careless  ease  of  Gay.  One  of  his  happiest  efforts  is 
an  Austrian  folk-song,  "The  World's  Way,"  and 


*  English  Songs  from  Foreign  Tongues.     By  Frederick  \V. 
Ricord.     New  York  :  For  sale  by  Charles  Scribner's  Sons. 


he  renders  very  well  the  spirited  archness  of  a 
charming  song  from  the  French  of  Malherbe,  from 
which  we  quote  the  first  and  last  stanzas : 

"That  other  maids  may  be  desired, 
That  other  maids  may  be   admired, 
I  will  of  course,  of  course  agree, 
But  that  one  may  with  you  compare 
In  beauty,  fairest  of  the  fair, 
Oh  that  can  never,  never  be. 


"  That  I,  within  my  silent  grave 
At  last  may  cease  to  be  thy  stave, 

I  will  of  course,  of  course  agree. 
But  that  the  fear  of  death  can  move 
Me  in  my  service  and  my  love, 

Oh  that  can  never,  never  be." 

We  must  find  space  also  for  two  madrigals  by 
Metastasio,  which  are  translated  with  admirable 
terseness  and  skill : 

"  In  dreams  while  on  my  bed  I  lie, 
Comes  she,  for  whom  I  live  and  sigh, 

To  say,  I'm  not  forsaken. 
If  thou  be  justj  O  Love,  ordain 
My  dream  the  living  truth  contain, 
Or  that  I  never  waken." 


"If  each  man's  deeply  hidden  woe 

Were  written  out  upon  his  brow, 

For  many  then  our  tears  would  flow, 

Who  rather  move  our  envy  now. 

"  Alas  !  how  many  in  whose  breast 

The  keenest  agonies  exist, 
Make  in  appearing  to  be  blest 
Their  sum  of  happiness  consist." 

If  the  author  cannot  answer  to  the  definition  of 
the  poet,  who  must  be  "  of  imagination  all  com- 
pact," yet  this  volume  proves  him  to  be  what  our 
great-grandparents  would  have  called  a  "man  of 
parts,"  familiar  with  an  unusual  number  of  lan- 
guages, endowed  with  poetic  sensibility  and  a  grace- 
ful, versatile  mind. 


COMMUNICATIONS. 


June  1 6,  1880. 
EDITOR  SCRIBNER'S  MONTHLY. 

DEAR  SIR  :  My  attention  has  been  called  to 
an  assertion  made  in  an  article  of  your  June  num- 
ber, 1880,  of  SCRIBNER'S  MONTHLY,  which  I  deem 
of  sufficient  importance  to  ask  you  to  correct.  It 
occurs  in  an  article  entitled  "  A  Year  of  the  Exodus 
in  Kansas,"  upon  page  216,  and  speaks  of  the  labor 
of  a  colored  man,  practically  the  colored  man  him- 
self, being  sold  for  debt  in  Texas,  Alabama  and 
Georgia,  by  virtue  of  the  laws  of  these  States.  A 
practice  of  the  law  in  Texas,  accompanied  by  a  dili- 
gent study  of  the  statutes  of  that  State,  for  several 
years  past,  enables  me  to  state  with  confidence  that 
no  such  law  there  exists,  and  the  practice  is  wholly 
unknown.  So  it  is  in  Georgia,  and  so  I  believe  it 
is  in  Alabama.  It  is  a  fact  well  known  to  every 


lawyer  in  the  country,  that  imprisonment  for  debt 
has  long  since  become  obsolete  both  in  England  and 
this  country,  the  single  vestige  being  the  writ  of 
ne  exeat  (to  prevent  an  insolvent  debtor  from  flee- 
ing the  country  to  avoid  process,  etc.).  To  many 
people,  however,  ignorant  of  the  law,  but  otherwise 
honest  and  well-meaning,  the  bare  assertion  of  the 
fact,  in  your  excellent  and  usually  most  reliable 
monthly,  will  carry  conviction,  and  will  give  their 
minds  a  very  prejudiced  idea  of  the  jurisprudence  of 
these  States.  It  is  particularly  in  behalf  of  Texas, 
a  young  and  growing  State,  which  invites  immigra* 
tion  by  every  inducement  of  soil,  climate,  and  laws, 
that  I  write  ;  and  it  is  in  her  behalf,  as  well  as  that 
of  justice  and  truth,  that  I  beg  you  will  insert  in 
your  columns  the  substance,  at  least,  of  this  correc- 
tion. Very  respectfully  your  obedient  servant, 

WM.  AUBREY. 


THE    WORLD'S    WORK. 


637 


THE    WORLD'S   WORK. 


Magazine  Guns. 


ARMS  designed  to  carry  a  supply  of  cartridges  in 
a  magazine  of  some  kind  attached  to  the  gun,  so  as  to 
admit  of  the  rapid  firing  of  a  number  of  shots  in  suc- 
cession, are  already  in  use,  as  instanced  by  the 
Galling  gun,  a  number  of  magazine  rifles  and  even 
the  common  revolver.  Any  improvement  in  this 
class  of  arms  must,  therefore,  be  sought  in  more 
finished  charging  and  firing  mechanism  and  in  an 
increase  in  the  number  of  shots  that  may  be  carried 
in  one  gun.  From  an  inspection  of  a  number  of 
arms  of  different  patterns,  now  being  made  in  this 
country,  some  improvements  may  be  described  that 
may  prove  of  value  to  the  general  reader. 

The  plan  upon  which  these  new  arms  are  con- 
structed is  essentially  the  same,  whether  it  is  applied 
to  a  sporting  gun,  battery,  or  machine  rifle,  or  field- 
gun  for  horse  artillery.  It  may  also  be  applied  to 
the  largest  sized  siege-gun,  though  the  guns  already 
constructed  range  only  from  a  shot-gun  to  a  field- 
gun  throwing  solid  shot  or  shells.  In  all,  the  maga- 
zines are  placed  on  either  side  of  the  gun-barrel,  so 
that  they  can  be  easily  removed  for  loading  with 
cartridges.  The  cartridges  are  pushed  into  the 
open  end  of  the  magazine  till  it  is  full,  when  the 
coiled  spring  in  the  magazine  tube  is  locked  auto- 
matically, preventing  the  spring  from  pushing  the 
shots  out  until  released  by  pressure  of  the  finger  on  a 
stop  on  the  outside  of  the  tube.  In  the  shot-gun, 
two  tubes  are  placed  on  each  side  of  the  barrel,  and 
are  designed  to  hold  from  32  to  64  shots  according  to 
the  size  of  the  gun.  In  the  military  rifle,  the  maga- 
zines are  placed  in  a  circle  round  the  barrel,  and 
when  filled  will  carry  128  shots,  all  of  which  may  be 
fired  in  succession  in  less  than  one  minute.  The 
firing  apparatus  consists  essentially  of  a  steel  slide 
containing  two  chambers  and  designed  to  move 
laterally  in  the  stock  behind  the  barrel,  one  chamber 
always  being  in  line  with  the  barrel.  The  move- 
ment of  the  mechanism  is  very  simple.  While  one 
cartridge  is  pushed  by  the  spring  from  the  tube  into 
one  chamber,  another  is  being  fired  from  the  barrel. 
The  next  movement  repeats  this  on  the  other  side  of 
the  gun,  and,  at  the  same  time,  the  exploded  cartridge 
is  pulled  out  and  allowed  to  fall  to  the  ground.  The 
mechanism  appears  to  work  with  precision  and  with 
the  least  exertion  on  the  part  of  the  gunner.  The 
barrel  is  screwed  into  tfye  loading  and  firing  appara- 
tus and  is  quite  distinct  from  it,  so  that  a  new 
barrel  can  be  put  on  if  required. 

This  also  admits  of  the  use  of  old  barrels  'in  mak- 
ing the  improved  arm.  To  compensate  for  the  in- 
creased weight  of  so  many  magazines  and  shots,  the 
gun  is  made  quite  light,  and  to  compensate  for  the 
recoil  that  is  so  troublesome  in  a  light  gun,  a  rubber 
recoil-cushion  of  a  novel  form  is  placed  in  the  firing 
apparatus,  to  take  up  the  shock  when  the  gun  is 
fired. 

The  single-barrel  guns  examined  consist  of  a  small 
rifled  gun  on  a  light  carriage,  with  the  slide  for  loading 


and  firing  but  without  magazines,  the  cartridges  being 
slipped  into  the  open  chamber  of  the  slide  alternately 
exposed  on  each  side  as  the  gun  is  fired ;  a  long  and 
light  rifled  gun,  and  a  regular  field-piece  for  throw- 
ing shells.  In  the  long  rifle,  eight  magazines  are 
ranged  round  the  barrel  in  a  circle.  These  may  be 
filled  with  solid  shot,  or  with  case-shot,  or  with  shells. 
By  turning  a  hand  crank,  any  magazine  may  be 
brought  to  the  firing  slide,  so  that  shells,  case  or 
solid  shot  may  be  fired  at  will.  The  movement  of 
the  slide  is  controlled  by  a  hand  lever,  moving  from 
side  to  side,  the  charging  and  firing  being  all  done 
by  one  motion,  one  man  being  able  to  fire  the  gun 
continuously,  at  a  speed  of  from  one  to  two  shots  per 
second.  In  the  field-gun,  four  magazines  are  placed 
on  each  side  of  the  gun ;  the  firing  mechanism  being 
the  same  as  in  all  the  other  guns,  and  controlled  by 
the  movement  of  a  single  lever.  The  barrel  is  of 
steel,  rifled,  and  designed  for  very  long  range.  It  is 
screwed  into  the  firing  apparatus,  so  that  if  injured 
it  can  be  replaced  in  a  few  minutes.  The  magazine 
tubes  are  loaded  in  position,  though  they  can  be  re- 
moved if  injured,  or  if  more  convenient  to  load  them 
at  some  other  place.  This  gun  is  mounted  on  the 
usual  field  artillery  truck,  and  is  designed  to  be 
handled  in  the  usual  way,  except  that  there  are  no  load- 
ers and  no  swabbers;  one  man  being  sufficient  to 
handle  the  gun  till  its  entire  store  of  shots  is  spent. 
In  this  gun  the  powder  and  shot  are  inclosed  in  a  steel 
case  that  serves  as  a  gas  check,  and  at  the  same 
time  keeps  the  gun  clean.  A  recoil-cushion  is  also 
provided,  and  by  permitting  the  case  to  retreat,  en- 
larges the  space  for  the  formation  of  gas.  The  other 
rifled  gun  is  mounted  on  a  steel  frame  moved  at  two 
points,  so  that  it  can  be  elevated  or  depressed  by 
turning  a  hand  crank.  This  form  rests  on  a  table 
giving  it  free  play  in  a  horizontal  plane,  so  that  the 
gunner,  by  turning  a  crank,  can  swing  the  gun 
entirely  round  the  horizon  in  a  few  seconds.  The 
whole  is  placed  on  a  four-wheel  carriage,  so  as  to  be 
above  the  horses,  and  enabling  the  gunner  to  fire 
directly  over  their  heads,  even  when  on  the  full  gallop. 
The  same  general  system  of  construction  is  designed 
to  be  applied  to  guns  of  the  largest  size,  but  so  far 
only  field  artillery  has  been  constructed. 

In  machine  guns,  the  same  system  has  been  carried 
out.  In  the  gun  examined,  thirty-six  heavy  rifles 
are  placed  in  line,  and  above  and  below  each  barrel 
is  a  magazine,  each  carrying  22  shots,  making  in  all 
72  magazines,  holding  1582  shots,  all  of  which  may  be 
fired  by  one  man  in  less  than  one  minute.  This 
arm  is  also  mounted  on  a  pivoted  frame,  with  mechan- 
ism for  depressing  and  elevating,  and  stands  on  a 
table  having  a  free  horizontal  motion  in  every  direc- 
tion. The  whole  is  placed  on  a  four-wheeled  car- 
riage, designed  for  horses  or  men,  and  is  to  be 
accompanied  by  a  one-horse  cart,  containing  a  large 
supply  of  magazines  already  filled,  besides  extra 
cartridges  in  boxes.  This  arm  is  put  forth  as  the  most 
effective  instrument  of  its  kind  ever  made,  both  in 


638 


THE    WORLD'S    WORK. 


simplicity  of  construction,  ease  of  management  and 
large  range  of  firing,  and  general  usefulness  for 
military  purposes.  All  of  these  arms  are  soon  to  be 
publicly  exhibited  in  operation,  and  will,  no  doubt, 
be  worthy  the  attention  of  military  people,  both  from 
the  novelty  of  their  design  and  the  admirable  manner 
in  which  they  have  been  built. 

Apparatus  for  Treating  Metallic  Sands. 

THE  deposits  of  black  and  colored  sands  found 
in  different  parts  of  this  country,  and  containing  a 
large  percentage  of  iron  and  a  trace  of  gold,  or 
other  valuable  metals,  have  been  made  the  subject 
of  frequent  experiment  for  the  purpose  of  extract- 
ing the  gold,  but  with  few  exceptions  these  experi- 
ments have  been  found  to  be  too  costly  to  be  of  any 
commercial  value.  A  new  apparatus  for  extracting 
the  loose  iron  from  the  mingled  sand,  gold  and 
other  materials  that  make  up  the  so-called  "iron 
sands  "  employs  an  electro-magnet  in  a  novel  and 
most  interesting  manner.  The  apparatus  is  simple 
and  quite  inexpensive,  and  can  be  readily  under- 


stood from  the  accompanying  outline  drawing.  It 
consists  of  a  prism-shaped  hopper  of  wood  about 
1.50  meter  (5  feet)  long,  and  having  a  slit  or  open- 
ing at  the  bottom  3  m.  m.  (1-16  inch)  wide.  This 
hopper  is  supported  on  a  wooden  frame,  as  shown 
in  the  drawing,  and  has  a  slight  lateral  movement 
so  that  it  may  be  adjusted  for  work.  When  the  ap- 


paratus is  to  be  used  in  buildings,  the  hopper  may 
be  built  into  the  floor  and  the  frame-work  omitted. 
Immediately  below  the  hopper  is  a  box  divided  into 
two  parts  by  a  wooden  partition  having  a  sharp 
edge  at  the  top.  This  box  has  also  a  movement 
from  side  to  side  to  adjust  it  for  work.  Suspended 
on  a  bracket  to  the  frame  is  a  wide  electric  magnet, 
made  of  a  piece  of  plate  iron  bent  into  a  horse-shoe 
and  wound  with  wire,  as  shown  in  the  drawing. 
The  wires  from  the  magnet  are  designed  to  be  led  to 
a  small  dynamo-electric  machine,  intended  to  be 
turned  by  hand  or  other  light  power.  In  using  the 
apparatus,  the  dry  sand  is  shoveled  into  the  hopper 
and  falls  in  a  thin  shower  into  the  box  below.  The 
box  or  the  hopper  is  so  placed  that  the  whole  of  the 
sand  falls  into  one  of  the  compartments  of  the  box, 
and,  until  the  magnet  is  excited,  it  all  falls  in  that 
way  and  nothing  is  accomplished.  On  exciting  the 
magnet,  all  the  particles  of  iron  are  drawn  out  of 
their  path  in  falling,  and  tend  to  approach  the  poles 
of  the  magnet,  and  would  cling  to  them  were  it  not 
so  adjusted  that  the  attraction  of  gravitation  over- 
comes the  magnetic  attraction.  The  iron  sand 
practically  passes  through  the  magnetic  field  without 
stopping  and  then  falls  to  the  ground.  This  alter- 
ation of  its  path,  or  trajectory,  is  sufficient  to  cause  it 
to  fall  clear  of  the  partition  in  the  other  part  of  the  box. 
All  the  gold  quartz  or  other  non-magnetic  material 
falls  through  the  magnetic  field  without  altering  its 
path.  This  application  of  a  magnet  for  separating 
particles  of  iron  from  other  materials  is  quite  novel, 
and  differs  essentially  from  the  two  new  methods  of 
accomplishing  the  same  thing  recently  described  in 
this  department.  Gangs  of  magnets  are  employed 
in  elevators  and  flour-mills  to  extract  the  bits  of  wire 
from  self-binders  found  in  wheat,  and  in  separating 
bran  from  flour  by  the  use  of  cylinders  excited  by 
frictional  electricity.  Though  designed  for  treating 
the  iron  sands  of  California,  the  apparatus  may  prove 
of  use  in  flour-mills,  both  for  cleaning  the  bran  from 
flour  (by  frictional  electricity)  and  in  arresting  bits  of 
iron  in  wheat,  and  in  separating  iron  ore  from  the 
rock  in  which  it  may  be  imbedded.  It  would  seem 
as  if  it  might  be  less  costly  to  crush  and  grind  iron 
ores,  particularly  those  of  a  poor  grade,  and  to  pass 
the  sand  through  such  an  apparatus,  and  thus 
save  the  iron  in  a  pure  state.  Many  red  sands 
contain  a  percentage  of  iron  too  small  to  render 
them  of  value  as  ores,  and  in  this  apparatus  they 
might  prove  of  value,  as  the  separation  of  the  iron 
from  the  sand  would  cost  only  the  labor  of  shovel- 
ing it  into  the  hopper  and  turning  the  crank  of  the 
dynamo-electric  machine. 

New  Applications  of  Dynamo-Electric  Machines. 

THAT  one  dynamo-electric  machine,  driven  by 
steam,  or  other  power,  would  cause  a  second  ma- 
chine properly  connected  with  it  to  reproduce  a 
portion  of  the  power  spent  on  the  first  machine,  has 
long  been  known,  and  a  number  of  practical  appli- 
cations have  been  made  of  the  fact,  such  as  pump- 
ing water,  driving  machinery,  and  even  plowing. 
Within  a  short  time,  the  application  of  electricity  to 
traction  has  been  made  the  subject  of  experiment, 


BRIC-A-BRAC. 


639 


both  in  this  country  and  in  Europe.  Detailed  de- 
scriptions of  the  European  experiments  have  not 
been  easily  obtained,  but  enough  has  been  learned  to 
show  that  on  a  short  line  of  narrow-gauge  railway, 
laid  on  a  level  along  a  garden  walk,  an  electrical 
engine  has  been  used  to  drag  moderate  loads  at  a 
very  fair  speed.  The  experiment  in  this  country, 
with  characteristic  thoroughness,  has  been  made  to 
test  the  actual  commercial  value  of  electrical  traction- 
machines  on  cheap,  rough  roads,  with  sharp  curves 
and  steep  grades.  The  science  of  the  thing  is 
familiar — the  real  question  is,  what  is  the  good  of  it  ? 
The  traction  machine  (it  is  not  an  engine)  consists 
of  a  Faradic  machine,  of  the  pattern  described  on 
page  317,  Vol.  19,  of  this  magazine,  laid  down  on  its 
side  upon  an  iron  frame  supported  on  four  flanged 
wheels.  The  larger  pair  of  these  wheels  is  insu- 
lated with  wood  between  the  tread  and  the  hub, 
having  a  brass  ring  fastened  to  the  center  on  the  out- 
side, and  insulated  from  the  bearings  by  hard  rubber. 
Brass  rods  connect  these  rings  to  the  outside  face  of 
each  wheel,  near  the  tread,  and  electrical  conductors 
made  of  brushes  of  wire  press  against  these  rings  to 
convey  the  electrical  current  that  passes  from  the 
rails  to  the  tread  of  the  wheel,  through  the  brass 
connections  to  the  rings  and  brushes,  and  thence  by 
wire  to  the  Faradic  machine.  The  revolving  arma- 
ture of  the  machine  carries  a  small  pulley,  and  from 
this  is  taken  a  steel  wire  rope,  or  belt,  to  a  larger 
grooved  pulley,  while  a  third  pulley  and  second  rope 
convey  the  motion  directly  to  the  axle  of  the  driving 
wheel.  The  object  of  this  use  of  wire  rope  connec- 
tions is  to  convey  the  very  rapid  rotation  of  the 
armature  at  a  reduced  speed  to  the  traction  wheels, 
without  danger  from  the  sudden  starting  and  stop- 
ping of  the  machine.  For  stopping  the  machine, 
wooden  brakes  of  a  simple  form  are  used,  and  to 
reverse  the  machine,  the  electrical  current  is  reversed 
by  a  simple  shunting  device.  The  power  for  mov- 
ing the  machine  is  obtained  from  a  stationary  steam- 
engine  driving  one  or  two  Faradic  machines  in  a 
building  near  the  end  of  the  railroad.  From  these 


machines  wires  are  laid  underground  to  the  rail- 
road, the  positive  wire  being  connected  with  one  rail 
and  the  negative  wire  with  the  other  rail.  The  road 
itself  is  a  narrow-gauge  single  track,  laid  cheaply  and 
roughly  on  common  fire-wood  logs,  and  ballasted 
with  sand.  All  the  rails  are  connected  with  fish- 
plates, and  when  each  plate  is  put  on,  two  pieces  of 
copper  wire  are  laid  against  the  rail  and  held  in 
place  by  the  fish-plate.  This  serves  to  give  good 
electrical  connection  from  rail  to  rail.  No  insulation 
is  required  beyond  the  wooden  sleepers,  and  even  in 
wet  weather  the  loss  of  electricity  is  found  to  be  very 
small.  The  operation  of  the  machine  is  exceedingly 
simple.  The  current  from  the  stationary  Faradic 
machines  follows  one  rail  till  it  meets  the  traveling 
machine,  when  it  takes  the  short  circuit  through  one 
wheel  and  the  machine  and  down  through  the  other 
wheel  to  the  other  rail  and  thence  back  to  the  station. 
Practically,  it  makes  no  difference  whether  the  ma- 
chine is  at  rest  or  moving  at  a  speed  of  30  miles  an 
hour ;  the  electrical  current  follows  the  rails  to  the 
moving  machine,  whichever  way  it  may  be  moving 
along  the  road,  and  is  transformed  into  useful  work 
in  moving  the  machine  and  its  load.  The  present 
road  has  curves  of  6l  meters  (200  feet)  radius  and  is 
laid  along  a  common  country-road,  across  fields  and 
up  and  down  hills,  following  the  face  of  the  country 
wherever  a  horse  could  drag  an  ordinary  wagon. 
The  machine  may  yet  be  materially  modified,  but  it  is 
already  proved  that  it  will  work,  and  on  a  commercial 
scale.  For  mining  regions,  for  horse  railroads,  and 
all  short  lines,  particularly  when  water  power  can  be 
obtained,  this  method  of  traction  will  prove  of  un- 
doubted value  in  replacing  locomotives  and  horse 
power.  It  will  follow  any  grade  that  a  horse  can 
climb,  and  will  take  curves  that  would  be  impossible 
on  any  steam  road.  It  is  silent,  swift  and  safe,  and, 
in  spite  of  the  necessary  loss  of  power  in  the  conver- 
sion from  one  form  of  energy  to  another,  it  is  thought 
it  will  be  cheap.  It  is  estimated  that  a  single  stationary 
engine  can  control  the  movement  of  such  machines 
over  a  line  often  miles,  or  five  miles  in  each  direction. 


BRIC-A-BRAC. 


Parting  Lovers. 


FROM   THE  CHINESE. 


SHE  says,  "We  tarry  late — do  you  not  hear 
The  silvery  clarion  of  chanticleer  ?  " 
He  says,  "Be  still,  my  love,  and  do  not  hark;— 
'Tis  early  yet,  and  all  the  sky  is  dark." 

She  says,  "  I  see  the  sun's  first  glancing  ray ; 
Are  we  not  lingering  to  the  break  of  day  ?  " 
He  says,  "  I  fail  to  note  one  streak  of  light, 
'Tis  you  alone  that  makes  the  morning  bright." 

She  says,  "  Can  you,  in  truth,  arise  and  say, 
The  shades  of  night  are  fading  not  away  ?  " 


He  says,  "  I  will  not  say — I  only  know 
For  all  the  world  I  would  not  have  it  so." 


He  says,  "At  last,  'tis  true,  the  morning  star 
Shines  in  the  east  like  some  drawn  scimitar ;  " 
She  says,  "  I  bid  you  quickly  then  depart " — 
He  says,  "  But  for  the  tumult  in  my  heart 

"  I  should  have  gone  from  here  an  hour  ago — 
But  curse  the  bird  whose  voice  proclaimed  my 

woe, 

And  curse  the  sun,  and  all  the  impertinent  crew 
That  hurry  on  to  sever  me  from  you." 

JOEL  BENTON. 


640 


BRIC-A-BRAC. 


THE  conservatism  of  most  people  is  nothing  more 
than  their  radicalism  gone  to  seed. 

No  man  is  envious  of  what  he  can  equal,  or  even 
imitate. 

The  man  who  is  ever  ready  to  take  the  chances  will 
very  probably  take  his  last  one  in  the  almshouse. 

Men  have  been  known  to  correct  their  vanity, 
subdue  their  pride  and  even  overcome  their  super- 
stitions, but,  once  impregnated  with  it,  it  is  impos- 
sible for  a  man  to  get  rid  of  his  vulgarity. 

The  man  who  lives  for  others  must  expect  most 
of  his  pay  in  self-satisfaction. 

Most  successes  spring  up,  Phcenix-like,  from  the 
ashes  of  some  failure. 

The  most  cunning  of  all  egotists  is  the  man  who 
never  speaks  well  of  himself. 

Good  breeding  is  a  letter  of  credit  all  over  the 
world. 

A  man  of  true  genius  is  generally  as  simple  as  a 
•child,  and  as  unconscious  of  his  power  as  an  elephant. 

If  we  would  measure  our  happiness  by  the  condi- 
tion of  those  below  us,  instead  of  those  above,  we 
•should  find  ourselves  very  well  off. 

The  man  who  can  distinguish  between  good 
advice  and  poor  does  not  need  either. 

Every  man  makes  his  own  reputation  ;  the  world 
only  puts  on  the  stamp. 

There  is  a  great  deal  of  modesty  in  this  world 
which  will  gaze  at  almost  anything, — provided  it  can 
"be  seen  through  a  crack. 

Silence  is  a  hard  opinion  to  beat. 

Next  to  silence  comes  brevity — the  wise  man's 
strength  and  the  fool's  refuge. 

A  gentleman  never  will  insult  any  one,  and  a  loafer 
cannot. 


Bigotry  knows  of  but  one  way  to  reach  heaven, 
while  faith  knows  of  a  hundred. 

Man  is  a  two-legged,  eccentric  animal  that  deals 
in  politics,  religion  and  general  merchandise. 

It  is  well  to  give  heed  to  your  doubts,  for  they  are 
very  often  the  dawnings  of  truth. 

Literary  men,  as  a  class,  are  unsatisfactory  com- 
panions ;  if  you  flatter  their  vanity  enough  to  make 
them  agreeable,  you  disgust  yourself. 

He  who  does  a  good  deed  makes  heaven  his 
debtor. 

Chastity  is  like  a  broken  vase ;  it  can  be  mended, 
but  can  never  be  made  whole. 

A  thoroughly  good  man  is  invariably  a  brave  one. 

It  is  much  more  difficult  for  a  man  to  make  a  cir- 
cumstance than  it  is  for  a  circumstance  to  make  a 
man. 

It  requires  wisdom  to  be  able,  and  it  requires 
honesty  to  be  willing,  to  call  things  by  their  right 
names. 

Man  is  the  only  creature  that  laughs ;  angels  do 
not,  animals  cannot,  and  devils  will  not. 


A  Somnolent  Vagary. 

AN  idle  dreamer,  an  idle  dream; 

A  napping  sun  and  a  breeze  at  play; 
A  vagrant  shadow,  a  drowsy  stream, 

A  lazy,  loitering,  summer  day. 

A  bold-eyed  sunflower  in  vulgar  rags, 
A  knot  of  weeds  with  a  sailor  air, 

A  pumpkin-vine  with  its  gaping  bags, 
To  catch  what  specie  the  sun  can  spare. 

A  spider  winding  his  silver  keep 
To  hold  as  hostage  a  fly  or  two; 

A  robin  rocking  himself  to  sleep, 
Serenely  reckless  that  notes  are  due. 

A  butterfly-boat  on  a  wave  of  air, 
With  all  its  satiny  sails  unfurled, 

For  port  in  a  blossom  here  and  there, 
The  busiest  things  in  this  idle  world. 

A  gossipy  corn-field,  making  weird, 
Fantastic  bows  in  a  languid  way, 

A  tawny  upland,  with  unshorn  beard, 
Gone  fast  asleep  with  the  sultry  day. 

The  sky  is  teeming  with  restless  ghosts 
From  Mount  Olympus  and  days  of  old; 

They  flit  and  vanish,  and  lo,  the  hosts 
Of  Jason,  seeking  the  fleece  of  gold. 

As  sweet  a  fable  as  one  can  find 

Is  hid  in  the  "  golden  fleece,"  they  say — 

Oh,  you  are  snoring!  Well,  never  mind; 
I'll  tell  the  fable  some  other  day. 

H.  O.  KNOWLTON. 

THERE  was  a  young  person  of  Munster, 
Who  was  such  an  inveterate  punster 
That  when  asked  to  take  tea 
He  said:  "Why  not  take  D?" 
Which  convulsed  a  large  portion  of  Munster. 


SCRIBNER'S  MONTHLY. 


VOL.  XX. 


SEPTEMBER,  1880. 


No.  5. 


MR.    PICKWICK   AND    NICHOLAS    NICKLEBY. 


COPPERFIELD'S  RECOLLECTIONS  OF   CANTERBURY. 


VOL.  XX.— 42. 


ROCHESTER,  with  its  bridge  and  river,  its 
castle  and  cathedral,   and  its  surrounding 
country,  is  perhaps  more  closely  associated 
with  Dickens  than  any  other  place  in  Eng- 
land.    The  walks  in  the  vicinity  which  he 
loved  so  much,  and  the  favorite  spots  to  which 
they  led  him,  figure  in  many  of  his  books : — 
Canterbury,  so  closely  associated  with  Cop- 
per-field; Cooling  church-yard,  the  marshes 
and  the  river  of  "  Great  Expectations,"  the 
Leather  Bottle  Inn,  at  Cobhana,  in  which  the 
lovelorn  Tupman  sought  retreat.   Salis  House 
and  Watts  Charity  are  veritable  buildings  still 
'  ting  in  the  city.  "Pick  wick,"  his  first  book, 
opens,  if  it  does  not  begin  in  Roch- 
ester, and  "  Edwin  Drood,"  his  last 
book,  closes  there.     In  "  Pickwick  " 
^      the   city    goes   by    its    own   name; 
in  "  Edwin  Drood  "  it  is  veiled  under 
the  transparent  disguise  of  "  Clois- 
terham."     So  intimate  is  this  asso- 
ciation  with    Dickens's   life 
and  works  that  a  brass  tab- 
let has  been  erected  in  the 
,:;  ':,.,,      south-west   transept  of  the 
cathedral,   bearing   as   part 
of  its  inscription  the  follow- 
ing words :  "  To  connect  his 
memory  with  the  scenes 
H^^_  .  in  which  his  earliest  and 
^^^^^|      his    latest    years    were 
passed,  and  with  the  as- 
sociations of  Rochester 
Cathedral  and  its  neigh- 
borhood, which  extend- 
ed over  all  his  life." 

In  the  immediate 
vicinitv  of  the  city 
is  Gad's  Hill  Place, 
the  goal  toward  which 
his  childish  aspirations 
reached  out,  and  the 

[Copyright,  1880,  by  Scribner  &  Co.     All  rights  reserved.] 


642 


MR.  PICKWICK  AND  NICHOLAS  NICKLEBY. 


ROCHESTER    CASTLE. 


place  where  he  drew  his  last  breath.  In  a 
letter  to  his  friend,  M.  de  Cerjat,  he  speaks 
of  the  feeling  with  which  it  inspired  him 
when  scarcely  more  than  a  baby  : 

"  It  has  always  a  curious  interest  for  me, 
because,  when  I  was  a  small  boy  down  in 
these  parts,  I  thought  it  the  most  beautiful 
house  (I  suppose  because  of  its  famous  old 
cedar-trees)  ever  seen.  And  my  poor  father 
used  to  bring  me  to  look  at  it,  and  used  to 
say  that,  if  ever  I  grew  up  to  be  a  clever 
man,  perhaps  I  might  own  that  house,  or 
such  another  house.  In  remembrance  of 
which  I  have  always,  in  passing,  looked  to 
see  if  it  was  to  be  sold  or  let,  and  it  has 
never  been  to  me  like  any  other  house ;  it 
has  never  changed  at  all." 

The  contrast  between  the  rollicking  fun 
of  the  Pickwickians  on  their  first  outing,  and 
the  pathos  of  those  last  words  which  the 
great  novelist  ever  penned, — the  opening  and 
closing  scenes  of  his  imaginative  work, — is 
very  striking.  Jingle's  "  Old  cathedral,  too, 
— earthy  smell — pilgrims'  feet  worn  away  the 
old  steps — little  Saxon  doors — confessionals 
like  money-takers'  boxes  at  theaters — queer 
customers  those  monks — Popes  and  Lord 
Treasurers  and  all  sorts  of  fellows,"  forms  a 
pathetic  contrast  to  the  touching  description 
of  the  same  place  in  Edwin  Drood  :  "A 
brilliant  sun  shines  on  the  old  city.  Its  an- 
tiquities and  ruins  are  surpassingly  beautiful, 
with  the  lusty  ivy  gleaming  in  the  sun,  and  the 
rich  trees  waving  in  the  balmy  air.  Changes 
of  glorious  light  from  moving  boughs,  songs 
of  birds,  scents  from  gardens,  woods  and 
fields,  or  rather  from  the  one  great  garden 
of  the  whole  cultivated  island  in  its  yielding 
time, — penetrate  into  the  Cathedral,  subdue 


its  earthy  odor,  and  preach  the  Resurrection 
and  the  Life.  The  cold  stone  tombs  of 
centuries  ago  grow  warm,  and  flecks  of 
brightness  dart  into  the  sternest  marble 
corners  of  the  building,  fluttering  there  like 
wings." 

On  just  such  a  morning  as  is  here  de- 
scribed, within  sight  of  Rochester  Cathedral 
and  within  sound  of  its  bells,  these  words 
were  penned,  not  forty-eight  hours  before 
his  death. 

The  old  stone  bridge  across  the  Medway 
which  David  Copperfield  crossed,  weary  and 
footsore,  on  his  journey  to  Dover,  and  over 
which  Mr.  Pickwick  leaned,  meditatively 
looking  at  the  cathedral,  the  ruined  castle, 
the  placid  Medway,  is  no  longer  in  existence, 
having  been  replaced  by  a  handsome  iron 
structure.  When  the  old  bridge  was  demol- 
ished, one  of  its  massive  balustrades  was 
sent  to  Dickens  in  token  of  the  many  asso- 
ciations it  had  with  his  works.  That  balus- 
trade, surmounted  by  a  sun-dial,  still  stands 
in  the  grounds  of  Gad's  Hill  Place. 

The  view  from  the  bridge  remains  un- 
changed, and  cannot  better  be  described 
than  in  Dickens's  own  words :  "  On  the 
left  of  the  spectator  lay  the  ruined  wall, 
broken  in  many  places,  and  in  some 
overhanging  the  narrow  beach  below, 
in  rude  and  heavy  masses.  Huge  knots 
of  sea-weed  hung  upon  the  jagged  and 
pointed  stones,  trembling  in  every  breath  of 
wind  ;  and  the  green  ivy  clung  mournfully 
around  the  dark  and  ruined  battlements. 
Behind  it  rose  the  ancient  castle,  its  towers 
roofless,  and  its  massive  walls  crumbling 
away,  but  telling  us  proudly  of  its  old  might 
and  strength,  as  when  seven  hundred  years 


MR.  PICKWICK  AND  NICHOLAS  NICKLEBY. 


643 


ago  it  rang  with  the  clash  of  arms  or  re- 
sounded with  the  noise  of  feasting  and 
revelry."  The  description  which  follows, 
though  charming,  is  too  long  for  insertion 
here. 

"  Pickwick,"  with  the  mere  thread  of  plot 
upon  which  its  stories,  adventures  and  char- 
acters are  loosely  strung,  has  in  it  a  certain 
charm,  a  freedom  in  the  touches  of  nature 
and  of  character,  which  Dickens  does  not 
seem  to  possess  in  perfection  when  hampered 
by  a  more  intricate  plot  and  a  more  serious 
purpose.  His  works  show  more  ambitious, 
perhaps  more  eloquent,  descriptions  of  natu- 
ral scenery  than  those  found  in  "  Pickwick," 


"four  by  the  day,"  in  the  morning  of  the  rob- 
bery at  Gad's  Hill.  Said  Dickens,  pointing  it 
out  "  That  is  the  inn  with  the  new  chimney. 
I  discovered  it  as  I  was  walking  into  Roch- 
ester one  morning  at  the  same  hour,  and 
saw  t'he  constellation  in  that  very  position." 
You  enter  the  inn  through  an  archway;  on 
each  side-post  sign  are  Jingle's  words : 
"  Nice  house,  good  beds,  vide  Pickwick." 
The  great  beams  above  are  hung  with  sides 
of  bacon,  with  fowls  and  geese,  with  huge 
joints  of  beef  and  mutton :  through  this 
"  mutton  grove  "  one  passes  to  the  bar  and 
the  coffee-room.  These,  the  wide  staircases, 
hung  with  old-time  engravings,  the  long  cor- 


BULL    INN    AT    ROCHESTER. 


but  none  which  flow  in  a  more  simple, 
spontaneous  way,  or  have  a  flavor  so  idyllic. 
This  view  of  the  valley  of  the  Medway,  the 
walks  through  the  charming  lanes  of  Kent, 
or  the  "  deep  and  shady  woods  cooled  by 
the  light  winds,"  are  redolent  of  the  very 
breath  of  the  country.  Kent  was  alike  the 
home  of  his  childhood  and  of  his  imagina- 
tion ;  he  rarely  failed  to  respond  with  open 
heart  to  her  invitations. 

The  Bull  Inn  still  exists  as  when  Mr. 
Pickwick  and  his  friends  with  Jingle  drove 
up;  perhaps  it  remains  unchanged  since  the 
days  when  the  carrier  in  King  Henry  IV.  saw 
Charles's  wain  rising  over  its  new  chimney  at 


ridors,  the  unexpected  corners,  the  sitting- 
room  half  a  mile  from  the  bedroom,  all 
stand  for  what  is  ironically  called  the  com- 
fort of  the  old-fashioned  English  inn.  The 
great  ball-room — indispensable  adjunct  of 
all  old  county  inns — is  now  empty  and  deso- 
late, except  to  us,  who  people  it  with  Tup- 
man  and  Jingle  in  Winkle's  coat,  making 
violent  love  to  the  plump  widow,  and  little 
Dr.  Slammer,  wild  with  jealousy. 

Mr.  Pickwick's  enumeration  of  the  prod- 
ucts of  Stroud,  Rochester,  Chatham  and 
Brompton,  supplemented  by  Mr.  Jingle's  still 
more  laconic  description  of  Kent,  give  many 
characteristic  features  in  a  very  small  space. 


644 


MR.  PICKWICK  AND  NICHOLAS  NICKLEBY. 


WHITE    HART    INN,    HIGH     STREET. 


"  The  principal  productions  of  these  towns," 
says  Mr.  Pickwick,  "  appear  to  be  soldiers, 
sailors,  Jews,  chalk,  shrimps,  officers  and 
dock-yard  men.  The  commodities  chiefly 
exposed  for  sale  in  the  public  streets  are 
marine  stores,  hard-bake,  apples,  flat-fish 
and  oysters."  "  Kent,  sir,"  says  Mr.  Jingle, 
— "  everybody  knows  Kent, — apples,  cher- 
ries, hops  and  women." 

Dingley  Dell,  to  which  the  Pickwickians 
so  often  turned  their  steps,  is  probably  a 
creation  of  the  author's  fancy, — at  least,  noth- 
ing corresponding  to  it  is  to  be  found  in  that 
locality.  Mr.  Frost,  in  his  rambles  in  Kent, 
looking  up  the  various  points  associated 
with  Dickens,  made  an  ineffectual  though 
exhaustive  search  for  the  manor  farm.  Since 
Muggleton  is  unquestionably  an  imaginary 
place,  Dingley  Dell  and  Mr.  Wardle's  home 
are  no  doubt  to  be  classed  in  the  same 
category. 

The  chapter  introducing  Sam  Weller  opens 
with  a  delightful  description  of  the  London 
inns.  Even  in  the  days  of  Pickwick,  these 
rambling  old  buildings  were  giving  way 
before  the  stately  hostelries  of  more  mod- 


ern times.  To  discover  them,  the  record 
goes  on  to  say,  one  "  must  direct  his  steps 
to  the  obscurer  quarters  of  the  town,  and 
there,  in  some  secluded  nooks,  he  will 
find  several  still  standing  with  a  kind  of 
gloomy  sturdiness  amidst  the  modern  inno- 
vations which  surround  them.  Great,  ram- 
bling, queer  old  places  they  are,  with  galleries 
and  passages  and  staircases  wide  enough 
and  antiquated  enough  to  furnish  material 
for  a  hundred  ghost  stories,  supposing  we 
should  ever  be  reduced  to  the  lamentable 
necessity  of  inventing  any."  High  street 
was  for  centuries  the  great,  and,  indeed, 
the  only  road  from  the  south  and  west  to 
London  Bridge,  before  crossing  which  the 
horses  were  put  up  in  one  of  its  many 
inns.  It  was  emphatically  a  quarter  of  inns 
and  shops  for  farmers,  carriers  and  drovers. 
Many  of  these  inns  are  still  in  existence. 
Crossing  the  Thames  by  London  Bridge,  we 
find  an  immense  traffic  still  pouring  through 
High  street  Borough :  we  pass  the  "  George," 
the  "  King's  Head,"  the  "  Queen's  Head," 
famous  old  inns  in  their  day,  now  dropping 
to  pieces.  Their  great  yards, — once  the 


MR.  PICKWICK  AND  NICHOLAS  NICKLEBY. 


645 


starting-place  of  the  mail-coaches,  were  in 
Shakspere's  day  the  spot  on  which  the  tem- 
porary stages  were  erected  for  their  per- 
formances, the  spectators  grouped  about  or 
looking  down  from  the  balustracled  gal- 
leries,— are  now  filled  with  huge  vans  load- 
ing the  goods  for  the  railway  companies, 
who  make  use  of  these  yards  as  local  receiv- 
ing stations  for  their  freight  and  packages, 
while  the  dingy  little  tap-rooms  do  a  flour- 
ishing business  with  the  drivers  of  the  carts 
and  vans.  The  remains  of  the  "  Tabard  "  inn, 
from  which  the  Canterbury  pilgrims  set  out, 
were  still  standing  in  1875,  but  nothing  but 
the  name  on  the  sign  of  a  miserable  little  drink- 
ing-den  now  remains ;  the  building,  or  what 
was  left  of  it,  having  been  replaced  by  a  large 
warehouse.  "  It  was  in  the  yard  of  one  of 
these  inns — of  no  less  celebrated  a  one  than 
the  White  Hart — that  a  man  was  busily  em- 
ployed in  brushing  the  dirt  off  a  pair  of 
boots."  The  White  Hart  Inn  is  scarcely  so 
memorable  from  its  association  with  Jack 
Cade  as  it  is  from  that  with  Sam  Weller. 
Strolling  into  its  yard,  we  find  Sam  brushing 
the  boots  in  the  open  quadrangle,  while  the 


plump  chambermaid  from  the  galleries  above 
amuses  herself  with  chaffing  him.  Sam's  view 
of  society  from  the  stand-point  of  boots, — in- 
verted, as  it  were, — is  exquisitely  funny. 
" '  There's  a  wooden  leg  in  number  six,' 
said  Sam ;  '  there's  a  pair  of  Hessians  in 
thirteen ;  there's  two  pair  of  halves  in  the 
commercial ;  there's  these  here  painted  tops 
in  the  snuggery  inside  the  bar,  and  five  more 
tops  in  the  coffee-room.'  '  Nothing  more  ? ' 
said  the  little  man.  '  Stop  a  bit,'  said  Sam, 
suddenly  recollecting  himself.  'Yes;  there's 
a  pair  of  Vellingtons  a  good  deal  worn,  and  a 
pair  o'  lady's  shoes  in  number  five.'  '  What 
sort  of  shoes  ?  '  hastily  inquired  Mr.  Wardle, 
who,  together  with  Mr.  Pickwick,  had  been 
lost  in  bewilderment  at  the  singular  cata- 
logue of  visitors."  Miss  Rachel's  precautions 
not  having  extended  to  her  feet,  she  is  dis- 
covered by  means  of  her  shoes. 

Before  the  arrival  of  Mr.  Wardle,  in 
pursuit  of  the  mature  spinster,  Sam  gives 
the  story,  which  has  made  him  immortal, 
of  the  inveigling  of  his  famous  father  by 
the  "  two  porters  as  touts  for  licenses " 
around  Doctors'  Commons.  To  this  very 


DEAN  S    COURT — DOCTORS      COMMONS. 


646 


MR.  PICKWICK  AND  NICHOLAS  NICKLEBY. 


THE    ABBEY    GATE,    BURY     ST.    EDMUND  S. 

day,  as  one  strolls  through  that  quiet  court, 
just  off  St.  Paul's,  with  the  school  for  the 
choir  boys  on  its  opposite  side,  "  a  cove  in 
a  white  apron"  will  glide  up,  and  with  a 
significant  show  of  secrecy  and  of  sympa- 
thy, whisper  :  "  License,  sir,  license  ?  "  The 
will  office  to  which  the  elder  Mr.  Weller 
was  going  to  prove  his  deceased  wife's  will, 
when  he  was  thus  inveigled  into  making 
his  "  second  wentur,"  has  been  removed 
from  Doctors'  Commons  to  Somerset 
House,  though  the  license  office  still  re- 
mains in  the  old  place. 

Bury  St.  Edmund's,  to  which  place  Mr. 
Pickwick  and  Sam  followed  Jingle,  is  de- 
scribed by  Dickens  as  a  well-paved,  "  hand- 
some little  town,  of  thriving  and  cleanly 
appearance."  The  Angel  Inn,  at  which  they 
drew  up,  is  still  standing,  and  in  as  perfect 
preservation  as  it  was  in  on  the  day  made 
memorable  by  the  appearance  of  Mr.  Job 
Trotter,  with  his  pink  pocket-handkerchief, 
mulberry  suit,  and  unfailing  fountain  of 
tears.  Here  Sam  Weller,  for  once  and  only 
once,  met  his  match ;  and  then  follows  the 
absurd  scene  of  Mr.  Pickwick's  discomfiture 
at  Miss  Smithers's  school. 

The  abbey  in  the  square  opposite  the 
Angel  Inn  is  the  magnificent  abbey  of  St. 
Edmund,  and  though  it  is  now  seven  or 
eight  centuries  old,  the  carvings  upon  the 
tower,  as  well  as  those  upon  the  ruin,  are 
almost  as  sharp  and  clear  as  they  were  on 
the  day  when  it  was  demolished. 

From  Bury  St.  Edmund's  let  us  follow  Mr. 
Pickwick  and  Sam  to  Ipswich,  whither  the 
elder  Weller  had  directed  them,  in  search  of 
both  Jingle  and  Trotter.  They  put  up  at 
the  great  White  Horse,  "  rendered  the  more 


conspicuous  by  a  stone  statue  of  some  ram- 
pacious  animal,  with  a  flowing  mane  and 
tail,  distantly  resembling  an  insane  cart- 
horse, which  is  elevated  above  the  principal 
door."  Here  occurred  the  episode  of  Mr. 
Pickwick's  invasion  of  the  chamber  sacred 
to  the  lady  in  yellow  curl-papers,  and  the 
consequent  wrath  of  Mr.  Peter  Magnus. 

"  The  morning  after  this  distressing  occur- 
rence, Tony  Weller  sat  in  a  small  room 
in  the  vicinity  of  the  stable-yard,  awaiting 
his  son,  and  beguiling  the  time  over  a  liberal 
allowance  of  cold  beef,  bread  and  ale, 
till  Sam  entered. 

" '  I  am  wery  sorry,  Sammy,'  said  the 
elder  Mr.  Weller,  shaking  up  the  ale  by 
describing  small  circles  with  the  pot,  pre- 
paratory to  drinking, — '  I'm  wery  sorry, 
Sammy,  to  hear  from  your  lips  as  you  let 
yourself  be  gammoned  by  that  'ere  mul- 
berry man.  I  always  thought,  up  to  three 
days  ago,  that  the  name  of  Veller  and 
gammon  would  never  come  into  contact, 
Sam  m  y — n  e  ver. ' 

"  '  Always  exceptin'  the  case  of  a  widder, 
of  course,'  said  Sam. 

" '  Widders,  Sammy,'  replied  Mr.  Weller, 
slightly  changing  color,  '  Widders  are  'cep- 
tions  to  every  rule.  I  have  heerd  how 
many  ordinary  women  one  widder  is  equal 
to  in  pint  o'  comin'  over  you.  I  think  it's 
twenty-five,  but  I  don't  rightly  know  vether 
it  aint  more.' " 

Sam's  repentance  in  St.  Clement's  church- 
yard was  soon  dispelled  by  a  sudden  oppor- 
tunity for  reprisals  which  offered  itself. 

"  Mr.  Samuel  Weller  had  been  staring  up 
at  the  old  red  brick  houses,  now  and 
then,  in  his  deep  abstraction,  bestowing  a 
wink  upon  some  healthy-looking  servant- 
girl,  as  she  drew  up  a  blind  or  threw  up  a 
bedroom  window,  when  the  green  gate  of  a 


MR.  PICKWICK  AND   NICHOLAS  NICKLEBY. 


647 


garden  at  the  bottom  of  the  yard  opened, 
and  a  man,  having  emerged  therefrom, 
closed  the  green  gate  very  carefully  after 
him,  and  walked  briskly  toward  the  very 
spot  where  Mr.  Wellerwas  standing."  This 
man,  in  spite  of  his  ingenious  attempt  to 
avoid  recognition,  by  the  violent  contortions 
of  his  features,  Sam  soon  discovered  to  be 
Job  Trotter. 

The  last  garden  gate,  in  the  church-yard 
shown  in  the  illustration,  is  the  gate  which 
Dickens  himself  has  indicated  as  the  one 
he  meant.  The  inhabitants  of  Ipswich  take 
great  pride  in  this  gate,  as  showing  the 
precise  place  of  meeting  between  Sam  and 
Job  Trotter,  on  the  "  return  match." 

Ipswich  is  a  most  interesting  place,  retain- 
ing many  ancient  dwelling-houses,  with 


have  at  last  reached  the  condition  of 
shops. 

Though  a  large  part  of  the  street  has 
completely  changed  character,  being  now  a 
busy  thoroughfare  filled  with  noisy  drays 
and  horse-cars,  there  still  remains  in  the 
lower  part  of  the  street  a  row  of  buildings 
which  answer  to  the  description  of  Mrs. 
Bardell's  house,  where,  in  the  pathetic  lan- 
guage of  Sergeant  Buzfuz,  the  disconsolate 
widow  "  courted  the  retirement  and  tran- 
quillity of  Goswell  street,  and  placed  in  her 
front-parlor  window  a  written  placard  bear- 
ing the  inscription:  'Apartments  furnished 
for  single  gentlemen.'  " 

The  view  which  Mr.  Pickwick  saw  is 
still  the  view  to  be  seen  from  these  win- 
dows. "  Samuel  Pickwick  burst  like  another 


"  THE    OPPOSITE    SIDE    OF     GOSWELL    STREET." 


quaint  overhanging  gables,  not  unlike  the 
houses  of  the  old  Flemish  towns.  The 
gate-way  built  by  Cardinal  Wolsey  remains, 
and  other  evidence  to  his  residence  here  is 
still  extant  in  the  names  of  the  streets — 
Cardinal  street  and  Wolsey  street,  for 
instance,  bearing  testimony  to  the  fact. 

Now  let  us  return  to  London  for  the  trial, 
which  brings  us  to  the  house  of  Mrs.  Bardell, 
in  Goswell  street.  This  street  affords  an 
excellent  type  of  the  part  of  London  in 
which  it  is  situated.  It  is  bordered  on 
either  side  with  long  rows  of  roomy  dwell- 
ing-houses, which  have  for  many  years  been 
steadily  descending  from  their  original 
estate ;  they  were  once  tenanted  by  fash- 
ionable people,  but  through  the  successive 
stages  of  surgeries  and  lodging-houses,  they 


sun  from  his  slumbers ;  threw  open  his 
chamber-windows  and  looked  out  upon  the 
world  beneath.  Goswell  street  was  at  his 
feet,  Goswell  was  on  his  right;  as  far  as 
eye  could  reach  Goswell  street  extended  on 
his  left,  and  the  opposite  side  of  Goswell 
street  was  over  the  way." 

The  eloquent  words  of  Sergeant  Buzfuz 
just  quoted,  his  "  chops  and  tomato  sauce," 
the  little  judge's  irascibility,  Winkle's  confu- 
sion, Sam's  coolness,  all  the  fun  of  the  im- 
mortal trial,  take  visible  shape  as  we  stand  in 
Guildhall,  where  the  trial  was  held.  The 
original  building  dated  back  as  far  as  the 
fifteenth  century.  In  the  western  side  of  the 
hall  the  tutelary  divinities  of  London  are  to 
be  seen — the  gigantic  wooden  images  of  Gog 
and  Magog.  The  personages  thus  repre- 


648 


MR.' PICKWICK  AND  NICHOLAS  NICKLEBY. 


GRAY  S     INN. 


sented  boast  of  a  magnificent  antiquity, 
having  been  found,  so  saith  the  chronicler, 
when  the  son  of  Athenor,  King  of  Troy, 
conquered  Britain  and  founded  the  city  of 
London,  three  thousand  years  ago.  Nearly 
the  whole  of  Guildhall  building  was  de- 
stroyed, together  with  the  ancient  images, 
in  the  great  fire  of  1666,  but  both  were 
restored  some  years  afterward. 

Fleet  street,  where  Mr.  Pickwick  was 
incarcerated  for  his  refusal  to  pay  the  costs 
and  damages  in  the  case  of  Bardell  ver- 
sus Pickwick,  is  one  of  London's  busiest 
thoroughfares.  Its  name  is  derived  from 
Fleet  River,  the  course  of  which  it  follows, 
the  brook  finding  outlet  by  a  sewer-main, 
running  through  Holborn  valley.  On  the 
south  side  of  Fleet  street,  just  opposite  the 
point  where  Chancery  Lane  opens  into  it, 
lies  the  Temple  Inn  and  its  gardens,  stretch- 
ing formerly  to  the  river  but  now  bordering 
on  the  embankment. 

Back  from  the  Thames  for  a  mile  or  more 
extend  the  beautiful  gardens  of  the  several 
inns  of  court — those  of  the  Temple,  Lin- 
coln's Inn  Fields,  and  again  the  gardens  of 
Gray's  Inn,  with  only  the  break  of  Fleet 
street  and  Holborn.  There  is  scarcely 
a  part  of  London  more  interesting  to  an 
American  than  these  inns  of  court.  The 
life  which  they  house  is  so  alien  to  our  ex- 
perience that  a  reader  on  this  side  the  At- 


lantic, unless  he  has  either  visited  or  studied 
up  these  places,  is  bewildered  in  attempting  to 
understand  the  constant  allusions  he  meets 
in  English  books.  Of  these,  the  Temple  is 
the  oldest;  the  youngest  dates  from  Eliza- 
beth's time.  These  inns,  with  their  rich 
medieval  architecture,  carving  and  stained 
glass,  and  their  associations,  infinitely  richer 
still,  lie  in  the  very  heart  of  London. 
Around  the  ancient  gardens,  where  the  York 
and  Lancaster  badges — the  red  and  the  white 
roses — were  plucked,  pours  the  flood  of  the 
modern  city's  life.  The  old  buildings  em- 
bowered in  their  trees  or  shrubbery  form  one 
of  those  delightful  anachronisms  which  carry 
to  Americans,  with  their  consciousness  of 
youth  and  rawness,  such  a  peculiar  charm. 

The  Temple  was  founded  thirty  years 
before  England  had  wrested  her  freedom 
from  the  craven  John,  at  Runnymede.  It 
was  at  first  a  lodge  of  the  Knights  Tem- 
plar. Upon  the  dissolution  of  that  order, 
in  1313,11  reverted  to  the  crown;  but  in 
1346  it  became  the  property  of  the  knights  of 
St.  John,  who  leased  it  to  the  students  of  the 
common  law.  In  1608,  it  was  declared  the 
free,  hereditary  property  of  the  corporations 
of  the  Inner  and  Middle  Temple.  The  name 
inn  is  somewhat  misleading  to  an  American 
reader,  and  is  yet  perfectly  appropriate, 
since  the  great  collection  of  buildings  which 
go  to  make  up  each  one  of  these  inns  is  not 


MR.  PICKWICK  AND  NICHOLAS  NICKLEBY. 


649 


GATE-WAY.    LINCOLN  S    INN. 


only  a  school  of  law,  but  contains  sets  of 
chambers,  in  which  lawyers  and  law  students 
live.  The  reply  of  one  of  the  old  habitues  of 
the  inns  to  Mr.  Pickwick's  remark  about  them 
condenses  in  a  paragraph  the  ideal  history 
of  these  places.  "  I  was  observing,"  said 
Mr.  Pickwick,  "  what  singular  places  they 
are."  "  You"  said  the  old  man,  contemptu- 


ously,— "  what  do  you  know  of  the  time 
when  young  men  shut  themselves  up  in  those 
lonely  rooms  and  read  and  read,  hour  after 
hour,  and  night  after  night,  till  their  reason 
wandered  beneath  their  midnight  studies ; 
till  their  mental  powers  were  exhausted;  till 
morning's  light  brought  no  freshness  or 
health  to  them ;  and  they  sank  beneath  the 


650 


MR.  PICKWICK  AND  NICHOLAS  NICKLEBY. 


unnatural  devotion  of  their  youthful  energies 
to  their  dry  old  books  ?  *  *  How  many 
vain  pleaders  for  mercy  do  you  think  have 
turned  away  heart-sick  from  the  lawyer's 
office,  to  find  a  resting-place  in  the  Thames, 
or  a  refuge  in  the  jail  ?  They  are  no  ordinary 
houses,  those.  There  is  not  a  panel  in  the 
old  wainscoting  but  what,  if  it  were  endowed 
with  the  powers  of  speech  and  memory, 
could  start  from  the  wall  and  tell  its  tale  of 
horror — the  romance  of  life,  sir,  the  romance 
of  life.  Commonplace  as  they  may  seem 
now,  I  tell  you  they  are  strange  old  places, 
and  I  would  hear  many  a  legend  with  a 
terrific-sounding  name  rather  than  the  true 
history  of  one  old  set  of  chambers." 

Lincoln's  Inn,  which  comes  second  in 
antiquity,  is  an  especial  favorite  of 
Dickens;  he  characterizes  it  in  a  single 
phrase  more  happily  than  could  be  done  in 
pages  of  mere  description,  when  he  calls  it 
the  "  perplexed  and  troublous  valley  of  the 
shadow  of  the  law." 

The  four  inns  of  court  are  the  Middle  and 
Inner  Temple,  Lincoln's  Inn  and  Gray's 
Inn;  besides  these,  there  are  associated  with 
them  a  number  of  inns  of  chancery,  as  they 
were  called,  which  were  formerly  a  sort  of 
preparatory  school  to  the  higher  inns,  but 
which  are  now  used  entirely  as  chambers. 
Dickens  himself  lived  in  Furnival's  Inn  early 
in  his  literary  career.  Forster  states  that  he 
heard  Thackeray  say,  at  one  of  the  Royal 
Academy  dinners :  "  I  can  remember,  when 
Mr.  Dickens  was  a  very  young  man,  and  had 
commenced  delighting  the  world  with  some 
charming  humorous  works,  in  covers  which 
were  colored  light  green,  and  came  out  once 
a  month,  that  this  young  .man  wanted  an 
artist  to  illustrate  his  writings;  and  I  recol- 
lect walking  up  to  his  chambers  in  Furni- 
val's Inn,  with  two  or  three  drawings  in  my 
hand,  which,  strange  to  say,  he  did  not  find 
suitable."  The  author  of  an  article  in 
SCRIBNER  for  June  throws  some  discredit 
upon  this  story.  It,  however,  comes  direct 
upon  Forster's  testimony,  and  admits  of  no 
question. 

Unlike  "Pickwick,"  "Nicholas  Nickleby" 
was  written  with  a  serious  purpose.  In  his 
early  childhood,  the  horrors  practiced  upon 
the  victims  of  the  Yorkshire  cheap  schools 
caught  the  attention  of  Dickens,  and  im- 
pressed his  imagination.  "  I  cannot  call  to 
mind  now."  he  says,  "  how  I  came  to  hear 
about  Yorkshire  schools  when  I  was  not  a 
very  robust  child,  sitting  in  by-places  near 
Rochester  Castle,  with  a  head  full  of  Par- 


tridge, Straps,  Tom  Pipes,  and  Sancho 
Panza ;  but  I  know  that  my  first  impression 
of  them  was  picked  up  then.  *  *  *  The 
impressi<jn  made  upon  me,  however,  never 
left  me.  I  was  always  curious  about  them ; 
fell  long  afterward,  and  at  sundry  times, 
into  the  way  of  hearing  more  about  them. 
At  last,  having  an  audience,  resolved  to 
write  about  them."  He  then  tells  how  he 
went  to  Yorkshire  under  pretense  of  having 
a  poor  widow's  son  to  place  at  school,  and 
endeavored  to  extract  information  about 
these  schools.  The  person  to  whom  he 
carried  letters  for  this  ostensible  purpose 
was  a  free-hearted,  ruddy-complexioned 
man,  whom  he  found  ready  to  discuss  every- 
thing but  Yorkshire  cheap  schools.  At  last, 
however,  after  vainly  dodging  the  subject, 
being  hard  pressed,  he  "  suddenly  took  up 
his  hat,  and  leaning  over  the  table,  and 
looking  me  straight  in  the  face,  said,  in  a 
low  voice  :  '  Weel,  Misther,  we've  been  vary 
pleasant  toogather,  and  ar'll  spak  my  moind 
tiv'ee.  Dunot  let  the  weedur  send  her 
lattle  boy  to  yan  o'  our  school-measthers 
while  there's  a  harse  to  hoold  in  a'  Lunnun, 
or  a  goother  to  lie  asleep  in.  Ar  wouldn't 
mak'  ill  words  amang  my  neeburs,  and  ar 
speak  tiv'ee  quiet,  loike.  But  I'm  dom'd  ef 
ar  can  gang  to  bed  and  not  tellee,  for  wee- 
dur's  sak',  to  keep  the  lattle  boy  from  a'  sike 
scoondrels,  while  there's  a  harse  to  hoold 
in  a'  Lunnun,  or  a  goother  to  lie  asleep  in ! ' 
Repeating  these  words  with  great  heartiness, 
and  with  a  solemnity  on  his  jolly  face  that 
made  it  look  twice  as  large  as  before,  he 
shook  hands  and  went  away.  I  never  saw 
him  afterward,  but  I  sometimes  imagine 
that  I  descry  a  faint  reflection  of  him  in 
John  Browdie." 

In  going  through  England  one  cannot  fail 
to  be  impressed  with  the  great  inns,  which 
now  scarcely  support  a  landlord  in  any 
position  above  that  of  a  publican.  The  in- 
terior of  the  house  gives  back  only  echoes 
from  the  vast,  empty  rooms  and  long,  wind- 
ing and  deserted  corridors.  The  coffee  and 
smoking  rooms  are  tenantless,  and  every  por- 
tion only  bears  testimony  to  the  glory  of  the 
old  coaching  days,  which  the  railroads  have 
so  completely  superseded  that  their  very 
memory  has  almost  faded  away.  These  old 
county  inns  are  only  galvanized  into  a 
semblance  of  life,  for  a  brief  period,  on  a 
market  or  fair  day,  to  fall  back  into  forlorner 
desolation  after  it  has  passed, — affording  a 
perfect  illustration  of  Dickens's  expression, 
•'  the  coachfulness  of  the  past  and  the  coach- 
lessness  of  the  present  time."  In  London, 


MR.  PICKWICK  AND  NICHOLAS  NICKLEBY. 


651 


the  inns  which  were  the  starting  points  of 
the  mail-coaches,  the  Saracen's  Head,  the 
Belle  Sauvage,  the  George  and  Vulture,  are 
gone,  while  the  Golden  Cross  is  replaced  by 
a  new  inn  bearing  the  same  name. 

Closely  related  with  the  ancient  hostelries, 
so  often  and  so  lovingly  depicted  by  the 
author,  the  mail-coach  of  the  period  of 
his  earlier  works  lives  now  only  in  such 
descriptions  as  he  and  others  have  left  us. 


in  cocked  hats  and  laced  coats,  flourished, 
and  took  their  tribute  in  defiance  of  the 
guard's  blunderbuss,  gave  place  to  some- 
thing more  modern,  and  regarded  in  its  day 
as  the  ne plus  ultra  of  rapid  transit.  What 
school-boy  has  not  followed  with  envious 
interest  young  Tom  Brown,  in  his  journey 
from  the  Peacock,  Islington,  down  to  Rugby, 
on  the  top  of  the  fast  "Tally-Ho"-?  What 
pictures  there  are  of  English  road-side  scen- 


GEORGE     INN. 


In  the  serious  business  of  this  age  of  steam 
the  classic  vehicle  has  no  place",  though  in 
England,  and  even  in  this  country,  may 
occasionally  be  seen  a  spurious  imitation, 
laboriously  and  expensively  contrived  for 
the  delectation  of  those  who  aspire  to  han- 
dle the  ribbons  after  the  fashion  of  the  days 
when  England  rallied  around  the  road  as 
one  of  her  institutions.  What  a  world  of 
cheery,  hearty  associations  revolve  about 
the  old  coaching  times ;  how  the  king's 
highway  runs  more  or  less  through  half  the 
fiction  since  the  reign  of  the  Stuarts  !  The 
old  lumbering  coach,  which  did  the  service 
in  the  days  when  Turpin  and  Duval,  and 
the  rest  of  the  gallant  crew  of  road-agents, 


ery  and  incident  in  this  graphic  description  ! 
Less  attractive  is  the  experience  of  Nich- 
olas Nickleby  when,  in  company  with 
Squeers  and  the  unhappy  little  recruits  for 
the  discipline  of  Dotheboys  Hall,  he  made 
his  journey  by  coach  to  York  : 

"The  night  and  the  snow  came  on  to- 
gether, and  dismal  enough  they  were. 
There  was  no  sound  to  be  heard  but  the 
howling  of  the  wind;  for  the  noise  of  the 
wheels  and  the  tread  of  the  horses'  feet 
were  rendered  inaudible  by  the  thick  coat- 
ing of  snow  which  covered  the  ground,  and 
was  fast  increasing  every  moment.  *  *  * 
Twenty  miles  further  on,  two  of  the  front 
outside  passengers,  wisely  availing  them- 


652 


MR.  PICKWICK  AND  NICHOLAS  NICKLEBY. 


NEW     INN. 


selves  of  their  arrival  at  one  of  the  best  inns 
in  England,  turned  in  for  the  night  at 
the  George,  at  Grantham.  The  remainder 
wrapped  themselves  more  closely  in  their 
coats  and  cloaks,  and,  leaving  the  light  and 
warmth  of  the  town  behind  them,  pillowed 
themselves  against  the  luggage,  and  prepared, 
with  many  half-suppressed  moans,  again  to 
encounter  the  piercing  blast  which  swept 
across  the  open  country." 

In  the  description  given  in  "  Tom  Brown," 
there  are  some  capital  suggestions  of  the  type 
which  Dickens  has  individualized  and  per- 
sonified in  the  senior  Weller — husky  of  voice 
and  purple  of  visage  from  much  facing  of  all 
weathers  and  fortifying  of  the  inner  man 
against  the  same,  and  bulky  of  body  from 
the  combined  effect  of  these  tonics  and  the 
good  cheer  of  a  more  substantial  sort  for 
which  the  road-side  inns  were  justly  famed  ; 


condescendingly  gracious  with  hostlers  and 
jocosely  gallant  with  bar-maids;  supreme 
authority  upon  all  matters  pertaining  to  the 
road  generally,  and  with  horseflesh  in  par- 
ticular; whose  society  and  acquaintance 
were  esteemed  rather  in  the  light  of  an 
honor  by  young  bloods  of  a  sporting  turn — 
the  Kews,  the  four-in-hand  Fosbrookes — 
who  made  a  point  of  booking  for  the  box- 
seat  always  when  on  their  travels.  "  Is  there 
any  young  fellow  of  the  present  time  who 
aspires  to  take  the  place  of  a  stoker  ?  "  says 
Thackeray ;  "  Where  are  you,  charioteers  ? 
Where  are  you,  O  rattling  'Quicksilver,'  O 
swift '  Defiance '  ?  "  You  are  passed  by  racers 
stronger  and  swifter  than  you!  Your  lamps 
are  out  and  the  music  of  your  horns  has  died 
away. 

Dickens,  either  intentionally  or  by  acci- 
dent, says  that  "Nicholas,  Mr.  Squeers,  and 


MR.  PICKWICK  AND  NICHOLAS  NICKLEBY. 


653 


the  little  boys  and  their  united  luggage,  were 
all  put  down  together  at  the  George  and 
New  Inn,  Greta  Bridge,"  as  though  it  were 
a  single  inn  with  a  double  name,  whereas, 
in  fact,  there  are  two  separate  inns  several 
hundred  yards  apart,  each  bearing  one  of 
these  names.  It  is  very  possible  that  he 
made  the  change  purposely;  a  name  which 
struck  his  fancy  he  often  transplanted  to 
another  place.  Tony  Weller's  inn,  for 
example, — the  "  Markis  o'  Granby," — does 
not  exist  in  Dorking,  where  the  story  places 
it,  but  in  Esher,  where  it  still  stands,  a  queer 
old  road-side  tavern  on  the  edge  of  the  vil- 
lage green.  The  inn  described  under  the 
name  of  the  Marquis  of  Granby  is,  indeed, 
the  King's  Head,  at  Dorking,  the  name 
alone  having  been  transplanted,  Mr.  Hassard 
tells  us.  It  is  hardly  probable  that  Dickens 
made  any  mistake,  for  this  was  a  road  he 
had  occasion  to  travel  probably  more  than 
once  in  his  capacity  of  newspaper  reporter. 

Both  of  these  hostelries,  the  George  and 
the  New  Inn,  have  been  converted  into  com- 
fortable dwellings,  while  their  ample  stables, 
where  the  post-horses  lodged,  serve  as  farm 
out-buildings.  The  George  seems  almost 
to  rise  out  of  the  beautiful  river  Tees. 

The  principal  point  of  interest  in  "  Nicho- 


las Nickleby "  is  Dotheboys  Hall.  It  is 
almost  impossible  to  believe  that  such 
enormities  as  are  depicted  in  this  book  could 
ever  have  been  committed  upon  defenseless 
children.  And  yet  the  testimony  already 
cited  from  the  original  of  Mr.  John  Browdie, 
as  well  as  Dickens's  own  refutation  of  the 
charges  preferred  against  him,  in  the  pref- 
ace to  a  later  edition,  bears  evidence  to 
the  correctness  of  his  delineation.  "  The 
author's  object  in  calling  public  attention  to 
the  system  would"  be  very  imperfectly  ful- 
filled if  he  did  not  state  now  in  his  own 
person,  emphatically  and  earnestly,  that 
Mr.  Squeers  and  his  school  are  faint  and 
feeble  pictures  of  an  existing  reality,  pur- 
posely subdued  and  kept  down  lest  they 
should  be  deemed  impossible;  that  there 
are  upon  record  trials  at  law,  in  which  dam- 
ages have  been  sought  as  a  poor  recom- 
pense for  lasting  agonies  and  disfigurements 
inflicted  upon  the  children  by  the  treatment 
of  the  master  in  these  places,  involving 
such  offensive  and  foul  details  of  neglect, 
cruelty  and  disease  as  no  writer  of  fiction 
would  have  the  boldness  to  imagine." 

It  is  an  old  story,  but  none  the  less  to  the 
point,  that  several  Yorkshire  school-masters 
found  Mr.  Squeers's  cap  to  be  such  a  perfect 


DOTHEBOYS    HALL. 


654 


MR.  PICKWICK  AND  NICHOLAS  NICKLEBY. 


fit  that  they  threatened  to  sue  the  author  for 
damages,  as  a  plaster  for  their  wounded 
vanity  and  injured  business.  It  is  also  well 
known,  and  also  to  the  point,  that  the  cheap- 
school  system  in  Yorkshire  from  that  day 
began  to  die. 

As    a  matter  of  fact,  the  school-masters 


PUMP    AT     DOTHEBOYS     HALL. 


were  not  alone  to  blame  for  these  outrages 
upon  humanity.  Some  refuge  was  demanded 
for  repudiated  children, — step-children  who 
had  no  one  to  stand  up  for  their  rights;  natu- 
ral children,  who  stood  as  a  bar  in  the  way  of 
position,  promotion  or  a  desirable  settlement 
in  life ;  children  who,  having  lost  their  par- 
ents, were  left  to  the  tender  mercies  of  some 
distant  relation.  And  those  who  demanded 
such  a  place,  where  they  might  hustle  out 
of  sight  and  memory  the  poor  little  waifs  at 
the  least  possible  expense  to  themselves, 
were  equally  guilty  with  those  who  supplied 
the  demand.  The  unhappy  children  were 
delivered  over  to  a  power  from  which  there 
was  no  appeal,  and  which  was  totally  irre- 
sponsible— a  power  which  acted  with  the 
certainty  that,  whatever  it  might  effect,  the 
interest  of  its  employer  would  serve  to 
secure  it  from  punishment  or  publicity. 

Dickens  has  given  such  clear  indications 
of  the  school  which  stood  for  the  picture 


of  Dotheboys  Hall,  that  it  is  confidently 
pointed  out  by  the  villagers.  We  read  that 
Nicholas  had  time  to  observe  that  the 
"  school  was  a  long,  cold-looking  house,  one 
story  high,  with  a  few  straggling  out-build- 
ings behind,  and  a  barn  and  stable  adjoin- 
ing." The  dwelling-house,  as  seen  here, 
still  remains,  but  the  school-room  and 
dormitories  have  been  pulled  down.  The 
house  would  here  be  called  two-storied,  but 
in  Yorkshire  the  term  one-story  is  applied 
to  buildings  like  this,  the  ground  floor  not 
being  counted  as  a  story. 

By  an  oversight,  or  as  a  touch  of  bur- 
lesque, which,  however,  seemed  scarcely  in 
keeping  with  the  earnest  purpose  of  the 
book,  Dickens  makes  the  exercises  of  the 
school  to  include  "  weeding  the  garden  "  by 
"  No.  Two,"  on  the  day  following  a  violent 
snow-storm,  and  on  the  very  morning  when 
the  pump  was  frozen,  and  Nicholas  requested 
to  make  himself  contented  with  a  dry  polish 
in  place  of  a  wash. 

After  Nicholas  has  broken  out  into  open 
revolt  of  the  many  weeks  of  dastardly  cruelty 
which  he  was  called  upon  to  witness,  he 
comes  with  poor  Smike — the  most  touching 
figure  in  the  book — to  London,  and  there, 
starting  out  afresh  to  seek  his  fortune,  meets 
Crummles's  troop  and  enlists  as  a  theatrical 
character.  In  Portsmouth  still  remains  the 
little  theater  in  which  Nicholas  makes  posi- 
tively "  his  first  appearance  on  any  stage." 

It  is  not  a  very  impressive  edifice,  but 
who  can  look  at  it  without  smiling  at  the 
remembrance  of  the  delicious  drollery  of  the 
infant  phenomenon,  the  real  tubs  and  pump, 
and  the  dramatic  company  in  general  ? 

The  story  at  this  point  turns  aside  from 
following  the  fortunes  of  Nicholas,  and  takes 
up  those  of  his  sister.  We  find  ourselves  in 
a  curious  old  part  of  London  which  still 
stands,  unchanged  since  the  days  when  Kate 
visited  her  uncle  in  Golden  Square.  This 
is  a  favorite  spot  with  Dickens,  and  he  in- 
troduces it  into  several  of  his  books.  A 
stranger  might  not  readily  find  it,  though  it 
lies  directly  between  the  two  great  arteries 
through  which  the  life  of  London  pours, — 
Piccadilly  and  Oxford  streets, — and  only  a 
few  seconds'  walk  from  the  brilliant  and 
crowded  Regent  street.  But  "  it  is  not  ex- 
actly in  anybody's  way  to  or  from  anywhere, 
and  is  one  of  the  squares  that  have  been 
a  quarter  of  the  town  that  has  gone  down  in 
the  world,  and  taken  to  letting  lodgings. 
Many  of  its  first  and  second  floors  are  let  fur- 
nished to  single  gentlemen  ;  and  it  takes 
boarders  besides.  It  is  a  great  resort  of  for- 


MR.  PICKWICK  AND  NICHOLAS  NICKLEBY. 


655 


eigners.  The  dark-complexioned  men  who 
wear  large  rings,  and  heavy  watch-guards, 
and  bushy  whiskers,  and  who  congregate 
under  the  opera  colonnade  and  about  the 
box-office  in  the  season,  between  four  and  five 
in  the  afternoon,  where  they  give  away  the 
orders, — all  live  in  Golden  Square,  or  within 
a  street  of  it.  Two  or  three  violins  and  a 
wind-instrument  from  the  opera  band  reside 
within  its  precincts.  Its  boarding-houses  are 
musical,  and  the  notes  of  pianos  and  harps 
float  in  the  evening  time  around  the  head  of 
the  mournful  statue — the  guardian  genius 
of  a  little  wilderness  of  shrubs  in  the  center 
of  the  square."  Ralph  Nickleby's  dwelling 
can  be  identified  without  question,  since  it  is 
the  only  double  house  on  the  square. 

Around  this  house  on  Golden  Square  and 
its  master  the  incidents  of  the  story  gather. 
Nicholas,  Kate,  Smike,  Newman  Noggs, 


says  that  Nicholas  Nickleby  had  taught  him 
singing  in  his  own  youth,  and  that  he  often 
wondered  how  so  mild  a  mannered  man 
could  have  tackled  the  school-master.  His 
wonder,  however,  ceased  when  he  had  an 
opportunity  of  seeing  the  original  Nicholas 
passing  through  Manchester,  at  the  time  of 
the  riots.  He  also  speaks  of  calling  at  the 
warehouse,  in  Cannon  street,  of  the  Grant 
Brothers  (the  well-known  originals  of 
the  Cheeryble  Brothers).  Although  finding 
but  one  person  in  the  office,  and  this  a 
clerk  perched  on  a  high  stool,  it  did  not 
occur  to  him,  till  the  old  clerk,  sticking 
his  pen  behind  his  ear  and  turning  around 
upon  his  stool,  said,  "  What  is  your  pleas- 
ure, sir  ?  "  that  here  was  Tim  Linkenwater 
in  the  flesh.  "It  is  quite  true,"  he  says; 


"the 
off." 


old  fellow  refused  to  be   pensioned 


THEATER    AT    PORTSMOUTH. 


are  all  closely  associated  with  it,  from  first 
to  last. 

The  sunny  side  of  this  story  is  most  hap- 
pily touched  in  the  delineation  of  Miss 
La  Creery,  the  good-hearted  little  portrait- 
painter,  and  in  the  Cheeryble  Brothers,  with 
their  old  clerk,  Tim  Linkenwater.  A  writer 
in  the  "  London  Literary  World  "  gives 
some  pleasant  glimpses  of  the  originals  of 
some  of  the  characters  in  this  novel.  He 


Dickens,  having  mentioned  in  the  preface 
to  one  of  the  early  editions  of  "  Nicholas 
Nickleby  "  that  the  portrait  of  the  benevo- 
lent brothers  was  from  nature,  quotes  the 
paragraph  in  which  he  makes  that  state- 
ment, and  then  adds :  "If  I  were  to 
attempt  to  sum  up  the  hundreds  upon  hun- 
dreds of  letters,  from  all  sorts  of  people,  in 
all  sorts  of  latitudes  and  climates,  to  which 
this  unlucky  paragraph  has  given  rise,  I 


656 


RECOMPENSE. 


RALPH   NICKLEBY'S   MANSION. 


should  get  into  an  arithmetical  difficulty 
from  which  I  could  not  easily  extricate 
myself.  Suffice  it  to  say,  that  I  believe 
the  applications  for  loans,  gifts  and  offices 
of  profit  which  I  have  been  requested 
to  forward  to  the  original  of  the  brothers 


Cheeryble  (with  whom  I  never  interchanged 
any  communication  in  my  life)  would  have 
exhausted  the  combined  patronage  of  all 
the  Lord  Chancellors  since  the  accession  of 
the  House  of  Brunswick,  and  would  have 
broken  the  rest  of  the  Bank  of  England." 


RECOMPENSE. 

HEART  of  my  heart !  when  that  great  light  shall  fall, 

Burning  away  this  veil  of  earthly  dust. 

And  I  behold  thee,  beautiful  and  strong, 

My  grand,  pure,  perfect  Angel,  wise  and  just; 

If  the  strong  passion  of  my  mortal  life 

Should  in  the  vital  essence  still  remain, 

Would  there  be  then — as  now — some  cruel  bar 

Whereon  my  tired  hands  should  beat  in  vain  ? 

Or  should  I,  drawn  and  lifted,  folded  close 

In  eager-asking  arms,  unlearn  my  fears 

And  in  one  transport,  ardent,  wild  and  sweet, 

Receive  the  promise  of  the  endless  years  ? 


EIGHTEEN    YEARS  ALONE. 


657 


EIGHTEEN  YEARS  ALONE. 


A    TALE    OF    THE    PACIFIC. 


OF  the  group  commonly  called  the  Santa 
Barbara  Islands,  so  near  the  main-land  that 
on  the  map  they  seem  mere  crumbs  of  the 
Pacific  coast,  little  is  known  even  by  Cali- 
fornians.  Scarcely  an  American  but  has  read 
of  the  tropical  islands  where  the  mythical 
Robinson  Crusoe  was  wrecked,  yet  few  per- 
sons know  that  over  the  desolate  steeps  of  a 
nearer  island  of  the  same  vast  sea  hang  the 
mystery,  the  horror  and  the  pathos  of  a  story 
of  a  captive  woman ;  a  story,  if  it  could  be 
fully  told,  more  thrilling  than  that  of  Cru- 
soe, inasmuch  as  one  is  fiction,  the  other 
fact ;  one,  the  supposed  exploits  of  a  hardy 
man,  the  other,  the  real  desolation  of  a  suf- 
fering woman;  one,  the  tale  of  a  mariner 
whom  the  waters  flung  against  his  will  into 
a  summer-land,  the  other,  of  one  who  volun- 
tarily breasted  the  waves,  and  fought  death, 
in  response  to  the  highest  love  of  which  the 
human  heart  is  capable. 

The  Santa  Barbara  Islands,  on  one  of 
which  this  strange  romance  was  enacted,  lie 
to  the  southward  of  Santa  Barbara  channel, 
the  nearest  of  the  group  being  about  twenty- 
five  miles  distant  from  the  main-land.  The 
names  of  the  islands  are  Anacapa,  Santa 
Rosa,  San  Miguel,  Santa  Cruz,  Santa  Cati- 
lina,  San  Clemente,  Santa  Barbara,  San  Nico- 
las. They  are  now  uninhabited,  and  have 
been  so  for  years.  The  islands  nearer  the 
coast  are  used  for  sheep-grazing ;  a  sail-boat 
carries  over  the  shearers  and  brings  back 
the  wool.  The  more  distant  are  known  to 
trappers  as  fine  beds  of  otter  and  seal.  The 
sea-lions  and  sea-elephants  in  the  Centen- 
nial Exposition,  New  York  Aquarium  and 
Cincinnati  Zoological  Gardens  were  lassoed 
off  the  outlying  islands  of  the  Santa  Barbara 
group.  Boats  visit  the  beaches  for  abalones, 
the  meat  of  which  is  dried  and  shipped  to 
China  for  food,  while  the  shells  (Haliotis 
splendens,  Haliotis  rufescens  and  Haliotis 
cracherodii),  sold  at  an  average  price  of 
fifty  dollars  per  ton  at  the  San  Francisco 
wharf,  are  bought  by  dealers  in  marine 
shells,  cut  into  jewelry  to  be  sold  to  tourists, 
or  shipped  to  Europe,  to  be  manufactured 
into  buttons  and  other  pearl  ornaments. 
Excepting  the  occasional  camps  of  shearers, 
seal-hunters  and  abalone-packers,  the  islands 
are  totally  deserted. 
VOL.  XX.— 43. 


Yet,  wild  and  desolate  as  they  now  are,  Ca- 
brillo  says  that  in  the  fifteenth  century  they 
were  densely  peopled  by  a  superior  race,  and 
that  the  main-land  was  dotted  by  villages. 
The  children  of  the  islanders  are  described  by 
early  navigators  as  being  "  white,  with  light 
hair  and  ruddy  cheeks,"  and  the  women  as 
having  "fine  forms,  beautiful  eyes  and  a  mod- 
est demeanor."  The  men  wore  loose  cloaks, 
the  women  dressed  in  petticoats  and  capes 
of  seal-skin,  heavily  fringed  and  handsomely 
ornamented.  The  more  industrious  and 
wealthy  embroidered  their  garments  with 
pearl  and  small  pink  shells.  Necklaces  of 
sparkling  stones  and  carven  ivory  were  worn 
by  the  higher  caste,  and  ear-rings  of  iris- 
hued  abalone  were  not  uncommon.  They 
cooked  their  food  in  soapstone  vessels,  or  in 
water  heated  by  dropping  hot  stones  into 
water-tight  baskets.  Bancroft,  in  his  "Na- 
tive Races,"  mentions,  among  articles  of  their 
manufacture,  needles,  awls  and  fish-hooks 
of  bone  or  shell ;  water-tight  baskets,  ollas 
of  stone,  and  canoes,  deep  and  long,  with 
both  stem  and  stern  equally  elevated  above 
the  water.  Fletcher  wrote  of  the  coast 
when  he  visited  it  with  Sir  Francis  Drake 
in  1579. 

In  the  year  1542,  Cabrillo  landed  at  what 
is  now  known  as  San  Miguel,  and  christened 
it  Ysal  de  Posesion.  He  died  on  the  island 
in  1543,  and  is  buried  in  its  sands. 

Going  back  still  further  in  our  search,  we 
find  that  before  the  Spanish  fleet,  Sir  Fran- 
cis Drake  or  Cabrillo  ever  visited  the  coast, 
the  villages  thereon  were  thrifty  and  popu- 
lous, and  the  isles  of  the  sea  swarming  cities 
of  the  period. 

Of  San  Nicolas,  on  which  the  scenes  of 
this  wild  romance  are  laid,  very  little  has 
been  known  until  a  recent  date.  It  is  the 
outermost  of  the  group,  distant  seventy 
miles  from  the  coast,  and  thirty  miles  away 
from  its  nearest  neighbor.  It  is  thought  to 
have  been  at  one  time  the  abode  of  a  people 
differing  in  manners,  habits  and  mode  of 
life  from  the  inhabitants  both  of  the  main- 
land and  the  neighboring  islands.  Mons. 
De  Cessac,  a  gentleman  engaged  in  collect- 
ing archaeological  specimens  for  the  French 
Government,  says  that  the  relics  found  by 
him  on  San  Nicolas  are  more  elaborate  in 
form  and  finish,  and  show  a  superiority  of 


658 


EIGHTEEN   YEARS  ALONE. 


workmanship.  This  testimony  tends  to 
confirm  the  story  of  the  early  voyagers  con- 
cerning the  cultivation  and  remarkable  taste 
of  the  handsome  dwellers  in  Gha-las-hat, 
centuries  ago.  Mons.  De  Cessac  has  found 
also  upon  San  Nicolas  articles  of  warfare 
and  domestic  use,  evidently  belonging  to  a 
northern  tribe,  similar  to  those  picked  up 
by  him  on  the  borders  of  Alaska.  Hence, 
he  infers  that  the  place  was  at  one  time  the 
dwelling  of  north  country  tribes. 

Corroborating  Mons.  De  Cessac's  opinion, 
search  through  ancient  manuscript  has 
brought  to  light  the  fact  that,  many  years 
ago,  a  ship  belonging  to  Pope  and  Board- 
man,  of  Boston,  and  commanded  by  one 
Captain  Whitmore,  brought  down  from 
Sitka  a  lot  of  Kodiaks  for  the  purpose  of 
otter-hunting  on  San  Nicolas  Island.  They 
were  left  upon  the  island,  and  years  of  feud 
resulted  in  a  massacre,  in  which  every  grown 
male  islander  was  killed  by  the  powerful 
and  well-armed  Kodiaks.  The  women  were 
taken  by  the  victors,  lived  with  them  as 
wives  and  bore  children  to  the  murderers  of 
their  husbands  and  fathers.  The  fact  is 
recorded  that  the  inhabitants  of  San  Nicolas 
faded  away  strangely  and  rapidly,  so  that, 
in  1830,  less  than  two  score  men,  women 
and  children  remained  of  the  once  dense 
population. 

Meantime,  Franciscan  zealots  poured 
from  the  south  of  Europe  into  America, 
and  under  lead  of  Father  Junipero  Serra 
found  their  way  up  the  coast,  building 
churches  beside  the  sea,  planting  gardens 
of  olive  and  palm,  making  aqueducts  and 
altars,  founding  a  kingdom  of  temporal  and 
spiritual  splendor,  which  leaves  to  Protest- 
ant America  the  names  of  saints  set  indel- 
ibly on  every  stream,  headland  and  island 
along  the  southern  slope  of  the  Pacific.  It 
was  the  dawn  of  a  temporary  civilization, 
imposing  and  '  wonderful,  a  civilization 
whose  ruins  are  most  artistic  and  fascinating. 

The  missionaries  pressed  the  Indians  into 
service.  They  set  them  to  tilling  the  soil, 
herding  the  flocks  and  quarrying  the  rock. 
The  coast  Indians  having  been  put  to  labor, 
the  thrifty  padres  turned  their  gaze  to  the 
islands  in  the  offing,  and  brought  to  the 
main-land  the  people  from  Santa  Rosa,  San 
Miguel,  Santa  Cruz  and  Santa  Catalina. 
The  more  distant  island  of  San  Nicolas  was 
left  a  while  to  repose  in  its  heathen  darkness. 
How  affairs  progressed  during  that  time  on 
the  island  we  have  no  account.  At  this 
day  the  queen  isle  of  Gha-las-hat  lies  bare 
and  silent  as  a  tomb  amidst  the  sea. 


In  this  deserted  spot,  for  eighteen  years,  a 
human  being  lived  alone.  Here  she  was 
found  at  last  by  fishermen  who  are  living, 
and  whose  affidavits,  properly  witnessed, 
stamp  as  true  every  detail  of  the  remarkable 
incident. 


ii. 


IN  the  year  1835,  Isaac  Sparks  and  Lewis 
L.  Burton,  Americans,  chartered  a  schooner 
of  twenty  tons  burthen,  for  otter-hunting  on 
the  lower  California  coast.  The  vessel  was 
owned  by  a  rich  Spaniard  of  Monterey, 
and  was  commanded  by  Captain  Charley 
Hubbard.  The  schooner  bore  the  name 
Peor  es  Nada,  and  she  started  out  of  Santa 
Barbara  harbor,  on  a  fine  April  morning, 
followed  by  the  eyes  of  the  entire  popu- 
lation. In  those  times,  the  sight  of  a  sail- 
ing vessel  was  not  an  every-day  occurrence. 
It  drew  the  men  to  the  beach,  the  women 
to  the  casements,  and  attracted  the  friars 
from  their  usual  meditative  gaze  on  ground 
or  book.  For  hours  previous  to  the  de- 
parture of  the  schooner,  the  curving  stretch 
of  sand  had  been  alive  with  racing  horse- 
men and  lazy  pedestrians,  exchanging  in 
Spanish  words  of  praise  concerning  their 
visitor. 

After  a  successful  cruise,  the  Peor  es  Nada 
came,  three  months  later,  into  the  more 
southerly  harbor  of  San  Pedro,  unloaded 
her  pelts,  and  immediately,  under  direction 
of  Captain  Williams,  collector  of  the  port, 
set  sail  for  San  Nicolas  to  bring  the  island- 
ers to  the  main-land,  in  accordance  with  the 
will  of  the  church  fathers.  Before  they 
reached  their  destination  a  sudden  gale  came 
up,  rising  almost  to  the  severity  Of  a  tempest. 
The  winds — which  by  the  Santa  Yuez  mount- 
ains are  deflected  from  the  valleys  of  the 
southern  coast — struck  with  full  force  upon 
the  upper  end  of  San  Nicolas,  lashing  the 
shoal  waters  into  fury,  and  shooting  the 
spray  in  volleys  through  the  picturesque 
carvings  of  the  low  cliffs.  The  landing  was 
effected  with  difficulty.  The  wind  increased 
in  violence.  The  weather  became  so  bois- 
terous as  to  endanger  the  safety  of  the  ves- 
sel. No  time  was  wasted.  The  islanders, 
some  twenty  in  number,  were  hurried  into 
the  boats  and  all  speed  was  made  to  reach 
the  schooner. 

In  the  excitement  and  confusion  of  the 
final  abandonment  of  their  home,  it  was  not 
known  until  they  were  on  the  ship  that  a 
child  had  been  left  behind.  The  mother 
supposed  it  to  have  been  carried  aboard  in 


EIGHTEEN   YEARS  ALONE. 


659 


the  arms  of  an  old  sailor.  She  frantically 
implored  the  men  to  return.  The  captain 
replied  that  they  must  get  to  a  place  of 
safety ;  after  the  storm — to-morrow,  perhaps 
— they  would  come  back  for  the  baby. 
Finding  that  they  were  going  out  to  sea,  the 
young  mother  became  desperate,  and,  despite 
all  efforts  to  detain  her,  jumped  overboard 
and  struck  out  through  the  kelpy  waters  for 
the  shore.  She  was  a  widow,  between 
twenty  and  thirty  years  of  age,  of  medium 
height  and  fine  form ;  her  complexion  was 
light,  and  her  hair  of  a  dark,  rich  brown. 
No  attempt  was  made  to  rescue  her,  and  in 
a  moment  she  was  lost  in  the  seething  waves. 
The  ship,  already  under  headway,  staggered 
through  the  storm;  the  affrighted  islanders 
huddled  together  on  deck,  and  fear  shut 
every  other  emotion  for  the  time  from  their 
hearts. 

After  an  adventurous  voyage,  the  Peor  e's 
Nada  eventually  reached  San  Pedro,  where 
the  exiles  were  landed.  Some  of  them  were 
sent  to  Los  Angelos,  fifteen  miles  back  from 
the  coast;  some  were  put  to  work  in  the 
neighboring  mission  of  San  Gabriel ;  two  of 
the  women  were  soon  married  to  wealthy 
men  of  Los  Angelos. 

It  was  the  intention  of  Captain  Hubbard 
to  return  to  San  Nicolas  immediately,  to  see 
if  the  woman  or  child  were  living.  But  the 
schooner  had  orders  to  come  direct  to  Santa 
Barbara,  to  take  George  Nidiver  and  a  party 
of  otter- hunters  to  Santa  Rosa  Island; 
afterward,  carry  from  Monterey  a  cargo  of 
timber  to  San  Francisco.  The  boat  was  in 
urgent  demand  along  the  coast,  and  these 
two  trips  were  imperative  before  a  second 
visit  could  be  made  to  San  Nicolas.  Delay- 
ing their  errand  of  humanity  and  justice  a 
few  weeks,  they  lost  it  forever ;  for  on  that 
very  trip  the  Peor  eff  Nada  capsized  at  the 
entrance  to  the  Golden  Gate.  The  men 
were  washed  ashore  in  an  almost  exhausted 
condition,  and  the  schooner  drifted  out  to 
sea.  It  was  reported  long  after,  though 
without  confirmation,  to  have  been  picked 
up  by  a  Russian  ship. 

After  the  loss  of  the  Monterey  schooner, 
there  was  no  craft  of  any  kind  larger  than  the 
canoes  and  fishing-boats  on  the  lower  coast. 
No  one  cared  to  attempt  a  passage  of  seventy 
miles  to  San  Nicolas  in  an  open  boat,  and  after 
a  time  the  excitement  and  interest  faded  out. 
Those  who  at  first  had  been  most  solicitous 
that  assistance  should  be  sent,  settled  into 
the  belief  that  the  couple  had  perished  dur- 
ing the  days  of  waiting;  the  remainder  of 
the  community,  never  having  believed  that 


the  woman  had  reached  shore  through  the 
storm',  were  indifferent,  supposing  that  the 
child  had  died  soon  after  the  tragic  death  of 
the  mother. 

Their  uncertain  fate  lay  heavy  on  the 
more  tender-hearted  of  the  Mission  fathers; 
but  it  was  not  until  1850  that  Father  Gon- 
zales  found  an  emissary  to  search  for  the 
lost.  Thomas  Jeffries  had  come  into  pos- 
session of  a  small  schooner,  and  was  offered 
$200  should  he  find  and  bring  the  woman 
or  child  to  Santa  Barbara  alive.  Fifteen 
years  having  passed  since  the  abandonment 
of  the  island  and  no  one  having  visited  the 
spot  during  that  time,  the  probability  of  the 
death  of  the  parties  was  universally  accepted, 
although  no  actual  proof  of  death  had  been 
sought  or  found. 

But  when  Thomas  Jeffries's  boat  was  seen, 
at  the  close  of  a  balmy  day  of  midwinter, 
coming  up  the  bay  without  the  signal  he 
was  to  have  displayed  provided  his  search 
had  been  successful,  the  matter  was  settled. 
Groups  of  persons  congregated  on  the 
sands.  Some  watched  from  shore  the  small 
craft  fold  her  wings  and  settle  to  rest  on  the 
mirror-like  water,  others  put  off  in  canoes  to 
meet  the  boatmen,  and  gossip  concerning 
the  trip.  Jeffries  had  found  no  trace  of  liv- 
ing beings  on  the  island,  and  whether  the 
woman  had  been  beaten  to  death  in  the  surf, 
or  died  after  gaining  the  land,  would  prob- 
ably never  be  known.  The  schooner  was 
left  idly  rocking  close  to  shore ;  sailors  and 
landsmen  strolled  slowly  up  to  the  town. 
Night  mantled  the  moaning  waters,  and  the 
great  deep  was  left  in  possession  of  another 
secret. 

The  return  of  Jeffries  brought  up  afresh 
the  incident  which  by  some  had  been  almost 
forgotten.  For  a  few  hours,  little  was  talked 
of  save  the  heroic  young  mother  and  her 
child  in  the  sea-girt  isle. 

Time  passed  swiftly  on,  and  in  the  dreamy 
full  contentment  of  the  land  the  dead 
woman  of  San  Nicolas  slipped  from  mind, 
and  thought,  and  speech. 


in. 


TOM  JEFFRIES'S  visit  to  San  Nicolas  was  the 
theme  of  more  than  one  day's  gossip.  The 
island  he  described  as  seven  or  eight  miles 
long,  by  three  or  four  in  width ;  the  body  of 
the  land  near  six  hundred  feet  above  the 
beach,  the  plateau  falling  in  steep  gulches  to 
the  sea.  There  were  quantities  of  small 
lark  inland,  but  no  other  fowl,  save  sea- 


66o 


EIGHTEEN   YEARS  ALONE. 


gulls,  pelicans  and  shags.  Numbers  of  red 
foxes  were  seen  in  the  hills,  and  droves  of 
curious  wild  dogs,  tall  and  slender,  with 
coarse,  long  hair  and  human  eyes.  On  a 
flat,  near  the  upper  end  of  the  island,  and 
half  hidden  by  sand  dunes,  he  found  the  re- 
mains of  a  curious  hut,  made  of  whales'  ribs 
planted  in  a  circle,  and  so  adjusted  as  to 
form  the  proper  curve  of  a  wigwam-shaped 
shelter.  This  he  judged  to  have  been 
formerly  either  the  residence  of  the  chief, 
or  a  place  of  worship  where  sacrifices  were 
offered.  He  had  picked  up  several  ollas, 
or  vessels  of  stone,  and  one  particularly 
handsome  cup  of  clouded  green  serpentine. 
But  of  all  the  wonders  of  the  island,  the 
features  on  which  Jeffries  liked  best  to 
dwell  were  the  fine  beds  of  otter  and  seal 
in  the  vicinity  of  San  Nicolas.  So  fabulous 
were  his  yarns,  that  the  interest  of  the  other 
hunters  was  aroused,  and  early  in  the  fol- 
lowing year  a  boat  was  fitted  out,  and 
George  Nidiver,  accompanied  by  Thomas 
Jeffries  and  a  crew  of  Indians,  started  on 
an  otter  hunt  to  the  wonderful  otter-beds 
seventy  miles  away. 

A  landing  was  effected  near  the  southern 
end  of  the  island,  and,  climbing  the  cliffs  to 
see  where  the  otter  lay,  they  had  a  mag- 
nificent view  of  the  islands  to  the  north  and 
east.  On  the  south-west  the  Pacific  rolled 
out  its  azure  breadth,  unspecked  by  shore, 
or  raft,  or  spot  of  any  kind.  The  island 
on  which  they  stood  seemed  a  quiet,  calm, 
deserted  spot,  in  the  sunshine  that  then  en- 
folded it.  Butterflies  hovered  over  the  wild 
sage  upon  the  knolls;  soft  breezes  rocked 
lazily  the  scant  grass  about  their  feet ;  thick- 
ets of  chaparral  dotted  the  hills;  cactus 
held  out  waxen  trays,  where,  on  burnished 
mats  of  thorns,  reposed  fringed  yellow  satin 
flowers;  a  trailing  sand  plant,  with  thick, 
doughy  leaves,  wafted  from  its  pink  clusters 
a  most  delicious  odor, — an  odor  that  had  in 
it  the  haunting  sweetness  of  the  arbutus  and 
the  freshness  of  the  salt  sea  wind. 

The  otter-hunters  did  not  linger  long  on 
the  cliff,  for  on  one  side  they  found  the 
rocks  swarming  with  black  seal,  thousands 
of  them  mingling  their  sharp  bark  with  the 
heavy  roar  of  sea-lions.  The  otter  were 
thick  on  the  reefs,  and  a  stranded  whale  lay 
in  the  edge  of  the  crinkling  surf. 

The  party  remained  six  weeks  in  camp 
on  the  beach.  Oars  stuck  upright  in  the 
sand,  covered  by  canvas,  composed  their 
shelter ;  a  spring  was  found  midway  up  the 
cliff,  so  that  during  their  stay  no  one  had 
occasion  to  go  inland  or  wander  far  from  the 


otter-beds,  which  were  on  the  side  of  the 
island  where  their  tents  were  pitched.  The 
seal  is  caught  asleep  on  the  rocks,  lassoed  or 
knocked  in  the  head;  incisions  are  made  in 
the  flippers,  lower  jaw,  lip  and  tail,  and  about 
four  minutes  are  required  by  a  good  work- 
man to  skin  an  ordinary  seal.  The  hides  are 
salted,  and,  after  a  week  or  two,  bundled 
and  packed.  The  otter,  most  timid  of  the 
animals  of  the  sea,  is  caught  in  nets  spread 
upon  swaying  beds  of  sea-weed,  or  is  shot 
while  lying  with  head  buried  in  kelp  to  shut 
out  the  sound  of  a  storm.  It  is  very  sensi- 
tive to  noise,  and  so  shy  that  it  takes  alarm 
at  every  unusual  sight.  The  loose  hide  is 
taken  from  the  body  with  one  cut,  turned 
wrong  side  out,  stretched  and  dried. 

Before  the  schooner  left  the  vicinity  of 
San  Nicolas,  a  terrible  storm  arose,  lasting 
for  eight  days,  carrying  away  a  mast  and 
dragging  the  anchor,  so  that  another  had  to 
be  improvised  of  a  bag  filled  with  stone. 
During  the  tempest,  a  sailor  fancied  he  saw 
a  human  figure  on  the  headland  of  the 
island.  Through  the  washes  of  spray  it 
seemed  to  be  running  up  and  down  the  edge 
of  the  plateau,  beckoning  and  shouting. 
The  captain  was  called,  but  the  apparition 
had  vanished.  On  the  eighth  day,  the 
schooner  was  enabled  to  run  over  to  San 
Miguel,  and  from  there  to  Santa  Barbara, 
where  the  sailor's  story  of  the  beckoning 
ghost  of  San  Nicolas  haunted  for  a  long 
time  the  dreams  of  the  superstitious  on 
shore. 

A  second  cruise  of  the  otter-hunters  failed 
to  bring  any  additional  news  of  the  phantom 
of  the  sea.  Everything  on  land  was  just  as 
before;  not  a  leaf  had  been  disturbed,  not  a 
track  was  found. 

In  July,  1853,  the  otter-men  made  a  third 
trip  to  San  Nicolas,  anchored  off  the  north- 
east side,  and  established  a  camp  on  shore. 
The  party  consisted  of  Captain  Nidiver,  a 
fisherman  named  Carl  Detman,  who  went 
among  sailors  by  the  sobriquet  of  Charlie 
Brown,  an  Irish  cook  and  a  crew  of  Mission 
Indians. 

The  evening  after  their  arrival,  Nidiver 
and  Brown  strolled  several  miles  down  the 
beach,  enjoying  their  pipes  and  discussing 
plans  for  work.  It  was  one  of  those  limpid 
nights,  such  as  California  knows — a  night 
when  the  stars  shine  large  and  warm  from 
the  low  sky,  when  the  moon  burns  with  an 
amber  blaze,  and  fragrance  is  in  the  air. 

As  the  comrades  were  about  to  retrace 
their  steps,  Nidiver  stopped,  looked  quickly 
about  him,  then  stooped  and  closely  exam- 


EIGHTEEN   YEARS  ALONE. 


66 1 


ined  something  on  the  ground.  In  the  weird 
moonlight,  plainly  outlined  on  the  lonely 
shore,  was  the  print  of  a  slender,  naked  foot. 

"  The  woman  of  San  Nicolas !  My  God, 
she  is  living  !  " 

He  lifted  his  voice,  and  shouted  in  Span- 
ish that  friends  were  come  to  rescue  her. 
Overcome  by  the  conviction  that  the  lost 
woman  must  have  been  near  when  he  was 
in  camp  two  years  before, — that  it  was  not  a 
creation  of  fancy,  but  a  living  being,  they 
had  seen  in  the  storm, — the  captain  ran  to 
and  fro,  calling,  looking  and  swearing  by 
turns.  Hours  were  spent  by  the  two  men 
in  search,  but  in  vain. 

The  next  day,  Nidiver  found  a  basket  of 
rushes  hanging  in  a  tree.  It  contained  bone 
needles,  thread  made  of  sinews,  shell  fish- 
hooks, ornaments,  and  a  partially  completed 
robe  of  birds'  plumage,  made  of  small 
squares  neatly  matched  and  sewed  together. 
Nidiver  proposed  replacing  the  things,  but 
Brown  scattered  them  about,  saying  that,  if 
they  were  picked  up,  it  would  be  proof  that 
the  owner  had  visited  the  spot.  Inland  they 
discovered  several  circular,  roofless  inclos- 
ures,  made  of  woven  brush.  Near  these 
shelters  were  poles,  with  dried  meat  hanging 
from  elevated  cross-pieces.  The  grass  was 
growing  in  the  pens,  and  nothing  indicated 
their  recent  habitation.  In  fissures  of  per- 
pendicular rocks  near  the  springs  were 
wedged  dried  fish  and  seals'  blubber;  but 
no  sign  of  the  near  presence  of  the  hermitess. 

After  several  days,  the  men  abandoned  the 
chase.  There  was  no  doubt  that  some  one 
had  been  on  the  island  very  lately.  Either 
the  woman,  or  the  child  grown  to  woman- 
hood, had  lived  there,  or,  perhaps,  both 
mother  and  child  had  survived  until  re- 
cently. But  they  must  have  been  dead 
months  at  least.  The  footprint  was  older 
than  at  first  supposed.  The  robe  had  not 
been  replaced  in  the  tree.  The  captive  per- 
chance died  of  despair  after  they  left  her 
beckoning  in  the  storm. 

After  that,  the  fishing  went  on  for  weeks, 
and  they  were  about  returning  home,  when 
Nidiver  said  he  believed  a  person  was  hiding 
on  the  island.  If  she  was  living  he  was 
bound  to  find  her.  If  dead,  he  would  find 
her  body  if  he  had  to  scrape  the  island  inch 
by  inch.  This  provoked  a  laugh  of  derision. 
Of  course  the  wild  dogs  had  devoured  her 
remains.  But  Nidiver  was  convinced  that 
the  woman  was  afraid;  had  concealed  her- 
self, possibly  on  the  opposite  side  of  the 
island,  where  the  shore  was  precipitous,  dif- 
ficult of  access,  containing  perhaps  gulches 


and  caves  unknown  to  them.  The  men 
murmured  at  the  delay,  were  incredulous  as 
to  the  success  of  the  raid,  rebelled  at  the 
long  tramps  over  a  wild  country. 

The  old  captain  was  firm;  suitable  prepa- 
rations were  made,  and  the  entire  force  of 
otter-men  started  on  their  final  hunt  for  a 
ghost.  Near  the  head  of  the  island  they 
came  across  the  bone,  house  Jeffries  had  de- 
scribed. Rushes  were  skillfully  interlaced  in 
the  rib  frame-work,  an  olla  and  old  basket 
were  near  the  door.  It  stood  amidst  un- 
trampled  weeds.  After  several  days'  march, 
a  dangerous  climb  over  slippery  rocks 
brought  Brown  to  a  spot  where  there  were 
fresh  footprints.  He  followed  them  up  the 
cliffs  until  they  were  lost  in  the  thick  moss 
that  covered  the  ground.  Walking  further, 
he  found  a  piece  of  drift-wood,  from  which 
he  concluded  the  person  had  been  to  the 
beach  for  fire-wood,  and  dropped  the  faggot 
on  her  way  home.  From  a  high  point  on 
the  ridge  he  saw  the  men  moving  about 
below.  Then  his  eye  caught  a  small  object 
a  long  way  off  on  the  hills.  It  appeared  like 
a  crow  at  first  glance,  but  it  moved  about  in 
a  singular  manner.  Advancing  toward  it 
stealthily,  he  was  dumbfounded  to  find  that 
it  was  the  head  of  a  woman,  barely  visible 
above  the  low  woven-brush  sides  of  her  roof- 
less retreat  in  the  bushes. 

As  Brown  drew  nearer,  a  pack  of  dogs  re- 
clining close  to  the  woman  growled;  but 
without  looking  around  the  woman  uttered 
a  peculiar  cry  which  silenced  them,  and  they 
ran  away  to  the  hills.  Brown  halted  within 
a  few  yards  of  her.  and,  himself  unseen, 
watched  every  movement  within  the  hut. 
Inside  the  inclosure  was  a  mound  of  grass, 
woven  baskets  full  of  things,  and  a  rude 
knife  made  of  a  piece  of  iron  hoop,  thrust 
into  a  wooden  handle.  A  fire  smouldered 
near,  and  a  pile  of  bones  lay  in  the  ashes. 
The  complexion  of  the  woman  was  much 
fairer  than  the  ordinary  Indian,  her  personal 
appearance  pleasing,  features  regular,  her 
hair,  thick  and  brown,  falling  about  her 
shoulders  in  a  tangled  mat.  From  the  time 
Brown  arrived  within  hearing,  she  kept  up  a 
continual  talking  to  herself.  She  was  lean- 
ing forward,  shading  her  eyes  with  her  hand, 
watching  the  men  crossing  the  flat  below 
her  dwelling.  After  looking  at  them  with 
an  anxiety  impossible  to  be  depicted,  she 
crouched  in  terror,  but  immediately  started 
up  as  if  to  run.  The  men  on  the  flat  had 
not  seen  her,  and  Brown,  putting  his  hat  on 
the  ramrod  of  his  gun,  alternately  lifted  and 
lowered  it  to  attract  their  attention,  then  by 


662 


EIGHTEEN   YEARS  ALONE. 


signs  he  intimated  that  the  woman  was 
found,  and  they  should  spread  out  so  as  to 
catch  her  if  she  tried  to  escape.  Before  the 
men  reached  the  knoll,  Brown  stepped 
around  in  sight  and  spoke.  She  gave  a 
frightened  look  into  his  face,  ran  a  few 
steps,  but,  instantly  controlling  herself, 
stood  still,  and  addressed  him  in  an  un- 
known tongue.  She  seemed  to  be  between 
forty  and  fifty  years  of  age,  in  fine  physical 
condition,  erect,  with  well-formed  neck  and 
arms  and  unwrinkled  face.  She  was  dressed 
in  a  tunic-shaped  garment  made  of  birds' 
plumage,  low  in  the  neck,  sleeveless,  and 
reaching  to  the  ankle.  The  dress  was  simi- 
lar to  the  one  found  in  the  tree.  As  the 
men  came  up,  she  greeted  them  each  in  the 
way  she  had  met  Brown,  and  with  a  simple 
dignity,  not  without  its  effect  on  both  Indi- 
ans and  white  men,  made  them  welcome  and 
set  about  preparing  food  for  them  from  her 
scanty  store.  The  meal  consisted  of  roasted 
roots,  called  by  Californians  carcomites ;  but 
when  was  there  known  a  more  touching 
hospitality  ? 

Among  the  Indian  crew,  there  were  several 
dialects  spoken,  but  none  of  the  party  were 
able  to  converse  with  their  hostess,  or  under- 
stand a  word  she  uttered,  and  they  were 
forced  to  try  and  make  her  know  by  signs 
that  she  was  expected  to  go  with  them. 
Brown  went  through  the  motion  of  packing 
her  things  in  baskets,  shouldering  them,  and 
walking  toward  the  beach.  She  compre- 
hended instantly,  and  made  preparations  to 
depart.  Her  effects  were  neatly  placed 
in  pack-baskets,  one  of  which  she  swung 
over  her  back,  and,  taking  a  burning  stick 
from  the  fire,  she  started  with  a  firm 
tread  after  the  Indians  to  the  shore.  Be- 
side the  load  the  female  Crusoe  carried, 
Nidiver  and  Brown  had  their  arms  full. 
Upon  reaching  the  boat,  she  entered  with- 
out hesitation,  going  forward  to  the  bow, 
kneeling  and  holding  to  either  side.  When 
the  schooner  was  reached,  she  went  aboard 
without  any  trouble,  sat  down  near  the  stove 
in  the  cabin,  and  quietly  watched  the  men 
in  their  work  on  board.  To  replace  her 
feather  dress,  which  he  wished  to  preserve, 
Brown  made  her  a  petticoat  of  ticking;  and 
with  a  man's  cotton  shirt  and  gay  necker- 
chief, her  semi-civilized  dress  was  complete. 
While  Brown  was  sewing  she  watched  him 
closely,  and  laughed  at  his  manner  of  using 
a  needle.  She  showed  him  that  her  way 
was  to  puncture  the  cloth  with  her  bone 
needle,  or  awl,  and  then  put  the  thread 
through  the  perforations.  She  signified  that 


she  wished  to  try  a  threaded  needle,  and 
Brown  good-naturedly  gave  her  sewing  ma- 
terials, but  she  could  not  thread  the  needle. 
Brown  prepared  it,  and  gave  her  an  old 
cloak  of  Nidiver's  to  mend,  and  while  she 
took  her  first  lesson  in  sewing,  she  told  her 
teacher  on  shipboard,  by  signs,  portions  of 
her  life  on  the  island. 

She  had  from  time  to  time  seen  ships 
pass,  but  none  came  to  take  her  off.  She 
watched  as  long  as  she  could  see  them,  and, 
after  they  were  out  of  sight,  she  threw  her- 
self on  the  ground  and  cried,  but  after  a 
time  she  walked  over  the  island  until  she 
forgot  about  it  and  could  smile  again.  She 
had  also  seen  people  on  the  beach  several 
times.  She  was  afraid  and  hid  until  they 
were  gone,  and  then  wept  because  she  had 
not  made  herself  known.  She  said  that  he 
had  taken  her  by  surprise  and  she  could  not 
run,  and  she  was  glad  because  he  would 
take  her  to  her  people ;  her  people  had  gone 
away  with  white  men  in  a  ship.  Brown 
understood  by  her  signs  that  at  the  time  of 
the  desertion  of  the  island  she  had  a  nursing 
baby,  which  she  represented  by  sucking  her 
finger,  and  placing  her  arm  in  position  of 
holding  an  infant  at  the  breast ;  she  waved 
her  hand  over  the  sea,  to  indicate  that  the 
ship  sailed  away,  calling  back  "Manana" 
(to-morrow);  then  she  could  not  find  her 
child,  and  wept  until  she  was  very  ill,  and 
lay  prostrate  for  days,  in  a  bed  of  plants 
resembling  cabbage,  and  called  by  Califor- 
nians "  Sola  Santa."  She  had  nothing  to 
eat  but  the  leaves.  When  she  revived  some- 
what, she  crawled  to  a  spring,  and  after  a 
time,  as  her  strength  returned,  she  made  fire 
by  rapidly  rubbing  a  pointed  stick  along  the 
groove  of  a  flat  stick  until  a  spark  was  struck. 
It  was  a  difficult  task,  and  she  was  careful 
not  to  let  her  fire  go  out;  she  took  brands 
with  her  on  her  trips,  and  covered  the 
home  fire  with  ashes  to  preserve  it. 

She  lived  during  her  captivity  on  fish, 
seals'  blubber,  roots  and  shell-fish  ;  and  the 
birds,  whose  skins  she  secured  for  clothing, 
were  sea-birds,  which  she  caught  at  night 
off  their  roosts  in  the  seams  of  the  crags. 
The  bush  inclosures  she  made  for  a  screen 
from  the  winds,  and  as  a  protection  while 
asleep  from  wild  animals.  She  made  fre- 
quent excursions  over  the  island  from  her 
main  dwelling,  which  was  a  large  cave  on 
the  north  end  of  San  Nicolas.  She  kept 
dried  meat  at  each  camping-station;  the 
food  in  the  crevices  by  the  springs  was  for 
the  time  when,  from  sickness  or  old  age,  she 
would  only  be  able  to  crawl  to  the  water  and 


EIGHTEEN   YEARS  ALONE. 


663 


live  on  what  she  had  there  stored  out  of 
reach  of  the  dogs. 

That  the  woman  had  faith  in  a  supreme 
power  was  evinced  soon  after  the  schooner 
set  sail  from  the  fishing-grounds.  A  gale 
overtook  them,  and  the  passenger  made 
signs  that  she  would  stop  the  wind.  With 
her  face  turned  in  the  direction  from  which 
the  storm  came,  she  muttered  words  of 
prayer  until  the  wind  had  abated,  then 
turned  with  a  beaming  countenance  and 
motioned  that  her  petition  had  been  answered. 
They  anchored  under  the  lee  of  Santa  Cruz, 
where  the  woman  was  highly  interested  in 
seeing  another  island  than  her  own.  When 
they  approached  the  shores  of  Santa  Bar- 
bara, an  ox-team  passed  along  the  beach. 
The  stranger  was  completely  bewildered. 
Captain  Nidiver's  son,  who  had  been  on  the 
look-out  for  his  father's  sail,  rode  down  to 
the  landing  on  a  handsome  little  bronco. 
The  islander,  who  had  just  stepped  ashore, 
was  wild  with  delight.  She  touched  the 
horse  and  examined  the  lad,  talking  rapidly, 
and,  if  the  sailors  turned  away,  calling  to 
them  to  come  back  and  look.  Then  she 
tried  to  represent  the  novel  sight  by  putting 
two  fingers  of  her  right  hand  over  the  thumb 
of  her  left,  moving  them  to  imitate  the  horse 
walking. 

Captain  Nidiver  conducted  the  woman  to 
his  home,  and  put  her  in  charge  of  his 
Spanish  wife.  The  news  spreading,  Father 
Gonzales,  of  Santa  Barbara  Mission,  came 
to  see  her ;  many  persons  gathered  from  the 
ranches  round  about,  and  the  house  was 
crowded  constantly.  The  brig  Fremont 
came  into  port  soon  after,  and  the  captain 
offered  Nidiver  the  half  of  what  he  would 
make,  if  he  would  allow  her  to  be  exhibited 
in  San  Francisco.  This  offer  was  refused, 
and  also  another  from  a  Captain  Trussil. 
Mrs.  Nidiver  would  not  hear  of  the  friend- 
less creature  being  made  a  show  for  the 
curious. 

The  bereft  mother  evinced  the  greatest 
fondness  for  Mrs.  Nidiver's  children,  caress- 
ing and  playing  with  them  by  the  hour,  and 
telling  the  lady,  by  signs,  that  when  she 
swam  back  to  the  shore  her  baby  was  gone, 
and  she  believed  the  dogs  had  eaten  it. 
She  went  over,  again  and  again,  her  grief  at 
its  loss  ;  her  frantic  search  for  it,  even  after 
it  had  been  gone  a  long  time ;  her  dread  of 
being  alone ;  her  hope,  for  years,  of  rescue, 
and  at  last  the  despair  that  in  time  became 
resignation. 

The  visitors  sometimes  gave  her  presents, 
which  she  put  aside  until  the  donors  had 


departed,  seeming  to  know  by  intuition  that 
they  would  be  offended  if  she  refused  to 
accept  them  ;  but  as  soon  as  the  guests  were 
gone  she  called  the  little  children,  and  dis- 
tributed her  gifts  among  them,  laughing  if 
they  were  pleased,  and  happy  in  their  joy. 

A  few  days  after  her  arrival,  Father  Anto- 
nio Jimeno  sent  for  Indians  from  the  mis- 
sions of  San  Fernando  and  Santa  Yuez,  in 
hope  of  finding  'some  one  who  could  con- 
verse with  the  islander.  At  that  time  there 
were  Indians  living  in  Los  Angelos  county, 
belonging  to  the  Pepimaros,  who,  it  was  said, 
had  in  former  years  communication  with  the 
San  Nicolas  Indians.  But  neither  these, 
nor  those  from  San  Buena  Ventura,  or  Santa 
Barbara,  could  understand  her,  or  make 
themselves  understood.  In  less  than  two 
decades  after  the  little  band  had  left  San 
Nicolas,  their  whereabouts  could  not  be  dis- 
covered. They  were  a  mere  drop  in  the 
stream  of  serfs  known  by  the  general  name 
of  Mission  Indians.  Beyond  a  few  words, 
nothing  was  ever  known  of  her  tongue.  A 
hide  she  called  to-co  f/b-kay') ;  a  man,  nache 
(nah'-chey) ;  the  sky,  /<?-gua  (tay-gwah) ;  the 
body,  pine  he  (pin-0<?-chey).  She  learned  a 
few  Spanish  words:  pan  (bread), papas  (po- 
tatoes), caballo  (horse).  Sometimes  she 
called  Captain  Nidiver,  in  Spanish,  tata 
(father),  sometimes  ndna  (mother). 

The  gentleness,  modesty  and  tact  of  the 
untutored  wild  woman  of  the  Pacific  were  so 
foreign  to  ideas  of  the  savage  nature,  that 
some  parties  believed  that  she  was  not  an 
Indian,  but  a  person  of  distinction  cast  away 
by  shipwreck,  and  adopted  by  the  islanders 
before  their  removal  from  their  home.  Others 
were  certain,  from  her  evident  refinement, 
that  she  had  not  been  long  alone,  but  had 
drifted  to  San  Nicolas  after  the  Indian 
woman  perished  in  the  surf,  and  had  by 
mistake  been  taken  for  the  original  savage. 
The  old  sailors  who  rescued  her  affirm  that 
she  was  an  Indian,  the  same  who  jumped 
from  the  schooner  to  save  her  child.  The 
representative  of  a  lost  tribe,  she  stands  out 
from  the  Indians  of  the  coast,  the  possessor 
of  noble  and  distinctive  traits;  provident, 
cleanly,  tasteful,  amiable,  imitative,  consid- 
erate, and  with  a  maternal  devotion  which 
civilization  has  never  surpassed. 

She  was  greatly  disappointed  when  none 
of  her  kindred  were  found.  She  drooped 
under  civilization;  she  missed  the  out-door 
life  of  her  island  camp.  After  a  few  weeks  she 
became  too  weak  to  walk ;  she  was  carried 
on  to  the  porch  every  day  in  a  chair.  She 
dozed  in  the  sunshine,  while  the  children 


664 


THE  ROSE. 


played  around  her.  She  was  patient  and 
cheerful,  looking  eagerly  into  every  new  face 
for  recognition,  and  sometimes  singing  softly 
to  herself.  Mrs.  Nidiver  hoped  a  return  to 
her  old  diet  would  help  her.  She  procured 
seal's  meat,  and  roasted  it  in  ashes.  When 
the  sick  woman  saw  it,  she  patted  her  nurse's 
hands  affectionately,  but  could  not  eat  the 
food.  She  fell  from  her  chair  one  morning, 
and  remained  insensible  for  hours.  Seeing 
the  approach  of  death,  Mrs.  Nidiver  sent  for 
a  priest  to  baptize  her  protege.  At  first  he 
refused,  not  knowing  but  that  she  had  been 
baptized  previously,  although  the  burden  of 
proof  was  against  it.  At  length,  heeding  the 
kind  Catholic  lady's  distress,  he  consented 
to  administer  the  rite,  conditionally.  As  she 
was  breathing  her  last,  the  sign  of  the  cross 
was  pressed  on  her  cold  brow,  and  the  un- 
known and  nameless  creature  was  christened 
by  Father  Sanchez,  in  the  beautiful  Spanish, 
"Juana  Marie."  In  a  walled  cemetery, 
from  whose  portals  gleam  ghastly  skull  and 
cross-bones,  close  to  the  Santa  Barbara  Mis- 
sion, under  the  shelter  of  the  tower,  is  the 
neglected  grave  of  a  devoted  mother,  the 
heroine  of  San  Nicolas. 

The  abandonment  of  San  Nicolas  occurred 
forty-six  years  ago.  The  survivor  of  eight- 
een years'  solitary  captivity  arrived  in  Santa 
Barbara  the  8th  of  September,  1853.  Cap- 
tain Nidiver's  house,  where  the  stranger  died, 
stands  in  sight  of  the  ocean,  and  can  be 
pointed  out  by  any  school-boy  in  the  town. 
Nidiver  and  his  wife  are  living,  and  their  son 
George  follows  the  sea,  as  his  father  did  be- 
fore him.  Carl  Detman,  or  Charlie  Brown, 


as  he  is  called  by  old  sailors,  may  be  found 
any  day  where  the  retired  boatmen  congre- 
gate. Thomas  Jeffries  walks  the  streets  in 
blouse,  wide  hat,  and  flowing  gray  hair.  Dr. 
Brinkerhoff,  who  attended  the  woman  of  San 
Nicolas,  is  a  well-known  physician  of  the 
city.  Father  Gonzales  died  a  few  years  ago, 
after  a  continuous  residence  of  more  than  a 
quarter  of  a  century  in  the  Mission.  For  a 
long  time  he  was  partially  paralyzed,  and 
was  carried  about  in  a  chair.  I  remember 
him  as  a  little  dark  man,  with  eyes  that 
blazed  unnaturally  from  sunken  sockets,  his 
appearance  rendered  more  startling  by  a 
white  turban  bound  around  his  head.  He 
is  buried  under  the  floor  of  the  old  chapel. 
The  rambling  mansion  on  State  street, 
known  as  the  Park  Hotel,  may  have  shel- 
tered tourists  who  read  this  account.  It  was 
the  first  brick  house  built  in  Santa  Barbara, 
and  was  the  private  residence  of  Isaac  Sparks, 
the  lessee  of  the  sail-boat  from  which,  in 
1835,  the  woman  jumped  overboard.  "  Bur- 
ton's Mound,"  a  picturesque  knoll,  threaded 
by  rows  of  olive  trees,  belongs  to  Lewis  L. 
Burton,  another  lessee  of  the  Peor  es  Nada. 
A  lady  in  San  Francisco  has  some  of  the 
islander's  needles.  Nidiver  and  Brown  retain 
her  curious  water-tight  baskets.  'The  Mis- 
sion fathers  sent  her  feather  robes  to  Rome. 
They  were  made  of  the  satiny  plumage  of 
the  green  cormorant,  the  feathers  pointing 
downward,  and  so  skillfully  matched  as  to  seem 
one  continuous  sheen  of  changeful  luster. 

The  record  of  baptism  is  in  the  church 
register.  Her  grave  will  be  pointed  out  to  any 
one  by  the  Franciscan  brothers  on  the  hill. 


THE    ROSE. 


'Tis  Summer :  the  days  are  long, 

Long  with  the  breath  of  June, 
And  the  air  is  full  of  song, 

And  broken  snatches  of  tune, 
And  broken  whispers  of  winds  that  pass ; 
The  butterflies  drop  in  the  tender  grass, 
And  breezes  die  on  the  fainting  air 

That  throbs  with  the  heat  of  the  sun, 
And  the  earth  is  full  of  a  power  rare, 

And  the  earth  and  the  air  are  one ! 


And  now,  in  the  heart  of  June, 

With  her  sudden  life  and  light, 
With  the  fullness  of  her  noon, 

With  the  silence  of  her  night, 
The  rosebud  loosens  her  outer  dress 
And  blushes  in  fainting  loveliness, 
Nor  opens  her  heart  to  the  common  air, 

Nor  shows  you  her  inmost  light, 
But  leaves  you  to  dream  what  is  hidden  there 

With  the  dews  of  the  falling  night. 


GEORGETOWN  COLLEGE.  665 


WORLD-MUSIC. 

JUBILANT  the  music  through  the  fields  a-ringing, — 
Carol,  warble,  whistle,  pipe, — endless  ways  of  singing; 
Oriole,  bobolink,  melody  of  thrushes, 
Rustling  trees,  hum  of  bees,  sudden  little  hushes, 

Broken  suddenly  again — 

Carol,  whistle,  rustle,  humming, 

In  reiterate  refrain, 

Thither,  hither,  going,   coming; 

While  the  streamlets'  softer  voices  mingle  murmurously  together; 
Gurgle,  whisper,  lapses,  plashes, — praise  of  love  and  summer  weather. 

Hark  !     A  music  finer  on  the  air  is  blowing, — 
Throbs  of  infinite  content,  sounds  of  things  a-growing, 
Secret  sounds,  flit  of  bird  under  leafy  cover, 
Odors  shy  floating  by,  clouds  blown  swiftly  over, 

Kisses  of  the  crimson  roses, 

Crossings  of  the  lily-lances, 

Stirrings  when  a  bud  uncloses, 

Tripping  sun  and  shadow  dances, 
Murmur  of  aerial  tides,  stealthy  zephyrs  gliding, 
And  a  thousand  nameless  things  sweeter  for  their  hiding. 

Ah  !     There  is  a  music  floweth  on  forever, 

In  and  out,  yet  all  beyond  our  tracing  or  endeavor, 

Far  yet  clear,  strange  yet  near,  sweet  with  a  profounder  sweetness, 
Mystical,  rhythmical,  weaving  all  into  completeness; 

For  its  wide,  harmonious  measures 

Not  one  earthly  note  let  fall ; 

Sorrows,  raptures,  pains  and  pleasures, 

All  in  it,  and  it  in  all. 

Of  earth's  music  the  ennobler,  of  its  discord  the  refiner, 
Pipe  of  Pan  was  once  its  naming,  now  it  hath  a  name  diviner. 


GEORGETOWN    COLLEGE,  D.  C.* 


IT  is  well  that  the  distant  prospect  of  a 
college  should  have  in  it  something  pictur- 
esque and  poetic — some  liberal  suggestion 
of  other  than  commonplace  life.  He  who 
gets  from  the  Virginia  shore  a  glimpse  of 


flood  below,  may  dream  for  a  moment  of 
the  Rhine.  Nor  does  a  nearer  approach 
too  rudely  shake  the  illusion.  The  quaint 
old  town,  whose  rest  the  disenchanting 
hand  of  traffic  has  lightly  touched,  with  its 


the  towers  of  Georgetown  College,  through  '  old-fashioned    houses,  and   drowsy  streets, 

the  kindly  haze  of  a  September  sunset,  with  attunes  itself  easily  to  his  fancy,  and  if  he 

the   yellow   vineyard   and   wooded    slopes  came  from  a  bustling  place,  there  will  be 

beyond  and  above  them,  the  noble  many-  in    its   very   quiet   something   foreign   and 

bridged  and  islanded  river  rolling  a  golden  remote.      By    the   college   gates   stands   a 

*  Since  the  following  account  was  written,  some  three  years  ago,  many  changes  and  improvements  have 
been  effected  in  the  college  grounds  and  buildings,  chief  of  which  is  the  completion  of  the  new  college, 
pictured  on  page  675.  This  will  explain  to  the  friends  of  the  college  certain  discrepancies  between  its 
present  aspect  and  its  description  here. 


666 


GEORGETOWN  COLLEGE. 


DECATUR'S   MEDAL. 

church  which  might  have  been  caught  up 
bodily  out  of  some  old  California  mission, 
and  near  it  a  queer  little  house  that  has,  if 
not  a  history,  at  least  that  sort  of  poor- 
relationship  with  history  which  enables  it 
to  hold  its  shaky  head  up  among  its  thrift- 
ier neighbors.  Here  Stephen  Decatur's 
widow  lived  for  twenty  years,  and  here  she 
died,  bequeathing  to  the  college  museum 
many  curious  relics  of  the  gallant  sailor. 
The  house  is  picturesque  enough  to  make 
the  idea  of  dying  in  it  more  attractive  than 
that  of  living  in  it. 

Once  inside  the  gates,  our  illusion  fades 
a  little  "into  the  common  light  of  day." 
Yet  the  view  has  still  a  placid  charm  of  its 
own.  Passing  between  two  whitewashed 
gate-houses  which  look  like  guard-houses, 
and  were,  indeed,  used  as  such  during  the 
military  occupation  of  the  College  in  the 
war,  we  are  in  the  play-ground,  some  half- 
dozen  acres  of  greensward,  divided  into 
two  nearly  e-qual  fields  by  a  road  bordered 
with  trees.  The  field  to  the  left  is  used  for 
the  foot-ball  matches,  and  the  odd-looking 
structure  of  brick  at  its  upper  end,  like  the 
standing  center- wall  and  gable  of  a  ruined 
house,  is  the  ball  alley.  Here,  in  days  gone 
by,  the  "joyous  science"  of  hand-ball  had 
fit  interpretation.  More  modern  pastimes, 
base-ball,  boating,  billiards,  now  usurp  its 
place.  Here,  too,  after  class-time,  would 
sometimes  repair  belligerent  youths,  who 
had  learned  to  scoff  at  Dr.  Watts.  For 
these  dark  deeds,  however,  "  The  Walks  " 
were  preferred,  because,  being  then  "out  of 
bounds,"  to  go  there  was  to  break  several 
rules  at  once — a  temptation  irresistible  to 
the  under-graduate  mind.  "  The  Walks " 


are  a  charming  sylvan  road  through  the 
college  grounds,  which  comprise  in  all  one 
hundred  and  fifty-six  acres,  sixty-four  of 
them  woodland.  These  we  shall  visit  later. 
Now  we  must  hasten  to  the  college  pump 
in  the  middle  of  the  yard,  whence,  after  a 
draught  of  waters  that  are  thought  to  have 
the  age,  if  not  the  virtues,  of  Hippocrene, 
we  are  at  leisure  to  view  the  buildings. 

These  are  some  half-score  in  number, 
and  include  the  North  Building,  that  of  the 
Towers,  the  South  Row  and  Infirmary 
overlooking  the  Potomac,  the  Observatory 
on  a  slight  eminence,  distant  some  400 
yards  to  the  west,  the  Gymnasium  and 
greenhouse,  together  with  various  shops  and 
offices  connected  with  the  College  Farm. 
In  the  North  Building  are  the  dormitories 
and  class-rooms  of  the  senior  department, 
the  college  library  and  museum,  the  chem- 
ical laboratory  and  philosophical  cabinet, 
besides  a  billiard-room,  reading-room  and 
smoking-room  for  the  students.  Here,  too, 
are  the  visitors'  reception  parlor,  and  the 
president's  room,  where  hangs  a  fine  paint- 
ing by  Luca  Giordano,  surnamed  Fa  Presto, 
"The  Calling  of  St.  Matthew,"  one  of  the 
few  art-treasures  the  college  can  boast. 
In  the  South  Row,  the  West  Building 
contains  the  students'  refectory  and  chapel 
and  the  senior  study-hall ;  the  Middle 
Building,  the  oldest  of  all,  is  the  commu- 
nity house,  and  the  East  Building  holds 
the  dormitory,  study-hall,  and  class-rooms 
of  the  junior  students,  who  have  likewise  a 
separate  play- ground,  and  whose  domain 
is  known  as  the  "small  boys'  side."  The 
Infirmary,  kept  in  excellent  order,  is  the 
college  hospital,  where  the  sick  student  is 
cured  and  the  lazy  one  sometimes  gets 
himself  endured,  until  found  and  put  out. 
The  views  from  its  windows  up  and  down 
the  river,  and  away  over  smiling  farm  and 
forest  land  to  the  blue  Virginia  hills,  are 
almost  enough  of  themselves  to  make  a 
sick  man  well,  or  to  entice  a  well  man  to  be 
sick. 

Seen  thus  .near,  the  buildings  hardly  bear 
out  the  gracious  promise  of  the  further  shore. 
The  North  Building  is  said  to  have  been 
built  upon  the  model  of  a  French  chateau, 
but  the  pattern  seems  to  have  been  followed 
with  a  freedom  of  detail  not  perhaps  unbe- 
coming in  a  republic.  One  of  these  amend- 
ments, no  doubt,  is  the  spacious  porch,  a 
favorite  lounging-place  at  all  times,  especially 
in  summer.  In  its  shadows  famous  men 
have  sat  and  talked.  Thirty  or  forty  years 
ago  the  statesmen  of  the  capital  would 


GEORGETOWN  COLLEGE. 


667 


sometimes  stroll  up  to  the  college  for  a 
chat  with  the  learned  fathers,  or  perhaps  a 
dip  into  their  library.  Benton,  Clay  and 
Calhoun  are  said  to  have  been  fond  of  it. 
Another  departure  from  the  plan  was  the 
famous  towers,  which  were  only  (sad  irony 
of  chance!)  an  after-thought,  to  strengthen 
the  rear  wall.  The  view  from  their  upper 
windows  repays  the  climb,  and  has,  no 
doubt,  lent  a  pensive  solace  to  the  captivity 
of  many  prisoners  of  state,  confined  there 
for  forbidden  trips  to  the  ball-alley  or  "  The 
Walks." 

The  other  buildings,  like  this,  are  of  brick, 
and  designed  with  that  severe  simplicity 
which  marks  our  earlier  college  architecture. 
The  first  founders  thought  more  of  adorning 
minds  than  of  embellishing  fagades,  and 
indeed,  had  seldom  means  for  both.  Of 
Georgetown  this  is  pre-eminently  true.  From 
the  first,  want  of  money  was  a  let  and  a 
hindrance.  Wholly  unhelped,  as  its  faculty 
have  been,  by  endowment,  subscription  or 
donation,  it  is  a  wonder  they  have  been 
able  to  do  so  much  with  the  tuition  fees 
which  have  been  practically  their  sole  re- 
source. Yet  they  have  at  most  times  had 
free  scholars — an  ornament  better,  perhaps, 
than  Gothic  finials.  The  general  effect  of 
the  pile,  plain  as  it  is,  is  not  unimpressive 
even  at  hand,  and  (one  feels  that)  a  more 
pretentious  architecture  might  have  had  a 
less  happy  effect.  Chance  and  time  some- 
times render  the  justice  the  architect  denies 
to  a  landscape's  divine  right  that  nothing 
unseemly  shall  be  obtruded  on  its  beauty. 

About  the  close  of  the  Revolution,  the 
opportunity  came  to  a  young  Maryland 
priest  to  carry  out  a  pet  project  of  founding 
a  Catholic  college.  The  undertaking  could 
have  had  no  better  sponsor.  First  cousin 
to  Carroll  of  Carrollton,  and  afterward  the 
first  American  Catholic  Bishop  and  Arch- 
bishop, John  Carroll  was  even  then  a  man 
of  mark.  With  his  cousin  he  had  done 
yeoman  service  in  the  struggle  just  ended. 
The  opening  of  the  Revolution  found  him 
domiciled  at  Wardour  Castle  as  chaplain  to 
Lord  Arundel,  the  suppression  of  the  Jesuits, 
of  whom  he  was  one,  in  1773,  having 
driven  him  from  his  professorship  at  Bruges 
to  England. .  The  revolt  once  a  certainty, 
Father  Carroll  sailed  instantly  for  home  to 
cast  his  lot  with  his  countrymen.  In  1776, 
by  request  of  Congress,  he  went  with  a 
committee  of  that  body,  Benjamin  Franklin, 
Samuel  Chase  and  Charles  Carroll,  to 
Montreal,  to  aid  in  securing  the  alliance  or 
neutrality  of  the  Canadians.  To  the  friend- 


ship with  Franklin  thus  begun,  F.  Carroll 
owed  perhaps  his  miter,  for  when  the  for- 
mer was  Minister  to  France,  in  1784,  it  was 
partly  on  his  advice  to  the  Papal  Nuncio 
that  Carroll's  name  was  chosen  from  the  list 
submitted,  for  appointment  as  "  Superior  of 
the  Catholic  Clergy  in  the  United  States." 
Dr.  Carroll  was  a  man  of  learning,  of  lofty 
character  and  unaffected  piety,  of  courtly 
address  and  winning  manners.  (From  the 
Archbishop's  portrait  by  Gilbert  Stuart  our 
engraving  is  taken.) 

Dr.  Carroll's  removal  to  another  sphere, 
with  its  engrossing  duties,  left  him  little 
leisure  for  personal  supervision  of  the  infant 
college  ;  b'ut  his  character  and  influence  had 
certainly  much  to  do  with  its  final  success. 
The  site  was  chosen  by  himself.  Though 
the  first  building  was  put  up  in  1789,  classes 
were  not  formally  opened  till  the  fall  of 
1791,  when  the  first  Catholic  college  in  the 
United  States  started  with  the  Rev.  Robert 
Plunkett  for  first  president  and  William 
Gaston,  of  North  Carolina,  for  first  pupil. 
The  career  of  that  eminent  jurist  and  states- 
man made  it  an  auspicious  beginning.  A 
pane  in  one  of  the  windows  of  the  old  col- 
lege still  bears  his  name  where  he  cut  it  in 
1791.  His  son  and  namesake  was  a  student 
at  the  college  many  years  after,  and,  grad- 
uating at  West  Point,  was  killed  by  the 
Indians  in  the  Mormon  war.  In  the  same 
first  class  with  the  elder  Gaston  were  Enoch 
and  Benedict  Fen  wick,  both  in  turn  presi- 
dents of  the  college,  and  the  latter  subse- 
quently Bishop  of  Boston.  From  the  first, 
attention  was  given  to  the  classics,  which 
soon  won  for  the  college  a  reputation  not 
since  lost,  and  the  new  school  grew  so 
rapidly  in  favor  that  the  corner-stone  of  the 
North  Building  was  laid  in  1794,  though 
lack  of  funds  deferred  its  completion  to 
1808.  Father  Plunkett  was  succeeded  by 
Rev.  Robert  Molyneux,  who,  after  a  short 
service,  gave  way  to  the  Abbe  Dubourg, 
afterward  Bishop  of  New  Orleans  and  Arch- 
bishop of  Besangon,  in  France. 

Father  Dubourg's  term  yields  us  one  in- 
teresting episode — a  formal  visit  of  Wash- 
ington to  the  college,  in  response  to  a  call 
of  its  Faculty  upon  him.  This  must  have 
been  in  1797,  since  "he  was  received  with 
a  poetical  address  of  welcome  by  Robert 
Walsh,  aetat  12,"  afterward  to  become 
widely  known  as  editor  and  publicist,  and, 
later,  as  United  States  Consul  to  Paris. 
Robert  Walsh  was  twelve  when  he  entered 
college  in  1797.  Washington  rode  up  un- 
attended to  the  gate,  where  he  alighted  and 


668 


GEORGETOWN  COLLEGE. 


hitched  his  horse  to  the  palings.  He  was 
welcomed  by  Professor  Matthews,  afterward 
president  of  the  college  (in  1808).  This  visit 
of  the  first  President  may  almost  be  said  to 
have  set  a  precedent,  since  for  many  years 
his  successors  have  not  failed  to  give  out 
the  medals  and  premiums  at  the  college 
commencements.  The  name  is  a  familiar 
one  on  the  college  rolls,  Augustine  and 
Bushrod,  sons  of  Judge  Bushrod  Washing- 


not  only  removed  one  great  stumbling- 
block — the  lack  of  skilled  teachers,  but 
their  ratio  studiorum  supplied  for  the  first 
time  a  full  and  symmetrical  college  course. 
The  completion  of  the  North  Building  soon 
after  gave  house-room  to  the  students  and 
professors  who  had  been,  the  former  al- 
ways, the  latter  often,  forced  to  reside  in  the 
town. 

Nevertheless,  the  new  custodians  had  to 


1  BE    TO    MY    FAULTS    A    LITTLE    BLIND." 


ton,  the  General's  nephew,  having  entered 
in  1793,  George  W.,  son  of  the  younger 
Bushrod,  then  residing  at  Mount  Vernon, 
in  1830,  and  Henry,  son  of  Lawrence 
Washington,  of  Westmoreland  County,  Vir- 
ginia, in  1834. 

Mr.  Dubourg  was  succeeded,  in  1799, 
by  another  of  the  Bishops,  for  whom  the 
college  seems  then  to  have  been  a  nursery 
— Rev.  Leonard  Neale,  second  Archbishop 
of  Baltimore. 

About  this  time  the  change  occurred 
which  raised  the  college  from  the  level  of 
an  academy  to  something  nearer  the  prom- 
ise of  its  name.  In  1806,  the  society  of 
Jesus,  having  been  re-organized  in  the 
Province  *  of  Maryland,  the  schools  at 
Georgetown  were  put  under  their  care, 
where  they  have  since  remained.  The  se- 
vere and  systematic  training  of  the  Order 

*  In  the  internal  polity  of  the  Society,  a  "  prov- 
ince "  answers  nearly  to  a  secular  diocese,  and  its 
"  provincial  "  to  a  Bishop. 


face  serious  difficulties.  The  number  oi 
students  in  1806  had  sunk  to  fifteen,  and 
the  faculty  were  often  put  to  sore  straits 
The  earlier  presidents,  being  for  the  mosl 
part  missionary  priests,  were  much  of  theii 
time  in  the  saddle,  and  could  naturally  give 
but  a  divided  attention  to  their  office, 
Energy  and  perseverance,  however,  so  fai 
overcame  these  obstacles  that  not  only  was 
the  North  Building  finished,  as  we  have 
seen,  in  1808,  but  in  the  following  year  the 
faculty  were  able  to  establish  in  New  York, 
under  the  Rev.  Benedict  Fenwick,  a  semi- 
nary which  may  be  regarded  as  the  first  of 
the  many  offshoots  of  the  college,  planted, 
from  time  to  time,  in  various  cities.  This 
was  called  "  The  New  York  Literary  Insti- 
tution," and  the  school-building  was  erected 
on  the  site  of  the  Fifth  Avenue  Cathedral, 
the  land  being  bought  at  the  then  high 
price  of  $13,000. 

Congress,  on  May  ist,  1815,  granted  tc 
the  University  of  Georgetown  the  chartei 
which  empowers  it  to  confer  degrees  in  any 


GEORGETOWN  COLLEGE. 


669 


of  the  faculties.  It  was  not,  however,  till 
many  years  later  that  the  departments  of 
Medicine  and  Law  could  be  established,  the 
former  in  1851,  the  latter  in  1870.  A  school 
of  theology,  for  many  years  held  at  the  col- 
lege, was  some  time  since  removed  to 
Woodstock,  Md. 

The  charter  was  obtained  under  the  pres- 
idency of  Fr.  Grasse,  and  had,  no  doubt, 
its  share  in  swelling  the  attendance  to  100 
in  1817.  In  that  year  the  college  established 
in  the  capital  Washington  Seminary,  now 
Gonzaga  College.  From  that  point,  how- 
ever, the  number  of  students  fell  off  till  it 
touched  low- water  mark  with  30,  in  1826. 
But  in  that  year  a  new  departure  again 
turned  the  tide,  and  began  an  era  of  pros- 
perity, which  continued  steadily  brightening 
till  the  war,  and  is  now,  after  weathering 
that  almost  fatal  storm,  nearly  restored. 

The  initial  impulse  came  with  the  return 
of  several  young  American  Jesuits  from 
Rome,  whither  they  had  been  sent  to  per- 
fect their  literary  culture.  Assuming  various 
positions  in  the  faculty,  these  new-comers 
speedily  infused  fresh  life  and  vigor  into 
every  department.  Foremost  among  them 
were  Messrs.  Mulledy,  Ryder,  George  Fen- 
wick,  Young  and  McSherry,  the  first  of 
whom  became  president  in  1829,  with  F. 
Ryder  as  vice-president  and  Father  Fen  wick 
as  prefect,  or  director  of  studies.  To  these 
three  men  Georgetown  College  owes,  no 
doubt,  in  great  measure,  whatever  promi- 
nence she  has  since  won. 

Father  Mulledy,  or  Father  "  Tom,"  as  he 
was  generally  called,  was  a  man  not  only 
of  great  executive  ability,  but  a  certain 
brusque  geniality  combined  with  a  native 
force  and  resolution,  by  no  means  unservice- 
able in  dealing  with  the  turbulent  elements 
then  common  among  the  students.  More 
than  once  concerted  rebellions  threatened 
not  only  the  life  of  the  college  but  even  of 
some  obnoxious  prefect,  as  the  officers 
charged  with  the  discipline  of  the  school 
are  called.  In  the  famous  entente,  still  fond- 
ly embalmed  in  college  legend  as  the  Great 
Rebellion  of  '37,  a  prefect,  it  is  said,  had  to 
intrench  himself  in  his  room  against  a  mob 
of  malcontents,  thus  unpleasantly  reversing 
the  old-time  school  trick  of  "  barring-out." 
A  story  is  told  of  President  Mulledy,  while 
still  a  scholastic, — a  Jesuit  is  so  known 
previous  to  ordination, — which  marks  the 
temper  of  the  man,  and  the  occasional 
roughness  of  the  material  he  had  to  mold 
to  ways  of  peace  and  gentleness.  While 
teaching  class  one  day,  a  burly  backwoods- 


man, renowned  for 
fistic  prowess,  de- 
fied his  authority, 
and  proposed  to 
throw  him  out  of 
the  window  if  he 
insisted  on  it.  It 
was  a  crisis,  as  all 
present  knew,  and 
unless  the  teacher 
could  command  it, 
his  usefulness  was 
gone.  Mr.  Mulledy, 
without  stopping 
the  lesson,  quietly 
sent  to  his  President 
for  permission  to 
treat  the  defiance  in 
his  own  way,  and, 
that  obtained,  tuck- 
ed up  his  soutane 
and  gave  battle  to 
his  refractory  pupil, 
polishing  him  off 
artistically,  to  the 
delight  of  his  class. 
It  is  even  said 
that  he  completed 
the  challenger's  pre- 
scription by  pitch- 
ing him  out  of  the 
window,  which,  for 
the  story's  sake,  as 
the  window  was  a 
low  one,  one  would 
like  to  believe. 
However  this  may 
be,  it  is. safe  to  say 
that  that  teacher's 
authority  was  not 
again  questioned, 
nor  was  there  ever  a 
more  popular  presi- 
dent. Boys  do  not 
dislike  to  see  their 
teacher  abdicate  his 
throne  on  occasion, 
and  show  himself 
of  the  same  flesh 
and  blood  as  them- 
selves. Perhaps 
few  schools  in  the 
country  had  a  wild- 
er set  of  students 
than  sometimes 
gathered  in  George- 
town, and  about 
the  borders  of  the 
skating  pond  and 


FEEDING    THE    PRISONER. 


670 


GEORGETOWN  COLLEGE. 


the  canal  yet  linger  vague  but  thrilling 
traditions  of  terrific  "  town  and  gown " 
rows  in  days  gone  by. 

President  Mulledy's  term  of  eight  years 
was  a  period  of  activity  and  progress.  The 
number  of  students  was  largely  increased, 
especially  from  Virginia,  his  native  State, 
where  his  popularity  was  great.  Many  im- 
provements were  made,  and  new  buildings 
erected.  In  1831  the  west  building  of  the 
south  row  was  begun,  and  finished  in  1833. 
This  gave  a  long-needed  hall  for  studies 
and  commencement  exercises,  which,  up  to 
that,  had  been  held  in  old  Trinity  Church. 
At  the  same  time  the  west  half  of  the  infirm- 
ary was  built. 

A  no  less  important  achievement  in  the 
eyes  of  every  true  lover  of  the  college  was 
the  completion  of  "The  Walks."  The 
origin  of  this  charming  woodland  prome- 
nade is  said  to  have  been  an  ordinary  cow- 
path,  first  enlarged  by  the  then  owner  of  the 
land  in  1826.  Upon  his  joining  the  Order 
as  a  lay  brother,  soon  after  he  extended 
his  labors,  and  with  no  other  instrument 
than  a  spade,  a  natural  turn  for  landscape 
gardening,  produced  a  little  sylvan  para- 
dise. Starting  from  the  greenhouse  and 
gymnasium  at  the  east  end  of  the  north 
building,  "The  Walks"  wind  along  the 
sides  of  a  romantic,  deeply  wooded  glen,  in 
an  irregular  semicircle  about  the  college 
buildings,  for  nearly  a  mile.  Through  the 
center  of  this  glen  bickers  a  slim  rivulet, 
under  hospitable  shades  of  pine  and  poplar 
that  make  one  think  involuntarily  of  the 
lovely  lines  he  dares  not  quote,  however, 
even  in  academic  solitudes.  Nowadays 
Huxley  has  dismounted  Horace,  and  only 
the  pedantry  of  science  is  forgiven.  Here 
has  always  centered  much  of  .the  poetry 
and  pleasure  of  college  life ;  here  the  stu- 
dent came  to  fight  his  battles,  physical  and 
metaphysical — to  cram  for  examination  in 
its  cool  silence  or  to  pummel  his  enemy  in 
its  unguarded  remoteness ;  hither  stole  to 
enjoy  the  furtive  pipe  in  days  when  smok- 
ing was  a  college  crime.  It  sometimes 
chanced  that  an  amiable  professor  was 
encountered  "  on  like  errand  bent,"  when 
the  freemasonry  of  the  weed  would  triumph 
over  the  harshness  of  discipline  in  a  pleas- 
ant little  comedy  of  diplomatic  blindness. 
Now  that  "  The  Walks  "  are  free,  and  smok- 
ing is  no  longer  forbidden  to  the  senior 
students,  these  fearful  joys  of  the  past  must 
be  sadly  curtailed.  It  seems  improbable 
that  a  collegian  should  ever  enjoy  a  per- 
mitted pastime  as  thoroughly  as  a  forbidden 


one.  But  since  these  privileges  are  some- 
times denied  by  way  of  penalty,  even  the 
student  of  the  present  may  have  his  taste 
of  precarious  delight. 

During  Father  Mulledy's  term  also,  in 
1830,  the  college  museum  and  library  were 
arranged  in  the  rooms  they  now  occupy,  at 
opposite  ends  of  the  tower  corridor  in  the 
north  building.  These  quarters  are  quite 
inadequate,  and  the  library,  in  particular, 
needs  urgently  the  roomier  accommodations 
designed  for  it  in  the  new  building  which  is 
to  make  the  west  side  of  the  college  quad- 
rangle, and  which  it  is  hoped  to  begin  dur- 
ing the  current  year.*  The  present  library, 
23  by  33,  holds,  with  the  octagonal  tower 
chamber  adjoining,  only  a  part  of  the  30,000 
books  of  the  college.  The  usefulness  of  the 
collection,  in  many  respects  valuable  and  in 
some  unique,  is  impaired  by  its  enforced 
want  of  order.  The  museum  has  a  rare 
assortment  of  shells,  a  good  one  of  birds, 
and,  for  its  size,  an  excellent  cabinet  of  miner- 
alogy and  geology.  There  are,  too,  many 
interesting  reminders  of  famous  men  besides 
those  of  Decatur  already  mentioned.  But, 
for  the  reasons  given,  neither  library  nor 
museum  is  quite  what  the  friends  of  the  col- 
lege should  wish,  though  far  better  than 
could  have  been  expected  from  the  limited 
means  at  the  command  of  the  faculty. 

Considering  the  small  number  of  her 
alumni,  Georgetown  counts  among  them  a 
fair  proportion  of  distinguished  names  in 
every  walk  of  life :  United  States  senators 
and  congressmen,  judges  and  lawyers  of 
eminence,  bishops  and  governors  of  States. 

The  record  of  this  period  would  be  in- 
complete without  some  notice  of  Father 
George  Fenwick.  An  admirable  talker,  a 
good  teacher,  a  sound  scholar,  he  seems  to 
have  had  an  especial  gift  in  winning  the 
affections  of  all  with  whom  he  came  in  con- 
tact, and  no  one  has  left  a  deeper  personal 
impression  upon  the  college  history.  Father 
Fenwick  did  much  to  improve  and  expand 
the  order  of  studies ;  but  it  is  as  a  man  and 
not  as  professor,  though  an  excellent  one, 
that  he  is  still  fondly  remembered.  The 
"  boys  "  of  his  day  have  scores  of  stories 
concerning  his  kindliness,  his  wit,  his  good- 
humored  help  in  shielding  them  against  the 
consequences  of  college  scrapes.  He  died 
at  the  college  in  1857,  and  is  buried  in  its 
pretty  little  grave-yard. 


*  1877.  As  already  stated,  this  building  is  now 
completed,  and  the  library,  museum,  etc.,  removed 
to  it 


GEORGETOWN  COLLEGE. 


671 


Father  McSherry,  who  had  been  the  first 
provincial  in  Maryland,  suc^eded  F.  Mul- 
ledy ;  he  was  in  ill  health  at  the  time, 
and  died  during  his  term.  Thence  till  1851 
Dr.  Ryder  alternated  with  Dr.  Mulledy  in 
the  rectorship,  and  the  college  continued  to 
prosper.  Under  the  former,  in  1843,  with 
the  aid  of  Fathers  Stonestreet,  Curley  and 
Thomas  Meredith  Jenkins,  of  Baltimore, 
the  Astronomical  Observatory  was  estab- 
lished. 

At  the  observatory  Father  Curley  has 
since  been  in  charge,  and  here  he  first  deter- 
mined the  true  meridian  of  Washington.  A 
distinction  his  unassuming  nature  would 
value  more  highly  is  to  have  won  an  abid- 
ing place  in  the  affections  of  so  many  gen- 
erations of  his  pupils,  for  whom  his  gentle 
erudition  has  realized  Pope's  character  of 
Gay. 

In  1843,  also,  was  established  the  fourth 
of  the  colleges  that  trace  their  origin  to 
Georgetown — the  College  of  the  Holy  Cross, 
at  Worcester,  opened  on  November  2d  of 
that  year,  with  Father  Mulledy  as  president, 
and  a  faculty  from  the  banks  of  the  Poto- 
mac. For  many  years,  also,  the  parent 
university  conferred  degrees  on  the  gradu- 
ates of  Worcester,  to  which  a  charter  had 
been  denied  by  the  Massachusetts  Legisla- 
ture. This  disability  was  removed,  and  a 
charter  to  confer  all  degrees  but  that  of 
medicine  granted  to  the  college  at  Worcester, 
in  1865.  A  like  charter  had  been  given  two 
years  before  to  Boston  College,  the  faculty 
of  which  was  in  like  manner  chiefly  supplied 
from  Georgetown.  Both  Worcester  and 
Boston  colleges  have  already  attained  a 
vigorous  and  independent  growth.  It  is 
not  the  least  of  Georgetown's  claims  to 
praise  that  she  has  been  able,  out  of  her 
slender  resources,  to  establish  such  schools, 
and  to  furnish  such  masters  for  them. 

In  1848,  the  political  troubles  in  Europe 
gave  the  college  faculty  an  accession  of 
strength,  including  Fathers  Sestini,  Ciampi 
Rosa,  Secchi  and  Sacchi — Secchi  being  the 
famous  Roman  astronomer,  and  Sacchi  per- 
haps the  most  finished  Latin  poet  we  have 
had  in  America,  and  one  of  the  foremost 
linguists  of  the  day.  At  this  time  the  gas- 
works were  constructed,  by  which,  the 
college  buildings  became  the  first  in 
Georgetown  to  be  lighted  with  gas,  and  in 
1851  the  medical  department  was  opened 
and  has  since  been  in  successful  operation. 

The  Reverend  C.  H.  Stonestreet  brought 
to  the  presidency  in  1851  many  admirable 
qualifications  for  the  office,  which  he  had, 


however,  short  time  to  exercise.  Being 
made  provincial  the  year  after,  he  was  suc- 
ceeded by  the  Reverend  B.  A.  Maguire,  a 
name  familiar  to  Washington  ears,  under 
whose  energetic  guidance  the  college 
reached  its  climax  of  success.  In  1854, 
the  large  east  building  of  the  south  row  was 
erected  for  younger  students,  and  a  green- 
house built  and  gardens  laid  out  behind 
the  north  building. 

Since  1859  the  college  has  boasted  of  two 
military  companies  (of  senior  and  junior  stu- 
dents), drilling  as  light  infantry,  with  arms 
and  accouterments  furnished  by  the  Gov- 
ernment. Their  parades  in  Washington, 
when,  to  the  inspiring  strains  of  the  college 
band,  they  were  sometimes  reviewed  by  the 
Secretary  of  War,  were  occasions  of  much 
joy  and  excitement,  not  only  in  college  but 
in  Georgetown,  the  staid  old  borough  actu- 
ally waking  up  to  honor  her  youthful  war- 
riors. The  war  came,  to  turn,  for  many  of 
them,  their  mimic  wars  to  deadly  earnest, 
and  kept  them  facing  each  other  on  South- 
ern battle-fields,  from  which  too  few  were 
to  return. 

The  war  was  a  sad  blow  to  the  college, 
not  alone  in  lessening  the  attendance,  but 
in  the  military  occupation  which,  beginning 
on  May  ist,  i86i,at  an  hour's  notice,  lasted 
till  the  4th  of  July  following.  In  turn  the 
Sixty-ninth  New  York  and  the  Seventy-ninth 
Highlanders  were  quartered  in  the  south 
row,  which  they  nearly  filled, — professors 
and  students  being  often  halted  for  the 
countersign  in  going  about  their  necessary 
duties.  So,  for  two  months,  the  gown  made 
way  for  the  sword,  and  the  boys  found  a 
new  reading  for  their  Cicero.  It  was  a 
strange  medley  of  war  and  science — the 
rattle  of  musket-butts  in  the  corridors  punc- 
tuating a  re'citation,  and  military  battalions 
deploying  on  the  ball-field.  Nor  was  greater 
excitement  wanting, — the  enemy  being  so 
near  that  night-alarms  were  frequent,  and 
the  "  long  roll  "  often  broke  the  students' 
sleep. 

Nevertheless,  during  this  and  a  much 
longer  occupation  in  the  following  year, — 
when  the  college,  having  served  as  a  bar- 
rack, was  again  taken  for  a  hospital  after  the 
second  Bull  Run, — studies  went  on  unin- 
terruptedly, though  the  attendance  fell  from 
350  to  120.  The  presidency  of  the  Rev. 
John  Early  had  opened,  in  1859,  with  brilliant 
prospects,  thus  speedily  clouded.  With  the 
close  of  the  war,  however,  students  came 
back ;  among  them  more  than  one  who  had 
made  his  campaigns,  and,  like  Napoleon's 


672 


GEORGETOWN  COLLEGE. 


conscript,  was  a  veteran  before  his  beard; 
and  the  college  has  now  something  like  its 
old  numbers,  while  it  is,  in  point  of  comfort 
for  the  pupil  and  efficiency  in  the  methods 
and  appliances  of  study,  better  equipped 
than  ever  before. 

The  opening  of  the  Law  School,  in  1870, 
added  a  third  faculty  to  the  university. 
Like  the  medical  department,  it  is  situated 
in  Washington,  and  gains  thereby  similar 
advantages.  Besides  having  the  Congres- 
sional Law  Library  at  command,  the  student 
can  follow  all  the  forms  of  judicial  proced- 
ure, from  the  lowest  local  tribunal  to  the 
Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States.  Its 
usefulness  is  enhanced  by  the  fact  that  the 
lectures  are  delivered  in  the  evening.  Up 
to  this  time,  the  university  diploma  has. 
been  conferred  on  seventy-nine  Bachelors  of 
Law. 

Father  Early — replaced  by  Father  Ma- 
guire  in  1866 — received  the  presidency  in 
1870,  but  died  in  1874,  as  deeply  regretted 
as  he  was  greatly  beloved.  He  was  suc- 
ceeded by  the  Rev.  P.  A.  Healey,  whose 
progressive  and  enlightened  policy,  admin- 
istered by  an  able  corps  of  professors,  has 
promoted  at  once  the  comfort  of  the  stu- 
dents and  the  effectiveness  of  their  studies. 
In  the  former  respect  the  college  now  lacks 
few  of  the  ameliorations  which  the  modern 
collegian  deems  essential  to  his  welfare, 


REV.    B.    A.    MAGUIRE,    S.    J. 


except  that  of  separate  rooms.  This  privi- 
lege is,  as  yet,  accorded  only  to  the  gradu- 
ating class  ;  for  the  others  the  general  dor- 
mitory system  still  prevails,  but  only  for  want 
of  proper  accommodations.  With  these,  in 


REV.    JAMES    RYDER,    S.    J. 

time,  it  is  intended  to  allot  separate  rooms 
to  all,  at  least,  of  the  senior  students.  A 
new  gymnasium  was  lately  built  by  the 
faculty ;  a  billiard-room  was  opened  and  £ 
boat-club  organized.  That  other  preseni 
necessity  of  American  college  life,  a  college 
paper,  has  likewise  been  in  existence  since 
1872.  It  is  called  "  The  Georgetown  Col- 
lege Journal,"  is  a  neat,  twelve-page  quarto 
published  monthly  by  a  stock  associatior 
of  the  students,  and  is  edited  by  a  com- 
mittee of  the  stockholders  chosen  by  them 
selves  and  presided  over  by  a  member  of 
the  faculty,  who  acts  as  'editor-in-chief.  Ii 
is  owing  perhaps  to  this  that  "  The  George 
town  Journal  "  shows  a  degree  of  thoughi 
and  a  quietness  of  style  not  often  found  ir 
papers  of  its  class. 

Such,  in  its  main  outlines,  is  the  historj 
of  the  college.  It  remains  to  ask  whai 
peculiarities  of  discipline  and  study  distin- 
guish it  from  other  like  institutions.  Enougl: 
has  been  said  to  show  that  the  system  i$ 
quite  unlike  that  of  colleges  modeled  or 
the  general  plan  of  Yale  and  Harvard 
Georgetown  College  at  present  is  more 
akin  to  an  English  public  school,  or  to  the 
French  Lyceum  described  by  Matthew 
Arnold  in  the  "  Essays  in  Criticism  "  as  £ 
French  Eton.  The  Petit  College  of  the 
latter  has  its  counterpart  in  the  "  small  boys 
side."  of  Georgetown.  But  the  latter  has 
a  somewhat  wider  scope  and  higher  aims 
than  either  the  French  or  the  English  Eton, 
These  are  and  are  meant  to  be  but  stepping- 
stones  to  a  university,  of  which  George- 
town might  rather  be  called  the  corner- 
stone. 

At  present,  Georgetown  College  does  nol 


GEORGETOWN  COLLEGE. 


673 


claim  to  have  reached,  in 
its  academic  department, 
the  highest  standard  of 
its  hopes  and  aims.    This 
would   be,   under   exist- 
ing   conditions,    impos- 
sible to    achieve,  injudi- 
cious to  attempt.    It  does 
claim    to    be   thorough, 
so  far  as  it  goes,  and  to 
dismiss  its  graduate  the 
equal  in  scholastic  attain- 
ments of  the  graduate  of  any  other  Ameri- 
can college.     Indeed,  of  its  system  it  may 
be  said  that  while  the  pupil  eager  and  apt 
to   learn    will  be   able  to  learn  at  least  as 
much  here  as  elsewhere,  the  idler  or  slug- 
gard will  perhaps  be  made  to  learn  more. 
What  that  system  is,  it  may  be  of  interest 
briefly  to  explain. 

The  classes  are  eight  in  number,  four  of 
them  being  strictly  preparatory.     The  col- 
lege, indeed,  virtually  consists  of  a  grammar 
school  and  a  college  proper,  the  former  of 
which  will,  no  doubt,  be  dropped  whenever 
the  university  becomes  a  fact.     The  union 
is  not  without  its  advantages.     It  allows,  at 
least,  that  unity  of  design  which  most  Euro- 
pean  educators  are  agreed  should   subsist 
between  the  primary  school  and  the  upper. 
It  tends,  perhaps,  also  to  strengthen  the  bond  between 
teacher  and  pupil,  between  school-mates  as  opposed  to 
class-mates.     There  is,  at  least,  at  Georgetown,  none 
of  that  singular  class-spirit  which  marks    and  often 
mars  so  many  American  colleges.     True,  it  would  not 
be  tolerated,  but,  equally  true,  it  has  never  existed. 

The  classes  in  the  college  consist  of  two  of  rudi- 
ments, three  of  humanities  (or  grammar),  of  which 
the  first  answers  to  the  freshman ;  poetry,  rheto- 

ric   and 


THE    OLD    STAIR-WAY. 


THE    OLD    PUMP. 


philosophy — these  names  corre- 
sponding to  sophomore,  junior  and  senior, 
with  the  advantage  of  having  an  idea  be- 
hind them.  Up  to  the  class  of  philosophy, 
the  student  follows  three  parallel  courses : 
the  classical  and  main  one  embracing  Latin, 
Greek  and  English  grammar,  literature  and 
history;  the  mathematical,  as  far  as  calcu- 
lus and  mechanics;  and  one  of  modern 
languages,  including  French  and  German, 
as  far  as  poetry,  becoming  there  eclectic.  No 
attempt  is  made  to  read  many  or  recondite 
authors,  the  most  difficult  Latin  being  Taci- 
tus and  Juvenal ;  the  hardest  Greek,  Soph- 
ocles and  Demosthenes ;  the  aim  is  to 
ground  the  pupil  thoroughly  in  the  princi- 
ples of  each  language — to  imbue  him  with  its 
spirit  and  style.  Frequent  compositions  and 
translations,  in  prose  and  verse,  are  there- 
fore required  in  every  language  studied. 


VOL,  XX.— 44. 


674 


GEORGETOWN  COLLEGE. 


OLD    TRINITY    CHURCH. 


With  the  latter  class  the  study  of  belles- 
lettres  and  mathematics  ends.  The  pupil 
has  hitherto  been  providing  and  sharpening 
his  tools;  he  is  now  to  learn  to  use  them. 
The  highest  class  is  given  to  the  study  of 
logic,  metaphysics,  ethics  and  natural  right 
in  rational  philosophy,  and,  in  natural  sci- 
ence, physics,  mechanics,  astronomy,  geol- 
ogy and  botany.  In  the  former  branch  his 
text-books  and  lectures  are  in  Latin,  which 
he  is  now  supposed  to  have  mastered  suffi- 
ciently for  that  purpose ;  and  in  that  lan- 
guage, too,  his  public  disputations  once  a 
month  are  held,  and  his  essays  often  written. 
In  the  latter  branch  the  students  deliver 
public  lectures  and  essays,  with  experiments. 
In  a  post-graduate  course,  natural  right  is 
continued,  with  the  fundamental  principles 
of  civil,  political  and  international  law. 

The  merit  of  this  plan  seems  to  consist  in 
its  symmetry,  its  simplicity,  and  what  may 
be  termed  a  certain  elastic  reserve.  It  does 
not  crowd  the  pupil's  mind,  while  it  gives 
him  a  taste  for  study  and  trains  him  to 
think.  Certainly  it  has  stood  the  test  of 
time  and  success  :  for  practically  the  same 
to-day  as  Father  Maldonatus  arranged  it 
300  years  ago,  this  ratio  studiorum  has 
produced  as  many  men  eminent  in  every 
branch  of  human  learning  as  any  other 
system  in  the  world.  It  does  not  teach  a 
man  everything;  it  does  not  try;  that 
would  be  folly  within  the  limits  of  an  ordi- 


nary college-course ;  but  it  teaches  him  to 
teach  himself. 

The  discipline  is  of  the  kind  called  pater- 
nal, and  is,  doubtless,  in  many  points  stricter 
than  would  be  possible  or  useful  in  the  uni- 
versity. For  students  of  the  average  age 
of  those  at  Georgetown,  an  age  much  below 
the  average  of  most  American  colleges,  the 
discipline  is  probably  salutary.  From  much 
of  it  the  graduating  class  is  exempt.  The 
students,  who,  with  few  exceptions,  board  in 
the  college,  go  to  bed  and  get  up,  go  to 
studies  as  they  go  to  meals,  and  to  class  at 
stated  hours.  Studies  occupy  something 
over  four  hours  a  day,  in  the  common  study- 
hall,  under  the  eye  of  a  teacher ;  an  hour  in 
the  morning,  before  breakfast,  known  as 
morning  studies;  an  hour  at  noon,  after 
dinner,  middle  studies ;  and  night  studies, 
from  supper  till  bed-time  at  half-past  nine 
o'clock.  Classes  take  three  and  a  quarter 
hours  in  the  morning  and  two  and  a  quarter 
hours  in  the  afternoon.  For  sleep  eight 
hours  are  allotted  in  summer,  eight  and  a 
half  in  winter.  The  remainder  of  the  day, 
about  six  hours,  is  given  to  meals  and 
recreation,  with  the  exception  of  a  half- 
hour  in  the  morning  and  a  quarter-hour  in 
the  evening  devoted  to  religious  exercises. 
These,  of  course,  follow  the  Catholic  ritual, 
and  all  students — about  one-fourth  of 
the  number  are  usually  non-Catholic — are 


ARCHBISHOP     CARROLL. 


required  to  attend  them.  Of  Catholic 
students  it  is  besides  exacted  that  they 
shall  comply  with  certain  obligations  of 
their  faith.  Tuesdays  and  Thursdays  are 
half-holidays,  and  there  are  many  others 


GEORGETOWN  COLLEGE. 


675 


through  the  year, 
so  that  the  ten 
hours  daily  work- 
ing time  is  not  so 
arduous  as  it  might  seem. 
Following  this  scheme  of  education,  and 
in  the  face  of  difficulties  few  colleges  have 
had  to  contend  with,  Georgetown  College 
has  attained  a  position  in  which  her  friends 
and  alumni  may  take  a  just  pride.  Her 
faculty  are  not  content  to  stand  on  this ; 
they  mean  to  go  forward.  The  new  build- 
ing to  be  begun  this  year,  and  which  is  to 
include  a  library  and  chapel,  is  an  earnest  of 
their  sincerity  and  vigor.  With  but  a  tithe 
of  the  support  so  freely  lavished  on  other 
schools,  they  would  speedily  go  not  forward 
only  but  far.  There  has  been  much  talk  in 
Catholic  circles  of  establishing  an  American 


Catholic  Univer- 
sity which  shall  be 
worthy  of  the  name. 
It  might  be  well  for 
these  enthusiasts  to  try  what  a  little  help 
would  do  toward  lifting  to  that  dignity  the 
one  American  Catholic  College,  which  has 
as  yet  even  "  saluted  it  from  afar."  No 
university  was  ever  built  on  tuition  fees,  or 
in  a  day ;  no  real  university  was  ever  aught 
but  the  slow  accretion  of  years.  The  uni- 
versity must  have  traditions ;  it  must  have 
the  dignity  of  age — an  ancestry  of  culture, 
the  "  grace  of  a  day  that  is  dead."  There 
must  linger  about  it  that  aroma  of  learning 
which  time  alone  can  give.  Georgetown 
has  not  all  of  these ;  but  it  is  nearer,  by  a 
century,  to  having  them  than  any  university 
whose  foundation  shall  be  dug  to-day. 


THE    NEW    COLLEGE. 


676 


WHEN   WOODS  ARE    GREEN. 


WHEN  WOODS  ARE  GREEN. 

"Than  longen  folks  to  gon  on  pilgrimages." 


IF  lie  is  a  public  benefactor  who  makes 
two  blades  of  grass  grow  where  one  grew 
before,  surely  he  is  a  lover  of  his  kind  who 
discloses  one  more  hidden  haunt  where 
woods  are  green. 

It  is  one  requisite  of  a  summer  resting- 
place  that  it  shall  be  easy  of  access  and  yet 
not  easily  accessible;  by  which  we  mean 
that  those  who  want  to  go  there  must  be 
able  to  reach  it  comfortably,  while  those 


general  enthusiasm  for  islands,  let  us  choose 
rather  a  peninsula,  where  the  neck  of  land 
connecting  us  with  the  city  shall  be  so  long 
and  so  narrow  that  cottages  will  be  far 
removed  from  the  dusty  highways,  and  we 
may  walk  the  woods  and  fields  for  barber- 
ries or  cardinal-flowers  with  no  fear  of  meet- 
ing any  but  those  "rosy  tramps  of  turnpike 
and  of  lane  "  of  which  we  are  deliberately 
in  search. 


THE    SOUTH     BEACH. 


whom  you  do  not  wish  to  have  there  will 
never  think  of  trying  it.  Few  of  us  really 
wish  to  retire  to  the  "  interior  of  Massachu- 
setts "  beyond  the  reach  of  necessary  tele- 
grams ;  news  from  the  humming  city  must 
be  able  to  come  to  us,  even  if  never  deliber- 
ately sought.  It  is  scarcely  a  disadvantage 
that  the  New  York  and  New  Bedford  pro- 
peller does  not  stop  at  our  way-side  wharf, 
when  a  little  steamer  of  our  own  will  bring 
travelers  back  within  an  hour  to  a  cluster  of 
cottages  matronized  by  one  hotel,  which, 
with  no  glorious  rocks  like  Gloucester,  no 
sounding  surf  like  Narraganset,  no  notoriety 
like  the  Vineyard,  no  wooded  loveliness  like 
Naushon,  and  no  splendid  beach  like  Nan- 
tasket,  seems  at  first  to  offer  no  attractions 
that  need  bind  us  to  pause  here  rather  than 
at  any  other  point  along  the  shore.  The 
sea  is,  of  course,  indispensable;  but  com- 
munication by  land  is  by  no  means  unde- 
sirable; and,  far  from  sharing  the  present 


Whatever  charm  may  tempt  you  to  linger 
here  week  after  week,  and  lure  you  back 
again  summer  after  summer,  will  be  due 
solely  to  the  place  itself.  We  have  positively 
no  associations ;  no  trace  is  to  be  found  of 
even  the  ubiquitous  Washington ;  nor  will 
you  find  a  quaint  country-folk,  among  whose 
homes  you  may  search  for  old  clocks  and 
china.  There  will  be  here  none  but  your- 
selves, for  the  few  outlying  farms  that  supply 
the  occasional  berry  and  the  much-desired 
tomato  are  occupied  by  a  sturdy  race  of 
practical  farmers,  who  bring  your  household 
supplies  early  in  the  morning  and  are  gone 
again  before  your  eyes  have  opened  to  the 
necessity  for  omelet  and  beefsteak. 

A  certain  historical  haze  pervades  the 
atmosphere,  it  is  true ;  for  tradition  hath  it 
that  this  was  once  part  of  the  hunting- 
grounds  of  King  Philip,  and  that  the  Non- 
quitt,  which  is  said  to  bear  the  name  of 
King  Philip's  brother,  was  part  of  the  town- 


WHEN   WOODS  ARE   GREEN. 


677 


ship  originally 
purchased  by 
Mr.  William 
Bradford,  Cap- 
tain Stand ish  and  others,  for  "  thirty  yards 
of  cloth,  eight  moose-skins,  fifteen  axes, 
fifteen  hoes,  fifteen  pair  of  breeches,  eight 
blankets,  two  kettles,  one  clock,  £2  in 
wampum,  eight  pair  stockings,  eight  pair 
shoes,  one  iron  pot,  and  ten  shillings  in 
another  commoditie."  But  the  sign-boards 
bearing  Indian  names,  which  are  elab- 
orately erected  in  the  fields  and  marshes, 
point  rather  to  the  future  than  the  past 
glories  of  the  place ;  for  a  map  is  known 
to  exist  in  the  minds  of  present  proprietors 
of  the  soil,  on  which  those  who  appear  to 
be  lodging  in  a  vast  wilderness  are  seen 
really  to  reside  on  the  corner  of  Pequot 
and  Massasoit  avenues,  or  on  the  edge  of  a 
park  skirting  the  shore,  which  is  still  with 
blossomed  furze  un profitably  gay. 

That  its  architecture  will  never  be  the 
means  of  rescuing  Nonquitt  from  oblivion, 
will  be  inferred  on  learning  that  fifteen  days 
after  one  of  the  "  first  families  "  decided  to 
build  here,  they  were  in  the  house.  The 
early  settlers,  attracted  hither  by  the  delight 


of  boys  who  had  camped  out  year  after 
year  at  "  Bare-kneed  Rocks,"  intended  only 
a  release  from  culture  that  should  be  of  the 
most  primitive  description ;  but  man  is  at 
heart  a  civilized  animal;  the  instinct  for 
luxury  is.  unquenchable  in  his  breast;  one 
day  a  delicate  hammock  is  swung  quietly  on 
a  shady  piazza,  where  it  is  thought  it  will 
escape  observation,  and,  finding  that  we  all 
take  kindly  to  it,  a  brilliant  awning,  of  the 
most  desirable  city  make  and  texture,  makes 
its  more  conspicuous  appearance  at  the 
eastern  windows.  People  who  thought  noth- 
ing so  delightful  as  to  boil  their  own  eggs 
for  breakfast  over  a  spirit-lamp,  begin  to 
build  out  kitchens  and  to  hire  maids.  The 
flannel  dresses,  that  were  not  only  "so  sen- 
sible," but  "  so  comfortable,"  are  gradually 
exchanged  at  twilight  for  the  soft,  white 
camel's-hair,  or  even  for  an  occasional  mus- 
lin with  knots  of  pale-pink  ribbon.  We 
begin  to  have  three  mails  a  day,  and  the 
Sunday  papers.  One  by  one  we  add  red 
roofs  and  little  balconies  and  quaint  towers 
to  our  houses,  till  suddenly  we  find  a 
real  little  Newport  cottage  nestled  among 
us,  so  graceful,  so  unassuming  with  all 
its  beauty,  that  we  have  not  the  heart 


LIGHT-HOUSE     BY    DAY. 


678 


WHEN   WOODS  ARE    GREEN. 


to  cast   it   out,  and    secretly  plan  how  to 
make  our  own   look  exactly  like  it. 


&&  :**» 


THE    ROCKY    HEADLAND. 


What  sea-shore  was  ever  complete  with- 
out a  "  Point"?  This  of  ours  is  a  rocky 
headland,  rising  abruptly  from  the  water, 
crowned  by  the  low  juniper  with  its  snowy 
berries,  and  by  the  pale  New  England 
cedars,  desperately  holding  their  scant 
foliage  a  little  higher  beyond  the  reach 
of  the  pursuing  sea.  A  sharp  descent, 
and  you  come  upon  the  bathing  beach; 
a  tiny  curve  of  sand  almost  landlocked, 
with  magnificent  bowlders  tossed  one 
upon  another  at  the  furthest  point,  where 
on  the  sunniest  day  you  can  find  shelter 
for  an  hour's  reading  or  dreaming  in  their 
shadow.  Just  on  the  other  side  lies  the 
larger  curving  beach,  where  a  low  surf 
makes  silence  audible  with  soft  monotony 
of  sounds.  Happy  he  who  first  found 
this  silver  horse-shoe  at  his  feet! 

If    you    seek    your    hammock    early 
enough,  you  shall  see  the  sun  rise  timidly 
from  the  v/ater,  as  if  he  dared  not  hope 
to  find  agnin  the  lovely  scene  lie  looked 
on  yesterday;  then,  with    gathering  de- 
light, higher  and  higher  will  he  rise  on 
the    horizon,    scattering    before    him    a 
largess  of  rosy  gold  that  ripples  on  till  it 
reaches  your  very  feet,  while  instantly  every 


WHEN   WOODS  ARE    GREEN, 


679 


little  light-house  flame  that  has  been  watch- 
ing all  night  for  his  coming,  darts  from 
sight;  like  Semele,  struck  dead  by  the  glory 
of  the  god  she  had  herself  invoked. 

And  now  all  the  bay  dimples  with  breezy 


One  cannot  find  the  large  white  wings  to  bear 
A  strong  soul  where  it  will, — high  in  the  air 
I  see  the  little  sea-gulls   rise,  and  fly 
Swifter  than  yon  swift  ship  through  her  low  sky, 
Swifter  than  aught  save  longing  to  be  there! 
Are  small  white  wings  then  best  for  daring  flight  ? 


"THE    SHIP    HAS     SPREAD    HER    CANVAS." 


life  and  sunshine.  Anon  comes  the  merry 
company  of  bathers,  swinging  their  towels  ; 
and  though  at  first  the  little  landlocked 
beach  may  look  monotonous  to  the  bold 
swimmer  from  Narraganset  or  Long  Branch, 
one  morning's  plunge  will  convince  him 
that  there  are  compensations  in  a  silvery 
meadow,  where  ssvimming  ceases  to  be  ex- 
ertion and  becomes  absolute  rest.  So  safe, 
so  gently  shelving  is  the  beach,  that  children 
of  a  year  venture  fearlessly  into  sunny 
depths  where  undertow  was  never  heard  of, 
un chilled  by  the  caress  of  the  warm  waters. 
And  this  may  even  be  the  very  morning 
when  the  New  York  yachts,  with  all  sail  set, 


What  is  it  that  the  sea-gull  hopes  to  win? — 
A  nest  in  the  low  sand,  beyond  the  white 
Cool  breakers,  where  the  slender  reeds  begin 
To  mark  the  lonelier  marsh;  and  where  two  light 
Soft-folded  wings  hide  all  that  lies  within. 

As  the  splendor  of  high  noon  approaches, 
and  your  eyes  tire  of  the  dazzling  bay,  you 
have  only  to  turn  your  head  on  the  pillow 
in  your  hammock,  and  look  away  to  the 
westward,  over  the  restful  beauty  of  the 
marsh.  No  dread  miasma  need  be  feared 
from  that  soft  green  meadow;  it  is  health- 
fully drained,  and  the  pools  that  dot  it  here 
and  there  are  full  of  bright  clear  water,  and 
edged  with  deep  borders  of  meadow  pinks. 


THE     LIGHT-HOUSE    BY    NIGHT. 


sweep  into  the  bay,  "  a  sight  to  make  an 
old  man  young." 

The  ship  has  spread  her  canvas  wide  to  dare 

A  cold,  defiant  deep;  and  as  I  lie 

Here  on  the  listless  shore,  and  wonder  why 


The  droning  hum  of  insects,  "  like  tiniest 
bells  on  the  garment  of  Silence,"  the  distant 
mowers  busy  with  their  scythes,  the  tall 
grasses  glistening  in  the  sunlight  as  if 
sprinkled  with  bright  rain,  and  the  belt  of 


68o 


WHEN   WOODS  ARE    GREEN. 


woods 
yond, 

guile  you 
into  believ- 
ing that  this 
is  the  country  rather  than  the  shore ;  till, 
with  the  lengthening  shadows,  your  eyes 
gain  strength  again  to  sweep  slowly  to  the 
southward,  past  Mishaum  Point,  beyond 
which  the  open  sea  is  tossing,  past  Round 
Hills,  with  their  sudden  slopes  of  tender 
green,  and  over  the  sunlit  bay  again  to 
linger  on  the  islands. 

You  shall  spend  a  summer  of  three  months 
here,  and  never  see  those  lovely  islands 
twice  alike.  Sometimes,  indeed,  you  shall 
not  see  them  at  all,  though  the  sun  shines 
clear  in  the  heavens,  and  the  haze  that 
hides  them  is  so  delicate  that  it  is  an  added 
grace  to  the  landscape;  till  here  and  there 
it  lifts  on  the  horizon,  revealing  the  warm 
glow  of  deep-tinted  cliffs,  a  slope  of  sunny 
greenery,  or  a  bank  of  dazzling,  snow-white 
sand. 

The  shadows  gather.  Across  the  bay  a 
lonely  fisherman,  with  steady  sweep  of  the 
oars,  comes  bringing  for  your  early  tea  the 
delicious  lobster,  whose  life  he  has  consider- 
ately relieved  you  of  taking,  knowing  you  to 
be  a  director  of  the  "  Society  for  the,"  etc. 
The  sun  sets  in  a  splendor  of  blue  and  gold, 
and  instantly  the  light-house  lamp  flashes 


across  the  water,  though  it 
is  not  yet  dark, — bringing 
into  the  landscape  the  one 
element  that  to  Ruskin 
would  have  been  all  day 
lacking:  the  element  of 
human  endurance,  sympa- 
thy and  valor.  For  a  brief 
while  the  timid  crescent  of  a 
young  moon  tries  to  main- 
tain the  supremacy  of  nat- 
ure ;  but  it  soon  hides  itself, 
discouraged;  while  with  su- 
perb self-reliance  the  human 
glow  shines  on  across  the 
sea,  and  is  still  shining  when 
you  seek  your  couch,  to  be 
wrapped  in  slumber  which 
even  the  undismayed  mos- 
quito here  thoroughly  re- 
spects. 

If,  happily,  you  are  not 
condemned  by  indolence  or 
invalidism  to  the  slender 
joys  of  a  hammock,  great  are 
the  resources  for  further  en- 
tertainment. You  may  take 
the  wings  of  the  morning — the  large  white 
wings  of  the  Comet  or  the  Flash,  with  a 
native  skipper,  skillful  of  hand  and  garru- 
lous of  tongue — to  skim  over  the  bright  sur- 
face of  the  bay ;  either  dreaming  in  the  lazy 
shadow  of  the  sail,  or  pursuing  the  exhil- 
arating blue-fish.  Pursuing,  did  I  say  ? 
Nay ;  for  there  is  a  charm  peculiar  to  this 
manner  of  fishing  that  renders  it  especially 
suitable  to  the  tender  conscience  of  a  director 
of  the  "  Society  for  the,"  etc.  You  are  not 
pursuing  the  fish,  the  fish  is  pursuing  you ; 
you  flee  before  him  on  the  wings  of  the 
Comet  or  the  Flash,  as  if  in  horror  at  the 
temptation  to  catch  him  that  assails  you. 
If  he  chooses  to  follow,  if  he  even  catches 
at  the  slender  line  with  which  you  negli- 
gently troll,  are  you  to  blame  ?  So  fair  he 
is,  so  shining,  so  eminently  adapted  to  the 
frying-pan  and  the  fire,  that  you  feel  like 
addressing  him  in  his  last  writhings  with 
the  satire  of  the  cannibal  Mother  Goose : 

"  Not  wish  to  be  eaten  ?     Not  want  to  be  stewed  ? 
Then  go  and  be  raw !  " 

If  you  prefer  to  furl  your  sail  and  lie  at 
anchor,  you  may  bring  up  in  an  hour  fifty 
or  more  fish  with  whose  names  the  waiter 
at  the  tea-table  will  startle  the  uninitiated, 
by  shouting,  with  an  emphasis  to  which 
no  printer's  ink  can  do  justice :  "  Scup ! 
Squitteague  ! !  Tautog ! ! ! " 


WHEN   WOODS  ARE   GREEN. 


68 1 


Or  you  shall  walk ;  and,  if  your  nature  is 
scientific,  you  shall  make  many  a  discovery 
in  a  land  so  near  the  favorite  Penequese  of 
the  lamented  Agassiz.  And,  even  if  your 
love  of  nature  is  more  like  Wordsworth's 
than  like  Agassiz's, 

— "a  feeling  and  a  love 
That  has  no  need  of  a  remoter  charm 
By  thoughts  supplied,  nor  any  interest 
Unborrowed  from    the  eye," 

great  shall  be  your  delight  in  the  minuter 
pleasures  of  the  landscape.  The  little  four- 
leaved  clover  will  spring  up  before  your 
feet,  entreating  to  be  gathered.  The  ground 
is  bright  everywhere  ;  yellow,  not  with  the 
plebeian  buttercup,  but  with  the  sensitive 
wild  acacia,  or,  later  in  the  season,  splendid 
with  golden-rod.  It  is  either  red  with  ripen- 
ing cranberries,  that  you  may  crunch  pleas- 
antly beneath  your  feet  if  not  minded  to 
gather  them,  or  purple  with  marsh  rosemary, 
or  pink  and  blue  with  a  hundred  pretty 
blossoms  that  you  cannot  and  do  not  care 
to  name.  It  may  be  to  you  that  the  rare 
Siamese  lily  reveals  itself — two  water-lilies 
growing  from  a  single  stem  ;  or  the  scarlet 


leaning  forth  from  it,  a  silvery,  silken  cloud 
of  feathery  beauty.  The  boughs  of  the  old 
apple-trees  in  the  orchard  are  laden  with 
rich  lichen ;  the  cat-o'-nine-tails,  stiff  and 
straight  in  the  marshes,  and  the  tall  grasses 
waving  in  the  wind,  are  ready  with  a 
thousand  suggestions  for  embroidery.  You 
will  find  here  woods  so  beautiful  that 
you  shall  believe  yourself  for  the  moment 
at  Campton  or  Gorham ;  and,  if  you  are 
brave  enough  to  leave  the  half-worn  roads 
for  the  tempting  wilderness  on  either  side 
of  you,  great  shall  be  your  reward.  Splen- 
did tiger-lilies,  seven  feet  high,  shall  light 
you  on  a  path  otherwise  dark  with  the 
heavy  underbrush  through  which  you  must 
push  your  way ;  now  and  then  you  will 
come  upon  a  noble  oak  whose  magnificent 
growth  is  a  marvel  at  the  sea-shore;  and 
perhaps  you  will  stumble  on  a  small  prime- 
val forest  of  queer  old  trees,  so  different 
from  the  lighter  woods  about  them  that 
they  seem  like  a  colony  of  Wends,  come 
down  from  the  north  into  the  very  midst  of 
modern  life,  but  refusing  to  assimilate  any- 
thing of  either  the  strength  or  the  beauty 


THE    SEA-GULLS    WHEELING    THROUGH    THE    AIR. 


and  gold  Indian-pipe,  growing  gorgeous 
beside  her  snowy  sister.  For  you  the  tall 
and  slender  milkweed  skirts  anxiously  the 
road-side,  hoarding  its  white  loveliness  from 
common  gaze,  longing  to  be  borne  to  a  city 
home,  where,  in  the  warm  atmosphere  of 
culture  and  refinement,  like  the  beggar- 
maid  whom  King  Cophetua  loved,  it  will 
burst  slowly  its  sheath  of  green,  not  casting 
it  away  in  scorn  of  old  associations,  but 


that  is  around  them.  And  the  woodland 
ramble  will  end  at  a  stone  wall,  beyond 
which  lies,  in  the  peaceful  afternoon  sun- 
shine, a  farmer's  field,  with  a  hay-rick  so 
picturesque  that,  if  you  have  the  soul  and 
pencil  of  an  artist,  you  may  easily  compel 
it  to  pay  all  your  expenses  for  the  summer ; 
and  beyond  the  field  is  a  leafy  lane,  where 
the  barberry  "  droops  its  strings  of  golden 
flowers "  and  green  boughs  meet  above 


682 


WHEN   WOODS  ARE    GREEN. 


your  head ;  and,  as  you  wander  through  it, 
suddenly  all  the  splendor  of  the  sea  will 
burst  upon  you.  It  will  be  as  wonderful  as 
if  you  had  not  known  all  the  time  it  must 
be  there,  and,  for  an  instant,  there  will  fill 
your  mind  something  of  the  ecstacy  of  him 
who  stood 

"Silent,  upon  a  peak  in  Darien." 

Every  summer  resort  must  be  like  New 
Hampshire,  "  a  good  place  to  emigrate 
from."  There  must  be  pleasant  excursions 
not  only  in  it,  but  away  from  it.  Our 
piece  de  resistance  is  Gay  Head.  There  are 
few  days  in  the  summer  when  wind,  weather 
and  tide  will  combine  to  let  you  land  there ; 
three,  four  or  five  times,  you  shall  set  sail 
with  everything  apparently  in  your  favor, 
yet  not  be  able  to  reach  it.  Rare  then  is 
the  exhilarating  excitement  when  at  last 
you  find  yourself  beyond  the  swift  tides  of 
Quicks  Hole,  with  the  glorious  headland 
shining  in  the  distance.  In  the  shifting 
morning  lights,  the  color  of  Gay  Head 
is  not  simply  that  of  a  red  cliff;  it  pales 
and  deepens  and  changes  with  ever-varying 
tinge,  till,  as  we  draw  nearer,  the  other 
colors  come  out  in  bold  relief,  green  and 
purple,  yellow  and  white  and  black, — not 
in  a  mottled  mixture  of  unmeaning  brill- 


iancy, but  in  broad,  alternate  bands,  distinct 
in  their  separation.  Three  hours'  sail 
from  Nonquitt  leaves  us  at  anchor  where 
the  Indians  of  the  place,  or  even  strong 
young  oarsmen  of  our  own  party,  row  us 
easily  ashore.  We  climb  the  steep  bank, 
feeling  it  a  duty  to  pause  awhile  at  the 
beacon  crowning  the  precipice  with  one  of 
the  finest  lights  on  the  coast,  as  if  man  had 
felt  himself  challenged  to  match  his  most 
splendid  achievement  witli  the  marvelous 
creation  of  nature ;  then  we  hurry  down  the 
cliff  again,  feeling  as  if  the  red  clay  beneath 
our  feet  must  be  a  burning  lava,  till  we  reach 
the  foot  and  gaze  up  at  it  from  beneath  with 
ever-increasing  sense  of  its  singular  beauty. 
For  the  charm  of  Gay  Head  is  stronger  the 
closer  you  are  to  it ;  to  the  "  peasant  gath- 
ering brushwood  in  its  ear  "  it  is  even  more 
wonderful  than  to  the  distant  sailor  who  can 
scarcely  believe  his  vision.  Your  awe  is 
never  greater  than  when  you  stand  upon  its 
shore  with  some  of  the  red  clay  in  your 
hand  ;  for  so  yielding  is  the  beautiful  bright 
surface  that  you  can  pick  it  up  in  handfuls, 
or  shape  it  with  a  penknife  into  any  form 
you  choose.  Indeed,  so  easily  does  it 
crumble  into  a  fine  powder  that  perhaps  the 
best  way  of  preserving  it,  if  you  care  to 
preserve  it,  is  in  vials.  But  those  of  us 


AUTUMN    FLOWERS    AND    PLANTS. 


WHEN   WOODS  ARE   GREEN. 


683 


THE    SALT     VATS. 


who  are  not  geologists,  who  care  in  nature 
for  no  charm  "  unborrowed  from  the  eye," 
and  who  believe  firmly  with  Emerson  that 
all  these  things  will  "  leave  their  beauty  on 
the  shore,"  since  we  cannot  "  bring  home 
the  river  and  the  sky,"  prefer  to  carry  away 
with  us  only  a  memory  of  the  splendid 
headland,  as  we  trim  our  sail  for  the  after- 
noon return. 

The  bay  is  broad  enough  to  give  one  a 
wild,  free  sense  of  being  unrestrained  ;  yet 
we  have  the  advantage  over  places  directly 
on  the  ocean,  that  there  are  innumerable 
charming  spots  which  can  be  made  the 
object  of  a  sail,  if  sailing  is  not  in  itself  to 
you  its  own  excuse  for  being.  Of  these, 
perhaps  the  loveliest  is  Naushon.  First, 
catch  your  breeze,  and,  once  caught,  you 
may  be  reasonably  sure  of  its  continuance. 
It  has  been  the  remarkable  experience  of 
one  summer  that  no  sailing  party  has  been 
becalmed.  Eight  o'clock  has  invariably 
found  us  at  our  moorings,  not  too  late  to 
secure  the  cup  of  coffee  or  tea  which  is  all 
we  ever  desire  after  the  delicious  lunches 
that  result  from  the  combined  resources  of 
the  hotel  and  the  housekeepers. 

Hadley's  Harbor  is  the  most  beautiful 
entrance  to  Naushon ;  a  narrow  opening, 
more  of  a  river  than  a  cove,  compelling  you 
to  a  series  of  short  tacks  by  the  picturesque 
windings  that  lead  you  on  beyond  each 
beckoning  bend.  Tempting  woods  skirt  the 
very  shore,  pleasant  with  the  hum  of  insects, 
the  flight  of  birds  and  drowsy  wanderings 
of  cattle.  The  delicate,  shining  verdure, 
the  fragrance  and  freshness  and  delicious 
summer-sounds,  are  in  singular  contrast  to 


the  barren  and  uninviting  shores  of  every 
other  island  that  you  know. 

And  now  it  is  the  very  last  of  August. 
For  the  beauty  and  the  belle  the  melancholy 
days  have  come  when  there  will  be  no  more 
visitors,  no  more  officers  from  the  Constella- 
tion, no  more  hops,  no  more  clam-bakes, 
no  more  moonlight  drives.  The  water  is 
colder,  though  not  yet  cold,  and  the  bathing- 
houses  have  a  pitiable  appearance  of  having 
outlived  their  usefulness.  There  will  be 
fewer  sails  and  very  little  rowing,  for  white 
caps  dot  the  bay,  the  quickened  breezes 
send  a  lovely  surf  upon  the  shore,  and  if  a 
south-east  storm  should  come  up,  glorious 
will  be  the  fine  white  spray  that  dashes  high 
over  the  rocks.  But  if  the  sun  shine,  what 
royal  pleasure  for  the  domestic  "  tramp  !  " 
Cast  aside  your  shade-hat  for  the  season, 
and  revel  in  the  exhilarating  brightness ;  for 
who  shall  sing  aright  of  September  sunshine  ? 
The  pale-pink  rose  still  climbs  over  the  stone 
wall,  beside  the  more  brilliant  woodbine ; 
water-lilies  still  linger  on  the  ponds,  though 
low  bushes  are  beginning  to  take  the  vivid 
coloring  that  will  make  them  by  and  by  a 
glory  in  the  marshes.  If  you  still  haunt  the 
woods,  little  brooks  will  startle  you  by  run- 
ning suddenly  across  your  path  with  a  hand- 
ful of  cardinal  flowers,  which  they  leave 
gracefully  at  your  feet,  and  rumor  says  that 
after  you  are  gone  the  shy  fringed-gentian 
ventures  out  into  the  sun. 

Nor  shall  you  be  confined  to  the  silent 
companionship  of  flowers  and  leaves.  The 
sparrows  walking  your  piazza. ;  the  little 
field-mice  that  build  beneath  the  steps  and 
sit  at  their  door- ways,  nibbling  fearlessly  in 


WHEN  WOODS  ARE   GREEN. 


your  very  presence;  the  brave  quail  running 
through    the   grass   between    you    and    the 
shore,  or  the  white-throated  plover  falling  an 
easy   prey  to  your   gun  ;  the   meadow-lark 
with  its  few  lovely  notes;  the  friendly  chip- 
munk, unable  to  control  his  curiosity  at  your 
invading   footsteps;  the  sea-gulls  wheeling 
through  the  air,  or  those  will-o'-the-wisps  of 
the  sea,  the   white-winged   coots,  that  dive 
and  re-appear  in  such  unexpected  places  if 
you  startle  them  from  their  stately,  swan-like 
swimming;    the  lone  woodpecker,  clinging 
with  forlorn  hope  to  the  post  of  a  rail  fence- 
the  reflective  kingfisher,  standing  solitary  on' 
a  small  rock  m  the  water,  or  the  still  more 
reflective    heron,   erect  on  one  leg   in   the 
marsh,  and  stiff  as  the  cat-o'-nine-tails  behind 
him,— all  these  shall  yield  their  charm  to  you 
You  may  even  go  crabbing,  and  with  a  slen- 
der pole  which  has  a  bit  of  meat  fastened  to 
a  string,  attract  the  unsuspicious  crab  who  ! 
is    ured  on  to  his  supper— or,  more  espe-  i 
cially,  to  your  supper— by  no  cruel  hook  or  ' 
treacherous  flash  of 
gun.        If    he     is 
caught,  it  is  his  own 
claws    that     catch 
him,  fastened  of  his 


— • 

woke  at  midnight  to  ask,  in  an  impressive 
whisper:  "Jimmie,  do  you  suppose  it  is 
wicked  to  rob  birds'  nests  for  purposes  of 
science  ?  " 

.  On  the  joth  of  September,  if  the  weather 
is  favorable,  you  shall  see  a  pretty  sight. 
Then  the  swallows  begin  to  think  of  migra- 
ting In  little  groups  they  sweep  round  and 
round  above  a  single  cottage,  or  cling  to  a 
twig  or  bending  reed, 

"  Clatterin'  in  tall  trees, 
An  settlin'  things  in  windy  congresses  ;" 


tion — type,  alas !  of 
so  much  in  human 
nature!  And  on 
your  way  home 
across  the  fields, 
you  may  pick  up  a 
bird's  nest  at  your 
feet,  built  curiously 
on  a  tripod  of  slen- 
der grasses,  and 
perhaps  tempting 
the  conscience  of 
the  little  fellow  who 


m 


"THE  BRAVE  QUAILS." 


till  the  sense  of  the  meeting  is  discovered  to 
be  favorable,  and  they  gather  in  one  large 
group  to  wing  their  swift  way  southward 

A  pleasant  excursion  for  a  clear  cool 
day  is  to  the  salt  works;  the  ancient  wind- 
mills, the  queer  rocks  filled  with  brushwood 
through  which  the  salt  water  is  allowed  to 
trickle,  the  curious  low  vats  where  it  after- 
ward accumulates,  with  their  tiny  movable 
roofs  and,  more  than  all,  the  exquisite  crys- 
tals that  it  is  impossible  to  carry  far  away— 
all  these  will  be  well  worth  the  walk  or 
drive. 

And  if  you  long  once  more  to  send  your 
row-boat  "cleaving  the  liquid  paths  of  silver 
sea,    the  light-house  will  well  repay  a  visit 
Ihe  ancient  mariner  will  be  sitting  in  what 
seems  now  the  loveliest  and  coolest  of  sum- 
mer parlors,  but  which  is  in  reality  a  place 
so  exposed  to  the  fury  of  the  elements  that 
he   sits  here  winter    nights    when    on    the 
watch,  precisely  because  the  discomfort  to 
which  he  is  exposed  will  not  suffer  him  to 
fall   asleep.      The  place   is   pretty  enough 
now,  with  its  little  imitations  of  luxury-  and 
you  may,  perhaps,  wonder  what  Hawthorne 
would  have  made  of  the  little  girl  who  was 
born  on  the  island,  and  taught  to  leap  so 
fearlessly  from  rock  to  rock  that,  when  she 

was  first  taken 
to  the  shore 
and  had  to  walk 
on  level  ground, 
she  stumbled 
and  fell  as  other 
children  do  on 
rocks. 

But  there 
comes  a  time 
when  even  our 
loyalty  begins 
to  yield.  The 
days  are  not 
only  colder,  but 
cold.  The  doors 


WHEN  WOODS  ARE   GREEN. 


685 


'THE   WHITE-WINGED   COOTS." 


that  all  summer  have  opened  hospitably  from 
the  piazza  directly  into  the  parlor,  are  now 
inhospitably  closed  against  the  intruding 
wind.  The  white  matting  aad  uncushioned 
Wakefield  chairs  make  us  shiver  to  look  at 
them.  Golden-rod  and  cardinals  brighten, 
but  cannot  warm.  At  evening  we  gather 
in  the  billiard-room  or  bowling-alley ; 
sometimes  even  in  the  kitchen,  for  the 
ostensible  purpose  of  making  caromels ; 
but  the  pleasures  peculiar  to  the  place  are 
gone ;  we  can  make  caromels  at  home. 
The  dreariness  of  empty  corridors  at  the 
hotel,  and  of  shuttered  cottages  at  the  Point, 
begins  to  impress  us  with  the  beauty  of  the 
brotherhood  of  man.  We  begin  to  have 
less  faith  in  Thoreau,  and  more  in  the  friend 


who  said  :  "  Of  men  and  trees,  if  I  cannot 
have  a  judicious  mixture,  I  must  say  I 
prefer  men ! " 

We  first  ponder  and  then  pack,  for  the 
brotherhood  of  man  has  conquered. 

Dear  land,  where  only  glad  suns  rise  and  set, 
Whose  only  shadows  are  the  grateful  shade 
Of  cool,  delicious  woods  ;  where  joy  has  made 
Her  bright  abiding-place,  nor  where  as  yet 
The  restless  care  and  anxious  thought  that  fret 
Elsewhere  our  souls,  have  ever  dared  invade ; 
How  strange  that  I  can  see  thy  beauty  fade, 
And  turn  away  from  thee  without  regret ! 
So  have  I  faith  that  it  will  be  with  me, 
When  all  the  lovely  world  shall  fade  before 
My  dying  eyes ;  its  beauty  will  no  more 
Lure  me  to  linger  ;  though  I  cannot  see, 
Nor  my  heart  know,  what  fate  may  be  in  store, 
So  have  I  faith  in  God  that  it  will  be ! 


686 


RICHARD  HENRY  STODDARD. 


RICHARD  HENRY  STODDARD. 


IT  is  said  that  the  ink  of  the  great 
Declaration  is  slowly  fading  from  the  parch- 
ment on  which  it  is  written.  After  fifty 
centuries  shall  have  followed  the  one  that 
has  gone  since  its  date,  even  the  ideas  that 
frame  its  substance  will  have  dropped  out  of 
their  combination,  forgotten  as  a  whole,  re- 
solved into  atoms  of  the  common  fund  of 
human  conceptions,  to  be  recomposed  at 
some  other  time  in  some  other  form.  There 
can  be  no  such  thing  as  originality  in  mod- 
ern ideas.  The  poet  does  not  create — he 
merely  varies  the  aspects  of  existing  thought. 
And  as  this  mental  process  has  been  going 
on  since  letters  began,  it  can  be  only  the 
strongest  poetic  instinct  that  inspires  a  new- 
comer to  seek  for  unexhausted  material,  and 
to  attempt  molding  it  into  yet  unused 
images.  Such  a  strong  poetic  instinct  has 
urged  Stoddard  to  the  work  of  his  life.  The 
volume  of  his  poems*  lately  produced  gathers 
up  the  fruits  of  the  labor  of  thirty  years, 
originally  offered  to  the  public  at  long  inter- 
vals, a  great  part  of  them  in  scattered  frag- 
ments. For  many  readers,  the  book  will 
recall  their  early  days  of  delight  in  verse, 
and  will  afford  to  many  others  the  first  occa- 
sion forforming  a  judgment  upon  the  author's 
productions  and  poetic  character  as  a  whole. 

Richard  Henry  Stoddard  was  born  about 
fifty-five  years  ago,  in  Hingham,  a  small 
sea-port  of  Massachusetts.  His  forefathers 
were  sea-faring  men,  his  early  surroundings 
those  of  the  plainest  life  in  that  rude  region. 
If  the  stern  beauty  of  its  rocks  and  waves 
impresses  the  memory,  and  its  simple  habits 
strengthen  the  character,  while  both  are 
forming,  they  seldom  inspire  passionate  at- 
tachment. Homesickness  is  a  luxury  rather 
than  a  malady  for  the  New-Englander, 
whose  Ranz  des  Vaches  has  yet  to  be  com- 
posed. Stoddard's  widowed  mother  tired 
of  the  incoming  and  outgoing  tide,  the  old 
home  overlooked  by  a  hill  crowned  with 
immemorial  grave-stones,  and  the  glimpses 
of  mill-interiors,  before  the  boy  was  old 
enough  to  have  more  than  a  confused  rec- 
ollection of  those  elements  of  monotony. 
After  migrations  that  included  a  few  months 
of  hard  and  sickly  life  in  Boston,  followed 
by  an  effort  for  his  own  support,  showing 
even  then  his  independent  character,  by 

*  The  Poems  of  Richard  Henry  Stoddard.  Com- 
plete Edition.  New  York  :  Charles  Scribner's  Sons. 


working  in  a  cotton-factory,  the  family  made 
its  last  removal,  and  fixed  their  residence 
in  New  York. 

The  life  of  a  city  at  that  early  age  was  for 
Stoddard  a  season  of  literal  toil  and  hard- 
ship. He  began  work  as  a  lawyer's  clerk, 
but  was  quick  to  perceive  that  such  uses  of 
the  pen  could  only  lead  for  him  to  a  future 
of  impecunious  leisure,  like  that  of  his  em- 
ployers. With  them  he  had  idle  hours 
enough  to  read  poetry,  and  to  write  it,  too. 
His  resolve  to  become  a  poet  was  formed 
early,  and  he  began  betimes  to  practice  his 
real  art,  and,  under  all  discouragements, 
never  paused  in  following  it  with  industry. 
After  a  brief  experience  as  a  reporter,  and 
after  trying  and  quitting  the  yet  more  un- 
congenial business  of  keeping  books  for 
some  small  tradesman,  he  found  a  place  for 
downright  sledge-hammer  labor,  as  appren- 
tice to  an  iron-molder.  These  stern  early 
lessons  tempered  that  earnestness,  that 
straightforward  virility,  which  strengthen  all 
his  work. 

"  The  steel,  enduring  blows  and  battering  long, 
Grows  at  the  last  more  keen  and  glittering." 

Adept  in  the  primal  art  of  Tubal-Cain,  he 
might  have  likened  his  own  genius  to  the 
solid  stubborn  mass  beneath  his  hand, 
slowly  suffusing  with  glow  and  color,  then 
flowing  at  white  heat  into  enduring  forms 
of  beauty.  He  wrote  incessantly,  while  he 
read  steadily,  feeding  at  once  and  feeling 
his  powers,  modest  in  presence  of  the  high 
models,  yet  persevering  to  be  like  them. 
His  earliest  publications  are  of  this  period, 
in  the  form  of  contributions  to  the  weekly 
and  monthly  magazines — all  alike,  the 
poems  and  the  periodicals,  soon  perishing. 
In  1848  he  first  presented  himself  to  the 
public  as  an  author,  offering  it  a  little 
volume  of  verse,  entitled  "  Foot-prints."  It 
made  him  known,  at  least,  to  the  smaller 
and  juster  public  of  literary  people.  Dr. 
Griswold,  the  Lucina  of  the  time  for  embryo 
reputations,  gave  him  a  place  among  the  poets 
of  America.  It  was  one  of  the  selections  of 
the  critic  which  were  not  mistakes. 

A  little  earlier  than  this  turning-point  in 
his  literary  life,  Stoddard  made  the  friend- 
ship of  Bayard  Taylor,  and  a  little  later  he 
married.  If  any  effect  of  others'  personality 
ever  touched  so  independent  a  genius  as 
his,  that  influence  is  to  be  traced  in  these 


RICHARD   HENRY  STODDARD. 


687 


two  unions.  It  is  easy  to  measure  the 
value  to  a  poet  of  kindness  joined  with 
keenness  in  a  critic  who  could  write  such 
books  as  "  The  Morgedsons  "  and  "  Two 
Men."  The  pen  of  their  author  is  a  divin- 
ing-rod, pointing  to  the  deep  springs.  The 
outward  conditions  of  New  England  being, 
both  of  nature  and  of  men,  are  all  in  them, 
rugged,  plain,  and  cold,  as  they  exist.  So, 
too,  are  the  resolved  tenderness,  the  endur- 
ing sense  of  duty,  that  are  to  character  in 
that  region  as  the  May-flower  is  to  its  stern 
woods.  Not  single  lives  or  motives,  but 
their  implications  in  a  whole,  are  drawn  in 
these  books.  They  are  pungent,  real,  and 
shot  through  with  fine  threads  of  elective 
affinities  between  nature  and  man,  man  and 
woman. 

Between  Stoddard  and  Taylor  a  friend- 
ship grew  up,  welded  by  generous  emula- 
tion in  the  same  pursuit,  which  continued 
intimate  and  unbroken  until  the  hour  came 
that  severs  all  ties.  They  read  together  the 
same  books  and  compared  their  own  pro- 
ductions, probably  with  mutual  indulgence. 
Sometimes  they  chose  the  same  or  similar 
subjects  for  the  practice  of  their  differ- 
ing theories.  From  this  early  seclusion 
while  both  were  fledglings,  Taylor  soon 
issued,  through  the  definite  adoption  of  a 
literary  career,  into  a  wider  life  of  wander- 
ings. His  related  experience,  his  treasures 
of  adventure  and  store  of  picturesque  ma- 
terial, as  they  were  unfailing  sources  of 
pleasure  generously  open  to  all  who  knew 
him  well,  so  they  must  have  been  of  pecul- 
iar advantage  to  Stoddard,  limited  by  his 
lot  to  one  place  and  one  range  of  associa- 
tions. Not  that  either  ever  borrowed  from 
the  other.  The  method  in  art  and  the  cast 
of  mind  of  each  were  too  original  to  admit 
such  exchange.  A  curious  proof  of  this 
independence  is  found  in  the  fact  that  not  a 
trace  of  German  influence  appears  in  Stod- 
dard's  writings.  He  will  have  none  of  their 
introspection.  Their  mysticism  is  not  his 
mysticism.  His  simplicity  differs  from 
theirs  as  a  man's  does  from  a  child's.  So 
far  as  they  are  not  respectively  original, 
Stoddard  orientalizes,  as  Stedman  Hellen- 
izes,  and  Taylor  Germanizes.  The  beautiful 
sonnet  to  Taylor  on  page  219  of  the  volume 
expresses  more  warmly  than  Stoddard's  reti- 
cence usually  permits  him  to  do  the  affec- 
tionate relation  between  Taylor  and  himself. 

If  it  was  denied  to  Stoddard  to  learn  by 
travel  strange  regions  and  the  ways  of 
various  men,  it  did  at  least  befall  him  to 
find  a  niche  in  an  institution  where  all 


products  of  foreign  climes  pass  in  review, 
and  many  a  traveler  who  has  reached  the 
end  of  his  usefulness  or  his  hopes  in  life 
comes  to  a  harbor, — the  New  York  Custom 
House.  Remembering  Hawthorne  at  Salem, 
Lamb  in  the  East  India  House,  and  our 
author  and  others  here,  one  might  pro- 
nounce such  a  retreat  of  dry  routine  to  be 
the  true  arida  nutrix  leonutn.  For  nearly 
seventeen  years  he  discharged  the  duties  of 
his  place,  which  offered  at  least  more  easy 
and  agreeable  employment  than  mechani- 
cal toil,  with  something  of  the  leisure  and 
release  from  care  essential  to  careful  literary 
production.  During  these  years,  his  grow- 
ing powers  and  maturing  taste  found  ex- 
pression in  good  and  various  work.  The 
"Songs  of  Summer,"  which  may  be  judged 
as  his  first  serious  contribution  to  literature, 
contain  some  of  his  freshest  and  most 
original  verse.  The  "  King's  Bell,"  pub- 
lished in  1863,  and  the  composition  of  the 
"  Book  of  the  East "  belong  to  this  period, 
together  with  much  that  was  mere  task- 
work, though  valuable  to  letters  for  the 
accuracy  and  research  with  which  it  was 
done.  He  edited  during  these  years  the 
"  Life  and  Travels  of  Humboldt,"  "  Loves 
and  Heroines  of  the  Poets,"  "  Melodies  and 
Madrigals  from  old  English  Poets" — the 
last  perhaps  the  most  thorough  work  of 
this  description  he  has  produced.  In 
several  volumes  of  children's  stories,  and  in 
the  versification  of  old  legends  in  ballad 
form,  he  showed  a  turn  for  narrative  and  a 
mastery  of  simple  old  English  indicating 
powers  capable  of  very  finished  performance 
in  composition  of  that  nature. 

During  these  quiet  years  that  graver  friend 
whom  men  call  sorrow  took  Stoddard's  hand 
and  led  him  into  darkness  first,  and  then 
into  clearer  regions  of  feeling  and  knowl- 
edge. To  this  passage  in  the  poet's  life 
we  owe  that  series  of  little  poems  called  "  In 
Memoriam,"  of  which  "  What  shall  we  do 
when  those  we  love  "  and  the  "  The  dreary 
winter  days  are  past,"  are  the  most  im- 
personal, and  therefore,  the  most  profoundly 
poetic.  An  echo  of  deeper  seriousness  from 
this  grief  sounds  faintly  in  whatever  Stod- 
dard has  since  written.  His  verse  from 
that  time  gained  a  manlier  fullness,  marked 
by  less  of  imitative  fancy,  more  of  original 
treatment.  It  was  two  years  later,  in  1863, 
as  if  after  a  pause  in  the  growth  of  his 
creative  power,  a  concentration  and  new 
nerving  of  faculty  under  the  weight  of  feel- 
ing, that  his  longest  poem,  the  "  King's 
Bell,"  was  published. 


688 


RICHARD  HENRY  STODDARD. 


RICHARD    HENRY     STODDARD. 


Through  the  war  and  for  several  years  after 
it,  Stoddard  held  his  post  in  the  Custom 
House,  although  his  politics  were  those  of 
the  minority,  until  it  was  taken  from  him  in 
1870,  without  censure  of  his  discharge  of 
its  duties,  or  disapproval  of  anything  but 
his  convictions.  After  a  few  months,  he 
entered  official  life  again,  in  a  sphere  that 
offered  him  a  share  in  real  work  among 
accomplished  workmen,  becoming  secretary 
to  General  McClellan  in  the  Dock  Depart- 
ment of  the  city.  There  was  literary  occu- 
pation enough  besides,  of  a  homely  kind, 
to  employ  all  his  leisure,  even  if  idleness 
could  have  had  a  charm  for  a  nature  so 
strenuous  as  his.  The  vacant  place  at  his 
hearth-stone  was  filled  again,  as  the  sweet 
pathos  of  "  A  Follower  "  tells  us,  and  the 


years  bringing  new  household  cares  had  not 
been  liberal  with  the  favors  of  fortune  that 
might  give  him  ease  to  bear  them.  He 
traversed  diligently  and  resolutely  in  many 
directions  that  middle  ground  between  con- 
ception and  commentary  that  may  be  called 
useful  literature.  There  was  hardly  a 
magazine  of  note  in  the  country  that  did 
not  receive  his  contributions,  in  the  form 
of  tales,  critical  notices  and  occasional 
stanzas.  Those  of  the  daily  journals  not 
too  one-sided  to  spare  from  politics  a  col- 
umn for  letters,  welcomed  his  aid  in  essays 
and  reviews.  His  peculiar  ability  as  an 
editor  found  scope  in  such  presentations 
as  "Political  Essays  by  General  Lyon," 
"  Twenty-one  years  round  the  world,"  by 
Vassar,  "Griswold's  Poets,  and  The  Female 


RICHARD  HENRY  STODDARD. 


689 


Poets  of  America,"  and  the  "  Bric-a-Brac 
Series,"  in  ten  volumes,  a  collection  of 
sketches  of  persons  not  notable  enough  to 
be  personages,  principally  theatrical  and  lit- 
erary. Many  of  these  books  were  brought 
out  with  carefully  written  prefaces,  pro- 
viding them  with  a  symmetrical  setting  and 
finish.  Often  these  preludes  surpass  in 
interest  and  value  the  works  they  introduce. 

For  most  students  unblessed  with  fortune, 
the  post  of  a  salaried  librarian  would  seem 
the  crown  of  their  wishes.  To  have  the 
range  of  a  good  collection  of  books,  "  to  be 
the  daily  guest  of  those  immortals,  finding 
them  always  at  home,  always  ready  for  con- 
verse,"— what  a  society  it  promises !  To 
have  the  control  of  them,  giving  each  its 
ordered  place,  and  fitting  dress,  and  indexed 
history, — what  a  curious  felicity  for  the 
scholar!  No  wonder  Dominie  Sampson's 
occupation  never  came  to  an  end,  nor  fairly 
made  a  beginning,  even.  If  any  such  fancy 
crossed  Stoddard's  mind  when  he  was  made 
keeper  of  the  City  Library,  in  1877,  it  soon 
vanished.  A  glance  convinced  him  that  all 
those  shelves  held  less  to  feed  the  intellect 
than  one  of  the  book-stalls  he  used  to  loiter 
past  in  younger  days.  That  municipal 
treasure  of  literature  is  a  collection  of 
which  the  old  part  is  not  valuable,  and 
the  valuable  part  is  not  old.  Its  foundation 
was  the  contribution  of  Alexander  Vatte- 
mare,  an  agent  for  international  book-ex- 
changes— the  volunteer  Cadmus  of  two 
continents — who  visited  New  York  a  little 
more  than  thirty  years  ago.  The  lawyer 
may  find  in  this  disorderly  collection  of  six 
or  eight  thousand  volumes  some  broken  sets 
of  statutes ;  the  publicist,  a  complete  copy 
of  "  Niles's  Register,"  and  a  few  imperfect 
newspaper  files ;  old  directories  and  Patent 
Office  reports  fill  up  odd  shelves, — the 
greater  part  of  it  deserves  the  coal-hole. 
This  Alexandrine  museum  had  been  further 
despoiled  by  the  Ring  underlings,  just  be- 
fore Stoddard  took  charge  of  it.  In  this 
dingy  den  he  sat  for  nearly  two  years,  un- 
visited,  except  by  City  Hall  vagrants,  court 
reporters,  and  occasional  book-thieves. 
About  a  year  ago  another  turn  of  the  politi- 
cal wheel  displaced  him,  to  become  once 
more  free  master  of  himself  and  of  his  muse. 
The  publication  of  his  later  poems,  written 
between  1871  and  1880,  completes  the 
poetical  work  of  thirty  years,  and  displays 
the  maturest  fruits  of  his  genius. 

The  peculiar  traits  of  Stoddard's  genius 
are  distinct  through  all  the  changing  forms 
and  preparing  studies  that  taught  him  the 
VOL.  XX.— 45. 


mastery  of  his  art.  At  the  first,  as  at  the 
last,  his  thought  is  clear,  virile  and  single, 
and  uttered  in  words  of  force  and  simplicity. 
There  is  not  in  all  his  work  a  hazy  concep- 
tion nor  a  wavering  line.  There  are  in  it 
combinations  purely  original,  and  sentences 
cut  like  gems.  Its  sincerity  bespeaks  free- 
dom from  conceit  and  strained  effects — its 
direct  purpose  compels  it  into  Saxon  syl- 
lables and  lucid  phrase.  The  outline  of  his 
subjects  is  firm,  positive  as  a  swift-drawn 
circle,  bounding  the  parts  in  proportioned 
concord.  Why  is  it  that  precision,  that 
priceless  classic  quality  of  ancient  art,  is 
held  in  less  regard  by  the  moderns  ?  Per- 
haps because  sculpture  and  architecture, 
earliest  of  arts,  imperatively  demand  perfect 
contour  to  satisfy  the  eye;  while  painting,  per- 
fected later,  triumphs  by  color  independent  of 
form,  touching  through  sight  a  subtler  inner 
sense  of  harmony ;  and  music,  youngest  of 
them  all,  released  from  restraint  of  space 
and  matter,  loses  itself  vaguely  in  emotion. 
Or  is  it  that  the  modern  spirit,  imbued  with 
the  feeling  of  the  universal,  insists  that  each 
separate  work  shall  involve  all  the  relations 
and  embody  all  the  dependences  of  its 
guiding  idea — expanding  toward  infinity 
the  old  definition  of  beauty,  il piu  neW  uno? 
Even  in  literature,  the  strain  is  not  after 
condensed  simplicity  in  work,  but  after  large 
generalizations  "  that  sail  among  the  shades 
like  vaporous  shapes  half  seen,"  as  if  "  all 
thoughts  that  wander  through  eternity " 
might  be  bodied  forth  with  all  their  implica- 
tions. We  need  not  call  the  metaphysicians 
to  witness,  with  Browning  at  hand.  Under 
the  stress  of  a  philosophy,  language  may 
suffer  itself  to  be  so  subtilized  into  indefinite- 
ness  ;  but  the  canons  of  literature  as  an  art 
forbid  it.  Precision  is  the  practice  of  unity 
as  a  theory.  It  demands  in  subject  the 
choice  of  a  single  definite  topic ;  it  exacts  in 
arrangement  proportion  of  parts  to  the 
whole,  and  among  each  other,  for  singleness 
of  effect;  and  it  requires  in  language  con- 
gruity  of  expression  and  descriptiveness  of 
epithets,  with  economy  of  words.  The 
careful  reader  of  Stoddard's  poetry  must 
concede  his  faithfulness  to  these  rules.  And 
this  study  of  precision  must  be  observed  in 
the  smallest  as  in  the  greatest.  It  is  one  of 
the  laws  of  the  lyric — how  well  obeyed  in 
the  main  by  our  author  we  may  clearly  see, 
in  the  two  irregular  odes  to  "  History"  and 
the  "  Guests  of  the  State,"  wTiich  are  the 
highest  flights  of  his  muse.  It  is  not  only 
one  of  the  laws,  but  almost  the  single  law, 
of  the  sonnet ;  and  here,  too,  the  few  speci- 


RICHARD  HENRY  STODDARD. 


mens  Stoddard  has  given  us  are  models  of 
fidelity  to  it. 

Such  rules,  prescribing  the  body  and  dress 
of  a  subject,  are  common  to  poetry  and 
prose.  The  animating  soul  is  a  thing  apart. 
In  this  respect  Coleridge's  definition  of  the 
distinction  between  the  two  modes  of  com- 
position seems  faulty.  "  Prose  is — words  in 
the  best  places;  poetry,  the  best  words  in 
the  best  places."  This  is  Coleridge's 
"  Table-talk,"  not  the  impulse  that  created 
"Christabel" 

"With  the  loveliness  of  a  vision." 

Unless  it  is  restricted  to  the  arrangement  of 
the  signs  of  thought,  there  is  more  point 
than  truth  in  the  saying.  That  is  only  the 
power  of  selecting  and  disposing.  The 
power  to  create  is  of  another  order.  The 
psalmist  unconsciously  touches  the  real  dis- 
tinction : 

"While  I  was  musing,  the  fire  kindled." 

Through  imagination,  poetry  springs  into 
light  and  life.  It  was  not  alone  set  purpose, 
working  by  system,  that  made  Stoddard  a 
poet.  The  fire  could  never  have  kindled  un- 
less the  spark  had  been  born  with  him.  It  is 
our  assured  belief  that  to  no  American  poet 
has  this  gift  been  given  in  fuller  measure. 
All  of  his  best  performance  is  so  conceived 
and  inspired.  Whether  we  "  walk  the  solemn 
shores  of  death"  with  Charon,  or  hear,  with 
the  King's  Sentinel,  the  voice  "  wailing  like 
some  magic  bird,"  or  see  the  blood-stained 
snow  and  feel  the  grim  despair  of  Valley  Forge, 
or  go  forth  to  meet  che  shadowy  Two  Kings, 
or  welcome  the  great  shapes  of  the  Guests 
of  the  State,  it  is  this  wand  that  evokes 
them  all  from  the  past  or  the  unknown. 
Sometimes  it  gives  spirit  to  the  simplest 
themes,  as  in  "  The  Messenger  at  Night," 
or  "  The  Necklace  of  Pearls  " ;  sometimes  it 
thrills  us  with  the  lightest  touch,  like  those 
of  "Adsum,"  and,  again,  sweeps  the  soul 
away  into  regions  of  darkness  that  may  be 
felt,  as  in  the  story  of  "  Teberistan,"  or  of 
unsounded  mystery,  such  as  "  Brahma's 
Answer  "  shadows.  In  certain  of  the  longer 
poems  appear  specters  of  the  mighty  past, 
and  trains  of  processional  grandeur  that 
only  a  powerful  imagination  could  summon 
up.  Of  these  are  the  Ode  to  Rome,  His- 
tory, and  the  Centennial  Ode.  Again  it  is 
condensed  into  single  phrases,  lambent 
among  the  lines.  "  Where,  little  seen  but 
light,  the  only  Shakspere  is,"  "like  liquid 
pearls  through  golden  cells,"  "  the  light 


that  sleeps  in  the  air,"  "  gone  like  a  wind 
that  blew  a  thousand  years  ago" — these,  and 
innumerable  others  like  them,  sparkle  down 
the  page.  In  his  earliest  poems  the  faculty 
luxuriated  in  imitation,  wandering  through 
paradises  of  sense,  which  Keats  might  have 
dreamed,  or  pursuing  the  ghostly  trace  of 
Greek  fable.  When  it  had  felt  its  own 
vigor  it  ceased  to  copy,  and  its  later  crea- 
tions issue  from  its  native  force,  showing  an 
ordered  energy,  a  tempered  fire,  that  reveal 
the  complete  mastery  Stoddard  has  gained 
of  his  powers  and  his  art. 

He  perfected  the  last  through  under- 
standing both  of  the  quality  and  the  limita- 
tions of  the  first.  This  consciousness  dictated 
his  preference  for  the  models  that  first  fixed 
his  regard,  as  he  listened  to  the  sensuous 
swell  of  Keats's  music,  with  its  undertone 
of  pain,  or  caught  the  voices,  vibrant 
though  thin,  of  early  English  song- writers. 
In  his  long-drawn  descriptions  of  what  is 
vivid  and  splendid  in  nature,  his  pictures 
of  luxurious  elegance,  in  the  vague  sighs 
that  echo  Shelley,  of  his  "  Hymn  to  the 
Beautiful,"  even  in  the  slight  early  songs, 
the  person  is  nothing,  only  that  which  is 
outward  to  it  is  perceived.  It  was  of  nature 
he  was  thinking  most  in  saying,  "And  the 
self-same  canons  bind  nature  and  the  poet's 
mind."  This,  then,  is  one  of  his  limitations 
— that  the  world  of  the  individual  is  sealed 
to  him.  Nor  can  it  be  said  that  this  is  seem- 
ing, and  due  to  the  freshness  of  inexperi- 
ence. Always  in  his  poetry  the  picture 
comes  first,  and  the  reflection  follows  it. 
It  is  that  the  inner  life  of  reasoning,  and  mo- 
tives, and  silent  struggle  interests  him  little. 
He  often  puts  a  single  doubt  into  a  startling 
question,  or  utters  a  simple  emotion  in  a 
musical  strain,  but  complex  feelings,  and 
contending  purposes,  and  what  makes  the 
growth  of  a  soul,  remain  unspoken  by  him. 
The  isolated  problem  "  Why  are  we  here  ?  " 
or  "  When  we  are  ended  does  all  end  ?  " 
may  seize  his  wonder  a  moment,  but  he  does 
not  pause  to  reason  about  it ;  a  sigh  or  a 
tear  may  glide  into  his  verse,  but  he  does 
not  hold  and  vex  and  analyze  it.  We  are 
so  used  in  this  day  to  Princesses  and  Sordel- 
los,  so  much  of  the  alloy  of  philosophy  is 
mingled  with  the  fine  gold  of  poesy,  the 
harsh  and  crabbed  notes  of  speculation  so 
drown  the  music  of  Apollo's  lute,  that  we 
welcome  the  bringerof  peace  in  beauty  who 
offers  us  pure  poetry,  not  caring  whether  it 
is  because  he  cannot  give  us  metaphysics 
with  it. 

He  escapes,  too,  perplexities  of  language 


RICHARD  HENRY  STODDARD. 


691 


and  the  temptation  to  use  inexact  forms, 
the  undress  of  indistinct  sense.  For  his  clear 
themes  the  frank  words  struck  out  while 
our  tongue  was  new  suffice — they  do  not 
need  composite  tokens,  coined  in  the  labor 
to  express  intricate  thought.  His  smooth 
page  is  blurred  by  no  conceits  of  language, 
no  neologisms  or  harsh  compounds  that 
vague  conceptions  grope  for  to  wrap  them- 
selves in.  His  command  of  the  original 
stores  of  English  speech  is  extensive.  Bry- 
ant praised  the  purity  of  his  prose.  He 
drew  it  from  pure  sources,  seeking  it  through 
familiarity  with  authors  earlier  than  the 
English  Augustan  age.  The  splendid,  if  un- 
couth, vigor  of  Marlowe  among  dramatists, 
the  natural  turn  of  Herrick  among  singers, 
nourished  his  style.  It  need  not  be  said 
that  the  greatest  of  the  masters  was  his  con- 
stant study.  His  acquaintance  with  early 
English  literature,  indeed,  is  so  wide  and 
sympathetic  that  he  might  well  have  served 
the  cause  of  letters  by  teaching  from  a 
professor's  chair,  if  he  had  not  preferred  that 
form  of  devotion  to  it  which  proved  itself 
by  authorship. 

The  language  employed  by  Stoddard  in 
his  poems  flows  with  a  natural  felicity  that 
seems  spontaneous.  It  is,  in  truth,  the 
product  of  faithful  conscientious  labor. 
As  in  his  ordinary  work  the  slightest  in- 
accuracy annoys  him,  and  he  will  hunt 
for  weeks  after  an  exact  date  or  fact,  so  in 
poetic  composition  he  is  content  with  no 
word  that  does  not  fit  the  thought  as 
closely  as  if  both  had  sprung  together  from 
the  brain.  It  follows  that  his  conceptions 
clothe  themselves  always  in  congruous  style. 
The  simple  sentiment  of  a  song  flows  into 
melodies  as  simple — he  lingers  with  caress- 
ing amplitude  of  diction  over  luxurious  fan- 
cies and  the  richness  of  nature ;  his  narrative 
is  even  and  dignified ;  each  phrase  of  the 
sonnets  has  its  polish — the  few  verses  of 
war  exult  in  stern,  short  syllables — and  the 
lyrics  unfold  in  a  large  and  splendid  utter- 
ance. Yet — as  the  extreme  of  merit  runs 
the  risk  of  becoming  a  fault — the  accurate 
critic  cannot  neglect  to  note  that  the  au- 
thor's severe  selection  of  the  Anglo-Saxon 
elements  of  our  language  leaves  sometimes 
in  his  style — the  instances  are  infrequent 
— a  trace  of  baldness  and  constraint.  If, 
justly  confident  in  his  true  ear  and  his 
trained  taste,  he  had  ranged  with  larger 
freedom  of  choice  among  the  materials  lib- 
erally and  legitimately  gathered  from  an- 
cient and  alien  speech  by  our  mother 
tongue,  he  might  have  enriched  his  verse 


with   even   readier  flexibility  of  form  and 
fuller  variety  of  expression. 

Stoddard's  facility  in  the  use  of  standard 
material  forms,  and  his  ingenuity  in  adapt- 
ing new  ones  to  the  varying  demands  of 
his  subjects,  deserve  attention.  He  begins 
writing  with  a  measure  little  less  regular 
than  the  favorite  one  of  his  first  master, 
moving  in  long,  even  passages  of  rhymed 
ten-syllabled  lines,  with  an  occasional  shorter 
quatrain  interposed  as  a  point  of  rest.  As 
his  themes,  passing  from  description  to  in- 
vocation, ask  a  less  monotonous  movement, 
he  adopts  alternating  lengths  of  line,  separa- 
ting the  rhymes  more  widely  and  produc- 
ing the  effect  aimed  at  by  Keats  in  some  of 
his  minor  poems — grave  with  tenderness. 
"  Spring,"  "  Autumn,"  and  "  Triumphant 
Music"  are  among  our  author's  instances. 
At  last,  impatient  of  restraint,  his  verse 
beats  with  higher,  swifter  pulse  in  the 
splendid  "  Carmen  Naturae,"  that  pictur- 
esque confession  of  his  religion  of  nature, 
with  its  frank  "  Creation  is  enough  for  me." 
Still  more  broken  and  effective  in  its  returns 
is  the  measure  of  that  singular  allegory, 
"  The  Children  of  Isis,"  and  that  of  "  Why 
Stand  Ye  Gazing  ?  "  that  creed  of  non-re- 
ligion, startling,  but  not  irreverent  in  its 
boldness,  which  reads  like  something  for- 
gotten out  of  the  Book  of  Job.  His  lyrical 
faculty  soars  at  length  to  its  highest  sweep 
and  largest  freedom  in  the  "  Guests  of  the 
State,"  the  fine  centennial  ode,  with  its 
stately,  intermitting  march.  The  noble  poem, 
"  History,"  more  symmetrical  in  its  num- 
bers, falls  naturally  into  the  Spenserian 
stanza.  This  poem  was  delivered  before 
the  Phi  Beta  Kappa  Society,  at  Harvard, 
fifty-six  years  later  than  that  of  Bryant  on 
the  same  subject,  pronounced  on  a  similar 
occasion,  the  "  Hymn  of  the  Ages."  It  is 
modeled  on  a  like  plan,  presenting  a  rapid 
review  of  the  progress  of  mankind  in  a  se- 
ries of  grand  pictures,  irregularly  outlined, 
and  not  all  equally  sharp  and  clear.  In 
the  eager  rush  of  its  development,  the 
poet  seems  always  on  the  point  of  breaking 
the  fetters  of  that  cramping  measure  and 
spreading  into  the  looser  rhythms  of  the 
ode.  It  must  be  owned  that  this  gives  an 
effect  of  precipitancy,  and  that  the  long 
lines  closing  the  separate  stanzas  of  this 
poem  are  too  often  harsh  and  unmusical, 
jarring  upon  the  cadence  into  which  each 
period  in  this  species  of  verse  should 
smoothly  subside.  "  Abraham  Lincoln  ;  a 
Horatian  Ode,"  is  composed  in  a  special 
measure,  yielding  a  solemn  effect  like 


692 


RICHARD  HENRY  STODDARD. 


requiem  music.  It  is  written  in  worthy 
imitation  of  Andrew  Marvell's  "  Ode  to 
Cromwell."  Its  fire  and  dignity  deserve 
the  title  to  which  it  aspires,  of  Horatian, 
though  its  construction  does  not  copy  any 
of  that  poet's  lyric  meters.  In  the  sequence 
of  two  shorter  upon  two  longer  lines,  it  re- 
sembles his  favorite  Alcaic  measure,  but  the 
arrangement  of  the  feet  is  quite  different, 
and  the  prevalence  of  spondees  weights  it 
with  mournful  gravity.  In  this  poem  the 
first  two  lines  of  a  stanza  frame  an  idea, 
which  the  last  two  iterate  or  complete,  with 
a  short,  sudden  stroke,  like  the  beat  of  a 
muffled  drum.  It  is  Hebraic  in  tone  and 
cadence.  It  evokes  and  concretes  all  the 
great  associations  belonging  to  the  man,  set 
to  the  notes  of  his  passing  funeral  pomp. 


"  One  of  the  People  !     Born  to  be 

Their  curious  epitome ; 

To  share  yet  rise  above, 
Their  shifting  hate  and  love. 

"  Common  his  mind,  (it  seemed  so  then,) 
His  thoughts  the  thoughts  of  other  men : 
Plain  were  his  words,  and  poor, 
But  now  they  will  endure ! 

"No  hasty  fool,  of  stubborn  will, 
But  prudent,  courteous,  pliant  still ; 

Who,  since  his  work  was  good, 

Would  do  it  as  he  could. 

"  Doubting,  was  not  ashamed  to  doubt, 
And,  lacking  prescience,  went  without: 
Often  appeared  to  halt, 
And  was,  of  course,  at  fault ; 

"  Heard  all  opinions,  nothing  loath, 
And,  loving  both  sides,  angered  both ; 
Was — not  like  Justice,  blind, 
But  watchful,  clement,  kind. 

"  No  hero  this  of  Roman  mould, 
Nor  like  our  stately  sires  of  old: 
Perhaps  he  was  not  great, 
But  he  preserved  the  state." 


Stoddard  is  always  thus  attentive  to  ad- 
just the  movement  of  his  numbers  to  the 
character  of  the  subject  they  sustain.  After 
the  best  word  for  the  thought,  he  seeks  the 
best  modulations  for  combined  expressions. 
When  he  recognized  his  capacity  for  narra- 
tive, he  perceived  that  its  sustained  course 
required  the  support  of  a  flowing,  even 
verse,  a  little  less  simple  than  the  ballad, 
rather  less  dignified  than  blank  verse. 
He  found  it  in  the  ten-syllabled  rhyming 
lines  chosen  for  the  earliest  of  his  poems  of 
this  class,  the  "  Stork  and  the  Ruby  "  and 
the  "  King's  Sentinel."  Improving  on  this 


choice,  as  his  execution  grew  more  sure,  he 
adopted,  for  the  more  elaborate  of  these 
poetic  legends,  the  "  Pearl  of  the  Philip- 
pines "  and  "  Wratislaw,"  the  more  rapid 
octo-syllabic  verse,  giving  greater  spring  and 
animation,  and  condensing  the  thought 
through  the  quicker  recurrence  of  rhyme. 
Lastly,  in  the  management  of  blank  verse, 
the  despair  of  ordinary  poets,  the  touch- 
stone of  ear  and  judgment,  Stoddard  has 
studied  to  as  fortunate  a  result.  The  Greek 
subjects  presented  themselves  to  his  mind 
in  that  classic  frame  of  "monumental  verse." 
The  workmanship  of  these  poems  is  very 
remarkable  for  an  author  unfamiliar  with  the 
originals  of  ancient  literature.  The  sub- 
stance of  them  is  transfused,  not  translated. 
Long  studies  of  imitation  would  fail  to  im- 
bue an  ordinary  mind  with  the  spirit  of  the 
antique  as  thoroughly  as  Stoddard's  kindred 
genius  has  caught  it.  "  Charon  "  and  "  Per- 
sephone "  have  more  to  tell  of  suffering  than 
of  joy,  but  the  suffering  is  calm.  Their 
controlled  emotion,  under  the  aspects  of 
unsympathizing  nature,  their  cold  grace, 
could  only  express  themselves  in  that  high, 
passionless  measure.  Some  of  the  Eastern 
poems  of  a  graver  cast,  as  the  "  Abdication 
of  Noman,"  are  well  suited  to  its  character. 
And  in  his  latest  and  most  thoughtful  work, 
the  "  Hymn  to  the  Sea,"  the  poet  employs 
it  with  vigor  and  aptness  to  embody  large 
ideas  and  reflections. 

Beyond  the  precepts,  and  apart  from  the 
labor  of  composition,  the  poet  is  aware  of 
something  variously  called  impulse,  mood, 
inspiration,  that  prepares  and  spurs  his 
mind.  The  moment  may  melt  away  in 
dreamy  longing,  impotent  to  create,  or  the 
will  may  guide  the  mind,  yielding  and  kin- 
dled by  the  happy  influence,  to  strenuous 
production.  Few  of  such  moments  that 
came  to  Stoddard  have  been  wasted,  and  as 
the  earnest  habit  of  seizing  and  improving 
them  became  fixed,  the  energy  that  com- 
pelled them  to  transmute  inspiration  into 
effect  grew  constantly  more  facile  and  fruit- 
ful. Something  of  the  impress  of  habit  may 
be  perceived  in  this — that  he  has  not  desert- 
ed any  of  the  forms  of  composition  he  first 
chose.  The  early  poems — as  is  the  rule — 
are  imitations.  He  confesses  and  is  grateful 
to  his  first  master.  The  few  songs  scattered 
among  them  taught  him  his  inventive  touch. 
The  first  effort  of  narrative  appears  in 
"  Leonatus  ";  the  "Arcadian  Idyl,"  part 
Greek,  part  Tennysonian,  betrays  an  experi- 
ment in  classic  style ;  and,  in  still  another 
strain,  the  "  Household  Dirge  "  rehearses 


RICHARD  HENRY  STODDARD. 


693 


the  elegiac  feeling  that  is  to  deepen  through 
reality  into  "  In  Memoriam."  In  his  next 
collected  volume  the  performance  is  limited 
within  the  same  varieties.  It  is  chiefly 
made  up  of  short  poems  framing  detached 
thoughts.  The  narrative  power  gains  dis- 
tinctness, with  an  unusual  touch  of  playful- 
ness, in  the  "  Squire  of  Low  Degree."  Once 
more  classic  models  declare  their  influence, 
in  the  two  longer  poems  on  Greek  subjects. 
The  lyric  faculty  first  asserts  itself,  though 
not  all  free  as  yet  from  imitative  descrip- 
tions ;  and  an  occasional  adaptation  shows 
traces  of  Oriental  impression,  probably  then 
due  to  Taylor. 

"  We  read  your  little  book  of  Orient  lays." 

The  "  King's  Bell,"  following  in  the  series, 
is  again  a  narrative,  of  no  clime  or  age, 
only  not  here  and  now,  illustrating  the 
vanity  of  life,  and  carefully  elaborated  with- 
in the  limits  of  an  imaginary  picture,  free 
from  local  color.  Next  in  the  order  of  pro- 
duction comes  the  "  Book  <yf  the  East," 
half  of  which  is  employed  with  subjects 
indicated  by  its  title,  while  in  its  later  pages 
the  poet  resumes  his  practice  with  song  and 
story,  writes  some  striking  poems  of  occa- 
sion, and  develops  perfectly  his  exact  and 
comprehensive  management  of  the  ballad 
form.  At  this  period  the  shadow  of  the 
East  first  falls  on  his  spirit,  chasing  the  sun- 
shine and  roses  of  his  earlier  knowledge. 
With  reflection  and  absorption  of  its  nature 
into  his  own,  he  learns  to  dwell  on  the  mys- 
teries of  the  region  where  questions  as  to 
the  origin  and  meaning  of  life  were  first 
asked.  The  later  poems,  closing  the  present 
volume  of  collected  works,  show  originality 
working  itself  clear,  and  preference  for  lyric 
and  legend  become  nearly  exclusive.  A 
graceful  strophe  breathes  regretful  farewell 
gratitude  to  Keats,  "  master  of  my  soul." 
"Songs  unsung"  are  modulated  in 'chords 
that  foretell  their  own  disuse.  Orientalism, 
imbuing  the  mind  till  it  no  longer  reflects 
mere  accidents  of  clime,  broods  over  the 
oldest  divinations  of  Indian  philosophy.  On 
the  other  hand,  the  accent  of  the  narrator, 
like  the  improvisatore's  trained  talent,  gains 
its  fullness  of  intentness  and  vivacity,  and 
the  lyric  voice  of  the  odes  closes  in  triumph- 
ant music. 

This  rapid  review  of  Stoddard's  poetic 
development  may  point  the  value  to  the 
artist  not  only  of  the  selection  of  such  sub- 
jects as  are  within  his  powers,  but  also 
of  continuous  method  in  the  use  of  those 


forms  most  consonant  with  them.  Satis- 
fied, after  trial,  with  the  figures  he  chose,  as 
the  ones  in  which  his  poetic  conceptions 
could  be  most  deftly  molded,  Stoddard 
does  not  quit  them  in  caprice,  but  perse- 
veres in  their  fashioning  till  they  yield,  as 
plastic  under  his  hand  as  the  forms  of  prose. 
Constant  practice  has  made  certain  shapes 
of  verse  so  familiar  that  he  needs  to  heed 
only  the  spirit  that  shall  inform  them — as 
the  expert  musician  forgets  the  mechanism 
of  his  instrument,  caring  only  for  the  har- 
monies he  may  call  forth  from  its  strings. 

A  glance  is  all  that  space  permits  to  test 
the  correctness  of  these  judgments  as  ap- 
plied to  our  author's  separate  works.  In 
that  outburst  of  song  with  which  our  bards 
saluted  the  Centennial  festival,  no  notes 
were  stronger,  more  passionate  with  patriot- 
ism than  those  poured  out  by  Stoddard,  in 
the  "  Guests  of  the  State."  This  ode  is  a 
grouping  of  colossal  national  forms,  lifted  to 
sight  from  afar,  like  the  array  that  sweeps 
in  living  grace  and  urging  force  over  the 
breadth  of  frieze  belting  an  ancient  temple. 
The  figures  are  firmly  outlined  with  few 
strokes,  filled  in  with  distinct  lines  of  char- 
acter. The  construction  of  the  piece  ac- 
cords strictly  with  the  elemental  rules  of  art. 
Introduced  by  direct  statement,  the  theme 
breaks,  as  it  expands  into  suggestions  of  dis- 
tinct impersonations,  then,  kindling  into 
more  vivid  life,  rises  to  bold,  pure  embodi- 
ment. It  takes  no  strain  of  allegory,  the 
impulse  being  that  of  high,  direct  action  and 
description,  not  veiled  in  metaphor,  nor 
pointing  moral.  The  historic  past  and  the 
present  of  each  shape  fuse  into  unity.  The 
political  spirit  animating  the  disjointed  frame 
of  Russia  is  clearly  touched.  Stupendous 
Asia  and  wrinkled  Egypt,  in  their  twofold 
life  of  what  has  been  and  what  is,  rise  large 
and  solemn.  Japan,  "  the  lady  of  the  East," 
advances  lovely  in  her  strangeness.  Africa, 
an  uncouth,  brutish,  half-born  thing,  prone 
in  ooze  and  parched  by  sun,  is  an  original 
conception.  This  poem  is  composed  with 
unusual  richness  of  language,  with  many 
bold  compulsions  of  rhyme,  in  an  "  exulting 
and  abounding  "  measure,  not  too  broken  to 
suit  the  dignity  of  the  subject.  It  is  full, 
both  by  assertion  and  contrast,  of  patriotic 
fervor;  the  same  fire  that  in  many  of  the 
poet's  strong  minor  pieces  shows  that  it  is 
by  his  heart  and  not  only  by  rules  that  he 
writes. 

The  "  Book  of  the  East "  is  one  of  the 
ripening — not  the  ripest — fruits  of  Stoddard's 
genius.  Why  it  was  turned  in  this  direction 


RICHARD  HENRY  STODDARD. 


it  is  difficult  to  say — perhaps  won  by  the 
simplicity  of  Oriental  themes,  or  by  their 
bold  speculations  on  the  unseen,  both  ele- 
ments of  largeness.  Or  it  may  be  that  the 
spoils  of  travel  brought  home  by. Taylor 
tempted  him,  too,  to  visit  that  ancient  treas- 
ure-house of  legend.  He  may  have  remem- 
bered that  "  better  half  a  year  of  Europe 
than  a  cycle  of  Cathay  "  was  only  an  epi- 
gram of  action,  flung  from  the  unquiet  heart 
of  complex  Western  civilization  at  the  sol- 
emn calm  of  those  slow,  unchanging  ages ; 
may  have  felt  that  humanity  glassed  itself 
more  truly  in  that  vast,  pulseless  surface 
lying  close  to  Nature,  than  in  the  million 
sparkling  facets  of  Occidental  life.  Many 
of  these  pieces  are  wrought  up  from  hints 
and  fragments  found  in  the  publications  of 
Oriental  societies;  others  form  a  part  of  the 
common  fund  of  fable  among  Western 
nations,  popularized  from  unknown  Eastern 
sources.  The  verses  of  this  collection  are 
often  reflections  of  reflections,  being  derived 
from  prose  translations.  Yet  this  double 
transmission  imparts  no  weakness  to  the 
thought  nor  remoteness  to  the  tone.  Stod- 
dard  has  polished  and  set  rough  diamonds 
dug  out  by  others  from  that  mine  of  ancient 
literature.  Narrow  as  is  the  range  of  feel- 
ing covered  by  these  poems,  the  differences 
of  color  and  expression  peculiar  to  each 
people  are  carefully  preserved.  Among  all 
these  songs,  breathing  little  else  than  pas- 
sion, it  is  curious  that  the  Chinese  have  the 
most  of  a  certain  homely  tone — of  humor, 
even — and  delicate  imagery.  We  quote 
from  the  "  Chinese  Songs  "  the  following : 

"  Before  the  scream  of  the  hawk 

The  timid  swallow  flies; 
And  the  lake  unrolled  in  the  distance, 

Like  a  silver  carpet  lies. 

"The  light  that  sleeps  in  the  air, 
Like  the  breath  of  flowers,  is  sweet ; 

The  very  dust  is  balmy 
Under  the  horses'  feet. 

"We  sit  in  the  tennis  court, 

Where  the  beautiful  sunlight  falls ; 

The  mountains  crossed  by  bridges 
Come  down  to  the  city  walls. 

"  The  houses  are  hid  in  flowers, 

Buried  in  bloomy  trees ; 
But  under  the  veils  of  the  willows 

Are  glimpses  of  cottages. 


"  What  makes  the  winds  so  sweet  ? 

Is  it  the  breath  of  June  ? 
'Tis  the  jasper  flute  in  the  pear-tree, 

Playing  a  silent  tune." 

There  are  many  among  the  "  Hymns  of  the 
Mystics  "  that  recall  the  quatrains  of  Omar 
Khayyam,  that  Persian  combination  of  Hor- 
ace and  Voltaire,  who  wrote  two  hundred 
years  before  Dante.  Should  the  task  of 
translation  again  invite  Stoddard,  he  might 
find  material  for  an  interesting  contribution 
to  human  thought  in  the  hundreds  of  stanzas, 
yet  without  a  paraphrase,  of  this  poet,  richly 
imaginative  as  they  are,  and  penetrated  by 
a  tone  of  sadness  strangely  consonant  with 
the  pessimism  of  our  day. 

The  attentive  reader  of  this  volume  will 
note  many  things  unmentioned  that  might 
heighten  the  praise  given  in  this  sketch  to 
its  author's  merits.  He  will  discern  many 
more  sure  to  win  his  consent  to  the  general 
opinion  that  Stoddard  is  a  poet  largely 
gifted  with  imagination,  an  assiduous  student 
of  his  art,  who  with  slender  early  opportuni- 
ties has  attained,  through  mastery  of  its 
rules,  to  a  forcible  expression  of  original 
combinations,  easy  control  of  its  resources 
of  melody,  and  a  manner  always  direct, 
and  by  turns  dignified,  or  pathetic,  or  im- 
passioned, rising  at  moments  into  grandeur. 
His  productions  in  prose,  in  the  form  of  criti- 
cism, essays  and  comments,  have  insensibly 
become  for  the  public  a  part  of  the  elements 
of  education,  and  gained  for  him  a  literary 
reputation.  The  judgment  of  men  of  letters 
has  bestowed  on  him  that  which  does  not 
always  follow  common  reputation — the 
promise  of  fame.  It  is  idle  to  predict  im- 
mortality for  any  work,  even  of  transcend- 
ent power,  remembering  how  short  is  the 
date  of  fame  among  men,  and  that  a  shred 
of  papyrus  rescued  from  a  tomb,  or  a  pots- 
herd scratched  with  the  name  of  some  for- 
gotten king,  are  all  the  relics  of  letters  that 
have  tfome  down  to  us  from  five  thousand 
years  ago,  through  a  moment  only  in  the 
duration  of  the  race.  Yet,  until  the  history 
of  our  country  has  grown  so  old  that  its 
earliest  records  have  lost  all  distinctness, 
we  may  believe  that  Stoddard's  name  will 
remain  written  in  them  as  that  of  one  of 
the  few  poets — less  than  a  score  would 
round  the  tale — whose  genius  illustrated  the 
first  century  of  its  national  literature. 


THE   GUARDIAN  OF  THE  RED  DISK.  695 

THE   GUARDIAN    OF  THE   RED    DISK. 

SPOKEN   BY   A    CITIZEN    OF    MALTA 1300. 

A  CURIOUS  tide  held  in  high  repute, 
One  among  many  honors,   thickly  strewn 
On  my  lord  Bishop's  head,  his  Grace  of  Malta. 
Nobly  he  bears  them  all, — with  tact,  skill,  zeal, 
Fulfills  each  special  office,  vast  or  slight, 
Nor  slurs  the  least  minutia, — therewithal 
Wears  such  a  stately  aspect  of  command, 
Broad-cheeked,  broad-chested,   reverend,  sanctified, 
Haloed  with  white  about   the  tonsure's  rim, 
With  dropped  lids  o'er  the   piercing  Spanish  eyes 
(Lynx-keen,  I  warrant,  to  spy  out  heresy) ; 
Tall,  massive  form,  o'ertowering  all  in  presence, 
Or  ere  they  kneel  to  kiss  the  large   white  hand. 
His  looks  sustain  his  deeds, — the  perfect  prelate, 
Whose  void  chair  shall  be  taken,  but  not  filled. 

You  know  not,  who  are  foreign  to  the  isle, 
Haply,  what  this  Red   Disk  may  be,  he  guards. 
'Tis  the  bright  blotch,  big  as  the  royal  seal, 
Branded  beneath  the  beard  of  every  Jew. 
These  vermin  so  infest  the  isle,  so  slide 
Into  all  byways,  highways  that  may  lead 
Direct  or  roundabout  to  wealth  or  power, 
Some  plain,  plump  mark   was  needed,  to  protect 
From  the  degrading  contact  Christian  folk. 

The  evil  had  grown  monstrous :  certain  Jews 
Wore  such  a  haughty  air,  had  so  refined, 
With  super-subtile  arts,   strict,  monkish  lives, 
And  studious  habit,  the  coarse  Hebrew  type, 
One  might  have  elbowed   in  the  public  mart 
Iscariot, — nor  suspected   one's  soul-peril. 
Christ's  blood !  it  sets  my  flesh  a-creep  to  think 
We  may  breath  freely  now,  not  fearing  taint. 
Praised  be  oar  good  Lord  Bishop !     He  keeps  count 
Of  every  Jew,  and  prints  on  cheek  or  chin 
The  scarlet  stamp  of  separateness,  of  shame. 

No  beard,  blue-black,  grizzled  or  Judas-colored, 

May  hide  that  damning  little  wafer-flame. 

When  one  appears  therewith,  the  urchins  know 

Good  sport's  at  hand ;  they  fling  their  stones  and  mud, 

Sure  of  their  game.     But  most  the  wisdom  shows 

Upon  the  unbelievers'  selves  ;  they  learn 

Their  proper  rank;  crouch,  cringe  and  hide, — lay  by 

Their  insolence  of  self-esteem ;  no  more 

Flaunt  forth  in  rich  attire,  but  in  dull  weeds, 

Slovenly  donned,  would  slink  past  unobserved ; 

Bow  servile  necks  and  crook  obsequious  knees, 

Chin  sunk  in  hollow  chest,  eyes  fixed  on  earth 

Or  blinking  sidevvise,  but  to  apprehend 

Whether  or  not  the  hated  spot  be  spied. 

I  warrant  my  lord  Bishop  has  full  hands, 

Guarding  the  Red  Disk — lest  one  rogue  escape ! 


696 


THE    GRANDISSIMES. 


THE    GHANDISSIMES.* 


A    STORY    OF    CREOLE    LIFE. 


By   GEORGE   W.    CABLE,  author  of  "Old   Creole  Days." 


CHAPTER    L. 
A   PROPOSAL    OF    MARRIAGE. 

THERE  was  always  some  flutter  among 
Frowenfeld's  employes  when  he  was  asked 
for,  and  this  time  it  was  the  more  pro- 
nounced because  he  was  sought  by  a  house- 
maid from  the  upper  floor.  It  was  hard  for 
these  two  or  three  young  Ariels  to  keep  their 
Creole  feet  to  the  ground  when  it  was  pres- 
ently revealed  to  their  sharp  ears  that  the 
"  proffis-or "  was  requested  to  come  up- 
stairs. 

The  new  store  was  an  extremely  neat, 
bright,  and  well-ordered  establishment ;  yet 
to  ascend  into  the  drawing-rooms  seemed 
to  the  apothecary  like  going  from  the  hold 
of  one  of  those  smart  old  packet-ships  of 
hii,  day  into  the  cabin.  Aurora  came  for- 
ward, with  the  slippers  of  a  Cinderella  twink- 
ling at  the  edge  of  her  robe.  It  seemed 
unfit  that  the  floor  under  them  should  not 
be  clouds. 

"  Proffis-or  Frowenfel',  good-day !  Teg 
a  cha'."  She  laughed.  It  was  the  pure 
joy  of  existence.  "  You's  well  ?  You 
lookin'  verrie  well !  Halways  bizzie  ? 
You  fine  dad  agriz  wid  you'  healt',  'Sieur 
Frowenfel'  ?  Yes?  Ha,  ha,  ha !  "  She  sud- 
denly leaned  toward  him  across  the  arm  of 
her  chair,  with  an  earnest  face.  "  'Sieur 
Frowenfel',  Palmyre  wand  see  you.  You 
don'  wan'  come  ad  'er  'ouse,  eh  ? — an'  you 
don'  wan'  her  to  come  ad  yo'  bureau.  You 
know,  'Sieur  Frowenfel',  she  drez  the  hair  of 
Clotilde  an'  mieself.  So  w'en  she  tell  me 
dad,  I  juz  say,  '  Palmyre,  I  will  sen'  for 
Proffis-or  Frowenfel'  to  come  yeh;  but  I 
don'  thing  'e  comin'.'  You  know,  I  din' 
wan'  you  to  'ave  dad  troub' ;  but  Clotilde 
— ha,  ha,  ha !  Clotilde  is  sudge  a  foolish — 
she  nevva  thing  of  dad  troub'  to  you — she 
say  she  thing  you  was  too  kine-'arted  to 
call  dad  troub'— ha,  ha,  ha!  So  anny'ow 
we  sen'  for  you,  eh ! " 

Frowenfeld  said  he  was  glad  they  had 
done  so,  whereupon  Aurora  rose  lightly, 
saying : 

"  I  go  an'  sen'  her."     She  started  away, 


but  turned  back  to  add :  "  You  know, 
'Sieur  Frowenfel',  she  say  she  cann'  truz 
nobody  bud  y'u."  She  ended  with  a  low, 
melodious  laugh,  bending  her  joyous  eyes 
upon  the  apothecary  with  her  head  dropped 
to  one  side  in  a  way  to  move  a  heart  of 
flint. 

She  turned  and  passed  through  a  door, 
and  by  the  same  way  Palmyre  entered. 
The  philosophe  came  forward  noiselessly 
and  with  a  subdued  expression,  different 
from  any  Frowenfeld  had  ever  before  seen. 
At  the  first  sight  of  her  a  thrill  of  disrelish 
ran  through  him  of  which  he  was  instantly 
ashamed;  as  she  came  nearer  he  met  her 
with  a  deferential  bow  and  the  silent  tender 
of  a  chair.  She  sat  down,  and,  after 
a  moment's  pause,  handed  him  a  sealed 
letter. 

He  turned  it  over  twice,  recognized  the 
handwriting,  felt  the  disrelish  return,  and 
said : 

"  This  is  addressed  to  yourself." 

She  bowed. 

"  Do  you  know  who  wrote  it  ?  "  he  asked. 

She  bowed  again. 

"  Out,  Michel 

"You  wish  me  to  open  it?  I  cannot 
read  French." 

She  seemed  to  have  some  explanation  to 
offer,  but  could  not  command  the  necessary 
English ;  however,  with  the  aid  of  Frowen- 
feld's limited  guessing  powers,  she  made 
him  understand  that  the  bearer  of  the  letter 
to  her  had  brought  word  from  the  writer 
that  it  was  written  in  English  purposely  that 
M.  Frowenfeld — the  only  person  he  was 
willing  should  see  it — might  read  it.  Frow- 
enfeld broke  the  seal  and  ran  his  eye  over 
the  writing,  but  remained  silent. 

The  woman  stirred,  as  if  to  say  "  Well  ?  " 
But  he  hesitated. 

"  Palmyre,"  he  suddenly  said,  with  a 
slight,  dissuasive  smile,  "  it  would  be  a  prof- 
anation for  me  to  read  this." 

She  bowed  to  signify  that  she  caught  his 
meaning,  then  raised  her  elbows  with  an 
expression  of  dubiety,  and  said : 

"  'E  hask  you " 

"  Yes,"  murmured  the   apothecary.     He 


*  Copyright,  1879,  by  George  W.  Cable.     All  rights  reserved. 


THE    GRANDISSIMES. 


697 


shook  his  head  as  if  to  protest  to  himself, 
and  read  in  a  low  but  audible  voice : 

"  Star  of  my  soul,  I  approach  to  die.  It  is  not  for 
me  possible  to  live  without  Palmyre.  Long  time 
have  I  so  done,  but  now,  cut  off  from  to  see  thee, 
by  imprisonment,  as  it  may  be  called,  love  is  starv- 
ing to  death.  Oh,  have  pity  on  the  faithful  heart 
which,  since  ten  years,  change  not,  but  forget  heaven 
and  earth  for  you.  Now  in  the  peril  of  the  life,  hid- 
den away,  that  absence  from  the  sight  of  you  make 
his  seclusion  the  more  worse  than  death.  Halas  ! 
I  pine !  Not  other  ten  years  of  despair  can  I 
commence.  Accept  this  love.  If  so  I  will  live  for 
you,  but  if  to  the  contraire  I  must  die  for  you.  Is 
there  anything  at  all  what  I  will  not  give  or  even 
do  if  Palmyre  will  be  my  wife  ?  Ah,  no,  far  other- 
wise, there  is  nothing  ! " 

Frowenfeld  looked  over  the  top  of  the 
letter.  Palmyre  sat  with  her  eyes  cast 
down,  slowly  shaking  her  head.  He  re- 
turned his  glance  to  the  page,  coloring 
somewhat  with  annoyance  at  being  made  a 
proposing  medium. 

"  The  English  is  very  faulty  here,"  he 
said,  without  looking  up.  "He  mentions 
Bras-Coupe."  Palmyre  started  and  turned 
toward  him;  but  he  went  on  without  lift- 
ing his  eyes.  "  He  speaks  of  your  old 
pride  and  affection  toward  him  as  one  who 
with  your  aid  might  have  been  a  leader  and 
deliverer  of  his  people."  Frowenfeld  looked 
up.  "Do  you  under " 

"  Allez,  Miche"  said  she,  leaning  forward, 
her  great  eyes  fixed  on  the  apothecary  and 
her  face  full  of  distress.  "  Mo  comprend 
bien." 

"He  asks  you  to  let  him  be  to  you  in  the 
place  of  Bras- Coupe"." 

The  eyes  of  the  philosophe,  probably  for 
the  first  time  since  the  death  of  the  giant, 
lost  their  pride.  They  gazed  upon  Frow- 
enfeld with  almost  piteousness;  but  she 
compressed  her  lips  and  again  slowly  shook 
her  head. 

"  You  see,"  said  Frowenfeld,  suddenly 
feeling  a  new  interest,  "  he  understands 
their  wants.  He  knows  their  wrongs.  He 
is  acquainted  with  laws  and  men.  He  could 
speak  for  them.  It  would  not  be  insurrec- 
tion— it  would  be  advocacy.  He  would  give 
his  time,  his  pen,  his  speech,  his  means,  to 
get  them  justice — to  get  them  their  rights." 

She  hushed  the  over-zealous  advocate 
with  a  sad  and  bitter  smile  and  essayed  to 
speak,  studied  as  if  for  English  words,  and, 
suddenly  abandoning  that  attempt,  said, 
with  ill-concealed  scorn  and  in  the  Creole 
patois : 

"  What  is  all  that  ? 


What  I  want  is  ven- 


geance 


"  I  will  finish  reading,"  said  Frowenfeld, 
quickly,  not  caring  to  understand  the  pas- 
sionate speech. 

"  Ah,  Palmyre  !  Palmyre !  What  you  love  and 
hope  to  love  you  because  his  heart  keep  itself  free, 
he  is  loving  another !  " 

"Quid (a,  Miche?" 

Frowenfeld  was  loth  to  repeat.  She  had 
understood,  as  her  face  showed;  but  she 
dared  not  believe.  He  made  it  shorter : 

"  He  means  that  Honore  Grandissime 
loves  another  woman." 

"  'Tis  a  lie ! "  she  exclaimed,  a  better  com- 
mand of  English  coming  with  the  moment- 
ary loss  of  restraint. 

The  apothecary  thought  a  moment  and 
then  decided  to  speak. 

"  I  do  not  think  so,"  he  quietly  said. 

"  'Ow  you  know  dat  ?  " 

She,  too,  spoke  quietly,  but  under  a  fear- 
ful strain.  She  had  thrown  herself  forward, 
but,  as  she  spoke,  forced  herself  back  into 
her  seat. 

"  He  told  me  so  himself." 

The  tall  figure  of  Palmyre  rose  slowly 
and  silently  from  her  chair,  her  eyes  lifted 
up  and  her  lips  moving  noiselessly.  She 
seemed  to  have  lost  all  knowledge  of  place 
or  of  human  presence.  She  walked  down 
the  drawing-room  quite  to  its  curtained 
windows  and  there  stopped,  her  face  turned 
away  and  her  hand  laid  with  a  visible  ten- 
sion on  the  back  of  a  chair.  She  remained 
there  so  long  that  Frowenfeld  had  begun  to 
think  of  leaving  her  so,  when  she  turned 
and  came  back.  Her  form  was  erect,  her 
step  firm  and  nerved,  her  lips  set  together 
and  her  hands  dropped  easily  at  her  side ; 
but  when  she  came  close  up  before  the 
apothecary  she  was  trembling.  For  a  mo- 
ment she  seemed  speechless,  and  then,  while 
her  eyes  gleamed  with  passion,  she  said,  in 
a  cold,  clear  tone,  and  in  her  native  patois : 

"  Very  well ;  if  I  cannot  love  I  can  have 
my  revenge."  She  took  the  letter  from  him 
and  bowed  her  thanks,  still  adding,  in  the 
same  tongue,  "  There  is  now  no  longer  any- 
thing to  prevent." 

The  apothecary  understood  the  dark 
speech.  She  meant  that,  with  no  hope  of 
Honore's  love,  there  was  no  restraining  mo- 
tive to  withhold  her  from  wreaking  what 
vengeance  she  could  upon  Agricola.  But 
he  saw  the  folly  of  a  debate. 

"  That  is  all  I  can  do  ?  "  asked  he. 

"Out,  merci,  Miche"  she  said;  then  she 
added,  in  perfect  English,  "  But  that  is  not 
all  /  can  do,"  and  then — laughed. 


698 


THE   GRANDISSIMES. 


The  apothecary  had  already  turned  to  go, 
and  the  laugh  was  a  low  one;  but  it  chilled 
his  blood.  He  was  glad  to  get  back  to  his 
employments. 

CHAPTER   LI. 
BUSINESS   CHANGES. 

WE  have  now  recorded  some  of  the 
events  which  characterized  the  five  months 
during  which  Doctor  Keene  had  been  vainly 
seeking  to  recover  his  health  in  the  West 
Indies. 

"  Is  Mr.  Frowenfeld  in  ? "  he  asked, 
walking  very  slowly,  and  with  a  cane,  into 
the  new  drug-store  on  the  morning  of  his 
return  to  the  city. 

"  Is  Professo'  Frowenfel's  in  ?  "  replied  a 
young  man  in  shirt-sleeves,  speaking  rapidly, 
slapping  a  paper  package  which  he  had 
just  tied,  and  sliding  it  smartly  down  the 
counter.  "  No,  seh." 

A  quick  step  behind  the  doctor  caused 
him  to  turn  ;  Raoul  was  just  entering,  with 
a  bright  look  of  business  on  his  face,  taking 
his  coat  off  as  he  came. 

"  Docta  Keene !  Tecka.  chair.  'Ow  you 
like  de  noo  sto'  ?  See  ?  Fo'  counters ! 
T'ree  clerk' !  De  whole  interieure  paint 
undre  mie  h-own  dirrection !  If  dat  is  not  a 
beautiful !  eh  ?  Look  at  dat  sign." 

He  pointed  to  some  lettering  in  harmo- 
nious colors  near  the  ceiling  at  the  farther  end 
of  the  house.  The  doctor  looked  and  read : 

MANDARIN,    AG*T,    APOTHECARY. 

"  Why  not  Frowenfeld  ?  "  he  asked. 

Raoul  shrugged. 

"  'Tis  better  dis  way." 

That  was  his  explanation. 

"  Not  the  De  Brahmin  Mandarin  who 
was  Honore's  manager  ?  " 

"  Yes.  Honore  wasn'  able  to  kip  'im  no 
long-er.  Honore  isn'  so  rich  lak  befo'." 

"  And  Mandarin  is  really  in  charge 
here  ?  " 

"  Oh,  yes.  Profess-or  Frowenfel'  all  de 
time  at  de  ole  corner,  w'ere  'e  <r0#tinue  to 
keep  'is  private  room  and  h-use  de  ole  shop 
fo'  ware'ouse.  'E  h-only  come  yeh  w'en 
Mandarin  cann'  git  'long  widout  'im." 

"  What  does  he  do  there  ?  He's  not 
rich." 

Raoul  bent  down  toward  the  doctor's 
chair  and  whispered  the  dark  secret : 

"  Studyin' ! " 

The  doctor  went  out. 


Everything  seemed  changed  to  the  re- 
turned wanderer.  Poor  man  !  The  changes 
were  very  slight  save  in  their  altered  relation 
to  him.  To  one  broken  in  health,  and  still 
more  to  one  with  broken  heart,  old  scenes 
fall  upon  the  sight  in  broken  rays.  A  sort 
of  vague  alienation  seemed  to  the  little  doc- 
tor to  come  like  a  film  over  the  long-familiar 
vistas  of  the  town  where  he  had  once  walked 
in  the  vigor  and  complacency  of  strength 
and  distinction.  This  was  not  the  same 
New  Orleans.  The  people  he  met  on  the 
street  were  more  or  less  familiar  to  his  mem- 
ory, but  many  that  should  have  recognized 
him  failed  to  do  so,  and  others  were  made 
to  notice  him  rather  by  his  cough  than  by 
his  face.  Some  did  not  know  he  had  been 
away.  It  made  him  cross. 

He  had  walked  slowly  down  beyond  the 
old  Frowenfeld  corner  and  had  just  crossed 
the  street  to  avoid  the  dust  of  a  building 
which  was  being  torn  down  to  make  place 
for  a  new  one,  when  he  saw  coming  toward 
him,  unconscious  of  his  proximity,  Joseph 
Frowenfeld. 

"  Doctor  Keene  ! "  said  Frowenfeld,  with 
almost  the  enthusiasm  of  Raoul. 

The  doctor  was  very  much  quieter. 

"  Hello,  Joe." 

They  went  back  to  the  new  drug-store, 
sat  down  in  a  pleasant  little  rear  corner  in- 
closed by  a  railing  and  curtains,  and  talked. 

"  And  did  the  trip  prove  of  no  advantage 
to  you  ?  " 

"  You  see.  But  never  mind  me  ;  tell  me 
about  Honore ;  how  does  that  row  with  his 
family  progress  ?  " 

"  It  still  continues ;  the  most  of  his  people 
hold  ideas  of  justice  and  prerogative  that 
run  parallel  with  family  and  party  lines, 
lines  of  caste,  of  custom  and  the  like ;  they 
have  imparted  their  bad  feeling  against  him 
to  the  community  at  large ;  very  easy  to  do 
just  now,  for  the  election  for  President  of 
the  States  comes  on  in  the  fall,  and  though 
we  in  Louisiana  have  little  or  nothing  to  do 
with  it,  the  people  are  feverish." 

"  The  country's  chill  day,"  said  Doctor 
Keene ;  "  dumb  chill,  hot  fever." 

"  The  excitement  is  intense,"  said  Frow- 
enfeld. "  It  seems  we  are  not  to  be  granted 
suffrage  yet ;  but  the  Creoles  have  a  way  of 
casting  votes  in  their  mind.  For  example, 
they  have  voted  Honore  Grandissime  a 
traitor;  they  have  voted  me  an  incumbrance; 
I  hear  one  of  them  casting  that  vote  now." 

Some  one  near  the  front  of  the  store  was 
talking  excitedly  with  Raoul : 

"An' — an' — an'  w'at  are  the  consequence? 


THE   GRANDISSIMES. 


699 


The  consequence  are  that  we  smash  his 
shop  for  him  an'  he  'ave  to  make  a  noo-start 
with  a  Creole  partner's  money  an'  put  'is 
sto'  in  charge  of  Creole' !  If  I  know  he  is 
yo'  frien'  ?  Yesseh !  Valuable  citizen  ? 
An'  w'at  we  care  for  valuable  citizen  ?  Let 
him  be  valuable  if  he  want;  it  keep' 
him  from  gettin'  the  neck  broke ;  but — he 
mus'-tek  kyeh — 'ow — he — talk' !  He-mus'- 
tek-kyeh  'ow  he  stir  the  'ot  blood  of 
Louisyanna !  " 

"He  is  perfectly  right,"  said  the  little 
doctor,  in  his  husky  undertone ;  "  neither 
you  nor  Honore  is  a  bit  sound,  and  I 
shouldn't  wonder  if  they  would  hang  you 
both,  yet ;  and  as  for  that  darkey  who  has 
had  the  impudence  to  try  to  make  a  com- 
mercial white  gentleman  of  himself — it  may 
not  be  I  that  ought  to  say  it,  but — he  will 
get  his  deserts — sure !  " 

"  There  are  a  great  many  Americans  that 
think  as  you  do,"  said  Frowenfeld,  quietly. 

"  But,"  said  the  little  doctor,  "  what  did 
that  fellow  mean  by  your  Creole  partner  ? 
Mandarin  is  in  charge  of  your  store,  but  he 
is  not  your  partner,  is  he  ?  Have  you  one  ?  " 

"  A  silent  one,"  said  the  apothecary. 

"  So   silent   as   to   be  none  of  my  busi- 
ness ?  " 
-  No." 

'  Well,  who  is  it,  then  ?  " 
'  It  is  Mademoiselle  Nancanou." 
'  Your  partner  in  business  ?  " 

'Yes." 

'  Well,  Joseph  Frowenfeld, " 

The  insinuation  conveyed  in  the  doctor's 
manner  was  very  trying,  but  Joseph  merely 
reddened. 

"  Purely  business,  I  suppose,"  presently 
said  the  doctor,  with  a  ghastly  ironical 
smile.  "  Does  the  arrangem — "  his  utter- 
ance failed  him — "  does  it  end  there  ?  " 

"It  ends  there." 

"And  you  don't  see  that  it  ought  either 
not  to  have  begun,  cr  else  ought  not  to  have 
ended  there  ?  " 

Frowenfeld  blushed  angrily.  The  doctor 
asked: 

"  And  who  takes  care  of  Aurora's  money  ?  " 

"  Herself." 

"  Exclusively  ?  " 

They  both  smiled  more  good-naturedly. 

"  Exclusively." 

"She's  a  'coon ;  "  and  the  little  doctor  rose 
up  and  crawled  away,  ostensibly  to  see 
another  friend,  but  really  to  drag  himself  into 
his  bed-chamber  and  lock  himself  in.  The 
next  day — the  yellow  fever  was  bad  again — 
he  resumed  the  practice  of  his  profession. 


"  'Twill  be  a  sort  of  decent  suicide  without 
the  element  of  pusillanimity,"  he  thought  to 
himself. 

CHAPTER    LII. 
LOVE    LIES    A-BLEEDING. 

WHEN  Honor6  Grandissime  heard  that 
Doctor  Keene  had  returned  to  the  city  in  a 
very  feeble  state  of  health,  he  rose  at  once 
from  the  desk  where  he  was  sitting  and 
went  to  see  him;  but  it  was  on  that  morn- 
ing when  the  doctor  was  sitting  and  talking 
with  Joseph,  and  Honore  found  his  chamber 
door  locked.  Doctor  Keene  called  twice, 
within  the  following  two  days,  upon  Honore 
at  his  counting-room ;  but  on  both  occasions 
Honore's  chair  was  empty.  So  it  was  sev- 
eral days  before  they  met.  But  one  hot 
morning  in  the  latter  part  of  August, — the 
August  days  were  hotter  before  the  cypress 
forest  was  cut  down  between  the  city  and 
the  lake  than  they  are  now, — as  Doctor 
Keene  stood  in  the  middle  of  his  room 
breathing  distressedly  after  a  sad  fit  of 
coughing,  and  looking  toward  one  of  his 
windows  whose  closed  sash  he  longed  to 
see  opened,  Honore  knocked  at  the  door. 

"  Well,  come  in  !  "  said  the  fretful  invalid. 
"Why,  Honore, — well,  it  serves  you  right 
for  stopping  to  knock.  Sit  down." 

Each  took  a  hasty,  scrutinizing  glance  at 
the  other ;  and,  after  a  pause,  Doctor  Keene 
said : 

"  Honore,  you  are  pretty  badly  stove." 

M.  Grandissime  smiled. 

"  Do  you  think  so,  Docta  ?  I  will  be 
mo'  complimentary  to  you ;  you  might  look 
mo'  sick." 

"  Oh,  I  have  resumed  my  trade,"  replied 
Doctor  Keene. 

"  So  I  have  heard ;  but,  Chahlie,  that  is 
all  in  favor-h  of  the  people  who  want  a  skill- 
ful and  advanced  physician  and  do  not 
mind  killing  him ;  I  should  advise  you  not 
to  do  it." 

"  You  mean  "  (the  incorrigible  little  doc- 
tor smiled  cynically)  "  if  I  should  ask  your 
advice.  I  am  going  to  get  well  Honore." 

His  visitor  shrugged. 

"  So  much  the  betta.  I  do  confess  I  am 
tempted  to  make  use  of  you  in  yo'  official 
capacity,  rhight  now.  Do  you  feel  strhong 
enough  to  go  with  me  in  yo'  gig  a  li ttle  way  ?  " 

"  A  professional  call  ?  " 

"  Yes,  and  a  difficult  case ;  also  a  confi- 
dential one." 

"  Ah !  confidential !  "  said  the  little  man, 


700 


THE   GRANDISSIMES. 


in  his  painful,  husky  irony.  "  You  want  to 
get  me  into  the  sort  of  scrape  I  got  our  '  pro- 
fessor '  into,  eh  ?  " 

"  Possibly  a  worse  one,"  replied  the  amia- 
ble Creole. 

"  And  I  must  be  mum,  eh  ?  " 

"  I  would  prhefeh." 

"  Shall  I  need  any  instruments  ?  No  ?  " 
— with  a  shade  of  disappointment  on  his 
face. 

He  pulled  a  bell-rope  and  ordered  his 
gig  to  the  street  door. 

"  How  are  affairs  about  town  ? "  he 
asked,  as  he  made  some  slight  preparation 
for  the  street. 

"  Excitement  continues.  Just  as  I  came 
along,  a  prhivate  difficulty  between  a  Crheole 
and  an  Americain  drhew  instantly  half  the 
strheet  togetheh  to  take  sides  strhictly  ac- 
cawding  to  belongings  and  without  asking  a 
question.  My-de'-seh,  we  ah  having,  as 
Frhowenfeld  says,  a  war-h  of'  human  acids 
and  alkalis!" 

They  descended  and  drove  away.  At 
the  first  corner  the  lad  who  drove  turned, 
by  Honore"'s  direction,  toward  the  rue  Dau- 
phine,  entered  it,  passed  down  it  to  the  rue 
Dumaine,  turned  into  this  toward  the  river 
again  and  entered  the  rue  Conde.  The 
route  was  circuitous.  They  stopped  at  the 
carriage  door  of  a  large  brick  house.  The 
wicket  was  opened  by  Clemence.  They 
alighted  without  driving  in. 

"  Hey,  old  witch,"  said  the  doctor,  with 
mock  severity ;  "  not  hung  yet  ?  " 

The  houses  of  any  pretension  to  comfort- 
able spaciousness  in  the  closely  built  parts 
of  the  town  were  all  of  the  one,  general, 
Spanish-American  plan.  Honore  led  the 
doctor  through  the  cool,  high,  tesselated 
carriage-hall,  on  one  side  of  which  were  the 
drawing-rooms,  closed  and  darkened.  They 
turned  at  the  bottom,  ascended  a  broad, 
iron-railed  staircase  to  the  floor  above,  and 
halted  before  the  open  half  of  a  glazed 
double  door  with  a  clumsy  iron  latch.  It 
was  the  entrance  to  two  spacious  chambers, 
which  were  thrown  into  one  by  folded 
doors. 

The  doctor  made  a  low,  indrawn  whistle 
and  raised  his  eyebrows — the  rooms  were 
so  sumptuously  furnished ;  immovable  large- 
ness and  heaviness,  lofty  sobriety,  abundance 
of  finely  wrought  brass  mounting,  motionless 
richness  of  upholstery,  much  silent  twinkle 
of  pendulous  crystal,  a  soft  semi-obscurity 
— such  were  the  characteristics.  The  long 
windows  of  the  farther  apartment  could  be 
seen  to  open  over  the  street,  and  the  air 


from  behind,  coming  in  over  a  green  mass 
of  fig-trees  that  stood  in  the  paved  court 
below,  moved  through  the  rooms,  making 
them  cool  and  cavernous. 

"  You  don't  call  this  a  hiding-place,  do 
you — in  his  own  bed-chamber  ?  "  the  doctor 
whispered. 

"  It  is  necessary,  now,  only  to  keep  out 
of  sight,"  softly  answered  Honore\  "  Agrhic- 
ole  and  some  othehs  rhansacked  this  house 
one  night  last  Mahch — the  day  I  announced 
the  new  firm ;  but  of  co'se,  then,  he  was  not 
heah." 

They  entered,  and  the  figure  of  Honore 
Grandissime,  f.  m.  c.,  came  into  view  in  the 
center  of  the  farther  room,  reclining  in 
an  attitude  of  extreme  languor  on  a  low 
couch,  whither  he  had  come  from  the  high 
bed  near  by,  as  the  impression  of  his  form 
among  its  pillows  showed.  He  turned  upon 
the  two  visitors  his  slow,  melancholy  eyes, 
and,  without  an  attempt  to  rise  or  speak, 
indicated,  by  a  feeble  motion  of  the  hand, 
an  invitation  to  be  seated. 

"  Good  morning,"  said  Doctor  Keene, 
selecting  a  light  chair  and  drawing  it  close 
to  the  side  of  the  couch. 

The  patient  before  him  was  emaciated. 
The  limp  and  bloodless  hand,  which  had 
not  responded  to  the  doctor's  friendly  pres- 
sure but  sank  idly  back  upon  the  edge  of 
the  couch,  was  cool  and  moist,  and  its  nails 
slightly  blue. 

"  Lie  still,"  said  the  doctor,  re-assuringly, 
as  the  rentier  began  to  lift  the  one  knee  and 
slippered  foot  which  was  drawn  up  on  the 
couch  and  the  hand  which  hung  out  of 
sight  across  a  large,  linen-covered  cushion. 

By  pleasant  talk  that  seemed  all  chat,  the 
physician  soon  acquainted  himself  with  the 
case  before  him.  It  was  a  very  plain  one. 
By  and  by  he  rubbed  his  face  and  red  curls 
and  suddenly  said : 

"  You  will  not  take  my  prescription." 

The  f.  m.  c.  did  not  say  yes  or  no. 

"Still," — the  doctor  turned  sidewise  in 
his  chair,  as  was  his  wont,  and,  as  he  spoke, 
allowed  the  corners  of  his  mouth  to  take 
that  little  satirical  downward  pull  which  his 
friends  disliked, — "  I'll  do  my  duty.  I'll 
give  Honor6  the  details  as  to  diet ;  no 
physic;  but  my  prescription  to  you  is,  Get 
up  and  get  out.  Never  mind  the  risk  of 
rough  handling ;  they  can  but  kill  you,  and 
you  will  die  anyhow  if  you  stay  here."  He 
rose.  "  I'll  send  you  a  chalybeate  tonic  ;  or 
— I  will  leave  it  at  Frowenfeld's  to-morrow 
morning,  and  you  can  call  there  and  get  it. 
It  will  give  you  an  object  for  going  out." 


THE  GRANDISSIMES. 


701 


The  two  visitors  presently  said  adieu  and 
retired  together.  Reaching  the  bottom  of 
the  stairs  in  the  carriage  "corridor,"  they 
turned  in  a  direction  opposite  to  the  entrance 
and  took  chairs  in  a  cool  nook  of  the  paved 
court,  at  a  small  table  where  the  hospi- 
tality of  Clemence  had  placed  glasses  of 
lemonade. 

"  No,"  said  the  doctor,  as  they  sat  down, 
"  there  is,  as  yet,  no  incurable  organic  de- 
rangement; a  little  heart  trouble  easily 
removed ;  still  your — your  patient " 

"  My  half-brother,"  said  Honore. 

"  Your  patient,"  said  Doctor  Keene,  "  is 
an  emphatic  '  yes  '  to  the  question  the  girls 
sometimes  ask  us  doctors — '  Does  love  ever 
kill  ?  '  It  will  kill  him  soon,  if  you  do  not 
.get  him  to  rouse  up.  There  is  absolutely 
nothing  the  matter  with  him  but  his  unre- 
quited love." 

"  Fawtunately,  the  most  of  us,"  said 
Honore,  with  something  of  the  doctor's 
smile,  "  do  not  love  hahd  enough  to  be 
killed  by  it." 

"  Very  few."  The  doctor  paused,  and  his 
blue  eyes,  distended  in  reverie,  gazed  upon 
the  glass  which  he  was  slowly  turning  around 
with  his  attenuated  fingers  as  it  stood  on  the 
board,  while  he  added  :  "  However,  one  may 
love  as  hopelessly  and  harder  than  that  man 
upstairs,  and  yet  not  die." 

"There-h  is  comfo't  in  that — to  those 
who  must  live,"  said  Honore,  with  gentle 
gravity. 

"  Yes,"  said  the  other,  still  toying  with  his 
glass. 

He  slowly  lifted  his  glance,  and  the  eyes 
of  the  two  men  met  and  remained  stead- 
fastly fixed  each  upon  each. 

"  You've  got  it  bad,"  said  Doctor  Keene, 
mechanically. 

"  And  you  ?  "  retorted  the  Creole. 

"  It  isn't  going  to  kill  me." 

"  It  has  not  killed  me.  And,"  added  M. 
Grandissime,  as  they  passed  through  the 
carriage-way  toward  the  street,  "  while  I 
keep  in  mind  the  numbe'less  otheh  sorrows 
of  life,  the  burhials  of  wives  and  sons  and 
daughtehs,  the  agonies  and  desolations,  I 
shall  nevvah  die  of  love,  my-de'-seh,  fo' 
verhy  shame's  sake." 

This  was  much  sentiment  to  risk  within 
Doctor  Keene's  reach ;  but  he  took  no  ad- 
vantage of  it. 

"  Honore,"  said  he,  as  they  joined  hands 
on  the  banquette  beside  the  doctor's  gig,  to 
say  good-day,  "  if  you  think  there's  a  chance 
for  you,  why  stickle  upon  such  fine-drawn 
points  as  I  reckon  you  are  making  ?  Why, 


sir,  as  I  understand  it,  this  is  the  only  weak 
spot  your  action  has  shown;  you  have  taken 
an  inoculation  of  Quixotic  conscience  from 
our  transcendental  apothecary  and  perpe- 
trated a  lot  of  heroic  behavior  that  would 
have  done  honor  to  four-and-twenty  Bru- 
tuses ;  and  now  that  you  have  a  chance  to 
do  something  easy  and  human,  you  shiver 
and  shrink  at  the '  looks  o'  the  thing.'  Why, 
what  do  you  care " 

"  Hush  !  "  said  Honore ;  "  do  you  sup- 
pose I  have  not  temptation  enough 
alrheady  ?  " 

He  began  to  move  away. 

"  Honore,"  said  the  doctor,  following  him 
a  step,  "  I  couldn't  have  made  a  mistake — 
it's  the  little  Monk, — it's  Aurora,  isn't  it  ?  " 

Honore  nodded,  then  faced  his  friend 
more  directly,  with  a  sudden  new  thought. 

"  But,  Doctah,  why  not  take  your-h  own 
advice  ?  I  know  not  how  you  ah  prhe- 
vented;  you  have  as  good  a  rhight  as  Frhow- 
enfeld." 

"  It  wouldn't  be  honest,"  said  the  doc- 
tor ;  "  it  wouldn't  be  the  straight  up  and 
down  manly  thing." 

"Why  not?" 

The  doctor  stepped  into  his  gig 

"  Not  till  I  feel  all  right  here."  (In  his 
chest.) 

CHAPTER    LIII. 
FROWENFELD  AT  THE  GRANDISSIME  MANSION. 

ONE  afternoon — it  seems  to  have  been 
some  time  in  June,  and  consequently  earlier 
than  Doctor  Keene's  return — the  Grandis- 
simes  were  set  all  a-tremble  with  vexation 
by  the  discovery  that  another  of  their  num- 
ber had,  to  use  Agricola's  expression,  "  gone 
over  to  the  enemy," — a  phrase  first  applied 
by  him  to  Honore. 

"What  do  you  intend  to  convey  by  that 
term  ?  "  Frowenfeld  had  asked  on  that  earlier 
occasion. 

"  Gone  over  to  the  enemy  means,  my 
son,  gone  over  to  the  enemy ! "  replied 
Agricola.  "  It  implies  affiliation  with  Amer- 
icains  in  matters  of  business  and  of  govern- 
ment !  It  implies  the  exchange  of  social 
amenities  with  a  race  of  upstarts !  It  im- 
plies a  craven  consent  to  submit  the  sacred- 
est  prejudices  of  our  fathers  to  the  new- 
fangled measuring-rods  of  pert,  imported 
theories  upon  moral  and  political  progress  ! 
It  implies  a  listening  to,  and  reasoning  with, 
the  condemners  of  some  of  our  most 
time-honored  and  respectable  practices ! 


702 


THE   GRANDISSIMES. 


Reasoning  with  ?  N-a-hay !  but  Honore  has 
positively  sat  down  and  eaten  with  them ! 
What  ? — and  h-walked  out  into  the  stre-heet 
with  them,  arm  in  arm !  It  implies  in  his 
case  an  act — two  separate  and  distinct  acts 
—so  base  that — that — I  simply  do  not  un- 
derstand them!  H-you  know,  Professor 
Frowenfeld,  what  he  has  done !  You  know 
how  ignominiously  he  has  surrendered  the 
key  of  a  moral  position  which  for  the  honor 
of  the  Grandissime-Fusilier  name  we  have 
felt  it  necessary  to  hold  against  our  heredi- 

.  tary  enemies  !  And — you — know "  here 

Agricola  actually  dropped  all  artificiality 
and  spoke  from  the  depths  of  his  feelings, 
without  figure — "  h-h-he  has  joined  himself 
in  business  h-with  a  man  of  negro  blood ! 
What  can  we  do  ?  What  can  we  say  ?  It 
is  Honor6  Grandissime.  We  can  only  say, 
'  Farewell !  He  is  gone  over  to  the  enemy.' " 

The  new  cause  of  exasperation  was  the 
defection  of  Raoul  Innerarity.  Raoul  had, 
somewhat  from  a  distance,  contemplated 
such  part  as  he  could  understand  of  Joseph 
Frowenfeld's  character  with  ever-broadening 
admiration.  We  know  how  devoted  he  be- 
came to  the  interests  and  fame  of  "Frowen- 
feld's." It  was  in  April  he  had  married. 
Not  to  divide  his  generous  heart,  he  took 
rooms  opposite  the  drug-store,  resolved  that 
"  Frowenfeld's "  should  be  not  only  the 
latest  closed  but  the  earliest  opened  of  all 
the  pharmacies  in  New  Orleans. 

This,  it  is  true,  was  allowable.  Not 
many  weeks  afterward  his  bride  fell  suddenly 
and  seriously  ill.  The  overflowing  souls 
of  Aurora  and  Clotilde  could  not  be  so  near 
to  trouble  and  not  know  it,  and  before 
Raoul  was  nearly  enough  recovered  from 
the  shock  of  this  peril  to  remember  that  he 
was  a  Grandissime,  these  last  two  of  the 
De  Grapions  had  hastened  across  the  street 
to  the  small,  white-walled  sick-room  and 
filled  it  as  full  of  universal  human  love  as 
the  cup  of  a  magnolia  is  full  of  perfume. 
Madame  Innerarity  recovered.  A  warm 
affection  was  all  she  and  her  husband  could 
pay  such  ministration  in,  and  this  they  paid 
bountifully  ;  the  four  became  friends.  The 
little  madame  found  herself  drawn  most 
toward  Clotilde ;  to  her  she  opened  her 
heart — and  her  wardrobe,  and  showed  her  all 
her  beautiful  new  under-clothing.  Clotilde, 
Raoul  found  to  be,  for  him,  rather — what 
shall  we  say  ? — starry,  starrily  inaccessible ; 
but  Aurora  was  emphatically  after  his  liking ; 
he  was  delighted  with  Aurora.  He  told  her 
in  confidence  that  "  Profess-or  Frowenfel'  " 
was  the  best  man  in  the  world;  but  she 


boldly  said,  taking  pains  to  speak  with  a 
tear  and  a  half  of  genuine  gratitude, — 
"  Egcep'  Monsieur  Honor6  Grandissime," 
and  he  assented,  at  first  with  hesitation  and 
then  with  ardor.  The  four  formed  a  group 
of  their  own ;  and  it  is  not  certain  that  this 
was  not  the  very  first  specimen  ever  pro- 
duced in  the  Crescent  City  of  that  social 
variety  of  New  Orleans  life  now  distin- 
guished as  Uptown  Creoles. 

Almost  the  first  thing  acquired  by  Raoul 
in  the  camp  of  the  enemy  was  a  certain 
Aurorean  audacity ;  and  on  the  afternoon  to 
which  we  allude,  having  told  Frowenfeld  a 
rousing  fib  to  the  effect  that  the  multitudi- 
nous inmates  of  the  maternal  Grandissime 
mansion  had  insisted  on  his  bringing  his 
esteemed  employer  to  see  them,  he  and  his 
bride  had  the  hardihood  to  present  him  on 
the  front  veranda. 

The  straightforward  Frowenfeld  was  much 
pleased  with  his  reception.  It  was  not 
possible  for  such  as  he  to  guess  the  ire  with 
which  his  presence  was  secretly  regarded. 
New  Orleans,  let  us  say  once  more,  was 
small,  and  the  apothecary  of  the  rue  Roy- 
ale  locally  famed ;  and  what  with  curiosity 
and  that  innate  politeness  which  it  is  the 
Creole's  boast  that  he  cannot  mortify,  the 
veranda,  about  the  top  of  the  great  front 
stair,  was  well  crowded  with  people  of  both 
sexes  and  all  ages.  It  would  be  most  pleas- 
ant to  tarry  once  more  in  description  of  this 
gathering  of  nobility  and  beauty ;  to  recount 
the  points  of  Creole  loveliness  in  midsummer 
dress;  to  tell  in  particular  of  one  and  an- 
other eye-kindling  face,  form,  manner,  wit ; 
to  define  the  subtle  qualities  of  Creole  air 
and  sky  and  scene,  or  the  yet  more  delicate 
graces  that  characterize  the  music  of  Creole 
voice  and  speech  and  the  light^  of  Creole 
eyes;  to  set  forth  the  gracious, unaccentuated 
dignity  of  the  matrons  and  the  ravishing 
archness  of  their  daughters.  To  Frowen- 
feld the  experience  seemed  all  unreal.  Nor 
was  this  unreality  removed  by  conversation 
on  grave  subjects ;  for  few  among  either  the 
maturer  or  the  younger  beauty  could  do 
aught  but  listen  to*  his  foreign  tongue  like 
unearthly  strangers  in  the  old  fairy  tales. 
They  came,  however,  in  the  course  of  their 
talk  to  the  subject  of  love  and  marriage. 
It  is  not  certain  that  they  entered  deeper 
into  the  great  question  than  a  comparison 
of  its  attendant  Anglo-American  and  Fran- 
co-American conventionalities ;  but  sure  it 
is  that  somehow — let  those  young  souls 
divine  the  method  who  can — every  un- 
earthly stranger  on  that  veranda  contrived 


THE    GRANDISSIMES. 


7°3 


to  understand.  Suddenly  the  conversation 
began  to  move  over  the  ground  of  intermar- 
riage between  hostile  families.  Then  what 
eyes  and  ears!  A  certain  suspicion  had 
already  found  lodgment  in  the  universal 
Grandissime  breast,  and  every  one  knew  in 
a  moment  that,  to  all  intents  and  purposes, 
they  were  about  to  argue  the  case  of  Honore 
and  Aurora. 

The  conversation  became  discussion, 
Frowenfeld,  Raoul  and  Raoul's  little  seraph 
against  the  whole  host,  chariots,  horse  and 
archery.  Ah  !  such  strokes  as  the  apothe- 
cary dealt !  And  if  Raoul  and  "  Madame 
Raoul "  played  parts  most  closely  resem- 
bling the  blowing  of  horns  and  breaking  of 
pitchers,  still  they  bore  themselves  gallantly. 
The  engagement  was  short ;  we  need  not 
say  that  nobody  surrendered ;  nobody  ever 
gives  up  the  ship  in  parlor  or  veranda 
debate ;  and  yet — as  is  generally  the  case  in 
such  affairs — truth  and  justice  made  some 
unacknowledged  headway.  If  anybody  on 
either  side  came  out  wounded — this  to  the 
credit  of  the  Creoles  as  a  people — the  suf- 
ferer had  -the  heroic  good  manners  not  to 
say  so.  But  the  results  were  more  marked 
than  this ;  indeed,  in  more  than  one  or  two 
candid  young  hearts  and  impressible  minds 
the  wrongs  and  rights  of  sovereign  true 
love  began  there  on  the  spot  to  be  more 
generously  conceded  and  allowed.  "  My- 
de'-seh,"  Honore  had  once  on  a  time  said  to 
Frowenfeld,  meaning  that  to  prevail  in  con- 
versational debate  one  should  never  follow  up 
a  faltering  opponent,  "  you  mus'  crhack  the 
egg,  not  smash  it !  "  And  Joseph,  on  rising 
to  take  his  leave,  could  the  more  amiably 
overlook  the  feebleness  of  the  invitation  to 
call  again,  since  he  rejoiced,  for  Honore's 
sake,  in  the  conviction  that  the  egg  was 
cracked. 

Agricola,  the  Grandissimes  told  the 
apothecary,  was  ill  in  his  room,  and  Mad- 
ame de  Grandissime,  his  sister — Honore's 
mother — begged  to  be  excused  that  she 
might  keep  him  company.  The  Fusiliers 
were  a  very  close  order;  or  one  might  say 
they  garrisoned  the  citadel. 

But  Joseph's  rising  to  go  was  not  imme- 
diately upon  the  close  of  the  discussion ; 
those  courtly  people  would  not  let  even  an 
unwelcome  guest  go  with  the  faintest  feel- 
ing of  disrelish  for  them.  They  were  casting 
about  in  their  minds  for  some  momentary 
diversion  with  which  to  add  a  finishing  touch 
to  their  guest's  entertainment,  when  Clem- 
ence  appeared  in  the  front  garden-walk  and 
was  quickly  surrounded  by  bounding  chil- 


dren, alternately  begging  and  demanding  a 
song.  Many  of  even  the  younger  adults 
remembered  well  when  she  had  been  "  one 
of  the  hands  on  the  place,"  and  a  passionate 
lover  of  the  African  dance.  In  the  same 
instant  half  a  dozen  voices  proposed  that 
for  Joseph's  amusement  Clemence  should 
put  her  cakes  off  her  head,  come  up  on 
the  veranda  and  show  a  few  of  her  best 
steps. 

"  But  who  will  sing  ?  " 

"  Raoul ! " 

"  Very  well ;  and  what  shall  it  be  ?  " 

"  <  Madame  GabaV 

No,  Clemence  objected. 

"  Well,  well,  stand  back — something  bet- 
ter than  '  Madame  Gaba.'  " 

Raoul  began  to  sing  and  Clemence  in- 
stantly to  pace  and  turn,  posture,  bow, 
respond  to  the  song,  start,  swing,  straighten, 
stamp,  wheel,  lift  her  hands,  stoop,  twist, 
walk,  whirl,  tip-toe  with  crossed  ankles, 
smite  her  palms,  march,  circle,  leap — an 
endless  improvisation  of  rhythmic  motion  to 
this  modulated  responsive  chant: 

RAOUL.     "  Mo  pas  raimein  fa." 

CLEMENCE.     "Miche  Igenne,  oap  /  oap  /  cap  / ' ' 

HE.     "  Ye  donne  vingt  c inq  sous  pou'  manzf  poule." 

SHE.     "  Michi  Igenm,  dit—dit—dlt " 

HE.     "  Mo  pas  raimein  faf" 

SHE.     "  Micht  Igenne,  oap  !  oap  !  oap  /  " 

HE.     "  Mo  pas  raimein  fa!" 

SHE.     "  Miche'  Igenne,  oap  !  oap  !  oap  / ' ' 

Frowenfeld  was  not  so  greatly  amused  as 
the  ladies  thought  he  should  have  been,  and 
was  told  that  this  was  not  a  fair  indication 
of  what  he  would  see  if  there  were  ten 
dancers  instead  of  one. 

How  much  less  was  it  an  indication  of 
what  he  would  have  seen  in  that  mansion 
early  the  next  morning,  when  there  was 
found  just  outside  of  Agricola's  bedroom 
door  a  fresh  egg,  not  cracked,  accord- 
ing to  Honore's  maxim,  but  smashed,  ac- 
cording to  the  lore  of  the  voudous.  Who 
could  have  got  in  in  the  night  ?  And  did  the 
intruder  get  in  by  magic,  by  outside  lock- 
picking,  or  by  inside  collusion?  Later  in 
the  morning,  the  children  playing  in  the 
basement  found — it  had  evidently  been 
accidentally  dropped,  since  the  true  use  of 
its  contents  required  them  to  be  scattered  in 
some  person's  path — a  small  cloth  bag,  con- 
taining a  quantity  of  dogs'  and  cats'  hair,  cut 
fine  and  mixed  with  salt  and  pepper. 

"  Clemence  ?  " 

"  Pooh  !  Clemence.  No !  But  as  sure 
as  the  sun  turns  around  the  world — Palmyre 
Philosophe!" 


7°4 


THE    GXANDISSIMES. 


CHAPTER    LIV. 
"  CAULDRON     BUBBLE." 

THE  excitement  and  alarm  produced  by 
the  practical  threat  of  voudou  curses  upon 
Agricola  was  one  thing,  Creole  lethargy 
was  quite  another;  and  when,  three  morn- 
ings later,  a  full  quartette  of  voudou  charms 
was  found  in  the  four  corners  of  Agricola's 
pillow,  the  great  Grandissime  family  were 
ignorant  of  how  they  could  have  come 
there.  Let  us  examine  these  terrible  engines 
of  mischief.  In  one  corner  was  an  acorn 
drilled  through  with  two  holes  at  right 
angles  to  each  other,  a  small  feather  run 
through  each  hole ;  in  the  second  a  joint  of 
cornstalk  with  a  cavity  scooped  from  the 
middle,  the  pith  left  intact  at  the  ends,  and 
the  space  filled  with  parings  from  that  small 
callous  spot  near  the  knee  of  the  horse, 
called  the  "  nail " ;  in  the  third  corner  a 
bunch  of  parti-colored  feathers;  something 
equally  meaningless  in  the  fourth.  No 
thread  was  used  in  any  of  them.  All  fastening 
was  done  with  the  gum  of  trees.  It  was  no 
easy  task  for  his  kindred  to  prevent  Agricola, 
beside  himself  with  rage  and  fright,  from 
going  straight  to  Palmyre's  house  and  shoot- 
ing her  down  in  open  day. 

"  We  shall  have  to  watch  our  house  by 
night,"  said  a  gentleman  of  the  household, 
when  they  had  at  length  restored  the  Citi- 
zen to  a  condition  of  mind  which  enabled 
them  to  hold  him  in  a  chair. 

"  Watch  this  house  ? "  cried  a  chorus. 
"  You  don't  suppose  she  comes  near  here, 
do  you  ?  She  does  it  all  from  a  distance. 
No,  no ;  watch  her  house." 

Did  Agricola  believe  in  the  supernatural 
potency  of  these  gimcracks  ?  No,  and  yes. 
Not  to  be  fool-hardy,  he  quietly  slipped 
down  every  day  to  the  levee,  had  a  slave- 
boy  row  him  across  the  river  in  a  skiff,  landed, 
re-embarked,  and  in  the  middle  of  the 
stream  surreptitiously  cast  a  picayune  over 
his  shoulder  into  the  river.  Monsieur  D'Em- 
barras,  the  imp  of  death  thus  placated,  must 
have  been  a  sort  of  spiritual  Cheap  John. 

Several  more  nights  passed.  The  house 
of  Palmyre,  closely  watched,  revealed  noth- 
ing. No  one  came  out,  no  one  went  in,  no 
light  was  seen.  They  should  have  watched 
it  in  broad  daylight.  At  last,  one  midnight, 
'Polyte  Grandissime  stepped  cautiously  up 
to  one  of  the  batten  doors  with  an  auger, 
and  succeeded,  without  arousing  any  one, 
in  boring  a  hole.  He  discovered  a  lighted 
candle  standing  in  a  glass  of  water. 


"  Nothing  but  a  bedroom  light,"  said  one. 

"Ah,  bah  ! "  whispered  the  other ;  "  it  is 
to  make  the  spell  work  strong." 

"  We  will  not  tell  Agricola  first ;  we  had 
better  tell  Honore,"  said  Sylvestre. 

"  You  forget,"  said  'Polyte,  "  that  I  no 
longer  have  any  acquaintance  with  Mon- 
sieur Honore  Grandissime." 

They  told  Agamemnon;  and  it  would 
have  gone  hard  with  the  "  milatraise  "  but  for 
the  additional  fact  that  suspicion  had  fas- 
tened upon  another  person;  but  now  this 
person  in  turn  had  to  be  identified.  It  was 
decided  not  to  report  progress  to  old  Agric- 
ola, but  to  await  and  seek  further  develop- 
ments. Agricola,  having  lost  all  ability  to 
sleep  in  the  mansion,  moved  into  a  small 
cottage  in  a  grove  near  the  house.  But 
the  very  next  morning,  he  turned  cold  with 
horror  to  find  on  his  door-step  a  small  black- 
coffined  doll,  with  pins  run  through  the 
heart,  a  burned-out  candle  at  the  head  and 
another  at  the  feet. 

"  You  know  it  is  Palmyre,  do  you  ? " 
asked  Agamemnon,  seizing  the  old  man  as 
he  was  going  at  a  headlong  pace  through 
the  garden  gate.  "  What  if  I  should  tell 
you  that,  by  watching  the  Congo  dancing- 
ground  at  midnight  to-night,  you  will  see 
the  real  author  of  this  mischief — eh  ?  " 

"  And  why  to-night  ?  " 

"  Because  the  moon  rises  at  midnight." 

There  was  firing  that  night  in  the  deserted 
Congo  dancing-grounds  under  the  ruins  of 
Fort  St.  Joseph,  or,  as  we  would  say  now,  in 
Congo  Square,  from  three  pistols — Agric- 
ola's, 'Polyte's,  and  the  weapon  of  an  ill- 
defined,  retreating  figure  answering  the 
description  of  the  person  who  had  stabbed 
Agricola  the  preceding  February.  "  And 
yet,"  said  'Polyte,  "  I  would  have  sworn  that 
it  was  Palmyre  doing  this  work." 

Through  Raoul  these  events  came  to 
the  ear  of  Frowenfeld.  It  was  about  the 
time  that  Raoul's  fishing  party,  after  a 
few  days'  mishaps,  had  returned  home. 
Palmyre,  on  several  later  dates,  had  craved 
further  audiences  and  shown  other  letters 
from  the  hidden  f.  m.  c.  She  had  heard 
them  calmly,  and  steadfastly  preserved 
the  one  attitude  of  refusal.  But  it  could 
not  escape  Frowenfeld's  notice  that  she 
encouraged  the  sending  of  additional  let- 
ters. He  easily  guessed  the  courier  to  be 
Clemence;  and  now,  as  he  came  to  pon- 
der these  revelations  of  Raoul,  he  found 
that  within  twenty-four  hours  after  every 
visit  of  Clemence  to  the  house  of  Palmyre, 
Agricola  suffered  a  visitation. 


(To  be  continued.) 


PETER    THE    GREAT. 


7°S 


PETER  THE    GREAT.      VII.* 

BY   EUGENE    SCHUYLER. 


THE    YOUNG    MOTHER.        (FROM     A     PAINTING    ON     PORCELAIN    BY    E.    EGOROFF.) 


CHAPTER    XXIV. 
THE    GERMAN    SUBURB   AT   MOSCOW. 

ALTHOUGH  foreigners  came  to  Russia 
from  the  earliest  period,  yet  it  was  not 
until  the  time  of  Ivan  III.  that  they  came 
in  large  numbers.  That  prince  received 
foreign  artists  and  artisans  so  well  that  num- 
bers of  Italian  architects,  engineers,  gold- 
workers,  physicians  and  mechanics  came 
to  Moscow.  His  marriage  with  the  Greek 
Princess  Sophia  Palaeologos  gave  rise  to 
new  and  more  frequent  relations  with  Italy, 
and  he  several  times  sent  to  Rome,  Venice 
and  Milan  for  physicians  and  men  of  tech- 


nical knowledge.  It  was  in  this  way  that 
the  Cathedral  of  the  Assumption  came  to 
be  built  by  Aristotle  Fioraventi  of  Bologna, 
that  of  St.  Michael  the  Archangel  by 
Aleviso  of  Milan,  and  the  banqueting  hall 
of  the  palace,  and  the  walls  and  gates  of 
the  Kremlin,  by  other  Italian  architects. 
German  miners,  too,  came,  or  were  sent  by 
Matthew  Corvinus,  King  of  Hungary,  and 
some  of  them  discovered  silver  and  copper 
mines  in  Siberia. 

Ivan  IV.,  the  Terrible,  appreciated  for- 
eigners, and  invited  large  numbers  of  them 
into  Russia.  But,  besides  this,  it  was  during 
his  reign,  in  1558,  that  an  English  expedi- 
tion penetrated  into  the  White  Sea,  and  the 


VOL.  XX.— 46. 


Copyright,  1880,  by  Eugene  Schuyler.     All  rights  reserved. 


•jo6 


PETER    THE   GREAT. 


trade  with  England  be- 
gan,   which    soon    took 
great    proportions,    and 
brought  to  Russia  many 
English  merchants.    The 
conquest  of  Livonia  and 
portions    of   the    south- 
ern shore    of  the  Baltic 
brought  to  Moscow,  and 
elsewhere  in  the  interior 
of    Russia,    very    many 
prisoners   of  war,  who 
were  never  allowed  to 
return  to  their  own 
country. 

Under  Ivan's  son 
Theodore,  and  Boris 
Godun6f,  the  inter- 
course with  western 
Europe  constantly 
increased.  Favors  were 
given,  not  only  to  the 
English  merchants,  but 
also  to  Dutchmen  and  Danes, 
to  immigrants  from  Hamburg 
and  the  Hanse  towns.  Go- 
dunof  invited  soldiers  and 
officers  as  well  as  physicians 
and  artisans.  His  children 
were  educated  with  great  de- 
viations from  Russian  routine. 
He  even  thought  of  marrying 
his  daughter  to  a  Danish 
prince,  and,  when  at  his  coun- 
try estate,  was  fond  of  the 
society  of  foreigners.  The 
so-called  False  Demetrius  had 
very  great  inclinations  toward 
foreigners.  This  was  very 
natural,  for  he  had  been  edu- 
cated in  Poland,  and  had 
seen  the  advantages  of  west- 
ern culture.  Polish  manners 
prevailed  at  his  court;  he 
was  surrounded  by  a  guard 
of  foreign  soldiers;  he  pro- 
tected all  religions,  especially 
the  Catholic;  he  urged  Rus- 
sians to  travel  abroad,  and  so 
willingly  received  foreigners 
that  a  Pole,  in  writing  about 
the  immigration  of  so  many 
foreigners  into  Russia,  said: 
"For  centuries  long  it  was 
hard  for  the  birds  even  to  get 
into  the  realm  of  Muscovy, 
but  now  come  not  only  many 
merchants,  but  a  crowd  of  grocers  and 
tavern-keepers."  Under  the  Tsar  Theodore, 


son  of  Ivan  the  Terrible,  there  were,  accord- 
ing to  Fletcher,  about  4300  foreigners  in  the 
Russian  service,  most  of  them  Poles  and  Lit- 
tle Russians,  but  still  about  one  hundred  and 
fifty  Dutchmen  and  Scotchmen.  In  the  reign 
of  Boris  Godunof,  the  foreign  detachment 
in  the  army  was  composed  of  twenty-five 
hundred  men  of  all  nationalities.  Two 
officers,  owing  to  their  conduct  during  the 
Troublous  Times,  and  the  memoirs  which 
they  have  left,  are  well  known — the  Livon- 
ian,  Walter  Von  Rosen,  and  the  Frenchman 
Margeret.  The  body-guard  of  Demetrius 
was  composed  of  three  hundred  foreigners, 
all  of  them  so  well  paid  that  they  stalked 
about  in  silk  and  satin.  Margeret  was 
captain  of  one  division  of  this  body-guard. 

In  the  beginning  of  the  sixteenth  century, 
the  Grand  Duke  Basil  established  the  resi- 
dence of  his  foreign  body-guard,  consisting 
of  Poles,  Germans  and  Lithuanians,  on  the 
right  bank  of  the  river  Moskva,  outside  the 
town  in  a  place  called  Naleiki,  in  order,  as 
Herberstein  said,  that  the  Russians  might 
not  be  contaminated  by  the  bad  example  of 
their  drunkenness.  Later  on, 
this  district  became  inhab- 
ited by  Streltsi  and  the  com- 
mon people,  and  the  Livonian 
prisoners  of  war  were  estab- 
lished by  Ivan  the  Terrible 
on  the  Yauza,  near  the  Pokrof 
gate.  When  Demetrius  was 
so  desperately  defended  by 
his  foreign  body-guard  that 
a  Livonian,  Wilhelm  Fursten- 
berg,  fell  at  his  side,  the 
Russians  said :  "  See  what 
true  dogs  these  Germans  are : 
let  us  kill  them  all " ;  and 
during  the  Troublous  Times, 
the  foreigners  in  Moscow 
were  subject  to  constant  at- 
tacks from  the  Russians. 
Persecutions  were  organized 
against  them,  as  in  other 
countries  against  the  Jews. 
There  was  not  a  popular 
commotion  in  which  threats, 
at  least,  were  not  made 
against  them,  and  during  one 
of  the  attacks  the  whole 
foreign  quarter  was  burnt  to 
the  ground.  After  this,  the 
foreigners  lived  within  the 
walls,  and  for  a  while  en- 
TH^NcmNxTouRT  Joyed  the  same  privileges 
GUARD.  (FROM  "AN-  as  Russian  subjects,  adopting 

TIOUITES        DE        LA     ,i        •         j  j      .,        •         l       i    -. 

RUSSIE."  their  dress  and  their  habits. 


PETER   THE   GREAT. 


707 


Livonian  prisoners  of  war  had,  even  be- 
fore the  Troublous  Times,  made  their  way 
within  the  town,  and  had  built  a  church 
or  two.  For  some  reason  they  incurred  the 


still  containing  the  chief  Protestant  and 
Catholic  churches.  It  is  fairly  depicted  to 
us  in  one  of  the  drawings  made  by  the  artist 
who  accompanied  Meyerberg's  embassy  in 


ARQOEBUSE   OF   TSAR   ALEXIS    MICHAELOV1TCH,    MADE   IN    1654.       (FROM  "ANTIQL'ITES    DE   LA   RUSSIE.") 


wrath  of  the  Tsar,  were  driven  from  their 
houses,  and  their  property  was  plundered. 
Margeret  says  of  them  : 

"  The  Lutheran  Livonians,  who,  on  the  conquest 
of  the  greatest  part  of  Livonia,  and  the  removal  of 
the  inhabitants  of  Dorpat  and  Narva,  had  been 
brought  as  prisoners  to  Moscow,  had  succeeded  in 
getting  two  churches  inside  the  town  of  Moscow, 
and  celebrated  in  them  their  public  divine  service. 
At  last,  on  account  of  their  pride  and  vanity,  their 
churches  were  torn  down  by  the  Tsar's  command, 
all  their  houses  were  plundered,  and  they  them- 
selves, without  regard  to  age  or  sex,  and  in  winter, 
too,  were  stripped  to  nakedness.  For  this  they  were 
themselves  thoroughly  to  blame,  for  instead  of  re- 
membering their  former  misery,  when  they  were 
brought  from  their  native  country,  and  robbed  of 
their  property  and  had  become  slaves,  and  being 
humble  on  account  of  their  sufferings,  their  de- 
meanor was  so  proud,  their  conduct  and  actions  so 
arrogant,  and  their  clothes  so  costly,  that  one  might 
have  taken  them  for  real  princes  and  princesses. 
When  their  women  went  to  church,  they  wore  noth- 
ing but  satin,  and  velvet,  and  damask,  and  the  mean- 
est of  them  at  least  taffeta,  even  if  they  had  nothing 
else.  Their  chief  gains  were  from  the  permission 
they  had  to  sell  brandy  and  other  kinds  of  drinks, 
whereby  they  got  not  ten  per  cent.,  but  a  hundred 
per  cent.,  which  appears  most  improbable,  but  is 
nevertheless  true.  But  what  always  distinguished 
the  Livonians  marked  them  here.  One  could  have 
imagined  that  they  had  been  brought  to  Russia  to 
display  here  their  vanity  and  shamelessness,  which  on 
account  of  the  existing  laws  and  justice  they  could 
not  do  in  their  own  country.  At  last,  a  place  was 
given  to  them  outside  the  town  to  build  their  houses 
and  a  church.  Since  then,  no  one  of  them  is 
allowed  to  dwell  inside  the  town  of  Moscow." 

When  affairs  became  more  settled  under  the 
Tsar  Alexis,  by  a  decree  of  1652,  there  was 
a  systematic  settling  of  all  foreigners  in  a 
suburb  outside  the  town ;  the  number  of  the 
streets  and  lanes  was  set  down  in  the  regis- 
ters, and  pieces  of  land,  varying  from  350  to 
1800  yards  square,  were  set  apart  for  the 
officers,  the -physicians,  the  apothecaries  and 
the  artisans,  and  the  widows  of  foreigners 
who  had  been  in  the  Russian  service.  This 
suburb,  which  was  nicknamed  by  the  Rus- 
sians Kukui,  now  forms  the  north-eastern 
portion  of  the  city  of  Moscow,  intersected 
by  the  Basmannaya  and  Pokr6fskaya  streets, 


1 66 1.  As  the  houses  were  of  wood,  and  sur- 
rounded by  gardens,  this  suburb  had  all  the 
appearance  of  a  large  and  flourishing  village. 

Reutenfels,  who  was  in  Russia  from  1671 
to  1673,  estimated  the  number  of  foreigners 
living  in  Russia  as  about  18,000.  Most  of 
them  lived  in  Moscow,  but  a  large  number 
inhabited  Vol6gda,  Archangel  and  other 
towns  where  there  was  foreign  trade,  as  well 
as  the  mining  districts. 

The  residence  of  the  foreigners  in  a  sepa- 
rate suburb  naturally  enabled  them  to  keep 
up  the  traditions  and  customs  of  western 
Europe  much  more  easily  than  if  they  had 
mingled  more  with  the  Russians.  They  wore 
foreign  clothing,  read  foreign  books,  and 
spoke,  at  least  in  their  households,  their  own 
languages,  although  they  all  had  some  ac- 
quaintance with  the  Russian  tongue,  which 
sometimes  served  as  a  medium  of  commu- 
nication with  each  other.  The  habitual  use 
of  a  few  Russian  words,  the  adoption  of  a 
few  Russian  customs,  conformity  to  the 
Russian  dress  and  ways  of  thinking  on  some 
points,  was  the  most  they  had  advanced 
toward  Russianization.  Rarely  did  they 
change  their  faith  to  advance  their  worldly 
prospects,  although  the  children  of  mar- 
riages with  Russians  were  brought  up  in  the 
Russian  church.  In  general,  they  held  close 


LOCK    OF    ARQL'EBUSE. 


to  their  own  religion  and  their  own  modes  of 
education.  They  kept  up  a  constant  inter- 
course with  abroad,  by  new  arrivals,  and 
by  correspondence  with  their  friends.  They 
imported  not  only  foreign  conveniences  for 


708 


PETER   THE   GREAT. 


their  own  use,  but  also  received  from  abroad 
the  journals  of  the  period,  books  of  science 
and  history,  novels  and  poems.  Their  in- 
terest in  the  politics  of  their  own  lands  was 
always  maintained,  and  many  and  warm 
were  the  discussions  which  were  caused  by 
the  wars  between  France  and  the  Low 
Countries,  and  the  English  Revolution.  In 
this  way,  the  German  suburb  was  a  nucleus 
of  a  superior  civilization. 

In  thinking  of  the  foreign  colony  in  Mos- 
cow at  the  end  of  the  seventeenth  century, 
it  is  impossible  not  to  remember  the  Eng- 
lish and  German  colonies  in  St.  Petersburg 
and  Moscow  of  the  present  day.  Here  they 
have  kept  their  own  religion,  their  own  lan- 
guage, and,  in  many  cases,  their  own  cus- 
toms. But  still  they  have  something  about 
them  that  is  Russian.  In  no  respect  is  the 
comparison  more  close  than  in  the  relations 
which  they  keep  up  with  the  homes  of  their 
ancestors.  Although  most  of  the  English 
colony  at  St.  Petersburg,  for  instance,  were 
born  in  Russia,  and  some  of  them  are  even 
descended  from  families  who  came  there 
during  the  time  of  Peter  the  Great,  or  even 
before,  yet  frequently  the  boys  are  sent  to 
English  schools  and  universities,  there  are 
English  houses  of  the  same  family  connected 
with  them  in  business,  and,  in  several  cases, 
one  of  the  family  is  a  member  of  Parlia- 
ment. The  English  colony,  especially  in  St. 
Petersburg,  is  on  a  better  footing  than  it  is 
in  most  foreign  countries.  Its  members  are 
not  living  there  to  escape  their  debts  at 
home,  or  to  avoid  the  consequences  of  dis- 
grace, nor  are  they  there  simply  for  the  pur- 
pose of  making  money.  Russia  has  been 
their  home  for  generations,  and  they  de- 
servedly possess  the  respect  and  esteem,  not 
only  of  their  own  countrymen,  but  of  the 
Russians. 

CHAPTER    XXV. 
THE    INFLUENCE    OF   THE    FOREIGN    COLONY. 

THE  influence  of  the  foreign  residents  in 
Russia  was  especially  seen  in  the  material 
development  of  the  country.  The  Russians 
were  then,  as  they  are  now,  quick  to  learn 
and  ready  to  imitate.  A  Pole,  Maszkiewicz, 
in  the  time  of  the  False  Demetrius,  remarked 
that  the  metal  and  leather  work  of  the  Rus- 
sians, after  oriental  designs,  could  scarcely 
be  distinguished  from  the  genuine  articles. 
Foreigners  understood  this  quality  of  Rus- 
sian workmen,  and  frequently  endeavored 
to  keep  their  trades  as  a  monopoly  for 


themselves.  We  know  that  Hans  Falck,  a 
foreign  manufacturer  of  bells  and  metal 
castings,  sent  away  his  Russian  workmen 
when  engaged  in  the  delicate  processes,  in 
order  that  they  might  not  learn  the  secrets 
of  the  art.  The  Government  found  it 
necessary,  in  many  cases,  to  make  contracts 
with  foreign  artisans,  that  they  should  teach 
their  trades  to  a  certain  number  of  Russian 
workmen.  It  was  the  Englishman  John 
Merrick,  first  merchant  and  subsequently 
embassador,  who  was  one  of  the  earliest  to 
teach  the  Russians  that  it  was  better  for 
them  to  manufacture  for  themselves  than 
to  export  the  raw  materials.  He  explained 
to  the  boyars  how  people  had  been  poor  in 
England  as  long  as  they  had  exported  raw 
wool,  and  had  only  begun  to  get  rich  when 
the  laws  protected  the  woolen  manufacturers 
by  insisting  on  the  use  of  wool  at  home, 
and  especially  on  the  use  of  woolen  shrouds, 
and  how  greatly  the  riches  of  England  had 
increased  since  the  country  began  to  sell 
cloth  instead  of  wool.  It  was  in  part 
through  his  influence  that  a  manufactory  of 
hemp  and  tow  was  established  near  Holmo- 
gory.  In  a  similar  way,  paper-mills,  glass- 
factories,  powder-mills,  saltpeter-works  and 
iron-works  were  established  by  foreigners. 
A  Dane,  Peter  Marselis,  had  important  and 
well-known  iron-works  near  Tula,  which 
were  so  productive  that  he  was  able  to  pay 
his  inspector  three  thousand  rubles  a  year, 
and  had  to  pay  to  his  brother-in-law,  for 
his  share,  twenty  thousand  rubles.  We 
can  see  the  relative  value  of  this,  when  we 
remember  that,  at  that  time,  two  to  two  and 
a  half  quarters  of  rye  could  be  bought  for  a 
ruble,  and  that,  twenty  years  later,  the  salary 
of  General  Gordon,  one  of  the  highest  in 
the  Russian  service,  was  only  one  thousand 
rubles  a  year;  while  the  pastor  of  the 
Lutheran  church  in  Moscow  in  1699  re- 
ceived annually  only  sixty  rubles.  Con- 
cessions for  copper  mines  were  also  given  to 
Marselis  and  other  foreigners,  and  the 
Stroganofs,  who  possessed  such  great  and 
rich  mining-districts  on  the  frontier  of  Siberia, 
constantly  sent  abroad  for  physicians, 
apothecaries,  and  artisans  of  all  kinds. 

It  has  already  been  said  that  the  foreign- 
ers in  Russia  were  not  too  well  pleased  with 
the  ease  with  which  the  Russians  learned 
their  trades;  neither  did  this  please  foreign 
governments.  The  famous  Duke  of  Alva 
said  that  it  was  "  inexcusable  to  provide 
Russia  with  cannon  and  other  arms,  and  to 
initiate  the  Russians  into  the  way  war  was 
carried  on  in  western  Europe,  because,  in 


PETER    THE   GREAT. 


709 


GENERAL  PATRICK  GORDON. 


this  way,  a  dangerous  neighbor  was  being 
educated."  Sigismond,  King  of  Poland, 
did  his  best  to  hinder  the  intercourse  which 
sprang  up  between  Moscow  and  England, 
and  wrote  to  Queen  Elizabeth  that  "  such 
commercial  relations  were  dangerous,  be- 
cause Russia  would  thus  receive  war  mate- 
rial ;  and  it  would  be  still  worse  if  Russia, 
in  this  way,  could  get  immigrants  who 
would  spread  through  the  country  the  tech- 
nical knowledge  so  necessary  there.  It  was 
in  the  interest  of  Christianity  and  religion  to 
protest  against  Russia,  the  enemy  of  all  free 
nations,  receiving  cannons  and  arms,  artists 
and  artisans,  and  being  initiated  into  the 
views  and  purposes  of  European  politics." 

It  was  natural  that,  with  constant  and  in- 
creasing intercourse  with  foreigners,  the 
Russians  should  adopt  some  of  the  customs 
which  they  had  brought  with  them.  For  a 
long  rime  the  foreigners  were  greatly  laughed 
at  for  eating  salads,  or  grass,  as  the  peasants 
called  it,  but  this  habit  greatly  spread.  In 
the  early  part  of  the  seventeenth  century, 
the  Dutch  introduced  the  culture  of  aspara- 
gus, and  garden  roses  were  first  brought  by 
the  Dane,  Peter  Marselis.  The  use  of  snuff 
and  of  smoking  tobacco  was  very  speedily 
acquired,  much  to  the  horror  of  all  right- 
thinking  and  orthodox  people,  who  saw  in 
this  a  plain  work  of  the  devil ;  for  was  it  not 
said  in  the  Bible  :  "  Not  that  which  goeth 
into  the  mouth  defileth  a  man;  but  that 
which  cometh  out  of  the  mouth,  this  defileth 
a  man."  Many  Russian  nobles  even  adopt- 
ed foreign  clothes,  and  trimmed  their  hair 
and  beard.  Nikita  Romanof,  the  owner  of 
the  boat  which  Peter  found  at  Ismailovo, 


wore  German  clothes  while  hunting,  for 
which  he  was  sharply  reprimanded  by  the 
Patriarch ;  and  the  conduct  of  Prince  An- 
drew Koltsof-Masalsky,  for  cutting  his  hair 
short,  in  1675,  caused  so  much  displeasure 
that  the  Tsar  Alexis  issued  an  ukase,  forbid- 
ding, under  heavy  penalties,  the  trimming 
one's  hair  or  beard,  or  the  wearing  of  foreign 
clothes.  This  decree  soon  fell  into  desue- 
tude, and  at  the  time  of  which  we  are 
speaking,  foreign  clothes  and  foreign  habits 
were  not  at  all  uncommon  among  the  Rus- 
sians of  the  higher  ranks.  Even  Peter  him- 
self occasionally  wore  foreign  dress,  and  was 
severely  blamed  by  the  Patriarch  for  daring 
to  appear  in  such  costume  at  the  death-bed 
of  his  mother. 

The  theatrical  performances  devised  by 
Matveief  for  the  Tsar  Alexis  have  already 
been  mentioned,  as  showing  the  influence 
of  foreigners.  But  it  is  curious  to  find  that 
the  performances  were  directed  by  Johan 
Gottfried  Gregorii,  the  pastor  of  the  Lu- 
theran church.  He  not  only  wrote  some  of 
the  plays,  but  started  a  theatrical  school, 
where  the  school-boys  in  the  German  suburb 
and  the  sons  of  .some  of  the  chief  inhabit- 
ants were  taught  acting. 

One  of  the  most  important  steps  in  civili- 
zation introduced  by  foreigners  was  the 
letter-post.  Postal  communications  had 
previously  existed  in  the  interior  of  the 
country,  but,  even  for  government  purposes, 
they  were  very  slow,  and  nearly  all  letters 
were  sent  by  private  hand,  or  by  a  chance 
messenger.  It  was  in  1664  that  a  decree 
of  the  Tsar  Alexis  gave  a  Swede  named 
John  privileges  for  the  organization  of  an 
international  letter-post,  and  in  1667  the 
first  postal  convention  was  made  with 
Poland.  John,  of  Sweden,  was  succeeded 
by  Peter  Marselis,  the  Dane,  and  he  by 
Andrew  Vinius,  who  first  received  the  title 
of  Postmaster  of  His  Majesty  the  Tsar,  and 
was  ordered  to  conclude  postal  conventions 
with  the  neighboring  States.  The  institution 
of  the  post-office  did  not  please  all  Russians 
as  much  as  it  did  the  foreigners,  and,  if  we 
may  judge  from  the  continued  existence  of 
a  censorship,  it  is  still  looked  upon  with  a 
certain  degree  of  suspicion.  The  Russian 
political  economist,  Ivan  Pososhkof,  writing 
in  1701,  complains: 

"  The  Germans  have  cut  a  hole  through  from  our 
land  into  their  own,  and  from  outside  people  can 
now,  through  this  hole,  observe  all  our  political 
and  commercial  relations.  This  hole  is  the  post. 
Heaven  knows  whether  it  brings  advantage  to  the 
Tsar,  but  the  harm  which  it  causes  to  the  realm  is 


PETER    THE   GREAT. 


incalculable.  Everything  that  goes  on  in  our  land 
is  known  to  the  whole  world.  The  foreigners  all 
become  rich  by  it,  the  Russians  become  poor  as 
beggars.  The  foreigners  always  know  which  of  our 
goods  are  cheap  and  which  are  dear,  which  are  plenti- 
ful and  which  are  scarce.  Thereupon  they  bargain, 


REVOLVER    CANNON     OF    PETER'S    TIME. 

and  know  immediately  how  much  they  are  obliged 
to  pay  for  our  goods.  In  this  way  trade  is  unequal. 
Without  the  post,  both  sides  would  be  ignorant  of 
the  prices  and  the  stock  of  goods  on  hand,  and  no 
party  would  be  injured.  Besides,  it  is  a  very  bad 
thing  that  people  know  in  other  countries  every- 
thing that  happens  in  ours.  This  hole,  then,  should 
be  shut  up — that  is,  the  post  should  be  put  an  end 
to;  and,  it  seems  to  me,  it  would  be  very  sensible 
not  to  allow  letters  to  be  sent,  even  through  mes- 
sengers, except  with  a  special  permission  each  time 
from  the  proper  authorities." 


CHAPTER  XXVI. 

PETER'S   FRIENDS   AND   LIFE   IN   THE  GER- 
MAN SUBURB. 

WITH  very  many  inhabitants  of  the  Ger- 
man suburb  Peter  had  already  made  ac- 
quaintance at  Preobrazhensky,  and  as  the 
German  suburb  lay  on  the  road  from  Preo- 
brazhensky to  Moscow,  it  is  not  improbable 
that  he  occasionally  halted,  from  time  to 
time,  to  say  a  word  to  his  friends.  But 
his  first  continued  and  frequent  relations 
with  the  foreign  quarter  began  in  1690,  and 
so  soon  after  the  death  of  the  Patriarch  that 
it  would  seem  almost  as  if,  in  dining  with 
General  Gordon  on  the  loth  of  May,  in 
the  company  of  his  boyars  and  courtiers,  he 
was  actuated  in  some  degree  by  a  spirit  of 
opposition  to  the  feeling  against  foreigners 
then  prevalent  at  court.  Gordon  says  that 
"  the  Tsar  was  well  content,"  and  this  must 
have  indeed  been  the  case.  Peter  must 
have  found  in  the  hospitality  shown  to  him 
by  a  foreigner  something  new  and  agree- 


able, for,  from  this  time,  his  visits  to  the 
German  quarter  became  so  frequent  that, 
at  one  period,  he  seems  almost  to  have 
lived  there.  For  a  long  time,  his  most 
intimate  and  trusted  friends  were  foreigners. 
The  name  of  General  Gordon  has  already 
been  often  mentioned.  He  was  at  this 
time  about  fifty-five  years  old,  the  foreign 
officer  of  the  greatest  experience  and  the 
highest  position,  and,  beside  this,  a  man  of 
wide  information,  of  great  intelligence,  of 
agreeable  manners,  shrewd,  practical,  even 
canny,  and  full  of  good  common-sense,  a 
devout  Catholic,  a  stanch  royalist,  in  the 
highest  degree  loyal,  honest  and  straight- 
forward. Patrick  Gordon  was  one  of  the 
well-known  and  illustrious  family  of  Gordon ; 
by  his  mother  an  Ogilvie,  a  cousin  of  the 
first  Duke  of  Gordon,  and  connected  with 
the  Earl  of  Errol  and  the  Earl  of  Aberdeen, 
he  was  born  on  the  family  estate  of  Auch- 
luchries,  in  Aberdeenshire,  in  1635.  His 
family  were  stanchly  Catholic  and  royalist, 
and  in  the  heat  of  the  Revolution  there  was 
no  chance  of  his  receiving  an  education  at 
the  Scotch  universities,  or  of  his  making  his 
way  in  public  life,  so  that,  when  he  was 
only  sixteen,  he  resolved  on  going  abroad. 
Two  years  he  passed  in  the  Jesuit  college 
at  Braunsberg,  but  the  quiet  life  of  the 
school  not  suiting  his  adventurous  spirit, 
he  ran  away  with  a  few  thalers  in  his  pocket, 
and  a  change  of  clothing  and  three  or  foui 
books  in  his  knapsack.  After  staying  a 


CIRCULAR    MITRAILLEUSE    OF    PETER'S    TIME. 

short  time  at  Kulm  and  at  Posen,  he  found 
his  way  to  Hamburg,  where  he  made  the 
acquaintance  of  some  Scotch  officers  in  the 
Swedish  service,  and  was  readily  persuaded 
to  join  them.  This  was  at  a  time  wher 


PETER    THE    GREAT. 


711 


PRINCE    BORIS    GALITSYN. 


very  many  foreigners,  and  especially  Scotch, 
were  serving  in  the  armies  of  other  coun- 
tries. This  was  the  era  of  soldiers  of  fort- 
une, of  whom  Dugald  Dalgetty  is  the  type 
best  known  to  us,  but  of  whom  more  hon- 
orable examples  could  be  found.  Whether 
officers  or  soldiers,  they  were  hired  to  fight, 
and  generally  fought  well  during  the  time 
of  their  contract;  but  changing  masters 
from  time  to  time  was  not  considered  wrong 
nor  disgraceful,  either  by  them  or  the  govern- 
ments which  they  served.  Gordon,  after 
being  twice  wounded,  was  twice  taken 
prisoner  by  the  Poles.  The  first  time  he 
escaped,  but  on  the  second  occasion,  as  the 
band  with  whom  he  was  caught  was  ac- 
cused of  robbing  a  church,  he  was  con- 
demned to  death.  He  was  saved  through 
the  intercession  of  an  old  Franciscan  monk, 
and  was  then  persuaded  to  quit  the  Swedes 
and  enter  the  Polish  army.  A  few  months 
later,  in  the  same  year,  1658,  he  was  cap- 
tured by  the  Brandenburgers,  allies  of  the 
Swedes,  and  was  again  persuaded  to  join 
the  Swedes.  Marauding  was  considered  at 
that  time  a  necessary  part  of  war,  and  Gor- 
don succeeded  several  times  in  well  filling 
his  pockets,  of  which  he  gives  an  honest 
and  simple  account;  but  he  lost  everything 
in  a  fire,  and  once  was  himself  robbed. 
For  a  while  he  found  it  better  to  leave  the 
service,  and  apparently  engaged  with  some 
of  his  friends  in  marauding  on  his  own 
account,  and  his  band  of  partisans  soon 
became  well  known  througli  the  whole 
region.  Again  he  entered  the  Swedish 
service,  and  again,  in  November,  1658,  was 


taken  prisoner  by  the  Poles,  who  could  not 
be  persuaded  to  exchange  him,  and  insisted 
on  his  again  joining  them.  He  served 
for  some  time  with  the  Poles  in  Little  Rus- 
sia, and  was  present  in  a  warm  battle  with 
the  Russians,  where  he  was  wounded. 
When  Charles  II.  ascended  the  English 
throne,  Gordon  wished  to  go  home  to  Scot- 
land, but  Lubomirsky,  the  Crown  Marshal 
of  Poland,  persuaded  him  to  wait  a  little 
time,  and  promoted  him  to  the  rank  of 
captain.  His  father  meanwhile  wrote  to 
him  that  there  would  be  little  chance  for 
him  at  home,  and,  at  the  same  time,  he 
received  pressing  offers  from  both  the  Rus- 
sians and  the  Austrians.  He  decided  in 
favor  of  the  Austrian  service,  but  the  nego- 
tiations in  part  fell  through,  and  he  finally 
made  a  contract  with  the  Russians  for  three 
years.  It  was  only  when  he  had  arrived  at 
Moscow  that  he  found  that  the  contract 
made  with  the  Russian  agent  was  repudiated, 
and  that  he  would  never  be  allowed  to  leave 
the  Russian  service.  For  a  long  time  he 
refused  to  take  the  oath,  and  insisted  on 
the  terms  of  the  contract.  He  finally  had 
to  yield.  All  his  efforts  to  resign  and  to 
leave  Russia  were  fruitless,  and,  apparently, 
it  was  not  until  1692,  when  he  was  already 
an  intimate  friend  of  the  Tsar,  that  he  en- 
tirely gave  up  the  idea  of  ending  his  days 
in  Scotland.  Once  settled  in  Moscow,  he 
found  his  best  chance  for  promotion  lay  in 
marrying,  and  thus  showing  his  interest  in 
the  country.  He  did  good  service  in  the 
Russian  army  wherever  he  was  placed — in 
Little  Russia,  at  Kief,  at  the  siege  of  Tchig- 
irin,  and  in  the  Crimean  expeditions.  He 
had  long  enjoyed  the  confidence  of  the 
government,  and  was  in  intimate  social 
relations  with  the  chief  Russian  boyars. 
Once,  on  account  of  his  influential  royalist 
connections,  he  had  been  sent  to  England 
on  a  diplomatic  mission,  to  present  a  letter 
of  the  Tsar  Alexis  to  King  Charles  II.  with 
reference  to  the  privileges  of  the  English 
merchants,  and  twice  he  had  been  allowed 
to  go  to  Scotland  for  personal  reasons,  but 
his  wife  and  children  were  always  kept  as 
hostages  for  his  return. 

Gordon's  travels  had  brought  him  into 
connection  with  many  great  personages  of 
the  time.  He  knew  personally  Charles  II. 
and  James  II.,  and  had  been  presented  to 
Queen  Christina  after  she  had  left  Sweden. 
Greatly  interested  in  foreign  politics,  he 
everywhere  had  friends  and  acquaintances, 
from  whom  he  received  news,  gossip,  wine, 
scientific  instruments  and  books, — whether 


712 


PETER    THE   GREAT. 


PUGILISM     IN    THE    TIME    OF    IVAN    THE    TERRIBLE.       (DRAWN    BY    A.    BRENNAN.) 


Quarle's  Emblems,  or  treatises  on  fortifica- 
tion or  pyrotechny.  With  all  his  friends, 
with  his  relations  in  Scotland,  Lord  Melfort 
at  Rome,  embassadors  and  Jesuits  at  Vien- 
na, officers  in  Poland  and  at  Riga,  and  with 
merchants  everywhere,  he  kept  up  a  constant 
correspondence.  There  was  not  a  post-day 
that  he  did  not  receive  many  letters,  and  send 
off  an  equal  number.  Of  many  of  these  he  kept 
copies.  On  one  day  there  is  an  entry  in  his 
diary  of  his  dispatching  twenty-six  letters. 

His  carefully  kept  diary,  in  which  he  set 
down  the  occurrences  of  the  day — telling 
of  his  doings,  the  people  he  had  met  and 


talked  with,  his  debts  and  expenses,  the 
money  he  had  lent,  his  purchases  of  wine 
and  beer,  his  difficulties  about  his  pay, — is 
invaluable  to  the  student  of  the  political  as 
well  as  of  the  economical  history  of  Russia.  * 

*  This  diary  of  General  Gordon,  which  is  written 
in  English  in  six  large  quarto  volumes,  is  preserved 
in  the  archives  at  St.  Petersburg.  Unfortunately, 
some  parts  are  missing,  notably  from  1667-1677* 
and  from  1678-1684.  A  German  translation,  in 
some  places  altered,  was  published  by  Posselt,  1849- 
1852,  and  a  few  extracts  are  printed  from  the  orig- 
inal manuscript  in  "  Passages  from  the  Diary  of  Gen- 
eral Patrick  Gordon,"  published  by  the  Spalding 
Club  at  Aberdeen  in  1859. 


PETER    THE    GREAT. 


In  September,  1690,  the  Tsar,  attended 
by  his  suite,  dined  with  General  Lefort. 
This  was  the  first  time  that  Peter  had  visited 
a  man  who  was  soon  to  become  his  most 
intimate  friend,  and  to  exercise  great  influ- 
ence over  him,  and  whose  acquaintance  he 
had  made  not  long  before.  Franz  Lefort 
was  born  at  Geneva  in  1656,  of  a  good 
family  (originally  from  Italy),  which  has  kept 
a  prominent  position  in  Genevese  society 


a  dozen  gentlemen,  comrades  and  retainers 
with  them,  and  some  of  the  Lutheran  princes 
brought  a  style  of  life  not  at  all  in  har- 
mony with  the  strict  Puritanical  and  Calvin- 
istic  manners  of  the  place.  Much  as  the 
solid  burghers  of  Geneva  objected  to  the 
contamination  to  which  their  sons  were 
exposed  by  mingling  with  this  gay  and 
worldly  society,  yet  they  had  too  much 
respect  for  the  persons  of  the  princes  to  take 


MARRIAGE    OF    DWARFS    BEFORE 


BY    J.    C.    PHILIE 


and  politics  until  the  present  time.  His 
father  was  a  well-to-do  merchant,  and  his  elder 
brother,  Ami,  was  one  of  the  syndics  of  the 
town.  At  this  time  Geneva  had  become 
rich,  and  was  developing  a  certain  amount 
of  frivolity  and  luxury.  The  old  Calvinistic 
habits  were  being  corrupted  by  dancing  and 
card-playing.  Paris  was  looked  upon  as  the 
home  of  the  arts  and  graces,  of  culture  and 
of  pleasure,  and  the  youths  of  Geneva  took 
the  Parisians  as  their  model.  The  schools 
of  Geneva  were  famous,  and  the  Protestant 
princes  and  aristocracy  of  Germany  fre- 
quently sent  their  sons  to  finish  their  educa- 
tion in  this  Protestant  stronghold.  Without 
neglecting  the  solid  studies  they  could  learn 
French,  and,  at  a  time  when  the  wars  made 
visiting  Paris  impossible,  could  learn,  too, 
French  politeness  and  manners,  fencing, 
dancing  and  riding,  and  the  exercises  of  a 
gentleman,  and  prepare  themselves  for  hold- 
ing their  little  courts  in  rivalry  of  Louis  XIV. 
These  princes  'had  sometimes  as  many  as 


very  strong  measures,  and  perhaps,  by  their 
too  great  deference,  increased  the  preten- 
sions of  the  young  men  and  the  admiration 
they  excited.  The  record  books  of  the  con- 
sistory are  full  of  complaints  against  the 
princes  and  their  followers.  But  there  are 
also  examples  of  the  pretensions  of  these 
noble  youths.  The  Prince  of  Hesse-Cassel 
and  the  Prince  of  Curland  complained 
against  some  clergymen,  who,  they  said,  by 
their  remonstrances  had  prevented  a  dancing 
party  at  the  house  of  Count  Dohna  (then  the 
owner  of  the  chateau  of  Coppet,  which  was 
afterward  to  be  known  as  the  residence  of 
Madame  de  Stael),  and  had  thus  deprived 
them  of  an  evening's  enjoyment.  The 
Council  recommended  that  more  respect 
should  be  paid  to  people  of  such  position. 
Between  1670  and  1675,  no  less  than  twenty 
princes  of  reigning  families — the  Palatinate, 
Wiirtemburg,  Anhalt,  Anspach,  Branden- 
burg, Brunswick,  Holstein,  Saxony,  Saxe- 
Gotha,  etc.,  etc. — were  receiving  their  edu- 


PETER    THE    GREAT. 


cation  at  Geneva,  to  say  nothing  of  the 
lesser  nobility.  Lefort,  whose  instincts  had 
already  taught  him  to  rebel  against  the 
strict  discipline  of  Calvinism,  had,  by  his 
amiability  and  his  good  manners,  become 
an  intimate  member  of  this  society.  It  can 
easily  be  understood  that  late  suppers,  card- 
playing  and  worldly  conversation  did  not 
increase  any  desire  for  following  the  sober 
life  of  a  merchant  recommended  to  him  by 
his  family.  To  get  him  away  from  tempta- 
tion, he  was  sent  as  clerk  to  a  merchant 
in  Marseilles,  but  this  in  the  end  did  not 
suit  him,  and  he  returned  home.  Partly 
from  his  own  feelings,  partly  from  the  ex- 
ample of  the  society  which  he  frequented. 
he  had  a  great  inclination  to  enter  the  mili- 
tary service  and  see  a  little  of  war.  This, 
besides  being  against  the  laws  and  policy 
of  Geneva,  was  looked  upon  with  horror  by 
his  family,  who  did  all  in  their  power  to 
prevent  him;  but  he  finally  extorted  their 
consent,  and  went  to  Holland  to  take  part 
in  the  war  then  going  on  in  the  Low  Coun- 
tries. He  was  provided  with  a  letter  of 
introduction  to  the  hereditary  Prince  of 
Curland,  from  his  brother,  whose  friend  he 
had  been  at  Geneva,  and  served  as  a  volun- 
teer with  him,  though,  through  the  intrigues 
of  the  Curland  officers,  he  never  succeeded 
in  obtaining  a  commission.  Finally,  seeing 
no  chance  of  promotion,  he  left  the  prince, 
and  was  persuaded  to  enter  the  Russian 
service  with  the  rank  of  captain.  Arriving 
in  Russia  in  1675,  he  did  not  succeed  in 
getting  the  position  he  desired,  and  lived 
for  two  years  at  Moscow,  as  an  idler  in  the 
German  suburb,  where  he  enjoyed  the 
friendship  and  protection  of  some  of  the 
more  distinguished  members  of  the  colony. 
At  one  time,  he  even  acted  as  a  secretary 
for  the  Danish  Resident,  and  intended  to 
leave  Russia  with  him.  At  last  he  entered 
the  Russian  service,  and,  like  most  other 
officers  who  intended  to  secure  their  posi- 
tion, married.  His  wife  was  a  connection 
of  General  Gordon.  His  personal  qualities 
brought  him  to  the  notice  of  Prince  Basil 
Galitsyn,  who  protected  him  and  advanced 
him.  His  promotion  was  to  some  extent, 
perhaps,  due  to  the  interest  taken  in  him  by 
the  Senate  of  Geneva,  which,  on  his  sugges- 
tion, addressed  to  Prince  Galitsyn  a  letter  in 
his  behalf.  After  serving  through  the  two 
Crimean  campaigns,  he  went  to  Troitsa, 
along  with  the  other  foreign  officers,  at  the 
time  of  the  downfall  of  Sophia,  and  was 
shortly  afterward,  on  the  birth  of  the  Prince 
Alexis,  promoted  to  be  major-general. 


At  this  time  about  thirty-five  years  old, 
Lefort  was  in  all  the  strength  of  his  man- 
hood. He  had  a  good  figure,  was  very 
tall, — nearly  as  tall  as  Peter  himself,  but  a 
little  stouter, — had  regular  features,  a  good 
forehead,  and  rather  large  and  expressive 
eyes.  He  was  a  perfect  master  of  knightly 
and  cavalier  exercises,  could  shoot  the  bow 
so  as  to  vie  with  the  Tartars  of  the  Crimea, 
and  was  a  good  dancer.  He  had  received 
a  fair  education  and  had  a  good  mind, 
although  he  was  brilliant  rather  than  solid, 
and  shone  more  in  the  salon  than  in  the 
camp  or  the  council-chamber.  His  integ- 
rity, his  adherence  to  his  Protestant  princi- 
ples and  morality,  his  affection  for  his 
family,  and  especially  for  his  mother,  com- 
mand our  respect.  What  endeared  him  .to 
all  his  friends  was  his  perfect  unselfishness, 
frankness  and  simplicity,  his  geniality  and 
readiness  for  amusement,  and  the  winning 
grace  of  his  manners. 

It  is  not  astonishing  that  the  Tsar  found 
Lefort  not  only  a  contrast  to  the  Russians 
by  whom  he  was  surrounded,  but  also,  in 
certain  ways,  to  the  more  solid  but  less 
personally  attractive  representatives  of  the 
foreign  colony,  such  as  Van  Keller  and 
Gordon.  To  Gordon  Peter  went  for  ad- 
vice, to  Lefort  for  sympathy. 

From  this  time  on,  Peter  became  daily 
more  intimate  with  Lefort.  He  dined 
with  him  two  or  three  times  a  week,  and 
demanded  his  presence  daily,  so  that  Bute- 
nant,  Sennebier,  and  all  who  wrote  to 
Geneva,  spoke  of  the  high  position  which 
Lefort  held,  and  his  nephew,  the  young 
Peter  Lefort,  complained  that  he  was 
rarely  able  to  talk  to  his  uncle,  even  about 
business,  as  he  was  constantly  in  the  com- 
pany of  the  Tsar.  The  letters  written  by 
Lefort  to  Peter,  on  the  two  or  three  occa- 
sions when  they  were  separated  from  each 
other,  show  what  a  merry  boon  companion 
he  was.  At  the  same  time,  no  one,  except 
Catherine,  was  able  to  give  Peter  so  much 
sympathy,  and  so  thoroughly  to  enter  into 
his  plans.  Lefort  alone  had  enough  influ- 
ence over  him  to  soothe  his  passions,  and 
to  prevent  the  consequences  of  his  sudden 
outbursts  of  anger.  While  Lefort  was  in 
no  way  greedy  or  grasping,  his  material 
interests  were  well  looked  after  by  his  royal 
friend.  His  debts  were  paid,  a  house  was 
built  for  him,  presents  of  all  kinds  were 
given  to  him,  and  he  was  rapidly  raised  in 
grade,  first  to  lieutenant-general,  then  to 
full  general,  commander  of  the  first  regi- 
ment, admiral  and  embassador.  Peter, 


PETER    THE    GREAT. 


too,  entered  into  correspondence  with  the 
Senate  of  Geneva,  in  order  to  give  testi- 
mony at  Lefort's  home  of  the  esteem  in 
which  he  held  him. 

In  a  society  which  included  such  men  as 
Lefort  and  Gordon,Van  Keller  and  Butenant 
Von  Rosenbusch, — the  Dutch  and  Danish 
envoys, — and  representatives  of  such  good 
and  well-known  names  as  Leslie,  Crawfuird, 
Menzies,  Earl  Graham,  Bruce,  Drummond, 
Montgomery,  Hamilton  and  Dalziel,  not  to 
mention  the  eminent  Dutch  merchants,  it 
was  natural  that  Peter  should  find  many 
persons  whose  conversation  would  be  inter- 
esting and  useful  to  him.  His  chief  friends, 
however,  among  the  foreigners  were  Von 
Mengden,  the  colonel,  and  Adam  Weyde, 
the  major  of  the  Preobrazhensky  regiment, 
in  which  Peter  served  as  a  sergeant  ; 
Ysbrandt  Ides,  who  was  soon  sent  on  a 
mission  to  China ;  Colonel  Chambers,  Cap- 
tain Jacob  Bruce  and  Andrew  Crafft,  the 
English  translator  Of  the  foreign  office, — with 
all  of  whom  he  was  in  constant  communica- 
tion, and  with  whom,  during  his  absences, 
he  frequently  exchanged  letters.  But  a 
surer  friend  and  assistant,  and  a  more  con- 
stant correspondent,  was  Andrew  Vinius,  the 
son  of  a  Dutch  merchant,  who  had  estab- 
lished iron-works  in  Russia  during  the  time 
of  the  Tsar  Michael.  His  mother  was  a 
Russian.  He  therefore  knew  Russian  well, 
and  was  educated  in  the  Russian  religion. 
He  had  served  at  first  in  the  ministry  of 
foreign  affairs,  but,  during  the  latter  years 
of  Alexis,  had  been  given  charge  of  the 
post-office. 

Peter's  Russian  friends  were  chiefly  the 
comrades  and  companions  of  his  child- 
hood, most  of  whom  held  honorary  positions 
at  court.  Such  were  Prince  Theodore 
Troekurof,  Theodore  Plestcheief,  Theodore 
Apraxin,  Gabriel  Golovkin,  Prince  Ivan  Tru- 
betskoy,  Prince  Boris  Kurakin,  Prince  Nikita 
Repnin,  Andrew  Matveief  and.  Artemon 
Golovin.  Most  of  these  showed  by  their 
after  life  that  they  had  been  educated  in 
the  same  school  with  Peter.  To  these 
should  be  added  a  few  young  men  who  had 
served  in  his  play  regiments,  and  who 
occupied  positions  in  the  nature  of  adju- 
tants, or  orderlies,  such  as  Lukin  and  Voro- 
nin.  There  were,  besides,  a  few  men  far 
older  than  Peter,  who  were  personally 
attached  to  him,  and  nearly  constantly 
with  him.  Such  were  Prince  Boris  Galit- 
syn,  the  two  Dolgorukys,  Ivan  Buturlin, 
Prince  Theodore  Ramodanofsky,  his  early 
teacher  Zotof,  and  Tikhon  Streshnef,  the 


head  of  the  expeditionary  department. 
There  is  something  a  little  curious  in  the 
relation  of  these  older  men  to  Peter.  They 
served  him  faithfully,  and  were  on  occa- 
sion put  forward  as  figure-heads,  with- 
out exercising  any  real  authority.  To  most 
of  them,  also,  Peter,  in  his  sportive  mo- 
ments, had  given  nicknames,  and  both 
he  and  they  always  used  these  nicknames 
in  their  correspondence.  Thus,  Zotof  was 
called  the  "  Prince  Pope,"  from  a  masquer- 
ade procession  in  which  he  officiated  in  this 
way,  surrounded  by  a  band  of  bishops, 
priests  and  deacons ;  and  frequently,  too, 
in  masquerading  attire,  he  and  his  troop  of 
singers  went  about  at  Christmas-tide  to  sing 
carols.  The  Boyar  Ivan  Buturlin,  perhaps 
the  oldest  of  them  all,  was  given  the  title  of 
"  The  Polish  King,"  because,  in  one  of  the 
military  maneuvers  of  which  I  shall  speak 
presently,  he  had  that  title  as  the  head  of 
the  enemy's  army.  Prince  Ramodanofsky, 
the  other  generalissimo,  got  the  nickname 
of  "  Prince  Caesar,"  and  is  nearly  always 
addressed  by  Peter  in  his  letters  as 
"  Majesty,"  or  "  Min  Her  Kenich "  (My 
Lord  King).  Streshnef,  in  the  same  way, 
was  always  called  "  Holy  Father." 

These,  with  many  more  of  the  younger 
court  officials,  Timmermann  and  a  few 
others,  formed  the  so-called  "company," 
which  went  about  everywhere  with  Peter, 
and  feasted  with  him  in  the  German  suburb, 
and  with  the  Russian  magnates.  The  "  com- 
pany "  went  to  many  Russian  houses,  as 
well  as  among  the  Germans.  Leo  Narysh- 
kinwas  always  glad  to  see  his  royal  nephew 
at  his  lovely  villa  of  Pokrofskoe  or  Phfli.  A 
splendid  church  built  in  1693,  in  the  choir 
of  which  Peter  sometimes  sang,  still  attests 
his  magnificence,  and  the  fact  that  it  was 
here  that  Prince  Kutuzof  decided  on  the 
abandonment  of  Moscow  to  the  French  in 
1812,  adds  still  more  to  the  interest  of  the 
place.  Close  by  is  the  still  lovely  Kuntsovo, 
then  inhabited  by  Peter's  grandfather,  the 
old  Cyril  Naryshkin.  Prince  Boris  Galitsyn, 
who  was  much  more  than  the  drunkard  de 
Neuville  tells  us  of,  frequently  showed  his 
hospitality.  Sheremetief  received  them  at 
Kiiskovo,  and  the  Saltykofs,  Apraxins  and 
Matveiefs  were  not  behindhand. 

What  especially  attracted  Peter  and  his 
friends  to  the  German  suburb  was  the 
social  life  there,  so  new  to  them  and  so 
different  from  that  in  Russian  circles.  There 
was  plainly  a  higher  culture;  there  was  more 
of  refinement  and  less  of  coarseness  in  the 
amusements.  The  conversation  touched 


716 


PETER   THE   GREAT. 


PETER   FINDING  THE   GRANDFATHER   OF   THE   RUSSIAN   FLEET.       (FROM    A    PAINTING   BY   COUNT   MASOYEDOFF.) 


foreign  politics  and  the  events  of  the  day, 
and  was  not  confined  to  a  recapitulation  of 
orgies  and  to  loose  talk — for  we  know  only 
too  well  what  the  ordinary  talk  at  Russian 
banquets  was  at  that  time.  There  was 
novelty  and  attraction  in  the  occasional 
presence  of  ladies,  in  the  masking,  the  danc- 
ing, the  family  feasts  of  all  kinds,  the  wed- 
dings, baptisms  and  even  funerals.  In 
many  of  these  Peter  took  part.  He  held 
Protestant  and  Catholic  children  at  the 
font,  he  acted  as  best  man  at  the  marriages 
of  merchants'  daughters,  he  soon  became 
an  accomplished  dancer,  and  was  always 
very  fond  of  a  sort  of  country-dance  known  as 
the  "  Grossvater."  When,  too,  did  any  Rus- 
sian lose  a  chance  of  practicing  a  foreign 
language  which  he  could  already  speak? 

Dinner  was  about  noon,  and  the  feast 
was  frequently  prolonged  till  late  in  the 
night — sometimes  even  till  the  next  morning. 
Naturally,  even  in  German  houses  at  this 
epoch,  there  was  excessive  drinking.  Gor- 
don constantly  speaks  of  it  in  his  diary,  and 
not  unseldom  he  was  kept  in  his  bed  for 
days  in  consequence  of  these  bouts.  He, 
however,  suffered  from  a  constitutional  de- 
rangement of  his  digestion.  Peter  seemed 
generally  none  the  worse  for  it,  and  Lefort, 
we  know  by  the  account  of  Blomberg,  could 
drink  a  great  quantity  without  showing  it. 
The  consumption  of  liquors  must  have  been 
very  great,  for  when  Peter  came  to  dine 
he  frequently  brought  eighty  or  ninety 
guests  with  him,  and  a  hundred  servants. 
Lefort,  in  one  of  his  letters,  speaks  of  having 
in  the  house  three  thousand  thalers'  worth 


of  wine,  which  would  last  only  for  two  or 
three  months.  Judging  from  the  prices 
paid  by  Gordon  for  his  wine — his  "  canary 
sect,"  his  "perniak,"  his  "white  hochlands 
wine,"  and  his  Spanish  wine — this  would 
represent  now  a  sum  of  about  twenty-five 
thousand  dollars  (^£5000).  It  is  not  to  be 
supposed  that,  because  so  much  liquor  was 
used,  the  company  was  constantly  intoxi- 
cated. In  the  first  place,  brandy  and 
whisky  were  drunk  only  before  or  between 
meals ;  the  greatest  consumption  was  prob- 
ably of  beer  and  of  the  weak  Russian 
drinks,  mead  and  kvas.  A  dinner  with 
some  rich  provincial  merchant,  or  a  day 
with  some  hospitable  landed  proprietor  in 
the  south  of  Russia,  would  give  us  typical 
examples  of  the  heroic  meals  Peter  and  his 
friends  enjoyed,  with  their  caviare  and  raw 
herring,  their  cabbage  and  beet-root  soup, 
their  iced  batvinia  and  okroshka,  the  sucking 
pig  stuffed  with  buckwheat,  the  fish  pastry, 
the  salted  cucumbers  and  the  sweets.  The 
guests  did  not  sit  at  the  table  guzzling  the 
whole  day  long.  There  were  intervals  for 
smoking,  and  the  Russians  enjoyed  the  inter- 
dicted tobacco.  There  were  games  at  bowls 
and  nine-pins,  there  were  matches  in  archery 
and  musket  practice.  Healths  were  proposed 
and  speeches  made,  attended  with  salvos  of 
artillery  and  blasts  of  trumpets.  A  band  of 
German  musicians  played  at  intervals  during 
the  feasts,  and  in  the  evening  there  were  ex- 
hibitions of  fire- works  out-of-doors,  and  there 
was  dancing  in-doors.  Lefort,  in  a  letter 
describing  one  of  these  nights,  says  that  half 
the  company  slept  while  the  rest  danced. 


PETER   THE   GREAT. 


717 


Such  feasts  as  these,  so  troublesome  and 
so  expensive,  were  a  burden  to  any  host, 
and  we  know  that  Van  Keller,  and  even 
Gordon,  were  glad  to  have  them  over. 
When  Peter  had  got  into  the  habit  of  din- 
ing with  his  friends  at  Lefort's  two  or  three 
times  a  week,  it  was  impossible  for  Lefort; 
with  his  narrow  means,  to  support  the  ex- 
pense, and  the  cost  was  defrayed  by  Peter 
himself.  Lefort's  house  was  small,  and  al- 
though a  large  addition  was  made  to  it, 
yet  it  was  even  then  insufficient  to  accom- 
modate the  number  of  guests,  which,  at 
times,  exceeded  two  hundred.  Peter  there- 
fore built  for  him,  at  least  nominally,  a  new 
and  handsome  house,  magnificently  fur- 
nished, with  onebanqueting  hall  large  enough 
to  accommodate  fifteen  hundred  guests. 
Although  Lefort  was  called  the  master  of 
the  house,  yet  it  was,  in  reality,  a  sort  of 
club-house  for  Peter's  "company."  During 
the  absence  of  Peter,  and  even  of  Lefort,  it 
was  not  uncommon  for  those  of  the  "  com- 
pany "  remaining  at  Moscow  to  dine,  sup, 
and  pass  the  night  there. 

Peter  and  his  friends  entered  with  readi- 
ness into  the  Teutonic  custom  of  masquer- 
ading, with  which,  according  to  the  ruder 
habits  of  that  time,  were  joined  much  coarse 
horse-play,  buffoonery  and  practical  joking. 
Together  with  his  comrades,  Peter  went 
from  house  to  house  during  the  Christmas 
holidays,  sang  carols,  and  did  not  disdain  to 
accept  the  usual  gifts.  In  fact,  if  these  were 
not  forthcoming,  revenge  was  taken  on  the 
householder.  Korb,  the  Austrian  Secretary, 
— for  these  sports  were  kept  up  even  in 
1699, — says  in  his  diary: 

"  A  sumptuous  comedy  celebrates  the  time  of  Our 
Lord's  nativity.  The  chief  Muscovites,  at  the  Tsar's 
choice,  shine  in  various  sham  ecclesiastical  dignities. 
One  represents  the  Patriarch,  others  metropolitans, 
archimandrites,  popes,  deacons,  sub-deacons,  etc. 
Each,  according  to  whichever  denominations  of  these 
the  Tsar  has  given  him,  has  to  put  on  the  vestments 
that  belong  to  it.  The  scenic  Patriarch,  with  his 
sham  metropolitans,  and  the  rest  in  eighty  sledges, 
and  to  the  number  of  two  hundred,  makes  the  round 
of  the  city  of  Moscow  and  the  German  suburb,  en- 
signed  with  crosier,  miter,  and  the  other  insignia  of 
his  assumed  dignity.  They  all  stop  at  the  houses  of 
the  richer  Muscovites  and  German  officers,  and  sing 
the  praises  of  the  new-born  Deity,  in  strains  for 
which  the  inhabitants  have  to  pay  dearly.  After  they 
had  sung  the  praises  of  the  new-born  Deity  at  his 
house,  General  Lefort  recreated  them  all  with 
pleasanter  music,  banqueting  and  dancing. 

"  The  wealthiest  merchant  of  Muscovy,  whose  name 
is  Filadilof,  gave  such  offense  by  having  only  pre- 
sented two  rubles  to  the  Tsar  and  his  Boyars,  who 
sang  the  praises  of  God,  new-born,  at  his  house, 
that  the  Tsar,  with  all  possible  speed,  sent  off  a 
hundred  of  the  populace  to  the  house  of  that  mer- 


chant, with  a  mandate  to  pay  forthwith  to  every  one 
of  them  a  ruble  each.  But  Prince  Tcherkasky, 
whom  they  had  nicknamed  the  richest  rustic,  was 
rendered  more  prudent  by  what  befell  his  neighbor : 
in  order  not  to  merit  the  Tsar's  anger,  he  offered  a 
thousand  rubles  to  the  mob  of  singers.  It  behoved 
the  Germans  to  make  show  of  equal  readiness. 
Everywhere  they  keep  die  table  laid  ready  with  cold 
viands,  not  to  be  found  unprepared." 

Gordon,  during  these  years,  always  men- 
tions at  Christmas-tide  the  companies  of 
carol  singers,  among  whom  may  be  particu- 
larly remarked  Alexis  Menshikof  and  his 
brother.  On  one  occasion  he  says: 

"  I  paid  them  two  rubles,  which  was  half  too 
much. 

Once  Peter  appeared  at  Lefort's  with  a 
suite  of  twenty-four  dwarfs,  all  "  of  remark- 
able beauty,"  and  all  on  horseback ;  and  a 
few  days  after,  Peter  and  Lefort  rode  out 
into  the  country  to  exercise  this  miniature 
cavalry.  In  1695,  the  court  fool,  Jacob 
Turgenief,  was  married  to  the  wife  of  a 
scribe.  The  wedding  took  place  in  a  tent 
erected  in  the  fields  between  Preobrazhensky 
and  Semenofsky.  There  was  a  great  ban- 
quet, which  lasted  three  days,  and  the  festiv- 
ities were  accompanied  by  processions,  in 
which  the  highest  of  the  Russian  nobles  ap- 
peared in  ridiculous  costumes,  in  cars  drawn 
by  cows,  goats,  dogs,  and  even  swine.  Tur- 
genief and  his  wife  at  one  time  rode  in  the 
best  velvet  carriage  of  the  court,  with  such 
grandees  as  the  Galitsyns,  Sheremetiefs 
and  Trubetskoys  following  them  on  foot. 
In  the  triumphal  entry  into  Moscow,  the 
newly  married  pair  rode  a  camel,  and  Gor- 
don remarks :  "  The  procession  was  extraor- 
dinarily fine."  Although  the  jesting  here 
was  perfectly  good-natured,  yet  it  may  have 
been  carried  a  little  too  far,  for  a  few  days 
after  poor  Turgenief  died  suddenly  in  the 
night. 

CHAPTER    XXVII. 
FIRE-WORKS    AND    SHAM    FIGHTS. 

FOR  fully  five  years  Peter  left  the  govern- 
ment to  be  carried  on  by  his  ministers,  who 
managed  affairs  in  the  good,  old-fashioned 
Russian  way.  During  the  whole  of  this 
time  not  a  single  important  law  was  passed, 
or  decree  made  with  regard  to  any  matter 
of  public  welfare.  Peter  neither  interested 
himself  in  the  internal  affairs  of  the  country 
nor  in  the  increasing  difficulties  with  Poland, 
and  the  need  of  repressing  the  incursions 
of  the  Tartars.  In  spite  of  his  years,  his  size, 


7i8 


PETER    THE    GREAT. 


and  his  strength,  he  was  nothing  but  a  boy, 
and  acted  like  a  boy.  He  devoted  him- 
self entirely  to  amusement,  to  carousing  with 
his  "company,"  to  indulging  his  mechanical 
tastes,  to  boat-building,  and  mimic  war. 
He  had  no  inclination  toward  the  more 
brutal  pastimes  so  much  enjoyed  by  the  old 
Tsars,  but,  at  the  same  time,  he  had  no  taste 
for  horsemanship  or  field  sports,  and  did  not 
care  for  the  chase,  either  with  dogs  or  fal- 
cons. Sokolniki,  with  its  hunting-lodge,  fell 
into  decay.  Its  name  recalls  the  falconers 


MODEL    OF    A    SHIP    MADE    BY    PETER. — FROM    MARINE    Ml 
ST.    PETERSBURG. 

of  old,  but  the  May-day  festival  now' held 
there,  with  the  outspread  tents,  which  bear 
the  appellation  of  "the  German  camp,"  takes 
us  back  to  Peter  and  the  German  suburb. 

During  the  "  Butter-Week  "  or  carnival  ot 
1690,  Peter  gave  on  the  banks  of  the  river 
Presna,  in  honor  of  the  birth  of  his  son 
Alexis,  a  display  of  fire-works,  made  in  part 
by  himself,  the  first  at  that  time  seen  in 
Moscow,  for  previously  he  had  confined 
his  experiments  to  Preobrazhehsky.  These 
displays  were  not  always  unattended  with 
danger.  A  five-pound  rocket,  instead  of 
bursting  in  the  air,  came  down  on  the  head 
of  a  gentleman,  and  killed  him  on  the  spot; 
at  another  time,  an  explosion  of  the  material 
wounded  Captain  Strasburg,  son-in-law  of 
General  Gordon,  and  Franz  Timmermann, 
and  killed  three  workmen.  As  soon  as  the 
river  Moskva  had  got  clear  of  ice,  Peter 
organized  a  flotilla  of  small  row-boats,  and 
going  himself  aboard  of  his  yacht,  the  same 
which  he  had  found  at  Ismailovo,  sailed 
with  a  company  of  boyars  and  courtiers 
down  the  river  as  far  as  the  monastery  of 
St.  Nicholas  of  Ugretch,  and  spent  some 
days  feasting  in  the  neighborhood.  He  no 
sooner  returned  to  Moscow  than  he  pre- 
pared for  some  military  maneuvers,  and 
stormed  the  palace  at  Semenofsky.  Hand- 
grenades  and  fire-pots  were  freely  used,  but 
even  when  slightly  charged  or  made  of 
pasteboard  these  are  dangerous  missiles, 


month 
gaged ; 


and  by  the  bursting  of  one  of  them  the 
Tsar  and  several  of  his  officers  were  in- 
jured. Peter's  wounds  were  probably  not 
light,  for  he  ceased  his  amusements,  and 
appeared  rarely  in  public  from  June  until 
September,  when  other  mock  combats  were 
fought  between  the  guards  and  various 
regiments  of  Streltsi.  In  one  of  these  Gen- 
eral Gordon  was  wounded  in  the  thigh,  and 
had  his  face  so  severely  burnt  that  he  was 
kept  a  week  in  bed. 

The  following  summer  was  passed  ir 
much  the  same  way.  At  the  open- 
ing of  navigation,  a  new  yacht 
built  by  Peter's  own  unassistet 
hands,  was  launched  on  the  Mosk 
va,  and  again  there  was  a  merr) 
excursion  to  the  monastery  ol 
Ugretch,  in  spite  of  stormy  weather 
Military  exercises  then  continuec 
all  the  summer  at  Preobrazhensky 
and  a  grand  sham  battle  was  or 
dered.  This  was  postponed  fo 
two  months  on  account  of  th< 
serious  illness  of  the  Tsaritsa  Nata 
lia,  and  took  place  only  in  th< 
of  October.  Two  armies  were  en 
the  Russian,  consisting  chiefly  oi 
Peter's  play  troops,  or  guards,  commandec 
by  Prince  Theodore  Ramodanofsky,  t< 
whom  was  given  the  title  of  the  General 
issimo  Frederick,  was  matched  against  th< 
Streltsi  under  Generalissimo  Buturlin.  Th< 
fight  lasted  five  days,  and  resulted  in  th< 
victory  of  the  Russian  army,  though  no 
without  disaster,  for  Prince  Ivan  Dolgoruk} 
died,  as  Gordon  says,  "  of  a  shot  got  nin( 
days  before,  in  the  right  arm,  at  the  fiek 
ballet  military." 

Tired  of  his  soldiers,  Peter  again  turnec 
to  his  boats,  and  at  the  end  of  November 
1691,  went  to  Lake  Plestcheief,  where  h< 
had  not  been  for  more  than  two  years.  H( 
remained  there  a  fortnight,  in  a  smal 
palace  built  for  him  on  the  shore  of  th< 
lake,  a  mile  and  a  half  from  Pereyaslavl 
It  was  a  small,  one-story,  wooden  house 
with  windows  of  mica,  engraved  with  dif 
ferent  ornaments,  the  doors  covered  fo: 
warmth  with  white  felt,  and  on  the  roof  i 
two-headed  eagle,  surmounted  by  a  gil 
crown.  During  the  course  of  the  next  year 
he  visited  the  lake  four  times,  on  two  occa 
sions  staying  more  than  a  month.  H( 
occupied  himself  with  building  a  ship,  as  h( 
had  been  ordered  to  do  by  "  His  Majesty  ' 
the  generalissimo,  Prince  Ramodanofsky 
and  worked  so  zealously  that  he  was  un 
willing  to  return  to  Moscow  for  the  recep 


PETER   THE   GREAT. 


tion  of  the  Persian  embassador,  and  it  was 
necessary  for  Leo  Naryshkin  and  Prince 
Boris  Galitsyn  to  go  expressly  to  Pereya- 
slavl to  show  him  the  importance  of  return- 
ing for  the  reception,  in  order  not  to  offend 
the  Shah.  Two  days  after,  he  went  back 
to  his  work,  and  invited  the  '•  company  "  to 
the  launch.  Only  one  thing  remained 
to  complete  his  satisfaction,  and  that  was 
the  presence  of  his  family.  His  mother, 
sister  and  wife  finally  went  to  Pereyaslavl 
in  August,  1692,  with  the  whole  court,  and 
remained  there  a  month,  apparently  with 
great  enjoyment.  Troops  came  up  from 
Moscow,  and  the  whole  time  was  spent  in 
banquets,  in  parties  on  the  water,  and  in 
military  and  naval  maneuvers.  The  Tsar- 
itsa  Natalia  even  celebrated  her  name's- 
day  there,  and  did  not  return  to  Moscow 
until  September,  ill  and  fatigued  with  this 
unaccustomed  life. 

Her  illness  soon  passed  over,  but  Peter 
was  seized  with  a  violent  attack,  from  his 
too  hard  work  and  his  over-indulgence  in 
dissipation.  In  November,  he  was  taken 
down  with  a  dysentery  which  kept  him  in 
bed  for  a  month  and  a  half.  At  one  time 
his  life  was  despaired  of.  It  is  reported 
that  his  favorites  were  aghast,  as  they  felt 
confident  that  in  case  of  his  death  Sophia 
would  again  ascend  the  throne,  and  that 
nothing  but  exile  or  the  scaffold  awaited 
them;  and  it  is  said  that  Prince  Boris 
Galitsyn,  Apraxin  and  Plestcheief  had 
horses  ready,  in  order,  in  case  of  emergency, 
to  flee  from  Moscow.  Toward  Christmas, 
Peter  began  to  mend,  and  by  the  middle 
of  February,  1693,  although  still  not  en- 
tirely recovered,  was  able  to  go  about  the 
city,  and,  in  the  quality  of  best  man,  invite 
guests  to  the  marriage  of  a  German  gold- 
worker.  In  the  same  capacity,  he  took 
upon  himself  the  ordering  of  the  marriage 
feast  and  plied  the  company  well  with  drink, 
although  he  himself  drank  little.  Appar- 
ently from  this  illness  date  the  fits  of  melan- 
choly, the  convulsive  movements  of  the 
muscles,  and  the  sudden  outbursts  of  pas- 
sionate anger  with  which  Peter  was  so  sadly 
afflicted. 

During  the  carnival,  the  Tsar  again  gave 
an  exhibition  of  fire-works  on  the  banks  of 
the  Presna.  After  a  thrice-repeated  salute 
of  fifty-six  guns,  a  flag  of  white  flame 
appeared,  bearing  on  it  the  monogram  of 
the  generalissimo,  Prince  Ramodanofsky,  in 
Dutch  letters,  and  afterward  was  seen  a 
fiery  Hercules  tearing  apart  the  jaws  of  a 
lion.  The  fire-works  were  followed  by  a 


supper,  which  lasted  till  three  hours  after 
midnight.  The  Tsaritsa  was  so  pleased 
with  the  fiery  Hercules  that  she  presented 
her  son — the  master  fire-worker — a  full  uni- 
form as  sergeant  of  the  Preobrazhensky 
regiment. 

As  soon  as  the  carnival  was  over,  Peter 
went  again  to  Pereyaslavl,  where  he  stayed 
at  work  during  the  whole  of  Lent,  and  in 
May  went  there  again,  and  sailed  for  two 
weeks  on  the  lake.  This  was  his  last  visit, 
for  he  soon  went  to  a  larger  field  of  oper- 
ations, on  the  White  Sea,  and  visited 
Pereyaslavl  only  in  passing  from  Moscow  to 
Archangel,  and  again  before  the  Azof  cam- 
paign, to  get  the  artillery  material  stowed 
there.  After  that,  he  was  not  there  again 
for  twenty-five  years — until  1722,  when  on 
his  road  to  Persia.  He  then  lamented  over 
the  rotten  and  neglected  ships,  and  gave 
strict  instructions  that  the  remnants  of  them 
should  be  carefully  preserved.  These 
orders  were  not  obeyed,  and  of  the  whole 
flotilla  on  Lake  Plestcheief  there  now  exists 
only  one  small  boat,  which  was  preserved  by 
the  peasants,  and  since  1803  has  been  kept 
in  a  special  building,  under  the  direction  of 
the  local  nobility,  guarded  by  retired  sailors. 
There  remains  nothing  else  but  the  tradi- 
tional name  of  the  Church  of  Our  Lady  at 
the  Ships,  and  a  festival  on  the  sixth  Sun- 
day after  Easter,  in  commemoration  of 
Peter's  launch,  when  all  the  clergy  of 
Pereyaslavl,  attended  by  a  throng  of  peo- 
ple, sail  on  a  barge  to  the  middle  of  the 
lake  and  bless  the  waters. 

The  revival  of  Peter's  interest  in  boat- 
building and  navigation  was  probably  due 
in  part  to  the  conversations  which  he  had 
heard  among  his  foreign  friends.  He  had 
dined  with  the  Dutch  Resident,  Van  Keller, 
in  June,  1691,  and  both  from  him  and  from 
the  Dutch  merchants  whom  he  was  con- 
stantly meeting  he  heard  expressions  of 
joy  that  the  commercial  intercourse  between 
Archangel  and  Holland,  which  had  been 
interrupted  for  two  years  by  the  French 
cruisers,  had  at  last  been  renewed.  All  the 
goods  had  been  detained  at  Archangel,  and 
there  had  been  a  general  stagnation  of 
trade ;  but  now  that  the  Dutch  had  sent  a 
convoy  into  the  North  Sea,  several  mer- 
chant vessels  had  safely  reached  their  desti- 
nation. Together  with  this  news,  came  the 
intelligence  that  the  richly  laden  Dutch 
fleet  from  Smyrna  had  also  arrived  at 
Amsterdam,  without  mishap.  About  the 
same  time,  Peter  had  received  from  Nicho- 
las Witsen,  the  Burgomaster  of  Amsterdam, 


720 


.PETER    THE    GREAT. 


PETER    BUILDS     HIS     FIRST    FLEET.       (FROM     A     PICTURE     PAINTED    FOR    THE    RUSSIAN 


— who  had  been  in  Russia  years  before,  and 
had  written  a  very  remarkable  book,  the 
"  Description  of  North  and  EastTartary," — a 
letter,  urging  the  importance  of  the  trade 
with  China  and  Persia,  and  suggesting  means 
for  its  advancement.  It  was  in  consequence 
of  this  letter  that  Ysbrandt  Ides  was  sent  on 
a  mission  to  China,  and  this,  together  with 
the  talk  about  the  Dutch  trade,  had  doubt- 
less given  Peter  some  new  ideas  of  the 
importance  to  the  country  of  commerce, 
and  of  its  protection  by  ships  of  war.  In 
the  dispatches  which  Van  Keller  wrote 
about  Peter's  occupations  on  Lake  Plestch- 
eief,  he  remarks :  "  The  Tsar  seems  to  take 
into  consideration  commerce  as  well  as 


war."  Subsequently,  he  mentions  the  pro 
posed  sham-fight,  but  says  that  the  peopli 
of  Moscow  augured  no  good  of  it.  Afte 
reporting  that  he  had  informed  Peter  of  th< 
great  victory  which  King  William  and  th< 
English  fleet  had  obtained  over  the  Frencl 
at  La  Hogue,  he  says  that  Peter  desired  t< 
see  the  original  dispatch,  and  had  it  trans 
lated,  "  Whereupon  it  followed  that  his  Tsar 
ish  Majesty,  leaping  up  and  shouting  fo: 
joy,  ordered  his  new  ships  to  fire  a  salute.' 
In  another  dispatch,  he  wrote  that  thi: 
young  hero  often  expressed  the  great  desin 
that  possessed  him  to  take  part  in  the  cam 
paign  against  the  French,  under  King  Will 
iam,  or  to  give  him  assistance  by  sea. 


OVER   THE  BALKANS    WITH  GOURKO. 


721 


OVER  THE   BALKANS  WITH   GOURKO. 


WITH  the  fall  of  Plevna  and  the  capture 
of  Osman's  army  it  was  thought  that  the 
backbone  of  the  Turkish  resistance  was 
broken,  but  it  was  only  a  few  days  before 
every  one  knew  that  there  was  to  be  no 
rest  in  the  campaign.  Orders  were  imme- 
diately issued  sending  the  troops  who  had 
blockaded  Plevna  to  one  or  the  other  of  the 
advanced  guards  in  the  Balkans,  and  at  the 
end  of  a  week  they  were  all  in  motion. 
Every  one  obeyed  cheerfully,  nobody 
knowing  what  would  come  of  it,  but  nine 
out  of  ten  believing  it  could  only  result  in 
terrible  disaster,  to  be  brought  about  by 
lack  of  food  and  extreme  suffering  from 
cold.  These  views  were  only  confirmed 
by  a  change  in  the  weather,  which  hither- 
to had  been  raw  and  wet,  with  occa- 
sional snows,  but  now  suddenly  changed 
to  a  temperature  of  about  zero  Fahren- 
heit, accompanied  by  a  raging  snow-storm 
of  three  days'  duration.  Everything  was 
frozen  solid,  the  roads  became  beds  of 
ice,  the  animals  staggered  and  fell  dead 
with  the  cold,  and  the  men  huddled  to- 
gether in  silence,  shivering  in  their  ragged 
clothing  which  had  not  been  renewed  since 
summer. 

I  left  Plevna  and  the  Grand  Duke's 
head-quarters  on  the  zoth  of  December, 
two  days  after  the  departure  of  the  ninth 
corps,  which  had  been  detailed  to  General 
Gourko  at  the  Orkhanie  Pass.  I  intended 
to  overtake  these  troops  on  the  road,  and 
follow  the  campaign  with  General  Gourko's 
army.  At  the  close  of  a  long  day's  ride 
the  storm  increased  in  severity,  and  I  was 
preparing  to  leave  the  road  and  seek  shelter 
for  the  night  in  a  village  bivouac,  whose 
smoke  I  could  see  not  far  off,  when  a  weird 
picture  attracted  my  attention  just  in  front 
of  me.  Alone  in  the  road,  without  a 
human  being  in  sight,  stood  a  company 
wagon  heavily  loaded  with  the  men's 
rations ;  the  ground  was  frozen  hard  beneath 
it  and  covered  with  snow  on  all  sides;  the 
snow  was  driving  furiously  through  the  air, 
and  the  eye  could  penetrate  its  mass  but  a 
short  distance ;  against  this  white  back- 
ground stood  the  black  silhouette  of  the 
middle  horse  of  the  "  troika  " ;  the  other 
two  lay  dead  and  stiff  at  his  feet  on  either 
side,  and  he  alone  was  still  standing,  gaunt 
and  feeble,  swaying  backward  and  forward 
in  sad  and  terrible  silence  before  the  blasts 
VOL.  XX.— 47. 


of  the  storm,  and  waiting,  half  insensible, 
his  turn  to  fall. 

I  found  refuge  for  the  night  with  a  cap- 
tain of  a  "  park  "  of  reserve  artillery  ammu- 
nition which  was  bivouacked  in  the  village. 
He  occupied  one  room  of  a  little  hut,  the 
other  being  filled  with  a  family  of  some  ten 
or  twelve  Bulgarians,  of  both  sexes  and 
various  ages.  His  reception  was  in  unison 
with  that  which  I  invariably  received  from 
every  one  of  his  class,  and  the  open-hearted 
warmth  of  which  I  was  often  puzzled  to 
account  for.  He  spoke  but  a  few  words 
of  French  and  German,  barely  more  than 
the  few  phrases  of  Russian  which  I  had  by 
that  time  acquired,  but  it  was  enough  for 
him  to  understand  that  I  was  an  American. 
Everything  was  immediately  placed  at  my 
disposal :  my  horses  had  the  best  stalls  in 
the  wretched  little  stable,  and  plenty  of  for- 
age to  eat ;  the  samovar  was  immediately  set 
boiling  for  tea ;  whatever  meat  he  had  was 
at  once  put  to  cooking;  his  little  flask  of 
brandy  was  half  drained  to  warm  my 
chilled  stomach;  his  chest  was  opened  to 
take  out  the  one  or  two  delicacies  which  he 
possessed  in  the  way  of  food ;  his  one  knife 
and  fork  were  cleaned  for  my  use ;  his  serv- 
ant was  called  a  fool  and  a  blockhead  for 
not  being  quicker  with  the  supper;  his  few 
St.  Petersburg  cigarettes  were  forced  upon 
me ;  and  when  it  was  time  to  go  to  bed  he 
insisted  long  and  urgently,  though  I  would 
not  yield,  that  I  should  sleep  on  his  camp- 
bed  while  he  took  the  mud  floor. 

In  the  morning,  he  was  equally  urgent 
that  I  should  take  the  greater  part  of  the 
half-dozen  cans  of  potted  meats  which  he 
possessed,  on  the  ground  that  I  would  need 
them  out  in  the  storm,  while  he  might 
remain  where  he  was  for  ten  days  or  more. 
In  a  word,  everything  that  was  possible  was 
done  to  make  us  change  places  for  the 
night, — he  to  become  the  ill-provided  trav- 
eler, and  I  the  comparatively  comfortable 
lodger  in  a  house,  such  as  it  was.  I  never 
saw  this  man  before  nor  after  the  one  night 
I  passed  with  him,  yet,  had  I  been  his 
foster-brother  and  playmate  from  child- 
hood, now  rejoining  him  after  a  long 
absence,  he  could  not  have  done  more  for 
me.  The  same  thing  happened  to  me  on 
dozens  of  occasions,  and  as  I  found  that 
more  than  once,  when  I  was  mistaken  for 
an  English  officer  or  correspondent,  my  re- 


722 


OVER    THE  BALKANS    WITH  GOURKO. 


ception  was  very  cold,  I  at  last  became 
convinced  that  all  this  kindness  was  due  to 
my  nationality.  It  is  a  fact,  strange  as  it 
may  appear  to  some  people,  that  there  ex- 
ists throughout  the  length  and  breadth  of 
Russia  a  sentimental  attachment  for  Amer- 
icans, of  the  depth  of  which  we  have  very 
little  conception  at  home.  The  policy  of 
the  rulers  of  Russia,  from  the  time  of  Cath- 
erine to  the  present,  has  been  one  of  uni- 
form and  unbroken  friendship  for  the 
United  States ;  this  is  a  well-known  fact  in 
politics,  and  people  account  for  it  on  the 
ground  of  self-interest,  or  of  genuine  admi- 
ration, according  to  their  political  opin- 
ions. But  what  is  not  generally  known  is 
the  fact  that  this  friendly  feeling  permeates 
all  classes  of  society,  and  is  far  more  firmly 
rooted  in  those  portions  of  the  community 
which  never  see  St.  Petersburg  than  it  is  in 
the  more  cosmopolitan  court  circles  of  that 
capital.  It  is  of  no  use  to  argue  that  the 
feeling  is  superficial,  that  it  has  no  substan- 
tial foundation,  that  the  political  customs 
and  the  habits  of  the  people  of  the  two 
countries  are  diametrically  opposed,  and 
that  they  have  no  interests  in  common. 
The  feeling  does  exist,  and  it  is  a  very 
strong  one.  Certain  reasons  may  be  given 
for  it,  which,  although  at  first  sight  they 
may  appear  insufficient  and  superficial,  have 
nevertheless  a  great  deal  of  force.  Remote- 
ness and  the  lack  of  clashing  interests  are, 
no  doubt,  among  the  prime  causes,  coupled 
with  the  fact  that  Russian  interests  do  clash 
so  constantly  with  those  of  other  European 
nations;  in  addition  to  this,  there  are  ele- 
ments of  sympathy  in  the  fact  of  mere  geo- 
graphical bigness,  Russia  and  the  United 
States  standing  first  among  civilized  nations 
in  point  of  continuous  territory  and  number 
of  inhabitants  of  one  race;  each  of  us  is 
sensitive  to  foreign  criticism,  and  each, 
while  conscious  of  its  own  strength,  has  felt 
the  sneers  of  other  countries ;  but,  above  all, 
Russia  has  come  to  look  upon  itself  as  the 
inveterate  and  eternal  enemy  of  England, 
and  it  rightly  judges  us  to  be  the  natural 
rival  of  England  in  all  those  elements  of 
commercial  success  which  have  made  her 
present  greatness.  Russia  looks  to  see 
England  decline  as  we  advance,  and  this 
decline  she  considers  her  greatest  advan- 
tage. A  wide-spread  illusion  also  exists, 
which  I  never  succeeded  in  dispelling  with 
any  one  with  whom  I  conversed,  that  the 
minute  England  becomes  involved  in  war 
we  will  destroy  her  commerce  by  precisely 
those  means  which  certain  Englishmen  em- 


ployed in  our  hour  of  trouble  to  destroy 
ours.  Our  feelings  and  probable  action  in 
the  event  of  England  being  involved  in  a 
Continental  war  are  more  correctly  appreci- 
ated at  St.  Petersburg,  but  in  the  country  at 
large — as  represented  by  the  army  officers — 
the  opinion  is  universal  that  we  would  at 
once  send  out  cruisers  to  depredate  on 
English  commerce  the  moment  England's 
fleet  was  occupied  elsewhere.  Both  being 
enemies,  the  Russians  argue,  of  the  same 
power,  we  must  naturally  be  friends  of  each 
other. 

One  other  incident,  which  is  almost  for- 
gotten at  home,  made  a  deep  and  lasting 
impression  in  Russia;  this  was  the  mission 
of  Mr.  Fox  in  1867.  The  sending  of  a  fleet  of 
vessels,  partly  composed  of  monitors,  which 
had  proved  their  merit  in  action  at  home, 
but  had  never  before  been  seen  in  European 
waters,  to  convey  an  embassador  bearing  a 
special  message  from  the  whole  American 
people,  as  represented  in  Congress,  of  good- 
will to  the  Russian  people  and  hearty  con- 
gratulations on  the  escape  of  their  emperor 
from  assassination — all  this  had  a  flavor  of 
generous  sentiment  in  it  peculiarly  accept- 
able to  the  people  of  Moscow  and  "  old  Rus- 
sians" generally.  The  fame  of  this  mission 
penetrated  to  the  ends  of  the  empire,  and 
consolidated  a  friendship  which  has  been 
growing  for  years,  and  the  very  inertness  of 
the  Russians,  which  prevents  them  from  re- 
ceiving a  new  idea  every  day,  makes  them 
hold  very  fast  to  those  they  do  receive  and 
accept. 

I  left  my  generous  host  early  the  next 
morning,  and  making  my  way  through  the 
storm,  arrived  two  days  afterward  at  Gen- 
eral Gourko's  head-quarters,  on  the  northern 
slope  of  the  Balkans,  near  Orkhanie.  The 
troops  destined  to  re-enforce  his  army  arrived 
the  same  day,  and  on  the  next  the  orders 
were  issued  for  the  advance.  The  follow- 
ing day,  Christmas  morning,  in  intense  cold 
and  in  the  midst  of  a  dense,  impenetrable 
fog  of  particles  of  ice,  we  set  out  to  cross 
the  Balkans.  The  troops  found  almost  in- 
superable obstacles  in  dragging  their  guns 
up  the  steep,  icy  slopes  of  the  narrow  road 
which  had  been  made  over  the  mountain  to 
enable  them  to  turn  the  position  of  the 
Turks  in  their  front.  The  guns  had  to  be 
taken  apart  and  dragged  piecemeal  by  ropes 
up  the  mountain,  and  late  that  evening,  at 
the  time  when  it  was  intended  that  more  than 
half  of  the  troops  should  have  been  at  the 
southern  outlets  of  the  mountain  passes,  not 
a  gun  had  reached  the  summit.  The  posi- 


OVER    THE  BALKANS    WITH  GOURKO. 


723 


tion  was  a  precarious  one ;  the  troops  were 
spread  out  over  an  immense  length  and 
there  was  the  greatest  danger  that  the  move- 
ment would  be  revealed  to  the  Turks  and 
might  be  wholly  aborted  by  flank  attacks 
as  the  isolated  detachments  should  reach 
the  southern  valleys.  At  night-fall,  Gen- 
eral Gourko  reached  the  summit  and  lay 
down  in  the  snow  for  a  little  rest,  thoroughly 
harassed  by  the  anxieties  of  the  moment. 
It  was  one  of  those  critical  periods  when 
success  or  failure  hang  in  the  balance,  and 
the  general's  impatience  knew  no  bounds, 
as  successive  reports  came  to  him  of  the 
difficulties  and  delays  which  the  different 
columns  met  with.  After  admiring  the  mag- 
nificent view  which  was  disclosed  from  the 
top  of  the  mountain,  at  the  base  of  which  lay 
the  broad  plain  of  Sophia,  clad  in  snow,  but 
dotted  here  and  there  with  the  numerous 
dark  clusters  of  huts  and  curling  smoke  of 
the  villages,  I  declined  an  invitation  to 
pass  the  night  on  the  mountain,  and  deter- 
mined to  push  forward  to  a  regiment  which 
held  the  outposts  in  the  valley  below.  Sev- 
eral hours  after  night-fall,  when  I  was  begin- 
ning to  fear  I  had  wholly  lost  my  road  and 
was  wandering  into  the  Turkish  lines,  as  I 
once  did  at  Plevna,  I  stumbled  upon  the  vil- 
lage where  the  Russians  were  bivouacked; 
applying  at  once  at  the  first  hut,  I  was 
received  with  the  usual  cordiality  by  the 
half-dozen  officers  quartered  in  it,  and  was 
immediately  offered  more  than  my  share  of 
whatever  creature  comforts  they  possessed. 
While  the  troops  were  slowly  dragging 
themselves  and  their  guns  over  the  mount- 
ain range,  I  took  advantage  of  the  delay  to 
pass  a  day  or  two  with  the  brigade  of  Cau- 
casian Cossacks  who  were  employed  in 
scouting  and  skirmishing  with  the  Turks  in 
the  valley  of  Sophia.  These  men  are  of  an 
entirely  different  type  from  the  Russians 
proper.  They  come  from  the  mountains  and 
valleys  of  the  Caucasus,  not  very  far  from 
that  portion  of  the  earth  which  is  spoken  of 
as  the  cradle  of  the  human  race,  and  they 
are  of  a  remarkably  pure  Caucasian  type — 
ruddy  complexions,  dark  hair  and  eyes, 
short  black  beards,  and  compact,  well-knit 
frames  ;  their  wild,  picturesque  costume  con- 
sists of  a  black,  woolly,  sheep-skin  hat,  one 
or  two  long  tunics  coming  to  their  heels,  the 
inner  one  of  red  or  black  silk  and  the  outer 
of  brown  woollen  cloth,  a  pair  of  trowsers, 
and  low  boots  outside  of  them.  The  tunic 
is  gathered  in  at  the  waist  by  a  very  narrow 
belt  of  leather,  ornamented  with  silver 
worked  in  enamel ;  the  scimiter-like  sword 


is  hung  by  a  similar  piece  of  leather  passing 
over  one  shoulder,  and  over  the  other  hangs 
the  carbine,  in  a  sheath  of  sheep-skin ;  on 
each  breast  are  half  a  dozen  cases  for  car- 
tridges. Their  horses  are  the  counterpart 
of  themselves — short,  thick-set,  extremely 
hardy,  and  very  intelligent.  The  men  are 
wonderfully  bold  riders,  though  their  seat 
and  appearance — with  short  stirrups  and 
high  saddles — have  little  in  common  with 
what  we  are  accustomed  to  call  good  horse- 
manship. 

These  people  differ  as  much  from  the 
Russians  in  their  character  as  in  their  ap- 
pearance. Though  among  the  most  faithful 
of  the  Tsar's  subjects,  they  are  all  Moham- 
medans, understand  but  very  little  of  the 
Russian  language,  are  very  quick-sighted 
and  self-reliant,  never  at  a  loss  to  take  care 
of  themselves,  and  render  the  best  service 
when  left  to  their  own  resources.  They  are 
a  species  of  amiable  barbarians,  devoted  to 
their  friends  and  absolutely  relentless  to 
their  foes ;  they  talk  but  little  among  them- 
selves, have  a  serious  expression  of  counte- 
nance, rarely  smile,  and  do  not  sing  except 
when  they  give  themselves  up  to  a  dance 
around  a  camp-fire,  which  bears  a  strong  re- 
semblance to  the  sun  dances  of  our  Indians, 
although  the  motions  are  more  varied  and 
graceful.  They  have  little  of  the  regular 
discipline  of  European  troops,  though  they 
are  by  no  means  disorderly,  and  they  love 
nothing  so  much  as  danger  and  wild  advent- 
ure for  its  own  sake. 

The  brigade  was  bivouacked  in  one  of 
the  little  villages  of  the  Sophia  plain  when  I 
joined  it,  just  at  daylight  a  day  or  two  after 
Christmas.  The  village  was  wrapped  in 
snow,  and  showed  no  sign  whatever  of  the 
thousand  men  who  were  hid  in  it,  except 
that  a  good  many  horses  were  in  the  yards 
of  the  huts.  I  found  the  hut  of  the  com- 
mandant, who  was  just  rolling  out  of  his 
blankets,  and  refreshed  myself  with  a  few 
glasses  of  the  customary  hot  tea.  Half  an 
hour  afterward  we  were  in  motion,  and 
moved  out  through  the  deep  snow  toward 
the  town  of  Sophia,  to  reconnoiter  the  strength 
of  the  Turks  at  that  place.  As  we  passed 
from  one  to  another  of  the  villages,  where 
no  Russians  had  previously  been  seen,  the 
Bulgarians  met  us  in  large  numbers  at  the 
entrance  of  each,  usually  preceded  by  their 
priests  bearing  a  cross  and  the  elders  of  the 
village  bringing  salt  and  bread.  At  our 
approach  they  bowed  their  heads  to  the 
ground  and  cried  <l  Welcome,  welcome,"  and 
then  rushed  up  to  kiss  our  hands  or  clothes. 


724 


OVER    THE  BALKANS    WITH  GOURKO. 


Whatever  knowledge  they  had  concerning 
the  Turks  was  cheerfully  given  (though  their 
reports  were  often  unintelligible  and  contra- 
dictory), and  their  ample  pro  visions  of  grain, 
bread,  geese  and  poultry  were  freely  placed 
at  our  disposal.  But  as  they  saw  that  we 
did  not  remain,  their  enthusiasm  cooled  most 
decidedly,  as  they  remembered  that  to-mbr- 
row  might  bring  a  body  of  Turks  back  upon 
them. 

As  we  approached  one  village,  we  were 
received  with  a  few  shots  coming  from  be- 
hind the  hedges.  The  column  was  halted 
and  some  skirmishers  thrown  out,  who  re- 
ported a  body  of  Turkish  infantry  in  the 
village,  engaged  in  crossing  a  deep  little 
stream  which  was  covered  with  a  thin  coating 
of  ice,  not  strong  enough  to  bear  our  horses. 
Those  of  the  Turks  who  had  already  passed 
were  drawn  up  in  line  on  the  opposite  bank, 
and  as  the  Cossacks  could  only  approach 
the  ford  through  a  narrow  street  they  were 
at  a  considerable  disadvantage,  considering 
that  their  object  was  merely  a  reconnaissance, 
and  nothing  was  to  be  gained  by  losing  forty 
or  fifty  men.  So  they  only  skirmished  with 
the  Turks  for  half  an  hour,  when  all  the  latter 
being  across  the  stream,  they  broke  into  a 
double-quick  on  the  road  to  Sophia.  The 
Cossacks  put  after  them,  but  the  ford  was 
very  narrow,  and  it  was  some  time  before 
they  were  over;  the  Turks  got  a  start  of  a 
good  half-mile,  and  as  soon  as  the  Cossacks 
came  near  them  they  stopped  long  enough 
to  give  them  a  warm  fire  and  then  ran  on. 
The  Cossacks  could  easily  have  caught  them 
on  the  road,  which  was  firm  and  hard,  but 
would  have  lost  thirty  or  forty  men  in  doing 
so,  and  there  was  no  object  in  it,  as  it  was 
only  a  small  force  of  five  hundred  or  six 
hundred  men  retreating  from  an  outpost  in 
the  mountains.  Then  the  Cossacks  tried 
to  go  around  and  get  ahead  of  them, 
but  the  deep  soft  snow  in  the  fields 
made  their  progress  slower  than  that  of 
the  Turks.  So  they  merely  kept  up  the 
chase  for  three  or  four  miles,  until  they  came 
to  the  main  high  road  at  a  point  where  it 
crossed  a  considerable  stream  about  three 
miles  in  front  of  Sophia.  The  Turks  got 
safely  across  the  bridge  and  then  we  were 
saluted  by  a  fine  rattling  fusillade  extending 
over  a  length  of  about  a  quarter  of  a  mile  of 
the  opposite  bank  of  the  stream,  and  we 
saw  a  regiment  or  more  of  Tcherkesses  * 
deploy  on  the  opposite  bank.  Here  we 
were  in  full  sight  of  the  town,  and  the  officers 

*  Caucasian  cavalry  in  the  Turkish  service. 


had  a  good  opportunity  to  sketch  the  posi- 
tion of  its  fortifications,  so  the  Cossacks  fell 
back  to  about  1200  yards  and,  spreading 
out  over  a  long  line,  kept  up  a  good  skir- 
mish fire.  A  curious  and  very  interesting 
incident  now  occurred.  The  Cossacks  sat 
there  exchanging  shots  for  nearly  an  hour, 
and  while  with  our  glasses  we  could  plainly 
see  many  a  Turk  knocked  out  of  his  saddle 
by  our  Berdans,  not  a  man  on  the  Russian 
side  was  hit,  and  not  a  bullet  was  heard  to 
whistle.  The  Tcherkesses  were  armed  with 
the  Winchester  repeating  carbine,  which  only 
carried  about  800  to  900  yards,  and  we 
were  wholly  out  of  range !  A  week  later 
another  skirmish  took  place  at  the  same 
locality.  This  time  it  was  the  main  body 
of  Gourko's  troops  forcing  their  way  to 
Sophia;  they  met  with  resistance  at  this 
same  bridge,  and  a  smart  skirmish  took 
place,  lasting  about  an  hour,  and  costing  the 
Russians  fifty  or  sixty  men.  On  this  occa- 
sion I  was  with  General  Gourko's  staff,  and 
we  stood  watching  the  fight  on  a  tumulus 
about  three  hundred  yards  in  rear  of  the 
place  where  I  had  been  before;  this  time 
the  bullets  flew  fast  and  thick,  and  a  few 
horses  in  our  group  were  wounded;  but 
now  it  was  Turkish  infantry  opposed  to  us, 
armed  with  the  Peabody- Martini  rifle,  a 
splendid  weapon  which  carries  with  deadly 
effect  to  2000  yards. 

As  the  sun  began  to  go  down  the  Cos- 
sacks gradually  withdrew,  having  gained  as 
much  information  as  was  possible  with  their 
force.  Along  the  road  were  the  evidences 
of  an  affair  in  which  these  same  troops  had 
been  engaged  a  few  days  before,  and  which 
was  more  to  their  taste  than  to-day's  gentle 
skirmishing.  Pieces  of  broken  wagons, 
dead  horses,  immense  stains  of  blood  in  the 
snow,  men  with  their  heads  severed  in  two 
pieces,  these  were  the  marks,  of  an  attack 
on  a  transport  train  guarded  by  a  company 
of  infantry,  every  man  of  which  had  been 
cut  down.  And  yet — so  strange  are  the 
anomalies  of  semi-civilized  nature — at  the 
end  of  that  affair,  an  infant,  not  over  six 
months  old,  who  had  been  discovered  de- 
serted among  the  debris,  was  picked  up, 
wrapped  in  a  big  cloak,  tenderly  cared  for 
during  the  night,  and  the  next  day  carried 
back  on  horseback,  thirty  miles  over  the 
mountains,  to  the  nearest  hospital,  and  there 
delivered  to  the  Sisters  of  Charity  of  the 
Red  Cross,  by  whom  it  was  taken  in  charge 
and  sent  to  Russia  for  adoption. 

The  picture  of  the  rough  Cossack  carry- 
ing this  child,  laughing  in  his  face,  on  the 


OVER   THE  BALKANS    WITH  GOURKO. 


725 


pommel  of  his  saddle  through  the  snow, 
was  a  most  attractive  one;  and  yet  the 
same  man,  without  a  moment's  hesitation, 
would  pull  out  his  sword  and  hack  off  the 
head  of  its  wounded  father,  lying  on  the 
ground  and  begging  for  mercy ;  and,  while 
enjoying  the  zest  of  it  at  the  moment,  would 
forget  all  about  it  the  next  day.  While  this 
reconnaissance  had  been  going  on,  the  main 
body  of  the  troops  were  still  tugging  pain- 
fully at  their  guns  on  the  mountain  range. 
It  was  six  days  before  they  had  pulled  them 
up  one  side,  slid  them  down  the  other,  and 
then  put  them  together  again,  mounted 
them  on  their  wheels,  and  turned  them  over 
to  the  horses  for  draught.  Finally  the 
troops  were  all  assembled  in  the  valleys  on 
the  southern  side ;  and  an  attack  was  made 
at  Taskossen  on  the  last  day  of  the  year — 
on  the  position  which  the  Turks  had  taken 
up  by  throwing  back  their  left  flank  to 
oppose  the  Russian  advance  against  their 
rear.  Their  troops  were  commanded  by 
the  well-known  Valentine  Baker,  who  made 
a  short  but  good  defense,  keeping  it  up 
until  a  dense  fog  settled  just  before  sunset, 
and  prevented  Gourko's  getting  in  the  rear 
of  the  main  Turkish  army  and  bagging  it 
entire,  as  the  Turkish  army  was  bagged  at 
Shipka. 

It  was  a  pretty  fight  to  look  at.  The 
Turks  had  a  good  position  along  a  pass  in 
a  spur  of  the  mountain  through  which  the 
road  passed.  They  were  on  high  ground, 
and  the  Russians  had  to  advance  through 
an  open  valley.  In  front  of  them,  directly 
opposite  to  the  Turkish  position  and  about 
two  miles  from  it,  was  a  high  spur  on  which 
we  were  situated,  and  from  which  every 
movement  of  the  battle  could  be  seen  with 
perfect  clearness. 

The  Turks  gave  way  about  three  o'clock 
in  the  afternoon,  but  it  was  impossible 
to  follow  them  for  any  distance  at  that 
late  hour  of  the  short  winter  day,  as  the 
weather  was  inclement  and  the  men  were 
exhausted.  The  next  morning,  New  Year's 
day,  the  troops  were  put  in  motion,  the 
general  and  staff  preceding  them  with  a 
small  escort.  As  we  rode  through  the  pass 
we  came  into  a  small  valley  not  over  four 
miles  in  width,  in  rear  of  the  main  range 
of  the  Balkans,  which  bounded  it  on  the 
north,  while  natural  spurs  encircled  it  on 
the  other  sides.  The  principal  body  of  the 
Turks  had  been  on  the  Balkans,  and  we 
looked  eagerly  to  see  whether  they  still  re- 
mained there ;  nothing  could  be  discerned. 
But  off  on  our  right  we  noticed  a  few  black 


dots  moving  toward  the  south  over  a 
snow-covered  slope.  With  our  glasses  we 
thought  that  a  large  body  of  troops  could 
be  seen  massed  in  and  near  the  village  at 
the  foot  of  the  slope,  about  three  miles 
off.  The  leading  Russian  battalions  and 
batteries  were  immediately  hurried  in  that 
direction,  and,  in  a  few  minutes  afterward, 
an  enormous  black  mass,  like  a  swarm  of 
busy  ants,  was  seen  slowly  ascending  the 
mountain.  Evidently  a  portion  of  the 
Turks  were  in  retreat,  but  we  knew  nothing 
of  what  had  transpired  at  their  principal 
position,  and  scanned  eagerly  the  sides  of 
the  main  range  in  search  of  further  develop- 
ments, while  a  few  officers  were  sent  forward 
to  reconnoiter.  Soon  afterward, a  long  wind- 
ing column  made  its  appearance,  descending 
the  southern  slope  of  the  main  range.  Was 
it  the  rest  of  the  Turks,  or  was  it  a  portion 
of  the  Russians  ?  Officers  were  sent  off 
post-haste  to  learn.  In  less  than  half  an 
hour  one  of  them  came  galloping  back  to 
say  that  it  was  their  own  men,  and  that  the 
whole  position  on  the  Balkans  had  been 
abandoned  during  the  night.  The  troops 
we  saw  off  on  our  right  were,  therefore,  a 
large  rear-guard  of  the  Turkish  army.  The 
general  took  out  of  his  pocket  a  piece  of 
chocolate, — the  only  delicacy  he  had  with 
him, — and  divided  it  with  his  staff  in  con- 
gratulation of  their  success ;  for,  in  fact,  the 
supposed  impassable  line  of  the  main  Balkan 
range  had  been  passed  in  the  depth  of  win- 
ter, and  the  Turks  were  in  full  retreat. 
Short  dispatches  were  at  once  written  and 
sent  to  the  end  of  the  field-telegraph  on  the 
other  side  of  the  mountains,  and  others, 
more  at  length,  were  written  later  in  the 
day  and  given  to  an  officer,  to  take  with  the 
utmost  speed  and  deliver  into  the  Emperor's 
own  hands  at  St.  Petersburg.  It  was  a  New 
Year's  congratulation  worth  offering. 

Five  days  later  the  Russian  troops  entered 
the  town  of  Sophia,  which  the  Turks  had 
evacuated  during  the  preceding  night.  At 
the  entrance  of  the  town  we  were  met  by  a 
procession  of  two  or  three  thousand  people, 
headed  by  a  large  number  of  priests  of  the 
orthodox  church,  attired  in  the  robes  of 
their  office.  Some  of  them  bore  crucifixes 
of  silver,  which  were  presented  to  the  Rus- 
sian commander,  who  devoutly  uncovered 
his  head,  crossed  himself  three  times  and 
kissed  them.  Others  carried  a  silver  platter 
containing  a  loaf  of  bread  and  some  salt — 
the  ancient  emblems  of  hospitality.  Behind 
them  was  a  choir  of  several  hundred  voices, 
that  immediately  began  singing  an  anthem. 


726 


OVER    THE  BALKANS    WITH  GOURKO. 


The  rest  of  the  crowd  was  made  up  of  Bul- 
garians, who  broke  forth  into  loud  cheers 
and  shouts  of  welcome  as  we  rode  along 
past  them. 

This  town,  which  was  founded  by  the 
Byzantine  Emperor  Constantine  in  the  sixth 
century,  captured  by  the  Bulgarians  and 
made  their  capital  in  the  ninth  century,  con- 
quered by  the  Turks  in  1382  and  now  re- 
conquered by  Christians  in  1878,  presented 
strange  scenes — scenes  which  have  little  in 
common  with  the  nineteenth  century  as  we 
understand  it,  and  are  possible  now  in  no 
other  civilized  land  but  Turkey. 

Nearly  all  the  shops  had  been  owned  by 
Turks  or  a  few  Greeks.  The  Turkish  pop- 
ulation had  either  fled  with  the  Turkish 
troops  or  had  hidden  out  of  sight,  and  for 
about  eight  hours — from  two  o'clock  in  the 
night,  when  the  Turks  left,  until  ten  o'clock 
in  the  morning,  when  the  Russians  entered 
— the  Bulgarians  had  been  engaged  in  in- 
discriminate and  ruthless  pillage.  Every 
shop  in  the  town  had  been  broken  open, 
and  its  contents  carried  off  or  scattered 
about  the  streets.  The  Russians  very 
quickly  brought  order  out  of  this  confusion. 
Their  Cossack  whips  were  freely  used  on 
the  backs  of  the  Bulgarians,  and  any  person 
found  with  goods  in  the  street  or  suspicious- 
looking  property  in  his  house  was  required 
to  bring  it  into  one  of  the  open  squares  of 
the  town,  where  it  was  heaped  up  in  great 
piles  and  guarded  by  sentries  until  its  own- 
ership could  be  clearly  proven. 

The  only  solitary  instance  of  pillage  by 
the  troops — a  Cossack  who  was  found 
guilty  of  stealing  a  watch  from  a  man  in  the 
street — was  summarily  punished  by  hang- 
ing within  an  hour  from  the  time  of  the 
robbery. 

This  instance  of  pillage  by  the  Bulgarians 
was,  unfortunately,  not  the  exception, — it 
was  the  common  rule  on  similar  occasions ; 
and  as  the  war  went  on  and  instances  of  it 
multiplied,  it  sadly  dampened  the  ardent 
enthusiasm  with  which  the  Russians  had 
begun  the  war  for  the  relief  of  their  suf- 
fering co-religionists.  Misgovernment  ex- 
tending over  centuries  cannot  be  righted 
without  the  hatred  which  it  has  engendered 
finding  vent  in  horrible  excesses,  and  this 
war  will  stand  out  pre-eminent  among 
those  of  modern  times  for  the  suffering 
which  it  inflicted  upon  the  non-combatant 
population.  Whenever  the  Russian  armies 
approached  a  village,  the  Turkish  popula- 
tion abandoned  everything  and  fled  before 
them ;  when  the  Russians  were  obliged  to 


fall  back  and  the  Turks  followed  in  pursuit, 
the  Bulgarians  fled  before  them;  when,  finally, 
the  Russian  advance  surged  forward  during 
the  winter  without  interruption  to  the  gates  of 
Constantinople,  a  large  portion  of  the  entire 
Mohammedan  population  left  their  homes 
and  villages,  and  packing  a  few  possessions 
and  still  less  food  in  one  or  two  bullock 
wagons,  they  formed  the  nucleus  of  cara- 
vans of  refugees — one  of  which,  receiving 
fresh  additions  at  every  village,  finally 
stretched  out  over  a  length  of  twenty  miles 
and  contained  two  hundred  thousand  souls! 

This  great  train  became  mingled  with 
the  retreating  Turkish  troops,  and  was 
caught  between  two  fractions  of  the  advanc- 
ing Russians — General  Gourko  from  Sophia 
and  General  Skobeleff  from  Shipka.  Its 
escort  of  a  few  battalions  foolishly  made  a 
defense  against  the  troops  of  the  latter 
general,  and  being  beaten  it  took  refuge  in 
flight  toward  the  Rhodope  Mountains, 
followed  by  all  the  able-bodied  portion  of 
the  community,  who  left  the  old,  the  sick 
and  the  babes  to  perish  in  the  snow. 
The  train  was  at  once  plundered  of  all  its 
possessions  by  the  Bulgarians  of  the  neigh- 
boring villages,  who  mercilessly  put  to 
death  all  those  who  had  not  yet  perished 
of  cold.  For  three  successive  days  we 
marched  through  the  remnants  of  this  car- 
avan, scattered  over  a  length  of  seventy 
miles, — broken  wagons,  scattered  contents, 
dead  animals ;  here  a  man  and  his  wife,  who 
had  stretched  a  blanket  in  the  snow  and 
lain  down  to  die  side  by  side ;  there  a 
stately  old  Turk,  with  flowing  white  beard, 
green  turban  and  brightly  figured  robe, 
lying  by  the  ditch  with  his  throat  cut  from 
ear  to  ear ;  and  again  a  naked  little  infant 
frozen  stiff  in  the  snow,  with  its  eyes  up- 
turned to  heaven.  Our  blood  curdled  as 
we  saw  a  Bulgarian  clod,  grinning  and 
staring  at  us  from  the  road-side,  who  an- 
swered as  we  asked  him  who  murdered  those 
two  Turks  lying  a  few  feet  from  us  : 

"  Nashe    bratte   (Our  brothers,    we    did 

it)-" 

In  the  villages  which  the  Turks  had  left, 
their  houses,  land  and  effects  were  all 
promptly  seized  and  used  by  the  Bulgarians. 
On  the  other  hand,  in  the  wagons  of  the 
caravan  were  found  silver  altar-pieces  which 
the  Mohammedans  had  stolen  from  the 
Christian  churches  before  beginning  their 
flight. 

Meanwhile,  the  refugees  of  this  particular 
caravan  eked  out  a  precarious  existence  in 
the  Rhodope  Mountains  until  spring,  when, 


OVER    THE  BALKANS    WITH  GOURKO. 


727 


aided  and  led  by  one  or  two  English  ad- 
venturers, they  began  an  insurrection  against 
the  Russian  troops  who  had  been  left  to 
guard  the  line  of  communications.  When 
this  had  been  subdued,  some  months  later, 
the  tale  of  their  sufferings  reached  Con- 
stantinople, and  a  commission  of  foreign 
consuls  was  sent  to  investigate  the  matter. 
They  reported  that  more  than  a  hundred  and 
fifty  thousand  homeless  and  starving  refu- 
gees were  scattered  about  in  the  villages  of 
this  inhospitable  region,  with  no  resources 
of  food  or  clothing  for  the  coming  winter. 
Subscriptions  were  opened  in  England  for 
their  relief,  and  measures  were  taken,  the 
war  being  now  over,  to  return  them  to  their 
homes.  Arriving  there,  they  found  all  their 
property  appropriated  by  others,  and  they 
met  with  a  bleak  reception  from  the  Bul- 
garians, who  imagined  they  had  seen  the 
last  of  their  long-time  enemies  and  op- 
pressors ;  and  it  is  questionable  whether 
it  would  not  have  been  more  humane  in 
the  end,  as  several  Russians  suggested,  to 
make  them  continue  their  flight  to  Asia. 

The  caravan  of  which  I  have  spoken  was 
the  largest,  but  it  was  only  one  of  many. 
The  migration  of  the  others  continued  all 
the  way  to  Constantinople,  where,  on  our 
arrival,  there  were  reported  to  be  three 
hundred  thousand  refugees.  The  mosque 
of  St.  Sophia  alone  contained  nearly  three 
thousand  of  them  when  I  first  saw  it.  They 
were  herded  about  in  mosques  and  in  open 
squares  until  the  typhus  fever  broke  out 
among  them,  when  the  Turkish  authorities 
displayed  unwonted  energy  and  in  a  few  days 
dispersed  the  whole  mass,  sending  about  half 
of  them  over  into  Asia  and  the  other  half 
back  toward  Bulgaria. 

It  is  probably  within  the  limit  of  fact  to 
say  that  seven  hundred  thousand  Moham- 
medans abandoned  their  homes  and  pos- 
sessions during  the  war,  and  set  foith  on 
a  long  journey  the  aim  and  end  of  which 
they  knew  not,  and  that  not  one-half  of 
them  have  ever  returned,  and  a  large  pro- 
portion have  perished.  In  addition  to  this, 
about  three  hundred  thousand  Bulgarians 
abandoned  their  homes  at  the  time  of 
Gourko's  retreat  in  July.  A  million  of  people 
were  thus  wandering  about  during  the  course 
of  the  war,  with  only  such  possessions  as 
two  or  three  families  could  pack  into  one 
bullock  wagon.  The  sufferings  which  they 
endured  can  never  be  told,  much  less  appre- 
ciated. Even  now,  more  than  two  years 
after  the  events  of  which  I  am  writing,  we 
constantly  read  in  the  papers  of  a  new  com- 


mission being  formed  to  make  arrangements 
for  returning  the  Turkish  refugees  to  their 
homes. 

We  stayed  at  Sophia  just  a  week,  recuper- 
ating the  men  and  getting  together  the  sup- 
plies for  a  further  advance.  Our  way  then 
lay  on  the  ancient  Roman  road  to  Adrianople. 
We  had  to  cross  a  second  range  of  mount- 
ains, where  the  same  difficulties  were  en- 
countered with  the  guns  as  before,  only 
lessened  to  the  extent  that  smooth  roads  are 
less  difficult  than  mountain  paths,  although 
both  be  covered  with  frozen,  icy  snow. 
Emerging  from  the  mountains  at  last  in  the 
wide  and  beautiful  plain  of  the  Maritza,  we 
came  nearly  up  with  the  retreating  Turks, 
and  then  for  three  days,  marching  from  day- 
light to  dark  and  always  in  sight  of  each 
other,  we  kept  up  the  exciting  chase,  hardly 
stopping  long  enough  to  extinguish  the  blaz- 
ing fires  in  every  village  which  marked  the 
line  of  Turkish  march. 

.On  the  afternoon  of  the  third  day,  the 
advance  guard,  under  Count  Shouvaloff, 
with  whom  I  was  marching,  were  met  by 
some  cavalry  which  were  scouting  on  their 
right,  who  reported  that  a  column  of  Turks 
was  moving  directly  toward  a  village  just 
abreast  of  them,  with  the  intention  of  cross- 
ing the  Maritza  River  and  gaining  the  high 
road  on  which  they  were.  Count  Shouvaloff 
immediately  turned  his  men  to  the  right,  and 
they  plunged  into  the  stream — a  river  more 
than  a  hundred  yards  wide  and  four  feet 
deep,  filled  with  cakes  of  floating  ice  which 
struck  against  the  men's  breasts  as  they  forded 
it.  Arrived  on  the  other  side,  their  clothing 
was  soon  stiff  with  ice ;  but  the  men  pressed 
on  through  the  village  and  formed  on  the 
opposite  side.  But  the  Turks  had  already 
seen  their  movements,  and  had  turned  back 
to  the  railroad  along  which  they  were  march- 
ing, and  continued  their  retreat  in  that 
direction.  The  rear  of  the  column,  on  a 
good  run,  was  over  half  a  mile  from  us ;  the 
sun  was  just  setting,  and  Shouvaloff  had  only 
about  5000  men  at  hand.  He  rightly  argued  : 
If  they  have  a  large  force,  I  am  too  weak 
for  them  to-day ;  if  a  small  force,  I  would 
rather  they  escaped  than  that  my  men  should 
freeze  to  death  with  their  icy  clothes  in  these 
fields  to-night.  So,  sending  a  small  force  of 
cavalry  to  reconnoiter  their  strength,  he 
turned  his  men  back  to  the  village  and  bade 
them  crowd  twenty  or  thirty  into  each  hut 
and  dry  their  clothes  around  blazing  fires. 
The  general  picked  out  one  of  the  squalid 
little  huts  for  himself,  and  invited  the  two 
foreign  officers  who  were  present,  Major  von 


728 


OVER    THE  BALKANS    WITH  GOURKO. 


Liegnitz  and  myself,  as  well  as  his  chief  of 
staff  and  two  aids-de-camp,  one  of  whom 
was  his  son,  to  share  it  with  him.  We  got 
some  black  bread  of  the  peasants,  and  each 
one  contributed  a  little  tea  or  potted  meats 
— whatever  he  had  in  his  saddle,  the  wagons 
being  all  behind — to  make  a  meal.  After- 
ward we  discussed  the  probabilities  of  the 
next  day.  There  was  plainly  visible  from 
our  hut  a  long  line  of  fires  stretching 
across  the  country,  about  three  miles  from  us. 
Liegnitz  had,  as  the  sequel  proved,  the 
best  military  instinct,  and  argued  that  this 
was  a  line  of  bivouac  fires  of  a  large  body 
of  Turkish  troops,  who  had  selected  that 
position  to  give  battle ;  the  others  inclined 
to  the  opinion  that  the  fires  were  caused  by 
burning  the  tops  of  the  rice  stalks  which 
projected  above  the  snow.  In  any  event, 
the  necessary  orders  were  given  by  the 
general  for  the  disposition  of  the  troops  for 
the  morrow — for  an  attack  if  the  Turks  stood 
firm,  or  for  a  pursuit  if  they  should  retreat. 
Then  we  sandwiched  ourselves  about  on 
the  floor,  and  slept  during  the  night.  Two 
thoughts  kept  running  through  my  mind: 
one  was  the  contrast  between  the  present 
squalid  surroundings  of  Count  Shouvaloff 
and  his  large  estates  and  beautiful  home  in 
St.  Petersburg,  and  his  patriotism  in  leaving 
all  this  and  asking  to  come  to  the  army  in 
an  inferior  position  after  having  been  passed 
over  in  the  first  assignment  of  generals;  and 
the  other  was  about  my  own  position — going 
again  into  a  battle  in  which  I  might  lose 
my  life  as  easily  as  any  one  else,  but  in 
which  I  had  no  more  direct  concern  than 
that  of  an  observer  watching  the  develop- 
ment of  an  interesting  problem,  in  which 
if  I  got  hit  I  would  neither  receive  nor  be 
entitled  to  any  sympathy,  and  to  the  result 
of  which  I  was  incapable  of  contributing  in 
any  way  whatever.  There  is  a  peculiar 
sense  of  foolishness  in  the  feeling  of  being 
hit  as  a  bystander  in  a  row.  But  our 
thoughts  are  mastered  by  physical  needs, 
and  one  sleeps  easily  after  bodily  exhaustion, 
no  matter  in  what  surroundings. 

We  were  up  before  daylight  the  next 
morning,  and  just  as  the  sun  arose — a  bright 
morning  of  intensely  bitter  cold — the  troops 
which  had  come  up  during  the  night,  and 
slept  in  the  fields  on  the  other  side  of  the 
river,  began  crossing  the  stream.  As  they 
had  to  fight  all  day  in  the  snow  it  was  very 
important  that  their  clothing  should  not  be 
wet,  and  they  were  therefore  ordered  to 
strip  naked,  roll  their  clothes  in  a  bundle 
and  carry  them  on  their  heads.  As  they 


came  out  of  the  icy  river  they  were  as  red 
as  boiled  lobsters,  but  made  merry  as  they 
squatted  about  in  the  snow  to  put  on  their 
clothes.  They  then  formed  and  marched 
through  the  village,  where  the  general  sa- 
luted them  as  usual. 

"  Good  morning,  my  men." 
"  Good  morning,  your  Highness." 
"  Did  you  burn  your  feet  coming  over?" 
"No,  indeed,  your  Highness!"  they  an- 
swered in  a  shout,  as  a  broad  grin  stole  over 
their  good-natured  faces. 

The  troops  were  soon  deployed  in  the 
fields  outside  the  village,  and,  looking  in 
the  direction  of  the  fires  we  had  noticed 
the  night  before,  we  saw  a  ridge  of  slight 
elevation  rising  out  of  the  rice-fields,  and 
at  intervals  along  it  were  several  batteries, 
and  we  knew  very  well  that  plenty  of  in- 
fantry lay  either  between  or  behind  them. 
The  advance  was  gradually  made  toward 
this  position,  and  when  the  line  of  skirmishers 
came  within  about  two  thousand  yards  of 
it  the  artillery  opened  fire,  accompanied  by 
some  straggling  infantry  shots.  The  men 
were  ordered  to  advance  slowly,  or  to  lie 
down  in  the  furrows  of  the  field,  as  it  was 
not  intended  to  attack  seriously  from  this 
side. 

The  Turkish  artillery  kept  up  a  good 
racket,  and  one  battery  in  particular  singled 
out  the  general's  staff  and  followed  us 
closely,  as  we  moved  over  the  field,  with 
its  shells  and  shrapnel;  for  the  former  we 
cared  little,  as  they  buried  themselves  in 
the  ground,  spattering  the  mud  and  snow 
over  us,  but  the  shrapnel  breaking  in  the 
air  just  over  your  head,  and  its  pieces  and 
bullets  screaming  past  you,  has  an  ugly  and 
disagreeable  sound.  In  about  an  hour  the 
men  had  got  up  in  good  range,  and  the 
battle  was  in  full  play.  It  was  not  an  ex- 
citing spectacle.  The  whole  plan  of  the 
fight,  which  lasted  this  day  (January  i5th) 
and  the  two  following  days,  was  to  hold  the 
Turks,  with  whose  rear  the  Russians  had 
caught  up,  in  place,  while  other  portions 
of  the  Russian  troops  should  pass  around 
their  right  and  rear,  and  either  capture  the 
whole  force  or  cut  them  off  from  their  line 
of  retreat  along  the  high  road,  and  drive 
them  into  the  Rhodope  Mountains.  The 
part  assigned  to  Count  Shouvaloff's  troops 
was  therefore  to  simply  engage  the  Turks 
with  sufficient  energy  to  keep  them  in 
position.  This  sort  of  affair  was  entirely 
deficient  in  the  dramatic  grandeur  of  the 
magnificent  advances  in  line  at  Plevna. 
The  two  lines  now  lay  down,  firing  away 


OVER    THE  BALKANS    WITH  GOURKO. 


729 


at  each  other  with  right  good  will,  and  the 
artillery  on  each  side  increasing  the  din. 
But  on  either  side  there  was  no  movement 
visible  except  of  couriers  or  generals  moving 
along  their  men,  or  occasionally  a  battery 
shifting  its  position.  We  sat  on  our  horses, 
a  few  hundred  yards  behind  the  line  of 
skirmishers,  nearly  an  hour,  watching  the 
monotonous  progress  of  the  fight.  We  were 
a  group  of  perhaps  twenty  horsemen  in  all, 
counting  the  orderlies,  and  we  were  under 
a  large  branching  tree,  hoping  that  this 
would  make  us  less  prominent.  But  the 
singing  of  the  bullets  gradually  increased  in 
such  a  degree  as  to  let  us  know  that  we 
were  becoming  a  special  target.  Finally 
the  well-known  "  s-s-s-s-sta/ "  of  a  bullet 
that  has  struck,  as  distinct  from  the 
"  whiss-j--y-j  "  of  one  that  has  gone  by,  made 
us  all  turn,  and  we  saw  a  young  orderly 
officer  in  the  rear  of  the  group  bending  over 
his  saddle,  with  his  hand  at  his  head.  He 
fell  from  his  horse  into  the  arms  of  a  couple 
of  Cossacks  who  had  dismounted  to  help 
him,  and  was  laid  down  in  the  snow,  while 
the  nearest  passing  stretcher  was  called  to 
carry  him  off.  The  bullet  had  passed 
through  his  forehead,  and  he  was  dead  when 
he  reached  the  nearest  temporary  hospital. 
In  taking  off  his  overcoat,  it  was  then  noticed 
that  he  had  another  bullet  directly  through 
his  heart. 

Strange  fate,  that  out  of  twenty  men 
standing  quietly  under  fire  for  an  hour,  but 
one,  and  he  the  youngest,  should  be  hit,  and 
with  two  bullets  simultaneously,  either  one 
of  which  was  certainly  fatal ! 

This  incident  warned  us  to  move  away 
from  this  place,  and  we  rode  slowly  across 
to  a  part  of  the  ground  where  a  small  brook, 
with  banks  about  four  feet  high,  meandered 
through  the  field.  The  general  peremptorily 
ordered  his  staff  to  dismount  and  sit  down 
under  the  shelter  of  the  bank,  and  to  have 
their  horses  led  behind  a  neighboring  clump 
of  bushes.  He.  Major  Liegnitz  and  myself 
then  walked  up  and  down  for  a  while,  look- 
ing at  the  Turkish  line,  and  talking  of  the 
probable  result  of  the  day.  Presently  two 
or  three  of  the  horses  were  hit,  and  the  gen- 
eral then  politely  requested  Liegnitz  and 
myself  to  also  shelter  ourselves  under  the 
bank.  He  was  then  left  alone  on  the  bank, 
and  I  shall  long  remember  the  picture  of 
him,  in  his  long  overcoat,  pacing  up  and 
down  in  the  snow,  the  noise,  but  inertness 
of  the  battle,  and  the  incessant  whizzing  of 
the  bullets  over  our  heads.  Many  of  them, 
plunging  just  over  us,  traced  little  furrows  in 


the  snow,  barely  beyond  our  feet ;  and  we 
commented  on  the  infinite  variety  which 
could  be  made  in  the  simple  sound  of 
"  whiss-s-s-s." 

Two  or  three  hours  later,  as  no  new  de- 
velopments were  taking  place  here,  I  deter- 
mined to  set  out  to  find  General  Gourko, 
the  commanding  general,  and  learn  the  news 
of  the  battle  on  the  other  flank.  I  rode 
back  with  my  orderly  over  the  field,  past  the 
reserves  and  back  into  the  village.  Here 
were  some  temporary  hospitals  in  the  huts, 
and  here  also  were  the  skulkers,  who  are 
always  found  in  the  rear  of  every  battle-field. 
Little  groups  of  five  or  six  men,  who  had 
probably  got  there  by  bringing  back  the 
wounded,  were  crouched  against  the  hedges 
of  the  garden  here  and  there,  laughing,  chat- 
ting, eating,  amusing  themselves  in  any  way, 
in  as  utter  disregard  of  the  battle  which  was 
roaring  in  their  ears,  and  in  which  the  lives 
of  their  comrades  were  at  stake,  as  if  they 
had  been  at  home  in  Russia. 

Crossing  the  river  again,  I  saw  consider- 
able masses  of  troops  in  reserve  lying  down 
in  the  fields,  and  was  warned  by  an  officer 
that  the  direct  road  to  the  left  of  the  Russian 
position  was  commanded  by  a  very  heavy 
fire,  and  that  I  would  do  well  to  circle 
around  behind  the  troops.  The  river  was 
bordered  with  quite  a  considerable  growth 
of  small  trees,  which  shut  out  the  Turks 
from  direct  view,  but  the  bullets  which  came 
whistling  from  that  direction  gave  very  plain 
indication  of  their  whereabouts. 

The  plain  was  dotted  here  and  there  with 
ancient  tumuli,  about  eight  to  ten  feet  high, 
and  I  rode  from  one  to  another  of  these  in 
search  of  General  Gourko.  I  finally  saw  in 
the  distance  a  considerable  number  of  horses 
and  dismounted  men  behind  one  of  these, 
and  riding  up  found  it  was  the  general  and 
his  staff.  He  and  his  chief  of  staff  were 
stretched  flat  on  the  top  of  the  mound, 
peering  over  the  top  with  their  glasses,  and 
the  rest  of  the  group  were  crowded  together 
at  its  base.  As  I  came  up  he  turned  around 
and  slid  down  the  mound  for  a  short  dis- 
tance, and  asked  me  to  sit  down  and  tell 
him  how  things  were  going  in  Count  Shou- 
valofif's  front,  and  also  asked  if  I  had 
seen  anything  on  my  way  of  a  certain  brig- 
ade whose  arrival  he  was  awaiting  with  the 
utmost  impatience,  as  they  were  to  move 
around  the  flank  of  the  enemy  and  block 
his  retreat. 

How  very  prosaic  a  modern  battle  can 
be  with  its  long-range  muskets,  and  espe- 
cially in  the  middle  of  January,  with  the 


73° 


OVER    THE  BALKANS    WITH  GOURKO. 


thermometer  away  below  freezing  !  There 
was  a  deafening  roar,  two  curving  lines  of 
black  dots  could  just  be  distinguished  in  the 
snow,  and  the  bullets  were  singing  over  our 
heads  as  we  squatted  behind  a  mound — and 
that  was  all  of  the  picture.  Yet  it  would 
have  been  the  merest  masquerading  for  the 
general  and  his  staff  to  go  parading  up  and 
down  the  field  to  draw  the  fire  of  sharp- 
shooters. He  was  in  the  most  central  part 
of  the  field  and  on  the  greatest  eminence 
— insignificant  as  it  was — that  the  field 
afforded.  Nevertheless,  at  the  time  I  could 
not  help  thinking  how  tame  it  all  was,  as  a 
mere  spectacle, — how  little  action  there  was 
in  it.  Yet  this  is  the  characteristic  of  nearly 
all  battles  now,  up  to  the  last  moment  of  the 
final  advance,  which  is  decisive  of  victory  or 
defeat,  but  which  seldom  lasts  half  an  hour. 
The  range  of  the  infantry  aim  is  so  great  (a 
mile  and  a  quarter)  that  the  action  may  be- 
come fierce,  and  many  thousands  of  men  can 
be  hit  without  either  side  clearly  seeing  its 
opponents,  and  one  must  be  well  inside  the 
line  of  infantry  fire  to  follow  the  movements 
clearly,  even  with  a  glass.  Cavalry  charges 
cannot  stand  under  the  withering  fire  of 
rapid  breech-loaders,  and  the  final  advance 
of  infantry  will  only  be  made  after  hours  of 
preliminary  but  possibly  deadly  maneuvering 
have  been  passed.  The  dramatic  features 
of  battle  have  become  very  short-lived  and 
infrequent. 

This  day's  fight  brought  no  permanent 
result.  The  brigade  that  was  to  get  in  rear 
of  the  Turks  came  too  late,  and  the  latter 
slipped  through  the  gap  and  took  up  another 
position  a  few  miles  in  rear.  As  night  came 
on  the  firing  simmered  down,  and  the  gen- 
eral and  staff  sought  the  nearest  village  for 
shelter. 

In  the  morning,  the  battle  was  renewed  on 
the  same  principle  as  before — of  trying  to 
hold  the  Turks  on  one  side  and  get  around 
them  on  the  other.  While  it  was  going  on, 
the  general  and  staff  rode  along  the  road 
toward  the  left  of  his  position,  near  the  large 
town  of  Philippopolis,  about  four  miles  off. 
This  town  is  peculiarly  situated.  It  was 
founded  in  the  days  of  the  conquests  of 
Philip  of  Macedon,  when  war  was  made  at 
short  range,  and  the  party  who  was  the 
highest  had  a  great  advantage ;  and  when 
a  town  situated  on  an  eminence,  from  which 
an  advancing  enemy  could  be  seen  in  time, 
was  sure  of  a  good  defense.  For  these  rea- 
sons, the  town  was  perched  on  the  sides  of 
three  abrupt  rocky  eminences  which  rise  in 
solitary  grandeur  from  the  midst  of  a  plain, 


which  is  hardly  broken  for  twenty  miles  in 
one  direction  and  sixty  in  another.  Its  ap- 
pearance is  at  once  unique  and  striking.  It 
stood  boldly  out  against  the  sky  as  we  rode 
toward  it,  and  our  thoughts  naturally  drifted 
back  through  the  long  series  of  strange  scenes 
it  has  witnessed  during  these  last  three  and 
twenty  centuries.  There  is  no  bloodier  cock- 
pit in  all  Europe  than  these  plains  of  ancient 
Thrace,  the  fertile  and  beautiful  valley  of  the 
Maritza  or  Hebrus.  Here  the  Macedonians, 
under  Philip  and  Alexander,  first  subdued 
the  Thracian  tribes;  here  the  Romans,  under 
Trajan  and  Adrian,  passed  on  their  conquests 
of  the  lands  beyond  the  Danube ;  here  they 
built  roads  and  other  public  works  during 
their  administration,  which  still  exist  to-day. 
Here  the  Bulgarians  fought  for  the  founda- 
tion of  their  kingdom  out  of  the  tottering 
ruins  of  the  Roman  Empire  in  the  East; 
through  this  same  valley  the  contending 
hosts  of  Christians  and  Turks  have  surged 
back  and  forward  for  the  past  five  centuries ; 
and  here,  finally,  under  the  shadow  of  the 
three  rocky  peaks  on  which  Philip  of  Mace- 
don founded  the  town  of  his  own  name  in 
the  fourth  century  before  Christ,  was  now 
being  fought  the  last  great  battle  of  the  latest 
war  in  the  long  series  of  those  which  have 
been  fought  on  the  questions  of  whether  the 
Turks  shall  live  and  govern  in  Europe.  The 
mind  is  staggered  by  the  long  retrospect  of 
history  which  the  associations  of  this  place 
call  forth,  and  we  felt  that  we  were  now 
assisting  at  one  of  the  not  least  important 
steps  of  that  development  of  historical 
sequence.  The  advance  of  this  Christian 
army  and  the  retreat  of  the  Mahommedan, 
and  the  still  more  important  migration  of  the 
immense  numbers  of  refugees  in  front  of  us, 
marked  one  of  the  final  steps — not  the  last, 
but  very  near  it — of  that  retrocession  of  the 
Turkish  wave  of  conquest,  which  came  into 
Europe  only  to  blight  every  land  where  it 
penetrated,  and  which  has  now  been  surely 
receding  for  two  centuries,  and  early  in  the 
next  century,  at  the  latest,  will  be  gone  for- 
ever. 

The  battle  of  Philippopolis  lasted  through- 
out the  1 5th,  1 6th  and  i7th  of  January. 
On  the  afternoon  of  the  last  day,  the  Rus- 
sians had  gained  positions  on  three  sides  of 
the  Turks  and  cut  them  off  from  their  line 
of.  retreat  toward  Adrianople.  The  latter 
fought  with  their  backs  to  the  mountains, 
and  fought  hard  and  well,  as  the  Turkish 
rank  and  file  always  do.  But,  on  a  final 
advance  of  the  Russians,  they  were  obliged 
to  abandon  all  their  artillery  and  train,  and 


FORGOTTEN. 


disperse  in  small  bands  over  the  Rhodope 
Mountains  to  the  yEgean.  Pursuit  was 
impossible,  and  these  scattered  detachments 
pursued  their  way  unmolested  until,  two 
weeks  later,  they  reached  the  shores  of  the 
sea,  and  were  picked  up  by  ships  of  the 
Turkish  navy  and  transported  to  Constan- 
tinople. 

The  Shipka  army  having  been  captured 
in  bulk,  and  Suleiman's  Sophia  army  hav- 
ing been  routed  and  dispersed,  no  armed 
force  of  any  magnitude  lay  between  the 
Russians  and  Constantinople.  They  en- 
tered Philippopolis  and  remained  there  four 
days  to  refit,  then  pressed  on  to  Adrianople, 
where  we  found  General  Skobeleff ' s  detach- 
ment, which  had  arrived  two  days  before  us. 
From  there  the  advance  again  pushed  for- 
ward and  came  in  front  of  the  lines  of  Tchek- 
medje,  the  defenses  of  Constantinople,  on 
the  3ist  of  January,  just  fifty-two  days  after 
the  fall  of  Plevna.  On  the  same  day  the 
armistice  was  signed  which  put  an  end  to 
active  operations. 

In  these  fifty- two  days,  the  column  which 
I  had  the  honor  to  accompany  had  marched 
six  hundred  miles  and  had  crossed  two  high 
ranges  of  mountains.  The  combined  Rus- 


sian forces  had  captured  one  army  of  40,000 
men,  dispersed  another  of  50,000  men,  had 
taken  213  pieces  of  artillery,  over  10,000,000 
rounds  of  cartridges,  12,000,000  rations  and 
enormous  numbers  of  tents,  baggage,  pon- 
toons, and  military  supplies  of  every  descrip- 
tion. They  had,  in  short,  for  the  moment 
annihilated  the  military  power  of  Turkey, 
and  were  only  deterred  from  entering  Con- 
stantinople by  questions  of  political  expe- 
diency. The  manner  in  which  the  men 
lived,  and  the  sufferings  which  they  endured 
in  the  snow  and  ice  of  these  fifty-two  days 
of  midwinter,  I  have  endeavored  to  explain 
elsewhere ;  *  their  self-abnegation  and  cheer- 
fulness under  great  physical  suffering,  to 
which  their  brilliant  success  was  pre-emi- 
nently due,  are  excelled  by  nothing  of  which 
we  have  any  record  in  history,  and  they  en- 
title every  man  of  those  trans-Balkan  col- 
umns to  the  lasting  gratitude  of  their  own 
countrymen  and  the  friends  of  Christian 
government  everywhere,  no  less  than  to  the 
admiration  of  the  entire  world,  which  still 
appreciates  the  value  of  military  heroism. 

*  "  The  Russian  Army  and  its  Campaigns  in  Turkey 
in  1877-78."     Pages  369-374. 


FORGOTTEN. 


AMONG  some  cast-off  trinkets,  laid  away 
Within  a  curious  box  of  eastern  make, 
I  found  a  sandal  casket  closed  to-day, 
Which  had  been  quite  forgotten  since  that  May 
I  kissed  the  contents  for  a  dead  boy's  sake. 

Ay !  and  I  wept,  and  bitter  tears  they  were, 

Although  my  memory  held  the  things  so  slight: 
For  the  brown  scentless  blossom  nestled  there 
Above  his  still  heart,  and  the  wisp  of  hair 
Had  shaded  brows  forever  hid  from  sight. 

I  thought  that  day  .1  never  could  forget 

How  well  I  loved  him,  as  I  sorrowed  so: 
But  still,  altho'  my  eyes  have  oft  been  wet, 
It  has  not  been  that  we  no  more  have  met, 
Nor  for  his  lying  thus  beneath  the  snow. 

Ah !  live  and  love,  then  die  and  be  forgot, 

So  roll  the  cycles  of  our  years  away ; 
Nor  can  we  hope  to  find  a  single  spot 
Wherein  our  memories  shall  fail  to  blot, 
And  blur,  and  be  effaced  some  sunny  day. 


732          JEAN  FRANCOIS  MILLET— PEASANT  AND  PAINTER. 

Man's  love  is  nothing !     Mind  you,  I  who  speak 

Do  love  as  strongly  as  man  ever  loved  ! 
But  oh !  'twere  foolishness  to  think  one  cheek 
Shall  lose  its  bloom  forever,  when  I  seek 

That  haven  man's  gross  knowledge  ne'er  has  proved. 

Yet  I  who  sing  this  know  that  there  are  those 
Who  love  me  better  than  aught  else  on  earth, 

And  follow  me  with  prayers  till  daylight's  close ; 

But  when  I  pass  the  reach  of  human  throes, 
I  know  as  well  they  will  forget  my  birth. 

So,  little  box  of  sandal  and  of  pearl, 

An  o'erwise  lesson  you  have  taught  to-day 
To  me  who  had  forgotten  bloom  and  curl, 
Which — wild  with  grief  as  any  love-lorn  girl — 
Within  your  case  that  spring  I  laid  away. 

I  had  forgot !  poor  foolish  words  are  these 

To  offer  at  the  dust-bound  shrine  I  raised 
To  him  I  loved,  and  where  upon  my  knees 
I  vowed,  at  each  recurring  May,  tho'  seas 

Should  intervene,  to  mourn  him  whom  I  praised. 

I  had  forgot!     Well,  let  it  be  so!     I 

Shall  gain  no  other  epitaph  than  this. 
Let  those  who  love  me  best  so  pass  me  by 
With  these  three  words,  while  gazing  where  I  lie, 
"  I  had  forgot ! "     'Tis  better  so,  I  wis. 


SERENADE. 

GOOD-NIGHT,  my  love !     The  stars  shine  bright 
And  the  moon  hangs  over  the  sea; 

But  I  see  the  gleam  of  a  taper's  light 
That  is  more  than  them  all  to  me, 

For  it  watches  my  love  in  her  dreams  to-night, 
As  the  low  moon  watches  the  sea. 

My  heart  beats  loud,  but  I  hush  my  lay 

Lest  I  break  her  peaceful  rest ; 
The  summer  night  will  pass  away 

And  the  moon  will  sink  in  the  west. 
I  shall  meet  my  love  at  the  dawning  of  day, 

I  shall  meet  her  and  be  blest ! 


JEAN    FRANgOIS     MILLET— PEASANT    AND    PAINTER. 


THE  traveler  from  America  who  wanders 
through  the  Palace  of  the  Luxembourg 
finds  on  the  walls  of  the  narrow  corridor 
connecting  the  galleries  a  picture  of  two 
bathers,  one  of  whom  is  helping  the  other 
from  the  water.  It  is  only  a  few  inches  in 


extent,  yet  it  attracts  the  eye  at  once  by 
reason  of  its  contrast  with  most  of  its  sur- 
roundings;— it  does  not  take  long  to  dis- 
cover that  this  little  picture  must  be  from 
the  hand  of  one  of  the  men  that  France 
has  never  been  without  during  the  last  hun- 


JEAN  FRANCOIS  MILLET— PEASANT  AND  PAINTER.  733 


dred  years, — who  have  kept  alive,  either 
as  painters  or  sculptors,  not  merely  the 
tradition,  but  the  essence  of  high  and 
genuine  art. 

The  American  interested  in  art  will  not 
here  make  his  first  acquaintance  with  Mil- 
let, for  nowhere  outside  of  France  is  he 
so  widely  recognized  as  in  America;  no- 
where, except  in  his  own  country,  has  he 
so  strong  and  increasing  an  influence.  Yet 
the  Luxembourg  picture  will  help  to  deepen 
the  impression  of  a  painter  belonging  to  the 
line  of  true  modern  artists,  and  who  is  also, 
as  we  believe,  the  one  artist  of  the  century 
most  sure  to  take  his  place  among  the  great 
of  all  time. 

In  France,  where  Delacroix,  Rousseau,  Co- 
rot,  Millet,  and  other  men  of  the  same  serious 
and  original  stamp,  had  such  a  hard  struggle 
for  recognition  by  academical  authorities  and 
influences  in  their  own  day,  they  are  now 
ostensibly  acknowledged  by  such  authorities; 
certainly  the  posthumous  opposition  to  them 
is  naturally  not  so  bitter,  and  the  influence 
is  felt  of  new  men  who  have  been  strongly 
affected  by  them,  and  who  are  now  them- 
selves in  places  of  authority  and  influence. 
Yet,  by  the  men  of  "  the  school,"  those  who 
are  so  in  the  limited  sense,  Millet  is  still 
accepted,  if  accepted  at  all,  with  large  reser- 
vations. Year  by  year,  however,  the  French 
school  of  thirty  and  forty  years  ago — in 
which  men  like  Ingres,  of  the  stronger  sort, 
and  Delaroche  of  the  weaker,  gave  eclat  to 
views  based  upon  a  narrow  understanding 
of  Raphael — year  by  year  this  school  is 
losing  its  hold  in  France,  and  giving  way 
to  broader  and  juster  views. 

As  it  is  to  Millet's  "  technique  "  that  the 
remnants  of  a  false  scholasticism  still  object, 
it  may  be  well  to  say  something  upon  this 
matter.  Taste,  strictly  speaking,  is  not  a 
point  of  technique,  yet  it  is  an  indispensable 
element  in  the  making  of  pictures ;  and  this, 
notwithstanding  all  that  has  been  said  to  the 
contrary,  Millet  had, — as  the  most  doubtful 
must  admit  in  presence  of  a  later  so-called 
realism.  He  knew  that  art  is  a  selection,  and 
he  knew  how  to  select.  He  is  called  the  chief 
of  the  realists;  but  he  never  painted  ugli- 
ness for  its  own  sake.  He  never  mistook 
the  unusual  or  the  merely  brutal  for  the 
powerful.  He  gave  the  thorns  with  the 
roses,  the  shadows  with  the  sunlight — for 
that  is  nature  and  life ;  but  he  had  no 
morbid  affinity  with  pain  and  ugliness.  In 
a  word,  like  every  artist  whose  work  is 
destined  to  live,  he  had  the  sense  of  beauty. 

Color  is  a  part  of  technique,  and  Millet 


was  a  colorist — how  excellent  may  be  seen 
when  we  compare  him  on  the  one  hand 
with  the  Italian  and  Dutch  masters  of  color, 
and  on  the  other  with  contemporaneous  ex- 
hibitions of  French  art, — where  it  must  be 
said,  however,  that  even  a  passable  colorist 
stands  out  in  bold  relief,  and  a  strong  color- 
ist like  Vollon  extinguishes  a  whole  Salon. 

Composition  is  a  part  of  technique,  and 
in  this  Millet  was  supreme ;  for  he  com- 
posed without  letting  you  see  that  he  com- 
posed :  he  had  the  final  art  of  hiding  his 
art. 

There  is  another  point  of  technique  in 
which  he  excelled,  and  pre-eminently.  He 
could  draw  action.  Raphael  himself,  the 
great  academist,  did  not  surpass  him  in  that. 
We  do  not,  of  course,  mean  merely  people 
in  movement,  but  the  action  of  the  body, 
whether  in  repose  or  in  motion;  this  he 
could  give  with  a  justness,  an  intensity  of  ex- 
pression never  running  to  extravagance,  and 
a  propriety  that  have  never  been  surpassed. 

The  effect  of  a  painting  by  Titian  or 
Giorgione  upon  a  wall,  even  of  "  old  mas- 
ters," is  generally  as  a  judgment  upon  the 
paintings  about  it  in  respect  to  color.  At 
once  it  becomes  the  canon.  The  eye  recog- 
nizes the  fact  that,  whereas  one  neighbor  is 
too  cold,  another  too  warm,  Titian's  color 
seems  exact — just  right;  it  is  nature  itself,  or, 
rather,  nature  as  properly  expressed  in  art ; 
the  eye  is  satisfied  with  it,  and,  as  a  rule,  com- 
paratively dissatisfied  with  its  surroundings. 
We  may  say  almost  the  same  thing  as  to 
the  action  of  Millet's  figures, — it  is  exact. 

Where,  then,  was  Millet  lacking  in  tech- 
nique ?  Was  he  lacking  in  that  kind  of 
minute  modeling,  the  knowledge  and  prac- 
tice of  which  is  acquired  yearly  by  hundreds 
of  boys  in  Paris,  and  which  enables  them  to 
make  those  numerous  and  clever  drawings 
which  resemble  so  remarkably  the  work  of 
photography,  and  which  are  so  curiously 
destitute  of  artistic  expression  ?  But  Millet 
could  do  this — when  he  wanted  to.  You 
may  hear  of  figures  of  his  most  minutely  and 
delicately  worked  out ;  hands  painted  with 
every  vein,  the  texture  and  variable  color 
of  the  skin  softly  and  exquisitely  imitated. 
But  even  then  his  work  was  not  little :  to 
be  minute,  and  at  the  same  time  broad, 
that  is  one  of  the  arts  of  a  master.  As  a 
rule,  he  did  not  draw  with  exterior  minute- 
ness ;  but  he  always  drew  with  a  cor- 
rectness, a  knowledge  of  the  forms  and 
articulations,  the  build  and  action  of  the  hu- 
man body,  that  were  the  result  of  the  most 
unwearied  study.  His  modeling  had  a  se- 


734          JEAN  FRANCOIS  MILLET— PEASANT  AND  PAINTER. 


vere  and  graphic  simplicity  which  associates 
his  work  with  that  of  the  noblest  period  of 
Greek  sculpture. 

In  addition  to  this — and  a  matter  of  less 
moment — Millet  had  a  marvelously  quick 
and  sure  touch.  He  worked  with  ease. 
There  are  artists  known  among  their  com- 
rades as  men  of  extraordinary  rapidity  and 
exactness  of  handling.  Among  living 
sculptors  the  American  St.  Gaudens  is  one 
of  these ;  among  painters  the  French  Bas- 
tien-Lepage.  Millet  was  such  an  artist ;  his 
hand  answered  promptly  the  commands  of 
his  brain. 

But  it  seems  almost  an  absurdity  to  argue 
in  favor  of  the  technical  part  of  Millet's  art. 
There  are  those  who  say  that  Millet  was  a 
great  artist,  but  not  a  great  painter.  The 
thing  is  impossible.  We  only  know  an  art- 
ist's greatness  through  his  expression  of  it. 
If  the  expression  has  accomplished  its  pur- 
pose of  displaying  the  mind  of  the  artist, 
then  it  is  good.  It  may  have  faults,  it  may 
be  comparatively  weak  at  this  or  that  point, 
but  it  must  be  in  some  qualities,  and  per- 
haps is  in  all  qualities,  a  thing  of  power 
— a  thing  to  be  revered  and  studied.  We 
should  never  have  heard  of  Millet  if  he 
had  not  had  great  technical  as  well  as  great 
spiritual  qualities. 

Millet  had  an  exquisite  and  a  majestic 
individuality,  and  in  giving  utterance  to  his 
thoughts  he  conveyed  this  also  to  his  canvas. 
An  artist's  technique  can  be  discussed  with 
some  sort  of  exactness,  but  it  is  just  when 
one  comes  to  the  most  important  matter  that 
it  is  difficult  to  be  either  definite  or  convinc- 
ing. Perhaps,  after  all,  it  is  here  where  there 
is  least  necessity  to  be  precise.  No  amount 
of  telling  will  reproduce  in  an  unsympa- 
thetic mind  the  effect  of  any  great  work 
in  any  art,  and  if  one  does  not  feel  for 
himself  the  power  of  Shakspere's  "  King 
Lear,"  of  Michael  Angelo's  "  Dawn,"  or  of 
Millet's  "  Sower,"  it  is  idle  to  try  to  make 
him  feel  it.  And  then,  too,  the  writer  who 
dares  to  group  the  name  of  a  contemporary 
with  names  that  have  been  hallowed  by 
centuries,  how  can  he  escape  a  lurking  doubt 
lest  he  should  have  fallen  into  the  snare  of 
overestimating  the  grandeur  of  that  which 
is  near  ?  Yet  it  cannot  be  wrong  to  record 
one's  profound  convictions,  even  in  a  ques- 
tion of  contemporary  aesthetics.  We  have 
only  our  own  lives  ;  we  cannot  tarry  here  in 
earthly  galleries  and  libraries,  awaiting  the 
judgment  of  the  ages  upon  the  poems  and 
pictures  that  come  straight  to  our  own  hearts 
from  the  hearts  of  those  who  are  suffering 


and  working  in  our  own  times.  If  after 
generations  decide  that  we  were  mistaken, 
at  least  we  have  erred  on  the  generous  and 
human  side ;  and  as  for  Millet's  fame,  surely 
its  slow  but  ever  deepening  and  broadening 
growth  is  an  augury  in  favor  of  its  justness 
and  perpetuity.  Millet's  is,  indeed,  at  the 
present  moment  the  most  powerful,  as  we 
believe  it  to  be  the  most  saving,  modern 
influence  in  France  and  America,  both  in 
sculpture  and  in  painting. 

This  is,  we  believe,  what  is  felt  by  those 
who  have  been  most  impressed  by  Millet — 
something  in  his  work  for  which  the  word 
"  largeness  "  seems  to  be  the  closest  expres- 
sion. That  is  a  term  technical  with  artists, 
yet  clear  to  all.  The  most  trivial  things 
are  treated  by  him  in  the  large  way.  Writ- 
ten upon  a  sheet  covered  with  tiny  sketches, 
ducks  waddling  on  shore,  or  swimming  in  the 
water,  or  running  away  in  a  pack,  a  woman 
burning  brush  (bigger  than  the  rest),  some 
cottages,  a  woman  seated,  a  sail-boat,  a 
head,  a  man  plowing,  a  hoe, — written  upon 
this  sheet  is  the  following  sentence,  in  Mil- 
let's handwriting :  "  We  must  be  able  to 
make  the  trivial  serve  for  the  expression  of 
the  sublime ;  that  is  true  power."  No  one 
could  have  formulated  better  the  principle 
upon  which  he  acted.  But  in  this  there  is  a 
trace  of  self-consciousness,  not  of  inartistic 
self-consciousness,  but  the  consciousness  of  a 
principle  upon  which  he  deliberately  acted 
after  arriving  at  his  full  mental  and  artistic 
maturity.  Yet,  in  those  of  his  mature  de- 
signs where  he  was  least  conscious  of 
intending  to  give  an  impression  of  the  sub- 
lime, still  the  sublime  is  there.  He  was  a 
painter  of  genre,  but  not  a  genre-painter,  as 
the  expression  generally  applies.  His  work 
could  not  help  bearing  the  impress  of  his 
mind.  Even  when  he  was  not  painting 
subjects  taken  from  the  Bible,  how  often  his 
pictures  remind  us  of  such  themes  as  the 
"  Madonna  and  Child  "  and  the  "  Flight 
into  Egypt."  His  leading  theme  was  the 
labor  of  the  fields;  but  his  peasants  were 
not  only  types  of  peasants,  but  types  of 
mankind.  What  he  said  of  the  sculptor  of 
the  David  can  be  said  of  himself:  he  was 
"  capable  with  a  single  figure  to  personify 
the  good  or  evil  of  all  humanity."  It  was 
said  by  one  who  had,  for  the  first  time,  been 
brought  into  the  presence  of  Rembrandt's 
principal  works,  that  Rembrandt  was  one 
of  the  great  souls.  This  is  what  is  felt 
about  Millet.  For  largeness,  for  intensity 
of  expression,  for  sanity  and  health  fulness 
of  tone,  for  Biblical  majesty  and  elevation, 


JEAN  FRANCOIS  MILLET— PEASANT  AND  PAINTER.  735 


and  for  the  sense  of  beauty,  Millet  must  he 
set  apart  with  such  natures  as  those  of 
Giotto,  Michael  Angelo  and  Rembrandt. 

While  seeking  lately  in  France  for  details 
with  respect  to  the  life  and  works  of  Millet, 
we  learned  that  the  late  M.  Sensier,  the 
author  of  the  "  Life  of  Rousseau,"  and  the 
constant  friend  of  both  Rousseau  and  Millet, 
had  left  behind  him  a  life  of  Millet,  a  large 
part  of  which  was  in  Millet's  own  words. 
It  is  through  the  courtesy  of  Frangois  Millet 
(painter  and  son  of  the  great  artist),  of  M. 
Le  Bran  (executor  of  M.  Sensier,  and  one 
of  the  early  appreciators  of  Millet  as  well  as 
the  possessor  of  some  of  his  most  interesting 
works),  and  of  the  well-known  publisher, 
M.  Quantin,  that  we  are  enabled  to  open 
to  American  readers,  even  before  it  has 
been  read  in  France,  the  hitherto  sealed 
book  of  Millet's  life  * 

In  many  respects  the  story  is  what  might 
have  been  imagined.  The  massive  forms, 
the  tragic  landscape  of  his  youth,  the  primi- 
tive and  serious  people  who  were  about  him 
in  early  life — these  were  what  he  was 
always  painting,  even  when  distance  and 
poverty  made  him  an  exile  from  them. 
The  high  intellectual  attributes  revealed  by 
his  letters  and  other  literary  remains  will 
surprise  no  one  who  had  already  recognized 
these  traits  in  the  slightest  touches  of  his 
pencil.  That  his  was  a  nature  which  could 
not  escape  suffering  was  divined  in  his 
childhood.  But  how  keenly  he  suffered 
will  be  a  revelation  even  to  many  who  knew 
him  personally.  One  thinks  of  Michael  An- 
gelo. There  is  a  sturdy  pathos  in  the  life 
of  the  Florentine.  His  pain  was  that  of 
a  man  of  action,  a  man  always  fighting — 
one  who  could  give  and  take.  Millet's 
nature  was  passive;  he  had  to  endure. 
They  were  both  exiles. 


THE  harbor  of  Cherbourg  is  bounded  on 
the  east  by  Point  Fermanville,  and  west 
by  Cape  de  la  Hague.  Seen  from  the  sea, 
the  country  of  La  Hague  looks  deso- 
late and  forbidding.  High  granite  cliffs 
surround  it  on  all  sides.  Masses  of  black 
rock,  thrown  up  in  the  volcanic  age,  stand 

*  M.  Sensier's  manuscript  has  been  edited  by  one 
of  the  most  prominent  French  critics,  M.  Mantz. 
In  preparing  the  translation  for  SCRIBNER'S  MAGA- 
ZINE, no  changes  have  been  made  except  in  the 
way  of  condensation.  The  present  installment  is 
illustrated  with  fac-similes  made  by  the  Yves  & 
Barret  process,  most  of  them  directly  from  Millet's 
drawings. 


out  from  the  water  in  all  sorts  of  strange 
and  jagged  shapes.  The  shores,  covered 
with  sharp  points  and  needles  which  might 
be  iron  or  steel,  give  it  the  look  of  a  land 
uninhabitable  by  man.  But  when  you  reach 
the  heights,  the  aspect  changes  and  looks 
bright ;  plowed  fields,  pastures  of  sheep  and 
cows,  woods  and  houses,  show  that  the 
country  is  fertile  and  kindly.  In  the  fold  of 
a  little  valley,  open  toward  the  sea,  lies  the 
hamlet  of  Gruchy,  belonging  to  the  parish 
and  commune  of  Greville. 

Forty  years  ago  a  family  of  laborers  lived 
there,  who,  from  father  to  son,  tilled  their 
land.  This  family,  named  Millet,  consisted 
of  a  grandmother,  a  widow,  her  son  and  his 
wife,  eight  children  and  one  or  two  servants. 
The  grandfather,  ^Nicholas  Millet,  had  been 
dead  some  fifteen  years.  The  grandmother 
had  brought  up  all  the  children  with  the 
care  which  the  babies  of  Normandy  enjoy, 
— according  to  the  custom  of  the  country, 
the  grandmother  has  charge  of  their  first 
years,  the  mother  being  too  busy  with  the 
work  of  the  fields  and  the  stables. 

Louise  Jumelin,  widow  of  Nicholas  Millet, 
the  grandmother,  came  from  Saint-Germain 
le  Gaillard,  some  leagues  from  Greville ;  her 
family,  of  the  old  race  of  the  country,  had 
strong  heads  and  warm  hearts.  One  brother 
belonged  to  a  religious  order.  Another,  a 
clever  chemist,  was  almost  celebrated;  a 
third,  though  a  miller  in  the  Hochet  valley, 
spent  his  leisure  reading  Pascal,  Nicole,  the 
writers  of  Port  Royal  and  philosophers  like 
Montaigne  and  Charron.  He  was  not  a 
reasoner,  but  a  strong-headed  fellow,  full 
of  good  sense  and  uprightness.  An  old 
sister  named  Bonne,  whom  they  called  Bon- 
notte,  cared  for  the  children  with  untiring 
devotion.  Bonnotte  was  one  of  Millet's 
dearest  remembrances ;  a  thoroughly  faithful 
creature,  thinking  of  everything  and  every- 
body but  herself  Another  brother  Jume- 
lin, a  great  walker,  went  to  Paris  on  foot, 
without  rest,  in  two  days  and  two  nights. 
He  had  knocked  about  the  world.  At 
Guadaloupe  he  became  overseer  on  a  plan- 
tation, and  came  back  with  some  money  to 
the  hamlet  of  Pieux,  where  he  worked  a 
little  farm. 

The  grandmother  was  like  her  family,  and 
she  rivaled  her  relations  both  in  wisdom  and 
fervor.  She  was  a  worthy  peasant-woman, 
talking  patois  and  wearing  the  dress  and 
cap  of  La  Hague.  Humility  was  one  of  her 
virtues.  All  her  strength  was  concentrated 
in  love  of  God,  doing  her  duty,  and  love  of 
her  family.  Full  of  religious  fire,  harsh  toward 


736  JEAN  FRANCOIS  MILLET— PEASANT  AND  PAINTER. 


herself,  gentle  and  charitable  to  others,  she 
passed  her  days  in  good  deeds,  with  no  less 
an  ideal  than  that  of  a  saint.  Her  consci- 
entious scruples  went  so  far  that  at  the  least 
doubt  she  asked  counsel  of  the  cure  of  her 
village ;  and  she  was  so  rigid  in  her  duties 
as  grandmother  that  she  never  allowed  her- 
self to  inflict  the  slightest  punishment  upon 
her  grandchildren  in  a  moment  of  impatience, 
but  waited  until  the  next  day,  in  order  to 
explain  to  them  in  cool  blood  the  importance 
of  the  fault  and  the  justice  of  the  punish- 
ment. Her  charity  was  boundless.  She 
had  the  old  traditions  of  hospitality  and  re- 
spect for  the  poor.  If  a  colporteur  passed, 
he  did  not  need  to  ask  for  lodging;  he  knew 
the  door  of  the  Millet  house  was  always  open. 
The  beggars  came  there  as  if  to  a  home. 
The  grandmother,  with  a  curtsy,  made  them 
come  near  the  fire,  gave  them  food  and  lodg- 
ing, talked  of  the  affairs  of  the  neighbor- 
hood, and  when  they  left,  filled  their  wallets. 

Her  son,  Jean  Louis  Nicholas  Millet,  sim- 
ple and  gentle,  was  pure  in  his  life  and  highly 
respected  by  his  neighbors.  If  the  village 
jokes  were  rather  coarse  and  Jean  Louis 
came  near  enough  to  hear,  they  said : 
"  Hush !  here's  Millet."  He  had  a  contem- 
plative mind  and  a  musical  temperament, 
highly  developed.  A  singer  in  the  parish 
church,  he  directed  with  intelligence  the 
country  choristers  whom  the  people  came  to 
listen  to  for  miles  around.  At  that  time  the 
congregation  responded  to  the  chanting  of 
the  priest  and  the  choir.  Jean  Louis  Millet 
picked  out  the  best  voices  and  taught  them. 
Millet  had  some  chants  which  his  father  had 
written  down,  and  which  looked  like  the 
work  of  a  scribe  of  the  fourteenth  century. 

Sunday,  after  mass,  Jean  Louis  liked  to 
receive  his  relations  and  friends,  and  there, 
at  home,  in  the  midst  of  Tiis  family,  he  cele- 
brated the  Lord's  day  like  a  patriarch,  offer- 
ing them  the  bountiful  and  simple  meal  of 
a  peasant  who  wishes  to  honor  his  guests. 
This  worthy  man  doubtless  ignored  the 
germs  of  art  which  existed  in  himself.  He 
was  absorbed  by  work  until  the  hour  of  his 
death ;  but  his  elevated  nature  surely  rose 
above  his  circumstances.  He  died  without 
knowing  his  own  worth  and  gifts.  A  con- 
fused instinct,  however,  sometimes  showed 
itself.  Taking  a  bit  of  grass,  he  would  say 
to  his  son  Fran9ois  :  "  See  how  fine !  Look 
at  that  tree — how  large  and  beautiful !  It  is 
as  beautiful  as  a  flower !  "  From  his  win- 
dow, looking  at  a  depression  in  the  hill-side  : 
"  See  !  "  he  would  say  :  "  that  house  half- 
buried  by  the  field  is  good ;  it  seems  to  me 


that  it  ought  to  be  drawn  that  way."  Some- 
times with  a  little  clay  he  tried  to  model,  or 
with  a  knife  he  would  cut  in  the  wood  an 
animal  or  a  plant.  Tall,  slender,  his  head 
covered  with  long  black  curls,  gentle  eyes 
and  beautiful  hands — such  was  the  father 
of  Jean  Fra^ois  Millet. 

His  mother,  Aimee  Henriette  Adelaide 
Henry,  born  at  Sainte-Croix-Hague,  be- 
longed to  a  race  of  rich  farmers  who  at  one 
time  were  called  gentlemen.  They  were 
called  the  Henry  du  Perrons.  She  was 
entirely  engrossed  in  her  household,  her 
children  and  her  work.  Pious,  but  not  given 
to  the  spiritual  exaltation  of  the  Jumelin 
family,  she  lived  for  her  work  and  in  obe- 
dience to  her  husband. 

The  family  of  Henry  du  Perron  ^-as  com- 
posed of  several  children,  who  all  married 
and  lived  in  Sainte-Croix.  Millet  remem- 
bered his  mother  saying  that  the  home  of 
her  parents  was  a  large,  big  building  of 
stone  with  a  fine  court-yard  shaded  by  old 
trees,  under  which  the  ox-carts  and  plow 
stood  around  a  water-trough.  The  house 
was  said  to  have  been  a  noble  house  a  cen- 
tury before,  which,  in  time  of  trouble,  had 
fallen  into  the  hands  of  peasants.  Perhaps 
the  Henry  du  Perrons  were  themselves  the 
descendants  of  the  fallen  masters. 

Another  relation  whom  Millet  always 
spoke  of  with  feeling  was  his  great-uncle, 
Charles  Millet,  priest  of  the  diocese  of 
Avranche.  Before  the  Revolution  he  had 
taken  orders  and  read  mass,  but  when  the 
law  allowed  him  to  return  to  civil  life,  the 
Abbe"  Millet  came  back  to  his  village. 
He  wished  to  remain  faithful  to  his  vows, 
and,  in  spite  of  the  danger,  he  became  a 
laborer  in  sabots  and  soutane,  and  would 
never  lay  aside  his  priestly  garments.  He 
might  be  seen  reading  his  breviary  on  the 
high  fields  overlooking  the  sea,  following 
the  plow,  or  moving  blocks  of  stone  to  wall 
in  the  family  acres.  He  taught  the  older 
ones  to  read.  During  the  Revolution  his 
liberty  and  even  his  life  had  been  threatened 
because  he  would  not  take  the  oath  to  the 
Constitution,  which  he  believed  to  be  hostile 
to  the  Pope. 

This  excellent  and  faithful  man  passed  his 
days  in  field-work  and  contemplation,  and 
gave  to  his  nephews  the  pattern  of  a  spot- 
less life.  If  he  had  a  furrow  to  plow  or  a 
garden  to  hoe,  he  tucked  his  priest's  coat 
into  his  belt,  put  his  missal  in  his  pocket, 
and  went  cheerfully  to  work.  He  saw  that 
his  nephew  needed  help ;  for,  if  the  life  at 
Gruchy  was  at  all  comfortable,  it  was  at  the 


JEAN  FRANCOIS  MILLET— PEASANT  AND  PAINTER.  737 


price  of  untiring  exertion.  The  steep  fields 
made  the  work  heavy,  and  life  on  land  and 
sea  required  very  hard  and  often  very  dan- 
gerous work. 

For  the  people  of  the  neighborhood,  the 
sea  was  an  inheritance.  Gruchy  had  no 
fishermen,  but  they  got  from  the  beach  a 


waves.  Then  the  entire  village,  armed  with 
long  rakes,  rushed  to  the  sea-shore  to  reap 
the  sea- weed — a  rich  but  dangerous  harvest. 
Some  of  the  men  of  Gruchy  were  hired  by 
smugglers,  and  spent  long  nights  in  avoiding 
the  coast-guards.  The  Millets  never  indulged 
in  this  suspicious  industry.  "  We  never  ate 


PORTRAIT    OF    MADAME     MILLET,    BY    J.-F.    MILLET. 


manure,  which  the  horses  and  mules  had  to 
carry  up  the  steep,  narrow  paths  to  the  fields 
above.  They  were  always  watching  the 
wrecks,  to  seize  them  before  they  were 
carried  out  again;  and  after  great  storms 
whole  banks  of  sea-weed  came  up  on  the 
VOL,  XX.— 48. 


that  bread,"  said  Millet;  "my  grandmother 
would  have  been  too  unhappy  about  it." 

Millet,  the  painter  of  peasants,  was  born 
October  4th,  1814,  in  the  village  of  Gruchy, 
commune  of  Greville,  canton  of  Beaumont 


JEAN  FRANCOIS  MILLET— PEASANT  AND  PAINTER. 


(Manche).  He  was  the  second  child  of 
Jean  Louis  Nicholas  Millet,  farmer,  and  his 
legal  wife,  Aimee  Henriette  Adelaide  Henry. 
The  eldest  child  was  a  daughter  (Emily), 
who  later  married  an  inhabitant  of  the  vil- 
lage, named  Lefevre. 

His  grandmother  was  his  godmother. 
She  called  him  Jean,  after  his  father,  and 
Frangois,  because  he  was  a  saint  whom  she 
loved  and  whose  protection  she  constantly 
invoked.  St.  Francis  of  Assisi,  the  faithful 
observer,  in  his  contemplations,  of  the  things 
of  nature,  was  a  happy  choice  of  a  saint  for 
the  man  who,  later,  was  to  be  the  passionate 
lover  of  the  works  of  God.  Proud  of  hav- 
ing a  boy  to  rear,  the  grandmother  tended 
him  as  her  own  child  and  her  heart's  favor- 
ite. In  the  vague  recollections  of  his  baby- 
hood, Millet  could  always  see  her  busy  about 
him,  rocking  him,  warming  him  in  her  bosom, 
and  singing  all  day  long  songs  which  de- 
lighted him.  I  have  lived  more  than  thirty 
years  in  Millet's  intimacy,  and  I  know  that 
the  thought  of  her  face,  as  nurse  and  com- 
forter, was  an  ever-recurring  image  in  the 
heart  of  her  grandson.  While  he  was  still  a 
little  child,  she  would  come  to  his  bedside 
in  the  morning  and  say  gently :  "  Wake  up, 
my  little  Frangois ;  you  don't  know  how 
long  the  birds  have  already  been  singing  the 
glory  of  God !  "  Her  religion,  as  Millet  told 
me  later,  was  mixed  with  her  love  of  nature. 
All  that  was  beautiful,  terrible  or  inexplica- 
ble seemed  to  her  the  work  of  the  Creator, 
to  whose  will  she  bowed.  "  It  was  a  beau- 
tiful religion,"  added  he,  "  for  it  gave  her  the 
strength  to  love  so  deeply  and  unselfishly. 
She  was  always  ready  to  work  for  others,  to 
excuse  their  faults,  to  pity  or  to  help  them." 

I  have  now  come  to  the  notes  which  Mil- 
let himself  gave  me,  when  I  begged  him 
to  write  out  his  youthful  remembrances.  I 
have  pages  written  under  the  impression  of 
his  love  of  his  family  and  his  home,  and  of  the 
sufferings  of  his  life  in  Cherbourg  and  Paris ; 
but  the  time  has  not  come  to  say  all, — so  of 
these  sketches,  written  by  Millet  himself,  I 
will  only  publish  as  much  as  propriety  allows. 
When  a  whole  generation  of  the  present  day 
has  passed  away,  we  shall  know  a  corner  of 
Millet's  heart  which  we  may  not  now  unveil 
— his  resignation,  his  knowledge  of  men, 
and  how  much  their  ignorance  of  what  is 
good  and  generous  made  him  suffer.  Here 
are  the  precious  lines  written  by  Millet  con- 
cerning his  childhood  : 

"  I  remember  waking  one  morning  in  my  little 
bed  and  hearing  the  voices  of  people  in  the  room. 
With  the  voices  sounded  a  sort  of  burrr,  which 


stopped  now  and  then  and  began  again.  It  was  the 
sound  of  the  spinning-wheels,  and  the  voices  of  the 
women  spinning  and  carding  wool.  The  dust  of 
the  room  came  and  danced  in  the  sunshine  which 
one  small,  high  window  let  in.  I  have  often  seen 
the  sun  and  the  dust  in  the  same  way,  for  the  house 
fronted  east.  In  the  corner  of  the  room  was  a  big 
bed,  covered  by  a  counterpane  with  wide  stripes  of 
red  and  brown  falling  down  to  the  floor  ;  next  to  the 
window  at  the  foot  of  the  bed,  against  the  wall,  a 
great  wardrobe,  brown  too.  It  is  all  like  a  vague 
dream.  If  I  had  to  recall,  even  a  little,  the  faces  of 
the  poor  spinners,  all  my  efforts  would  be  in  vain, 
for,  although  I  grew  up  before  they  died,  I  remem- 
ber their  names  only  because  I  have  heard  them 
spoken  in  the  family. 

"  One  was  a  great-aunt  whose  name  was  Jeanne. 
The  other  was  a  spinner  by  trade,  who  often 
came  to  the  house,  and  whose  name  was  Co- 
lombe  Gainache.  This  is  my  earliest  recollection. 
I  must  have  been  very  young  when  I  received  that 
impression,  for  more  distinct  images  seem  to  have 
been  made  after  a  lapse  of  time. 

"  I  only  remember  indescribable  impressions,  such 
as  hearing,  on  waking,  the  coming  and  going  in  the 
house,  the  geese  cackling  in  the  court-yard,  the 
cock-crowing,  the  beat  of  the  flail  on  the  barn  floor 
— all  sounds  in  my  ears  out  of  which  no  particular 
emotion  came. 

"  Here  is  a  little  clearer  fact.  The  commune  had 
had  new  bells  made,  two  of  the  old  ones  hav- 
ing been  carried  away  to  make  cannon  and  the  third 
having  been  broken  (as  I  heard  afterward).  My 
mother  was  curious  to  see  the  new  bells,  which  were 
deposited  in  the  church  waiting  to  be  baptized  be- 
fore being  hung  in  the  tower,  and  she  took  me  with 
her.  She  was  accompanied  by  a  girl  named  Julie 
Lecacheux,  whom  I  since  knew  very  well.  I  re- 
member how  struck  I  was  at  finding  myself  in  a 
place  so  terribly  vast  as  the  church,  which  seemed 
to  me  bigger  than  a  barn,  and  also  with  the  beauty 
of  the  great  windows,  with  lozenge-shaped  leads. 

"  We  saw  the  bells,  all  on  the  ground.  They,  too, 
seemed  enormous,  for  they  were  much  larger  than 
I  was,  and,  also  (what  probably  fixed  the  whole 
scene  in  my  mind),  Julie  Lecacheux,  who  held  a 
very  big  key  in  her  hand,  probably  that  of  the 
church,  began  to  strike  the  largest  bell,  which  gave 
out  a  great  sound,  filling  me  with  awe.  I  have 
never  forgotten  that  blow  of  the  key  on  the  bell. 

"  I  had  a  great-uncle  who  was  a  priest ;  he  was 
very  fond  of  me,  and  trotted  me  about  with  him  con- 
tinually. He  took  me  once  to  a  house  where  he 
often  went.  The  lady  of  the  house  was  elderly,  and 
remains  in  my  -mind  as  the  type  of  a  lady  of  the  olden 
time.  She  petted  and  kissed  me,  and  gave  me  a 

freat  honey-cake,  and,  besides,  a  peacock's  feather, 
remember  how  delicious  I  thought  the  honey,  and 
how  beautiful  the  feather  !  I  had  already  been 
struck  with  admiration  at  seeing,  as  we  entered  the 
court-yard,  two  peacocks  perched  in  a  big  tree,  and 
I  could  not  get  over  the  fine  eyes  in  their  tails. 

"  Sometimes  my  great-uncle  took  me  to  Eulleville, 
an  adjoining  little  commune.  The  house  to  which 
he  took  me  was  a  sort  of  seignioral  dwelling,  which 
was  called  the  Eulleville  mansion.  There  was  a  serv- 
ant named  Fanchon.  The  head  of  the  house,  whom  I 
never  knew,  had  a  taste  for  rarities,  and  had  planted 
some  pine-trees.  You  would  have  to  have  gone  a 
great  way  to  find  so  many.  Fanchon  occasionally 
gave  me  some  pine-cones,  which  filled  me  with 
delight. 

"  My  poor  great-uncle  was  so  afraid  of  something 
happening  to  me  that  if  I  was  not  beside  him  he 


JEAN  FRANCOIS  MILLET— PEASANT  AND   PAINTER.  739 


could  not  breathe.  As  I  was  already  big  enough  to 
run  fast,  I  went  off  one  day  with  some  other  boys, 
and  we  went  down  to  the  sea-shore.  Looking  for 


that  I  jumped  up,  and  saw  him  on  the  cliff  making 
an  urgent  sign  for  me  to  come  up.  I  did  not  let 
him  repeat  it,  for  he  had  frightened  me ;  if  there  had 


me  everywhere,  and  not  finding  me,  he  went  toward 
the  sea,  and  saw  me  leaning  over  the  pools  which  the 
sea  left  at  ebb-tide,  and  where  I  was  trying  to  catch 
bull-heads.  He  called  me,  with  such  a  cry  of  horror 


been  a  shorter  way  than  the  narrow  path  I  would 
have  gone  up  it,  but  the  steep  cliff  made  that  abso- 
lutely necessary. 

"  When  he  had  me  up  and  safe,  he  got  angry.   He 


740  JEAN  FRANCOIS  MILLET— PEASANT  AND  PAINTER. 


A    SPINNER. 


took  his  three-cornered  hat  and  beat  me  with  it,  and 
as  the  cliff  was  still  very  steep  toward  the  village,  and 
my  little  legs  did  not  carry  me  very  fast,  he  fol- 
lowed me,  beating  me  with  his  hat,  and  as  red  as  a 
cock  with  anger.  At  each  blow  he  would  say :  '  Ah, 
I'll  help  you  mount.'  It  gave  me  a  great  fear  of  the 
three-cornered  hat.  Poor  uncle  !  All  the  following 
night  he  had  nightmares ;  he  woke  up  every  little 
while,  crying  out  that  I  was  falling  down  the  cliff. 
"As  I  was  not  of  an  age  to  understand  a  tender- 


ness which  showed  itself  by  blows  with  a  hat,   I 
gave  him  many  another  torment. 

"  This  I  remember  hearing  about  my  great-uncle ; 
he  was  brother  of  my  father's  father.  He  had  been 
a  laborer  all  his  life,  and  had  become  a  priest  rather 
late.  I  think  he  had  a  little  church  at  the  time  of 
the  Revolution.  I  know  that  he  was  persecuted,  for 
I  have  heard  that  men  came  to  search  the  house  of 
my  grandfather,  to  whom  he  had  returned,  and  that 
they  made  their  search  in  the  most  brutal  manner. 


JEAN  FRANCOIS  MILLET— PEASANT  AND  PAINTER. 


74i 


He  was  very  inventive,  and  had  contrived  a  hid- 
ing-place which  communicated  with  his  bed,  and  into 
which  he  threw  himself  when  any  one  came.  One 
day  they  entered  so  suddenly  that  the  bed  had  not 
had  time  to  cool,  and  although  they  were  told  that 
he  was  not  there,  they  cried : 

"'Yes,  yes,  he  is  here,  the  bed  is  still  warm,  but 
he  has  found  some  way  of  getting  off.' 


He  almost  always  took  me  with  him.  Arrived 
at  the  field,  he  took  off  his  soutane  and  worked  in 
shirt-sleeves  and  breeches.  He  had  the  strength 
of  a  Hercules.  There  still  exist,  and  they  will  last 
a  long  time,  some  great  walls  which  he  built  to  hold 
up  a  piece  of  sliding  ground.  These  walls  are  very 
high,  and  built  of  immense  stones.  They  have  a 
cyclopean  look.  I  have  heard  my  grandmother  and 


PEASANTS    RETURNING    HOME. 


"  He  heard  them.  They  turned  the  house  upside 
down  in  their  fury,  and  went  away. 

"He  said  mass  whenever  he  could,  in  the  house, 
and  I  have  still  the  leaden  chalice  which  he  used. 
After  the  Revolution  he  remained  with  his  brother 
and  performed  the  duties  of  vicar  of  the  parish.  He 
went  every  morning  to  the  church  to  say  mass. 
After  breakfast  he  went  to  work  in  the  fields. 


my  father  say  that  he  allowed  no  one  to  help  him 
even  to  place  the  heaviest  stones,  and  some  of  them 
would  require  the  combined  strength  of  five  or  six 
men,  and  then  using  levers. 

"  He  had  a  most  excellent  heart.  He  taught,  for 
the  love  of  God,  the  poor  children  of  the  commune, 
whose  parents  could  not  send  them  to  school.  He 
even  taught  them  a  little  Latin.  This  made  his 


742  JEAN  FRANCOIS  MILLET— PEASANT  AND  PAINTER. 


confreres  of  the  neighboring  communes  very  indig- 
nant ;  they  went  so  far  as  to  write  about  it  to  the 
bishop  of  Coutances.  I  have  found  among  some 
old  papers  the  rough  draft  of  the  letter  he  addressed 
to  the  bishop  in  justification,  and  in  which  he  said 
that  he  lived  with  his  brother  who  was  a  laborer, 
that  in  the  commune  there  were  very  poor  children 
who  would  have  been  deprived  of  every  sort  of  in- 
struction, that  pity  had  decided  him  to  teach  them 
what  he  could,  and  he  begged  the  bishop  in  the 
name  of  charity  not  to  prevent  him  from  teaching 
these  poor  little  ones  to  read.  I  think  I  have  heard 
that  the  bishop  finally  consented  to  let  him  continue. 
Very  magnanimous,  to  be  sure !  *  *  *  When 
he  died  I  was  about  seven  years  old,  and  it  is  curious 
to  realize  how  deep  are  the  impressions  of  an  early 
age,  and  what  an  indelible  mark  they  leave  upon  the 
character.  My  childish  mind  was  filled  with  stories 
of  ghosts  and  all  sorts  of  supernatural  things.  To 
this  day  I  enjoy  them,  but  whether  I  believe  them 
or  not  I  cannot  say.  The  day  that  my  great-uncle 
was  buried,  I  heard  them  speaking  in  a  mysterious 
way  about  the  way  he  should  be  buried.  They  said 
that  at  the  head,  on  the  coffin,  must  be  laid  some  big 
stones  covered  with  bundles  of  hay;  their  instru- 
ment got  embarrassed  in  the  straw,  and  then  broke 
on  the  stones,  which  made  it  impossible  for  them  to 
hook  the  head  and  draw  the  body  out  of  the  grave. 
Afterward  I  knew  what  this  mysterious  language 
meant,  but  from  the  time  of  the  burial,  several 
neighbors,  with  the  servant  of  the  house,  who  all 
had  hot  cider  to  drink,  passed  the  night,  armed 
with  guns  and  scythes,  watching  the  grave.  This 
guard  was  continued  for  about  a  month.  After  that 
they  said  there  was  no  more  danger.  This  was  the 


reason :  some  men  were  said  to  make  a  profession 
of  digging  up  bodies  for  doctors.  They  knew  when 
a  person  died  in  a  commune,  and  they  came  immedi- 
ately at  night  to  steal  it.  Their  way  of  doing  was 
to  take  a  long  screw  and  work  through  the  earth 
and  the  coffin,  catching  the  head  of  the  dead  man ; 
with  a  lever  they  drew  the  body  out  of  the  grave 
without  disturbing  the  earth.  They  had  been  met 
leading  the  dead  man,  covered  with  a  cloak,  holding 
him  under  the  arms  and  talking  to  him  as  if  he 
were  a  drunken  man,  shaking*  him  and  telling  him 
to  stand  up.  Others  were  seen  with  the  body  be- 
hind them  on  horseback,  the  arms  held  round  the 
waist  of  the  rider,  and  always  covered  with  a  great 
cloak,  but  the  feet  of  the  body  were  seen  below  the 
cloak. 

"  Some  months  before  the  death  of  my  great- 
uncle  I  had  been  sent  to  school,  and  I  remember  well 
the  day  he  died  the  maid-servant  was  sent  to  bring 
me  home,  so  that  I  should  not  be  seen  playing  in.  the 
road  under  such  solemn  circumstances.  Before 
sending  me  to  school  I  had,  doubtless,  at  home 
learnt  my  letters  and  to  spell,  as  the  other  chil- 
dren thought  me  very  clever.  Heaven  knows  what 
they  called  clever.  My  introduction  to  the  school 
was  for  the  afternoon  class.  When  I  arrived  in 
the  court-yard  where  the  children  were  playing, 
the  first  thing  I  did  was  to  fight.  The  bigger  chil- 
dren who  brought  me  were  proud  of  bringing  to 
school  a  child  of  six  and  a  half  who  already  knew 
his  letters,  and  besides  I  was  large  of  my  age,  and  so 
strong  that  they  assured  me  that  there  was  not  one 
of  my  age  or  even  of  seven  who  could  beat  me. 
There  was  none  there  less  than  seven,  and  as  they 
were  all  anxious  to  make  sure  of  the  matter,  they 


WOMEN     BRINGING    HOME     CLOTHES    AFTER    WASHING. 


JEAN  FRANCOIS  MILLET— PEASANT  AND  PAINTER. 


743 


brought  up  a  boy  who  was  considered  one  of  the 
strongest,  to  make  us  fight.  It  must  be  confessed 
that  we  had  no  very  powerful  reasons  for  not  liking 
each  other,  and  perhaps  the  combat  was  rather  luke- 
warm. But  they  had  a  way  of  interesting  the  honor 
of  the  parties  concerned.  They  took  a » chip,  and 
putting  it  on  the  shoulder  of  one,  said  to  the  other, 
'  I  bet  you  don't  dare  knock  that  chip  off ! '  If  you 
did  not  want  to  seem  a  coward  you  knocked  it  off. 
The  other,  of  course,  could  not  endure  such  an  insult 
So  the  battle  was  in  earnest.  The  big  ones  excited 
those  whose  side  they  had  taken,  and  the  fighters 
were  not  separated.  One  must  conquer.  I  turned 
out  the  stronger  and  covered  myself  with  glory. 
Those  who  were  for  me  were  very  proud,  and  said : 
'  Millet  is  only  six  and  a  half,  and  he  has  beaten  a 
boy  more  than  seven  years  old.' " 

When  twelve  years  old,  Fran$ois  Millet 
went  to  be  confirmed  at  the  church  of 
Greville.  He  could  not  learn  anything  by 
heart,  but  a  young  vicar  found  his  answers 
so  full  of  good  sense  that  he  asked  him  if  he 
did  not  want  to  learn  Latin. 

"  With  Latin,  my  boy,  you  can  become  a 
priest  or  a  doctor." 

"  No,"  said  the  child ;  "  I  don't  wish  to 
be  either ;  I  wish  to  stay  with  my  parents." 

"  Come,  all  the  same,"  said  the  vicar ; 
"  you  will  learn." 

So  the  child  went  to  the  parsonage  with 
several  little  companions.  He  translated 
the  Epitome  Historia  Sacra  and  the  Selectee 
e  Profanis.  Virgil  came  under  his  eyes, — 
although  translated  by  the  Abbe  Desfon- 
taines,  this  book,  half  Latin,  half  French, 
charmed  him  so  much  that  he  could  not 
stop  reading  it.  The  Bucolics  and  Georgics 
captivated  his  mind.  At  the  words  of  Virgil, 

"  It  is  the  hour  when  the  great  shadows  descend 
toward  the  plain," 

the  child  felt  filled  with  emotion  ;  the  book 
revealed  to  him  his  own  surroundings — the 
life  in  which  he  was  growing  up.  Some 
time  after,  the  vicar,  1'Abbe  Herpent,  was 
sent  to  the  curacy  of  Heauville,  a  village  a 
few  miles  from  Gr6ville.  It  was  decided 
that  the  little  Francois  should  go  with  the 
Abbe  to  continue  his  instruction.  After  four 
or  five  months  with  the  Abbe  Herpent,  he 
begged  his  grandmother  so  hard  not  to  be 
made  to  leave  home  again,  that  it  was  de- 
cided that  he  should  not  go.  A  new  vicar 
had  come  to  the  village,  the  Abbe  Jean 
Lebrisseux,  who  was  willing  to  continue  the 
child's  instruction.  The  good  man  liked  to 
make  him  talk  about  his  first  impressions, 
and  often  took  him  with  him  to  see  the 
Cure  of  Greville,  a  gentle  and  sickly  man, 
who  encouraged  the  child  in  his  confi- 
dences. The  school-boy  told  him  his  inno- 


cent love  of  nature,  his  wonder  at  the  clouds 
and  their  movements,  his  thoughts  of  the 
depth  of  the  sky,  and  the  dangers  of  the 
ocean,  his  reading  of  the  Bible  and  Virgil, 
and  the  poor  Cure  would  say : 

"  Ah,  poor  child,  you  have  a  heart  that 
will  give  you  trouble  one  of  these  days ;  you 
don't  know  how  much  you  will  have  to 
suffer!" 

The  schooling  of  Millet,  begun  by  the 
good  vicar,  Jean  Lebrisseux,  was  often  in- 
terrupted by  field-work.  He  did  not  go  any 
further  than  the  Appendix  de  Diis  et  Heroi- 
bus  Poeticis  of  P.  Jouvency,  and  had  to  give 
up  Virgil.  He  was  soon  obliged  to  be  a 
serious  help  to  his  father,  and  to  devote  all 
his  time  to  the  rough  farm-work.  He  was 
the  eldest  of  the  sons,  and  in  this  lay  a  duty 
which  Francois  accepted  without  regret.  He 
then  began  to  work  beside  his  father  and 
"  hands,"  to  mow,  make  hay,  bind  the 
sheaves,  thresh,  winnow,  spread  manure, 
plow,  sow,  in  a  word,  all  the  work  which 
makes  the  daily  life  of  the  peasant.  So  he 
spent  years,  the  companion  of  his  father 
and  mother  in  the  hardest  labor,  his  only 
amusement  the  gatherings  of  the  family. 

Millet  devoured  hungrily  the  books  of  the 
home  library,  the  "  Lives  of  the  Saints,"  the 
"  Confessions  of  St.  Augustine,"  "St.  Francis 
of  Sales,"  "  St.  Jerome,"  especially  his  let- 
ters, which  he  liked  to  re-read  all  his  life, 
and  the  religious  philosophers  of  Port- 
Royal,  and  Bossuet,  and  Fenelon.  As  to 
Virgil  and  the  Bible,  he  re-read  them,  always 
in  Latin,  and  was  so  familiar  with  their  lan- 
guage that  in  his  manhood  I  have  never 
seen  a  more  eloquent  translator  of  these 
two  books.  He  was  not,  therefore,  as  has 
been  said,  an  ignorant  peasant  up  to  the  time 
of  his  coming  to  Paris.  On  the  contrary, 
his  education  was  rapid,  and  rather  by  eye 
and  reason  than  by  grammar.  As  a  child 
he  wrote  well,  and  when  he  reached  Cher- 
bourg he  was  already  an  educated  man,  full 
of  reading,  and  one  who  did  not  confuse 
unhealthy  literature  with  that  which  could 
be  of  use  to  him. 

At  his  father's  house,  in  the  midst  of  his 
work,  the  vague  idea  of  art  began  to  take 
form  in  his  mind.  Some  old  engravings  in 
the  Bible  gave  him  the  desire  to  imitate 
them,  and  every  day,  at  the  noonday  rest, 
alone  in  -a  room  in  the  house,  while  his 
father  slept,  he  studied  the  perspective  of  the 
landscapes  before  him.  He  drew  the  gar- 
den, the  stables,  the  fields  with  the  sea  for 
horizon,  and  often  the  animals  which  passed. 
His  father,  more  watchful  than  asleep,  did 


744  JEAN  FRANCOIS  MILLET— PEASANT  AND  PAINTER. 


V. 


PORTRAIT    OF    MILLET,    DRAWN    BY    HIMSELF    IN     1847. 


not  say  a  word,  and  sometimes  got  up  softly 
to  peep  at  what  Francois  was  doing. 

The  sea  was  for  Fra^ois  Millet  the  occa- 
sion both  of  study  and  of  profound  feeling. 
He  wished  to  reproduce  its  greatness  and 
terror.  A  recollection  of  the  ocean  storms 
remained  all  his  life  with  him.  I  will  give 
one  of  his  many  impressions,  which  tells  in 
his  simple  and  pathetic  way  the  horrors  of  a 
disaster  which  befell  his  village : 

"  It  was  All  Saints'  day,  in  the  morning  we  saw  that 
the  sea  was  very  rough,  and  every  one  said  there  would 
be  trouble;  all  the  parish  was  in  church;  in  the 
middle  of  mass  we  saw  a  man  come  in  dripping  wet, 
an  old  sailor,  well  known  for  his  bravery.  He  im- 
mediately said  that  as  he  came  along  shore  he  saw 
several  ships  which,  driven  by  a  fearful  wind,  would 
certainly  shipwreck  on  the  coast.  '  We  must  go  to 
their  assistance,'  said  he,  louder, '  and  I  have  come 
to  say  to  all  who  are  willing  that  we  have  only  just 


time  to  put  to  sea  to  try  and  help  them.'  About  fifty 
men  offered  themselves,  and,  without  speaking,  fol- 
lowed the  old  sailor.  We  got  to  the  shore  by  going 
clown  the  cliff,  and  there  we  soon  saw  a  terrible 
sight, — several  vessels,  one  behind  the  other,  driving 
at  a  frightful  speed  against  the  rocks. 

"  Our  men  put  their  boats  to  sea,  but  they  had 
hardly  made  ten  strokes  when  one  boat  filled  with 
water  and  sunk,  the  second  was  overturned  with 
the  breakers,  and  the  third  thrown  up  on  shore. 
Happily  no  one  was  drowned,  and  all  reached  the 
shore.  It  was  easy  to  see  that  our  boats  would  be 
no  use  to  the  poor  people  on  the  ships. 

"  Meantime  the  vessels  came  nearer,  and  were 
only  a  few  fathoms  from  our  black  cliffs,  which  were 
covered  with  cormorants.  The  first,  whose  masts 
were  gone,  came  like  a  great  mass.  Every  one  on 
shore  saw  it  coming,  no  one  dared  speak.  It  seemed 
to  me,  a  child,  as  if  death  was  playing  with  a  hand- 
ful of  men,  whom  it  intended  to  crush  and  drown. 
An  immense  wave  lifted  itself  like  an  angry  mount- 
ain, and  wrapping  the  vessel  brought  her  near,  and 
a  still  higher  one  threw  her  upon  a  rock  level  with 


JEAN.  FRANCOIS  MILLET— PEASANT  AND  PAINTER. 


745 


the  water.  A  frightful  cracking  sound, — the  next 
instant  the  vessel  was  filled  with  water.  The  sea 
was  covered  with  wreckage, — planks,  masts,  and 
poor  drowning  creatures.  Many  swam  and  then 
disappeared.  Our  men  threw  themselves  into  the 
water,  and,  with  the  old  sailor  at  their  head,  made 
tremendous  efforts  to  save  them.  Several  were 


saw  them  all  on  their  knees,  and  a  man  in  black 
seemed  to  bless  them.  A  wave  as  big  as  our  cliff 
carried  her  toward  us.  We  thought  we  heard  a 
shock  like  the  first,  but  she  held  stanch  and  did  not 
move.  The  waves  beat  against  her  but  she  did  not 
budge.  She  seemed  petrified.  In  an  instant  every 
one  put  to  sea,  for  it  was  only  two  gun-shots  from 


THE    NEW-BORN    LAMB. 


brought  back,  but   they  were   either   drowned  or  j  shore.     A  boat  was  made  fast  alongside ;  our  boat 


broken  on  the  rocks. 

"  The  sea  threw  up  several  hundred,  and  with 
them  merchandise  and  food. 

"A  second  ship  approached.  The  masts  were 
gone.  Every  one  was  on  deck,  which  was  full ;  we 


was  filled  instantly ;  one  of  the  boats  of  the  ship  put 
off,  threw  out  planks  and  boxes,  and  in  half  an  hour 
every  one  was  on  shore.  The  ship  had  been  saved 
by  a  fare  accident;  her  bowsprit  and  forepart  had 
got  wedged  in  between  two  rocks.  The  wave  which 


746  JEAN  FRANCOIS  MILLET— PEASANT  AND  PAINTER. 


had  thrown  her  on  the  reefs  had  preserved  her  as  if 
by  a  miracle.  She  was  English,  and  the  man  who 
blessed  his  companions  was  a  bishop.  They  were 
taken  to  the  village  and  soon  after  to  Cherbourg. 

"  We  all  went  back  again  to  the  shore.  The  third 
ship  was  thrown  on  the  breakers,  hashed  into  little 
bits,  and  no  one  could  be  saved.  The  bodies  of  the 
unhappy  crew  were  thrown  up  on  the  sand. 

"A  fourth,  fifth,  and  sixth  were  lost — ship  and  cargo 
— on  the  rocks.  The  tempest  was  terrific.  The 
wind  was  so  violent  that  it  was  useless  to  try  to  op- 
pose it.  It  carried  off  the  roofs  and  the  thatch.  It 
whirled  so  that  the  birds  were  killed, — even  the 
gulls,  which  are  accustomed,  one  would  think,  to 
storms.  The  night  was  passed  in  defending  the 
houses.  Some  covered  the  roofs  with  heavy  stones, 
some  carried  ladders  and  poles,  and  made  them  fast 
to  the  roofs.  The  trees  bent  to  the  ground  and 
cracked  and  split.  The  fields  were  covered  with 
branches  and  leaves.  It  was  a  fearful  scourge.  The 
next  day,  All  Souls'  day,  the  men  returned  to  the 
shore ;  it  was  covered  with  dead  bodies  and  wreck- 
age. They  were  taken  up  and  placed  in  rows  along 
the  foot  of  the  cliffs.  Several  other  vessels  came  in 
sight;  every  one  was  lost  on  our  coast.  It  was  a 
desolation  like  the  end  of  the  world.  Not  one  could 
be  saved.  The  rock  smashed  them  like  glass,  and 
threw  them  in  atoms  to  the  cliffs. 

"  Passing  a  hollow  place,  I  saw  a  great  sail  cover- 
ing what  looked  like  a  pile  of  merchandise.  I  lifted 
the  corner  and  saw  a  heap  of  dead  bodies.  I  was  so 
frightened  that  I  ran  all  the  way  home,  where  I  found 
mother  and  grandmother  praying  for  the  drowned 
men.  The  third  day  another  vessel  came.  Of  this  one 
they  found  possible  to  save  part  of  the  crew,  about 
ten  men,  whom  they  got  off  the  rocks.  They  were 
all  torn  and  bruised.  They  were  taken  to  Gru- 
chy,  cared  for  for  a  month,  and  sent  to  Cherbourg. 
But  the  poor  wretches  were  not  rid  of  the  sea.  They 
embarked  on  a  vessel  going  to  Havre ;  a  storm  took 
them,  and  they  were  all  lost.  As  for  the  dead,  all 
the  horses  were  employed  for  a  week  in  carrying 
them  to  the  cemetery.  They  were  buried  in  uncon- 
secrated  ground;  people  said  they  were  not  good 
Christians." 

Frangois  spent  his  life  thus,  in  the  midst 
of  his  family  whom  he  loved,  in  the  heart  of 
a  country  which  was  the  source  of  all  his 
inspiration,  reading  and  drawing,  without 
thinking  of  leaving  his  father's  house.  His 
only  ambition  was  to  accomplish  his  duties  as 
a  son,  to  plow  his  furrow  in  peace,  and  to  turn 
up  the  earth  whose  odor  delighted  his  young 
senses.  His  whole  life,  he  thought,  would  be 
passed  in  this  way.  Coming  home  one  day 
from  mass,  he  met  an  old  man,  his  back 
bowed,  and  going  wearily  home.  He  was 
surprised  at  the  perspective  and  movement 
of  this  living  and  bent  figure.  This  was  for 
the  young  peasant  the  discovery  of  fore- 
shortening. With  one  glance  he  under- 
stood the  mysteries  of  planes  advancing, 
retreating,  rising  and  falling.  He  came 
quickly  home,  and  taking  a  lump  of  char- 
coal drew  from  memory  all  the  lines  he  had 
noted  in  the  action  of  the  old  man.  When 
his  parents  returned  from  church  they  in- 


stantly recognized  it — his  first  portrait  made 
them  laugh. 

Millet  was  eighteen ;  his  father  was  deep- 
ly moved  by  the  revelation  of  this  unforeseen 
talent.  They  talked,  and  Francois  admitted 
that  he  had  some  desire  to  become  a  painter. 
His  father  only  said  these  touching  words : 

"  My  poor  Frangois,  I  see  thou  art  troub- 
led by  the  idea.  I  should  gladly  have  sent 
you  to  have  the  trade  of  painting  taught  you, 
winch  they  say  is  so  fine,  but  you  are  the 
oldest  boy,  and  I  could  not  spare  you;  now 
that  your  brothers  are  older,  I  do  not  wish 
to  prevent  you  from  learning  that  which 
you  are  so  anxious  to  know.  We  will  soon 
go  to  Cherbourg  and  find  out  whether  you 
have  the  talent  to  earn  your  living  by  this 
business." 

Frangois  then  finished  two  drawings  that 
he  had  imagined.  One  represented  two 
shepherds,  the  first  playing  the  flute  at  the 
foot  of  a  tree,  the  other  listening  near  a 
hill-side,  where  sheep  were  browsing;  the 
shepherds  were  in  jackets  and  wooden  shoes, 
like  those  of  his  village,  the  hill-side  was 
a  field  with  apple-trees,  belonging  to  his 
father.  The  second  drawing  represented  a 
starry  night — a  man  coming  out  of  a  house 
and  giving  some  bread  to  another  man,  who 
accepted  it  anxiously.  Under  the  drawing 
were  the  words  of  St.  Luke :  Etsi  non 
dabit  illi  surgens  eo  quod  amicus  ejus  sit  prop- 
ter  improbitatem  tamen  ejus  surget,  et  da- 
bit  illi  quotquot  habet  necessaries.  ["  Though 
he  will  not  rise  and  give  him,  because  he  is 
his  friend,  yet  because  of  his  importunity  he 
will  rise  and  give  him  as  many  as  he  need- 
eth." — St.  Luke.  chap,  xi.,  8th  verse.]  The 
peasant  seems  almost  a  man  of  letters.  This 
drawing  I  have  seen  for  thirty  years ;  it  is 
the  work  of  a  man  who  already  knows  the 
great  bearings  of  art,  its  effects  and  re- 
sources ;  it  seems  like  the  sketch  of  an  old 
master  of  the  seventeenth  century. 

There  was  then  giving  lessons  at  Cher- 
bourg a  painter  called  Mouchel,  a  pupil  of 
the  school  of  David.  The  father  and  son 
went  to  see  him,  and  took  the  two  drawings 
above  mentioned.  Mouchel  had  no  sooner 
seen  them  than  he  said  to  the  father : 

"  You  must  be  joking.  That  young  man 
there  did  not  make  the  drawings  all  alone." 

"  Yes,  indeed,"  said  the  father ;  "  I  assure 
you,  I  saw  him  make  them." 

"  No,  no.  I  see  the  method  is  very  awk- 
ward, but  he  never  could  have  composed 
that — impossible." 

The  Millets  asserted  so  energetically  that 
it  was  the  work  of  Frangois,  that  Mouchel 


JEAN  FRANCOIS  MILLET— PEASANT  AND  PAINTER. 


747 


had  to  believe  it.     He  then  turned  to  the 
father  and  said: 

"  Well,  you  will  go  to  perdition  for  hav- 
ing kept  him  so  long,  for  your  child  has  the 
stuff  of  a  great  painter !  " 

From  that  moment  the  career  of  Millet 
was  decided ;  his  father  even  urged  it,  and 
arranged  his  apprenticeship  with  Mouchel. 
Mouchel  was  a  strange  and  original  fellow 
— he  deserves  notice  in  the  biographies  of 
Normandy  painters.  He  had  studied  at 
the  Seminary  and  had  married  a  good  peas- 
ant woman,  who  lived  with  him  at  Roule, 
in  a  little  valley  where  he  cultivated  his 
garden,  near  a  mill  which  belonged  to  him 
and  whose  musical  tic-tac  could  be  heard  in 
the  studio.  He  loved  art  to  fanaticism. 
Teniers,  Rembrandt  and  Brawer  were  his 
idols.  He  loved  the  country  and  animals, 
and  passed  hours  tete-a-tete  with  a  pig,  whose 
dialect  and  confidences  he  pretended  to 
understand. 

Millet  was  two  months  with  Mouchel. 
He  copied  engravings  and  drew  from  the 
round.  Mouchel  would  not  give  him  any 
advice :  "  Draw  what  you  like,  choose  what 
you  please  here,  follow  your  own  fantasy — 
go  to  the  museum."  He  was  busy  copy- 
ing at  the  museum  of  Cherbourg  wnen  the 
servant  of  the  family  came  to  him  with  the 
announcement  that  his  father  was  danger- 
ously ill.  Millet  made  one  fierce  rush  from 
Cherbourg  to  Gruchy.  He  found  his  father 
dying  of  a  brain  fever.  He  had  not  even 
the  consolation  of  hearing  his  voice  for  the 
last  time  or  seeing  his  eyes  turned  upon 
him :  the  poor  man  was  voiceless  and  sense- 
less. His  brain  had  already  lost  conscious- 
ness ;  he  could  not  even  feel  the  loving 
-pressure  of  his  hand  in  his  son's.  To  Millet 
it  seemed  a  double  death,  the  death  that 
all  men  must  die,  and  the  death  of  a  father 
who  could  not  even,  like  dying  Isaac,  touch 
the  garment  of  his  child. 

Frangois  tried  to  keep  the  old  farm  going 
on  in  the  old  way,  but  his  heart  was  heavy 
with  his  bereavement,  and  beside,  art  had 
made  itself  felt  in  him.  The  notabilities  of 
Cherbourg,  not  seeing  the  young  peasant 
painting,  tried  to  do  something  for  him. 
His  grandmother  heard  some  rumors  of  it. 
and  said:  "  My  Frangois,  you  must  accept 
the  will  of  God;  your  father,  my  Jean  Louis, 
said  you  should  be  a  painter;  obey  him  and 
go  back  to  Cherbourg."  There  he  entered 
the  studio  of  Langlois,  who  also  gave  him 
very  little  advice.  A  great  amusement  for 
Millet  at  this  time  was  reading.  He  read 
everything — from  the  Almanack  boiteux,  of 


Strasbourg,  to  Paul  de  Kock,  from  Homer  to 
Beranger;  he  also  read  with  delight  Shaks- 
pere,  Walter  Scott,  Byron,  Cooper,  Goethe's 
"  Faust,"  and  German  ballads.  Victor  Hugo 
and  Chateaubriand  had  especially  impressed 
him.  The  emphatic  style  of  the  author  of 
Atala  and  Rene  did  not  displease  him;  under 
his  stilted  manner  he  recognized  a  love  of 
the  past,  a  touching  recollection  of  his  family 
and  country,  and  a  bitterness  of  life  which 
he,  too,  felt.  As  to  Victor  Hugo,  his  great 
poetic  pictures  of  the  sea  and  the  splendors 
of  the  sky,  his  bronze-like  rhythm,  shook 
him  like  the  word  of  a  prophet.  He  wished 
to  throw  out  all  the  exaggerations  and  make 
up  a  Victor  Hugo  of  his  own,  of  two  or 
three  volumes,  which  would  have  been  the 
Homer  of  France.  The  reading-rooms  of 
Cherbourg  were  all  passed  in  review,  and 
when  he  got  to  Paris  he  was  already  a  cul- 
tivated man,  familiar  with  letters, — though 
this  fact  was  little  seen,  as  he  was  suspicious 
of  the  opinion  of  great  cities,  and  scarcely 
answered  questions  put  to  him.  He  knew 
a  clerk  of  a  library  in  Cherbourg,  who  got 
him  books  and  became  his  companion  and 
friend.  He  was  M. .  Feuardent,  whose  son 
married,  later,  Millet's  eldest  daughter. 

This  is  what  he  said  about  his  studious 
youth : 

"  I  never  studied  systematically.  At 
school,  when  writing  from  dictation,  my 
task  was  better  written  than  the  others, 
probably  because  I  read  constantly,  and  the 
words  and  phrases  were  pictured  rather  in 
my  eyes  than  in  my  mind,  and  I  instinct- 
ively reproduced  them.  I  never  followed 
programmes;  I  never  learnt  a  lesson  by 
heart;  all  my  time  was  spent  in  writing 
capital  letters  and  drawing.  I  never  could 
get  beyond  addition  in  mathematics,  and 
I  do  not  understand  subtraction  and  the 
rules  following.  My  reckoning  is  always 
in  my  head,  and  by  ways  that  I  could 
not  explain.  I  came  to  Paris  with  all  my 
ideas  of  art  fixed,  and  I  have  never  found 
it  well  to  change  them.  I  have  been  more 
or  less  in  love  with  this  master,  or  that 
method  in  art,  but  I  have  not  changed 
anything  fundamental.  You  have  seen  my 
first  drawing,  made  at  home  without  a  mas- 
ter, without  a  model,  without  a  guide.  I 
have  never  done  anything  different  since. 
You  have  never  seen  me  paint  except  in  a 
low  tone ;  demi-teinte  is  necessary  to  me  in 
order  to  sharpen  my  eyes  and  clear  my 
thoughts, — it  has  been  my  best  teacher." 

The  young  painter  from  the  country  made 
some  little  noise  in  the  town  of  Cherbourg. 


748  JEAN  FRANCOIS  MILLET— PEASANT  AND  PAINTER. 


WOMAN     BRINGING    HOME    MILK. 


People  talked  about  his  work  and  the  bold- 
ness of  his  handling.  The  general  opinion 
was  that  he  ought  to  be  sent  to  Paris  to 
study.  On  the  other  hand,  Langlois  watched 
the  progress  of  his  scholar  like  a  hen  who 
has  hatched  a  young  eagle;  he  let  him 
exercise  himself  as  he  chose,  in  portraiture 
or  Biblical  subjects.  Sometimes  he  got 
Millet  to  help  him  on  his  religious  pict- 
ures. At  the  Church  of  the  Trinity  at 
Cherbourg  may  be  seen  two  large  pictures 
from  sacred  history,  at  which  Millet  worked 
with  Langlois,  on  delicate  parts  such  as 
the  drapery  and  the  hands.  Langlois  felt, 


however,  that  he  could  not  teach  Millet 
anything.  He  therefore  addressed  the 
municipal  council  of  Cherbourg  a  petition, 
which  led  them  to  vote  an  annuity  of  400 
francs  for  Millet's  education.  The  general 
council  of  La  Manche  added  later  six  hun- 
dred francs,  which  should  be  paid  until  the 
completion  of  the  young  artist's  studies. 
Millet  told  me  several  times  that  this  an- 
nuity did  not  last  long,  and  that  it  was  far 
from  being  sufficient  for  his  needs;  soon  the 
little  pension  from  the  town  of  Cherbourg 
was  suppressed  on  account  of  lack  of  funds. 
It  was  a  great  event  in  the  Millet  family 


JEAN  FRANCOIS  MILLET— PEASANT  AND  PAINTER.          749 


when  Francois  departed  for  a  place  so  far 
away,  and  to  a  city  which  had  the  reputa- 
tion of  being  so  corrupt  as  Paris.  Mother 
and  grandmother  loaded  their  dear  child 
with  warnings  against  the  seductions  of  this 
Babylon. 

"  Remember,"  repeated  again  and  again 
the  grandmother,  "remember  the  virtues 
of  your  ancestors;  remember  that  at  the 
font  I  promised  for  you  that  you  should 
renounce  the  devil  and  all  his  works.  I 
would  rather  see  you  dead,  dear  son,  than 
a  renegade,  and  faithless  to  the  commands 
of  God." 

He  went  off  in  a  fever  of  expectation  and 
of  distress  at  leaving  these  two  poor  women 
a  prey  to  all  the  troubles  which  beset  unpro- 
tected widows.  He  took  with  him  some 
savings  which  his  mother  and  grandmother 
gave  him  at  leaving,  and  which,  joined  to 
the  pension  of  the  city,  made  a  sum  of  six 
hundred  francs.  He  felt  embarrassed  by 
so  much  wealth,  as  if  a  treasure  of  the 
Arabian  Nights  had  fallen  from  heaven. 

"  I  always  had  my  mother  and  grandmother  on 
my  mind,  and  their  need  of  my  arm  and  my 
youth.  It  has  always  been  almost  like  remorse  to 
think  of  them,  weak  and  ill  at  home,  when  I  might 
have  been  a  prop  to  their  old  age  ;  but  their  hearts 
were  so  motherly  that  they  would  not  have  allowed 
me  to  leave  my  profession  to  help  them.  Besides," 
he  would  add  "  youth  has  not  the  sensitiveness  of 
manhood,  and  a  demon  pushed  me  toward  Paris.  I 
wanted  to  see  all,  know  all  that  a  painter  can  learn. 
My  masters  at  Cherbourg  had  not  spoiled  me  during 
my  apprenticeship.  Paris  seemed  to  me  the  great 
center  of  knowledge  and  a  museum  of  everything 
fine  and  great. 

"  I  went  off  with  a  full  heart.     All  that  I  saw  on 


the  way  to  Paris  made  me  still  sadder.  The  great 
straight  roads,  the  trees  in  long  lines,  the  flat  fields,  the 
pasture-lands  so  rich  and  filled  with  animals  that  they 
seemed  to  me  more  like  scenes  in  a  theater  than 
reality !  Then  Paris,  black,  smoky,  muddy,  where 
I  arrived  at  night,  and  which  was  to  me  the  most 
discouraging  sensation  of  all. 

"  I  got  to  Paris  one  Saturday  evening  in  January, 
in  the  snow.  The  light  of  the  street-lamps,  almost 
put  out  by  the  fog,  the  immense  quantity  of  horses 
and  wagons  passing  and  repassing,  the  narrow 
streets,  the  smell  and  the  air  of  Paris  went  to  my 
head  and  my  heart  so  that  I  was  almost  suffocated. 
I  was  seized  with  a  sobbing  which  I  could  not  con- 
trol. I  wanted  to  get  the  better  of  my  feelings,  but 
they  overcame  me  with  their  violence.  I  could  only 
stop  my  tears  by  washing  my  face  with  water,  which 
I  took  from  a  street-fountain. 

"  The  coolness  gave  me  courage.  A  print-seller 
was  there, — I  looked  at  his  prints,  and  munched  my 
last  apple.  The  lithographs  displeased  me  very 
much  ;  loose  scenes  of  grisettes,  women  bathing  and 
at  their  toilettes,  such  as  Deveria  and  Maurin  then 
drew ;  they  seemed  to  me  signs  for  perfumery  or 
fashion-plates.  Paris  seemed  to  me  dismal  and 
tasteless.  For  the  first,  I  went  to  a  little  hotel, 
where  I  spent  the  night  in  a  sort  of  nightmare  ;  see- 
ing my  home,  the  house  full  of  melancholy,  with  my 
mother,  grandmother  and  sister  spinning  in  the 
evening,  weeping  and  thinking  of  me,  praying  that  I 
should  escape  the  perdition  of  Paris.  Then  the  evil 
demon  drove  me  on  before  wonderful  pictures,  which 
seemed  so  beautiful,  so  brilliant,  that  it  appeared  to 
me  they  took  fire  and  vanished  in  a  heavenly  cloud. 

"  My  awakening  was  more  earthly.  My  room  was 
a  hole  with  no  light.  I  got  up,  and  rushed  to  the 
air.  The  light  had  come  again,  and  I  regained  my 
calmness  and  my  will.  My  sadness  remained,  and  I 
remembered  the  complaint  of  Job  :  '  Let  the  day 
perish  wherein  I  was  born,  and  the  night  in  which 
it  was  said,  there  is  a  man  child  conceived.' 

"  So  I  greeted  Paris,  not  cursing  it,  but  with  the 
terror  of  not  comprehending  its  material  and  spirit- 
ual life,  and  full,  too,  of  desire  ,to  see  those  famous 
masters  of  whom  I  had  heard  so  much,  and  seen 
some  little  scraps  of,  at  the  museum  of  Cherbourg. " 


(To  be  continued.) 


75° 


THE  LOSS   OF  THE   «  ONEIDA: 


THE   LOSS   OF   THE   "ONEIDA." 


HOMEWARD     BOUND. 


ON  the  24th  of  January,  1870,  the  United 
States  steamer  Oneida  was  sunk  in  the  Bay 
of  Yedo,  Japan,  by  collision  with  a  British 
merchant  steamer,  the  Bombay,  of  the  Pen- 
insular and  Oriental  Steam-ship  Company. 

The  Oneida  was  a  wooden  screw-steamer, 
211  feet  long,  1695  tons,  eight  guns,  and, 
when  lost,  had  on  board  24  officers  and  152 
men— in  all,  176  souls.  After  being  em- 
ployed on  blockade  duty  during  the  civil 
war,  she  was,  in  1867,  dispatched  to  the 
Asiatic  Station,  where  she  proved  a  most 
efficient  cruiser. 

It  was  at  the  close  of  three  years  ot  this 
arduous  service,  when  homeward  bound, 
their  hearts  elated  with  the  prospective  joys 
of  home,  and  their  ears  still  ringing  with  the 
farewell  cheers,  that  115  of  her  happy  crew 
met  a  sudden  death.  Among  these  were 
the  captain,  and  all,  save  two,  of  the  com- 
missioned officers. 

The  sailing  of  a  man-of-war  for  home  is 
generally  the  occasion  of  much  conviviality, 
mingled  with  the  display  of  tender  feelings' 
and  bitter  regrets.  During  her  three  years  on 
the  station,  she  frequently  falls  in  with  the 
armed  vessels  of  other  nations,  and  pleasant 


relations  grow  up  with  the  residents  ashore, 
so  that,  by  the  time  the  cruise  is  over,  a  web 
of  friendship  has  been  woven  with  threads 
extending  to  every  port.  It  has  been 
charged  that  some  of  the  Oneida 's  officers 
were  intoxicated  on  the  day  of  sailing.  The 
fact  that  she  was  just  out  of  port — home- 
ward bound — and  that,  probably,  many 
mutual  good  wishes  had  been  pledged  in 
wine,  lent  color  to  the  charge.  But,  besides 
my  own  knowledge  of  the  matter,  I  have 
the  word  of  the  late  Mr.  Charles  E.  De 
Long,  then  United  States  Minister  to  Japan, 
and  other  gentlemen  who  were  on  board  up 
to  the  last  moment,  that  the  charge  is  false 
in  even  its  mildest  form. 

Now,  to  proceed  to  the  circumstances  of 
the  collision.  About  five  p.  M.,  the  Oneida, 
having  weighed  anchor,  steamed  slowly,  out 
of  harbor.  It  was  a  fine  evening,  sharp 
and  wintry,  but  with  a  clear  sky,  stiff  breeze, 
and  the  water  of  the  bay  smooth.  As  she 
successively  passed  the  various  ships  of  war, 
they  manned  the  rigging  and  gave  her  cheer 
after  cheer  that  resounded  far  and  wide. 
The  Oneida  sped  on;  the  fading  twilight 
deepened  into  the  gloom  of  night,  and 


THE  LOSS   OF  THE  "  ONEIDA." 


her  outline  rapidly  blended  with  the  dark- 
ness. 

Proceeding  under  easy  steam,  the  Oneida 
was  soon  off  the  light-ship.  Here  the  execu- 
tive officer  set  the  proper  sails,  and  took  all 
the  precautions  usual  on  going,  to  sea. 
Everything  .being  lashed  and  snug,  Lieuten- 
ant Yates  took  charge,  and  the  Oneida  con- 
tinued on  her  course,  S.  by  E.  ^  E.,  under 
both  steam  and  sail,  making  seven  knots 
per  log.  About  6.20,  Lieutenant  Yates  no- 
ticed, by  the  light  on  Kanon-Saki,  that 
leeway  was  causing  the  ship  to  approach 
the  western  shore.  He  sent  at  once  for  the 
navigator,  and  at  this  juncture  the  Bombay's 
mast-head  light  came  into  sight  ahead;  the 
officer  of  the  deck  saw  it  just  rounding 
Kanon-Saki,  and  then  rapidly  pass  to  a 
bearing  on  the  starboard  bow.* 


the  Bombay'' 's  while  and  green  lights  about 
two  miles  away,  and  both  expressed  the 
opinion  that  she  would  pass  to  starboard. 
Suddenly,  when  but  a  short  distance  off,  the 
Bombay  changed  her  course,  and  it  was  at 
once  clear  that  she  was  heading  directly  for 
the  Oneida — attempting  to  cross  her  bows. 
The  instant  this  became  certain,  the  Oneidd's 
helm  was  put  hard-a-starboard,  with  the 
hope  of  escaping  the  Bombay.  The  Oneida 
went  rapidly  to  the  left,  but  her  pursuer 
closed  in  more  rapidly  upon  her,  and  soon 
they  struck ;  the  sharp  iron  prow  of  the 
Bombay  cut  into  the  wooden  sides  of  the 
Oneida,  tearing  diagonally  through  her 
quarter  and  leaving  a  gaping  wound.  It 
exposed  the  interior  of  the  cabin,  from 
which  a  gleam  of  light  burst,  and  people  on 
the  British  steamer  might  easily  have  seen. 


THE    COLLISION    OF    THE     "BOMBAY        AND     "ONEIDA. 


The  navigator,  now  coming  on  deck, 
directed  Lieutenant  Yates  as  to  the  proper 
course,  and  then  both  officers  plainly  saw 

*  By  international  agreement,  all  vessels,  when 
under  way,  are  required  to  carry  at  night  running- 
lights,  i.  e.,  a  green  light  on  the  starboard,  and  a  red 
light  on  the  port  side.  In  addition,  steamers,  when 
under  steam,  carry  a  -white  light  at  the  foremast-head. 


the  waves  rolling  in  through  the  breach  in 
the  American  vessel. 

The  Bombay  crushed  the  Oneida' s  quarter- 
boat  into  splinters,  and  carried  away  the 
poop,  spanker-boom  and  gaff,  wheel,  bin- 
nacle, and  most  likely  the  rudder  and  pro- 
peller. While  she  yet  lay  across  the 
Oneida' s  stern,  the  executive  officer  hailed :. 


752 


THE  LOSS   OF  THE   "ONEI&A? 


iIEIDA         AFTER    THE    COLLISION. 


"  Steamer  ahoy  !  you  have  cut  us  down — 
remain  by  us  !  " 

The  OneicMs  steam-whistle  was  instantly 
turned  on  and  kept  blowing,  and  guns  were 
fired,  but  the  Bombay  steamed  on  to  Yoko- 
hama without  lowering  a  boat,  or  for  a 
moment  heading  in  the  direction  of  the 
sinking  ship ;  nay,  worse — with  even  the 
malicious  boast  on  his  lips,  that  "  He  had 
tut  the  quarter  off  a  Yankee  frigate,  and  it 
served  her  right!  "  I  quote  the  remark  from 
the  testimony  of  Lieutenant  Clements,  a 
British  naval  officer,  before  a  British  court. 
The  helm  gone,  the  ship  became  unmanage- 
able. Order  and  discipline  continued, 
however,  and  the  most  judicious  measures 
were  immediately  taken  for  the  safety  of 
both  ship  and  crew ;  the  steam  and  hand- 
pumps  were  vigorously  worked,  and  such 
disposition  of  sail  was  made  as  would  beach 
the  vessel  on  the  nearest  shoal ;  but  all  to 
no  avail.  The  rent  through  which  the  water 
flowed  was  too  large,  and  soon  the  flood  of 
waters  extinguished  the  fires,  steam  failed, 
pumps  and  engines  stopped.  The  quarter- 
deck was  now  under  water;  men  were 
clearing  away  the  only  two  serviceable  boats 
that  remained,  the  first  and  third  cutters, 
and  these  only  got  clear  of  the  ship  as  the 


spar-deck  became  submerged.  The  captain 
and  officer  of  the  deck  stood  on  the  bridge 
till  the  water  reached  their  feet ;  then  the 
latter  jumped  for  his  life — the  former  re- 
mained. In  an  instant  the  Oneida  disap- 
peared ;  the  captain  and  most  of  his  officers 
and  men  went  down  with  her,  to  rise  no 
more ;  others  came  to  the  surface,  only  to 
struggle  a  little  longer  and  then  sink  for- 
ever ;  while  a  few  were  rescued  by  the 
cutter  near  by. 

It  has  often  been  asked  :  How,  with  the 
land  so  near,  did  so  many  perish  ?  I  can  only 
give  an  answer  that  satisfies  myself.  For 
some  time  after  the  collision,  the  efforts  of 
all  were  in  the  direction  of  saving  the  ship 
— no  one  thought  of  himself.  They  seemed 
oblivious  of  the  fact  that  every  compartment 
was  flooded  with  rushing  waters — that  dan- 
ger was  imminent;  and  it  was  only  when 
the  reality  burst  upon  them  that  they  found 
it  too  late  to  devise  means  of  personal  safe- 
ty ;  every  grating,  every  ladder,  every  mov- 
able spar  that  would  float  a  man,  was 
securely  lashed  in  its  place — now  out  of 
reach — submerged ! 

All  the  boats  save  two  were  disabled, 
and  these  were  loaded  to  the  gunwales. 
Thus,  only  as  the  deck  was  slipping  away 


THE  LOSS  OF  THE  "  ONEIDA." 


753 


from  them,  did  they  realize  that  they  must 
go  down  with  the  ship.  By  far  the  greater 
number  were  sucked  into  the  vortex,  while 
those  at  the  surface  were  so  benumbed  that 
they  could  make  little  effort  to  save  them- 
selves. Furthermore,  the  nearest  land  over 
t\vo  miles  distant — certainly  too  far  for  an 
exhausted  man  to  swim  on  that  cold  night. 

To  follow  the  survivors :  The  first  cutter 
remained  near  the  sunken  vessel  picking  up 
the  men,  until  the  last  one  visible  was 
rescued;  among  these  was  Lieutenant  Yates, 
the  only  officer  in  the  party  of  forty-five  per- 
sons crowded  into  that  small  boat — a  shiver- 
ing crew,  whose  thin  clothes,  saturated  with 
water,  were  stiffening  about 
them.  The  boat  was  leaking, 
much  water  was  already  in  it, 
and  the  spray  and  crest  of  „  * 

waves  breaking  over  it  added  A       ^ 

to  the  difficulties  and  hard- 
ships to  keep  afloat — the  men 
had  to  bail  constantly  with 
caps  and  shoes. 

Amidst  these  vicissitudes 
they  worked  on  through  the 
three  miles  that  separated 
them  from  a  little  cove  near 
Kanon-Saki,  where,  at  length, 
they  arrived,  landed,  and  pro- 
ceeded to  a  Japanese  village, 
where  they  were  received  with 
kindly  hospitality. 

The  third  cutter  had  sixteen 
men  in  it,  with  Doctor  Sud- 
dards  in  charge.  It  got  clear 
of  the  ship  as  she  was  rapidly 
settling.  Observing  a  junk 
standing  down  the  bay  at 
some  distance,  the  cutter  vig- 
orously pulled  for  it,  to  bring 
it  to  the  sinking  ship  and  take 
off  the  crew.  But  the  junk 
was  too  swift,  and,  uncon- 
scious of  the  service  it  might 
have  rendered,  passed  rapidly 
out  of  reach.  The  cutter  re- 
turned to  the  Oneida,  but  now 
nothing  was  to  be  seen  of  her 
but  the  top-gallant  masts  just 
out  of  water.  The  boat  then 
headed  for  shore,  and  after 
passing  through  much  the 
same  experience  as  the  first 
cutter,  eventually  landed  near 
the  same  place,  though  the 
people  in  each  boat  did  not 
know  that  any  but  themselves 
had  been  saved. 
VOL.  XX.— 49. 


Doctor  Suddards  procured  a  guide  and 
walked  to  Yokohama,  eighteen  miles,  where 
he  arrived  the  next  morning  at  four  o'clock, 
and  reported  the  disaster  to  the  command- 
ing officer  of  the  Idaho. 

The  Idaho,  a  large  store-ship,  with  but 
few  officers  and  a  small  crew,  was  the  only 
vessel  of  our  squadron  in  harbor.  She  had 
no  steam  launch,  and  but  few  of  those 
equipments  that  usually  form  the  outfit  of 
a  man-of-war;  hence  her  commander  was 
unable  to  render  immediate  succor  to  those 
who  might  possibly  be  clinging  to  fragments 
of  the  wreck.  This  was  ten  miles  away 
— a  long  distance  to  dispatch  the  only  re- 


ENTRANCE  TO  YEDO  BAY,  SHOWING  COURSE  OF  THE 
"BOMBAY." 


'ONEIDA       AND 


754 


THE  LOSS   OF  THE  "ONEWAY 


source  the  Idaho  possessed — a  boat  under 
oars. 

The  Bombay,  with  steam  still  up,  lay 
about  half  a  mile  from  the  Idaho /  and  as 
she  could  afford  the  quickest  relief  I  was 


Bombay. 


Oneida. 


DIAGRAM    SHOWING    THE    POSITION    OF    THE    VESSELS    AT    THE 

TIME   OF   THE   COLLISION,    AND  THE   CONDITION   OF   THE 

"  BOMBAY  "    AFTERWARD. 

sent  to  request  it.  I  told  Captain  Eyre  he 
had  sunk  a  ship  with  160  men;  that  many 
might  still  be  floating  on  spars  and  booms, 
and  if  speedy  succor  were  given,  they  might 
be  saved;  that  his  was  the  only  vessel  in 
harbor  with  steam  up — would  he  go  down  ? 

"  No  ?  " 

After  making  some  trivial  excuse  about 
his  vessel  being  damaged,  he  remarked : 

"  1 think  I  can  clear  myself." 

I  returned  to  my  boat  and  proceeded  to 
the  British  flag-ship,  a  few  cables  distant. 
Very  different  was  the  feeling  I  found  there : 
hearty  sympathy  and  an  earnest  desire  to  do 
all  they  could. 

An  officer  was  dispatched  in  haste  to 
H.  M.  S.  Sylvia,  with  an  order  to  get  up 
steam  at  once,  and  another  was  directed  to 
return  with  me  to  the  Bombay.  The  evi- 
dence of  this  gentleman  before  the  court 
will  best  describe  what  occurred.  He 
says: 

"  An  officer  came  from  the  Idaho  *  *  *  Captain 
Tinklar  [of  the  Ocean\  told  me  to  ask  him  to  take 
me  on  board  the  Bombay,  and  that  I  was  to  request 


the  captain  of  the  Bombay,  as  his  was  the  only  ship 
in  harbor  with  steam  up,  to  go  down  to  where  the 
accident  took  place,  and  see  what  he  could  do.  I 
went  on  board.  *  *  *  I  gave  him  Captain  Tink- 
lar's  request ;  he  replied, '  I  can't ;  I've  got  a  hole  in 
my  bows.'  I  asked  him  if  that  was  his  answer, 
and  he  sent  for  his  chief  officer  ;  he  asked  the  chief 
officer  how  much  water  there  was  in  the  hold  or 
compartment,  and  the  officer  answered  about  nine 
feet.  The  captain  then  said,  '  Do  you  hear  that  ? ' 
I  said  yes,  and  I  wanted  an  answer,  yes  or  no.  He 
then  said, '  No,  I  can't.'  " 

The  Bombay  was  partitioned  into  water- 
tight compartments,  and  the  place  spoken 
of  as  having  nine  feet  of  water  in  it  was  a 
small  one  in  the  very  bows ;  evidently  it 
might  have  been  filled  to  the  ceiling  with- 
out cause  for  apprehension.  Indeed,  Cap- 
tain Eyre's  own  estimate  of  the  damage,  on 
his  arrival  at  Yokohama  (it  is  from  the 
evidence  of  Lieutenant  Clements,  R.  N.), 
was  "  that  the  ship  was  making  water,  but 
nothing  very  serious."  In  Captain  Eyre's 
own  testimony,  though  it  makes  his  con- 
duct of  the  evening  before  the  more  dis- 
creditable, he  says : 

"  The  next  morning  [that  is,  the  one  on  which  I 
sought  his  aid]  I  steamed  down  to  the  scene  of  the 
collision  and  back,  without  having  made  any  repairs." 

Yes,  he  finally  went — at  the  request  of 
his  agent — but  he  was  too  tardy.  His 
assistance  should  have  been  given  imme- 
diately after  colliding,  even  though  he  was 
"  not  aware  whether  it  was  customary  for 
two  vessels  which  have  come  into  collision 
on  a  dark  night  to  communicate  in  order 
to  ascertain  the  amount  of  injury  each  has 
sustained."  All  which  facts  seem  plainly  to 
indicate  that  the  defect  that  prevented  ex- 
tending a  helping  hand  to  the  Oneidtfs 
drowning  crew,  existed  in  the  heart  of 
Captain  Eyre,  and  not  in  the  hull  of  the 
Bombay. 

It  is  gratifying  to  turn  from  this  conduct 
to  the  generous  action  of  the  British  and 
Russian  naval  officers,  who,  with  the  Ameri- 
can steamer  Yangtse,  Captain  Strandberg,  got 
up  steam  and  went  down  immediately,  so 
that  by  8  A.  M.  the  Bombay,  Sylvia  and 
Yangtse  (the  latter  having  manned  boats 
from  the  Vsadnik  and  Idaho  in  tow)  were  all 
under  way  for  the  wreck.  On  arrival, 
nothing  of  the  Oneida  but  her  top-gallant 
masts  were  visible,  and  the  boats  engaged 
in  the  melancholy  work  of  searching  the 
beach  for  corpses,  but  without  finding  any, 
and  in  the  evening  all  went  back  to  the 
city. 

By  request  of  the  agent  of  the  Peninsular 
and  Oriental  Steam-ship  Company,  a  naval 


THE  LOSS   OF  THE  "  ONEIDA." 


755 


court  of  inquiry  was  immediately  instituted 
at  Yokohama  to  take  evidence  regarding 
the  circumstances  of  the  collision.  It  was 
composed  of  the  British  consul  at  Kana- 
gawa  as  president,  two  commanders  of  the 
Royal  Navy,  and  two  masters  of  British 
merchant-vessels  in  harbor. 

All  persons  that  knew  anything  of  the 
subject  were  examined  under  oath ;  a 
printed  copy  of  their  evidence  now  lies 
before  me,  and  with  it  I  have  refreshed  my 
memory,  although  I  heard  every  word,  and 
saw  every  motion  of  each  witness  as  he 
spoke. 

It  may  cause  surprise  to  find  that  the 
officers  and  men  of  the  United  States  navy 
appeared  in  a  British  court.  That  court 
was  the  first  organized.  An  American 
court,  composed  solely  of  naval  officers, 
was  subsequently  formed;  it  examined 
carefully  into  the  circumstances  of  the  col- 
lision and  entirely  exonerated  the  Oneida' s 
officers.  But,  in  order  to  have  .all  the 
evidence  pro  and  con  taken  and  weighed 
by  the  same  tribunal,  the  United  States 
naval  authorities  allowed  their  witnesses  to 
go  into  the  British  court.  It  was  a  conces- 
sion— not  a  compulsion.  Besides  the  regu- 
lar attorney  retained  by  the  owners  of  the 
Bombay,  the  British  Minister  to  Japan 
was  in  constant  attendance,  and  the  Ameri- 
can Minister,  Mr.  De  Long,  kindly  ten- 
dered his  services  to  the  survivors  of  the 
Oneida.  Many  of  the  essential  points  be- 
ing of  a  purely  technical  nature,  I  was 
requested  by  Lieutenant  Yates  to  assist 
Mr.  De  Long,  and  thus  I  became  familiar 
with  every  feature  of  the  case. 

The  court  opened  at  the  British  Consulate 
in  Yokohama,  on  the  27th  of  January,  and 
continued  its  sessions  every  day  until  Febru- 
ary 1 2th.  Lieutenant  Yates  and  the  other 
witnesses  of  the  Oneida  were  excluded  from 
the  court,  except  while  giving  their  evidence; 
Captain  Eyre  was  always  in  attendance  with 
the  company's  agent;  but  this  gentleman 
has  long  ago  gone  before  a  Judge  who  tem- 
pers justice  with  mercy.  I  shall,  therefore, 
touch  lightly  on  his  failings. 

This  court  cleared  Captain  Eyre  of  all 
blame  for  the  collision,  and  hence,  by  impli- 
cation, threw  it  on  the  Oneida.  My  endeav- 
or shall  be  so  to  contrast  the  evidence  of 
different  witnesses  on  the  same  point  as  to 
enable  every  one  to  judge  for  himself  who 
was  right,  and  who  wrong. 

First.  Captain  Eyre  says  that  the  Oneida 's 
speed  was  "  about  fourteen  knots  an  hour"; 
his  chief  officer,  "  eleven  or  twelve,"  and 


his  pilot,  "  about  eight  knots."  It  was  really 
seven,  so  that,  of  the  three,  the  captain's 
judgment  was  the  most  erroneous. 

Second.  He  says,  "The  Oneida  must 
have  been  about  one  mile  from  me  when  I 
first  saw  her  light ;  "  his  second  officer  says 
"  five  or  six  miles  away,"  and  the  pilot, 
"  four  or  five  miles."  Other  parts  of  the  tes- 
timony show  that  all  three  saw  the  light  at 
nearly  the  same  instant.  The  actual  distance 
was  four  miles,  so  that  here,  too,  the  captain 
was  most  in  error. 

Third.  He  says,  "  From  the  time  I 
stopped  the  engines  until  I  went  on  again, 
was  about  ten  minutes."  The  log-book  of 
the  Bombay  being  produced  in  court,  the 
following  extract  from  it  was  accepted  as 
evidence  :  "  (About)  Stop,  6:15 ;  easy  ahead, 
6:19;  full  speed,  6:21." 

Fourth.  He  says,  "  I  imagined  the  Onei- 
da's  quarter-gallery  was  cut  off;  it  never 
occurred  to  me  that  she  was  in  danger." 
What,  with  the  Oneida,  as  he  must  have 
seen,  deep  in  the  water !  But  it  was  not  the 
gallery  alone — it  was  the  entire  quarter, 
exposing  the  interior  of  the  cabin,  from 
which  a  glare  of  light  issued  that  was  seen 
by  various  people  on  the  Bombay,  whose 
testimony  was  taken.  The  "  table,"  a 
dozen  witnesses  mentioned,  stood  in  the 
captain's  cabin,  the  floor  of  which  was  on  a 
level  with  the  water ;  and  as  this  was  lit  up 
by  the  light  they  speak  of,  the  peril  of  the 
Oneida  must  have  been  apparent — the 
water  must  then  have  been  entering  through 
the  breach.  Is  it  possible  that  Captain 
Eyre  alone  could  have  been  blind  to  all 
this? 

Fifth.  With  regard  to  the  hail,  "  Steamer 
ahoy ! "  etc.,  uttered  in  so  loud  and  clear 
a  voice  by  the  executive  officer  of  the 
Oneida  that  the  second  and  fourth  officers 
of  the  Bombay,  and  five  others,  all  testified 
to  having  heard  it,  Captain  Eyre  alone  was 
deaf  to  the  appeal.  In  fact,  all  his  senses 
seem  to  have  been  unusually  obtuse  at  this 
juncture.  But  he  was  not  left  ignorant  of 
what  had  occurred ;  listen  to  the  fourth 
officer's  evidence  on  this  point : 

"Immediately  afterward,  as  the  ship  [Oneida] 
dropped  astern,  she  hailed  us.  *  *  *  I  went  to 
the  bridge  and  reported  to  the  captain  what  had 
occurred.  The  commander  asked  the  pilot  if  there 
was  any  safe  place  where  the  other  ship  could  go 
ashore ;  the  pilot  said  yes,  she  was  close  to  the  Spit." 

From  this  it  may  justly  be  inferred  that 
Captain  Eyre  feared  the  Oneida  was  in  real 
danger,  notwithstanding  his  evidence  to  the 


756 


THE  LOSS   OF  THE  "  ONEIDA." 


contrary,  for  he  well  knew  that  vessels  are 
not  beached  for  trifles. 

Sixth.  Shortly  after  the  collision,  the 
Oneida  began  firing  guns  of  distress,  and 
continued  them  until  she  sank.  Now,  the 
report  of  a  six-pound  charge  fired  from  an 
eight-inch  gun  is  loud,  and  its  flash  bright ; 
but  neither  Captain  Eyre  nor  any  one  else 
on  the  Bombay,  at  the  distance  of  two 
miles,  on  a  still  night,  heard  the  one  nor 
saw  the  other;  yet  at  Yokohama,  ten  miles 
beyond  the  Bombay,  the  guns  were  dis- 
tinctly audible.  Curiously  enough  this  is 
one  of  the  "  material  points  "  on  which  all 
aboard  the  Bombay  are  in  perfect  accord 
with  their  captain. 

Seventh.  The  second  "  material  point " 
on  which  the  witnesses  for  the  Bombay  all 
agree,  is  the  bearing  of  the  Oneida;  accord- 
ing to  every  one  of  them,  she  was  just  one- 
half  point  on  the  port  bow,  notwithstanding 
that,  to  be  strictly  correct,  the  bearing  of  a 
near  object  must  be  different  to  each  ob- 
server. 

Eighth.  The  Oneida  carried  a  spare 
top-sail-yard  lashed  three  feet  from  the 
water.  The  Bombay  cut  this  in  two  be- 
tween the  lashings,  and  one  end  of  it  pene- 
trated through  the  iron  of  the  port  bow  and 
fractured  the  starboard  bow,  passing  through 
double  iron  plates.  Captain  Eyre's  evi- 
dence says : 

"  It  was  almost  immediately  after  the  collision  that 
•we  discovered  the  spar.  *  *  The  Oneida's 

gaff  and  spanker  boom,  and  part  of  her  sail,  were 
left  hanging  on  my  bow.  *  *  *  It  did  not  strike 
me  that  I  must  have  penetrated  pretty  far  into  the 
other  vessel  in  order  to  take  the  boom.  *  *  * 
I  think  it  possible  that  a  spar  from  a  vessel  could 
penetrate  and  remain  in  the  bows  of  another  vessel 
without  the  hull  of  the  former  vessel  receiving  an 
injury." 

All  this  from  a  sailor  of  thirty-seven  years' 
standing,  twenty  of  them  in  command  of 
both  sailing  and  steam  ships !  Such  was  the 
man  whose  professional  errors,  however 
gross,  can  be  regarded  with  charity;  but 
whose  want  of  heart,  whereby  he  left  one 
hundred  and  fifteen  brother  seamen  to  die  in 
the  water,  can  never  be  considered  but  with 
horror  and  loathing. 

I  shall  now  proceed  to  discuss  the  tracks 
of  the  ships. 

The  hour  the  Oneida  began  steaming 
ahead  from  her  anchorage  was  noted — 5:15 
P.  M.;  the  distance  from  the  anchorage  to 
the  light-ship  is  one  and  a  half  miles;  she 
steamed  slowly  at  first,  to  return  the  cheers 
that  were  given  her;  sail  was  not  set  until 
after  passing  the  light-ship;  then,  when 


under  all  sail  and  easy  steam,  her  speed  was 
seven  knots  an  hour — certainly  it  could  not 
have  been  greater  than  six  between  the 
anchorage  and  light-ship;  at  this  rate  it 
would  require  fifteen  minutes  to  reach  the 
light-ship,  which  brings  the  time  to  5:30  p. 
M.  Heading  then  S.  by  E.  %  E.  from  5:30 
p.  M.,  the  Oneida  proceeded  at  the  rate  of 
seven  (or  at  most  eight)  knots  an  hour  until 
6:20  P.  M.  During  this  fifty  minutes  she 
went  seven  miles,  which  would  have  brought 
her  to  where  her  officers  first  discovered  the 
lights  of  the  Bombay,  and  concluded  that 
she  would  pass  well  on  the  starboard.  The 
Oneida  therefore  proceeded  straight  on  until 
the  Bombay  was  suddenly  discovered  open- 
ing her  red  light.  This  showed  at  once  that 
the  merchant  steamer  was  violating  the  in- 
ternational rule  of  the  road,  that  approach- 
ing vessels  shall  put  their  helms  a-starboard, 
to  give  each  other  a  wide  berth.  Besides 
conforming  to  the  rule,  the  putting  the  Onei- 
da's  heim  a-starboard  was  the  most  feasible 
means  of  escaping  the  Bombay,  for  they  must 
have  met  within  three  minutes.  Had  the 
Oneida's  helm  been  put  a-port  at  this  point, 
it  would  have  required  several  seconds  for 
her  to/^f/it,  besides  which,  all  the  after  sail 
would  impede  her  ready  motion  to  star- 
board, and  it  is  most  probable  that  the  two 
ships  would .  have  met  bows-on,  before  the 
maneuvers  could  have  been  effected. 

Just  previous  to  collision,  the  Bombay's 
helm  was  put  hard  a-starboard,  to  swing  the 
ships  parallel  to  each  other,  whereby  she 
struck  the  Oneida  at  an  acute  angle  near  the 
mizzen-rigging,  instead  of  cutting  her  in  two 
near  the  mainmast,  as  she  would  otherwise 
have  done.  Consideration  of  the  condition 
of  the  man-of-war  after  she  was  struck,  and 
the  time  she  had  in  which  to  drift  to  the 
point  where  she  sunk,  establishes  her  posi- 
tion at  the  instant  of  collision  with  almost 
absolute  certainty. 

To  locate  the  Bombay,  I  have  a  variety  of 
tracks  offered,  no  two  witnesses  agreeing. 
I  will  take  first  the  statement  of  the  captain : 

"When  Kanon-Saki  light-house  was  abeam  of  my 
ship,  I  should  think  it  must  have  been  about  a  mile 
distant,  as  nearly  as  I  can  guess.  *  *  *  We 
altered  the  ship's  course  to  north  when  the  light  was 
abeam,  I  think.  That  course  would  carry  me  clear 
of  Saratoga  Spit." 

Plotting  this  on  a  chart,  I  have  a  course 
which,  at  the  rate  the  Bombay  was  going, 
would  run  her  aground  in  twenty  minutes 
upon  Saratoga  Spit.  For  the  next  position 
of  the  Bombay,  he  says  : 


THE  LOSS   OF  THE   «  ONEIDA." 


757 


"  At  6.15  P.  M.  on  the  24th  instant,  the  light-house 
on  Kanon-Saki  was  bearing  S.  by  E. ;  the  Spit  was 
bearing  E.  by  N.,  as  near  as  I  could  judge." 

At  this  point  he  says : 

"  I  saw  a  light  (the  Ondda's')  half  a  point  on  the 
port  bow — a  bright  light.  Shortly  afterwards  I 
made  out  two  lights — side  lights — a  green  and  a  red 
light.  *  *  *  .  When  I  saw  the  light,  i 


was  due  north." 


my  course 


These  statements  cannot  be  reconciled. 
They  require  a  screw  steamer,  with  no  sail 
set,  running  eight  knots  an  hour,  to  be  drifted 
nearly  two  miles  in  a  run  of  three.  Impossible ! 

A  mail  steamer,  to  which  time  is  an  im- 
portant item,  will  take  the  shortest  good 
route ;  and  as  the  Bombay  could  pass  Kanon- 
Saki  with  the  greatest  safety  at  a  point  half 
a  mile  from  the  beach,  with  twenty  fathoms 
depth  of  water,  she  did  undoubtedly  do  so. 

Adding  the  testimony  of  the  pilot,  and 
plotting  it  on  the  chart,  beside  the  captain's 
and  others,  it  appears  most  lamentable  that 
the  Bombay  did  not  continue  the  straight 
course  she  was  steering  when  first  sighted ; 
then  both  vessels  would  have  passed  to  star- 
board of  each  other,  at  the  distance  of 
nearly  half  a  mile. 

In  order  to  have  the  collision  occur  where 
it  did,  the  Bombay  must  have  gone  far  out 
of  her  way  to  crowd  the  Oneida  upon  a  dan- 
gerous shoal — with  what  object  ?  To  get  on 
the  right-hand  side  of  the  channel!  as  the 
testimony  shows  in  these  words: 

"  In  coming  up  a  narrow  channel,  it  is  usual  to 
keep  on  the  starboard  side  of  such  channel." 

Yes,  there  seems  to  be  some  local  Eng- 
lish custom,  that  in  navigating  narrow  inland 
waters  vessels  must  keep  to  the  right ;  and 
in  order  to  conform  to  this  regulation  an 
international  rule  of  the  road  was  violated 
in  a  broad  bay,  miles  in  width. 

The  pilot  says  he  thought  the  Oneida  "  was 
a  Japanese  by  the  way  she  acted."  Every 
one  who  cruised  in  Eastern  waters  in.  those 
days  is  well  aware  of  the  lamentable  want 
of  consideration  of  all  foreigners  for  native 
craft;  and  this  fact  may  be  of  use  in  ex- 
plaining why  the  Bombay's  helm  was  per- 
sistently kept  a-port,  even  when  only  the 
Oneida 's  green  and  mast-head  lights  were 
seen  over  a  mile  off,  as  the  pilot  testifies. 

In  view  of  all  that  precedes,  this  seems 
the  most  fitting  place  to  introduce  an  ex- 
tract from  a  letter  of  the  Secretary  of  the 
(U.  S.)  Navy  to  the  Speaker  of  the  House 
of  Representatives.  He  says  : 

"  From  an  examination  of  the  evidence  in  the  pos- 
session of  the  Department,  the  testimony  taken 
before  a  Court  of  Inquiry  composed  of  British  offi- 


cers, the  evidence  of  Master  (now  Lieutenant)  Yates, 
the  officer  of  the  deck  on  board  the  Oneida  at  the 
time  of  the  collision,  the  accompanying  charts,  and 
the  analysis  of  Lieutenant  Lyons,  it  is  the  opinion 
of  the  Department  that  the  Oneida  was,  when  she 
was  struck,  steering  her  proper  course  out  to  sea 
from  the  Bay  of  Yedo,  bound  to  the  United  States  ; 
that  the  ship  was  well  commanded  and  her  discipline 
good,  and  that  all  the  necessary  precautions  were 
taken  by  her  commander  to  insure  the  safe  naviga- 
tion of  the  vessel  and  to  prevent  collision ;  and  the 
rules  of  the  road  conformed  to,  agreeably  to  the  reg- 
ulations-of  the  United  States  Navy;  and  that  no 
blame  is  to  be  attached  to  the  officers  or  crew  of 
the  Omida  for  the  collision. 

The  curious  may  wonder  what  was  the 
result  of  the  Court  of  Inquiry  at  Yoko- 
hama. After  giving  a  summary  of  all  the 
points,  it  exonerates  Captain  Eyre  from  any 
blame  whatever  for  the  collision,  and  then 
closes  its  decision  with  these  words  : 

"  We  recognize  the  fact  that  he  [Captain  Eyre] 
was  placed  in  a  position  of  great  difficulty  and 
doubt;  and  in  circumstances  under  which  he  was 
called  upon  to  decide  promptly.  But  we  regret  to 
have  to  record  it  as  our  opinion  that  he  acted  hastily 
and  ill-advisedly,  in  that,  instead  of  waiting  and  en- 
deavoring to  render  assistance  to  the  Oneida,  he, 
without  having  reason  to  believe  that  his  own  vessel 
was  in  a  perilous  position,  proceeded  on  his  voyage. 
This  conduct  constitutes,  in  our  opinion,  a  breach  of 
the  33d  section  of  the  63d  chapter  of  the  Merchant 
Shipping  Act,  amendment  act  of  1862,  and  we 
therefore  feel  called  upon  to  suspend  Mr.  Eyre's 
certificate  for  six  calendar  months  from  this  date." 

One  hundred  and  fifteen  lives  lost — six 
months'  suspension ! 

In  all  trials  in  which  interested  witnesses 
are  allowed  to  testify,  there  is  much  vague- 
ness ofrecollection  about  anything  calculated 
to  injure  themselves.  Mr.  Eyre  was  explic- 
itly warned,  before  any  evidence  was  taken 
and  by  the  President  of  the  Court,  that 
whatever  he  said  might  afterward  be  used 
against  him,  should  any  charges  be  brought 
on  which  he  might  be  brought  to  trial.  He 
was  also  informed  that  if  this  inquiry  devel- 
oped sufficient  evidence,  he  would  be  ar- 
rested by  the  United  States  Minister  on  the 
charge  of  murder.  Captain  Eyre,  therefore, 
and  all  his  subordinates,  were  extremely 
careful  not  to  criminate  themselves. 

My  object  in  writing  this  article  is,  not  to 
exhibit  the  unamiable  points  of  any  individ- 
ual's character,  but  to  clear  the  officers  of 
the  Oneida  of  any  stigma  that  may  attach 
to  them  for  the  collision. 

In  conclusion,  I  must  say  that  although 
Captain  Eyre  left  a  temporary  stain  on  the 
name  of  a  British  sailor,  still  it  should  never 
be  forgotten  that  it  was  British  sailors  who 
nobly  came  forward  in  our  moment  of  ex- 
treme necessity  and  rendered  efficient  aid — 


758 


HICKETTS  HOLLOW. 


British  sailors  who  helped  us  search  for 
the  Oneidcfs  drowned — British  sailors  who 
enabled  us  to  pay  befitting  obsequies  to  her 
recovered  dead — and  British  Royal  Marines 
who  fired  the  requiem  volleys  o'er  the  cap- 
tain of  the  Oneida's  grave. 

LIST   OF   OFFICERS   LOST  WITH   THE   ONEIDA. 

Captain  E.  P.  Williams,  commanding; 
Lieutenant-commander  William  F.  Stewart, 
executive  officer  ; .  Lieutenant-commander 
Alonzo  W.  Muldaur,  navigator;  'Watch 
Officers,  Masters  Walter  Sargent  and  John 
R.  Phelan,  Ensigns  James  W.  Cowie, 
Charles  E.  Brown,  William  E.  Uhler,  George 


K.  Bower,  Charles  A.  Copp,  James  C.  Hull 
and  George  R.Adams;  Paymaster  Thomas 
L.  Tullock,  jr.;  Assistant-surgeon  Edward 
Frothingham;  First-assistant  engineers  N.  B. 
Littig  and  Haviland  Barstow;  Second-assist- 
ant engineers  Charles  W.  C.  Senter  and  John 
Fornance;  Carpenter  J.  D.  Pinner  and  Pay- 
master's Clerk  W.  C.  Thomas — in  all  twenty. 

LIST  OF  OFFICERS  SAVED  FROM  THE  ONEIDA. 

Master  Isaac  I.  Yates,  watch  officer; 
!  Surgeon  James  Suddards  ;  Acting  Boatswain 
|  Nicholas  Anderson;  and  Captain's  Clerk 
William  W.  Crowninshield — in  all  four. 

Ninety-five  men  lost — fifty-seven  saved. 


HICKETTS  HOLLOW. 


"  WHO-A-O-A-A-HUP  !  " 

The  stage  stopped  with  a  jerk ;  the  cloud 
of  dust  which  we  had  been  outrunning  all 
the  way  down  the  mountain  suddenly 
swooped  in  at  the  windows,  making  itself 
evident  to  every  sense,  and,  now  that  our 
motion  had  ceased,  the  air  grew  at  once 
many  degrees  hotter.  The  incessant  rattle 
and  jolt  of  the  past  four  hours  was  displaced 
by  an  oppressive,  sultry  quiet,  which  ren- 
dered every  movement  of  the  horses  in  the 
harness  distinctly  audible.  The  driver 
swung  himself  leisurely  down  from  his  seat, 
choked  his  wheel  with  a  stone,  and,  after 
extricating  my  baggage  from  the  boot, 
assisted  me  to  alight,  remarking,  as  he  did 
so,  that  "  this  hyar  "  was  "  t'  Fork." 

Apparently  I  had  missed  connection. 
My  friends  were  to  have  met  me  here  but 
no  carriage  was  in  sight  save  the  triumphant 
"  Mountain  Rover,"  as  it  bumped  its  way 
on  toward  its  destination.  I  was  all  right 
as  to  locality ;  there  was  the  white  house  on 
the  slope,  and  the  broken  sign-post  which 
had  been  described  to  me,  but  for  other 
indications  of  human  life  only  a  dissolving 
view  of  the  rusty  coach,  becoming  more  and 
more  vague  in  its  own  dust. 

At  this  moment,  while  I  sat  deliberating, 
a  tall  woman  emerged  from  the  woods 
which  skirted  the  turnpike,  and  walked  off 
up  the  road.  She  had  a  basket  filled  with 
blackberries  on  her  head,  while  an  empty 
tin  pail,  stained  with  the  same  fruit,  hung  on 
her  arm.  She  moved  too  fast  for  me  to  ob- 
tain a  sight  of  her  face,  except  a  profile 
glimpse  which  I  caught  as  she  passed. 
This  gave  me  the  impression  of  strongly 
marked  features  and  a  peculiar  complexion. 


There  was  a  self-reliant  poise  expressed  in 
the  erect,  angular  figure  which  made  me 
watch  her  with  considerable  interest. 
Strange  to  say,  she  did  not  stop  and  stare. 
She  gave  one  quick,  sidelong  glance  in  my 
direction  without  turning  her  head;  then 
tramped  on  with  the  air  of  having  a  long 
walk  before  her  and  was  soon  out  of  sight. 

Seeing  no  other  alternative,  I  trudged  up 
the  slope  to  the  white  house,  and  asked  the 
man,  who  sat  in  the  door- way,  if  I  might  not 
come  in  and  wait  until  Mr.  Williams  should 
send  for  me.  He  assented  at  once,  said  the 
stage  was  "  earlier'n  gin'ral,"  and  escorted  me 
into  a  sort  of  best  bedroom,  where  I  waited 
what  seemed  to  me  an  interminable  time. 
Just  as  my  head  was  aching  its  worst,  from 
.  the  combined  causes  of  fatigue  and  hunger, 
the  man,  who  divided  his  attention  between 
me  and  the  road,  announced  quietly  : 

"'Yere's  yer  wagin  an' t'  tumbley  cart  fur 
yer  trunks." 

Headache  better  in  a  moment !     I  ran  to 
the   door  and  cordially  greeted  my  rough 
I  charioteer — a  farm  hand,  minus  coat  and  vest 
|  — who  helped  me*  to  my  seat  beside  him, 
•  while  my  baggage  was  being  lifted  from  the 
j  road-side  into  the  tumbley  cart  by  a  sullen- 
looking  black  boy.     A  brisk  trot  down  the 
rocky  road,  in  the  comfortable  little  j  agger, 
i  a  slow  walk  across  the  prettiest  little  river 
1  ever  forded,  a  further  progress  of  two  miles 
i  with    those    great    solemn    mountains    all 
around,  like   giant   sentinels   guarding   the 
lovely  valley.     Finally,  we  drew  up  before  a 
substantial  brick  dwelling — my  destination. 
Mrs.  Williams  ran  out  to  meet  me,  accom- 
panied  by   her  daughter,  a   pretty  girl  of 
fifteen,  and  her  sister,  Belle  Holmes.     The 


HICKETTS  HOLLOW. 


759 


sight  of  Belle  was  a  surprise  to  me.  I  had 
thought  her  far  away  at  her  home  in  Penn- 
sylvania, but  her  unexpected  appearance  was 
a  great  treat.  Surely  a  more  cheerful,  pleas- 
antly helpful  woman  than  she,  never  existed. 

The  unaffected  kindness  felt  and  expressed, 
the  genuine  hospitality  manifested  by  my 
hostess,  did  more  to  render  me  comfortable 
and  happy  than  even  fresh  water,  clean 
clothes  and  a  good  supper. 

The  sun  was  high  in  the  heavens  when  I 
awoke  next  morning.  Afraid  of  being  late, 
I  sprang  up  and  dressed  quickly — then, 
re-assured  by  hearing  no  bell,  I  drew  aside 
my  curtain  and  looked  out.  It  was  too 
late  to  see  the  mist  wreaths  melt  away. 
The  sun  had  already  cleared  all  impedi- 
ments from  his  path,  and  now  shone  on  in 
undimmed  glory — there  was  not  even  one 
white  speck  in  the  perfectly  blue  sky. 
Here  and  there,  down  the  blue-green  mount- 
ain-side, one  could  detect  little  patches  of 
cultivated  ground,  while  clustered  in  a 
clump  about  the  base  of  the  nearest  mount- 
ain was  what  appeared  to  be  a  tiny  village, 
the  only  indication  of  human  habitation  in 
this  wild  mountain-region. 

In  our  after-breakfast  chat  in  the  shady 
front-porch,  I  casually  mentioned  the  singular 
figure  I  had  seen  while  waiting  at  the  Fork. 

"  That  must  have  been  Ibbie  Hickett,"  said 
Belle.  "  She  is  a  character,  and  you  must 
see  her  when  she  conies  to  sell  her  berries." 

I  soon  grew  profoundly  interested  in 
Belle's  account  of  the  Hicketts  and  of 
Hicketts  Hollow — which  I  found  was  the 
name  of  the  small  settlement  I  had  noticed 
from  my  window.  They  were  all  of  one 
family,  though  it  would  be  difficult  to 
define  their  relationship  to  one  another,  as 
the  marriage  relation  was  almost  unknown 
among  them, — very  ignorant  and  poor. 
When  I  asked  if  something  could  not  be 
done  to  improve  them,  Belle  said  she  had 
often  tried  to  get  the  children  to  come  to 
her,  Sunday  afternoons,  but  so  far  her  efforts 
had  been  entirely  unsuccessful ;  they  would 
not  come  and  she  could  not  go  to  them. 
She  had  thought  of  doing  so,  but  when  she 
mentioned  her  plan  her  brother-in-law  posi- 
tively forbade  it,  and  said  no  lady  should 
ever  go  alone  to  Hicketts  Hollow.  The 
men  drank  whenever  they  could  get  the 
liquor,  they  were  rude  and  impertinent,  and 
the  idea  was  altogether  impracticable. 

"  There  was  a  cabin  some  distance  off — 
further  up  the  mountain.  Is  that  one  of 
them  ?  "  I  asked. 

She  looked  in  the  direction  I  indicated. 


"Yes,  that  is  Simps  Hickett's  house. 
Mr.  Williams  calls  him  the  '  head  devil  of 
the  lot.'  He  is  a  handsome  savage,  and 
possesses  rather  more  intelligence  than  most 
of  his  kinsfolk — but  his  temper  is  terrible. 
He  lives  there  with  his  wife,  Ibbie,  and 
three  children.  The  mountain  women  say 
he  treats  her  cruelly,  yet,  in  spite  of  this, 
she  is  devoted  to  him  and  fears  him  to  an 
extent  which  is  almost  amusing,  when  you 
see  what  a  powerful  creature  she  is." 

A  few  mornings  later,  as  I  sat  alone  in 
my  room,  Belle  knocked  at  the  door. 

"  Come  down  in  Emma's  room,"  she 
said.  "  Ibbie  Hickett  is  there ;  she  has 
sold  her  berries,  and  I  am  afraid  she  may 
go  without  your  seeing  her." 

Down  I  went  at  once.  I  found,  sitting 
in  an  easy  chair  in  Mrs.  Williams's  bed- 
room, an  odd-looking  figure  enough.  It 
was  a  woman,  tall,  raw-boned  and  muscular, 
with  long  strong  arms  and  powerful,  sinewy 
hands.  Her  perfectly  straight  black  hair 
hung  down,  lank  and  greasy,  around  her 
gaunt  face.  She  was  barefooted,  and  her 
short  stuff  petticoat  reached  very  little 
below  the  knee.  Something  there  was 
about  her  which  recalled  the  degraded 
type  of  the  North  American  Indian;  the 
complexion  was  thick  and  muddy,  with 
dashes  of  ugly  red  about  the  high,  prominent 
cheek-bones.  Singularly  at  variance  with 
the  black  hair  and  tawny  skin  were  the 
eyes;  these  were  of  a  light-gray  color, 
bright,  restless  and  almost  fierce.  A  wide 
mouth,  containing  a  set  of  even  white 
teeth,  completed  this  description,  and  Ibbie 
Hickett  sits  before  you.  Something  strangely 
familiar  about  the  woman,  apart  from  her 
grotesque  appearance,  made  me  look  at  her 
rather  fixedly.  She  was  perfectly  free  from 
embarrassment.  As  I  entered,  she  bent  for- 
ward and  coolly  returned  my  gaze  with  a 
self-possession  which  a  London  belle  might 
have  envied. 

"  Ibbie,"  said  Mrs.  Williams,  "here  is  a 
lady  from  away  down  the  railroad.  You 
must  look  at  her  well,  and  tell  me  which 
you  think  is  the  prettier,  she  or  Belle." 

Ibbie  could  scarcely  have  looked  at  .me 
much  harder  than  she  was  already  doing ; 
but,  as  Mrs.  Williams  spoke,  she  darted  her 
glittering  light  eyes  around  on  Belle  for  an 
instant,  then  they  were  brought  to  bear  on 
me  again.  I  thought  I  detected  a  flash  of 
recognition  in  them  as  they  seemed  to  take 
in,  with  one  comprehensive  glance,  my  face, 
figure  and  costume.  Her  opinion  was  given 
in  a  sort  of  guttural  sing-song.  She  began 


760 


HICKETTS  HOLLOW. 


low  down  the  scale,  gave  full  value  to  the 
first  note,  gradually  quickened  the  time  as 
she  increased  in  pitch,  until  she  reached 
the  word  "  fattest,"  when  she  suddenly 
dropped  her  voice  to  its  first  tone  and  com- 
pleted the  sentence : 

"  Wy,  t'  biggest  one ;  t'  fattest  one's  t' 
puttiest." 

I  suppose  I  must  have  looked  a  little 
disconcerted.  It  is  not  pleasant  to  listen  to 
a  candid  disapproval  of  one's  personal 
appearance,  even  when  that  disapproval  is 
expressed  by  a  wild  creature  like  Ibbie 
Hickett.  Belle  read  my  countenance,  and 
hastened  to  interpose  in  my  behalf. 

"  Why,  Ibbie,  I  thought  you  would  like 
her  fair  skin.  I've  heard  you  say  you  liked 
white  skins  many  a  time,  and  I'm  so  dark." 

Ibbie  took  a  cool,  leisurely  survey  of  my 
slender  proportions,  and  presently  chanted 
out  as  before : 

"  Ye-a-as,  she's  whi-ite  'nuff,  an'  she's 
ri-ight  good-lookin'  gal — too ;  but  she's  too 
poor  fur  me;  w'en  I  see  her  standin'  in  t' 
pi-ike  I  knowed  s'  haint  got  'nuff  meat  hon 
her." 

This,  then,  was  the  woman  whom  I  had 
seen  on  the  road.  I  wondered  that  I  had 
not  recognized  her  sooner,  her  individuality 
being  so  marked. 

Belle,  perceiving  the  impossibility  of  ex- 
torting a  compliment  for  me  from  Ibbie, 
tried  a  change  of  subject. 

"  Ibbie,  I  hear  you  have  a  new  baby ;  is 
it  pretty  ?  " 

"  Ye-a-as,  hit's  putty,  Baal," — Ibbie  never 
said  Miss, — "hit's  reel  putty;  hit  favors 
Simps ;  he's  'bout  t'  puttiest  man  I  ever  see." 

"  Is  he  fond  of  it?" 

The  woman's  face  changed  in  a  moment. 
She  rose  abruptly,  and  gathered  her  baskets 
from  the  floor. 

"  Someti-imes  h'  li-ikes  hit;  someti-imes  h' 
don't,"  she  replied,  curtly.  "  Nobody  can't 
make  him  li-ike  nut'in'  'dout  h'  wants  ter; 
h'  kin  whup  any  man  in  t'  holler;  he  haint 
'feard  er  nobody,"  she  added,  with  an  odd 
kind  of  pride. 

"  Does  he  ever  whip  you,  Ibbie  ?  "  inquired 
one  of  the  children,  who  was  standing 
nea*r. 

"  I  haint  a-gwine  to  tell  none  on  yer 
nut'in'  't  all  'bout  Simps,"  said  Ibbie,  with 
rough  decision.  She  continued,  her  face 
wearing  an  uneasy  expression: 

"  Ef  he  knowed  hit,  ef  Simps  knowed  hit, 
he'd  jess  lief  pick  hup  some  'um  nuther  an' 
knock  me  in  t'  head  's  not." 

"  But  he  wouldn't  know  it,"  said  Belle. 


"  Who  on  earth  would  be  mean  enough  to 
tell  him  such  things  ?  " 

"  Oh,  plenty  powerful  mean  critters  'bout 
yere,"  replied  Ibbie,  sententiously.  "  'Sides, 
h'  knows  everything  'pears  li-ike.  Gimme 
my  money,  Mis'  Williams ;  I  mus'  g'  home 
ter  t'  chill'un." 

She  took  the  coin  without  a  word  of 
thanks,  and  stalked  out  of  the  room.  Just 
as  she  reached  the  hall  door,  Bessie  Will- 
iams commenced  playing  a  popular  melody 
very  badly ;  the  parlor  was  opposite,  the  door 
open,  and  the  sound  to  us  was  disagreeably 
audible.  Ibbie  did  not  think  so,  however. 
She  pricked  up  her  ears,  showed  her  white 
teeth  in  a  grin,  nodded  her  head  in  time  to 
the  tune,  and  finally  threw  back  to  us,  over 
her  shoulder,  by  way  of  a  parting  salutation : 

"  That  there  thin'  makes  er  mi-ighty  putty 
noise." 

A  moment  more  and  we  saw  her  tall 
figure  striding  up  the  road,  with  the  heavy 
baskets  poised  on  her  head. 

"  Well,  what  do  you  think  of  her  ?  "  said 
Belle. 

"  Oh,  I  hardly  know ;  it  seems  to  me  she 
is  a  woman  of  tremendous  force.  Did  you 
notice  how  reserved  she  was  about  her  hus- 
band ?  " 

"  Yes,  indeed." 

"  I  believe  he  does  beat  her ;  Mr.  Will- 
iams," said  I,  as  the  Squire  entered  the  hall, 
"  you  are  a  magistrate.  Could  not  a  stop 
be  put  to  such  cruelty  ?  " 

"  What  cruelty  ?  "  inquired  the  big,  good- 
humored  man.  "  Oh,  I  suppose  Belle  has 
been  enlisting  your  sympathies  in  behalf  of 
Ibbie  Hickett — it's  a  sort  of  hobby  with  Belle. 
Now,  you  know,  Mrs.  King,  /think  our  friend 
Ibbie  needs  no  champion.  I  met  her  just 
now  on  the  road,  and  it  struck  me  she  looked 
quite  as  capable  of  self-defense  as  any  man  I 
know,  besides,  she  dotes  on  Simps.  I  don't 
believe  she  would  ever  forgive  me  if  I  was 
to  interfere  between  him  and  her.  So  I  let 
them  alone,  and  am  very  popular  with  both. 
Emma,"  turning  to  his  wife,  "  can't  you 
stop  that  thrumming  in  the  parlor?  Come, 
Mrs.  King,  let's  let  our  neighbors'  domestic 
affairs  alone,  and  have  some  good  music." 

One  Sunday  morning,  early  in  September, 
as  I  went  down  to  a  late  breakfast,  I  found 
Mrs.  Williams  and  Belle  in  the  hall,  busily 
engaged  in  packing  two  large  hampers  with 
eatables  of  various  kinds.  The  children  were 
running  excitedly  around,  getting  in  the 
way,  and  everything  betokened  some  exo- 
dus of  an  unusual  kind. 


HICKETTS  HOLLOW. 


761 


"  We  are  going  to  a  big  meeting  at  the 
'  Hawk's  Bill,'  "  said  my  hostess,  before  I 
had  time  to  ask  questions.  "  We  only 
heard  of  it  this  morning.  Make  haste  and 
eat  your  breakfast, — you  must  not  fail  to  go; 
it  will  be  an  entirely  new  experience  to  you." 

"  Will  it  be  right  to  go  on  Sunday  ?  "  said 
I,  remembering  a  graphic  account  I  had 
received  of  these  meetings. 

"  Well,  I'm  afraid  you  will  not  be  spirit- 
ually much  benefited,"  replied  Belle.  "  I 
would  rather  go  on  a  week-day  myself;  but 
the  difficulty  lies  just  here — the  meeting 
only  lasts  one  day." 

"  You  haven't  much  time  to  lose,"  put  in 
the  Squire ;  "  the  Hawk's  Bill  is  a  good  "long 
way  off,  and  Emma  is  always  late." 

I  stifled  the  rising  voice  of  conscience, 
soon  finished  my  breakfast,  changed  my 
dress,  and  was  ready  for  the  expedition. 
Our  party  was  a  pretty  large  one.  Mr. 
Williams,  the  children,  the  nurse  and  the 
baskets  were  packed  in  the  bottom  of  the 
rickety  spring-wagon,  as  tightly  as  sardines 
in  a  box.  Mrs.  Williams,  who  rivaled  Jehu 
in  her  style  of  driving,  and  who  prided  her- 
self upon  her  proficiency  in  that  exercise, 
assumed  the  reins  quite  as  a  matter  of 
course.  Belle  and  I,  less  ambitious,  and 
certainly  less  capable,  made  ourselves  con- 
tent with  the  back  seats  of  the  "jagger," 
while  Joe,  the  ploughman,  undertook  the 
management  of  our  horses. 

It  was  after  eleven  o'clock  before  we 
reached  the  meeting-house,  and  the  sermon 
had  already  begun.  The  various  carts, 
wagons  and  buggies,  with  the  crowd 
which  surged  and  swayed  before  us,  ren- 
dered it  a  matter  of  impossibility  to  come 
within  thirty  yards  of  the  building.  So  we 
remained  seated  in  our  respective  vehicles, 
on  the  extreme  outskirts  of  the  congregation. 
The  preacher,  for  the  greater  convenience  of 
most  of  his  hearers,  was  stationed  in  the  open 
air,  a  few  paces  from  the  door.  As  well  as  I 
could  judge  from  the  discourse,  of  which  I 
caught  only  stray  fragments,  the  speaker 
taught  fatalism  of  the  most  radical  kind. 

"Why  do  you  send  for  a  doctor  when 
your  children  are  sick  ? "  he  vociferated 
hoarsely,  gyrating  his  arms  about  in  erratic 
and  redundant  gesture.  "  It's  because 
you  haint  got  faith.  I  tell  you  the  thing's 
displeasin'  to  Almighty  God.  Do  you 
doubt  His  power  to  save  you  ?  Then  why 
employ  human  means  ?  If  your  child  dies, 
what  then?  It  dies  because  its  time  is 
come ;  if  the  Lord  wills  to  take  it,  all  the 
doctors  in  the  world  wont  save  it.  An' 


ag'in,  all  this  yere  nonsense  'bout  Sunday- 
schools;  'taint  right;  if  the  children  are 
goin'  to  be  saved,  they  will  be,  that's  all; 
if  not,  you  might  send  them  to  Sunday- 
school  for  fifty  years,  an'  'twouldn't  do 
no  good.  Ag'in,  there's  a  good  many 
people  says  you  mus'  go  to  school,  an'  go 
to  college,  'fore  you're  fitten  to  preach.  / 
never  learned  at  college,  an'  yere  I've  ben 
a-preachin'  to  big  crowds  for  twenty  years. 
Yes,  brethren,  I  thank  the  Lord  /  never 
rubbed  my  head  ag'in'  a  college  wall." 

Just  then  Belle  touched  my  arm. 

"  Ibbie  Hickett  is  behind  us,"  she  said,  in 
a  low  tone.  "  I  wonder  what  she  came  for; 
I  never  knew  her  to  attend  a  religious 
meeting  before." 

I  turned  around,  and  looked  out  from  the 
tiny  window  in  the  back  of  the  carriage. 
The  woman  was  standing  in  the  shade  of  a 
large  tree,  with  two  forlorn  children  near 
her.  Certainly  it  was  not  a  holiday-seeking 
spirit  which  had  brought  her  to  the  "  Hawk's 
Bill."  She  was  attired  in  her  usual  short 
homespun  gown,  and  she  carried  a  calico 
sun-bonnet  in  her  hand. 

Her  manner  was  entirely  free  from  self- 
consciousness,  except,  perhaps,  that  she 
seemed  to  shun  observation  with  a  sort  of 
instinct  which  made  no  demand  on  her 
attention.  The  contrast  which  her  haggard 
face  and  soiled  garments  made  with  the 
gaudy  finery  of  the  other  women  present  was 
very  marked.  Her  restless  gray  eyes  did 
not  glance  around  with  their  accustomed 
alertness;  instead,  she  kept  them  intently 
fixed  on  a  distant  part  of  the  grounds. 
Looking  in  that  direction,  I  had  just  espied 
a  tall  man  and  a  gayly  dressed  woman  talk- 
ing together,  when  Belle  exclaimed : 

"  She  is  watching  Simps  and  that  Cox 
girl ;  there  they  are,"  and  she  designated  the 
couple  I  had  noticed.  "I  heard  that  he 
visited  at  Cox's  a  great  deal.  Now  I  know 
what  brought  Ibbie  here  to-day;  she's  as 
jealous  as  Othello." 

"  Aunt  Belle,"  called  out  one  of  the  chil- 
dren, "  mamma  says  come  and  help  her  with 
dinner." 

The  morning  sermon  was  by  this  time 
concluded,  and  the  congregation  had  begun 
to  bestir  themselves.  Most  of  them  were 
making  for  their  respective  baskets. 

Belle  descended  from  the  carriage  and 
walked  off  with  her  little  nephew,  and  I  was 
left  alone — Joe  having  long  since  betaken 
himself  to  more  congenial  society  than  ours. 
I  was  unable  to  resist  a  strange  impulse 
which  kept  my  eyes  fixed  in  the  direction 


762 


HICKETTS  HOLLOW. 


of  Ibbie  Hickett.  I  felt  for  her  an  almost 
unaccountable  sympathy,  and  this  in  spite 
of  her  repulsive  appearance. 

The  poor  thing's  jealous  misery,  so  plainly 
expressed  in  her  countenance,  seemed  to 
confer  upon  her  a  kind  of  dignity.  She 
never  once  withdrew  her  steady  gaze  from 
the  man  and  woman  who  were  walking 
together,  but  presently  I  saw  her  eyes  take 
a  shorter  range.  At  the  same  time  she 
quickly  and  carefully  withdrew  herself  and 
children  behind  a  large  farm-wagon  which 
stood  between  her  and  the  crowd,  and  which 
served  to  screen  the  trio  entirely  from  my 
view.  Simps  must  be  somewhere  near.  I 
scanned  the  crowd  for  him  and  Jinny  Cox, 
with  the  scarlet  dress  of  the  latter  for  a 
guide.  Ah !  there  they  were,  scarcely  ten 
yards  from  me  now.  They  formed  two  of  a 
lot  of  people  grouped  around  a  water-melon 
stand.  The  vender  of  the  melons  was  driv- 
ing a  brisk  trade.  The  preacher  himself, 
determined  to  be  consistent  with  his  teach- 
ing, was  slowly  working  his  way  through  the 
crowd  toward  the  pine  boards  piled  up  with 
dark-green  "  Mountain  Sweets." 

Simps  Hickett  stood  on  the  side  next  our 
carriage,  waiting  for  his  turn,  and  I  had  abun- 
dant opportunity  to  satisfy  my  curiosity 
regarding  him  and  his  companion.  She  was 
a  blowsy,  vain-looking  girl  of  about  twenty, 
with  a  round,  simpering  face,  rosy  cheeks 
and  dark  eyes — rather  pretty  in  spite  of  the 
five  distinct  shades  of  red  she  had  contrived 
to  combine  in  her  costume.  The  man's 
magnificent  physique  almost  startled  me. 
Tall  and  well  formed,  broad  in  the  shoulders, 
deep  in  the  chest,  he  held  his  handsome  head 
like  a  stag.  The  features  were  clearly  cut 
and  almost  perfectly  regular;  the  long,  sen- 
suous eyes  were  a  deep,  perfect  blue,  well 
shaded  by  profuse  black  lashes.  He  would 
have  been  beautiful,  but  the  lower  jaw  was 
too  heavy  and  sullen,  the  mouth  too  dogged ; 
and,  as  he  turned  to  speak  to  the  girl,  one 
lost  sight  of  the  pure  tint  of  his  eyes  after 
their  expression  became  visible. 

"  Jinny,"  said  he,  in  a  mellow  baritone, 
which  accorded  well  with  his  face  and  figure, 
"  arter  w'  gits  t'  watey-melin,  le's  take  hit 
in  t'  woods.  We  kin  eat  hit  thar,  an'  I  kin 
talk  t'  yer  better — I  ca-ant  s'  nutin'  to  yer 
fur  t'  fellers  a-runnin'  arter  yer." 

Jinny  seemed  to  object;  possibly,  being  a 
belle,  she  did  not  care  to  waste  her  engag- 
ing manners  and  brilliant  costume  on  Simps 
Hickett  alone. 

"  Oh,  no,  Simps,"  she  said,  giggling ;  "  I 
don't  keer  fur  t'  melin  hin  t'  woods — t' 


preachin'  '11  'gin  'fore  long.  Yere's  er  good 
place,  nigh  dis  wagin.  •  Come  'long ;  no- 
body ca-ant  yere  yer  thar." 

After  a  little  demur  she  seemed  to  carry 
her'point.  Simps  shouldered  the  melon,  and 
they  sat  just  back  of  our  carriage,  with  only  a 
farm  wagon  between  them  and  Ibbie.  Belle's 
voice,  speaking  close  to  me,  made  me  start. 

"  What's  the  matter  ? "  she  exclaimed. 
"  Your  face  is  as  white  as  your  dress ;  I  am 
afraid  this  long  jaunt  has  been  too  much  for 
you." 

I  nodded  toward  the  man  and  woman, 
now  busily  engaged  with  their  collation. 

"  Ibbie  is  hiding  behind  that  wagon.  Oh, 
Belle,  something  will  surely  happen." 

Scarcely  was  this  sentence  uttered  when 
the  little  ragged  girl,  who  had  evidently 
escaped  from  her  mother,  crept  from  her 
hiding-place  and  accosted  the  man. 

"  Gimme  er  piece,  daddy,"  she  said,  ex- 
tending her  little  dirty  hand;  "I'm  so 
hongry." 

Simps  had  been  too  much  occupied  with 
the  feast  and  Jinny  to  notice  the  child's  ap- 
proach until  she  spoke;  his  first  expression 
was  that  of  astonishment;  but  almost  im- 
mediately his  face  darkened. 

"  Who  brung  yer  yere,  Nance  ?  "  he  asked. 

"  Mammy  brung  me ;  sh'  brung  Pete,  too; 
we's  ben  yere  putty  nigh  all  t'  mornin'." 

"  Whar's  yer  mammy  now  ?  "  said  Simps, 
rising. 

"  She's  roun'  thar,  'hin'  t'  wagin.  She  let 
me  an'  Pete  play  all  'roun'  yere  tell  w'  seed 
yer  an'  Jinny  a-comin' ;  den  mammy  hid  us 
'hin'  t'  wagin,  she  did." 

"  She's  hid  'hin'  t'  wagin,  are  she  ?  Well, 
yer  g'  back  t'  her,  an'  take  that  wid  yer." 

Here  he  struck  the  child  with  his  heavy 
hand,  as  he  added,  with  a  short  laugh,  "  Yer 
kin  tell  her  I  gin  hit  t'  yer." 

Nancy  shrieked  with  pain  and  terror.  At 
that  instant,  as  if  summoned  by  an  irresist- 
ible voice,  the  mother  sprang  into  view  and 
caught  the  sobbing  child  in  her  arms.  Then 
she  turned  fiercely,  like  a  she-wolf  at  bay, 
her  blazing  light  eyes  glaring  on  silly,  fright- 
ened Jinny  Cox. 

"  Twuz  you  got  her  that  thar  lick ;  he 
wouldn't  er  teched  her  ef  hit  warn't  for  you. 
I  tell  yer,  Jinny  Cox,  yer'd  better  cl'ar  'way 
f  'om  yere  putty  quick,  if  yer  want  to  save  yer 
mushy  face." 

Ibbie  still  preserved  her  peculiar  guttural 
chant,  even  in  the  midst  of  her  rage.  I  re- 
member I  thought  at  the  time  it  increased 
her  resemblance  to  an  angry  beast.  Jinny 
Cox  began  to  whimper. 


HICKETTS  HOLLOW. 


763 


"  La,  Ibbie,  /  never  teched  Nance.  I 
wouldn't  hurt  her  no  way.  She's  welcome 
t'  a  piece  er  melin.  Yere,  Nance,  take  er 
piece,  an'  go  give  mammy  some." 

Ibbie  dashed  away  the  peace-offering,  and 
strode  up  to  her  rival. 

"  Ef  she  teches  hit,  /'//  whup  her  worser'n 
he  done.  Go  'way  whar  yer  come  Pom,  an' 
leave  my  man  'lone." 

Jinny  shrank  in  her  terror  closer  to  Simps, 
and  this  goaded  Ibbie  to  frenzy. 

"  If  yer  don't  want  ter  git  hurt,  yer'd  bet- 
ter step  dis  minnit." 

She  added,  with  a  still,  deliberate  utter- 
ance, which  I  had  to  strain  my  ears  to  catch : 

"  I  swar,  ef  I  ever  gits  hole  yer,  yer  wont 

nuver Yer'd  better  take  keer,  Jinny 

Cox." 

Jinny  was  beginning  to  move  off  in  a 
bewildered  fashion,  when  Simps,  who  had 
been  watching  the  frantic  woman  with  a  set, 
dark  attention,  now  interposed. 

"  Yer  kin  jis'  stay  whar  yer  is,  Jinny,"  said 
he,  touching  the  girl's  shoulder.  "  Leave 
her  t'  me.  I  kin  fix  her;  set  down  an' 
wait  er  minnit.  I'll  soon  git  done." 

Approaching  Ibbie,  with  his  half-closed 
eyes  fastened  on  her,  I  thought,  in  spite  of 
his  handsome  face,  he  was  neither  pleasant 
to  see  nor  safe  to  encounter.  When  he 
spoke  it  was  in  his  deepest  voice,  and  with 
a  sense  of  mastery  which  had  its  effect  at 
once. 

"  Haint  yer  knowed  no  better'n  t'  come 
yere  peekin'  arter  me  ?  Is  I  got  ter  learn 
yer  'gin  ?  " 

Ibbie,  after  the  first  glance  at  him,  looked 
down  at  the  child  in  her  arms,  and  began 
nervously  to  pick  at  its  frock. 

"  I  s'pose  yer  feels  mighty  smart  braggin' 
'bout  tearin'  people's  faces,"  he  continued, 
"  but  I  tell  yer,  an'  yer  know  I  haint 
mucher  han'  fur  foolin',  ef  I  ever  yere  yer 
talkin'  that  way  'gin,  w'y  I'll  sarve  yer  like 
I  done  t'  big  rattlesnake  tried  to  bite  me 
las'  week;  he'll  never  p'isen  nobody  no  more ; 
yer  seen  me  hit  him,"  and  his  grim  smile 
pointed  his  last  remark  significantly.  "  Take 
dem  chillun  an'  g'  home  faster'n  what  you 
come — d'yer  yere  ?  " 

The  woman  was  no  match  for  Simps 
Hickett;  she  knew  it,  and  attempted  no 
reply  to  his  threat.  One  felt,  while  listen- 
ing to  him,  that  there  was  a  strong  reserve 
of  moral  force  which  he  kept  in  check ;  he 
might  employ  it  at  any  time,  but  the  pres- 
ent occasion  did  not  demand  its  use. 

As  he  spoke,  Ibbie's  flushed  face  gradually 
settled  into  the  scared,  ashen  look  we  had 


noticed  once  before.  Even  then  her  jeal- 
ous fondness  for  this  man,  stronger  than  fear, 
asserted  itself  in  a  last  effort  to  recall  him. 

"  I  never  meant  to  make  yer  mad,  Simps," 
she  faltered.  "  Come,  g'home  wid  me  an' 
t'  chillun.  Yer  cloze  his  all  mended  good 
an'  t'  dinner's  on  a-cookin'." 

He  made  no  reply — he  was  letting  her 
exhaust  herself. 

Poor  Ibbie  blundered  on,  with  a  ghastly 
attempt  at  ease : 

"  W'y,  I  brung  t'  chillun  yere  so  I  could 
fin'  yer,  an'  tell  yer  about  hit.  Come, 
Simps,  haint  yer  a-gwine  ?  " 

"  D'yer  think  yer  kin  fool  me  'bout  dinner 
an'  cloze,  an'  sech  ?  I  haint  no  fool.  Yer 
come  yere  to  peek  arter  me,"  replied  he. 
"  I  knows  yer  ways,  an'  'member,  ef  I  ever 
ketches  yer  peekin'  arter  me  'gin — w'y,  jis' 
take  keer,  that's  all.  Jinny  'n'  me  's  keepin' 
comp'ny  ter-day.  I  reckon  I'll  hev  to  go 
whar  she  sez.  She's  er  powerful  good- 
lookin'  gal,  yer  see,  Ibbie,"  with  a  cold 
smile,  "  an'  hit  kinder  res's  er  man  ter  look 
at  her  arter  he's  ben  had  so  much  er  sich 
ugly  wimmin." 

He  turned  from  Ibbie,  and  walked 
toward  the  Cox  girl,  saying : 

"  Come  'long,  Jinny.  Sh'  wont  pester 
you  no  more." 

Jinny,  now  all  possible  harm  to  herself 
had  been  averted,  had  recovered  her  habit- 
ual self-complacency ;  she  stood  waiting  for 
Simps,  bridling  rather  triumphantly.  Ibbie 
did  not  face  either  of  them  after  that  last 
taunt ;  for  the  first  time  her  grotesque  figure 
seemed  to  trouble  her.  She  gave  one  of 
her  quick  looks  at  her  muddy  frock  and 
soiled  ankles,  then  she  wheeled  suddenly 
around,  put  on  her  slat  sun-bonnet,  called 
"  Pete,"  and  was  ready  for  her  ten  miles' 
tramp.  She  had  to  pass  our  carriage  in 
order  to  gain  the  road.  Her  bonnet  did 
not  hide  her  face.  We  could  see  that  the 
bright,  fierce  eyes  were  dimmed  with  tears, 
and  the  hard  mouth  was  working. 

She  still  carried  the  little  girl  in  her  arms, 
the  boy  trotted  by  her  side,  holding  on  to 
her  frock.  The  children  did  not  appear 
to  think  anything  unusual  had  happened, 
except  the  fact  of  their  mother's  tears. 
"  Nance  "  was  begging  her  not  to  cry,  and 
"  Pete  "  was  asking  if  her  foot  hurt  much. 
The  whole  party  had  a  travel-worn  and 
weary  appearance,  and  Belle's  kind  heart 
could  stand  it  no  longer. 

"  Come  here,  Ibbie,"  she  called;  "  sit 
down,  while  I  run  and  get  you  some  din- 
ner." 


764 


HICKETTS  HOLLOW. 


She  walked  quickly  away  to  give  Ibbie 
time  to  recover  herself,  and  I  turned  my 
head  toward  the  crowd  for  the  same  reason. 

She  was  the  first  to  speak. 

"  I  never  seed  y'  all  'fore.  Is  yer  ben 
yere  all  t'  time  ?  " 

The  unsubdued  emotion  in  her  voice  told 
me  I  must  not  look  at  her  yet. 

"  For  some  time,"  I  said,  as  lightly  as  I 
could.  "  What  do  you  think  of  the  new 
preacher,  Ibbie  ?  " 

"  I  didn't  git  t'  yere  him,"  she  replied. 
"  I  wur  too  fur  off."  Then,  after  a  pause, — 
"  Did  you  see  me  jis'  now?  " 

I  looked  toward  Belle,  who  was  return- 
ing, as  I  answered: 

"  I  saw  you  talking  with  a  man.  Is 
he  your  husband  ?  " 

"  Yes,  that's  Simps,  an'  that  there  gal  wur 
his  cousin,  Jinny  Cox;  he  haint  seen  her 
fur  er  good  piece;  she's  ben  stayin'  way 
'roun'  t'  udder  side  t'  mpunt'n  wid  her  aunt. 
She's  his  cousin,  yer  see,  an'  he's  gwine  ter 
take  her  home.  Nance,  yer  must  'a'  switched 
yer  coat  in  my  eye, — 'pears  li-ike  hit  keeps 
hon  a-waterin'." 

Belle's  hands  were  full  of  eatables,  and  the 
children  were  soon  eating  with  an  eagerness 
which  told  of  long  fasting.  Ibbie  refused 
to  take  anything;  she  took  one  mouthful 
when  we  insisted,  but  she  shook  her  head 
as  we  again  proffered  the  food. 

"  I  ca-an't  eat,"  she  said ;  "  'pears  li-ike 
t'  vittles'd  choke  me ;  but  thanky,  Baal,  fur 
t'  chillun.  Come,  chillun,  yer  got  'nuff 
now;  's  long  way  home." 

We  watched  her  until  her  tall  figure  was 
no  longer  visible.  Then  I  looked  at  my 
companion.  She  drew  a  long  breath,  and 
we  descended  from  the  carriage,  and  walked 
on  toward  the  meeting-house. 

"  Some  people  is  sech  fools !  "  observed 
"  Marthy  Ann,"  the  house-girl,  as  she  vigor- 
ously dusted  the  mantel-piece.  It  was  about 
four  or  five  days  after  the  meeting  at  the 
"  Hawk's  Bill." 

I  gave  a  murmur  of  assent  to  this  most 
truthful  statement,  and  returned  to  my  book. 
But  this  did  not  satisfy  "  Marthy."  She 
evidently  had  some  communication  to  make. 
She  invited  inquiry,  lingering  in  my  vicinity 
dusting  and  re-dusting  the  furniture,  glanc- 
ing in  my  direction  every  now  and  then ; 
but  I  asked  no  questions,  and  she  presently 
broke  out  again  with :  "  Thar'll  be  er  broken 
head  'bout  yere  'fore  long,  I'm  thinkin',  ef 
some  people  don't  look  out  an'  learn  some 
sense,"  wagging  her  own  head  mysteriously. 


"  Hit  do  'pear  like  Ibbie  Hickett  haint  got 
t'  sense  sh'  wuz  born  with." 

"  What  about  Ibbie  Hickett  ?  "  I  asked, 
roused  into  sudden  interest. 

"W'y,  she's  follerin'  Simps  'roun'  ag'in. 
An'  ef  he  ketches  her  at  it — well,  I  wouldn't 
like  ter  stan'  in  her  shoes,  that's  all !  " 

"  How  do  you  know  she  is  following 
him  ?  " 

"  I  seen  her  at  it,  Mis'  King — that's  w'y. 
Yeste'day  ev'n'  I  come  'long  home  f'om 
mammy's,  over  thar  t'  udder  side  t'  Holler, 
an'  I  come  acrost  Simps  Hickett  an'  Jinny 
Cox,  plump.  Sh'  wuz  goin'  over  ter  t' 
Holler.  An'  I  stopped  an'  talked  ter  Jinny 
er  piece,  an'  bimeby  I  started  'long  home. 
An'  I  hadn't  went  no  way  'fore  I  come 
acrost  Ibbie,  free-pin'  'long  easy,  like,  up 
'g'in  t'  bushes.  I  speak'n  ter  her,  but  sh 
wouldn't  stop.  Sh'  said  sh'  wur  in  er  hurry. 
An'  Jim  Bryles,  he  come  acrost  her  ter-day. 
He  tell'n'  Mis'  Pettit,  an'  Mis'  Pettit  tell'n' 
me.  Well,  all  I  got  ter  say,  I  hope  Simps 
wont  see  her ;  he  wont  take  no  foolin'  off 
nobody — much  less  off  Ibbie." 

Only  two  days  after  this  the  September 
rains  set  in,  and,  as  a  matter  of  course,  the 
little  Shenandoah  became  swollen  and  tur- 
"bulent,  detaining  me  in  the  neighborhood 
beyond  my  time.  There  was  no  flood,  but 
the  ford  could  not  be  used,  and  I  was  told 
to  make  myself  content,  as  I  could  not  get 
home  for  a  week  or  more. 

One  evening,  as  we  were  sitting  in  the 
parlor  at  work,  Mr.  Williams  came  in  and 
stood  quietly  beside  the  table.  I  looked  up, 
and  met  such  a  grave  look  that  I  immedi- 
ately asked  if  anything  had  gone  wrong  on 
the  farm. 

"  Not  on  the  farm,"  he  said.  "  At  least, 
not  on  this  farm;  but  that  old  bridge  at 
Kite's  is  gone  at  last,  and  carried  a  poor 
woman  with  it  into  the  brook.  She  was 
alive  when  I  come  from  Kite's;  but  the 
doctor  says  she  wont  get  well." 

"  Why,  the  water's  not  deep  enough  to 
drown  any  one  there;"  said  Belle. 

"  No ;  but  she  has  received  severe  internal 
injuries,  and  she  can't  live  long,  no  how. 
She's  been  asking  for  you,  Belle,  and  I  want 
you  to  get  ready.  I'll  take  you  'round  to 
Kite's  right  away." 

"  Who  is  it?  "  we  all  cried. 

"  It's  that  poor  thing,  Ibbie  Hickett.  She 
was  picked  up  by  one  of  Kite's  men,  and 
taken  there.  I  don't  understand,"  pursued 
the  Squire,  with  a  perplexed  countenance, 
"how  that  bridge  come  to  go.  'Twas  a 


HICKETTS  HOLLOW. 


765 


crazy  old  thing,  to  be  sure;  but  nothing 
short  of  a  yoke  of  oxen  and  cart  could 
make  it  give  way.  One  woman  of  Ibbie 
Hickett's  weight  ought  to  cross  safe  enough. 
I  thought  may  be  Simps's  devilment  was  al, 
the  bottom  of  it;  but  she  says  she  was 
entirely  alone.  Well,  poor  thing,  she's  done 
for  now.  You'd  better  go  with  Belle, 
Emma,"  said  he,  addressing  his  wife. 

Mrs.  Williams  hesitated.  One  of  the 
children  was  not  well,  and  she  had  been  a 
little  anxious  all  day. 

"I'll  go,"  said  I;  "I've  nothing  to  keep 
me,"  and  about  fifteen  minutes  later  found 
us  on  the  road. 

Kite's  farm-house  was  only  about  two 
miles  distant,  and  we  soon  reached  the  cabin 
where  Ibbie  Hickett  lay.  There  was  a  dim 
light  burning  inside,  and  two  or  three  women 
were  seated  around  the  room  as  we  entered. 
/  Belle  walked  right  up  to  the  bed,  and 
spoke. 

"  Is  that  you,  Baal  ? "  said  the  sick 
woman,  feebly. 

"  Yes,  Ibbie.     How  do  you  feel  ?  " 

"  I'm  mos'  pas'  feelin'  bad,"  she  said, 
brokenly.  "  I'm  a-goin',  Baal,  I'm  a-goin', 
shore.  An'  I  aint  sorry  ter  go,"  she  added, 
after  a  short  pause.  "  Not  much.  'Taint 
so  good  a-livin'  ter  make  er  body  hate  ter 
die,  ef  'twa'n't  fur  them  poor  chillun  an'  t* 
baby.  I  spec  he's  hongry  now,"  she  said, 
making  an  effort  to  rise. 

"  He's  yere,  Ibbie,"  said  one  of  the  women. 
"Jim  Kite  went  over  ter  the  Holler  and 
brunged  him." 

"  Bring  him  in,  Patty,"  said  Belle.  "  Ibbie 
wants  him — don't  you,  Ibbie  ?  " 

I  repeated  this  request. 

"  Who's  that  ?  "  said  Ibbie,  suddenly,  as 
she  looked  in  my  direction.1  I  came  forward. 

"  It's  I,  Ibbie.  Don't  you  remember 
me?" 

She  looked  at  me  fixedly,  and  then  said, 
wearily : 

"  Oh,  yes.  I  'member  now — you  wuz  at 
t'  *  Hawk's  Bill '  that  day.  She's  er  good 
gaal,  too,  Baal.  W'en  she  sees  er  body's  in 
trouble,  she  don't  make  um  feel  wussern  t' 
do,  talkin'  'bout  hit." 

The  woman  here  entered  with  the  baby. 
Ibbie  stretched  out  her  brawny  arms  for 
him,  and  they  placed  him  beside  her. 

"  Mammy's  baby,"  she  murmured,  bro- 
kenly, as  she  stroked  the  little  plump  cheek 
with  her  hard  hand.  "  Don't  he  favor 
Simps,  now  ?  "  she  continued,  turning  to  us 
with  a  feeble  attempt  at  a  smile. 

"  Where  is  Simps  ?  "  asked  Belle. 


"  /dunno — I  dunno,"  said  the  sick  woman, 
with  a  kind  of  wail.  "  I  telled  t'  men  ter  tell 
him  t'  come ;  but  I'm  'feered  he  haint  at  t' 
Holler.  He's  'feered  I'll  tell,"  she  muttered, 
tossing  her  head  uneasily  from  side  to  side. 
"  He  needn't  be  'feered.  I  wouldn't  tell,  not 

ef  they  killed  me  dead What  did  I 

say  ?  "  she  said,  suddenly,  in  a  different  tone. 
"Y'  all  mustn't  mind  me.  Words  comes 
outen  my  mouth  sometimes,  an'  'pears  li-ike 
I  don't  have  nuthin'  ter  do  wid  'em." 

"  Here's  Simps  now,"  said  Belle,  as  a  tall 
figure  darkened  the  door-way. 

"  Oh,  sen'  him  yere,"  said  his  wife,  eagerly. 

"  Come  yere,  Simps ;  I  got  sumun'  ter  tell 
yer.  Go  'way,  y'  all ;  you  too,  Baal ;  all  on 
yer — I  don't  want  nobody  't  all." 

We  stepped  into  the  next  room,  and  sat 
there  in  perfect  silence.  We  could  hear  a 
faint  hum  of  voices  from  the  room  where  the 
dying  woman  lay.  About  ten  minutes 
passed,  when  Simps  came  and  called  us  to 
come  in.  Ibbie  was  looking  brighter,  and 
one  of  the  women  evidently  thought  her 
well  enough  to  answer  a  few  questions. 

"  I  ca-an't  make  out  how  t'  ole  bridge 
•  come  t'  fall,  Ibbie,"  she  said.  "  Me  an'  Pat- 
ty's ben  er  studyin'  'bout  hit  putty  nigh  all 
t'  eve'n',  an'  we  ca-an't  make  out  how  yer 
done  it,  'dout  yer  had  'er  fight,  or  sumun', 
an'  yer  say  t'  wa'n't  nobody  thar  to  fight  wid." 

Simps  stood  by  the  fire,  looking  down  at 
the  coals;  but  I,  who  was  standing  next 
him,  thought  I  detected  a  look  of  quick  at- 
tention as  Ibbie  replied : 

"  T'  bank  give  way  thar ;  't  wuz  muddy  an* 
slip'ry,  an'  1  fell  down  hard  on  t'  ole  bridge, 
an'  fore  I  knowed  hit  I  wuz  in  t'  water." 

"  Wa'n't  nobody  nowheres  nigh,  ter  yere 
yer  holler  ?  " 

"  Thar  wa'n't  nobody  nigh  me,  I  tell  yer," 
said  Ibbie,  feverishly  eager;  "  nobody 't  all, 
tell  Jim  Kite  come  'long — nobody  't  all." 

At  this  moment  the  doctor  returned.  I 
asked  him  if  she  were  not  talking  too  much. 
He  merely  shook  his  head;  but  I  knew 
from  his  look  that  the  end  must  be  very 
near — nearer  than  we  thought. 

"Baal,"  said  Ibbie,  "yer'll  take  Nance 
an'  learn  her,  yer  say ;  Simps  don't  keer." 

"  Yes,  Ibbie,  I  promise  you." 

"  She's  er  gal,  an'  I  want  her  t'  learn  sum- 
un'; t'  yuthers  is  boys;  they'll  git  'long 
some  way;  'pears  li-ike  'taint  so  hard  for 
boys  t'  git  'long." 

There  was  a  long  silence,  unbroken 
except  by  the  crackle  of  the  fire,  and  the 
faint  sound  of  the  coals,  as  they  dropped 
now  and  then. 


766 


THE    VALUE    OF   VIVISECTION. 


Presently  Belle  began  to  speak  in  a  low 
tone  to  Ibbie.  I  could  now  and  then  catch 
a  word.  She  was  trying  to  take  the  place 
of  the  priest  at  this  bed  of  death. 

The  sick  woman  appeared  to  listen.  All 
at  once,  she  gave  a  kind  of  smothered  groan. 

"  My  bres',''  she  cried,  piteously,  "  hit 
hurts  so!  Ca-an't  some  er  you  do  sumum' 
for  me  ?  " 

I  ran  for  the  bottle  of  liniment,  but  the 
doctor  whispered,  "  It's  no  use." 

Belle  heard  him,  and  fell  on  her  knees 
beside  the  bed. 

"  Ibbie,  Ibbie,"  she  cried,  "  can't  you  try 
and  love  God?  Can't  you  try  and  listen 
while  I  pray  to  Him  for  you  ?  Oh,  Ibbie, 
He  loves  you !  He  died  on  the  cross  for  you 
— for  you.  He  let  them  kill  Him  because 
He  loved  us  so.  Can't  you  understand 
that  ?  " 


"  Died — 'cause — He— loved — us — so,"  re- 
peated Ibbie,  as  if  groping  for  the  meaning. 
Then  her  tone  changed. 

"Yes,  I  know  what  yer  mean."  A  slight 
pause,  then  she  added,  in  a  hoarse  whisper, 
'"'Taint — so — hard — ter — do — hit, — Baal, — 
ef — ef  yer — ef  yer  think  much — think  'nuff 
er  anybody " 

When  Belle  rose,  Ibbie  was  speechless, 
and  the  doctor  motioned  us  to  leave  the 
room.  Simps  would  have  gone,  too,  but 
Ibbie  stretched  a  feeble,  detaining  hand 
toward  him,  and  we  passed  out  and  left  him 
standing  irresolutely  in  the  middle  of  the 
room. 

We  entered  the  carriage,  and  drove  home 
in  perfect  silence. 

An  hour  later,  the  doctor  stopped  to  tell 
us  Ibbie  Hickett  was  dead. 


THE  VALUE  OF  VIVISECTION. 


"  DOES  vivisection  pay  ?  "  is  the  question 
which  was  discussed,  with  much  moderation 
and  force,  in  the  July  number  of  SCRIBNER'S 
MAGAZINE.  Since  in  this  country  public 
opinion  is  at  once  jury  and  judge,  it  is  nat- 
ural that  men  like  myself,  who  have  prac- 
ticed vivisection  largely,  and  who  believe  in 
its  great  importance,  should  desire  that  the 
reasons  for  an  affirmative  answer  to  the 
question  should  be  heard  by  those  who  have 
read  the  negative  reply. 

It  should  be  clearly  borne  in  mind  that 
the  existence  of  an  abuse  of  a  practice  is  no 
reason  for  the  abolition  of  such  practice, 
although  it  may  be  a  good  reason  for  its 
regulation  by  law.  It  is  further  plain  that 
the  law  must  reach  the  abuse  to  do  good, 
and  that  consequently  it  is  essential  that  the 
abuse  should  be  proven  to  exist  where  the 
law  is  demanded.  Cruelties  practiced  in 
France  are  not  to  be  remedied  at  Albany 
nor  Harrisburg. 

So  far  as  concerns  the  medical  schools 
of  Philadelphia,  vivisection  without  anaes- 
thetics is  not  practiced  to  any  extent,  if  at 
all,  for  class  demonstration,  and,  in  my  own 
opinion,  demonstrative  vivisection  is  not  jus- 
tifiable, unless  with  the  use  of  anaesthetics. 
It  will  be  seen,  therefore,  that  there  is  no 
discord  between  the  first  three  conclusions 
reached  in  the  previous  paper  and  my  own 
views. 

It  is  the  last   proposition  of  the  paper 


under  consideration  to  which  most  strenu- 
ous objection  is  here  offered,  because  it  is 
believed  to  contain  an  important  misstate- 
ment  as  to  facts,  and  because  it  would,  if 
carried  out,  strike  a  staggering  blow  at  that 
scientific  study  of  medicine  which  is  in 
America  still  in  its  infancy.  The  proposition 
alluded  to  is  as  follows : 

"  IV.  In  view  of  the  slight  gain  to  practical  medi- 
cine resulting  from  innumerable  past  experiments  of 
this  kind,  a  painful  experiment  upon  a  living  verte- 
brate "  (is  an  invertebrate  animal  not  endowed  with 
nerves  ?)  "  animal  should  be  permitted  by  law  solely 
for  the  purposes  of  original  investigation,  and  then 
only  under  the  most  rigid  surveillance,  and  preceded 
by  the  strictest  precautions." 

No  word  is  more  winsome  to  the  non- 
scientific  American  mind  than  is  "practi- 
cal," but  no  word  is  more  easily  abused. 
Every  new  truth  which  gives  us  greater 
grasp  over  the  forces  and  materials  of  nature 
is  a  practical  fact.  Upon  science  the  most 
abstruse  rest  the  practical  applications  of  an 
Edison;  a  Henry  must  needs  precede  a 
Morse.  What  is  z'w/ra<r//<rtf /medicine?  Every 
fact  which  adds  to  our  knowledge  of  the 
healthy  structure  or  of  the  normal  workings 
of  the  animal  organism;  every  revelation 
as  to  the  nature  of  disease  poisons, — the 
avenues  through  which  they  enter  the 
body,  the  methods  in  which  they  work  out 
their  deleterious  results,  the  ways  in  which 
nature  triumphs  over  these  effects  and  gets 


THE    VALUE   OF  VIVISECTION. 


767 


rid  of  them, — in  other  words,  every  fact  which 
is  an  addition  to  our  knowledge  of  the  laws 
of  health  and  disease  is  a  practical  fact;  and 
when  these  facts  have  been  added  by  the  aid 
of  vivisection,  one  to  the  other,  until  all  is 
known  concerning  the  healthy  and  diseased 
workings  of  the  human  system,  one  great 
branch  of  medical  science  will  have  been 
perfected.  Knowing  disease,  we  will  be  in 
a  position  to  undertake  its  cure. 

Anatomy  or  the  structure  of  animals  may 
be  studied  upon  the  dead.  Physiology  or 
the  science  of  life  and  life  actions  must  be 
studied  upon  the  living.  It  would  occupy 
many  pages  of  this  magazine  to  show  in 
detail  what  vivisection  has  been  to  physiol- 
ogy. Such  a  demonstration  would  indeed 
be  simply  a  co-writing  of  the  history  of 
vivisection  and  of  physiology.  Fortunately, 
it  is  not  at  present  necessary ;  the  SCRIBNER 
essayist  himself  says : 

"  It  is  undeniable  that  to  the  practice  of  vivisec- 
tion we  are  indebted  for  nearly  all  our  present  knowl- 
edge of  physiology.  However  questionable  it  may 
be  whether  from  future  experiments,  and  especially 
from  that  class  of  experiments  in  which  the  infliction 
of  pain  is  a  necessity,  any  additions  to  our  present 
knowledge  are  likely  to  be  acquired,  it  is  certain  that 
about  all  we  have  we  owe  to  this  source." 

One  thought  is  naturally  suggested  by 
this  quotation.  As  there  is  no  other  known 
way  of  making  physiological  researches  ex- 
cept by  vivisection,  as  "  about  all  we  know" 
has  been  discovered  through  vivisection  and 
as  these  discoveries  continue  to  be  made  in 
an  increasing  rather  than  a  decreasing 
ratio  up  to  the  present  writing,  it  is  not 
reasonable  to  suppose  that  no  future  addi- 
tions will  be  made  through  vivisection  to 
our  present  very  imperfect  knowledge  of 
physiology. 

Exactly  what  is  meant  by  "  practical  medi- 
cine," I  do  not  know ;  but  all  medical  science 
rests  upon  or  is  bound  up  with  the  science 
of  physiology,  and,  on  the  principle  that 
the  greater  includes  the  less,  the  admission 
made  in  the  paragraph  last  quoted  dis- 
proves the  statement  that  practical  medicine 
has  had  but  "  slight  gain  "  from  experiments. 
This  is  true  even  if  the  term  physiology 
be  used  in  the  narrower  sense  to  which 
it  has  been  incorrectly  limited  by  some 
modern  writers, — that  is,  the  science  which 
treats  of  healthy  function.  As  well  might 
it  be  said  that  Newton's  law  of  gravitation 
was  a  slight  gain  to  practical  astronomy, 
or  that  light  is  a  slight  gain  to  the  searcher, 
as  that  a  knowledge  of  the  blood  supply 
of  the  liver,  the  way  its  nerves  control  the 


action  of  its  blood-vessels  and  of  its  secre- 
ting cells,  the  methods  in  which  it  acts 
upon  the  crudely  prepared  food  brought 
to  it,  of  the  effects  it  has  upon  the  blood, 
of  the  substances  which  it  casts  out,  of  the 
relation  of  its  bile  to  the  lower  intestine, 
was  a  slight  gain  to  the  doctor  who  meets 
liver  disease  in  the  sick-room.  Without 
modern  physiology,  modern  medicine  were 
not.  The  vivisector  working  in  the  labora- 
tory lays  the  foundation  on  which  the 
clinician  working  in  the  hospital  builds. 

Physiology,  however,  in  its  original  sense, 
includes  the  science  of  diseased  as  well  as 
of  normal  life  actions.  The  study  of  physi- 
ology of  disease,  or  "  experimental  pathol- 
ogy," has  not  progressed  nearly  as  far  as 
has  that  of  normal  physiology,  partly  be- 
cause, until  we  understand  the  laws  of 
health,  we  cannot  investigate  wisely  those 
departures  from  these  laws  which  we  call 
disease,  partly  on  account  of  the  greater 
difficulties  which  beset  the  study  of  morbid 
physiology,  and  partly  because  only  within 
a  few  years  have  the  profession  begun  to 
recognize  the  importance  of  the  subject. 
So  far  from  this  field  offering  little  prospect- 
ive hope  of  gain,  in  it  lie  really  the  hopes 
of  medical  science ;  we  have  scarcely  com- 
menced to  dig  for  the  precious  ore. 

The  study  of  disease  by  the  bedside  has 
been  prosecuted  so  earnestly,  so  ably,  so 
long,  that  it  has  in  great  part  reached  the 
limit  beyond  which  it  of  itself  cannot  pass. 
Take,  as  an  instance,  the  subject  of  lung  and 
heart  disease;  there  has  been  a  perfecting 
of  details,  but  in  no  important  point  has  our 
knowledge  of  these  diseases  progressed  since 
I  was  a  student  of  medicine,  save  only 
where  they  have  been  studied  by  means  of 
experiments  upon  the  lower  animals.  The 
fact  that  a  piece  of  glass  placed  under  the 
skin  will  produce  consumption  in  the  rabbit 
may  not  seem  a  very  practical  one,  yet  it, 
and  the  series  of  experimental  facts  to  which 
it  belongs,  have  completely  upset  the  views 
universally  held  by  the  profession  a  few 
years  since  in  regard  to  the  most  common 
and  most  fatal  of  maladies.  Through  years, 
popular  belief  held  to  the  suspicion  that 
consumption  is  contagious ;  the  profession 
derided  the  idea.  Now  the  experimentalist 
has  proven  that  he  can  pass  it  from  man  to 
the  lower  animals,  and  from  one  lower  ani- 
mal to  another.  To  complete  the  chain  of 
evidence,  we  ought  to  pass  it  from  the  lower 
animal  to  man,  but  this  is  neither  justifiable 
nor  really  necessary.  There  is  enough  to 
show  that  the  popular  suspicion  was  well 


768 


THE    VALUE    OF   VIVISECTION. 


grounded.  Is  it  a  "  slight  gain  "  that  we 
are  able  to  warn  the  wife  who  is  nursing  a 
consumptive  husband  against  sleeping  in 
the  same  bed  or  room  with  him,  or  coming 
into  unnecessary  personal  contact  ?  Is  it  a 
"  slight  gain  "  for  us  to  know  that  the  attend- 
ants in  a  consumptive  ward  must  not  be 
too  closely  confined  in  the  air,  and  espe- 
cially must  take  precautions  against  any 
possible  inhaling  of  the  sputa  of  the  sick  ? 

In  order  to  meet  any  cause  of  evil  judi- 
ciously, it  is  essential  that  the  nature  of 
this  cause  be  understood.  Studies  upon 
man  himself  never  have,  and  probably  never 
can,  isolate  and  determine  the  nature  of  the 
poison  which  produces  such  diseases  as  diph- 
theria, small-pox,  typhoid  fever,  etc.,  etc. 
Supposing  we  had  five  bottles  of  organic 
matter,  and  knew  that  in  one  of  them  was 
the  veritable  poison  of  diphtheria,  pure  and 
isolated,  and  that  the  other  four  contained 
only  more  or  less  poisonous  animal  products, 
thousands  of  lives,  it  might  be,  would  be 
saved  by  knowing  the  nature  of  the  diph- 
theria poison;  but  would  public  opinion  jus- 
tify the  investigator  in  going  into  a  foundling 
hospital,  and  there  make  trial  until  out  of  the 
heap  of  dead  babies  came  forth  the  perfected 
knowledge  ?  It  is  plain  that,  in  order  to 
recognize  any  principle,  we  must  have  some 
test  for  it,  and  the  only  original  test  for  dis- 
ease-poison is  its  power  of  producing  the 
disease.  Progress  in  this  line  is  impossible 
except  by  experiments  upon  the  lower  ani- 
mals. In  the  difficulty  of  passing  conta- 
gious human  diseases  to  the  lower  animals 
lies  at  present  the  great  obstruction  to  our 
ascertaining  the  nature  of  disease-poison. 
But  some  diseases  certainly  do  pass  from 
man  to  animals,  and  from  animals  to  man. 
Moreover,  there  are  many  contagious  ani- 
mal diseases,  and  here  is  opportunity  of 
determining  the  nature  of  the  contagious 
poisons.  For  the  sake  of  animal  life,  for  the 
preservation  of  our  wealth  of  herds,  the 
government  should  further  not  suppress  ex- 
periment. Such  a  disease  as  hog-cholera 
should  by  government  aid  be  siudied  until 
absolutely  known. 

Only  one  or  two  more  instances  of  the  prac- 
tical application  of  experimental  pathology 
can  be  mentioned  for  want  of  space.  A 
reader  of  SCRIBNER'S  said  to  me,  "  Of  what 
use  is  it  to  know  that  a  stick  in  a  certain 
part  of  the  rabbit's  brain  will  cause 
diabetes  ? "  Not  long  since,  I  saw  a  case 
of  diabetes  in  consultation  which  had  re- 
sisted all  treatment.  Certain  symptoms 
made  me  believe  that  the  trouble  was  due 


to  a  specific  tumor  of  the  brain,  pressing 
upon  the  diabetic  spot.  Sure  enough;  in 
three  weeks,  under  appropriate  treatment, 
the  diabetes  was  cured.  Brown-Sequard  has 
discovered  that,  if  you  cut  the  sciatic  nerve 
of  the  Guinea-pig,  epilepsy  is  developed,  but 
that,  if  a  certain  region  of  the  skin  of  the  face 
is  cut  out,  the  animal  gets  well.  Some  time 
since,  a  boy  was  struck  on  the  head  with  a 
brick;  epilepsy  followed,  and  two  years  of 
complete  wreck  of  health,  threatening  idiocy. 
A  vivisector  was  at  last  called  in  consulta- 
tion, and,  bearing  in  mind  Brown-Sequard's 
experiments,  had  the  scar  on  the  head  cut 
out.  Result — cure.  A  considerable  gain, 
that,  to  one  young  life. 

So  far  I  have  spoken  of  the  aid  rendered 
by  vivisection  to  our  knowledge  of  disease. 
Knowing  disease  and  how  to  recognize  it, 
the  physician  wants  to  know  how  to  remedy 
it.  Hence  the  great  science  or  art  of  healing 
known  as  therapeutics.  This  is  certainly 
practical,  and  it  is  just  here  that  vivisection 
has  been  most  active  in  the  last  fifteen 
years  and  accomplished  most  of  good.  It 
is  plain  that  the  chief  obstacle  to  the  suc- 
cessful study  of  therapeutics  at  the  bedside 
lies  in  the  difficulty  in  deciding  whether  the 
patient  has  got  well  in  consequence  of  or  in 
spite  of  the  administration  of  the  medicine. 
The  sho'e-maker  of  a  village  was  sick  of  a 
fever;  a  customer  called  and  said,  "John 
sick  of  a  fever!  Give  him  cabbage  and 
pork."  So  it  was  done,  and  in  a  day  or  two 
the  cobbler's  shop  resounded  as  of  yore  with 
cheery  song  and  its  lapstone  accompaniment, 
whilst  in  the  note-book  of  the  cobbler  was 
written,  "  Fever  cured  by  pork  and  cabbage." 
Weeks  rolled  on.  The  blacksmith's  forge 
was  one  day  silent.  Note-book  in  hand, 
over  ran  the  warm-hearted  son  of  Crispin. 
"Fever?"  "Yes."  "  Give  him  pork  and 
cabbage."  The  next  day,  the  crape  swayed 
heavily  upon  the  door-knob  of  the  smithy. 
The  shoe->maker  stands  before  it  nonplussed, 
but  suddenly  his  face  lightens  up,  and  tug- 
ging out  his  note-book,  he  writes,  "  Fever : 
Pork  and  cabbage  cures  shoe-maker,  but  kills 
blacksmith  " — and  is  satisfied. 

In  this  over-true  incident  lies  an  epitome 
of  the  older  methods  of  therapeutics.  So 
many  patients,  so  many  recoveries  after  this, 
so  many  more  after  that — that  is  the  remedy. 
The  modern  method  of  therapeutics  tries  to 
find  out  the  natural  history  of  the  disease, — 
its  course,  progress,  its  dangers — how  nature 
brings  about  the  recovery  when  left  to  itself, 
and  how  the  disease  kills, — and  thus  learns 
what  can  be  and  what  cannot  be  done, 


THE    VALUE    OF   VIVISECTION. 


769 


and  also  what  it  is  desirable  to  do.  It  then 
stifdies  its  drugs,  and,  knowing  what  it  wants 
to  do  and  what  it  has  to  work  with,  adapts 
its  means  to  the  end.  As  a  simple  and 
familiar  example  of  this,  take  typhoid  fever. 
The  profession  has  learned  that  the  typhoid 
fever  process  once  fairly  established  cannot 
be  aborted,  but  that  it  tends  to  stop  in 
three  weeks  if  the  patient  live;  also  that  it 
kills  sometimes  by  producing  general  ex- 
haustion, sometimes  by  the  fever  burning 
up  the  strength,  sometimes  by  diarrhea. 
We  do  not  try  to  arrest  the  fever  process, 
but  by  appropriate  means  to  prevent  ex- 
haustion, to  check  or,  better  still,  prevent  the 
diarrhea ;  if  the  fever  be  excessive,  to  remove 
the  heat  by  cool  sponging  or  bathing;  and 
thus,  as  it  were,  to  bring  the  ship  safely 
through  the  storm  we  cannot  prevent. 

It  is  evident  that  there  is  only  one  way  in 
which  we  can  learn  the  action  of  drugs  upon 
human  beings — namely,  by  experiments  upon 
the  lower  animals,  supplemented  by  studies 
upon  man  himself  in  health  and  disease. 
It  has  been  denied  that  drugs  act  upon  the 
lower  animals  as  upon  man.  The  discussion 
of  this  subject  would  be  too  technical  for  a 
magazine  article  like  the  present.  Suffice  it 
to  state  that  this  objection  is  at  present 
almost  never  heard  from  medical  men  under 
fifty  years  of  age,  and  that  the  two  books  on 
therapeutics  which  practically  hold  in  this 
country  the  market  are  written  avowedly 
upon  the  principle  here  upheld. 

A  single  illustration  will  suffice  to  indi- 
cate the  necessity  of  vivisection  to  the 
therapeutist.  A  drug  reduces  the  rate  of 
the  heart's  beat ;  this  reduction  may  be  pro- 
duced by  a  stimulation  of  one  set  of  nerves, 
or  it  may  be  caused  by  a  paralysis  of 
another  set  of  nerves.  In  order  to  deter- 
mine in  which  way  the  drug  acts,  the  first 
set  of  nerves  are  removed  under  anaes- 
thetics, and  when  the  animal  has  recovered 
the  medicine  is  administered;  if,  now,  it 
lower  the  pulse  rate,  it  is  evident  that  it 
paralyzes  the  second  set  of  nerves.  Lack 
of  space  forbids  further  illustration,  but  it  is, 
I  think,  sufficiently  evident  even  to  the  lay 
reader  that,  in  order  to  determine  how  a 
drug  acts;  we  must  be  able  to  vary  at  will 
the  conditions  of  the  experiment,  removing 
this  or  that  possible  cause  of  the  symptoms 
produced,  until  we  find  the  real  cause.  We 
never  can  do  this  except  upon  the  lower 
animal,  unless,  indeed,  we  are  willing  to  lay 
aside  our  consciences  and  go  to  China. 

I  have  seen  it  stated,  with  an  air  of  tri- 
umph, that  vivisection  has  never  added  a 
VOL.  XX.— 50. 


single  new  remedy  to  our  list  of  medicines. 
The  mere  assertion  of  such  a  fact  as  an  argu- 
ment shows  the  total  absence  of  any  com- 
prehension of  the  province  of  vivisection. 
Vivisection  does  not  originate — it  tests  and 
determines.  I  had  sent  to  me,  not  long 
since,  a  lot  of  plants  belonging  to  the  genus 
Astragalus,  said  to  be  the  poisonous  "  Loco- 
plant"  or  "  Crazy- weed,"  which  kills  so  many 
horses  and  cattle  upon  the  western  plains ; 
a  few  experiments  showed,  however,  that  the 
plant  in  question  was  not  a  poison,  and  that 
further  search  must  be  made  for  the  true  crazy- 
weed.  The  natives  of  Africa  have  certain 
ordeal  barks  and  beans ;  the  vivisector,  pro- 
curing these,  determines  whether  they  will 
be  useful  to  the  physician  or  are  merely 
poisonous.  Such  is  the  province  of  vivi- 
section— not  to  originate  remedies,  but  to 
determine  their  value  and  the  ways  in  which 
they  act. 

It  is  not  possible  here  even  to  enumerate 
the  various  individual  additions  made  by 
vivisection  to  our  knowledge  of  action  of 
drugs  upon  man ;  let  me,  however,  point  out 
a  very  old  and  a  very  recent  subject  as  ex- 
amples :  When  I  was  a  student  of  medicine, 
digitalis  had  been  studied  at  the  bedside  by 
the  profession  for  over  three  hundred  years, 
having  been  introduced  into  notice  by  Fuch- 
sius  in  1 542 ;  and  the  books  and  memoirs 
which  had  been  written  about  it  would 
almost  fill  a  small  library.  It  had  been  for 
centuries  known  to  have  the  power  of  reduc- 
ing the  pulse,  and  in  1860  we  were  most 
earnestly  taught  that  it  was  a  powerful  car- 
diac depressant,  to  be  avoided  strenuously 
when  the  heart  was  weak.  In  the  last  fif- 
teen years  the  vivisector  has  been  at  work, 
and  now  we  know  that  digitalis  is  an  invalu- 
able heart  tonic  and  stimulant, — a  gain  to 
practical  medicine  which  has  brought  ease 
and  prolonged  existence  to  hundreds  of  suf- 
ferers, and,  not  rarely,  even  life  to  the  dying. 
It  is  almost  universally  acknowledged  by  the 
medical  profession  that  ether  is  a  safe  but 
inconvenient  anaesthetic,  and  chloroform  an 
unsafe  but  convenient  one.  There  is,  there- 
fore, a  constant  search  after  a  new  agent. 
Not  long  since,  the  bromide  of  ethyl  was 
brought  forward  as  a  substance  uniting  to 
the  safety  of  ether  the  good  qualities  of 
chloroform.  It  rapidly  rose  in  favor.  The 
vivisector  took  hold  of  it,  and  announced 
that  it  was  even  more  dangerous  than  chlo- 
roform, and  would  certainly  kill  in  the  same 
sudden,  uncontrollable  manner.  Some  clin- 
icians believed  this.  Many  were  too  much 
charmed  to  do  so.  Scarcely  a  week  elapsed, 


770 


THE    VALUE    OF   VIVISECTION. 


however,  before  a  case  was  reported  in 
which  death  was  nearly  produced  in  the 
way  which  had  been  foretold ;  a  few  weeks 
later,  the  prediction  of  the  vivisector  was 
fully  verified  upon  the  operating-table,  and 
now  the  whole  profession  acquiesces  in  his 
verdict.  Is  it  a  "  slight  gain  "  to  be  able  to 
determine,  at  the  expense  of  the  lives  of  a 
few  dogs  or  cats,  that  a  remedy  is  not  safe, 
and  not  to  be  forced  to  experiment  on 
human  beings  until,  by  repeated  fatal  results, 
the  lesson  has  been  learned  ? 

Verbum  sat  sapienti.  I  think  enough  has 
been  said  to  justify  my  opinion,  that  the  con- 
tinued progress  of  medical  science  is  alone  pos- 
sible through  •vivisection,  and  that  without  it 
our  medical  knowledge,  except  in  certain  special 
directions,  will  become  as  crystalline  as  that 
of  the  Chinese. 

In  the  United  States,  vivisection  certainly 
does  not  pay — the  vivisector.  To  him  it  is 
a  costly  business,  in  the  actual  outlay  re- 
quired, in  the  toil  gone  through,  and  in  the 
indirect  personal  results  to  himself.  A 
memoir  upon  certain  actions  of  the  nervous 
system,  now  being  published  for  me  by  the 
Smithsonian  Institute,  has  been  prepared  at 
a  cost  of  over  $1000  (partly  defrayed  by 
the  Institute)  in  money,  and  about  2500 
hours  of  personal  labor,  besides  a  more 
than  equal  amount  of  work  performed  by 
mostly  unpaid  assistants  (young  physicians 
in  training) — -labor  which  in  some  of  the 
experiments  involved  thirty-six  to  seventy- 
two  consecutive  hours  of  constant  watchful- 
ness. What  is  the  reward  of  such  work  ? 
The  pleasure  of  doing,  even  at  the  expense 
of  physical  exhaustion ;  the  consciousness 
of  having  accomplished  some  little  thing 
which  shall  tend  toward  the  relief  of  human 
suffering  and  human  trouble ;  the  esteem  of 
fellow-laborers,  and  a  not  inconsiderable 
loss  of  character  and  good-will  amongst  an 
influential  and  estimable,  though  misled,  por- 
tion of  the  laity.  I  have  known  ladies  to 
canvass  against  a  doctor  because  he  was  a 
vivisector,  and  have  seen  cultured  women 
leave  the  room  at  a  social  gathering  because 
they  could  not  associate  with  a  vivisector. 

Perhaps  I  can  best  express  the  feelings  of 
this  class  by  quoting  the  words  with  which 
Professor  Rutherford,  of  Edinburgh,  closes 
a  very  laborious  and  valuable  research : 

"  The  discourtesy  and  misrepresentation  that  we 
have  suffered  at  the  hands  of  those  who  should  have 
acted  otherwise  has  not,  however,  induced  us  to 
prove  false  to  the  interests  of  suffering  humanity. 
We  are  conscious  of  having  faithfully  done  our  utmost 
to  advance  the  scientific  treatment  of  disease,  and 


while  steadily  pursuing  this  object  we  have  been  most 
careful  to  avoid  the  infliction  of  all  pain  that  wa^not 
absolutely  necessary." 

Are  in  this  country  laws  to  control  vivisec- 
tion necessary,  or  is  it  probable  that  they 
will  do  good  ?  Possibly  there  might  be  a 
law  regulating  the  use  of  vivisections  as 
means  of  demonstration  which  would  be 
satisfactory;  but  it  does  not  seem  as  though 
this  law  was  necessary.  There  is  more  pain 
inflicted  upon  the  first  day  of  October  of  each 
year  by  sportsmen  in  the  United  States 
than  has  been  caused  the  brute  creation 
by  American  vivisections  since  the  world 
was.  Did  the  reader  ever  see  reed-bird 
shooting  ?  The  tiny  mites  are  "  bunched," 
as  it  is  called, — that  is,  carefully  and  slowly 
driven  together  until  the  reeds  are  covered 
with  them, — and  then  the  torrent  of  shot 
rushes  to  kill  many,  and  to  maim  it  may  be 
even  more.  In  the  thick  reeds  the  most  expert 
professional  can  only  find  a  portion  of  the 
wounded,  so  that,  as  any  one  may  see  in  the 
season,  the  marsh  becomes  full  of  wounded 
birds,  although  the  snakes  and  eels  do  flock 
to  the  banquet.  Why  not  divert  some  of  the 
humanitarian  energy  which  is  making  the  life 
of  the  scientific  man  miserable  into  such  chan- 
nels as  these  just  pointed  out  ?  There  is  cer- 
tainly nowhere  in  the  United  States  any  abuse 
of  vivisection  as  ameans  of  investigation.  The 
personal  sacrifices  are  too  great,  the  rewards 
too  impalpable,  to  induce  many  Americans  to 
do  the  work.  What  is  wanted  is  not  a  law 
to  check,  but  aid  to  foster  and  encourage 
scientific  investigations.  So  far  as  my  knowl- 
edge goes,  only  in  Baltimore  and  Philadel- 
phia, and  Easton,  Penn.,  is  there  at  present 
steady,  persistent  work  of  this  kind  going 
on  in  the  United  States ;  probably,  however, 
Boston  and  New  York  ought  to  be  included 
in  the  list.  Glean  the  country  from  the 
Gulf  to  Canada,  and  not  more  than  a  dozen 
men  can  be  found  who  are  with  any  steadi- 
ness engaged  in  the  making  of  vivisections 
for  the  purpose  of  investigation.  Shall  laws 
be  passed  in  half  a  dozen  States,  and  ex- 
pensive inspection  organizations  be  main- 
tained, to  exercise  strict  surveillance  upon 
these  few  men,  only  to  save  an  amount  of 
animal  pain  which,  compared  with  that 
under  which  the  brute  creation  groans,  is 
inconceivably  minute — pain,  too,  which  ac- 
complishes so  much  for  the  human  race  ? 
Is  it  necessary  that  the  population  shall  be 
taxed  in  order  to  render  more  irksome  and 
laborious  that  progress  in  the  divine  art  of 
healing  which  is  even  now  possible  only 
through  unrequited  labor  ? 


THOMAS  PAINE  AND    THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION. 


771 


THOMAS  PAINE    AND   THE    FRENCH    REVOLUTION. 


THE  relations  which  Thomas  Paine  held 
to  the  French  Revolution  of  1789  do  not 
appear  to  have  ever  been  very  widely  treated 
upon  in  all  that  has  been  written  and  said 
of  that  somewhat  remarkable  man.  It  is 
not  the  purpose  of  the  present  paper  to 
touch  upon  the  controversy,  in  regard  to  his 
personal  character  and  habits,  his  writings, 
and  his  alleged  want  of  religious  belief, 
which  has  to  some  extent  agitated  public 
opinion  for  three-quarters  of  a  century. 
Setting  aside  all  the  heated  discussion  in 
relation  to  him,  both  in  England  and  in 
our  own  country,  it  is  simply  proposed  to 
review  his  career  in  France  in  the  midst 
of  the  most  stupendous  events  ever  set 
down  in  the  annals  of  any  nation.  A 
somewhat  extended  study  of  the  French 
Revolution,  during  the  extraordinary  period 
in  which  Paine  was  so  intimately  connected 
with  it,  fails  to  show  anything  to  the  preju- 
dice of  his  personal  or  political  character, 
but,  on  the  other  hand,  it  reveals  many  things 
eminently  creditable  to  him. 

Paine  was  in  Paris  in  the  earlier  days  of 
the  Revolution  and  at  the  time  of  the  flight 
of  Louis  XVI.  and  his  family,  and  when 
they  were  brought  back  to  that  revolutionary 
city.  He  was  soon  heard  of  as  a  member 
of  a  little  society  which  took  the  name  of 
"  Socie'te  Republicaine,"  ax\.&  which  was  com- 
posed of  only  five  members.  Three  of  them, 
including  Paine,  afterward  became  members 
of  the  National  Convention. 

Taking  the  ground  that  the  flight  of  the 
king  should  be  deemed  an  "  abdication," 
this  society  was  formed  for  the  purpose  of 
opposing  the  "  re-establishment "  of  Louis 
XVI.,  "not  only  in  reason  of  the  faults  which 
were  personal  to  him,  but  for  the  purpose 
of  overturning  entirely  the  monarchical  sys- 
tem and  establishing  the  republican  system 
and  equal  representation." 

As  the  organ  of  this  society  and  in  elab- 
oration of  its  views,  Paine  drew  up  in  Eng- 
lish a  statement  to  be  placarded  on  the 
walls  of  Paris.  It  was  translated  into  French, 
and  as  the  law  required  that  all  handbills 
should  be  signed  by  a  citizen  before  they 
were  posted,  Achille  Duchatelet,  a  mem- 
ber of  the  society,  and  afterward  a  lieuten- 
ant-general of  the  armies  of  the  French 
Republic,  affixed  his  name  thereto.  The 
appearance  of  the  handbill  created  a  great  ; 
sensation.  Malouet,  a  royalist  member  of  1 


the  National  Assembly,  tore  it  down  with  his 
own  hands,  and  proposed  that  the  author 
(Paine),  the  signer  (Duchatelet),  and  their 
accomplices  should  be  prosecuted.  Marfi- 
neau,  also  a  royalist  member  of  the  Assem- 
bly, vehemently  demanded  the  arrest  of  all 
the  parties  connected  with  the  handbill, 
and  denounced  as  infamous  a  proposition 
that  was  made  in  the  Assembly  to  "  pass  to 
the  order  of  the  day,"  on  the  subject 
(equivalent  in  our  legislative  practice  to 
"  laying  on  the  table  ").  After  an  excited  de- 
bate the  motion  to  "pass  to  the  order  of  the 
day"  was  carried,  and  so  the  matter  dropped. 
Sometime  after  this,  Paine,  deeply  impreg- 
nated with  the  doctrines  of  the  French 
Revolution,  returned  to  England.  The 
publication,  in  1789,  of  Mr.  Burke's  "  Re- 
flections on  the  French  Revolution "  pro- 
duced a  great  excitement  throughout  all 
England.  Up  to  that  time,  while  there 
was  an  intense  interest  felt  touching  events 
in  France,  distinctive  parties  had  not  been 
formed.  The  immediate  consequence,  how- 
ever, of  the  publication  of  Mr.  Burke's 
"Reflections"  was  the  formation  of  parties 
friendly  and  unfriendly  to  the  French  Revo- 
lution. Fox  and  Sheridan  antagonized 
Mr.  Burke.  The  publication  of  Mr.  Burke 
was  soon  followed  by  the  first  part  of 
Paine's  great  work,  "  The  Rights  of  Man." 
This  last  publication  "added  fuel  to  the 
flame."  It  was  disseminated  by  all  the 
democratic  societies  in  England,  and  par- 
ticularly arnong  the  lower  classes.  The 
excitement  increasing,  Paine  was  finally 
indicted  for  a  "  wicked  and  seditious  libel " 
on  the  British  Government.  He  had  by 
this  time  become  intensely  unpopular  with 
the  ruling  classes  of  England.  Prosecuted 
under  the  indictment,  he  was  defended  by 
Erskine,  who  was  then  in  the  zenith  of  his 
glory  as  an  advocate,  in  a  speech  of  mar- 
velous power  and  eloquence.  After  he  had 
concluded  his  magnificent  effort,  the  attor- 
ney-general rose  to  reply.  The  jury  coolly 
informed  him  that  they  did  not  desire  to 
hear  him,  as  they  had  made  up  their  minds, 
and  without  leaving  their  seats  brought  in  a 
verdict  of  guilty.  Paine  was  not  present 
at  the  trial,  but  had  made  his  way  to 
France,  and  was  followed  by  an  avalanche 
of  detraction  which  showed  how  deeply  he 
had  wounded  the  British  Government.  It 
was  not  only  the  "  Rights  of  Man,"  but  a 


772 


THOMAS  PAINE  AND    THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION. 


pamphlet  on  "  The  Decline  and  Fall  of 
the  English  System  of  Finance,"  afterward 
published,  in  May,  1796,  which  raised  such 
a  storm  against  him  in  England.  The  part 
he  had  taken  in  our  revolutionary  struggle 
had  much  to  do  with  the  prejudice  excited 
against  him  in  England.  His  pamphlet, 
"  Common  Sense,"  translated  into  French, 
created  a  great  impression  in  France,  and 
many  of  his  infidel  disciples  claimed  that  it 
had  more  influence  than  a  "  battle  gained." 

On  Paine's  return  to  Paris  after  leaving 
England,  his  work  on  the  "  Rights  of  Man  " 
was  translated  into  French,  and  published 
in  May,  1791.  Mr.  Burke's  "  Reflections  on 
the  French  Revolution  "  had  enraged  the 
revolutionary  masses  of  Paris  beyond  all 
measure,  and  Paine's  "  Rights  of  Man " 
was  considered  a  triumphant  answer  to 
that  masterly  production.  It  was  circulated 
everywhere  and  read  with  great  avidity  by 
all  classes.  He  at  once  became  a  hero 
in  France,  and  was  everywhere  received 
with  enthusiasm.  The  doors  of  the  salons 
and*  clubs  of  Paris  were  opened  to  him, 
and  he  was  soon  recognized  as  one  of 
the  advanced  figures  in  the  Revolution, 
standing  by  the  side  of  de  Bonneville,  Brissot 
and  Condorcet.  It  is,  perhaps,  not  to  be 
wondered  at,  that  his  reception  and  the  atten- 
tions showered  upon  him  made  him  some- 
what vain  and  egotistical.  Both  in  England 
and  in  France  he  "  magnified  his  office." 
He  had  simply  been  clerk  to  the  Committee 
on  Foreign  Affairs  in  the  old  Continental 
Congress  ;  but  he  styled  himself  as  "  Secre- 
tary of  Congress  for  the  Department  of 
Foreign  Affairs  during  the  war  in  America," 
giving  the  idea  of  an  exaggerated  importance. 
His  bearing  at  this  period  seems  to  have 
offended  Madame  Roland,  who  speaks  of 
him  in  her  "  Memoires "  in  terms  not  alto- 
gether complimentary.  He  affected  a 
supreme  disdain  for  books,  implying  that  he 
considered  himself  "  wise  above  what  was 
written."  It  is  alleged  that  he  said  that  if 
he  had  the  power  he  would  annihilate  all 
the  libraries  of  the  world,  in  order  to  destroy 
the  errors  of  which  they  were  the  depdt. 

Paine  remains  in  Paris  after  the  spring  of 
1791.  'The  Revolution  sweeps  onward  with 
a  resistless  and  remorseless  tread.  The 
National  (or  Constituent)  Assembly,  com- 
posed of  the  most  imposing  body  of  men 
which  ever  illustrated  the  history  of  any 
country,  terminates  its  existence  and  is  suc- 
ceeded by  the  Legislative  Assembly.  On 
the  motion  of  Robespierre,  the  National 
Assembly  prohibited  every  man  who  had 


been  a  member  of  it  from  becoming  a 
member  of  the  Legislative.  This  latter 
body,  therefore,  while  containing  many  able 
and  brilliant  men,  had  a  large  majority 
of  advanced  revolutionists,  and  all  were 
lacking  in  legislative  experience.  It  soon 
proved  itself  utterly  incapable  of  meeting 
the  frightful  exigencies  which  it  had  to 
confront.  It  was  overtaken  by  that  terrible 
"  Tenth  of  August  "  (1792),  when  the  mob 
of  Paris  surrounded  the  Tuileries  and  clam- 
ored for  the  blood  of  the  royal  family,  and 
when  the  king  and  queen  and  their  children 
sought  a  refuge  from  violence  in  the  bosom 
of  the  Assembly,  which  had  declared  its  sit- 
tings en  permanence.  All  Paris  was  a  prey 
to  a  supreme  agitation,  and  the  exaltation  of 
political  spirit  was  at  its  height.  The  Assem- 
bly, weak,  incapable,  vacillating  and  com- 
pletely demoralized,  still  sought  by  every 
device  to  strengthen  itself  in  popular  estima- 
tion. It  was  this  which  led  to  the  decree 
declaring  that  the  title  of  "  French  citizen  " 
should  be  conferred  on  certain  foreigners. 
The  prevailing  idea  that  Paine  was  made  a 
French  citizen  for  the  special  purpose  of 
enabling  him  to  become  a  member  of  the 
legislative  and  constituent  bodies  of  France, 
is  not  exactly  correct,  and  it  is  not  generally 
known  that  the  names  of  other  Americans 
were  included  in  the  same  decree  which 
conferred  the  title  of  French  citizen  on 
Thomas  Paine. 

It  was  on  Sunday,  the  26th-  of  August 
(1792),  and  when  the  Legislative  Assembly 
was  in  permanent  sitting,  and  sixteen  days 
after  the  shocking  events  of  the  "  Tenth  of 
August,"  that  Guadet,  a  deputy  from  the 
Department  of  the  Gironde,  proposed,  in 
the  name  of  the  "  Commission  Extraordi- 
naire," that  the  Assembly  adopt  unani- 
mously the  following  preamble  and  decree : 

"  The  National  Assembly,  considering  that  the 
men  who,  by  their  writings  and  their  courage,  have 
served  the  cause  of  liberty  and  prepared  the  enfran- 
chisement of  the  people,  cannot  be  regarded  as 
strangers  by  a  nation  rendered  free  by  its  intelligence 
and  courage : 

"  Considering  that,  if  five  years'  residence  in  France 
is  sufficient  to  confer  upon  a  stranger  the  title  of 
French  citizen,  this  title  is  more  justly  due  to  those 
who,  in  whatever  land  they  may  inhabit,  have  conse- 
crated their  arms  and  energies  to  the  defense  of  the 
cause  of  the  people  against  the  despotism  of  kings, 
to  banish  the  prejudices  of  the  earth,  and  to  advance 
the  limits  of  human  knowledge  : 

"  Considering  that,  as  it  is  hoped  that  men  one  day 
will  form  before  the  law,  as  before  nature,  but  one 
family,  one  association,  the  friends  of  liberty  and  of 
that  universal  fraternity  which  should  not  be  the  less 
dear  to  a  nation  that  has  proclaimed  its  renunciation 
of  all  conquest  and  its  desire  to  fraternize  with  all 
peoples : . 


THOMAS  PAINE  AND    THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION. 


773 


"  Considering,  therefore,  that  at  the  moment  when 
a  National  Convention  is  about  to  fix  the  destinies 
of  France  and  prepare,  perhaps,  those  of  the  human 
race,  it  belongs  to  a  generous  and  free  people  to  call 
to  it  all  the  intelligences,  and  to  allow  them  the  right 
to  concur  in  this  grand  act  of  the  reason  of  mankind, 
who,  by  their  sentiments,  writings  and  their  courage, 
have  shown  themselves  so  eminently  worthy : 

"  Decree,  that  the  title  of  French  citizen  be  con- 
ferred on  Priestly,  Paine,  Bentham,  Wilberforce, 
Clarkson,  Mclntosh,  David  Williams,  Gorani,  Ana- 
charsis  Clootz,  Campe,  Cornelius  Paw,  Pestalorri, 
Washington,  Hamilton,  Madison,  Klopstoc,  Kosci- 
usko,  Gilleers." 

It  will  be  seen  by  the  above  decree  that 
the  title  of  French  citizen  was  conferred  on 
Washington,  Hamilton  and  Madison,  as  well 
as  on  Paine. 

This  decree,  so  interesting  to  Americans, 
awakens  the  most  painful  souvenirs  of  its 
author,  Guadet.  A  young  deputy  from  the 
Department  of  the  Gironde,  he  was  the 
colleague  of  Vergniaud,  Gensonne,  Ducos, 
Boyer-Fonfrede  and  others.  He  became 
afterward  a  distinguished  member  of  the 
party  of  "  Girondins  "  in  the  National  Con- 
vention, a  party  that  was  composed  of  the 
ablest,  the  most  eloquent  and  most  brilliant 
men  in  all  France,  and  whose  sad  fate  will 
ever  be  associated  with  the  worst  days  of 
the  French  Revolution.  At  a  little  more 
than  thirty  years  of  age  he  had  become 
a  leader  at  the  bar  of  Bordeaux,  which 
then  rivaled  that  of  Paris.  A  republican 
by  conviction,  earnest,  able,  eloquent  and 
courageous,  he  was  sometimes  called  the 
"  Danton  of  the  Gironde."  Impetuous  and 
aggressive,  he  antagonized  Robespierre  and 
the  Montagne  and  confronted  Danton  in 
the  very  height  of  his  power.  He  bravely 
resisted  the  aggressions  of  the  Commune 
of  Paris,  and  in  return  the  Commune  in- 
scribed his  name  among  the  "  twenty- 
two"  proscribed  deputies  of  the  Gironde. 
Afterward  he  was  put  in  accusation,  with 
his  colleagues,  by  a  decree  of  the  National 
Convention,  but  he  was  enabled  to  escape 
from  Paris.  He  was  not  guillotined  with 
them,  but  was  declared  an  outlaw ;  hunted 
by  the  bloodhounds  of  Carrier,  his  retreat 
was  discovered  at  the  house  of  his  father 
at  St.  Emilion.  Conducted  to  Bordeaux, 
his  identity  was  proved  before  a  military 
commission  and  he  was  immediately  sent 
to  the  guillotine.  With  unsubdued  courage 
he  said  to  his  judges  :  "  I  am  Guadet ; — 
butchers,  do  your  duty.  Go  with  my  head 
in  your  hands  and  demand  your  pay  of  the 
tyrants  of  my  country ;  they  will  never  see 
it  without  growing  pale,  and  seeing  it  dis- 
severed they  will  yet  grow  still  more  pale." 


He  was  executed  the  iyth  of  June,  1794, 
at  the  age  of  thirty-five  years.  When  con- 
ducted to  the  scaffold,  he  wished  to  ad- 
dress the  people,  but  the  roll  of  the  drum 
drowned  his  voice.  These  were  the  only 
words  that  were  heard :  "  People,  here  you 
see  the  only  resource  of  tyrants ;  rney  choke 
the  voices  of  free  men  in  order  to  commit 
their  crimes."  Such  was  the  fate  of  the 
author  of  the  decree  of  the  National  Assembly 
(legislative)  which  made  George  Washing- 
ton, James  Madison,  Alexander  Hamilton 
and  Thomas  Paine  French  citizens. 

Of  the  whole  number  of  men  that  were 
made  French  citizens,  only  two  of  them 
became  members  of  the  French  legislative 
bodies,  Thomas  Paine  and  Anacharsis 
Clootz. 

Jean  Baptiste  Clootz  was  a  rich  Belgian 
baron,  a  chattering  madcap  and  fool ;  he 
lost  his  head  in  the  excitement  of  the  time, 
took  to  himself  the  name  of  "  Anacharsis," 
and  designated  himself  as  the  "  orator  of 
the  human  race."  Traveling  over  Europe 
proclaiming  the  revolutionary  doctrines  of 
the  times,  in  1790  he  presented  himself  at 
the  bar  of  the  National  Assembly  at  the  head 
of  a  deputation  of  "  foreigners,"  as  he  called 
them,  and  read  an  address  against  despots, 
congratulating  the  Assembly  on  its  labors 
and  demanded  that  all  the  foreigners  in 
Paris  should  be  admitted  to  the  federation 
of  the  i4th  of  July,  1793.  It  turned  out 
afterward  that  most  of  these  "  foreigners  " 
were  Frenchmen  picked  up  in  Paris, 
dressed  in  the  fantastic  costumes  of  differ- 
ent countries,  which  Clootz  had  provided 
at  his  own  expense. 

The  day  after  the  passage  of  the  decree 
above  named,  Clootz  was  admitted  to  the 
bar  of  the  National  Assembly  (legislative), 
where  he  made  a  ridiculous  speech,  thank- 
ing the  Assembly  for  having  made  him  a 
French  citizen.  "  Cosmopolitan  philoso- 
phers," he  said,  "  were  associated  with  you 
in  your  dangers  and  your  labors,  and  you 
associate  them  in  declaring  them  French 
citizens.  As  to  myself,  penetrated  with 
thanks  for  your  philosophical  decree,  I  feel, 
legislators,  how  much  it  honors  me  and 
how  honorable  it  is  to  you.  I  pronounce 
the  oath  of  fidelity  to  the  universal  nation, 
to  equality,  to  liberty,  to  sovereignty  of  the 
human  race.  Gallophile  of  all  time,  my 
heart  is  French,  my  soul  is  sans  culottes." 
(Applause.)  Soon  after  this  Clootz  was 
elected  a  member  of  the  National  Conven- 
tion from  the  Department  of  the  Oise.  In 
the  Convention  he  was  in  the  first  ranks  of 


774 


THOMAS  PAINE  AND    THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION. 


the  atheists  and  Montagnards.  He  was  the 
author  of  a  work  on  the  certainty  of  the 
proofs  of  Mohammedism,  which  he  says 
was  the  fruit  of  fifteen  hours'  labor  a  day 
for  consecutive  years.  He  presented  that 
book  to  the  National  Convention,  in  a 
rambling  and  incoherent  speech  beneath 
criticism.  The  Convention  passed  the  fol- 
lowing decree : 

"  Anacharsis  Clootz,  deputy  to  the  Convention, 
having  made  homage  of  one  of  his  works  entitled 
'  The  Certainty  of  the  Proofs  of  Mohammedism,'  a 
work  which  proves  the  emptiness  of  all  religions, 
the  Assembly  accepts  this  homage  and  orders  the 
honorable  mention  and  insertion  in  the  '  Bulletin,' 
and  turns  the  book  over  to  the  committee  on  public 
instruction. 

"  The  National  Convention  orders  the  printing 
and  forwarding  to  all  the  departments  of  the  speech 
made  by  Anacharsis  Clootz,  preceding  his  offer." 

But  in  the  progress  of  events  the  poor 
Clootz  was  ingulfed,  and  was  soon  made  to 
realize  the  saying  of  Vergniaud,  "  that  the 
revolution,  like  Saturn,  would  devour  all  its 
children."  He  was  embraced  in  the  prose- 
cution of  the  Hebertistes.  The  crime  im- 
puted to  Clootz,  whom  Louis  Blanc  calls  the 
most  devoted  of  the  adopted  children  of 
France,  was  a  participation  in  a  conspiracy 
with  foreigners.  The  proof  adduced  of  that 
conspiracy  only  amounted  to  this,  that  he 
had  taken  some  steps  to  know  if  a  French 
woman,  who  had  gone  to  England  to  get 
married,  was  or  was  not  a  political  emigrant. 
But  this  was  enough.  Clootz  was  tried  by 
the  Revolutionary  Tribunal,  jointly  with 
nineteen  others  known  as  the  Hebertistes ; 
he  is  described  as :  "  Jean  Baptiste  Clootz, 
called  Anacharsis,  aged  38  years,  born  at 
Cleves,  Belgium;  living  in  France  since 
eleven  years,  domiciled  at  Paris,  rue 
Menars,  153  ;  before  the  Revolution  a  man 
of  letters,  and  subsequently  a  member  of 
the  Convention."  All  the  devotion  which 
Clootz  had  shown  for  France  availed  him 
nothing  before  the  Revolutionary  Tribunal, 
but  it  was  rather  to  his  prejudice.  Renaudin, 
one  of  the  jury,  said  to  him  : 

"  Your  system  of  a  universal  republic  was 
a  profoundly  meditated  perfidy  and  gave  a 
pretext  for  a  coalition  of  crowned  heads 
against  France."  Clootz  quietly  answered 
that  the  universal  republic  was  in  the  nat- 
ural system ;  that  he  had  spoken,  as  the 
Abbe  de  St.  Pierre,  of  universal  peace ;  that 
they  certainly  could  not  suspect  him  of 
being  a  partisan  of  kings,  and  that  it  would 
certainly  be  very  extraordinary  that  a  man 
who  had  been  burned  at  Rome,  hung  at 


London  and  broken  on  the  wheel  at  Vienna 
should  be  guillotined  at  Paris. 

He  was,  however,  sent  to  the  scaffold 
with  his  associates,  the  Hebertistes,  and 
with  many  others,  accused  of  the  lowest 
crimes,  on  the  24th  of  March  1794.  The 
"  orator  of  the  human  race  "  marched  to  his 
destiny  with  the  courage  of  a  philosopher 
and  a  smile  upon  his  lips.  It  was  with 
shame  that  many  saw  him  in  the  midst  of 
robbers,  and  sitting  at  the  side  of  one 
Ducroquet,  charged  with  having  robbed  a 
provision-cart.  The  bearing  of  Clootz  at 
the  scaffold  was  admirable  for  its  sangfroid. 
Though  scouting  all  Christian  ideas,  he  en- 
deavored to  calm  those  around  him,  and 
requested  that  he  might  be  the  last  one  exe- 
cuted, in  order  that  he  might  have  the  time 
to  prove  the  correctness  of  certain  principles 
while  they  were  cutting  off  the  heads  of  the 
other  condemned. 

Anacharsis  Clootz  has  been  thus  spoken 
of  for  the  reason  that  he  was  the  only  nat- 
uralized citizen,  besides  Thomas  Paine,  who 
was  a  member  of  the  National  Convention, 
and  that  the  names  of  Clootz  and  Paine, 
described  as  "  ex-deputies  to  the  National 
Convention,"  were  included  in  the  same 
warrant  of  arrest  issued  by  the  Committee 
of  Public  Safety,  and  were  sent  in  the  com- 
pany of  each  other  to  the  prison  of  the 
Luxembourg. 

It  will  have  been  seen  that  the  decree  of 
the  Legislative  Assembly  (or,  as  it  came  to 
be  called,  the  National  Assembly)  conferring 
French  citizenship  upon  Paine  and  others, 
was  of  the  date  of  the  26th  day  of  August, 
1792.  That  assembly  came  to  the  end  of 
its  existence  on  the  2ist  day  of  the  following 
month,  when  the  "  National  Convention  " 
was  constituted.  While  it  does  not  appear 
from  the  "  Moniteur "  that  Paine  was  a 
member  of  the  Legislative  (or  National) 
Assembly,  yet  it  appears,  from  the  follow- 
ing letter  of  its  President,  that  he  was 
elected  from  the  Department  of  the  Oise. 
The  original  of  this  letter,  now  in  the  hands 
of  the  writer,  is  believed  never  to  have  been 
before  published : 

[  Translation.  ] 

PARIS,  September  6th,  1792,  the  4th  Year  ) 
of  Liberty ;  the  1st  of  Equality.  $ 

To  THOMAS  PAINE  :  France  calls  you,  sir,  to 
its  bosom  to  fill  the  most  useful,  and,  consequently, 
the  most  honorable  of  functions — that  of  contrib- 
uting, by  wise  legislation,  to  the  happiness  of  a 
people  whose  destinies  interest  and  unite  all  who 
think  and  all  who  suffer  in  the  world. 

It  is  meet  that  the  nation  which  proclaimed  the 
rights  of  man  should  desire  to  have  him  among  its 


THOMAS  PAINE  AND    THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION. 


775 


legislators  who  first  dared  to  measure  all  their  con- 
sequences, who  developed  their  principles  with  that 
common  sense  which  is  but  genius  putting  itself 
within  the  reach  of  all  men  and  drawing  all  its  con- 
ceptions from  nature  and  truth.  The  National 
Assembly  had  already  accorded  to  him  the  title  of 
French  citizen,  and  had  seen  with  pleasure  that  its 
decree  had  received  the  only  sanction  that  is  legiti- 
mate— that  of  the  people,  who  already  claimed  you 
before  it  had  named  you.  Come,  sir,  and  enjoy  in 
France  the  spectacle  the  most  interesting  to  an  ob- 
server and  to  a  philosopher — that  of  a  people,  con- 
fident and  generous,  who,  betrayed  basely  during 
three  years  and  wishing,  at  last,  to  end  this  strug- 
gle between  slavery  and  liberty,  between  sincerity 
and  perfidy,  rises  finally  as  one  man,  puts  under  the 
sword  of  the  law  the  great  offenders  who  have  be- 
trayed it,  opposes  to  the  barbarians  whom  they 
have  roused  against  it  all  its  citizens  turned  sol- 
diers, all  its  territory  turned  into  camp  and  fortress ; 
and,  on  the  other  hand,  calls  together  in  a  congress 
the  lights  scattered  through  all  the  universe,  the 
men  of  genius  most  capable,  by  their  wisdom  and 
their  virtue,  of  giving  her  the  form  of  government 
best  fitted  to  secure  liberty  and  happiness. 

The  electoral  assembly  of  the  Department  of  the 
Oise,  prompt  to  choose  you,  has  had  the  good  fort- 
une to  be  the  first  to  render  this  justice  to  Thomas 
Paine,  and  when  a  number  of  my  fellow-citizens 
desired  that  I  should  make  this  intelligence  known 
to  you,  I  remembered  with  pleasure  that  I  had  seen 
you  at  Mr.  Jefferson's,  and  I  congratulated  myself 
upon  having  the  happiness  of  being  acquainted  with 
you. 

HERAULT, 
President  of  the  National  Assembly. 

Herault  de  Sechelles,  the  writer  of  the 
foregoing  letter,  was  a  marked  man  in  the 
French  Revolution,  making  his  entrance 
into  public  life  as  a  member  of  the  Leg- 
islative (or  National)  Assembly  from  the 
Department  of  the  Seine  et  Oise,  and  be- 
coming President  of  it  toward  its  close.  A 
friend  of  Danton,  he  allied  himself  to  the 
party  of  the  Montagne  and  became  one  of  its 
most  prominent  members,  though  as  far  sep- 
arated from  it  as  a  man  well  could  be  by 
birth,  education,  and  association  in  life. 

Rich,  superb,  of  elegant  manners  and  per- 
son, they  called  him  the  beau  Sechelles. 
Intelligent,  highly  educated  and  eloquent, 
he  placed  himself  at  the  service  of  the  pop- 
ular cause  in  the  early  days  of  the  Revolu- 
tion. In  the  midst  of  the  Jacobins  he 
presented  the  type  of  the  Grand  Seigneur, 
and  lived  en  garfon  in  luxury  and  elegance 
at  No.  1 6  rue  Basse-du-Rampart,  a  well- 
known  street  of  Paris  at  the  present  day. 
In  him  the  gentleman  always  appeared  un- 
der the  democrat,  and  it  was  said  at  the 
time  that  Herault  proved  that  "  democrats  " 
were  not  strangers  to  personal  accomplish- 
ments and  captivating  manners.  He  was 
President  of  the  Convention  during  the 
events  of  the  3ist  of  May  and  2d  of  June, 


and  when  Henriot,  at  the  head  of  his  troops, 
threatened  the  Convention  in  the  name  of 
the  insurgent  people,  and  demanded  the  arrest 
of  the  proscribed  Girondins.  He  presided 
at  the  national  fete  of  the  loth  of  August, 

1793,  and  was  soon  afterward  made  a  mem- 
ber of  the  Committee  of  Public  Safety,  and 
his   name   is  associated  with   many   of  its 
most   atrocious  decrees.     When   absent   in 
mission  the  quarrels  broke  out  in  the  Con- 
vention in  the  party  of  the  Montagne,  and 
Herault  found  himself  accused  in  that  body 
by    Bourdon    de   1'Oise,  who,   before    that 
time,  had  been  a  party  friend  of  Herault's 
and  a  violent  revolutionnaire.      Herault,  on 
his  return,  defended  himself  before  the  Con- 
vention in  a  speech  which  was  a   master- 
piece   of   eloquence,    but    it    was    of   no 
avail   in  the  strides  of  revolutionary  mad- 
ness.    More  victims  were  now  demanded, 
and,  at  this  time,  the  oldest  children  of  the 
Revolution  were  claimed.     They  were  the 
"  Dantonists,"  among  whom  was  included 
Herault.     On  the  report  of  the  Committee 
of  Public  Safety,  Danton,  Camille  Desmou- 
lins,  Philippeaux  and  Lacroix  were  sent  to  the 
Revolutionary  Tribunal  on  the  2d  of  April, 

1794,  convicted,  and  on  the  jd  day  of  April 
they  were  sent  immediately  to  the  guillo- 
tine.    Herault  was  unmarried.     When  im- 
prisoned at  the  Luxembourg  awaiting  his  trial 
he    appeared   sad    and    preoccupied,   and 
only  associated  with  his  valet,  who  was  per- 
mitted to  accompany  him.     On  arriving  at 
the  guillotine,  on  the  Place  de  la  Revolu- 
tion, on  the  day  of  his  execution,  all   his 
looks  were  turned  toward  the  hotel  of  the 
Garde-Meuble,   hoping,   evidently,    to    ex- 
change glances  with  one  with  whom  were 
all  his  thoughts  at  that  supreme  moment. 
Behind  the  shutters,  half-closed,  could    be 
seen   a   beautiful  woman  who  sent  to  the 
condemned  a  last  adieu  and  waved  a  last 
sigh  of  tenderness  to  the   dying  man  :  Je 
faime   (I   love   thee).     It  was   a  beautiful 
day  of  the  spring-time,  and  the  crowd  that 
had  assembled  to  witness  the  execution  of 
Danton,  the  great  apostle  of  the   Revolu- 
tion, and  some  of  his  associates,  was  enor- 
mous.    The  splendid  figure  of  Herault  de 
Sechelles  seemed  to  take  new  life,  and  the 
serenity  of  courage  replaced  the  inquietude 
and  sadness  which  had  settled  upon  him. 
The  first   one   to   mount   the   scaffold,  he 
showed    himself    calm,   resolute    and    un- 
moved.    As  he  was  about  to  lay  his  head 
under  the  knife,  he  wished  to  present  his 
cheek  to  the  cheek  of  Danton,  as  a  last  fare- 
well.    The  aids  of  Sanson,  the  executioner, 


776 


THOMAS  PAINE  AND    THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION. 


prevented  it.  "  Imbeciles  ! "  indignantly  ex- 
claimed Danton,  "  it  will  be  but  a  moment 
before  our  heads  will  meet  in  the  basket, 
in  spite  of  you."  * 

The  Legislative  Assembly,  having  proved 
itself  utterly  incompetent  and  powerless  to 
direct  the  destinies  of  France,  then  in  con- 
vulsive throes  of  revolution,  practically  abdi- 
cated by  calling  a  convention,  the  members 
of  which  were  to  be  immediately  elected  by 
all  the  departments.  This  was  the  National 
Convention,  composed  of  some  of  the  ablest, 
the  most  distinguished,  the  most  patriotic, 
as  well  as  many  of  the  worst  men  in  France. 
This  Convention,  seizing  all  the  powers  of 
government — executive,  legislative,  and  ju- 
dicial— sublime  in  its  aspirations,  it  was  at 
once  terrible  and  sanguinary,  heroic  and 
cruel.  It  held  its  empire  over  France  for 
three  years,  one  month  and  five  days,  by 
terror  and  force,  unchaining  all  the  worst 
passions  of  mankind.  Never  was  there  a 
legislative  or  constituent  body  which  dis- 
played such  stupendous  energy  or  per- 
formed such  immense  labor.  It  depopulated 
France  and  left  in  its  pathway  anarchy, 
misery,  and  social  disorganization.  In  the 
delirium  of  its  passions,  it  stamped  itself 
on  the  history  of  the  world  not  only  by  its 
crimes,  but  by  its  great  acts  of  legislation, 
which  will  live  as  long  as  France  shall 
endure. 

Thomas  Paine  was  a  member  of  this  Con- 
vention. His  popularity  in  France  at  this 
time,  is  shown  by  the  fact  that  he  was 
chosen  a  member  of  the  Convention  by 
three  departments,  the  Pas  de  Calais,  the 
Oise,  and  the  Seine  et  Oise.  He  chose  to 
sit  for  the  Pas  de  Calais. 

He  was  in  England  at  the  time  of  his 
election.  Achille  Audibert,  of  Calais,  was 
deputed  to  go  to  England  and  escort  him 
to  France.  It  seems  to  have  proved  a 
somewhat  hazardous  adventure,  for  at  a 
later  period,  in  a  letter  to  a  member  of  the 
Committee  of  Public  Safety,  in  relation  to 
Paine,  he  says  he  "  hardly  escaped  becoming 
a  victim  of  the  English  Government,  with 
whom  Paine  was  openly  at  war."  The 
"  Moniteur"  of  the  23d  September,  1793, 
refers  to  this  matter  as  follows  : 

"  The  celebrated  Thomas  Paine,  author  of  '  Com- 
mon Sense,'  and  of  a  refutation  of  Mr.  Burke,  enti- 
tled '  The  Rights  of  Man,'  had  believed  it  his  duty 
to  take  precautions  for  his  personal  safety  in  coming 
into  France,  where  he  had  been  called  by  the 
National  Convention.  He  had  come  by  Rochester, 


'  Jules  Claritie. 


Sandwich,  and  Deal ;  arrived  at  Dover,  after  having 
been  put  to  the  inconvenience  of  making  that  circuit, 
he  had  suffered  much  from  the  impertinence  of  a 
clerk  in  the  Custom  House,  who,  not  content  with 
placing  his  books  and  papers  in  disorder  under  pre- 
text of  examination,  even  went  so  far  as  to  tear  up 
his  letters.  Some  paid  wretches  insulted  him  grossly 
in  presence  of  M.  Audibert,  of  Calais,  and  M. 
Frost.  Probably  M.  Paine  has  been  recompensed 
for  all  these  insults  by  the  brilliant  reception  which 
he  received  upon  his  arrival  on  French  soil." 

Paine  had  commenced  his  career  in  Parisr 
in  1791,  by  establishing  the  "Societe"  Repub- 
licaine,"  which  has  been  referred  to,  one  of 
the  objects  of  which  was  "to  overthrow 
entirely  the  monarchical  system."  What 
must  have  been  his  emotions  at  finding 
himself  a  French  citizen,  and  a  member  of 
the  Convention,  and  when  giving  his  voice 
and  vote  to  its  first  decree,  introduced  by 
the  Abbe  Gregoire,  and  which,  according 
to  the  official  report,  was  received  by 
"  acclamations  of  joy,  the  cries  of  vive  la 
nation,  repeated  by  all  the  spectators,  pro- 
longing themselves  for  many  minutes." 

"  La  Convention  Nationale  decrete  que  la 
royaute  est abolie  en  France" 

As  a  member  of  the  Convention,  Paine 
labored  under  the  immense  disadvantage 
of  not  speaking  nor  writing  the  French  lan- 
guage, and  very  few  of  the  members  spoke 
English.  At  the  epoch  of  the  Revolution, 
it  was  as  unusual  to  hear  English  spoken  in 
Paris  as  it  is  now  to  hear  Arabic.  As  far  as 
now  recollected,  the  only  members  of  the 
Convention  who  spoke  English  were  Dan- 
ton,  Marat,  Lanthenas,  Garan-Coulon,  and 
young  Bancal,  one  of  the  secretaries.  Dan- 
ton  had  spent  much  time  in  England, 
understood  the  language,  and  was  quite 
well  acquainted  with  the  English  people. 
This  was  evidently  to  his  disadvantage,  for 
one  of  the  charges  of  the  time  against  him 
was,  that  he  associated  avec  les  Anglais,  and 
dined  too  often  with  them  in  the  Rue  Grange 
Bateliere.  Marat  lived  a  long  time  in  Eng- 
land, taught  French  in  London  and  Edin- 
burgh, acquired  a  good  knowledge  of  English, 
and  published  two  books  in  that  language, 
"The  Chains  of  Slavery,"  and  "A  Plan 
of  Criminal  Legislation."  Dr.  Lanthenas, 
Garan-Coulon  and  Bangal  were  good  Eng- 
lish scholars. 

The  Convention  was  not  long  in  giving 
Paine  a  striking  recognition  of  the  consid- 
eration in  which  it  held  him.  One  of  its 
earliest  decrees  was  to  establish  a  special 
commission  (committee)  of  nine  members, 
on  the  constitution.  This  commission  was 
composed  of  the  most  distinguished  men  of 


THOMAS  PAINE  AND   THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION. 


777 


the  convention  :  Gensonne,  Thomas  Paine, 
Brissot,  Petion,  Vergniaud,  Barere,  Danton, 
Condorcet,  and  the  Abbe  Sieves.  The  lat- 
ter was  called  the  "  constitution-maker," 
and  the  wits  of  the  time  said  that  he  always 
carried  a  constitution  in  his  pocket,  ready  to 
be  drawn  on  the  slightest  provocation.  It 
was  he  who  exclaimed  in  the  National  Con- 
vention, when  a  project  was  before  it  which 
seemed  to  him  to  be  in  the  nature  of  a, 
spoliation,  "  You  wish  to  be  free,  but  know 
not  how  to  be  just." 

Of  the  nine  members  of  this  remarkable 
commission,  which  devoted  itself  to  the 
preparation  of  what  is  known  as  the  consti- 
tution of  the  year  III.,  four  of  them  were 
guillotined,  Vergniaud,  Gensonne,  Brissot 
and  Danton.  Condorcet  committed  sui- 
cide in  the  cell  of  a  prison  at  Bourg-la- 
Reine,  and  Petion,  escaping  from  Paris, 
after  being  placed  in  accusation  by  the 
National  Convention,  perished  miserably 
while  hiding  in  the  forest  near  St.  Emilion, 
and  where  his  body  was  afterward  found 
half  eaten  up  by  wolves.  Paine,  Sieyes  and 
Barere  were  the  only  members  of  this  com- 
mission who  died  a  natural  death. 

As  Danton  was  the  only  man  on  the  com- 
mission who  spoke  English,  it  was  through 
him  that  Paine  communicated  his  ideas. 
In  the  Convention  he  sat  with  the  most 
advanced  of  the  Jacobins,  on  the  benches 
of  the  Montagne.  Though  afterward  becom- 
ing widely  separated  from  Danton  in  the 
policy  of  the  Revolution,  their  amicable  rela- 
tions appear  never  to  have  been  disturbed. 
It  was  a  strange  scene ;  these  two  consti- 
tution-makers, Paine  and  Danton,  met  for 
the  last  time  in  the  prison  of  the  Luxem- 
bourg, both  equally  destined  for  the  scaf- 
fold. Conversing  one  day  on  the  mutations 
of  the  Revolution,  forgetful  of  the  terrible 
r61e  he  had  played,  and  of  the  "  Massacre 
of  September,"  in  accents  of  the  most  pro- 
found discouragement  Danton  said  to  Paine : 
"  What  you  have  done  for  the  happiness 
and  liberty  of  the  people  in  your  own  coun- 
try, I  have  vainly  endeavored  to  do  in 
mine.  I  have  been  less  fortunate  than  you. 
They  are  going  to  send  me  to  the  scaffold ; 
very  well,  I  will  go  gayly." 

In  1876,  the  minister  of  the  United  States 
to  France,  while  examining  the  papers  of 
Danton,  preserved  in  the  National  Archives 
at  Paris,  found  an  extraordinary  letter  writ- 
ten in  English  by  Paine  to  Danton.  It  had 
never  been  made  public,  but  it  was  after- 
ward made  part  of  an  official  dispatch,  and 
published  by  the  State  Department  at  Wash- 


ington in  1877,  in  its  volume  of  "  Foreign 
Relations."  The  letter  was  dated,  "  Paris, 
May  6  (second  year  of  the  Republic),"  that 
is  to  say,  1793.  It  is  too  long  for  this 
article,  but  its  full  text  will  ever  be  read  with 
interest  by  the  student  of  history.  The 
date  of  the  letter  is  but  little  more  than  three 
weeks  prior  to  the  events  of  the  3ist  of  May 
(1793),  one  of  the  most  damning  epochs  of 
the  Revolution,  when  the  Convention,  under 
the  guns  of  Henriot,  and  surrounded  by  the 
mob  of  Paris,  mutilated  its  representation, 
decreed  the  arrest,  the  forerunner  of  the 
guillotine,  of  the  "Twenty-two  Deputies" 
of  the  Gironde. 

When  Paine  wrote  his  letter,  with  prophetic 
vision  he  beheld  before  him  the  yawning 
chasm  which  was  so  soon  to  ingulf  France. 
Oppressed  by  that  revolutionary  madness 
and  fury  of  the  hour  which  were  sweeping 
away  the  hopes  of  all  patriotic  men,  in  an 
access  of  despair,  he  pours  out  his  thoughts 
to  Danton: 

"  I  am  exceedingly  distressed,"  he  says,  "  at  the 
distractions,  jealousies,  discontent  and  uneasiness 
that  reign  among  us,  and  which,  if  they  continue, 
will  bring  ruin  and  disgrace  on  the  Republic.  *  *  *  * 
I  now  despair  of  seeing  the  great  object  of  European 
liberty  accomplished,  and  my  despair  arises  not  from 
the  combined  foreign  powers,  not  from  the  intrigues 
of  aristocracy  and  priestcraft,  but  from  the  tumultous 
misconduct  with  which  the  international  affairs  of 
the  present  revolution  is  conducted.  *  *  *  *  While 
these  internal  contentions  continue,  while  the  hope 
remains  to  the  enemy  of  seeing  the  Republic  fall  to 
pieces,  while  not  only  the  representatives  of  the 
Departments,  but  representation  itself  is  publicly 
insulted  as  it  has  lately  been,  and  now  is,  by  the 
people  of  Paris,  or  at  least  by  the  Tribunes,  the 
enemy  will  be  encouraged  to  hang  about  the  frontiers 
and  wait  the  event  of  circumstances.  *  *  *  *  The 
danger  every  day  increases  of  a  rupture  between 
Paris  and  the  Departments.  The  Departments  did 
not  send  their  deputies  to  Paris  to  be  insulted,  and 
every  insult  shown  to  them  is  an  insult  to  the  De- 
partments that  elected  and  sent  them." 

Paine  then  says  that  the  remedy  for  such 
a  state  of  things  is  to  fix  the  location  of 
the  Convention  at  a  distance  from  Paris, 
and  cites  the  example  of  the  United  States 
which  formed  the  project  of  building  a  town 
and  having  its  seat  of  government  not  within 
the  limits  of  any  municipal  jurisdiction.  He 
expresses  the  most  friendly  feeling  toward 
the  "  Twenty-two  Deputies "  (the  Giron- 
dins)  who  were  then  already  on  the  lists 
of  proscription,  and  says  that  "most  of  the 
acquaintance  that  I  have  in  the  Convention 
are  among  those  who  are  in  that  list,  and  I 
know  there  are  not  better  men  nor  better 
patriots  than  they  are." 

The  trial  of  Louis  XVI.  commenced  be- 


778 


THOMAS  PAINE  AND    THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION. 


fore  the  National  Convention  on  the  26th  day 
of  December,  1792.  It  is  in  the  progress 
of  this  trial  that  the  name  of  Thomas  Paine 
first  appears.  On  the  motion  of  Couthon 
it  was  decreed  that  the  discussion  upon  the 
trial  be  continued,  to  the  exclusion  of  all 
other  business,  until  judgment  should  be 
pronounced.  It  was  not  until  the  i8th  of 
the  following  month,  January,  1793,  that 
Paine  was  able  to  obtain  attention,  and  then 
only  by  filing  an  opinion,  "  sur  faffaire  de 
Louis  Capet"  with  the  President  of  the  Con- 
vention. Paine  says  he  could  not  get  the 
floor,  ^as  so  many  were  inscribed  for  speeches 
that  the  debate  was  closed  before  his  turn 
came. 

The  first  sentences  of  this  "  opinion  "  of 
Thomas  Paine  illustrate  its  character : 

"  My  contempt  and  hatred  for  monarchical  govern- 
ment are  sufficiently  known.  My  compassion  for  the 
unfortunate,  friends  or  enemies,  is  equally  profound." 

He  alludes  to  the  position  he  had  taken 
in  the  address  of  the  "  Societe  Republi- 
caine,"  heretofore  alluded  to,  that  Louis 
XVI.,  by  his  flight  from  Paris,  had  abdi- 
cated the  throne,  and  censures  the  govern- 
ment for  re-establishing  him  in  the  power 
which  his  evasion  had  suspended.  He 
comes,  he  says, "  to  recall  to  the  nation  the 
error  of  that  unfortunate  day,  of  that  fatal 
error  of  not  having  rejected  Louis  XVI. 
from  its  bosom,  and  to  plead  in  favor  of  his 
banishment  in  preference  to  the  punishment 
of  death."  He  continues: 

"  As  to  myself,  I  avow  it  frankly,  when  I  think 
of  the  strange  folly  of  replacing  him  at  the  head  of 
the  nation,  all  covered  as  he  was  with  perjuries,  I 
am  embarrassed  to  know  which  I  ought  to  despise 
the  most,  the  Constituent  Assembly,  or  the  individ- 
ual, Louis  Capet.  But,  all  other  considerations 
apart,  there  is  in  his  life  one  circumstance  which 
should  cover  up  or  lessen  a  great  number  of  crimes ; 
and  that  same  circumstance  should  furnish  the 
French  nation  the  occasion  of  purging  its  territory 
of  kings  without  soiling  it  with  impure  blood. 
It  is  to  France  entire,  I  know  it,  that  the  United 
States  of  America  owes  the  help  by  the  means  of 
which  they  have  shaken  off,  by  force  of  arms,  the 
unjust  and  tyrannical  domination  of  George  the 
Third.  The  energy  and  zeal  with  which  it  fur- 
nished men  and  money  was  a  natural  consequence 
of  its  thirst  for  liberty.  *  *  *  *  The  United 
States  should,  then,  be  the  safeguard  and  asylum  of 
Louis  Capet.  There,  henceforth,  finding  shelter  from 
the  miseries  and  the  crimes  of  royal  life,  he  will  learn 
by  the  continual  aspect  of  the  public  prosperity  that 
the  veritable  system  of  government  is  not  of  kings, 
but  of  representation. " 

Paine  closes  his  "  opinion  "  as  follows : 

"  In  the  particular  case  submitted  in  this  moment 
to  our  consideration,  I  submit  to  the  Convention  the 
following  propositions  : 


"  First*  That  the  National  Convention  pronounces 
the  banishment  of  Louis  Capet  and  his  family. 

"  Second.  That  Louis  Capet  shall  be  imprisoned 
until  the  end  of  the  war,  when  the  sentence  of  ban- 
ishment shall  be  carried  into  execution." 

This  "  opinion  "  of  Thomas  Paine,  thus 
partially  set  out,  not  being  in  the  nature  of 
a  speech,  but  simply  read  to  the  Conven- 
tion, seems  to  have  been  quite  well 
received,  on  account  of  his  savage  denuncia- 
tion of  monarchical  governments. 

The  question  submitted  by  the  Conven- 
tion, "  What  shall  be  the  punishment  of 
Louis,  formerly  king  of  the  French  ?  "  was 
decided  by  appel  nominal.  By  this  method 
the  members  of  each  department  appear 
at  the  tribune  and  each  one  expresses  his 
opinion  orally,  giving  his  reasons,  if  he 
desire  to  do  so,  or  deposes  his  vote  in  an 
urn  de  scrutin.  Paine  voted  for  "  the  im- 
prisonment of  Louis  till  the  end  of  the  war, 
and  banishment  afterward." 

The  Convention  having  decreed  that  the 
punishment  of  death  should  be  inflicted  on 
Louis,  the  next  question  which  arose  was, 
should  there  be  a  suspension  of  the  execu- 
tion of  the  sentence  ?  It  was  on  the  igth 
day  of  January,  1793,  that  Paine  mounted 
the  tribune  to  speak  to  this  question.  This 
trial  of  Louis  XVI.  by  the  National  Conven- 
tion is  one  of  the  most  remarkable  on 
record.  The  session  was  made  permanent, 
and  the  trial  went  on  day  and  night.  After 
a  lapse  of  nearly  one  hundred  years,  the 
painful  and  dramatic  scenes  stand  out  with 
still  greater  prominence.  The  Salle  des 
Machines,  in  the  Pavilion  de  Flores  at  the 
Tuileries,  had  been  converted  into  a  grand 
hall  for  the  sittings  of  the  Convention. 

The  galleries  were  immense,  and  could 
seat  fourteen  hundred  spectators.  In  an 
immense  city  like  Paris,  convulsed  with  a 
political  excitement  never  equaled,  the  trial 
of  a  king  for  his  life  produced  the  most  pro- 
found emotions  that  ever  agitated  any  com- 
munity. All  classes  and  conditions  in  life 
were  carried  away  by  the  prevailing  excite- 
ment, and  the  pressure  for  places  exceeded 
anything  ever  known.  The  scenes,  as 
painted  by  one  of  the  most  gifted  historians 
of  the  French  Revolution  (Louis  Blanc), 
will  never  cease  to  awaken  the  most  thrill- 
ing interest.  The  first  row  of  seats  was  filled 
by  ladies  en  neglige  charmant.  In  the  upper 
tribunes,  men  of  all  conditions  in  life ;  an  enor- 
mous number  of  foreigners  who  had  been 
attracted  to  Paris  by  the  events  of  the  day. 
On  the  side  of  the  Montagne  there  sat  great 
personages,  from  the  Duke  of  Orleans  to  the 


THOMAS  PAINE  AND    THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION. 


779 


Marquis  de  Chateauneuf ;  from  Lepelletier, 
St.  Fargeau  and  Herault  de  Sechelles  to 
the  rich  Belgian  baron,  Anacharsis  Clootz. 
The  tribunes  were  reserved  for  the  ladies, 
<•  a  rubans  tri-cofars"  and  the  huissicrs 
would  go  and  come  to  make  way  for  the 
beautiful  visitors.  The  private  boxes  were 
filled  with  ladies  of  fashion,  who  sipped 
ices  and  ate  oranges  while  the  members  of 
their  acquaintance  came  to  salute  them. 
In  the  higher  galleries,  they  drank  eau-de-vie 
and  wine,  as  in  a  tap-room. 

The  appearance  of  Thomas  Paine  at  the 
tribune,  with  a  roll  of  manuscript  in  his 
hand,  created  quite  a  sensation  in  the  Con- 
vention. By  his  side  stood  Bangal,  who 
was  there  to  translate  the  speech  into 
French  and  read  it  to  the  Convention.  The 
first  declarations  of  the  celebrated  foreigner 
produced  a  commotion  on  the  benches  of  the 
Montagne.  Coming  from  a  democrat  like 
Thomas  Paine,  a  man  so  intimately  allied 
with  the  Americans,  a  great  thinker  and 
writer,  there  was  fear  of  their  influence  on 
the  Convention.  Marat,  indignant  and  furi- 
ous, raised  the  point  of  order  that  Paine 
should  not  be  allowed  to  vote;  that, 
being  a  Quaker,  his  religious  principles 
made  him  opposed  to  the  death  penalty. 
It  must  be  said  to  the  credit  of  the  Montag- 
nards  that  Marat's  question  of  order  was 
not  received  with  favor.  Liberty  of  opin- 
ion was  invoked  from  all  parts  of  the  hall, 
and  demands  made  that  Marat  should  be 
called  to  order.  Paine  was  finally  permitted 
to  continue  his  speech,  but  with  violent  in- 
terruptions from  the  Montagne.  At  last 
Thuriot,  one  of  the  most  violent  and  blood- 
thirsty of  the  revolutionists,  declared  that 
the  language  of  the  translator  was  not  the 
language  of  Thomas  Paine.  At  this  mo- 
ment Marat  rushed  to  the  tribune  and  vio- 
lently interrupted  Paine  in  English.  Obliged 
to  descend  from  the  tribune,  he  addressed 
the  Convention : 

"  I  denounce  the  interpreter.  I  contend  that  it  is 
not  the  opinion  of  Thomas  Paine.  It  is  a  wicked 
and  unfaithful  translation." 

The  most  violent  exclamations  broke  out, 
drowning  the  voice  of  Bancal,  the  unfortu- 
nate interpreter,  and  creating  an  indescrib- 
able tumult.  Never  was  a  man  in  a  more 
embarrassing  condition  than  Paine  was  at 
this  time.  Though  not  understanding  the 
language,  he  yet  realized  the  fury  of  the 
storm  which  raged  around  him.  Standing  at 
the  tribune  in  his  half-Quaker  coat,  and 
genteelly  attired,  he  remained  undaunted 


and  self-possessed  during  the  tempest.  The 
question  as  to  the  correctness  of  the 
translation  of  the  speech  was  then  left  to 
Garan-Coulon,  a  distinguished  member  of 
the  Montagne  and  a  good  English  scholar, 
who  declared  that  he  had  seen  the  speech 
in  the  hands  of  Paine,  and  that  the  transla- 
tion was  correct.  Bangal  was  then  per- 
mitted to  translate  the  remainder  of  the 
speech. 

This  speech  of  Paine  breathed  greatness 
of  soul  and  generosity  of  spirit,  and  will 
forever  honor  his  memory.  "  My  lan- 
guage," he  says,  "  has  always  been  the 
language  of  liberty  and  humanity,  and  I 
know  by  experience  that  nothing  so  exalts 
a  nation  as  the  union  of  these  two  principles 
under  all  circumstances."  He  warned  the 
Convention  against  doing  that  which  at  the 
moment  might  be  deemed  an  act  of  justice, 
but  which  would  appear  in  the  future  only 
as  an  act  of  vengeance.  Prophetic  words, 
indeed.  He  pleads  for  the  life  of  the  king  : 

"  I  can  assure  you  that  his  execution  would  pro- 
duce a  universal  affliction  in  America,  and  it  is  in 
your  power  to  spare  that  affliction  to  your  best 
friends.  If  I  could  speak  the  French  language  I 
would  descend  to  your  bar,  and,  in  the  name  of  all 
my  brothers  in  America,  I  would  present  to  you  a 
petition  to  suspend  the  execution  of  Louis." 

There  is  no  doubt  that  this  speech  utterly 
destroyed  Paine  in  the  estimation  of  the 
Montagne,  and  from  that  time  commenced 
his  relations  with  the  Girondins,  which 
added  to  his  unpopularity  with  the  Jacobins. 
That  Robespierre  had  doomed  him  to  the 
guillotine,  there  is  no  question,  and  his  life 
was  only  saved  by  the  fall  of  that  merciless 
tyrant  on  the  gth  Thermidor  (July,  1794). 
In  the  exhaustive  report  subsequently  made 
by  Courtois,  "  in  the  name  of  the  commis- 
sion charged  with  an  examination  of  the 
papers  found  at  the  house  of  Robespierre 
after  his  death,"  the  fact  is  disclosed  that 
a  note-book  was  found,  all  in  his  own  hand- 
writing, in  which  was  the  following  entry : 

"  Demand  that  Thomas  Paine  be  decreed  in  accu- 
sation for  the  interests  of  America  as  well  as  those 
of  France." 

After  quoting  this  entry  in  his  report,  the 
author  of  the  report  says :  "  Why  Thomas 
Paine  rather  than  others  ?  Is  it  because  he 
has  labored  to  found  liberty  in  two 
worlds  ?  " 

Though  Marat  spoke  English,  and  he  and 
Paine  were  colleagues  in  the  National  Con- 
vention, there  was  evidently  no  sympathy 
between  them.  Marat  was  as  insincere 


780 


THOMAS  PAINE  AND    THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION. 


in  his  republicanism  as  in  his  patriotism ; 
he  was  as  hypocritical  as  he  was  cruel. 
At  a  time  when  he  was  bawling  in  public 
most  lustily  for  "  liberty,"  "  equality  "  and  a 
"  republic,"  he  accosted  Paine  one  day  in 
the  lobby  of  the  Convention,  and  said  to  him 
sneeringly,  in  English: 

"  And  it  is  you  who  believe  in  a  repub- 
lic ;  you  have  too  much  sense  to  believe  in 
such  a  dream." 

The  hostile  feeling  of  Marat  toward  Paine 
was  shown  by  his  violent  and  indecent 
interruptions  of  the  latter  at  the  tribune 
during  the  trial  of  Louis  XVI.  before  the 
National  Convention,  in  January,  1793. 
The  hatred  which  there  cropped  out  seems 
to  have  become  intensified  at  a  later  period 
(the  following  April).  Marat,  in  his  journal, 
"  L'Ami  du  Peuple,"  had  preached  murder 
and  pillage  to  such  an  extent  that  the  Con- 
vention, a  majority  of  whose  members  were 
openly  in  sympathy  with  him,  was  obliged 
to  place  him  in  accusation  and  send  him 
for  trial  before  the  "Tribunal  Criminal 
Extraordinaire."  This  trial,  as  reported  in 
the  "  Moniteur  "  of  May  3,  1793,  is  one  of 
the  curiosities  of  revolutionary  jurisprudence. 
Marat  was  completely  master  of  the  situa- 
tion, violent,  aggressive  and  impudent,  in- 
stead of  being  tried  himself,  he  made  the 
Tribunal  an  instrument  of  attack  upon  his 
enemies,  and  particularly  Brissot,  Girey- 
Dupre  and  Paine.  The  two  former  were 
editors  of  the  "  Patriot  Frangais,"  the  organ 
of  the  Girondins,  and  Marat  took  advan- 
tage of  the  occasion  to  revenge  himself  on 
them,  as  well  as  on  Paine,  for  the  publica- 
tion of  an  article  in  relation  to  a  young 
Englishman  named  Johnson,  who  had 
attempted  suicide.  It  was  alleged  that 
having  abjured  his  country,  because  he 
detested  kings,  he  came  to  France,  hoping 
to  find  liberty,  but  he  only  saw,  under  its 
mask,  the  hideous  visage  of  anarchy. 
Revolted  by  such  a  spectacle,  he  undertook 
to  kill  himself.  The  article  concluded  with 
a  note  "  written  in  a  trembling  hand  and 
which  is  in  the  hands  of  a  celebrated  for- 
eigner " — meaning  Paine.  It  is  as  follows : 

"  I  came  into  France  to  enjoy  liberty,  but  Marat 
has  assassinated  it.  Anarchy  is  yet  more  cruel  than 
despotism.  I  cannot  resist  the  grievous  spectacle 
of  seeing  the  triumph  of  imbecility  over  talent  and 
virtue." 

This  infuriated  Marat,  and  one  of  his 
objects  was  to  connect  Paine  with  this  article 
in  the  "  Patriot  Frangais."  All  this  had 
nothing  whatever  to  do,  as  Paine  well  said 


in  his  testimony,  with  the  accusation  pre- 
ferred against  Marat.  Nevertheless,  all  the 
evidence  given  on  the  trial,  as  reported  in 
the  "  Moniteur,"  is  in  relation  to  the  matter 
of  this  article  in  the  "  Patriot  Frangais." 
One  Samson  Pegnet  is  called  as  a  witness, 
who  testified  that  the  man  Johnson  lived  in 
the  house  occupied  by  Thomas  Paine, 
deputy  to  the  National  Convention,  rue 
Faubourg  Saint  Denis,  No.  63 — that  from 
the  reading  of  different  articles  announcing 
that  those  deputies  who  voted  (on  the  trial 
of  Louis)  for  an  appeal  to  the  people  would 
be  massacred,  his  friendship  for  Thomas 
Paine,  who  was  of  that  number,  had  in- 
duced him  to  attempt  to  destroy  himself  for 
fear  of  being  a  witness  to  the  execution  of 
his  friend. 

The  President  of  the  Tribunal:  Is  it  to 
your  knowledge  that  they  held  conversa- 
tions at  the  house  of  Thomas  Paine  tending 
to  the  belief  that  he  would  be  massacred  ? 

Samson  Pegnet:  Yes;  it  was  stated  that 
Marat  had  said  it  was  necessary  to  massacre 
all  foreigners,  particularly  the  English. 

The  President,  to  Marat :  What  answer 
have  you  to  make  to  this  last  fact? 

Marat:  I  observe  to  the  Tribunal  that  it 
is  an  atrocious  calumny,  a  wickedness  of 
the  "  statesmen  "  to  render  me  odious. 

The  President,  to  Samson  Pegnet :  Are  you 
often  at  the  house  of  Thomas  Paine,  and  are 
there  many  people  there  ? 

Samson  Pegnet :  I  have  never  seen  more 
than  five  or  six  English  there,  and  one 
Frenchman. 

Thomas  Paine  is  then  introduced  as  a 
witness.  He  testifies,  through  an  inter- 
preter, that  he  had  only  known  Marat 
since  the  meeting  of  the  Convention.  The 
note  inserted  in  the  "Patriot  Frangais"  was 
then  read  to  him,  and  he  answered  that 
he  did  not  conceive  that  it  had  anything 
to  do  with  the  charge  preferred  against 
Marat.  He  further  said  that  Johnson  had 
stabbed  himself  twice,  because  he  had  heard 
that  Marat  was  going  to  denounce  him. 

Marat:  It  is  not  because  that  I  denounced 
this  young  man  who  has  stabbed  himself, 
but  because  I  wished  to  denounce  Thomas 
Paine. 

Thomas  Paine:  Johnson  had  for  a  long 
time  been  very  inquiet  in  his  mind.  As  to 
Marat,  I  have  only  spoken  to  him  once  in 
the  passage-way  of  the  Convention.  He 
said  to  me  that  the  English  people  were  free 
and  happy,  and  I  answered  him  that  they 
groaned  under  a  double  despotism. 

It   was   probably  in  this  interview  that 


THOMAS  PAINE  AND    THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION. 


781 


Marat  sneered  at  Paine  for  being  a  repub- 
lican, and  told  him  that  he  had  too  much 
sense  to  believe  in  the  dream  of  a  republic. 

Other  witnesses  were  introduced,  and  all 
for  the  purpose  of  connecting  Paine  with 
the  article  in  the  "  Patriot  Frangais." 

Marat  was  on  trial  for  inciting  to  murder 
and  pillage  in  his  newspaper,  and  the  charge 
was  fully  proved  by  the  articles  he  had  pub- 
lished. Marat  proved  at  the  trial  that 
Paine  was  connected  with  the  publication 
of  an  article  in  the  "  Patriot  Fran9ais " 
prejudicial  to  him,  Marat.  Hence: 

"  Marat  is  acquitted  and  leaves  the  Tribune  in 
the  midst  of  the  applause  of  the  spectators,  who,  after 
having  crowned  him  with  leaves  of  oak,  conduct  him 
in  triumph  to  the  Convention."  (See  proceedings 
of  the  trial  in  the  "  Moniteur  "  of  May  3,  1793.) 

It  was  on  the  24th  of  April,  1793,  that 
this  "  trial "  of  Marat  took  place,  and 
Paine's  name  does  not  appear  any  more  in 
the  "  Moniteur."  The  triumphant  acquittal 
of  Marat,  which  was  a  savage  defiance 
thrown  in  the  face  of  all  the  moderate 
element  of  the  time,  gave  a  fresh  impulse  to 
revolutionary  madness.  On  the  second  of 
June  the  Convention  decreed  the  arrest  of 
the  "Twenty-two  Deputies"  (the Girondins). 

At  the  instigation  of  Robespierre  a  decree 
was  passed  in  the  same  month  excluding 
foreigners  from  the  Convention.  This  was 
for  the  sole  purpose  of  getting  rid  of  Paine 
and  Clootz,  who  are  afterward  described  as 
"  ex-deputies." 

On  the  i4th  of  the  following  month  (July) 
the  career  of  the  wretched  Marat  was  ended 
by  the  poignard  of  Charlotte  Corday,  fol- 
lowed by  a  delirium  of  rage  and  fury  on  the 
part  of  the  Montagnards  which  was  alike 
without  limit  and  without  example.  This 
event  was  the  death  knell  of  the  Girondins, 
and  they  so  understood  it.  Vergniaud  said 
to  one  of  his  colleagues  that  the  act  of 
Charlotte  Corday  had  prepared  their  way 
for  the  scaffold,  "  but,"  he  added,  "  she  has 
shown  us  how  to  die." 

In  the  following  September  the  Conven- 
tion passed  that  terrible  enactment  known 
as  the  "  law  of  the  suspect,"  which  was  one 
of  the  most  terrible  engines  of  oppression 
ever  known  in  legislative  annals.  In  virtue 
of  its  ingenious  and  elaborated  provisions, 
one  half  of  the  people  of  France  could  send 
the  other  half  to  the  prison  and  the  scaffold. 
This  law  was  drawn  up  by  Merlin  (de 
Douai),  an  advanced  revolutionist,  one  of 
the  most  distinguished  lawyers  of  his  time, 
and  who  was  called  the  "  legist  of  terror." 


It  was  under  this  law  that  Thomas  Paine 
and  Anacharsis  Clootz  were  arrested  in  the 
following  December  (7th  Nivose)  and  sent 
to  the  prison  of  the  Luxembourg. 

From  the  time  that  Paine  was  excluded 
from  the  Convention  until  his  arrest,  he  had 
witnessed  with  indignation  and  shame  the 
accumulating  horrors  of  the  revolution,  and 
he  had  the  courage  to  openly  denounce 
Robespierre.  From  that  moment  he  was 
undoubtedly  doomed  to  the  scaffold.  Clootz, 
who  was  sent  to  prison  with  him  in  Decem- 
ber, 1793,  was  guillotined  on  the  24th  of 
March,  1794.  But  there  was  a  distinct 
charge  against  Clootz  of  having  been  con- 
nected with  the  Hebertistes.  There  could 
be  no  accusation  sustained  against  Thomas 
Paine.  His  being  an  American,  the  author 
of  the  "  Rights  of  Man,"  and  the  high  con- 
sideration in  which  he  was  held  in  France, 
may  have  caused  Robespierre  to  hesitate 
until  he  was  himself  overtaken  by  the  IX. 
Thermidor. 

Paine  was  sent  to  the  prison  of  the  Lux- 
embourg, that  great  palace  built  by  Marie 
de  Medicis  in  1615.  At  the  time  of  the 
Revolution  it  was  converted  into  a  prison 
of  state.  Here  were  incarcerated  a  thou- 
sand people  of  all  classes  and  conditions  of 
life,  accused  of  political  offenses.  It  seems 
to  have  been  the  prison  where  Robespierre 
sent  his  most  illustrious  victims.  It  was 
this  prison  from  which  Danton,  Lacroix, 
Camille  Desmoulins,  Fabre  d'Eglantine, 
General  Westerman,  Chabot,  Bazire, 
Delauny  (d'Angers)  and  Herault  .de  Se- 
chelles  were  taken  to  be  conducted  to  the 
guillotine.  The  condition  of  the  prisoners 
was  to  the  last  degree  deplorable,  and 
when  guarded  au  secret  was  absolutely  hor- 
rible. "  A  Prisoner  at  the  Luxembourg  " 
has  given  to  the  world  an  account  of  the 
state  of  things  that  existed  in  that  prison 
just  previous  to  the  fall  of  Robespierre. 
The  unfortunate  prisoners  were  considered 
by  the  agents  and  subalterns  of  the  revolu- 
tionary authorities  as  miserable  animals, 
which  were  to  be  killed  indifferently  with- 
out exception  of  individuals.  All  were  to 
die  and  no  matter  who  was  the  victim. 
All  were  in  a  state  of  the  most  cruel  sus- 
pense and  torment,  increased  by  the  permis- 
sion given  to  news-venders  to  cry  the  contents 
of  their  journals  under  the  windows  of  the 
prison,  but  without  permission  to  sell  them. 
These  boys  would  vociferate  in  loud  tones: 
"  Here  is  the  list  of  those  who  have  drawn 
tickets  in  the  lottery  of  the  holy  guillotine ! 
Who  wishes  to  see  the  list  ?  There  are 


782 


THOMAS  PAINE   AND    THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION. 


to-day  sixty,  more  or  less  "  ;  and  like  cries, 
varied  from  day  to  day.  No  one  knew 
when  he  would  be  called  upon  to  take  up 
his  march  to  the  remorseless  revolutionary 
tribunal.  Sometimes  a  squadron  of  gen- 
darmerie would  enter  the  prison  at  two 
o'clock  in  the  morning,  generally  arresting 
one  hundred  and  sixty  persons;  divided 
into  three  squads  they  were  to  be  taken  for 
trial,  one  third  at  each  session  of  the  tri- 
bunal. Their  nurture  was  detestable;  a 
thousand  prisoners  were  to  be  fed.  Tables 
and  benches  were  set  out  in  one  of  the 
grand  halls  of  the  palace  at  which  could  be 
seated  more  than  three  hundred  people. 
They  served  them  a  vile  soup  in  vases  or 
tin  basins,  a  half  bottle  of  wine  which  was 
worse  than  the  soup ;  two  dishes,  one  of 
vegetables  swimming  in  water,  the  other 
always  pork  boiled  with  cabbage.  They 
had  each  day  a  ration  of  a  pound  and  a 
half  of  bread.  This  was  the  only  meal  in 
twenty-four  hours.  As  there  were  about  a 
thousand  persons,  they  had  to  have  three 
separate  dinners,  one  at  eleven  o'clock,  one 
at  noon  and  one  at  one  o'clock.  There 
were  in  the  prison  many  spies  and  pimps 
of  the  Government,  with  instructions  to 
mingle  among  the  prisoners  in  order  to 
observe  all  their  actions,  take  down  all 
their  words  and  find  out  or  invent  plans  of 
conspiracy.  Betrayed  by  these  wretches, 
who  would  worm  themselves  into  the  con- 
fidence of  the  prisoners,  each  one  began  to 
fear  that  he  had  one  of  these  monsters  at 
his  side,  and  at  last  would  speak  only  in 
monosyllables,  trembling  that  even  these 
might  be  metamorphosed  into  a  conspiracy. 
The  following  is  the  warrant  issued  for 
the  arrest  of  Paine  and  Clootz  :* 

NATIONAL  CONVENTION. 

Committee  of  Surete  Generate  el  de  Surveillance 
of  the  National  Convention. 

Nivose  7th,  in  the  2d  year  of  the  Fj-ench  Repub- 
lic, one  and  indivisible. 

The  Committee  order  that  Thomas  Paine  and 
Anacharsis  Clootz,  formerly  deputies  to  the  National 
Convention,  be  apprehended,  and,  as  a  measure  of 
general  safety,  committed  to  prison ;  that  their  papers 
be  examined,  and  that  such  as  may  be  suspicious  put 
under  seal  and  taken  to  the  Committee  of  General 
Safety. 

The  Committee  commissions  citizens  Jean  Baptiste 
Martin  and  Lamy,  bearers  of  these  presents,  to  carry 
the  same  into  execution,  for  which  purpose  they 


*  All  the  documents  which  follow  are  copies 
taken  from  the  National  Archives  in  Paris,  in  1877, 
and  it  is  believed  that  none  of  them  have  ever  before 
been  made  public. 


shall  summon  the  civil  authorities  and,  in  case  of 
need,  the  armed  force. 

The  representatives  of  the  people,  members  of  the 
Committee  of  General  Safety :  M.  Bayle,  Voulland, 
Jagot,  Amar,  Vadier,  Elie  Lacoste,  Guffroy,  Louis 
du  Bas-Rhin,  La  Vicomterie. 

This  is  followed  by  this  receipt  of  the 
concierge  of  the  prison  of  the  Luxembourg : 

I  have  received  from  citizens  Martin  and  Lamy, 
secretaries,  clerks  of  the  Committee  of  General  Safety 
of  the  National  Convention,  citizens  Thomas  Paine 
and  Anacharsis  Clootz,  formerly  deputies,  by  com- 
mand of  the  Committee. 

LUXEMBOURG,  Nivose  8th,  in  the  2d  year  of  the 
French  Republic  one  and  indivisible. 

BENOIT,  Concierge. 

As  it  will  have  been  seen,  Paine  was  in- 
carcerated in  December  (yth  Nivose),  1793, 
and  remained  enduring  all  the  horrors  of 
that  frightful  prison,  and  at  the  Luxem- 
bourg, making  no  sign,  until  July  (igth 
Thermidor),  1794.  Declared  an  outlaw  by 
the  same  Convention  which  he  had  so  long 
used  as  an  instrument  of  his  private  ven- 
geance, Robespierre  was  killed  like  a  dog 
ten  days  previous.  (July  28,  1794.) 

The  fall  of  the  tyrant  filled  with  hope  the 
hearts  of  so  many  of  his  victims,  still  linger- 
ing in  prison,  and  produced  a  ray  of  light 
in  the  gloom  of  despair.  For  eight  months 
Paine  had  suffered  and  endured  in  silence. 
Prostrated  by  disease  and  tortured  by 
anxiety,  his  condition  was  most  deplorable. 
He  was  liable  at  any  moment,  day  or 
night,  to  be  dragged  before  the  Revolution- 
ary Tribunal,  and  that  meant  the  guillotine. 
Clootz  mounted  the  scaffold  March  24, 
1794,  and  on  the  sth  of  the  following 
month  Paine  bid  a  final  adieu  to  his  asso- 
ciates in  prison,  Danton,  Bazire,  Lacroix, 
Camille  Desmoulins.  Herault  de  Sechelles, 
Delaunay  (d'Angers)  and  others  of  the 
early  apostles  of  the  Revolution,  and  they 
were,  on  the  same  day,  hurried  to  the  scaf- 
fold. At  this  time  Paine  could  not  doubt 
that  his  own  hour  would  soon  come  to  strike, 
but  the  death  of  his  mortal  enemy,  Robes- 
pierre, saved  his  life.  Ten  days  after  this 
event,  and  on  the  igth  Thermidor,  Paine 
addressed  the  following  letter  to  the  Na- 
tional Convention.  It  is  a  touching  and 
dignified  appeal  of  the  victim  of  a  cruel 
persecution,  and  one  which,  now  brought  to 
light  after  a  lapse  of  nearly  a  century,  will 
be  read  with  feelings  of  the  liveliest  emo- 
tion. It  was  sent  to  the  Committee  on 
Public  Safety,  and  inclosed  with  the  follow- 
ing note: 


THOMAS  PAINE  AND    THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION. 


783 


CITIZENS,    REPRESENTATIVES    AND   MEMBERS  OF 
THE  COMMITTEE  OF   PUBLIC  SAFETY. 

I  forward  you  a  copy  of  a  letter  which  I  have 
written  to-day  to  the  Convention.  The  singular 
predicament  I  find  myself  in  induces  me  to  apply  to 
the  whole  Convention,  of  which  you  are  a  part. 

THOMAS  PAINE. 

LUXEMBOURG  PRISON,  on  the  igth  day  of  Ther- 
midor,  in  the  2d  year  of  the  Republic,  one  and  in- 
divisible. 

CITIZEN  REPRESENTATIVES. 

If  I  should  not  express  myself  with  the  energy  I 
used  formerly  to  do,  you  will  attribute  it  to  the  very 
dangerous  illness  I  have  suffered  in  the  prison  of 
the  Luxembourg.  For  several  days  I  was  insensi- 
ble of  my  own  existence ;  and,  though  I  am  much 
recovered,  it  is  with  exceedingly  great  difficulty  that 
I  find  power  to  write  you  this  letter. 

But  before  I  proceed  further,  I  request  the  Con- 
vention to  observe  that  this  is  the  first  line  that  has 
come  from  me,  either  to  the  Convention  or  to  any 
of  the  committees,  since  my  imprisonment,  which  is 
approaching  eight  months.  Ah,  my  friends,  eight 
months'  loss  of  liberty  seems  almost  a  life-time  to  a 
man  who  has  been,  as  I  have  been,  the  unceasing 
defender  of  liberty  for  twenty  years. 

I  have  now  to  inform  the  Convention  of  the  rea- 
son of  my  not  having  written  before. 

It  is  a  year  ago  that  I  had  strong  reason  to  believe 
that  Robespierre  was  my  inveterate  enemy,  as  he 
was  the  enemy  of  every  man  of  virtue  and  humanity. 

The  address  that  was  sent  to  the  Convention  some 
time  about  last  August,  from  Arras,  the  native  town 
of  Robespierre,  I  have  always  been  informed  was 
the  work  of  that  hypocrite  and  the  partisans  he  had 
in  the  place.  The  intention  of  that  address  was  to 
prepare  the  way  for  destroying  me,  by  making  the 
people  declare  (though  without  assigning  any  rea- 
son) that  I  had  lost  their  confidence.  The  address, 
however,  failed  of  success,  as  it  was  immediately 
opposed  by  a  counter-address  from  Saint  Omer, 
which  declared  directly  the  contrary. 

But  the  strange  power  that  Robespierre,  by  the 
most  consummate  hypocrisy  and  the  most  hardened 
cruelties,  had  obtained,  rendered  any  attempt  on  my 
part  to  obtain  justice  not  only  useless,  but  even  dan- 
gerous ;  for  it  is  the  nature  of  tyranny  always  to 
strike  a  deeper  blow  when  any  attempt  has  been 
made  to  repel  a  former  one.  This  being  my  situ- 
ation, I  submitted  with  patience  to  the  hardness  of 
my  fate,  and  awaited  the  event  of  brighter  days.  I 
hope  they  are  now  arrived  to  the  nation  and  to  me. 

Citizens,  when  I  left  the  United  States  of  Amer- 
ica in  the  year  1787,  I  promised  to  all  my  friends 
that  I  would  return  to  them  the  next  year  ;  but  the 
hope  of  seeing  a  republic  happily  established  in 
France  that  might  serve  as  a  model  to  the  rest 
of  Europe,  and  the  earnest  and  disinterested  desire 
of  rendering  every  service  in  my  power  to  promote  it, 
induced  me  to  defer  my  return  to  that  country 
and  to  the  society  of  my  friends  for  more  than 
seven  years.  This  long  sacrifice  of  private  tran- 
quillity, especially  after  having  gone  through  the 
fatigues  and  dangers  of  the  American  Revolution, 
which  continued  almost  eight  years,  deserved  a  bet- 
ter fate  than  the  long  imprisonment  I  have  silently 
suffered. 

But  it  is  not  the  nation,  but  a  faction,  that  has  done 
me  this  injustice,  and  it  is  to  the  national  represen- 
tation that  I  appeal  against  that  injustice. 

Parties  and  factions,  various  and  numerous  as 
they  have  been,  I  have  always  avoided.  My  heart 


was  devoted  to  all  France,  and  the  object  to  which 
I  applied  myself  was  the  Constitution.  The  plan 
that  I  proposed  to  the  Committee  of  which  I  was 
a  member  is  now  in  the  hands  of  Barere,  and  it 
will  speak  for  itself. 

It  is,  perhaps,  proper  that  I  inform  you  of 
the  cause  assigned  in  the  order  for  my  imprison- 
ment. It  is  that  I  am  a  foreigner ;  whereas  the  for- 
eigner thus  imprisoned  was  invited  into  France  by  a 
decree  of  the  late  National  Assembly,  and  that  in 
the  hour  of  her  greatest  danger,  when  invaded  by 
Austrians  and  Prussians.  He  was,  moreover,  a  cit- 
izen of  the  United  States  of  America,  an  ally  of 
France,  and  not  a  subject  of  any  country  in  Europe, 
and,  consequently,  not  within  the  intention  of  any 
of  the  decrees  concerning  foreigners.  But  any  ex- 
cuse can  be  made  to  serve  the  purpose  of  malignity 
when  it  is  in  power. 

I  will  not  intrude  on  your  time  by  offering  any 
apology  for  the  broken  and  imperfect  manner  in 
which  I  have  expressed  myself.  I  request  you  to 
accept  it  with  the  sincerity  with  which  it  comes  from 
my  heart ;  and  I  conclude  with  wishing  fraternity 
and  prosperity  to  France,  and  union  and  happiness 
to  her  representatives. 

Citizens,  I  have  now  stated  to  you  my  situation, 
and  I  can  have  no  doubt  but  your  justice  will  restore 
me  to  the  liberty  of  which  I  have  been  deprived. 

THOMAS  PAINE. 

LUXEMBOURG,  Thermidor  igth,  2d  year  of  the 
French  Republic,  one  and  indivisible. 

On  the  1 8th  Thermidor,  the  day  pre- 
vious to  the  date  of  Paine's  letter,  as  above, 
Dr.  Lanthenas  had  already  interceded  in 
behalf  of  Paine,  by  addressing  the  following 
letter  to  Merlin  (de  Thionville),  a  member 
of  the  Committee  of  "  General  Safety." 
Lanthenas  was  a  great  admirer  of  Paine, 
and  allied  to  him  by  the  ties  of  a  sincere 
friendship.  The  fact  that  he  "  spoke  Eng- 
lish a  little  "  seems  to  have  brought  him 
into  close  relations  with  Paine. 

I  deliver  to  Merlin  de  Thionville  a  copy  of  the 
last  work  of  T.  Paine,  formerly  our  colleague,  and  in 
custody  since  the  decree  excluding  foreigners  from 
the  national  representation. 

This  book  was  written  by  the  author  in  the  be- 
ginning of  the  year  93  (old  style).  I  undertook  its 
translation  before  the  revolution  against  priests,  and 
it  was  published  in  French  about  the  same  time. 

Couthon,  to  whom  I  sent  it,  seemed  offended 
with  me  for  having  translated  this  work ;  still  its 
nature  and  translator  were  altogether  free  from  any 
reproach  that  might  be  directed  to  the  author  in  his 
private  or  political  life. 

I  think  it  would  be  in  the  well-understood  interest 
of  the  Republic,  since  the  downfall  of  the  tyrants  we 
have  overthrown,  to  re-examine  the  motives  of  the 
imprisonment  of  T.  Paine.  That  re-examination  is 
suggested  by  too  multiplied  and  sensible  grounds  to 
need  to  be  related  in  detail.  Every  friend  of  liberty, 
who  is  somewhat  familiar  with  the  history  of  our 
Revolution  and  deems  it  necessary  to  repel  the 
slanders  with  which  the  despots  load  it  in  the  eyes 
of  the  nations,  and  who  mislead  them  against  us,  will, 
however,  understand  such  grounds. 

Should  the  Committee  of  General  Safety,  enter- 
taining no  founded  charge  or  suspicion  against  T. 
Paine,  have  any  scruples  and  believe  that,  from  my 


784 


THOMAS  PAINE  AND   THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION. 


having  occasionally  conversed  with  that  foreigner, 
whom  the  people's  suffrage  had  called  to  the  national 
representation,  and  because  I  spoke  his  language  a 
little,  I  could  perhaps  throw  light  upon  their  doubt, 
then  I  would  readily  come  and  communicate  to  them 
all  that  I  know  about  that  individual. 

I  request  Merlin  de  Thionville  to  submit  these 
considerations  to  the  Committee. 

F.  LANTHENAS. 

Thermidor  1 8th,  in  the  2d  year  of  the  French 
Republic. 

Fran£ois  Lanthenas,  the  writer  of  this 
letter,  was  a  doctor  at  the  epoch  of  the 
Revolution,  and  was  elected  a  member  of 
the  National  Convention.  He  voted  for  the 
death  of  the  king,  but  fixed  a  delay  for  his 
punishment.  On  the  return  of  the  Bour- 
bons he  was  expelled  from  France  as  a 
regicide.  He  was  attached  to  the  party 
of  the  Girondins,  and  his  name  was  on  that 
fatal  list  which  proscribed,  and  subsequently 
sent  to  the  scaffold,  the  "  Twenty-two  Dep- 
uties "  of  that  party.  Strange  as  it  may 
seem,  his  name  was  stricken  from  the  list 
on  the  motion  of  the  bloodthirsty  Marat. 
His  reasons  for  his  motion  were  not  very 
complimentary  to  Lanthenas,  but  fortunately 
they  saved  his  life.  He  said  :  "  Lanthenas 
is  a  poor  devil,  who  is  not  worth  thinking 
of."  He  lived  to  write  the  letter  alike 
creditable  to  his  head  and  heart  in  behalf 
of  Thomas  Paine,  and  was  afterward,  in 
the  time  of  the  Directory,  a  member  of  the 
Council  of  Five  Hundred. 

Dr.  Lanthenas,  whose  letter  of  the  i8th 
Thermidor  has  been  quoted  above,  was 
not  the  only  Frenchman  who  intervened 
in  behalf  of  Paine.  In  the  succeeding 
month  (August),  Achille  Audibert,  of  Calais, 
one  of  his  constituents,  addressed  the  follow- 
ing letter  to  Citizen  Theuriot,  a  member  of 
the  Committee  of  Public  Safety,  appealing 
for  the  release  of  Paine.  As  Robespierre 
was  then  dead,  he  was  safe  in  denouncing 
him,  particularly  to  Theuriot.  From  having 
been  the  associate  of  Robespierre  in  all  his 
crimes  Theuriot  had  become  his  violent 
enemy.  He  was  the  president  of  the 
National  Convention  on  the  gih  Thermidor, 
and  every  time  that  Robespierre  attempted 
to  speak  he  would  ring  his  bell  furiously 
and  cry  out :  "  Tu  rias  pas  la  parole!  Tu  rfas 
pas  la  parole  /  "  (You  have  not  the  floor.) 

PARIS,  Fructidor  2d,  in  the  2d 
year  of  the  Republic. 

To  Citizen  Theuriot,  a  member  of  the  Committee 
of  Public  Safety. 

REPRESENTATIVE  :  A  friend  of  mankind  is  groan- 
ing in  chains — Thomas  Paine,  who  was  not  so  politic 
as  to  remain  silent  in  regard  to  a  man  who  was  not 


like  himself,  but  who  dared  to  say  that  Robespierre 
was  a  monster  to  be  struck  off  the  list  of  men.  From 
that  moment  he  became  a  criminal ;  the  despot 
marked  him  as  his  victim,  put  him  into  prison,  and 
doubtless  prepared  for  him  the  way  to  the  scaffold, 
as  well  as  for  those  who  knew  him  and  were  cour- 
ageous enough  to  speak  out. 

Thomas  Paine  is  an  acknowledged  citizen  of 
America.  He  was  the  Secretary  of  the  Congress  of 
the  Department  of  Foreign  Affairs  during  the  Revolu- 
tion. He  has  made  himself  known  in  Europe  by 
his  writings,  and  specially  by  his  "  Rights  of  Man." 
The  Electoral  Assembly  of  the  Department  of  Pas- 
de-Calais  elected  him  one  of  its  representatives  to 
the  Convention,  and  commissioned  me  to  go  to  Lon- 
don and  inform  him  of  his  election,  and  to  bring  him 
to  France.  I  hardly  escaped  being  a  victim  of  the 
English  Government,  with  which  he  was  at  open 
war ;  I  performed  my  mission ;  and  ever  since 
friendship  has  attached  me  to  Paine.  This  is  my 
apology  for  soliciting  you  for  his  liberation. 

I  can  assure  you,  Representatives,  that  America 
was  by  no  means  satisfied  with  the  imprisonment 
of  a  strong  column  of  its  Revolution.  Please  to  take 
my  prayer  into  consideration.  But  for  Robes- 
pierre's villainy  the  friend  of  man  would  now  be  free. 
Do  not  permit  liberty  longer  to  see  in  prison  a 
victim  of  a  wretch  who  lives  no  more  but  by  his 
crimes ;  and  you  will  add  to  the  esteem  and  veneration 
I  feel  for  a  man  who  did  so  much  to  save  the  country 
amidst  the  most  tremendous  crisis  of  our  Revolu- 
tion. 

Greeting,  respect  and  brotherhood. 

ACHILLE  AUDIBERT, 

Of  Calais, 
No.  216  rue  de  Bellechasse, 

Faubourg  St.  Germain. 

The  following  appeal  by  American  citi- 
zens, then  in  Paris,  in  behalf  of  Paine — 
which  is  in  the  shape  of  a  petition  for  his 
release  from  prison — to  the  National  Con- 
vention, was  also  found  in  the  National 
Archives  at  Paris.  Breathing  a  spirit  of 
humanity  and  friendship,  it  is  deemed  worthy 
of  insertion  in  this  paper : 

CITIZENS  LEGISLATORS. 

The  French  nation,  by  a  unanimous  decree,  have 
invited  one  of  the  most  estimable  of  our  countrymen 
to  come  to  France;  it  is  Thomas  Paine,  one  of  the 
political  founders  of  the  independence  and  republic 
of  America.  A  twenty  years'  experience  has  taught 
America  to  know  and  respect  his  public  virtues  and 
the  inappreciable  services  he  has  rendered  his 
country. 

Convinced  that  his  quality  of  a  foreigner  and  ex- 
deputy  is  the  only  cause  of  his  provisional  appre- 
hension, in  the  name  of  our  country  (and  we  trust 
it  will  be  appreciated)  we  apply  to  you  to  claim  our 
friend  and  countryman,  so  that  he  may  be  able  to 
leave  with  us  for  America,  where  he  will  be  received 
with  open  arms. 

If  it  should  be  necessary  to  say  more  to  back  the 
petition  which,  as  friends  and  allies  of  the  French 
Republic,  we  submit  to  their  representatives  in 
order  to  obtain  the  release  of  one  of  the  most  zealous 
and  faithful  apostles  of  liberty,  we  would  conjure  the 
National  Convention,  by  all  that  is  dear  to  the 
glory  and  hearts  of  freemen,  not  to  afford  a  cause 
of  exultation  and  triumph  to  the  coalition  of  the 


THOMAS  PAINE  AND    THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION. 


785 


tyrants  of  Europe,  and,  above  all,  to  the  despotism 
of  Great  Britain,  which  did  not  blush  to  outlaw  that 
bold  and  virtuous  defender  of  liberty. 

But  their  insolent  enjoyment  should  be  of  short 
duration ;  for  we  feel  entirely  confident  that  you 
will  detain  no  longer  in  the  bonds  of  a  painful  cap- 
tivity a  man  whose  energetic  and  manly  pen  has  so 
much  contributed  to  free  the  Americans,  and  whose 
designs,  we  do  not  doubt  at  all,  tended  to  render 
like  services  to  the  French  Republic.  We  are  con- 
vinced, indeed,  that  his  principles  and  views  were 
pure,  and  in  this  respect  he  is  entitled  to  the  indul- 
gence due  to  human  fallibility  and  to  such  regard  as 
true-heartedness  deserves ;  and  we  hold  to  the  opin- 
ion we  have  of  his  innocence  so  much  the  more,  as 
we  are  informed  that  after  a  rigorous  examination 
of  his  papers  by  order  of  the  Committee  of  General 
Safety,  far  from  anything  being  found  against  him, 
they  have,  on  the  contrary,  found  out  much  to  corrob- 
orate the  purity  of  nis  political  and  moral  principles. 

As  our  countryman,  and  especially  as  a  man  so 
dear  to  the  Americans  as  well  as  to  you,  ardent 
friends  of  liberty,  we  do,  in  the  name  of  that  goddess 
dear  to  the  only  two  Republics  in  the  world, — entreat 
you  to  render  Thomas  Paine  to  his  brothers,  and  to 
allow  us  to  take  him  back  to  his  country,  which  is 
also  our  own. 

If  you  require  it,  citizens  representatives,  we  will 
become  responsible  for  his  conduct  in  France  for 
the  short  stay  he  may  remain  to  make  arrangements 
for  his  departure. 

M.  JACKSON,  of  Philadelphia. 

J.  RUSSELL,  of  Boston. 

PETER  WHITESIDE,  of  Philadelphia. 

HENRY  JOHNSON,  of  Boston. 

THOMAS  CARTER,  of  Newburyport. 

JAMES  COOPER,  of  Philadelphia. 

JOHN  WILLET  BILLOPP,  of  New  York. 

THOMAS  WATERS  GRIFFITH,  of  Baltimore. 

TH.  RAMSDEN,  of  Boston. 

SAMUEL  P.  BROOME,  of  New  York. 

MEADENWORTH,  of  Connecticut. 

JACK  BARLOW,  of  Connecticut. 

MICHAEL  ALCORN,  of  Philadelphia. 

M.  ONEALY,  of  Baltimore. 

JOHN  M'PHERSON,  of  Alexandria. 

WILLIAM  HOSKINS,  of  Boston. 

J.  GREGOIRE,  of  Petersburg,  Virginia. 

JOSEPH  INGRAHAM,  of  Boston. 

The  last  document  in  relation  to  Paine, 
found  in  the  National  Archives,  is  the  letter 
of  Mr.  Monroe,  the  Minister  of  the  United 
States,  to  the  Committee  of  General  Safety. 
Mr.  Monroe  had  but  recently  arrived  in 
Paris.  He  was  received  by  the  National 
Convention  of  France  in  full  session  on  the 
i5th  of  August,  1794  (28th  Thermidor,  year 
II.),  which  was  only  about  three  weeks  after 
the  fall  of  Robespierre,  on  the  2  7th  of  July, 
1 794  (gth  Thermidor,  year  II.).  As  this  was 
the  first  instance  in  which  a  minister  had 
been  accredited  to  the  French  Republic, 
there  was  some  delay  in  the  "  Committee 
of  Public  Safety"  in  regard  to  the  presenta- 
tion of  his  letters  of  credence,  caused  by  the 
necessity  of  establishing  some  general  regu- 
lation on  the  subject.  The  correspondence 
of  Mr.  Monroe  with  his  government  at  this 
VOL.  XX.— 51. 


period  (including  that  in  regard  to  his  re- 
ception) is  very  interesting,  and  is  found  in 
the  first  volume  of  the  "American  State 
Papers."  As  nothing  appeared  there,  how- 
ever, in  regard  to  the  proceedings  of  the 
Convention  on  the  day  of  the  reception,  the 
"  proces  verbal"  (journal)  of  the  Conven- 
tion was  sought  for  in  the  National  Archives. 
In  the  interest  of  the  history  of  those  extraor- 
dinary times,  the  full  proceedings  in  respect 
of  the  matter  are  here  set  out. 

[Translation.] 

Extract  from  the  "proces  verbal"  of  the  National 
Convention,  of  August  if,  1794. 

The  Citizen  James  Monroe,  minister  plenipoten- 
tiary of  the  United  States  of  America  near  the  French 
Republic,  is  admitted  in  the  hall  of  the  sitting  of  the 
National  Convention.  He  takes  his  place  in  the 
midst  of  the  representatives  of  the  people,  and 
remits  to  the  President,  with  his  letters  of  credence, 
a  translation  of  a  discourse  addressed  to  the  Na- 
tional Convention ;  it  is  read  by  one  of  the  secre- 
taries. The  expressions  of  fraternity,  of  union, 
between  the  two  people,  and  the  interest  which  the 
people  of  the  United  States  take  in  the  success  of 
the  French  Republic  are  heard  with  the  liveliest 
sensibility  and  covered  with  applause. 

Reading  is  also  given  to  the  letters  of  credence  of 
Citizen  Monroe,  as  well  as  to  those  written  by  the 
American  Congress  and  by  its  president  to  the 
National  Convention  and  to  the  Committee  of  Pub- 
lic Safety. 

In  witness  of  the  fraternity  which  unites  the  two 
people,  French  and  American,  the  President  gives 
the  accolade  (fraternal  embrace)  to  Citizen  Monroe. 

Afterward,  upon  the  proposition  of.  many 
members,  the  National  Convention  passes 
with  unanimity  the  following  decree: 

ARTICLE  I. 

The  reading  and  verification  being  had  of  the 
powers  of  Citizen  James  Monroe,  he  is  recognized 
and  proclaimed  Minister  Plenipotentiary  of  the 
United  States  of  America  near  the  French  Republic. 

ARTICLE  II. 

The  letters  of  credence  of  Citizen  James  Monroe, 
Minister  Plenipotentiary  of  the  United  States  of 
America,  those  which  he  has  remitted  on  the  part  of 
the  American  Congress  and  of  its  president,  ad- 
dressed to  the  National  Convention  and  to  the  Com- 
mittee of  Public  Safety,  the  discourse  of  Citizen 
Monroe,  the  response  of  the  President  of  the  Con- 
vention, shall  be  printed  in  the  two  languages, 
French  and  American,  and  inserted  in  the  bulletin 
of  correspondence. 

ARTICLE  III. 

The  flags  of  the  United  States  of  America  shall  be 
joined  to  those  of  France,  and  displayed  in  the  hall 
of  the  sittings  of  the  Convention,  in  sign  of  the 
union  and  eternal  fraternity  of  the  two  people. 

It  will  be  observed  in  Article  II.  of  the 
decree  that  it  was  ordered  that  the  letters 


786 


THOMAS  PAINE  AND    THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION. 


of  credence  and  the  discourse  of  Mr.  Monroe 
and  the  president  of  the  Convention  should 
be  "  printed  in  thetvvo  languages,  French  and 
American."  The  frantic  hatred  of  the  revo- 
lution toward  England  at  that  time  would 
not  permit  the  Convention  to  recognize  our 
mother  tongue  as  the  English  language. 

The  ceremony  of  the  reception  excited 
great  interest.  Mr.  Monroe  was  introduced 
into  the  body  of  the  Convention,  and  after 
the  passage  of  the  decree  he  advanced  to 
the  tribune,  when  the  President,  Merlin  (de 
Douai),  gave  him  the  fraternal  kiss  ("  acco- 
lade "),  which  was  witnessed  with  emotion 
and  hailed  with  intense  enthusiasm  by  the 
whole  Convention. 

Though  Mr.  Monroe  was  accepted  as 
minister  in  August,  it  does  not  appear  that 
he  took  any  steps  for  the  release  of  Paine 
until  nth  Brumaire  (October),  when  lie 
addressed  to  'the  Committee  of  General 
Safety  the  following  letter,  which  is  a  model 
of  a  diplomatic  communication : 

PARIS,  Brumaire  n,  in  the  3d  year  ? 
of  the  French  Republic.  ) 

The  minister  plenipotentiary  of  the  United  States 
of  America,  to  the  members  of  the  Committee  of 
General  Safety. 

CITIZENS. 

In  every  case  where  the  citizens  of  the  United 
States  of  America  are  subject  to  the  laws  of  the 
French  Republic,  it  is  their  duty  to  obey  them  in 
consequence  of  the  protection  they  receive  there- 
from, or  to  submit  to  such  penalties  as  they  inflict. 
This  principle  is  beyond  all  dispute.  It  belongs  to 
the  very  essence  of  sovereignty,  and  cannot  be 
separated  from  it.  Then  all  that  my  countrymen 
have  a  right  to  expect  from  me  is  to  see  that  justice 
be  done  to  them,  according  to  the  nature  of  the 
accusation,  or  the  offense  they  may  have  committed, 
by  the  tribunals  which  take  cognizance  of  the  case. 

I  trust  few  occasions  will  occur  when  the  de- 
meanor of  any  American  citizen  may  become  a  mat- 
ter of  discussion  before  a  criminal  court ;  and  should 
any  such  case  take  place,  I  would  fully  rely  on  the 
justice  of  that  tribunal,  convinced  that,  if  the  scales 
were  even,  it  would  be  in  the  heart  of  the  magistrate 
to  turn  them  in  favor  of  my  countrymen.  To  urge 
their  trial,  if  that  should  become  necessary,  is 
therefore  the  only  point  that  I  may  be  solicitous  in 
relation  to. 

In  the  present  circumstances  I  would  not  draw 
your  attention  to  a  matter  of  this  kind  if  I  were  not 
compelled  to  it  by  considerations  of  great  weight, 
and  which  I  hope  you  will  appreciate,  because  every 
day  brings  forth  further  proofs  of  devotedness  on 
the  part  of  France  to  the  cause  which  gives  rise  to 
them.  The  strenuous  endeavors  she  has  already 
made  and  is  every  day  making  for  the  sake  of 


liberty  obviously  show  how  much  she  cherishes  it, 
and  her  gratitude  toward  such  men  as  have  supported 
that  cause  is  justly  considered  to  be  inseparable  from 
the  veneration  due  to  the  very  cause  itself. 

The  citizens  of  the  United  States  cannot  look  back 
upon  the  times  of  their  own  revolution  without  rec- 
ollecting among  the  names  of  their  most  distinguished 
patriots,  that  of  Thomas  Paine ;  the  services  he  ren- 
dered to  his  country  in  its  struggle  for  freedom  have 
implanted  in  the  hearts  of  his  countrymen  a  sense  of 
gratitude  never  to  be  effaced  as  long  as  they  shall 
deserve  the  title  of  a  just  and  generous  people. 

The  above-named  citizen  is  at  this  moment  lan- 
guishing in  prison,  affected  with  a  disease  growing 
more  intense  from  his  confinement.  I  beg,  therefore, 
to  call  your  attention  to  his  condition,  and  to  request 
you  to  hasten  the  moment  when  the  law  shall  decide 
his  fate,  in  case  of  any  accusation  against  him,  and, 
if  none,  to  restore  him  to  liberty. 

Greeting  and  brotherhood, 

MONROE. 

This  communication  of  Mr.  Monroe  is 
written  in  the  French  language.  The  prac- 
tice of  our  Government  is  different  at  the 
present  day.  All  diplomatic  communica- 
tions of  English-speaking  nations  are  now 
addressed  to  foreign  nations  in  the  English 
language.  The  tribute  which  the  minister 
officially  paid  to  Paine  is  worthy  of  notice. 

The  intervention  of  Mr.  Monroe  was 
successful,  for  two  days  afterward  Paine 
was  released,  as  appears  by  the  following : 

BRUMAIRE  i3th,  in  the  3d  year 
of  the  French  Republic. 

The  Committee  of  General  Safety  order  that 
citizen  Thomas  Paine  be  immediately  discharged 
from  custody,  and  the  seals  taken  off  his  papers  on 
sight  of  these  presents. 

The  members  of  the  Committee  :  Clauzel,  Lesage 
Senault,  Bentabolle,  Reverchon,  Gaupilleau  de  Fon- 
tenai,  Rewbell. 

Delivered  to  citizen  Clauzel. 

Thus,  after  a  cruel  and  barbarous  im- 
prisonment of  ten  long  months,  enduring 
untold  sufferings,  Thomas  Paine  was  set 
free.  Made  a  citizen  of  France  and  elected 
to  its  National  Convention,  he  served  his 
country  (adopted  for  the  time)  with  ability, 
zeal  and  usefulness,  devoting  his  acknowl- 
edged talents  and  large  experience  to  the 
preparation  of  its  fundamental  law.  His 
arrest  and  imprisonment,  without  charges 
preferred  or  even  the  pretense  of  crime,  was 
an  act  of  perfidy,  baseness  and  ingratitude 
without  a  parallel  except  in  the  history  of 
the  "  French  Revolution." 


TOPICS   OF  THE    TIME. 


787 


TOPICS  OF  THE  TIME. 


The  Presidential  Campaign. 

THERE  are  many  reasons  why  the  American 
people  should  be  gratified  with  the  course  and  results 
of  the  two  political  conventions  which  have  placed  in 
nomination  for  the  Presidency,  General  Garfield  and 
General  Hancock.  The  first  is,  that  the  political 
machines  of  both  parties  were  subordinated  and 
superseded.  In  the  Republican  convention,  the 
machine  received  a  tremendous  and  ignominious 
defeat.  This  result  was  not  so  pronounced  in  the 
Democratic  convention,  but  even  there  the  men  who 
were  supposed  to  manipulate  the  controlling  influences 
were  obliged  to  submit  to  powers  beyond  their  con- 
trol, and  assist  in  the  nomination  of  a  man  very  far 
from  their  first  choice.  Indeed,  the  political  machine 
had  very  little  to  do  with  the  nomination  of  either 
Garfield  or  Hancock,  and  so  much  may  be  set  down 
as  a  great  gain  for  the  cause  of  political  morality. 
The  chief  wire-pullers  on  both  sides  have  failed ;  the 
party  managers,  who  choose  to  do  business  without 
much  respect  to  the  wishes  of  the  people,  have  mis- 
carried in  all  their  plans,  and  each  party  has  the 
great  privilege  of  presenting  a  candidate  for  the 
popular  suffrage  whose  hands  are  clean,  at  least,  of 
all  dirty  work  done  for  himself,  in  the  attempt  to 
secure  a  nomination. 

More  and  better  even  than  this  can  be  said. 
There  is  nothing,  so  far  as  we  know,  in  the  record 
of  either  of  these  gentlemen  to  prevent  the  most  con- 
scientious partisan  from  voting  for  him.  General 
Garfield  is,  in  all  respects,  an  admirable  man.  He 
knows  the  public  business,  probably,  as  well  as  any 
man  in  America.  He  has  been  in  it,  as  an  active 
and  intelligent  force,  for  many  years,  in  which  he 
has  demonstrated  his  ability  for  statesmanship  and 
leadership.  The  record  of  his  life  does  not  exhibit  a 
stain,  and,  if  he  shall  be  elected,  he  will  be  much  the 
most  brilliant  President,  in  his  endowments  and 
attainments,  who  has  graced  the  White  House  in  this 
generation.  General  Hancock's  name  is  familiar  as 
one  of  the  successful  military  chieftains  of  the  late  civil 
war,  and  he  has  always  been  recognized  as  a  gentle- 
man, and  a  man  of  unstained  private  life.  He  has 
had  many  trusts,  and  been  faithful  to  them  all.  It  is 
a  great  comfort  to  feel  that  the  American  voters  this 
year  are  not  left  to  base  their  votes  on  a  choice  of 
evils,  and  that  there  is  nothing  repulsive  or  offensive 
in  either  of  the  candidates  presented  for  their 
support.  Any  Republican  ought  to  vote  for  General 
Garfield,  and  any  Democrat  ought  to  vote  for 
General  Hancock.  We  mean  by  this  simply  that 
there  is  nothing  in  the  character  or  record  of  either 
of  these  candidates  which  should  shut  him  from  the 
sympathy  and  support  of  those  who  approve  his 
political  views. 

Another  cause  of  gratification  growing  out  of  the 
foregoing  facts,  is  that  this  campaign  is  not  to  be  a 
campaign  of  slander.  One  of  the  degrading  and  dis- 
graceful things  connected  with  nearly  all  presidential 
campaigns  within  our  memory,  was  the  mud-throw- 


ing at  the  personal  character  of  the  candidates.  The 
brutality  of  the  old  campaigns  was  debasing  and 
demoralizing  to  the  last  degree.  Every  canvass  has 
been  belittled  and  degraded  by  personalities  of  the 
lowest  character.  It  has  seemed  as  if  a  man  had 
only  to  be  placed  in  nomination  for  the  high  office 
of  President  to  be  regarded  as  the  legitimate  butt  of 
party  ridicule  and  the  mark  of  party  obloquy. 

Now.  in  the  present  campaign,  there  certainly  can 
be  no  apology  for  this  brutal  kind  of  warfare,  and  we 
hope  to  see  it  finished  with  the  highest  personal 
courtesy  on  both  sides.  There  ought  to  be  enough 
in  the  issues  between  the  two  parties  to  engage  the 
attention  of  all  writers  and  speakers,  and  fix  the  de- 
terminations of  all  voters.  The  questions  for  the 
American  people  to  decide  relate  simply  to  the  pol- 
icy of  the  two  parties,  as  represented  in  their  history 
and  platforms.  Which  party  has  the  soundest  finan- 
cial policy  ? — which  holds  the  policy  of  the  highest 
justice  alike  to  capital  and  labor  ? — which  party  is  most 
devoted  to  the  maintenance  of  the  equal  rights  of  all  ? 
— which  party  stands  strongest  for  the  purity  of  elec- 
tions ?  and,  in  every  sense  and  in  every  emergency, 
which  party  is  the  most  patriotic  ?  The  people  who 
settle  these  questions  conscientiously,  in  their  own 
minds,  may  congratulate  themselves  that  they  will 
find  at  the  head  of  the  party  for  which  they  decide  a 
man  who  is  personally  worthy  of  their  votes.  They 
have  not  to  quarrel  over  men,  or  to  believe  that  the 
representative  of  the  other  party  is  a  thief  or  a  cut- 
throat, or  a  knave  of  any  other  sort.  Their  business 
is  simply  to  make  up  their  minds  what  party  is  the 
true  party  of  patriotism  and  progress,  and  cast  their 
votes  for  the  man  who  represents  it. 

There  is  a  good  deal,  too,  in  the  failure  of  the  polit- 
ical machines  to  encourage  those  who  have  been  suf- 
ficiently conscientious  and  brave  to  struggle  against 
their  supremacy.  There  has  been,  of  late  years,  a  good 
deal  of  independent  political  thinking,  which  had 
already  begun  to  show  itself  in  independent  political 
acting.  In  the  Republican  party,  particularly,  there 
were  the  "  Young  Scratchers,"  to  whom  the  machine 
devoted  a  good  deal  of  angry  criticism,  and  who 
drew  to  their  support,  and  won  over  to  sympathy, 
some  of  the  very  best  men  in  the  party. 

In  the  result  at  Chicago,  they  have  their  reward. 
The  machine  would  have  given  them  a  man  whom 
they  sincerely  disliked  and  disapproved,  and  they 
were  not  without  a  great  deal  of  influence  in  secur- 
ing the  nomination  of  a  man  very  much  to  their 
mind.  Scratching  is  a  pretty  good  remedy  for  party 
bosses,  which,  we  trust,  will  not  soon  pass  out  of 
memory.  How  much  Mr.  John  Kelly  did,  with  his 
menace  of  revolt,  to  secure  the  nomination  of  a  man 
for  whom  he  and  his  friends  could  vote,  we  do  not 
know,  but  his  menace  could  not  possibly  be  ignored ; 
and  if  it  did  anything  to  secure  the  nomination  of 
Hancock,  he  undoubtedly  did  more  for  his  party  and 
his  country,  than  years  of  fealty  to  the  machine  could 
have  accomplished. 


788 


TOPICS   OF  THE    TIME. 


Dandyism. 

CARLYLE  says  that  "  a  dandy  is  a  clothes-wearing 
man — a  man  whose  trade,  office  and  existence  con- 
sists in  the  wearing  of  clothes."  Then  he  adds,  in 
his  grim  irony : — "  Nay,  if  you  grant  what  seems  to 
be  admissible,  that  the  dandy  had  a  thinking  princi- 
ple in  him,  and  some  notion  of  time  and  space,  is 
there  not  in  the  life-devotedness  to  cloth,  in  this  so 
willing  sacrifice  of  the  immortal  to  the  perishable, 
something  (though  in  reverse  order)  of  that  blend- 
ing and  identification  of  eternity  with  time,  which 
*  *  *  *  constitutes  the  prophetic  character." 

After  Carlyle  has  handled  the  dandy,  there  is  not, 
of  course,  much  left  for  other  people  to  do.  Still, 
we  can  reflect  a  little  more  particularly  on  the  style 
of  mind  which  produces  or  accompanies  dandyism, 
and  get  our  lesson  out  of  the  process.  Why  supreme 
devotion  to  dress,  on  the  part  of  a  man,  should  be  so 
contemptible,  and,  on  the  part  of  a  woman,  so  com- 
paratively venial,  we  have  never  been  able  to  deter- 
mine, but  there  is  no  doubt  that  we  are  quite  ready 
to  forg;ve  in  woman  a  weakness  which  we  despise  in 
man.  To  see  a  man  so  absorbed  in  the  decoration  of  his 
own  person,  and  in  the  development  of  his  own  graces 
that  all  other  objects  in  life  are  held  subordinate  to 
this  one  small  and  selfish  passion  or  pursuit,  is  no 
less  disgusting  than  surprising.  To  amplify  Carlyle's 
definition  of  a  dandy  a  little,  we  may  say  that  he  is  a 
man  whose  soul  is  supremely  devoted  to  the  outside  of 
things,  particularly  the  outside  of  himself,  and  who 
prides  himself  not  at  all  on  what  he  is,  but  on  what  he 
seems,  and  not  at  all  on  seeming  sensible  or  learned, 
but  on  seeming  beautiful,  in  away  that  he  regards  as 
stylish.  A  male  human  being  who  cares  supremely 
about  the  quality  of  the  woolen,  silk,  linen,  felt  and 
leather  that  encase  his  body  and  the  place  where  his 
brains  should  be,  forgetting  the  soul  within  him  and 
the  great  world  without  him,  with  the  mysterious 
future  that  lies  before  him,  would  seem  to  deserve  the 
mockery  of  all  mankind,  as  well  as  of  Carlyle. 

Still,  the  dandy  in  dress  is  not  a  very  important 
topic  to  engage  the  attention  of  a  man  who  is  sensible 
enough  to  read  a  magazine,  and  we  should  not  have 
said  a  word  about  him  if  we  did  not  detect  his  disposi- 
tion in  other  things  besides  dress.  We  have  what  may 
legitimately  be  denominated  dandyism  in  literature. 
Literature  is  often  presented  as  the  outcome  of  as 
true  dandyism  as  is  ever  observed  in  dress.  There 
are  many  writers,  we  fear,  who  care  more  about  their 
manner  of  say  ing  a  thing  than  about  the  thing  they  have 
to  say.  All  these  devotees  to  style,  all  those  coiners 
of  fine  phrases  who  tax  their  ingenuity  to  make  their 
mode  of  saying  a  thing  more  remarkable  than  the 
thing  said — men  who  play  with  words  for  the  sake 
of  the  words,  and  who  seek  admiration  for  their 
cleverness  in  handling  the  medium  of  thought  it- 
self, and  men  also  who  perform  literary  gymnastics  in 
order  to  attract  attention — all  these  are  literary 
dandies.  The  great  verities  and  vitalities  of  thought 
and  life  are  never  supreme  with  these  men.  They 
would  a  thousand  times  rather  fail  in  a  thought  than  trip 
in  the  rounding  of  a  sentence  and  the  fall  of  a  period. 
Of  course,  all  this  petting  of  their  own  style,  and  this 


supreme  study  of  ways  with  words,  is  in  itself  so 
selfish  a  matter  that  their  work  is  vitiated,  and  even 
the  semblance  of  earnestness  is  lost.  Dandies  in 
iiteratuce  never  accomplish  anything  for  anybody 
except  themselves.  Verily  they  have  their  reward, 
for  they  have  their  admirers,  though  they  are  among 
those  no  more  in  earnest  than  themselves. 

We  have  had  in  America  one  eminent  literary 
dandy.  He  lived  at  a  time  when  it  was  very  easy 
for  a  man  of  literary  gifts  to  make  a  reputation — easy 
to  attract  the  attention  of  the  people  ;  and  the  temp- 
tation to  toy  with  the  popular  heart  was  too  great 
for  him  to  resist,  and  so  he  who  could  have  taught 
and  inspired  his  countrymen  was  content  to  play 
with  his  pen,  and  seek  for  their  applause.  He  had 
his  reward.  He  was  as  notorious  as  he  sought  to 
be.  People  read  his  clever  verses  and  clapped  their 
hands,  but  those  verses  did  not  voice  any  man's  or 
woman's  aspirations,  or  soothe  any  man's  or 
woman's  sorrows.  They  helped  nobody.  They 
were  not  the  earnest  outpourings  of  a  nature  conse- 
crated either  to  God  or  song,  and  the  response  that 
they  met  in  the  public  heart  was  not  one  of  grateful 
appropriation,  though  that  heart  was  not  slow  to  offer 
the  incense  of  its  admiration  to  the  clever  and  grace- 
ful, even  if  supremely  selfish,  artist.  It  is  hardly 
necessary  to  add  that  this  superb  literary  dandy  has 
found  no  one  who  cared  enough  for  him  to  write  his 
life ;  and  it  takes  a  pretty  poor  sort  of  literary  man 
nowadays  to  escape  a  biography.  We  would  not 
speak  of  this  man  were  we  not  conscious  that  we 
have — now  living  and  writing — others  who  are  like 
him  in  spirit  and  in  aim — men  who  are  supremely 
anxious  to  get  great  credit  for  their  way  of  doing 
things,  and  who  are  interested  mainly  in  the  ex- 
ternals of  literature — men  who,  moved  by  personal 
vanity,  are  seeking  rather  to  attract  attention  to  them- 
selves than  to  impress  their  thoughts,  as  elevating 
and  purifying  forces,  upon  their  generation. 

Dandyism  does  not  stop  either  with  dress  or 
literature,  but  invades  all  art.  Never,  perhaps,  in 
the  history  of  painting,  has  there  been  so  much 
dandyism  in  art  as  at  the  present  day.  Never,  it 
seems  to  us,  were  painters  so  much  devoted  to  paint- 
ing the  outside  of  things  as  they  are  now.  We  are 
dazzled  everywhere  with  tricks  of  color,  fantastic 
dress,  subjects  chosen  only  with  reference  to  their 
adaptation  to  the  revelation  of  the  special  clevernesses 
of  those  who  treat  them.  It  seems  as  if  every 
painter  who  had  managed  to  achieve  some  remark- 
able trick  of  handling,  were  making  it  the  business 
of  his  life  to  play  that  trick,  and  to  have  nothing  to 
do  with  any  topic  which  will  not  furnish  him  the  occa- 
sion for  its  use.  Our  young  men,  in  a  great  number 
of  instances,  are  running  after  these  trick-masters, 
learning  nothing  of  art  in  its  deeper  meanings,  but 
supremely  busy  with  the  outside  of  things,  and  very 
trivial  things  at  that.  In  this  devotion  to  the  tricks 
of  art,  all  earnestness  and  worthiness  of  purpose  die, 
and  art  becomes  simply  a  large  and  useless  field  of 
dandyism. 

We  have  plenty  of  dandyism  in  the  pulpit.  We 
do  not  allude  to  the  dandyism  of  clerical  regalia, 
although  there  is  a  disgusting  amount  of  that ;  but  the 


HOME  AND   SOCIETY. 


789 


devotion  to  externals  as  they  relate  to  manner  of 
writing,  and  manner  of  speech,  and  manner  of  social 
intercourse.  The  preacher  who  is  in  dead  ear- 
nest, and  has  nothing  to  exhibit  but  the  truth  he 
preaches,  is  not  a  man  of  formalities.  The  clerical 
dandy  impresses  one  with  himself  and  not  with 
his  Master.  He  shows  off  himself.  He  studies 


his  poses  and  his  intonations  as  if  he  were  in 
very  deed  an  actor.  We  have  stylists  in  the  pulpit, 
we  have  actors  in  the  pulpit,  who  challenge  attention 
and  intend  to  challenge  attention  by  their  manner, 
and  it  is  not  at  all  a  manner  of  humble  earnestness. 
Preachers  are  human,  and  they,  like  the  rest  of  us, 
should  pray  to  be  delivered  from  the  sin  of  dandyism. 


COMMUNICATIONS. 


ABERDEEN,  Miss.,  May  24,  1880. 

EDITOR  SCRIBNER'S  MONTHLY: — Mr.  Henry 
King  is  named  as  the  author  of  a  paper  in  the  June 
number  of  your  magazine,  on  the  Negro  Exodus  to 
Kansas. 

As  to  his  theories,  views  and  predictions  I  have 
nothing  to  say,  as  we  have  learned  from  long  experi- 
ence that  reason,  logic  and  argument,  on  our  part, 
are  thrown  away  upon  a  large  and  very  worthy,  but 
prejudiced,  class  in  the  North. 

In  his  paper,  however,  Mr.  King  makes  the  fol- 
lowing statement : 

"  It  is  claimed,  upon  what  seems  to  be  good 
authority,  that  in  the  State  of  Mississippi  not  a 
single  white  man  has  been  convicted  and  punished 
for  an  offense  against  a  colored  man,  or  made  to  pay 
a  debt  to  a  colored  man,  for  the  past  five  years." 

Now,  sir,  does  it  not  occur  to  you  that  this  is  a 
rather  reckless  assertion  to  be  made,  even  upon  an 
irresponsible  on  dit,  without  some  previous  inquiry 
as  to  the  truth  of  it?  I  do  not  know  who  Mr. 
Henry  King  is  (though  I  may  argue  myself  un- 
known by  the  admission),  I  do  not  know  who  or 
what  his  "  good  authority  "  is— but  I  have  a  proposi- 
tion to  make  to  him.  If  Mr.  King — or  his  "  good 
authority  " — will  pay  for  the  transcripts,  I  bind  my- 
self to  furnish  to  SCRIBNER'S  MONTHLY,  for  publi- 
cation, certified  records  of  twenty  cases  in  which 


white  men  have  been  convicted  and  punished  for 
offenses  against  colored  men,  and  as  many  cases  in 
which  white  men  have  been  made,  by  legal  proceed- 
ings, to  pay  debts  due  to  colored  men,— and  all  this 
not  in  the  whole  State  of  Mississippi,  but  in  this 
(Monroe)  county — one  only  of  its  seventy-five 
counties,  and  during  the  period  from  1875 — when 
Mississippi  emerged  from  the  valley  of  the  shadow 
of  death — down  to  the  present  time.  In  the  only 
case  that  occurs  to  me  during  that  time  of  the  killing 
of  a  colored  man  by  a  white  man,  in  this  county,  the 
accused  was  convicted  and  sentenced  to  the  peni- 
tentiary for  life,  and  is  there  now, — having  narrowly 
escaped  hanging. 

The  democratic  majority  in  this  county  averages 
one  thousand. 

If  Mr.  King  is  as  earnest  in  his  sympathy  for  the 
colored  people  of  the  South  as  he  would  appear  to 
be,  he  will  be  willing  to  pay  the  small  cost  of  the 
transcripts  for  the  sake  of  getting  his  mind  relieved 
as  to  their  condition  in  Mississippi. 

I  could  as  easily  name  fifty  cases  ;  but  twenty  will 
answer  every  purpose. 

As  regards  the  Exodus,  I  can  only  say  "God 
speed  it !  " — and  in  saying  so  I  echo  the  sentiments 
of  three-fourths  of  our  people.  The  class  of  colored 
people  who  are  emigrating  to  Kansas  is  a  curse  to 
any  country — is  just  the  class  we  want  to  get  rid  of, 
and  can  spare  to  Kansas  or  any  other  State. 

E.  H.  BRISTOW. 


HOME  AND   SOCIETY. 


Letters  to  Young  Mothers.     Second  Series.— IV. 

THERE  is  danger  that,  where  so  much  pains  is  taken 
to  amuse  children  and  make  them  happy,  they  may 
grow  selfish  and  exacting.  Always  to  receive  and 
never  to  give  is  as  bad  for  children  as  for  grown  people. 
To  be  sure,  there  is  not  much  they  can  do  for  you, 
and  what  they  can  do  is  worth  very  little  in  itself, 
but  just  because  it  develops  a  generous  thoughtful- 
ness  for  others,  encourage  them  in  all  their  little 
plans  for  other  people's  pleasure.  Children  are 
naturally  generous,  and  delight  to  make  and  give 
presents,  until  they  see  their  gifts  considered  as  rub- 
bish. Probably  they  are,  but  a  great  deal  of  love 


can  be  put  into  very  common  things.  You  keep 
their  birthdays.  Encourage  them  to  remember 
the  birthdays  of  the  older  members  of  the  family, 
even  if  their  celebrations  are  troublesome  and  their 
presents  useless.  In  the  family  festivals,  let  them 
have  something  to  do  for  somebody  else.  Do  not  let 
the  doing  always  be  on  your  side. 

I  have  seen  some  very  pretty  little  affairs  arranged 
by  children  for  such  occasions.  I  remember  one, 
designed  by  a  girl  nine  years  old,  for  her  mamma's 
birthday.  She  dressed  herself  and  her  sisters  to 
represent  the  four  seasons,  and  each  one  brought  to 
the  mother  a  trifling  gift,  repeating  in  turn  a  line  of 
a  verse  of  poetry  she  had  found  in  an  illuminated  cal- 


79° 


HOME  AND  SOCIETY, 


endar.  The  youngest,  dressed  in  her  best  white 
dress,  trimmed  with  artificial  apple-blossoms  and 
lilies  of  the  valley,  and  carrying  her  present  in  a  tiny 
basket,  hidden  among  spring  flowers,  represented 
spring.  As  she  handed  her  present  to  her  mother, 
she  said : 

"  First,  beautiful  spring,  with  flowers  and  song." 

Summer,  also  in  white,  with  bright  ribbons,  fol- 
lowed with  her  gift,  saying : 

"  Next,  rosy  summer  comes  tripping  along." 

Autumn,  glowing  in  a  garnet  dress,  and  wearing  a 
wreath  of  bright  leaves  and  wheat,  brought  her  pres- 
ent in  a  basket  of  red  apples,  and  repeated : 


"  Then  blushing  autumn,  with  rich  fruits  laden," 


while, 

"Last,  sober  winter,  cold,  thoughtful  maiden," 

clad  all  in  white,  with  a  band  of  swan's-down  around 
her  head,  drew  out  her  gift  from  a  large  cornucopia 
filled  with  cotton,  to  represent  snow. 

Of  course,  the  mother  had  been  consulted,  and 
had  given  permission  to  use  the  finery.  She  entered 
into  the  spirit  of  the  occasion,  and  gave  advice  and 
made  suggestions,  but  was  conveniently  blind  till 
everything  was  complete.  It  occupied  the  children 
for  the  best  part  of  the  afternoon,  and  under  all  the 
fun  of  the  thing  was  the  pleasant  consciousness  that 
they  really  were  doing  something  for  the  happiness 
of  mamma,  who  had  done  so  much  for  them. 

These  same  children  were  greatly  amused  with 
the  pictures  and  poetry  in  "  St.  Nicholas  "  of  the 

"Three  wise  old  women  were  they,  were  they, 
Who  went  to  walk  on  a  winter's  day — 
One  carried  a  basket  to  hold  some  berries, 
One  carried  a  ladder  to  climb  for  cherries ; 
The  third,  and  she  was  the  wisest  one, 
Carried  a  fan  to  keep  off  the  sun." 

So  they  "  made  a  game  of  it  "  for  a  Thanksgiving 
evening  celebration.  They  appeared  suddenly  in 
the  sitting-room,  dressed  like  old  women,  with  mar- 
velous bonnets,  one  with  a  huge  market-basket,  the 
little  three-year-old  with  a  great  palm-leaf  fan, 
almost  as  big  as  she  was,  and  the  oldest  carrying  the 
family  step-ladder.  When  the  wind  blew  them  all 
away,  one  of  the  audience  had  to  represent  wind,  and 
lay  the  ladder  down,  and  it  was  quite  a  comical  sight 
to  see  them  bail  out  the  imaginary  water  and  attend 
to  their  bonnets  and  their  balance  at  the  same  time. 
On  another  occasion,  with  the  help  of  playmates, 
they  added  the  "  Three  Wise  Men  "  to  the  perform- 
ance, though  this  was  more  difficult. 

Another  family  of  boys  and  girls,  a  little  older, 
were  always  getting  up  tableaux  and  burlesque-opera 
entertainments  for  their  father's  birthdays.  It  was 
no  end  of  trouble ;  old  clothes  and  the  tableaux  did 
not  always  "  preserve  the  unities,"  but  they  were 
pleasant  recollections  long  after  the  merry  boys  and 
girls  were  fathers  and  mothers  themselves. 

I  saw  another  birthday  celebration  once,  and  I 
shall  never  forget  it.  The  mother's  birthday  had 
come  too  soon  for  the  child's  calculation,  and  there 


was  no  preparation  made.  The  oldest,  a  sensitive, 
loving  child  of  seven  years,  was  overwhelmed  with 
grief,  and  sobbed,  "  Mamma  is  always  giving  us 
something,  and  getting  up  things  for  us,  and  now  we 
have  forgotten  her.  Oh  !  dear,  dear  !  " 

Close  by  stood  a  little  basketful  of  stones,  picked 
up  in  their  afternoon  ramble — just  such  stones  as 
you  can  find  in  any  New  England  pasture  lot  or  by 
any  stone  wall.  But  the  white,  imperfect  quartz 
crystals  and  the  shining  little  bits  of  mica  seemed 
very  beautiful  to  the  child.  Suddenly  she  noticed 
the  basket.  There  was  a  hurried  consultation  with 
her  younger  sister,  a  great  parade  of  secrecy  and 
business,  a  rattling  of  stones  in  the  kitchen  wash- 
basin, and  much  dancing  about  and  shouts  of  "  Now, 
mamma,  we've  got  something  for  your  birthday. 
Don't  look  into  that  basket !  Now,  don't  guess — oh  ! 
you  never  can  guess  what  it  is  !  " 

The  next  morning  at  breakfast  there  was  some- 
thing on  mamma's  plate,  heaping  up  the  napkin  so 
carefully  spread  over  it. 

When  the  napkin  was  lifted  there  was  nothing  but 
the  little  heap  of  shining  stones,  but  the  children 
were  as  happy  as  if  they  had  been  gold  and  diamonds. 
Said  the  youngest :  "  Mamma,  I  picked  out  the  very 
prettiest,  the  very  whitest  and  shiny-est  " ;  and  the 
oldest  added,  "  We  washed  them  just  as  carefully  last 
night." 

The  father  said  afterward  : 

"  They  came  to  me  in  the  evening  in  great  glee, 
for  now  they  had  something  for  mamma,  and  they 
showed  me  the  stones,  all  wet  and  dripping  in  the 
basket — about  as  pitiful  a  thing  for  a  present  as  could 
be  imagined." 

A  trifle,  you  say,  but  the  love  and  delight  that 
went  with  that  worthless  little  pile  of  stones  could 
not  be  counted  by  dollars.  No  wonder  the  mother's 
eyes  grew  dim,  as  she  looked  from  the  stones  heaped 
up  on  her  plate  to  the  glowing  faces  of  the  children, 
and  that  she  carefully  put  the  stones  away.  Trifles 
like  these  are  the  very  dearest  of  treasures  to  a 
mother's  heart,  if  some  day  the  bright  eyes  that 
shone  with  delight  are  forever  shut  from  her 
sight,  and  the  busy  little  hands  are  folded  still  and 
cold. 

You  never  know  how  long  you  and  your  children 
will  have  each  other.  At  best,  they  will  not  be  little 
children  always.  Make  the  life  which  you  live 
together,  as  happy  and  as  full  of  yourself  as  possible. 
If  you  can  do  but  little,  put  plenty  of  love  and  sun- 
shine into  that  little.  It  is  worth  a  great  deal  to 
have  them  to  grow  up  with  the  habit  of  being  happy. 
If  this  habit  comes — not  because  every  wish  is  grati- 
fied, but  because  they  are  always  busy  at  some 
cheerful  or  helpful  work,  never  fear  that  they  will 
grow  up  querulous  and  selfish.  Children  so 
trained  are  not  apt  to  fall  into  fashionable  listless- 
ness,  or  to  give  themselves  up  to  idle  grief,  if  dis- 
appointment and  sorrow  come  into  their  maturer 
lives. 

The  effect  of  such  a  home  atmosphere  as  this  is 
incalculable.  It  not  only  tends  to  strengthen  and 
purify  each  separate  individual  in  the  family,  but  its 
influence  is  still  deeper  and  more  far-reaching. 


CULTURE  AND  PROGRESS. 


791 


Whatever  tends  to  make  our  family  life  purer  and 
stronger  is  doing  the  best  and  noblest  service  for 
society.  We  women  listen  to  the  growl  of  the 
storm  in  other  countries  ;  we  tremble  for  our  own, 
and  feel  so  useless  and  insignificant ! 

Brave  little  Holland  keeps  the  whole  mighty 
Atlantic  at  bay  with  her  dykes  of  commonplace 
earth  and  stones  and  turf — mere  every-day  material. 
Take  courage,  weary  mother.  Your  life  may  seem  to 
you  not  much  more  than  a  dreary  grind,  day  after 


day,  to  supply  the  physical  wants  of  your  children ; 
but  if  they  grow  up  to  love  and  honor  you  because 
you  deserve  their  love  and  honor — if  they  go  out 
from  you  to  build  up  other  homes  like  the  one  you 
have  made  to  them  the  purest  and  sweetest  place, 
on  earth,  you  have  built  a  few  rods  of  dyke  over 
against  your  own  house,  and  so  have  built,  not  for 
yourself  alone,  but  for  all  society — not  for  to-day 
alone,  but  for  all  time. 

MARY  BLAKE. 


CULTURE  AND  PROGRESS. 


White's  "  Every-day  English."  * 

IN  this  volume,  Mr.  Richard  Grant  White  has 
brought  together  various  scattered  contributions 
made  to  magazines  and  newspapers  on  the  subject 
of  the  English  language.  It  is  nine  years,  he  tells 
us,  since  his  previous  work,  entitled  "Words  and 
their  Uses,"  was  published ;  and  what  is  here  printed 
may  fairly  be  supposed  to  represent  the  result  of  the 
study  and  reflection  of  the  interval  which  has  passed. 
As  contrasted  with  that  work,  it  will  be  seen  at  once 
that  this  one  shows  a  marked  advance  on  Mr.  White's 
part,  both  in  opinion  and  expression.  There  are  in 
it  comparatively  few  of  those  extraordinary  mis- 
takes, which,  however,  added  to  the  interest  of  his 
previous  book,  though  they  may  possibly  have  im- 
paired its  value.  Wider  study,  even  if  of  a  dilet- 
tante character,  has  inevitably  led  to  more  accuracy 
of  statement,  as  well  as  to  less  positiveness  of  asser- 
tion. This  lowering  of  the  feeling  of  general  omnis- 
cience has  likewise  been  attended  with  a  sensible 
diminution  of  virulence  of  tone.  True  it  is,  as  the 
poet  tells  us,  that  "knowledge  comes,  but  wisdom 
lingers  "  ;  and  the  wisdom  of  the  author's  views  has 
not  altogether  kept  pace  with  the  progress  of  his 
knowledge.  But,  if  occasionally  the  crude  ideas  of 
his  earlier  work  appear,  they  are  no  longer  made 
offensively  prominent.  It  would,  indeed,  be  asking 
too  much  of  human  nature  to  expect  him  to  withdraw 
them  formally.  It  is  enough  for  us  that  they  are 
now  stated  with  modification  and  moderation,  or 
quietly  put  entirely  into  the  background. 

So  much  is  justly  due,  at  the  outset,  to  a  work 
which  cannot  be  spoken  of  with  unqualified  praise. 
For,  together  with  merits  of  its  own,  it  has  peculiar 
defects.  In  a  general  way,  it  may  be  said  to  be  per- 
vaded by  the  fault  of  too  great  an  abundance  of 
assertion  for  the  supply  of  facts  upon  which  the  asser- 
tion is  founded.  The  very  opening  pages  of  the 
volume  illustrate  this.  They  are  given  up  to  a  dis- 
cussion of  the  word  share,  which  Mr.  White  derives 
from  shire  through  the  pronunciation  sheer.  "  So," 
he  says,  "shire  came  to  be  written  sheer,  and  sheer  to 
be  pronounced  and  then  written  share."  One  main 


*  Every-day  English.  A  sequel  to  "  Words  and  their 
Uses."  By  Richard  Grant  White.  Boston:  Houehton, 
Mifflin  &  Co. 


difficulty  with  the  late  derivation  of  share  from  shire 
by  this  roundabout  process  is  that  scir  or  scire,  from 
which  shire  comes  directly,  and  scearu  or  scant,  from 
which  share  comes  directly,  existed  side  by  side  in 
the  earliest  known  period  of  our  tongue.  Statements 
like  this  we  have  quoted,  and  which  lack  only  the 
quality  of  accuracy  to  be  invaluable,  are  scattered  up 
and  down  the  pages  of  this  volume.  But  no  one 
would  wish  them  away,  for  Mr.  White  communicates 
so  pleasantly  the  misinformation  which  he  has  to 
give,  that  we  feel  that  we  have  made  an  actual  gain 
when,  under  his  guidance,  we  exchange  an  uninter- 
esting and  unaccommodating  fact  for  a  charmingly 
told  fiction.  It  is  only  when  he  hesitates  that  he 
loses  in  interest.  This  is  plainly  seen,  for  illustra- 
tion, in  the  remarks  contained  in  his  twenty-eighth 
chapter  upon  had  rather  be — a  very  ticklish  phrase 
for  one  to  meddle  with  who  is  not  familiar  with  its 
origin  and  history,  and  the  precise  nature  of  its  con- 
stituent parts.  Mr.  White  writes  about  it  and  about 
it  without  really  saying  anything  of  it ;  and  the  sort  of 
wobbling  movement  which  characterizes  him  in  this 
place,  so  different  from  his  usual  directness  and 
positiveness,  not  only  takes  away  interest  in  the  sub- 
ject, but  gives  to  the  reader  that  painful  impression 
which  affects  all  of  us  at  the  sight  of  the  struggles  of 
a  writer  to  impart  to  others  information  in  regard  to 
matters  which  he  himself  does  not  thoroughly  under- 
stand. 

The  work  is  divided  into  four  parts.  The  first,  en- 
titled "  Speech,"  is  largely  taken  up  with  a  discussion 
of  the  statements  of  Professor  Whitney  in  regard  to 
pronunciation;  and  it  will  be  gratifying  to  the 
friends  of  that  scholar  to  learn  that,  though  occasion- 
ally disapproving  his  views,  Mr.  White  is  enabled  to 
speak  well  of  them  on  the  whole. 

The  second  part  is  entirely  devoted  to  the  subject 
of  "  Spelling  Reform."  To  this,  it  is  almost  need- 
less to  say,  the  author  is  opposed.  Indeed,  the 
present  agitation  of  it  he  looks  upon  with  those  min- 
gled feelings  of  pity  and  contempt  with  which  supe- 
rior natures  are  supposed  to  view  the  follies  and 
frailties  of  their  fellow-beings.  He  speaks  of  it  with 
the  fine  irony  of  quotation  marks  as  a  "  movement." 
He  abandons  himself  to  the  most  dismal  prophecies 
of  its  failure.  Yet  it  can  hardly  be  said  that,  outside 
of  his  personal  opinion,  he  has  added  anything  to  the 


792 


CULTURE  AND  PROGRESS. 


facts  and  arguments  of  the  controversy,  save  in  the 
way  of  perversion  of  the  one  and  misapprehension  of 
the  other.  We  retract :  there  is  one  contribution  to 
the  discussion,  absolutely  new,  which  he  has  made. 
Nowhere  can  be  found  so  complete  an  exposure  of 
the  utter  incapacity  of  linguistic  scholars  and  special 
students  of  a  tongue  to  deal  with  the  question  of 
spelling.  Nowhere  have  we  seen  the  advantage  of 
ignorance  of  a  subject  as  a  qualification  for  its  suc- 
cessful treatment  more  convincingly  stated,  and,  we 
may  be  permitted  to  add,  more  adequately  illustrated. 
There  is,  too,  a  sort  of  poetic  justice  in  Mr.  White's 
speaking  disparagingly  of  specialists  and  laying  bare 
their  incompetence.  He  is  only  repaying  them  in 
their  own  coin. 

There  are,  however,  a  number  of  references  to  and 
quotations  from  articles  on  spelling  reform  which 
appeared  in  this  magazine,  and  these  require  a  slight 
notice  here.  Certain  statements,  in  particular,  in 
regard  to  two  words  have  so  much  attention  paid  to 
them  that  it  would  be  discourteous  in  us  not  to  make 
clear  to  the  author  the  mistakes  into  which  he  has 
unwittingly  fallen.  The  words  are  been  and  colonel. 
In  regard  to  them  it  was  said  that  two  ways  of 
spelling  corresponding  to  two  ways  of  pronouncing 
existed  side  by  side;  and  that  modern  English 
has  with  us  retained  the  spelling  of  the  one  form 
and  the  pronunciation  of  the  other.  Let  us  take  these 
two  words  in  order.  Before  saying  anything  specif- 
ically about  been,  it  is  necessary  to  remark  that  the 
letter  i  had  from  the  beginning  two  sounds,  cor- 
respondingly long  and  short.  The  latter  of  these  is 
now  represented  in  pin,  the  former  in  pique.  But  in 
process  of  time  the  letter  /,  when  long,  came  often  to 
have  the  diphthongal  value — heard  in  pine — which  it 
still  retains ;  its  strictly  long  sound,  corresponding 
to  short  i,  was  often  though  not  invariably  denoted 
by  ee.  Mr.  White  gives  up  a  good  deal  of  time  and 
space  to  proving,  what  no  one  ever  denied,  that  i 
had  once  the  sound  of  ee.  But  the  question  is,  when 
we  find  the  word  bin  in  our  earlier  literature, 
whether  the  i  of  it  had  its  strictly  long  or  its  short 
sound — that  is,  whether  it  was  pronounced  been  or 
bin.  He  unhesitatingly  declares  for  the  former 
view,  and  when  he  finds  bin  rhyming  with  such 
a  word  as  in,  he  goes  on  to  say  that  the  latter  was 
pronounced  een.  To  prove  this  he  quotes  a  passage 
from  Wallis,  who  in  1653  published  in  Latin  an 
English  grammar.  There  are  many  extraordinary 
things  in  this  volume  of  "  Every-day  English,"  but, 
upon  the  whole,  this  is  the  most  extraordinary.  Will 
it  be  believed  that  the  very  quotation  which  is  intro- 
duced to  prove  this  assertion  proves  the  direct  oppo- 
site ?  The  passage  from  Wallis  in  the  original 
Latin  can  be  found  on  page  twenty ;  and,  as  Mr. 
White  has  failed  to  comprehend  it  in  that  tongue,  we 
shall  take  the  liberty  of  translating  it  for  him.  The 
grammarian  is  speaking  of  the  vowel-sound  we  are 
discussing.  "This  sound,"  he  says,  "as  often  as  it 
is  shortened,  the  English  express  by  short  //  but 
when  it  is  lengthened  they  write  it  for  the  most  part 
with  ee,  not  unfrequently,  however,  with  ie,  or  even 
with  ea."  Wallis  then  proceeds  to  contrast  the  cor- 
respondingly long  and  short  sounds  by  examples, 


and  to  make  the  difference  perfectly  clear,  he  takes, 
in  most  cases,  words  bearing  a  close  resemblance,  as 
fit  ^cA  feet,  fill  yoA.feel  and  field,  sin  and  seen,  zY/and 
eel,  and  several  others.  This  settles  the  question; 
but,  as  if  he  had  not  done  enough  to  ruin  his 
own  cause,  Mr.  White  introduces  on  page  225 
another  quotation  from  Wallis,  in  which  that  gram- 
marian says,  in  regard  to  this  specific  word,  that  the 
pronunciation  bin  was  sometimes  used  instead  of 
been,  improperly,  as  he  thinks.  These  foot-notes, 
generously  added  by  the  author  of  "  Every-day  Eng- 
lish," enable  us  to  correct  the  errors  of  his  text; 
and,  though  he  fails  to  understand  their  force,  his 
readers  will  not — at  least,  those  of  them  who  can 
construe  Latin.  We  especially  are  under  obligations 
for  these  quotations,  as  they  relieve  us  from  the 
necessity  of  burdening  our  columns  with  a  defense  of 
what  there  was  never  the  slightest  reason  to  attack. 
It  is  not  often  that  the  victim  about  to  be  im- 
molated brings  with  him  as  an  additional  offering 
the  sacrificial  knife. 

Nor,  when  he  comes  to  colonel,  can  it  be  said  that 
our  author  is  much  better  off.  He  adds  a  good  deal 
to  what  was  found  in  the  columns  of  this  magazine ; 
but  it  is  in  the  way  of  exposition  and  not  of  contra- 
diction. But  though  he  does  not  state  definitely 
that  the  /  of  colonel  was  pronounced  exclusively  as  /, 
and  never  as  r,  up  to  the  middle  of  the  eighteenth 
century,  he  implies  it;  at  any  rate,  without  that 
assumption  his  argument  is  worth  nothing.  It  was, 
according  to  him,  about  a  hundred  years  ago  that  the 
change  of  letter-sound  took  place.  Now,  if  two 
different  pronunciations  of  the  same  word  exist  side 
by  side  in  cultivated  speech,  it  is  easy  to  see  how  one 
might  drive  out  the  other ;  but  for  a  word  then  to 
assume  an  entirely  new  pronunciation,  not  in  ac- 
cordance with  its  spelling,  but  in  utter  defiance 
of  it,  is  something  so  difficult,  that  it  may  be  called 
practically  impossible  under  ordinary  conditions. 
The  transition  of  /  to  r  is  common  in  language ;  but 
it  is  common  only  in  the  language  that  lives  almost 
wholly  in  the  mouths  of  men,  not  in  the  developed 
language  that  is  recorded  in  literature,  read  in  books, 
and  heard  in  the  daily  speech  of  an  educated  class. 
But  this  is  not  all.  The  occurrence  of  the  word  in 
the  writings  of  the  sixteenth  century,  not  merely 
with  the  spelling  coronel  but  with  that  of  cornel,  is 
satisfactory  proof  that,  even  at  that  early  period,  the 
present  pronunciation  was  more  or  less  prevalent. 
Mr.  White  is,  indeed,  totally  unacquainted  with  this 
fact;  but  his  ignorance,  however  great,  cannot  justly 
be  held  to  counterbalance  any  one  else's  knowledge, 
however  slight.  He  has  found  the  word  in  Spenser's 
prose  treatise  on  Ireland,  and  says  that  "  this  is 
probably  the  earliest  appearance  of  the  word  in  our 
literature  in  any  form."  It  is  a  striking  illustration 
of  his  somewhat  lax  method  of  procedure  that, 
though  in  the  article  which  he  criticises  there  was  a 
specific  reference  to  the  use  of  the  term  in  the 
Leicester  correspondence  of  1585-6, — and  this  is  no 
solitary  case, — he  was  willing  merely  to  borrow  the 
fact  without  consulting  the  authority ;  and  not  even 
content  with  this,  he  went  on  to  hazard  the  assertion 
that  "  the  earl  doubtless  got  the  new  title  "  from  the 


CULTURE  AND   PROGRESS. 


793 


Spaniards,  and  to  state  by  implication  that  it  was  he 
alone  who  used  it.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  while  it  is 
employed  by  many,  it  occurs  most  frequently  in  this 
correspondence  in  the  letters  of  Sir  Francis  Wal- 
singham,  the  English  Secretary  of  State. 

It  is  necessity  rather  than  choice  that  has  led  us  to 
spend  time  on  these  unimportant  details ;  though, 
alongside  of  the  mistakes  which  have  been  pointed 
out  here,  little  slips  that  occur  frequently  elsewhere 
— such,  for  instance,  as  Ormin's  having  written  about 
two  thousand  lines  when  he  actually  wrote  about 
twenty  thousand — are  hardly  worthy  of  mention. 
We  come  now  to '  the  third  part,  which  Mr.  White 
entitles  "  Grammar,"  apparently  because  he  denies 
that  there  is  in  English  any  such  thing,  and  to  the 
fourth  part,  which  discusses  mainly  questions  of 
usage.  Here  our  author  can  be  said  to  have  his  foot 
upon  his  native  heath.  This  is  a  province  which  he 
has  made  peculiarly  his  own ;  and  there  is  little 
doubt  that  what  is  found  in  this  part  will  be  much 
the  most  attractive  to  most  of  his  readers.  Indeed, 
it  is  they  who  have  largely  made  up  this  portion  of 
the  book.  Mr.  White  has  a  large  correspondence, 
as  he  tells  us,  all  over  the  country.  He  receives  and 
for  some  years  has  received  daily  "  letters  written  by 
representatives  of  all  sorts  and  conditions  of  men  "  ; 
and  these  appear  to  consist  mainly  of  inquiries 
about  the  proper  use  of  words  and  phrases.  He 
seems,  indeed,  to  play  to  some  extent  the  part  of  a 
modern  Delphic  oracle,  to  which  members  of  the 
English-speaking  race  resort  from  far  and  near  for 
guidance.  This  is  necessarily  an  unprofitable  as 
well  as  onerous  tax  upon  time  and  patience ;  for  the 
modern  seeker  after  light  rarely  comes  laden  with  a 
larger  gift  than  the  solitary  postage-stamp.  But  it  is 
attended  with  this  special  consolation  of  its  own  to 
the  feelings — that  the  agricultural,  the  bucolic,  and 
even  the  medical  and  the  military  correspondent  love, 
no  less  than  death,  a  shining  mark.  It  is  certainly 
in  his  observations  upon  these  questions  of  usage 
that  Mr.  White  is  at  his  best,  as  might  naturally  be 
expected ;  for  they  depend  for  their  value  far  more 
upon  that  accuracy  of  judgment  which  comes  from 
familiarity  with  the  best  writers  than  upon  that  mere 
accuracy  of  knowledge  which  can  only  be  gained  at 
the  price  of  patient  labor.  It  is,  indeed,  a  signal 
illustration  of  the  superiority  of  taste  to  truth  that 
in  particular  instances  the  conclusions  of  the  author 
are  altogether  right,  while  the  reasons  he  gives  for 
them  are  altogether  wrong.  To  young  and  careless 
writers,  therefore,  this  part  of  the  work,  in  spite 
of  some  mistakes,  will  be  valuable;  while  it  will 
seem  a  perfect  treasure  to  that  class  of  persons  whose 
intellectual  diet  consists  largely  of  real  or  fancied 
improprieties  of  speech,  and  who  are  never  happy 
unless  they  can  make  themselves  miserable  by  dis- 
covering errors  of  expression  where  none  had  been 
thought  to  exist. 

Howells's  "Undiscovered  Country."* 
THOSE  who  have  criticised  Mr.  Howells  for  keep- 
ing too  near  the  surface  in  his  delineations  of  life, 

*  The  Undiscovered  Country.  By  W.  D.  Howells.  Boston : 
Houghton,  Mifflin  &  Co.  1880. 


ought  not  to  complain  if  his  latest  novel  shows  a 
more  solid  texture  than  its  predecessors,  and  has  less 
than  usual  of  that  valuable  literary  attribute  which 
Edmund  Quincy  used  to  call  "  specific  levity." 
Among  the  vagaries  of  spiritualism  and  in  the  analy- 
sis of  a  character  absorbed  in  its  mysteries,  we  can- 
not expect  a  treatment  so  gay  and  amusing  as  if  the 
scene  were  laid  among  very  youthful  maids  and 
lovers  in  a  "parlor-car."  To  many  persons,  more- 
over, the  mere  atmosphere  of  these  "  manifestations," 
real  or  supposed,  is  so  unattractive  as  to  repel  them 
from  any  book  which  deals  with  such  themes.  It 
seems,  indeed,  a  curious  circumstance  that  while  the 
interest  in  these  phenomena  has  seemed  to  be  un- 
equivocally waning,  it  should  be  simultaneously 
revived  by  Mr.  Howells  in  literature,  and  by  Mr. 
Joseph  Cook  in  discoursing  on  what  he  calls  science. 
Yet  this  may  be,  after  all,  only  a  recognition  that  the 
whole  subject  is  lapsing  into  the  past,  since  it  is 
with  the  past  and  completed  that  both  art  and  science 
must  mainly  deal. 

Mr.  Howells  has  too  much  of  Hawthorne  in  his 
temperament  to  find  any  difficulty  in  evading  all  as- 
sertion of  his  personal  belief  or  disbelief  in  these 
wonders.  He  "handles  the  rappings  with  as  airy  and 
impersonal  a  touch  as  if  he  were  Hawthorne  dealing 
with  a  supposed  birth-mark  or  a  bosom-serpent;  his 
treatment  is,  as  it  should  be,  dramatic ;  he  is  writing; 
a  novel,  not  a  polemic  treatise.  In  this  ease  of  hand- 
ling this  book  surpasses  its  predecessors ;  and  it  is 
also  superior  to  them  in  the  feeling  for  external 
nature.  It  is  perhaps  due  to  the  author's  good  fort- 
une in  personally  exchanging  suburban  for  rural 
life  that  there  is  here  perceptible  a  certain  warmth 
and  mellowness  of  natural  allusion,  with  a  delicate 
observation  of  the  habits  of  plants  and  animals,  such 
as  has  not  before  been  prominent  in  his  books.  The 
scarlet  of  the  maples,  "  the  sunny  glisten  of  mead- 
ows," the  joy  of  the  red  squirrels,  enter  as  never 
before  into  his  pictures.  Never  before  could  he  so 
exquisitely  describe  the  hour  of  dawn,  "  when  the 
robins  and  orioles  and  sparrows  were  weaving  that 
fabric  of  song  which  seems  to  rise  everywhere  from 
the  earth  to  the  low-hovering  heaven  "  (page  187). 
That  celebrated  imaginative  touch  in  Bret  Harte's 
"  Miggles,"  where  the  outcast  girl  unconsciously 
shifts  her  position,  as  she  tells  her  story,  till  she 
brings  between  herself  and  her  auditors  the  figure 
of  the  ruined  man  in  whom  her  love  has  found  at 
once  her  doom  and  her  redemption, — a  passage,  be 
it  remarked,  which  promised  a  higher  and  finer 
quality  of  genius  than  its  author  has  ever  again  ex- 
hibited,— is  not  more  profound  or  delicate  in  its  con- 
ception than  the  scene  in  which  Mr.  Howells  makes 
his  two  lovers  first  reveal  their  hearts  to  each  other 
while  picking  grapes,  with  the  grape-vine  between 
them,  betraying  through  that  green  and  swaying 
curtain  the  secrets  that  had  shunned  the  light  of  day. 

It  is  to  be  observed,  moreover,  that  "  The  Undis- 
covered Country  "  shows  not  a  taste  of  that  sub-acid 
vein  with  which  Mr.  Howells,  in  his  philosophizing, 
has  sometimes  been  reproached.  His  lover,  to  be 
sure,  is  rather  ungracious  and  unlovely  at  the  outset^ 
but  that  is  the  type  of  wooer  now  most  in  vogue  with 


794 


CULTURE  AND  PROGRESS. 


our  novelists,  and  this  not  without  some  foundation 
in  current  manners.  As  to  the  love-plot,  the  con- 
quest of  the  savage  and  the  recusant  by  the  charms 
of  unconscious  womanhood  is  as  old  as  modern 
literature,  at  least ;  though  it  is  not  every  wooer  who 
begins  his  attentions,  like  the  hero  of  the  present 
novel,  by  savagely  griping  the  hand  of  his  mistress 
until  he  wounds  her  fingers  with  her  own  ring,  and 
then  ends  them  in  the  conventional  manner  by  put- 
ting on  her  finger  a  ring  of  his  own  selection.  Be- 
tween these  two  incidents  there  lies,  however,  a  long 
train  of  events, — or  rather  a  few  events,  skillfully 
prolonged, — in  which  the  continuous  interest  lies 
perhaps  less  in  the  love-affair  of  the  daughter  than  in 
the  developed  character  of  the  father. 

The  opening  scenes  are  laid  among  mediums  and 
spiritualists,  and  one  must  have  known  something 
personally  of  the  class  described  to  fully  appreciate 
the  admirableness  with  which  Mr.  Howells  has  de- 
lineated them  all.  Mrs.  Le  Roy,  the  unscrupulous, 
kindly,  good-natured  professional, — Mr.  Hatch,  the 
cheery,  vivacious  half-believer, — Mr.  Eccles,  the 
saturnine  and  suspicious  philosopher, — no  one  ever 
went  a  dozen  steps  into  the  personal  observation  of 
"  the  phenomena "  without  encountering  each  of 
these  types ;  and  the  very  good-nature  of  the  por- 
traitures makes  them  inestimable.  These  are  the 
minor  figures,  and  among  them  rises  the  central  per- 
sonage, Dr.  Boynton,  a  creation  far  more  difficult, — 
a  delineation  so  admirable,  indeed,  that  we  are  in- 
clined to  place  him  distinctly  in  advance  of  any  be- 
fore achieved  by  Mr.  Howells.  There  is  danger 
that  the  popular  prejudice  against  spiritualism,  or 
the  rather  too  great  prolongation  of  some  scenes  in 
the  book,  may  blind  the  reader  to  the  remarkable 
portrayal  of  this  one  character.  A  man  of  science 
and  yet  a  dupe, — at  once  pitiable  and  heroic, — a 
dreamer  and  yet  capable  of  prompt  and  resolute 
action, — thoroughly  sincere,  and  yet  treading  the 
perilous  edge  of  deception, — a  tender  father  and  yet 
torturing  his  daughter, — full  of  the  loftiest  self-devo- 
tion for  the  race,  and  yet  unsparing  to  the  one 
human  being  intrusted  to  his  care, — we  have  said 
enough  already  to  show  what  a  remarkable  com- 
bination he  represents.  When  to  this  we  add  that 
he  is  from  moment  to  moment  at  the  mercy  of  the 
most  trivial  and  unexpected  influences  around  him, 
so  that  we  see  him  throughout,  not  as  a  fixed  and 
formed  character,  but  as  one  in  the  last  degree 
plastic  and  floating,  the  study  of  his  development 
assumes  a  sort  of  fascination,  and  its  successful  de- 
lineation becomes  a  triumph.  The  only  previous 
character  in  whose  creation  Mr.  Howells  has  shown 
anything  approaching  the  same  power  of  analysis  is 
that  of  Don  Ippolito  in  "  A-  Foregone  Conclusion," 
and  even  his  nature  is  one  of  far  more  fixed  and 
definite  boundaries,  less  mobile  and  florid,  therefore 
less  difficult  to  portray.  Besides,  the  contrasting 
character  in  that  book,  Vervain,  is  so  shallow  and 
insufficient  as  to  make  the  contrast  unsatisfactory 
and  even  painful,  and  there  is  a  certain  cynical  flavor, 
especially  at  the  close ;  whereas,  the  final  impression 
left  by  this  book  is  sweet  and  wholesome. 

Dr.  Boynton's  daughter  Egeria,  the  heroine  of  the 


story, — whose  gradual  extrication  from  the  involun- 
tary attitude  of  mediumship  is  the  nominal  motive 
of  the  book, — remains,  despite  the  author's  efforts, 
in  that  neutral  tint  from  which  it  is  so  hard  to  rescue 
one's  heroine;  nor  has  modern  art  yet  availed,  it 
may  be  said,  to  rescue  one's  hero,  except  by  the 
device  already  mentioned, — of  making  him  brusque 
and  disagreeable.  Even  this  method,  however,  is 
becoming  worn  out;  and  Ford,  the  present  lover, 
must,  after  all,  be  classed  with  that  dynasty  of  War- 
ringtons  whom  Thackeray  has  bequeathed  to  all 
succeeding  novelists.  He  is  the  cultivated  Timon 
of  modern  life,  who  makes  his  bread  by  writing  for 
the  newspapers,  and  finds  habitually  little  to  esteem 
in  men,  except  that  they  are  not  women.  " '  Oh, 
yes,  your  odd  friend,'  said  the  ladies  driving  him 
(Phillips)  home  from  the  station  in  their  phaetons"; 
and  nothing  hits  off  the  hero  better  than  this  slight 
and  essentially  Howells-like  touch.  Phillips  him- 
self, the  friend  who  consents  to  the  ladies  and  the 
phaetons,  we  find  a  little  vaguer  in  outline, — far  less 
marked,  indeed,  than  the  fair  ones  with  whom  he 
consorts,  especially  those  inimitable  types  of  board- 
ing-house life  whom  Mr.  Howells  has  long  since 
learned  to  indicate  with  a  single  stroke  of  the  brush. 
One  might  confess,  without  shame,  never  to  have 
seen  Mr.  Phillips ;  but  for  an  American  citizen  not 
to  have  known  Mrs.  Perham  would  be  to  admit  that 
he  had  never  genteelly  boarded. 

But  the  crowning  triumph  of  personal  delineation 
— after  Dr.  Boynton  himself — is  to  be  found  in  the 
Shaker  household,  among  whose  members  the  action 
of  the  book  chiefly  lies.  It  is  an  equal  triumph  for 
Mr.  Howells,  first  to  have  discovered  this  wealth  of 
new  material,  and  then  to  have  so  thoroughly  em- 
ployed it.  The  material  is,  after  all,  less  than  the 
skill.  There  is  an  art  akin  to  Miss  Austen's,  and 
almost  beyond  her,  in  the  method  in  which  these 
people,  reducing  themselves  to  an  absolute  monotony 
of  costume  and  coloring,  of  language  and  demeanor, 
are  yet  vindicated  in  their  separate  individualities  at 
last,  and  left  as  distinct  as  the  world's  dress  and 
speech  could  have  made  them.  Laban  and  Hum- 
phrey and  Elihu,  Diantha  and  Rebecca  and  Susan, 
stand  before  us  as  separate  human  beings  still,  like 
those  sisterhoods  of  commonplace  women  whom 
Miss  Austen  delights  to  paint,  and  among  whom  no 
two  are  alike,  after  all ;  so  that,  when  a  remark  is 
made,  we  do  not  need  to  be  told  whether  Martha  or 
Mary  made  it.  And,  supreme  among  this  quaint 
and  kindly  company,  stands  out  the  sweet  and  simple 
image  of  Sister  Frances,  lavishing  all  her  wealth  of 
"  soft,  elastic  tenderness "  upon  the  suffering  girl, 
and  coming  by  degrees  as  near  as  a  Shakeress  can 
to  the  perilous  verge  of  sin,  in  encouraging  the  "  fool- 
ishness "  of  the  two  lovers,  watching  over  their 
wooing  up  to  the  very  verge  of  the  betrothal  kiss, 
and  then  flinging  her  apron  over  her  head. 

It  remains  to  be  seen  whether  this  book  will  win 
for  itself  the  wide  popularity  of  "  The  Lady  of  the 
Aroostook."  It  may  lose  some  of  this  fame  by  its 
very  merits, — that  is,  by  its  profounder  study  of 
character;  but,  unless  we  greatly  mistake,  it  will 
bear  reading  many  times  oftener,  and  be  the  guaran- 


CULTURE  AND  PROGRESS. 


795 


tee  to  its  author  of  more  lasting  fame.  There  were, 
moreover,  in  the  previous  novel,  some  faults  of  taste 
and  management  which  are  utterly  wanting  here. 
We  have  heard  some  youthful  readers  complain  of  it 
as  dull,  and  there  may  be  some  scenes  and  passages 
which  would  have  gained  by  greater  condensation ; 
but,  in  suggesting  this,  we  are  admitting  all  that  can 
possibly  be  said  by  way  of  complaint,  and  even  this 
may  be  admitting  too  much.  In  delicacy  of  handling, 
in  fineness  and  firmness  of  touch,  in  that  local  coloring 
to  which  Mr.  James  is  so  provokingly  indifferent,  this 
book  ranks  with  the  best  work  of  Mr.  Howells; 
and  in  no  previous  novel  has  he  so  trusted  himself  to 
deal  with  the  depths  of  human  character.  We  close 
it  with  a  faith,  such  as  we  have  never  before  felt,  in 
the  steady  maturing  and  promise  of  his  rare  powers. 

Roe's  "  Success  with  Small  Fruits."  * 

THE  enjoyment  with  which  Mr.  Roe's  profusely 
illustrated  essays  on  the  strawberry  and  other  small 
fruits  were  welcomed,  when  they  appeared  by  month- 
ly installments  in  SCRIBNER'S  MONTHLY,  will  be 
warmly  revived,  if  not  a  little  enhanced,  by  their 
judicious  enlargement  and  reproduction  in  this 
superb  volume.  In  addition  to  the  discussion  of 
some  details  which  were  not  so  appropriate  for  pres- 
entation in  popular  form,  the  author  has  given  us 
here  an  entire  chapter  upon  irrigation,  which  em- 
bodies both  the  novel  and  the  useful  side  of  it.  The 
benefits  of  profuse  watering,  when  it  can  be  done 
with  proper  reference  to  the  expense  and  income 
account,  are  unquestioned;  and  nowhere  are  they 
more  appreciable  and  salutary  than  when  wisely  ap- 
plied to  the  strawberry.  This  chapter,  however, 
only  professes  to  give  the  reader  the  "first  prin- 
ciples "  of  the  practice.  As  it  should  be,  just  enough 
is  said  to  enable  each  one  to  think  out  and  follow  up 
for  himself  the  complicated  conditions  which  diver- 
sify the  problem.  The  condensed  statement  of  what 
irrigation  has  done  in  some  localities  in  the  British 
Islands,  and  in  Germany,  France  and  Spain,  will, 
perhaps,  strike  the  reader,  who  is  not  familiar  with 
the  high  culture  which  sometimes  prevails  there, 
with  a  gentle  fillip  of  surprise. 

The  author  does  the  strawberry-lover  a  peculiar 
favor  in  the  hint  he  gives,  at  the  end  of  this  chapter,  of 
prolonging  his  pleasure  the  season  through.  He  says : 

"Where  unfailing  moisture  can  be  maintained, 
and  plants  are  not  permitted  to  bear  in  June,  nor  to 
make  runners,  almost  a  full  crop  may  be  obtained 
in  the  autumn." 

But,  to  be  brief,  it  is  not  too  much  to  say  that  no 
earnest  grower  of  small  fruits  can  afford  to  pass  by 
the  information  contained  in  this  book.  It  rightly 
puts  the  strawberry  first,  but  it  furnishes  full  and 
indispensable  directions  for  raising  all  the  edible  and 
marketable  berries,  and  indicates  also  the  pitfalls  and 
delusions  into  which  the  too  enthusiastic  amateur  is 
likely  to  fall.  Mr.  Roe's  book  is  never  dull,  and 
you  see  at  once  that  he  is  experimentally  familiar 
with  every  branch  of  his  subject. 

*  Success  with  Small  Fruits.  By  Edward  P.  Roe.  With 
Illustrations.  New  York :  Dodd,  Mead  &  Co. 


Lang's  "Ballades  in  Blue  China."* 

THIS  dainty  and  delicate  little  volume,  with  its 
title-page  in  azure,  and  its  vellum-paper  cover,  is  the 
prettiest  product  of  the  English  press  of  late,  and 
almost  worthy  to  be  placed  beside  the  beautiful  work 
of  M.  Jouaust  and  M.  Lemerre.  It  is  eight  years 
since  Mr.  Lang  put  forth  his  first  volume  of  poems, 
"  Ballads  and  Lyrics  of  Old  France,"  and  in  that  time 
new  fashions  have  arisen  in  the  making  of  verse  and 
in  the  making  of  books.  For  now  a  little  while 
study  has  been  given  to  the  old  French  metrical 
forms ;  and  attempts  are  even  beginning  to  be  made 
to  imitate  the  style  in  which  French  publishers  have 
sent  forth  the  poems  of  the  younger  Parnassians. 
With  the  judgment  of  a  poet  of  liberal  culture,  Mr. 
Lang  has  chosen  that  one  of  the  old  French  forms 
which  has  the  best  hope  of  permanence  in  English 
verse.  The  ballade,  far  above  rondel  or  rondeau  or 
villanelle,  is  flexible  and  flowing,  lending  itself  read- 
ily to  irony  and  scorn,  satire,  pathos,  passion,  play- 
fulness or  even  pure  fun.  It  has  its  place  beside 
the  sonnet,  and  second  only  to  the  sonnet  The 
"  Ballade  of  Blue  China,"  which  gives  a  title 
to  the  collection,  appeared  in  the  pages  of  this 
magazine  but  a  few  months  ago ;  in  some  measure, 
it  is  the  best  of  all,  and  fully  justifies  the  words  of  a 
neat  dizain  which  appears  at  the  end  of  the  series, 
and  to  which  are  appended  the  initials  "A.  D." 
(The  book  is  dedicated  to  Mr.  Austin  Dobson. ) 

Mr.  Lang  is  multifarious,  and  as  we  turn  the 
pages  we  can  see  the  crossing  tracks  of  his  diverg- 
ing studies.  He  is  a  bibliomaniac,  and  we  have  the 
"  Ballade  of  the  Book  Hunter,"  and  also  the 
"  Ballade  of  True  Wisdom " — from  a  text  of  Jules 
Janin's.  He  has  made  a  prose  translation  of  Theoc- 
ritus, now  just  published  in  England,  and  so  we  have 
a  ballade  to  him  of  Syracuse.  He  is  a  folk-lorist,  and 
here  is  a  lightsome  double  ballade  of  Primitive  Man. 
He  is  a  Scotchman,  and  we  find  two  ballades  in  dia- 
lect He  is  fond  of  old  poets,  and  he  gives  us  here 
ballades  translated,  one  from  Horace,  another  from 
La  Fontaine,  and  two  from  Villon.  He  knows  the 
modern  French  poets,  and  we  have  here  two  ballades 
after  M.  Theodore  de  Banville,  who  is  the  resuscita- 
tor  of  the  form,  and  by  whose  "  Trente-six  Ballades 
Joyeuses  "  this  collection  was  doubtless  suggested ; 
we  miss,  however,  the  fine  rendering  of  the  ballade 
from  "  Gringoire,"  which  we  admired  in  Mr.  Lang's 
"  New  Quarterly  Magazine  "  essay  on  de  Banville. 
Above  all,  Mr.  Lang  is  a  very  clever  man,  a  poet, 
with  a  neat  humor,  and  a  keen  sense  of  the  contrasts 
of  life, — and  so  we  read  the  ballades  of"  Cleopatra's 
Needle,"  and  of  "Autumn"  and  "Life."  As 
characteristic  as  any  is  this  : 

"  BALLADE  OF  ROULETTE. 

"  THIS  life—one  was  thinking  to-day 

In  the  midst  of  a  medley  of  fancies — 
Is  a  game,  and  the  board  where  we  play, 

Green  earth  with  her  poppies  and  pansies. 

Let  manq-ue  be  faded  romances, 
Be  passe  remorse  and  regret ; 

Hearts  dance  with  the  wheel  as  it  dances — 
The  wheel  of  Dame  Fortune's  roulette. 


*  XXII.  Ballades  in  Blue  China.     By  A.  Lang. 
C.  Kegan  Paul  &  Co. 


London : 


796 


CULTURE   AND   PROGRESS. 


"  The  lover  will  stake  as  he  may 

His  heart  on  his  Peggies  and  Nancies  ; 
The  girl  has  her  beauty  to  lay; 

The  saint  has  his  prayers  and  his  trances ; 

The  poet  bets  endless  expanses 
In  dreamland;    the  scamp  has  his  debt: 

How  they  gaze  at  the  wheel  as  it  glances- 
The  wheel  of  Dame  Fortune's  roulette  1 

"  The  kaiser  will  stake  his  array 

Of  sabers,  of  Krupps  and  of  lances; 
An  Englishman  punts  with  his  pay, 

And  glory  the  jeton  of  France  is; 

Your  artists,  or  Whistlers  or  Vances, 
Have  voices  or  colors  to  bet; 

Will  you  moan  that  its  motion  askance  is- 
The  wheel  of  Dame  Fortune's  roulette  ? 

"  ENVOY. 
"  The  prize  that  the  pleasure  enhances  ? 

The  prize  is — at  last  to  forget 
The  changes,  the  chops  and  the  chances — 

The  wheel  of  Dame  Fortune's  roulette." 


Gail  Hamilton's  "  Common-School  System."  * 

THERE  are  essays  well  enough  in  the  columns  of  a 
daily  newspaper,  or  of  a  magazine,  and  there  are 
others  which  will  bear  being  put  into  book  form. 
Those  which  compose  this  volume  fall  only  under 
the  former  class.  It  may  be  safe  for  a  clergyman  to 
preach  on  faith  one  Sunday  and  on  works  the  next, 
because  seven  days  intervene  between  the  two 
sermons ;  but  when  he  prints  them  side  by  side  in  a 
volume,  his  readers  may  demand  a  third  statement, 
which  shall  be  broad  enough  to  include  the  contra- 
diction of  the  other  two.  The  contradictions  of  this 
book  are  too  numerous  to  be  mentioned.  The  doc- 
trine preached  in  the  first  chapter,  that  the  more 
capable  workman  should  have  the  higher  salary, 
though  he  do  less  actual  work,  is  implicitly  attacked 
and  held  up  to  ridicule ;  toward  the  close  of  the  sec- 
ond, on  page  31,  we  are  told  that  "  the  high  school 
does  not  bestow  anything  to  be  compared  to  the 
private  academies  and  colleges. "  Page  67  says  :  "  The 
high  schools  do  give  pupils,  so  far  as  they  go,  a  good 
classical  education. "  But  it  is  useless  to  attempt  to 
name  the  numberless  contradictions — the  last  and 
crowning  one  of  which  is,  after  attacking  all  the 
ideas  of  the  president  of  Harvard  University,  to 
preach  and  enforce  his  own  doctrine  of  common- 
school  education  only  eleven  pages  after.  There  are 
two  sides  to  every  question,  but  the  man  who  sees 
the  two  sides  as  separate  and  contradictory  is  not 
much  nearer  the  truth  than  he  who  sees  only  one. 

The  book  in  question,  by  its  comprehensive  title, 
claims  to  speak  for  the  whole  country,  but  most  of 
its  chapters  are  aimed  at  the  schools  of  a  very  small 
section,  and  are  strongly  provincial.  Of  its  sixteen 
chapters,  seven  are  devoted  to  a  violent  attack  on 
the  school  supervision  ;  the  rest  attack,  one  by  one, 
high  schools,  industrial  schools,  normal  schools, 
teachers  and  school  boards.  After  reading  them 
through,  one  feels  as  if  escaped  from  an  unreasoning 
cyclone,  which  has  left  nothing  but  ruins  behind  it — 
unless,  indeed,  he  should  quote :  "  Here,"  said  Mr. 
Caudle,  "I  fell  asleep." 


*  Our  Common-School   System.     By  Gail  Hamilton.     Bos- 
ton :  Estes  &  Laureat. 


But  the  work  of  wholesale  destruction  is  not  a 
great  one.  Fault  may  be  found  by  any  one  with 
anything.  It  seems  a  pity  that  Gail  Hamilton  should 
not  apply  her  vigor  otherwise  than  to  such  whole- 
sale and  intemperate  denunciations  of  the  schools  of 
a  whole  country — denunciations  supported  by  long, 
detailed  accounts  of  individual  cases.  There  are, 
doubtless,  poor  school  superintendents,  and  the  per- 
centage of  poor  teachers  in  the  immense  total  is,  per- 
haps, fully  equal  to  the  percentage  of  poor  lawyers, 
physicians,  clergymen  or  essay  writers.  But  to  gen- 
eralize in  the  way  used  in  these  chapters  is  unreason, 
able.  To  assume  that  private  schools,  as  such,  are 
superior  to  public  schools,  as  such,  and  to  give  the 
impression  that  almost  all  women  teachers  are  good 
and  hard-working,  and  almost  all  men  teachers  poor, 
lazy  and  ill-bred,  is  foolishness.  Logically,  to  follow 
the  advice  of  this  author,  we  should  at  once  abolish 
all  school  boards,  superintendents,  normal  schools, 
high  schools,  principals,  and,  in  fact,  all  teachers. 
The  remainder  would  be  only  school-houses  and 
children.  It  is  easy  to  criticise  and  ridicule,  in 
language  borrowed  from  "  Pinafore,"  the  common 
schools  of  the  United  States.  It  is  easy  for  a  New 
Englander  to  take  it  for  granted  that  the  disagree- 
ments of  the  late  superintendent  of  the  Boston  schools 
with  the  supervisors  possess  a  national  interest,  and 
that  the  schools  all  over  the  country  "  take  their 
pitch"  from  Boston.  But  such  is  no  longer  the  case. 
The  schools  of  the  great  western  cities  do  not  con- 
cern themselves  with  -what  Boston  does,  or  does  not 
do,  and  she  who  attempts  to  generalize  from  that 
city,  while  heaping  scorn  and  ridicule  upon  it,  dis- 
plays only  her  own  ignorance  of  anything  that  can 
be  called  "  Our  Common-School  System." 

The  right  or  the  duty  of  the  State  to  establish,  by 
taxation,  schools  for  the  education  of  all  its  children, 
is  a  question  not  to  be  flippantly  decided  by  an  asser- 
tion, and  just  where  that  duty,  if  conceded,  ceases,  is 
another  which  demands  grave  consideration  and  cool 
discussion.  It  were  well,  however,  to  remember  the 
answer  of  Matthew  Arnold,  who,  after  officially  mak- 
ing an  exhaustive  study  of  the  secondary  schools  of 
Europe,  replied  to  one  asking :  "  How  shall  we  im- 
prove our  primary  schools  ?  "  "  Reform  your  sec- 
ondary schools,"  and  to  the  question :  "  How  shall 
we  reform  our  secondary  schools  ?  "  "  Reform  your 
colleges  and  universities."  The  key  of  the  educa- 
tional position  is  in  the  upper  rooms,  not  in  the  lower. 
It  were  also  well  for  an  author  to  learn  something 
more  about  a  teacher  than  she  does,  when  she  asserts 
that  "  even  a  veteran  teacher  cannot  do  her  work 
well  when  watched."  She  might  as  well  say  that 
the  Speaker  of  the  House  of  Representatives  could 
not  preside  well  if  there  were  spectators  in  the  gal- 
lery, or  that  Charlotte  Cushman  could  not  have  done 
herself  or  her  part  justice  if  there  had  been  ushers 
in  the  aisles  of  the  theater.  It  were  also  well  for  her 
to  know  somewhat  of  some  real  normal  schools,  and 
their  results,  before  she  attempts  to  tell  what  they 
are,  or  are  not.  Sarcasm  is  easy,  but  sarcasm  often 
aims  more  at  self-glorification  than  at  the  accom- 
plishment of  wise  and  desirable  ends. 


THE    WORLD'S  WORK. 


797 


THE    WORLD'S   WORK. 


New  Hot-Air  Pumping  Engine. 


HOT-AIR  or  caloric  motors  of  low  power  are  in 
general  use,  and  fill  an  important  duty  in  furnishing 
power  for  turning  light  machinery  and  in  pumping 
water.  Some  of  the  best  of  these  have  been  already 
described  in  this  department.  A  new  motor  de- 
signed for  pumping  water,  though  the  subject  of 
many  years  of  experimenting  on  the  part  of  the 
inventor,  has  recently  been  built  upon  a  commercial 
scale,  and  seems  likely  to  fill  a  want  wherever  mod- 
erate quantities  of  water  are  to  be  lifted  a  short 
distance  cheaply.  The  engine  consists  of  an  up- 
right cylinder,  cast  in  one  piece,  the  lower  portion 
being  suspended  in  the  fire-box  or  furnace,  while 
the  upper  portion  is  surrounded  by  a  water-jacket. 
This  cylinder  is  supported  in  the  center  by  a  simple 
iron  table  having  four  legs,  and  raised  high  enough 
to  admit  the  furnace  under  the  table.  The  furnace 
under  the  cylinder  may  be  a  small,  cylindrical  wood 
or  coal  stove,  with  a  suitable  chimney,  or  three  gas- 
jets  inclosed  by  a  sheet-iron  box,  having  an  opening 
at  the  top  for  the  escape  of  the  products  of  com- 
bustion. The  use  of  gas  is  to  be  preferred  to  coal 
or  wood  wherever  it  can  be  obtained,  as  it  is  cleaner, 
cheaper,  and  much  less  liable  to  injure  the  machine 
by  overheating.  The  moving  parts  consist  of  two 
pistons,  placed  one  over  the  other  in  the  cylinder, 
and  their  proper  connections  by  means  of  a  walking- 
beam  and  bell-crank.  The  theory  of  the  engine  is 
this  :  the  lower  piston,  or  plunger,  is  quite  long,  fill- 
ing about  one-third  of  the  cylinder,  and  not  quite 
touching  the  sides  and  bottom.  Studs  on  the  sides 
of  the  plunger  serve  to  guide  it  in  the  cylinder. 
The  upper  piston  fits  the  cylinder  air-tight,  or  very 
nearly  so,  and  moves  up  and  down  in  the  cylinder 


over  a  portion  of  the  part  that  is  water -jacketed,  the 
upper  side  of  the  piston  being  exposed  to  the  air. 
The  rod  for  the  plunger  passes  through  the  center 
of  the  piston  rod,  and  both  plunger  and  piston  move 
independently  of  each  other.  On  starting  the  fire 
under  the  cylinder  the  air  inside  becomes  heated, 
and  by  giving  the  fly-wheel  a  slight  push  the  motor 
starts  into  operation  in  this  manner :  the  plunger 
descends  quickly,  driving  the  heated  air  at  the  lower 
end  of  the  cylinder  past  the  sides  of  the  plunger  to 
the  upper  part  of  the  cylinder,  where  it  meets  the 
piston  and  forces  it  upward,  and  giving  the  first 
stroke  to  the  engine.  At  the  same  time,  the  hot  air 
meets  the  cold  sides  of  the  jacketed  portion  of  the 
cylinder  and  contracts,  makes  a  partial  vacuum 
under  the  piston  and  escapes  back  to  the  lower 
portion  of  the  cylinder,  where  it  is  again  heated. 
The  fly-wheel  carries  the  plunger  down  again  with  a 
quick  stroke  that  compresses  the  heated  air,  and  it 
again  expands  suddenly  and  reacts  upon  the  piston 
above,  when  the  action  is  repeated.  It  will  be  ob- 
served that  the  same  air  is  used  continuously,  being 
alternately  heated  and  cooled,  expanded  and  con- 
tracted; the  conversion  from  one  condition  to  the 
other  developing  the  power  required  to  keep  the 
machine  in  motion  and  enable  it  to  do  useful  work. 
The  system  of  cranks  for  controlling  the  movements 
of  plunger  and  piston  is  exceedingly  simple  and 
ingenious,  and  in  operation  the  motor  works  in 
silence.  The  pump  is  placed  at  the  side  of  the 
cylinder,  and  is  connected  directly  with  the  walking- 
beam  moved  by  the  piston.  It  takes  the  water 
through  a  suction-pipe  and  passes  it  through  the 
water-jacket  and  thence  on  to  the  discharge,  the 
slight  absorption  of  heat  in  passing  through  the 
jacket  being  of  no  particular  consequence,  while  the 
fact  that  none  of  the  water  passes  the  jacket  twice 
insures  a  constant  supply  of  cold  water  in  cooling  the 
cylinder.  The  motor  is  made  in  two  sizes,  the 
larger  size  with  a  cylinder  20  m.  (8  in. )  in  diameter 
and  consuming  420  cubic  decim.  (15  ft.)  of  gas  per 
hour,  having  a  duty  of  1400  liters  (350  gals.),  raised 
15.07  m.  (50  ft.)  an  hour.  It  cannot  explode,  nor 
is  there  danger  of  fire,  and  any  intelligent  person 
may  learn  to  use  it  with  safety  in  half  an  hour. 

The  Topophone. 

THIS  novel  and  interesting  instrument  is,  as  its 
name  indicates,  an  apparatus  for  discovering  the 
place  or  position  of  a  sound.  Its  practical  use  is 
to  discover  the  position  of  a  source  of  sound.  Its 
commercial  value  will  be  seen  when  it  is  observed 
that  it  stands  to  the  navigator  in  the  same  relation  as 
the  compass  and  sextant.  While  the  compass  points 
out  to  the  sailing-master  at  sea  the  position  of  a 
known  point  on  the  earth,  and  the  sextant  points 
out  his  position  on  the  earth's  surface,  the  topophone 
will  prove  of  equal  value  in  determining  the  position, 
and  the  distance  from,  of  an  invisible  source  of  sound, 
either  on  land  or  on  another  vessel.  On  approach- 
ing a  coast  in  the  night  and  observing  a  light,  the 
compass  indicates,  by  the  aid  of  the  chart  and  sail- 


798 


THE    WORLD'S    WORK. 


ing  directions,  the  course  to  be  pursued  in  entering 
the  port.  In  like  manner,  when,  in  a  fog,  the  sound 
of  a  fog-horn  is  heard,  either  on  the  land  or  afloat, 
the  topophone  indicates  to  the  navigator  the  precise 
direction  from  which  the  sound  proceeds,  and  by 
simple  experiment  will  give  its  exact  distance.  Thus, 
by  the  use  of  the  topophone,  it  would  be  possible  to 
enter  and  pass  up  the  Delaware  bay  and  river  in  a 
thick  fog,  and  to  navigate  the  difficult  and  intricate 
channel  as  readily  as  may  now  be  done  on  a  clear 
night  by  aid  of  the  lights  and  a  compass.  In  a  fog 
it  is  not  possible  for  the  ear  to  decide  with  unfailing 
precision  the  direction  in  which  a  sound  is  heard.  It 
can  be  done  approximately  by  trained  pilots,  but  all 
persons  are  liable  to  be  deceived  in  listening  to  the 
sound  of  a  fog-horn,  and  may  be  unable  to  decide 
within  several  degrees  the  direction  of  the  source  of 
sound.  No  one  can  by  ear  decide  the  distance  of  the 
horn,  and  it  is  from  this  aural  defect  that  a  great  num- 
ber of  collisions  at  sea  and  wrecks  upon  the  coast  may 
be  directly  traced.  The  topophone  points  out  in  a 
few  seconds  the  exact  position  of  the  horn,  and  in  a 
few  minutes  will  give  its  distance  within  a  few  meters. 
The  conception  of  this  instrument  was  based  on  a 
correct  apprehension  of  a  sound-wave  as  it  exists  in- 
visible in  the  air,  its  invention  was  a  direct  proof  of 
the  supposed  form  of  a  sound-wave,  and  it  gives  the 
first  demonstration  of  some  of  the  most  interesting 
laws  in  the  physics  of  sound.  A  sound,  whatever 
its  character,  pitch,  loudness  or  source,  has  been  con- 
ceived as  a  globe  continually  expanding  in  the  air, 
and  composed  of  a  wave  formed  by  a  compression, 
followed  by  a  rarefaction  of  the  air.  A  continuous 
sound  would  be  a  series  of  these  globes,  one  within 
the  other,  the  smallest  at  the  center  or  source  of 
sound,  the  largest  on  the  outside,  and  all  continually 
expanding  and  spreading  outward.  It  is  now  easy 
to  understand  that,  if  the  hands  were  sensitive  to  the 
sound,  we  might  stretch  the  arms  at  full  length  at 
right  angles  with  the  body  and  level  with  the  head, 
and  face  the  sound,  when  each  hand  would  touch  the 
edge  of  one  of  these  splierical  sound-waves  at  the 
same  time.  In  this  case,  the  observer  would  face  the 
source  of  sound  and  look  in  a  direction  which  would 
be  a  radius  of  the  circle  formed  by  the  sound-wave. 
If  he  now  turned  away  from  the  source  of  sound,  one 
hand  only  would  touch  the  wave  of  sound.  If  the 
hands  were  sensitive  to  the  touch  of  the  wave,  it  is 
easy  to  see  that  the  observer  might  turn  about  till  he 
felt  that  both  hands  touched  the  same  wave.  When 
they  did,  he  must  of  necessity  face  the  source  of 
sound,  whether  he  was  able  to  see  it  or  not.  Any 
position  in  which  the  hands  did  not  touch  the  wave 
at  the  same  instant  would  be  wrong,  and  thus,  by 
simply  turning  about,  the  observer  could  discover 
the  direction  from  which  the  sound  came.  This  is 
the  theory  of  the  topophone.  Its  practical  applica- 
tion is  secured  by  the  use  of  two  metallic  resonators, 
turned  in  unison  with  the  source  of  sound.  These 
resonators  are  placed  on  a  wooden  yoke,  designed 
to  be  worn  upon  the  shoulders,  or  to  be  placed  upon 
an  upright  standard  on  the  ship's  deck.  From  each 
of  these  resonators  is  taken  an  ear  tube  (of  rubber 
or  metal)  that  leads  to  the  cabin  below,  or  toward  the 


observer's  head,  in  case  the  apparatus  is  worn  on  the 
shoulders  in  the  open  air.  These  tubes  unite  be- 
hind the  apparatus  and  then  bifurcate  again,  and  end  in 
ear-pieces  designed  to  fit  the  observer's  ears.  In  the 
case  of  the  apparatus  placed  on  the  ship's  deck,  the 
standard  supporting  the  yoke  passes  through  the 
deck  to  a  table  in  the  cabin,  where  it  is  supported  on 
a  pivot  so  that  it  may  be  freely  turned  about,  and 
cause  the  yoke  to  move  in  a  horizontal  plane.  The 
table  is  marked  with  the  points  of  the  compass,  and 
a  pointer  on  the  standard  serves  to  show  on  the  table 
the  direction  in  which  the  resonators  are  facing. 
When  the  apparatus  is  worn  by  the  observer,  he 
does  not  need  the  compass  nor  pointer.  When,  in  a 
fog,  the  navigator  hears  a  fog-horn  and  wishes  to 
know  its  exact  direction,  he  goes  to  the  cabin,  places 
the  ear-pieces  in  his  ears  and  listens  to  the  sound, 
while  slowly  turning  the  apparatus  around.  Until 
the  two  resonators  face  the  source  of  sound,  and  each 
touches  the  edge  of  the  same  sound-wave  at  the  same 
instant,  he  hears  the  horn  without  change,  except 
that  it  is  somewhat  louder.  The  instant  the  two 
resonators  receive  the  wave  at  the  same  time,  there  is 
a  change  in  the  loudness  of  the  sound.  It  drops  to  a 
low  murmur,  or  is  altogether  extinguished,  and  he 
hears  nothing.  Looking  on  the  table,  the  pointer 
indicates  the  direction  of  the  sound,  or,  in  other 
words,  the  position  of  the  fog-horn.  In  using  the 
instrument  on  deck,  he  finds  he  is  facing  the  horn 
when  the  sound  is  extinguished  in  the  apparatus.  In 
either  case  he  has  the  desired  information,  and  from 
his  chart  knows  his  position  in  relation  to  the  horn, 
though  it  is  shrouded  in  mist.  To  ascertain  his  dis- 
tance from  the  horn,  he  sails  a  known  distance  and 
repeats  the  experiment.  This  gives  him  a  base  line 
and  two  directions  from  the  horn,  the  three  forming 
a  triangle,  from  which  he  may  easily  compute  the 
distance  of  the  unseen  horn. 

A  continuous  sound,  like  that  of  a  fog-horn  of  a 
known  pitch,  gives  a  series  of  sound-waves  of  a 
known  length.  Each  is  composed  of  a  compression 
and  rarefaction  separated  by  a  known  distance,  this 
distance  making  a  wave  length.  The  topophone  is 
based  on  this  fact :  it  can  be  imagined  that,  if  one 
resonator  were  advanced  in  front  of  the  other  one- 
half  a  wave  length,  that  one  would  receive  the  com- 
pressed part  or  crest  of  the  wave  while  the  other 
was  receiving  the  rarefied  part,  or  the  hollow  of  the 
wave,  and  if  these  met  in  the  ear  through  the  tubes 
the  hearer  would  receive  two  sensations — a  compres- 
sion and  rarefaction  at  the  same  time.  The  result 
would  be  either  a  confusion  of  sensation  or  a  neutral- 
ization of  the  crest  and  hollow  of  the  wave ;  in  other 
words,  nothing — or  silence.  The  most  striking  feat- 
ure of  the  topophone  is  in  the  arrangement  of  the 
tubes  that  lead  the  sound  from  the  two  resonators  to 
the  ear.  One  tube  is  half  a  wave  length  longer  than 
the  other,  and  thus,  while  the  resonators  are  in  a  line 
and  receive  the  wave  at  the  same  time,  one  ear  hears 
the  crest  while  the  other  hears  the  hollow,  because 
the  one  or  the  other  has  taken  longer  time  to  travel 
through  the  longer  tube.  The  tube  being  a  half  wave 
length  longer,  crest  and  hollow  reach  the  ear  at  the 
same  time,  neutralizing  each  other  and  producing 


BRIC-A-BRAC. 


799 


silence.  -  The  topophone  has  been  fully  tested  upon 
the  coast.  The  one  objection  that  has  been  raised  to 
the  instrument  is,  that  fog-horns  are  of  various  pitches, 
while  the  topophone  is  of  no  use  except  when  nearly 
in  tune  with  the  note  of  the  horn.  On  the  other 
hand,  it  may  be  observed  that  the  United  States  fog- 
horns used  on  our  sea  and  lake  coasts  are  sirens,  and 
capable  of  any  pitch.  In  point  of  fact,  they  are  all 
used  upon  very  nearly  the  same  pitch,  it  having  been 


found  that  treble  C,  of  about  260  vibrations  per 
second,  is  the  best  note  for  such  an  alarm.  Steamer 
whistles  are,  it  is  true,  of  various  pitches,  but  it  is 
certainly  no  more  difficult  to  compel  vessels  to  use 
whistles  and  horns  of  a  uniform  pitch  than  it  is  to 
compel  them,  as  now,  to  use  lights  of  a  uniform  color. 
The  topophone  is  the  invention  of  Professor  Alfred 
M.  Mayer,  and  reflects  great  credit  upon  the  inventor 
and  upon  American  science. 


BRIC-A-BRAC. 
I  Promessi    Sposi. 

A    SONNET   IN    DIALOGUE. 

With  full  indications  of  all  the  stage  business,  entrances,  exits,  etc.,  etc. 

CAST   OF   CHARACTERS. 

SHE,  a  young  lady,  betrothed  to  him  in  his  cradle,  but  has  not  seen  him  since. 
HE,  a  young  gentleman,  betrothed  to  her  in  her  cradle,  but  has  not  seen  her  since. 

Time :  the  early  summer  of  1880. 

SCENE.     A  summer-hotel  piazza.     Door  C.,  kading  to  fwtel  parlor.     Steps  R.,  rising  from  hotel  garden.     Rustic  rocking- 
chair,  L.  C.     Sunset  effect  toward  end  of  scene. 

SHE  (entering  door  C.  from  parlor).     Is  this  not  Edwin?     Or  do  I  mistake? 

~fi.v.  (entering up  steps  R.).  'Tis  Angelina !  (crosses  C.  and  shakes  hands)  whose  life  with  mine  shall  blend — 
SHE  (interrupting  impatiently).     So  said  our  parents!  but  the  fates  forefend! 
HE  (aside,  joyfully).     She  loves  me  not!   (aloud,  with  affected  grief )  Do  you  our  troth  forsake? 
SHE  (energetically).     Better  a  promise  than  a  heart  to  break? 

HE  (with  false  pathos).     And  is  our  long  engagement  now  to  end? 
SHE  (with  feminine  candor).     I  always  shall  regard  you  as  a  friend. 

HE  (hypocritically  laying  his  hand  on  his  heart).     But  ho^rshall  that  be  balm  unto  this  ache? 
SHE  (with  consoling  wisdom).     Wedlock,  alas,  is  oft  a  state  of  strife ! 
HE  (changing  tone).     To  marry  us  was  but  our  parents'  plan. 

SHE  (with  retuming  coquetry).    You'll  never  be  my  husband,  sir,  I  fear  (sits  in  rocking  chair,  L.  C.). 
HE  (anxiously).     Pray  tell  me  why  you  cannot  be  my  wife? 

SHE  (with  hesitating  frankness).     Well — I'm  engaged — to — to  another  man! 

HE  (greatly  relieved  and  highly  exultant).     And  I've  been  married  now  for  nigh  a  year! 
She  starts  up  with  ill-repressed  and  feminine  dissatisfaction.      He  lights   the   masculine  cigar  of  inde- 
pendence. 

TABLEAU. 


[CURTAIN.] 


J.  B.  M. 


The  Archery  Meeting. 


A  LAWN  of  velvet;  reared  at  either  side 

A  flaring  target  like  a  viking's  shield; 
A  brave  old  mansion ;  here  and  there  descried 

Fair  groups  in  courtly  attitudes  afield, 

Such  as  quaint  Watteau  painted ; 
With  bows  of  lancewood,  tufted  shafts  ablaze 

From  gaudy  quivers,  and  costumes  to  match 
July  suggestions — limpid  greens  and  grays, 

Light-blues  and  lilacs,  such  as  lift  the  latch 

To  make  extremes  acquainted ; 
And  sweet,  low  laughs,  like  voiced  smiles,  that  blend 
With  drip  of  bird-trills  from  lawn's  end  to  end. 

Then  one  by  one,  in  soft  or  manly  pose, 

The  archers  alternating,  man  and  maid ; 
Shafts  notched  at  string,  adjustment  of  slim  bows, 

The  sweep  from  arm's-length  unto  shoulder-blade, 

The  arrows  sharply  whistling. 
Nine  for  the  bull's-eye,  seven  for  the  red, 

The  drab  five  counting,  and  the  black  but  three, 
While,  circling  round  the  outer  white,  are  spread 

The  errant  units,  till  the  targe  we  see 

Like  a  thronged  marsh-pool  bristling. 
Then  tallies  marked,  the  shafts  regained,  and  then 
The  sward  walked  over,  to  begin  again. 


No  dream,  I  trow,  of  greenwood  sports  of  old, 

Such  as  Maid  Marian's,  with  her  outlawed  freres. 
Attends  this  latest  freak  of  fashion's  mold — 

No  quivered  bravery  of  red  compeers 

Its  modish  current  jeopards; 
But  all  is  gentle,  suave — a  goodly  share 

Of  parlor  graces  with  free  movement  blent ; 
Formal,  polite,  high-bred  and  debonnaire, 

It  still  repeats  the  nice  impression  lent 

By  Watteau  and  his  shepherds, 
Where  picturesque  and  etiquette  impart 
Their  odd  companionship  to  mannered  art. 

A  snowy  cloth ;  a  luncheon  rarely  heaped ; 

The  laughter  jocund  now  that  lately  purred ; 

The  meeds  apportioned  and  the  honors  reaped ; 

With  bow-and-arrow  wit  that  takes  the  word 

From  smiles  and  looks  of  greeting. 
And  over  all  a  spirit  and  a  charm 

Of  ease  conventional — of  pastime  held 
In  leash  from  gush,  with  naught  to  give  alarm 
To  that  reposeful  stateliness  compelled 

By  grace  with  skill  competing. 
No  harm  done,  and  the  end  in  view  attained — 
The  blind  god  through  fresh  paces  led  and  trained. 
NATHAN  D.  URNER. 


8oo 


BRIC-A-BRAC. 


The  Ballade  of  the  Candidate. 

WHO  is  it  stands,  without  retreating, 

In  thirsty  morn  and  twilight  late, 
With  warmth  unwonted  all  men  greeting, 

Who  is  it  stands  by  the  outer  gate  ? 

It  is — it  is  the  candidate 
Whose  backbone  is  thus  oft  deflected ; 

His  name  is  on  the  Boss's  slate: 
He  begs  that  he  may  be  elected. 

By  day  he  does  his  duty,  treating 
To  meat  and  drink  both  small  and  great ; 

He  feels  his  pocket  fast  depleting; 
He  cannot  bear  to  contemplate 
The  doubt  he  cannot  but  create, — 

The  thought  that  he  may  be  rejected, — 
The  dread  that  makes  him  desperate. 

He  begs  that  he  may  be  elected. 

At  night  his  dreams  are  few  and  fleeting, 

He  faintly  sees  his  future  fate ; 
He  fears  the  foe  may  try  "  repeating," 

Or  fraudulently  perpetrate 

Some  vile  attempt  to  captivate 
Such  voters  as  are  disaffected. 

In  fright  he  wakes  unfortunate: 
He  begs  that  he  may  be  elected. 

ENVOY. 

Voters !  whose  voices  guide  the  state, 
Now  shall  ye  find,  were  he  dissected, 

No  principles  within  his  pate ; 

He  begs — that  he  may  be  elected.     % 

ARTHUR  I!|NN. 

Indecision. 

I  LOVE  her  !     Words  cannot  express 
The  joy  with  which  her  presence  fills  me. 
The  soft  touch  of  her  hand,  her  dress 
Against  my  arm  with  rapture  thrills  me. 
I  yearn  to  call  her  mine,  but  still 
(Excuse  me  if  my  sorrows  trouble  you) 
She  says  I  am  her  dearest  Will, 
And  writes  it  with  a  lower-case  w. 

Fresh  as  a  rosebud  newly  born 

With  morning's  dew-drop  still  upon  it; 

Graces  that  ne'er  did  queen  adorn, 

Worthy  of  poet's  noblest  sonnet; 

A  heart  as  sunny  as  a  bird's, 

Ah,  were  I  free  my  life  to  pledge  her ! 

Were  I  but  sure  she'd  find  my  words 

Sweet  as  her  heroes'  of  the  "  Ledger  " ! 

I  sang  to  her  an  old,  old  song, 

(An  excellent  hint  from  Coleridge  taking) — 

The  tale  of  one  whose  heart  had  long 

With  untold  love  been  slowly  breaking. 

I  ceased ;  but  though  upon  her  face 

Love,  pity,  maiden  shame  were  blended, 

Instead  of  Genevieve's  embrace 

She  only  murmured,  "  That  is  splendid !  " 

Queen  of  home  arts,  she  seems  to  cast 
Sunshine  and  song  'round  all  who  meet  her. 
No  rare  Madonna  of  the  past 
Was  ever  purer,  gentler,  sweeter. 
A  home  with  her — but  no,  I  fear 
It  cannot  be.     How  could  I  bear 
To  hear  her  play,  year  after  year, 
Her  single  piece — the  "  Maiden's  Prayer  "  ? 
JACOB  F.  HENRICI. 


Uncle   Esek's  Wisdom. 

THOSE  men  whose  brains  are  few  but  active,  are 
the  most  successful  in  business. 

Monuments  do  not  prove  very  much  after  all ;  some 
of  the  wisest  and  best  men  who  have  ever  lived  are 
buried,  no  one  knows  where. 

True  merit  is  always  a  little  suspicious  of  praise. 

There  is  no  suffering  equal  to  fear,  for  it  has  no 
limit. 

It  is  generally  safe  to  converse  freely  with  an 
unreserved  talker,  but  when  a  man  lets  you  carry  on 
all  the  conversation  it  is  well  to  be  on  your  guard, 
for  the  probability  is,  he  is  taking  your  measure. 

There  is  no  strength  in  exaggeration ;  even  the 
truth  is  weakened  by  being  expressed  too  strongly. 

One  reason  why  we  all  grow  wise  so  slowly,  is 
because  we  nurse  our  mistakes  too  fondly. 

Men  owe  their  resolution,  and  most  of  their  suc- 
cess, to  the  opposition  they  meet  with. 

Building  air-castles  is  a  harmless  business  as 
long  as  you  don't  attempt  to  live  in  them. 

Unfortunately,  the  only  pedigree  worth  having  is 
one  that  can  neither  be  transmitted  nor  inherited. 

The  more  virtuous  a  man  is  the  more  virtue  does 
he  see  in  others. 

A  strong  man  is  one  whose  passions  stimulate  his 
reason  and  whose  reason  controls  his  passions. 

The  divinity  of  charity ,  consists  in  relieving  a 
man's  needs  before  they  are  forced  upon  us. 

A  man  is  great,  just  in  proportion  to  his  superior- 
ity to  the  condition  of  life  in  which  he  is  placed. 

A  weak  man  is  worse  than  an  insane  one,  for  the 
latter  may  be  cured  or  kept  harmless. 

Charity  is  a  first  mortgage  on  every  human  being's 
possessions. 

A  man  cannot  do  good  nor  evil  to  others  without 
doing  good  or  evil  to  himself. 

That  man  whom  you  can  treat  with  unreserved 
familiarity,  at  the  same  time  preserving  your  dig- 
nity and  his  respect,  is  a  rare  companion,  and  his 
acquaintance  should  be  cultivated. 

He  who  loves  to  read,  and  knows  how  to  reflect, 
has  laid  by  a  perpetual  feast  for  his  old  age. 

Opportunities  are  very  sensitive  things ;  if  you 
slight  them  on  their  first  visit,  you  seldom  see  them 
again. 

One  of  the  kindest  things  heaven  has  done  for 
man  is  denying  him  the  power  of  looking  into  the 
future. 

Mankind  all  suffer  alike,  but  some  know  how  to 
conceal  their  troubles  better  than  others. 


ScRiBNER's  MONTHLY. 


VOL.  XX. 


OCTOBER,  1880. 


No.  6. 


PORPOISE-SHOOTING. 


SHOOTING    A    PORPOISE. 


'  CANOE  ahoy-oy-oy ! " 

'  Ahoy-oy-oy." 

'Where  are  you  bound?" 

'Indian  Beach,  Grand  Menan.'' 

'  You  can't  fetch  it,  in  this  wind  and  sea; 
better  come  aboard  the  schooner." 

The  hail  came  from  an  outward  bound 
pilot-boat,  running  down  the  Bay  of  Fundy, 
close-reefed,  in  a  strong  breeze,  and  was  ad- 
dressed to  the  writer  and  his  Indian  friend 
Sebatis,  who  .were  crossing  the  bay  in  a 
canoe  bound  to  Indian  Beach,  Grand 
Menan,  on  a  porpoise-shooting  expedition. 

"  Sebatis,  the  men  in  the  schooner  want 
to  take  us  aboard ;    they  say  that  there  is 
too   much   wind   and    sea  to  fetch    Indian 
Beach  with  the  canoe." 
VOL.  XX.— 52.' 


"No  danger;  canoe  best;  we  fetch  'im 
Indian  Beach  all  safe — s'pose  we  go  on 
pilot-boat,  sartin  very  sea-sick." 

On  hearing  Sebatis's  remark,  a  hearty 
laugh  and  a  cheer  came  from  the  crew  of 
the  pilot-boat,  and,  thanking  them  for  their 
kind  intentions,  we  bore  away  for  our  des- 
tination. 

To  one  unaccustomed  to  the  sea-worthy 
qualities  of' a  birch  canoe  properly  handled, 
the  situation  would  have  seemed  a  perilous 
one,  for  the  sea  was  running  high,  and  the 
breeze  stiffening. 

"Look  out,  Sebatis!"  I  exclaimed,  invol- 
untarily, as  the  spray  from  a  sea  breaking 
almost  aboard  of  us  drenched  me. 

"All  right,  no  danger  'tall,  only  little  wet." 

[Copyright,  1880,  by  Scribner  &  Co.     All  rights  reserved.] 


802 


PORPOISE-SHO  O  TING, 


SEBAT1S    IN    A    PERILOUS    SITUATION. 


"  I'm  afraid  we'll  be  swamped,  Sebatis." 
"  No  chance  swamp  'im,  I  watch  canoe 
so  close,  you  see,  water  can't  come  'board 
'tall." 

I  began  to  think  that  our  situation  very 
much  resembled  that  of  the  old  Indian 
who,  for  lack  of  a  sail,  put  up  a  big  bush  in 
the  bow  of  his  canoe; — all  went  well  with 
him  until  the  wind  increased  to  a  gale 
and  he  could  not  get  forward  to  reef  his 
bush.  So  he  sat  like  a  statue,  steering 
with  his  paddle,  and  repeating,  in  a  mourn- 
ful monotone: 

"  Too  much  bush,  too  much  bush,  for 
little  canoe." 

With  this  in  my  mind,  I  said  to  Sebatis : 
"  Don't  you  think  that  we  are  carrying  too 
much  sail  ?    A  heavy  squall  might  upset  us." 
"  Well,  you  see,"  he  replied,  "  no  chance 
reef  'im  now,  wind  so  heavy,  but  I  take  care, 
got  sheet  in  my  hand,  s'pose  squall,  then  I 
let  go  pretty  quick." 

He  had  the  sheet  in  his  hand,  as  he  said, 
and  was  steering  with  the  paddle  in  the 
other,  whale-boat  fashion.  So  I  took  heart 
of  grace  and  troubled  myself  no  more  about 
the  matter. 

"  You  hear  'im  wolves  ?  "  said  Sebatis, 
pointing  to  a  low-lying  group  of  rocky 
islands  that  have  crushed  many  a  noble 
ship  with  their  ugly  fangs;  "make  good  deal 
noise  "  (alluding  to  the  surf) ;  "  wind  shift 
now — fair  all  way  Indian  Beach." 

And  away  we  bounded,  the  canoe  riding 
the  waves  like  a  duck,  and  so  buoyantly 


that  at  times  six  feet  of  her  length  were  out 
of  water. 

After  another  hour's  sailing : 

"  Only  a  little  ways  now,"  said  Sebatis. 
u  Just  'round  big  headland,  then  no  wind, 
only  sea  pretty  heavy." 

In  a  few  moments  we  doubled  the  head- 
land safely,  and  Sebatis  unstepped  the  mast 
and  stowed  the  sail  in  the  bottom  of  the 
canoe,  then  resumed  his  paddle. 

On  viewing  our  prospect  for  landing,  I 
must  confess  to  more  anxiety  than  I  had 
hitherto  experienced.  True,  we  were  out 
of  the  wind,  but  the  night  was  shutting 
down  apace,  and  a  transient  gleam  from 
the  storm-rent  clouds  disclosed  the  sea  roll- 
ing in  on  the  beach  in  such  a  manner  as  to 
make  our  landing,  in  the  treacherous  light 
of  the  departing  day,  a  dangerous  one. 

"  Now  then,"  exclaimed  Sebatis,  "  s'pose 
you  jump  overboard,  and  run  right  up  the 
beach,  when  I  give  the  word.  I'll  beach 
the  canoe  all  'lone  myself." 

He  was  paddling  with  might  and  main, 
and  we  were  successfully  riding  the  waves 
within  one  hundred  yards  of  the  beach. 

"  Now  then,  jump  quick,  and  run,"  he 
cried,  as  a  receding  wave  left  us  in  a  swash- 
ing undertow. 

I  was  overboard  in  an  instant  and  strug- 
gled out  of  the  reach  of  the  sea.  After 
holding  the  canoe  steady  while  I  jumped, 
Sebatis  followed,  and,  partly  dragging  and 
partly  carrying  the  canoe,  beached  her  high 
and  dry. 


PORPOISE-SHOOTING. 


803 


We  were  now  on  Indian  Beach,  where  the 
Indians  camp  for  the  summer  and  autumn 
porpoise-shooting.  The  beach  extends  for 
about  half  a  mile,  between  two  projecting 
headlands,  and  the  camps,  constructed  of 
drift-wood,  are  placed  just  above  high-water 
mark,  and  under  the  shelter  of  the  over- 
hanging cliffs. 

Drenched  with  salt  water,  and  as  hungry 
as  wolves,  we  unpacked  the  canoe  and 
carried  our  "possibles"  to  Sebatis's  camp. 

Porpoise-shooting  affords  to  the  Indians 
of  the  Passamaquoddy  tribe  their  principal 
means  of  support.  It  is  practiced  at  all 
seasons  of  the  year,  but  the  fish  killed  in  the 
winter  are  the  fattest  and  give  the  largest 
quantities  of  oil.  The  largest-sized  porpoises 
measure  about  seven  feet  in  length,  about  the 
girth  five  feet,  weigh  three  hundred  pounds 
and  upward,  and  yield  from  six  to  seven  gal- 
lons of  oil.  The  blubber  is  about  one  and 
one-half  inches  thick  in  summer,  and  two 
inches  thick  in  winter,  at  which  time  the 
creature  is  in  its  best  condition.  The 
blubber  from  a  large  porpoise  weighs  about 
one  hundred  pounds.  The  Indians  try  out 
the  oil  in  a  very  primitive  manner,  and 
with  very  rude  but  picturesque  appliances. 
The  blubber  is  stripped  off,  then  cut  into 
small  pieces,  which  are  placed  in  huge  iron 
pots  and  melted  over  a  fire.  Air  along  the 
beach  were  placed,  at  intervals,  curious 
structures,  consisting  of  two  upright  pieces 


of  wood  surmounted  by  a  cross-piece,  from 
which  the  pots  were  hung  by  chains. 
Under  this  cross-piece  large  stones  were 
piled  in  a  semicircle,  inside  of  which  a  fire 
was  made  that  was  allowed  to  burn  fiercely 
until  the  stones  were  at  a  white  heat.  The 
fire  was  then  scattered,  and  the  pots  con- 
taining the  blubber  were  placed  over  the 
stones  and  just  enough  fire  kept  under  them 
to  insure  the  melting  of  the  blubber.  When 
melted,  the  oil  was  skimmed  off  into  other 
receptacles,  then  poured  into  tin  cans  of 
about  five  gallons  capacity,  and  the  process 
was  complete.  If  the  oil  is  pure,  it  readily 
brings  ninety  cents  per  gallon,  but  if  adul- 
terated with  seal,  or  any  other  inferior  oil, 
its  value  is  reduced  to  sixty-five  cents  per 
gallon.  A  very  superior  oil  is  obtained 
from  the  jaw  of  the  porpoise.  The  jaws  are 
hung  up  in  the  sun,  and  the  oil,  as  it  drips, 
is  caught  in  cans  placed  for  that  purpose. 
The  quantity  of  oil  thus  procured  is  small, 
being  only  about  half  of  a  pint  from  each 
jaw,  but  a  large  price  is  paid  for  it  by  watch- 
makers and  others  requiring  a  very  fine 
lubricator.  The  oil  from  the  blubber  gives 
a  very  good  light,  and  was  for  a  long  time 
used  in  all  the  light-houses  on  the  coast. 
It  is  also  a  capital  oil  for  lubricating  ma- 
chinery, never  gets  sticky,  and  is  unaffected 
by  cold  weather.  When  pure,  there  is  no 
offensive  smell,  and  I  know  of  no  oil  equal 
to  it  for  those  who  are  compelled  to  use 


SPEARING    A    PORPOISE. 


804 


PORPOISE-SHOOTING. 


THE  CAMP  AT  INDIAN  BEACH. 


their  eyes  at  night.  The  light  is  very 
soft,  and,  used  in  a  German  student's  lamp, 
one  can  work  almost  as  comfortably  as 
by  daylight,  and  the  dreaded  glare  of 
gas  and  other  artificial  lights  is  completely 
avoided. 

If  industrious,  and  favored  with  ordinary 
success,  an  Indian  can  kill  from  one  hundred 
and  fifty  to  two  hundred  porpoises  in  a  year, 
and  they  will  probably  average  three  gallons 
of  oil  each.  But,  unfortunately,  the  poor 
.Indians  are  not  industrious,  or  only  so  by 
fits  and  starts,  or  as  necessity  compels  them. 
Their  way  is  usually  to  accumulate  some 
fifteen  or  twenty  gallons  of  oil,  then  go  off 
to  Eastport,  Maine,  with  it,  for  a  market. 
Thus,  much  time  is  lost  in  loitering  about 
the  towns,  and  in  going  to  and  returning 
from  the  hunting-grounds.  Moreover,  there 
are  always  two  Indians  to  each  canoe,  and 
the  proceeds  of  the  hunt  have  to  be  divided. 
There  is  quite  a  good  demand  for  the  oil, 
and,  if  systematically  followed,  porpoise- 
shooting  would  furnish  the  Indians  with  a 
comfortable  support.  The  flesh  of  the  por- 
poise, when  cooked,  is  not  unlike  fresh 
pork,  and  at  one  time  was  much  used. 
The  Indians  still  use  it,  and  it  is  also  in  re- 
quest by  the  fishermen  on  the  coast,  who 
readily  exchange  fresh  fish  for  "  porpus " 
meat  with  the  Indians. 

Almost  unknown  to  the  outside  world, 
here  is  an  industry  followed  by  these  poor 
Indians,  year  after  year,  calling  in  its  pur- 
suit for  more  bravery,  skill  and  endurance 


than  perhaps  any  other  occupation.  I  could 
not  help  feeling  a  melancholy  interest  in 
them  and  their  pursuits  as  I  sat  on  the  beach 
at  sunrise,  watching  them  embark  on  their 
perilous  work.  For  these  poor  creatures, 
"  porpusin'  "  possessed  an  all-absorbing  in- 
terest, and  the  chances  of  success,  state  of 
weather  and  price  obtainable  for  the  oil 
were  matters  of  every-day  discussion. 

In  the  morning,  all  the  women  and  chil- 
dren turned  out  to  see  the  canoes  go  off,  and 
if  during  the  day  a  storm  came  up,  or  the 
canoes  were  unusually  late  in  returning, 
many  anxious  eyes  would  be  turned  seaward. 
They  were  always  pleasant  and  good-natured 
with  one  another,  and  in  general  returned  from 
the  hunt  about  three  o'clock  in  the  afternoon. 
After  dinner,  one  would  have  thought  that, 
tired  out  with  their  exertions,  they  would 
have  sought  repose;  but  they  did  not  seem 
to  need  it,  and  the  rest  of  the  day  until  sun- 
down would  be  spent  in  friendly  games  upon 
the  beach. 

To  make  a  successful  porpoise-hunter  re- 
quires five  or  six  years  of  constant  practice. 
Boys,  ten  or  twelve  years  of  age,  are  taken 
out  in  the  canoes  by  the  men,  and  thus  early 
trained  in  the  pursuit  of  that  which  is  to  form 
their  main  support  in  after  years.  Porpoise- 
shooting  is  followed  at  all  seasons  and  in  all 
kinds  of  weather — in  the  summer  sea,  in  the 
boisterous  autumn  gales,  and  in  the  dreadful 
icy  seas  of  midwinter.  In  a  calm  summer 
day,  the  porpoise  can  be  heard  blowing  for 
a  long  distance.  The  Indians,  guided  by 


PORPOISE-SHOOTING. 


805 


the  sound  long  before  they  can  see  the 
game,  paddle  rapidly  in  the  direction  from 
which  the  sound  comes,  and  rarely  fail  to 
secure  the  fish.  They  use  long  smooth-bored 
guns,  loaded  with  a  handful  of  powder,  and 
a  heavy  charge  of  double  B  shot.  As  soon 
as  the  porpoise  is  shot,  they  paddle  rapidly 
up  to  him  and  kill  him  with  a  spear,  to  pre- 
vent his  flopping  about,  and  upsetting  the 
canoe  after  they  have  taken  him  aboard. 
The  manner  of  taking  the  porpoise  aboard 
is  to  insert  two  fingers  of  the  right  hand  into 
the  blow-hole,  take  hold  of  the  pectoral  fin 
with  the  left  hand,  and  lift  the  fish  up  until 
at  least  one-half  of  his  length  is  above  the 
gunwale  of  the  canoe,  and  then  drag  him 
aboard. 


only  under  circumstances  where  the  Indian's 
skill  or  foresight  are  unavailing.  When  an 
Indian  stands  up  in  his  canoe,  in  rough 
water,  he  suits  himself  to  every  motion  of 
his  frail  craft,  and  is  ever  ready  to  sway  his 
body  and  keep  her  on  an  even  keel.  In 
this  he  is  ably  seconded  by  his  comrade  who 
manages  the  paddle,  and  with  marvelous 
dexterity  urges  the  canoe  forward,  checks 
her,  backs  her,  whirls  her  completely  around, 
or  holds  her  steady  as  a  rock,  as  the  emer- 
gency may  require. 

Although  an  old  and  experienced  canoeist, 
in  the  matter  of  shooting  porpoises  from  a 
canoe  in  a  heavy  sea,  and  taking  them  aboard , 
I  often  feel  inclined  to  side  with  my  friend 
Colonel  W ,  who  once  arranged  a  por- 


TAKING    A    PORPOISE    ABOARD    IN    ROUGH    WATER. 


This  is  comparatively  easy  to  accomplish 
in  smooth  water,  but  when  the  feat  is  per- 
formed in  a  heavy  sea,  one  can  realize  the 
skill  and  daring  required.  In  rough  weath- 
er, with  a  high  sea  running,  the  Indian  is 
compelled  to  stand  up  in  his  canoe  when  he 
fires,  otherwise  he  could  not  see  his  game. 
In  such  work  as  this,  one  would  suppose  that 
upsets  would  be  almost  unavoidable,  but 
strange  to  say  they  seldom  happen, — and 


poise-shooting  expedition  on  shares  with  an 
Indian  named  Paul.  It  was  the  Colonel's 
first,  and,  I  may  add,  last  experience  in  this 
kind  of  shooting,  for  the  Indian,  having  shot 
a  very  large  porpoise,  paddled  rapidly  up  to 
him,  speared  him,  and  was  in  the  act  of  haul- 
ing him  aboard,  when  the  Colonel  recovered 
his  power  of  speech,  and  excitedly  exclaimed : 
"  Hold  on,  Paul,  hold  on ;  how  much  is 
that  porpoise  worth  ?  " 


8o6 


PORPOISE-SHOOTING. 


BEACHING    THE    CANOE. 


"  How  much  worth  ?  May  be  five  dol- 
lars." 

"  Well,  Paul,  I'll  pay  you  half,  and  we 
wont  take  the  porpoise  in." 

"  No,"  replied  Paul,  "  I  pay  you  half; 
sartin,  we  take  in  'im  porpus." 

The  Colonel's  appeal  was  of  no  avail,  as 
they  were  surrounded  by  other  canoes  simi- 
larly occupied,  and  it  was  a  point  of  honor 
with  Paul  to  take  the  porpoise  aboard, 
otherwise  he  might  have  been  suspected  of 
cowardice. 

Not  unfrequently,  as  the  Indian  hastily 
paddles  up  to  dispatch  a  wounded  porpoise 
with  his  spear,  he  sees  the  terrible  dorsal-fin 
of  a  shark  appear,  cutting  the  water,  as  the 
monster,  attracted  by  the  scent  of  blood, 
rushes  to  dispute  possession  of  the  prey. 

Although  there  are  well  authenticated 
cases  of  a  shark's  having  actually  cut  the 
porpoise  in  half  just  as  the  Indian  was  haul- 
ing it  aboard  of  his  canoe,  I  have  never 
heard  of  any  harm  resulting  to  the  Indians 
from  attacks  of  this  nature ;  nor  do  they  in 
the  least  fear  the  sharks,  but,  on  the  contrary, 
boldly  attack  and  drive  them  off  with  their 
long  spears. 

One  evening,  after  I  had  passed  several 
days  on  the  Indian  Beach,  sketching  and 
making  studies,  Sebatis  returned  from  visit- 
ing one  of  the  camps  and  said : 

"S'pose  you  like  to  try  'im  porpusin',  I 
find  very  good  hand  go  with  us." 


"Who  is  he,  Sebatis?" 

"  You  never  see  'im  'tall,  his  name's  Piel- 
toma." 

"When  do  we  start?" 

"  May  be  about  daylight,  s'pose  no  fog." 

Judging  by  my  experience  during  the  few 
days  that  I  had  been  on  the  island,  Sebatis's 
proviso  about  the  fog  seemed  likely  to  in- 
definitely postpone  our  expedition.  Whence 
the  fog  came,  or  whither  it  went,  seemed 
one  of  those  things  that  no  person  could 
find  out.  At  times,  when  the  sun  was 
shining  brightly,  the  distant  cliffs  would 
suddenly  become  obscured  as  if  a  veil  had 
been  dropped  over  them,  then  nearer  objects 
would  become  indistinct,  and  while  one  was 
wondering  at  the  rapid  change,  everything 
animate  and  inanimate  would  vanish  as  if 
by  magic.  For  a  time,  silence  reigned 
supreme,  then  a  din  as  of  the  infernal  regions 
began.  First,  a  big  steam-whistle  on  the 
land  half  a  mile  away  sent  out  its  melancholy 
boo-oo-oo  in  warning  to  passing  mariners, 
then  from  the  sea  came  the  answering 
whistle  of  some  passing  steamer,  then  the 
fishermen  at  anchor  in  the  bay  blew  their 
tin  fog-horns,  and  their  conch-shell  fog- 
horns, until  at  last  one  became  thoroughly 
convinced  that  every  conceivable  and  in- 
conceivable form  of  "American  devil,"  as 
the  English  term  our  steam- whistle,  was 
faithfully  represented  in  the  uproar.  Now 
and  then,  during  an  interlude,  a  sound  that 


PORPOISE-SHO  O  TING. 


807 


might  have  been  uttered  by  a  mountain 
gnome  echoed  through  the  void — this 
was  the  dismal  "  kong,  kong  "  of  the 
raven,  seated  away  upon  some  project- 
ing crag.  Here  the  raven  is  a  regal 
bird  and  attains  his  greatest  size  and 
most  majestic  form.  The  transforma- 
tion came  as  quickly,  and  almost  in 
a  twinkling  the  veil  would  be  lifted  from 
the  hills,  and  the  sun  would  shine  out 
again,  bright  and  warm.  Some  of  the 


TRYING    OUT     BLUBBER. 


effects  of  light  and  shade  produced  by  these 
sudden  transitions  are  grand  beyond  all 
power  of  description. 

Just  about  daylight  next  morning,  Sebatis 
aroused  me.  There  was  no  fog  and  it  was 
quite  calm  on  the  water,  and,  as  Sebatis  re- 
marked : 

"  A  very  good  day  for  porpusin'." 

Pieltoma,  a  fine-looking  young  Indian, 
joined  us  at  breakfast,  and,  that  over,  we 
embarked  in  Sebatis's  canoe  and  paddled 
off  in  quest  of  porpoises. 

"  How  far  out  are  you  going,  Sebatis  ?  " 

"Can't  tell  yet;  you  see,  by  and  by,  may 
be  we  hear  'im  porpusis  blowin'  some- 
wheres." 

"  I  hear  'im  porpus  blowin'  just  now," 
said  Pieltoma. 

"  Sartin,  Pieltoma  got  pretty  good  ears ;  I 
don't  hear  'im  nothin'  'tall." 

"  I  hear  'im,  sartin,"  reiterated  Pieltoma. 

"  Which  way  ?  "  asked  Sebatis. 

"Away  up  on  rips,  this  side  Eel  Brook. 
Hark !  you  hear  'im  now?"  he  continued. 

"  Sartin,"  said  Sebatis.  "  We  go  now 
pretty  quick." 

Simultaneously  their  paddles  struck  the 
water,  and  away  we  went  with  redoubled 
speed.  I  was  listening  intently,  but  so  far 
my  uneducated  ears  failed  to  detect  the 
sound. 


8o8 


PORPOISE-SHOOTING. 


A    PORPOISE    DIVING. 


"  There  goes  porpus,"  said  Sebatis,  drop- 
ping his  paddle  and  taking  up  his  gun. 

Just  then  a  deafening  roar  came  from  the 
stern  where  Pieltoma  sat,  and  the  canoe 
tilted  slightly  over. 

"  By  tunders ! "  cried  Sebatis,  in  a  chiding 
tone.  "  You  miss  'im  porpus  sartin,  and 
most  upset  canoe  beside;  some  time  you 
bust  'im  gun,  s'pose,  you  put  in  so  much 
powder." 

This  habit  of  overloading  their  guns 
frequently  results  in  serious  accidents  to  the 
Indians,  and  I  know  two  Indians,  one  with 
a  broken  jaw  and  one  with  a  broken 
shoulder,  the  result  of  this  infatuation.  In 
this,  however,  they  are  not  singular,  as  the 
fishermen  of  Newfoundland,  who  use  old 
muskets  for  duck  and  seal  shooting,  over- 
load in  the  same  way,  and  broken  shoulders 
and  broken  noses  are  said  to  be  quite  com- 
mon among  them. 

Poor  Pieltoma  seemed  quite  disconsolate 
at  this  misadventure,  and  without  remark 


of  any  kind  resumed  his  paddle,  and  we 
continued  on  our  way. 

"  What  do  the  porpoises  feed  on, 
Sebatis  ?  " 

"  He  eat  'im  mackerel,  herrin's  and  most 
all  kinds  of  small  little  fishes — by-em-by  we 
come  on  feedin'-grounds,  then  see  'im  more 
porpusis." 

"  I  hear  'im  porpus  again,"  remarked 
Pieltoma. 

Instantly,  Sebatis  was  on  his  feet,  gun  in 
hand,  and  I  just  caught  a  glimpse  of  a  dark 
body  rolling  over  in  the  water  some  fifty 
yards  away,  when  Sebatis  fired,  then 
dropped  his  gun  and  picked  up  the  long 
spear  which  lay  ready  to  his  hand  in  the 
bow  of  the  canoe. 

Pieltoma  paddled  quickly  up  to  the  por- 
poise, and  Sebatis  stabbed  the  dying  fish 
repeatedly,  and  then  dragged  him  aboard 
of  the  canoe.  He  was  a  medium-sized  fish, 
and  weighed  about  two  hundred  pounds. 

"  Now  then,  fill  my  pipe  first,  then  we 


PORPOISE-SHOOTING. 


809 


go  hunt  'im  somewhere  else,  may  be  find  'im 
more  porpusis,"  said  Sebatis. 

"  It  will  be  Pieltoma's  turn  to  shoot  the 
next  porpoise." 

"  No ;  Pieltoma  best  paddle  canoe.  I 
shoot  'im  porpusis." 

It  afterward  transpired  that  Pieltoma  was 
not  an  expert  in  porpoise-shooting.  I  had 
thought  that  all  Indians  were  good  por- 
poise-hunters, but  it  seems  that  there  are 
several  grades  of  excellence,  and  that  some 
of  the  Indians  never  attain  the  requisite 
skill.  Poor  Pieltoma  was  one  of  the  latter 
class,  and  in  future  would  have  to  stick  to 
the  paddle,  in  the  management  of  which  he 
excelled. 

After  paddling  along  for  some  time  in 
silence,  he  said  : 

"  Sebatis,  s'pose  we  try  'im  farther  out, 
porpus  may  be  chase  'im  mackerel  some- 
wheres.  I  see  'im  plenty  gulls  outside." 

"  Sartin,  that's  a  very  good  plan,"  replied 
Sebatis.  "  We'll  go  about  two  miles  out." 

"  Storm  coming,  Sebatis ;  wind  and  sea 
both  rising." 

"  No,  not  any  storm,  only  little  breezy, 
that's  all.  By-em-by  you  see  'im  plenty  por- 
pusis. Always  when  breezy  then  porpusis 
kind  playin',  you  see — jump  'round  every- 
wheres." 

"  Do  the  porpoises  go  in  large  schools  ?  " 

"  Always  good  many  together,  sometimes 
I  see  'im  forty  or  fifty  porpusis  all  jumpin' 
'round  at  the  same  time." 

"  There  goes  three  porpusis  !  "  said  Piel- 
toma. 

"  Which  way  ?  "  asked  Sebatis. 

"  There  they  are,  Sebatis,"  I  said,  as 
several  black  objects  appeared,  rolling  over 
in  the  waves. 

"I  see  'im  now..  'Most  too  far  offshoot 
'im.  Paddle  little  ways  closer,  Pieltoma." 

Presently,  bang  goes  his  gun,  and  we  are 
paddled  rapidly  up  to  the  fish,  which  is 
blowing  and  thrashing  the  water  into  foam. 

"  Pretty  big  porpus ;  go  over  three  hun- 
dred," said  Sebatis,  as  he  savagely  speared 
the  porpoise. 

"  'Most  too  big  take  'im  in,  Sebatis,"  said 
Pieltoma. 

"  No,  not  too  big ;  s'pose  you  come  help 
me  to  lift  'im  up." 

Pieltoma  came  forward,  and  I  passed  aft 
and  took  the  paddle  to  steady  the  canoe. 
As  they  struggled  to  get  the  fish  aboard  over 
the  gunwale,  my  knees  began  to  shake — 
there  was  quite  a  swell  on,  and  I  feared  that 
we  might  go  over.  However,  they  got  it 
safely  aboard  at  last. 
VOL.  XX.— 53. 


"  By  tunders,  that's  pretty  good  luck  get- 
tin'  so  big  porpus ;  about  six  gallons  oil, 
sartin  ! "  exclaimed  Sebatis,  exultingly. 

"  Almost  upset  the  canoe  that  time, 
Sebatis." 

"  Oh,  no;  no  danger  to  handle  a  porpus 
when  two  men  in  the  canoe.  S'pose  only 
one  man,  then  pretty  risky.  About  a  year 
ago,  I  got  upset  myself,  takin'  in  a  big 
porpus  all  'lone. 

"  Fisherman  see  me,  and  send  small  boat 
take  me  off,  and  tow  canoe  alongside 
schooner.  Not  so  bad,  you  see  ;  save  por- 
pus, canoe,  paddle,  and  spear — lose  my  gun, 
that's  all." 

"  You  had  a  very  narrow  escape  that 
time." 

"  Well,  you  see,  almost  don't  'scape  'tall, 
wind  and  sea  so  heavy.  By  tunders,  when  I 
get  ashore,  and  tell  all  about  it,  good  many 
Ingins  come  and  listen." 

"  Go  on,  Sebatis." 

"  Well,  s'pose  I  got  tell  'im  anyhow,  best 
land  somewheres,  and  put  'im  out  porpuses, 
and  get  dinner  first,  then  I  tell  'im  story, — 
too  hungry  now." 

"Indian  Beach  only  little  ways,  that's 
best  chance,  and  I  see  'im  old  Captain 
Sam's  schooner  fishing  off  beach  this 
mornin' ;  may  be  get  fresh  fish  dinner,"  said 
Pieltoma. 

"  Sartin,  that's  best  chance,"  said  Sebatis ; 
"  Captain  Sam  very  good  old  man." 

"  That  is  a  curious  name,  Sebatis ;  hasn't 
he  got  any  other  ?  " 

"  Well,  everybody  call  'im  Captain  Sam  ; 
may  be  got  some  other  name  besides.  I 
never  hear  'im.  He  comes  here  with  his 
boy  every  summer,  fishing." 

"  Hadn't  we  better  paddle  alongside  and 
get  some  fresh  fish  for  dinner  ?  " 

"  Sartin ;  there's  schooner,  you  see,  just 
little  ways  ahead." 

"  Good-mornin',  Captain  Sam,"  said  Se- 
batis, as  we  ranged  alongside  of  the  schooner. 

"  Mornin',  Injuns.  Mornin',  neighbor," 
answered  a  cheery  voice  from  the  schooner's 
deck. 

Captain  Sam  was  a  tall,  wiry,  well  set-up 
man,  with  a  kindly,  weather-beaten  face,  iron 
gray  hair  and  beard,  and  a  sly  twinkle  in  his 
keen  gray  eyes  hinted  that  he  was  not  des- 
titute of  humor.  In  age  he  was  somewhere 
in  the  fifties.  His  "  boy  "  was  a  strapping 
fellow,  with  a  bright  open  face,  and  arms  like 
a  Vulcan.  They  were  cleaning  and  curing 
their  morning's  catch,  consisting  of  codfish, 
hake  and  haddock.  After  subjecting  me 
to  a  critical  examination  with  one  eye,  the 


8io 


PORPOISE-SHOOTING. 


other  being  held  tightly  closed,  Captain  Sam 
asked : 

"  Be  you  a  doctor,  neighbor  ?  " 

"  No." 

"  You  been't  one  of  them  'missioners  as 
sot  on  the  fish  over  to  Halifax  t'other  day, 
be  you  ?  " 

"  No." 

"  You'll  excuse  me,  neighbor,  but " 

"  Captain  Sam,  s'pose  you  give  us  mess 
of  fresh  fish,  then  by  an'  by  I  bring  you 
porpus  steak,"  interrupted  Sebatis. 

"  Give  you  a  mess  of  fish  ?  Surely  you 
know  my  maxim  is,  '  Cast  your  bread  in  the 
waters';  an'  so  I  always  tells  my  boy  Tommy, 
'  Tommy,'  sez  I,  '  cast  your  bread  on  the 
waters,  an'  somethin's  sure  to  come  of  it.' 
Give  you  a  mess  of  fish,  surely,"  and  the  jolly 
old  captain  tossed  half  a  dozen  fresh  rock- 
haddocks  into  the  canoe. 

"  Wont  you  give  us  a  call  this  afternoon, 
Captain  ?  " 

"Surely,  Tommy  an'  me  '11  scrub  ourselves 
up  a  bit,  an'  look  you  up,  when  we  sets  those 
fish  to  rights." 

After  dinner,  Sebatis  lighted  his  pipe,  and 
sat  puffing  away,  absorbed  in  a  brown  study. 

"  What  are  we  to  do  this  afternoon  ?  " 

"  Well,  s'pose  not  too  tired,  we  take  pro- 
visions with  us  and  go  porpusin'  again  good 
way  off,  and  camp.  Captain  Sam  and  hts 
boy  are  comin'.  You  see  'im  ?  " 

"  Yes,  here  they  are." 

"  Afternoon,  neighbor.  Well,  Sebatis,  how 
did  the  haddocks  go  ?  " 

"  Go  first  rate,  Captain  Sam ;  I  never 
taste  'im  better  fish." 

"You  never  spoke  a  truer  word  nor  that, 
Sebatis;  for,  fresh  or  smoked,  a  rock-had- 
dock's hard  to  beat." 

"  Captain,  will  you  and  your  son  join  me 
in  a  bottle  of  ale  ?  " 

"  Well  neighbor,  Tommy  an'  me,  we  don't 
go  much  on  liquor ;  we  takes  it,  or  we  lets 
it  alone,  but  I  don't  know  as  a  drop  of  ale 
will  hurt  a  body,  an'  fishin's  a  dryish  sort  of 
work  the  best  of  times." 

"  Sebatis,  bring  a  couple  of  bottles  of  ale." 

"  What  sort  of  ale  be  this,  neighbor  ? 
They  do  tell  me  that  most  of  the  liquor  now 
days  's  no  better  nor  pizen." 

"  Help  yourself,  Captain,  that  ale  wont 
hurt  you." 

"  Here's  your  good  health,  neighbor, 
Injuns,  Tommy,  all  han's,"  said  Captain 
Sam,  as  the  bottom  of  a  tin  pint  covered  the 
largest  portion  of  his  face. 

"  Your  son  doesn't  seem  to  care  for  his 
ale,  Captain." 


"  Come,  Tommy,  my  boy,  drink  up  your 
ale,"  said  the  captain,  replenishing  his  pint. 
"  And,  Tommy,  don't  you  never  forget  what 
I'm  always  a  tellin'  you.  '  Cast  your  bread 
in  the  waters,'  "  he  added,  after  a  good  pull 
at  the  ale. 

"  Time  to  go,"  said  Sebatis,  sententiously. 

"  Good-bye,  Captain." 

"  Goin'  porpusin',  neighbor,  be  you  ? 
Well,  Sebatis,  take  good  care  of  him,  and 
dont  you  never ." 

The  last  we  saw  of  the  good  old  captain, 
he  was  still  sitting  at  our  improvised  table  at 
the  camp  door,  pledging  his  boy,  with  pint 
held  to  pint,  and  no  doubt  quaintly  repeat- 
ing his  favorite  maxim. 

I  fear  that  the  ale  was  too  much  for  one 
of  his  abstemious  habits. 

Pieltoma  had  washed  out  and  dried  the 
canoe,  and  once  more  we  set  out  in  pursuit 
of  the  porpoises. 

"  Where  are  we  going  now,  Sebatis  ?  " 

"Goin' away  long  eddy,  off  northern  head." 

"  Is  that  a  good  place  for  porpoises  ?  " 

" Sartin;  always  on  rips  very  good  place; 
you  see,  plenty  mackerels,  herrin's.  and  all 
kinds  fishes  in  eddies  and  rips ;  very  good 
feedin'-ground  for  porpusis,  you  see." 

The  eddies  or  rips  alluded  to  by  Sebatis 
were  caused  by  the  obstruction  offered  by 
projecting  headlands  to  the  ebb  and  flow  of 
the  tide,  which  on  this  coast  rises  some  forty 
feet. 

"  Pretty  late  when  we  get  back,  s'pose 
we  go  all  way  to  long  rips,"  said  Pieltoma. 

"  Well,"  replied  Sebatis, "  s'pose  dark,  then 
we'll  camp  somewhere  all  night — I  fetch 
'im  provisions  and  cooking  tools;  sartin, 
canoe  and  sail  make  very  good  camp." 

Talking  did  not  interfere  with  their  pad- 
dling, and  we  were  going  at  a  rapid  rate  for 
the  place  where  they  hoped  to  find  the  por- 
poises. Presently  we  entered  rough  water, 
with  much  such  a  sea  as  is  caused  by  wind 
against  tide,  and  the  canoe  began  to  jump 
about  in  a  very  lively  manner. 

"  There  goes  porpus,  Sebatis,"  said  Piel- 
toma. 

"  I  see  'im,"  said  Sebatis,  standing  up  in 
the  canoe,  gun  in  hand.  Just  then  we  got 
into  some  very  rough  water,  and  it  was  a 
study  to  see  the  admirable  way  in  which 
Sebatis  poised  himself  for  a  shot. 

Pieltoma  was  holding  the  canoe  well  in 
hand  when  quite  a  large  wave  smashed 
over  the  bow  of  the  canoe,  and  some  water 
came  aboard. 

"  Best  sit  down,  Sebatis,  take  'im  paddle, 
may  be  upset,"  said  Pieltoma. 


PORPOISE-SHOOTING. 


811 


Sebatis  turned  a  withering  glance  upon 
him,  and  then,  as  we  mounted  a  wave,  fired 
at  some  object  that  I  did  not  see. 

"  Was  that  a  porpoise,  Sebatis  ?  " 

"Sartin.  Four,  five  porpusis  all  rollin' 
over  together." 

"  Did  you  kill  him  ? 

"  No ;  miss  'im  clean ;  all  gone  down. 
You  see,  Pieltoma  scared  so  bad  make  me 
miss  'im  porpus,"  he  replied,  ironically. 

Retaining  his  upright  position  in  the 
canoe,  he  reloaded  his  gun,  and  stood 
ready  for  another  shot. 

"  Quick,  Sebatis !  Very  big  porpus  on 
this  side  canoe,"  said  Pieltoma,  whirling  the 
canoe  around  so  as  to  afford  Sebatis  a  chance 
for  a  shot.  The  next  moment  we  were  in 
the  trough  of  the  sea,  and  I  saw  a  flash  of 
silver  on  an  approaching  wave ;  a  belch  of 
fire  and  a  roar  from  Sebatis's  gun  instantly 
followed,  and  Pieltoma  paddled  as  if  for  life, 
while  Sebatis  dropped  his  gun  and  picked 
up  his  long  spear.  In  the  excitement,  his 
usually  calm  face  looked  savage,  and  he 
plunged  his  cruel  spear  relentlessly  again 
and  again  into  a  huge  fish  that  we  had  now 
come  alongside  of. 

I  certainly  thought  that  we  should  be  upset 
this  time,  for  the  canoe  was  jumping  and 
rocking  in  a  manner  to  try  the  steadiest 
nerves,  and  the  Indians  were  acting  like  two 
demons,  and  were  tugging  at  the  huge  fish, 
in  vain  efforts  to  get  him  aboard.  On  my 
hands  and  knees  I  crept  aft,  so  as  to  give 
them  more  room.  The  canoe  was  drifting 
aimlessly,  now  on  top  of  a  wave  and  the 
next  moment  in  the  trough,  and  I  feared 
that  some  of  the  heavier  seas  would  board 
us  and  end  the  whole  matter.  At  last,  their 
joint  efforts  succeeded  in  getting  the  fish 
high  enough  to  pull  him  over  the  gunwale. 

"  How  you  like  'im  porpusin' — pretty 
good  fun  ?  "  said  Sebatis,  as  he  grasped  his 
paddle  and  regained  control  of  his  canoe. 

"  If  you  call  this  fun,  I  hope  that  you  will 
put  me  ashore  before  you  begin  in  earnest," 
I  replied. 

Presently  I  heard  from  seaward  the  dis- 
tant booming  of  guns,  as  of  some  ship  of 
war  at  practice. 

"  What  guns  are  those,  Sebatis  ?  " 

"  Guns  ?  Oh,  that's  Injuns  shootin'  por- 
pusis. Make  good  deal  noise  on  salt  water." 

"  I  see  'im  five  canoes,"  said  Pieltoma,  as 
we  rode  on  the  crest  of  a  wave. 

"Sartin,  must  be  big  school  porpusis  in 
rips  to-day — look  quick  you  see  'im  canoe?" 
said  Sebatis. 


"  No,  I  don't  see  any  canoe." 

"  You  watch  'im,  by-em-by  you  see  "im." 

As  we  glided  into  the  trough  again,  I 
saw  a  canoe  riding  a  wave,  with  an  Indian 
standing  up  in  the  bow,  and  another  sitting 
in  the  stern  paddling.  Then  in  a  short  time, 
we  seemed  to  be  surrounded  by  canoes, 
and  they  were  constantly  popping  up,  now 
on  one  side,  then  on  the  other,  and  at  short 
intervals  their  guns  flashed  in  the  approach- 
ing darkness. 

"  Hadn't  we  better  get  ashore  somewhere, 
Sebatis  ?  " 

"  Yes,  we  go  pretty  soon;  kill  'im  one  more 
porpus  first." 

"  I  don't  see  where  you  can  put  him;  that 
one  you  killed  last  was  an  immense  one." 

"  Sartin,  that  very  big  porpus,  but  plenty 
room  one  more,  s'pose  we  find  'im." 

Just  then  there  were  a  flash  and  a  roar, 
and  a  canoe  passed  rapidly  to  leeward  to 
secure  their  prey. 

"  My  turn  next,"  said  Sebatis,  standing  up 
in  his  canoe  again. 

"  Look  out,  Sebatis,  look  out,  big  wave 
comin',"  cried  Pieltoma. 

I  thought  that  our  time  had  come,  but 
the  canoe,  dexterously  handled  by  the  In- 
dians, rode  the  wave  like  an  ocean  bird. 

"  If  we  have  many  seas  like  this,  Sebatis, 
we  may  come  to  grief  in  one  of  them." 

"  No  danger  't  all,  only  got  to  be  careful, 
that's  all.  You  see,  tide  just  turned  now, 
and  we  got  too  far  in  eddy ;  move  out  little 
way,  then  good  deal  smoother." 

"  Dark  comin'  now  pretty  quick,  Sebatis ; 
by-em-by  pretty  hard  chance  landin',"  said 
Pieltoma. 

Bang,  goes  Sebatis's  gun  in  answer. 

"  What  was  that,  Sebatis  ?  " 

"  Only  a  small  little  porpus, — too  small 
count  'im,  most." 

In  a  few  moments  they  had  the  porpoise 
aboard  and  paddled  rapidly  for  our  pro- 
posed landing-place  at  Eel  Brook,  where  we 
were  to  camp  for  the  night.  The  Indians  car- 
ried the  canoe  over  the  beach  to  the  foot  of  a 
hill,  where  some  tall  fir-trees  gave  us  shelter. 
They  then  turned  the  canoe  partly  on  its 
side  and  propped  it  up  with  pieces  of  wood, 
then  spread  the  sail  on  poles  placed  across 
the  canoe,  and  our  habitation  was  complete. 

Sound,  indeed,  was  our  slumber  that 
night,— 

"While   from  its   rocky    caverns    the   deep-voiced 

neighboring  ocean 
Speaks,  and,  in  accents  disconsolate,  answers   the 

wail  of  the  forest." 


8l2 


THE   GRANDISSIMES. 


THE    GRANDISSIMES* 


A     STORY    OF    CREOLE     LIFE. 
By  GEORGE  W.  CABLE,  author  of  "Old  Creole  Days." 


CHAPTER    LV. 
CAUGHT. 

THE  fig-tree,  in  Louisiana,  sheds  its  leaves 
while  it  is  yet  summer.  In  the  rear  of  the 
Grandissime  mansion,  about  two  hundred 
yards  north-west  of  it  and  fifty  north-east  of 
the  cottage  in  which  Agricola  had  made  his 
new  abode,  on  the  edge  of  the  grove  of 
which  we  have  spoken,  stood  one  of  these 
trees,  whose  leaves  were  beginning  to  lie 
thickly  upon  the  ground  beneath  it.  An  an- 
cient and  luxuriant  hedge  of  Cherokee  rose 
started  from  this  tree  and  stretched  toward 
the  north-west  across  the  level  country,  un- 
til it  merged  into  the  green  confusion  of  gar- 
dened homes  in  the  vicinity  of  Bayou  St. 
Jean,  or,  by  night,  into  the  common  obscur- 
ity of  a  starlit  perspective.  When  an  un- 
clouded moon  shone  upon  it,  it  cast  a  shadow 
as  black  as  velvet. 

Under  this  fig-tree,  some  three  hours 
later  than  that  at  which  Honore  bade  Jo- 
seph good-night,  a  man  was  stooping  down 
and  covering  something  with  the  broad, 
fallen  leaves. 

"  The  moon  will  rise  about  three  o'clock," 
thought  he.  "  That,  the  hour  of  universal 
slumber,  will  be,  by  all  odds,  the  time  most 
likely  to  bring  developments." 

He  was  the  same  person  who  had  spent 
the  most  of  the  day  in  a  blacksmith  shop  in 
St.  Louis  street,  superintending  a  piece  of 
smithing.  Now  that  he  seemed  to  have 
got  the  thing  well  hid,  he  turned  to  the 
base  of  the  tree  and  tried  the  security  of 
some  attachment.  Yes,  it  was  firmly  chained. 
He  was  not  a  robber;  he  was  not  an  assas- 
sin ;  he  was  not  an  officer  of  police ;  and 
what  is .  more  notable,  seeing  he  was  a 
Louisianian,  he  was  not  a  soldier  nor  even 
an  ex-soldier ;  and  this  although,  under  his 
clothing,  he  was  encased  from  head  to  foot 
in  a  complete  suit  of  mail.  Of  steel  ?  No. 
Of  brass?  No.  It  was  all  one  piece — a 
white  skin;  and  on  his  head  he  wore  an 
invisible  helmet — the  name  of  Grandis- 
sime. As  he  straightened  up  and  withdrew 
into  the  grove,  you  would  have  recognized 
at  once — by  his  thick-set,  powerful  frame, 


clothed  seemingly  in  black,  but  really,  as  you 
might  guess,  in  blue  cottonade,  by  his  black 
aeard  and  the  general  look  of  a  seafarer- — a 
frequent  visitor  at  the  Grandissime  mansion, 
a  country  member  of  that  great  family,  one 
whom  we  saw  at  the  fete  de  grandpere. 

Capitain  Jean-Baptiste  Grandissime  was  a 
man  of  few  words,  no  sentiments,  short 
methods ;  materialistic,  we  might  say ;  qui- 
etly ferocious ;  indifferent  as  to  means,  pos- 
itive as  to  ends,  quick  of  perception,  sure  in 
matters  of.  saltpeter,  a  stranger  at  tfie  cus- 
tom-house, and  altogether — take  him  right 

very  much  of  a  gentleman.    He  had  been, 

for  a  whole  day,  beset  with  the  idea  that 
the  way  to  catch  a  voudou  was — to  catch 
him;  and  as  he  had  caught  numbers  of 
them  on  both  sides  of  the  tropical  and  semi- 
tropical  Atlantic,  he  decided  to  try  his  skill 
privately  on  the  one  who — his  experience 
told  him — was  likely  to  visit  Agricola's  door- 
step to-night.  All  things  being  now  pre- 
pared, he  sat  down  at  the  root  of  a  tree  in 
the  grove,  where  the  shadow  was  very  dark, 
and  seemed  quite  comfortable.  He  did  not 
strike  at  the  mosquitoes ;  they  appeared  to 
understand  that  he  did  not  wish  to  trifle. 
Neither  did  his  thoughts  or  feelings  trouble 
him;  he  sat  and  sharpened  a  small  pen- 
knife on  his  boot. 

His  mind — his  occasional  transient  med- 
itation— was  the  more  comfortable  because 
he  was  one  of  those  few  who  had  coolly  anc 
unsentimentally  allowed  Honore  Grandissirm 
to  sell  their  lands.  It  continued  to  grow 
plainer  every  day  that  the  grants  with  whicl 
theirs  were  classed — grants  of  old  Frencl 
or  Spanish  under-officials — were  bad.  Thei: 
sagacious  cousin  seemed  to  have  struck  th< 
right  standard,  and  while  those  titles  whicl 
he  still  held  on  to  remained  unimpeached 
those  that  he  had  parted  with  to  purchaser 
— as,  for  instance,  the  grant  held  by  thi 
Capitain  Jean-Baptiste  Grandissime— coulc 
be  bought  back  now  for  half  what  he  ha< 
got  for  it.  Certainly,  as  to  that,  the  Capi 
tain  might  well  have  that  quietude  of  min< 
which  enabled  him  to  find  occupation  ii 
perfecting  the  edge  of  his  penknife  and  trim 
ming  his  nails  in  the  dark. 


Copyright,  1879,  by  George  W.  Cable.     All  rights  reserved. 


THE   GRANDISSIMES. 


8*3 


By  and  by  he  put  up  the  little  tool  and 
sat  looking  out  upon  the  prospect.  The 
time  of  greatest  probability  had  not  come, 
but  the  voudou  might  choose  not  to  wait  for 
that ;  and  so  he  kept  a  watch.  There  was 
a  great  stillness.  The  cocks  had  finished  a 
round  and  were  silent.  No  dog  barked. 
A  few  tiny  crickets  made  the  quiet  land 
seem  the  more  deserted.  Its  beauties  were 
not  entirely  overlooked — the  innumerable 
host  of  stars  above,  the  twinkle  of  myriad 
fire-flies  on  the  dark  earth  below.  Between 
a  quarter  and  a  half  mile  away,  almost  in  a 
line  with  the  Cherokee  hedge,  was  a  faint 
rise  of  ground,  and  on  it  a  wide-spreading 
live-oak.  There  the  keen,  seaman's  eye  of 
the  Capitain  came  to  a  stop,  fixed  upon  a 
spot  which  he  had  not  noticed  before.  He 
kept  his  eye  on  it.  and  waited  for  the 
stronger  light  of  the  moon. 

Presently  behind  the  grove  at  his  back 
she  rose;  and  almost  the  first  beam  that 
passed  over  the  tops  of  the  trees,  and 
stretched  across  the  plain,  struck  the  object 
of  his  scrutiny.  What  was  it  ?  The  ground, 
he  knew ;  the  tree,  he  knew ;  he  knew  there 
ought  to  be  a  white-paling  inclosure  about 
the  trunk  of  the  tree ;  for  there  were  buried 
— ah  ! — he  came  as  near  laughing  at  himself 
as  ever  he  did  in  his  life ;  the  apothecary  of 
the  rue  Royale  had  lately  erected  some 
marble  head-stones  there,  and 

"  Oh !  my  God !  " 

While  Capitain  Jean- Bap tiste  had  been 
trying  to  guess  what  the  tombstones  were, 
a  woman  had  been  coming  toward  him  in 
shadow  of  the  hedge.  She  was  not  expect- 
ing to  meet  him ;  she  did  not  know  that  he 
was  there ;  she  knew  she  had  risks  to  run, 
but  was  ignorant  of  what  they  were;  she 
did  not  know  there  was  anything  under  the 
fig-tree  which  she  so  nearly  and  noiselessly 
approached.  One  moment  her  foot  was 
lifted  above  the  spot  where  the  unknown 
object  lay  with  wide-stretched  jaws  under 
the  leaves,  and  the  next,  she  uttered  thac 
cry  of  agony  and  consternation  which  inter- 
rupted the  watcher's  meditation.  She  was 
caught  in  a  huge  steel-trap. 

Capitain  Jean-Baptiste  Grandissime  re- 
mained perfectly  still.  She  iell,  a  snarling, 
struggling,  groaning  heap,  to  the  ground, 
wild  with  pain  and  fright,  and  began  the 
hopeless  effort  to  draw  the  jaws  of  the  trap 
apart  with  her  fingers. 

"  Ah  !  bon  Dieu,  bon  Dieu  !  Quit  &-bi-i- 
i-i-tiri  me  !  Oh !  Lawd 'a' mussy !  Ow-ow- 
ow  !  lemme  go !  Dey  go'n'  to  kyetch  an' 
hang  me !  Oh !  an'  I  hain'  done  nuttin' 


'gainst  nobody!  Ah!  bon  Dieu!  ein  pen? 
lie  negresse  /  Oh  !  Jemimy !  I  cyan'  gid 
dis  yeh  t'ing  loose — oh !  m-m-m-m  !  An' 
dey'll  tra  to  mek  out  't  I  voudou'  Mich- 
Agricole  !  An'  I  didn'  had  nutt'n'  do  wid 
it !  Oh,  Lawd,  oh,  Lawd,  you'll  be  mighty 
good  ef  you  lemme  loose !  I'm  a  po'  nigga ! 
Oh !  dey  hadn'  ought  to  mek  it  so  pow1- 
ful !  " 

Hands,  teeth,  the  free  foot,  the  writhing 
body,  every  combination  of  available  forces 
failed  to  spread  the  savage  jaws,  though 
she  strove  until  hands  and  mouth  were 
bleeding. 

Suddenly  she  became  silent;  a  thought 
of  precaution  came  to  her;  she  lifted  from 
the  earth  a  burden  she  had  dropped  there, 
struggled  to  a  half-standing  posture,  and, 
with  her  foot  still  in  the  trap,  was  endeavor- 
ing to  approach  the  end  of  the  hedge  near 
by,  to  thrust  this  burden  under  it,  when  she 
opened  her  throat  in  a  speechless  ecstasy 
of  fright  on  feeling  her  arm  grasped  by  her 
captor. 

"  O-o-o-h !  Lawd !  o-o-oh !  Lawd !  "  she 
cried,  in  a  frantic,  husky  whisper^  going 
down  upon  her  knees,  "  Oh,  Miche  !  pou' 
I'amou*  du  bon  Dieu  !  Pou'  I  'amotf  du  bon 
Dieu  ayez  pitie  d'ein  pov'  negresse!  Pin? 
negresse,  Miche,  w'at  nevva  done  nutt'n'  to 
nobody  on'y  jis  sell  calas !  I  iss  comin' 
'long  an'  step  inteh  dis-yeh  bah-trap  by 
accident!  Ah!  Miche,  Miche,  ple-e-ease 
be  good !  Ah  !  mon  Dieu  / — an  de  Lawd 
'11  reward  you — 'deed  'E  will,  Miche  /" 

"  Qui  ci  (a  ?  "  asked  the  Capitain,  sternly, 
stooping  and  grasping  her  burden,  which 
she  had  been  trying  to  conceal  under  her- 
self. 

"  Oh,  Miche,  don'  trouble  dat !  Please 
jes  tek  dis-yeh  trap  offen  me — da's  all !  Oh, 
don't,  mawstah,  ple-e-ease  don'  spill  all  my 
wash'n  t'ings!  'Taint  nutt'n'  but  my  old 
dress  roll'  up  into  a  ball.  Oh,  please — now, 
you  see?  nutt'n'  but  a  po'  nigga's  dr — oh! 
fo'  de  lave  o1  God,  Miche  Jean-Baptiste,  don1 
open  dat  ah  box!  Y'en  a  rein  du  tout  la- 
dans,  Miche  Jean-Baptiste  ;  du  tout,  du  tout ! 
Oh,  my  God !  Miche,  on'y  jis  teck  dis-yeh 
t'ing  off'n  my  laig,  ef  yo1  please,  it's  bit'n' 
me  lak  a  dawg ! — if  you  please,  Miche ! 
Oh  !  you  git  kill'  if  you  open  dat  ah  box, 
Mawse  Jean-Baptiste  !  Mo"  parole  d'hon- 
neurleplus  sac  re — I  '11  kiss  de  cross !  Oh,  sweet 
Miche  Jean,  laissemoialler!  Nutt'n'  but  some 
dutty  close  la-dans. "  She  repeated  this  again 
and  again,  even  after  Capitain  Jean-Baptiste 
had  disengaged  a  small  black  coffin  from  the 
old  dress  in  which  it  was  wrapped.  "Rien  du 


814 


THE    GRANDISSIMES. 


tout,  Miche;  nutt'n'  but  some  wash'n'  fo'  one 
o'  de  boys." 

He  removed  the  lid  and  saw  within,  rest- 
ing on  the  cushioned  bottom,  the  image,  in 
myrtle-wax,  moulded  and  painted  with  some 
rude  skill,  of  a  negro's  bloody  arm  cut  off 
near  the  shoulder — a  bras-coupe- — with  a  dirk 
grasped  in  its  hand. 

The  old  woman  lifted  her  eyes  to  heaven; 
her  teeth  chattered ;  she  gasped  twice  before 
she  could  recover  utterance.  "  Oh,  Miche 
Jean-Baptiste,  I  di'n'  mek  dat  ah !  Mo  te 
pas  fe  ca  !  I  swea'  befo'  God !  Oh,  no,  no, 
no !  'Tain'  nutt'n'  nohow  but  a  lill  play-toy, 
Miche.  Oh,  sweet  Miche  Jean,  you  not  gwan 
to  kill  me  ?  I  di'n'  mek  it !  It  was — ef  you 
lemme  go,  I  telLyou  who  mek  it !  Sho's  I  live 
I  tell-  you,  Miche  Jean — ef  you  lemme  go  ! 
Sho's  God's  good  to  me — ef  you  lemme  go ! 
Oh,  God  A'mighty,  Miche  Jean,  sho's  God's 
good  to  me." 

She  was  becoming  incoherent. 

Then  Capitain  Jean-Baptiste  Grandissime 
for  the  first  time  spoke  at  length : 

"  Do  you  see  this  ?  "  he  spoke  the  French 
of  the  Atchafalaya.  He  put  his  long  flint- 
lock pistol  close  to  her  face.  "  I  shall  take 
the  trap  off;  you  will  walk  three  feet  in 
front  of  me;  if  you  make  it  four  I  blow 
your  brains  out;  we  shall  go  to  Agricole. 
But  right  here,  just  now,  before  I  count  ten, 
you  will  tell  me  who  sent  you  here ;  at  the 
word  ten,  if  I  reach  it,  I  pull  the  trigger. 
One — two — three, " 

"Oh, Miche,  she  gwan  to  gib  me  to  de  devil 
wid  houdou  ef  I  tell  you — Oh,  good  Lawdy!" 

But  he  did  not  pause. 

"  Four — five — six — seven — eight " 

"  Palmy  re ! "  gasped  the  negress,  and 
groveled  on  the  ground. 

The  trap  was  loosened  from  her  bleeding 
leg,  the  burden  placed  in  her  arms,  and 
they  disappeared  in  the  direction  of  the 
mansion. 

A  black  shape,  a  boy,  the  lad  who  had 
carried  the  basil  to  Frowenfeld,  rose  up 
from  where  he  had  all  this  time  lain,  close 
against  the  hedge,  and  glided  off  down 
its  black  shadow  to  warn  the  philosophe. 

When  Clemence  was  searched,  there  was 
found  on  her  person  an  old  table-knife  with 
its  end  ground  to  a  point. 

CHAPTER    LVI. 
BLOOD    FOR   A    BLOW. 

IT  seems  to  be  one  of  the  self-punitive 
characteristics  of  tyranny,  whether  the  tyrant 


be  a  man,  a  community,  or  a  caste,  to  have 
a  pusillanimous  fear  of  its  victim.  It  was 
not  when  Clemence  lay  in  irons,  it  is  barely 
now,  that  our  South  is  casting  off  a  certain 
apprehensive  tremor,  generally  latent,  but  at 
the  slightest  provocation  active,  and  now 
and  then  violent,  concerning  her  "  blacks." 
This  fear,  like  others  similar  elsewhere  in  the 
world,  has  always  been  met  by  the  same  one 
antidote — terrific  cruelty  to  the  tyrant's  victim. 
So  we  shall  presently  see  the  Grandissime 
ladies,  deeming  themselves  compassionate, 
urging  their  kinsmen  to  "  give  the  poor 
wretch  a  sound  whipping  and  let  her  go." 
Ah!  what  atrocities  are  we  unconsciously 
perpetrating  North  and  South  now,  in  the 
name  of  mercy  or  defense,  which  the  ad- 
vancing light  of  progressive  thought  will 
presently  show  out  in  their  enormity  ? 

Agricola  slept  late.  He  had  gone  to  his 
room  the  evening  before  much  incensed  at 
the  presumption  of  some  younger  Grandis- 
simes  who  had  brought  up  the  subject,  and 
spoken  in  defense  of,  their  cousin  Honore. 
He  had  retired,  however,  not  to  rest,  but  to 
construct  an  engine  of  offensive  warfare 
which  would  revenge  him  a  hundred-fold 
upon  the  miserable  school  of  imported 
thought  which  had  sent  its  revolting  influ- 
ences to  the  very  Grandissime  hearth-stone ; 
he  wrote  a  "Philippique  Generate  contre  la 
Conduite  du  Gouvernement  de  la  Louisiane" 
and  a  short  but  vigorous  chapter  in  English 
on  the  "  Insanity  of  Educating  the  Masses." 
This  accomplished,  he  had  gone  to  bed  in  a 
condition  of  peaceful  elation,  eager  for  the 
next  day  to  come  that  he  might  take  these 
mighty  productions  to  Joseph  Frowenfeld, 
and  make  him  a  present  of  them  for  inser- 
tion in  his  book  of  tables. 

Jean-Baptiste  felt  no  need  of  his  advice, 
that  he  should  rouse  him ;  and,  for  a  long 
time  before  the  old  man  awoke,  his  younger 
kinsmen  were  stirring  about  unwontedly,  go- 
ing and  coming  through  the  hall  of  the 
mansion,  along  its  verandas  and  up  and 
down  its  outer  flight  of  stairs.  Gates  were 
opening  and  shutting,  errands  were  being 
carried  by  negro  boys  on  bareback  horses, 
Charlie  Mandarin  of  St.  Bernard  parish  and 
an  Armand  Fusilier  from  Faubourg  Ste. 
Marie  had  on  some  account  come — as  they 
told  the  ladies — "  to  take  breakfast ";  and 
the  ladies,  not  yet  informed,  amusedly  won- 
dering at  all  this  trampling  and  stage  whis- 
pering, were  up  a  trifle  early.  In  those 
days  Creole  society  was  a  ship,  in  which 
the  fair  sex  were  all  passengers  and  the  ruder 
sex  the  crew.  The  ladies  of  the  Grandis- 


THE   GRANDISSIMES. 


sime  mansion  this  morning  asked  passen- 
gers' questions,  got  sailors'  answers,  retorted 
wittily  and  more  or  less  satirically,  and 
laughed  often,  feeling  their  constrained  in- 
significance. However,  in  a  house  so  full 
of  bright-eyed  children,  with  mothers  and 
sisters  of  all  ages  as  their  confederates,  the 
secret  was  soon  out,  and  before  Agricola 
had  left  his  little  cottage  in  the  grove  the 
topic  of  all  tongues  was  the  abysmal  treach- 
ery and  ingratitude  of  negro  slaves.  The 
whole  tribe  of  Grandissime  believed,  this 
morning,  in  the  doctrine  of  total  depravity 
— of  the  negro. 

And  right  in  the  face  of  this  belief,  the 
ladies  put  forth  the  generously  intentioned 
prayer  for  mercy.  They  were  answered 
that  they  little  knew  what  frightful  perils 
they  were  thus  inviting  upon  themselves. 

The  male  Grandissimes  were  not  sur- 
prised at  this  exhibition  of  weak  clemency 
in  their  lovely  women ;  they  were  proud  of 
it;  it  showed  the  magnanimity  that  was 
natural  to  the  universal  Grandissime  heart, 
when  not  restrained  and  repressed  by  the 
stern  necessities  of  the  hour.  But  Agricola 
disappointed  them.  Why  should  he  weaken 
and  hesitate,  and  suggest  delays  and  middle 
courses,  and  stammer  over  their  proposed 
measures  as  "  extreme  "  ?  In  very  truth,  it 
seemed  as  though  that  driveling,  woman- 
beaten  Deutsch  apotheke — ha !  ha !  ha ! — 
in  the  rue  Royale  had  bewitched  Agricola 
as  well  as  Honore.  The  fact  was,  Agricola 
had  never  got  over  the  interview  which  had 
saved  Sylvestre  his  life. 

"  Here,  Agricole,"  his  kinsmen  at  length 
said,  "you  see  you  are  too  old  for  this  sort 
of  thing ;  besides,  it  would  be  bad  taste  for 
you,  who  might  be  presumed  to  harbor 
feelings  of  revenge,  to  have  a  voice  in  this 
council."  And  then  they  added  to  one 
another :  "  We  will  wait  until  'Polyte  reports 
whether  or  not  they  have  caught  Palmyre ; 
much  will  depend  on  that." 

Agricola,  thus  ruled  out,  did  a  thing  he 
did  not  fully  understand ;  he  rolled  up  the 
"  Philippique  Generate  "  and  the  "  Insanity 
of  Educating  the  Masses,"  and,  with  these 
in  one  hand  and  his  staff  in  the  other,  set  out 
for  Frowenfeld's,  not  merely  smarting  but 
trembling  under  the  humiliation  of  having 
been  sent,  for  the  first  time  in  his  life,  to  the 
rear  as  a  non-combatant. 

He  found  the  apothecary  among  his  clerks, 
preparing  with  his  own  hands  the  "  chalyb- 
eate tonic  "  for  which  the  f.  m.  c.  was  ex- 
pected to  call.  Raoul  Innerarity  stood  at 
his  elbow,  looking  on  with  an  amiable  air 


of  having  been  superseded  for  the  moment 
by  his  master. 

"  Ha-ah  !     Professor  Frowenfeld ! " 

The  old  man  flourished  his  scroll. 

Frowenfeld  said  good-morning,  and  they 
shook  hands  across  the  counter;  but  the 
old  man's  grasp  was  so  tremulous  that  the 
apothecary  looked  at  him  again. 

"  Does  my  hand  tremble,  Joseph  ?  It  is 
not  strange ;  I  have  had  much  to  excite  me 
this  morning." 

"Wat's  de  mattah?"  demanded  Raoul, 
quickly. 

"  My  life — which  I  admit,  Professor 
Frowenfeld,  is  of  little  value  compared  with 
such  a  one  as  yours — has  been — if  not  at- 
tempted, at  least  threatened." 

"How?"  cried  Raoul. 

"  H-really,  Professor,  we  must  agree  that 
a  trifle  like  that  ought  not  to  make  old 
Agricola  Fusilier  nervous.  But  I  find  it 
painful,  sir,  very  painful.  I  can  lift  up  this 
right  hand,  Joseph,  and  swear  I  never  gave 
a  slave — man  or  woman — a  blow  in  my 
life  but  according  to  my  notion  of  justice. 
And  now  to  find  my  life  attempted  by 
former  slaves  of  my  own  household,  and 
taunted  with  the  righteous  hamstringing  of 
a  dangerous  runaway  ?  But  they  have 
apprehended  the  miscreants ;  one  is  actually 
in  hand,  and  justice  will  take  its  course; 
trust  the  Grandissimes  for  that — though, 
really,  Joseph,  I  assure  you,  I  counseled 
leniency." 

"  Do  you  say  they  have  caught  her  ?  " 
Frowenfeld's  question  was  sudden  and  ex- 
cited; but  the  next  moment  he  had  con- 
trolled himself. 

"  H-h-my  son,  I  did  not  say  it  was  a 
'her'!" 

"  Was  it  not  Clemence  ?  Have  they 
caught  her  ?  " 

«  H-yes " 

The  apothecary  turned  to  Raoul. 

"Go  tell  Honore  Grandissime." 

"  But,  Professor  Frowenfeld ,"  began 

Agricola. 

Frowenfeld  turned  to  repeat  his  instruction, 
but  Raoul  was  already  leaving  the  store. 

Agricola  straightened  up  angrily. 

"  Pro-hofessor  Frowenfeld,  by  what  right 
do  you  interfere  ?  " 

"  No  matter,"  said  the  apothecary,  turn- 
ing half-way  and  pouring  the  tonic  into  a 
vial. 

"  Sir,"  thundered  the  old  lion,  "  h-I  de- 
mand of  you  to  answer!  How  dare  you 
insinuate  that  my  kinsmen  may  deal  other- 
wise than  justly  ?  " 


8i6 


THE    GRANDISSIMES. 


"Will  they  treat  her  exactly  as  if  she 
were  white,  and  had  threatened  the  life  of  a 
slave  ?  "  asked  Frowenfeld  from  behind  the 
desk  at  the  end  of  the  counter. 

The  old  man  concentrated  all  the  indig- 
nation of  his  nature  in  the  reply. 
"No-ho,  sir!" 

As  he  spoke,  a  shadow  approaching  from 
the  door  caused  him  to  turn.  The  tall, 
dark,  finely  clad  form  of  the  f.  m.  c.,  in  its 
old  soft-stepping  dignity  and  its  sad  emacia- 
tion, came  silently  toward  the  spot  where 
he  stood. 

Frowenfeld  saw  this,  and  hurried  forward 
inside  the  counter  with  the  preparation  in 
his  hand. 

"  Professor  Frowenfeld,"  said  Agricola, 
pointing  with  his  ugly  staff,  "  I  demand  of 
you,  as  the  keeper  of  a  white  man's  phar- 
macy, to  turn  that  negro  out." 

"  Citizen  Fusilier ! "  explained  the  apothe- 
cary ;  "  Mister  Grandis " 

He  felt  as  though  no  price  would  be  too 
dear  at  that  moment  to  pay  for  the  presence 
of  the  other  Honore.  He  had  to  go  clear 
to  the  end  of  the  counter  and  come  down 
the  outside  again  to  reach  the  two  men. 
They  did  not  wait  for  him.  Agricola  turned 
upon  the  f.  m.  c. 

"Take  off  your  hat!" 
A  sudden  activity  seized  every  one  con- 
nected with  the  establishment  as  the  quad- 
roon let  his  thin  right  hand  slowly  into  his 
bosom,  and  answered  in  French,  in  his  soft, 
low  voice: 

"  I  wear  my  hat  on  my  head." 
Frowenfeld  was  hurrying  toward  them; 
others  stepped  forward,  and  from  two  or 
three  there  came  half-uttered  exclamations 
of  protest ;  but  unfortunately  nothing  had 
been  done  or  said  to  provoke  any  one  to 
rush  upon  them,  when  Agricola  suddenly 
advanced  a  step  and  struck  the  f.  m.  c.  on 
the  head  with  his  staff.  Then  the  general 
outcry  and  forward  rush  came  too  late ;  the 
two  crashed  together  and  fell,  Agricola  above, 
the  f.  m.  c.  below,  and  a  long  knife  lifted 
up  from  underneath  and  sinking  to  its  hilt, 
once — twice — thrice, — in  the  old  man's  back. 
The  two  men  rose,  one  in  the  arms  of 
his  friends,  the  other  upon  his  own  feet. 
While  every  one's  attention  was  directed 
toward  the  wounded  man,  his  antagonist  re- 
stored his  dagger  to  its  sheath,  took  up  his 
hat  and  walked  away  unmolested.  When 
Frowenfeld,  with  Agricola  still  in  his  arms, 
looked  around  for  the  quadroon  he  was  gone. 
Doctor  Keene,  sent  for  instantly,  was  soon 
at  Agricola's  side. 


"  Take  him  upstairs ;  he  can't  be  moved 
any  further." 

Frowenfeld  turned  and  began  to  instruct 
some  one  to  run  upstairs  and  ask  permission, 
but  the  little  doctor  stopped  him. 

"  Joe,  for  shame  !  you  don't  know  those 
women  better  than  that  ?  Take  the  old 
man  right  up!" 

CHAPTER  LVII. 
VOUDOU  CURED. 

"  HONORE,"  said  Agricola,  faintly, "  where 
is  Honor6 !" 

"  He  has  been  sent  for,"  said  Doctor 
Keene  and  the  two  ladies  in  a  breath. 

Raoul,  bearing  the  word  concerning 
Clemence,  and  the  later  messenger  sum- 
moning him  to  Agricola's  bedside,  reached 
Honore  within  a  minute  of  each  other. 
His  instructions  were  quickly  given,  for 
Raoul  to  take  his  horse  and  ride  down  to 
the  family  mansion,  to  break  gently  to  his 
mother  the  news  of  Agricola's  disaster,  and 
to  say  to  his  kinsmen,  with  imperative  em- 
phasis, not  to  touch  the  marchande  des  calas 
till  he  should  come.  Then  he  hurried  to 
the  rue  Royale. 

But  when  Raoul  arrived  at  the  mansion 
he  saw  at  a  glance  that  the  news  had  out- 
run him.  The  family  carriage  was  already 
coming  around  the  bottom  of  the  front 
stairs  for  three  Mesdames  Grandissime  and 
Madame  Martinez.  The  children  on  all 
sides  had  dropped  their  play,  and  stood 
about,  hushed  and  staring.  The  servants 
moved  with  quiet  rapidity.  In  the  hall  he 
was  stopped  by  two  beautiful  girls. 

"  Raoul !  Oh,  Raoul,  how  is  he  now  ? 
Oh,  Raoul,  if  you  could  only  stop  them ! 
They  have  taken  old  Clemence  down  into 
the  swamp— as  soon  as  they  heard  about 
Agricole — Oh,  Raoul,  surely  that  would  be 
cruel !  She  nursed  me — and  me — when  we 
were  babies ! " 

"  Where  is  Agamemnon  ?  " 

"  Gone  to  the  city." 

"What  did  he  say  about  it  ?" 

"He  said  they  were  doing  wrong,  that 
he  did  not  approve  their  action,  and  that 
they  would  get  themselves  into  trouble; 
that  he  washed  his  hands  of  it." 

"  Ah-h-h ! "  exclaimed  Raoul,  "  wash  his 
hands!  Oh,  yes,  wash  his  hands!  Sup- 
pose we  all  wash  our  hands  ?  But  where  is 
Valentine  ?  Where  is  Charlie  Mandarin  ?  " 

"  Ah !  Valentine  is  gone  with  Agamem- 
non, saying  the  same  thing,  and  Charlie 


THE   GRANDISSIMES. 


817 


Mandarin  is  down  in  the  swamp,  the  worst 
of  all  of  them  ! " 

"  But  why  did  you  let  Agamemnon  and 
Valentine  go  off  that  way,  you  ?  " 

"  Ah  !  listen  to  Raoul !  What  can  a 
woman  do  ?  " 

"  What  can  a  woman — Well,  even  if  I  was 
a  woman,  I  would  do  something !  " 

He  hurried  from  the  house,  leaped  into 
the  saddle  and  galloped  across  the  fields 
toward  the  forest. 

Some  rods  within  the  edge  of  the  swamp, 
which,  at  this  season,  was  quite  dry  in 
many  places,  on  a  spot  where  the  fallen 
dead  bodies  of  trees  overlay  one  another 
and  a  dense  growth  of  willows  and  vines 
and  dwarf  palmetto  shut  out  the  light  of  the 
open  fields,  the  younger  and  some  of  the 
harsher  senior  members  of  the  Grandissime 
family  were  sitting  or  standing  about,  in  an 
irregular  circle  whose  center  was  a  big  and 
singularly  misshapen  water-willow.  At  the 
base  of  this  tree  sat  Clemence,  motionless 
and  silent,  a  wan,  sickly  color  in  her  face, 
and  that  vacant  look  in  her  large,  white-balled, 
brown-veined  eyes,  with  which  hope-for- 
saken cowardice  waits  for  death.  Some- 
what apart  from  the  rest,  on  an  old  cypress 
stump,  half-stood,  half-sat,  in  whispered  con- 
sultation, Jean-Baptiste  Grandissime  and 
Charlie  Mandarin. 

"  Eh  bien,  old  woman,"  said  Mandarin, 
turning,  without  rising,  and  speaking  sharply 
in  the  negro  French,  "  have  you  any  reason 
to  give  why  you  should  net  be  hung  to  that 
limb  over  your  head  ?  " 

She  lifted  her  eyes  slowly  to  his,  and  made 
a  feeble  gesture  of  deprecation. 

"  Mo  te  pas  fe  cette  bras,  Mawse  Challie 
— I  di'n't  mek  dat  ahm ;  no  'ndeed  I  di'n', 
Mawse  Challie.  I  ain'  wuth  hangin',  gen- 
'lemen  ;  you'd  oughteh  jis'  gimme  fawty  an' 
lemme  go.  I — I — I — I  di'n'  'ten'  no  hawm 
to  Maws-Agricole ;  I  wa'n't  gwan  to  hu't  no- 
body in  God's  worl' ;  'ndeed  I  wasn'.  I 
done  tote  dat  old  case-knife  fo'  twenty 
year' — mo  ptfte  (a  dipi  vingt  ans.  I'm  a 
po'  ole  marchande  des  calas ;  mo  coitrri 
'mongs'  de  sojer  boys  to  sell  my  cakes,  you 
know,  and  da's  de  onyest  reason  why  I 
cyah  dat  ah  ole  fool  knife."  She  seemed  to 
take  some  hope  from  the  silence  with  which 
they  heard  her.  Her  eye  brightened  and 
her  voice  took  a  tone  of  excitement. 
"  You'd  oughteh  tek  me  and  put  me  in  cal- 
aboose, an'  let  de  law  tek  'is  co'se.  You's 
all  nice  gen'lemen — werry  nice  gen'lemen, 
an'  you  sorter  owes  it  to  yo'sev's  fo'  to  not 


do  no  sich  nasty  wuck  as  hangin'  a  po'  ole 
nigga  wench;  'deed  you  does.  'Tain'  no 
use  to  hang  me ;  you  gwan  to  kyetch  Pal- 
myre  yit ;  //  courri  dans  marais ;  she  is  in  de 
swamp  yeh,  sum'ers;  but  as  concernin'  me, 
you'd  oughteh  jis  gimme  fawty  an'  lemme 
go.  You  mus'n'  b'lieve  all  dis-yeh  nonsense 
'bout  insurrectionin' ;  all  fool-nigga  talk. 
W'at  we  want  to  be  insurrectionin'  faw? 
We  de  happies'  people  in  de  God's  worl' ! " 
She  gave  a  start,  and  cast  a  furtive  glance  of 
alarm  behind  her.  "  Yes,  we  is ;  you  jis' 
oughteh  gimme  fawty  an'  lemme  go  !  Please, 
gen'lemen!  God'll  be  good  to  you,  you 
nice,  sweet  gen'lemen ! " 

Charlie  Mandarin  made  a  sign  to  one 
who  stood  at  her  back,  who  responded  by 
dropping  a  rawhide  noose  over  her  head. 
She  bounded  up  with  a  cry  of  terror;  it 
may  be  that  she  had  all  along  hoped  that 
all  was  make-believe.  She  caught  the  noose 
wildly  with  both  hands  and  tried  to  lift  it 
over  her  head. 

"  Ah !  no,  mawsteh,  you  cyan'  do  dat ! 
It's  ag'in'  de  law !  I's  'bleeged  to  have 
my  trial,  yit.  Oh,  no,  no  !  Oh,  good  God, 
no  !  Even  if  I  is  a  nigga  !  You  cyan'  jis' 
murdeh  me  hyeh  in  de  woods  !  Mo  dis  la 
zize .'  I  tell  de  judge  on  you!  You  ain' 
got  no  mo'  biznis  to  do  me  so  'an  if  I  was  a 
white  'oman !  You  dassent  tek  a  white 
'oman  out'n  de  Pa'sh  Pris'n  an'  do  'er  so ! 
Oh,  sweet  mawsteh,  fo'  de  love  o'  God! 
Oh,  Mawse  Challie,  pmf  l*amou'  du  bon  Dieu 
n'fe  pas  (a  /  Oh,  Mawse  'Polyte,  is  you 
gwan  to  let  'em  kill  ole  Clemence  ?  Oh, 
fo'  de  mussy  o'  Jesus  Christ,  Mawse  'Polyte, 
leas'  of  all,  you  !  You  dassent  help  to  kill 
me,  Mawse  'Polyte !  You  knows  why ! 
Oh  God,  Mawse  'Polyte,  you  knows  why ! 
Leas'  of  all  you,  Mawse  'Polyte !  Oh,  God 
'a'  mussy  on  my  wicked  ole  soul!  I  aint 
fitt'n'  to  die !  Oh,  gen'lemen,  I  kyan'  look 
God  in  de  face !  Oh,  Miches,  ayez  pitie  de 
moin!  Oh,  God  A  mighty  ha'  mussy  on  my 
soul!  Oh,  gen'lemen,  dough  yo'  kinfolks 
kyvaeh  up  yo'  tricks  now,  dey'll  dwap  f'um 
undeh  you  some  day  !  Sole  lei' e  la,  li  couche 
la!  Yo'  tu'n  will  come!  Oh,  God 
A'mighty  !  de  God  o'  de  po'  nigga  wench  ! 
Look  down,  oh  God,  look  down  an'  stop 
dis-yeh  foolishness!  Oh,  God,  fo'  de  love 
o'  Jesus  !  Oh,  Miches,  fen  a  ein  zizement ! 
Oh,  yes,  deh's  a  judgmen'  day !  Den  it 
wont  be  a  bit  o'  use  to  you  to  be  white! 
Oh,  oh,  oh,  oh,  oh,  oh,  fo',  fo',  fo',  de,  de, 
love  o'  God!  Oh!" 

They  drew  her  up. 

Raoul   was  not  far   off.     He  heard   the 


8i8 


THE    GRANDISSIMES. 


woman's  last  cry,  and  came  threshing 
through  the  bushes  on  foot.  He  saw  Syl- 
vestre,  unconscious  of  any  approach,  spring 
forward,  jerk  away  the  hands  that  had 
drawn  the  thong  over  the  branch,  let  the 
strangling  woman  down  and  loosen  the 
noose.  Her  eyes,  starting  out  with  horror, 
turned  to  him ;  she  fell  on  her  knees  and 
clasped  her  hands.  The  tears  were  rolling 
down  Sylvestre's  face. 

"  My  friends,  we  must  not  do  this  !  You 
shall  not  do  it !  " 

He  hurled  away,  with  twice  his  natural 
strength,  one  who  put  out  a  hand. 

"  No,  sirs  ! "  cried  Raoul,  "  you  shall  not 
do  it !  I  come  from  Honore  !  Touch  her 
who  dares ! " 

He  drew  a  weapon. 

"  Monsieur  Innerarity,"  said  Tolyte,  "  who 
is  Monsieur  Honore  Grandissime  ?  There 
are  two  of  the  name,  you  know, — partners 
— brothers.  Which  of— but  it  makes  no  dif- 
ference ;  before  either  of  them  sees  this  assas- 
sin she  is  going  to  be  a  lump  of  nothing !  " 

The  next  word  astonished  every  one.  It 
was  Charlie  Mandarin  who  spoke. 

"  Let  her  go ! " 

"  Let  her  go ! "  said  Jean-Baptiste  Grand- 
issime ;  "  give  her  a  run  for  her  life.  Old 
woman,  rise  up.  We  propose  to  let  you  go. 
Can  you  run  ?  Never  mind,  we  shall  see. 
Achille,  put  her  upon  her  feet.  Now,  old 
woman,  run!" 

She  walked  rapidly,  but  with  unsteady  feet, 
toward  the  fields. 

"  Run !  If  you  don't  run  I  will  shoot 
you  this  minute !  " 

She  ran. 

"  Faster!" 

She  ran  faster. 

"  Run ! " 

"Run!" 

"Run,  Clemence!  Ha,  ha,  ha!"  It 
was  so  funny  to  see  her  scuttling  and  trip- 
ping and  stumbling.  "  Courri !  courri, 
Clemence  !  c'est  poit  to  vie  !  ha,  ha,  ha " 

A  pistol  shot  rang  out  close  behind 
Raoul's  ear ;  it  was  never  told  who  fired  it. 
The  negress  leaped  into  the  air  and  fell  at 
full  length  to  the  ground,  stone  dead. 


CHAPTER  LVIII. 
DYING   WORDS. 

DRIVERS  of  vehicles  in  the  rue  Royale 
turned  aside  before  two  slight  barriers  span- 
ning the  way,  one  at  the  corner  below,  the 


other  at  that  above,  the  house  where  the 
aged  high-priest  of  a  doomed  civilization 
lay  bleeding  to  death.  The  floor  of  the 
store  below,  the  pavement  of  the  corridor 
where  stood  the  idle  volante,  were  covered 
with  straw,  and  servants  came  and  went  by 
the  beckoning  of  the  hand. 

"  This  way,"  whispered  a  guide  of  the 
four  ladies  from  the  Grandissime  mansion. 
As  Honore's  mother  turned  the  angle  half- 
way up  the  muffled  stair,  she  saw  at  the 
landing  above,  standing  as  if  about  to  part, 
yet  in  grave  council,  a  man  and  woman, 
the  fairest — she  noted  it  even  in  this  moment 
of  extreme  distress — she  had  ever  looked 
upon.  He  had  already  set  one  foot  down 
upon  the  stair,  but  at  sight  of  the  ascend- 
ing group  drew  back  and  said : 

"  It  is  my  mother; "  then  turned  to  his 
mother  and  took  her  hand ;  they  had  been 
for  months  estranged,  but  now  they  silently 
kissed. 

"  He  is  sleeping,"  said  Honore.  "  Maman, 
Madame  Nancanou." 

The  ladies  bowed — the  one  looking  very 
large  and  splendid,  the  other  very  sweet 
and  small.  There  was  a  single  instant  of 
silence,  and  Aurora  burst  into  tears. 

For  a  moment  Madame  Grandissime 
assumed  a  frown  that  was  almost  a  reminder 
of  her  brother's,  and  then  the  very  pride  of 
the  Fusiliers  broke  down.  She  uttered  an 
inaudible  exclamation,  drew  the  weeper 
firmly  into  her  bosom,  and  with  streaming 
eyes  and  choking  voice,  but  yet  with  maj- 
esty, whispered,  laying  her  hand  on  Aurora's 
head: 

"  Never  mind,  my  child ;  never  mind, 
never  mind." 

And  Honore's  sister,  when  she  was  pres- 
ently introduced,  kissed  Aurora  and  mur- 
mured : 

"The  good  God  bless  thee!  It  is  He 
who  has  brought  us  together." 

"  Who  is  with  him  just  now  ?  "  whispered 
the  two  other  ladies,  while  Honore  and  his 
mother  stood  a  moment  aside  in  hurried 
consultation. 

"My  daughter,"  said  Aurora,  "and " 

"  Agamemnon,"  suggested  Madame  Mar- 
tinez. 

"  I  believe  so,"  said  Aurora. 

Valentine  appeared  from  the  direction  of 
the  sick-room  and  beckoned  to  Honored 
Doctor  Keene  did  the  same,  and  continued 
to  advance. 

"  Awake  ?  "  asked  Honore. 

"  Yes." 

"  Alas !    my    brother  !  "     said    Madame 


THE    GRANDISSIMES. 


819 


Grandissime,  and  started  forward,  followed 
by  the  other  women. 

"  Wait,"  said  Honore",  and  they  paused. 
"  Chahlie,"  he  said,  as  the  little  doctor  per- 
sistently pushed  by  him  at  the  head  of  the 
stair. 

"  Oh,  there's  no  chance,  Honore,  you'd  as 
well  all  go  in  there." 

They  gathered  into  the  room  and  about 
the  bed.  Madame  Grandissime  bent  over 
it. 

"  Ah !  sister,"  said  the  dying  man,  "  is 
that  you  ?  I  had  the  sweetest  dream  just 
now — just  for  a  minute."  He  sighed.  "  I 
feel  very  weak.  Where  is  Charlie  Keene  ?  " 

He  had  spoken  in  French ;  he  repeated 
his  question  in  English.  He  thought  he 
saw  the  doctor. 

"  Charlie,  if  I  must  meet  the  worst  I 
hope  you  will  tell  me  so ;  I  am  fully  pre- 
pared. Ah  !  excuse — I  thought  it  was 

"  My  eyes  seem  dim  this  evening.  Est- 
ce-vous,  Honore  ?  Ah,  Honore,  you  went 
over  to  the  enemy,  did  you  ?  Well, — the 
Fusilier  blood  would  al — ways — do  as  it 
pleased.  Here's  your  old  uncle's  hand, 
Honore.  I  forgive  you,  Honore — my  no- 
ble-hearted, foolish — boy."  He  spoke  feebly, 
and  with  great  nervousness. 

"  Water." 

It  was  given  him  by  Aurora.  He  looked 
in  her  face ;  they  could  not  be  sure  whether 
he  recognized  her  or  not.  He  sank  back, 
closed  his  eyes,  and  said,  more  softly  and 
dreamily,  as  if  to  himself,  "  I  forgive  every- 
body. A  man  must  die — I  forgive — even 
the  enemies — of  Louisiana." 

He  lay  still  a  few  moments,  and  then  re- 
vived excitedly.  "  Honore  !  tell  Professor 
Frowenfeld  to  take  care  of  that  Philip- 
pique  Generate.  Tis  a  grand  thing,  Hon- 
ore, on  a  grand  theme!  I  wrote  it  myself 
in  one  evening.  Your  Yankee  Government 
is  a  failure,  Honore,  a  driveling  failure.  It 
may  live  a  year  or  two,  not  longer.  Truth 
will  triumph.  The  old  Louisiana  will  rise 
again.  She  will  get  back  her  trampled 

rights.  When  she  does,  remem "  His 

voice  failed,  but  he  held  up  one  finger  firmly 
by  way  of  accentuation. 

There  was  a  stir  among  the  kindred. 
Surely  this  was  a  turn  for  the  better.  The 
doctor  ought  to  be  brought  back.  A  little 
while  ago  he  was  not  nearly  so  strong. 

Ask  Honore  if  the  doctor  should  not 
come."  But  Honore  shook  his  head.  The 
old  man  began  again. 

"  Honore  !  Where  is  Honore  ?  Stand 
by  me,  here,  Honore ;  and  sister  ? — on  this 


other  side.  My  eyes  are  very  poor  to-day. 
Why  do  I  perspire  so  ?  Give  me  a  drink. 
You  see — I  am  better  now ;  I  have  ceased 
— to  throw  up  blood.  Nay,  let  me  talk." 
He  sighed,  closed  his  eyes,  and  opened 
them  again  suddenly.  "  Oh,  Honore,  you 
and  the  Yankees — you  and — all — going 
wrong — education — masses — weaken — caste 
— indiscr — quarrels  settl' — by  affidav' — Oh  ! 
Honore"." 

"  If  he  would  only  forget,"  said  one,  in 
an  agonized  whisper,  "  that  philippique  gen- 
ts rale  !" 

Aurora  whispered  earnestly  and  tearfully 
to  Madame  Grandissime.  Surely  they  were 
not  going  to  let  him  go  thus !  A  priest 
could  at  least  do  no  harm.  But  when  the 
proposition  was  made  to  him  by  his  sister, 
he  said : 

"  No ; — no  priest.  You  have  my  will, 
Honore, — in  your  iron  box.  Professor 
Frowenfeld," — he  changed  his  speech  to 
English, — "  I  have  written  you  an  article 
on" — his  words  died  on  his  lips. 

"  Joseph,  son,  I  do  not  see  you.  Be- 
ware, my  son,  of  the  doctrine  of  equal 
rights — a  bottomless  iniquity.  Master  and 
man — arch  and  pier — arch  above — pier  be- 
low." He  tried  to  suit  the  gesture  to  the 
words,  but  both  hands  and  feet  were  grow- 
ing uncontrollably  restless. 

"  Society,  Professor," — he  addressed  him- 
self to  a  weeping  girl, — "  society  has  pyra- 
mids to  build  which  make  menials  a 
necessity,  and  Nature  furnishes  the  menials 
all  in  dark  uniform.  She — I  cannot  tell  you 
— you  will  find — all  in  the  Philippique  Gen- 
erale.  Ah,  Honore,  is  it " 

He  suddenly  ceased. 

"  I  have  lost  my  glasses." 

Beads  of  sweat  stood  out  upon  his  face. 
He  grew  frightfully  pale.  There  was  a 
general  dismayed  haste,  and  they  gave  him 
a  stimulant. 

"  Brother,"  said  the  sister,  tenderly. 

He  did  not  notice  her. 

"  Agamemnon !  Go  and  tell  Jean-Bap- 

tiste "  his  eyes  drooped  and  flashed 

again  wildly. 

"  I  am  here,  Agricole,"  said  the  voice  of 
Jean-Baptiste,  close  beside  the  bed. 

"  I  told  you  to  let — that  negress " 

"  Yes,  we  have  let  her  go.  We  have  let 
all  of  them  go." 

"  All  of  them,"  echoed  the  dying  man, 
feebly,  with  wandering  eyes.  Suddenly  he 
brightened  again  and  tossed  his  arms. 
"Why,  there  you  were  wrong,  Jean-Bap- 
tiste; the  community  must  be  protected." 


820 


THE    GRANDISSIMES. 


His  voice  sank  to  a  murmur.  "  He  would 
not  take  off— you  must  remem — "  He  was 
silent.  "You  must  remem — those  people 
are — are  not — white  people."  He  ceased 
a  moment.  "Where  am  I  going?"  He 
began  evidently  to  look,  or  try  to  look,  for 
some  person;  but  they  could  not  divine 
his  wish  until,  with  piteous  feebleness,  he 
called : 

"  Aurore  De  Grapion  ! " 
So  he  had  known  her  all  the  time. 
Honore's   mother  had   dropped   on  her 
knees    beside    the    bed,   dragging   Aurora 
down  with  her.     They  rose  together. 

The   old   man   groped  distressfully  with 
one  hand.     She  laid  her  own  in  it. 
"  Honore ! " 

"  What  could  he  want  ? "  wondered  the 
tearful  family.  He  was  feeling  about  with 
the  other  hand.  "  Hon — Honore  " — his 
weak  clutch  could  scarcely  close  upon  his 
nephew's  hand. 

"  Put  them — put — put  them " 

What  could  it  mean?  The  four  hands 
clasped. 

"  Ah  ! "  said  one,  with  fresh  tears,  "  he  is 
trying  to  speak  and  cannot." 
But  he  did. 

"Aurore  De  Gra — I  pledge' — pledge' 
— pledged — this  union — to  your  fa — father 
— twenty — years — ago." 

The  family  looked  at  each  other  in  de- 
jected amazement.  They  had  never  known 
it. 

"He  is  going,"  said  Agamemnon;  and 
indeed  it  seemed  as  though  he  was  gone; 
but  he  rallied. 

"  Agamemnon  !  Valentine  !  Honore" !  pa- 
triots !  protect  the  race !  Beware  of  the  " — 
that  sentence  escaped  him.  He  seemed  to 
fancy  himself  haranguing  a  crowd;  made 
another  struggle  for  intelligence,  tried  once, 
twice,  to  speak,  and  the  third  time  suc- 
ceeded; 

"  Louis — Louisian — a — for— ever ! "  and 
lay  still. 

They  put  those  two  words  on  his  tomb. 


CHAPTER    LIX. 
WHERE    SOME   CREOLE    MONEY    GOES. 

AND  yet  the  family  committee  that  orderec 
the  inscription,  the  mason  who  cut  it  in  th 
marble — himself  a  sort  of  half-Grandissime 
half-nobody — and  even  the  fair  women  wh 
each  eve  of  All  Saints  came,  attended  b 
flower-laden  slave  girls,  to  lay  coronals  upon 


he  old  man's  tomb,  felt,  feebly  at  first,  and 
nore  and  more  distinctly  as  years  went  by, 
hat  Forever  was  a  trifle  long  for  one  to 
.onfine  one's  patriotic  affection  to  a  small 
raction  of  a  great  country. 

"  And  you  say  your  family  decline  to 
iccept  the  assistance  of  the  police  in  their 
endeavors  to  bring  the  killer  of  your  uncle 
o  justice  ?  "  asked  some  Americain  or  other 
of  Poly  te  Grandissime. 

"Sir,  mie  fam'lie  do  not  want  to  fetch 
lim  to  justice  ! — neither  Palmyre  !  We  are 
goin'  to  fetch  the  justice  to  them !  and,  sir, 
when  we  cannot  do  that,  sir,  by  ourselves, 
sir, — no,  sir !  no  police  !  " 

So  Clemence  was  the  only  victim  of  the 
family  wrath ;  for  the  other  two  were  never 
taken;  and  it  helps  our  good  feeling  for 
the  Grandissimes  to  know  that  in  later 
times,  under  the  gentler  influences  of  a 
higher  civilization,  their  old  Spanish-colonial 
ferocity  was  gradually  absorbed  by  the 
growth  of  better  traits.  To-day  almost  all 
the  savagery  that  can  justly  be  charged 
against  Louisiana  must — strange  to  say — 
be  laid  at  the  door  of  the  Americain.  The 
Creole  character  has  been  diluted  and 
sweetened. 

One  morning  early  in  September,  some 
two  weeks  after  the  death  of  Agricola,  the 
same  brig  which  something  less  than  a  year 
before  had  brought  the  Frowenfelds  to  New 
Orleans,  crossed,  outward  bound,  the  sharp 
line  dividing  the  sometimes  tawny  waters 
of  Mobile  Bay  from  the  deep  blue  Gulf,  and 
bent  her  way  toward  Europe. 

She  had  two  passengers;  a  tall,  dark, 
wasted  yet  handsome  man  of  thirty-seven 
or  thirty-eight  years  of  age,  and  a  woman 
seemingly  some  three  years  younger,  of 
beautiful  though  severe  countenance ;  "  very 
elegant-looking  people  and  evidently  rich," 
so  the  brig-master  described  them,—"  had 
much  the  look  of  some  of  the  Mississippi  River 
'  Lower  Coast '  aristocracy."  Their  appear- 
ance was  the  more  interesting  for  a  look  of 
mental  distress  evident  on  the  face  of  each. 
Brother  and  sister,  they  called  themselves ; 
but,  if  so,  she  was  the  most  severely  reserved 
and  distant  sister  the  master  of  the  vessel 
had  ever  seen. 

They  landed,  if  the  account  comes  down 
to  us  right,  at  Bordeaux.  The  captain,  a 
fellow  of  the  peeping  sort,  found  pastime  in 
keeping  them  in  sight  after  they  had  passed 
out  of  his  care  ashore.  They  went  to  dif- 
ferent hotels ! 

The  vessel  was  detained  some  weeks  in 


THE   GRANDISSIMES. 


821 


this  harbor,  and  her  master  continued  to 
enjoy  himself  in  the  way  in  which  he  had 
begun.  He  saw  his  late  passengers  meet 
often,  in  a  certain  quiet  path  under  the  trees 
of  the  Quinconce.  Their  conversations 
were  low ;  in  the  patois  they  used  they  could 
have  afforded  to  speak  louder;  their  faces 
were  always  grave  and  almost  always  trou- 
bled. The  interviews  seemed  to  give 
neither  of  them  any  pleasure.  The  Mon- 
sieur grew  thinner  than  ever,  and  sadly 
feeble. 

"  He  wants  to  charter  her,"  the  seaman 
concluded,  "  but  she  doesn't  like  his  rates." 

One  day,  the  last  that  he  saw  them  to- 
gether, they  seemed  to  be,  each  in  a  way 
different  from  the  other,  under  a  great 
strain.  He  was  haggard,  woe-begone,  nerv- 
ous ;  she  high-strung,  resolute, — with  "  eyes 
that  shone  like  lamps,"  as  said  the  observer. 

"  She's  a-sendin'  him  'way  to  lew-ard," 
thought  he.  Finally  the  Monsieur  handed 
her— or  rather  placed  upon  the  seat  near 
which  she  stood,  what  she  would  not  re- 
ceive— a  folded  and  sealed  document, 
seized  her  hand,  kissed  it,  and  hurried 
away.  She  sank  down  upon  the  seat,  weak 
and  pale,  and  rose  to  go,  leaving  the  docu- 
ment behind.  The  mariner  picked  it  up ;  it 
was  directed  to  M.  Honore'  Grandissime, 
Nouvelle  Orleans,  Etats  Unis,  Amerique. 
She  turned  suddenly,  as  if  remembering,  or 
possibly  reconsidering,  and  received  it  from 
him. 

"  It  looked  like  a  last  will  and  testament," 
the  seaman  used  to  say,  in  telling  the  story. 

The  next  morning,  being  at  the  water's 
edge  and  seeing  a  number  of  persons  gath- 
ering about  something  not  far  away,  he 
sauntered  down  toward  it  to  see  how  small 
a  thing  was  required  to  draw  a  crowd  of 
these  Frenchmen.  It  was  the  drowned  body 
of  the  f.  m.  c. 

Did  the  brig-master  never  see  the  woman 
again  ?  He  always  waited  for  this  question 
to  be  asked  him,  in  order  to  state  the  more 
impressively  that  he  did.  His  brig  became 
a  regular  Bordeaux  packet,  and  he  saw  the 
Madame  twice  or  thrice,  apparently  living 

at  great  ease,  but  solitarily,  in  the  rue . 

He  was  free  to  relate  that  he  tried  to  scrape 
acquaintance  with  her,  but  failed  ignomin- 
iously. 

The  rents  of  No.  19  rue  Bienville  and  of 
numerous  other  places,  including  the  new 
drug-store  in  the  rue  Royale,  were  collected 
regularly  by  H.  Grandissime,  successor  to 
Grandissime  Freres.  Rumor  said,  and  tra- 
dition repeats,  that  neither  for  the  advance- 


ment of  a  friendless  people,  nor  even  for  the 
repair  of  the  properties'  wear  and  tear,  did 
one  dollar  of  it  ever  remain  in  New  Or- 
leans ;  but  that  once  a  year  Honore,  "  as 
instructed,"  remitted  to  Madame — say  Ma- 
dame Inconnue — of  Bordeaux,  the  equiv- 
alent, in  francs,  of  fifty  thousand  dollars. 
It  is  averred  he  did  this  without  interruption 
for  twenty  years.  "  Let  us  see :  fifty  times 
twenty — one  million  dollars.  But  that  is 
only  a  part  of  the  pecuniary  loss  which  this 
sort  of  thing  costs  Louisiana." 
But  we  have  wandered. 


CHAPTER    LX. 
"ALL   RIGHT." 

THE  sun  is  once  more  setting  upon  the 
Place  d'Armes.  Once  more  the  shadows 
of  cathedral  and  town-hall  lie  athwart  the 
pleasant  grounds  where  again  the  city's 
fashion  and  beauty  sit  about  in  the  sedate 
Spanish  way,  or  stand  or  slowly  move  in 
and  out  among  the  old  willows  and  along 
the  white  walks.  Children  are  again  play- 
ing on  the  sward ;  some,  you  may  observe, 
are  in  black,  for  Agricola.  You  see,  too,  a 
more  peaceful  river,  a  nearer-seeming  and 
greener  opposite  shore,  and  many  other 
evidences  of  the  drowsy  summer's  unwilling- 
ness to  leave  the  embrace  of  this  seductive 
land;  the  dreamy  quietude  of  birds;  the 
spreading,  folding,  re-expanding  and  slow 
pulsating  of  the  all-prevailing  fan  (how 
like  the  unfolding  of  an  angel's  wing  is  oft- 
times  the  broadening  of  that  little  instru- 
ment !) ;  the  oft-drawn  handkerchief;  the 
pale,  cool  colors  of  summer  costume;  the 
swallow,  circling  and  twittering  overhead 
or  darting  across  the  sight;  the  languid 
movement  of  foot  and  hand;  the  reeking 
flanks  and  foaming  bits  of  horses  ;  the  ear- 
piercing  note  of  the  cicada;  the  dancing 
butterfly ;  the  dog,  dropping  upon  the  grass 
and  looking  up  to  his  master  with  roping 
jaw  and  lolling  tongue ;  the  air  sweetened 
with  the  merchandise  of  the  flower  mar- 
chandes. 

On  the  levee  road,  bridles  and  saddles, 
whips,  gigs,  and  carriages, — what  a  merry 
coming  and  going !  We  look,  perforce, 
toward  the  old  bench  where,  six  months 
ago,  sat  Joseph  Frowenfeld.  There  is 
somebody  there — a  small,  thin,  weary- 
looking  man,  who  leans  his  bared  head 
slightly  back  against  the  tree,  his  thin  fin- 
gers knit  together  in  his  lap  and  his  chapeau- 


822 


THE   GRANDISSIMES. 


bras  pressed  under  his  arm.  You  note 
his  extreme  neatness  of  dress,  the  bright, 
unhealthy  restlessness  of  his  eye,  and — 
as  a  beam  from  the  sun  strikes  them — the 
fineness  of  his  short  red  curls.  It  is  Doc- 
tor Keene. 

He  lifts  his  head  and  looks  forward. 
Honore  and  Frowenfeld  are  walking  arm- 
in-arm  under  the  furthermost  row  of  willows. 
Honor6  is  speaking.  How  gracefully,  in  cor- 
respondence with  his  words,  his  free  arm  or 
hand — sometimes  his  head  or  even  his  lithe 
form — moves  in  quiet  gesture,  while  the  grave, 
receptive  apothecary  takes  into  his  med- 
itative mind,  as  into  a  large,  cool  cistern, 
the  valued  rain-fall  of  his  friend's  communi- 
cations. They  are  near  enough  for  the 
little  doctor  easily  to  call  them ;  but  he  is 
silent.  The  unhappy  feel  so  far  away  from 
the  happy.  Yet — "Take  care!"  comes 
suddenly  to  his  lips,  and  is  almost  spoken ; 
for  the  two,  about  to  cross  toward  the 
Place  d'Armes  at  the  very  spot  where  Au- 
rora had  once  made  her  narrow  escape, 
draw  suddenly  back,  while  the  black  driver 
of  a  volante  reins  up  the  horse  he  bestrides, 
and  the  animal  himself  swerves  and  stops. 

The  two  friends,  though  startled  apart, 
hasten  with  lifted  hats  to  the  side  of  the 
volante,  profoundly  convinced  that  one,  at 
least,  of  its  two  occupants  is  heartily  sorry 
that  they  were  not  rolled  in  the  dust.  Ah, 
ah !  with  what  a  wicked,  ill-stifled  merriment 
those  two  ethereal  women  bent  forward  in 
the  faintly  perfumed  clouds  of  their  ravishing 
summer-evening  garb,  to  express  their  equiv- 
ocal mortification  and  regret. 

"  Oh!  I'm  so  sawry,  oh!  Almoze  runned 
o ah,  ha,  ha,  ha ! " 

Aurora  could  keep  the  laugh  back  no 
longer. 

"  An'  righd  yeh  befo'  haivry  boddie  /  Ah, 
ha,  ha !  'Sieur  Grandissime,  'tis  me-e-e  w'ad 
know  'ow  dad  is  bad,  ha,  ha,  ha!  Oh!  I 
assu'  you,  gen'lemen,  id  is  hawful !  " 

And  so  on. 

By  and  by  Honor6  seemed  urging  them 
to  do  something,  the  thought  of  which  made 
them  laugh,  yet  was  entertained  as  not  en- 
tirely absurd.  It  may  have  been  that  to 
which  they  presently  seemed  to  consent; 
they  alighted  from  the  volante,  dismissed  it, 
and  walked  each  at  a  partner's  side  down 
the  grassy  avenue  of  the  levee.  It  was  as 
Clotilde  with  one  hand  swept  her  light  robes 
into  perfect  adjustment  for  the  walk,  and 
turned  to  take  the  first  step  with  Frowenfeld, 
that  she  raised  her  eyes  for  the  merest  in- 
stant to  his,  and  there  passed  between  them 


an  exchange  of  glance  which  made  the  heart 
of  the  little  doctor  suddenly  burn  like  a  ball 
of  fire. 

"  Now  we're  all  right,"  he  murmured 
bitterly  to  himself,  as,  without  having  seen 
him,  she  took  the  arm  of  the  apothecary, 
and  they  moved  away. 

Yes,  if  his  irony  was  meant  for  this  pair, 
he  divined  correctly.  Their  hearts  had 
found  utterance  across  the  lips,  and  the 
future  stood  waiting  for  them  on  the  thresh- 
old of  a  new  existence,  to  usher  them  into 
a  perpetual  copartnership  in  all  its  joys 
and  sorrows,  its  disappointments,  its  imper- 
ishable hopes,  its  aims,  its  conflicts,  its 
rewards ;  and  the  true — the  great — the  ever- 
lasting God  of  love  was  with  them.  Yes, 
it  had  been  "  all  right,"  now,  for  nearly 
twenty-four  hours — an  age  of  bliss.  And 
now,  as  they  walked  beneath  the  willows 
where  so  many  lovers  had  walked  before 
them,  they  had  whole  histories  to  tell  of  the 
tremors,  the  dismays,  the  misconstructions 
and  longings  through  which  their  hearts  had 
come  to  this  bliss ;  how  at  such  a  time,  thus 
and  so ;  and-  after  such  and  such  a  meeting, 
so  and  so ;  no  part  of  which  was  heard  by 
alien  ears,  except  a  fragment  of  Clotilde's 
speech  caught  by  a  small  boy  in  uninten- 
tioned  ambush. 

" Evva  sinze  de  •  firze  nighd  w'en  I 

big-in  to  nurze  you  wid  de  fivver." 

She  was  telling  him,  with  that  new,  sweet 
boldness  so  wonderful  to  a  lately  accepted 
lover,  how  long  she  had  loved  him. 

Later  on  they  parted  at  the  porte-cochere. 
Honore  and  Aurora  had  got  there  before 
them,  and  were  passing  on  up  the  stairs. 
Clotilde,  catching,  a  moment  before,  a 
glimpse  of  her  face,  had  seen  that  there  was 
something  wrong;  weather-wise  as  to  its 
indications  she  perceived  an  impending 
shower  of  tears.  A  faint  shade  of  anxiety 
rested  an  instant  on  her  own  face.  Frowen- 
feld could  not  go  in.  They  paused  a  little 
within  the  obscurity  of  the  corridor,  and  just 
to  re-assure  themselves  that  everything  was 
"  all  right,"  they 

God  be  praised  for  love's  young  dream ! 

The  slippered  feet  of  the  happy  girl,  as 
she  slowly  mounted  the  stair  alone,  over- 
burdened with  the  weight  of  her  blissful 
reverie,  made  no  sound.  As  she  turned  its 
mid-angle  she  remembered  Aurora.  She 
could  guess  pretty  well  the  source  of  her 
trouble;  Honore"  was  trying  to  treat  that 
hand-clasping  at  the  bedside  of  Agricola  as 
a  binding  compact ;  "  which,  of  course,  was 
not  fair."  She  supposed  they  would  have 


THE    GRANDISSIMES. 


823 


gone  into  the  front  drawing-room;  she 
would  go  into  the  back.  But  she  miscalcu- 
lated; as  she  silently  entered  the  door  she 
saw  Aurora  standing  a  little  way  beyond 
her,  close  before  Honore,  her  eyes  cast 
down,  and  the  trembling  fan  hanging  from 
her  two  hands  like  a  broken  pinion.  He 
seemed  to  be  reiterating,  in  a  tender  under- 
tone, some  question  intended  to  bring  her 
to  a  decision.  She  lifted  up  her  eyes 
toward  his  with  a  mute,  frightened  glance. 

The  intruder,  with  an  involuntary  mur- 
mur of  apology,  drew  back;  but,  as  she 
turned,  she  was  suddenly  and  unspeakably 
saddened  to  see  Aurora  drop  her  glance, 
and,  with  a  solemn  slowness  whose  moment- 
ous significance  was  not  to  be  mistaken, 
silently  shake  her  head. 

"Alas!"  cried  the  tender  heart  of  Clo- 
tilde.  "  Alas !  M.  Grandissime !  " 


CHAPTER    LXI. 
"  NO  !  " 

IF  M.  Grandissime  had  believed  that  he 
was  prepared  for  the  supreme  bitterness  of 
that  moment,  he  had  sadly  erred.  He 
could  not  speak.  He  extended  his  hand  in 
a  dumb  farewell,  when,  all  unsanctioned  by 
his  will,  the  voice  of  despair  escaped  him  in 
a  low  groan.  At  the  same  moment,  a  tink- 
ling sound  drew  near,  and  the  room,  which 
had  grown  dark  with  the  fall  of  night,  began 
to  brighten  with  the  softly  widening  light 
of  an  evening  lamp,  as  a  servant  approached 
to  place  it  in  the  front  drawing-room. 

Aurora  gave  her  hand  and  withdrew  it. 
In  the  act  the  two  somewhat  changed  posi- 
tion, and  the  rays  of  the  lamp,  as  the  maid 
passed  the  door,  falling  upon  Aurora's  face, 
betrayed  the  again  upturned  eyes. 

"  'Sieur  Grandissime " 

They  fell. 

The  lover  paused. 

"  You  thing  I'm  crool.' 

She  was  the  statue  of  meekness. 

"Hope  has  been  crhuel  to  me,"  replied 
M.  Grandissime,  "not  you;  that  I  cannot 
say.  Adieu." 

He  was  turning. 

"  'Sieur  Grandissime " 

She  seemed  to  tremble. 

He  stood  still. 

"  'Sieur  Grandissime," — her  voice  was 
very  tender, — "  wad  you'  horry  ?  " 

There  was  a  great  silence. 

"  'Sieur  Grandissime,  you  know — teg  a 
chair." 


He  hesitated  a  moment  and  then  both 
sat  down.  The  servant  repassed  the  door; 
yet,  when  Aurora  broke  the  silence,  she 
spoke  in  English — having  such  hazardous 
things  to  say.  It  would  conceal  possible 
stammerings. 

"  'Sieur  Grandissime, — you  know  dad 
riz'n  I " 

She  slightly  opened  her  fan,  looking  down 
upon  it,  and  was  still. 

"  I  have  no  rhight  to  ask  the  rheason," 
said  M.  Grandissime.  "  It  is  yo's — not 
mine." 

Her  head  went  lower. 

"  Well,  you  know," — she  drooped  it  med- 
itatively to  one  side,  with  her  eyes  on  the 
floor, — "  'tis  bick-ause — 'tis  bick-ause  I  thing 
in  a  few  days  I'm  goin'  to  die." 

M.  Grandissime  said  never  a  word.  He 
was  not  alarmed. 

She  looked  up  suddenly  and  took  a  quick 
breath,  as  if  to  resume,  but  her  eyes  fell  be- 
fore his,  and  she  said,  in  a  tone  of  half-solil- 
oquy: 

"  I  'ave  so  mudge  troub'  wid  dad  hawt." 

She  lifted  one  little  hand  feebly  to  the 
cardiac  region,  and  sighed  softly,  with  a  dy- 
ing languor. 

M.  Grandissime  gave  no  response.  A 
vehicle  rumbled  by  in  the  street  below,  and 
passed  away.  At  the  bottom  of  the  room, 
where  a  gilded  Mars  was  driving  into  bat- 
tle, a  soft  note  told  the  half-hour.  The 
lady  spoke  again. 

"  Id  mague  " — she  sighed  once  more — 
"  so  strange, — sometime'  I  thing  I'm  git'n' 
crezzy." 

Still  he  to  whom  these  fearful  disclosures 
were  being  made  remained  as  silent  and 
motionless  as  an  Indian  captive,  and,  after 
another  pause,  with  its  painful  accompani- 
ment of  small  sounds,  the  fair  speaker  re- 
sumed with  more  energy,  as  befitting  the 
approach  to  an  incredible  climax : 

"  Some  day',  'Sieur  Grandissime, — id 
mague  me  fo'gid  my  hage !  I  thing  I'm 
young ! " 

She  lifted  her  eyes  with  the  evident  deter- 
mination to  meet  his  own  squarely,  but  it 
was  too  much ;  they  fell  as  before ;  yet  she 
went  on  speaking : 

"  An"  w'en  someboddie  git'n'  ti'ed  livin' 
wid  'imsev  an'  big'n'  to  fill  ole,  an'  wan' 
someboddie  to  teg  de  care  of  'im  an'  wan' 
me  to  gid  marri'd  wid  'im — I  thing  'e's  in 
love  to  me."  Her  fingers  kept  up  a  little 
shuffling  with  the  fan.  "  I  thing  I'm  crezzy. 
I  thing  I  muz  be  go'n'  to  die  torecklie." 
She  looked  up  to  the  ceiling  with  large  eyes, 


824 


AMONG    THE   REEDS. 


and  then  again  at  the  fan  in  her  lap,  which 
continued  its  spreading  and  shutting.  "An' 
daz  de  riz'n',  'Sieur  Grandissime."  She 
waited  until  it  was  certain  he  was  about  to 
answer,  and  then  interrupted  him  nervously  : 
"  You  know,  'Sieur  Grandissime,  id  woon  be 
righd!  Id  woon  be  de  juztiz  to  you/  An' 
you  de  bez  man  I  evva  know  in  my  life, 
'Sieur  Grandissime!"  Her  hands  shook. 
"  A  man  w'at  nevva  wan'  to  gid  marri'd 
wid  noboddie  in  'is  life,  an'  now  trine  to  gid 
marri'd  juz  only  to  rip-ose  de  soul  of  'is 
oncl'  -  " 

M.  Grandissime  uttered  an  exclamation 
of  protest,  and  she  ceased. 

"  I  asked  you,"  continued  he,  with  low- 
toned  emphasis,  "fo'  the  single  and  only 
rheason  that  I  want  you  fo'  my  wife  !  " 

"  Yez,"  she  quickly  replied  ;  "  daz  all. 
Daz  wad  I  thing.  An'  I  thing  daz  de  rad 
weh  to  say,  'Sieur  Grandissime.  Bick-ause, 
you  know,  you  an'  me  is  too  hole  to  talg 
aboud  dad  lovin\  you  know.  An'  you  godd 
dad  grade  rizpeg  fo'  me,  an'  me  I  godd  dad 
'ighez  rizpeg  fo'  you  ;  bud  -  "  she  clutched 
the  fan  and  her  face  sank  lower  still  — 
she  swallowed  —  shook  her  head 
"  She  bit  her  lip;  she  could 


—  "bud 
not  go  on. 

"  Aurora,"  said  the  lover,  bending  forward 
and  taking  one  of  her  hands,  "  I  do  love 
you  with  all  my  soul." 

She  made  a  poor  attempt  to  withdraw 
her  hand,  abandoned  the  effort,  and  looked 
up  savagely  through  a  pair  of  overflowing 
eyes,  demanding  : 

"Mais,  fo'  w'y  you  di'n'  wan'  to  sesso  ?  " 

M.  Grandissime  smiled  argumentatively. 


"  I  have  said  so  a  hundrhed  times,  in 
everhy  way  but  in  words." 

She  lifted  her  head  proudly,  and  bowed 
like  a  queen. 

"  Mais,  you  see,  'Sieur  Grandissime,  you 
bin  meg  one  mizteg." 

"  Bud  'tis  corrhected  in  time,"  exclaimed 
he,  with  suppressed  but  eager  joyousness. 

"  'Sieur  Grandissime,"  she  said,  with  a 
tremendous  solemnity,  "  I'm  verrie  sawrie, 
mats — you  spogue  too  lade." 

"  No,  no ! "  he  cried,  "  the  corrhection 
comes  in  time.  Say  that,  lady;  say  that!" 

His  ardent  gaze  beat  hers  once  more 
down;  but  she  shook  her  head.  He  ignored 
the  motion. 

"  And  you  will  corrhect  yo'  answeh ;  ah ! 
say  that,  too ! "  he  insisted,  covering  the  cap- 
tive hand  with  both  his  own,  and  leaning 
forward  from  his  seat. 

"Mais,  'Sieur  Grandissime,  you  know, 
dad  is  so  verrie  unegspeg'." 

"Oh!  unexpected!" 

"  Mais,  I  was  thing  all  dad  time  id  was 
Clotilde  wad  you " 

She  turned  her  face  away  and  buried  her 
mouth  in  her  handkerchief. 

"Ah!"  he  cried,  "mock  me  no  mo', 
Aurore  Nancanou!" 

He  rose  erect  and  held  the  hand  firmly 
which  she  strove  to  draw  away : 

"Say  the  word,  sweet  lady;  say  the 
word ! " 

She  turned  upon  him  suddenly,  rose  to 
her  feet,  was  speechless  an  instant  while  her 
eyes  flashed  into  his,  and  crying  out : 

"  No ! "  burst  into  tears,  laughed  through 
them,  and  let  him  clasp  her  to  his  bosom. 


AMONG  THE  REEDS. 

AMONG  the  reeds,  beside  a  singing  fountain, 

Silenus  sat,  when  life  was  young  and  gay, 
And  piped  until  the  echoes  from  the  mountain 

Awoke  the  birds  as  if  at  break  of  day. 

The  fount  is  dry,  and  no  more  old  Silenus 

Makes  singing  sweet  re-echo  on  the  shore. 
Great  Pan  is  dead;  the  exiled  fauns  have  seen  us 

Walk  with  bowed  heads,  where  blithe  they  danced  before. 


JEAN  FRANCOIS  MILLET— PEASANT  AND  PAINTER.  825 


JEAN    FRANgOIS   MILLET— PEASANT  AND    PAINTER.      II. 


SHEPHERDESS. 


IT  was  in  January,  1837,  that  Millet 
arrived  in  Paris.  He  had  several  letters  of 
recommendation  for  friends  or  relations  of 
important  men  in  Cherbourg.  He  went  to  M. 
Georges,  then  expert  in  the  Royal  Museum. 
Georges  received  him  kindly,  and  asked  him 
VOL.  XX.— 54. 


what  he  could  do.  Millet  unrolled  a  big 
drawing,  some  six  feet  high,  on  paper. 
Georges,  surprised,  showed  it  to  his  friends 
and  pupils  who  were  there,  and  who  cried 
out :  "  We  didn't  know  they  could  do  this 
in  the  provinces  !  "  "  It  is  very  good," 


826          JEAN  FRANCOIS  MILLET— PEASANT  AND  PAINTER. 


repeated  M.  Georges;  "  you  must  stay  with 
me ;  it  will  be  of  great  use  to  you.  I  can 
let  you  see  the  museums,  introduce  you  to 
celebrated  artists,  and  get  you  into  the 
School  of  the  Beaux  Arts,  where  you  can 
compete,  and  where  you  will  be  sure  soon 
to  get  the  prize,  at  the  rate  you  are  going." 

Millet  left  him,  and  his  drawing.  He 
intended  returning  to  see  M.  Georges,  but 
on  the  way  he  thought  of  the  school,  the 
competing  for  a  prize,  and  the  discipline 
that  all  in  a  school  would,  of  course,  have 
to  submit  to.  "All  this  seemed  to  me  a 
constraint  which  I  could  not  contemplate 
without  horror.  I  said  to  myself  that  M. 
Georges,  who  had  been  so  kind,  and  seemed 
so  sure  of  guiding  me — how  difficult  it  would 
be  to  make  him  understand  that  this  way 
of  study,  striving  to  excel  others,  unknown 
to  me,  in  cleverness  and  quickness,  was 
antipathetic  !  "  In  fact,  Millet  resolved  not 
to  return  to  M.  Georges,  and  the  drawing 
was  sent  back  to  him  later. 

At  the  house  of  Monsieur  L (to  whom 

he  had  a  letter),  they  gave  him  a  clean  little 
room  on  the  fifth  floor,  whose  outlook  was 
the  roofs  and  chimneys  of  a  court-yard  : 

"  Life   at  M.    L 's   was   very  weary.     Mine. 

L was  a  cross  woman,  who  tried  to  make  me  go 

to  see  the  sights  of  Paris — the  dancers,  the  students' 
balls — and  who  reproached  me  with  my  awkward 
ways  and  my  timidity.  The  house  froze  me,  and  I 
was  only  happy  on  the  quays.  One  day  I  went  to 
the  Chaumiere ;  the  dances  of  this  pushing  crowd  of 
people  disgusted  me ;  I  preferred  the  heavy  pleasures 
and  real  drunkards  of  the  country." 

Millet  did  not  stay  long  with  M.  L . 

To  continue  his  account : 

"  During  the  first  days  of  my  stay  in  Paris,  my 
fixed  idea  was  to  go  and  see  the  old  museum.  I 
went  out  early  with  this  intention,  yet,  being  afraid  to 
ask  the  way  for  fear  of  being  laughed  at,  I  wandered 
at  random,  hoping  the  museum  would  come  to  meet 
me.  I  got  lost  several  days  in  looking  for  it.  In 
this  search  one  day  I  came  upon  N6tre  Dame,  which 
I  thought  less  beautiful  than  the  cathedral  of  Cout- 
ances.  The  Luxembourg  seemed  to  me  a  fine 
palace,  but  too  regular,  and  like  the  work  of  a 
coquettish  and  mediocre  builder.  Finally,  without' 
knowing  how,  I  found  myself  on  the  Pont  Neuf, 
from  which  I  saw  a  magnificent  building,  which 
I  thought  must  be  the  Louvre,  from  the  descriptions 
I  had  heard  of  it.  I  went  to  it,  and  mounted  the  great 
stair-way  with  a  beating  heart.  I  had  attained  one 
great  object  of  my  life. 

"  I  had  augured  correctly  as  to  what  I  should  see. 
It  seemed  to  me  that  I  was  in  a  world  of  friends,  in 
a  family  where  all  that  I  beheld  was  the  reality  of 
my  dreams.  For  a  month  the  masters  were  my 
only  occupation  during  the  day.  I  observed  them 
all,  devoured  them,  analyzed  them,  and  returned  to 
them  ceaselessly.  The  early  ones  drew  me  by  their 
admirable  expression  of  gentleness,  holiness  and  fer- 
vor;  the  great  Italians,  by  their  knowledge  and  their 


charm  of  composition.  Sometimes  the  arrows  of  St. 
Sebastian  seemed  to  go  through  me,  when  I  looked 
at  Mantegna's  Martyrs.  Those  masters  are  mag- 
netic; they  give  you  the  joys  and  sorrows  which 
trouble  them  ;  they  are  incomparable.  But  when  I 
saw  a  drawing  of  Michael  Angelo's, — a  man  in  a 
swoon, — that  was  another  thing  !  The  expression  of 
the  relaxed  muscles,  the  planes  and  modeling  of  this 
figure,  weighed  down  by  physical  suffering,  gave  me 
a  succession  of  feelings.  I  was  tormented  by  pain. 
I  pitied  him.  I  suffered  with  that  same  body,  those 
very  limbs.  I  saw  that  he  who  had  done  that  was 
capable,  with  a  single  figure,  to  personify  the  good  or 
evil  of  all  humanity.  It  was  Michael  Angelo — that 
says  all.  I  had  already  seen  mediocre  engravings 
from  him  in  Cherbourg ;  here  I  first  touched  the 
heart  and  heard  the  speech  of  him  who  has  so 
haunted  me  all  my  life. 

"  I  then  went  to  the  Luxembourg.  With  the  ex- 
ception of  the  pictures  of  Delacroix,  which  I  thought 
great  in  gesture,  invention  and  color,  I  found  nothing 
remarkable.  Everywhere  wax  figures,  conventional 
costumes,  and  a  disgusting  flatness  of  invention  and 
expression. 

"The  '  Elizabeth'  and  the  '  Princes  in  the  Tower' 
of  Delaroche  were  there,  and  I  was  to  go  to  the  studio 
of  Delaroche, — these  pictures  did  not  make  me  wish 
to  go.  I  could  see  in  them  nothing  but  big  illustra- 
tions and  theatrical  effects  without  real  feeling,  every- 
where posing  and  stage  scenes.  The  Luxembourg 
gave  me  my  antipathy  to  the  theater,  and  although  I 
was  not  indifferent  to  the  celebrated  dramas  then 
being  acted,  1  must  confess  to  having  always  had  a 
decided  repulsion  to  the  exaggerations,  the  falseness 
and  silliness  of  actors  and  actresses.  I  have  since 
seen  something  of  their  little  world,  and  I  have  be- 
come convinced  that  by  always  trying  to  put  them- 
selves in  some  other  person's  place,  they  have  lost 
the  understanding  of  their  own  personality;  that 
they  only  talk  in  '  character,'  and  that  truth,  com- 
mon-sense, and  the  simple  feeling  of  plastic  art  are 
lost  to  them.  To  paint  well  and  naturally,  I  think 
one  should  avoid  the  theater. 

"  Many  a  time  I  was  half  inclined  to  leave  Paris 
and  return  to  my  village,  I  was  so  tired  of  the  lonely 
life  I  lived.  I  saw  no  one,  did  not  speak  to  a  soul, 
did  not  dare  ask  a  question,  I  dreaded  ridicule  so 
much, — and  yet  no  one  noticed  me.  I  had  the  awk- 
wardness which  I  have  never  lost,  and  which  still 
troubles  me  when  I  am  obliged  to  speak  to  a  stran- 
ger or  ask  the  simplest  question.  I  was  of  a  great 
mind  to  do  my  ninety  leagues  in  one  stretch,  like  my 
uncle  Jumelin,  and  say  to  my  family  *  I've  come 
home  and  I'm  done  with  painting ;  '  but  the  Louvre 
had  bewitched  me.  I  went  back  and  was  consoled. 
Fra  Angelico  filled  me  with  visions,  and  when  I 
returned  at  night  to  my  miserable  lodging,  I  did  not 
want  to  think  of  anything  but  those  gentle  masters 
who  made  beings  so  fervent  that  they  are  beautiful, 
and  so  nobly  beautiful  that  they  are  good. 

"  It  has  been  said  that  I  was  very  much  taken  up 
with  the  XVIII.  century  masters,  because  I  made  cop- 
ies of  Watteau  and  Boucher.  I  have  a  decided  repug- 
nance for  Boucher.  I  saw  his  knowledge,  his  talent, 
but  I  could  not  look  at  his  suggestive  subjects  and  sad 
women  without  thinking  it  was  all  a  very  poor  kind 
of  '  nature. '  Boucher  did  not  paint  naked  women, 
but  little  undressed  creatures  :  it  was  not  the  luxu- 
riant exhibition  of  the  women  of  Titian,  so  proud  of 
their  beauty,  and  so  sure  of  their  power,  that  they 
show  themselves  naked.  It  is  not  chaste,  but  it  is 
strong,  and  great  in  its  femininity.  It  is  art,  and 
good  art.  But  the  poor  little  ladies  of  Boucher, 
with  their  thin  legs,  their  feet  deformed  by  high- 


JEAN  FRANCOIS  MILLET— PEASANT  AND  PAINTER. 


827 


heeled  slippers,  their  waists  pinched  by  corsets,  their 
useless  hands  and  bloodless  breasts,  are  all  repulsive 
to  me.  As  I  stood  before  the  so  much  copied  '  Diana ' 
of  Boucher,  I  thought  I  could  see  the  Marquises 
of  his  time,  painted  by  him  for  no  very  laudable 
reason,  and  whom  he  had  undressed  and  posed  in 
his  studio,  which  was  transformed  into  a  landscape. 
I  went  back  to  the  '  Diana '  of  the  antique — so  beau- 
tiful, so  noble,  and  whose  forms  are  all  distinguished. 
Boucher  was  only  a  seducer. 

"  Nor  was  Watteau  my  man.  *  *  *  I  could  see 
the  charm  of  his  palette,  and  the  delicacy  of  expres- 
sion of  these  little  stage  men  condemned  to  laugh. 


the  canvases  where  the  thought  was  concisely  and 
strongly  expressed. 

"  I  liked  Murillo  in  his  portraits,  Ribera  in  his 
St.  Bartholomew  and  Centaurs.  I  liked  everything 
strong,  and  would  have  given  all  Boucher  for  one  of 
Rubens's  nude  women.  It  was  only  later  that  I  came 
to  know  Rembrandt;  he  did  not  repel  me  but  he 
blinded  me.  *  *  *  I  only  knew  Velasquez,  who  is 
so  much  sought  after  nowadays,  by  his  '  Infanta,' 
in  the  Louvre.  He  is  certainly  a  painter  '  de  race? 
and  of  pure  blood,  yet  his  compositions  seem  to  me 
empty.  Apollo  and  Vulcan  is  poor  in  invention ; 
his  '  Winders '  are  not  winding  anything.  The 


SHEPHERDESS    KNITTING. 


But  I  always  thought  of  marionettes,  and  I  said  to 
myself:  'The  whole  little  troupe  will  be  shut  up  in 
a  box,  after  the  play,  to  weep  over  their  fate. '  I  was 
rather  interested  in  Lesueur,  Lebrun  and  Jouvenet, 
because  they  seemed  to  me  very  strong.  Lesueur  had 
a  great  effect  on  me,  and  I  think  him  one  of  the 
great  souls  of  our  French  school ;  as  Poussin  was  the 
prophet,  the  sage,  and  the  philosopher,  while  also  the 
most  eloquent  teller  of  a  story.  I  could  pass  my  life 
face  to  face  with  the  work  of  Poussin,  and  never  be 
tired.  Well,  I  lived  at  the  Louvre,  at  the  Spanish 
Museum,  the  Standish  Museum,  and  among  the 
drawings,  and  my  attention  was  always  directed  to 


painter  remains,  and  he  is  a  strong  painter.  I  was 
never  tempted  to  make  a  copy  of  these  masters.  It 
seemed  to  me  that  a  copy  was  an  impossibility,  and 
that  it  could  never  have  the  spontaneity  and  fire  of  the 
original.  One  day,  however,  I  spent  the  whole  day 
in  front  of  the  '  Concert  Champe'tre,'  of  Giorgione. 
I  could  not  weary  of  it.  It  was  already  three  o'clock 
when,  mechanically,  I  took  a  little  canvas  belonging 
to  a  friend,  and  began  a  sketch  of  the  picture.  Four 
o'clock  sounded,  and  the  dreadful  '  onferme '  of  the 
guardians  turned  me  out :  but  I  had  made  enough  of 
a  sketch  to  give  me  pleasure,  like  a  run  into  the  coun- 
try. Giorgione  had  opened  the  country  to  me.  I 


828          JEAN  FRANCOIS  MILLET— PEASANT  AND  PAINTER. 


had  found  consolation  with  him.  Since  then  I  have 
been  too  wise  to  attempt  a  copy,  even  of  something 
of  my  own ;  I  am  incapable  of  that  sort  of  thing. 

"  Except  Michael  Angelo  and  Poussin,  I  have  held 
to  my  first  leaning  toward  the  early  masters — sub- 
jects as  simple  as  childhood,  unconscious  expression, 
creatures  that  say  nothing  but  are  full  of  life,  or 
who  suffer  patiently  without  a  moan,  without  a  cry, 
submitting  to  the  law  of  human  life  without  dream- 
ing of  calling  any  one  to  account  for  it.  *  *  * 

"  In  the  end  I  had  to  decide  to  learn  my  trade  and 
go  into  a  studio.  I  did  not  think  anything  of  the 
painters  who  taught.  Hersent,  Drolling,  Leon  Cog- 
niet,  Abel  de  Pujol,  Picot,  ail  professors  who  were 
then  sought  after,  were  quite  indifferent  to  me,  and 
also  Ingres,  of  whom  I  had  not  then  seen  the  slight- 
est picture. 

"  I  waited  on  and  on,  reading  Vasari  in  the  library 
of  Ste.  Genevieve,  for  fear  I  should  be  asked  ques- 
tions about  the  history  of  the  painters  and  their 
lives,  and  finally  decided  to  see  some  one  who  would 
find  me  a  studio.  I  had  a  great  dread  of  this  future 
teacher,  and  kept  putting  off  the  evil  moment.  One 
morning  I  got  up,  determined  to  brave  the  worst. 
Well,  I  was  admitted  to  the  studio  of  Paul  Delaroche, 
the  painter  whom  every  one  pointed  to  as  the  great- 
est talent  of  that  time.  I  trembled  when  I  entered. 
It  was  a  new  world  to  me,  but  I  got  used  to  it,  and 
ended  by  not  being  altogether  unhappy.  I  found  some 
good  souls,  a  kind  of  cleverness,  and  a  language 
which  I  had  never  dreamed  of, — it  seemed  to  me  a 
tiresome  and  incomprehensible  jargon.  The  puns 
of  the  Delaroche  studio  made  the  boys  famous.  They 
talked  about  everything,  even  politics  ;  it  was  rather 
too  much  for  me  to  hear  them  chatter  about  the 
'  Phalanstery,'  but  I  took  root  at  last,  and  my  home- 
sickness was  a  little  mitigated. " 

Paul  Delaroche  was  then  the  most  fashion- 
able painter.  His  atelier  was  divided  into  two 
classes,  the  "cast"  for  beginners  and  that  of 
the  life  models.  Millet  found  a  group  of 
young  men,  not  unknown  later.  Couture, 
Hebert,  Cavalier  the  sculptor,  Gendron, 
fidouard  Frere,  Yvon,  etc.,  etc. 

In  entering  this  new  world,  Millet  imposed 
upon  himself  the  strictest  silence  and  circum- 
spection. Like  a  true  peasant,  he  let  others 
approach  him,  and  answered  little.  They 
tried  to  make  out  this  puzzling  countryman. 
They  apostrophized,  joked,  and  teased  him, 
but  Millet  answered  nothing,  or,  with  his  fists, 
threatened  those  who  went  too  far,  and,  as 
he  was  built  like  a  Hercules,  they  let  him 
alone,  giving  him  the  nickname  of  the  "  man 
of  the  woods."  His  first  drawing  was 
from  the  Germanicus.  On  Monday  the 
drawing  was  begun,  it  had  to  be  finished 
by  Saturday.  Thursday,  Millet  had  fin- 
ished his  figure.  Delaroche  came,  looked  at 
the  drawing  a  long  time,  and  said:  "You 
are  a  new-comer.  Well,  you  know  too  much 
and  not  enough."  That  was  all  he  said. 
Couture,  who  was  in  the  life  class,  came  in 
to  see  the  antique  class,  and  said  to  him : 
"  Hello,  nouveau  !  do  you  know  that  your 
drawing  is  good  ?  "  Some  time  after  he  was 


severely  criticised.  The  originality  of  his 
studies,  where  knowledge  was  wanting,  and 
where  the  spirit  was  everything,  surprised  the 
studio,  but  did  not  make  them  understand 
him.  All  but  one  or  two  pupils  considered 
him  as  a  curious  being  without  a  future;  an 
obstinate  fellow,  who  took  the  pose  of  eccen- 
tric drawing;  a  mutineer  in  the  academic 
camp,  a  schismatic  in  their  worship  of  De- 
laroche. When  he  passed  into  the  life 
school  he  had  the  same  trial.  His  first 
figure,  nevertheless,  was  a  success.  Dela- 
roche said  :  "  It  is  easy  to  see  that  you  have 
painted  a  great  deal!"  He  had  never 
touched  a  palette  before.  In  his  heart  Mil- 
let was  struck  by  the  insufficiency  of  the  mas- 
ter, who  never  gave  him  serious  advice,  and 
who  did  not  even  make  the  impression  of  a 
man  who  knows  and  can  teach. 

Sometimes  the  truth  came  out.  To  a 
student  who  did  not  render  the  ensemble  of 
a  life  study,  Delaroche  said  :  "  Look  at  Mil- 
let,— notice  how  he  sees  light  on  a  nude 
figure." 

When  Delaroche  was  painting  the  "  Hemi- 
cycle,"  he  often  talked  of  it  to  the  students 
in  his  atelier.  Millet  was  once  much  abused 
by  his  comrades  about  a  drawing,  one  of 
whom  said,  violently :  "  There  he  is  again, 
drawing  from  chic"  (out  of  his  head),  "and 
inventing  his  muscles."  Delaroche,  coming 
in  at  the  moment,  said :  "  Gentlemen,  the 
study  of  nature  is  indispensable,  but  you  must 
also  know  how  to  work  from  memory.  He  is 
right "  (pointing  to  Millet)  "  to  use  his  mem- 
ory. When  I  began  my  '  Hemicycle,'  I 
thought  that  letting  the  model  stand,  I  could 
get  the  attitude  of  my  personages,  but  I 
soon  found  I  would  have  fine  models,  with 
no  cohesion  among  them.  I  saw  that  one 
must  invent,  create,  order,  and  produce 
figures  appropriate  to  each  individuality.  I 
had  to  use  my  memory.  Do  as  he  does,  if 
you  can." 

Soon  after  this  Millet  left  the  atelier.  A 
comrade  met  him  one  day,  and  told  him  the 
"  patron  "  wanted  to  see  him  about  some 
work  on  the  "  Hemicycle."  Millet  deferred 
to  his  orders,  and  went  to  the  Palace  of  the 
Beaux  Arts.  Delaroche  was  working  in  the 
midst  of  his  aids.  He  came  to  Millet  and 
drew  him  into  another  room,  and  rolling  two 
cigarettes,  silently  offered  one  to  Millet,  and 
then  said :  "  Why  don't  you  come  to  the 
studio  any  more  ?"  "  Because,  sir,  I  can't 
pay  the  janitor's  tax."  "  You  are  wrong.  I 
don't  want  you  to  leave  the  studio ;  come 
back.  I  have  spoken  to  Poisson  "  (the  jani- 
tor)," only  don't  say  anything  about  it  to  the 


JEAN  FRANCOIS  MILLET— PEASANT  AND  PAINTER.  829 


others,  and  do  just  what  you  like — big 
things,  figures,  studies — but  don't  talk  about 
it  to  the  others.  I  like  to  see  your  work  ; 
you  are  not  like  other  people,  and  I  will  tell 
you  what  work  you  can  do  with  me." 

Millet  was  touched,  and  went  back. 

At  last  the  moment  came  for  competi- 
tion for  the  great  "  Prix  de  Rome."  Millet 
was  admitted,  and  worked  with  talent  at  the 
figure.  Delaroche  was  struck  with  the  origi- 
nal view  he  had  taken  of  the  subject.  His 
conscience  was  moved.  He  called  Millet, 
and  said  : 

"  You  want  the  '  Prix  de  Rome'?" 

"  That  is  the  reason  I  compete." 

"  I  find  your  composition  very  good,  but 
I  must  tell  you  that  I  especially  want  Roux 
appointed;  but  next  year  I  will  use  all  my 
influence  for  you." 

Edified  by  this  announcement,  Millet  left 
the  studio,  and  feeling  that  he  must  rely 
upon  himself  alone  for  instruction  and  pro- 
tection, he  went  to  Suisse,  who  had  an 
academy  of  models. 

One  student  in  Delaroche's  studio  had 
come  near  to  the  "  man  of  the  woods."  It 
was  Marolle,  son  of  a  varnish  manufacturer, 
whose  family  could  afford  to  make  the  art- 
life  he  had  chosen  easy  to  him.  Musset,  at 
that  time,  was  the  vade  mecum  of  all  the 
young  people.  Marolle  knew  him  by  heart, 
declaimed  him,  painted  him,  and  even  wrote 
verses  which  were  not  without  merit,  but 
which  had  the  fault  of  being  too  much 
like  the  poetry  of  the  author  of  "  Rolla." 
"  Musset  gives  you  a  fever,"  said  Millet, 
"  but  that  is  all  he  knows  how  to  do.  A 
charming  mind,  capricious,  and  profoundly 
poisoned,  all  he  can  do  is  to  disenchant, 
corrupt,  or  discourage.  The  fever  goes,  and 
one  is  left  without  strength,  like  a  convales- 
cent who  needs  air,  sun  and  stars." 

But  life  became  difficult  in  the  little  stu- 
dio, rue  de  1'Est. 

«  What  shall  I  do  ?  "  said  Millet.  "  Peo- 
ple reaping  and  making  hay  ?  " 

"  You  can't  sell  them,"  said  Marolle. 

"  But  fauns  and  forest  life  ?  " 

"  Who  knows  anything  about  fauns  in 
Paris  ?  " 

"Well,  what  then?" 

"They  like  Boucher,  Watteau,  illustra- 
tions— nude  women.  You  must  do  things 
in  that  style ! " 

Millet  at  last  decided  to  submit  to  the 
necessities  of  life.  He  did  not  wish  to  let 
his  family  know  of  his  wants  by  applying 
to  them.  Then  he  made  a  last  effort — a 
little  picture  representing  Charity, — a  mel- 


ancholy figure  with  three  nurselings.  He 
took  his  picture  himself  from  shop  to  shop, 
and  could  not  get  the  least  offer  for  it.  He 
came  home  sadly,  and  said  to  his  friend 

"You  are  right;  give  me  subjects  and  I 
will  paint  them." 

It  was  at  this  time  that  he  made  a  num- 
ber of  pastels,  imitations  of  Boucher  and 
Watteau,  which  Marolle  baptized  after  his 
own  fashion,  with  names  of  that  time, 
"  Vert- Vert,"  "  The  Old  Man's  Calendar," 
"Soldier  Proposing  to  a  Nurse,"  "The 
Reading  of  the  Novel,"  "  The  Late  Watch," 
"  A  Day  at  Trianon."  Sometimes  the  artist 
went  back  to  the  Bible,  and  painted  "  Jacob 
and  Laban,"  "  Ruth  and  Boaz."  Marolle 
and  Millet  took  these  pictures  to  the  deal- 
ers, who  were  very  disdainful,  and  would 
only  accept  them  "  on  sale."  The  high- 
est price  he  could  get  was  never  more 
than  twenty  francs,  and  when  they  came  to 
that  sum  Millet  thought  he  had  reached 
fortune,  and  the  happy  day  in  which  he  could 
give  himself  up  to  the  impressions  which 
his  native  country  had  made  on  him.  He 
painted,  also,  unsigned  portraits  for  five  and 
ten  francs.  But  he  did  not  neglect  his 
studies.  In  spite  of  his  struggle  against 
poverty,  he  worked  in  the  evening  at  Suisse's 
and  Boudin's.  He  went  to  the  library  of 
Ste.  Genevieve,  and  examined  the  works  of 
the  most  celebrated  exponents  of  form,  Al- 
bert Diirer,  Leonardo  da  Vinci,  Jean  Cou- 
sin, and  Nicholas  Poussin,  for  whom  he  had 
the  deepest  and  most  lasting  admiration. 
Especially  he  studied  Michael  Angelo ;  read 
all  the  biographies,  communications,  corre- 
spondence and  documents  concerning  this 
great  man,  whom  he  never  ceased  to  con- 
sider the  highest  expression  of  art. 

It  was  in  1840  that  Millet  first  tried  to 
exhibit  at  the  Salon  of  the  Louvre.  The 
constitution  of  the  jury  made  it  a  formi- 
dable trial.  The  jury  was  not,  as  now,  an 
assembly  of  peers  elected  by  universal  suf- 
frage each  year.  It  was  the  Institute,  with 
its  doctrines  and  antipathies.  It  acted  only 
according  to  its  own  good  pleasure.  The 
new  school  was,  with  a  few  exceptions, 
systematically  snubbed.  Theodore  Rousseau 
gave  up  facing  the  yearly  humiliations  to 
which  he  was  subjected.  Eugene  Dela- 
croix was  more  fortunate, — only  half  his 
pictures  were  refused.  Decamps,  whose 
works  were  so  curiously  elaborated,  felt  the 
capricious  rigor  of  the  authorities.  Jules 
Dupre  would  not  exhibit.  Corot,  still  full 
of  respect  for  the  traditions  of  Bert  in  and 
the  judgments  of  the  academy,  advanced 


JEAN  FRANCOIS  MILLET— PEASANT  AND  PAINTER. 


WOMAN     BATHING. 


step  by  step  toward  his  beautiful  echoes  of 
Claude  Lorraine.  In  spite  of  his  prudence, 
he  was  kept  away  from  the  Salon  with  the 
rest.  Diaz  was  despised,  but  he  entered 
almost  forcibly,  thanks  to  his  Correggio 
studies.  Millet  dared  to  beard  the  lion, 
and  sent  two  portraits,  Marolle's  and  a  re- 
lation's, M.  L.  F.  The  latter  only  was  ad- 
mitted, and  passed  unnoticed.  Millet  told 
us  afterward  that  it  was  the  poorer  of  the 
two  ;  the  color  was  somber  and  looked  like 
the  follies  of  the  Delaroche  studio. 

When  the  Exhibition  closed  he  went 
back  to  see  his  Normandy,  with  the  desire 
to  stay  and  try  to  get  a  living  at  Cherbourg, 
and  be  near  his  family.  It  was  not  the 
first  time  that  he  returned.  Almost  every 
year  he  went  to  breathe  his  native  air  and 
stay  some  weeks  at  Gruchy  with  his  mother 
and  grandmother,  who  already  thought 
him  a  wonder,  as  the  Cherbourg  papers  had 
spoken  of  him.  In  1838  and  1840  he  made 
several  portraits  of  his  family  and  friends — 
his  mother  and  grandmother,  who  were  liv- 
ing with  one  of  his  brothers.  He  made  two 


portraits  of  his  grandmother,  one  a  drawing, 
life  size,  characterized  by  a  strong  expres- 
sion of  austerity.  Millet  worked  on  it  with 
great  care,  as  a  labor  of  love.  He  wanted, 
he  said,  to  show  the  soul  of  his  grand- 
mother. 

As  his  pictures  did  not  sell,  he  accepted 
commissions  for  signs,  and  painted  them 
the  size  of  life  :  "  The  Little  Milk-girl,"  for 
a  dry-goods  shop ;  "A  Scene  of  Our  African 
Campaigns,"  for  a  tumbler,  who  paid  him 
the  price  (thirty  francs)  in  sous  ;  a  horse,  for 
a  veterinary  surgeon ;  a  sailor,  for  a  sail- 
maker. 

Having  failed  to  satisfy  the  municipality 
with  a  portrait  of  a  deceased  local  digni- 
tary (though  they  accepted  and  hung  the 
picture,  when  he,  to  cut  matters  short,  gave 
it  to  them),  Millet  was  completely  cast  off 
by  the  influential  people,  who  were  ashamed 
of  having  protected  a  sign-painter  ;  but  such 
injustice  raised  friends  for  him.  All  the 
young  people  were  on  his  side.  Indifferent 
to  public  opinion,  he  nevertheless  became 
an  object  of  attention  to  all  who  liked  noise 


JEAN  FRANCOIS  MILLET— PEASANT  AND  PAINTER. 


831 


or  opposition.  He  had  some  orders  for 
portraits. 

Millet  was  a  big,  handsome  fellow,  proud, 
with  gentle  eyes.  A  nice  Cherbourg  girl, 
whose  portrait  he  was  painting,  took  com- 
passion on  him.  Millet  married  her  in  1841, 
and  began  to  paint  portraits  of  his  wife, 
himself,  and  several  members  of  his  new 
family,  whom  he  always  disliked  to  speak 
of.  His  marriage  was  not  happy.  His 
wife  was  very  delicate.  She  .suffered  and 
faded  away,  dying  in  Paris  in  1844,  after 
two  years  and  five  months  of  marriage. 
Millet  returned  to  Paris  in  1842.  A  por- 
trait and  picture  sent  to  -the  Salon  were 
both  refused. 

From  1841  to  1851  Millet's*  talent  changed 
and  assumed  a  distinct  individuality.  The 
blackness  and  thick  shadows  of  his  figures 
disappear,  and  all  the  traditions  of  the 
Delaroche  studio.  He  painted  with  fervor, 
with  the  joy  of  a  man  who  feels  full  of  life 
and  gifts,  and  who  understands  the  secrets 
of  the  masters.  He  knows  as  much  as  the 
artists  of  the  eighteenth  century,  and  seems 
sometimes  to  remember  Restout  and  Van- 
loo,  and  the  methods  which  the  old  painters 
of  Cherbourg  had  preserved.  But  he  finds 
his  hand  is  too  clever,  and  does  not  follow 
his  mind.  Then  he  stops,  studies  Michael 
Angelo  and  analyzes  Correggio.  He  goes 
to  the  Louvre,  does  not  copy,  but  lives  in 
the  atmosphere  of  the  masters.  He  ques- 
tions them,  tries  to  understand  them.  Mod- 
eling (which  is  the  sculptural  presentation 
of  form  bathed  in  air)  engrosses  him ;  it  is 
the  first  phase  of  his  transformation.  He 
studies  it  in  Correggio,  the  magician  of  flesh, 
the  painter  of  natural  grace  and  strong  life. 

In  1843  he  exhibited  nothing.  In  1844 
he  sent  two  subjects,  one  "  The  Riding 
Lesson,"  a  group  of  children  playing  horse 
— one  is  mounted  on  the  back  of  another. 
"  At  last,"  said  Diaz,  "  here  is  a  new  man 
who  has  the  knowledge  which  I  would 
like  to  have,  and  movement,  color,  expres- 
sion, too, — here  is  a  painter  !" 

Millet's  life  now  became  still  harder,  com- 
plicated by  the  sufferings  of  a  dying  woman. 
He  was  without  money,  position,  or  connec- 
tions. He  never  spoke  of  this  time  without 
a  sort  of  terror.  His  material  life  was  a 
daily  fight.  He  was  ready  to  do  anything 
that  chance  offered, — had  endless  difficulties 
to  get  the  most  trifling  sums  paid.  He  met 
people  who  took  advantage  of  his  poverty, 
who  wearied  him  with  their  refusals  and 
went  to  all  lengths  of  cruelty.  A  different 
man  would  have  vowed  vengeance  on  this 


inhuman  society — this  savage  Paris ;  but 
Millet  did  not  bear  any  malice.  He 
merely  told  the  fact,  and  added :  "  Yes, 
there  are  bad  people,  but  there  are  good 
ones  also,  and  one  good  one  consoles  you 
for  many  bad.  I  sometimes  found  helping 
hands,  and  I  don't  complain." 

In  1844  he  left  his  own  country,  to 
which  he  returned  when  he  was  too  hard 
pressed  by  trouble.  He  went  to  Cher- 
bourg, where  he  was  well  received.  It 
must  be  admitted  that  his  talent  had  ac- 
quired a  more  appreciable  form,  his  draw- 
ing had  a  persuasive  charm,  though  a  little 
affected.  Color  was  his  strongest  point ; 
atmospheric  harmony,  richness  of  tone,  and 
a  particular  method  of  rosy  gray,  gave  a 
sort  of  attractive  warmth  to  his  works.  He 
executed  with  a  rapidity  which  might  be 
now  called  rather  too  easy,  but  there  was 
so  much  exuberance  of  strength,  such  a 
passion  for  covering  canvas,  that  the  pleas- 
ure of  painting  overcame  colder  reason. 
Afterward  he  quieted  his  youthful  fire,  put 
on  the  bit  of  the  most  precise  drawing; 
but  in  those  days  he  was  given  over  to  the 
"  Muse  of  Painting,"  and  threw  the  reins 
to  his  passionate  nature.  Those  who  like 
to  divide  a  painter's  career  into  periods 
may  call  this  the  "florid  manner  "  of  Millet, 
for  his  painting  has  all  the  charm  and  prom- 
ise of  youth. 

His  first  marriage  had  been  unfortunate, 
but  he  was  not  a  man  who  could  live  alone ; 
a  young  girl  loved  him  in  silence  ;  he  ended 
by  discovering  it,  and  married  the  woman 
who  became  the  mother  of  his  children  and 
the  devoted  companion  of  his  whole  life. 
They  left  for  Paris  in  November,  1845,  and 
they  stopped  at  Havre,  where  several  friends 
expected  them.  He  did  all  sorts  of  things ; 
portraits  of  captains,  ship  owners,  com- 
manders and  people  employed  in  the  port, 
even  sailors.  At  Havre  a  public  exhibition 
of  his  works  was  organized,  and  he  made 
a  few  more  portraits.  When,  at  last,  not 
without  difficulty,  he  got  900  francs  together, 
he  left  for  Paris  with  his  wife. 

Here  ends  the  happy  life  of  Millet. 
Paris,  somber  and  stubborn,  will  dispute 
and  fight  him.  Becoming  soon  a  father, 
his  duty  will  be  to  his  family,  black  bread 
and  anxiety  will  be  his  portion, — he  will  not 
see  again  either  mother  or  grandmother. 
He  will  write  often  to  the  inhabitants  of 
his  native  town,  the  answers  will  be  always 
touchingly  full  of  tenderness  and  resigna- 
tion, but  he  will  always  think  himself  a 
captive.  "  I  felt,"  said  Millet,  "  that  I  was 


832  JEAN  FRANCOIS  MILLET— PEASANT  AND  PAINTER. 


CARDING     WOOL. 


nailed  to  a  rock  and  condemned  to  endless 
labor;  but  I  could  have  forgotten  all  if  I 
had  only  been  able  once  in  a  while  to  see 
again  my  native  place." 

Millet  and  his  wife  came  to  Paris  in 
December,  1845,  an(^  f°r  a  time  lived  in  a 
modest  lodging  in  rue  Rochechouart,  while 
waiting  to  go  into  three  Mansard  rooms  in 
the  same  street,  No.  42  bis,  where  Millet 
had  arranged  a  very  informal  studio,  whose 
whole  furniture  consisted  of  three  chairs  and 
an  easel.  At  once  he  began  to  work.  His 
"  St.  Jerome  Tempted  by  Women  "  was  fine 
in  effect  and  in  movement;  it  was  superbly 


painted.  Couture  sent  artists  to  see  this 
"astonishing  piece."  While  he  was  paint- 
ing it  he  received  a  letter  from  his  grand- 
mother: 

"You  say  you  are  painting  a  portrait  of  St. 
Jerome,  groaning  under  the  temptations  which  be- 
sieged his  youth.  Ah,  dear  child,  like  him  reflect, 
and  gain  the  same  holy  profit.  P'ollow  the  example 
of  a  man  of  your  own  profession,  and  say, '  I  paint  for 
eternity.'  For  no  reason  in  the  world  allow  yourself 
to  do  wrong.  Do  not  fall  in  the  eyes  of  God.  With 
St.  Jerome,  think  ever  of  the  trumpet  which  will  call 
us  to  the  Judgment  Seat.  *  *  Thy  mother  is 

ill,  and  part  of  the  time  in  bed.  I  get  more  and 
more  helpless,  and  can  hardly  walk.  We  wish  you 
a  happy  and  fortunate  new  year,  full  of  the  most 


JEAN  FRANCOIS  MILLET— PEASANT  AND  PAINTER.  833 


abundant  blessings  of  heaven.  Let  us  soon  hear 
from  you.  We  are  very  anxious  to  know  how  you 
are  getting  on.  We  hope  well,  and  embrace  you 
with  sincere  friendship. 

"  Thy  grandmother, 

"  LOUISE  JUMELIN. 

"  GREVILLE,  June  loth,  1846." 

The  Salon  of  1846  was  just  about  to  open. 
The  jury  refused  the  St.  Jerome,  and  Millet, 
being  short  of  canvas,  painted  over  it  "  CEdi- 
pus  being  taken  from  the  tree."  Tourneux 
(a  fellow-student  of  the  Beaux  Arts)  had 
lost  no  time  in  discovering  Millet.  They 
became  intimate,  and  from  that  time  on, 
Millet  was  counted  among  the  family  of 


in  the  nude.  Every  one  pushed  him  in  this 
direction,  where  he  made  such  successes, 
and  in  which  his  natural  temperament  kept 
him  so  many  years.  You  feel  that  the  CEdi- 
pus  is  a  fine  piece  of  work,  and  that  the 
artist,  a  consummate  workman,  has  only 
thought  of  the  execution.  Millet  himself 
said  :  "  It  is  a  pretext  to  exercise  myself  in 
the  nude  and  in  the  modeling  of  light."  In 
truth,  the  CEdipus  is  nothing  more.  Millet 
makes  his  mark,  but  as  yet  he  is  neither 
poet  nor  thinker.  What  is  most  remarkable 
in  this  picture,  and  in  many  others  of  the 
same  time,  is  the  ease  with  which  Millet 


SHEEP-SHEARING. 


painters  of  "  The  Quarter."  Diaz  lived  near, 
and  came  to  see  him.  He  was  not  a  cold 
admirer.  The  talent  of  Millet,  like  that  of 
Rousseau,  had  the  gift  of  exciting  and  mak- 
ing him  eloquent.  He  made  a  tremendous 
propaganda  for  Millet,  urging  amateurs  and 
dealers  to  get  the  artist's  paintings,  if  they 
did  not  wish  to  stand  in  his  eyes  as  blind 
and  incapable. 

For  the  Salon  of  1847,  he  made  a  pict- 
ure whose  name  is  the  only  classic  thing 
about  it — the  "  CEdipus  being  taken  from 
the  tree."  It  was  painted  to  show  his  power 


makes  nature  with  what  is  not  pure  reality. 
He  is  not  a  copyist.  He  uses  reality,  but 
transforms  it.  In  his  nude  figures,  his  most 
amorous  subjects,  you  never  find  an  un- 
wholesome intention.  The  picture  of  the 
"  Children  with  the  Wheelbarrow  "  seems 
a  robust  echo  of  Fragonard ;  a  young  peas- 
ant such  as  never  existed,  shoulders  and 
breast  bare,  hair  flying,  and  a  face  bright 
with  the  sun  of  May.  In  the  hands  of  a 
painter  of  the  eighteenth  century  it  would 
be  a  suggestive  study.  With  Millet  it  is 
only  fine  plastic  art,  touched  by  spring-time 


834          JEAN  FRANCOIS  MILLET— PEASANT  AND  PAINTER. 


and  youth.  So  with  all  his  nude  paintings. 
Millet  had  a  sensual  organization  and  ad- 
mired flesh;  but  he  had  an  honest  soul. 
In  the  midst  of  all  our  decadence  he  kept 
a  pure  heart. 

It  was  in   1847  that  I  saw  him  first.     I 
went  with  Troyon  to  his  lodging  in  the  rue 
Rochechouart.     He  wore  a   strange   garb, 
which  gave  his  whole  person  an  outlandish 
look.     A   brown-stone-colored   overcoat,  a 
thick  beard,  and  long  hair  covered  with  a 
woolen  cap  like  those  worn  by  coachmen, 
gave   his  face  a  character  which  surprised 
you,  and  then  made  you  think  of  the  painters 
of  the  Middle  Ages.  His  reception  was  kind, 
but  almost  silent.     After  a  while,  he  began  | 
to  be  more  expansive.     "  Every  subject  is  I 
good,"  said  he,  "  only  it  must  be  rendered 
with  strength  and  clearness.     In  art,  there  , 
must  be  a  governing  thought  expressed  elo- 
quently.   We  must  have  it  in  ourselves,  and  ; 
stamp  it   upon   others,  just  as  a  medal  is 
stamped.    *    *    *    Art   is  not  a  pleasure- 
trip ;  it  is  a  fight.     *     *     *     I  am  not  a 
philosopher.     I  don't  want  to  stop  pain,  or 
find  a  formula  which  will  make  me  indiffer- 
ent or  a  stoic.     Pain  is,  perhaps,  that  which 
makes  the  artist  express  himself  most  dis- 
tinctly."    He  talked  for  some  time,  and  then 
was  silent,  made  timid  by  his  own  words. 
When  we  parted,  we  felt  that  we  had  made 
the  beginning  of  a  serious  friendship.     Mil- 
let at  this  time  knew  Charles  Jacques.     His 
was  a  penetrating  and  enthusiastic  nature. 
Millet's   painting   had    attracted  him ;    the 
man  had  charmed  him.     He  had  become 
a  passionate  admirer  of  his  talent.     And  as 
he  knew  how  to  say  so  in  just  and  convincing 
terms,  Millet  had  been  touched.     Jacques 
was  then  making  his  charming  etchings,  like 
a  pupil  of  Ostade.    At  dusk  we  met  at  Mil- 
let's, and   there  Jacques,  Campredon,  and 
others  now  gone,  passed  hours  before  a  jug 
of  beer,  talking  of  the  ancients  and  moderns. 
In  these  interminable  conversations  Millet 
only  put  in  a  good  word,  or  an  argument  as 
strong  as  a  giant.    He  was  very  severe  upon 
the  romanticists,  dogmatists  and  politicians, 
as  well  as  upon  contemporary  art.   You  could 
see  that  the  air  of  Paris  weighed  heavily  on 
him,  and  that  the  chatter  of  the  great  city, 
its   literature,  its   aims   and    ambitions,  its 
manners  and  customs,  were  a  world  which 
he  could  not  understand. 

In  the  spring  Millet  was  taken  with  a 
dangerous  rheumatic  fever,  and  brought 
to  death's  door.  He  was  given  up  by  all 
but  his  devoted  friends,  and  when  he  did 
begin  slowly  to  recover  he  could  scarcely 


speak  or  breathe.  But  youth  has  its  privi- 
leges; it  forgets  quickly,  and  renews  itself 
with  its  own  vital  powers.  One  morning 
Millet  shook  himself  "  like  a  wet  dog,"  and 
began  to  work  with  a  trembling  hand.  But 
the  Salon  of  1848  was  to  open.  Millet 
finished  a  "  Winnower "  and  a  "  Captivity 
of  the  Jews  in  Babylon,"  and  sent  them. 
The  jury  had  been  abolished,  and  everything 
sent  was  hung, — the  "  Winnower  "  in  the 
salon  carre  and  the  "  Jews  "  in  the  long  gal- 
lery. The  first  obtained  a  real  success,  the 
second  left  the  public  cold. 

But  the  success  did  not  fill  the  needy 
purse  of  the  Millets.  The  revolution  had 
stopped  all  picture-buying,  and  artists 
suffered  the  extremest  famine.  Millet  and 
his  wife  did  not  complain,  asked  nothing, 
but  we  knew  their  distress.  One  of  us  went 
to  the  museum,  then  to  the  Direction  of  the 
Beaux  Arts,  and  got  100  francs,  which  we 
took  immediately  to  the  painter.  Millet 
was  in  his  studio,  sitting  on  a  box,  his  back 
bent  like  a  man  who  is  chilled.  He  said 
"  Good-day,"  but  did  not  move.  It  was 
freezing  cold  in  the  miserable  room.  When 
the  money  was  handed  him,  he  said  : 
"  Thank  you ;  it  comes  in  time.  We  have 
not  eaten  for  two  days,  but  the  important 
thing  is  that  the  children  have  not  suffered. 
Until  to-day  they  have  had  food."  He 
called  his  wife,  "  I  am  going  to  get  wood ; 
I  am  very  cold."  He  did  not  say  another 
word,  and  never  spoke  of  it  again.  A  few 
days  after  he  moved  to  the  rue  du  Delta. 

In  April,  M.  Ledru-Rollin,  urged  by  Jean- 
ron,  came  to  see  him  and  gave  him  a  com- 
mission of  1 800  francs.  M.  Ledru-Rollin 
bought  also  the  "  Winnower,"  for  500  francs. 
This  was  a  great  deal  in  1848. 

The  insurrection  of  June  came  to  disturb 
!  Paris.  Millet  was  painting  a  midwife's 
i  sign  when  the  first  guns  were  filed.  Misery 
|  had  come  again,  and  he  found  himself  help- 
i  less,  in  the  midst  of  this  civil  war,  when  the 
1  midwife  arrived,  carried  off  her  sign,  and 
left  Millet  thirty  francs  as  pay. 

"  It  saved  us,"  said  Millet,  "  for  we  man- 
aged to  live  two  weeks  on  the  money,  until 
the  insurrection  and  the  troubles  which  fol- 
lowed it  were  quieted.  How  often  I  have 
blessed  this  unexpected  help !  " 

A  few  days  after  he  painted  a  Samson, 
asleep  beside  Delilah,  who  is  about  to  cut 
his  hair.  It  is  a  little  picture  of  a  finely 
balanced  composition  and  beautiful  color. 
He  also  painted  a  Mercury,  carrying  off  the 
flocks  of  Argus.  But  they  did  not  sell. 
A  cover  for  a  song  was  ordered.  Millet 


JEAN  FRANCOIS  MILLET— PEASANT  AND  PAINTER. 


835 


made  the  drawing,  and  sent  the  lithographic 
stone  to  the  publisher.  The  price  was 
thirty  francs ;  he  was  paid  by  insolence ;  the 
door  was  shut  in  his  face. 

He  then  drew  two  "  Liberties,"  but  they 
sold  no   better  than   the   others.     Jacques 


sold  from  one  franc  to  five.  Charles  Jacques 
collected  a  quantity  of  papers  on  the  studio 
floor,  drawings  and  notes  from  nature;  he 
bought  them,  and  saved  them  from  being 
used  for  fire. 

Like  every   other    Parisian,    Millet    was 


CEDIPUS    BEING    TAKEN    FROM    THE    TREE. 


advised  him  to  make  drawings  in  exchange 
for  clothes, — six  drawings  went  for  a  pair  of 
shoes,  a  picture  for  a  bed.  Portraits  of 
Diaz,  Barye,  Victor  Dupre,  Vechte,  half- 
length  and  life-size,  were  bought  for  twenty 
francs,  all  four,  and  charming  sketches  were 


armed  with  a  gun  during  the  revolution,  and 
had  to  take  his  place  in  the  defense  of  the 
Assembly  and  the  taking  of  the  barricades 
of  the  Rochechouart  quarter,  where  he  saw 
the  chief  of  the  insurgents  fall.  He  came 
back  angry  and  indignant  at  the  slaughters 


836 


JEAN  FRANCOIS  MILLET— PEASANT  AND  PAINTER. 


of  Paris.  He  had  no  military  spirit,  nor  the 
rage  of  revolt,  and  all  he  saw  made  his 
heart  bleed. 

We  would  go  together  of  an  evening  to 


few  hours.  His  facility  was  extraordinary, 
and  he  never  omitted  the  telling  note  or 
charm  of  color. 

One   evening,  standing  before  Deforge's 


THE    WOODMAN. 


the  plain  of  Montmartre  or  Saint  Ouen. 
The  next  day  I  would  find  impressions  of 
the  day  before,  which  he  had  painted  in  -a 


window,  he  saw  two  young  men  examining 
one  of  his  pictures,  "  Women  Bathing." 
"  Do  you  know  who  painted  that  ?  "  said 


JEAN  FRANCOIS  MILLET— PEASANT  AND  PAINTER.          837 


one.  "  Yes,"  replied  the  other.  "  A  fel- 
low called  Millet,  who  only  paints  naked 
women."  These  words  cut  him  to  the 
quick — his  dignity  was  touched.  Coming 
home,  he  told  his  wife  the  story.  "  If  you 
consent,"  said  he,  "  I  will  do  no  more  of  that 


lieved  in  a  way  from  all  servitude,  entered 
resolutely  into  rustic  art. 

The  year  1849  was  a  difficult  time  for 
many  painters.  Millet,  whom  fortune  was 
slow  to  smile  upon,  was  not  more  happy 
than  his  friends;  yet  he  found  time  and 


sort  of  pictures.  Living  will  be  harder  than 
ever  and  you  will  suffer,  but  I  will  be  free  to 
do  what  I  have  long  been  thinking  of."  Mme. 
Millet  answered,  "  I  am  ready.  Do  as  you 
will."  And  from  that  time  on  Millet,  re- 


strength  to  paint  a  peasant-woman  seated, 
which  he  sent  to  the  Salon, — but  in  this 
epoch  of  political  excitement  it  does  not 
seem  to  have  caused  any  great  interest. 
Material  life  was  a  problem  to  be  solved 


838          JEAN  FRANCOIS  MILLET— PEASANT  AND  PAINTER. 


THE    PLAIN    OF     BARBIZON. 


every  day.  He  had  no  other  hope  than  an 
order  from  the  Minister,  and  it  was  a  long, 
difficult  piece  of  work.  The  figures  in  "  The 
Hay -makers"  were  to  be  half  life,  in  the 
middle  of  a  plain,  at  rest  near  a  hay-cock. 
Millet  sought  long  on  the  banks  of  the 
Seine  and  at  St.  Ouen,  but  could  find 
nothing  that  he  could  use.  "  I  don't  see 
anything  but  inhabitants  of  a  suburb ;  I 
want  a  country-woman."  However,  he  fin- 
ished his  work,  and  had  just  received  the 
price,  when  the  revolution  of  the  i3th  June, 
1849,  broke  out.  The  cholera,  too,  reached 
its  height,  and  decided  Millet  and  Jacques 
to  leave  the  city.  Furnished  with  1800 
francs,  they  went  with  their  families  to  Bar- 
bizon  and  stopped  at  old  Ganne's.  There 
had  already  settled,  since  June,  1848,  Theo- 
dore Rousseau,  Hughes  Martin,  Belly,  Louis 
Leroy  and  Clerget. 

It  was  at  this  time  that  Millet  and  Rous- 
seau first  knew  each  other;  they  had 
merely  met  at  Diaz's.  They  were  neither 
men  to  enter  easily  into  intimacy;  they 
took  several  months  to  examine  one  an- 
other, and  it  was  not  till  long  after  that 
they  talked  without  constraint.  Millet,  pru- 
dent and  discreet,  always  kept  a  reserve 
with  Rousseau,  which  the  latter  appreciated 


later.  He  was  never  a  pupil  of  Rous- 
seau, as  has  been  stated.  When  they  met 
they  were  of  equal  force.  If,  afterward, 
one  showed  the  influence  of  the  other,  it 
was  Rousseau,  whom  Millet's  art  preoc- 
cupied so  much  that  he  was  drawn  by  him 
toward  simplicity  of  subject  and  sobriety 
of  line. 

Millet  and  Jacques  hired  studios — such 
studios ! — in  peasant  houses,  and  set  out 
together  to  discover  the  country.  I  often 
visited  them  at  this  time.  They  were  in 
such  a  state  of  excitement  that  they  could 
not  paint.  The  majesty  of  the  old  woods, 
the  virginity  of  the  rocks  and  underbrush, 
the  broken  bowlders  and  green  pastures, 
had  intoxicated  them  with  beauty  and  odors. 
They  could  not  think  of  leaving  such  en- 
chantment. Millet  found  his  dream  lying 
before  him.  He  touched  his  own  sphere. 
He  felt  the  blood  of  his  family  in  his  veins. 
He  became  again  a  peasant. 

The  following  is  from  his  first  letter  from 
Barbizon,  June  28th,  1849  : 

"  We  have  determined,  Jacques  and  I,  to  stay 
here  some  •  time,  and  we  have  each  taken  a  house. 
The  prices  are  very  different  from  those  in  Paris, 
and  as  one  can  get  there  easily  if  necessary,  and  the 
country  is  superb,  we  will  work  more  quietly  than 


JEAN  FRANCOIS  MILLET— PEASANT  AND  PAINTER.          839 


in  Paris,  and,  perhaps,  do  better  things.     In  fact,  we 
want  to  stay  here  some  time." 

The  "  some  time  "  which  he  was  to  stay 
at  Barbizon  was  twenty-seven  years, — all  the 
rest  of  his  life. 

From  the  time  Millet  went  to  Barbizon 
he  became  "  the  rustic,"  and  gave  to  his 
pictures  an  elevation,  a  largeness,  which 
have  made  him  unique  in  our  art, — one 
who  speaks  a  language  hitherto  unheard. 
The  echo  of  country  life,  its  eclogues,  its 
hard  work,  its  anxiety,  its  misery,  its  peace, 
the  emotions  of  the  man  bound  to  the 
soil, — all  these  he  will  know  ho\v  to  trans- 
late, and  the  inhabitant  of  the  city  will  see 
that  "  the  trivial  can  be  made  to  serve 
the  sublime,"  and  that  something  noble 
can  be  evolved  from  the  commonest  acts 
of  life. 

His  first  fever  quieted,  Millet  painted  the 
rustic  scenes  which  struck  him — sawyers 
at  work  at  gigantic  trees,  wood-gatherers, 
charcoal-burners,  quarrymen, — worn  out 
with  their  frightful  toil, — poachers  on  the 
scent,  stone-breakers,  road-laborers,  men 
plowing,  harrowing  and  wood-cutting.  Each 
one  of  these  scenes  he  finished  in  a  day, 
sometimes  in  a  couple  of  hours.  Later,  he 
composed  and  executed  with  great  care  a 
series  of  little  drawings  which  were  to  ex- 
press the  whole  life  of  the  peasant :  first,  the 
man  of  the  soil,  in  his  blouse  and  sabots, — 
the  hero  of  work,  the  central  point ;  then, 
the  peasant  woman,  young,  strong  and 
handsome ;  then,  a  series  of  country  scenes, 
from  the  mother  playing  with  her  child  to 
the  poor  old  woman  who  goes  to  cut  the 
dead  wood,  and  brings  home  on  her  wretched 
back  a  fagot  four  times  as  big  as  herself. 
This  collection  is  a  revelation  of  an  artist 
of  genius.  It  is  a  succession  of  pictures 
worthy  to  be  placed  beside  the  philosophic 
compositions  of  Holbein.  It  is  neither  a 
satire  nor  a  special  pleading — but  the  quiet 
thought  of  a  man  glad  to  be  able  to  express 
the  greatness  and  the  misery  of  his  com- 
panions. 

He  had  taken  a  little  peasant's-house 
with  three  narrow,  low  rooms,  which  served 
as  studio,  kitchen  and  bedroom  for  his 
wife  and  his  three  children.  Later,  the 
little  house  was  lengthened  by  two  other 
rooms,  when  the  children  increased  to  nine. 
A  studio  was  built  at  the  end  of  the  garden, 
and  Millet  added  a  wash-house  and  a 
chicken-yard  in  the  middle  of  a  garden 
which  was  leased  to  him. 

He  had  two  occupations.    In  the  morning 


he  dug  or  planted,  sowed  or  reaped ;  after 
lunch  he  went  into  the  low,  cold,  dark  room 
called  a  studio.  He  did  not  dislike  this 
shadowy  nook,  for  there  a  great  part  of  his 
works  were  composed,  and  all  his  poetic 
compositions,  sketches  and  drawings. 

His  first  vision  was  a  Bible  subject,  "  Ruth 
and  Boaz,"  which  he  drew  on  the  wall  in 
crayon.  They  were  real  peasants, — a  harvest 
scene  where  the  master,  as  in  the  Scripture, 
finds  a  young  gleaner,  and  leads  her  blush- 
ing to  the  feast  of  the  country  people. 

When  he  had  been  too  long  in  his  dark 
studio  he  felt  a  pain,  which  soon  became  a 
frightful  suffering, — a  headache  of  the  most 
violent  kind.  He  was  days  and  sometimes 
even  weeks  under  the  iron  hand  of  this 
enemy. 

To  ward  off  the  beginnings  of  the  evil,  he 
would  go  off  into  the  fields  and  forest,  and 
walk  about  with  feverish  anxiety.  We  often 
followed  him  with  other  friends  in  his  cours- 
ing over  hill  and  dale.  The  open  air  re- 
stored him ;  then,  with  a  child-like  joy,  he 
climbed  rocks,  jumping  like  a  stag,  to  reach 
at  a  bound  the  highest  point  of  the  curious 
granite  bowlders  which  give  a  magic  appear- 
ance to  the  forest  of  Fontainebleau.  Sabots 
on  his  feet,  an  old  red  sailor's-jacket,  a 
weather-beaten  straw-hat,  he  was  in  his 
element.  When  tired  and  overcome  by 
the  climb,  he  threw  himself  on  the  ground 
and  cried  out,  like  Goethe :  "  My  God, 
how  good  it  is  under  Thy  heaven."  And 
added :  "  I  don't  know  anything  more 
delicious  than  to  lie  on  the  heather  and 
look  at  the  sky." 

He  writes  from  Barbizon  : 


"  MY  DEAR  SENSIER  :  *  *  *  I  work  like  a  gang  of 
slaves ;  the  day  seems  five  months  long.  My  wish  to 
make  a  winter  landscape  has  become  a  fixad  idea.  I 
want  to  do  a  sheep  picture,  and  have  all  sorts  of  pro- 
jects in  my  head.  If  you  could  see  how  beautiful  the 
forest  is !  I  rush  there  at  the  end  of  the  day,  after 
my  work,  and  I  come  back  every  time  crushed.  It 
is  so  calm,  such  a  terrible  grandeur  that  I  find  my- 
self really  frightened.  I  don't  know  what  those 
fellows,  the  trees,  are  saying  to  each  other ;  they 
say  something  which  we  cannot  understand,  because 
we  don't  know  their  language,  that  is  all.  But  I'm 
sure  they  don't  make  puns. 

"To-morrow,  Sunday,  is  the  fete  of  Barbizon. 
Every  oven,  stove,  chimney,  saucepan  and  pot  are 
in  such  activity  that  you  might  believe  it  was  the 
day  before  the  '  noces  de  Gamache.'1  Every  old 
triangle  is  used  as  a  spit,  and  all  the  turkeys,  geese, 
hens  and  ducks  which  you  saw  in  such  good  health 
are  at  this  minute  roasting  and  boiling, — and  pies  as 
big  as  wagon-wheels !  Barbizon  is  one  big  kitchen, 
and  the  fumes  must  be  smelt  for  miles.  *  *  * 
Pray  give  the  following  order  to  the  frame-maker. 
*  Try  to  have  him  make  the  frames  not  in  too 
horribly  bad  taste.  If  the  gilding  should  not  be  so 


840 


THE  NEW  SOUTH. 


if.'^-^m  ^wwOT:.-^' 


THE    GLEANERS. 


fine,  never  mind ;  the  form  is  the  point.  Send,  also, 
3  burnt  sienna,  2  raw  ditto,  3  Naples  yellow,  I  burnt 
Italian  earth,  2  yellow  ocher,  2  burnt  umber,  I 


bottle  of  raw  oil." 


#         *         # 


It  was  with  the  simplest  means  that  he 
obtained  the  exquisite  tones  and  transpar- 
ent effects  of  his  pictures. 


(To   be  continued.) 


THE  NEW  SOUTH. 


IT  would  seem  that  facts  may  now  be 
arrayed  which  leave  no  doubt  that  upon 
the  general  cycle  of  American  advance  the 
South  has  described  such  an  epicycle  of 
individual  growth  that  no  profitable  discus- 
sion of  that  region  is  possible  at  present 


which  does  not  clearly  define  at  the  outset 
whether  it  is  to  be  a  discussion  of  the  old 
South  or  the  new  South.  Although  the 
movement  here  called  by  the  latter  name 
is  originally  neither  political,  social,  moral, 
nor  aesthetic,  yet  the  term  in  the  present 


THE  NEW  SOUTH. 


841 


instance  connotes  all  these  with  surprising 
completeness.  The  New  South  means  small 
farming. 

What  Southern  small  farming  really  sig- 
nifies, and  how  it  has  come  to  involve  and 
determine  the  whole  compass  of  civilization 
in  that  part  of  the  republic,  this  paper  pro- 
poses to  show,  (i)  by  briefly  pointing  out  its 
true  relation,  in  its  last  or  (what  one  may 
call,  its)  poetic  outcome,  to  the  "  large  farm- 
ing "  now  so  imminent  in  the  North-west ; 
(2)  by  presenting  some  statistics  of  the 
remarkable  increase  in  the  number  of  South- 
ern small  farms  from  1860  to  1870,  together 
with  some  details  of  the  actual  cultures  and 
special  conditions  thereof;  and  (3)  by  con- 
trasting with  it  a  picture  of  large  farming 
in  England  three  hundred  years  ago.  In- 
deed, one  has  only  to  recall  how  the  con- 
nexion between  marriage  and  the  price  of 
corn  is  but  a  crude  and  partial  statement 
of  the  intimate  relation  between  politics, 
social  life,  morality,  art,  on  the  one  hand, 
and  the  bread-giver  earth  on  the  other; 
one  has  only  to  remember  that,  particularly 
here  in  America,  whatever  crop  we  hope  to 
reap  in  the  future, — whether  it  be  a  crop 
of  poems,  of  paintings,  of  symphonies,  of 
constitutional  safeguards,  of  virtuous  be- 
haviors, of  religious  exaltations, — we  have 
got  to  bring  it  out  of  the  ground  with  pal- 
pable plows  and  with  plain  farmer's  fore- 
thought :  in  order  to  see  that  a  vital  revolution 
in  the  farming  economy  of  the  South,  if  it 
is  actually  occurring,  is  necessarily  carrying 
with  it  all  future  Southern  politics  and 
Southern  social  relations  and  Southern  art, 
and  that,  therefore,  such  an  agricultural 
change  is  the  one  substantial  fact  upon 
which  any  really  new  South  can  be  pred- 
icated. 

Approached  from  this  direction,  the  quiet 
rise  of  the  small  farmer  in  the  Southern 
States  during  the  last  twenty  years  becomes 
the  notable  circumstance  of  the  period,  in 
comparison  with  which  noisier  events  sig- 
nify nothing. 


As  JUST  now  hinted,  small  farming  in  the 
South  becomes  clear  in  its  remoter  bear- 
ings when  seen  over  against  the  precisely 
opposite  tendency  toward  large  farming  in 
the  West.  Doubtless  recent  reports  of  this 
tendency  have  been  sometimes  exaggerated. 
In  reading  them,  one  has  been  obliged  to 
remember  that  small  minds  love  to  bring 
large  news,  and,  failing  a  load,  will  make 
VOL.  XX.— 55. 


one.  But  certainly  enough  appears,  if  only 
in  the  single  apparently  well-authenticated 
item  of  the  tempting  profits  realized  by 
some  of  the  great  north-western  planters, 
to  authorize  the  inference  that  the  tendency 
to  cultivate  wheat  on  enormous  farms,  where 
the  economies  possible  only  to  corporation- 
management  can  secure  the  greatest  yield 
with  the  least  expense,  is  a  growing  one. 

And,  this  being  so,  the  most  rapid  glance 
along  the  peculiar  details  of  the  north-west- 
ern large  farm  opens  before  us  a  path  of 
thought  which  quickly  passes  beyond  wheat- 
raising,  and  leads  among  all  those  other 
means  of  life  which  appertain  to  this  com- 
plex creature  who  cannot  live  by  bread 
alone.  For  instance,  classify,  as  a  social 
and  moral  factor,  a  farm  like  the  Grandin 
place,  near  Fargo,  where  4,855  acres  are 
sown  in  wheat ;  where  five  hands  do  all 
the  work  during  the  six  winter  months, 
while  as  many  as  two  hundred  and  fifty 
must  be  employed  in  midsummer ;  where 
the  day's  work  is  nearly  thirteen  hours; 
where,  out  of  the  numerous  structures  for 
farm  purposes,  but  two  have  any  direct 
relation  to  man— one  a  residence  for  the 
superintendent  and  foreman,  the  other  a 
boarding-house  for  the  hands;  where  no 
women,  children  nor  poultry  are  to  be  seen; 
where  the  economies  are  such  as  are  wholly 
out  of  the  power  of  the  small  wheat-raisers, 
insomuch  that  even  the  railways  can  give 
special  rates  for  grain  coming  in  such  con- 
venient large  quantities;  where  the  steam 
machine,  the  telephone  and  the  telegraph 
are  brought  to  the  last  degree  of  skillful 
service;  where,  finally,  the  net  profits  for 
the  current  year  are  $52,239.* 

It  appears  plainly  enough  from  these 
details  that,  looked  upon  from  the  midst  of 
all  those  associations  which  cluster  about 
the  idea  of  the  farm,  large  farming  is  not 
farming  at  all.  It  is  mining  for  wheat. 

Or  a  slight  change  in  the  point  of  view 
presents  it  as  a  manufacturing  business,  in 
which  clods  are  fed  to  the  mill,  and  grain 
appears  in  car-loads  at  Chicago.  And 
perhaps  the  most  exact  relations  of  this  large 
farming  to  society  in  general  are  to  be 
drawn  by  considering  such  farmers  as  cor- 
porations, their  laborers  as  mill-operatives 
for  six  months  in  each  year  and  tramps  for 
the  other  six,  their  farms  as  mills  where 
nature  mainly  turns  the  wheel,  their  invest- 
ment as  beyond  the  reach  of  strikes  or  fires, 

*  According  to  an  anonymous  writer  in  "  The 
Atlantic  Monthly,"  January,  1880. 


842 


THE  NEW  SOUTH. 


foreign  distress  their  friend,  and  the  world's 
hunger  their  steady  customer. 

It  appears  further  that,  while  such  agri- 
cultural communities  are  so  merely  in  name 
and  are  manufacturing  communities  in  fact, 
they  are  manufacturing  communities  only  as 
to  the  sterner  features  of  that  guild, — the 
order,  the  machine,  the  minimum  of  ex- 
pense, the  maximum  of  product, — and  not 
as  to  those  pleasanter  features,  the  school- 
house,  the  church,  the  little  working-men's 
library,  the  sewing-class,  the  cookery-class, 
the  line  of  promotion,  the  rise  of  the  bright 
boy  and  the  steady  workman — all  the  gen- 
tler matters  which  will  spring  up,  even  out 
of  the  dust-heaps,  about  any  spot  where 
men  have  the  rudest  abiding-place.  On  the 
large  farm  is  no  abiding-place ;  the  laborer 
must  move  on;  life  cannot  stand  still,  to 
settle  and  clarify. 

It  would  not  seem  necessary  to  disclaim 
any  design  to  inveigh  against  the  owners 
of  these  great  factory-farms,  if  indignation 
had  not  been  already  expressed  in  such  a 
way  as  to  oblige  one  to  declare  that  no 
obligations  can  be  cited,  as  between  them 
and  their  laborers,  which  would  not  equally 
apply  to  every  manufacturer.  If  it  is  wrong 
to  discharge  all  but  ten  laborers  when  only 
ten  are  needed,  then  the  mill-owners  of 
Massachusetts  must  be  held  bound  to  run 
day  and  night  when  the  market  is  over- 
stocked because  they  ran  so  when  it  was 
booming;  and  if  it  is  criminal  to  pay  the 
large-farm  hands  no  more  than  will  hardly 
support  them  for  thirteen  hours'  work,  every 
mill-company  in  the  world  which  pays 
market  rates  for  work  is  particeps.  But, 
with  the  coast  thus  cleared  of  personality; 
with  the  large  farm  thus  classed  as  a  manu- 
facturing company  in  all  its  important  inci- 
dents ;  and  recognizing  in  the  fullest  manner 
that,  if  wheat  can  be  made  most  cheaply  in 
this  way,  it  must  be  so  made :  a  very  brief 
train  of  thought  brings  us  upon  a  situation, 
as  between  the  small  farmer  on  the  one 
hand  and  the  corporation  on  the  other, 
which  reveals  them  as  embodying  two  tend- 
encies in  the  republic  at  this  moment 
whose  relations  it  is  the  business  of  states- 
manship, and  of  citizenship,  to  understand 
with  the  utmost  clearness,  since  we  are  bound 
to  foster  both  of  them. 

For,  if  we  stop  our  ears  to  the  noisy 
child's-play  of  current  politics,  and  remem- 
ber (i)  that  in  all  ages  and  countries  two 
spirits,  or  motives,  or  tendencies,  exist  which 
are  essentially  opposed  to  each  other,  but 
both  of  which  are  necessary  to  the  state; 


(2)  that  the  problem  of  any  given  period  or 
society  is  to  recognize  the  special  forms  in 
which  these  two  tendencies  are  then  and 
there  embodying  themselves,  and  to  keep 
them  in  such  relations  that  neither  shall 
crush,  while  each  shall  healthily  check,  the 
other;  (3)  that  these  tendencies  may  be 
called  the  spirit  of  control  and  the  spirit 
of  independence,  and  that  they  are  so  inti- 
mately connected  with  the  two  undeniable 
facts  which  lie  at  the  bottom  of  moral  be- 
havior— namely,  the  facts  of  influence  from 
without,  on  the  one  hand,  and  free  will  on 
the  other — that  the  questions  of  morals  and 
of  politics  coalesce  at  their  roots;  (4)  that 
these  two  tendencies  are  now  most  tangibly 
embodied  among  us  in  the  corporation  and 
the  small  farmer — the  corporation  represent- 
ing the  spirit  of  control,  and  the  small 
farmer  representing,  in  many  curious  ways, 
the  spirit  of  independence;  (5)  that  our  re- 
public vitally  needs  the  corporation  for  the 
mighty  works  which  only  the  corporation 
can  do,  while  it  as  vitally  needs  the  small 
farmer  for  the  pure  substance  of  individual 
and  self-reliant  manhood  which  he  digs  out 
of  the  ground,  and  which,  the  experience 
of  all  peoples  would  seem  to  show,  must 
primarily  come  that  way  and  no  other:  we 
are  bound  to  conclude  that  the  practical 
affair  in  the  United  States  at  the  present 
juncture  is  to  discover  how  we  may  cherish 
at  once  the  corporation  and  the  small 
farmer  into  the  highest  state  of  competitive 
activity,  less  by  constitution-straining  laws 
which  forbid  the  corporation  to  do  this  and 
that,  or  which  coddle  the  small  farmer  with 
sop  and  privilege,  than  by  affording  free 
scope  for  both  to  adjust  themselves,  and  by 
persistently  holding  sound  moral  principles 
to  guide  the  adjustment. 

When,  therefore,  we  behold  the  large 
farm  as  a  defection  from  the  farm-party  in 
general — which  represents  individuality  in 
the  state — over  to  the  corporation-party, 
whose  existence  is  necessarily  based  upon 
such  relations  to  employees  as  impair  their 
individuality,  we  regard  with  all  the  more 
interest  the  rise  of  the  small  farmer,  now 
occurring  in  an  opposite  direction  so  op- 
portunely as  to  seem  as  if  nature  herself 
were  balancing  the  North-west  *  with  the 
Southeast. 


*  Always  with  the  saving  clause :  if  the  North- 
west is  really  tending,  on  the  whole,  toward  large 
farming ;  which  certainly  seems  true,  yet  is  not  suf- 
ficiently clear  to  be  argued  upon,  save  with  prudent 
reservations. 


THE  NEW  SOUTH. 


843 


ii. 


THE  phrase  "small  farming,"  used  of 
the  South,  crops  out  in  directions  curious 
enough  to  one  unacquainted  with  the  special 
economies  and  relations  of  existence  in  that 
part  of  our  country.  While  large  farming 
in  the  South  means  exclusive  cotton-grow- 
ing,— as  it  means  in  the  West  exclusive 
wheat-growing  or  exclusive  corn-growing — 
small  farming  means  diversified  farm-prod- 
ucts;  and  a  special  result  of  the  Southern 
conditions  of  agriculture  has  brought  about 
a  still  more  special  sense  of  the  word,  so 
that  in  Georgia,  for  example,  the  term 
"  small  farmer  "  brings  up  to  every  native 
mind  the  idea  of  a  farmer  who,  besides  his 
cotton  crop,  raises  corn  enough  to  "  do " 
him.  But  again,  the  incidents  hinging  upon 
this  apparently  simple  matter  of  making 
corn  enough  to  do  him  are  so  numerous 
as,  in  turn,  to  render  them  the  distinctive 
feature  of  small  farming.  Small  farming 
means,  in  short,  meat  and  bread  for  which 
there  are  no  notes  in  bank;  pigs  fed  with 
home-made  corn,  and  growing  of  them- 
selves while  the  corn  and  cotton  were  being 
tended ;  yarn  spun,  stockings  knit,  butter 
made  and  sold  (instead  of  bought);  eggs, 
chickens,  peaches,  water-melons,  the  four 
extra  sheep  and  a  little  wool,  two  calves 
and  a  beef, — all  to  sell  every  year,  besides  a 
colt  who  is  now  suddenly  become,  all  of 
himself,  a  good,  serviceable  horse  ;  the  four 
oxen,  who  are  as  good  as  gifts  made  by  the 
grass ;  and  a  hundred  other  items,  all  repre- 
senting income  from  a  hundred  sources  to 
the  small  farmer,  which  equally  represent 
outgo  to  the  large  farmer, — items,  too, 
scarcely  appearing  at  all  on  the  expense 
side  of  the  strictest  account-book,  because 
they  are  either  products  of  odd  moments 
which,  if  not  so  applied,  would  not  have 
been  at  all  applied,  or  products  of  natural 
animal  growth,  and  grass  at  nothing  a  ton. 
All  these  ideas  are  inseparably  connected 
with  that  of  the  small  farmer  in  the  South. 

The  extent  of  this  diversity  of  product 
possible  upon  a  single  small  farm  in  Georgia, 
for  instance;  and  the  certain  process  by 
which  we  find  these  diversified  products 
presently  creating  demands  for  the  village 
library,  the  neighborhood  farmers'-club,  the 
amateur  Thespian  society,  the  improvement 
of  the  public  schools,  the  village  orchestra, 
all  manner  of  betterments  and  gentilities  and 
openings  out  into  the  universe :  show  sig- 
nificantly, and  even  picturesquely,  in  a  mass 
of  clippings  which  I  began  to  make  a  couple 


of  years  ago,  from  a  number  of  country 
papers  in  Georgia,  upon  the  idea  that  these 
unconsidered  trifles  of  mere  farmers'  neigh- 
borhood news,  with  no  politics  behind  them 
and  no  argumentative  coloring  in  front  of 
them,  would  form  the  best  possible  picture 
of  actual  small-farm  life  in  the  South — that 
is,  of  the  New  South. 

To  read  these  simple  and  homely  scraps 
is  indeed  much  like  a  drive  among  the 
farms  themselves  with  the  ideal  automaton 
guide,  who  confines  himself  to  telling  you 
that  this  field  is  sugar-cane,  that  one  yonder 
is  cotton,  the  other  is  rice,  and  so  on,  with- 
out troubling  you  for  responsive  exclamations 
or  other  burdensome  commentary. 

Rambling  among  these  cuttings,  one  sees 
growing  side  by  side,  possibly  upon  a 
single  small  farm,  corn,  wheat,  rice,  sugar- 
cane, cotton,  peaches,  plums,  apples,  pears, 
figs,  water-melons,  cantaleups,  musk-melons, 
cherries,  strawberries,  raspberries,  blackber- 
ries, Catawba  grapes,  Isabellas,  Scupper- 
nongs,  peas,  snap-beans,  butter-beans,  okra, 
squash,  beets,  oyster-plant,  mustard,  cress, 
cabbage,  turnips,  tomatoes,  cauliflower, 
asparagus,  potatoes,  onions;  one  does  not 
fail,  too,  to  catch  a  glimpse  of  pigs  sauntering 
about,  chickens  singing,  colts  flinging  their 
heels  at  you  and  off  down  the  pasture,  calves 
likewise,  cows  caring  not  for  these  things, 
sheep  on  the  rising  ground,  geese  and  tur- 
keys passim,  perhaps  the  green-gray  moss — 
surely  designed  by  nature  to  pack  vegetables 
in  and  send  them  "  North," — a  very  bed  of 
dew  for  many  days  after  cutting,  and  the 
roses  and  morning-glories  everywhere  for  a 
benison. 

The  first  clipping  which  comes  to  hand 
is  a  cunning  commentary,  expressed  in  facts, 
upon  the  diversified-culture  aspect  of  small 
farming.  Perhaps  every  one  who  has  heard 
the  results  of  premium  awards  read  out  at 
county  fairs  will  have  noticed  how  often  a 
single  name  will  recur  in  the  same  list  as 
premium  taker :  For  the  best  corn — John 
Smith;  for  the  best  sample  of  oats — 
John  Smith  ;  for  the  best  lot  of  pigs — John 
Smith  ;  for  the  finest  colt — John  Smith  ;  and 
so  on.  The  relation  of  cause  and  effect,  as 
between  small  farming  and  such  success,  is 
direct.  Small  farming  makes  so  many 
edges  cut  at  once  that  many  things  are 
obliged  to  result.  And  so  one  is  not  sur- 
prised to  see,  in  this  item  concerning  the 
fair  of  the  Marslwllville  Agricultural  Society 
( Marshall ville  is  in  what  is  known  as  south- 
western Georgia,  a  cotton-growing  portion 
of  the  State),  the  name  of  Mr.  J.  M.  com- 


844 


THE  NEW  SOUTH. 


ing  up  in  many  varied  connections;  nor 
is  one  surprised  to  find,  upon  inquiry,  that 
the  same  gentleman  is  a  small  farmer,  who 
commenced  work  after  the  war  with  his 
own  hands,  not  a  dollar  in  his  pocket,  and 
now  owns  his  plantation,  has  it  well  stocked, 
no  mortgage  or  debt  of  any  kind  on  it,  and 
a  little  money  to  lend. 

"  The  attendance  was  very  large,"  says  the 
clipping.  ..."  Number  of  ...  exhibitors 
much  larger  than  last  year.  .  .  . 


"  PREMIUMS    AWARDED. 

"  For  the  largest  and  best  display  of  field 
crops  and  garden  products  by  single  plant- 
er—J.  M. 

"  For  the  largest  and  best  display  of 
stock  by  a  single  planter — J.  M. 

"  For  the  best  display  of  old  home-raised 
side  meat  and  hams,  old  home-raised  corn 
and  fodder,  home-raised  flour,  corn  meal, 
syrup,  and  one  quart  ley  hominy  made  of 
old  corn — J.  M. 

"  Special  mention  is  made  of  the  fact  that 
Mr.  J.  M.  had  on  exhibition  one  hundred 
different  articles." 

And  then  we  are  given  the  "  honorable 
mention  "  of  "  field-crops,"  which,  without 
taking  up  space  with  names  of  successful 
exhibitors,  may  be  cited  here,  so  far  as  the 
crops  are  concerned,  as  partly  indicating 
the  diversified  products  customary  in  one 
narrow  neighborhood  of  small  farmers. 
Thus,  a  premium  ("  honorable  mention  ") 
was  given  to  the  "best,  corn,  .  .  .  best 
stalk  of  cotton,  .  .  .  best  upland  rice,  .  .  . 
best  cleaned  wheat,  .  .  .  best  cleaned  oats, 
.  .  .  best  cleaned  barley,  .  .  .  best  cleaned 
rye,  .  .  .  best  ribbon  sugar-cane,  .  .  .  best 
golden-rod  cane,  .  .  .  bestchufas,  .  .  .  best 
ground  peas  (peanuts),  .  .  .  best  field-peas." 

And  so,  looking  along  through  this  batch 
of  items, — which  surely  never  dreamed  of 
finding  themselves  together, — one  gathers  a 
great  number  of  circumstances  illustrating 
the  small  farm  of  Georgia  from  various 
points  of  view.  One  hears,  for  instance, 
how  the  people  of  Thomas  County  (south- 
ern Georgia)  are  now  busy  gathering,  pack- 
ing and  forwarding  the  sand  pear  to  Bos- 
ton and  New  York  (the  sand  pear,  or  Le 
Conte  pear,  is  a  luscious  variety  which  has 
recently  been  pushed  with  great  success 
among  the  sandy  lands  of  lower  Georgia; 
the  entire  stock  is  said  to  have  come  from 
one  tree  on  the  Le  Conte  plantation  in 
Liberty  County — the  same  farm  which  sent 


out  a  further  notable  product  in  the  persons 
of  the  two  illustrious  professors  John  and 
Joseph  Le  Conte,  now  of  the  University 
of  California) ;  how  last  week  thirty  bushels 
of  pears  were  obtained  from  the  old  tree 
mentioned  in  the  preceding  clause ;  how 
southern  Georgia  is  making  sugar-cane  a 
leading  crop ;  how  Mr.  Anthony  (in  Bibb 
County,  middle  Georgia)  has  twenty-eight 
varieties  of  grapes  growing  on  a  few  acres, 
and  has  just  introduced  a  new  variety  ;  how 
Bartow  County  (above  Atlanta)  shipped 
225,000  pounds  of  dried  apples  and  peaches 
last  season;  how  over  15,000  pounds  of 
wool  have  been  received  during  the  last  four 
days  at  one  warehouse  in  Albany  (south- 
west Georgia),  while  in  Quitman  (same 
portion)  our  streets  are  constantly  thronged 
with  carts  laden  with  wool  from  Colquitt 
and  Berrien  and  Lowndes  counties — this 
wool  being,  it  should  be  added,  the  prod- 
uct of  small  farmers  who  "  raise "  many 
other  things ;  how  the  common  sheep  is  an 
extremely  profitable  beast,  it  being  but  a 
sorry  specimen  which  will  not  furnish  one 
lamb  and  two  and  a  half  pounds  of  wool 
per  annum,  which  lamb  will  sell  for  two- 
dollars  while  the  wool  will  bring  nearly 
another  dollar,  and  all  for  no  tendance  ex- 
cept a  little  rice-straw  and  cotton-seed  dur- 
ing the  yeaning  season,  together  with 
careful  folding  at  night ;  how — and  here  the 
connection  with  small  farming  is  only  ap- 
parently remote — a  library  society  is  being 
organized  in  Milledgeville,  while  in  another 
town  the  "  Advertiser  "  is  making  a  vigor- 
ous call  for  a  library,  and  in  a  third  the 
library  has  recently  received  many  addi- 
tions of  books,  and  in  a  fourth  an  amateur 
Thespian  corps  has  just  been  formed,  con- 
sisting of  five  ladies  and  fourteen  gentlemen, 
whose  first  performance  is  to  be  early  in 
July ;  how  there  are  curious  correlations 
between  sheep,  whisky,  public  schools  and 
dogs — the  State  school  commissioner  vigor- 
ously advocating  the  MofTett  bell-punch 
system  of  tax  on  liquor  and  a  tax  on  dogs 
(of  which,  I  find  from  another  slip,  there 
are  99,414  in  the  State,  destroying  annually 
28,625  of  the  small  farmers'  sheep),  for  the 
purpose  of  increasing  the  school  fund  to 
a  million  dollars  annually;  how,  at  the 
Atlanta  University  for  colored  people,  which 
is  endowed  by  the  State,  the  progress  of  the 
pupils,  the  clearness  of  their  recitations, 
their  excellent  behavior,  and  the  remark- 
able neatness  of  their  school-rooms,  alto- 
gether convince  "  your  committee  that 
the  colored  race  .  .  .  are  capable  of  re- 


THE  NEW  SOUTH. 


845 


ceiving  the  education  usually  given  at  such 
institutions";  how  last  Thursday  a  neigh- 
borhood club  of  small  farmers,  on  Walnut 
Creek  (near  Macon),  celebrated  the  fifth 
anniversary  of  the  club  by  meeting  under 
the  trees,  with  their  wives  and  children, 
recoiTnting  in  turn  how  many  acres  each 
had  in  cotton,  how  many  in  corn,  how 
many  in  potatoes,  how  many  in  peas,  etc., 
and  discussing  these  matters  and  a  barbecue, 
a  sub-committee  bringing  in  a  joking  report 
with  shrewd  hits  at  the  behindhand  mem- 
bers,— as  that  we  found  on  Mr.  W.'s  farm 
the  best  gourd-crop,  and  on  Mr.  R.'s  some 
acres  of  very  remarkable  "  bumble-bee  cot- 
ton," the  peculiarity  of  which  cotton  is  that 
the  bee  can  sit  upon  the  ground  and  "  exult- 
antly sip  from  the  tallest  cotton-bloom  on 
the  plant ";  how  at  a  somewhat  similar  gath- 
ering the  yeomen  brought  out  the  great  Jones 
County  soup  pot,  the  same  being  an  eighty- 
gallon  syrup  kettle,  in  which  the  soup  began 
to  boil  on  the  night  before  and  was  served 
next  day,  marvelous  rich  and  toothsome,  to 
the  company  ;  how  the  single  item  of  water- 
melons has  brought  nearly  $100,000  into 
Richmond  County  this  season,  and  how 
Mr.  J.,  of  Baker  County — in  quite  another 
part  of  the  State, — has  just  raised  ten  water- 
melons weighing  together  five  hundred  and 
fifty  pounds;  how  Mr.  R.,  of  Schley  County 
(in  cotton-raising  south-western  Georgia), 
has  made  five  hundred  and  fifty-six  bushels 
of  oats  on  a  five-acre  patch ;  how  the  writer 
has  just  seen  a  six-acre  crop  of  upland  rice 
which  will  yield  thirty  bushels  to  the  acre; 
how  a  party  of  250  colored  excursionists 
came  up  to  town  yesterday,  and  the  colored 
brass  band  played  about  the  streets;  or,  in 
another  slip  a  column  long,  how  Governor 
Colquitt  reviews  seven  colored  companies 
of  Georgia  soldiery  in  full  uniform,  who 
afterward  contest  in  a  prize  drill,  and  at 
night  are  entertained  witli  parties,  balls  and 
the  like,  by  the  Union  Lincoln  Guards,  of 
Savannah,  and  the  Lincoln  Guards,  of 
Macon ;  how  (this  is  headed  "  Agriculture 
Advancing ")  the  last  few  years  has  wit- 
nessed a  very  decided  improvement  in 
Georgia  farming,  moon-planting  and  other 
vulgar  superstitions  are  exploding,  the  intel- 
ligent farmer  is  deriving  more  assistance 
from  the  philosopher,  the  naturalist  and  the 
chemist,  and  he  who  is  succeeding  best  is 
he  who  has  plenty  of  horses,  cattle,  sheep, 
hogs  and  poultry  of  his  own  raising,  to- 
gether with  good-sized  barns  and  meat- 
houses  filled  from  his  own  fields  instead  of 
from  the  West, — in  short,  the  small  farmer. 


Fortunately,  we  have  means  for  reducing 
to  very  definite  figures  the  growth  of  small 
farming  in  the  South  since  the  war,  and  thus 
of  measuring  the  substance  of  the  New 
South.  A  row  of  columns  in  the  eighth  and 
ninth  census  reports  of  the  United  States  is 
devoted  to  enumerations  of  the  number  of 
farms  in  each  State  and  county  of  given 
sizes ;  and  a  proper  comparison  thereof 
yields  us  facts  of  great  significance  to  the 
present  inquiry.  For  example,  taking  the 
State  of  Georgia:  we  find  that,  while  in 
1860  it  had  but  906  farms  of  under  ten 
acres,  in  1870  it  had  3,527  such  farms;  in 
1860,  but  2,803  farms  of  over  ten  and  under 
twenty  acres, — in  1870,  6,942  such  farms; 
in  1860,  but  13,644  farms  of  over  twenty 
and  under  fifty  acres, — in  1870,  21,971  such 
farms;  in  1860,  but  14,129  farms  of  over 
fifty  and  under  one  hundred  acres, — in  1870, 
18,371  such  farms.  Making  a  total  of  all 
these  sub-classes,  considered  as  small  farms 
in  general,  and  subtracting  that  for  i8>o 
from  that  for  1870,  we  reach  the  instructive 
fact  that,  in  some  five  years  preceding  1870, 
the  increase  in  the  number  of  small  farms 
in  the  State  of  Georgia  was  nineteen  thou- 
sand three  hundred  and  twenty-nine. 

In  the  State  of  Mississippi  the  increase  is 
in  some  particulars  more  striking  than  that 
in  Georgia.  By  the  census  report,  Missis- 
sippi had  in  1860  only  563  farms  of  over 
three  but  under  ten  acres,  2,516  of  over 
ten  but  under  twenty,  10,967  of  between 
twenty  and  fifty,  and  9,204  of  between  fifty 
and  one  hundred;  while  in  1870  it  had 
1 1,003  farms  of  the  first-mentioned  size,  8,981 
of  the  second,  26,048  of  the  third,  and  1 1,967 
of  the  fourth  ;  in  short,  a  total  gain  of  34,749 
small  farms  between  1860  and  1870. 

The  political  significance  of  these  figures 
is  great.  To  a  large  extent — exactly  how 
large  I  have  in  vain  sought  means  to  esti- 
mate— they  represent  the  transition  of  the 
negro  from  his  attitude  as  negro  to  an  atti- 
tude as  small  farmer — an  attitude  in  which 
his  interests,  his  hopes,  and  consequently  his 
politics,  become  identical  with  those  of  all 
other  small  fanners,  whether  white  or  black. 

Nothing  seems  more  sure  than  that  an 
entirely  new  direction  of  cleavage  in  the 
structure  of  Southern  polity  must  come  with 
the  wholly  different  aggregation  of  particles 
implied  in  this  development  of  small  farming. 

In  the  identical  aims  of  the  small-farmer 
class,  whatever  now  remains  of  the  color- 
line  must  surely  disappear  out  of  the  South- 
ern political  situation.  This  class,  consisting 
as  it  already  does  of  black  small-farmers  and 


846 


THE  NEW  SOUTH. 


white  small-farmers,  must  necessarily  be  a 
body  of  persons  whose  privileges,  needs  and 
relations  are  not  those  which  exist  as  between 
the  black  man  on  the  one  hand  and  the  white 
man  on  the  other,  but  those  which  exist  as 
between  the  small  farmer  on  the  one  hand 
and  whatever  affects  small  farming  on  the 
other.  For  here — as  cannot  be  too  often 
said — the  relation  of  politics  to  agriculture 
is  that  of  the  turnip-top  to  the  turnip. 

This  obliteration  of  the  color-line  could 
be  reduced  to  figures  if  we  knew  the  actual 
proportion  of  the  new  small  farms  held  by 
negroes.  Though,  as  already  remarked, 
data  are  here  wanting,  yet  the  matter 
emerges  into  great  distinctness  if  we  select 
certain  counties  where  the  negro  population 
was  very  large  in  1860,  and  compare  the 
number  of  small  farms  in  those  counties 
for  1860  with  the  number  for  1870. 

This  exhibit  grows  all  the  more  close  if  we 
confine  it  to  very  small  farms,  such  as  the  col- 
cved  people  have  been  able  to  acquire  since 
the  war  by  lease  or  purchase,  and  thus  make  it 
indicate — certainly  in  part — the  accession  to 
the  number  of  small  farmers  from  that  source. 

Consider,  for  example,  the  figures  which 
stand  opposite  the  name  of  Liberty  County, 
Georgia,  in  Table  VII.  of  the  census  report 
for  1870,  as  compared  with  those  for  1860, 
directing  the  attention  to  but  two  classes 
of  farms — those  over  •  three  but  under  ten 
acres,  and  those  over  ten  but  under  twenty. 
Liberty,  it  may  be  remarked,  was  in  1860  a 
county  producing  mainly  sea-island  cotton 
and  rice,  from  large  farms  inhabited  or  owned 
by  many  of  the  oldest  and  wealthiest  fami- 
lies of  the  State.  In  the  year  1860,  accord- 
ing to  the  report,  it  had  eighteen  farms  of 
over  three  but  under  ten  acres,  and  thirty- 
five  of  over  ten  but  under  twenty.  In  1870 
we  find  these  figures  changed  to  616  farms 
of  over  three  but  under  ten  acres,  and  749 
farms  of  over  ten  but  under  twenty  acres. , 
In  Camden  County — a  county  penetrated 
by  the  Satilla  River  through  its  whole  length, 
and  before  the  war  mainly  covered  with 
great  rice-plantations — the  increase  is  nearly 
as  striking,  though  the  figures  are  smaller. 
Here,  in  1860,  were  but  three  farms  of  over 
three  and  under  ten  acres,  and  butfiveof  over 
ten  and  under  twenty  acres;  while  in  1870 
the  former  class  of  farms  had  increased  to  189, 
and  the  latter  to  136.  Chatham  County — 
in  which  Savannah  is  situated — shows  a 
similarly  enormous  increase,  though  here  a 
number  of  the  small  farms  represent  an  im- 
migration of  white  "  truck-farmers,"  raising 
vegetables  for  the  Northern  market — a  busi- 


ness which  has  largely  grown  in  that  neigh- 
borhood since  the  war,  with  the  increased 
facilities  offered  by  fast  and  often-running 
steamers  from  Savannah  to  New  York. 

Considering  the  case  of  Liberty  County: 
the  1,365  small  farms  of  1870  (that  is,  the 
total  of  both  sizes  of  farms  above  mentroned) 
against  the  fifty-three  of  1860,  may  be  con- 
sidered— so  far  as  I  know — largely  represent- 
ative of  accessions  of  negroes  to  the  ranks 
«f  the  small  farmer.  For,  though  these  col- 
ored farmers  hire  out  at  times,  yet  their  own 
little  patches  of  varied  products  are  kept 
up,  and  they  are — as  is,  indeed,  complained 
of  sadly  enough  by  larger  farmers  in  want 
of  hands — independent  of  such  hiring. 

Here  one  of  my  slips,  cut  from  a  sea- coast 
paper  while  this  article  is  being  written — in 
February,  1880, — gives  a  statement  of  affairs 
in  Liberty  County,  which,  coming  ten  years 
later  than  the  1870  census  report  last  quoted 
from,  is  particularly  helpful.  After  stating 
that  a  very  large  area  of  rice  was  planted 
last  year,  and  a  still  larger  area  this  year — 
that  the  price  of  rice  is  $1.15  a  bushel,  and 
the  average  yield  thirty  bushels  to  the  acre, 
at  which  figures  the  farmers  plant  but  little 
cotton — the  writer  adds  : 

"  If  the  farmer  of  Liberty  County  could  control 
the  negro  labor,  she  would  soon  become  one  of  the 
richest  counties  of  South  Georgia ;  but  there  comes 
in  the  trouble.  The  negroes,  most  of  them,  have 
bought  a  small  tract  of  land,  ten  acres  or  more,  and 
they  can  make  enough  rice  on  it  to  be  perfectly 
independent  of  the  white  man.  If  he  hires  one,  he 
has  to  pay  him  his  price,  which  is  not  less  than  fifty 
cents  per  day ;  but,  with  all  that,  the  county  seems 
to  be  thriving." 

It  does  not  seem  possible  to  doubt,  in  the 
light  of  these  considerations,  that  there  is, 
in  Georgia  at  least,  a  strong  class  of  small 
farmers  which  powerfully  tends  to  obliterate 
color  from  politics,  in  virtue  of  its  merger 
of  all  conflicting  elements  into  the  common 
interest  of  a  common  agricultural  pursuit. 

I  find  my  slips  much  occupied  with  a 
machine  which,  if  promises  hold,  is  to  play 
an  important  part  in  the  New  South.  This 
is  the  "  Clement  Attachment,"  which  pro- 
poses not  only  to  gin  the  cotton  without 
breaking  the  fiber,  but  with  the  same  motive- 
power  spins  it,  thus  at  one  process  convert- 
ing seed-cotton  into  cotton-yarn.  The 
saving  in  such  a  process  embraces  a  dozen 
methods  of  expense  and  waste  by  the  old 
process,  and  would  be  no  less  than  enormous. 

But  it  is  not  only  the  product  which  comes 
out  as  cotton-yarn  that  is  valuable.  The 
cotton-seed  are  themselves,  in  various  ways, 
sources  of  revenue.  One  of  these  ways — 


THE  NEW  SOUTH. 


847 


and  one  which  has  grown  greatly  in  impor- 
tance of  late  years — is  referred  to  in  the 
following  slip  : 

"  The  cotton-seed  oil  factories  in  New  Orleans  are 
reaping  this  fall  a  golden  harvest.  .  .  .  Every 
45o-pound  bale  of  cotton,  when  ginned,  yields  about 
half  a  ton  (1,100  pounds)  of  seed,  which  are  sold  to 
the  factories  at  $15  per  ton.  Here  the  oil  is  expressed 
and  the  refuse  is  sold  as  oil-cake — chiefly  exported  to 
Europe  for  stock  food,  and  used  by  the  sugar  plant- 
ers as  a  fertilizer.  Before  expressing  the  seed,  they 
are  first  linted  and  hulled.  The  lint  extracted  is  sold 
to  the  white-paper  factories,  and  the  hulls  are  used 
for  fuel  and  as  fertilizers." 

Of  course,  it  remains  to  be  seen  whether 
all  these  fine  things  will  be  done  by  the 
Clement  mills.  Some  of  my  slips  show  skep- 
ticism, a  few,  faith.  It  must  be  said  that 
the  stern  experiences  of  the  last  fifteen  years 
have  inclined  the  New  South  to  be,  in  gen- 
eral, doubtful  of  anything  which  holds  out 
great  promises  at  first.  A  cunning  indica- 
tion of  such  tendencies  comes — upon  the 
principle  of  like  master,  like  man — in  one 
of  the  cuttings  before  me  (from  the  Atlanta 
"  Constitution  "),  which  records  the  practical 
views  of  Uncle  Remus,  a  famous  colored 
philosopher  of  Atlanta,  who  is  a  fiction  so 
founded  upon  fact  and  so  like  it  as  to  have 
passed  into  true  citizenship  and  authority, 
along  with  Bottom  and  Autolycus.  This  is 
all  the  more  worth  giving  since  it  is  real 
negro-talk,  and  not  that  supposititious  negro- 
minstrel  talk  which  so  often  goes  for  the 
original.  It  is  as  nearly  perfect  as  any  dia- 
lect can  well  be ;  and  if  one  had  only  some 
system  of  notation  by  which  to  convey  the 
tunes  of  the  speaking  voice  in  which  Brer* 
Remus  and  Brer  Ab  would  say  these  tilings, 
nothing  could  be  at  once  more  fine  in  humor 
and  pointed  in  philosophy.  Negroes  on  the 
corner  can  be  heard  any  day  engaged  in 
talk  that  at  least  makes  one  think  of  Shak- 
spere's  clowns ;  but  half  the  point  and  flavor 
is  in  the  subtle  tone  of  voice,  the  gesture, 
the  glance,  and  these,  unfortunately,  cannot 
be  read  between  the  lines  by  any  one  who 
has  not  studied  them  in  the  living  original. 

"  Brer  Remus,  is  you  heern  tell  er  deze  doin's  out 
here  in  de  udder  end  er  town  ?  " 

"  Wat  doin's  is  dat,  Brer  Ab  ?  " 

"  Deze  yer  signs  an'  wunders  whar  dat  cullud  lady 
died  day  'fo'  yistiddy.  Mighty  quare  goin's  on  out 
dar,  Brer  Remus,  sho's  you  bawn." 

"  Sperrits  ?  " 

"  Wuss'n  dat,  Brer  Remus.  Some  say  dat  jedg- 
ment  day  aint  fur  off,  an'  de  folks  is  flockin'  roun'  de 
house,*a-hollerin'  an'  a-shoutin'  like  dey  wuz  in  er 

*  Anglice,  Brother. 


revival.  In  de  winder-glass  dar  you  kin  see  de  flags 
a-flyin',  an'  Jacob's  ladder  is  dar,  an'  dar's  writin'  on 
de  pane  what  no  man  can't  read — leastwise,  dey  aint 
none  read  it  yet." 

"  Wat  kinder  racket  is  dis  youer  givin'  me  now, 
Brer  Ab?  " 

"  I  done  bin  dur,  Brer  Remus  ;  I  done  seed  um 
wid  bofe  my  eyes.  Cullud  lady  what  was  intranced 
done  woke  up  an'  say  dey  aint  much  time  fer  ter 
tarry.  She  say  she  meet  er  angel  in  de  road,  an'  he 
p'inted  straight  fur  de  mornin'  star  an'  tell  her  fer  ter 
prepar'.  Hit  look  mighty  cu'us,  Brer  Remus." 

"  Come  down  ter  dat,  Brer  Ab,"  said  Uncle  Remus, 
wiping  his  spectacles  carefully  and  re-adjusting  them, 
— "  cum  down  ter  dat,  an'  dey  aint  nuthin'  dat  aint 
cu'us.  I  aint  no  'spicious  nigger  myse'f,  but  I  'spizes 
fer  ter  hear  dogs  a-howlin'  an'  squinch  owls  havinr 
de  ager  out  in  de  woods,  an'  w'en  a  bull  goes 
a-bellerin'  by  de  house,  den  my  bones  git  cole  an' 
my  flesh  commences  for  ter  creep;  but  w'en  it 
comes  ter  deze  yer  sines  in  de  a'r  an'  deze  yer  sper- 
rits  in  de  woods,  den  I'm  out — den  I'm  done.  I  is, 
fer  a  fac'.  I  bin  livin'  yer  more'n  seventy  year,  an' 
I  hear  talk  er  niggers  seein'  ghos'es  all  times  er 
night  an'  all  times  er  day,  but  I  aint  never  seed 
none  yit ;  an'  deze  yer  flags  and  Jacob's  lathers,  I 
aint  seed  dem,  nudder." 

"  Dey  er  dar,  Brer  Remus." 

"Hit's  des  like  I  tell  you,  Brer  Ab.  I  aint 
'spurin'  'bout  it,  but  I  aint  seed  um,  an'  I  don't  take 
no  chances,  deze  days,  on  dat  w'at  I  don't  see,  an' 
dat  w'at  I  sees  I  gotter  'zamine  mighty  close. 
Lemme  tell  you  dis,  Brer  Ab.  Don't  you  let  deze 
sines  onsettle  you.  Wen  ole  man  Gabrile  toot  his 
ho'n,  he  aint  gwinter  hang  no  sine  out  in  de  winder- 
panes,  an'  w'en  ole  Fadder  Jacob  lets  down  dat 
lather  er  hisn  you'll  be  mighty  ap'  fer  ter  hear  de 
racket.  An'  don't  you  bodder  wid  jedgment-day. 
Jedgment-day  is  lierbul  fer  ter  take  keer  un  itse'f." 

"  Dat's  so,  Brer  Remus." 

"Hit's  bleedzed  ter  be  so,  Brer  Ab.  Hit  don't 
bodder  me.  Hit's  done  got  so  now  dat  w'en  I 
gotter  pone  er  bread,  an'  a  rasher  er  bacon,  an'  nuff 
grease  fer  ter  make  gravy,  I  aint  keerin'  much 
wedder  folks  sees  ghos'es  or  no." 

These  concluding  sentiments  of  Brer  Re- 
mus would  serve  very  accurately  as  an 
expression  of  the  attitude  of  the  small 
farmer — not  only  in  the  South,  but  else- 
where— toward  many  of  the  signs  and 
ghosts  and  judgment-days  with  which  the 
careful  politician  must  fight  the  possible 
loss  of  public  attention.  There  may  be 
signs  of  danger  to  the  republic ;  there  may 
be  ghosts  of  dreadful  portent  stalking  around 
the  hustings  and  through  the  Capitol  corri- 
dors; and  Judgment-day  may  be  coming, 
— to  this  or  that  representative  or  function- 
ary ;  but  meantime  it  is  clear  that  we  small 
farmers  will  have  nothing  to  eat  unless  we 
go  into  the  field  and  hoe  the  corn  and  feed 
the  hogs.  By  the  time  this  is  done,  night 
comes  on,  and,  being  too  tired  to  sit  up 
until  twelve  o'clock  for  a  sight  of  the  ghost, 
we  go  to  bed  soon  after  supper,  and  sleep 
without  sign  or  dream  till  the  sun  calls 
us  forth  again  to  the  corn  and  the  hogs. 


THE  NEW  SOUTH. 


in. 


THE  evils  just  now  alleged  of  large  farm- 
ing in  the  West  were  necessarily  in  the  way 
of  prophecy ;  but  it  is  not  difficult  to  show 
them  as  history.  Early  in  the  sixteenth 
century,  England  was  seized  with  a  passion 
for  large  farming  such  as  perhaps  no  age 
can  parallel ;  and  it  so  happens  that  con- 
temporary pictures  place  the  results  of  it 
before  us  with  quite  extraordinary  vividness. 

After  the  fineness  of  English  wool  had 
been  demonstrated,  and  had  carried  up  the 
price  of  that  commodity,  the  rage  for  sheep- 
raising  became  a  mania  like  that  of  the 
South  Sea  speculation,  and  this  one  cult- 
ure became  the  "  large  farming "  of  the 
period.  Land-owners  deliberately  tore  down 
farm-buildings  and  converted  farms  into 
sheep-walks;  churches  were  demolished,  or 
converted  into  sheep-houses;  hamlets  were 
turned  to  pasture;  and  rents  were  raised 
to  such  a  rate  as  would  drive  off  tenants 
holding  leases,  and  enable  the  landlords 
to  make  sheep-walks  of  their  holdings. 
Thus,  bodies  of  productive  glebe  which  had 
supported  many  farmers'  families  would  be 
turned  over  to  the  occupation  of  a  single 
shepherd.  What  must  become  of  the  farm- 
ers' families  ?  Contemporary  testimony  is 
ample.  They  became  beggars  and  crim- 
inals, and  the  world  has  rarely  seen  such 
sights  of  barbarous  misery  as  are  revealed 
by  the  writings,  the  sermons,  the  laws  of 
this  frightful  period.  A  tract  in  Lambeth 
Library,  belonging  to  this  time,  is  entitled 
"  Certain  Causes  Gathered  Together,  where- 
in is  showed  the  decay  of  England  only  by 
the  great  multitude  of  sheep,  to  the  utter 
decay  of  household  keeping,  maintenance 
of  men,  dearth  of  corn,  and  other  notable 
discommodities";  and,  after  estimating  that 
50,000  fewer  plows  are  going  than  a  short 
time  before,  declares  that  the  families  once 
fed  by  these  plows  "  now  have  nothing  but 
to  go  about  in  England  from  door  to  door, 
and  ask  their  alms  for  God's  sake";  and 
"  some  of  them,  because  they  will  not  beg, 
do  steal,  and  then  they  be  hanged.  And 
thus  the  realm  doth  decay." 

In  that  notable  dialogue  of  Thomas 
Starkey's,  recently  published  by  the  New 
Shakspere  Society,  purporting  to  be  a  con- 
versation between  Thomas  Lupset,  Oxford 
professor,  and  his  friend,  Cardinal  Pole, — a 
work  by  no  means  an  unworthy  predecessor 
of  Lander's  "  Imaginary  Conversations," — 
we  have  contemporary  testimony  to  the 
same  facts.  "  Who  can  be  so  blind  or  ob- 


stinate," cries  Lupset,  at  a  certain  point,  "  to 
deny  the  great  decay,  faults  and  misorders 
of  our  common  weal ;  .  .  .  our  cities,  castles 
and  towns  of  late  days  ruinate  and  fallen 
down;"  and  he  laments  the  "ground  so 
rude  and  waste,  which  hath  been  beforetime 
occupied  and  tilled";  declaring,  in  another 
place,  that  "  this  is  sure,  that  in  no  country 
of  Christendom  you  shall  find  so  many  beg- 
gars as  be  here  in  England,"  and  inveighing 
against  the  "nourishing  of  sheep,  which  is  a 
great  decay  of  the  tillage  of  this  realm." 

But  here  honest  Hugh  Latimer  comes 
and  nails  his  nail  with  lightning  and  thun- 
der. In  the  first  of  those  seven  sturdy  ser- 
mons which  he  preached  before  the  young 
king  Edward  VI.,  in  1548,  immediately 
after  Henry  VIII. 's  death,  describing  the 
number  of  agricultural  laborers  who  had  been 
thrown  out  of  possible  employment  by  the 
sudden  rage  for  sheep-raising,  he  exclaims  : 

"  For  wher  as  have  bene  a  great  many 
of  householders  and  inhabitantes,  ther  is 
now  but  a  shepherd  and  his  dogge ! 

"  My  lordes  and  maisters,"  proceeds  Lati- 
mer, "  I  say  also  that  all  such  proced- 
ynges  ...  do  intend  plainly  to  make  the 
yomanry  slavery  and  the  cleargye  shavery." 
And  then  we  have  a  bright  glimpse  at  better 
old  days  of  small  farming,  in  some  personal 
recollections  with  which  the  old  preacher 
was  often  fond  of  clinching  an  argument. 
"  My  father  was  a  Yoman,  and  had  no 
landes  of  his  owne,  onely  he  had  a  farme 
of  iii.  or  iiii.  pound  by  yere  at  the  uttermost, 
and  hereupon  he  tilled  so  much  as  kepte 
half  a  dozen  men.  He  had  walk  for  a  hun- 
dred shepe,  and  my  mother  mylked  xxx. 
kyne.  He  was  able  and  did  find  the  king 
a  harnesse,  wyth  hymselfe  and  hys  horsse, 
whyle  he  come  to  ye  place  that  he  should 
receyve  the  kynges  wages.  I  can  remem- 
bre  yat  I  buckled  hys  harnes  when  he  went 
unto  Blackeheath  felde.  He  kept  me  to 
schole,  or  elles  I  had  not  bene  able  to  have 
preached  before  the  kinges  maiestie  nowe. 
He  maryed  my  systers  with  v.  pounde  a 
pece.  .  .  .  He  kept  hospitalitie  for  his 
pore  neighbours.  And  sum  almess  he  gave 
to  the  poore,  and  all  thys  did  he  of  the 
sayd  farme.  When  he  that  now  hath  it 
paitfh  XVI.  pounde  by  yere  or  more,  and  is 
not  able  to  do  anything  for  his  Prynce,  for 
himselfe,  nor  for  his  children,  or  geve  a  cup 
of  drincke  to  the  pore." 

Thus  we  learn,  from  the  clause  I  have 
italicized,  that  within  Hugh  Latimer's  per- 
sonal recollection  farm-rents  had  gone  up 
more  than  three  hundred  per  cent,  in  con- 


THE  NEW  SOUTH. 


849 


sequence  of  the  "  inclosure  "  mania — "  in- 
closure "  being  a  term  in  many  mouths 
during  all  this  period,  and  always  equivalent 
to  "large-farming." 

It  is  inspiriting  to  observe  the  boldness 
with  which  Latimer  charges  home  these 
evils  upon  the  landlords,  many  of  whom 
must  have  been  sitting  before  him  at  the 
moment.  These  sermons  were  preached  in 
the  garden  at  Westminster,  where  the  young 
king  had  caused  a  pulpit  to  be  set  up  for 
Latimer,  in  order  to  accommodate  the  crowd 
who  desired  to  hear  him.  "  You  landlordes," 
he  cries,  in  another  part  of  the  same  sermon, 
"you  rent-raisers,  I  maye  saye  you  step- 
lordes,  you  unnaturall  lordes,  you  have  for 
your  possessions  yerely  to  [too]  much.  Of 
thys  to  much,  commeth  this  monsterous  and 
portentious  dearth  .  .  .  that  poore  menne 
.  .  .  cannot  wyth  the  sweate  of  their  face 
have  a  livinge,  all  kinde  of  victales  is  so  deare, 
pigges,  gese,  capons,  chickens,  egges,"  etc. ! 

But,  worse  again,  in  the  large-farming 
mania,  great  land-owners  became  land- 
grabbers  of  the  most  unscrupulous  kind.  In 
his  second  sermon,  Latimer  gives  us  a  view 
of  one  of  their  methods : 

"  I  can  not  go  to  my  boke,  for  pore  folkes 
come  unto  me,  desirynge  me  that  I  wyll 
speake  that  theyr  matters  maye  be  heard." 
Occasionally  he  is  at  my  lord  of  Canter- 
bury's house,  "  and  now  and  then  I  walke 
in  the  garden  lokyng  in  my  boke. 
I  am  no  soner  in  the  garden  and  have  red  a 
whyle  but  by  and  by  cometh  there  some  or 
other  knocking  at  the  gate.  Anon  cometh 
my  man  and  sayth,  Syr,  there  is  one  at  the 
gate  would  speake  wyth  you.  When  I  come 
there  then  it  is  some  or  other  .  .  .  that 
hathe  layne  thys  longe  [time]  at  great 
costes  and  charges  and  can  not  once  have 
hys  matter  come  to  the  hearing ;  but  among 
all  other,  one  especially  moved  me  at  this 
time  to  speak.  ...  A  gentlewoman 
come  to  me  and  tolde  me  that  a  great  man 
keepeth  certaine  landes  of  hyrs  from  hir,  and 
wil  be  hyr  tennante  in  the  spite  of  hyr  tethe. 
And  that  in  a  whole  twelve  moneth  she 
coulde  not  gette  but  one  daye  for  the  hear- 
ynge  of  hyr  matter,  and  the  same  daye 
when  the  matter  should  be  hearde,  the  greate 
manne  broughte  on  hys  syde  a  greate  syghte 
of  Lawyers  for  hys  counsayle,  the  gentil- 
woman  had  but  one  man  of  lawe  :  and  the 
great  man  shakes  hym  so  that  he  can  not 
tell  what  to  do,  so  that  when  the  matter 
came  to  the  poynte,  the  Judge  was  a  meane 
to  the  gentylwoman  that  she  wold  let  the 
great  man  have  a  quietnes  in  hyr  Lande." 


But  far  more  beautifully  and  compre- 
hensively does  that  lucent  soul  Thomas 
More  put  the  case,  in  the  "  Utopia."  Here, 
through  the  medium  of  another  imaginary 
conversation,  More  is  cunningly  showing  up 
affairs  at  home.  He  is  talking  with  his  sup- 
posititious traveler,  Hythlodaye  : 

"'I  pray  you,  syr  [quod  I],  have  you  ben  in  our 
countrey  ?  ' 

'Yea,  forsoth  [quod  he],  and  there  I  taried  for  the 

space  of  iiii.  or  v.  monethes  together It 

chaunced  on  a  certayne  daye,  when  I  sate  at  the 
table  of  Archbishop  John  Morton,  that  a  certain 
lawyer  fell  talking  of  thieves  in  England,  rejoicing  to 
see  "  XX  hanged  together  upon  one  gallowes,'  and 
the  like,  wherto  I  replied : 

"'It  is  to  [too]  extreame  and  cruel  a  punishment 
for  thefte,  ....  much  rather  provision  should 
have  been  made  that  there  were  some  meano  where- 
by they  myght  get  their  livyng,  so  that  no  man  shoulde 
be  dryven  to  this  extreame  necessitie,  firste  to  'steale 
and  then  to  dye.'  " 

One  cause  of  this  is  '"as  I  suppose,  proper  and 
peculiar  to  you  Englishmen  alone. ' 

'  What  is  that,'  quod  the  Cardinal. 

'Forsoth,  my  lorde  [quod  I],  your  shepe  that 
were  wont  to  be  so  meeke  and  tame  and  so  smal 
eaters,  now,  as  I  heare  say,  be  become  so  great 
devowerers,  and  so  wylde  that  they  eate  up  and 
swallow  downe  the  very  men  themselves.  They 
consume,  destroye,  and  devoure  whole  fieldes,  houses 
and  cities.  For  looke  in  what  partes  of  the  realme 
doth  growe  the  fynest,  and  therefore  dearest  woll 
[wool]  these  noblemen,  and  gentlemen,  yea  and 
certayn  Abbottes,  holy  men,  no  doubt,  leave  no 
grounde  for  tillage,  thei  inclose  al  into  pastures,  thei 
throw  downe  houses,  they  plucke  down  townes,  and 
leave  nothing  standynge  but  only  the  churche  to  be 
made  a  shepe-house,'  "  so  that "  '  the  husbandmen  be 
thrust  owte  of  their  owne,  or  els  either  by  coveyne 
fraude,  or  by  violent  oppression  they  be  put  besyde  it, 
or  by  wronges  and  injuries  thei  be  so  weried  that 
they  be  compelled  to  sell  all ;  ...  either  by  hooke  or 
crooke  they  must  needs  departe  awaye,  poore,  selye, 
wretched  soules,  men,  women ,  husbands,  wives,  father- 
less children,  widowes,  wofull  mothers  with  their 
yonge  babes,  and  their  whole  household,  smal  in  sub- 
stance and  muche  in  numbre,  as  husbandrye  requireth 
many  handes.  Awaye  thei  trudge,  I  say  .... 
fyndynge  no  place  to  reste  in.  All  their  housholde 
stuffe,  .  .  .  beeyng  sodainely  thruste  oute,  they  be 
constrayned  to  sell  it  for  a  thing  of  nought.  And 
when  they  have  wandred  abrode  tyll  that  be  spent, 
what  can  they  then  els  doo  but  steale,  and  then 
justly  pardy  be  hanged,  or  els  go  about  a-beggyng  ? 
.  .  I  praye  you,  what  other  thing  do  you  then 
[than]  make  theves,  and  then  punish  them  ?  ' ' 

It  seems  difficult  to  believe  that  towns 
were  actually  destroyed,  and  churches 
deliberately  pulled  down,  to  give  room  for 
sheep-pastures;  yet,  if  anything  were  needed 
beyond  the  testimony  already  given,  it  is 
clinched  beyond  all  doubt  by  many  statutes 
of  the  reign  of  Henry  VIII.  and  Elizabeth. 
For  example,  the  Preamble  to  the  statute  of 
Henry  VIII.,  Chapter  I.,  recites  : 

"The  King,  our  Sovereign  Lord,  calling  to  his 
most  blessed  remembrance  that  whereas  great  incon- 


85o 


THE  NEW  SOUTH. 


venience  be  and  daily  increase  by  ...  pulling  down 
and  destruction  of  houses  and  towns  within  this 
realm,  and  laying  to  pasture  land  which  customably 
have  been  .  .  .  occupied  with  tillage  and  husbandry 
.  .  .  whereby  husbandry  is  decayed,  churches  de- 
stroyed, etc.,  etc.,"  therefore  enacted  that  such  places 
"be re-edified, and  such  lands  so  turned  intopasturebe 
restored  to  tillage,"  upon  penalty  of  the  king's  seiz- 
ing half  the  yearly  profits  to  his  own  use  until  they 
shbuld  be  so  re-edified  and  restored. 

Eighteen  years  later,  I  find  "An  Acte 
Concernyng  Fermes  and  Shepe,"  whose  pre- 
amble yields  some  curious  details  of  this 
large-farming  rampant,  and  shows  that 
Latimer's  poor  gentlewoman,  who  had  a 
great  man  for  her  tenant  in  the  spite  of 
her  teeth,  was  but  one  of  many. 

"  For  as  much  as  divers  and  sundry  per- 
sons of  the  king's  subjects  of  this  Realm  .  .  . 
now  of  late  .  .  .  have  daily  studied  and  prac- 
ticed .  .  .  ways  and  means  how  they  might 
accumulate  and  gather  together  into  fewer 
hands  as  well  great  multitude  of  farms  as 
great  plenty  of  cattle  and  in  especial  sheep, 
putting  such  land  as  they  can  get  to  pasture 
and  not  to  tillage,  whereby  they  have  not 
only  pulled  down  churches  and  towns  and 
enhanced  the  old  rates  of  the  rents  ...  of 
this  Realm  .  .  .  but  have  raised  the  prices  of 
all  manner  of  corn,  cattle,  wool,  pigs,  geese, 
hens,  chickens,  eggs,  and  such  other,  almost 
double  ...  by  reason  whereof  a  marvelous 
multitude  of  the  people  of  this  Realm  be 
not  able  to  provide  meat,  etc.,  for  themselves, 
their  wives  and  children,  but  be  so  discour- 
aged with  misery  and  poverty  that  they  fall 
daily  to  theft,  robbing,  etc.,  ...  or  pitifully 
die  for  hunger  and  cold ; "  and  as  all  this  comes 
of  large  farming  in  sheep,  whereby  great  herds 
are  gathered  into  few  hands ;  therefore  enact- 
ed that  hereafter  no  person  shall  have,  of  his 
own  proper  cattle,  above  two  thousand  head 
atatime;  upon  pain  of  three  shillings  and  four 
pence — a  heavy  fine — for  each  surplus  sheep. 

And  to  similar  intents  I  find  act  after  act, 
running  far  into  Elizabeth's  reign. 

But  to  no  effect ;  for  who  can  stop  gam- 
bling ?  "  We  have  good  statutes,"  quoth 
Latimer,  "as  touching  commoners," — com- 
moners being  those  who  usurped  commons 
for  sheep-walks,  in  short,  large- farmers, — 
"  but  there  cometh  nothing  forth.  .  .  . 
Let  the  preacher  preach  till  his  tongue  be 
worn  to  the  stumps,  nothing  is  amended." 

In  a  time  when  ballads  were  so  plentiful 
that,  as  Martin  Marsixtus  (1552)  hath  it, 
"  every  red-nosed  rhymester  is  an  author,"  and 
"  scarce  a  cat  can  look  out  of  a  gutter  but  out 
starts  some  penny  chronicler,  and  presently  a 
proper  new  ballad  of  a  strange  sight  is  in- 


dited," such  matters  as  these  could  hardly  fail 
to  find  their  way  into  popular  verse ;  and  ac- 
cordingly we  find  the  story  in  such  forms  as  : 

"The  towns  go  down,  the  land  decays, 

Of  corn-fields,  plain  leas ; 
Great  men  maketh  nowadays 

A  sheep-cot  of  the  church. 

****** 

Poor  folk  for  bread  to  cry  and  weep; 
Towns  pulled  down  to  pasture  sheep ; 
This  is  the  new  guise." 

How  far  this  large  farming,  thus  carried  on, 
converted  the  most  virtuous  occupation  of 
man — husbandry — into  the  most  conscience- 
withering  of  all  pursuits, — the  gambler's, — 
and  gave  to  the  wildest  speculation  the  facti- 
tious basis  of  a  sort  of  real-estate  transaction ; 
how  far  it  was  connected  with  that  national 
passion  for  dicing  which  Roger  Ascham 
mourns,  when  he  patly  quotes  the  Pardoner's 
Tale  of  Chaucer,  wishing  that  English 

"Lordes  might  finde  them  other  maner  of  pleye 
Honest  ynough  to  drive  the  day  awaye," 

and  concludes,  so  beautifully !  "  I  suppose 
that  there  is  no  one  thyng  that  chaungeth 
sooner  the  golden  and  sylver  wyttes  of  men 
into  copperye  and  brassye  wayes  than  dic- 
ing; "  how  far  it  was  of  the  same  piece 
with  that  frightful  knavery  in  public  station 
against  which  we  hear  old  Latimer  thunder- 
ing, "  They  all  love  bribes,  and  bribery  is  a 
princely  kind  of  thieving,"  and  telling  them 
the  story  of  Cambyses,  who  flayed  a  bribe- 
taking  judge  and  covered  the  judge's  chair 
with  it,  that  all  succeeding  judges  might  sit 
in  that  wholesome  reminder,  and  finally 
exclaiming,  "  a  goodly  syne,  ...  I  praye 
God  we  may  see  the  signe  of  the  skynne  in 
England  ;  "  how  far  it  was  connected  with 
gentle  George  Gascoigne's  picture,  in  "  The 
Steel  Glass,"  of  the  clergyman  who 

"  will  read  the  holy  writ, 
Which  doth  forbid  all  greedy  usury, 
And  yet  receive  a  shilling  for  a  pound ; 

will  preach  of  patience, 
And  yet  be  found  as  angry  as  a  wasp; 

reproveth  vanity, 

(While  he  himself,  with  hawk  upon  his  fist 
And  hounds  at  heel,  doth  quite  forget  the  text); 

corrects  contentions 
For  trifling  things,  and  yet  will  sue  for  tithes ;  " 

how  far  it  had  to  do  with  Bernard  Gilpin's 
rebuke,  in  his  sermon,  of  "  Never  so  many 
gentlemen  and  so  little  gentleness; "  and 
how  far  the  past  of  large  farming  in  Eng- 
land sheds  light  on  the  future  of  large  farm- 
ing in  America:  are  questions  beyond  the 
limits  of  this  paper. 

Meantime,  it  seems  like  an  omen  to  this 
brief  sketch,  that  while  it  is  being  written  the 


A    GROUP  OF  POEMS. 


85' 


newspapers  bring  report  how  Mr.  Gladstone 
has  recently  proposed  small  farming  as  a 
remedy  for  the  present  agricultural  ills  of  Eng- 
land, and  has  recommended  that  "  English 
farmers  should  turn  their  attention  to  raising 
fruits,  vegetables,  poultry,  eggs  and  butter." 
In  truth,  I  find  a  great  man  appealing  to 
the  small  farmer  a  long  time  before  Mr.  Glad- 
stone. Euripides  praises  him  for  not  being 
a  crazy  democrat.  It  is  these  farmers,  he  de- 
clares, who  stay  at  home  and  do  not  come  to 
the  public  assembly,  that  save  the  country. 

It  is  impossible  to  end  without  adverting 
to  a  New  South  which  exists  in  a  far  more 
literal  sense  than  that  of  small  farming. 
How  much  of  this  gracious  land  is  yet  new 
to  all  real  cultivation,  how  much  of  it  lies 
groaning  for  the  muscle  of  man,  and  how 
doubly  mournful  is  this  newness,  in  view  of 
the  fair  and  fruitful  conditions  which  here 
hold  perpetual  session,  and  press  perpetual 
invitation  upon  all  men  to  come  and  have 
plenty  !  Surely,  along  that  ample  stretch  of 
generous  soil,  where  the  Appalachian  rugged- 
nesses  calm  themselves  into  pleasant  hills 
before  dying  quite  away  into  the  sea-board 
levels,  a  man  can  find  such  temperances  of 
heaven  and  earth — enough  of  struggle  with 
nature  to  draw  out  manhood,  with  enough 
of  bounty  to  sanction  the  struggle — that  a 
more  exquisite  co- adaptation  of  all  blessed 
circumstances  for  man's  life  need  not  be 
sought.  It  is  with  a  part  of  that  region 
that  tli is  writer  is  most  familiar,  and  one 
cannot  but  remember  that,  as  one  stands  at 
a  certain  spot  thereof  and  looks  off  up  and 
across  the  Ocmulgee  River,  the  whole  pros- 
pect seems  distinctly  to  yearn  for  men. 


Everywhere  the  huge  and  gentle  slopes  kneel 
and  pray  for  vineyards,  for  corn-fields,  for 
cottages,  for  spires  to  rise  up  from  beyond 
the  oak-groves.  It  is  a  land  where  there  is 
never  a  day  of  summer  nor  of  winter  when  a 
man  cannot  do  a  full  day's  work  in  the  open 
field;  all  the  products  meet  there,  as  at 
nature's  own  agricultural  fair;  rice  grows 
alongside  of  wheat,  corn  alongside  of  sugar- 
cane, cotton  alongside  of  clover,  apples 
alongside  of  peaches,  so  that  a  small  farm 
may  often  miniature  the  whole  United  States 
in  growth ;  the  little  valleys  everywhere  run 
with  living  waters,  asking  grasses  and  cattle 
and  quiet  grist-mills ;  all  manner  of  timbers 
for  economic  uses  and  trees  for  finer  arts 
cover  the  earth;  in  short,  here  is  such  a 
neighborly  congregation  of  climates,  soils, 
minerals  and  vegetables,  that  within  the 
compass  of  many  a  hundred-acre  farm  a 
man  may  find  wherewithal  to  build  his  house 
of  stone,  of  brick,  of  oak,  or  of  pine,  to 
furnish  it  in  woods  that  would  delight  the 
most  curious  eye,  and  to  supply  his  family 
with  all  the  necessaries,  most  of  the  com- 
forts, and  many  of  the  luxuries,  of  the  whole 
world.  It  is  the  country  of  homes. 

And,  as  said,  it  is  because  these  blissful 
ranges  are  still  clamorous  for  human  friend- 
ship ;  it  is  because  many  of  them  are  actu- 
ally virgin  to  plow,  pillar,  axe  or  mill-wheel, 
while  others  have  known  only  the  insulting 
and  mean  cultivation  of  the  earlier  immi- 
grants, who  scratched  the  surface  for  cotton 
a  year  or  two,  then  carelessly  abandoned  all 
to  sedge  and  sassafras,  and  sauntered  on 
toward  Texas :  it  is  thus  that  these  lands 
are,  with  sadder  significance  than  that  of 
small  farming,  also  a  New  South. 


A  GROUP   OF   POEMS. 


The   Flute. 

"  How   sounds   thy  flute,  great   master  ? "   said  a 

child, 

Those  deep  dark  eyes  plead  gently  with  his  own. 
"  Hath  it  a  music  very  soft  and  mild, 
Or*loud  its  tone  ?  " 

Then  he,  who  loved  all  children  tenderly, 
Brought  forth  his  best  companion,  and  his  lips 
Set  fondly  'gainst  the  wood.     The  melody 

Followed  his  flying  finger-tips, 
And  broke  upon  her  ear  in  trills  of  sound 


So  light  and  gay,  that  frolic  revelry, 

And  murmurs  sweet,  as  when  fair  maids  in  June 

Go  tripping  daintily  to  gather  flowers, — 
Filled  with  soft  laughter  all  the  air  around. 

Then  gushed  in  glee  a  little  tune 
She    knew    full    well,    but    made    so    bright    with 

showers 

Of  liquid  notes,  'twas  like  a  meadow  brook, 
Whose  face  is  kissed  by  sudden  April  rain. 

And  yet  again, 

Interpreting  her  smile,  the  Master  blew 
(Like  some  dry  thistle  that  the  wind  has  shook) 
Such  airy  notes  to  skyward,  that  her  eye, 


A    GROUP  OF  POEMS. 


To  aid  her  ear,  should  follow: 

For,  clear  and  hollow 
As  bubbles  dancing  in  the  sun, 
In  shades  of  crimson,  gold  and  violet, 
The  crystal  spheres  of  music  upward  flew : 
Along  her  lifted  spirit  seemed  to  run, 
And  lose  themselves  in  Heaven's  own  harmony. 

Then,  dewy  wet, 

And  dark  with  coming  night,  the  woodlands  gray 
Seemed  whispering  through  all  their  dusky  leaves. 

Among  the  branches  stole 
Faint  twitterings  of  birds.     High  overhead, 
Piping  and  calling  loudly  to  his  mate, 
A  swallow  seemed  to  settle  on  the  eaves; 
While  robin,  in  his  evening  roundelay, 
Gone    mad    with   joy,    seemed    pouring    forth    the 

whole 

Delight  of  all  the  summer.     Then  was  wed 
To  these  so  strange  a  sound  and  desolate, 
Sighing  she  listened,  and  her  tears 
Mixed  with  her  sighs.     Oh,  deep  and  fine 
The  pathos  of  that  air  divine ! 
For  all  the  grief  of  other  years, 
And  all  the  pain  that  is  to  be, 
For  painters  gone  and  poets  fled; 
For  singers  mingled  with  the  dead : 
Heroes  and  loved  ones  of  the  earth, 
With  those  whose  jests  and  innocent  mirth 
Despair  made  hope  again  and  sadness  smile, — 

Made  pitiful  the  sorrow  of  the  strain. 
Then  rose  a  martial  measure,  stately,  slow, 
And  following,  the  brave,  quick  cries 
Of  armed  men  in  battle.     Here, 
The  plain  seemed  spread  before  her  eyes, — 
There  shuddered  on   her  sentient  ear 
A  groan,  mixed  with  a  triumph  shout 

And  psean  loud  of  victory  ! 

How  sweet  and  low 

Sang  then  the  happy  spirit  in  the  flute ! 
Like  the  far  distant  chimes  from   some  old  tower, 
Speaking  of  peace  and  calm  serenity 

At  sunset  hour ; 

Or,  coming  near, 

Tinklings  of  bells  by  naiads  rung, 
Or  by  spiced  winds  of  summer  swung, 
When  apple-blossoms,  shyly  peeping  out 
Fill  with  fresh  fragrance  orchards  far  and  wide. 

With  pleasure  mute 
She  listened,  while  to  joy  again 
Changed  the  rich  tones.      So  thrilling,  strong  and 

free, 

With  such  wild  passion,  power  and  energy 
Leapt  they  from  forth  the  slender  instrument, 

Wondrous  it   seemed  unto  the  little  maid ; 
And  as  they  rippled  on  in  fuller  tide, 
Seeming  to  break  like  waves  upon  the  shore, 
She  crept  still  closer  to  the  Master's  side, 
And  gazed  on  him  with  awe.     "  Be  not  afraid," 
He  murmured,  while  above  her  bent 
His  face,  inspired  as  never  yet  before, 

"  No  harm  nor  guile 
Knows  this  blithe  elf,  dear  innocent, — 
Listen,  and  he  shall  tell  a  fairy  tale." 
But  she,  whose  little  heart  was  throbbing  yet, 
Whispered,  "  Ah,  no !     Thy  flute   is  very  sweet, 
Great  Master,  but  I  fear  it.     In  my  soul, 
I  seem  to  hear  the  Future,  with  winged  feet, 
Coming  too  fast!  "     On  this,  with  visage  pale, 
In  haste  he  hid  the  flute,  and  in  regret, 
Soothed  her  with  kisses.     Then  about  him  stole 
Her  arms,  and  soon,  in  slumberous  content, 
She  dreamed.     But  watching  wistfully  the  while, 
He  breathed  in  pain  "  How  could  I  so  forget  ? " 

LUCRECE. 


To  R.  H.  Stoddard. 

ON  THE  PUBLICATION  OF  HIS  COLLECTED  POEMS. 

POET  of  thought  sedate,  whose  tender  line 
Is  but  the  transcript  of  a  life-long  art 
Ripened  in  quiet  study,  while  the  heart 
Kept    guard   and   crowned    thee    with   its    powers 

divine 
In  beauty  and  in  glory !     Were  it  mine 

To  hymn  thy  praises,  I  would  cry — at  length 

The  scattered  treasures^  of  our  poet's  strength 

Are  richly  garnered  !     Why  should  such  wealth  as 

thine 

Blow  to  the  winds  like  vagrant  autumn-leaves  ? 

We  joy  and  thank  thee  that  the  ripened  sheaves 

Are  safely  housed  and  hoarded  !     Wheat  and  wine 

And  golden  fruits  and  knots  of  amaranth  flowers 

That  link  the  years  and  seasons,  heap  the  shrine 

Thy  liberal  hand  hath  oped  to  these  glad  hearts 

of  ours  I 

WILLIAM  M.  BRIGGS. 

Compensation. 

"  THIS  for  the  past !  "  she  murmured ;   "  grief  and 

pain 

Fade  into  nothingness  beneath  thy  kiss. 
The  long  dark  way  that  led  me  to  such  bliss 
Is  all  forgotten.     Clasp  me  once  again, 
That  in  the  future  I  may  still  retain 
One  fair  remembrance,  unto  which   my  soul 
May  turn,  in  spite  of  duty's  hard  control, 
And  from  the  sight  new  hope,  new  courage  gain. 
Last,  kiss  me  for  the  present,  soft  and  slow, 
As  on  a  rose  the  moonbeams  quivering  fall ; 
No  more — ah,  Love,  loose  me  and  let  me  go ! 
Dost  thou  not  hear  Fate's  low,  relentless  call? 
Oh,  cruel  Life !  though  thou  hast  used  me  so, 
My  Love's  three  kisses  have  atoned  for  all." 

ELIZA  C.  HALL. 

At  Dawn. 

(RONDEAU.) 

AT  dawn  of  day,  when  cow-bells  ring 
O'er  mellowing  meadow-lands,  where  cling 
The  clover-scented  wreaths  of  mist, 
Half  pearl  in  hue,  half  amethyst, 
Glad  sky-bound  larks  leap  up  and  sing. 

And  so  my  heart  doth  heavenward  spring, 
When,  like  some  virginal  queen,  you  bring 
Fresh,  opening  buds  by  zephyrs  kissed, 
At  dawn  of  day. 

The  breath,  the  balm,  the  glow  you  fling 
Like  dew-drops  from  some  bright  bird's  wing, 
Thrill  all  my  being,  as  I  list 
To  melodies  which  must  desist 
When  night-fall  hath  discrowned  me,  king 
At  dawn  of  day. 

JOHN  MORAN. 

"So  Be  It." 

So  be  it,  then  !     We  may  not  say 
Whether  this  thing  be  worst  or  best, 
But  God  knows.     Let  it  rest. 
Yea,  let  it  rest,  and  in  our  place 
Let  each  do  well  some  worthy  deed, 
Whereof  the  sickly  World  hath  need. 
So  much,  no  more,  our  hands  can  do. 
So  much,  then,  let  us  do,  and  wait — 
Though  bitter  be  the  heart's  debate. 

H.  L.  C. 


A    GROUP  OF  POEMS. 


853 


Nunc  Dimittis. 

'Tis  a  good  world  and  fair, 
And  excellently  lovely.     If  there  be 
Among  the  myriad  spheres  of  upper  air, 
One  yet  more  beautiful,  some  other  where, 

It  matters  not    to  me. 


What  can  I  crave  of  good 
That    here    I    find   not?      Nature's    stores    are 

spread 

Abroad  with  such  profusion,  that  I  would 
Not  have  one  glory  added,  if  I  could, 
Beneath  or  overhead. 

And  I  have  loved  right  well 
The  world  God  gave  us  to  be  happy  in, — 
A  world — may  be — without  a  parallel 
Below   that   Heaven  of  Heavens,  where  doth   not 

dwell 
The  discontent  of  sin. 

And  yet,  though  I  behold 

Its  matchless  splendors  stretched  on  every  side, — 
Its  sapphire  seas,  its  hills,  its  sunset  gold, 
Its  leafage,  fresh  as  Eden's  was  of  old, — 

I  am  not  satisfied. 

Dark,  blurring  shadows  fall 
On  everything ;  a  strange  confusion  reigns ; 
The  whole  creation  travaileth,  and,  through  all, 
I  hear  the  same  sad  murmur  that  Saint  Paul 

Heard,  sitting  in  his  chains. 

Where'er  I  look  abroad, 
What   blight   I   see!     What  pain,  and  sin,  and 

woe ! 

What  taint  of  death  beneath  the  greenest  sod ! 
Until  I  shudder,  questioning  how  God 
Can  bear  to  have  it  so ! 

I  marvel  that  His  love 
Is  not  out-worn;  I  wonder  that  He  hath 
A  plenitude  of  patience,  so  above 
Finite  conception,  that  it  still  can   prove 

A  stay  upon  His  wrath. 

And  then, — because  I  tire 
Of  self,  and  of  this  poor  humanity,— 
Because  I  grovel  where  I  should  aspire, 
And  wail  my  thwarted  hope  and  balked  desire, 

With  such  small  faith  to  see, 

That  yet,  o'er  all  this  ill, 

God's  final  good  shall  triumph,  when  the  sum 
Is  reckoned  up ;   that  even,  if  I  will, 
I,  at  the  least,  in  mine  own  bosom  still 

May  see  His  kingdom  come, — 

Because  of  this,  I  say, 

I  pine  for  that  pure  realm  where  turmoils  cease, 
Sighing  (more  tired  of  them,  than  day  by  day 
Heart-broken  after  Heaven ! )  "  Lord,  let,  I  pray, 
Thy  servant  go  in  peace  !  " 

How  braver  'twere  to  wait 
His    sovereign    will,   the    how,    the    where,    the 

when, 

Doing    what   work    He    sets    me,  small  or  great, 
Until  He  calls,  and  I  make  answer  straight, 
With  Nunc  Dimittis — then! 

MARGARET  J.  PRESTON. 


The  Peaks   of  Thule. 

THERE   came   a  morn !  —  In   hope,   and   fear,   we 

scaled 

The  steepest  steep,  and  lo !  our  toil  was  done. 
The  land  from  all  its  summits  swooned  and  failed, 
And  all  the  measures  of  our  course  were  run — 
Farewell  the  pangs  of  long-deferred  delight ! 
The   grief !    the    strife !    the    wrongs   more    foul 

than  blows ! 

Our  care  no  more  to  reck  of  might,  or  right, 
Or    what    wind    raves,    or    what    tide    ebbs    or 

flows — 
Only  to  mark,  as  in  a  trance  of  sleep, 

Removed   from   chance  and  change  beneath  the 

sky, 

The  idle  pageant  of  the  days  go  by, 
To  drown  and  die  in  the  all-circling  deep, 

And  the  mailed  planets,  on»  their  fateful  round, 
Nightly  saluting  from  the  blue  profound. 

So  sang  we,  till  the  great  sun,  overhead, 

Blazed   through   his    cloudless   arc,  and    dipped, 

and  burned 

The  level  wave.     But  when  the  West  was  red, 
Our  glances  met,  and  every  eye  was  turned 
Toward  the  purple  vales  that  slept  beneath — 
And    now,    we   mused,   the   shadows   haunt   the 

wold 
And  now  the  traveler,  across  the  heath, 

Fares  to  his  welcome  inn,  and  tales  are  told 
By  way-worn  guests,  about  the  ingle-side, 
While  each  of  some  great  happiness  to  be 
Dreams,  in   the  silences — but  we,  ah !  we 
Shall  dream  no  more ! — Then,  with  one  voice,  we 

cried : 

"  Give  us  to  hope,  though  but  to  fear  again, 
In  the  glad,  tearful,  toilsome  world  of  men !  " 
W.  W.  YOUNG. 

Coronation. 

IT  was  the  poet's  coronation-time — 
And  he  was  led  into  a  summer  day. 

The  roof  was  blue,  the  carpeting  was  green — 
Upon  a  hill  they  sat  him  for  a  throne. 

The  birds   flew  low,  and   sang,   and   touched  the 

flowers ; 
And  humming  children  moved  around  his  heart. 

A  ceremony  then  of  food  and  drink 

Was  given  him  by  maidens  without  names. 

For  food — a  word  of  love,  true  and  complete. 
For  drink — the  sweet  fruition  of  a  kiss. 

Swiftly  he  wrote  within  a  book  of  thought, — 
"  Oh,  I  am  happy  as  a  perfect  noon !  " 

The  maidens  read  the  motion  of  his  hand, 
And  hid  the  thought  within  their  happy  hearts. 

They  sang  what  he  had  written  till  the  eve — 
A  newer  inspiration  filled  his  soul. 

They,  dancing,  wove  a  theme  of  changing  grace ; 
Till  music  seemed  to  him  created  new. 

They  wrought  for  him  a  crown  of  children's  hair — 
The  most  unique  and  glorious  in  the  world. 

W.  D.  KELSEY. 


854 


A    GROUP  OF  POEMS. 


The  Tides. 

THE  Ocean  loves  the  Moon,  and  ever 
To  reach  her,  strives,  with  fond  endeavor. 
She  flits  in  careless  beauty  o'er  him, 
Ever  returning,  flies  before  him, 
Dimpled  with  voiceless  laughter. 
He,  faithful,  follows  after, 
Follows,  follows,  evermore. 
Constant,  he  bears  his  burden, 

His  patient  bosom  heaving, 
Wistful,  still  seeks  his  guerdon, 

Mindless  of  past  deceiving, 
Till,  as  his  mocking  mistress  ever  flies, 
Sweet  hope  forsakes  him,  and  with  groans  and  sighs 
He  wraps  about  his  face  his  garments  hoar, 
And  breaks  his  great   heart  on  the  cruel  shore. 

LUCY  J.  RIDER. 

The  Parting  of  the  Ways. 

THUS  far,  my  calm-eyed  friend,  thus  far   together 

Along  the  devious  road, 

Through   the  broad  belts   of   shade  and  summer 
weather, 

Our  loitering  steps  have  trod ; 
And  now  before  us,  hidden  in  the  golden, 

Luminous  autumn  haze, 
The  dreadful  moment  crouches  unbeholden — 

The  parting  of  the  ways. 

I  know  it  lurks  there,  and  our  eyes  shall  see  it 

Ere  yet  a  week  be  gone ; 
Though  our  reluctant  feet  may  shun  and  flee  it, 

Silent  it  presses  on. 
The  threads  of  life,  so  strangely  intertwisted, 

Shall  be  unwoven  soon ; 
Passing  like  down,  blown  where  the  night  wind  listed, 

Beneath  the  inconstant  moon. 

We  have  been  friends.     Perhaps,  indeed,  a  glimmer 

Of  something  tenderer  still 
In  either  heart,  now  brighter  and  now  dimmer, 

Has  flickered  up,  until, 
Touched  into  tremulous  bloom,  a  rose  is  blowing, 

In  shy,  uncertain  life — 
But  who  shall  stoop  and  pluck  and  wear  it,  going 

Into  the  outer  strife  ? 

We  are  not  as  the  men  of  old.     Existence 

Is  not  the  simple  thing 
It  was  to  those  who  loved  in  that  fair  distance 

Whereof  the  poets  sing. 
Life  presses  on  us  in  a  thousand  phases 

The  old  world  never   knew ; 

Love  roams    no    more    among  green  dells,  where 
daisies 

Drink  in  the  morning  dew. 

You  are  no  Hero,  and  I  no  Leander. 

The  world  that  girds  us  round 
Has  no  room  now  for  words  that  melt  and  wander 

In  vague    melodious  sound. 
Yea,  though  I  loved  you  as  the  Hebrew  peasant 

The  dark-eyed  maid  he  won, 
We  cannot  tempt  the  Laban  of  our  Present 

Till  the  long  task  be  done. 

For  us  no  shadow  on  Life's  solemn  dial 

Goes  back  to  give  us  peace ; 
There  is  no  resting-place  in  the  stern  trial 

Until   the  heart-throbs  cease ; 
We  cannot  hold  Time  fast,  and  bid  him  bless  us ; 

And  not  for  us  the  sun, 

When   shades  fall  fast,  and  doubts   and  woes   op- 
press us, 

Stands  still  in  Gibeon. 


And    so,   though    hearts    bleed,  and    eyes  fill,  un- 
witting, 

With  tears  that  must  not  flow, 
We  grasp  not  the  sweet  hope  before  us  flitting, 

But  bravely  let  it  go. 
Nay !  not  one  word  that  friends  and  comrades  proven 

Might  not  undoubting  speak. 
Let  the  threads  part  until   the  web,  unwoven, 

Around  us  fall  and  break ! 

Perhaps,  in  that  dim  future  now  before  us, 

Through  all  your  mortal  scaith, 
My  voice  may  blend  for  you  in  that  grand  chorus 

Of  Duty,  Love,  and  Faith. 
And  surely  all  my  life  must  be  more  tender, 

Passing  henceforth  for  aye 
Through  the  soft  shade  of  this  supreme  surrender 

Unto  the  perfect  Day. 

Good-bye,  then ;  but  if  life  and  life's  denials 

Be  not  an  idle  dream, 
There  yet  shall  come  the  guerdon  of  these  trials 

Beyond   the  things  that  seem. 
When  all   this  loss  shall  be  but  as  a  glamour 

Of  trouble  passed  away, 
And  far  above  Earth's  transient  gloom  and  clamor 

Love's  balm  heals  Love's  delay. 

G.  HERBERT  SASS. 

Love's  Autumn. 

I  WOULD  not  lose  a  single  silvery  ray 

Of  those  white  locks  which,  like  a  milky  way, 

Streak  the  dusk  midnight  of  thy  raven  hair ; 

I  would  not  lose,  O  Sweet !  the  misty  shine 
Of  those  half-saddened,  thoughtful  eyes  of  thine, 
Whence   love  looks   forth,  touched  by  the  shadow 
of  care; 

I  would  not  miss  the  droop  of  thy  dear  mouth, 
The  lips  less  dewy-red  than  when  the  south — 
The  young  south-wind  of  passion — sighed  o'er  them ; 

I  would  not  miss  each  delicate  flower  that  blows 
On  thy  wan  cheek,  like  soft  September's  rose 
Blushing  but  faintly  on  its  faltering  stem ; 

I  would  not  miss  the  air  of  chastened  grace, 
Which,  breathed  divinely  from  thy  patient  face, 
Tells  of  love's  watchful  anguish,  merged  in  rest. 

Nought  would  I  lose  of  all  thou  hast,  or  art, 

O  friend  supreme  !  whose  constant,  stainless  heart 

Doth  house,  unknowing,  many  an  angel  guest. 

Their  presence  keeps  thy  spiritual  chambers  pure, 
While  the  flesh  fails,  strong  love  grows  more  and 

more 
Divinely  beautiful,  with  perished  years. 

Thus,  at  each  slow,  but  surely  deepening  sign 

Of  life's  decay,  we  will  not,  Sweet,  repine, 

Nor  greet  its  mellowing  close  with  thankless  tears. 

Love's  spring  was    fair,  love's   summer  brave  and 

bland, 

But  through  love's  autumn  mist  I  view  the  land — 
The  land  of  deathless  summers  yet  to  be ; 

There  I  behold  thee  young  again,  and  bright, 
In  a  great  flood  of  rare,  transfiguring  light ; 
But  there,  as  here,  thou  smilest,  Love,  on  me! 
PAUL  H.  HAYNE. 


SHANTYTOWN. 


855 


SHANTYTOWN. 


THE  great  city  spreads  itself  day  by  day. 
Chafing  within  its  island  limits,  it  feeds  the 
muddy  bays  and  shallows  of  its  river-front 
with  its  own  soil,  with  the  ashes  of  its  myr- 
iad fires,  with  the  ruins  of  old  houses  torn 
down  to  make  room  for  new ;  steals  from 
the  water  long  lines  of  streets ;  still  unsatis- 
fied, crawling  ceaselessly  northward,  it  di- 
vides and  subdivides  its  habitations ;  gardens 
disappear  and  tenement-houses  rise ;  every 
man's  allowance  of  space  is  cut  down  to  its 
lowest  possibility ;  the  rich  man  can  buy 
himself  a  little  kingdom  a  hundred  feet 
square;  the  poor  man  must  hire  a  bed  six 
feet  by  two,  in  a  five-cent  lodging-house. 
And  still  there  is  not  room.  One  day,  a 
full  block  of  brown-stone  houses,  climbing 
up  on  the  rocks  by  Central  Park,  cuts  right 
into  a  gypsy  camp  of  superfluous  poor, 
squatting  outside  the  gates — a  peaceable  and 
well-organized  colony,  that  could  not  find 
room  for  itself  in  the  regions  of  brick  and 
mortar. 

And  then  the  squatter  colony  must  go. 
Pariahs  of  poverty,  these  extra-mural  citi- 
zens must  pull  to  pieces  their  home  of 
shreds  and  patches,  and  set  up  their  house- 
hold gods  elsewhere — little  matter  where. 
No  one  will  remember,  next  year,  when  the 
place  of  their  habitation  is  graded,  curbed 
and  paved,  according  to  city  regulations ; 
when  the  six-story  mansions  of  Philistia 
stand  where  stood  the  whitewashed  cabins; 
when  C-spring  carriages  roll  where  the  one- 
horse  wagon  of  the  licensed  vender  began  its 
rounds,  and  when  the  aristocratic  anglo-mani- 
ac's  dog-cart  has  replaced  the  rag-picker's. 

The  knell  of  the  little  colony  has  already 
struck.  The  elevated  railroad  has  set  its 
iron  feet  in  the  westernmost  highway  of 
Shantytown.  A  few  pioneer  brown-stone 
fronts,  with  their  great  Doric  high-stoops 
adjusted  to  levels  strange  to  the  cartography 
of  the  earlier  settlers,  stare,  tenantless,  out 
of  blank,  astonished  windows,  at  the  ragged 
and  ruleless  architecture  of  their  humble 
neighbors  ;  the  dull,  incessant  thud  of  the 
steam-pick  thrills  the  rocky  foundations  of 
the  town  :  long  processions  of  creaking  carts 
stream  up  from  the  city,  deposit  each  a 
cubic  yard  of  earth  in  some  broad  ravine 
where  a  market-garden  and  a  small  stock- 
yard flourish,  thirty  feet  below  the  curb,  and 
on  the  morrow  the  market-garden  and  the 
stock-yard  are  things  of  the  past.  The  mar- 
ket-gardener has  turned  teamster,  and  is 


"  leveling  "  elsewhere  ;  the  stock-farmer  is 
getting  his  bread  by  carrying  a  hod  on  the 
newest  flat-building  going  up  on  Madison 
avenue,  and  the  boys  of  Shantytown  are  play- 
ing base-ball  on  the  smooth  ground  where  a 
placard  announces  "  Building  Lots  for  Sale." 

Yet,  before  it  is  utterly  gone,  let  us  take 
a  walk  through  Shantytown.  It  is  not  too 
much  to  give  it — this  fast-passing  phase  or 
fraction  of  our  city's  growth — an  hour  or 
two  of  our  time;  for  the  wind  blows  fresh 
from  the  west,  across  the  steely-blue  river 
that  gleams  down  at  the  bottom  of  the 
empty  road-ways.  The  sky  is  clear  over- 
head, except  where  the  smoky  haze  about 
the  Jersey  river  highlands  softens  the  sharper 
blue.  And  where  we  are  going  we  shall 
see,  on  the  east,  the  many-colored  foliage 
of  Central  Park,  and,  to  the  north,  the 
white  and  brown  of  Bloomingdale  villas, 
showing  through  the  distant  green. 

But,  first,  where  and  what  is  Shantytown  ? 
It  has  lain,  all  these  years,  at  your  doors,  O 
careless  New-Yorker,  and  you  know  as  little 
of  it  as  you  know  of  the  Battery  Park,  where 
your  father  walked  of  summer  eveningsahalf- 
century  gone  by,  a  fine  young  man  in  rolling- 
collar  swallow-tail  and  tasseled  Hessians, 
and  wooed  your  mother,  in  a  Directoire  dress 
whose  belt  came  close  up  to  the  heart  that 
throbbed  responsive  to  the  formal  utterances 
of  his  well-regulated  passion.  T7iat  was  at 
the  other  end  of  the  city ;  we  are  going  now 
to  the  region  bounded,  as  the  election  notices 
say,  on  the  S.  by  65th  street;  on  the  N.  by 
85111 ;  on  the  W.  by  8th  avenue,  and  on  the 
E.  by  Central  Park. 

This  is  the  Bohemia  of  the  laboring  classes. 
In  this  country  we  all  belong,  or  at  least  we 
ought  to  belong,  to  the  laboring  classes ;  but 
the  most  of  us  get  from  our  labor  where- 
with to  keep  a  certain  extent  of  roof  over  a 
limited  number  of  heads.  There  are  some, 
however,  who  toil  for  ten  hours  only  to  buy 
themselves  the  right  to  a  dozen  cubic  feet 
of  sleeping-room  during  such  part  of  the  four- 
teen remaining  hours  as  they  may  choose  not 
to  spend  in  the  streets  or  the  beer-saloons.  Of 
this  class,  which  has  no  condition  nor  posses- 
sion to  characterize  it  beyond  the  fact  of  its 
laboring,  there  must  always  be  found  some 
lively-minded  and  restless  members  who  are 
ill  content  to  gasp  out  their  lives  in  the 
packed  cellars  and  garrets  down  the  back 
alleys  of  the  lower  town  ;  they  yearn  for 
freedom  of  movement,  for  light  and  air,  for 


856 


SHANTYTOWN. 


the  smell  of  the  bare  earth  and  the  sight  of 
trees  and  water.  It  was  some  such  advent- 
urous souls  as  these,  brave  discoverers  of 
the  rabble,  rambling  rakes  of  poverty,  who 
long  ago  found  their  way  up  to  this  rocky 
region,  built  homes  of  boards  and  canvas, 
and  bought  goats — which  have  since  multi- 
plied in  a  ratio  wholly  disproportionate  to 
the  growth  of  the  settlement,  respectable  as 
that  increase  has  been :  for  others,  less 
clearly  aware  of  what  moved  them,  soon 
came  to  join  the  hardy  and  happy  pioneers. 

But  to  be  original,  independent  and  com- 
fortable is  to  be  Bohemian;  and  to  be 
Bohemian  is  to  be  condemned  of  conven- 
tionality. When  young  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Dove- 
leigh  van  Stuy vesant  enter  upon  the  married 
state,  with  much  affectionate  enthusiasm, 
two  unnecessarily  long  pedigrees,  and  $1,500 
yearly  income,  they  are  expected,  by  good 
society,  to  find  a  corner  in  his  father's  house, 
or  her  father's  house,  and  there  to  live,  de- 
pendent and  cramped,  but  unimpeachably 
proper  and  "  nice  " !  And  if  they  take  it  into 
their  young  heads  to  rent  a  little  room 
for  themselves,  near  Union  Square,  turn  it 
into  a  small  and  cheap  palace  of  decorative 
art,  and  go  foraging  among  the  French 
table-d'hote  restaurants,  dining  with  the 
newspaper  men  and  the  artists — why,  Nice- 
ness  at  once  labels  them  "  queer — not  to  be 
trusted,"  and  they  are  outlawed — but  happy. 

The  law  of  the  World  of  Laziness  has  its 
counterpart  in  the  World  of  Labor.  Right- 
minded  and  right-thinking  poverty  clings  to 
its  small,  stuffy, half-lit  tenement-house  rooms 
with  a  steadfast  devotion.  Two  modes  of 
living  it  holds  utterly  in  horror.  One  of 
these  is  the  life  planned  for  it  by  philan- 
thropists, in  "  model "  cottages :  the  other 
is  the  disreputable  freedom  of  the  shanty. 

For  the  dislike  which  the  poor  undoubt- 
edly bear  toward  the  pattern  habitations  of 
too-officious  benevolence  there  may  be  much 
reason;  but,  surely,  the  lofty  contempt  of  a 
seventh  floor  in  Baxter  street  for  the  health- 
ful hovels  of  the  Boulevard  is  a  meanness  of 
small  conventionality  in  which  unconscious 
envy  must  go  for  something. 

When  Pat  O'Donohue  sits  in  his  smoke- 
begrimed  den,  high  up  near  the  shaky  roof- 
tree  of  Murphy's  tenement,  listening  to  the 
rattle  and  roar  of  the  Elevated  Railroad 
trains,  far  below  him,  as  they  echo  up  the 
narrow  alley,  looking  down  at  the  black, 
crowded  streets,  where  the  children  swarm 
in  the  darkness,  and  the  red,  camphene-fed 
lamps  of  the  venders'  torches  flare  and 
flicker,  his  breath  choked  with  the  varied 


foulnesses  of  sewer-gas  and  stifling  crowds, 
the  night-wind  coming  in  his  window,  heavy 
with  the  smells  of  Hunter's  Point,  to  mix 
with  the  essence  of  his  own  pork  and  cab- 
bage,— is  Pat,  in  all  his  pride  of  poor  respect- 
ability, much  better  off  than  Tim,  "  who's 
gahn  to  live  up  wid  the  folks  in  thim  shan- 
ties, the  b'y  has — sorra's  the  day  such  luck 
iver  kem  to  the  fam'ly !  " — is  he,  indeed  ? 

Here  we  are  at  Shantytown.  Shanties 
dot  the  landscape  near  and  far;  shanties 
mark  the  lines  of  graded  streets  north  and 
west ;  but  it  takes  only  a  glance  to  show  us 
that  here,  right  in  front  of  us,  lies  a  veritable 
town  of  shanties — an  ordered  aggregation 
of  hovels  that  speaks  of  an  association  of 
interests  and  an  identity  of  tastes — the  two 
great  principles  that  enter  into  the  foundation 
of  villages  and  cities.  You  know  at  once 
that  something  stronger  than  mere  chance 
has  drawn  these  dwellers  in  huts  together ; 
something  more  mighty  than  mere  accident 
has  made  them  live  in  peace  and  unity  for 
years.  You  see  at  once  that,  within  the 
legal  limits  of  the  city,  before  the  very  doors 
of  the  actual  town,  this  little  settlement  ex- 
ists in  its  entity,  in  its  quiddity,  as  Charles 
Lamb  might  have  said,  a  something  quite 
by  itself  and  for  itself. 

Standing  here  at  Sixtieth  street,  your  eye, 
turned  toward  the  rising  ground  where 
a  glimmer  of  white  shows  the  old  Croton 
aqueduct  and  the  gentle  slopes  of  hills  cut 
right  and  left  by  boulevard  and  avenue, 
takes  in  a  space  just  half  a  mile  in  length — 
from  Sixty-second  to  Seventy-second  streets 
— and  perhaps  an  eighth  of  a  mile  wide, 
covered  with  a  huddling  host  of  small 
houses,  mostly  one  story  high,  no  two  on  a 
level.*  This  space  is  bounded  right  and  left 
by  two  avenues,  straight  as  an  arrow-flight, 
and  with  but  slight  undulations.  It  is  fur- 
ther transected  by  streets  that  run  at  perfect 
right  angles  to  the  Eighth  and  Ninth  ave- 
nues. These  sharp  lines  serve  only  to  mark 
the  strange  irregularity  of  the  region.  From 
where  we  stand,  we  catch  sight  of  chimneys 
just  peeping  above  the  curb-stones  of  Seven- 
tieth street.  A  half-dozen  blocks  nearer, 
the  town  mounts  an  ambitious  elevation  and 
sits,  a  beggarly  Rome,  hill-enthroned,  dom- 
inating the  surrounding  hollows. 

For  Shantytown  lies,  for  the  best  part,  in 
certain  quadrangular  depressions,  made  by 


*  Since  this  article  was  written,  Shantytown  has 
lost  several  blocks  at  each  end — absolutely  lost  them, 
for  they  have  been  filled  in  or  cut  down  to  the  plane 
of  the  graded  streets. 


SHANTYTOWN. 


857 


CORNER    SIXTY-EIGHTH    STREET    AND    ELEVENTH     AVENUE. 


the  laying-out  and  grading  of  the  highways 
that  checker  its  picturesque  irregularity. 
These  broad  roads  have  run,  like  railroad 
embankments,  across  a  low  country,  whose 
nndrained  bottom  now  stares  up  to  heaven 
from  amid  four  sloping  walls  of  earth  and 
rubble. 

But  the  shanties  make  no  account  of  high 
ground  nor  low.  They  nestle  in  the  malari- 
ous hollows,  or  perch  impudently  on  the 
salubrious  heights.  Their  whitewashed 
walls  shine  out  against  the  raw,  red  earth  of 
huge  slopes  like  fortress-walls;  their  fantas- 
tic gables,  adorned  with  bird-houses  of  quaint 
design,  stand  out  in  sharp  outline  against 
the  sky,  whose  keen  blue  gleams  brightest 
above  the  high  gray  rocks. 

The  suburbs.of  the  town  are  here  at  Six- 
tieth street ;  but  they  do  not  cluster  closely 
together  below  Sixty-fifth  street  and  that 
large,  ambitious  house  of  yellow-stone-faced 
brick,  whose  unused  porte-cochere  has  so 
many  years  mocked  the  unfashionable  road- 
way. Pass  this,  and  we  are  within  the  lim- 
its. Stop  here  for  a  moment,  if  you  wish  to 
see  the  last  of  one  of  the  most  characteristic 
sections  of  the  colony.  Here  are  two  blocks 
that  are  still  geographically  one.  The  street 
VOL.  XX.— 56. 


has  not  been  cut  through,  from  avenue  to 
avenue.  It  has  a  beginning  now,  right  ahead 
|  of  us,  as  we  stand  on  Eighth  avenue.  A 
broad  ridge  of  mud  starts  from  our  feet  and 
divides  the  hollow  below  us,  pausing  feebly 
at  the  rocky  heights  that  shut  the  river  out 
— a  projecting  joint  of  the  island's  back- 
bone. Beyond  this  hummock  we  see  the 
top  of  a  derrick,  occasionally  veiled  in  a 
cloud  of  white  steam.  In  a  month  or  two, 
a  wide  ravine  will  cleave  the  rocks  and  meet 
this  abortive  mud-embankment.  But  now 
the  hollows  on  this  side,  and  the  heights  on 
the  Boulevard  end  of  the  two  blocks,  swarm 
with  shanties.  Some  stand  in  the  very  path 
of  the  steam-drill,  nor  will  they  disappear 
until  the  rock  is  actually  drilled  from  under 
them.  When  we  pass  down  the  Boulevard, 
going  home,  you  will  see  a  hut  with  one 
corner  projecting  beyond  the  edge  of  the 
rocks.  The  proprietor  sits  in  the  door-way. 
He  will  move  out  in  a  day  or  two.  He  has 
to  get  up  and  retire  a  hundred  yards  or  so 
every  time  there  is  a  blast;  but  that  is  no 
reason  for  quitting  his  home  with  premature 
and  injudicious  haste. 

The  folk  who  have  builded  in  the  mud 
are,  in  this  case,  better  off  than  they  who 


858 


SHANTYTOWN, 


have  set  their  houses  upon  a  rock.  These 
former  nestle  in  the  excavation  made  when 
Eighth  avenue  was  graded.  Their  high- 
est roofs  do  not  come  up  to  the  line 
of  the  pavement.  Some  of  them  lie  so 
low  that  it  looks  as  if  a  heavy  rain  would 
drown  them.  Others  crowd  up  close  to 
the  street,  utilizing  the  fortress-like  slope  as 
a  combined  wall  and  floor.  Others  mount 
the  proud  eminence  of  an  ash-heap  per- 
haps twenty  feet  high,  a  relic  of  abandoned 


night  ago.  It  is  not  wholly  closed  up  yet. 
At  the  further  end  there  is  a  junkman's  hut, 
with  his  little  barn,  his  stable,  sty  and  shed, 
and  a  perfect  wilderness  of  "  truck  " — boxes, 
barrels,  baskets,  stove-pipes,  bottles,  cart- 
wheels, odds  and  ends  of  furniture — the  accu- 
mulations of,  it  may  be,  a  dozen  years  of  his 
strange  traffic.  See,  his  high-pitched  roof 
is  ornamented  with  a  coiled  and  twisted 
skeleton — a  crinoline,  that  mayhap  puffed 
out  the  gorgeous  silks  of  some  fair  American 


A    CHARACTER. 


dumping-grounds.  Almost  every  yard  of 
space  is  occupied.  Here  and  there  is  an 
open  stretch  ;  but  the  lines  of  foundation- 
posts  show  that  buildings  have  lately  been 
removed. 

But  why  do  we  linger  to  look  at  these 
shanties,  which  are  not  so  picturesque  as  the 
party-colored  groups  to  the  north  ?  Why  ? 
Do  you  see  that  smooth  breadth  of  new 
earth  on  the  block  to  the  south  ?  That  was 
just  such  a  populous  hollow  as  this  a  fort- 


who  courtesied  within  these  pliant  wires  at 
the  court  of  the  last  and  least  Napoleon. 
Again,  mayhap,  it  did  nothing  of  the  sort. 
Who  shall  predicate  thus  much  from  a, 
bird's-eye  view  of  a  feminine  hoop  on  the 
roof  of  a  rag-picker's  house  ?  And  see,  the 
tenant's  big  Newfoundland  regards  us  with 
a  curious  eye.  We  should  do  well  to  press- 
onward  up  the  long,  bare  avenue. 

A  block  further  north,  we  find  another"  lift " 
of  the  rocks  which  still  defies  the  surveyors. 


SHANTYTOWN. 


859 


IN    THE    GERMAN    QUARTER. 


We  clamber  up  a  ragged  and  winding 
space,  impassable  for  horses,  yet  evidently 
meant  for  a  road,  an  apology  for  the  street 
that  is  not.  Up  here  the  wind  blows  fresh 
and  free.  We  can  see  the  river,  bright  to- 
day, and  flecked  with  white  sails  of  yachts. 
The  houses  here  are  neater  and  more  home- 
like than  those  we  have  just  seen.  These 
are  the  choice  places,  pre-empted  by  their 
first  settlers,  who  have  been  at  pains  to 
make  their  nests  as  snug  and  pleasant  to  the 
eye  as  may  be.  We  get  back  to  the  walk 
by  Central  Park,  and  note  that  on  the  north 
end  of  this  hill  the  shanties  fairly  pack 
themselves  together.  Above  here  the  streets 
are  all  cut  through  and  graded,  some 
partly  paved,  and  the  crowded  cottages 
edge  the  "  stoop-line  "  with  decorous  regu- 
larity. But  the  physical  geography  of  the 
space  between  the  streets  is  unchanged; 
and  the  shanty  architect  revels  in  uneven- 
ness.  He  finds  no  two  feet  of  surface  on  a 
level,  and  he  adapts  his  structure  to  the 
conditions  of  his  site. 

The  impression  that  this  small  and  strange 
city  makes  upon  the  chance  beholder  is  that 
of  a  wild  dream  of  all  that  he  has  ever  im- 
agined in  the  way  of  odd  sea-side  shelters, 
boat-cabins,  wharf-sheds  and  marine  cubby- 


houses  generally,  jumbled  together  in  con- 
fusion by  a  storm,  and  stranded  here.  At 
first  the  eye  cannot  make  out  separate 
forms  in  these  acres  of  wood  and  tin  and  can- 
vas, clothing  the  inequalities  of  the  ground. 
It  is  only  a  mass  of  close-set,  distinct 
patches  of  brown  and  gray,  in  every  shade, 
heightened  by  spots  of  white,  green,  or  red, 
and  backed,  on  the  further  ridge,  by  the 
sharp  sky-blue.  Then  this  multi-colored 
expanse  begins  to  resolve  itself  into  walls 
and  roofs,  windows  and  doors,  chimneys, 
porches,  gables  and  galleries.  But  here  the 
process  ends.  We  cannot  assign  part  to 
part,  nor  fit  these  shreds  and  patches  into 
habitable  structures.  Each  one  must  be 
studied  by  itself.  In  the  mass,  individual 
combinations  are  lost  in  the  prevailing  law- 
lessness of  line  and  hue. 

The  shanty  is  the  most  wonderful  instance 
of  perfect  adaptation  of  means  to  an  end 
in  the  whole  range  of  modern  architecture. 
Nothing  is  prepared  for  it,  neither  ground 
nor  material.  Its  builders  have  but  an  em- 
pirical knowledge  of  the  craft  they  practice. 
They  scorn  a  model,  and  they  work  with 
whatever  comes  to  hand. 

This  house  in  front  of  us  found  a  triangu- 
lar bit  of  rock  for  itself,  about  as  large  as  a 


86o 


SHANTYTOWN. 


Fifth-avenue  parlor.  The  rock  slopes  up 
from  the  small  end,  where  it  connects  with 
this  little  alley  between  the  red  shanty,  to 
the  right,  and  the  brown  shanty,  to  the  left. 
At  the  large  end  of  the  triangle  it  drops 
down  abruptly.  Now  look  at  the  grip  and 
smartness  and  easy-going  adaptability  to  cir- 
cumstances of  that  shanty.  It  climbs  over 


the  rock,  and  puts  its  front  door  at  the 
very  summit;  thence  its  other  rooms 
slip  off,  at  lower  levels.  An  extensive 
stair-way  system  being  out  of  the  ques- 
tion, these  lower  rooms  are  reached 
by  trap-doors  in  their  roofs,  which 
are  exactly  on  a  level  with  the  kitchen 
door.  A  small  gallery  leads  to  the  cow- 
house, which  is  around  a  spur  of  the  height. 
It  is  ten  by  six,  really  large  for  the  neigh- 
borhood, and  the  cow  climbs  the  rock,  when 
she  has  the  chance,  as  easily  as  do  the 
children. 

As  to  the  odds  and  ends  whereof  all  this 
is   built,   you   could    not   catalogue    them. 


SHANTYTOWN. 


861 


There  are  bits  of  wood  from  the  docks,  from 
burnt-oat  city  houses,  from  wrecks  of  other 
shanties;  there  are  rusty  strips  of  roofing- 
tin;  sheets  of  painted  canvas;  the  founda- 
tions are  of  broken  bricks,  neatly  cemented, 
the  top  of  it  all  is  tin,  slate,  shingle,  canvas 
and  tarred  paper.  No  bird's-nest  ever  testi- 
fied to  more  industrious  pickings  and  steal- 
ings. 

They  have  been  put  together  with  a  bird- 
like  eye  to  effect,  too.  The  gallery  railings 
are  painted  a  bright  green,  and  enriched 
with  iron  scroll-work  from  some  ruined  villa- 
wall;  the  front  porch  is  surmounted  with  a 
neat  cornice,  a  well-tended  vine  clambers 
about  the  queer,  rough  corners,  turkey-red 


now.  Neat  as  a  new  pin.  Everything 
about  her  the  same.  Best  class  of  shanty- 
dwellers,  these.  Five  children;  all  clean; 
and  money  in  bank.  This  is  the  kitchen — 
also  dining-room.  Good  stove;  dresser; 
bright  pots  and  pans;  white  stone-china. 
Yankee  clock  on  shelf.  Oil-clothed  table. 
Doors  right  and  left.  Through  left  we  see 
white  bed,  and  crib  with  patch- work  quilt. 
Right,  best  room  of  house;  horse-hair  sofa, 
chromo,  fancy  clock,  sewing-machine  and — 
a  sofa-bed.  This  is  luxury  !  Who  wouldn't 
live  in  a  shanty  ? 

They  are  not  all  so  nice,  though.  Most 
of  the  Irish  are  shiftless,  and  some  of  the 
Germans  are  slovenly.  Sometimes  there 


CORNER    EIGHTY-SECOND    STREET    AND    NINTH    AVENUE. 


curtains  deck  the  irregular  windows,  and 
the  stones  and*  clam-shells  that  border  the 
alley  path  shine  with  whitewash. 

Come  inside — we  will  make  some  pretext, 
for  these  people  want  neither  to  be  stared 
at  nor  patronized.  They  are  independent 
and  respectable,  and  their  sill  is  as  sacred 
as  the  lordliest  threshold  in  the  land. 
But  we  will  tell  them  that  we  want  some 
goat's  milk,  which  we  do,  and  we  will  take 
rapid  notes  while  the  mistress  of  the  house 
is  telling  us  that  she  thinks  we  may  find  a 
widow  with  a  goat  three  blocks  up. 

Mrs.  Eichler.  American  woman.  Ger- 
man husband.  Has  been  good-looking.  Is 


is  only  one  room  in  the  shanty ;  but  that 
is  rare.  Three  is  the  average.  Occasion- 
ally, one  is  occupied  by  two  families;  but 
the  main  idea  of  the  community  is  the 
principle  of  an  independent  dwelling.  Your 
squatter,  smoking  his  evening  pipe  in  front 
of  his  shanty,  for  which  he  has  paid  a  fair 
ground-rent,  is  a  King ;  and  he  knows  it. 
His  brother  down  in  the  Baxter-street  tene- 
ment-house may  despise  him  ;  but  he  cares 
not.  He  sends  for  his  father  and  his 
mother  from  the  old  country,  and  the  neat 
white  heads  sun  themselves  at  his  south 
windows  all  day  long.  He  is  proud  of  his 
old  people,  that  fellow  is ;  and  they,  being 


862 


SHANTYTOWN. 


SKETCHING    UNDER    DIFFICULTIES, 

provided  with  potatoes  to  peel,  or  light  em- 
ployment of  the  sort,  sit  under  his  roof  like 
aged  benedictions  upon  their  son's  prosperity. 

Of  course,  the  shanty-dweller  does  not 
loaf  for  a  living.  He  is  a  day  laborer,  a 
truckman,  a  junkman  or  a  rag-picker.  The 
last  two  lines  of  business  are  most  numer- 
ously represented  in  Shantytown;  but  the 
better  class  of  the  population  is  found  among 
the  "  truckers,"  or  the  men  employed  in  the 
city  as  porters,  messengers  or  drivers. 
They  have  been  living  in  Shantytown,  many 
of  them,  for  twelve  and  fifteen  years.  A 
few  have  been  on  the  ground  even  longer. 
The  first  comers  were  really  squatters;  later 
on,  rent  was  charged  and  collected,  and  the 
rates  have  steadily  risen  of  late  years.  The 
ground  rent  of  a  shanty  ranges  now  from  $20 
to  $100.  These  are  "open  leases,"  still,  the 
dwellers  are  lessees  of  property,  and  citizens. 

It  may  seem  strange  to  consider  this  region 
as  a  factor  in  the  body  politic  ;  but  in  this 
free  country,  votes  are  cheap,  and  Shanty- 
town has  a  hand  in  the  government  of  Fifth 
avenue.  It  comprises,  indeed,  the  entire 
southern  portion  of  the  igth  Assembly  Dis- 
trict; and  the  shanty  dwellers  between 
Fifty-ninth  and  Eighty-sixth  streets  have 
nine  election  districts  to  themselves.  The 
town  proper  lies  in,  or  partly  in,  four.  The 
nine  election  districts  which  cover  the 
space  between  Sixtieth  street  (about),  Eighty- 


sixth  street,  Eighth  avenue,  and  the  North 
River  last  year  polled  a  vote  of  1,459  f°r 
Governor  of  the  State,  the  majority  being 
largely  Democratic,  divided  between  the 
regular  and  the  split  tickets.  The  vote  of 
the  four  districts  referred  to  as  belonging 
principally  to  Shantytown  proper  was  684. 
The  2oth  district,  of  only  six  blocks,  cast  149 
votes.  The  political  complexion  of  the 
whole  region  is  decidedly  Democratic.  Last 
year  there  was  a  certain  amount  of  discord 
in  both  parties ;  ex-Governor  Lucius  Robin- 
son, at  the  head  of  the  straight  ticket  of  the 


WATER-WORKS. 


SHANTYTOWN. 


863 


Democrats,  diverted  many  votes  not  only 
from  the  ticket  of  Tammany  Hall,  the  local 
organization  most  powerful  in  the  neighbor- 
hood, but  from  the  Republican  ticket,  which 
had  lost  the  support  of  a  small  but  active 
party  of  "  Young  Republicans,"  or  "  Scratch- 
ers,"  who  worked  in  behalf  of  the  regular 
Democratic  nominee.  On  the  vote  for  local 
officers,  Shantytown  "  ran  wid  de  machine  " 
of  Tammany.  These  figures  are  interesting 
only  in  that  they  show  how  large  and  how 
masculine  is  the  population  of  the  district — 
how  rich  in  voters — that  is,  in  men  upward 
of  twenty-one  years  of  age,  qualified  resi- 
dents. Of  course,  allowance  must  be  made 
for  "  repeating,"  but  the  general  testimony 
is  that  the  region  is  too  solid,  too  openly  and 
surely  pledged  to  the  support  of  a  certain 
party  to  call  for  any  illicit  electioneering  de- 
vices. The  significant  fact  remains,  that 
four  sparsely  settled  blocks  on  the  edge  of 
Shantytown  turn  out  204  votes ;  while  the 
i6th  election,  of  the  Eleventh  Assembly 
District,  right  in  the  center  of  the  Murray 
Hill  quarter, — the  heart  of  the  patrician  do- 
main,— the  four  blocks  lying  between  Sixth 
and  Madison  avenues  and  Thirty-second 
and  Thirty-fourth  streets,  can  show  only 
240.  Yet  the  aristocratic  election  district 
is  closely  built  up :  there  are  but  four 
vacant  lots  in  the  whole  space;  and  many 
of  the  houses  are  fashionable  "  boarding 
establishments,"  whose  tenants  are  the 
same  year  in  and  year  out.  This  little  fact 
ought  to  preach  a  startling  sermon  on  indif- 
ferentism  in  politics.  The  four  Murray  Hill 
blocks  are  the  very  stronghold  of  respecta- 
bility. The  extreme  corners  are  occupied 
by  two  private  houses  of  millionaire  families, 
one  grocery  and  one  bazaar ;  both  the  shops 
being  among  the  oldest,  richest,  and  most 
respectable  of  their  kind  in  New  York.  Yet 
•even  the  mad  excitement  of  such  an  election 
as  last  year's  cannot  bring  from  this  district 
a  decent  and  proper  complement  of  voters; 
while  every  qualified  man  in  Shantytown 
walks  up  to  the  polls  and  deposits  his  vote. 
Hence,  Murray  Hill  is  governed  by  the  rulers 
chosen  of  its  own  truckmen,  street-sweepers, 
and  rag-pickers. 

Few  of  Shantytown's  voters  are  visible  at 
this  hour  of  the  day.  Later,  toward  even- 
ing, you  may  see  a  few  junkmen  sorting 
their  collections ;  but  in  most  of  the  yards, 
women  are  picking  over  the  loads  that  their 
husbands  and  sons  deposited  last  night. 
Women  have  to  do  a  deal  of  work  in  this 
region.  They  have  charge  of  almost  all  the 
shops,  and  many  of  the  beer-saloons.  We 


will  step  into  a  shop,  if  you  please — but  not 
that  one.  It  is  a  funny  little  place  ;  but  it 
is  only  the  penny  toy  and  candy  store  that 
is  to  be  found  wherever  there  are  poor  chil- 
dren. There  is  nothing  characteristic  about 
it  save  the  varied  assortment  of  queer  con- 
fections in  the  tiny  show-window ;  and  the 
cheery,  though  unseasonable,  plaster  Santa 
Claus  who  presides  over  them,  with  fly- 
specked  snow  on  his  shoulders. 

Here  is  a  grocery  that  supplies  Shanty- 
town with  tea  and  coffee,  and  other  lux- 
uries. You  see  the  regulation  assortment  as 
you  enter.  It  is  Park  and  Tilford's,  in  little, 
with  the  addition  of  cabbages.  The  nicest 
little  German  woman  imaginable  is  behind 
the  counter.  She  speaks  vile  English  with 
a  sweet  South  German  accent.  We  have 
forgotten  our  pipe  and  our  'baccy,  and  for 
eleven  cents  we  get  a  pretty  little  terra-cotta 
affair  and  a  small  package  of  best  Durham. 
"  I  can't  sell  no  odder ! "  she  declares,  with 
a  dainty  shrug.  Ambitious  falsifier !  Be- 
hind that  counter  you  have  hidden  tobacco, 
at  ten  cents  a  pound,  that  would  burn  the 
aristocratic  gums  out  of  such  customers  as 
the  present.  But  this  we  say  not.  We 
pause  and  chat,  and  thus  learn  that  the 
ground-rent  of  this  absurd  box  used  to  be 
fifty  dollars,  and  is  now  eighty  dollars ;  that 
the  destruction  of  the  shanties  is  affecting 
her  business ;  that  everybody  in  her  neigh- 
borhood has  had  the  proper  bonus  of  five 
dollars  to  move  away  quietly;  that  it  is  all 
on  account  of  the  pride  of  the  landlords, 
who  want  to  have  everything  pretty  for  1884 
and  the  Great  Fair;  and  that  she  thinks 
the  shanties  look  better  than  the  bare  ground. 
We  agree  with  her  and  depart. 

We  ought  to  inspect  the  beer-saloons,  of 
which  there  are  a  plenty.  But  inspection 
involves  beer,  and,  unless  you  have  a  strong 
stomach,  the  refreshment  will  be  too  much 
for  you.  However,  this  one  is  a  sample  of 
the  majority  of  them — you  see :  plain, 
empty,  with  a  high  counter  and  one  lonely 
keg  of  bad  lager.  The  Hausmutter,  who  is 
quite  seventy,  serves  us.  A  yellow-haired 
baby  clings  to  her  skirts.  Her  grandchild  ? 
"Ach  Gott,  nein  !  Du  bist  mein  papy,  ni't 
wahr,  Atigust  ?  " 

The  "  swell "  saloon  is  at  the  corner  of 
Eighth  avenue  and  Seventy-second  street. 
It  is  kept  by  an  intelligent,  bristly  old  Ger- 
man, with  "exile  of  '48  "  written  all  over  his 
socialist  face.  He  has  good  kiimmel — that's 
a  sure  sign,  too.  A  mighty  mastiff,  chained 
up  in  one  corner,  growls  at  us  suddenly 
and  unsettles  our  nerves.  "  What  do  you. 


864 


SHANTYTOWN. 


keep  such  an  ugly  beast  for  ?  "  we  ask,  too 
hastily.  "  He  ought  to  be  killed " 

"  KILL  ?  kill  dot  dog  ?  "  And  the  stumpy 
figure  rises  up  to  positive  grandeur  as  the 
old  man  thunders  fortli  his  wrath,  like  a  dis- 
armed Berserker.  "  I  guess  you  aint  got  no 
friends,  to  talk  of  killing  a  dog  like  dot ! " 
And  he  fondles  the  animal  that  licks  his  hand. 

This  brings  us  well-nigh  to  the  uppermost 
end  of  Shantytown.  Let  us  turn  down,  now, 
and  follow  the  rough  line  of  Ninth  avenue 
and  the  Boulevard.  The  Elevated  Railroad 
cars  crash  over  our  heads  every  few  minutes ; 
their  oily  breath  vitiates  the  air.  This  is 
much  too  cityfied.  So,  likewise,  is  that  ex- 
quisitely neat  little  row  of  brown-stone  houses; 


goat,  and  a  dollar  for  a  cow,  and  are  cordially 
hated  for  a  mile  around. 

Shantytown's  two  churches  stand  on  this 
side — the  Chapel  of  the  Church  of  the  Trans- 
figuration, where  Dr.  Houghton  preaches 
every  Sunday  afternoon ;  and  the  Reverend 
Mr.  Van  Aiken's. 

Here,  too,  are  the  shamefully  neglected 
ruins  of  the  little  old  Dutch  Reformed 
Church,  and  its  burying-ground,  where  lie  in 
fragments  the  head-stones  that,  patched  to- 
gether by  curious,  and  not  wholly  irreverent 
hands,  show  how  outrageously  some  highly 
respectable  people  in  this  city  are  neglecting 
their  ancestors.  Shantytown's  birds  are 
better  cared  for. 


NOT    VET    DOOMED. 


all  tenanted ;  the  most  notable  encroachment 
yet  upon  the  liberties  of  the  town.  Across 
the  area  railing  of  the  corner  house,  a 
policeman  is  flirting  with  a  pretty,  red-haired 
chamber-maid.  She  tosses  her  cap  when 
she  sees  us,  and  goes  inside.  We  converse 
with  the  "  cop  " — not  on  the  subject  of  his 
conquest.  He  gives  the  Shantytowners  an 
excellent  character.  They  are  not  trouble- 
some, and  yield  few  "  drunks  "  to  the  acre. 
A  little  below  here  is  the  Pound.  It  is 
perked  up  on  a  rocky  corner,  and  is  kept  by 
an  American  couple,  who  despise  their  neigh- 
bors, impound  the  stray  live-stock  of  said 
neighbors,  get  from  the  city  a  quarter  for  a 


The  poor  always  love  birds.  This  love 
is  often  the  sole  grace  and  poetry  of  their 
lives.  Old-time  German  folk  treasured  the 
rhymes  of  Walter  von  der  Vogelweide. 
Norman  peasants,  in  forgotten  centuries,  in- 
vented a  quaint  and  touching  story  to  tell 
their  children  why  the  robin's  breast  is  red ; 
and  ages  have  only  nurtured  this  affection 
till  it  has  become  a  fixed  fondness — a  sort 
of  gentle  reverence  even,  which  has  made  a 
constant  alliance  between  the  needy  of  this 
earth  and  the  "  careless  children  of  the  air." 
The  sky-line  of  Shantytown  is  dotted  with 
bird-houses.  The  roofs  are  bestuck  with 
them.  They  sit  acock  of  the  gables,  and 


SHANTYTOWN. 


865 


atop  of  lonely  poles.  The  tomato-can,  vul- 
gar, modern  and  artificial,  but  weather- 
worthy  and  snug,  is  no  sooner  nailed  up 
under  the  eaves  than  it  is  tenanted  by  the 
business  like  sparrow.  The  rare  old  wild- 
birds,  that  you  never  see,  nowadays,  in  the 
city  squares,  share  with  the  noisy  English 
immigrants  the  larger  domiciles,  many  of 
which  are  curiously  ornate,  testifying  to  the 
industrious  leisure  of  some  ingenious,  bird- 
loving  shanty-dweller.  The  airy  colony  does 
its  courting,  its  mating,  its  setting  and  its 
nursing,  and  all  the  other  duties  of  its  life, 
in  perfect  quiet  and  content.  The  ragged 
infants  below  are  less  wanton  than  your 
sleek  farmer's  boys  out  in  the  country. 
They  are  willing  to  leave  the  birds  alone, 
because  the  birds  leave  them  alone.  Their 
barbarian  yearnings  toward  torture  are 
glutted  when  they  can  tie  an  abandoned  tin- 
kettle  to  an  unprotected  cat. 

A  goose  is  not  a  bird.  "  In  spite  of  all 
the  learned  have  said,"  common  people  of 
poetic  instinct  refuse  to  believe  the  libel  on 
the  feathered  form  of  beauty  to  which  we 
love  to  liken  fluttering  female  hearts,  and 
that  sort  of  thing.  Yet,  let  the  graceless 
goose  serve  as  a  connecting  link  between 
the  pets  of  Shantytown  and  its  edible  beasts 
and  beasts  of  burden.  To  neither  of  these 
classes  belongs  the  rat,  who  deserves  one 
line  of  mention  to  record  the  fact  of  his  pres- 
ence. Nothing  more  does  he  demand. 
He  is  numerous,  but  commonplace — the 
same  old  rat  who  is  everywhere  that  man 
and  decay  are.  He  is  a  shade  more  impu- 
dent here  than  is  his  wont,  as  who  should 


A    TIMID    OBSERVER. 


say  :  "  I'm  a  beggar  and  a  tramp — you're 
right  I  am ;  but  where's  your  social  stand- 
ing, anyway,  stranger  ?"  The  pig  is  a  step 
higher  than  the  rat  in  the  scale  of  animal 
worth,  in  that  he  can  eat  the  rat.  On  the 


THE    LEADING    BUSINESS. 


other  hand,  he  himself  is  eaten  by  man  ; 
and  it  were  a  nice  question  to  discuss 
whether  he  himself  regards  a  life  as  well  and 
nobly  spent  that  ends  in  "  fresh  country  " 
sausages  and  the  hasty  ham-sandwich  bolted 
at  noonday  by  the  down-town  broker. 

But  'twere  reasoning  too  curiously  to 
devote  such  speculation  to  the  pig.  The 
dog  is  the  goat's  only  rival  as  the  typical 
animal  of  the  colony,  and  the  dog  must  be 
properly  discussed.  The  dog  in  Shanty- 
town — let  us  stumble  down  this  embank- 
ment, cross  lots,  and  scramble  up  the 
opposite  side,  and  thus  get  southward  again 
to  the  more  populous  quarter,  where  we 
may  search  for  illustrations  of  our  theme. 
We  will  spare  our  feet,  and  take  this  narrow 
pathway  between  the  two  gray  old  hovels 
huddling  together  at  one  end  of  this  long 
ravine.  The  dog  in  Shantytown — "  Mother 
of  Moses,  sorr !  did  he  bite  ye  ?  Jack,  lave 
the  gintleman  alone,  ye  baste, — had  he  hoult 
of  ye,  sorr  ?  "  No,  ma'am,  he  did  not ;  but 


866 


SHANTYTOWN. 


he  put  his  vicious  old  incisors  through  the 
thick  stuff  of  this  sleeve,  and  nothing  but 
that  yard  of  chain  keeps  those  foaming  jaws 
off  us  at  this  moment.  The  dog  in  Shanty- 
town,  as  we  were  remarking,  is  everything 
that  is  vile,  degraded  and  low  in  canine 
nature.  In  him  survives  the  native  savagery 
of  the  wolf,  blent  with  an  abnormal  cunning 
learnt  from  association  with  men.  He 
draws  the  rag-picker's  little  cart,  not  by 
way  of  making  himself  useful,  not  as  the 
friend  and  helper  of  man,  but  simply  to 
delude  you  into  believing  in  his  docility  and 
sweetness  of  disposition.  Then  he  bites 
you,  and  his  owner  grins  out  a  string  of 
ironic  condolences.  It  is  a  thing  arranged 


gardener  with  a  full  half-acre  of  glass  frames. 
But  he  is  not  happy  then,  for  the  warm 
weather  keeps  the  prices  down. 

All  over  the  rough  land,  dropping  river- 
ward  to  the  west,  we  see,  side  by  side  with 
desolate  old  mansions,  that  were  fashionable 
water-side  villas  in  1800,  the  outlying  shan- 
ties, rebels  in  their  way  against  the  urban  con- 
straint of  the  town  proper.  They  have  broad 
fields  to  themselves,  and  are  happy  in  a 
plenitude  of  wind  and  sun.  Yet  they  are 
just  as  fond  of  creeping  into  out-of-the-way 
corners,  and  up  inaccessible  heights,  as  those 
in  the  crowded  settlement. 

We  reach  here  another  beer-saloon  which 
you  must  not  miss,  though  the  beer  is  even 


A    TRUCKER  S     SHANTY. 


between  the  dog  and  his  proprietor.  Let 
us  go  hence,  for  the  atmosphere  is  not  sym- 
pathetic; and  there  are  some  beautiful  effects 
of  chiaroscuro  just  over  there,  about  a 
quarter  of  a  mile  down  the  road. 

And,  as  we  pass  on,  we  will  glance  at  the 
little  market-gardens  to  our  right.  Of  these 
the  larger  occupy  entire  blocks — or  rather 
the  bottoms  of  blocks,  yards  below  the 
street.  They  supply  "  salad  stuff,"  radishes, 
and  a  few  table  vegetables  to  Washington 
Market.  Their  crops  are  grown  with  little 
regard  to  the  season  ;  and  the  soil  is  worked 
to  its  utmost  capacity.  In  an  open  winter 
you  will  often  find  a  prosperous  market- 


more  utterly  undrinkable  than  anywhere 
else.  You  climb  up  a  shaky  flight  of  steps, 
and  you  enter  a  woful  little  strip  of  a  room 
— perhaps  eight  feet  by  fifteen.  At  one 
end  are  the  bar  and  the  German  brigand 
who  owns  it;  at  the  other  several  young 
local  loafers  are  playing  Russian  bagatelle. 
They  look  on  us  with  suspicion ;  but  are 
not  unwilling  to  play  with  us,  and  to  win. 
Meanwhile,  glance  through  the  door  at  the 
back.  You  see  a  huge,  empty  room,  dark 
except  where  the  light  creeps  in  around  the 
edges  of  the  shutters,  and  shows  the  faded 
pink  and  blue  fly-paper  on  the  ceiling;  the 
plain  benches  against  the  walls,  and  the 


SHANTYTOWN. 


867 


A    TOUCH    OF    REFINEMENT. 


kerosene  lamps  in  iron  brackets  screwed  to 
the  side-posts.  This  is  Shantytown's  ball- 
room ;  where  a  fiddle  or  a  banjo,  or  perad- 
venture  a  cracked  piano,  leads  some  queer 
revelry  in  the  winter-time. 

Let  us  not  libel  the  population,  though. 
It  is  only  the  worst  of  all  who  frequent  these 
shady  halls.  From  all  accounts,  the  Shanty- 
folk  are  much  inclined  to  stay  at  home 
o'  nights.  There  are  visiting  from  house  to 
house  for  the  old  ones,  and  decent  and  sober 
love-making  for  the  young. 

Love  !  Is  there  love  in  Shantytown  ? 
Certainly,  there  is, — good  looks,  and  strong 
likings,  and  healthy  young  blood,  and  all 
that  goes  to  make  up  that  rare  folly.  Those 
two  babies,  who  are  making  their  own  per- 
sonal, private  and  peculiar  mud-pie  on  their 
own  side  of  the  gutter,  far  from  the  mad- 
ding crowd  of  promiscuous  infancy — that 
twelve-year-old  pair  carrying  between  them 
the  family  pail,  just  filled  at  the  common 
pump — that  broad-shouldered,  red-faced 
young  fellow,  in  his  Sunday  broadcloth, 
hanging  on  the  wooden  gate  to  flirt  pon- 
derously with  the  rosy  tenant  of  the  little 
yard — are  not  these  all  steps  to  that  union 
of  affection  which  has  been  so  effectively 
commended  of  St.  Paul  ? 

Or,  to  be  more  primitive,  do  not  all  these 


lay  fitting  sacrifice  on  Cytherea's  altar? 
Juliet  Mulvany  is  spanked  and  put  to  bed 
for  making  mud-pies  with  Romeo  Guggen- 
heim. Romeo  dies  not  for  her ;  but,  growing 
older,  turns  to  a  maiden  of  his  own  people, 
and  visits  her  on  Saturday  nights,  spending 
long  hours  in  mute  admiration  of  her  blonde 
charms,  broken  only  by  spasmodic  attempts 
at  conversation,  on  wholly  irrelevant  subjects. 
The  fire-light  flickers,  the  rounded  form 
moves  to  and  fro,  from  shadow  to  brightness, 
going  about  the  simple  household  duties; 
the  tongue-tied  young  truckman  yearns  for 
smooth  and  impudent  speech  as  wretchedly 
as  a  big-eyed  Newfoundland  dog;  yet  he 
speaks  nothing,  but  looks  instead,  till' broad 
hints  and  a  clamorous  clock  tell  him  that  he 
must  turn  his  face  homeward  through  the 
midnight  dark.  And  then  he  goes  out, 
with  his  dull  heart  full  of  strange,  oppressive 
delight,  and  all  the  small  boys  round  about, 
waiting  in  the  blackness,  throw  tomato-cans 
at  him,  and  chorus  :  "  Sho !  Sho  !  Lottie 
Bierbaum's  got  a  beau  /  " 

"Guggenheim— Bierbaum  "  will  never  fig- 
ure in  the  marriage  column  of  the  "  Herald"; 
but  they  will  be  quietly  married  all  the  same', 
and  their  lives  will  be  all  devotion  and 


ODD    BITS     HERE    AND    THERE. 


868 


SHANTYTOWN. 


sauerkraut,  till  Death 
dissolve  the  honest, 
homely  partnership. 

Now  we  have  reached  the  Boulevard,  and 
we  will  follow  its  well-planned  course,  leav- 
ing the  Elevated  Railway  to  roar  and  quiver 
down  the  avenue.  The  sun  is  setting.  The 
wheels  of  homeward-bound  bicycles  whir 
past  us,  breaking  the  yellow  light  into  wiry 
flashes.  Out  of  the  shade  of  a  ragged  rock- 
corner  comes  a  strange  couple — strange  for 
the  place — a  gentleman  with  a  lady  on  his 
arm — young,  well  dressed ;  the  man  tall 
and  handsome,  the  woman  slight  and  pretty. 
A  new-married  pair,  clearly.  He  is  a  young 
lawyer,  perhaps,  poor  and  persevering.  He 
has  just  come  up  from  business  ;  she  has  been 
to  meet  him  at  the  elevated  road  station  ;  they 
are  going  home  to  some  cheap  lodging  in 
one  of  the  old  high-gabled  Knickerbocker 
houses,  far  up  the  road — or  perhaps  to  a  bit 
of  a  cottage  still  further  up — their  own  little 
shanty. 

But  we  must  leave  this  smooth,  broad 
road  after  awhile,  and  go  down  to  Eighth 
avenue  and  Fifty-ninth  street,  where  the 
house  of  the  Paulist  fathers  stands — a  big, 
brown  building,  with  a  granite  extension, 
half-built,  on  the  avenue.  We  wish  to  see 
the  parish  priest.  Certainly.  Father  O' Gor- 
man will  see  us  in  five  minutes  ;  it  is  dinner- 
time now.  We  are  shown  into  a  little, 
cell-like  parlor,  where  the  late  sun-rays  steal 
through  the  cool  brown  shutters,  and  against 
the  white  wall  an  ebony  crucifix  relieves  the 
graceful,  drooping  lines  of  the  ivory  figure 
it  upbears.  Dead  and  perfect  silence  all 


about  us;  a  delicious  rest  and  calm.  Sud- 
denly— hark  !  The  rhythmic  patter  and 
shuffle  of  many  feet,  the  sharp,  strong,  nerv- 
ous vibration  of  men's  high  voices,  chant- 
ing resonant  Latin  vocables ;  the  .beat  of 
feet  and  the  clear,  trumpet-like  tones  draw 
nearer,  still  unseen,  then  echo  down  the  cor- 
ridors, growing  fainter  and  sweeter ;  and, 
while  our  nerves  yet  thrill  with  startled  pleas- 
ure, a  black-robed  figure  bows  before  us, 
and  the  parish  priest  greets  us  with  the  easy, 
amiable  courtesy  which  always  sits  so  well 
on  the  educated  Roman  cleric.  Father 
O' Gorman  is  very  happy  to  afford  us  all  the 
information  in  his  power  concerning  his 
Shantytown  flock.  It  is  a  good  flock,  quiet, 
well-behaved,  attentive  to  its  religious  duties, 
and  well-to-do  in  a  worldly  way.  It  can, 
the  Father  frankly  says,  "  afford  to  be  gen- 
erous to  its"  No,  there  is  but  little  vice  or 
crime  among  the  people  of  Shantytown. 
They  are  far  superior,  as  a  class,  to  any  ten- 
ement-house people.  The  women  have  no 
time  to  idle ;  their  household  duties  occupy 
them ;  the  men  find  something  to  dp  at 
night  in  making  the  house  neat,  or  cultiva- 
ting the  small  kitchen-garden.  The  children 
go  to  Sunday-school  with  the  Fathers.  The 
Rev.  Father  Schwinninger  has  an  eye  tc 
the  spiritual  needs  of  the  German  part  of 
the  population.  The  "  Sick  Call "  of  the 
House  shows  negatively  that  the  Shanty- 
folk  are  healthy.  Father  O' Gorman  owns 
that  he  is  losing  a  good  congregation  ;  is 
glad  that  many  of  the  ejected  have  movec 
further  up  town,  or  to  Hoboken,  and  regret! 
to  hear  that  a  few  are  going  back  to  th< 


MISS  STOTFORD'S  SPECIALTY. 


869 


noisome  tenements.  Then  a  pale  young 
priest  calls  the  Father  elsewhere,  and  he 
graciously  bows  us  out. 

On  the  steps  of  the  "elevated"  station, 
an  employe  answers  a  question  about  the 
region  we  have  just  left,  by  referring  us  to  a 
fat  and  pompous  old  person,  who  is  deferen- 
tially spoken  of  as  a  great  man  in  the 
neighborhood,  a  builder,  and  an  owner  of 
many  blocks.  «  Yes,"  this  old  person  says, 
"  they  are  cleaning  out  Shantytown — and  a 
good  job,  too.  Them  people,  for  the  rent 
they  pay  for  what  aint  either  a  summer  house 
nor  a  winter  house,  could  get  comfortable 


rooms  in  a  good  tenement-house."  Need- 
less to  ask  what  property  that  man  builds 
and  owns. 

From  the  station  platform  we  catch, 
through  the  trees,  a  last  glimpse  of  Shanty- 
town.  The  dark  roofs  rise  high  into  the 
golden  air;  the  smoke  of  wholesome  din- 
ners trembles  hazily  upward ;  a  flash  of  sun- 
light against  the  sky  tells  of  an  else  invisible 
bird-house.  When  we  next  come  here,  the 
houses  will  be  gone,  the  fires  will  be  cold, 
and  the  birds  flown.  Even  now,  the  smoke- 
shrouded  train  rolls  down  the  line,  shuts  out 
the  picture,  and  bears  us  home. 


MISS  STOTFORD'S   SPECIALTY. 


AGATHA  STOTFORD  was  unfortunate.    She 
lived  in  the  midst  of  an  artistic  and  literary 
circle,   without  being  herself  either  artistic 
or   literary.     Her  father  was  a  painter   of 
eminence,  her  brother  a  poet,  while  her  sis- 
ter composed  music  which  was  supposed  by 
the  knowing  to  be  not  far  removed  from  that 
of  Wagner— Wagner  being  the  music  god 
of  the  particularly  aesthetic  circle  in  which 
Miss  Stotford  revolved.     Moreover,  all  the 
women  of  her  acquaintance  were  remarkable 
for  something.     One  was  distinguished  for 
her  subtle  interpretation  of  music ;  another 
for  her  pictures  ;  a  third  had  tried  her  hand, 
not  unsuccessfully,  at  sculpture ;  another  still 
was  noted  for  her  conversation;   and  yet 
another  for  her  novels;    and  perhaps   the 
most  successful  of  all  for  her  great  beauty. 
So  far,  Agatha  had  been  without  a  spe- 
cialty.    She  was  not  a  fool.     She  could  tell 
a  good  picture  from  a  bad  one.     Given  a 
clue,  she  could  discover  beauties  in  a  poem ; 
but   she   had   no  scrap  of  original  genius! 
Her  father  had  spared  no  pains  in  teach- 
ing her  to  draw,  but,  after  laborious  efforts, 
the  highest  result  was  a  pitiful  little  water- 
color  sketch  of  a  forlorn  cow,  drinking  at  a 
•illage  duck-pond.     She  made  her   tilt  at 
aoetry,  also,  and   addressed  some  lines  to 
her  canary,  which  began  : 


Thou  pretty  warbler,  singing  all  the  day, 
Ihy  song  doth  melt  a  cloud  from  off  my  breast- 
t  seems  to  drive  each  evil  thought  away, 
And  bringeth  to  my  weary  spirit  rest." 

But  she  stopped  there,  and  accomplished 
o  more  in  either  of  these  directions,  though 
10  doubt  she  has  preserved  both  poem  and 
•icture  to  this  day  as  unappreciated  achiev- 
aents  in  art  and  literature. 


She  was  certainly  nice-looking,  with  a 
good,  shapely  figure,  a  fresh  complexion, 
clear  blue  eyes,  and  bright,  golden  hair.  But 
the  men  who  frequented  Mr.  Stotford's 
studio  wanted  something  more  than  pretti- 
ness  to  atone  for  the  lack  of  intellectual 
power.  Had  she  been  as  beautiful  as  her 
tall  friend,  Mrs.  Liddell,  the  woman  with 
the  slightly  hollow  cheeks,  and  the  wonder- 
ful eyes  which  seemed  to  have  half-solved 
the  mystery  of  death,  they  could  have  over- 
i  looked  her  want  of  other  gifts.  But  as  it 
was,  she  was  treated  more  like  a  kitten  than 
anything  else,  and  against  this  Miss  Stot- 
ford's spirit  chafed  and  rebelled. 

She  finally  formed  a  resolve  to  produce 
an  effect  of  her  own,  or  die  in  the  attempt. 
After  much  thought,  she  determined  to  be 
"  noble"— specially  and  distinctively  "  noble." 
She  would  do  some  "  grand  thing"— not,  be 
it  understood,  for  nobility's  sake,  but  for  the 
sheer  longing  to  produce  an  effect.     Some 
large,    picturesque  crime   would    probably 
have  suited  her  quite  as  well ;  but  since  she 
had  not  the  courage  for  vice,  she  resolved 
upon  virtue — or,  rather,  I  should  say,  upon  - 
i  nobility,  for  the  small  sweet  trifles  of  self- 
!  sacrifice  and  devotion  that  belong  to  every 
day  carry  with  them  no  special  distinction. 
Now,  let  it  be   known  that,  among  the 
habitues    of     Mr.    Stotford's    studio,    was 
George   Singleton,  a   young  hump-backed 
art-student,    who  worked  terribly  hard,  so 
his  most  intimate  friends  said,  to  preserve 
the   life   about   which    he   cared    so   little 
since  he  felt,  with  a  morbid  bitterness,  his 
physical  deformity.     Hitherto,  Agatha  had 
scarcely  ever  thought  of  wasting  words  upon 
him,  but  now  there   came  to  her  a  grand 


870 


MISS  STOTFORD'S  SPECIALTY. 


resolve.  She  would  make  Singleton  fall  in 
love  with  her,  and  she  would  marry  him.  Her 
father  had  a  kind  heart,  and  was  not  very 
'  worldly  :  she  made  sure,  therefore,  that  his 
consent  could  be  gained.  People  should 
see  what  a  power  of  noble  devotion  she 
had,  if  she  had  nothing  else.  Already  she 
seemed  to  hear  a  chorus  of  wonder  and 
admiration;  then  would  come  remon- 
strances, which  she  pictured  herself  as 
smiling  down.  Yes,  all  the  circle  which 
had  taken  so  little  account  of  her  should 
admire  her  noble  self-sacrifice,  and  see  in 
her  a  heroine. 

The  thought  first  came  to  her  as  she  was 
lying  awake  one  night,  and  when  she 
appeared  at  breakfast  next  morning,  there 
was  a  warmer  glow  on  her  cheek  and  a 
brighter  light  in  her  eyes  than  her  family 
had  beheld  in  them  before. 

When  she  next  saw  George  Singleton,  it 
was  on  a  Wednesday  afternoon,  the  day 
set  apart  weekly  by  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Stotford 
for  receiving  their  friends.  Agatha  had 
often  wondered  why  Singleton  came  at  all, 
for  he  said  little,  and  seemed  shy  and  ill  at 
ease.  This  day,  however,  she  determined, 
if  possible,  to  make  him  talk.  It  chanced 
that  he  had  been  absent  for  several  weeks, 
and  that  fact  was  an  opening. 

"  What  a  stranger  you've  been,"  she 
said,  as  he  came  where  she  was  sitting. 

"  It's  kind  of  you  to  notice  it." 

"  Is  it  work  that  has  kept  you  away  ?  " 

"  No.  I've  been  staying  with  a  man  in 
the  country." 

"  Did  you  like  that  ?  " 

"  Not  much.  I  think  there  is  hardly 
anything  I  do  like." 

"  That  must  make  you  feel  very  lonely," 
she  said,  with  a  little  shiver  of  sympathy, 
and  such  tenderness  in  her  eyes. 

He  took  the  vacant  chair  beside  her,  and 
said : 

"It  is  the  loneliness  of  death  to  see  your 
life  stretching  out  before  you  like  a  plain, 
without  tree  or  flower,  without  even  a  hil- 
lock in  sight,  to  break  the  dead  monotony." 

"  But  your  work  ?  "  she  suggested,  look- 
ing at  him  as  no  woman  had  ever  looked  at 
him  before.  "  Surely,  you  care  a  little 
about  that  ?  " 

"  Perhaps  I  might,  if  any  one  else  were 
interested  in  it." 

"  Oh,  but  many  people  must  be.  I,  for 
one,  should  like  so  much  to  hear  all  about 
it." 

"Would  you,  really?"  he  asked,  his  face 
brightening. 


"  Yes,  of  course  I  should.  Is  that  so 
difficult  to  understand  ?  " 

"  It  seems  so  to  me." 

There  was  a  pause.  Then  she  said,  oh 
so  gently: 

"  Will  you  really  tell  me  about  what  you 
do?" 

"  Need  you  ask  me  twice  ?  " 

Were  this  anything  more  than  a  short 
study,  I  could  dwell  at  length,  and  with 
some  pleasure  in  their  skillfulness,  upon  the 
various  wiles  with  which  Singleton  was 
beguiled — the  sighs,  the  little  bursts  of  en- 
thusiasm, looks  full  of  subtle  sympathy, 
tones  as  subtle  as  looks,  low  under-tones 
meant  to  reach  his  ear  only.  Indeed,  she 
gave  herself  much  more  trouble  than  was 
necessary,  for  Singleton  was  very  easily 
conquered.  But,  as  we  all  know,  it  is  one 
thing  to  get  the  horse  to  the  well,  and  an- 
other to  make  him  drink  ;  so  it  was  one 
thing  to  get  Singleton  in  love,  and  another 
to  draw  from  him  any  declaration  of  his 
passion. 

"  Surely,"  thought  Agatha,  recalling  his 
looks  of  adoration  and  the  eager  way  he 
listened  when  she  spoke,  as  if  fearful  of  losing 
a  single  intonation  of  her  voice, — "  surely 
he  must  love  me." 

Still,  when  they  were  alone  together, 
which  tney  frequently  were,  he  never  said 
nor  did  any  of  those  things  which  unmis- 
takably proclaim  the  lover.  As  a  rule,  men 
are  not  very  grateful  for  the  friendship  of 
the  women  they  love;  but  Singleton  had 
so  schooled  himself  not  to  expect  even  sc 
much  as  friendship  from  a  woman,  that  he 
was  really  thankful  for  Agatha's,  and  die 
battle  with  himself  to  keep  down  the  greatei 
hunger  in  his  heart. 

One  twilight  they  were  sitting  togethei 
by  the  open  French  window. 

"  How  sweet  it  was  of  you,"  said  Single 
ton,  "to  come  and  see  me  in  my  den,  to 
day." 

"  It  was  a  pleasure  and  a  privilege." 

"  You've  made  me  in  love  with  th< 
room,"  he  went  on,  "  and  I  used  to  hate  i 
so." 

"  Then  I  wish  I  had  come  before." 

"  I  wish  you  had.  Do  you  know  how 
you  have  blessed  my  life  ?  " 

"  I  should  like  to  do  so  much,  mucl 
more,"  she  said,  with  that  simple,  direc 
earnestness  which  Singleton  always  foun< 
so  irresistibly  captivating.  Then,  quit! 
involuntarily,  as  it  were,  her  hand  rested  01 
his.  Of  course  she  would  have  drawn  i 


MISS  STOTFORD' S  SPECIALTY. 


871 


away  in  a  moment,  but  he  pressed  it  between 
both  of  his  and  held  it.  Then,  as  his 
blood  kindled,  he  went  through  moments 
of  the  most  exquisite  agony.  He  saw,  as 
in  a  vision,  what  life  might  have  meant  for 
him  had  he  been  formed  like  other  happier 
men.  The  peace  and  passion  of  love,  the 
glory  of  unmeasured  light,  the  depth  of 
.unfathomable  shade,  the  close  intimate  com- 
panionship, the  stimulus  to  work  and  the 
crown  of  work, — he  realized  them  all.  Just 
then  his  fate  pressed  heavily  upon  him. 
The  sound  of  Agatha's  voice  roused  him 
from  the  anguish  of  self-pity  which  had 
almost  broken  him  down.  Had  it  been 
light  enough  for  her  to  see  him,  she  would 
have  known  that  his  face  was  fairly  blanched 
with  pain. 

"  George,"  she  said,  speaking  in  her  low- 
est, and  most  earnest  tones,  "  will  you  tell 
me  something  ?  " 

"  Whatever  you  may  choose  to  ask." 

"  The  whole  truth  ?  " 

"  The  most  absolute  truth." 

"  Then  I  want  to  know  just  how  much 
you  care  about  me." 

His  heart  began  to  beat  violently.  There 
were  sparks  of  fire  in  his  eyes.  It  would 
be  a  consolation  to  tell  her  just  once  how 
he  loved  her ;  yet  he  felt  that  she  must  be 
grieved  by  his  disclosure.  He  was  silent. 
Outside,  one  bird  twittered  persistently. 

"  Please,  wont  you  tell  me  ?  "  the  girl's 
low  voice  entreated. 

Still  no  answer. 

"  Is  it  that  you  are  afraid  to  tell  me  how 
little  you  care  for  me,  lest  I  should  be 
grieved  ?  " 

"  My  God,  Agatha,"  he  cried,  kneeling 
down  beside  her,  and  kissing  her  hands  and 
the  rings  on  her  fingers  with  passionate 
adoration,  "  I  love  you  as  the  martyrs  of 
old  loved  religion,  when  they  went  singing 
to  their  deaths.  I  could  die  for  you,  like 
that.  I  love  you  with  all  the  strength  of  a 
heart  that  has  never  known  love  before.  If 
I  had  been  like  other  men,  I  would  never 
have  rested  till  I  had  won  you.  But,  Aga- 
tha, my  darling,  my  saint,  since  I  can 
never  be  more  to  you  than  a  friend,  I 
will  be  that.  To  do  you  service  shall  be 
the  one  purpose  of  my  life.  I  know  you 
did  not  mean  to  make  me  love  you,  but  it 
was  my  doom." 

He  had  spoken  in  a  headlong  impulse  of 
passion.  He  paused  now,  and  there  was  a 
moment's  silence,  through  which,  presently, 
her  clear  voice  fell. 

"  Why,  how  mistaken   you   would  have 


been  not  to  tell  me,"  she  said.  "  I  had  a 
right  to  know,  for  I  love  you." 

"  Yes,  as  my  friend." 

"  No,  not  in  that  way,  but  as  a  woman 
loves  the  man  whose  wife  she  would  gladly 
be." 

"  Agatha,  do  you  know  what  you  are 
saying  ?  "  he  cried.  "  It  is  not  possible  you 
could  mean  this." 

"  Can  you  think  I  should  say  it  without 
meaning  it  ?  " 

"  You  are  mistaking  pity  for  love." 

"  No;  I  have  said  that  I  love  you,  and 
now  you  must  decide  for  yourself  whether 
you  will  believe  it  or  not." 

And  I  am  bound  in  justice  to  say  that  if 
ever  Agatha  Stotford  came  near  loving  any 
one,  it  was  in  that  moment.  The  fervor  of 
his  speech  had  moved  her;  and  then  she  was 
grateful  to  him  for  gratifying  her  heart's  de- 
sire, and  affording  her  the  opportunity  to 
make  an  effect. 

"  I  must  believe  you,"  he  said,  as  one 
half  dazed ;  "  but  oh,  my  love,  how  can  it 
be?" 

They  sat  together  through  the  failing  twi- 
light, and  on  in  the  fragrant  night.  They 
were  both  almost  silent.  Singleton  was 
trying  to  count  over  and  realize  his  untold 
bliss.  Agatha  was  wondering  what  would 
be  the  most  striking  form  in  which  to  make 
the  general  disclosure. 

Singleton  was  anxious  to  go  to  Mr.  Stot- 
ford at  once,  but  Agatha  begged  him  to  leave 
that  to  her.  And  that  night,  after  her  lover 
was  gone,  when  the  hall-door  had  been  barred 
against  all  visitors,  and  Mr.  Stotford  was 
sipping  his  nocturnal  brandy  and  water, 
and  smoking  a  massive  meerschaum  which 
always  made  its  appearance  at  that  hour, 
Agatha  came  behind  his  chair,  and  rested 
her  hand  on  his  shoulder,  while  she  said  : 

"  Papa,  dear,  I  want  something  from 
you." 

"  My  dear,  I'm  not  surprised  to  hear  that. 
How  many  new  dresses  is  it  this  time  ?  " 

"  It's  not  dresses.  What  I  want  is  your 
consent  to  my  engagement." 

"  Your  engagement  to  be  married  ?  " 

"  What  other  engagement  could  I  possibly 
mean  ?  " 

"  What !  You  mean  to  say,"  cried  Mr. 
Stotford,  fairly  astonished  now,  and  regard- 
ing the  smoke  from  his  pipe  as  if  he  had 
some  slight  hope  of  finding  therein  a  solution 
of  his  difficulty — "  you  mean  to  say  that 
some  fellow  is  in  love  with  you,  and  you  are 
in  love  with  him  ?  " 

"  Yes,  that  is  what  I  mean." 


872 


MISS   STOTFORD' S  SPECIALTY. 


"  Well,  it  can't  be  Edmunds  ;  and  it  can 
hardly  be  young  Claymore  ?  " 

"  No." 

"  Then,  who  is  it  ?  " 

"  It  is  Mr.  Singleton." 

"  What !  That  poor,  hump-backed  young 
fellow  ?  " 

"  It  is  George  Singleton." 

"  My  dear  child,"  said  Mr.  Stotford,  grave- 
ly, "  this  is  indeed  a  more  serious  matter  than 
I  conceived." 

But  it  would  be  unnecessary  to  repeat  all 
the  father's  arguments  on  this  occasion. 

"Well,  my  dear,  I  wont  oppose  you.  I 
have  seen  so  much  trouble  in  the  world  from 
interference  that  if  you  can  really  love  this 
poor  fellow  I  wont  stand  between  him  and 
his  chance  of  happiness." 

"  Thank  you,  dear,  thank  you,"  Agatha 
said  warmly,  and  then  she  kissed  her  father. 

Just  then  Mrs.  Stotford  and  her  other 
daughter,  Addie,  came  in  and  Mr.  Stotford 
told  the  family  news.  The  mother,  good 
soul,  had  always  felt  certain  that  her  Agatha 
would  somehow  distinguish  herself,  and  now 
the  hour  had  come.  Both  she  and  Adelaide 
were  enthusiastic  and  tender-hearted,  and 
they  both  wept;  and  somehow  Agatha,  who 
was  not  at  all  of  a  melting  mood,  felt  quite 
out  of  place  and  embarrassed  with  her  own 
dry  eyes. 

When  her  brother  Ernest,  the  poet,  came 
in,  he  too  heard  the  news,  took  his  sister 
in  his  arms  and  kissed  her,  saying,  very 
earnestly : 

"  God  be  praised  that  there  is  one  woman 
left  who  knows  how  to  love." 

Ernest  was  at  that  time  about  five  and 
twenty,  and  rather  cynical  concerning  women, 
because  the  beautiful  Mrs.  Liddell  obstinately 
persisted  in  preferring  her  own  husband  to 
himself,  sonnets  included. 

The  next  day,  the  news  spread  like  wild- 
fire. Mrs.  Liddell  drove  out  to  see  if  it 
were  true;  and,  when  she  heard  that  it 
was,  embraced  Agatha,  and  murmured 
something  about  Aurora  Leigh.  Of  course, 
there  were  not  wanting  those  who  felt 
bound  to  remonstrate,  and  asked  Agatha 
very  emphatically  if  she  knew  what  she  was 
doing.  When  she  assured  them  that  she 
did,  they  shook  their  heads  solemnly,  and 
expressed  their  hopes  that  her  nobility  would 
be  rewarded. 

On  the  whole,  Agatha  was  not  at  all  dis- 
appointed. She  had  produced  quite  as 
startling  an  effect  as  she  had  anticipated. 
Men  who  had  never  noticed  her  before 
began  to  come  around  her.  She  went  among 


them  by  the  name  of  St.  Agatha.  Painters 
idealized  her  prettiness  into  beauty,  and 
painted  her  with  a  halo  around  her  head. 

Agatha  liked  being  seen  out  with  her 
lover.  It  was  a  perpetual  advertisement  to 
the  world  of  her  nobility. 

But,  alas  that  wonders  live  but  nine  days! 
Our  elopements,  our  marriages,  our  sudden 
deaths — who  can  pause  for  long  discussion 
of  them  ?  We  all  know  how  charming  is 
the  existence  of  convalescence ;  but  as  soon 
as  we  get  a  good  appetite  for  our  dinners, 
we  are  rubbed  off  the  sick  list.  Our  irrita- 
bility, which  was  so  lately  hailed  with  joy 
as  a  sign  of  our  recovery,  is  set  down  now 
as  genuine  ill-temper,  and  is  considered  all 
the  more  ungrateful  in  one  whom  illness 
had  so  long  made  a  candidate  for  household 
forbearance.  There  is  no  pedestal  on  which 
we  are  allowed  to  stand  for  long,  unless  we  are 
made  of  stone.  Like  the  rest,  Miss  Stot- 
ford had  to  come  down  from  hers.  It  was 
a  depressing  day  for  her  when  she  found 
that  people  had  quietly  accepted  the  fact  of 
her  engagement,  and  had  ceased  to  praise 
or  pity  her  for  it.  Even  Singleton  himself 
had  ceased  to  question  the  reality  of  his  own 
happiness,  and  was  actually  beginning  to 
make  plans  for  the  future,  and  growing  eager 
to  have  the  marriage-day  fixed. 

"  Surely,  there  is  plenty  of  time  for  that," 
she  said.  "  We  can  settle  about  it  in 
October,  when  I  come  back  from  Switzer- 
land." 

It  was  just  at  the  end  of  August  when 
Mr.  Stotford  took  his  family  abroad  for  their 
summer  holiday.  George  could  not  leave 
London  just  then,  but  he  said  to  his 
betrothed : 

"  Don't  mind  for  me,  darling.  The 
memory  of  your  love  will  keep  me  happy, 
and  I  know  you  want  a  change ;  you  have 
been  looking  quite  pale  lately.  And  then 
you  will  write  to  me." 

Perhaps  Agatha  would  hardly  have 
allowed  to  herself  how  glad  she  was  to  get 
away ;  but  to  a  perfectly  cold  nature  like 
hers,  persistent  "spooning"  was  a  heavy 
price  to  pay,  even  for  the  pleasure  of  hav- 
ing produced  a  great  effect. 

In  Switzerland,  the  Stotfords  made  the 
acquaintance  of  a  family  by  the  name  of 
Gardiner.  Agatha  and  Miss  Maude  Gardi- 
ner struck  up  an  intimate  friendship,  after 
the  manner  of  young  ladies.  The  elder 
members  of  the  two  families  found  little  in 
common,  for  the  Gardiners,  though  people 
of  good  social  position,  were  not  over- 
weighted with  brains;  but  Maude  suited 


Agatha,  and  Maude's  brother,  Reginald, 
was  a  fine,  handsome  young  fellow.  Very 
pleasant  were  the  mountaineering  expedi- 
tions the  three  made  together,  and  three 
more  intrepid  spirits  could  hardly  have  been 
found. 

Of  course,  she  at  once  told  Maude  all  the 
particulars  of  her  engagement,  and  Maude 
was  enchanted.  She  had  never  heard  of 
anything  so  beautiful. 

"You  are  going  to  build  up  his  ruined 
life,"  she  cried. 
"  I  hope  so,  dear." 

"  And  you  must  let  me  see  him  as  soon  as 
we  get  back  to  London." 

"  Oh,  yes ;  we  must  all  be  the  best  of 
mends." 

One  morning,  as  they  were  leaving  the 
hotel  for  a  day's  ramble,  Agatha  remarked 
that  she  hoped  she  should  find  a  letter  on  her 
return. 

"  Do  you  mean  //fc  letter  ?"  Maude  asked. 
"  Yes,  Miss  Inquisitive.     It  should  have 
come  yesterday." 

"  Ah  ?  Then  let  me  suggest  a  telegram  " 
put  in  Reginald,  who  had  joined  them  in 
time  to  overhear  the  last  remarks.  "  You 
don't  look  pale  over  your  disappointment, 
though." 

Agatha  blushed  becomingly,  and  they  set 
out. 

They  returned  at  dinner-time,  in  excellent 
spirits,  and  Agatha  hurried  to  her  room  to 
dress  for  table  d'hote.  They  were  very  merry 
at  dinner,  and  all  the  evening  through  as 
they  sat  in  the  lighted  garden  listening  to 
the  band. 

When  Reginald  said  good-night  to  Agatha 
he  asked,  with  a  slight  but  expressive  smile- 

"  Did  your  letter  bring  you  good  news, 
Miss  Stotford  ?  " 

Agatha  blushed  now  in  good  earnest 
Every  one  knew  the  English  mail  came  in 
at  five  o'clock;  and  she  had  forgotten  to  ask 
for  her  letter. 

"  It's  only  a  straw,"  thought  Reginald,  as 
he  went  toward  the  billiard-room:  "but 
it's  certainly  a  straw." 

It  was  a  cold  day  toward  the  end  of 
October,  when  the  Stotfords  and  the  Gar- 
diners  returned  together  to  London.  Maude 
had  not  long  to  wait  for  her  introduction  to 
George  Singleton,  for  he  was  on  the  plat- 
form, ready  to  greet  his  betrothed. 

"  Is  it  not  noble  of  Agatha  ?  "  asked  Miss 
Gardiner  of  her  brother,  when  they  had 
parted  from  the  Stotfords.  ' 

"  The  fellow  has  been  rather  hard  hit  by 
fate ;  but  he  has  his  compensation,  certainly  " 

VOL.  XX.— 57. 


Reginald  answered,  with  a  frown  on  his  face, 
as  he  turned  away  from  his  family  to  go  to 
dinner  at  his  club. 

Of  course,  Singleton  dined  that  evening 
with  the  Stotfords;  and  when  he  and  Agatha 
were  alone  together  in  her  little  sitting-room 
he  was  very  affectionate,—"  oh,  more  affec- 
tionate than  ever,"— as  Agatha  thought,  rue- 
fully. He  had  brought  with  him  a  small 
manuscript  book,  in  which  he  had  carefully 
set  down  all  the  details  of  his  days,  inter- 
spersed here  and  there  with  a  lover's  ravings. 
"I  thought  it  might  interest  you,"  he 
said. 

.  "  Oh,  yes,  thank  you,"  she  answered;  "  so 
it  does,  very  much,"  and  she  turned  over 
some  of  the  pages. 

When  he  took  his  leave,  she  suggested  that 
he  was  forgetting  his  book. 

"  Then,  you  don't  care  to  keep  it  ?  " 

There  was  a  wistfulness  in  his  question 
which  her  ear  failed  to  detect. 

"  No,  thanks;  I  think  I've  seen  in  it  now 
all  you  have  been  doing.  Monday  seems 
very  much  like  Tuesday,  and  Thursday 
repeats  Wednesday.  You  have  been  very 
good."  7 

Singleton  sat  long  by  his  fire  that  night 
He  took  the  diary  out  rather  tenderly  from 
his  pocket,  and  looked  at  the  fly-leaf,  on 
which  was  written:  "A  record  of  what  I 
do,  kept  by  me  for  my  dear  in  her  absence." 
I  hen  suddenly  he  thrust  it  into  the  fire,  and 
called  himself  an  unworthy  fool.  Why 
should  she  understand  his  sentimentality? 
Her  love  showed  itself  in  grand  actions,— 
had  she  not  chosen  him  ?  And  he  went  to 
bed,  a  good  deal  ashamed  of  his  diary 
episode. 

The  marriage-day  was  at  last  fixed  for 
early  in  January.     From  the  first,  I  have 
been  frank  with  you  about  Agatha.     I  have 
not  at  any  time  striven  to  enlist  your  affec- 
tions for  her,  nor  will  I  even  make  any  fur- 
ther claim  for  her  on  your  respect.     I  must 
frankly  own  that  the  nearer  her  marriage-day 
came,  the  more  she  shrank  from  the  pros- 
pect of  it.     As  Singleton's  wife  she  could  not 
hope  even  to  make  the  sensation  she  had 
created  as  his  betrothed.     The  pleasure  of 
producing  her  effect  had  been  great,  but  she 
had  obtained  it  on  credit.     She  had  enjoyed 
it  to  the  full;  and  now  the  time  for  paving 
the  price  was  drawing  nigh.     What  wonder 
if  she  rebelled  !   At  times  she  almost  thought 
of  throwing  herself  upon  Singleton's  gener- 
osity, which  she  well  knew  would  not  fail 
her,  and  begging  to  be  set  free  from  fulfilling 
her  obligation.     But  what  of  all  her  admir- 


874 


MISS  STOTFORD'S   SPECIALTY. 


ing  friends  ?  How  could  she  bear  to  step 
down  from  the  pedestal  of  saint,  whereon 
their  homage  had  placed  her,  and  become 
the  commonest  of  all  common  things, — a 
woman  who  found  herself  utterly  unequal  to 
the  sacrifice  she  had  undertaken  to  make  ? 
No;  this  humiliation  was  more  than  she 
could  endure.  But  surely  every  woman 
before  being  bound  for  life  to  one  man,  has 
her  right  to  her  meed  of  homage  from  others, 
— in  a  word,  to  have  her  fling.  And  if 
Singleton  would  but  be  jealous. — if  he  would 
quarrel  with  her  on  this  account, — why,  then 
surely  the  fault  would  not  be  hers.  Maude 
was  her  most  intimate  friend,  and  she  could 
not  see  much  of  Maude  without  seeing  *a 
good  deal  of  Reginald,  too.  Besides,  she 
liked  Reginald,  and  her  friendship  with  him 
as  well  as  with  his  sister  was  a  fact  to  which 
George  must  speedily  make  up  his  mind. 
So  one  night  she  said  to  him  : 

"  Oh,  I  shan't  see  you  to-morrow  evening 
— Maude  is  coming." 

"  May  I  not  look  in  after  she  goes  ?  " 
"  Oh,  you  may  come  in,  if  you  like,  but 
you  would  not  see  me  alone  because  Regi- 
nald is  coming  for  her,  and  they'll  be  sure 
to  stay  late." 

"  The  next  evening,  then  ?  " 
"  Oh,  I  am  going  there." 
"  Then  I  may  call  for  you,  may  I  not  ?  " 
"  Yes,  but  not  before  eleven,  please.     We 
are  going  to  the  theater." 

"  Well,  dear,  I  hope  you'll  enjoy  yourself. 
You'll  find  me  very  punctual  at  eleven." 

If  it  had  been  difficult  to  draw  a  declara- 
tion of  love  from  Singleton,  it  was  yet  more 
impossible  to  elicit  from  him  any  expression 
of  jealousy.  His  attention  and  devotion 
remained  undiminished,  and  he  preserved 
the  utmost  serenity  of  temper  under  circum- 
stances which  might  easily  have  ruffled  the 
sweetest  nature.  Only  Agatha  noticed  one 
change,  and  that  was  that  he  talked  less 
about  their  future  than  he  had  done  at  first. 
For  this  she  could  not  help  being  grateful 
to  him.  The  day  for  their  marriage,  how- 
ever, was  drawing  near,  and  work  on  the 
trousseau  had  begun. 

The  night  before  Christmas,  they  were 
alone  together  in  Agatha's  sitting-room.  A 
wild  north-east  wind  was  sweeping  around 
the  house  and  wailing  through  the  leafless 
trees.  Now  and  then  the  sleet  was  driven 
up  vehemently  against  the  window. 

"  I  think  I  never  shall  be  warm  again," 
said  Agatha. 

She  was  sitting  in  a  low  easy-chair,  drawn 
close  to  the  fire,  her  feet  resting  on  the 


fender,  her  head  lying  back  on  a  velvet 
cushion,  her  small  white  hands  sparkling 
with  rings  clasped  on  her  lap.  She  looked 
the  very  embodiment  of  indolence  and 
comfort. 

Singleton  made  no  answer.  He  was 
standing  with  his  arms  resting  on  the  man- 
tel-piece. 

"  Why  don't  you  speak  ?  "  she  asked, 
with  some  asperity  in  her  tone. 

"  I  didn't  hear  what  you  were  saying." 

"  You  never  do,"  she  rejoined,  promptly, 
"when  I  speak  about  any  suffering  of  mine." 

"  Are  you  suffering,  dear  ? "  he  asked, 
looking  up. 

"Yes,  of  course  I  am.  You  know  how 
this  weather  makes  me  feel." 

The  clock  struck  half-past  ten — the  hour 
when  Singleton  always  took  his  leave. 

"  Agatha,"  he  said,  a  little  nervously,  "  I 
want  to  ask  something  of  you." 

"  Do  you  ?  "  she  replied,  wearily  ;  "  well, 
what  is  it  ?  " 

"  I  want  to  stay  with  you  to-night  until 
eleven." 

"  Oh,  not  to-night,"  she  said,  perhaps 
with  more  protestation  in  her  voice  than 
she  was  even  aware  of.  "  My  head  aches, 
and  I  want  to  go  to  bed,  and  see  if  I  can't 
get  warm  there." 

"  Only  this  once,  dear,"  he  entreated. 

She  made  no  reply. 

"  Forgive  me,  Agatha ;  I  was  a  selfish 
brute.  You  aren't  too  angry  to  say  good- 
night, are  you  ?  " 

She  could  not  fail  to  see  the  effort  he 
made  to  hide  the  quiver  of  pain  in  his  voice, 
and  glancing  up  she  saw  in  his  eyes  such  a 
look  of  pleading,  that  even  her  not  very 
susceptible  heart  was  touched. 

"  There,  there,  you  needn't  go,"  she  said. 
"  I  spoke  to  you  more  crossly  than  I  should 
have  done.  Half  an  hour  longer  wont  kill 
me;  and  if  you  will  be  vexed  with  me  I 
can't  help  it." 

"Vexed  with  you?"  he  said,  kneeling 
down  beside  her.  "  How  do  you  think 
that  could  ever  be  ?  " 

Then  he  put  his  arms  around  her,  and 
drew  her  head  on  his  shoulder. 

For  the  next  half  hour  there  was  com- 
plete silence  between  them.  Inside,  the 
fire  flickered,  and  held  low  converse  with 
itself;  and  outside,  the  insatiable  wind 
wailed  on.  When  the  clock  struck  eleven, 
he  arose,  and  Agatha  arose,  too. 

"  Thank  you,"  he  said,  "  for  letting  me 
stay.  I  know  you  wont  be  sorry  for  it, 
hereafter."  And  as  he  stood  there,  holding 


MISS  STOTFORD' S  SPECIALTY. 


875 


both  her  hands  in  his,  she  saw  again  in  his 
eyes  that  strange,  pleading  look. 

"  Aren't  you  happy  ?  "  she  asked.  "You 
seem  as  sober  as  a  judge." 

"  Could  a  man  who  believed  in  your  love 
be  other  than  happy  ?  " 

At  the  door,  he  turned  back,  drew  her 
close  to  his  heart  once  more,  and  kissed  her 
again,  long  and  lovingly.  Then  he  went. 

"  Gone  at  last,"  she  thought,  with  a  sigh 
of  relief,  as  she  heard  the  hall-door  close 
behind  him.  Then  she  went  straight  to 
bed. 

Miss  Stotford  was  not  an  early  riser. 
Before  meeting  the  outside  distractions  of 
the  day,  she  perused  the  first  delivery  of 
letters  over  morning  coffee  in  her  own  room. 
This  morning's  mail  brought  her  many  sea- 
sonable cards,  but,  oddly  enough,  only  one 
letter.  She  was  familiar  with  the  delicate, 
almost  feminine  handwriting — it  was  from 
Singleton.  Shortly  after  their  engagement 
he  had  been  much  addicted  to  the  habit  of 
posting  her  a  letter  before  going  to  bed 
but  latterly  he  seemed  to  have  broken  him- 
self of  the  practice.  Indifferently  at  first, 
yet  with  ever  increasing  interest,  she  read  : 

"HARLEY  STREET,  24  December,  i  A.  M. 

"  MY  DARLING  :  I  wish  this  letter  to  be  as  little 

of  a  shock  to  you  as  possible.     On  the  24th  of  May 

last  seven  months  ago  to-day,  you  told  me  that  you 

loved  me.     That  you  were  sincere  then  in  thinking 

so,  that  you  even  try  to  think  so  now,  I  do  not  for  a 

moment   doubt.     Indeed,   I  believed  in  your  love 

most  implicitly  till  your  return  from  Switzerland. 

hen  a  doubt  of  it  grew  into  my  mind.     I  watched 

you  ^carefully,  and  watched  my  own  heart  carefully 

X°'  JC ^uW  f(£  the  J'ealousy>"  Bought  Agatha,  as 
she  settled  herself  more  comfortably  for  a  further 
perusal. ]  "I  know  something  of  the  human  heart 
and  1  know  how  a  woman  appears  when  she  is  really  in 
love  with  a  man.  At  length  my  doubts  grew  into 

n  unalterable  conviction  that  if  you  had  ever  loved 
me— if,  indeed,  you  had  not  from  the  first,  out  of  the 
Vifryfv  y  °f  y°ur  nature>  mistaken  pity  for  love— 
Uie  feeling,  unconsciously,  perhaps,  to  yourself,  was 
dying  out.  Only  great  love  on  your  part  could  ever 
have  rendered  possible  the  life  you  would  have  led 
as  the  wife  of  a  man  so  unfortunate  as  I  am.  But 

^1°?*  «rer  V0  free  you"  [Agatha's  heart  dropped 
u]>  L-  r1  know  vour  exquisite  sensitiveness 
would  suffer  from  a  mistaken  sense  that  you  had 
failed  toward  me.  I  know  you  would  repudiate  all 
I  could  say;  for  in  your  noble  desire  to  build  up  a 
ruined  hfe,  you  would,  for  once,  be  capable  of  decep- 
tion. But,  Agatha,  my  love,  what  would  it  be  to 
me  to  see  you  slowly  fading  before  my  eyes  ?  Yet  I 
am  a  weak  man,  and,  if  you  held  the  cup  to  my 
thirsty  lips,  could  they  help  drinking  ?  No,  I  do  not 
'Her  you  your  freedom :  I  give  it  to  you— my  Christ- 
mas gift.  When  you  read  this  letter  I  shall  be  so 
ar  away  from  you  that  no  pain  ar.id  no  joy  can  fol- 
low me. 

"  Had  I  never  known  your  love,  I  could  have  had 

:een  pleasure  in  your  friendship ;  but  after  knowing 

your  love,  your  friendship  would  be  an  intolerable 


torment.     Life  holds  nothing  more  for  me  ;  but  my 
death  will  be  painless.      I   shall  die  happy,  for  I 
shall  conjure  up  from  the  past,  to  take  with  me  out 
of  the  world,  a  vision  of  that   dear  May  evening 
Do  you  remember,  I  wonder,  how  I  came  in,  and 
found  you  in  the  twilight  ?     You  were  lying  on  the 
sofa,  and  I  took  a  low  chair  and  sat  close  by  YOU— 
the  chair  which  stood  between  the  windows.     You 
had  a  gray  silk  dress  on,  and  a  red  rose  in  your  hair 
that  I   thieved   before   I  went  away,     I  shall  hear 
again  the  tenderness  of  your  voice,  as  you  told  me 
that   you  loved  me.     I   shall  feel  again— ah,  no,  I 
shall   not  feel    that— my    blood   thrill   under   your 
touch,  under  the  first  confident  answering  pressure 
of  your  lips.     Never  to  feel  that  again  !— this  it  is 
which  unmans  me  and  makes  me  weak.     Last  night, 
m  that  extra  half  hour  which  you  granted  me,  my 
heart  kept  crying  out  to  me:    'Here   is   Agatha, 
Agatha,  to  see,  to  touch,  to  kiss,— and  in  a  few  hours 
she  will  be  just  as  far  off  as  the  first  day  of  creation ! ' 
Un,  my  love,  never  to  see  you  again  ! 

"  Later. 

T.-I T\  ,?m  qu^e  Calm'  now-  In  a  very  little 
while  I  shall  long  for  nothing  any  more.  I  want 
you  to  know  how  in  these  last  moments  my  whole 
heart  goes  out  in  blessing  to  you.  But  for  you,  per- 
haps, I  should  have  lived  out  a  long  and  painful  life 
productive  of  no  joy  to  myself  or  others.  I  have 
neither  father  nor  mother— no  one  to  sadden  by  my 
loss  I  should  never  have  done  anything  really 
good  in  art,-Mr.  Stotford  will  tell  you  so,-so  I  am 
small  loss  there.  You  gave  me  three  months  of 
divine  happiness,  and  I  shall  now  turn  to  the  thought 
of  that  time  as  a  bridegroom  turns  to  his  bride. 
Crood-bye,  my  darling,  and  may  some  power  ever 
bless  and  guide  you. 

ft  f^      C   » 
Lr.    b. 


Many  times  the  letter  had  fallen  from 
Agatha's  fingers  while  she  read.  Now  she 
held  it  crushed  in  her  hand.  Did  Singleton 
mean  all  he  had  said?  Could  this  thing 
really  be  ?  Was  her  lover  no  longer  in  this 
world,  and  if  so,  was  she  not,  in  a  way 
guilty  of  his  death  ?  Her  blood  turned  to 
ice  and  her  teeth  chattered.  Then,  with  a 
sudden  impulse,  she  rose  and  dressed.  She 
half  thought  she  might  do  something.  Yet 
what  could  she  do  ?  Only  one  thing  she 
knew.  She  must  appear  ignorant  of  what 
tins  letter  had  revealed  to  her. 

When  she  went  to  the  breakfast-table, 
there  was  no  gainsaying  the  fact  that  she 
was  ill,  for  her  face  was  as  white  as  death. 
She  tried  in  vain  to  eat. 

"  No,  I  can't  take  anything,"  she  said,  at 
last.  "  I  will  go  to  my  own  room,  and  try  to 
get  warm  there." 

Mrs.  Stotford  and  Adelaide  followed  her 
with  trie  kindest  intentions. 

"  I  hope,  dear,"  said  Mrs.  Stotford  in  her 
cheerful  voice— more  cheerful   than  usual 
by  virtue  of  the  season—"  I  hope  you  made 
George  promise  to  be  with  us  early  to-mor- 
row." 

Poor  Agatha!  What  exquisite  agonies 
of  remorse  she  experienced  as  she  remem- 


876 


MISS  STOTFORD'S  SPECIALTY. 


bered  that  she  had  promised  to  go  to  church 
with  the  Gardiners,  and  then  to  lunch  with 
them. 

"  I  don't  think  he'll  come  before  dinner," 
she  answered,  faintly. 

"  I  do  think  George  is  an  angel,"  said 
Miss  Adelaide,  emphatically,  "  to  be  so 
sweet  over  your  friendship  with  the  Gardin- 
ers. I  know  if  I  were  a  man  I  shouldn't 
like  it." 

"  Please  don't  talk,"  entreated  Agatha. 
"  I  know  it's  all  kindness,  but  I  would 
rather  be  let  alone.  My  head  is  bursting." 

"  Well,  come  away,  Addie,"  said  Mrs. 
Stotford.  "We  have  enough  to  do  with 
putting  up  the  holly  and  mistletoe.  You 
can't  trust  matters  like  that  to  servants.  Of 
course,  it's  not  their  fault  that  they  can't  do 
it  artistically.  Perhaps  when  Agatha's  a 
little  wanner  she'll  lie  down  on  the  sofa  and 
get  a  sleep.  That  will  be  the  best  thing  for 
her.  She  just  has  a  bad,  feverish  cold,  as 
any  one  could  see." 

So  they  left  her,  and  she  crouched  before 
the  fire,  shivering  and  shaking  as  with  ague. 

Surely,  he  might  yet  have  repented  of  his 
rash  resolve.  Still,  if  he  had,  would  he  not 
have  sent  her  word?  The  silence  was 
ominous.  All  the  time  she  kept  asking  her- 
self how  far  she,  Agatha,  was  responsible  if 
he  had  done  this  thing.  If  he  must  go 
away,  why  not  have  gone  to  Australia,  where 
he  need  never  have  seen  her  again  ?  Of 
course,  it  was  not  in  her  to  understand  how 
the  thought  of  love  won  and  lost  can  turn 
life  into  a  present  hell.  At  the  sound  of 
every  footfall,  she  started  as  if  a  ghostly  hand 
had  been  laid  on  her  shoulder.  At  the  post- 
man's sharp  knock  her  heart  leaped  in  her, 
and  then  stood  still. 

About  four  o'clock  came  Reginald  and 
Maude  Gardiner  to  see  her. 

"We  heard  from  Mrs.  Stotford,"  said 
Maude,  "  that  you  were  ill ;  but  you  look 
frightfully,  child;  what's  the  matter?" 

"  Oh,  nothing  much  '  moaned  Agatha. 
"  I  shall  be  better  soon." 

"This  hand  is  cold,"  said  Reginald. 
"  Let  me  see  if  the  other  one  is  equally  ill- 
behaved." 

"  Don't,"  she  said,  almost  fiercely,  draw- 
ing her  hand  abruptly  away. 

"  Are  you  cross  with  me  ?  "  asked  Regi- 
nald, in  his  sweetest  tone  of  voice. 

"  I  am  ill.     Don't  you  see  I  am  ?  " 

"Low-spirited,"  observed  Maude. 

"  Precisely  so,"  replied  Reginald.  "  Per- 
haps it  would  cheer  you  to  hear  the  con- 
tents of  the  evening  paper." 


Then,  taking  a  "  Standard  "  from  his 
pocket,  he  began  reading. 

"  '  The  latest  telegrams  from  the  seat  of 
war.'  Ah !  it  appears  we  have  done 
wonders.  Actually,  five  hundred  soldiers  of 
the  English  army  encountered  and  defeated 
two  hundred  natives,  with  considerable 
slaughter.  '  Christmas  in  the  East  End.' 
How  I  do  hate  all  this  cant  about  the 
season !  '  Alarming  Fire  in  the  City.' 
'  Those  Cabmen  again.'  '  Police  Reports." 
Anything  there  you'd  like  ?  '  A  Strange 
Breach-of- Promise  Case.'  '  Great  Wrecks 
off  Dover.'  I  should  think  so,  with  such  a 
devil  of  a  wind  as  we've  been  having. 
'  The  Suicide  in  Harley  street.'  " 

"  Ah !  what's  that  ?  "  asked  Maude.  "  I'm 
always  interested  in  suicides." 

"  Morbid  propensity,  child,"  in  Reginald's 
tone  of  brotherly  superiority. 

Agatha's  heart  leaped  in  her  with  an  in- 
audible cry. 

"  We  must  have  light  on  the  subject," 
said  Reginald,  stirring  the  fire  into  a  bright 
blaze. 

"  Really,  Reginald,  you  should  not  jest 
on  such  a  subject,"  remonstrated  Maude. 

"  Jest  ?  I'm  sober  as  a  judge  at  a  coroner's 
inquest.  Listen : 

" '  Mr.  Jno.  Hales,  surgeon  in  Harley 
street,  was  summoned  this  morning,  about  ten 
A.  M.,  to  No.  26,  where  he  found ' " 

And  suddenly  Reginald  stopped. 

"Why  don't  you  go  on?  "  inquired  Maude. 

He  turned  the  paper  toward  her,  pointing 
to  the  paragraph. 

"  Oh,  great  heaven  !  It  can't  be.  Oh, 
Agatha,  darling !  " 

And  she  flung  her  arms  around  Agatha's 
neck.  But  Agatha  seized  the  paper,  which 
Reginald  feigned  to  detain  from  her,  flashed 
her  eyes  down  the  column,  and  saw  what 
she  knew  she  would  see,  Singleton's  name. 

"  Hush  !  Hush ! "  said  Reginald  to  Maude, 
who,  with  difficulty,  stifled  her  sobs.  Then 
the  three  sat  for  a  minute  or  two  in  awful 
silence. 

Then  Agatha  rose,  stood  erect  for  a 
moment,  as  if  she  were  about  to  walk  out  of 
the  room,  and  then  suddenly,  with  a  wild 
cry  of  horror,  fell  forward  in  a  deathly  swoon. 
She  would  have  dropped  to  the  ground,  but 
Reginald  caught  her  in  his  arms. 

"  How  she  did  love  that  poor  fellow ! "  he 
thought,  while  Maude  ran  in  haste  to  find 
Mrs.  Stotford. 

Of  course,  Agatha  was  at  once  put  to  bed, 
and  the  family  physician  was  sent  for.  When 
he  heard  all  the  circumstances  of  the  case, 


MISS  STOTFORD'S  SPECIALTY. 


877 


saw  Agatha's  unnaturally  bright  eyes,  felt  her 
quick  pulse,  and  listened  to  her  incoherent 
wanderings,  he  could  not  disguise  from  the 
family  his  apprehensions  of  brain  fever. 

"  It  was  a  critical  case,"  he  said;  "  but  if 
she  could  get  a  night's  sleep,  the  clanger 
might  be  averted." 

About  the  small  hours,  Agatha's  wander- 
ings ceased,  and  a  heavy  sleep  fell  upon  her 
and  saved  her. 

It  was  three  o'clock  on  Christmas-day 
when  she  awoke.  The  bells  were  ringing 
for  afternoon  service.  At  first  she  thought 
it  must  be  Sunday  morning,  and  that  she  had 
slept  late.  Then  she  began  to  wonder  at 
her  strange  feeling,  as  if  she  had  been  bruised 
all  over,  and  the  sense  of  blended  weakness 
and  clearness  in  her  head.  Then  very 
gradually,  yes,  and  very  gently,  too,  she  re- 
membered all  the  events  of  the  preceding 
day,  and  accepted  them  as  one  too  weak  to 
feel  surprise.  There  were  two  great  facts — 
Singleton  was  dead,  and  she  was  free. 

At  the  expiration  of  a  week,  Agatha  once 
more  appeared  in  her  little  sitting-room. 
The  friends  who  saw  her  said  that  a  saintly 
resignation  had  beautified  her  face.  The 
truth  was,  she  had  settled  with  her  own 
conscience  very  satisfactorily,  and  decided 
that  she  was  in  no  remotest  way  chargeable 
with  Singleton's  death.  She  had  certainly 
flirted  no  more  during  her  engagement 
than  many  other  women  do,  and  it  was 
Singleton's  own  fault  if  he  had  deceived 
her  by  keeping  from  her  what  he  really  felt, 
and  so  prevented  her  from  behaving  differ- 
ently. No, — it  was  his  own  morbid  sensi- 
tiveness that  had  driven  him  to  his  own 
rash  act. 

In  her  heavy  mourning,  and  with  her 
face  so  pale, — for  she  really  had  been  ill, — 
she  looked  far  more  interesting  than  of  old. 
Only  four  men  were  privileged  to  come  and 
see  her,  and  they  only  as  ministering  angels. 
There  was  William  Poynter,  a  captivating 
young  tenor,  for  music  soothed  her;  then, 
byway  of  gentle  stimulant,  Mr.  John  Barker, 
poet  and  critic,  came  to  read  and  explain 
difficult  passages  in  Browning.  Then,  as 
her  religious  opinions  had  got  somewhat 
out  of  order, — she  was  the  only  one  in  that 
set  who  had  any,  and  was  inclined  to  make 
a  point  of  them, — the  handsome  young 
High- church  clergyman,  Mr.  Augustus  St. 
Clair,  came  in  to  overhaul  the  spiritual  ma- 
chinery. And  lastly,  and  by  right  of  the 
family  friendship,  most  frequently,  came 
Reginald  to  divert  her  by  planning  an  Italian 
tour  for  the  autumn. 


But,  after  all,  decorous  flirtations  in  re- 
cently assumed  crape  are  but  tame.  Sighs 
and  looks  of  gratitude  must  take  the  place 
of  laughter  and  repartee.  Agatha  grew  tired 
of  long-continued  endeavors  not  to  look 
quite  so  resigned  as  she  felt.  The  tenor's 
music  palled  on  her;  she  got  sleepy  over 
" Balaustion's  Adventure";  she  regained  her 
usual  tranquil  satisfaction  with  the  state  of 
her  religious  views  and  functions.  She  dis- 
missed all  her  ministering  angels,  except 
Reginald,  with  whom  she  felt  more  at  ease 
than  with  the  others. 

When  the  summer  came,  she  was  glad  to 
escape  from  London.  Sea-side  and  hill-side 
brought  her  their  balm.  She  concluded  that 
even  without  a  specialty  life  might  be  a  very 
good  thing.  She  returned  to  town  bright 
and  beaming.  I  do  not  think  that  Single- 
ton's ghost  haunted  her,  even  on  the  day 
before  Christmas. 

The  next  summer,  she  fulfilled  her  natural 
calling  by  marrying.  The  bridegroom, 
however,  was  not  Reginald.  He  proposed, 
indeed,  but  she  took  three  months  to  con- 
sider. During  that  period  of  probation,  she 
met  the  son  of  a  very  rich  picture-dealer. 
As  was  natural  for  a  painter,  Mr.  Stot- 
ford  furthered  this  alliance;  and  the  young 
man,  if  not  quite  so  handsome  as  Reginald, 
was  very  much  richer.  Like  a  dutiful  girl, 
she  obliged  her  father,  as  he  had  before 
obliged  her.  Reginald,  I  must  confess, 
found  speedy  consolation.  It  is  not  the 
handsome  Reginalds  of  the  world  who  die 
for  love. 

The  reputation  for  nobility  which  had 
been  purchased  by  her  engagement  to  Sin- 
gleton never  quite  forsook  Agatha. 

"  Ah,"  said  her  romantic  friends,  "  her 
life  was  really  over  when  that  poor  fellow 
died.  She  married  just  to  please  her  father." 

Of  course,  there  were  not  wanting  unfeel- 
ing people  to  make  irreverent  remarks ; 
but  of  such  persons  we  have  nothing  to  say. 
She  lived  as  tranquilly  as  such  women  do. 
If  she  had  no  vivid  joy  in  her  days,  she 
had  no  keen  pains.  As  time  wore  on, 
sometimes,  In  the  dead  watches  of  the  night, 
or  in-  the  glare  of  a  crowded  theater,  she 
would  suddenly  be  confronted  with  the 
past  from  which  she  had  escaped,  and  meet 
the  look  of  sad,  beseeching  eyes — eyes  sad, 
but  never  reproachful.  At  such  moments 
she  would  feel  suddenly  faint,  and  grow 
dizzy;  but  the  evil  moments  passed,  and 
save  in  these  rare  visions,  she  was  never 
disturbed  by  the  memory  of  her  first 
engagement. 


PETER  THE  GREAT. 


PETER  THE  GREAT.   IX* 


BY    EUGENE    SCHUYLER. 


CHAPTER    XXVIII. 


PETER   TRIES   THE    OPEN    SKA. 

No  DOUBT  the  English  victory  at  La 
Hogue,  and  the  revival  of  the  trade  with 
Holland,  had  much  to  do  with  Peter's  visit 
to  Archangel.  He  himself,  writing  long 
afterward,  when  he  was,  perhaps  uncon- 
sciously, inclined  to  magnify  the  importance 
of  his  early  doings,  says,  in  the  preface  to 
the  Maritime  Regulations : 

"  For  some  years  I  had  the  fill  of  my  desires  on 
Lake  Pereyaslavl,  but  finally  it  got  too  narrow  for 
me.  I  then  went  to  the  Kubensky  Lake,  but  that 
was  too  shallow.  I  then  decided  to  see  the  open 
sea,  and  began  often  to  beg  the  permission  of  my 
mother  to  go  to  Archangel.  She  forbid  me  such  a 
dangerous  journey,  but  seeing  my  great  desire  and 
my  unchangeable  longing,  allowed  it  in  spite  of  her- 
self." 

Although  the  Tsaritsa  Natalia  allowed 
it,  she  exacted  a  promise  from  her  son  that 
he  would  not  go  out  upon  the  sea,  and 
would  look  at  it  only  from  the  shore. 

Peter  set  out  from  Moscow  on  the  nth  of 
July,  1693,  with  a  suite  of  over  a  hundred 
persons,  including  Lefort  and  many  of  the 
"  company,"  his  physician,  Doctor  Van  der 
Hulst,  a  priest,  eight  singers,  two  dwarfs, 
forty  Streltsi  and  ten  of  his  guards. 

The  journey  from  Moscow  to  Archangel 
was,  till  a  few  years  since,  performed  in 
much  the  same  way  as  it  was  by  Peter.  A 
railway  is  now  substituted  for  the  carriage- 
road  to  Vol6gda,  but  from  that  town  one 
must  go  by  water  down  the  Stikhon  and 
the  Dvina.  With  the  high  water  of  spring, 
it  is  easy  enough,  but  the  rivers  were  then 
so  low  that  Peter's  huge  painted  barge  was 
two  weeks  on  the  way  before  it  arrived  at 
the  wharf  of  Holmogory,  to  the  ringing  of 
the  cathedral  bells.  Holmogory  was  then 
the  administrative  center  for  the  north  of 
Russia,  and  it  was  necessary  to  do  'the 
usual  courtesies  to  the  Voievode  and  the 
Archbishop,  before  Peter  could  pass  the 
long  and  narrow  town  of  Archangel,  stretch- 
ing along  the  right  bank  of  the  Dvina,  with 
its  clean  German  suburb  and  its  port  of 
Solombala,  crowded  then,  as  now,  with 
merchants,  and  take  up  his  residence  be- 


yond the  city,  in  a  house  prepared  for  him 
oil  the  Moses  Island.     The  salt  smell  of  the 
sea  was  grateful  and  exciting,  and  the  day 
after  his  arrival  the  Tsar  went  on  board  the 
little    yacht    St.   Peter,  which    had    been 
built  for  him,  and,  in  spite  of  the  promise  to 
his  mother,  anxiously  waited  for  a  favorable, 
wind  to  carry  him  to  sea.     A  proposed  visit 
to  the  Solovetsky  monastery  was  postponed 
to  another  year,  for   various   English  and 
Dutch  vessels  were  about   sailing,  and   he 
was  anxious  to  visit  them,  and  to  convoy 
them  on  their  way.     In  about  a  week,  on 
the  1 6th  of  August,  a  fair  wind  arose,  the 
ships  set  out  and  Peter  sailed  on  merrily 
in  his  yacht,  and  he  had  gone  two  hun- 
dred miles  from  Archangel,  and  was  near 
the  Polar  Ocean,  before   he   realized  that 
it  was  full  time  to  return.     On  arriving  at 
Archangel,  five  days  afterward,  his  first  care 
was  to  write  to  his  mother,  that  he  had  been 
to   sea   and   had  safely   returned.     Mean- 
while  she   had  written  to  him,  urging  his 
return.     In  reply  to  this  letter,  he  said : 

"Thou  hast  written,  O  lady  !  that  I  have  saddened 
thee  by  not  writing  of  my  arrival.  But  even  now  I 
have  no  time  to  write  in  detail,  because  I  am  expect- 
ing some  ships,  and  as  soon  as  they  come — when 
no  one  knows,  but  they  are  expected  soon,  as  they 
are  more  than  three  weeks  from  Amsterdam — 
will  come  to  thee  immediately,  traveling  day  and 
night.  But  I  beg  thy  mercy  for  one  thing:  why 
dost  thou  trouble  thyself  about  me?  Thou  hast 
deigned  to  write  that  thou  hast  given  me  into  the 
care  of  the  Virgin.  When  thou  hast  such  a  guard- 
ian for  me,  why  dost  thou  grieve?  " 

This  letter  was  preceded  to  Moscow  by 
the  news  that  Peter  had  gone  on  a  sea 
journey.  Every  one  was  alarmed  at  an 
event,  the  like  of  which  had  never  happened 
before  in  Russia,  and  magnified  the  dangers 
to  which  the  Tsar  had  been,  or  might  be, 
exposed.  Natalia  wrote  again  to  her  son, 
urging  his  return,  expressing  joy  at  his  not 
being  shipwrecked,  and  reminding  him  that 
he  had  promised  not  to  go  to  sea.  She 
even  had  a  letter  written  in  the  name  of  his 
little  son  Alexis,  then  only  three  years  old, 
begging  him  to  come  back.  To  this  he 
replied  t 

"  By  thy  letter  I  see,  O !  O  !  that  thou  hast  been 
mightily  grieved,  and  why?  If  thou  art  grieved, 


'  Copyright,  1880,  by  Eugene  Schuyler.     All  rights  reserved. 


PETER    THE    GREAT. 


879 


what  delight  have  I  ?  I  beg  thee  make  me,  who 
am  wretched,  happy  by  not  grieving  about  me,  for, 
in  very  truth,  I  cannot  endure  it." 

Again,  on  the  i8th  of  September,  he  writes : 

"  Thou  hast  deigned  to  write  to  me,  O  my  delight ! 
to  say  that  I  should  write  to  thee  oftener.  Even 
now  I  write  by  every  post,  and  my  only  fault  is  that 
I  do  not  come  myself.  And  thou  also  tellest  me 
not  to  get  ill  by  too  quick  a  journey.  But  I,  thank 
God !  will  try  not  to  get  ill,  except  by  coming  too 
quickly.  But  thou  makest  me  ill  by  thy  grief,  and 
the  Hamburg  ships  have  not  yet  arrived." 

It  was  not  merely  curiosity  to  see  the 
Hamburg  ships  that  kept  Peter  at  Arch- 
angel. Ever  since  the  discovery  of  the 
White  Sea  by  Richard  Chancellor,  in  1553, 
and  the  privileges  given  to  the  British  Fac- 
tory by  Ivan  the  Terrible,  and  Philip  and 
Mary,  Archangel  had  become  the  great 
emporium  for  Russian  commerce  with  the 
West.  The  business  of  N6vgorod  had  been 
greatly  injured  by  the  loss  of  its  independ- 
ence and  the  misfortunes  which  befell  the 
town,  and  its  trade  was  now  almost  entirely 
transferred  to  Archangel.  During  the  sum- 
mer months,  Archangel,  conveniently  situated 
at  the  mouth  of  the  river  Dvina,  presented 
a  spectacle  of  great  commercial  activity. 
At  the  time  of  the  annual  fair  of  the  Assump- 
tion, as  many  as  a  hundred  ships,  from  Eng- 
land, Holland,  Hamburg,  and  Bremen, 
could  be  seen  in  the  river,  bringing  cargoes 
of  various  descriptions  of  foreign  goods, 
while  huge  Russian  barges  brought  hemp, 
grain,  potash,  tar,  tallow,  Russian  leather, 
isinglass  and  caviare  down  the  Dvina.  For 
caviare  there  was  a  great  market  in  Italy, 
and  several  cargoes  were  sent  every  year 
to  Leghorn.  The  foreign  merchants  who 
lived  in  Moscow,  Yaroslav  and  Vologda 
went  to  Archangel  with  the  opening  of 
navigation  every  spring,  and  staid  there 
until  winter.  Twenty-four  large  houses 
were  occupied  by  foreign  families  and 
the  agents  of  foreign  merchants.  Depots 
for  all  the  goods  sent  to  Archangel,  both 
Russian  and  foreign,  had  been  built  by  the 
foreigners  Marselis  and  Scharff,  at  the  com- 
mand of  the  Tsar  Alexis,  and  were  pro- 
tected by  a  high  stone  wall  and  towers. 
Trade  had  now  revived,  and,  in  the  summer 
of  1693,  ships  were  constantly  arriving,  and 
Archangel  was  alive  with  business.  On  the 
wharfs  and  at  the  exchange,  Peter  could 
meet  merchants  of  every  nationality,  and 
see  cargoes  of  almost  every  kind.  It  was  a 
grief  to  him  that  among  all  these  ships  there 
were  none  belonging  to  Russians,  nor  any 
sailing  under  the  Russian  flag.  The  efforts 


of  the  Russians  themselves  to  export  their 
produce  had  never  been  successful.  At 
Novgorod  there  had  been  a  league  among 
all  the  merchants  of  the  Hanse  towns  to 
prevent  the  competition  of  Russian  mer- 
chants, and  to  buy  Russian  goods  only  at 
Novgorod.  At  a  later  time,  an  enterprising 
merchant  of  Yaroslav,  Anthony  Laptef,  took 
a  cargo  of  furs  to  Amsterdam,  but,  in  con- 
sequence of  a  cabal  against  him,  he  could 
not  sell  a  single  skin,  and  was  obliged  to 
carry  his  furs  back  to  Archangel,  where  they 
were  at  once  bought,  at  a  good  price,  by 
the  merchants  who  owned  the  vessel  which 
brought  them  home. 

Peter  resolved  to  do  something  for  Rus- 
sian trade,  and  gave  orders  to  Apraxin, 
whom  he  named  Governor  of  Archangel,  to 
fit  out  two  vessels  at  the  only  Russian  ship- 
yard, that  of  the  brothers  Bazhenin,  on  the 
little  river  Vavtchuga,  near  Holmogory. 
These  were  to  take  cargoes  of  Russian  goods, 
and  to  sail  under  the  Russian  flag.  He 
hesitated  where  to  send  them.  In  England 
and  Holland  he  feared  the  opposition  of 
the  native  merchants,  and  in  France  he  was 
afraid  that  due  respect  might  not  be  given 
to  the  Russian  flag.  It  was  at  last  resolved 
to  send  them  to  France,  but  as  they  finally 
sailed  under  the  Dutch,  and  not  under  the 
Russian  flag,  one  of  them  was  confiscated 
by  the  French,  and  was  the  subject  of  long 
dispute. 

Archangel  proved  so  interesting  that  Peter 
decided  to  return  there  in  the  subsequent 
year,  and  to  take  a  trip  on  the  Northern 
Ocean.  He  even  had  vague  ideas  of 
coasting  along  Siberia  until  he  came  to 
China,  but  the  North-east  passage  was 
not  to  be  effected  until  our  own  day.  For 
any  purpose  of  this  kind,  his  little  yacht  St. 
Peter  was  too  small,  and  he,  therefore,  with 
his  own  hands,  laid  the  keel  of  a  large 
vessel  at  Archangel,  and  ordered  another 
full-rigged  forty-four-gun  frigate  to  be 
bought  in  Holland.  The  Burgomaster  of 
Amsterdam,  Nicholas  Witsen,  through  Le- 
fort  and  Vinius,  was  intrusted  with  the 
purchase. 

While  at  Archangel,  besides  the  time 
which  he  gave  to  the  study  of  commerce 
and  ship-building,  Peter  found  leisure  for  in- 
specting various  industries,  and  for  practic- 
ing both  at  the  forge  and  at  the  lathe.  A 
chandelier  made  of  walrus  teeth,  turned  by 
him,  hangs  now  over  his  tomb  in  the  Cathe- 
dral of  St.  Peter  and  St.  Paul,  at  St.  Peters- 
burg, and  carved  work  in  bone  and  wood, 
and  iron  bars  forged  by  him  at  this  time, 


88o 


PETER    THE   GREAT. 


are  shown  in  many  places.  Besides  the 
social  pleasures,  the  balls  and  dinners,  in 
which  he  indulged  at  Archangel  as  much 
as  at  Moscow,  he  frequently  attended  the 
neighboring  church  of  the  Prophet  Elijah, 
where  he  himself  read  the  epistle,  sang  with 
the  choir,  and  made  great  friends  with  the 
Archbishop  Athanasius,  a  learned  and  sen- 
sible man,  with  whom,  after  dinner,  he  con- 
versed about  affairs  of  state,  the  boyars,  the 
peasants  who  were  there  for  work,  the  con- 
struction of  houses  and  the  foundation  of 
factories,  as  well  as  of  ship-building  and 
of  navigation. 

After  the  short  summer  was  over,  the 
Hamburg  ships  having  long  since  arrived, 
Peter  started  on  his  journey  to  Moscow, 
and  after  stopping  for  a  short  time  at  the 
saw-mill  and  wharves  of  the  brothers  Ba- 
zhenin,  on  the  Vavtchuga,  he  arrived  at 
Moscow  on  the  nth  of  October.  It  was  too 
late  in  the  season  at  that  time  to  think  of 
any  military  maneuvers,  and  Peter  had 
settled  down  to  his  usual  round  of  carouses 
and  merry-making,  when  suddenly,  on  the 
4th  of  February,  1694,  after  an  illness  of  only 
five  days,  the  Tsaritsa  Natalia  died,  at  the 
age  of  forty-two. 

For  some  reason  or  other,  Peter  preferred 
not  to  be  present  at  his  mother's  death-bed. 
A  dispute  with  the  Patriarch  had  probably 
something  to  do  with  it.  It  is  said  that 
when  Peter  had  been  suddenly  called  from 
Preobrazh6nsky  to  the  Kremlin,  to  his 
mother's  bedside,  he  appeared  in  the  foreign 
clothes  which  he  wore  for  riding,  and  that 
the  Patriarch  remonstrated  with  him.  Peter 
angrily  replied  that,  as  the  head  of  the 
church,  he  should  have  weightier  things  to 
attend  to,  than  to  meddle  with  the  business 
of  tailors.  General  Gordon  says: 

"  His  Majesty  had  promised  to  come  to  me  to  a 
farewell  supper  and  ball.  I  went  to  the  palace  two 
hours  before  daybreak,  but  did  not  find  His  Majesty, 
on  account  of  the  evident  danger  in  which  his  mother 
was.  He  had  taken  leave  of  her,  and  had  gone  back 
to  his  house  at  Preobrazhe"nsky,  whither  I  hastened, 
and  found  him  in  the  highest  degree  melancholy  and 
dejected.  Toward  eight  o'clock  came  the  news  that 
the  Tsaritsa  was  dead." 

Peter's  grief  was  great  and  sincere.  For 
several  days  he  scarcely  saw  any  one  without 
bursting  into  a  fit  of  weeping.  He  had 
tenderly  loved  his  mother,  and  had  been 
much  under  her  influence,  although  she  had 
opposed  his  desire  for  novelty  and  his  incli- 
nation toward  foreigners.  Her  place  in  his 
affections  was,  to  a  great  extent,  taken  by 
his  sister  Natalia,  who,  without  understand- 


ing his  objects,  at  least  sympathized  with 
him.  She  was  of  the  younger  generation, 
not  so  averse  to  what  was  new  or  what 
came  from  abroad,  was  readily  influenced 
by  her  brother,  and,  like  a  good  and  faith- 
ful sister,  loved  and  admired  him,  and  was 
always  ready  to  believe  that  whatever  he  did 
was  the  best  thing  possible.  As  to  his  wife 
Eudoxia,  it  is  difficult  to  say  much.  She  had 
been  brought  up  in  the  old-fashioned  Russian 
way,  and  had  received  almost  no  education. 
She  had  a  bitter  dislike  to  all  that  was  foreign, 
and  to  the  friends  with  whom  Peter  was  sur- 
rounded. This  was  perhaps  natural :  she  dis- 
liked the  men  who,  as  she  thought,  alienated 
her  husband  from  her.  The  marriage  had 
not  been  one  of  love;  Peter  had  married  sim- 
ply to  obey  his  mother,  and  found  the  society 
of  his  wife  so  uncongenial  that  he  spent 
very  little  time  with  her.  Two  children 
had  been  the  result  of  the  marriage — one, 
Alexis,  born  in  March,  1690,  was  destined 
to  inherit  something  of  his  mother's  nature 
and  to  be  a  difficulty  and  a  grief  to  his  father, 
and  to  cause  the  saddest  episode  of  his 
life ;  the  second,  Alexander,  born  in  October, 
1691,  lived  but  seven  months.  Peter  had 
already,  in  the  German  suburb,  made  an 
acquaintance  that  was  destined  to  influence 
his  future  life,  and  to  destroy  the  peace  of 
his  family.  This  was  Anna  Mons,  the 
daughter  of  a  German  jeweler,  with  whom 
Peter's  relations  had  daily  grown  more 
intimate,  and  in  whose  society  he  passed 
much  of  his  leisure  time. 

A  few  days  after  his  mother's  death, 
Peter  began  again  to  visit  the  house  of 
Lefort,  but  though  he  conversed  freely  with 
his  friends  about  the  matters  which  inter- 
ested him  most,  and  an  extra  glass  was 
drunk,  no  ladies  were  present,  and  there  was 
no  firing  of  cannon,  no  music  nor  dancing. 
The  next  day  he  wrote  to  Apraxin,  at  Arch- 
angel : 

"  I  dumbly  tell  my  misfortune  and  my  last  sorrow, 
about  which  neither  my  hand  nor  my  heart  can  write 
in  detail  without  remembering  what  the  Apostle 
Paul  says  about  not  grieving  for  such  things,  and 
the  verse  of  Esdras,  '  Call  me  again  the  day  that  is 
past.'  I  forget  all  this  as  much  as  possible,  as  being 
above  my  reasoning  and  mind,  for  thus  it  has  pleased 
the  Almighty  God,  and  all  things  are  according  to 
the  will  of  their  Creator.  Amen !  Therefore,  like 
Noah,  resting  awhile  from  my  grief,  and  leaving 
aside  that  which  can  never  return,  I  write  about  the 
living." 

The  rest  of  the  letter  was  taken  up  with 
directions  about  the  construction  of  the 
small  ship  which  he  had  begun,  and  the 
preparation  of  clothing  for  the  sailors.  He 


PETER    THE    GREAT. 


88 1 


evidently  desired  to  go  to  Archangel  that 
winter,  but  he  felt  the  propriety  of  being 
present  at  the  requiem  on  the  fortieth  day 
after  his  mother's  death.  Little  by  little 
other  things  interfered,  and  the  journey  was 
put  off. 

Another  letter  written  by  Peter  to  Apraxin 
shows  him  in  better  spirits,  willing  to  see 
the  humorous  side  of  things,  and  ready  to 
make  little  jokes  about  Ramodanofsky  and 
Buturlin,  who  were  old  Russians  and  op- 
posed to  all  Peter's  novelties,  but  who  still 
loved  him,  and  yielded  with  the  best  grace 
they  could; 

"  Thy  letter  was  handed  to  me  by  Michael  Kuroy- 
e"dof,  and,  after  reflecting,  I  reported  about  it  all  to 
my  Lord  and  Admiral,  who,  having  heard  my  report, 
ordered  me  to  write  as  follows :  First :  That  the 
great  lord  is  a  man  mighty  bold  for  war,  as  well  as 
on  the  watery  way,  as  thou  thyself  knowest,  and  for 
that  reason  he  does  not  wish  to  delay  here  longer 
than  the  last  days  of  April.  Second :  That  his  Im- 
perial brother,  through  love  and  even  desire  of  this 
journey,  like  the  Athenians  seeking  new  things,  has 
bound  him  to  go,  and  does  not  wish  to  stay  behind 
himself.  Third:  The  rear-admiral  will  be  Peter 
Ivanovitch  Gordon.  I  think  there  will  be  nearly 
three  hundred  people  of  different  ranks ;  and  who, 
and  what  rank,  and  where,  that  I  will  write  to  thee 
presently.  Hasten  up  with  everything  as  quickly 
as  you  can,  especially  with  the  ship.  Therefore  I 
and  my  companions,  who  are  working  on  the  masts, 
send  many  respects.  Keep  well.  PITER." 

About  this  time,  a  large  amount  of  powder 
and  a  thousand  muskets  were  sent  to  Arch- 
angel, while  twenty-four  cannon,  intended 
for  one  of  the  new  ships,  were  ordered  to 
wait  at  Vol6gda  until  the  arrival  of  the  Tsar. 
In  informing  Apraxin  of  this,  Peter  sends 
his  salutations  to  the  two  workmen  whom 
he  had  sent  on,  Niklas  and  Jan,  and  begs 
him  not  to  forget  the  beer.  About  the  same 
time,  or  even  earlier,  General  Gordon  wrote 
to  his  friend  and  business  agent  Meverell, 
at  London,  to  send  to  Archangel  a  good 
ship  with  a  "jovial  captain,"  and  a  good 
supply  of  powder;  and  in  writing  to  his  son- 
in-law,  at  Archangel,  recommends  him  also 
to  brew  a  quantity  of  beer. 

All  preparations  being  made,  the  Tsar, 
on  the  nth  of  May,  set  out  for  Archangel, 
"pour  prendre  ses  divertissements  et  meme 
plus  que  Vannee  passe'e"  as  Lefort  wrote  to 
his  brother  Ami ;  having  with  him  many 
more  of  his  "company"  than  he  had  taken 
the  year  before.  It  required  twenty-two 
barges  to  convey  them  down  the  Dvina, 
and  the  "  caravan,"  with  Ramodanofsky  as 
admiral,  Buturlin  as  vice-admiral,  and 
Gordon  as  rear-admiral,  with  a  plentiful 
display  of  signals  and  the  firing  of  cannon, 


accomplished  its  journey  in  ten  days,  arriv- 
ing at  Archangel  on  the  z8th  of  May.  It 
is  hardly  necessary  to  say  that  the  title  of 
admiral  was  purely  as  sportive  a  one  as 
that  of  generalissimo,  or  of  commodore  of 
a  fleet  of  row-boats;  it  implied  nothing  as 
to  the  present  or  future  existence  of  a  Rus- 
sian force,  nor  did  it  give  any  rank  in  the 
state.  The  Tsar  himself  was.  known  as  the 
"  skipper." 

Peter  established  himself  in  the  same 
house  on  the  Moses  Island  where  he  had 
been  the  preceding  year.  His  first  care  was 
to  go  to  the  church  of  the  Prophet  Elijah, 
and  to  thank  God  for  his  safe  arrival ; 
his  second  to  inspect  the  ship  building  at 
the  wharf  of  Solombala,  which  fortunately  was 
completed,  and  on  the  3oth  was  triumph- 
antly launched,  the  Tsar  himself  knocking 
away  the  first  prop.  But,  as  the  frigate 
ordered  in  Holland  had  not  arrived,  it  was 
impossible,  as  yet,  to  go  to  sea,  and  the 
Tsar  utilized  the  delay  by  making  the  trip 
to  the  Solovetsky  monastery  which  he  had 
postponed  the  year  before.  For  this,  on 
his  birthday,  he  embarked  on  his  small 
yacht,  the  St.  Peter,  taking  with  him  the 
Archbishop  Athanasius,  some  of  the  boyars 
attached  to  his  person,  and  a  few  soldiers. 
He  started  out  on  the  night  of  the  roth  of 
June,  but  was  kept  at  the  mouth  of  the 
Dvina  by  a  calm.  The  wind  freshened  the 
next  day,  and  soon  turned  to  a  gale%  When 
he  had  arrived  at  the  mouth  of  the  XJnskaya 
Gulf,  about  eighty  miles  from  Archangel, 
the  tempest  was  so  great  that  the  little  ship 
was  in  the  utmost  danger.  The  sails  were 
carried  away,  the  waves  dashed  over  the 
deck,  and  even  the  experienced  sailors  who 
managed  the  yacht  gave  up  in  despair,  and 
believed  they  must  "go  to  the  bottom.  All 
fell  on  their  knees  and  began  to  pray,  while 
the  archbishop  administered  the  last  sacra- 
ment. Peter  alone  stood  firm  at  the  rudder, 
with  unmoved  countenance,  although,  like 
the  rest,  he  received  the  communion  from 
the  hands  of  the  archbishop.  His  pres- 
ence of  mind  finally  had  its  effect  on  the 
frightened  mariners,  and  one  of  them, 
Antip  Timofeief,  one  of  the  Streltsi  from 
the  Solovetsky  monastery  who  had  been 
engaged  as  a  pilot,  went  to  the  Tsar,  and 
told  him  that  their  only  hope  of  safety  lay  in 
running  into  the  tJnskaya  Gulf,  as  otherwise 
they  would  infallibly  go  to  pieces  on  the 
rocks.  With  his  assistance,  the  yacht  was 
steered  past  the  reefs,  through  a  very 
narrow  passage,  and,  on  the  i2th  of  June, 
about  noon,  anchored  near  the  Pertommsky 


882 


PETER    THE   GREAT. 


monastery.  The  whole  company  went  to 
the  monastery  church  and  gave  thanks  for 
their  miraculous  preservation,  while  Peter 
granted  additional  revenues  and  privileges 
to  the  brotherhood  of  monks,  and  rewardec 
the  pilot  Antip  with  a  large  sum  of  money. 
In  memory  of  his  preservation,  Peter  fash- 
ioned, with  his  own  hands,  a  wooden  cross 
about  ten  feet  high,  with  an  inscription  in 
Dutch,  "  Daikruys  waken  kaptein  Piter  van. 
a.  cht.  1694,"  carried  it  on  his  shoulders  and 
erected  it  on  the  spot  where  he  had  landed. 
The  storm  lasted  three  days  longer,  but 
on  the  1 6th  Peter  again  set  sail,  and  arrived 
the  next  day  safely  at  the  monastery,  where  he 
remained  three  days  in  prayer  and  fasting, 
and  in  veneration  of  the  relics  of  the  found- 
ers, St.  Sabbatius  and  St.  Zosimus.  The 
monks  must  have  been  astonished  at  the  devo- 
tion shown  by  the  son  of  that  Tsar  who  had 
besieged  them  for  nine  long  years  because 
they  had  refused  to  accept  the  "  innova- 
tions "  of  the  Patriarch  Nikon.  They  must 
have  been  convinced  that,  after  all,  they 
were  right. 

At  all  events,  they  were  pleased  with 
the  generosity  of  Peter,  who  gave  one 
thousand  rubles  and  additional  privileges 
to  the  monastery,  besides  gifts  to  individual 
monks.  The  safe  return  of  the  Tsar  was 
feasted  at  Archangel  not  only  by  his  friends, 
who  had  been  greatly  alarmed,  but  by  the 
captains  of  two  English  vessels  then  in  port, 
and  he  himself  wrote  brief  accounts  of  his 
journey,  first  of  all  to  his  brother  Ivan,  to 
whom  he  said  that  he  had  at  last  fulfilled 
his  vow  of  adoring  the  relics  of  the  holy 
hermits  Sabbatius  and  Zosimus;  but  not  one 
word  was  said  of  the  danger  he  had  run. 
From  his  wife,  to  whom  he  had  written 
nothing,  Peter  received  two  letters,  com- 
plaining of  his  neglect.  Apparently  he  sent 
no  answer. 

A  month  later,  the  new  vessel  which  he 
had  launched  on  his  arrival  was  ready  for 
sea,  and  with  great  rejoicing  was  christened 
the  St.  Paul.  About  the  same  time,  Peter's 
heart  was  gladdened  by  the  receipt  of  a 
letter  from  his  friend  Vinius,  at  Moscow, 
saying  that  the  frigate  bought  by  Witsen  in 
Amsterdam  had  sailed  six  weeks  before, 
under  the  command  of  Captain  Flamm,  and 
ought  by  that  time  to  be  due  in  Archangel. 
Vinius  spoke  also  of  many  fires  which  had 
taken  place  at  Moscow,  one  of,which  had 
burned  down  four  thousand  houses.  Pre- 
vious information  of  this  had  been  received 
in  letters  from  Lieutenant-Colonel  Von 
Mengden  and  Major  Adam  Weijde : 


"  In  Moscow  there  have  been  many  fires,  and  of 
these  fires  the  people  said  that,  if  you  had  been  here, 
you  would  not  have  allowed  them  to  be  so  great." 

In  replying  to  Vinius,  Peter  expressed 
his  joy  at  the  sailing  of  the  vessel,  then 
spoke  of  the  launching  of  the  one  built  at 
Archangel,  which,  he  said,  "  is  completely 
finished,  and  has  been  christened  the 
Apostle  Paul,  and  sufficiently  fumigated 
with  the  incense  of  Mars.  At  this  fumi- 
gation, Bacchus  was  also  sufficiently  hon- 
ored.* But  how  impudent  is  your  Vulcan; 
he  is  not  satisfied  with  you  who  are  on 
dry  land,  and  even  here,  in  the  realm  of 
Neptune,  he  has  shown  his  effrontery ;"  and 
went  on  to  tell  how  all  the  ships  at  Archangel 
would  have  been  burnt,  through  a  fire  catch- 
ing on  a  barge  laden  with  grain,  had  it  not 
been  for  the  great  exertions  of  himself  and 
his  men.  Finally,  on  the  2ist  July,  the 
forty-four-gun  frigate  Santa  Profeetie,  so 
impatiently  expected  from  Holland,  arrived, 
under  the  command  of  Captain  Jan  Flamm, 
with  a  crew  of  forty  sailors.  She  had  been 
five  weeks  and  four  days  on  the  journey. 
Peter  hastened  to  the  mouth  of  the  river  to 
meet  her,  and  finally,  at  four  o'clock,  she 
threw  anchor  at  Solombala.  In  the  midst 
of  the  feast,  Peter  sat  down  and  wrote  to 
Vinius  a  brief  letter : 

"  MlN  HER  :  I  have  nothing  else  to  write  now, 
except  that  what  I  have  so  long  desired  has  to-day 
come  about.  Jan  Flamm  has  arrived  all  right,  with 
forty-four  cannon  and  forty  sailors,  on  his  ship. 
Congratulate  all  of  us.  I  will  write  you  more  fully 
by  the  next  post,  but  now  I  am  beside  myself  with 
joy,  and  cannot  write  at  length.  Besides,  it  is 
impossible,  for  Bacchus  is  always  honored  in  such 
cases ,  and  with  his  leaves  he  dulls  the  eyes  of  those 
who  wish  to  write  at  length. 

"The  City,  July  2ist. 

SchiPer  Fonshi 

Psantus  Pro  Fet 

ities." 

The  frigate  needed  a  few  repairs,  but 
these  were  soon  made,  and  in  a  week  Peter 
was  ready  to  start  on  his  cruise.  The 
Apostle  Paul,  with  Vice- Admiral  Buturlin, 
took  the  lead,  followed  by  four  German 
;hips  returning  home  with  Russian  cargoes. 
Then  came  the  new  frigate,  the  Holy 
Prophecy,  with  the  admiral  and  the  Tsar, 
"ollowed  by  four  English  ships  returning 
with  their  cargoes.  The  yacht  St.  Peter, 
with  General  Gordon  as  rear-admiral,  fol- 


A  Swedish  galliot,  which  arrived  from  Bor- 
deaux, after  a  five  weeks'  voyage,  on  July  7th,  with 
pur  hundred  casks  of  wine,  probably  supplied  the 
ibations  for  Bacchus. 


PETER    THE   GREAT. 


883 


lowed.  The  movements  of  the  fleet  were 
to  be  directed  by  signals,  which  had  been 
invented  for  the  purpose  by  Peter,  and  had 
been  translated  into  the  different  languages. 
He  himself  brought  Gordon  a  copy  for 
translation  into  English,  for  the  use  of  the 
English  captains.  The  wind  was  for  a  long 
time  unfavorable,  and,  even  after  getting  to 
the  mouths  of  the  Dvina,  the  sea-faring 
company  could  do  nothing  but  divert  itself 
by  mutual  feasts  on  the  various  islands. 
Peter,  however,  who  must  always  have 
something  on  hand,  discussed  a  plan  for 
great  military  maneuvers  in  the  autumn,  on 
his  return  to  Moscow,  and,  under  the  direc- 
tion of  General  Gordon,  made  plans  of  bas- 
tions and  redoubts,  and  composed  lists  of 
all  the  necessary  tools  and  equipments. 
Finally,  the  fleet  set  out  on  the  2ist  of 
August,  and  with  various  fortune, — General 
Gordon  nearly  going  to  pieces  on  a  small 
island  to  which  his  pilot  had  taken  him, 
thinking  the  crosses  in  the  cemetery  on  the 
shore  to  be  the  masts  and  yards  of  the 
other  vessels.  With  some  difficulty  he  got 
safely  off,  and  on  the  zyth  the  whole  fleet 
reached  Sviatoi  Nos,  the  most  extreme 
point  which  separated  the  White  Sea  from 
the  Northern  Ocean.  It  had  been  Peter's 
intention  to  venture  upon  the  open  sea,  but 
a  violent  wind  rendered  it  not  only  difficult 
but  dangerous.  The  signal  was  therefore 
given,  and,  taking  leave  of  the  merchant 
vessels,  the  three  ships  of  Peter's  navy 
returned  to  Archangel,  arriving  there  on 
the  3ist.  Three  days  longer  was  all  that 
Peter  could  stay.  On  the  evening  of  the 
2d  of  September,  Gordon  says,  "  We  were 
all  at  feast  with  the  Governor,  and  were 
jovial."  The  next  morning  they  set  out 
for  Moscow. 

Immediately  after  the  arrival  of  the  party 
at  Moscow,  arrangements  were  made  for 
the  great  maneuvers  which  Peter  had 
planned.  Two  armies  were  formed,  one  in 
which  were  included  six  Streltsi  regiments 
and  two  companies  of  cavalry,  in  all  7500 
men,  under  Buturlin  (who  took  the  title  of 
King  of  Poland,  probably  on  account  of 
the  increasing  difficulties  with  that  country). 
The  other,  the  Russian  force,  was  under 
the  command  of  Prince  Ramodan6fsky, 
and  included  the  Preobrazhensky  and  the 
Semenofsky  regiments,  the  two  select  reg- 
iments, and  a  collection  of  the  men  fit 
for  military  service  sent  by  the  nobility  of 
twenty  towns  in  the  neighborhood  of  Mos- 
cow, some  of  the  orders  being  dispatched 
as  far  as  Uglitch,  Suzdal  and  Vladimir.  The 


strength  of  this  army  is  not  stated,  but  it 
was  probably  not  inferior  to  the  other,  and 
it  required  two  hundred  and  sixty  wagons  for 
the  transport  of  its  ammunitions  and  equip- 
ments. The  place  chosen  for  the  maneu- 
vers was  a  wide  valley  on  the  right  bank  of 
the  river  Moskva,  back  of  the  village  of 
Kozhukhovo,  a  little  more  than  a  mile  from 
the  Sim6nof  monastery,  so  celebrated  now 
for  its  lovely  view  of  Moscow.  Here,  in  an 
angle  formed  by  a  bend  of  the  river,  a  small 
fort  had  been  begun,  even  before  the 
departure  of  Peter  for  Archangel.  These 
maneuvers,  though  common  enough  now- 
adays in  all  military  countries,  must  have 
been  a  great  surprise  to  the  inhabitants  of 
Moscow,  accustomed  to  their  quiet  and 
almost  pastoral  streets.  In  order  to  take 
their  positions,  both  armies,  in  full  parade, 
passed  through  Moscow  by  different  routes. 
In  the  Russian  army  appeared  what  was  also 
a  new  thing  to  the  Moscovites — the  Tsar  as 
Peter  Alexeief  marching  with  two  of  his 
comrades  as  bombardiers,  in  front  of  the 
Preobrazhensky  regiment.  What  would  now 
seem  droll  is  that  both  armies  had  what 
does  not  now  enter  into  military  staff — com- 
panies of  scribes  and  singers,  and,  in  one, 
twenty-five  dwarfs,  of  course  unarmed. 

It  is  useless  to  recapitulate  the  story  of 
the  maneuvers,  which  lasted  for  fully  three 
weeks,  and  which  are  described  with  great 
humor  by  General  Gordon  in  his  diary,  and 
by  Zhelabuzhky  in  his  memoirs.  Sufficient 
to  say  that  there  was  fighting  which  some- 
times was  only  too  real,  for  the  bombs, 
though  without  powder,  did  hurt,  and  fire- 
pots  burst  and  burned  faces  and  maimed 
limbs.  A  bridge  had  to»be  thrown  across 
the  river  Moskva,  and  the  fort  was  to  be 
mined  and  countermined,  according  to  the 
proper  rules  of  war.  Unfortunately,  ban- 
quets and  suppers  had  too  great  a  predom- 
inance in  this  campaign,  and  after  a  very 
good  dinner  given  by  General  Lefort,  on 
his  name's-day,  it  was  decided  to  storm  the 
enemy's  fort.  Flushed  with  wine,  the  con- 
quest was  easy.  Every  one  was  satisfied, 
except  Peter,  who  was  not  content  with  this 
summary  proceeding.  He  therefore  gave 
up  ah1  the  prisoners,  ordered  the  Polish 
King  again  to  occupy  his  fort,  and  insisted 
that  mines  should  be  made  until  the  walls 
should  be  blown  up,  and  the  conquering 
army  properly  walk  in.  This  was  done, 
and  the  place  was  finally  taken  in  the  most 
approved  way,  on  the  27th  of  October.  One 
incident  of  the  campaign  seems  to  have 
been  a  fight  of  the  singers,  headed  by  Tur- 


884 


PETER    THE   GREAT. 


genief,  the  court-fool,  against  the  scribes  o 
the  Polish  camp. 

This  was  the  last  time  that  Peter  played 
at  war.  Thenceforward,  fate  ruled  that  rea 
battles  were  to  take  the  place  of  mimic 
ones. 

CHAPTER   XXIX. 
THE    FIRST   CAMPAIGN   AGAINST   AZOF. 

PETER  had  derived  so  much  satisfaction 
from  his  visits  to  Archangel  that  he  thought 
favorably  of  various  projects  of  traveling 
throughout  his  country,  and  of  beginning  new 
enterprises.  Even  while  at  Archangel,  Lefort 
wrote  to  his  family  at  Geneva  that  there  was 
talk  of  "  a  journey,  in  about  two  years'  time, 
to  Kazan  and  Astrakhan.  Still,  this  idea 
may  pass  away  before  two  years  are  over. 
However,  I  will  be  ready  to  obey  all  orders. 
There  is  also  an  idea  of  constructing  some 
galliots,  and  going  to  the  Baltic  Sea." 
Later,  on  the  23d  of  September,  Lefort 
wrote  :  "  Next  summer  we  are  going  to  con- 
struct five  large  ships  and  two  galleys,  which, 
God  willing,  will  go  two  years  hence  to 
Astrakhan,  for  the  conclusion  of  important 
treaties  with  Persia."  The  ideas  of  Witsen 
about  the  Persian  and  Asiatic  trade,  and 
the  many  conversations  on  that  subject  in 
the  German  suburb,  about  the  advantages 
connected  with  this  traffic,  which  French, 
Dutch  and  English  all  desired  to  get  into 
their  hands,  had  evidently  stimulated  Peter's 
mind. 

Suddenly,  however,  and  apparently  to  the 
surprise  of  everybody,  it  was  resolved  to 
enter  upon  an  active  campaign,  in  the  spring 
of  1695,  against  the  Tartars— nominally  for 
the  purpose  of  reducing  the  Crimea ;  actu- 
ally, the  plan  of  the  campaign  included  get- 
ting possession  of  the  mouths  of  the  Dnieper 
and  of  the  Don,  two  Russian  rivers  which 
were  useless  for  trade  so  long  as  their  em- 
bouchures were  in  possession  of  the  Mussul- 
mans. The  only  mention  that  is  made  of 
this  plan  before  it  was  formally  announced, 
is  a  passage  in  a  letter  of  General  Gordon 
to  his  friend  Kurz,  in  Vienna,  dated  the  end 
of  December,  1694,  in  which  he  says:  "I 
believe  and  hope  that  this  coming  summer 
we  shall  undertake  something  for  the  advan- 
tage of  Christianity  and  our  allies."  It  is 
difficult  to  tell  what  were  the  real  reasons 
for  this  campaign.  Apparently  it  was  not, 
as  has  generally  been  thought,  on  the  initia- 
tive of  Peter  himself,  for  as  yet  he  had  not 
meddled  in  the  concerns  of  the  government. 


The  statement  that  the  expedition  against 
Azof  was  planned  for  the  purpose  of  getting 
a  harbor  in  the  Black  Sea,  in  which  to  create 
a  navy,  or  because  the  success  of  the  ma- 
neuvers near  Moscow  made  Peter  desirous 
of  real  war,  or  because  he  had  already  the 
intention  of  going  to  Europe,  and  wished 
to  signalize  himself  by  great  exploits  before 
he  appeared  in  the  West,  rest   merely  on 
surmise.     The  campaign  was  an  incident  in 
the  war  against  the  Tartars,  which  had  been 
begun   by  Sophia,  in   consequence   of  her 
treaty  with  Poland,  and  which  had  never 
come  formally  to  a  conclusion.     No  peace 
had  ever  been  made.     Although,  after  the 
unsuccessful  close  of  Galitsyn's  second  ex- 
pedition, in  1689,  there  had  been  a  prac- 
tical armistice,  yet  this  armistice  had  never 
been  ratified  by  any  convention,  and   was 
frequently  broken  by  the  Tartars.     The  bor- 
der provinces  were  constantly  exposed   to 
their  predatory  incursions,  and  in  1692  twelve 
thousand  Tartars  appeared  before  the  Rus- 
sian town  of  Nemirof,  burnt  the  suburbs, 
carried   away  many   prisoners,   and   made 
booty  of  a  very  large  number  of  horses. 
The  Russians,  with  the  few  troops  of  Cos- 
sacks and  local  levies  that  remained  on  the 
border,  had  confined  themselves  strictly  to 
the  defensive. 

Meanwhile,  there  had  been  a  growing  dis- 
satisfaction in  Moscow  with  the  conduct  of 
Poland.     The  Russian  Resident  at  Warsaw 
constantly  wrote  that  no  dependence  what- 
ever could  be  placed  on  the  Polish  King 
nor  on  the  German  Emperor.     He  reported 
them  as  desirous  of  making  a  separate  peace 
with  Turkey,  without  the  slightest  regard  for 
the  interests  of  Russia.     When  application 
was  made  to  Vienna,  the  Emperor  replied 
:hat  he  was  not  in  league  with  Moscow,  but 
that,  without  doubt,  the  Polish  King  kept  the 
Tsars  informed  of  everything  that  passed. 
ECing  Jan   Sobiesky  professed   the   utmost 
friendship  for  the  Tsars;    but  made  com- 
plaints that  they  did  not  assist  him  in  his 
operations  against  the   Mussulmans;    that, 
under  the  treaty,  they  had  no  right  to  confine 
hemselves  to  defensive  warfare  alone,  and 
hat,  unless  they  sent  either  an  embassador 
o  Vienna  with  full  powers,  or  sent  an  embas- 
sador to  go  with  his  envoy  to  the  Crimean 
tChan,  it  would  be  impossible  for  him  to  sat- 
sfy  the  Muscovite  demands,  as  he  did  not 
know  sufficiently  what  the  demands  of  Mus- 
covy were.     Intrigues  had  been   going  on 
between    Mazeppa,  the    Hetman  of  Little 
Russia,  and  various  Polish  magnates,  and  it 
ivas  believed  in    Moscow  that  these  were 


PETER    THE   GREAT. 


885 


with  the  knowledge  and  contrivance  of  the 
King.  Russia  had  finally  become  so  bitter 
on  this  point  that  Sobiesky  hastened  to 
declare  that  all  the  letters  were  forgeries,  and 
a  monk,  on  whose  person,  it  is  said,  had 
been  found  forged  letters  and  forged  seals  of 
Mazeppa,  was  surrendered  to  the  Russians. 
The  explanation  was  accepted,  and  the 
monk  was  executed  by  Mazeppa's  orders. 

Fearing  to  be  left  entirely  alone, — for  it  had 
been  ascertained,  by  means  of  Adam  Stille, 
an  official  translator  at  the  foreign  office  in 
Vienna,  who  had  been  bought  up  by  the  Rus- 
sian envoy,  and  who  furnished  the  Govern- 
ment at  Moscow  with  reports  of  the  negoti- 
ations going  on  at  Vienna,  and  sometimes 
with  copies  of  papers,  that  no  mention,  of 
any  kind  whatever,  of  the  interest  of  Russia 
had  been  made  in  the  whole  of  the  nego- 
tiations at  Vienna  between  Poland,  Austria 
and  Turkey, — and  fearing  lest  a  separate 
peace  might  be  made  without  them,  which 
would  enable  the  Sultan  to  turn  all  his  forces 
against  them,  the  Russians  resolved  to  see 
what  they  could  effect  themselves.  For  this 
purpose,  agents  had  been  sent  to  the  Crimea 
to  ascertain  upon  what  basis  the  Khan  would 
make  a  permanent  peace.  The  Russians 
were  unwilling  to  agree  to  the  same  state  of 
things  that  had  existed  before  the  campaigns 
of  Galitsyn.  They  insisted  that  the  prison- 
ers on  both  sides  should  be  delivered  up 
without  a  ransom,  and  on  the  suppression 
of  the  money  tribute  which  had  before  that 
been  annually  sent  to  the  Crimea.  They 
also,  on  the  suggestion  of  Dositheus,  the 
Patriarch  of  Constantinople,  who  had  written 
several  letters  to  the  Tsars  urging  the  renewal 
of  hostilities,  made  a  request  that  the  Holy 
Places  in  Jerusalem  should  be  take"n  away 
from  the  Franks  and  restored  to  the  Greek 
clergy.*  As  to  the  Holy  Places,  the  Khan 
replied  that  the  solution  of  that  question 
depended  on  the  Sultan  alone ;  but,  for  the 
other  matters,  he  declined  to  accept  anything 
but  a  renewal  of  the  old  treaty  of  Baktchi- 
serai,  insisted  on  the  tribute  due  to  him,  and 
refused  to  give  up  the  captives  without  a 
ransom.  Not  only  were  these  overtures 
ineffectual,  but  alarm  was  caused  by  the  ap- 
pearance of  the  Polish  magnate,  Rzevusky, 
at  the  court  of  the  Khan,  with  proposi- 
tions from  the  King.  Rzevusky  went  sub- 
sequently to  Adrianople,  in  the  hope  of 
making  peace  with  the  Sultan  on  conditions 

*  It  is  interesting  to  see  how  early  the  question  of 
the  Holy  Places  became  a  subject  of  dispute  between 
Russia  and  Turkey. 


favorable  to  Poland.  This  plan  fell  through  • 
but  the  Turks  finally  consented  to  open 
negotiations  for  a  general  peace.  Infor- 
mation '  about  this  reached  Moscow  in  a 
letter  from  King  Jan  Sobiesky,  in  the  latter 
part  of  July,  1694,  and  the  Tsars  were 
requested  to  send  a  proper  and  fit  man  to 
meet  the  Turkish  and  Tartar  plenipotentia- 
ries. It  was,  in  all  probability,  the  despair 
of  obtaining  any  favorable  conditions  for 
Russia,  and  the  fear  that  their  plenipoten- 
tiaries would  not  be  admitted  to  the  con- 
gress, that  induced  the  Government  at 
Moscow  to  resolve  on  active  operations. 

The  campaign  once  resolved  upon,  Peter 
threw  himself  into  it  with  all  his  heart  and 
soul.  He  looked  personally  after  the  artil- 
lery, as  he  had  the  intention  of  accompany- 
ing one  of  the  armies,  in  the  capacity  of 
bombardier.  He  even  went  to  Pereyaslavl 
to  look  over  the  artillery  stores  which  he 
had  left  there,  in  order  to  see  what  would  be 
available  for  the  purposes  of  the  expedition. 
Full  of  ardor  at  the  thought  of  active  war,  he 
wrote  to  Apraxin :  "Although  for  five  weeks 
last  autumn  we  practiced  in  the  game  of 
Mars  at  Kozhukhovo,  with  no  idea  except 
that  of  amusement,  yet  this  amusement  of 
ours  has  become  a  forerunner  of  the  present 
war."  And  again  he  wrote  :  "  At  Kozhuk- 
hovo we  jested.  We  are  now  going  to  play 
the  real  game  before  Azof." 

The  plan  of  operations  was  that  Prince 
Boris  Shereme'tief,  with  120,000  men, 
assisted  by  the  Cossacks  of  the  Ukraine 
under  Mazeppa,  should  go  down  the  Dnie- 
per and  attempt  to  take  possession  of  the  for- 
tresses of  Otchakof  and  Kazikerman,  which, 
with  three  similar  forts,  guarded  the  mouth 
of  that  river.  The  army  of  Sheremetief  was 
composed  entirely  of  troops  drilled  in  the 
old  Russian  style.  The  two  regiments  made 
up  out  of  the  play-troops  of  Peter,  together 
with  the  regiments  of  soldiers  drilled  accord- 
ing to  foreign  tactics  and  the  best  of  the 
Streltsi  regiments,  were  to  compose  an  army 
of  about  31,000  men,  the  aim  of  which  was 
the  capture  of  Azof. 

This  fortress  town,  situated  on  one  of  the 
arms  of  the  Don,  about  ten  miles  from  the 
Sea  of  Azof,  was  the  chief  hindrance  to  the 
Russian  access  to  the  Black  Sea.  In  the 
early  times,  as  the  half-Greek  city  of  Tanais, 
and  in  the  Middle  Ages,  as  the  Genoese 
colony  of  Tana,  it  had  been  a  great  com- 
mercial emporium  for  the  Asiatic  trade. 
Destroyed  by  Tamerlane,  and  afterward 
fortified  by  the  Turks,  it  had  been  captured 
by  the  Don  Cossacks  in  1637,  and  held  by 


PETER    THE    GREAT. 


them  for  six  years  against  tremendous  odds, 
until  they  were  ordered  to  abandon  it  by  the 
Tsar  Michael ;  for  Russia  was  then  unwilling 
to  engage  in  a  war  with  Turkey  for  its  reten- 
tion. It  was  then  rebuilt  by  the  Turks, 
who  kept  26,000  men  at  work  for  several 
years  in  strengthening  its  fortifications. 
What  is  particularly  to  be  noticed  is  that, 
in  sending  an  expedition  to  Azof,  the  Rus- 
sians were  attacking  the  Turks,  and  not  the 
Tartars. 

The  plan  of  this  campaign  was  decided 
upon  about  the  middle  of  February,  in  a 
council  of  war  held  at  the  artillery  head- 
quarters. The  army  was  to  be  divided  into 
three  corps,  respectively  under  the  command 
of  Avtam6n  Golovin,  Lefort  and  Gordon ; 
but,  strangely  enough,  there  was  to  be  no 
supreme  commander.  The  command  of  the 
army  was  to  be  intrusted  to  a  council  com- 
posed of  these  three  generals,  and  none  of 
their  decisions  could  be  carried  into  effect 
without  the  approbation  of  the  bombardier 
sergeant  of  the  Preobrazhe"nsky  regiment, 
Peter  Alex6ief,  as  the  Tsar  chose  to  be 
styled.  This  arrangement,  as  might  easily 
have  been  foreseen,  proved  productive  of 
great  calamities. 

The  division  of  General  Gordon  marched 
the  whole  distance,  and  starting  from  Mos- 
cow in  March,  arrived  at  the  rendezvous 
before  Azof  in  the  middle  of  June.  The 
"  great  caravan,"  as  it  was  called,  consisting 
of  the  other  troops,  left  Moscow  in  May, 
by  water,  but  owing  to  the  constant  bad 
weather  (there  was  snow  in  Moscow  even 
on  the  yth  of  June),  the  careless  way  in 
which  the  barges  were  constructed,  and  the 
stupidity  and  inexperience  of  the  boatmen, 
had  great  difficulty  in  reaching  Nizhni- 
N6vgorod,  on  the  Volga,  where  it  was 
found  necessary  to  tranship  all  the  troops, 
equipments  and  artillery.  As  Peter  wrote 
to  Vinius,  from  Nizhni-Novgorod  : 

"  Strong  winds  kept  us  back  for  two  days  at 
Dedinovo,  and  three  days  at  Murom,  and  most  of  all 
the  delay  was  caused  by  stupid  pilots  and  workmen, 
who  call  themselves  masters,  but,  in  reality,  are  as 
far  from  being  so,  as  the  earth  is  from  heaven." 

Fortunately,  the  barges  from  Vordnezh 
were  in  waiting  at  Panshin,  on  the  Don,  to 
reach  which  a  short  land  march  was  made, 
and  the  caravan  reached  the  rendezvous 
without  much  trouble  on  the  festival  of  St. 
Peter  and  St.  Paul,  the  name's-day  of  the 
Tsar  (June  29,  July  9).  Gordon  at  once 
sent  to  the  Tsar  to  congratulate  him,  and 
asked  him  to  dinner.  But  Peter  busied 


himself  the  whole  day  with  disembarking 
his  troops,  and  came  only  to  supper.  Gor- 
don had  taken  up  a  position  on  some  low 
hills  within  sight  of  Azof,  and  had  intrenched 
himself.  The  other  troops  did  the  same, 
and  at  the  council  of  war  it  was  resolved  to 
begin  the  siege  works  at  once. 

This  siege  continued  for  fourteen  weeks, 
with  varying  success.  There  was  a  want 
of  discipline  among  the  Streltsi,  there  was  a 
want  of  harmony  in  the  councils  of  the 
generals,  there  was  a  want  of  knowledge 
and  experience  in  the  engineers ;  and,  more 
than  that,  there  was  a  breakdown  of  the 
commissariat.  For  a  long  time,  the  troops 
were  entirely  without  salt.  Everything 
went  on  slowly,  and  it  sometimes  seemed, 
as  Gordon  said,  "that  we  acted  as  if  we 
were  not  in  earnest." 

One  advantage  obtained  by  the  Don 
Cossacks  cheered  up  the  army.  They  suc- 
ceeded in  storming  one  of  the  two  small 
forts  called  Kalantchi,  which  guarded  the 
junction  of  the  Kalantcha — one  of  the 
larger  arms  of  the  Don,  which  branches 
off  above  Azof, — and  which  prevented  the 
passage  of  the  Russian  barges  with  pro- 
visions for  the  army,  and  compelled  every- 
thing to  be  taken  some  distance  around, 
exposed  to  the  attack  of  the  Tartar  cavalry. 
After  one  fort  had  been  taken  by'  assault, 
such  a  fire  was  kept  up  on  the  other  that 
the  Turkish  troops  abandoned  it  in  the 
night.  It  was,  therefore,  possible  for  the 
Russians  to  construct  a  floating  bridge  over 
the  Don,  and  greatly  to  facilitate  their 
communications  and  all  their  operations. 
As  a  pendant  to  this  success,  that  very  after- 
noon a  man  named  Jacob  Janson  went 
over  to 'the  enemy.  He  was  originally  a 
Dutch  sailor,  who  had  entered  the  Russian 
service  at  Archangel,  and  had  adopted  the 
Russian  religion ;  he  had  been  lately  serv- 
ing as  a  bombardier,  and  from  some  fancy 
Peter  had  become  extremely  intimate  with 
him,  had  communicated  to  him  all  his  plans 
and  ideas  with  regard  to  the  siege.  This 
renegade  and  deserter  exposed  to  the 
Turkish  Pasha  all  the  Russian  plans,  and 
especially  the  disposition  of  the  troops. 
One  of  the  many  Russian  dissenters  who 
had  found  a  refuge  at  Azof  from  the  perse- 
cution of  the  Church  and  the  Government 
was  immediately  sent  by  the  Pasha  to 
verify  this,  and,  by  calling  himself  a  Cos- 
sack, succeeded  easily  in  passing  the  Rus- 
sian sentinels  and  penetrating  into  the 
camp.  The  Russians,  even  in  the  field,  had 
kept  up  their  old  habit  of  taking  a  long  nap 


PETER    THE    GREAT. 


887 


immediately  after  their  midday  meal.  In- 
formed of  this  habit,  the  Pasha  made  a 
sortie,  surprised  the  Russians  in  their 
trenches,  and  was  only  beaten  back  after  a 
three  hours'  fight,  in  which  the  Russians 
experienced  very  severe  losses,  and  General 
Gordon,  who  did  his  best  to  rally  the 
troops,  came  within  an  ace  of  being  taken 
prisoner.  After  this,  constant  sorties  and 
attacks  greatly  annoyed  the  Russians  and 
hindered  the  siege  works.  General  Gordon, 
who  was  really  the  only  officer  of  great 
experience,  wished  to  complete  the  trenches 
on  the  left  side  as  far  as  the  river,  for  there 
was  still  a  vacant  space  along  the  river 
through  which  the  Tartar  cavalry  kept  up 
communications  with  the  town.  He  also 
wished  to  continue  the  trenches  until  they 
were  close  to  the  walls.  All  his  suggestions, 
however,  were  overruled  by  the  impulsive- 
ness of  Peter,  and  the  inexperience  of  Lefort 
and  Golovfn,  who  voted  to  please  the  Tsar. 
There  was  great  desire  for  an  immediate 
assault,  which  was  opposed  by  Gordon, 
who  represented  how  dangerous  it  would 
be  to  attempt  to  carry  the  town  by  storm 
when  there  were  no  trenches  close  to  the 
fortifications  in  which  the  troops  could  take 
refuge  in  case  of  repulse.  His  remon- 
strances were  of  no  avail,  and  an  assault 
was  finally  attempted,  on  the  1 5th  of  August. 
It  failed  completely.  The  Russians  were 
driven  back  with  a  loss  of  1,500  men — a 
very  heavy  one,  considering  their  numbers. 
Later  on,  in  spite  of  the  protests  of  Gordon, 
two  mines  were  exploded  long  before  they 
had  reached  the  part  of  the  walls  intended 
to  be  blown  up.  No  damage  was  done  to 
the  town,  but  the  explosion  threw  the 
debris  back  into  the  Russian  trenches  with 
considerable  loss  of  life.  The  troops  began 
to  despair,  but  Peter  resolved  to  attempt 
one  more  assault  before  giving  up  the  siege, 
for  the  weather  was  now  so  cold  that  it  was 
difficult  for  the  men  to  remain  in  the 
trenches.  This  assault  was  no  more  suc- 
cessful than  the  first,  although  some  of  the 
Cossacks  penetrated  into  the  town  on  the 
river  side.  Finally  it  was  determined  to 
raise  the  siege,  and  on  the  i2th  of  October 
the  Russians  began  to  withdraw,  hotly  pur- 
sued by  the  enemy,  who  made  constant 
attacks  on  the  rear-guard.  The  severe 
weather  and  high  water  prevented  the 
Russians  from  crossing  the  river  to  the  safer 
side,  and  many  were  the  privations  and 
great  was  the  distress  endured  on  the  home- 
ward march. 

The  Tartars  attacked  the  rear-guard,  and 


on  one  occasion,  after  killing  about  thirty 
men  in  the  regiment  of  Colonel  Swart,  took 
prisoner  the  colonel  and  the  greater  part 
of  the  regiment,  with  several  standards. 
This  caused  great  panic  at  the  time,  and 
produced  an  impression  at  home  which 
lasted  for  many  years,  as  is  evident  from  the 
way  in  which  Pososhkof  brings  it  forward, 
as  an  instance  of  the  bad  discipline  of  the 
army.  The  troops  suffered  much  from  the 
rains  and  floods,  and  afterward  from  the 
extreme  cold.  The  steppe,  which  Gordon, 
in  the  spring,  had  found  "  full  of  manifold 
flowers  and  herbs,  asparagus,  wild  thyme, 
majoram,  tulips,  pinks,  melilot  and  maiden 
gilly  flowers,"  was  now  bare  and  naked. 
All  the  vegetation  had  been  burnt  off,  and 
frequently  the  soldiers  could  not  even  find  a 
piece  of  dry  wood  with  which  to  kindle  a 
fire.  The  Austrian  agent,  Pleyer,  who  had 
been  with  the  army  through  the  siege,  but 
who  was  obliged  by  a  fever  to  remain  a 
month  at  Tcherkask,  wrote  in  his  report  to 
the  Emperor  Leopold : 

"  I  saw  great  quantities  of  the  best  provisions, 
which  could  have  kept  a  large  army  for  a  year, 
either  ruined  by  the  bad  weather,  or  lost  by  the 
barges  going  to  the  bottom.  What  was  left  was 
divided  among  the  Cossacks.  On  the  way  I  then 
saw  what  great  loss  the  army  suffered  in  the  march, 
although  no  enemy  pursued  it,  for  it  was  impossible 
not  to  see  without  tears  how,  through  the  whole 
steppe  for  eight  hundred  versts,  men  and  horses  lay 
half  eaten  by  the  wolves,  and  many  villages  were 
full  of  sick,  half  of  whom  died,  as  well  as  many 
others  infected  by  them,  all  of  which  was  very  pain- 
ful to  see  and  to  hear." 

The  only  success  of  the  campaign  was 
the  capture  of  the  two  forts,  in  which  a 
garrison  of  3,000  men  was  left,  so  as  to  be 
ready  for  subsequent  operations  the  next 
spring.  $  Lefort,  in  a  letter  to  his  brother, 
says  that  had  they  had  10,000  more  troops, 
the  town  would  certainly  have  been  taken. 
This  additional  number  would  have  enabled 
the  trenches  to  have  been  drawn  entirely 
around  the  town,  and  its  communications 
would  have  been  entirely  cut  off.  But  the 
failure  is  rather  to  be  ascribed  to  the  want 
of  knowledge  and  experience  on  the  part 
of  the  officers,  and  the  impulsiveness  of  the 
Tsar,  than  to  the  smallness  of  the  army. 

Peter  himself  was  indefatigable.  As  a  bom- 
bardier, he  filled  bombs  and  grenades  with 
his  own  hands,  and  worked  at  the  mortars 
like  any  common  soldier.  With  all  this,  he 
took  part  in  the  councils  of  war,  supervised 
all  the  plans  of  action,  and,  in  addition, 
kept  up  a  constant  correspondence  with 
friends.  These  letters  are  all  brief.  Some 


888 


PETER   THE  GREAT, 


of  them  refer  simply  to  matters  of  business, 
such  as  the  forwarding  of  material  and  pro- 
visions. In  them  he  endeavored  to  keep 
up  his  own  spirits  as  well  as  those  of  his 
friends,  still  maintaining  the  jesting  tone 


BOYAR    ALEXIS    SHEIN. 


which  he  had  long  ago  adopted,  always 
addressing  them  by  their  nicknames,  and 
carrying  out  the  fiction  of  making  regular 
reports  to  Ramodanofsky  as  the  generalis- 
simo of  the  army,  and  always  signing  him- 
self, with  expressions  of  great  respect,  the 
"  Bombardier  Piter."  There  is  much  talk 
about  "  plowing  the  field  of  Mars,"  and 
there  are  other  classical  allusions.  But  twice 
he  shows  real  feeling — with  reference  to  the 
death  of  his  friend  Prince  Theodore  Troek- 
urof,  who  was  killed  on  the  i  "jth  of  Septem- 
ber, and  to  the  deaths  of  his  comrades  and 
orderlies  Yekim  Vor6nin  and  Gregory  Lukin, 
who  had  been  two  of  the  most  intelligent 
men  in  his  guard,  and  had  been  also  of 
great  assistance  to  him  in  his  boat-build- 
ing at  Pereyaslavl,  who  were  killed  at  the 
final  assault.  He  writes  to  Ramodanofsky 
on  separate  scraps  of  paper,  inclosed  with 
the  formal  letters  to  him  as  generalissimo  : 

"  For  God's  sake,  do  not  trouble  yourself  because 
the  posts  are  late.  It  is  certainly  from  the  bad 
weather,  and  not,  God  forbid !  because  of  any 
accident.  Thou  canst  judge  thyself  that,  if  anything 
had  happened,  how  would  it  be  possible  to  keep  it 
quiet  ?  Think  over  this,  and  tell  those  that  need  it. 
Prince  Theodore  Ivanovitch,  my  friend,  is  no  more. 
For  God's  sake,  do  not  abandon  his  father.  Yekin 
Vor6nin  and  Gregory  Lukin  by  God's  will  have 
died.  Please  don't  forget  Gregory's  father." 

The  Tsar  accompanied  the  troops  until 
they  had  reached  Valuiek,  the  first  Russian 
town.  He  then  went  on  in  advance,  but 
stopped  for  several  days  near  Tula,  at  the 
iron  works  built  by  the  Dane  Marselis, 


which  were  now  owned  by  his  uncle,  Leo 
Naryshkin.  Here  he  amused  himself  by 
hammering  three  large  iron  sheets  with  his 
own  hands. 

The  army  reached  Moscow  on  the  ad 
of  December,  and,  in  spite  of  the  failure  of 
the  campaign,  Peter  made  a  triumphal  entry 
into  the  city,  with  a  captive  Turk  led  before 
him.  The  only  excuse  for  this  was  the 
partial  success  of  Sheremetief  and  Mazeppa, 
who  had  taken  by  storm  two  of  the  Turkish 
forts  at  the  mouth  of  the  Dneiper, — Kazi- 
kerman  and  Tagan, — and  had  forced  the 
abandonment  of  two  others. 


CHAPTER  XXX. 
THE  CAPTURE  OF  AZOF. 

PETER  undoubtedly  felt  disappointed, 
humiliated  and  angry  at  the  result  of  the 
campaign.  Despite  the  dangers  and  diffi- 
culties which  beset  his  childhood,  he  had 
nearly  always  succeeded  in  having  his  own 
way.  He  was  Tsar,  he  was  self-willed,  and 
he  was  obstinate.  He  had  undertaken  the 
siege  with  such  confidence  of  success  that 
he  had  caused  Lefort  to  write  letters  to  be 
communicated  to  the  different  courts  of 
Europe,  informing  the  world  of  his  designs, 
and  he  had  returned  almost  empty-handed. 

The  difficulties  of  the  homeward  march 
must  only  have  served  to  increase  his  ob- 
stinate adherence  to  his  purpose,  and  every 
hammer-blow,  which  he  gave  to  those  iron 
plates  in  the  forge  at  Tula,  drove  away  a 
regret  and  fixed  a  resolution.  He  no  sooner 
returned  to  Moscow  than  every  preparation 
was  made  for  another  campaign.  Indeed, 
he  had  formed  some  plans  even  before  this, 
for  on  the  march,  just  after  he  had  escaped 
from  the  burning  steppe,  he  wrote  to  the 
Emperor  of  Germany,  to  the  King  of  Poland, 
and  to  the  Elector  of  Brandenburg,  inform- 
ing them  of  the  efforts  which  he  had  made 
against  the  Turks,  and  of  his  failure,  owing 
partly  to  the  lack  of  cannon  and  ammunition, 
but  especially  to  the  want  of  skillful  engi- 
neers and  miners,  and,  in  the  name  of  friend- 
ship and  for  the  success  of  their  common 
cause  against  the  Turk,  he  begged  that 
skillful  men  be  sent  to  him. 

This  time,  the  number  of  troops  designed 
for  the  expedition  was  much  greater,  amount- 
ing in  all,  with  the  help  of  the  Cossacks  and 
the  regiments  from  Little  Russia,  to  75,000 
men.  Having  seen  that  the  failure  of  the  last 
campaign  was  owing,  in  great  part,  to  the 


PETER    THE   GREAT. 


889 


VOL.  XX.— 58. 


divisions  in  com- 
mand, Peter  ap- 
pointed a  single 
commander  -  in  - 
chief  for  the 
whole  of  the 
forces  before 
Azof,  with  the 
title  of  general- 
issimo. He  at 
first  chose  Prince 
Michael  Tcher- 
kasky,  a  grandee, 


who   was    much    respected   for  his 
character  and  his  great  services,  but 
who  was  then  very  old ;  and  when 
Tcherkasky    refused    this    appoint- 
ment on  account  of  his  extreme  age 
and  infirmity,  his  choice  fell  upon  the 
boyar  Alexis  Shein,  more  noted  for 
distinguished  family-he  was  the  great- 
grandson  of  the  celebrated  defender 
of  Smolensk  in  the  Troublous  Times — than 
for  actual  service  and  experience,  but,  at  the 
same  time,  in  the  opinion  of  his  contempo- 
raries, a  man  of  ability  and  sound  judgment. 
The  appointment  of  a  native  Russian  to  such 
high  rank  was  doubtless  intended  to  silence 
the  complaints  of  the  ultra-national  party, 
who  had  again   talked  of  this  last  defeat 
being  owing  to  the  employment  of  so  many 
foreigners.      The  boyar   Boris  Sheremetief 
and  the  hetman  Mazeppa  were  ordered  to 
remain  on  the  defensive   and  protect  the 
frontier  from  Tartar  incursions. 


890 


PETER    THE   GREAT. 


:: 


TARTAR    CAVALRY    ATTACKING     A      RUSSIAN     COMMISSARIAT    TRAIN. 


In  his  first  campaign,  Peter 
had  seen  the  absolute  neces- 
sity of  a  flotilla  in  order  to 
prevent  the  Turks  from  com- 
municating with  Azof,  and  to 
keep  the  command  of  the 
river.  It  is  needless  to  say 
that  his  love  for  the  sea 
strengthened  his  opinion.  He 
therefore  resolved  to  build  i 
a  fleet  of  transport  barges,  and,  at  the  j 
same  time,  galleys  and  galliots  that  could  ; 
be  armed  and  used  for  the  defensive  if 
not  for  the  offensive.  For  the  construc- 
tion of  this  fleet  he  chose  the  town  of 
Voronezh,  on  the  river  Vor6nezh,  about 
three  hundred  miles  south  of  Moscow. 
All  this  region  had  once  been  covered 
with  a  thick  virgin  forest,  and  here,  from 
the  early  years  of  the  reign  of  Alexis,  nu- 
merous barges  had  been  constructed  every 
winter  for  the  transport  of  the  grain  and  wine 
sent  as  salary  to  the  Cossacks  of  the  Don. 
These  barges  were  like  those  now  built  on 
the  rivers  in  the  north  of  Russia  for  the  trans- 
port of  timber,  hides  and  grain, — rude  vessels 
made  entirely  of  wood,  without  the  use  of 
even  an  iron  nail.  They  were  good  simply 


for  the  voyage  down  the  river,  and  never 
returned.  On  their  arrival  they  were  broken 
up,  and  used  either  as  timber  or  as  fire-wood. 
They  were  usually  about  a  hundred  feet 
long  and  twenty  feet  wide,  and  held  about 
two  hundred  quarters  of  grain.  To  such  a 
great  extent  had  barges  been  built  in  this 
locality — at  the  rate  of  from  five  hundred  to 
a  thousand  a  year — that  in  many  places  the 
forests  were  entirely  cut  down.  Voronezh  is 
now  a  thriving  town,  the  capital  of  a  province 
or  gubernia,  with  a  population  of  45,000, and 
a  considerable  trade.  Its  greatest  reminis- 
cences are  those  connected  with  Peter,  and 
the  construction  of  this  flotilla, — some  of  the 
boat-houses  being  still  standing ;  it  also 
prides  itself  on  having  the  peasant-poet  Ni- 
kitin  as  a  citizen,  and  possesses  an  agreeable 
and  cultivated  society.  Here  Peter  ordered 
the  construction  of  a  wharf  on  the  low  left 
bank,  the  opposite  side  of  the  river  from  the 
town,  for  it  is  a  peculiarity  of  most  Russian 
rivers  that  the  right  bank  is  high,  of  bluffs  or 
low  hills,  and  the  left  flat.  During  the  winter 
of  1696,  more  than  30,000  men,  under  the 
command  of  officials  sent  from  Moscow, 
labored  at  the  construction  of  more  than 
thirteen  hundred  barges  for  conveying  troops, 


PETER    THE    GREAT. 


891 


ammunitions  and  provisions  to  the  mouths 
of  the  Don.  In  addition  to  this,  Peter  sent 
to  Archangel  for  all  the  ship-carpenters  who 
were  wintering  there,  promising  that  they 
should  return  for  the  opening  of  navigation. 
It  was  his  intention  to  build  thirty  galleys 
of  various  sizes,  some  of  two  and  some  of 
three  masts,  although  they  would  depend 
chiefly  on  oars  for  their  swiftness.  A  model 
galley  had  been  constructed  in  Holland,  had 
arrived  at  Archangel,  and  was  brought  by 
the  Dvina  to  Vologda,  and  then  overland 
to  Moscow.  Several  of  those  which  Peter 
had  himself  built  at  Percy  aslavl  were,  accord- 
ing to  Lefort,  transported  on  sledges  over 
the  easy  snow  roads  to  Voronezh.  Four 


was  about  this  time  also  that  he  became  the 
sole  ruler  of  the  Russian  state;  for,  on  the  8th 
of  February,  1696,  his  brother  Ivan,  who 
had  greatly  improved  in  health  since  his  mar- 
riage, suddenly  died.  Peter  had  been  much 
attached  to  Ivan,  and  the  care  which  he  always 
manifested  for  his  wife  and  family*  showed 
that  he  always  kept  thetenderest  recollections 
of  him.  He  had,  however,  now  but  little  time 
to  grieve,  for  the  preparations  for  the  cam- 
paign entirely  absorbed  him,  though  a  bodily 
ailment  rendered  him  for  the  moment  power- 
less. An  injury  to  his  foot  had  produced  a 
malady  which  kept  him  long  in  bed,  and 
which,  for  a  time,  excited  the  fears  of  his 
family  and  his  friends.  As  soon  as  he  got 


PETER  ON  THE  BOURSE  AT  ARCHANGEL 


thousand  men,  selected  from  various  regi- 
ments, were  told  off  into  a  naval  battalion  or 
marine  regiment,  for  service  both  by  sea  and 
land.  Lefort  was  made  admiral,  Colonel 
Lima,  a  Venetian  who  had  been  for  eight 
years  in  the  Russian  service,  vice-admiral, 
and  a  Frenchman,  Colonel  Balthazar  de 
Losier,  rear-admiral.  Peter  himself  took  the 
rank  of  captain,  and  commanded  the  van- 
guard. 

It  is  from  Peter's  return  from  his  first 
campaign  against  Azof  that  the  real  begin- 
ning of  his  reign  should  be  dated.  It  was 
then,  for  the  first  time,  that  he  took  an  active 
concern  and  participation  in  all  affairs  of 
government.  By  a  singular  coincidence,  it 


better,  he  started  southward  with  a  small 
suite,  and,  contrary  to  habit,  took  a  week  for 
the  journey  to  Vor6nezh.  His  illness  and 
the  bad  state  of  the  roads  were  sufficient 
reason  for  this.  Once  there,  he  forgot  his 
troubles  and  immediately  set  to  work,  and 
five  days  later,  in  writing  to  the  boyar 
Streshnef  to  send  immediately  some  ash 
timber  from  the  woods  of  Tula  for  oars,  as 
such  could  not  be  found  near  Voronezh, 

*  Three  of  the  five  daughters  of  the  Tsar  Ivan  sur- 
vived their  father — Catherine,  Anna  and  Prascovia. 
Anna  became  Empress  of  Russia,  Catherine  married 
the  Duke  of  Mecklenburg,  and  her  infant  grandson 
occupied  the  Russian  throne  for  a  short  time  as 
Ivan  VI. 


892 


PETER    THE    GREAT. 


RURAL    POST    IN     RUSSIA.       (FROM     A    PAINTING    BY     N.    SWERTCHKOFF.) 


ad'ds  :  "According  to  the  divine  decree  to 
our  grandfather  Adam,  we  are  eating  our 
bread  in  the  sweat  of  our  face."  The  ship- 
carpenters  were  slow  in  arriving,  and  many 
of  the  workmen  deserted,  the  weather  was 
most  unfavorable,  for  the  thaw  was  suc- 
ceeded by  so  violent  a  cold  that  the  river 
froze  again,  and  storms  of  hail  and  sleet  were 
so  severe  that  on  two  occasions  the  men 
were  prevented  from  working  for  three  or 
four  days.  Peter  was  obliged  not  only  to  set 
an  example,  but  to  act  at  once  as  overseer 
and  master-shipwright. 

All  this  time,  Lefort  was  ill  in  Moscow 
with  an  abscess  in  his  side,  occasioned  by  a 
fall  from  his  horse  on  the  march  from  Azof. 
He  did  what  he  could,  and  at  all  events 
cheered  the  Tsar  somewhat  with  his  constant 
friendly  letters. 

Finally,  on  the  i2th  of  April,  three  galleys, 
the  Principium,  chiefly  the  work  of  Peter  him- 
self, the  St.  Mark  and  the  St.  Matthew,  were 
launched  with  due  ceremony,  and  two  others 
followed  shortly  after.  Almost  the  same 
day,  the  troops  collected  at  Voronezh  began 
to  load  the  barges,  and  on  the  ist  of  May 
the  generalissimo  Shem  raised  on  his  galley 
the  great  flag  bearing  the  arms  of  the  Tsar — 


a  representation  of  the  sea  with  ships,  and 
St.  Peter  and  St.  Paul  in  the  corners — which 
had  been  embroidered  at  a  convent  in 
Moscow,  and  brought  to  Voronezh  by  Franz 
Timmermann.  This  flag  is  still  preserved  at 
Moscow.  Two  days  later,  the  first  division 
of  the  great  caravan  of  galleys  and  barges 
set  out.  The  voyage  down  the  rivers 
Voronezh  and  Don  took  three  weeks,  but 
Peter,  with  his  lighter  and  swifter  galleys, 
overtook  the  advance,  and,  on  the  26th  of 
May,  reached  the  town  of  Tcherkask,  the 
capital  of  the  Don  Cossacks,  where  he  came 
up  with  the  division  of  General  Gordon, 
which  had  preceded  him  by  ten  days,  and 
that  under  General  Rigeman,  which  had 
marched  from  Tambof.  While  waiting  for 
his  main  forces,  he  busied  himself  with  draw- 
ing up  regulations  for  the  new  fleet  while  in 
action,  and  with  loading  on  barges  the  artil- 
lery and  stores  which  had  been  brought 
from  the  camp  to  Tcherkask  the  previous 
autumn. 

On  the  night  of  May  28th,  a  messenger 
arrived  from  Flor  Minaef,  the  Ataman  of  the 
Don  Cossacks, — who,  with  two  hundred  and 
fifty  men,  had  been  sent  to  make  a  recon- 
noissance  at  the  mouth  of  the  river, — that 


PETER    THE    GREAT. 


he  had  seen  two  Turkish  ships  and  had 
vainly  attacked  them.  Peter  immediately 
communicated  this  fact  to  Gordon  and  has- 
tened off  down  the  river,  followed  by  Gordon 
and  his  troops.  He  stopped  at  the  forts  of 
Kalantchf,  where  the  arrival  of  the  army  was 
hailed  with  joy.  At  a  council  of  war,  it  was 
resolved  that  the  Tsar,  with  his  nine  galleys, 
on  which  he  embarked  one  of  Gordon's 
regiments,  and  Flor  Minaef,  with  forty  Cos- 
sack boats  holding  twenty  men  each,  should 
steal  down  the  river  and  attack  the  Turkish 
ships,  while  General  Gordon  made  a  military 
diversion  in  front  of  Azof.  Unfortunately, 


returned  to  the  fort,  where  he  arrived  about 
midnight.  The  next  morning,  at  ten  o'clock, 
he  visited  Gordon  and  told  him  the  story, 
"  looking  very  melancholy  and  grieved," 
but  at  three  o'clock  he  came  back  with  other 
news.  What  he  had  not  been  willing  to 
order,  the  river  pirates  of  the  Don  had  done 
of  their  own  accord.  By  his  directions,  the 
Cossacks  had  waited  at  the  mouth  of  the 
river  for  observation.  During  the  day,  either 
not  noticing  the  Cossacks,  or  disregarding 
them,  the  Turks  had  transhipped  to  the 
lighters  a  quantity  of  stores  and  ammunition, 
and  sent  them  under  a  convoy  of  Janissaries 


THE    MESSAGE    TO    AZOF    ON    THE    NAME*S-DAY    OF    THE    TSAR. 


a  strong  north  wind  blew,  which  rendered 
the  shallow  channel  still  more  shallow.  The 
galleys  got  aground,  and  were  at  last  obliged 
to  return  to  Kalantchi,  or,  as  it  was  then 
called,  N6vo-Serghiefsk,  in  commemoration 
of  St.  Sergius,  the  protector  of  the  country 
of  the  Don.  Peter  had  himself  embarked 
on  a  Cossack  boat  and  gone  to  sea,  but  he 
found  not  two  but  thirty  large  Turkish  ships, 
with  a  considerable  number  of  galleys,  barges 
and  lighters.  It  seemed  to  the  Tsar  too 
great  a  risk  to  attack  these  large  ships  with 
the  light  Cossack  boats,  and  he  therefore 


up  the  river  to  Azof.  A  force  of  about  five 
hundred  Janissaries  was  landed  at  a  mouth 
of  the  river,  and  succeeded  in  getting  to  the 
town  with  a  considerable  number  of  arms. 
When  night  came  on,  the  Cossacks,  who 
were  on  the  watch,  attacked  the  lighters  and 
succeeded  in  capturing  ten  of  them  with  all 
their  contents,  while  the  Turkish  soldiers, 
thoroughly  frightened,  after  almost  no  resist- 
ance, went  back  to  their  ships.  The  news 
of  this  attack  brought  such  consternation 
that  the  whole  of  the  Turkish  fleet  weighed 
anchor  and  sailed  off,  with  the  exception  of 


894 


PETER    THE    GREAT. 


two  vessels,  which  could  not  be  got  ready 
soon  enough.  One  of  them  the  Turks  them- 
selves sank,  and  the  other  was  burnt  by  the 
Cossacks.  In  this  way,  a  large  quantity  of 
stores  and  ammunition  was  obtained,  and 
thirty  men  were  taken  prisoners.  Two  hours 
later,  Peter  was  again  on  his  way  to  the 
mouth  of  the  river,  and  was  speedily  followed 
by  Gordon  with  a  detachment  of  troops. 

In  the  course  of  a  few  days,  the  remainder 
of  the  army  and  of  the  fleet  arrived  at  Novo- 
Serghiefsk,  and  Peter  stationed  himself,  with 
his  whole  flotilla  of  twenty-nine  galleys,  at  the 
mouth  of  the  river,  and  completely  cut  off  the 
Turkish  communications  with  Azof.  By  his 
directions,  General  Gordon  began  to  erect 
two  small  forts,  which  were  completed  under 
the  personal  supervision  of  the  Tsar,  and  when 
they  were  thoroughly  armed  and  garrisoned, 
Peter  wrote  to  Ramodanofsky  :  "We  are  now 
entirely  out  of  danger  of  the  Turkish  fleet." 

The  garrison  of  Azof  had  apparently  not 
expected  the  return  of  the  Russians,  and 
had  taken  no  precautions  to  fill  up  the 
trenches  dug  in  the  previous  year.  The 
besieging  troops  had,  therefore,  little  more 
to  do  than  to  take  their  old  places;  and, 
owing  to  their  increased  numbers,  they  were 
able  fully  to  occupy  the  necessary  positions, 
and  especially  to  guard  the  approaches 
along  the  river-bank.  At  first,  there  was 
little  opposition  on  the  part  of  the  garrison. 
One  small  sortie  was  made,  which  was 
speedily  repulsed.  On  the  2oth  of  June, 
the  Tartars  from  the  steppe  crept  up  to  the 
camp,  and  attacked  it  in  force,  but  the 


PETER    IN    THE     DRESS    HE    WORE     AT    AZOF.       (FROM    AN 
ENGRAVING    IN    POSSESSION     OF     SENATOR    RAVINSKI.) 


A    PEASANT    GIRL    FROM    NEAR    TULA. 

noble  cavaliers  from  Moscow  repulsed  them 
and  pursued  them  for  several  miles.  Nura- 
din  Sultan  himself  went  off  with  an  arrow 
in  his  shoulder,  shot  by  a  Kalmuk.  Ayiika- 
Khan  had  promised  to  send  all  his  Kalmuks 
to  the  Russian  assistance,  but  only  a  small 
number  came  in  time;  the  main  body 
arrived  a  few  days  after  Azof  was  taken. 

A  large  Turkish  fleet  which  came  up  to 
the  mouths  of  the  Don  was  for  two  weeks 
inactive,  and  finally,  when  about  to  land 
some  troops  to  relieve  the  siege,  the  Pasha 
was  so  frightened  at  the  appearance  of  the 
Russian  flotilla,  that  the  fleet  immediately 
set  sail,  and  went  out  to  sea. 

Peter  lived  chiefly  on  his  galley  Prin- 
cipium,  looking  after  the  Turkish  fleet, 
coming  from  time  to  time  to  the  camp 
before  Azof  to  see  how  operations  were 
progressing,  and  personally  opening  the 
cannonade  on  the  evening  of  the  26th  of 
June.  The  Tartars  in  the  steppe  made 
several  other  attacks,  which  were  repulsed, 
and  on  the  name's-day  of  the  Tsar,  the 
Russians,  believing  that  the  besieged  were 
in  sore  straits,  shot  a  letter  into  the  town  by 
means  of  an  arrow,  offering  the  garrison 
honorable  terms,  and  promising  to  permit 
them  to  leave  the  city  with  all  their  arms 
and  baggage.  The  answer  was  a  cannonade. 


PETER    THE   GREAT. 


895 


Meanwhile,  the  soldiery  were  discon- 
tented even  at  this  short  siege,  and  the 
general  opinion  was  that  the  work  should 
be  prosecuted  in  the  old  fashion,  by  means 
of  piling  up  an  enormous  mound  of  earth, 
which  could  be  gradually  pushed  forward 
so  as  to  fill  up  the  ditch  and  topple  over 
upon  the  wall.  General  Gordon  resolved 
to  comply  with  this  feeling,  and  no  less  than 
15,000  men  worked  daily  on  the  construc- 
tion of  this  enormous  mound.  On  the  2ist 
of  July,  when  the  mound  had  already  be- 
come so  high  and  so  great  that  the  streets 
of  the  town  could  be  seen  and  the  Rus- 
sian and  Turkish  soldiers  came  even  to 
hand-to-hand  conflicts,  the  engineers  arrived 
who  had  been  sent  by  the  Emperor  Leopold, 
in  compliance  with  the  Tsar's  request. 
They  had  not  hastened  on  their  way,  for 
they  had  been  fully  three  months  in  going 
from  Vienna  to  Smolensk,  two  weeks  more 
from  Smolensk  to  Moscow,  and  about  a 
month  from  Moscow  to  Azof.  They  ex- 
cused the  slowness  of  their  journey  by  the 
fact  that  at  Vienna  they  did  not  expect  such 
an  early  start,  and  could  learn  nothing  from 
the  Russian  envoy  Nephimonof,  who  pro- 
fessed to  have  no  knowledge  of  the  military 
operations.  Their  words  were  confirmed 
by  Ukraintsef.  the  official  in  charge  of  the 
foreign  office,  who  naively  reported  that  he 
had  sent  no  information  about  the  army  to 
Vienna,  lest  Nephimonof  should  publish 
it.  Peter  was  irritated  by  what  seemed  to 
him  stupidity,  and  with  his  own  hand  wrote 
to  Vinius  the  following  amusing  letter : 

"  Thy  brother-in-law  has  mightily  angered  me  that 
he  keeps  Kosma  (Nephimonof)  without  any  news 
of  our  war.  Is  he  not  ashamed  ?  Whatever  they 
ask  about  he  knows  nothing,  and  yet  he  was  sent 
for  such  a  great  matter.  In  his  dispatches  to  Nikita 
Moiseievitch  (Zotof)  he  writes  about  Polish  matters 
when  there  was  no  need  at  all,  but  the  side  of  the 
Emperor,  where  was  our  hope  of  alliance,  he  has  for- 
gotten. Has  he  any  healthy  good  sense  ?  Intrusted 
with  state  matters,  and  conceals  what  everybody 
knows.  Just  tell  him  that  what  he  does  not  write 
on  paper  I  will  write  on  his  back." 

The  imperial  engineers  were  surprised 
at  the  magnitude  of  the  mound,  but,  never- 
theless, expected  little  profit  from  it.  They 
advised  mines  and  trendies  in  the  ordinary 
way,  and  immediately  gave  instructions 
about  the  placing  of  batteries,  by  which  an 
impression  was  soon  made  on  one  of  the 
bastions.  Hitherto,  no  injury  had  been 
done,  except  to  the  houses  in  the  town, 
which  had  all  been  ruined ; 

The  Zaporovian  Cossacks  had  become 
disgusted  with  the  slowness  of  the  siege 


and  with  the  heavy  work  on  the  mound, 
and  were,  besides  that,  experiencing  a  short- 
ness of  commons.  They  therefore  made  a 
private  arrangement  with  the  Cossacks  of 
the  Don,  and,  on  the  2yth  of  July,  without 
orders,  two  thousand  of  them,  headed  by 
Lizogiib,  their  chief,  and  Flor  Minaef,  the 
Ataman  of  the  Don,  stormed  the  fortifica- 
tion from  the  mound,  and  made  an  entry 
into  the  town  Had  they  been  properly 
supported  by  the  soldiery  and  Streltsi, — 
who  remained  inactive  in  their  camp, — they 
would  have  taken  it.  As  it  was,  they  were 
beaten  back,  and  obliged  to  take  refuge  in 
the  corner  bastion,  which  they  held.  Here 
they  were  at  last  reinforced  by  the  troops 
of  General  Golovin,  and  succeeded  in 
taking  another  bastion.  The  next  day,  the 
commander-in-chief  resolved  on  a  general 
assault,  but  meanwhile  the  Turks  decided 
to  surrender  on  condition  that,  with  their 
wives  and  children,  they  should  be  allowed 
to  leave  the  place  with  all  the  honors  of 
war.  This  was  granted.  The  Pasha  sur- 
rendered all  the  Russian  prisoners  without 
question,  and  gave  up  those  Dissenters  who 
had  taken  refuge  in  Azof,  who  had  not 
already  become  Mussulmans.  The  only  dis- 
pute was  about  the  deserter  and  traitor 
Janson,  who  had  become  a  Mussulman. 
The  Russians  insisted  on  his  surrender, 
and  the  Pasha  finally  yielded.  Janson 
was  brought  into  the  Russian  camp,  tied 
hand  and  foot,  screaming  to  his  guards : 

"  Cut  off  my  head,  but  don't  give  me  up 
to  Moscow!" 

The  next  morning,  the  garrison,  fully 
armed,  with  all  their  banners,  marched 
through  the  Russian  lines,  some  to  the 
Turkish  fleet,  and  others  on  their  way  to 
the  steppe.  Crowded  together  and  without 
order,  they  presented  a  sorry  spectacle,  and 
only  the  Pasha  kept  up  his  dignity.  On 
'reaching  the  place  of  embarkation,  where 
the  generalissimo  Shein  was  on  his  horse 
awaiting  him,  the  Pasha  thanked  him  for 
the  manner  in  which  he  had  kept  his  word, 
lowered  his  standards  to  him  as  a  token  of 
respect,  and  bade  him  good-bye. 

After  the  departure  of  the  Turks,  ten 
Russian  regiments  marched  into  the  utterly 
ruined  town,  where  not  one  house  was  un- 
injured. The  Zaporovian  Cossacks  could 
not  be  restrained,  and  went  everywhere  in 
search  of  plunder.  Nothing  of  any  impor- 
tance was  found,  although  cellars  and  secret 
recesses  were  dug  up  in  all  directions. 
There  came,  however,  to  the  Government 
a  considerable  booty  in  the  shape  of  cannon 


896 


PETER    THE    GREAT. 


and  powder,  but  there  were  almost  no  small 
arms,  and  bullets  were  entirely  wanting. 
Indeed,  during  the  last  resistance  offered  to 
the  Cossacks  in  the  final  assault,  it  was 
necessary  to  cut  gold  ducats  into  small 
pieces  to  furnish  ammunition.  The  small  fort 
of  Lutik,  situated  at  the  mouth  of  the  Dead 
Donetz,  was  not  included  in  the  capitulation, 
but  speedily  surrendered,  and  the  Russians 
were  left  in  full  possession  of  the  mouths 
of  the  Don. 


Turkish  mosques  were  speedily  transferred 
into  Christian  churches,  and  there  Peter 
heard  divine  service  before  starting  on  his 
homeward  march. 

The  fall  of  Azof  produced  great  conster- 
nation at  Constantinople.  The  Bey  of 
Konich  and  two  other  officials  were  exe- 
cuted, all  the  Janissaries  who  could  be 
found  were  arrested  and  their  goods  seques- 
tered, while  the  poor  commandant  who  had 
surrendered  the  town,  Kala'ilikoz  Ahmed 


PLOWING    ON    THE    STEPPE. 


One  of  the  first  tasks  which  Peter  set 
himself  was  to  find  a  suitable  harbor  for 
his  flotilla,  and  for  that  purpose  he  explored 
the  coast  on  each  side.  The  mouths  of  the 
Don,  which  were  shallow  or  deep,  accord- 
ing to  the  wind,  afforded  no  secure  refuge, 
and  it  was  necessary  to  find  a  place  which 
might  be  turned  into  a  safe  port.  After 
several  days  spent  in  surveying,  when  he 
slept  on  the  bench  of  a  galley,  almost  fast- 
ing, Peter  decided  on  an  anchorage  under 
a  cape  long  known  to  the  Cossacks  as 
Tagan-rog,  or  the  Tagan  Horn.  Here  he 
ordered  the  construction  of  a  fortress,  as 
well  as  of  another  a  little  beyond,  at  Otch- 
akofsky-r6g,  and  then  intrusted  the  im- 
perial engineer  Laval  with  the  task  of 
properly  fortifying  the  town  of  Azof,  so 
that  it  should  be  impregnable  to  assaults 
by  the  Turks.  The  town  was  cleared  as 
speedily  as  possible  of  its  ruins,  and  two 


Pasha,  was  obliged  to  fly  to  save  his  life,  and 
lost  the  whole  of  his  property,  which  was 
confiscated  to  the  Treasury. 


CHAPTER  XXXI. 

THE    EFFECT     OF    THE    VICTORY.       BUILDING 
A    FLEET    IN    EARNEST. 

IT  can  be  imagined  with  what  delight  the 
news  of  the  surrender  was  received  at  Mos- 
cow. "  When  your  letter  came,"  wrote 
Vinius  to  the  Tsar,  '•'  there  were  many  guests 
at  the  house  of  Leo  Kirilovitch  (Naryshkin). 
He  immediately  sent  me  with  it  to  the 
Patriarch.  His  Holiness,  on  reading  it, 
burst  into  tears,  ordered  the  great  bell  to  be 
rung,  and,  in  the  presence  of  the  Tsaritsa 
and  of  the  Tsarevitch,  gave  thanks  to  the 
Almighty.  All  talked  with  astonishment  of 


PETER    THE    GREAT, 


897 


the  humility  of  their  lord,  who,  after  such 
a  great  victory,  has  not  lifted  up  his  own 
heart,  but  has  ascribed  all  to  the  Creator  of 
heaven,  and  has  praised  only  his  assistants, 
although  every  one  knows  that  it  was  by 
your  plan  alone,  and  by  the  aid  you  got  from 
the  sea,  that  such  a  noted  town  has  bowed 
down  to  your  feet." 

All  Peter's  friends  burst  into  a  chorus  of 
praise  for  his  bravery,  his  genius,  his  humility, 
likening  him  to  St.  Peter,  to  Samson  and  to 
David.  In  reply  to  the  congratulations  of 


Vinius,  Peter  quoted  the  verse,  "  the  laborer 
is  worthy  of  his  hire,"  and  suggested  that  it 


898 


PETER    THE    GREAT. 


would  be  a  meet  and  proper  thing  to  honor 
him  and  the  generalissimo  with  a  triumphal 
arch,  which  might  be  placed  near  one  of  the 
bridges  over  the  Moskva.  While  the  arch 
was  being  built  and  the  preparations  made 
for  the  solemn  entry  of  the  troops,  Peter 
busied  himself  for  several  weeks  in  visiting 
the  iron-works  in  the  neighborhood  of  Tula. 
Here  he  undoubtedly  met  the  celebrated 
blacksmith  Nikita  Demidof,  who  subse- 
quently received  those  grants  of  mining 
land  in  the  Ural  which  have  led  to  the 
immense  fortune  of  the  present  Demidof 
family.  Nikita  Demidof  was  already 
known  to  Peter,  at  least  by  reputation,  as 
the  cleverest  smith  and  iron-forger  in  all 
this  region.  On  the  road  from  Voronezh 
to  Tula,  the  Tsar  was  met  by  Mazeppa, 
who  presented  him  with  a  magnificent  saber, 
the  hilt  and  scabbard  of  which  were  studded 
with  precious  stones,  and  informed  him  of 
the  brave  deeds  done  by  the  Zaporovian 
Cossacks  during  the  summer.  It  seems 
that  about  fifteen  hundred  of  these  braves 
sailed  down  the  Dnieper  past  the  fortifica- 
tions of  Otchakof,  and  hovered  along  the 
Crimean  coast  until  they  met  three  merchant 
vessels  sailing  under  the  Turkish  flag  to 
Caffa.  Two  of  these  they  captured  and 
burned,  after  they  had  transferred  the  car- 
goes, the  guns  and  forty  prisoners  to  their 
boats.  Coasting  still  further  along,  they 
met  three  more  ships  coming  out  from  the 
Azof  Sea,  and  had  already  captured  one  of 
them,  when  three  Turkish  galleys  came  up. 
In  the  fight,  the  Cossack  commander  was 
killed,  and  some  confusion  ensued,  in  con- 
sequence of  which  they  turned  tail,  vigor- 
ously pursued  by  the  enemy.  Unfortunately 
for  them,  the  Turkish  commander  at  Otch- 
akof was  on  the  look-out,  and  they  were 
obliged  to  take  refuge  on  a  desert  island, 
where  they  concealed  their  booty.  Cross- 
ing to  the  main-land,  they  then  burnt  their 
boats,  and  marched  home  with  their  prison- 
ers. The  small  detachment  left  to  guard 
the  booty  was  betrayed  by  a  Turk,  and 
was  captured  after  a  long  struggle. 

After  the  Tsar  had  finished  his  inspection 
of  the  iron-works,  he  met  his  troops  at 
Kol6menskoe,  and  made  his  triumphal  entry 
into  Moscow  on  the  loth  of  October.  It  had 
been  very  long  since  the  Russians  had  had 
a  real  victory  to  celebrate,  not,  indeed,  since 
the  early  days  of  the  Tsar  Alexis,  and,  in  any 
case,  such  a  sight  was  new  to  Moscow.  The 
gilded  carriages  of  the  generalissimo  and 
the  admiral,  the  gorgeous  trappings  and  the 
rich  costumes  of  the  boyars,  the  retainers  in 


armor  and  coats  of  mail,  the  Streltsi  in  new 
uniforms,  the  triumphal  arch  with  its  pictures 
and  inscriptions,  presented  a  brilliant  spec- 
tacle ;  but  it  was  with  great  surprise,  and  not 
without  displeasure,  that  the  people  of  Mos- 
cow saw  their  Tsar  in  German  dress  and 
hat, — the  uniform  of  a  ship-captain, — 
walking  in  the  suite  of  the  Admiral  Lefort. 

The  success  of  the  Russian  arms  created 
a  deep  impression  everywhere  in  Europe, 
sometimes  of  astonishment,  sometimes  of 
admiration.  In  Warsaw,  it  was  not  hailed 
with  great  enthusiasm  by  the  governing 
classes.  King  Jan  Sobiesky  had  died  during 
the  summer,  and  the  Diet  had  as  yet  been 
unable  to  elect  a  successor.  The  French 
were  intriguing  for  the  election  of  the  Prince 
de  Conti,  a  nephew  of  the  great  Conde,  and 
had  succeeded  in  getting  the  election  trans- 
ferred to  a  general  assembly  of  the  Polish 
nobility.  Another  party  was  supporting  the 
claims  of  Augustus  the  Strong,  Elector  of 
Saxony,  and  it  was  believed  in  Moscow  that 
the  Pope  had  recommended  the  choice  of 
the  exiled  James  II.  of  England.  Even 
before  the  surrender  of  Azof,  a  Frenchman, 
Fourni,  who  was  returning  through  Warsaw 
after  having  conducted  some  foreign  officers 
to  Russia,  spoke  to  some  of  the  nobles  with 
praise  of  the  Russian  deeds  in  front  of  Azof, 
and  especially  of  the  acts  of  the  young 
Tsar.  The  senators  listened,  shook  their 
heads  and  said :  "  What  a  careless  and  reck- 
less young  man !  What  can  be  expected  of 
him  now?"  The  voievode  Maczincky  re- 
marked :  "  The  Moskals  ought  to  remember 
what  they  owe  to  the  late  King  Jan,  how  he 
raised  them  up  and  made  them  a  mighty 
people,  for  if  he  had  not  concluded  an  alliance 
with  them,  they  would  have  paid  tribute  to 
the  Crimea  until  now,  and  would  have  sat 
quietly  at  home,  while  now  they  are  getting 
polished."  To  this  the  voievode  of  Plock 
remarked  :  "  It  would  have  been  better  if 
they  still  sat  at  home.  It  would  be  no  hurt 
to  us.  After  they  have  got  polished,  and 
have  smelt  blood,  you  will  see  what  will 
come  of  it ;  though  may  the  Lord  God  never 
let  it  come  to  this !  " 

Nikitin,  the  Russian  Resident  at  Warsaw, 
received  the  news  of  the  capture  of  Azof  on 
the  8th  of  September,  during  divine  service, 
and  immediately  ordered  a  Te  Deum,  and 
fired  a  salute,  amid  the  hurrahs  of  the  wor- 
shipers. Four  days  later,  Nikitin,  in  a 
solemn  session  of  the  Senate,  gave  to  the 
Primate  the  Tsar*s  formal  letter  announcing 
the  event,  and  made  a  speech  in  which,  with 
all  the  flowery  language  of  the  time,  he  spoke 


PETER    THE    GREAT. 


899 


SABERS    OF    MAZEPPA,     CHIEF    OF    THE    COSSACKS    (IN    THE 
OF    TSARKOE    SELO). 

of  the  triumph  over  the  heathen,  urged  the 
Poles  to  advance  toward  Constantinople, 
and  assured  them  that  perhaps  Arabia  itself 
would  be  open  to  the  free  Polish  eagle ;  that 
now  was  the  time  for  a  crusade  against  the 
infidel;  that  now  was  the  time  to  conquer 
countries  and  gain  new  and  lawful  titles  for 
the  Polish  crown,  instead  of  using  titles  for- 
bidden by  treaties.  In  reply  to  the  threat 
in  the  concluding  words,  Nikitin  was  shortly 
afterward  informed  by  the  imperial  embas- 
sador  that  the  senators  had  been  frightened, 
and  had  resolved  that  in  future  the  King 
should  not  use  the  title  of  Grand  Duke  of 
Kief  and  Smolensk,  but  added  that  the 
nobility  were  not  very  glad  of  the  capture  of 
Azof,  although  the  common  people  were 
delighted.  A  few  days-  later,  formal  con- 
gratulations were  sent  to  the  Resident,  Te 
Deutns  were  chanted  in  all  the  churches,  and 


a  salute  fired ;  but,  at  the  same 
time,  negotiations  were  begun  with 
the  Tartars  and  with  Mazeppa. 
Sapieha,  the  hetman  of  Lithuania, 
even  tried  to  diminish  the  success 
of  the  Russian  arms  by  saying  to 
Nikitin  that  Azof  was  not  captured 
by  arms,  but  surrendered. 

If  there  were  any  at  Moscow — 
either  magnates  or  peasants — 
who,  in  the  general  joy,  thought 
that  with  the  capture  of  Azof  the 
day  of  sacrifices  was  past,  they  were 
grievously  disappointed.  They 
little  knew  what  ideas  were  already 
fermenting  in  Peter's  mind.  While 
in  front  of  Azof,  and  even  before  its 
capture,  Peter  had  written  to  the 
Venetian  Senate,  begging  them, 
for  the  profit  of  all  Christians,  to 
send  to  Moscow  thirteen  good 
shipwrights  who  could  construct  all 
sorts  of  vessels  of  war.  He  had 
already  the  design  of  establishing 
a  large  fleet  on  the  Black  Sea.  No 
sooner  had  the  festivities  in  Mos- 
cow ended  than,  at  a  general 
council  of  the  boyars,  it  was  de- 
cided to  send  three  thousand  fami- 
lies of  peasants  and  three  thousand 
Streltsi  and  soldiers  to  populate 
the  empty  town  of  Azof,  and  firmly 
to  establish  the  Russian  power  at 
the  mouth  of  the  Don.  At  a 
second  council,  Peter  stated  the 
absolute  necessity  for  a  large  fleet, 
and  apparently  with  such  con- 
UUSEUM  vincing  arguments,  that  the  As- 
sembly decided  that  one  should 
be  built.  Both  civilians  and  clergy  were 
called  upon  for  sacrifices.  Every  landed 
proprietor  possessing  ten  thousand  peasants' 
homes,  every  monastery  possessing  eight 
thousand,  was  obliged  to  construct  a  ship 
fully  equipped  and  armed,  which  should  be 
entirely  completed  not  later  than  the  month 
of  April,  1698.  The  merchants  were  called 
upon  to  contribute  twelve  mortar-boats,  all 
other  landed  proprietors  who  possessed  not 
less  than  a  hundred  peasants'  homes  were 
ordered  to  Moscow  to  enroll  themselves  into 
companies  for  the  construction  of  ships. 
Details  are  known  about  sixty-one  of  these 
companies,  of  which  nineteen  were  composed 
of  the  clergy.  The  ships  and  galleys  were 
to  be  built  at  Voronezh.  The  Government 
found  the  timber,  but  the  companies  were  to 
provide  the  metal-work,  the  cordage,  and  all 
the  other  equipments,  as  well  as  the  arma- 


goo 


PETER    THE   GREAT. 


ment.  Some  of  these  companies 
found  that  so  much  time  was  lost 
in  getting  the  material  together 
that  there  was  danger  of  their  not 
fulfilling  the  precise  orders  of  the 
Tsar,  and  of  being  exposed  to 
heavy  penalties.  For  that  reason, 
nearly  all  the  vessels  were  built  by  con- 
tractors, who  were  chiefly  foreigners  from 
the  German  suburb.  Among  these  we  notice 
particularly  Franz  Timmermann,  who  was 
also  a  Government  contractor,  the  Danish 
Resident,  Butenant  von  Rosenbusch,  and 
Ysbrandt  Ides,  who  had  recently  returned 
from  his  mission  to  China.  This  arrange- 
ment was  approved  by  the  Tsar,  and  most  of 
the  ships  were  ready  at  the  appointed  time. 
Ten  large  vessels  were  also  built  by  the  state. 
The  Venetian  Senate,  in  reply  to  the  re- 
quest of  the  Tsar,  sent  a  number  of  ship- 
wrights under  the  command  of  Captain 
Giacomo  Moro,  who  arrived  in  January, 
1697,  and  who  showed  such  great  skill  in 
the  construction  of  galleys  that  the  Tsar,  on 
sending  them  home  at  the  completion  of  their 
work,  expressed  to  the  Venetian  authorities 
his  liveliest  gratitude.  There  were,  besides, 
many  shipwrights  from  Denmark,  Sweden, 


VIEWS    IN    RIGA. 

and  Holland,  obtained  through  the  inter- 
vention of  Franz  Timmermann  and  of  the 
Danish  Resident.  Let  us  quote  again  from 
the  preface  of  the  Maritime  Regulations, 
where  Peter  says : 

"  On  this  account  he  turned  his  whole  mind  to  the 
construction  of  a  fleet,  and  when,  on  account  of  the 
Tartar  insults,  the  siege  of  Azof  was  begun,  and  after- 
ward that  town  was  fortunately  taken,  then,  accord- 
ing to  his  unchangeable  will,  he  did  not  endure 
thinking  long  about  it.  He  quickly  set  about  the 
work.  A  suitable  place  for  ship-building  was  found 
on  the  river  Voronezh,  close  to  the  town  of  that  name, 
skillful  shipwrights  were  called  from  England  and 
Holland,  and  in  1696  there  began  a  new  work  in 
Russia — the  construction  of  great  war-ships,  galleys, 
and  other  vessels ;  and  so  that  this  might  be  forever 
secured  in  Russia,  and  that  he  might  introduce  among 
his  people  the  art  of  this  business,  he  sent  many 
people  of  noble  families  to  Holland  and  other  states 
to  learn  the  building  and  management  of  ships ;  and 
that  the  monarch  might  not  be  shamefully  behind  his 
subjects  in  that  trade,  he  himself  undertook  a  journey 
to  Holland ;  and  in  Amsterdam,  at  the  East  India 


PETER  'THE    GREAT. 


901 


wharf,  giving  himself  up,  along  with  other  volunteers, 
to  the  learning  of  naval  architecture,  he  got  what  was 
necessary  for  a  good  carpenter  to  know,  and,  by  his  own 
work  and  skill,  constructed  and  launched  a  new  ship." 

For  the  purpose  mentioned  in  the  preced 
ing  extract,  Peter  sent  abroad  fifty  nobles, 
representatives  of  the  highest  and  most  dis- 
tinguished families  in  the  empire.  Twenty- 
eight  were  ordered  to  Italy,  especially  to 
Venice,  where  they  might  learn  the  art  of 
building  galleys,  the  remainder  to  Holland 
and  England.  Each  was  accompanied  by 
a  soldier.  According  to  their  instructions, 
they  were  to  make  themselves  familiar  with 
the  use  of  charts,  compasses  and  navigation; 
they  were  to  learn  thoroughly  the  art  of 


servants  of  Peter  and  his  successors ;  but  not 
one  distinguished  himself  in  naval  matters. 

CHAPTER   XXXII. 
RUSSIANS    ABROAD. 

DURING  ,the  reign  of  Ivan  the  Terrible 
and  his  son  Theodore,  young  Russian  theo- 
logical students  were  sometimes  sent  to 
Constantinople  to  learn  Greek,  and  Boris 
Godunof,  as  I  have  already  said,  sent  a 
number  of  youths  of  good  family  to  Liibeck, 
France  and  England,  for  the  completion  of 
their  education.  These  last  found  foreign  life 
so  attractive  that  only  two  of  them  returned. 


MODERN    TARTARS    OF    THE    VOLGA. 


ship-building,  and  were  to  become  practiced 
in  the  duties  of  common  sailors.  No  one 
was  to  return  without  permission,  and  with- 
out a  certificate  attesting  his  proficiency,  on 
penalty  of  the  confiscation  of  all  his  prop- 
erty. They  were  obliged  to  pay  their  own 
expenses.  Most  of  them  were  married  and 
had  children,  and  we  can  imagine  their 
feelings,  and  those  of  their  families,  on  being 
thus  summarily  sent  to  unknown  and  heret- 
ical lands  to  become  common  sailors.  In 
point  of  fact,  several  of  them  turned  their 
stay  abroad  to  profit,  and  like  Kurakin,  Dol- 
goruky,  Tolstoi  and  Hilkof,  became  skillful 
diplomates,  able  administrators  and  useful 


Under  the  Tsar  Alexis,  the  children  of  for- 
eigners living  in  Moscow  were  sometimes 
sent  abroad  at  the  expense  of  the  Government 
to  study  medicine,  and  even  a  Russian,  Peter 
Postnikof,  the  son  of  a  high  official  in  the 
foreign  office,  was  sent,  in  1692,  to  Italy,  for 
the  same  purpose.  He  passed  a  distinguished 
examination  at  Padua  in  1696,  and  received 
the  degree  of  Doctor  of  Medicine,  as  well  as 
that  of  Doctor  of  Philosophy.  He  did  not, 
however,  long  pursue  the  practice  of  the 
healing  art,  for  on  account  of  his  knowledge 
of  Latin,  French  and  Italian,  the  Govern- 
ment employed  him  in  diplomatic  affairs. 
With  these  exceptions,  most  of  the  Rus- 


902 


PETER    THE    GREAT. 


slans  who  had  traveled  abroad  up  to  this 
time,  had  been  either  pilgrims  or  diplo- 
matists.* To  some  of  these  pilgrims  we 
owe  highly  interesting  accounts  of  Constan- 
tinople and  the  Holy  Land,  both  before 
and  after  the  occupation  of  the  Imperial 
City  by  the  Turks.  The  Abbot  Daniel 
describes  his  meeting  with  Baldwin,  King 
of  Jerusalem,  in  1115.  The  Deacon  Igna- 
tius was  present  at  the  coronation  of  the 
Emperor  Manuel,  in  1391,  and  Simeon,  of 
Suzdal,  accompanied  the  Metropolitan  Isi- 
dore to  the  council  of  Florence  in  1439. 

The  pilgrims  were  occupied  chiefly  with 
relics  and  with  religious  ceremonies.  The 
diplomatists,  although,  like  all  good  Chris- 
tians, they  did  not  neglect  these,  were 
more  busied  with  court  ceremonies  and 
with  formal  official  relations.  Not  under- 
standing the  language  of  the  countries  to 
which  they  were  sent,  their  reports  are  very 
dry  and  meager,  and  taken  up  almost 
exclusively  with  exact  accounts  of  the  inter- 
views they  had  with  the  ministers  of  foreign 
affairs,  of  their  audiences  with  the  sover- 
eigns, and  of  their  disputes  on  points  of 
etiquette.  They  say  almost  nothing  about 
the  political  state  of  the  countries  in  which 
they  traveled.  Indeed,  they  were  not  in  a 
condition  to  obtain  information  on  these 
subjects.  They  had  not  sufficient  experi- 
ence of  political  life,  much  less  of  a  political 
life  differing  from  that  of  Russia,  to  know 
to  what  points  to  direct  their  attention,  or 
how  to  make  inquiries  through  an  inter- 
preter. It  is  difficult  to  see  what  impres- 
sion even  was  made  on  them  by  foreign 
countries,  or  whether  they  were  pleased  by 
a  life  so  different  from  that  at  home.  Inci- 
dentally, we  know  that  their  stay  abroad 
must  have  been  agreeable  to  them,  for  fre- 
quently some  members  of  the  suite  ran 
away  in  order  not  to  return  to  Russia.  We 
can  see,  too,  that  they  were  greatly  inter- 
ested in  the  canals  and  quays  at  Amster- 
dam, at  Bologna  and  Verona.  They  were 
much  pleased  with  the  magnificent  gardens 
of  Holland  and  Italy,  to  which  those  made 
for  the  Tsar  Alexis  were  so  far  inferior,  and 
in  these  their  admiration  was  especially 
excited  by  the  fish-ponds  and  fountains. 
Works  of  art  they  were  too  uncultivated 
and  unrefined  to  enjoy.  The  theater 


*  Occasionally,  but  rarely,  a  Russian  merchant 
ventured  abroad.  We  know  of  the  mishaps  of 
Laptef  (Chapter  xxviii.),  and  we  should  not  forget 
the  brave  merchant  of  Tver,  Athanasius  Nikitin, 
who  has  left  us  an  entertaining  story  of  his  journey 
through  India  in  1468. 


pleased  them  more,  but  here  they  were 
chiefly  struck  by  the  costumes  and  the 
scenery.  Ignorance  of  the  language  pre- 
vented them  from  appreciating  the  play 
or  the  acting,  and  the  greatest  opera- 
singers  were  to  them  so  many  "  wenches." 
Zoological  gardens  and  the  collections 
of  curiosities,  which  at  that  time  contained 
a  mixture  of  the  scientific,  the  rare,  the 
monstrous,  and  the  odd,  interested  them 
greatly.  Their  deepest  impressions  were, 
perhaps,  those  of  the  comfort,  as  well  as 
of  the  luxury,  of  western  life.  The  com- 
fort, probably,  they  appreciated  the  more. 
For  the  introduction  of  luxury,  little  more 
than  a  command  of  money  was  required  ; 
for  the  appropriation  of  comfort,  there  were 
necessary  an  organization  of  social  life  and 
a  careful  management  which  it  took  many 
long  years  to  naturalize  in  Russia.  Some 
of  the  more  observing  diplomates  did  indeed 
learn  something  of  public  life,  and  gained 
ideas  which  were  useful  to  them  at  home. 
The  financial  and  economical  reforms  of 
Alexis  Kurbatof  were  the  immediate  fruits 
of  what  he  had  learned  when  accompany- 
ing the  boyar  Sheremetief.  Ukramtsef 
would  never  have  been  the  skillful  diplo- 
matist he  was,  had  it  not  been  for  his  expe- 
rience in  several  embassies,  and  Zhelya- 
buzhky  owed  much  to  his  stay  in  London, 
and  his  journey  to  Italy.  In  nearly  all 
cases,  even  though  on  their  return  the  trav- 
elers sank  back  into  Russian  life  and  Rus- 
sian ways,  their  experience  in  the  west  must 
have  given  them  a  certain  enlargement  of 
mind,  and  a  certain  readiness  to  receive  new 
ideas  have  sensibly  weakened  their  prejudices 
against  the  west,  and  have  powerfully  aided 
in  the  Europeanization  of  Russia. 

The  most  illustrious  traveler  of  that  day 
was  the  boyar  Boris  Sheremetief.  He  had 
gone  to  Lemberg  in  1686,  to  receive  the 
ratification  of  the  Russian-Polish  treaty  by 
King  Jan  Sobiesky,  and  had  afterward 
announced  it  at  Vienna;  but,  in  1697,  after 
the  fatigue  of  his  campaigns  against  the 
Turks  and  Tartars,  he  asked  permission  to 
go  abroad  as  a  simple  traveler  for  the  pur- 
pose of  fulfilling  a  vow  which  he  had  made 
when  in  danger,  to  pray  at  the  tombs  of  the 
Holy  Apostles,  Peter  and  Paul,  at  Rome. 
This  request,  which  fell  in  so  well  with  the 
views  of  Peter  at  that  time,  was  readily 
granted,  and  Sheremetief  was  given  letters 
by  the  Tsar  to  the  King  of  Poland,  the 
Emperor  of  Austria,  the  Doge  of  Venice, 
Pope  Innocent  XII.  and  the  Grand  Master 
of  Malta.  Although  he  traveled  simply  as 


PETER    THE    GREAT. 


9°3 


a  tourist,  he  apparently  had  instructions  to 
inquire  into  the  relations  of  Venice,  and 
especially  of  Malta,  with  the  Orient,  and 
to  see  what  dependence  could  be  placed 
on  them,  or  what  aid  be  expected  from 
them,  in  case  of  the  continuation  of  the  war 
with  Turkey.  Sheremetief  left  Moscow  in 
July,  1697,  and  did  not  return  until  the 
end  of  February,  1699.  He  took  with  him 
a  numerous  suite, — among  them  as  his 
secretary  and  treasurer,  Alexis  Kurbatof, 
who  afterward  became  distinguished  as  a 
financial  reformer.  Sheremetief  traveled 
with  great  state,  and  his  whole  journey  cost 
him  the  sum  of  20.550  rubles,  equivalent 
now  to  about  $200,000  (^40,000),  fully 
ten  or  twelve  times  the  salary  usually  re- 
ceived by  the  embassadors.  He  was  re- 
ceived with  great  ceremony  and  honor  by 
the  rulers  of  the  countries  he  visited,  was 
feasted  and  entertained  by  the  nobles  of 
Venice,  Rome  and  Naples,  all  of  which  cities 
were  then  in  the  height  of  their  social  splendor; 
was  courted  by  the  Jesuits,  who  hoped  to  con- 
vert him,  and  through  him  to  unite  the  Rus- 
sian with  the  Catholic  church ;  he  was  made 
a  Knight  of  Malta,  and  was  the  first  Russian 
who  ever  received  a  foreign  decoration. 

In  general,  the  diplomatists  were  very 
badly  paid.  They  were  usually  given  twice 
the  salary  which  they  received  from  their 
official  positions  at  home,  in  addition  to 
presents  of  furs  and  provisions,  and  on  their 
return  usually  further  presents  of  furs.  Only 
a  small  portion  of  their  salary  was  paid  in 
advance,  and  that  chiefly  in  furs,  which 
they  had  to  sell  at  their  post  of  duty  in  order 
to  raise  money.  It  was  difficult  for  them 
to  draw  either  on  the  Government  or  on 
their  private  property,  as  the  commercial 
relations  of  Russia  with  foreign  countries 
were  at  that  time  such  that  bills  of  exchange 
on  Amsterdam  were  the  only  means  of 
sending  money  abroad.  They  were  there- 
fore obliged  to  travel  chiefly  at  their  own 
expense,  and  frequently  had  great  difficulty 
in  getting  paid  when  they  came  home. 
General  Gordon  was  obliged  to  wait  years 
for  the  payment  of  his  expenses  when  on  a 
special  mission  to  England.  The  burden 
thus  laid' on  diplomatists  was  not  inconsidera- 
ble. Their  suites  were  numerous.  Likhatchef, 
for  example,  had  twenty-eight  persons  with 
him,  and  the  suite  of  Tchemoddnof  was  so 
numerous  that  he  was  obliged  to  charter 
two  vessels  from  Archangel,  as  they  could 
not  all  be  accommodated  on  one.  They 
were  enjoined  also  to  give  proper  presents 
in  the  proper  places,  and  always  strictly  to 


pay  their  debts,  that  dishonor  might  not 
accrue  to  the  Government.  The  manner  of 
payment  by  furs  and  other  articles  of  com- 
merce, which  they  were  obliged  to  sell  in 
order  to  raise  money,  gave  them  sometimes 
more  the  air  of  commercial  travelers  and 
merchants  than  of  embassadors,  and  as  they 
were  naturally  desirous  of  getting  these 
wares — which  were  money  to  them — through 
the  custom-houses  free  of  duty,  disputes 
with  foreign  governments,  as  we  have  al- 
ready seen,  were  not  unfrequently  brought 
about.  Besides  this,  too,  they  were  some- 
times commissioned  to  make  sales  of  articles 
abroad  for  the  benefit  of  the  Government. 
Thus  Tchemoddnof  took  to  Italy,  on  behalf 
of  the  Government,  3,600  pounds  of  rhubarb, 
worth,  according  to  Russian  calculations,  five 
thousand  rubles,  and  sables  to  the  amount  of 
one  thousand  rubles.  The  speculation  was 
unsuccessful.  No  purchasers  could  be  found 
for  the  rhubarb,  because  it  had  been  injured 
at  sea,  and  on  account  of  the  difficulty  of  its 
transport  over  the  Apennines,  Tchemodanof 
was  obliged  to  leave  Leghorn.  But  few  of  the 
sables  were  sold,  and  these  at  very  low  prices. 
In  some  cases  the  Government  assisted  its 
envoys  by  lending  them  embroidered  robes 
of  state,  jewels,  plate  and  horse-trappings, 
which  had  to  be  exactly  accounted  for,  and 
given  back  to  the  Treasury  on  their  return. 

Not  the  least  interesting  information  con- 
tained in  the  reports  of  the  Russian  diplo- 
matists is  that  concerning  the  difficulties  of 
travel  in  those  days.  Journeys  by  water 
were  always  easier  and  cheaper  than  those 
by  land,  and  the  embassies  sent  to  England, 
Holland,  France  or  Italy  usually  went  by  sea 
from  Archangel,  although  in  so  doing  they 
were  obliged  to  spend  much  time,  and  in  the 
Mediterranean  to  expose  themselves  to  im- 
minent danger  of  capture  by  Turkish  and 
Barbary  pirates.  The  voyages  of  Likatchef 
and  Tchemodanof  from  Archangel  to  Leg- 
horn occupied  between  four  and  five  months, 
and  besides  the  pirates,  they  encountered 
icebergs  and  severe  tempests.  As  to  land 
travel,  the  journey  through  Turkey  was  too 
dangerous  and  difficult  to  be  for  a  moment 
considered.  In  Poland,  the  hostile  attitude 
of  the  magnates  was  such,  especially  during 
the  constant  intestine  difficulties,  that  it  was 
generally  desirable  to  avoid  that  country, 
and  there  were  often  reasons  for  not  passing 
through  the  territory  of  Riga.  In  traveling 
by  land,  too,  there  were  frequent  delays 
arising  from  difficulties  of  obtaining  horses, 
and  the  bad  manner  in  which  Russian  car- 
i  riages  were  constructed.  Sheremetief,  who 


9°4 

r 


PETER    THE    GREAT. 


TOWING    A     RUSSIAN     BARGE.       (FROM     AN     ETCHING    BY     REPIN.) 


took  five  months  and  a  half  for  his  journey 
from  Moscow  to  Cracow,  traveled,  as  long  as 
he  was  on  Russian  soil,  with  his  own  horses. 
After  crossing  the  frontier,  he  hired  them.  He 
frequently  made  only  five  or  six  miles  a  day. 
Even  outside  of  Russia,  a  journey  by  land 
was  necessarily  slow.  Sheremetief  took  a 
whole  month  to  go  from  Vienna  to  Venice,  and 
sixteen  days  for  his  return.  Tchemodanof 
was  eight  weeks  in  going  from  Venice  to 
Amsterdam,  and  Likatchef  five  and  a  half 
weeks  from  Florence  to  Amsterdam. 

Even  in  England,  the  roads  were  so  bad 
that  in  1703  the  Spanish  Pretender  Charles 
III.  (VI.)  was  fourteen  hours  in  driving  from 
London  to  Windsor,  although  he  stopped 
only  when  the  carriage  was  overturned  or 
stuck  in  the  mud.  There  were  great  diffi- 
culties in  crossing  the  mountains,  whether 
in  Switzerland  or  between  Vienna  and 
Venice.  Sheremetief  was  put  to  much 
trouble  and  expense  by  the  snow  near  Pon- 
tebba,  on  the  road  from  Tarvis,  and  was 
obliged  to  go  for  some  distance  on  foot. 
Likatchef  was  detained  three  days  by  a  snow- 
storm on  the  St.  Gothard.  Stage-coaches 
were  introduced  into  some  parts  of  Europe, 
especially  into  Brandenburg,  where  in  1676 
a  Frenchman  going  to  Berlin  expressed  his 
astonishment  that  one  could  travel  in  a 
coach  by  night.  A  pamphlet  which  appeared 
in  England  in  1673  tried  to  prove  that 
stage-coaches  were  injuring  trade  in  England, 
that  fewer  saddles,  boots,  spurs  and  pistols 
were  bought  than  formerly,  and  that  clothes 
were  not  worn  out  so  fast  since  men  could 
keep  dry  by  sitting  in  the  coaches,  by  which 
the  use  of  manufactured  articles  was  limited. 
It  was  alleged  that  traveling  by  stage-coach 
produced  effeminacy,  because  people  were 


not  exposed  to  the  weather,  and  that  travel- 
ing by  night  was  very  unhealthful. 

The  expenses  of  traveling  were  sometimes 
very  great,  even  for  a  small  party.  Likatchef 
paid  for  four  carriages,  a  baggage-wagon 
and  four  riding-horses,  to  go  from  Bologna 
to  Modena,  a  distance  of  about  twenty-four 
miles,  the  sum  of  154  thalers,  a  great  amount 
in  those  days. 

In  the  larger  towns,  there  were  sometimes 
good  inns.  Sheremetief  put  up  at  the 
"  Golden  Bull  "  at  Vienna,  and  at  an  inn  in 
Naples.  Montaigne,  we  all  remember,  when 
in  Rome  lodged  at  the  Albergo  dell'Orso, 
which  he  found  too  expensive  for  him.  The 
account  given  by  the  President  des  Brasses, 
in  1739,  of  the  inns  in  the  Italian  towns, 
especially  in  Rome,  shows  that  they  were 
not  particularly  comfortable.  In  the  smaller 
towns  and  villages,  the  inns  scarcely  provided 
more  than  shelter  for  the  horses,  and  travelers 
were  obliged  to  take  lodgings  in  some  private 
house.  The  Russian  diplomatists  usually 
had  recourse  first  to  the  merchants  at  Arch- 
angel, and  then  to  the  Dutch  merchants  in 
Amsterdam  who  had  relations  with  Russia, 
and  from  them  received  information  as  to 
their  road, — for  they  knew  almost  nothing 
of  geography, — and  letters  to  correspondents 
in  different  towns  who  obtained  for  them 
accommodation.  On  reaching  their  desti- 
nation, they  usually  had  accommodation 
provided  for  them  by  the  government  to 
which  they  were  accredited.  This  some- 
times happened  in  other  places.  Zhelya- 
buzhky  was  lodged  in  Massa  at  the  Ducal 
castle,  and  in  Trent  Tchemodanof  was 
entertained  by  the  archbishop.  Both  at 
Rome  and  at  Vienna,  Sheremetief  was  able 
to  hire  large  furnished  apartments  in  palaces. 


SEVEN  SECONDS. 


9°5 


We  have  now  followed  Peter  through  his 
boyhood  and  early  youth.  I  have  endeav- 
ored to  give  some  slight  idea  of  the  Russia 
of  that  day  and  of  the  temper  of  the  times, 
of  the  surroundings  in  which  Peter  lived,  of 
the  events  which  affected  the  course  of  his 
life  and  developed  his  character,  of  the  kind 
of  education  which  he  received,  and  of  the 
school  through  which  he  passed.  I  shall  at 
present  make  no  attempt  further  to  discuss 
or  criticise  his  character.  We  have  come  to 
the  end  of  a  period  in  his  intellectual  and 


moral  development,  as  well  as  in  the  history 
of  Russia.  On  his  return  from  Europe,  Peter 
was  already  a  man,  not  only  physically  but 
intellectually  and  morally,  and  we  shall  now 
have  to  consider  his  militant  and  working 
life,  his  immense  activity  both  as  a  ruler  and 
a  man,  his  struggles  with  foreign  enemies 
and  with  domestic  discontent,  with  his 
friends  and  with  himself.  We  shall  see 
what  he  strove  to  accomplish  for  Russia, 
and,  later  on,  what  were  the  permanent 
results  of  his  work  and  his  life. 


END    OF    PART    I. 


SEVEN    SECONDS. 


THE  clock  stands  on  the  shelf,  between 
The  rare  old  vase  and  painted  screen ; 
Behind,  the  mirror  wide  and  clear 
Repeats  the  graceful  chandelier, 
Repeats — as  they  were  wrought  in  air 
With  more  than  mortal  art  and  care — 
Three  crayoned  heads,  in  simple  frames 
That,  in  the  mirror's  magic,  seem 
But  as  the  windows  where  they  sit 
Still  weaving  with  their  fragrant  frames, 
In  songs — like  lilies  on  a  stream — 
The  poet's  passion,  pathos,  wit; 
And  hearing,  far-off  called,  their  names, 
As  they  who  listen  in  a  dream, 
No  longer  marveling  at  it. 

Repeats  the  draperies'  sweep  and  fall, 
The  ruddy  basses  of  the  wall, 
The  table,  spread  with  tempting  fare, 
Its  tints  and  curves  of  dainty  ware, 
The  living  faces  circled  there; 
The  host  and  hostess  subtly  wise 
In  gracious  care  for  child  and  guest, 
Supplying  needs  ere  they  arise, 
Yet  never  losing  thought  nor  jest, 
Each  answering  with  the  fit  replies 
And  hospitably  kindling  eyes 
That  stir  sweet  pulses  in  the  breast. 

Ah,     they    who've    shared    this     pleasant 

scene 

(And  they  are  scores  and  scores,  I  ween) 
Will  know  what  noble  home  I  mean, 
What  warm,  true  hearts  and  cordial  cheer 
In  simple  phrase  depicted  here; 
For  well  they  know,  scarce  any  land 
Hath  home  and  host  at  its  command 
So  great  of  heart,  so  clean  of  hand. 
VOL.  XX.— 59. 


Yet,  when  the  clock  that  stands  between 
The  rare  old  vase  and  painted  screen 
Struck  seven,  I  heard  my  host  no  more; 
The  scene  receded  as  a  shore 
From  which  one  sails,  and  fine  and  clear, 
As  borne  through  miles  of  atmosphere, 
From  belfry  high  in  summer  heaven, 

The  clock  throbbed  on  from  one  to  seven. 

*         *  *  *  *         * 

Strange  shadow-forms  before  me  rose 
And  moved  in  cloister's  dim  repose, 
And  I,  who  ne'er  had  been  in  Rome, 
Heard  holy  mass  'neath  Peter's  dome, 
And  under  glow  of  Roman  skies 
Returned  the  glance  of  Roman  eyes! 
Methought  I  heard  the  fabled  Rhine, 
Between  fair  banks  of  purpling  vine, 
Breathe  Lorelei's  unceasing  moan 
To  ancient  ruin's  darkened  stone; 
And  saw  hot  streets  of  Florence  shine 
Before  that  mighty  Florentine, 
The  awful  shadow  of  whose  eyes 
Enfoldeth  Hell  and  Paradise ! 

There  sad  Savonarola  went, 

With  hands  like  woman's,  claspt  in  prayer; 

Here  Romola,  her  spirit  bent 

In  that  contraction  of  despair 

That  murdered  hope,  but  could  not  kill 

The  grandeur  of  her  selfless  will; 

Beneath  the  coil  of  her  gold  hair — 

As  she  were  Mercy's  patron  saint — 

She  passeth  corridor  and  stair, 

With  food  and  smiles  for  them  that  faint. 

While,  in  this  hour  of  evil  hap, 

Soft,  in  a  contadina's  lap, 

Beneath  the  tender  shade  of  trees, 

The  graceful  Tito  sleeps  at  ease. 


go6 


TO  BOLT  OR   NOT  TO  BOLT. 


And  then  methought  some  vesper  bell 

Tolled  soft  and  slow  the  dying  knell, — 

And  girls  in  wreaths  of  violets 

Now  dance  to  clash  of  castanets, 

And  high,  where  dazzling  glaciers  hung, 

I  heard  a  merry  jodel  sung, 

And  saw,  from  dizzy  heights  of  ice, 

A  hand  that  plucked  an  edelweiss ! 

Then  gave  the  sea  a  mighty  roll, 
And  passed  beneath  me  like  a  scroll ! 


I  stood  upon  my  native  shore, 

In  dear  New  England  woods  once  more; 

The  heart's-ease  clustered  at  my  feet, 

Around  me  climbed  the  bitter-sweet 

Just  then  the  clock,  that  stands  between 
The  rare  old  vase  and  painted  screen, 
Struck     the     last     tone    of    seven !  —  My 

host 

Was  spreading  butter  on  his  toast, 
His  kind  dark  eyes  were  bent  on  me. 
"  I  see  you  like  my  clock,"  said  he. 


TO  BOLT  OR  NOT  TO  BOLT. 


THE  object  of  this  paper  is  to  conjugate, 
interrogatively,  the  political  verb  "  to  bolt " 
through  the  present  and  imperfect  tenses  of 
the  potential  mood.  May,  can,  or  must  I 
bolt?  Might,  could,  would,  or  should  I 
bolt?  What  are  the  limits  of  party  alle- 
giance ?  Is  a  member  of  a  political  party 
ever  at  liberty  to  refuse  to  vote  for  the  nom- 
inees of  his  party,  or  for  any  of  them  ?  By 
abstention,  or  by  voting  for  one  or  more  of 
the  candidates  of  the  opposition,  does  he 
cease  to  be  a  member  of  the  party  with 
which  he  has  commonly  acted  ?  These  are 
the  questions  to  be  considered. 

To  many  readers  such  a  discussion  will 
appear  superfluous,  if  not  trivial.  That  it  is 
the  right,  and  may  be  the  duty,  of  individ- 
ual members  of  a  political  party  to  protest 
at  the  ballot-box  against  measures  adopted 
or  nominations  made  by  their  own  party, 
will  seem  to  many  a  truism.  But  there  is  a 
large  class  of  active  political  workers  by 
whom  it  will  not  be  so  regarded.  When  a 
respectable  political  convention,  like  one 
that  lately  met  in  Connecticut,  and  that 
counted  among  its  delegates  many  of  the 
best  men  in  the  State,  unanimously  pledges 
all  the  Republicans  of  the  State  to  vote  for 
the  Republican  presidential  candidate  about 
to  be  nominated  at  Chicago,  "  whoever  he 
may  be,"  it  is  plain  that  the  right  and  the 
duty  of  independent  political  action  is  not 
so  clearly  recognized  as  it  ought  to  be. 
How  it  is  possible  for  wise  and  prudent  men 
to  commit  themselves  to  such  a  declaration, 
or  even  silently  to  consent  to  it,  passes  my 
comprehension.  Instances  of  this  sort  are 
not  rare,  however;  and  many  utterances  of 
press  and  platform  might  be  quoted  in  which 
the  right  of  bolting  is  vehemently  denied. 
A  discussion  of  the  subject  that  may  be 


somewhat  elementary  cannot,  therefore,  be 
superfluous. 

Most  voters  in  this  country  are  connected, 
more  or  less  closely,  with  one  or  the  othe* 
of  the  two  great  political  parties.  We  shall 
assume  for  the  present  that  this  is  the  best 
arrangement ;  that  the  conscientious  citizen 
can  best  discharge  his  political  duties  by 
connecting  himself  with  that  party  whose 
methods  seem  to  him  the  least  objection- 
able, and  whose  principles  the  most  wise 
and  patriotic.  Having  connected  himself 
with  this  party,  the  question  arises,  to  what 
extent  he  shall  submit  his  own  judgment 
concerning  measures  and  candidates  to  the 
decision  of  the  majority. 

That  members  of  voluntary  associations 
must  often  defer  to  the  decision  of  the 
majority  is  not  questioned.  No  individual 
can  expect  that  all  the  acts  of  the  organiza- 
tion will  approve  themselves  to  his  intelli- 
gence, nor  that  all  the  persons  put  in  nom- 
ination will  represent  his  ideals.  The  party 
will  sometimes  come  short  of  the  standards 
of  its  most  thoughtful  members,  and  some- 
times will  go  far  beyond  them;  but  those 
who  freely  criticise  its  action  may  continue 
to  support  it,  because  their  agreements  with 
it  are  more  numerous  and  more  positive 
than  their  disagreements,  because  they  be- 
lieve in  the  general  course  of  its  policy,  and 
think  that  it  ought  to  be  kept  in  power. 

While  thus  supporting  the  party  in  most 
of  its  measures,  and  voting  for  the  great 
majority  of  its  candidates, — even  for  many 
who  are  not  altogether  acceptable,  and 
whose  nomination  they  have  opposed, — these 
thoughtful  voters  are  sometimes  brought 
into  places  where  they  cannot  act  with  theii 
party.  Up  to  a  certain  point  they  will  defei 
to  the  judgment  of  the  majority ;  beyond 


TO   BOLT  OR   NOT  TO  BOLT. 


907 


that  point  they  will  not  go.  Measures  will 
sometimes  be  proposed  which  they  cannot 
support,  but  which  they  will  denounce  and 
resist  with  all  their  might.  Men  will  some- 
times be  placed  in  nomination  for  whom 
they  cannot  vote,  but  whom  they  will  do 
their  utmost  to  defeat. 

In  both  the  parties,  men  are  found  who 
sometimes  venture  thus  to  put  themselves 
in  opposition  to  the  majority.  I  say  that 
such  men  are  found  in  each  of  the  parties, 
but  the  question  now  under  discussion  is 
whether  or  not  a  man  who  takes  the  liberty  of 
differing  with  the  majority  of  his  party,  and  of 
expressing  his  dissent  by  his  votes,  continues, 
after  this  action,  to  be  a  member  of  the  party. 

It  is  said  by  many  active  politicians  that 
the  man  who  declines  to  vote  for  any  regu- 
lar nominee,  by  that  act  puts  himself  out  of 
the  party.  If  this  is  true,  the  number  of 
intelligent  members  in  good  standing  cannot 
•"be  large  in  either  party ;  for  there  are  few 
voters  who  have  not,  at  one  time  or  another, 
for  one  reason  or  another,  voted  against  the 
regular  nominee. 

Others  of  the  party  managers  decline  to 
discuss  the  question  of  the  actual  membership 
of  these  occasional  dissenters,  but  they  assert 
that  such  men  have  no  right  to  be  in  the 
party,  though  they  may  continue  to  claim  a 
place  in  it.  Those  who  cannot  submit  to 
the  majority,  they  say,  ought  to  leave  the 
party.  If  they  have  not  left  it,  so  much  the 
worse  for  their  consistency  and  their  honor. 
The  very  condition  of  the  existence  of  a 
party,  say  these  gentlemen,  is  that  the 
majority  shall  rule ;  and  when  a  man  cannot 
submit  to  that  rule,  he  ought  not  to  claim 
membership  in  the  party. 

What  is  meant  by  this  maxim  that  the 
majority  must  rule  ?  In  civil  government, 
under  democratic  forms,  we  understand  it. 
When  the  will  of  the  majority  has  been  fairly 
expressed  at  the  ballot-box,  the  minority 
must  offer  no  armed  nor  forcible  resistance. 
It  does  not  mean  that  there  should  be  no 
opposition  to  this  decision  of  the  majority, 
and  no  peaceable  attempts  to  reverse  it. 
Everything  that  the  minority  can  do  by  polit- 
ical methods,  by  agitation  and  by  voting,  to 
secure  a  repeal  of  the  measure  to  which  they 
were  opposed,  they  have  a  perfect  right  to 
do,  and  are  bound  to  do,  if  in  their  judg- 
ment the  measure  was  unwise  or  iniquitous. 

This  maxim  that  the  majority  must  rule 
cannot  even  be  forced  to  mean  that  there 
must  never  be,  on  the  part  of  a  good  citi- 
zen, any  hesitation  about  obeying  the  laws 
i  enacted  by  the  majority.  Doubtless,  the 


good  citizen  will,  as  a  rule,  yield  obedience 
to  laws  fairly  enacted,  even  though  he  may 
be  convinced  of  their  unwisdom;  but  even 
here  fealty  finds  its  limits.  Sometimes  laws 
will  be  framed  that  a  good  citizen  cannot 
obey.  He  will  not  forcibly  resist  them,  but 
he  will  not  yield  obedience  to  them  ;  he  will 
go  to  prison  first.  The  authority  of  the 
government  he  honors  by  peaceably  endur- 
ing the  penalty  of  disobedience,  while  he 
protests  by  his  disobedience  against  the 
injustice  and  iniquity  of  this  particular  en- 
actment. Such  was  the  attitude  taken  by 
a  great  multitude  of  citizens  toward  the 
Fugitive  Slave  Law.  The  law  commanded 
all  good  citizens  to  aid  the  marshal  in  cap- 
turing fugitive  slaves.  Hundreds  of  thou- 
sands of  voters  at  once  declared  that  they 
would  never  do  this  thing;  that  they 
would  make  no  factious  resistance  to  the 
officers  engaged  in  the  execution  of  the 
law,  but  rather  than  perform  the  service 
required  by  the  law,  they  would  be  punished 
by  fine  or  imprisonment. 

This  is  not  an  isolated  case.  Instances 
of  a  similar  nature  have  occurred  under  all 
free  governments.  It  is  not  a  rare  thing  to 
find  men  who  for  conscience'  sake  refuse  to 
obey  laws  enacted  by  the  majority  of  their 
fellow-citizens.  They  are  not  always  the 
worst  people  in  the  land.  Many  of  the  most 
precious  rights  now  possessed  by  men  are 
the  fruit  of  such  conscientious  disobedience. 

Even  in  government,  therefore,  the  maxim 
that  the  majority  must  rule  cannot  be  quoted 
to  forbid  independent  thinking  or  independ- 
ent action.  The  scriptural  injunction, 
"  Let  every  soul  be  subject  unto  the  higher 
powers,"  must  be  interpreted,  even  by  those 
to  whom  the  scripture  is  a  rule,  in  the  light 
of  such  words  as  those  of  the  apostles  to 
the  Sanhedrim  :  "  Whether  it  be  right  in  the 
sight  of  God  to  hearken  unto  you  more  than 
unto  God,  judge  ye ;  for  we  cannot  but 
speak  the  things  that  we  have  seen  and 
heard."  The  citizen  reserves  the  moral 
right  not  only  to  work  for  the  repeal  of  the 
law  that  violates  his  conscience,  but,  in  ex- 
treme cases,  even  to  disobey  it,  and  take 
the  consequences.  When  he  does  this,  he 
does  not  cease  to  be  a  citizen.  Should  the 
men  who  refused  to  obey  the  Fugitive  Slave 
Law  in  America,  and  the  men  who  now 
denounce  as  infamous  the  Contagious  Dis- 
eases Act  in  England,  be  regarded  as  out- 
laws ?  Should  a  citizen  who  thus  finds 
himself  restrained  by  conscience  from  obey- 
ing or  executing  bad  laws  proceed  to  ex- 
patriate himself?  If  the  whole  course  of 


908 


TO  BOLT  OR   NOT  TO  BOLT. 


the  government  were  offensive  to  him,  if 
the  majority  of  its  acts  seemed  to  him  unjust 
or  oppressive,  doubtless  he  would  emigrate; 
but  this  is  not  the  case.  Should  his  oppo- 
sition to  one  particular  measure,  which  he 
deems  unjust,  take  away  his  rights  of  citi- 
zenship, or  lead  him  to  feel  that  he  must  in 
honor  forfeit  them  ? 

Even  in  the  nation,  then,  the  principle 
that  the  majority  must  rule  cannot  be  pushed 
to  the  extent  of  requiring  an  absolute  com- 
pliance on  the  part  of  every  citizen  with 
every  act  of  the  majority.  The  obligations 
of  justice  and  righteousness  are  higher  than 
any  that  can  be  imposed  by  the  will  of  the 
majority ;  and  the  individual  who  believes 
that  justice  and  righteousness  are  sacrificed 
by  laws  enacted  by  the  will  of  the  majority 
is  justified,  not  in  armed  resistance,  but  in  a 
refusal  to  obey  these  laws.  So  much  of  the 
right  of  private  judgment  as  this  must  be 
conceded  to  the  patriot ;  to  deny  him  this 
is  to  assail  the  foundations  of  morality. 

The  measure  of  independence  which  is 
claimed  by  the  citizen  cannot  be  denied  to 
the  partisan.  Fealty  to  party  cannot  be 
a  stronger  obligation  than  fealty  to  the 
government  of  the  nation.  If  it  would  be 
immoral  to  insist  that  the  citizen  must  always 
submit  his  conscience  to  the  majority  of  his 
countrymen,  and  must  never  oppose,  even 
by  political  methods,  the  acts  of  this  major- 
ity, it  is  still  more  immoral  to  insist  that  the 
partisan  must  hold  his  judgment  in  sus- 
pense, and  must  never  venture  to  antago- 
nize the  majority  of  his  party.  It  is  only  by 
political  methods  that  the  bolter  does 
oppose  his  party.  His  action  in  the  party 
is  no  more  destructive  or  revolutionary 
than  that  of  the  opposition  in  the  govern- 
ment. If  the  maxim  that  the  majority 
must  rule  forbids  the  minority  of  the  party 
to  oppose  the  measures  or  the  nominees  of 
the  party,  it  also  forbids  the  opposition  to 
work  for  the  overthrow  of  the  administration 
and  the  repeal  of  obnoxious  laws. 

"  But  this,"  says  the  political  machinist, 
"  is  an  utter  misconception  of  the  whole 
case.  A  party  is  a  voluntary  association  of 
individuals  for  political  purposes,  and  the 
condition  of  its  existence  is  that  the  major- 
ity shall  rule  in  its  councils.  That  is  the 
very  foundation  on  which  a  political  party 
stands." 

Here,  again,  we  join  issue  with  the  machin- 
ist. The  party,  if  it  has  a  right  to  live,  is 
not  the  mere  creature  of  a  convention.  It 
stands  for  certain  principles.  It  aims  at 
certain  definite  ends.  The  men  who  formed 


it  were  not  drawn  together  by  the  cohesiv< 
power  of  public  plunder,  but  by  they/  devotior 
to  these  principles  and  their  desire  to  attait 
these  ends.  It  was  their  agreement  upoi 
these  ideas  and  purposes  that  formed  then 
into  a  party — not  the  bald  and  unprinciplec 
compact  that  the  majority  should  rule. 

A  party  in  a  free  country  which  can  shov 
a  reason  for  its  existence  has  the  conditioi 
of  its  existence  supplied.  All  it  needs  to  d( 
is  to  publish  its  purposes  and  prove  that  it  i 
going  to  work  in  a  sensible  way  to  accom 
plish  them.  When  its  standards  are  thu 
lifted  up,  those  to  whom  they  are  attractivi 
will  flock  around  them.  Intelligent  mei 
who  join  the  party  do  so  with  the  under 
standing  that  they  will  support  it  only  s< 
long  as  it  adheres  to  the  principles  on  whicl 
it  was  organized,  and  shapes  its  policy  ii 
such  a  way  as  to  secure  them.  When  th< 
party  managers  forget  the  objects  for  whicl 
the  party  was  formed,  or  manage  its  affair 
in  such  a  way  as  to  defeat  those  objects,  thei 
fealty  to  the  party  requires  the  overthrov 
of  this  management.  If  this  can  be  dom 
in  the  caucuses,  well  and  good  ;  if  not,  i 
ought  to  be  done  at  the  polls.  The  tern 
porary  check  thus  given  to  the  party  ma; 
serve  to  drive  the  bad  managers  from  power 
and  to  recall  the  party  to  its  own  standards 

A  party  that  is  led  by  men  who  an 
deserving  of  confidence,  and  that  is  workin) 
for  worthy  and  practicable  ends,  in  a  straight 
forward  and  sensible  way,  ought  to  have  n< 
difficulty  in  keeping  up  its  organization  am 
in  securing  its  full  share  of  the  popular  vot 
without  resorting  to  any  rigid  methods  o 
party  discipline.  To  say  that  a  party  thu 
managed  could  not  succeed  in  this  country 
is  to  say  that  free  government  is  a  failure  h 
this  country.  A  party  that  is  led  by  mei 
who  are  not  deserving  of  confidence,  and  tha 
is  working  in  crooked  and  corrupt  ways  fo 
no  intelligible  or  patriotic  ends,  ought  not  t< 
succeed  in  this  country  nor  anywhere  else. 

In  the  party  whose  principles  are  sound 
whose  methods  are  open,  and  whose  leader 
are  wise,  party  discipline  is  superfluous.  Ii 
the  other  sort  of  party  it  is  mischievous. 

In  the  earlier  and  purer  days  of  the  politi 
cal  organizations,  very  little  is  heard  of  tin 
obligation  to  support  the  nominees  of  th< 
party.  The  vigorous  cracking  of  the  parti 
whip  is  a  pretty  sure  sign  that  corruptioi 
has  crept  into  the  management,  that  tin 
men  in  power  have  ceased  to  work  fo 
worthy  ends,  and  have  come  to  regard  thi 
party  as  a  machine  for  gathering  and  distrib 
uting  the  spoils  of  office.  A  man  who  think; 


TO  BOLT  OR  NOT  TO  BOLT. 


909 


hat  that  is  what  a  political  party  is  for,  may 
easonably  complain  of  those  who  venture 
o  bolt  the  regular  nominations.  And  as  a 
natter  of  fact,  the  doctrine  of  the  wicked- 
less  of  bolting  is  principally  taught  by  men 
o  whom  the  spoils  are  the  chief  concern, 
ind  who  do  not  see  how  it  is  possible  for  a 
>arty  to  continue  in  existence  after  it  has 
ost  the  offices.  The  vigorous  preaching  of 
his  doctrine,  instead  of  dissuading  the  intel- 
igent  voter,  generally  serves  to  suggest  to 
lira  that  the  time  has  come  when  bolting  is 
a  order. 

But  some  of  the  stricter  partisans,  while 
idmitting  that,  under  certain  circumstances, 
>olting  may  be  allowable,  deny  that  it  can 
>e  honorably  practiced  by  any  man  who  has 
aken  part  in  a  caucus  or  a  nominating  con- 
rention.  Every  man  who  goes  into  such  a 
:aucus  or  convention,  they  say,  binds  himself 
o  vote  for  the  persons  nominated.  To  refuse 
o  vote  for  the  nominee  is  an  act  of  perfidy. 

On  the  theory  that  the  caucus  is  a  politi- 
:al  pool,  made  up  by  persons  all  of  whom 
lave  selfish  purposes  to  serve,  this  claim 
vould  have  some  color.  If  the  offices  are 
egarded  as  the  proceeds  of  a  fund  contrib- 
ited  by  a  surrender  on  the  part  of  each 
nember  of  the  caucus  of  his  own  preten- 
ions,  and  to  be  distributed  by  a  vote  of  the 
aucus,  then  the  man  who  will  not  abide  by 
he  decision  is  a  mean  man.  But  this  is 
lot  exactly  the  view  of  the  caucus  taken  by 
ome  of  those  who  occasionally  visit  such 
Lssemblies.  They  have  no  selfish  interests 

0  serve.     They  have  no  pretensions  to  sur- 
ender.     They  ask  nothing  and  want  noth- 
Qg  from  the  caucus  except  the  privilege  of 
xpressing   their    minds.      The    caucus    is 
ailed  by  the  party  with  which  they  are  in 
ubstantial    agreement,   and   for   the   great 
oajority  of  whose   candidates    they    have 
>een  in  the  habit  of  voting.     They  some- 
imes  take  the  liberty  of  scratching  a  name, 
mt  they  prefer,  when  the  nominations  are 
lot   too   bad,  to   vote   the   regular  ticket. 
Naturally,  they  would  like  to  have  some- 
hing  to  say  about  these  nominations.     If 
he  caucus  proceeds,  in  opposition  to  their 
vishes,  to  nominate  an  unfit  candidate,  how 
Iocs  it  become  a  perfidious  act  for  them  to 
efuse  to  vote  for  him  ?     If  a  man  goes  into 

1  caucus  and  asks  for  a  nomination  for  him- 
;elf  and  fails  to  get  it,  then  it  may  look  bad- 
y  for  him  to  refuse  to  vote  for  the  person 
vho  is  nominated ;    but  the  doctrine  that 
he  independent  voter  who  wants  no  office 
s  debarred  the  right  of  voting  against  a  bad 
nan  because  he  took  part  in  the  caucus  that 


nominated  him,  is  a  doctrine  hard  to  be 
understood. 

One  of  the  things  most  offensive  to  the 
machinist  is  the  presence  in  caucuses  of 
men  who  have  distinctly  announced  before- 
hand that  they  will  not  vote  for  certain  can- 
didates whose  names  are  likely  to  be  brought 
before  these  caucuses.  "  If  you  do  not  mean 
to  vote  for  my  candidate  in  case  he  is  nom- 
inated," says  the  machinist,  "  what  right 
have  you  to  come  into  the  caucus?  If  you 
mean  to  oppose  him  in  any  case,  it  would 
be  much  more  honorable  in  you  to  stay 
away  from  the  caucuses  and  conventions 
that  are  proceeding  to  nominate  him." 

I  must  beg  the  reader  not  to  credit  me 
with  the  invention  of  this  reasoning.  This 
antagonist  is  not  a  man  of  straw.  I  have 
taken  these  words  from  the  lips  of  political 
teachers  of  intelligence  and  high  standing. 
They  have  been  addressed  to  me,  within  ten 
days,  by  one  who  protested  that  I  ought  not 
to  take  part  in  a  caucus,  because  I  had 
declared  I  would  not  vote  for  one  of  the 
candidates  whose  name  was  to  be  considered 
in  that  caucus.  The  protestant  was  not  a 
boss  or  a  political  corruptionist,  either,  but 
a  respectable  and  fair-minded  man.  Let 
me  plead,  then,  to  this  indictment  as  though 
I  were  myself  on  trial. 

In  the  first  place,  I  would  say  to  the 
objector,  I  do  not  choose  to  assume  that 
your  candidate  is  going  to  be  nominated.  The 
caucus  is  not  called  simply  to  nominate  him, 
but  to  decide  whether  he  or  somebody  else 
shall  be  the  candidate.  If  all  those  who  are 
opposed  to  him  attend  the  caucuses,  perhaps 
his  nomination  can  be  prevented.  If  the 
man  is  unfit  for  the  office,  it  is  my  duty  to 
attend  the  caucus  and  do  what  I  can  to 
prevent  the  nomination.  I  have  seen  worse 
men  than  he  is  nominated  by  this  party — 
men  for  whom  I  could  not  vote.  I  cannot, 
therefore,  assume  on  the  other  hand  that 
this  man  will  not  be  nominated.  It  looks, 
indeed,  as  though  he  would  be,  unless  a 
most  energetic  protest  were  made  against 
his  candidacy.  I  cannot  and  will  not  vote 
for  him.  Is  it  not,  therefore,  the  duty  of 
all  who  think  as  I  do  to  speak  their  minds 
before  this  caucus  meets,  as  well  as  in  the 
caucus,  that  those  who  are  managing  the 
canvass  in  his  interest  may  know  what  they 
can  depend  upon  ?  If  I  failed  to  do  so,  I 
might  be  accused  of  bad  faith  ;  but  I  cannot 
see  why  that  charge  should  be  made  against 
me  for  announcing  my  purpose  to  oppose 
in  the  caucus  and  at  the  polls  a  man  whom 
I  regard  as  unworthy.  I  oppose  the  nomi- 


gio 


TO  BOLT  OR   NOT  TO  BOLT. 


nation  of  this  man  as  a  party  man,  because 
I  want  my  party  to  succeed,  and  because  I 
believe  that  under  his  leadership  it  would 
be  defeated. 

I  shall  oppose  his  election,  if  he  is  nomi- 
nated, also  as  a  party  man  ;  because,  though 
I  wish  the  party  to  succeed,  I  believe  that 
it  would  be  better  for  it  to  be  beaten  than 
to  succeed  with  such  a  candidate.  I  believe 
that  it  is  always  wholesome  for  a  thoroughly 
good  party  to  be  defeated  when  it  nominates 
a  thoroughly  bad  candidate.  I  believe  that 
the  elements  which  are  identified  with  this 
candidacy  are  in  the  highest  degree  detri- 
mental to  the  health  and  the  future  useful- 
ness of  the  party,  and  that  the  only  way  to 
save  the  party,  or  to  keep  it  in  a  condition  in 
which  it  will  be  worth  saving,  is  to  purge 
it  of  these  bad  elements.  Therefore,  as  one 
who  believes  in  this  organization  and  wishes 
to  preserve  it  from  destruction,  I  shall  vote 
against  this  candidate  if  you  nominate  him. 

I  shall  vote  against  him  on  other  grounds 
which  to  you  may  not  be  intelligible,  and 
which  I  will  not  now  go  over;  but  on  the  low 
ground  of  fidelity  to  the  highest  interests 
of  my  party  I  claim  the  right  to  oppose  this 
candidate  in  the  canvass,  in  the  caucus  and 
at  the  polls. 

It  is  certain  that  there  are  a  good  many 
voters  in  the  country  who  sustain  a  relation 
to  the  two  political  parties  very  much  like 
that  which  I  have  now  described.  There 
are  Republicans,  for  example,  who  generally 
vote  the  Republican  ticket,  who  approve  the 
policy  of  the  Republican  party  on  the  whole, 
and  who  would  be  glad  to  see  that  party 
maintained  in  power.  They  are  not,  how- 
ever, what  are  known  as  "  thick  and  thin  " 
Republicans.  They  do  not  believe  that  the 
Republicans  monopolize  the  righteousness 
and  the  Democrats  the  iniquity  of  the  land. 
They  are  not  ready  to  say  what  so  many 
of  their  party  are  saying  in  these  days,  that 
they  would  rather  vote  for  the  worst  Repub- 
lican in  the  country  than  for  the  best 
Democrat.  Such  talk  savors  to  them  of 
infatuation.  The  frenzy  of  apprehension 
into  which  many  partisans  lash  themselves 
just  before  election,  in  view  of  the  possible 
success  of  the  other  party,  appears  to  them 
quite  absurd.  They  would  greatly  prefer 
that  their  own  party,  under  wise  leaders, 
should  keep  the  control  of  the  government, 
but  they  believe  that  success  would  make 
the  other  party  cautious  and  conservative ; 
and  they  have  no  fear  that  the  republic 
would  take  any  serious  detriment  in  the 
hands  of  any  Democratic  rulers  who  are 


likely  to  be  chosen.  As  Mr.  Adams  said  in 
his  speech  to  the  Young  Republicans  at 
New  York  not  long  ago,  they  look  at  the 
two  neighboring  States  of  New  York  and 
New  Jersey,  the  one  under  Democratic  rule 
and  the  other  under  Republican,  and  are 
unable  to  see  that  the  one  State  is  going  to 
destruction  any  faster  than  the  other.  And 
when  they  compare  two  successive  adminis- 
trations, like  that  of  Governor  Robinson, 
the  Democrat,  and  that  of  Governor  Cornell, 
the  Republican,  in  New  York  State,  they 
can  by  no  means  discover  that  contrast,  as 
of  darkness  with  light,  which,  on  the  theory 
of  the  screaming  partisan,  ought  to  force 
itself  upon  their  notice. 

When  John  Morrissey  said,  a  few  years 
ago,  that  he  would  vote  for  the  devil  if  that 
"  favorite  son  "  of  another  section  should 
get  the  regular  Democratic  nomination,  they 
thought  the  sentiment  immoral.  When  a 
delegate  to  the  Republican  Convention  at 
Worcester  said  the  same  thing  the  other  day, 
in  view  of  the  possible  selection  of  the  same 
candidate  by  his  party,  they  thought  it  no 
more  moral.  In  short,  these  moderate  Re- 
publicans are  able  to  conceive  of  contin- 
gencies in  which  they  would  vote  for  the 
Democratic  candidate  rather  than  for  the 
candidate  of  their  own  party.  So  much 
liberty  as  this  they  reserve  for  themselves 
in  their  political  action.  They  have  occa- 
sionally exercised  this  liberty,  and  they  may 
do  it  again. 

It  is  to  be  presumed  that  there  is  also  a 
considerable  number  of  men  who  have  affil- 
iated heretofore  with  the  Democratic  party 
who  hold  substantially  the  same  relation  to 
that  party. 

Now,  inasmuch  as  a  party  is,  in  a  certain 
sense,  a  voluntary  association,  it  is,  no 
doubt,  within  the  power  of  each  of  the  par- 
ties, speaking  through  its  representatives  in 
some  general  convention,  to  read  out  of  its 
membership  all  those  persons  who  venture 
thus  to  decide  for  themselves  whether  they 
will  support  the  regular  nominations  or  not. 
If  the  Republicans  at  Chicago,  or  the 
Democrats  at  Cincinnati,  had  distinctly  an- 
nounced in  their  platforms  that  they  want 
nobody  henceforth  to  take  any  part  in  their 
caucuses  or  conventions,  or  to  claim  any 
privileges  of  membership,  who  will  not 
promise  beforehand  to  support  all  the  regu- 
lar nominees  of  the  party,  whoever  they  may 
be,  that  declaration  would  have  greatly  sim- 
plified matters.  A  large  number  of  persons 
who  have  been  in  the  habit  of  acting  with 
the  two  parties  would,  no  doubt,  have  with- 


TO  BOLT  OR  NOT  TO  BOLT. 


911 


drawn  from  all  relations  with  them,  and 
party  discipline  would  be  easily  maintained. 
If  this  is  what  the  party  leaders  wish,  I  sub- 
mit that  they  are  bound  to  say  so  explicitly, 
that  we  may  have  an  authoritative  declara- 
tion of  the  conditions  of  membership  in  each 
of  the  political  parties.  Those  of  us  who 
have  been  accustomed  heretofore  to  exer- 
cise some  independence  in  our  political 
action,  will  then  know  exactly  what  to  do. 
We  shall  be  very  sure  not  to  intrude  into 
caucuses  and  conventions  that  are  called 
upon  this  basis. 

We  have  not,  however,  been  favored 
hitherto  with  any  such  declaration  of  politi- 
cal high-churchisrn.  Here  and  there  some 
thick  and  thin  partisan  has  flung  it  in  our 
faces  that  we  were  acting  dishonorably  in 
attending  caucuses  where  we  would  not 
bind  ourselves  to  vote  for  all  the  nominees 
of  the  caucuses,  whoever  they  might  be; 
and  latterly,  since  the  party  machines  have 
been  running  a  little  more  briskly,  these 
outgivings  have  taken  on  in  some  cases  a 
semi-official  tone ;  but  in  general  we  have 
been  given  to  understand  that,  in  spite  of 
our  known  disposition  to  think  for  ourselves, 
our  votes  would  not  only  be  cheerfully 
counted  for  the  candidates  of  the  party,  but 
we  would  also  be  tolerated  in  making  such 
suggestions  concerning  the  party  policy  as 
might  occur  to  us.  I  am  not  able  to  speak 
of  the  attitude  assumed  by  the  Democratic 
party  toward  this  class  of  voters,  but  the 
action  of  the  Republican  party  in  several 
cases  has  been  exactly  the  reverse  of  that 
on  which  the  thick-and-thin  partisans  are 
now  insisting.  At  the  Republican  State 
Convention  of  1873,  Mr.  Benjamin  F.  But- 
ler, that  illustrious  expounder  of  political 
ethics,  submitted  the  following  proposition  : 

"  Whereas,  The  great  principle  of  obedience  to 
the  will  of  the  majority  underlies  all  Republican 
governments,  and  is  the  sole  test  of  fealty  to  party  ' 
organization,  and  no  honorable  man  ought  or  should  j 
desire  to  take  part  in  a  political  convention  who 
does  not  abide  by  its  action  when  fairly  expressed ; 
and  whereas,  Mr.  Henry  M.  Green,  elected  a  dele- 
gate and  holding  a  seat  in  this  convention,  has 
publicly  declared  that  he  will  not  be  bound  by  the 
nomination  of  this  convention  in  case  Benjamin  F. 
Butler  is  its  candidate  for  governor ;  therefore, 

"  Resolved,  That  Henry  M.  Green  be  debarred  from 
taking  any  part  in  the  proceedings  of  this  conven- 
tion." 

That  resolution  was  squelched  by  a  vote 
of  586  to  406,  and  thus  the  Republican 
party  of  Massachusetts  put  its  official  foot 
on  the  doctrine  that  bolting  is  dishonorable. 

In  1875,  the  Massachusetts  State  Conven- 


tion adopted   the  following  resolution,  re- 
ported by  Senator  Dawes  : 

"  It  is  therefore  declared  that  the  Republican 
party  of  Massachusetts  will  support  no  man  for 
official  position  whose  personal  character  is  not  an 
absolute  guaranty  of  fidelity  to  every  public  trust ; 
and  they  invoke  the  condemnation  of  the  ballot-box 
upon  every  candidate  for  office  who  fails  of  this  test, 
whatever  be  his  party,  name  or  indorsement.'1'' 

The  very  last  Republican  convention  of 
the  same  State  unanimously  adopted  the 
following  luminous  statement  of  the  doctrine 
of  party  allegiance : 

"  The  duty  of  all  Republicans  loyally  to  support 
the  candidates  of  the  party,  and  the  duty  of  nomi- 
nating conventions  to  present  candidates  who  are 
acceptable  to  all  Republicans,  are  reciprocal  duties, 
of  equal  force  and  obligation." 

The  last  named  of  these  duties  comes  first 
in  the  order  of  time,  and  when  it  is  not  per- 
formed the  other  obligation  ceases  to  bind. 

Such  is  the  doctrine  of  party  allegiance  as 
clearly  set  forth  by  high  Republican  author- 
ity, and  never,  so  far  as  I  know,  retracted 
by  any  representative  body.  The  recogni- 
tion of  the  right  of  private  judgment  and 
independent  action  could  not  be  more  dis- 
tinctly made.  These  deliverances  give  that 
class  of  Republicans  to  which  I  have  referred 
all  the  liberty  that  they  have  ever  claimed. 

Much  complaint  has  been  made  of  late 
years  that  citizens  of  intelligence  and  char- 
acter neglect  the  caucuses,  leaving  them  to 
be  managed  by  the  professional  politicians 
and  their  tools.  I  have  supposed  that  there 
was  some  reason  for  this  complaint.  It 
would  seem  that  men  of  this  class  have 
recently  been  striving  to  make  amends  for 
this  neglect.  For  now  we  hear  voices  warn- 
ing them  that  if  they  come  into  the  caucuses 
they  must  leave  their  consciences  where  the 
Mussulman  leaves  his  shoes, — outside  the 
door.  That  greeting  does  not  re-assure 
them ;  and  it  may  be  safely  predicted  that 
the  party  which  enforces  the  most  rigid  dis- 
cipline will  hear  the  least  of  these  men  in  its 
councils,  and  see  the  fewest  of  them  bearing 
its  ballots  to  the  polls. 

It  is  true  that  the  service  rendered  by  men 
of  this  class  in  either  of  the  great  parties 
will  be  disagreeable  and  thankless.  The 
man  who  has  no  ax  of  his  own  to  grind,  and 
who  goes  into  a  caucus  or  a  convention  sim- 
ply for  the  sake  of  securing  the  nomination 
of  the  best  men,  is  likely  to  encounter  the 
ill-will  of  a  great  many  people  who  have 
axes  to  grind.  The  duty  which  he  under- 
takes is  one  from  which  a  great  many  of  us 


9I2 


TO  BOLT  OR  NOT  TO  BOLT. 


would  gladly  be  absolved.  There  is  another 
method  of  influencing  political  action  which 
is  much  less  disagreeable,  and  which  we  are 
sometimes  inclined  to  adopt.  That  is  the 
method  of  holding  aloof  from  all  parties, 
and  voting  independently  for  those  candi- 
dates of  either  party  who  seem  to  us  most 
worthy.  It  is  argued  that  a  small  independ- 
ent vote  can  thus  control  the  elections,  and 
that  the  influence  of  intelligent  and  con- 
scientious men  can  be  exerted  most  effectu- 
ally in  this  way.  In  an  admirable  speech 
lately  made  by  Mr.  Charles  Francis  Adams, 
Jr.,  to  which  I  have  already  referred, 
the  wisdom  of  this  method  is  strongly 
argued.  "  In  the  State  of  New  York,"  says 
Mr.  Adams,  "  as  nearly  as  can  be  estimated, 
forty-five  men  out  of  every  hundred  who 
vote  can  be  counted  on  to  vote  the  Repub- 
lican ticket,  and  forty-five  men  to  vote  the 
Democratic  ticket.  The  other  ten  men  in 
the  hundred  constitute  an  unknown  ele- 
ment. These  ten  men  we  believe  we  can 
make  fourteen.  If  we  can,  we  are  masters 
of  the  situation.  They  have  got  to  give  us 
what  we  believe  the  highest  interests  of  the 
country  demand,  or  we  will  not  vote  for 
their  candidates.  Every  child  knows  that 
the  boy  on  the  center  of  the  tilting-board 
can  make  either  end,  if  the  ends  are  equally 
weighted,  go  up  or  down  at  pleasure." 

That  illustration  would  be  pertinent  if 
the  independent  vote  would  all  go  one  way. 
Unfortunately,  however,  it  is  not  and  can- 
not, by  the  supposition,  be  an  organized 
,and  compact  body;  and  it  is  too  apt  to 
divide  and  scatter.  If  the  fourteen  inde- 
pendent voters  would  all  stand  on  the  same 
side  of  the  tilting-board  every  time,  they 
could  have  things  their  own  way;  unhap- 
pily, they  are  often  found  standing  in  about 
equal  numbers  on  either  side  of  the  middle, 
balancing  one  another.  And  although  the 
power  of  the  men  who  are  wholly  outside  of 
all  parties  is  sometimes  most  beneficently 
exerted,  it  is  a  serious  question  whether,  on 
the  whole,  and  in  the  long  run,  these  men 
would  not  accomplish  more  of  good  by 
connecting  themselves  with  that  political 
party  which  will  tolerate  the  largest  meas- 
ure of  independence,  and  exerting  their 
influence  in  its  councils  for  the  purification 
of  its  management  and  the  elevation  of  its 
standards. 

Mr.  Adams  instances,  as  one  who  has 
wielded  great  political  influence,  James 
Freeman  Clarke,  of  Massachusetts.  "  Mr. 
Clarke,"  he  says,  "  is  a  clergyman ;  he  is  a 
man  of  acknowledged  weight  of  character ; 


in  politics  he  is  nothing  if  not  independent. 
Well,  take  him  into  a  convention,  and  it  is 
comical  to  see  Mr.  Clarke  unhorse  the 
war-horses.  He  smites  them  with  his  indi- 
viduality." It  seems  to  me  that  Mr.  Adams's 
illustration  disproves  his  doctrine.  Mr. 
Clarke  is  something  more  than  an  inde- 
pendent in  politics.  He  is  an  independent 
Republican.  He  votes  the  Republican 
ticket,  I  dare  say,  in  the  great  majority  of 
cases,  using  his  liberty  of  bolting  when  he 
believes  that  the  interests  of  the  party  and 
of  the  country  require  it.  He  goes  to  the 
caucuses.  It  is  in  the  conventions,  is  it 
not,  that  he  "  unhorses  the  war-horses  "  ? 
The  power  that  he  has  wielded  has  been  in 
connection  with  the  Republican  party,  as  a 
faithful  and  fearless  upholder  of  purity  and 
integrity  in  the  party  management.  The 
best  things  that  he  has  done  he  never  could 
have  done  if  he  had  been  content  to  stand 
with  Mr.  Adams  on  the  center  of  the 
tilting-board. 

I  agree  with  the  latter  that  "  we  want 
more  James  Freeman  Clarkes." 

This  is  not,  of  course,  the  way  to  office. 
Men  who  desire  political  preferment  can  no 
more  follow  the  leadership  of  James  Free- 
man Clarke  than  that  of  Charles  Francis 
Adams,  Jr.  I  am  not,  however,  quite  able 
to  agree  with  Mr.  Adams  when  he  goes  on 
to  say: 

"  If  a  man  does  not  want  office,  and  does  want  to 
make  his  single  vote  and  his  individual  influence 
tell ;  if  he  has  no  wish  for  political  preferment  and 
would  always  give  his  voice  for  the  better  man ;  if 
he  is  nothing  unless  critical,  and  if,  while  devoting 
himself  to  business  or  his  special  calling,  he  would 
fain  still  do  his  share  in  politics  as  behooves  the 
good  citizen  of  a  republic ;  if,  in  fine,  he  wishes  to 
be  always  a  thinking  man  and  never  a  fevered  parti- 
san, then,  in  that  case,  he  belongs  to  us.  Let  him 
come  up  here  at  once  to  the  center  of  the  tilting- 
board.  He  must  join  that  malignant  body  of  inde- 
pendents and  scratchers  of  which  I  am  glad  of  every 
occasion  to  pronounce  myself  a  consistent  and  a 
persistent  member." 

Now  I,  for  my  part,  should  like  to  be 
all  that  Mr.  Adams  here  supposes,  with 
the  exception  of  one  trait.  ,  I  do  not 
care  to  be  "nothing  unless  critical."  I 
would  prefer  to  be  critical  and  something 
besides.  And  while  I  am  free  to  admit 
that  the  path  into  which  he  invites  is  much 
less  thorny  than  the  one  in  which  I  am 
walking,  I  am  not  at  all  clear,  after  all  his 
pithy  exhortation,  that  it  is  a  better  way 
to  walk  in.  It  seems  to  me  that  the  good 
citizen  who  wants  no  office  can  do  his  duties 
more  effectively  by  keeping  in  close  but 


THERE  IS  A   NATURAL  BODY." 


9*3 


critical  connection  with  a  political  party, 
and  bringing  his  influence  directly  and  con- 
stantly to  bear  upon  the  shaping  of  its 
policy  and  the  choice  of  its  candidates.  I 
am  inclined  to  agree  with  Governor  Andrew 
that  in  politics  as  well  as  in  religion  the 
"  stay-inners  "  can  do  better  service  than  the 
"  come-outers." 

So  long,  therefore,  as  there  is  room  in 
either  party  for  intelligent  and  conscientious 
men  who  will  not  relinquish  their  right  of 
private  judgment,  it  seems  to  me  that  they 


can  better  serve  their  country  as  active 
members  of  a  party.  When  the  bosses 
make  up  their  minds  not  to  admit  to  mem- 
bership anybody  who  is  not  a  thick-and- 
thin  partisan,  we  shall  have  nothing  left  to 
do  except  to  climb  up  with  Mr.  Adams  to 
the  center  of  his  tilting-board.  In  the 
meantime,  we  shall  use  such  opportunities  as 
we  have ;  and,  whether  coming  out  or  stay- 
ing in,  endeavor  to  exercise  our  political 
rights  in  securing  juster  laws  and  purer 
administration. 


"THERE    IS   A    NATURAL    BODY." 

IMMORTAL  is  my  friend,  I  know : 
Not  summer's  turf  nor  winter's  snow 
Nor  depth  of  earth  could  turn  to  nought 
So  much  of  life  and  love  and  thought. 

And  yet  that  form  I  did  intrust 
To  kindred  earth,  the  dust  to  dust, 
And  thither  still  my  thoughts  will  tend, 
As  if  to  find  my  vanished  friend. 

Sacred  the  robe,  the  faded  glove, 
Once  worn  by  one  we  used  to  love; 
Dead  warriors  in  their  armor  live, 
And  in  their  relics  saints  survive  : 

And  there  I  tenderly  laid  down 
The  hands  that  fondly  clasped  my  own, — 
The  eyes  that  knew  and  answered  mine 
With  many  a  meaning,  loving  sign, — 

The  lips  familiar  with  my  name, 
That  freely  called  me  and  I  came, — 
The  breast  that  harbored  all  good-will, 
The  loving  heart  now  cold  and  still. 

O  sheltering  Earth,  henceforth  defend 
All  thou  hast  garnered  of  my  friend 
Against  the  wintry  tempest's  beat, 
Against  the  summer's  scorching  heat. 

Within  thine  all-embracing  breast 
Is  hid  one  more  forsaken  nest, 
While  in  the  sky,  with  folded  wings, 
The  bird  that  left  it  sits  and  sings. 


ONE  HUNDRED  MILES  IN  MAMMOTH   CAVE. 


ONE  HUNDRED  MILES  IN   MAMMOTH  CAVE. 


THE  cavernous  limestone  of  Kentucky 
covers  an  area  of  8000  square  miles;  and 
a  ride  of  eighty-five  miles  on  the  Louis- 
ville and  Great  Southern  Railroad  took  my 
companion  and  myself  to  the  heart  of  this 
wonderful  region. 

We  left  the  cars  at  Cave  City — only  a 
cluster  of  houses  amid  the  cornfields — and 
mounted  to  the  top  seat  of  an  old-fashioned 
stage-coach,  that  makes  daily  trips  to  Mam- 
moth Cave,  ten  miles  distant.  Edmondson 
County,  within  whose  limits  it  is  located, 
has  about  4000  sink-holes  and  500  open 
caverns,  many  of  which  are  but  nameless 
grottoes,  while  others  have  gained  celebrity. 
The  road  winds  among  the  hills  and  across 
a  high  table-land  to  the  bluffs  of  Green 
River.  The  soil  is  comparatively  sterile,  the 
farms  are  few  and  poorly  tilled,  and  large 
tracts  of  woodland  seem  to  be  yet  untouched 
by  the  ax.  Openings  are  observed  here 
and  there  amid  the  rocks,  each  being,  as 
the  driver  assured  us,  the  mouth  of  a 
cave. 

"  Are  any  of  them,"  I  asked,  "  equal  to 
Mammoth  Cave  ?  " 

"  No,  siree,"  responded  Jehu,  with  a 
crack  of  the  whip  that  made  the  leaders 
prance,  "I  reckon  it's  wuth  fifty  sich  holes 
in  the  groun'.  What's  your  notion  about  it, 
Jedge?" 

"  I  have  visited  the  chief  caverns  of  the 
West,"  replied  the  judge,  "  and  in  my  opinion, 
going  from  any  one  of  them  to  Mammoth 
Cave  is  like  exchanging  a  log  cabin  for  a 
palace." 

A  medley  of  legends  and  anecdotes  was 
then  served  up  for  us  in  Corn-cracker  ver- 
nacular, with  accounts  of  Diamond,  Salts, 
White,  Short,  the  Grand  Crystal  and  Proc- 
tor's caves,  and  others  of  less  note. 

A  bugle-flourish  heralded  our  arrival 
at  the  Cave  Hotel, — a  spacious  building 
evolved  from  a  log-cabin  germ, — and  brought 
around  the  coach  a  throng  of  guests  expect- 
ing friends,  and  negro  servants  offering  to 
take  our  luggage. 

The  hotel  register  shows  an  aggregate  of 
over  2000  visitors  a  year.  Adjoining  the 
office  is  a  cabinet  where  specimens  are  for 
sale ;  the  rules  judiciously  forbidding  visitors 
to  help  themselves.  Another  rule  prohibits 
the  use  of  surveyors'  instruments,  lest  some 


unscrupulous  person  should  find  a  new  en- 
trance beyond  the  2000  acres  now  com- 
prising the  estate,  and  steal  the  cave. 
Such  maps  as  have  been  published  are  there- 
fore not  correct,  having  been  prepared 
without  accurate  measurement. 

The  regular  hour  for  entering  the  cave  is 
nine  A.  M.  The  proprietor,  Captain  AV.  S. 
Miller,  on  learning  our  errand,  generously 
gave  us  a  special  guide,  and  the  freedom 
of  the  cave  as  long  as  we  continued  our 
explorations.  An  outfit  includes  a  close- 
fitting  cap,  easy  shoes,  a  stout  dress,  a  walk- 
ing-stick, a  swinging  lamp  and  some  matches. 
The  guide  for  each  party  carries  extra 
lamps,  a  can  of  lard  oil,  a  lunch  basket  and 
a  haversack  of  fire-works.  Thus  equipped, 
each  working-day  for  a  fortnight  beheld  us 
following  Tom  Lee,  our  special  guide,  down 
the  shady  path  to  the  mouth  of  the  cave. 
The  other  guides,  colored  men,  are  famil- 
iarly known  as  Old  Mat,  Old  Nick,  and 
William.  The  original  guide,  whose  daring 
exploits  and  striking  traits  made  him  fa- 
mous, was  Stephen  Bishop ;  his  remains 
now  rest  in  the  tangled  grave-yard  near  the 
garden. 

Mammoth  Cave  has  a  noble  vestibule ! 
Amid  tulip-trees  and  grape-vines,  maples 
and  butternuts,  fringing  ferns  and  green 
mosses,  is  the  entrance  to  this  under-ground 
palace.  From  a  frowning  ledge  a  cascade 
leaps  to  the  rocks  below,  where  it  vanishes 
at  once,  forming  no  running  stream.  The 
former  entrance,  through  which  the  dis- 
coverer, a  hunter  named  Hutchins,  in  1809, 
made  his  way  in  pursuit  of  a  bear,  is  near 
the  bank  of  Green  River,  about  half  a  mile 
distant.  Since  that  day  the  roof  has  fallen 
in,  cutting  off  a  section  now  known  as 
Dixon's  Cave,  and  leaving  the  present 
mouth  ;  which  is  194  feet  above  water  level, 
and  118  feet  below  the  summit  of  the  bluff 
on  which  stands  the  hotel. 

A  winding  flight  of  seventy  stone  steps 
conducts  us  around  the  cascade,  into  an 
antechamber.  At  the  end  of  this  is  a 
grated  iron  door  to  which  each  guide  has 
a  key.  The  cave,  originally  bought  for 
forty  dollars,  is  now  valued  at  $250,000; 
and  this  formidable  door  protects  it  from 
spoliation. 

As  we  cross  the  portal,  a  strong  current 


ONE  HUNDRED  MILES  IN  MAMMOTH  CAVE. 


of  air  blows  out  our  lights,  but  a  few  yards 
within,  where  the  draft  is  weaker,  we  re- 
kindle them.  This  phenomenon,  which  I 
had  previously  observed  in  Wyandot  and 
other  large  caves,  is  due  to  a  marked  differ- 
ence in  temperature  between  the  atmos- 
phere within,  and  that  without  the  cave. 
Both  the  air  and  the  water  in  the  cave 
nearly  correspond  with  the  heat  of  the  earth 
itself,  which  in  that  latitude  varies  but  little 
from  56°  Fahrenheit  throughout  the  year. 
In  some  of  the  dryer  chambers  the  mercury 
rises  to  58°,  and  in  some  of  the  springs  and 
pools  it  falls  to  52°.  On  our  first  visit,  the 
thermometer  at  the  hotel  office  indicated 
100°  in  the  shade,  a  difference  on  that  day 
of  more  than  40°,  which  caused,  of  course,  a 
strong  outward  flow.  The  current  is  said  to 
set  inward  in  cold  weather,  when  the  condi- 
tions are  reversed.  Chemical  processes  also 
are  continually  at  work,  surcharging  the  cave 
atmosphere  with  oxygen,  and  of  course 
forcing  it  out  as  the  volume  expands.  I 
was  informed  that  Salts  Cave,  not  far  dis- 
tant, in  which  these  chemical  agencies  are 
much  more  active,  never  inhales  at  all,  but 
exhales  all  the  year  round. 

The  first  objects  exhibited  to  visitors  are 
the  relics  of  saltpeter  works  in  the  Rotunda. 
Ruts  of  cart-wheels  and  hoof-prints  of  oxen 
remain  in  the  indurated  clay,  leading  to  the 
pumps,  pipes,  and  eight  large  vats,  from 
which,  during  the  war  of  1812,  Mr.  Archibald 
Miller  took  niter  to  Philadelphia  by  wagon, 
to  be  used  in  making  gunpowder.  Log 
benches  are  still  exhibited  where  once  sat 
swarthy  miners,  before  a  rocky  pulpit,  to 
hear  of  Him  to  whom  the  darkness  and  the 
light  are  both  alike. 

In  1816,  the  property  passed  into  the 
hands  of  a  Mr.  Moore,  who  was  ruined  by 
complicity  with  Burr  and  Blennerhasset.  It 
was  successively  owned  by  Gatewood, 
Gorin,  and  Dr.  Croghan,  to  whose  heirs  it 
still  belongs. 

The  simple  truth  about  Mammoth  Cave 
surpasses  the  most  ingeniously  woven  fab- 
rication. Its  areal  diameter  is  nine  or 
ten  miles.  Its  known  and  numbered 
avenues  are  223,  and  their  united  length 
equals  from  150  to  200  miles.  Twelve  mill- 
ion cubic  yards  of  space  have  here  been 
excavated  from  the  rocks  by  the  agency  of 
air  and  of  water.*  Such  are  the  windings, 


*. There  is  a  well-known  tendency  to  overstate  the 
marvelous,  and  several  writers  of  repute  insist  on  far 
lower  figures  than  are  given  here.  The  above  esti- 
mates, however,  agree  with  the  Kentucky  Geological 


crossings  and  involutions  of  this  labyrinth, 
that  we  found,  by  the  time  our  explora- 
tions were  ended,  on  adding  up  all  our  daily 
trips  in  and  out,  we  had  traveled  about 
one  hundred  miles  under-ground  ! 

The  Main  Cave,  so  called  in  distinction 
from  minor  avenues  opening  into  it,  extends 
like  a  deserted  river-bed,  througli  a  succes- 
sion of  noble  arches  and  domes,  to  a  point 
six  miles  within,  where  it  is  abruptly  closed 
by  fallen  rocks. 

New  objects  of  interest  met  us  at  every 
step,  as  we  advanced.  During  a  moment's 
pause  we  were  startled  by  what  seemed  the 
loud  ticking  of  a  musical  time-piece.  It  was 
but  the  measured  melody  of  water  dripping 
into  a  basin  hidden  behind  the  rocks.  Drop 
by  drop  monotonously  it  falls,  as  it  has 
fallen,  it  may  be,  for  a  thousand  years. 

Not  far  from  this  natural  water-clock,  is  a 
symmetrical  recess  chiseled  by  a  tiny  rill, 
whose  limpid  water  is  collected  in  a  little 
pool.  The  story  is  told  of  a  poor  blind 
boy,  who  rambled  over  the  country  winning 
a  precarious  living  by  his  violin,  and  who, 
as  he  said,  was  resolved  to  see  the  cave  for 
himself.  He  lost  his  way,  and  when  found 
by  his  companions  was  quietly  sleeping 
beside  this  basin,  which  ever  since  has  been 
called  "  Wandering  Willie's  Spring." 

Singular  effects  are  produced  for  a  long 
distance  beyond  this  point  by  the  incrusta- 
tions of  gypsum  stained  by  the  black  oxide 
of  iron,  seeming  to  cut  gigantic  silhouettes 
from  the  ceiling  of  white  limestone.  At 
first  we  ridiculed  these  fancies,  but  at  last 
they  fascinated  us.  Bears,  monkeys,  ant- 
eaters,  catamounts, — indeed,  a  whole  men- 
agerie is  on  exhibition,  including  the  old 
mammoth  himself.  We  were  especially  inter- 
ested in  a  side-show  of  a  giant  and  giantess 
playfully  tossing  papooses  to  and  fro.  The 
Giant's  Coffin  is  near  by — a  rock  shaped 
like  a  mighty  sarcophagus.  It  is  detached 
from  the  ceiling,  walls  and  floor,  resting  its 
weight  on  stone  trestles,  and  equals  in  size 
one  of  the  famous  blocks  of  Baalbek,  being 
forty  feet  long,  twenty  wide  and  eight  deep. 

Here  the  trend  of  the  Main  Cave  turns 
upon  itself  at  an  acute  angle.  The  apex  of 
the  angle  is  marked  by  McPherson's  monu- 
ment, a  rude  pile  of  stones  in  memory  of  a 
gallant  soldier.  More  than  three  hundred 
such  monuments  have  been  erected  in  dif- 
ferent portions  of  the  cave,  in  honor  of 

reports  of  Owen  (1856-1861),  and  are  confirmed  by 
the  new  survey  now  being  made,  under  the  direction 
of  Professor  N.  S.  Shaler. 


gi6 


ONE   HUNDRED  MILES  IN  MAMMOTH  CAVE. 


various  individuals,  literary  institutions  and 
the  several  States  of  the  Union.  Some  of 
these  pillars  reach  from  floor  to  roof,  each 
tourist  who  chooses  to  do  so  adding  a  stone. 
An  incidental  benefit  of  this  custom  is  that 
it  has  helped  to  clear  the  paths. 

The  rules  strictly  forbid  any  defacement 
of  the  walls.  Candles  were  formerly  a 
favorite  means  of  smirching  the  names  of 
visitors,  in  lamp-black,  on  the  plaster-like 
ceiling,  where  it  was  low  enough  to  be  with- 
in reach.  This  is  now  especially  interdicted ; 
and  instead  of  these  rocky  albums  there 
are  receptacles  for  visiting  and  business 
cards,  thousands  of  which  are  thus  accumu- 
lated, representing  visitors  from  all  parts  of 
the  world. 

The  roofless  remains  of  two  stone  cot- 
tages are  next  visited,  as  having  a  melan- 
choly history.  These,  and  some  frame  ones, 
now  torn  down,  were  built  in  1843  for  fifteen 
consumptive  patients,  who  here  took  up  their 
abode,  induced  to  do  so  by  the  uniformity 
of  temperature  and  highly  oxygenated  air, 
which  possesses  the  purity  without  the  rarity 
of  the  air  at  high  altitudes.  The  experi- 
ment was  an  utter  failure. 

A  strangely  beautiful  transformation  scene 
is  exhibited  in  the  Star  Chamber,  a  hall 
seventy  feet  wide,  sixty  high  and  five  hun- 
dred long.  The  lofty  ceiling  is  coated  with 
black  gypsum,  studded  with  thousands  of 
white  spots,  caused  by  the  efflorescence  of 
the  sulphate  of  magnesia.  Our  guide  asks 
us  to  sit  down  on  a  log  bench  by  the  wall,  and 
then,  collecting  the  lamps,  vanishes  behind 
a  jutting  rock;  whence,  by  adroit  manipu- 
lations, he  throws  shadows  flitting  like  clouds 
athwart  the  starry  vault.  The  effect  is  ex- 
tremely fine,  and  the  illusion  is  complete. 
One  can  easily  persuade  himself  that  the 
roof  is  removed,  and  that  he  looks  up  from 
a  deep  valley  into  the  real  heavens. 

"  Good-night,"  says  Tom ;  "  I  will  see  you 
again  in  the  morning." 

With  this  abrupt  leave-taking  he  plunges 
into  a  gorge,  and  we  are  in  utter  darkness. 
Even  the  blackest  midnight  in  the  upper 
world  has  from  some  quarter  a  few  scattered 
rays ;  but  here  the  gloom  is  without  a  gleam. 
In  the  absolute  silence  that  ensues,  we  hear 
the  beating  of  our  hearts.  The  painful  sus- 
pense is  at  length  broken  by  one  of  those 
strange  outbursts  of  laughter  that  come  when 
•least  expected;  and  then  we  indignantly  ask 
each  other  the  meaning  of  this  sudden  deser- 
tion. But  while  we  are  roundly  berating  the 
guide's  treachery,  we  see  in  the  remote  dis- 
tance a  faint  glimmer,  like  the  first  streak  of 


dawn.  The  light  increases  in  volume  till  it 
tinges  the  tips  of  the  rocks,  like  tops  of  hills 
far  away.  The  horizon  is  bathed  in  rosy 
hues,  and  we  are  prepared  to  see  the  sun 
rise,  when  all  at  once  the  guide  appears, 
swinging  his  cluster  of  lamps,  and  asking  us 
how  we  like  the  performance.  Loudly  en- 
cored, he  repeats  the  transformations  again 
and  again, — starlight,  moonlight,  thunder- 
clouds, midnight  and  day-dawn,  heralded  by 
cock-crowing,  the  barking  of  dogs,  lowing  of 
cattle  and  various  other  farm-yard  sounds; 
until,  weary  of  an  entertainment  that  long 
ago  lost  its  novelty  for  him,  he  bids  us 
resume  our  line  of  march. 

As  we  pass  along  under  a  mottled  ceiling 
that  changes,  from  the  constellation  just 
described,  to  a  mackerel  sky  with  fleecy 
masses  of  floating  clouds,  many  curious 
objects  are  pointed  out  to  us.  Here  is  a 
stout  oak-pole,  projecting  from  a  crevice,  now 
inaccessible — put  there  when,  and  by  whom, 
and  for  what  purpose  ?  There  are  snow- 
drifts of  native  Epsom  salts,  whitening  the 
dusky  ledges.  Spaces  are  shown  completely 
covered  by  broad  slabs,  underneath  which 
are  the  ashes  and  embers  of  ancient  fires. 
Side-cuts  occasionally  tempt  us  from  the 
beaten  path,  into  which  we  return  by  a  cir- 
cuitous way.  Crossing  the  solitary  chambers, 
we  enter  the  Fairy  Grotto,  whose  alabaster 
grove  of  stalactites  has  been  despoiled  by 
ruthless  hands.  Skirting  a  pit,  down  whose 
abyss  a  cataract  tumbles,  we  climb  hills, 
plunge  into  gorges,  walk  underneath  frown- 
ing cliffs,  until  we  have  explored  the  main 
cave  from  end  to  end. 

No  creeping  nor  crawling  has  to  be  done 
here.  The  average  width  of  this  immense  nat- 
ural tunnel  is  about  sixty  feet,  and  its  height 
forty  feet;  but  portions  expand  to  much 
greater  dimensions.  Proctor's  Arcade  is  said 
to  be  one  hundred  feet  wide,  fifty  feet  high, 
and  a  thousand  yards  long.  By  burning 
magnesium  lights  at  several  points  at  once, 
each  light  being  equivalent  to  seventy  candles, 
we  surveyed  the  whole  vista.  In  like  manner 
we  illuminated  Wright's  Rotunda,  400  feet 
in  diameter.  But  the  funereal  darkness  of 
the  Black  Chamber  defied  magnesium,  and 
refused  to  be  cheered  even  by  red  fire. 

We  lingered  long  amid  the  wonders  of  the 
Chief  City,  where  several  acres  are  strewn 
with  rocks  like  ancient  ruins,  the  whole  area 
being  overarched  by  so  vast  a  dome  as  to 
make  us  wonder  if  it  has  an  adequate  key- 
stone. 

"  Why  doesn't  it  fall  ?  "  inquired  Barton. 

"  I  know  of  no  reason  why  it  should  not 


ONE  HUNDRED  MILES  IN  MAMMOTH  CAVE. 


917 


fall  at  this  very  moment,"  said  Tom,  solemnly, 
"  and  I  never  come  underneath  without 
some  degree  of  fear.  Yet  the  arch  appears 
to  be  a  solid  block  of  seamless  limestone, 
and  it  may  stand  for  a  thousand  years.  You 
can  see,  from  these  Indian  torches,  that  the 
place  is  now  precisely  what  it  has  been  for 
centuries." 

As  he  spoke,  the  guide  picked  up  some 
half-burnt  bits  of  cane,  which,  as  he  assured 
us,  the  red  men  used  to  fill  with  bear's  fat  and 
burn,  to  light  them  on  their  search  for  flint 
mines,  alabaster  quarries  and  other  coveted 
treasures.  Igniting  our  fire-works,  we  threw 
a  glare  over  the  long  slope  of  irregular  rocks, 
and  athwart  the  gigantic  vault,  bringing 
such  glories  to  view  as  no  torch-bearing 
mound-builder  ever  saw.  And  while  the 
crimson  light  died  away  amid  the  arches 
and  pinnacles,  we  took  leave,  with  many  a 
backward  look,  of  this  prehistoric  council- 
hall  of  sagamores  and  dusky  braves.* 

The  proprietors  object  to  anything  that 
will  mar  the  romantic  rudeness  of  this  an- 
cient cavern.  Yet  a  little  of  it  might  well  be 
sacrificed  to  the  spirit  of  modern  invention. 
Electric  lights  would  grandly  illuminate  the 
large  halls  and  domes.  Telephones  would 
be  of  advantage,  in  establishing  communica- 
tion with  the  outer  world.  Tramways  might 
be  laid  through  the  main  cave  and  the  more 
accessible  avenues.  Shafts  might  be  opened 
at  certain  terminal  points,  known  to  be  near 
the  surface,  through  which  visitors  might  be 
taken  up  by  elevators,  and  conveyed  back 
to  the  hotel  in  hacks,  instead  of  wearily  re- 
tracing their  steps,  as  must  now  be  done. 
Increased  patronage  would  soon  cover  the 
cost  of  such  improvements ;  and  time  and 
strength  would  thus  be  saved  for  exploring 
portions  of  the  cave  whose  picturesque 
scenery  is  now  rarely  beheld,  except  by  the 
most  resolute  pedestrians. 

It  is  doubtful  if  one  visitor  in  fifty  goes 
farther  into  the  main  cave  than  to  the  Star 
Chamber ;  but  none  fail  to  see  this  favorite 
hall  of  illusions.  We  revisited  it  frequently 
during  our  stay.  The  path  to  it  is  dry  and 
well  trodden.  A  pleasing  incident  comes  to 
mind,  showing  how  easily  it  may  be  reached, 
although  more  than  a  mile  under-ground. 
One  evening,  after  tea,  I  had  entered  thus  far 
alone,  without  a  guide,  and  after  studying  for 
a  while  the  peculiar  effects  of  light  and  shade. 


*  Monographs  have  been  published  by  the  State 
Geological  Survey,  on  the  Cavern-dwelling  Races, 
and  Prehistoric  Remains  of  Kentucky ;  and  addi- 
tional memoirs  on  the  same  subjects  are  promised. 


I  sat  down  on  the  log  bench  and  put  my 
lamps  out,  in  order  to  enjoy  the  luxury  of 
utter  darkness,  silence  and  solitude.  But 
ere  long  voices  were  heard,  and  mysterious 
peals  of  laughter.  Soon  the  day-dawn  effect 
was  unexpectedly  produced,  by  the  approach 
of  a  party  of  jocund  youths  and  maidens, 
with  lights,  who,  having  dressed  for  a  hop, 
first  paid  a  visit  to  this  enchanted  ground, 
and  as  cave  dust  never  flies  nor  sticks,  they 
did  so  without  a  speck  on  polished  boots  or 
trailing  robes. 

Tourists  are  usually  hurried  through  by 
two  routes,  one  requiring  four  hours  and 
the  other  nine,  and  both  together  covering 
about  twenty-five  miles  of  travel  in  and  out. 
Our  more  leisurely  exploration  led  us  along 
many  an  unfrequented  path,  and  allowed  us 
to  linger  at  will  in  the  most  interesting 
localities.  The  avenues,  as  all  side-passages 
are  termed,  vary  in  importance,  some  of 
them  rivaling  the  main  cave,  while  others 
involve  grievous  climbing  and  crawling,  with 
small  recompense. 

Audubon's  Avenue  lies  nearest  the  en- 
trance. It  is  chiefly  noted  for  its  myriads  of 
bats,  and  for  the  fact  that  it  leads  to  an  open- 
ing into  which  a  miner  dropped  his  lamp  in 
1812.  Matt,  the  guide,  found  it  thirty  years 
afterward  at  the  bottom  of  Mammoth  Dome, 
a  place  to  be  reached  only  by  a  long  detour. 

The  Gothic  Arcade  is  approached  by  a 
stair-way  from  galleries  beyond  the  saltpeter 
vats.  Here  a  niche  is  pointed  out  where 
the  early  explorers  are  said  to  have  found 
two  Indian  mummies,  a  woman  and  a  child, 
along  with  fine  fabrics  and  trinkets,  neck- 
laces of  deers'  hoofs  and  eagles'  claws,  and 
all  that  could  please  the  barbaric  taste.* 

The  chapel  in  the  Gothic  Arcade  has  an 
arched  roof  supported  by  large  stalagmitic 
columns,  once  beautiful  but  now  sullied  by 
sacrilegious  smoke.  I  counted  eight,  and 
found  fragments  of  about  thirty  more. 
Their  growth  was  slow,  requiring  many 
centuries  to  develop  their  present  dimensions. 
Three  of  the  pillars  are  so  grouped  as  to 
form  two  Gothic  arches.  Before  this  unique 
altar  once  stood  a  runaway  bride,  who  had 


*  Forwood,  in  his  excellent  manual  on  Mammoth 
Cave  (pp.  1 70-194),  has  collected  all  existing  accounts 
of  these  extraordinary  relics.  Hon.  F.  Gorin,  a 
former  owner  of  the  cave,  disputes  their  authenticity. 
He  states,  however,  that  the  skeleton  of  a  giant,  and 
that  of  an  infant,  were  found  in  18:1  in  Audubon's 
Avenue;  and  that  mummies  were  found  in  Short 
Cave.  Sandals,  shreds  of  garments,  etc.,  from  Salts 
Cave,  in  the  vicinity  of  Mammoth,  are  exhibited  in 
the  archaeological  museum  of  Harvard  College,  and 
have  been  lately  described  by  Prof.  F.  W.  Putnam. 


918 


ONE   HUNDRED  MILES  IN  MAMMOTH  CAVE. 


promised  her  anxious  mother  that  she  would 
"  never  marry  any  man  on  the  face  of  the 
earth."  She  kept  the  letter  of  her  promise, 
but  was  married  after  all  to  the  man  of  her 
choice,  in  this  novel  Gretna  Green.  We 
were  fortunate  in  witnessing  a  similar  scene. 

This  avenue  is  about  two  miles  long,  and 
abounds  in  grotesque  curiosities.  It  ends 
in  Annette's  Dome,  where  a  cascade  sur- 
prises one  by  bursting  from  the  wall  and 
then  disappearing.  Lake  Purity,  near  by, 
is  a  shallow  pool  of  such  transparency  that 
we  did  not  suspect  its  existence  until  we 
walked  into  it. 

Retracing  our  steps,  we  soon  approach  a 
region  of  pits  and  domes.  The  guide  warns 
us  of  "danger  on  the  right!"  Beside  our 
path  yawns  a  chasm  called  the  Side-saddle 
Pit,  from  the  shape  of  a  projecting  rock,  on 
which  we  seat  ourselves  and  watch  with  fear- 
ful interest  the  rolls  of  oiled  paper  lighted  by 
the  guide  and  dropped  into  the  abyss.  Down 
they  go  in  a  fiery  spiral,  burning  long  enough 
to  give  us  a  view  of  its  corrugated  sides  and 
of  a  mass  of  blackened  sticks  and  timbers  a 
hundred  feet  below,  remnants  of  a  bridge 
once  spanning  the  chasm. 

The  Bottomless  Pit,  a  short  distance 
beyond,  is  on  a  still  grander  scale,  and 
extending,  as  it  does,  entirely  across  the 
avenue,  was  long  an  effectual  bar  to  further 
progress.  It  is  now  spanned  by  a  substantial 
bridge,  which,  for  the  sake  of  perfect  safety, 
is  renewed  every  four  years.  Leaning  over 
the  hand-rails,  we  safely  admired  the  blazing 
rolls  as  they  whirled  to  and  fro,  slowly  sink- 
ing one  hundred  and  seventy-five  feet,  light- 
ing up  the  wrinkles  and  furrows  made  by  the 
torrent's  flow  during  untold  ages. 

Shelby's  Dome  overhead  is  but  a  contin- 
uation of  the  great  pit  upward,  with  rich 
water-carved  scroll-work  and  lavishly  dec- 
orated panels,  and  here  and  there  a  sharp 
projection. 

Turning  abruptly  back,  we  follow  the 
guide  up  and  down  narrow  stair- ways  and 
through  a  winding  passage,  till  we  find  our- 
selves peering  through  a  window-like  aper- 
ture into  profound  darkness,  that  seems 
intensified  by  the  monotonous  sound  of 
dripping  water.  Tom  bids  us  remain  where 
we  are  while  he  seeks  a  smaller  and  higher 
window  beyond,  through  which  he  thrusts 
blue  lights  and  blazing  rolls,  disclosing  in- 
describable wonders  to  our  gaze.  This  is 
Gorin's  Dome.  The  floor  far  below  us, 
about  an  acre  in  area,  is  covered  with  water. 
The  perpendicular  walls,  rising  out  of  sight, 
are  draped  with  three  immense  stalagmitic 


curtains,  one  above  another,  whose  folds, 
which  seem  to  be  loosely  floating,  are  bor- 
dered with  fringes  rich  and  heavy.  These 
hangings,  dight  with  figures  rare  and  fan- 
tastic, fit  for  Plutonian  halls,  were  woven  in 
Nature's  loom  by  crystal  threads  of  running 
water. 

The  domes  and  pits  are  in  fact  identi- 
cal ;  the  name  varying  as  they  are  seen 
from  above  or  below.  The  surface-funnel, 
or  sink-hole,  drains  the  rain-water  into  the 
upper  tier  of  cavern  chambers ;  and  this 
may  end  its  work.  But  when  a  mass 
of  pebbles  is  gathered,  the  whirling  water 
uses  this  powerful  cutting-engine  to  pierce 
by  a  vertical  shaft  the  successive  tiers,  or 
floors,  until  the  water  level  of  the  lowest 
cavern  is  reached.  Should  the  funnel  be  in 
any  way  obstructed,  the  stream  would  of 
necessity  cease  to  flow,  and  the  dripping 
lime-water  would  have  time  to  make  a 
stalagmitic  deposit.  Plainly,  no  dome  can 
exceed  in  height  the  extreme  distance  be- 
tween the  drainage-level  and  the  surface; 
which,  by  barometrical  observation,  has,  for 
Mammoth  Cave,  been  fixed  at  312  feet. 
There  is  little  doubt  that  in  some  instances 
this  altitude  is  nearly  attained.  All  greater 
estimates  are  but  imaginary. 

We  have  now  a  choice  of  evils  between 
Bunyan's  Way,  where  one  must  stoop  like 
a  pilgrim  burdened,  and  Buchanan's  Way, 
where  one  must  hold  his  head  to  one  side, 
after  the  traditional  habit  of  that  eminent 
statesman.  We  choose  the  latter;  and 
presently,  by  a  circular  opening  over  which 
hangs  a  threatening  trap-door  of  rock,  we 
are  made  acquainted  with  the  famous  and 
original  Fat  Man's  Misery,  of  which  all  others 
are  but  base  imitations.  It  is  a  serpentine 
channel,  whose  walls,  eighteen  inches  apart, 
change  direction  eight  times  in  one  hundred 
and  five  yards ;  while  the  average  distance 
from  the  sandy  pathway  to  the  ledge  over- 
head is  but  five  feet.  The  rocky  sides  are 
beautifully  marked  with  waves  and  ripples, 
as  if  running  water  had  been  suddenly 
petrified.  There  seems  to  have  been  first 
a  horizontal  opening  between  two  strata 
of  limestone,  by  taking  advantage  of  which 
this  singular  winding  way  was  chiseled, 
from  whose  embrace  we  gladly  emerge  into 
Great  Relief,  where  we  can  straighten  our 
spines,  and  enjoy  once  more  the  luxury  of  a 
full  breath. 

It  was  formerly  supposed  that  if  this 
passage  were  blocked  up,  escape  from  the 
regions  beyond  would  be  impossible.  But 
not  long  ago  the  "  Corkscrew "  was  dis- 


ONE   HUNDRED   MILES  IN  MAMMOTH   CAVE. 


919 


covered,  an  intricate  web  of  fissures,  by 
means  of  which  a  good  climber,  after  mount- 
ing three  ladders,  crawling  through  narrow 
openings,  and  leaping  from  rock  to  rock, 
ascending  thus  amid  the  wildest  confusion 
for  one  hundred  and  fifty  feet,  gains  a  land- 
ing at  last,  only  a  thousand  yards  from  the 
entrance  to  the  cave,  and  cuts  off  two  or 
three  miles  of  travel.  Visitors  generally 
come  in  one  way  and  go  out  the  other,  and 
usually  regard  the  route  last  chosen  the 
worst,  whichever  it  may  have  been. 

Barton  was  inclined  "  to  draw  this  '  Cork- 
screw ' ; "  and  leaving  him  to  do  so,  Tom 
and  I  entered  an  avenue  aside  from  the 
regular  routes,  and  which  he  himself  had 
not  explored  for  seven  years.  After  much 
stooping  and  creeping,  we  emerged  from 
the  low,  narrow  passage,  and  found  our- 
selves standing  on  a  terrace  thirty  feet  long 
and  fifteen  wide,  whence  we  peered  into 
a  realm  of  empty  darkness.  Our  lamps  re- 
vealed neither  floor,  nor  roof,  nor  opposite 
wall.  Tom  said  that  this  was  Mammoth 
Dome,  sole  rival  of  Gorin's  Dome,  the 
grandest  halls  in  all  this  domain  of  silence 
and  of  night.  I  directed  him  to  leave  me 
here,  and  to  return  at  once  for  my  comrade 
and  for  fire-works. 

Not  until  Tom's  glimmering  light  was 
gone,  and  his  retreating  steps  had  ceased  to 
echo  along  the  corridor,  did  I  realize  my 
lonely  situation.  There  were  some  unex- 
pected causes  of  delay,  so  that  nearly  two 
hours  elapsed  before  they  came.  I  sat  on 
the  edge  of  the  terrace  for  a  time,  and 
amused  myself  by  throwing  lighted  papers 
down,  thus  discovering  that  the  floor  was  less 
than  forty  feet  below  me,  and  was  accessi- 
ble by  a  rude  ladder  blackened  with  age. 
Here  and  there  a  rung  was  missing,  and  I 
hesitated  to  trust  such  a  fragile  support. 
Finding  the  solitude  and  darkness  insupport- 
able, I  retreated  with  my  lamp  to  the 
avenue  by  which  we  had  come,  and  whiled 
away  the  time  catching  cave  crickets,  till 
Tom  and  Barton  arrived  with  twenty  lamps 
and  a  supply  of  red  fire  and  bengolas. 

Carefully  descending  the  treacherous  lad- 
der, we  lighted  up  the  huge  dome  and  found 
the  dimensions  to  be  about  400  feet  in 
length,  150  in  width,  and  250  in  height, 
as  nearly  as  we  could  estimate  without  the 
aid  of  instruments.  The  floor,  strewn  with 
slippery  rocks,  slopes  down  to  a  pool  that 
receives  a  water-fall  from  the  summit  of 
the  dome.  The  walls  are  curtained  by 
alabaster  drapery  in  vertical  folds,  varying 
in  size  from  a  pipe-stem  to  a  saw-log,  and 


decorated  by  heavy  fringes  at  intervals  of 
about  twenty  feet.  A  huge  gate-way,  at 
the  farther  end  of  the  hall,  opens  into  a 
room  so  like  the  ruins  of  Luxor  and  Kar- 
nak  that  we  named  it  the  Egyptian  Tem- 
ple. The  floor  of  this  apartment  is  paved 
with  stalagmitic  blocks,  stained  by  red  and 
black  oxides  into  a  kind  of  mosaic.  Six 
colossal  columns,  eighty  feet  high  by  twen- 
ty-five in  diameter,  stand  in  a  semicircle 
flanked  by  pyramidal  towers.  The  mate- 
rial of  the  shafts  is  gray  oolite,  fluted  by 
deep  furrows  with  sharp  ridges  between  ; 
the  capitals  are  projecting  slabs  of  lime- 
stone; the  whole  column,  in  each  instance, 
is  veneered  with  yellow  stalagmite,  rich  as 
jasper,  and  covered  by  tracery  as  elaborate 
as  Chinese  carving ;  and  the  bases  are 
garnished  by  mushroom-shaped  stalagmites. 
The  largest  of  these  is  Caliban's  Cushion. 
While  examining  this,  I  noticed  an  open- 
ing behind  the  third  column  in  the  row, 
and  clambering  down  a  steep  descent  we 
reached  gloomy  catacombs  underneath ; 
but  returned  without  fully  exploring  them, 
on  account  of  the  extreme  difficulty  of 
progress. 

One  day  we  learned  that  a  large  party 
from  Nashville  were  to  visit  River  Hall  and 
the  regions  beyond  the  subterranean  streams ; 
and,  as  they  would  first  make  a  detour  by 
the  pits,  we  easily  got  the  start  of  them  by 
climbing  down  the  Corkscrew.  On  enter- 
ing River  Hall,  we  found  our  path  skirting 
the  edge  of  cliffs  60  feet  high  and  100  feet 
long,  embracing  the  sullen  waters  of  what  is 
called  the  Dead  Sea.  Descending  a  flight 
of  steps,  we  came  to  a  cascade,  but  a  little 
farther  on,  said  to  be  a  re-appearance  of  the 
water-fall  at  the  entrance,  suggesting  the  idea 
that  the  cave  has  doubled  on  its  track. 

Our  speculations  on  this  mystery  were 
broken  in  upon  by  the  hilarious  sounds 
heralding  the  party  under  Matt's  escort,  long 
before  they  came  in  view.  There  never 
was  a  prettier  sight  than  this  merry  company, 
sixty  in  all,  as  with  flashing  lamps  and 
spangled  costumes  they  skirted  the  somber 
terrace,  astonishing  the  steeps  of  that  gloomy 
sea  by  the  loud  refrain  of  "  Litoria "  and 
other  jolly  college  songs.  They  wound 
past  us,  in  single  file,  disappearing  behind  a 
rocky  mass  to  come  into  view  again  on  the 
natural  bridge,  whence  they  swung  their 
lamps  to  catch  sight  of  the  River  Styx. 

This  body  of  water  is  said  to  be  over  400 
feet  long  and  40  feet  wide.  Our  attempts 
at  fathoming  its  depth  resulted  in  one  of  us 
falling  in,  and  from  his  appearance  on  crawl- 


920 


ONE  HUNDRED  MILES  IN  MAMMOTH  CAVE. 


ing  out,  we  judged  that  he  found  an  abun- 
dance of  mud  under  an  uncertain  amount 
of  water. 

Lake  Lethe  comes  next — a  broad  sheet 
of  water  formerly  crossed  by  boats,  but  now 
skirted  by  a  narrow  path  at  the  foot  of  steep 
walls  ninety  feet  above  the  oblivious  wave, 
and  leading  to  a  pontoon  at  the  neck  of  the 
lake,  from  which  we  step  upon  a  beach  of 
the  finest  yellow  sand,  extending  to  Echo 
River,  a  distance  of  500  yards,  under  a  lofty 
ceiling  mottled  with  white  and  black  lime- 
stones, like  snow-clouds  drifting  in  a  wintry 
sky.  A  rise  of  five  feet  would  cover  this 
sandy  walk,  which  is  its  condition  for  from 
four  to  eight  months  in  every  year.  Fortu- 
nately the  streams  were  low  at  the  time  of 
our  visit,  as  they  usually  are  in  summer. 

The  connection  of  the  cave  rivers  with 
Green  River  has  been  proved  by  the  simple 
experiment  of  throwing  a  quantity  of  chaff 
upon  them,  which  comes  to  the  surface  in 
the  upper  and  lower  big  springs  ;•  deep, 
bubbling  pools,  lying  half  a  mile  apart,  under 
the  cliffs  bristling  with  hemlocks  and  pines. 
When  these  pools  are  submerged  by  a  freshet 
in  Green  River,  the  streams  in  the  cave  are 
united  into  a  continuous  body  of  water. 
At  rare  intervals  the  rise  is  so  high  as  to 
touch  the  iron  railing  sixty  feet  above  the 
Dead  Sea ;  and  for  some  reason  the  subsi- 
dence within  is  less  rapid  than  that  without. 
In  order  to  save  from  destruction,  at  such 
times,  the  uncouth  little  fleet,  built  of  planks 
and  timber,  every  one  of  which  was  brought 
in  through  passes  we  had  traversed  with  dif- 
ficulty empty-handed,  the  boats  are  securely 
fastened,  when  not  in  use,  by  long  ropes  of 
twisted  grape-vines  that  let  them  swim  with 
the  flood. 

Four  of  these  boats  now  await  us  on  the 
banks  of  Echo  River.  Each  has  seats  on 
the  gunwales  for  twenty  passengers,  while 
the  guide  stands  in  the  bow  and  propels  the 
primitive  craft  by  a  long  paddle,  or  by 
grasping  projecting  rocks.  The  river's  width 
varies  from  twenty  to  two  hundred  feet,  and 
its  length  is  about  three-quarters  of  a  mile. 

The  low  arch  soon  rises  to  a  height  varying 
from  ten  to  thirty  feet,  while  the  plummet 
shows  a  still  greater  depth  below.  The  river 
cannot  properly  be  said  to  have  any  shore. 
for  throughout  its  entire  extent  there  are 
only  one  or  two  points  where  a  foothold 
could  be  gained.  Hence,  the  guides  exercise 
the  strictest  authority,  in  order  to  guard 
against  accidents. 

Tom  secures  for  our  exclusive  use  a  boat 
smaller  than  those  into  which  the  others 


crowd.  He  then  draws  from  a  hiding-place 
a  hand -net,  and  tries  to  catch  for  us  a  few 
of  the  famous  eyeless  fish,  that  dart  to  and 
fro,  but  vanish  on  the  least  agitation  of  the 
water.  His  success  at  this  time  was  not  very 
encouraging.  But  subsequently,  on  other 
trips,  we  captured  numerous  specimens,  from 
two  to  six  inches  in  length,  and  usually  des- 
titute of  even  rudimentary  organs  of  vision. 
Several,  however,  had  protuberances,  or 
sightless  eyes,  and  one  had  good  eye-sight. 
The  gradations  of  color  are  from  olive-brown 
to  pure  white,  while  some  are  perfectly  col- 
orless and  transparent.  They  are  said  to  be 
viviparous ;  and,  instead  of  bones,  have  mere 
cartilage.  Agassiz  held  that  these  cave-fish 
"  were  created  under  the  circumstances  in 
which  they  now  live,  within  the  limits  over 
which  they  range,  and  with  the  structural 
peculiarities  which  characterize  them  at  the 
present  day."  But  it  is  doubtful  if  there  is 
more  variability  than  can  be  explained  by 
simple  retardation  through  successive  gen- 
erations. 

Along  the  water's  edge  are  cavities,  vary- 
ing in  size  from  a  few  inches  to  many  feet, 
washed  out  by  the  stream.  The  Nashville 
wag  saw  his  opportunity  to  break  the  silence 
that  had  settled  over  the  voyagers,  and 
shouted  with  absurd  glee,  pointing  to  the 
cavities  : 

"  Oh,  see  these  little  bits  o'  caves — three 
for  five  cents !  " 

The  solemn  echoes  caught  his  silly  tones, 
and  bore  them,  as  if  in  derision,  hither  and 
thither  and  far  away.  When  the  peals  of 
laughter  that  followed  had  died  away,  a 
quiet  lady  in  black  velvet  led  us  in  sacred 
song.  The  concord  of  sweet  sounds  was 
surprisingly  agreeable ;  but  the  tones  fol- 
lowed each  other  too  rapidly  to  secure  full 
justice. 

Allowing  the  Nashville  party  to  go  on  * 
without  us,  I  passed  the  rest  of  the  day  on 
Echo  River,  alone  with  Tom,  floating  over 
its  strangely  transparent  water,  as  if  gliding 
through  the  air,  and  trying  every  echo  its 
arches  were  capable  of  producing.  A  sin- 
gle aerial  vibration  given  with  energy,  as  by 
a  pistol-shot,  rebounded  from  rock  to  rock. 
The  din  awakened  by  discordant  sounds  was 
frightful.  On  the  other  hand,  when  the 
voice  gave  the  tones  of  a  full  chord  seriatim, 
they  came  back  in  a  sweeping  arpeggio. 
Flute-music  produced  charming  reverbera- 
tions. The  finest  vocal  effect  followed  the 
utterance,  as  strongly  and  firmly  as  possible, 
of  the  key-note  of  that  long  vault,  letting 
all  other  sounds  meanwhile  cease  ;  the  won- 


ONE  HUNDRED  MILES  IN  MAMMOTH  CAVE. 


921 


A    SNOW    CLOUD,    MAMMOTH     CAVE. 

derful  vibrations  thus  caused  were  prolonged 
for  from  fifteen  to  thirty  seconds  after  the 
original  tone  had  been  delivered. 

An  extraordinary  result  was  obtained  by 
the  guide's  agitating  the  water  vigorously 
with  his  broad  paddle,  and  then  seating  him- 
self in  silence  by  my  side.  The  first  sound 
that  broke  the  stillness  was  like  the  tinkling 
of  silver  bells.  Larger  and  heavier  bells 
then  seemed  to  take  up  the  strange  melody, 
as  the  waves  sought  out  the  cavities  in  the 
rock.  And  then  it  appeared  as  if  all  chimes 
of  all  cathedrals  had  conspired  to  raise  a 
tempest  of  sweet  sounds.  They  then  died 
away  to  utter  silence.  We  still  sat  in  expec- 
tation. Lo,  as  if  from  some  deep  recess 
that  had  been  hitherto  forgotten,  came 
a  tone  tender  and  profound;  after  which, 
like  gentle  memories,  were  re-awakened  all 
the  mellow  sounds  that  had  gone  before, 
until  River  Hall  rang  again.  This  concert 
was  prolonged  for  several  minutes,  until  the 
agitation  of  the  waters  had  wholly  subsided. 
Those  who  try  their  own  voices  are  pleased 
to  have  the  hollow  wall  faithfully  give  back 
every  shout  and  song,  whimsical  cry  or  merry 
peal ;  but  the  nymphs  of  Echo  River  reserve 
their  choicest  harmonies  for  those  who  are 
willing  in  silence  to  listen  to  the  voice  of 
many  waters. 

Roaring  River  and  Mystic  River  are  con- 
siderable streams ;  but.  lying  on  side  ave- 
nues, they  are  seldom  visited,  and  may  now 
be  passed  with  mere  mention. 

All  these  lakes  and  rivers  are  liable  to 
overflow,  as  has  already  been  remarked, 
completely  filling  this  part  of  the  cave. 
These  remote  regions  are  never  entered 
when  there  are  signs  of  a  flood.  Large 
VOL.  XX.— 60. 


cans  of  oil  are,  however,  stored  securely, 
against  the  contingency  of  a  party's  being 
shut  in  by  rising  waters ;  so  that  the  lamps 
may  be  kept  burning.  Moreover,  a  discov- 
ery has  been  made,  within  a  year,  of  a 
passage  leading  out  beyond  the  rivers  by  a 
circuit  of  ten  miles.  It  contains  numerous 
objects  of  interest,  but  is  so  rugged  and 
contracted  in  places  as  to  deter  visitors 
from  attempting  to  go  through,  except  in 
case  of  necessity. 

Continuing  our  journey  by  way  of  Silli- 
man's  Avenue  and  El  Ghor,  picturesque 
passes  where  many  fantastic  objects  are 
pointed  out,  we  arrive  at  Hebe's  Spring. 
Here,  by  climbing  a  ladder  and  crawling 
through  a  hole  in  the  roof,  we  are  admitted 
to  an  upper  tier  of  caverns.  Tom  ignites 
blue  fire,  and  we  are  surprised  to  find  our- 
selves in  a  vineyard !  Countless  nodules 
and  globules  simulate  clusters  on  clusters 
of  luscious  grapes,  burdening  hundreds  of 
boughs,  and  gleaming  with  party-colored 
tints  through  the  dripping  dew. 

Washington  Hall  is  but  a  smoke-stained 
lunch-room.  The  ceiling  of  a  room  near 
by  is  dotted  with  semi-spherical  masses  of 
snowy  gypsum,  each  of  which  is  from  two  to 
ten  inches  in  diameter,  looking  like  a  snow- 
ball hurled  against  the  wall  and  sticking 
there.  Snow-ball  Room  is  a  fitting  vestibule 
to  the  treasure  house  of  alabaster  brilliants 
beyond  it,  where  we  tarry  long  with  ever- 
increasing  delight. 


EGYPTIAN    TEMPLE,    MAMMOTH    CAVE. 


922 


ONE  HUNDRED   MILES  IN  MAMMOTH  CAVE. 


What  words  can  picture  forth  the  beauty 
of  Cleveland's  Cabinet  ?  Wyandot  and 
other  caverns  may  have  galleries  like  it  in 
kind,  but  none  to  be  compared  with  it  either 
in  extent  or  symmetry.  We  loiter  beneath 
spotless  arches  of  fifty  feet  span,  where  the 
fancy  is  at  once  enlivened  and  bewildered 
by  a  mimicry  of  every  flower  that  grows  in 
the  garden,  forest  or  prairie,  from  the 
modest  daisy  to  the  flaunting  helianthus. 

Select  for  examination  a  single  one  of 
these  enchanting  blossoms,  the  "oulopholites" 
of  the  mineralogist.  Consider  the  charms 
of  this  queenly  rose  that  has  unfolded  its 
petals  in  Mary's  Bower.  From  a  central 
stem  gracefully  curl  countless  crystals  fibrous 
and  pellucid ;  each  tiny  crystal  is  in  itself  a 
study;  each  fascicle  of  curved  prisms  is 
wonderful;  and  the  whole  creation  is  a 
miracle  of  beauty. 

Now  imagine  this  mimic  flower  multiplied 
from  one  to  a  hundred,  a  thousand,  a 
myriad  !  Move  down  the  dazzling  vista,  as 
if  in  a  dream  of  Elysium, — not  for  a  few 
yards,  or  rods,  but  for  two  miles.  All  is 
virgin  white,  except  here  and  there  a  little 
patch  of  gray  limestone,  or  a  spot  bronzed 
by  some  metallic  stain,  or,  again,  as  we 
purposely  vary  the  lovely  monotony  by 
burning  colored  lights.  Midway  is  a  great 
cross  overhead,  formed  by  the  natural 
grouping  of  stone  rosettes.  Floral  clusters, 
bouquets,  wreaths,  garlands,  embellish 
nearly  every  foot  of  the  ceiling  and  walls ; 
while  the  very  soil  sparkles  with  trodden 
jewels.  The  pendulous  fringes  of  the 
night-blooming  cereus  are  rivaled  by  the 
snowy  plumes  that  float  from  rifts  and 
crevices,  forever  safe  from  the  withering 


STEPHEN    BISHOP,    THE    GUIDE. 


glare  of  daylight.  Clumps  of  lilies,  pale 
pansies,  blanched  tulips,  drooping  fuchsias, 
sprays  of  asters,  spikes  of  tuberoses,  wax- 
leaved  magnolias, — but  why  exhaust  the 
botanical  catalogue  ?  The  fancy  finds 
every  gem  of  the  green-house  and  parterre 
in  this  crystalline  conservatory.  Earlier 
visitors  (Professor  Locke  in  1842,  and  Bay- 
ard Taylor  in  1855)  describe  long  sprays, 
like  stalks  of  celery,  running  vines,  and 
branches  of  a  chandelier;  but  it  has  been 
impossible  to  guard  such  exquisite  forma- 
tions from  covetous  fingers.  Happily  the 
subtle  forces  of  nature  are  still  at  work, 
slowly  replacing  by  fresh  productions  what 
has  gone  to  the  mineralogist's  cabinet  or 
the  amateur's  etagere. 


THE  GIANT'S  COFFIN,  MAMMOTH  CAVE. 


ONE  HUNDRED  MILES  IN  MAMMOTH  CAVE. 


9=3 


The  most  ardent  admirer  of 
Mammoth  Cave  must  admit  its 
poverty  in  stalactitic  adornments ; 
especially  when  compared  with  the 
wonderful  cave  at  Luray,  in  Vir- 
ginia, which,  though  not  exceeding 
fifty  acres  in  area,  has  millions  of 
stalactites,  reflected  from  hundreds 
of  crystal  pools.  But,  on  the  other 
hand,  Luray  has  no  gypsum  ro- 
settes, and  its  largest  lake  is  only 
fifty  feet  in  diameter.  This  remark- 
able difference  is  due  to  the  fact 
that  while  Mammoth  Cave  is  exca- 
vated from  an  immense  mass  of 
homogeneous  limestone,  affording 
few  opportunities  for  the  formation 
of  drip-stone,  the  cave  of  Luray  is 
cut  from  rock  broken  up  into  count- 
less rifts  and  seams  by  the  upheaval 
of  the  Appalachian  range.  Hence, 
the  two  are  as  unlike  as  the  Mis- 
sissippi River  and  Lake  George,  or 
as  Niagara  Falls  and  Watkins 
Glen. 

Beyond  a  rocky  hill  and  a  dis- 
mal gorge  lies  Croghan's  Hall,  and 
a  pit  called  the  Maelstrom,  which 
ends  the  cave  so  far  as  it  has  been 
explored  in  this  direction.  It  is 
due  to  the  memory  of  a  daring 
youth  to  tell  how  Mr.  W.  C.  Pren- 
tice, son  of  the  poet  and  editor,  George  D. 
Prentice,  descended  this  abyss  in  quest  of 
adventures. 

As  the  guides  tell  the  story,  they  furnished 
a  rope,  down  which  the  young  hero  descend- 
ed undaunted,  amid  fearful  and  enchanting 
scenes,  then  first  lighted  since  creation's 
morning  by  the  feeble  rays  of  his  solitary 
lamp.  Midway  he  encountered  a  water-fall, 
spouting  from  the  rocky  wall,  into  whose 
sparkling  shower  he  unavoidably  swung. 
Escaping  all  dangers,  he  stood  at  last  on  the 
solid  rock,  190  feet  below  his  comrades, 
who  now  found  that  it  taxed  their  utmost 
strength  to  lift  him  and  the  amount  of  cable 
that  had  been  paid  out.  On  his  way  up, 
Prentice  swung  himself  into  a  huge  niche 
for  the  purpose  of  exploration,  whence  he 
roamed  through  wide  and  wondrous  cham- 
bers till  checked  by  rocky  barriers.  Then, 
returning  to  the  place  where  he  had  fastened 
his  rope  to  a  stalactite,  he  found  it  disen- 
gaged and  dangling  beyond  his  reach.  In- 
geniously twisting  the  wires  of  hflfcamp  into 
a  long  hook,  he  caught  hold  again,  and 
signaled  to  the  guides  to  draw  him  up.  It 
is  said  (and  one  is  expected  to  believe)  that 


THE    STYX,    MAMMOTH    CAVE. 

they  did  this  with  such  zeal  that  the  cable 
was  fired  by  friction,  and  that  one  of  the 
guides  crawled  out  on  the  beam  and 
emptied  a  flask  of  water  on  the  burning 
rope.  The  whole  story,  with  all  its  embel- 
lishments, is  done  into  spirited  verse  by  Rev. 
George  Lansing  Taylor.  The  hero  himself, 
whose  life  \yas  so  miraculously  spared,  finally 
sacrificed  it,  in  1860,  for  the  lost  cause. 

A  charming  excursion  was  from  Washing- 
ton Hall  down  Marion  Avenue  to  the  Crys- 
tal Paradise.  Another  was  from  the  Vine- 
yard, as  a  starting  point,  and  through  a  long 
winding  arcade  to  Lucy's  Dome,  rarely 
visited  because  somewhat  difficult  of  access. 
This  is  the  loftiest  cave-dome  yet  discovered 
anywhere  in  the  world,  and  in  some  of  its 
features  it  is  unlike  any  we  had  seen  before. 
By  burning  three  Bengal  lights  and  a  quan- 
tity of  magnesium,  simultaneously,  we  barely 
caught  sight  of  the  oval  apex,  more  than  300 
feet  overhead.  A  twin  dome  rises  by  its 
side,  and  a  tall  Gothic  archway  connects 
the  two,  at  a  point  150  feet  above  the  floor. 

It  was  only  after  gaining  considerable 
experience  in  cave-hunting  that  we  vent- 
ured in  alone;  even  then  keeping  to  well- 


924 


ONE  HUNDRED  MILES  IN  MAMMOTH  CA  VE. 


PTOMLESS     PIT,    MAMMOTH    CAVE. 


beaten  paths,  and  noting  landmarks  with 
care;  or,  if  tempted  to  explore  new  ground, 
indicating  the  way  out  by  repeatedly  mark- 
ing arrows  on  the  wall.  The  penalty  of 
losing  one's  way  amid  these  awful  solitudes 
is  a  painful  bewilderment,  often  amounting 
to  temporary  mental  derangement.  Hence, 
as  a  rule,  the  services  of  a  guide  cannot 
safely  be  dispensed  with,  and  guests  should 
respect  his  authority;  for  the  law  holds  him 
responsible  for  the  safe  return  of  those  put 
under  his  care.  Persons  accidentally  sep- 
arated from  their  party  should  quietly  stay 
in  one  place  till  deliverance  comes. 

We  witnessed,  one  day,  a  narrow  escape 
on  the  part  of  an  excitable  gentleman,  who 
trusted  to  his  own  guidance.  His  compan- 
ions were  following  their  guide  up  the  chim- 
ney-like corkscrew,  and  he  caught  at  the 


bright  idea  of  getting  ahead  of  them  by  the 
longer  route.  He  started  off  alone  and  on 
the  full  run.  We  followed  him,  more  out 
of  curiosity  than  from  apprehension.  His 
lamp  went  out ;  but  in  his  eagerness  he  did 
not  stop  to  relight  it,  relying  on  the  scat- 
tered rays  of  ours  behind  him.  Suddenly 
Tom  darted  forward  and  grasped  the 
stranger  in  his  strong  arms.  We  abruptly 
halted.  There,  within  a  single  step,  yawned 
the  Side-saddle  Pit,  on  whose  black  rocks, 
a  hundred  feet  below,  the  man  would  have 
fallen,  had  it  not  been  for  Tom's  presence 
of  mind. 

The  full  moon  was  riding  in  a  cloudless 
sky,  when  we  emerged  from  our  last  day's 
journey  in  the  great  cavern.  We  had,  as 
usual,  a  practical  proof  of  the  purity  of  the 
exhilarating  cave  atmosphere,  by  its  contrast 
with  that  of  the  outer  world,  which  seemed 
heavy  and  suffocating.  The  odors  of  trees, 
grass,  weeds  and  flowers  were  strangely  in- 
tensified and  overpowering.  The  result  of  a 
too  sudden  transition  is  frequently  faintness, 
headache  and  vertigo.  Hence  the  pleasant 
custom  of  lingering  awhile  on  the  threshold, 
where  the  outer  and  inner  airs  mingle. 
Resting  thus,  on  rustic  seats  near  the  en- 
trance, we  interchanged  our  views. 

On  the  whole,  Mammoth  Cave  greatly 
exceeded,  though  differing  from,  our  expec- 
tations. Yet  there  was  a  want  of  full  satis- 
faction. It  was  gratifying  to  be  assured  by 
Tom  that  we  had  probably  tramped  to  and 
fro,  in  and  out,  about  one  hundred  miles ; 
but  how  did  he  know  ? 

The  time  will  come  when  much  more  will 
be  known  of  Mammoth  Cave  than  is  possible 
under  existing  restrictions.  There  ought  to 
be  a  better  understanding  between  the 
owners  and  the  public.  There  should  be 
increased  facilities  of  access,  along  with  a 
sufficient  guarantee  against  any  infringement 
of  proprietary  rights ;  then  let  surveyors 
measure,  geologists  hammer,  and  archaeolo- 
gists delve,  till  the  secrets  of  this  subterranean 
realm  are  unearthed,  and  instead  of  mysteries, 
conjectures  and  estimates,  we  have  definite 
knowledge.  We  were  grateful,  however,  for 
impressions  received  and  memories  retained 
of  wonderful  scenes  and  strange  adventures. 
Feelings  akin  to  friendship  had  sprung  up 
within  us  for  Mammoth  Cave ;  and  it  was 
with  positive  regret  that  we  finally  turned 
away  from  the  fern-fringed  chasm,  lying 
there  in  the  soft  moonlight,  where  the  spark- 
ling cascade  throws  pearly  drops  from  the 
mossy  ridge,  and  spreads  its  mist  like  a 
silver  veil. 


SEA-SIDE  LA  WN-PLANTING. 


925 


SEA-SIDE    LAWN-PLANTING. 


A  LONG,  narrow  sand-beach  with  a  back- 
bone of  diminutive  hills,  sand  dunes,  bare 
except  for  sparse  barberry-bushes  and  mea- 


THE   MAIDEN'S   PINK    (DIANTHUS  DELTOIDES). 


ger,  coarse  grass;  ocean  on  one  side  and 
on  the  other  a  wide  bay  and  sundry  reaches 
of  salt  meadow.  I  lived  on  such  a  spot 
once  upon  a  time,  and  what  is  more,  thor- 
oughly enjoyed  myself.  My  cottage  was 
small  and  somewhat  primitive,  but  for  many 
days  the  delights  of  the  sea  were  all-sufficient. 
Gradually,  however,  I  began  to  realize  that 
so  much  sand  was  monotonous.  I  could  not 
gaze  on  the  sea  forever,  and  if  I  expected 
to  dwell  season  after  season  on  this  place, 
something  must  be  done  in  the  way  of  a 
lawn. 

My  house  was  built,  fortunately,  in  the  lee 
of  some  sand-hills,  and  thus   escaped  the 
full  force  of  high  winds,  which  blew  often 
enough  even  in  summer.      The  same  situa- 
tion secured  it  also  from  high  tides,  which 
sometimes,  during  unusual  storms,  dashed 
through  to  the  very  bay.     All  the  first  sea- 
son, I  investigated  and  experimented.    Many 
advised   me   to  use  red   cedars  and  other 
native  evergreens.     I  soon  convinced  my- 
self, however,  that  deciduous  trees  and  shrubs 
were  alone  suited  to  my  purpose,  which  pur- 
pose, moreover,  I  wished  to  accomplish  as 
quickly  as    possible.      Realizing  somewhat 
already  the  difficulties  to  be  met,  the  field 
of  my  lawn-planting  was  circumscribed  to 
a  space  about  100  feet  square,  on  the  bay 
side  of  the  house.     Indeed,  a  hundred  feet 
in  the  rear  of  the  house  came  a  few  feet 
of  meadow  land  and  then  a  cove  in  the  bay. 
The  proximity  of  meadow  land  seemed  to 
lend   a  certain  solidity  and   fer- 
tility to  the  soil  which    did   not 
characterize  it  farther   away.     I 
had  noticed  this  in  the  vegetable 
gardens  of  these  Jersey  beaches. 
Grape-vines   and    willows    flour- 
ished here  and  there,  and  nowhere 
could     larger     onions    be 
found  than  in  gardens  next 
the    bay(  meadows.       My 
first    care    was,    of  course, 
the   erection  of  a  fence 
against    roaming    cattle, 
etc.,  for  no  more  lawless 
region  exists  in   this  re- 
spect   than    the    beach. 
The   next    thing    to    be 
done   was   to   plant  this 
boundary  completely  with 
shrubs  and  trees,  to  se- 
cure ornament  and  further 


NIEREMBERGIA    RIVULARIS. 


926 


SEA-SIDE  LA  WN-PLANTING. 


ROCKY    MOUNTAIN    COLUMBINE    (AQUILEGIA    CCERULEA). 

protection  for  the  lawn  proper.  These  trees, 
from  their  deciduous  nature,  afforded  a  pleas- 
ant shade,  far  pleasanter  than  that  of  any 
evergreen.  Besides,  the  blazing  reflection 
from  adjoining  sand-stretches  is  always  more 
trying  for  evergreens  than  for  deciduous 
trees ;  this  notwithstanding  the  fact  that  red 
cedars  are  not  uncommon  on  sea-beaches. 
The  objection  to  evergreens,  however,  lies 
specially  in  the  great  difficulty  found  in 
transplanting  them  successfully  in  such  un- 
mitigated sand.  Nature  has  favored  the 
spontaneous  growth  of  red  cedars  and  one  or 
two  other  evergreens,  on  sea-beaches,  but  for 
what  reason  and  how,  who  shall  say  ?  Ex- 
perience also  soon  taught  me  that  in  these 
bleak  sections  nothing  but  the  coarser,  more 
vigorous,  deciduous  trees  and  shrubs  would 
be  likely  to  succeed.  I  confess  that  I  tried 
sundry  very  attractive  plants,  both  deciduous 
and  evergreen,  but  soon  found  myself  reduced 
to  nearly  the  varieties  I  am  about  to  mention. 
It  is  scarcely,  worth  while  to  relate  my 
various  mishaps,  although  they  were  numer- 
ous. Very  many  choice  shrubs  and  trees 
died.  There  were  graceful  birches,  white- 
fringes,  Judas-trees,  beeches,  larches,  elms, 
maples,  evergreen  shrubs  and  a  dozen  other 
beautiful  trees  ;  but  they  all  died,  sooner  or 
later.  I  wonder  I  did  not  give  up  in  despair. 
If  a  foot  of  good  soil  could  only  have  been 
spread  on  the  surface,  the  undertaking  would 
not  have  been  so  difficult,  for  even  a  thin 


stratum  of  solid  earth  might  have  secured 
the  plants  a  decent  foothold.  However, 
after  a  while,  certain  shrubs  and  trees  did  not 
only  live,  but  grew  vigorously.  The  group- 
ing was  irregular,  skirting  the  fence  in  such 
manner  as  to  afford  occasional  glimpses 
without,  as  well  as  a  considerable  variety  of 
flowers  and  foliage.  Willows  and  poplars 
and  similar  free-growing  deciduous  trees 
were  found  best  suited  for  outer  boundaries. 
They  obtained  a  hold  on  the  soil  quicker, 
and  therefore,  with  their  vigorous  natures, 
grew  up  at  once  as  a  shelter  to  choicer  plants 
inside.  In  accordance  with  correct  meth- 
ods, this  outer  grouping  consisted  of  mixed 
shrubs  and  trees.  Here  and  there  a  tree, 
varying  the  sky-line  above  masses  of  shrubs 
and  low  trees,  gave  a  striking  and  agreeable 
effect.  Many  of  these  trees,  as  well  as  shrubs, 
tossed  up  leaves  with  silver  linings  or 
were  of  a  decidedly  gray  aspect — a  feature 
always  agreeable  at  the  sea-side,  if  not 
repeated  too  often.  For  this  special  purpose 
of  relief  from  monotony,  I  found  the  pecul- 
iar-looking catalpa  one  of  the  most  valuable 
ornamental  trees.  Its  great,  heart-shaped, 
shadowy  leaves  piled  themselves  in  rounded, 
spreading  masses,  umbrageous  in  the  highest 
degree.  It  presented  a  vivid,  soft  yellow- 
ish-green late  in  fall,  and  thus  not  only  gave 
varied  coloring  to  the  grouping,  but  gave  a 
rich  effect  at  a  time  when  most  other  trees 
and  shrubs  began  to  lose  their  natural  hues. 
Smooth,  glossy  stems  and  beautiful  loose 
panicles  of  white  flowers,  flecked  inside  with 
orange  and  purple,  add  to  the  charm  of  this 
excellent  tree,  which,  fortunately  for  me,  de- 
lighted in  well-fertilized  sandy  soil.  Among 
three  varieties  of  poplars  used  on  my  sea- 
side lawn,  a  great  favorite  was  the  American 
aspen  (P.  tremuloides).  It  is  not  a  lofty  tree, 
but  very  beautiful  on  account  of  the  trembling 
sensitiveness  of  its  leaves.  No  forest  tree 
comes  earlier  into  leaf,  and  the  exquisitely 
delicate  green  of  its  first  leaves  makes  one 
of  the  most  charming  effects  of  early  spring. 
The  aspen  sheds  its  leaves  early,  but  they 
turn  a  pleasing  yellow  in  fall.  In  a  good 
soil,  even  if  light,  its  growth  is  rapid,  giving 
the  tree  a  pyramidal  form  while  young,  and 
a  symmetrically  irregular  outline  at  matu- 
rity. The  branches  and  twigs  have  a  gray- 
ish hue,  and  the  older  bark  is  spotted  with 
black.  Many  outer  branches  become  pend- 
ulous as  the  tree  grows  old. 

As  a  matter  of  course,  I  used  the  silver 
poplar,  so  often  criticised  for  its  suckering 
tendencies  as  a  street  tree.  It  proved,  how- 
ever, a  valuable  tree  forme,  growing  rapidly 


SEA-SIDE  LA  WN-PLANTING. 


927 


and  retaining  a  healthy  habit.  The  tree 
itself  is  really  very  attractive,  although  of 
irregular,  spreading  form.  Its  leaves  are  of 
a  deep,  bright  green  on  the  upper  surface, 
with  white  down  on  the  under.  This  color, 
instead  of  disappearing  as  the  season  ad- 
vances, seems  on  the  contrary  to  grow 
whiter,  the  sheen  of  the  leaves  in  a  light 
breeze  having  the  effect  of  numerous  quiver- 
ing, silver  blossoms. 

The  other  poplar  of  my  lawn  was  the 
balsam  or  tacamahac.  This  tree  has  a  fine 
habit  and  growth,  and  the  rich  gamboge- 
yellow  of  certain  parts  of  the  foliage  is  very 
attractive.  To  those  who  are  accustomed  to 
the  common  ill-shaped  poplars  along  the 
road-side,  my  expressions  in  their  praise  may 
seem  somewhat  extravagant.  Let  me  say, 
however,  that  no  tree  can  be  more  improved 
by  the  systematic  use  of  the  pruning-knife 
than  the  poplar.  The  willows  used  in  my 
lawn  constitute,  perhaps,  its  most  valuable 
ornamental  feature.  The  soil  was  very 
favorable  to  their  growth,  and  I  used  a 
number  of  them  because  of  the  variety 
of  their  effects,  especially  when  mingled 
with  the  mixed  outer  grouping  of  shrubs 
and  trees.  Few  realize  the  diversity  of 
form  exhibited  among  willows.  Kinds  num- 
bered by  hundreds  take  on  almost  every 
form  and  color  conceivable,  although  still 
retaining  many  characteristic  qualities  of 
willows.  In  speaking  of  willows,  the  form 
of  the  common  weeping- willow  (salix  Baby- 
lonica)  naturally  occurs  first  to  the  mind ;  it 
proved,  indeed,  a  valuable  tree  for  my  lawn, 
with  its  graceful,  fountain-like  foliage,  but, 
more  than  almost  anything  else,  it  requires 
pruning.  Similar,  and  still  more  delicate 
and  graceful,  was  the  Japan  willow  (salix 
Sieboldii).  But  the  best  willow  of  the  lot 
was  the  laurel-leaved  willow  (salix  pen- 
tandra).  The  value  of  this  willow,  though 
long  known,  is  too  little  recognized.  For  a 
willow,  the  leaves  are  very  large,  shining  and 
glossy,  like  veritable  orange-leaves.  Other- 
wise the  growth  of  this  remarkable  shrub  is 
erect,  rounded,  almost  pyramidal  in  general 
contour, — peculiarities  seldom  seen  among 
willows.  Indeed,  it  requires  pruning  less 
than  almost  any  plant  of  its  genus.  The  rich 
yellowish-green  of  the  stem  also  contrasts 
well  with  the  foliage,  and  gives  the  tree  a 
decidedly  elegant  appearance.  I  employed 
also  another  somewhat  uncommon  willow, 
salix  regalis.  The  leaves  were  of  so  light  a 
hue  as  to  present  during  much  of  their  growth 
the  grayish  white  of  native  silver.  This 
truly  royal  willow  is  perhaps  the  lightest  and 


most  silvery  shrub  we  have  among  those 
suited  for  sea-side  planting.  Eleagnus  hor- 
tensis  and  the  sea-buckthorn,  though  silvery 
and  effective  in  such  positions,  are  far  inferior 
in  richness  of  coloring.  One  or  two  other 
trees  I  tried  with  considerable  success ;  but 
the  kinds  already  named  include  the  best 
varieties  employed. 

Among  the  shrubs,  perhaps  the  most  note- 
worthy and  generally  valuable  for  the  position 


LARGE-FLOWERING    TICKSEED    (COREOPSIS    GRANDIFLORA). 

was  the  California  privet  (Ligustrum  ovali- 
folium),  a  plant  originally  from  Japan.  It  is 
perfectly  hardy,  grows  rapidly  in  almost  any 
position,  and  is  very  ornamental  in  appear- 
ance. In  fact,  it  gives  an  evergreen  element 
to  the  piace,  for  the  leaves  stay  on  at  times 
all  winter,  and  have  a  dark,  waxy  green,  sug- 
gestive of  the  laurel,  rhododendron  and  other 
evergreen  shrubs.  This  plant  I  used  freely 
throughout  both  the  boundaries  and  inner 


SEA- SIDE  LA  IVN-PLANTING. 


groupings.     Though  an  old  shrub,  the  Cali- 
fornia  privet   is   not   known    as   it   should 
be.     Among  the  low-growing  willows  were 
found  several  suited  for  my  purpose.     The 
rosemary   willow  ( S.    rosmarinifolia),  with 
its  narrow,  delicate,   grayish-green  foliage, 
properly  pruned,  did  remarkably  well,  as  did 
also  the  well-known  Kilmarnock  willow,  of 
picturesque,  perfect  curves  and  rich  foliage. 
Very  beautiful,  also,  is  the  purple-leaved  weeping- 
willow  ( S.purpurea  pendula).     It  is  very  narrow- 
leaved  and  graceful,  glaucous  on  one  side,  after 
the  manner  of  willows,  and  dark  greenish-purple 
on  the  other.     Both  of  these  varieties  need  fre- 
quent pruning  to  retain  symmetry.     In  this  case 
they  were  employed  both  low  and  high  grafted. 
Uplifted  on  a  stem  seven  or  eight  feet  in  height, 
the  effect  of  their  parasol-like  crown  of  foliage  is 
very   fine,   alike    mingled   with    other    trees    or 
standing  alone  somewhat  within   the  boundary. 
I  preferred  the  picturesque  and  more  permanent 
nature  of  low-grafted  specimens.      It  has  also 
been  noted   elsewhere  how  much   high-grafted 
plants   suffer  from  the  exigencies   of  American    seasons. 
Eleagnus  hortensis  formed  yet  another  vigorous  shrub  for 
mass-grouping  by  the  sea-side,  and  possessed,  moreover,  the 
silvery-gray  foliage  so  beautiful  in  such  positions,  especially 
if  duly  mingled  with  a  proportion  of  darker-colored  shrubs. 
There  is  a  choice  relation  and  sympathy  of  color  to  be 
found  in  combinations  of  certain  trees  and  shrubs  which 
will  fully  reward  the  study  that  seeks  to  adapt  them  to 
appropriate  neighborhoods.    A  willow  by  a  lake  or  stream, 
and  a  Norway  spruce  on  a  rocky  hill-side,  are  examples  in 
point.     Within  the  belt  of  plants  which  proved  of  peculiar 
importance  in  my  exposed  position,  I  was  enabled  to  grow, 
scattered  about  near  the  walks  or  boundaries,  many  choice 
and  beautiful  flowering  deciduous  shrubs.     They  consisted 
of  such  kinds  as  the  silver-lined  Hydrangea  nivea,  several 
spireas  already  spoken  of,  notably  S.  tomentosa,  blooming  in 
midsummer,  as  well  as  the  snow-berry,  red-stemmed  dog- 
wood,   Amorpha,    Forsythia,    Deutzia   and    Philadelphus. 
The  fresh  green  foliage  of  the  common  beach-plum  I  found 
very  effective  in  large  masses,  and  readily  transplanted. 
It  is  important  in  such  places  to  plant  in  masses,  that  one 
shrub  may  protect  the  other.     This  collection  of  shrubs 
gave  considerable  variety  of  flowers  and  foliage  throughout 
the  season,  and  were  so   disposed  about  the  lawn  as   to 
leave  broad,  open  surfaces  of  turf. 

But  here  came  in  the  question :  Of  what  should  the  turf 
be  made  ?  My  experiments  in  this  line  had  been  extended 
and  decidedly  unfortunate.  Grass  would  not  grow  on  such 
soil,  and  many  other  things  failed  as  I  tried  them,  until  it 
occurred  to  me  to  use  some  of  the  creeping  herbaceous 
plants,  wild  flowers,  if  you  please,  that  spring  up  in  almost  any  soil.  I  was  specially  suc- 
cessful in  producing  turf  by  means  of  broad  patches  of  Lysimachia  nummularia,  otherwise 
called  moneywort  or  Creeping  Charlie.  Its  small  light-green  or  yellow  leaves  grow  with 
great  rapidity,  and  spread  out  in  thick,  dense  areas  of  a  fresh,  lively  color.  The  flowers 
studded  all  over  the  mass  gleam  like  little  yellow  jewels.  In  order  to  give  room  for 
other  plants,  these  moneyworts  are  planted  three  feet  apart,  and  here  and  there,  espe- 


BLUE     HAREBELL     (CAMPANULA 
ROTUNDIFOLIA). 


A   FREE  LENDING  LIBRARY  FOR  NEW  YORK. 


929 


cially  on  the  outer  borders,  are  scattered  low- 
growing  herbaceous  plants.  There  were 
bright-colored  dwarf  phloxes,  neat,  many- 
formed  sedums,  white  or  pinkish  flowered 
candytuft,  white  rock-cress,  and  the  mount- 
ain everlasting  scarcely  an  inch  high,  with 
creeping  stems  and  silvery  leaves.  Then 
there  was  the  Aquilegia  ccerulea  of  our  illus- 
tration, the  curious  blue  Rocky  Mountain 
columbine,  one  of  the  most  interesting  plants 
of  its  class ;  the  pretty  little  maiden's  pink 
and  delicate  blue  harebell  peered  out  in 
numerous  spots,  while  the  pure  white  blos- 
soms of  the  Nierembergia  rivularis  studded 
a  carpet  of  its  own  rich  green.  Plants  of 
large-flowering  tickseed  (Coreopsis  grandi- 
flora)  were  also  used,  and  made  gorgeous 
clusters  of  bright-orange  flowers.  It  made 
truly  a  party-colored  carpet,  but  it  was  pleas- 
ant to  the  eye  throughout  the  summer,  with 
the  added  charms  of  a  series  of  blooms, 
although  it  could  not,  of  course,  in  every 


way  equal  grass.  Let  me  also  say  here  that 
one  great  secret  of  the  success  of  this  lawn 
lay  in  thorough  mulching,  and  in  the  copious 
application  of  water,  which  sometimes  con- 
tained in  solution  strong  ammoniated  fertil- 
izers. Vigorous  growth  is  absolutely  essential 
to  permanent  success  in  the  adverse  sur- 
roundings of  sea-side  lawn-planting. 

Pruning,  also,  especially  in  the  case  of 
such  trees  and  shrubs  as  are  here  named, 
cannot  receive  too  careful  attention. 

In  concluding  this  brief  sketch  of  my  sea- 
side lawn,  I  would  again  warn  any  one  from 
attempting  too  much  in  such  exposed  places. 
There  are  unquestionably  very  great  difficul- 
ties to  overcome,  and  only  by  carefully 
adapting  oneself  to  circumstances  is  tolerable 
success  possible.  It  should  be  remembered, 
on  the  other  hand,  as  an  encouraging  fact, 
that,  given  abundant  water,  fertilizing  power 
and  mulch,  pure  sand  may  be  made  to  perform 
marvels  hardly  possible  on  any  other  soil. 


A   FREE    LENDING    LIBRARY    FOR    NEW   YORK, 


WITH    THE    PUBLIC    SCHOOLS   AS    BRANCHES. 


THERE  is  at  present  a  general  impression 
in  the  city  of  New  York,  among  the  class 
known  as  "  leading  citizens,"  that  the  time 
has  come  to  found  a  great  public  lending 
library.  This  is  certainly  cause  for  con- 
gratulation— though  why  the  time  should 
be  thought  only  just  now  to  have  come 
might  not  be  easy  to  explain,  in  view  of  the 
well-known  experience,  not  only  of  many 
English  towns,  but  also  of  several  of  our 
own  sister  cities. 

Boston,  twenty  years  ago,  thought  the 
time  had  come,  and  acted  accordingly.  She 
spent,  and  spent  well,  in  founding  her  great 
free  library,  more  than  two  dollars  for  each 
man,  woman  and  child  within  her  limits, 
and  she  has  sustained  it  to  this  day  with 
equal  spirit  and  liberality.  That  library 
has  now  more  than  three  hundred  and  sixty 
thousand  volumes,  and  her  citizens  last  year 
took  from  it  to  their  homes  more  than  one 
million  one  hundred  and  sixty  thousand  books. 
Many  smaller  places  in  New  England  and 
elsewhere,  not  without  careful  investigation, 
have  followed  her  example,  finding  in  the 
practical  results  of  her  twenty  years'  work 
proof  satisfactory  to  their  tax-payers  that  a 
free  library  is  a  profitable  investment  of 
VOL.  XX.— 61. 


public  money ;  while  in  the  West,  the  great 
cities  of  Cincinnati,  Chicago  and  St.  Louis, 
with  the  western  free-handed  energy,  have 
established  free  libraries  on  such  a  scale 
that  one,  at  least,  of  them  bids  fair  to  rank 
among  the  greatest  in  the  world. 

Our  first  excuse  for  our  delay  in  the  mat- 
ter, as  for  all  other  civic  delinquencies,  is 
the  mixed  composition  of  our  population,* 
but  in  that  respect  both  Boston  and  Cincin- 
nati are,  in  fact,  almost  as  heavily  handi- 
capped as  New  York,  while  Chicago  is  even 
worse  off.  The  shape  of  our  city,  also,  its 
insular  site,  its  intense  commercial  activity, 
and  the  nightly  exodus  of  such  hosts  of  its 
busy  workers,  all  tend,  by  offering  unusual 
conditions,  to  embarrass  the  consideration 
of  the  question. 

It  is  a  discouraging  and  humiliating  re- 
flection that  we,  the  citizens  of  this,  the 

*  A  reference  to  the  census  for  1870  shows  the  for- 
eign-born population  of  Boston  to  be  35  per  cent,  of 
the  whole ;  of  Cincinnati,  37  per  cent. ;  of  Chicago,  48 
per  cent.,  and  of  New  York  45  per  cent.  One  third, 
however,  of  this  45  per  cent,  are  Germans,  who  may 
for  the  most  part,  for  the  purposes  of  this  calcula- 
tion, be  considered  the  same  as  ourselves.  The  Irish 
element  is  even  larger  in  Boston  than  here,  being 
23  per  cent,  to  our  22  per  cent. 


93° 


A   FREE  LENDING  LIBRARY  FOR  NEW   YORK. 


metropolis  of  the  western  hemisphere,  have 
to-day,  as  a  body,  relatively  fewer  literary 
privileges  than  were  enjoyed  by  our  pre- 
decessors at  the  beginning  of  the  century. 
Our  libraries  then  were  small,  but  they  were 
within  the  reach  of  all.  The  Society  Li- 
brary, for  instance,  in  the  year  1795  had 
five  or  six  thousand  volumes  and  some  nine 
hundred  subscribers ;  it  has  now  some  sixty- 
five  thousand  volumes,  but  its  subscribers 
are  somewhere  about  twelve  hundred.  The 
Apprentices'  Library,  at  its  foundation  in 
1820,  was  probably  within  fifteen  minutes' 
walk  of  three-quarters  of  the  apprentices  in 
the  city  ;  to-day  its  collection  of  over  fifty 
thousand  volumes  is  positively  inaccessible 
to  probably  at  least  the  same  proportion. 
The  cause  is  everywhere  the  same — that 
the  means  have  gradually  come  to  be  re- 
garded as  the  end, — the  true  end  and  aim  of 
a  public  library  being  evidently  not  the  mere 
collecting  of  books,  however  valuable,  but 
the  getting  of  them  read  by  those  who  need 
them. 

It  must  be  admitted  that  the  great  city 
of  New  York  has  just  cause  for  shame,  being 
in  this  state  of  things  not  only  behind  the 
age,  but  behind  many  small  and  unimportant 
towns  of  past  ages. 

Our  largest  libraries,  the  Astor  and  the 
Lenox,  are,  even  to  well-to-do  business  men, 
practically  as  inaccessible  as  if  they  were  in 
another  city.  The  Society  and  the  Mercan- 
tile, though  not  free,  are,  it  is  true,  pecuniarily 
within  the  reach  of  a  large  class,  and  they, 
as  well  as  the  smaller  collections  of  the 
Young  Men's  Christian  Association  and  the 
Cooper  Union,  may  be  consulted  in  the 
evening ;  but  this  involves  a  sacrifice  costly 
indeed  to  most — that  of  their  few  hours  of 
home  life  and  home  influence.  To  the  vast 
majority  of  mechanics  and  working-men, 
these  also  are  entirely  out  of  reach.  What 
wonder,  then,  that  the  dime  novel  and  the 
sensation  story-paper  pass  from  hand  to 
hand,  and  gradually  become  almost  the 
exclusive  reading  in  thousands  of  humble 
homes  !  Yet  there  are  few  lads  who  would 
not  rather  read  a  natural  history  adapted  to 
their  years,  with  anecdotes  of  -wild  and 
tame  animals,  or  really  good  books  of  travel 
and  adventure,  provided  that  all  these  are 
so  illustrated  as  to  bring  them  within  the 
grasp  of  an  unpracticed  imagination. 

When  the  oldest  of  our  city,  libraries  were 
established,  New  York  was  a  little  town  of 
easy  and  simple  habits.  Since  those  days 
she  has  increased,  and  all  the  inventions  of 
the  modem  world  have  come  in  a  hundred- 


fold, but  the  methods  of  her  libraries  remain 
unchanged.  If  one  of  her  citizens  has  to-day 
occasion  to  inform  himself  in  any  but  the 
most  elementary  manner  on  some  subject,  say 
of  scientific  or  historical  interest,  he  must  send 
to  London  and  buy  the  necessary  publica- 
tions, or  go  in  person  to  one,  probably  suc- 
cessively to  several,  of  our  bonded  book  ware- 
houses, facetiously  termed  free  libraries,  get 
the  books  out,  if  happily  they  are  there  to  be 
got  out,  one  by  one  on  his  written  recogni- 
zance, and  read  them  with  what  heart  he 
may  in  some  elbow-touching  rank  of  fellow 
unfortunates, — and  all  before  four  o'clock 
in  the  afternoon.  The  result  should  have 
been  foreseen  by  any  one  with  the  least 
knowledge  of  human  nature,  or  the  slightest 
experience  of  human  action.  Although  our 
half-dozen  principal  libraries  aggregate  some 
half-million  of  volumes,  the  majority  even 
of  our  cultivated  classes  make  no  use  what- 
ever of  them,  and  naturally  regard  them 
with  indifference,  while  the  great  mass  of  the 
population  are  doubtless  ignorant  of  their 
very  existence. 

Our  public  may  be  divided  roughly  into 
three  classes  of  readers, — that  is,  of  those 
who  would  become  readers  under  more 
favorable  circumstances.  The  first  comprises 
people  of  wealth  and  leisure,  together  with 
those  who  make  literature  a  profession ;  the 
second,  business  men  of  all  kinds,  who  gen- 
erally can  better  afford  money  than  time ; 
the  third,  working  men  and  women,  of  whom 
it  is  no  stretch  of  truth  to  say  that  they  have 
neither  time  nor  money  at  their  disposal. 
The  first  class  can  make  shift  to  get  on  as  at 
present ;  the  second,  on  the  contrary,  does 
not  and  will  not  make  use,  to  any  extent, 
of  facilities  such  as  we  now  have;  the  third 
cannot  if  it  would. 

A  great  library  is  no  longer  an  experiment, 
nor  are  its  manifold  benefits  now  for  the  first 
time  to  be  demonstrated.  As  we  turn  the 
pages  of  history,  scarce  a  monarch  truly 
great  but  founds  or  revives  one ;  scarce  a 
free  people'  of  any  political  sagacity  but 
early  manifests  solicitude  on  the  subject.  If 
the  great  sea-port  of  the  ancient  world, 
though  heiress  of  the  stupendous  monu- 
mental records  of  primeval  civilization,  yet 
counted  her  collection  of  parchment  and 
papyrus  scrolls  among  her  chief  glories, 
housing  it  splendidly  among  the  palaces  and 
temples  of  her  principal  street;  if  the  chief 
mart  of  modern  Christendom  lias  provided 
for  her  library  (it  now  numbers  over  a  million 
volumes)  even  more  munificently,  expending 
one  hundred  and  fifty  thousand  pounds  ster- 


A   FREE  LENDING  LIBRARY  FOR   NEW   YORK. 


ling  on  its  reading-room  alone;  surely  the 
metropolis  of  the  New  World,  of  destinies 
possibly  greater  than  either,  need  not  fear  to 
lay  foundations  broad  and  deep  for  a  struct- 
ure grander  than  human  eyes  have  thus  far 
seen. 

But  who,  in  this  city  of  shifting  popula- 
tion, of  feverish  commercial  activity,  of  pop- 
ular and  not  too  pure  administration,  can  be 
found,  of  strength  and  skill  to  wield  the 
ponderous  instrument,  to  hold  it  back  from 
unworthy  uses,  and  to  guard  it  from  falling 
into  ignorant  or  corrupt  hands  ? 

The  money  question  will  be  the  first  to 
strike  our  New-Yorker.  Can  the  large  sum 
necessary  be  raised  by  private  subscription  ? 
On  the  other  hand,  if  voted  by  the  city,  can 
the  professional  politician  be  kept  at  bay  ? 
It  would  seem  in  principle  that  an  institution 
so  entirely  for  the  people,  and  for  the  whole 
people,  should  not  be  left  to  the  uncertainties 
of  private  benevolence.  It  ought  to  be 
founded  and  maintained  by  the  city,  the 
necessary  appropriation  being  voted  and  the 
money  raised  in  the  same  way  as  that  for 
the  Board  of  Education.  Practically,  how- 
ever, it  would  evidently  be  exceedingly 
desirable  that,  to  begin  with,  a  fund  should 
be  subscribed  large  enough  to  defray,  at 
least,  the  expense  of  getting  the  enterprise 
fairly  under  way,  with  a  permanent  board 
of  management  organized  and  in  the  field. 
As  we  proceed,  a  plan  may  develop  itself 
by  which  these  expenses  may  be  reduced 
much  below  what  has  hitherto  been  thought 
possible.* 

The  free  library  must  be  considered  as, 
in  its  simplest  and  justest  conception,  the 
adjunct  and  concomitant  of  the  public 
school,  joining  in  the  task  of  popular  in- 
struction even  before  the  latter  lays  it  down, 
seeking  to  make  permanent  results  already 
attained,  and  to  carry  on  the  work  of  edu- 
cating the  people  even  through  their  years 
of  maturity.  The  best  thought  of  the  pres- 
ent day  on  this  subject  all  seems  to  tend  in 
this  direction,  and,  as  might  have  been  ex- 
pected, not  a  few  able  and  philanthropic 
men  have  already  thrown  themselves  heart 
and  soul  into  so  fascinating  a  field  of  work. 
In  Providence,  for  instance,  the  public 

*  We  may  advert  here  to  one  source  of  growth  of 
a  really  popular  library,  which  is  in  the  large  num- 
ber of  valuable  books  now  annually  scattered  or  sold 
for  trifling  sums,  but  which  would  speedily  begin  to 
find  their  way  into  it,  were  they  only  made  welcome, 
and  were  there  suitable  public  recognition  of  such 
gifts  by  notices  posted  in  the  porch  and  inserted  in 
daily  papers — perhaps,  also,  by  proper  stamps  and 
labels  in  the  books  themselves. 


librarian  daily  posts  upon  his  bulletin  lists 
of  books  suitable  for  consultation  on  the 
topics  of  the  day,  as  mentioned  in  the  daily 
papers,  and  he  also  publishes,  from  time  to 
time,  "  attractive  articles  tempting  the  reader 
further."  At  Harvard  College,  by  co-op- 
eration of  the  professors  and  the  veteran 
pioneer  in  library  work,  Mr.  Justin  Winsor, 
the  resources  of  the  library  are  utilized  in  a 
systematic  way  which  is  probably  without 
example  in  such  an  institution. 

It  would  be  difficult  to  exaggerate  the 
influence  that  could  be  exerted  by  an  ear- 
nest teacher,  having  at  his  disposal  the  varied 
treasures  of  a  great  library  for  reward  of  the 
diligent  and  encouragement  of  the  flagging. 

Not  of  the  public  school  alone,  however, 
but  of  every  school  and  institution  of  learn- 
ing, should  the  public  library  be  the  adjunct 
and  the  successor, — of  every  striving,  strug- 
gling man  and  woman  should  it  be  the 
confidant  and  guide,  ready  to  lend  counsel  in 
every  trade  and  profession,  to  every  artisan, 
every  artist,  to  every  merchant,  to  every 
scholar. 

Let  those  who  pride  themselves  upon 
their  devotion  to  the  so-called  practical 
reflect  that  the  advantages  of  a  library  are 
no  longer  of  a  purely  literary  character,  and 
are  becoming  less  and  less  so;  that  the 
"  arts  and  mysteries  "  of  manufacture  are  no 
longer  taught  by  word  of  mouth  alone  to  in- 
dentured apprentices,  but  that  the  "  master 
workmen  "  of  the  nineteenth  century  spaak 
through  books  to  all ;  and  that  in  proportion 
as  our  workmen  become  intelligent  and 
skillful  does  their  labor  increase  in  value  to 
themselves  and  to  the  State. 

It  is  probably  not  too  much  to  say  that 
the  benefits  already  suggested  to  our  work- 
ing classes,  and  through  them  to  our  city, 
will  alone  be  of  a  magnitude  to  warrant  the 
expense  of  the  undertaking;  but  it  is  to  the 
great  middle  class,  engaged  generally  in 
business  pursuits,  that  our  library  will  really 
be  the  greatest  boon,  and  in  the  midst  of 
which  its  beneficient  influences  will  be  most 
promptly  and  most  widely  manifested  ;  it 
is  probable  that  men  of  action  in  this  same 
middle  class,  comprising  so  many  of  broad- 
est view  and  clearest  insight,  will  more 
often  than  now  give  us  the  results  of  their 
experience  and  observation,  when  they  are 
able  to  assure  themselves,  as  they  cannot 
now  do,  that  some  one  else  may  not  already 
have  been  over  the  very  same  ground. 

Fortunately  for  the  successful  working  of 
our  future  library,  there  are  already  in  ex- 
istence excellent  models  for  many  details, 


932 


A   FREE  LENDING   LIBRARY  FOR  NEW   YORK. 


both  of  construction  and  operation.  The 
great  reading-room,  for  instance,  of  the 
British  Museum  Library,  in  London,  is 
not  likely  to  be  forgotten  by  those  Amer- 
icans who  have  been  admitted  to  its  privi- 
leges, and  it  might  with  advantage  be  repro- 
duced here,  unchanged  except  in  size.  It 
is  a  circular  building,  floored  with  heavy 
India-rubber,  lighted  in  the  day-time  by 
windows  in  its  immense  iron  dome,  and  in 
the  evening  by  the  electric  light ;  and  it  has 
arranged  upon  its  walls  a  reference  library 
of  thirty  thousand  volumes,  to  be  taken 
down  at  will  by  any  reader.  In  the  center 
of  the  room  sits  the  librarian  with  his  assist- 
ants ;  surrounding  them  is  the  circular 
catalogue-counter,  and  radiating  from  this 
are  desks  for  three  hundred  readers,  to  each 
allotted  pens,  ink,  blotting  pad,  an  arm-chair 
on  casters,  and  last,  not  least,  four  feet  of 
elbow  room.  Any  reader  wishing  a  book 
not  upon  the  walls  of  the  room  has  but  to 
ask  for  it  at  the  central  counter,  and  it  is 
presently  brought  to  his  desk  by  an  assistant. 
This  arrangement  it  would  be  hard  to  im- 
prove upon,  but  we  should  have  also  a 
second  large  room,  as  in  Boston,  for  news- 
papers and  periodicals,  while  a  third,  of  less 
size,  should  be  devoted  to  the  preservation 
and  the  study  of  prints  and  drawings.  Many 
less  striking  but  equally  important  prob- 
lems, as,  for  example,  to  obtain  ventilation 
without  dust,  warmth  without  injury  to 
bindings,  light  with  economy  of  space  and 
convenient  classification,  seclusion  for  special 
studies  with  thorough  supervision,  and  many 
others,  have  all  been  solved  more  or  less 
satisfactorily,  and  there  is  no  reason  why,  in 
all  such  particulars,  we  should  not  begin 
where  others  leave  off.  Probably  the  key 
to  some  of  the  greatest  moment  will  be  found 
in  the  abandonment  of  the  shelving  on  the 
external  walls,  and  the  making  of  the  win- 
dows as  numerous  and  as  large  as  possible, 
so  as  to  light  up  brightly  the  alcoves  in  the 
stacks  of  shelves  which  should  fill  the  cen- 
ter of  the  building.  These  stacks,  with  an 
iron  frame-work  and  shelves  of  japanned 
iron,  or,  perhaps,  of  heavy  glass,  would 
defy  all  the  destructive  agencies  from  which 
library  buildings  have  heretofore  suffered, 
except  the  sledge-hammers  of  barbarism  and 
fanaticism. 

In  organizing  the  lending,  or  "circula- 
ting," work  of  the  library,  the  Boston  plan 
may  probably  be  followed  to  advantage. 
This  divides  it  into  two  departments,  re- 
quiring of  all  borrowers  separate  application 
and  registration;  the  Boston  "Lower  Hall" 


containing  the  more  popular  books,  with  all 
"juveniles,"  while  the  "  Bates  Hall,"  named 
from  a  generous  donor,  contains  the  main 
library;  of  which  many  valuable  works,  of 
course,  never  go  out  at  all,  and  others  only 
by  order  of  the  librarian  himself. 

There  has  been  some  talk  lately  of  the 
possibility  of  library  consolidation  in  New 
York,  and  the  suggestion  has  been  made 
that  the  old  Mercantile  Library  should  con- 
stitute itself  such  a  "  lower  hall "  division 
of  a  future  great  library,  and  that  the  Niblo 
bequest  to  the  Young  Men's  Christian  Asso- 
ciation (some  $160,000  cash)  be  used  for  the 
foundation  of  a  "  Bates  Hall "  division. 
This  offers  a  plan  by  which  the  great  point 
is  gained  of  setting  our  library  in  operation 
and  bringing  its  advantages  home  to  the 
people  before  calling  on  them  to  approve 
of  a  heavy  outlay  of  public  money ;  for,  by 
use  of  the  telephone,  the  two  or  more  libra- 
ries thus  consolidated  can  continue  in  their 
present  quarters,  under  their  present  admin- 
istration, until  the  building  of  the  future  be 
far  enough  advanced  to  give  them  shelter. 
Of  course,  in  such  a  transaction,  the  Young 
Men's  Christian  Association,  or  any  other 
society,  should  have  assured  to  it  a  propor- 
tionate representation  in  the  future  board  of 
direction,  and  might  thus  exert  for  all  time 
an  influence  for  good  possibly  far  wider 
than  by  keeping  its  books  apart  and  within 
its  own  walls. 

The  library  edifice  should  be  at  the  outset 
of  a  size  to  contain  one  hundred  thou- 
sand volumes  in  the  main  library,  twenty-five 
thousand  in  the  popular  circulating  library, 
and  ten  thousand  in  the  reference  library, 
and  should  be  susceptible  of  enlargement, 
without  removal  or  rebuilding,  to  accommo- 
date two  or  three  million  volumes  in  the 
main  library,  one  hundred  thousand  in  the 
circulating,  and  in  the  reference  library  fifty 
thousand  volumes  and  a  thousand  readers. 
A  simple  arrangement  would  be  to  construct 
a  central  dome  large  enough  for  the  full 
development  of  the  reference  library  and 
reading-room,  and  to  make  use  temporarily 
of  a  part  of  it  for  the  nucleus  of  the  main 
library,  building  afterward,  as  required,  radi- 
ating wings,  along  the  middle  of  which  the 
books  should  be  stacked,  leaving  room  near 
the  windows  for  the  so-called  "  alcove " 
studies  of  specialists.  The  interiors  should 
be  planned  with  regard  to  but  two  main 
considerations — the  accommodation  of  the 
public  and  the  preservation  of  the  books ; 
and  if  our  American  architects  of  this  nine- 
teenth century  have  not  originality  enough 


A   FREE  LENDING  LIBRARY  FOR   NEW  YORK. 


933 


to  inclose  such  interiors  in  walls  graceful 
and  agreeable  to  the  eye,  yet  indestructible 
by  aught  but  time  itself, — why,  so  much  the 
worse  for  them  and  for  us.  Except  the 
London  reading-room  already  mentioned, 
there  is  scarcely  a  great  library-building  in 
the  world  which  should  serve  us  for  anything 
but  a  warning. 

It  is  evident,  as  already  intimated,  that, 
wherever  our  library  may  be  placed,  it  will 
be  an  impossibility  for  the  great  mass  of  the 
people  who  should  use  it  to  come  to  it 
themselves  in  person.  The  books  must  be 
got  to  them  by  some  means,  and  if  our  city 
express  posts  can  take  letters  and  circulars 
at  a  profit — as  they  no\v  do — for  one  cent 
each,  it  is  difficult  to  see  why,  under  proper 
management,  the  cost  of  carrying  books, 
even  from  house  to  house,  should  be  much 
greater.  The  chief  objection  to  this  house 
delivery  is,  indeed,  less  its  first  cost  than  the 
danger  of  losing  the  books  or  of  wasting 
them  on  improper  persons — the  difficulty, 
amounting  practically  to  impossibility,  of 
keeping  so  vast  a  system  of  registration  in 
working  order.  A  philanthropic  effort  is 
now  making  by  our  "  Free  Library  Associa- 
tion "  to  bring  good  reading  within  reach  of 
the  poor  by  small  libraries  in  various  quar- 
ters, and  the  eagerness  with  which  the  books 
are  taken  at  the  one  now  open  shows  how 
great  the  want  has  been.  This  scheme, 
however,  seems  scarcely  susceptible  of  more 
than  very  limited  development,  and  may, 
besides,  excite  among  the  class  for  whom  it 
is  intended  something  of  the  distrust  felt  for 
the  so-called  "  missions,"  left  here  and  there 
among  them  by  wealthy  churches,  in  depart- 
ing to  more  fashionable  quarters  up-town. 
In  Boston,  this  case  is  sought  to  be  met  by 
establishing  in  the  suburbs  "  branches  "  of 
the  public  library,  where  duplicates  of  pop- 
ular books  (which  would  in  any  case  be 
required)  are  kept  for  local  use.  Of  these 
subordinate  collections,  for  each  of  which 
some  local  library  has  served  as  nucleus,  she 
has  now  seven,  a  number  equivalent  to 
twenty-five  or  thirty  in  New  York. 

There  is,  however,  a  plan  which  promises 
to  take  us  a  long  step  in  advance  of  either 
of  these,  solving  equally  well  the  problem 
of  registration,  far  cheaper  than  house  deliv- 
ery, yet  giving  to  every  citizen  the  inestima- 
ble benefits  of  direct  access  to  the  entire 
treasures  of  the  main  library,  while  at  the 
same  time  bringing  about  simply  and  prac- 
tically a  desirable  unity  in  the  work  of  pub- 
lic education.  This  plan  is  to  make  each 
public  school  a  branch  of  the  public  library, 


in  constant,  immediate  connection  with  it  by 
telephone,  and  also  by  an  active  wagon  serv- 
ice. Counting  grammar-school  buildings 
only,  omitting  for  the  present  the  fifty  pri- 
mary-school buildings,  will  give  about  sev- 
enty stations — a  number  not  too  great  for 
the  proper  working  of  the  plan.  Let  each 
be  made  the  center  of  a  "  library  district." 
Let  the  principal  or  vice-principal  of  the 
school,  assisted  by  a  teacher  always  under 
his  supervision,  act  as  librarian,  being  clothed, 
with  full  discretionary  powers  and  held  re- 
sponsible for  the  books  not  only,  but  also  for 
a  judicious  use  of  them,  first  of  all  by  the 
families  connected  with  his  school.* 

This  will  give  us  at  once,  without  expense 
and  without  a  chance  for  "jobbery,"  seventy 
stations,  not  in  odd  holes  and  corners,  but 
in  handsome  buildings,  where  political 
trickery  but  seldom  enters  and  where 
every  influence  will  be  protective  and  con- 
servative. It  will  give  us  the  services 
of  seventy  scholarly  men  of  undoubted  in- 
tegrity, each  already  thoroughly  acquainted 
with  his  district,  known  and  respected  by 
every  family  in  it.  It  will  put  the  whole 
management  and  development  of  the 
branches,  at  least  for  the  present,  where  it 
seems  naturally  to  belong — under  the  con- 
trol of  the  Board  of  Education,  and  will 
bring  the  practical  workings  of  them  in  each 
ward  under  the  valuable  supervision  of  the 
local  trustees  and  inspectors. 

The  entrance  hall  of  the  school  building, 
now  used  only  by  the  teachers  and  visitors, 
will  afford  space  enough  for  the  present, 
but  in  time  the  rooms  on  the  same  floor, 
usually  three  or  four  in  number,  now  occu- 
pied by  janitor  and  family,  may  be  taken, 
especially  if  eventually  it  is  thought  best  to 
open  reading-rooms  at  each  branch.  In 
this  case,  the  janitor  can  be  quartered  in  the 
neighborhood,  and  probably  without  addi- 
tional cost  to  the  city,  for  an  inquiry  into 
the  wages  paid  these  custodians,  and  the 
service,  whether  watching,  cleaning  or  keep- 
ing order,  rendered  for  the  same,  will 
speedily  convince  any  employer  of  labor 

*  A  hint  for  some  such  plan  was  given  by  the 
Holbrook  bequest,  under  which  about  thirty  thou- 
sand dollars  was  not  long  since  paid  to  the  trustees 
of  the  several  wards,  for  the  purchase  of  public- 
school  libraries.  Where  these  have  been  selected 
to  suit  the  wants  of  the  scholars,  the  effect  is  described 
as  very  happy ;  but  in  some  cases  no  books,  appar- 
ently, have  yet  been  bought ;  in  others  the  collections 
are  for  the  teachers,  not  the  scholars  ;  and  in  some, 
again,  they  suggest  the  preponderance  of  other  con- 
siderations than  the  best  welfare  of  either  teachers 
or  taught. 


934 


A   FREE  LENDING  LIBRARY  FOR  NEW   YORK. 


that  the  places  are  such  as  thousands  of 
worthy  men  in  the  city  would  be  thankful 
for.  Each  branch  must,  of  course,  be  provided 
with  complete  catalogues  of  the  two  divisions 
of  the  library,  and  with  suitable  books  for  regis- 
tration of  the  two  classes  of  borrowers,  as  al- 
ready suggested.  These  and  other  details  of 
administration  may  be  found  ready  to  hand 
in  the  New  England  public  libraries,  where 
they  have  been  worked  up  with  uncommon 
skill,  and  applied  with  equal  adroitness  and 
economy.  The  hours  must  necessarily  be 
suited  not  only  to  business  men  but  to  work- 
ing men,  who,  however,  will  be  only  too 
content  if  they  can  order  a  book  one  even- 
ing and  get  it  the  next.  Two  hours  a  day, 
one  in  the  morning  and  one  in  the  evening, 
may  be  enough  to  begin  with.  As  to  any 
serious  difficulty  in  the  wagon  delivery  from 
the  library  to  the  branches,  it  is  enough  to 
say  that  the  distance  from  any  point  on 
this  island  to  each  of  the  aforesaid  seventy 
schools,  and  back  again,  is  considerably  less 
than  thirty  miles,  so  that  with  ten  good 
horses  five  rounds  could  be  made  daily. 
With  such  small  districts  it  is  possible  to 
know  every  applicant,  and  to  keep  the 
register  in  such  wholesome  condition  that 
books  may,  as  in  Boston,  be  safely  delivered 
upon  written  order — in  which  case  the 
school  children  would  immediately  begin  to 
play  the  carriers.  In  Boston,  the  prelimi- 
nary inquiries  into  the  character  of  would-be 
borrowers,  as  well  as  the  recovery  of  books 
and  collection  of  fines  from  delinquents,  are 
intrusted  to  the  police,  and  with  many  ad- 
vantages. It  is  possibly  in  part  owing  to 
their  efficient  co-operation  that  the  loss  of 
books  is  there  so  astonishingly  small,  it  hav- 
ing been  last  year  only  one  hundred  and 
one  volumes,  or  less  than  one  lost  in  every 
ten  thousand  lent.  New-Yorkers  are  not 
accustomed  to  look  for  such  assistance  from 
the  police,  but  the  service  is  after  all  a  light 
one,  which  we  cannot  help  thinking  will  be 
cheerfully  rendered,  while  in  many  quarters 
their  known  co-operation  would  have  a 
most  salutary  influence. 

This  new  use  of  the  public  schools  will 
cause  a  shock  to  some  men  of  routine,  and 
will  certainly  not  be  adopted  without  much 
discussion  in  the  Board  of  Education  and 
by  the  ward  trustees.  It  will  be  surprising, 
however,  if  these  gentlemen  refuse  to  accept 
so  honorable  an  extension  of  their  duties 
and  influence,  for  there  is  no  reason  what- 
ever why  such  a  use  should  in  any  way 
interfere  with  what  is,  of  course,  their  first 
duty,  the  work  of  direct  instruction.  More- 


over, good  ought  to  ensue  from  the  better 
acquaintance  of  the  public  with  the  schools. 

To  the  principals  of  the  schools,  also,  it  will 
cause  an  increase  of  labor  and  responsibility, 
which,  however,  will  be  amply  repaid  by  the 
increased  dignity,  doubtless,  also,  eventually 
increased  emoluments,  of  their  position. 

We  have  now  come  to  a  critical  question 
— that  of  the  site.  Perhaps  the  most  suita- 
ble spot  in  the  whole  city  is  that  now  occu- 
pied by  the  Croton  distributing  reservoir,  on 
Fifth  avenue,  from  Forty-first  to  Forty-sec- 
ond street;  if  that  gloomy  old  Egyptian 
prison  is  to  be  pulled  down,  as  now  seems 
both  probable  and  desirable,  the  mass  of  ex- 
cellent dressed  stone  in  it  could  be  nearly 
all  utilized  in  the  new  structure.  This  choice 
of  situation,  while  diminishing  the  cost  of 
building,  would  obviate  any  outlay  for  land. 
It  would,  at  the  same  time,  please  those  citi- 
zens who  desire  to  see  Reservoir  Square 
extend  out  to  Fifth  avenue,  for  the  new  edi- 
fice, placed  in  the  middle  of  the  block, 
will  leave  on  all  sides  an  ample  breadth  of 
greensward  and  shaded  walks. 

Of  the  active  measures  to  be  taken  toward 
accomplishment  of  this  plan,  one  of  the  first 
will  be  to  secure  the  passage  of  an  adequate 
State  law.  This  legislation,  having  been 
anticipated  in  several  States  both  East  and 
West,  offers  no  new  problem,  unless  the  pro- 
posed use  of  the  public  schools  may  require 
State  authorization.  It  should  cover  : 

1.  Raising  and  appropriating  money  for 
establishing  libraries  and  reading-rooms,  to 
be  perpetually  free  to  all. 

2.  Receiving  and  using  gifts  and  bequests, 
of  whatever  nature. 

3.  Acquisition  and   absorption   of  other 
libraries,  with  their  consent. 

4.  Gratuitous  contribution   by  the   State 
of  all  laws  and  other  public  books  or  papers. 

5.  Punishment  of  thefts  or  willful  mischief. 

6.  Appointment  for  limited  terms,  without 
pay,  of  trustees  or  directors  empowered  to 
buy  land  and  build,  purchase  books,  engage 
staff  of  officials  and  establish  regulations. 

The  composition  of  this  board  of  man- 
agement should  be  planned  by  men  of  proved 
sagacity.  Such,  happily,  have  never  been 
wanting  in  New  York,  and  those  of  us  who 
have  observed  the  recent  progress  of  the 
city  in  matters  aesthetic,  particularly  the 
strenuous  effort  which  resulted  in  the  estab- 
lishment of  our  Metropolitan  Museum  of 
Art,  will  recall  some  by  character  and  edu- 
cation especially  qualified,  not  only  to  assist 
in  organizing  such  a  board,  but  also  to  serve 
upon  it  themselves  with  distinction.  In  this 


TOPICS   OF   THE    TIME. 


935 


board  the  City  Government  will  naturally  be 
represented;  the  Board  of  Education,  also, 
and  perhaps  the  trustees  of  the  public 
schools — certainly  Columbia  College  and 
the  University  of  New  York,  and  possibly 
each  of  the  learned  professions  and  the  Na- 
tional Academy  of  Design.  It  is  evident  that 
there  should  be  assured  a  large  and  constant 
majority  entirely  above  political  influence. 

Shall  the  work  be  done  ?  Indispensable, 
first  of  all,  is  an  earnest,  generous,  unselfish 
co-operation  by  all  who  are  in  a  position  to 


lend  aid,  whether  by  word  or  deed.  The 
trustees  of  existing  libraries,  the  commission- 
ers of  education,  the  trustees  of  the  public 
schools  and  the  principals  of  the  same,  our 
fellow-citizens  in  the  legislature  and  in  the 
city  council,  clergymen  and  editors,  gentle- 
men of  wealth  and  families  with  a  few  books 
to  spare — can  all  help  on.  Let  them  all 
help,  and  with  their  might,  and  there  will 
arise  swiftly  and  surely  before  our  eyes  a 
majestic  structure  which  shall  be  for  centu- 
ries the  glory  and  the  blessing  of  our  home. 


TOPICS  OF  THE  TIME. 


Trees. 


WE  do  not  remember  any  article  in  this  depart- 
ment of  the  Monthly  which  has  proved  so  prolific 
of  beneficent  results  as  one  which  was  published 
four  years  ago,  on  "Village  Improvement  Societies." 
It  was  responded  to  from  Maine  to  Texas,  gave  rise 
to  a  great  deal  of  inquiry,  and  resulted  in  the  estab- 
lishment of  a  large  number  of  associations  for  the 
beautifying  and  improvement  of  village  property 
and  life.  One  of  the  most  important  of  all  the  im- 
provements inaugurated  was  the  setting  out  of  trees 
for  shade  and  beauty  and  profit ;  and  this  is  so  im- 
portant a  matter,  from  an  economical  point  of  view, 
that  it  deserves  a  special  article.  The  appearance 
of  Mr.  B.  G.  Northrop's  papers  on  "  Tree-planting  " 
and  "  Forestry  in  Europe  "  makes  the  writing  of  the 
article  both  easy  and  pleasant.  Mr.  Northrop  has 
done  a  great  service  to  the  country  in  collecting  and 
disseminating  information  upon  these  subjects,  and 
we  know  of  no  man  who  has  done,  or  is  doing,  so 
much  as  he  to  beautify  and  enrich  the  State  which 
honors  him  with  the  charge  of  her  educational  inter- 
ests. Such  a  man  is  a  treasure  to  Connecticut,  at 
any  price,  and  he  will  not  fail  to  be  remembered, 
when  the  results  of  his  foresight  and  enthusiasm 
shall  become  apparent  and  established,  as  a  great 
public  benefactor.  More  than  fifty  village  improve- 
ment societies  have  been  established  in  Connecticut, 
mostly  through  his  agency,  and  he  has  gone  up  and 
down  the  State,  making  public  addresses  on  the 
topic,  until  the  public  mind  is  fully  awakened.  We 
can  do  our  readers  no  better  service  than  in  turning 
over  the  pages  of  information  and  statistics  he  has 
furnished,  and  quoting  freely  from  them.  In  illus- 
tration of  the  great  interest  attached  to  forestry 
abroad,  it  is  stated  that  previous  to  1842  there  had 
appeared  in  Germany  1,815  volumes  on  the  subject 
of  forestry,  and  that  an  average  of  one  hundred  vol- 
umes on  that  subject  are  published  in  that  country 
every  year.  There  are  more  than  i,ioo  volumes  on 
forestry  in  the  Spanish  language.  In  America,  the 
great  question  has  related  to  the  best  and  quickest 
-methods  of  getting  our  forests  out  of  the  way.  We 


have  done  nothing  but  cut  and  burn  our  wood.  De- 
struction has  been  the  end  aimed  at,  and  the  end  has 
been  only  too  well  achieved.  In  the  Old  World,  the 
effect  of  the  destruction  of  forests  has  been  very 
carefully  and  intelligently  traced,  and  this  effect 
should  give  America  pause  at  once  in  her  suicidal 
policy.  To  strip  a  vast  realm  of  its  trees  is  to 
change  its  climate  from  a  soft  and  moist  one  to  a 
dry  and  harsh  one,  to  dry  up  its  streams,  with  all 
their  capacities  for  irrigation  and  navigation,  and  to 
transform  a  fertile  soil  into  a  barren  waste.  It  is 
declared  that  Tunis  and  Algiers  were  once  fertile 
regions,  supporting  a  dense  population.  Their  deca. 
dence  is  largely  traceable  to  the  destruction  of  their 
forests.  Rentzsch  ascribes  the  political  decay  of 
Spain  to  the  same  cause.  Hon.  George  P.  Marsh 
says :  "  There  are  parts  of  Asia  Minor,  of  Northern 
Africa,  of  Greece,  and  even  of  Alpine  Europe,  where 
causes  set  in  action  by  man  have  brought  the  face 
of  the  earth  to  a  desolation  as  complete  as  that  of 
the  moon,  and  yet  they  are  known  to  have  been 
once  covered  with  luxuriant  woods,  verdant  pastures 
and  fertile  meadows."  Mr.  Marsh  is  trying  to  im- 
press upon  America  the  importance  of  arresting  the 
work  of  destruction  going  on  within  her  borders, 
and  the  facts  which  he  adduces  from  Persia  and  the 
farther  East  may  well  excite  our  profound  alarm. 
Regions  larger  than  all  Europe  are  now  withdrawn 
from  human  use,  though  they  once  flowed  with  milk 
and  honey. 

In  the  discussion  of  this  matter  of  the  destruction 
of  forests,  we  have  never  noticed  any  competent 
allusion  to  the  agency  of  railroads.  Mr.  Northrop 
tells  us  how  many  ties  must  be  produced  to  furnish 
our  85,000  miles  of  railroad,  viz.,  34,000,000  sleep- 
ers per  annum.  These  are  astonishing  figures,  but 
nobody  talks  of  the  consumption  of  wood  for  the 
production  of  steam-power  in  locomotives.  Nearly 
all  the  railroads  of  the  country,  passing  through 
wooded  districts,  use  wood  for  steaming  just  as  long 
as  the  line  will  produce  it.  The  consequence  has 
been  that  a  railroad  is  a  scourge  to  all  the  forests 
within  five  miles  of  it  The  hills  and  valleys  are 
stripped  bare.  A  tornado  ten  miles  wide,  destroy- 


936 


TOPICS   OF  THE    TIME. 


ing  everything  in  its  path  for  the  entire  distance, 
would  not  be  more  disastrous  to  the  forests  than  an 
ordinary  railroad  throughout  its  length.  Hundreds 
of  thousands  of  acres  of  beautiful  woodlands,  that 
were  the  nursing-homes  of  streams  and  the  mothers 
of  climatic  salubrity  and  balm,  have  been  burned  up 
in  the  locomotive  furnace,  and  the  hills  and  valleys 
where  the  forests  stood  are  baking  in  the  sun. 

A  world  of  mischief  has  been  done  already  in 
America,  and  now,  of  course,  the  question  is,  "  What 
is  the  remedy  ?  "  The  first  answer  is,  "  Stop  de- 
stroying." Wood  must  be  cut — that  is  true ;  but  it 
is  not  necessary  to  cut  it  clean,  unless  the  land  is 
needed  for  cultivation.  Timber  must  be  felled  for 
building  and  manufacturing  purposes  ;  but  it  is  not 
necessary  to  denude  the  land  and  burn  it  over.  Large 
tracts  of  undisturbed  forests  should  be  left,  and  then, 
when  the  work  of  destruction  has  been  perfected,  we 
must  begin  and  plant  forests  and  let  them  grow. 
The  American  is  not  a  patient  man.  He  is  particu- 
larly desirous  to  see  the  result  of  his  toils  and  his 
expenditures  in  his  life-time.  To  plant  a  forest, 
which  it  will  take  fifty  or  sixty  years  to  mature, 
seems  like  throwing  away  life ;  but  it  is  demonstra- 
ble that  so  good  an  investment  for  one's  family  can- 
not be  made  as  an  investment  in  the  growth  of  a 
forest.  Mr.  Northrop  quotes  Dr.  James  Brown  as 
saying  that  he  has  seen  crops  of  larch,  of  sixty-five 
years'  standing,  sold  for  from  $700  to  $2,000  per 
acre,  from  land  that  was  only  worth  originally  from 
$2  to  $4  an  acre.  It  has  been  calculated  by  a  com- 
petent authority  that  a  plantation  of  ten  acres  of 
European  larch,  to  last  fifty  years,  will  produce  a 
profit  of  thirteen  per  cent,  per  annum,  and  give  a 
net  profit  of  $52,282.75  !  Mr.  Sargent,  director 
of  the  Botanic  Garden  and  Arboretum  of  Harvard 
College,  calculates  that  there  are  200,000  acres  of 
unimproved  land  in  Massachusetts,  which  could  at 
once  be  covered  with  larch  plantations  with  advan- 
tage, and  that,  if  so  planted,  their  net  yield  in  fifty 
years  would  be  considerably  more  than  a  billion 
of  dollars.  Mr.  Northrop  advises  the  Connecticut 
farmers  to  plant  white  ash ;  but  Grigor  says  :  "  No 
tree  is  so  valuable  as  the  larch  in  its  fertilizing 
effects,  arising  from  the  richness  of  its  foliage,  which 
it  sheds  annually.  The  yearly  deposit  is  very  great ; 
the  leaves  remain  and  are  consumed  upon  the  spot 
where  they  fall." 

Farmers  who  want  information  for  practical  use 
should  send  to  Mr.  Northrop  for  his  book.  Lands 
are  various,  and  have  their  special  adaptations  to  cer- 
tain kinds  of  trees.  All  trees,  however,  are  trees  of 
life,  whose  leaves  are  for  the  healing  of  the  acres. 
If  a  farmer  have  a  sterile  pasture,  let  him  remember 
that  the  way  to  make  it  fruitful  at  the  least  expense 
is  to  plant  it  with  trees.  Trees  have  a  chemistry  of 
their  own  for  dissolving  the  elements  of  the  rock  in 
the  crevices  of  which  they  will  grow.  Spread  a 
sterile  pasture  with  shade  and  strew  it  with  leaves 
every  year,  and  a  good  piece  of  land  will  be  made 
of  it  for  those  who  succeed  the  planter,  while  the 
crop  of  trees  will  pay  all  expenses  and  leave  a  hand- 
some profit. 

When  we  remember  what  a  wonderfully  beautiful 


object  a  tree  is,  how  important  a  part  it  plays  in  all 
our  landscapes,  how  useful  it  is  in  the  arts  and  econ- 
omies of  life,  and  how  beneficial  it  is  in  its  climatic 
influences,  we  do  not  wonder  at  the  enthusiasm  with 
which  specialists  regard  it,  and  the  zeal  with  which 
such  a  man  as  Mr.  Northrop  pushes  its  claims  upon 
the  popular  attention.  If  all  communities  would  give 
themselves  up  to  his  leading,  and  share  in  his  devo- 
tion, they  would  do  a  good  thing  for  themselves  and 
for  the  country.  As  for  him,  we  hope  he  will  not 
become  weary  with  popular  indifference,  and  that,  if 
necessary,  he  will  be  willing  to  wait  as  long  as  it 
takes  a  tree  to  grow  for  the  reward  which  is  sure  to 
come  to  his  memory. 

Dr.  Tanner's  Fast — Cui  Bono  ? 

DURING  the  month  of  July  and  the  early  part  of 
August,  a  certain  Dr.  Tanner  fasted  forty  days  and 
forty  nights  in  this  city.  This  tremendous  feat  was 
performed  nominally  in  the  interest  of  science,  but 
nobody  has  found  the  point  where  science  would  be 
benefited  by  the  experiment,  and  the  great  faster 
has  failed  to  make  clear  the  motive  which  actuated 
him  in  his  marvelous  undertaking.  But  the  fast  was 
accomplished,  as  it  seems  to  be  pretty  universally 
admitted,  with  freedom  from  even  the  suspicion  of 
trickery,  and  the  man  has  survived — not  without  a 
great  shock  to  his  system — a  shock  from  which  he  is 
not  likely  soon  to  recover. 

Now,  if  there  are  "  books  in  the  running  brooks, 
sermons  in  stones,  and  good  in  everything,"  there 
must  be  some  good  in  Dr.  Tanner's  fast,  which,  of 
course,  a  wise  editor  ought  not  to  be  slow  in  finding. 
First,  Dr.  Tanner  has  made  himself  famous.  Six 
months  ago,  we  had  never  heard  of  Dr.  Tanner,  and 
we  doubt  whether  his  name  was  in  any  way  familiar 
to  our  readers.  Now,  there  is  hardly  a  spot  in  the 
civilized  world  that  is  not  acquainted  with  his  name 
and  his  most  notable  achievement.  Notoriety  is  not 
exactly  fame,  but  it  is  something  which  many  work 
for  throughout  their  lives.  Dr.  Tanner  achieved  it, 
as  no  modern  man  has  done,  in  forty  days.  He 
swallowed  a  good  deal  of  water,  that  did  not  agree 
with  him,  during  the  period,  and  the  retchings  he 
experienced  furnished  material  for  daily  bulletins, 
and  he  suffered  all  the  pangs  of  starvation ;  but  he  is 
now  the  notorious,  or  the  famous,  Dr.  Tanner,  who 
went  forty  days  and  nights  without  food.  If  he 
were  now  to  walk  down  Broadway,  and  it  should 
happen  to  be  known  that  he  was  in  progress  on  that 
thoroughfare,  all  the  shop-men  would  run  to  their 
windows,  and  little  boys  would  gather  around  or 
follow  him.  What  more  could  they  do  for  a  king 
or  a  cannibal  ?  We  know  of  writers  who  would  be 
quite  willing  to  go  through  Dr.  Tanner's  trial  if  they 
were  sure  of  winning  his  reward, — a  reward  they 
have  sought  for  long,  but  never  found.  Whatever 
Dr.  Tanner's  motive  may  have-  been  in  fasting,  this 
is  his  first  reward.  He  is  famous. 

The  next  good  which  seems  to  have  been-achieved 
by  his  fasting  is  the  furnishing  of  another  desirable 
man  to  the  lecture  platform.  Who  doubts  that  more 
than  one  lecture  bureau  has  already  proposed  to  him 


TOPICS   OF  THE    TIME. 


937 


to  come  before  the  public  with  the  recital  of  his 
achievements  ?  One  hundred  and  fifty  to  two  hun- 
dred dollars  a  night  are  sure  for  him,  as  a  lecturer, 
during  the  coming  season.  To  do  some  strange 
thing,  which  has  not  the  slightest  relation  to  a  man's 
power  to  entertain  or  instruct  an  audience,  is  all  that 
is  necessary  to  engage  the  interest  of  the  lecture 
bureaus.  Well,  the  old  lecturers  are  wearing  out, 
and  the  country  is  to  be  congratulated  on  the  intro- 
duction of  new  blood,  and  upon  the  achievement  of 
Dr.  Tanner,  which  secures  it. 

Carlyle  speaks  of  his  beloved  British  nation  as 
"  mostly  fools."  We  suppose  the  proportion  of 
fools  to  the  grand  total  of  population,  or  "  to  the 
square  mile,"  may  be  as  great  in  America  as  in  Great 
Britain,  and  it  is  to  be  presumed  that  a  goodly  pro- 
portion of  these,  stimulated  thereto  by  the  brilliant 
example  of  Dr.  Tanner,  will  undertake  to  do  a  job 
of  fasting  on  their  own  account.  It  cannot  be  pos- 
sible that  a  notoriety  so  great  as  Dr.  Tanner's  can 
be  achieved  in  forty  days  without  bringing  to  the 
front  a  great  flock  of  fools  who  would  be  greatly 
delighted  by  the  possession  of  such  a  notoriety,  and 
would  be  quite  willing  to  earn  it,  even  by  fast- 
ing. Suppose,  for  a  period  of  forty  days,  a  thousand 
fools  should  fast.  Think  what  a  saving  of  the  ma- 
terials of  life  would  be  effected !  And  then  think 
how  surely  the  whole  batch  would  die,  and  relieve 
the  world  of  their  useless  presence  ! 

It  would  be  easy  to  trifle  through  a  long  article  on 
this  topic,  and  still  be  engaged  in  the  detail  of  the 
beneficent  results  that  follow  naturally  from  the  feat 
of  fasting  that  Dr.  Tanner  has  achieved ;  but  we 
want  an  earnest  word  upon  it.  Among  both  the  Brit- 
ish and  the  American  fools,  there  are  those  who  talk 
of  matter  as  the  mother  of  mind.  They  do  not 
believe  in  the  dualism  of  the  human  constitution. 
To  them,  there  is  no  such  thing  as  mind, — as  an 
independent  and  distinct  principle, — but  that  which 
we  call  mind  is  no  more  than  a  manifestation,  through 
the  offices  of  the  brain,  of  the  powers  of  matter. 
To  use  familiar  language,  "  thought  is  a  secretion  of 
the  brain,"  as  bile  is  a  secretion  of  the  liver,  or 
mucous  of  a  mucous  surface.  When  the  body  dies, 
those  manifestations  of  its  activities  which  we  call 
"  soul,"  die,  because  they  are  entirely  of  the  corporeal 
nature.  All  through  the  trial  of  Dr.  Tanner,  the 
papers  were  talking  of  his  indomitable  will.  He  was 
ill ;  he  was  wretched ;  many  of  his  advisers,  private 
and  public,  discouraged  him ;  but,  through  all  his 
weakness  and  all  his  discouragement,  his  will  was 
indomitable.  His  spirits,  depending  upon  the  animal 
life,  were  depressed,  because  all  the  powers  of  the 
animal  life  were  depressed ;  but  there  was  one  light 
within  him,  fed  from  an  independent  fountain,  that 
burned  steadily  and  brightly  through  all.  His  pulse 
might  be  feeble,  his  animal  life  might  burn  low ; 
but  the  food  for  his  will  and  the  maintenance  of  his 
determination  was  never  wanting.  For  these,  he  had 
food  to  eat  that  the  materialist  knew  not  of.  It  was 
freely  said  that  if  it  had  not  been  for  his  will,  he 
would  have  died.  How  many  have  died  on  a  shorter 
process  of  starvation,  simply  because  their  discour- 
aged minds  dragged  them  down  to  death !  The 


confession  that  the  mind  has  anything  to  do  in  pre- 
serving the  bodily  life,  is  an  admission  of  the  dualism 
of  human  nature.  As  an  illustration  of  this  dualism, 
we  have  rarely  seen  anything  better  or  more  demon- 
strative than  Dr.  Tanner's  experiment,  and  so  we 
regard  it  as  one  of  great  value.  The  doctors  may 
not  find  anything  in  the  experiment  that  will  be  of 
use  to  them  in  their  profession ;  but  the  psycholo- 
gists cannot  fail  to  look  upon  it  as  in  a  very  high 
degree  suggestive  and  valuable. 

If  the  mind  supports  the  body  through  a  great  trial 
of  bodily  strength,  and  maintains  its  power,  though 
the  supplies  of  the  body  are  cut  off,  then  the  mind 
must  have  an  existence  upon  which  the  body  as  truly 
depends  as  the  mind  depends  upon  the  body.  In  other 
words,  they  are  most  intimately  associated  with  each 
other,  and  are  interdependent ;  but  are  distinct  enti- 
ties— dual  existences,  dual  forces,  dual  principles. 
We  think  it  will  be  very  difficult  for  the  disciples  of 
monism  to  explain  the  phenomena  of  Dr.  Tanner's 
case  on  any  ground  that  will  not  destroy  their  own 
doctrine. 

Of  course,  everybody  has  been  reminded  by  this 
marvelous  fast  of  the  fast  of  Christ  in  the  wilderness. 
It  seems  to  us  a  very  low  and  degrading  view  to  take 
of  this  fast  of  Christ,  to  regard  it  as  a  struggle  of 
the  divine  nature  to  overcome  the  gross  appetites  and 
passions  of  the  human.  We  are  told  that  Christ  was 
tempted  in  all  points,  like  as  we  are,  yet  without  sin, 
though  we  cannot  imagine  that  the  nature  of  Christ — 
so  in  love  with  purity,  so  full  of  benevolence,  so  unself- 
ish— was  ever  called  upon  to  "  mortify  the  flesh  " ; 
but  we  can  imagine  that,  in  the  day  of  Sadduceeism, 
when  the  immortality  of  the  soul  was  not  only  not 
believed  in  by  a  prominent  Jewish  sect,  but  con- 
temptuously scouted,  he  could  engage  in  an  experi- 
ment which  proved  the  dual  nature  of  man.  "  Man 
shall  not  live  by  bread  alone,"  were  his  own  words, 
"  but  by  every  word  of  God."  That  was  his  answer 
to  monism,  and  no  better  is  needed ;  and  these 
were  the  first  words  he  uttered  on  the  completion  of 
his  fast,  as  if  that  were  the  lesson  of  it  most  promi- 
nent in  his  mind. 

One  thing,  at  least,  Dr.  Tanner  has  done.  He  has 
removed  the  fast  of  Christ  from  the  realm  of  mira- 
cle, and  made  that  credible  to  the  disbeliever  in 
miracles  which  seemed  to  him  like  a  fable  or  an  idle 
tale. 

The  Bennett  Business. 

IN  our  July  issue,  we  published  an  article  entitled 
"The  Apotheosis  of  Dirt."  The  occasion  was  the 
completion  of  the  term  of  imprisonment  of  Mr.  D. 
M.  Bennett,  for  sending  indecent  literature  through 
the  mails,  and  the  complimentary  reception  given  to 
him  at  a  public  hall  in  this  city.  The  complaint 
and  claim  of  Mr.  Bennett  and  his  friends  are  that 
he  was  unjustly  convicted  and  incarcerated ;  that  the 
book  he  circulated  was  in  no  sense  obscene ;  that 
the  ruling  of  the  judge  in  his  case  was  an  outrage; 
and  they  even  quote  the  authority  of  Attorney-Gene- 
ral Devens,  Secretaries  Sherman  and  Schurz,  Pardon 
Clerk  Judge  Gray,  and  several  other  dignitaries,  as 
in  favor  of  Bennett;  and  they  assert  that  the  Presi- 


TOPICS   OF  THE    TIME. 


dent  directed  Mr.  Comstock  not  to  bring  any  more 
suits  for  mailing  the  offending  pamphlet.  Whether 
these  latter  claims  are  true,  we  do  not  know.  Men 
in  their  position  are  not  in  the  habit  of  loosely  criti- 
cising the  judgments  of  courts.  At  any  rate,  the 
fact  remains  that  Mr.  Bennett  was  convicted  by  due 
form  of  law,  and,  after  all  the  facts  were  known  to 
the  men  in  authority, — as  we  are  assured  they  were, 
— the  convict  was  not  pardoned,  but  was  compelled 
to  serve  out  his  sentence. 

Now  we  submit  that  no  wise  nor  prudent  man 
would  accept  the  statement  of  a  convict  or  his  friends 
in  regard  to  the  judgment  of  a  court. 

"  No  rogue  e'er  felt  the  halter  draw 
With  good  opinion  of  the  law." 

It  is  a  very  firm,  and,  we  may  presume,  a  very  sin- 
cere impression  on  the  part  of  those  who  have  been 
made  to  feel  the  retributions  of  the  law,  that  they 
have  suffered  unjustly.  We  do  not  assert  here  that 
Mr.  Bennett  did  not  suffer  unjustly.  We  only  say 
that  the  presumption  must  be,  on  the  part  of  all 
prudent  citizens,  that  the  court  was  right,  and  that 
he  was  wrong.  The  assertions  and  denials  of  Mr. 
Bennett  and  his  friends  cannot  be  accepted  as  against 
an  unimpeached  legal  tribunal.  They  must  not  ask 
nor  expect  too  much  of  us,  or  the  public ;  they  must 
not  ask  nor  expect  that  we  shall  do  more  than  they 
would  do  in  like  circumstances.  The  claim  is  made 
that  Mr.  Bennett  has  suffered  because  he  is  an  enemy 
of  Christianity,  but  we  took  care  to  quote  from  the 
Boston  "  Index,"  edited  by  quite  as  eminent  an  oppo- 
nent of  Christianity  as  Mr.  Bennett,  a  more  condem- 
natory opinion  of  him  than  any  one  we  have  seen 
from  Christian  sources.  It  is  not  necessary  to  re- 
produce here  the  paragraph  we  quoted  from  the 
"  Index,"  and  we  need  only  to  say  that  Mr.  Bennett 
seems  as  angry  with  the  editor  of  that  publication 
as  he  is  with  us,  from  which  we  may  at  least  gather 
the  comfort  of  learning  that  all  the  meanness  and 
untruthfulness  of  the  world  is  not  monopolized  by  the 
believers  in  Christianity. 

Complaint  is  made  by  Mr.  Bennett  and  his  friends 
that  we  have  lugged  in  some  private  letters  of  his 
to  a  woman,  as  a  part  of  the  case.  We  have  done  no 
such  thing.  We  were  not  responsible  for  publishing 
the  letters.  They  had  been  made  public,  their  author- 
ship had  been  confessed  by  Mr.  Bennett,  and  they 
were  in  our  hands  as  a  convenient  means  of  deter- 
mining the  personal  character  of  the  writer.  We  de- 
nounced them  as  vile,  and  we  assert  without  fear  of 
contradiction,  by  Christian  or  infidel,  that  they  could 
not  have  been  written  by  a  pure  man,  or  by  a  man 
who  reverences  woman.  It  is  entirely  legitimate  to 
judge  Mr.  Bennett's  character  and  moral  standing 
and  immoral  tastes  by  the  revelations  of  these  abom- 
inable letters.  There  is  no  apology  to  be  made  for 
them,  and  those  of  his  friends  who  are  disposed  to 
regard  them  as  venial  do  themselves  a  wrong  by 
attempting  to  excuse  them.  In  the  public  and  pri- 
vate animadversions  upon  the  article  that  has  been 
so  offensive  to  Mr.  Bennett  and  his  friends,  very 
free  use  has  been  made  of  the  word  "  hypocrite. " 
Well,  we  do  not  pretend  to  sanctity.  We  never  did. 


We  do  not  pretend  to  be  without  the  weaknesses 
and  passions  that  pertain  to  human  nature ;  but  if 
these  accusers  and  users  of  hard  epithets  mean  that 
we  are  fond  of  dirt,  but  are  too  prudent  to  say  so, 
or  seem  to  be  so, — if  they  mean  that  we  practically 
adopt  the  atrocious  doctrine  that  "  virtue  depends 
upon  who's  looking,"  then  they  are  mistaken.  They 
must  at  least  give  us  the  credit  for  having  ordinary 
good  taste,  and  dirt  is  not  only  bad  in  morals,  but  it 
is  "bad  form."  To  say  nothing  of  Christian  morals 
in  the  matter,  there  are  some  men  who  have  instincts 
of  cleanliness  which  relate  to  their  minds  as  well  as 
their  persons.  They  regard  dirt  with  natural  dis- 
gust, even  if  they  fail  to  look  upon  it  with  moral  ab- 
horrence ;  and  to  these  men,  whether  in  infidel  or 
Christian  ranks,  the  writing  of  the  private  letters  to 
which  we  have  alluded  would  be  an  impossibility. 
A  dirty  letter  comes  from  a  dirty  mind,  and  we  like 
neither. 

Again,  if  the  idea  is  intended  to  be  conveyed  that 
we  pretend  to  believe  in  Christianity  and  do  not 
believe  in  it,  then  another  mistake  has  been  made. 
The  flings  at  Christianity  that  are  made  in  such  a  let- 
ter as  Mr.  Elizur  Wright  sends  to  us,  and  which  we 
consented  to  print,  are  unspeakably  painful  to  us. 
The  claim  that  the  opinions  of  infidels  are  just  as 
precious  to  them  as  those  of  Christians  are  to  the 
believers  in  Christianity,  is  not  sound.  They  have 
not  proved  it  by  such  a  series  of  martyrdoms  as 
have  illustrated  the  history  of  Christianity,  and 
Christianity  is  something  more  than  an  opinion. 
The  difference  in  value  between  an  opinion  and  an 
affection  is  as  great  as  that  between  a  pebble  in  the 
highway  and  a  diamond  in  its  golden  setting.  A 
Christianity  which  consists  only  of  opinions  is  a  very 
shabby  article,  and  we  do  not  pretend  to  believe  in 
it.  The  Christianity  which  is  a  divine  life,  a  divine 
inspiration,  and  a  divine  hope,  is  so  inexpressibly 
dear  to  so  many  people,  it  is  such  a  help  to  them  in 
the  struggle  with  their  grosser  natures,  it  gives  to 
life  and  death  so  stupendous  a  meaning,  it  is  such  a 
comfort  in  trouble  and  sorrow  and  burden-bearing, 
that  we  should  need  to  be  inhuman  not  to  regard  the 
efforts  aimed  at  its  overthrow  as  aimed  at  the  dearest 
interests  of  the  human  race.  To  pretend  that  an 
infidel's  opinions  are  sacred  to  him  in  any  such  way 
as  Christianity  is  sacred  to  a  Christian,  is  to  trifle 
most  inexcusably  with  holy  things. 

There  is  no  doubt  that  many  candid  men  and  many 
pure  and  good  men  among  the  self-styled  "  liberals  " 
of  this  country  and  this  age,  have  been  forced  into  their 
infidelity  by  the  type  of  Christianity  that  has  been 
presented  to  them.  Ecclesiasticism  and  dogmatism 
and  formalism  are  responsible  for  a  great  deal  of  the 
infidelity  of  the  time.  Against  these,  we  have  faith- 
fully lifted  a  warning  voice  for  many  years  ;  but  we 
say  here  that  Christianity,  pure  and  simple,  is  not 
anymore  responsible  for  them  than  the  "  liberalism  " 
represented  by  "  The  Index  "  is  responsible  for  Mr. 
D.  M.  Bennett  and  his  doings.  Nor  is  the  Church 
Christianity.  Is  liberalism  sure  that  it  is  fair  with 
us  ?  Is  it  sure  that,  in  aiming  at  the  destruction  of 
the  mistakes  of  men  about  Christianity,  it  is  not  try- 
ing to  destroy  a  life  that  would  be  of  infinite  advan- 


COMMUNICA  TIONS. 


939 


tage  to  itself?  They  must  be  a  lonesome  and  a  sad 
set  who  deny  Christ  as  the  revealer  of  the  fatherhood 
of  God,  Christ  as  the  exemplar  and  the  inspirer  cf  a 
divine  life,  Christ  as  the  mediator  between  God  and 
man,  Christ  as  the  author  of  the  highest  code  of 
morals  ever  promulgated  upon  the  earth,  and  Christ 
as  the  hope  of  immortality.  When  they  have  suc- 


ceeded in  blotting  out  the  faith  in,  and  the  love  of, 
and  devotion  to,  this  personage,  they  will  blot  out  the 
light  of  life  and  the  hope  of  the  world.  One  thing 
is  at  least  true,  and  Mr.  Bennett  and  Mr.  Elizur 
Wright  know  it  as  well  as  we,  viz.  :  that  every  loyal 
and  -devoted  friend  of  Christ  "  hath  clean  hands  and 
a  pure  heart." 


COMMUNICATIONS. 


"The  Apotheosis  of  Dirt,"  A  Reply. 

To  THE  EDITOR  OF  SCRIBNER'S  MONTHLY: 

The  appearance  of  my  name  under  the  above  sen- 
sational heading,  in  your  issue  for  July,  page  463, 
induces  me  to  offer  your  readers  a  few  words,  rather 
to  set  the  facts  right  than  to  justify  myself  for  the 
part  I  took  in  the  meeting  there  referred  to.  The 
latter  I  did  in  the  words  I  there  uttered,  which  I 
should  not  be  ashamed  to  see  in  your  or  any  other 
journal  of  civilization.  I  am  very  far  from  promot- 
ing the  apotheosis  of  Mr.  Bennett  or  any  other  man, 
having  never  yet  found  any  man,  either  in  life  or 
history,  sacred  or  profane,  who  did  not  fall  far  short 
of  an  easily  imaginable  perfection.  But  having  read 
Mr.  Bennett's  writings  with  care  and  pretty  exten- 
sively ;  having  attended  his  trial,  and  candidly  con- 
sidered the  attacks  made  upon  him  after  his  convic- 
tion and  imprisonment,  and  his  replies  to  them,  not 
to  honor  him  as,  after  all,  a  brave,  truthful  and  nobly 
useful  man,  would  be  to  dishonor  myself. 

It  is  not  true  that  Mr.  Bennett  had  been  "con- 
victed of  sending  obscene  matter  through  the  mails," 
if  the  opinion  of  the  Attorney-General  of  the  United 
States  on  the  character  of  the  matter  he  sent  is 
•worthy  of  any  respect  That  was  the  pretense  of 
the  indictment.  Now,  whatever  Mr.  Bennett,  in 
his  life,  may  have  done,  said  or  thought,  which  was 
not  embraced  in  the  indictment  against  him,  is  no 
justification  for  his  imprisonment  The  less  he  was 
a  saint,  the  more  inexcusable  was  the  jury  for  con- 
victing him  of  what  he  was  not  guilty,  and  the  more 
execrable  the  judge  for  the  rulings  which  upheld 
them  in  it.  If  there  is  in  English  or  any  other  his- 
tory a  more  palpable  outrage  on  justice  than  that 
perpetrated  by  Judge  Benedict  in  the  trial  of  D.  M. 
Bennett,  I  am  sure  I  do  not  know  where  to  find  it 
I  felt  deeply  mortified  by  the  whole  proceeding,  the 
law  and  the  Society  which  led  to  it,  as  well  as  the 
deplorable  result.  If  we  cannot  repress  clandestine 
literature  without  a  clandestine  law  and  a  professional 
liar,  we  had  better  not  attempt  it.  I  believe  Rev. 
Sidney  Smith  was  a  tolerably  clean,  as  well  as  a 
very  sensible  man,  and  I  heartily  agree  with  what 
he  wrote  in  the  "  Edinburgh  Review,"  nearly  as 
long  ago  as  I  was  born,  where,  among  other  impor- 
tant things,  he  said : 

"Though  it  were  clear  that  individual  informers 
are  useful  auxiliaries  to  the  administration  of  the 


laws,  it  would  by  no  means  follow  that  these  in- 
formers should  be  allowed  to  combine, — to  form 
themselves  into  a  body, — to  make  a  public  purse, 
and  to  prosecute  under  a  common  name.  An  in- 
former, whether  he  is  paid  by  the  week,  like  the 
agents  of  this  society,  or  by  the  crime,  as  in  common 
cases,  is,  in  general,  a  man  of  very  indifferent  char- 
acter. So  much  fraud  and  deception  are  necessary 
in  carrying  on  his  trade — it  is  so  odious  to  his  fellow 
subjects — that  no  man  of  respectability  will  ever  un- 
dertake it.  It  is  evidently  impossible  to  make  such 
a  character  otherwise  than  odious." 

A  good  farmer,  in  eradicating  weeds,  takes  care 
not  to  destroy  his  corn,  and  does  not  set  his  barn 
on  fire  to  exterminate  the  rats.  It  was  perfectly  plain 
to  a  vast  number  of  people,  not  fanatically  inclined, 
that  the  prosecution  of  Bennett  was  nothing  but  the 
old  Christian  blunder  of  punishing  where  it  is  im- 
possible to  refute.  The  discovery  of  personal  delin- 
quency, not  covered  by  the  indictment,  and,  indeed, 
not  indictable,  was  used  to  mitigate  an  adverse  public 
sentiment  I  do  not  envy  the  praise  lavished  by 
bigots  and  fanatics  on  those  liberals  who  were  too 
timid  or  jealous  either  to  stand  by  the  victim  or  rep- 
robate the  judge.  Inasmuch  as  Mr.  Bennett  acknowl- 
edged his  fault  in  the  matter  for  which  he  was  not 
punished,  and  was  forgiven  by  the  only  party  liable  to 
be  injured,  the  publication  of  the  objectionable  letters 
written  by  him  was  a  gross  and  unpardonable  in- 
fraction  of  the  very  law  which  proposes  to  protect 
the  decencies  of  society,  and  stamps  with  hypocrisy 
the  whole  movement  against  him. 

Let  us  see.  Supposing  Mr.  Bennett  was,  as  I 
think,  unjustly  convicted,  so  far  as  obscenity  is 
charged  in  the  matter  he  mailed,  yet  there  is  no 
doubt  that  he  had  attacked  Christianity  with  the 
utmost  vigor  and  contempt,  and  you  say :  "  The 
safety  and  purity  of  society  rests,  as  it  always  has 
rested,  with  the  believers  in,  and  professors  of, 
Christianity,"  as  a  reason  why  his  punishment 
should  be  acquiesced  in  and  accepted  as  righteous. 
This  is  pouring  contempt  on  the  law  for  no  longer 
permitting  heretics  to  be  burnt,  and  on  Christianity 
for  being  obliged  to  resort  to  imprisonment  on  false 
charges  to  protect  itself  against  an  infidel  press. 
It  surely  is  to  be  hoped  that  the  great  bulk  of 
Christians  do  not  intend  nor  expect  to  repel  the  con- 
temptuous assailants  of  Christianity  by  a  contempti- 
ble indirection,  which  makes  the  law  a  laughing- 
stock. It  would  be  better  to  resort  to  the  old  direct 


94° 


HOME  AND   SOCIETY. 


method  which  was  applied  to  Giordano  Bruno, 
effectually  as  to  the  man,  though  ineffectually  as  to 
his  opinions.  I  presume  there  were  not  a  few 
Christians  present  at  the  Bennett  reception  -in  Chick- 
ering  Hall,  who  sympathized  as  heartily  with  the  in- 
dignation expressed  at  the  unjust  imprisonment  as 
the  infidels.  We  are  all  mortal  men,  and  have 
many  points  in  common  besides  faith. 

For  a  Christian  journal  to  refer  to  that  great 
meeting  as  an  "apotheosis  of  dirt,"  was  to  use  a 
most  unfortunate  figure  of  speech — a  sort  of  rhetori- 
cal boomerang.  Dirt  is  none  the  better  for  being 
really  apotheosized,  and  there  happens  to  be  in  the 
same  book  where  Moses  Stuart  found  a  justification 
of  slavery  a  good  deal  of  the  very  "  dirt  "  which  the 
Comstock  obscenity  law  excludes  from  the  mails  on 
pain  of  imprisonment.  Even  our  "  free  lovers,"  I 
think,  would  be  ashamed  of  the  doings  of  Saint 


Mordecai.  This  high  claim  for  Christianity  as  a 
purifier  reminds  one  how  much  the  "purity  of  soci- 
ety "  has  depended  on  a  hole  in  a  wall,  with  a  priest 
on  one  side  and  a  spell-bound  female  on  the  other. 
I  shall  not  enter  on  the  question,  though  I  think  it 
is  an  open  one,  whether  society  is  as  much  indebted 
to  Christianity  as  Christianity  is  to  skepticism,  for  so 
much  "  purity  "  as  it  has.  I  have  lived  to  be  ashamed 
of  having  been  used  by  Christians  to  propagate  a  set 
of  dogmas  which  are  essentially  immoral,  and  if  the 
"  free  lovers  "  have  made  use  of  me  to  deepen  that 
degradation  of  woman  which  Christianity  found  her 
laboring  under,  and,  with  terrible  effect,  attempted 
to  perpetuate,  I  shall  live  to  be  ashamed  of  it.  But 
I  do  not  think  they  have  intended  to  use  me  in  that 
direction.  If  so,  they  have  mistaken  their  man,  as 
much  as  the  Christians  did. 
BOSTON,  July  12,  1880.  ELIZUR  WRIGHT. 


HOME   AND   SOCIETY. 


Education  in  Europe. 


IN  the  department  allotted  to  communications,  in 
a  recent  number  of  your  magazine,  I  read  with 
attention  a  letter  upon  the  education  of  women.  We 
are,  indeed,  forced,  in  this  latter  day  of  dawning 
American  perception  in  the  matter  of  culture,  to 
compare  the  qualities  which  distinguish  educated 
people  at  home  and  abroad,  for  we  have,  in  the 
United  States,  so  far  left  behind  the  primitive  sim- 
plicity of  our  stay-at-home  ancestors  as  to  covet  a 
place  among  the  polished  circles  of  the  polite  world. 

I  do  not  refer  to  the  "  great  unwashed,"  which  is 
about  the  same  all  Christendom  over — perhaps  a 
trifle  better  informed  in  Germany  and  the  United 
States  than  elsewhere.  But  in  our  so-called  upper 
classes,  there  is  a  restless  movement  toward  some- 
thing like  the  broad,  easy  cosmopolitanism  of  refined 
Europeans.  It  is  a  conceded  fact  that  Americans, 
away  from  home  influences,  lose  their  provincialisms 
more  quickly  than  most  other  people,  probably 
because  there  is  less  force  of  gravity  of  dead-and- 
gone  generations  drawing  them  to  their  established 
centers.  But  this  assimilation  is  often  only  in  the 
mere  superficial  things  of  dress  and  manners,  and  as 
a  nation  we  do  not  adopt  the  spirit  of  foreign  lan- 
guages as  do  Germans  and  Russians,  or  even  Eng- 
lishmen. These  last,  it  is  true,  speak  the  acquired 
tongues  with  that  omnipresent  English  inflection 
which  every  American  hopes  to  carry  across  the 
ocean  for  the  amusement  of  his  friends,  but  always 
finds  he  has  lost  on  the  steamer,  and  cannot  possibly 
recover  until  he  has  again  landed  in  Liverpool. 

Now,  this  failing  of  Americans  to  grasp  practically 
a  foreign  tongue  can  be  nothing  more  than  the  result 
of  that  mistaken  course  of  instruction  which  the  arti- 
cle signed  S.  B.  H.  so  vividly  portrays.  The  edu- 
cation of  the  English  girl  so  far  differs  from  that 
of  her  overworked  and  under-taught  transatlantic 


cousin,  that  I  have  been  led  to  make  the  contrast  a 
subject  of  much  observation. 

For  this  reason,  as  well  as  to  vitalize  my  poor  pre- 
tense of  American  French,  I  entered  as  pupil  one  of 
the  charming  pensionnats  in  Geneva.  Perhaps  noth- 
ing can  so  far  go  to  prove  the  reality  of  the  advan- 
tages opened  by  the  European  system  as  a  brief 
sketch  of  life  at  Bois  de  Fey.  I  write,  not  from  a 
gushing  school-girl's  stand-point,  but  from  mature 
insight,  as  well  as  a  critical  analysis  of  results.  The 
name  of  this  school — if  such  one  must  call  it,  for 
want  of  a  better  English  word — I  should  like  to 
write  in  letters  of  gold  for  American  girls  to  whom 
fortune  has  given  the  better  part  of  "  a  finishing 
year  "  abroad,  although  it  is  but  one  of  many  such 
happy  institutions  on  the  Continent. 

To  begin  with,  we  number,  in  our  merry  family, 
four  English  girls,  sweet  and  serious  and  honest ; 
two  or  three  Americans,  whose  chief  disadvantage  is 
in  knowing  less  French  than  most  of  the  others  ; 
several  Germans,  who  acquire  the  language  with 
astonishing  rapidity  and  speak  it  with  great  flexibil- 
ity ;  several  French  girls,  all  vivacity  and  excitability, 
after  the  manner  of  their  nation ;  one  little  girl  from 
Bombay  and  one  from  Java,  the  complement  being 
made  up  of  Swiss.  A  heterogeneous  family,  but  in 
an  enviable  state  of  assimilation.  To  say  they  are 
the  happiest  young  people,  out  of  their  own  homes, 
that  I  have  ever  seen,  would  give  but  an  inadequate 
idea  of  their  contentment.  Perhaps,  in  contrast  with 
the  compulsory  and  monotonous  school  routine  01 
American  girls,  they  have  too  much  liberty  and  make 
too  little  effort.  At  least,  so  it  seemed  to  me  at  first. 
They  were  always  in  the  garden,  or  on  half-duty,  I 
thought.  But,  now  that  I  have  fallen  in  with  the  varied 
round  of  occupations,  I  find  that  the  demoiselles,  for 
the  most  part,  work  quite  as  hard  as  though  under 
stricter  orders,  and  with  this  to  us  unknown  differ- 
ence :  they  study  from  pure  interest  in  their  subjects. 


HOME  AND   SOCIETY. 


941 


To  be  sure,  Mademoiselle  gives  z.jeton  for  every  cor- 
rect answer,  or  bright  idea,  or  careful  translation,  or 
success  in  composition,  during  the  admirable  two 
hours  devoted  to  recitations.  But  it  is  not  a  spirit 
of  emulation  which  makes  students  at  Bois  de  Fey. 
1  look  back  to  the  trials  of  my  school-girlhood,  and 
to  some  later  experiences  in  the  deep,  narrow 
rut  of  a  bleak  New  England  boarding-school,  and 
believe  that  there  is  nothing  in  America  like  these 
two  morning  hours  in  the  cheerful  salle  d*  etude  at 
Bois  de  Fey. 

Around  the  long  table  (or  some  supplementary 
small  tables,  drawn  cozily  up)  sit  the  girls,  with  their 
knitting  or  crocheting,  or  any  light  work  which  occu- 
pies the  fingers  without  claiming  the  attention.  At 
the  head  of  the  table,  with  the  lesson-books  for  the 
day  open  before  her,  is  Mademoiselle.  After  a  chap- 
ter from  the  Bible  and  a  simple  prayer,  which  elevate 
this  French  Protestant  school  far  above  many  of  the 
fashionable  academies  in  the  United  States,  there  is 
a  special  calling  of  names  from  a  little  blue  book, 
wherein  each  young  lady's  name  stands  opposite  to 
some  simple  household  duty  allotted  to  her,  and  to 
be  performed  before  the  ringing  of  the  bell,  at  ten 
o'clock.  One  is  to  dust  the  pianos,  one  to  arrange 
the  flowers,  one  to  see  that  the  fire  is  properly  replen- 
ished, one  to  look  after  the  games  that  are  to  be 
replaced,  one  to  keep  the  book-shelves  in  order,  etc. 
These  performances  being  commended  or  disap- 
proved, the  exercises  begin. 

First,  there  are  several  rounds  of  spelling ;  then 
synonyms  are  demanded  for  the  words, — both  excel- 
lent discipline  in  aiding  the  foreigner  to  acquire  a 
French  vocabulary.  Then  sentences  are  read,  or 
improvised,  in  which  the  same  words  are  employed, 
— and  they  must  be  well  employed  to  please  the  fas- 
tidious ear  of  Mile.  P.  This  leads  naturally  into 
grammar  and  composition,  after  which  comes  an  en- 
tertaining lecture  on  geology,  botany  or  physiology 
from  Mademoiselle,  whose  French  is  pure  and  fluent, 
and  who  requires  well-expressed  notes  written  upon 
her  remarks.  The  history  and  literature  of  different 
countries  follow,  and  a  few  rapid  rounds  of  general 
questions  close  the  recitations.  Of  course  there  is  a 
German  teacher  for  the  French  and  English  girls, 
an  English  class  for  the  German  and  French  girls, 
and  a  master  of  mathematics  for  all.  But  the  charm 
of  the  home  is  the  liberal  instruction  of  its  kind  and 
cultivated  mistress. 

But  there  are  other  methods  of  educating  girls  in 
Europe  which  are  even  farther  removed  from  the 
•"  mechanical  way  of  learning  "  prevalent  in  American 
schools.  Perhaps  nothing  appears,  upon  first  view, 
more  superficial  and  nomadic  than  the  course  pur- 
sued by  many  an  English  mother  in  the  "training" 
of  her  daughters.  And  yet  the  English  girl  whom 
one  encounters  everywhere  in  Europe  is  a  refreshing 
example  of  versatile  culture.  She  is  not  "  crammed," 
but  is  genuinely  cultivated.  This  involves  a  more 
liberal  process  of  imparting  many-phased  information 
than  is  possible  in  our  first-class  schools  where  the 
cramming  system  is  in  vogue.  I  am  afraid  to  turn 
the  leaf  back,  somewhere  prior  to  my  first  European 
experiences,  and  recall  all  the  things  which  I  studied, 


in  common  with  sixty  or  seventy-five  other  over- 
taxed young  ladies.  Although  possessed  of  as  many 
different  inclinations  or  capacities,  we  were  reduced 
to  one  striving,  undiscriminating  mass.  All  day,  and 
sometimes  half  the  night,  we  labored  and  strove — for 
what  ?  For  perfect  recitations  and  a  high  standing 
in  our  class,  at  best.  I  do  not  believe  we  ever  had 
a  rational  conception  of  why  we  studied,  of  the 
means  of  cultivation  professedly  within  our  reach,  or 
of  the  use  or  tendency  of  any  branch  of  mental  appli- 
cation. 

It  was  all  one  nebulous  effort ;  and  the  ability  to 
acquire  each  individual  lesson  was  a  sort  of  necro- 
mancy which  had  to  be  worked  by  a  special  evoking 
of  the  sensitive  and  easily  excited  memory.  I  do 
not  think  we  were  stupid ;  but  this  I  know ;  that 
most  of  the  information  supposed  to  have  been  ab- 
sorbed during  the  school  term  each  year,  became  in 
the  summer  a  vague  blur  of  incoherent  impressions, 
— a  chaos  of  irretrievably  mixed  dialectics  and  hope- 
lessly misplaced  facts. 

Ah,  well !  it  is  not  worth  while  to  call  up  the 
slowly  vanishing  phantoms  of  buried  school-books. 
Doubtless,  every  "•finished"  girl  in  America  experi- 
ences the  same  retrospective  amazement  in  contem- 
plating, from  the  perihelion  of  graduating  day,  the 
immense  "  ground  "  she  has  gone  over  in  her  brief 
scholastic  orbit.  Of  course  there  are,  here  and  there, 
sturdy  feminine  organizations  which,  when  coupled 
with  clear  intellects,  come  unexhausted  from  the 
race.  But  nearly  always  the  female  constitution  is 
incapable  of  that  prolonged  nervous  strain  called  by 
your  correspondent  "  the  high-pressure  method." 

But  these  English  maidens  who  dwell  in  green 
pastures  of  Europe  and  lie  down  by  the  still  waters 
of  culture  ! — how  does  their  ideal  education  come  to 
them  ?  By  work,  assuredly ;  but  also  by  perpetual 
variety  and  refreshing  contact. 

They  often  begin  life  with  a  French  governess  at 
home.  When  they  have  outgrown  their  nurseries, 
a  systematic  course  of  travel  and  languages  follows. 
Mamma  gathers  her  sons  and  daughters  under  her 
wing  and  goes  to  the  Continent.  Here,  perhaps, 
the  girl  begins  with  a  good  German  school,  her  sum- 
mer holidays  among  the  mountains  of  Switzerland  or 
the  lakes  of  Italy  being  pervaded  by  a  ubiquitous 
German  flavor,  induced  by  the  presence  of  a  com- 
panion, until  she  is  so  thoroughly  acquainted  with 
the  language  that  she  can  read,  write  and  speak  it, — 
even  think  and  dream  in  it.  After  that,  she  is  pol- 
ished afresh  by  a  French  governess,  whose  quick  ear 
and  eye  no  English  word  nor  gesture  is  permitted  to 
escape.  A  winter  in  Italy,  amid  the  refining  influ- 
ences of  Rome  or  Florence,  it  may  be,  completes 
this  graceful  training ;  and  then  the  maiden  is  ready 
to  be  chaperoned  by  her  capable  mamma  into  a 
society  where  her  acquired  tongues  are  not  dead 
languages,  as  they  are  apt  to  be  in  the  drawing- 
rooms  of  well-bred  America. 

It  seems  to  me,  however,  that  the  school-plan, 
observed  in  this  Genevan pensionnat,  is  the  best;  for 
the  governess,  with  all  her  personal  surveillance, 
makes  a  slower  impression  upon  the  intelligence  than 
does  contact  with  other  young  minds  in  the  same 


942 


CULTURE  AND  PROGRESS. 


strait.  To  be  obliged  to  recite  side  by  side  with 
French-speaking  associates  lends  a  glibness,  first 
from  mere  imitation,  then  from  habit.  And  it  per- 
petually stirs  up  the  spirit  to  renewed  energy,  as  the 
girl  is  thrown  among  all  the  multiform  requirements 
of  a  little  French  world  such  as  this.  The  speech 
becomes  a  part  of  the  occasion.  I  think  this  home 


phase  of  Bois  de  Fey  will  rise  before  me  whenever  I 
hear  the  diplomatic  tongue  in  America,  bringing  with 
it  the  cozy  breakfast  freedom,  the  chatter  of  lunch, 
the  merriment  of  the  prolonged  dinner, — all  the 
pleasant  girlish  talk;  and,  above  all,  the  kind  and 
ever  cheerful  presence  of  Mile.  Pradez. 

L.  CLARKSON. 


CULTURE  AND  PROGRESS. 


"  Life  and  Letters  of  Horace  Bushnell."* 

AN  interval  of  something  more  than  four  years 
has  elapsed  since  Dr.  Bushnell's  death,  and  we 
have  here  at  last  a  worthy  memorial  of  his  life.  We 
took  up  this  handsome  volume  expecting  to  be  in- 
terested, but  we  have  been  interested  beyond  our 
expectation.  There  is  a  charm  that  never  intermits 
from  the  beginning  to  the  end  of  the  narrative,  and 
you  are  drawn  on  to  read  the  whole  of  it  with  una- 
bated zest.  The  very  brief  fragment  of  autobiogra- 
phy with  which  the  book  begins  is  a  true  appetizer. 
If  you  had  never  heard  before  of  Dr.  Bushnell,  you 
would  be  curious  to  learn  something  further  of  the 
man  who  could  write  that  sketch.  It  is  wonderfully 
racy,  of  a  strong,  fresh,  vital,  idiosyncratic  nature. 
Carlyle's  idiom  is  not  more  pronouncedly  unique 
than  is  Dr.  Bushnell's.  John  Foster  did  not  more 
eagerly  seek,  nor  more  decisively  succeed  in  securing, 
a  thought,  and  a  form  for  the  thought,  that  should 
be  incommunicably  his  own,  than  was  the  case  with 
the  subject  of  this  biography.  Dr.  Bushnell  was 
too  high  and  sound  and  genuine  a  soul  to  be  spoiled 
with  affectation,  yet  we  cannot  resist  the  impression 
that  he  did  humor,  and  even  force,  his  bent  for  idio- 
syncrasy a  little  beyond  what  was  perfectly  whole- 
some. The  result  at  length  was  a  style  in  which  the 
accent  of  individuality  had  become  unpleasantly  ex- 
aggerated. If  that  same  accent  had  been  softened 
instead  of  being  sharpened — softened  through  such 
good  taste  as  is  mainly  identical  with  wise  deference 
to  the  opinion  of  others,  Dr.  Bushnell's  style  would 
have  grown  into  one  of  the  most  charming  vehicles 
of  expression  that  our  American  literature  has 
known.  As  the  case  stands,  Dr.  Bushnell's  later 
period  of  production  seems  to  us  a  kind  of  brazen 
age,  degenerated  from  the  golden  one  of  his  prime. 
Still,  the  golden  age  with  Dr.  Bushnell  was  so  choice, 
that  a  considerable  degree  of  degeneration  was  en- 
tirely compatible  with  high  merit  remaining  after 
the  change. 

The  record  of  Dr.  Bushnell's  life  is  very  sim- 
ple, and  may  be  briefly  given.  He  was  born  in 
Connecticut,  of  sterling  New  England  parentage,  in 
1802.  He  spent  his  boyhood  and  youth  on  his 
father's  farm.  He  was  graduated  at  Yale  College 
in  1827.  During  the  two  following  years,  he  first 
taught  a  school,  and  then  was  editor  on  the  staff  of 

*  Life  and  Letters  of  Horace  Bushnell.  New  York :  Harper 
&  Brothers. 


the  "  Journal  of  Commerce,"  in  New  York.  He  now 
became  tutor  in  Yale  College.  His  tutorship  con- 
tinued two  years.  Study  of  the  law  was  carried 
forward  at  the  same  time.  Just  as  his  preparation 
for  the  bar  was  complete,  a  religious  revival  in  the 
college  produced  a  crisis  in  Bushnell's  own  inward 
experience.  The  result  was  that  he  ente'red  upon  a 
course  of  theology  in  the  New  Haven  divinity-school, 
and  became  a  minister  instead  of  a  lawyer.  His 
first  and  only  pastorate  was  in  Hartford.  This  ex- 
tended from  1833  to  1860.  After  1860  till  the  time 
of  his  death,  in  1876,  with  intervals  of  travel  and 
temporary  sojourn  in  various  places  resorted  to  for 
the  sake  of  his  health,  which  was  in  a  slow,  inter- 
mittent decline,  Dr.  Bushnell  continued  to  reside  in 
Hartford,  an  active  and  influential  citizen  no  less 
than  a  venerated  minister  of  the  gospel.  He  exer- 
cised all  this  time  what  he  called  a  kind  of  "  minis- 
try at  large,"  in  the  writing  of  books  and  of  papers 
for  the  periodical  press. 

Such  was  the  uneventful  life  recorded  in  this 
book.  But  the  man  himself  was  much  more  than 
the  outward  life  he  lived.  The  interest  of  the  narra- 
tive is  not  in  the  incidents  that  occur,  but  in  the  man 
to  whom  they  occur.  He  was  a  noble,  strenuous 
spirit,  deeply  religious,  stoutly  bent  on  being  ortho- 
dox in  his  own  individual  way.  He  was  involved  at 
one  time  in  theological  controversies,  out  of  which 
he  emerged,  if  not  triumphant,  still  unharmed,  to 
enjoy,  during  the  latter  period  of  his  life,  a  measure 
of  general  respect  very  grateful  to  his  heart.  His 
sense  of  his  own  individuality  was  so  intense  that  it 
hardly  differed  from  a  kind  of  transformed  and  mod- 
ified egotism.  This  stimulant  consciousness  of  him- 
self sustained  him  greatly  during  the  long  suspense 
of  his  failing  health.  He  continued  to  the  last  to 
feel  that  he  had  work  to  do  which  could  be  done  by 
no  one  but  himself.  He  probably  conceived  of  his 
mission  in  the  world  of  thought  as  being  relatively 
more  important  and  influential  than  it  really  was. 
Some  of  those  who  write  of  him  in  this  biography 
not  unnaturally  share  the  mistake.  With  all  the 
generous  force  and  fertility  of  nature  that  he  pos- 
sessed, Dr.  Bushnell  still  was  a  somewhat  narrow 
man.  He  was,  perhaps,  too  intense  to  be  broad. 
His  accomplishments  were  not  equal  to  his  endow- 
ments. He  had  original  virtue  enough  in  him  to 
have  vitalized  and  made  serviceable  a  much  larger 
amount  of  learning  than  he  seems  to  have  acquired. 
If  he  read  widely,  this  does  not  appear,  either  in  his 


CULTURE  AND  PROGRESS. 


943 


correspondence  or  in  his  books.  His  thought,  it  seems 
to  us,  would  have  been  juster  and  richer  if  it  had 
had  more  material  of  acquirement  to  exercise  itself 
upon. 

But  Dr.  Bushnell  was  a  rare,  a  lofty  soul;  we 
have  not  many  such.  His  life  is  a  book  to  read 
with  profit  and  delight.  It  is  full  of  the  breath  of  a 
pure  and  heavenly  inspiration.  One  feels  cheered 
and  spurred  as  one  reads.  The  authorship  is  com- 
posite ;  but  the  composite  authorship  has  produced, 
on  the  whole,  a  satisfactory  book.  What  we  chiefly 
miss  is,  first,  in  connection  with  the  polemical  periods 
of  Dr.  Bushnell's  life,  succinct  and  lucid  statement 
of  exactly  the  points  in  controversy  between  Dr. 
Bushnell  and  his  opponents  ;  and,  secondly,  a  history 
of  the  interior  processes  by  which  Dr.  Bushnell 
advanced  from  stage  to  stage  of  his  mental  and  spir- 
itual growth.  But  we  feel  sincerely  thankful  that  we 
have  so  much,  and  that  what  we  have  is  so  good. 
Seldom,  if  ever,  have  we  seen  private  letters  from 
any  pen,  every  line — every  word — of  which  so  well 
repaid  perusal.  Dr.  Bushnell  would  seem  to  have 
let  almost  nothing  slip  from  him  into  utterance  that 
he  had  not  first  steeped  to  saturation  in  his  own  per- 
sonality. The  quaintness,  the  picturesqueness,  the 
suggestiveness  of  his  turns  of  expression  entice 
you  to  read  date,  signature,  parenthesis,  common- 
place detail — everything  that  he  took  the  trouble  to 
write1.  There  is  more  thought,  more  freshness, 
more  originality,  sometimes,  in  a  single  page  of  one 
of  his  apparently  least-considered  little  notes  to  his 
wife,  than  you  might  chance  to  find  in  a  whole  ream 
of  the  letters  which  the  great,  generous  Walter 
Scott  somehow  got  time  to  lavish  in  unstinted  improv- 
idence on  the  vast  mob  of  his  correspondents.  The 
whole  book  is  readable,  and,  besides  that,  is  worth 
reading. 

If  the  reader  is  induced  to  make  himself  familiar 
with  "  Sermons  for  the  New  Life,"  and  with  the 
"  Character  of  Jesus,"  he  may  justly  feel  that  he 
knows  Dr.  Bushnell  at  his  best.  He  will  certainly 
feel  that  Dr.  Bushnell's  best  is  something  exceed- 
ingly good. 

Swinburne's  "Songs  of  the  Springtide."* 

WE  have  read  Swinburne's  last  book  with  every 
desire  in  the  world  to  understand  it.  It  is  filled  to 
overflowing  with  the  stuff  out  of  which  poetry  is 
made,  but  it  is  not  poetry.  It  is  a  wilderness  of 
magnificent  language,  besprinkled  with  vehement 
phrases, — a  sea  of  sonorous  measures,  surging  hither 
and  thither  in  billows  of  rhythm;  but  it  signifies 
nothing.  What  led  to  its  composition  we  have  to 
conjecture ;  but,  giving  him  the  benefi^  of  his  title, 
we  may  suppose  it  was  the  influence  of  the  sea.  We 
look  for  it,  accordingly,  but  we  do  not  find  it.  It  is 
true  that  three  of  the  four  poems  of  which  it  is  com- 
posed imply  it;  but  for  any  impression  that  they 
leave  upon  our  minds  they  might  as  well  have  implied 
the  woods,  or  the  air,  or  anything  else  under  the 
sun.  They  contain  no  evidence  that  he  ever  saw — 

*  Songs  of  the  Springtide.  By  Algernon  Charles  Swinburne. 
London  :  Chatto  &  Wjndus. 


or,  seeing,  was  impressed  by — the  sea ;  no  such  evi- 
dence as  authenticates  itself  in  Byron's  famous  apos- 
trophe to  the  ocean  (which  was  written  on  the  shores 
of  the  Mediterranean),  in  Campbell's  "  Lines  on  the 
View  from  St.  Leonard's,"  or  Bryant's  "  Hymn  of 
the  Sea " ;  nothing  which  presents  or  suggests, 
either  in  mass  or  in  detail,  the  restless  surface  of  the 
waves,  burnished  by  the  glare  of  the  sun,  obscured 
by  the  shadow  of  the  clouds,  and  ruffled  by  the  bois- 
terous merriment  of  the  wind ;  nothing,  in  short, 
which  appeals  to  the  imagination  like  the  one  hun- 
dred and  eighty-third  stanza  of  the  last  canto  of 
"  Childe  Harold"  ("Thou  glorious  mirror,  where 
the  Almighty's  form  "),  or  the  line  and  a  half  in 
"  Thanatopsis,"  which  sums  up  its  elemental  effect 
with  the  gravity  of  the  Greek  tragic  writers,  or  the 
Hebrew  prophets : 

"  And  poured  round  all 
Old  ocean's  gray  and  melancholy  waste." 

Not  a  line,  not  a  word,  has  suffered  "  a  sea-change." 
"  Thalassius,"  if  we  understand  it,  is  an  attempt  to 
reflect  the  emotions  of  one  born  by,  and  possibly 
of,  the  sea — an  offspring  of  that  mysterious  and  awful 
force ;  "  On  the  Cliffs  "  is  an  attempt  to  revive  and 
recall  the  personality  of  Sappho,  whom  we  have  to 
suppose  supreme  among  the  martyrs  of  passion ; 
and  "  The  Garden  of  Cymodoce  "  is  an  attempt  to 
celebrate  one  of  the  Channel  Islands,  upon  which 
Victor  Hugo  once  resided,  and  which  his  memory 
has  glorified  ever  since  in  the  eyes  of  his  ador- 
ing poet.  The  volume  closes  with  a  "  Birthday 
Ode  " — a  long  and  tedious  rhapsody  in  all  sorts  of 
measures,  saturated  with  enthusiasm  for  this  grand 
man  and  his  works,  which  are  "  so  incomparable  as 
to  seem  incredible." 

We  have  indicated,  as  well  as  we  could  in  a  brief 
notice  like  this,  the  existing  characteristics  of  Swin- 
burne's poetry.  It  is  wearisome  in  its  wordiness 
and  exhaustive  in  its  obscurity.  We  try  to  persuade 
ourselves  that  we  understand  it ;  but,  after  reading  a 
few  pages  of  it,  we  give  up  in  despair.  If  this  is 
poetry,  we  say,  we  are  on  the  eve  of  a  new  dispen- 
sation, which  will  overthrow  all  that  has  gone  before, 
— the  noble  simplicity  of  Homer,  the  awful  sublim- 
ity of  Dante,  the  world-containing  comprehension  of 
Shakspere, — all  that  we  have  loved  and  reverenced 
from  of  old : 

"The  fair  humanities  of  old  religion. 

The  power,  the  beauty,  and  the  majesty, 

That  had  their  haunts  in  dale,  or  piny  mountain, 

Or  forest  by  slow  stream,  or  pebbly  spring. 

Or  charms  and  watery  depths ;  all  these  have  vanished  ; 

They  live  no  longer  in  the  faith  of  reason." 

The  faith  of  reason  has  gone,  or  the  songs  of  Ariel 
would  not  be  hushed  before  the  silence  of  Thalas- 
sius, nor  would  the  immortal  shape  of  Juliet  fade 
into  the  passing  shadow  of  Sappho.  It  is  an  age 
of  unreason,  and  Swinburne  has  become  one  of  its 
prophets. 

"The  Ode  of  Life."* 

THE  difference,  or  one  of  the  differences,  between 
a  poet  in  esse  and  a  poet  in  posse,  is  shown  in  the 

*  The  Ode  of  Life.  By  the  author  of  "  The  Epic  of  Hades," 
and"Gwen."  Boston:  Roberts  Brothers. 


944 


CULTURE  AND  PROGRESS. 


choice  of  subjects  selected  by  each,  as  well  as  in  their 
methods  of  handling  them.  The  poet  of  aspirations, 
ignorant  alike  of  his  limitations  and  the  resources  of 
his  art,  grasps  at  the  unattainable.  The  poet  of 
achievements,  who  carefully  studies  his  powers  and 
what  is  possible  to  be  achieved,  contents  himself  with 
gathering  the  flowers  that  grow  along  his  path.  He 
feels  the  profound  truth  of  Lord  Houghton's  stanza — 

"  A  man's  best  things  He  nearest  him, 

Lie  close  about  his  feet; 
It  is  the  distant  and  the  dim 

That  we  are  sick  to  greet." 

Not  so  his  ambitious  fellow-singer,  who  habitually 
takes  refuge  in  dimness  and  distance,  and  is  never  so 
much  inspired  as  when  he  is  unintelligible.  Such 
a  one  is  the  author  of  "  The  Ode  of  Life,"  who  is  as 
much  to  be  pitied  as  he  is  to  be  censured.  He  is  to 
be  pitied,  because  he  possesses  an  uncommon  degree 
of  poetic  talent,  which  is  wasted  in  this  production, 
and  he  is  to  be  censured,  because  he  has  declined  to 
learn  by  the  failure  of  his  betters.  He  should  have 
known — no  one  better,  for  his  culture  is  evident  in 
all  that  he  has  written — that  no  poet,  however  great, 
has  yet  succeeded  in  grappling  with  the  problem 
which  he  so  rashly  essays  to  solve,  and  which  he  so 
mistakenly  persuades  himself  that  he  has  solved. 
"  Whatever  may  be  the  fate  of  the  work,"  he  says, 
•"  the  writer  knows  well  that  nothing  more  mature 
can  be  expected  from  his  pen,  nor  can  he  hope  again 
to  find  unappropriated  so  fruitful  a  subject  for  verse." 
He  is  correct  in  thinking  it  a  fruitful  subject, — he 
might  have  said  the  most  fruitful  of  all  subjects, — but 
he  is  mistaken  in  thinking  it  unappropriated,  for 
every  thoughtful  poet,  from  the  days  of  Lucretius 
down,  has  appropriated  as  much  of  it  as  he  could, 
and  has  left  it  what  it  was — an  undecipherable  secret, 
a  mysterious  manifestation,  whose  beginning  and 
whose  end  are  unknown. 

There  are  two  ways  of  regarding  life,  or,  more 
strictly  speaking,  the  Life  of  Man,  which  is  the  fruit- 
ful subject  of  the  "  Ode," — one  obvious,  the  other 
recondite ;  the  obvious  being  confined  to  our  knowl- 
edge of  ourselves,  the  recondite  to  our  apparent  re- 
lation to  the  universe.  One  suggests  pictures  of 
the  different  stages  of  mundane  existence,  from  the 
cradle  to  the  grave  ;  the  other  reflects  impressions 
of  the  things  by  which  we  are  surrounded.  Human 
life,  on  its  picturesque  side,  is  the  theme  of  nearly 
all  Bryant's  poetry.  It  moved  like  a  shadowy 
procession  before  the  eyes  of  the  boy  to  whom  the 
woods  of  Berkshire  yielded  their  solemn  secret  in 
"  Thanatopsis,"  and  it  surged  tumultuously  before 
the  eyes  of  the  aged  man  whose  last  great  hymn  was 
"The  Flood  of  Years."  No  other  poet  ever  dwelt 
so  persistently  upon  it,  and  no  other  poet  ever 
brought  it  so  nearly  home  to  the  bosoms  and  busi- 
ness of  men.  It  was  recognized  in  a  different  and 
more  profound  spirit  by  Wordsworth,  who  cared  not 
for  it  as  it  was  manifested  in  the  multitude,  but  who 
dwelt  upon  it,  like  the  egoist  that  he  was,  as  he  felt 
it  in  his  own  individual  being.  The  heights  and 
depths  of  life  are  scaled  and  sounded  in  his  glorious 
"  Intimations  of  Immortality,"  which  read  like  a 
transcript  from  the  universal  manuscript  of  nature. 


If  "  The  Ode  of  Life  "  could  be  written,  it  would  have 
been  by  Wordsworth ;  but  it  escaped  even  his 
elemental  genius,  as  this  his  noblest  poem  proved, 
and  where  he  failed  who  can  hope  to  succeed  ? 
Certainly  not  the  author  of  "The  Epic  of  Hades." 

There  were  two  methods  open  to  him — the  recon- 
dite method  of  Wordsworth,  and  the  obvious  method 
of  Bryant,  either  of  which  might  have  insured  a 
measure  of  success ;  but  he  chose  neither,  or,  rather, 
chose  a  combination  of  both,  and  the  result  is  disap- 
pointing. His  Ode  can  be  read,  if  one  determines 
to  read  it,  but  it  is  not  likely  to  be  remembered, 
either  in  its  entirety,  which  is  merely  that  of  a 
rhapsody,  or  in  its  parts,  which  lack  distinctness  and 
contrast.  He  is  occasionally  picturesque,  in  a  quiet 
fashion,  as  when  he  endeavors  to  realize  the  life  of 
childhood.  Here,  for  example,  is  a  glimpse  of  a 
group  of  boys,  set  against  a  background  of  country 
landscape : 

"  I  see  the  warm  pool  fringed  with  meadow-sweet, 

Where  stream  in  summer,  with  eager  feet, 

Through  gold  of  buttercups  and  crested  grass 

The  gay  procession,  stripping  as  they  pass. 

I  hear  the  cool  and  glassy  depths  divide 

As  the  bold,  fair  young  bodies,  far  more  fair 

Than  even  sculptured  Nereids  were, 

Plunge  fearless  down,  or  push,  with  front  or  side, 

Through  the  caressing  wave. 

I  mark  the  deadly  chill  thro"  the  young  blood 

When  some  young  life,  snatched  from  the  cruel  flood, 

Looks  once  upon  the  flowers,  the  fields,  the  sun, — 

Looks  once,  and  then  is  done !  " 

Prettier  than  this  is  the  glimpse  of  girlhood  : 

"  Now  with  thy  doll  I  see  thee  full  of  care, 

Or,  filled  already  with  the  mother's  air, 

Hushing  thy  child  to  sleep. 

And  now  thyself  immersed  in  slumbers,  deep 

Yet  light,  I  see  thee  lie. 

And  now  the  singer,  lifting  a  clear  voice 

In  soaring  hymns  or  carols  that  rejoice, 

Or  busied  with  thy  seams,  or,  doubly  fair 

For  the  unconscious  rapture  of  thy  look, 

Lost  in  some  simple  book." 

This  is  pleasant  writing,  certainly,  but  it  does  not 
come  up  to  what  we  have  a  right  to  expect  from  a 
poet  who  undertakes  to  sing  "  The  Ode  of  Life  " ; 
and  when  we  say  that  it  is  the  best  that  we  have 
been  able  to  find  in  this  Ode,  we  suspect  it  will 
hardly  induce  our  readers  to  struggle  through  the 
one  hundred  and  fifty  odd  pages  in  which  it  is  im- 
bedded. If  he  has  failed,  as  we  think  he  has,  the 
failure  lies  in  his  subject  as  much  as  in  himself.  We 
think  worse  of  his  subject  than  of  him,  and  better  of 
him  than  he  appears  to  think  of  himself;  for  we  re- 
fuse to  believe  that  "  nothing  more  mature  can  be 
expected  from  his  pen."  He  has  made  a  mistake 
such  as  men  of  genius  are  apt  to  make,  and  the  best 
thing  he  can  do  is  to  forget  it  speedily,  as  the  world 
will,  and  write  a  better  poem.  There  is  still  a  brill- 
iant future  for  the  author  of  "  The  Epic  of  Hades. " 

King's  "  Echoes  from  the  Orient."  * 

THE  Orient  of  Mr.  King's  volume  is  not  the  gor- 
geous East,  which,  in  Milton, 

"  With  richest  hand 
Showers  on  her  kings  barbaric  pearls  and  gold  " ; 

the  wild  and  romantic  Eas-t  to  which  Byron  trans- 


*  Echoes  from  the  Orient.     With  Miscellaneous  Poems.     By 
Edward  King.     London  :  C.  Kegan  Paul.     ' 


CULTURE  AND  PROGRESS. 


945 


ports  us  in  "  Childe  Harold  "  and  "  The  Giaour  " ; 
or  the  languorous,  poetic  East  of  gardens,  kiosks 
and  harems  which  Moore  depicts  for  us  in  "  Lalla 
Rookh  " ;  but  the  East  of  which  we  read  so  much 
during  the  Russo-Turkish  war,  the  Occidental  East, 
— that  bloody,  debatable  border-land  between  the 
forces  of  the  Crescent  and  the  Cross.  This  ground 
was  trenched  upon  some  half  a  century  ago  by  the 
late  Sir  John  Bowring,  who  sought  to  acquaint  his 
countrymen  with  the  poetic  literature  of  every  coun- 
try in  Europe,  and  who  published  a  small  library  of 
anthologies,  which  whoever  can  may  read.  Others 
have  cast  their  eyes  upon  it  from  time  to  time,  but 
so  far,  we  believe,  Mr.  King  is  the  first  English- 
writing  poet  who  has  set  to  work  seriously  to  pre- 
serve its  echoes  in  verse,  and  who  has*  fitted  himself 
to  do  by  journeying  through  the  regions  which  he 
describes.  Twenty  of  the  thirty-two  poems  of 
which  his  volume  is  composed  are  devoted  to  them — 
the  longest,  "The  Sorrow  of  Maniol,"  being  based  on 
a  Roumanian  legend,  while  the  remainder  are  attempts, 
more  or  less  successful,  to  embody  the  characteristic 
features  of  its  landscapes,  and  the  life  of  its  peoples, 
their  joys  and  sorrows,  "  fierce  wars  and  faithful 
loves,"  in  a  word,  the  elements  of  their  national 
character  as  it  is  reflected  in  their  popular  folk-songs. 
He  has  been  struck  by  what  he  has  seen,  and  has 
reproduced  it  with  a  faithfulness  that  has  destroyed 
the  poetic  impression  at  which  he  aimed.  His  work 
is  carefully  wrought,  but  it  is  literal  and  hard.  We 
miss  the  ideality  which  we  look  for,  and  which  must 
have  enveloped  the  themes  as  they  existed  in  his 
mind.  We  especially  miss  this  quality  in  "The 
Fair  Bosnian,"  who  might  have  taken  her  place  in 
literature  with  Wordsworth's  "  Highland  Girl. " 
"  An  Idyl  Among  the  Rocks "  suggests  a  stormy 
episode  of  Oriental  border-life.  There  is  not  much 
story  in  it,  but  what  there  is  is  fairly  indicated,  and 
the  gleams  of  landscape  through  which  it  conducts 
us  are  picturesque.  Here  is  such  an  one  : 

"Across  the  rocky  lands;  along  the  hills, 
Upward  beside  the  foaming  cataracts, 
Past  lonely  khans  upon  the  mountain  side, 
Through  darkened  woods  of  oak  and  sycamore, 
And  through  the  pass  of  Zygos,  where  the  crags 
From  all  their  vast  recesses  echo  forth 
The  cries  and  murmurs  of  a  hundred  brooks, 
Which  nourish  old  Penaeus,  as  his  wave 
Flows  down  to  greet  the  olive  and  the  vine." 

Quite  as  distinct,  and  much  less  Tennysonian,  is 
this  glimpse  of  "  Night  in  the  Herzegovina." 

"  No  blade  of  grass,  nor  any  green  is  here, 
Save  on  a  crag  one  starving  olive  tree ; 

The  torrents  into  caverns  disappear, 
Or  hasten,  moaning,  downward  to  the  sea. 

"  The  shepherd  homeward  to  the  fold  his  flock 
Leads  by  the  crooning  of  his  rustic  reed ; 

The  goats  bound  airily  from  rock  to  rock, 
And  gambol  where  our  human  feet  would  bleed. 

"  The  mountaineer,  with  dagger  at  his  side, 
With  pistols  in  his  belt,  and  carabine 

Firm  in  his  hand,  seems  like  a  ghost  to  glide 
Along  the  rocky  high  horizon  line." 

"  The  Ballad  of  Miramar  "  is  the  best  poem  which 
the  untimely  fate  of  the  Emperor  Maximilian  called 
forth :  "  Prince  Lazarus  "  is  an  effective  rendering 
of  a  well-known  Servian  legend;  and  "The  Tsigone's 

VOL.  XX.— 62. 


Canzonet  "  is  still  better.  We  are  inclined  to  think, 
indeed,  that  it  is  the  finest  thing  in  the  book,  or 
that  it  would  be  if  its  two  long  lines  were  capable 
of  musical  modulation. 

Wikoff's  "Reminiscences  of  an  Idler."* 

MR.  WIKOFF  has  the  courage  to  announce  him- 
self on  his  title-page  as  the  author  of  "  My  Courtship 
and  its  Consequences,"  a  book  now  well-nigh  for- 
gotten, but  remembered,  when  recalled,  as  one  of  the 
least  creditable  volumes  ever  put  forth  by  a  native 
American.  This,  however,  should  not  prejudice  the 
reader  against  the  present  book,  but,  unfortunately, 
the  memory  of  his  title-page  seems  to  have  hung  like 
a  pall  before  Mr.  Wikoff's  eyes  while  he  was  writing 
these  reminiscences,  and  so  a  good  half  of  the  book 
is  very  dull.  Toward  the  end,  the  writer  warms  to 
his  work,  and  it  becomes  of  more  interest.  It  is 
rarely  that  the  title  of  a  book  is  so  exact  an  index  to 
its  character  as  the  title  of  this  volume.  Mr.  Wikoff, 
if  we  may  accept  his  own  evidence,  has  devoted  a 
long  and  laborious  life  to  the  pursuit  of  idleness. 
He  has  no  more  story  to  tell  than  the  needy  knife- 
grinder  ;  he  has  seldom  had  exciting  adventures  or 
held  memorable  conversations;  he  has  merely 
loitered  for  half  a  century  among  the  notabilities  and 
notorieties  of  Europe  and  America.  To  say  this  is 
to  say  that  this  book  is  a  book  of  gossip.  Now,  a 
book  of  gossip  may  be  a  good  thing.  Greville's 
"  Memoirs  "  were  valuable,  for  instance,  though  they 
were  little  more  than  a  book  of  gossip.  But  there 
is  gossip  and  gossip.  And  by  far  the  most  of  Mr. 
Wikoff's  gossip  is  either  valueless  in  itself,  or  else 
it  is  second-hand.  In  the  long  account  of  Paris  as  it 
was  in  1830  and  thereabouts,  is  the  most  barefaced 
borrowing  from  Sir  Henry  Bulwer's  "  France, 
Social,  Literary  and  Political,"  and  from  Captain 
Gronow's  "Recollections."  Although  quotation 
marks  appear,  without  a  detailed  reference  to 
these  books  it  is  impossible  to  say  how  much  is 
taken  verbatim,  and  how  much  is  paraphrased. 
Besides  the  matter  thus  lifted,  a  short  history  is  given 
of  everybody  Mr.  Wikoff  meets  or  sees;  if  he  goes, 
for  instance,  to  a  ball  at  the  Tuileries  and  sees  two 
old  men  shake  hands,  he  fills  three  pages  with  a 
sketch  of  the  life  of  each,  containing  no  details  not 
to  be  found  in  the  biographical  dictionaries  from 
which  Mr.  Wikoff  has  apparently  derived  his  infor- 
mation. This  is  popularly  known  as  "  padding  " ;  it 
fills  fully  one-half  of  Mr.  Wikoff's  pages.  In  still 
another  way  is  the  book  monotonous ;  Mr.  Wikoff 
is  a  persistent  optimist.  Every  man  he  meets,  if  not 
a  great  man  or  a  good  man,  is  at  least  a  handsome 
man  or  a  well-dressed  man.  He  sprinkles  sugared 
phrases  over  every  chance  acquaintance.  As  for  the 
ladies  he  has  the  fortune  to  approach — they  are 
sylphs,  fairies,  houris,  goddesses  !  And  Mr.  Wikoff 
dilates  upon  their  physical  charms  with  an  impu- 
dence almost  refreshing.  He  pays  special  attention 
to  the  ladies'  figures,  which  are  described  with  the 
most  luxuriant  superlatives.  All  these  glowing  por- 

*  The  Reminiscences  of  an  Idler.  By  Henry  Wikoff.  New 
York  :  Fords,  Howard  &  Hulbert.  1880.  • 


946 


CULTURE  AND  PROGRESS. 


traits  are  framed  in  a  style  easy  to  the  point  of  care- 
lessness ;  not  even  the  three  colleges,  at  one  after 
another  of  which  Mr.  Wikoff  received  instruction, 
have  seemingly  been  able  to  teach  him  to  write 
English. 

These  are  the  main  demerits  of  his  book.  In  its 
favor  are  to  be  recorded  his  vivacity,  his  eagerness 
in  the  pursuit  of  idleness,  a  certain  naivete,  good 
spirits,  and  the  fact  that  somehow  he  always  got  into 
good  company.  He  tells  us  how  he  spent  the  night 
in  a  diligence  with  his  head,  accidentally,  in  his  sleep, 
on  the  shoulder  of  a  fair  stranger,  who  turned  out  to 
be  the  Countess  Guiccioli ;  he  describes  over  again 
Lady  Blessington  and  Count  d'Orsay ;  he  narrates 
how  Lady  Bulwer  appealed  to  him  for  aid  in  the 
midst  of  her  quarrel  with  Sir  Edward  George  Lytton 
Bulwer ;  he  met  Mrs.  Norton  in  her  regal  beauty,  a 
few  hours  after  the  verdict  in  the  Melbourne  case ; 
and  he  informs  us  of  his  success  in  patching  up  a 
disagreement  between  Edwin  Forrest  and  his  future 
wife,  then  Miss  Sinclair.  From  these  experiences 
it  may  seem  that  Mr.  Wikoff  made  a  specialty  of 
matrimonial  infelicity ;  but  he  had  other  experiences 
also.  He  traveled  with  Forrest  through  Russia  and 
the  East;  he  was  in  Paris  at  a  barricade  just  as  it 
was  charged  by  the  troops ;  he  saw  the  execution  of 
Fieschi;  he  was  present  when  "Jim  Crow"  Rice 
first  turned  about  and  wheeled  about  on  the  London 
stage  (in  the  index,  we  may  note,  this  Rice  is  con- 
founded with  "  Dan  "  Rice,  of  circus  fame) ;  and  he 
was  introduced  by  Fanny  Elssler  to  Mrs.  Grote,  the 
wife  of  the  historian.  The  letters  from  Mrs.  Grote 
are  much  the  best  things  in  Mr.  Wikoff 's  book — as 
he  says  of  one  of  them :  "  Was  there  ever  such 
a  piquant  jumble  of  topics  more  eloquently 
conveyed,  or  at  times  more  quaintly  expressed  ? 
Horace  Walpole  never  mixed  a  more  palatable  dish 
of  gossip."  In  a  later  letter,  Mrs.  Grote  tells  him 
that  she  has  taken  a  box  to  see  Fanny  Elssler  come 
out  in  the  Tarentella,  and  that  she  carries  with  her 
three  good  men  and  true  to  applaud  heartily, "  among 
them  a  countryman  of  yours,  Charles  Sumner." 
Mr.  Wikoff  tells  us  about  his  friend  Sampson,  who 
came  over  to  this  country  for  the  Bank  of  England, 
and  went  back  to  wield  enormous  power  over  the 
financial  world  as  the  "  city  "  editor  of  the  London 
"  Times  " ;  but  he  does  not  mention,  characteristically 
enough,  that  Mr.  Sampson  was  discharged  from  this 
high  position  for  selling  his  influence. 

A  large  proportion  of  the  final  hundred  pages  of 
these  "  Reminiscences "  are  given  up  to  Fanny 
Elssler,  whose  trip  to  this  country,  where  she  danced 
the  top  of  Bunker  Hill  Monument  on,  was  owing  to 
Mr.  Wikoff's  personal  exertions.  Strange  to  say, 
both  of  the  rival  queens  of  the  dance  of  fifty  years 
ago,  Marie  Taglioni  and  P'anny  Elssler,  probably  the 
two  finest  dancers  ever  seen,  are  alive  to-day.  Mr. 
Wikoff,  in  speaking  (page  321)  of  the  Duke  of  Reich- 
stadt's  passion  for  Fanny  Elssler,  says  that  she  did  not 
know  of  it  till  after  his  death ;  the  current  account  is 
different. 

Readers  of  the  de  Remusat  "  Memoirs  "  may  be 
interested  in  another  Napoleonic  anecdote  recorded 
by  Mr.  Wikoff,  although  not  apparently  original  with 


him.  It  is  said  that  Napoleon,  in  a  moment  of  fond- 
ness, told  Mile.  Georges  to  ask  for  anything  she 
wanted.  Sentimentally  enough,  she  requested  a 
portrait  of  her  imperial  lover.  "  Oh,  if  that  is  all 
you  want,"  said  the  emperor,  "  here  is  my  portrait — 
and  a  very  good  likeness  it  is,  too."  And  he  handed 
her  a  five-franc  piece,  containing  his  effigy  and 
superscription. 

Gath's  "Tales  of  the  Chesapeake."  * 

MANY  readers  are  familiar  with  the  amusing  fictions 
which  frequently  appear  in  the  Western  newspapers 
over  the  signature  of  "  Gath  " ;  and  in  the  present 
volume  Mr.  Townsend  comes  forward  for  the  first 
time  frankly  as  a  story-teller.  These  "  Tales  of  the 
Chesapeake  ""consist  of  twenty-seven  pieces,  thirteen 
in  prose,  and  fourteen  in  verse.  The  latter  may  be  dis- 
missed off-hand,  as  calling  for  no  special  considera- 
tion ;  most  of  them  are  simple  ballads,  easily  told, 
but  giving  no  evidence  of  the  poetic  gift ;  there  is 
one  exception,  however:  "  The  Imp  in  Nanjemoy  " 
is  really  a  fine  psychologic  study  in  meter  of  the  re- 
sults on  John  Wilkes  Booth  of  that  long  man-hunt 
of  which  he  was  the  game,  and  at  the  end  of  which 
he  died  at  bay.  Of  the  thirteen  prose  pieces,  one, 
"  Sir  William  Johnson's  Night,"  besides  having 
nothing  of  the  Chesapeake  in  it,  is  a  cheap  and  per- 
sonal newspaper  squib  wholly  unworthy  of  a  revival 
in  the  pages  of  a  book ;  and  two  others  are  studies 
of  the  "  Old  Washington  Almshouse "  and  of 
"  Preacher's  Sons  in  1849."  This  last,  which  sketches 
vividly  the  happenings  in  the  life  of  a  Methodist 
itinerant  on  the  eastern  shore,  thirty  years  ago,  is  in 
some  respects  the  best  bit  of  work  in  the  book. 

The  remaining  ten  stories  are  of  very  varying 
value ;  some  may  fairly  be  called  excellent,  others 
are  only  commonplace.  One  may  detect  in  them  a 
distinct  proof  of  a  decided  vocation  for  prose  fiction  ; 
and  had  the  call  been  heeded  earlier,  and  the  gift 
been  made  much  of,  we  might  have  been  able  to  wel- 
come Mr.  Townsend  as  a  promising  recruit  in  the 
already  creditable  band  of  Americans  who  can  do 
that  difficult  thing :  write  a  good  short  story.  He 
has  evidently  the  story-telling  faculty,  and  it  might 
have  been  cultivated  to  fine  effect.  But  the  writing 
of  fiction  has  been  but  a  side  issue.  And  so  we  see 
much  cleverness,  indeed,  but  also  the  marks  of  a 
lack  of  training.  And  more  than  all,  there  is  no 
strong  savor  of  marked  individuality;  there  is  no 
Gath  trade-mark,  which  might  incite  an  imitator. 
Two  tales,  "  Ticking  Stone  "  and  "  Dominion  Over 
the  Fish,"  are  in  the  Edgar  Poe  or  Fitz-James 
O'Brien  style ;  another,  "  The  Big  Idiot,"  is  seem- 
ingly an  imitation  of  Washington  Irving.  Curiously 
enough,  the  plot  of  "  Judge  Whaley's  Demon  "  is 
very  like  a  play  by  M.  Alexandre  Dumas,  yf/j,  called 
the  "  Filleul  de  Pompignac,"  although,  with  finer  art, 
the  French  author  did  not  attempt  to  explain  away 
the  main  idea  of  the  plot  in  a  conventional  happy 
conclusion.  There  is  true  strength  at  times  in  some 
of  these  tales,  however,  in  spite  of  an  occasional 


*  Tales  of  the  Chesapeake.     By  George  Alfred  Townsend 
("Gath").     New  York:  American  News  Co.     1880. 


CULTURE  AND  PROGRESS. 


947 


weakness  in  handling  the  theme,  especially  in 
"  Crutch,  the  Page,"  by  far  the  finest  story  in  the 
volume,  and  the  one  which  gives  most  hope  of  Mr. 
Townsend's  future  work.  Here  is  real  skill  in  the 
conception  and  presentation  of  character;  here  is 
sharp  dramatic  interest ;  a  truly  well-told  story,  well 
worth  telling. 

But  even  in  this  there  is  a  touch  of  the  bad  taste 
inherent  in  cheap  newspaper  work.  Because  the  old 
lady  of  the  tale  keeps  a  boarding-house,  the  second 
chapter  is  entitled  "Hash."  And  we  have  noted 
many  other  lapses  into  newspaper  idioms  and  man- 
nerisms. In  general,  the  style  is  hasty.  It  is  with 
something  very  like  a  shock  that  one  reads — 

"  He  keeps  the  saddle  as  he  used 
In  younger  days,  when  he  enthused 
Three  provinces,"  etc. 

This  is  poetic  license  with  a  vengeance. 

About's  "Story  of  an  Honest  Man."* 

IT  was  full  time  a  story  like  this  was  put  forward 
by  some  one  holding  a  front  place  in  French  litera- 
ture, for  its  fair  fame  was  day  by  day  sinking  lower 
and  lower,  under  the  double  pressure  of  the  trifling 
and  heedlessly  immoral  tales  written  for  the  con- 
sumption of  what  Mr.  Matthew  Arnold  calls  "  the 
average  sensual  man,"  on  the  one  hand,  and  on  the 
other  under  the  weight  of  the  pseudo-scientific 
narratives  of  the  so-called  "  naturalists,"  who  seem 
to  be  able  to  find  the  dark  colors  with  which  they 
paint  only  in  the  muddiest  depths  of  human  degra- 
dation. Alike  from  the  insidious  immorality  of  M. 
Feuillet  and  the  cold  descriptions  of  the  lowest  vices 
by  M.  Zola,  this  simple  and  sincere  story  comes  as  a 
great  relief.  Of  M.  About's  skill  as  a  writer  of  fiction 
no  one  needs  to  be  told  who  remembers  the  "  King 
of  the  Mountains,"  or  the  "  Man  with  the  Broken 
Ear ;  "  and  though  his  present  theme  is  lacking  in 
the  lightness  and  brightness  of  these  earlier  tales, 
and  is,  indeed,  serious  and  elevating  instead  of  being 
merely  amusing,  there  is  no  loss  nor  lack  of  ease  and 
grace ;  and  there  is  gain  in  strength  and  dignity. 
"  The  Story  of  an  Honest  Man  "  is  the  model  of 
what  a  story  with  a  purpose  should  be.  It  is  not 
didactic ;  it  does  not  preach — save  by  example  ;  and 
its  interest  does  not  flag  for  an  instant.  Perhaps 
this  is  because  its  purpose  is  a  very  simple  one,  and 
easy  to  handle  in  fiction.  This  purpose,  we  take  it, 
has  been  to  show  that  French  fiction  is  possible 
which  shall  be  fair  and  not  foul ;  that  all  the  French 
are  not  either  frivolous  in  emptiness  or  sodden  in  vice ; 
that  there  are  still  brave  men  and  honest  women  in  the 
fair  land  of  France ;  and  that  a  novel  may  be  written 
which  shall  be  thoroughly  French,  and  yet  not  have 
for  its  characters  the  drunkard  and  the  rake,  and 
for  its  scene  the  grog-shop  and  the  brothel.  M. 
Zola  has  a  horror  of  sympathetic  characters ;  M. 
About  here  gives  us  hardly  anything  else ;  although 
not  free  from  failings  and  from  faults,  there  is  scarcely 
one  of  the  people  who  pass  through  the  pages  of  this 


*  The  Story  of  an  Honest  Man.     By  Edmond  About.     New 
York :  D.  Appleton  &  Co.     1880. 


book  that  an  honest  man  need  regret  taking  by  the 
hand.  There  is  no  villain  in  the  story — save,  re- 
motely, His  Imperial  Majesty  Napoleon  III. ;  there 
are  no  "  sensations  "  in  it ;  there  is  not  much  of  a 
love  story,  but  there  is  a  story  which  every  novel- 
reader  who  has  not  spoiled  his  taste  by  the  fire- 
water of  fiction  will  read  through  to  the  end,  almost 
without  stopping  and  with  unbroken  interest — the 
one  quality  without  which  all  the  other  gifts  of  the 
novelist  are  as  naught. 

The  naturalistic  school  makes  great  parade  of  its 
use  of  modern  scientific  formulas  ;  M.  Zola's  "  Rou- 
gon-Macquart,"  for  instance,  is  a  group  of  twenty 
intersecting  stories,  held  together  by  the  principle 
of  heredity.  This  very  principle  is  the  backbone  of 
M .  About's  story,  and  its  development  is  far  more  natu- 
ral and  more  scientific  here  than  in  M.  Zola's  much- 
vaunted  volumes.  M.  About,  to  be  sure,  has  one 
great  advantage ;  he  is  not  only  clever  and  able,  but 
his  cleverness  is  disciplined  and  his  ability  trained, 
and  both  are  supplemented  by  wide  culture.  The 
amusing  account  of  the  reforms  in  the  school,  while 
Pierre  is  a  boy,  recalls  to  us  the  fact  that  M.  About 
is  a  graduate  of  high  rank  from  the  strict  Ecole  Nor- 
male,  where  he  was  in  the  same  class  with  M.  Taine 
and  M.  Sarcey.  And  the  difficulties  and  struggles 
of  the  crockery-makers,  of  whose  factory  Pierre  at 
last  becomes  the  owner,  remind  us  of  the  admira- 
ble little  book  on  the  A.  B.  C.  of  political  economy 
which  M.  About  put  forth  a  score  of  years  ago.  It 
is  of  no  consequence  that  we  may  detect  a  slight 
slip  now  and  then,  such  as  the  antedating  of  founding 
of  the  South  Kensington  Museum,  for  instance;  the 
general  impression  is  one  of  strength,  well  informed 
and  well  trained.  In  short,  the  "  Story  of  an  Honest 
Man  "  is  a  manly  and  dignified  novel,  worthy  to  be 
read  by  honest  men  and  women,  and  especially  by 
those  who  have  got  a  notion,  not  altogether  without 
reason,  that  the  French  fiction  of  our  time  is  wholly 
given  over  to  the  devil. 

Mrs.  Gray's  "  Fourteen  Months  in  Canton."  * 

THE  wife  of  Dr.  Gray,  archdeacon  of  Hong-Kong, 
has  very  admirably  supplemented  the  work  of  her 
husband,  "  China :  a  History  of  the  Law,  Manners 
and  Customs  of  the  People."  Her  book*  takes 
the  unpretending  form  of  a  series  of  letters  to  her 
family  in  England.  Mrs.  Gray  accompanied  her 
husband  to  the  scene  of  his  labors  when  he  returned 
to  China  after  a  visit  to  his  own  home.  During  the 
fourteen  months  of  her  stay  in  China,  Mrs.  Gray 
was  an  indefatigable  sight-seer  and  explorer.  With 
the  intelligent  enthusiasm  of  an  educated  English 
woman,  she  made  the  best  possible  use  of  her  oppor- 
tunities to  study  the  people  at  home,  and  in  all  of 
the  human  activities  which  engage  their  attention. 
The  archdeacon  accompanied  her  in  most  of  her 
peregrinations,  and,  as  he  is  well-versed  in  the  Chi- 
nese language,  she  was  never  in  want  for  an  inter- 
preter close  at  hand.  Added  to  this,  the  position 
of  archdeacon  of  the  English  church  establishment 


*  Fourteen  Months  in  Canton.      By  Mrs.  Gray.     London : 
Macraillan  &  Co.     1880.     Pp.  444. 


948 


THE    WORLD'S   WORK. 


at  Hong-Kong  gave  him  peculiar  privileges  and 
facilities  for  observation,  in  which  Mrs.  Gray  natu- 
rally shared.  The  result  of  all  these  appears  in  a 
most  entertaining  and  instructive  volume.  Less 
learned  and  ambitious  than  the  archdeacon's  work, 
and  more  minute  than  any  similar  work  of  which  we 
have  recollection,  Mrs.  Gray's  record  of  her  four- 
teen months'  study  of  the  manners  and  customs  of 
the  Chinese  gives  us  a  vivid  and  exceedingly  life- 
like picture  of  the  domestic  and  familiar  manners  of 
this  interesting  and  curious  people.  So  much  of 
the  daily  life  of  the  people  of  China  is  out  of  doors, 
that  any  observant  person,  with  plenty  of  leisure, 
could  not  fail  to  gain  a  clear  idea  of  the  habits  of 
this  peculiar  people.  But  Mrs.  Gray  seems  to 
have  a  clear  perception  of  what  would  be  most 
interesting  to  her  readers.  The  writer  managed 
her  own  household,  and  so  she  gives  us  many 
piquant  glimpses  of  home  life  as  conducted  under 
Chinese  skies  by  foreigners.  Her  minor  trials 
with  the  native  servants,  helpers  and  trades-peo- 
ple are  not  made  tedious  to  the  reader,  and  the 
minutiae  of  common  things,  the  cost  of  living,  the 
ways  of  the  Chinese  world,  and  the  character  of 
those  with  whom  the  writer  came  in  contact,  are  all 


described  entertainingly.  We  certainly  gain  a  fresher 
and  more  nearly  photographic  view  of  Chinese 
interiors  from  this  book  than  from  any  other  which 
pretends  to  sketch  the  manners  of  the  Chinese. 
The  work  is  nicely  printed,  and  is  illustrated  with 
many  tolerable  engravings. 

Mrs.  Dickinson's  "Among  the  Thorns."* 

NOTWITHSTANDING  the  punning  character  of  its 
title,  Mrs.  Dickinson  has  written  a  really  clever 
story.  Originally  contributed  as  a  serial  to  a  denom- 
inational monthly,  it  bears  certain  marks  of  that' 
intention  which  mar  its  artistic  completeness.  But 
its  faults  are  those  of  strength,  not  of  weakness.  It 
is  well  conceived,  well  developed,  and  well  con- 
cluded. In  respect  of  its  plot,  or  plots, — for  there 
are  several, — it  is  remarkably  successful.  There  are 
no  "  rich  windows  that  exclude  the  light,  and  pas- 
sages that  lead  to  nothing."  Most  important  con- 
sideration to  summer  loiterers,  the  book  is  eminently 
readable,  and  the  hand  that  wrote  it  is  capable  of 
excellent  things. 

*  Among  the  Thorns.  A  Novel.  By  Mary  Lowe  Dickin- 
son. New  York:  G.  W.  Carleton  &  Co.  Pp.  430. 


THE    WORLD'S   WORK. 


New  Electrical  Separators. 

IT  often  happens  that  the  announcement  of  a  new 
invention  is  accompanied,  or  immediately  followed, 
by  the  appearance  of  others  more  or  less  like  it. 
As  an  illustration  of  this,  it  may  be  observed  that  the 
new  apparatus  for  separating  iron  ores  and  sands  by 
electrical  means,  recently  described  in  this  depart- 
ment, is  so  closely  followed  by  others  that  it  is  evi- 
dent other  inventors  were  seeking  the  same  ends  at 
the  same  time.  A  zinc-mining  company,  being  troub- 
led by  the  presence  of  iron  in  their  ore,  sought  the 
aid  of  an  electrical  expert  in  Berlin,  and  the  result  of 
his  labors  is  a  new  separator  of  some  Interest.  It 
consists  of  a  steel  shaft,  supported  at  the  ends,  in  a 
position  slightly  out  of  the  horizontal.  On  this  shaft 
is  a  common  screw  conveyer  of  the  usual  shape,  and 
made  of  brass.  This  is  surrounded  by  a  tube,  split 
open  on  the  upper  side  through  its  whole  length. 
Outside  of  this  is  placed  a  drum,  or  cylinder,  com- 
posed of  electro-magnets,  separated  from  each  other 
by  rings  of  brass.  These  magnets  are  of  different 
power,  the  weakest  being  placed  at  the  receiving 
end  of  the  apparatus,  and  the  most  powerful  at 
the  opposite  end.  The  split  tube  in  the  center  of 
the  drum  has  one  edge  bent  sufficiently  to  just  touch 
the  outer  cylinder  of  magnets,  and  thus  serve  as  a 
scraper.  The  mingled  ores  of  zinc  and  iron  are 


poured,  in  a  finely  divided  state,  by  means  of  a  hop- 
per, into  the  end  of  the  apparatus,  and  fall  upon  the 
bottom  of  the  drum  of  magnets.  This  drum  turns 
slowly,  and  causes  the  ores  to -slip  downward  toward 
the  lower  end.  The  zinc,  not  being  affected  by  the 
magnets,  escapes,  while  the  iron,  clinging  by  mag- 
netic attraction  to  the  magnets,  is  carried  up  by  the 
revolution  of  the  drum  till  it  meets  the  scraper, 
when  it  is  brushed  off,  and  falls  into  the  open  slit  in 
the  brass  tube  that  surrounds  the  conveyer.  Here 
it  is  carried  out  through  a  spout  at  the  end  of  the 
machine.  The  angle  at  which  the  drum  is  inclined 
causes  the  mingled  ores  to  roll  over  and  over  so  that 
every  particle  is  in  turn  exposed  to  the  magnets,  and 
as  these  increase  in  power  toward  the  discharge  end, 
all  the  iron  is  taken  up  and  thrown  into  the  conveyer. 
The  first  machine  constructed,  though  very  small, 
was  found  to  have  a  capacity  of  about  one  ton  an 
hour,  and  to  do  the  work  with  entire  success. 

Another  machine,  employing  the  same  principle, 
has  been  constructed  in  this  country  for  separating 
brass  and  wrought  and  cast  iron  filings,  when  mixed 
together  in  machine  shops.  The  mixed  filings  are 
placed  in  a  hopper  so  arranged  as  to  distribute  them 
in  a  thin  sheet,  or  film,  upon  the  upper  side  of  a 
horizontal  drum  composed  in  part  of  magnets.  The 
drum  turns  slowly,  and  the  brass  filings  slip  off  and 


THE    WORLD'S    WORK. 


949 


fall  into  a  box  placed  to  receive  them.  The  iron  fil- 
ings cling  to  the  magnets,  and  are  carried  on  by  the 
revolution  of  the  drum  till  they  meet  a  light  brush. 
The  cast-iron  filings,  being  only  slightly  affected  by 
the  magnets,  are  easily  brushed  off,  and  fall  into  a 
box  below.  The  wrought-iron  filings,  being  more 
powerfully  attracted  to  the  magnets,  cling  to  them, 
and  pass  under  the  brush  without  being  disturbed, 
and  may  be  occasionally  removed  by  hand.  The 
machine  has  the  merit  of  simplicity  and  cheapness, 
and  is  said  to  do  its  work  in  a  satisfactory  manner. 

The  ingenious  separator  already  described  in  this 
department  has  since  been  modified  by  allowing  the 
mingled  ores  to  fall  from  a  circular  hopper,  in  a  slen- 
der thread,  directly  between  the  poles  of  an  upright 
electro-magnet.  On  the  magnet  are  placed  two 
armatures  having  square  edges  facing  each  other  be- 
tween the  poles  of  the  magnet,  the  stream  of  falling 
ores  passing  between  them.  A  blast  of  air  is  directed 
at  right  angles  with  the  stream  of  ores,  just  as 
it  meets  the  magnets.  The  action  of  this  is  to  blow 
the  ores  away  in  two  streams,  each  having  a  differ- 
ent path  or  trajectory,  the  iron  ore  being  turned 
aside  by  passing  through  the  field  of  magnetic  attrac- 
tion between  the  armatures,  and  falling  in  one  place, 
while  the  non-metallic  portions  are  blown  in  quite 
another  direction,  and  fall  in  another  receptacle. 

Gas  Fuels. 

THERE  can  be  no  question  that  the  best  fuel  for 
heating,  cooking  or  making  steam  is  a  gas.  Only 
the  high  price  of  common  gas  prevents  it  from  being 
the  universal  fuel.  A  gas  flame  is  clean,  free  from 
smoke,  gives  its  full  power  instantly,  and  may  be  cut 
off  the  moment  the  required  work  is  done.  It  is 
equally  available  in  the  range,  furnace,  and  locomo- 
tive or  marine  boiler.  To  reduce  the  cost  of  making 
gas  has  been  the  aim  of  many  inventors,  some  of 
whom  have  been  more  or  less  successful ;  and  it  has 
been  demonstrated  that  a  good  heating-gas  can  be 
supplied  to  the  householder  at  very  low  rates.  Some 
of  these  new  gases  and  processes  have  been  already 
described  here,  and  the  prediction  may  be  ventured 
that  gas  is  the  fuel  of  the  near  future.  All  of  the 
later  processes  for  making  gas  fuel  depend  on  the 
production  of  hydrogen  from  water,  and  in  a  new 
process  recently  brought  out,  naphtha  and  water  alone 
are  used  to  produce  what  is  called  an  "  oxyhydro-car- 
bon  heat,"  or  flame.  It  is  practically  a  non-luminous 
gas  of  great  heating  power,  made  in  a  self-contained 
apparatus  that  is  at  once  retort  and  burner.  From 
an  examination  of  the  apparatus,  it  may  be  described 
as  a  pair  of  iron  retorts,  somewhat  resembling  coal- 
gas  retorts,  and  cast  in  one  piece.  For  a  common 
cook-stove,  the  retort,  in  its  two  compartments,  would 
hold  about  one  quart  of  water.  It  is  supplied 
with  inlet  pipes  at  one  side,  near  the  bottom, 
one  pipe  for  each  compartment,  each  pipe  being 
packed  for  a  short  distance  with  fine  wire  netting. 
From  the  top  of  each  division  of  the  retort  is  taken 
a  pipe,  bending  over  and  turning  under  the  flat  bot- 
tom of  the  retort.  Here  one  pipe  ends  with  a  minute 
hole,  or  burner,  and  the  other  in  a  ring  pierced  with 


small  holes  on  the  inner  side,  or  toward  the  top  of 
the  other  pipe,  which  is  placed  in  the  middle  of  the 
ring.  One  of  the  inlet  pipes  is  connected  with  a 
tank  containing  naphtha,  and  the  other  connects  with 
a  tank  containing  water,  and  each  is  raised  sufficient- 
ly above  the  retort  to  give  a  fall  of  about  fifteen 
feet.  Under  the  retort  is  a  small  metal  cup,  con- 
nected with  a  branch  pipe  from  the  pipe  supplying 
naphtha.  The  retort  is  placed  in  the  fire-pot  of  the 
stove  or  range,  and  about  a  tea-spoonful  of  naphtha  is 
allowed  to  run  through  a  pipe  into  the  cup  under 
the  retort.  On  lighting  this,  it  burns  for  a  few 
moments  and  heats  the  retort.  The  naphtha  and 
water  are  then  turned  into  the  retort  in  very  small 
quantities,  or  at  the  rate  of  seventy  or  eighty  drops 
a  minute.  The  naphtha  is  at  once  volatilized,  and 
under  its  own  pressure  escapes  through  the  open- 
ing below,  and  takes  fire  in  the  form  of  a  minute 
and  slender  flame.  The  wire  netting  on  the  supply- 
pipe  here  serves  to  prevent  the  gas  from  striking 
back  into  the  supply-pipe,  and  to  distribute  the  naph- 
tha in  the  retort  in  as  finely  divided  a  state  as  possi- 
ble. Water  flows  into  the  other  division  of  the 
retort  in  minute  quantities,  and  is  at  onco  converted 
into  steam,  and  then  into  superheated  steam ;  in 
other  words,  is  decomposed  into  its  gases,  that,  escap- 
ing from  the  ring  below,  strike  the  naphtha  gas-flame, 
and  combine  to  produce  a  gas-fire  of  intense  heat, 
free  from  smoke  or  dust.  The  process  once  started, 
the  supply  of  naphtha  in  the  cup  under  the  retort  is 
cut  off,  and  the  process  of  gas-making  goes  on  con- 
tinually, so  long  as  the  supply  of  water  and  naphtha 
is  maintained.  By  adding  a  third  division  to  the 
retort,  and  a  certain  length  of  pipe  in  the  fire-box, 
the  same  apparatus  will,  with  the  use  of  more  naphtha 
supplied  by  a  separate  pipe,  produce  a  good  illu- 
minating gas,  so  that  the  range  may  at  once  cook  for 
the  family  and  make  gas  for  lighting  the  house  by 
night.  For  making  steam,  the  retorts  are  somewhat 
larger,  but  are  essentially  of  the  same  construction. 
The  retort,  placed  in  an  open  fire-place,  gives  a  brill- 
lant  and  powerful  sheet  of  flame :  really  a  bright 
open  fire,  that  may  be  lighted  instantly,  extinguished 
in  a  moment,  and  requires  neither  cleaning  nor  atten- 
tion, and  makes  neither  smoke,  smell  nor  dust.  By 
adding  the  retort  for  making  luminous  gas  to  the 
fire-place,  the  open  fire  will  give  a  bright  light  and 
make  a  light  and  cheerful  blaze  on  the  hearth.  It 
would  appear  as  if  this  method  of  making  and  using 
a  cheap  gas-fuel,  suitable  for  the  household  and  boiler- 
room,  had  been  thoroughly  tested,  and  it  will  do 
much  to  bring  into  use  the  fuel  of  the  future,  which 
will  be  a  gas. 

New  Steam  Fire-Engine  Boiler. 

IN  the  refinement  of  steam  engineering  caused  by 
the  growing  demand  for  high  pressures  in  engines 
of  all  kinds,  particularly  in  steam  fire-engines,  the 
tendency  appears  to  be  toward  the  exposure  of  the 
water  to  the  fire  in  very  small  quantities,  either  in 
films  or  thread-like  streams.  Among  the  boilers  of 
recent  design  is  an  upright  fire-engine  boiler  having 
groups  of  pipes  joined  into  nests  at  top  and  bottom 
by  a  hollow  ring,  and  hanging  down  into  the  fire-box 


95° 


THE    WORLD'S    WORK. 


from  the  crown  sheet.  Each  nest  of  pipes  is  connected 
at  the  top  directly  with  the  water  space  of  the  boiler, 
and  below  by  a  pipe  and  elbow  that  enters  the  boiler 
near  the  bottom.  The  object  of  this  is  to  give  a  large 
number  of  pipes  in  the  fire-box  with  as  few  openings 
into  the  crown  sheet  as  possible,  and  thus  save  per- 
forating and  weakening  the  sheet.  The  leg  of  the 
nest  of  pipes  also  serves  as  a  support  for  the  pipes, 
and  acts  as  a  spring  in  correcting  expansion  and  con- 
traction. The  smoke  flues  pass  directly  through  the 
boiler  to  the  stack  above,  passing  near  the  top  of 
the  boiler  through  a  horizontal  sheet  oi  iron.  The 
openings  in  this  sheet  are  slightly  larger  than  the 
smoke  flues,  leaving  an  annular  space,  through  which 
the  steam  passes  to  the  space  above  that  serves  as  a 
steam  drain.  This  causes  the  steam  to  pass  in  films 
In  contact  with  the  hot  pipes,  at  once  superheating 
the  steam,  and  keeping  the  pipes  in  the  moisture 
and  preventing  burning.  The  boiler  is  reported  to 
give  high  working  pressures  in  very  short  firing,  and 
to  do  good  and  steady  duty  while  at  work.  It  ap- 
pears from  inspection  to  be  admirably  designed  for 
a  high-pressure  boiler,  whatever  the  use  made  of  the 
steam. 

Utilization  of   Scrap  Tin. 

THE  vast  heaps  of  scrap  tin  found  about  tin-ware 
works,  and  the  quantities  of  refuse  tin  cans  that 
form  such  an  item  in  city  waste,  have  often  been 
made  the  subject  of  experiment  to  separate  the  tin 
coating  from  the  sheet-iron.  Melting  the  scrap  gives 
only  a  spongy  iron,  and  the  extraction  of  the  tin  by 
the  action  of  acids  or  chlorine  gas  is  too  expensive, 
so  that  hundreds  of  tons  of  this  material  are  wasted 
every  year,  and  all  the  experiments  to  save  it  appear 
to  prove  abortive.  The  latest  experiments,  however, 
seem  to  promise  a  cheap  method  of  recovering  both 
the  tin  and  iron  in  a  pure  and  useful  shape.  The  tin 
scraps  are  placed  in  a  furnace  where  the  temperature 
and  the  supply  of  air  can  be  carefully  adjusted. 
This  gives  a  roasting  in  free  air  that  causes  the  film 
of  tin  on  the  iron  to  oxidize.  The  alloy  of  tin  and 
iron  under  the  film  of  tin  is  next  oxidized,  and  then 
the  scrap  is  taken  from  the  furnace,  and  the  coating 
of  oxides  on  the  iron  is  shaken  off  by  simple  machin- 
ery. This  leaves  the  iron  in  a  comparatively  pure 
state,  while  the  powdered  oxides  may  be  smelted 
with  other  tin  ores,  or,  as  is  preferred  by  the  inventor 
of  the  process,  they  may  be  submitted  to  the  action 
of  hot  sulphuric  acid,  which  dissolves  the  oxide  of  iron, 
leaving  the  tin  untouched.  The  tin  may  then  be 
separated  from  the  solution  of  sulphate  of  iron  and 
melted,  while  the  solution  may  be  evaporated  to 
dryness  and  then  placed  in  retorts  to  recover  the 
sulphuric  acid,  the  residue  in  the  retorts  being  valu- 
able in  making  paints.  The  waste  heat  from  the  retorts 
is  used  to  assist  in  roasting  the  scrap,  and  in  evapora- 
ting the  solution  of  sulphate  of  iron.  Waste  fruit-tins 
are  first  roasted  to  remove  the  solder  that  may  cling 
to  them,  and  are  then  treated  by  the  same  process. 
The  process  is  one  that  it  may  be  hoped  will  save  a 
great  deal  of  money  now  lost  without  recovery,  and 
do  much  to  rid  manufacturing  cities  of  many  un- 
sightly heaps  of  refuse. 


Memoranda. 

New  Fruit  Jar. — A  new  device  for  preserving 
fruit  in  its  natural  condition  consists  of  a  glass  jar  or 
tumbler,  having  a  cover  with  a  rubber  packing-ring, 
secured  to  the  jar  by  a  screw  clasp.  At  the  bottom  of 
the  jar  is  a  hole,  designed  to  be  closed  air-tight  by  a 
suitable  stopper,  and  inside  the  jar  is  placed  a  layer  of 
dried  clay,  to  absorb  the  moisture  that  may  escape 
from  the  fruit.  The  grapes  or  other  fruits  are  hung 
up  inside  the  jar,  the  cover  is  put  on,  and  the  air  is 
withdrawn  by  means  of  an  air-pump,  when  the  open- 
ing in  the  bottom  is  closed  and  sealed. 

Gas  Soldering-iron. — Several  kinds  of  irons  for 
soldering,  using  a  gas  flame  to  heat  the  iron,  and 
thus  saving  the  delay  and  trouble  of  placing  the  iron 
in  the  fire,  have  been  made.  In  a  new  form  of  sol- 
dering-iron the  bit  is  held  by  a  narrow  piece  of  iron, 
projecting  from  the  end  of  the  handle,  and  bent 
slightly  to  accommodate  the  gas-burner.  The  bit  is 
hollow  at  the  back  to  receive  the  flame,  while  a  small 
hole  is  made  through  the  bit  to  carry  off  the  prod- 
ucts of  combustion.  The  gas-jet  consists  of  a  tube 
having  a  movable  sleeve  at  the  end,  and  a  number  of 
narrow  slits  at  the  sides  for  admission  of  air,  the  gas 
entering  the  tube  through  a  pipe  in  the  handle.  By 
sliding  the  sleeve  up  or  down,  more  or  less  of  the 
air-inlets  may  be  covered,  and  the  mixture  of  air 
and  gas  regulated  with  great  nicety.  The  tool  is  re- 
ported to  give  a  soldering-bit  uniformly  and  evenly 
heated,  and  giving  good  results  in  work. 

Skating  Surface. — An  artificial  surface,  suitable 
for  skating,  and  behaving  very  much  like  natural  ice 
under  a  skate-iron,  has  been  formed  by  a  mixture  of 
the  carbonate  and  sulphate  of  soda.  The  crystalline 
mass  is  spread  on  a  floor,  and  may  be  used  as  a  skat- 
ing-rink, and  will  last  indefinitely,  with  slight  repairs. 
It  "  cuts  up  "  like  ice,  and,  when  too  rough,  may  be 
smoothed  again  by  a  simple  steaming  apparatus. 

Malleable  Nickel  is  among  the  late  metallurgi- 
cal products,  and  it  is  now  announced  that  it  is  an 
alloy  of  zinc  and  magnesium.  The  nickel-zinc  alloy 
is  made  by  mixing  the  pure  oxide  of  zinc  with  five 
per  cent,  of  oxide  of  zinc.  To  this  may  be  added 
1.20  per  cent,  of  magnesium,  when  the  alloy  becomes 
malleable,  and  may  be  welded  to  nickel,  or  to  steel 
or  iron.  The  alloy  has  recently  been  made  useful 
by  welding  thin  sheets  of  iron  and  nickel  under 
a  steam  hammer,  the  product  being  a  thin  sheet  of 
iron,  nickel  covered.  The  sheets  have  also  been  rolled, 
giving  large  sheets  of  steel  or  iron  having  a  nickel 
surface,  that  takes  a  high  polish. 

Ruby  Paper. — The  Geological  Survey  of  Pennsyl- 
vania reports  the  discovery  of  large  deposits  of  garnet, 
in  the  form  of  an  aggregation  of  grains  and  crystals  of 
garnet  bedded  in  a  small  percentage  of  other  miner- 
als. The  value  of  the  deposits  is  thought  to  spring 
from  the  fact  that  the  material  may  be  used  in  mak- 
ing a  very  sharp  cutting  sand  for  sand-papers  and 
cutting  wheels.  Experiments  already  made  would 
seem  to  indicate  that  the  garnet,  or,  as  it  is  called, 
"  ruby  paper,"  will  prove  of  value  in  the  arts. 


BRIC-A-BRAC. 


95* 


Barff  Process. — The  so-called  "  Barff  process  " 
for  coating  iron  articles  with  a  film  of  magnetic  oxide, 
described  at  the  time  of  its  announcement  in  this  de- 
partment, is  now  carried  on  upon  a  large  scale,  but  the 
objection  has  always  been  raised  that,  while  the  film 
prevents  rust,  it  has  a  disagreeable  appearance  and 
color.  Other  experimenters  used  air  instead  of  steam, 
in  applying  the  magnetic  oxide  coating,  and  secured 
a  better  color,  but  at  the  expense  of  stability.  By 
a  new  process,  the  chamber  in  which  the  iron  to  be 
coated  is  placed  is  filled  with  carbonic  oxide,  and,  on 
introducing  heated  air,  combustion  begins,  and  con- 


tinues till  all  the  carbonic  oxide  is  converted  into  car- 
bonic acid,  when  the  surplus  oxygen  in  the  air 
attacks  the  iron,  converting  the  surface  first  into 
a  magnetic  oxide  and  then  into  common  rust.  A 
second  supply  of  carbonic  oxide  is  admitted,  and 
burned  as  before,  but  the  supply  of  air  being  with- 
held, combustion  is  maintained  in  part  by  extracting 
oxygen  from  the  rust,  which  is  again  converted  to  a 
magnetic  oxide,  which  is  the  film  desired.  Repeat- 
ing the  operation  tends  to  thicken  the  film  and 
make  it  secure,  and,  at  the  same  time,  retain  an 
agreeable  color  and  surface. 


BRIC-A-BRAC. 


Love  and  Jealousy. 


WHEN  the  sun-flushed  roses  render 

Fragrant  homage  unto  June, 
Cupid — nestling  'mid  their  splendor — 

Cried :  "  My  heart  is  out  of  tune, 
And  I  crave  a  new  sensation  !  " 

Then  the  pale  pinks  round  his  bed 
Changed  to  crimson  and  carnation, 

And  the  white  musk-roses,  red. 
Sighed  the  listless  god :  "  I'm  weary 

Both  of  conquest  and  repose, 
And  begin  to  feel  it  dreary, 

Seeing  things  couleur  de  rose. 
Beauty  ceases  to  delight  me, 

I  am  sick  of  everything, 
And  would  like  a  snake  to  bite  me, 

Or  a  honey-bee  to  sting. 
'  Hide-and-seek '  might  give  me  pleasure, 

To  outwit, — as  I  defy, 
Without  fear,  and  without  measure, 

That  grim  hydra,  Jealousy." 
Now  the  summer  breeze,  that  tattles, 

With  this  reckless  banter  flies 
Where,  upon  his  bed  of  nettles, 

Rests  the  monster,  who  replies  : 
"  If  defeat  be  recreation, 

Bid  the  small  god  plume-his  wing :  " 
Zephyr  flew  to  Cupid,  humming 

Softly  in  his  drowsy  ear : 
"  Hark  ! — grim  Jealousy  is  coming; 

Rise  up  quickly — he  is  here ! " 
Light  as  foam  upon  a  billow 

Young  Love  rose,  for  he  had  seen 
Ghastly  shadows  on  his  pillow, 

Turning  all  the  roses  green. 
And  with  quick,  mysterious  power 

To  a  maiden's  bosom  flew, 
Where  heart's-ease  and  passion-flower 

Gleamed  with  youth's  pure  morning  dew. 
But  within  that  sweet  seclusion 

Lo,  a  surly  voice  near  by 
Whispered:  "  Love  is  a  delusion 

When  apart  from  Jealousy/' 
Cupid  felt  his  courage  failing 

In  the  presence  of  his  foe, 
For  the  dew  was  fast  exhaling 

And  the  heart's-ease  drooping  low. 
Then  he  cried  out,  in  his  sorrow : 

"You  are  present,  yet  unseen  " — 
"  Yes — I  ride  upon  your  arrow, 


And  invisible  the  green 
Of  my  shadow  round  you  sweeping, 

Oh,  you  foolish  little  sprite, 
For  I  wake  while  you  are  sleeping 

And  am  subtle  as  the  light." 
Sobbed  poor  Cupid :  "  While  this  settles 

My  defeat, — let  me  propose 
That  you  rest  among  the  nettles, 

While  I'm  pillowed  on  a  rose ; 
Let  me  be  with  pleasure  sated, 

I  will  sneer  no  more  at  bliss, 
Having  surely  overrated 

New  sensations  such  as  this." 
"  Since  my  power  you  have  derided," 

Growled  his  foe — "  till  time  shall  cease, 
We  will  rarely  be  divided, 

And  together  find  no  peace. 
Let  us  make  a  compact — reaping 

Its  reward — if  you  should  see, 
By  mere  chance,  that  I  am  sleeping, 

Fan  your  fires  and  let  me  be. 
If  I  find  you  drowsy,  deeming 

Love  hath  safety  in  repose — 
Be  my  sting  unto  your  dreaming 

What  the  thorn  is  to  the  rose." 

ROSA  VERTNER  JEFFREY. 


Uncle    Esek's   Wisdom. 

There  is  no  victory  so  cheap  and  so  complete  as 
forgiveness. 

If  you  suspect  a  man  wrongfully  you  license  him 
to  defraud  you. 

Luck  is  the  dream  of  a  simpleton ;  a  wise  man 
makes  his  own  good  fortune. 

Wealth  in  this  world  is  just  so  much  baggage  to  be 
taken  care  of  but  a  cultivated  brain  is  easy  to  carry 
and  is  a  never-failing  source  of  profit  and  pleasure. 

Gratitude  is  a  debt  which  all  men  owe  and 
which  few  pay  cheerfully. 

Impossibilities  are  scarce.  Mankind  has  not  seen 
more  than  half  a  dozen  of  them  since  the  creation. 

Happiness  consists  in  being  happy — there  is  no 
particular  rule  for  it. 


952 


BRIC-A-BRAC. 


About  all  that  cunning  can  do  for  a  man  is  to 
make  him  incredulous. 

Too  great  economy  in  youth  leads  to  avarice  in  old 
age. 

All  prudes  were  once  coquettes  and  only  changed 
because  they  were  obliged  to. 

Experience  has  a  very  poor  memory  and  true 
charity  none  at  all. 

A  fair  compensation  for  honest  service  is  the 
best  present  you  can  make  a  man,  and  the  best  gift 
he  can  receive. 

Doing  nothing  is  the  most  slavish  toil  ever  im- 
posed on  any  one. 

True  eloquence  is  the  power  of  completely  im- 
pressing others  with  our  ideas. 

The  charities  which  a  man  dispenses  after  his 
death  look  suspicious. 

Adversity  links  men  together,  while  prosperity  is 
apt  to  scatter  them. 

Some  men  seem  to  have  a  salve  for  the  woes  of 
others,  but  none  for  their  own. 

Extreme  gravity  is  oftener  the  result  "trfsstupidity 
than  of  wisdom.  r\(ty 


Politics  at  the  Log-Rolling. 


I  b'lebes  dat  any  nigger's  in  a  sorry  sort  o'  way 
Dat  swallows  all  de  racket  dat  de  politicians  say ; 
For  I's   been  a  grown-up  cullud   man   some  forty 

years  or  so, 
An'  I's  heard  'em  make  de  same  old  'sertions  heap 

o'  times  befo'. 

Dar's  lots  o'  cussed  foolishness  an'  gassin',  anyway, 
'Bout  bustin'  up  de  Consterchusion  eb'ry  'lection- 
day; 
'Cause  I  gib  it  as  de  notion  ob  a  plain  an'  humble 

man, 
Dat   de   Gub'ment  an'   de   country,   too,   is   tough 

enough  to  stan'. 
I  nebber  takes  more  polertics  dan   one  good  man 

kin  tote, 
An'  I    don't  need   any  'visin'  when  I  go   to  drap 

my  vote; 
I  talks  wid  all  de   canerdates,  an'  tell  'em  what  I 

choose, 
But  I  goes  in  on  de  side  dat  gibs  de  biggest  bobby* 

kews  ! 

J.  A.  MACON. 

A  Wish. 

THERE'S  a  legend  old  of  the  midnight  watch 
That  at  sound  of  the  midnight  bell, 

A  voice  rung  out  through  the  silent  town 
And  the  cry  was  :  "  All  is  well !  " 

"All's  well!" 

O  friend,  when  thy  midnight  hour  shall  come, 

With  the  sound  of  the  passing  knell, 
May  a  voice  ring  out  to  thy  weary  heart 
And  the  cry  be :  "  All  is  well !  " 

"  All's  well !  " 

W.  T.  PETERS, 


Signs  of  the  Times. 

IN  the  calm  blue  light  of  a  summer  sea, 
A  boat  went  flitting  by, 
And  a  youth  and  a  maiden  earnestly 
Watched  its  beautiful  white  wings  fly. 

They  gazed  as  only  the  young  can  gaze, 
With  longing  and  joy  and  hope, 
And  the  white  sail,  luffing  a  little,  showed 
The  legend  of  "Samson's  Soap." 

In  the  sweet  still  light,  another  sail 
Came  fast  and  ever  faster, 
And  the  motto,  bright,  that  it  bore  aloft, 
Was  "  Dodson's  Porous  Plaster." 

And  farther  off,  but  hurrying  on 
(Fierce  roars  the  surf  and  louder), 
Came  a  sail  with  the  sweet  suggestion  to 
"  Use  Lightning  Baking  Powder." 

"How  sweet,"  said  the  maid,  "it  is  to  sit 
At  Nature's  feet,  and  adore  her, 
Reading  and  learning  the  virtues  of 
'The  Thunder  Hair  Restorer.'" 

"  Yes,"  said  the  youth,  and  he  dropped  a  tear, 

"  Such  joys  one  never  forgets, 

I  love  to  be  told,  in  this  gracious  way, 

Of  '  Tecumseh's  cigarettes.'" 

BESSIE  CHANDLER. 

A  Balladine. 

SHE  was  the  prettiest  girl,  I  ween, 

That  mortal  eyes  had  ever  seen ; 

Her  name  is  Anabel  Christine, 

Her  bangs  were  curled  with  bandoline, 

Her  cheeks  were  smoothed  with  vaseline, 

Her  teeth  were  brushed  with  fine  dentine, 

Her  lace  was  washed  in  coaline, 

Her  gloves  were  cleaned  with  gasoline, 

She  wore  a  dress  of  grenadine, 

Looped  over  a  skirt  of  brilliantine. 

Her  petticoat  was  bombazine, 

Her  foot  was  shod  with  a  kid  bottine, 

Her  wounds  were  healed  with  cosmoline. 

She  sailed  away  from  Muscatine 

In  a  ship  they  called  a  brigantine. 

She  flirted  with  a  gay  marine 

Till  they  reached  th'  Republic  Argentine, 

Where  they  were  married  by  the  Dean, 

And  lived  on  oleomargarine. 

CORNELIA  SEABRING  PARKER. 

Revolution. 

IN  Carthage — so  the  story  goes — 

The  tender  maidens  fair 
Once  bravely  furnished  strings  for  bows 

By  cutting  off  their  hair. 
But  time  a  revolution  brings ; 

Our  belles,  with  artful  care, 
Now  fasten  beaux  upon  their  strings 

With  fresh  supplies  of  hair. 


TELL  me,  lady,  what  is  sweetest, — 
What,  of  all  things,  the  completest? 
'Tis  the  kiss  of  him  we  love  most. 
Nay,  'tis  the  kiss  of  her  we  love  most. 
Nay,  'tis  two  kisses.     Here  true  bliss  is. 
This,  fair  lady,  is  the  sweetest, — 
This,  of  all  things,  the  completest. 

J.  H.  PRATT. 


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